#but most of us just go there to buy things which we need to survive

[fatfemmefreaquency]

i think maybe what’s missing in this conversation is a discussion of the fact that we could all consume less, actually

one of the primary concerns in terms of AI criticism is the environmental impact—these generative AI technologies consume a huge amount of energy because they require significant computing power

like yeah—some consumption is necessary for survival. and some is necessary to thrive

but do we really need all of the digital art that we’re producing? through AI??? you need soulless art? really? examine that assumption i think

it’s also worth acknowledging that the art is still going to be somewhat soulless when it’s produced by someone being exploited for their labour

and yeah. it IS exploitation to pay people in the imperial periphery a minuscule amount—most goods cost MORE in the periphery than they do in the imperial core, not less. so paying someone a pittance and acting like they should be grateful for you sending them money at all is weird as fuck

and honestly? yeah, underpaying someone for a job is worse than not paying them at all and them therefore having the time to find other employment for which they are fairly compensated

you are not entitled to others devalued labour just because you live in the imperial core and see it as somehow magnanimous to hire people from the periphery to do work for you—and they do have fewer options for lucrative employment so this idea that theres some big difference between you exploiting them vs. a major corporation is nuts

it IS a “productive analogy” in fact to compare exploitative corporations underpaying labourers in the global south to exploitative citizens of the imperial core underpaying labourers in the global south (idk what that person further up thread was on about with that argument lol)

because these two interactions are the same thing. it’s either a private individual or an organization leveraging the disparity of access to resources between the core vs. the periphery to find ways to underpay for labour. it does not matter if it’s a sweatshop or freelancing: the material impact is the same if it’s you, individually, or if it’s a corporation

but i think what a lot of people in the imperial core forget is this: you can consume less

there is such an entitlement to the goods & services that people at the periphery produce, even among the lowest classes in the imperial core

you do not need cheaply made goods. you do not need goods or services that involve exploiting labourers

there is also an almost staggering sense of entitlement in westerners to natural resources and to energy that, frankly, should not be privately owned

like idk. why should you get to use all that computing power and electricity to produce some shitty AI art?

i don’t actually think you’re entitled to consume those resources, just as much as you’re not actually entitled to the labour of people you refuse to pay a living wage

do you need it? what’s the impact of consuming it and is the cost actually worth the quality of what you get?

i think we all deserve nice things. we all deserve enough to both survive and thrive

but AI art is not a nice thing. it doesn’t meaningfully contribute to us thriving and the cost in terms of energy use, environmental destruction, global warming/ climate change, and other harms caused by the tech industry around it is too fucking much

none of us can afford to foot the bill

go watch some tv show or consume some art that already exists. ideally do it NOT by streaming—you can still buy physical media and watching or viewing it still costs less than streaming does

you know what’s more environmentally and economically sustainable than churning out a bunch of AI Garbage OR exploiting an artist to make something sub-par (because they’re not being paid enough to do their best work)? museums. galleries. being in nature. making your own art. looking at art your family & friends make. there are beautiful and fascinating and worthwhile things to look at in many, many places

i promise it won’t kill you to not have your own personal artists at your beck and call, be they generative AI or underplayed freelancers

i love how many AI art haters will with no self awareness whatsoever ask "ummm why don't you just underpay and exploit someone (probably in the global south) instead of using the evil words machine :/"

[traaanskimkitsuragi]

i remember seeing a post circulate around about how the old web had more visually interesting website design and how in modern days all fast food sites and stuff look the same and im just so baffled by it because i think back to all the times i wanted to order food from like local restaurants and then i would find their website and sure it would look more visually appealing than say the webpage of mcdonalds but i would inevitably close it in like 2 minutes without ordering anything because it would be so fucking cluttered i couldnt find any of the options i wanted to

[nerdyfangirlingbooks]

Every now and then I remember the times I would mention to my flatmate that I was thinking of buying myself something reasonably expensive (that I had been eyeing up for months and had budgeted for) and she'd tell me that I shouldn't spend that much money on something I didn't need and it would be stupid etc etc while she regularly impulse bought things that cost at least as much and she would use once (while complaining that she was under a lot of financial stress and couldn't afford <$3/week for 2 months for a rental washing machine when ours broke). She is... perhaps not my first call for financial advice

[yourlocalbreadenthusiast]

Kindly take a break from scrolling to read this, it's important.

Take your time to grieve and come to terms with the election results, but once you've done that, it's time to get to work. We have two months. And a lot to do in that time. We have to prepare, to be ready.

Be careful about what you post or say online. Anything potentially incriminating should be avoided. Threatening language, even if clearly a joke, can be used against you.

Know someone who's trans? Someone who's had an abortion? Someone who's LGBTQIA+? Someone who's an immigrant? Someone who attends protests? Someone who's disabled? Someone who might in any way be at risk due to laws being put into place? No you don't.

Move away from social media platforms and browsers that require you to use your real identity or input a large amount of personal information. Now's a good time to find alternate means of communicating online. Tails, Element, Tor, Mastodon, Firefox, and Lemmy are all decent options.

Find a community. Someone you can talk to, either online or in real life, that you'll have reliable contact with. We need to try and create a network, but one that's as anonymous as possible.

Start scrubbing your trail as much as possible. Get rid of old accounts that can still be traced to you but are no longer used, delete personal data off the internet. There are websites out there that will freely remove your data from the internet, but be careful about which one you use, make sure it's safe and legitimate first.

Change any usernames that you can that contain any personal information. Names, birthdays, anything.

Plan B has a four year shelf life. Stock up, but don't take more than you you'll need. We don't want a COVID repeat where everyone buys an excessive amount of things and leaves none for everybody else.

There are doctors that will sterilize you, if that's the way you want to go.

Stop using online period trackers right now. Delete all data from it if possible first, then delete the app itself. If you must, write it down, but in a subtle manner and on something you keep at home. Don't label it, just put the dates. If you're really worried, discard older records and only keep the most recent few, and label the dates as other random events, like "go to mall" or "chicken salad for dinner this night"

Get your vaccines now.

Save money.

Archive. We have to start collecting records, media, data, books, and articles now. On racism, on fascism, on homophobia, on gender, on self-reliance, on survival, on safe travels routes, on equality, on justice, on anything that may be useful and/or censored soon. We can't let them erase it.

Collect those online resources. Bookmark them, copy files into your storage, Screenshot pages. Create a decentralized library where everyone is working to be part of a whole, storing what they can individually and sharing it between one another. Again, be careful about doing this.

Second-hand bookstores are your best friend. Books are usually very cheap in them, and they often have a decent stock. See what you can find.

When buying ANYTHING I have mentioned above, or anything else that maybe put you in danger, try to use cash to reduce your spending trail.

Check your car information online, many newer models can be remotely tracked.

Turn your phone completely off if you may be at risk due to your location and current activities. Turning off your GPS also helps.

Take note of where you are. Who are your friends? Who's a safe person? Where can you go besides your own home that you know you'll be safe? Establish these connections now.

Who around you is not safe? Who and where do you need to avoid? Do you need to move? If you cannot afford moving but need to, there are fundraisers that can help you. If even that is not an option, at least try to make sure your home is secure. Have someone who can help you. Have a fallback safe place.

And finally, I want anyone with resources to put them in the replies. Flood it with useful links, information, tips, anything. We're in this together. Do not panic. Organize.

EDIT: Please be civil in the replies.

[shego1142]

This video is in many ways the best documented real life example of exactly everything discussed in this post!

People talk all the time about “facts over feelings” on every side of the political spectrum, but yeah, in actual practice, feelings will win out every single time.

This video is actually very dear to me in many ways because I believe that if we all go into a situation with the approach of attempting to make friends, even with people we may perceive as enemies, we’d be happier as a collective.

Changing people's minds on major things is actually a very long and difficult process for both parties. I didn't actually believe that pedestrian-centric city design would be better for people that drive cars until I spent almost a year living without a car and watched hours of youtube videos explaining the issue to me. Turns out that traffic actually does go down and driving does become more pleasant if you make it harder to drive a car and easier to walk. I just straight-up refused to believe that for years. Because people just talked about it like it was obvious. But it wasn't. Because I had spent my whole life in a car-centric city going around in a car and also I was an English major in college who did not study urban planning. You can't expect me to change my entire mindset around transportation all at once. I did reach a eureka moment like two weeks ago but that was after like three years of getting exposed to these ideas periodically and living without a car for 11 months.

And yeah this post is about my big dumb animal brain accepting the science behind narrow roads and the evils of certain types of zoning laws, but it's also about stuff in general. If you don't know why someone isn't changing their mind on something, it's probably because the information they're getting hasn't reached a critical mass in their monkey brain yet. Whenever you hear stories about people changing their minds on things or leaving a certain ideology the story never goes "A person on the internet did a slam dunk on me and then I changed my mind."

It's usually a long process that happens over the course of months or years. Seeds planted here and there that coalesce eventually into a new thought or ideology over the course of years or snap together or send someone down a new path after a certain event. Same with me about pedestrian-centric cities. For me the tipping point was finding this video, which isn't necessarily super special or the best and the guy who runs the channel, in my opinion, isn't the most qualified or the most sympathetic towards every city in every situation, but it was the feather that tipped the scales in my brain to "Oh, wait. Maybe everything I thought I knew about how cities work is wrong actually." But that video alone didn't change my mind. With the amount of stuff and people that have gradually and gently been giving me information over the past couple years, something else was bound to eventually change my mind.

