Posts you had second thought about and decided not to post on the "Posts you had second thought about and decided not to post - put them here" thread - put them here

Do you even differentiate between what you post on the actual threads and what you put here? Is it just a random percentage? Is this so we can all have a look-see at the angel's share of your fine barrel-aged curmudgeonly predictableness?

Tom that is a beautifully written post I gotta say, seriously

Seconded. Best thread ever.

misère en abyme

It's actually just for posts you has second thoughts about posting to that one thread what's the issue here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiSKXxWgA4w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1Xsj9-3Pvo

http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/theamericans/images/4/45/The_Americans.jpeg

l-r: me, Treesh

hahahah

both looking pretty good

yet to see evidence of first thought tbh

if you're going to make it obvious what you are subposting there is no pt to bumping the second thoughts thread just post it in the original thread

spontaneous beef is a rare commodity nowadays

most people are savvy enough to not run into beef when the opponent has more pieces attacking the beef square, as is usually the case. manoeuvring for an opportunity can be arduous and you have to have the full measure of the beefee before making the fateful move

Putting the beef t into posing

beeefffeee

as I'm sure we'll all find out

Oh wrong thread ffs fuck you dead search function

Do we know anyone else like that do we i think we do but do we hmm.

I forgot there was a "second thoughts about second thoughts thread" thread so I posted that here anyway.

The above is the text of a post I had second thoughts about posting to the second thoughts thread, in respect of a post I'd posted to the second thoughts thread in response to another post on the second thoughts thread. If only I'd posted my first response here both my subsequent post to the second thoughts thread and this post would not have been necessary and we'd all have saved some time.

It was about bannisters, and balustrades.

slippery slope huh

^watch-list!

Oh wrong thread again FFS, can we just lock this one

HIIIIIII-YA!

"I'm afraid that I was very, very drunk"? ;)

LJ hie thee to the cluiche cheannais thread btw

Can't even post it itt tbh

Can't believe an ilxor knows any of those obv

I never hied to the GAA thread

Became a Flann O'Brien fan instead, hope that'll do

The gaa is actually one of the pillars it's ok not to have grasped in order to fully get FOB I think.

But you really should his thee for other reasons

I was going to post something like 'I was going to post something like "I wonder what musicians have to do to get a good review on AMG" on the Weinstein thread but it's no joking matter' on the second thought about thread, but it's all too serious and I don't know what offends people anymore.

Otm

EASY NOW TYSON EASY NOW

We know of no spectacle as ridiculous

That age tbf

()

why can you say "they should be blinded" but not "they should be deafed"

deafened?

Soundly defeated

probably shd've said "they should be visually impaired"

Blound?

emblindened

blindicated

i

deocularized?

depercussionated

"shown the wonder"

Oh good you two have met

c3p0, r2d2 and bb8 are bad and you should all feel bad

My takeaway is that I was absolutely correct to stop reading the US politics thread

As opposed to fantasy football music awards, fantasy football film awards, fantasy football football? A lot of ILX operates this way. I make fun of it at times, but I accept it and see its value.

I guess I've been marveling at how much discussion a Maine Senate primary has provoked among people who don't live in Maine -- and people who don't even live in the U.S. I *get* why it has, but it's interesting because it reflects a broad long-term shift in how people approach politics. And it also raises the question of what it means to "support" a candidate (am I "supporting" Platner by merely saying on a message board that I hope he beats Collins?). So to the extent that I've mentioned that none of us live in Maine, that's what I've been thinking about. Not to shut down discussion.

Anyway fwiw this granola is good. (Recipe from La Lechera!)

What I found personally extra confusing/frustrating this time is that some of the pragmatists were repeatedly posting both that 1) none of us can vote in Maine, but also 2) the Dem must win for pragmatic reasons. Since 1 is clearly correct (not that this child's first political fact needed to be pointed out even once), why the urge to keep repeating 2? It feels like there's an unspoken — because unpractical and irrational — belief lingering behind the realpolitik pragmatism that airing critiques of Dem politicians on a deeply obscure message board has some unspecified Effect on Things.

