#dystopia rising new jersey

[spacecrone]

Sorry, Cassandra.

So, it's definite then

It's written in the stars, darlings

Everything must come to an end - Susanne Sundfør

I first learned about the climate crisis in 2008, as an undergrad at Hunter College, in a class called The History and Science of Climate Change. For the next decade I would struggle with how to process and act on the scientific paradigm shift climate change required: that human activity could disrupt the climate system and create a planetary ecosystem shift making Earth uninhabitable to human life. I became a climate justice activist and attempted to work directly on The Problem which was actually, as philosopher Timothy Morton writes, a hyperobject, something so systemic and enormous in size and scope as to be almost unintelligible to human awareness. I’ve cycled through probably every single response a person could have to this knowledge, despair, ecstasy, rage, hope. I’ve landed somewhere close to what I might call engaged bewilderment. For me, his particular locale has a soundtrack, and it’s Susanne Sundfør’s cinematic dance dystopia Ten Love Songs, an album that tells a story of love and loss in the Anthropocene. Sundfør is a sonic death doula for the Neoliberal project, with a uniquely Scandinavian version of bleak optimism. To truly grapple with this time of escalating transition, we need to really face what is, not what we hope or fear will be, but what is actually happening. A throbbing beat with shimmering synths around which to orient your dancing mortal envelope can’t hurt.

Susanne Sundfør’s Ten Love Songs was released a few days after Valentine’s Day in February of 2015, six months after I had been organizing Buddhists and meditators for the Peoples Climate March.  I was already a fan, having first heard her voice as part of her collaboration with dreamy synth-pop outfit m83 on the Oblivion soundtrack. Oblivion was visually striking but felt like a long music video. The soaring synths and Sundfør’s powerful voice drove the plot more than the acting, though I loved how Andrea Riseborough played the tragic character Vika, whose story could have been more central to the plot but was sidelined for a traditional Tom Cruise romantic centerpiece. But since the movie was almost proud of its style over investment in substance, the music stood out. The soundscapes were as expansive as the green-screened vistas of 2077  in the movie. It was just nostalgic enough while also feeling totally new, a paradox encapsulated in the name of m83’s similarly wistful and sweeping Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming.  I am not exempt from taking comfort in style that signifies a previous era, and I am also not alone in it. It’s a huge industry, and while the MAGA-style yearning for a previous era is one manifestation, maybe there are ways to acknowledge culture as cyclical in a way that doesn’t sacrifice traditional knowledge to some imagined myth of perpetual progress.

When Ten Love Songs came out the following year, I listened to it on repeat for days.  Sundfør seemed to have absorbed the music-driven sci-fi into a concept album, with m83 providing her with a whole new panopoly of sounds at her disposal. Like Oblivion,  Ten Love Songs told the story of a future dystopia with high speed chases, nihilistic pleasure-seeking and operatic decadence against a backdrop of technocratic inequality. It mixed electro-pop with chamber music and I listened to it on a Greyhound ride to Atlantic City in the middle of snowy February. I hadn’t felt like this since high school, that a full album was a sort of soundtrack to my own life, which I could experience as cinematic in some way while the music was playing. This situated me in my own story, of studying climate change as an undergrad and graduating into a financial collapse, working as a personal assistant to an author writing about ecological collapse and ritual use of psychedelics, to joining a Buddhist community and organizing spiritual activists around climate justice. 

Ten Love Songs is a breakup album, with lyrics telling of endings and running out of time. But it didn’t read to me as an album about a single human romantic relationship coming to an end. It felt like a series of vignettes about the planet and its ecosphere breaking up with us, all of us. People. Some songs like Accelerate, one of the album’s singles, throb in an anthem to nihilistic numbness and speeding up into a catastrophe that feels inevitable. Fade Away is a bit lighter, tonally and lyrically, (and if you listen, please note the exquisitely perfect placement of what sounds like a toaster “ding!”), but is still about fading away, falling apart. The way the songs seem to drive a narrative of anthropocenic collapse built on science fiction film scores, the combination of orchestra and techno-pop, absolutely draws on Sundfør’s experience collaborating with m83 for the Oblivion soundtrack, which itself combined Anthony Gonzalez’s love for the adult-scripted teen dramas of his own 80’s adolescence. In Ten Love Songs, Sundfør takes what she learned from this collaboration and scores not a movie but a life experience of living through ecological collapse and all of the heartbreak and desire that erupts in a time when everything seems so close to the knife’s edge.

I am reminded of another Scandinavian dance album that was extremely danceable yet harbored within it a sense of foreboding. The Visitors, ABBA’s eighth studio album, was considered their venture into more mature and complex music. The two couples who comprised the band had divorced the year before it was released, and the entire atmosphere of the album is paranoid, gloomy, and tense. The cover shows the four musicians, on opposite sides of a dark room, ignoring each other. Each song is melancholy and strange in its own way, unique for a pop ensemble like Abba. One song in particular showcases their ability to use an archetype of narrative tragedy and prophesy to tell the story of regret. Cassandra is sung from the perspective of those who didn’t heed the woman cursed by Zeus to foretell the future but never be believed. 

I have always considered myself a pretty big Abba fan, something my high school choir instructor thought was riotously funny. I was born in the 80’s and nobody in my family liked disco, so I seemed like something of an anachronism. But pop music, especially synth-oriented pop, has always felt like a brain massage to me. It could get my inner motor moving when I felt utterly collapsed in resignation to the scary chaos of my early life. But I only discovered the song Cassandra in 2017, while giving The Visitors a full listen. It felt like I had never heard the song before, though, as a fan I must have. But something about 2015 made the song stand out more. It starts with piano, soft tambourine, and the ambient sound of a harbor. It has a coastal Mediterranean vibe, as some Abba songs do, foreshadowing Cassandra’s removal from her home city, an event she foretold but could not get anyone to believe. It’s a farewell song of regret, echoing the regret the members of Abba felt about their own breakups. 

We feel so full of promise at the dawn of a new relationship. Only after the split can we look back and say we saw the fissures in the bond. The signs were there. Why did we ignore them? This happens on an individual level but the Cassandra paradox is an archetype that climate scientists and journalists are very familiar with. This particular Abba song, and the Visitors album overall, uses this archetype to tell the story of a breakup in retrospect. With climate change, the warnings have been there, even before science discovered the rising carbon in the atmosphere. Indigenous peoples have been warning of ecological collapse since colonization began. Because of white supremacy and an unwavering belief in “progress,” perpetual economic and technological development and growth, warnings from any source but especially marginalized sources have been noise to those who benefit from that perpetual growth model and from white supremacy itself. Is there a way to undo the Cassandra curse and render warnings signal BEFORE some major event turns us all into the chorus from Abba’s song, singing “some of us wanted- but none of us could--  listen to words of warning?” Composer Pauline Oliveros called listening a radical act. It is especially so when we listen actively to the sounds and signals of those we would otherwise overlook.

When I look back at my life in the time that Sundfør’s Ten Love Songs and m83’s movie music seems nostalgic for, the late 1980’s in New Jersey,  I was a child with deeply dissociative and escapist tendencies, which helped me survive unresolved grief, loss, and chaos. I recognize my love for Abba’s hypnotic synth music as a surrendering to the precise and driving rhythm of an all-encompassing sound experience. I also see how my early life prepared me to be sensitized to the story climate science was telling when I finally discovered it in 2008. I had already grown up with Save the Whales assemblies and poster-making contests, with a heavy emphasis on cutting six-pack rings so that sea life would not be strangled to death. I knew what it was like to see something terrible happening all around you and to feel powerless to stop it, because of the way my parents seemed incapable of and unsupported in their acting out their own traumatic dysregulation. Wounds, unable to heal, sucking other people into the abyss. I escaped through reading science fiction, listening to music like Abba and Aphex Twin loud enough to rattle my bones. I wanted to overwhelm my own dysregulated nervous system. I dreamed of solitude on other planets, sweeping grey vistas, being the  protagonist of my own story where nothing ever hurt because ice ran through my veins and the fjords around me. My home planet was dying, and nobody could hear those of us screaming into the wind about it.

Ten Love Songs woke up that lost cosmic child who had banished herself to another solar system. Songs of decadence, songs of endings, songs of loss. Though that album was not overtly about climate change, Sundfør did talk about ecological collapse in interviews for her radically different follow-up album Music For People In Trouble. After the success of Ten Love Songs, Sundfør chose to travel to places that she said “might not be around much longer” in order to chronicle the loss of the biosphere for her new album. It is more expressly and urgently about the current global political moment, but the seeds for those themes were present and in my opinion much more potent in the poppier album. But maybe that’s the escapist in me.

The old forms that brought us to this point are in need of end-of-life care. Capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchal theocratic nationalism, neoliberalism, they all need death doulas. Escapism makes sense in response to traumatic stimulus, and for many of us it may have helped us survive difficult circumstances. But if we are to face what it means to be alive on this planet at this moment, we might be here to be present to and help facilitate and ease the process of putting these systems to rest. And maybe this work is not at odds with a dance party. The ability to be visionary about shared alternatives to these dying systems is not inherently escapist, when we are willing to take the steps together to live into those new stories. What would happen if cursed Cassandras, instead of pleading with existing power structures to heed warnings that sound like noise to them, turned to each other to restore the civic body through listening, through bearing witness to each others unacknowledged and thwarted grief over losses unacknowledged by those same systems of coercive power?

Engaged bewilderment means my version of hope, informed by Rebecca Solnit’s work on the topic, comes from the acceptance that things will happen that I could never have imagined possible. Climate change is happening and there are certain scientific certainties built into that trajectory. Some of it is written in the stars. But as with any dynamic system change, we do not know exactly how it will all shake out. These unknowns can be sources of fear and despair, but there is also the possibility for agency, choice and experimentation. The trajectory of my individual life was always going to end in death. Does that make it a failure? Or does it render each choice and engagement of movement towards the unknown an ecstatic act? As the old forms collapse, no need to apologize to the oracles. At this point they are dancing, and hope you’ll join.

