it is truly wild to me when people think that if they only eat grass fed beef and greens watered by the tears of angels, they will never die.
this is SO WELL SAID, @AllHat!!! i would like for someone to sky write it over the entire front range of colorado, please, where being fat or even just not willing/able to run up a mountain every day is seen as some kind of moral failing.
Hahahaha! I know exactly what you mean. The Pacific Northwest is a lot like that too and I find it exhausting, lol. When people start flexing on how tough they are I like to just give them exactly what they want and say stuff like, āWow, you sound really tough!ā or āYou must be tougher than me!ā like, are we done now and can I get an iced coffee? LOL.
I think itās like a more aggressive rather than defensive response to the same fear guys like Pete have. Like āI am ok because I can run up a mountain and that proves Iām strong and resilientā and maybe if you were running up mountains you would be ok instead of being not ok (fat, disabled, whatever). I also think it eases the fear of dealing with future discomfort because people imagine that if they can deal with the optional and temporary discomfort of a marathon or camping or whatever, that they will be able to handle ANY OBSTACLE. Thatās prominent on MMM. But likeā¦itās a mindset thing not a hobbies thing. Some able-starting athletes handle gaining disability really well and adapt, and some totally crumble under the weight. You canāt really predict it. Also some start as able non-athletes and then become disabled and become athletes, soā¦
It reminds me a little of how frugal people can do that with poverty too. Like, āwell I used to live on minimum wage over a decade ago at age 20 so that means I could totally sail through having to massively downgrade my life if shit hits the fan.ā Likeā¦those are not the same thing, lol, Iām under no illusion that I could handle abject poverty just because for a short period of time in my early twenties I was technically and very temporarily under the poverty line. That is such a removed tangential experience of lack of wealth you really canāt equate it with poverty at all because there are virtually no similarities.
you are very smart and i like you!
wow this is a great point! not all obstacles are the same, nor are we all starting from the same point. sometimes i feel like shouting from the rooftops that i now have a wonderfully stable and supportive life in terms of money, relationships, community, etc. because i lacked all of that for so long. but to others, they have had that stability forever, so they donāt even see it as important or foundational. they canāt even imagine not having ever had it!
i was chatting with a younger friend recently and was like āyeah you know i never had any kind of safety net and so i had to always be thinking about survivalā and she was like āyeah me neitherā and i had to point out āwell you live with your folks right now! thatās a really important safety net and iām glad you have it but it was never an option for me.ā she got it but not until i pointed it out 
sooo not the same thing. i was poor until i was about 25, and since then iāve had a few lean years here and there, but there are people on my life who are on government assistance and asked for financial guidance from me on how to receive gifts in a way that doesnāt impact their assistance, and i had to admit that i was not equipped to help them. twenty years i go, i could have totally helped with that! but now, itās been so long since i had to deal with any of it, iād be starting from less than zero in terms of knowledge.
it almost seems like it boils down to having a bit of humility and listening to peopleās lived experiences before making bold pronouncements about how everyone can totally live forever if they just eat acai bowls and refuse to believe in covid
Briefly, because i need time and am currently chasing a toddler:
Yes to limiting the platform for Pete Evans, others like him and those that radicalised him. This radicalisation part is new to society. My grandma was all in on conspiracies and wellness stuff (like, she would believe the conspiracy). Their language hasnāt changed in decades. Its such a big fucking tell. (And doesnt change between conspiracies etc. The same ableist shit for extremist paleo as extremist vegan as antivaccine as 5gā¦) What is new or seems to be is exactly what they talked about {edit for clarity: what Michael and Aubrey discussed, the shift from just conspiracies and wellness to adding dangerous right wing bullshit}. Weāve gone from believing in Bigfoot and people getting out for fresh air hunting him down, to turning those same people into right wing nutjobs. Currently watching an acquaintance go down this path and the similarities and differences in what my grandmother did/ believed/ had access to and what people can do now is sickening.
Ok. Now I spend time reading others takes and responding.
The cartoon
Ummm someone was posting a lot of butterfly and caterpillar memes and now Iām afraid to look for them to see if they were the same one (and if so, hopefully inadvertently)
I recently had a similar thought, where I was going to take a picture of interesting graffiti and post it, and then I was ābut maybe this is a message/symbol to people who know what it means and I donātā
So I didnāt.
it makes me think we need an app to identify horrible symbols in images. like the cool plant and bird identification apps but the opposite 
Legit I need this. Iām always worried Iāll get caught out on a meme on accident. Also I want a meme format auto look up so I can know what show or event it came from. I donāt watch much TV or anything so itās always a risk!
Iām pretty sure there are hate group symbol databases. It can be tricky though, especially when memes get involved, because often hate symbols are appropriations of less problematic images, and you have to be hyper literate in a rapidly evolving discourse to figure out when itās being used in a hateful way.
You can see that with the black sun example, where they mentioned the image is based on a Norse (if I recall correctly) symbol, that then got co-opted by Himmler. Nazis are always co-opting things.