People on Tumblr yelling about abolishing the car, if anything, slowed down me changing my mind. Every time I saw a person saying that driving cars is stupid and that cars are bad I took a step back into my old way of thinking in defense. Because I grew up only ever using a car to get around. Rhetoric like that felt like a direct attack on my family, who I know to be loving people who care about other human beings and who drive cars literally everywhere.

And you might say, posts and videos like that aren't actually an attack on people that drive or have to drive. Okay then. Why are they phrased like that? Because that makes you feel good? Because you're angry? Alright, your anger at how it's currently impossible to get around if you don't own a car and how people who don't actually want to drive are being forced to drive is reasonable. And now I understand why it exists. I'm kind of angry too now that I get how this stuff works. However, is calling the people you're trying to convince stupid to their face and immediately bombarding them with your most radical ideas that might be completely detached from their reality and how they understand the world really the most productive way to channel your anger?

What about a guy with a knee problem that lives in rural Appalachia? Do you think he is gonna be convinced by your angry rants about bike lanes? No. He lives on a mountain that he can't climb or bike up because he's disabled and has only ever known getting around in a car. What about a person who overheats easily living in a suburb in the middle of the desert? Do you think she is inspired by your green lush pictures of trolleys running through parks in The Netherlands? No. If she leaves her house for too long without ice water she could literally die and you're going on about getting rid of, in her mind, the only thing that lets her go to the grocery store and not faint.

And again, this post is about my inability to comprehend walkable cities, but it's also about everything else you might ever want to convince someone of. The way you talk about things with your in-group that knows exactly what you're talking about should not be the same way you talk about that thing with people that you're genuinely trying to convince of something.

[arijsblog]

https://gofund.me/92cc9c56

Verified by @90-ghost

My name is Areej Salem, I am twenty-eight years old, I fell in love two years ago, then we planned to get married until the path we always dreamed of was completed.

 Muhammad and I got married on November 3, 2023, and after five months, God surprised me with the most beautiful gifts..

I had learned that I was pregnant, I would give birth to my first child and I will have a happy family,

During the journey of weakness and fatigue within pregnancy, Muhammad and I began preparing the baby’s things, buying clothes for him, and searching for suitable furniture until the seventh of October came to destroy everything we dreamed of for our child and our future.

The war began and fire broke out from every direction, and the Zionist indiscriminate bombing of civilians and defenseless people began, I was then in the eighth month of pregnancy, and I was suffering from strong panic attacks that I experienced with every strong bombing close to our house, I clutched my body and held myself tight, I was thought that i lose my baby many times just because of fear! After that, I suffer from uterine contractions that stay with me for days.

 Within a few days, Israel decided to displace us from our homes in the north of the Gaza Strip to its south, During the air, land and sea bombardment, we got our car, heading towards the south, until naval boats attacked us with a shell that hit our car from the roof, So I put my hand on my womb to protect my fetus and prayed to God a lot to grant me sight for my child, safe and sound.

Thank God, we miraculously survived, and on the second of December, that is, within two months of the war, I gave birth to my little boy, “Adam,” in a small room containing three beds, without the minimum sanitary necessities, and in which there were many displaced people fleeing their homes to health centers to take refuge in them, with a lack of food ,Sanitation, hygiene, and a lack of equipment and tools needed for childbirth, These were the most difficult hours of my life, until I felt like my soul had left my body. After three days I spent in labor pain, Adam came to enlighten my heart and my life and give our future meaning and existence.

Now... the war is still going on, but our lives are also going on, but! Without a home, it was destroyed by the Israeli occupation, also without food, medicine, or even milk to feed my little baby.

Your life continues, but in order for us to live like you, you must help us, so that I can provide a healthy environment for Adam, and for me and my husband, Muhammad, to live a decent life. Every amount, even a small one, will make a difference!

‏Donations will be spent on living expenses and the money will be transferred to us through Western Union and to have money for get out from gaza also

 Fear fills our hearts, as death is very close to us, so we ask for your support and attention to find a safe way.

 Your donations will make a difference in our lives, and we are incredibly grateful for your support.

Verified by @nabulsi

 Follow my instagram account for full story https://www.instagram.com/arij.raji?igsh=YzAwZjE1ZTI0Zg%3D%3D&utm_source=qr 

[logansdoll]

Heyyy it would be awesome if you wrote a third part for “37” where Charles gives Logan’s memories back and we go through flashbacks of some of his best memories, his wedding, the day his kids were born…something like that, it would be very heartwarming 🥰🥰🥰 or even maybe coming back from the past and seeing his kids again

sunflower

part three of "37"

CW: fluffy fluff, all the feels, suggestive, profanity, takes place after the events of Days Future Past, very bittersweet, your daughter's a lil menace, your son's a lil cutie pie, angst if you squint, i never know how to end these things, etc.

"Logan, the mind is a fickle thing," Charles sighed, resting his hands on his desk with a solemn look. "I can't possibly guarantee that this will work, much less in one session—" "I don't care how long it takes."

Logan's face drew tight with the statement, his patience visibly wearing thin.

He'd been listening to the same bullshit for twenty minutes...

"I don't care if I need a hundred different fuckin' sessions. I'm gettin' these memories back," he spelled out, leaning forward in his seat and roughly tapping his finger on the desk. "It doesn't make any damn sense. This body's been in this timeline for fifty-fuckin'-years and it doesn't remember shit."

"Because it is your consciousness that is the problem, Logan," Charles groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. "That is what I've been trying to tell you."

Logan piped down for a moment, brows knitting together as he leaned back in his seat, taking an annoyed drag of his cigar.

"Your psyche is from a completely different timeline, and now resides in a completely different body. It's like asking to recall the memories of a random person walking down the street," the professor explained, again.

Sadly, he hung his head, greatly sorry for the misfortune of his friend.

"I wish there was something I could do, Logan. Truly. But I'm afraid it just can't be done."

But Logan didn't buy it.

Huffing a small plume of smoke out his nose, he glanced out the window, catching sight of you teaching a class on the lawn.

Using your powers, you grew a large sunflower out from the ground, the younger kids marveling at the sight as you began pointing out its anatomy, most of them enamored by the huge petals—which were bigger than their little six year-old frames.

And in a small pause in time, your eyes flitted up to meet his through the window, that heart-stopping smile finding its way onto your lips as you gave him a tiny wave.

It warmed him, experiencing your light for the first time in years without the threat of annihilation on the horizon.

Domesticity like this is something he'd craved all his life, and now that he had it in his grasp, he wasn't going to settle for anything less.

A stilling chill descended on his chest at the thought of your smile, and the countless others he'd missed.

Your tears of joy when he proposed.

Your frazzled excitement with the wedding planning.

Your radiance as you walked down the aisle.

He missed it all.

And he'd be damned if he didn't do everything in his power to try and get it back.

"Charles..." Logan started, stamping out his cigar in a nearby ashtray. "My whole life is standin' out there under that tree... and I can't remember a goddamn thing about her after 1973."

His tone turned cold, eyes sharp as he stared the professor down.

"I don't care if you have to rip my head in half... I'm gettin' those memories back."

The old man let out a sigh, accepting that going on like this would bring no other outcome.

He'd have to give the man what he wanted... consequences be damned.

'Let's hope he survives...'

"This will be violent," Charles stated off-rip, wheeling himself out from behind his desk. "I am essentially hammering your mind like a dam, making cracks in its defenses until it eventually gives way."

Logan nodded, watching as the man settled in front of him, raising his two fingers to his temple.

"Now... try not to move."

Logan shut his eyes, and in an instant, it felt as if his head was struck by a speeding train.

He let out a growl of pain as images began to flash behind his eyes, the next one always coming quicker than the last.

"Hon, which color do you think would go best with my complexion? Eggshell or Porcelain?" you asked, eagerly holding up two different swatches against your skin.

"You look beautiful in anything, baby," he stated as if it was the simplest thing in the world, wrapping an arm around your waist. "Either one is fine."

"As sweet as that is... it doesn't help," you huffed, playfully attempting to scold him.

"Fine then. Eggshell," he answered, quickly.

You raised a brow, an amused smile playing at your lips as you leaned in closer, "Are you just saying that to get me to shut up?"

He let out a chuckle, resting his forehead against yours, "Never."

Yes...

"Can't wait 'til this damn reception is over," he growled in your ear, lips dragging down your neck as you both hid in a nearby hallway. "First time I've been alone with you since I do."

"Logan..." you gasped, tucking your lip between your teeth in an attempt to muffle yourself as he tightly grasped your hips. "Someone'll hear..."

"Then I guess you better keep quiet," he smirked against your skin, giving your collarbone a soft nip.

It's all coming back...

"Logan..." you started, nervously, hands held firmly behind your back. "I have something to tell you... and I'm open to talk about it if you're upset..."

His brows furrowed as he turned away from his dresser, looking toward you with an air of concern.

"What's wrong?" he asked, his protective instinct spiking at the sight of your fearful expression. "What happened?"

Unable to say it, you slowly held up your hand, revealing a positive pregnancy test.

His eyes widened like saucers, throat drying at the tiny piece of plastic.

