#capital area humane society

[johnnycats]

Shadowheart goes back to CAHS for adoption tomorrow morning. What a super sweet rabbit this girl was. Incredibly friendly, calm, and uses the litter box very well. She'll make someone or some family an excellent pet.

[genderkoolaid]

The Fidesz party, which was recently praised by Donald Trump, submitted a bill to parliament on Tuesday (18 March) to effectively ban Pride marches in Hungary. It quickly passed into law and set fines of up to 200,000 forints (£420/$550) for organisers of Budapest Pride and anyone attending, with supporters of the legislation claiming the events could be considered “harmful to children”. The law allows police to use facial recognition to target and fine anyone at Pride marches. Prime minister Viktor Orbán took to X/Twitter to praise the move and write: “We won’t let woke ideology endanger our kids.” Orbán, who has been in power since 2010, has overseen an eroding of LGBTQ+ rights in the country in recent years. In 2020, Hungary abolished legal recognition of trans people, and the following year lawmakers banned LGBTQ+ “propaganda” for under-18s. According to equality ratings website Equaldex, Hungary now has a rating of just 51 out of 100 in terms of LGBTQ+ rights. Demonstrators took to the streets in protest, holding signs reading “The first Pride was a riot” and “If you take our human rights, be ready for human wrongs”. According to the Associated Press, protestors later staged a blockade of the Margaret Bridge over the Danube river, blocking traffic despite police orders to leave the area. Organisers of Budapest Pride have reportedly vowed to hold their planned 30th Pride march, on 28 June. Last year, more than 30,000 LGBTQ+ people and allies were at the event. “This is not child protection, this is fascism,” a statement from Budapest Pride organisers said. “The Hungarian government is trying to restrict peaceful protests with a critical voice by targeting a minority. Therefore, as a movement, we will fight for the freedom of all Hungarians to protest. “Hungarians are freedom-loving… we know that if the government tries to ban protests with critical voices, they will face resistance from the whole of society. That is why [they] need a scapegoat, a distraction, another wave of hatred… they lie to their voters about a child-protection measure but there is no child protection in this bill.” Jojó Majercsik, from Budapest Pride, told the Associated Press that there had been an “outpouring of support” since the law was passed, adding: “Many, many people have been mobilised. “It’s a new thing, compared with the attacks of the last years, that we’ve received many messages and comments from people saying: ‘Until now I haven’t gone to Pride, I didn’t care about it but this year I’ll be there and I’ll bring my family’.”

[beggars-opera]

Ok, so I live in one of the more liberal areas of the country. Our governor is a lesbian and I literally did not even know until after she got elected, because it was that much of a nonissue.

Lately, I'm seeing more and more local institutions doing things for Pride. Institutions that don't necessarily have to, or do so awkwardly, but they're trying to be good allies. And, even here, I see people foaming at the mouth. This thing is ruined. Unprofessional. Political. Sexual. Boycotting, disgusted, bye.

And a part of me is like, "Why would a random store, a museum, a restaurant, do this?" Part of my mind has been so corrupted by the idea of rainbow capitalism that the thought of someone just...trying to be an imperfect ally is a cash grab.

It's not. Every bit counts, and especially as we see pushback, and see some of those corporations beginning to rethink their rainbow capitalism, the places that continue to speak up are so, so important.

I'm reminded of a rant by Illustrious Old White Man Historian Gordon Wood a few years back where he lamented how fragmented modern history is. Why do we need ANOTHER book about women, about enslaved people, about the poor? Why are we focusing on these people instead of George Mount Rushmore Washington?

And it was an interesting framing, because he insinuated that these micro histories were bad not because they existed, but because they didn't give the whole story, which in Gordon's mind was a story in which they were the side characters instead of the mains. To that end a biography of G Wash that features the bare shadow of Billy Lee in the far distance is a complete history, all that needs to be said, because one of those figures is a God Amongst Men and the other does not deserve to be fully fleshed out as a full, autonomous human being with a family and a profession and a beating heart. And a biography of William Lee, war aid, professional valet, and person closest to the first president of the United States, with the shadow of George in the background, would consequently be Bad History, because no one is saying that this man didn't exist, but his story isn't the whole story. It's backwards; he should be a footnote, and if he's not, that's bias.

But for me, as a historian, I know that the reason these microhistories exist, and are so important, is that they didn't exist before. Before someone can be truly, purposefully, tactfully inserted into the historical narrative, you need to know who they are. Not just as a name, not just as an archetype. You have to get to the point where there are so many books flooding the market about women and children and immigrants that it's no longer controversial to be talking about them, where learning about them instead of someone else is normal.

THEN you can feel good about rewriting the more general narrative. THEN you can actually have the information you need in order to put things into their proper context, to rethink the most important figure in each story, to assess what the full milieu of the time is.

And that's where we're at with Pride. We are still very much living in a time where queer people are shadow characters in the background. They are people that many will admit exist, but for god's sake, don't make them important, don't make them real, don't make them normal. And until we can shove rainbows down everyone's throats to the point where being queer is no longer seen as a thing that is Other, until we convince people that we're not going away, we will never be able to fully assimilate queerness into society.

We can't just be normal about Pride, because normal isn't loud enough to not get drowned out.

[elbiotipo]

Ocassionally you see articles that are like "scientists are trying to hide how bad things are" and I'm the opposite of that. I've done my work on ecological restoration (actually grabbed a shovel and planted trees) and I'm amazed at how fast nature can restore itself. Ecologists used to think restoring tropical rainforests, to give an example of a complex ecosystem, would take centuries to go back if it was even possible -this is why you see all the dystopian fiction of rainforests going extinct- when in fact, it has been proven that without human pressure, ecological succession takes place and rainforests grow back nearly to its original physionomy in a few years, even if diversity does take a time to bounce back. Reintroducing animals might sound harder and it is, but we must remember that animals have faster cycles than humans. Just letting breeding pairs in protected areas is often enough for populations to grow back, as in the reintroduction of jaguars to Iberá in Corrientes Argentina, and many other cases. What is even more interesting and encouraging is how cheap, both in the monetary and the general effort sense, these works are. If a bunch of underpaid biologists, rural people and park rangers can do it, imagine if they had the full support and backing from states and international institutions.

