#Investigation for intellectual property | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

themirokai · 2 years ago

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I got this comment on a story from my Other AO3 Account this morning.

(Info redacted because I prefer keeping these accounts separate but no one follows me on the side blog I have for that account.)

The story was posted almost a year ago and is relatively “popular” by my average statistics even though it has tropes and themes that are big turnoffs for a lot of people (hence separate accounts). This popularity is undoubtedly because it’s a Marvel Loki story and that fandom is massive.

So there is obviously an algorithm or a bot scrubbing ao3 statistics and leaving this comment on fics that meet a certain metric with the main character of the fic inserted into the comment.

I had a little time to kill this morning so I decided to investigate further. And y’all this is so predatory. Come on this journey with me. It made me mad. It may make you mad.

First, if you go to Webnovel’s website, you HAVE to choose between male lead or female lead stories before you can go any further. WTF?

And that’s weird, but this gets so much worse. This is basically a pay-to-read site that has different subscription models. Which… okay BUT! The authors don’t get paid! Look at that comment again. They’re promising a supportive and nurturing community, but zero monetary compensation. It’s basically, “post your stuff here so we can get paid and you can get… nice vibes?” I mean look at this Orwellian writing:

Using the phrase “pay-to-read model” in the same sentence as “qualitative changes in lifestyles for authors” deliberately makes you think that you can get paid and maybe even make a living on this website. But that’s not actually what it says and authors will not receive one red cent.

Oh but wait, the worst is still to come. In case this breaks containment (which I kind of hope it does) this is where I mention that I’m a lawyer in the US.

I don’t do intellectual property or copyright law but I do read and write contracts for a living. So I went to look at their terms of service. It was fun!

Highlights the first, in which Webnovel gets a license to do basically whatever they want with content you post on their site. This is how they get to be paid for people reading authors’ writing without paying them anything.

Highlights the second, in which Webnovel takes no responsibility for illegally profiting off of fan fic. This all says that the writer is 100% responsible for everything the writer posts (even though only Webnovel is making money from it).

Highlights the third which say that by posting, the author is representing that they have the legal right to use and to let Webnovel use the content according to these terms. So if a writer posts fan fiction and Webnovel makes money from people reading the fan fiction, and the House of the Mouse catches wise, these sections say that that’s ALL on the writer.

So that’s a little skeevy to start off with but the thing that is seriously shitty and made me make this post was that these assholes are coming to ao3. They are actively recruiting people in comments on their fan fiction. And they are saying they are big fans of the character you’re writing about and that they share your interests.

They are recruiting fan fiction writers and giving every impression that you can make money from posting fan fiction on their site and hiding the fact that you absolutely cannot but they can make money off of you while you try, deep in their terms of service which no one but a lawyer who writes fan fic and has some time to kill will read.

I see posts on here regularly from people who don’t understand how this stuff works, don’t understand that they (and others) can not legally make a financial profit from fan fiction. And there are tons of people who will not take the time to dig into the details.

Don’t deal with these bastards. Fuck Webnovel.

#went down a rabbit hole #got mad #webnovel #this is a scam #how to ao3 #fan fiction #please spread the word #long post #50k

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apathetic-kiss · 4 months ago

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The Rosier Family being social outcasts amongst the rest of the Sacred 28, not out of disgust or betrayal, but rather due to how the other families hold a morbid curiosity and slight fear towards the pure-bloods who seem to isolate themselves more than any other family.

For as long as anyone could remember, the Rosiers produced peculiar looking heirs; they all shared the same bone-white hair and gaping eye-bags, facial structure like fine china and long, bendy limbs. The children were always strange, seemingly intellectual and wise beyond their years, darkened pupils that seemed to stare into your soul if you made eye-contact for too long. They would chatter amongst themselves, rarely talking to the other pure-blood youths, preferring to whisper to each other in soft mumbles and squeaks. The Rosier children were never sent to Hogwarts, and rarely attended pure-blood banquets and balls. If they did, they trailed behind their parents and hid away in corners, blending in with the cryptids and ghosts which seemed to haunt every old wizarding mansion. When they aged, the Rosier offspring tended to become even more hermit-like; there was no presenting a daughter to society, no celebrations of a boy coming-of-age in the same way there was in other pure-blood families. They instead would disappear from pure-blood society for years at a time, their parents or aunts or siblings airily mentioning that they were abroad at the time.

In adult-hood, it was said the Rosiers only had one path of employment, and that was none. The blood-line was made up of inventors, of researches and explorers and users of dark magic, of witches and wizards who travelled the world and did unspeakable things in the name of discovery. Whispers existed amongst the Sacred 28 in regards to what the Rosiers had managed to uncover, invent, and twist their magic into, with rumours of anything from successful immortality, inter-species breeding, artificial life, and spells, hexes, and potions beyond one's wildest imagination. Whenever a Rosier died (as very few of them seemed to make it to old age), it was usually due to a tragic accident, a spell gone wrong or being mauled to death by a mysterious creature, a mix-up of potions or something along the lines of accidental, self-inflicted insanity. The private events such as funerals were barred from anyone outside the family line, preventing any further investigation into the births, lives, and deaths of the Rosiers.

The exception was if there ever was to be a union of two families when a wedding was held on the mysterious lawns of the Rosier mansion. Even then, it was kept relatively private, with only the immediate family of the non-Rosier spouse allowed to be in attendance, and the presence of a single writer to detail the events of the ceremony for the Sacred 28's records. However, weddings only ever seemed to happen once every forty years or so; there was only usually a single sibling married in a generation, the others dying mysteriously young or pledging themselves to their work for all eternity. It was as though the Rosiers only ever interacted and joined with another family for the sake of continuing the blood-line, and other than that would rather stay hidden away on the acres of property and endless wealth accumulated by the family over the generations.

The birth of twins Evan and Pandora Rosier was kept a secret from the rest of the Sacred 28 until their fifth birthday, when their mother brought them along to a morning tea hosted at a pure-blood mansion for the women to discuss the current political sphere of the wizarding world. The other women were shocked when Céline Rosier floo-ed into the mansion, her first public appearance in almost six years (they always invited her and her husband to events out of obligation and politeness, but the two very rarely showed to events. Secretly, the other family members were always slightly relieved when they didn't.). They were even more surprised at the addition of two white-haired children clinging to her robes, who she whispered to softly and sent outside to the court-yard to see the other children. Céline's sister, Druella Black, embraced her tightly, though the fury at her exclusion from her sister's life ever was apparent on her face; the family had cut her off both socially and financially after she chose to move to the Black family mansion instead of raising her children on the Rosier ancestral land. People had whispered about how this apparent betrayal to her roots and her aligning with the Black family instead would place a curse on her and her children, the rumours already whirling after her boys were born and were missing the signature pale hair; Druella had dyed her hair black the day after Sirius was born, a sign of rebellion against anyone who dared question her allegiance to the Blacks. Still, as they grew older, the lack of resemblance between the Rosier twins and the Black boys became more and more apparent regardless of the closeness in blood relativity. Nobody dared bring up the curse again, and Druella's maiden name and the history of her roots was never mentioned in Sacred 28 circles again.

Evan and Pandora grew up the same way generations of their ancestors had; isolated, surrounded by books, and most of all, alone. Their parents spent most of their days locked away in their own workshops, the job of child-rearing left to various members of staff and random family members who lived around the property. There were always wizarding scientists and researchers and medical professionals popping in and out of the mansion, some staying for tea and some staying for six months at a time, some who ignored the children and some who taught Evan everything he knew about potions. Though some would argue that this was no way for children to grow up, the twins would disagree; they had free-reign of the giant house and surrounding property, no bed time or limitations and complete access to their family library which had been accumulated over centuries to house over twenty-thousand books and manuscripts. When Pandora was eight, she decided she was going to read everything in the library before she died, even if it took her reading all day every day of her life (she gave this up not even twelve days into it, when had Evan begged her to put down the books and come camp down at the creek with him. She had obliged). They spent the first eleven years of their lives reading constantly and desperately, devouring novels and spell books and potion guides and studies on muggles and wizarding magazines and whatever they could get their hands on. They made potions and taught themselves non-verbal magic, experimenting with animals and transfiguration and manipulated all kinds of elements and metals and objects. They never learnt the distinction between light and dark magic, it all seemingly just a tool for them to learn how to further their skills. It was an incredible way to grow up according to them, and they wouldn't have changed it for the world. But before their shared eleventh birthday, everything had changed.

