did a cat write this?

Like we all know asuka is stronger than shinji and rei combined she’s an industry baby and puts a lot of pride into her piloting 02. Rei has half of her stitches loose and shinji spends 90% of his time rotting in his room listening to shitty new wave. but she makes this malnourished Victorian child open the door instead because #gender roles

this person probably humanizes cops/racists, rape, child abuse, incest etc as long as its fictional lol

this is a good and normal leap in logic to make from this post!

I certainly hope they do, and not just when it’s fictional. Humanizing them is an important step in stopping the actual real-world harm.

If you recognize that they’re human, then you can understand it’s an issue of rationale and perspective, not Inherent Evil - and you can learn to think like an adversary. This is the first step in developing a good security mindset. That mindset, in turn, is the first tool you need to build functional safety measures and protections for your community.

There’s an added bonus, too - if you recognize that they’re people, you’ll notice that not many people are villains in their own narratives. They aren’t choosing to be evil, they’re rationalizing their harmful choices. And you start asking questions.

If you recognize that cops are people, you learn to ask yourself “Am I being reactionary, authoritarian, and needlessly violent?”

If you recognize that racists are people, you learn to recognize and unpack the racist lessons you were taught.

If you learn that rapists are people, you learn to actively verify consent.

By recognizing that terrible people are not Inherently Bad, but choosing to do terrible things for reasons they think justify them, you get better at protecting yourself from them - and protecting everyone around you from your worst tendencies. It’s a difficult and ongoing process, but it’ll protect you far better than any list of specific Bad Things to watch out for.

There’s a flipside to this, of course, and it’s important:

Anyone who tells you that your enemies are inhuman monsters is using you.

Either they’re trying to convince you that they couldn’t possibly be an Enemy because they’re a normal person… or they’re trying to keep you from noticing the little rationalizations. To convince you that atrocity is okay when you do it.

Don’t fall for either lie.

That last point there is really important. How often do people get away with truly atrocious shit, because everyone around them thinks that inhuman monster thing?

Of course my friend can’t be a rapist. They’re my friend, not some inhuman monster!

Of course my sibling doesn’t hit and gaslight their spouse. They’re my sibling, not some inhuman monster!

etc etc etc

So all the little and big things that point to [fill in blank] doing [thing] are rationalized and explained away. Because [fill in blank] is a person and not some inhuman monster, so they’d never!

By dehumanizing people who commit atrocities, we blind ourselves to the ability to do that shit in people we first and foremost see as people already (friends, family, co-workers, etc.) and in ourselves.

Damn what kind of unfinished business does a medieval serf have that couldn't be completed in 1,000 years?

they want to see the fall of the monarchy