iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Melinda Robinson (she/they) @melindarobinson.bsky.social · 11/04/2025

If the person telling you how to be a man and attract women has little to no female audience, it's because they are good at repelling women, not attracting them. Listening to Rogan, Peterson or Tate puts you at an automatic disadvantage because these men teach other men how to be unlikeable.

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Melinda Robinson (she/they) @melindarobinson.bsky.social · 19/03/2025

I just finished my backlog of tasks that I've been dreading and putting off. Now I don't know what to do with myself. How am I supposed to motivate any kind of action if I don't have an immanent or overdue task to procrastinate on?

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Melinda Robinson (she/they) @melindarobinson.bsky.social · 18/03/2025

If we do not stop this now, our grandchildren will not learn that MAGA was like the Nazis. They will learn about the Nazis by being taught that they were like MAGA.

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Melinda Robinson (she/they) @melindarobinson.bsky.social · 18/03/2025

When concentrations camps opened, the term didn't yet mean death camp. The first gulags were sold as corrective labour camps. The US just shipped 238 people to a forced labour camp. There was no process. They were not deported to their country of origin. You never get to pretend you "didn't know."

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Melinda Robinson (she/they) @melindarobinson.bsky.social · 07/03/2025

You may be familiar with C. S. Lewis' argument that Jesus can't be a "great moral teacher," because he says he is Lord, so either he is, or he's a liar or a lunatic. This argument assumes that you can't be a great moral teacher and also mentally ill. Mental illness ≠ moral deficiency.

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Melinda Robinson (she/they) @melindarobinson.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

Why give a man a fish, when you can self-importantly assume that the problem is that he doesn't know how to fish, and then ignore him when he says "My people do live here. We know how to fucking fish. The problem is that you've poisoned the river and made it illegal to fish in it."

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Melinda Robinson (she/they) @melindarobinson.bsky.social · 09/02/2025

Do analytic philosophers intend their thought experiments to be funny? Like, are they knowingly joking and part of the humour is keeping a straight face? Or are they like "This is a perfectly sober and serious idea which I am expressing in a very serious way ... wait, why are laughing?"

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Melinda Robinson (she/they) @melindarobinson.bsky.social · 08/02/2025

They believe aid work is a "scam" and NGOs are only concerned about their bottom line b/c that's how their charitable contributions work. They don't experience empathy & can't imagine it as a motive. This is why teaching cognitive empathy matters. Not everyone feels empathy. But it can be learned.

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Melinda Robinson (she/they) @melindarobinson.bsky.social · 07/02/2025

The success of MAGA depends on people who know, instinctively, that something is wrong — and who also know, instinctively, that many of the people they love and depend on are not safe. If they name this truth, accept it, their whole world will fall apart. And there will be nowhere safe to go.

open.substack.com

It Takes Time

Safe spaces, ideological traps, and why people don't see Trump for what he is

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Melinda Robinson (she/they) @melindarobinson.bsky.social · 04/02/2025

Some people have realized that they were conned and they voted for fascism. They are hurt and angry. Be kind to these people: life will give them consequences, we need to help them move past shock into fighting to undo what they did. The people who deserve anger are the ones still making excuses.

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Reposted by Melinda Robinson (she/they)

Mandi Rose @mandipom.bsky.social · 02/02/2025

"People who voted for Trump are evil people. They saw what was happening and they had the chance..." I get the thought. I truly do. And if that thought motivates you to create healthy boundaries and cut out toxic people, then you know what, you do you. But, here's where I think it's dangerous:

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Melinda Robinson (she/they) @melindarobinson.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

Trump's most recent displays of raging sociopathic narcissism are not caused by "dementia." He has always been this way. Please do not use dementia as an insult and a slur. People with dementia are worthy of respect, compassion and inclusion. Trump's behaviour is typical of #Trump, not #dementia.

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Melinda Robinson (she/they) @melindarobinson.bsky.social · 17/01/2025

Performative guilt is always actually a demand for forgiveness, for the absolution of debts. Self-punishment is an attempt to coerce forgiveness through self harm. Responsibility is the work of figuring out how to make restitution. This is what actually heals relationships.

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Melinda Robinson (she/they) @melindarobinson.bsky.social · 17/01/2025

White guilt, then, is the public performance of white pain. It centres the white agent. It construes others as objects of our failure, rather than members of our community who need us to act responsibly. It situates us in a violent past and demands performative atonement, self-inflicted retribution.

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Melinda Robinson (she/they) @melindarobinson.bsky.social · 17/01/2025

Guilt can be a reminder that we have neglected responsibilities. But we can take responsibility without feeling, or being, guilty. To take responsibility is to respond to the present reality of a situation. Guilt is pain over a past that can't change, responsibility is the will to change the future.

