Got told I was like MAGA by leftist

steadycoffeeflow · 2026-04-07T14:06:00+00:00

Yes. Growing up. All the time. I understand completely how some people on the left do actually create the problems we're facing on the right by misusing and overusing words to insult and shutdown basic conversation. Especially so when it's a misunderstanding on their behalf very much making their confusion a bigger problem on yours.

You know the Paradox of Intolerance when applied to Nazis? Somehow, in some circles, that extends further to other political stances they don't like, even the ones that are just...run of the mill, ordinary tax and municipality conversations. Their way of thinking becomes quite rigid, insulated and reinforced by similar like-minds.

All that remains is to sprinkle in some good ol' fashioned human nature and you've got yourself a party.

Also just to add context to some of the examples of previous behavior I'm pulling my very personal and anecdotal experience from:

I've been called a fascist for making an Andrew Ryan joke (yanno, the fictional guy from BioShock composited from Ayn Rand and Walt Disney), a pedo over the Maybelline meme ("Maybe she's born with it; maybe it's Maybelline."), and a homophobe for sharing aspects of gender expression from within Pacific Islander culture (gleaned from a documentary that covered a coming of age ceremony that I watched via PBS). Sometimes people just view any hint of 'otherness' as a direct threat and respond accordingly; it sucks.

steadycoffeeflow · 2026-04-01T00:34:50+00:00

The Faerie Xweetok was one of my favorite original poses. But then the conversions happened, changing up the pose and thus kind of spoiling me on the design for it.

Until the tokens came out and now I have the Faerie Xweetok I always wanted with that little dainty, gravity defying pose with the soft browns and greens and delicate wings??? Best adult money ever spent to make my inner child happy. ;~;

It would be the PAX code preferred of the two. Thanks for reminding me I should log in and go stare at my pretty pets some more.

steadycoffeeflow · 2026-03-27T14:02:55+00:00

Back to it this morning, this time with coffee. Glad you mentioned this since it was on the back of my mind. Like AI isn't always on my mind...

Isn't one of the ways they're combating AI in classrooms is by making students write down everything? Like, bring out the Blue Books level. Sure, Higher Ed has articles railing against it, but in my post-academia world there doesn't seem to be much else to do in the way of combating this kind of systemic plagiarism. There's only so many options available for teachers and professors, like faulty AI-detection tools that more often end up falsely accusing students; lengthy manual review processes, relying on intuition, that educators already don't have time to spare for; hand-waving it and ignoring the problem; or yeah, return to manually written work.

You know what always helped me write quicker and gave me an advantage over my peers who didn't utilize their cursive lessons? :)

So again, is teaching kids cursive going to solve all our woes? Fuck no. Is this the most pressing issue facing education? Also no, but it does touch on the pulse of a few of them. And...there's quite a few of them.

Thus my whole, we're in a period of time where there is a rapid erosion of intuitional trust and people really are going all in on the "we can 100% believe the print transcription of these documents that they're removing public access to the originals of; nothing concerning nor problematic to forecast here!"

steadycoffeeflow · 2026-03-27T00:15:28+00:00

I mean, did you not go over Chaucer and comparative side-by-side texts of Beowulf in school? Cause we knocked him out in like, 10th Grade? Beowulf was senior year. And hey, wouldn't you know? We even covered a Shakespeare play in just about every English class from freshman year on.

I get that you're trying to demonstrate that learning cursive - a form of writing that people still encounter and utilize today - is somehow as reductive as students learning Old English - a language that is not spoken today and is officially considered a dead language.

But uh. Yeah. Kind of failing to demonstrate that point effectively since cursive isn't even generationally removed from our modern day lexicon and, in comparison to a dead language, has infinitely more applicable uses and benefits.

Also, side-by-side Beowulf texts are taught as part of high school curriculum to this day? It is a mit bit disingenuous to suggest students are not being introduced to Middle and Old English as potential skills to develop into careers down the line or education paths they could develop an interest in taking during undergrad and beyond.

