“When I first heard it, from a dog trainer who knew her behavioral science, it was a stunning moment. I remember where I was standing, what block of Brooklyn’s streets. It was like holding a piece of polished obsidian in the hand, feeling its weight and irreducibility. And its fathomless blackness. Punishment is reinforcing to the punisher. Of course. It fit the science, and it also fit the hidden memories stored in a deeply buried, rusty lockbox inside me. The people who walked down the street arbitrarily compressing their dogs’ tracheas, to which the poor beasts could only submit in uncomprehending misery; the parents who slapped their crying toddlers for the crime of being tired or hungry: These were not aberrantly malevolent villains. They were not doing what they did because they thought it was right, or even because it worked very well. They were simply caught in the same feedback loop in which all behavior is made. Their spasms of delivering small torments relieved their frustration and gave the impression of momentum toward a solution. Most potently, it immediately stopped the behavior. No matter that the effect probably won’t last: the reinforcer—the silence or the cessation of the annoyance—was exquisitely timed. Now. Boy does that feel good.”
— Melissa Holbrook Pierson, The Secret History of Kindness (2015)
Having your own personal blog is honestly quite a nice change of pace compared to Reddit. I could put a funny GIF of George Bush getting hit by a shoe on here and the worse case scenario is that no one even notices.
You put that on a big subreddit and you get your eyes gouged out and a heap of political discourse underneath your post.
when people are like “the hunger games just stole the plot of battle royale” like listen everything steals from the plot of everything the lion king is just furry hamlet westworld is jurassic park but sexier lost is edgy gilligan’s island there are no original stories and the only good piece of media is jennifer’s body
Michael crichton wrote westworld and jurassic park tho so he just pirated himself
michael crichton keeps TRYING to tell y’all about the evils of capitalism impeding on the progress of science when will y’all LISTEN
Maybe he just doesn’t like theme parks
michael crichton in line for a roller coaster at six flags: fuck this
Jesus Christ, that’s the height at which every rollercoaster and dark ride is a decapitation threat
how am I ever supposed to leave tumblr when it takes me on journeys like this
A fun update to the ongoing Reddit meltdown: r/femalefashionadvice has, after polling their users, reopened to only accept posts about 18th century fashion.
See, THIS is why Reddit refugees were welcomed with open arms.
“The unnecessary demands of the WGA are completely ruining the process of having writers slave over a show for countless weeks only to have their work disappear completely from the streaming platform.”