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mtgbracket · 4 years ago

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Tiebreaker - Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest vs Polukranos, Unchained

Hi folks! Yesterday, these two cards both got 177 votes in Batch 2.3, leading to a tie. I don’t vote in the polls so that I can be the tiebreaking vote when it’s needed. So here I am doing that.

I am going to be using the same format as I did for the ties in the original Magic Bracket - see this old post for an example. Essentially I will provide a written analysis on each card over five categories, and then finish with scores. If the scores also tie then my personal favourite gets the nod. The categories are:

- Quality of design, scored out of 10 - Power level, scored out of 5 (overpowered cards will score lower) - Flavour, scored out of 5 - Art, scored out of 5 (combined across multiple arts if there are any) - Place in Magic history, scored out of 5

Let’s get stuck in.

Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest

Design

Fittingly for a death priest, Mazirek cares about death - specifically, he’s one of the relatively few cards that care about sacrificing. While we’re more used to seeing this on black-red cards in recent years, Mazirek was printed in Commander 2015 and the sacrifice-matters element is perfectly at home in black. While it doesn’t feel green, the reward you get - +1/+1 counters on all your creatures - certainly does, and Mazirek has a solidly black-green feel as a result. And by both caring about death and growth/life, he also feels specifically Golgari - which matters as the Kraul are a Golgari insect group. Sacrifice-matters probably does play better in black-red (where red’s ability to sacrifice its own stuff lines up nicely), but it’s not massively out of place here.

Having flying (which makes sense for an Insect) but a measly 2/2 body for 5 also guides the player to imagining growing him into a massive threat through adding lots of sacrifice effects. The design is also kept light by not having Mazirek provide any inherent way of sacrificing things or making sacrifices happen - the player has to provide their own. This is pretty common for these kinds of designs, but is good because it means the rewards can be a bit juicier, as the player has to provide a sacrifice payoff, an enabler, and likely some fodder - although making your opponent sacrifice things also works!

One ding against the sacrifice trigger is that it does require players to handle a small bit of rules knowledge - specifically, identifying the “sacrifice” keyword action and understand which things are and aren’t sacrifices. And effects that make temporary tokens are annoyingly inconsistent about whether the tokens are exiled or sacrificed, which sets up a bit of a reading debt.

Power level

Fittingly for a card from a Commander precon, Mazirek is pretty potent. He can grow your team quite substantially with a few triggers, even if he doesn’t provide you an in-built way of getting them, and promises unbounded payoff. Combined with a sacrifice outlet and something with Persist can even make infinite combos, which is pretty compelling as a power option. Mazirek is technically legal in Eternal formats, but isn’t up to grade there - but that’s not a mark down on him as few cards are.

Mazirek ranks #278 on EDHREC, as the Commander of 424 decks, and as a card appears in 4% of decks on the platform. This indicates a potent and popular Commander card.

Flavour

Mazirek, as mentioned above, is the leader of the Kraul, the Golgari insect race. His card name certainly conjures up a lot of what’s going on with him - “Death Priest” is quite a title, and gets across both the death-focused aspect of the Golgari as well as the Kraul’s society - Mazirek was the leader of the Kraul race until his death in the War of the Spark storyline. His name is also fun to say - and feels quite insectile. It’s a shame that the “priest” title, which feels more like a Cleric, is not matched with his typeline, where he is a Shaman. There are plenty of green and even black-green Clerics, so this does feel like a minor ding.

Mazirek’s flavour text reinforces the “insect” thing nicely, with talks of clicks and buzz, and the very Metal “incarnation of decay”. Overall the picture of a rotten, death-feeding entity is well sold. Being empowered by death is a flavourful concept, but “sacrificing” specifically is hard to convey as a flavourful concept - it’s a bit too mechanical.

Art

Mathias Kollros’s piece revels in the black-green colour palette we’d expect from a Golgari legend, and shows the central figure suggestively in dark greens and yellow highlights, but with the details hidden by strong green-white backlighting. The posing emphasises the many additional limbs that Mazirek has over a humanoid figure, with his wings and extra legs, as well as his elevated position. Some drippy, slimy looking moss decorates his podium and the darker edges of the piece give us the sense that we’re in the Kraul’s tunnels. After adjusting to the main image we also see the eggs at the edges of the image, adding to the insect / creepy vibe for an overall very effective piece.

Note that the colour palette appears to have been significantly darkened from the original printing for the later Double Masters version for no clear reason. I think the original printing is the superior.

Place in Magic history

Other than a supporting role in the Ravnica / War of the Spark storyline, Mazirek doesn’t have much to write home about here - no particularly unique or interesting things about him.

Polukranos, Unchained

Design

From this year’s Theros: Beyond Death, we have the zombified version of Polukranos. Originally gaining infamy as Polukranos, World Eater, this hydra is now presented in a black-tinged version - our second black-green card. He starts out with square stats as a very undercosted-seeming 4-mana 6/6, before later promising to escape as a 6-mana 12/12. The “permanent damage” drawback here is something originally seen on Judgment’s Phantom creatures, which only ever lost one counter per instance of damage; the counters-per-damage version was premiered on M11′s Protean Hydra as a “heads” metaphor, and was also seen on Ugin’s Conjurant. Conjurant and Polukranos share an important improvement - they only apply the replacement effect while they actually have a +1/+1 counter, which stops them becoming invincible if you raise their toughness some other way.

As well as being a big reservoir of power and toughness, this newer version of Polukranos connects mechanically to the original by including a fight ability - and a very rare repeatable one at that. This opens up some interesting options whereby if Polukranos has shrunk too much, you can fight him off in order to have him die and then be able to escape and reset him with his final Escape ability. Polukranos has the highest card-cost for any Escape card, needing six other cards to come back - justified by his massive size upgrade when you do so.

The design overall hits some of the right notes for the established Polukranos power set - beefy and activated-ability-fighting - while adding some interesting play patterns with the Escape mechanic. It doesn’t do a great job of feeling green-black to me instead of just green however - monogreen has Escape cards and that’s all that black is really bringing to this package other than a generic multicolour power injection and the Zombie creature type. And the design is very busy, with a lot of text and moving parts that is a bit confusing to play.

