Fair point. One can’t really enforce a standard of legitimacy without enforcement and comparison. The use of violence by the state thereby simultaneously demonstrates what violence is acceptable (compared to unacceptable, criminalized violence) and suppresses that delegitimized violence.

The distinguishing feature of the state it its monopoly on legitimate violence. The state also gets to decide what violence is legitimate. The trick is convincing everybody else that just because it’s allowed, it’s moral. But legality and ethics are unrelated categories.

I’m always down to hang out, read @chucktingle.bsky.social’s incredible work Harriet Porber and The Bad Boy Parasaurolophus and take a shot/hit every time someone mentions chocolate milk.

I don’t know if it’s actually that outside the box, but I don’t think enough people have seen Wilde (1997).

My favorite is Pathologic 2 bc you just collect herbs and also have a panic attack abt the world ending, which I find a lot more relatable.

You definitely got me there. I guess we see that in other sciences, too. Like the assertion that global warming or evolution are “just theories.”

Absolutely this!! I wonder if most people’s exposure to “science” meaning just the natural sciences leads them to thinking that the social sciences don’t actually involve any study or testing.

My second least favorite part is the Sadness.