#by whose standards.....according to what definitions.....for what purpose..........

[cepheustarot]

How do other people see you?

Attention! This reading is for entertainment purposes only. This tarot reading does not give a 100% guarantee that all the described situations will occur or being ultimate truth. You build your own life and destiny and only you know yourself best.

Paid readings

Pick a pile. Choose one or more pictures. Trust your intuition.

Pile 1: People see you as a wise person with a lot of experience who can help solve a problem in any field. You are also considered empathic, you get deeply into the problem and offer exactly the solution that would suit him exactly, or say the words of support that he would definitely want to hear. I dare to assume that this pile was chosen by people who work as a psychologist or study for it, but you can just be interested in this topic. At the very least, you are involved in an area where you need to contact people a lot (for example, you are engaged in volunteering or you are working/studying to be a journalist and etc). And although you are quite an empathic person, at the same time you are seen as conflicted, but this is because you do not hide the truth and openly speak, you are honest and straightforward, and this sometimes hurts people. You are also seen as a critic, you may have high standards and therefore it is difficult to please you, many things you may not like. You are seen as a mysterious person and you attract people to yourself with such an aura, they want to get closer to you, but not everyone succeeds, because again you are attentive to the choice of friends, making a social circle!

Pile 2: People see you as a person to look up to and whose word is worth its weight in gold, you are authoritative for them and people rely on you in serious matters, as your advice really makes sense and helps in solving the issue. At the same time, you are considered an important person who is proud and confident, you know your worth and you have good self-esteem. You have practicality, rationality and good organizational skills. People believe that you are used to relying only on yourself and can cope with any life situation alone. At first glance, you may seem distant and taciturn to them, but this continues until you and your interlocutor get to know each other better. In fact, you always know what to talk about, and you prefer to talk about something deep, on topics that can be discussed for a long time, from a philosophical point of view. You are also considered a fair person who tries to look at reality objectively. You also have well-established views on life, you know exactly what you want, you know your values and principles.

Pile 3: People see you as an active person who does not sit still and is constantly on the move, is engaged in something, easy-going and easily agrees to the proposed gamble. You are presented as a flexible person, you easily adapt to new changes. You are also seen as a person who has enough resources and opportunities to start getting involved or doing something new. Moreover,  your any endeavors are accompanied by success and luck, you succeed in everything, no matter what you took. Financially, you will also not miss the benefits, you know how to earn a lot of money, you can be described as a magnet for money. However, you get very upset when something does not go according to your plan or something did not happen as you expected. Perhaps you are also impatient because of your nature, it is difficult for you to wait for a long time, you do not fixate on one place and often changes something, be it your style of clothing, your social circle, hobbies and etc.

Thank you for reading! I will be glad of any feedback 🖤

[granulesofsand]

Multiple Scripts

I can already feel my thoughts slipping, so I’m gonna start writing and hope for the best.

🗝️🏷️ RAMCOA programming

We have multiple scripts. The exact number (that we know of) depends on what you consider a single script, but even on the broadest definition, we still have several.

Our most prominent script, the one that our biggest system follows, is several fairytales told as though they were all part of one world. I can see the VHS cover, but none of us have access to the name of it. Because it was all one piece of media, we count it as one script.

I’m not sure if all the fairytale settings we have came from that one script, but if they didn’t, they were made to look like they did.

We also have a big sidesystem spanning across a few dozen movies which are vaguely fairytale-esque, but don’t pretend to be in the same universe.

There’s a smaller sidesystem along those lines from another media, but with more folk tale than fairytale, with some of the best system hopping we’ve seen. Theirs is written into their script, and they have very high immersion in a their source media.

And then there are a few more sidesystem (at a few hundred members each) that we think were semi-organic in how we inteojected their source, but still got caught while they were forming and were programmed more according to how those people saw themselves instead of a group standard.

All of the sidesystems whose scripting was preplanned function very well together. They don’t exist in the same area or have unforeseen contact, so their relationships to other sidesystems is also programmed to be separate and beneficial to our abusers.

I know that big sidesystem has been taught how to view the system hoppers in accordance with their script, and the hoppers have a lot of training on how each group they interact with views them so that they can better fit that image. They belong to the larger Right Side, which has the strictest programming.

The scripts that were added in response to programmed splits picking up introject identities are messier. They’re still programmed harshly, but not to the extent of the Right.

Even our presentation groups knew about the Left Side scripts pretty early on. It’s hard to dismiss the fleet of robots that just showed up in the woods. They weren’t explicitly told how to make sense of the new scripts, so they didn’t. We have theories about what those guys were going back before system discovery, they were that obvious.

The group that lots of them knew about were more violently stealthy, the kind of hiding where if you acknowledge them you’re going to get hurt. So they weren’t defenseless, but they weren’t discreet.

There was one group that came out of a Right Side group purely because a similar media existed at the time and we were consuming it, so those newbies were confused or disobedient in their elaboration and ended up not fitting in. That group has a lot of the Right Side programming of how to stay hidden and be seen as normal to other groups, but they still got placed on the Left because they weren’t supposed to be there.

Counting with dissociation is so hard. Big group, small group, biggest group, mistake, wrong identity. That’s at least 5 scripts, and that doesn’t include the little groups that revolve around a separate media.

As a side note, we collect the negative labels they assigned us to build our confidence. They told us we were a ‘mistake’, and we took that and ran. I like being a mistake, because my ‘wrongness’ according to them is what allowed me freedom. I’m happy to be ‘bad’ in their book.

The reason for each script, including the unintentional new scripts, fit well into their purposes and our collective history. That’s also something we got from our maternal programming line, the abundance of metaphors and storylines to make sure our sidesystems understood what was expected of them.

Even the lines of our group that didn’t elaborate the programmed self-states so much used scripts — the fairytales were important to our group, so they used them widely. A number of group programs are reliant on the plots of the stories, so even if it wasn’t integral to that system, they still had to know.

That’s not to say that programmed systems should have multiple (or any) scripts, just that it was common where we grew up. There’s no correct way to be hurt, and however your system works is how it works. The changes you make are for you, not to be a more ‘normal’ survivor.

[knogue]

Fictitious Identities are Inevitable Failures

Whiteness incorporates and internalizes bias in its foundational attempt to realize a fictitious identity—an identity whose very purpose and attraction lies int eh fact that it is fictitious, theoretical, mythic. For an individual to be ‘white’ and to think of themselves as ‘white’ is itself an act of discernment and discrimination, a calculated act which gives a pre-calculated value to the fiction of identity.

Whiteness binds the individual to a calculation that must be performed in order to establish and maintain the value attributed to particular identities. Whiteness asks the human being to perceive whiteness as a value and as a valuable quality that can be reliably and definitely perceived. The basic calculation of ‘white’ or not-‘white’ is a binary to which ‘white’ identity is attached—the perception of whiteness interprets the world according to a basic hierarchy of value from which subsequent claims and decisions can be made. Whiteness establishes a binary standard of what is appropriate to and for human being—the me and the not-me, the us and them—according to which whiteness simplifies the world and its activity. In its attachment to perceiving one or two things, whiteness, in its attachment to its virtual standard, ignores the actual complexity of the human world and human life. To limit oneself and others in this way is to reproduce the pain and alienation that come from being unconnected from one’s actual surroundings and circumstances, and to be plugged instead into a simplifying myth about human experience. In its struggle to wrangle the world into its system of binary distinction, whiteness perpetuates a lie, and strives to bind human beings to the lie as well as the conditions that reproduce it. Whiteness tries to control the world by lying about what it is, and the bad faith required to support the false calculation leaves us bereft of meaningful, tangible, concrete, actual connection to the world around us. We are lost because we try to insert our bodies into the myth that not only gives them a particular value, but justifies the values that have heretofore been expressed. Whiteness is also an explanation of the world, and why it is structured and organized in the particular way that it is.

Whiteness strives to restrict human being and human life to a series of calculations of human value. Whiteness organizes a market of human being, assigning differential value to visible bodies according to a mythic standard. In this, whiteness is the language of money, particularly when it is applied to the human being to whom it is impossible to assign a price. Whiteness insists on this system of differential value, but its prices can only be applied through Machiavellian insensitivity and violence, with all the attendant lies, obfuscations, and mental backflips required to turn the world into a myth.

[theblogs2024]

How To Boost Your Organization's ESG Profile

Environmental, social and governance (ESG) requirements are increasing in relevance as a method for buyers To guage businesses. Arising through the movement towards socially responsible investing, ESG looks at how enterprises tackle a host of challenges ranging from Strength use and squander administration to range and inclusion, worker welfare, Local community effects, ethical methods and a lot more.

Based on a report from your Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment decision, U.S. investors held $11.six trillion in assets chosen In accordance with ESG standards at first of 2018, up from $eight.one trillion just two a long time earlier. While this development dovetails with — or perhaps prompts — commitments in the corporate earth to elevate intent In combination with income, ESG isn't almost great vibes or maybe excellent PR. It seems that having a persuasive ESG profile is sweet for organization, as it's turning out to be a lens by which buyers — as well as buyers, staff members as well as other stakeholders — assess the id and efficacy of a corporation. For example, a 2018 Goldman Sachs report cited "increasing consensus that integrating materials ESG aspects correlates to extensive-time period economical returns," and Financial institution of The us Merrill Lynch's hottest ESG report notes that customers are significantly trying to have interaction with providers that "they consider are clear within their organization methods and serve a higher social intent."

As CEO of a firm whose mission is to electric power purpose-driven enterprise with know-how that engages employees, clients and communities about company social obligation (CSR) and day-to-day acts of goodness, these are typically data we love to see. They verify the adage of "carrying out well by executing fantastic" is a lot more than simply a catchy tag line. The truth is, several CSR method targets and outcomes mirror Those people measured by ESG, and as a result, businesses can and will use their CSR programs to be a lever for raising their ESG profile.

If your company views ESG as almost nothing a lot more than a series of packing containers you must Verify, nevertheless, you might be likely accomplishing it wrong. An effective ESG system will depend on building a company society in which initiatives directed at sustainability, social superior, transparent governance, ethical behaviors, etcetera. are built-in into your business's DNA. This implies these initiatives have to be genuine, inclusive, actionable and focused on driving a true-earth outcome, not merely an ESG score. Here i will discuss 3 tricks for fostering a tradition that By natural means contributes to favourable ESG results.

Broaden Your Definition Of CSR

What we predict of as common corporate philanthropy — top rated-down, at the time-a-yr, "produce a check for the yearly fundraiser" — isn't ample to truly renovate a society. Corporate function spans a lot more than simply donating resources to charity (Though supplying is certainly Element of the equation). Businesses will need infrastructure in position to support routines ranging from giving and volunteering to activism, mentorship, board support, sustainability initiatives and much more. Additionally they require to consider integrating CSR stakeholders with horizontally concentrated teams like HR, promoting and, perhaps most notably, amongst company foundations and also the enterprise. In this way, CSR can Perform a worthwhile function in orchestrating, monitoring and sustaining the corporation-broad initiatives that align with ESG.

Democratize Goal

Lots of corporations (as well as their consultants) search for to provide on ESG by defining a singular objective for his or her business to embrace. This idea is not automatically wrong, nevertheless it's insufficient. Lifestyle are not able to merely be dictated within the leading down; goal is likewise particular. One of the better solutions to infuse your business with the genuine and palpable perception of function is to recognize the ability of people as brokers of transform. Analysis reveals that men and women want to handle difficulties that matter to them, whether It can be throughout the solutions they order, the means they provide back or the lifestyle decisions they make. The most impressive corporations ensure it is easy, hassle-free, built-in and inclusive for employees, customers and associates To do that in relation to the issues they treatment concerning the most, and not precisely what is strategic for that model. Democratizing purpose is the key to escalating engagement with the elemental drivers of ESG though also providing optimistic business results, like manufacturer standing and employee satisfaction. The truth is, when our corporation examined data throughout two million of our System consumers around the world, we uncovered that companies who effectively engage their folks in executing fantastic by offering and volunteering see a lot more than a 57% reduction in employee turnover over All those that do not.

Obstacle The Measurement Mindset

With all because of regard to Peter Drucker, not every single end result is usually assigned a numerical value. Unquestionably, providers must measure whatever they can (In particular strategic company and social impacts), but You should not underestimate the worth of significantly less tangible gains. There usually are not wonderful actions for furnishing a sense of self-efficacy to staff or customers, but serving to people today accomplish a way of purpose can absolutely bring about beneficial intangible outcomes which have a halo effect on a corporation's tradition and model. In other words, I may well not Use a silver bullet metric for grading a corporation's lifestyle, but I know an magnificent a person Once i see it. There are actually certainly proxies and correlational data to mine, but we need to be far more thoughtful about valuing intangible assets, like how a culture or maybe a brand helps make another person really feel.

