888? The jokes write themselves.

Disclaimer: before you post anything ask yourself if you are going to dox yourself or someone else and if you are going to get anyone put on a higher priority watchlist than they're already on, yourself including. If the answer is yes, do not post it.

Some things are better talked about in an oblique way (and referencing Minecraft after the fact is about as useful in this regard as posting an image on Facebook saying that you do not consent to them using your personal information), some things are better off whispered in person, some things are better off not talked about at all. With that out the way...

What are some interesting things that you have come across?
What are you surprised about not being adopted more widely?

Shits getting real and it's worth having a discussion about what can make protests more effective. I'm talking group strategy, personal tactics, protective gear - anything really.

I hear that this has been tried before but it didn't really land because finding viable substitutes for particular terms can be difficult. I'm fascinated by language though and I wanted to take a shot at this myself.

Just a disclaimer that I'm not trying to drag anyone over using any of these terms and I'm not going to pretend that I'm some paragon of anti-ableism myself - I have work to do on this front, you probably do too and if we all work together we can make some positive change and establish better habits and a more supportive culture in our communities.

Here's a list of words that are more socially acceptable in their ableism and some suggestions for alternatives:

Crazy, Stupid, Dumb, Moronic, Idiotic

[In the sense that something is incorrect or bad]

Silly, foolish, absurd, ridiculous, laughable, nonsense/nonsensical, illogical, incomprehensible, inscrutable, irrational, contradictory, hypocritical, self-defeating, naive, ill-conceived, inane, asinine, counterproductive, unbelievable,

Crazy, Mad

[In the sense of letting loose or being enthusiastic]

Going wild, getting stuck into something, in a frenzy, on a rampage, being engrossed, head over heels, obsessed.

Psychotic, Psychopath, Psycho

[In the sense that something is cruel]

Vicious, bloodthirsty, monstrous, horrific, sadistic, heartless, brutal, ruthless, horrendous, reprehensible, despicable, depraved.

Crippled

Hamstrung, moribund, incapacitated, impaired, ineffective/ineffectual, hog-tied (lol).

What are some other ableist words that are pretty commonplace even amongst the left that you've heard?

Are there terms that I have overlooked or any ones that you use yourself that you'd like to replace?

If you ever feel hopeless, just remember that in the course of time barely longer than a few years things have gone from a situation where being critical of the system and using the term capitalism would get you derision and you'd be marked as some sort of radical communist and people would shut off to your message while hurling red scare bullshit at you.

These days everyone shits on things like capitalism and imperialism.

They even name it directly.

The best part of it is that what used to signify very specific in-group values is now so widespread that it's incredibly common to find average "I hate the system" sentiment that is framed by using terms like capitalism.

Average people do not use the term "rat race" anymore, unless they are boomers. People just call it out directly. People rarely use terms like "the 1%" unless they're turbolibs like AOC who are trying to euphemise their message to garner votes.

Out in the wild, I have trouble identifying who is genuinely based and a comrade these days because everyone is out there openly shitting on capitalism directly on the regular. It's like the irl version of queerbaiting that happens in the media except it's comradebaiting and instead of it having cynical motivations it's really, really encouraging.

This stuff is completely normalised these days. Over the course of a few short decades the mainstream discourse has gone from "Globalisation bad" to "The 1% is bad" to "Actually it's just capitalism and it plain sucks".

This isn't some ephemeral fashion trend either - this is something that has gradually gathered momentum and it's a long-standing undercurrent in society.

If this can happen with a dirty word like capitalism or socialism, where decades upon decades of red scare indoctrination can simply be swept away in a matter of years, then take heart because it means that change is possible and that it's happening in real-time. The same thing is happening with decades of post-9/11 islamaphobia - I know it's part of discourse in places like this one to use terms like inshallah, mashallah, and alhamdulillah but this is not the only pocket of the world where Arab and Muslim cultures are being embraced.

Things are changing very rapidly and there's no sign of this pace letting up.

¡Venceremos! 💪

I'm pretty partial to calling it the Model Why but I feel like name Panzer Jank is better at getting the message across verbally.

I strongly recommend following Artlust on these platforms if you're interested in art, history, and anthropology and where these intersect.

Artlust is really good on matters of gender and social analysis (think like examining and deconstructing beauty norms or gendered fashion trends). The linked video shows how they get very near to Marxian analysis and there's obviously Foucault being drawn upon too but in a very simple and relatable way.

If you're looking for a really interesting contribution to your feed, mostly through bite-sized videos, that range from just pure appreciation for art to discussions about stuff like how textile production took place in history, to the way that gender is represented in art, to trends over time in arts and crafts and what that can tell us about societies, and all sorts of other things then give them a follow.

An interesting amount of geopolitical insight, in between the apologism for the Imperialist hegemon and its running dogs. I think that a popular mainstream musician openly talking about how Israel was seeking the bomb "for defense" deserves a modicum of respect.