Power level

While being a Limited powerhouse, Polukranos hasn’t managed to get anywhere in general constructed thanks to competing for resources with the far superior Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath, which is commonly played with black.

In Commander, EDHREC shows Polukranos, Unchained at rank #494 as a Commander of 170 decks, and appearing in 3% of decks. The combo with Vigor is particularly nice - you can choose to apply Vigor’s replacement effect instead of Polukranos’s own one and have him grow every time he fights instead of shrinking!

Flavour

The name is straightforward enough - and connects with the art - but not inspired. The lengthy rules text doesn’t even leave room for Escape reminder text, let alone flavour text. The character of Polukranos is of a dangerous monster that Elspeth had to defeat in the original Theros storyline as the champion of Heliod, but the new version is just “that same guy from before, only he escaped from the Underworld”.

Art

Chris Rahn is one of Magic’s most notable current artists, with a great ability to render detailed fantasy images with beautiful details. The purple-and-grayish hues of the underworld are used here to show the location, and nicely we see the upper purple head of Polukranos blending with the beautiful night sky.

And those purple heads are shown coming from the same root - I believe they are actually regrowing at the time of the art! There are a lot of nice visual indicators of this - a pinkish glow showing where the stump was, the purplish colour of the two new heads, and the fact that those are a little smaller than the other four. The new heads both have collars on so I imagine these are magical collars designed for a hydra - but the art also shows that the chains weren’t strong enough, as the name tells us. A close look shows a loose chain breaking a statue in the foreground - and the other foreground figures help sell the size of the monstrous creature in front of us. The overall mood is “Oh s***, the monster has got loose!”.

Place in Magic history

We have a minor storyline character here and the card has no particular resonance or important part to play, so not looking at a whole lot here.

Final verdict

Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest

Design - 7/10 Power level - 4/5 Flavour - 3/5 Art - 5/5 Place in Magic history - 2/5 TOTAL - 21/30

Polukranos, Unchained

Design - 6/10 Power level - 3/5 Flavour - 2/5 Art - 4/5 Place in Magic history - 2/5 TOTAL - 17/30

Good luck to Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest in Round 3!

#mtg #magic the gathering #mtgbracket #tournamentofchampions #magic bracket tiebreaker

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amycuscarrcw · 4 years ago

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╰ °✧ that’s AMYCUS CARROW and HE seems to look a lot like JASON RALPH. according to ministry files, the PUREBLOOD used to attend HOGWARTS and be in SLYTHERIN. now, they’re 25 and is an UNSPEAKABLE. A childlike rage and a childlike loneliness, the hushed quiet of hospital wards, a fine line between madness and genius, the sickly sweet smell of rot , a slowly unravelling thread, the endless ticking of a clock, are the best way to describe them. it doesn’t say in their file, but word around the street is that they’re a DEATH EATER. @mmprophet

introduction.

basics.

NAME: Amycus Cyrus Carrow AGE: 25 BIRTHDAY: January 13th. (Capricorn.) PRONOUNS: he/his BLOOD STATUS: Pureblood. CAREER: Unspeakable. Employed by the Department of Mysteries, on the surface Amycus largely concerns himself with the studies of Thought, Space and Time. Considering the black mark on his schooling records and unsociable demeanour, it’s almost a miracle that the Ministry had ever hired him - in this matter it’s highly likely that strings were pulled to ease his way in and nobody really knows what they do down there in the Department of Mysteries. Most of the ministry employees are just grateful they don’t have to encounter him very often. EDUCATION: Hogwarts WAND: Pine, 11 3/4″, Dragon Heartstring. PATRONUS: Amycus cannot, and is unlikely to ever, form a corporeal patronus. If he could it would be a Raven. Frequently associated with loss and ill omens, Ravens surface throughout many mythologies spreading prophecy and insight, carrying the messages of gods. There’s a mysterious quality to the raven, they can be charismatic when they require something of you and excellent at hiding themselves when they don’t want to be seen. Greedy and vain. Curious and yearning for freedom. They are observers who only step into the light when it is to their advantage. BOGGART: It’s the smell that comes first — damp earth, rotting leaves, the slimy new growth of those old woods, milky earthworms writing through freshly turned soil. It’s thick and cloying, suffocating in the dark. Then the weight of it, soft at first, spilling across his skin. Each shovel full growing heavier and heavier as he sinks in, deeper and deeper into the earth, in amidst the roots of the trees that gleam white like bone. It’s hard to see in the dark but he knows who it is who holds the shovel, who takes his time to slowly fill the grave that Amycus’s own clawing fingers can’t seem to catch a grip on, to climb out of. His father still cuts the imposing figure he had when Amycus was just a child. This is what happens to blood traitors. Even after all this time, their father’s shadow looms large over him. more ABOUT.

summary.

+ The Carrows were sickly children, forever in and out of St. Mungo’s with some mysterious illness or the other for most of their childhood. Whilst their father had seemed largely indifferent to their suffering, their mother had been utterly enamoured with it (too enamoured, some might think.) Attention had always been scarce for Peony after her marriage, one almost couldn’t blame her for enjoying the sympathy that her poorly children brought to her. (Though they couldn’t certainly blame her for the poison she slipped into their cups.) + The twins were mismatching bookends; Alecto overflowing with every kind of feeling and Amycus devoid of any of it, but they were all the company each other had growing up. They relied on each other, in their own way, an understanding born through a tumultuous childhood. + They were expelled from Hogwarts in a scandalous fashion in their Sixth year after a long string of unproven accidents culminated in the pair being caught red-handed (literally) in one of their games. Their wands were broken, they were expelled, and it cost a great deal of social capital on the family name to get the decision overturned and to allow them to be packed off to Durmstrang for the rest of their education. + Amycus had loathed Durmstrang. Sometimes he thinks he can still feel the cold of that place in his bones. Never mistaken as an overly sociable person, his isolation there had only served to further entrench him in his sour dislike of social situations.

