#rationalist fiction
I had the most fun skating tonight than I have had in a while (maybe because the pressure of passing those two tests is gone)!
Ferguson’s radical knitters: “If someone asks me what I’m doing, I say, ‘I’m knitting for black liberation” by Sarah Kendzior
One year after Ferguson protests sparked renewed focus on policing in the US, the women of The Yarn Mission continue dialogue about race and social justice
In a coffeehouse on the south side of St Louis, a group of women discuss how to knit, purl and dismantle white supremacy.
“As a black woman, you’re invisible,” says Taylor Payne, a member of the group. “But knitting makes people stop and have a conversation with you. If someone asks me what I’m doing, I say, ‘I’m knitting for black liberation.’ Sometimes they respond and sometimes I just get ‘Oh, my grandma knits,’ like the person didn’t hear me. But at least it opens the door to talking about my experiences.”
“People consistently underestimate the power of knitting,” says Sewell. “They don’t recognize its radical properties. They’re always surprised when they talk to us about what why we’re knitting, like, ‘Is she talking about racism right now? Did she really just say ‘police brutality?’”
Ilove this.
The Talk by Rachel Giese
A new sex ed for boys
[…] he unfolds himself from his chair and sketches a picture on a whiteboard at the front of the room: a figure shaped like a gingerbread man, with a smiley face, a heart, and a starburst at the crotch.
Abbott points to the head and explains that gender identity lies there (whether you define yourself as a man, a woman, or somewhere in between); the heart represents orientation (whom you’re attracted to); the starburst connotes sex (your physical characteristics); and the outline, the external shape, stands for gender expression (how you dress, talk, walk, and so on). These various aspects don’t line up the same way for everyone, he says.
Giving young men the opportunity to talk about what they enjoy and what they don’t also opens the door to considering the desires of others, and it’s a short leap from talking about pleasure to talking about consent. Boys are repeatedly told in sex ed classes that “no means no,” Chai says, but they are seldom asked if they ever want to say no themselves. The hope is that if they get in touch with their wants and needs, they will show more respect for their partners’ wishes, too. (On the flip side, a movement has emerged to encourage young women to feel good about enjoying sex, a kind of unashamed, yes-means-hell-yes concept called “enthusiastic consent.”)
The fundamental lesson at work here is how to establish and respect boundaries and personal choice. […] Teaching young men to trust, communicate, negotiate, and empathize does not undermine or threaten their manliness. It expands their humanity. It reclaims men’s possibilities.
I love this, too. I wish that this is the typical sex education that everyone gets to have. I barely remember the sex ed class I took in high school, but we certainly didn’t go over the differences between gender identity, sexual orientation, sex, and gender expression. We mostly went over STDs and how awful they are. The sex ed I remember clearly was abstinence-only, taught during a church retreat. It taught me that sex is a gross, awful thing that magically becomes amazing and loving in the context of heterosexual marriage (…what?). Anyways, there’s a great Last Week Tonight with John Oliver segment on the problems with sex ed in America that I highly recommend.
Luminosity by Alicorn
The history and character of the Twilight world are intact in Luminosity up to the point where the story begins, with one exception: Bella’s a rational self-awareness-junkie with a penchant for writing down everything that crosses her mind in a notebook.
My father, Charlie, met my second plane in Port Angeles, hugged me with one arm, and helped me get my suitcases into his police cruiser. Once I’d buckled my seatbelt, in accordance with the law it would have been too ironic not to obey in a cop car, Charlie began the drive to his house - my house, too, I supposed. He told me he’d found a good car for me, a cheap one.
Ihad wanted a car. Not just to have a car - I didn’t care about cars very much as objects - but to have autonomous mobility around town, and to avoid dependence on Charlie for rides, as he a) had other things to do with his time and b) drove a conspicuous vehicle. That he’d found me one for myself was a sign of attentiveness, trust, and spontaneous generosity: he knew what I wanted, thought I’d be responsible enough to have it, and offered it to me without any social obligation to do so whatever. I felt a rush of gratitude, and immediately thanked him warmly. He looked a little embarrassed; I relieved the awkwardness by asking after the details of the car and providing a concrete topic.
I’ve never read Twilight before, but a friend suggested Luminosity when discussing rationalist fiction and Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. I don’t plan on reading the actual series or watching the movies because I’ve heard too many things about how Bella is a vapid character unable to think for herself; this fanfiction certainly makes up for any vacuousness. It’s interesting how both Bella in Luminosity and Harry in HPMOR are staunchly opposed to death; either this is something common in rationalist circles or a product of HPMOR as inspiration (or a coincidence). Anyways, this was an awesome read.
“If God existed it would be necessary to abolish him” is such a raw line, you’d think it came from some edgelord 1990s anarcho-punk zine but it’s actually from an edgelord 1990s doctor who spinoff book series
This line reminds me of The Tragedy of Prince Hamlet and the Philosopher’s Stone, or, A Will Most Incorrect to Heaven, in which Hamlet’s main takeaways from meeting his father’s ghost are that (a) Hell exists and (b) it must be destroyed.
