#and it's about the paradigmatic shift

[stolligaseptember]

oh i actually adore the depiction of wwx's descent into the burial mounds in the audio drama

like they made such a brilliant directorial choice of letting us hear just in how much pain he's in, how much despair he's in, how scared he is, and how feeble the resentful spirits think he is and then cutting off right as they think he's about to give in

because we don't actually get to hear him overcome all of that pain and all of that grief and all of that helplessness, but we know that he not only overcomes it and survives the demons that are quite literally nibbling at his heels, he brings them to heel. and idk, they just managed to create such a powerful image of wwx's resolve and spite and strength of spirit without actually showing any of it. it was all just very neatly done.

[oinonsana]

Tactical Combat, Violence Dice and Missing Your Attacks in Gubat Banwa

In this post I talk about game feel and decision points when it comes to the "To-Hit Roll" and the "Damage Roll" in relation to Gubat Banwa's design, the Violence Die.

Let's lay down some groundwork: this post assumes that the reader is familiar and has played with the D&D style of wargame combat common nowadays in TTRPGs, brought about no doubt by the market dominance of a game like D&D. It situates its arguments within that context, because much of new-school design makes these things mostly non-problems. (See: the paradigmatic shift required to play a Powered by the Apocalypse game, that completely changes how combat mechanics are interpreted).

With that done, let's specify even more: D&D 5e and 4e are the forerunners of this kind of game--the tactical grid game that prefers a battlemat. 5e's absolute dominance means that there's a 90% chance that you have played the kind of combat I'll be referring to in this post. The one where you roll a d20, add the relevant modifiers, and try to roll equal to or higher than a Target Number to actually hit. Then when you do hit, you roll dice to deal damage. This has been the way of things since OD&D, and has been a staple of many TTRPG combat systems. It's easy to grasp, and has behemoth cultural momentum. Each 1 on a d20 is a 5% chance, so you can essentially do a d100 with smaller increments and thus easier math (smaller numbers are easier to math than larger numbers, generally).

This is how LANCER works, this is how ICON works, this is how SHADOW OF THE DEMON LORD works, this is how TRESPASSER works, this is how WYRDWOOD WAND works, this is how VALIANT QUEST works, etc. etc. It's a tried and true formula, every D&D player has a d20, it's emblematic of the hobby.

There's been a lot more critical discussion lately on D&D's conventions, especially due to the OGL. Many past D&D only people are branching out of the bubble and into the rest of the TTRPG hobby. It's not a new phenomenon--it's happened before. Back in the 2010s, when Apocalypse World came out while D&D was in its 4th Edition, grappling with Pathfinder. Grappling with its stringent GSL License (funny how circular this all is).

Anyway, all of that is just to put in the groundwork. My problem with D&D Violence (particularly, of the 3e, 4e, and 5e version) is that it's a violence that arises from "default fantasy". Default Fantasy is what comes to mind when you say fantasy: dragons, kings, medieval castles, knights, goblins, trolls. It's that fantasy cultivated by people who's played D&D and thus informs D&D. There is much to be said about the majority of this being an American Samsaric Cycle, and it being tied to the greater commodification agenda of Capitalism, but we won't go into that right now. Anyway, D&D Violence is boring. It thinks of fights in HITS and MISSES and DAMAGE PER SECOND.

A Difference Of Paradigm and Philosophies

I believe this is because it stems from D&D still having one foot in the "grungy dungeon crawler" genre it wants to be and the "combat encounter balance MMO" it also wants to be. What ends up happening is that players play it like an immersive sim, finding ways to "cheese" encounters with spells, instead of interacting with the game as the fiction intended. This is exemplified in something like Baldur's Gate 3 for example: a lot of the strats that people love about it includes cheesing, shooting things before they have the chance to react, instead of doing an in-fiction brawl or fight to the death. It's a pragmatist way of approaching the game, and the mechanics of the game kind of reinforce it. People enjoy that approach, so that's good. I don't. Wuxia and Asian Martial Dramas aren't like that, for the most part.

It must be said that this is my paradigm: that the rules and mechanics of the game is what makes the fiction (that shared collective imagination that binds us, penetrates us) arise. A fiction that arises from a set of mechanics is dependent on those mechanics. There is no fiction that arises independently. This is why I commonly say that the mechanics are the narrative. Even if you try to play a game that completely ignores the rules--as is the case in many OSR games where rules elide--your fiction is still arising from shared cultural tropes, shared ideas, shared interests and consumed media.

So for Gubat Banwa, the philosophy was this: when you spend a resource, something happens. This changes the entire battle state--thus changing the mechanics, thus changing the fiction. In a tactical game, very often, the mechanics are the fiction, barring the moments that you or your Umalagad (or both of you!) have honed creativity enough to take advantage of the fiction without mechanical crutches (ie., trying to justify that cold soup on the table can douse the flames on your Kadungganan if he runs across the table).

The other philosophy was this: we're designing fights that feel like kinetic high flying exchanges between fabled heroes and dirty fighters. In these genres, in these fictions, there was no "he attacked thrice, and one of these attacks missed". Every attack was a move forward.

So Gubat Banwa removed itself from the To-Hit/Damage roll dichotomy. It sought to put itself outside of that paradigm, use game conventions and cultural rituals that exist outside of the current West-dominated space. For combat, I looked to Japanese RPGs for mechanical inspiration: in FINAL FANTASY TACTICS and TACTICS OGRE, missing was rare, and when you did miss it was because you didn't take advantage of your battlefield positioning or was using a kind of weapon that didn't work well against the target's armor. It existed as a fail state to encourage positioning and movement. In wuxia and silat films, fighters are constantly running across the environment and battlefield, trying to find good positioning so that they're not overwhelmed or so that they could have a hand up against the target.

The Violence Die: the Visceral Attacking Roll

Gubat Banwa has THE VIOLENCE DIE: this is the initial die or dice that you roll as part of a specific offensive technique.

In the above example, the Inflict Violence that belongs to the HEAVENSPEAR Discipline, the d8 is the Violence Die. When you roll this die, it can be modified by effects that affect the Violence Die specifically. This becomes an accuracy effect: the more accurate your attack, the more damage you deal against your target's Posture. Mas asintado, mas mapinsala.

You compare your Violence Die roll to your target's EVADE [EVD]. If you rolled equal to or lower than the target's EVD, they avoid that attack completely. There: we keep the tacticality of having to make sure your attack doesn't miss, but also EVD values are very low: often they're just 1, or 2. 4 is very often the highest it can go, and that's with significant investment.

If you rolled higher than that? Then you ignore EVD completely. If you rolled a 3 and the target's EVD was 2, then you deal 3 DMG + relevant modifiers to the DMG. When I wrote this, I had no conception of "removing the To-Hit Roll" or "Just rolling Damage Dice". To me this was the ATTACK, and all attacks wore down your target's capacity to defend themselves until they're completely open to a significant wound. In most fights, a single wound is more than enough to spell certain doom and put you out of the fight, which is the most important distinction here.

In the Thundering Spear example, that targets PARRY [PAR], representing it being blocked by physical means of acuity and quickness. Any damage brought about by the attack is directly reduced by the target's PAR. A means for the target to stay in the fight, actively defending.