+ He now works in the Department of Mysteries and when spotted out and about he frequently seems distracted and out of sorts. + There are very few people in the world that Amycus will willingly spend time with, which is why it had been so odd when he’d gone and picked up a friend, seemingly out of nowhere. One day he had been her brother, the person he’d always been, and the next he had been her brother - someone who befriended women named Lucy in the breakroom. Alecto had been deeply suspicious of the woman who wanted to be her brother’s ‘friend’ from the get-go, intent on discovering the agenda behind it, a suspicion that had only grown further the more that Amycus grew attached. When his friend had abruptly disappeared, in the manner that a great many people were disappearing these days, only to be found dead some weeks later and half her family with her, it had seemed a little too coincidental for Amycus to believe that Alecto had nothing to do with it. He hasn’t confirmed his suspicions, but there’s definitely an edge to his interactions with his sister lately.

personality traits.

+ Intelligent - Amycus has always lived in a world of his own. What he lacks in emotional awareness and a distinct inability to decipher what other people want or expect from him, he has always equalled in cleverness. He absorbs information like a sponge and retains it with an almost eerie degree of accuracy. Books were his solace growing up and he seems to always have one on hand. + Innovative - An adaptive thinker with a particular talent for problem solving, Amycus’s booksmarts transfer into practical application. He is good at coming up with new ways of applying what he has learnt and adapting his knowledge to fit the situation. + Focused - There is a laser precision to Amycus’s focus when he becomes interested in something. Dissuading him from a task once he has set his mind to it is nigh on impossible, to the point where most people who have come to know him understand that it is better to just let him get on with it. + Meticulous - A perfectionist at heart, Amycus is fastidious when it comes to attention to detail. He is clinical in his approach to life, sharp and incisive and never willing to let the smallest of details go. + Composed - For such an agitated mind, filled with nervous tics and idiosyncrasies, Amycus has a rarely disturbed composure. While the world rages around him he remains calm and measured. It had once been his greatest asset, the ability to remain steady in his path when the rest of the world unhinged itself, but these days his composure seems to fail him more and more often and in a world that requires restraint, he wonders where his own continues to disappear to. - Shy - Amycus always struggled with socialisation. He tries, of course, with the same uneasy yearning he’s never been able to shake that demands people acknowledge his gifts, but he has always been odd, unsettling to the people around him. He might blame it on his mother, for his isolated childhood, or his sister who he had learned quickly would not be an easy companion, or his father’s cowering temper, or perhaps on his peers at Hogwarts and later Durmstrang who had been unnerved by him and his strange mannerisms, but the truth of it all is that there is no one to blame except for himself. Amycus does not socialise well and has learned, by and large, to keep to himself to avoid the censure that often follows his attempts to reach out to others. - Impressionable - People have always been fond of considering him weak-willed, but Amycus has simply always been easily influenced. He’d wondered once if it was the apathy that fills him that makes it so, that he simply didn’t feel enough to be decisive, but Lucy had disproven that theory. She had filled his head with thoughts that were so entirely incompatible with the Death Eater agenda that he sometimes still hears echoes of them, ghosts of a person he might have been if she’d survived to make it so. Luckily he’s always had his sister to give him a solid shove back into line when his thoughts veer into dangerous territory. - Apathetic - He has always wondered if perhaps there is simply something wrong with him, in the pathways of his brain or in it’s chemistry. Over the years he has observed the highest highs and lowest lows of emotion, he has seen it in his fellow Death Eaters and his peers at school, in his own family, and yet he feels so rarely that sometimes he wonders if he might be imagining it. At least, that was the case before Lucy - he still can’t comprehend the ruin she’d wrought on his emotional landscape but he does know it’s infinitely more unstable than it had once been. He refuses to acknowledge the feelings she’d made him aware of, or the way in which the heartbreak she’d introduced into his life by rejection and then her death had tipped him over the edge, but he clings to the old comfort of apathy like pretending might just return him back to what he’d been before she’d come into his life. - Ruthless - Capable of monstrous things if they are put into his path or demanded of him, Amycus is largely a passive creature. He has never had a problem with what society considers distasteful or abhorrent and has little in the way of self-restraint to keep him from simply slicing through the obstacles that present themselves in his path. He struggles with the idleness of life after the war was won, of the return of rigid social norms and the pressures of living up to pureblood societal rules. - Explosive - The rarely sighted and often questioned presence of Amycus Carrow’s temper is something that people don’t give much consideration. He has always been considered a cold person, apathetic and even, not given to strong emotions, if any at all. But every so often if the motivation is presented Amycus’s detachment gives way to something else entirely: blinding and overwhelming and violent, his temper has been known to explode with ugly consequences. It happened once at school and the repercussions were something that have stained their family name and reputation to this day. It is fortunate, perhaps, that the Carrows have never cared much for an untainted image.

bio.

(trigger warning: inexplicit mentions of abuse, violence, death.)

Amycus Carrow had been born with the taste of decay in his mouth.

His family tree rotted long before his birth, a once grand family besieged by the gossip of their peers and the ever-mounting debt that crept in like the shadow of the old woods that had overrun their family estate. It swas no surprise that he had turned out so twisted and wrong, given his circumstances. Amycus was a symptom of a much greater disease.

Weaned on poison instead of mother’s milk, shepherded in and out of hospital wings since his infancy, it was easy to believe such a bony little creature would not last the harsh winters of the moors, but survive he did. Amycus was clever, or so they’d soon learn, behind his solemn, eerie stares and an unceasing discomfort within his own skin lay a mind riddled with black holes and infinite constellations. His father’s library was his most trusted companion inside the walls of their quiet home, tucked into corners where his sister’s rages couldn’t rattle him with only books and the contents of his own journals to entertain him.

From those books he discovered the threat the Muggle and their more insidious cousin, the Mudblood, presented to wizarding kind; he learned of the sanctity of the blood that flowed through his veins and how to recognise the taste of Belladonna and Angel’s Trumpet and Baneberry on his tongue disguised by his morning pumpkin juice. (‘You must drink every last drop, my darlings.’) The Carrow home was full of secrets, but the woods at their door buried the darkest.

People didn’t like him very much - he’d been an offputting child and at Hogwarts that proved doubly so. Away from his mother’s care he grew stronger and taller but no less odd, no less curious. They didn’t like the way his speech stumbled and faltered and how frustrated his inability to communicate with others made him, they didn’t like the steady, unblinking malevolence in his stare. It bothered him: his teacher’s wariness and his peers mockery, their inability to see the multitude of worlds trapped in his head.

