#bureaucracy language imo

[hozieresque]

Is it me or do the Germans not know how to express a single emotion through verse? It's all rhyme and no gut punch

[vidavalor]

A theory about Aziraphale, Crowley, Mrs. Cheng, and high sensitivity

What's up with Aziraphale sensing love in Tadfield and thinking Maggie might be able to hear Heavenly trumpets and with Mrs. Cheng pausing weirdly at the bookshop door before entering The Ball?

What if bad spelling isn't demonic and sensing love isn't angelic? What if Aziraphale (an angel), Crowley (a demon), and Mrs. Cheng (a human) all actually just have the same ability? What if they are all HSPs-- highly sensitive people?

Aziraphale's ability to sense love is something that has spanned both seasons now and I know some people think this is an angelic thing but there's evidence, imo, that it's not. The show has been putting forth a message that angels, demons, and humans are really not that dissimilar. They have different life spans and abilities but they're all under the same kind of umbrella and none are superior or inferior to the other. They suggest this with the symbolism of labeling all of them all as insects (humans are ants, angels are bees, demons are hornets, flies are Beez's department) and as different kinds of waterfowl. Pat's example magic trick of The Professor's Nightmare-- the rope trick-- during The Blitz, Part 2 is also this as well. You have three different ropes that seem like they're different lengths: the big one (angels), the medium one (demons), and the small one (humans) but if you put them all together under the same light and you pull (like the force of gravity, that Gabriel and Crowley talk about in S2), you see them as all the same length.

The idea then is that angels and demons are just like humans, in terms of their needs and wants, and some don't recognize it because their supernatural abilities inhibit their ability to consider why they might also have human corporations in the first place. All of the angels and demons really need to eat and sleep and to not feel alone. Some of them, like some humans, might be interested in romantic love and/or sex, and some of them, like some humans, might not be. Things the show has coded as "demonic" at times-- like being terrible with language-- they also quietly illustrate as not being fully true. It can't be that all demons are terrible spellers who aren't great with words because Crowley is a demon and a literal poet while Gabriel was the Supreme Archangel of Heaven-- and he once suggested that keeping the status quo would keep things "static and, uh, quo-y." Who is better with words: Lord Beezlebub or Sandalphon? Beez, by a long mile, right? But Michael is also better with language than Hastur. The point is that it doesn't matter if you're an angel or a demon or a human-- some people are good with language and some are better with other things.

So, just some of the demons are bad spellers-- which doesn't actually mean anything. There are plenty of terrible spellers who are very intelligent and who are just better at different things-- which is something that is true of humans as well, right? What if we apply those same ideas to the sensitivity thing?

For one thing, if all angels-- or, even, just a lot of angels-- had a high sensitivity to love like Aziraphale does, the end group scene in S2 should have gone differently. The only angels experiencing or sensing love in the bookshop during the Ineffable Bureaucracy scene are Gabriel (who is the one feeling it) and Aziraphale. Being in the presence of love did nothing for Michael, Uriel, Saraqael or even our sweetheart Muriel (who, to be fair, wisely had their nose in a book in the back of the room the whole time but still probably should have been able to sense something if that's actually an angelic power.) The only angel actually overwhelmed by the love in the room is Aziraphale... which is, mathematically, kind of interesting. Aziraphale is one-sixth of the angels in the bookshop in that moment, which equates out to the roughly 17% percent of the human population estimated to be HSPs, or highly sensitive people, some of whom are also empaths.

If you go back to S1, when Aziraphale and Crowley enter Tadfield and Aziraphale starts experiencing love, he says to Crowley: "I'm astonished that you can't feel it." This comment alone might be suggested to say that the high sensitivity that Aziraphale has is something that isn't an angelic ability. By saying he's surprised that Crowley can't feel it, Aziraphale is saying that he knows that Crowley is sensitive in the same way that Aziraphale is. Crowley, too, is then what humans would probably call a HSP. Crowley balks at the suggestion in S1 but we can see in S2 that it's true when Crowley has his version of being overwhelmed sensing emotion and, in his case in that moment, it was waves of distress. Who else experiences it at the same time as Crowley does? A human. Mrs. Cheng.

Mrs. Cheng is the only other character who gets the heebie jeebies during the arrivals at The Ball. Both she and Crowley actually experience it before the demons come up Whickber Street, around the same time. Crowley attributes it to the demons and his own anxiety over Hell circling closer to the shop while Mrs. Cheng gets pulled into Aziraphale's magic and forgets what she felt at the door. Why did Mrs. Cheng feel something when others who came to the door did not? Because she's a highly-sensitive person.

Aziraphale is an angel, Crowley is a demon and Mrs. Cheng is a human. They are all highly-sensitive people. They all have the same high level of sensitivity.

Maggie shown to be a bad speller? Maybe she's just a human who can't spell, like many humans and demons (and angels) are. Why does Aziraphale think she could hear the Heavenly trumpets sounding the arrival of angels? It could just be because Maggie runs a music shop. Maggie is a musically-sensitive human. Aziraphale thought that might make it possible that, if anyone could hear the trumpets, it might be Maggie. He's not really sure how this all works. Aziraphale thinks that if he can feel love between humans then maybe humans that know music well might be able to hear Heavenly trumpets.

Back in S1, we see in a couple of scenes that Adam has what Crowley calls "an automatic defense thing-y" that keeps him from being found-- and seen, to an extent. A shield of sorts keeps Anathema from reading Adam's aura, showing that such a thing is in place and intact. Because Adam is the antichrist, his power overrides the other demons shy of Satan, so the presumption could be made that those of us who think that the reason why it's when they cross into Tadfield that Aziraphale begins to feel overwhelmed by love is because Adam's shield overrode Crowley's own "automatic defense thing-y" are correct because, let's be real, Crowley with his sunglasses and his Bentley has never met a defense thing-y he's never given a whirl. It fails when they cross the Tadfield line and Aziraphale is then feeling Crowley's love for him.