When the pair woke up and received their Hogwarts letters, they had simply tossed them to the ground and gone on with their day; Hogwarts was irrelevant to them, and only existed vaguely in their peripheral thoughts as something that other magical children were a part of. However, that night when they sat down for a very rare family meal, Céline had announced that the twins would be starting at the boarding school in September. That decision was final. After some push-back from her children, she had shut them down with a no-arguments look and the twins fell silent. They looked at each other with slight hesitation, not knowing what the hell to expect from this switch-up in the routine and life-style they had known all their life. That summer, Pandora had buried herself in books and journals written about Hogwarts and by Hogwarts students, attempting to learn and memorise everything she could about the school and its history. Evan on the other hand, was in complete denial; he shut down any mention of the school by his mother or sister, and refused to engage in Pandora's discussion about aspects of the curriculum or what their experiences at the school may be. He spent most of his time leading up to their departure for Hogwarts locked in the upper rooms of the mansion, experimenting on frogs and rats and mice as he perfected more spells and potions he was working on (though he did occasionally allow Pandora to join him and help work out the flaws in his potion-work, as long as she promised no mention of their upcoming time at the educational institute that will not be named).

The first problem that came along at Hogwarts was the expectation that they mingle with the other pure-blood families; they had only very rarely interacted with other children, and so the idea that they were supposed to befriend and talk to these other pure-bloods was an alien concept to them. Evan and Pandora had spent a little time with Regulus and Sirius as kids, but the brothers were already sitting with Sirius' Gryffindor friends in another carriage. However, this did mean the twins had an excuse to sit alone together and bury themselves in books (Pandora in her now-battered copy of Hogwarts; a History, and Evan in a definitely illegal book on the anatomy of various creatures and how to best butcher them for black-market sale).

The second problem that arose for the twins was the discovery at the sorting ceremony that they were to be in different houses. Evan was called up first, and the whispers had already begun about which house the first Rosier to ever attend Hogwarts would be in. The hat barely touched his head before shouting out Slytherin, and he had made a bee-line for where Regulus was seated with the other first years on the table. However when the hat was placed on Pandora's head, it had deliberated for a few seconds before calling out Ravenclaw. Evan had felt his face drop and the his look of horror matched Pandora's own; there was nothing wrong with Ravenclaw of course, but the awfulness of not being in the same house as his sister was something that hadn't even crossed his mind. They had spent their whole lives together, they were attached at the hip, they were practically the same person, right? Right? He watched Pandora drift over to her house table with a mournful look on her face, nodding with fake reassurance at her when their eyes locked. They would make this work.

The third problem Hogwarts presented the twins was the issue of their apparent disconnection from the rest of the wizarding world. Though this was something that had never bothered them before, and something they had in fact felt proud of in their childhood, it was now becoming a problem. Evan had never shared a room with anyone aside from Pandora, and his social skills... left room for improvement. His room-mates, Regulus and Barty, thought he was a total asshole who hated the both of them, when in reality he simply didn't understand the premise of politeness; he and Pandora had always been brutally honest to one another and to their parents, and this just seemed like the norm until he arrived at Hogwarts. Pandora's roommates on the other hand seemed to catch on to her apparent otherness immediately, and quickly shunned her from their group for being weird and creepy (it actually took Pandora a few weeks to catch onto the fact that they were being mean to her; she just figured the other girls were ignoring her out of nerves, the same way she was anxious every time she tried to start a conversation with them. She discovered this was not the case though after the fifth time she had tried to talk to one of them, and they had all left the room giggling and pointing at her). Neither of them made any real friends in their first year, and were utterly miserable.

Things perked up in their second year. Regulus had gotten into a fight with Sirius over summer and the two were no longer on speaking terms. Barty's presence had started to become truly annoying to Regulus, so Evan and Pandora became the only ones Regulus deemed appropriate company as the two were happy to sit in silence and read together. Pandora also managed to befriend an older Slytherin girl, Dorcas, as the two had striked up a conversation about Herbology in the library and become study partners. Dorcas was struggling in her third-year potions, a subject Pandora was well-versed in and knew all kinds of tips and tricks in. Pandora was barely passing Defence Against the Dark Arts as the theory was mind-numbingly boring to her, but luckily it was Dorcas' best subject. Evan and Regulus were quickly added to their study group due to their proficiency in other subjects, and when he could be convinced to shut up, Barty would sometimes lounge on a nearby table and pretend to do work. How he managed to have the highest grades of all of them, that was the true mystery.

Their little rag-tag group of five only grew closer over the years at Hogwarts, and stuck together through all the triumphs and traumas. They were there for each other when Dorcas was made quidditch captain, when Sirius ran away and Regulus was left alone, when Evan and Pandora's mother died in fifth year, when Regulus was made a prefect, when Dorcas' sister contracted a terminal illness, when Barty came back from Christmas break with red marks up and down his back. They were there for each other through it all, and Evan never knew the meaning of found family until their group of five found each other; to the Rosiers, family was blood and blood was family, end of story. He had never known there was an alternative, but he didn't care; his mother and father had never held him when he cried, but Dorcas had wrapped her arms around him after he broke down thinking of his mother being lowered into the ground.

And, after everything went down and everything went to shit, Regulus and Barty had held him in the shower as his shoulders shook, terror and fear and mourning wracking his body as he thought of Pandora. His beautiful sister, the most important person in his life, the other half of his soul had denounced him, had said she would kill him herself if she ever saw him again, had screamed at him with ferocity unseen ever before after seeing the tattoo that now decorated his forearm. She'd refused to listen to him and his pleas to join him, to follow him into the darkness of discovery, to become powerful together. After everything they had been through, they'd each chosen family in their own way; Evan, in following Regulus and Barty into the darkness Voldemort's growing allegiance, and Pandora, in remaining isolated from the affairs of the outer wizarding world, in separating herself from anyone who was not blood or who betrayed their blood, and in cutting off their apparent found family at the drop of a hat.

At the end of the day, it all came back to family, to the Rosiers, and to the endless, relentless isolation.

Evan died alone on a battle-field, his body left on a beach to be reclaimed by the elements as his soul departed for the afterlife. Pandora felt the second he left this plane of existence, a string inside of her cut and leaving her forever longing for the brother she had lost a long time ago. She had looked out her kitchen window after the day of his death, seeing a pair of two dark-haired men standing in the paddock across from the Rosier mansion, the empty space left for her twin apparent in the middle of the two men. They had all looked at one another for a moment, before her old friends had disapparated into the winds of the day. Pandora sighed quietly, a tear falling down her face as turned back towards the bubbling cauldron she was minding. She wiped her face quickly as she heard her husband walking up the stairs, and fixed her face with a soft smile.

Pandora died alone in the backyard of her childhood home, a flash of blue light being the last thing she saw before her body fell to the ground. Her last thought was not of her twin, but rather of her daughter he never got to meet, and the regret she felt at subjecting her to seeing her mother die like that. As she felt herself cross into the afterlife, it was as though a part of her soul let out a sigh of relief. Though she was leaving behind her family, she was to join Evan and her parents once again. Maybe that was for the best.

Xenophilius locked up the Rosier mansion for good after his wife was buried in the family graveyard, moving his young daughter away from the house which had always rubbed him the wrong way. The halls, the bedrooms, workshops, and library would stay empty for many years, preserved with spells and protective enchantments keeping the mansion pristine and untouched by the years gone by. If one were to visit now, it would look as though the Rosiers were still there, and perhaps had simply gone for a walk, and would return any minute. They say the ghosts of the Rosier bloodline still haunt the house, the chatter of laughter and the sound of scribbling and the turning of pages echoing through its empty, abandoned hallways.

Another family lost, forgotten to the magic of time passing.

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dajo42 · 4 months ago

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sick of crossovers that are just "look at all this intellectual property we own" give me more crossovers of franchises that have no relation to each other at all like what if the scooby gang had to investigate the village from midsommar

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strxwbloody · 6 months ago

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BEHIND A FACADE | the series

"There is a shadow of truth behind every smile, behind every song. But what happens when the veil of the facade falls, revealing the darkest secrets that lie behind the stage of our lives?"

ghoul!enhypen x ccg!reader [afab]

genre: horror, e2l, reverse harem (though it seems centered on Jungwon, but it is not so), dark themes, nsfw (mdni)

warning: drawn up in future chapters

please remember that this is a work of fiction, nothing is to be practiced or represents anyone in reality.

Synopsis: Song y/n is a determined and hardworking young woman, ready to follow in her father’s footsteps by becoming an investigator in the Commision of Counter Ghoul (CCG) in Seoul. However, her enthusiasm is thwarted by traumatic memories of the ghoul attack that ripped her mother’s life away and marked her childhood. Growing up unaware of the existence of ghouls, y/n only discovers this terrible reality through tragedy.

Now, years later, she's ready to start her career in the CCG, but the past comes back to haunt her when her friend Molan mysteriously disappears during a concert of the popular band Enhypen and y/n begins to suspect that there is something dark behind the band’s sparkling facade.

Determined to discover the truth, y/n plunges into a dangerous investigation that will bring her face to face with her past and Jungwon, an old childhood friend who is now part of the Enhypen. Unlike his bandmates, Jungwon is a guy with a complex ethic, divided between his nature and his humanity.

