#gaslighting

[livingfictionsystem]

A lot of pop psychology gets thrown around and since I already have a headache, here's preventing you lot from making it worse.

Love-bombing: A manipulation tactic of increasing affection and grand gestures before or after doing something abusive, specifically to weasel one's way out of consequences.

What it is not: A streak of affection and generosity towards friends/loved ones.

Trauma-bonding: Knowingly traumatizing someone to take advantage of their vulnerable state, to then act like the "hero" or the one who cheers them up.

What it is not: Bonding over similar traumas.

Gaslighting: *Knowingly* convincing someone they cannot trust their own perception of a situation in pursuit of one's own narrative.

What it is not: Misaligned perception of events.

Narcissist: Someone afflicted with Narcissistic Personality Disorder, a traumagenic cluster B disorder, that struggles with self-obsession, paranoia, craving validity from the public, delusions of grandeur, and social disconnection.

It is not: Your rubbish ex that cheated on you.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

-Xanthe

[nando161mando]

Healthcare pls

[dct-211]

[liberalsarecool]

Conservatives create a false reality to support white supremacy.

Do not normalize their lies. Call them out.

[disableddyke]

people with adhd, psychosis, brain fog, schizophrenia or anything that affects memory, recall and perception of reality are so at risk of gaslighting. even when you’re pretty sure you did/didn’t do a thing, if someone suggests that it didn’t actually happen that way or you’re skewing the facts or you’re just misremembering or whatever, you start to question yourself and your own memories and that is very easy to take advantage of. and it’s so incredibly difficult to get anyone to believe you or take you seriously because not even you are 100% sure you’re recalling things correctly. it sucks so bad not being able to rely on your own memory and to have to worry about people using it against you (because they can and will)

[lucyscs]

happy international women’s day!!! send bicep pics now or you’re sexist

[spiritualseeker777]

[laestoica]

[dct-211]

[pinklotushere]

Ok so dpxdc al ghul twins au

So I've always seen the al ghul twins with danny coming back to gotham to live with his dad and family, but what if it's not danny that comes?

It's dani

So imagine danny being so busy with king duties that he can't honestly be bothered but the bats already know so he can't just continue to ignore it

Imagine dani saying she'll go instead

Imagine the batfam expecting a damian 2.0 and instead getting this girl who frankly looks like his clone (ha!)

Imagine dani gaslighting damian into thinking she's always been a girl

Imagine the batfam trying to bond with this chaotic little girl who can and has pulled some frankly deadly pranks

Imagine dani and steph, no more explanation needed

Imagine dani steph babs and cass having girls nights

Imagine Bruce trying to bond with dani, and dani suggesting more and more outrageous bonding ideas just to fuck with him

Imagine duke seeing the aura around her and going "not my circus, not my monkeys"

Imagine tim and dani and bullying damian (affectionately-most of the time-)

Imagine dick and dani and the uncontrollable urges to octopus hug

Imagine dani and jason and the joker

It would be glorious

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Google’s new phones can’t stop phoning home

On OCTOBER 23 at 7PM, I'll be in DECATUR, presenting my novel THE BEZZLE at EAGLE EYE BOOKS.

One of the most brazen lies of Big Tech is that people like commercial surveillance, a fact you can verify for yourself by simply observing how many people end up using products that spy on them. If they didn't like spying, they wouldn't opt into being spied on.

This lie has spread to the law enforcement and national security agencies, who treasure Big Tech's surveillance as an off-the-books trove of warrantless data that no court would ever permit them to gather on their own. Back in 2017, I found myself at SXSW, debating an FBI agent who was defending the Bureau's gigantic facial recognition database, which, he claimed, contained the faces of virtually every American:

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2017/mar/11/sxsw-facial-recognition-biometrics-surveillance-panel

The agent insisted that the FBI had acquired all those faces through legitimate means, by accessing public sources of people's faces. In other words, we'd all opted in to FBI facial recognition surveillance. "Sure," I said, "to opt out, just don't have a face."

