148 Years Ago This Week, On April 6, 1871, Armed Participants In The Revolutionary Paris Commune Seized

We will never know their names.

The first victim could not have been recorded, for there was no written language to record it. They were someone’s daughter, or son, and someone’s friend, and they were loved by those around them. And they were in pain, covered in rashes, confused, scared, not knowing why this was happening to them or what they could do about it - victim of a mad, inhuman god. There was nothing to be done - humanity was not strong enough, not aware enough, not knowledgeable enough, to fight back against a monster that could not be seen.

It was in Ancient Egypt, where it attacked slave and pharaoh alike. In Rome, it effortlessly decimated armies. It killed in Syria. It killed in Moscow.  In India, five million dead. It killed a thousand Europeans every day in the 18th century. It killed more than fifty million Native Americans. From the Peloponnesian War to the Civil War, it slew more soldiers and civilians than any weapon, any soldier, any army (Not that this stopped the most foolish and empty souls from attempting to harness the demon as a weapon against their enemies).

Cultures grew and faltered, and it remained. Empires rose and fell, and it thrived. Ideologies waxed and waned, but it did not care. Kill. Maim. Spread. An ancient, mad god, hidden from view, that could not be fought, could not be confronted, could not even be comprehended. Not the only one of its kind, but the most devastating.

For a long time, there was no hope - only the bitter, hollow endurance of survivors.

In China, in the 10th century, humanity began to fight back.

It was observed that survivors of the mad god’s curse would never be touched again: they had taken a portion of that power into themselves, and were so protected from it. Not only that, but this power could be shared by consuming a remnant of the wounds. There was a price, for you could not take the god’s power without first defeating it - but a smaller battle, on humanity’s terms. By the 16th century, the technique spread, to India, across Asia, the Ottoman Empire and, in the 18th century, Europe. In 1796, a more powerful technique was discovered by Edward Jenner.

An idea began to take hold: Perhaps the ancient god could be killed.

A whisper became a voice; a voice became a call; a call became a battle cry, sweeping across villages, cities, nations. Humanity began to cooperate, spreading the protective power across the globe, dispatching masters of the craft to protect whole populations. People who had once been sworn enemies joined in common cause for this one battle. Governments mandated that all citizens protect themselves, for giving the ancient enemy a single life would put millions in danger.

And, inch by inch, humanity drove its enemy back. Fewer friends wept; Fewer neighbors were crippled; Fewer parents had to bury their children.

At the dawn of the 20th century, for the first time, humanity banished the enemy from entire regions of the world. Humanity faltered many times in its efforts, but there individuals who never gave up, who fought for the dream of a world where no child or loved one would ever fear the demon ever again. Viktor Zhdanov, who called for humanity to unite in a final push against the demon; The great tactician Karel Raška, who conceived of a strategy to annihilate the enemy; Donald Henderson, who led the efforts of those final days.

The enemy grew weaker. Millions became thousands, thousands became dozens. And then, when the enemy did strike, scores of humans came forth to defy it, protecting all those whom it might endanger.

The enemy’s last attack in the wild was on Ali Maow Maalin, in 1977. For months afterwards, dedicated humans swept the surrounding area, seeking out any last, desperate hiding place where the enemy might yet remain.

They found none.

35 years ago, on December 9th, 1979, humanity declared victory.

This one evil, the horror from beyond memory, the monster that took 500 million people from this world - was destroyed.

You are a member of the species that did that. Never forget what we are capable of, when we band together and declare battle on what is broken in the world.

Happy Smallpox Eradication Day.

Parenting also contains contradictions in values that can be traced back to capitalism itself; anyone who has watched a parent struggle between telling their kid to follow their dreams by joining a band or “facing the real world” and getting a job in marketing knows this. Parents have to choose between raising good people or raising successful workers; there is very little overlap. To quote one of the greatest video games of all time:

Rose: Everyone grows up being told the same thing.

Colonel: Be nice to other people.

Rose: But beat out the competition!

Colonel: "You're special." "Believe in yourself and you will succeed."

Rose: But it's obvious from the start that only a few can succeed...

Unable to reconcile their own moral impulses with the terrifyingly amoral society around them, parents take refuge in activities with clearly visible, tangible metrics of success or failure. Does my son know how to tell right from wrong? Have I raised him to have a cool head and a warm heart? Fuck if I know, but I followed the instructions in all my parenting books to the letter and only gave him formula, so I’ve done my part. My daughter got all A’s on her report card and I only gave her cloth diapers; what more do you want from me? It’s not my fault she started a fraudulent Silicon Valley startup that swindled people out of millions.

Why Mommy Warring?

[Content warning for discussion of how hard it is to be a parent.]

Becoming a parent has given me a new insight into the mommy wars.

