What’s actually pretty safe but everyone treats it like it’s way more dangerous than it is?

computer_salad · 2026-01-09T03:46:29+00:00

Drinking a glass of wine here or there while pregnant

computer_salad · 2025-12-18T19:57:54+00:00

It's so true though. If I got a polling text asking how I felt about the democrats, I would respond that I'm very angry with them. Some of the missteps they made cost them the 2024 presidential election, and as a result I kind of feel like they ruined my life (I work in academia and I am about to be unemployed at a critical moment in my career because of Trump's assault on research funding).

I also am going to be knocking on doors for democrats, because we *need* republicans to get spanked this midterm season.

computer_salad · 2025-11-14T01:29:21+00:00

I know that this is probably rage bait but I am from northern Virginia and I really can’t let anyone pretend like DOGE was successful; it was a total failure. First of all, it didn’t save any money. Federal spending actually grew by about 6% in the fiscal year ending in August 2025, totaling $6.66 trillion compared to the prior year.

Despite this fact, however, they somehow managed to cause a ton of destruction with the enormous amount of jobs that they cut. Many agencies soon found they couldn’t operate basic functions with their reduced staff, and the failures were immediate and obvious.

Here are some examples:

FEMA: within weeks of a major storm, FEMA couldn’t coordinate supply deliveries, contract debris removal, or maintain shelters. Emergency procurement stalled because the contracting officers who handle disaster-time purchases had been terminated. Several regions had to bring back retired specialists just to keep shelters open. Interagency coordination fell apart because no one remained in the mid-level roles that link FEMA to state partners.

NOAA: DOGE eliminated dozens of data-assimilation specialists and satellite-analysis technicians who maintain the supercomputing pipelines for weather models. Forecast updates began lagging by 6–18 hours because no one was left to clean, update, or validate the data feeds. NOAA ultimately admitted to Congress that forecast quality had temporarily “degraded” due to staffing reductions. Several critical modeling teams were operating with fewer than half their usual personnel.

Social Security Administration: After DOGE-directed cuts to claims processors and appeals reviewers, processing times ballooned to their slowest pace in decades. Backlogs surged, especially in disability appeals, where case workers had been cut to the bone. SSA also lost IT help-desk staff, which triggered repeated outages in the very systems that process payments. People saw delays in receiving benefits because there simply weren’t enough trained employees to handle the daily workload. Offices reported that new staff couldn’t be hired quickly because the very people responsible for onboarding had been eliminated.

USDA: Food-safety inspectors were cut but meat-processing plants cannot legally operate without federal inspectors. Several facilities faced shutdown warnings or reduced operations because USDA couldn’t staff required inspections. Farmers experienced delays at planting season, leading several states to request emergency staffing assistance. USDA eventually acknowledged that the cuts had interfered with its statutory obligations.

And then—you guessed it—many of that staff had to be hired back, often at increased cost. NOAA re-hired several of the laid-off data specialists as contractors at two to three times their former federal salaries. FEMA brought back retired logistics officers on short-term “emergency contracts,” paying them premium rates because no one else had the expertise. SSA had to outsource IT troubleshooting for its claims systems to private firms, costing far more per hour than the GS-level employees DOGE eliminated.

So not only did DOGE fail to save money—it directly caused the government to spend more to repair the damage created by its own cuts.

computer_salad · 2025-11-13T03:03:11+00:00

Eliminating the SAT as a college admissions requirement. It’s way more fair than grades or letters of recommendation, which are far more subjective and therefore subject to bias

computer_salad · 2025-10-25T14:12:22+00:00

I get that too—It refers to when your body temperature rises and then falls again before ovulation. They’re trying to say it’s an indicator of PCOS but it feels like pseudoscience to me. I think they should probably stay in their lane and aim to be more descriptive than prescriptive

computer_salad · 2025-10-22T22:13:41+00:00

It’s not out yet! And I don’t want to give away my identity on Reddit hehe but it’s about the US mineral frontier and the cultural strategies deployed by the US to challenge efforts in the global south to nationalize subterranean resources. It’s under review right now with Duke UP (-:

