#Ethics vs Efficiency

[mtbcleadgenbuzz]

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[kittykatninja321]

One thing that’s annoying about pit madness as a trope in fic is when people act like Jason killing people is the result of magic induced compulsion and not a fundamental philosophical difference between him and the other bats. Jason was already saying “well maybe she had a point” about a woman who killed a serial killer rapist when he was ROBIN

[aquaquadrant]

SO-- OBVIOUSLY, the ending to the main htp au fic was beautiful. Amazing perfect 100000/10 no notes i could gush about it for ages buuuut-- I have to scream about Instinct. I HAVE to. YEAAAAH THATS RIGHT BRAVO'S NEW SPONSORRRRR that investment in bravo paying BIG DIVIDENDS-- AND INSTINCT BIT AT THE END- AHAHAHA ohhhh yes look like the sleazy salesman you are atlas... gold tooth and shitty suit and all... and he has to suck up to ibstinct omg I looooove it HAHAH sorry not sorry atlas but ur the boot licker forever now. OH AND BRAVO'S YELLOW SHULKERS hahaha I know he had to work hard to earn those... 😈 and of course instinct made sure they were yellow. And OF COURSE Bravo COULD have re dyed them another color... but he didn't >:) aaaaahhh I love it so much thabk u aqua for my life

HEHEH I KNEW U WOULD LIKE THAT PART i wanted to do a solid for u and all the impulse girlies out there 🫶

also BONUS i went back thru my dms w mel and found that i plotted atlas’s ending almost exactly one year ago HAH goes to show just how big of a delay there was in planning vs writing this story ⚰️🏃‍♂️‍➡️

(BTW i can’t remember how much i’ve talked abt this but instinct’s defining traits are based off impulse’s work ethic and friendliness: hyper-efficiency and ‘fakeness’- y’know, the type that will smile to your face while hating ur guts? that almost cloying false sincerity? he also IS a very talented and accomplished redstoner in his own right, just as capable as atlas, but his focus lies on the logistics of scaling and profitability. again, hyper-efficiency is his priority.)

[locke-esque-monster]

I came into season 2 of Loki knowing how it ended. This is not something that endears me to fiction, because knowing how it ends is for a re-watch. If I come in knowing the ending, it only results in me consciously or subconsciously looking at the show to see how the puzzle comes together rather than enjoying the ride.

I also came into Loki season 2 pleasantly enjoying how they approached time travel in season 1 (ex. far better than say Endgame), but not terribly impressed, because I've seen it done better.

I enjoy the characters, and I like time travel, and I wanted to enjoy the ride despite all this.

But the last 2 episodes of Loki truly took me aback. The discussions of science vs fiction in episode 5 were a pleasant surprise. But the last episode...

I can't say I've encountered a time loop of the character's own making before in visual media (not to say it doesn't exist, but that I can't think of an instance I've seen on screen). I've seen a character driven mad in a time loop they're stuck in, but not watched one they chose. And Tom Hiddleston played it pitch perfect. He has all the desperation, the efficiency, the exhaustion, and yet the perseverance to fix this problem - but not quite the madness. Because he understands why he's there and what he needs to do instead of being trapped there by some other force. Listen to how Loki encourages Victor down the walk, with all the right words but none of the inflection- he's done this too many times before. But listen to him talk to Victor on his way back - the encouragement is genuine because this is the first time it's happened. In these scenes alone you see what Loki's been through during all the times we haven't seen him go back. But it also on a small scale encapsulates the futility and hope that's a part of every time travel story.

Putting Loki through hundreds of years to fix this problem is so understated, but the perfect way to show that he didn't come to his sacrifice at the end without doing literally everything he can to fix the problem. And making Loki a long-living demi-god actually improves the circumstances, because he has a perspective that few would on time. And it shows his growth on how much time he's willing to spend on humans he's known so little compared to his lifetime (prior to the aforementioned centuries of trying to fix this issue).

Making a way to get out of the time loop the final ethical problem of a 2 season show, and 12 years of Hiddleston (impeccably) playing a character stuck in his ways is inspired. It's an episode that was far more focused on Loki himself in a way I hadn't even noticed the show wasn't doing until now. And the choice to make the god of chaos the enabling of a multiverse allowing chaos and free will to exist forevermore is perfect.

While I can't say this show or finale was perfect, it was firing on far more cylinders than I anticipated. And I was much more moved by the ending than I ever expected to be.

[rijl]

The politics of class and privilege in Young Royals

I wrote this post a few days ago about why I read Young Royals as anti-monarchy, sparked by the results of this poll. Since then, I've been thinking, and I realized that some of the details of the show that form its political attitudes are quite subtle, and deserve to be pointed out. And I know how much we love YR deep-dive analysis posts, and so this post was born.

Note that this is coming from a USA perspective, with light research on Swedish context. I welcome questions, additions, corrections, and disagreements. And let me know if this was helpful to you at all! If so, there are more scenes I can write about (though none of them would be this long).

Season 1, Episode 1: Wille's first class

This is a revealing scene. It feels significant from the start, because it’s the first time Simon and Wille are in close quarters. And then the very first kind-of-interaction between the boys is loaded with tension about class and politics.

This appears to be some kind of ethics or social studies class. The whiteboard reads “[something], punishment, and crime,” and the teacher has been asking the students to rank the severity of various crimes. She casually invites discussion on tax evasion vs. welfare fraud, “two less sensitive issues.” Did she not anticipate how loaded that question would be in this context?

