Latest Posts by wiwan-the-farmer - Page 6
Underground greenhouses are helping people to take back control of their nutrition and ease farming amid the climate crisis
awow. awow. awow. bup bup bup bup bup
Changing people's minds on major things is actually a very long and difficult process for both parties. I didn't actually believe that pedestrian-centric city design would be better for people that drive cars until I spent almost a year living without a car and watched hours of youtube videos explaining the issue to me. Turns out that traffic actually does go down and driving does become more pleasant if you make it harder to drive a car and easier to walk. I just straight-up refused to believe that for years. Because people just talked about it like it was obvious. But it wasn't. Because I had spent my whole life in a car-centric city going around in a car and also I was an English major in college who did not study urban planning. You can't expect me to change my entire mindset around transportation all at once. I did reach a eureka moment like two weeks ago but that was after like three years of getting exposed to these ideas periodically and living without a car for 11 months.
And yeah this post is about my big dumb animal brain accepting the science behind narrow roads and the evils of certain types of zoning laws, but it's also about stuff in general. If you don't know why someone isn't changing their mind on something, it's probably because the information they're getting hasn't reached a critical mass in their monkey brain yet. Whenever you hear stories about people changing their minds on things or leaving a certain ideology the story never goes "A person on the internet did a slam dunk on me and then I changed my mind."
It's usually a long process that happens over the course of months or years. Seeds planted here and there that coalesce eventually into a new thought or ideology over the course of years or snap together or send someone down a new path after a certain event. Same with me about pedestrian-centric cities. For me the tipping point was finding this video, which isn't necessarily super special or the best and the guy who runs the channel, in my opinion, isn't the most qualified or the most sympathetic towards every city in every situation, but it was the feather that tipped the scales in my brain to "Oh, wait. Maybe everything I thought I knew about how cities work is wrong actually." But that video alone didn't change my mind. With the amount of stuff and people that have gradually and gently been giving me information over the past couple years, something else was bound to eventually change my mind.
People on Tumblr yelling about abolishing the car, if anything, slowed down me changing my mind. Every time I saw a person saying that driving cars is stupid and that cars are bad I took a step back into my old way of thinking in defense. Because I grew up only ever using a car to get around. Rhetoric like that felt like a direct attack on my family, who I know to be loving people who care about other human beings and who drive cars literally everywhere.
And you might say, posts and videos like that aren't actually an attack on people that drive or have to drive. Okay then. Why are they phrased like that? Because that makes you feel good? Because you're angry? Alright, your anger at how it's currently impossible to get around if you don't own a car and how people who don't actually want to drive are being forced to drive is reasonable. And now I understand why it exists. I'm kind of angry too now that I get how this stuff works. However, is calling the people you're trying to convince stupid to their face and immediately bombarding them with your most radical ideas that might be completely detached from their reality and how they understand the world really the most productive way to channel your anger?
What about a guy with a knee problem that lives in rural Appalachia? Do you think he is gonna be convinced by your angry rants about bike lanes? No. He lives on a mountain that he can't climb or bike up because he's disabled and has only ever known getting around in a car. What about a person who overheats easily living in a suburb in the middle of the desert? Do you think she is inspired by your green lush pictures of trolleys running through parks in The Netherlands? No. If she leaves her house for too long without ice water she could literally die and you're going on about getting rid of, in her mind, the only thing that lets her go to the grocery store and not faint.
And again, this post is about my inability to comprehend walkable cities, but it's also about everything else you might ever want to convince someone of. The way you talk about things with your in-group that knows exactly what you're talking about should not be the same way you talk about that thing with people that you're genuinely trying to convince of something.
Perhaps my favorite detail from this last game changer episode is that the punchline to both Vic's and Jacob's magic tricks were there the whole time! Obviously Jacob's gift was there from the start, but if you look closely just before Vic picks up the card, you'll notice that it is a slightly lighter strip along the top of the monitor
and if we go back to the top of the shoot, it is already there! the answer is that it was there The Whole Time!
Not a complicated trick, but oh so thematic!
I made this as a goof a few weeks ago, and thought I may as well release it into the world. Fare thee well, Lowly Yaldabaoth!
some of my current favorite responses to weird/confusing sentences:
“many such cases”
“we love/hate to see it”
“honestly, work”
“many are saying this”
“love them or hate them they’re spitting straight facts”
“you conjure a beautiful world”
i had a fever dream about hrt gummies
[tip me im broke lol]
When my students talk over me I do this bit where I quietly tell them I’m really shy and to please let me talk and somehow it works.
me holding a gun to a mushroom: tell me the name of god you fungal piece of shit
mushroom: can you feel your heart burning? can you feel the struggle within? the fear within me is beyond anything your soul can make. you cannot kill me in a way that matters
me cocking the gun, tears streaming down my face: I’M NOT FUCKING SCARED OF YOU
which one of u was going to tell me that tea tastes different if u put it in hot water?
how do we fix the economy?
Im so fucking smart ask me anything
mushroom chat just dropped
easily my favorite viral tweet from recently
This undermines the whole utopian vision, the federation is not, and need not be Omelas
And I fully agree.
smoking that shit that makes you cry about the horrors of car-centric infrastructure
I think the best most human thing in the world is strangers doing a silly thing together
I go to the grocery store, heading straight for the dairy section. Positioning myself in the middle of the milk shelf, I let out one single long, wailing, cheese-curdling scream. Every single carton of fresh dairy product within hearing distance has now been rendered undrinkable. The poor worker whose only task this shift was to keep me out of the store and most importantly away from the dairy at all costs is fired on the spot. I do not linger to bear witness to the grief and destruction I have caused. Knowing that I caused it is enough.
These petty, pointless acts of meaningless evil are the reason that I will not see the kingdom of heaven.
“sorry i can’t come out, i have plans”
the plans:
Having the time of ferret’s life!
“Do you understand anything I’m saying?” shouted Moist. “You can’t just go around killing people!” “Why Not? You Do.” The golem lowered his arm. “What?” Moist. “I do not! Who told you that?” “I Worked It Out. You Have Killed Two Point Three Eight People,” said the golem calmly. “I have never laid a finger on anyone in my life, Mr. Pump. I may be—all the things you know I am, but I am not a killer! I have never so much as drawn a sword!” “No, You Have Not. But You Have Stolen, Embezzled, Defrauded, And Swindled Without Discrimination, Mr. Lipvig. You Have Ruined Businesses And Destroyed Jobs. When Banks Fail, It Is Seldom Bankers Who Starve. Your Actions Have Taken Money From Those Who Had Little Enough To Begin With. In A Myriad Small Ways You Have Hastened The Deaths Of Many. You Did Not Know Them. You Did Not See Them Bleed. But You Snatched Bread From Their Mouths And Tore Clothes From Their Baks. For Sport, Mr. Lipvig. For Sport. For The Joy Of The Game.”
– Going Postal, Chapter 4, by Sir Terry Pratchett
look at her