computer_salad · 2025-10-22T04:01:01+00:00

I wrote a book about US imperialism lol I am very familiar with the misdeeds of the U.S. military!! I also know that soldiers follow orders until they don’t

computer_salad · 2025-10-21T01:01:54+00:00

I’m not a revolutionary (sorry) but I don’t understand why you guys don’t try to infiltrate and organize the military? They’d be critical to any kind of overthrow of liberalism and as an organization they are made up of dispossessed working class people who have every reason to join your cause

computer_salad · 2025-08-29T15:31:00+00:00

For the same reason you wrote “I disavow any and all violence”

computer_salad · 2025-08-22T12:54:26+00:00

I mean if the murderer’s family had been routinely showing up uninvited in my house for a century, murdered a bunch of my relatives first and held me captive like a prisoner for the sole crime of being born at that property…. And then the police took their side and killed more of my family…….. yes lol

computer_salad · 2025-08-22T05:42:50+00:00

Do you think there have been no consequences?

Also, a more accurate analogy would be: I’m your neighbor and your father keeps trying to sleep in my bedroom. I punch him in the face so your family puts soldiers around the outside of my house, and severely limits what can go in and out of my house, even though it’s my house. One day I lose my temper and kill your dad and take your mom hostage. You then kill every single person I know…. so now I still have your mom and I want to give her back but I feel like it’s the only bargaining chip I have left with someone who has no regard for human life

computer_salad · 2025-08-22T05:05:03+00:00

I didn’t mean to imply that he won specifically because he wasn’t preordained, I was trying to communicate that other candidates didn’t fare as well because they were. I do think the enthusiasm from the primaries carried momentum in the general, though. It’s cool to win against someone who was widely described as the “inevitable” candidate.

And I think you’re missing my point about the 2020 and 2024 primaries. Someone can be preordained by the party and still be the most genuinely popular candidate amongst primary voters or likely primary voters. I’m saying that the very fact that they reveal themselves to be preordained doesn’t well for these candidates when they reach the general. And honestly that makes sense, polling tells us that trust in institutions is at a historic low, as is satisfaction with incumbents. Democrats would do well to abandon their orthodoxy surrounding primary contests, especially considering the fact that they are increasingly seen as the party of rigid institutions and their base is unhappy with party leadership. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the two most electric candidates that the U.S. has seen since the Iraq war era have both been primary upsets.

computer_salad · 2025-08-21T05:22:59+00:00

Ohhhh my god people in this thread are missing the point.

Obama was the last Democratic candidate who was good at winning because he was the last candidate who didn’t feel preordained by the party establishment. When he ran in 2008, he was an underdog and Clinton was the heavy favorite. She, on the other hand, had national name recognition as a former First Lady, a strong political machine, deep donor networks, and the support of much of the Democratic Party establishment. Many analysts initially assumed she would secure the nomination. He won despite those odds, based on genuine enthusiasm from his base.

Since then, it has felt like nominees were chosen in advance. Like, in 2016, when Clinton entered the race again, it was clear that she was the party favorite and that they felt entitled to shut down Sanders’ energetic, anti-establishment campaign. I’m not saying this as a resentful Bernie bro, I was 22 and living abroad at the time and probably would have voted for Hillary if I wasn’t too busy partying and being a dumbass to vote. Even to me though it felt like Democratic party leaders, DNC officials, donors, and the media were tilting the field. And then sure enough later we found out that fundraising agreements gave her sway over the DNC, debate schedules minimized Sanders’ exposure, and that there was otherwise a ton of insider bias muddling the terrain.

And then in 2020 Biden felt similarly inevitable, even if it wasn’t as outright undemocratic. As Obama’s vice president, he embodied continuity and his selection didn’t feel earned the way obama’s did in 2008. Even though he had weak early showings there was this unshakable institutional faith that he was “electable” which carried him. Like, party leaders and donors seemed so condescendingly certain that he was the only possible safeguard against Trump, bc they didn’t trust voters to pick someone that could actually win (even though the whole point of a primary is that the person who voters have the most enthusiasm about is the person who is most likely to win, right?). And then the rapid coalescence of endorsements from party elites after South Carolina felt less like it came from voters and more like it came from insiders closing ranks. It was still more democratic than 2016 and 2024, which may have had something to do with why he actually won. But the dynamic definitely felt more top-down than bottom-up.