Walter is ready with an answer before the teacher has even finished her question. He defends tax evasion with the common capitalist talking point of “job creation.” Proponents of economic conservatism claim that businesses should be freed from regulations (e.g. laws on workers’ rights and fair business practices) and taxes, because the more free rein they have, the more jobs they will create. This is a myth. Capitalist businesses always prioritize growth and profit. If there’s ever an opportunity to make more money while employing fewer people and paying them less, they will take it. Left to their own devices, businesses develop new technologies and efficiencies, often at the cost of workers’ safety, and for many of them, their jobs. What really increases the number of jobs available? Tax rates and social benefits that boost the middle class, because that increases consumption, and therefore business and employment. Laws for workers’ health, safety, and well-being also increase available jobs. (If you can’t make one person do this job for this many hours, or this quickly, or alone, you have to hire more people.) Despite having no backing in reality, the idea of unencumbered businesses as job creators remains popular.

Walter sounds like he may be parroting his pro-capitalist parents. Stella could be parroting her own parents, or just the society at large when she adds that “welfare scammers give nothing back, they just take.” The specter of welfare fraud is a myth engrained even more in the public consciousness, and a racist one at that. The welfare fraud myth got big in the US in the 70’s, when US President Reagan used the false stereotype of the “welfare queen” to attack government-provided benefits (food stamps, unemployment income, etc.) and stoke anti-Black racism. By any measure, welfare fraud is actually very rare. But the myth is perpetuated, because it gives conservative politicians an excuse to police and criminalize people of color, who (in the US at least) require food stamps at disproportionate rates (though white people still receive food stamps more than any other racial group).

Think about what Stella’s statement says about her perspective on the humanity and worth of different groups of people. She’s hating on the idea of poor people receiving any more welfare (literally meaning health, happiness, well-being) than the amount the government has chosen to ration out. She says “welfare scammers,” but you can tell she’s also talking about welfare recipients in general. She’s suggesting that something that improves the life of a poor person or family doesn’t actually matter to society or to her—because that person or family is worthless, and not a significant part of society. Stella is a member of the upper class, and sees herself as entirely separate and fundamentally different from the sectors of working class and poor people.

Henry continues where Walter left off, defending tax evasion. He suggests that businesses are in the right to evade taxes, because the government is guilty of over-taxing them. (By the way, moving businesses abroad doesn’t just help evade taxes, it also often gives opportunities to pay workers less and exploit them more.) It is so ironic that Henry claims that taxes are resulting in his dad’s estate “struggling to make ends meet.” If you have an estate that you’re using to do business, you already have wayyy more than you need! You know who’s actually struggling to make end meet? The people receiving benefits.

I can understand why that’s the point when Simon laughs. Prompted by the teacher to share more, he points out that the very language used, tax evasion vs. welfare scam, is biased in favor of the rich. He points out the double standard whereby the poor are over-policed while the rich get away with cheating, harming, and breaking laws all the time (something that becomes a theme throughout the show, especially with August). To see who really “takes and gives nothing back,” check out this visual of the value of wage theft vs. burglary in the US. (And note that civil asset forfeiture, i.e. legal theft by police, also dwarfs burglary in the US.)

Simon mentions the deductions and subsidies provided by governments that value businesses over humans, and Henry gets rude and defensive. Henry doesn’t actually know how to defend his argument, which can’t stand up to Simon’s critique. And then Simon has his famous mic-drop moment: With a slight smirk and a side-eye towards Wille, he says, “Well, we all know who this country’s biggest welfare receivers are.” If I’m looking at it right, the Swedish government gives about SEK 143 million ($13.7 million USD) to the monarchy and all its trappings each year. This is less than many other European monarchies. Some might say that makes it ok. Why is the bar so low? Why do we excuse millions in public funds going to bankroll the extravagant lives of a family that already has millions in inherited wealth, when there are people who truly can’t make ends meet? Is the monarchy really “giving back” more than $13.7 million USD’s worth to the Swedish people? Is there really no better use of that money?

The most important point in Simon’s comment is the connection between the monarchy and the upper classes—especially the nobility. The positions of both the monarchy and the upper classes rest on no one questioning a system of inequality. All these rich people need us to accept that this is just the way things are: some people bask in riches while others starve; some people deserve millions in public funds, others are greedy for wanting more food stamps to feed their family.

Wille is a little stunned by Simon’s jab. We can tell, especially later at lunch, that Wille is intrigued by Simon’s bluntness, something Wille doesn’t experience in a lot of his interpersonal relationships. But he also appears to agree with Simon’s political point on some level. Remember that Wille has been attending public school so far in his life. I’m sure he’s familiar with the conservative talking points, but this class is probably the first time he’s heard them coming so strongly from his own classmates.

BONUS: Season 1, Episode 5: Presentation day

In episode 5, we get a scene of the same class, where the students appear to be doing group presentations on various topics of crime and punishment. If you’re busy pondering what happened to Alexander, you could easily miss the 10 seconds where Stella and Fredrika introduce their presentation. But these 10 seconds speak volumes. “Capital punishment,” says Fredrika, with a winning smile. Stella giggles as she says, “Yes, or no?” Fredrika confidently concludes: “We say yes.” Capital punishment, aka the death penalty, is when a government kills someone as punishment for a crime. It’s the ultimate case of “it’s not ok for ordinary people to do it, but it’s totally ok for the people and institutions in power to do it.” I won’t go into how the US has used capital punishment in racist and ableist ways, or how many cases of suspected or confirmed wrongful execution there have been. I think the main point of this short scene is to show the casual ruthlessness of these two teen girls. Their wealth and privilege has so warped their thinking that they can promote state-sanctioned killing with a giggle. The lives of regular people are not real or substantial to them, and deep down they know that no one they care about would ever be at risk of being sentenced to such a punishment, no matter what they were guilty of. (By the way, capital punishment was abolished in Sweden in 1973.)

Looking at the two ethics class scenes, we see that Young Royals portrays the upper-class students as living inside a bubble of privilege that allows them to dehumanize regular people. This causes both moral rot and intellectual laziness. It also causes a kind of ridiculous immaturity that’s both a little bit funny and a little bit sad.

