Yeah, racism being well hidden is a much more modern phenomenon. Back then, getting away with it was more about the white people who disagreed looking the other way. Kind of like transphobia, or maybe homophobia now.

Often, it just wasn’t well publicised, which is why police - and people friendly with the police - got away with so much more shit than they could now. If there weren’t a ton of unfriendly witnesses, with no video they could just lie. If there was, the papers had the option of covering it, but the average journalist was friendly with the police. They might just make a gentleman’s agreement that whatever incident was either a regrettable mistake, not worth upsetting the public about, or even that it was illegal but good. Things had to get pretty crazy bad before it got reported.

If you were a black person, you and people you know just very directly felt it. The police could harass or beat you whenever they wanted, which was often enough. And that was on top of the more open racist policies that existed.

Do consider, as well, that informal violence was more normised. Now, if you punch somebody you probably get charged with assault. Then, brawls happened fairly often, and as long as it stayed fisticuffs, it tended to be considered a personal matter. Which meant getting roughed up by the police probably wouldn’t be considered brutality at all until deadly weapons come out, or it’s an extended beating while you’re restrained.

With police brutality specifically, a highly professional, highly centralised, very white and very pro-authority press might not have covered it better.

Margharita is sold here too, but basil is absolutely mandatory, and usually it’s done in a more Italian, thinly topped style. Typically it has sliced tomato in addition to the sauce, as well.

Similar to quattro formaggi, but with only one cheese. Like, the same standard blend whatever international chain puts on every other pizza, and the same sauce and crust, but nothing else.

The concept is American, but American-style pizza is everywhere now. Italy of course doesn’t do it like Americans, and I guess only serving the better version of “cheese” would be in character for France, as well.

IIRC angels as genderless comes from the scholastics and St. Thomas Aquinas. They tried to reason out (guess, basically) a bunch of things about angels, and came up with them being detached, bodyless consciousnesses that exist at or around a point.

Hebrew, Greek and Latin all have grammatical gender, which must complicate any readings from the bible on the matter. Angels are described as either indistinguishable from humans or completely monstrous - in the case of the ophanim, more abstract or machine-like than animal, even. The fluffy winged person idea came after, and almost certainly was borrowed from Germanic and/or Persian paganism.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the weird teacher wasn’t totally alone in that cracked interpretation, but only because medieval monks can be weird, as well.

Hmm, her. What tradition are you coming from, exactly? I’ve heard the devil described as female before, but it’s usually “he” in my background.

The holy spirit is a funny exception, since it doesn’t have an actual name, but this still feels right, even there.

The sun and moon are other examples. Historically there’s no reason to have a name for them, since they’re the only one. Sol gets called Sol in some contexts now, and there’s Luna, but that hasn’t really caught on - it’s usually “Earth’s moon”.

You can definitely talk about Popes plural, if you don’t just mean the current one.

Huh, where are you? I’d expect it to be one of the offerings most places.

Oh man, banning indexing has the same vibe as Piefed banning all the most active users. Apparently, you can run part of the internet, and still not know how internet communities work.

IIRC, once. It felt like seeing someone you know on TV.

Well, everyone starts somewhere, I guess.

The main risk seems like it would be pranks. You can definitely buy other unpleasant odours for pranks, and if the point is to make people thing there’s an emergency, smoke would also work.

Hmm. I wonder if they all got it on the same trip, or at least in the same spot.

Should it be?

Several?

Are you in a naked backcountry hiking club, or something?

If you’re attracted to women, and still thinking of him as a woman, probably not. But also, it’s a homosexual relationship.

Labels don’t actually mean anything, though.

Yes, it really does. It makes me want to do things. If I wasn’t tracking that some percent of my natural lifespan is gone now, I might be inclined to just hang out and do whatever, like when I was a kid.

I actually still do want to leave some kind of legacy, although who knows how much of one is realistic. It just seems like a reasonable goal, when there actually are no defined goals. There’s a moral dimension to that, too; if the world is just ever so slightly better because of me, that’s good.

(Since I’m about to concede morality is not actually very strong, I should make a note that an individual person still can follow a moral system. You tend to pick a worldview that allows you to do what you want, though, and most people, who aren’t fixated on minutiae, will juggle a few)

Failing that, seizing the day, and learning or experiencing everything I can is important.

I don’t consider myself depressed but after seeing and reading what humans do to other humans I don’t trust the better angels of our nature can make the world a better place.

The interesting thing about history is that it demonstrates very starkly that humans have no firm morality, but it’s also ended (as in, so far) with a couple hundred years of actual progress. Clearly, we don’t have to actually be good, or at least naturally be good, for good outcomes to happen.

Don’t take that the wrong way, it still all could go terribly. But, it’s more complicated than just “we build what we are”.

That’s clearly a tame donkey, not a wild ass, SMH.

/s

Inside Google, there’s two wolves…

Which shouldn’t be surprising really; it’s contains a huge number of people, including people who post here in their spare time. The problem is that power tends to self-reinforce, and so in the absence of outside intervention, the proprietary enshittification wolf is bound to win.

I suggest you expand your social circle. Solitude is addictive. At first your wellbeing improves so you start to make it one of your top priorities. As you chase the solitude dragon, it stops feeling as good but it’s become all you know and the negative effects kick in.

Huh. That’s actually a pretty great analogy.

Our whole society has a bit of a problem with this drug right now. Like, yes, relationships suck. Making small talk or dealing with a whatever institutional gatekeeper sucks. But in the process of eliminating those things, we’ve made it way, way to easy to have no connection to anyone.