United by childhood memories and a cruel fate, y/n and Jungwon find themselves on opposite sides but irresistibly attracted to each other. As y/n tries to unravel the conspiracies behind the disappearances and stop the threat of ghouls, she discovers that Jungwon is not quite like his bandmates, and a complex relationship begins to develop between them and the rest of the other guys.

Each step brings her closer to the truth, but it also puts her at risk of losing everything she holds most dear.

You will be dragged on an exciting journey where the line between good and evil dissolves into darkness, and where y/n will have to choose between her duty or her heart.

A/N: I state that English is not my first language. This is not the first time I tried to write something about ghouls, the other "works" abandoned if we can say it will be deleted. I hope this is a motivation to keep writing. In addition, along with the work will also be published special illustrations of the characters made by me, at the moment in the process. Here if you want I published the 𐃘 Sunoo one. ˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶

⤷ [illustrations wip] ⤷ [TAGLIST OPEN SOON] If you want to be tagged you can write below the post or send me requests with anonymous disabled if possible, I will consider accounts with a certain age on bio. I will also consider a perm list. ♡

⤷ [navigation]

All content on this blog, including but not limited to text, images, graphics, video, and other media, is the property of @strxwbloody unless otherwise stated. This content may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified or used in any way without the express consent of the author.

If you would like to use or share any of my content, please contact me first to get permission.

Thank you for respecting my intellectual property and for supporting my creative work.

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astrodescent · 1 year ago

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MERCURY THROUGH THE SIGNS AND THEIR FAVORITE TOPICS OF CONVERSATION

In astrology, Mercury represents the way you communicate, think, and process information. It influences your conversational style, mental agility, and how you express your thoughts and ideas, shaping the way you engage in discussions and exchanges with others.

aries / 1H: personal interests, sports, self related topics, accomplishments, new goals and ventures, passions

taurus / 2H: personal values, materialism, possessions, finances, wealth, property, art, food, indulgence, sensuality

gemini / 3H: intellectual curiosity, short trips, books, learning, education, siblings, current events, sharing information they found

cancer / 4H: emotional connection, family, home life, nurturing topics, comforting people, childhood memories and values, family history

leo / 5H: creative projects, romance, hobbies, their unique personality, anything that makes them center of attention, their children

virgo / 6H: health, wellness, servicing others or service in general, organization, work related topics, self improvement, their pets

libra / 7H: relationships, art, romance, law, diplomatic relations, politics, social justice, fairness and equality, morals & ethics

scorpio / 8H: death, sex, psychology, investigation, deep & transformation subjects, rebirth, hidden aspects of life, mysteries, secrets

sagittarius / 9H: exploration, spiritual adventures, travelling, higher education, philosophy, different cultures and languages

capricorn / 10H: career, authority, serious topics, ambition, goals, tangible accomplishments, social standing, professional success

aquarius / 11H: social change, innovation, quirky ideas, friendships, activism, societies, technology, social progress

pisces / 12H: spiritual things, fantasy, imagination, empathic issues, dreams, art, the unconscious mind, karma, mystical subjects

#astrology #houses #sidereal astrology #tropical astrology #aquarius #aries #zodiac #zodiac signs #astrology 101 #astro observations #mercury #mercury through the signs #mercury houses

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blacktabbygames · 8 months ago

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Hi! Me n some pals have been going through Slay the Princess, and on my own I've been playing through Scarlet Hollow. The writing is insanely gripping and I'm having a super fun time with both!

I was just wondering- how do you feel about other creators, specifically of visual novels, making use of your "Explore" mechanics? I want to create my own visual novels, and really enjoy the Explore feature and how it's utilized, but don't want to be ripping off a unique part of your games. Thanks!

I don't think mechanics like that should be intellectual property. Hell, (Explore) is just a reworked/expanded "Investigate" from the Mass Effect dialogue wheel where the options are made to not feel extraneous to the story and roleplaying. Characters, settings, actual code and writing and assets, yeah. Those are ours. But basic structural mechanics? I think studios that aggressively sit on those hold the entire art form back. The Nemesis System in Shadow of Mordor was a really interesting approach to creating emergent storytelling, but Warner Brothers patented it and now nobody gets to explore other uses of that system. They're not even using the patent. Just introduced an entirely new way to think about game design and then stopped anyone else from ever using it.

I do think that when you borrow a mechanic from something you should put some additional effort into finding a way to make it your own, since otherwise you run the risk of tracing the surface but missing out on the *why.* And when you miss out on the *why,* things tend to fall a little flat.

If you find a way to make something your own, it becomes intertwined with your creative process. It informs and is informed by your writing decisions, instead of sitting as a garnish.

#slay the princess #scarlet hollow #gamedev #game design #indie games #interactive fiction #narrative design

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bulbagarden · 10 months ago

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hiya trainers! an important bulbanews post is down below!↓

The Pokémon Company issues brief public statement in response to recent online discussions of potential IP infringement by developers of Palworld - Published January 24, 2024, 11:11 PM PST, Archaic, Bulbanews

'The Pokémon Company have released a brief public statement in response to inquiries they have receive relating to potential intellectual property infringement by another game developer. Though the statement names no names, it quite clearly refers to Palworld, the so-called "Pokémon with Guns" game, which has been in the news recently both for its strong initial sales, the public statements of the studio's CEO in support of generative AI, and the similarities many of the game's "Pals" have to different kinds of Pokémon.

The statement, in both Japanese and English, has been reproduced in full below.' [note: japanese text has been removed from this post for space concerns]

Inquiries Regarding Other Companies’ Games

We have received many inquiries regarding another company’s game released in January 2024. We have not granted any permission for the use of Pokémon intellectual property or assets in that game. We intend to investigate and take appropriate measures to address any acts that infringe on intellectual property rights related to the Pokémon. We will continue to cherish and nurture each and every Pokémon and its world, and work to bring the world together through Pokémon in the future.

The Pokémon Company

#there are links for more info if you're interested! -lisia #pokemon #gaming #bulbagarden #palworld #bulbanews

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familyabolisher · 1 year ago

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hi if u don’t mind me asking, could u please elaborate on your thoughts on the critique of contemporary anti-intellectualism (specifically on social media)? i’m legitimately curious and enjoy a lot of ur analysis and commentary i mean this in good faith :)

Broadly speaking, the philosophical concept of anti-intellectualism tends to critically describe the ideological + rhetorical relegation of intellectual production to an elitist practice fundamentally at odds with the interests of the layman; and, crucially, the treatment of these categories as fixities. I disagree with the propositions of that philosophical discourse as well, but that’s not always the form that the discourse takes on this website. On here, ‘anti-intellectualism’ is more of a vague catch-all used to describe anything from people who express frustration with the literary canon & mainstream schooling in ways that don’t coddle the sensibilities of people with literature degrees to people who come out with outright fascistic views on provocative art; it attempts to corral what are in fact very disparate positions and perspectives under the umbrella of insufficient ‘intellect,’ often shorthanded to ‘reading comprehension’ or ‘media literacy’ (or ‘[in]curiosity,’ a new favourite) without any materialist investigation into what we mean when we talk about intellect and literacy and a lack thereof or whether this is a politically expedient description of the dynamic[s] in question.

When I say materialism, I mean it in the Marxist sense, ie. as a counter to idealism—because what’s being described here is a fundamentally idealist (and therefore useless) position. The discourse of anti-intellectualism as it exists on this website relies on idealist propositions—people lack curiosity, they lack interest, they are ‘lazy,’ they are ‘illiterate’ where ‘illiterate’ is not a value-neutral statement about one’s relationship to a socially constituted ‘literacy’ but communicating a moral indictment, at its worst they are ‘stupid,’ ‘idiots’—these descriptors rely on an assumption of immutable internal properties rather than providing a materialist description for why things are the way that they are. These aren’t actionable descriptors; at best they’re evasive because they circumvent serious interrogation of the conditions they’re describing, at worst they’re harbingers of an inclination towards eugenicist rhetoric. The discourse casts those who are ‘illiterate’—which in this capacity means those who fail to perform conventional literacy, who lack a traditional education, who don’t demonstrate sufficient interest in classic literature—or the more unkind ‘stupid’ (which, frankly, is what people want to say when they say ‘illiterate’ or ‘incurious’ anyway, lmao) as socially disposable and places the onus of changing one’s behaviour (so as to not be cast as illiterate/incurious/stupid) on them rather than asking what conditions have produced XYZ discourse of social disposability and responding with compassion and ethical diligence; I hope I don’t have to explain why this is eugenicist.