[ultraericthered]

Evil Princess Done Wrong VS Evil Princess Done Right

I cannot speak too highly of either The Rising Of The Shield Hero or Ovelord, and I find both these characters detestable on a personal level. But on the basis of character writing, I have to give Ovelord (the worse of the two) this; Renner Theiere Chardelon Ryle Vaiself is leagues better an "evil princess" character than Malty Melromarc.

And I think the main reason why goes without saying: you actually really fucking buy why anyone would be decieved and manipulated by her, and that it depends on her intellect rather than the stupidity and gullibility of others. Malty is insultingly Obviously Evil, her lies and manipulations are so easy for anyone with half a brain to tear through and expose as falsehoods she's using to work some angle and get her way, and she seems to just exist to commit self-serving crimes that hurt others for kicks, for no reason deeper than Slutty Bitchy Devil Woman Is Bad. Whereas as horrific the evil committed by Renner upon her own kingdom and all of humanity, you're a bit more understanding of why no one stopped her before it got to that point: her facade is genuinely convincing in how charming, sweet and benevolent she seems, and she had done acts of genuine good for the kingdom such as abolishing the slave trade (which she did because her ethical line drawn against such a practice was sincere.)

Also worth mentioning is how Renner actually has a background-based reason for why she turned out so bad whereas Malty doesn't, and while Malty is a Hate Sink designed to have viewers/readers rooting against her and calling for her blood, Renner is so efficient at how completely evil she is that many viewers/readers were actually rooting for her and are all too happy to see her come out on top.

[goblins-riddles-or-frocks]

If Leigh hadn't given Zoya Alina's storyline what role do you think she would've played in the next books? Right now she kinda fills in the gap that Alina left as the chosen one 2.0 but if it wasn't that what do you think would've been her story?

I mean that’s really hard to say because then what is the story going to be about? So much of KoS and RoW hinge on that rehashing. Removing it results in a completely different story— which is something I’d be fine with lol but it’s definitely not a case of like what would have happened instead.

Anyway, I personally love Zoya as more of a foil to the Darkling and filling that role of institutional power vs being placed as an Alina type who’s suddenly come into abilities she does not understand. With how much the original trilogy was about the threat of corruption inherent to power, the KoS duology did not engage with it… at all. I think partially because LB wanted to put the conflict to rest as something Alina like… fixed… to uphold the R&R ending. But it’s too neat, and just uninteresting? And Zoya and Nikolai were Team Morally Dubious from the literal beginning! Bizarre to have them refitted to Lawful Good with zero quandaries whatsoever. And it’s just more meaningful imo to see them working to uphold any sort of greater good, that the choices are taxing and dubious and sometimes very morally compromising.

I think Zoya and Nikolai are really interesting and can be super complimentary in how they operate on different sides of a gray morality spectrum. Zoya is ruthless and selfish, she has limits but she’s somewhat just out for herself and the people she cares about. Nikolai is greater good focused but he operates on a means to an end style of morality that’s literally presented as the starting point to where the Darkling ended up. That is bound to result in many ethical clashes! They have very different values!

Anyway I basically just wanted to see Zoya as the new scary power behind the throne. I wanted her as the new Darkling essentially in terms of being the shadowy figure who is doing the dirty work, and willing to get her hands way dirtier because her limits are different from Nikolai’s and she’s willing to go some fucked up places for her convictions. (The Alina to her Darkling lmao)

Like it’s not expanded on in KoS at all, but I see Zoya as something of a zealot tbh? She starts out as the Darkling’s devout follower, then somewhat grudgingly switches her allegiance to Alina. With both of them out of the way, I think Nikolai would fill that role for her. But not necessarily Nikolai the person, vs Nikolai the king and all of the hopes she’s placed on his rule making a difference. Which is to say, I think her devotion would mean she’s perfectly happy to go behind his back or hurt him in some way to protect him or help his rule. Like she is absolutely the person who would order fucked up assassinations that he might have qualms about without telling him because it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission.

Arc-wise I also just wanted to see her struggle way more with the Darkling’s ghost and the values he instilled in her. Navigating the aftermath of that kind of disillusionment, and just trying to figure out what she believes in at all.

Anyway in the version of KoS that exists in my head, there is no new magic or world ending stuff. They’ve fully exited the fairy tale. It’s just politics and the miserable business of piecing a country back together after a civil war, and also recovering from the trauma of everything that happened. But while Nikolai’s come out of it determined to Fix Ravka and Deserve being king and to be nothing like his father, Zoya has come out the other side determined to be efficient. And I’d just love to see them hurt each other a lot on the path to understanding each other and trying to grapple with the above questions of morality, and where to draw the line re: selfishness or destroying oneself for a cause. And most importantly shfhff I do not want an answer!

They’re team Morally Dubious! They live on a precipice! There’s no easy answer beyond just trying to do their best at any given moment and make some ethical trade offs and just hope really hard that overall they’re going in the right direction.

[gallifreyinstituteforlearning]

War Form, Inf-Regen and Weremoths. Why did they not crop up during the Last Great Time War but do during the War? Also what interesting biology facts about them can you tell us?

What are Regen-Infs, Weurmoths, and War Forms?

🔫 Regen-Inf: These are biologically altered soldiers of lesser species, designed to serve in the War in Heaven. They're armed with built-in weaponry and have the ability to regenerate. Their mental makeup is also altered for war-readiness, complete with time-awareness and self-destruct protocols.

🐘 Weurmoths: Weurmoths are specialised Regen-Inf, engineered to act as field carriers for other troops. Picture a humanoid the size of an elephant that went to military school and got decked out with heavy artillery. That's a Weurmoth for you. They're big, they're loaded, but they're also unwieldy due to some laws of physics they can't ignore.

