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  • scopes trial

    in 1925, a tennessee teacher named john t. scopes was arrested for teaching charles darwin's theory of evolution, which said that "higher" forms of life, such as humans, olved from "lower" life forms, such as apes. many rural americans felt this theory was at odds with the creationism they believed in and their traditional christian values.

    william jennings bryan, the great populist hero, spoke for the prosecution. scopes was defended by famous defense attorney clarence darrow. in his questioning, darrow made bryan seem foolish and ignorant. the trial settled nothing, though. scopes was fined $100, and the ruling was later reversed on a technicality.

  • turkey

    a country where there is no culture of resignation.

  • love

    everything gets less complicated if you think love is just "a hormonal reaction".*

    let's see what notable people said about love:

    theodor seuss geisel:
    you know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.

    taylor swift:
    when you are missing someone, time seems to move slower, and when i'm falling in love with someone, time seems to be moving faster.

    kim kardashian:
    i think you have different soul-mates throughout your life, that your soul needs different things at different times. i do believe in love. i will always believe in love, but my idea has changed from what i've always thought.

    oprah winfrey:
    lots of people want to ride with you in the limo. but you want someone who'll help you catch the bus.

    william watson purkey:
    you've gotta dance like there's nobody watching,
    love like you'll never be hurt,
    sing like there's nobody listening,
    and live like it's heaven on earth.

    elie wiesel:
    the opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. the opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. the opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. and the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.

    william shakespeare:
    love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.

    neil gaiman:
    have you ever been in love? horrible isn't it? it makes you so vulnerable. it opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up.

    lao tzu:
    being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.

    chuck palahniuk:
    the one you love and the one who loves you are never, ever the same person.*

    paulo coelho:
    when we love, we always strive to become better than we are. when we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.

    one is loved because one is loved. no reason is needed for loving.

    mahatma gandhi:
    when i despair, i remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. there have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. think of it, always.

    where there is love there is life.

    sarah dessen:
    love is needing someone. love is putting up with someone's bad qualities because they somehow complete you.

    oscar wilde:
    never love anyone who treats you like you're ordinary.*

    plato:
    every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. those who wish to sing always find a song. at the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet.

    john krasinski:
    when you're lucky enough to meet your one person, then life takes a turn for the best. it can't get better than that.

    katy perry:
    first and foremost, self-love, and then give love away.

    fyodor dostoevsky:
    above all, don't lie to yourself. the man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. and having no respect he ceases to love.

    edgar allen poe:
    we loved with a love that was more than love.

    sigmund freud:
    psychoanalysis is in essence a cure through love.

  • taxation without representation

    what upset the colonists about a tax such as the 1765 stamp act was that it was imposed on them without their consent. their assemblies could not vote on the tax, and they had no representatives in parliament "no taxation without representation" became their rallying cry.

    a large minority, known as patriots, formed the sons of liberty and the daughters of liberty. these organizations asked colonial merchants not to trade with the british, and the daughters of liberty boycotted british goods.

    a stamp act congress with delegates from nine colonies met in new york in october 1765. it sent a petition urging parliament to repeal the tax. one delegate stated what many were feeling: "there ought to be no new englanders, no new yorkers ... but all of us americans." parliament repealed the stamp tax but immediately passed a declaratory act, which said that only parliament had the authority to make laws for the colonies.

  • dalai lama

    a spiritual shepherd in sneakers. exiled monk, global peace icon, and master of dropping wisdom bombs with a smile. proof that compassion can go viral.

  • boris berezovsky (businessman)

    a russian oligarch who played chess with power in the '90s - kingmaker, exile, and enigma. rose with the empire, fell out with the czar, and died wrapped in conspiracy.

  • immanuel wallerstein

    the guy who looked at the world and said, "it's all one big rigged game." architect of world-systems theory. saw capitalism not as a phase, but as the global plot twist we're still stuck in.

  • kim kardashian

    a reality-bending force of fame who turned selfies, scandals, and shapewear into a billion-dollar empire. proof that in the age of algorithms, influence > inheritance.

    synonyms: mogul, muse, meme generator

  • tesla

    tesla gets the sun confused with traffic lights video

  • louisiana purchase

    buying the louisiana territory raised a constitutional issue for president jefferson, since the document said nothing about purchasing new lands. jefferson decided that keeping france from controlling the mississippi river was too important, though, to turn down the opportunity. so the purchase was judged necessary and the senate readily approved it in 1803. congress paid france about $15 million for the land.

    the louisiana purchase doubled the land area of the nation, adding 800,000 square miles and more than 200,000 people-primarily american indians, spanish, and french.

  • r/place

    world war 3 on the internet.

  • acquisition of twitter by elon musk

  • artificial intelligence

    it will completely erase shared culture.

    in the '80s and '90s, people more or less watched and listened to the same things. the next day, they would discuss and critique these in the office or at school, sharing their thoughts with friends. with the widespread adoption of social media, instead of a collective culture, a niche culture that only followers are aware of has started to emerge. someone might become famous somewhere, but you don't know who they are, right? yet, they have hundreds of thousands or maybe even millions of followers.

    with the advent of artificial intelligence, this niche culture will be replaced by a completely "personalized culture." for example, think about spotify. you have marked the songs you like one by one. with the development of ais that produce good music, songs created specifically for you based on your preferences will start to play. no one else will know about them. you can extend this to films, series, and other types of content. thus, everyone will be exposed to what they like. in a way, it's good, but in another, it's bad. in the end, everything will become more individualized. there will be no common ground for sharing.

    if i live long enough, i would love to see a high-quality ai that allows me to choose the actors in a film made just for me.