But if the attack isn't outright EVADED, then they still suffer its effects. So the target of a Thundering Spear might have reduced the damage of an attack to just 1 (1 is minimum damage), they would still be thrown up to 3 tiles away. It matches that sort of, anime combat thing: they strike Goku, but Goku is still flung back. The game keeps going, the fight keeps going.

On Mechanical Weight

When you miss, the mechanical complexity immediately stops--if you miss, you don't do anything else. Move on. To the next Beat, the next Riff, the next Resound, think about where you could go to better your chances next time.

Otherwise, the attack's other parts are a lot more mechanically involved. If you don't miss: roll add your Attacking Prowess, add extra dice from buffs, roll an extra amount of dice representing battlefield positioning or perhaps other attacks you make, apply the effects of your attack, the statuses connected to your attack. It keeps going, and missing is rare, especially once you've learned the systematic intricacies of Gubat Banwa's THUNDERING TACTICS BATTLE SYSTEM.

So there was a lot of setup in the beginning of this post just to sort of contextualize what I was trying to say here. Gubat Banwa inherently arises from those traditions--as a 4e fan, I would be remiss to ignore that. However, the conclusion I wanted to come up to here is the fact that Gubat Banwa tries to step outside of the many conventions of that design due to that design inherently servicing the deliverance of a specific kind of combat fiction, one that isn't 100% conducive to the constantly exchanging attacks that Gubat Banwa tries to make arise in the imagination.

[faithfromanewperspective]

During 2020, the SARS CoV-2 virus infected millions of people, many became ill, and countless lives were lost. But what sort of situation is the Covid-19 pandemic, and how should we respond - to it, and to other challenging situations? If the pandemic is just a medical problem, involving a highly contagious and dangerous virus, then it makes sense to put our efforts into finding medical solutions - treatments, cures, vaccines. But might the pandemic be more than just a medical problem, and if so, then how should we proceed? Consider its impacts on how we work, travel, spend money, and communicate, the baffling toilet paper shortage in Australian supermarkets, or the rising international political tensions. Nobody knows how the future will unfold, or how to prepare for the unknown. The pandemic is a paradigmatic contemporary "wicked problem" of global proportions that touches everyone's lives. Like other 21st century challenges, this situation is neither simple nor complicated, but complex, and it requires a very different mindset - a different way of seeing, thinking, and doing. My name is Nicole Vincent, and I'd like to welcome you to Thinking Complexly. Complex situations have features that make them distinct. For one, their effects and causes are many and varied. COVID-19 is certainly a medical condition involving a virus, human hosts, treatments, and hopefully a vaccine. But it also involves non-human hosts, our norms and values, as well as political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental factors. Moreover, some elements in these interactions are not even real - like our predictions, fears, and narratives - but yet, these collectively imagined entities influence our behaviour, which alters reality. Finally, elements in a complex situation are not static - they change all the time due to their interactions. The countless number and kinds of such elements comprise an environment in which interactions between them take place, and through their causal interactions they create a constantly changing environment, which in turn gives rise to novel emergent properties. When we see such properties as problems, it is tempting to set out in search of solutions. But just as our use of antibiotics to tackle bacterial infections eventually created anti-biotic resistant bacterial strains, so too the solutions to today's wicked problems will simply reconfigure the complex system, and new (and potentially even more wicked) problems will emerge tomorrow. Drawing on such examples, in this subject we will learn about how complexity emerges from interactions between simple physical elements, why emergent properties of complex systems defy best practice and traditional problem-solving techniques, and how the most challenging features of complexity can be embraced to co-create interventions that shift these systems into better states. Employing tools and concepts from systems thinking, we will consider two questions - "What is your situation?" and "What is our situation?." This will enable us to move beyond problem solving, by imagining and beginning to co-create a future truly worth wanting.

Dr Nicole Vincent, University of Technology Sydney

[meeblo]

Top 5 fave Arknights events (be it story, gameplay, or both), GO!

Oh, this is a tough one. These won’t be in any particular order, and I might merge a few events I think of as related into one entry.

Il Siracusano is phenomenal. An interesting story executed very well, with good pacing, great character moments, and strong themes. The Azione Solos, map, and other bonus parts of the presentation complement and accentuate the already great elements of the main event story. No one who read Il Siracusano will ever forget Rubio's speech. Gameplay-wise, I don't think its mechanics are especially exceptional but they aren't bad either. They're fun, they make you approach stages in different ways from usual, but they aren't why I love the event. The music is a highlight as well, with an excellent battle theme, menu theme, and one of the most memorable boss tracks in the game, as well as great operator EPs.

Lone Trail, even accounting for recency bias, definitely makes my top five. It's an effective and evocative conclusion to multiple longrunning narrative threads, with numerous delicious thematic parallels drawn between members of the cast. Its presentation is wonderful, and like Il Siracusano the bonus text entries benefit the overall experience greatly. Unlike Il Siracusano, the event welfare character is usable, as well as being unlike many alters in that she's a well deserved alter; Silence the Paradigmatic great way of capping off Silence's arc, with a kit that reflects her character growth and some juicy file entries and voicelines. The event's mechanics are quite fun. Running enemies over with balls never gets old, and the enemies that are tanky but lose defense/res on hit open up strategies that allow fast attackers and multi hit characters to see use where most of the time they aren't as valuable next to characters who have big damage per hit. And of course, there's the mechanics that encourage shifting, which is always a blast. Once again phenomenal music that I find myself listening to frequently. I'd also like to shout out Mansfield Break. It is, imo, one of the most ambitious event stories. Not only is it told via frame story in a fascinating structure that no other event replicates, it begins largely in medias res. As the first Rhine Lab event, it pulls no punches with the preestablished character dynamics and complex landscape of the internal politics of Rhine Lab. Mansfield Break is a strong story on its own with a great cast of characters and well articulated themes, but it's even stronger when taken in full context of the Rhine Lab narrative that followed it and just how many things that Mansfield Break set up or alluded to in ways that trusted the reader's intelligence without outright spelling things out or leaving things unsaid entirely. Dorothy's Vision is great too of course but it lacks that special something to have me rank it as one of my top events, whereas Lone Trail and Mansfield Break absolutely have it. The Columbia events all have some of my favorite societal critiques Arknights does. As someone living in the U.S, they get so much right about the issues they bring up.

Darknights Memoir, A Walk in the Dust, and Vigilo I'm all lumping together. Honestly, I'm not sure if I should really include them at all given they tie so closely to the main story. All three provide fascinating looks into W, Kal'tsit, and the Doctor respectively, as well as being thematically rich and filled to the brim with important lore information. Vigilo has, in my opinion, the most interesting and well executed story of the three, with one of the only dialogue choices in the entire game that had me stop and think for a few minutes what I wanted to choose. All three are mandatory reading imo for someone who has finished main story act 1 before they move on to act 2, though Darknights Memoir can be read earlier than the other two. I also want to mention What the Firelight Casts as another main story adjacent event, but Reed's story doesn't have direct ties to W, Kal'tsit, or Doctor so it felt odd listing WtFC with the other events. For all intents and purposes you can consider it part of this entry as well, the "basically part of the main story" events. It's another great character focused story with a relatively smaller scope so it can focus in on its subject, while simultaneously having a number of notable connections to the main story regarding its themes of what a resistance/nationalist movement should prioritize and the setup for Eblana's entry into the Londinium Crisis.