👾 War Forms: War Forms are the stuff of nightmares, engineered to look like monsters. They represent the far edge of Gallifreyan military adaptations, offering both terror and functionality in one monstrous package.

Why didn't Regen-Infs, Weurmoths, and War Forms appear in the Last Great Time War?

Well, it's anyone's guess, but here are some ideas:

Theory 1 - Ethical and Temporal Constraints: Maybe the Time Lords had moral and temporal reservations, leading them to sideline these war assets.

Theory 2 - Resource Allocation: Creating these bio-engineered warriors might have been like constructing a Rolls-Royce for every soldier - impressive but impractical and far too resource-intensive for a war that was already draining Gallifrey's reserves.

Theory 3 - Strategic Focus: The Last Great Time War possibly focused more on tried-and-true tactics at times. Perhaps the Time Lords were too busy using the old playbook.

Theory 4 - High Risks: The self-destructive and highly unstable nature of these beings could have been considered too risky to deploy in a war of such high stakes.

What are some interesting biology facts about Regen-Infs, Weurmoths, and War Forms?

🔫 Regen-Infs

High-Tech Scar Tissue: The 'scar tissue' is an organic blend of biological matter and technology. Maybe they have cells that function like nanobots + nanogenes combined, repairing and upgrading armour in real-time during combat, so every time it's hit, it grows back stronger and instantly.

Dimensional Brain Structures: Their brains are altered to have a level of 'dimensional extrusion,' enabling them to perceive time differently, an invaluable asset in war. This is likely to be a neural network that can process multiple timelines, just like Gallifreyans.

Biochemical Self-Destruct: Should a Regen-Inf soldier find themselves in a compromising position, their bio-engineered physiology can enact a self-destruct sequence. This is likely controlled by a biochemical trigger that induces an instantaneous catastrophic cellular breakdown.

Genetic Splicing: In some cases, the genes from these soldiers can interact with other species, as evidenced by Timon, born to a Regen-Inf and a human. This would involve a sort of gene editing on the fly, causing some … unexpected results.

🐘 Weurmoths

Size vs. Stability: Due to their enormous size, they likely possess specialised skeletal and muscular systems to support their mass. This could involve a lattice structure of incredibly dense but lightweight material, bio-engineered for maximum efficiency.

Firepower and Energy Consumption: Housing the firepower of a battalion means that their cells are likely akin to miniature reactors capable of generating immense amounts of energy. Their metabolism would need to be highly efficient, possibly extracting energy from unconventional sources.

Physical Instability: Maintaining bodily functions and actual movement at such a large size becomes increasingly unstable. They might have multiple redundant systems to manage this, including 'backup' organs and decentralised neural networks.

👾 War Forms

Adaptive Physiology: Their bodies could possess some sort of 'adaptive biology,' where their cellular structure can morph in real-time to counter threats. Think of it as an immune system on steroids, capable of changing the physical attributes of the entity to best handle the immediate threat.

Monstrous Design: The 'monstrous' appearance is not just for show; each aspect of their form could be engineered for a specific function. Spines might serve as both armour and weapon, while multiple limbs could offer greater dexterity and manoeuvrability.

Neurological Networks: Given that they are indistinguishable from monsters, their brain structure might be an intricate mesh of networks capable of running multiple operations at the same time. It's feasible that they could operate autonomously or in a hive-mind setting for coordinated attacks.

Genetic Backdoors: It would be reasonable to assume that they contain 'genetic backdoors,' allowing them to be controlled or disabled if they ever go off-script.

🏫 So ...

The biology of these war-time entities isn't just about splicing genes or grafting weapons onto flesh. It's about crafting organisms specifically designed for the horrors and complexities of multi-dimensional warfare. It's about crossing lines that are not just ethical, but also biological and even temporal, to create entities that are truly abominations of science.

On a lighter note, have a banana.

Related:

Is there any prejudice towards individuals stuck in war forms, during and after the war?: Perceptions of genetic alterations during and post-Time War.

Factoid: Could post-War Time Lords have biological hangups from the conflict?

Hope that helped! 😃

More content ... →📫Got a question? | 📚Complete list of Q+A →😆Jokes |🩻Biology |🗨️Language |🕰️Throwbacks |🤓Facts →🫀Gallifreyan Anatomy and Physiology Guide (pending) →⚕️Gallifreyan Emergency Medicine Guides →📝Source list (WIP) →📜Masterpost If you're finding your happy place in this part of the internet, feel free to buy a coffee to help keep our exhausted human conscious. She works full-time in medicine and is so very tired 😴

[skyloftian-nutcase]

silver and i were discussing the ethics of physical restraint in medical situations and we were wondering what your opinion is?

obviously i'm super biased, i know that it can cause a lot of trauma and isn't very efficient anyway. i can reluctantly admit that it might be best if the patient is too out of it/violent/dying. in trust fall, legend's injuries aren't life-threatening, he's fighting back out of self defense, and he's very much aware of what's happening and already has major trauma from this happening before. so the medic would say that he was in the right, even though he wasn't.

but since you actually have to be on the other side, when/why do you decide that physical restraint is the best/only option?

Physical restraints are definitely a complicated issue, for sure. I was actually just dealing with this last night. In the specific context of Legend's situation, if I had a patient who was injured but not dying and who was actively trying to hurt me I'd just stay the hell away and let him bleed lol, I ain't getting myself beaten up over that. He'd probably get arrested for trying to hurt me, though, because if I were doing an EMS call and my patient got violent I would call PD, they're our guardian angels whether people like them or not. I usually try to de-escalate situations before they get to that point, but my and my partner's safety is higher priority than the patient's - that's how we're all taught. We can't help anybody if our patient knocks us out. If Legend had just said "I'm fine, please leave me alone" and sounded terrified the correct response would be to try to talk to him and when it became clear he wasn't going to let anyone touch him then maybe leave supplies with him, talk to someone who he trusts to take care of him, and leave. We can't force care on someone who's with it, they have a right to refuse.