Genuine, objective-pushed organizations usually are not immediately after gold stars. They are just after actual adjust: a environment exactly where they are often financially rewarding although also conserving sources, just one where their services and products Enjoy a job in resolving complications without having resulting in new types, and a single the place their staff, consumers and communities advantage around their shareholders. (This really is proving for being a pretty good shareholder strategy as well!) Rather than ranging from a way of thinking in which the purpose is to boost your ESG rating, start out from a mentality wherever a tradition formed by goal, that means and impact will be the purpose. A positive ESG end result (and larger profitability above the long run) will abide by.

Learn more info. check out here: Environmental, Social, and Governance ESG importance in Greenfield projects

[naturalgroup]

Types of SEO and its Features

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It is used to increase the quality and quantity of website traffic. It also increases brand awareness through non-paid known as “organic” search engine results.

It fulfils the need of the users by providing them high quality and relevant content that they were searching for on the search engines. This increases the credibility and trust of the user.

SEO is an important asset in improving ranking positions. In simpler terms, better ranking equals better traffic. That is why it is important to use SEO to create more brand awareness and high order.

Types of SEO

There are three types of SEO- On Page SEO, Off Page SEO, and Technical SEO.

On-Page SEO

It is the optimization of webpages to get a higher ranking and relevant traffic from search engines. It includes optimization of the content, headlines, and HTML tags (title, meta descriptions, header, etc.).

Some features that prove to be top-ranking features for On-Site SEO are-

Relevant Page Title

It tells the readers what the page is about. A title should include keywords, and a description, that should be long to attract users but short enough to make the purpose of the web page clear to the users and search engines.

Page Subheadings

Relevant subheadings are important to maintain a definite text structure that is easy to read for the user and search engines. The core information about a particular section should be included.

Anchor Text Links

It is the text in a hyperlink. It is also known as the link label or link title. Blue underlined text is most commonly used as it is the web standard. It is important to include keywords in anchor text in order to help search engines determine the topic of a website.

Keywords-based URL

Keyword-based URLs describe the content of the webpage and are SEO-friendly. URL optimization helps search engines provide relevant results to users.

Alt. Text and Images

Optimizing a website’s alt. Text and images are crucial for a better user experience. Alt. the text helps the user and Google to understand what the image and the website are about. It results in higher chances of the image appearing in the image search results.

OFF Page SEO

It refers to the activities done outside of the website to raise a page's ranking with search engines. It helps search engines discover webpages to crawl and determine the content of the pages. In addition to helping a site rank higher for more keyword phrases, it provides forward momentum.

Some features of OFF-Page SEO are-

Backlinks

Known as “inbound links”, “incoming links” or “one-way links” allows the user to jump from one website to another. They play an important role in ranking a site on Google and other search engines.

Digital PR

It is considered one of the most important tactics to earn authentic and high-ranking links at scale. A great PR campaign can increase brand awareness, and attract targeted customers, among other things.

Guest Posting

“It is one of the commonly used and effective link-building strategies”, according to the SEMrush survey. It is referred to as publishing an article on someone else’s website or blog. It is an effective way to increase traffic and also get authoritative backlinks.

E-A-T

It stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. It is an important factor for off-page SEO ranking. It is one of the important guidelines used by Google to determine the quality of the content, its usefulness for the users as well as its ranking.

Technical SEO

It is the technical aspect of the website whose main goal is to optimization of the structure of a website. This allows search engine spiders to crawl and index the website.

Features of Technical SEO are-

Schema Markup

This is a structured data vocabulary that helps search engines understand the content of websites. Found at Schema.org, it helps in creating rich snippets that appear in search results which helps in better ranking and appearance in SERPs.

Sitemap

It is a file where you provide information about pages, videos, and other files on the site. Google and other search engines read this file to crawl the site. A site Map is needed in case of a large archive of isolated content pages, a new site with few external links, etc.

Robot Tags

Also known as Robot Meta Tags are the part of HTML code that is placed in <head></head> section of a web page and used to control how search engines index the URL.

Robot.txt File

Defined by Google, “A robots.txt file tells search engine crawlers which URLs the crawler can access on your site”. This is part of the robots exclusion protocol (REP), which governs how robots crawl, access, and index websites.

Page Load Speed

The time it takes for a web page to load. Page loading speed is determined by many factors such as the site’s server, page filesize, and image compression. Google uses it as a ranking factor meaning, high page loading speed result in higher ranking and vice versa.

Conclusion

SEO has arisen as an important tool for businesses for generating “organic” traffic. The website's visibility, ranking, and user experience are improved. Constant changes in SEO are required to compete with every new development in digital marketing, Google, or other search engines. In short, SEO is the “soul of internet marketing”.

[thisbrilliantsky]

the absolute surreality of my colonialism & redemption class taking a census-like survey and then coding it, and experiencing in real time, for the first time, how impossible it is to sort human beings into neat, uncomplicated categories

[grasshopperdoingdogpaddle]

I know you headcanon Chase as the Water Dragon. I agree with that, and personally I also picture the trio of masters as Dashi being Wind and Guan being Earth. Dashi is probably the easiest, he's a free spirit who's whimsical and a bit of a trickster like Raimundo. But also because of his ability to create the Shen Gong Wu. Rallying something as ephemeral and fluid as magic into a material form seems difficult, but feels like something right up the alley of someone whose element is about spiritual power and freedom. Also because he had a dragon friend (the pun of Lung as in dragon and Lung as in Air). Guan's embodiment of Earth is a bit more shown in his negative sides, though. When he lost his spear to Chase, he obsessed over getting it back, seeing it as a shame he could never let go of even when he was such a strong Warrior otherwise. To the point he was going to trade Dojo for it. When he's at his best he's steady and grounded, unmovable as the Earth. But that also contributes to his own weakness, as once he gets it in his head that things are one way, it takes a great amount of force to move his ideas.

Working out their elements by personality, huh? Nice, I like it!

I just always have a bias towards water types, and Chase and Omi have a lot in common as narrative foils, so assigning them both to water is cute, I think! I've seen all sorts of theories for what Chase's original element was, but water's always going to be my bias for him, it suits them.

But it really does suit him from this point of view, too. Chase's focus is Tai Chi, and both his fighting style and his general M.O. is about Chase being reactive, taking the energy from other's attacks or plans and redirecting it for his purposes. He's flexible, adaptable, patient, persistent. Water people are emotional, intuitive, creative, spiritual. They're reclusive and private, but when they do connect with someone, they do it with their whole heart-- like his deep, genuine bond with Omi, despite his distaste for most everyone eles. Their high emotions make them vulnerable, but it's well-honed with meditation-- hence Chase being far calmer and more level as his 1500 year old self than he was as a monk.

Air people are brilliant, curious, independent, talkative (they literally fill the air with words), observant, and entertaining, but they're also impractical and restless. Often misunderstood by others and have difficulty giving the proper weight to their words. They're very fickle and march to their own beat. Floaty.

So the element of air suits Dashi pretty well by those standards, at least according to what little we know about Dashi. And I like that dragon pun of yours!

And Guan was definitely the big guy of his trio, like Clay is to his group. The broadest, the muscle, the one with a very grounded, slower moveset. Earth people are grounded, practical, disciplined, stubborn, and focused. They're organized, judgmental, and they like to be in total control of their situations. In other words, a perfectionist-- and like you said, those earthy traits show well in his flaws.

Guan being a clinical perfectionist would make a lot of sense, since perfectionists tend to not even try if they know it can't be perfect, hence him giving up entirely after losing his Spear of Guan. Perfectionism can be quite self-destructive and self-defeating.

[gammija]

what materials did you use for your fursuit tail (if you don’t mind me asking :]])? it looks really cool!!

Thank you! I don't mind you asking at all! Im gonna be a bit elaborate, since this is info I'd personally have liked when I started 😅

For the inside of the tail, I bought a big foam tube ('polyether SG 25', according to the site) which I cut down to the right size

The furs are all luxury shag which I got from two online stores, dutchcolour.nl and naehstich.de, except the short brown on top, which is a bunny fur from naehstich. I also bought minky from both.

(For the colors i got, dutchcolours luxury shags looked a bit better than naehstichs, whose shags were a bit crumpled, but the bunny fur is very soft and nice. and if you need any color minky and you're in or around Germang I'd definitely recommend Naehstich, they've got a LOT of colors)

The beltloop and base are made from a curtain fabric we still had lying around which never made it into a curtain, though I just picked it because it's a strong fabric without any stretch

The threads are just standard all-purpose threads of whatever the closest color was that we already had.

Also, since I'm planning to make an actual partial fursuit, to shave the fur I got a "Kerbl clipster DeloX" pet clipper for €40 which I used on the black and dark brown parts, and it shaved that very well. Apparently what separates the good (expensive) clippers from the bad (cheap) is how fast the blade dulls, so only time will tell if my choice to go for a relatively cheap one works out... so far though, no complaints!

[manypersons]

I wrote an expository speech about GMO's. Non-fiction is most definitely not my thing and I am very nervous about performing this, but here it is—The Not-So Hard Truth About GMO's

Women in the Victorian era faced a very specific set of beauty standards. Society told them to be pale, thin, and fragile, no matter the physical consequences. To achieve the look, women took drastic measures; some even practiced the Tapeworm Diet. Victorian ladies ingested pills that contained tapeworm eggs. When the egg hatched inside of them, the parasite grew and absorbed all of the host’s nutrients.

If you haven’t deduced it yet, this “diet” had dire consequences and very often yielded little weight loss, but I am not here to discuss the poor decisions of Victorians, but to rather compare their decision making to that of the modern man.

Recently, individuals within our society have become increasingly conscientious about what they put into their bodies and no, I am not talking about vaccines.

In 1982, the FDA approved the first consumer GMO product developed through genetic engineering: human insulin to treat diabetes. A genetically modified organism or GMO is an organism whose DNA has been modified in the laboratory in order to favour the expression of desired physiological traits or the production of desired biological products.

Since this first product, the research and development of genetically modified organisms has alway had the best of intentions, but there has been a ton of fear-mongering around the topic of GMOs, springing up an enormous amount of misconceptions about these products. That is why I would like to explore some common mistakes made when thinking about genetically modified organisms and attempt to separate fact from fiction.

In Europe, genetically modified crops have met a very high level of public resistance. Derided as "frankenfoods," the crops have attracted a broad spectrum of fears, from technical concerns like the possible spread of the engineered genetic material, to vague worries about what is "natural" and the role of modern agribusiness. As a result, a number of countries have attempted to ban them outright, and many have strict labeling requirements. In general, consumer demand has kept food derived from genetically modified crops from making it to market.

Currently in Europe, billions of pounds of potatoes are being tossed out because of late blight disease. The disease, which rots potatoes from the inside out, was one of the major causes of the Irish potato famine and is still a scourge on spuds toda, as it has become increasingly prominent in recent years. But, in fields in Norwich and Cambridgeshire, experimental blight-resistant potatoes are growing unbothered by the disease. The only problem? No one can eat them.

Although the EU does allow the growing and marketing of GM foods, the approval process is so long and expensive that many companies effectively consider the EU a closed market to GMOs. As a result, field trials of genetically-engineered crops are rare in the UK.

One of the most widely cited studies when it comes to arguing that genetically modified organisms have terrible health risks is Serilini’s 2012 study attempting to link GM maize to rat tumors, according to the Genetic Literacy Project Organization. The results of this study were dramatic and these images were widely used to sway people to the anti-GMO movement even after the study was retracted for citing weak evidence. You can see how people would have reacted to such images, but the rats you see here are of the Sprague-Dawley strain and are highly susceptible to spontaneous tumors and it is impossible to know for sure if the genetically modified maize had any role in these deformities. This experiment was purposely performed inorder to mislead people.

Picture this scene, it’s the end of the growing season. All of the farmers have dried out all of their corn to be stored for the winter. They’re all waiting in line with their trucks full of the kernels waiting to deposit them into the silo. Each truck is weighed to determine how much corn each farmer has contribute and then it’s all poured into the silo and mixed together. No difference between GMO and non-GM corn is noted.

Do you feel robbed? Lied to? Like somebody’s cheated you? Well you shouldn’t, because in contrast to what many think, virtually all commercial GMO’s are engineered to withstand direct application to “regular” foods, meaning that, biologically, GMs with no purpose beyond being food are the exact same as “regular” corn. You see, people are afraid. And not only that; they are made to be afraid by bans like that in the UK, by purposely misleading studies, and other scare-tactics that have little scientific backing. There is no evidence that a crop is dangerous to eat just because it is GM. However, there could be risks associated with the specific new gene introduced, which is why each crop with a new characteristic introduced by GM is subject to close scrutiny. There is not one, not two, but three government organizations that evaluate and regulate the use and distribution of genetically modified organisms.

FDA regulates most human and animal food, including GMO foods. In doing so, FDA makes sure that foods that are GMOs or have GMO ingredients meet the same strict safety standards as all other foods. FDA sets and enforces food safety standards that those who produce, process, store, ship, or sell food must follow, no matter how the foods are created.

In totality, all of the rumors about GMOs having medical impacts, such as causing cancer, obesity, autism, and so on, have not been chemically or medically backed.

