macrocarpa

tbh we are all just snapshots of ourselves at different stage of the same cycle. The Simpsons did a whole thing about lolapalooza which starts with homer looking for his favourite artists in a record store, and the record store dude, and being directed to the oldies section.

The bands that feature in that episode are the smashing pumpkins, soundgarden , cypress Hill and Peter Frampton, all of whom appear in Spotify old school lists

Except there absolutely is an absolute right and absolute wrong to gender equality (and more importantly, equity)

There is not. Equality is arbitrary. Equity is arbitrary. They are ideals / values that we each hold individually, and rank individually. Clearly, equality is an important value for you. Good. But your value of equality is shaped by you, not anyone else.

If you take your value set and say this should be the value set which everyone else has - you won’t change them. That’s my point. Equality is a value. It is ranked amongst other values. Do you value equality more than security? Financial independence? Safety? Control? Family? Social status? Faith? Children? Education? Career? Mastery of skill? Respect? Knowledge? Influence? Conservatism? Freedom? The environment?

For a given person you engage with, whether it be online, in person, in a relationship, over the phone, randomly in a street - their value set is intrinsic to them. Equality might not rank in their top five, or ten values. When you speak up on equality and say “you should”, people who don’t share your value set hear something different. What they hear is “You are wrong”. Speaking of which:

And you clearly don’t

you’re just another wilfully ignorant self serving misogynist who is wrong

sigh

That’s a shame. I’m sorry that you feel that way. Have to say it’s the first time I’ve been called a misogynist. I think if you met me you wouldn’t think that at all.

Your opinion of me doesn’t really matter - it doesn’t change anything. What did change things for me was reading The Mental Load by Emma. It crystallised what I already knew, and helped me to better understand the difference between contribution, effort and load.

Do you want to know why?

Then as those roles are indeed slowly being broken down it stands to reason that each successive generation is less willing to put up with them - but if you still see them as normal it will come as a surprise.

Except…entrenched gender roles are normal. This is expected human behaviour for 90% of the world. Equality, be it gender, age, ethnic or religious, is…just not how things work. It may be distasteful for you personally, but the rest of humanity doesn’t give a toss - Western civilisation is a thin smear of civility which only popped up in the past couple of hundred years, and what’s worked quite well for millennia is what’s still working pretty effectively for several billion people.

There is no absolute right and absolute wrong to gender equality, and that there is a regression or progression over time, merely opinions shaped by culture, background and opportunities. The events of the past 10 years have convinced me that the “good” parts of liberalism are unsustainable because people at their core are just…selfish. The only way to convince them to change something is if it is in their self interest. Regrettably, equality rarely aligns with self interest because it requires relinquishing something. Equality and equity of opportunity only exist when the opportunity exist. Otherwise it’s back to the dumb old shit we used to do.

Edited to add:

I didn’t phrase it well above,

The ground state for humanity is inequality. Whether we wish it or not.

The pursuit of equality and equity means these things need to be prioritised above other things.

It is hard to convince people to prioritise something they are not invested in, especially if they don’t benefit from it or value it.

Anything that you can think of has already been thought of, modelled, and done by international actors who have more resources, technical capability and time than you, and have far fewer morals.

You want a specific outcome to this election? So do Russia and China. They’re a lot better at this than you are and are orders of magnitude more invested in it.

you’re not missing anything, you paid attention in chemistry.

Farm feedstock.contain all the nutrients an adult cow needs, including a wide range of vitamins (including A, B, D, E, K), essential fatty acids and taurine, without the need for grass. Although obligate herbivores in the wild, domestic cows still need nutrients they would normally source from vegetation. Thankfully farm feedstock contains all those nutrients in a bioavailable grain.

grain is a professional cow food, created by grain manufacturers in 50,000BC, formulated and checked by independent animal nutritionists to meet the AAFCO(USA) and FEDIAF(Europe) guidelines for animal nutrition.

We’ve had safe and healthy variants of cow food for 52,000 years. Trying to elevate the question to animal abuse speaks entirely to personal ignorance.

Eta - modifying the diet of a domesticated animal for your convenience seems to run contrary to the premise of minimising animal cruelty.

Women are more than happy for a walk while the girls were at the moment as they were a couple of weeks ago but I did really have the chance for them in my family

Old bloomers are in their late seventies man. They’re not doing much at all these days.

Australia, eastern seaboard

My experience with cosmos is you’re going to have a lot of cosmos, in unexpected places, a lot of the time.

Yes.

When you look for things to be angry about, when you look for things to be resentful about, you find them.

When you look for things to be satisfied with, when you look for things to be grateful for, you find them.

I found the opposite. I have achieved far, far more through practising gratitude, knowing my values and moving towards them rather than being pressure and goal oriented.

I went for a walk this morning, in a park near my house. It was cold and grey, so.i was grateful for my gloves and for the solitude. How good is it that I can go for a walk, in a park near my house? Hear birds, breathe air see trees, smell the frost? How good that there are parks, and birds, and it’s safe, and I can walk. I want to keep doing it. I’m grateful for that.

Like I said, gratitude is hard.

It is hard to have gratitude when there is inequality

It is hard to have gratitude when competition is encouraged and enshrined by people who benefit from it

It is hard to have gratitude when the constructs in which we live seem unjust

It is hard to wake up and look around and find something to be grateful for

It is hard to be grateful when all you can see is what you don’t have

Being genuinely appreciative of what you do have leads to a quieter mind and a happier life. We have one life.

It comes across as some stupid bullshit, I know. But the resentment and frustration aren’t useful. Clarity of mind and purpose is, and is more sustainable than passion and anger.

My 2c.

https://www.jamesmollison.com/where-children-sleep

We are privileged. Gratitude is hard.

Aw thank you, I feel seen.

Memory’s a bit sketchy but yeah sounds about right

It gives an insight as to the nature, location and odor of many gigs

Man wait till you meet Charlie

our parents felt the same thing

Your dad simultaneously saw you as the baby who slept securely in his arms, the child he saw through junior school, the teen who he tried to help steer past his own mistakes and the adult he wistfully spoke of with pride

Imagine how good he must feel to know that you remember him this way.

The reason I say in person is because if the amount of information which is transmitted via direct conversation is orders of magnitude higher than through eye contact, tone, language and body language.

If you and I were talking right now, I could maintain eye contact, rotate my shoulders so I face you, position my head in a way that says I’m listening, use my voice to indicate that I’m contrite, or uncomfortable, or supportive.

It can be excruciatingly uncomfortable for people who are used to having virtual tools abstract away the hard parts of interaction. But that’s exactly what (in this case) women are saying they feel. They feel, in the real world, they’re not safe. To me, the weight of that comes from a direct interaction rather than a news article or twitter post.

My opinion etc