@madtechnomage / madtechnomage.tumblr.com
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Hello new followers. You all seem to be real and not bots. I’m not sure why you have all decided to follow me, but thank you. I don’t post a lot, just reblog. I however do go hunting through the tags to find the most interesting takes from the things my mutuals have posted before me.
So in conclusion….
I wouldn't say they're exactly the same. Both are about revealing a truth the listener would rather not hear, but on what they differ is in how the listener reacts to the information. The scroll of truth showcases a listener that rejects the truth, whereas the Spider-Man one showcases a listener that accepts the truth even though it pains them. You can use them interchangeably, of course you can. But using the right one for the right occasion will help you make a meme that's more relatable for more people
it really is crazy how quickly people were willing to just let chatgpt do everything for them. i have never even tried it. brother i don't even know if it's just a website you go to or what. i do not know where chatgpt actually lives, because i can decide my own grocery list.
People on this website will really mock anti-vaxxers and flat earthers for ignoring scientists and getting their alternative facts from facebook, and then turn around and insist they know more history than historians and more archaeology than archaeologists because they read an unsourced tumblr post once
Is there a real life example of this?
It happens a lot.
I know it's bad but I kind of want to know more about the woman who thinks the Roman Empire never existed
Oh shit i believed the Leonardo Da Vinci one
Also why do people make these
What do you hope to gain
There are a lot of different misinformation dynamics at play here. Only some are innocent, only some are malicious. But that’s why it pays to fact-check things, because the innocent misunderstandings, the arrogant personal hypotheses stated as fact, and the malicious lies are all jumbled together.
It’s a combination of things, but it’s why you shouldn’t assume that historians are all old homophobic clueless idiots and only you, tumblr user persephonesmassivebadonkers or whatever, know the REAL truth. Because that’s how you get Flat Earthers, but more pressingly, it’s how you get antisemitic conspiracy theories and transphobic radfem proclamations of We Need To Return To The Ancient Feminist Utopia (By Destroying All Trans People)(And, Usually, Abrahamic Religions).
But also by believing easily-debunked falsehoods it makes genuinely well-meaning people easier to dismiss by bigots as Brainwashed By Those El Gee Bee Tees Who Will Lie Because They Want To Destroy Academia/Biological Sex/The Church.
Spreading misinformation on tumblr is an understandable consequence of the existence of the internet, but it’s not harmless and really ought to be challenged when it’s seen.
And it’s not remotely helped by the fact there’s plenty of similar true stories that can be pointed to. Like, here’s a list of things: Brits in the 1800s used to eat Egyptian mummies, numerous gay relationships in history were called “friendships” by Christian historians, the Vatican is hoarding almost all history ever written and refuses to let anyone access it, the original biographies of the Sons of Liberty were all works of fiction (like Washington and the apple tree), Greek and Roman statues were painted but the people who discovered them found it garish so they stripped the paint off, DaVinci invented a tank, Lancelot is a fanfiction OC, and the Catholic Church was founded after numerous other Christian churches and proceeded to burn the holy books that didn’t support their version (like the Gospel of Judas, which establishes that the “betrayal” was Jesus’s plan because how was he supposed to die as planned, and they plotted it together). It’s easy to believe bullshit when the truth is just as rank.
This is exactly the sort of thing I’m talking about: confidently firing off a mix of half-remembered and out-of-context factoids with “lies and coverups in history!!!” to make them seem like they’re correcting the record rather than reducing a mix of truth, common misconceptions, conspiracy theories, misunderstandings, and poor reporting to pithy one-liners. Let’s go through them.
Brits in the 1800s used to eat Egyptian mummies,
It's complicated. There's definitely a grain of truth to this, but it's not quite what the common narratives suggest. For example, eating mummies was a Medieval thing more than it was a Victorian thing; Victorians did "Scientific" mummy-unwrapping parties, but they didn't then eat them - they were collectible antiquities. For another, the mummies used by Victorians for paint were rarely ancient Egyptian humans. I'll let @thatlittleegyptologist take this one because they've talked about it. A lot. Like a lot. So often.
numerous gay relationships in history were called “friendships” by Christian historians,
It's complicated. Have historians in the past denied that their favorite historical figures could possibly be gay? Absolutely. But people who were romantically and sexually involved with each other in the past very often did call each other "friend." (Or, in ancient Egypt, "brother"). Even husbands and wives would call each other "friend." (it's midnight and I am blanking on how to search for sources that show this but I have transcribed 18th century letters and diaries, I have seen this.) Like, while historical squeamishness and denial of gay relationships has been a thing... the modern assumption that friendship cannot possibly ever include any gay stuff is also not helping. And heteronormatively taking words at face value is somewhere in between. It's sometimes malicious, but you have to give space for simple hetero brain too. And give space for all the queer and queer-affirming historians working in the field. And for people like Oscar Wilde who were arrested for sodomy and the Ancient Greeks who were Ancient Greek so it's hardly like anyone's denying that, even if their interpretation was that it was Bad. It's not cut and dry.
