#Vicarious liability

[seemabhatnagar]

"Criminal Proceedings quashed due to non inclusion of the manufacturing company'

High Court quashes complaint against employees for misbranded insecticide due to manufacturer's exclusion and unaddressed re-analysis request.

Legal Issue:

Whether the complaint is maintainable without arraying the manufacturer company as an accused and the petitioners' right to re-analysis was violated.

Altaf Ahmed (Asst. Regional Manager) & Sh. Uday Kishan Tite (Quality Control Incharge)

v.

Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir through Law Enforcement Inspector, Department Agriculture Kathua

CRM(M) No. 66/2020

Before the High Court of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh at Jammu

Heard by Hon'ble Mr. Justice Rajnesh Oswal J

Facts:

The petitioners are seeking quashing of the complaint registered against them by the Department of Agriculture through Law Enforcement Inspector, Kathua under Section 3k(i) & 29(1)(a)(i) of the Insecticide Act, 1968, before the Court of Munsiff (JMIC), Kathua.

Samples were drawn from the petitionrs for Chemical analysis of the insecticide "Noor (Dodine) 65% WP," where the product was found "misbranded" with a manufacturing date of 10.02.2017 and expiry date of 09.02.2019.

The petitioners filed application before the trial Court that the manufacturing company has not been arrayed as an accused and a necessary party.

The petitioners' moved an application for re analysis of the sample through Cetral Laboratory.

This application for re-analysis under Section 24(3)&(4) of the Act was not decided by the trial court.

Arguments:

Petitioners: The complaint is not maintainable as the manufacturer was not included as an accused and the trial court did not address their application for re-analysis, infringing their rights.

Respondent/State: The complaint is lawful and the petitioners' rights were not violated.

Court's Observation:

The trial court failed to decide the application for re-analysis within the product's shelf life, violating the petitioners' rights under Section 24(3)&(4) of the Act.

Without naming the manufacturer as an accused, the complaint against the petitioners is not maintainable. This aligns with the Supreme Court ruling in "Himanshu v. B. Shivamurthy" and "Northern Mineral Ltd. v. Union of India," emphasizing the necessity of including the manufacturer to prosecute employees.

Law Points

A Non-Inclusion of the Manufacturer as an Accused:

The petitioners were the employee of the manufacturing company, M/s Indofil Industries Ltd., and their Company was not arrayed as an accused.

2. As employees of the company, they could not be prosecuted without including the company itself as a party to the case.

3. Supreme Court's held in the case of "Himanshu v. B. Shivamurthy," that for vicarious liability to be attributed under the Insecticides Act, the manufacturer must be named as an accused.

B Right to Re-analysis of the Insecticide Sample:

The right of the petitioners to have the insecticide sample re-analyzed, as provided under Section 24(3)&(4) of the Insecticide Act, was violated.

2. Their application for re-analysis, was not decided but the trial court within the product's shelf life, thereby infringing their statutory right to challenge the initial analysis report.

[zoropookie]

HOW HATERS ARE BORN (HHAB)

♡ chapter twenty-nine — bittersweet (💋)

Reading the text didn’t bring tears to his eyes, but for some reason, it still stung badly.

It wasn’t the words themselves, but a twinge of disappointment that he felt shortly afterward. It ruminated in his thoughts the minute that the car ride started, and all he was left with was his own disappointment, and a lack of fight left.

And as he sat in that passengers seat, the words seemed to be knocked out of him yet again. The world blurred into a haze of colors and shapes. He clenched at his own palms until his knuckles turned white and his mind spiraled.

It suffocated him, but he knew a lot about that to endure it anyway.

"You know," A female's voice rippled through his chaos to grasp his attention. "It's not that bad."

He blinked, slowly refocusing his gaze and turning his head manually towards Furina. "What is."

"The (Y/N) stuff." She said, glancing every now and then from the road towards him.

His expression was of weary resignation. "You think so?" He sighed out, the words feeling heavy on his tongue every time he even spoke.

"They may be mad at you right now, but you have a plan." She said, her gaze steady. "It may not be fool proof, but you'll come out of it with a clearer conscience than that Tartaglia ever will. I promise."

But even with her promises, it didn't feel right to be comparing his peace of mind to another's. Maybe his conclusion would be completely different after all. Her words rushed over him like a soothing balm, the turmoil that he usually felt being nudged away.

For the first time in forever, he felt somewhat of a spark of determination. "Thanks." He murmured audibly, a small gasp coming from the former as he cringed, "For...all this, I guess. It's not often people are this nice to me."

"I didn't think you were capable of being grateful! I should gloat in this." She grinned, "You've grown used to people treating you like a liability. Whether you like it or not, it's not normal. Wean yourself off of that as soon as possible."

The rest of the car trip was silent. He couldn't entirely take his mind off of the events, and even the meeting he's taking himself to, but the passing scenery outside the car window put his mind elsewhere until the car slowed to a stop.

He put his back cap and mask on with less resolve than what he started with, unable to shake the feeling of discomfort her felt now that the gravity of the situation weighed down on him. He looked again out the window at the exact seat he wanted before exhaling. "If I don't come back, just abort mission."

"Don't be dramatic." Furina's eyes dulled, also knowing this situation was wary. "But...I'll be near, okay? Just in case this goes south and it actually is someone trying to kill you."

"Yeah, it's really fun being shark bait, thank you." He shook his head to himself, opening the car door to approach the cafe.

The building was more certain than he was in that moment, a warm glow beckoning the area. He never realized how little he went out these days, this same coffee shop was entirely different than the last time he came. The familiar sight and sounds of the city he used to know was suddenly unfamiliar to him.

Muted voices to him inside the little shop, all rambling vicariously. It was funny, the main reason he stopped even coming here was because things started getting busier and busier. Ei would apply pressure to him once he agreed to the streaming stuff. Did he ever really lose his identity if he never got to have one in the first place?

He squared his shoulders once the espresso he ordered was ready, quickly nodding in acknowledgement to the barista and sitting outside for a breath of fresh air. Everything around him was suffocating, and he never thought he'd be like one of those guys who are scared of having an actual life outside of their computer.

Maybe that was her plan, now that he was thinking about it.

He let the cool breeze wash over him, despite almost his whole face being covered except his eyes. He felt skittish, and uneasy, fingers lightly tapping at the to go cup of espresso in his hands. "What am I even looking for..." He murmured irritably, annoyance plaguing his thoughts.

It was a long, and arduous three minutes he sat there thinking about who Twitchpatch may possibly be now that he knew about Childe. How the fuck did he even know who it was? A familiar of his, maybe? But not that many people know about Narukami coffee shop unless someone who did told someone else.

And if they did...then there's also a limited amount of people. He didn't know what to think...until it hit him. Why would Twitchpatch, a news source, know about an indie coffee shop if they weren't also from Inazuma..?

And once he came to that conclusion as the cup was near his lips ponderingly, a feminine voice called, "I didn't think you'd be early."

His heart dropped to his stomach in an instant, his eyes slowly lifting up to meet the woman's voice. There, standing before him, was a sight that he never thought he'd be able to see again in his entire lifetime. Time stopped for him, and he slowly began to look mortified once he realized...

"What the fuck, Makoto." Scaramouche's voice cut through the air, sharp and accusatory. He almost lost it, if it weren't for her softer expression evening out.

