anybody else in the club feeling this one

website

StopNCII.org is operated by the Revenge Porn Helpline which is part of SWGfL, a charity that believes that everyone should benefit from technology, free from harm. Founded in 2000, SWGfL works with a number of partners and stakeholders around the world to protect everyone online

Sounds legit

I’m bored and nosy. Please reblog this with the book you’re currently reading.

Let's Talk About Missing Persons

So, I've seen this post circulating last week, and a few others like it in the past year. I think this probably needs to be discussed every few years, and it feels like time.

First, a few caveats: there are reports on the post that Abby has been located and is fine, so no need to reblog and also that's great news, I'm very happy she is safe. Second, I did not especially doubt the veracity of the post, so I'm not impugning the people who made and posted it, but I also declined to reblog it for reasons I'll get into. Third, I know that especially in marginalized communities it can be dangerous to involve the police, and that Missing White Woman Syndrome means it can be difficult to get media coverage. I understand why Abby's community may have chosen to search for her in the way they did.

However, for everyone's safety, I do not link any missing persons post that requires you to contact an individual to report the missing person's whereabouts. If the poster doesn't ask you to contact the police or a known missing persons organization, I won't do it.

This is for the safety of the missing person.

When you see a post with someone's photo, name, and last known whereabouts, and you are asked to contact an individual -- a family member, partner, friend, etc -- what you are being asked to do is report on the whereabouts of one person you don't know to another person you don't know. You don't know that the person you're talking to isn't an abusive partner or parent, a stalker, or a person who means them material harm. One of the Insta accounts in the missing image doesn't appear to exist, and another has no bio and very little captioning on their images. I couldn't verify that Abby even knew these people.

Again: when I looked at the image, it looked sincere to me. I didn't doubt those people were earnestly searching for a friend they were worried about. But also, an abuser doesn't look like an abuser until they do. So I don't make exceptions, because a missing person is missing but a victim outed to their abuser has strong odds of being murdered. The most dangerous time in the life of an abused person is when they are leaving their abuser. Even if a victim simply logs on to say "Hey, I'm fine, these people mean me harm" the abuser has now flushed them out of hiding, and manipulated them into making a public statement.

If you can't verify positively that the person searching does not mean the missing person harm, you should not be circulating a post, full stop. At the very least, if the community doesn't wish for the help of the police (understandable) or can't get the help of an organization or community (frequent), the missing persons poster should advise you to speak to the missing person, not the searcher, and notify them they're being sought, as long as it's safe for both you and them to do so.

This isn't intuitive. We want to help, and search posters like that tug on the heartstrings. We know that when the police get involved even in something this innocuous, it can be perilous for everyone. But in situations where someone is so vulnerable, we have to concern ourselves first with harm reduction, which in this case means not spreading someone's photo with a stranger's contact information on it.

I'm glad Abby was found and is fine and that her searchers were in earnest. But that will not always be the case, and it's important to remember that.

ough to be a cat sleeping in a dandelion field. eepy sleepy

most of the talk on this website about Game Changer is how Sam Reich psychologically tortures his contestants, but I want to make it clear to the uninitiated that he's actually extremely ethical about it

He sends out a company wide email and asks them to choose episodes based on a chili pepper rating system

meaning he doesn't put 🌶️🌶️ people into 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ episodes

they're also big on consent ie cast and crew have to be okay with it before they'll do nudity or something like that in an episode

it's like the bdsm of psychological torture. safe, sane, and consensual.

the contestants know what they're getting into, and they're full down

Brennan Lee Mulligan is enrichment for Sam Reich

it's a very efficient system

Kind of a dog heaven is squirrel hell situation

I’m gnashing my teeth like a child of Cain

If this is a prison I’m willing to bite my own chain

the science bitch urge to correct all common misinformation when it appears vs the knowledge that people hate that bitch actually

before I learned that this behavior is annoying I was the most intolerable child on the playground I will tell you that much

rly did not expect this to get notes but I guess we are all that bitch. anyway this is something I am still actively working on bc this urge is hard to master but when this comes up, I find it helpful to ask myself 1) is this misinformation going to directly hurt someone if I don't correct it? 2) will correcting this person hurt their feelings or make them feel stupid?

if the answer to question 1 is yes, you should probably make the correction, but make an effort to do it as gently as possible. ("so, fun fact about that, there was a study..." works at least a little better than "actually, that's not true.") if the answer to question 1 is no, then things really depend on question 2. my default is to assume yes, I might hurt someone's feelings, because I've seen too many people shut down completely after being corrected on something.

anyway. ymmv and I am not an expert at this but asking myself these questions has helped me not seem like quite such a know-it-all asshole in social situations.

