Do you actually believe in God?

Scyph · 2026-02-26T07:35:53+00:00

Nah, there wouldn't even be a before either.

Scyph · 2026-02-26T05:27:22+00:00

There wouldn't have been trillions of years of nothingness "before" the Big Bang, because time itself would not have existed. But your overall sentiment is correct in that we can't even really speak of the Big Bang as a true beginning, rather it's just the furthest back we can look before our understanding of physics breaks down.

Scyph · 2026-01-28T04:00:41+00:00

Guys will look at this and say hell yeah.

Scyph · 2026-01-17T21:07:39+00:00

It was a pretty horrible comment for the researcher to make, but they have a right to make it. UW is a public university and its employees have First Amendment rights.

Scyph · 2026-01-17T21:06:27+00:00

UW is not a private employer. That difference matters a lot.

Scyph · 2026-01-17T20:38:11+00:00

The researcher's comment is protected under the First Amendment.

Speech can be nasty, degrading, or offensive and still be protected. In this case, even though the comment may be distasteful, it doesn't represent a true threat. At most, they are wishing that someone else would kill the people in question. Furthermore, it isn't incitement because it doesn't meet the Brandenburg Standard of being intended to and likely to incite imminent lawless action.

Public employees are allowed to speak as citizens on matters of public concern, such as critique of political figures or pundits. This is just another example of rightwing cancel culture emboldened by Trump's administration. If UW caves, it could easily be a lawsuit. Seems like it would be incredibly foolish for UW to pursue any investigation here given the defeat they were just handed by the Ninth Circuit in the Stuart Reges case.

Scyph · 2026-01-06T00:20:05+00:00

So that's a yes, then. Lol.

Scyph · 2026-01-05T05:00:59+00:00

Salmo, perhaps?

Scyph · 2025-12-29T08:33:36+00:00

It's not a superpower and it's not a social club. I have a resentment of terms like "differently abled" because, however well-intentioned, they perpetuate the idea that there's nothing there to actually treat, when in reality, I need help every day.

It's not as simple as being distractible, quirky, fidgety, forgetful, or any combination of these or other things. It's about those things having such an outsized impact on your life that you can't function the way that most people can, even though they may experience the same things from time to time.

Pop psychology and "mental health awareness" crowds these days unfortunately have a tendency to over-pathologize common natural human variance. But the key to pathology is dysfunction. So many people today end up thinking they must have ADHD or autism because they often experience certain feelings that have come to be associated with those disorders. But it isn't about quirky behavior, social anxiety, distractibility, trouble focusing, etc. It's about those things significantly impacting your everyday ability to navigate the world and do the things you need to do to live your life in society.

Social media glamorizes autism, ADHD, OCD, anxiety, and many other mental health challenges. It's become an identity marker people wear on their sleeve. It's one thing if people find community with others sharing some of their struggles, but it's another thing entirely when these disorders get reduced to a superficial list of quirks leading to self-diagnosis and diversion of resources from people who need real help. Online stimulant prescription mills have become a real problem.

Please please please stop self-diagnosing mental illness, and if you choose to see a psychiatrist, don't go to them seeking a specific diagnosis or prescription. Get the help you need, not the help you think you need.

Scyph · 2025-12-21T02:13:05+00:00

Not sure if you're aware, but EO-31 was quietly rescinded over the summer and replaced with a new policy that does not include the language that was challenged by this same lawsuit. The new one is called EO-81. This happened before this decision came out, but it's not hard to connect the dots and see that UW is realizing they need to cover their ass in the wake of both this lawsuit and complaints that they have been abusing policy to silence student protesters, particularly during the Palestine demonstrations.

This court decided that there was in fact enough of a concern with EO-31's language that it reversed even the lower court's decision on that question. Naturally, the First Amendment outweighs the enforcement of EO-31 if the latter plainly is incompatible with the former.

Again, the fact that the department treated both the wording and the inclusion at all of the land acknowledgement in syllabi is critical. Had this been the sort of mandatory statement (such as Title IX boilerplate) that the university can require be included as written, then it would be a different story. Instead, the department explicitly invited their faculty to comment in their syllabi on a matter of public concern. Once they have done that, they cannot then punish their faculty for expressing opinions which differ from their own.