"Hey, Kuzu." Makoto said with a softer tone, sitting down in front of him hesitantly. "I thought I wouldn't feel anything out of this, but...it's different when it's you."

"Fuck you." He snapped, his eye almost twitching from how many emotions were going through him in the moment. "Ei said you left us. You made that decision on your own."

"You're missing a lot of the story."

"And even with that in mind, I didn't do shit to you for you to play fake fucking journalist." He pointed. "Yeah, forgot about that little detail? The lie you capitalized off in humor of both of our downfalls? They're scattering to find a way for me to clear the controversy right now because of you."

"Is that not what Ei wanted? Controversy all of the time?" Makoto raised an eyebrow, sitting back in the chair. "It wasn't my desired effect, trust me."

"Yeah? That wasn't what you wanted to happen? I thought you were the one to always think about what you do before you do it. I guess. Fucking. Wrong." He seethed, his teeth grinding into each other. "I should narc on you right now."

Makoto's expression softened, and she reached out tentatively, her hand hovering in the air. "Please, just listen to me for a second."

"Why should I?" He recoiled. "I'm not even mad about what you did to me. But you had no place bringing other people into this. You don't get to waltz back in to my life after doing all of this and act like what you did was some sort of poetic justice. That's not how this works."

"I had no intention on it." Makoto sighed, her shoulders slumped as her eyes narrowed away from him. "Listen...Ei and I had a bad argument before I left. I felt like she was starting to change after all of this and she denied all of it and threatened me. I can't save a dying group if its leader isn't open to criticism."

He scoffed, bitterness tainting his tone. "And you only decided to tell me about this after you left me clueless? About where you were after you fucked off and went off the radar without a word? Are you not essentially just doing what she did?"

"I never said that what I did was okay!" Makoto frowned. "This meeting is harder than I thought it'd be...I wanted to figure out a way I could get you out of there as quick as possible, but I didn't have a way at that time. I was reckless...and it lead to this. If I had the ability to rally up more capable people for the job, I would. But this is all I've got. And you shouldn't be okay with how you're being treated there just because of what I did."

He knew that he wanted to clap back at her again, but he knew she was right in that accord. He chewed at the inners of his mouth, staring at her with an intense gaze.

"You lost the spark in your eyes, Kuzu." She said, "I've seen your streams. You're not even happy doing it, it's like there's nothing there. Why do you do them, in that case?"

"I didn't lose it." He corrected.

"Every time your stream, it feels like you're not passing time. You don't want to be there, and not many people can see it, but you used to look different...more lively." Makoto observed, "It feels like I'm looking at a carcass of what that used to be. You don't eat much, you don't sleep with what I've seen. You always seem like you're worried about something. It's disheartening. Excuse me for thinking of a way out for you."

He sighed fiercely at her, "What do you want from me? What do you want me to do about it?" He had trouble looking into her eyes. "You really...really fucked with me, Makoto."

Makoto sat in silence for a moment, the weight of their shared history hanging heavy in the air. But amidst her own regrets, she stood up after a second and gave a small smile. "You should stop, this isn't good for you. You're...like, deep frying your own brain at this point."

"How do you know what's good for me?" He bit back one last time before feeling his confidence weaken. "You don't even know a thing about me these days."

Her smile didn't waver at his words anymore, she gave him a light pat on his head in mild comfort before stepping back. "Stop streaming, Kuzu." She said, "And if it makes you feel better, air everything out. It's the least you could do for all that she made you do, right? I'm sorry I won't be there beside you to see it."

That light pat was something that he hated, but at the same time, haven't gotten the chance to be granted in ages. He never gave people the chance to get too close to him after all of this, nor even give them the reason to in the first place. It was bittersweet, his heart swelled with the same confusion and kindness Makoto gave him back them.

He wanted to prove her wrong, but he knew it was beyond his pride to keep her by his side. Even with how aware she was that she was right about him. Looking at her after a while, she could tell from his eyes that he was hurt. "I'll see you again sometime, okay? Reconcile with that (Y/N) if you ever get the chance; you seem to like them anyway beyond all the fake news."

She left as quick as she came, and with Scaramouche's previous arrogance and general disposition. He didn't know what to do anymore.

previous ♡ masterlist ♡ next

YOU ARE on your way to being one of the hottest streamer in your nation at the moment, racking a monthly average of 10 million viewers, but something specific bothers you about it. you know that a lot of people hate you, but there's this one account. one account that's been following you since the early days of your career. they leave a flood of rude comments in your stream, your moderators banned each account they made, but they keep making more. you are at the end of your tether. but you are yet to find out that this persistent cockroach is none other than your friend's friend (and the only other streamer that's bigger than you), scaramouche.

taglist ♡ @thystarsshine @veekoko @gumickajolli @simonisferal @kamiboo

@justpeachyteastea @feiherp @pinkismyfavcolor @aether-darling @kunisnaomi

@keiiqq @mine-lu @featuredtofu @danhenglovebot @k4zushi

@kyon-cherri @b4tm4nn @iiinaurate @quacking-simp @auroratumbles

@kookiibun @ulquiorraswife @amvpk01 @simplysm1le @h3xi2g0n3

@alatusorrow @scaranthropy @mellowberrie @magica-ren @vernith

@kabukipookie @bananasquash @suqarlaced @dellalyra @lightyagamifan

@yourfavoritefreakyhan @heartsforseo @yomishen @pwushizz @swivy123

@strxwberryfetish @ibyobi @ashfrommars4 @chemiru @ainnofinway

@agaygothicmushroom @levianamor @dragontammerz @wth121 @lylovw

@morgyyyyyyy @lovemari @suniika @littlesliceofcheese @yumejo89 @liuaneee

@franaby @tiddieshakeshownu @mimi3lover (bold users means i'm having trouble tagging you)

[incesthemes]

dean's sexuality is an overwhelming recurring theme throughout the show: his fetishes are prominent, he flaunts his sexuality and sexual behavior freely, he's a relentless flirt, and he has the most sexual encounters in the show. what i want to briefly consider here is how his sexuality and, more importantly, his fetishes may symbolize a freudian eroticization of a fantasized domestic life, particularly in his fetishization of femininity.

so hear me out: dean subconsciously eroticizes his mundane desires because he can't externalize them in a safe or realistic way. the desires are, namely, a longing for a domestic, "apple pie" life, which is a desire that has been explored in the show multiple times. dean routinely covets domesticity, through his desire to raise a child (ben and lisa subplot), the djinn fantasy (2.20), his "nesting" in the bunker (8.14), and his displacement of that desire onto sam (who is the primary subject of his erotic fixation in general and a subconscious extension of himself—if sam acquires a happy domestic life, dean can live vicariously through it).

he also routinely denies himself this domesticity because he's given up on getting out of the hunter life. he was raised in a survival environment and never was given a real opportunity to escape (even sam had to fight tooth and nail to get out, and we all know where that got him). the one time he had a chance to reject john and embrace normality he returned smiling because of sam (9.07). he's the one that vehemently secludes himself (and sam, like in 1.06) from society because connections are a liability. he leaves potential long-term relationships preemptively, always choosing hunting (and sam) over them before anything "real" can happen (1.13, 6.01, 6.21, also consider 8.19, perhaps more abstractly). he's so broken inside that he lacks any real desire at all (5.14). et cetera, et cetera. he denies himself his domestic desires to the point that he lacks desire at all—he's a broken shell of a man.