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Melinda Robinson (she/they) @melindarobinson.bsky.social · 17/01/2025

The fundamental problem with white guilt is that it reproduces the central assumption of white supremacy: that the white person is a subject, an agent, and all others are objects who are merely acted upon. Thus responsibility = whiteness. This is why POC reject white guilt as useless/harmful.

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Melinda Robinson (she/they) @melindarobinson.bsky.social · 14/01/2025

There is a kind of obnoxious person who "works with" or "volunteers with" disabled kids, and who believes that special needs parents should be able to keep up the same level of energy and enthusiasm 24-7 that they have for an hour or two at a stretch. (Pt. 1) #autism #autismparenting #ableism

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Melinda Robinson (she/they) @melindarobinson.bsky.social · 11/01/2025

When I went to Italy in HS, we were told to prominently wear Canadian flags. Seemed weird, but locals routinely commented & told nice stories about Canadians. Then one night, a group of American tourists marched by our hotel in Rome at 2am loudly singing the Star Spangled Banner, and all made sense.

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Melinda Robinson (she/they) @melindarobinson.bsky.social · 08/01/2025

Did not realize just how mad I was about Trump's threats against Canada until I started talking about something unrelated with a Trump supporter. Threats are still violent even if they are just hot air. You voted for someone who casually makes threats against my country. We are not friends.

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Melinda Robinson (she/they) @melindarobinson.bsky.social · 02/01/2025

Talking to my partner, had to more precisely define "YOLO" as "The particular manifestation of humanity that you currently inhabit will realize only a single set of possibilities." I promise we are not fun at parties.

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Melinda Robinson (she/they) @melindarobinson.bsky.social · 11/12/2024

The stages of reading philosophy: "This is nonsense. Gibberish. What is he even talking about? Is that supposed to be an argument? Maybe it's the translation? Nope. What was this guy smoking?" (Sleep) (Re-read) "Oh. Yes, Perfectly clear and lucid. Not sure why people struggle with this text."

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Melinda Robinson (she/they) @melindarobinson.bsky.social · 09/12/2024

If you're an undergrad (or are in a position to advise one), I recommend against using Grammarly -- or if you use it, use it sparingly. It will recommend that you flatten your style so that you sound generically "academic." This makes it more difficult to distinguish your writing from AI.

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Melinda Robinson (she/they) @melindarobinson.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

The transvestigators are going after another non-white woman athlete. Here's an important paper on why this keeps happening. It's not coincidence, or just unconscious racism. Sex testing is intended to police bodies of women from the global south. #BarbraBanda www.researchgate.net/publication/...

researchgate.net

(PDF) The Powers of Testosterone: Obscuring Race and Regional Bias in the Regulation of Women Athletes

PDF | Using strategies from critical race studies and feminist studies of science, medicine, and the body, we examine the covert operation of race and... | Find, read and cite all the research you nee...

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Melinda Robinson (she/they) @melindarobinson.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

You've heard of "emotional labour," but have you heard of "hermeneutic labour?" Okay, so hyper-academic term, but it describes an important aspect of women's work in maintaining intimate relationships with men -- and it helps explain our vulnerability to gaslighting. (Pt. 1) #philosophy #feminism

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Melinda Robinson (she/they) @melindarobinson.bsky.social · 29/11/2024

Aristotle has melted my brain. My head hurts, I feel physically ill. Unfortunately, this means I will probably be a massive fangirl by the end of the month.

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Melinda Robinson (she/they) @melindarobinson.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

Are you a "too hot to only inhabit only one gender" enby, or a "too tired to have a gender" enby? #notquitebinary #enby #oldtiredold

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Melinda Robinson (she/they) @melindarobinson.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

Trans bathroom laws are about body policing, not women's safety. You can't enforce the rule without examining women's genitals. In practice, the rule targets women (cis or trans) who don't look "feminine" enough. This does not make women safe. #sarahmcbride #transmisogyny #IllGoWithYou #letthempee

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Melinda Robinson (she/they) @melindarobinson.bsky.social · 20/11/2024

Giving a lecture tomorrow on Classical Stoicism. If you were a Philosophy undergrad, what would you want to know?

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Melinda Robinson (she/they) @melindarobinson.bsky.social · 16/11/2024

One of these days, Audible is going to figure out that I'm not going to download the top new popular bestsellers and will start trying to sell me on sexy new translations of Parmenides. Hasn't happened yet. The algorithms are still hopeful that I'll be interested in developing successful habits.

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Melinda Robinson (she/they) @melindarobinson.bsky.social · 16/11/2024

Hi all. New platform, same weird human. I'll probably post more political stuff in December when my papers are done. For the moment I'm deeply focused on the role of sung speech in archaic societies and how this relates to the Rig Veda and preSocratic philosophy. Very timely. Super pragmatic.

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