We are at a stage where, besides climate change, we are facing tremendous biodiversity loss and this mostly comes to our methods of land use and food production. But these can be changed. We must assume the fact that nature is not a pristine untouched thing, but humans, in every continent they have lived in, have long managed its resources. The Amazon Rainforest is full of useful plants that hint at silviculture which is still done by its native peoples, the deserts and tundra that seem uninhabited have been home to pastoral and hunter-gatherer peoples. Humans have shaped all habitats on Earth, even the most 'untouched' ones. Just as they have managed their environments and natural resources, other civilizations have managed or mismanaged them. Now that industrial civilization has spread across the globe, we need to find a way to balance our need for food and other products with the need to preserve and take care of Earth. This can be done, we can ensure both a good quality of life and a protected biosphere. We can stop the dichotomy of humans separate from nature, assume our historical role as managers and stewards of natural resources, and do it with our modern understanding of ecology and science.

This does mean that it will take a lot of popular mobilization and change to uproot current interests and create states that uphold these principles. But I'm a marxist. I don't 'believe' in class struggle, I think it's a fact based on observations about society, and I also think that this current form of capitalism will eventually be replaced by socialism, and I believe the future socialist societies will not do the same mistakes as the past. We not only can create new societies that can take care of nature and the general welfare of people, but I also think that as history proceeds, it will be inevitable.

[coldalbion]

Not Flirting

This is NOT FLIRTING.

The very fact that the media say "flirting" is indicative of the fact that the cultural ideas we have around value, improvement, morality, ability and functionality are *rooted* in a a framework which is ableist and eugenic in nature.

Fundamentally, the idea that there are "good genes" and "bad genes" is saying there are "good" forms of embodymindedness and "bad" forms, and that we should remove or reduce the bad and increase the good.

This is biopolitics which is at the root of 19th, 20th and 21st century processes and horrors, and is not *just* racist, but is one of the major ORIGINS of racism as it manifests today, as well as a wellspring of sexism, homophobia, transphobia, antisemitism, colonialism and capitalism.

We are enmeshed in the world eugenics and its proponents thought up, and wrought. It is so prevalent beneath the surface of how we relate to the world in terms of growth, progress, science etc, that we are like fish swimming in it.

This IS NOT JUST TRUMP. This is the ongoing pandemic, the manfacture of debility in marginalised populations for the benefit of those at the levers of power. This is the dismissal of Appalachian lives and folks in rural areas as low-intelligence inbred hicks who "should have known"/"should have moved" in the face of hurricanes. This the way standardised testing structures education on pass fail and grade curves. On and on, with countless more manifestations and iterations.

**We live in a eugenicised society.**

One that frames who should be improved, and how, on the basis of trajectories which begin by evalulating a being on how much it conforms to a certain set of criteria. We never ask where those criteria come from. We never consider that the liberal humanist agenda might also create folks who *don't fit*, in order to mark those who do.

We should. We should ask ourselves where "the human" even comes from.

[ID :A screenshot from The Guardian's liveblog coverage of the US Election, which reads: "Flirting with eugenics, Trump says: ‘We got a lot of bad genes in our country right now’ In an interview earlier today with conservative broadcaster Hugh Hewitt, Donald Trump used terminology associated with eugenics to attack migrants. The remark came as the former president discussed the alleged harm done by new arrivals to the United States, saying many were “murderers”. “Now, a murderer, it’s in their genes,” Trump continued. “And we got a lot of bad genes in our country right now.” It was language similar to the beliefs of eugenics, which emerged in the late 19th century and held that human ills could be combatted through selective breeding. The theory is today regarded as both inaccurate and racist."]

[licorice-and-rum]

SOC and Neoliberlism

So, as promised, here it is my analysis of Six of Crows and how neoliberalism is amazingly portrayed in Ketterdam, and how the city is an example of what happens in a community that is not provided for.

Before we begin, I wanted to say that English is not my first language, and, considering I read SOC in Brazilian Portuguese, I might translate some names literally or differently from the English version but I think it's manageable to read and understand my point. If not, I'll edit the text.

The first thing we have to understand is how neoliberalism works and the theory behind it, and then we'll talk about how it's portrayed in Ketterdam.

So neoliberalism is a theory born more or less at the end of the 20th century (70s-80s), and it finds its roots in laissez-faire capitalism, meaning that it's a political current that tries to suppress and/or eliminate the State's influence from the market. The neoliberalist view understands that the market can supply by itself the population's needs without help or limitations imposed by the State.

The thing here is that most people listen to this and think neoliberalism is about electronics, cars, and other stuff. The truth is, that neoliberalism aims to suppress the presence of State-run facilities in ALL corners of society, such as health care, housing, water access, electricity, etcetera.

So, we can use the American and Brazillian health systems to understand it better, for example:

In the US, the ones providing health care for the population are great corporations - they decide the price of care, they work together with pharmaceutical companies to define medicine prices, and the laws that bind them are pretty much only offer and demand. There is almost none State intervention to provide the population with accessible health care.

However, this brings problems, of course: not everyone (actually, most people) has real access to health care simply because they can't afford it, or they can't afford it without taking a big financial hit, which threatens their other basic needs, such as food, housing, water, electricity, etcetera. Not everyone can provide for their medical needs, such as diabetic and disabled people.