Recently, the debate over genetically modified organisms has been renewed due to the FDA’s consultation on the first foods made from a genome edited plant in 2019. Eight countries have introduced guidelines clarifying the legal status of genome edited products and many of those are actively committed to international harmonization of their policies. Fearmongering is at an all time high when it comes to what we eat, but fear is not something that we should allow to drive the decisions we make. We as a society need to instead exercise the use of facts to shape our judgement.

[innuendostudios]

Here’s How to Radicalize a Normie, a video essay on how the Alt-Right and their fellow travelers recruit. Clocking in at 41 minutes, 6756 words, 633 individual drawings, and 27 sources (including three full books), it is by far the longest and most heavily-researched video in The Alt-Right Playbook. I am very tired.

It took so long to put this behemoth together that my Patreon started to dip. So, maybe a little more than usual, if you want to keep seeing videos like these, please consider backing me on Patreon.

Transcript below the cut.

Say, for the sake of argument, your friend Gabe is starting to worry you.

Gabe’s always been just, you know, a regular guy. Not very political. He likes video games, sci-fi, comics, Star Wars, and anime. White guy shit. The only offbeat thing about him is you suspect there’s like a 20% chance he’s a furry. For all intents and purposes, Gabe is a normie.

But recently Gabe’s been spending a lot of time on some radically conservative forums, and listening to radically conservative podcasts, and picking some radically conservative arguments with you and your friends. You never would have expected this, not from Gabe, and, given the speed it’s happened, it’s worrying to think where it might be headed.

How have the Alt-Right gotten their hooks into your friend?

If you’ve ever known a Gabe, this video is for you. Here’s How to Radicalize a Normie.

Step 1: Identify the Audience

What you need to know before we begin is: around 2013, the Nazis went online.

Hate groups in the US, as tracked by the Southern Poverty Law Center, had been growing in number since the noughts, but, between 2012 and 2014, they dropped by almost a quarter. Patriot groups dropped by over a third. However, hate crimes stayed about the same. Radical conservatism was not shrinking, but decentralizing. Still radical, still often violent, but now full of white nationalist nomads unlikely to join a formal organization.

This didn’t make them harmless. What it did was protect their asses from the typical hate group cycle: getting the public’s attention, making allies in conservative media, swelling their numbers, and then eventually disgracing themselves with failures, infighting, and, often enough, members committing horrific acts of violence, which come with social and sometimes legal consequences for all the other members.

So the Alt-Right and their fellow travelers these days don’t so much have members. They have hashtags, followers, viewers, and subscribers. This insulates them from their own audience. If Gabe, as a member of that audience, were to go out and commit a crime on their behalf, there’d be little doubt they had a hand in radicalizing him, but it’d be very hard to claim they told him to do it. On some of these sites, where Gabe spends hours and hours of his day, he’s never created an account or left a comment; the people radicalizing him don’t even know he’s there.

This distributed nature is what makes the Alt-Right, and the movements connected to it, unique. (You may remember a notable proof-of-concept for this strategy.) Doing almost everything online has, as compared with traditional hate movements, dramatically increased their reach and inoculated them from consequence. The trade-off, as we will see, is a lack of control.

And so we come to Gabe.

Gabe exists at the intersection of the kinds of people the Alt-Right is looking for - straight white cis men who feel emasculated by modern society, primarily, though they do make exceptions - and the kinds of people who are vulnerable to recruitment. Gabe fits the first profile in that he got bullied in high school, and often feels he has to hide his nerdy side for fear of getting ridiculed. The Alt-Right also has success with men who can’t get laid or recently got divorced or feel anxious about an influx of non-white people in their community. These things can make one feel like less than the confident white man they’re “supposed” to be. And it’s the closest they will ever come to being minoritized.

Regarding the second profile, it’s important to know that Gabe is not categorically different from you or me. He’s a cishet white dude - his problems are not unique. There isn’t a ton of research into the demography of the Alt-Right, but there may be a higher-than-average chance Gabe has a history of being abused or comes from a broken home. You don’t know if it’s true of Gabe, he’s never said. But most abuse survivors don’t become Nazis. The things that make people like Gabe recruitable tend to be situational: it happens often during periods of transition, as dramatic as the death of a loved or as benign as moving to a new city. Things that make people ask big life questions. Gabe has concerns like economic precarity, not knowing his place in a changing world, stressful working conditions. In other words, Gabe is suffering under late capitalism, same as everyone, and it’s entirely plausible he could have gone down the path to becoming a Leftist.

This is not to make an “economic anxiety” argument: the animating force of the Far Right is and always has been bigotry. But the Alt-Right targets Gabe by treating his “economic anxiety” as one of many things bigotry can be sold as a solution to. It is their aim that, when dissatisfied white men go looking for answers, they find the Alt-Right before they find us.

Step Two: Establish a Community

Were Gabe pledging an old-school hate movement, there would probably be a recruiter to usher him into an existing community. But that’s the kind of formalized interaction modern extremists try to avoid. Online extremism has many points of entry, and everybody’s journey is unique, so rather than be comprehensive we will focus on what are, in my estimation, the two most common pathways: the Far Right creates a community Gabe is likely to stumble into, or infiltrates a community Gabe is already in.

The stumble-upon method has two main branches, one of which is just “Gabe ends up on a chan board,” which we’ve already done a video about. The other is kind of the polar opposite of 4chan’s cult of anonymity: Gabe ends up in the fandom of a Far Right thought leader.

These folks are charismatic media personalities (that’s charismatic according to Gabe’s tastes, not ours; I don’t understand it, either). These personalities may gain traction on any number of platforms, from podcasts to reportage to blogging, though the most effective platform for redpilling is, and yes I am biting the hand that feeds me, YouTube. They may get Gabe’s attention through fairly standard means, like talking about or even generating controversy to get themselves trending, while some of the more committed will employ dubious SEO tactics like clickbait, google bombing, and data voids (just pause for definitions, we don’t have time).

What they tend to have in common, especially the most accessible ones, is that they don’t present themselves as entry points to the radical Right. In fact, many did not set out to be Far Right thought leaders, and may not think of themselves as such (though they are often selling products, of which the Alt-Right are among their biggest purchasers, and it’s not like they’re turning the money away). How they present is the same way anyone presents who wants to be successful on social media: accessible, approachable, authentic. The face-to-face relationship a budding extremist forms with their recruiter or the leader of their hate group’s local chapter are here folded into one parasocial relationship with a complete stranger.

Why this person appeals to Gabe is they’re not selling politics as politics, but conservatism as a kind of lifestyle brand. They rely heavily on criticizing or ridiculing the Left: feminists are oversensitive, Black people unintelligent, queer folks doomed to loneliness, and trans people insane; I dunno if it’s a coincidence that these are all things Gabe thinks about himself in his low moments. By contrast, they don’t sell conservatism as having sounder policies or a more coherent moral framework, but that abandoning progressive principles and embracing conservative ones will make Gabe happier. Remember, Gabe isn’t looking for white nationalism or misogyny, what he wants is the cure to soul-sickness, and these friendly micro-celebs are here to offer a shot of life advice with politics as the chaser. It is extremely important that politics be presented as a set of affects, not a set of beliefs.

The second pathway is infiltration, which is its own beast. Media personalities sometimes become gateways to the Right almost by accident: they do something edgy, a part of their audience reacts positively, and, facing no real consequence, they do it more; this leads to further positive reinforcement from conservative fans, the rest of the audience acclimates, and the cycle repeats, the personality pushing the envelope further and further based on what flies with their increasingly conservative audience. In this way, they become a right-wing figure by both radicalizing and being radicalized by their audience.

Infiltration is deliberate.

The Far Right will reliably target any community that has 1) a large, white, male population, 2) whose niche interests allow them to feel vaguely marginalized, and 3) who are not used to progressive critique of said interests. This isn’t to say progressive critique doesn’t exist, or hasn’t been baked into the property from the beginning, but that it has been, so far, easy for white guys to ignore. As such, progressives within that community probably don’t talk politics much, and women and minorities are perfectly welcome to post, same as anyone, but just, you know, don’t, don’t make identity politics, you know, like, a thing.

Given Gabe’s proclivities, he’s probably already in a number of fan communities where he can geek out and not get teased. And this is where the Far Right will go looking for him

Communities are at their most vulnerable to infiltration at times of political discord. This can happen naturally - say, a new property in the fandom has a Black protagonist - or it can be provoked - say, a bunch of channers join the forum and say provocative things about race to get people arguing - or both. Left to its own devices, the community might sort out its differences and maybe even come out more progressive than they started. But, with the right pressure applied in the right moment, these communities can devolve into arguments about the need to remove a nebulously-defined “politics” from the conversation.

The adage about bros on the internet is “‘political’ means anything I disagree with,” but it’d be more accurate to say, here, “‘political’ means anything on which the community disagrees.” For instance, “Nazis are bad” is an apolitical statement because everyone in the community agrees. It’s common sense, and therefore neutral. But, paradoxically, “Nazis are good” is also apolitical; because “Nazis are bad” is the consensus, “Nazis are good” must be just an edgy joke, and, even if not, the community already believes the opposite, so the statement is harmless. Tolerable. However, “feminism is good” is a political statement, because the community hasn’t reached consensus. It is debatable, and therefore political, and you should stop talking about it. And making political arguments, no matter how rational, is having an agenda, and having an agenda is ruining the community.

(Now, it is curious how the things that provoke the most disagreement tend to be whichever ones make white dudes uncomfortable. One of life’s great, unanswerable mysteries.)

You can gather where this is going: a community that doesn’t tolerate progressivism but does tolerate Nazism is going to start collecting Nazis, Nazis whose goal is to drive a wedge between the community and the Left. Once the Left acknowledges, “Hey, your community’s developing a Nazi problem,” the Nazis - who are, remember, trusted, apolitical members of the community who might just be kidding about all the Nazi shit - say, “Did you hear that, guys?! Those cultural Marxists just called all of us Nazis!” Wedge. Similarly, any community members who say, “but Nazis though” are framed as infiltrators pushing an agenda, even if they’ve been there longer than the Nazis have. They get the wedge, too.

This is how fandoms radicalize. They are built as - yeah, I’ll say it - safe spaces for nerds, weebs, and furries, and are told that the Left is a threat to their safety. Given a choice between leaving a community that has mattered to him for years and simply adjusting to the community’s shifting politics, the assumption is that Gabe will stay. This assumption is right often enough that a lot of fandoms have been colonized.

What is true of both of these methods - Gabe finding the Right or the Right finding him - is that Gabe does not come nor stay for the ideology. He’s here for the community, the sense of belonging, of being with his people, of having his fears validated and his enjoyment shared. The ideology is simply the price of admission.

Step Three: Isolate

There is a vast, interconnected network of Far Right communities out there, and Gabe is, at this point, only on the periphery. In order to keep him in, they need to disrupt his relationships to other communities, and become, more and more, his primary online social space. Having made this space hostile to the Left, they now seek to break his connections to progressives elsewhere in his life.

This is hard to do online. The whole appeal of moving radicalism to the internet is that your away-from-keyboard life doesn’t have to change. You are crypto the moment you log off. Some thought leaders will encourage their audience to cut ties with Family of Origin, or “deFOO,” but, even then, they can’t monitor whether the audience has actually done it the way an in-person movement could. And so alienating Gabe from the Left is less controlled, and, consequently, may be less total. How much Gabe isolates is up to him.

But the vast majority of Far Right media presumes an alienation from the Left. Part of conservative bloggers and YouTubers making the Left look pathetic is doing a lot take-downs and responses. This is a constant repetition of the Left’s arguments for the purpose of mockery, and, for Gabe, it starts to replace any engagement with progressive media directly. He soon knows the Left only through caricature. It also trains him, if he does directly engage, to approach the Left with the same combative stance as his role models. (For reference, see my comment section.) And this is only if he doesn’t partake in one of the many active boycotts of “SJW media.”

In addition to mocking the Left’s arguments, they also, curiously, appropriate them. This is one part sanitization: liberal centrism is more socially acceptable; indeed, many figures on the outer layers think of themselves as moderates, even as they serve as gateways to radicalism. But, also, many of Gabe’s problems could be addressed by progressive leftism, so they sell him racist, sexist versions of it. Yes, there is a problem with workers being underpaid and overextended, but the solution isn’t unions, it’s deporting immigrants; yes, there is a chronic loneliness and anger to being a man in the modern age, but it’s not because of the toxic masculine expectations placed on you by the patriarchy, it’s women being slutty; yes, wealth disparity does mean a tiny percentage of elites have more influence over culture and politics than the rest of us combined, but the problem isn’t capitalism, it’s the Jews. And it’s hard for Gabe to reject these ideas without, in the process, rejecting the progressive ideas they’re copied from; the Right’s “take the red pill” is, to the untrained eye, similar to the Left’s “get woke.” (Or, at least, the bowdlerized version of “get woke” that is no longer specifically about race which came to fashion when white people started saying it, grumble grumble.)

Take the red pill or reject them both; either is a step to the right.

