I love this episode. We need more autistic representation than just autistically coded robots, but nevertheless, my autistic ass feels so seen by Data in this episode (his way of approaching the challenge reminds me of when I was learning how to do small talk, I found it useful to frame it as a badminton game where the goal is to keep the rally going.)
The dabbers are the best part
What’s a pdf that most surprised you?
I am coming down from a migraine, so please forgive me being jumbly, but I have a few points:
You say that many BIFL posts feel like marketing, and I agree, but I also think there’s also an additional, more pernicious aspect to it all. By that, I mean that many of the “genuine” posts felt like they were inducing in me the headspace of having been marketed to. This is largely a me thing, in that when I went searching for recommendations, I was aiming to buy something. Idk, something something commodity fetishism. But in the end, I found that I was questing for some perfect product that would be reliable, but I needed to stop thinking so much in terms of products.
In practice, this meant that my quest towards BIFL would have been better served by not buying stuff at all. Don’t feel obligated to watch if you’re not someone who enjoys 40 minute YouTube videos, but this guy considers “what the hell is ‘high quality’ in fashion?” and many of his points apply more generally than fashion, imo. One of the big points in that video is how the language we use to try to describe high quality will inevitably be appropriated; for example, I bet you would be dubious of any jeans that describe themselves as being “high quality”. So one phrase that became popular a while back was jeans made of “selvedge denim”. However, because people treated “selvedge denim” as being equal to quality, there were a lot of shitty quality jeans made with selvedge denim that I don’t trust that phrase anymore. Maybe once upon a time, selvedge denim jeans were, on average, higher quality, but that’s not true anymore.
I think BIFL was about this quest for quality is doomed to failure. Product quality is generally worse nowadays, but also the language we use is a bit rubbish. Unfortunately, I haven’t found any shortcuts.
Regarding tailoring, unless you’re already proficient at sewing, you should consider finding a local tailor who can do minor alterations. Even this is difficult though, because finding a good tailor can take multiple attempts. People I know who have a good tailor are almost fanatical in their loyalty, likely because of how useful it is to have one. This is why learning to tailor one’s own clothes can be smart, but good quality fabric is super expensive and it may be best to practice on clothes you already own. (N.b. I am using tailoring to mean something different than making clothes from scratch. I can semi do both, so I don’t know how hard it is to learn one skill but not the other)
For finding good fabric though, word of mouth is a big thing. I went to a craft fair a while back and I asked a knitter where she gets her yarn from. She advised a big site that I was already aware of, but also spoke of a place that she buys from when she’s being self indulgent. A friend spent a while trying to find authentic fabric for historical re-enactment, so I asked her where she got stuff like that, and got a few more recommendations. I go for crumbs of recommendations wherever possible, and I really enjoy asking people for advice, even for things I don’t necessarily, because it makes me feel more rooted into a community; when I started crochet recently, I already had a bunch of yarn intel. Also, before then, I really relished having advice if anyone asked me about yarn advice. I kept notes on what people said was good.
But also, if you do get into making and tailoring clothes, a lot of this is knowledge that you’ll gain gradually. I think there is some notion of what “objectively good quality” means, when it comes to textiles and the like, but it’s also fairly loose and subjective. I found this tricky because I too, have nothing to inherit (besides a sturdy ice cream scoop that my mum stole from the military), so I am very familiar with shitty quality stuff. When I first started indulging in higher quality materials and products, it was splendiferous, but it took me a while to learn that I could go too far with chasing value; after a certain point, cost comes down to exclusivity and rarity.
Once I’ve woken up more, I’ll share with you some examples of what looks good quality textile stuff near me, in case you find the perspective useful. I understand why you didn’t want to say roughly where you are, but perhaps if you said your country/state, I could point you towards community resource type things, because there truly is no replacement for getting intel from people local to you, if you value local production. But also, a big strategy for finding local stuff is to consider the concrete material conditions of how things are made: I went to a local fabric shop, and made notes whenever I found things that looked nice. Local shops are also nice, because whilst they are obviously there to sell stuff to you, I feel far more free to ask “I’m looking for some high quality wool to make a coat with, what would you recommend?”. It’s okay to make notes and go away and research (it’s even okay to purchase the wool elsewhere if necessary, though good to support local businesses if you benefit from their knowledge). Some of the fancier bolts of cloth will have a brand on them. This is how I found out about Linton Tweeds, a fabric mill in the North of England that has a lot of history. Another time, I saw a large mill on my way up to Scotland, and I later googled that mill. This is a clunky way of saying that although a heckton of stuff is imported and the products are separated from their context of being made, that there are still crafts people making high quality stuff. It’s often a heckton more expensive (and the more expensive, hand made stuff isn’t necessarily better quality than stuff made with more industrial methods), but it’s nice nonetheless to feel more connected to things. Building up things is gradual, especially if you don’t have much high quality stuff to start with, but don’t be overly precious about things. Ultimately, you don’t need high quality stuff to be able to care about things enough to repair or modify them. Part of how you can undermine fast fashion is by making the most of the lower quality products you currently have now.