This pathology is endemic to neoliberal thinking, which insists that all our political matters can be reduced to economic ones, specifically, the kind of economic questions that can be mathematically modeled and empirically tested. It would be great if all our thorniest problems could be solved like mathematical equations.

Unfortunately, there are key elements of these systems that can't be reliably quantified and turned into mathematical operators, especially power. The fact that someone did something tells you nothing about whether they chose to do so – to understand whether someone was coerced or made a free choice, you have to consider the power relationships involved.

Conservatives hate this idea. They want to live in a neat world of "revealed preferences," where the fact that you're working in a job where you're regularly exposed to carcinogens, or that you've stayed with a spouse who beats the shit out of you, or that you're homeless, or that you're addicted to Oxy, is a matter of choice. Monopolies exist because we all love the monopolist's product best, not because they've got monopoly power. Jobs that pay starvation wages exist because people want to work full time for so little money that they need food-stamps just to survive. Intervening in any of these situations is "woke paternalism," where the government thinks it knows better than you and intervenes to take away your right to consume unsafe products, get maimed at work, or have your jaw broken by your husband.

Which is why neoliberals insist that politics should be reduced to economics, and that economics should be carried out as if power didn't exist:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/05/farrago/#jeffty-is-five

Nowhere is this stupid trick more visible than in the surveillance fight. For example, Google claims that it tracks your location because you asked it to, by using Google products that make use of your location without clicking an opt out button.

In reality, Google has the power to simply ignore your preferences about location tracking. In 2021, the Arizona Attorney General's privacy case against Google yielded a bunch of internal memos, including memos from Google's senior product manager for location services Jen Chai complaining that she had turned off location tracking in three places and was still being tracked:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/01/you-are-here/#goog

Multiple googlers complained about this: they'd gone through dozens of preference screens, hunting for "don't track my location" checkboxes, and still they found that they were being tracked. These were people who worked under Chai on the location services team. If the head of that team, and her subordinates, couldn't figure out how to opt out of location tracking, what chance did you have?

Despite all this, I've found myself continuing to use stock Google Pixel phones running stock Google Android. There were three reasons for this:

First and most importantly: security. While I worry about Google tracking me, I am as worried (or more) about foreign governments, random hackers, and dedicated attackers gaining access to my phone. Google's appetite for my personal data knows no bounds, but at least the company is serious about patching defects in the Pixel line.

Second: coercion. There are a lot of apps that I need to run – to pay for parking, say, or to access my credit union or control my rooftop solar – that either won't run on jailbroken Android phones or require constant tweaking to keep running.

Finally: time. I already have the equivalent of three full time jobs and struggle every day to complete my essential tasks, including managing complex health issues and being there for my family. The time I take out of my schedule to actively manage a de-Googled Android would come at the expense of either my professional or personal life.

And despite Google's enshittificatory impulses, the Pixels are reliably high-quality, robust phones that get the hell out of the way and let me do my job. The Pixels are Google's flagship electronic products, and the company acts like it.

Until now.

A new report from Cybernews reveals just how much data the next generation Pixel 9 phones collect and transmit to Google, without any user intervention, and in defiance of the owner's express preferences to the contrary:

https://cybernews.com/security/google-pixel-9-phone-beams-data-and-awaits-commands/

The Pixel 9 phones home every 15 minutes, even when it's not in use, sharing "location, email address, phone number, network status, and other telemetry." Additionally, every 40 minutes, the new Pixels transmit "firmware version, whether connected to WiFi or using mobile data, the SIM card Carrier, and the user’s email address." Even further, even if you've never opened Google Photos, the phone contacts Google Photos’ Face Grouping API at regular intervals. Another process periodically contacts Google's Voice Search servers, even if you never use Voice Search, transmitting "the number of times the device was restarted, the time elapsed since powering on, and a list of apps installed on the device, including the sideloaded ones."

All of this is without any consent. Or rather, without any consent beyond the "revealed preference" of just buying a phone from Google ("to opt out, don't have a face").

What's more, the Cybernews report probably undercounts the amount of passive surveillance the Pixel 9 undertakes. To monitor their testbench phone, Cybernews had to root it and install Magisk, a monitoring tool. In order to do that, they had to disable the AI features that Google touts as the centerpiece of Pixel 9. AI is, of course, notoriously data-hungry and privacy invasive, and all the above represents the data collection the Pixel 9 undertakes without any of its AI nonsense.