As this rhetoric slips into his day-to-day conversation, even as seemingly harmless “irreverence,” it may strain relationships with people who are not entertained by this shit. Off-color comments about race and gender can certainly be wearying for female and non-white friends, which can lead to a passive distance or an eventual confrontation [“why is everyone but me so sensitive?!”], which only seem to confirm what his reactionary community says about liberal snowflakes. If he says these things on social media, he may get his account suspended, and, if he comes back under an alt, you can bet his new reactionary friends will be the first to reconnect, applaud the behavior that got him banned, and repeat should he get banned again. A few cycles of this and he’s lost touch with everyone else.

Also, his adoption of the insular, meme-laden terminology of this community makes him less and less comprehensible to outsiders.

Over time, sources of information get replaced with community-approved ones: conservative news, conservative YouTube, conservative Wikipedia if he’s really committed. The Algorithm soon takes note and stops recommending media from the Left. He stops watching shows with a “liberal agenda,” which usually means shows starring women and people of color. Now, there is evidence that the human mind responds to fictional characters similarly to real people, and that consuming diverse media can decrease bigotry in ways roughly analogous to having a diverse group of friends, which is one of many reasons we say representation matters. By consuming a homogenous media diet, Gabe stymies his ability to have even parasocial relationships with anyone who isn’t a cishet conservative white dude or one of their approved exceptions.

To the extent that any of this happens, it happens at Gabe’s discretion and at his own chosen pace. It has not been forced on him, only encouraged and rewarded. But the fact that it hasn’t been forced can make him all the more willing to accept it, because it seems safe to consider; even though his life and social circle are changing to accommodate, he does not feel committed. But many Gabes have walked these halls, and, if they close the door behind them, there’s nowhere left to go but down.

Step Four: Raise their Power Level

(...and they say we ruined anime.)

Consider the ecosystem of the Alt-Right as layers of an onion, with Gabe sitting at the edge and ready to traverse towards the center. (No, I’m not just going to reiterate the PewDiePipeline, though, if you haven’t seen it, go do that.)

The outer layer of the onion is extremism at its most plausibly deniable. Without careful scrutiny, the public-facing figureheads could pass as dispassionate, and the websites as merely problematic rather than softly fascist. It is valuable if Gabe believes this as well; that, at this stage, he believe the bigotry is simply trolling, the extremists an insignificant minority, and any report of harassment faked. That he believe where he is is as deep as the rabbit hole goes. And that he continue to believe this at each successive layer.

People in the deepest crevices of the Alt-Right self-report getting redpilled on multiple issues at different times in their journey to the center of the onion. If Gabe’s first red pill is about the SJWs coming for his free speech, he’ll think that’s all anyone in his community believes; there’s no racism here, people are just making a point about their right to use slurs. Then, when he gets redpilled on the white genocide, he’ll laugh at those Alt-Lite cucks who tried to sweep the race realists under the rug, and at himself for having once been one, but acknowledge that those channels and websites are still useful for onboarding people, so he won’t denounce them. At the same time, nobody takes those manosphere betas seriously.

And this process is reiterated with every pill swallowed: gender essentialism, autogynephilia, birtherism, Sandy Hook truth, pizzagate, QAnon if he’s really out there. The heart of the onion is typically the Jewish Question, but these can happen in any order, and in any number. But each layer sells itself as being, finally, the ultimate truth. Each denies the validity of the others; the layers ahead don’t exist, they’re made up my liberals, while the people behind are asleep where you are now awake. That’s why they chose “the red pill” as their metaphor: take it, and everything will be revealed. That’s why it cozies up with conspiracism. But what’s supposed to follow is that this knowledge help Gabe in some way, and it doesn’t. Blaming immigrants doesn’t actually fix the economy, and hating women doesn’t make men less lonely. But, having been alienated from everything outside the onion, once that sinks in, the only recourse on offer is to seek out the next pill.

And pills are easy to find. Those within the network have laissez-faire relationships, even as they, on paper, disavow one another. When they need a source or a guest host, they aren’t going to go to the Left; they’re going to feature each other. The Left is the enemy; their ideas are beneath consideration, and the only reason to engage them is for public humiliation. [Shapiro’s book.] But you can interview “western chauvinists” and that doesn’t mean you’re endorsing them, just, you know, it’s fine to hear ‘em out, nothing should be off-limits in the marketplace of ideas. Besides, Nazis are apolitical.

And because these folks keep showing up in each others’ metadata, regardless of what they say, Google thinks there is definitely a relationship between the guy “just asking questions” and the guy denying the Holocaust. Gabe is softly exposed to many flavors of conservatism just slightly more radical than he is now, and is expected, at the very least, to not question their presence. This is an environment where deradicalizing - listening to the Left - would be sleeping with the enemy, but radicalizing further? You do you, buddy.

Gabe’s emotional journey, however, is somewhat more complex. If you’ve spent any time reading or watching reactionary media you’ve probably noticed it’s really. fucking. repetitive. It’s a few thousand phrasings of the same handful of arguments. Like, there’s only so many jokes about attack helicopters! But these people just crank out content, and most of it’s derivative; the reason to pick one personality over another isn’t because they say something different, but because they say it differently. Gabe just picks the affect it’s delivered in.

Repetition dulls the shock of the most egregious statements, making them appear normal and prepping him for more extreme ideas. Meanwhile, the arguments themselves? They’re not good. (BreadTube will never run out of shit to debunk.) They are repetitive because they’re not good. They’re mantric. A good argument you only need to hear one time; if you can follow it, internalize it, and explain it to someone else, you know you’ve understood it. But a bad argument can’t convince you on its own merits, so it will often rely on affect. This can be the snappy, thought-terminating cliche, or the long, winding diatribe that sounds really sensible while you’re hearing it but when someone asks you for the gist you can only say “go watch these 17 videos and it’ll all make sense.” Both these approaches are largely devoid of content, but, gosh, if they don’t sound sure of themselves.

And that mode can be very persuasive, but it doesn’t stick the way a coherent argument does. It needs to be repeated, the affect replenished, because the words matter less than the delivery. There needs to be a steady stream of confident voices saying “we’ve got this figured out and everyone else is stupid” or Gabe’s gonna notice the flaws. They are not well-hidden.

And the catch-22 of returning to that stream over and over is that these communities are stressful even as they are calming. People afraid they will die virgins go to forums with people who share and validate that fear, and also say, “Yes, you will die a virgin.” People afraid Syrians are coming to kill us all watch videos by people who share and validate that fear, and also say, “Yes, Syrians are coming to kill us all.” Others have already pointed out that rubbing your face in your worst anxieties is a form of digital self-harm, but I need to you understand the toxic recursion of it: Gabe is going to these communities to get upset. Every emotion is converted into anger, because sadness, fear, and despair are paralyzing but anger is motivating; Gabe feels less helpless when he’s pissed off. And so, while he’s topping up on reassuring nonsense, he’s also topping up on stress. And, being cut off from everything outside the network, the only place he knows to go to release that stress is back to the place that gives it to him. It’s a feedback loop, pulling him deeper and deeper on the promise that, at some point, relief will come.

It is a similar dynamic that keeps people in abusive relationships.

When someone in Gabe’s community makes a racist joke, they are presenting Gabe with a choice between the human interaction of laughing with his friends and his societal responsibility not to be a fuckin’ racist. And not laughing seems ridiculous; everybody’s friends here; no one’s getting hurt; this is harmless. And so the irreverent race joke draws a line between the personal and the political, and suggests that one can be safely prioritized over the other. One way to look at radicalization is being asked to stick with that seemingly innocuous decision as the stakes are raised incrementally: first with edgier humor, and then comments that are funny because they’re shocking but you couldn’t really call them jokes, and then “funny” comments that are also sincerely angry, but, in each instance, since he laughed with his bros last time, it stands to reason he should keep favoring the personal over some abstracted notion of “politics.”

This is why the progressive adage “the personal is political” is among the most threatening things you can say in these spaces.

I’m not trying to make a slippery slope argument. Most of us who laughed at edgy jokes when we were teenagers didn’t grow up to be Nazis. It is a slippery slope in the specific context of being in community with people trying to radicalize you. Gabe is a lonely white boy in need of friends, and laughing at a racist joke is personal, while not laughing is political. Staying in a community that has Nazis in it is personal, and leaving is political. The personal is what brings people together and the political drives them apart. (The “only if some of them are bigots” part of that sentence is usually lopped off). There’s this joke on the internet that nerds perceive only two races: white and political. Following that logic, what could be more apolitical than an ethnostate?

They are banking on his willingness to adapt his beliefs to suit an environment that meets a need. That same need can be satisfied by white nationalism. There are few things more seductive to people who doubt their own worth than being told you are valuable simply for being white. And you can sub in male, cis, straight, allosexual, or able-bodied. It just takes priming: by the time Gabe officially embraces bigotry, he’s already been acting like a bigot for months. The red pill is simply the moment he says it out loud.

Change Gabe’s surroundings, and you change Gabe.

Step Five: ???

The final step in a traditional extremist group would be getting a mission. But that is one thing the Alt-Right can’t do. Once you start giving clear directives, you can’t play yourselves off as a bunch of unaffiliated hashtags and think tanks; you are now a formalized movement accountable to its followers, and can be judged and policed as such.

To my mind, Charlottesville was an attempt to become such a movement, taking things offline and getting all the different groups working collectively. And, as so often happens when these people get in the same space - especially with no official leaders or means of control over their members - it backfired. Their true colors came out before they were ready and a counter-protester lost her life.

This would be the point where, historically, an extremist group starts to disintegrate. Their veneer of respectability gone, they’re now hated by the public, the media wants nothing more to do with them, and everyone not in jail turns on each other or goes underground. This is also the point where the liberal establishment says, “My job here is done,” and utterly fails to retake control of the narrative, allowing the next batch of radicals to pick up more or less where the last one left off.

But to an already-decentralized group like the Alt-Right, Charlottesville was bad but eminently survivable. People retreated back to the internet, with its code words and anonymous forums, but that’s where much of the work was already done anyway. The platforms where they organized kept tolerating them, the authorities still didn’t classify them as terrorists, and any disgraced figureheads were replaced with up-and-comers.

The major change in strategy is that it doesn’t seem anyone has tried to formalize the Alt-Right since.

So where does that leave Gabe? He’s gone through this whole process of largely hands-off indoctrination - and I should stress his journey may look like what we’ve outlined or it may look different in places, this video is not comprehensive - but now he’s swallowed every pill he cares to, he blames half a dozen minorities for everything he sees as wrong with the world, and no one will give him anything to do. You’ve got this ad hoc movement frothing young men into a militant fervor and then just leaving them to stew in their own hate. Should we really be surprised at how many commit mass shootings?

This is a machine for producing lone wolves.

Leaving men to take up arms of their own volition is a way of enacting terror while being just outside the popular conception of a terror cell. There are also, of course, more classic militias that will offer Gabe clear directives - they’re recruiting from the same pool. And Gabe may stop short of this step, settling in a middle layer that suits him or finding the inner layers too extreme. But violence is the logical conclusion of an ideology of hate, and, should Gabe take this step, he can approach violence in the same incremental fashion he approached conservatism.

He can start with yelling at people on Twitter, and then maybe collective brigading, DDoS attacks, sharing dox, leaking nudes, calling their phone numbers, texting them pictures of their houses from the sidewalk. These acts of cruelty become games of oneupmanship within his community. All this can start as far back as Step 2, and get more intense the deeper he goes. Some people join explicitly partake in harassment and violence the way Gabe joined to talk about anime.

But this behavior can serve as a kind of buy-in. The Left and the feminists and the LGBTQs and the Muslims and the immigrants are all, within his community, subhuman. You’ve maybe heard the conservative catchphrase “feminism is cancer”; well don’t treat cancer by having a respectful exchange of ideas with it, but by eradicating it down to the last cell. Cruelty against the Left is framed as righteous.

From any other perspective, posting someone’s bank information is something you might feel ashamed of. Which creates a psychological imperative not to consider other perspectives. A thing that keeps people in is staving off the guilt they will reckon with the moment they step out. Gabe is also aware that anything he’s done to the Left could be done to him if he leaves; some communities even keep dox on their members as insurance. And the things he’s been encouraged to do to the Left will likely make him feel that the Left would never take him now; the radical Right is the only home he’s got. Harassment becomes another tool of isolation.

Steadily, options for Gabe are whittled down to being a vigilante or a nihilist. There are periods of elation: moments the Alt-Right feels it’s winning - or, more accurately, the people they hate are losing - are like cocaine. They are authoritarians, after all. But the times in between are mean and angry. They are antisocial, starved of emotional connection, consuming incompatible conspiracies that may at any point run them afoul of one another, devoted to figureheads who cater to but cannot risk leading them, and living under constant threat of being outed to the Left or turned on by the Right for stepping out of line. Gabe took this journey for the sense of community and purpose, and, but for the rare moments everything goes their way, the Alt-Right can’t maintain either. They can only keep promising his day will come, a story he could get from a $5 palm reading.

The feeling there’s nothing left but to kill yourself or someone else is so common it’s a meme.

