Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. AI Just Crossed the Terrifying Line - Now What? (October 5, 21-minute video) Good video from Kurzgesagt explaining the Hugging Face hack. This is indeed terrifying- and there should be consequences for OpenAI. When AI agents do something illegal, it shouldn't just be "oh it went rogue"- the company that made the AI should be held responsible.

2. In China’s Universities, Students Are Majoring in Second Chances (October 12) The education system in China is a lot more rigid than what I experienced in the US. Here's an article about how one specific aspect is starting to change- it's becoming easier for college students in China to change majors.

3. Evangelicals Keep Blaming Rape Victims Because They Don’t Understand Trauma (October 13) [content note: rape] "But perhaps if we better understood what trauma looked like, we would start being able to help girls like Vera, and read between the lines when they came to us, confused."

This post makes a really good point about how feeling guilty for consensual sex is a very different thing than feeling traumatized after being sexually assaulted. Wow, yes, back when I was in purity culture, I did feel guilt about not being "pure" enough due to consensual things (kissing, etc), and also I was afraid that I could get into a situation where "one thing leads to another" and *somehow* I would have sex and it would be my fault. (Fortunately did not happen to me, but if it had, I definitely would have blamed myself.) In purity culture, these are blurred together into the same thing- but wow, turns out they are very different, and they feel very different. One is consensual and one is not.

There are a lot of warnings, in purity culture, about how you shouldn't get into a situation with "temptation"- ie, if you go to a boy's room because you're attracted to him, and you're hoping for something romantic to happen, and then he sexually assaults you [in purity ideology they don't label this as sexual assault though], that's your fault because you had the "impure" desire and you took actions to pursue that, and then things spiraled out of your control- well, that's just what happens when you don't follow the purity rules.

When I started reading feminist blogs, and I read that "consent can be withdrawn at any time" and "just because you consent to one thing doesn't mean you consent to everything", I was completely shocked. That was totally opposite to so much of purity culture teaching.

See also:
"Boys Can't Stop"
6 Ways Purity Culture Did NOT Teach Me About Consent

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. You Can't Run From Christian Nationalism (October 8) "As Longwell says, Republican voters need a permission structure that allows them to get off the Trump train. White evangelicals need that structure to be a God-ordained superhighway with blinking neon lights citing quotable Bible verses."

On the one hand, yes. White evangelicals won't be willing to stop voting Republican, unless you can convince them that such a thing is compatible with being a good bible-believing Christian. On the other hand, I could easily build a superhighway out of bible verses, but they won't pay any attention to it, because all that stuff about devoting your life to Jesus and obeying the bible no matter the cost, it was all fake. They don't actually believe that. Those of us who really and truly believed it, we followed Jesus right out of evangelicalism.

2. Ectopic Pregnancy Deaths Have Nearly Doubled. It’s Worse in States With Abortion Bans. (September 9) 

Ectopic pregnancy symptoms often begin with abdominal pain and bleeding, which send women to emergency rooms. There, doctors use ultrasounds to locate where the pregnancy has implanted. 

However, embryos are often not visible on an ultrasound early in pregnancy. That could mean the pregnancy is ectopic, but it may also be a miscarriage or normal pregnancy that’s too small to see. Doctors can also assess whether the pregnancy is likely ectopic through blood tests over multiple days.

If the pregnancy is ectopic, the risk of rupture increases the longer treatment is delayed. In a state without a ban, a patient could decide at any point that that risk is not worth taking and opt to terminate the pregnancy.

In a state with a ban, however, that option may not exist. If doctors can confirm the pregnancy is ectopic through an ultrasound, they can protect themselves from having their decision to terminate questioned, perhaps by a zealous prosecutor. But waiting for this can delay treatment by days or even weeks. 

This is so messed-up. Signs point to a likely ectopic pregnancy, but in many cases the doctors can't say with 100% certainty, because they can't find where the embryo actually has implanted. The patient should be able to weigh the information- it's *probably* an ectopic pregnancy, and if it is and we do nothing, you could die- you can make the choice about whether you're willing to take that risk. But in "pro-life" states, you can't make that choice. If there's not definite proof it's an ectopic pregnancy, apparently we have to let you die?

And, not that it should matter, because people should be able to access abortion healthcare regardless of their reasons, but most of these are wanted pregnancies. These are not women who *want* to have abortions, they are women who want to have a baby, but terrifying and life-threatening complications have made it impossible for their embryo to actually grow into a baby.

3. ICE agents shot at man in car with his 5-year-old son (October 11) "Belgal has been transferred to a detention center in Brooklyn and spoke to his attorneys Friday, telling them he was in pain, still had a bullet in his body and wanted to see his family, the attorneys said."