This is also why Aziraphale is overwhelmed by it again at Tadfield Manor. At the moment that he has to stop walking, Crowley is looking up at the place and, inevitably, remembering dropping the antichrist baby off there eleven years earlier and how he was supposed to be with Aziraphale that night instead. He's thinking about his own love for Aziraphale and Aziraphale senses it and has to stop walking for a moment, overwhelmed. Adam does love Tadfield but Aziraphale is not sensing his love for his hometown. Adam wouldn't remember being born in a religious hospital that has now become a corporate bonding retreat and wouldn't feel an overwhelming love for the place that he's probably never actually been inside since he left it as a baby. Aziraphale is sensing Crowley, who has probably had an automatic defense thing-y up for most of the time for millennia because, otherwise, Aziraphale would be in a constant state of near-faint.

Maggie may or may not be more than we think she is. She might wind up yet being some kind of supernatural being but she also might just be a human who is a bad speller and can't hear Heavenly trumpets. Mrs. Cheng may or may not be a mysterious figure with more going on than we think but she also might just be a highly-sensitive human who helps to illustrate a commonality between angels, demons and humans by having the same ability to deeply sense emotion that Crowley and Aziraphale do.

[fatalism-and-villainy]

mmm I’m thinking about Kira in Shadows and Symbols, and how in many ways her blockade against the Romulans mirrors her stand-off against the Cardassians in Emissary. In both cases, Sisko’s away from the station, and Kira deals with an adversarial situation by bluffing her way through it. (The parallel is very apparent in O’Brien’s “remind me never to play Roladan Wild Draw with you” versus Admiral Ross’ “remind me never to play poker with you”.) But there are subtle differences that show how she’s grown more comfortable in her position over the course of the show.

In both situations, she displays a lot of the same scorn that she so often uses as a weapon when backed into a corner. But she comes across as more angry and desperate in Emissary, whereas in Shadows and Symbols she conveys a more relaxed, confident affect when negotiating with Ross and Cretak. And this distinction comes through largely in body language. In Emissary, when she confronts Gul Jasad (with “I am just a Bajoran who’s been fighting a hopeless cause against the Cardassians all her life”), she takes a very assertive, aggressive pose - standing rigidly upright, then leaning forward with her arms braced in front of her - compare that to the strutting around and slouching in chairs she does with Cretak and Ross, combined with the playfulness of her delivery of “we’ll just have to find out, won’t we?”

And her delivery of the latter line honestly reminds me of Mirror Kira, who dials that playful, flirty vibe up to eleven at all times. And the similarities are partly because Kira/Cretak is Real, but also because Mirror Kira is a version of Kira who’s long been comfortable in her power, and who exudes that confidence even in situations where she’s been stripped of that power. Kira naturally comes to embody that same affect imo because she’s become much more settled in the position of authority she holds, in contrast to the scrappy desperation that drove her while she was in the resistance.

And the situations are also different in ways that reflect the shifts in Bajor’s status. In Emissary, Bajor is still vulnerable to being retaken by the Cardassians, and - as Kira begrudgingly admits - dependent on the Federation’s protection. In Shadows and Symbols, it’s Federation bureaucracy that Kira is going up against, and she’s able to assert Bajor’s status as a political equal by holding her own against Ross and forcing his hand with the Romulans. Bajor is better able to stand alone, and that’s mirrored in Kira’s development.

(Interestingly, she’s also more conciliatory with Ross initially - In Image in the Sand, she makes it clear she’s not happy with establishing a Romulan presence on the station, but accepts she has to go along with it, with none of the volatility that the Kira of Emissary displays. But when she’s pushed, she absolutely stands her ground. But she’s become less of a resistance fighter and more of a politician.)

[hier--soir]

i saw on one of your posts that you lived in Paris? teach me your ways !! would love to know how it was moving away from home/if you have any tips for early twenties looking to leave my hometown

oh helloo! yes i lived there alone for a little while last year, i love that city so so much. i miss the funny people, the ridiculous stairs, and the insanely difficult language.

it was definitely difficult because aus is so far from a lot of the world, and taking trips back to visit wasn't really an option [20+hours of travel for a "visit" is pretty heinous imo] which was hard on the heart

i'd say do lots of research on visas and figure out what's best for you in terms of how you want to make money/sustain yourself. if you want to study, work, or you just want to travel

also, if you're going somewhere like france, i'd suggest researching what the bureaucracy is like lmao. things as simple as opening a bank account can be difficult as a foreigner, and you need loads of documents

after all that though, go to events, join clubs, see live music, etc etc bcs becoming friends with other travellers or locals will make it all feel so much more like a home, rather than a long fucking "holiday".

travel is so fun and will change your life. ilysm, hope this helps!

[duncebento]

you study abroad right? how has that been? i want to but im worried its going to be too hard to adjust to plus school

i do!! i’ll give pros n cons though they might be specific

pros:

- i’m confident that i’m getting some of the best education i could be, which even though i’m from new york where there r many college options i still feel that it would’ve been settling to stay at home. to me it’s worth being there for the school

- i do like having the opportunity to immerse myself in another language as someone interested in linguistics!

- for italy specifically, food, art, architecture, pre-capitalist city planning which i feel is more….human-centric?

- since my school is in english, i have meet ppl from allll around the world. my class was originally 16 ppl and we were from 10 different countries across 5 continents. of the friends i’ve made there, one is chinese from hungary, one is from portugal, one is from india, one is from zimbabwe, and two are other usamericans.

- the cost isn’t great since it’s a private school, but i’m still paying less than i could have been in the US, n godwilling i will not graduate w student debt

- europe has trains so i can go places so easily

- night-out bar and club culture that i wouldn’t have access to yet in the US w/out a fake, but which i feel is crucial to the college experience lol. will treasure memories dancing to live music at the cuban bar, drinking spritzes on the river, bringing bottles of prosecco to house parties

cons:

- paperwork is so annoying ESPECIALLY because italian bureaucracy is ill-managed. BUT americans have such a passport privelege, my old roommate from iran couldnt come to school for months bc of her visa

- apts are still expensive i general, especially in places like florence w a high tourist appeal bc they are also airbnb infected, which has totally jacked up rent rates. right now i’m blessedly paying what i would definitely call reduced rent because a rich friend of a friend of a friend had an old apartment that she’s renting to me for far less than market price. but without knowing people from the area already apt hunting is hell.

