The fact that you can’t raise taxes on billionaires even slightly without them pouring money into fascist political movements is, of itself, evidence that billionaires as a class shouldn’t be allowed to exist in the first place.

You, ah, don’t think it’s unfair to judge people’s morals based on their finances?

I, ah, think that it’s perfectly fair to judge people’s morals based on the amount of money they pour into neo-nazi political movements, yeah actually.

I don’t know how else to tell y’all that the difference between “X is a social construct” and “X isn’t real” is very, very, very, very important!

Money is a social construct. Laws are a social construct. Prison is a social construct. All are very real, as you will find out if you ever rob a bank.

What “X is a social construct” means: this concept is something created and reinforced by our society, and therefore it isn’t actually necessarily a fundamental or natural truth of existence, and we should be able to modify, expand, or eliminate said construct if it does harm or doesn’t accurately represent or help the people living in said society.

What “X is a social construct” doesn’t mean: we made this thing up so it is totally meaningless and has absolutely no consequences.

how y’all look at the (usually) adult man who impregnated her

asian americans saved romcoms. that’s all.

No one admits is but everyone’s REAL favorite ship dynamic is just

Person A: Character you can project onto

Person B: Your type

why none of them got into The Good Place

What I love about this is its acknowledgment that Jason had no intentions at all

this is all 100% true but it always made me really mad that Chidi’s “crime” was having a severe anxiety disorder like he needed understanding and therapy, sending him to the Bad Place for something he had literally no control over was incredibly fucked up

I feel like a less-surface theme of the show is that they’re all in a situation where they have been forced into bad patterns by forces outside their control - Chidi has SEVERE anxiety; Eleanor was forced by abuse and neglect to adopt a self-centered attitude from early childhood and, like many people with traumatic pasts, responds by not dealing with difficult emotions; Jason was very overtly raised in an environment where he got no education and all his models for behaviour were criminal and/or self-destructive; and Tahani has been raised in an environment where everything is performative and she is shot down for any genuine expression of unhappiness or non-material want. Just as Michael and Janet are made one way but changed by their experiences, the moral of the story is that things outside your control shape you but you can move away from them. That could easily be really insulting, in a sort of ‘just get over it’ way, but the idea isn’t that they change solely because they decide to be better - all six of them change because their circumstances change and give them the OPPORTUNITY to be better, because they’re finally given the support system they lack.

I like The Good Place because the whole show has since day 1 been predicated on the idea that black and white moral judgements made in a vacuum are bullshit, and that moral choices are informed by things outside our control, whether that be education, behaviour modelling, unfair treatment or mental health issues. That doesn’t mean we aren’t responsible for our actions but it DOES mean we have to understand morality in the context of people’s varied experiences AND asks for the possibility that if their environment is improved, their ability to function as moral agents also improves.

Jolene

Jolene

oh my god the entire thing works

when you get a masters degree youre allowed to respond to your professors emails with “ok love you”

this is an insult

I once applied and interviewed at a bookstore cafe for a barista position. It was way closer to my home, and I had almost a decade of experience working in a coffee shop at that point. 

Got to the interview, and it turned out they didn’t want a barista, they wanted someone to spearhead their new cafe, as the cafe that had been in the store before didn’t want to resign their lease with the bookshop. They wanted to put their own cafe in its place, all new menus etc. They needed someone experienced to train their new staff, to handle window displays, to communicate with the bookstore owners about changes and needs of the cafe, to be able to handle inventory and ordering.

Okay, I had basically done most of that stuff at my previous job. I asked if cafe positions would also be required/trained to work the bookstore. They would. They would be required to run the book sale counter, stock and reshelf books, and help bookshop customers find things. They would also–despite having an outside cleaning company–have to help maintain bathroom cleanliness. They’d have to take out trash, and clean spills, and vacuum.  Wow, that’s a lot, I said. Is this a manager’s position, then?