The discourse also lacks an ability to coherently describe what is meant by the ‘intellectualism’ in question—after all, merely appealing to ‘intellectualism’ is a similarly idealist rhetorical move if you don’t have the material grounding to back it up—and indeed tends to dismiss legitimate critiques of intellectual + cultural production as ‘anti-intellectual.’ People love to talk about ‘literacy,’ but don’t like expounding on what they’re actually describing when they do so—the selection of traits and actions that come together to constitute a correct demonstration of ‘literacy’ are built on the bedrock of eg. an ability to thrive within the school system (a mechanism of social control and stratification), fluently speak the dominant language by which this ‘literacy’ is being assessed (in online spaces like Tumblr this is usually English), and engage with the ‘right’ texts in the ‘right’ ways where ‘right’ means ‘invested with legitimacy and authority by the governing body of the academy.’ Literacy is used as a metric of assimilation into hegemonic society by which immigrant and working-class children are made rhetorically disposable unless they demonstrate their ability to integrate into the hegemonic culture (linked post talks about immigrant families being rendered ‘illiterate’ as a tactic of racism in France, but the same applies to the US, UK, etc); similarly, disabled people who for whatever reason will never achieve the level of ‘literacy’ required to not have Tumblr users doing vagueposts about how you deserve a eugenicist death for watching a kids’ show are by this discourse rendered socially disposable, affirming the paradigms which already make up their experience under a social system which reifies ableism in order to sustain itself. (This includes, by the way, the genre of posts making fun of the idea that someone with ADHD could ever struggle with reading theory.) ‘Literacy’ as the ability to understand and respond to a text is difficult and dispersed according to disparate levels of social access, and a lack of what we call literacy is incredibly shameful; any movement towards liberation (and specifically liberatory pedagogy) worth its salt needs to challenge the stigma against illiteracy, but this website’s iteration of ‘anti-intellectualism’ discourse seems to only want to reaffirm it.

Similarly, the discourse dismisses out of hand efforts to give a materialist critique of the academy and the body of texts that make up the ‘canon’—I’m thinking of a post I saw literally this morning positing a hypothetical individual’s disinterest in reading canonical (“classic”) literature as an “anti-intellectual” practice which marked them as an “idiot.” (Obviously, cf. above comments re. ‘stupidity,’ ‘idiocy’ as eugenicist constructions.) People who will outright call themselves Marxists seem to get incredibly uncomfortable at the suggestion that there are individuals for whom the literary canon is not even slightly interesting and who will never in their lives engage with it or desire to engage with it, and this fact does not delegitimise their place in revolutionary thinking and organising (frankly, in many areas, it strengthens it); they seem determined to continue to defer to the canon as a signifier of authority and therefore value, rather than acknowledging its role as a marker of class and classed affects and a rubric by which civility (cf. linked post above) could be enforced. (I believe the introduction to Chris Baldick’s The Social Mission of English Criticism touches on this dimension of literary studies as a civilising mission of sorts, as well as expounding on the ways in which ‘literary studies’ as we presently understand it is a nineteenth-century phenomenon responding to the predictable nineteenth-century crises and contradictions.) People will defer to, for example, Dumas, Baldwin, Morrison, to contravene the idea that the literary canon is made up of ‘straight white men,’ without appreciating that this is a hugely condescending way to talk about their work, that this collapses three very different writers into the singular category of ‘Black canonical writer’ and thus stymies engagement with their work at any level other than that of 'Black canonical literature' (why else put Dumas and Morrison in the same sentence, unless as a cheap rhetorical ‘gotcha’? I like both but they’re completely different writers lmfao), and that this excises from the sphere of legitimacy those Black writers who don’t make it into the authorising space of the canon; and, of course, reaffirms the canon’s authenticity and dismisses out of hand the critique of loyalty to hegemony that the ‘straight white men’ aphorism rightly imposes.

The discourse operates on a unilateral scale by which the more ‘literacy’ (ie. ability to speak the language of the literati) one has, the greater their moral worth, and a lack of said ‘literacy’ indicates the inverse. This overlooks the ways in which the practice of literary criticism wholly in line with what these people would call ‘intellectualism’ has historically been wielded as a tactic of reactionary conservatism; one only has to look at the academic output of Harold Bloom for examples of this. People will often pay lipservice to the hegemony of the academy and the practices by which only certain individuals are allowed access to intellectual production (stratified along classed + racialised lines, of course), but fail to really internalise this idea in understanding that the critical practices they afford a significant degree of legitimacy are inextricable from the academy from which they emerged, and that we can and should be imagining alternative forms of pedagogy and criticism taking place away from sites which restrict access based on allegiance to capital. Part of my communism means believing in the abolition of the university; this is not an ‘anti-intellectual’ position but a straightforwardly materialist one.

A final core problem with the 'anti-intellectualism' discourse is that it's obscurantist. As I explained above, it posits the problem with eg. poor engagement with theoretical concepts, challenging art, etc., to be one of 'intellect' and 'curiosity,' idealist rather than materialist states. In practice, the reasons behind what gets cast as 'anti-intellectualism' are very disparate. Sometimes, we're talking about a situation wherein (as I explained above) someone lacks 'literacy'; sometimes we're talking about the reason for someone's refusal to engage with and interpret art with care and deference being one of bigotry (eg. racist dismissals of non-white artists' work, misogynistic devaluing of women's work, etc.); sometimes we're talking about a reactive discomfort with marginalised people communicating difficult concepts online as a 'know-your-place' response (eg. backlash against 'jargon' on here is almost always attacking posts from/about marginalised people talking about their oppression, with the attacks coming from people who have failed to properly understand that oppression; I've been called a jargonistic elitist for talking about antisemitism, I've seen similar things happen to mutuals who talk about racism and transmisogyny). All of these are incredibly different situations that require incredibly different responses; the person who doesn't care to engage with a text in a way that an English undergrad might because doing so doesn't interest them or they lack the requisite skill level is not comparable to the person who doesn't care to engage with a text because they don't respect the work of a person of colour enough to do so. Collapsing these things under the aegis of 'anti-intellectualism' lacks explanatory power and fails to provide a sufficient actionable response.

Ultimately, the discourse is made up of a lot of people who are very high on their own capabilities when it comes to literary analysis (which, as others have pointed out, seems to be the only arena where all this ever takes place, despite the conventional understanding of ‘media literacy’ referring as much to a discerning eye for propaganda and misinformation as an ability to churn out a cute little essay on Don Quixote) and have managed to find an acceptable outlet for their dislike of anyone who lacks the same, and have provided retroactive justification in the form of the claim that not only is [a specific form of] literary analysis [legible through deference to the authority of the literary canon & the scholarship of the nineteenth century and onward surrounding it] possible for everyone, it is in fact necessary in order to access the full breadth of one’s humanity such that an absence thereof reveals an individual as subhuman and thus socially disposable. A failure to be sufficiently literate is only ever a choice and a personal failing, which is how this discourse escapes accountability for the obviously bigoted presumptions upon which it rests. In this, all materialism is done away with; compassion is done away with, as it becomes possible to describe the multiplicity of reasons why someone cannot or does not demonstrate ‘literacy’ in X, Y or Z ways in the sum total of a couple of adjectives; nothing productive comes of this discourse but a reassertion of the conditions of hegemony in intellectual practice and the bolstering of the smugness of a few people at the expense of alienating everyone else.

As I’ve said countless times before, the way to counteract what we might perceive as ‘incuriosity’ or disinterest in challenging texts is to talk about these challenging texts and our approaches to them as often as we can, to make the pedagogical practices that are usually kept behind the walls of the academy as widely accessible as possible (and to adjust our pedagogy beyond the confines of ideological hegemony that the academy imposes), and to encourage a culture by which people feel empowered to share their thoughts, discuss, ask questions, and explore without being made to feel ashamed for not understanding something. The people who cry ‘anti-intellectualism’ because they saw someone on Tiktok express a disinterest in reading Jane Eyre are accomplishing none of this.

#ask

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bloodflwrz · 3 months ago

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These wall artworks in Carl Manfred's Mansion (theory and analysis)

Carl's mansion itself is an amazing location because I can't help but look and analyze every single piece of art scattered across the walls and floor. But these three objects in particular made me curious, I wanted to understand why they were specifically chosen to be placed on that wall. None of them are similar in any way, stemming from different cultures, eras, and material. So, what could they mean? I have an idea, sort of.

I believe each of these three pieces represent our main three protagonists, from left to right: Connor, Markus, and Kara. It represents their identity, their story, their journey. I did some research on these objects, using Google Lens to help point me first in the right direction of the possible inspiration or sources of the pieces, and afterwards my own reading using various art archives, articles, galleries, and museum sites. (I apologize for the wall of text 😅)

1st, Connor:

This seems to be a type of emblem, shield, a coat of arms. A coat of arms is typically adorned and used to represent an entity, and organization, an empire, government, army, or a noble family. Coats of arms are intellectual property, meaning, they cannot be worn just by anybody and flaunted just to feel special, you have to be deserving and privileged enough to display it. Wearing one is a sign of honor and respect, as well as servitude, and with it comes the duty of representing your status and regulating civil law, should you be in a position of policing, legal activity, or combat.