- it’s not entirely a con, but def a learning curve around communication, because european profs are often excitable or brusque or sometimes even cruel in my experience in a way that wouldn’t fly so much in american colleges (though part of that is the fashion element imo.) it was hard for many americans to adapt to this sort of criticism

- i am definitely more conscious of my blackness in italy, ppl are more ignorant about black people (though imo not actually more hateful.) but ppl are also so amazed by my hair which is nice sometimes lol…..american whites will like never compliment black hair cos theyre scared. but yeah white ppl in europe dont have much of a faux pas developed against certain racism yet

- i do miss my family when i’m there— though now i miss my friends when i’m not there! and the time zone diff >_<

- it is very easy to be lonely, esp. at first. at fashion school i’m not really around “my type” of people, which means i feel really isolated even around the other americans. they just don’t know how to make heads or tails of me i suppose. but then, if i really think of it, that might just be a con of being weird in general. my usual odds of finding someone i really gel with are about 1/500, so that puny statistic decreases even further when most ppl around me don’t speak english as a first language.

[liesmyth]

I'm the Cam loves Nona anon and I realized why I seem to disagree with you while actually agreeing you! It's the language barrier!! I was like "what even is unconditional love" and coming back with definitions from my university days (to love a child with complete acceptance, not because the child brings success basically) and I was like??? Nona is a hard person to love "with conditions" because she is a young adult with huge development problems. And we don't use the term unconditional love anywhere else in my language so I was like???? You think Cam is getting an ego boost from this or something? Like, again not to be totally cynical and horrible, but caring for people with developmental issues is not for everyone. And Cam is going above and beyond and never pushes Nona. Just because they didn't go and hide on a metaphorical farm like Pyrrha suggested doesn't mean that she would sacrifice Nona's integrity and well-being for her House. On the contrary, I think that Cam would be the first to say that only by respecting Nona and being gentle with her you can actually get something from her.

I still don't totally get what you mean by "Cam didn't love Nona immediately" because of course not, she thought it was Harrow at first. They probably thought that it was Harrow untill the very end, with Palamedes theorizing that it's a secret third thing. But yeah, of course there are other priorities in Cam's life, including her people. Doesn't diminish Cam's love and care for Harrow and Nona.

Also! first of all! liesmyth sorry for using your blog as a message board I hope you are not annoyed!!!! You are so so cool!

Now, to chechovs-tantrum: yeah, you are right that the absence of bureaucracy and insane parents helps, but they are two people with an insanely difficult classroom in the middle of an apocalypse?? They don't even get like.. clinical supervision for themselves. Like they don't get external help at all. It is very a rose-tinted and cheesy description of a school with a totally moralistic "this is how it should be done" angle. I'm glad that she chose the cheesy route because I was not ready for actual school politics in my space necrodrama, and it is a totally possible situation. There are teachers who can pull it off! But it is still very cheesy

HI ANON no worries! I'm ESL too and I get it. Also idk if you saw the additions to that post! They Made Some Points.

I agree that Pyrrha and Camilla (and Palamedes also, but he was around less) did they best they could balancing Nona's development, their safety, and her autonomy, especially in that mess of a situation. And I agree that her having other responsibilities doesn't make her caring for Nona any less genuine.

By "Cam didn't love Nona right away" I mean that — they got her body back and thought it was Gideon or Harrow and took care of her, but I think it was out of compassion and duty and affection and also a "wow this is a Lyctor's body we got here;" but the familiar love that they share came later. IMO that doesn't diminish what they did for her, and it doesn't make their bond by the end next true.

On the school, I'm going to @chekhovs-tantrum and link their post. I agree that it's cheesy, but I thought it was a welcome kind of cheese in the middle of a very bleak situation. Reading the book I remembered wondering A Lot, like, where they got the money for lunch and how they could stay safe, but I've chosen to decide that even the local militia knew better than to interfere with Joli's school :D

[honestlyvan]

Talk to me about Isurd and bureaucracy

Oh boy, so, I think Lambda's issues with structural inefficiencies and bureaucratic overhead produces a direct parallel between the way Taion and Isurd responded to Nimue's death. After all, we know that commanders get pretty free reign in how they run their colonies, and there are far less subtle examples of "the thing that is Wrong with this colony is also what is Wrong with its commander" in the game, so this isn't even too aggresive of a read, IMO.

For Taion, his bad coping is pretty front and center -- he's got a strong need for control, but also little faith in his own judgement; he's suspicious of other people's conclusions, but also defers to them when it comes to decision-making. He can't even fully stand by his own conclusions most of the time, because the more critical it is to get something right, the worse the runaway anxiety gets, and the more he slips into analysis paralysis. Taion doesn't trust himself, and doesn't trust anyone else -- so no decision he makes can truly be grounded, everything is up for second-guessing, and he can never have peace knowing he made the right call.

Isurd, on the surface, is kind of the opposite. He's very decisive, to the point where he tends to pull ahead of the pack because he's already two steps to a solution while everyone else is still catching up to a problem. Undoubtedly some of the problems with Lambda's system are that peacetime operations are more complicated and they're simply not equipped to handle them at this scale, but a larger problem is that even while authority diffuses down the chain, if there is a fuck-up, ultimately the responsibility will be his. Absolutely nobody is allowed to make judgement calls unless he's personally appointed them, and even then he retains a veto. Isurd also doesn't trust himself, and also doesn't trust anyone else -- so no decision can be made without a second opinion, and he has to run himself ragged not to slow the system he's set up down.

It reads as a kind of hypervigilance -- neither of them has fully dealt with their trauma, and so are mentally braced to react to a similar situation. Now, I do think to an extent both of them probably just are like that, naturally -- Isurd is the strategist of the generation, after all, and Taion is very curious and intellectually engaged in general, they're absolutely the kind of people where "comparing notes" is a kind of love language -- but it just kind of goes to show that sometimes bad coping looks like good coping, but too much. They're overprepared to respond to their own judgement failing, and it's wearing both of them down.

I think this reading of the situation also nicely harmonises with how little presence Isurd has in Lambda's quest line. By his own admission, he's been going through the war essentially on autopilot since Nimue's death, letting the problem grown unfettered just because he naturally tends towards hogging responsibilities. Delegating and leaving actual decision-making to other people is a step forward -- or at least a step sideways -- for him, and leaving Lambda and having to just trust that they'll be okay without his supervision would further help with that. He's at least trying to disengage, even if he's very bad at it, being a dumb moron workaholic who has to make everything into a production.