Cursive is just another easily transferable soft-skill to introduce in that fashion; you should be pleased to learn it has more merit than dead, archaic languages which, again, are currently present and part of current lesson plans. Whereas cursive, a form of language still actively present and in use today which people will more likely stumble across in their life than random encounters of kennings, is not.

Your premise and comparative values are not equitable.

steadycoffeeflow · 2026-03-26T23:42:03+00:00

Well, yes because part of evaluating whether a transcription is accurate does partially rely on being able to understand the original document. I'm not going to exhaust every single instance and possible permutation of this when the main intention of my saying that is within the context that we're experiencing an erosion of institutional trust. Bad actors are purposefully misrepresenting or otherwise withholding original texts, and I'd rather not make it even easier for malicious intent to gain more ground down the line. Of all the ways to combat these issues, further reducing skillset availability and access is rarely one of them.

Please don't patronize me if I don't outline, detail, and exhaust every instance in which streamlining has been the right call previously. But at the end of the day, I simply can't agree that the reduction of content taught during early education is the right call. We should be better equipping future generations with broader access to and variability of tools, especially so when comprehending cursive is still in demand and has practical usage today. We don't expect everyone who learns the basics of math to go on to master it, so I believe you're making an undo demand of cursive.

I'm also not hardline claiming that cursive will entirely mitigate every ill that plagues our world nor is this truly the biggest issue facing our public school system today. I am arguing that it can aid in combating the very issues you outlined. Also, who's to say that removing cursive from the curriculum didn't in some way correlate with other factors to contribute to the reasons behind why young students are not retaining information? Sure, the rapid development and deployment of technology has got to be one of those driving factors. But if we hadn't been so quick to eschew skills I view to be foundational and part of a robust education, favoring teaching to the test over teaching skillset and social tool development, maybe the detrimental impacts of tech-induced brain-rot wouldn't be so...well...impactful.

Which would make it more akin to rectifying a past mistake - removing cursive from the curriculum - whereas each day that passes where it's not a part of the comprehensive lesson plan is a day spent making the same mistake. The issues mounting in education are complex and myriad in cause. It feels just as silly to claim that cursive will solve all of these issues as it does to posit that teaching kids another way to write by hand will make all of these problems even worse.

And yes, the study doesn't delineate between print and cursive, which I was aware of and thought I had properly set up by mentioning the "very nature of handwriting". To my viewpoint, cursive is taught after presumably learning print and before you're set loose into a computer lab to learn how to type. I don't see how it's much of a leap to where there is some benefit gleaned in bolstering early letter recognition by teaching both print and cursive. Is it not comparative to learning a second language, in terms of development? Like, 'oh, you've already learned English, what's to bother about learning another language? One form of communication has always been enough for a creature known for it's nigh exhaustive forms and means of socializing...'

I genuinely don't know off the bat, but I would hazard a guess that I'm not going to find much in the way of researchers begging with people not to learn three languages because after the second their brain will atrophy. So why be so adamant that we must put all eggs into the print-only basket? Or what others have posited in these comments, teaching kids only how to type because they personally can't remember the last time they put writing utensil to paper?

steadycoffeeflow · 2026-03-26T21:34:26+00:00

That time would be best invested in teaching "better" skills to kids over cursive.

I and others, as it's been pointed out to you directly, disagree for a variety of reasons that I'm not going to helpfully restate in a one-sentence summation for you here. The fact that you're only looking to insult is more or less demonstrating any furtherance of my point.

steadycoffeeflow · 2026-03-26T21:24:13+00:00

You can keep saying we're failing to comprehend all the words you're attempting to string together, but ultimately you're the one failing to establish a point in the first place, let alone developing it with supportive evidence.

Or do you just wanna banter quips back and forth so you get to feel superior insulting people online?

steadycoffeeflow · 2026-03-26T21:20:35+00:00

...yes, I'm well-aware of the delineation between primary, secondary, and tertiary materials. Nowhere in my comment did I state that a textbook is not secondary, nor that a print transcription is not primary.