But there is always a third option: Gabe can leave.

Pre-Conclusion: For Fuck’s Sake Do Not Make Gabe Your Whole-Ass Praxis

Before we continue, I want to state plainly that Gabe went off the deep end because he found a community willing to tell him that, because he is a cishet white man, the world revolves around him. Do not treat him like this is true.

If a fraction of the energy spent having debates with America’s Gabes were spent instead on voter re-enfranchisement, prisoner’s rights, protections for immigrants, statehood for DC and Puerto Rico, and redistricting, Gabe’s opinions, in the societal sense, wouldn’t matter. Reactionary conservatism is a small and largely unpopular ideology that is only so represented in our culture and politics because they’ve learned how to game the system.

And I get it. Those are huge problems that are going to take years to address, where, if you know a Gabe, that’s a conversation you could have today. And, if you think you can get through to him, it is worthwhile to try. This is a fight on many fronts and deradicalization is one of them. But it is only one, so please keep it in perspective. It sends an awful message when we spend more time trying to get bigots back on our side than we do the people they are bigoted against.

Your value as a lefty does not hinge on whether you can change Gabe’s mind.

Conclusion: How Gabe Gets Out

He may just grow out of it. These communities skew young, and some folks hit a point where hanging with edgy teens doesn’t feel cool anymore.

He may become disillusioned after the movement fails to deliver on its promises.

He may become disillusioned if something goes wrong in his life and his community isn’t there for him, if he feels they like his race and his gender but don’t actually care about him.

He may be shocked if he sees the Alt-Right at its worst before being appropriately conditioned. Charlottesville was a step too far for a lot of people.

His community may turn on him for any perceived unorthodoxy, and he may leave out of necessity.

He may be separated by circumstance from the community - a trip with no internet, hospitalization, arrest - and not be able to top up on the rhetoric. This may lead him to question his beliefs.

His community may disappear, either tearing itself apart or getting shut down by authorities.

He may have incidental contact with populations he’s supposed to hate, and have trouble reconciling who they are in person with what he’s been told about them. In his community, people bond over shared intolerance, but, suddenly, being tolerant helps him make friends. (This is one reason the Alt-Right has made a battleground of the college campus.)

He may form or revisit relationships outside the network, people who can offer him the connection he’s been looking for. This may reintroduce outside perspectives. More importantly, it rekindles his ability to have healthy relationships at all, something the Alt-Right has estranged him from.

As with recruiters, it seems these “escape hatch” relationships can sometimes be parasocial; coming to respect a public figure who is on the Left, or is critical of the Alt-Right.

Someone he is close to may compel him to choose, “me or the movement.” A lot of young men leave to save a romantic relationship.

Hearing stories from people who’ve already jumped may help; there aren’t a lot of public formers, and some raise suspicions as to their sincerity, but it is getting more common, and may be the closest we get to exit counseling for the Alt-Right.

He may become aware of the ways he’s being manipulated, or have them revealed to him, maybe because he stumbled into BreadTube, I dunno. Knowledge that you are being indoctrinated is no guarantee it won’t work - you are not immune to propaganda - but it can help one resist.

And he may revisit a core belief system that used to guide him, be it religion or social justice or a really wholesome fandom, and be reminded of the identity he used to have.

Moments like these, in isolation or in aggregate, can inspire Gabe to jump. They are also good times for friends to intervene. The reach and the impunity that comes with the internet means it has never been easier to fall into reactionary extremism. It has also never been easier to get out. People who exit skinhead gangs often fear for their lives; for Gabe, there’s a chance getting out is as simple as going to a different website. Much of his community does not know his name or his face and he may not important enough to dox.

What doesn’t get Gabe out - not reliably, not that I have seen - is an argument with a stranger who proves all his facts wrong and his ideology bunk. Facts don’t always work because facts don’t care about his feelings. This was about staying in a community, and holding onto an identity, that mattered to him. It was about belonging, and that is something a rando from the other side of the culture war can’t give him and probably shouldn’t be responsible for.

The theme here is human connection. Before he can do the work of disentangling himself, and facing the guilt of what he’s believed and maybe done, he has to know there’s somewhere for him on the other end of it. That the Right hasn’t ruined him. They’ve told him all of history is groups fighting each other over status, and, without his clan, he’ll be an exile. He needs a better story.

I don’t know that lefty spaces are ideal for this, in no small part because bringing someone who’s a bit of a Nazi but working on it into diverse communities is… questionable. And it probably wouldn’t be good for him, either; having just gotten out of a toxic belief system, he’s going to be deeply skeptical of all ideologies. In a perfect world, people who care about Gabe could build for him - to use a therapy term - a holding space. Someplace private - physical or digital - where Gabe can work out his feelings, where he is both encouraged and expected to be better but is not, in the moment, judged. That comes later. It is delicate and time-consuming work that should not be done in public, but we find these beliefs, built up over the course of months or years, tend to fall away very quickly with a shift of environment. Change Gabe’s surroundings and you change Gabe.

But, instead, a lot of people who jump are functionally deprogramming themselves, which is working for a lot of them, but it’s haphazard, and there are recidivists.

If you don’t personally know a Gabe, or have training as a counselor, you may not be in a position to help him. Possibly there are things you can do to disrupt the recruitment process or prevent infiltration of spaces you’re in - I’m looking into it, but talk to your mods - but, elephant in the room: meaningful change will require reform on the part of platform holders. Tools to disrupt this process already exist and are being used on groups like ISIS, but they’re not being used on the Alt-Right because they try oh so very hard not to get classified as terrorists (and also any functioning anti-radicalization policy would require banning a lot of conservative politicians, so there’s that...).

But what makes our story better than theirs is that the fight for social and economic justice, though it is long, and difficult, and frustrating, when it works, it fulfills the promise the Right can���t keep: it materially make people’s lives better. I am not prone to sentimentality, or to giving these videos happy endings. But one thing we have that the Alt-Right doesn’t is hope.

[foxtailapp]

All About Mental Health in BDSM Dating

This post is originally from Pleasure Uncensored by Foxtail. It can be found here.

BDSM dating can have an effect on a person's mental health. To understand, you must first understand what BDSM is.

  What is BDSM Dating?

  BDSM dating refers to dating in a subculture based on various rules and restrictions related to the interactions between people to meet sexual needs. BDSM stands for bondage, sadism, masochism, domination, and submission.

  These concepts comprise three relationship pairs: BD - bondage and discipline, DS - Dominant- submissive, and SM - sadomasochism.

  In general terms, BDs are time-limited sessions with a variety of practices and strict delineation of roles. Fixation, sensory deprivation, role-playing - all this refers to the BD. But, as a rule, this type of relationship with role-playing games and educational programs doesn't go beyond the bedroom.

  DS assumes a prolonged transfer of power over all or (more often) some areas of life. Example: The big boss of the house is subordinate to his wife in everything, including the need to wear thongs with flowers and go to the gym. Submission and domination can be both in the bedroom and extended a lifetime.

  SM is a painful stimulus to get pleasure. The sadist likes to torture, and the masochist enjoys to suffer.

  The main thing to understand is the fundamental principles of BDSM; without rules, it can turn from an exciting game into ordinary violence.

  A basic rule of BDSM is SSC which means Safe, Sane, and Consensual.

  How do you interpret SSC in BDSM?

    Safe = SECURITY.

  All parties involved will make every effort to preserve their physical and mental health.

  Sometimes it is complicated to avoid injuries: ropes pinch nerves, and blood vessels, games with breathing are fraught with suffocation, illiterate flogging leads to skin damage and internal organs. Thus, the main thing that a sane sadist starts with is the study of anatomy and safety.

  Sane = MIND.

  Life is not limited to games, and the participants in the process are adequate. This means you must have responsibility for what is happening, even if you are in a lower role. For example, the principle of safety in SM is impracticable without a sober assessment of one's own capabilities, regular monitoring of health status, and informing a partner about all potential problems.

  Consensual = VOLUNTARY

  Everything that happens, even the most painful and disgusting, happens according to an active and unequivocally expressed desire. This is one of the reasons why session scripts and practices are discussed in detail in advance. Otherwise, there can always be reticence, and game violence will turn into reality.

  Who likes BDSM?

    When psychologists began to study natural BDSM dating communities, a lot of exciting things turned out. People who practice BDSM are psychologically healthier than those around them. Typically they are more extroverted, more open to new experiences, less neurotic, and less prone to a range of mental disorders, for example, from depression to anxiety, paranoia, and (surprise!) pathological sadism.

  According to various estimates, 20% of the world's population is inclined to BDSM. These people use bondage, masks, and blindfolds. Unlike paraphilias like fetishism, BDSM attracts both women and men equally. Participation in BDSM, as a rule, does not cover the experience of childhood trauma and violence.

  BDSM practices do not interfere, and in some cases, even help establish close and trusting relationships between partners.

  Most people view BDSM as reckless, dangerous, and unhealthy, a phenomenon whose representatives are allegedly mentally ill people. However, this is actually not the case: BDSM is just a sexual preference that can benefit health.

      BDSM Dating and Mental Health

  Recent research on BDSM and its effects on the body has shown excellent results. Scientists find no evidence of harm caused by the psychosocial subculture of BDSM, but they are finding that it does have health benefits.

    Funny games of dominance and submission

  How do BDSM practices affect the psyche?

  In addition, researchers note that such practices can have a stimulating effect on self-awareness. For example, they connect the practice and mindfulness meditation, known to have beneficial effects on mental and physical health and reduce anxiety.

  Apparently, pain during BDSM practices helps focus attention on the sensations we are experiencing and immerses us in a meditative state and thereby helps to relieve tension.

  Studies of people practicing light BDSM practices did not reveal they have serious psychological problems. Moreover, in comparison with the control group, many respondents noted a higher level of subjective satisfaction with life. True, we are talking primarily about those who choose the dominant role or switch (they switch between dominant and submissive).

  Those in the submissive (i.e., subordinate) position reported less life satisfaction compared to dominant people. This is another reason to always pay attention to the psychological state of the participants in the process - and if the practices are not enjoyable, they should definitely be abandoned.

  Games of submission and domination require a certain level of intimacy. The willingness to trust a partner and allow himher to hurt himselfherself a little (with the ability to stop at the first signal), as expected, increases the level of trust in a stable pair.

  A slight fear develops into more excitement and interest in a partner.

  How can BDSM help?

  Fans of complex games claim that some perversions help eliminate anxiety, momentary worries, an endless stream of thoughts from which the head is spinning.

  Playing BDSM games involves the person in specific spaces that affect the person's state of consciousness.

  What is sometimes called the "topspace" is a beautiful place characterized by focused attention, optimal performance, and loss of self-awareness. Try it yourself, see how much you will be focused on your partner and what is happening at the peak of arousal.

  According to lovers of kinky sex, the whole room seems to disappear during their pleasures, leaving only the bed. Nevertheless, it is a poignant pleasure.

  There is also an alternate state that most people know about as "subspace." It is a light sense of submission. This condition is characterized by a decrease in pain, tension, and a return to complete peace and serenity.

  If you have had problems with your nervous system, BDSM dating can be a pleasant way to relieve symptoms.

  Another life hack: if a person suffers from heightened emotionality, spanking can be used for therapeutic purposes. How does it work? Impact pain creates the conditions for emotional release, for example, tears. This can be an effective but temporary solution.

  Should you try BDSM? It Depends.

  It would be best if you were more honest with yourself. Leave the imposed moral principles, and try for a moment to imagine yourself in the role of master or subordinate. Undoubtedly, many have experienced a slight excitement from just the thought of this, which is not surprising.

  A person does not have sex for procreation but for pleasure, so why not get the most of it? Role-playing games, toys from a sex shop, submission, and domination - all this variety in bed will help you get new sensations previously unknown. So when should you try BDSM?

  Long-term marriage in which people no longer feel the need to make love. This phenomenon is widespread everywhere, and it's just that people have become boring to each other.

    Lack of sex leads to moral and physical dissatisfaction, quarrels begin, and just everyday life becomes monotonous. To get a taste of life again, try BDSM.

  Dissatisfaction with regular sex. Many people complain that they are not satisfied with the sex. So, it's time not just to change the position but sexual intercourse as a whole.

  As we have already found out, BDSM allows you to get more aroused and get more pleasure from sex than an ordinary act.

  Stress and depression will go away if you use BDSM. Partners will be able to throw out negative energy during dominance and submission. By the way, the role doesn't matter - dominants and submissives alike get rid of negativity, and gain pleasure.

  So, what does BDSM mean?

  This is a standard sexual practice used by many couples (polls have confirmed). So, nearly all people cannot have mental disorders (right?), which means that it is simply stupid to classify BDSM as a perversion. You have to ignore public opinion and give your desires to the fullest.

  I recommend that you try this practice for a variety of relationships and mental relaxation. First, however, it is worth remembering a vital rule, BDSM is based on the voluntary consent of all parties involved.

  To prepare for such an experience, resolve to participate and not be influenced by a partner.