But he was clever and his experiments (suggestions whispered into his ear from his wrathful sister) never left tangible evidence behind. The girl who fell down the stairs of the Astronomy tower, or the boy whose skin had bubbled and burned for days after he’d dropped the wrong potions ingredient into his cauldron. He never meant to get caught; after hours in the midst of a snowstorm the feeling had blindsided him and her blood had been so vivid against the snow — as it turned out, she would be one more stain upon their family name.

There was no evidence it hadn’t been an accident, his parents had insisted, but Dumbledore had not agreed. The board of governors had been called, but not even an old name like Carrow could budge that decision.

The day that Amycus and Alecto were expelled from Hogwarts, the broken halves of his wand clutched in his hand and his father’s fingers digging into the bones of his shoulder, was the day that Amycus understood just how deep the threat of muggleborns and their sympathisers ran. An appeal had given him a new wand and a new school, but even cold and remote Durmstrang could not smother the burning grudge that had arisen within him.

What Dumbledore stole from him, the Dark Lord would return three-fold in the years to come. Amycus would allow himself to be branded just like his father, a mark of his allegiance, in exchange for opportunity, for the influence to get him inside the door of the Department of Mysteries, and in those mysteries he has found purpose. Oversight is unheard of behind that door: there is nobody to dissuade his interests or curb his tastes and so long as he is careful - well, it’s almost as if you could get away with murder down there.

#mm.intro #still under construction because i can't help myself but #abuse tw #violence tw

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amplesalty · 3 years ago

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Halloween 2021 - Day 1 - Us (2019)

‘tis Halloween season once again!

It’s October, it’s Tumblr dot com and that can mean only one thing; another boat load of horror adjacent movies and possibly the odd TV show thrown in for good measure. And hey, we might have skipped out on the Stand finale and I didn’t do Halloween 1978 as I planned but I had a fair few entries last year. Christmas...not so much. Some of these years really seem to blend together because I thought for sure I had watched Get Out last year but, no, apparently it was 2019. Relevant because for this opening day I’m looking at Jordan Peele’s directorial follow up; 2019’s Us. Maybe next year I’ll watch 2021’s Candyman that he, whilst not directing, was involved in writing and producing. I love how certain sections of the internet immediately flipped their lids over that and were like “He’s going to make it political and about race. Stop bringing politics into movies!”. Ah yes, unlike the original Candyman which we of course know did not involve race in any way, shape or form.

This movies broader points about class structures and wealth ineaquality can easily be applied to all of society but it’s perhaps no coincidence that the protagonists are an African American family. Whilst the racial themes are quite as strong as in Get Out, it’s still evident to see the difference in opulence between the Wilson’s and their more wealthy white friends.

There’s a moment in particular when the Wilson’s are at their friends house and you get this shot of their two boats side by side. Their dirty speed boat that constantly veers to the left and with an engine that cuts out all the time is dwarved by the SS BYACTCH. It’s not something that’s dwelled on or talked up but I think it’s a nice little piece of visual universe building. And for that talk of wealth inequality, you can’t complain too much if you’ve got yourselves a summer house and a speed boat, no matter how shabby it is.

That boat does lend some measure of humour to the film that kinda threw me off guard given how tense the second quarter of the movie gets. There’s something really funny about this vicious killer stopped dead in their tracks when the boat cuts out, having to resort to the old bloke trick of ‘Technology doesn’t work? Smack it with your fist!’ It worked for the Fonz. I feel that’s something we’ve really lost in this modern age of techonological advancement, you can’t get any good surface area to give the telly a smack these days with all these LCD’s and OLED’s. You could really bring the smackdown on those old CRT’s.

That whole vicious killer thing is also something of a departure from Get Out which was more of a psychological trip. They both share these creepy elements but there’s something more immediate and visceral here when you have this family being stalked by these shadowy figures in the middle of the night before they start being set upon and this whole home invasion plays out.

Actually, the start of that scene is a bit of a mix between the creepiness and terror when they just see this family holding hands in their driveway in the middle of the night. I know I’ve probably touched on this before but you know where you stand when Michael Myers or Jason Vorhees are marching towards you with their bloody knives drawn. What the hell do you do though when there’s just bunch of people on your property at 2am, unmoving and smiling politely?

Not that they have polite intentions, when we find that these are the dopplegangers of this family referred to as ‘The Tethered’. Sort of like corrupted, shadow versions of their normal counterparts who have gone through near enough the same exact experiences but in a more twisted way. The normal person might eat a warm, delicious meal but the shadow consumes only raw, bloody rabbit meat. The normal person might meet someone, fall in love and get married but the shadow is compelled to meet with their partner based on the actions of their double. The normal family might give birth to beautiful, healthy children but the shadows are blessed only with wicked, sadistic offspring. And, again, it’s hard not to draw parallels when you have a black character talking about living this less privileged life in the shadow of the more well off.

It becomes infinitely more terrifying when you come to realise that this isn’t just isolated to the Wilsons, their friends have also been visited and killed off by their own evil selves. It’s like, even if you outrun your own shadows, it seems like there’s nowhere to run with the news showing shaky footage of similar red clothed people committing seemingly random attacks.

Small point on the other family but, between this and thinking back to her role in The Invisible Man remake, Elisabeth Moss just kinda ‘gets’ that whole facial expression thing. Whether it was the paranoia and fear of Invisible Man or the maniacal expressions of her evil version here, she does a really great job of selling it. Again, it’s only a small role in the grand scheme of the whole movie it’s pretty chilling to have her preening herself in the mirror to the sound of classical music. And then the Wilsons arrive to bludgeon everyone to death to the sound of ‘Fuck the Police’ by N.W.A so, you know, contrast...

I feel like parts of the finale are a little tacked on, like the whole story behind where the Tethered came from just feels a little thrown together, that they’re these clones that were designed by the government in order to control their counterparts on the surface. It’s just sort of left at that and not explained any further.

The setting is certainly very eerie though, a lot of strange imagery going when Addy ends up going through the underground complex with it’s singular escalator that is lit up like a Christmas tree, or the long, white corridors littered with rabbits. I’m not sure what the metaphor is behind the rabbits, other than her following one into the complex which is maybe a nod to Alice in Wonderland or the general idea of ‘going down a rabbit hole’.