― rob, Monday, June 8, 2026 6:57 AM (two hours ago)

as maine goes, so goes vermont

_this_ is why i don't participate in the uspol thread

from what i can tell from your summary, rob, literally this identical issue was settled 90 years ago

As opposed to fantasy football music awards, fantasy football film awards, fantasy football football? A lot of ILX operates this way. I make fun of it at times, but I accept it and see its value.

― sarahell, Monday, June 8, 2026 8:25 AM (thirty-eight minutes ago)

this is exactly my issue with the uspol thread - people treating politics as a _sport_. i find it horrific and ghoulish. the cost of politics can be measured in human lives. in fairness you _can_ measure american football that way as well w/r/t CTE, and that is horrific. it's not at all comparable to the widespread effect on human lives politics has.

i'm not judging people who treat politics as a sport, only the activity. i used to treat politics as a sport. i don't now. i'm still a deeply political person, and if i meet someone who views politics as a sport, i'm going to walk away from them very, very quickly.

I think it's unhealthy to get so invested in the minutae of a political system/party which you cannot have any influence on and which is clearly fucked beyond redemption. If you want to be involved in politics or if you have no choice but to be involved, then organising outside the system is the only option you have. weighing up candidate selections and campaign strategy on ILX is such an obvious waste of time and the neverending debate about this shit (and the way it so often turns into ~whatever the fuck was going on there this weekend~) just seems to be a fun or productive time for absolutely nobody.

I think you'd have point, Kate, to posts that treat politics as a sport. I disagree with many posters but I can't blame them for dismissing the consequences of their votes; what I can blame them for, and I include myself, is failing to grasp how their decisions look to an endangered majority. It's not cynicism -- it's the very human inability to conceive of empathy as a vaster thing than one's imagination.

I think it's unhealthy to get so invested in the minutae of a political system/party which you cannot have any influence on and which is clearly fucked beyond redemption. If you want to be involved in politics or if you have no choice but to be involved, then organising outside the system is the only option you have.

This is what it's come down to for me since 2021: caring about electing the leftmost candidates in local elections.

Not to shut down discussion.

― jaymc, Monday, June 8, 2026 11:27 AM (thirty-nine minutes ago)

Totally understood, and I'm sorry if it seemed like I was cowardly subtweeting you on a meta thread. I should know better than to think I can describe a group position without people assuming I'm talking about them individually. I've been on the other side of that countless times and it is super annoying! I apologize.

It’s ok, I bungled the post and it wasn’t necessary to begin with.

But thank you, I appreciate it.

― Cow_Art, Sunday, June 7, 2026 3:50 PM (yesterday)

ok i'm gonna disagree and i think posts like yours _are_ necessary. what you experienced is important and meaningful and it's _so_ hard to talk about these things. i mean everybody makes mistakes, god knows i've made some, and tabes is an awesome person because he will apologize when he's made a mistake. i try to do that as well. so i'm glad that you were able to clarify and give that perspective and that opportunity for understanding.

too much "politics" talk is centered around things like unperson apparently talking shit (i'm not gonna read the uspol thread to verify) and i think it's much more important to... i mean "the political is personal", that's what that _means_ to me.

because you're not alone in what you went through. the whole discourse around things like what happened to you is, again, really invalidating to your experiences. because yes women _can_ and _do_ abuse men, and that fact doesn't mean that patriarchy isn't real. to me, speaking as someone... i'm not a man, but i presented male at the time... who is a victim of abuse by someone who happened to be a woman... it's very hard to talk about.

because there's a bigger picture. it's why i talk about "patriarchy" rather than "misogyny". anybody can do fucked up patriarchal stuff, anybody can be a victim of fucked up patriarchal stuff. this whole idea of what violence is _acceptable_, i don't know, william t. vollman wrote a twelve volume tractatus about it, people who are interested in the topic can go read that. for a _lot_ of us it's _not_ an abstract issue, it's _personal_, and it's important for me for those of us who have had those adverse experiences talk about it and come to a common understanding without someone postulating Universal Truth at us.

I think you'd have point, Kate, to posts that treat politics as a sport. I disagree with many posters but I can't blame them for dismissing the consequences of their votes; what I can blame them for, and I include myself, is failing to grasp how their decisions look to an endangered majority. It's not cynicism -- it's the very human inability to conceive of empathy as a vaster thing than one's imagination.

