Not sure we need anymore It’s A Wonderful Life discourse but I’ve seen a couple of professional critics in my timeline completely misunderstanding the point of the film so I feel I must intervene for the sake of reason.

Yes, It’s A Wonderful Life ends with Potter getting away with stealing $8000 and with George still trapped in a town he wanted to leave.

But that’s kind of the point, once you realise the film is about depression, and how depression works.

Imagine you wrote down your life, with all the good things in the pro column and the bad things in the con column. When you have depression you only see the ‘con’ column. The 'pro' column is occluded.

That is the situation that George is in when he contemplates suicide. All that Clarence does when he intervenes is to enable George to see the ‘pro’ column again.

So he still has all the problems, regrets and fears that he had before. But now he is also aware that his life has made a difference, his life has been worthwhile and has been a life well-lived. People are better off with him than without him.

Going to write this out, knowing full well that what I am about will make me sound insane, or something I should be sharing with a personal diary or a therapist or something but if I don't get this outside of my body and put it back in the atmosphere, not confined to a page 1/

where it is locked away safe inside ink and a cover of cardboard. I cannot step away, unless I can teleport like Dr Manhattan to Mars, where I am breathing another air, where the world through which I must navigate is not charged with rage and anger 2/

I have long thought but always denied that I am a weird sort of absorber, and today I am just overwhelmed and not coping. I took a long long break, I tried to work through this. It did not help, because it is in the air that I breathe. 3/

This feels like what insanity must feel like, what having insane thoughts feel like, like madness, like paralysis, like one of those people who don aluminum hats to prevent whatever the fuck they're trying to stop from getting in. Am I fucking losing my mind? 4/

I tell myself this cannot be, that this is not real, that I am only imagining it, yet I cannot explain how I know what I know because I should not know or feel these things. What is wrong with me? /

Dear anons and Secular Maldives proponents: 12,020 is over, and we made a lot of progress on the #SecularMaldives front. We pushed many important conversations publicly, drove controversial positions in the country while exposing those ideas to a bigger audience. 🧵 /1

We also engaged with the public and started discussing secular politics by injecting our selves into strategic conversations and we forced ourselves into relevance hile changing the entire face of public discourse in the country. /2

We gave a strong message that we exist and we matter. Now we must scale up the activism. Recent Vaguthu article showed the extent of problem. Regular folks were scared and silenced off while Islamists dominated comments and conversation around the article. /3

This needs to change and that change can only be achieved through sustained engagement and dialogue. Keep this up, and we will start chipping away their ideological dominance in the country, eventually towards a win. This is in your hands. /4

When you engage, and gain traction, you begin changing public perceptions. This is described in political science as shifting the Overton Window. /5

From Lin Wood Telegram

Part 1/3

ON PRINCIPLES

The recent censorship events have shown that many don't understand what's a principle.

If you only practice it when convenient, it's not a principle.

1/11

This doesn't mean that a principle cannot be partisan.

For example, "I put the family first" can be a principle.

But then you must put your family first, both when it's convenient for you and when it isn't.

Otherwise it's not a principle.

2/11

What is the purpose of principles?

They keep us focused on the long term when the short term would misguide us

For example, I do not like Trump. And yet, yesterday I defended his free speech. Because I believe that defending free speech is ultimately good for everyone.

3/11

Principles protect us from undesired or unthinkable consequences.
They protect us from the problems we didn't experience and from what could go wrong.

They are there for when we think they could be transgressed. They are there for when we think it makes sense to skip them.

4/11

Rights are a form of principles.

Rights are preserved by granting them to our enemies.

The moment we cease to grant them when inconvenient for us, we cease to have them too.

The moment we destroy their sanctity, we open the door to someone else taking them from us.

5/11

Bede's Sources: A Thread 📚

Bede gives James the Deacon, a companion of Paulinus (first Northumbrian missionary) surprisingly short shrift. Esp as Paulinus was resolute enough to remain in the North when Paulinus’ mission broke down (& he lived to play a part in the Synod of Whitby).

It’s difficult to see why James (who lived mostly nr Catterick) didn’t become one of the great legendary figures of the Northumbrian Church, unless he was either really dull or his oral record didn’t survive until the point a monastery could jot it down.

Earliest extant life of an English saint is the anon. Lindisfarne Life of Cuthbert, bishop of Lindisfarne and hermit of Farne, written c.699.

Whitby is rly the star of Bede’s work. It was to Whitby that the relics of Edwin were translated and traditions about Edwin were included in the Whitby “Life of Gregory [the Great]” written c.704. It was at Whitby that Oswiu was buried etc.

Am I about to watch Point Break for the umpteenth time?

It is the me plus ultra good/bad movie

The first five minutes of this film is a symphony of terribly awesome dialog

Whatever happened to LA bank robberies? Like was that really such a thing or did Hollywood just persuade us it was so?

Every 20something throughout time to their more seasoned colleagues

A thread of @feliciaday as foxes that nobody asked for but I decided to make anyway.

Flowers 🌻🌹🌷

+80 bonus points for the mini Matt Smitha and TARDIS combo.

Corporate needs you to find the difference between this picture and this picture.

(they're the same picture)

JUMP

*** THREAD ***

Accuracy or Entertainment, Which Do You Prefer?

The Importance of Listening to Experts

1/

As you no doubt already know, Twitter is a vast universe of unbridled lunacy.

The most obnoxious and incorrect voices are often amplified, while the truth is drowned out, stifled, then beaten to death through groupthink, and mass pile-ons.

2/

I am not an expert in Active Measures, Information Warfare, Geopolitics or Counterintelligence.

I'm a student, loosely.

But there ARE experts and I have always tried to point my followers to them.

3/

Today, I have an opportunity to show you the difference between an actual intelligence expert with years of experience and a Twitter personality with zero intelligence creds, so that you may see the difference.

Let's compare...

4/

This take comes from a foreigner, who is not even an American citizen, with zero intelligence credentials.

I daresay it IS entertaining.

But, alas, it isn't accurate, which I will soon show

1/ Regulations are ultimately about managing risk, whether that risk is fraud, unsafe practices or someone building an ugly building.

The more (actually or performatively) worried you are about the specific risk, the more checks, approvals, rules and guidelines you put in place.

2/ Governments on both the left and right actually have similarly low appetites for risk, they just focus primarily on different risk categories and operate from an assumption that different groups are bastards that must be watched.

3/ Left wing governments have a tendency to focus on risks arising from business activities and capital.

Their regulations tend to assume that management are bastards, and must be monitored and constrained lest they exploit people or generate negative externalities for profit.

4/ Right wing governments have a tendency to focus on benefits fraud risks.

Their regulations tend to assume folks are out to scam any benefits scheme, and must be monitored and constrained lest they take advantage of the tax-payer's generosity.

5/ Both left wing and right wing governments also use regulations to target social behaviors they deem undesirable.

The specific behaviors targeted tend to be different (criminalizing hate speech vs criminalizing drug use, for example), but it's still all regulation.