#Quantitative investigation

[apas-95]

How do you not realize your Marxist ideology is false when it says shit like a trans black woman small business owner is oppressing her cis white man employees?

I don't think you're, like, genuinely asking, or are curious, here, but I'll answer anyways, for everyone else who might be confused on issues like this: it's intersectionality.

You could make this argument about essentialy any axis of oppression - 'how do you not realise your LGBT ideology is false when it says shit like a cishet black person is oppressing their white trans gay employees', or, conversely, 'how do you not realise your racial ideology is false when it says shit like a white trans gay person is oppressing their cishet black employees'.

The point here isn't to have a rock-paper-scissors, Pokémon type-effectiveness ranking of which axes of oppression 'outrank' which others, it's to understand that each axis of oppression is an entirely distinct social system that overlaps with the other. A black business owner suffers from the social system of antiblackness, and benefits from the social system of capitalism. The specific overlap of their blackness and their class character also gives them an entirely unique character with regards to their segment of society. If they are USAmerican, for example, in their specific case the state and progress of the national liberation movement in the US means that they make up the rear of the revolutionary movement, despite being themselves petit-bourgeois. These systems of oppression are qualitatively different, and cannot be simply, quantitatively, summed up against each other.

With this in mind, it should be understood that the Marxist understanding of class as the principal contradiction does not mean that class is the most important, overruling factor, and that other axes should be ignored. Class is considered the principal contradiction because it is the contradiction that all other axes of oppression, genuine in their own rights, grew out of. Antiblackness was created by the slave trade (not vice-versa), and the slave trade was created by the growing European bourgeoisie's need to extract surplus-value, in the collapse of the Feudal economy. In the example you gave, the petit-bourgeois business owner exploits the labour of her workers, and is supported in doing so by an entire legal, political, and philosophical system based on the expropriation of the proletariat. She is also herself repressed and exploited on the basis of race, gender, and transness. These do not cancel each other out. However, given the ultimate source of racial, patriarchal, and cissexist oppress is political-economic class, her ability to genuinely fight for her interests in those fields will be hamstrung by her class position - just as her ability to attain and maintain that class position in the first place is itself hamstrung by her oppression in other fields.

Ultimately, there are no simple rules that society can be flattened down by. Each and every instance and scenario must be investigated in its own right. The idea that people are driven to Marxism because it provides an easy or simplified way of looking at the world is (perhaps unfortunately!) wrong, it actually means a lot more work!

[ferferv]

(vía Quantitative vs Qualitative research what do you use left or right Metal Print by jennstore)

[fight-nights-at-freddys]

MASTER POST OF PROSHIP RESOURCES!!! <3<3

this is just for links (bc i just have No Way of formatting this properly), so for more in-depth stuffs and credits, head to the google doc, or the carrd !! :3c

Fiction ≠ Reality

Violent media -

Does Media Violence Predict Societal Violence? It Depends on What You Look at and When

Video Game Violence Use Among “Vulnerable” Populations: The Impact of Violent Games on Delinquency and Bullying Among Children with Clinically Elevated Depression or Attention Deficit Symptoms

Extreme metal music and anger processing

On the Morality of Immoral Fiction: Reading Newgate Novels, 1830–1848

How gamers manage aggression: Situating skills in collaborative computer games

Examining desensitization using facial electromyography:Violent videogames, gender, and affective responding

'Bad' video game behavior increases players' moral sensitivity

Fiction and Morality: Investigating the Associations Between Reading Exposure, Empathy, Morality, and Moral Judgment

Comfortably Numb or Just Yet Another Movie? Media Violence Exposure Does Not Reduce Viewer Empathy for Victims of Real Violence Among Primarily Hispanic Viewers

Fantasy Crime: The Criminalisation of Fantasy Material Under Australia's Child Abuse Material Legislation

Being able to distinguish fiction from reality -

Effects of context on judgments concerning the reality status of novel entities

Children’s Causal Learning from Fiction: Assessing the Proximity Between Real and Fictional Worlds

Reality/Fiction Distinction and Fiction/Fiction Distinction during Sentence Comprehension

Reality = Relevance? Insights from Spontaneous Modulations of the Brain’s Default Network when Telling Apart Reality from Fiction

How does the brain tell the real from imagined?

Meeting George Bush versus Meeting Cinderella: The Neural Response When Telling Apart What is Real from What is Fictional in the Context of Our Reality

loli/shota/kodocon -

If I like lolicon, does it mean I’m a pedophile? A therapist’s view

Virtual Child Pornography, Human Trafficking and Japanese Law: Pop Culture, Harm and Legal Restrains

Lolicon: The Reality of ‘Virtual Child Pornography’ in Japan

Report: cartoon paedophilia harmless

‘The Lolicon Guy:’ Some Observations on Researching Unpopular Topics in Japan

Robot Ghosts And Wired Dreams Japanese Science Fiction From Origins To Anime [pg 227-228]

Australia's "child abuse material' legislation, internet regulation and the juridification of the imaginationjuridification of the imagination [pg 14-15]

Multiple Orientations as Animating Misdelivery: Theoretical Considerations on Sexuality Attracted to Nijigen (Two-Dimensional) Objects

Positive Impact on Mental Health

Art therapy -

The effectiveness of art therapy for anxiety in adults: A systematic review of randomised and non-randomised controlled trials

Efficacy of Art Therapy in Individuals With Personality Disorders Cluster B/C: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Effectiveness of Art Therapy With Adult Clients in 2018 - What Progress Has Been Made?

Benefits of Art Therapy in People Diagnosed With Personality Disorders: A Quantitative Survey

The Effectiveness of Art Therapy in the Treatment of Traumatized Adults: A Systematic Review on Art Therapy and Trauma

The clinical effectiveness and current practice of art therapy for trauma

Writing therapy -

Optimizing the perceived benefits and health outcomes of writing about traumatic life events

Expressive writing and post-traumatic stress disorder: Effects on trauma symptoms, mood states, and cortisol reactivity

Focused expressive writing as self-help for stress and trauma

Putting Stress into Words: The Impact of Writing on Physiological, Absentee, and Self-Reported Emotional Well-Being Measures

The writing cure: How expressive writing promotes health and emotional well-being

Effects of Writing About Traumatic Experiences: The Necessity for Narrative Structuring

Scriptotherapy: The effects of writing about traumatic events

Emotional and physical benefits of expressive writing

Emotional and Cognitive Processing in Sexual Assault Survivors' Narratives

Finding happiness in negative emotions: An experimental test of a novel expressive writing paradigm

An everyday activity as treatment for depression: The benefits of expressive writing for people diagnosed with major depressive disorder

Writing about emotional experiences as a therapeutic process

Effects of expressive writing on sexual dysfunction, depression, and PTSD in women with a history of childhood sexual abuse: Results from a randomized clinical trial

Written Emotional Disclosure: Testing Whether Social Disclosure Matters

Written emotional disclosure: A controlled study of the benefits of expressive writing homework in outpatient psychotherapy

Misc -

Emotional disclosure about traumas and its relation to health: Effects of previous disclosure and trauma severity

Treating complex trauma in adolescents: A phase-based integrative approach for play therapists

Emotional expression and physical health: Revising traumatic memories or fostering self-regulation?