A Light Spark in Darkness is one of the game's most interesting events structurally. The shifting PoVs make excellent use of dramatic irony, with events the reader knows are coming looming over the story as you see another character's view of what led up to them and what happened in the aftermath. The event is thematically focused and has a smaller scale and lower stakes relative to many other event stories that allows it to laser focus on how the stakes and events of the story are relevant to the characters in specific ways. In addition to being a wonderful self contained narrative, it also has additional depth when taken with the context of what happens in other events regarding Grani, what neo-Reunion's role in the main story as a whole is, and Cannot Goodenough's sparse narrative threads the game drops into a number of events. I would recommend it to everyone were it not for it having episode 8 spoilers by implication.

Lastly, I'll shout out Who is Real. It's definitely my favorite of the three Sui events I've read (I haven't read Where Vernal Winds will Never Blow yet). I love Kroos, Mr. Nothing, and Lava as a trio of characters, Nian is both fascinating and fun, and Dusk herself is very interesting. The star of the event for me, however, was Saga. I loved how Saga embodied so many of the event's themes, with her philosophical debates with Dusk on the nature of art and of life in general and her decisions within the painting to help its false inhabitants, refusing to stop treating them morally. I really want to know more about what happened with Kroos prior to the events of Who is Real and what caused the breakup of A1 Preparations Detachment. Dusk's presence through the event was very well done. Though she herself doesn't appear in person until relatively late in the event, everything about the painting and her actions through the storyteller inform the reader as to her characterization and disposition. Invitation to Wine feels like it tries a similar thing with Ling only appearing fairly late into the event, but it doesn't stick the landing like Who is Real because Who is Real had so much directly tying Dusk to the nature of the events unfolding and the direction of the conflict occurring while Invitation to Wine's central conflict was spurred by the second brother, the Sui Regulator, and others rather than being as tied to Ling as the setting and conflict of Who is Real's painted world were to Dusk.

There's plenty of other events I loved too but didn't list here. Twilight of Wolumonde is the strongest of the game's early events, Under Tides and Stultifera Navis have some great stuff in them, Near Light has tons of outstanding scenes but as I'm yet to read Maria Nearl or Pinus Sylvestris I couldn't properly appreciate it, ditto for An Obscure Wanderer, Break the Ice is great and I have a lot of respect for the story staying true to Silverash's characterization despite his popularity in the fanbase as it would have been all too easy for the writers to have caved and painted over his actions and make him Not That Bad Actually He Said Sorry, Guide Ahead is very solid but didn't resonate quite as much as I had expected it would from things I'd heard about it going in, Ancient Forge is a ton of fun and has very nice subtle characterization for Lava and Nian as you can see what parts of the script were Nian's choices and what of Lava's original script survived the rewrites, To be Continued has some great followups on other past events, and the Luo Xiaohei crossover It's Been a While was way way better than I had expected it to be going in. There's a few notable events I haven't read yet since they haven't been rerun or I haven't had the time, so don't worry Lingering Echoes fans, I'm not snubbing it I just haven't read it.

[roxannepolice]

A little bit of GOS2 criticism crossed my dash, mostly of the not like the book variety (not plot-wise, obviously, only in the sense that it went away from the spirit of the book). Leaving aside the fact as a Stanley Kubrick* fan I don't find this a compelling argument at all, I'm really not raging against the fact that there are people who dislike the things I like, not even blocking anyone, that's for politics, filtering serves just perfectly. But I think I see a pattern in the criticisms original/classic material fans levy against adaptations/continuations in Good Omens (that sometimes includes the first season too), Doctor Who and Sherlock Holmes fandoms. If you bite your way through the overgrow of whatever social policy is on the menu it boils down to overfocusing on characters, and in the case of GO overfocusing on characters that aren't even strictly protagonists. And if you've followed me for a while you may have noticed that this sometimes annoys me, too. Sometimes I dress it in fancy wording of precession of simulacrae, sometimes I just bitch about TTC. So I started thinking about why it doesn't bother me, and in fact is a thing that fills me with insane feuertrunkenness** when done right - by which I mostly mean 2nd season of Sherlock, RTD/early Moffat era of Doctor Who, and the 2nd season of Good Omens. So, obviously, I started thinking of Francisco de Goya y Lucientes.

Say hello to my icon and one of most favourite works of visual arts. The simple truth about Goya is that he was an absolute genius in realistic painting. He was flexing away his way across the Spanish court with his compositions, and fabrics, and wrinkles, and light work. He was straight up academically and technically brilliant. He was a product of the European fashion of the time. And yet he could also, especially as his own health and political situation in the country deteriorated, he could also do so. much. drama. So much vision, so much phantasmagoric nightmares. So much introspection. Without even for a moment falling down the chute of sentimentalist navel gazing that the romantic era so often went down.

I don't really like periodization, good art is good art, but paradigmatic shifts are definitely a thing. And there are those amazing artists who bring the older, more established, more as Jung would put it, externalized paradigm to perfection and push it further without losing the sight of it. This is Goya, this is Botticelli, this is Goethe, this is very late Mozart, this is Beethoven. Wagner is a great example because there's this definite moment around the Flying Dutchman and Lohengrin when he finds his style without overpompousing it. And this is an extremely difficult rope to walk! Falling down the rabbit hole of overthinking your own work, and especially overthinking pop cultural phenomena is way way wayyyy too easy for anyone to walk it. The temptation to overpower them is way too strong for mere mortals to resist it.

But it is possible. RTD showed it is possible to do so for over 50 hours of material. The point be that the drama, the sturm und drung and lebenschmertz and whatnot emerge naturally from the story, rather than fitting the story specifically to make it dramatic and navel gazy. It'll be a bit mean now, but it's the difference between the self made tragedy of the last of the time lords and a literal species ready to change reality to find out the Doctor's true name, which matters, but not, but does.

And I think Neilman did hit that sweet spot in the second season. Yes, people are complaining about Aziraphale and Crowley coming off as "too important", especially Crowley***, which is completely contrary to the book, but this remains elegantly within the realms of interpretation. It's introspective and dramatic without navel gazing and tragedy for tragedy's sake. And knowing his other works I feel fairly confident he won't be falling off that rope.

And I wouldn't be a McLuhanist if I didn't mention that television is a medium naturally more likely to focus on characters because of its episodic character (stories end, banter is forever) and the fact it was the first medium where characters were literally at people's homes.

* Don't inform me that he wasn't the nicest person but was a veritable nightmare to work with, I mean his FILMS.

** Sorry for the German vocab, but what can I say, they really made a point when they started splashing words together.

*** My three cents on pre-fall Crowley's archangelic status is that I still like the inversion and irony, but I liked it better when the theory was getting excommunicated as *checks notes* too classist, rather than sth you vagued Neilman about on Tumblr.

[ukfrislandembassy]

Lessons from Lexember/Januwordy

OK, so I thought I'd write a few thoughts about what I've learned from the process of doing Lexember from a paradigmatic perspective.

