I think this is a much more useful strategy for convincing people to change. If someone like I did, mentions they aren’t happy about, for instance, pronouns, then people start lashing out. I might have had a conversation on this, but honestly the tone in some of the responses isn’t likely to convince me to listen. Even when I start out saying I’m going to end up on the losing side of this.

Language evolves because people force it to.

Sometimes, yes, often, no. New slang is naturally picked up and often makes it into the common vernacular, not because people are forcing other people to use it, but because people voluntarily start using. The same goes for loan words. The enter the language, and sometimes get mutated over time in that particular language. When “tablet” became popular someone tried to pick a Danish word for it, but it didn’t stick. Same goes for many other computer-related words, which ended up just being the English word.

But, if you choose not to respect the wishes of others, you will suffer consequences.

This is the aggressive attitude that immediately makes me reluctant to adhere to any special pronouns people may choose. I don’t know if you meant this as a lightly veiled threat, but people can become very aggressive if you “misgender” people.

The reason some languages have a gender binary is often because that society forced a gender binary on people to control them.

I haven’t heard this before, do you have some reading material I can explore?

Inventing entirely new pronouns is no more ridiculous than inventing yet another television show character or yet another tiktok dance craze or yet another romance novel or yet another $15/month subscription service that does the same things other service do or writing yet another magazine column.

I would tentatively agree, if not for the fact that “the consequences” you mentioned above for ignoring any of these things are that I don’t have to suffer them. The consequences for misgendering Elliot Page is ostracization, even if he isn’t in the conversation or likely to ever hear about any conversation I will ever have about him.

Where you put your effort shows you what you care about.

That is true. And I really don’t care that much about trans people. I want them to live a life without oppression with the same freedoms I have, but aside from that I care as much about them as do about the guy who lives in the apartment down the street, whom I’ve never met. And to that end, I think there are things that are reasonable to request from others in society, and I think there are things that are not. And changing the language for them I don’t find reasonable, just like I would ask anyone to change the language for me, and shame them if they didn’t. In the same vein, if people are so horrified about trans people using the wrong bathroom, just stop gendering them. To me, the only reason why we gender them anyway is because men take their bits out in front of everyone, so if we remove that part, they are virtually identical.

Pronouns. I get that they matter a lot to some people, and of course it’s super annoying (if not worse) to be referred to in the wrong way, but I find it unreasonable to demand being referred to something outside of the gender binary, simply because that’s the way language works.

I am aware that English has used “they” for a person of unknown gender for ages, but for one, I don’t think it’s something that you should demand people call you when they actually know your gender, but also I really hate that this is making its way into other languages like my own, that has never had this convention. Inventing entirely new pronouns is just ridiculous, I have a hard enough time to remember your name.

I am also aware that language evolves, but this is not evolution, it’s forced, and if one group of people can try to force a change they prefer, I’m as much in my right to resist it if I don’t like it.

People are super passionate about this though and in fifty years I’m sure I’ll be seen as a fossil for not getting with the times now - in fact I’m sure certain people see me like this now.

People don’t care about federation. Or vendor lock-in.

I haven’t tried bluesky, but mastodon seems a little broken by design. I’d you go to a post you are always told that the host server may have more replies. Things like that make it seem immature and perhaps just a bad solution compared to a monolithic approach.

If you don’t like the instance (why wouldn’t I?) you can just move to a different one. Yes, and restart my network. It’s not really a good solution. I would like to exist on mastodon and just use some server. If I don’t like it, continue somewhere else.

Guys: Fascinate her with a wheel of cheese.

A salesman for the company forged sales orders. As soon as the company started billing the supposed customers he was discovered and asked to leave immediately. No severance (which you by law are entitled to), just leave, and we won’t file charges. I have no idea what possessed him to do something so stupid…

He’s good at talking to dictators!

Some moron in highschool…

Use hand lotion. Dude, my hands are dry, back off!

Spotify daylist (search for it). Better than discover weekly imo, and changes multiple times during the day.

Or The Wandering Inn. It’s a slow burn, but it burns for ages.

Firefly

And by the end I feel like it almost started.

Farscape. Always farscape.

I had to rent an apartment for two months in between my old apartment was sold and my new house was ready. The apartment was furnished, so everything had to go into storage. Immediately after we moved in the owners told us they had put it up for sale and we would have potential buyers coming by now and again.

I wasn’t homeless, and in the grand scheme of things this was just a small pitstop in a fairly great (if somewhat badly maintained) apartment, but then, my other moves have been much smoother, so here we are.

I thought this would be about being s whole lot more wealthy, so I had questions ready a colleague of mine overheard from a seven year old.

“What is your estate called?”

“How many barrels of land does your family own?”

When it comes to a million euro house, I don’t think you need to behave that differently from what’s your norm. People from every walk of life can come into that kind of money, be it from inheritance, a good job, lucky investment or help from parents. Just pretend it’s a house you can barely afford and ask questions as if you’re considering buying it. Point out flaws. Or don’t, you’re allowed to reserve judgement.

The problem is once you really experience and notice high quality it’s hard to go back

I had this with earphones. Once I bought a better pair, going back to my old ones, it just sounded like cardboard. Don’t invest in good audio equipment, even once. It will cost you for a lifetime!

You’re the closest to the truth. It’s actually a booster propeller for when the plane needs to go super sonic.

My guy, pasta drinking straws are for you!

I was so confused about the message… Ken went full patriarchy, but then demonstrated that it wasn’t really that bad (also, no horses). So compared to barbieland the real world is absolutely paradise. Then they flip the full-on matriarchal barbieland to complete patriarchy, find that the women don’t like that, do a bit of gender war and go mostly matriarchy because reasons. And than a bitter remark that women have it hard in the real world so men will have it hard in barbieland. It’s all over the place.

The weird pacing, jokes that fall flat and at one point goes all 3 stooges just left me feeling… Empty, afterwards. All that hype, all the people rooting for and against it, people complaining that it didn’t win all the awards… I thought it was a vapid, low quality summer movie.

People who aren’t liberal when they’re young have no heart.

People who aren’t conservative when they’re old have no money.