Disclosure of Sexual Victimization: The Effects of Pennebaker's Emotional Disclosure Paradigm on Physical and Psychological Distress

Kink/Porn/Fantasies

Sexual fantasies -

A Critical Microethnographic Examination of Power Exchange, Role Idenity and Agency with Black BDSM Practitioners

Women's Rape Fantasies: An Empirical Evaluation of the Major Explanations

History, culture and practice of puppy play

What Exactly Is an Unusual Sexual Fantasy?

The Psychology of Kink: a Survey Study into the Relationships of Trauma and Attachment Style with BDSM Interests

Punishing Sexual Fantasy

Women's Erotic Rape Fantasies

Sexual Fantasy and Adult Attunement: Differentiating Preying from Playing

What Is So Appealing About Being Spanked, Flogged, Dominated, or Restrained? Answers from Practitioners of Sexual Masochism/Submission

Dark Fantasies, Part 1 - With Dr. Ian Kerner

Why Do Women Have Rape Fantasies

The 7 Most Common Sexual Fantasies and What to Do About Them

Sexual Fantasies

Pornography -

The Effects of Exposure to Virtual Child Pornography on Viewer Cognitions and Attitudes Toward Deviant Sexual Behavior

American Identities and Consumption of Japanese Homoerotica

The differentiation between consumers of hentai pornography and human pornography

Pornography Use and Holistic Sexual Functioning: A Systematic Review of Recent Research

Claiming Public Health Crisis to Regulate Sexual Outlets: A Critique of the State of Utah's Declaration on Pornography

Pornography and Sexual Dysfunction: Is There Any Relationship?

Reading and Living Yaoi: Male-Male Fantasy Narratives as Women's Sexual Subculture in Japan

Women's Consumption of Pornograpy: Pleasure, Contestation, and Empowerment

Pornography and Sexual Violence

The Sunny Side of Smut

Other -

Fantasy Sexual Material Use by People with Attractions to Children

Fictosexuality, Fictoromance, and Fictophilia: A Qualitative Study of Love and Desire for Fictional Characters

Exploring the Ownership of Child-Like Sex Dolls

Are Sex and Pornograpy Addiction Valid Disorders? Adding a Leisure Science Perspecive to the Sexological Critique

Littles: Affects and Aesthetics in Sexual Age-Play

An Exploratory Study of a New Kink Activity: "Pup Play"

Jaws Effect

The Jaws Effect: How movie narratives are used to influence policy responses to shark bites in Western Australia

The Shark Attacks That Were the Inspiration for Jaws

The Great White Hope (written by Peter Benchley, writer of Jaws)

The Jaws Myth [not a study BUT is an interesting read and provides some links to articles and studies]

Slenderman Stabbings

Out Came the Girls: Adolescent Girlhood, the Occult, and the Slender Man Phenomenon

Jury in Slender Man case finds Anissa Weier was mentally ill, will not go to prison

2nd teen in 'Slender Man' stabbing case to remain in institutional care for 40 years

Negative effects of online harassment

How stressful is online victimization? Effects of victim's personality and properties of the incident

Prevalence, Psychological Impact, and Coping of Cyberbully Victims Among College Students

Offline Consequences of Online Victimization

The Relative Importance of Online Victimization in Understanding Depression, Delinquency, and Substance Use

Internet trolling and everyday sadism: Parallel effects on pain perception and moral judgement

The MAD Model of Moral Contagion: The Role of Motivation, Attention, and Design in the Spread of Moralized Content Online

Morally Motivated Networked Harassment as Normative Reinforcement

When Online Harassment is Perceived as Justified

Violence on Reddit Support Forums Unique to r/NoFap

"It Makes Me, A Minor, Uncomfortable" Media and Morality in Anti-Shippers' Policing of Online Fandom

[destinationtoast]

*waves shyly* Hello!! First off, I absolutely adore all of your stats and get excited when you post new ones -- thank you so much for all that you do!

Secondly, a friend and I have been discussing fandom longevity lately, and I wondered if you have thoughts? Subjectively, it seems to us that new fandoms tend to have more quick bursts of fandom activity when a new season/movie/book/etc comes out that fades quickly with time, whereas older established fandoms have more staying power. I'm curious if you have any insight about whether this is objectively true in most cases or not, and as to whether or not the type of canon source material matters (eg show-based fandoms vs book-based fandoms). I hope you're having a great day <3

Hi there, and thanks! :D This is a great question, and one I have been having a bunch of conversations about lately.

I share this subjective experience -- it sure seems like the attention span of fans and lifespan of fandoms is shorter than it used to be, when I think of how quickly people stop talking about a bunch of newer movies and TV shows these days. And then I see some of the older fandoms like Harry Potter still producing a ton of new fanworks, and I think, "Wow, maybe new fandoms just don't have the staying power of older ones." At the same time, I also question how objectively true/simple that story is for a few reasons, including:

Memory bias: When we look back on the past, the fandoms we remember most are usually the ones that lasted a long time. So our estimates of past fandom longevity may be overly generous.

Changes to fandom size: Maybe any changes to fandom lifespan are mostly due to some other change, like fandom size... Attention is more splintered these days than it used to be across more streaming services/etc, and I think there are more, smaller fandoms than there used to be. Maybe if a fandom doesn't get really huge, it's just not likely to last that long.

For TV fandoms -- changes to canon release schedule: most TV shows used to have seasons that lasted most of the year, so they had a lot more reason to stay in the public mind longer. Now many seasons are shorter and sometimes drop all at once. Perhaps if we compared popular TV procedurals with 22 episodes/season from now vs. ~a decade ago, we'd see similar patterns of fandom activity?

I've been thinking about ways to try to gather quantitative data about the changes, and testing out a few methods. A few ideas I've had:

Look at the Tumblr official lists of top fandoms and see whether the top fandoms tend to leave the top 20 rankings faster now than they used to. (The Tumblr rankings go all the way back to 2013 on a yearly basis, at least -- I'm not sure how long they've been releasing the weekly lists; those may have started later.)

Look at AO3 fandom activity after new canon infusions - how quickly does activity drop off after a new movie/book/video game release, or after a TV season ends? How has the rate of activity dropoff changed over the years? (And how much of that seems to be explained by other factors, like fandom size?)

See how quickly AO3 authors/creators tend to migrate to new fandoms, and how that's changed over time - many authors tend to be active in multiple fandoms, so we'd have to define what it means to migrate to a new fandom, but I think we could do so in a way that would allow us to look for changes.

Look at Tumblr, Twitter/X, and/or Reddit activlty after new canon infusions - same as AO3, but on a platform where people are posting shorter content and there's more of a discussion. (This data would be harder to collect, though.)

I'd love to also hear other ideas. I think I'm going to need some volunteers to help gather data if I do any of the above, though... Readers, if you'd be interested in helping to gather data for an hour or more to help investigate this question, please reply/DM and let me know! And/or join the new fandom-data-projects community.

Also if any readers know of anyone else who has looked into this/similar questions, I'd love to hear about it!

[mariacallous]

The Israeli attack on a humanitarian convoy in Gaza in early April that killed seven aid workers with the U.S.-based aid group World Central Kitchen has ignited a fierce global backlash against Israel’s policies of engagement in the territory. The attack involved the successive firing of three missiles at three vehicles, driven by suspicions of a Hamas combatant’s presence within the convoy, according to reports.

In Israel, the event is being portrayed as an accident, “a grave mistake stemming from a serious failure due to a mistaken identification, errors in decision-making, and an attack contrary to the Standard Operating Procedures,” as the Israeli military’s investigation team concluded. In humanitarian circles, it is seen as evidence of a culture that “treats Gaza as a free-fire zone with total impunity for gross attacks on civilians,” as Jeremy Konyndyk, the president of Refugees International who served in both the Obama and Biden administrations, has suggested.

