tripu @tripu@qoto.org

I pick up the #kids from school, take them to the park where I play with them and give them their afternoon snack, take them home, keep them busy for a while, bathe them in turns, prepare and give them dinner, clear up the kitchen a bit, brush their teeth, prepare a baby bottle, read them a story in bed and get them to sleep. And at the time of writing these lines they are still alive. (My wife has a long work day plus some appointments today — other times it's the other way around, of course.)

After all that I feel superhuman.

I'm not asking for a medal or anything: this is my responsibility, and I chose this life.

But it makes me realise that in spite of all my complaints about modern #feminism (and boy do I have some complaints about modern feminism) and my tireless defence of men and fathers, it's clear that

#MUMS ARE FUCKING AWESOME, AND THEY HAVE BEEN AWESOME FOR MILLENNIA.

Much respect.

@gasull

That's a great way to look at it.

> _«El gran problema es la consideración del varón como un sexo (o género) moralmente inferior. Los horrores causados por el #hombre, como la guerra o los crímenes, se asocian a la masculinidad, mientras que sus logros literarios, científicos o artísticos se explican por un sistema de opresión que no permitía a la #mujer alcanzar dichos hitos. Es decir, **consideramos que la mujer es tan capaz como el hombre en todo, excepto en la maldad**. La conclusión inevitable de ese discurso es que es necesario acabar con lo que convierte al hombre en hombre: la #masculinidad.»_

— Daniel Jiménez

https://www.elmundo.es/papel/historias/2023/03/04/64021b9421efa0041a8b45d5.html

#gender #men

[You are not an anti-capitalist](https://blog.tripu.info/anti-capitalism/)

@skanman

My heuristic is: only animals that would live “naturally” in an apartment, or those that have been modified for centuries by humans specifically to live in their homes, would live well in an apartment. In the former category: flies, spiders, cockroaches, mice, rats, ants… In the latter: some breeds of cats, perhaps some breeds of tiny dogs, perhaps some rodents other than mice and rats.

Most dogs? Probably not — especially large ones. No birds, no reptiles, no amphibians…

Not sure what the shortcomings of the structure of our human society have to do with this, tbh.

I don't like #pets, and I don't understand the concept of keeping pets in urban environments.

Very few species are adapted to live well in an apartment, right? Some cat breeds, rodents, what else?

It always seemed cruel to me.

@caitp

We could definitely organise better and distribute stuff more fairly

🖖🏼

@caitp

❤️ I very much sympathise with that. I'm an effective altruist and I try to think carefully about those things.

Mine was just a (pedantic) point about scarcity being an inevitable component of reality — and even a necessary one, since scarcity is what makes us value things in the first place.

I think the most plausible instance of your original proposition is: being ultra-rich. That's as close as one can possibly get to abolishing scarcity (for oneself, of course). It's the closest we can get to being free to take care of what really matters to us…

> _“tripu's latest tweets cover a variety of topics, including his participation in events such as JSDayES and StayAtHomeConf, his new job at 7r Ventures, his opinions on social and political issues, and his interests in linguistics and effective altruism. He also shares links to articles and resources related to technology, culture, and current events, and engages in conversations with other users on Twitter.”_

https://abbrevia.me/

Not bad. (Outdated, but I haven't really used the birdsite in the last three years or so.)

@caitp

You made me realise that in a universe without scarcity, beings capable of suffering (humans, many animals) would still be valuable to us, because sentience is what gives moral worth to things. (Even then, how much would any being actually suffer if there were no scarcity of nutrition, shelter, medicine, entertainment, etc?)

About things, of course we value stuff (ideas, objects, resources) just because they're scarce. Just think of the few things that are virtually free and unlimited in our current universe. We don't even notice rocks, bits, numbers, the air above our head, noises, natural light — we wouldn't sacrifice anything to have one more unit of any of that (ie, we wouldn't pay any money), because there's almost zero scarcity there. If you're tempted to discard these examples because they sound ridiculous (“come on, I'm talking about important stuff here, of course nobody cares about the number 711 or values an individual grain of sand”), notice that they seem ridiculous precisely because there is plenty of those things. My point is that if nothing were scarce, nothing would matter.

@caitp

What really matters to us is, necessarily, scarce. You wouldn't care about your life and your time alive of you had multiple lives or lived forever. You wouldn't care about your family if you had any number of children you wanted, at no extra cost. This planet wouldn't be that important if we had an entire galaxy at our disposal. Art wouldn't matter if talent and ideas weren't scarce.

Your hypothetical is not only hypothetical, but also contradictory.

Exhibit #8,253:

https://twitter.com/xlr8harder/status/1630516848381894658

@admitsWrongIfProven

I think that's what he's saying: don't put so much weight on identity, don't dwell on differences.

Seems constructive advice to me.

@freemo Congratulations!