How does this relate to Connor?

Our beloved Android sent by CyberLife has been given orders by his makers, the great and all powerful company that produces every single Android we see in game. His duty is to assist the Detroit Police Department in investigating deviants. This coat of arms, particularly shaped like a shield or police badge, represents Connor's story as a prestigious and advanced prototype Android, with the capability to analyze clues at an inhuman rate and perform combat maneuvers like its child's play. He is not a force to be reckoned with, should he choose to stay a machine, in fact, he IS the law. He is the shield and representative of the company, CyberLife, and its only chance at finding the source of deviancy among their highest-profiting product, Androids. Without Connor, CL is headed straight into nothingness. He must not disappoint Amanda, his handler, and be the loyal subject that he was programmed to be. The infamous blue triangle logo found on every Android's uniform, a symbol of CL, is just a modern version of a coat of arms.

If you look from a Deviant Connor perspective, the police badge/shield-shaped coat of arms could also represent his loyalty to Hank and his protective demeanor. At almost every dangerous encounter alongside his partner, Connor is given the choice to either protect or ignore Hank's safety. Though his priority is to find the deviants, it is his personal mission to protect Hank from harm.

2nd, Markus:

A Marka/Dogon mask, originating from West African ethnic groups (Mali, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso), particularly the Bambara and Dogon people (and other adjacent groups within the geographic location). This one was a bit difficult to research about, as many masks tend to have ambiguous origins and meaning, but from what I read, these masks tend to represent the coming of age, male initiation, journey into manhood, identity within a society, as well as religious association when used in rituals, sacrifice, and tradition. Some forms of these masks are used in rituals that have a connection with the dead, showing reverence and respect for those who passed on. Practicing remembrance and showing honor to their ancestors are large aspects of their culture with the use of these masks. The masks are also used in traditional healing practices, where they are believed to have powerful spiritual properties that can help cure illness and promote well-being. These handcrafted masterpieces are extremely important in these cultures and are often passed down by generations, signifying the importance of family and bond.

How does this relate to Markus?

These unique masks were primarily made and used by men in West African ethnic groups during the initiations of boys transitioning to men. Much like our Markus, the 'adoptive son' of Carl himself, Markus' innocence and youth is suddenly taken and he's forced into chaos, being harassed by protestors, threatened by Leo, almost permanently shutdown, thrown into the android scrapyard, and has to navigate the world by himself without his father to protect him. He has to mature and leave the comfort of his peaceful and comfy life, and come to terms with the cruelty of the world where Androids are subjugated to abuse and slavery. As a man, no longer a protected child, he takes the responsibility of protection and guidance for his people, symbolizing his 'coming of age' and transition into manhood. He is changed, has endured trauma, and must put on a mask to show that he is still strong and ready to live a life in his new role as a leader. As Lucy puts it, "You had it all, and you lost it all... You've seen hell and now hell lives in you."

Markus' story is closely related to death and the reverence of his 'ancestors': previous Androids who have suffered and died at the hands of humans. His goal as the leader of Jericho is to avenge those that they have lost and fight for those he can yet save. Every deviant's life is unique and special, their stories have meaning, even if they are treated like mere objects and servants by human society. Markus is willing to sacrifice his life in many instances to send a message to the humans, pass on his legacy to Jericho, and afterwards, all of society. His ability to convert is symbolic of a crying, healing, and inspiring message, reaching the furthest reaches of Detroit to those that need it the most. He wants to heal and save his people, bringing them biocomponents and thirium, expanding their sanctuary, arming his people (or family, at this point) with defenses, but in order to do that, he has to be willing to carry the burden of leadership.

3rd, Kara:

The skull of a bull, carved, broken, yet standing strong, thanks to kintsukuroi, aka Kintsugi. Kintsugi is the intricate Japanese art of repairing broken ceramic pottery using powdered gold/silver/platinum to put the pieces together, and display something in a different light, even more special than its original form. The purpose of Kintsugi isn't to hide or disguise the broken figure, but to instead emphasize its history, showing the life that the object had endured. The traditional Japanese philosophy of "Wabi-sabi", often associated with this particular art, describes that beauty can be appreciated even when it's broken and imperfect. There is beauty even in something modest and rough. Even a powerful and enduring beast, like a bull, can be broken down, but its story isn't over, its remains can still be repaired and appreciated if put together by a powerful glue such as gold, or perhaps... Love?

How does this relate to Kara?

Kara, the perfect housemaid Android for domestic work and childcare, is no stranger to being broken. In fact, our first scene with Kara is her being repaired and returned to Todd. Her memory has been wiped clean, she's been made anew, it's almost like nothing has happened, right? Over the course of her story, we learn that Kara has in fact been destroyed, broken, and abused by Todd. How do we come to the realization of her past? Thanks to Alice. Alice, in this case, is her glue, the mold between her cracks and shards. The bond and natural love between Alice and Kara is what keeps her together, alive. Because Kara is a protective mother-figure, the bull, or a cow, whatever you perceive it as, is a perfect symbol for her. Bulls are gentle in their nature, until a trigger sets off their instinct to fight and run you over with their body mass and horns. This is seen in her constant struggle to survive and seek shelter.

We come across two men in particular (out of her many escapes from danger) who set this instinct off, Todd and Zlatko. Both of them want to (or attempt to) break her, wipe her memory clean, and take away the beauty that is her caring nature and deviancy. Just like how mankind has domesticated cattle for their own benefit. Alice brings her back every single time. No matter how much of her body and memory is stripped away, she is back and stronger than before. Kara is a survivor. She can cut her hair, remove her LED, wear ragged clothes as a disguise, but deep down it's still Kara. Her story is shown in her battle scars and changes in her appearance, just like the golden streaks of broken pottery. As long as she has the protective instinct and love for Alice, it'll always be Kara. This is the beauty symbolized by Kintsugi and Wabi-sabi.

---

If you made it this far, thank you! I'd love to hear your opinions and comments on my analysis. This might all be a stretch, but seeing as how the game is littered with references, themes, and symbolism across many scenes, these artworks seemed to standout for a reason, at least to me.

#DBH #detroit become human #Connor #Markus #Kara #Carl Manfred #RK800 #RK200 #AX400 #theory #text #mine #analysis #DBH theory #art

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 16 days ago

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Overkill. http://Newsday.com/matt :: Matt Davies

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

November 13, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Nov 14, 2024

Republican senators today elected John Thune of South Dakota to be the next Senate majority leader. Trump and MAGA Republicans had put a great deal of pressure on the senators to back Florida senator Rick Scott, but he marshaled fewer votes than either Thune or John Cornyn of Texas, both of whom were seen as establishment figures in the mold of the Republican senators’ current leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

Scott lost on the first vote. The fact that the vote was secret likely helped Thune’s candidacy. Senators could vote without fear of retaliation.

The rift between the pre-2016 leaders of the Republican Party and the MAGA Republicans is still obvious, and Trump’s reliance on Elon Musk and his stated goal of deconstructing the American government could make it wider.

Republican establishment leaders have always wanted to dismantle the New Deal state that began under Democratic president Franklin Delano Roosevelt and continued under Republican president Dwight D. Eisenhower and presidents of both parties until 1981. But they have never wanted to dismantle the rule of law on which the United States is founded or the international rules-based order on which foreign trade depends. Aside from moral and intellectual principles, the rule of law is the foundation on which the security of property rests: there is a reason that foreign oligarchs park their money in democracies. And it is the international rules-based order that protects the freedom of the seas on which the movement of container ships, for example, depends.

Trump has made it clear that his goal for a second term is to toss overboard the rule of law and the international rules-based order, instead turning the U.S. government into a vehicle for his own revenge and forging individual alliances with autocratic rulers like Russian president Vladimir Putin.

He has begun moving to put into power individuals whose qualifications are their willingness to do as Trump demands, like New York representative Elise Stefanik, whom he has tapped to be the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, or Florida senator Marco Rubio, who Trump said today would be his nominee for secretary of state.

Alongside his choice of loyalists who will do as he says, Trump has also tapped people who will push his war on his cultural enemies forward, like anti-immigrant ideologue Stephen Miller, who will become his deputy chief of staff and a homeland security advisor. Today, Trump added to that list by saying he plans to nominate Florida representative Matt Gaetz, who has been an attack dog for Trump, to become attorney general.

Trump’s statement tapping Gaetz for attorney general came after Senate Republicans rejected Scott, and appears to be a deliberate challenge to Republican senators that they get in line. In his announcement, Trump highlighted that Gaetz had played “a key role in defeating the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax.”

But establishment Republican leaders understand that some of our core institutions cannot survive MAGA’s desire to turn the government into a vehicle for culture war vengeance.