(this is also all very context dependent. I work in science, and at my work it is completely acceptable to say "no, actually you're wrong and I can provide citations to back it up," even over something trivial. this can make it even harder to find the right balance among non-scientists, but I still gotta try because I do not want to shut down conversations or hurt people's feelings.)

in case you were wondering about my other annoying urges, no I have not solved the "giving unsolicited advice on tumblr dot com" one yet.

further excellent advice about this from tags from @pegasusdrawnchariots:

#about#I spent years feeling bad abt this before I was like#u know what. my friends deserve to be well-informed adults#& I don't want them to get hit w a 'well actually' by someone truly insufferable down the track for sharing the same fact#so if anyone wants to know‚ the secret to being a know-it-all bitch that people DON'T hate is#first: validate what the other person said. yes I read that somewhere too. yes we got taught this in school growing up too. (KINDLY)#second: offer to share yr info. OFFER ONLY give them a way out. sometimes people have heard it all before & they just don't care. that's OK#third: the best way to share a correction I find is to do it Conspiratorially. people love being In Cahoots. make them included not insulte#'ooh do u wanna hear what I read in a debunking article abt that?' 'when we studied this in class I heard a different story!'#'I'm abt to save u so much money. this is unfortunately a very well covered-up scam & I can tell u why if ur curious'#I have saved people from eating raw potato using this method. from buying collagen powder. it works trust#fourth: share what u know! if possible first identify where/why/how the misconception occurred#journalists misrepresenting data. a quote out of context. propaganda from a monopolised industry. etc. esp w concrete evidence#so the person doesn't feel stupid by the end!! this is more likely to make them appreciate u than resent u for correcting them#fifth (optional): u can be a bit self-effacing if u read the room & deem it necessary#e.g. 'I just realise now that no one asked haha but I wanted to share it anyway! I know I had my mind blown when I first found this out'#I know that as a science bitch yr priority is The Facts. trust me I've been there#but if u want to pull this off around people‚ yr priority has to be The People. sad but true#u have to make them feel like this is a balanced conversation AND check that they actually care AND that they're curious#& sometimes the person u were originally telling might not care but someone else who heard might approach u later & ask on their own!#if u were kind the first time around people know they can be curious/ignorant around u without feeling belittled#also. it helps if u have a reputation as the Local Fact Sharer#that way people will see u kindly correcting them as the Local Fact Sharer just Sharing Them Facts again#so volunteering Facts that don't stem from correcting people is vital groundwork#anyway go forth science bitches!! I love & cherish u <3

Eclipse, ink and gelly rolls on 27x36cm paper.

please enjoy this eastern grass owl. owls are so important to me please observe him

"A funny thing happened on the way to the enshittocene: Google – which astonished the world when it reinvented search, blowing Altavista and Yahoo out of the water with a search tool that seemed magic – suddenly turned into a pile of shit.

Google's search results are terrible. The top of the page is dominated by spam, scams, and ads. A surprising number of those ads are scams. Sometimes, these are high-stakes scams played out by well-resourced adversaries who stand to make a fortune by tricking Google[...]

Google operates one of the world's most consequential security system – The Algorithm (TM) – in total secrecy. We're not allowed to know how Google's ranking system works, what its criteria are, or even when it changes: "If we told you that, the spammers would win."

Well, they kept it a secret, and the spammers won anyway.

...

Some of the biggest, most powerful, most trusted publications in the world have a side-hustle in quietly producing SEO-friendly "10 Best ___________ of 2024" lists: Rolling Stone, Forbes, US News and Report, CNN, New York Magazine, CNN, CNET, Tom's Guide, and more.

Google literally has one job: to detect this kind of thing and crush it. The deal we made with Google was, "You monopolize search and use your monopoly rents to ensure that we never, ever try another search engine. In return, you will somehow distinguish between low-effort, useless nonsense and good information. You promised us that if you got to be the unelected, permanent overlord of all information access, you would 'organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.'"

