#but nobody who's a good person is also a politician and vice versa

[28coyotesinspace]

Honest to fuck at this point I think politicians should have to pay ME for every time I have to see their shit eating grins in an ad. I'm getting ads for these assholes and not only are they not in my county, they're not even in my STATE or even REGION.

Political advertising should honest to god be illegal at this point.

You want people to know who you are, to vote for you, to stand behind you?

Then fucking DO SOMETHING THAT MAKES IT WORTH IT.

[arcticdementor]

In a democracy, every vote is supposed to be equal. If about half the country supports one side and half the country supports another, you may expect major institutions to either be equally divided, or to try to stay politically neutral.

This is not what we find. If it takes a position on the hot button social issues around which our politics revolve, almost every major institution in America that is not explicitly conservative leans left. In a country where Republicans get around half the votes or something close to that in every election, why should this be the case?

This post started as an investigation into Woke Capital, one of the most important developments in the last decade or so of American politics. Although big business pressuring politicians is not new (the NFL moved the Super Bowl from Arizona over MLK day), the scope of the issues on which corporations feel the need to weigh in is certainly expanding, now including LGBT issues, abortion laws, voting rights, kneeling during the national anthem, and gun control.

…

As I started to research the topic, however, I realized there wasn’t much to explain. Asking why corporations are woke is like asking why Hispanics tend to have two arms, or why the Houston Rockets have increased their number of 3-point shots taken over the last few decades. All humans tend to have two arms, and all NBA teams shoot more 3-pointers than in the past, so focusing on one subset of the population that has the same characteristics as all others in the group misses the point.

I think one reason Woke Capital is getting so much attention is because we expect business to be more right-leaning, and corporations throwing in with the party of more taxes and regulation strikes us as odd. We are used to schools, non-profits, mainline religions, etc. taking liberal positions and feel like business should be different. But business is just being assimilated into a larger trend.

Corporations are woke, meaning left wing on social issues relative to the general population, because institutions are woke. So the question becomes why are institutions woke?

…

Through the lens of ordinal utility, in which people simply rank what they want to happen, we are about equal. I prefer Republicans to Democrats, while you have the opposite preference. But when we think in terms of cardinal utility – in layman’s terms, how bad people want something to happen – it’s no contest. You are going to be much more influential than me. Most people are relatively indifferent to politics and see it as a small part of their lives, yet a small percentage of the population takes it very seriously and makes it part of its identity. Those people will tend to punch above their weight in influence, and institutions will be more responsive to them.

Elections are a measure of ordinal preferences. As long as you care enough to vote, it doesn’t matter how much you care about the election outcome, as everyone’s voice is the same. But for everything else – who speaks up in a board meeting about whether a corporation should take a political position, who protests against a company taking a position one side or the other finds offensive, etc. – cardinal utility maters a lot. Only a small minority of the public ever bothers to try to influence a corporation, school, or non-profit to reflect certain values, whether from the inside or out.

In an evenly divided country, if one side simply cares more, it’s going to exert a disproportionate influence on all institutions, and be more likely to see its preferences enacted in the time between elections when most people aren’t paying much attention.

…

Here are two graphs that have been getting a lot of attention

What jumps out to me in these figures is not only how left leaning large institutions are, but how the same is true for most professions. Whether you are looking by institution or by individuals, there are more donations to Biden than Trump. Yet Republicans get close to half the votes! Where are the Trump supporters? What these graphs reveal is a larger story, in which more people give to liberal causes and candidates than to conservative ones, even if Americans are about equally divided in which party they support (and no, this isn’t the result of liberals being wealthier, the connections between income and ideology or party are pretty weak). Here are some graphs from late October showing Biden having more individual donors than Trump in every battleground state.

…

In the 2012 election, Obama raised $234 million from small individual contributors, compared to $80 million for Romney, while also winning among large contributors.

…

In September 2009, at the height of the Tea Party movement, conservatives held the “Taxpayer March on Washington,” which drew something like 60,000-70,000 people, leading one newspaper to call it “the largest conservative protest ever to storm the Capitol.” Since that time, the annual anti-abortion March for Life rally in Washington has drawn massive crowds, with estimates for some years ranging widely from low six figures to mid-to-high six figures. March for Life is not to be confused with “March for Our Lives,” a pro-gun control rally that activists claim saw 800,000 people turn out in 2018. All these events were dwarfed by the Women’s March in opposition to Trump, which drew by one estimate “between 3,267,134 and 5,246,670 people in the United States (our best guess is 4,157,894). That translates into 1 percent to 1.6 percent of the U.S. population of 318,900,000 people (our best guess is 1.3 percent).” Even if the two left-wing academics who did this research are letting their bias infuse their work, there is no question that protesting is generally a left-wing activity, as conservatives themselves realize.

People who engage in protesting care more about politics than people who donate money, and people who donate money care more than people who simply vote. Imagine a pyramid with voters at the bottom and full-time activists on top, and as you move up the pyramid it gets much narrower and more left-wing. Multiple strands of evidence indicate this would basically be an accurate representation of society.

Another line of evidence showing that the left simply cares more about politics comes from Noah Carl, who has put together data showing liberals are in their personal lives more intolerant of conservatives than vice versa across numerous dimensions in the US and the UK. Those on the left are more likely to block someone on social media over their views, be upset if their child marries someone from the other side, and find it hard to be friends with or date someone they disagree with politically. Here are two graphs demonstrating the general point.

…

There’s a great irony here. Conservatives tend to be more skeptical of pure democracy, and believe in individuals coming together and forming civil society organizations away from government. Yet conservatives are extremely bad at gaining or maintaining control of institutions relative to liberals. It’s not because they are poorer or the party of the working class – again, I can’t stress enough how little economics predicts people’s political preferences – but because they are the party of those who simply care less about the future of their country.

Debates over voting rights make the opposite assumption, as conservatives tend to want more restrictions on voting, and liberals fewer, with National Review explicitly arguing against a purer form of democracy. Conservatives may be right that liberals are less likely to care enough to do basic things like bring a photo ID and correctly fill out a ballot. If this is true, Republicans are the party of people who care enough to vote when doing so is made slightly more difficult but not enough to do anything else, while Democrats are the party of both the most active and least active citizens. Yet while being the “care only enough to vote” party might be adequate for winning elections, the future belongs to those at the tail end of the distribution who really want to change the world.

The discussion here makes it hard to suggest reforms for conservatives. Do you want to give government more power over corporations? None of the regulators will be on your side. Leave corporations alone? Then you leave power to Woke Capital, though it must to a certain extent be disciplined and limited by the preferences of consumers. Start your own institutions? Good luck staffing them with competent people for normal NGO or media salaries, and if you’re not careful they’ll be captured by your enemies anyway, hence Conquest’s Second Law. And the media will be there every step of the way to declare any of your attempts at taking power to be pure fascism, and brush aside any resistance to your schemes as righteous anger, up to and including rioting and acts of violence.

…

From this perspective we might want to consider this passage from Scott Alexander, who writes the following in his review of a biography of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The normal course of politics is various coalitions of elites and populace, each drawing from their own power bases. A normal political party, like a normal anything else, has elite leaders, analysts, propagandists, and managers, plus populace foot soldiers. Then there's an election, and sometimes our elites get in, and sometimes your elites get in, but getting a political party that's against the elites is really hard and usually the sort of thing that gets claimed rather than accomplished, because elites naturally rise to the top of everything.

But sometimes political parties can run on an explicitly anti-elite platform. In theory this sounds good - nobody wants to be elitist. In practice, this gets really nasty quickly. Democracy is a pure numbers game, so it's hard for the elites to control - the populace can genuinely seize the reins of a democracy if it really wants. But if that happens, the government will be arrayed against every other institution in the nation. Elites naturally rise to the top of everything - media, academia, culture - so all of those institutions will hate the new government and be hated by it in turn. Since all natural organic processes favor elites, if the government wants to win, it will have to destroy everything natural and organic - for example, shut down the regular media and replace it with a government-controlled media run by its supporters.

When elites use the government to promote elite culture, this usually looks like giving grants to the most promising up-and-coming artists recommended by the art schools themselves, and having the local art critics praise their taste and acumen. When the populace uses the government to promote popular culture against elite culture, this usually looks like some hamfisted attempt to designate some kind of "official" style based on what popular stereotypes think is "real art from back in the day when art was good", which every art school and art critic attacks as clueless Philistinism. Every artist in the country will make groundbreaking exciting new art criticizing the government's poor judgment, while the government desperately looks for a few technicians willing to take their money and make, I don't know, pretty landscape paintings or big neoclassical buildings.

The important point is that elite government can govern with a light touch, because everything naturally tends towards what they want and they just need to shepherd it along. But popular/anti-elite government has a strong tendency toward dictatorship, because it won't get what it wants without crushing every normal organic process. Thus the stereotype of the "right-wing strongman", who gets busy with the crushing.

So the idea of "right-wing populism" might invoke this general concept of somebody who, because they have made themselves the champion of the populace against the elites, will probably end up incentivized to crush all the organic processes of civil society, and yoke culture and academia to the will of government in a heavy-handed manner.

To put it in a different way, to steelman the populist position, democracy does not reflect the will of the citizenry, it reflects the will of an activist class, which is not representative of the general population. Populists, in order to bring institutions more in line with what the majority of the people want, need to rely on a more centralized and heavy-handed government. The strongman is liberation from elites, who aren’t the best citizens, but those with the most desire to control people’s lives, often to enforce their idiosyncratic belief system on the rest of the public, and also a liberation from having to become like elites in order to fight them, so conservatives don’t have to give up on things like hobbies and starting families and devote their lives to activism.

[tanadrin]

@whitemarbleblock-salticidae:

And Also Fourteen Year Olds Should Be Able To Vote, No Seriously

Can you elaborate? Also, where do you draw the line on which age shouldn’t be able to vote? Presumably, five-year-olds shouldn’t be able to vote.

Sure! My belief here is exactly what I said: I think fourteen year olds should be able to vote. My logic is pretty simple: children--even young teenagers--pretty clearly have preferences, and often those preferences translate into political opinions, and I think people with political opinions should be allowed to participate in democracy. Are there fourteen-year-olds who are really immature? Sure! But there are thirty year olds who are really immature. Are there fourteen year olds who just parrot their parents’ political opinions? Sure! But there are sixty year olds who just parrot their parents’ political opinions. Would politicians pandering to the votes of fourteen year olds come up with policies that would look odd to fifty-year-olds? Sure! But politicians “pandering” to the votes of working class people come up with policies that are horrifying to rich people (and vice-versa). In short, none of the arguments against letting fourteen year olds vote distinguish coherently between teenagers as a class and adult voters as a class, except that we arbitrarily draw the privileges of adulthood at about eighteen (though earlier for some and later for others), and we often treat the preferences and desires of people younger than that arbitrary line as somehow less real than those of adults.

I think that’s a bad idea. I think children are not the property of adults. And I think the relationship between adults and children should be as mentors, advisers, and guides, not as petty tyrants. Children shouldn’t do things just because adults say so; children should be taught their preferences are valid, and their emotions have weight.

You might say, well, it’s all well and good that there are precocious fourteen year olds able to handle the burdens of responsibility of participation in the democratic process; there are also, however, fourteen year olds who are shallow, stupid, shortsighted, and extremely impressionable. To this, I have two answers: one, “the potential population to which you wish to extent the vote is full of shallow, stupid, shortsighted, and extremely impressionable people” has always been the refrain of opponents of democracy. It was the refrain against democratic government generally; it was the refrain invoked against the working class when it was proposed to abolish the property requirement to vote; it was the refrain invoked against women when it was proposed to let women vote; it was the refrain invoked against civil rights activists who wanted black people to be able to vote freely. What are the odds, that in this specific case, this refrain is being invoked, for the first time in history, against the correct target--versus that this is a kneejerk prejudice we have inherited from older generations about the incapabilities of a class of person who we have refused to permit to act in capable ways?

Second: because of that history of disenfranchisement, it’s illegal to use things like intelligence tests to determine who is allowed to vote, at least in the US. So, as a matter of law, we’ve already decided “this class of people is just too dumb to be allowed to vote” is a bad argument. Now, you may not personally agree with that argument; but using it to defend an arbitrary age requirement (especially when there are clearly people below the age of majority who are capable of participating intelligently in the political process) is at the very least inconsistent with how the law currently stands on the matter.

