#i am burdened by the constraints of technology | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

kukkotar · 5 years ago

Text

Maternal gift-giving

"At the beginning of my research on motherhood—then a young mother in my twenties myself—I realized that there is something deeply wrong with family and motherhood and the way motherhood is presented in the media and in politics. The public discourse is dominated by two subjects. One is about work and family, that is, the economic view; the other is about procreation—birthrates and their political implications. Within both debates, mothers as such do not appear …

'Having it all' is supposedly the objective (e.g., Sandberg) for women who want both children and work. In Europe this debate is dominated by the social democratic viewpoint and its concept of freeing women by including them in the workforce and encouraging a career. … This economic discourse is based on the concept of liberal feminism's understanding of equality (with men) without questioning neoliberalism or its philosophy, rules, and practices.

The other subject on the daily agenda is the reproductive one—abortion legislation and practice, birthrate decline in Europe, and reproductive technologies. All these debates are dealt with in a moral and normative manner. Women's bodies and procreative ability are objects of discussion, though not debated with women themselves. ...

The low birthrates in Europe since the 1980s also brought a new incentive to accelerate population politics. The norm of the two-child family is constantly pursued and propagated in politics, media, and—not the least—by the economic demands of a higher amount of human resources. … We thus realize that motherhood is central to political and economic debates, but not so for the mother herself with her needs, accomplishments, or constant giving. Maternal gift giving is not labelled as such, and is thus nonexistent in political and economic terms. …

My thesis is that the idea of motherhood today—which I call 'patriarchal motherhood'—is based on the historical matricide, which can be retraced in myth, psychology, science, medicine, law, politics, philosophy, and religion. The mother is still alive—as she is still required as breeder, caretaker, and worker—but the conditions and the constraints in which she is living are the result of a violent transformation. …

A key term here is patriarchy … [it] consists of the Latin term pater (meaning father) and the Greek term arche (which can mean dominance or beginning). It is the father who wants to replace the mother as the origin and creator. That is done in material form, but also by means of symbolism and myths, such as that of Zeus who 'gives birth' to his daughter Athena out of his head. What the historically younger version of that myth conceals is that before supposedly giving birth, he had swallowed the goddess Metis who was pregnant with her daughter. Thus, like today, patriarchy depended on absorbing maternal potency to imitate the creation of life. ...

During the last decades, Michel Foucault's postmodern approach and critical theory of modernity was applied to feminist theory and ousted feminist social science approaches. Judith Butler and others developed the theory of gender performativity, denying that there is anything natural in the female body, thus rendering it impossible to talk about women in a collective sense. Furthermore, this concept, widely accepted in academia, has caused a shift toward individualizing the 'female problem,' and leaving a systemic view behind. In a 'gender neutral' world, the collective understanding of women is vanishing and political activism against structural injustice and violence is rendered impossible.

By favouring an individualistic view and an 'identity approach,' 'womanhood' is reduced to a rhetorical problem and feminism is losing is transformative power. It may be speculation as to whether this was, in fact, the aim of the theory of gender performativity, but what we do know for sure is that this approach contributes to the patriarchal project of abolishing the mother. …

I am unable to even find a word that can describe the 'constant weaving a net' that women provide on a daily basis. It contains the world of emotions in which mother and child are immersed from the day of birth; the sharing of time; the process of cooking and sharing meals; and the female and maternal network that comprises mothers and friends. Maternal culture is embodied by the whole sphere of artisanal and handcraft activity by sharing circles and creating spaces by its acts of production. ...

Motherhood was historically split into physical (the womb) and caring functions (which were oppressed, ridiculed, and exploited). … There is an ultimate goal, namely to get rid of the mother altogether. It is her body and her creative potency which has to be eradicated, at which time the male creation puts itself in her place, turning female creativity on its head. Her vividness is to be eradicated, and pregnancy is to be turned from a supposedly uncontrolled, wild, and unpredictable act to a calculable, controlled, and measurable one of modern technology. …

Patriarchal motherhood must be understood as an institution, as the mother's body, her work, and her creative potency are transformed into a kind of administrative unit. By providing food, housing, and care, the mother and housewife embodies economy in its true sense. This is the shadow economy upon which the official economy is based …

The frame in which maternal life is permitted is the nuclear family, a concept created in the beginning of patriarchal times to impede woman's free sexuality and pregnancies regardless of the father. Within marriage, procreation became transformed into a controlled and supervised duty. Since then, a non-married mother was considered to be a shame, and the married mother a blessing. The seizure of 'illegitimate' children was common throughout Europe until the 1970s. Over time and space, the family was normatively shaped in manifold ways, but its aim of preserving control over the reproductive process never altered.