"You're... pregnant?"

You nodded, silently, his reaction not soothing your anxiety one bit.

But, as if on cue, he moved toward you, striding across the room and pulling you into a bone crushing hug.

"I'm gonna be a father..." he muttered into your hair, the phrase not one he thought he'd ever hear. "I'm gonna be a father..."

Wait...

"Logan!" you cried, tears welling in your eyes as you glanced up at him, scared. "I can't...mmmph fuck!... I can't do it! Hurts too much!"

"C'mon, baby, keep pushin'. You're doin' so good," he cooed, swiping stray strands of hair out your face as the nurse on the other side of the bed helped cheer you on. "Just a little bit more. You're right there."

With a grunt, you squeezed his hand tight, letting out a growl of pain as you gave another push.

Pop!

Logan's eyes shot wide, the man nearly biting through his tongue as he glanced down at his hand.

You dislocated his finger.

Though it seemed to be worth it as that final push was what did it.

"It's a girl!" the doctor smiled, carefully holding up the newborn.

Looking upon her small, chubbed face, Logan felt a sense of protectiveness sink into his chest—one that he only felt when things came to you.

In that moment, and every moment after that, he knew he would lay his life down for her, no question.

And she wasn't even a minute old yet.

I have—

"James! Get back here!" a little girl squealed with laughter, bursting into the office after a little boy, who looked terrified.

Logan snapped out his head with a gasp, shooting up from his seat and unsheathing his claws out of muscle memory.

'James...'

Quickly, Logan retracted his claws as the boy ducked behind his leg, gripping tightly onto his jeans as the girl stormed over.

She looked just like you, save for a few small details, and had a small snaggle-tooth poking out on her right side, only adding to her adorableness.

Not to mention the bone claws she had protruding from her knuckles.

"No fair! You can't hide behind Dad every time you're scared!" she furrowed her brows, upset.

"Mommy told you about your claws, Laura..." James mumbled, voice barely above a whisper as he shyly peeked out from behind his human shield.

'Laura...'

The boy was Logan's mirror image, looking almost exactly like he did at that age..

Apple doesn't fall too far from the tree...

Charles could sense the pieces clicking in Logan's mind, and figured lending a hand would be best after what he'd been through.

"Logan, these are your—" "Laura Marie Howlett!" your voice cut in, the little girl flinching at the sound.

Quickly, she retracted her claws, whipping around with a guilty smile, which was met by your less-than-approving glare.

"What have I told you about chasing your brother inside? And what have I told you about using your claws to do it?" you scolded, walking into the office. "You two are interrupting your father and Professor Xavier."

Logan let out a soft sigh, taking the moment to finally look over his family.

Like a slow moving stream, things were coming back to him, the feeling like a fog clearing from the recesses of his mind.

Every birthday.

Every boo-boo.

Every first.

Slowly but surely, they were all returning.

Without warning, Logan dropped to his knees, pulling the two kids into a tight hug, fiercely fighting off the emotion swelling in his chest.

"Daddy?" James squeaked, concerned.

"Are you okay?" Laura asked, confused.

He nodded, silently, the sight making your heart both burst and ache.

After all this time, your husband was truly whole.

Fifty years of suffering and agony had finally come to an end.

taglist !!

@catiwinky @seamlessepiphany @vinaluvsu @kellyxo1 @amandarobertsboyce  @captainloki1 @qveendiorsworld @sarahskywalker-amidala @mei-simp @oatmilkriver @br3nt-12 @bimboshaggy @lightsgore @edszn @couturewinx @sunroxic @notanotheroldman @bontensbabygirl @buckleysg1rl @marvelgirlie-4 @eljaynosine-triphosphate @nickf1 @pinkisokay @mercurysjoy

[grison-in-space]

Listening to Artificial Condition again, it strikes me how much Murderbot uses empathy reflexively as a survival skill. Look at this bit.

Upon meeting it, ART allows it on board and then announces that it knows that Murderbot is rogue. Then ART threatens to destroy it if it hacks ART's own systems. Murderbot is immediately terrified and shuts down all inputs, gives serious thought to spending the entire three month journey unconscious, and then considers the potential avenues of damage from ART's drones. ART, not realizing why Murderbot had suddenly gone silent, tells it to quit sulking, which understandably pisses off the still-terrified Murderbot. It dumps a bunch of memories of coercive treatment into ART's feed, and ART goes silent.

Then this happens:

Then it said, I’m sorry I frightened you. Okay, well. If you think I trusted that apology, you don’t know Murderbot. Most likely it was playing a game with me. I said, “I don’t want anything from you. I just want to ride to your next destination.” I’d explained that earlier, before it opened the hatch for me, but it was worth repeating. I felt it withdraw back behind its wall. I waited, and let my circulatory system purge the fear-generated chemicals. More time crawled by, and I started to get bored. Sitting here like this was too much like waiting in a cubicle after I’d been activated, waiting for the new clients to take delivery, for the next boring contract. If it was going to destroy me, at least I could get some media in before that happened. I started the new show again, but I was still too upset to enjoy it, so I stopped it and started rewatching an old episode of Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon. After three episodes, I was calmer and reluctantly beginning to see the transport’s perspective. A SecUnit could cause it a lot of internal damage if it wasn’t careful, and rogue SecUnits were not exactly known for lying low and avoiding trouble. I hadn’t hurt the last transport I had taken a ride on, but it didn’t know that. I didn’t understand why it had let me aboard, if it really didn’t want to hurt me. I wouldn’t have trusted me, if I was a transport. Maybe it was like me, and it had taken an opportunity because it was there, not because it knew what it wanted.

The thing about Murderbot's survival is that it clearly involves quite a bit of negotiating with other constructs and bots. That's how it talks its way onto cargo hauler bots in the first place. It uses empathy--envisioning the emotional and cognitive context of the individuals it encounters--to work out what different kinds of people want, so that it can offer them fair trades. It also uses empathy to consider what humans might be looking for, so it can practice blending in and hide.

Murderbot would never have survived so long if it wasn't capable of assessing the individual desires of the people--human, bot, and construct--around it. It thinks about ART's probable fears and motivations so that it can consider whether ART is inherently an ongoing threat or a potential ally.

When your survival depends on evading detection, you get really good at assessing perceptual biases so that you can shape yourself to fit into them. People talk about murderbot being radically empathetic as a choice it makes, or as a feature of its personality that makes it a good person. But I think murderbot would be the the first person to tell you that this empathy is part of its threat assessment suite, a skill that was developed out of necessity in order to allow you to survive.

It is also a trait that makes murderbot a good person, of course: it chooses very carefully to try to survive by doing as little harm as possible and by offering things, like media, that buy it access to things it needs. But it started as a survival skill. It's part of hypervigilance.

I think one of the strengths of this series is that so many of the things we love about SecUnit are traits developed for survival in an inherently threatening world. The shape of its mind and heart have been changed by the trauma of its origin--but they don't make murderbot less good for being altered, even if that skill was developed in a traumatic context.

I like that.

[strnilolover]

Vet!Chris taking you to an animal café and he has a little bit of a hard time getting you to leave …

Chris glanced at his watch, then at you, sprawled across the floor with a calico cat purring in your lap. “Alright, baby,” he said softly, crouching down next to you. “We’ve been here for two hours. I think it’s time we head out.” he states.

You didn’t even look up at him. Your fingers scratched gently behind the cat’s ears, earning a contented trill from the feline. “Five more minutes,” you mumbled, clearly enraptured by the small sea of animals around you. A golden retriever had settled at your feet, while a tiny rabbit hopped curiously near your hand.

Chris sighed, trying to hide his smile. He’d taken you to the animal café as a way to unwind after your stressful week, but he didn’t anticipate just how hard it’d be to pull you away. Not that he blamed you — seeing you so happy, your face lit up with childlike wonder, made it impossible for him to be annoyed.

Still, he had a schedule to keep. “Sweetheart, the café closes in fifteen minutes. You know we can’t just move in, right?” he said like it was the most obvious thing in the world — which it was.

You finally glanced up, your lower lip sticking out in a dramatic pout. “But Chris, look at them!” you gestured around at the assortment of animals, your voice full of longing. “They need love and cuddles! What if they miss me when I leave?” you whined, already feeling your chest tighten with the fact you had to leave them for the day.

He chuckled, reaching out to boop your nose gently. “I think they’ll survive, babe. Besides, don’t I give you enough cuddles at home?” You gave him a teasing look. “Not nearly as fluffy, though.”

Chris’ hand came up to his heart, like you had punched it. “Rude,” Chris shot back, feigning offense. “You’re hurting my feelings, baby.”

You giggled but stayed rooted in place, your hand now occupied by a curious kitten batting at your bracelet. Chris leaned back on his heels, watching you with an affectionate smile. “Okay, what if I make you a deal? We can come back next week, and I’ll buy you that strawberry boba you like on the way home. But only if we leave before the staff has to drag us out.”

You perked up at his offer, your lips twitching into a grin. “Promise?” he nodded his head, “I promise.” he said, placing a hand over his chest.

Reluctantly, you scooped up the calico cat one last time, giving it a soft kiss on its tiny nose. “Okay, but I’m holding you to that boba and next week’s visit.” you said, placing the kitty down as your hands reached out for Chris.

