#Communications Infrastructure

[ahb-writes]

Fantasy Worldbuilding Questions (Communication)

Communication Worldbuilding Questions:

What is the most widely spoken language in your world (and why)?

What are common reasons for miscommunication (e.g., faulty, decaying or glitchy communications infrastructure)?

Who has access to which forms of communication? Is everyone literate (and if not, why)?

Who controls communications, to what degree are they free, private versus surveilled?

Where did languages (or mysterious communication signals) originate? What is mysterious or surprising about language in this world?

Where is communication harder or riskier, and why?

When does each type of communication reach its addressee (does it take an instant or days, weeks, years)?

When people converse or meet, what are typical conversational gestures (such as shaking hands)?

Why is communication vital in this world?

Why have new words or terms entered this world’s lexicon (what economic, ecological, technological or other factors contributed)?

❯ ❯ ❯ Read other writing masterposts in this series: Worldbuilding Questions for Deeper Settings

[reasonsforhope]

"Across the country, thousands of public schools face closures due to low enrollment. 

But Detroit, Michigan-based nonprofit Life Remodeled is welcoming vacant schools into a new era.

The organization, which has invested $51 million in revitalizing Detroit neighborhoods, primarily works to purchase vacant properties and work with dozens of area organizations to provide life-changing resources to community members.

Its first remodel — the Durfee Innovation Society — opened in 2023. A former elementary and middle school, the building is now what the organization calls “an opportunity hub,” providing resources like after-school programs, career preparedness, and support in accessing healthcare, financial literacy, and more.

“The Durfee Innovation Society is an Opportunity Hub,” Brandy Haggins, the director of the project, told CBS News. “We call it that because we’ve taken an old school building that probably would have set back vacant, and we housed it with the best and brightest nonprofits in Detroit.”

She continued: “An Opportunity Hub is a place where individuals can come and get opportunities that they deserve, that they probably otherwise would not have access to.”

The building is home to over 35 organizations, including Nursing Detroit, Big Brothers Big Sisters, and Starfish Family Services.

Since it opened, the Durfee Innovation Society has provided 3,400 Detroit students with after-school programming, 5,600 with job opportunities, and 13,400 children and families with resources and support. 

Ultimately, the organization says, 22,000 Detroiters take part in Durfee’s programs every year.

These numbers represent exciting milestones, but they are also in competition with what Life Remodeled is up against.

According to the organization, 88% of third graders in Detroit read below grade level. 30% of Detroiters can’t access the healthcare they need. And Detroit residents’ median household income is 50% less than suburban residents.

School closures impact low-income communities hardest, with low enrollment rates causing school districts to consolidate resources — and infrastructure.

In 2017, Durfee Elementary School merged with a local high school, and Life Remodeled swooped in to save the space.

“It’s not just community history; It’s personal history for a lot of people,”  Haggins told CBS News in 2024. “What better way to work with the community than to reopen their school building into something that still belongs to them?”

The services available at the hub are free to anyone in the community. Nonprofits housed there pay for their space “at cost,” meaning they only pay what it takes to keep the building up and running.

It’s a model that seems to be working.

“The best part about being involved is seeing the actual change be made,” Charles Spears, the youth alliance president for Durfee Innovation Society, told CBS News. “You know, a lot of people talk about it. But when you get to see first hand, you actually see what is happening. It’s just like, wow, there is literally opportunity for all.”

Now, Life Remodeled is onto their next project: another “opportunity hub” on the east side of Detroit. The new property, formerly Winans Performing Arts Academy, is a 90,000-square-foot space that plans to open in December of 2025.

It’s called Anchor Detroit, and it’s located in the Denby community — an area in which residents “face significant poverty and lack access to opportunities related to educational attainment, job opportunities, and health and wellness resources,” according to a press release from Life Remodeled. 

More than 50,000 square feet of the space will be leased by nonprofit partners, who will bring more after-school youth programs, workforce development initiatives, and health resources to the area...

Anchor Detroit is currently being renovated to prepare for its reopening and will reportedly include a “significant presence” for arts and culture programs. 

Once it opens, Life Remodeled estimates the new space will support 18,000 community members per year.

“This should be a nationwide model for other schools that have closed across the country,” Haggins told CBS News. “I think taking a school building, or any historical building that means something to a community, and repurposing it into something that’s for the community — that’s huge and necessary.”"

-via GoodGoodGood, February 5, 2025

[thererisesaredstar]

Bus stop murals of Pyongyang

[shouyuus]

was thinking about it this morning as i was making tea and i think there's a fundamental gap in the advice we give to writers/creators to "first and foremost create for ourselves", bc yes. in the beginning, i am almost always writing for myself. i write all the time, and im sure that artists doodle and paint all the time too. there are things i've written that will never see the light of day and are truly just for me.

and then there are things that i choose to share, because i want to share them. because i'm proud of a story, and want to put it into the world. the act of sharing it is, above all, an invitation.

its me inviting you into a corner of my mind/heart/soul, opening the window and throwing open the curtains and waving, holding up a sign that says "hi! do you like this too? let's talk about it!"

what im asking for is a connection, a conversation. a shared space. digital or otherwise. and the so-called "harm" of "ghost consumption" is not that artists will stop creating art or that writers will stop writing -- no, that's not quite how creativity works (thankfully, and sometimes unfortunately). we will always create.

we just might not be inspired to share it anymore.