[straykidsupdate]

Stray Kids Is Your Next K-Pop Obsession — Here’s Why

Just a little over a year after exploding onto the K-pop scene, the young nine-member boy band Stay Kids stands onstage thousands of miles away from their home in Seoul. The New Jersey Performing Arts Center is packed with thousands of fans, called STAY. The majority female audience — strikingly diverse in ethnicity and age — is shouting the opening “na-na”s of “My Pace,” the band’s gritty breakout hit about trusting in your own path and not comparing yourself to others. It’s one thing to hear it on the track, but another entirely to hear it thundering from nearly 3,500 young people in a cavernous space. It’s an empowering, rollicking battle cry.

K-pop has often been likened to a “factory” by the media — a “machine” that pumps out bands on a conveyor belt and hands them hollow, algorithmic pop songs to lip-sync as they move in perfect synchronization. The new generation of South Korean pop groups proves that stereotype resoundingly false. And few subvert it more than Stray Kids — with members Bang Chan, Woojin, Seungmin, Hyunjin, Changbin, HAN, Lee Know, Felix, and I.N — whose inventive mix of EDM, rap, and rock rebel against the norm, and whose sincere, self-penned lyrics are inspiring the rising generation to speak up, because they have something to say.

“We want to be remembered as a team that not only makes good music, but makes the kind of music that really influences and helps people,” fox-faced vocalist and youngest member I.N tells Refinery29 ahead of the second the band’s two sold out shows in Newark, the first stop on the on the U.S. leg of their “UNVEIL Tour 'I am…' world tour. “That's one of our biggest dreams.”

“I don't think it's fair for anyone to say K-pop is a machine. It’s a stereotype." BANG CHAN

Ingrained in Stray Kids’ DNA is their creative agency. Bang Chan, Changbin, and HAN — known as 3racha — have written and produced the majority of the group's discography, but all nine members have had writing credits on their work, which isn't often seen from young bands in the industry. This ownership has allowed them to experiment and play with their sound, and even their videos — many of their visuals are of them singing and goofing off, filmed on GoPros (as one does when not questioning your entire existence). It’s also allowed them to showcase each member’s versatility. While many K-pop group members usually have defined roles within a group, there’s a joke within the fandom that Stray Kids sometimes feels like it has nine rappers and nine vocalists — whether it’s vocalist Lee Know dishing a scorching opening rap in “District 9,” or rapper Hyunjin letting his gentle tenor shine in “불면증 (Insomnia).”

It’s also this personal, hands-on approach that not only allows them to tell their stories as authentically as possible, but has allowed them to speak even more directly to their fans. This line of communication to the generation they speak for is the most vital to their success thus far, so the perception that their work could be anything but personal is ill-conceived.

“I don't think it's fair for anyone to say K-pop is a machine. It’s a stereotype,” says Bang Chan, turning contemplative. “But I think the reason why people might think that is because the way K-pop is built is very well-organized, and performance-wise everything is precise and well-crafted. What some people probably don’t understand is that we think of it as a gateway that allows artists to reach out to their fans.”

Stray Kids discography weaves a narrative that begins with the fictional dystopia of District 9, in which they are prisoners of a suffocating system that tries to define them. They then explored their own identities throughout the group’s I Am… trilogy as they grappled with questions that plague both them and their fans, who are growing up along with them.

“The question that we always come back to, that everyone asks themselves, that I ask myself is, 'Who am I?'” says 21-year-old Australia-raised leader Bang Chan. “I think I've been thinking about that from a really young age. Honestly right now I haven't found out who I am, and I'm still trying to figure that out. Through our music we wanted to express that and reach out to those who feel the same way, so we can have a connection with one another.”

In March, they released a new, more confident chapter of their story, Clé 1: Miroh, led by the massive, boisterous single “Miroh.” Pulsing with brassy beats and lion’s roars, the song, according to rapid-fire rapper Changbin is about “gaining the confidence to face new challenges.” The visual, set in a Hunger Games-esque world, finds the members organizing a rebellion and literally grabbing the mic from the elite class in charge.

If anything, this is the machine that Stray Kids actively fight against — societal expectations and unmanageable pressure put on young people today. And while songs on Clé 1: Miroh such as “Victory Song” and “Boxer” share the same dauntless spirit, the group still leave room for vulnerability. “19” is a haunting, echoing song written by HAN about his fears as he teeters on the cusp of adulthood.

“When I was 19 [Koreans calculate age differently], going into my twenties, I was excited to become an adult,” says HAN. “But as the time actually came closer, I had so many emotions and thoughts running through my head. I was scared, but I wanted to express my feelings to my fans who are going through the same thing through this song.”

Before Stray Kids debuted as a group, they were on a self-titled musical competition TV series. Felix and Lee Know were cut from the group, to the devastation of the other members, but were later added again after proving themselves once more. This emotional rollercoaster that the members endured is partially to thank for their close bond, and why the group treat each other and their STAYs like family. That and the examples set by their own families growing up.

“When we were young, whenever we went through hard times, my mom would always try to cheer me and my sisters up,” says Australian-Korean Felix, whose deep bass tone is in striking contrast to his lithe stature. “This example of loving and supporting one another is something I carry with me constantly. She inspired me to want to help other people, make others feel better by surprising or comforting them.”

“I'm so thankful to my mom for giving me unconditional love,” adds honey-voiced eldest member Woojin. “I learned a lot from her — she takes so much care in how she interacts with other people and keeps good, healthy relationships with the people around her as well.”

This all helped build the foundation of what Stray Kids is today — a group of young people who, by acknowledging their fears and faults, want nothing more than to unite with those who understand them across language and geographic borders, using the tools at their disposal. And even with only a year under their belts, it looks as if their message is already resonating.

“Each and every one of you have your own special story, right?,” Bang Chan said as the Newark show neared its close, and after fans finished a vibrant “We love you!” chant to the nine young men on stage. “[...] So I feel like today is not just STAY and people being in this beautiful venue: it’s a thousand stories all inside this really big space. I’m just glad that through music — and through the music that we make — we can gather all these stories and relate to each other. I think that’s really fantastic.”

Article Source: here

[berniesrevolution]

After a scorching summer of discontent, Donald Trump’s endless tweets and scandals have given Democrats their best chance to retake Congress since George W Bush’s second term. And yet, insurgent progressives are not limiting themselves to dethroning Republicans: they are taking aim at corporate-friendly Democrats within their own party, too.

Amid an upsurge of populist energy that has alarmed the Democratic establishment, a new wave of left-leaning insurgents have been using Democratic primaries to wage a fierce war on the party’s corporate wing. And, as in past presidential primary battles, many Democratic consultants, politicians and pundits have insisted that the party must prioritize unity and resist grassroots pressure to support a more forceful progressive agenda.

Not surprisingly, much of that analysis comes from those with career stakes in the status quo. Their crude attempts to stamp out any dissent or intraparty discord negates a stark truth: liberal America’s pattern of electing corporate Democrats – rather than progressives – has been a big part of the problem that led to Trump and that continues to make America’s economic and political system a neo-feudal dystopia.

Dislodging those corporate Democrats, then, is not some counterproductive distraction – it is a critical front in the effort to actually make America great again.

Right now, there are eight blue states where Democrats control the governorship and the legislature, and five other blue states where Democrats have often had as much or more legislative power than Republicans. These states, plus myriad cities under Democratic rule, collectively oversee one of the planet’s largest economies. Laws enacted in these locales can set national and global standards, and in the process, concretely illustrate a popular progressive agenda. Such an agenda in liberal America could rebrand the Democratic party as an entity that is actually serious about challenging the greed of the 1%, fighting corruption, and making day-to-day life better for the 99%.

Instead, though, liberal America has often produced something much different and less appealing: Democratic politicians who constantly echo courageous populist themes in speeches, news releases and election ads, and then often uses the party’s governmental power to protect the status quo and serve corporate donors in their interminable class war.

Take California: a state where Democrats control the governorship, every state constitutional office and a legislative supermajority. With healthcare premiums rising, polls show 70% of Americans support the creation of a government-sponsored healthcare system. Considering that Canada’s healthcare system first began in its provinces, California would seem a perfect place to create the first such system in the United States. There is just one problem: Democrats are using their power to shut down single-payer legislation as they rake in big money from private insurance and drug companies.

On the opposite coast, it is the same story. A solidly Democratic New York, Connecticut and New Jersey have declined to take up single payer, and have also refused to pass legislation closing special “carried interest” tax loopholes that benefit a handful of Wall Street moguls. As those tax breaks drain public revenue, state officials simultaneously plead poverty in justifying cuts to basic social safety net programs – even as they offermassive taxpayer subsidies to corporations such as Amazon and play host to an endless series of pay-to-play corruption scandals that see wealthy campaign contributors enriched at the public trough.

Even in deep blue Rhode Island – where Democrats are so dominant the 113 member legislature has only 17 Republicans – then-treasurer Gina Raimondo and her fellow Democrats chose to stake their brand on a plan thateviscerated retirement benefits for teachers, firefighters, cops and other public sector workers. Raimondo, a former financial executive whose firm received state investments, also shifted billions of dollars of public workers’ retirement savings into politically connected hedge funds and private equity firms that charge outsized fees, but often generate returns that lag a cheap stock index fund.

Every now and again, this grotesquerie spills out into public view in ways that cannot be ignored. In New Jersey, for instance, state Democratic lawmakers who spent years slamming Republican governor Chris Christie for refusing to pass a millionaires tax quickly delayed and then watered down the same tax proposal when Democrats reclaimed the governorship. Meanwhile, on the other side of the Hudson river, New York Democratic governor Andrew Cuomo shut down an anti-corruption commission, his top aide was later convicted on corruption charges – and yet Cuomo was rewarded with support from top Democrats as well as an endorsement from New York Times higher-ups right on liberal America’s editorial page.

Now sure, if this behavior was just limited to either side of the country, it could be written off as the effete fiddling-while-Rome-burns antics of the coastal elite. Things, though, aren’t much different in the middle of the country.

Here in Colorado, where Democrats have been winning elections, the party machine joined with Republicans in 2016 to help the insurance industry crush a universal healthcare ballot measure. At the same time, the administration of Democratic governor John Hickenlooper – a 2020 presidential hopeful – has threatened to sue local communities that try to regulate fossil fuel development.

