Saying, “Both these things are bad, and one is worse,” is not the same as saying, “One of these things is more okay than the other.” Neither one is okay.

If we cannot compare bad things without that comparison implying, “one of them is more GOOD than the other,” then all bad things are equally bad. If I said that committing pedophilia is worse than beating your wife, am I now saying that beating your wife is better? What about stealing from the cash register at work, or jaywalking? Are all bad things just equally bad, with no comparison possible, or else we’re praising the virtues of crime?

To your first point, in that sentence I wasn’t talking about actually dating or having sex with the 15 year old. I was talking about looking at them, and thinking they are attractive. So no, nobody would say that the “relationship” was okay, but they wouldn’t roundly condemn someone for being attracted to them, or having the urge to look at them sexually, in their own head.

It used to be relatively acceptable to say something like, “Man, I sure think that 15 year old looks hot, but of course I won’t go anywhere near her, because she is too young,” but never, ever, to say the same about a 5 year old. That first sentiment is the basis of many distasteful songs and jokes and movies. The second one would be met with confusion and revulsion for even thinking it.

And once again, I am not saying that is right. I am just saying how attitudes have changed. For the better. Now we say that even looking at a teenager is wrong. That looking at their body is as bad as looking at a very young child’s body. Because in both cases, it’s not how messed-up you are in the head to even think about it. It’s about how it would harm them to go through with it. And that’s a better attitude.

I think that back then, people defined pedophilia in terms of the perpetrator’s attraction, not in terms of impact to the victim. Essentially, “is it weird for the adult to be attracted to their body?” more than, “would the young person be harmed, physically or emotionally, by sex?” Now we are more evolved.

Back when I was a kid, pedophilia meant what she said - attraction to a prepubescent child. If someone was an adult who thought a physically developed 15-year-old was sexy, that was just logical. Because their bodies had secondary sex characteristics. (It wasn’t considered a good idea to actually have sex with them, at least from what I could see. Maybe in Azalia’s experience it was considered OK.)

But if an adult thought that a flat and hairless child was attractive, that was messed up on their part. The same way people think that furries or scat play or other fetishes were messed up. But even more so. There was just nothing to consider sexy about an actual child.

Now, we consider the impact to the victim. Pedophilia is defined as attraction to a victim under the age of consent. Because their brain is not fully developed, their body can’t handle pregnancy, they are socially able to be manipulated, and a host of other reasons.

I am not trying to be accused of being an apologist, but from someone who grew up in the 90s, I find it strange that we use the same word for someone who rapes a toddler, as someone who “statutory rapes” (as it would be called) a 15-year-old. They are both wrong, but it seems to me that one is much worse than the other. Both because of the attraction (or I guess power fantasy) on the part of the adult, and the impact to the victim.

I think Azalia is wrong to say it was always totally fine. But she is right that it was considered right or wrong for a different reason back then. The definition was different.

You put your finger on it. Most of the ads say, “this is not for you,” to a young girl.

Old ads for cars, alcohol, cigarettes etc. were like that as well. They’re aimed at the hotshot guy who has a chick he’s treating poorly, or more accurately, the guy who wants to have chicks throwing themselves at him. They have nothing to offer a woman or girl, because why would she want to be ignored arm candy?

I guess the one with the woman holding a controller in the bathtub may be an exception.

I’m sure a lot of boys and men were weirded out by these ads too.

Or: Everyone decreases their discretionary spending to invest in companies that make consumer goods.

As a result, few people are buying the products these companies sell, like books and iPods, and they don’t become successful.

I agree. I hate this meme because it seems to say: “Emma Watson thinks women should have rights, and yet, she has a butt. Curious!”

Or, more generously, it says, “These men believe in feminism, and yet, they enjoy looking at attractive women. Hypocrites!” which is also unreasonable.

Seconds after the last human being dies, the Wikipedia page is updated to read:

Humans (Homo sapiens) or modern humans were the most common and widespread species of primate

“Unwomen” rings a bell for me.

I looked it up, and in Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid 's Tale, Unwomen were infertile women sent to clean up toxic waste in the colonies.

:(

It means that AI tends to write in a dorky, friendly and informative way, even when covering negative topics.

And that’s the way a lot of writers write. Especially in the past. And those types of sources are probably what AI was trained on.