Firstly, morphology is fun! I mean kinda yeah, you can go look at the databases we have at the Surrey Morphology Group to know that. But really the most fun aspect of it is the complex relationship between the set of possible contrasts and the set of actual forms that occurs in many languages. Borrowin terminology from Greg Stump, it's great fun coming up with a content paradigm and seeing all the different ways this paradigm can be realised (its form paradigm).

Secondly though, it does require you to think through your inflectional system pretty thoroughly before you start doing things. With nominals this can be relatively straightforward; I pick my case contrasts and distribute the functions and there you go. But with verbs it's messier and a lot harder to decide what you're going to do before you start.

Thirdly, the historical approach to conlanging is nice and good, but it does leave me with the obvious issue of 'how am I going to derive this form?' On the other hand, I'm finally shedding the awkwardness I had about univerbating the same forms multiple times over to mark multiple different forms, which makes things easier.

Fourth, I didn't implement an actual inflectional class system, merely some sets of inflections that correlate with noun-class. When I redraft I will be tinking about what paradigm shapes I'm going to formalise some rule-of-thumb inflection classes. I'm also in need of making the use of the class-formants as stem markers more consistent, and it's kinda weird how e.g. the -n formant induces stem shift, -kə has a disappearing-lengthening schwa and -u does neither.

[aboutanancientenquiry]

″Food and the Philosophy of Empire: Herodotus 9.82

 After the Battle of Plataea, Herodotus relates an anecdote about Pausanias’ reaction to Persian wealth. When he comes across Xerxes’ tent, he has the Persian slaves prepare a typical meal of the Persian elite. He then has his own slaves prepare a traditional Spartan meal. Pausanias is amused at the difference and calls the Greeks together, saying “my purpose in asking you all here is to show you how stupid the Persian king is. Look at the way he lives and then consider that he invaded our country to rob us of our meager portions!” (9.82). Scholarly response to this scene has been two-fold. First, Herodotus has Pausanias set up a display that proves one of the main themes of the Histories: that soft countries should not attack hard ones (Bowie 2003, Vasunia 2009). Second, the scene, along with Pausanias’ laughter, serves to foreshadow Pausanias’ eventual Medizing (Fornara 1971; Lateiner 1989). I propose that Herodotus includes this scene in order to highlight cultural difference and to show that Pausanias takes the wrong lesson from the Persian meal. His misinterpretation foreshadows not only his own downfall, but also problems in how Sparta exercises power. 

Herodotus creates a strong association between food and power in his presentation of the Persians (Munson 2001). When Croesus wants to attack the Persians, his advisor Sandanis warns him against it because the Persians’ “food consists of what they can get, not what they want” (1.71). If Croesus wins, he will gain nothing from it; but if he loses, he will lose everything. His statement is somewhat undercut, however, by his description of how Cyrus incites his Persians to rebel against the Medes, their first step towards empire. As an object lesson on conquest, he sets up two days, one of hard work clearing land and one of feasting, and then goes on to explicitly connect slavery with working the land and freedom with conquest and eating good food (1.127). This connection is reinforced by Cyrus’ advice at the end of the Histories: “it is impossible for one and the same country to produce remarkable crops and good fighting men” (9.122). The Persians associate luxury with conquest. 

The relationship between Spartan food and power is not emphasized in the Histories, although he does mention the communal mess as one of Lycurgus’ innovations on the Spartan constitution (1.65). Our picture of Spartan meals comes from later sources. Xenophon plays on the comparative meal scene in Herodotus at the beginning of the Cyropaedia, where he compares Persian and Median meals. Plutarch describes the simple Spartan meal in detail in his Life of Lycurgus. Spartan food is simple and signature. They avoid outside influences in their lives and in their food (Hodkinson 2000). The Spartans associate simplicity with power. 

The comparison of the meals after Plataea is paradigmatic for the misunderstanding between the two cultures. Herodotus tells us that the Persians enjoy large meals with many courses—this is analogous to enjoying their large empire with many different subject states. The Persians attack so that they can continue to have big meals. It is not a matter of amassing wealth, but rather maintaining a military society instead of having to shift into an agrarian one (a practice analogous to the Spartan practice of keeping their helots). The Persians will use and enjoy their wealth and they are warlike; their culture values warfare as a means and luxury as the goal. The Spartans value the military life for itself, and put limits on the trapping of wealth in all aspects of their lives. The Persians seek to strengthen their center by bringing more in; the Spartans strengthen their center by protecting it from influence. We can see this in how Sparta interacts with other city states and exerts its hegemonic power. Thus, the meals are emblematic of two kinds of power, rather than an ironic comparison of apparent strength.”

Sydney Roy Food and the Philosophy of Empire: Herodotus 9.82 (abstract)

Source; https://camws.org/meeting/2013/files/abstracts/134.Food%20and%20the%20Philosophy%20of%20Empire.pdf

Sydnor Roy, Ph.D. in Classical Studies, UNC-Chapel Hill, is Assistant Professor at the Texas Tech University, Classical and Modern Languages and Literatures

[jcmarchi]

SingularityNET bets on supercomputer network to deliver AGI

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/singularitynet-bets-on-supercomputer-network-to-deliver-agi/

SingularityNET bets on supercomputer network to deliver AGI

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SingularityNET is betting on a network of powerful supercomputers to get us to Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), with the first one set to whir into action this September.

While today’s AI excels in specific areas – think GPT-4 composing poetry or DeepMind’s AlphaFold predicting protein structures – it’s still miles away from genuine human-like intelligence. 

“While the novel neural-symbolic AI approaches developed by the SingularityNET AI team decrease the need for data, processing and energy somewhat relative to standard deep neural nets, we still need significant supercomputing facilities,” SingularityNET CEO Ben Goertzel explained to LiveScience in a recent written statement.

Enter SingularityNET’s ambitious plan: a “multi-level cognitive computing network” designed to host and train the incredibly complex AI architectures required for AGI. Imagine deep neural networks that mimic the human brain, vast language models (LLMs) trained on colossal datasets, and systems that seamlessly weave together human behaviours like speech and movement with multimedia outputs.

But this level of sophistication doesn’t come cheap. The first supercomputer, slated for completion by early 2025, will be a Frankensteinian beast of cutting-edge hardware: Nvidia GPUs, AMD processors, Tenstorrent server racks – you name it, it’s in there.

Our new #AGI Supercomputer will start to come online in September and the first phase will be completed by the end of 2024 or early 2025, depending on supplier delivery timelines — Via @LiveScience https://t.co/SegFiMR9II

— SingularityNET (@SingularityNET) August 10, 2024

This, Goertzel believes, is more than just a technological leap, it’s a philosophical one: “Before our eyes, a paradigmatic shift is taking place towards continuous learning, seamless generalisation, and reflexive AI self-modification.”

To manage this distributed network and its precious data, SingularityNET has developed OpenCog Hyperon, an open-source software framework specifically designed for AI systems. Think of it as the conductor trying to make sense of a symphony played across multiple concert halls. 

But SingularityNET isn’t keeping all this brainpower to itself. Reminiscent of arcade tokens, users will purchase access to the supercomputer network with the AGIX token on blockchains like Ethereum and Cardano and contribute data to the collective pool—fuelling further AGI development.  