so the violent repression of the id causes the secret desire to leak out through erotic fantasy, a playground of fiction that is used by, well, most if not all people to explore desire in a safe and controlled medium (see: how many women have rape fantasies, for example—the sexual fantasy is a constructed world for safe exploration of certain desires, often abstracted through erotic symbols).

dean is so repressed as an individual, likely by external pressure to conform and control himself via john, that dean could subconsciously transform his secret desire for domesticity, into an erotic fantasy. he displaces those unacceptable desires from the unattainable mundane onto the safer erotic and they eventually distort into fetishes. the fetishes themselves are then abstractions of the things he covets but can't obtain.

and i want to focus specifically on his desire for domesticity and make an argument for feminization as a fetish (thank you rhonda hurley for your contributions to society) and how that relates back to that base desire.

there are several episodes in the show which suggest that dean fetishizes femininity itself, or rather feminization as it pertains to him (4.07, 5.04, also consider 10.05 in a more abstract sense). in 4.07, dean openly fantasizes about living in a "hot cheerleader's" body (youthfully feminine). in 5.04, dean recounts the time rhonda hurley forced him into her pink, satiny panties, saying that he liked it. 10.05 is a meta episode which additionally posits a plotline where dean becomes a woman through supernatural means, suggesting that fans are invited to draw a connection between dean and feminization. (these are the episodes i can pull off the top of my head; it's probably not comprehensive but i can't remember others atm)

so let's consider this feminization kink: we have dean fantasizing about femininity, womanhood, and especially girlhood, which he notoriously eroticizes (again in 4.07 and also in 4.13 and 10.13, to name specific references, but there are so many examples of this) in relation to himself, specifically. you can layer this in the way his deeper desires are of domesticity, and the home is traditionally (importantly) the domain of the woman. if dean would come to associate domesticity with femininity, then he would subconsciously connect his desire for domesticity with a desire for femininity. therefore, this feminization kink can represent an eroticization of his own (perceived) femininity. dean craves domesticity, but the domestic can only be achieved through womanhood, and therefore his desire for the domestic manifests through femininity, and thus feminization.

this "perceived femininity" of the domestic is important because of how dean conceptualizes the world largely through his consumption of media (see also: his "wild west fetish" via 6.18), which enforces gender roles and the relegating of the woman to the domestic sphere. this additionally aligns with dean's lived experiences: he had a domestic life while mary was alive, and when mary died the domesticity died with her. his only personal experiences with a settled home life are inexorably tied to the presence of femininity (his other excursion is when he lives with lisa, strengthening this association), and the absence of it and subsequent domination of john (the masculine) also took with it that domestic life.

and then you could even go so far as to make the argument that his eroticization of girlhood and his fetish for barely legal girls is a symbol of the domestic life he didn't get to live himself. it can represent a longing for youth in an environment that was inaccessible to him, a stability and domesticity walled off by womanhood. his youth was masculine, and his desire is for the feminine. it would stand to reason that when he yearns for an idealized youth, it would be through the lens of the symbolically feminine. and so this desire manifests through a fetishization of youth (girlhood) and his subsequent creep behavior. it all comes back to the life dean didn't get to live, eroticized and represented through a sexual fantasy born of rigidly enforced gender roles and the loss of femininity in his home life.

[thecampbellowl]

CHARLOTTE CAMPBELL: A PLAYLIST.

Skinny Love - Birdy

And in the morning I'll be with you / But it will be a different kind / And I'm holding all the tickets / And you'll be owning all the fines

I Of The Storm - Of Monsters and Men

If I could face them / If I could make amends with all my shadows / I'd bow my head and welcome them / But I feel it burning / Like when the winter wind stops my breathing / Are you really gonna love me when I'm gone? / I fear you won't / I fear you don't

B a noBody - SOAK

You ring, you ring a bell to show / You're bleeding / I watched, I saw your mind fall, / Out of your head / Weekends and cheap thrills, / Risk it all for an inch of fun, / We'll never amount / To anything

Alien - Novaa

Everything is always so distant / When everyone thinks / That you’re a miracle / Everything is always so cold / When you’re busy / Keeping others warm

Vienna - Billy Joel

Slow down you crazy child / You're so ambitious for a juvenile / But then if you're so smart tell me / Why are you still so afraid?

Liability - Lorde

The truth is I am a toy that people enjoy / 'Til all of the tricks don't work anymore / And then they are bored of me / I know that it's exciting running through the night, but / Every perfect summer's eating me alive until you're gone / Better on my own

Drive - Halsey

All we do is drive / All we do is think about the feelings that we hide / All we do is sit in silence waiting for a sign / Sick and full of pride / All we do is drive

1994 - Cavetown

Say you're coming around / I need you lately, everything's been getting me down / I felt so much older than the kids 'round the corner / But I feel so much younger now / Overtook them all and slowed back down / Blamed a child in a daisy crown

People Watching - Conan Gray

I'm only looking just to live through you vicariously / I've never really been in love, not seriously / I had a dream about a house behind a picket fence / Next one I choose to trust, I hope I use some common sense / But I cut people out, like tags on my clothing / I end up all alone, but I still keep hoping

Heavy - Dizzy

I've been reading into programs / Relying on a romance / To get this feeling out from under my nails / And I ask where does all the good go? / I theorize a black hole and / Try not to get too sentimental

[not-goldy]

You lot Jimin-haters keep excusing the 17-year-old Jungkook's shitty behavior, truth is, you wouldn't take it well if you were called ugly by some classmate back in when you were 17. You would cry because it hurt and maybe even destroy your self-esteem.

I would cry if IN FACT I WAS UGLY or insecure about my looks

But if I objectively LOOKED BETTER than (not my class mate, nor age mate Jungkook is neither of these?) my JUNIOR WHO IS NOT ON MY LEVEL

IF I KNEW I WAS SELECTED AS PART OF A BOYBAND GROUP PARTLY BECAUSE I PASSED THE VISUAL TEST AND WAS CONSIDERED A VISUAL- COS WHICH BOYBAND GATHERS A GROUP OF UGLY ARTISTS TO SELL TO FEMALE TEENAGERS WHO WERE CRAZED OVER HARRY STYLES WHEN THAT COMPANY HAD ITS SIGHTS ON WESTERN MARKET FROM DAY ONE???

Yall need to be for real

I WON'T CRY IF I WAS CONSTANTLY SELECTED OUT OF THE GROUP AS ONE WITH THE BEST BODY UNIQUE VOICE OUTSTANDING DANCER AND PERFORMER

And I would not take THAT CHILD COMMENTING ON MY LOOKS SERIOUSLY AT ALL like I don't take yall seriously IF THAT CHILD ALSO LOOKED LIKE THIS 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Nor would I be bothered AT ALL because I'd rather assume that THAT DISRESPECTFUL CHILD was JEALOUS and move on with my life and I would tell them that each time they brought up my looks.

Like I'll tease them right back and call them jealous of my looks

I will keep the same energy of tying their tongue when they comment on my looks and not just flirt with them asking them is that why you like me when they describe me as daring.