But for the discussion to be useful, it should progress beyond these immediate interpretations to examine the deeper cultural patterns underlying such incidents. Most crucially, it must scrutinize the shift in military policy and ethos that can be traced back to the Elor Azaria affair of 2016-17. Azaria was an Israeli conscript who was captured on video executing a wounded and immobilized Palestinian assailant in Hebron. The Israeli military prosecuted Azaria for manslaughter and sentenced him to 18 months in prison.

While the case demonstrated the military’s commitment to its own ethical codes, it also sparked widespread protests from right-wing factions and a general backlash against military procedures. The army was accused of failing to support Azaria and creating a culture in which soldiers would hesitate to use force against Palestinian militants. To counter this claim, and from that point forward, the military began to announce the number of Palestinian fighters killed in its operations, demonstrating that its forces did not hesitate to engage.

Under the leadership of the military’s chief of staff, Aviv Kochavi, from 2019 to 2023, the killing-based criteria were reinforced. Kochavi’s goal was to remake the army into a “lethal, efficient, and innovative” fighting force—in other words, a death-generating army. He promoted this vision by enhancing the precision of weapon systems, improving the coordination between forces and intelligence, and increasing the rate of fire.

Kochavi’s directive for field commanders to assess, at the end of each combat phase, the number of enemy forces killed and objectives destroyed—rather than solely focusing on territorial conquest—signified a shift toward necrotactics, where the primary goal of military engagement is killing the enemy. Killing becomes not just an outcome of warfare but its principal aim.

The approach of using body counts as a metric of success has notably intensified during the current war. Soon after the Oct. 7 attack, the Israeli military began consistently reporting the number of Hamas fighters killed, echoing the way U.S. generals announced enemy fatalities during the Vietnam War—a scenario where traditional metrics for evaluating combat success are elusive, thus making the body count, rather than the strategic objectives achieved, the primary indicator of success. This was particularly evident as the Israeli death toll ticked up and the stated objective of dismantling Hamas appeared increasingly unattainable.

In fact, the military appears to have established a quantitative goal from the outset. According to the journalist Yuval Abraham in +972 Magazine, the Israeli army developed an artificial intelligence-based program named Lavender, designed to identify targets for assassination. This system tagged approximately 37,000 Palestinians in Gaza as suspected militants, marking their residences (and therefore their families as well) for potential airstrikes. The deployment of Lavender contributed to the deaths of around 15,000 Palestinians in the war’s first six weeks, according to the report.

By setting a numerical target, the Israeli military shifted from viewing outcomes as a measure of progress—like neutralizing the threat posed to Israel from Gaza—to making body counts the main standard. The trend has been reinforced by a pervasive adoption of the language of killing among military commanders. “Now we will go forward and kill them all,” Brig. Gen. Roman Goffman was quoted as saying just before the ground operation in Gaza began, in just one prominent example.

As Israel faces an impasse in Gaza, lacking a politically articulated exit strategy, the reliance on killing and its quantification as a metric for success becomes increasingly pronounced, leading to the erosion of operational constraints. This shift was evident in the recent raid at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, which inflicted extensive damage to Gaza’s most crucial health care infrastructure. The hunt for Hamas members has, to a significant degree, become an end in itself, complicating the dynamics of the conflict and placing military objectives above political resolutions.

This shift provides some context for the tragic killing of the aid convoy team—though it makes it no less disturbing. Once one or two armed individuals were spotted in the convoy, their neutralization became a top priority, apparently eclipsing overarching strategic considerations—factors that should have been incorporated at the tactical level. Fundamentally, such a situation warranted an approach aimed at preventing civilian casualties, especially along a deconflicted route designated for humanitarian aid delivery and when no direct threat was posed to Israeli troops. Moreover, the overarching political rationale should have prioritized safeguarding humanitarian missions, given the potential repercussions for Israel’s global standing amid the crisis in Gaza.

Yet the events unfolded with a seeming obsession for lethal action, as vividly illustrated by reporting in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz: Upon spotting a gunman or two, Israeli forces targeted three successive vehicles from the air. After the first one was hit, passengers moved to a second vehicle, which was then struck by a missile. And when the wounded were transferred to a third vehicle, it too was fired on. This appears to be a case of obsessive kill confirmation, overshadowing the principles of necessity, proportionality, and the sanctity of civilian life.

Hence, the fundamental issue extends beyond merely revising the rules of engagement or monitoring their application more closely, as such measures alone would prove inadequate to prevent future incidents. The problem also transcends the flawed assumption that every part of Gaza can be considered a free-fire zone where engaging Palestinian militants indiscriminately is justified. What is crucial is dismantling the prevailing culture that equates killing with military success.

Yagil Levy is a professor of political sociology and public policy at the Open University of Israel. His most recent book in English is: Whose Life Is Worth More? Hierarchies of Risk and Death in Contemporary Wars.

[anticapitalistclown]

Lookism Characters as Archaeologists pt.1

Jake, Eli, Johan, Samuel, Daniel, Yujin/Eugene

Jake

Specialization: Classical Archaeology

He romanticizes being an archaeologist, which makes working with him a dream job.

He knows all his workmates names and remembers all the students who spend a week on internship with his team.

He's straightforward and does what he thinks is more suitable on his research even if it means not keeping some strata in order to reach the most ancient one.

He does not teach, prefers to spend the day on the fields.

Has written some cool articles about remarkable warriors.

Didn't want to be an excavations' director but somehow ended up being a good one.

There's a rumor that he infiltrated in a black market in order to retrieve some stolen archaeological artifacts from smugglers.

Eli

Specialization: Forensic Archaeology

(Duties of archaeologists in this field of archaeology include collecting evidences like human burials, artifacts, footprints, tool-marks, etc., and trying to figure out the situation in which a particular crime might have happened; and to ascertain the influences on the remains of external factors that may have disturbed the crime scene).

His cold mindset made him the best on this field.

He teaches at the laboratories and side eyes the students who find gross touching real bones.

Keeps a file of plenty of different types of burials, sacrifices and traces of violence of the bones.

Shares laboratory with Johan.

He gets hyperfocused when a crime scene seems to be impossible to decipher.

He works more on the laboratory than the field.

When he was a student he destroyed a lot of evidence by mistake, improved trough practice.

Johan

Specialization: Zooarchaeology

(Also known as faunal analysis, is a branch of archaeology that studies remains of animals from archaeological sites).

There's a rumor that he cried when he found out a 4000-year-old dog died by a human weapon.

He's the best at his field but awful at tutoring, he doesn't have the patience to deal with students so Eli and other lab workers have to replace him on the teaching.

Has to be reminded once in a while that archaeology is a collaborative and multidisciplinary discipline.

Has made some internships cry.

He is the one who causes less damage to the bones making some restorers jealous.

Zack, Jake and Daniel forced him to participate on their excavations.

Samuel

Specialization: Prehistoric Archaeology

Joined this field because it was the hardest but the most well paid, doesn't mind the toxic ambience, he fuels it.

He is the strictest, never accepts he's wrong and avoids teaching newbies.

There's a rumor that he started a fistfight with Eli because of a debate about a burial ceremony.

He has good eye on the cutting techniques.