[arcane-ish]

Politics of Silco: How it would actually go

I cannot stress enough how deeply it does not make sense that there is no religio-ethnic difference between Piltover and Zaun. 

IMO it’s very rare for somebody to ask for independence unless there is such a religio-ethnic difference. 

Usually, the standard conflict that independence quarrels center around is about things like schools and administration (ie I want schools to teach my religion/in my language, I want the courts and bureaucracy to follow my religious conviction/be in my language) because those are easily identifiable things that normal people experience and can relate to. 

The few cases I can think of where people desire independence despite the being no such difference are typically niche groups that have some highly specific hardcore beliefs that they for some reason think that will never be accepted by the general public (which just flat out does not seem to be the case with Silco).

Examples of this would be some anarchistic autonomous communities or some of those “free state/I refuse to acknowledge the government exists” people who typically center around weapons/some hardcore religious beliefs/not wanting to pay taxes (and again usually the deep source in those cases is also religious beliefs). 

In reality, in a conflict that is NOT about ethnic differences, it just wouldn’t work out that way that violent conflict is the sole political option. If there is no ethnic difference (and usually in many cases even when there are ethnic divisions) you can communicate with your opponent, you can try to make your case, you can try to sway them. 

The base of Silco’s ideology seems to be a very basic “people in Zaun are not being given the same economic opportunities, that is unjust”. In a real life situation again where nationalism/xenophobia isn’t the root cause, a guy like Silco who is rich and has educated himself enough that he understands that for his nation to survive he needs hexgate access would for example fund a paper where somebody writes scathing articles about how it makes no sense that Zaun is suffering, that that is immoral, that it’s to Piltover’s detriment that they are not letting Zaunites live up to their best potential. 

The council might then respond by closing down said newspaper, which then would give the pro Revolution side the argument to make to the Piltovians “hey, the council doesn’t want to you to have free press, they are oppressing you as well, you should depose them”. 

Because that’s how it usually proceeded in the various anti-monarchy revolutions post 1848/post French revolution and because the “House” system of Piltover is somewhat monarchic. 

For example, Marcus says in a scene with Silco: “She's a Kiramman. Just like them, she does whatever she wants.” So normal people of Piltover have fewer rights than “house”/council people. Yet Silco never makes an argument how deposing the council and let’s say putting Silco in charge of both Zaun and Piltover would benefit them. 

And even if Silco was too entrenched in his violent mindset, other people who share his ideology would be spearheading the non-violent version of his argument (in the end, it seems Vander shared Silco’s ideology as does Sevika and even Ekko doesn’t seem to think Piltover is worth engaging with). Because they would see “hey, his opinions are maybe popular with some, but violence makes me sad, so I will try to find a more peaceful, negotiation-based option”. And bleeding heart liberals, intellectuals and poeople from the upper class who sympathize, like Caitlyn would always exist. 

In the end, Arcane isn’t portraying a very realistic conflict and what they are portraying is a lot more similar to a nationalistic conflict. IMO they loaned concepts from nationalistic conflicts like ie Northern Ireland but they took the shortcut of not portraying the two sides of the conflict as ethnically different in any way. At the very least the Zaunites should have very recognizable lower-class accents that make them identifiable if their race doesn’t. But I get why that would be annoying and off-putting to the audience, so they took the shortcut of making both sides the same enough that as soon a somebody put on different clothes they could fairly easily pass for the other at least on casual inspection. 

(maybe if the show had gone for portraying the immediate aftermath of the great damn catastrophe, which would make it feel more realistic that people are in favor of independence if people are still under the influence of “they just tried to kill us all! And refused to help with the recovery!” [again meaning that “give us X for the recovery would be a concrete political demand to Piltover that they can answer or not answer if they don’t want independence talk]) 

[cupcakeb]

Two completely unrelated questions:

1. how do you feel about the new season of Gossip Girl, idk but it comes off as a little stale to me

2. Do you like living in London? Everyone in the states romanticizes it and it’s my dream city but I want a real perspective from someone who lives there

ohhh, two very different topics that I have lots of opinions on! 1. I think the GG reboot sucks, mostly. I think all of the characters, so far, are almost identical and they took away the most interesting aspect of it all: rich people being unapologetically selfish and shitty. I don't want self-aware #woke rich teens who are super PC and aware of their privilege. That's BORING! That said, I am somewhat intrigued by the poly couple, an idea they obviously stole from Élite and other recent teen shows but hey, the actors have chemistry. And there's nothing else on TV, so, yolo. 2. London was always my "dream" city too! I've only lived here for 2.5 years but I don't regret the move at all. I think the reality of the city is a bit different to the glossy picture you see as a tourist but overall I really love it and don't see myself moving for a while. pros - literally so international, I feel culture shock every time I leave London and go to other English cities because I'm like huh this place is so white and English

- there's ALWAYS something to do (when there isn't a global pandemic) and I promise you will absolutely always find someone who's up for a drink/a yoga class/a walk/whatever the fuck cool thing you wanna do

- London's insanely convenient. Basically a smaller New York with better public transport. Also super well positioned for international and domestic travel. Having 4-5 airports around that you can easily reach in less than an hour is amazing.

- the vibe is impeccable. no, I will not elaborate on this point but... the vibe checks out.

cons (this list looks long but isn't, I just like complaining)

- I tend to forget about this (read: I'm in denial) but it's expensive. Rent is intense, many people live with roommates until they're in their 30s. (though check con #2 for a possible reason other than saving money) You'll be able to afford a decent lifestyle in most careers because salaries are similarly high, though. IDK, as a city brat I'm used to dropping absurd amounts of money on grocery deliveries and all that. IMO the expensiveness is overhyped, I don't feel it much and I'm not making super *insane* amounts of money in my corporate BS job.

- It can be really hard to make friends and will take a while to establish a real circle of friends. It's a big city, so even some of my friends who I knew before moving here live an hour away aka all the way across town. People are busy with their careers and dating like 300 strangers at once (I will never get that) - meaningful connections are hard to come by. This is 100% why so many adults choose to live with roommates even though they could afford to live on their own. This is a bit easier if you work with cool people, and many people will meet their friends through work.