They broke the deal." -Cory Doctorow

Read the whole article: https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/21/im-feeling-unlucky/#not-up-to-the-task

Anecdotes by medical practitioners 

“I had a patient come in for an STD check. She was very upset and continued to tell me that she only had one partner. Progressing through my assessment, she further divulged that even if he was sleeping with other people it shouldn’t matter ‘because he uses a condom every time and he makes sure to wash it thoroughly after every use’.”

"Had a lady who measured her baby’s temperature by pre-heating the oven and putting one hand in front of it while the other hand was on the baby’s forehead. She told the nurse her baby’s fever was about 250 degrees.”

"Lady has to have foot amputated and is given waiver forms to sign pre-op. Buddy asks if she needs time to think about it. She’s very nonchalant and doesn’t seem to care much what they do. He gets suspicious and probes a bit as to why she’s not more concerned. She says she gets that they have to operate and it’s OK because the foot will grow back.”

"I had a couple who had been trying to conceive for over two years. I asked all the usual questions, how often do you have sex, any previous pregnancy, etc etc. Something seemed off to me during the consult, so I continued to ask questions. Finally I asked if he ejaculated while inserted into the vagina. Both parties looked confused.Turns out the couple was not having insertional sex at all. I had to awkwardly explain to them how insertional sex works. Diagrams were required.”

"Patient comes in, she’s upset. She’s pregnant, and she doesn’t understand why. She’s on the pill. Upon talking to her at great length, I find out that she only takes the pills on the days that she is sexually active – no other time.”

"Patient comes in with her bf. They are indignant, as if somehow I could’ve prevented [the pregnancy]. The problem? Well, the pills were bothering the girl’s stomach, so, being a gallant bf, he decided to start taking them instead.”

“I was explaining the treatment to the husband of a patient about to be discharged. He kept nodding and agreeing with me, but I knew it was flying over his head. Turned out a fundamental problem was that I was describing the drugs as ‘tablets’ and he had no clue what those were.”

Reddit thread 

Hahah

Oh my god… I can’t decide if I should laugh or cry…

People sometimes doubt the that standardised health and sex education is necessary. This is why those people are wrong.

Things i learned as a child that probably no one intended to teach me

Reread the first point with an adhd lens and you’ll see why we all have low self esteem at some point.

As someone who is a workaholic and works with other workaholics, the 'human beings do no require rest outside of sleep' thing kind of hit me with a mallet, because I've been in that mindset for a while and honestly didn't realize it.

I fucking hate when people say stuff like this. Especially when it's on a generally good post with valuable information. On the one hand I want to share that information because it could genuinely help someone; on the other, I don't want to spread this type of guilt-tripping and shaming and potentially trigger someone else like me. It's a lose-lose situation. No matter what I do, I am going to feel guilty. No matter what I do, I will feel like a terrible person. It sucks and I just wish people would stop doing this. I know it's shocking, but it is actually possible to make an important and useful post without guilting everyone that sees it into sharing.

[Image description. Various images with text. The text reads, you have no excuse to not reblog this. I don't care what your blog theme is! Reblog to save a life! Don't you dare fucking scroll past. Everyone needs to reblog this, idc what your excuse is this is important. Not reblogging is a moral failure! It's mandatory! End image description.]

My communications teacher told me this, and I think it applies here:

“If you accuse someone, expect that they will immediately retaliate. We’re wired to growl back if someone growls first.”

When posts say, “you have no excuse,” the most common first thought will be something along the lines of “well maybe I do!” By framing the need to reblog as an accusation if one doesn’t, it actually drives away the otherwise passive audience that would’ve reblogged the post.

A much more successful addition to a post is something along the lines of “It would really help me/the cause out if you reblogged!” With this phrasing, it makes the passive audience feel more inclined to reblog because they will feel like they are helping you/the cause. So, it benefits both the audience and the cause

“If you accuse someone, expect that they will immediately retaliate. We’re wired to growl back if someone growls first.”

THIS THIS THIS EVERYONE SHOULD KNOW THIS!

If you start with fighting words, don't be surprised when you get a fight.

me getting any new clothing: I will wear this for 5 weeks straight

New shirt! by osombu