You have an only opportunity to make a good impression on him, if not you can say goodbye to work with him.

Talk about the survival methods and you have his attention.

Daniel

Specialization: Ethnoarchaeology

(Ethnoarchaeology is the science that deals with the ethnographic investigation of living communities in order to acquire knowledge of the past).

Joined motivated to understand the human conduct and because he was a fan of Indiana Jones since a kid.

His workplace is really tidy and organized, has a shelf with ceramics and fossils displayed on his office, so students can admire when tutoring.

None knows why, but he always ends up on the other archaeologists messes (infiltrated with Jake in a black market, got caught in the Samuel vs Eli fistfight, went to ask Gun for an artifact and ended up working with him).

A lot of students joined archaeology because had a crush on him.

He's a rookie yet has made a name for himself inside the community.

Eugene

Specialization: Quantitative Analysis Archaeology

None knows why there's this branch and why he does it, yet since he's the only one who knows how to use it, everyone depends on him.

Has never stepped in a field nor grabbed a shovel.

Loves to fail his students, says things like "you can try next year, if you succeed".

There's a rumor that his predecessor confused him for a student on his first day of teaching, and he cut his (the predecessor) car's brakes.

Only corrects his students essays so he can diss them.

[ghelgheli]

In the 1860s, when he consciously distanced himself from his earlier technocratic productivism, Marx was compelled to rethink his optimistic view of history and to reflect more seriously upon its negative implications. This self-critical reflection took place as he investigated the material aspect of the production process unique to capitalist production, especially how material world — human and non-human — is reorganized by capital's initiative in favour of its own accumulation. This is because the increase of productive forces subordinate workers to command of capital more effectively. If so, 'relations of production' and 'productive forces' cannot be simply separated as assumed in the traditional view of historical materialism. The development of productive forces of capital is dependent upon the thorough reorganization of human metabolism with nature in the form of cooperation, division of labour and machinery. In this sense, the 'mode of production' expresses a particular social arrangement of the material elements of production. That is why in the preface to Capital, Marx set himself the task of examining 'the capitalist mode of production, and the relations of production... that correspond to it' instead of treating 'productive forces' as an independent variable as was the case in the preface to A Contribution.

This change concerning the 'mode of production' might be discounted as a minor philological quibble, but its theoretical significance should not be underestimated because it has to do with the transformation of Marx's vision of post-capitalism. When the development of productive forces is not purely formal and quantitative, but is deeply rooted into the transformation and reorganization of the labour process, one can no longer assume that a socialist revolution could simply replace the relations of production with other ones after reaching a certain level of productive forces. Since the 'productive forces of capital' that emerge through the real subsumption are materialized and crystalized in the capitalist mode of production, they disappear together with the capitalist mode of production. In this sense, we need to radically reverse the traditional historical materialist view about the actual relationship between productive forces and relations of production: 'Relations of production determine productive forces' (Tairako 1991).

This is how the establishment of the concepts of 'productive forces of capital' and 'real subsumption' compelled Marx to abandon his earlier formulation of historical materialism in the preface to A Contribution. Since both aspects of Form and Stoff are closely entangled with each other due to the real subsumption of the labour process it is not possible to change one without simultaneously changing the other. This complexity would not occur if the productive forces of capital were simply dependent upon machines. They could be utilized in socialism as before. However, the productive forces developed under capitalism are tightly connected to the uniquely capitalist way of organizing the collaborative, cooperative and other social aspects of labour. If so, the transcendence of the capitalist mode of production must be a much more radical and thoroughgoing one than the mere abolition of private property and exploitation through the re-appropriation of the means of production by the working class. It requires the radical reorganization of the relations of production for the sake of freedom and autonomy among associated producers, so that the productive forces of capital disappear. Otherwise, despotic and ecologically destructive forms of production will continue in post-capitalist society. Yet when the productive forces of capital disappear, the productive forces of social labour are diminished as well.

Kohei Saito, Marx In The Anthropocene

[garbagequeer]

i havent recieved a lot of anon hate over the years but after the one that just said "you are fucking creepy" (daily affirmation) that one from the other day complaining that i had used big words and brought a social science/feminist pov to something as silly as fanfic because why would i do that it's not that deep was second funniest. like if you send hate at least be familiar with the blog. i do that because im literally the person who does that. it's inherent to me to see something and go it's like a society in here. i obviously did NOT get a sociology degree for the money i did it because i love it. el meu estudi sobre la venda de pipes al barri de benimaclet, que fa servir mètodes quantitatius com qualitatius, no ha aportat resultats significatius and whatnot

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved in our archive

By Vijay Kumar Malesu

In a recent pre-print study posted to bioRxiv*, a team of researchers investigated the predictive role of gut microbiome composition during acute Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection in the development of Long Coronavirus Disease (Long COVID) (LC) and its association with clinical variables and symptom clusters.

Background LC affects 10–30% of non-hospitalized individuals infected with SARS-CoV-2, leading to significant morbidity, workforce loss, and an economic impact of $3.7 trillion in the United States (U.S.).

Symptoms span cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, cognitive, and neurological issues, resembling myalgic encephalomyelitis and other post-infectious syndromes. Proposed mechanisms include immune dysregulation, neuroinflammation, viral persistence, and coagulation abnormalities, with emerging evidence implicating the gut microbiome in LC pathogenesis.

Current studies focus on hospitalized patients, limiting generalizability to milder cases. Further research is needed to explore microbiome-driven predictors in outpatient populations, enabling targeted diagnostics and therapies for LC’s heterogeneous and complex presentation.

About the study The study was approved by the Mayo Clinic Institutional Review Board and recruited adults aged 18 years or older who underwent SARS-CoV-2 testing at Mayo Clinic locations in Minnesota, Florida, and Arizona from October 2020 to September 2021. Participants were identified through electronic health record (EHR) reviews filtered by SARS-CoV-2 testing schedules.

Eligible individuals were contacted via email, and informed consent was obtained. Of the 1,061 participants initially recruited, 242 were excluded due to incomplete data, failed sequencing, or other issues. The final cohort included 799 participants (380 SARS-CoV-2-positive and 419 SARS-CoV-2-negative), providing 947 stool samples.

Stool samples were collected at two-time points: weeks 0–2 and weeks 3–5 after testing. Samples were shipped in frozen gel packs via overnight courier and stored at −80°C for downstream analyses. Microbial deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) was extracted using Qiagen kits, and metagenomic sequencing was performed targeting 8 million reads per sample.

Taxonomic profiling was conducted using Kraken2, and functional profiling was performed using the Human Microbiome Project Unified Metabolic Analysis Network (HUMAnN3).

Stool calprotectin levels were measured using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), and SARS-CoV-2 ribonucleic acid (RNA) was detected using reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR).

Clinical data, including demographics, comorbidities, medications, and symptom persistence, were extracted from EHRs.

Machine learning models incorporating microbiome and clinical data were utilized to predict LC and to identify symptom clusters, providing valuable insights into the heterogeneity of the condition.

Study results The study analyzed 947 stool samples collected from 799 participants, including 380 SARS-CoV-2-positive individuals and 419 negative controls. Of the SARS-CoV-2-positive group, 80 patients developed LC during a one-year follow-up period.

Participants were categorized into three groups for analysis: LC, non-LC (SARS-CoV-2-positive without LC), and SARS-CoV-2-negative. Baseline characteristics revealed significant differences between these groups. LC participants were predominantly female and had more baseline comorbidities compared to non-LC participants.