That leads to:

(a) an increase in poverty;

(b) a decrease in educational levels - if you don't have the means to pay for higher educational levels because of health care debt, or if you're sick and need to go to class and tough through it but you're not really learning anything, and so on, which leads to a major workforce in base level production and a minor class who has access to this education;

(c) an increase in overworking people - meaning that we have a lot of people taking on several jobs to be able to pay for things like health care, which increases the competitiveness between people, making individualism levels go up and breaking up human beings' natural sense of community.

I could also talk here about how this breeds isolation and increases the potential for mental health problems but I think you got what I was saying.

On the other hand, we have the Brazilian health care system (SUS), which is a universal gratuitous medical care service through the whole country. Its purpose is not profit, it's providing health care for the community, so therefore, any SUS unit is bound by State law and run by the State. By law, every SUS unit must provide for anyone who enters its premises in need of medical care. Everyone, Brazillian and foreigners, poor or rich, must be treated if they need to. It's the law.

Of course, that doesn't mean it's all rainbows and flowers, there are definitely many problems in SUS. However, what I'm trying to showcase here is that, when the needs of a population are met, the population itself is more resilient, their life quality goes up and so does their participation in their community.

On the other hand, in neoliberalism, when the State is absent from these areas of community service, the market is, in theory, the one providing for the community. In practice, however, what we observe from neoliberal policies in cities with a great poor population in Latam for example, is that when the State doesn't provide for the community, the market is unable to step up for them because of their obscene prices.

The poor population that doesn't have their needs met by the State or the market sees a great boom in criminal activities within their spaces. That's mainly why criminal organizations are so present in slums and favelas throughout Latin America: criminal organizations are a way for the community to provide for themselves and, as a means to become more powerful, they provide for the community in exchange for their services (not to say they do that for the good of their hearts, of course not).

It's why it's so common, for example, that criminal organizations such as PCC in Brazil pay for kids from favelas to undergo Law school, for example.

And that's is where I wanted to go to start the conversation in SOC: one of the main traits of Ketterdam is the Barrel and, in the Barrel, we have the presence of many criminal organizations, such as the Dregs, the Dime Lions, the Menagerie staff (not the girls, ofc), etcetera.

This, as observed by Kaz himself, is one of the only ways to survive on the Barrel - you filiate yourself to a gang because you need to be able to provide for yourself and, more times than others, for your family as well.

Kaz's story is actually a perfect example of how Ketterdam is the representation of America in the early 20th century in full policies of laissez-faire (neoliberalism): as we can see in Titanic and many other historical fictions, the said American Dream had people believing the US to be this economical paradise where they could all enter the market and become millionaires.

The result of it is the Great Depression, of course, but I'm getting ahead of myself here.

When Kaz and Jodi leave Lij for Ketterdam, Jodi believes he'll become a merchant - which is a pretty common belief of those who arrive at Ketterdam, as Pekka Rollins and Kaz himself state in Crooked Kingdom.

The reality of it, though, is much harsher, because the truth is that when you have a market that controls everything, as we see in Ketterdam with the Merchant's Guild (I think that's how it's translated?) and the Stadwatch as a police force, you see perfectly how neoliberal policies really work in real life:

You have a higher class who controls the market and the riches (question: who do you think got the money Shu Han sent to Ketterdam at the beginning of the first book: the people of the city/country or the merchants in the "government"?), and a lower class that, without support from the State or the market to have their needs met will turn to their own means to do so.

So you have the trafficking that brought Inej to the island, the unlimited gambling that Jesper was trapped in, the cons Jodi and Kaz fell for - it's all product of liberal policies.

And so, you have Ketterdam and its neoliberal policies (:

(I really love to make this kind of analysis, please, if you have something you want me to talk about, don't hesitate to ask)

[wachinyeya]

With Japanese know-how and the unwavering support of Japanese experts, Bhutan’s national bird is being hatched and hand-reared in captivity successfully for the first time ever.

The major hurdle to rearing chicks was overcome, and two healthy birds were just hand-reared, bringing the total captive population to five—a crucial lifeline to a bird that numbers less than 100 in the wild.

The critically-endangered white-bellied heron faces extinction due to habitat disturbance from human activities and predation. Professor Satoshi Shimano and his team from Hosei University, Japan, collaborated with the White-Bellied Heron Conservation Center (WBHCC) in Bhutan, to revive the species through direct intervention.

This heron is the world’s second largest, a symbolic bird for the people of Bhutan, and also a typical ‘umbrella species’ that requires a habitat with a vast, preserved environment. In recent years, the white-bellied heron population has decreased significantly.

As of 2024, it’s estimated there are fewer than 45 left in the world, although the official count stands at 60. It’s endemic to the Indian subcontinent, with approximately 25 individuals sighted in Bhutan, and the rest across the border in India. Conservation efforts for the species are limited and fragmented across the region.

In 2021, the Royal Society for Protection of Nature (RSPN) in Bhutan decided to begin efforts to artificially breed white-bellied herons outside their natural habitat, and the WBHCC was constructed and began operation in 2022. The WBHCC, located in the mountainous areas of south-central Bhutan, a six-hour drive from Bhutan’s capital, Thimphu, is supported by the Royal Government of Bhutan, international donors, agencies, and global philanthropists.

Two of the center’s three herons were collected as chicks from wild nests, and the other was rescued as a wounded bird. The center plans to collect not only chicks but also eggs from wild nests to artificially hatch them in an incubator. This was because monkeys were observed eating the heron’s eggs during incubation.

Since pair-bonded adults build their nests on steep cliffs and high trees, collecting chicks and eggs is extremely dangerous. A single nest typically produces around four eggs, and only 3–4 white-bellied heron pairs have been confirmed to nest in Bhutan.