(Continue Reading)

[katjohnadams]

My friend Lee (Possumsnout) made this! It’s my LARP character, Sung Bae (Dystopia Rising, New Jersey)! And this is very perfectly their “I’m gonna go make trouble” face xD

Check Lee’s work out on Facebook and Instagram!

[dealingwithaces]

My friend @ninzington drew my character from Dystopia Rising (New Jersey branch), Sung Bae! It’s gorgeous and I love this so much! I adore the little hint of a smirk and curly smoke and the blood and the 33! Also, super props for using the “blood” to do their red face paint! Honestly, this is the second piece of art of my little Ascensorite Final Knight hedge witch and I love it so much! I may have to embroider some square little table cloth with 33′s in the corners, now!

🌒🌓🌔🌕🌖🌗🌘

[themetalwanderlust]

Album Review: Rise of the Merciless - Dystopia A.D.

Album Review: Rise of the Merciless – Dystopia A.D.

Dystopia A.D., the now two-man Progressive/Technical Death Metal outfit from New Jersey return with their second album, “Rise of the Merciless”. For this release, project mastermind Chris Whitby is joined by lead guitarist Aki Shishido, who was one of the many guest lead guitarists featured on the previous album, 2018’s “Designing Ruin” and whilst that was a very good album in its own right “Ris…

[richincolor]

Everyone, please welcome debut author Axie Oh to Rich in Color! We’re thrilled to have her here–I absolutely loved her novel, Rebel Seoul, and you can read my review here.

Rebel Seoul is one of the newest offerings from Tu Books, and you definitely need to check it out:

After a great war, the East Pacific is in ruins. In brutal Neo Seoul, where status comes from success in combat, ex-gang member Lee Jaewon is a talented pilot rising in the ranks of the academy. Abandoned as a kid in the slums of Old Seoul by his rebel father, Jaewon desires only to escape his past and prove himself a loyal soldier of the Neo State.

When Jaewon is recruited into the most lucrative weapons development division in Neo Seoul, he is eager to claim his best shot at military glory. But the mission becomes more complicated when he meets Tera, a test subject in the government’s supersoldier project. Tera was trained for one purpose: to pilot one of the lethal God Machines, massive robots for a never-ending war.

With secret orders to report on Tera, Jaewon becomes Tera’s partner, earning her reluctant respect. But as respect turns to love, Jaewon begins to question his loyalty to an oppressive regime that creates weapons out of humans. As the project prepares to go public amidst rumors of a rebellion, Jaewon must decide where he stands—as a soldier of the Neo State, or a rebel of the people.

Pacific Rim meets Korean action dramas in this mind-blowing, New Visions Award-winning science fiction debut.

I knew the moment I read the synopsis I would love it. Now on to the interview!

Rebel Seoul was one of the winners of the New Visions Award. Can you tell us more about why you decided to enter the contest and what it was like to work with the staff at Tu Books?

I first heard about the contest at ALA in 2014, where I was given a brochure at the Lee & Low booth. I had begun to query REBEL SEOUL (titled something else at the time), and was getting a lot of feedback along the lines of: “dystopia is dead.” This was before WNDB really took off, so I accepted this as fact (now, I would argue – yes, maybe there are a lot of books set in American dystopias with white protagonists, but very few with POC protagonists in a non-Western or even Western setting). When I got the brochure, I really loved Tu Books’ mission statement to diversify children’s literature. I was also inspired to write REBEL SEOUL in part after reading Cindy Pon’s short story “Blue Skies” in the Tu Books’ anthology DIVERSE ENERGIES. So when I sent in my cover letter with my application, I comped my book to that short story! Since winning, everyone at Tu Books has been super supportive and awesome. I’m really proud, honored and grateful to be a part of their list. P.S. Cindy wrote a beautiful blurb for REBEL SEOUL!

Science-fiction often gives an author the opportunity to extrapolate upon the present to reshape the world. What drew you to creating a militaristic world like Neo Seoul? What were your favorite parts about building this world?

This is exactly it – I extrapolated upon the present. In the world of REBEL SEOUL, Seoul is divided into Old Seoul and Neo Seoul, and I based that concept on Seoul’s present-day geography, as Seoul is naturally divided by the Han River. North of the Han River is Gyeongbokgung (Gyeongbok Palace) and some of the older parts of the city and south of the Han River is the Gangnam district and some of the newer areas, hence Old and Neo (New). All the landmarks and districts are the same. Seoul has a very extensive subway system and lots of taxis and shopping areas and billboards, so I just made that all “futuristic.” Really, I did no world building. It’s all there already!

The militaristic world came from a childhood spent watching a lot of sci-fi anime, which oftentimes have plotlines of war or rebellion. Again, I extrapolated from the present, like the idea of mandatory military service, which is a requirement in South Korea for males. In my alt-future, it’s a requirement for all citizens.

My favorite parts of building this world were those moments when I could extrapolate from what already exists, where I could add in a scene that felt true to me that I hoped would resonate with others. One of my favorite scenes I put into the novel is when Jaewon goes through the funeral home of a hospital (funeral homes are often in hospitals in Seoul), and he comes across a mother mourning her son. The whole scene is something I’ve experienced in my own life during memorial services, and I wanted to show through the scene a love and reverence for the moment.

One of the things I really admired about Rebel Seoul was that the characters all had rich lives before the start of the story. Tell us more about Jaewon and Tera’s development as characters.

With Jaewon, I was inspired by Korean dramas. He’s pretty typical of protagonists in high school K-dramas, a loner with a heart of gold. I think the appeal of these characters is that we can trust and put our faith in them. Although they make mistakes and stumble, they never give up, and this gives us hope as viewers. I wanted to channel this feeling with Jaewon. I began with this character archetype and then layered him with a family, friends, history and dreams. As for Tera, her characterization came more from anime. She’s similar to a lot of characters in sci-fi/mecha anime, like Heero from Gundam Wing or Soma Peries from Gundam 00. She’s a government experiment, trained and manipulated since birth for a “greater purpose,” but coming into her own person, discovering her own dreams and desires.

Jaewon and Tera are one of my favorite battle couples in YA. Who are some of your favorite battle couples, romantic or not?

Minho and Thomas from THE MAZE RUNNER. I’ve only read the first book and seen the films, but I love their friendship, and how together they protect the group. Will & Lyra from His Dark Materials. I love them both so much as individuals. But together, they’re unbeatable. Not YA, but I love Relena & Heero from Gundam Wing. I love how they’re both strong individuals with their own goals and motivations, yet in times of vulnerability, seek each other for warmth and comfort.

Family, both biological and of the found/friendship/soulmate variety, had a huge impact on Jaewon and his motivations throughout the novel. Why did you place so much weight on these relationships in Rebel Seoul? What interested you in those types of stories?

Again, going back to K-dramas and anime, K-dramas often focus on family and close friendships, and anime on found families and soulmates. These are themes that come up in the media I love and consume, so it felt natural as I wrote the story to incorporate them into REBEL SEOUL. In general, I love all types of relationships – I didn’t specifically start off thinking, okay I’m going to have a bromance or a team of four very different individuals who come together as friends and partners – it just sort of happened! And K-dramas always have four main characters (two leads, two secondary leads), so that formation came naturally into my storytelling.

If you could pilot any giant robot (whether from Rebel Seoul or another fictional universe), which would it be and why?

Gundam Deathscythe Hell!!! This is the upgraded gundam Duo Maxwell pilots in Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz, the animated film following the television series. It’s just so cool! It specializes in stealth and close combat. It wields a large SCYTHE and has bat wings and cloaking armor that allows it invisibility. Plus, I love Duo. I feel like if I took a “which gundam pilot are you” character quiz, I would get him.

What books by or about people of color or people from First/Native Nations are you looking forward to this year? Or that have already come out this year?

It hasn’t come out yet, but I read and loved FOREST OF A THOUSAND LANTERNS by Julie C. Dao. It’s an exciting and thought-provoking villainess origin story inspired by the evil queen in Snow White and Chinese court dramas. Looking forward to: WARCROSS by Marie Lu, STARFISH by Akemi Dawn Bowman & TRAIL OF LIGHTNING by Rebecca Roanhorse.

Some books I already read and loved: WANT by Cindy Pon, I BELIEVE IN A THING CALLED LOVE by Maurene Goo and THE EPIC CRUSH OF GENIE LO by F. C. Yee!

Is there anything else you would like to tell us about Rebel Seoul or your other work? What can we look forward to from you next?

Right now I’m working on a YA fantasy inspired by a Korean folktale. Fantasy with a dash of romance were always my favorite kinds of books as a teen (think: BEAUTY by Robin McKinley or HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE by Diana Wynne Jones), so I’m indulging that love of mine, and combining it with the culture and myths that I grew up with!

Axie Oh is a first generation Korean American, born in NYC and raised in New Jersey. She studied Korean history and creative writing as an undergrad at the University of California – San Diego and holds an MFA from Lesley University in Writing for Young People. Her passions include K-pop, anime, stationery supplies, and milk tea. She currently resides in Las Vegas, Nevada with her puppy, Toro.

You can find out more about her at her website or follow her on twitter.

[jeramylarp]

Where Are All the Larpers?

Around 8 years ago, I began telling people I thought that larping was about to break into the mainstream, and that we’d see a large influx of new people coming into the hobby.  While I think that larping is more well known, and there are more people playing now than there have ever been...the explosion I anticipated never came to pass, and what’s more, I am no longer certain it will. Oh, I certainly hope it will, but after 8 years, I have begun to grow skeptical.   Like many of us, when I started larping, I would avoid describing what I did...not so much out of embarrassment, but because it was a secret cool thing I did, and honestly I just didn’t want to have to explain it...I didn’t know how.  This has not been true for a very long time now, and I will talk larping at little to no provocation with complete strangers.  With the movie Role Models, and the publicity garnered by large scale larp productions, most people at least have a vague concept of what larping is.  It has gotten easier to sell people on this crazy thing we do...but they aren’t biting in the way I would have expected. As someone who is relatively connected to the greater larp community, especially in the New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania area, I am aware of a lot of projects coming down the pipe.  There are at least 6 organizations, that I know of, opening campaign larps within the area in the next year.  To put it bluntly, not all of them will survive.  The local market is saturated, and has been for a long time.  I could rattle off 20 larps that play within 2 hours of my home, most of them monthly or semi-monthly.  Unless one or more of these new games has cracked the code on drawing in new people into the hobby, only a few of them will likely survive beyond the first few events.  We are all drawing from the same pool of players, we aren’t bringing in enough new blood to sustain this kind of growth.   When I talked about the larp explosion, I was expecting to see regular games pull in 500+ people.  At the time I was playing a game that was seeing 200+ every event, during an era of far less visibility, so this didn’t feel like much of a stretch...and yet, it never happened.  Even the biggest larps in my area, Knight Realms and Dystopia Rising, don’t really see those kind of numbers (with the exception of national events).  What’s more, after some initial success, we’re seeing increasingly lukewarm responses to blockbuster larps in the US.  It has me wondering if we are merely a novelty for the wider world, one whose appeal is starting to wear off.