That’s a neat trick, thanks for sharing
If I was in this meeting, and had previously never leaked anything, I would want to leak this, because this is funny as hell
Nice, I love a good battle jacket
In the past, with similar issues, I’ve had good success with requesting the book on Zlib, especially newer books.
This is a great list for ableist terms . https://www.autistichoya.com/p/ableist-words-and-terms-to-avoid.html I’m disabled in multiple ways and there were a few on here that caused me to re-evaluate my lexicon.
A list has limited use because language evolves, and so do people, and on top of that, context is everything — but it can be a good place to start
I think I would probably be a jerk a few times, and it would escalate until I hurt someone unthinkingly, and seeing the results of that would shock me back to reality and I’d feel so uncomfortable with myself that I’d hopefully go back to being less of a jerk.
To be fair, in many cases, the observable behaviour of things is different at scale. A single water molecule has different properties to a cup of water, in much the same way that a high density crowd of people (greater than 4 people per square meter) starts to behave as a fluid.
I study biochemistry and I’ll never stop finding it neat how when you get down to the teensy tiny level, all the rules change. That’s basically what quantum physics is, a different ruleset which is always “true”, so to speak, but it’s only relevant when you’re at the nano scale
I suppose what I’m saying is that I agree with you, that fathoming scope is difficult, but I’m suggesting that this is a property of the world inherently getting being a bit fucky at different scales, rather than a problem with human perception.
Badly. I have an awful short term memory, so my priority when making notes is capturing fleeting thoughts I’d otherwise lose. This means I end up with snippets on random pieces of paper or a random note on whatever is the default app on my phone. Then, every so often, I have a big clear out where I aggregate and process all these fragments, usually when I am finding fragments everywhere.
I need to have an inbox of sorts, and make processing things from there a more routine activity. Alas.
Ea-Nasir has got to be one of my favourite internet phenomena
Explainer link for people who are blessed enough to be hearing of this for the first time: https://knowyourmeme.com/editorials/guides/who-is-ea-nasir-and-why-are-people-complaining-about-his-copper-the-viral-complaint-tablet-meme-explained
What section would you put it under? It isn’t clear to me where it would fit
My God, that’s hilarious, thank you for sharing it. I enjoyed “I am like the Statue of Liberty: I accept everyone, even the wretched and the huddled and people who enjoy Haskell.”
Because killing yourself would also hurt people, likely way more than your life ever could. I’ve struggled with something similar myself, and my conclusion was that if I truly felt bad for hurting people, the only moral answer is to try and do better and improve.
Often I would resent having people who cared about me, because it would be so much simpler if there were no-one who’d miss me, or be hurt by my death, but it’s too late for that because I have a bunch of wonderful people in my life who care about me, even if I don’t understand why. Sometimes I wish I’d never met them, because that would make things simpler.
A few times, I’ve had the idea that a compromise is to withdraw from these relationships and sort of wean them off of me. There’s a word that captures this approach, decathect: “to withdraw one’s feelings of attachment from (a person, idea, or object), as in anticipation of a future loss.” The logic of this approach was that if I can’t be a good person who deserves the love of the people I love, I could at least reduce their exposure to someone shitty like me.
It didn’t work out, because as I withdrew, living became more untenable and caused me to inadvertently hurt more people. It was the worst of all worlds - I wasn’t really living, but it was still hurting people similar to if I’d just died.
Quarantine doesn’t solve this and neither does suicide. Especially not suicide, which is often a selfish craving in situations like this. I don’t say that in a judgemental way, just straight up, suicide is the simpler option for people like us. It appears deceptively like justice, and there’s a nice closure to it. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to consider selfish options when you’re struggling with life, but it isn’t solace or closure or justice or any of those things we wish it was. If it were so simple, you’d probably be dead already.
It sucks, and I’m sorry, but there is nothing that can undo the harms of the past. Sometimes putting in the work to do and be better can lead to some healing, but also sometimes bridges get burned and you’re trying to be better for the sake of people you’ve yet to meet. If you do truly believe yourself deserving of something so drastic as suicide, then surely the better “punishment” is to continue living through and past the consequences of your actions. Redemption exists in the better world that you stand to be a part of building, by being one more person trying to be better.
