I have deja-vues surprisingly often. Every once in a while, I’m talking to somebody about a certain topic, or doing a specific thing in a specific location, and I get this memory that I’ve seen this exact thing happen in a dream some time ago. The weird thing about that is that I usually forget my dreams right after waking up. I know I have vivid dreams, but their contents is usually gone from my mind within seconds of waking up. It’s probably just my brain doing things. But some irrational part of me believes that I have some weak form of cassandras curse, where I am allowed to see the future, but not allowed to remember it.

I feel like North Korean news wouldn’t be so casual about opposition and political protests. Not that they wouldn’t mention them. But I’d expect them to lean much more into their anti-capitalist righteousness or something along those lines.

I know how little I know about chemistry. The stuff on that page probably makes sense. But this just made me laugh.

Was it a boomslang? Is this the alternative ending to bullet train?

I was wondering, so I checked out the first guy on Wikipedia. The image isn’t lying about him, but the chief of staff part is sensationalizing it a bit. Dude was a career soldier since world War one, rose through the ranks and was chief of staff for an entirety of two weeks. Neither the German nor the English Wikipedia article on him really shine a clear light on his opinions. But he was definitely involved in the planning for military operations of the Nazis against the soviet union, and hunting down “partisans” in the occupied areas. According to the German wiki, one biographer claims that he did that as “humanely as possible given the circumstances” and “taking care of civilians as much as possible” (quotes roughly translated by myself), whereas some other historian cites some evacuation event at that time as clear evidence that he wasn’t that humane.

I personally feel quite confident in calling him a Nazi. He stood next to Hitler during the stauffenberg bombing and got injured (that was while he was chief of staff), He was suspected of being involved in the planning, but there was no evidence. And apparently he told the Gestapo everything he knew about the attackers, fully supporting the investigation against the conspirators. (to be clear, that last part isn’t stated like that in the articles, but I think it is a fair interpretation of what it sais). He also saw it as a duty of a Soldier in the Reich to fight on the east front, despite explicitly believing that that fight was a lost cause, and that many would die a needless death.

After the war, he gave testimony at the Nürnberg trials, and later worked together with the US army building up west German forces against the communists. (my personal interpretation: he had experience fighting against Russia, so they kept him involved.) Dwight Eisenhower liked him so much, he involved him majorly in the development of some European defense forces. At that point I got tired of reading, and only skimmed over the rest. Stuff continued, he built up the west German army, and later got his job at NATO. I did not read up on what that job actually was, and what he did in that role. But at this point I have no reason to doubt that it was a high level position, doing strategic stuff against the Soviets.

So, the guy was surely a Nazi, definitely a chief of staff under Hitler, and he did later hold a high position at NATO. Why would I call the image sensationalizing it, when it’s true? Cause explicitly calling him “Chief of Staff under Hitler” in the way it is in the image to me implies to me that he was a major thought leader in fashism. But everything I read about him makes him more the just-following-orders type of Nazi. Still a Nazi though. I also kinda understand how he ended up at NATO. I see it as a product of it’s time, and something we should acknowledge. US took in Nazi scientists to put people on the moon, and they apparently also took in (high ranking) Nazi soldiers to prepare/fight against the Soviets. But to me this doesn’t necessarily imply some Nazi conspiracy inside NATO. I don’t think someone like that should be in a top level position in that organization today. But he was, and given the circumstances, he was probably even a fitting choice. That alone should be reason enough to do better today.

Sources: the English and German Wikipedia articles on Adolf Heusinger. Was my first time reading up on him, on mobile on a train. Hope I did enough to separate what the articles said about the guy from my interpretation on it.

I think I have to point out, that the Nazis weren’t the only ones discriminating against and slaughtering Jews in Europe. There’s a long history of that, going back centuries. Ever heard of the cruscades for example? They didn’t limit themselves to killing non-Christian only in the holy lands. The Nazis were just the ones who did the killings on an industrial scale. But their reasoning for doing it goes way, way back. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Jews

This doesn’t excuse anything the Nazis did, or any form of discrimination, but I just feel it’s very dishonest to limit our view of anti-semitism in Germany (and Europe in general) to a fifteen year period, when it’s definitely been there a lot longer.