- SO MANY FUCKING PEOPLE EVERYWHERE ALL THE TIME. I am currently seeing the resurgence of this, with Covid mandates running out and people feeling more comfortable out in public again, and I don't wanna know what it'll be like once tourists are back. Expect lines for virtually all popular bars, restaurants, activities, whatever and lots of very uncomfortable train rides where you feel like you can't move or breathe.

TLDR: If you get the opportunity to visit London or move over, take it! I think it's a really cool experience, and having lived in European countries that were cool but where I didn't speak the language, it helps that it's English speaking - you'll have an easier time with bureaucracy and making friends.

[funkymbtifiction]

Thank you for the link to a podcast on enneagram 8! It was a bit hard to listen because looks like the quality of the recording is not so good + English is not my native language, but I did it, whoo-ah. After listening to this I think that I resonate with 8 more than with 6 (but I am also pretty sure in not being sx 8, more likely sp/so or so/sp), but I have some thoughts, both related to the podcast directly and not so much, and I want to ask you about this parts.

1) The 8s participated in this podcast were talking much about their awareness of the emotional state of the people around them, like they feel people's energy with their body and read their body language with ease. And I resonate and do not resonate with it at the same time. I really feel like I have an extra sensory system that allows me to sense unique "vibes" of people - their dress style, their manners of moving and speaking and some other details makes a quite solid energy pattern, but it's more of analyzing the personality and image at the whole, not particular moods and thoughts. I can sense a potential personality of the person, and also I can sense that something is wrong if the vibes have changed heavily, but I am very bad in recognizing particular moods and working with this information, often missing the emotional atmosphere right here and now. Looks like I have the same ability to feel people's energy, but don't have the same level of empathy and emotional intelligence as the people from the podcast. Can it be covered by the fact that I am an ENTP, because as far as I know low empathy is a common struggle for ENTP?

It could be, yeah. Also, it may be those 8s all had Se in their stack. I know Emika is an ESTP. Se helps with tuning in and feeling people on an impacting level. Ne is working with abstract tangibles, not raw data.

2) Also, not directly related to the podcast but somewhat connected to the energy sensitivity stuff. YouTube have recommended me a video with funny horses, and I got very cp6 vibes from these animals. Horses really look a lot like cp6 reactiveness for me - most of the time they look like super confident, strong and even slightly show-offish in some cases, but being herbivores, they are secretively very anxious and alert, and many horses react on unexpected stuff in a "no-no-no, f**k this sh*t, I am out!" manner, even if the reasons for them being scared is absolutely stupid. And it makes me feel more like 8 over 6, because I don't resonate with this horses' trait at all, and at the same time, when discussing "what animal are you most like?" stuff with my friends for fun, I have mostly been compared with bears, orcas, honey badgers and big birds of prey like grey owls and eagles - my friends often claim that I am observant to an edge of being a wallflower when tired/bored, but also highly playful and positive in a good mood, and at the same time I definitely would be ready to kick asses if I would need to. I am also a fan of the 'His Dark Materials' books and a part of the fandom sub-community which uses the concept of daemons from this books as a personality typing system, and a few weeks ago I have finally choosen a sea eagle for my daemon. To you opinion, would horses for cp6 and other mentioned animals for 8 be valid comparisons?

Uh. I guess? I mean... I know a cp6 cat and an 8 cat, and the 8 cat beats the shit out of other cats and then attacks any human that tries to intervene, whereas the cp6 cat acts like an 8 but it’s all “bluffing” and she will hide in her house for three days after she’s had a scare. So... there’s that. LOL IMO, it’s best to compare yourself with humans. ;)

3) Also about personal energy. There were a discussion of the fact that 8's have a tendency to carry a lot of energy which is sometimes even too much. But is it possible for a 8, who have been desintegrated for a long time, to feel like their inner "energy generator" is somewhat like broken? I can remember having this high energy in childhood and partly in high school (I had two detached periods of clear desintegration in my life), but now I feel like my inner generator needs to be heavily repaired before it would work in it's normal mode again, and now it's only capable on either working much less effectively than usually, or give burst of energy until it would crack and stop working for some time. Plus, it has never been high energy in terms of "I can be constantly busy and do 100500 things at a time" as some of my friends are, it's more like being highly endurant, "if I wish I can go the whole equator on foot and you better just deal with it", but also not being quick to react.

Think about your type and what stimulates you. You are a Ne-dom, not a Se-dom or a Fe-dom or a Te-dom. What stimulates a Ne-dom? A constant influx of abstract sensations, new ideas, and discussion of intangibles. How much of this do you regularly get in the outside world? Not much. Si inferior: navigating the sensory world, holding sensory discussions, and going places, doing things, is exhausting since... it’s an inferior function. Make sense? Ne-doms are “high brain energy” not “high body energy.”

4) [no real question]

5) Related to the influence and being the boss stuff. Is it normal for a 8 to not want being in charge, preferring freedom and control of their own life and only their own, combined with heavy "justice fighter" instinct? As I already said in my previous ask, I am not ambitious. I have some goals that require hard work, but I am not going to be a boss of any sort. All this administrative stuff, bureaucracy, paper work, negotiations... It's all so boring!

And there you’ve head-butted up against the fact that 90% of 8s are Te-doms. And what are Te-doms anyway? Workaholics. What do Te-doms want, regardless of being 8 or something else? Competency in the workplace. How do they get it? By being the boss. Etc. Can still be an 8 and an ENTP and lacking Te, you wouldn’t likely want the “boring” responsibility of being the boss and pushing papers all day long.

Or you could be a 7w8 who is over-identifying with their 8 wing who really just wants FREEDOM.

[milkshakedoe]

In the early 1970s the scale of Beer’s proposed network was unprecedented. One of the largest computer networks of the day was a mere fifteen machines in the US, the military progenitor to the Internet known as ARPANET. Beer was suggesting a network with hundreds or thousands of endpoints. Moreover, the computational complexity of his concept eclipsed even that of the Apollo moon missions, which were still ongoing at that time. After several hours of conversation, President Allende responded to the audacious proposition: Chile must indeed become the world’s first cybernetic government, for the good of the people. Work was to start straight away.

Stafford Beer practically ran across the street to share the news with his awaiting technical team, and much celebratory drinking occurred that evening. But the ambitious cybernetic network would never become fully operational if the CIA had anything to say about it.