  • brave new world

    aldous huxley's dystopian novel published in 1932 has been the subject of debate since its release: is "brave new world" a dystopia or a utopia? to understand the genre of the novel properly, it's essential to look at the characteristics of dystopian fiction:

    – the use of propaganda to control society
    – restrictions on access to information, freedom, and independence
    – society's adulation of a symbolic leader or concept
    – society constantly feeling under surveillance
    – society's fear of the outside world
    – society living in dehumanized systems
    – alienation from and disbelief in nature
    – society conforming to the same expectations, resulting in a lack of individuality and diversity
    – society being a reflection of a perfect utopia

    huxley's novel exhibits all but one of these characteristics. the bokanovsky process and fordism in "brave new world" serve as tools of propaganda to maintain control. the book's representative of these themes is the western european world controller, mustapha mond. throughout the book, we see bans on science and art, and nobody is truly free. there's worship of the concept of fordism. you witness the fear of lenina crowne when she visits the savage reservation with john, who represents the outside world. the characters perfectly conform to the system, indicating the dehumanization of the established order. emotions, pain, or freedoms are absent; instead, they are replaced with sensory films and "soma," a drug they never part without. the isolation of john's place, the savage reservation, is an example of the exclusion of nature. characters are divided into classes, and each class is standardized. lastly, the book gives an air of utopia. except for the characters feeling under surveillance, the book perfectly encompasses dystopian elements.

    the real issue, though, is huxley's choice of a soft dystopia over a harsh one. unlike 1984, where political oppression crushes society, "brave new world" offers its society a "false" happiness. this is what baffles readers and gives a sense of utopia: the characters are happy, but this happiness is tied to the system shaping them from birth and their frequent use of the drug soma.

    in the novel, there is a robotic caste system: people are pre-programmed before birth as alphas, betas, gammas, deltas, or epsilons. alphas are tall, intelligent, and attractive, while deltas are short, programmed for labor, and stupid, with the intelligence of a five-year-old at most. thus, the lower classes, the deltas, and epsilons, are happy.

    in essence, huxley has killed the concept of "human" and replaced it with "human-like robots," creating a utopia-looking dystopia. huxley's message is that it's impossible for humans to create a utopia on their own. if stability and order are desired, personalities must be killed and people must become dependent on drugs. the book lacks art, family, emotions, books, freedom of thought, or science. these are things that the system opposes because a robot does not need these concepts.

    like "1984," "brave new world" contains a totalitarian regime, but instead of using torture like room 101, it aligns its characters with soft methods like the bokanovsky system and soma, yet the result is the same: society loses its freedom. the utopia "brave new world" provides is not for people but for humans who have lost their human traits. this is why huxley includes a character like john the savage. john represents "the human" in every sentence and action against the robotic system. what he tries to convey is that either we live in fake happiness as the system intends, or we feel real happiness like john, but with its pains.

    in the sixteenth chapter, the conversation between john and mustapha mond mentions that they have given up science and art (or, in other words, their humanity) for stability and happiness.

    huxley's model of utopia is a system cleansed of humanity. he does not envision a perfect political structure or educated people like thomas more, but a system that eradicates the self. that's why "brave new world" is a dystopia. replacing tyranny with happiness does not change the fact that it annihilates the human self.

    as stated in the adaptation of the host, which also has a utopic dystopia like "brave new world," "our world had never been so perfect, but it was no longer our world."

  • mansplaining

    imagine this guy named chad who thinks he knows everything. he's got this unshakeable confidence, and he just can't resist explaining things, especially to women, even when they already know it—or worse, when they're experts. that's mansplaining in a nutshell.

    picture tech savvy tammy, a software engineer with a decade of experience. chad, who just read a beginner's guide to coding, starts telling her how to write a basic program. tammy's internal monologue is probably something like, "thanks, chad. i only do this for a living."

    then there's fitness fiona, a personal trainer. she's at the gym, working out, and chad strolls over to show her the 'correct' way to do a squat. fiona's response is a polite smile, but inside, she's imagining hitting chad with a kettlebell.

    or take history buff hannah, who has a ph.d. in history. at a party, chad starts explaining world war ii to her as if she's never heard of it. hannah nods along, all the while thinking, "is this guy for real?"

    and don't forget guitar goddess gwen, who's been playing guitar for fifteen years and is in a band. chad, who just picked up a guitar last week, starts showing her how to play a chord. gwen's like, "oh really, chad? tell me more about this g chord."

    the best part about mansplaining is chad's unshakeable belief that he's bestowing valuable knowledge upon the unenlightened. meanwhile, the women on the receiving end are caught between wanting to laugh and wanting to sigh deeply.

    so, mansplaining is when a guy explains something in a condescending way to a woman, assuming she doesn't know it, even if she's an expert. it's like chad believes it's his duty to educate everyone, even when they don't need—or want—his 'wisdom.'

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