(Although that fell entirely flat some 5 years later when Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, the Ukrainian who held a Palestinian passport and decided that she had divine right to colonize the land of Palestine and beyond, threatened to use nukes in order to coerce the US into interceding on behalf of Israel to shift the tide of the Yom Kippur War. Remarkable that Joe Biden is to the right of Richard Nixon, of all people, on the matter of foreign policy, of all things. What zero countervailing force to the liberal hegemony does to a geopolitical MFer. May Gorby Rot In Piss for all of eternity for what he unleashed upon the world.)

Anyway Tom Lehrer is an interesting figure, being a bit of a renaissance man who was a popular musician in his era, a satirist, and a mathematician. It seems like he actually worked on the bomb himself.

And he is also credited with inventing the jello shot. If I didn't fact-check this myself there's not a chance that I would believe such a claim. Apparently the dude is still alive too.

(Wait, why am I historyposting in the Music comm..?)

Obviously it came out after 9/11. It feels like it came pretty hot on the heels of it, so maybe it dropped a year or two after or even less than that (at least that's what it feels like - I'm at about 50% confidence on that detail).

There was no music video accompanying it that I am aware of.

It was very Balkans-folk inspired. I think the accordion featured pretty strongly throughout the song, although that probably describes a whooole lot of Balkans music lol.

It definitely wasn't a traditional folk song. It drew upon pop music because it was fairly upbeat and high tempo. The production values were mediocre so it was probably released on an independent or small record label. It felt like it had some light punk or folk-punk influences, I think in particular the vocals but the instrumentation was definitely Balkans folk-pop.

I cannot remember a single lyric, it was not in a language I recognise and if I name any one of the Balkan languages and I get it wrong then I risk making more enemies in the region than Bill Clinton did.

I feel like the lyrics were sorta critiquing US foreign policy broadly in somewhat vague terms (think more like "and there hasn't been a single country that hasn't seen the shadow of your bombs" rather than, idk, a System Of A Down song listing specific US war crimes by name and date) and the chorus was sorta mocking in tone saying something that had the vibe of "And now on September 11 you ask 'How could this have ever happened to me'?" Obviously that is nowhere near an accurate representation of the specific wording, it's just the vague impression that I can recall.

The title of the song was not in English as far as I remember. I feel like I'd be able to say so definitively it if it was. I could have sworn that I saw at least one of those letters that was an S with the little ˇ on top of it but idk that's probably cryptomnesia filling in the gaps more than anything substantive.

This is absolutely all I can rack my brain for details on. I wish I had something more concrete than impressions and vibes and a broad geographical region to point to. If this post has left you feeling frustrated then i have an overabundance of solidarity for you because I feel exactly the same way - this has been like a recurring ulcer in my memory and it flares up every few months and I mentally poke at it and aggravate it but it only leads to more irritation rather than it ever kicking my memory into gear and producing some solid nugget of a detail that I can use as a lead.

Me, to my memory:

Thanks!

Idk about the whole "127 variations" thing and tbh I'm deeply skeptical about it - I reckon that's just a way of selling a course tbh.

But aside from that and the brief shilling segment in the middle, this video is a really thorough look at ADHD across its presentation, symptoms, treatment options with decent consideration for neurophysiology and neurochem etc. in about as succint a video as I've ever come across.

I think a lot of clinicians don't dig deep enough into the span of symptoms of ADHD and this might be a good starting point for folks with ADHD or people who think they might have it to begin discussions with their doctors, especially if you are dealing with difficult symptoms or side effects.

Some bits might go over your head unless you're a nerd for this stuff but I can find some other videos or I can do my best to explain but even if you don't fully understand every part of this video I reckon you'll still find some useful information in it.

(It's also kinda vindicating because I occasionally talk about conditions that aggravate ADHD or which can mimic it - sleep disturbances, anaemia, problems with hormone levels etc. so it's nice to see this stuff getting mentioned and it's validating to see a qualified psychiatrist talking about this because it means I'm not a total crackpot.)

[CW: for all the typical heavy metal health stuff]

I think this is going to be more of a vent post than anything. I'm not expecting anyone to provide me with a comment that will be a watershed moment for me.

Here's the backdrop:

I was caught in a bad long-term relationship and didn't know it.

A had a crisis of political beliefs that really shook my worldview to its foundations because what I thought I knew about things and the way that I understood and moved in the world was all through that political lens.

I had been dealing with poor mental health since forever but I reached a turning point where I finally acknowledged that I was autistic, which again shook my worldview because it was a massive shift in I thought I knew about myself and my interpersonal relationships, as well as my relationship to myself.

I got a curveball diagnosis of ADHD along the way, and one of the things that they don't tell you when you start on ADHD meds as an adult is that you can expect your relationships to others to change and that often if you have a bad relationship, ADHD meds can be the catalyst for change there. They also don't tell you if you have a significant history of trauma, especially if it hasn't been processed, that when you start ADHD meds your brain is going to find itself with a whole lot more presence and a whole lot of reserves so you're probably going to start dredging up and processing that old trauma whether you like it or not.

As I got things together and found some of the right meds, my long-term relationship deteriorated. I started to keep track of things a lot better and this helped me to realise what was really going on in the relationship.