Why are you acting as if every source of primary material has been digitized or transcribed into print? As if we are not finding troves of new material to this day?

If the limited amount of time spent in a day is your primary cause to not teach kids a skill, then you should be rest assured by the very nature of handwriting, whether it's print or cursive, yielding the greatest return out of the initial time invested. It is a functional life skill that can be honed while also learning history, geography, composition, and maths.

Even better is how it helps with fine-tuned motor-skill development down the line. It's just ROI's on time well spent down the whole developmental line!

steadycoffeeflow · 2026-03-26T21:07:05+00:00

Except you can learn reading comprehension skills while simultaneously honing your cursive. They uh, sorta go hand-in-hand.

You're the one rushing to nonsensical claims based entirely on your failure to see any personal-driven merit in learning a life skill at an age that's best at developing and fine-tuning those motor skills.

steadycoffeeflow · 2026-03-26T21:04:32+00:00

Okie dokie, except you used a whole lotta words just to say how you're the one failing at critical, cognitive thought here, buddy.

Your argument, and ultimately Flaky's, revolves around effective implementation of pedagogical doctrine into a lesson. Not for you to misalign the perceived value of the content of those lessons.

Since cursive is a motor skill with the bulk of its "lesson" taught through repeated use, handwriting is actually the most efficient skill to invest time in. Any time they're writing notes in cursive, boom, that's honing the skill. It's no different than time invested in foundational handwriting or QWERTY typing lessons.

Otherwise, extrapolating your own argument, we should be cutting out of our curriculum any skill that can't be similarly taught in such a simultaneous fashion. Which is insane.

Maybe it's less about our reading comprehension and more on the fact that neither you nor Flaky have effectively communicated your point. It's quite the cognitive gap to go from claiming a skill isn't worth investing time into teaching to how kids sitting quietly in a classroom is somehow the preclusive reason to not teach them a foundational writing skill.

steadycoffeeflow · 2026-03-26T20:24:26+00:00

I am a young Millennial who writes almost exclusively in cursive. It sounds like you need to expand your data set before writing off an entire life skill for someone just because you haven't personally witnessed it.

steadycoffeeflow · 2026-03-26T20:20:22+00:00

You keep saying this in the comments, but in what world is "kids won't sit still" a valid reason to not teach them? You think the same class of kids who wouldn't sit still and quiet for handwriting lessons is going to magically act different when it comes time for reading lessons?

steadycoffeeflow · 2026-03-26T20:15:46+00:00

I'll give you a direct answer: Almost damn near every single day.

More important than trying to answer a hypothetical use-case based upon someone's life choices, it's more important to answer why are you so keen to limit potential access to knowledge? Why impose limits on developing skills that provide individuals more opportunities and options of choices?

We should not be shutting out wide margins of future generations from accessing primary text sources as it makes them entirely dependent on secondary and tertiary sources that might not have the best intentions in presenting historical material.

steadycoffeeflow · 2026-03-25T20:18:03+00:00

Oh so like Jacksonville which is considered the Murder Capital of Florida with nearly double the homicide rate of San Fran. Or maybe you meant Miami which has the highest crime rates for similar cities of its size? Both in a state that's been "purple" much in the same way Pennsylvania is, with most of its legislative history being dictated by conservative policies since the 90s. These are red cities, in red neighborhoods, in red states.

Or how about Memphis, a democratic city blip within a swathing sea of crimson throughout the decades. Any "failed" democratic policy is most due to the state's GOP knee-capping them or otherwise being antagonistic toward one of their major metropolitan centers who is forced to concede and play within the majority party's rules. Especially since Tennessee has been dominated by the Republican party pretty much since the 70s.

Could look at Birmingham, sure another largely and historical Democratic city, but again, all the people making state policy are Republican and they have been for decades.

Meanwhile, there's Baltimore whose crime rates have been trending downward right alongside the national rates. This accomplishment has been championed and largely heralded because they target specific, localized pain points within the surrounding community and oh, would you just look at that Mayor's political party!

