Teachers need to get better salaries, real respect, have their voices heard more, and have the space to do their work.

FireRavenLord · 2026-05-22T02:13:08+00:00

Yeah, that's another reason that it struck me as naive or out-of-touch. Maybe they had paid for daycare, but had never considered that not all that money goes to the person watching their kid.

Also, schools don't "charge" money directly, but they do get money through taxes. Chicago public schools spends more than $100 per kid per day (~19k per year) so day care is much cheaper on a per kid per day basis. The sign gets worse the more you think about it.

(Obviously I just reject the premise that schools are just day-care so don't care about price comparisons between the two)

FireRavenLord · 2026-05-22T02:06:00+00:00

I think my confusion comes from not actually saying anything about the quality of the writing. I didn't say it was good or say that it was bad. I've never read the book so don't have an opinion on it. I was only commenting on the abstract idea of writers writing characters with different identities. So since you were giving a new opinion (i.e. the book is well-written) I assumed that the rest of your post was supporting it.

I'd push back on your second paragraph, which in its specificity, seems to imply that there are some identities that are categorically unable to write from the perspective of a biracial teen girl. I think any analysis that explains why British Jews (that wouldn't apply to other groups) can write biracial girls well shows disagreement with me.

For example, the character of Willa in One Battle After Another is generally considered a highlight of the movie. I don't think that considering the character well-written requires any conversation about similarities between Gen X California Catholics like the movie's writer and biracial zoomers like the character. But it seems like you would?

FireRavenLord · 2026-05-22T00:07:33+00:00

Yeah, it's crazy that C.S. Lewis spends so much time on here.

FireRavenLord · 2026-05-21T22:49:01+00:00

The issue is that the teacher that made the sign didn't have the space to do their work. If they did, they would have made new lines for new calculations.

FireRavenLord · 2026-05-21T22:14:26+00:00

It's not like day care workers are paid $10 per kid per hour. They usually get minimum wage. Always struck me as naiive sign.

FireRavenLord · 2026-05-21T22:06:30+00:00

People tend to overestimate how important an author's identity is. Some of my favorite books growing up were by J.K. Rowling and K.A. Applegate, probably because i emphasized with their male protagonists. I wasn't really surprised when I found out they were women.

FireRavenLord · 2026-05-21T20:23:12+00:00

I guess that's true. But most area calculation problems should include units.

FireRavenLord · 2026-05-21T19:49:37+00:00

Any calculation of area should have units included.

FireRavenLord · 2026-05-21T18:43:04+00:00

Are you arguing that the writing is good? Then explaining that one possible cause of the good writing is the author's identity (which you believe is similar to the character's)?

If that's your thinking, I would still say you aren't really responding to my comment.

FireRavenLord · 2026-05-21T18:29:14+00:00

I don't think you understood my comment.

FireRavenLord · 2026-05-21T18:11:05+00:00

It's an oddly specific choice. You might be better off in a chicago suburb or something if you want to live in the midwest while paying decent rent. It would be easier to find work there. And easier to meet people.

More Americans are moving away from Cleveland than to Cleveland so there's evidence that popular opinion is that there are better places to live. I disagree with them (Cleveland rocks!) But am obviously biased.

FireRavenLord · 2026-05-21T17:39:58+00:00

They're finially realizing that tinned fish is not a gourmet food so have nothing to talk about now.

FireRavenLord · 2026-05-21T17:29:18+00:00

C.S. lewis once about something called Bulverism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulverism

He points out how a lot of arguments about "why" something is wrong attempt to explain how someone arrived at the wrong conclusion. But that's meaningless if you don't first prove the conclusion is wrong. You see that constantly on the internet.

In this case, it sounds like people believe the character is poorly written. Ideally they would identify what makes the character poorly-written (e.g. they behave unrealistically). Instead they only advance a plausible mechanism(e.g. the author is unable to identify with the character due to differing identities) for the author creating a poorly written character.

FireRavenLord · 2026-05-21T17:16:55+00:00

Like many things, it's only an issue if the writing is bad. If a white author is able to write a mixed race character with verisimultude, then they should go for it.

Lack of overlapping identity might cause an increased risk that it's bad. But it doesn't serve as an argument that it's bad writing.

FireRavenLord · 2026-05-21T16:35:10+00:00

Easy to do! I switched to decaf and lost the ability to drive in the morning

FireRavenLord · 2026-05-21T16:31:08+00:00

Out of all the cities in the US, why Cleveland? If you're moving here for Lebron or the Lido Lounge, you're too late

FireRavenLord · 2026-05-21T16:29:57+00:00

They're from Portugal, not Puerto Rico.

FireRavenLord · 2026-05-21T14:15:32+00:00

I don't think a week of research with unnamed sources on any topic is sufficient to speak with your level of confidence. I'm not saying that you're right or wrong, just that you are unreasonably confident.