― boners for bombs (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, June 8, 2026 9:11 AM (seven minutes ago)

hmmm. ok, i'm not sure i'm reading your post right - did you mean to say "endangered majority" here? cuz i don't really have the full context here.

Minority.

So now we're having this discussion in 2 threads

My granola recipe! It’s so good. I’m about to make some this week in fact.

I agree with CAAL and would add that, while the so-called political work I do irl is often quiet, mundane, without need of being broadcast or justified to a larger audience, the point of posting about politics on ILX is posting about politics on ILX. Locally focused as I am, coming here to check in on the trickle of national news -- and the (variously funny, cynical, enraged) commentary firsthand from posters or via other voices -- has value for me, even if it mostly amounts to venting and lolz. Posting is its own specific kind of activity with its own rhythms and textures, and I get something out of it, even if I understand that there is much more to life and politics than what goes on here. Posting on USpol is just one framework for processing a never-ending deluge of shit, and I don't think it's fair to say that ppl who post there are "reducing" politics to something "less serious", they are just using one of many tools available to process and to feel a sense of solidarity through shared witnessing, or at least that's what it is for me

very well put, catt

xps to LL — Batch about to come out of the oven now! Thanks again, it's popular with the whole family.

And xps to Neanderthal I apologize for one more post here on this (just one more, that's all I need bro) but fwiw I agree with Cattedrale about the utility/inutility about posting about politics here — it's like most posting here, a way to get half-formed ideas or thoughts out of my head, and also to interact with people who are in general way better informed, better read, and more sophisticated thinkers than people I can engage with via social media. Even when they're calling me an idiot.

To the point about treating politics as "sports," I don't think that's what most people here are doing. I do sometimes feel like there's a resistance from some folks to talking about politics as politics — which is not sport, but is a different kind of field of contest and/or combat and not merely a venue for expressing moral certainties or condemnations. If you want to get anything done politically, or stop anything from being done politically, it requires thinking seriously about resources, strategies, leadership, organizing, messaging, all of that. And I know that sometimes talking about that kind of stuff analytically can seem kind of cold or dispassionate, but that's a necessary perspective to understanding the actual challenges or opportunities in any given situation.

fwiw I don't take any politics lightly. Like many people on ILX I live in a state that is run by an increasingly authoritarian political operation that is forcing far-right ideology into just about every nook and sector of our lives. I don't talk about my family much here, but one of my kids is nonbinary and feels directly and constantly targeted by the rhetoric and hate directed at LGBTQ people in our state and our community. I have good friends with trans kids who have left the state because they correctly don't feel safe here. I went and spent three days at the state Capitol watching and listening and talking to protesters and legislators while the all-white supermajority ruthlessly carved up Memphis and stole representation out from under the city's Black voters. I wrote 5,000 words about the long history of the state's crimes against the Black residents of Memphis and circulated it anywhere I could. I don't have any illusions about the effectiveness of such efforts in the near term, but all I can do is what I can do, which is to talk to people and try to tell their stories. None of this is "sport," but all of it is politics.

Thank you Kate, that means a lot. To be fair, the reaction I got was because of how I presented the information and that I threw it in the middle of a heated discussion so it looked like I was saying or defending something that I wasn’t. It was clumsy posting on my part.

I do sometimes feel like there's a resistance from some folks to talking about politics as politics — which is not sport, but is a different kind of field of contest and/or combat and not merely a venue for expressing moral certainties or condemnations. If you want to get anything done politically, or stop anything from being done politically, it requires thinking seriously about resources, strategies, leadership, organizing, messaging, all of that. And I know that sometimes talking about that kind of stuff analytically can seem kind of cold or dispassionate, but that's a necessary perspective to understanding the actual challenges or opportunities in any given situation.

This is well-stated and gets at a frustration I often experience when talking about politics on this board. Especially when I feel like many of us have similar ideological beliefs. But I will also concede that I don't experience the same personal impacts of politics that others do, which probably shapes how I approach those conversations.