Part of my concern is the average age of a larper today.  When I started 15 or so years ago, I’d say the average larper (in my area) was around 19 years old.  Now I think the average age is somewhere closer to 30.  We’re not pulling in younger players in the numbers the local larp economy requires.  No one is ever more excited to be part of a new thing than they are when they are in their late teens and early twenties...but by and large these are not the people who are coming out to play our games.  Larping has aged along with me, and while I appreciate some of social advantages of that, I can’t help but worry about the long term sustainability of the hobby...or at the very least campaign larping.

One of the very first pieces of advertising we ever did was going out to a local comic con.  It was a small con, perhaps 500 people walked through that door all day.  We got face time with a few dozen.  Not a single person ever came out to play.  We had better success at later convention, but for that first convention we did everything right, had incredible contact, and none of that turned into someone showing up at an event.  Why?  There are a few likely causes.  1. Every group of people needs a catalyst, someone who pushes them to try something new...it is always easier to do nothing, even when you are excited to try something new.  I am that person sometimes.  I understand.  2. People who go to a comic con have already sort of decided what their time consuming hobby is.  I suspect this is part of the reason why there isn’t as much crossover with the cosplay community as one might think.  

Another piece of the greater puzzle may have to do with attrition.  Larps are notoriously awful at retaining new players, even good larps have a more than 50% attrition rate.  I remember one event a long time ago when more than 20 new players showed up one event for a larp I was attending, not a single one of them ever returned.  This was a game that was pulling an average of 80 people per event, and suddenly 20 people show up and not one of them was ever enticed to come out again by the experience.  So, it could be some of the numbers I was expecting did materialize, but never quite got more than a toe into the water before a larp piranha bit it off.   I live between 2 major metropolitan areas, Philadelphia and New York.  Between the two of them is the highest population density state in the country.  There are around 20 million people living in the area.  Of that 20 million, maybe 5000 (if I am being generous) are regular larpers.  This means that roughly .025 percent of people larp, or 1 out of every 4000 people.  That is...disheartening to me.   When larp infects a group of friends, the contagion spreads quickly, but does peter out eventually...after all, most of us only have so many connections.  I’ve seen this happen so many times.  This is the fundamental way our hobby grows.  Friends help you stay excited about the thing you just did, they keep you invested, keep you going back, provide you with support.  But we need to get better at spreading the infection, find those groups of people who have this unnamed desire to explore, meet cool people, and hit their friends with plumbing supplies.  Bridging this gap, and finding a way to make these initial connections is what we need to do in order to expand our hobby, and hopefully see the explosion I dreamed of all those years ago. 

[democratsunited-blog]

Yes, let's wipe out Trump. But take neoliberal Democrats with him, too | David Sirota | Opinion

https://uniteddemocrats.net/?p=9591

Yes, let's wipe out Trump. But take neoliberal Democrats with him, too | David Sirota | Opinion

After a scorching summer of discontent, Donald Trump’s endless tweets and scandals have given Democrats their best chance to retake Congress since George W Bush’s second term. And yet, insurgent progressives are not limiting themselves to dethroning Republicans: they are taking aim at corporate-friendly Democrats within their own party, too.

Amid an upsurge of populist energy that has alarmed the Democratic establishment, a new wave of left-leaning insurgents have been using Democratic primaries to wage a fierce war on the party’s corporate wing. And, as in past presidential primary battles, many Democratic consultants, politicians and pundits have insisted that the party must prioritize unity and resist grassroots pressure to support a more forceful progressive agenda.

Not surprisingly, much of that analysis comes from those with career stakes in the status quo. Their crude attempts to stamp out any dissent or intraparty discord negates a stark truth: liberal America’s pattern of electing corporate Democrats – rather than progressives – has been a big part of the problem that led to Trump and that continues to make America’s economic and political system a neo-feudal dystopia.

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Dislodging those corporate Democrats, then, is not some counterproductive distraction – it is a critical front in the effort to actually make America great again.

Right now, there are 8 blue states where Democrats control the governorship and the legislature, and 5 other blue states where Democrats have often had as much or more legislative power than Republicans. These states, plus myriad cities under Democratic rule, collectively oversee one of the planet’s largest economies. Laws enacted in these locales can set national and global standards, and in the process, concretely illustrate a popular progressive agenda. Such an agenda in liberal America could rebrand the Democratic party as an entity that is actually serious about challenging the greed of the 1%, fighting corruption, and making day-to-day life better for the 99%.

Instead, though, liberal America has often produced something much different and less appealing: Democratic politicians who constantly echo courageous populist themes in speeches, news releases and election ads, and then often uses the party’s governmental power to protect the status quo and serve corporate donors in their interminable class war.

Take California: a state where Democrats control the governorship, every state constitutional office and a legislative supermajority. With healthcare premiums rising, polls show 70% of Americans support the creation of a government-sponsored healthcare system. Considering that Canada’s healthcare system first began in its provinces, California would seem a perfect place to create the first such system in the United States. There is just one problem: Democrats are using their power to shut down single-payer legislation as they rake in big money from private insurance and drug companies.

On the opposite coast, it is the same story. A solidly Democratic New York, Connecticut and New Jersey have declined to take up single payer, and have also refused to pass legislation closing special “carried interest” tax loopholes that benefit a handful of Wall Street moguls. As those tax breaks drain public revenue, state officials simultaneously plead poverty in justifying cuts to basic social safety net programs – even as they offer massive taxpayer subsidies to corporations such as Amazon and play host to an endless series of pay-to-play corruption scandals that see wealthy campaign contributors enriched at the public trough.

Even in deep blue Rhode Island – where Democrats are so dominant the 113 member legislature has only 17 Republicans – then-Treasurer Gina Raimondo and her fellow Democrats chose to stake their brand on a plan that eviscerated retirement benefits for teachers, firefighters, cops and other public sector workers. Raimondo, a former financial executive whose firm received state investments, also shifted billions of dollars of public workers’ retirement savings into politically connected hedge funds and private equity firms that charge outsized fees, but often generate returns that lag a cheap stock index fund.

California could play a determining role in upsetting Republican control the US Congress, as Democrats hope to win 10 of the 14 seats held by Republicans. Photograph: Mario Tama/Getty Images

Every now and again, this grotesquerie spills out into public view in ways that cannot be ignored. In New Jersey, for instance, state Democratic lawmakers who spent years slamming Republican governor Chris Christie for refusing to pass a millionaires tax quickly delayed and then watered down the same tax proposal when Democrats reclaimed the governorship. Meanwhile, on the other side of the Hudson River, New York Democratic governor Andrew Cuomo shut down an anti-corruption commission, his top aide was later convicted on corruption charges – and yet Cuomo was rewarded with support from top Democrats as well as an endorsement from New York Times higher-ups right on liberal America’s editorial page.

Now sure, if this behavior was just limited to either side of the country, it could be written off as the effete fiddling-while-Rome-burns antics of the coastal elite. Things, though, aren’t much different in the middle of the country.

Here in Colorado, where Democrats have been winning elections, the party machine joined with Republicans in 2016 to help the insurance industry crush a universal healthcare ballot measure. At the same time, the administration of Democratic governor John Hickenlooper – a 2020 presidential hopeful – has threatened to sue local communities that try to regulate fossil fuel development.

And now in 2018 – as climate-change-intensified wildfires torch the state – top Democrats are breaking with the party’s grassroots activists and uniting with Republicans to allow oil and gas companies to frack and drill near schools, hospitals and residential neighborhoods. Democratic leaders have taken up that cause even after a series of deadly explosions near oil and gas sites outside Denver, and even as ever-more academic research spotlights potential health hazards of living too close to fracking sites.

Then there is Chicago, the most reliably Democratic stronghold of the heartland’s cities with a mayoralty that enjoys more inherent institutional power than almost any other.

There, the administration of Democratic stalwart Rahm Emanuel has used that power to initiate one of American history’s largest mass closures of public schools and layoff hundreds of teachers. During Emanuel’s tenure, public workers’ retirement savings were invested with financial firms whose executives have bankrolled Emanuel’s political apparatus. Emanuel’s administration also reportedly oversaw a police dark site where suspects were allegedly imprisoned without charge – and the Democratic mayor’s appointees infamously blocked the release of a videotape of Chicago police gunning down an unarmed African American teenager.

With the city subsequently suffering an explosion of gun violence, racial strife and economic inequality, Democratic donors responded by lavishing Emanuel with massive campaign contributions and Democratic voters reelected him. When Hizzoner later announced his retirement amid the trial over the police shooting, Emanuel was immediately lauded as a great hero by the most famous face of the Democratic Party, Barack Obama.

The former president’s move was a powerful reminder that Democrats’ let-them-eat-cake attitude and nothing-to-see-here complacency is a toxic gangrene afflicting not just the distant tips of the party’s local tendrils. The fish rots from the head down, and Democrats’ festering noggin is at the top of the national party, where Democratic states’ federal lawmakers have been helping Republicans ransack everything not nailed down to the floor.

Less than a decade ago, with Democratic majorities controlling both the House and Senate, it was the administration led by Obama and Emanuel that bailed out Wall Street, enshrined a too-big-to-jail doctrine for megabanks and – by its own admission – designed the Affordable Care Act to preclude Medicare for All. Obama’s administration did this while Democrats controlled both the House and Senate. It was Democratic lawmakers’ like Delaware’s Tom Carper and Connecticut’s Joe Lieberman who helped insurance and pharmaceutical lobbyists make sure the ACA also excluded any public healthcare option that could compete with private insurers.