Gaetz is a deeply problematic pick for AG. A report from the House Ethics Committee investigating allegations of drug use and sex with a minor was due to be released in days. Although he was reelected just last week, Gaetz resigned immediately after Trump said he would nominate him, thus short-circuiting the release of the report. Last year, Republican senator Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma told CNN that “we had all seen the videos he was showing on the House floor, that all of us had walked away, of the girls that he had slept with. He would brag about how he would crush [erectile dysfunction] medicine and chase it with an energy drink so he could go all night."

While South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham said he would be willing to agree to the appointment, other Republican senators drew a line. “I was shocked by the announcement —that shows why the advise and consent process is so important,” Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) said. “I’m sure that there will be a lot of questions raised at his hearing.” Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) was blunt: “I don’t think he’s a serious candidate.”

If the idea of putting Gaetz in charge of the country’s laws alarmed Republicans concerned about domestic affairs, Trump’s pick of the inexperienced and extremist Fox & Friends host Pete Hegseth to take over the Department of Defense was a clarion call for anyone concerned about perpetuating the global strength of the U.S. The secretary of defense oversees a budget of more than $800 billion and about 1.3 million active-duty troops, with another 1.4 million in the National Guard and employed in Reserves and civilian positions.

The secretary of defense also has access to the nuclear command-and-control procedure. Over his nomination, too, Republican senators expressed concern.

While Trump is claiming a mandate to do as he wishes with the government, Republicans interested in their own political future are likely noting that he actually won the election by a smaller margin than President Joe Biden won in 2020, despite a global rejection of incumbents this year. And he won not by picking up large numbers of new voters—it appears he lost voters—but because Democratic voters of color dropped out, perhaps reflecting the new voter suppression laws put into place since 2021.

Then, too, Trump remains old and mentally slipping, and he is increasingly isolated as people fight over the power he has brought within their grasp. Today his wife, Melania, declined the traditional invitation from First Lady Jill Biden for tea at the White House and suggested she will not be returning to the presidential mansion with her husband. It is not clear either that Trump will be able to control the scrabbling for power over the party by those he has brought into the executive branch, or that he has much to offer elected Republicans who no longer need his voters, suggesting that Congress could reassert its power.

Falling into line behind Trump at this point is not necessarily a good move for a Republican interested in a future political career.

Today the Republicans are projected to take control of the House of Representatives, giving the party control of the House, the Senate, and the presidency, as well as the Supreme Court. But as the downballot races last week show, MAGA policies remain unpopular, and the Republican margin in the House will be small. In the last Congress, MAGA loyalists were unable to get the votes they needed from other Republicans to impose Trump’s culture war policies, creating gridlock and a deeply divided Republican conference.

The gulf between Trump’s promises to slash the government and voters’ actual support for government programs is not going to make the Republicans’ job easier. Conservative pundit George Will wrote today that “the world’s richest person is about to receive a free public education,” suggesting Elon Musk, who has emerged as the shadow president, will find his plans to cut the government difficult to enact as elected officials reject cuts to programs their constituents like.

Musk’s vow to cut “at least” $2 trillion from federal spending, Will notes, will run up against reality in a hurry. Of the $6.75 trillion fiscal 2024 spending, debt service makes up 13.1%; defense—which Trump wants to increase—is 12.9%. Entitlements, primarily Social Security and Medicare, account for 34.6%, and while the Republican Study Group has called for cuts to them, Trump said during the campaign, at least, that they would not be cut.

So Musk has said he would cut about 30% of the total budget from about 40% of it. Will points out that Trump is hardly the first president to vow dramatic cuts. Notably, Ronald Reagan appointed J. Peter Grace, an entrepreneur, to make government “more responsive to the wishes of the people” after voters had elected Reagan on a platform of cutting government. Grace’s commission made 2,478 recommendations but quickly found that every lawmaker liked cuts to someone else’s district but not their own.

Will notes that a possible outcome of the Trump chaos might be to check the modern movement toward executive power, inducing Congress to recapture some of the power it has ceded to the president in order to restore the stability businessmen prefer.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was himself a wealthy man, and in the 1930s he tried to explain to angry critics on the right that his efforts to address the nation’s inequalities were not an attack on American capitalism, but rather an attempt to save it from the communism or fascism that would destroy the rule of law.

“I want to save our system, the capitalistic system,” FDR wrote to a friend in 1935. “[T]o save it is to give some heed to world thought of today.”

The protections of the system FDR ushered in—the banking and equities regulation that killed crony finance, for example—are now under attack by the very sort of movement he warned against. Whether today’s lawmakers are as willing as their predecessors were to stand against that movement remains unclear, especially as Trump tries to bring lawmakers to heel, but Thune’s victory in the Senate today and the widespread Republican outrage over Trump’s appointment of Gaetz and Hegseth are hopeful signs.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#Matt Davies #Newsday #political cartoons #Heather Cox Richardson #Letters From An American #the new Cabinet #Matt Gaetz #FDR #history #the capitalistic system #wealth #MAGA loyalists #FOX and friends #incoming

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mariacallous · 3 months ago

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Kamala Harris, by most accounts, has learned a great deal by serving as vice president to U.S. President Joe Biden, who is the most experienced U.S. leader on foreign policy since President George H.W. Bush.

“Kamala Harris is Joe Biden’s protégé. He trained her,” said California Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, a friend of Harris who has served as ambassador to Hungary.

But it’s also clear that Harris has created her own path on foreign policy—and that she represents the next generation of national security experts steeped in newer, high-tech threats that the Cold War generation represented by Biden is less familiar with. These encompass an array of cyber threats, including election hacking and surveillance from abroad, allegedly including from state-run companies such as China’s Huawei; threats from space, such as reported Russian or Chinese plots to disable GPS systems; and over-the-horizon risks from artificial intelligence and quantum computing.

In her speech at the Democratic National Convention accepting the nomination Thursday night, Harris briefly mentioned the high-tech threat while affirming that she would prove a tough commander in chief who would “ensure America always has the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world.”

“I will make sure that we lead the world into the future on space and artificial intelligence; that America, not China, wins the competition for the 21st century, and that we strengthen, not abdicate, our global leadership,” she said.

Harris’s familiarity with such high-tech areas springs from her unique experience. Beginning as a freshman senator in January 2017, she had a crash course in national security issues on the intelligence and homeland security committees during a period when many new threats from abroad were emerging. Only three days after Harris was sworn in as a U.S. senator by then-Vice President Biden, the Obama administration publicly dropped a blockbuster report revealing the extent of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s covert effort to harm the electoral prospects of Hillary Clinton and promote Donald Trump in the 2016 election. This involved buying digital ads on platforms such as Facebook and Instagram and organizing fraudulent political rallies across the United States, among other intrusions.

“In order to understand how Kamala Harris approaches foreign policy, it’s important to remember she began work in the Senate in the same month that every U.S. intelligence agency declared that Russia intervened in our 2016 election,” said her former national security advisor, Halie Soifer, who started working for Harris during the first week that she entered the Senate. “She played a leading role in the intelligence committee’s inquiry given her experience leading investigations.”

But that was just the start of Harris’s immersion in newer types of threats from abroad, former colleagues said.

“That was a period when the [Intelligence] Committee was in a very different position than most of the rest of the Congress,” said Sen. Mark Warner, the current chairman of the committee, who argued that it was on the cutting edge of foreign policy by exposing threats to U.S. national security that no one else in Congress knew anything about. “It wasn’t just that we were investigating Russian election interference. We were the first ones to identify the China threat [of technological surveillance] from Huawei, and intellectual property theft,” Warner said in an interview.

Those threats continue—and not just from Russia and China. Most recently, the FBI has said it is investigating alleged Iranian cyberattacks against both the Democratic and Republican campaigns for president.

Harris had previously familiarized herself with many of these types of threats during her days as California’s attorney general and a prosecutor in northern California, where she got to know Silicon Valley well. In her 2019 memoir, The Truths We Hold, Harris wrote how “shocked” she was by the state’s backward voting technology when she first took office, and how vulnerable it was to hacking.

“The California Department of Justice maintains the entire criminal justice data system for the state and for many many localities. So we worry constantly about protecting that from hackers,” Harris’s former Senate chief of staff, Nathan Barankin, told Foreign Policy. “When you’re attorney general, and you’re from California, which is very tech-heavy, you come into the job in the Senate and these committees already sensitized to not only the great potential and upside of technology, but its risks too. So when things came up like Huawei, quantum computing, or the manipulation of social media by foreign states trying to influence the election, she was already there.”

By the accounts of her intelligence committee colleagues, Harris swiftly mastered arcane subjects such as Russian election influence operations in cyberspace and Chinese intellectual property theft. She also proved to be a razor-sharp, if occasionally grating, questioner of witnesses, deploying her long experience as a prosecutor and attorney general in California.