But, you might also object, surely this argument applies to thirteen year olds. Or even precocious twelve year olds. Or the rare prodigy nine year old. Surely--you reach for the biggest reductio ad absurdum you can think of--surely you don’t think the right to vote should be extended to every human being capable of walking into a voting booth and pulling the lever on their own. Actually, I think there’s some good arguments to be made that it should be. Now, that article is plainly framing things more in an isn’t-this-thought-provoking way than as serious policy proposal, and there would have to be kinks to work out on how, exactly, you would administer children voting if there was no minimum voting age, but it’s not conceptually impossible. Nobody is arguing that we need to tighten voting rights to prevent (say) disabled adults from voting “wrongly” or not exercising their rights in a way we approve of; insofar as childhood is primarily treated as a kind of legal and social disability, why should that mean that children have less rights, instead of it meaning that we must work more assiduously to ensure their rights are protected?

I think the idea of a minimum voting age is based approximately in the idea of children being incapable and unworthy of autonomy; and though now primarily paternalistic in character, it’s an inheritance from a time in our culture where we conceived of children essentially as not worthy of respect or humane treatment. As with almost any other class of people, taking children as a class and asking ourselves, “what if instead of treating these people paternalistically, as creatures who are not worthy of exercising rights on their own behal, or holding firm preferences, we treat them supportively, and do our best to respect, support, and defend their rights and their preferences?” We might still decide there are things we’re going to do against their explicit or easily inferred preferences--an infant probably doesn’t want to suffer the pain of a vaccine injection (but we can also infer there’s a highly likelihood that, as an adult, they would be glad not to have ever contracted measles or mumps! So giving them an injection anyway is not--so far as we can reasonably extrapolate--running roughshod over their preferences; it’s weighing their likely future preferences against each other and deciding in favor of the one that seems more important). But there is much in our society we would have to totally reconsider, and I think that would ultimately be for the better.

[anexplanationofunfortunateevents]

a post about the Democratic primary, which I did not enjoy writing

I haven’t talked about the Democratic primary here for a couple of reasons. I think that wrapping our minds about what Trump is doing in power – and what he and his backers did to get him that power – is a lot more important than any campaign tactic his eventual Democratic opponent can use, or even who the Democratic candidate is. I don’t even know who I’ll be voting for myself.

What I do know is that above all other issues, I’ll be voting on democratic values. That includes more conventional voting rights and election integrity issues that we’re used to discussing in American politics. It’s also about pounding the brakes on democratic backsliding at home, and giving institutional and moral support to people around the world who want the same. If we make enough progress on this issue, we can make enormous strides on other progressive priorities. If we don’t turn back this authoritarian tide, we will lose on everything else.  

And on my #1 issue, I’ve developed serious concerns about Senator Bernie Sanders.

This is a long post because it’s an attempt to articulate an uncomfortable pattern which requires a lot of context, but I hope you’ll take the time to read it, so let me assure you of a few things it’s not:

Concerns about Sanders seem to be collapsed into “is he as extreme and irrational a leftist as Trump is a right-winger” or “is he too kooky to win an election.” I’m not doing either of those. There is an argument out there that Sanders is too far to the left on policy. I’m … really not the person to do that argument justice. There’s an argument that, whether or not you like his policies, he would have a harder time winning a national election in a year that Democrats cannot afford any more disadvantages. I think this election really is going to be won or lost by the voters choosing to accept or reject Trumpistani autocracy, but it’s entirely responsible to consider that kind of thing. I have a substantive concern about Bernie Sanders, not because I oppose progressives but because I am a progressive, and I don’t pretend to have any insight into how it might affect his chances of winning a general election.

I don’t care a whole lot about what Senator Sanders feels in his heart or whatever. I tend to think this is more about being misguided than malicious, but that’s not make or break for the pattern I’m trying to describe.

I’m not trying to endorse someone else by process of elimination; like I said, I haven’t decided yet who I’m voting for myself.

I’m old enough to remember four years ago when only a few nerds had ever heard of superdelegates. Superdelegates, or unpledged delegates, are party activists and officials who get to vote at the convention along with the pledged delegates who are assigned in the state primary contests. They’re the backup plan put in place after the clusterfuck of 1968. We also got better at avoiding clusterfucks after 1968, so they weren’t an issue. Until 2016, when Sanders decided they were an issue for him because he was going to lose the old-fashioned way, and “superdelegates” were a convenient boogeyman he could use to turn progressives against the Democratic party. Then his campaign successfully talked itself into believing that this conspiracy theory about superdelegates going against the voters, so they started arguing that the superdelegates should take the nomination away from the winner and give it to him. This was always a pipe dream, but it did inspire Sanders supporters to dox a bunch of counterrevolutionary elected officials and progressive activists. Remember, he’s a member of the Senate Democratic caucus, so he’s talking all this shit as a superdelegate.

The sore losering only helped Donald Trump and his Russian backers, but it was delegitimizing enough that the Democratic National Committee felt pressured to revamp the presidential nomination process. Thus, a “unity” committee was formed to placate the feelings of those who were implacably infuriated that the person with the most votes had won the nomination. (The Republicans, whose party processes had allowed an unqualified, unstable, ideologically unreliable foreign asset to take over, made no such alterations.) The big concession on superdelegates is that they don’t vote on the first ballot. If someone wins a majority, then they win the nomination. If nobody gets a majority, then there’s a second vote where the pledged delegates are released and the superdelegates also get a say.

Presumably because pro-Sanders activists were so instrumental in drafting the new rules, they were all set to start gaming those rules before voting began. In early January, when it was assumed that former Vice President Biden would win more delegates than anyone else but come up short of a majority, groups supporting Sanders floated the idea that Warren’s delegates should be ready to join Sanders, or vice versa. The reasoning was that a vote for Warren or Sanders should be considered a vote for what they considered the relatively progressive wing of the Democratic party, and therefore pooling the two candidate’s votes together would represent the will of the electorate. Six weeks later, with Sanders having eked out a plurality in a few early states – more delegates than anyone else, but nowhere near a majority, and losing the popular vote – he’s out here warning that it would be very, very bad for everybody if the person who wins the plurality isn’t guaranteed to win the nomination. If 66% of voters split between two “establishment” candidates, well, that 34% who voted for the “anti-establishment” Sanders better get their way, or the party gets it!1

Sanders representatives also insisted states be allowed to keep holding undemocratic caucuses – until he was outplayed in the Iowa delegate count, at which point they realized the establishment $hills had been right about voter suppression being bad.

Look, real talk, small-d democracy is about trying to do what the voters want. If Sanders stays exactly where he is in the polls – winning a plurality of delegates with only about 1/3 of the voters – he will be getting a lot less support than he did in 2016. When he lost by a whopping 12-point margin, despite being propped up by the Kremlin, the Koch brothers, and thousands of years of patriarchy. If these trends hold (and they might not!) Democratic voters, who are the voters most likely to support his policies, do not want him. So – and I’m editorializing a little bit in this final assessment – spare me.

America is a big country and the Democratic Party is a broad coalition. There are going to be good arguments for and against a lot of different ways to pick a presidential nominee, but a key part of doing it as fairly as possible is to choose the rules beforehand and then stick to them. Campaigns making the best case for their candidate isn’t a bad thing, and a politician being able to change their mind is a good thing. But Sanders whips his supporters up with sweeping claims about the legitimacy of the process – until the opposite claim looks like it might be advantageous to him, at which point his campaign completely reverses itself on whether or not the rules of the election are fair. This is not acceptable. We cannot be playing this game when we are trying to defend the legitimacy of democracy itself against the most powerful person in the world.

On its own, I’d find that frustrating. But once a frustration starts overlapping with a genuine national security issue, it stops being a frustration and starts being a serious concern.

Senator Sanders was informed a month before the Nevada caucuses that the Russian government was supporting his campaign. Again. We still don’t know what kind of support they were giving him, though it’s probably more or less what they were doing in 2016 – pushing propaganda and making it harder for people to have productive discussions about the primary. He didn’t say anything about it, except to obliquely reference Russian trolls when he was challenged on the debate stage about some of his supporters being abusive online. (We’ll come back to that one.)

When this story broke, as it clearly would, Sanders reacted by attacking the newspaper. He claimed that the briefing his campaign received was classified, which a) it is unlikely to have been properly classified, which he would’ve known if he’d tried to work out a way to go public and b) didn’t stop him from using some of that information to his advantage during a debate. His campaign went around crowing about these great victories where he squeaked out pluralities knowing that those victories were tainted by a foreign government helping him and/or sabotaging his competitors. (Meanwhile, these competitors were not even told that they were at risk.)

He responded similarly to the Russian support he received in 2016. He failed to educate his supporters about the seriousness of the attack as it was happening. When asked later, he begrudgingly admitted to having known about it, falsely claimed to have tried to alert the Clinton campaign, and attempted to deflect criticism by literally blaming the victim. Admitting that he lost despite benefiting from the criminal sabotage of his opponent, rather than because he was the victim of some nefarious party establishment conspiracy, would have damaged the story he tells voters and been a blow to his ego.

Because he chose to deflect rather than face the issue, he has never dealt with the ways that the ways that the Russian attack probably did poison his movement. Nobody else has really wanted to deal with it either, so I’ll stipulate that this is my opinion, but I think it makes sense.

There is a qualitative difference between what Sanders tries to communicate to people and what his supporters do in response. I do not believe that Sanders wanted his supporters to vote for Trump, stay home, or discourage others from voting in 2016. I do not believe he wanted progressive organizers to be inundated with death threats. I do not think he wants people like anti-racist filmmaker Ava DuVernay or Parkland parent Fred Guttenberg to be swarmed with abuse online. I sincerely believe that if you hooked Sanders up to a lie detector, he would say that’s bad stuff and he doesn’t want any of it, and I am not inclined to be overly generous to Senator Sanders.

And yet it keeps happening, and it can’t just be blamed on Russian bots. Real people physically showed up in Philadelphia to heckle speakers at the convention in 2016. Abusive phone calls to perceived establishment enemies of Sanders really do slow down after he explicitly says he doesn’t want people to do that – which means that he dissuaded real people, who started down that ugly path because they thought it was what he wanted. There is an observable mismatch between what is being said and what is being heard. Something is jamming the signal.

Jamming the signal, incidentally, requires exactly the kind of stuff that troll farms do best. Post “edgy” guillotine memes and see who bites. Flood brutal criticism of mainstream Democrats with applause. When ostensible leftists use their independent platforms to spread disinformation or even just nastiness, toss a few coins in their Patreon – they don’t have to know they’re working for you, they just have to learn that pushing the envelope is profitable. Shout down even mild criticism by spamming it with garbage, so that skeptics withdraw or become defensive, while supporters internalize the idea that abuse is an acceptable response to dissent. Work hard enough to desensitize a campaign to that kind of behavior, and you might even get it to put a bunch of spiteful trolls in charge.

This is a theory, but I think it is the most likely theory. I certainly think it’s more persuasive than the alternatives, which are “those intelligence and disinformation professionals have spent the last few years shouting into the void and having no discernible effects on target populations, and also, all these people who say they’ve been hit with the exact type of toxicity that disinformation effort seems designed to provoke are actually all hallucinating and/or lying because the unbelievers of The Establishment(TM) are all conspiring to take Bernie down” and “this Russia thing is a fake news Democrat deep state witch hunt.”

I’m not saying I think Bernie Sanders is a Russian asset. I’m saying that the Russians seem to think he’s an asset to them.

The Sanders campaign has a complicated problem on its hands, and I don’t know what they should do about it. But it isn’t enough for Sanders to say “I don’t care who Putin is supporting.” It is his job as a United States senator who swore an oath to protect and defend the constitution to care about who Putin is supporting. It is his job as a presidential candidate to care enough to ask why Putin is supporting him. Even if he doesn’t care morally, he has to care politically, because plenty of voters care, and if he can’t give us an explanation we’re going to start trying to figure it out for ourselves.

Which makes it time to stop ducking the ugly question: why is Senator Sanders useful to people who are against everything he stands for?

Maybe, as the press and the Bloomberg campaign seem to think, whoever’s designing this strategy thinks Sanders is the most likely to lose to Trump, so of course they prefer him over the stronger competition. I hope they’re right. It would certainly be comforting to think that Trump’s Russian backers think we’re going to have a free and fair election based on how voters feel about the nominees, because it would mean they’re not relying on their ability to hack state boards of elections. And it would be comforting because the other possibilities get pretty depressing. Unfortunately, the Kremlin whisperers putting out this comforting explanation were also quite certain that the Russian government was just trying to cause chaos and didn’t have a preferred candidate in 2016 (they did), the Russian government only supported Trump because they hated Hillary Clinton (she’s not running and they’re still at it), that the propaganda campaign couldn’t have had an impact (it did), that the Russian government would never have attacked actual voting infrastructure because norms or whatever (lol) …. the mind-readers turn out to be big on the wishful thinking, is what I’m saying here.