The podcast It Could Happen Here had a discussion of people confusing the sonnenrad/black sun with something called the chaos star which actually originated from anarchist sci-fi novels: Eight-Pointed Stars & Why We Shouldn't Let Fascists Steal Things - It Could Happen Here | iHeart
I tend to think a basic good faith effort and a sincere apology if you accidentally share something with a hidden gross meaning is a good approach. Hyper-online meme discourse changes SO rapidly and is SO self referential that you have to make it a full time job and dwell in some nasty spaces to know everything.
Why are these conspiracy people always anti-Semitic!!! 
well that podcast was a WILD ride.
I think the thoughts about media being too cautious to label people as neo-nazis when they Show all the Sympathy is interesting. Iām constantly consuming media that tries to frame things from an empathetic view (like street interviews, long-form content) but interesting, I donāt usually see or stumble into neo-nazi territory by like, the youtube algorithm. Itās led me to wonder what is trigger-happy ācancel cultureā for honest mistakes or for asking questions vs what is giving the benefit of the doubt to White Dudes with Nazi idealogy.
I think the point of it about HOW you respond when people point it out (esp with slippery territory like memes) is part of that distinction.
Iām even more interested in how often blantant āpaleo-broā style ableism leads down that path towards neo-nazi ideology.
honestly that floored me.
But what floored me even more is it seems like Australia actually has a fast moving regulatory agency that shuts that shit down and issues fines? how do we get that? is this really true @LadyDuck ?
I suspect they got their extra speedy boots on because he is not a medical person and was giving medical advice and admitting it instead of āoh no, itās not really medical adviceā and trying to weasel out of it.
That said theyāve had some high profile malpractice shit go down over the last decade. So, quick Iām not sure about but occasionally effective, yes.
I have a guess about this bc thatās my favorite game, obv. I think itās about the characteristics of someone who finds the paleo bro thing appealing. Itās naturally likely to be someone male, white, able, well off $, and fit- right off the bat just based on topic/demographics. And itās not someone paleo who is just sticking to like, recipes and workout ideas, or the occasional article about processed food. Instead, itās someone who wants an IDENTITY and who wants to really delve into it in a fanatical way and has a lot of time to internet.
Itās not just about healthy lifestyle stuff at that point IMO. Hungry for more, they read deeper into paleo or insert any fitness/diet thing bc all roads lead to oz, and eventually they come across the nougaty racist ableist center. And wouldnāt you know? It offers a āscientificā explanation for their own awesomeness and supremacy, and alleviates any discomfort about inequities and mortality alike. Itās super reassuring to have all the answers. Armed with their shiny new identities and lots of ādataā from āstudiesā they are ready to go on Twitter or start podcast! Itās not their fault youāre offended by facts.
That kind of thing, IDK, just a guess.
Thereās a lot of āIām superior to the prestigious scientific community who spent all their time on stuff thatās not correct and are left wing and look at me, knowing stuff YOUR DOCTOR AND SCIENTIST DOESNāT WANT YOU KNOWINGā {insert those clickebait ads}
Unless the study actually supports what theyāre saying, :laugh: then theyāre all ITāS IN A JOURNAL, TRUST THE SCIENCE.
Even if the study has like 12 people in it
A scientistās dozen!
Thatās prob what they would call it.
And has seriously questionable methodology and is funded suspiciously, if it agrees, āthats because theyre the only people brave enough to research it!ā Beats manly chest as a drum like gorilla
But doesnt agree = see! Funded by Big Science!
I have a friend who is going down that path right now via very lefty SF yoga techbro world. Heās become vehemently vegan, an ultramarathoner, and ultra Covid safe - all fine in their selves. But I wonder if turning 40 and seeing his elderly parents face a pandemic triggered some terror in him about his own mortality and temporary able-bodied-ness because he has kinda taken it to an extreme.
His covid ultrasafety means he told me he believes that eating in restaurants and other ārisky behaviors" will go the way of smoking in restaurants and disappear/be outlawed in ~2-5 years, and people who arenāt willing to take (imo extreme) precaution will become the minority in the long term. This seems extreme to me becauseā¦ humans will always want to eat near other people, people will always need food prepared by other humans. He says he ādoes his own researchā on covid safety which I appreciate he doesnāt spread it online, but it seems to have led him to some very strong conclusions and some pretty suss ādoctorsā on youtube.
He also told me that being vegan will āreverse metabolic damageā which maybe is true (I havenāt researched even though Iāve been vegan for 26 years), but sounds pretty suss to me and that he will live past 100 years old because he runs ultras and is vegan. When I expressed that I am vegan but I am unlikely to live past 100 because of genetics and chronic illness, he said that being vegan makes up for any damage that my illness might do
Like honey, Iāve been vegan for a good 12 years before I had this diagnosis. No woman in my family has lived past 72. Not feeling likely.
Anyway, my own dire life expectancy predictions aside - I get concerned heās gotten so hardcore into the vegan/yoga/ultramarathoning world because of his own need to cling to something that looks like religion but feeds on his fear of his fragility and mortality. And I worry that will get even more extreme.