The United States’ fascination with Chilean politics began when Salvador Allende Gossens became a viable candidate for the presidency in 1970. He was openly affiliated with the Cold War S-word “socialism”, which was evidently intolerable in respectable hemispheres. But the Chilean people were consistently disappointed with the prior political parties and they were considering a switch. Unwilling to risk a democratically elected socialist in their “backyard”, the Nixon administration deployed covert CIA support for Allende’s presidential opponent. But their clandestine counterparts at the KGB also fortified their preferred candidate, and mutually assured distraction was achieved.

Upon hearing that Allende had won the presidency, President Richard Nixon convened an emergency war breakfast with National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger, Attorney General John Mitchell, Chilean newspaper owner Augustín Edwards, and Pepsi Cola chairman Donald Kendall. The businessmen expressed grave concerns about their enterprises in Chile, and the quintet concurred that a Socialist president could not be permitted on a neighboring continent, democracy be damned. When breakfast was adjourned, Nixon met with CIA Director Richard Helms, possibly over brunch, and instructed him to arrange for a military coup d’etat to prevent Allende from ever assuming the presidency. He allocated $10 million to the meddlesome endeavor which would come to be known as Project FUBELT.

Five weeks later, on 22 October 1970, a posse of CIA-funded right-wing extremists ambushed a government car in the Chilean capital of Santiago. Inside was General René Schneider, the commander-in-chief of the Chilean army. The CIA considered him an obstacle owing to his misgivings about military intervention in the political process. When the General drew a gun to defend himself, the proxy overthrowers revised their kidnapping plan into an improvised homicide. The consequent national outrage cemented the country’s support for their president-elect, and Allende was confirmed two days later.

When Allende learned of Stafford Beer’s cybernetic Viable System Model, he was intrigued. Cybernetics was an obscure but burgeoning area of study which sought to maximize organizational efficiency through data gathering and statistical analysis, and Beer was among its most flourishing practitioners. Mr Beer’s model suggested that large organizations are like living, thinking, feeling organisms, therefore they should mimic the successes that evolution had refined in humans. Beer felt that business departments should be seen as largely autonomous but interdependent “organs” managed by a “brain” of automated and manual systems. Allende, in spite of his Socialist leanings, was an outspoken proponent of civil liberties and industrial autonomy, and he saw that Beer’s cybernetics could foster both in Chile.

Stafford Beer was only 44 years old at the time of the fateful meeting, yet by that time he had amassed considerable wealth and prestige by applying his cybernetic principles for multinational organizations. He had also authored a menagerie of books and papers about cybernetics, one of which was The Liberty Machine, wherein he described a hypothetical utopian government that used cybernetics to supersede bureaucracy and respond to the needs of the populace. Beer saw Chile’s new Socialist government as a perfect laboratory to test cybernetic theory on a scale never before attempted.

Upon approval of the experimental project, Beer and his team began immediately. Beer labored alongside a young Chilean engineer named Fernando Flores, the general technical manager of the Corporación de Fomento de la Producción (CORFO), the organization in charge of nationalizing Chilean industries. Flores was one of Beer’s greatest admirers—in fact it was he who had initially invited the British cybernetician to proposition the President.

Beer had arrived in Chile with a well-developed plan of action. Anticipating a small budget and poor infrastructure, Beer’s idea for the hundreds of network endpoints was to employ telex (aka “teletype”) machines. These contraptions were a bit dated even at the time, but they were numerous and inexpensive. A single unit looked like the bizarre offspring of a rotary phone and an electric typewriter. When one telex unit connected to another via phone line, the clacking print heads printed output from the remote keyboard, and vice-versa, making them a paper-pounding progenitor to modern instant messaging. Telex machines could also print output as coded holes punched into a long paper strip. These could then be fed into the mainframe as old-timey data input. This collection of remote telexes all feeding data to the central mainframe would come to be known as Cybernet. In an astonishing stroke of luck, it turned out that the telephone company had about 400 spare telex machines cultivating cobwebs in a warehouse.

The software for the mainframe, codenamed Cyberstride, would be developed primarily by a British programming firm using the DYNAMO programming language. This suite of algorithms would use realtime and long-term data to detect and predict problems in the economy. Beer and his team would design the futuristic central control room where a group of Chilean policy makers could view these data in various ways and intervene in the economy when necessary. They would also have access to a sophisticated economic simulator, allowing them to test their hypotheses prior to implementation.

The sum of all of these parts would ultimately come to be known as Project Cybersyn, a portmanteau of “cybernetics” and “synergy” from before the words were corporate-speak. True to Beer’s Viable System Model, industrial and business sites were the vital organs; Cybernet was the spinal cord to facilitate communication among organs; Cyberstride was the lower brain monitoring these interactions; the control room was the midbrain linking voluntary and involuntary control; and lastly the cerebral cortex was made up of the thinking meat inside the control room.

Stafford Beer also envisioned a parallel system for measuring the happiness of the populace, a system he referred to as Project Cyberfolk. Randomly selected households would be wired with a small electronic box featuring a single volume-style pleasure knob. At any time users could turn the knob to indicate their present level of satisfaction with the government. If multiple meters in an area were set low it would equate to a signal of cybernetic “pain”, allowing government to respond appropriately.

imo this article still leans a little too heavily on the sci-fi mystique of the cybersyn program but it’s nevertheless a pretty decent intro

[geekns]

Loki series speculation

I’m just over here watching the Loki series trailer for the umpteenth time (i mostly like the music but was actually watching it analytically this time) and am thinking there must be at least a bit of a time skip between the Loki that escaped from Stark Tower and the one that’s brought before the court in the TVA tower. Why?

The Loki we see at the beginning of Dark World was acting very full of himself. He was openly hostile towards Odin’s authority (probably assuming, rightly so, that Odin wouldn’t even want to hear his side of the story). He did not seem to be repentant. He was flippant and utterly unrepentant.

Remember, this is the same Loki that escaped from Stark Tower, separated by 24-48 hours. I mean, we know there was shwarma for dinner, the Tesseract custody debate, and that he probably didn’t leave via Central Park the same day. There’s also time zone differences between Midgard and Asgard, so no reason to think Odin was immediately ready to deal with him upon arrival. Still, it’s very early days after the invasion of NYC.