Maybe it’s just a narrow convergence of policy. Sanders was one of only a small handful of legislators who voted against the Magnitsky sanctions that the Russian government is desperate to overturn. He failed to support further sanctions on Russia for the 2016 election interference – again, interference which helped his campaign. He’s called for neutralizing NATO against Russian aggression by letting Russia join. From the Russian government’s perspective, that’s as good as destroying it like Trump has been trying to help them do. Maybe those things are enough. I think those are bad positions and he should have to explain them. But he seems less committed to those things than Trump, who’s spent three years failing to deliver.

If four years of the Trump show have taught us anything, it’s that you can’t just write off the tinfoil hat conspiracy stuff; you have to acknowledge it and explain why it’s unlikely. So yes, it is theoretically possible that Russian intelligence believes they have some leverage over Sanders, either to manipulate him or to kneecap him at a moment they think is most advantageous to Trump. That doesn’t mean Senator Sanders has done anything wrong. It just means that there’s a bit of footage from when he visited the Soviet Union back in the day, and they might think they can use it to make a damaging deep fake. Personally, I think that’s pretty unlikely to be the motive here, because the cost-benefit analysis seems pretty thin, but we’re just trying to take a clear-eyed inventory about what’s possible.

A few hours after the Post broke the news about the Russian efforts to help him, his official Twitter account posted this:

I've got news for the Republican establishment. I've got news for the Democratic establishment. They can't stop us.

If you’ve been paying a bit of attention to Sanders you’re probably not too startled by that comment, which is exactly the problem. In a few short words, it boosts some of the most insidious narratives that pro-Trump propagandists have also been pushing over the past few years. It’s framed as a belligerent defiance of “party establishments” - AKA, those same American institutions that we know our adversaries want to destroy. It sets up a nihilistic false equivalence between the Democratic and Republican parties. In this little story, it’s Sanders up against shadowy forces and their conspiracy against him – he’s the real victim here, but also the center of the universe. (Sound like anyone else the Russian troll farms like?)

This tweet may or may not have been in direct response to the Washington Post’s breaking the story about Russian intelligence helping his campaign again, but the timing sure looks like a great American newspaper was being lumped in with the big, spooky “establishment” trying to “stop” Sanders. (A week and a half later, he’s still sore at the Post about something.) That, too, would fit a disturbing pattern of Sanders world’s relationship with critical press, or even with criticism in general. While all this was going on, there was a Daily Beast story about the kind of alarming behavior that seems to keep happening in pro-Sanders circles. A low-level staffer was running a gross Twitter feed that reflected badly on the campaign. The campaign responded to the story by taking out the trash, but supporters responded to the story by swarming the reporter and sharing pictures of his home address. This wasn’t surprising. If you dip into Democratic-leaning podcasts or cable news shows, it’s really common to hear people preface any criticism of Sanders with a semi-jokey “don’t yell at me on Twitter, guys!” or respond to someone else’s criticism with a rueful “RIP your menchies [Twitter inbox].” Journalists and political commentators know to expect disproportionate retribution when they criticize the Dear Leader. (Sound like anyone else the Russian troll farms like?)

Maybe you’re the kind of person who likes to give the benefit of the doubt. Couldn’t all that be  #ActuallyAboutEthicsInJournalism? I suppose a good test would be: what’s the response to negative feedback from a group of people, not just an individual who can be intimidated? And the answer is: conspiracy! Paid Protesters! Fake news, folks! That is not progressive, it is not healthy for our politics, and it’s exactly the kind of behavior that autocratic regimes around the world are always trying to normalize. Democrats, and all other small-d democrats, cannot start rewarding it.

That’s the context for this: Sanders has a long track record of defending authoritarian governments which call themselves socialist, communist, or otherwise leftist. Of course, authoritarian governments are more like gangster kleptocracies than “socialism” as Sanders sees it, but he just keeps rejecting opportunities to walk it back.

Too many progressive commentators with platforms have shrugged this off as some kooky Cold War thing that the media is blowing out of proportion, but it’s not just uptight Wall Street Journal opinion writers pushing back. A lot of Americans are Americans because their families ran for their lives from exactly these regimes. Five years of Latin American immigrants being Donald Trump’s favorite target, now we’re going to make people who fled Castro’s Cuba or Chavez’s Venezuela eat this shit sandwich? Mayor Pete Buttigieg was the first openly gay person running for the US presidency; was he supposed to add a bit in his stump speech about whether a dubious “literacy program” would help him in a concentration camp? The world is a complicated place where American leaders have to make hard decisions and don’t always get to work with nice people. That’s no excuse to be casual about rubbing salt in raw wounds.

I haven’t spent the past three years angry that Donald Trump fluffs up dictators because I’m looking for excuses to hate Donald Trump. Really, I’m good there. I’m angry about it because democracies are good and dictatorships are bad. When the American president is clear on that point, it really can make the lift just a little bit lighter for activists and freedom fighters and oppressed people doing the hard work of citizenship all over the world; when the American president fails to speak that truth, their work gets a little bit harder. I think their work is hard enough already.

You know that cliché about “Mussolini made the trains run on time”? It’s fascist propaganda. “Sure he locked up dissidents and inspired Hitler, but Infrastructure Week was a real success!” And he fucking didn’t even, because of course he didn’t, he was busy murdering everyone who could burst his narcissistic bubble. The Italian fascist regime polished up a few tourist-friendly routes and boasted to privileged visitors about how the trains were running on time. Then those visitors would go home with an innocuous sound bite to sanitize a brutal regime. Look, Prince Mohammad is letting women drive [and imprisoning the activists who made that a winning issue for him]! Sure, Putin is a heavy-handed old KGB guy, but he’s cracking down on corruption [as an excuse to imprison critics]. I’m not defending Castro, but hey, literacy program. Look, I’ve been to the Soviet Union, the bread lines didn’t look too bad on my guided tour!

Maybe the big money donors behind this Russian intelligence super PAC think Sanders will be susceptible to manipulation by their authoritarian regime because he keeps saying that he’s susceptible to manipulation by authoritarian regimes.

When someone seeking the United States presidency says that? Believe them.

I’m not saying Sanders is an aspiring dictator like Trump. I mean, I could be wrong, but that’s not my concern. A lot of politics is made up of civic habits. If we validate these tactics, we make bad habits that soften us up for a smart, focused Trump to come along in four or eight years. We can’t afford leadership that doesn’t understand, on a gut level, why those bad habits are dangerous.2

I’m not saying he’s the only flawed candidate on this issue, but he troubles me more than any candidate with even a slim path to the nomination. Representative Tulsi Gabbard is an exponentially more dangerous character – or at least she would be, if she somehow pulled ahead of “none of the above.” I have serious issues with former NYC mayor Mike Bloomberg; I’m less concerned about those issues because people can criticize Bloomberg without anyone mocking them for having been raped.

Because I think democracy is the most important issue on the ballot, I’m not going to mislead you with false equivalence. Sanders would not be as bad on Trump on these issues. He would not be stacking the courts with right-wing judges who are overtly hostile to voting rights, he doesn’t stand to rake in cash by cozying up to autocratic regimes, and an administration which pays lip service to democratic values is preferable to an administration which is overtly hostile to them. A vote to reduce harm can be cast with a clear conscience. It’s still the primary, though, so we have the chance to cast a general election vote for real improvement rather than damage control.

If I haven’t convinced you of anything, fair enough. If I have convinced you that this pattern is serious enough to consider as you’re voting in this primary … this isn’t one of those posts where I try to wrap up with a concrete suggestion about something you can do, for obvious reasons. I have a suggestion about voting tactically, though. Primary delegates are awarded proportionately to every candidate who makes it over what’s called a viability threshold. Basically, a candidate who gets 15% of the vote wins something like 15% of the state’s delegates, while a candidate who gets 14% gets zero. A vote for someone with 3% support is a vote for whoever wins the state, whether you like that person or not. Check FiveThirtyEight to see which candidates are polling above 15% (preferably above 20% to get outside the margin of error) and then choose your favorite of those candidates.

1A good argument for this particular system is that it gives candidates two chances to prove that they can build a coalition, because that is something Democratic presidents need to do. You can win an outright majority going into the convention, which requires satisfying a lot of diverse groups of people. If nobody can do that, then the convention gives you another shot to show you can win people over. If you have a plurality then you have a head start. If you can’t get from a plurality to a majority, you probably shouldn’t be nominated, because you would be a shitty president.

2The topic of this post is democracy, not politics, so I don’t want to go too far into it, but I do want to shoot down the bullshit counterargument: “oh, blah blah, knife to a gun fight, Democrats are wimpy little girly-men who always play by the rules, Republicans are big strong daddies who understand power, blah blah.” Guys? Guys. You’re not going to out-shitpost the Republicans; they have unlimited money flowing into sophisticated propaganda machines. You’re not going to out-bully the fascists as a means to an end; bullying is the end for them and they have a lot more practice at it than we do. You don’t get into a pissing match with a drunk. IDGAF about sinking to their level, it’s about refusing to fight on their turf. We’re not going to win their game on their terms.

[tebarambles]

12

12. do you agree with the way your government is handling the pandemic? 

Oh dear, I’m afraid you opened quite the can of worms there, my friend :D Politics are my favourite topic to rant about, but I’ll try to not go overboard with the ramblings (I’m not making promises though).

The short answer in German would be: jein (yes and no).

From a global perspective, I think the German government isn’t doing the worst job in comparison. I’m really not a fan of Angela Merkel (she’s the leader of the Conservatives after all, and also a massive bigot), but being a scientist, at least she has an idea what she is talking about. I dread to think what would be going on if any of her fellow CDU politicians were in charge.

Speaking of which, Jens Spahn (the Federal Minister of Health) keeps demonstrating quite how unsuited he is for his job - he seems to be unable to maintain sufficient personal distance on public outings/press interviews, has absolutely no clue how to wear face masks correctly and don’t get me started on his actual approach to politics. His latest brain fart: an “Immunitätsausweis” (immunity pass) for people who have already been infected with corona. sounds like a good idea in theory but as long as nobody knows exactly how long one stays immune after having had the disease and as long as there aren’t reliable antibody tests available? Useless, just like the man himself (and believe me, the complete list of issues I have with him is much, much longer).

Even worse: our current Federal Minister of Education and Research, Anja Karliczek (also CDU). I’ll spare you the rant about how badly she (and her predecessors; most of them Conservatives, of course) fucked us students over even before the pandemic. But right now? ‘Oh, you lost your part-time job because of the pandemic and aren’t eligible for Bafög (fun fact: most students in Germany (~80%) aren’t, and even if they were, in most cases it’s hardly enough to survive on it) - here, apply for this student loan of 650€ per month that won’t even be enough to pay for your rent in cities like Berlin, Hamburg or Munich.' Well, thanks a lot, Anja. She used to be a banker and a business administrator btw. I'm not saying that a lack of experience in the educational sector makes her less qualified for her current role but - wait, yes, that's exactly what I'm saying.

Also: deciding to re-open schools for all children this soon during a pandemic, when many public schools in Germany are chronically underfunded and can’t even provide the pupils with warm water to wash their hands? Insane! Great idea, Kultusministerkonferenz.

Meanwhile, Friedrich Merz (also CDU) keeps telling the press that “we can’t hold the protection of human life above everything else” in regards to the potential economic consequences of the lockdown. This is the same man who is against abortion because abortion is murder, by the way. Oh, and he’s currently competing to become the CDU’s next chairman, which then might lead to him trying to become chancellor. And that would be a catastrophe of BoJo-like proportions. 

One main problem is federalism, because all the German states just keep going how they see fit and there are only very vague instructions from the federal government. Which is kind of understandable, because the situation keeps changing and what is right today might turn out to be a mistake tomorrow and vice versa. Still, the lack of nationwide consistent regulations leads to chaos at the moment. 

There are other things that I haven’t even addressed yet (apparently it is okay to let refugees die because we can’t afford to take any more - but we can afford to fly in thousands of cheap seasonal workers from eastern Europe despite closed borders. Die Würde des Spargels ist unantastbar.), but this post is already waaaaaaaay too long. Whoops.

tl;dr: the CDU is - like any conservative party - a group of inhumane bigots that can’t be trusted and while there certainly are countries that are doing worse, I’m not happy about how things are going at the moment.

[larkfox]

( SAOIRSE RONAN, FEMALE, SHE/HER ) ⌇ have you seen LARKSPUR FOX around icaria? they are the TWENTY-SEVEN year old child of ZELUS. they remind me of HOMEMADE PROTEST SIGNS, SING-SCREAMING ALONG TO THE RADIO, and A HEAVY STACK OF HISTORY BOOKS. They’ve been on the island for 4 years. 