And if it was taking a toll on me I'll report it to the company and threaten to leave cos I don't have to tolerate bullying in the work place its my legal right not to and if the company turned a blind eye I would leak info to the press about it and sue the hell out of the company for that vicarious liability

Worst worst, I will beat the shit of the kid till he was bleeding to death

And if I was too elitist I will cut him off, block him and keep my distance

No.... I won't cry about it 💀

17 year old Jungkook meanwhile Jimin was 19 years💀

A WHOLE AS LEGAL ADULT

Yall need to stop infantilizing him it's not cute

[khaleesiofalicante]

tbh dani i dont give a fuck about the clave or alec or david or (th eone i never understood or care for) kincaid (like bro even gabriel killed his demon father all he had to do is out his dad or take a stance against him but he wants the damn glory and feels tied to his destone and no i am not willing to hear anything in support of this familywho somehow is still more powerful than lance), nor do i care about that bitch victoria( bc no matter her mental problems I HATE HER), or that asshole fucking hope he gets mauled kyle,

I only care about max and lance and david (and yes that is right i really dont give a shit about arthur either)

I think its obvious i am high on this chapter's feelings, idk i feel strongly for accountbaility where its due and revenge in general but esp for lance. Though i had hoped lance would burn idris or get revege by killing people , bc arthur got hurt i wasnt that mad like i was mad bc of teh reasoning behind it and bc i hate kyle but it was sort fo his fault did he think it wld be all lalala land if he goes to idris that littel shit anyways, BUT BUT GWEN ?!? DANI , wow wow i am speechless but in a mad kind of way. i dont accept this. nope no no no

how much is that family esp lance and david going to hurt, i just want a proper revenge for them at teh end, like people begging for thier/them for forgiveness sort of, i know they are never going to be apert of the shadowworld but i had hoped it alawys had shadow demons over them, i hate them that much

i also dont like that kincaid was so easily able to defeat lance and people celebrated it, I loved lance in this ch like wooo go off boy, and wow max being all powerfull and manipulating blood was sooooo cool, go be badass baby, also arthur should be grounded for a decade or so or even for life, i hated how kincaid downplayed lance and arthur relationship like idgaf whether arthur CHOSE you or not, lance is superior sorry kid.

I also HATED RAFE , but that is normal for me now, i havent liked him in lbaf for a long long while. i hope they lb family just cuts all of thier siblings and cousins off, like no contact and they fucking realize or feel how much that family suffered , like of wow you didnt have sun for 20 years big deal bro, there are places on earth which doeasnt have that for 6 mnths every year since eternity. they DESERVED THAT isaid what i said, i am just getting bored of rafe and his reasoning like oh NOW you decide to fight harder what does he want congratulations?!

the idris people and kincaid deserved the bad thinsg happening to them for me, like i feel it isnt enough, also madeline srsly you knew abt lance being david kid and possibly inheriting the demon blood, did you think it was a good idea to go to idris when pregnant with your husband like i think you vicariously consented to the liability and possibility of damage when you also knew david can do shadow demon shit.

so yeah i am beyond reason in this fic when it comes to hating idris and all living being there and only support lance and david and max ( yes i am deliberately leaving arthur his idiotic naviety that kincaid cares about him when it comes to him vs his own family or so called destiny he is irritating me , like sir he doesnt give a shit about what he said to you idk why he believed kincaid's promises.)

i just want someone to lecture them after locking them in a room preferably alec i have no hope for rafael in this fic he is beyond any hope for me and so is kincaid so

😘thank you for teh rollercoaster of the chapter bye. But i hope you give vengeance to lance and his family against idris. 👿

This was A RIDE lmao.

I love when y'all take it personally and get emotional (shows me I am doing my job 😎)

I can't promise you anything. But I can tell you that I believe in happy endings, but I don't think everyone gets one. A story where EVERYONE gets their happy ending doesn't make sense to me. Some people do and others do. As to who will get it and who won't is entirely up to (in this scenario, me lmao).

So we shall wait and see :)

[notsosilentsister]

The Diplomat

I kinda get why one might keep the awful husband around - he's a loose cannon who gets results, an asset as much as a liability. And while Kate often disagrees with him about the means, they do seem to be on the same page regarding the ends, which does matter, after all. You do get the sense that they share certain core values. So keeping him around is a high risk, high reward strategy.

It also seems like Kate's living a bit vicariously through him - she's so very restrained (as signified for instance by the eating disorder), and in a way he's a permission mechanism, sabotaging the restraint, and at the same time a cautionary tale, justifying the restraint. Maybe he's her Jungian shadow, doing what she doesn't allow herself to do. I also kinda get how you might love someone while not at all trusting them, and that always makes for an interesting dynamic. He still has to go - I'm on episode four - at least for a while, because I ship Kate with the State secretary. Competence porn, for sure, but I'm so jaded about politics at this point that it's starting to break my suspension of disbelief. People are all so professional, focussed on the task at hand. Sure, there may be some personal vanity involved on occasion, but the show does a good job showing how seemingly frivolous things can be valid concerns when you're in the business of reputation management. (Kate acknowledges that the presidend is right to worry about looking old and weak - there's an undeniable cost to it, it's just that the cost of a show of strength would be higher in this particular case). And sure, people fuck up, but so far all the fuck ups are the sort you easily might make when you have to make quick decisions based on insufficient information, and it's often easy to see how every alternative option could have led to something disastrous just as well. It want to see some unforced errors! But unforced errors are made at one's leisure, which no one has in this show and that brings me to my main issue: pacing and stakes. Which are too fast, and too high, respectively, for my taste. I tend to prefer the sort of character study, where characters get some room to breathe (and rope to hang themselves with; for that, you gotta cut them some slack). That's what I really loved about the Americans, where the pace could ramp up to nail-biting degrees at the drop of a hat, but also linger, allow for a slow, downright torturous build-up of tension, for treacherous lulls in the action, a temptation to succumb to the lure of mundanity, the American dream in suburbia, a false sense of security. You might easily lose track of something, that would later come back to bite you in the ass, which added to the suspense, and made the sudden eruptions of violence, always simmering below the surface, seem more shocking and at the same time more inevitable, less contrived. I always kinda had to steel myself to watch the Americans and would be left reeling for a while after a lot of episodes. Well, this is more of a comedy, but the pace for me is is too constant, I guess. I'm also not sure that I buy into the central thesis as formulated by the awful husband, that the person most suited for power is the one being thrust into it by circumstances instead of actively seeking it out. It's a very popular sentiment (why your average hero first has to refuse the call), but a bit too romantic for my taste. 

I mean, obviously you'd want someone in power who sees power only as a means to an end - to protect, to promote - and not as an end in itself. But that seems less about "wanting power" vs "not wanting power" and more about what precisely one might want the power for. And personally, I do actually feel more comfortable with someone in power who does care enough about power to study it, to find out how it works and how it doesn't work in any given situation, and who can hold onto it long enough to actually implement a proper reform. Being naive about power has never helped any cause. For what it's worth, I do think that both Hal and Kate actually care very much about power in this way. But right now, they both would rather be the power behind the throne, and that's not gonna work, because someone also has to sit on it. I mean, Kate would argueably still be a power behind the throne as a VP, but one suspects that Hal's idea is more about Kate pulling the president's strings, and Hal pulling Kate's. It's a good conflict! Anyways, I would have always watched this for Kerri Russel no matter what, and would certainly watch another season as well.