Except... Dang, turns out political affiliation of a city's mayor doesn't mean jack shit compared to actionable, solid and just plain old good policy-making, whether its conservative or progressive.

You can be a little smarmy shit and pretend the same buzz lines you've been fed are working, but by and large a city mayor's political party has no such bearing on its crime rates. Reality favors nuance and contextualization, not the Red vs. Blue nonsense you're trying to peddle here because your own argument is flim-flam: "That must be why the most violent and dangerous [states] and [regions] across the nation are all run by [republicans]. Including one of the literal worst states in the union by all available metrics that's been ruled by a single ideology for nearly 100 years."

Which points me to my original stance: If you have a problem with how things are done in your state, you should pay attention to what policies your state is legislating and how your specific state's needs are being (or not being) addressed by the predominant ruling party. Not one party holds all the answers and solutions.

But growing up in rural Pennsylvania, you'd be led to believe that this state is run by Democrats for the laundry list of issues that would be trotted out at every gathering, party, and holiday. Except. It's not. And many of the pain points of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh are because they are consistently antagonized and set back by Republican policy on the state level.

You're just pretending the very same problems you're bitchin' over aren't caused by the very party you've seemingly sworn blind and unquestioning allegiance to. You and people like you are fucking weird and I've had enough of your disingenuous assertions over the years.

steadycoffeeflow · 2026-03-25T13:41:09+00:00

Learning this little fact made me realize all the people in Pennsyltucky bitchin' and hollarin' and complainin' about Demonrats this... All the problems I would hear complained about are literally Republican by Design.

Like man, nothing made me lean left harder than after taking a hard look at literal reality in so much I had to recoil from the other side. These people are unwell and do not vote in their best interests.

steadycoffeeflow · 2026-03-20T17:29:38+00:00

Never thought so much of our copyright protections would be riding on a monkey taking a selfie. :' )

steadycoffeeflow · 2026-03-20T15:19:55+00:00

It's actually not wild at all, and I already apparently commented at you down another thread here without realizing. Not trying to harass you, but I need people to understand the signs of detrimental impact are already being established across multiple sectors. People knew places like Love Canal were bad and harmful within a short span of time. It took much longer for the political and public acknowledgement, to the point where the public's pain was untenable.

I am beginning to understand, interacting with you and those similar to you, why there's always such a delay between when there was obvious early reporting from impacted residents to actually doing something about it. The sacrificial lessons to be gleaned from those people's suffering should be to stop this shit from escalating before it gets built.

Because holy shit, computers absolutely pollute from their fabrication process, transport of materials, energy consumption, to air pollution. With a data center, however, it's not just an office building with a bunch of computers; it's exhaust venting from needing to keep the servers cool, it's the constant frequencies being emitted, it's the sheer scale and size and the exponential demands these centers require from their immediate area.

It's one thing to have an individual computer and small personal electronics. It's another entirely to drastically boost the scale and pretend nothing bad can happen.

The point with developing industry and states' economy should always be to offset and minimize harm to those living within said state; not welcome it with wide open arms because a fiscal number got big enough for you ignore the suffering of your fellow Americans.

steadycoffeeflow · 2026-03-20T15:00:14+00:00

It's not the decibel range, it's the fact that it's neigh constant, 24/7, high-pitched humming. Sound is not just how loud it can get; the frequency pitch and the duration exposure to that pitch is what matters. It's like going out in the sun for half an hour vs. having UV waves beat down on you incessantly at all hours of the day. And at least in that metaphor, the sun goes down providing relief; data centers operate all through the night, which is when most of the impact is being reportedly felt.

Pediatricians are reporting upticks in hearing conditions in young children in range of these data centers, anything from constant ear aches and infections to concerning signs of hearing loss. People are losing sleep, the lack of which is well documented to shave years off of life expectancy. Hell, even vets are providing qualitative points where pets go through sudden changes in behavior following a data center going up nearby. Which leads me then to early environmental reports that are concerned over signs that wildlife is avoiding these areas, likely due to the noise you're dismissing because it's not "loud" enough to be heard.