Lark comes in two volumes: Loud and VERY LOUD. An intellectually brilliant radical anarchist, she is prone to protesting against Icaria’s government and for a different cause every week. Although she’s certainly spread awareness for some significant issue, not every cause Lark champions is noteworthy… or even logical. Whoever is within her radar will inevitably hear an earful. She’s also a gigantic nerd- particularly history- so she knows a lot of stuff but lacks in common sense.

She has a very weird, codependent friendship with Steffi, whom is probably her best friend at this point because fate keeps shoving them in the same place. They are both very annoying for different reasons, and the two together can get chaotic. Important: Lark likes Steffi more than Steffi likes Lark, but Lark is more fond of people as a whole than Steffi.

You may be thinking: Lisa! Why do you have two bumbling, good-intentioned loud characters that can be irritating to others? Is Lark going to just be Chloe 2: Electric Boogaloo? Fair question. Lark and Chloe are self-aware in completely opposite ways. Chloe would never indulge in this kind of reckless behavior or be anything close to this argumentative. Anyway, I’ve basically written an essay about Lark below, so you can see for yourself.

Further information/bio:

Basics

A PhD candidate in History at Icaria’s University, she is keen on finishing her dissertation soon and trying to get a job at The Icaria Museum. If that doesn’t work, she supposes she will just have to see about becoming a professor or something. She’s so close to finishing, though, it’s palpable.

On the side, she does some copyediting and tutoring because living isn’t cheap. Sometimes she also does some music production, but that’s not a big thing.

Lark is a bit immature, and an absolute disaster at interpersonal relationships. She is heavily opinionated, and rarely keeps anything close to her chest. A gay mess, she didn’t have her first relationship until her early twenties. She has very mixed feelings about her demigod status (and her dad, whom she didn’t meet until he swung by to tell her about the disappearances and urge her to move).

Early Life

Her conception kicked off in a dramatic fashion. Diana Fox was a sixteen year  old teenager in Canada when she attended her first protests (various feminist ones, mostly). After one of them, she met up with a strange guy who just seemed to get it (also he seemed to like debating for fun). He (the god Zelus) was definitely too old for her, but she lied about her age, and ended up pregnant after a few trysts. Diana decided to keep the kid, but she most definitely wasn’t ready to be a mother. She named the child Larkspur because she thought it sounded cool, the flowers were pretty, and also she was kind of a punk who got a kick out of her kid being named after something poisonous. And that was about as much contribution as little Larkspur’s parents offered up in terms of upbringing for those early years. Gods weren’t about that sort of child-raising life, and Diana wanted to enjoy what remained of her adolescence.

Cecilia and Dale Fox stepped up, and raised their granddaughter. Larkspur adored her grandparents, even if they did not quite expect to have to raise a baby at their age. They were only in their late forties, but a grandchild to take care of had not exactly been in their plans while they were both still working. Cecilia’s job didn’t pay as well, so she took a few years off to be the primary caretaker for the little girl. When Lark was four, she was able to go to preschool, which helped everyone.

Larkspur frankly thought her name was embarrassing. What kind of mother named her kid after a poisonous plant? She was much happier to go by Lark in school, or even just Fox.

Even though her mother could have cared less about books and learning, Lark took to school rather well. She rarely had to study, and knocked out essays and reports without thinking too hard about it. Marks didn’t mean much to her, but she still skipped grade two. Even after that, she continued to excel in school.

A Turn for the Worse

When Lark was nine, Dale started to get sick, which inspired Diana to head back home. She moved back in, and tried to be more than a parent when it was convenient. Lark didn’t like that very much, so she clung to her grandmother, or shut herself up in her room for a while. The only time that Lark felt really close to her mom was when she took her along to protests.

Lark has absolutely been arrested for protesting before, but it’s never resulted in any real convictions. Her mom is the one who’s actually seen prison time. Lark actually thinks that’s very cool. Diana and Dale did not agree with the coolness level of any criminal activity, but did their best to point the kids (i.e. Diana and Lark) in the right direction.

Zelus

Lark thinks her dad sucks even if he’s supposedly one of the good guys. It doesn’t even matter that Zelus seemed to be the god of nothing good. She didn’t find out who her dad really was until Diana came back home and sat the family down. I will now present you with an excerpt of the conversation:

Diana: So I’m sure that you’re all wondering a few things.

Dale: Yes, I’m always wondering things, Annie.

Diana: About Larkspur’s dad!

Dale: Ohh. Yes, we’ve all been wondering about that.

Lark: I haven’t!

Diana: You haven’t?

Lark: Not really!

Cecilia: Grandpa and I have been wondering. Diana, where were you going with this?

Diana: Oh. Right. So it turns out he’s a god… Here, let me show you…

Lark: Is this a print-out from a Google search?

Cecilia: Her father is Zeus? Like the greek god Zeus?

Diana: No!! Zelus! There’s an entire extra letter in there. He’s like Zeus’ pal. Or at least that’s what I’ve read about on Google.

Lark: So he’s still a greek god. But like a discount greek god. Eh. Zeus is probably just as good of a dad as this one is.

Cecilia: Zelus. Like zealots. Oh. Oh no. Let’s just… Make sure nothing happens with that.

Dale passed away when Lark was twelve, which especially devastated his wife. Cecilia had gone back to work a while back, and she took the opportunity when it came up to transfer into a slightly better paying opportunity in the UK. It helped that she was born there, and still had aunts and cousins around. It was about time to move back. Diana wanted to stay in Calgary, but Lark wanted to go with her grandmother. Making her first mature decision in a long time, Diana conceded, and applied for jobs overseas.

Steffi

Lark had been poor at making friends in Canada, and this did not improve thousands of miles away. The person that she got on best with was Steffi, a recent transplant from Germany that did not seem to be fitting in well either. Since Steffi did not seem to have any friends either, Lark latched on immediately. The mean comments didn’t exactly phase her (especially because the older girl didn’t seem to outright hate the idea of being friends).

Her friendship with Steffi is… weird. Here are some helpful references: the entire main character group from Friends as two people. All of the characters from Derry Girls (including side characters) as two people. Rosie and Tanya from the MMCU (Mamma Mia Cinematic Universe). The Odd Couple. You get the picture.

Anyway, while they were very good friends, it still did not come up in conversation where they both settled on schools until acceptance time came. Heidelberg University’s History program was amazing, and Lark couldn’t turn down how reasonably priced German schools were. She casually-but-not-casually suggested that she and Steffi room together, and was pleasantly surprised to start the next year with a roommate that wanted to be friends.

After graduation, Lark and Steffi went to separate universities for graduate school, and conversation was not quite as frequent as Lark would have liked. She did start to make more like-minded friends in her Musicology masters program. The professors seemed not to hate her either; she was “a pleasure to have in class” but not the student with the highest grades. Oddly enough, she and Steffi just kept running into each other without planning on trips and the like.

Poorly thought through things that Lark has suggested to Steffi (list is not exhaustive):

Protesting for squirrel rights on their university campus at 2 AM (nobody else agreed to join her)

That they should have split custody of a shiny beetle that Lark found on the ground. She stopped trying to persuade her friend after the beetle started flying around the room

Marriage pact if they are both still single by age 42

Reenacting various historical scenes while sober

Road trip across Europe on a beercycle (with only two people)

It had never seemed like a good idea to mention her demigod status until Lark and Steffi bumped into each other… on Icaria. Overjoyed to have her friend back, Lark suggested rooming together again, but this was unfortunately shot down. She still spends quite a lot of time at Steffi’s apartment and vice-versa.

Powers

Power-wise, she has some control over the human voice, which she finds easiest to use for controlling the volume of her own voice. Lark can’t change the concepts of the sound, but she can alter the volume or “throw” the sound so it comes like it originates somewhere else. If Lark were actually interested in starting a cult or being a politician or something, she could use her superior control over the voice to make herself heard without distortion, and deafen the voices of those that opposed her. A loud enough voice could even cause real damage. Fortunately(?), Lark has little interest in all of that, and isn’t especially charismatic to begin with. She only really uses it to force people to listen to her when she’s trying to tell people something deemed important. Or to secretly help shy friends that don’t know how to project. Or to make annoying mansplainers stop talking over her. Or to make Steffi go shhh when she shows up in her apartment in the morning

[mariposakitten]

Dear gods above, please grant me the strength to not go off on some folks here on tumblr.

Okay, so: I’m seeing a lot of people - including people I usually like and respect! - saying some really ignorant things about the issue of mental illness and mass shootings, and about the people - like me - who take issue with the conflation of the two. So let’s clarify a few things, shall we?

Nobody (except possibly someone who is VERY new to this whole social justice thing and doesn’t grasp nuance yet) is saying that it’s impossible for a mass shooter to be mentally ill. It is entirely possible that mental illness was part of the problem that led to many of these people deciding to grab a gun and go a-murdering! Yes, many of them likely would have been helped significantly if someone had caught the signs early and convinced them to seek help. We don’t disagree on that, and acting as if we’re howling at the moon at the mere possibility that a shooter might be mentally ill is a dishonest representation of our objections.

So why do we object?

Well, 1) because the only person qualified to diagnose a person’s mental illness is that person’s doctor - and that person’s doctor is generally not allowed to broadcast a person’s diagnoses over the internet. So everyone going “oh this person clearly had this illness or that disorder or the other whatever” is acting as an armchair psychiatrist. Any claims you hear someone make about someone else’s supposed mental illness are either pulled out of their ass (and yes, even if you’re a psychiatrist, if you’re not that person’s psychiatrist it is pulled out of your ass), or a horrific breach of privacy (if you are in fact their psychiatrist) - either way, unethical in the extreme. I and many others strongly discourage speculating about the mental illness of strangers, both because it is unethical and unreliable, but also because, while it is unlikely to harm the person being speculated about (at least in the case of shooters - who are usually either dead or under arrest by the time we hear about them - or public figures like the president), it’s very likely to harm other people who may have similar mental illnesses. 

But, even more importantly, 2) we object because so many public figures and politicians blame mental illness and only mental illness. This problem is twofold: on the one hand, it encourages people to seek “solutions” that won’t solve gun violence but will harm mentally ill people, and on the other hand it doesn’t do a damn thing to actually prevent more shootings. So let’s look at both of those!

2a) Things I have actually seen actual people in positions of authority suggest in response to “mass shootings caused by mental illness”: government and/or police keeping lists of mentally ill people; psychiatrists encouraged or even required to report patients with certain diagnoses to the authorities; people encouraged to Baker Act friends and acquaintances if they start to act “suspicious”; “involuntary confinement” of people with mental illnesses; barring people with mental illnesses from various activities.

I sincerely hope that I don’t have to explain why *waves vaguely* all of that is an ethical and civil rights nightmare, but beyond that: what’s the likely outcome? Because I’ll tell you right now, if I thought my doctor was going to narc on me and my mental weirdness to the cops, do you think I would have sought help? Oh hell no. If people think they’ll be in danger of being committed or confined, or that they’ll lose rights if they’re found to have the “wrong” illness, how likely is it that they’ll be honest with their doctors?

See, that’s the thing about stigmatizing mental illness: it’s not about “oh boo hoo, my feelings are hurt.” It has real-world consequences, in that the more stigmatized mental illness is, and the worse society treats mentally ill people, the less likely people are to seek out the help they need. That means more people suffering, more people unable to hold down a job or otherwise function, more suicides - and, yes, if someone’s mental illness feeds into their violent tendencies and vice versa, it means even less chance of them opening up to someone who could help them and prevent a disaster.

And 2b) there are a lot of common denominators among the vast majority of mass shooters. White supremacist (or other flavors of open bigotry, but this one seems the most popular these days.) Resentful and full of entitlement. Radicalized online, on one of a small handful of websites that exist to radicalize young men and encourage violence. Easy access to guns, especially ones that spray a lot of bullets in a short amount of time in order to kill as many people as possible, as fast as possible. These are known societal problems, and it is well past the time that we start looking at ways to fix or at least minimize them! But those who push white supremacist rhetoric and those opposed to even the mildest, most sensible forms of gun control have been using mental illness as a bogeyman to deflect blame. They’re not subtle about it. Painting a tragic picture of a mentally ill lone wolf and piously decrying the “mental health crisis” in our country (and mental health is not dealt with well, I know this, I’m not arguing that!) lets them distract us from taking steps that might actually make a difference.

So yeah. When I see people I like and respect mocking people who worry about stigmatizing mental illness, and acting like they’re being put upon and attacked for even suggesting that mental illness might be a factor (my brother-in-law had paranoid schizophrenia and once attacked my husband with an ax because the tv told him my husband was trying to kill him, believe me, I know that mental illness can and does influence violence) - I know that they aren’t listening to what we’re actually saying.