But in general with restraints, it's... not something we try to go for as a first choice. Situations can be difficult - there's a huge difference between someone who's injured but with it and isn't dying vs someone who has a head injury and therefore is out of it, or someone who is suicidal and will hurt others who try to stop them, or someone who's high as a kite and frothing at the mouth going insane on drugs, or someone who's delirious from extreme illness and fatigue. Last night I had a patient with meningitis who was so freaking out of it, dude kept trying to pull out his IVs and he was receiving life saving treatment through them, kept trying to pull out his feeding tube and he'd starve to death without it, kept trying to get out of bed and he'd fall and hurt himself if he did so - not to mention he had a lumbar drain, which if that gets dislodged can lead to paralysis and death. So clearly he needed to be kept in line. However, he was also redirectable - he was confused as hell but he wasn't violent. If you told him he was safe, told him where he was, and said he needed to rest, he eventually settled. So while my provider offered to give me the option of using restraints on him, I declined - he had a sitter who could redirect him, and honestly I felt the restraints would agitate him more in his state. Another patient on the unit, however, was confused as hell and tried to lunge at a nurse to hurt her. He got restraints and a sedative, and he slept though the night just fine. Yet another patient in the ICU had hit multiple nurses multiple times before the providers finally let us put restraints on him - and that guy was with it, he was just being an ass. It's a nuanced thing. I think they're necessary but only in special circumstances.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

Whilst I try to enter every conversion with an open mind, I won’t lie, whenever someone starts talking about ‘patriarchy’ this, and ‘toxic masculinity’ that, I roll my eyes and find myself acting as a parent would, when their child once again grabs hold of the microphone, to unleash a diatribe of incoherent babble.

I hear reductive, meaningless, and shame-laden neologisms pepper discourse, stoke division, and erode the value and mental health of men and boys.

I watch as we routinely and systematically deride ‘men��, and name everything bad in the world after them.

How we insult and gaslight men, pathologising innate parts of who they are as ‘toxic’, to be expunged, exorcised or corrected.

We frame men as collectively responsible.

We blame them for things they never did and are horrified by.

This slow drip of such hateful ideas naturally impacts the group consciousness of society, who have now learnt to dislike men too; including men, who continue to take their own lives in record numbers.

And whilst this ‘men vs women’ narrative might sell your angry book, look great on a placard, or shift tickets to expensive ‘positive masculinity’ workshops where the self-righteous flagellate themselves, and proselytize, with whines and crocodile tears – such ideas have little efficiency in the realm of real life.

Such ideas don’t work. Such ideas often make things worse.

They make little sense and are thankfully rejected by most of the world.

Still, damage is being done, and ought to be discussed.

So, what do you think of the profile of men, now found to be the most disliked demographic of all?

And what can we do to reframe people’s minds to value, treasure and respect men, as we do women?

What do you think?

--

Sources:

Study: "Intersectional implicit bias: Evidence for asymmetrically compounding bias and the predominance of target gender"

Center for Male Psychology: "Landmark research study finds clear evidence of pro-women/anti-men bias"

Supplementary studies:

"'Women are wonderful' Effect"

"Sentencing in Homicide Cases and the Role of Vengeance"

"Evaluations of sexual assault: perceptions of guilt and legal elements for male and female aggressors using various coercive strategies"

"Estimating Gender Disparities in Federal Criminal Cases"

"The Thorny Challenge of Making Moral Machines: Ethical Dilemmas with Self-Driving Cars"

"Police Perceptions of Rape as Function of Victim Gender and Sexuality"

==

Bonus study: "Worth the Risk? Greater Acceptance of Instrumental Harm Befalling Men than Women"

==

Nobody who lives in a western country lives in a "patriarchy."

As evidenced by this very simple question: who are you allowed to criticize and villainize with impunity, with no expectations of repercussions?

If you lived in an actual "patriarchy," you couldn't complain about the "patriarchy." You'd suffer government and societal repercussions. Like Iran, Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan.

Pretending you're the same makes you vile and repugnant. Western women are the freest, most self-determining, prosperous people who have ever walked the face of the planet at any time ever.

[rock-swag-tournament]

Mineral Swag Round 1: Can You Even Tell the Difference?

More information under the cut!

Look, in 2023, natural diamonds are OUT.

I'll be honest, unless you're going to admire the natural shape of a mineral or its raw color and imperfections (for example, garnet in its dodecahedral form), I think natural minerals serve little purpose except education and research! I mean, if you're going to cut up and polish the mineral anyway, why care if it was lab grown (and hundreds of dollars cheaper) or "naturally" formed in the rocks somewhere?

And hopefully most people know by now that natural diamonds are a ethical nightmare! Even conflict free diamonds are not entirely ethical! The prices of diamonds are insanely inflated, many people suffered to get that diamond, and almost no one could tell the difference between a lab-made and natural diamond because they're really the same exact thing.

I suppose I’m not here to rant and rave about natural vs lab-made gems so, onto the specific issue of diamonds vs white sapphires...

There are a couple differences. First off, among lab-created stones, sapphire is usually cheaper.

Of course, diamond will always be harder than sapphire. Jewelry companies say corundum could show more wear than diamond, but unless you're using a piece of jewelry as an industrial grade sandpaper, it's much more likely that the gold jewelry setting will show signs of wear when compared to either gem (gold is very soft) so I'm inclined to say that's mostly a marketing tactic.

But, if you need an industrial grade sandpaper, or a blade for a rock saw, diamond really IS what you need! Diamonds are very efficient when it comes to cutting hard things (including other diamonds) and they absolutely have their place in SCIENCE and maybe in your jewelry, as long as it’s lab-created.