With experts like DeepMind’s Shane Legg predicting human-level AI by 2028, the race is on. Only time will tell if this global network of silicon brains will birth the next great leap in artificial intelligence.

(Photo by Anshita Nair)

See also: The merging of AI and blockchain was inevitable – but what will it mean?

Want to learn more about AI and big data from industry leaders? Check out AI & Big Data Expo taking place in Amsterdam, California, and London. The comprehensive event is co-located with other leading events including Intelligent Automation Conference, BlockX, Digital Transformation Week, and Cyber Security & Cloud Expo.

Explore other upcoming enterprise technology events and webinars powered by TechForge here.

Tags: agi, agix, ai, artificial general intelligence, artificial intelligence, ben goertzel, blockchain, network, opencog, singularitynet, supercomputer

[neenasujith]

How to conquer hiring challenges with streamlined recruitment solutions

Navigating modern-day hiring challenges demands an arsenal of streamlined recruitment solutions. Recruiting top-tier talent amidst the fierce battleground of today’s job market requires a masterful balancing act. From the perpetual juggling of ever-shifting priorities among hiring managers to the daunting task of meticulously combing through an avalanche of applications while endeavoring to keep candidates engaged, recruiters find themselves ensnared within a web of multifaceted challenges.

In this blog, we plunge headfirst into the depths of these pain points, delving deep to unearth practical panaceas that promise to revolutionize your operational framework, elevate the candidate experience to unprecedented heights, and bring about a paradigm shift in your recruitment paradigm. This will culminate in the curation of a workforce that serves as the veritable lifeblood of your organization’s success.

Optimize Candidate Experience

The cornerstone of this transformative journey lies in the optimization of user experience, a quintessential facet often overlooked amidst the cacophony of recruitment strategies. Imagine, if you will, a utopian realm wherein a recruitment platform stands as the epitome of intuitive design. In this realm, the aggregation of all requisite eligibility criteria comes together seamlessly within the confines of a singular candidate profile, removing the need for laborious navigation through a maze of disjointed interfaces. Such a paradigmatic shift promises not only to reclaim invaluable time but also to empower recruiters to realign their focus on the cultivation of relationships with candidates whose resonance with the ethos of your organizational culture is unparalleled.

Enhance Adoption Across Teams

Furthermore, the imperative of fostering widespread adoption across diverse organizational divisions cannot be overstated. The recruitment needs of disparate teams often vary – looking for senior roles usually necessitates a nuanced approach characterized by targeted headhunting and the cultivation of intricate networks within the industry. In contrast, the recruitment to entry-level positions demands a more expansive modus operandi that casts a wider net in its quest for talent. A recruitment platform that seamlessly integrates with extant workflows while offering bespoke functionalities tailored to cater to the kaleidoscopic recruitment needs that traverse the entire organizational spectrum can bring in unparalleled organizational cohesion.

Improve Candidate Screening

However, heed must be paid to the pitfalls of automated screening. While the allure of expeditious winnowing of the wheat from the chaff is undeniable, the challenge of inadvertently overlooking eminently qualified candidates looms on the horizon.

It’s crucial to review the questions used to screen candidates with the utmost care. These questions should focus on getting important information that relates to the needs of the job. Alongside this, using technology to score resumes can help identify the right skills and experience. However, we shouldn’t rely too much on technology alone. The best recruitment platforms give power to people, allowing recruiters to customize screening to match the specific needs of each job opening.

Build A Talent Pool

A centralized talent pool, a veritable pantheon of prospective prodigies, stands as a testament to the efficacy of an integrated recruitment framework in assuaging the time challenges that beset the recruitment cycle. Through the judicious integration of talent pool management features, recruiters stand poised to cultivate relationships with candidates, nurturing them through the initial stages of the recruitment funnel with targeted communications imbued with the ineffable allure of personalized engagement, even in the absence of immediate employment opportunities.

Seamless Integration

In recruitment, the specter of data silos stands as an unchanging impediment to the attainment of insight. The disjunction of invaluable data across disparate systems creates a fragmented vista that needs clarity, rendering the tracking of candidate progress a futile exercise. A recruitment platform that seamlessly integrates with extant HRIS or talent management systems emerges as the remedy to this malaise, facilitating the unimpeded flow of data while removing the need for manual data entry, thereby augmenting time savings significantly.

Cater to Diverse Landscapes

Moreover, the unfortunate recurrence of recruitment strategies tailored to the distinctive exigencies of diverse landscapes looms large on the horizon of organizational innovation. The heterogeneity of the recruitment landscape mandates a bespoke approach that eschews the one-size-fits-all fallacy in favor of a nuanced strategy that prioritizes target demographics. Novel communication channels such as Whatsapp notifications, especially for regions characterized by a paucity of technological penetration or for demographics predisposed toward the utilization of chat applications, serve as the linchpin of a recruitment framework poised to transcend the quotidian strictures of conventionality.

Understand the Power Of Data

Embrace the omnipotence of data, for there lies the key to unraveling the enigmatic mysteries around the recruitment process.

A recruitment platform that offers a plethora of analytics, each imbued with the allure of insight, emerges as the culmination of data-driven decision-making. Imagine the ability to traverse the entire recruitment journey, from the genesis of a job requisition to the moment of candidate selection, ensconced within the embrace of a data-centric panopticon. Such a vista, suffused with lucidity and perspicacity, serves as the crucible where recruitment strategies are meticulously crafted and refined, with each iteration standing as a testament to the unwavering dedication to organizational excellence.

Don’t Forget The Human Touch

Recruitment is not a sterile transaction devoid of human warmth; it is a symphony of human interaction, replete with the harmonious cadence of personal engagement. Features such as video introductions and personalized interview feedback stand as the vanguard of a recruitment framework that accords primacy to the hallowed bonds of human connection.

In conclusion, the recruitment process stands poised at the cusp of a transformative epoch, an epoch characterized by the relentless pursuit of operational efficiency and the inexorable quest for organizational excellence.

Through the judicious implementation of the strategies mentioned above, recruiters stand poised to transcend the strictures of conventionality, transforming the recruitment process from an ordeal into a veritable wellspring of strategic advantage.

Should you find yourself in need of a guiding beacon amidst the chaos of recruitment, look no further than impress.ai’s recruitment automation platform – here lies the key to unlocking the latent potential of your organizational prowess.

Originally Published by : https://impress.ai/

[randomvarious]

Today's compilation:

The Fantastic 50's: 24 Golden Hits 1987 Pop / Traditional Pop / Orchestral Pop / Jazz-Pop / Country-Pop / Latin Pop

OK, well, this is just a little bit fuckin' ridiculous, man. I mean, how can you even try to celebrate one of American pop culture's already most romanticized decades—the 1950s—and then not include the thing that causes people to romanticize about it so much in the first place? That's like trying to summarize the events of the early 2000s and skipping over 9/11! Where is the rock and the roll, dude? Why are you ignoring the most important cultural phenomenon that this country has ever seen with this release of yours here?!