(Or that they people they’re listening to aren’t good at articulating their objections. I know that when I run into the “they did a violence because crazy!” argument, I am not always immediately coherent; at best I can stammer out a cliff’s notes version of the above and then I have to go away and breathe for a little while because yeah, this is kind of a hot button. So I can see how someone might not know the whole of the issue, especially if mental health activist circles aren’t usually on their radar. But I promise we are not stupid. We do in fact have reasons beyond “it hurts my feelings to think I have anything in common with a killer!” So please stop infantilizing us into an unrecognizable strawman.)

[tkjunkdrawer]

Was thinking about Juxcubae again. Sometime ago I mentioned something about prostitution being legal in the world of Litch Slush because of the existence of Juxcubae. So, how's it handled?

Basically, there's small hotels that cater specifically to this, known [PUNNILY] as JuxtaPositions. Juxcubae can show up and hang around whenever they need a meal or some money, and take whichever clients request them. There's photos of all the Juxcubae on the premises at the front desk, so clients can take their pick. A receptionist alerts the Juxcubae when they've been requested and sends the client on up to the corresponding room. As ridiculous as it sounds, people can also make appointments to bone with particular Juxcubae, if they want; it's all done through the company. Business is business.

None of the Juxcubae's personal information is available to the general public, and they all go by fake names [Azhrune, for example, goes by "Midnight," which is absolutely cheesy] while at work. They also get to set their own rates, as well as choosing what they are and aren't willing to do. They're well within their right to reject clients, or stop mid-session if they feel uncomfortable or unsafe.

The Juxcubae who work at these places are actually really well-protected. Violence against sex workers is a thing in any reality, sad as that is, but the Juxta buildings are really safe. The rooms all have magic that detects things like fear, distress, panic, and anxiety [things that wouldn't come up in a safe or consensual scenario], and the spell will immediately immobilize whoever is causing said distress, basically freezing their body up like a statue against whatever wall is immediately opposite them, to give the victim room. Said spell then alerts the building's security guards, and they come and handle things as needed.

And of course, there's plenty of, er, "equipment" available. You want it, they've got it on site somewhere. Everything is sanitized after use [and the people who do it do get fairly compensated for having to scrub up other people's bodily fluids], because that shit is important. Anything deemed questionable or potentially unsafe to use further is trashed and replaced. Juxcubae are welcome to bring their own stuff, but the JuxtaPosition provides pretty much anything you'd want or need for whatever filth you're engaging in today.

Up until now, I've only mentioned Juxcubae working at these places, though. Truth is, there's definitely humans who work there, too. Everyone's got their reasons for ending up there, but they're not really treated any differently by than the Juxcubae by the company itself. They're afforded all the same perks and protection than their inhuman coworkers get. No judgement, no questions asked, as long as you follow the rules, you're welcome to earn a living here. While the initial description of these places may sound a bit seedy, they're actually surprisingly positive environments. The Juxcubae understand better than anyone that sometimes, this is the only way you can live.

As for the clientele, there's a good mix of humans and demons that come looking for a good time. Some humans are interested in the novelty of demons and vice-versa. Not always the case, of course, but nobody's judging if it is. Though a Juxcubae will generally have to get it on with a few humans before they're feeling rejuvenated. I have mentioned before than the energy in human souls isn't as "hearty" as demons. Lack of magic.

Besides that, JuxtaPositions are generally well-kept, especially the ones located in bigger cities. The place Azhrune takes his calls at genuinely looks like an upscale hotel both outside and inside, and can easily be mistaken as such until you get to the desk and see the book of photos and the panel of colored lights that indicates which rooms are in use and which are empty; White for vacant, blue for occupied but not working, red for active session, do not disturb. Juxcubae are welcome to lounge in the [very nice and comfortable] rooms while waiting for requests, or they can hang around the lobby if they want. They also get to decide however many clients they want to take or how long they want to be there that day. It's pretty chill considering the debauchery going on in the rooms. Being that Juxcubae have to fuck to live, demons as a whole don't have the same weird stigmas surrounding sex that humans do. This is just another job, and it's not uncommon to see Jux and humans sitting in the lobby reading, chatting, playing g on their phones, and generally just relaxing in their downtime, only to get up and immediately switch into "customer service" mode when somebody wants them. Though, uh, customer service here is obviously different from, like, retail or something.

Demons actually brought the whole system over from their side of the portal, where it was established an astoundingly long time ago and then refined over the centuries to what it is today. I think I talked about that once briefly; basically, since Juxcubae need sex to survive, there had to be an allowance for it. Because "just go engage in your disgusting customs on your side of the portal" went over REALLY POORLY, and the idiot politician who said it was buried in backlash. Those "disgusting customs" are literally what keeps the Juxcubae alive, and now they're here and they need to survive. Telling such a large group to suck it up and die or GTFO so openly was met with outrage not just from a state, or even a country, but an entire dimension of living, intelligent beings whose size and population is on par with that of our own.

If that's how the Juxcubae were going to be treated, then who was next? Dumping waste into the rivers of the water nymphs and telling them to fuck off and go back where they came from if they don't like it? Telling the werewolves that our vets and hospitals will no longer tend to them, too bad if they're fatally injured, they gotta go through the portal to be treated? How far is this kind of discrimination going to go?

"Fuck that," said the demons. "We're taking our ball and going home."

In a unified movement that humanity had never seen the likes of before, every demon and magical being disappeared from our world back to theirs, taking the magic with them.

It didn't last long. Everyone had become so accustomed to living alongside demons and their magic that our world couldn't function normally, because that's how it had developed. There were the little things that were missed: Spell capsules that eased anxiety and soothed pain much more effectively than any pharmaceuticals, condensed spells to banish dust and grime in an instant, herbs from Arcanae that tasted like nothing in our our world that has quickly become staples of many cuisines across the world. Then the biggest issue: Magic and science were two sides of the same coin, so intertwined at this point that it was unfathomable to move forward without magic. It was possible, sure, but there was so much more that we could do with both things together.

Humanity apologized for this catastrophic fuck-up and asked to make amends. Demonkind was like "let the Juxcubae do what they need to do to survive," humanity agreed, and everyone came back. Things clicked back into place like nothing that changed in the first place--except for these new buildings popping up.

And from there, lettings the humans also take part in it legally wasn't too much of a stretch, especially since the demons made it legal for humans on their side of the portal, and if they're doing it, how poorly does it reflect on humanity to not let their own people do it at home? Now they're going over there to do this stuff--and it's safer than walking the streets? Fuck it, we might as well just go with it.

That's the very abridged version of the whole thing. This is the kind of thing they do an entire unit on in history class because the impact was huge. They called it The Great Arcane Absence. While the Arcane Absence itself really only lasted about a week, the tension and arguments leading up to it stretched back a ways; legal prostitution Earthside was something Juxcubae were pushing for for a long time, until things finally boiled over. Which is why the reaction was so extreme.

So, yeah. JuxtaPositions.

[waqasamjadme]

44 Inspiring Quotes about Finding Love

 44 Inspiring Quotes about Finding Love

Love is the power that has all the time led folks to extreme circumstances, from wars to the creation of artworks. Then once more, the reality about love is that it requires self-discipline, sacrifice, and braveness.

Whether you’re out on the lookout for love or love is out on the lookout for you, here are some quotes that will encourage you to take the following step the following time the 2 of you meet!

Step one to discovering real love is being sincere with yourself about what you need, in order that these qualities will be simply recognized in a possible mate.

If you're on the lookout for long-term love, then it's most likely finest to keep away from relationships that give the impression of being a fast fling.

There are nice dangers in permitting your self to fall in love, however the rewards are even better!

Real love is a like a phenomenal rose backyard which requires consistent watering and care as a way to keep wholesome and alive.

Don’t you dare even stick a finger into the fountain of affection except you're able to dive in all the way in which!

Some companions could make you are feeling extra worthwhile, however since most don’t, it's advisable to have a wholesome degree of shallowness earlier than getting into a relationship.

Real love is one thing all of us crave from youth, however there's nothing mistaken with growing your self till you discover the right mate. If you happen to do that, you'll possess much more positivity to contribute to the relationship!

All the time be your self when screening a possible partner, however attempt to be your finest, most-jovial self!

A lot of people have a taboo in opposition to blind dates, however real love is filled with surprises anyway!

It's better to simply be single than to accept a partner who has no potential of residing as much as your standards.

There's many a sorry man who went on the lookout for love, found after which misplaced it. Thus it's typically preferable to let love discover you!

Earlier than you give your coronary heart and soul to somebody, allow them to first show to be a very distinctive individual, deserving of such a excessive honor!

Relationships are all the time good in our minds, however in the actual world, real love requires a whole lot of patience and concentrated enter.

I'm not a star or politician who wants validation from the masses. All I would like is the one which I truly love to understand me!

Be your self once you exit on the lookout for that particular somebody, as a result of real love doesn’t reply well to false advertising!

True and actual love is sort of a treasure on this world, and as with something of worth, typically it's important to work laborious to get it!

Most relationships get boring after some time, so be sure that yoUr love is true in order that it could possibly endure the canine days forward.

Within the trendy world the place we don’t apply prearranged marriages, you may meet your future spouse nearly anyplace.

Typically on the lookout for love makes us extra apprehensive to talk to a possible accomplice than vice versa.

Could the real love of your life land in your lap like Eve did in Adam’s.

Once I was youthful, I might fall in love instantly, however now that I'm older, I've learned to be patient and let nature take its course.

True love is a facet of life that's integral to our general happiness. Discover it and also you shall discover eternal happiness.

I do know that typically relationships will be tough to the purpose of impossibility, however within the grand scheme of issues, it's all the time higher to let a relationship naturally develop than to hurry into it.

There aren't any better success tales than these pertaining to like. It’s like you may fail a million times, however the one time you succeed makes all of it price it!

It's advantageous to have constructive shallowness earlier than getting into a relationship, however a very good accomplice can assist in that regard also.

Real love is one thing all of us deserve. I imply even Adolph Hitler had his wife!

Typically for a brand new relationship to succeed, no matter how tough it could appear, you have to let go of the previous!

It's a must to resolve what you're most afraid of – giving your defenseless coronary heart to somebody, or living your life alone?

Wherever you discover folks, there's also the potential to seek out love.

If you're on the lookout for love, it's a good idea to ask for advice from someone who has already been profitable at it.

We have now all made disastrous errors in love, however you have to attempt to recover from them in the hunt for your subsequent intimate relationship.

The best inspiration for going out and finding real love is to speak to somebody who's in a long-term, successful marriage!

You'll be able to sit round kicking your self over the errors you made in previous loves, or you may go out and seek for a brand new one!

Even in case you really feel unmotivated to search for a accomplice, there's nonetheless somebody on the market who sorely wants and deserves your candy love!

The one advantage of failed relationships is that they provide us extra wisdom in what to look out for after we’re searching for a brand new one!

Going by way of a heartbreak is traumatizing, but spending extra years with out someone to name your own will be much more painful.

Real love is supposed to final a lifetime, so there's nothing mistaken with being patient and making sure you get issues proper!

Search for a lover you could even be pals with. Nobody wants the burden of having to faux to be someone else once they’re with their partner.

There's nothing mistaken with studying books that will help you discover real love. If we undergo years in faculty��learning topics we are going to by no means contact in life, then it makes extra sense devoting time into researching intimate love!

There’s no greater blessing than not solely discovering somebody you may share your bed with but also a person with whom you may all the time be your self.

Actual love exists. Don’t ever surrender your seek for it. Your soulmate is somewhere on the market ready for you.

via Blogger https://ift.tt/324EHEF

[swinburne2019]

|Social Media and Politics|

           Nowadays politics fly like the speed of light because of social media that spread the news regardless it is true or fake. In the media age which it is an opportunity to spread the concern towards the public promising their promises at the same time helping those who needs help. Moreover, since media is one of the major factors that news spread because of people wants to know what is happening in the political world. The use of social media such as twitter, Facebook and YouTube has dramatically changed the ways of campaign such as example the previous General Election 14 in Malaysia where the previous prime minister’s twitter has more followers than the current prime minister where take into aspects of political engagement is where the voters control who they prefer to vote as a right direction for the future. However, it also depends on what happen in the pass that made it to be like how it is supposed to be as for the previous prime minister’s scandal of 2.6 Billion 1MDB which is not settle till today together with other negative rumours following together. Social media has been one of the ways to contact to directly with the voters with their promises towards the voters but then as for me as a voter sees is it true and does the person voted keep their promises or not is another story to believe or not. During this time Pakatan Harapan and Barisan was battling each other till the end of the line through the counting of voters result as all wanting to know the result which also the live made on TV.