[tokofagkawa]

Toko is so late diagnised autistic. I feel like she had that experience in school wandering why she wasn't like everyone else and why everyone else seemed to take immediate disslike to her, (there was a study done in which the liability of I think either autistic or just neurodivergebt people in general was ranked lower to that of neurotypicals, many seeing the first as strange or "there's just something about them"), wondering why she can't stand certain textures, I feel like the whole "why am I abnormal" feeling that many late diagnosed autistics had would really tie into how she feels about many things in later life, such as her shutting herself away from others because she thinks that she can't have a normal relationship with them and/or will be casted out of the group, a common experience for autistics inbgeneral, so she cowers away in order to avoid stress, humiliation, and to reject others before they can reject her. She may well also have faced the "your abnormal" treatment from her perants, further drilling it in her head that there is something wrong with her ab that she is incapable of having someone love her the way she is, maybe why she is so willing to bend herself to (what she projects as) togamis will, she will subordinate herself, often through mysoginy which is rife in romance books, because she thinks that she's unlovable if she doesn't. Because the only time she's ever even been close to experiencing love prior to both naegis is via living vicariously through these romance books.

Sorry for going off on a bit of an out of context rant nere the end.

Also feel like despite her parents probably being aware that she had autism, she was never tested. They wouldn't want to waste time abd money, all for the sake of her having closure or atleast understanding

yes yes I agree with this 👍 Toko feeling like she's completely alone in her suffering and no one could ever understand what she's going through and thinking of herself as a freak even though there IS an explanation for what's going on she just doesn't know it.

[thesingingrevolution]

i read a theory that ni-ki (noa) is hypnotizing the boys like he did with sunghoon (solon) in fever in order to protect himself and the person explained that he felt guilt doing so which is demonstrated in his solo bathroom scenes and i was wondering if the glitter on the boys’ faces could represent the influence of the hypnotism? maybe him washing his face off is demonstrating him ending it because he couldn’t bear doing that to them anymore, it’s like a physical demonstration of it being over. the part where ni-ki and sunghoon dance together makes me think it represents ni-ki’s ethical dilemma (dilemma….. hmmmm). the focus is likely on sunghoon (solon), because, if my other theory is correct, he has the power to use the other members’ abilities, like with when he copies jake’s (jino’s) fire abilities in given taken as well as in the japanese version of tamed dashed, and in one in a billion he catches the nightball sooha throws, which may imply he is using jay’s (jaan’s) strength powers. so, sunghoon is a greater threat to ni-ki because sunghoon might be able to use it back on him if he finds out.

them sitting in the pool with no glitter on their faces may very well be representative of this (+ jay under the shower). also at the beginning, sunoo leaves the bathroom, notice the exit sign.

also, i was wondering if the end of that is maybe what prompted the entire fever feelings lol, maybe the inability to feel romantic love is ended if the “spell” (hypnosis) is over, maybe that’s a side effect of no longer being influenced?

i think this makes sense because the ability to feel love like that would definitely be a “weakness.” a liability, if you will. perhaps it has nothing to do with it and it’s just sooha’s strong aura, but this isn’t too far fetched. i don’t think they would necessarily fall in love with others if not for the spell, but that might be an unexpected/unknown/random consequence

additionally, it appears like the object (necklace?) ni-ki used to hypnotize sunghoon is the same object wrapped around sunghoon’s heart later in the video. this is particularly interesting, since it seems to corroborate my idea of how the hypnosis did not allow their hearts to feel love.

i know many don’t think heli feels romantic love for sooha, but i do think so, i also think the fever lyrics are so romantic hahaha then again if that’s not the case then ignore that (the other boys’ feelings, that’s a story for another day)… but judging from what we saw in that flashback to sooha’s arranged marriage in the more recent dark moon episodes, i do think heli really loves her like that (alongside a thousand other examples…. leave me alone i’m vicariously living my y/n life through sooha)

i feel like the paradoxical statements like “please stop, don’t stop” and “release me, embrace me” are reflective of first (or, for the first time in a long time) feeling such a strong emotion. it’s like being told something is impossible and then it happens to you.

another factor to consider is the timeline….. i think as soon as i have a better idea of when this happens, i’ll go back and check in on the story. the main thing is drunk dazed, i feel like it would be interesting to know whether it’s before or after, but i suspect it may be before (tree scene, anyone?)

i think the darkness at the very beginning (a long time before the rest of the mv) may as well be the hypnosis taking effect. we know ni-ki (noa) can control “the darkness” and i believe the darkness may very well be something which caused the hypnosis. also, the “he shines even in the darkest places” leads me to believe he isn’t affected by the darkness (unless it’s by that vampire leader lady but i don’t remember the details about her attack now)

something i can’t really explain: sunghoon between the doors leading to an altar (is that the throne jake sings about?), with the necklace item in his mouth. also, there seems to be a lot of focus on hands throughout the video. i wonder what that means?

not sure about heeseung’s solo scenes. mostly because my brain fries when i see them but i think it’s either just us being blessed but it honestly might tie into the intense emotion, like when he’s deeply breathing and staring into the camera ??/!/?/? and the curling into a ball, getting up abruptly, etc

[alphaman99]

Lynn Chu posted:

There seems to be a pretense out there that morals do not exist, or do not underlie what the laws are, and that morality is purely a question of conforming yourself to whatever current cultural fashion happens to be hot right now. For instance, we all deplore the fact that hundreds of thousands of people are dying of opioid addiction. They got hooked on this by doctors who out of error or neglect, gave them too many such prescriptions. So now, a judge with his finger to the wind, ties the law of nuisance into knots, to imply a nonexistent causation by a manufacturer. One that only manufactured a tiny number of one specific product for hospital use. It will be gun manufacturers next to be taken down for creating the "nuisance" of guns under this unhinged vicarious liability theory.

[see-fee]

psst ai art is not real art and hurts artists

Real life tends to be far more nuanced than sweeping statements, emotional rhetoric, or conveniently fuzzy definitions. “Artists” are not a monolithic entity and neither are companies. There are different activities with different economics.

I’ll preface the rest of my post with sharing my own background, for personal context:

👩‍🎨 I am an artist. I went to/graduated from an arts college and learned traditional art-making (sculpture to silkscreen printing), and my specialism was in communication design (using the gamut of requisite software like Adobe Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop, Lightroom, Dreamweaver etc). Many of my oldest friends are career artists—two of whom served as official witnesses to my marriage. Friends of friends have shown at the Venice Biennale, stuff like that. Many are in fields like games, animation, VFX, 3D etc. In the formative years of my life, I’ve worked & collaborated in a wide range of creative endeavours and pursuits. I freelanced under a business which I co-created, ran commercial/for-profit creative events for local musicians & artists, did photography (both digital & analog film, some of which I hand-processed in a darkroom), did some modelling, styling, appeared in student films… the list goes on. I’ve also dabbled with learning 3D using Blender, a free, open source software (note: Blender is an important example I’ll come back to, below). 💸 I am a (budding) patron of the arts. On the other side of the equation, I sometimes buy art: small things like buying friends’ work. I’m also currently holding (very very tiny) stakes in “real” art—as in, actual fine art: a few pieces by Basquiat, Yayoi Kusama, Joan Mitchell. 👩‍💻 I am a software designer & engineer. I spent about an equal number of years in tech: took some time to re-skill in a childhood passion and dive into a new field, then went off to work at small startups (not “big tech”), to design and write software every day.