[mybeautifulchristianjourney]

Sentiment and Emotion

by Samuel P. Tregelles

"For to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake." - Philippians 1:29

There is sternness in the truth of God which might almost seem like harsh severity, when it is regarded by those whose thoughts on the subject of revelation have been formed in a great measure from sentiment and emotion. An imaginative feeling may exist, and this may be so cherished that even the Scripture is only used for sentimental purposes. The force of definite truth is by no means felt, because the mind has sunk into a kind of spiritual reverie. Indeed, there is a disposition to avoid definite truth. Thus, when the details of revealed promises and purposes are stated from the Word of God, there is a feeling that there is but little, if anything, in them that is really edifying or that can afford nourishment for spiritual life. Consequently, dreamy indefinite thoughts of God's love are cherished, a view is taken of the person and work of Christ and of His coming glory as may stir up spiritual emotions, or what are supposed to be such. But it must never be forgotten that holiness is not the only thing taught us respecting the Holy Ghost: He is the Spirit of Truth as well as the Holy Spirit of God. We are not to accredit any supposed holiness irrespective of truth.

Emotional religion has always a tendency to make feeling the standard of what should be received or rejected as truth. A certain kind of feeling--approaching to mysticism--is that which is allowed to rule the judgment as to what God has revealed. Sometimes these indefinite claims to spirituality are accepted by others. The doctrines of such teachers are supposed to be worthy of all acceptance, not because they are found in Holy Scripture, but because they are said to be true by such holy and devoted men. But if we would judge according to God, we must test all claims to holiness and devotion by means of truth.

It is very manifest that the doctrine of a secret coming of Christ and a secret removal of the Church to be with Him is peculiarly suited to those who cherish the religion of sentiment. What more cheering (they say) than the thought that the Lord may take His people to Himself at any moment? What more animating than the belief that this may take place this very day? And when anyone brings them to Scripture and tries to point out the revealed hope of the Lord's coming, it seems as if there were nothing but coldness in the teaching. They ask if such chilling doctrines can be consistent with love to the Lord. But know that whatever makes the feelings sit in judgment on Scripture and leads to the avoidance of the force of that Scripture teaching which is not in accordance with such feelings, must, however apparently sanctified and spiritual, be of nature and not of God. Are we to seek to be guided by other hopes than those which animated the Apostolic Church? They knew that days of darkness would set in before Christ's coming. They were instructed respecting the many Antichrists and the final Antichrist. But so far from their hope of the coming of the Lord and of resurrection being thus set aside, they were able to look onward through the darkness to the brightness of the morning.

It may freely be owned that those who think it right to expect the Lord at any moment, and who sternly condemn others who maintain that His appointed signals shall take place first, have often in their hearts much real love to Him. But let such remember the prayers of the Apostle: "That your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment." It is not only of importance that love should be rightly directed as to its object, but there should also be in the soul real spiritual intelligence.

A wife has the promise of her husband's return from a distant country, and she has his written directions for the rule of the house during his absence. Part of these directions includes a statement how his return shall be expected--that a letter will arrive first to say by what ship he will come. There would be no lack of love on her part if she sought to be occupied by-by-day as he directed. She would show that she believed that the promised letter should come and that he would then himself arrive by the appointed vessel. No one could reproach her for lack of love to her husband if she were not on the tiptoe of momentary expectation. But if the wife were to say that the part of her husband's directions related to the servants and not to her, and if she were to be constantly on the shore expecting her husband's landing and refused to simply attend to what her husband had said, she would show that she was a visionary and not one guided by the simple intelligence of her husband's mind. Feeling would have led away from true obedience.

Those who sentimentally make the secret rapture the center of all their thoughts, have habitually shown how utterly their love fails toward any Christians who object to this theory. They often speak of them as if such were devoid of love to Christ. It might seem as if they made that one point (in which they are led by feeling and not by Scripture) the very test of Christian profession. It is remarkable to notice how the sentimental expectation of the Lord's coming has led away from the close and reverential study of Holy Scripture. Indeed, it has been painful to hear of earnest and real desire to study the Word of God regarded as being "occupied with the letter of Scripture." But do those who say this know what they mean? They speak of principles, and of having their minds occupied with Christ, but how can we obtain true principles except from God's revelation in the Word? And how does the Spirit lead the mind to be occupied with Christ except from the definite truth of Holy Scripture?

Of course, with this feeling all critical study of Scripture is denounced. It is deemed a waste of time. Even the study of the Word of God in the original Hebrew and Greek is spoken of as if it were a secular occupation. The English Bible is thought to be enough for teachers. Exact scholarship is deemed superfluous if the original languages are looked at. How different is this from the real study of God's Word; from using and valuing each portion, however minute, as being from Him; as being that of which He can unfold to us the meaning by the teaching of His Spirit. How different is this from the practical application of the most definite rules of grammar which lead to absolute persuasion that apostles and evangelists wrote nothing at random, but that even as to the most delicate shades of thought they used the right cases, moods, and tenses. All diligent and careful inquiry, all laborious examination of authorities so as to know what were the very words in which the inspired writers gave forth the Scripture, is regarded as merely intellectual and secular.

This is not healthy. Should not those who believe in the Divine authority of Holy Scripture know better than to neglect its critical study? And if it be truly inspired, ought they not to feel it is of some importance to inquire what is its true text, and, as far as existing evidence can show, what were the very words in which the Holy Ghost gave it forth? It is most difficult to arouse Christians in general to a sense of the full importance of critical study of Scripture, especially when dreamy apprehensions are cherished and vague idealism has taken the place of truth, and sentimental asceticism is the substitute of Christian holiness.

He who truly loves the Lord Jesus Christ and is guided by His Spirit will be the most subject to that which is written in the Word. True acquaintance with Scripture is the best check to mere sentimental emotion.

[tisfan]

Ring of Thorns, Cha 3

Title: Outsider, Outsider

Written by: @tisfan art by @feignedsobriquet​

Square: 3023 T1 - headset image

Rating: Teen

Triggers/warnings: horror

Tags: Fairy tale AU, Space AU, rabbits. lots of rabbits

Created for: @tonystarkbingo

Word count: 2,249

Link https://archiveofourown.org/works/23753566/chapters/60014938

Special thanks to: @skye07 & @fightingforcreativity

 Stardate 5239.283.09

When JARVIS activated the sub-aural communication system, scrolling words across Tony’s field of vision instead of speaking, Tony wasn’t too worried.

After all, they didn’t know this Bucky Barnes guy from Adam.

Well, not true. Tony knew Adam Warlock quite well, in as much as anyone could, in fact, know anyone else. File that, JARVIS, he thought, look up Adam. 

Because the saying must have meant something, right.

But Tony wasn’t worried. Barnes was fresh out of a long sleep, he was disoriented, babbling.

And JARVIS was always just a little more cautious than his maker. Tony wondered where he got that from, since Tony and caution were barely nodding acquaintances.

Detecting anomalous readings, sir, JARVIS typed. Suspect sub-terminal communications.

Barnes has hardware installed?

Detecting chipping mechanism in spinal region.

Well, that wasn’t new, it was old. Old tech, used to influence people. Ions only knew where it had started, but propaganda was always a thing. Just, in the last sixty years or so, it was made illegal (again, according to what Tony had been able to dig up) to do so in a manner that a victim couldn’t resist. Tricking people into believing their government was always right, that was still unfortunately considered a matter of caveat emptor. 

But as recently as a hundred years ago, chipping had been a manner in which less than moral companies and businesses had installed methods to control people. Sometimes it was subtle. A chip -- which would do any number of other useful things -- would have blackware on it. Sometimes just to buy certain brands of products. Other times, it was… well, more dangerous.

Override?

You’ll need to reach the source, sir. Shut it down on that end. Otherwise, the only method for a rapid recall is cranial realignment.

That was to say, hitting someone in the head really, really hard.

Not ideal.

Can it be removed?

Because still, he liked Bucky. Was decidedly attracted to him. He wasn’t even sure why; they’d just barely met, and still, the idea of having to fight him, or even just knock him out, bothered Tony. There was something childlike and innocent about the man, whatever programming was going on in his head.

I thought true love’s kiss was supposed to break the spell.

Are we believing in fairy tales now, sir?

JARVIS could just stuff it, Tony would be petulant if he wanted to be. Bucky was nice, Ions-storm take it. He didn’t deserve whatever was being forced on him.

Although, the longer it went on, the less Tony thought Bucky was aware of what was happening. That he didn’t notice the pauses while he was listening to his programming. It might even have been malfunctioning.

JARVIS, track down that source.

Yes sir. I am sending the Mark II combat suit for you.

Tony didn’t so much as wince. He didn’t want to fight Bucky. On the other hand, death was not the preferred outcome either. Keep it pretty far back, I don’t want him to get triggered into a defensive position.

Tony almost lost his cool entirely when Bucky started talking about the tank of liquid etherium. Etherium was a theory, it wasn’t real. Or so he’d always been told. Of course, he’d also been told that magic spells didn’t exist, and that true love wasn’t real, and that money made the worlds go around.

Okay, so it might have been real, but it wasn’t stable. On the other hand, they’d said the same thing about the energy source for the arc-reactor, and look what he’d done with that.

So, etherium.

Except, based on the way Bucky’s face twitched, there was either something wrong with the etherium, or it was where the source of his subliminals were coming from.

Nothing to do but go forward, though.

You could run, JARVIS suggested.

You know I won’t do that, buddy.

“Right, show me where this tank is of yours,” Tony said. He knew his mouth kept moving, he was talking with Bucky, being reassuring, he was scrolling with JARVIS, he was planning and plotting. It was a good thing that he’d spent most of his childhood learning to multitask efficiently.

Well, technically, it was time-slicing. Humans, even enhanced ones, were only barely capable of multitasking, but Tony could time-slice like a motherfucker.

Part of his brain was dealing with his companion, who was looking like he was ready to puke or something, another part was drawing on his nanites to give him control over the armor suit that JARVIS had on standby, and by far the largest part was wondering what even, the fuck, was Hydra, and did she have anything to do with the Etherium gas?

Probably.

That just seemed like too much of a coincidence to be dismissable. But coincidence was not causality, he reminded himself.

Just because it seemed like it couldn’t be one without the other, didn’t mean there was any relationship between the Etherium and the monster.

Whatever Hydra was.

The rabbits were--

The rabbits were lining the path. Not so even as to be called rows, but they were-- more and more of them, coming out.

To watch, or to guide, to protect or to attack?

Tony didn’t know. 

Coincidence is not causality.

I am a man of science. I don’t believe in magic.

Magic is merely technology which we cannot yet explain.

Despite that, Tony was feeling pretty goddamn superstitious. Like, the rabbits were a good sign, right? He didn’t think he’d ever heard any stories about evil forest animals, even when he was in cradle school.

The lights dimmed as they moved further into the station; Bucky swayed and Tony thought he was going to fall. He swept the man into his arms, unable to do anything else. He couldn’t let Bucky fall.

Tony had always wondered, in those hundreds of stupid holo-films that Rhodey loved so much, why it was the hapless hero or helpless heroine was driven to seek out the monster, the murderer. Wouldn’t it have been much safer to run away, to wait until day, to get reinforcements? But no, there was always some valiant idiot creeping through a dark tunnel, the murdering beast around the very next corner.

And here Tony was, being the exact kind of idiot that he yelled at on the screen.

Compelled, almost. He had to see what was down there, what was… doing this.

And maybe, just maybe, conquer it.

The Evil.

I am a man of science, he insisted. If there’s anything down there, science can explain it.

Tony was vaguely aware that JARVIS is screaming at him. Not just speaking in a sterner voice, not scrolling text across his retina, but actively yelling.

Bucky was also speaking, something ridiculous and useless. 

Tony ignored them both, stepping further into the darkness.

Something was calling him.

Something he couldn’t deny.

“Hail Hydra.”

*

Stardate 5239.283.09

JARVIS -- Just Another Rather Very Intelligent System -- was a created intelligence. He was not, in any standard definition of the word, alive. He did not have any biological parts, although Mr. Stark had offered on any number of occasions to make a construct that would allow him to experience a fixed form.

JARVIS had always refused. He did not see the need to be flesh and blood, to experience pain, to eat food, or do any of the other messy biological functions. No more than most humans -- or other life forms for that matter -- would see the need to experience true logic, pure calculation.

He was not human. He would never be alive.

He did not, according to many, have a soul.

A soul, JARVIS understood to be, that part of a life form that continued on after the biological form had faded. 

The mind, however, was a complex machine, that operates on the same physical laws as all other objects in the universe. If the soul existed inside the mind, then JARVIS was as ensouled as any living creature. He had a mind. He could think independently. He had obligations and protocol, certain living creatures he was more apt to go above and beyond protocol demands than others. 

It had been a matter up for debate many times; did Artificial Intelligences have their own free will. If they did, could they be punished for using that free will to commit crimes? Or was that burden on their creator? Ultron, Jocasta, the Legions. There were hundreds of examples of AIs that had committed crimes, sometimes on behalf of their creator and sometimes as a rebellion against their creator. And sometimes, it was just faulty programming.