“She was a force. She signaled early on that she was willing to do the hard work of oversight,” said Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the longest-serving member of the committee. “She got more real questions into her five minutes [of questioning] than just about anybody. She made a point of staying away from speeches and asking tough, highly informed questions.”

“She showed that she understands the complexity of the world,” Warner said. He added: “I’m not sure my Republican colleagues would go on the record about it now, but she earned a whole lot of respect from them.”

Indeed, the Republican chairman at the time, Sen. Richard Burr, praised Harris in a 2019 Buzzfeed News article as a “quick study” and “very effective.” (The now-retired Burr, in an email, declined to confirm those comments for this article, saying, “I am not doing any interviews for the elections in November.” Several other GOP committee members who were quoted as praising Harris back then, including Sen. Marco Rubio, did not respond to a request for comment.)

It was notable that by the end of her first year in the Senate, Harris joined with fellow Intelligence Committee member James Lankford, a Republican, to sponsor one of the few bipartisan efforts to bolster the cybersecurity of voting systems. (The bill later stalled due to GOP opposition.) She also sponsored a bill to push the United States ahead of China on quantum computing. Later on, as vice president, Harris kept up the focus on high-tech threats, including from unregulated artificial intelligence, working with French President Emmanuel Macron on new initiatives on space and cybersecurity and representing the Biden administration at the Global Summit on AI Safety. She also served as head of the National Space Council and represented the United States at the COP28 climate conference in Dubai.

One reason that Harris focused on such an obscure area as quantum computing, Barankin said, was that she was concerned about “the investments and efforts that China was making to win that race. It was something she was very sensitive to in terms of how important it was for the U.S. to maintain its station in the world as the lone democratic superpower.”

“It was not uncommon for her to come into the office and outline some new technological development, even if it hadn’t been formally deployed,” said Barankin. “Being confronted with something different and new—that actually gets her engine running.”

Harris’s research into the cyber threat from Russia and other countries included a visit to Israel in November 2017, when she toured its cybersecurity hub at Beersheba. “It wasn’t a typical CODEL [congressional delegation visit],” said Soifer, the former national security advisor. “There were a lot of lessons to learn from the Israelis on cyber. After that, she used her role on the Homeland Security Committee to strengthen our cyber defenses.”

An aide to the vice president agreed that the prolonged intelligence committee probe was central to shaping Harris’s approach not just to Russia, but also to China and other autocratic states that seek to undermine U.S. power.

“She joined the committee at what was a historic moment of turbulence for the intelligence community and the country,” said the aide, a senior White House official who works with Harris and was authorized to speak only on condition of anonymity. “Her experience made her keenly aware of Russian’s malign influence activities and the importance of strong U.S. actions to deter, disrupt, and defend against such activities. That experience really enforced for her the need for strong global leadership by the U.S. You see her speaking about that now.”

It is no accident, he said, that in her speeches as vice president, Harris has repeatedly emphasized preserving the democratic “rules and norms” that keep the U.S.-led global system together in the face of efforts by Moscow, Beijing, and others to destroy it.

At a minimum, Harris’s performance during her four years in the Senate clearly undercuts many of the attacks on her by Trump and the GOP message machine that portray her as an intellectual lightweight (“not smart enough,” “barely competent” and “low IQ” are the epithets that Trump keeps using), and as an easy mark for other world leaders (she’d be a “play toy” in their hands, Trump said). Republicans—and even some Democrats—have also occasionally portrayed her as a mindless, knee-jerk liberal who’s been grandstanding for a presidential run almost since she was sworn in as senator.

Especially on the Homeland Security Committee, “some Democrats believed her pugilistic tone was mostly for show,” wrote Dan Morain, a former Los Angeles Times reporter, in his 2021 biography of her, Kamala’s Way: An American Life. “Others suspected her thirst for the spotlight was part of a long-range plan to ‘pull an Obama’ by staying just long enough in the Senate to get the credentials needed to run for president.” (Former President Barack Obama served briefly on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee before he ran.)

Harris had been warned before she even arrived in Washington that the Intelligence Committee, in particular, was not necessarily a place for an ambitious politician to go. Her fellow Californians, Sen. Dianne Feinstein and outgoing Sen. Barbara Boxer—whose seat Harris had just won—gave her a frank rundown on the pitfalls. The intelligence post, they told her, rarely yielded headlines. Most of the committee’s work was done behind closed doors, with no TV cameras in sight. It had a heavy workload, and it was the most mentally taxing assignment on Capitol Hill: Members went home every night with huge binders of material, but the subject matter was so classified they couldn’t even hire their own staffers to help figure it out.

Boxer, in an interview, said that she warned her successor of the committee’s low profile (a conversation confirmed by Harris herself in her autobiography). But Harris thought the committee would provide her some fast lessons in what was, until that point, mostly a blank spot on her resume: foreign policy. “I do think she just wanted to learn more, to know more about the world,” Boxer said. “She wanted to know about every threat out there. That committee doesn’t give you high visibility, but it certainly teaches you about what the heck is going on in the world.”

Warner added: “Remember, there are members that wouldn’t want to be on a committee where 80 percent of the meetings are in closed session. Because of that, some don’t even show up all the time. She showed up. We were the minority, and she was literally the last person to talk. But she would sit through all these sessions. She did her homework.”

Above all, Harris’s time on various Senate committees deepened her understanding of the vulnerability of U.S. democracy to both foreign and domestic threats from technology, her colleagues said. And she came to understand the threat in a visceral, very personal way, which may provide some insight into how she could be different from Biden, who learned foreign policy from a grand strategic perspective during his three decades on the Foreign Relations Committee.

Harris gradually realized there was a through line, a common theme, to what she’d been doing for much of her career as a prosecutor in California and shaping foreign policy, the new subject she was taking up as a neophyte senator, former aides said. She had spent her previous career as a district attorney and then attorney general of California dealing with the inequities and flaws of U.S. democracy, such as racial injustice in the criminal system and economic exploitation by Wall Street. Now she was faced with a high-tech plot to undermine democracy by exacerbating those same internal vulnerabilities and weaknesses.

“One of the things she found most insidious about Russia’s interference in the 2016 elections was its targeted effort to divide the United States from within,” said Barankin, her former Senate chief of staff. Or as Harris wrote in her autobiography, “Russia’s goals were to undermine faith in the U.S. democratic process.”

Harris said it was clear to her from the Senate investigation that the Russians were focused on dividing Americans over “hot-button” issues, “from race to LGBTQ and immigrant rights.” She described the moment Lankford, a fellow member of the Intelligence Committee, crossed the aisle to tell her he saw the same danger: “I’ve been listening to what you’ve been saying about race as our Achilles’ heel, and I think you’re onto something important.” (Lankford’s office did not directly respond to a request for comment.)

And now, in a kind of career twist she couldn’t possibly have imagined, Harris is running against a candidate who—though he was never shown to be colluding with Russia—is also directly threatening U.S. democracy, at least in the minds of many Trump critics. That has thrust Harris’s theme of democracy-and-freedom promotion forward in a unique way in the current election campaign, said Soifer, Wyden and other Harris supporters.

“You have to think about the moment of history when she started, in January of 2017,” Soifer said. “There was no real playbook for a situation in which a U.S. president would question our institutions and completely disregard our democracy. So not only was her experience on the [Intelligence] Committee essential for investigating the actions of a foreign adversary, it occurred at a moment that the person she’s now running against for president began to directly threaten our democracy domestically.”

And whereas Biden learned foreign policy gradually during his three decades in the Senate—dating back to the Vietnam War—“her view came in a crash course, shaped out of crisis,” especially the cyber threat from Russia, according to one former senior aide who spoke on condition of anonymity. “She had to become an actor right away in mitigating against the threat. So today, even as it relates to the way she talks about preserving democracy and norms and the rule of law, she’s infusing her own experience, making it distinctly her own.”

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skyeoak · 3 months ago

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Episode 28 thoughts

WHOAH ok buckle up

What car does Trevor drive 🤔 and did they make this bet after hearing the murder carriage case.

Hey Alice, uh, slipping out right before your coworker gets attacked is a little suspect, but it could just be setting up finale character placements so you’re probably fine.

On to the main event:

Oh Sam. All he wants is to be intellectually recognized, to the point where he’s put into multiple dangerous situations. And the creature who does want what he knows only wants to dredge up the trauma from his mind.

Speaking of those traumatic events…hell yes. The skeleton wants to be free. [funny story I got a picture of my actual skull on monday for a medical consult. Lmfo] I liked this story! It has the energy of a field trip gone wrong, but even the mundane bits were packed full of details that foreshadow or connect to the wider narrative. When shit hits the fan, we’ve got some nice visceral [wet] imagery. There’s also another nice parallel between Sam and TMA Jon here, the “Hello” setting off an unforeseen chain of events. And an honest-to-goodness Johnny Sims Zinger^tm at the end!

Also this was a great vocal performance 10/10 no notes.