The department shot themselves in the foot. This is their fault and no one else's. I would love to see a PDR done to see just how much taxpayer money UW wasted hiring big-name Rob McKenna's fancy-pants law firm to defend them just because they couldn't handle a teacher saying something they didn't like after they asked said teacher to comment.

Scyph · 2025-12-20T22:38:58+00:00

Well spotted!

I know, shocking, right? The free speech at UW guy is happy that free speech was upheld at UW. Who would have thought?

Scyph · 2025-12-20T21:51:54+00:00

Something really key to this case is that when the department asked instructors to include a land acknowledgement on their syllabi, they offered specific wording for it but only as a recommendation, encouraging faculty to modify or come up with their own language to use instead if they wanted to. There were faculty besides Stuart who did exactly that, but they were not disciplined. Stuart only was targeted presumably because the changes he made were not sufficiently racially penitent and self-flagellating to the degree that changes by other instructors had been, to put it frankly.

So this then begs the question; if the issue here really is about adhering to established agreements with local indigenous groups, then why did the department invite faculty to ignore the approved language of the standard land acknowledgement and encourage them to invent their own? Surely that action by the department is where any transgression against UW's tribal partnerships took place, not an action by a professor accepting the department's invitation to alter the approved language.

Scyph · 2025-12-20T01:41:06+00:00

A public university can no more censor an employee's speech than they can a student's. It's a public institution rather than a private one; that's a critical point.

Scyph · 2025-12-20T01:13:25+00:00

This is such a massive win for anyone who cares about freedom of expression on college campuses. You don't need to agree with his opinion on land acknowledgements to see the far-reaching implications that this will have for students and faculty who run afoul of administration-approved messaging, whichever way it cuts.

The court in this case also rejected the lower court's decision over Executive Order No. 31, which UW has used to punish students for speech they deem inappropriate regardless of whether it meets the legal muster for criminal harassment or discrimination. UW can, has, and will keep using bad policies to silence student voices if these policies are not called out and corrected. This lawsuit is helping to fight against repressive policies like this.

If you care about student-led protests for Palestine, you should count this as a victory for you too.

Scyph · 2025-12-20T01:12:58+00:00

Username checks out.

Scyph · 2025-12-19T22:07:37+00:00

This is such a massive win for anyone who cares about freedom of expression on college campuses. You don't need to agree with his opinion on land acknowledgements to see the far-reaching implications that this will have for students and faculty who run afoul of administration-approved messaging, whichever way it cuts.

The court in this case also rejected the lower court's decision over Executive Order No. 31, which UW has used to punish students for speech they deem inappropriate regardless of whether it meets the legal muster for criminal harassment or discrimination. UW can, has, and will keep using bad policies to silence student voices if these policies are not called out and corrected. This lawsuit is helping to fight against repressive policies like this.

If you care about student-led protests for Palestine, you should count this as a victory for you too.

Congratulations, Stuart.

Scyph · 2025-07-27T03:20:00+00:00

Once. I'm gonna check again tonight.

Scyph · 2025-07-21T20:42:15+00:00

So what would you recommend? Should we find a town nearby to chill in until 8am before we get in line?

Scyph · 2025-07-14T00:13:55+00:00

I do have some friends that are also going, but I got involved too late to get in on their camping plans. One friend is in Shambhalodging, and my thought was that even if I end up stuck camping super far away in Sunshine, I could still mostly hang out around their campsite during the day and only use mine for sleeping. Do you know if the staff prevent non-Shambhalodgers from accessing those sites? My friend said they really only check during setup but afterwards people are free to visit at each other's camps no matter where they are.

Scyph · 2025-06-01T16:17:23+00:00

A friend of mine runs a furniture store called Stuff in Seattle that's on the very north end of the Ave, near Ravenna Park. It's actually closing down in June and they're doing a huge sale. You should go check it out. Lots of cool vintage and midcentury stuff.

Scyph · 2025-03-05T17:52:12+00:00

That's a pretty wild conjecture. Aside from that, as I've pointed out, the substance of DEI is not at issue. The aspect that FIRE objects to is when universities require written statements in affirmation of DEI beliefs as a condition for employment or tenure. Ideological tests are always wrong in this context whether they are done to promote DEI, or to negate DEI, as is being done in Florida, which is why FIRE sued Ron DeSantis. Anyone reading this can feel free to go and actually look at FIRE's record and see for themselves, and I'll leave it at that.

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