I wonder if that may be the cause of the block in the original post — i.e. if the fascist accounts were posting lots of “sensitive” content (such as stuff that would, in a different era, been far more likely to be removed if reported), then it might appear like the censorship that OP saw. I vaguely recall an instance of something similar happening, and if so, the “censorship” would be an automated error, and it being visible now would be after the manual intervention.

Ooh, this was great! Thanks for the rec.

As an ex-drummer, I enjoyed how stylishly understated the drums were. I used to enjoy leaning into a mock rivalry with bassists, the humour of which was partly anchored in the deep solidarity of being rhythm-section

The horrifying thing is that I have actually seen 9 year olds dressed pretty provocatively, and that just makes me feel more sick to think of gross perverts who find that sexy.

I feel even more sick when I remember being 11 years old and how I perceived the world; a friend (also 11) had a 16 year old boyfriend and I remember we all thought this was the coolest thing, and I wondered whether dressing more provocatively would help me to get a boyfriend. Normalising this shit is like societal level grooming

The person you’re replying to includes friends in the “so too will others [love you]”, and I think that may have been a part of their wider point — that putting romantic love on a pedestal is often how we end up blocking ourselves off from love.

I apologise if I have misinterpreted what you are considering when you say “there’s a good chance they’ll never find love in their whole lives”, but this appeared to me like you may not be considering platonic love in making this statement. Being single for life doesn’t mean that someone will never find love.

I don’t wish to seem like I’m sidestepping the crux of your point though, because I wholly agree that it’s difficult to be single in a world that does tend to put romantic love on a pedestal. Even if an individual is able to break themselves out of that toxic mindset, there are many who will make you feel broken for not having, or not wanting a partner. A friend who didn’t have family was once in hospital following a severe accident, and she wasn’t allowed any visitors, because despite the fact that I was the closest thing to family she had, I was “just a friend”. It means that even if you live a life full of love, you will be made to feel like it’s not enough, and that sucks.

Something that blows my mind is realising how much of our understanding of sex and attraction is socially constructed. For example, there are plenty of documented cultures where women’s breasts don’t have the erotic connotation we attach to them. The thing that really threw me off was learning about some people who don’t kiss as a show of affection — I found this a surreal concept, because in terms of romantic interactions with a partner, I’m fairly meh about sex, but I’m a big fan of kissing/making out; There’s a sense in which I obviously know that preference towards kissing is likely not an evolved trait, but more sociocultural, but it feels so intuitive that something so visceral isn’t necessarily an innate trait.

Anyway, this is a long way of saying “did we evolve to like butts, though?”. Evolutionary biology, the field that would consider questions like these, is unavoidably pretty heavy on the speculation side — given that humans have evolved to be such social creatures, we can’t really separate out the sociocultural aspects of development from the genetic side, and that makes asking evolutionary questions on large timescales to be a tricky endeavour.

Edit: This isn’t to say that asking these questions is pointless to do. I appreciated your question precisely because it’s the kind of thing that cooks my brain (and I enjoy that)

I possibly disagree — I’m a part time wheelchair user (as well as other disability related devices/aids) and I’m always fascinated by how dynamic and relative the concept of “accessibility” is, even if we’re only considering the perspective of one person. For example, for me, using my wheelchair often means trading one kind of pain for another, and depending on specific circumstances, that might not be worth it. Being disabled often forces you to get creative in hacking together many different solutions, balancing the tradeoffs such that the “cost” of using one tool is accounted for by the benefits of another. I wish I could recall some specific examples to share with you, but I have seen friends be incredibly inventive in using regular items in a context that makes them into accessibility devices, if that makes sense.

This is all to say that expensive hardware, learning curves, unpleasant tradeoffs like friction of wearing — all of these things are core to my experience of most accessibility devices I’ve ever used. For any prospective accessibility device, the key question is “given the various costs and inconveniences, are the benefits of this thing worth it?”. Even without knowing much about this specific device, I would wager that for some disabled people, it absolutely would be net helpful.

