Writer, infant
Watched Spirited Away for the first time last night. What an amazing movie. It was also interesting timing, juxtaposed with Barbie.
As the new father of a baby girl, I can’t wait to watch Spirited Away with her when she’s older. The protagonist was awesome, and the message to a little girl was “you can do anything” (along with “it’s good to be kind and loyal and not good to be greedy”).
Which was an interesting contrast to my thoughts while watching Barbie, which were “I hope my daughter doesn’t see this until she’s an adult.” Barbie was a lot of fun, but the message to a little girl felt like “you probably can’t go too far because you live in a patriarchy, and that won’t change unless we women can wrest power from men.” There’s an element of truth there, along with a big dose of satire and hyperbole, and that’s fine for adults, but it doesn’t seem right for kids, and it’s definitely not a worldview I’d want impressed upon my young daughter.
I had this thought walking out of Barbie and wondered if I was being a bit over the top, but seeing Spirited Away—a beautiful movie for little kids—really emphasized the point.
A book on thinking by one of the best thinkers I know. @juliagalef
Currently hooked on Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History. 100 people recommended it to me and I kept putting it off and finally listened to the 6-part WWI series and that was that for me. Went back to episode 1 and went through chronologically, currently up to episode 42 and loving every minute. History is so incredibly riveting if told by the right person, and Dan is the right person.
Two quibbles with this super interesting thread: 1) Just because a problem has so far gone unsolved does not make it unsolvable (or at least un-improvable). It’s easy to forget that we’re still in the early days of the internet. A ton of major change is yet to come.