Bonus: Can you tell the difference between these gems, because I'm pretty practiced at comparing rocks and minerals and it’s pretty difficult to tell.

[renee-mariposa]

Nothing in my day-to-day job shows me the limits of modern medicine like vancomycin does. And it makes me insane.

(extremely long, somewhat incoherent nerd rant below the cut)

See, vanc is really good at, like, three things: treating MRSA (when given IV), treating ampicillin-resistant enterococcus (when given IV), and treating c diff (when administered orally ONLY). Most every use outside of that, like when it’s used to treat methicillin-susceptible staph aureus for “penicillin allergic patients” (don’t get me started on PCN allergies), actually has data that it increases risk of morbidity and mortality (i.e. harm and DEATH).

Unfortunately, due to the prevalence of multi-drug resistant organisms, vancomycin is empiric therapy for a lot of presumed infections. And it's a lot more difficult to actually tell if someone has an infection than you'd think. A lot of medical conditions imitate each other and when time is of the essence to identify what's going on, the most ethical thing is to start an antibiotic and rule out infection as the hospitalization continues. Lab techniques have gotten a lot quicker: I can remember 8 years ago, it would take 3 days just to identify what microbe the patient had in their presumed infection. These days, anno domini 2023, PCR comes back in a matter of hours, identifying gram positive/gram negative staph/strep/bacilli/etc, and it's the sensitivities that take 2-3 days. (Don't get me started on contaminated cultures.) But even with improvements in lab technique, we might not culture any microbe at all or the provider might keep vancomycin on "just in case" because we don't know IF the patient is infected, WHAT they're infected with, or if the infection will get better with a different drug.

And vancomycin is terrible on kidneys. Extremely nephrotoxic. It isn’t as bad as the 80s when the drug first came out and was called Mississippi Mud colloquially, but it will fuck the patient up if not monitored closely.

But finding the correct dose for each patient in a timely manner is nigh impossible. This is because vancomycin is renally eliminated. We have to mathematically estimate how well the kidneys are working. Unfortunately, our mathematic equation is next to useless if you are:

-Less than 50 kg

-Shorter than 5 foot tall

-Have a BMI of more than 40

-Are an adult younger than 45 (twenty-year-olds get astronomical doses that would be destructive in an older patient)

-Are older than 65 (the official definition of 'geriatric', i'm relatively sure)

-Are female (this is really only applicable if the patient is less than 50 kg or older than 65 - think: little old frail lady - we have absolutely no fucking idea how their kidneys are doing until we order the serum drug level. It is next to impossible to accurately dose vancomycin in little old ladies on the first try.)

-Are missing limbs (lots of leg amputations in the older and impoverished diabetic population!!)

-Have a lot of muscle mass (think bodybuilder or really tall guys)

Fun fact: we estimate renal function by looking at height, weight, age, birth gender (few, if any, studies on trans patients taking HRT), and a lab value called serum creatinine. Creatinine is a byproduct of muscle metabolism, I don't know the fine details, but we can generally estimate how well kidneys are working by seeing how much creatinine is in the blood: low creatinine usually means kidneys are excreting it as they 'should' be. High creatinine means there's something wrong, the kidneys aren't able to excrete it as efficiently as they 'should' be. But the effect of low muscle mass and high muscle mass haven't been studied enough to be able to adjust our mathematical equation to compensate for them. And with high BMI: we often overestimate their renal function because we don't know how to estimate their muscle mass vs their body fat.

(I work out in the boonies. ~70% of our patients have diabetes. ~80% of our patients have a BMI of greater than 35. So what I'm trying to say here is: we are shooting in the fucking dark when we're estimating the renal function of the vast majority of our patients.)

Complicating this: vancomycin is useless until it reaches steady-state concentration in therapeutic range. On one side of this problem: a lot, if not most, medical providers assume that vancomycin starts working its magic from the first dose. So we sometimes get orders for "vancomycin 1 gram now and see how the patient is doing in the morning". That isn't going to solve jack shit! That's just going to increase the incidence of microbial resistance!!

OR, like in the multiple situations I dealt with this afternoon, you make an educated guess on what regimen is going to work for the patient. You get a level 48 hours after the dose starts. And you find out that you fucking guessed wrong and the patient is subtherapeutic. It has been two fucking days and the patient hasn't started being treated for their (presumed) infection yet!! And we've increased the possibility of microbial resistance! *muffled screaming in frustration*

So what I'm trying to say here is: on almost every presumed infection that comes into the hospital (which we're guessing like 30%? 50%? of the time), we're starting an extremely toxic drug, oftentimes 100% guessing what regimen will be therapeutic, only finding out in 2 days that it is not therapeutic, and it can sometimes take days and days to titrate the dose sufficiently to find a therapeutic regimen. And sometimes we're really fucking unlucky and we destroy the patient's kidneys temporarily (or permanently! but kidneys can be very resilient so that's thankfully rare) because we guessed a regimen that's too high!! This is a fucking nightmare!!!!!!!!

And if all of this wasn't bad enough, we don't really have any drugs that do what vancomycin does therapeutically. We have things that can be used to cover some of what vancomycin does, but nothing that's equivalent AND less toxic.

Like, to fix this situation, we need:

-Better education to providers on what drugs are appropriate empiric therapy for different presumed infections (we're working on it, we are working on it)

-Better ways to estimate kidney function (there needs to be more research on kidney function in patients with BMI greater than 35!! And little old ladies!! And patients with low body weight and high body weight and amputations and...)

-Better prognostic tools to tell 1. when the patient is infected (looking at you, sepsis!!!) 2. what they're infected with

-Less-toxic antibiotics AND/OR better ways to treat infection (this would be the evolution of medicine as we know it)

And I want to be clear: vancomycin isn't bad. It's an extremely effective tool when used correctly but we often either don't have enough data to use it correctly or the provider doesn't understand that this tool is fucking useless for the job they're trying to perform.