That being said, you raise a good point, in that “accessibility” is often used as marketing hype, and in its worst form, this looks like disabled people’s experiences being exploited to develop and sell a product that doesn’t actually care about being accessible, so long as it has the appearance of such for investors. I’m not saying that’s what this product is doing, but certainly I am primed to be wary of stuff like this.

Even besides the exploitative instances that I allude to, you’re right to draw attention to existing products on the market. It’s possible that some disabled people struggle to make use of devices that would be “good enough” for most (and maybe these people are who this new device is aimed at helping), but with accessibility stuff, it’s far too easy for well-meaning people to jump to making new gadgets or tools, instead of meaningfully examining why the existing “good enough” solutions are inaccessible for some. A specific example that’s coming to mind is someone I met who had a super high tech prosthetic limb that was so hilariously impractical compared to her existing options that this new one literally never got used. She said that it’s a shame that such an expensive bit of kit is made functionally useless by much more basic designs, but she’s learned that excited engineers are rarely receptive to being told about the practical problems with their new devices.

TL;DR: i think your instinct to be cautious about invoking accessibility is wise, though my own caution comes from a different context

Edit: I watched the video and I feel less dubious of this device after learning that this particular project arose following an email from someone who was mute and would find something like this useful. It helps that CharaChorder’s chording keyboards are established (albeit super niche) products, and this project is less about a fancy new device, and more like “chording keyboards like ours allows for faster typing than any other method, with training. Maybe this means it could be an effective text-to-speech input method. Let’s find out”.

I respect people who are the scared white parrot, but as a goth girl, it’s a lot of pressure to be expected to be the one shouting at people all the time

Sometimes when I’m peeling potatoes, I will peel more aggressively than even the version on the left, because sometimes I want the potatoes to look pretty.

Gosh, this is horrifying. I can only assume that was your intention, so congrats if so. Is this a real bird? Surely not

At one point, when I was a baby still in my mother’s womb, I had cells in between my fingers. Had I been born like that, I would have had webbed fingers. I sometimes feel sorry for those cells: they were instructed to undergo controlled cell death so that I could have fingers. I’m glad that cells can’t think l, but even still, I wish that I could explain, to these cells that I never knew as my own, that their sacrifice was worthwhile, because they died in service to me, an organism far more complex than any cell or tissue could be alone.

I’m glad that these cells can’t feel (at least in a way that I can understand), because I know that my explanation would not be enough for them: I know this because for most of my life, I have understood that people like us are acceptable sacrifices on the altar on the free market., and that feels terrible. I rage at being told that my suffering is worth it, for the Greater Good, because that posits that our lives aren’t considered to be Good enough to be worth acknowledging beyond our instrumental value.

When I think about the cells that used to exist between my fingers, there’s a silly part of me that even feels guilty that they couldn’t consent to the whole ordeal, but I suppose my compassion for them is part of that “greater good” they died for. I know that the free market feels no such guilt at throwing humans into the meat grinder, because it is closer to being a clump of mindless, cancerous cells than it is to a person. And yet, as you say, we’re supposed to celebrate “innovations” — to celebrate ever more rapid “growth” that comes at the expense of people’s lives? It’s disgusting.

I hate people who say shit like “if you’re glad a nazi died, you’re as bad as they are”. Even something phrased in a more inflammatory manner, like “all Nazis must die” still wouldn’t make me anything like them. The crux of the matter is that people like me, who the Nazis would prefer to be dead, will always be a target for their bigotry; I will always be a queer cripple. Whereas a Nazi can grow the hell up, recognise our shared humanity and stop being a bloody Nazi. Depending on how much harm they caused as a Nazi, it might take a fair bit of work to redeem themselves in the eyes of their community (and some people may never feel okay associating with them), but ultimately it’s their choice — they’re actively opting out of the social contract and they’re welcome at any point to opt back in (if they’re willing to do the work that involves)

I’m not a Christian, but Jesus seems pretty based.

“Fight me if you want, I’m sick in bed and have time.”

I’m also sick and in bed, and this is such an appealing offer of a sparring match, but alas, I’ve never used Gnome