--

A support team was formed, composed of experts from the Hyogo Park of the oriental white stork and several member associations affiliated with JAZA (Japanese Association of Zoos and Aquariums). These experts had been involved in the captive breeding of oriental storks, Okinawa rails, and Japanese crested ibises. The team visited the WBHCC twice in March and April 2024, during the breeding season, taking the Japanese experience with these birds with them. Equipment and supplies were donated to the WBHCC.

--

Even in Japan, it took more than twenty years to establish the artificial breeding technique for the storks and ibises.

“Japan, which knows the pain of having lost the endemic Japanese lineage and the subsequent efforts that followed, should be the one to make use of its own technique overseas,” said Shimano. “Everyone on the team is committed to supporting the white-bellied heron for the next 20 years.”

--

“There have been past cases where efforts to prevent the extinction of both the crested ibis and the oriental stork have failed. In order to prevent a repeat of this, I hope that by providing the knowledge that Japan has, we can increase the number of these birds, even if only a little,” said Matsumoto.

The team is hopeful that, within 5 to 10 years, when the captive population rises to around 30 individuals, they will release a few into the wild.

[probablyasocialecologist]

Degrowth, and sustainable human development more generally, cannot occur without planning, which allows us to focus on genuine human needs and opens up all sorts of new possibilities blocked by the capitalist system. Capitalism works ex post, through the mediation of the market; planning is ex ante, allowing a straightforward approach to the satisfaction of needs, in line with what Marx in his “Notes on Adolph Wagner” called the “hierarchy of…needs.” Integrated democratic planning operating at all levels of society is the only route to a society of substantive equality and ecological sustainability and to human survival. Markets will still exist, but the path forward ultimately requires social planning in areas of production and investment controlled by the associated producers. This is especially the case in a planetary emergency such as today. As I have indicated, Magdoff and Sweezy argued as far back as May 1974 that stopping growth was essential in the rich economies, given the planetary ecological crisis, but that this needed to be approached more positively in terms of a planned restructuring of production as a whole.

John Bellamy Foster and Arman Spéth, Ecosocialism and Degrowth

[whencyclopedia]

Archaeology

Archaeology is a wide subject and definitions can vary, but broadly, it is the study of the culture and history of past peoples and their societies by uncovering and studying their material remains, i.e. tools, ruins, and pottery. Archaeology and history are different subjects but have things in common and constantly work with each other. While historians study books, tablets, and other written information to learn about the past, archaeologists uncover, date, and trace the source of such items, and in their turn focus on learning through material culture.

As much of human history is prehistoric (before written records), archaeology plays an important role in understanding the past. Different environments and climates help or hinder the survival of materials, e.g. papyri can survive thousands of years in the hot and dry desert but would not survive in damp conditions. Waterlogged conditions, such as bogs, can preserve organic material, like wood, and underwater wrecks are also excavated using diving equipment. Working everywhere from digging in the ground to testing samples in laboratories, archaeology is a wide-ranging discipline and has many subsections of expertise. The two rapidly widening areas are experimental archaeology and ethnoarchaeology. Experimental archaeology tries to recreate ancient techniques, such as glass making or Egyptian beer brewing. Ethnoarchaeology is living among modern ethnic communities, with the purpose of understanding how they hunt, work, and live. Using this information, archaeologists hope to better understand ancient communities.

Archaeology of the Past

Archaeology as an academic study, career, and university subject is a fairly recent development. Nevertheless an interest in the past is not new. Humankind has always been interested in its history. Most cultures have a myth or story that explains their foundation and distant ancestors. Ancient rulers have sometimes collected ancient relics or rebuilt monuments and buildings. This can often be seen as political strategy - a leader wanting to be identified with a great figure or civilisation from the past. On the other hand, ancient leaders have also been known for their curiosity and learning. King Nabonidus of Babylon, for example, had a keen interest in the past and investigated many sites and buildings. In one temple, he found the foundation stone from 2200 years before. He housed his finds in a kind of museum at his capital of Babylon. The Roman and Greek historians wrote books about the past, and the stories of famous heroes and leaders have come down to us.

However, modern archaeology, or at least its theories and practice, stem from the antiquarian tradition. In the 17th and 18th centuries CE, wealthy gentleman scholars, or antiquarians as they are also known, began to collect classical artefacts. Fuelled by interest, they began to make some of the first studies of sites like Pompeii and drew ancient monuments in detail. The first scientific excavation has been attributed to Thomas Jefferson (third president of the United States of America) who dug up some of the burial mounds on his property in the state of Virginia, USA. The beginnings of modern field techniques were pioneered by General Augustus Lane-Fox Pitt Rivers, who excavated barrows at Camborne Chase with systematic recording and procedure. In the USA in the 1960s CE, archaeology went through a phase of new theories, often called processual archaeology. This approach has a scientific approach to questions and designs models to suggest answers and test its theories.

Continue reading...

[johnnycats]

Shadowheart is doing just fine now. She wasn't eating the first day here, so I gave her some Critical Care (which apparently Oxbow no longer makes, uuugggggh), and that seems to have jump-started her GI. She's eating well on her own now. No sign of pneumonia or any other noticeable issues with her heart stopping the other day. So I'd imagine she will be going back for adoption soon.

[whereserpentswalk]

How to get away with Murder.

If you are reading this document you are attempting to get away with murder while in human form if you are looking on how to get away with murder in human inhabited areas without taking human form look at document 5943021-8575840 if you are looking how to get away with taking a human life in the form of an animal or object look at document 4893200-49211211. If you feel you’ve been assinged this document wrongly consult your superior officer.