As he helped you to your feet, Chris wrapped an arm around your waist, pressing a kiss to your temple. “Well come back as much as you like, i promise. And of course i wouldn’t go back on my word, you know that baby.” he said, walking toward the doors as you gave a quick smile and wave to the workers.

“Yeah, i know..” you muttered, still a little bummed that you had to leave. Chris noticed, pressing another kiss to your temple as he held the door open for you.

“You know i love you, yeah?” he said, pulling his keys out and unlocking the car as he opened the passenger door for you. And you looked at him, smiling.

“I know.” you said, leaning over and pressing a kiss to his lips before situating yourself in the seat.

© strnilolover

LITTLE VET CHRIS BLURB. MY SWEET BABY 🥹

[kanmom51]

Jikook car drive to CT

I think that before I dive into the actual car ride I have to set a few things straight.

Did you guys notice they chose to ride together? Shock and awe...

Lmao.

Just a little stab for all those who were nitpicking at them back in 2021-23. Yeah, you's that were all about "but they don't ride in the same car anymore", or "they aren't addressing each other or reacting to each other on SM", or whatever other kind of insecurity for some or just outright malice from others.

JM and JK are the same JM and JK they were before the hiatus and solo paths. Same same. With adjustments having to be made to a new reality of not spending close to 24/7 together. Adjusting to their crazy busy solo work and schedules. Adjusting to learning how to be alone when you are used to not being, because your significant other is submerged in his work while you are not. With adjustments to not having ot7 as their protecting glass closet. When you are used to being together close to 24/7 and circumstances change and you can't anymore, as a couple you need to adjust to that new reality and sometimes it's harder on one of you than the other. Not because you don't love each other or need each other equally, but because you are different people and adjust differently to this new reality.

And in the reality of these 2 young men, well it has been apparent since the beginning of 2023 that JK was the one that was struggling most with these changes. I'd say that this is can be a huge clue to his neurodivergence.

When we look at these two young men, whom I believe to be 2 queer young men in a long term loving relationship, not only do we need to look at them within the context of them being in one of the biggest if not THE biggest band in the world right now, living in a still mostly homophobic society and at the time were looking at enlisting for their 18 month military service, a military that still outlaws sexual relations between men.

This has to be understood while looking at Jikook throughout the years and in 2021-2023, things changing after creation of Hybe, going public, trying to buy out SM and the whole saga with MHJ (which was going on since Oct 2022 behind the scenes).

That's a good starting point understanding them in 2023 and going into watching Are you sure?

But that's not all.

There's more.

Seeing some of the reactions, comments, posts I feel the need to say this as well:

JM and JK are human beings.

They aren't characters in a drama.

This isn't The Bold and the Beautiful, JK not Ridge and JM not Brooke or vise versa (seriously, just picked the parallels because of the current hair colours). They weren't married and divorced ending up with others and then married again and divorced and with others and just going on and on and on. Ups and downs, ins and outs, together and parted. This is real life, not a TV show. Not only would their love not last that (and they clearly love each other), their interactions, their dynamics wouldn't just stay the same same. Not to mention what it would have done to the band and their own relationships with the others. They wouldn't survive it nor would the band. So don't create drama where there isn't is what I say.

What I see is a pretty much levelled long term couple. With relationship bumps in the road, adjustments, frustrations, moods.

I also see 2 queer young men who due to the reality of 2023 have close to zero camera time in one frame. And it shows.

But mainly I see LOTS AND LOTS OF LOVE FOR EACH OTHER.

On top of that I see both of them feeling physically unwell. Poor JM with his stomach issues and bursting pipe (yes I just said that, lol), and JK who has been ill for days, had to go to the hospital for treatment before his solo debut performance, for that performance to be fucked up by the weather. Man was definitley still unwell the whole time constantly sniffling and coughing. And JM worrying about JK's health is another indicator as to it not being nothing.

Bottom line: these are real life people with their own different characteristics, feelings, stress, anxiety, illnesses and the runs.

Not that they didn't know there will be cameras, they were well aware of it, but looks like JM was initially a little shocked to see just how many of them.

Even with the cameras and initial apparent awkwardness, not with each other, but with the whole "it's just the two of us on camera together, no other members to buffer", they are at ease with each other, smiling and giggling.

And even with the cameras and that on one hand need to say things but on the other need to still be wary of what you say and not to say too much - something they are expert at, even if it's been a while and takes them a bit to get back on the wagon with. Even with that they go back to that very jikooky type of formal - informal interaction with each other, JK 'forgetting' JM is the hyung out of the two (like I said, same same).

We have JM's cheeky comment about spooning JK if he's cold, one he insisted on implementing that same night. Mics on, cameras obviously on, but us not allowed to see a thing (and I will talk about this in another post - the whole "if there's nothing to hide how come we didn't get to see one of the apparently funniest moments of the trip, one that the the two and those around them couldn't shut up about?" (phew, that was a long question).

We also get a cute JM looking out for JK's health turning on the heat in the car, turning on his seat heater (without JK knowing about it, lol).

As a whole, those two in the car sounded like an old married couple. I was watching laughing the whole time, the whole thing feeling too familiar, lol.

But I know what you are all waiting for.

More so those that love to question their relationship.

Let's get on and discuss the car convo some are stressing over.

This:

But wait.

Before I talk about it, there's one more word I want to mention.

CONTEXT.

Context is EVERYTHING.

We all know that, right?

And what is the important context here?

Well, first of, this is all in front of the cameras.

Secondly, we ALL KNOW that even with their crazy schedules JM and JK DID GET TO SEE EACH OTHER in those months counting up to this trip, in private, just the two of them.

We know from them that they were together drinking the night before Hobi's enlistment, for example. We know JM was at JK's before JM left for London end of May, JK 'complaining' about having to change the way JM adjusted the mood lamp. We know they are the closest duo in the group, but beyond that, those two are just super close. We know that JK went live basically every time JM left for overseas and was overjoyed when JM showed up in his comments (including his comments during the mukbang live and perhaps coming over after he finished his schedule). This is before this trip. Let's not mention (or maybe let's) the flirt-fest we got in the JK in bed live that came shortly after this trip.

One other huge thing we seem to forget is that:

This is an edited product we are seeing.

Not a live discussion.

And even if it looks like the conversation is somewhat flowing, when you look really closely you see that there are cuts cuts cuts. Some might just be change of camera angle, others are real cuts where you can see that whatever was said was not said at the same time as a flowing conversation.

So, if you look carefully you will see that the first part of the discussion and the part where JM brings up V are not exactly in one flow. That there is a cut between what JK says, and we will get to that, don't fret, and when JM brings up him facetiming with V and what follows.

The start of it is also not clear. If what JM says about not going somewhere together in a while is the start of the flow of conversation, then the clip they are showing us of them in the car driving in the streets of NY is not connected to that, because the conversation continues when they are already out of town. 2 possibilities here. Either that was the start of the convo and for some reason they decided to show the car driving in NY even though the convo happened with them out of the city already. Or, once again, my point that maybe the convo isn't in one flow - even that first part of it. That JM did say what he said when they were still in the city and then their conversation following was edited in a way that we didn't get much of it until they were already out of the city and JK says what he says.

Reason I bring this up is again to emphasize the fact that as much as we are let in, we are still getting an edited product.

You know, same edited product that cuts out their flirty playful bedtime toothbrushing session.

I also want to bring this up, because I basically agree with much of what @shellbells-things the importance of them needing that getaway together (in this post):

This was written with the official translations in mind.

But you see, this is not what JK said.

The actual translation is basically JK calling out JM for not seeking him out enough!!!

And we also have this from @haedalkoo (thanks you for this post💜):

And why does it matter? Why do these different translations matter? Because they tell us a totally different story.

In the first you have JK saying that when one of them is busy, even though the other is not, he does not tend to call/reach out to the one that is busy. Basically this could be read as them not making an effort to contact the other even when they had time on their hands to do so. And perhaps that is why there are people up in arms about this, although my take of it is that even if this was the correct translation, which it is not, that understanding, that conclusion, would have been a very superficial one, disregarding the context of those two, who they are, where they are and what they are doing, as mentioned above.

In the other, what seems to be the more accurate translation, we have a salty boyfriend complaining about his partner not reaching out to him when he's busy, but also not reaching out to him when JK is busy, even if JM is not as busy.

"Your busy you don't seek me out, your not busy you don't seek me out"...

Now let's look at what JK said within the context of it all.

This isn't about them not seeing each other, not being in touch at all. Being estranged. Losing contact. Like so many want it to be about, given that would be so much more dramatic and 'interesting'.

This is about it not being enough for JK.

Enough being the key word.

JM and JK are different. They are both highly driven, and when JK has a JM by his side, said JM is a catalyst and has JK as driven as him. But you see, they weren't together. JM, being the workaholic that he is, highly driven with his work, having to give not 100% but 1000%, could easily lose himself in that work. And as much as he loves JK, or perhaps even more so because he's crazy about him, he can't have him around as a distraction. So, in a sense, when he works he can get lost in that work and that leaves little "free" time to spend with the person he loves, the person that loves him, the person that needs him. Same person that was REALLY struggling at the start of 2023 while JM was too absent. Again, that does not mean that JM was not spending time with JK. It was just not enough. Especially while JK was sort of lost at that point in a sense that he had no clear path set for himself. JK is different in the sense that JM is kind of his blankie, his anchor, his safe place. He needs JM around even when he is up to nothing (see JM's "he comes to my room to lie on my bed and do nothing" from the LA live 2021). And having him around is a need. Do we remember crying JK at the end of his lives on White day 2023. Heart wrenching. And again, it's not that JM doesn't need JK, he does, but a. his need is different to JK's, and b. JM was super busy at the time while JK was doing basically nothing.