the Vatican is hoarding almost all history ever written and refuses to let anyone access it,
This one isn't actually complicated, it's just a bizarre misunderstanding (generous interpretation) or an Evangelical conspiracy theory (less generous interpretation) of what the Vatican Apostolic Archive, formerly known as the Vatican Secret Archive, is. They're not "hoarding almost all history ever written" (how would that work?). It's an archive of the Church's and the Vatican's records, accounting, correspondence, declarations, decisions, and other various affairs. Over the past several hundred years of dutiful documentary-keeping, that does add up to a lot of history about the development of European politics, culture, and colonization! There are in fact two archives; one which has been accessible to scholars since 1881, and one which is owned unilaterally by the Pope and only extremely rarely opened for any sort of access to outsiders. John Paul II actually made it easier for researchers to access those archives, though "easier" does not mean "easy" and is still very much at the Pope's discretion. However, they are archives pertaining to the Pope's and Church's affairs, not all of human history.
the original biographies of the Sons of Liberty were all works of fiction (like Washington and the apple tree),
True! But also a little complicated. The story about Washington and the cherry tree is complete fiction, and we know who to blame for it: Mason Locke "Parson" Weems, who wrote his famous biography of Washington right after Washington died and the nation was clamoring for tributes to him. He was kind of shameless about writing for the masses things that would sell. But at the same time, it was part of the myth-making of the new nation, part of a very common process at the time of nearly deifying Washington. But it is also true that we do in fact have a lot of letters and diaries written directly by these guys. We don't need to rely on Weems for fanciful stories about them, even if they have entered into the mythology-building of the US as a nation.
Greek and Roman statues were painted but the people who discovered them found it garish so they stripped the paint off,
Have you ever seen what happens to painted stone when left out in the elements over time? The paint chips off. Being exposed to the elements or buried in the dirt for hundreds or thousands of years does a number on the painted exterior of a statue. Here's a Jesuit scholar from 1913 lamenting this: "It is a notorious fact that the remains of colour fade very fast from marbles that are exposed to the light after centuries of burial and concealment. It is the universal experience of classical archaeologists. A French explorer describes some colours vanishing from sarcophagi found at Carthage "comme de la fumée" [like smoke]. Add to this the perfectly intelligible cleaning consequent on first discovery in the earth, and the still more disastrous and less pardonable washings with acid that, until recent years, were the fate of all classical statues. Even still another risk has to be remembered, the taking of casts […] Add these fates together, and say whether their total does not offer an explanation for a prejudiced view." Honestly, as Gisela M. A. Richter (1944) says, "The fact that any color at all remains is really more remarkable than that it has disappeared in the majority of cases." Greek and Roman statues, probably even marble statues, were painted! Yes! But there was probably little paint remaining even when the Renaissance sculptors and art collectors got ahold of them. And while the discoverers deliberately stripping off the paint because they decided it should not have been there is one potential reason (note the reference to acid-washing), and the pure white marble was a very ideologically-loaded Enlightment-era aesthetic highlighting the purity of the form, and 1700s-1800s English archaeologists and antiquarians had vicious debates over whether the marble statues were painted like the fate of their cultural hegemony rested on it, "removing the paint for its garishness" was not even close to the primary reason the colored paint does not remain. These are some resources about the Gods in Color exhibition that did experimental reconstructions of the colors of some statues.
DaVinci invented a tank,
Leonardo da Vinci drew designs for many devices, including a war machine that does resemble a modern tank! It's frequently described (with hedging descriptions) like "has been seen as a prototype of a tank." But there's no evidence that it was ever built, and it's unclear if the wheels and gear system would have worked. Can he be said to have "invented a tank"? I guess it depends on your definition of "invented."
Lancelot is a fanfiction OC,
This is either a flippant or deeply disingenuous way to describe the origins, evolution, and recording of King Arthur mythology, its use in literature and nationalist propaganda, and the way this is different from the way fanfiction interacts with a canon. @chimaerakitten knows much more about this than I do.
and the Catholic Church was founded after numerous other Christian churches and proceeded to burn the holy books that didn’t support their version (like the Gospel of Judas, which establishes that the “betrayal” was Jesus’s plan because how was he supposed to die as planned, and they plotted it together).
