Link Archive 5/7/15 – 6/16/15

Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy are an item! "Yes, they are Girlfriends without the jealousy of monogamy."

A lot of culture is story-telling and myth-making. Tom Cruise movies and video games are story-telling, and they're as much a part of culture as religion is. The Game That Let Me Mourn My Lost Faith

Chris Christie suggests "An investor could pay a portion of the student’s tuition to attend college in exchange for that student giving the investor a certain percentage of their income for so many years." I read an SF book with this theme that tried to pass itself off as a dystopia, but it was one of the best societies ever and I have no idea why this is a bad thing? They actually had to lie in the headline ("CHRIS CHRISTIE SUGGESTS STUDENTS SELL THEMSELVES TO INVESTORS TO PAY FOR COLLEGE") to make it sound bad.

Much like the Velveteen Rabbit, I, too, curse my flimsy meat body and hope for a less gross replacement some day.

Chris Hedges explains why an uprising is coming. "We have, to quote John Ralston Saul, “undergone a corporate coup d’état in slow motion” and it’s over. The normal mechanisms by which we carry out incremental and piecemeal reform through liberal institutions no longer function. They have been seized by corporate power"

Scott Alexander, of course. :) Against Tulip Subsidies: "Americans take eight years to become doctors. Irishmen can do it in four, and achieve the same result. Each year of higher education at a good school – let’s say an Ivy, doctors don’t study at Podunk Community College – costs about $50,000. So American medical students are paying an extra $200,000 for…what? ... 20,000 doctors graduate in the United States each year; that means the total yearly cost of requiring doctors to have undergraduate degrees is $4 billion. That’s most of the amount of money you’d need to house every homeless person in the country ... If I were Sanders, I’d propose a different strategy. Make “college degree” a protected characteristic, like race and religion and sexuality. If you’re not allowed to ask a job candidate whether they’re gay, you’re not allowed to ask them whether they’re a college graduate or not. You can give them all sorts of examinations, you can ask them their high school grades and SAT scores, you can ask their work history, but if you ask them if they have a degree then that’s illegal class-based discrimination and you’re going to jail. I realize this is a blatant violation of my usual semi-libertarian principles, but at this point I don’t care."

I'm not familiar with the scene, but how the can can you have a nudist movement if you're scared of the occasional erection? Floppy-Dicked Haters Kick Erect Man Out of Naked Bike Ride

"It’s like this… You’re fourteen and you’re reading Larry Niven’s “The Protector” because it’s your father’s favorite book and you like your father and you think he has good taste and the creature on the cover of the book looks interesting and you want to know what it’s about. And in it the female character does something better than the male character - because she’s been doing it her whole life and he’s only just learned - and he gets mad that she’s better at it than him. And you don’t understand why he would be mad about that, because, logically, she’d be better at it than him. She’s done it more. And he’s got a picture of a woman painted on the inside of his spacesuit, like a pinup girl, and it bothers you. But you’re fourteen and you don’t know how to put this into words." (more at link)

I love the hell out of this picture. Japan finally recognizes Godzilla as a resident and tourism ambassador

Speed Reading: Facts And Fantasy. (Spoiler: anything jmuch over 400wpm means a drastic drop in comprehension, and can't really be coutned as "reading) What kinda worries me is just how many people do "read" at 400+ wpm and thus lose a lot of comprehension. I'd rather read less and have it mean more. However, I am a bit wary that this article may be falling into my "This is something I want to believe" zone.

Molly Tanzer (fellow Coloradan and amazing person, I love hanging with her at cons) has a new book out which is getting awesome reviews from IO9 to NPR! I'm not sure which one is awesomer, mad props to her!

per Jai - It's not cheating, it's technique: How to stop Android’s fucking profanity policing bullshit

Official Statement on the Leadership of NRx. Looks like the Neo-Reactionaries are trying to get organized. They're taking the first steps from "bunch of internet crazies" to "actual movement". I know these things peter out most of the time, but this is the same track the Libertarians were on in the 70s, no? I think they could very well end up a legit movement. And they're just so damn fascinating to watch!

Home-Brewed Morphine Is Around The Corner. While I hesitate to share these sorts of headlines before a other critical eye has been cast on it (because science reporting in America is THE WORST) I love the implications of this if it pans out. Can't wait for the heroin cartels to lose business as drastically as the weed cartels did after Colorado fully legalized pot. And for the drug laws in the US to suffer further undermining.

Lot of awesome spoken-word poetry by this guy, just found him recently. In this we learn why pawns can only move forward. Fuck yes:

I've heard it say that the only correct answer to the Trolley Problem is "I refuse to answer your hypothetical, and fuck you for asking me that question." Here's another way of saying that, that I liked. "The correct utilitarian rule about torture is “don’t torture people, even if it’s the right thing to do; it is more likely you are mistaken than that torture is morally right.” Being repelled by torture to the extent that you can’t even consider that it’s correct in a thought experiment seems to me like the way that your emotions and intuition internalize that rule. By developing your capacity to be okay with torture in thought experiments, you are practicing being okay with torture."

I keep forgetting to try this, and I really want to at the next gathering I'm at. How to train empathy.

Remember the SNL Skit about how a Black Widow movie would be made into a terrible chick-flick? Then remember the Supergirl trailer that came out one week later? Teh lulz.

Speaking of which, I just saw "The To-Do List". I thought it would be a chick flick or some dumb teen comedy. Instead it was the most fun I've had with a movie in well over a year. :) It was fucking hilarious, but still touching, and smart! So much so, that I suspect the target demo isn't teens at all, but rather people who grew up in the 90s (it's a 90's period piece). Anyway, if you're looking for a comedy, totally recommended.

Your cyberpunk games are dangerous: How roleplaying games and fantasy fiction confounded the FBI, confronted the law, and led to a more open web. I kinda miss my cyberpunk future :/

Another story of legalized theft via "civil asset forfeiture." Young black guy headed to LA to start a new career with $16k in cash he'd saved up is singled out for a search on a train by DEA. They decide (with zero evidence) he must be a drug dealer, seize the money, never charge him with anything. Now HE has to go to court to prove the cash WASN'T connected to narcotics.

Cosplayers Read Hate. It's like Kimmel's "Celebrities Read Mean Tweats", but with cosplayers

I found this hilarious! :D Fictional Men I Believe Have Enjoyed Being Pegged. "The way I see it, Cyclops is incredibly into it and Wolverine could probably take it or leave it alone except for the fact that Jean Grey ADORES it, so there’s a weirdly competitive vibe between the two of them over who loves getting pegged more."