So I’m quite happy to talk art, tech, and the intersection. I’m keeping tabs on the debate around the legal questions and the lawsuits.

Can an image be stolen if only used in training input, and is never reproduced as output? Can a company be vicariously liable for user-generated content? Legally, style isn’t copyrightable, and for good reason. Copyright law is not one-size-fits-all. Claims vary widely per case.

Flaws in the Anderson vs Stability AI case, aka “stolen images” argument

Read this great simple breakdown by a copyright lawyer that covers reproduction vs. derivative rights, model inputs and outputs, derivative works, style, and vicarious liability https://copyrightlately.com/artists-copyright-infringement-lawsuit-ai-art-tools/

“Getty’s new complaint is much better than the overreaching class action lawsuit I wrote about last month. The focus is where it should be: the input stage ingestion of copyrighted images to train the data. This will be a fascinating fair use battle.”

“Surprisingly, plaintiffs’ complaint doesn’t focus much on whether making intermediate stage copies during the training process violates their exclusive reproduction rights under the Copyright Act. Given that the training images aren’t stored in the software itself, the initial scraping is really the only reproduction that’s taken place.”

“Nor does the complaint allege that any output images are infringing reproductions of any of the plaintiffs’ works. Indeed, plaintiffs concede that none of the images provided in response to a particular text prompt “is likely to be a close match for any specific image in the training data.””

“Instead, the lawsuit is premised upon a much more sweeping and bold assertion—namely that every image that’s output by these AI tools is necessarily an unlawful and infringing “derivative work” based on the billions of copyrighted images used to train the models.”

“There’s another, more fundamental problem with plaintiffs’ argument. If every output image generated by AI tools is necessarily an infringing derivative work merely because it reflects what the tool has learned from examining existing artworks, what might that say about works generated by the plaintiffs themselves? Works of innumerable potential class members could reflect, in the same attenuated manner, preexisting artworks that the artists studied as they learned their skill.”

My thoughts on generative AI: how anti-AI rhetoric helps Big Tech (and harms open-source/independents), how there’s no such thing as “real art”

The AI landscape is still evolving and being negotiated, but fear-mongering and tighter regulations seldom serve anyone’s favour besides big companies. It’s the oldest trick in the book to preserve monopoly and all big corps in major industries have done this. Get a sense of the issue in this article: https://www.forbes.com/sites/hessiejones/2023/04/19/amid-growing-call-to-pause-ai-research-laion-petitions-governments-to-keep-agi-research-open-active-and-responsible/?sh=34b78bae62e3

“AI field is progressing at unprecedented speed; however, training state-of-art AI models such as GPT-4 requires large compute resources, not currently available to researchers in academia and open-source communities; the ‘compute gap’ keeps widening, causing the concentration of AI power at a few large companies.”

“Governments and businesses will become completely dependent on the technologies coming from the largest companies who have invested millions, and by definition have the highest objective to profit from it.”

“The “AGI Doomer” fear-mongering narrative distracts from actual dangers, implicitly advocating for centralized control and power consolidation.”

Regulation & lawsuits benefit massive monopolies: Adobe (which owns Adobe Stock), Microsoft, Google, Facebook et al. Fighting lawsuits, licensing with stock image companies for good PR—like OpenAI (which Microsoft invested $10billion in) and Shutterstock—is a cost which they have ample resources to pay, to protect their monopoly after all that massive investment in ML/AI R&D. The rewards outweigh the risks. They don't really care about ethics, only when it annihilates competition. Regulatory capture means these mega-corporations will continue to dominate tech, and nobody else can compete. Do you know what happens if only Big Tech controls AI? It ain’t gonna be pretty.

Open-source is the best alternative to Big Tech. Pro-corporation regulation hurts open-source. Which hurts indie creators/studios, who will find themselves increasingly shackled to Big Tech’s expensive software. Do you know who develops & releases the LAION dataset? An open-source research org. https://laion.ai/about/ Independent non-profit research orgs & developers cannot afford harsh anti-competition regulatory rigmarole, or multi-million dollar lawsuits, or being deprived of training data, which is exactly what Big Tech wants. Free professional industry-standard software like Blender is open-source, copyleft GNU General Public License. Do you know how many professional 3D artists and businesses rely on it? (Now it’s development fund is backed by industry behemoths.) The consequences of this kind of specious “protest” masquerading as social justice will ultimately screw over these “hurt artists” even harder. It’s shooting the foot. Monkey’s paw. Be very careful what you wish for.

TANSTAAFL: Visual tradespeople have no qualms using tons of imagery/content floating freely around the web to develop their own for-profit output—nobody’s sweating over source provenance or licensing whenever they whip out Google Images or Pinterest. Nobody decries how everything is reposted/reblogged to death when it benefits them. Do you know how Google, a for-profit company, and its massively profitable search product works? “Engines like the ones built by OpenAI ingest giant data sets, which they use to train software that can make recommendations or even generate code, art, or text. In many cases, the engines are scouring the web for these data sets, the same way Google’s search crawlers do, so they can learn what’s on a webpage and catalog it for search queries.”[1] The Authors Guild v. Google case found that Google’s wholesale scanning of millions of books to create its Google Book Search tool served a transformative purpose that qualified as fair use. Do you still use Google products? No man is an island. Free online access at your fingertips to a vast trove of humanity’s information cuts both ways. I’d like to see anyone completely forgo these technologies & services in the name of “ethics”. (Also. Remember that other hyped new tech that’s all about provenance, where some foot-shooting “artists” rejected it and self-excluded/self-harmed, while savvy others like Burnt Toast seized the opportunity and cashed in.)

There is no such thing as “real art.” The definition of “art” is far from a universal, permanent concept; it has always been challenged (Duchamp, Warhol, Kruger, Banksy, et al) and will continue to be. It is not defined by the degree of manual labour involved. A literal banana duct-taped to a wall can be art. (The guy who ate it claimed “performance art”). Nobody in Van Gogh’s lifetime considered his work to be “real art” (whatever that means). He died penniless, destitute, believing himself to be an artistic failure. He wasn’t the first nor last. If a soi-disant “artist” makes “art” and nobody values it enough to buy/commission it, is it even art? If Martin Shkreli buys Wu Tang Clan’s “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin” for USD$2 million, is it more art than their other albums? Value can be ascribed or lost at a moment’s notice, by pretty arbitrary vicissitudes. Today’s trash is tomorrow’s treasure—and vice versa. Whose opinion matters, and when? The artist’s? The patron’s? The public’s? In the present? Or in hindsight?