Bit of a nod to A Nightmare on Elm Street too as she makes her way through a boilerroom.

The whole Hands Across America thing I’m a little confused on too, it’s something that’s focused on near the end that it’s something the Tethered have almost idolised with this one item they have referencing it. Quite why they’re replicating it though, maybe it’s symbolic of how the Tethered have all joined together in this one cause. Or, as the Evil Addy says she wanted to make a statement, maybe this was her way of doing that in a similar way to how Hands Across America was so widely covered in its time. It kinda goes along with the idea of the Tethered being this mirror image, them doing it now is like an inverse of the original idea of it promoting charity and helping the less fortunate. Now those truly less fortunate are using it to their own ends.

And that ties in to the coolest part of the movie, this general idea of symmetry. It’s something that’s touched upon near the start with the idea of symmetry and coincidences brought up, like when one of the kids points out the clock reads 11:11 which had up to this point popped up on a few signs referencing a bible verse. It affected me a little bit in a similar way to Invisible Man where I started to really look for things in the movie that were maybe going on in the background that were meant to be subtle hints. But as the movie wore on, I started to realise it was itself playing out in this mirrored way; like how it starts out at this fun fair at night but ends at the fun fair in day time. Or how the normal version of one of the kids is encouraged to snap along with some music at the start of the film, then near the end his evil version is snapping along too, only he’s mimicking a lighter since he’s a bit of a pyromaniac. That song incidentally being ‘I Got Five on it’ which is used near the start and then again near the end, only that time it’s an eerie orchestral remix that soundtracks the fight between the two Addy’s.

Which is a really neat fight scene as well, you’re used to these slasher type villains just overpowering their victims or brutally stabbing them but the evil Addy uses her dance background to gracefully dodge Addy’s attempts to attack her. It’s like a bizarre dance routine between the two of them, brings a whole new meaning to fight choreography.

Oh, and that ending too, that’s a whole different level of confusion too. Not in terms of what happens, more just the way it makes you feel. I saw it coming that the two Addy’s were switched in the incident that took place when she was a kid but it plays with your idea of a happy ending. Like, this whole time you were rooting for the ‘good’ Addy to overcome the evil version that had come to kill her and her family, but then you find out that she was the evil one all along. It’s not quite on that level of gut puncher as The Mist but still a neat twist.

But yeah, really cool movie on the whole. Aside from Candyman, I’ll also be looking forward to Peele’s next movie which is apparently slated for next year and will feature Daniel Kaluuya again.

#Halloween 2021 #Us #Jordan Peele

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mayacatmaster · 6 years ago

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Intelligence is thought without resistance. ~Abraham

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We make the rules and we should make them work for us, not the other way round. 我们制定规则，我们应该让他们为我们工作，而不是反过来。 *** *** ***

Let your format produce the desire, and once the desire is there, then lie on your bed and ask that the energy come forth. And as you release your limitations of your disbelief about it, then it will be your experience. -Abraham Hicks *** *** *** You must accept the idea completely, however, that your beliefs form your experience. Discard those beliefs that are not bringing you those effects you want. - Seth The Nature of Personal Reality: *** *** ***

According to alignment with “Source”(True Self; Tao) and as an alignment-deliberate-creator….:

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Mirror the most simplest “Cosmic Principle”(Tao; Source; Ma at; Brahma) in every area ….:

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Rethink

Re-evaluate, redo and organize your mind, thinking patterns and your higher truths.

With Mercury retrograde we get the opportunity to slow down and gain

more clarity an recharge our thoughts through clearing away unresolved

issues and processes. ~LAW OF POSITIVISM

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According to alignment with “Source”(True Self; Tao) and as an alignment-deliberate-creator….:

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Mirror the most simplest “Cosmic Principle”(Tao; Source; Ma at; Brahma) in every area ….:

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Awareness:

Of your inner and outer world, being conscious through the understanding

that as above, so below.

When you are aware how you are affecting and being affected through each thought and vibration, you understand the power of intentions and awareness.

~LAW OF POSITIVISM

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Less pointless convos More comfortable silences *** *** *** Clutter is not just physical stuff. It's old a ideas, toxic relationships and bad habits. Clutter is anything that does not support your better self. -Eleanor Brown: minimalist *** *** *** According to alignment with your Source and as an alignment-deliberate-creator. *** *** *** Detox your timeline, your page, your home, your refrigerator, under your counters, your closet, your ride, your phone, your life, and your mind. - Lalah Delia *** *** *** Declutter those doesn't matter for your life. … and Focus on what you really want. Can save a lot of energy, time, money… and help you Constantly amplifying what you Focus on and concentrating your energy …: *** *** *** Good or evil, who decides?; By "Source"(True Self; Tao; Logos: Ma at; Brahman) or Seek "their"(government; parents; guru; husband; teacher; morality; religion) approval. *** *** *** The spirit of the individual is determined by his domination thought habits. ~Bruce Lee Kushandwizoom *** *** *** We make the rules and we should make them work for us, not the other way round. 我们制定规则，我们应该让他们为我们工作，而不是反过来。 *** *** *** The eyes are useless, when the heart is blind. *** *** *** And since your whole mindset-program control your whole life itself. *** *** *** An unquestioned mind is the world of suffering. -Byron Katie *** *** *** . . . there are no short cuts to knowledge, to wisdom, to understanding – these must be lived, must be experienced by each and every soul.#EdgarCayce reading 830-2 *** *** *** 語言文字不教導，只有知識是不夠的，騾子背了一大堆的書，走了很長的路，不知道那些書對他有何幫助，鸚鵡重複別人的話，不知那些怎麼應用那些話獲得生命美好結果 Language does not teach, only knowledge is not enough, the Mule took a lot of books, went a long way, do not know what those books help him, parrot repeat others words, do not know how to apply those words to get good results in life *** *** *** 擁有學校最高學位的博士，往往在現實生活嚐到敗果， A doctor with the highest degree in the school, often in real life to taste the fruit of defeat， *** *** *** 學校男生只讀書，不學習生活本身， school boys only study books, don't study life itself, *** *** *** 往往理��與生命實務脫節， Theory is often out of touch with life itself， *** *** *** 現實生活往往處處窒礙難行 Real life tends to be difficult. *** *** *** No matter of it’s white cat or black cat … which can catch mouse is good cat. *** *** *** The value and importance of drugs comes from being able to heal one’s mind-body-heart-soul return alignment with Source-like-health-wealth-well Being. *** *** *** And same…: The value and importance of methods comes from being able to can help one’s mind-body-heart-soul return alignment with Source-like-joy-light-peace-health-wealth-well Being. *** *** *** When shoes fit, forget foot; when girdle fit, forget waist: when methods fit, forget minds; that shows the "Suitability"(alignment with "Source) of the heart (for the question). ~Zhuangzi *** *** *** No matter it’s in a world, a country, a home, a mind-body. *** *** *** “Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.” —Pema Chodron *** *** ***