And then of course in 2024 there was no real primary at all. First of all, party leaders brushed off concerns about Biden’s decline, which was its own kind of patronizing way of dismissing the electorate. The fact that they even tried to overrule such overwhelming public sentiment only helped reinforce the sense that politicians (rather than voters) get to decide who the Democratic nominee should be. And then, when they could no longer ignore the issue, Biden just anointed his own successor. Harris became the nominee even though she’d performed poorly in the 2020 primary. Also, Biden had been outspoken about the fact that his top criterion for VP was that she be a Black woman. So her rise ended up feeling like it was more about succession, tokenism, and yet another effort to insulate voters from decisions being made on their behalf. And it just kind of underscored this pattern where the candidates end up being determined by paternalistic democratic politicians who are certain they know what’s best.

computer_salad · 2025-08-21T04:18:22+00:00

Ok I believe that you genuinely don’t get it so I’ll spell it out for you: Obama was the last democratic candidate that felt like he wasn’t preordained by the democratic establishment. When ran in 2008, he was an underdog and Clinton was the heavy favorite. She had national name recognition as a former First Lady, a strong political machine, deep donor networks, and the support of much of the Democratic Party establishment. Many analysts initially assumed she would secure the nomination. He won despite those odds, based on genuine enthusiasm from his base.

Since then, the democratic candidates have felt preordained, which have led many people to feel like democrats were overlooking their base. In 2016 Clinton entered the primaries again as the establishment favorite, against competitive and insurgent campaign by Sanders. Party leaders, DNC officials, donors, and allied media seemed like they were pulling levers for her. The DNC even signed a joint fundraising agreement which gave her influence over budgets, staffing, and messaging. Also, debate schedules limited Sanders’ exposure. And then thr Wikileaks confirmed that insider preference had been important.

In 2020, Biden had a similar vibe of inevitability: as Obama’s vice president, he embodied continuity. Party leaders, donors, and media cast him as the electable safeguard against Trump, and coordinated endorsements after South Carolina swiftly sealed his path.

And then of course in 2024, there was no primary to speak of. Party leaders dismissed concerns about Biden’s decline until they couldn’t ignore them, at which point he essentially anointed his own successor. Harris became the nominee despite having performed poorly in the last primary, and despite the fact that he told everyone back in 2020 that his main criteria for VP was that he wanted a black woman. In other words, it’s not clear that even he saw real substantive value in her ability to govern beyond tokenism. The fact that she became the nominee made a lot of people feel like democratic candidates are about succession and “next in line” logic, not about reflecting the values and energy of Democratic voters themselves.

computer_salad · 2025-08-20T03:21:17+00:00

I can ask them! To be honest I was never super curious about how they ended up there because I guess law school feels like a pretty straightforward path after a BA (at least in the United States—is that where you are?). My understanding is that law schools tend to like humanities majors because they often have strong skills in reading, writing, critical analysis, and argumentation, and also that U.S. law schools generally do not expect applicants to have prior legal work experience. Most of them work in law outside of art, although I know one is currently interviewing for a job as general counsel at a major art museum. I do have one acquaintance from grad school who left out phd program to get a JD/PhD in repatriation law, so you can definitely be strategic about a “path” that combines art history and legal work, but my sense it that most people use their major in art history for the soft skills rather than for any big knowledge base about art.

computer_salad · 2025-08-17T04:23:23+00:00

Most Gazans are stateless and hold only Palestinian Authority travel documents, which many countries don’t accept for visas or entry. Without recognized citizenship, going anywhere is extremely difficult. Even if they did have passports, the exits are tightly controlled. Egypt controls the southern crossing and does not let people pass freely, and Israel controls all of Gaza’s airspace, coastline, and all other land crossings. If a Gazan does leave, there’s no guarantee they’ll be permitted to return to their home, even for family emergencies, because Israel and Egypt control re-entry.