If you are looking to take the life of a human while in human form it is important before anything to stress that this is extremely frowned upon within human society. Humans cannot recover from death in any known way without assistance from the paranormal. In most cases, committing murder will lead to humans preforming a type of physical bonding spell on you by sealing you away in something known as jail or sometimes something called asylum. If you are in one of these places you will not be able to return to incorporeal form as you are being watched and quantum physics will prevent you from any form of success. There is also a chance that you will die in your human body. As previously stated you do not want to die in your human body. Along with any person consequences the organization will consider you personally responsible.

The first important step as to committing a murder is to be unseen. Your attempts to avoid quantum entanglement have already made you somewhat accustom to this. As corporeal beings human body are most easily destroyed by damaging specific body parts. While in your human body pay attention to the blob on the top of your body, that contains not only several sensory organs, but also a type of soul made out of meat called a brain, this is by far the most vulnerable target. Notable objects that can also be targeted on the human body are what are known as necks (what connects the head to the rest of the human), and the various squishy machines inside of the ribs. Do not attack the long bits of the human known as limbs, if you attack them the human will scream a lot, and you don’t want them to do this as this is known to be a way of summoning other humans. Once you have murdered a human, you may proceed to covering up the murder.

There are many weapons that can be used for murder. While in a human body magic is possible but not recommended, actions comes naturally to humans and magic does not. However, humans have many sorts of objects that can be used for killing each other, and in fact they have made many. There are many sharp pieces of metal known to do that job. A type of metal object known as a gun often is used, perhaps to bludgeon someone, as it is made of metal and rather heavy. Though it is possible guns serve a purpose not yet known to us. Also note that many chemicals interact with human bodies poorly, as does a type of ethereal creature known as fire. But be warned! The Fire will also try to attack you, that we know from experience. Dropping a human from a large height will do it, and so will surrounding the human with enough water, we do not know why this is, some have theorized humans are naturally very afraid of heights and water.

The best way to cover up the murder is to destroy the body. It is possible you could put the body inside of a place humans expect dead things to be, such as a forest, a subway station, a water, a warzone or a garbage this will make humans feel that the body is something normal and not something to be investigated. Better yet, make the human body look homeless (a type of banishment curse humans perform on each other for not properly sacrificing to the high priests of their religion capitalism) and the fact that they are laying dead somewhere sad will be considered especially normal. It may also help to destroy the human’s face and/or fingerprints. Destroying the body totally may also be a recommended strategy, but do not attempt to eat the entire body directly after the murder, we have tried and this has proven itself to be hard if not impossible to attempt no matter how natural it may seem.

If you are caught committing murder, you will be put through a type of ritual known as a trial. The trail is where humans decide weather they like the human who committed the crime more then the person who was a victim of the crime, as to decide if it’s really worth it putting them through their consequences. Remember that jail is bad and that you do not want to go there. The best way to get away with any crime is to have sufficiently pale skin, and sufficiently large amounts of an item known as money. (We recommend this for anyone trying to take on a human body for various reason).

There are other things that you can do to make humans like you enough to not really care that you killed someone. It is best to make sure you cry on television as to make people sympathetic. Make it so you seem like the victim for being accused of murder. Show pictures of yourself with an animal known as a dog. Mention that you have parents (humans are more sympathetic to people who have parents). Mention your love of the piece of land that you’re on, as well as your loyalty to popular capitalist celebrity Jesus Christ. Take on a well desired profession such as police officer, politician, CEO, child of politician, or child of CEO. Avoid certain professions such as criminal, unemployed, drug addict, or YouTuber. In general make it so that the entire ordeal is more about how society treats murder, rather then the exact details of if you killed someone or not. People will say things about how nobody can really know if you killed someone, but it wasn’t fair how the media treated you.

Good job reading. You are now allowed to attempt to kill a human while in human form.

[raavenb2619]

I enjoyed posting my reactions to Koisenu Futari, so I think I'm going to do that going forward with media I'm consuming as I feel like it. (These will tend to be more unpolished reactions and surface level analysis than polished essay deep dives.)

The Murderbot Diaries, book 1: All Systems Red (spoilers under the cut)

Chapter 1

Murder, entertainment, and capitalism all in the first sentence

Failure at being a heartless killing machine is an interesting juxtaposition through an aro lens. Failure to meet societal expectations of normalcy versus failure to fulfill societal arophobic tropes

Getting the vibe this narrator is not gonna be the most reliable

PoV character is an android, so there’s likely to be themes of demihumanity and in-betweenness

Mensah is struggling against bureaucracy in the emergency, so bureaucracy is likely another theme, since it’s somewhat interchangeable with society. Could also lean more towards questions of power, agency, autonomy, as an aro/robot thing.

“It had three compartments: one big one in the middle for the human crew and two smaller ones to each side for cargo, supplies, and me.” Dehumanization/objectification

Cracked governor module as closeted aromantic, hmm.

Are HubSystem and MedSystem part of the PoV character, or external to them? Getting a little Ancillary Justice vibes, which I need to reread and then read the rest of the series.

The PoV character is having to tend to their wounds and healing on their own, which has nonpartnering vibes

Well, no, they’re just second priority.

Yep, unreliable narrator. You are nervous about your governor module. (Hm, very loose connection to Little Lost Robot by Isaac Asimov)

Demihumanity as valuable, because it has agency/free will that pure roboticism would lack

Casual polyamory. Nice.

A “glitch” in HubSystem? This definitely won’t be relevant to the plot later, lol

Chapter 2

Ah, capitalism.

Mm, yeah, autism.

Ah, surveillance capitalism and a lack of privacy. My favorite.

… I’m gonna need to make a relationship diagram to keep track of all that.

“It was a low-stress group, they didn’t argue much or antagonize each other for fun, and were fairly restful to be around, as long as they didn’t try to talk or interact with me in any way.” Lol

“She turned to me with one of those abrupt movements that I had taught myself not to react to.” Autism.