Ohhhh boy it's complicated. I am out of energy and by god it is late but there is a reason that books and books and books have been written about the history of Christianity, the early schisms, the creation of the canon, Gnosticism, and the origins of the Catholic Church.
Basically: if it can be summed up in one sentence as a "gotcha!" it is probably More Complicated Than That.
OP, you deserve many medals for not simply having many of the replies to this post become your supervillain origin story. Sympathy from the very bottom of my soul.
me: care about people
half the notes: youre the real oppressor for telling me what to do.
the other half: cut out this useless liberal proselatizing. you are an invertebrate and you will perish in the revolution.
we have a new prize comment which is “pretty neurotypical of you to assume i have the capacity to care about other people”
once I literally posted something like “be nice for no reason :)” and one of the responses I got was “do unreciprocated emotional labor? no thanks.” like…just shut up.
On November 7, 2024, Denmark used a racist, culturally biased "parenting competency" test to remove a 2 hour old baby, Zammi, from her loving indigenous Greenlandic Inuit mother, Keira, because her native language, which uses minute facial expressions to communicate, will not be able to "[prepare] the child for the social expectations and codes that are necessary to navigate in Danish society." This test had been recommended not to be used at the federal level before this happened but certain municipalities, including the one this happened in, chose to continue to use it regardless. Not only is this blatantly racist but also violates multiple declarations and conventions that Denmark has signed that protect the rights of indigenous people.
Please sign this petition to help Keira to get her baby back.
Hey, it's really important for Keira to get 50,000 signatures on this petition before her court date in early April 2025. Please sign if you haven't already to help a mother and a people stand up to colonialism and for indigenous rights.
One of the weirdest things I learned from Danish ex bf - their law about cultural integration expectations for immigrants is pretty much white supremacy and yet they don't see it as that.
Because they see it as getting along harmoniously in Danish society which has been around for a very long time.
These are studied, well educated people and their ultimate expression of understanding superior learning and cultural integration is - Danish supremacy over indigenous people not in their direct culture/location.
A good example across EU of this:
Headscarves and full coverage bathing suits (not allowed or hotly contested)
Pork in meals - they feel all kids should eat pork or pork fat and doing special meals is unacceptable (DK and France)
Celebrating their many pre-Christian now Christian, now mainstream holidays. There's a lot and they are national holidays.
I just think it's important to know that Europe is not a socialist Utopia fantasy world and that they too are feeling friction by accepting so many Muslim and refugees from southern Europe, middle east, and Africa.
(The worst part is that friction is being used to power hyper-conservative agendas and the elephant in the room is is that these countries needed the influx of unskilled laborers because their own people had become so hyper educated there weren't a lot of people left to do unskilled labor. )
if i can convince americans to value our federally funded biomedical research as the crown jewel that it is & start defending that with the rabid fervor it deserves, i will be satisfied.
this is your birthright, your inheritance, and your legacy. this work was done in your name, with your money, for you. this federally funded work underlies nearly every great biomedical breakthrough that has saved lives & improved care, including in ways that most of us are not even aware of. it is yours, it has always been yours. i wish you were as joyful & proud & possessive of it as you deserve to be.
Hey. Look at me. Please leave yourself a note somewhere you'll see it later that says "it is going to take years if not decades to get the United States government to the level of functionality it had in November of 2024." If we elect a democrat in 2028, we are not going to be up and running by 2032.
Please make sure you have a reminder in your phone reminding you to not look at 2028/32/36 Democratic candidates and say "why are they not promising/delivering Cool Shit?" because you are going to understand that to get Cool Shit we must have competent people running a decently funded government, and we are not going to have that.
We are not getting UBI. We are not getting single payer healthcare. We are not getting free college or free preschool. We are not redistributing wealth on a large scale. We are not getting free internet. We are not getting ranked choice voting.
If we are lucky, we are going to get an IRS that can collect taxes, qualified schoolteachers, research grants, Social Security, and a government that thinks maybe it should be a priority for people around the worlds to not have AIDS, malaria or TB.
when i say i like hiking, i don’t mean “eight mile backpacking trip with special gear and an emergency beacon” sort of hiking, i mean a three mile loop to go look at pretty things and then a huge brunch after.
this is in no way a slam on hardcore hiking, it’s very fun, but i mostly just need to lower people’s expectations when i say hiking is a hobby of mine
"No no, that's ranger hiking. I like hobbit hiking."
Long Walks Georgs were outliers adn should not have been counted
The word you want is "ramble", you are wanting to go on a ramble. The lord of the rings is what happens when Hobbits do ranger hiking.