Unfortunately, it is as simple as just “do better in the future”, which is frustrating, but makes sense to me - if suicide is a not simple, but easy solution to the problem of harms caused, then redeeming yourself through life is simple, but fucking difficult.
I don’t know if it’s worth it. Sometimes I find myself thinking “I should have killed myself two years ago, and this wouldn’t have happened” when I fuck something up, and then suicide now is tempting in a “the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the second best time is now” kind of way, even though that’s twisting the analogy to hell. The world will not be made better by your absence - if you have any sense of duty to the world or your loved ones, then it’s necessary to live with the weight of your past mistakes and move past them. Dying just puts that burden with everyone else, condemns them to a life of wondering "what if I had done Xyz differently.
For what it’s worth (very little, I’m a random internet stranger who has no knowledge of you or your circumstances), I would rather be friends with someone who has hurt me, but knows they’re fucked up and making genuine, continuous attempts to improve than someone who is completely apathetic and hasn’t hurt me particularly, but by fluke only. I think that our actions matter much more than our (stated) intentions (especially in situations where there’s a pattern to behaviour - I have unfortunately lost a few friends in this way), but I do think the intention counts for something. The fact you feel bad about what you’ve done means something. The challenging bit is to prove it. It’s not easy, and it might not even be possible to do such high levels of self improvement, idk even in my own case. I do know that it’s always worthwhile to try.
If life were a game where you lose if your net impact on the world is negative, then it’s not game over yet. If you die, that’s it, you get taken by the score screen and you’d probably not be too happy with what you’d see there. And yeah, it’s possible that you could decide against suicide and live a long life and die of old age, and still lose the game, if the net impact comes out to be not great still, but as long as you’re alive to read or think about these words, there’s still hope of making it through and levelling up enough that you can rack up the positive impact points. Hurt and help don’t cancel out like points in a video game do, but it’s hard to not think of “net impact” when contemplating dying in this manner. This might not vibe with you, but for me, it was and still is insanely motivating to know that there is still a non-zero chance of me winning this game, and what’s more, the possibility of winning is exclusive to paths where I continue living (even if often, I would rather be dead), and trying to be better (even if often, it feels like it’d be better for others if I were dead). Suicide offers control, the ability to decide how you lose the game, but it will always be a loss.
Whatever your struggles or your circumstances, I wish you the strength to steer into calmer territory, and the wisdom to recognise change. It feels weird to give advice when this is very much something I still struggle with, but this is me trying to be better. I might not feel especially hopeful about my own journey, but I do believe what I’ve said here, that meaningful change is always possible
Not the person you were asking, but I can provide an answer. Pansexual generally means attraction to people regardless of gender - sort of gender blind. A bi person (like me) might find that the attraction they experience to different genders is shaped differently, qualitatively — or the magnitude of attraction may be different — like if you were a 1 on the Kinsey scale, which means “predominantly heterosexual, only incidentally homosexual”. Someone who’s pan is more likely to be a 3 on the Kinsey scale, but also, it’s possible to be bi and a 3, and that’s subtly different.
There aren’t set rules on this, it mostly comes down to what terms resonate with people. I’m someone to whom pansexual as a label could apply, but I identify as bisexual because that was the word that made me go “wait, this is a thing that’s possible?”. The terms people use are often rooted in history, personal or otherwise.
It’s trickier to explain the lexical niche when I myself am not pan. It’s like if you’re working on a project and have someone passing you tools, and you reach a step that needs a particular spanner, of which you have two. You ask for one of those spanners, but despite it fitting many of your requirements on paper, it isn’t quite right for what you’re trying to do. You try the other spanner and it’s perfect. Keeping both spanners is probably useful because on simple jobs, they are interchangeable, but when getting into nuanced, complex situations, having the choice is useful.
By this, I mean that I have also had the thought that “[Pansexual] seemed a meaningless term because bi already covers basically everything”, but when you’re talking to someone about different spanners and they say “that one isn’t the same as that one. I need the other one”, it’s generally wisest to assume that this person has some insight that you don’t have on these spanners, or their particular use cases — who am I to tell people what tools are most useful for them, after all? Like a lot of identity stuff, it’s hard to explain, but it matters a lot to some people.
God, I love the internet.
Finally, something that isn’t vetoed
I like your ethos here, especially the idea of this being an experiment. I think that can lead to a greater sense of mindfulness about media consumption habits, which is increasingly valuable in the current landscape