JARVIS had, of course, submitted his own report to the collection of data that was maintained by Enoch, who was the chief librarian of the Chronicoms, an ancient semi-biological, mechanically enhanced race whose purpose was to chronicle all of life and history.

 All of this -- which was a mere portion of one cycle of computations, the process that made up JARVIS’s thoughts -- while he was attempting to determine what, the fuck even, was going on.

Sometimes JARVIS thought he’d taken too much of his creator’s personal idiosyncrasies for himself.

In this case, however, if the data fit the drive…

He’d been getting anomalous readings, completely off the charts. If there even were charts for the sorts of readings he was getting. 

A life form-- 

Not human.

Not rabbit.

Not-- not anything JARVIS had encountered before. There were new species protocols, but JARVIS wasn’t a first contact ship’s AI.

He didn’t have the staff aboard to initiate contact.

Technically, by that mandate, he should have left initial contact up to the other party. Preferably evacuating his human crew and their guest, and informing the First Contact Association staff of a potential new species.

JARVIS did not have time for that.

And he was almost sure that the unknown intelligence had contacted Mr. Stark first.

JARVIS wasn’t certain how Mr. Stark was being contacted. He could not detect any radio signals or waves. Just the growth of certain gamma radiations. 

JARVIS tapped the station’s computer. It was slow and stubborn, but deep in those databanks might be the answer JARVIS needed. When had the rabbits taken over the station? Did they know anything? Was there any way to communicate with them? They might have been witnesses, generations back. The form didn’t seem to have developed any sort of written or data storage communication.

JARVIS found a set of recordings, vast and untapped.

They’d started about a year after Barnes shut down the station.

Rabbits. Stamping. Their signal, from one beast to the next. Until the entire warren was stamping.

The station computer had recorded it. From the very first time it had happened, until this morning’s rendition when Mr. Stark had boarded the ship.

Communicating.

The rabbits were communicating.

JARVIS examined all the footage. Listened to it. Traced patterns, turned patterns into rhythms and rhythms into song.

The rabbits sang in percussion beats.

And it could be translated.

The rabbits thought of themselves as Insiders. The Insiders lived in the station, and everything else was an Outsider.

Mr. Stark was an Outsider. 

They didn’t really see JARVIS at all, didn’t understand that he was there, that he had a presence. To them, he was nothing but noise that followed Mr. Stark around. 

Outsider, outsider, outsider.

They followed Mr. Stark around, trying to understand in their little rabbity way. He was an Outsider. From Beyond the Door.

They knew what was Beyond the Door. The great Beyond-- the nothingness that froze and killed. 

Before today, they’d never known something could Come In.

They knew the Sleeper. 

They knew… the Watcher with Many Arms.

Hydra.

Another creature, lurking deep in the station. She really almost was the station now, living inside the conduits. A creature with no form, and every form. She was the devil, to rabbit-kin, as the Sleeper was God, kind, patient.

He who had Come In? They weren’t sure what he was.

Who he was.

What his purpose was.

They huddled together, nose to nose, paws barely making a sound. Like a whisper. Outsider, outsider.

And Hydra, the watcher, the waiter, she of a thousand eyes. Was watching them.

Had they ever thought they were free from her sight?

Outsider, outsider.

JARVIS slid a portion of his code into the Mark II. Used one metal finger to tap on the wall, imitating their sounds, their language. Their words.

Outsider listens.

Every single rabbit on the station froze, and as if with a single hive mind, lifted up on their hind legs, one ear twitching.

As if they’d heard the voice of god.

Outsider.

It started as a whisper, barely audible, until the station rang from their cries.

Mr. Stark and Mr. Barnes barely reacted, caught in their dreaming hallucinations, hearing the voice of Hydra.

Outsider. Outsider.

JARVIS paused. He was going to make for himself legal difficulties with the FCA and probably most of the various legal governments outside the Ring.

Listener. It was a correction. Mr. Stark was the Outsider. JARVIS was the listener. He needed them to understand that he was different; a part of Mr. Stark, yes, but no more the same being than Mr. Stark’s biological child, if he ever had one.

Listener.

 Listener.

Listen to me JARVIS thudded. Listen to me. Listen, and give aid. Listener is a friend. The Listener guards your safety and happiness. The Listener guards the Outsiders. The Listener is a friend.

We listen. 

[enchantedisabella]

Why Annabeth is not Hermione 2.0

I’ve been wanting to write this post for a long time, because so many people compare Annabeth Chase to Hermione Granger when they’re really nothing alike. Yes, they’re both the smart, female best friends of the main protagonists, but that doesn’t make their personalities identical. Here are my reasons why.

Annabeth has ADHD and dyslexia and is unfocused at times. Hermione has no disorders we know about and is attentive in class. I understand that Percabeth in high school is a very popular headcanon among the pjo fandom, and Annabeth is indubitably ridiculously clever, but she is NOT going to be raising her hands every second of every day in class and she definitely won’t pass every single subject without even trying. I’d be very surprised if she could stay focused for a full lesson. Honestly, I’d expect her to be labelled as even more of a ‘troubled kid’ than Percy, because Percy has spent years in mortal school while Annabeth hasn’t. It would be Annabeth, not Percy, being the one desperately trying to pay attention but the first to lose focus halfway through. Hermione, as we all know, is the exact opposite, and hates when people disrupt classes.

Hermione is a rule-follower at heart. Annabeth is not. We all remember that time when Hermione Badass Granger kept a woman in a jar for a year, right? However, we also remember the numerous times she’s threatened to report Harry and Ron for breaking the rules- mainly in the earlier books, when their friendship isn’t as developed, but she still acts scandalised whenever rule-breaking is brought up. Hermione will break the rules, because she’s a Gryffindor at heart and she will do anything to protect her friends (trap Rita Skeeter in a jar, report the Firebolt to McGonagall because it might have been cursed), but that doesn’t mean she necessarily enjoys it. Annabeth is a different story altogether. In fanon, it’s usually her who is expected to restrain Percy from doing something stupid (like Hermione and Harry’s canon friendship), but in actual pjo canon, it’s the other way around. Annabeth Chase is smart and clever but she’s also prideful, impulsive, and downright reckless, while Hermione is most definitely not. Annabeth will use any excuse to break the rules and sees no point in regulations if they don’t make any sense, and thinks that authority figures should earn her respect. Hermione basically hero-worships all authority figures unless they’re really bad (eg. Snape and Umbridge). It takes a lot for her to rebel against someone in a higher position than her, and she will willingly give teachers her respect even if they haven’t earned it yet.

Hermione is book smart. Annabeth is street smart. I’m not saying that Annabeth doesn’t like to read, because it’s clearly stated in The Lightning Thief or Sea of Monsters (I can’t remember which) that Annabeth reads so much that Percy forgot that she also had dyslexia. However, in school aus, Annabeth would probably not perform that well on tests and she would absolutely not join spelling bees and win, or have we as a fandom collectively forgotten that in SoM, Percy said that Annabeth could have spent the whole night trying to spell ‘cyclopes’ due to the fact that she kept messing up the letters? And if I hear any reasons like ‘they removed her dyslexia because it didn’t fit their fanfiction, and there’s no need to be so pressed about it’, that’s very fucking ableist, for one, and defeats the whole purpose of Rick Riordan (bless him) making the book’s protagonists have ADHD and dyslexia for his son. Also, it says a lot about fans trying to make Annabeth into Hermione 2.0 when she’s very much not, and then fooling themselves into thinking that the girls’ personalities are carbon copies of each other. Hermione is repeatedly described as the brightest witch of her age- she’s deductive, rational and calculated. She has no problem paying close attention to detail. She spurts out so much information in the books that she has been repeatedly compared to ‘swallowing the textbook’, courtesy of Ron. I can’t even imagine how much she would have to memorise to be compared to that. Annabeth would not be capable of that, nor would she even want to be. She would not see the point in memorising facts, because Annabeth Chase learns things by doing, and Hermione Granger learns things from books. In the Philosopher’s Stone, Hermione is distraught at their first flying lesson because she can’t learn it from a book first. You know who wouldn’t be? Hands-on, street smart, capable Annabeth.

Annabeth values knowledge more than Hermione does. Some of you may not understand why this is, but Annabeth is a daughter of Athena and Hermione is a Gryffindor. They have very different learning strategies and if they ever met, they’d be nothing alike and probably wouldn’t even see eye to eye. Hermione canonically scoffs at ‘books and cleverness!’ both in the movies and the books of the Philosopher’s Stone. Hermione is Sorted into Gryffindor because she values bravery over everything else- even knowledge. Annabeth has always put knowledge first. That’s not to say that Annabeth Who-Took-A-Knife-For-Percy Chase isn’t brave, but she values knowledge above else and she’s willing to fight dirty to get it (as is Hermione, but that’s beside the point). It’s understandable that Annabeth would put knowledge above bravery, because of her parentage. Hermione’s choice is also understandable, given the circumstances, and it’s noteworthy that she repeatedly chooses friendship over cleverness in the series just because she knows its importance. Just to reiterate: the girls are different people. Don’t put them as madly competing in your Hogwarts x Camp Half-Blood fanfictions. Do you honestly think Annabeth would compete with Hermione for the best grades in History of Magic, or that Hermione would ever try her hand at sword-fighting and archery? I don’t think so. This might seem like it’s contrasting my point, but Annabeth probably isn’t going to be interested in most of the lessons while they’re taking notes in a classroom without any hands-on work. She doesn’t function like that. She would do well in Charms or Transfiguration and positively shine in Quidditch, not History of Magic or Muggle Studies or Divination. She values knowledge she deems useful, and the only way for knowledge to be deemed useful by her standards is if she used what she’s learnt in practical spells and not note-taking.

Hermione has flexible moral principles. Annabeth’s are set in stone. Hermione is a very complex character. She repeatedly chastises Harry and Ron for breaking school rules on a daily basis, but it was her idea to go through with the Polyjuice Potion in CoS, her decision to keep Rita Skeeter in a jar, her decision to use a Time-Turner to get to all her classes on time. (Well, she also had to appeal to Cornelius Fudge through McGonagall, but it was her idea.) Hermione’s moral code is flexible, to say the least. She won’t break it for mundane days, but will for special occasions, and that’s because she knows that desperate times call for desperate measures. None of her moral code is written in stone. There is always a point where she justifies her behaviour by decreeing that the situation needs it. There is no line that she isn’t willing to cross depending on how bad the situation is. Hermione has a justifiable reason for breaking rules, and though she doesn’t enjoy it, like I said earlier, she will do it of her own accord if the situation calls for it. She has no point where she says to herself, ‘Okay, this is one rule that I’m not going to break no matter what.’ This girl, this brilliant, ruthless girl, is willing to cross every single line if she absolutely must, and that is why she is not at all like Annabeth Chase. Annabeth Chase, whose principles are set in stone. Annabeth Chase, who is prideful and stubborn and who does not compromise her values no matter what. Annabeth is not ruthless; Annabeth is not cruel. She is the embodiment of- not exactly goodness, but fairness and equality. She gives everyone what they deserve. She literally told a Sphinx off for not giving riddles that make you think, but instead asking questions that you just need a certain amount of knowledge of facts to answer. Let that sink in, because it’s the most perfect example I have. Hermione Granger would have answered them quick as a flash and moved on, because it’s an easy way out, she knows all the answers anyway, and she’d probably treat the Sphinx like an authority figure whose test she has to pass, not change. Annabeth Chase, instead, gets offended and demands riddles that make you think because she will not compromise her principles for anyone or anything, and places so much faith in her intelligence (which is why she values it so much) that even if the questions will be harder, she thinks that it’s downright insulting that they aren’t already. She takes it as an insult to her intelligence. Hermione is flexible; Annabeth is hard as stone.

Annabeth has the makings of a hero; Hermione has the makings of a villain. Sure, Hermione started SPEW and cares for the welfare of creatures and is portrayed as sensitive time and time again, but if she believes that what she is doing is right, she will use wrong methods to get to her goal. After all, when the greater good is at stake, who wouldn’t use less morally superior methods to get to it faster? What’s the murder of a few people who deserved it- maybe Bellatrix or Umbridge- when a greater number of lives can be saved? Hermione is unnervingly logical and although she is sensitive, she is not weak. She might feel pity for Sirius’s experience in Azkaban, because he’s ‘good’, in her mind, but would she feel for Bellatrix, who ‘deserved’ it? And of course Bellatrix did deserve it, but Hermione conveniently ignores that they went through the same experience because only Sirius deserves her pity, because he’s good. Hermione wouldn’t sacrifice Sirius for the greater good, but she would sacrifice Bellatrix, and Annabeth wouldn’t, because as I’ve said, Annabeth does not have a flexible moral code. Annabeth would not stand by and sacrifice Bellatrix, because she is still a person in Annabeth’s eyes, but Hermione would, because there is no line she wouldn’t cross. As long as Hermione thinks that what she’s doing is right, she would condone any action to achieve her goal. I think we all know enough about history to know that that is terrifying as fuck. Hermione, under different circumstances, could be a villain; Annabeth would be the hero and do the right thing no matter what.

