im not sure about this but here are some things im starting to suspect. some secrets of nature that might not make sense for a while even if theyre true
1. if your young and your coming to your parents with some bullshit you learned about in school. like patriarchy or whatever
your parents might seem to agree with you or to think these ideas are important
they dont and you should not misunderstand their attention as approval
2. what they are often actually doing is trying to be supportive of whatever crazy shit your on about because they love you more than anything and they want you to know that, even if it means nodding along to some nonsense they were rolling their eyes at before you were born
3. the rest of the time they are terrified that they will lose you to these strange ideas, either by your rejecting them if they declined to share your view, or simply by watching a person they have known and loved recede into a strange horizon;
or, having reconciled themselves to the second, doing as much as they can to come to know this strange person for so that they can catch glimpses of the one they remember
4. it's not fair to even talk about any of this
5. parents have immeasurable social power over their children because they understand their children better than the children do themselves. knowing ones own internal thoughts is nothing compared to seeing every stage of development, every being a person has been
children, then youths, then adults: we are endlessly involved in forging our own stories
while we wrote ourselves into existence, barely comprehending what we did, they were watching. and they knew what was happening because they once lived it themselves
their stories of us cannot be gainsaid
6. there is a third, even-more secret reason your parents might seem indulgent of your insane beliefs
the reason is that they're delighted by your development and experiencing exactly the same joy they did when you first learned to walk, like cheering on six year olds in soccer
no one actually thinks six year olds are good at soccer or that high school plays are good theater; yet we cheer and applaud honestly in our delight
undergraduates developing Ideas and young adults making reckless decisions fall into the same class of phenomena
our baby! incubating an egregore!
gosh. i still remember her as a little girl, like that evening when she suddenly appeared above me, cackling, as i climbed the stairs.
"happy birthday!" she shouted at me, pelting me with balloons.
it was not my birthday
7. your parents want you to have children so that you can understand how much it meant to them to be able to raise you
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FTC is going after musk. this is not "as bad" as it seems on the surface but at a deeper level its about as bad as it seems archive.is/VxLke
1. ftc agreements are what happens when you are a major social media company and you have a little fucksie-wucksie where user data leaks
facebook has been operating under such an agreement for. idk probably decades
2. these consent agreements usually result from settlements and give the FTC immense leverage over firms to make them do whatever the FTC wants because the agreements are often difficult to actually adhere to and carry heavy penalties for breach
mothers day and fathers day are fake holidays invented in the early 20th century in part of a larger series of identity-based holidays promoted by internationalist organizations as an op to destroy traditions oriented around national identities