TRUE Wisdom Comes To Each Of Us When We Realize How Little We Understand About Life, Ourselves And The World Around Us: - Socrates *** *** *** Man moves in a world that is nothing more or less than his consciousness objectified. - Neville Goddard *** *** *** Whatever you believe about yourself on the inside is what you will manifest on the outside. *** *** *** You are as you believe yourself to be. ~NISARGADATTA MAHARAJ *** *** *** From Non-Physical You began envisioning a place like this planet. And now you are living that dream that you have imagined. -Abraham - *** *** *** When you see something you are not that. You see the body therefore you are not that. You see the mind, this thought flow, therefore you are not that. Like that eliminate what you are not and just be what you are. ~Nisargadatta Maharaj *** *** *** You are. That is most important. Concentrate on the Seer, not on the seen. All that you see is false and the Seer alone is true. ~Sri Ramana Maharshi *** *** *** LET WHAT COMES COME. LET WHAT GOES. Why do you worry? ~Sri Ramana Maharshi *** *** *** Watch the mind. You must stand aloof from it. You are not the mind. ~Sri Ramana Maharshi *** *** *** Human evolution has two steps. From being somebody to being “nobody”(No-mind; wholeness). From being nobody to being “everybody”(Source-like-function-working in every area). -Sri Sri Ravi Shankar- *** *** *** AS ABOVE, SO BELOW AS WITHIN, SO WITHOUT HAS THE UNIVERSE, SO THE SOUL AS THE INFINITE, SO THE INFINITESIMAL *** *** *** When you understand that everything is frequency, the universe becomes a symphony. *** *** *** The visible world is the invisible organization of energy. ~Heinz Pagels *** *** *** My body and the universe come from the same “Source”(Tao; Ma at), obey the same rhythms, flash with the same storms of electromagnetic activity. My body can't afford to argue over who created the universe. Every cell would disappear the second it stopped creating itself. So it must be that the Universe is living and breathing through me. I am an expression of everything in existence. At this moment, you are seamlessly flowing with the cosmos. ~Deepak Chopra *** *** *** He who knows other men is intelligent; he who knows himself is enlightenment. He who overcomes others is strong; he who overcomes himself is alignment-deliberate-creator-mighty. The wise use their heart like mirror. Mirror the most simplest “Cosmic Principle”(Tao; Source; Ma at; Brahma) in every area …: Their mirror-heart reflects the heavens and the Earth. Their mirror-heart reflects everything and as an alignment-deliberate-creator....: *** *** *** Between egoism and "Source"(Tao; True Self); Between man-made-rules and "Source"(Tao; True Self); Between desires and "Source"(Tao; True Self); Between your-origin-face and "Source"(Tao; True Self); *** *** *** Between your heart, my heart and another heart; *** No matter what... You learn more about someone at the end of a relationship than at the end beginning of it. *** *** *** Life is "Tao"(True Self；Brahman) back to itself. I observed the sun, moon, stars orbit operation life. *** *** *** Because…: Simplicity Is The Ultimate Sophistication. ~Leonardo Da Vinci *** *** *** And…: "Nature"(Tao；Ma-at；Logos; Source) never did betray the heart that loved her. *** *** *** “Student”(solar): “My Master, what is You are never along or helpless. ...?”; *** *** *** "Master"（Mr. Bean）:“ Well, my dear solar…: You are never along or helpless. It’s mean….: The force that is guiding the whole universe is also in you too! *** *** *** And…: I Have As Much Authority As The Pope I Just Don't Have As Many People Who Believe It. ~George Carlin *** *** *** But who care about it …: You are just …: Follow the force that is guiding the whole universe is in you. Pledge allegiance to your "Source"(God; True Self; Tao; Logos), everything is done! ~Zhouyi cantong qi“ *** *** *** Because…: No matter it’s in a world, a country, a home, a mind-body. *** *** *** “Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.” —Pema Chodron *** *** *** Good or evil, who decides?; By "Source"(True Self; Tao; Logos: Ma at; Brahman) or Seek "their"(government; parents; guru; husband; teacher; morality; religion) approval. *** *** *** The spirit of the individual is determined by his domination thought habits. ~Bruce Lee Kushandwizoom *** *** *** Always listen to your own heart, even if it is against what your family, society, culture of religion is telling you! *** *** *** If you see all the star swirls with the Big-Dipper, Hundreds of millions of years and hundreds of millions of years, No matter it is ancient and modern or east or west. *** *** *** It is through watching the "Cycles" of Nature that we more fully understand the cycles of our own lives. *** *** *** Four things cannot be long hidden; the sun, the moon, the Big-Dipper and the “Truth”(True Self; Tao; Logos; Ma-at; Dharma; Source). *** *** *** Do you know what the dominate reason for anyone who has a worthiness issue is ? They have plenty of negative emotion and they're willing to put up with it. Source is rooting for them, and they are rooting against themselves. ~Abraham *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** Via and thanks “Abraham-Hicks: Inspirational Quotes” *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** Through the modern world may know a million secrets, the ancient world knew "One"(Source; Tao; Ma-at; True Self; Brahma) - and that was greater than the million; for the million secrets breed death, disaster, sorrow, selfishness, lust, and avarice, but the "One"(Source; Tao; Ma-at; True Self; Brahma) secret confers life, light, and truth. ~Manly P. Hall *** *** ***

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melon-kid · 8 years ago

Text

some thoughts

So, I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and it’s surprising to me that nobody ever seems to talk about it. And this is about the nature of argumentation itself, liberal vs conservative ‘ideologies’ in particular here.