The SARS-CoV-2-negative group was older, with higher antibiotic use and vaccination rates. These variables were adjusted for in subsequent analyses.

During acute infection, gut microbiome diversity differed significantly between groups. Alpha diversity was lower in SARS-CoV-2-positive participants (LC and non-LC) than in SARS-CoV-2-negative participants.

Beta diversity analyses revealed distinct microbial compositions among the groups, with LC patients exhibiting unique microbiome profiles during acute infection.

Specific bacterial taxa, including Faecalimonas and Blautia, were enriched in LC patients, while other taxa were predominant in non-LC and negative participants. These findings indicate that gut microbiome composition during acute infection is a potential predictor for LC.

Temporal analysis of gut microbiome changes between the acute and post-acute phases revealed significant individual variability but no cohort-level differences, suggesting that temporal changes do not contribute to LC development.

However, machine learning models demonstrated that microbiome data during acute infection, when combined with clinical variables, predicted LC with high accuracy. Microbial predictors, including species from the Lachnospiraceae family, significantly influenced model performance.

Symptom analysis revealed that LC encompasses heterogeneous clinical presentations. Fatigue was the most prevalent symptom, followed by dyspnea and cough.

Cluster analysis identified four LC subphenotypes based on symptom co-occurrence: gastrointestinal and sensory, musculoskeletal and neuropsychiatric, cardiopulmonary, and fatigue-only.

Each cluster exhibited unique microbial associations, with the gastrointestinal and sensory clusters showing the most pronounced microbial alterations. Notably, taxa such as those from Lachnospiraceae and Erysipelotrichaceae families were significantly enriched in this cluster.

Conclusions To summarize, this study demonstrated that SARS-CoV-2-positive individuals who later developed LC exhibited distinct gut microbiome profiles during acute infection. While prior research has linked the gut microbiome to COVID-19 outcomes, few studies have explored its predictive potential for LC, particularly in outpatient cohorts.

Using machine learning models, including artificial neural networks and logistic regression, this study found that microbiome data alone predicted LC more accurately than clinical variables, such as disease severity, sex, and vaccination status.

Key microbial contributors included species from the Lachnospiraceae family, such as Eubacterium and Agathobacter, and Prevotella spp. These findings highlight the gut microbiome’s potential as a diagnostic tool for identifying LC risk, enabling personalized interventions.

*Important notice: bioRxiv publishes preliminary scientific reports that are not peer-reviewed and, therefore, should not be regarded as conclusive, guide clinical practice/health-related behavior, or treated as established information.

Journal reference: Preliminary scientific report. Isin Y. Comba, Ruben A. T. Mars, Lu Yang, et al. (2024) Gut Microbiome Signatures During Acute Infection Predict Long COVID, bioRxiv. doi:https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.12.10.626852. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.12.10.626852v1.full

[bigcheesevik]

I think people generally overstate the difference humanities and STEM students – at least in the English speaking world. In other places, it's far less stark. For example, in Russian a sociologist and a physicist are both учонные, in German a philosopher and a chemist are both wissenschaftlern in their respective fields. (forgive my spellings)

Generally people say that STEM people have the sort of 'problem solving' mindset – you know the whole schtick of basically every quantitative/technical programme being like "hey do you like PROBLEM SOLVING? PUZZLES? WELL BOY DO WE HAVE THE JOB FOR YOU–"? And Humanities people have...people skills. Soft skills. You know, "you do english lit? you. you must really enjoy people. talking, and stuff. you have all these nice soft skills – like schmoozing, and charm, I bet, because you like people so much. how. would you like a career in HR"

And i think that's a completely misguided dichotomy, because...have you met a humanities student? Like someone who is really into their degree the same way a mathematician, a chemist, a biologist, etc. is? There is NO guarantee an interest in people gives you people skills.

I think the main dichotomy between your literature and your history students versus your hard sciences / mathematics students is that the latter 'solve problems' whereas the former 'investigate problems'.

Think about it. A historian is not necessarily interested in solving the theological disputes between the Reformed, Lutheran, and Catholic churches in the 16th and 17th centuries. The historian is actually interested in:

(1) finding out what those disputes were

(2) finding out where they came from

(3) figuring out why they were important to people

(4) seeing what people tried, and why it did / didn't work

Sociologists and anthropologists do similar things, but with questions relevant to their fields.

So okay, humanities students have an investigative mindset, whereas STEM students are generally 'problem solvers'. Now I'm going to turn around and say that those two mindsets are actually quite close to each other. You still need to solve some problems in the humanities – there's some level of 'computational thinking' (ie break things up into step by step chunks, see what tools you can use to solve your problem, or how you can come up with an alternative solution), it's just not really the emphasis. You still need to be investigative in STEM (just ask anybody in a biology-adjacent discipline what it's like to write and read academic papers), it's just not all you're doing.

My rant here is basically coming from the still-pervasive discourse I see at uni about humanities versus STEM, which I'm increasingly getting fed up with. This was mostly prompted by a talk i went to by someone who studies Religion&Science – a PhD physicist that got really into theology. I didn't really agree with him much, but he very compellingly demonstrated that basically any academic discipline past the graduate level will require rigour, evidence, and careful thinking, and will generally provide niche-but-useful-when-put-together-with-other-things discoveries.

[shaakyhaands]

Hear Me Out:

Court of Darkness but MC is an investigative journalist.

Do we ever really get any details on what MC did on Earth?

Like no, deadass— we know she had an apartment and Robin. How is she paying rent? How is she buying cat food, or paying Robin’s vet bills?

I’m willing to bet the devs intentionally didn’t give us much detail about MC’s occupation, specifically so we the reader can ✨ project ✨ onto her.

That being said: let’s make up some occupations for her!

I think an investigative MC would be fun! She’s in a whole new dimension, there’s a ton to explore. Reality itself behaves differently, allowing magic! There’s an entire history of this world’s inhabitants! Wars, art, culture, food, philosophy, sciences, MAGIC! This would be fucking paradise for an exploratory personality.

Some headcanons:

MC always has questions. About everything. From the tangible and quantitative (“what is this?”) to the conceptual and abstract (“interesting. You seem to feel very strongly on this subject, am I reading that right? Can you tell me more? What influenced your judgement?”).

When she’s not peppering one of the consorts with questions about life in this world, she’s reading. What is she reading? Everything. Everything she can get her hands on. Especially books on history.

Speaking of reading and asking questions— MC bonds with Toa in her pursuits of knowledge. He helps her learn how to read and write (language barriers). While Guy, a man of action more than words, might get tired of MC’s incessant questions (and I really mean incessant, this isn’t shade at Guy. This MC is straight up annoying, never shuts up)— Toa has more patience.

Speaking of history— she studies historical events and the relationships between the kingdoms. Important players on the world stage, what they did, who they were cool with and who they pissed off and why. Why, why, why, MC is very interested in learning why things are the way they are.

So much so, she looks into events deeper than most native inhabitants would probably have any reason to. She wants to find the information not in the history books. She wants to know what actually happened— who pulled what strings, who is connected to who else and how did those connections play out, etc.

Through her research, MC learns about a lot of royals before they’re otherwise introduced. Not only does she learn of their existence (“Toa has a sister? Toa has three sisters? 👀”), but she, through the lens of various historical accounts (that she certainly cross referenced with each other), learns of their character. What they’ve done. And, reading between the lines, what some books failed to explain or navigated around, she’s able to get a better sense of their real personalities.