I wanted to counter this with the fact that you and me are both still alive, so the rate is only approaching 100%, but probably never quite there. Then I did a safety google, and got to learn that fatality rate apparently doesn’t care about the time until death. So as long as I don’t assume I’m immortal, your fact still holds true. But then I remembered that some jellyfish and sponges are considered to be be more or less immortal. Which raises the question: do we count beings which will most probably die out due to the expansion of our own sun as part of that 100% rate?

Detailed answer: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GmDNz7irGgw

TLDW: there’s two main parties (excluding lawyers and that kinda stuff) who would receive the money. As it stands right now, one of them would receive 98%, whereas the other would be left with barely anything. The Onion made a deal, that would cut into that 98%, and give the other party 100000 dollars more than what they would get with any other bid if it was shared according to the “proper” split. In return the 98% party gets paid out the rest of their due (potentially more, potentially less) with revenue from running the site.

I watched the video when it came out. If memory serves me correctly, the 98% party are parents from North Carolina, the others are from Texas. The percentage I wrote is probably wrong too. But it’s definitely a massive discrepancy. The Onion worked this deal out in collaboration with both parties, and there’s definitely a prosocial aspect in the NC parents declining a large chunk od money so the other victims can get more. Though both the NC parents and The Onion could potentially earn back that amount by running the website.

I’m a somewhat gender nonconforming man. I have long hair. I enjoy wearing colorful, frilly clothes. I crossplay in videogames. I love reading shoujo mangas. There’s a bunch of very “unmanly” hobbies I have. And I’ve had this question for a while: what if I’m actually Trans, and just masking it with stuff I deem acceptable for a man?

Then, after about one year of living together, my flatmate came out to me as Trans. She realized/admitted it to herself a bit before moving in (we knew each other before, but we weren’t really close), and started experimentally wearing women’s clothes and doing makeup (and probably some other stuff) whenever I was away for the past half year. I was one of the first people she came out to.

Over the next few years I saw her transition a lot. I was there, when she came out to a couple of common friends, gave her the courage to come out to her family (which caused some issues in the beginning, but ultimately turned out good), experienced her fashion change from awkwardly hyper feminine (pink skirts, fishnets, an oversized bra stuffed with definitely too much TP) to something that suits her much more and feels natural to her body type (still skirts and stockings and bras, just less awkward). She even started HRT recently.

And throughout all this, I realized one thing: I fundamentally don’t empathyze with that aspect of her in any way, shape or form. Like, I understand rationally what she’s going through. I see her get visibly happier every step of the way. If I was Trans, and just couldn’t admit it to myself as I said in the beginning, I’d expect to feel something when looking at her changes. Maybe some jealousy or envy. Or at least some type of “I want that for me too” type of thing. But I don’t. Whenever my flatmate did a change, my only thoughts were : “great for you” and “I wouldn’t bother doing that for myself”.

Living with a trans woman made me fully realize that I am male. I’m very much ok with people putting me in the same group as people like Leonardo Di Caprio, Ghandi, Trump, the five year old boy next door, and the rest of more or less 50% of humans that have ever lived (I know that’s normative of the gender binary, but I couldn’t think of a way to phrase this without making it overly complicated). Yet I am fundamentally different from every one of those. So to me, it feels like I shouldn’t really place any value on being part of that group. I just know that I am, and that’s it.

As for you: talk to trans people. See if you can relate to them. Watch videos by trans creators. Experiment with stuff you consider to be feminine, and see if it makes you happy. Or if it makes you feel uncomfortable, try to figure out why. And if you find stuff you like, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you are trans, though I believe that at some point that is strongly implied.

I have know idea what it actually means to be a man or a woman, or trans, or non-binary, or agender. I’ve just had an opportunity to figure out which of these groups I fit in. And I’ve realised that in the end, even though I know something about myself now, it doesn’t really matter.