I appreciate the balance!

Oh wow I had no idea survivors were forced to give testimonies that quickly. That's awful.

Right now I'm fixated on the histories of certain music genres, particularly industrial music and doom metal.

"Industrial" as a name came from the record label (Industrial Records) that Throbbing Gristle, an art collective/band from the late 70's, created. They're widely understood to be the first industrial band, but the roots for it go way back to the 40's with musique concrète, a style of music that made use of recorded sounds and noises as part of musical compositions. The album Metal Machine Music by Lou Reed in 1975 also had an influence on the genre: the entire album is composed of looped and edited sounds rather than traditionally-recorded instrumentation. It's one of the first major albums to treat the recording studio as another instrument, rather than just a means of getting a band's sound recorded.

Cool! I know nothing about these kits but building them sounds rewarding. How long do you spend on a kit, normally?

I'd love to hear about people's hyperfixations here.

I absolutely agree 😊 and I didn't intend for my comment about separating art from the artist to be a counterpoint to yours. I meant it as an addition to your point.

I'm finding a lot of new music through your posts. Thank you!

Nope, I haven't seen anything problematic here. But it's always good to be explicit about what won't be tolerated 😊

This is a needlessly cruel and hostile comment.

I don't think there's a one-size-fits-all approach to dealing with problematic artists, and I feel it's up to individuals to decide where their threshold is.

I'm also wary of the whole "separate the art from the artist" approach: I think that should be a conversation rather than a rule. Art isn't created in a void and it's important to consider the artist's intent when evaluating their work: for example I will never consider that White Power music (urgh) has artistic value outside its racist environment.

Some industrial artists really toe that line for me and while I recognise they have a place in the history of the genre, I will have nothing to do with them.

Coming back to Manson: I don't have an issue with his music being posted here. However I think it's important to listen to people if they have a different view, and as moderators I believe we should prioritise building a community that makes people feel welcome and safe over a being a completionist source of art and music.

If we see any posts that trigger bad faith arguments, brigading or espousing attitudes we have decided we will not tolerate in this community then that's the point I will step in and moderate.

Oh wow I did not realise it was "collard greens". I've been writing "collared greens" 🤦🏻

The food looks delicious!

Oooh that's similar to one I was taught:

Look around and try identify 5 different objects

Close your eyes and try to identify 4 different sounds

Run your fingers over your clothes and try to identify 3 different textures

Breathe in through your nose and try to identify 2 different smells

Run your tongue around your teeth and try to identify a taste

(Adjust as needed for your body and sense perceptions).

bullies are innately more likely to attack when poorly trained, or;

Unfortunately I can't find statistics for the UK, but these statistics for the USA show that pitbulls account for 22 lethal attacks a year. That's out of roughly 4.5 million pitbulls (source). That is an incredibly low percentage, even if it is higher than the percentage of lethal attacks by other types of dog breed, to the point where we're comparing differences of fractions of a percent.

To give that figure of number of fatalities some perspective, roughly the same number of people (21) are killed per year by cattle.

But taking either of your points to be true, both these cases can be resolved without banning (and putting down or destroying) particular breeds, for example:

• provide education on training and dog handling
• better controls and standards for dog breeding
• licensing/training as part of a condition of dog ownership

There are existing organisations and dog clubs that already offer some of these services, and would be well-placed to tie in as providers if these things were legislated.

I'm curious, do you have any experience with training and handling dogs? Because breeding really doesn't work in the way you are implying or assuming.

Describing these dogs as bred for fighting implies that these dogs are pre-programmed to attack and fight. That's not how dogs work. Breeding for traits is about selecting for particular behavioural and physical attributes. "Fighting" isn't an isolated behaviour, it's a collection of traits like defensiveness, aggression, threat identification and so on, and to "fight" dogs need training on these.

As previous commenters have said, in the tragic cases where bully breeds have been involved in lethal attacks there are indications that the dogs were not handled/trained/socialized correctly.

The use of the term "gothic" in the Victorian era initially meant "barbaric", but people ran with the description and it came to define what you mentioned: the interest in death and the occult, tragedy and darkness.

From what I understand, "gothic" was used initially as a kind of insult when describing art or an aesthetic style. It meant "uncivilized" and "barbaric".

Then there's the apocryphal story of Bauhaus describing their music as "gothic" when compared to other contemporary bands, deliberately embracing that meaning of barbaric and uncultured.

From then on the music press ran with the term, but as with most genres it's a blunt tool for describing a sound or a style. A lot of bands from the same era who had some crossover or shared elements with goth bands were pigeon-holed as goth themselves, which they felt was restrictive and didn't accurately describe their sound.

For example, listen to The Cure's "Hanging Garden" and Bauhaus' "Bela Lugosi's Dead". Both songs share a similar claustrophobic atmosphere but beyond that they sound very different.

No, you were clear. That's what I understood you to mean.

Same!

Fantastic pictures as usual!

I've actually see some yellow wagtails near where I live in the south west. I can confirm they're more yellow than the grey wagtails 😂

They also are rarely serious bites so I'm not sure what point you're making

The point I'm making is that the framing of bully type dogs being more naturally aggressive or violent than other breeds is not the case.

they care if a dog mauls their toddler to death - which happens with far too much regularity

These deaths are tragedies, but are not regular. The reason they're newsworthy is because of how rare these events are.

I think a large problem with the narrative around dog breeds, and their associated traits, comes from a lack of education and understanding about breeds and traits. You're right, certain breeds have been selectively bred for certain activities: what this means is that collectively, dogs of this breed respond positively to being trained for that particular activity, as well as having physical characteristics to advantage them for that activity. It's not that all dogs in the breed are predetermined to show those breed's traits.

For example: border collies were bred as working dogs, specifically for herding sheep. Some have an innate herding instinct but generally they need to be specifically trained. A friend of mine had a border collie and it was the laziest dog in the world: it had no interest in herding or doing trial training. You can't assume a dog from a certain breed will display the generalized behaviours the breed is bred for.

It's telling that the biggest dog charities in the UK oppose measures for banning specific breeds of dog, because it does not work and takes attention away from measures that do improve safety, like responsible dog ownership and training.