Besides that, social media has been hot with hashtags about political campaign as an example also Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton general election in the United States where the campaign was drastically used on twitter with the mems and pictures made to reflect the election campaign. As said by Trump himself ‘I like it because I can get also my point of view out there, and my point is very important to a lot of people that are looking at me (Murse T, 2019). Moreover, campaign goes viral by allowing the minded voters and activists to easily share news and information such as campaign events with each other through the sharing function provided by the social media itself as easy as just pressing the button on the social media.

However, social media has been used in providing the news that they want to know whether it is true or false which falls to the judgement made by the voters to trust who is right or wrong and who is true on their promises and which is not. Money during political campaign is not a problem because while doing campaign that the money or receiving and spending transactions is vice versa. In other words, a campaign may find one message appropriate for voters between 30 years old will not be as effective with over 60 years old.

Campaigns can cause controversial because what ever happen at that time is critical with whatever happen between political body with how the problems over come and promises made which can happen good for voters and for the politicians them selves which result to a win-win situation and every one is happy about the decision made. Feedback from the people is not wise choice because of the wants and need by the politicians themselves because of not accepting good feedback where at that time feelings might affect with whatever is happening.

|POLITICS AND GOVERNANCE|

           Governance and politics are essential because it is an exercise to control both sides of activities such as institutions, power, order and the ideal justice as an example rules and regulations made for to control the politicians as for the do’s and don’ts because of the power that they have compared to a normal citizen. The power exercised by the participating sectors of the society is always for the common good, as it is essential for demanding respect and cooperation from the citizens and the state. As such, a great deal about governance is the proper and effective utilization of resources. Good governance is understood through its eight indicators or characteristics: (1) Participatory; (2) Rule of Law; (3) Effective and Efficient; (4) Transparent; (5) Responsive; (6) Equitable and Inclusive; (7) Consensus Oriented; and (8) Accountability. They are inextricably related to each other.

           It must also be emphasized that good governance and development should not be based exclusively on economic growth. Through global persuasion, good governance and development signify a broader spectrum of things, such as protection of human rights, equitable distribution of wealth, enhancement of individual capabilities and creation of an enabling environment to foster participation and growth of human potentials.

Moreover, rules and regulations are important to maintain both sides of authority because if a country has no rules which might cause a havoc which might leads to destruction of both sides and might cause a big misunderstanding between each other. On the other hand, decision made is the most important so that order is maintained within the country itself to get each other aspects in to one majority chosen.

We're just talking about common sense regulation here.

Nobody needs an hour long news show.

Some reasonable legislation might be :

-Limiting interview rounds by restricting the hours they can broadcast.

-No high capacity video clips.

-Registration of hand mics.

-Full background checks and regular mental health check-ups.

References

Wike R & Castillo A, 2018, Many around the world are disengaged from politics, viewed 4 April 2019, < https://www.pewglobal.org/2018/10/17/international-political-engagement/>.

Murse, T 2019, How social media has changed politics, viewed 4 April 2019, ��<https://www.thoughtco.com/how-social-media-has-changed-politics-3367534>.

Chow, N 2018, Ge14: Malaysian netizens bring out the funny memes, viewed 4 April 2019, <https://www.msn.com/en-my/news/myge14/ge14-malaysian-netizens-bring-out-the-funny-memes/ar-AAx3JEP>.

Tamayaocsu, 2014, What is governance, viewed 4 April 2019, <https://tamayaosbc.wordpress.com/2014/08/21/what-is-governance/>.

[justanothercinemaniac]

Epic Movie (Re)Watch #132 - Good Will Hunting

Spoilers below.

Have I seen it before: Yes

Did I like it then: Yes.

Do I remember it: Yes.

Did I see it in theaters: No.

Format: Blu-ray

1) I find it interesting how when the opening credits say, “Written by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck,” it says Damon’s name over Affleck’s character and vice versa.

2) The first character in the film we really get to know is Stellan Skarsgård as Gerald Lambeau.

You get that Skarsgård has good intentions, even though he is a massive pretentious asshole who hits on his students and judges people not based on how happy they are but more their position in life. A janitor is a failure. A community college teacher is a failure. Any other opinions be damned. He’s not EXCLUSIVELY a bad guy though. You understand his intentions are good and he does learn as the film goes on, but damn if he isn’t just a prick for most of the film.

3) The first tavern scene is a nice way of introducing us to Will and his friends. It creates a sense of community between them and South Boston, a sense of character for every member of the group, and their relationships with each other.

4) Matt Damon as Will Hunting.

Will is a character who you really get to know over time, and that’s very nice. At first he largely keeps to himself and we get that he doesn’t care about power or prestige. At first that’s a noble thing, but then we learn that this is born less out of humility and more out of fear. Will is a flawed character. He convinces himself of all the disadvantages of somethings, of the shame of it, because he is petrified. His world, his life with his friends, that is safe for him. That is home. And he doesn’t really risk to go for more than that because of his fear of rejection (identified by Robin Williams’ Sean Maguire later in the movie). I think this - along with the beatings he sustained as a child - fuels the aggression we see (and later hear about) when he picks a fight with an old kindergarden bully for no other reason than he just felt like it (and then doesn’t stop until the cops show up).

But Will is SMART. And not like a little smart either, but incredibly intelligent. He’s not afraid to show it either, he doesn’t hide it when he feels a need to use it. But he doesn’t brag about it either. He is not in his friends’ faces with it with an, “I’m so much smarter than you,” attitude. Matt Damon - the film’s cowriter with Ben Affleck - plays Will’s many facets very well. This film is incredibly well cast and most of the actors when you’re watching them don’t FEEL like actors. They feel like the characters, totally and completely. Damon as the lead is no exception.

5) Can I just say: I LIVE for scenes in movies and moments in life where some pretentious condescending asshole is put in their place totally and completely? It’s so cathartic!

6) Minnie Driver as Skylar.

Can I just say I LOVE Skylar, even if she is at risk of falling into the category of manic pixie dream girl on paper. Minnie Driver’s academy award nominated performance in this film just makes her so much MORE than that! I love everything about Skylar: how she approaches Will at the bar and calls him an idiot for not asking her out, how she is able to hold her own against Will’s sense of humor and occasional bullshitting, her laugh, her honesty, her heart! The first time I watched this film I was in awe - more than anything else - with Driver’s realism in the part. She and Damon have knockout chemistry that not only suggests to you their heat but their friendship. It is totally believable that they fall in love in such a quick time, and that is because they work so fucking brilliantly with each other. There is sincerity, trust, comradery, humor, an ability to be themselves around each other. I believe Damon and Driver dated for a while after meeting on this film, and that chemistry shows. I just...gah! I love it so much!

7) Classic.

Will [to the douchebag from the bar]: “Do you like apples?”

Douchebag: “Yeah.”

Will [placing Skylar’s phone number on the glass between them]: “Well I got her number.”

8) The way Lambeau treats Will is...interesting, to say the least. At first it seems like he looks down at him. Like he’s his savior and he knows it. There’s a scene where after they’re done doing math together, Lambeau ruffles Will’s hair. Who the hell does that? It changes as the film goes on. You realize that Lambeau grows to understand that Will is truly an unmatched genius, but early on it’s...weird.

9) The string of psychiatrists Lambeau takes Will to see is very telling and very entertaining. It shows how smart Will is, but also how abrasive he is. How he scoffs at authority and the need for help. It’s a funny scene but it greatly tells to Will’s deeper struggles.

10) Robin Williams as Sean Maguire.

Williams won his first and only Oscar based on his performance in this film, and damn if it isn’t clear why. Williams is chameleonic. Yes you know its Robin Williams playing him, yes he brings some of his trademark improv comedy (more on that later), but you don’t SEE Williams. All you see is Sean, and that is incredible. Damon and Affleck took a character who could have easily been just the token mentor. The Obi-Wan to Will’s Luke Skywalker. But they did more. They gave Sean his own struggles, his own grief, his own desires, his own conflict, his own arc, and made a truly compelling character who can hold his own against Damon’s Will.

You learn a lot about Sean as the film goes along. You learn how his life is defined by his love and loss of his wife, you see that he is able to relate to actual people, that he hates the MIT snobs. The dude chokes Will out for insulting his wife at one point and is the first therapist to kick Lambeau out of his session. Meaning he takes his time with Will far more seriously than the other therapists.

The chemistry between Williams and Damon is on par with the chemistry between Driver and Damon, although of a fundamentally different nature. Williams as Sean is able to sift through Will’s bullshit, knows when he doesn’t need to put up with it, and is able to slowly make this character who is so afraid of rejection comfortable around him. I think it’s the key relationship in the film, and I love it.

11) Danny Elfman’s score in this film is beautiful. Elfman is known for his more macabre work through collaborations with directors like Tim Burton and Sam Raimi, but here he creates a hopeful and sincere melody which carries you through the film like a leaf on the wind. I think it’s great.

12) The scene where Sean is talking to Will on a park bench is somewhat iconic, but I think it is very powerful for one key reason: the filmmakers decided to keep it on William’s performance for most of the scene. They did not cut between him and Damon, they let his acting and his heart carry those minutes and it is incredible I think. You can watch for yourself if you so desire:

This is my favorite line from that monologue:

Sean: “You’re an orphan right. Do you think I know the first thing about how hard your life has been - how you feel, who you are - because I read Oliver Twist?”

People like to say they know what other people are going through, but unless they have personally they don’t have any idea what they’re talking about. Thank you to this film for having that line in there. I love it.

13) According to IMDb:

The lines in the scene when Sean talks about his late wife's farting antics were ad-libbed by Robin Williams. That is why Matt Damon was laughing so hard. If you watch the scene carefully you can notice the camera shaking a bit, possibly due to the cameraman laughing as well.

14) This film does an excellent job in balancing the aspects of Will’s life. We get the perfect looks at his relationship with his friends, with Skylar, with Sean, and with Lambeau. There’s not too much and there’s not too little, it’s just right.

15) It is interesting to see how Will lets his guard down with Skylar in some regards while also keeping it up in some ways (namely, lying about how he has 12 brothers).

16) I love Skylar’s story with Will’s friends.

Minnie Driver is gold.

17)

Lambeau [after Sean says they should let Sean go down his own path]: “It worked wonders for you didn’t it?”

Sean: “Yeah it did you arrogant fucking prick.”

(GIF source unknown [if this is your GIF please let me know].)

WHETHER OR NOT SOMEONE HAS LIVED A GOOD LIFE IS NOT BASED ON THEIR STATURE. IT IS NOT BASED ON THEIR JOB, THEIR WEALTH, THEIR LOOKS, NOTHING LIKE THAT. IT IS EXCLUSIVELY BASED ON HOW HAPPY THEY ARE LIVING THEIR LIFE AND HOW MUCH PAIN THEY ARE OR ARE NOT CAUSING OTHERS!!!!

(GIF originally posted by @marshmallow-the-vampire-slayer)

I have a lot of strong feelings on this matter, can you tell?

18) I love how Will explains the way his brain works. How he says Mozart and Beethoven could just look at a piano and play, that’s how his brain works with history and numbers and science and stuff. It actually makes a lot of sense despite being pretty vague.

19) Get ready to have your heart broken by Will being a fucking idiot.

GODDAMN IT WILL!!!!!

20) Will’s whole monologue about why he doesn’t take a job with the NSA because of what COULD happen and one hypothetical leading to another is just a perfect example of him using his intellect to rationalize his fears in a bullshit way.

Will [in a session with Sean]: “Why shouldn't I work for the N.S.A.? That's a tough one, but I'll take a shot. Say I'm working at N.S.A. Somebody puts a code on my desk, something nobody else can break. Maybe I take a shot at it and maybe I break it. And I'm real happy with myself, 'cause I did my job well. But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East. Once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels were hiding and fifteen hundred people I never met, never had no problem with, get killed. Now the politicians are sayin', "Oh, send in the Marines to secure the area" 'cause they don't give a shit. It won't be their kid over there, gettin' shot. Just like it wasn't them when their number got called, 'cause they were pullin' a tour in the National Guard. It'll be some kid from Southie takin' shrapnel in the ass. And he comes back to find that the plant he used to work at got exported to the country he just got back from. And the guy who put the shrapnel in his ass got his old job, 'cause he'll work for fifteen cents a day and no bathroom breaks. Meanwhile, he realizes the only reason he was over there in the first place was so we could install a government that would sell us oil at a good price. And, of course, the oil companies used the skirmish over there to scare up domestic oil prices. A cute little ancillary benefit for them, but it ain't helping my buddy at two-fifty a gallon. And they're takin' their sweet time bringin' the oil back, of course, and maybe even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who likes to drink martinis and fuckin' play slalom with the icebergs, and it ain't too long 'til he hits one, spills the oil and kills all the sea life in the North Atlantic. So now my buddy's out of work and he can't afford to drive, so he's got to walk to the fuckin' job interviews, which sucks 'cause the shrapnel in his ass is givin' him chronic hemorrhoids. And meanwhile he's starvin', 'cause every time he tries to get a bite to eat, the only blue plate special they're servin' is North Atlantic scrod with Quaker State. So what did I think? I'm holdin' out for somethin' better. I figure fuck it, while I'm at it why not just shoot my buddy, take his job, give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? I could be elected president.”