The Loki at the TVA...looks reserved. Resigned, even. No more cocky attitude. No flagrant disregard for their authority. No calculated fidgeting. His body language in Odin’s throne room (Hliðskjálf?) communicated that he was in control. That he knew Odin would imprison him and it didn’t even affect him (imo this was actually part of his plan so he was right where he wanted to be). Whereas now, in the (TVA?) court he is absolutely serious. Head bowed down rather than held high. None of his usual charisma or spunk.

Furthermore, he spends the majority of his time working for them dressed in poorly fitting khaki rather than the bespoke tailored appearance that he favors. It’s frumpy for him. They do not show him using his magic. They do not show him in his armor after his initial reveal in the Gobi Desert.

So the obvious question: what happened to this irreverent spunk? What does the TVA show him that takes away that armor? Because that was his armor. Not his clothes. We know from Dark World that he insists on showing a polished, serene front regardless of inner turmoil, but that’s one of his illusions.

The other obvious question: is he working with the TVA of his own free will or will he be trying to shake them off, undermine their plans, not even give a fuck? Simply put, is the TVA trustworthy? Corrupt? (I tend to distrust bureaucracies in general.) A mixed bag like SHIELD was? Owen Wilson generally plays likeable guys, but seeing him in front of that stained glass window with Mephisto...suddenly i’m not so sure. I don’t particularly want to look up Mobius and get spoiled, either, i’ve had more than a few spoilers over the past few days (or at least potential spoilers via a couple of analysis videos).

My last musing: who is Loki talking to when he asks: “Come on: what did you expect?”

It seems like something he would say to someone he knows well. Thor. This blonde Lady Loki/Enchantress? Mobius (assuming he’s Loki’s handler or partner)? I feel like six hours is not going to be enough and I really hope I don’t hate it, because the interview with Tom that i rewatched last night does make it look like this will be a comedy when i much prefer Shakespearean Loki and the dramedy genre.

[estelanel]

✌, ☮, ☆, ☯, ☪ for the ask please? and what's dgs (from the answer to which language you'd like to be able to speak fluently)?

ohh, thanks for asking, anon!! :)DGS is Deutsche Gebärdensprache, which is the German sign language

✌ - favourite proverb/saying from your language

shit, there are so many :D German has some of the best proverbs imo and a lot of them are used frequently in everyday conversation. Like, really, we’re a proverb nation. :D I literally cannot choose one favourite so I will give you a small selection:

Einem geschenkten Gaul guckt man nicht ins Maul.lit.: You don’t look in the mouth of a horse you got as a gift.fig.: If someone gives you a gift don’t bitch about what might be wrong with it.

Auch ein blindes Huhn findet mal ein Korn.lit.: Even a blind hen finds a grain sometimes.fig.: Even someone who usually sucks at something might succeed sometimes. (Usually used deprecatory, though... more like ‘yeah okay, they might have succeeded this time, but they still suck’. XD Often used by myself to myself.)

Das Leben ist kein Wunschkonzert.lit.: Life isn’t a wishing concert.fig.: You don’t always get what you wish for, so suck it up.

Kindermund tut Wahrheit kund.lit.: A child’s mouth speaks the truth.fig.: p much taken literally :D

Kleinvieh macht auch Mist.lit.: Small cattle produces dung as well.fig.: Even small things (usually money/savings etc) will add up to something big eventually.

also, I want to present you a local saying from my hometown (which is Berlin):‘jwd’.It’s an abbreviation for ‘janz weit draußen’, translation: ‘very far out’ (in a Berlin dialect). It’s used to describe places that are hard to reach or outside of the city in the countryside. I often say I live ‘jwd’ which just means I live on the border of the city where public transport is a rare luxury. XD

☮ - translate the first lines of your favourite song in your language

(that is hard because I don’t have a favourite song :D but I picked one of my alltime favourites which is Fireflies by Owl City):

Du würdest deinen Augen nicht trauenWenn zehn Millionen GlühwürmchenDie Welt erleuchten würden, während ich einschliefe

☆ - give the first lines of a song which is originally in your language

Zwischen zwei FragenIn der Lücke zwischen zwei TagenBlieb nichts mehr zu sagenBlieb kein Leid mehr zu beklagen

English translation: ‘Between two questions, in the gap between two days, there was nothing left to say, there was no misery left to mourn’

(The song is ‘Von hier an blind’ (Blind from here on) by Wir Sind Helden, one of my favourite German songs.)

☯ - what do you love about your language

@managodess said it well: I think German is an incredibly poetic language. You can almost paint with the words. A well written German poem is something you can look at almost like a beautiful painting. You can create a kind of melody that I have yet to experience in another language.

Then of course what I also love is that you can invent ridiculous endless nouns and people will understand you. Like, I can say something like Büstenhalterunterbrustdrahteinsatzendenspitzenmisere, and it’s completely made up on the spot but every German-speaking bra wearer will understand what I mean.

☪ - what do you hate about your language

It’s so gendered. We’re lacking good gender-neutral options of a lot of things, like pronouns for example.What I also dislike is that German is really long-winded and impractical sometimes. The German language and the German bureaucracy share a lot of similarities - there are a lot of rules you have to obey, there are a lot of exceptions from the rules nobody ever tells you in advance, the rules are very detailed and very inflexible, and it takes very long to express something essentially very easy.

[theyreview-blog]

The Refugee Crisis: an ongoing trauma

“I am receiving a call on Skype. My husband’s cousin was killed by Assad’s grenades that came down in East Ghouta yesterday. We hear the cries of his family on the phone, while we, thousands of kilometres away from them, are useless”, wrote Ameenah Sawaan, describing her recent experience of receiving a death note, while writing her latest piece, condemning the Assad regime.

“With the tears, come old memories. I have a long list of friends and family that have been killed since 2011. None of them wanted more than what I perceive as self-evident here in the streets of Germany: a life in freedom”, continued Sawaan.

 Sawaan is a young woman from Damascus, Syria. She is one of the lucky ones, arguably, extremely tough and resilient, as she is, despite the horrors, building her career as a freelance journalist and activist since her arrival in Berlin in 2013.

 “Our lives have become a single balancing act. We are always somewhere between the moments in which we try to distract ourselves, as to not lose hope, and the moments when we look the situation in Syria in the eye, to see what we can do”, wrote Sawaan to me.

