if you ever challenge yourself to explain why you are hesitant to do certain things you will likely discover that you have more than a few deeply held beliefs ranging from illogical to completely insane

for example, i have come to realize that - at least in some contexts - i do legitimately believe that if you have to train for or work up to something, then that means you can't really do it. even if you did do it, thereby absolutely proving that you can, in fact, do it

even bringing the fact that this is illogical to the front of my mind is not enough to change the way i feel about it. i just need to ignore it and work toward the thing i want to do, and then do it and ignore the feeling that it somehow "doesn't count" if that persists after i've finished

sometimes the only way to get out of your own way is to say "you are stupid" and move on

"What if the South won the Civil Wa--"

BORING!!

The only Civil War alternate history worth caring about is, "What if they fixed the sewage issue that was contaminating the White House water supply and killing presidents?"

How does the country progress if William Henry Harrison gets a full term? How do we handle presidential succession with no Tyler Precedent established?

If Zachary Taylor doesn't die, is there no Compromise of 1850? If Taylor lives to push for more strident anti-slavery measures, does this delay war or start it sooner? Does he try a different compromise just to keep the Union together? Or does he push his own ideas so strongly that the South secedes? Imagine if the war starts ten years early with a firmly anti-secessionist Louisiana plantation owner (who until like two years ago was a highly successful general) in the White House. Is this a Robert E. Lee in reverse situation--a man having to choose the Union over his people? There's no way to know, and no one else cares, but for some reason I do.

I feel like I need to update this post to tell you two things.

First: I found a book in the library that contained multiple presidential alternate history thought experiments. One of them considered the question of what would have happened if William Henry Harrison got a full term. I didn't read the book, but the little bit I glanced at suggested the main difference could have been that the US may not have gotten Texas or expanded into the Southwest, because Tyler was much more interested in that than Harrison would have been.

Second: From my further reading, it seems as though if we want to know what Zachary Taylor would have been like as a Civil War president, the answer might just be "Jefferson Davis." Davis was Taylor's son-in-law (though he was only married to his daughter for a few months before she died), and he was a career soldier who idolized Taylor. As Confederate commander-in-chief, Davis was very hands-off in dealing with his generals, giving them a lot of leeway and letting them make a lot of mistakes--and he may have done this because of how Taylor had always complained about civilian interference in military decisions. Davis did have a lot more political experience than Taylor ever did (he served as a senator and Secretary of War), and they had very different personalities. For example, Davis rode out in uniform to join the troops at Bull Run, while Ulysses S. Grant is the one who adopted Taylor's habit of rarely being in uniform. So he may not be an exact comparison, but there was some influence there, which I find interesting.

antinatalists should just tie their tubes and leave mothers and women who want children alone. “but the personal is political” ok then kill yourself and make some room on this overpopulated dying planet or whatever. who will help you to the restroom when youre in the nursing home? elderly people suffer when there are not young people to help them. hate this stupid mindset. I dont think its selfish to not have kids if you dont want them but idk how you can claim to champion women while treating mothers like hitler 2 for having babby

No you don't get it, I'm a Good Person. You don't understand. I'm a Good Person which makes it okay for me to think violently about the Enemy, who is Bad Person. I'm commenting "you should be violently murdered" because I'm Good Person and you're Bad Person. You think saying that to someone is fucked up?? You should be violently murdered, you're probably Bad Person anyway

a baby at work the other day gave me the meanest look i've ever seen as it got lifted out of a cesarean. 1 second old and already hating. you can't teach that.

Love how Tumblr moved the BLM and SAH tags to their own "stuff we care about" subsection of the trending topics and how it looks like something you'd see out of pinterest and also there's an LGBT icon thingy and the thumbnail is gay porn

Literally cannot make this shit up if I tried