21) One of my favorite scenes in this film is Chuckie’s reaction after Will says he’s going to stay in south Boston his whole life.

Chuckie: “Look, you're my best friend, so don't take this the wrong way but, in 20 years if you're still livin' here, comin' over to my house, watchin' the Patriots games, workin' construction, I'll fuckin' kill ya. That's not a threat, that's a fact, I'll fuckin' kill ya.”

He is like the only one - between Skylar, Sean, and Lambeau - to actually get through to Will. And that is because he speaks Will’s language. It’s one of my favorite character moments in the film.

22) I do really love the climax of the film (Sean telling Will, “It’s not your fault,” for his foster dad beating on him and Will breaking down into tears) even if I’m aware of some of it’s flaws. This is a turning point for Will, but if he were in therapy in real life this wouldn’t be the end. Also most therapists don’t treat their patients this way. But that’s the beauty of fiction: we have this thing called suspension of disbelief which makes movies fun to watch! :D

23) I think the ending for this film is quite lovely. So many different ideas from earlier play into effect, Will goes to make up with Skylar (headcanon: he gets her back after much groveling and attempts to convince her he’s changed), and what Matt Damon said was Robin Williams’ best improvised line in the film.

Will [in a note he leaves for Sean]: "Sean, if the Professor calls about that job, just tell him, sorry, I have to go see about a girl."

Good Will Hunting is a classic of cinema. It features excellent writing that features a heartwarming story, supported by incredible performances across the board. Williams, Damon, and Driver are all particular standouts, but the film is just so good. Perhaps a little overrated, but still incredible. Go see it!

[coin-news-blog]

Governments Viewing Crypto as a Threat Will Be Left Behind

New Post has been published on https://coinmakers.tech/news/governments-viewing-crypto-as-a-threat-will-be-left-behind

Governments Viewing Crypto as a Threat Will Be Left Behind

Governments Viewing Crypto as a Threat Will Be Left Behind

In recent commentary at a New York blockchain conference, IRS Criminal Investigation Chief John Fort said the agency is now turning its focus to crypto ATMs and kiosks, as well as American users of foreign exchanges. While the continued push to regulate crypto is no surprise, the general narrative espoused by U.S. officials that cryptocurrencies are a “threat” is worth examining. Crypto is a tool like any other, and those individuals and institutions refusing to recognize the value of decentralized, permissionless trade may soon find themselves relegated to the scrap heap of history.

Tale of a Luddite Nation

As the pejorative verbal jab “OK boomer” is gaining quick currency on social media these days — designed as an outright dismissal of someone too old or out of touch to understand modern times — perhaps it stands to look at some “boomer governments.”

While the “OK boomer” quip is already cliché and a bit cringe-worthy (most who leverage it don’t realize how old baby boomers actually are, or seem cognizant of their own age-related incapacities), it still works as a convenient linguistic dismissal of ineptitude. Exemplifying this antiquated mindset of “if it’s not the old way, we’re not interested,” is the good ol’ US of A. Especially when it comes to crypto.

In a recent interview with Bloomberg Law, IRS Criminal Investigation Chief John Fort shared his agency’s renewed focus on crypto ATMs and kiosks, stating: “In other words, if you can walk in, put cash in and get bitcoin out, obviously we’re interested potentially in the person using the kiosk and what the source of the funds is, but also in the operators of the kiosks.” Fort went on to further detail that the agency is targeting folks fleeing to foreign crypto exchanges as a result of U.S. policy, noting:

We have concern that as things tighten up here in the U.S., that we are pushing people to foreign exchanges … We have to focus on that as well.

While the various alphabet agencies of the U.S. government continue waging war on inanimate objects like guns, cannabis and kiosks, they’re not alone. U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin also realizes that neutral tools such as cryptocurrencies pose a serious threat to all of us.

As he stated back in July: “This is indeed a national security issue.” Mnuchin further elaborated that “Cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin have been exploited to support billions of dollars of illicit activity like cyber crime, tax evasion, extortion, ransomware, illicit drugs, and human trafficking.” Wow. One would think we’re dealing with atomic weaponry or something, and not just another form of money. Unfortunately for Mnuchin, his boomer-esque view seems unwilling to consider the vastly superior amounts of terror and criminal activity financed by USD. He’s actually outright denied this even happens.

China’s Praise of Blockchain

As the U.S. federal government putzes around with half-hearted promotion of its Fednow payment system, a “new round-the-clock real-time payment and settlement service … to support faster payments in the United States,” the Chinese government is steaming ahead, openly promoting blockchain technology and on the cusp of releasing their own central bank digital currency (CBDC) which would effectively be a new, digitized yuan.

President Xi Jinping was quoted last month as saying “We must take blockchain as an important breakthrough for independent innovation of core technologies, clarify the main directions, increase investment, focus on a number of key technologies, and accelerate the development of blockchain and industrial innovation.” These factors seem to stand in stark contrast to U.S. leadership’s sluggish approach to getting with the times. Even as congressional representatives push for the U.S. to research similar tech in digitizing the U.S. dollar, movement is slow.

ATM Scandals Highlight Human Nature, Not the Evil of Crypto

Fort is not mistaken in pointing out that crypto ATMs can and do facilitate money laundering and criminal activity. Back in July several Madrid-based scammers were busted by Spanish police and Europol for using the machines to fund drug traffickers in Columbia. The mayor of Vancouver, Canada also notes the ATM threat and has been pushing for an outright ban on the over 70 machines currently installed in his city, with Canadian police commenting in June that bitcoin ATMs are “an ideal money-laundering vehicle.” A February, 2019 report from the Vancouver P.D. to the police board noted:

Since there are no requirements to register any customer details, it is easy to see how cash can be transferred into Bitcoin and vice versa. A user can also launder an unlimited amount of money using smaller transactions so as not to arouse suspicion, like they would at a regular bank.

As licensing requirements for owners of the machines in the U.S. are still in flux, it’s clear to see why officials like the IRS’s Fort are concerned. But where, some are asking, is the concern that ought to surround the U.S. dollar’s predominant role in such activities?

After all, the world reserve currency currently and historically financing endless warfare and the unnecessary deaths of millions of human beings, criminal trafficking of unprecedented proportions, and the perpetuation of crippling amounts of debt foisted onto the backs of hardworking people, is the United States dollar. Further, as former U.S. Treasury officer Jennifer Fowler has affirmed, “Although virtual currencies are used for illicit transactions, the volume is small compared to the volume of illicit activity through traditional financial services.” It stands to reason then that maybe it’s corrupt individuals, and not bitcoin or ATMs, that are the problem.

Tools in the Hands of Tools

Destined for the rubbish heap of embarrassed obsolescence, the anachronism known as legacy finance simply cannot last much longer if humankind is to progress and flourish. While China may praise “blockchain” in speech, and popular politicians issue similar virtue-signaling proclamations, one critical factor remains unaddressed: the future of finance is not simply blockchain-based fiat or heavily regulated decentralized cryptos like bitcoin; the future of finance is private and permissionless money.

The state depends on permissionless-ness, privacy and individual, brilliant minds to develop its tools. The internet and Tor, for example, were both initially government projects that relied on the genius and know-how of private innovators and scientists to come about. These projects helped to transfer classified, private information with nobody’s permission save the state.

Once any tech (whether from the private or public sector) becomes popular, attempts are made by this same state to suppress functionality. The activist-halted Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) of 2012 for example, would have made it legal to imprison people for up to five years simply for streaming copyrighted content online. Another example is how one cannot trade bitcoin nowadays (at least not freely) without the risk of being caged or extorted by the IRS. Further, encrypted chat applications are also under fire. It seems the folks called government are allowed their privacy in using such tools, but don’t want anyone else to have it.

Effective Anarchy

Instead of allowing communities of individuals to self-regulate, these “special people” called government retard progress and use new tech for evil purposes such as spying (as revealed by Edward Snowden), killing innocent humans (endless warfare and the war on drugs), and extortion (taxation). Government agencies do this by leveraging their systematic lack of accountability. After all, when you are judge, jury, and executioner, it is difficult to be held accountable. In the interest of equality, this same level of anarchic freedom ought to be afforded to everyday, decent people as well, and not just to state sociopaths. There is much good being done with the tool called bitcoin by everyday people, in spite of all the state’s propaganda.

Future generations will view attempts to regulate financial freedom with violent legislation much the same way as chattel slavery is viewed today. In the future, when someone so much as implies a private transaction ought to be reported to the violent and now dead antiquity called “government,” the reply will be as swift and detached a mocking dismissal as is apt for any bigot of modern times: “Okay, boomer. Thanks.”

Source: news.bitcoin

[douglasacogan]

Should Prez Trump grant clemency to former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich?

The question in the title of this post is prompted by this notable new commentary authored by Kristen McQueary for the Chicago Tribune. Here are excerpts:

Former Illinois first lady Patti Blagojevich is back in the spotlight, pulling every lever to convince President Donald Trump to award clemency to her imprisoned husband. In several media interviews, she has tried to build camaraderie with Trump by painting former Gov. Rod Blagojevich as a victim of FBI targeting and an overzealous prosecution.

That is sure to get Trump’s attention. But the better play might be appealing to Trump’s inside knowledge of the swamp — the trading of favors and campaign contributions between politicians and special interest groups. Trump knows it well. He was part of it. “Nobody knows politicians better than I do,” Trump said during a meeting with the Tribune Editorial Board in June 2015, shortly after he announced his candidacy for president. He was in town to speak to the City Club of Chicago and the editorial board invited him to stop by. He did, along with son Donald Jr.

During the meeting, we asked him about Blagojevich, who by then had been in prison for three years. The two had met on the set of “Celebrity Apprentice” in 2010 while the former governor’s corruption case was winding through the courts.

Here’s what Trump said then: “It was good having him on. I found him to be, I can only speak for myself, I found him to be a very nice guy. Not sophisticated. Had little knowledge of computers and things and you know we found that out … We found him to be very nice,” Trump said. “Now, he was under a lot of pressure at that point.

“I think that’s an awfully tough sentence that he got for what supposedly he did,” Trump said. “Because what he did is what politicians do all the time and make deals.”

Boom. What politicians do all the time. That has been the most compelling defense of Blagojevich throughout his controversial arrest, double trial and convictions. The feds placed two bugs and six wiretaps on his home telephone, his campaign office phone and his cellphone, and also bugged his friends and chief of staff. How many other politicians would end up in prison if the government listened to their conversations?

Yes, at two trials Blagojevich was rightfully found guilty on a total of 18 corruption counts for, among other things, trying to trade an Illinois U.S. Senate seat appointment for personal gain. Blagojevich deserved to go to prison. He lied to the FBI about a firewall that he claimed existed between his campaign fund and his government responsibilities. He tried to shake down campaign donors by withholding legislation they sought from state government....

Blagojevich has served six years of a 14-year sentence. Isn’t that enough?

Trump could grant him clemency and consider time served as punishment enough for what Blagojevich plotted. Remember, prosecutors arrested him before any transactions occurred.  They got him primarily on intent, not completion.  They also indicted Blagojevich’s brother to squeeze him but dropped the charges for the second trial, an admission that perhaps they were overzealous in their pursuits....

Trump knows the swamp.  He was the real estate mogul with a fat checkbook before he was president of the United States.  Plenty of politicians courted him and vice versa.  Will he look sympathetically on a fellow swamp thing?  He might.  He should.

Some of many older related posts on the Blagojevich case:

You make the sentencing call: What sentence should Blago get?

Early buzz that feds think Rod Blagojevich's guideline range is 30 years to life in prison

Feds asking for prison term of 15 to 20 years for Rod Blagojevich

"Prison is too good for Blago"

Bold (and misguided?) prediction of 20-25 years in the federal pen for Blago

Do would-be white-collar offenders actually "get the message" from long sentences?

