“And the great owners, who must lose their land in an upheaval, the great owners with access to history, with eyes to read history and to know the great fact: when property accumulates in too few hands it is taken away. And that companion fact: when a majority of the people are hungry and cold they will take by force what they need. And the little screaming fact that sounds through all history: repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed. The great owners ignored the three cries of history. the land fell into fewer hands, the number of the dispossessed increased, and every effort of the great owners was directed at repression. The money was spent for arms, for gas to protect the great holdings, and spies were sent to catch the murmurings of revolt so that it might be stamped out. The changing economy was ignored, plans for the change ignored; and only means to destroy revolt were considered, while the causes of revolt went on.
The tractors which throw men out of work, the belt lines which carry loads, the machines which produce, all were increased; and more and more families scampered on the highways, looking for crumbs from the great holdings, lusting after the land beside the roads. The great owners formed associations for protection and they met to discuss ways to intimidate, to kill, to gas. And always they were in fear of a principal - three hundred thousand - if they ever move under a leader - the end. Three hundred thousand, hungry and miserable; if they ever know themselves, the land will be theirs, and all the gas, all the rifles in the world won’t stop them. And great owners, who had become through their holdings both more and less than men, ran to their destruction, and used every means that in the long run would destroy them. Every little means, every violence, every raid on a Hooverville, every deputy swaggering through a ragged camp put off the day a little and cemented the inevitability of the day.”
most damaging idea of the 21st century: the conviction of vast numbers of people that human history will end within our lifetimes
climate change represents world-altering tragedy if unchecked, but not even in the worst-case scenario does it mean “literally everyone dies”
yet so many people have jumped already to “it’s over, the world is going to end, we can do nothing about it” and are just paralyzingly cynical. How do I explain that the power to imagine a future is essential for creating it
you know the thing where trauma can cause you to just. not expect to live much longer so when you get to 30 you don’t know what to do because you thought you’d be dead by 25
That is happening to all of us right now on a society-wide scale
A lot of people are like. REALLY angry at me for suggesting that “be depressed and do nothing” isn’t necessarily the only response to climate change.
this, this, this, this, this, this, and like, 700 other sources will tell you that most of the effects of climate change will be reversible even if we pass the ‘threshold’ of a 1.5 degrees Celsius increase in global temperature
BUT. Even if the worst happens, it will be important to be doing things other than wallowing in misery???
I’m not trying to be callous but for people living today it’s wildly unlikely for the results to be “literally immediate death.”
People will get displaced from their homes by rising sea levels. We have like, years, probably decades, before that happens. It seems so fucked up to decide that we should do nothing, because we’ve already decided they’re going to die anyway????
If a bunch of us are going to die, why not die trying to help each other? Why not try to make sure fewer people die? Why not do something that might reduce someone’s suffering or give them food or clean water or a place to sleep?
I don’t know how to explain to you that people need socks during the apocalypse
anyway blackout poetry not just as an art form, but as an act of violence against other works of art
taking a piece of text that someone probably put their heart and soul into creating and using it as your raw material, cutting out everything that you deem irrelevant to the point you want to make
i mean imagine cutting up a painting and using it to make a collage, or taking a marble sculpture and carving pieces out of it to make a different sculpture
just to be clear: i love blackout poetry, im not criticizing it here. i am just waxing poetic about it. i dont really know where im going with this i just have Thoughts about art being destructive
“wHaT aRe ThE cHanCeS tHaT sOmEoNe HaS sO mAnY cOnDiTiOnS at oNcE?”
It’s very common for people who have one thing off in their bodies to have a lot more things off in their bodies as a result of the root problem.
The human body is a highly complex and delicate interconnected web of different systems. Usually when one (1) thing is tilted a little to the left, a ton of other shit falls off the shelf along with it.
You know what very commonly goes to shit when *checks notes* YOUR GUT BACTERIA are off?
Your immune and neurological systems!
Neuroimmunity (as in bodily dysfunction characterized by autoimmunity and neurological dysfunction interacting tightly together) is closely related to gastrointestinal disturbances!
It’s not disabled people’s fault you’re all so medically illiterate. It technically isn’t your fault either (unless you’re healthcare professionals), but you still shouldn’t burden US with YOUR ignorance.
This was about chronic illness and other physical ailments, by the way.
some people think writers are so eloquent and good with words, but the reality is that we can sit there with our fingers on the keyboard going, “what’s the word for non-sunlight lighting? Like, fake lighting?” and for ten minutes, all our brain will supply is “unofficial”, and we know that’s not the right word, but it’s the only word we can come up with…until finally it’s like our face got smashed into a brick wall and we remember the word we want is “artificial”.
surely this is a good idea that doesn’t have the capacity to end real fuckin badly
Bridges aren’t supposed to have weight restrictions on them. That is, they don’t come with weight restrictions on them when they’re new. So a bridge with a weight restriction on it is a sign that something has gone wrong and the bridge does not meet current standards.
The maximum weight that a vehicle is allowed to carry on the Interstate System per federal law is 80,000 pounds gross vehicle weight (with a max of 20,000 pounds per axle). That’s 40 tons. That limit applies to every inch of pavement, not just the bridges. Since this is a known cap, a new Interstate bridge will be designed to accommodate an 80,000 lb GVW load on it. You could say the bridge’s weight limit is 80,000 lb/40 tons but that doesn’t really have much meaning, because a load higher than that would be illegal to transport on public roads anyway, and the road leading up to the bridge has the same weight restriction. (In practice, the bridge doubtlessly will be designed to have a little bit of let to it just in case some idiot tries to squeak by a few hundred extra pounds.)
Now, note that that law applies to the Interstate System only, because the federal government only has a governing interest in the Interstate System (and other roads that together make up something called the National Highway System) because they partially fund it. Most long-distance roads are owned and funded by the states. The states could theoretically set lower standard weight limits and/or design bridges with lower weight limits…but in practice they don’t.
One, because all of that 80,000 lb GVW traffic on the Interstate system has to go somewhere when it exits the system.
Two, because a group called the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO, who are best known for picking the road numbers) maintains a catalog of standard components for making bridges that meet Interstate System requirements. Engineers are expensive on a per-hour basis, so if you can direct your engineer to use standard components and make a standard bridge, that’s a lot cheaper than having them design a bridge from scratch to go over the creek in Nowheresville. As a result, most new bridges meet Interstate standards and have an 80,000 lb GVW rating even if they aren’t on the Interstate system. (This is also why all new bridges kind of look the same, but we’re not worried about how boring the bridges are for the sake of this post.)
So a bridge only has an explicit weight limit if it has been damaged in some way (through failure to properly maintain it usually) or because it predates the application of Interstate System standards and the standard AASHTO bridges.
Older bridges often have other problems in addition to the weight limits: many older designs are what we call “fracture critical”, which means that if one component of the bridge fails the whole thing collapses. Modern bridge designs have redundancy designed into them so that if one beam fails the other beams will carry the load until the damaged beam can be replaced. Older bridges also often don’t meet other standards, like height (16 ft clearance) and width (12 ft per lane plus 14 ft for shoulders) requirements.
Biden isn’t advocating eliminating weight limits and letting it be a laissez-faire free-for-all where trucks can just go wherever they want. He’s advocating for replacing bridges that carry weight limits with new ones that don’t have them.
wow i got absolutely schooled thank you for all this this is really informative. i have learned so much
that was worded super poorly in his tweet tho, the guy needs a social media manager or something. If he has one, he needs a better one.