It just gets worse. The Pixel 9 also routinely connects to a "CloudDPC" server run by Google. Normally, this is a server that an enterprise customer would connect its employees' devices to, allowing the company to push updates to employees' phones without any action on their part. But Google has designed the Pixel 9 so that privately owned phones do the same thing with Google, allowing for zero-click, no-notification software changes on devices that you own.

This is the kind of measure that works well, but fails badly. It assumes that the risk of Pixel owners failing to download a patch outweighs the risk of a Google insider pushing out a malicious update. Why would Google do that? Well, perhaps a rogue employee wants to spy on his ex-girlfriend:

https://www.wired.com/2010/09/google-spy/

Or maybe a Google executive wins an internal power struggle and decrees that Google's products should be made shittier so you need to take more steps to solve your problems, which generates more chances to serve ads:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/24/naming-names/#prabhakar-raghavan

Or maybe Google capitulates to an authoritarian government who orders them to install a malicious update to facilitate a campaign of oppressive spying and control:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonfly_(search_engine)

Indeed, merely by installing a feature that can be abused this way, Google encourages bad actors to abuse it. It's a lot harder for a government or an asshole executive to demand a malicious downgrade of a Google product if users have to accept that downgrade before it takes effect. By removing that choice, Google has greased the skids for malicious downgrades, from both internal and external sources.

Google will insist that these anti-features – both the spying and the permissionless updating – are essential, that it's literally impossible to imagine building a phone that doesn't do these things. This is one of Big Tech's stupidest gambits. It's the same ruse that Zuck deploys when he says that it's impossible to chat with a friend or plan a potluck dinner without letting Facebook spy on you. It's Tim Cook's insistence that there's no way to have a safe, easy to use, secure computing environment without giving Apple a veto over what software you can run and who can fix your device – and that this veto must come with a 30% rake from every dollar you spend on your phone.

The thing is, we know it's possible to separate these things, because they used to be separate. Facebook used to sell itself as the privacy-forward alternative to Myspace, where they would never spy on you (not coincidentally, this is also the best period in Facebook's history, from a user perspective):

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3247362

And we know it's possible to make a Pixel that doesn't do all this nonsense because Google makes other Pixel phones that don't do all this nonsense, like the Pixel 8 that's in my pocket as I type these words.

This doesn't stop Big Tech from gaslighting* us and insisting that demanding a Pixel that doesn't phone home four times an hour is like demanding water that isn't wet.

*pronounced "jass-lighting"

Even before I read this report, I was thinking about what I would do when I broke my current phone (I'm a klutz and I travel a lot, so my gadgets break pretty frequently). Google's latest OS updates have already crammed a bunch of AI bullshit into my Pixel 8 (and Google puts the "invoke AI bullshit" button in the spot where the "do something useful" button used to be, meaning I accidentally pull up the AI bullshit screen several times/day).

Assuming no catastrophic phone disasters, I've got a little while before my next phone, but I reckon when it's time to upgrade, I'll be switching to a phone from the @calyxinstitute@mastodon.social. Calyx is an incredible, privacy-focused nonprofit whose founder, Nicholas Merrill, was the first person to successfully resist one of the Patriot Act's "sneek-and-peek" warrants, spending 11 years defending his users' privacy from secret – and, ultimately, unconstitutional – surveillance:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/03/depth-judge-illstons-remarkable-order-striking-down-nsl-statute

Merrill and Calyx have tapped into various obscure corners of US wireless spectrum licenses that require major carriers to give ultra-cheap access to nonprofits, allowing them to offer unlimited, surveillance-free, Net Neutrality respecting wireless data packages:

https://memex.craphound.com/2016/09/22/i-have-found-a-secret-tunnel-that-runs-underneath-the-phone-companies-and-emerges-in-paradise/

I've been a very happy Calyx user in years gone by, but ultimately, I slipped into the default of using stock Pixel handsets with Google's Fi service.