Parenting is terrifying. You are 100% responsible for the well-being of a person. They are utterly dependent on you for everything: for their basic requirements such as food and toileting, for their emotional needs like love and consistency, for creating an…

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So much awful American car discourse could be avoided if we simply RetVurned to Tradition and built big beautiful trains from sea to shining sea.

one of the things that’s been lost in the recent “let them buy electric” kerfuffle is that there’s a sort of feedback mechanism at work where americans can’t estimate distance correctly and companies see this and are unwilling to put the electric cars that might serve them well on the market. the go-to cheaper electric car on the north american market is the $30k+ nissan leaf. one thing i’ve often found in twitter threads discussing it is americans who say that its 150 mile range simply isn’t big enough for their needs. however, if you’re commuting an hour each way to work, 150 miles is enough to stop in somewhere and pick up groceries. few americans even drive 50 miles a day for work. meanwhile, in europe and china, much cheaper options exist. the dacia spring sells in france for 17,000 euros, or under 20,000 usd, and has a range of 143 miles. the hongguang mini sells in china for the equivalent of 5000 usd and has a range of 100 miles. for many americans, either of these cars could easily replace their current vehicle, especially for those who live in cities, if companies were willing to bring them over. you can see the proof in sales of electric bikes, which now outpace electric cars and have the sort of price and range needed for <10 mile trips (not to mention, some have cargo compartments for grocery rides). however, given the high profit margins on SUVs (as well as america’s addiction to the idea that bigger cars are always safer), it’s unlikely that companies will want to undercut themselves with efficient smaller electric vehicles.

Exactly. A civics professor I had in college had a lot of fun telling us how one of the most hated occupational groups in America ended up running everything.

As for why people believe that politicians get paid so much, I think the answer is related to the ignorance of the mechanism behind "corruption", as stated above. We read about politicians accepting absurd amounts of money from corporate interests and assume that it is a function of greed and desire for personal enrichment (which it certainly sometimes is), rather than a desire to fund re-election.

Conservatives also have an interest in portraying politicians as decadent and wasteful with the average person's tax dollars, so that also contributes.

*medieval Ben Shapiro voice* well, technically, they aren't slaves, they're SERFS, so your argument is a fallacy,

not to put too fine a point on it but like, isutzumi was fully 100% a slave of shuro's family

There's always violence. We could just sieze control of the plants and factories and voluntarily scale back our consumption, production, and pollution over the next decade until CO2 levels stabilized. We don't need to sit here helplessly waiting for the fruits of our own labor to kill us all. Bonus points if we can support people in other countries doing similar things.

it’s crazy that im alive to witness major effects of climate change. like it always seemed super vague and it was always ‘the polar bears won’t have anywhere to live’ but this shit is going to fuck everything up bigtime.

I'm not sure why anyone would seriously mourn the death of Ted Kazcynski, when both a) his basic critique of technology is stupidly, fundamentally flawed to anyone who thinks about it for five minutes and b) plenty of morally palatable and effective enviormentalist protestors exist. But nobody's making any "Jessica Reznicek did nothing wrong" memes.

As someone working at a university my two cents is that the primary goal of a university is to get lots of state and federal grants and build lots of labs and hire lots of brilliant researchers and make lots of money and intellectual property so they can hire more researchers and get more grants and build more labs.

Education of the general populace is a desirable but more or less secondary byproduct. There's a reason the lectures are free online but the research papers (also funded by your taxes) are locked behind a paywall.

how am i seeing communists earnestly argue that the function of the university (in capitalist society!) is to educate people

As many of you know, in my day job I’m a journalist, and one of my colleagues is covering the tumblr changes and wants to talk to anyone who has been affected, creatively or financially, by the new policy, so that we can get your story out there. If that’s you, PM me or email her at kaitlyn.tiffany@vox.com. 

Very strongly endorsed. I see lots of predictions/imaginings of socialism that envision 90% of people living in (dependent) luxury while a small number of enginners and planners actually "run the economy." I don't consider this an ideal system!

I think it also explains why so many people have these purely destructive/venegful understandings of revolution - the prospect of fighting and dying just to win the right to discuss/debate production statistics every month isn't very appealing. Yet I think most people feel powerless because they have no way to provide input or control over the society/economy as a whole. The only antidote to powerlessness is power, which goes hand in hand with responsibility.

Got this phrase stuck in my head: "socialism is the fight for the right to take responsibility". Haven't quite worked out what i mean by this, but something to do with it being a move from a mass of atomised and so helpless individuals who have no ability to effect change and so can flee from any sense of responsibility for the state of the world to the formation of a working class collectivity which can take decisive control of society and so the members of which must face up to the responsibility this control entails. This is why revenge fantasies or apocalypse fantasies are ultimately antithetical to socialism -- they're a flinching from responsibility, a retreat to that irresponsible atomised view of the world.