“I said, “I need to check the perimeter,” and managed to turn and leave the crew area in a totally normal way and not like I was fleeing from a bunch of giant hostiles.” XD

“I’d watched three episodes of Sanctuary Moon and was fast forwarding through a sex scene” XD. (Ace sex-repulsed robot can be an acephobic trope, but I’ve heard good things about this series so I’m expecting it won’t be)

“Though I think that even if I did have sex-related parts I would find them boring.)” Yeah okay there’s some ace robot nuance.

Chapter 3

Ah, buddy, you could probably use some therapy.

A second HubSystem glitch. Interesting. To what extent is HubSystem non-diegetically a person?

Chapter 4

“Imitative Human Bot Units are . . . partially constructed from cloned material.” Set up for identity crisis, and/or asexual reproduction jokes

It/its as probably dehumanizing, but could be reclaimed at some point

That’s a lot of combat in a very short amount of time

Hacking via data port ties to loss of autonomy

Chapter 5

So far, an aspec/robot reading of this feels…a little uninteresting? I don’t think it’s that it’s tasteless, it’s just…there’s lots of interesting stuff to say about Asimov’s writing, or DADoES, and about halfway through it doesn’t feel like there’s much to analyze or interpret. An aro robot on itself doesn’t have much room for nuance; the interesting parts of media analysis are usually what’s hidden under the surface, and so far it doesn’t feel like there’s much.

Interesting backstory with the hacked governor module

“I was still watching them through the camera, because it was easier than looking directly at them.” Autism

Good on you, Mensah

Chapter 6

“It’s wrong to think of a construct as half bot, half human. It makes it sound like the halves are discrete, like the bot half should want to obey orders and do its job and the human half should want to protect itself and get the hell out of here. As opposed to the reality, which was that I was one whole confused entity, with no idea what I wanted to do. What I should do. What I needed to do.” Mm. That’s giving thoughts, but I don’t know what they are yet.

Getting some more roboticism, but still feels a bit thin. I’m not sure, maybe that’s just me.

Too expensive to destroy. Interesting.

Chapter 7

Getting adopted/found family vibes, which I’m a fan of

Chapter 8

Yep.

“This was what I was supposed to want. This was what everything had always told me I was supposed to want.” Mm.

“I don’t know what I want. I said that at some point, I think. But it isn’t that, it’s that I don’t want anyone to tell me what I want, or to make decisions for me. That’s why I left you, Dr. Mensah, my favorite human. By the time you get this I’ll be leaving Corporation Rim. Out of inventory and out of sight.” Mm yeah. Yeah.

[alpaca-clouds]

Worldbuild Differently: Unthink Money

This week I want to talk a bit about one thing I see in both fantasy and scifi worldbuilding: Certain things about our world that we live in right now are assumed to be natural, and hence just adapted in the fantasy world. With just one tiny problem: They are not natural, and there were more than enough societies historically that avoided those pitfalls.

Another interesting thing were you can see writers struggling to unthink our world is money. No matter what fantasy world we are talking: We almost always see people paying with money, earning money, selling for money. Money, money, money. Everything is all about the money.

Only that until fairly recently money did actually not play such a big role in human history.

I know, I know. "But there were coins found as far back as..." Yes, they were. But we know that even in cultures that had coin, a lot of interactions happened without coins being exchanged. Yes, coins and some form of money often made it easier to trade if you had certain kinds of jobs, but for the most part a lot of people just exchanged stuff. And mind you: Not with bartering. (Read David Graeber's book in "Dept".) They just exchanged stuff and that was the normal way to go about those things.

Unless you have this kinda global capitalism system we have right now... Actually you do not really need money. There are several ways of making worlds work without money.

If you write fantasy set in a medieval setting, your characters might only interact with money if they are nobility (if you wanna keep it realistic). And if you write some sort of utopian science fiction (something like Solarpunk), there is also a good chance that folks just have gotten rid of money.

I am not saying: "Generally, write moneyless worlds." I am more saying: Think about this. Does money make sense in your world? Does it make things easier? And again: Is it logical to be there?

And you will allow me to bring up the maybe most clear example of a world where money does not make sense: Harry Potter. Rowling is not only a TERF, she is also utterly unable to imagine a world that is not run on Thatcher bullshit, no matter how little sense it makes within that world.

See, money in general exists to a good degree because when you exchange goods you are not just paying for the good but also for the work. And in some cases you just need to pay for work as it is. But... Well, in a world where most work actually does get automated with a simple spell... this does make so little sense. Food production is so much more efficient in this world - and most wizards to live in areas with a lot of land around where they can actually harvest their food.

And then there is the fact that quite a lot of stuff can simply be duplicated and changed around with simple spells. Which makes me wonder: What is money in this world even for? Why would this society run on money? Why would this world - that clearly does not really have a working class (aka people artificially kept poor to have workers) - need to keep people poor?

It just does not make any sense. And it is one of the points were one really notices how the worldbuilding does not really work.

Now, mind you: A lot of authors struggle with this. It is not just Rowling. We see the issues in so many other novels and worlds. I would argue that the way how heavily Faerûn relies on coin money also does not make a whole lot of sense, either, though at the very least that world has a bit of the excuse that the money kinda needs to be there for game reasons. But... there is a reason why I ignore it at times especially when writing about the DnD:HAT crew. (I mean, my Tav kinda relies on money, due to being a service worker.)

We tend to just recreate stuff that is normal to us in the worlds we build... But I am actually gonna argue, that a lot of worlds would be a lot more interesting, when we did not do that.

[lectorel]

Dalish Political Opinions:

I've been working on worldbuilding regarding Dalish culture and beliefs, as a framework for writing stories more focused on Dalish characters and clans. This is a rough draft of what different clans might believe and practice, and how those attitudes could differ.

