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think thoughts
Apr. 5th, 2026 10:07 amWhen I was in my 20's I realized I had been programmed with a load of defective code. I'm not talking about the chemically defective parts of an all too human body, that's another issue altogether and plenty defective. I'm talking about the deep social codes that are programmed so early, often, and thoroughly that they load even before the operating system is fully up and running. The sort of malware which anti-virus can't detect because it's loaded before the anti-virus.
The obvious misogyny was reinforced by the subtle misogyny layered over a Madonna-whore complex. Adults didn't think twice about using words in front of their kids which today are beyond the pale. I never met any gays as a kid because they were so far in the closet I couldn't see them for the coats and shirts. The othering based on race, gender, religion, or god forbid sexual orientation was as thick as the smoke in restaurants. And we breathed it in like second-hand smoke. Since all those others were bad, in order to be good you must conform.
In my 20's, I could see changes in society and was hopeful that my generation might the be last which would be loaded with all that crap code. I knew it wouldn't all disappear overnight, but I felt things were changing. I'm sure some of that optimism was because I'd rejected mainstream society, didn't have a TV, and was hanging out with freaks and geeks.
I still don't interact with mainstream society a lot. But the glimpses I get make me sad for the next generation getting programmed with the same crap. Defective. Oh, the racism uses codewords now like "genetics". You can get a lot with a word like "traditional". That covers people who don't go to (your) church, people who don't marry at all, people who marry the wrong gender, and people who are the wrong gender. The misogyny is as strong as it ever was. From YouTube creators putting one shot of a scantily clad female as the splash screen to get clicks, to action movies that use threat of or actual rape to move the plot along. It is like being back in the 1970's watching "I Spit On Your Grave" (no, don't go watch it, it just pollutes your mind and will not enhance your life).
Someday, maybe, what you get paid or what job you can do won't depend on whether you were born with ovaries. Someday, maybe, society won't expect you to be attracted to a certain set of equipment or color or shape. Someday, maybe, it won't matter if you want to change out your equipment or just wear a different sort of uniform or no uniform at all. Someday, maybe, the only moral test will be "don't treat other people like shit." But I'm not going to live to see that someday.
I still have malware. No matter how I try to overwrite it or starve it of CPU cycles, it's still there hanging in the background.
The obvious misogyny was reinforced by the subtle misogyny layered over a Madonna-whore complex. Adults didn't think twice about using words in front of their kids which today are beyond the pale. I never met any gays as a kid because they were so far in the closet I couldn't see them for the coats and shirts. The othering based on race, gender, religion, or god forbid sexual orientation was as thick as the smoke in restaurants. And we breathed it in like second-hand smoke. Since all those others were bad, in order to be good you must conform.
In my 20's, I could see changes in society and was hopeful that my generation might the be last which would be loaded with all that crap code. I knew it wouldn't all disappear overnight, but I felt things were changing. I'm sure some of that optimism was because I'd rejected mainstream society, didn't have a TV, and was hanging out with freaks and geeks.
I still don't interact with mainstream society a lot. But the glimpses I get make me sad for the next generation getting programmed with the same crap. Defective. Oh, the racism uses codewords now like "genetics". You can get a lot with a word like "traditional". That covers people who don't go to (your) church, people who don't marry at all, people who marry the wrong gender, and people who are the wrong gender. The misogyny is as strong as it ever was. From YouTube creators putting one shot of a scantily clad female as the splash screen to get clicks, to action movies that use threat of or actual rape to move the plot along. It is like being back in the 1970's watching "I Spit On Your Grave" (no, don't go watch it, it just pollutes your mind and will not enhance your life).
Someday, maybe, what you get paid or what job you can do won't depend on whether you were born with ovaries. Someday, maybe, society won't expect you to be attracted to a certain set of equipment or color or shape. Someday, maybe, it won't matter if you want to change out your equipment or just wear a different sort of uniform or no uniform at all. Someday, maybe, the only moral test will be "don't treat other people like shit." But I'm not going to live to see that someday.
I still have malware. No matter how I try to overwrite it or starve it of CPU cycles, it's still there hanging in the background.