Today, it is House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, from deeply liberal San Francisco, insisting that Medicare for All will not be any kind of litmus test for her party and promising that budget-cutting austerity will govern Democrats’ legislative agenda should they retake Congress.

It is 16 Senate Democrats voting to help Wall Street lobbyists gut post-financial-crisis banking regulations. Those include blue-staters like Colorado’s Michael Bennet and Delaware’s Chris Coons, the latter of which then went on to make national headlines slamming progressives for supposedly pushing the party too far to the left.

It is 13 Senate Democrats, including 2020 presidential prospect Cory Booker of Democratic New Jersey, beholding skyrocketing drug prices – and then voting to help pharmaceutical lobbyists defeat Bernie Sanders’ initiative to let Americans purchase lower-priced medicine from Canada.

It is most of the Democratic Senate caucus recently voting to confirm 15 of Trump’s judicial appointees, and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, from Democratic New York, vowing there will be no punishment for Democratic lawmakers who vote to confirm Trump’s supreme court nominees.

Recounting this sordid record is not to dispute Democrats’ occasional successes. Some blue locales continue to periodically pass progressive initiatives, most recently on climate change, net neutrality and minimum wages. These are undoubtedly important, but they have for the most part been incremental at a time when the economic and ecological crises we face demand far more radical action.

Anti-Trump rhetoric alone is not an adequate response to the emergencies at hand

The current iteration of the Democratic party has proven time and again that it is not merely uninterested in that kind of radicalism, but actively opposed to it. Party powerbrokers and multimillion-dollar MSNBC pundits would prefer an election focused exclusively on the palace dramas surrounding Trump’s boorish outbursts and outrageous personal behavior. They don’t want an election focused on the bipartisan neoliberalism that has wrought the desperation and mayhem unfolding outside the palace walls.

Out here, though, economic reality has proven the scripted red-versus-blue theater to be a bread-and-circuses distraction from the fact that both parties are culpable for this moment of crisis. America is now in backlash mode, producing candidates in Democratic states who are boldly challenging the party’s decrepit establishment.

In New York, it is progressive Democrats Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Zephyr Teachout, Jumaane Williams and Cynthia Nixon working with grassroots groups such as the Working Families Party (WFP) to challenge a Tammany Hall-esque monstrosity – all while progressive legislative candidates boldly primary the State Senate Democrats who have made common cause with Republicans.

In Delaware, it was African American veteran Kerri Harris running a spirited primary against Carper, also with the help of the WFP.

In Rhode Island, it is former secretary of state Matt Brown and Bernie Sanders-organizer Aaron Regunberg primarying Raimondo and her lieutenant governor.

In California and Maryland, it was lieutenant governor Gavin Newsom and former NAACP president Ben Jealous winning their respective Democratic gubernatorial primaries on promises to finally enact single payer. They are part of a larger group of pro-single-payer candidates that has now built up so much pressure for Medicare for All that none other than Obama suddenly reversed himself and lauded the concept late last week.

These progressive challengers and others like them have each run unique campaigns, but all have embodied the core belief that anti-Trump rhetoric alone is not an adequate response to the emergencies at hand. Democrats’ record in liberal states and liberal cities over the last decade makes a strong case that they are correct – and so now the revolution is on.

That may bewilder the Democrats’ permanent political class that has gotten used to steamrolling the public, losing elections and still remaining in charge of the party – but, really, the only confusing thing about this uprising is that it took this long to finally ignite.

Read full story here

[gbhbl]

Album Review: Dystopia A.D. - Rise of the Merciless (Self Released)

Album Review: Dystopia A.D. – Rise of the Merciless (Self Released)

Dystopia A.D are two-man band from New Jersey blending progressive and technical death metal with unexpected elements from many other genres. Their second album, Rise of the Merciless, sees project mastermind Chris Whitby and lead guitarist Aki Shishido join forces to produce astounding results.

Rise of the Merciless will be released on July 31st 2020.

I think it speaks volumes about the quality…

[jam2289]

Great Books on Political Corruption

Government corruption is universal. It is the duty of citizens to fight it at every turn, at every level of government, and in every generation. To arm yourself for the fight it's important to learn what you can from those who have gone before. Some of the greatest thinkers and leaders in history dedicated their lives to fighting corruption.

Many of the greatest books in history are small. Of course, there are some big ones too, but many of my favorites are small. Luckily, many of the greatest books explaining how political corruption works, and how to fight it, are small.

Here are the eight best authors on political corruption. These books and essays constitute a collection of knowledge that is astounding to behold. Reading even a few of these can change your entire perspective on society.

Frederic Bastiat

Bastiat was born in France in 1801 and died in Rome in 1850. He is one of the four major figures in the French Liberal School of economic thought, and made several important contributions to economics such as opportunity cost and the broken window fallacy.

Bastiat wrote a number of works. Right near the end of his life he started producing his best material. In 1848 he published a 12 page essay called "The State". In that paper he defines what the state is. It's a great work. Read it.

More famous than "The State" is Bastiat's 1850 pamphlet titled "The Law". In it he lays out exactly how corrupt people bend the laws of the nation so that they end up doing the exact opposite of what they're supposed to do. My copy is 55 pages long, and well worth the read.

Vaclav Havel

Havel was born in Czechoslovakia in 1936 and died in the Czech Republic in 2011. He was a playwright who made fun of Communism. The government didn't like that. He helped found several organizations that resisted the totalitarian overlords. That landed him in prison for a few years. After the Velvet Revolution he was the President of Czechoslovakia, and then President of the Czech Republic.

His book "The Power of the Powerless" was written in the late 1970s. It wasn't legal to write anything that the government didn't approve, so they had to secretly make copies and get them to people. In 146 pages he lays out exactly what people can do to fight back against a tyrannical bureaucracy. It's a beautiful dissection of how such a system devours freedom and human souls.

Hannah Arendt

Arendt was born in the German Empire in 1906 and died in New York City in 1975. She spent years running from the Nazis in Europe. She came up with the idea of the "banality of evil" while observing the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem in 1962, which led to the Stanely Milgram obedience to authority experiments. She's probably the greatest political philosopher of the 20th century.

Arendt produced a lot of great written content. When you read her essays like "What is Freedom?" and "What is Authority?" you get an education that includes large and important swaths of history and philosophy in addition to politics. But the most important work for us here is her 25 page essay titled "Ideology and Terror: A Novel Form of Government". After you get done with that paper you'll feel like you just read 250 pages worth of material.

Grover Cleveland

Cleveland was born in New Jersey in 1837 and died in New Jersey in 1908. He was the 22nd and 24th President of the United States. His terms in office cover major changes with both the Democrat and Republican parties, and in the party system itself.

Cleveland was known for fighting political corruption and party bosses, and that's the most important thing that he did. In a 23 page speech titled "Good Citizenship" he lays out the duty of citizens to participate in government. Because without that there is no way to keep the power of the government in check.

Karl Jaspers

Jaspers was born in the German Empire in 1883 and died in Switzerland in 1969. In psychiatry he created the modern system of mental disorder classification. In history he created the idea of the Axial Age. In philosophy he heavily influenced existentialism.

Jaspers lived in Germany through World War Two with his Jewish wife. The Nazis hadn't allowed him to teach, but immediately after the war he started teaching again. His series of lectures was about the guilt that Germans incurred for the war. Different types of guilt for what they had done, and for what they hadn't done. His 123 page book "The Question of German Guilt" will make you question whether you're not doing something that you should be doing. And how important that is. My copy has a lot of red underlining in it.

Carl Jung

Jung was born in Switzerland in 1875 and died in Switzerland in 1961. He is one of the most important psychologists in history, having originated such things as archetypes and extroversion/introversion.

Jung was Agent 488 for the United States Office of Strategic Services during World War Two. He wrote a lot of stuff. Some of his works still aren't published. I think his most important work is a little 112 page book named "The Undiscovered Self". In this book Jung delves deep into the psychology of what creates and destroys society, and how the individual is the key. To transform the individual is to transform society itself.

George Orwell

Orwell is a pen name for Eric Blair, who was born in British India in 1903 and died in London in 1950. When people say Orwellian they mean something is a totalitarian dystopia. He invented the terms: Big Brother, Thought Police, Newspeak, doublethink, and thoughtcrime.

Orwell is well known for "Nineteen Eighty-Four", but an even better book is his little fairy tale called "Animal Farm". It's about how some animals overthrow the farmers to set up a utopic society, but that society turns out to be horribly corrupt. It's an easy to digest book of 140 pages that shows how someone like Stalin rises to power and rules.

Joseph Schumpeter

Schumpeter was born in Austria-Hungry in 1883 and died in the United States in 1950. He had three major goals in life: to be the greatest economist in the world, to be the best horseman in Austria, and to be the greatest lover in Vienna. He said he achieved two.

Schumpeter contributed an immense amount to economics, such as coining the term creative destruction, which is about how innovation changes industries. He was able to expand beyond that though and even came up with a new theory about the psychology of democratic elections.

His most famous book is "Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy". A part of that book specifically deals with how a society can become corrupt and then crumble from the inside. That part was published as its own 195 page book, "Can Capitalism Survive?", and it is incredibly insightful.

Other Stuff

I don't think it's possible to read even three of those short works without having a major change in how you see the world. Even one might help a lot of people see clearly through the confusion of political corruption.

There are other great works of course. Many of the great political thinkers throughout history have promoted political deliberation in a participatory democracy, and a lot of their works are quite useful: Aristotle, Machiavelli, Montesquieu, Locke, Tocqueville, Jefferson, etc.

The Founding Fathers of the United States had a lot of great verbal and written debates on all aspects of government. Many of these are recorded in "The Federalist Papers" and "The Anti-Federalist Papers". George Washington's farewell address is chock full of wisdom.