For example: Reading several accounts of her behaviour, if MC is piecing together the information correctly, than the picture her research is painting of Idina is a very, very cold one. Thinking about the implications makes MC shiver. To think this woman is related to Toa, it actually make too much sense.

Speaking of her research: MC definitely has the magical equivalent of a conspiracy theory pin board in her bedroom— one mapping out the connections between the kingdoms and powerful individuals.

This ^ This, but it’s MC, and the red string is connecting Idina to several assassinations untimely, very unfortunate and super totally accidental deaths of government officials. Toa is the person in the foreground.

“Okay, but why” you might be inclined to ask. “Why is MC asking all these questions, what’s the point”

The point is, she is an investigative journalist. So far, I’ve really emphasized the “investigative” part. But, my sweet summer child, there’s an entire second half of that title.

The point being, MC is recording all of the information she’s gathering.

The history, the art, the culture, the sciences, the magic— all of it. All of it, she is making an immaculate record of. How, you might ask? Well, you have some options:

Personally, I’m a huge fan of MCs who got transported with some of their earthly tech on their person. I have more than once gotten home and straight up passed out after a long day, still holding onto or wearing my daily gear. Let me put it this way: if they were able to bring her god damn cat with her, I see no reason why MC couldn’t bring, say, a backpack with her. Maybe a satchel, or a crossbody bag. If it was on or near her person when she fell asleep, I can imagine it getting caught up in the process.

Say this MC did have her bag with her. That means she has a myriad of technology potentially at her disposal. Laptop, tablet, camera. If you really want to lean into the “investigative reporter” side of things, she could even have an old school hand held tape recorder. At the very least, she definitely has a phone.

“Tech would die, though, how is she going to charge it” magic, babe. Via Roy’s consort path, we learned that inhabitants of the magical realm make magical weapons out of silversmithing. The reason Roy gives is that silver is a good conductor of electricity and magical energy:

(Please ignore the shit image quality, YouTube is being mean)

My point being, you understand the implications of this statement? People in Salagia know what electricity is. At least, on some level. So if MC just made one friend out of the S ranks, or Sherry, I’m sure they could come up with some way to keep any of MC’s earthly electronics permanently charged.

Outside of tech— remember how MC has to pretty much learn how to read and write? Because the Salagian language, it’s not English. In the American server, it’s hinted that the Salagain language is some derivative of Latin, and magic helps translate speech between MC and everyone else. In Toa’s path, MC can sort of read? But it’s not like speaking, and she pretty much has to relearn from the ground up (Warning: mild spoilers for Toa’s route, maybe?):

Point being: if MC can’t really read Salagian writing, then I doubt Salagians can read anything in MC’s native language (be that English, Japanese, or anything else).

So, theoretically speaking, MC could just write in her native language and no one would really be able to tell wtf she’s writing. Whose gonna teach them, her? Not if she doesn’t want them to know, she won’t.

So, to recap:

Our little investigative journalist MC is given the scoop of a fucking lifetime, being transported to a different universe.

With her tech, raw determination, and the help of some new friends, she gathers intel and writes up reports— be that literally writing, recording speech, or making video essays.

Photos, videos, any documentation she can make, she does.

The knowledge she gains enables her to move through this new world with a bit more discretion. She’s better able to navigate social settings (“everyone with blue eyes seems to hate me?… Oh yeah, the red, Avari, got it. I’ll just be cool, then”), and potentially avoid shady characters (“note to self: avoid Idina. Also, Toa needs therapy.”)

Maybe she discovers some cults earlier than she would otherwise?? 👀

And if/when she eventually gets back home, even if it’s just to visit friends, but not actually stay there— she will have the most epic story of all time. With supporting documents.

Other fun headcanons:

If this MC does pair up with a consort, everyone is like “… bro, your girl… she never stops asking questions” and her paramour is just like “fuck yeah, she doesn’t 😍”

“What are you writing” “a list of workers rights violations, I can’t believe unions are a foreign concept in this world.”

If an animal/creature shows up, MC is the first to jump to its defense. “It’s a siren!” “She’s part of an endangered species, you cretin!” “She can kill you! Aren’t you scared??” “So could tripping and falling over. Bottom line is, I’m not going to let you hurt her!”

“Do you not have kings in your world?” “I mean, they exist, but let me tell you about 1789 France…” *cue the radicalization of the S ranks*

Say a king shows up to the school for an event, oh BOY will she have Words. Not only would she ask a shit ton of questions, she will also have no fucking fear, because she has no respect for their title. “I read about this policy decision, what was this experience like for you?” Whatever prince is the associated son of the king is like “MC, please, I’m so scared for you, don’t incur his wrath”, while the king is just like “you know?… this person?.. this person is bold. To talk to me like this, the blatant lack of idol worship, almost bordering on disrespect, even… this is Different. New. Fun. I almost feel like a normal person, even.” And so, the king engages with all of her questions, much to their son’s potential dismay.

Anyways— god it feels good to get this enormous idea out of my brain and on a digital page. The Thought has been Purged, I am now free. Been a hot minute since I did some long form theorizing for CODVN, feels nice man. 😁

[read-and-write-]

2023 Fic Wrapped

Thanks to @anincompletelist for tagging me! This is such a fun thing to do!

Rules: Feel free to show whatever stats you have. Only want to show Ao3 stats? Rock on. Want to include some quantitative info instead of stats? Please do this. Want to change how yours is presented? Absolutely do that. There are no rules!

Posted on Ao3: 34,145 (Across 14 fics)

Written total: 152,778 (yes, i do have a lot of docs created, a lot more than anyone wants to see)

3 published fandoms: Red, White and Royal Blue, All for the Game, The Shadowhunters Chronicles

Longest work: and every song reminds me of you (4,088 words)

Shortest work: yo te llevo dentro, hasta la raíz  (546 words)

very real wips, things I'm actively working on

Super Six and the Siren's Call (PJO AU- +100k) co-written with @inexplicablymine and @happiness-of-the-pursuit one of the most wonderful projects I've had the honour to be a part of and I'm so exicted for people to see it

Toe the Line (Figure Skating AU - 20k currently) my dearest child, 60 pages of outline, investigation, character sheets and visions i have at three am for a random scene 5 chapter away

Y recuerda siempre que tú eres la medicina (A bilingual June character study) A companion piece of sorts for a train of thought (of things not to forget), June's perspective through it all, both in Spanish and English like Alex's. and with Natalia Lafourcade lyrics as a title because that's June coded

carved within the beauty, the darkness in between and without (your) love, I am nothing two pieces about religion and firstprince from each of their povs, a question about loving yourself and about loving someone else against the things you've been taught and finding divinity within each other.

not so real wips with a little less real word counts but a lot of vibes

Spiderman AU, my entry for the New Years Resolutions event of @thebrownstone, which means it'll get here at some point

MasterChef AU, my way to put my professional knowledge to good use, it was a silly funny story and it grew a plot

Dancer AU, a drabble fail that was just a vision and then some people kind of made it get a full dual pov, double 5 + 1 plot

Numbers are not everything but I do like data and stats

Kudos: 3,969

Comment Threads: 187

Bookmarks: 946

Hits: 37,149

Numbers do not define an author's worth, but I also can see how far I've gotten with just one day deciding I wanted to write and post my fun little words again

top 3 sorted by kudos

las formas de llamarte amor (2.5k - 630 kudos)

my first fic in the rwrb fandom, it makes me so happy to see it being loved, it was the ultimate show of self indulgence