[experthiese]

PUBLIC VS. PRIVATE INFORMATION.

Feel free to refer to this when deciding how much your character should know about Lupin, especially if they're from outside his canon and have no pre-established basis on if/how well they know of each other.

PUBLIC. Accessible to everyone.

He is the grandson of Arsène Lupin, notorious French gentleman thief, and the third generation to continue in this line of work. No treasure is said to be outside of his reach once he's set his sights on it, and as a result he's been granted the title of the world's most wanted thief.

He's a master of disguise, and (much like his predecessors) is able to perfectly mimic another's appearance, voice and mannerisms with minimal observation needed beforehand. Only tiny details, such as his mask not showing sweat where real skin would, are able to give him away.

He is affiliated with Daisuke Jigen, Ishikawa Goemon XIII, Fujiko Mine, Laetitia Bresson, and more (verse/relationship dependent).

His 'eternal rival' is Zenigata Koichi of Interpol, the only man able to consistently capture Lupin, even if it's only for short bursts of time.

Zenigata has arrested and successfully imprisoned him on multiple occasions. However, Lupin has managed to find a way to escape from every single prison he's been put in, often relying on the assistance of his gang.

He's said to be in love with every woman in the world, though his prized paramour is Fujiko. He will never stop trying to win her affections, no matter how often he's betrayed or rejected.

His preferred weapon is a Walther P38 and it's kept on his person at all times.

A calling card is always sent to his chosen target pre-heist, detailing the item to be stolen, and the time/date of his appearance. It's signed with his name and peanut caricature.

He was once married to Rebecca Rossellini, well-known heiress and secret thrill-seeker. When he left Italy to continues his crimes travels, she didn't follow him.

SEMI-PUBLIC. Still accessible, but lesser known.

He's bisexual. His attraction to men is just greatly overshadowed by his womanising.

He's a mostly self-taught polyglot and remains at least conversational no matter where in the world he travels. He's also fluent in some dead and computer languages.

The details sent on his calling card are specific, and he sticks to them rigidly. Lupin will leave the premises once the window has passed, regardless of if he managed to snatch the treasure or not.

He's an art connoisseur and can tell a real piece from a forgery with a single glance.

All car maintenance is done by him. He's very proud of all three of his vehicles, and does his best to keep them in top condition for as long as possible. A lot of his wealth gets re-invested into fixing them up after a heist.

Lupin doesn't kill. That's one of the rules of his game, and it's one that he's unlikely to try and bend. He has people to kill for him, if necessary, but he himself refuses to take a life until it's the only option left.

This no-killing rule is one of the biggest copycat downfalls, and often the thing that gets them discovered. Thief he may be, but Lupin has a strict code of ethics he's set for himself.

He's intelligent. Many underestimate him because of the silly, childish persona he performs, failing to realise that this is not only a deliberate part of his plan, but necessary for his success. Any foe becomes easier to beat when they forget just who they're going up against.

He's a capable scientist, and uses this knowledge for his heists. All of his gadgets, smoke bombs, and knock-out gases are handmade and often re-evaluated to ensure they have maximum efficiency.

He can work any vehicle, be it designed for the land, skies, or water. He's an especially good stunt driver, so naturally prefers to use motorcycles or cars whenever possible.

PRIVATE. Available only to Lupin's closest.

Lupin doesn't dream, nor does he get nightmares. His REM sleep, or if he's even capable of achieving it, remains a mystery to everyone.

He is the legal wife of Onabes, an art collector. Despite his best efforts, the divorce papers were never completed, and thus their marriage remains binding.

The addresses of all his safehouses. In order to remain untraceable, Lupin's constantly selling off property and purchasing new ones, and rarely bothers to inform anyone about these developments unless necessary. His chosen locations range from penthouse city apartments, to countryside mansions the size of a small village, to cozy coastal bungalows. He has hideouts in every conceivable corner of the earth.

He's afraid of octopi, squid, and similar cephalopods. They freak him out big time.

Lupin will, on occasion, allow Zenigata's men to "recover" the occasional stolen artefact. Usually these are ones of historical/cultural significance or gems that he just can't sell for a good price. He has no interest in keeping these items; they've already served their purpose and gone to show that he can take them.

He sneaks into Interpol a lot. He's always disguised as different people of varying levels of importance, and loves to catch up on the latest water cooler gossip (and start some of his own). As a result, he's gotten a pretty good understanding of a lot of Interpol officers and knows more than they'd probably want him to.

All of Lupin's heists and their accompanying details (such as maps, blueprints, security routes, required technology and disguises) are all written down on paper and kept on Lupin's person. He's done far too much hacking to trust any sort of digital security system.

[weaselle]

i only respond when i have a certain kind of active social obligation.

like, i can spend all day carrying heavy things upstairs for a friend helping them move. Or i can run my ass off on a 16 hour restaurant shift. Or i can focus on what is going on every second even if not much is happening if i’m on a sports team.

But just for me? i can’t seem to make myself do a damn thing on my own time. Some kind of executive dysfunction thing.

I feel like modern living, especially in the U.S., has, over the generations, pushed us further and further toward some kind of every human is a self sufficient island unto themselves kind of existence.

And what i really want, is a team meant to cooperatively live modern life through assigned responsibilities and leveraging group dynamics.

And i know i know, that’s what a family is supposed to be but let me make three quick points

A: part of the reason we’ve had a push toward that individualism is because there are a lot of people who for one reason or another don’t have access to family that can reasonably be considered a support system or cooperative cell of any kind, and

2nd: classic family structures are possibly not the most efficient or best suited to really address all the details of a modern western life ( let’s just say North America, i don’t mean to describe social realities that i’m not intimately familiar with)

Last: this proposed social unit is not in competition with the existence of family in any way, but is complimentary -- for example, any family could also simultaneously form this kind of group, and, to a certain extent, many already do

Anyway, I want to be, like, a pirate crew, but instead of a ship it’s a house, and instead of plundering ships we’re sailing the economic sea in search of our fortune.