Maybe you don't think about it too much, or you just don't really care about early rock & roll at all, but like it or not, whatever your contemporary genre of choice is these days, it likely would not exist were it not for a paradigmatic shift that started to take place within American pop culture roughly 70 years ago. The 1950s simply saw an unprecedented explosion in the glorification, commercialization, and recognition of youth culture writ large, and one of the things that undoubtedly resonated most with kids at that time was the brash and inherently rebellious nature of this upstart genre called rock & roll, which summarily decided to throw a whole lot of traditional pop conventionality out the window and start anew. The advent of rock & roll brought a raw, uninhibited level of excitement to popular music that it had not really ever been infused with before, and the way that people derived enjoyment from contemporary music drastically changed because of it too.

Like, I of course have no proof of this whatsoever, but there is no way in hell that some guy in 1953 was pulling his car over to the side of the road after hearing Patti Page's "(How Much Is That) Doggie in the Window" for the first time in his life. That wasn't popular music's intended purpose back then. It was supposed to soothe and satisfy with classy, dignified pleasantry; not drag in the mud and kick up a whole fuss with blinding combinations of things like disruptive guitar chords, bleating sax notes, hard and heavy drumbeats, and untrained singing. That would simply be *madness*.

But that's really what this album seems to be all about: holding on to vastly boring, treacly traditionality rather than acknowledging any of the stuff that came to upset that apple cart, and then ended up changing the trajectory of music forever.

So the next time you see an octo- or nonagenarian, be sure to thank them for all the rock & roll records that they most likely bought when they were a lot younger, because if they hadn't, there's a chance that whatever it is that you find yourself most deeply enjoying today would not exist, and we might still be subject to the pop music whims of the early 1950s because of it. Rather than someone like David Bowie ending up as an indefatigably timeless cultural icon, it could've been someone like Pat Boone instead, which is exactly what this very lame CD probably would've preferred in the first place anyhow 😔.

Highlights:

Sarah Vaughan - "Broken Hearted Melody"

[vasolar]

Building Malaysia's Future: The Crucial Role of MIDA in Attracting Sustainable Investments

Malaysia is a dynamic country in the center of Southeast Asia that has long drawn foreign direct investment (FDI). Its clever personnel, smart placement, and progressive government policies have elevated it to a strong economic position. However, the Malaysian Investment Development Authority (MIDA) is blazing a new path—one that prioritizes sustainability and wise investment—amid a shifting global environment characterized by worries about climate change and the expansion of technological frontiers. The important role that MIDA plays in luring sustainable investments is examined in this session. It highlights Vasolar as a paradigmatic example of how environmentally aware practices may drive economic growth.

Evolution of MIDA: Embracing Sustainability:

Since its founding in 1961, MIDA has traditionally focused on attracting investments in a variety of industries, including manufacturing, services, and technology. However, the agency has now realized how crucial it is to include sustainability in its marketing to encourage investments. Businesses need to adjust their economic practices and take on greater social and ecological responsibility in response to concerns with resource scarcity, climate change, and social inequality. With the understanding that this is a critical moment, MIDA has adopted a new mission statement, "Attracting and nurturing high-quality FDI that contributes to sustainable development and inclusive growth for Malaysia."

Pillars of MIDA's Sustainable Investment Strategy:

This vision translates into tangible actions through several pivotal pillars:

Emphasis on Verdant Industries: MIDA actively draws in foreign investors engaged in renewable energy, energy efficiency, green technology, and circular economy solutions. Vasolar, a solar energy enterprise pioneering clean energy solutions in Malaysia, epitomizes this emphasis. By cultivating such enterprises, MIDA advocates for cleaner energy generation and ecological preservation.

Prioritization of Responsible Investments: MIDA underscores ethical and responsible business practices throughout the investment spectrum. Investors are urged to embrace robust corporate governance, curtail environmental footprints, and contribute to local communities. This ensures that economic expansion aligns harmoniously with social and environmental well-being.

Cultivating a Proficient Workforce: To bolster sustainable industries, MIDA invests in programs fostering skill development, equipping Malaysians with the knowledge and proficiency requisite for thriving in the eco-friendly economy. This guarantees that local communities reap the benefits of investment inflow and actively partake in shaping a sustainable future.

Fostering Collaboration and Ingenuity: MIDA cultivates collaboration among investors, government bodies, academia, and research institutions. This collaborative ecosystem fuels innovation in sustainable technologies and solutions, positioning Malaysia at the forefront of the green economy. Vasolar: A Beacon of Sustainable Investment:

Vasolar, spearheading the solar energy revolution in Malaysia, stands as evidence of MIDA's commitment to attracting sustainable investments. A fervent solar trailblazer, Vasolar tailors solar solutions for residences and businesses, empowering communities to embrace clean energy. Their triumph underscores the economic potential of green industries, magnetizing additional investments and generating employment in the renewable energy sector.

MIDA's Impact: Crafting a Radiant Tomorrow:

Through incorporating sustainability as a top priority into its investment plans, MIDA is shaping a future in which economic growth is achieved without compromising the environment or the welfare of society. The agency's endeavors can wield a profound impact by:

Building an Eco-Friendly and Pristine Malaysia:

Investing more in renewable energy and green technologies might help Malaysia become less reliant on fossil fuels, lessen the consequences of climate change, and leave a cleaner, healthier environment for coming generations. Promoting Economic Progress: New opportunities for employment creation, economic diversification, and technical advancement are provided by sustainable industries.

MIDA's focus on these sectors can propel Malaysia towards a more resilient and future-proof economy. Empowering Communities: By prioritizing responsible investments and skill enhancement, MIDA guarantees that local communities partake in economic growth. This nurtures inclusivity and societal well-being, cultivating a fairer and just society. The Road Ahead: Sustained Collaboration and Innovation:

MIDA has several obstacles on its path to a sustainable future. It takes constant work to draw in and retain sustainable investments, from reducing red tape to building strong public-private partnerships. To keep up with the changing scene, persistent innovation in technology, legislation, and finance systems is also essential. In order to overcome these obstacles and build a truly sustainable future for Malaysia, cooperation between MIDA, environmentally conscious businesses like Vasolar, and all other stakeholders in society is essential.

Conclusion:

MIDA's commitment to drawing in sustainable investments is not just a calculated risk; it's a critical step in building a prosperous, unbiased, and resilient Malaysia. Through its emphasis on clean technology, ethical approaches, and cooperation, MIDA is establishing the foundation for a future in which economic growth coexists peacefully with environmental health and social cohesion.

[navsooch]

Chairman Nav Sooch's Mandate - Directing the Path to Prosperity

Nurturing Innovation for the Future

Nav Sooch offers a paradigmatic example of a chairman's role at the helm of a global technology company. His leadership, deeply rooted in the dynamic world of technology, emphasizes the importance of innovation as a catalyst for progress. His responsibilities extend far past the conventional notion of guidance, as his vision and decisiveness are instrumental in navigating the challenging and ever-evolving currents of the technology landscape. His strategic approach ensures the steady alignment of the company's trajectory with the shifting needs of the market, all while securing a competitive foothold in the design and manufacturing of semiconductors, silicon devices, and software.

At the heart of this technology giant's success lies a commitment to fostering a culture of creativity and innovation. The chairman understands that in an industry where change is the only constant, cultivating an environment where employees feel empowered to think outside the box is paramount. This involves encouraging risk-taking, embracing failure as a stepping stone to success, and providing the necessary resources to support groundbreaking ideas.