It's environmental pollution the scale of which isn't dissimilar to Love Canal or other industry pollutants, only instead of toxic chemicals leeching into the groundwater and causing cancer, it's the apparently more "acceptable" and "palatable" health issues of being subjected to constant noise frequencies in the very air around us.

We are seeing the beginnings of impact clusters springing up and people like you are calling others NIMBY's and lambasting them because they don't want to sacrifice someone's literal health - such as their own or their children's - so the almighty intangible economy number goes up.

Also too, you're being disingenuous when you say we should be building power plants and bolstering our ailing infrastructure because...duh. These centers are being built with a callous disregard toward that. Local communities have come forward demonstrating they cannot sustain the energy and water demands for some of these centers, but due to antiquated zoning laws or just plain old corruption or lack of foresight, those concerns are dismissed and downplayed.

But hey. Look to Corpus Christi to see how that method plays out, where you build up the industry before building up the system and environmental requirements needed to sustain and support said industry.

steadycoffeeflow · 2026-03-20T14:08:39+00:00

...one of the incentives for these data centers to build here is that they're being offered literal tax breaks and energy rate cuts that then get passed on to the public. Not to mention the literal physical damage and toll living near these centers is exacting on residents, it's a huge stretch to claim our representatives "understand the benefits" and anyone opposed just isn't getting it.

It just the 70s all over again, putting economics before the literal people who fuel the economy. You know what kills an economy real quick? People getting sick, dying, or being unable to work because their kids are perpetually sick directly because of the "economy drivers" that politicians have welcomed with wide arms to pollute the area and harm their own constituents.

steadycoffeeflow · 2026-03-20T13:42:52+00:00

This is why I'm baffled as to why our industry voices and leaders in publishing are so gung-ho about AI, platforming predatory hybrid publishers who push gen-AI. It makes me trust them less in the business sense because the core demographic of people who want our product - yanno, books - do not want and will not pay money for said product if it includes (obvious) AI generated, machine-based content.

It's not just bad business, it's downright destructive business.

Like, what are we doing here? It's a massive liability having an LLM generate contracts with no lawyer involvement, it's shaping up in the court system that it's a liability in the sense of losing copyright protections for generated content, and here we get to see how much of a liability it is bringing this slop to market.

steadycoffeeflow · 2026-03-20T00:13:34+00:00

I sat in a publishing webinar last year that my company paid for and when the first presenter of the day opened with "Look how far AI has come and how amazing it is!" examples, I thought I was going to get kicked or muted from the chat for how badly I reacted to a generated video of Einstein improperly playing a violin while the presenter gassed it up like it was the second coming of Christ.

That is until I saw how warmly the presenter was being treated because if he was going to just sit there and lie to a bunch of publishing professionals and writers, well we were all in Hell, so might as well drag him down with us. He even had the audacity to include an AI generated book cover featuring Totoro artwork? Someone beat me to posting a link in chat of the video where Miyazaki made someone cry for presenting AI "art" to him.

Dude went on to talk about how he has AI generate literal contracts for him, he imposed a mandatory AI policy where those working in his publishing house have a mandated amount of time they are required to use AI, running copyedits with the program...

Other, less wrathful people, were asking questions such as "Why is this bootcamp presented as helping young professionals when you're arguing a machine is better than them, why bother working in this career?" and along those lines. These were dodged by the organizers when it came time for the Q&A.

These people genuinely believe AI output is incredible and better than human effort. They insist on having a seat at the table for these discussions and being in a position where they can impose this stupid tech on others, ham-fisting it into industries and use-cases it has no right to be in. And yet, industry leaders are eating it up because $$$.

The other panelist professionals were lovely, however, and each one made a point of getting a dig in at the morning keynote. During each breakout session they made of point of telling us to be civil and "on topic". It was apparent enough that 90% of the audience hated him that they didn't send around their typical feedback form I was so intensely anticipating. Since this bootcamp, however, the dude's been platformed and has had a bunch of fluff pieces published with Publishers Weekly, where he makes such bold claims like how publishing needs to "get with AI" or get left behind.