But even as I've grown increasingly uncomfortable with the direction of Google's Android and Pixel programs, I've grown increasingly impressed with Calyx's offerings. The company has graduated from selling mobile hotspots with unlimited data SIMs to selling jailbroken, de-Googled Pixel phones that have all the hardware reliability of a Pixel, coupled with an alternative app suite and your choice of a Calyx SIM and/or a Calyx hotspot:

https://calyxinstitute.org/

Every time I see what Calyx is up to, I think, dammit, it's really time to de-Google my phone. With the Pixel 9 descending to new depths of enshittification, that decision just got a lot easier. When my current phone croaks, I'll be talking to Calyx.

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/08/water-thats-not-wet/#pixelated

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[gayvampyr]

the linguistic appropriation cycle

[forthefictionallesbians]

Andy stared pointedly into the glowing eyes of the affini sharing her table, daring them to prove her right. It would be an easy victory for "Wisteria Salashi, Fourth Bloom," should she decide to take it. Andy was under no illusions about her ability to resist any of the countless tools Wisteria had at her disposal--the xenodrugs, the hypnosis, even just prolonged exposure to her biorhythm. But if she could count on anything, it was her domineering friend's pride. That was the game, and she was winning.

Wisteria just sighed, the scarlet vines composing her chest folding inwards slightly along with the loud exhalation. All five of the eyes embedded in her "face" closed, and one titanic hand reached up to rub the bridge of her not-nose. It was a shockingly human gesture. Proof of how far Wisteria had come since moving into terran space.

"What's wrong, Wist? Afraid of showing your empire's true colours?" She tried her best to sound innocent, and failed. Each word dripped with the smirk slowly pulling at her lips. Behind her friend, a set of floret servers in overly cutesy orange-and-pink floral dresses had paused their rounds to gape. A few of the diner's other patrons, humans and affini alike, had also glanced after hearing the sigh. No matter. Witnesses would just make the victory all the sweeter.

"Really, Andy? You're taunting me with a feralist talking point?" Wist's response came slowly, as she completed her exasperated display and stared down at Andy with disbelief and... hunger? "You do understand that I could use that as a reason to domesticate you, without violating your rights as an independent at all?"

Ooops. "Ah, but we both know I don't really believe that," she retorted in a sudden flash of anxiety.

"Then why, dearest acorn, did you think this was a good idea?"

Her mind reeled slightly. What did Wist mean? It felt like the whole impulsive plan was crumbling around her. But she had known why she'd pushed when she had. This had seemed like a good idea then. Frost and fire, it could still be a good idea. She just had to make it work, and then she would finally be the winner in their daily sparring matches. Time to dig in.

"If you're so frustrated by this, then what's stopping you from domesticating me?" Wisteria's eyes were unreadable, dazzling ovals that seemed to dance as Andy resumed glaring. That wasn't fair. Hers couldn't do that. And they were so beautiful. And deep. And wow. Wisteria blinked with a slight chuckle, forcibly breaking their eye contact for a second. Wha- right. Andy continued. "I know you want to, so desperately. It's why you come here every day. And all that's stopping you is my explicit lack of consent." She folded her arms over her chest, the sleeves of her jacket making a satisfying rustle as a flared nose finished her picture of defiance.

Wisteria leaned forwards, towering over Andy as she closed the distance. The expression on her face had turned distinctly predatory. Andy yelped despite herself, before returning to her best facsimile of resoluteness. "Do you want me to domesticate you?"

The way her voice squeaked in response was horrifically undignified. "N- no! No, I don't! I-"

She was cut off by a purred pronouncement, silenced by the forest of thorny teeth curling into a cruel smile. "You've been coming here too, little one. Every day, just to meet with me. I think you do want it."

"You- you can't! Unless you break the rules! Which-"

"Which means you win? Because you've proved I don't care about them?" Her voice rolled like sap, slow and irresistible. Andy had the horrible feeling that she had messed up somehow. "Isn't it cute that the only way for you to win is on my leash?"

Frost. Frost frost frost frost. How had this gotten so out of hand?