[aroaceleovaldez]

i think the thing i'm most disappointed about with riordanverse fandom now versus like 2014 is not only has the fandom not gotten any less racist or queerphobic or ableist (in fact in some regards its gotten worse!) but now it's just boring too. like there's no fandom infrastructure anymore - the community these days is almost entirely source material-driven - and you deviate from canon even slightly people get weird about it. whatever happened to the post-HoO fanon boom. the fandom needs to get weirder again. and self-sufficient. and less offensive.

[contemplatingoutlander]

States caught unprepared for Trump’s threats to FEMA

FEMA is canceling plans to award states grants to help prepare against future disasters. Federal funds given to states after disasters strike could also be in jeopardy.

Torrential rain fell on Eastern Kentucky in July 2022, turning creeks into rivers that roared through the valleys and hollows, wrecking hundreds of homes and killing 45 people. Since then, the state has been trapped in a cycle of seemingly never-ending disasters, exhausting storm-weary residents in impoverished small towns. “Our families are hurting and suffering, and our businesses are being hit and hit again,” said Kristin Walker Collins, chief executive of the nonprofit Foundation for Appalachian Kentucky.

The Trump administration is doing away with FEMA bit by bit. Right now they are ending the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program that has provided billions of dollars in grants to states

to repair levees, elevate flood-prone homes and shore up drinking water systems. The program was built on research showing it is many times less expensive to protect against future damage from natural disasters than to pay for repairs and rebuilding afterward.

A FEMA spokesperson gave this reason for why BRIC is ending:

“BRIC was yet another example of a wasteful and ineffective FEMA program,” she said in a statement. “It was more concerned with climate change than helping Americans effected by natural disasters.”

This is another example of how Trump's unconscionable war on anything to do with "climate change" is going to cost American lives and far more money repairing property damage than if Trump had just continued the BRIC proactive program of shoring up infrastructure to prevent unnecessary damage during extreme weather events.

That Trump wants to live in denial about climate change won't make it go away.

But regarding FEMA, Trump doesn't want to stop there:

The president has said he wants to eliminate FEMA and shift responsibility for disaster response to the states — which experts said are unprepared to respond to catastrophic disasters without federal assistance. [...] Some emergency management experts say the president’s proposal to shift the financial responsibility of responding to those disasters to states could prompt chaos in state capitals and city governments, forcing messy political fights about how to pay for disaster relief and fund preparedness offices.

It shouldn't be surprising, that two of the three top states for FEMA aid since 2003 are red states:

Among states, Louisiana ($22 billion), New York ($17.6 billion) and Florida ($13.6 billion) received the most in public assistance funds over the past two decades, mostly for damage caused by hurricanes, according to the analysis. [color emphasis added]

Red states could be in major trouble without FEMA, since GOP legislatures typically don't believe in raising taxes for needed services. Some of those states, like Wyoming, have such small populations that they might not be able to meet state disaster relief needs on their own, even if they raise taxes.

In the light of Trump and the GOP's determination to cut taxes for the obscenely wealthy, Trump's plans to cut back on FEMA are particularly cruel.

This is a gift 🎁 link, so you can read the article without a paywall.

[mirror-and-mind]

As anticipated, the state of the fandom after the movie's release:

[joy-haver]

When you talk about mutual aid, a certain strain of leftist pipes up to say “yeah but you’ll never fix the problems that way. The only way to fix the problem is to overthrow capitalism”

And I just wonder how they think that will happen. Will you need food to overthrow capitalism? Will you need beds? Clothes repaired? Medicine synthesized? Will you need to know the people around you and have them be willing to fight on your side, or hide you, or tend your wounds? Will you pay for your precious munitions, or will you as a community learn to build the infrastructure to make and repair them?

Mutual aid is the supply line of a revolution. Feeding people, housing people, living in community, meeting each others needs. These are not only the means by which we win, they are also the end goals of any true radical movement.

Don’t wait for the mythical moment where the people will get so hungry that they rise. Feed people, talk to them, get them on your side. Build something worth defending. Practice now. Live now.

[benjaminallhope-fulltimemind]

This is simly creep and reeks of desperation on the part of conservatives and oligarchs who whine about falling birth rates and not enough children being made. At this point abstaining from procreation is resistance, we should give in an have children because some rich oligarchs and traditionalist demand we do so.

[ahb-writes]

Fantasy Worldbuilding Questions (News and Media)

News and Media Worldbuilding Questions:

What spreads information – newspapers, websites, pamphlets, word-of-mouth, a technologically advanced communications system?

What is considered newsworthy in this world?

Who owns each news platform (are they public or private, impartial or propagandistic/biased)?

Who are the public figures most often scrutinized in news networks (and why)?