And when JK was busy, well I'm guessing that JM was giving him the space he thought JK needed to work. But obviously this wasn't what JK wanted.

This saltiness is all coming from the same person that says he doesn't answer his phone calls or reply to texts. The person that JM complained when he doesn't answer his calls. With all that he still needed JM to reach out. He needed to know that JM is thinking about him.

This conversation isn't about them not seeing each other. It's about not seeing each other enough. It's about JM not seeking JK out as much as JK needed him to. And it's about them not being able, for whichever reasons (exterior or self inflicted) to do exactly this. Be out and about together. The two of them. This is exactly what you do in a healthy long term relationship. You talk. You are open. You tell your partner how you feel and what you need.

And you know what JK sounded like to me?

He reminded me of this JK:

The JK that even though he had already scolded JM he couldn't just let it go. That even though JM apologized several times and explained himself, he just couldn't let it go because it was weighing on him, that choice that he felt JM made.

And I know, I just know, that this conversation we got in the car was not a one of. That "Your here. Finally" we got from him at the end...

He needed this to happen, for JM to make this happen.

I will also add, even though I cannot go into too much detail at this point, that I feel that the : "You're here. Finally", has so much more sub context to it within the way they had both handled 2022-23 and that adjustment to the new reality. Not about it being easier for one over the other, but more so about how they handled this "apartness" that was kind of forced on them.

Anyway, that "finally", that was it for me. Seeing. No. Feeling how this was weighing on JK. Feeling just how important this was for him. JM making that effort and showing up for him like he did.

I hope that I have managed to get the message through. I will drill it in with my three keywords to this post:

COUPLE

CONTEXT

ENOUGH

I will end this by saying this:

Read that convo as you will, see those two as you will. At the end of the day not only did they CHOOSE to do this again and again (even with the little time they still had with their crazy schedules and upcoming enlistment). Not only did JK say he wanted to keep going with this until they are 50 years old. But they also CHOSE to enlist together. To be TOGETHER for those 18 months of military service. CHOOSING to do so knowing that meant a harder service and placement.

At the end of the day they CHOSE EACH OTHER.

And they will keep on doing so!!!

[nofomogirl]

We need to talk about body snatching

I'm not a massive fan of the 1827 minisode - if you're curious why it bothers me, I've explained it in my post about two GO canons - but there's no denying it does an amazing job at exploring the complexity of morality and moral choices. It starts with a very black-and-white two-dimensional image and gradually adds shading and perspective, making it harder and harder to judge as we go along.

I think it's worth digging into (pun not intended but I'll take it).

Layer 1: body snatching bad

We learn someone did something

It's those first few seconds where we see a person robbing a grave, and since we know that robbing graves is a crime and generally not a good thing to do, we can quickly form a tentative conclusion that this is wrong.

Okay, in this exact instance, we immediately get enough context clues to see that this kind of judgment would be oversimplistic and superficial. Only Aziraphale, who for some reason acts as if it was his first day on Earth after a thorough memory wipe, is ready to condemn Elspeth based on just that.

Nevertheless, this is the first layer - the deed itself with no context.

Layer 2: body snatching acceptable

We learn about the person who did the thing

That's the whole journey with the first dug-up body where we get to know Elspeth and become privy to her circumstances - she's desperately poor, she has another person depending on her, she robs graves to survive. Aziraphale's suggestions that she might earn her living by selling books, weaving or farming just serve to prove how inaccessible more honest and dignified professions are to her. In turn, her comment about how she's not hurting anybody who isn't already dead hints that from the realistically available options, Elspeth could have chosen something much worse.

Technically this layer is a significant step up from layer 1 but it still isn't really challenging. Things are spelt out really loud for us, and most importantly everything we learn about Elspeth is just attenuating circumstances. To top it off both she and Wee Morag are immediately endearing. The takeaway is that sometimes things that in theory are bad can be excused which is important but the verdict still comes without any second thoughts.

Layer 3: body snatching complicated

We learn the larger context around the thing

This mostly happens when Aziraphale and Crowley discuss body snatching with Mr Dalrymple. We learn that the stolen corpses are used for a medical study that can advance human knowledge and make it possible to save living people and that surgeons have no legal means to obtain enough of them for their research - hence their need to buy them from body snatchers.

At first glance it's just more of what we got in layer 2 - more agruments in favour of body snatching that aren't all that nuanced and don't really give us any pause - just from a larger perspective, beyond Elspeth's individual experience. But if you glance more than once you'll notice this is when things stop being straightforward and easy to judge.

The moment we enter a proper grey area is when Aziraphale asks why Mr Dalrymple doesn't acquire the bodies himself. This is a very valid question - while we might easily agree that studying the human body to further medical knowledge is a good thing, and with just the slightest hesitation admit that it's acceptable to resort to using stolen bodies if that is the only way the research may continue, it's not as easy to excuse taking advantage of the poor and the desperate to do the actual stealing that we know is very dangerous.

The moment we know without a doubt we are in a proper grey area is when Mr Dalrymple laughs at Aziraphale's concern.

Objectively, the surgeon is right that it's more effective if he doesn't risk his own life in the graveyard and uses his time on actual research, teaching students and saving lives. But it's also clear he doesn't exactly see people like Elspeth as actual human beings and feels he has every right to use them. On the one hand, he is paying, on the other, he happily benefits from the cruel class system and is not even one bit remorseful about it. On the one hand, he takes risks too, on the other he has a chance of rewards Elspeth will not benefit from. It's not the poorest whose lives will get bettered by the progress of medicine, even though they're the ones who pay with their lives for that progress. And if Mr Dalrymple gets lucky and is knighted for his work (we know he wasn't in the end but it was a possibility), the poor still won't be pardoned for stealing for him. Nevertheless, he has no issue with that.

As I said, things get nuanced.

Layer 4: it's different when it's someone you know

The thing actually happens in your life

I think you'll all agree that the turning point of the minisode is when Elspeth decides to sell Wee Morag's still warm body. This is what finally leaves us speechless.

That's because up until now we've been approaching the issue intellectually. It's not that we didn't care about the characters, but we were allowed to keep a safe distance. The whole thing was like a problem to be solved - "Is body snatching right or wrong? Discuss in 500-1000 words" - and everything we've learned so far was data for this assignment. I believe that one of the reasons why this detachment came naturally was that there was a very thick line between people involved in body snatching and the bodies that were being snatched. The former were, well, people, obviously. The latter were inanimate objects.

It isn't until Wee Morag is to be sold that we are forced to see a person in a dead body. This is also when real emotions enter the equation.

This shift forces us to question our judgment for the first time. It was easy to justify Elspeth when she was selling a nameless corpse. But the fact that she decided to sell her closest companion - and most likely lover - shocks us. Something inside us strongly objects to how quickly she makes the decision.

And then there's the transaction, and it is also different when it's someone we know. The fact that we knew Wee Morag fully exposes Mr Dalrymple for the heartless jerk that he is. The way he treats Elspeth is the absolute worst and if you haven't realized he was a hypocrite earlier, you should be disillusioned by now.

But at least Elspeth is not a hypocrite, right? It may seem cold that she sold Wee Morag but it just proves she simply believed it's all right to sell a dead body, doesn't it?

Well, about that...

Layer 5: it's different when it's you

You are forced to face the thing happening to you

This layer is reached when Elspeth plans her suicide and asks Aziraphale and Crowley to bury her "somewhere where no ghouls will ever dig her back up again".

It turns out Elspeth McKinnon really was a filthy liar.

Not long ago she was insisting that body snatching doesn't hurt anyone who isn't already dead, and asking why she should let Wee Morag rot in the ground when she starves. But she wants to make sure it doesn't happen to her own body. The idea that someone might dig her up terrifies her and she calls people who do it ghouls. So why was digging up other people okay again? Why should she rot in the ground while other people suffer? There were other people living in the street where she and Wee Morag hid. Why not ask Aziraphale to give the money to them? Or just anybody in need? Why not ask to sell her body as well and use the earnings the same way?

Also, if you look at it from a certain perspective, Elspeth betrayed Wee Morag in the worst possible way. Wee Morag believed that if someone's body gets cut, that person's soul cannot enter Heaven. Yet Elspeth sold her to Mr Dalrymple, claiming that Wee Morag would have wanted her to have the means to survive. Perhaps she was right. Perhaps Wee Morag would have made that sacrifice. But then Elspeth decided to kill herself and use the money she got for Wee Morag's body for her own funeral.

But does it make Elspeth wicked? Certainly not. She's simply torn by grief. I seriously doubt she's been planning to commit suicide when she was taking Wee Morag to Mr Dalrymple. She might have genuinely tried to carry on but the reality of what happened caught up to her. Mr Dalrymple's cruel words certainly didn't help her cope with a personal tragedy. I even suspect one of the reasons she sold her friend was that she had no idea what else to do with a dead body.