I don't really think anyone on ILX thinks of politics in terms of "moral certainties or condemnations". There's just disagreement on what strategies work and where energies should be applied, and it sometimes seems like anything but conventional electoralism is viewed as throwing in the towel by some posters.

Can't speak for anyone else but I don't think there's an either/or. A lot — most! — of the most effective political action is non-electoral. Both in terms of organizing and lobbying around issues and in direct actions like mutual aid that exist outside the political system entirely. Something I say a lot so I'm sure I've said it here is that elections for the most part aren't where you solve problems or make progress. Because even the best/most moral/most effective politician even if they get elected is still operating within certain constraints. The outside action is where you can affect those constraints — so that, e.g., by the time LBJ is president in 1964, the window of possibility and the popular support for the Civil Rights Act becomes possible. LBJ didn't make the Civil Rights Act happen — but at the same time, if Nixon had won the 1960 election the odds of him being willing to sign it into law is lower than they were for LBJ, because of the ways the political ground had shifted.

At the same time, electoral politics remains important in the U.S. and will for as long as we have some form of representative government. I understand the constant frustration with being presented with mostly imperfect (at best) choices, but to me it's just one tool among many that we are given to work with, and I've seen first-hand so many times how much difference it actually does make who occupies a particular office at a particular time — both in positive and negative ways. (Case in point, the moderate Republican chair of our local school board lost a primary race to MAGA book banning religious zealot. If that zealot gets elected in the general, that will significantly alter the dynamics of our school board, even though it's just swapping one Republican for another. And that race was decided by fewer than 100 votes. These things do actually matter.)

Yeah, I'm not the person to go to for a full throated rejection of electoralism in general - other posters here are both more hardline and more knowledgeable on it. So my point here wasn't to convince anyone electoralism is bad or unecessary, it was to suggest sometimes what are viewed as purely moral arguments actually come from different viewpoints on how, when and to what extent electoral politics matter, and so to equate that with "refusing to engage" with politics or pure moral posturing is missing the point a bit.

#onethread strikes again

you've got no right to take your place in an online space

"But if he is the nominee, it's not "pragmatic" to want him to beat Collins, it is actually imo the right moral and ethical outcome given everything at stake."

Let's open that dictionary again.

lol sure. I just don't buy that there's a distinction between "pragmatism" and "idealism" in that situation (of Platner vs. Collins). The ideal thing under those circumstances is that Collins does not win. The pragmatic solution under those same circumstances is to vote for the only person on the ballot who could beat her.

A semantic debate is probably unwelcome, but I think the multiple meanings of "ideal" and "idealism" are confusing or even misleading here. IMO what you're arguing tipsy is that Platner beating Collins is the optimal outcome out of the range of currently foreseeable outcomes, not the ideal. This, I think, reflects a presumption that a utilitarian calculation is the best rubric for determining preferred moral and ethical decisions or actions, at least in this specific case (I'm open to pushback on this, of course!). But I believe that is why your perspective is seen as "pragmatic" by others. I don't have a specific moral/ethical philosophy that I personally adhere to, so tbc this isn't a criticism as such; there might also be a better term than "utilitarian" ("consequentialist"? I'm not actually all that read on this).

Nonetheless, I don't think there's any way to describe Platner becoming a senator as "ideal." His election to a position of power would contribute to a broad and significant social problem: the destigmatization and normalization of domestic abuse, far-right imagery, gun violence, etc. That is difficult to prove—even putting aside the impossibility of "proving" something in the future—but I think Platner's apparently still viable candidacy is a reflection of and continuation of societal changes for the worse. And I don't mean coarsening mores (his clothes or w/e), I mean the mainstreaming of far-right ideology and antisemitism, the strengthening of patriarchal domination, and the lack of accountability for and exceptionalism of straight white men. Making the calculation that all those things are even worse if Collins wins is fine, probably correct, but I don't think we're talking about what's "ideal" at that point.

Again, maybe this is just semantics or academic hair-splitting and there's no substantive difference here, but I think this is all part of why I find the conversation frustrating and maybe also what I was trying to say yesterday about the morality of wanting Platner to win (which was def unclear). We can assert that that desire is contained within the rubric of a fight for control over one chamber of Congress, but imo the desire slips out of that all too easily and has effects beyond it. jaymc is right to wonder why this one race has captured so much of the (online) public's imagination. I think one answer to that is it touches on this much larger problem and can't simply be contained within an electoral politics frame.

good morning!

rob otm

I think Platner's apparently still viable candidacy is a reflection of and continuation of societal changes for the worse.