I should first mention that the idea behind this reflection is to point out the fact that both sides are driven almost purely by emotion, not by data and hard facts like some people like to believe, and I’ll be talking about why exactly that is and why that’s so important to understand.

The key word in the discussion here is ‘empathy,’ because this is what the issue seems to boil down to - those who have more of it, versus those who have less of it. To break this down, let’s identify some big talking points on both sides.

On the left wing, protection and support for minorities is one of their big issues. On the right wing, we have major concerns about white people being thrown under the bus just because they’re white. Now on either side, their opponent would look totally blind to them and ignorant to the truth, but. . . how can that be? ‘The facts are right here!’ you say. ‘Why are you ignoring these obvious truths?’ So, let’s talk about empathy.

Why are minorities such a hot button issue on the left wing? In a majority of cases, people who support these issues either grew up facing heavy discrimination due to being a minority, intimately knew people who faced discrimination, or simply have the empathy to comprehend these issues.

But hold on! What does that have to do with people on the right wing? They can totally have empathy! And that’s true, that isn’t what’s being argued - however, their level of empathy typically does not extend as far as they think it does.

You see, the left and right wings both hold a sense of injustice when approaching these concerns, but what injustice looks like is completely different to either them. It’s not that a majority of conservative people are incapable of understanding the minority discrimination issue, they simply don’t care, they don’t see it as an issue because they don’t think it affects them and by extension, they don’t think it affects other people.

No matter how logical or sound you make your arguments, you will have a very hard time swaying your opposition - it’s not because they’re stupid, it’s because their arguments have a basis in emotion, not logic. That’s why people are stuck in an infinite loop of confirmation bias, looking only at the data that supports them and willfully dismissing everything else, because they just don’t care about that data.

Let’s take a step back and say you are someone who has little attachment to this heated political climate - someone with virtually no empathy. What’s stopping you from being objective and looking at both sides equally? Nothing! You don’t have emotional involvement in either side. But emotion is extremely blinding and that’s not something that people can easily see within themselves - people will only see what they want to see.

That’s why it is so difficult to sway someone with logic or evidence, because what you ACTUALLY have to do is appeal to their emotion. But because the foundation of their beliefs are so far removed from each other, these people will never see eye to eye - they are empathetic about different things and they see injustice in different things.

Take for example, a hypothetical situation in which you can either make a change that will benefit the livelihood of one population, or a change that will benefit merely the convenience of a separate population. Normally you’d choose the former, right? Now, let’s say we assume that ‘hypothetical situation’ in this scenario refers to the promotion of political correctness: Suddenly, opinions change.

Then, let’s put it this way - in light of this new development, the only reason why you would take the latter side is if you believed that the former has no credence to it. The only reason why you would take the latter side is if you don’t believe that supporting it would actually benefit the livelihood of people, therefore leaving you with the other choice to benefit your convenience.

When you look at the side of conservatives, they absolutely despise political correctness. Because they refuse to see things from the perspective of their opposition, it becomes easy to dismiss them as being ‘too sensitive’ or ‘offended about nothing.’

Another common argument is when people say ‘I’m a woman and I don’t think we need extra help! That’s belittling to all of us!’ or ‘I’m a black man and I don’t think discrimination is really a minority-only issue in the United States!’ The fact that you are a woman or a black man is not an argument, because there are an incredible number of other women and other black men who are just waiting to tell you that you’re wrong.

Much of the basis for these arguments comes from personal anecdotes and exceptions, and they tend to think, ‘so this should apply to everyone!’ But again, these are exceptions, they don’t speak for an average, why would you cite personal experience as evidence for that? But because these anecdotes exist, BECAUSE these exceptions exist, people feel more justified in following others who share these ideologies because in their mind, this is confirmation.

Again, it’s not about the logic, it’s about perspective and your emotional standing - often people think that racism exists on a two way street because they either were not discriminated against (or at least nowhere near the level of others) so they cannot comprehend where the opposition is coming from, or because they failed to identify it as discrimination. Obviously a person who has experienced racism and said that people have been racist to them would not tell you that racism doesn’t exist because of how clearly contradictory that statement is.

It is not that white people cannot ever face discrimination because of their skin color, people are extremely quick to make strawmen out of arguments by twisting their meaning to become literal or to encompass the entire demographic. They don’t understand that when people say ‘privilege’ they are not saying that they can’t experience those problems, they are saying that it has a foundation not only in history but in social and cultural norms that are extremely prevalent even today. They usually they fail to address or accept the underlying reasons behind such discrimination, they fail to see the disproportionate level of oppression that people are facing.

That’s why they can say that they have faced discrimination for being white, and that’s their reasoning for why people can be racist against them - but to say that white people are oppressed in America is an argument that they simply cannot make. The failure to see the difference between discrimination and systematic oppression/racism is what is provoking so much ire here.

So, let’s talk about white people in America. They don’t face many of the issues that minorities face so even if they can see and understand these problems, because it doesn’t affect them, oftentimes they fail to properly empathize. That’s why they think liberals are making such a big deal about issues that are supposed to be relevant to everybody, not just minorities; that’s why they think it’s okay to say racist things or express racist viewpoints without actually thinking of themselves as racist - their definition of racism has literally changed to suit their convenience because they have not been facing the same struggles as other minorities.

Racism does not always mean calling somebody a slur on the street, sometimes it means pushing an agenda that will drive these people into corners. Why would a person who has experienced and identified these issues try to refute its existence? If it is not because of their upbringing, it’s because there is a lack of empathy here - they are more concerned about how it affects them personally, and by extension, the people close to them rather than society as a whole.

While the relation to empathy and a person’s political stance will not always be consistent (e.g. a lower empathy liberal / a higher empathy conservative), there is an observable trend among both sides that reflects their emotional foundation.

A person with a decent amount of empathy does not tell people suffering from oppression ‘Get over it, life is hard.’ A person with a decent amount of empathy does not make fun of mentally ill people and call them or others ‘retarded’ or ‘autistic’ because they think it’s funny or holds some kind of ground in their argument against somebody. They can say it because they just don’t care about how it affects them. They aren’t willing to comprehend the issues those people face, so to them, those issues barely even exist.