Anyway, shit got really bad with my ex engaging in medical abuse, using the cops as leverage (e.g. physically assaulting me and then calling the cops on me) and lots of stuff like that.

I was already burnt out before she started becoming openly abusive of me. I didn't have anyone that I could fall back on for support. I was preparing to become homeless and to live out of my car, until my ex stole it. The stronger and more independent I got, the more of a threat that was to my ex and the worse the abuse got. Those who do not move do not notice their chains, and all that.

And meanwhile the ADHD meds were working pretty well but they were also making me much more prone to full-blown anxiety and I was processing old trauma while getting fresh trauma heaped on me. I needed them to be able to get my shit together but I desperately needed to not take them because for as much as they were helping me, they were also making things that much harder too.

Anyway, I get out of the situation and I start again basically from scratch. Except I have a pile of trauma to deal with, even more than before.

By this point I had been redlining it for a very long time and I was so focused on survival that my mental health went to shit. I started suffering bouts of catatonia and I had to rely on myself to figure out what was going on and to ascertain the cause of it, without knowing what it was. That took a heroic effort on my part because I was dealing with really intense suicidality, trying to work through the trauma, trying to rebuild my life, and between all of that I was getting pummeled by these periods where I was barely able to care for myself in the most basic ways. Then I had to try and scrape together whatever was left over to determine the etiology of these mysterious bouts where I was debilitated -I had to catalogue all of the symptoms and potential triggers and then I had to make a list of causes and to eliminate the easiest and most likely ones until I figured out what was happening to me.

And there was stuff that had to be dealt with in the court system and with police and other government agencies because my ex did shit behind the scenes like committing fraud in my name and stealing restricted meds (think Schedule II if you are in the US) and having to report this to the police because otherwise the risk was that my ex would have these meds with my name on the prescription and that this could possibly be used to either cause me legal trouble or that I could get my authority to be prescribed those meds rescinded because there was "evidence" of me giving them to others/selling them. I hate dealing with the cops but it was a situation where I couldn't afford to risk my access to the meds and I couldn't let my ex exploit this potential vulnerability if the theft wasn't reported immediately. So I had to compromise on my principles. Hooray! 🎉

Anyway, I determine that the most likely candidate for those debilitating bouts is catatonia and so I scrape whatever I can into researching this for myself. I had to do a medication review for myself because I suspected that some meds were aggravating the suspected catatonia because if you go to a pharmacist or doctor and request a medication review because you suspect you're catatonic they're going to look at you like you're completely unhinged.

Stuff falls into place and the catatonia hypothesis fits - it explains some anomalous responses to other meds and it has a lot of explanatory power.

I make my case to my psychiatrist but unfortunately the gold standard for diagnosing and treating catatonia is the lorazepam challenge (a benzo) and I didn't want to come off as drug-seeking so I had researched alternatives to this and had a breakthrough with treatment when I requested a different drug to use as a trial. A couple more positive responses to the drugs and taking them once when I wasn't catatonic, yielding a completely opposite response, made the catatonia diagnosable.

I get through the legal stuff. I start dealing with managing the difficult side effects from the ADHD meds through the same sorta process as above, except it required more of a self-inflicted crash course in psychopharmacology. My life becomes stable.

And since that point I've been so, so pervasively tired. I was ready to give up before any of all this shit started.

I'm dealing with immense (autistic) burnout coupled with crippling depression and it's hard because half of the advice for dealing with depression is contradicted by half of the advice for dealing with burnout and vice versa and because I just don't have the energy to do much or to make positive changes in my life, so I feel completely hamstrung.

The things that give my life meaning are hard to participate in because I am very often too tired to engage with them.

I have to swallow my outrage at the state of the world because I am mostly incapable of contributing towards change (e.g. going to rallies for Palestine.)

I almost never have the energy and focus to read and so I'm basically stuck in a holding pattern with regards to resolving my internal crisis of political beliefs until I'm able to sit down and go back over the things that I had read with a strong ideological bias.

Rebuilding interpersonal relationships is difficult because it's hard for me to be consistent at all and I just end up turning down invitations to do things because I don't have the capacity most of the time, and it's just plain hard for me on account of the fact that I'm autistic. Also it's hard because I'm exhausted and miserable, so it feels like a choice between bringing all of that to a friendship (which is a huge downer) or putting on an act to give people the impression that I'm fine (which makes me feel inauthentic and it tends to aggravate my feelings of isolation.) It's probably obvious but my trust is pretty broken too so this adds a layer of difficulty.

Rebuilding a positive sense of self is really difficult for me because my ex exploited my vulnerabilities, on account of being multiply-neurodivergent, and it's hard to feel anything but regret and resentment towards being the way that I am.

I barely have the energy to take care of my basic needs let alone to do anything else and I'm so anhedonic that even if I do have the energy to do something that I used to enjoy, I get nothing from it and then I just feel the need to grieve the loss of a thing that used to make my life enjoyable.

It's hard to find the will to persevere, especially when all of the things that could help me get well are out of reach to me and it feels like I've reached an absolute impasse.

I'm just so tired.