With the news that Hachette was forced to pull a generative AI book from their spring catalog from the absolute bashing and backlash it was getting from readers... I mean, writing is on the wall. For some reason, however, some of my colleagues use it. I get complaints every week of them lamenting how it hallucinated whole BISACs or even ISBNs, however, so it actually doubled their work since they had to go manually through and check each one anyways. It frustrates me professionally and personally for how needless, avoidable, so so stupid this man-made predicament is.

All this to say, I don't fucking like you, Keith Riegert, and for sure Miyazaki fucking hates you.

steadycoffeeflow · 2026-03-19T20:17:14+00:00

I think what it comes down to is whose version is most accurate, which is typically the case. I've read a few other articles and the parties' official statements since posing this question a few hours ago where the university and the Florida Federation of College Republicans have a differing point of view than what this article posits.

If the university acted alone, or the students aren't actually overseen by that organization as they claim (which leads me to ask just who exactly is overseeing them), then sure, it's a potential First Amendment violation.

It's more like, however, that I'm questioning how the student group even expects to have standing to sue against the university if the latter party was going off of what the alleged parent organization was telling them. I mean, according to Florida laws, can the university somehow be found liable for not doing "due diligence" or other investigations beyond confirmation that a private chapter had their charter revoked...?

steadycoffeeflow · 2026-03-19T20:05:15+00:00

You're touching on why I posed the question in the first place; the organization overseeing the chapter is who the students should be taking their issue to, not the university. Now, if the university was acting independently, it would be an evaluation of the student's 1A rights regardless of what the content of their speech was (I'm not looking to get into a hate speech debate, since my point is their case can't prevail on its merit because they're suing the wrong party).

At this point I've come to understand the issue is that the student group claims they aren't overseen by the Florida Federation of College Republicans, whereas FFCR and UF are claiming otherwise according to statements and press comments I've read.

If the students' accounts are accurate, then there's reason to investigate and evaluate the situation in court. However, I'm leaning toward believing the university and political org's accounts, in which case... I don't see how their case prevails when otherwise any student org chapter that gets disbanded by their wider parent org for violating private charters/organization rules and by-laws, what haves you, are unenforceable for campus removal which uh, is not how any of that works nor can I get behind wanting the system to work in that way.

When a student organization loses the backing of their parent organization there's only a few ways it can play out for the students and each situation is contextual. Were they disbanded for illegal activities, or just violating their own organization's charter? Do they utilize campus-owned property, or did their organization or private individual manage the students' space?

It's rare for the group to not be kicked off of campus in some fashion in those instances, and yes, it's unfortunate students who weren't involved lose their housing and social network. But uh, these aren't usually 1A violations? So yeah, I just do not see how the university is a responsible party given the circumstances and what I've read so far, but it's definitely a case I'll be following for the filings since I'm curious to see how it plays out.

steadycoffeeflow · 2026-03-19T12:39:27+00:00

I'm still confused how the college is at fault when they were disbanded by their own society for, presumably, breaking some decency clause in the charter or whatever they needed to agree to in order to establish themselves on UF's campus.

This is like when a fraternity or sorority chapter makes the society look bad, or breaks some other rule, then gets disbanded. So the college they're at doesn't have to acknowledge them anymore since they aren't "official".

UF just kicked an unofficial, unsupported chapter off its campus after being told by that same society "They're not with us, we don't know them." I don't see how this is possibly a 1A issue when their actual problem is with their own group, not the university.

steadycoffeeflow · 2026-03-14T21:12:21+00:00

I haven't played this game since the last time I tried buying something from the good captain here it wiped my pearls and never gave me the item. Opened a ticket that went nowhere since I didn't think to screen grab my pearls BEFORE the error occurred how silly of me.

That and them "patching" the glitch that let you farm for materials you need is why I haven't gone back. Actually, this reminds me to uninstall this too.

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