Does this excuse her actions? Kind of, but not really.

Elspeth was a tragic character, not an innocent lamb with a heart of gold.

The point is - can any of us really judge her?

Which, coincidentally, is a question that the original Good Omens book toyed with quite a lot.

If you've reached this far, thank you for reading!

[unsolicited-opinions]

I used to run a doctor's office. If your doctor's office hasn't explained this to you, let me do it for them.

You probably don't know how much time your doctor and their staff spend fighting with insurance companies for routine, ordinary things. The stories you see online might leave you thinking that these fights are, if not rare, maybe occasional. A sometimes sort of challenge.

Nope.

It's every day. It's all day. Your doctor's office has employees who fight with insurance companies as a full time job.

This isn't an accident or a side effect of other market forces at work - this is the deliberate, calculated plan the insurance companies have chosen to implement. They know very well it is hurting patients and providers, and they're okay with that because their priority is to maximize ROI for investors and other stakeholders. They're in the business of business, and they don't give a single fuck about human beings or health care.

They've lowered reimbursements in primary care so effectively that primary care has only survived in many parts of the US by becoming a loss leader for larger health systems. You know how the local retail store gets you in the building by selling something at slightly below cost because they know you're likely to buy more once you're inside? It's like that, a loss leader.

The health system where you get your primary care often loses money when you see your PCP, but since your PCP refers you to speciality care inside their own organization, the system makes up the money when your doctor sends you to see their own systems' surgeons, endocrinologists, dermatologists, etc.

Smaller primary care practices literally can't survive. That's why there are almost no independent family doctors any longer. That's why it is so hard to see the same provider with consistency, someone with whom you can develop trust over time, who knows you and knows your challenges. United Healthcare and it's private healthcare insurance competitors have nearly finished killing off that kind of primary care.

Larger primary care practices (30-40 providers) might still be able to make ends meet independently through economies of scale and/or what they earn by doing their own lab/testing/imaging services in-house, but that won't work much longer if current trends continue. We're headed in the direction of just a handful of vertically integrated businesses running healthcare, and they are in the business of business, not health care.

The insurance companies deliberately create administrative barriers which make it expensive for your doctor's office to advocate for you because it moves administrative costs away from the insurance company and onto your doctor's office. This results in fewer paid claims when your doctor's office can't afford to hire another full time position whose only job is to argue with insurance companies and jump through their deliberately obstructive hoops. They want your PCP to be struggling to stay open. They want your PCP unable to afford the cost of overcoming the administrative burdens they have deliberately created for the purpose of denying you the health care your doctor thinks you need.

There are other words for this, but the most appropriate one is "evil."

I don't want to glorify murder or lionize Luigi Mangione, but Brian Thompson was a ghoul, his senior team are ghouls, and the for-profit health insurance industry is a disaster for Americans, even those Americans who don't yet see the problem affecting themselves. They will.

We need universal, single-payer health coverage, just like every other wealthy nation.

We're not going to get it any time soon, and things are about to get worse for healthcare in the US.

Set aside the damage RFK Jr is likely to do to an already patchwork public health system by attacking regulations and spreading misinformation. Let's look at other ways Trump and the GOP plan to worsen health care.

1. They're going to go after Medicare and Medicaid benefits. They'll seek to lower them and raise the bar which must be cleared to receive them.

2. They're going to seek to raise the age for social security benefits (above 70!), and reduce benefits paid, so the most financially vulnerable seniors will have greater out-of-pocket costs. Those seniors are going to struggle harder with out-of-pocket costs.

3. They're going to attempt to cripple the Affordable Care Act (AKA 'Obamacare'), despite the fact that the ACA has been a HUGE money maker for the private insurance companies.

4. This administration will be run by hyper capitalist billionaires. It will seek to deregulate wherever possible and promote supply-side economics (tax breaks for the rich and large corporations) at every opportunity. United Healthcare and its competitors, which already weild an obscene, horrific amount of control over US Healthcare, are about to get substantially more power.

It's bad, folks. It's a very bad time to be sick and it's going to get worse.

Alan Grayson was right in 2009. The Republican health care plan has been and remains:

* Don't get sick

* If you do get sick, die quickly.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Yanis Varoufakis’s “Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism?”

Monday (October 2), I'll be in Boise to host an event with VE Schwab. On October 7–8, I'm in Milan to keynote Wired Nextfest.

Socialists have been hotly anticipating the end of capitalism since at least 1848, when Marx and Engels published The Communist Manifesto - but the Manifesto also reminds us that capitalism is only too happy to reinvent itself during its crises, coming back in new forms, over and over again:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/31/books/review/a-spectre-haunting-china-mieville.html

Now, in Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, Yanis Varoufakis - the "libertarian Marxist" former finance minister of Greece - makes an excellent case that capitalism died a decade ago, turning into a new form of feudalism: technofeudalism:

https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/451795/technofeudalism-by-varoufakis-yanis/9781847927279

To understand where Varoufakis is coming from, you need to go beyond the colloquial meanings of "capitalism" and "feudalism." Capitalism isn't just "a system where we buy and sell things." It's a system where capital rules the roost: the richest, most powerful people are those who coerce workers into using their capital (factories, tools, vehicles, etc) to create income in the form of profits.

By contrast, a feudal society is one organized around people who own things, charging others to use them to produce goods and services. In a feudal society, the most important form of income isn't profit, it's rent. To quote Varoufakis: "rent flows from privileged access to things in fixed supply" (land, fossil fuels, etc). Profit comes from "entrepreneurial people who have invested in things that wouldn't have otherwise existed."

This distinction is subtle, but important: "Profit is vulnerable to market competition, rent is not." If you have a coffee shop, then every other coffee shop that opens on your block is a competitive threat that could erode your margins. But if you own the building the coffee shop owner rents, then every other coffee shop that opens on the block raises the property values and the amount of rent you can charge.

The capitalist revolution - extolled and condemned in the Manifesto - was led by people who valorized profits as the heroic returns for making something new in this world, and who condemned rents as a parasitic drain on the true producers whose entrepreneurial spirits would enrich us all. The "free markets" extolled by Adam Smith weren't free from regulation - they were free from rents:

https://locusmag.com/2021/03/cory-doctorow-free-markets/

But rents, Varoufakis writes, "survived only parasitically on, and in the shadows of, profit." That is, rentiers (people whose wealth comes from rents) were a small rump of the economy, slightly suspect and on the periphery of any consideration of how to organize our society. But all that changed in 2008, when the world's central banks addressed the Great Financial Crisis by bailing out not just the banks, but the bankers, funneling trillions to the people whose reckless behavior brought the world to the brink of economic ruin.

Suddenly, these wealthy people, and their banks, experienced enormous wealth-gains without profits. Their businesses lost billions in profits (the cost of offering the business's products and services vastly exceeded the money people spent on those products and services). But the business still had billions more at the end of the year than they'd had at the start: billions in public money, funneled to them by central banks.

This kicked off the "everything rally" in which every kind of asset - real estate, art, stocks, bonds, even monkey JPEGs - ballooned in value. That's exactly what you'd expect from an economy where rents dominate over profits. Feudal rentiers don't need to invest to keep making money - remember, their wealth comes from owning things that other people invest in to make money.

Rents are not vulnerable to competition, so rentiers don't need to plow their rents into new technology to keep the money coming in. The capitalist that leases the oil field needs to invest in new pumps and refining to stay competitive with other oil companies. But the rentier of the oil field doesn't have to do anything: either the capitalist tenant will invest in more capital and make the field more valuable, or they will lose out to another capitalist who'll replace them. Either way, the rentier gets more rent.

So when capitalists get richer, they spend some of that money on new capital, but when rentiers get richer, them spend money on more assets they can rent to capitalists. The "everything rally" made all kinds of capital more valuable, and companies that were transitioning to a feudal footing turned around and handed that money to their investors in stock buybacks and dividends, rather than spending the money on R&D, or new plants, or new technology.

The tech companies, though, were the exception. They invested in "cloud capital" - the servers, lines, and services that everyone else would have to pay rent on in order to practice capitalism.

Think of Amazon: Varoufakis likens shopping on Amazon to visiting a bustling city center filled with shops run by independent capitalists. However, all of those capitalists are subservient to a feudal lord: Jeff Bezos, who takes 51 cents out of every dollar they bring in, and furthermore gets to decide which products they can sell and how those products must be displayed:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/28/enshittification/#relentless-payola

The postcapitalist, technofeudal world isn't a world without capitalism, then. It's a world where capitalists are subservient to feudalists ("cloudalists" in Varoufakis's thesis), as are the rest of us the cloud peons, from the social media users and performers who fill the technofuedalists' siloes with "content" to the regular users whose media diet is dictated by the cloudalists' recommendation systems:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

A defining feature of cloudalism is the ability of the rentier lord to destroy any capitalist vassal's business with the click of a mouse. If Google kicks your business out of the search index, or if Facebook blocks your publication, or if Twitter shadowbans mentions of your product, or if Apple pulls your app from the store, you're toast.