Then there are people like Frederick Douglass. An escaped slave that was full of good insights about how societies corrupt themselves. I wrote about a lot of that in "The Opposite of Slavery": http://www.jeffreyalexandermartin.com/2020/01/the-opposite-of-slavery.html

There are also the books that show the worst; like "Man's Search for Meaning" by Viktor Frankl about the Holocaust, and "The Gulag Archipelago" by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn about the prison work and death camps in the Soviet Union.

Every single one of these is useful. The real key is to begin. And then to progress. And then to use that knowledge. People only demand freedom when there has been a violation of the public trust. When that moment comes you want to be prepared. You want to know the history of freedom. The people that have fought for it and the people that have thought about it. It takes both working together to make a difference. These small books are a part of making that difference.

________________________________________________

To read more from Jeff go to JeffThinks.com or JeffreyAlexanderMartin.com

[thisdaynews]

How Climate Could Tear the Democratic Party Apart

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/how-climate-could-tear-the-democratic-party-apart/

How Climate Could Tear the Democratic Party Apart

Elissa Slotkin has learned that climate change is both a national emergency and a political opportunity. As an assistant secretary of defense under President Barack Obama, she helped lead the Pentagon’s first study of how climate change threatens U.S. military bases. Then as a Democratic candidate for Congress in 2018, she attacked her Republican opponent for questioning the scientific consensus on climate change—and that’s one reason she’s now a Democratic member of Congress.

“We talk about the weather all the time in Michigan, and we all know it’s getting weird,” she says. “To most people, straight-out denial feels extreme.”

Story Continued Below

But even though Slotkin has shown how the climate crisis can be a winning issue, she’s not on board with the most prominent progressive effort to make it a national issue, the Green New Deal, backed by her more famous House classmate Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She thinks it’s too radical, too polarizing, a gift to President Donald Trump and other Republicans who want to portray Democrats as socialists. “My district is very worried that Democrats are lurching to the left,” she says. “I know AOC’s face will be on every ad against me in 2020.”

Slotkin doesn’t see why a plan to fix the climate needs to promise universal health care and a federal job guarantee, and she doubts a lefty wish list disguised as an emergency response will play well in her suburban Michigan swing district, which Trump won by seven points.

“I’m a pragmatist, and I represent a lot of pragmatic people,” says Slotkin. “Why say we need massive social change to reduce emissions? How does that build consensus?”

The politics of climate change are changing fast, partly because global heat waves, fires in California and the Amazon, Midwestern floods and increasingly brutal storms keep focusing attention on its nasty consequences, and partly because the Green New Deal has thrust it to the center of the national conversation. Polls suggest climate change has emerged as one of the top two policy priorities for Democratic voters, rivaled only by health care. The party’s presidential candidates are releasing remarkably aggressive plans to wean America off fossil fuels, which they discussed briefly during each Democratic primary debate in Miami and Detroit this summer, and will debate in more detail at forums devoted exclusively to climate on CNN and MSNBC in September.

Meanwhile, even though Trump is an unapologetic climate-science denier and fossil-fuel promoter who has claimed that wind turbines cause cancer, other Republicans are retreating to more nuanced and factually defensible positions, acknowledging that greenhouse-gas emissions are a problem while calling for “innovation” and “adaptation” (as opposed to Green New Deal-style economic transformation) to deal with them. Corporate America is evolving, too. Dozens of big companies—including oil majors like BP and Shell—descended on Capitol Hill this spring to lobby for modest carbon taxes, responding to pressure from their shareholders and the public to support some kind of climate action.

As a rift builds between Republicans who do or don’t want to acknowledge climate change as a problem, another wedge is growing between Democrats who support radical solutions and those, like Slotkin, who want somewhat less radical solutions. It is mainly playing out through the internal battle over the Green New Deal, which so far is more of a call for dramatic action to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions than a specific legislative agenda, but has been effectively branded by conservative outlets like Fox News as a leftist crusade to ban meat and air travel.

It’s not a coincidence that Trump has vowed to run for re-election against the Green New Deal, or that Senate Republicans gleefully forced a vote on it, or that no Senate Democrats dared to vote yes. Even liberal House speaker Nancy Pelosi, while supporting deep emissions cuts and denouncing Trump’s efforts to pull the United States out of the Paris climate accord, has declined to endorse “the green dream or whatever.”

Activists often say climate change shouldn’t be a partisan issue, but in the U.S. it still is. Democratic-controlled states like New York, California, Washington, New Jersey, New Mexico, Nevada and Maine have all passed sweeping bills requiring economy-wide climate neutrality by 2050 or earlier. States where Republicans hold power haven’t passed legislation like that, and the Republican Senate minority in blue Oregon managed to block a similar bill by fleeing the state to avoid a quorum. Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii, who chairs a new Democratic committee on the climate crisis, devoted an entire hearing in July to conservatives who support climate action, and he’s hopeful about some modest bipartisan efforts to promote clean energy infrastructure and research. But Schatz says it’s far more important for the health of the planet for Democrats to defeat Trump in 2020 and take full control of Congress.

“As a practical matter, 2020 will decide whether we re-enter the realm of responsible nations, or not,” Schatz says. “It’s not a super-complex policy question. Climate is going to be on the ballot, and Democrats just have to win.”

The question is whether the current politics of climate is making that more or less likely. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, widely considered the scientific gold standard on the issue, has called for “rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society” to slash emissions. But it can be politically risky to support rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society. The Washington establishment seems convinced that as a generic long-term issue requiring politicians to dosomething, climate change makes Republicans look out of the mainstream, but as a demand for massive upheaval on a tight planetary timeline, the Green New Deal makes Democrats look just as far out of the mainstream.

And it’s exposing real tensions inside the Democratic Party—between center and left, congressional leaders and insurgents, labor groups and green groups, and even among various factions inside the Green New Deal movement.

***

In the past,climate was rarely more than a check-the-box afterthought on the campaign trail, so it’s notable that it has finally broken through as a top-tier issue for Democratic voters. In one CNN poll, 96 percent of registered Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents said it was important that a presidential candidate support aggressive action against climate change, higher than any other issue; in several other polls, climate change has been cited as the number-two Democratic priority, ahead of guns, jobs and education, just behind health care.

“That’s worth underlining and bolding and italicizing,” says Anthony Leiserowitz, the director of the Yale University Program on Climate Communication.

The Democratic presidential field has absorbed the message; one potential problem with the CNN and MSNBC climate-only quasi-debates might be the lack of substantive disagreements for the candidates to debate. Until he dropped out of the race last week, Washington governor Jay Inslee had built his entire campaign around climate, billionaire Tom Steyer is a top funder of climate activism, and populist senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have called for a war on fossil fuels. Even former vice president Joe Biden, who was attacked from the left over early reports that he’d carve out a “middle ground” on climate, has unveiled a plan to decarbonize the entire country by 2050.

There are subtle differences among the candidates, mostly involving the specificity of their plans and their willingness to embrace “keep-it-in-the-ground” fossil-fuel policies that pro-pipeline construction unions oppose. But all the Democrats represent a stark contrast with Trump, who has appointed like-minded fossil-fuel advocates throughout his administration and the judiciary, made the U.S. the only nation to reject the Paris accord, routinely attacked climate-friendly pollution and efficiency regulations, and publicly dismissed the National Climate Assessment released by his own administration as left-wing “deep state” alarmism.

Still, even though Trump has made headlines with his attacks on Obama’s climate policies and his mockery of climate science, and even though the floods ravaging Midwestern farms and the heat wave broiling Europe have highlighted the urgency of the climate issue, it probably wouldn’t have risen this high on the political agenda if Ocasio-Cortez hadn’t become Capitol Hill’s top celebrity. Democratic leaders may be annoyed that she gets so much press, and the president may enjoy using her outspoken “Squad” of left-wing women of color as foils, but her Green New Deal has called more attention to climate than any phenomenon since the 2006 Al Gore documentaryAn Inconvenient Truth.It’s also mobilizing the green young voters Democrats will need to beat Trump in 2020—even if it’s mobilizing them with rhetoric and tactics that make establishment Democrats uncomfortable.

The youth-oriented Sunrise Movement was an obscure year-old organization with just 20 chapters when Ocasio-Cortez stopped by its climate sit-in at Pelosi’s office last November. It now has more than 200 active chapters that have held town halls all over the country, building pressure for the Green New Deal, accusing their elders in both parties of consigning their generation to a fossil-fueled dystopia. The IPCC has called for drastic emissions reductions by 2030 to avoid the worst climate scenarios, and with U.S. emissions rising under Trump, groups like Sunrise argue that gradual and incremental political changes are not going to cut it.

“We’re at the start of a paradigm shift, and it’s wild,” says 29-year-old Rhianna Gunn-Wright, who helped craft the Green New Deal resolution as policy director for the progressive think tank New Consensus. Gunn-Wright says younger voters have just as little patience for half-measures, delay, and “hand-wringing from moderates” as they have for Trump’s snide how-about-that-global-warming tweets on cold days. “People want actionnow,” Gunn-Wright says. “Calling the people trying to solve the problem socialists might work for a while, but it’s going to get tougher and tougher to say we can’t afford to address this crisis.”

She may be right that the long-term politics of climate favor action, but in the short term it matters a lot whether calling climate-friendly Democrats socialists will work for Republican candidates in 2020. Some politicians in both parties believe the issue could play out the way gay marriage did in 2004, rallying the conservative Republican base and helping to re-elect a conservative Republican president even though large majorities later came to agree with the Democrats. Democrats may be magnifying their problems with a circular firing squad, as the establishment echoes Republican talking points about left-wing extremism while the left attacks even minor deviations from Green New Deal purism as shameful inaction.

“Denying the science is not a sustainable position, and more Republicans need to face reality on this issue,” says Rep. Garrett Graves of Louisiana, the ranking Republican on the new House committee investigating climate change. “But there’s a civil war happening on the Democratic side, too. If the Green New Deal can’t get a single vote in the U.S. Senate, they obviously haven’t figured this out, either.”

In fact, six months after the Green New Deal resolution was unveiled, with far-reaching climate goals but few specific climate policies, its supporters have yet to introduce substantive legislation for achieving those goals. Meanwhile, House Democrats skeptical of the Green New Deal have introduced two alternative green blueprints, both calling for net-zero emissions by 2050, but those are also primarily plans to have a plan, not actual plans. So far, the political sweet spot seems to be to announce a climate-friendly destination without detailing exactly how to get there.