V, as a character, is a giant dork quoting Shakespeare, constantly explaining things to a captive audience, and being an old-fashioned gentleman. Essentially an obnoxious neckbeard.

Yeah, that’s what I like about the joke - you don’t even realize what his hand was doing under the table, until the last panel

Oh look, it’s the guy from this comic:

dǝlq

I agree. Eugenics is about harming the rights of the would-be parents. It means telling them, “You have traits we consider undesirable, so we will forcibly prevent you from having any child whatsoever.”

To me, that’s different from parents choosing to avoid having a child with certain traits. Or not having children at all.

If parents decide to cure a disorder in their future child, or decide to abort a pregnancy, nobody is stopping those parents from trying again. The parents themselves have not been deemed undesirable and unworthy to pass on their genes.

I’m only in that category because I don’t drink coffee every day.

When I used to drink it daily, it did nothing for me except remove my irritability and prevent a headache.

Now, I take at least two non-coffee days between coffees. I don’t depend on coffee on any given day; I can wake up with energy and go about my life without it.

But when I do have coffee, it has a huge effect on me. I get super caffeinated. And it tastes delicious.

It’s Saturday morning and I still feel energized from the coffee I had at noon yesterday. I could hardly sleep. It’s kind of a problem.

I agree. I despise Trump. But removing a lawn and putting in hardscape, in a spot where people often gather for events, is not an insult to heritage or anything like that.

If a president that I otherwise liked did this, I wouldn’t have a problem with it.

It’s not as if a lawn is super environmentally valuable. And I doubt people spread picnic blankets and play Frisbee on this lawn - they put chairs on it and walk on it with heels and hold events and stuff. A hard surface is the right thing for that type of use.

And if a future president decides to put lawn back in, they can! It’s not as blades of grass and sandy growing medium are irreplaceable.

To put joking aside, I have been trying to make a sort of quilt pattern to add to one of my sweatshirts, but I’m not good at sewing and don’t have a sewing machine. So I would probably listen to her talk about quilts and how to make the edges look good.

Your mom.

“Welcome! What brings you to the homeless shelter today?”

“Well, it’s that bench. You see, I was choosing the unhoused lifestyle, and I was fine with all the other stigma and physical discomforts, until I realized that the city wants to discourage my presence in public spaces. Fuck these armrests, I decided I’d just come to this shelter, get treatment for my addiction, get counseling for my traumatic past that fed the addiction, get an education, get a job, rent a house, save money, then buy a home instead. It’s just not worth trying to get comfy on that bench.”

in all nine species of female snakes they examined

I’m sure they actually did the study in an organized way, but I imagined them checking the snake species one by one. “Okay guys, that’s eight out of eight so far. If the next snake also has a clit, we’re calling it - all snakes have clits.”

I choose guilty sex.

It makes it a little raunchy, without explaining why.

It’s a shame, because classic Ghibli movies are not shallow or inhumane at all. They were not based on trends. Miyazaki could not have made such beautiful films if he had not had real life experiences.

“The dragon is supposed to fall from down the air vent, but, being a dragon, it doesn’t land on the ground,” Miyazaki says. “It attaches itself to the wall, like a gecko. And then—ow!—it falls—thud!—it should fall like a serpent. Have you ever seen a snake fall out of a tree?” He explains that it “doesn’t slither, but holds its position.” He looks around at the animators, most of whom appear to be in their twenties and early thirties. They are taking notes, looking grave: nobody has seen a snake fall out of a tree.

Miyazaki goes on to describe how the dragon—a protean creature named Haku, who sometimes takes this form—struggles when he is pinned down. “This will be tricky,” Miyazaki says, smiling. “If you want to get an idea, go to an eel restaurant and see how an eel is gutted.” The director wriggles around in his seat, imitating the action of a recalcitrant eel. “Have you ever seen an eel resisting?” Miyazaki asks.

“No, actually,” admits a young man with hipster glasses, an orange sweatshirt, and an indoor pallor.

Miyazaki groans. “Japanese culture is doomed!” he says.

Even if we accept that the AI-using guy is correct - that he takes two minutes to formulate the perfect query, and gets a successful response based on that - he had to read books in order to know how to do that.

The people currently using AI were alive before it existed. They gained an education in a more traditional way, which perhaps allows them to take shortcuts using AI.

In the future, if nobody reads books, they will be even less able to prompt AI or to evaluate its responses.