"It's almost like you want me to take you."

Maybe she could still pull this together? Not be the flustered one for once in her storming life?

"To wrap my vines around your neck and never let go."

No. She didn't want that. Didn't she? Wisteria was so close, her eyes were so bright. The rest of the restaurant had stopped existing.

"Turning you into my little pet, my little plaything, forever and ever."

She was blinking so fast. It didn't help. Her mind was filling with that light.

And then it was gone. Andy shuddered, confused, the world slowly fading back in. What had happened? Wisteria was sitting back, leaning away from her, a satisfied expression on her beautiful face. The glow in her eyes had faded, and they were back to their normal burnished sheen. Part of Andy twinged in disappointment at that. But that didn't matter. As memories slowly folded back into her mind, she realized she'd lost. Again. Frost, she was hopeless.

"It's funny, you know?" Wisteria was speaking. Andy's head whipped up towards them, gaze refocusing.

"Wuh-- huh?" Eloquence had always been once of her strong suits.

"You could already be my floret, domesticated and then hypnotized to not remember it. And you would have no idea." Wisteria wasn't even looking at her while talking, focusing instead on swirling an oversized glass of some affini beverage. If Andy wasn't so busy panicking, she would have found the image strikingly beautiful.

Full consciousness crashed back in an instant, mind returning and immediately flying into overdrive. "I'm not, am I?" Andy frantically began searching through her memories, desperately hunting for proof of her lauded independence. What had she eaten for breakfast that morning? Where did she work? Were the answers real? Could she know??

Wisteria chuckled, still looking away. "There's only one way to find out, my acorn."

"And what's that?" Her heart felt tight. Panic still held her in an iron vice.

The towering affini pushed the chair back, and stood. However much she had dwarfed Andy while sitting, standing just made it worse. She held out a hand. "It's time for us to go now, pet." Her voice was iron, commanding, sweeping through Andy. With the turmoil in her head, there was no refusing the order.

Tentatively, anxiously, but obediently, Andy stood and walked over to take Wisteria's hand. Vines snaked out, binding her wrist and upper arm with a surprising gentleness that still lacked any give. There was no escape. Wisteria started to walk. Andy quickly began jogging along, barely keeping up with her friend's(?) massive strides. After the hypnotic display, a solid third of the patrons watched them go. Most of the humans were gaping in open desire. She blushed, hard.

Wisteria swung the door open, and Andy quickly followed out into the street. Her mind was still churning, struggling to catch up with how quickly things had gone wrong. Wrong? Had they gone wrong? She didn't know anymore. Gathering enough thoughts to ask a question took until they reached the train station, where she was picked up and placed firmly on a viney lap. That silenced her for another long moment, until she finally spoke up.

"Wist?"

There was no response; Wisteria didn't even acknowledge that anything had been said.

"Wisteria?" Andy turned to look up at her. Still, nothing. Her shoulders clenched. She had lived in under the compact her entire life, she had been surrounded by affini media and books, to say nothing of having watched many of her friends and acquaintances fall to domestication over the years. She knew what Wisteria was waiting for. And as hesitant as she was to say it, she had to know.

"....mistress?"

A wide grin spread across the affini's face, and she looked down at the girl in her lap. "Yes, my acorn?"

Andy felt herself tremble. This was not how she had imagined the conversation going this morning. But nothing felt real anymore. She didn't even know if her hab unit was real. The train was traveling the wrong direction for her, but she didn't know if that was right either.

"Did you-- Am I a floret?"

"Not yet, dearest. But we're going to change that right now. After how adorable you were today, I couldn't believe I'd held myself back for so long."

Andy whimpered, but did not resist.

[paxcallow]

max tries several unimpressive new tactics

[isntthisblank]

Whumper puts whumpee into full sensory deprivation before Whumpee ever sees them. Whumper manipulating them into thinking that Whumper actually isn’t human by using odd gloves, boots, costumes whenever they touch Whumpee. Making Whumpee question their grasp on their own reality, making them believe in true monsters that are out to hurt them.

bonus points it it’s written from the POV of whumpee so the reader is never sure wether whumper is human or not either