Henry has been a public figure for most of his life, the reason why he’s been given dozens of titles, some kinder than others, he’s been the gay prince, the spare, the prince of England's hearts, the activist, the author. All of the titles are inevitably a part of his history, but the way Alex calls him is the most important of all. Because to Alex, he is sweetheart, amor, and corazón; Alex calls him mi vida in between kisses and whispers hermoso, lindo, precioso with his wandering hands working through Henry’s body. His name sounds better when it comes out of Alex’s lips. or 5 times Alex calls Henry a pet name in Spanish and one time he calls him by his name or Henry learns Spanish one pet name at a time

to belong to a family (even beyond this world) (2.5k - 578 kudos)

this one, this one i wrote with my own soul, i used my tears as ink, wrote it for the Halloween Huh fest and it all the comments have made me so incredibly happy

“Talk to him. They listen, they always listen,” Ligia says and Henry nods, she squeezes his hand again before turning back and leaving him alone in front of the ofrenda. It's very rare that Henry has been at a loss for words when he tries to talk to his father. He has spent countless nights speaking to the stars, looking for Orion and hoping that —wherever his father is— he is looking for it too. “Hi dad,” Henry says softly, taking another look at the picture of his father, smiling at the camera. “I missed you.” or When Alex and Henry go to Mexico for Día de Muertos a familiar face appears on the Díaz ofrenda

you are an idiot (i missed you) (1.6k - 475 kudos)

wrote this on a whim, blacked out and pulled this out of nowhere, my first fic for aftg and really just an excuse to write Andreil being married for convenience™

The best, and arguably the only, good part of playing on opposing teams from your husband was getting to play a match against him. Therefore one could say that Neil was very excited about getting to play against Andrew tonight. Not only because for the first time since the season started they'd finally be in the same State and City (And later after the game, the same house) but also because Neil thought Andrew was 100% hotter when he was playing (Not that he would tell him out loud), and seeing him live was definitely better than seeing him on a screen. There was also the added bonus of the infamous Minyard - Josten Rivalry. Or Neil and Andrew are having too much fun with their rivalry until someone else takes it too seriously, and then they have a talk.

Being a not native english speaker means that fanfic does teach me a lot of stuff, namely vocabulary this year stars some bangers

Saccharine

Ubiquitous

Litany

Chagrin

Filibuster

I created a total of 19 docs, which doesn't mean there's 19 fics there, but it also doesn't not mean it

Alex's POV wins with total of seven fics

Six fics have the tag of Alex Claremont-Díaz Speaks Spanish

Three of my wips have an outline longer than 10 pages

there's a 30%? chance I will write smut at some point in the new year

my funniest doc title is "If you have religious trauma and you know it clap your hands"

This year has been crazy, for many reasons but I'm glad I found this space and I'm glad I'm back to writing, and on top of it all I'm glad of being able to meet so many because of it.

And the year is not over yet! There's still more to come!

I'm tagging a few people, don't feel pressured to do this but if there's anything you feel proud of I'd love to see it @inexplicablymine @happiness-of-the-pursuit @affectionatelyrs @littlemisskittentoes @ssmtskw @raysletters @14carrotghoul @heybuddy-drabbles @suseagull04 @everwitch-magiks @sherryvalli @rockyroadkylers

[brotatowho-blog]

A Preliminary Observational Study on the Effects of Species-Specific Music on Domestic Cat Behavior

Abstract: This report documents a preliminary observational study investigating the effects of species-specific music, designed by David Teie, on the behavior of a multi-cat household. The study focused on observing changes in behavior, social interactions, and overall demeanor of six domestic cats in a home environment while exposed to the aforementioned music.

Introduction: Previous research suggests that domestic cats respond differently to music designed with feline auditory preferences in mind compared to human music. This observational study aimed to further explore these effects in a natural home setting.

Methodology: Six domestic cats of varying ages and personalities were observed in their home environment. Baseline behavior was noted while regular human music was played. Subsequently, a playlist of species-specific music by David Teie was introduced. Observations focused on changes in:

* Proximity seeking: Instances of cats approaching and remaining near the observer.

* Affectionate behaviors: Purring, kneading, rubbing, and seeking physical contact.

* Relaxation indicators: Slow blinking, partially closed eyes, grooming, and changes in posture.

* Social interactions: Cat-to-cat interactions, including positive (e.g., mutual grooming) and negative (e.g., hissing, swatting) interactions.

* Unique behaviors: Notably, instances of air-licking were observed and documented.

Results:

* Increased proximity seeking: One cat, typically averse to cuddling, showed a marked increase in proximity seeking, choosing to sit near the observer for extended periods.

* Enhanced relaxation: Multiple cats exhibited signs of increased relaxation, including slow blinking, partially closed eyes, and grooming.

* Shift in affectionate behavior: One cat, typically very insistent on close physical contact with the observer’s face, became significantly calmer and less demanding.

* Observation of unique behavior: One cat exhibited repeated instances of licking the air, possibly indicating a heightened sensory experience related to the music.

* Social interaction dynamics: While the music generally promoted a calm atmosphere, a brief territorial dispute occurred between two cats, demonstrating that normal feline social dynamics still occur even in a relaxed environment.

Discussion: The preliminary findings suggest that species-specific music by David Teie has a positive influence on the behavior and overall atmosphere of a multi-cat household. The music appeared to promote relaxation, encourage social interaction (within individual cats' preferred boundaries), and potentially trigger unique sensory experiences. The observation of air-licking warrants further investigation to understand the underlying mechanisms.

Limitations: This study is limited by its observational nature, small sample size, and lack of a control group. Further research with a larger sample size, controlled conditions, and quantitative data collection methods is needed to confirm these findings and explore the long-term effects of species-specific music on cat behavior.

Conclusion: This preliminary study provides further evidence that species-specific music can have a positive impact on the well-being of domestic cats. It highlights the importance of considering the auditory world of cats and providing them with enriching auditory experiences tailored to their preferences. The findings suggest that such music could be a valuable tool for creating calmer and more harmonious environments for cats, especially in multi-cat households or stressful situations.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Charles Q. Choi

Published: Mar 7, 2012

Chimpanzees have police, too. Now, researchers are discovering what makes these simian enforcers of the peace step into conflicts, findings that could help shed light on the roots of policing in humans.

Animals handle conflicts within groups in a variety of ways, such as policing, where impartial bystanders intercede when disputes crop up. Policing, which has been seen in chimps, gorillas, orangutans and other primates, differs from other forms of intervention in that such arbiters are neither biased nor aggressive — they are neither supporting allies nor punishing wrongdoers.

Policing is risky, however, since it involves approaching two or more combative squabblers, which may lead to would-be arbiters becoming the targets of aggression themselves. To find out why primate policing evolved despite such risk, scientists took a closer look at pol.

The researchers analyzed one group of chimpanzees in a zoo in Gossau, Switzerland, for nearly 600 hours over two years. This group experienced a great deal of social tumult — zookeepers there introduced three new adult female chimps, upsetting the former order, and a power struggle also led to a new alpha male. The investigators also looked at records of chimp policing behavior at three other zoos.

The scientists monitored ape social interactions, such as aggressive conflicts, friendly grooming and policing behavior. Policing could involve threatening both quarrelers in a conflict, or running between the antagonists to break up the squabble.