No, I was told, it wasn’t, but there was a chance that after a training period it might become one. And that made me pause, because I’d been working as the front-of-house manager at my cafe, and I knew how much work that entailed, and what kind of money I was making, and it was only the commute that had me looking for a new job. So I asked what the job paid. $8. E I G H T  D O L L A R S. Per hour. Barely above minimum. For all of that work. For someone they expected to get an entirely new cafe up and running, and then also do the work of the bookstore and the cleaning company as well.  I thanked the woman for the interview, said I’d have to talk to my significant other about the impact a four dollar pay cut would have on our finances, and that I wasn’t sure it was the job for me. She asked me to sleep on it, and she’d call me the next day.  This is a job I was way more than qualified for. I had years of experience doing exactly the things they wanted. It was a convenient location, close to my home–I could walk there if I absolutely had to. I did not go home and talk about that four dollar pay cut and what it would do to our finances. I knew as soon as she told me that not only was it not feasible for us, it was downright insulting. That little money? For a frankly ridiculous list of responsibilities and expectations? She called back the next day. I thanked her again, and told her in no uncertain terms that my time was worth way more than what they were offering. And whenever people bitch about Millennials being lazy, not spending money, not buying houses…whatever the complaint of the month is…I think about the very nice lady who conducted this interview, and how confused she was that I didn’t want the job. 

“I was raised Catholic” just translates to “I’m an atheist, but I feel kinda bad about it.”

This post came into my home and murdered me with a crucifix

the worst damage marvel movies did to entertainment is make it so any dialog in anything ever has to be witty quips back and forth

Of course I love 'and they were quarantined' but take a moment and consider 'and they were videoconferencing.'

Two people who meet for the first time while social distancing. They work in different departments or in different cities. At first they're dressed business casual and keeping things professional. Then one day a pet appears and conversation gets casual.

They start sharing tips for how to exercise in a tiny apartment. They commiserate over the lack of favourite foods or activities. It turns out they were both going to go to an event that is now canceled.

Eventually, they're both in their pajamas. Work day is done, but their call has now moved to the evening. They cook the same meal, stream a movie together. When will this lockdown end?

So much potential for pining. So many longing looks. Social distancing video calling coworkers to friends to lovers.

How dare you hide this in the tags??

There is something kind of heartwarming about how fandom will take any terrible situation and figure out how to turn it into a love story

the walking dead, game of thrones, and breaking bad were just superwholock for men

Hey so the trolley problem is dumb because the real person at fault for any of the deaths is the person who designed the trolley without an emergency braking system, the people who put in the purchase order for a trolley without an emergency braking system, the people who approved a PO for a trolley without an emergency braking system, the people who delivered a trolley without an emergency braking system, the organization that inspected and certified a trolley without an emergency braking system,and the operator who did not make a huge stink about being assigned to a trolley without an emergency braking system.

Whether you pull the lever is irrelevant, because a whoooole mess of people fucked up for you to be in that hypothetical situation.

Seriously, like, as a professional engineer, I find the premise of the trolley problem offensive. Cause like, so many safety regulations have been violated that it’s just… insane.

“But, Cody, what if there was an emergency braking system, and it failed?”

Failure to perform regular maintenance and inspection. So, it’s still someone else’s fault.

“What if maintenance and inspections were done correctly, and it still failed?”

Some engineer somewhere failed to design a failsafe with the necessary redundancies. Again, it’s someone else’s fault.

“What about sabotage?”

The saboteur is obviously to blame.

“What if it’s just a freak accident?”

Once again there’s that engineer failing to place redundancies.

“What if it was just an act of God, and the engineer and everyone else did everything right?”

Then God is to blame. Duh. Not sure why this is so hard to get.

Any accident investigator will tell you that an accident is caused by a chain of incidents, and there were always several places the disaster could have been stopped.

Trolley problems are just philosophers being cruel to their audiences.

I would look at whoever is tying people to trolley tracks. That might be the issue right there.