Me: -so after it became apparent that ‘retarded’ had become a term of abuse, educators and psychiatrists switched to other terms like ‘handicapped’ or ‘special needs’ in an attempt to –
George Orwell, whom I’ve dragged forward in time with my arcane powers because I’m lonely and want someone to talk to: You have a telephone in your pocket? It listens to you all the time?
Me: Never mind about that, the point is, young people now mock each other by sending the wheelchair emoji – that’s a type of electronic heiroglyph – to suggest mental deficiency and shout SPESHUL!!!! while doing offensive imitations of disabled facial expressions and posture. So any attempt to lexographically make crimethink impossible is pretty much doomed because the meaning of words in everyday conversation can’t be controlled by a dictionary entry, no matter how many Ministry of Truth employees-
Orwell: It reports your location to the telephone company at all times?
Orwell: It listens to you all the time? Me: What? No! It doesn’t listen to you! We’re just so good at statistical analysis that we can look at hundreds of other data-points and make it look like it listens to you all the time; as an unintentional side-effect of trying to get you to buy stuff.
the meaning of life is summed up in the story elmer bendiner tells about how when he was a pilot the second world war, his plane was hit with a barrage of anti-aircraft fire from the nazi forces but the crew survived. and how everyone was saying it was a miracle until they investigated the shells that got in the fuselage and found there was no explosive charges in any of them. in one they found a note scribbled in czech, written by the person who had been forced to manufacture the shells, and it just said ‘this is all we can do for you now’.
every time i see someone acting tough online about how harm reduction is pointless and in some convoluted way worse than doing nothing i think about that person in some soul-destroying nazi factory in occupied czechoslovakia removing all of the explosive charges from their anti-aircraft shells and writing a note that they must have known would probably never be read, just to say ‘this is all we can do for you, and we’re going to do it’. they are trying to make us kill you and we refuse. i do think that maybe it’s all going to be okay.