And so you’d have, like, your supply officer, who would be responsible for enforcing group goals in researching and acquiring supplies. For example ethically sourced chocolate, and not any of the Fake Ethically Sourced brands that are owned by the 3 giant child-slavery-sourcing chocolate companies.

That shit takes research, and there are SO MANY such things to consider -- what IS the environmental difference between wild caught vs fish farmed? Hint: fish farmed means keeping them crowded in a giant net off the coast. Which, just like for industrial chicken farming, concentrates their waste (poop) into an area that, while sizable, is much smaller than that number of animals would normally be spread over. And that poop, in small amounts, adds vital nutrients to the environment, but, in high concentration like this, blights the entire area like a poison.

What i’m saying is, getting into all that and making informed decisions about how you acquire your food, and furniture, and printer ink, everything, that’s like an entire part-time job all by itself.

In fact, it might turn out your Supply Officer needs a supply assistant. And somebody needs to go over the electric bill etc and make sure we’re only paying for what we used, right? Keep the cars registrations up to date, schedule regular maintenance on home and vehicles, over see annual doctor appointments and probably do the taxes -- Paperwork and Appointments, or maybe Calendar and Budget, probably want some kind of medic, of course somebody in the kitchen, maybe three somebodies depending on group size, don’t forget your maintenance and repair mate... 

IDK the point is to look objectively at what this life has become, and create a team for handling that on purpose.

That’s what i want. And i want it to be common. Like, a normal socio-economic institution like marriage or incorporating as a company. So you can sort of slot yourself into one or two specialties on purpose, get good at cooking, or, scheduling, or something you had an affinity for on purpose for when you joined such a group.

If i was in a group like that, i’d be good at life. I’d be doing my job, i’d be the best for the team, i’d be trying to show off how good i was at it, how hard i worked at it. Right? For the group. But try so hard as just, me? what’s the point

[kawaiimunism]

I gotta be real, I don't understand the people freaking out that Sudowrite/GPT-3 is scraping AO3 for training data. If someone's tumblr vent posts or whatever are getting caught up in a webcrawler, that's one thing, since that's writing that they never meant for anyone to find, but this is writing that authors posted on the internet specifically so other people could read it, and I don't see how there's any ethical difference between a human author reading a fic and drawing inspiration from it vs. a machine doing the exact same thing.

Don't get me wrong, if someone's robots.txt or whatever tells my crawler not to access a page, I intend to respect that, whether I understand their reasons or not, and the ability to hide your data from webcrawlers should be a basic feature on any website. I'm not saying that OpenAI should scrape AO3 against the wishes of fic authors, I'm just saying that I don't understand why so many fic authors feel that way in the first place.

At first I thought maybe I just didn't get it since I'm not really into fanfiction, but I am a programmer and I similarly don't understand the GitHub Copilot lawsuit. Almost all corporate code is built on the back of open source software projects, it's been that way for ages, and I don't see how using open source code to train AI code generation is meaningfully different.

If you're (justifiably) concerned about being automated out of a job, that's not a problem unique to art or generative AI. That's a problem with capitalism, and one of its ongoing crises: Increasing automation also increases production efficiency at the expense of putting workers out of jobs, which in turn decreases the overall buying power of the working class, making it harder to actually sell that new product. It's coming for us all, and the only way to stop it is to destroy the economic system that creates it.

I guess I'm biased since NLP and computational linguistics are my target area of expertise, and I'm a serious IP abolitionist to boot, but I really do not understand the outrage here.

[thenighttrain]

Yeah, I feel you with AI and I think it's very important to draw a firm boundary with regards to its usage. I know that machine learning algorithm (that are commonly used in AI) improves efficiency in some workloads but there are times where AI crosses that ethical boundary e.g. copyright concerns and that's a big no-no to me :-/

But I really hope the AI isn't the only thing that will define the Pluto in Aquarius era. I really hope this will be era where we have the technological advancements to move towards something more eco-friendly e.g. the significantly better battery life + lower energy consumption like in my new computer!

That's very valid! Because we only heard two songs from The Good Witch so far, it's too early for me to decide whether I prefer YSUFT vs this album. Though I do notice that the new singles sound vastly different to her pre-2022 work and that's fine!

btw when you've mentioned about preferring You Signed Up For This over the singles from The Good Witch, the former album is a Virgo Sun. So perhaps you might relate more to the Mercury influence of the album (e.g. more focus in the wordplay / storytelling) comparing to the water influence of the upcoming album?

Regarding Taurus albums, I also had to look up my Spotify library but I quite enjoy Two Ribbons by Let's Eat Grandma! I'm sure I'll think of more LP's in due course!

P.S. I'm glad that I'm not alone in the Taylor situation! I'm still looking forward to listening to what she comes up for Speak Now TV, but I also think it's perfectly valid to take a step back & branch out a little bit.

I find that it takes quite a lot of courage to properly branch out - being an astrological Fixed dominant myself I can relate: it takes a long time for me to get invested in something & let it go. This situation really sucks bc I've been into her stuff for more than 10 years, but I've been catching up some some new book / music / cinema releases & learn some new skills, so that's keeping me productive.

I want to assure you that you're not being dramatic: yours is a very valid take & I totally relate as well 💖

i totally agree! haha i probably do love you signed up for this because of the mercurial influence bc i do love the rambles and wit in it. hopefully the good witch is good! yes i need to take a step back with taylor. isn't it annoying that we're NTJs and don't easily get invested in things omg. and when we do, it's 100%. i'm happy you're into new books and music and movies though! and new skills, what are you learning? and thank u so much for the reassurance<3