As for “artists” in the sense of salaried/freelance gig economy trade workers (illustrators, animators, concept artists, game devs, et al), they’ll have to adapt to the new tech and tools like everyone else, to remain competitive. Some are happy that AI tools have improved their workflow. Some were struggling to get paid for heavily commoditised, internationally arbitraged-to-pennies work long before AI, in dehumanising digital sweatshop conditions (dime-a-dozen hands-for-hire who struggled at marketing & distributing their own brand & content). AI is merely a tool. Methods and tools come and go, inefficient ones die off, niches get eroded. Over-specialisation is an evolutionary risk. The existence of AI tooling does not preclude anyone from succeeding as visual creators or Christie’s-league art-world artists, either. Beeple uses AI. The market is information about what other humans want and need, how much it’s worth, and who else is supplying the demand. AI will get “priced in.” To adapt and evolve is to live. There are much greater crises we're facing as a species.

I label my image-making posts as #my art, relative to #my fic, mainly for navigation purposes within my blog. Denoting a subset of my pieces with #ai is already generous on this hellsite entropy cesspool. Anti-AI rhetoric will probably drive some people to conceal the fact that they use AI. I like to be transparent, but not everyone does. Also, if you can’t tell, does it matter? https://youtu.be/1mR9hdy6Qgw

I can illustrate, up to a point, but honing the skill of hand-crafted image-making isn’t worth my remaining time alive. The effort-to-output ratio is too high. Ain’t nobody got time fo dat. I want to tell stories and bring my visions to life, and so do many others. It’s a creative enabler. The democratisation of image-making means that many more people, like the disabled, or those who didn’t have the means or opportunity to invest heavily in traditional skills, can now manifest their visions and unleash their imaginations. Visual media becomes a language more people can wield, and that is a good thing.

Where I’m personally concerned, AI tools don’t replace anything except some of my own manual labour. I am incredibly unlikely to commission a visual piece from another creator—most fanart styles or representations of the pair just don’t resonate with me that much. (I did once try to buy C/Fe merch from an artist, but it was no longer available.) I don’t currently hawk my own visual wares for monetary profit (tips are nice though). No scenario exists which involves me + AI tools somehow stealing some poor artist’s lunch by creating my tchotchkes. No overlap regarding commercial interests. No zero-sum situation. Even if there was, and I was competing in the same market, my work would first need to qualify as a copy. My blog and content is for personal purposes and doesn’t financially deprive anyone. I’ll keep creating with any tool I find useful.

AI art allegedly not being “real art” (which means nothing) because it's perceived as zero-effort? Not always the case. It may not be a deterministic process but some creators like myself still add a ton of human guidance and input—my own personal taste, judgement, labour. Most of my generation pieces require many steps of in-painting, manual hand tweaking, feeding it back as img2img, in a back and forth duet. If you've actually used any of these tools yourself with a specific vision in mind, you’ll know that it never gives you exactly what you want—not on the first try, nor even the hundredth… unless you're happy with something random. (Which some people are. To each their own.) That element of chance, of not having full control, just makes it a different beast. To achieve desired results with AI, you need to learn, research, experiment, iterate, combine, refine—like any other creative process.

If you upload content to the web (aka “release out in the wild”), then you must, by practical necessity, assume it’s already “stolen” in the sense that whatever happens to it afterwards is no longer under your control. Again, do you know how Google, a for-profit company, and its massively profitable search product works? Plagiarism has always been possible. Mass data scraping or AI hardly changed this fact. Counterfeits or bootlegs didn’t arise with the web.

As per blog title and Asimov's last major interview about AI, I’m optimistic about AI overall. The ride may be bumpy for some now, but general progress often comes with short-term fallout. This FUD about R’s feels like The Caves of Steel, like Lije at the beginning [insert his closing rant about humans not having to fear robots]. Computers are good at some things, we’re good at others. They free us up from incidental tedium, so we can do the things we actually want to do. Like shipping these characters and telling stories and making pretty pictures for personal consumption and pleasure, in my case. Most individuals aren’t that unique/important until combined into a statistical aggregate of humanity, and the tools trained on all of humanity’s data will empower us to go even further as a species.

You know what really hurts people? The pandemic which nobody cares about; which has a significant, harmful impact on my body/life and millions of others’. That cost me a permanent expensive lifestyle shift and innumerable sacrifices, that led me to walk away from my source of income and pack up my existence to move halfway across the planet. If you are not zero-coviding—the probability of which is practically nil—I’m gonna have to discount your views on “hurt”, ethics, or what we owe to each other.

We are a non-profit organization with members from all over the world, aiming to make large-scale machine learning models, datasets and related code available to the general public. OUR BELIEFS: We believe that machine learning research and its applications have the potential to have huge positive impacts on our world and therefore should be democratized. PRINCIPLE GOALS: Releasing open datasets, code and machine learning models. We want to teach the basics of large-scale ML research and data management. By making models, datasets and code reusable without the need to train from scratch all the time, we want to promote an efficient use of energy and computing ressources to face the challenges of climate change. FUNDING: Funded by donations and public research grants, our aim is to open all cornerstone results from such an important field as large-scale machine learning to all interested communities.

The “AGI Doomer” fear-mongering narrative distracts from actual dangers, implicitly advocating for centralized control and power consolidation.”

[alphabetsoup-blogposts]

I'm thinking of...

trying to draw a Venn Diagram of my ... what? —virtual causes of action, I guess. I've always said that I want to prevent anyone else—but particularly a single woman—ever having to go through this experience again. I've also said that, after years of this gaslighting—with elements of coercive control and emotional abuse—there is no "happy ever after" or even a "happier" state of being (although I can imagine a more satisfactory, catharised future).* That's my firmly held and, I think, unalterable view. But something is happening with the gentler subtextual conversation in the ether and I'm not quite sure what. There's a meld, a shift, a realignment and I can see that we are in a liminal state. I worry that an important perspective may be lost. For that reason, I find myself once again needing to make a record as best I can of my experience and insights (as I did, several years ago, with the satirical Twitter Playbook on destroying democracy).

I would say the essence of the change today is that people who are wedded to serious gaslighting are also choosing to represent that there is a team and that we (I and they) are working towards a future objective together.* I think perhaps I acceded to elements of the PoV in the past—because I had few options, because I wanted to "get it", because I needed friends who could apprehend both sides of the cognitive dissonance and because I didn't see the harm. But the emphasis on team spirit and on a shared future within existing social structures has escalated and for me simply to coast along as it does so would be a betrayal of sacrifices that I regard as having cost me almost everything, including—as it seems from time to time—my will to live.

The people who reflect this PoV may present as kind but there are echoes of "recruitment" in it all, which I have long regarded as dangerous. I suppose it's the coded equivalent of your kindly neighbour coming round to borrow the sugar and finishing up with "thank you so much, Dear, we'll certainly need the calories when we're campaigning on the doorstep for the [Autocratic Party], won't we?" *say whaaaaat?*

What would this Venn Diagram do? Well, I suppose it would try to plot spaces for gaslighting, perfidy, subornation, economic loss, death threats, deprivation, interference with fundamental rights and freedoms, loss of privacy, bullying, harassment, fraud, and coercive control and show, in particular, where specific abuses are located. Maybe it would clarify my own thoughts. For example, it might seek to answer questions such as:

are negging and "emotional tagging" (ie, seeking to anchor the subtextual meaning of a word or phrase by imposing a negative emotional experience) better thought of as gaslighting or—in volume—as part of a pattern of harassment?

what, if anything, constitutes and evidences consent so as to take actions outside the diagram? Is consent relevant and, if so, how does the framework manage falsification risk?

to what extent are causation, foreseeability and an "eggshell skull" relevant to classification on the diagram with respect to psychological and economic harms?

does it matter if certain harms occur because they are imposed by an "invisible hand", ie, they result from uncoordinated but convergent actions by multiple separate individuals?

where, if anywhere, does vicarious liability belong? For example, if certain gaslighting and deception practices are authorised by state or commercial actors, how should we consider unauthorised sexual assault by the gaslighter? Does the answer depend on whether the assault was facilitated by the gaslighting?

