I feel like normies think of tumblr as the fanart and aesthetic and gifset website but real tumblrinas know that our most culturally significant output and our lifeblood is the humble text post
What if your AI assistant didn’t just answer questions-but lived in a little pixel world, stared back at you with googly eyes, or sat glowing in your dashboard? What if it could also die?
We have GOT to stop pathologizing the joy out of life.
Saw someone claim that if you read a lot as a child, you were disassociating. No, you were reading. Because reading is fun.
“I have a problem with maladaptive daydreaming.” It’s only maladaptive if it negatively impacts your ability to function in the real world. Laughing at a joke you made in your head isn’t doing that.
“You seem to do a lot if creative projects. What are you escaping?” I’m escaping this conversation.
Like what is the end goal? Because so far, all this has done has made it harder to enjoy my hobbies because you’re turning a mindless process into something I gotta think about.
I dissociated a lot as a child but it wasn’t when I was reading. That was when I was happy doing something I found fun. Disassociating was not fun
Was reading often a form of escapism? Sure. Was that a bad thing? No!
Even neurotypical people engage in escapism because it’s fun! Everyone needs a “fuck this shit I’m out” activity and engaging it recharges you
I read books because I like stories and story telling
End of
I play stardew valley because I like building a home and a farm and making friends with characters because it’s cute and calming
I do fibercrafts because I like to make things with my hands
I write because I have a lot of story ideas I want to get out
We do hobbies because it’s fun
You’re allowed to have fun just because it’s fun. There doesn’t have to be some deep reason. Sometimes there is one but sometimes you just like to read
Similarly!
You’re allowed to not like something just because you don’t like it. You don’t always have to have a reason other then “it’s not to my taste” or “not my cup of tea”
You don’t need reasons or trauma or moral and ethical concerns to justify your dislike for everything (or everyone) sometimes you can just not like it
If there is a deeper meaning to the enjoyment of hobbies it is that humans are a pleasure-seeking species, and it is good for our overall health to do things we enjoy.
Three recent material developments have accelerated end times fascism’s apocalyptic appeal.
The first is the climate crisis. While some high-profile figures might still publicly deny or minimize the threat, global elites, whose ocean-front properties and datacenters are intensely vulnerable to rising temperatures and sea levels, are well-versed in the ramifying perils of an ever-heating world.
The second is Covid-19: epidemiological models had long predicted the possibility of a pandemic devastating our globally networked world; the actual arrival of one was taken by many powerful people as a sign that we have officially arrived at what US military analysts forecasted as “the Age of Consequences”. No more predictions, it’s going down.
The third factor is the rapid advancement and adoption of AI, a set of technologies that have long been associated with sci-fi terrors about machines turning on their makers with ruthless efficiency – fears expressed most forcefully by the same people who are developing these technologies. All of these existential crises are layered on top of escalating tensions between nuclear-armed powers.
I read The Pursuit of the Millennium many years ago. And it seems like we need a movement of Mystical Anarchists to combat the Revolutionary Millenarians of our times.
When I was younger, and especially back when I worked in a bookshop, I never left a book unfinished. As a kid books were too expensive to acquire to be left unread. And then when I worked at Borders, my commute was long, so I had the time. Once I’d started something, I’d see it through.
When we understand World(View)s as perspectives embedded in worlds-as-medium, the stakes shift. Every medium shapes what can be thought, said, or done. To step in or out of a world is no simple UX decision, it’s metaphysical threshold design.