In the same vein, that’s where a lot of conservatives get off feeling so ‘logical’ and ‘civil.’ You are not more logical, your emotional investment in your belief is shallow enough that it doesn’t get the better of you. But, it’s all you have to root yourself in so that’s where you pour all of your emotions into anyway.

Why are they being so angry about political correctness? About the plight of the white man while being so quick to dismiss the hardships of minorities? Well, all of that emotion has to go somewhere.

On the flip side, in what world is that comparable to the incarceration after incarceration and the murder after murder of people who are less advantaged than them because of a social norm that they are not only enabling, but encouraging?

Empathy. Their emotional investment lies somewhere else, they don’t care about these problems. Sure, they can make the ‘black friend’ argument all they like, but that is caring about a person individually, not caring about social and political issues that deeply affect them and people like them. Their empathy doesn’t reach that far.

It’s easy for conservatives to paint liberals as violent and overly emotional while painting themselves as civil when the issues that affect them inflict much greater wounds than any amount of ‘political correctness’ that might annoy some conservative. Their emotional investment in their cause, their EMPATHY is being invoked by a long and deadly history of injustice.

It isn’t that white people should always kneel down and give up the things that they have to minorities like some people like to believe. They are asking for respect, to understand the issues they are facing, to support them because they have been disadvantaged by the system that is in place, they are asking them to have the EMPATHY to help them as human beings and relieve them from this system of oppression.

. . . Or at least, that’s the idea - the problem with this is that this kind of tunnel-vision way of thinking goes both ways. Many far end liberals will refuse to respect white people, refuse to respect straight people, refuse to respect cis people - they often think, ‘why should I respect somebody that can’t see this cycle of suffering that we’re facing?’ It’s a terrible trend and a terrible justification to spread hate toward people - the generalizations that they love to make not only don’t apply to a great number of these people, but a lot of these people are trying to support their movement and yet suffer insult after insult in doing so.

There are other ways to vent your anger, you are literally not helping anybody by doing this: You are chasing away potential supporters and creating new enemies because you refuse to step down from your moral high-horse and you refuse to think objectively.

Conservatives are not wrong when they say that liberals tell them ‘white people should sit down and shut up’ or ‘white people can’t do this’ or ‘white people don’t experience this that and the other thing.’ So, many of these white conservatives are prone to think, ‘why should I respect somebody that doesn’t respect me?’ A good number of people who are minorities will feel inclined to agree, ESPECIALLY when liberals act in such an elitist and militant manner.

The thing about having less empathy is that you have more room to be open to other experiences and adopt new perspectives because your emotional involvement isn’t so deeply rooted in one place, you have more room to objectively look into both sides of an argument. As a result, there are conservatives (often youths) who actually wind up as liberals over time - you almost never hear about this happening the other way around, why?

Empathy. Because of their naturally higher level of empathy (on only one side of the argument, mind you), the first root that they take hold with and invest in effectively becomes an immovable object. It becomes virtually impossible to convince them of anything they don’t already believe in; whatever method you try to use, their emotional grounding in their belief is so ingrained that anything going against them feels like a personal attack and an attack against the good of society, all matter of opposing logic be damned. Herein lies the danger of prioritizing empathy over reason.

When you are in this position, you legitimately start to believe that your viewpoints should be the basis of all moral standards. It becomes ‘obvious’ to you which things are right and which things are wrong - essentially, you totally lose the ability to see things from more than one perspective (aka critical thinking) and it instills a dangerous level of confidence in everything you think and say because everything you think and say is absolute in your mind.

No, you aren’t somehow enlightened with the ultimate moral code that should be followed by everyone. You are a confirmation-bias nightmare.

To further explore this dilemma, liberals also love to fear monger and spread lies to make conservatives look bad because they are so strongly emotionally driven. Because of this, they often elect to abandon logic and good faith - many of them start to push the narrative that minorities can do no wrong and severely silence and admonish any kind of opposition (even the slightest bit of speculation can get you burned at the stake), and other such far end liberals feel the intense hatred that they do because they feel like they are perpetually surrounded by their oppressors.

Conservatives don’t feel the need to witch hunt and fear monger to that level because they usually don’t have the empathetic capacity for it in this context - their concerns do not run deep enough for them to go to those kinds of lengths. They rarely ever feel the same kind of intense hatred, because for them, the problem at hand is fundamentally different. But here’s one very prevalent emotion that most of them seem to express: ‘Annoyance.’

Because so many of them think that ‘annoyance toward political correctness’ or ‘annoyance toward generalizations of white/straight/cis people’ is in some regard a valid comparison against ‘hatred due to systematic oppression,’ it’s easy to see that outrage is being begged for here. In an example like this, the divide in empathy becomes incredibly clear. . .

. . . although it happens to be a gross reduction of the argument at hand, pitting a core issue from one side against what is basically a complaint from the other side - however, I do find it relevant because of how persistent the idea seems to be. It’s an easy target to exploit after all, if you want to minimize your argument to obscene levels to try and strengthen your own. It’s a poor practice, but when people make such a big deal of it, it’s hard not to use it as fodder.

To reiterate, left vs right is hardly a conflict of ideologies and logic.

Left vs right is a conflict of empathy.

[Off-Topic Extension]

If it wasn’t clear earlier, I would like to make a distinction between ‘little to no empathy’ vs ‘some empathy/a ton of empathy.’ A lot of conservatives don’t acknowledge that they are emotionally charged and thusly take the ‘logical’ stance on things, when in reality that tends to be quite far from the truth.

I am a person with very, very little empathy overall, so I have no real emotional attachment to either side of the argument (but I still do support one over the other), and as a result, I can freely explore both of those sides with a far more objective lens without being too offended or too annoyed to see past my bias.

As such, I find it telling that with the objective of seeking a better society for people, that I would lean more toward being liberal. Of course, part of being objective means taking a statement like that with a grain of salt - it’s likely that there are people in a similar boat who have found themselves right leaning instead. In a case like that, it would be both interesting and helpful to see what viewpoints might be presented in order to make more informed decisions.

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