Perhaps I will do this. Perhaps not. The important questions are not the ones above but the basic Who, Where, What, When and Why of it all. Nothing I can do will answer those questions definitively, although I can hazard some pretty convincing guesses.

I remember in particular one senior individual taking a day to introduce me and my team to a vague and, frankly, questionable personality test schema based around four colours—red, green, blue and yellow/gold (—red pills, plant, blue pills and acid or diamonds, perhaps). The whole exercise was extraordinary by any measure—the time commitment (one whole day!), the eccentricity, the cost, the irrelevance!—but in my staid, professional world it was positively unprecedented. It was never repeated or explained.

It's fixed now in my mind as the first serious, non-hostile gaslighting episode that I experienced—what should I make of it? It must have been before I discovered the slang I dabble in now and before the death threats but after I'd been through some extremely hostile experiences that left me susceptible to feigned allyship. What does the timeline signify? Was it some kind of attempted recruitment? To what cause? Was my subsequent interest in a virtual world of anagrams and slang mere coincidence? None of it makes any sense at all even five or six years on.

A diagram won't answer questions like that but what I believe is that we are winning through by making merely incremental gains in understanding. That will have to be enough.

And, as for the pretty coloured circles...watch this space.

*Nothing that is said here relates to, reflects on or is intended to detract from the GG permissions and mandate. In one sense, then, we can say that there is a kind of team, but that is not the subject of this post.

[darkmaga-retard]

By Christopher Roach

September 3, 2024

The recent arrest of Telegram CEO, Pavel Durov, has been in the news. Anti-Russian westerners cheered these events on, even though Durov had fled Russia years ago in order to pursue his techno-libertarian dreams in peace. Adding to the intrigue, the arrest may have included an element of treachery, as some reports say he was invited to visit France by French President Emmanuel Macron, only to be arrested on the tarmac. Mon Dieu!

The ostensible basis for Durov’s arrest is criminal responsibility for various unsavory things that have happened on his Telegram platform. This kind of vicarious liability for hosting websites, particularly those involving user communications and forums, is not entirely new, but it is controversial and always applied very selectively.

No one has rounded up Mark Zuckerberg, even though snuff films, child pornography, and a great many other terrible things have happened on Facebook. On the other hand, after the Pittsburgh Synagogue shooting in 2018, there was an outcry against the less regulated Gab website, which is a more freewheeling discussion app similar to Twitter. Similarly, the 8chan message board, on which a mass shooter in El Paso posted a mini-manifesto in 2019, faced hosting and other boycotts from service providers leading to a shutdown shortly after the public outcry.

Whether aimed at individual speakers or entire forums, censorship is on the rise, and it finds its roots in a changing set of values. There is less respect for the principles of free speech, especially among younger people. New principles like the evil of “platforming” bad actors and the importance of psychological “safety” prevail.

[juztize]

OBLIGATIONS and CONTRACTS

Article 1162.           Obligations derived from quasi-delicts shall be governed by the provisions of Chapter 2, Title XVII of this Book, and by special laws.

QUASI-DELICT – is also known as culpa-acquillana or culpa-extra-contractual.

CULPA-AQUILLANA – means whoever by act or omission causes damage to another, there 

being fault or negligence is obliged to pay for the damage done.

REQUISITES OF QUASI-DELICT ARE:

Act or omission by a person;

Damage caused to another;

Direct relation of cause and effect of the act or omission and the damage; and

No existing contract between the parties.

VICARIOUS LIABILITY –    is also referred to as imputed negligence of other for whom one is responsible on the theory that they are under his control and supervision.

DOCTRINE OF VICARIOUS LIABILITY ceases when the person concerned proves that he observed the diligence of a good father of a family to prevent damage.

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EFCC accuses Obiano of evading court process

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has accused a former governor of Anambra State, Willie Obiano, of evading the service of court process. The counsel for the commission, Sylvanus Tahir, disclosed this to the court on Thursday during proceedings. On January 24, the EFCC arraigned the former governor on nine charges bordering on alleged money laundering to the tune of N4bn. In the charges, the EFCC accused Obiano of diverting Anambra State’s security votes to the tune of N4,008,573,350 while he was governor between 2014 and 2022. The counsel for the prosecution said efforts to serve the defendant’s reply to his motion have been futile. He said, “In compliance with the order of the court made on Monday, we filed a counter affidavit to oppose the bid by Obiano to challenge the territorial jurisdiction of the court to prosecute him but our efforts have been to no avail.” Tahir said his team was on Wednesday at the Chamber of Obaino’s counsel, Onyechi Ikpeazu (SAN) but that the gate to the office was locked. He said he phoned two of the defendant’s lawyers but he was told they were at a Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal. He said as a result, he was only able to serve the counter affidavit on the defendant inside the courtroom on Thursday. He asked the court to proceed to hear the motion of the former governor challenging the territorial jurisdiction of the court along with the counter affidavit. However, Patrick Ikweto (SAN), who represented Obiano at Thursday’s proceedings told the court he was served the counter affidavit in the courtroom. He pleaded for an adjournment to enable him to respond to the EFCC’s counter affidavit. Justice Inyang Ekwo subsequently adjourned the matter till March 13 for a hearing of Obiano’s motion. However, in the motion on notice by the former governor’s counsel, Onyechi Ikpeazu (SAN) dated March 3, he informed the court of an appeal by the Anambra State Government challenging the EFCC’s authority to investigate the funds. Ikpeazu said, “The subject matter of the charge bothers on accountability for security votes funds;The honourable court lacks the requisite jurisdiction to entertain issues on accountability for security votes funds; “There is an appeal filed by the Anambra State Government challenging the powers of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to investigate the security vote of the Anambra State Government “The preferment of the entire charge is in bad faith.” Ikepazu stated that there was no testimony from any witness indicating that he issued directives for the disbursement of security votes and other funds belonging to the Anambra state government He said, “No evidence exists from any witness showing that Defendant/Applicant passed down directives on the disbursements of security votes and other funds belonging to Anambra State Government, “The defendant/applicant cannot be made answerable for any purported unlawful actions of officials of Anambra State Government, as there is no vicarious liability in our criminal jurisprudence; “The thinking and conclusion of the prosecution on the counts arose from speculation and suspicion. “This honourable court has inherent judicial powers to grant all the reliefs sought above.” Read the full article

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a sENSIBLE cOPYRIGHT dECISION in Sony Music v Cox Communications

“We affirm the jury’s finding of willful contributory infringement,” said a unanimous decision by a three-judge panel at the US Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit. “But we reverse the vicarious liability verdict and remand for a new trial on damages because Cox did not profit from its subscribers’ acts of infringement, a legal prerequisite for vicarious…