Scenes from Guild of Evil headquarters, moments ago:

“Hello?”

“Hello, I’m Simon and I’m canvassing for the Labour Party…”

[ Muffled laughter. ]

“Er, no thanks.”

Also, open thread.

Hardcore rave banana. || Baby cannon. || Good doggo. || Feet detected. || Underwhelming loaf. || Today’s word is rethink. || Slow-motion ocean. (h/t, Things) || Unfortunate phrasing. || “Its smell is compared to that of a dog, with the texture of breadcrumbs and the appearance of ping pong balls.” || Parental discipline of note. || Pamela didn’t realise what would subsequently happen to her curtains. || Context is for weaklings. || Car mine of note. (h/t, Dr Westerhaus) || Cooking with wool. || There’s a lot of it about. || The evolution of the scrollbar, a visual guide. || The statistical value of a dog’s life. || At last, a baby head Theremin. || Seedlings and chess. || And finally, festively, you want one and you know it.

Here’s an open thread, in which to share links and bicker.

I think it’s time we elevated the tone with some coverage of the arts. Beginning with the colossal creative talents of Ms Sandrine Schaefer, whose collected Goose Studies are presented below. The opening extract, a site-specific installation, was performed in New York in October. The organisers of the event, titled Performance Is Alive, tell us that in order to avoid being “vapid,” they curate only “the best projects based on the merits of the work.” They are, we learn, presenting “art that’s critical and progressive and transgressive.” 

For those prone to erotic inflammation, a word of caution. The following video does contain traces of obligatory boobage.

Yes, a chance to throw together your own pile of links and oddities in the comments. I’ll set the ball rolling with the power of gift bags; a girl who’s got volume; cows and VR, together at last; and a great question of our time: Snake and Tetris – can you play them simultaneously?

Oh, and a perfect illustration of how to be cool about it.

I don’t often comment on the particulars of party politics, but it seemed unfair to deprive you of a chance to witness this 30-minute BBC interview, in which the leader of the Labour Party has a spot of bother. Of particular interest is the final question, around 25 minutes in.  

Those seeking reassurance can of course turn to the words of Laurie Penny. 

“My oppression is not a delusion.”

So chanted students at the College of the Holy Cross, a private, and rather handsome, liberal arts college in Worcester, Massachusetts, and for which parents fork out $54,000 a year in order to have their children brutally oppressed. In this case, by a talk by Heather Mac Donald.

Being righteously engorged, the protestors disrupted Ms Mac Donald’s lecture, refused repeated offers to engage in debate, and prevented would-be attendees from entering the venue, telling those outside that the guest had left the building, when in fact she hadn’t. This being what righteous people do, you see.

The demonstrators… left, yelling: “Your sexism is not welcome!” “Your racism is not welcome!” “Your homophobia is not welcome!” “YOU are not welcome!”

Evidence of said vices was not, it seems, forthcoming.

Needless to say, the protestors denounced Ms Mac Donald’s alleged “privilege,” while somehow not noticing their own air of entitlement and obvious leverage, deployed with recreational glee, and their own, seemingly routine expectations of impunity. And again, as so often, it’s worth noting the protestors’ mix of vanity and casual spite – choosing lies and mob coercion in order to cheat other students of their chance to hear Ms Mac Donald and ask her questions. An overt display of disdain for those who might dare to demur. And who, by extension, are presumably unwelcome too.

Update, via the comments:

Or, How to Pass the Time on Public Transport.

Also, open thread. 

Wonders of the world. (h/t, Neocon Servative) || Well, they wanted proof. || How to do woke manners. (h/t, Damian) || Today’s words are teaching assistant. || Attempt no landing there. || Things dads do. || Usually done at night. || I don’t think that should be there. || A bit close. || Rebuttal of note. (h/t, Dicentra) || Get your hands on Nefertiti’s bust. || Blackberries say hello. || How menfolk pass the time, a possible series. || Peeling at speed. || More joys of public transport. || Real-time Twitter emoji use, because you need to know. || “Human faeces is viscoelastic and sticky in nature, causing it to adhere to conventional surfaces.” || Forbidden love. || And finally, and under pressure, fingering the perp.

Belatedly, and via pst314 in the comments, Rob Henderson on luxury beliefs and conspicuous convictions:

The chief purpose of luxury beliefs is to indicate evidence of the believer’s social class and education. Only academics educated at elite institutions could have conjured up a coherent and reasonable-sounding argument for why parents should not be allowed to raise their kids and should hold baby lotteries instead. When an affluent person advocates for drug legalisation, or anti-vaccination policies, or open borders, or loose sexual norms, or uses the term “white privilege,” they are engaging in a status display. They are trying to tell you, “I am a member of the upper class.”

Affluent people promote open borders or the decriminalisation of drugs because it advances their social standing, not least because they know that the adoption of those policies will cost them less than others. The logic is akin to conspicuous consumption—if you’re a student who has a large subsidy from your parents and I do not, you can afford to waste $900 and I can’t, so wearing a Canada Goose jacket is a good way of advertising your superior wealth and status. Proposing policies that will cost you as a member of the upper class less than they would cost me serve the same function. Advocating for open borders and drug experimentation are good ways of advertising your membership of the elite because, thanks to your wealth and social connections, they will cost you less than me.

Unfortunately, the luxury beliefs of the upper class often trickle down and are adopted by people lower down the food chain, which means many of these beliefs end up causing social harm.

Take polyamory. I had a revealing conversation recently with a student at an elite university. He said that when he sets his Tinder radius to five miles, about half of the women, mostly other students, said they were “polyamorous” in their bios. Then, when he extended the radius to 15 miles to include the rest of the city and its outskirts, about half of the women were single mothers. The costs created by the luxury beliefs of the former are borne by the latter. Polyamory is the latest expression of sexual freedom championed by the affluent. They are in a better position to manage the complications of novel relationship arrangements. And if these relationships don’t work out, they can recover thanks to their financial capability and social capital. The less fortunate suffer by adopting the beliefs of the upper class. 

Needless to say, many of the issues raised by Mr Henderson have, over the years, been given a chewing here. From the unconvincing contrarian Laurie Penny and her suboptimal lifestyle advice, and the naked hypocrisies of Simon Schama and Clive Stafford Smith, to our mulling of the 1970s sitcom The Good Life, supposedly a moral lodestone for the modern anti-capitalist.