The Future Homeland:

Building a Neo-Arlathan: The great city should rise again, as the jewel of the Dalish culture. We'll benefit most from having a single, large city with strong defenses and room for the clans to overwinter.

Reclaiming the Dales: The Dales should be ours. We should have a wide range of settlements from tiny homesteads to a capital city, dispersed and defended so that we can never loss everything in a single siege.

Founding a Third Kingdom: We need to find a new place to live and build a kingdom, bringing the best of Arlathan and the Dales to a fresh slate.

Nomadic Life: the Dalish are best served by continuing to be nomads, with only semi-permanent encampments and small settlements. We are best served by finding better ways to bring wealth with us and defend ourselves while on the move, not putting a target on our backs by having a fixed location.

Religion: 

Literalists: These are the stories we have, which we believe are the truth of what happened. The moral and social rules they lay out should be followed as strictly as possible

Reconstructionists: Our myths may be missing information or misconstrued. What matters is that we act in good faith, keeping to the core tenets, and continue searching for more evidence of our past. The details of the rules are less important than the intent.

Functionalist: it doesn't matter if our myths are true or not. What matters is the fact that they're ours, and they show us what it means to be Dalish. Rules can be discarded entirely if they no longer work for a clan.

Diplomacy:

Non-Dalish Elves:

Isolation: we should have nothing to do with anyone outside the Dalish Clans. In an ideal world, we would have a country all our own that no one outside of the clans even knew existed. The elves of the cities are not our concern.

Expansion: we should actively be bringing non-dalish elves into the clans. In an ideal world, all elves would be Dalish.

Collaboration: We should develop positive relationships with elves outside the clans, without recruiting. In an ideal world, the Dalish would be independent but have friends, business partners, lovers, and allies who were of many faiths.

Dwarves:

Alliance: The dwarves' religious beliefs are perfectly compatible with Dalish beliefs, and both groups specialize in areas the other lacks. We're natural allies, and should seek to strengthen ties.

Non-Interference: The dwarves are not our problem, and there is nothing they can offer us that would make it worth getting involved in their politics or the mess of the darkspawn in the deep roads.

Hostility: The dwarves have never helped us, they've never acted even when it would cost them very little. They have no magic. They're not like us, and they can't be trusted.

Humans:

Hostility: Fuck Orlais, fuck tevinter, and fuck everyone who allies with them. Shemlens can't be trusted.

Strategic Ties: Many, if not most, humans are awful, but individual ones can be trustworthy. Maintaining ties with the morally upright among them will keep us safer than a universal rejection.

Sympathy: We have a great deal in common with the poor and unwelcome of human society. What is done to them, and what they do in response, could make them valuable allies if we approached them in the correct way.

Qunari:

Most clans outside of the free marches don't have an opinion about the qunari. Clans within the free marches range from 'well they scared the shems' to 'and they scared us'. It's expected to be a major subject of debate at the next Arlathvhen

Magic:

Political beliefs about magic can generally be split into two attitudes: enthusiastically embracing it, or accepting it with reservations. (There are a few fringe clans who reject it entirely, and require non-mage keepers, firsts, and seconds, and a few more will allow non-mages as keepers without requiring it, but they are very rare.)

Political opinions about magic map very neatly to geographic location - the closer a clan's territory is to Tevinter, the more suspicious that clan is of magic. It was the northernmost clans that took the precept of the three mage minimum and decided it would also be their maximum.

Northern clans, if they're sending extra mages away, will travel south to make sure the young mage isn't picked up by Tevinter. Not doing so can result in a clan's leadership being declared illegitimate at the Arlathvhen.

As a result, most non-Dalish are not aware of the variety of opinions regarding magic, and assume that all Dalish clans allow only three mages.

Dalish clans in Rivain, on the other end of the spectrum, pride themselves on having as many mages as possible, to the point that not having a mage available to be a clan's Second is a bad omen and sign of potential disaster. This has, in the past decade, lead to what the Dalish call 'Rivaini diplomacy' - the practice of Rivaini clans sending members to live with clans adjacent to Tevinter, for the chance to adopt any young mages the clans send away.

[whompthatsucker1981]

real actual nonhostile question with a preamble: i think a lot of artists consider NN-generated images as an existential threat to their ability to use art as a tool to survive under capitalism, and it's frequently kind of disheartening to think about what this is going to do to artists who rely on commissions / freelance storyboarding / etc. i don't really care whether or not nn-generated images are "true art" because like, that's not really important or worth pursuing as a philosophical question, but i also don't understand how (under capitalism) the rise of it is anything except a bleak portent for the future of artists

thanks for asking! i feel like it's good addressing the idea of the existential threat, the fears and feelings that artists have as to being replaced are real, but personally i am cynical as to the extent that people make it out to be a threat. and also i wanna say my piece in defense of discussions about art and meaning.

the threat of automation, and implementation of technologies that make certain jobs obsolete is not something new at all in labor history and in art labor history. industrial printing, stock photography, art assets, cgi, digital art programs, etc, are all technologies that have cut down on the number of art jobs that weren't something you could cut corners and labor off at one point. so why do neural networks feel like more of a threat? one thing is that they do what the metaphorical "make an image" button that has been used countless times in arguments on digital art programs does, so if the fake button that was made up to win an argument on the validity of digital art exists, then what will become of digital art? so people panic.