***

In the past,climate change has been such an unsexy campaign issue that there has never even been a question about it in a general-election debate. In 2012, CNN moderator Candy Crowley said she considered including one for “you climate change people,” as if the broiling of the planet were a niche concern for tree-huggers, but decided it would have distracted from her focus on the economy. In 2016, one town-hall debate did include one thoughtful question about energy and the environment, but the question was overshadowed by an Internet furor over the questioner, a cardigan-clad insta-celebrity named Ken Bone.

In 2018, though, climate was a key theme for Democratic congressional candidates such as Slotkin and Harley Rouda of California, a moderate who successfully challenged the eccentric conservative Republican Rep. Dana Rohrbacher. Rouda considers climate “the number one issue facing humankind,” and he knew it mattered to voters in his coastal Orange County district, where rising seas have forced local officials to raise a seawall on Balboa Island. “Climate is a bigger infrastructure issue here than widening the 405,” he says. Rouda also saw climate as an ideal way to paint Rohrbacher as an extremist who, when he wasn’t floating conspiracy theories that Democrats organized the neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville or suggesting that homeowners should be able to discriminate against gays, was dismissing climate change as “liberal claptrap” and suggesting that carbon emissions actually help the planet.

“It fit in with the outlandish stuff he said every day,” says Rouda, who now chairs the House’s key subcommittee on environmental oversight. “And it really resonated with everyone who wasn’t a hard-core Trump supporter.”

Climate denial was not always a Republican value. As recently as 2008, the Republican presidential nominee against Obama, John McCain, campaigned on a cap-and-trade plan to rein in carbon emissions, while former GOP Speaker Newt Gingrich and Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi filmed an ad for Gore’s non-profit in which they sat on a sofa and agreed that climate action shouldn’t be partisan. Things changed after Obama’s election and the rise of the Tea Party, as Washington Republicans came together to shoot down Obama’s cap-and-trade plan and climate became a new battleground in America’s political culture wars. Conservative media routinely portrayed global warming as a loony-lefty scam for the Birkenstock crowd, and the few Republican politicians who embraced the science tended to become ex-politicians.

Trump amped up that skepticism as a candidate, dismissing climate change as a hoax manufactured in China while pledging to restore the coal industry to its former glory. That hasn’t happened during his presidency, but not for lack of trying. His administration has pushed hard to ease rules limiting pollution by coal plants and other fossil-fuel interests, heavy industry, agriculture and other major emitters of greenhouse gases. The president often portrays the climate movement as an elitist plot against the American economy; his top climate adviser compared the campaign against carbon to Nazi Germany’s “demonization of the poor Jews.”

Still, Trump’s advisers can read the polls suggesting voters outside his base are concerned about his anti-environmental record, which helps explain an unusually defensive speech he recently delivered highlighting America’s relatively clean air and water. He’s particularly out of step with young Republicans; more than one third of his own supporters under 40 disapprove of his brazen denial of climate science, which helps explain why some Republicans who can usually be relied on to defend his policies are distancing themselves from his stance on global warming.

ClearPath director Rich Powell, whose group advocates conservative approaches to climate action, says there’s been a “sea change” among congressional Republicans, with consensus-builders replacing bomb-throwers atop several key committees, and back-benchers who represent coastal states and suburban districts starting to endorse climate policies beyond “no.” In recent months, Republican stalwarts have proposed tax credits for clean-energy innovation, investments in clean-energy research, and modest carbon taxes to encourage a shift away from emissions. Even Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), a staunch Trump ally from a district along the Gulf of Mexico, unveiled a “Green Real Deal” that would accelerate renewable energy projects on public lands and upgrade the electric grid, while urging his Republican colleagues to “support a solution, not just stick their heads in the sand.”

“That’s a sign of the times,” Powell says. “Swing voters really care about this. Even for the base, dismissing climate change isn’t necessarily a slam dunk.”

In fact, some Democrats are worried that the new GOP rhetoric on climate could help blur partisan distinctions on the issue in 2020, shifting the debate from basic science to complex policy. In an interview before he launched his White House run, Steyer argued that Republicans who acknowledge climate science but call for more study or warn against economically disruptive responses are as committed to inaction as outright deniers. But he acknowledged that the yes-but crowd might sound more compelling to low-information voters than the hell-no crowd.

“It’s like the civil rights movement. It’s almost better to have Bull Connor on the other side, so everyone understands the enemy,” Steyer said. “It’s one thing when they say: ‘The earth is flat.’ But when they say, ‘Oh, we’re reasonable, but you crazy socialist eggheads are going to kill millions of jobs,’ the politics are tougher.”

The politics are especially tough when Fox News is hammering away at the crazy-socialist-egghead message. Polls show that frequent Fox watchers hear much more about the Green New Deal than other Americans do, and dislike it much more than other Americans do. Data for Progress, another liberal group pushing the Green New Deal, has found in its focus groups that Fox messaging is having a powerful effect, with many voters associating the plan with “cow farts” and a tendentious “$93 trillion price tag” that Fox personalities keep flogging. Fossil fuel interests have also poured money into PR campaigns and think tanks pushing against climate action; Steyer says he started intervening in energy-related state ballot initiatives because environmental groups were getting outspent by 25-to-1. “We’re up against a very effective and centralized propaganda machine, and we need to fight back,” says Julian Brave NoiseCat, a 26-year-old indigenous rights activist who is now the strategic director at Data for Progress. “We can’t just remain in a defensive crouch, and that’s what Democratic leaders in Congress have done.”

NoiseCat’s dissatisfaction reflects another challenge for climate politics, the divisions within the Democratic Party. And those divisions have less to do with the substantive details of climate policy than contrasting visions of what the party is about, how the party should behave, and who is going to decide.

***

Whether or not they support the Green New Deal,most Democrats support aggressive investments in wind and solar power, energy efficiency, electric vehicles, public transit, and just about any other proven approach to reducing emissions. Similarly, most Democrats want to reduce government subsidies and other support for fossil fuels, tighten regulations on carbon and other pollutants, and undo just about everything Trump has done in the climate arena.

There are some internal disputes about whether to encourage carbon-free nuclear power or technology to capture carbon from fossil-fuel plants, how much climate policy should rely on market-oriented solutions like carbon taxes or cap-and-trade, and how aggressively to pursue keep-it-in-the-ground policies on federal and private land. But the Green New Deal was careful to sidestep those disputes, proclaiming the need for spectacularly ambitious changes without spelling them out.

“The truth is, the situation is so dire that we don’t need to argue which of these policies is best,” Schatz says. “We literally need to do all of them.”

Still, the arguments persist, and they help explain why congressional Democrats have been so vague about their climate policies. They also could cause problems for the party’s presidential nominee, who will irritate some Democrats whether he or she comes out as pro-nuclear, anti-nuclear or somewhere in between. The troubling reality of climate math has created an internal dynamic where just about any candidate’s plan can be criticized as inadequate by activists who don’t like the candidate. When Beto O’Rourke unveiled a far-reaching $5 trillion plan to zero out emissions by 2050, exactly what the scientists on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have recommended, the Sunrise Movement trashed it as weak sauce that would fail to “give our generation a livable future.”

Climate wonks complained publicly that O’Rourke was being punished for echoing the science, and several climate activists grumbled privately that their movement was being hijacked by Sanders fans who cared more about a socialist takeover of the Democratic Party than serious emissions reductions. “Are we in this to do climate, or are we in this to nationalize industry?” one Green New Deal activist asked me. Sunrise later backed off a bit, acknowledging that its initial statement was too negative, but not before O’Rourke signed a pledge that he wouldn’t accept donations from fossil-fuel interests, a demand Sunrise had been making for months.

“We need a president who will stand up for our generation, and it can’t just be any Democrat,” says Stephen O’Hanlon, Sunrise’s 23-year-old spokesman. “We’re putting a lot of pressure on the candidates, and we’re gaining a lot of traction.”

The most prominent Democratic dispute about climate policy is whether it should focus exclusively on climate, or whether it should take on broader issues of economic injustice. The Green New Deal resolution was widely criticized for tacking on utopian progressive ideas like job guarantees (“to assure a living wage job for everyone”) as well as universal health care and the even broader mandate for “any other measure the committee deems appropriate for economic security.” Some centrists in Congress and even some mainstream environmental groups believe those contentious add-ons will send a politically damaging message that Democrats don’t welcome bipartisan cooperation, that their most strident radicals will be running the show. “I’m worried about the focus on the loudest voices,” says the moderate Rep. Slotkin, who served as a CIA analyst before working for Obama in the Pentagon.

But Green New Dealers argue that a single-minded focus on emissions targets and warming scenarios would be bad politics and bad policy, narrowing and demoralizing the potential coalition for climate action, increasing the danger of a backlash like the “yellow vest” protests against France’s carbon taxes. They argue that climate hawks should focus on economic fairness and justice, on helping inner-city residents who breathe dirty air from coal plants, on dismantling power hierarchies that favor oil billionaires and agribusiness conglomerates over low-income minority consumers. They say the only way to fix the climate will be to inspire a new progressive coalition to take back Washington, and they’re skeptical that a technical goal like keeping average global temperature increases below 2 degrees Celsius will offer enough inspiration to mobilize the poor, the young, and other less reliable voting groups to the polls.

It’s no coincidence that the Democrats arguing for the political benefits of full-menu progressivism happen to be full-menu progressives. But there is a real strategic argument behind the ideological opportunism, a climate version of the debate among Democrats about whether to target base voters or swing voters, whether persuasion or mobilization is the key to victory in 2020. Steyer points out that in 2018, he financed mobilization campaigns that helped carry clean-energy ballot questions to victory in the swing states of Michigan and Nevada, although a similar campaign failed in Arizona after Republican politicians changed the wording.

“Intensity is what drives turnout,” Steyer told me. “And climate lends itself to intensity. People are trying to kill your kids! Those are the facts. Why be polite?