The chairman firmly believes that innovation is not confined to a specific department but should permeate throughout the organization. By fostering cross-functional collaboration and creating channels for open communication, he ensures that every employee, from software developers to hardware engineers, plays a pivotal role in the innovation process. This inclusive approach not only generates a diverse range of ideas but also instills a sense of ownership and pride among the workforce.

Investing in Research and Development

In the competitive landscape of technology, staying ahead of the curve requires continuous investment in research and development (R&D). The chairman's mandate includes allocating significant resources to R&D initiatives that push the boundaries of what is possible. Whether it's developing next-generation semiconductors with enhanced processing capabilities or creating software solutions that seamlessly integrate with the Internet of Things (IoT) infrastructure, the company remains at the forefront of technological advancement.

Nav Sooch firmly believes that the focus of Research and Development (R&D) shouldn't just be about maintaining pace with the competition but should also be about foreseeing upcoming trends. By investing resources in burgeoning technologies and venturing into unexplored areas, Sooch is steering the company towards a position of thought leadership and trendsetting within the industry. This strategic foresight goes beyond merely securing our company's relevance in the present - it is about actively shaping the landscape of technology for the future.

Global Vision, Local Impact

As a global technology company, the chairman recognizes the importance of understanding and navigating diverse markets. The mandate involves crafting a global strategy that not only adapts to regional nuances but also leverages the unique strengths of each market. Whether it's establishing partnerships with local distributors or customizing products to meet specific regional requirements, the chairman's approach is one of adaptability and cultural sensitivity.

At the helm of this global vision is Nav Sooch Marriage, the chairman, whose focus extends beyond just expanding the company's footprint. His role encompasses the forging of significant relationships with key stakeholders, understanding the ever-evolving geopolitical dynamics, and maintaining a keen awareness of the shifting regulatory landscape. By adeptly navigating the intricacies of diverse global markets, not only does Nav Sooch ensure the company's position as a distinguished international player, but he also contributes significantly to the economic development of the regions in which the company operates. His skillful leadership and strategic foresight serve as pillars of strength for the organization's expansion endeavors.

While the company operates on a global scale, the chairman is cognizant of the impact it has on local communities. The mandate includes a commitment to corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives that go beyond token gestures. From supporting education programs that nurture future talent in STEM fields to implementing sustainable practices in manufacturing processes, the company strives to be a responsible corporate citizen.

He believes that technology should not only be a driver of economic prosperity but also a force for positive social change. By empowering local communities through job creation, skill development, and environmental stewardship, the company aims to leave a lasting and positive legacy in every region it operates. This approach not only aligns with the values of corporate citizenship but also enhances the company's reputation as a socially conscious industry leader.

Adapting to Technological Shifts

In an era where the Internet of Things is transforming industries and reshaping the way we interact with technology, the chairman's mandate includes a strategic focus on embracing this revolution. Recognizing the potential of IoT to connect devices, collect data, and drive efficiency, the company is at the forefront of developing solutions that seamlessly integrate with IoT infrastructure.

He understands that staying relevant in the age of IoT requires not only technological prowess but also a keen understanding of the broader ecosystem. This involves collaboration with other industry players, staying abreast of IoT standards, and anticipating the evolving needs of customers. By aligning the company's product offerings with the demands of the IoT landscape, the chairman ensures that it remains a key player in shaping the future of connected technology.

In the multifaceted world of technology, the domain of the chairperson is not confined to conventional leadership roles—it involves fostering innovation, navigating the complex waves of international markets, empowering local communities, and demonstrating agility in adapting to technological shifts. Nav Sooch, the man steadfastly steering this global technology company, masterfully conducts a symphony of creativity, foresight, and strategic thinking, competently guiding the organization towards prosperity. As the company continues to carve a niche for itself and shape the contours of the technology industry, his guiding principles remain unshakeable—innovation, responsibility, and adaptability form the stanchions of its voyage into an increasingly complex and volatile future.

[zenosanalytic]

This is a good article talking about what I was trying to get at here

Im not done reading it yet, and it promises to explore avenues forward by the end so it's less pessimistic than I am on this, but my only complaint with it so far is that this overview seems to be taking a purely biological approach(which: being an overview of the current state of geroscience/medicine: Yeah Of Course it Would) and not sufficiently considering, in my entirely lay opinion, the importance of lifeways and ecology to maximum lifespan.

Like: paradigmatically long-lived species tend to either have an ecology for which long life is adaptive -either due to the rarity of reproductive opportunity and low-probability of reproductive success, or due to the scarcity/specificity/slow-cyclic-nature of their food sources, or due to unique developmental strategies tied to equally unique ecological niches(Im looking at YOU, cicadas)- or live in environments which coincidentally promote longevity(deep oceanic arctic environments are the most obvs example here), or both. I don't feel this paper(so far) is considering this sufficiently, or the ways in which human lifeways&ecology might be similarly connected to human mean- and maximum lifespans, or how these limits might be 1)adaptive to those lifeways(which: counter to allot of futurists over the last 300ish years, have not really meaningfully changed over recorded history. Humans are STILL Living in A Society, and the broad shape of that society remains similar, even if the political details have shifted quite a bit, and the ecology of humans has been similarly static) and 2)molecularly enforced(which this paper promises to explore, so maybe I just haven't gotten to that bit yet).

So a few days ago I watched Annihilation(it's alright) on Netflix, and at one point Natalie Portman's character says to(I think?) her husband something like "Death is a flaw in your genes", and that's wrong.

Yes, telomere degradation DOES seem to play a role in gene replication errors, aging, and death, but that's not a mistake. Different species are effected by that degradation differently. Different species experience that degradation at different rates. This is how mayflies live for a day, and humans live for 60-100 years. Telemere degradation is selected for. Death is an evolutionary adaptation.

[dykevillanelle]

Okay so, maybe this will be a big question, but after season 3 especially villanelle background episode and the fact she doesn't want to kill anymore, I feel like it formed a question "Is she really a psycopath or the circumstances make her like this?" and I would love to read your opinion about it.

[your disclaimer that i don’t claim to be an expert on psychopathy/ASPD though i have read a lot of research, and that psychology writ large is a deeply flawed and complicated field despite me signing my entire life and career over to it]

TLDR: killing eve, like pretty much every tv show in the entire world, reduced “psychopathy” to a set of media tropes and tried clumsily to do a “nature versus nurture” conflict that, in my opinion, fell flat. in this post: me bagging on psychologists from the 40s, overanalysis of pre-eve villanelle, and quotes from my reluctantly-owned copy of the DSM-5.

the fundamental assertion of villanelle as psychopath has never sat right with me. she certainly exhibits many of the traits that would be considered within the “dark triad” (yes, it’s really called that, i hate psych scholarship), and she technically meets the criteria for ASPD, but she violates many of the core tenets of “psychopathy” as it’s currently understood. she is, of course, a fictional character and therefore a creation of people who were working off of popular tropes of psychopathy. but i’m going to overanalyze her anyway and YOU CAN’T STOP ME.