but i think that we need to be realistic as to what neural net image generation does. no matter how insanely huge the data pool they pull from is, the medium is, in the simplest terms, limited as to the arrangement of pixels that are statistically likely to be together given certain keywords, and we only recognize the output as symbols because of pattern recognition. a neural net doesn't know about gestalt, visual appeal, continuity, form, composition, etc. there are whole areas of the art industry that ai art serves especially badly, like sequential arts, scientific illustration, drafting, graphic design, etc. and regardless, neural nets are tools. they need human oversight to work, and to deal with the products generated. and because of the medium's limitations and inherent jankiness, it's less work to hire a human professional to just do a full job than to try and wrangle a neural net.

as to the areas of the art industry that are at risk of losing job opportunities to ai like freelance illustration and concept art, they are seen as replaceable to an industry that already overworks, underpays, and treats them as disposable. with or without ai, artists work in precarized conditions without protections of organized labor, even moreso in case of freelancers. the fault is not of ai in itself, but in how it's yielded as a tool by capital to threaten workers. the current entertainment industry strikes are in part because of this, and if the new wga contract says anything, it's that a favorable outcome is possible. pressure capital to let go of the tools and question everyone who proposes increased copyright enforcement as the solution. intellectual property serves capital and not the working artist.

however, automation and ai implementation is not unique to the art industry. service jobs, manufacturing workers and many others are also at risk at losing out jobs to further automation due to capital's interest in maximizing profits at the cost of human lives, but you don't see as much online outrage because they are seen as unskilled and uncreative. the artist is seen as having a prestige position in society, if creativity is what makes us human, the artist symbolizes this belief - so if automation comes for the artist then people feel like all is lost. but art is an industry like any other and artists are not of more intrinsic value than any manual laborer. the prestige position of artist also makes artists act against class interest by cooperating with corporations and promoting ip law (which is a bad thing. take the shitshow of the music industry for example), and artists feel owed upward social mobility for the perceived merits of creativity and artistic genius.

as an artist and a marxist i say we need to exercise thinking about art, meaning and the role of the artist. the average prompt writer churning out big titty thomas kinkade paintings posting on twitter on how human made art will become obsolete doesnt know how to think about art. art isn't about making pretty pictures, but is about communication. the average fanartist underselling their work doesn't know that either. discussions on art and meaning may look circular and frustrating if you come in bad faith, but it's what exercises critical thinking and nuance.

[mariacallous]

It’s almost that magical time of year that the Humane Society of America likens to a “natural disaster.” Kitten season.

“The level of emotions for months on end is so draining,” said Ann Dunn, director of Oakland Animal Services, a city-run shelter in the San Francisco Bay Area. “And every year we just know it’s going to get harder.”

Across the United States, summer is the height of “kitten season,” typically defined as the warm-weather months between spring and fall during which a cat becomes most fertile. For over a decade, animal shelters across the country have noted kitten season starting earlier and lasting longer. Some experts say the effects of climate change, such as milder winters and an earlier start to spring, may be to blame for the uptick in feline birth rates.

This past February, Dunn’s shelter held a clinic for spaying and neutering outdoor cats. Although kitten season in Northern California doesn’t typically kick off until May, organizers found that over half of the female cats were already pregnant. “It’s terrifying,” Dunn said. “It just keeps getting earlier and going later.”

Cats reproduce when females begin estrus, more commonly known as “going into heat,” during which hormones and behavior changes signal she’s ready to mate. Cats can go into heat several times a year, with each cycle lasting up to two weeks. But births typically go up between the months of April and October. While it’s well established that lengthening daylight triggers a cat’s estrus, the effect of rising temperatures on kitten season isn’t yet understood.

One theory is that milder winters may mean cats have the resources to begin mating sooner. “No animal is going to breed unless they can survive,” said Christopher Lepczyk, an ecologist at Auburn University and prominent researcher of free-ranging cats. Outdoor cats’ food supply may also be increasing, as some prey, such as small rodents, may have population booms in warmer weather themselves. Kittens may also be more likely to survive as winters become less harsh. “I would argue that temperature really matters,” he said.

Others, like Peter J. Wolf, a senior strategist at the Best Friends Animal Society, think the increase comes down to visibility rather than anything biological. As the weather warms, Wolf says, people may be getting out more and noticing kittens earlier in the year than before. Then they bring them into shelters, resulting in rescue groups feeling like kitten season is starting earlier.

Regardless of the exact mechanism, having a large number of feral cats around means trouble for more than just animal shelters. Cats are apex predators that can wreak havoc on local biodiversity. Research shows that outdoor cats on islands have already caused or contributed to the extinction of an estimated 33 species. Wild cats pose an outsized threat to birds, which make up half their diet. In Hawaii, known as a bird extinction capital of the world, cats are the most devastating predators of wildlife. “We know that cats are an invasive, environmental threat,” said Lepczyk, who has published papers proposing management policies for outdoor cats.

Scientists, conservationists, and cat advocates all agree that unchecked outdoor cat populations are a problem, but they remain deeply divided on solutions. While some conservationists propose the targeted killing of cats, known as culling, cat populations have been observed to bounce back quickly, and a single female cat and her offspring can produce at least 100 descendants, if not thousands, in just seven years.

Although sterilization protocols such as “trap, neuter, and release” are favored by many cat rescue organizations, Lepczyk said it’s almost impossible to do it effectively, in part because of how freely the animals roam and how quickly they procreate. Without homes or sanctuaries after sterilization, returning cats outside means they may have a low quality of life, spread disease, and continue to harm wildlife. “No matter what technique you use, if you don’t stop the flow of new cats into the landscape, it’s not gonna matter,” said Lepczyk.

Rescue shelters, already under strain from resource and veterinary shortages, are scrambling to confront their new reality. While some release materials to help the community identify when outdoor kittens need intervention, others focus on recruiting for foster volunteer programs, which become essential caring for kittens who need around-the-clock care.

“As the population continues to explode, how do we address all these little lives that need our help?” Dunn said. “We’re giving this everything we have.”