It’s also no coincidence that Steyer, before launching his own presidential campaign, was the leading advocate for Trump’s impeachment. There are real divisions among Democrats over pipelines, carbon taxes and the Green New Deal, and the rise of climate-curious Republicans is a real phenomenon. But the president has a knack for dominating the national conversation, and it’s hard to imagine that the climate conversation will be any different in 2020. As the Trump administration whacks away at fossil-fuel regulations, while the Trump campaign sells plastic straws designed to mock concern for the environment, Democrats hope and Republicans fear that the complex nuances of climate politics will be boiled down to whether voters care or don’t, believe experts or don’t, trust Trump or don’t. In that scenario, every climate-driven heat wave, fire and flood can help persuade swing voters that the president is ignoring a problem—and help turn out the base, too.

Then again, Trump has already signaled his plan to switch the spotlight to the radicalism of the Green New Deal and Democratic climate action in general. The problem for Democrats is that their plans, assuming they’re serious, really are quite radical, because they’re all in line with the international scientific recommendations, which are also quite radical. A dramatic shift away from fossil fuels could impose dramatic costs on fossil-fueled states, which helps explain why the Brookings Institution found that the 13 states with the highest per-capita emissions all voted for Trump in 2016, while the eight states with the lowest per-capita emissions voted for Hillary Clinton. The solar and wind boom is quickly changing the energy mix in red states like Texas and Georgia, but it’s not clear the changes will be quick enough to matter in 2020.

Mark Muro, a Brookings senior fellow, says those fossil-fueled red states could form a “brown wall” protecting Trump and other Republicans before they transition to clean energy. “Some of these red states are decarbonizing fast, and that’s incredible, but political realignment doesn’t usually happen that fast,” Muro says. “Tribalism is pretty durable.”

Trump has framed climate as a classic tribal issue, another us-against-them battle in America’s political culture war, pitting coal miners in hard hats and dirt farmers in overalls against pointy-headed scientists and kale-eating environmentalists. So far, he doesn’t seem to be persuading many Americans outside his base. But he gets to make a case against wrenching change, while Democrats have to argue for upending the status quo and imposing some short-term costs in order to avoid hard-to-quantify disasters in the future. And they can’t even promise that their actions will make things better; in fact, scientists believe that things will almost certainly get worse even actions are taken to avoid catastrophe.

“It’s the policy problem from hell,” says Yale’s Leiserowitz. “Politicians need to take hard decisions now to help the world in 2050, when all the political incentives favor short-term thinking. The danger is that by the time we feel serious pain and it’s really obvious we need to act, the situation will be beyond repair.”

In other words, the new inconvenient truth is that it might be good politics for Trump to campaign against uncomfortable change. But the climate doesn’t care about politics. It’s already changing, and the results will be uncomfortable no matter who wins in 2020.

Read More

[dealingwithaces]

The Game of Assassins

So at Dystopia Rising: New Jersey, my character is trying to set up a game of Assassins, in character. Obviously, they can’t use nerf guns as we use those to physrep our firearms. And boffers, y’know, obv. So what then?

Yellow packets (“Yellow bags filled with seeds”)! Of course, while the concept sounds super fun and there’s going to be a prize for being the last in the game after two months or the one with the highest points if more than one get to the end, it’s going to be a tough sell. Why?

Well, see, my character is a Final Knight and that is an in game faith generally not trusted. The love of pain and suffering and opposing all faiths and generally being kinda really dark and vicious doesn’t, perhaps, help. So, it’s very possible that no one will trust me and this game won’t play out well. Which would be sad because while there are in character goals, those are mostly a weak excuse for the out of character desire to have a silly bit of side fun for people to pursue. And since it only requires you to touch someone with a packet (tap or toss), non-coms can play in non-violent Character v Character roleplay that’s fairly non-confrontational and silly!

Because it’s the post apocalypse (with zombies) and people make their own fun. Maturity isn’t as important as finding a little levity in life. And honestly I wanna see people get REALLY silly with it!

[heyshahnawaz]

Google vs Apple

Google vs Apple - Which is More Successful?

The meteoric rise of computer technology might not trouble the average millennial, but for those of you who remember the days before we were all hyper-connected, our Reliance on modern technology might seem somewhat problematic at times.

Where will we be in another 50 years?

Iconoclastic entrepreneur Elon Musk has said if we don't get a handle an artificial intelligence, we may create something will sorely regret, perhaps the most frightening depiction of tech dystopia isn't a television series Black Mirror, which exposes a world lacking in empathy where what once were dreams have turned into living nightmares.

Even now the media argues over automation. Will it mean a laid-back life for the masses or mass unemployment under a technocracy?

Innovation is Unstoppable, and there are a handful of tech companies at the Forefront of this Innovation.

We will look at two of them today in this episode of the infographic show Google versus Apple.

Apple was started by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in 1976 with both men pushing to create the ideal personal computer, Jobs was forced out of Apple after what has been called a failed boardroom coup the company. However, lacked a great leader and jobs was brought back to eventually become CEO.

It was shortly after this that Apple grew into the Innovative Tech Giant it is today. The world was equally impressed when Apple came out with the easy to use and beautifully made iPod three years later, two years after that came the iTunes music store, but we're really shaking things up was the release of Apple's flagship product, the iPhone. that was in 2007.

The iPad came in 2010. And since these products came onto the market Apple has arguably Ruled The Roost of consumer gadgets as for Steve Jobs.

He's now treated like a technology demagogue.

But, where would we be without Google the company behind the search engine that most folks can't live without Google Co-Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin met at Stanford University in 1995.

It said the two did not agree on many matters, but one thing they did agree on was the creation of a search engine that ranked pages by their importance on the world wide web.

This search engine was actually first called backrub, but then fortunately for the pair, they saw the light and made the change to Google.

Google incorporated was born in 1998 and soon Venture capitalists were poised to invest in the small outfit Google just kept growing and soon billions of searches would be made every day on its search engine the company created its headquarters the Googleplex, which would soon become synonymous with the avant-garde kind of tech workplace we see all over today.

The company has since ventured into all kinds of markets including the smartphone business renewable energy self-driving cars Enterprise Services artificial intelligence and machine learning and all manner of smart devices.

If we can get through life without becoming part of apples sometimes criticized ecosystem.

It would be difficult to not be a consumer of a Google product because Google has its fingers in so many pies. It created a parent company that goes by the name alphabet Inc. This is what we call a conglomerate now.

Let's get straight to Money Matters as we said before some critics have said these companies are too big for our own good, if we take a look at the most recent Forbes world's biggest companies list, Apple is a ninth place.

That is the highest-ranked tech company on the list. And for some time now, the media has been telling us Apple will become the world's first company to be worth a staggering 1 trillion dollars. Forbes has Apple’s sales on its latest list at $217.5 billion dollars.

Profits at $42.5 billion and Assets at $331.1 billion and a total value of $752 billion dollars.

The next tech company down the list is Samsung electronics, and in 24th Place is Alphabet Inc.

Forbes puts the Alphabets sales at $89.9 billion dollars of profits. at $19.5 billion, assets at $167.5 billion and net worth at $579.5 billion dollars, but 2018 is past now and so we must wait until Forbes creates its new list as Fortune rights in 2018, while Apple generates bigger profits. It is only slightly ahead of Google in regards to which company will become the world's first company with a valuation of over one trillion dollars.

Fortune puts Amazon as the third company in the running, with Microsoft also a contender and Facebook not far behind.

Tesla, It says is a dark horse but CEO Elon Musk seems to Big his company is on a similar trajectory to one of SpaceX's rockets.

Back to Google and Apple.

It's thought that Apple has around 123,000 employees, but to the chagrin of President Donald Trump Apple outsources much of its manufacturing to countries such as China and Taiwan apples biggest partner in the assembly businesses Foxconn and it has factories in a number of countries around the world.

Google has 73992 employees as of 2019 it outsources such things as IT functions to India, while it’s also been building its servers in Asia.

Well, that’s not easy to say, according to one engineer that has worked at both companies, Google is better if you want to solve big technological problems, as Apple is more concerned with design and Google with technology.

If you are a female engineer, where would be better? Google is currently being sued for pay discrimination based on gender. Whereas Apple has been shouting from the rooftops that it has solved the gender pay gap, which is the better company in general when it comes to controversy both these world leaders have been tainted more than a few times Apple has come under the gun for human rights abuses in its assembly factories in China and we all remember the news about those suicide Nets at its assembly plants, but more recently Apple has been skewered in the press for its offshore business in Ireland and late last year the billions It has saved from offshoring in the Tax Haven of the Channel Island of Jersey. CEO Tim Cook fired back stating that Apple was the USA's biggest taxpayer the last Google is no stranger to tax avoidance so much so that in the UK a Google tax has been mulled over to get something back from companies that funnel their profits through low-tax countries.

It seems there is no angel in this department. What about their products? Which company could you just not live without? while it may be some time before we being driven around in one of Google's autonomous vehicles. And even though we enjoyed a 30-minute dalliance with its machine learning Doodlebops. Google has a few things that we might take for granted.

That is arguably its search engine the Chrome browser its Android operating system Gmail and to a lesser extent its productivity Suite or Google Suite we might also mention that Google owns YouTube to give you an idea on Google Power its Chrome browser alone has an almost 60% share of the browser market.

The Google search engine has a 75% share of the search engine market and Android has a whopping 87% share of the mobile operating system market, but then we have those Innovative and sleep Apple products and also the Apple operating system iOS that Apple aficionados will tell you they cannot live without.

I never go back you hear many an Apple user safe. The question is which company has really done the most for mankind and looking into the future who will be at the Forefront of Tech Innovation. Both companies are making hay in the augmented and virtual reality space and both are very serious about Artificial intelligence. So who will be on top in 10 years' time?

Let me know your thoughts in the comments. Also. Be sure to check out my other Blog post called Android vs iOS. Thanks for reading :)

Hi, I’m Shahnawaz. I’m a blogger living in New Delhi, India. I am a fan of technology, photography, and travel. I’m also interested in writing.

Follow me: Instagram/Facebook/Twitter - @heyShahnawaz

[kaijuscreech]

quick scribble of my lascarian squeak because i'm not sure what to draw right now

[littlegeckoart-blog]

writing about squeak

i started playing a new character at dystopia. here are some short pieces about her

On A Leash

Fever

A Huntress