The wages of the richest 1% have skyrocketed 182% since 1979. Meanwhile, the wages of the bottom 90% have seen just 44% growth. Trickle down economics was always a hoax.
Small correction: Trickle-Down was invented c. 1929, as they believed that private industry and wealthy oligarchs ("philanthropics") would help the poor and bring the economy up and not through government initiatives or economic stimulus.
This is one of the first times widescale trickle-down was ever tried, and it was such a massive failure that the Governor of New York, Franklin D. Roosevelt, began using state funding to create welfare programs, food kitchens, and began serving the people with public funds, and not relying on "the relative goodness and prosperity of the upper class".
This program was such a success in NY (during The Great Depression) that he absolutely destroyed the presidential campaign season in 1932, was elected to another four terms, dying a month before WWII ended, where his VP carried on for another 8 years as President. FDR was so successful at expanding and creating his New Deal programs, including Social Security, enacting a federal minimum wage, enacting federal unemployment wages, and more that they put term limits in place to ensure no one could ever take the time and build the coalition to do it again.
In the 80's they wanted to go back to "classical america", to make us all "great again", by implementing trickle-down policies to try to begin the deconstruction of the entirety of the FDR legacy and the changes he brought, and to ensure only the politics of the oligarchs remained with the power to control the nation.
Every time trickle-down has ever been attempted eince has resulted in an absolute abject failure and the destruction of the working class to the benefit of the upper supremely wealthy classes. Oligarchs would rather the world wither and die, then to help their fellow human beings.
"Absolutely no one comes to save us but us."
Ismatu Gwendolyn, "you've been traumatized into hating reading (and it makes you easier to oppress)", from Threadings, on Substack [ID'd]
A cyanometer is a device used to measure the intensity of blue in the sky, often used in meteorology and atmospheric studies. It typically consists of a series of blue color patches or a color gradient, allowing the user to compare the sky’s color to these reference colors.
Do you like the wheel of the sky
Well I like that it doesn't take 5 minutes to scroll past.
I have a degree in meteorology and I remember a professor telling us that cyanometers are kinda obsolete, since we have technology to measure the refration and scattering in the sky more accurately. Which's good for science I guess, but less fun.
Hey students, here’s a pro tip: do not write an email to your prof while you’re seriously sick.
Signed, a person who somehow came up with “dear hello, I am sick and not sure if I’ll be alive to come tomorrow and I’m sorry, best slutantions, [name]”.
I mean, if someone wrote that to me, I’d probably believe they were sick.
“Slutantions” has me crying laughing
i once emailed my professor with a migraine. a mistake.
“I amsick will not to choir because i have a heache. i Hope its very and i am so sorry
love,
blue”
the subject line was “OW”
THE SUBJECT LINE IS THE BEST PART JSJFJSJDJS JUST IMAGINE GETTING AN EMAIL WITH NO CONTEXT OTHER THAN “OW”
As someone who has taught college, please send those emails because 1) We WILL believe that; no one would write that on purpose and 2) we need a laugh sometimes.
On the other side of this, once after getting taken to the ER by ambulance, I got an email from the professor whose class I’d passed out in, and the message had no text, just the subject line “you good?”
Reblogging for the last addition
Claritin makes me weird, but I have allergies so there’s about a month and a half block of time where I’m taking Claritin and am just weird most of the time.
Anyway, my last year of college, I got the flu or something in late March and was also taking Mucinex. I told my professor I couldn’t come to class one day by email except I couldnt think of what to say, so my medicated ass decided to make a Fry meme. I think it said something like “Not sure if I can go to class with a head the size of Texas, bottom text.” I didn’t think until the next day that it probably wasn’t socially-acceptable to tell your philosophy professor you weren’t coming to class via Tumblr style memes. When i got back to class, i found that she’d printed it out and taped it to the classroom bulletin board.
Oh shit you guys i turned on my WinXP laptop that I used to use back then.
IT WAS ON THE DESKTOP. THIS IS WHAT I SENT.
It’s even worse than i remember it
I laugh myself hoarse every time this post comes around, so here it is again.
Once emailed a professor from my hospital bed high on painkillers after a really bad car crash which my heart actually stopped the email “Dead cant class sory”
i was very sick over new years and one day i woke up to find i had emailed my manager in the middle of the night:
she said it was the most beautiful sick email she’s ever gotten
Once sent a relatively coherent email that started with:
“So I’m writing this from a hospital bed, right…”
This list was created consulting Year in Reviews, Fanlore articles, user feedback, vintage pinterest posts, and my own knowledge. Don't worry about not seeing the shows in their entirety, vote based on your judgement. Enjoy!