Capitalists "still have the power to command labor from the majority who are reliant on wages," but they are still mere vassals to the cloudalists. Even the most energetic capitalist can't escape paying rent, thanks in large part to "IP," which I claim is best understood as "laws that let a company reach beyond its walls to dictate the conduct of competitors, critics and customers":

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

Varoufakis points to ways that the cloudalists can cement their gains: for example, "green" energy doesn't rely on land-leases (like fossil fuels), but it does rely on networked grids and data-protocols that can be loaded up with IP, either or both of which can be turned into chokepoints for feudal rent-extraction. To make things worse, Varoufakis argues that cloudalists won't be able to muster the degree of coordination and patience needed to actually resolve the climate emergency - they'll not only extract rent from every source of renewables, but they'll also silo them in ways that make them incapable of doing the things we need them to do.

Energy is just one of the technofeudal implications that Varoufakis explores in this book: there are also lengthy and fascinating sections on geopolitics, monetary policy, and the New Cold War. Technofeudalism - and the struggle to produce a dominant fiefdom - is a very useful lens for understanding US/Chinese tech wars.

Though Varoufakis is laying out a technical and even esoteric argument here, he takes great pains to make it accessible. The book is structured as a long open letter to his father, a chemical engineer and leftist who was a political prisoner during the fascist takeover of Greece. The framing device works very well, especially if you've read Talking To My Daughter About the Economy, Varoufakis's 2018 radical economics primer in the form of a letter to his young daughter:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374538491/talkingtomydaughterabouttheeconomy

At the very end of the book, Varoufakis calls for "a cloud rebellion to overthrow technofeudalism." This section is very short - and short on details. That's not a knock against the book: there are plenty of very good books that consist primarily or entirely of analysis of the problems with a system, without having to lay out a detailed program for solving those problems.

But for what it's worth, I think there is a way to plan and execute a "cloud rebellion" - a way to use laws, technology, reverse-engineering and human rights frameworks to shatter the platforms and seize the means of computation. I lay out that program in The Internet Con: How the Seize the Means of Computation, a book I published with Verso Books a couple weeks ago:

https://www.versobooks.com/products/3035-the-internet-con

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/28/cloudalists/#cloud-capital

[blueteller]

Cale be like: "Let's just buy the Magic Tower" – everyone else: *shocked Pikachu face*

I don't think enough people appreciate what utterly crazy, audacious, outside-the-box thinking Cale displayed back when he decided on that move.

People overlook it, because Cale does a lot of other crazy, audacious things, both before and after the Magic Tower. But in my opinion, this one was one the smartest and craziest.

From a reader's POV, it might not seem that crazy. Cale naturally presents the ruined Magic Tower as a perfect oppurtunity from TBOAH: it's described to contain a ton of treasures, some of which were found by Toonka and the Anti-Magic Faction, and some of which were lost. It only makes sense that he'd want to loot it and take the treasures.

However, that's not all what Cale did, no no no. Cale didn't just break into the Magic Tower and loot stuff. He actually, legally, bought the whole place, including the land it was standing on. And it was a genius move which changed the course of the entire war in the future.

Let's break it all down, shall we?

First of all, he made a deal with Alberu. Cale used the Crown Prince's money to buy the Magic Tower, and he did it nearly without a warning, which might have pissed him off... However, Cale wanted to make the Roan Kingdom stronger, so he gave Alberu the device belonging to the Liege of the Magic Faction, which would allow him to contact all the magical refugees from the Whipper Kingdom. Basically, Cale paid Alberu back in full – because the Roan Kingdom desperately needed magic users to strengthen their military.

Secondly, Cale created an alliance with Toonka, and thus the entire Whipper Kingdom. This alliance let Cale have influence when they later went to the war against the Empire. Without Toonka being on board, Cale wouldn't have been able to manipulate the battles against Adin the way he did. Against all odds, Toonka actually became one of this most useful allies later on.

Thirdly, by involving himself with the Whipper Kingdom, Cale actually saved it in the long run. Through Cale, Whipper was able to enter the alliance with the other countries who stood against the Empire and Arm. For example, the Jungle helped provide food to the Whipper Kindom – which in TBOAH, they had to steal from the Jungle in order to survive, leading to a conflict between the two. Instead of enemies, Toonka and Litana became allies.

Next, thanks to Cale being the one who proposed bringing back the Whipper Kingdom mages for reinforcements as mercenaries, during the war against the Empire, Cale helped out with lessening the hatred against magic among the citizens. Basically, by creating this debt of gratitude, the Whipper Kingdom won't be discriminating as badly against mages in the future. That's a huge deal.

Also, by becoming the owner of the Magic Tower, Cale had power over the documents containing the studies concerning magic resistance. The Whipper Kingdom wouldn't have used the information benevolently on their own, that's for sure; there was still too much hatred towards magic at the time. By limiting their access to the information, Cale actually helped them as well.

And finally, by giving the Anti-Magic Faction money from purchasing the Magic Tower, Cale literally bought time. He actually delayed the main conflict on the continent – because, as I mentioned already, the Whipper Kingdom was going to face financial problems due to food shortage, which would have resulted in them going after the Jungle (and Elisneh would have fanned the flames by controling Litana's people with illusions, too). He gave the Roan Kingdom more time to prepare for the war, and Toonka went after the Empire instead, gathering their attention and pulling it away from Cale's country. What feels natural progression for the readers was actually a huge divergence from what happened in TBOAH.

It might have seemed like a simple move at the time in the novel, based entirely on Cale's scammer's way of thinking and greed for money. But it was so much more than that. It was a very calculated, extremely bold move, which Cale came up entirely on his own.

...You think it was obvious to anyone in that world that you could simply buy a building such as the Magic Tower? That it was even an option? Not a chance!!!

It was essentially the fortress belonging to the true rulers of Whipper Kingdom. It was like a royal castle. Who in their right mind comes up with buying the castle of the rulers of a foreign country, right after a major revolution?? Such places are normally never for sale! The only reason it worked in the first place was because Toonka was so crazy he couldn't care less about it! It would have never worked if the Anti-Magic faction hated the magic users any less than they did!!

What Cale did was utterly ingenious. He doesn't get enough credit for such a ballsy move.

[alrawabi-imagines]

Witches

Tw:Stabbing/SH

You couldn’t have let your girlfriend Elphaba go to The Emerald City to meet the wizard of Oz all by herself. And your worry proved to be true as the wizard only wished to use her power,Eplhaba revealing that he couldn't even read the spell book let alone have any magical abilities himself. Elphaba was concerned by getting out of there and dragged you through the corridors with her into a tower. Barring the door which wouldn't last but would buy you time. Running up the stairs to the top,using a spell to create a flying broom. She extended her hand to you “Let’s go” But before you could take her hand you were pulled backwards by the guards.  Struggling against the guards as you reached out for Elphaba but you couldn’t fight them off. 

“No, leave her alone, she hasn’t done anything wrong. I’m the one you want, I’m the one you want, it’s me!” You struggled as you were held back by the guards. 

"Elphaba!" you cried out her name. Her eyes were full of despair as she looked back and forth between you and the men holding you. Tears streamed down her face, she desperately looked for a way to get you out.

"Go!" You shouted, she shook her head, looking at you like you said the most ridiculous thing in the world. She couldn’t just leave you, you were her girlfriend, and she would never forgive herself if something bad happened to you because of her.She was torn, she wanted to stay and fight so you could be safe, but she knew the only way you would be safe for sure was if she fled. 

"I'll be fine,go!" Tears streamed down her face,she was worried what could happen to you once she left. She didn’t trust The Wizard, she knew he was a vile old man that did not care who he hurt to get what he wanted. But this was her only chance to escape him and she had to take it

"I'll be fine" you promised,she wanted to believe you too but she couldn’t help but still worry. She hated leaving you behind, and she knew that she would never forgive herself if anything bad happened to you. "Go" you said but this time it was a whisper. She turned to leave, not daring to look back because if she did, she knew she’d never be able to leave

The wizard immediately tossed you into a dungeon,locked up with no chance of escaping.You are tossed unceremoniously into a dark, damp cell and shut in with heavy iron bars. You are now left alone in the cold, dark room with nothing to do but wait for whatever the Wizard had planned for you

Several days later you were brought before the Wizard,Elphaba had resurfaced and started to wreak havoc across the land. The wizard fully aware you were her only weakness and intended to use you against her. You were forced to your knees before the fraud of a wizard.

“Ah, look what we have here. The green girl’s love interest. Such a pretty thing to use against her, don’t you think?” He said with a smirk

"I'll never help you,I'll never hurt her"

“Oh, I think you will. Elphaba values you very much, and she’ll do anything for you. So yes, you will give me what I want, whether you like it or not” He snapped his fingers and one of the guards grabbed you by your hair, forcing you to look up at The Wizard. He held your chin in his hand, his eyes narrowed as he leered down at you “You don’t have a choice in the matter. You see, Elphaba has become quite the nuisance as of late, and I need her stopped, by any means necessary. So, if you cooperate with me, you might have a chance at surviving this” You were sent up to her castle with one mission from the wizard,kill her or you die. 

You made your way into the castle, the sound of your footsteps echoing through the empty halls.It was silent and cold. You looked around, the sight of the place abandoned, made you feel even worse about what you had to do.