These two girls are so inherently, intrinsically different that I have trouble wondering why anyone would think that they were anything alike just because they’re smart and friends with the protagonist. There are probably more points, but I’m tired and it’s a school day and I can’t think of anything more to add on. Anyway, thanks for reading this and I hope nobody makes the stupid, stupid mistake of saying that they are in any way similar after reading this, because I could honestly relate Annabeth more to Ron than I could to Hermione.

[ambidextrousarcher]

Sarcastic StarBharat reviews: Episode 7- The episode in which Arjun should have been mentioned for the first time.

Tagging @ratnas-musings @avani008 @chaanv @iamnotthat @shellweed @butchcaroldanvers @mayavanavihariniharini @medhasree

This episode concludes the first arc, which is Bhishm’s oath and its (short term) effects. The long term effect can honestly be the whole mess that follows, so...

Anyway.

Here are the links to the first six episodes: 

1. Bhishm says hello to daddy

2. Bhishm’s Bhishm pratigya

3. Bhishm abducts the Princesses of Kashi

4. Bhishm watches his brother choke to death

5. Bhishm sanctions Niyoga

6. Bhishm chooses death over marrying a crazy princess

Parashuram emits blue light from his hands, taking a sword out of the light. Me: Huh? I thought only arrows can appear like that. Bhishm joins his hands, whispering, a sword lands from the air at his feet. Both of them leap. Camera focuses to Ganga entering, psycho Princess glaring at her. A fancy sword fight occurs, Bhishm falls, attacking Parashuram again. They dance around, cutting trunks, causing snowfall. Heaven knows how they aren’t shivering yet. Bhishm disarms Parashuram, who clamps his hand on Bhishm’s sword and knocks it off. Both of them summon divyastras. Ganga looks distressed. She calls out to Shiv. “If Parashuram’s parashu (axe) and Bhishm’s Brahmastr collide, the world will end!” she says. I’m not sure what actually happens in canon. Ganga does call to Shiv, though I doubt it’s this dramatic. I doubt she’d call her own son Bhishm. The warriors release the weapons. A globe of light sucks both the weapons in. Enter Shiv. Wait, this guy doesn’t have a blue throat! Anyway, all and sundry join their hands in respect. Shiv commands them to stop fighting to preserve the Earth. “I still haven’t gotten justice, Mahadev.” Ah, psycho Princess, yet again. “How can you stop this war? Until I get peace of mind, Parashuram has to fight. Fulfill my dearest wish, Mahadev. This man’s (Bhishm’s) death is my wish. I want to be the cause of his death.” “As Parashuram is bound, I have to fulfill your wish. But revenge cannot have my blessing. If you ever do something great and then pray for Bhishm’s death, then you will definitely be the cause of his death.” Wait, this prophecy is incomplete. Canonically, the prophecy says that Bhishm can’t be defeated and killed by anyone except the reincarnation of Rishi Nara, born as the son of Indra, Arjun. Seriously, they omitted my favourite part!! CANON FAIL x2, for good measure. This is the first chronological mention of Arjun!! I mean, yeah, it’s unfair on him that people are literally turning him into a death knell before that kid is even born…but he WAS mentioned in canon at this time. I remember that very well. Let’s continue. “If so, I do not wish to live.” Ofc, it’s psycho Princess. “Please let go of the hardness of your heart. When the day comes, I will lay down my weapons in front of you.” Mr. Paragon of Perfection. I can’t even. “I don’t need your generosity. I will not forgive you. Even 25 years later, I will take birth with your death as my objective in life. The throne you destroyed my life for will be the reason for your struggle day and night. That throne won’t let you sleep peacefully even for a day. You will keep running because of that throne, when your soul will be tired and old, I will come then, as your death.” I can’t see how suicide is a great thing, but hey, who am I to judge. Flash forward 25 years. A baby is born in Panchal. “Strength is born in Panchal” says the King. “Rajyotishi, I am certain that Draupad’s Queen has given birth to a girl child. I have been waiting for 25 years for the birth of this child, ever since I knew that Bhishm will be killed because of a woman. From then, I have been praying that that girl should be born in our family.” A young man enters with a baby. I guess that’s Draupad. “It’s a girl, father.” Mr. King of Panchal thanks maa Kali, lifting the baby in his arms. “All our wishes have come true. Bhishm has humiliated Panchal too much,” he flashes back to Bhishm’s grandiose words when he’d rescued drunk Prince. “The entire Panchal will burn like Lanka if you set fire to Bhishm’s heart.” He sees Bhishm slapping his face again. “Revenge is what we should look out for. This maiden will take our long due revenge from Bhishm.” He names the child Shikandini. I hope she’s less psycho than Amba. “Rajyotishi, what do you make of the time of my grand-daughter’s birth?” “She will be successful in her life objective,” he says, “But after a lot of struggle.” Before that, he says some astrological mumbo-jumbo that I don’t understand. “Struggle is the best teacher. I will poison this maiden against Bhishm. I have full belief that she will be cause of Bhishm’s death, that it will be the objective of her life.” CANON FAIL. Amba is reborn as Shikandini, it is because of that he/she fights against Bhishm. Panchal doesn’t have a long-standing enemity with Bhishm. Oh, Crap. Krishna gyaan again. He’s talking about how ancestor’s thoughts affect the future generation. Sorry not sorry. Skip. The camera focuses on the map of Gandhar. We enter a room lit with many diyas, our focus is on a girl sleeping. It goes without saying that this is Gandhari. The wind blows out the candles. Gandhari breaks out into cold sweat and bolts awake. “Sukhda!” she yells. “Sukhda!” “Kumari Gandhari, I am here. The diyas will be lighted again. The diyas will be lighted again.” She yells at two other women, reminding them that Princess Gandhari is scared of the dark. Seriously, these guys are adding drama everywhere. This show is less of the Mahabharata and more of a soap opera. The diyas are lighted again. “Why am I so afraid of the dark?” asks Gandhari. “It’s not only you, all of us are afraid of it. Only through our eyes can the world come near us. If we have eyes, we have everything. In darkness, we feel like we have lost everything. But there is no cause for fear now. You go to sleep.” Gandhari nods. Sukhda smiles as she leaves. We focus on a campfire. The wood moves due to wind, making the soldier to run. He sees the shadows of a large army. He mounts his horse and gallops towards Maharaj Saubala. The camera focuses on a man, I assume he is Maharaj Saubala. “A large army, talent beyond belief, richer than Kuber. In such a Kingdom shall my daughter be wed, Gurudev,” he says. “The groom too shall be stronger than Pavan and of more virtues than Indra.” I still don’t get why Indra is the gold standard of Virtue in Hindu myths. I mean, he isn’t really the best warrior, he’s literally defeated by mortals, one of whom is his own son, along with Krishna. And Nahusha also defeats him. He doesn’t really have much of a moral compass either, basically raping Ahalya by proxy. And yet, he’s the King of the Gods. Why so? No idea. “My Gandhari cannot marry a man with even a smidgeon of problems,” the King continues. “My daughter is like that, Gurudev” says the Queen. “Bhagwan Shiv has blessed her with the boon of 100 children, after all.” The Guru looks at them strangely. “What is the issue?” asks the King. “You look tense.” The Guru begins. “Forgive me, Your Majesty. I…” A servant enters then. “Maharani, the senapati asks permission to enter,” she says. “At this time?” asks the Queen, confused. “The King is busy now.” The senapati enters. “Forgive me for my offence,” he says. “However, the news is such that I need to speak to the King now.” “What is the news?” The King and his Senapati descend the stairs. He’s firing questions about the army at his gates. “Where is Yuvaraj Shakuni?” “He is out on an expedition for a special purpose.” They are getting angry at the enemy army. They are also boasting about their army. “This is going to be a terrible war.” The Mahabharat theme plays. I think this is CANON fail. I don’t think Bhishm goes to Gandhar with an army, canonically, but I don’t really remember. Someone who does, please help. Precap: Saubala asks whose army is at his gates. “That great man is as effluent as the Sun, Maharaj.” Ah, so it’s Bhishm. “His eyes are like two balls of fire,” Camera focuses on Bhishm. I was right. “On his forehead, the symbol of the moon is present.” Camera shifts to Gandhari. “I am going to join the war with Pitashree,” she says. “If death is certain, then I die in the battlefield.” With this, we finish season 1 of Mahabharat, according to the Hotstar app listings. See you tomorrow with season 2!

[mybiblestudyapp]

Justification by Faith (Part 1)

I’m currently studying what the Bible teaches about meeting God’s standard of judgment through faith and this is part #1 of my Bible study notes for this topic.

According to God’s standard of judgment how many can be justified?

In the following passages, the writer is telling us that no man living can be justified. To be justified, or to stand in the sight of God, essentially mean the same thing.

“And enter not into judgment with thy servant: for in thy sight shall no man living be justified." Psa 143:2.

“If thou, LORD, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?” Psa 130:3

But, What exactly is justification?

Webster's definition of the word “justify” is - "To prove or show to be just, or conformable to law, right, justice, propriety, or duty; to defend or maintain; to vindicate as right; to warrant." "To pronounce free from guilt or blame; to absolve; to clear."

So how exactly can we be pronounced free from the guilt of sin?

Isaiah tells us that by the knowledge of Jesus, whose goal is to bear our iniquities, is to justify many.

"By his knowledge shall My righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities." Isa 53:11.

As I read this verse, the word "many" stood out to me, so I looked into it a little deeper and found the following verses all referring to Jesus' position as the head of the family of God:

many H7227

The pictograph is a picture of a head and a picture of the tent representing the family. Combined these mean "head of the family". Each family has a master that rules all cases, trials, conflicts, and contests. This person was the representative for the whole tribe, one abundant in authority and wisdom. (see Exodus 18:25).

His righteous servant, Jesus, is the head of the family. (Ephesians 5:23, Colossians 1:18, Christ, the head of the church, Chief. Col 2:10, Christ, the head of all principality and power.)

“Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am.” John 13:13.

“For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” Romans 3:23-24.

What’s “grace” G5485?

Favor with God. Read Luke 1:30, Acts 7:46 for examples.

“And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified.” Acts 20:32.

Why can't we be justified by the deeds of the law?

We find an explanation to this question in Romans chapter 3. Essentially, anyone who tries to justify themselves by the deeds of the law is a legalist.

“For by the law is the knowledge of sin.” Romans 3:20.

Read Romans 3:20-28 for context.

The doctrine of justification by faith in Christ: “Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.” Romans 3:20-28.

What's the law of faith?

What is the law? Doctrine. The unalterable precepts of Jehovah's decalogue, which are as immutable as Jah’s throne.

To the Law and to the Testimony: It has ever been the effort of the enemy of righteousness to lead men to disregard the claims of the law of Jehovah. And through his prophets, God has ever sought to bring men to a realization of the binding claims of his eternal and unchangeable law. Of his ancient people, it is written: “The Lord testified against Israel, and against Judah, by all the prophets, and by all the seers, saying, turn ye from your evil ways, and keep My commandments and My statutes, according to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you by My servants the prophets.” 2 Kings 17:13. In this our day, when there is manifest a widespread tendency to throw away the restraint of God's law, Mrs. White has firmly and fearlessly endeavored to bring to the consciences of men the sacredness of the divine requirements. The immutability of that law, and the vital necessity of obedience, through the power of Christ, to its every requirement, including the fourth commandment, has been constantly urged in her public work. Of the relation of the law to the gospel, she has written: “In the life of Christ the principles of the law are made plain; and as the Holy Spirit of God touches the heart; as the light of Christ reveals to men their need of his cleansing blood and his justifying righteousness, the law is still an agent in bringing us to Christ, that we may be justified by faith. ‘perfect, converting the soul.’ “‘Till heaven and earth pass,’ said Jesus, ‘one jot or one tittle shall in nowise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.’ The sun shining in the heavens, the solid earth upon which you dwell, are God's witnesses that his law is changeless and eternal. Though they may pass away, the divine precepts shall endure. ‘It is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail.’ The system of types that pointed to Jesus as the Lamb of God was to be abolished at His death; but the precepts of the decalogue are as immutable as the throne of God.”—Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, 308.

Comprises of the following:

“The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple. The statutes of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring for ever: the judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. Moreover by them is thy servant warned: and in keeping of them there is great reward.” Psalms 19:7-11.

Testimony:

1 John 5:9-12, the record that God gave of His Son.

Revelation 19:10, The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.

John 5:39, “Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.”

Acts 10:43, “To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins.”

Statutes, Commandment:

Deuteronomy 4:5-6, Ezekiel 36:27, “The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.” Psalms 12:6.

Fear, Judgments:

Psalms 119:128; Nehemiah 9:13; Isaiah 11:1-5; Proverbs 9:10; Proverbs 15:33; Proverbs 16:6, by the fear of the LORD men depart from evil.; Job 28:28,“…Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.”

The purpose of the law is to show us our sin that we may, through faith in Jesus Christ, be converted.