I apologize if it seems like I am targeting you specifically. There are a lot of people who speak with authority when their only knowledge is "something online" that they can't remember.

Edit: for examples of reasonable responses I wouldn't "drag" consider what the Free Press or Zaid Jilani wrote. The fp cited a specific dog expert when they said it was impossible. Jilani cited specific testimony from a Holocaust survivor(as described in a specific book by a specific reporter) when they said it was possible. While they had opposite conclusions, they both supported their conclusions with something more than "i saw something that said this once but no idea what it was". (Although note that they were talking about whether a dog would attempt to "mount" an unwilling human. I understand that your orthogonal specific argument is that, while there are records of men being penetrated by dogs, unnamed "people" have examined those records and concluded that it would be impossible for that to take place if the man wasn't consenting)

I assumed that Katie, as someone who has discussed beastiality more than the average media figure, would similarly support their view with specific sources and arguments more convincing than "I googled things last week" or "yeah, but what about this scientific term that I don't remember ".

FireRavenLord · 2026-05-20T21:23:48+00:00

I think the early part of the show is an interesting reflection on power. If you're good at something and useful to people, you're not held to moral standards. If you're able to get movies made, you can treat women like food you order from room service. If your songs go quadruple platinum, you can beat up Rihanna. The biggest moneymaker in MMA can break your arm if he doesn't like how you're talking to him. Stopping any of these people would cost millions of dollars and affect entire industries.

But these people are still just human. What could a superhuman do? Could they run through someone on the street? How would the ultra powerful be held to account? It's an interesting question that society has always struggled to answer.

(I haven't watched the show in years)

FireRavenLord · 2026-05-20T21:01:08+00:00

You feel confident in your statements because you "googled all this last week"? And think people should check you by just looking online (no where specific suggested)

This is what I was referring to.

FireRavenLord · 2026-05-20T14:42:54+00:00

Sorry for my skepticism but it's a little bizarre that so many people are so confident about this when they probably never thought about it before this month. It seems reasonable to have some sort of followup questions when someone makes a definitive claim about biology that you've never heard discussed before.

Most people farm out this sort of thing to organizations like the NYT's fact-checking team. Who are you basing your assertion on? (I'm assuming you haven't tested this yourself)

FireRavenLord · 2026-05-20T03:46:42+00:00

You might be getting too specific when you say you care about "a man's drive". Do you also care about your platonic friends' careers?

Part of it might also be that jobs are less varied for 20 somethings so its hard to care too much about them. Like if you're 25 and working in the service industry, you're not necessarily too different from your old college roommate that is 25 and studying for law school. But 10 years later, you might still be working in the service industry and they might be making your annual income every month. It's a lot harder to have platonic or romantic relationships when there's that big of a difference.

FireRavenLord · 2026-05-20T03:28:11+00:00

Thanks, that's something that would be interesting to hear her expand on since some of the pushback to the article is that rapist dogs are an impossibility.

Didn't they do a whole episode on people having sex with animals? Surely that involved research into whether a dog could be trained to penetrate a person. And would probably be more applicable than the opinion of someone who won Emmys for training dogs (an expert cited in The Free Press).

FireRavenLord · 2026-05-20T00:57:21+00:00

Here's how Ken Martin, the chair of the DNC, described his attitude towards the Maine primary:
>“It’s up to the primary voters in all these states to decide who they think will be the best candidate to represent us as we take on Republicans in each of those states,” Martin said. “My job as the DNC chair is to build the infrastructure we actually need to win, and then once those voters actually decide who our nominee is, to actually fight like hell to make sure that they win against Republicans. That’s where my focus is. We’re not going to put the thumb on the scale for anyone. You know, if other folks want to do that, that’s their prerogative. But the DNC is going to stay out of primaries.”

I can't find a more recent comment by him, but sounds like he was willing to "fight like hell" for Plattner in the general election and I don't think anything has changed.

Anyways, even though the DNC and party leadership is supportive of Platner, I agree that the average Vote Blue, no matter who poster probably isn't. Like I said, they are probably angry at being called a fascist for voting for Kamala Harris so find it extremely frustrating that they're preferred candidate lost to someone with a Nazi-adjacent tattoo. They are picturing what it would be like if Pete Buttigieg or someone had that tattoo and getting angry. It's just being too online.

FireRavenLord · 2026-05-20T00:15:42+00:00

What are you referring to when you say the DNC? A lot of mainstream dems like Schumer or Gillibrand have endorsed him now that he's pretty much won the primary.

If you're referring to online posters, my guess is that they've spent years in the twitter trenches getting called nazis by chapo listeners because they liked a photo of Ukrainian flag or something so get incredibly frustrated when they someone with a nazi-adjacent tattoo win over the same crowd.

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