(an aside: you can’t be diagnosed with psychopathy, you get diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder or ASPD, and the criteria are influenced by the paradigmatic text of psychopathy scholarship written by legendary homophobe and freudian disaster hervey m. cleckley in the 40s. literally, i’ve read this guy’s book, and it’s 500 pages of absolute wildness. further, the whole section on personality disorders in the DSM is highly controversial and by a lot of beliefs, mostly useless.)

(another aside: that dude they brought in for s2 to give a presentation on psychopathy said literally nothing correct. while you are free to disagree with my opinions, do NOT use that as a refutation!!!)

if we take the diagnostic criteria as at face value, one of the commonalities of those with ASPD who act criminally is that they will typically do so in absence of any significant external reward. villanelle’s first kill (to our knowledge, besides whoever might have died in the fire she set at the orphanage) was anna’s husband..and y’all, villanelle was sixteen and having sex with an adult teacher. you really think anna had no part to play in all that? anyway, after that, villanelle has very CLEAR external rewards for criminality--she’s literally bankrolled by murder. so her criminal behavior in connection to the twelve isn’t necessarily evidence of psychopathy.

“impulsivity and failure to plan ahead” is another important criteria, which villanelle does NOT show at all--we see her obsessively planning, adjusting and readjusting on a dime, learning skills and languages to do her job, etc. “reckless disregard for safety of self or others” also doesn’t really describe her--before she meets eve, she actually has pretty admirable self control (we don’t see her drink or use drugs to excess except in connection with eve, she has a very strong sense of self-preservation). “consistent irresponsibility” also isn’t quite there--though she goes off the rails (again after meeting eve), she’s shown to be relied on by the twelve to get her jobs done and done well.

however, villanelle also isn’t just a product of her circumstances. she’s shown a predilection for violence from a young age, but having a terrible mother and growing up in an orphanage after being abandoned isn’t prescriptive of becoming a career criminal. she has trauma in spades and that certainly contributes to the choices that she makes, but it feels completely reductive to her intelligence and character to just say “the circumstances made her do it.” which is why i found the shift in season 3 pretty jarring, and it didn’t make a lot of sense to me.

my preferred interpretation of villanelle is that she’s a hot evil lady who is assumed by some to be an emotionless killing machine and to others as a pathetic victim of circumstance, and who is actually neither of those things. she knows how to play both parts, and she does it to her advantage. she loves deeply, shows it in the most fucked-up ways imaginable, is traumatized and anxious, and also incredibly intelligent and motivated.

[graddesigneranastasia]

Early Developments

Theory of Forms and Ideas

It is a philosophical concept attributed to Plato, that the physical world is not as real or true, as timeless and absolute. According to his threory, ideas in this sense are non-physical essences of all things, of which objects and matter in the physical world are merely imitations - everything exists in the “upper field” in the universe, and everything in the physical world is just a reflection.

Theory of the Self as the Centre

According to Kant, we all have an inner and outer self, which together form our consciousness. The inner self is comprised of our psycological state and our rational intellect. The outer self includes our senses and the physical world. The inner self is connected to the universe.

“I think therefore I exist.”

Proto Structuralists

Karl Marx (1875) said that everything originates in our consciousness, not from the universe.

Sigmund Freud (1921) was psychiatrist, psycologist and knew the secrets of the Kabbalistic mystical studies.

Ferdinand de Saussures

He was a Swiss linguist, known as the father of semiology. He proposed that the sign in language is signifier (Sr) and the signified (Sd), and belived that the sign is the connection between the a image/ sound and the concept/ content it stands for.

Sign can be defined as something that can take the form of words, sounds, images, smells, tastes, acts or objects, but they do no have a meaning unless we put it into them.

Roland Barthes

He extended on the concepts of the Sr and Sd, and included connotation and denotation. In his work, connotation reflects cultural meaings, mythologies and ideologies.

Connotation and Denotation

A connotation is a feeling a word invokes. It refers to the wide array of positive and negative associations that most words carry with them (naturally).

A denotation is the direct, specific or literal meaning we get from a sign, a description or represntation of the signified, a word that mjight be found in a dictionary. It is what the word literally says.

Two Levels of Meaning

A connotation meaning is the “cultural baggage” attracted ti or associated with the object. It is dereived from past experiences or repeated associations between a sign and its object.

Barthes theory is that that there are two levels of meaning. The denotaion is the starting point - they make a meaning/ statement, then we shift to the second level, which is where the connotation takes over and adds more to the experience of the meaning.

For example, there may be a picture of a heart. The denotaion is that it is literally a heart, while the connotation will be love, an association we get from looking at the heart.

Syntagmatic and Paragmatic

A syntagmatic is the analysis of syntax or surface structure (syntagmatic structure) as opposed to paradigms (paradigmatic analysis).

Syntagms are the building blocks of communication. Connecting these blocks allows copmlex communications.

Paradigmatic analysis is the analysis of paradigms embedded into the text, rather than of the surface structure (syntax) of the text. This type of analysis often uses communication tests, for example substituting words of the same type.

Signification

Signification is the process of creating meaning through locating/ identifying the signified/ concept, based on the clues given by the sign/signifier. 

In philosophy, the encoding is a process of “reading” sense data, a set of natural signs that represent the “true conditions”. The objective of analysing signification is to determine meaning or a set of meaings.

Charles Sanders Peirce

He developed a model of knowledge about the way reality is represented through the mind and thoughts, which can only be represnted in signs. The model consisits of the sign, the interprenant and the object.

“We think only in signs”

Peirce Sign Triad

His typology emphasizes the different ways in which the sign referes to its object.

The Icon - the signifier is percieved as resembling or imitating the signified (recogniably looking, sounding, smelling, tasting, feeling like it), or being similar in possessing some of its qualities.

The Index - the signifier is directly connected in some way (physically or casually) to the signified, this link can be observed or inferred.

The Symbol - A mode in which the signifier does not represnt the signified, but which is fundamentally arbotary or purely conventional - this relationship must be leanrt.

[midnightactual]

so like I say in Yoruichi’s New Outfit it’s my feeling that Yoruichi × Kūkaku ought to already be a thing by 2015. this means that “my canon” of stuff happening in 2022ish is a bit anachronistic as many events “currently happening” should already have happened by then. so what I’m gonna do rather than remake or something like that to account for such a big change is I’m going to shift my timeline backward and compress it something like:

AFTER WAR: from 2003–2007 to 2003–2005

REARMAMENT: from 2008–2012 to 2006–2009

IMPERIAL: from 2013–2019 to 2009–2011

PARADIGMATIC: from 2020+ to 2012–2013

there’s a lot of “slack time” in Yoruichi’s current timeline that doesn’t need to be there so this is fine imo. there’s some anachronistic stuff that creeps in as a result but who cares? only maybe me and I can overlook it or gloss it over in retrospect

this would mean that after getting into a(n official) relationship with Kūkaku, Yoruichi would probably have another new era, maaaybe a Hell Arc era, and then possibly one or two more. I’m still pretty committed to operating “in the present” on this blog and most of my others so although I’ve been trying to imagine what might’ve happened since TYBW I’m gonna have to think even more about what might’ve happened since that stuff! so there might be some reshuffling of plot points and events in this space

I’m open to feedback? about this if anybody has any