The researchers explored a couple of potential explanations for policing. For instance, policing might help high-ranking members of a group control rivals to keep themselves dominant, or to help keep potential mates from leaving the group. However, both explanations would require high-ranking males to be the arbiters — female chimps usually do not fight over rank, and female chimps are the most likely members to leave groups, not males. In contrast, the researchers found that police chimps were of both sexes. [8 Ways Chimps Act Like Us]

The researchers suggest policing helps improve the stability of groups, thus providing the arbiters with a healthy community to live in. Supporting this notion is the fact that arbiters were more willing to intervene impartially if several quarrelers were involved in a dispute, probably because such conflicts are more likely to jeopardize group peace.

"The interest in community concern that is highly developed in us humans and forms the basis for our moral behavior is deeply rooted — it can also be observed in our closest relatives," said researcher Claudia Rudolf von Rohr at the University of Zurich.

The scientists detailed their findings online today (March 7) in the journal PLoS ONE.

--

Abstract

Because conflicts among social group members are inevitable, their management is crucial for group stability. The rarest and most interesting form of conflict management is policing, i.e., impartial interventions by bystanders, which is of considerable interest due to its potentially moral nature. Here, we provide descriptive and quantitative data on policing in captive chimpanzees. First, we report on a high rate of policing in one captive group characterized by recently introduced females and a rank reversal between two males. We explored the influence of various factors on the occurrence of policing. The results show that only the alpha and beta males acted as arbitrators using manifold tactics to control conflicts, and that their interventions strongly depended on conflict complexity. Secondly, we compared the policing patterns in three other captive chimpanzee groups. We found that although rare, policing was more prevalent at times of increased social instability, both high-ranking males and females performed policing, and conflicts of all sex-dyad combinations were policed. These results suggest that the primary function of policing is to increase group stability. It may thus reflect prosocial behaviour based upon “community concern.” However, policing remains a rare behaviour and more data are needed to test the generality of this hypothesis.

==

"mOrALiTy cOmEs FrOm GoD!!1!"

Even chimps know you don't "defund the police."

[perkwunos]

It seemed to Berkeley that the metaphysics of Descartes and Newton resulted in the description of a ‘real world ’ that had all the properties of the sensible world except the vital property of being seeable. … But the pure mathematician cannot take note of colour. Hence, under the influence of the Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and of the rapidly developing science of optics, Berkeley’s contemporaries looked to the principles of optics to account for the seeahility of things. It is Berkeley’s merit to have realized that the Cartesian-Newtonian philosophers, seeking to account for a seeahle world, succeeded only in substituting a world that could in no sense be seen. He realized that they had substituted a theory of optics for a theory of visual perception. The outcome of this mistake is a duplication of worlds—the Image-World, sensibly perceived by men, the Real-World apprehended only by God. … Berkeley saw the absurdity of this duplication ; he failed to realize that it was rendered necessary only by the confusion of the theory of optics with the theory of vision. He saw that the question—How is perception possible ?—is devoid of sense ; he saw that it is no less absurd to look to physics for an answer to the question. … The achievement of Newton in the theory of Optics was that by his discovery of differently refrangible rays he discovered measurable correlates of colour; he thereby made the use of quantitative methods possible in a domain which would otherwise be excluded from the scope of physics. His extremely confused metaphysics is the result of his refusal to admit that there is anything in the perceived world except the measurable correlates, which ought, accordingly, to be regarded as the correlates of nothing. … … Sensible qualities [according to Newton] have no place in the world; they are nothing but ‘dispositions to propagate this or that motion into the Sensorium.’ There they undergo a transformation, not in the mathematical sense of that word, but a strange transformation indeed—a metamorphosis of ‘the external world of physics’ into ‘a world of familiar acquaintance in human consciousness.’ The transformation remains inexplicable. … We shall find that the problem of perception, in this form, arose only because we have allowed the physicists to speak of a ‘real world’ that does not contain any of the qualities relevant to perception. To adopt the striking phrase of Professor E. A. Burtt, we have allowed the physicists ‘to make a metaphysic out of a method’. In so doing they have forgotten, and philosophers do not seem to remember, that their method has been designed to facilitate investigations originating from a study of ‘the furniture of the earth’.

Susan Stebbing, Philosophy and the Physicists

[phdpioneers]

Understanding Research Methodologies and Design

Understanding Research Methodologies and DesignResearch is the cornerstone of progress in any field, from science and medicine to education and social sciences. To conduct meaningful research, one must first understand the fundamentals of research methodologies and design. These two concepts form the framework for systematic investigation and ensure the reliability and validity of results.This blog explores the essentials of research methodologies and design, offering a comprehensive guide for students, researchers, and enthusiasts.---What Is Research Methodology?Research methodology is the systematic plan for conducting research. It encompasses the tools, techniques, and procedures used to gather and analyze data, ensuring that the findings are accurate and relevant to the research question.Key components of research methodology include:1. Research PhilosophyPositivism: Focuses on observable phenomena and measurable facts.Interpretivism: Seeks to understand human behavior in its social context.Pragmatism: Combines positivism and interpretivism based on the research problem.2. Approach to ResearchDeductive Approach: Starts with a theory or hypothesis and tests it through data collection.Inductive Approach: Develops a theory based on observed patterns in the data.3. Types of ResearchQualitative: Explores experiences, concepts, and narratives. Common methods include interviews and thematic analysis.Quantitative: Measures variables numerically, often using surveys, experiments, and statistical analysis.Mixed Methods: Integrates both qualitative and quantitative approaches for a comprehensive understanding.---What Is Research Design?Research design is the blueprint of a study. It outlines the structure, techniques, and strategies for conducting research, ensuring the process is both effective and efficient.Key types of research design include:1. Exploratory Research DesignUsed when little is known about a problem.Methods include literature reviews, focus groups, and open-ended surveys.2. Descriptive Research DesignAims to describe characteristics or behaviors in detail.Surveys, observational studies, and case studies are common methods.3. Explanatory (Causal) Research DesignFocuses on identifying cause-and-effect relationships.Experimental designs, including randomized control trials, are widely used.4. Longitudinal vs. Cross-Sectional DesignsLongitudinal: Studies subjects over a long period to observe changes.Cross-Sectional: Collects data at a single point in time.---Steps to Create a Solid Research Design1. Define the Research ProblemStart with a clear and concise research question. For example, "What factors influence academic performance in college students?"2. Review LiteratureAnalyze existing studies to understand gaps and inform your design.3. Choose the Research MethodologyDecide whether your study will be qualitative, quantitative, or mixed-methods.4. Select Data Collection MethodsUse appropriate tools like surveys, interviews, experiments, or observational techniques.5. Plan Data AnalysisDecide on statistical methods or thematic approaches depending on your data type.6. Pilot the StudyConduct a small-scale trial to refine your methods.---The Importance of Ethical ConsiderationsEthics is integral to research methodologies and design. Ensure that your study respects the rights and dignity of participants by:Gaining informed consent.Ensuring confidentiality.Avoiding plagiarism and ensuring transparency in data reporting.---ConclusionMastering research methodologies and design is vital for conducting effective and credible research. By choosing the right approach, adhering to ethical practices, and meticulously planning each step, you can contribute valuable insights to your field of study.Whether you're a novice researcher or an experienced academic, understanding these concepts lays the foundation for impactful investigations. Keep learning, experimenting, and refining your approach to stay at the forefront of your discipline.

https://wa.me/919424229851/