"Elphaba" you called out,"it's me" You call out into the silence, your voice echoing off the stone walls. There is no response at first, but then slowly, from somewhere ahead. You could hear a faint sound, the shuffling of footsteps against the floor. The footsteps get louder as Elphaba steps out of the shadows, a look of confusion mixed with surprise on her face. She stops suddenly as soon as she sees you, her eyes going wide with shock. You ran up and wrapped your arms around her,she froze for a moment but then quickly returned the embrace. She holds onto you tightly, like she’s afraid you might vanish any second 

"I'm so relieved you're okay. I was worried sick they’d hurt you. I was so scared I’d never see you again…” She put her palm against your cheek for a moment before she buried her face in your neck as she cried. You comforted her,one hand on her back tracing circles as the other clutching the knife you were given. It was a beautiful moment, but it was over all too soon as you shifted and she felt the cold, sharp edge of the knife against her skin. She knew what was coming. She knew what you had to do, and yet she couldn’t help the tears that flooded out of her eyes.

"I'm sorry,he's forcing me to do this" tears streamed down your face.

“No, darling, no. I-I understand, it’s not your fault, just… I trust you”

"I-I Elphaba it's either you or me" your hand was shaking.

“I know. I know, darling. I love you, you know that right? You have to do this” She held your hand,steadying you. The knife you were given was enchanted and it would only set you free when it came in contact with blood.

“Just… promise me one thing…” Elphaba could feel your hand shaking as she took it in hers, steadying it slightly. She looked into your eyes, tears flowing down her cheeks. Elphaba knew what was about to happen, and even though it was going to kill her, she wasn’t scared. She trusted you, and that’s all that mattered right now. You looked up at her,meeting her eyes.

“Please don’t blame yourself. This isn’t your fault, okay? None of this is your fault, remember that” In one move you twisted the knife and plugged it into yourself. She was frozen in place for a moment as she realized what she did.

“No-no, oh no, NO!” Elphaba was frozen for a split second, completely stunned by what just happened. You looked up at her.

"I I couldn't do it" 

“You- you chose death over hurting me. You-“ She could hardly believe it. You had chosen to die rather than hurt her, even if it meant your own life. She looked at you with tears streaming down her face, completely overwhelmed. She never thought someone would care about her so much, that she was worth such a sacrifice. It was too much to wrap her head around. Elphaba grabbed her spell book immediately, frantically flipping through pages, trying to find a spell that would heal you. Her hands were shaking as she desperately searched for a solution, knowing that every second counted. Finally finding one,without a second thought, she started saying the incantation, letting the magical energy flow through her as she desperately hoped it was enough,and the spell worked,she pulled out the knife and your skin closed itself around the wound. She held onto you tightly, her body trembling with emotion. For a minute she couldn’t even speak, all she could do was hold you and let out the occasional sob of relief. She had never been so afraid in her life, and the thought of losing you was almost too unbearable to think about.“You’d really sacrifice your life just to save me?” She looked at you with tear-filled eyes, taking in every detail of your face, as though trying to memorize every line and freckle. She reached out and gently brushed a strand of hair out of your eyes.

"I love you,of course I would"

“I-I don’t even know what to say to that! I don’t deserve you, you’re too good to me, darling”

"Don't expect me to do that again,it hurt like a bitch" you joked,trying desperately to make her laugh.Elphaba let out a snort of laughter, and then suddenly she was laughing for real, a mixture of relief, amusement and amazement, and she couldn’t seem to stop.

“Oh, I-I wouldn’t ask you to do that again even if my life depended on it! And don’t think I don’t know you’re trying to make me laugh”

"You're cute when you laugh"

“Oh, stop it. I am not cute. I’m supposed to be the scary witch”

"Oh,sorry you now have a reputation to uphold" you joked again,struggling to sit up.She reached out and helped you sit up, a mixture of concern and amusement in her eyes. 

“Yes, that’s right. I can’t allow myself to get a reputation as a gentle, kind witch. I have a fearsome image to maintain!”

"I guess I'll have to uphold that too,as your.." you pulled your shirt down to show off your necklace which was a chain with a black ring around it. You hoped she'd realize what you meant.

"You... You really want to marry me...?"

“I practically killed myself for you,I think if anything that proves my love for you"

"I suppose it does, yes. I… I still can’t believe everything you’ve done for me. You never cease to astound me" Elphaba’s heart melted a bit at your words. She reached out and touched the necklace gently, a soft smile on her face

"So is that a yes?"

“Of course it’s a yes, you fool. I would never say no"

[dailyadventureprompts]

DM Tip: The Debt Always Comes Due

Isn't it weird how little we engage with gold as a real gameplay system? Sure, at low level wealth makes a great questhook, the party is usually hurting for a payout so that they can afford necessary gear upgrades/ubiquitous healing potion restocks/their next trip to the magic item shop. After a while though the promise of raw wealth loses its lustre, and the party is less likely to go out of their way to accept bounties, go off chasing treasuremaps, or accept gigs from shady patrons.

Generally I'd advise that this is a sign that your party are done being run of the mill sellswords, and it's time to hit them with a big epic questline that's focused more on emotional and narrative stakes than base currency. That said, sometimes you want to run a longer adventure arc that's centred around the acquisition of wealth, but to do that, you're going to need to go against the grain on one of the foundational assumptions that underpins D&D both mechanically and narratively.

TLDR: If you want your party to be motivated by gold past their first big pay off you should consider using a "wealth hurdle", which in short is a narrative and gameplay challenge that forces them to collect not only more gold than they already have but also more gold than they could get doing what they've been doing so far. This can be anything from a crimelord calling in a debt on them or one of their allies, a powerful monster swooping in and demanding tribute, comissioning some grand construction, or funding the defence of a region. Having the hurdle active should cause problems for the party, and not clearing the hurdle before a perdetermiend deadline will immensely bad things to happen. This will force the party to take risks they otherwise wouldn't, giving a high degree of focus to their subsequent adventures that they wouldn't have if they were content.

What we're trying to fix:

At it's core, D&D is a power fantasy, and a good chunk of its gameplay mechanics regardless of edition are about acquiring new strengths, options, and assets. These assumptions are likewise built into the genre and narrative structure of most campaigns: Heroes undertake quests usually for the promise of some reward, gain experiance/hit milestones along the way, and eventually stumble across some kind of loot drop at the end. There's nothing strictly wrong with this, but it does mean that all the resource problems the heroes face in the early game (and the inbuilt motivations that come along with them) are all but resolved by the time they hit the next gameplay tier.

This is complicated by the fact that outside of 3rd party options there's not much to spend money on. The DMG (which you should totally ignore) say you shouldn't let them buy magic items, and the common wisdom would say "let them buy a keep", but that solution only appeals a niche selection of adventuring parties.

Using Weath Hurdles turns acquiring gold not just into a quest goal but a gameplay challenge, forcing your party to scour the land for potential sources of wealth (and risk upsetting whoever or whatever happens to be currently holding it) and take on challenges they'd never normally attempt if there was only survival/personal enrichment at stake.

Food for Thought:

Tradional d&d structure has the party getting a huge payout at the end of their adventure in the form of a bosshoard or questgiver reward which is a very backloaded "you can have your dessert after you finish your greens" sort of attitude. Consider switching it up sometimes: have the party's patron or employer give them a small stipend to spend on kitting themselves out, have an early game treasure haul so the party can have a mid-arc shopping episode. This is especially useful in higher level games where your party may go weeks to months without a level up as it preserves the feeling of progression and gives them new toys to play with in between the big character defining abilities.

Recently I've been learning my way around blades in the dark (can't reccomend it enough btw), and just like any other time I've wanted to learn a new ttrpg system I'm having to do a bit of neural rewiring when it comes to figuring out how to write and run sessions of the game. Coin in BitD is both an XP (used for upgrading the party's shared crew sheet) a resource (burned to upgrade the results of various rolls) and a stat ( rolled to see if the players can lay their hands on various hard to come by items). It didn't really click for me until my first group messed up really badly on what was supposed to be their introductory adventure and pissed off the local crimeboss. I was just going to have him bully them, lock them up and then have a jailbreak the next session ( it's what I'd do in d&d), but on the fly I had the idea that he'd let them go with a massive debt they needed to pay off, which forced them to either pay him a percentage of their takings on all future jobs, or do small jobs in utmost secrecy so that they could build up their own strength under his nose.

Interestingly enough, the d&d game where I thought player wealth as a resource was most interestingly used was Dimension 20’s starstruck Odessy, which was a conversion of the amazing fanmade  starwars5e system. Starstruck is a parody of hypercapitalism and aptly uses money as both a narrative and gameplay feature. One character is stuck paying weekly insurance premiums on a debt he would never be able to pay down forcing him to act recklessly to acquire wealth in the immediate future. Another character was a economic and political power player and some of the best moments in the series come from her high stakes wheeling and dealing and bouncing money between accounts while the rest of the group engages in epic space battles; the rest of the crew might’ve barely got their ship out of the dogfight, but she’s the one who ensures they can pay for the repairs once they get to the space dock.   None of this would be possible without completely ignoring the normal constraints of wealth per level: gaining and losing huge sums based on moment by moment player decisions, The need for them to play along with the absurist gig economy to boost their rating and get better paying jobs, making a devil’s bargain with a corporate sponsor all so that they could risk their lives in a deadly arena fight all for the (very unlikely) chance of winning the equivalent of a million GP.  Not every campaign should, or even could so focus on money in this way, but it was FASCINATING to watch it in action. 

Artsource