Speaking of details about Magnus Institute works…Yellow light? Two older women? A chair? What was Welling trying to do? Was that a body hopper? Huh?

What I’ve figured out from comparing this episode to TMAGP 21 is that there seems to be a sort of a magnus institute brotherhood/gn with various sects, all trying to ‘transmute the great work’ or ‘achieve universal transmutation.’ (In Magnus’s time, only personal transmutations had been proven.) Welling was in the more popular sect it seems and led the team investigating the millenium dome (january 1998) before his [death? de-ossification?]. Episode 21 was a letter by a concerned objector in a different, more constellations/zodiac/(astrology?) concerned sect. Potentially the same interested party that asked for the constellation map looking east from a specific property in mag 27. Whatever the kids+chair situation is may be another magnus institute project entirely, or connected to one of the above sects in some way.

(Tmagp 21 also mentions that the magnus institute has political sway in England. Not sure how this translates to the 2024 tmagp government)

GOING BACK TO FIND WHO SAM? Find answers? One of your pals that you canonically have a guilty conscience over? A secret third thing? HMMM?

#the magnus protocol #tmagp #tmagp spoilers #tmagp 28 #tmagp 28 spoilers

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hms-no-fun · 6 months ago

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🔥Star War

is it even possible to have a "hot" take about star wars at this point? Andor's great but the rest seems pretty meh (i refuse to watch the rest of the SW tv slate and basically had to be held at gunpoint before i finally gave Andor a shot). Andor bought precisely enough good will for me to give one (1) more disney star war a chance, and since Abby Thorne is set to play a side-character in The Acolyte my gf and i watched the first two episodes of that the other night. and uh, wow, how can a show feel so languid and overlong with episodes that are only 35 minutes long???? the constant cross-cutting tanks the pace and creates unnecessary confusion (how did the prisoners from the crashed ship wind up in custody on coruscant when it seems like all of five minutes elapsed between the ship crashing and the jedi arrive to investigate if osha was dead? how did osha make it to the meditating jedi's chambers before everyone else???), it's not really taking any big conceptual swings, it kinda just feels like lazy fanfic.

but that's not really a hot take. i don't know how you can have a hot take about a corporate product. i guess the closest you can get is "the last jedi is good" but the only people who think that's a controversial opinion also think they're being oppressed by a cabal of degenerate women nefariously withholding sex for political purposes. a take that offends fascists is room temperature at best.

i guess my hottest take is that every media corporation should be nationalized and their intellectual property made unconditionally public domain

#star wars #sarahposts

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northern-passage · 1 year ago

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i've shared some of Alex Freed's narrative writing advice before and i recently read another article on his website that i really liked. particularly in branching/choice-based games, a lot of people often bring up the idea of the author "punishing" the player for certain choices. i agree that this is a thing that happens, but i disagree that it's always a bad thing. i think Freed makes a good case for it here.

...acting as the player’s judge (and jury, and executioner) is in some respects the primary job of a game’s developers. Moreover, surely all art emerges from the artist’s own experiences and worldview to convey a particular set of ideas. How does all that square with avoiding being judgmental?

[...]

Let’s first dispel–briefly–the idea that any game can avoid espousing a particular worldview or moral philosophy. Say we’re developing an open world action-adventure game set in a modern-day city. The player is able to engage any non-player character in combat at any time, and now we’re forced to determine what should occur if the player kills a civilian somewhere isolated and out of sight.

Most games either:

allow this heinous act and let the player character depart without further consequence, relying on the player’s own conscience to determine the morality of the situation.

immediately send police officers after the player character, despite the lack of any in-world way for the police to be aware of the crime.

But of course neither of these results is in any way realistic. The problems in the latter example are obvious, but no less substantial than in the former case where one must wonder:

Why don’t the police investigate the murder at a later date and track down the player then?

Why doesn’t the neighborhood change, knowing there’s a vicious murderer around who’s never been caught? Why aren’t there candlelight vigils and impromptu memorials?

Why doesn’t the victim’s son grow up to become Batman?

We construct our game worlds in a way that suits the genre and moral dimensions of the story we want to tell. There’s no right answer here, but the consequences we build into a game are inherently a judgment on the player’s actions. Attempting to simulate “reality” will always fail–we must instead build a caricature of truth that suggests a broader, more realized world. Declaring “in a modern city, murderous predators can escape any and all consequences” is as bold a statement on civilization and humanity as deciding “in the long run, vengeance and justice will always be served up by the victims of crime (metaphorically by means of a bat-costumed hero).”

Knowing that, what’s the world we want to build? What are the themes and moral compass points we use to align our game?

This is a relatively easy task when working with a licensed intellectual property. In Star Trek, we know that creativity, diplomacy, and compassion are privileged above all else, and that greed and prejudice always lead to a bad end. A Star Trek story in which the protagonist freely lies, cheats, and steals without any comeuppance probably stopped being a Star Trek story somewhere along the line. Game of Thrones, on the other hand, takes a more laissez-faire approach to personal morality while emphasizing the large-scale harm done by men and women who strive for power. (No one comes away from watching Game of Thrones believing that the titular “game” is a reasonable way to run a country.)

These core ideals should affect more than your game’s storytelling–they should dovetail with your gameplay loops and systems, as well. A Star Trek farming simulator might be a fun game, but using the franchise’s key ideals to guide narrative and mechanical choices probably won’t be useful. (“Maybe we reward the player for reaching an accord with the corn?”)

Know what principles drive your game world. You’re going to need that knowledge for everything that’s coming.

[...]

Teaching the player the thematic basics of your world shouldn’t be overly difficult–low-stakes choices, examples of your world and character arcs in a microcosm, gentle words of wisdom, obviously bad advice, and so forth can all help guide the player’s expectations. You can introduce theme in a game the way you would in any medium, so we won’t dwell on that here.

You can, of course, spend a great deal of time exploring the nuances of the moral philosophy of your game world across the course of the whole game. You’ll probably want to. So why is it so important to give the player the right idea from the start?

Because you need the player to buy into the kind of story that you’re telling. To some degree, this is true even in traditional, linear narratives: if I walk into a theater expecting the romcom stylings of The Taming of the Shrew and get Romeo and Juliet instead, I’m not going to be delighted by having my expectations subverted; I’m just going to be irritated.

When you give a player a measure of control over the narrative, the player’s expectations for a certain type of story become even stronger. We’ll discuss this more in the next two points, but don’t allow your player to shoot first and ask questions later in the aforementioned Star Trek game while naively expecting the story to applaud her rogue-ish cowboy ways. Interactive narrative is a collaborative process, and the player needs to be able to make an informed decision when she chooses to drive the story in a given direction. This is the pact between player and developer: “You show me how your world works, and I’ll invest myself in it to the best of my understanding.”

[...]

In order to determine the results of any given choice, you (that is, the game you’ve designed) must judge the actor according to the dictates (intended or implicit) of the game world and story. If you’re building a game inspired by 1940s comic book Crime Does Not Pay, then in your game world, crime should probably not pay.

But if you’ve set the player’s expectations correctly and made all paths narratively satisfying, then there can be no bad choices on the part of the player–only bad choices on the part of the player character which the player has decided to explore. The player is no more complicit in the (nonexistent) crimes of the player character than an author is complicit in the crimes of her characters. Therefore, there is no reason to attempt to punish or shame the player for “bad” decisions–the player made those decisions to explore the consequences with you, the designer. (Punishing the player character is just dandy, so long as it’s an engaging experience.)

[...]

It’s okay to explore difficult themes without offering up a “correct” answer. It’s okay to let players try out deeds and consequences and decide for themselves what it all means. But don’t forget that the game is rigged. [...]

Intentionally or not, a game judges and a game teaches. It shows, through a multiplicity of possibilities, what might happen if the player does X or Y, and the player learns the unseen rules that underlie your world. Embracing the didactic elements of your work doesn’t mean slapping the player’s wrist every time she’s wrong–it means building a game where the player can play and learn and experiment within the boundaries of the lesson.

#every choice you make while designing your game says something about your experiences and your world view #whether you think it does or not #i think abt that interview with hozier where he talks abt all art being political & someone in the comments tried to disagree #by saying a child's drawing of their house cant possibly be political & someone else replies:#but it is. what does a house look like to them? is it one story or two? is it a trailer? an apartment? these things imply something #about that child's lived experience #another post i reblogged on kithj that talked abt these games like the forest or far cry where you play as a random white guy #that is being hunted by the evil native people. and the game requires you to just indiscriminately kill them #without thinking about it bc it's a game and you're the protag. that says something whether it was intentional or not #allowing the player character to do or say certain things without consequences communicates something to the player!!!#this does not mean you should punish them but that you should think about your narrative design and your choices and their outcomes #think about what makes sense in your world #and think about what it could imply in the real world. to the player #and think about all the different paths you can explore with them in this way #writing

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