I agree. I have said many times that we don't live in the same country we lived in 10 years ago (pre-Trump). This second Trump term has made that impossible to ignore. Things are really, really bad. But I am heartened by Platner, as I am heartened by the massive protests and the resistance efforts across the country, because they are all signs that people are aware of what's happening and are angry about it. And if people are angry enough, for long enough, in enough places, things may change for the better. But no matter what happens, the country we thought we lived in pre-Trump is never coming back. We have to make the new country better than the old one.

Fair points Rob. I shouldn't use the word "ideal" at all in talking about politics because by its nature politics tends to rule out the ideal as an option (because few populations of any size can ever fully agree on what the ideal is, and politics is the means by which those kinds of differences get negotiated). Which I know is what some people — most of us, at some point — find so frustrating about it.

But there can still be better and worse outcomes. A lot of politics is best seen as harm reduction, imo. And my point about Platner vs. Collins is that I think you can make moral arguments on either side of that equation, depending on how broadly you want to think about the outcome and its impacts. I do not question that people who could never bring themselves to vote for Platner are motivated by strong moral concerns and convictions. But it is also a moral (and not merely "pragmatic") position to argue that it is better for Collins to lose. These are both moral cases, and ought to be seen as such.

(which I guess is just a plea for more "I get where you're coming from, but I disagree on the approach," and less "o so u love nazis huh.")

is this still about a primary in a state none of you live in?

Is there something you'd rather see discussed on this particular thread? I hate America too, but I'm genuinely not sure why it's so bothersome for people to talk about this. Maybe take it up with whoever posted about it on this thread in the first place ;)

xp to tipsy: I need to get off ilx, but I didn't want to ignore your response, which is appreciated. I think I agree with you that they are both moral cases. I think I object to the kind of moral accounting required to pit the two outcomes against each other, though that would require a much longer post to articulate and I don't have it in me right now (take it as read that I don't expect anyone to agree with that position at any rate).

It'd make more sense in the politics thread than this one, tbh

I don't want anyone to do anything ftr

You know, on second thought I’ll concede that lecturing Americans for opining on an election they can’t participate is actually a good bit

It'd make more sense in the politics thread than this one, tbh

Sure but the premise of this thread is bad and nothing good could ever come of it, so anyone to distract from that is a positive.

xp

the point is, it impacts us whether we get to vote in it or not

we're all just sifting through the social wreckage looking for the least-damaged items of value to salvage

I think I object to the kind of moral accounting required to pit the two outcomes against each other

Understood, and I don't mean that it's some kind of see-saw where you pile things up on either side until one prevails.

ok i have the worst possible take

i like talking about politics but my take on politics just doesn't mesh well with what i'm just gonna call the "sabermetric" approach; i'm much more of a "the political is personal" person. i honestly don't know if there's enough people into that to sustain a thread, and i _know_ there's no shortage of people who are gonna be like "oh seriously is kate saying there should be _another_ politics thread"

probably there shouldn't be. i mean i take forever to put together a post about anything. i meant to post this yesterday, and time got away from me...

lol I had that thought when I was writing about politics as politics, “This is the kind of talk Kate hates!” And I get it. It IS personal. It is for everyone, and especially for people most directly at the end of the sword. I don’t think there’s any single best or right way to respond to politics. My career has been to a large degree about watching it and learning it and trying to explain it to other people trying to understand it, plus also some years working in it, so my perspective on it kind of defaults to analytical and diagnostic. Why is thing happening or not, what would it take to make it happen or not, who’s fighting that fight, what resources do they have, who are they working with, where is the money coming from, etc etc etc.

sabermetric approach could be somebody's way of being able to be disengaged enough from something that affects them directly to be able to discuss it

I don't think considering why things happen and how to achieve an outcome means you are not feeling emotions or don't have a personal reaction. Far from it. The more I learn the more I feel.