 The Syrian Network For Human Rights (SNHR) reports that 5381 civilians have been killed in the first half of 2017, from January until June. The number includes 1159 children, 742 women and 93 people who died from torture. SNHR estimates that over 480,000 Syrians have died since the outbreak of the conflict in 2011.

 Recently the Violation Documentation Centre in Syria (VDC-Syria), discovered a record number of civilian deaths, a 71% increase –  143,630 deaths since 2011. The organisation also brings attention to the increase of child casualties, from 9% - 3,354 in 2011, to 23% - 11,444 in 2016. VDC-Syria reports “an increased reliance on aerial bombing by the Syrian government and international partners.”

 The Syrian crisis does not only cause deaths, in even higher numbers it leads to internal displacement, lost jobs, homes, and livelihoods, while people remain in the war-zone. According to a UN High Commission for Refugees report, around 6.3 million Syrians have been internally displaced since 2011, the highest number in the world. Out of the 11 million people that have fled their homes according to Syrian Refugees.eu, over 5 million fled the country between 2011 and December 2017, reports the UN Refugee Agency.

To date the European Union is facing the greatest mass movement since the Second World War. The UN Refugee Agency, visualises the global trend: in 2004, there were 37.5 million refugees in the world, by 2014 the number had reached 59.5 million people – half of them children.

A Displacement Tracking Matrix published by International Organisation for Migration (IMO) found that 30,465 migrants arrived in Europe by December 2017, more than 29,000 arrived by sea in Greece, Italy and Spain. IMO records 175,056 arrivals in Europe in 2016, this is over five times higher than this year.

 People become refugees anywhere were political and military conflicts endanger their livelihoods. The Migration Observatory, reports that in 2016 most people came from Iran, Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nigeria, Albania, Syria and Sudan.

 Akim (a fictional name to protect his identity and asylum process) described his journey from Pakistan to Austria as the most difficult thing in his life: “The dangerous travel was from Turkey to Greece. Because I used to be boat on the sea. The tide was so strong in the sea when I was on the boat. Many people are gone in the sea, due to destroy boat or for Strom.”

 Akim, described his journey that cost him 13,000 euros and took him almost 15 months: “Also more dangerous to cross the border from Iran to Turkey in the night time because I used to illegal way and if any border guard of police sees that someone is crossing the border they can shoot then and there.

I came to Bangladesh to India on the foot but a middle man helped me. And I paid money. It's easy to cross, then I moved India to Pakistan by taxi and on foot. After Pakistan to Iran and in the same way like taxi. Iran to Turkey by bus and taxi. Turkey to Greece by boat. Greece to Macedonia by private car and Macedonia to Serbia by bus and taxi. Serbia to Hungary by private car and Hungary to Vienna by train.”

 Like thousands of others, Akim arrived in Vienna at the peak of the refugee crisis, when trains full of refugees arrived in Austria’s train stations. Linda Schütte, an Austrian student, was one of the many civilian helpers in the summer of 2015.

 Schütte said: “Conditions obviously weren’t the best; a train station can’t actually accommodate 4,000 people. That’s what happened though, in the beginning the people really slept there too, later there were emergency sleeping places all around Vienna, and shuttles to get there. The whole thing got structure over time.”

 Schütte valued her fellow locals’ efforts “People (volunteers) find an enormous amount of energy, because they simply want to help. Sure, it is a pity that, including myself, most people only help, when the misery is right in front of them, but most people completely disregarded their own needs and were basically at the train station 24/7, to help destitute people, that was really surprising.”

After tagging along once, Schütte felt inclined to come back for every free minute of her time: “From then on, I spent every day there. For me there was no other choice, but just to go there after work, and as long as the body could cope, sometimes even passed that. So, it was really a tenuous situation that brought me to it. (…) I spend most of my time, with people that had lost family or friends on their journey. I had nightmares about that, especially about a few individual cases. They were so terrible, that I can’t deal with them to this day.”

IMO’s report finds that the majority of migrants arriving in 2017 are from Western Africa. In Italy, 13% arrived from Guinea and Nigeria, high numbers also came from Bangladesh and the Ivory Coast. Greece received 36% of migrants from Syria, and a significant number from Iraq, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

 But many don’t make it to Europe. Missing Migrants Project states that in 2017, 3,091 people lost their lives traveling to Europe. A number much higher in 2016 – when it was at 4,962. For many the journey and the traumatic experiences linked to fleeing, civil war, suffering and the conflict in their home countries, are extremely difficult. Alongside cultural and language barriers it proved difficult for Milab Zamanlabib (aa fictional name to protect his identity) to share how the family came to Austria.

The father of two, who has recently lost his wife, talked about the benefits of life in Austria: “There is no militia. We can do what we want. There is work and respect for people and coherence to the schedule.” The father explained what was the most difficult after arriving in Europe: “To wait on the decision of the asylum status. German is also very hard. We want to work, and give back to the Austrians, what they have done for us.” His dreams for the future are “To be able to stay in Austria, work, own (a) flat, good life for the children.”

Italian lawyer L. B. (who wishes to remain anonymous) raised problems with the asylum process in Europe: “The EU has been making efforts to adopt common minimum standards regarding asylum processes in member countries. However, it remains a long and tedious process across Europe. From the moment an application is made, as much as a year can go by, between bureaucracy, papers, interviews and checks on the person’s status. Italian law states that the process should take a maximum of 35 days, but that is hardly ever the case.”

The lawyer emphasised the hardship the process puts on already vulnerable people: “The complexity of each individual case makes it difficult, leaving the people who apply in a limbo – not knowing whether their application will be granted or rejected, not knowing whether they will be allowed to legally remain in the country or not – is worsening a situation which is already, by nature, very delicate.”

He criticised the vagueness of the asylum process: “One of them gets granted asylum, the other does not. If the migrant says he is simply looking for a better life, that is not a good enough answer to be granted asylum. The law is still old, and it deals with an old model of refugee – one that flees because of persecution by the state. We have to confront new situations, where people have to flee because their country isn’t offering them security or a decent life.”

“If the asylum request is granted, the migrant can start a new life with the rights as citizen. If the asylum request is denied, the migrant has three choices: he can appeal for a new request, he can agree to be deported, or he can remain, illegally, in the country, living a life running away from the police – which oftentimes seems paradoxically to be a better choice than going back to his/her home country.”