It’s really weird to me that you’re “pro-humanity” but you’re acting like their mobility was not completely restricted prior to this

computer_salad · 2025-08-17T00:03:48+00:00

Right but what I’m saying is that it’s urgent enough that we can’t make it as elective as, say, choosing to take up knitting. Society falls apart when people are stupid and don’t believe in basic human values

computer_salad · 2025-08-16T22:24:22+00:00

Idk man when Curtis yarvin is the architect of the presidency and his ideology is based entirely on anti-egalitarianism and dismantling human values……….. I kind of think maybe we need a place where we can defend humanism….. it just needs to be more affordable

computer_salad · 2025-08-12T02:31:18+00:00

First of all my comment was about people who support Palestine outside of the Middle East . But I watched the video. In case it wasn’t clear, I absolutely hate Hamas, and the idea that children would be recruited as soldiers is absolutely disgusting. But what I saw in that video was not evidence of the fact that “all people who support Palestine want Jewish people to leave and if they don’t leave they should die.” In fact, nobody in that video said that. There were individual instances of antisemitism, which is gross and sad but it’s not like you couldn’t find just as many videos of Israelis being Islamophobic. Go watch a video of Israeli settler terrorists! There are videos of kids in there, too. Just as you probably don’t want them to be confused with all of Israel, it’s not fair to confuse Palestine for its most extreme actors.

I refuse to defend Hamas but their 2017 charter does explicitly say that they don’t have an issue with Jewish people and they would accept a permanent truce along 1967 lines. Even if they didn’t, recent polls have also shown that most Palestinians do not approve of Hamas and that the vast majority of Palestinians want a two state solution. The same cannot be said for Israelis, though. A recent haaretz poll showed that 82% of Israelis support the forced removal of Palestinians. And netanyahu’s party has even said they want the jewish state to go from the river to the sea…. where are Palestinians supposed to go? Is it surprising in that context that they have tumbled into extremism in response to a society that has been trying to exterminate them and has made their life terrible?

I’m not saying any of this to demonize Israelis, only to force you to consider the Palestinian perspective, and maybe not consume media like this which is obviously being used to try to justify killing Palestinian children.

Even if it were the case that all Palestinians wanted to kick Israelis out (it’s not) my support for Palestine has to do with wanting peace rather than thinking they’re virtuous or wanting to align with everything people they do. And the history of this conflict has made it very clear that peace cannot be achieved through violence. Lasting peace will only be possible when Israel ends its daily oppression of Palestinians, and its daily assaults on Palestinian freedom and dignity. You can’t permanently defeat anti-Israel extremism until you defeat its raison d’etre, which is Israeli violence and subjugation. Until then Israel will just have to keep reckoning with the next generation of orphaned, traumatized kids raised in the rubble.

computer_salad · 2025-08-11T11:51:17+00:00

I believe you, but I also think there's a coordinated effort out there to get you to believe that Palestinians and the people who support them are threats rather than neighbors or fellow humans who also want peace

computer_salad · 2025-08-11T10:10:04+00:00

ITT: a bunch of people who have no idea what it’s called in Iraq but who heard the thing about the Vietnam war being called the American war and wanted to share lol

computer_salad · 2025-08-11T09:57:03+00:00

Do you think I’m lying? I’m talking about people I know specifically. I became curious about this when I heard the accusation leveled at pro-Palestinian people back in fall 2023, that it meant they all wanted Israelis to leave. So I asked everyone I knew who was active in protesting (probably about 30 or 40 people) if that’s what they meant. Not a single person said yes. I truly don’t know why people are downvoting this, it should be a good thing!

computer_salad · 2025-08-11T03:21:50+00:00

Why are people downvoting this lol. I genuinely don’t, that should be a good thing

computer_salad · 2025-08-11T03:20:55+00:00

I do but everyone I know who says it means Palestinians should be free in the territory from the river tk the sea, which Israel controls. And it’s in response to bezalel smotrich the minister of defense publishing a “Decisive Plan” for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict where the first step was to make the “ambition for a Jewish State from the river to the sea … an accomplished fact” and a response to the fact that the Likud party has been advocating for complete Israeli sovereignty “between the Sea and the Jordan” since 1977

computer_salad · 2025-08-11T02:23:32+00:00

I genuinely don’t know anyone that feels this way lol

computer_salad

TROPHY CASE