I say that as someone who works in civil service. There is a imo a constant need for more people who are determined to measure stuff and do things based on evidence. That evidence can be numerical, like how many people do xyz thing, or how many people fail to complete xyz task after trying to do it, or deeper stuff than that. Just because it's numerical doesn't mean it's not about real, personal situations. Numbers can make you see and feel things. And show those things to other people. But evidence can also be user research. In my current role I've watched about 110 user research sessions where people talk about a really personal, difficult part of their lives. It can be upsetting sometimes, but I use that feeling to fuel the anger which drives me. I don't get angry or lash out at people but in order to create the environment where we are given space to measure things, and time and money to talk to people and find out what they need, as well as do technical research with them, I need energy and enthusiasm, and that emotion and feeling is a good motivator. Other people may do it differently. There's one particular session I watched where a person described being humiliated in a court situation because they decided to represent themselves. It was one of the saddest things I've ever seen in 13 years doing this job. I think of it constantly anytime anything gets stuck or somebody tries to block us doing a good thing, or I am feeling less enthusiastic. Sounds a bit cheesy perhaps but it's how it is.

Moving away from my own situation as I know it's a bit specific/potentially annoying, I just think it's wrong to say that an outcome-based view of the world or politics is somehow divorced from the personal or the emotional. If we weren't living in such a shitty time we might have more opportunity for more outcome-based discussions of politics at a macro level, though we still should fight for those discussions. I think maybe macro versus micro is a more fair way to think about it. I know there are wonks who hand-wave every issue and sort of hide behind numbers but it doesn't have to be that way.

Emotion and the personal is a part of the picture imo. Going back to the micro-world, I sometimes will have bosses or others trying to argue that user research or involving the people who need to interact with public services is time consuming, or takes longer. I always argue that it speeds us up because it gives us incontrovertible evidence for what we are doing, and is the most powerful way of bringing people along with us. It's rocket fuel.

We just need to rewire the state at the top echelons that way now, should be easy, lol.

Can’t believe MY TAXES go to paying for this FILTH

(But seriously, great post)

lol

Yes totally agree LG. My political engagement tends to take the form of analysis and description, but it’s fueled by a lot of simmering rage punctuated by glimmers of hope and inspiration.

sabermetric approach could be somebody's way of being able to be disengaged enough from something that affects them directly to be able to discuss it

― scanner darkly, Tuesday, June 9, 2026 9:52 PM (yesterday)

yeah i mean thinking about it i'm not opposed to the sabermetric approach. i think it's important, i think it's valuable, and if i had, like, the ability to look at things in those terms, i probably would start looking at it in those terms again. we all got our ways of coping, and i'm not saying... i mean i do look at things in abstract terms. i absolutely do. i also recognize that it's, uh, not something most people do. it is a hobby, like fantasy football. for me, part of my sort of "sabermetrics" - part of my beliefs about effective political engagement is... like i've read "democracy in america" and i do think it's a valuable political study of a country that's fundamentally different from any america i've known. the way ordinary people are invested, committed to politics on a local level! i think that's good. and i understand why people are invested in a senate race in maine or whatever. particularly on the internet, where we aren't local. sure, none of us live in maine, but none of us live _anywhere_ specifically. it affects us. we got a common interest. if i lived in maine i'd be salty about it, cuz i got more of it, i got a direct interest, and some people looking at a battle for the future of my state like it's a fucking chariot race feels kind of personally disrespectful. but god, i think it's important for _some people_ to look at things from that perspective, an abstracted perspective.

i also think it's important for literally _everyone_ to be out there doing politics, and that's NOT always going to be "pokemon go to the polls". i think it's important to give people an incentive to go to the polls. i think we can have a world where people are as excited about going to the polls as people were about buying dragon quest iii on launch day, though hopefully with fewer logistical issues. (i know that's a weird analogy, that's where my head went). i mean i guess doing politics like that _isn't_ something that's gonna happen on a 25-year-old internet message board.

ah, idk. it's fine. sometimes i'll just start talking politics somewhere that's not the politics thread, and i do it because the politics thread is actually not a very good place for _me in particular_ to talk politics. probably that's gonna piss people off, and i mean, yeah, i get that.