Where do the most significant or newsworthy events happen in this world (and to where does their news reach)?

Where does the typical person go to find out what’s happening in their immediate community, or the wider world? Can they find this out?

When have investigative reports or rumor mills changed history, public sentiments or policies?

When do major news announcements or public addresses typically take place?

Why is the media either free, silenced or captured/biased?

Why might people in this world trust or distrust news media?

❯ ❯ ❯ Read other writing masterposts in this series: Worldbuilding Questions for Deeper Settings

[thererisesaredstar]

Power by Grigory Likman (1964)

[clearancecreedwatersurvival]

Like, I’m not a Leninist but do the people making jokes about keyboard warriors waiting for ‘le glorious revolution that will never happen’ know that like. Actual socialist revolutions have happened in dozens of countries for like, over a century. And the only reason there aren’t more extant socialist states is because the cia’s favorite passtime is assassinating socialist political leaders and destabilizing any regime that poses a threat to the empire of capital. Like do they do know that it isn’t a hypothetical and that political revolutions are in fact something that can be organized and enacted (if you manage to not get assassinated by the cia long enough to make it happen which again is really the main sticking point).

[aroaceleovaldez]

You've talked about the pjo fandom's lack of fandom infrastructure a lot, what I want to ask is: why do you think the pjo fandom has so little?

I've seen other much smaller fandoms that have just developed infrastructure as the years go on but pjo feels like it's stayed quite stagnant in that regard. I would've thought that with pjo being so big there'd be a lot more than there is. Did we have a lot then we lost it along the way or did we just not develop it that much?

We definitely used to have way more! In my infrastructure list there's a LOT of old infrastructure blogs from back in the day. There's definitely more than what's on that list, but a lot of those blogs have been deactivated or otherwise lost. I've also talked a bit like [here] about some of the old stuff the fandom used to regularly have, like events that no longer run, common tag games and other community habits, etc. We also used to have more zines and other collaborative projects. These just don't happen nearly as often in our community anymore, because the people running them stopped being able to and nobody was able to pick them up and they were forgotten.

I mostly attribute this change to new fandom attitudes and the loss of community. Back in the day I feel like one of the most influential things to the fandom environment was how a lot of younger fans often looked to big-name-fans for how they should behave and navigate fandom spaces. A lot of people are familiar with the old "big 3" fanartists of the day - Viria, Burdge, and Minuiko - but what a lot of people don't remember is they used to trade art back and forth all the time! And with other artists/fans in the community! They were all just genuinely friends and so much collaboration happened between them! That's how we got a lot of the old big AUs and concepts in the fandom because people loved sharing those and collaborating. And because a lot of young folks often mirror the people they look up to in communities, younger fans were mimicking that behavior and there was a lot of exchange and communication and community happening in the fandom at the time. That behavior was demonstrated, replicated, and encouraged!

And young fans mirroring BNFs they look up to is still absolutely a thing! You can see this all the time if you just take a quick glance at fanart - how many character designs are clearly influenced from large artists in the fandom? Insert every Piper with Velinxi heart-shaped cowlicks here. But because there's a lot of ideas now about curating online presences as if it's a business (or literally turning it into a business) or outputting "content" we see a lot less of people - particularly larger fans in the community - vocally interacting with other fans. Everything feels very sanitized and polished and impersonal. There's way less exchange between fans now, or at least way less vocally.

And this is also pushed by general "new/passive fandom" culture as i generally refer to it, where there's so much more emphasis on consumption and "content" versus community (and again, that idea of curating socials like a business/brand). When everything kind of shifted with the like 2016-2018 adult content bans and everybody was moving around between platforms, folks lost a lot of means of learning about fandom history and their communities and how those communities looked. A lot of fans - including now older fans - have never known that fandom is supposed to be a community, and so now we have the older fans in the community with this very content-oriented presentation of fandom that is how fandom is generally advertised in mainstream media, because that's how they learned about it and how new fans are learning about it. They have no easy means to learn fandom history and nobody to mirror appropriate social fandom behavior from (which is also what i attribute to why so many fandoms have become "more toxic" or rude in recent years - especially with quarantine meaning a lot of young folks lost irl means of learning to mirror appropriate social behavior).

In smaller and newer fandoms, communities form easier and if they're the groundwork for the fandom it will persist and self-perpetuate most of the time. In general if a fandom is able to maintain that community aspect, it usually does just fine! (As per usual I point to the furry fandom as a great example of an older fandom with good infrastructure and community.) This is why I like to harp on about building community and reinstating these types of environments and blogs and such, and generally discussing the fandom's history as much as I can and remember it. People can't fix problems they don't understand or things they don't know about, so making that information as accessible as possible and encouraging these things is important.

[metrotransitposter]

Shoutout to everyone who showed up to the rally for a Livable Lyndale Avenue yesterday! It is vital that we make our voices be heard as our streets are being redesigned and prepared for the decades ahead. If you haven’t already, you can sign the Livable Lyndale petition here!

[anarchopuppy]

Mutual Aid Disaster Relief is such a great organization, please send them your support so they can help people in New England affected by the floods