Blagojevich sentencing and the failings (and limits?) of the federal sentencing guidelines

"Ex-Gov. Rod Blagojevich sentenced to 14 years"

 As federal prosecutors urged, former Gov Blagojevich resentenced to same 14-year prison term despite a few vacated convictions

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8247011 http://sentencing.typepad.com/sentencing_law_and_policy/2018/05/should-prez-trump-grant-clemency-to-former-illinois-gov-rod-blagojevich.html via http://www.rssmix.com/

[d33-alex]

Delusional you

We live in an age of mass delusion and very few of us are immune

  Three Messiahs walk into a psychiatric unit… No, this isn’t the set-up to a tasteless joke, but the beginning of a study done in the 1950s by Milton Rokeach at Ypsilanti State Hospital, Michigan. Rokeach brought together three men, each harbouring the delusion that he was Jesus Christ, to see if meeting the others and confronting their mutually contradictory claims would change their minds. Two years and many arguments later, their beliefs had barely budged. For each Jesus, the other two were fakers, while they were the real deal.

  As delusions go, the Messiah complex is extreme. Most delusions are far more mundane, such as an unfounded belief that you are exceptionally talented, that people are out to get you or that a celebrity is in love with you. In fact, more than 90 per cent of us hold delusional beliefs. You may find that figure shockingly high – or perhaps you see evidence all around, in the willingness of so many people to swallow fake news, in the antics of politicians and celebrities, and even among your Facebook friends. Either way, what exactly does it mean? Why are some of us more prone to delusions than others? How do false beliefs get a hold in our minds? And can we all learn to tame our delusional tendencies?

  First we need to be clear about what a delusion is. “There’s a loose way of talking about delusions – like when we talk about the ‘God delusion’– which simply means any belief that’s likely to be false and is held despite lack of evidence, or even in spite of the evidence,” says Lisa Bortolotti at the University of Birmingham, UK. The psychological take is more nuanced. Delusions are still seen as irrational, but they are also idiosyncratic, meaning the belief is not widely shared. That rules out lots of things including most religious beliefs, conspiracy theories and the denial of climate change. Furthermore, the idiosyncratic nature of delusions makes them isolating and alienating in away that believing, say, a conspiracy theory is not. Delusions also tend to be much more personal than other irrational beliefs, and they usually conform to one of a handful of themes.

Bizarre beliefs

  At any time, around 0.2 per cent of people are being treated for delusional disorders. We now know that this is the tip of an iceberg. In 2010, Rachel Pechey and Peter Halligan, both at Cardiff University, UK, presented 1000 people with 17 delusion-like beliefs, and asked whether they held them strongly, moderately, weakly or not at all. The beliefs were either relatively mundane, such as “Certain people are out to harm me” and “I am an exceptionally gifted person that others do not recognise”, or more bizarre, including “I am dead and/or do not exist” and “People I know disguise themselves as others to manipulate or influence me”. In all, 39 per cent of participants held at least one of these beliefs strongly, and a whopping 91 per cent held one or more at least weakly. What’s more, three-quarters of people subscribed to bizarre beliefs to at least some extent.

  “Symptoms of psychosis-like delusions are just the extreme end of a continuum of similar phenomena in the general population,” says Ryan McKay at Royal Holloway, University of London. More evidence for this comes from the Peters Delusion Inventory, which is frequently used to measure how prone people are to delusional thinking. The inventory asks respondents whether or not they have ever experienced various different beliefs that often crop up in a clinical context, resulting in a delusion-proneness range from 0 to 21. Among the general population, people score an average of 6.7, with no difference between men and women. People with psychotic delusions score about twice this. So they do have more of these beliefs, but what really sets them apart from others is that they tend to be more preoccupied with their delusional beliefs and more distressed by them. “It’s not what you think, it’s the way that you think about it,” says Emmanuelle Peters of King’s College London, who led the development of the inventory.

  That we are all prone to delusions may not be so surprising. A range of cognitive biases makes the human mind fertile soil for growing all kinds of irrational beliefs. Confirmation bias, for example, means we ignore inconvenient facts that go against our beliefs and uncritically accept anything that supports them. Desirability bias leaves us prone to shoring up beliefs we have a vested interest in maintaining because they make us or our group look good. Clustering bias refers to our tendency to see phantom patterns in random events, impairing our ability to draw logical conclusions from the available evidence.

  A quick trawl of social media is all it takes to see how these utterly human ways of thinking can contribute to a cornucopia of strange and idiosyncratic beliefs. But the question of why some of us are more delusion prone than others is more difficult to answer.

  It could have something to do with how we see the world – literally. In one study, volunteers watched an optical illusion consisting of a set of moving dots that could either be perceived as rotating clockwise or anticlockwise. The dots seemed to periodically flip direction, in much the same way a Necker cube changes its orientation as you look at it. Those individuals who scored highly on delusion-proneness perceived the dots as switching direction more frequently, suggesting they have a less stable perceptual experience. How this influences thinking remains unclear, but it doesn’t end there. Participants then wore glasses, which they were told would make the dots appear to rotate one way rather than the other. In reality, the glasses had no effect, but delusion-prone people reported seeing the dots move in the supposed biased direction – a case of seeing what you believe. Another recent study revealed that their perception of time is distorted, too. Delusion-prone people were more likely to believe they had predicted events they could not have because of the order they happened in, indicating that they were making mistakes in judging the temporal order of their thoughts.

  It is tempting to conclude that people susceptible to delusional thinking are more suggestible than others, but another study designed to test this explicitly found the opposite. In fact, delusions don’t typically start out as an idea seeded by someone else, but from a strange or anomalous experience generated by ourselves. The crucial second step in forming a delusion is that the person then invents an explanation for this experience. People with Capgras delusion, for example, explain a disturbing feeling of disconnection from a loved one by concluding that he or she has been replaced by a doppelgänger or hyper-realistic robot. This implies some kind of problem with evaluating the plausibility of one’s beliefs, says McKay. In Capgras, it has been linked to damage in specific brain networks. However, there is a more everyday reason that people hold implausible beliefs: a tendency to jump to conclusions on the basis of limited evidence.

  The extent to which anyone does this can be measured with a simple experiment. Imagine two jars containing a mix of black and orange beads: one contains 85 per cent black beads and 15 per cent orange, and the other has the reverse proportions. You select a bead from one, without knowing which it is. Let’s say the bead is orange. You are then asked whether you would like to make a call on which jar you are taking beads from, or whether you want to draw another bead to help work it out. It is prudent to examine a few beads at least – it is quite possible to draw two orange beads from a jar with mostly black, and vice versa. Yet, around 70 per cent of people being treated for a delusion make a judgement after seeing just one or two beads. Only 10 per cent of the general population are as quick to jump to conclusions, but the more prone you are to delusional thinking, the fewer beads you are likely to sample before making your decision.

  This jumping-to-conclusions bias might seem stupid, but it isn’t a sign of low intelligence, according to clinical psychologist Philippa Garety at King’s College London. Instead, she believes it reflects the kind of reasoning an individual favours. Some of us rely more on intuitive thinking – so-called system one thinking – while others are more likely to engage slower, analytic “system two thinking”, which is needed for reviewing and revising beliefs. In a recent study, Garety’s team found that the less analytical a person’s style of thinking, the fewer beads they wanted to see before making a judgement. “It’s not that people with a jumping-to-conclusions bias don’t understand or can’t use evidence,” she says. “They’re just overusing system one at the expense of system two.” And sure enough, Garety’s latest study confirms that these intuitive thinkers are also more prone to clinical delusions.

  It looks like a vulnerability to delusions is part and parcel of regular human psychology. After all, everyone is an intuitive thinker at times: even people who favour system two thinking rely on quick, system one thinking when tired, stressed or scared. Whether humanity is becoming more deluded than ever is another question. In today’s hyper mediated world, we are continually exposed to new experiences and people, and called upon to evaluate all sorts of beliefs that our forebears wouldn’t have encountered. We may also be more tired and stressed. As a result, it is possible we have more numerous or richer delusions than past generations. Nobody has done the research. But even if that is the case, this may have some advantages. “Delusions can be helpful when they make people feel good about themselves or explain aspects of their life that are difficult to understand,” says Bortolotti. It can be empowering to feel that a celebrity is in love with you, for example. And there is plenty of evidence that an inflated belief in your talents can have all sorts of benefits, from success in job interviews to attracting a sexual partner.

  Alternatively, our alarming susceptibility to fake news and the outlandish behaviour of key players on the world stage might lead you to conclude that we could do with a bit less delusional thinking. If so, the good news is that insights into delusion psychology point to some ways we can curb it. Garety has helped

design an intervention to train people’s slow thinking skills. SlowMo, which includes therapy and an app, is intended for people with paranoid delusions, but it nurtures mental habits all of us can benefit from. They include:

-      gathering sufficient data before making conclusions,

-      learning to question your initial thoughts and impressions about events,

-      considering different explanations of experiences.

SlowMo is currently being tested. If it proves effective, the app will be available in the UK through the National Health Service.

Changing your mind

Of course, changing the way you think isn’t easy. It takes effort, and support. “There’s some evidence that people who have good relationships at home and have someone to talk to are more able to activate slow thinking,” says Garety. Even if that’s not your goal, sharing your thoughts is a good first step to dispelling delusions. “It’s psychologically healthy to recognise that our thoughts sometimes need inspection and engagement with the world to assess how right they are,” says clinical psychologist Daniel Freeman at the University of Oxford.

  Simply talking can highlight delusional thoughts in ourselves and others. But then what? We know that delusions are impervious to counterargument. In fact, trying to disprove them can backfire. Freeman has some advice based on his clinical work. First, provide a plausible, non-threatening alternative perspective. Then, help the deluded person gain evidence that bolsters this perspective.

  “We don’t try to disprove people’s beliefs,” he says, “because we know that has the opposite effect, just like when people argue in a pub – no one changes their mind.” If you don’t believe him, ask any Jesus Christ.

STRANGE BELIEFS

Despite being diverse and idiosyncratic, delusions cluster into a few core themes.

PERSECUTORY DELUSIONS:  beliefs that others are out to harm you. This is the most common type of delusion, affecting between 10 and 15 per cent of people.

REFERENTIAL DELUSIONS:  beliefs that things happening in the world – from news headlines to song lyrics – relate directly to you. Persecutory and referential delusions often go hand in hand.

CONTROL DELUSIONS:  beliefs that your thoughts or behaviours are being manipulated by outside agents. Such delusions are common in schizophrenia.

EROTOMANIC DELUSIONS:  beliefs that someone who you don’t know, typically a celebrity, is in love with you.

GRANDIOSE DELUSIONS:  unfounded beliefs that you are exceptionally talented, insightful or otherwise better than the hoi polloi.

JEALOUS DELUSIONS:  irrational beliefs that your partner is being unfaithful. This is the type of delusion most commonly associated with violence.

SOMATIC DELUSIONS:  erroneous beliefs about the body. In Ekbom’s syndrome, people believe they are infested with parasites. People with Cotard delusion believe they are dead or don’t exist.

MISIDENTIFICATION DELUSIONS:  beliefs about changed identity. A classic is Capgras delusion, where people believe that a loved one has been replaced by a doppelgänger.

 HOW DELUDED ARE YOU?

Almost everyone is vulnerable to delusions, but some of us more than others. These 21 questions constitute the Peters Delusion Inventory, which is the most widely used measure of delusion proneness. Give yourself one point for each “yes” and zero points for each “no”, then tot up your score.

1 Do you ever feel as if people seem to drop hints about you or say things with a double meaning?

2 Do you ever feel as if things in magazines or on TV were written especially for you?

3 Do you ever feel as if some people are not what they seem to be?

4 Do you ever feel as if you are being persecuted in someway?

5 Do you ever feel as if there is a conspiracy against you?

6 Do you ever feel as if you are, or destined to be someone very important?

7 Do you ever feel that you are a very special or unusual person?

8 Do you ever feel that you are especially close to God?

9 Do you ever think people can communicate telepathically?

10 Do you ever feel as if electrical devices such as computers can influence the way you think?

11 Do you ever feel as if you have been chosen by God in some way?

12 Do you believe in the power of witchcraft, voodoo or the occult?

13 Are you often worried that your partner may be unfaithful?

14 Do you ever feel that you have sinned more than the average person?

15 Do you ever feel that people look at you oddly because of your appearance?

16 Do you ever feel as if you had no thoughts in your head at all?

17 Do you ever feel as if the world is about to end?

18 Do your thoughts ever feel alien to you in some way?

19 Have your thoughts ever been so vivid that you were worried other people would hear them?

20 Do you ever feel as if your own thoughts were being echoed back to you?

21 Do you ever feel as if you are a robot or zombie without a will of your own?

Results: 

1-5 You are less prone to delusions than most. Your thinking style is probably more analytical than intuitive.

6-7 Congratulations! You are normal. The average score is 6.7, with no difference between men and women.

8-21 You are more prone to delusions than most. You are likely to think intuitively and jump to conclusions.

 An article by Dan Jones, published in the Nov.18.2017 issue of New Scientist