Also the European/North American idea of motherhood and the nuclear family is an export good to non-western societies. It is communicated or violently imposed by means of religion (missionaries), economics (private property, creation of a new workforce), or political measures (introduction of paternal family name) on non-patriarchal societies—for example, the Khasis in Assam, India, or the Mosuo in South China. …

A characteristic of mothers' lives in patriarchy is the constant state of being overworked and exhausted, not only when the mother is single, but also when she is in a relationship. Statistics prove time and time again that working mothers are usually subject to an imbalance of childcare and household work. Today paid employment is an economic necessity to maintain the household; the leftist slogan of gaining freedom through employment is and was never true. Female salaries are low and usually considered an add-on to the main income of the male, which is still considerably higher. Female employment was and is seldom self-realization, but simply a matter of survival. Thus mothers gain exhaustion instead of the promised freedom of economic independence. …

In making the burden of the constant care, responsibility, management, and raising of each child the responsibility of an individual, society rids itself of any understanding of common sharing. … Instead of sharing work with others, mothers perform their day-to-day tasks in 'solitary confinement' (Rich) according to detailed instructions on carrying out motherhood. … The mother is led to believe that she should not care about or prioritize her own needs, that neglecting herself is normal, and that her notion of constant failure and guilt is natural. The patriarchal mother is also unaware of the norms that make sure that she will never be able to keep up with expectations.

In this sense, the perverted mother shall follow an ideal of a heterosexual relationship that is supposedly the best place for her children and herself. It is presented as 'natural,' as children are conceived by a man and a woman. In this 'natural' pairing, men and women are kept together in a lifelong unit as a nuclear family. The patriarchal mother is made to believe that a lasting romantic relationship in marriage is the norm. The truth contradicts this all the while: the family is the most dangerous place for women and children because of sexual, physical, and psychological abuse, and danger of a violent death. A lifelong loving relationship is the exception while unhappy unions, divorces, and separations are the statistical norm. …

The perverted mother has to be kept under control and under psychological, pedagogical, legal, and medical observance. She has to function within that framework and within the nuclear family. If she fails she is punished socially and legally. In other words, she represents the essential role of the family machine—a kind of family caricature, free of spontaneity and liveliness, an entity of constraints and of duty to society and nation. The world of the creative mother-child culture is belittled, devalued, supposedly old fashioned, unnecessary, and undesirable. These efforts are vilified and reduced to providing fast food, getting the children ready for school in a militaristic manner, organizing and managing them, and turning them and the mother herself into factory inmates. …

We have to become aware of our own colonized mind. We have to stop believing that mothers ought to be in an isolated state. We have to give up the idea that individual motherhood is the norm.

We also have to realize that the nuclear family is the worst place to live in peace and to raise a child. We also have to consider the next generation and not fall into the trap of raising our children with the wrong pictures of the holy and sane family that are portrayed in the media and popular culture. We have to sustain them in finding their autonomous ways to a satisfying life, raising children in community, and having a healthy personal sexual life and romantic relationships that may vary over the course of time.

What should be our model for this new understanding of a freed personal life? In fact, the solution is old and the models are still in place. The answer is matrilinearity, which has been in practice since the beginning of civilization all over the world, and in some (mostly remote) areas of the world still exists, although the attempts to patriarchalize these societies are increasing. …

Starting to live by way of matrilinearity means:

▴ Understanding motherhood as a collective caring principle carried out by many—thus the opposite of an idealized isolated mother image. Motherhood itself, from the time of pregnancy, is to be understood and respected as the embodiment of connectedness.

▴ Family and kinship is defined through the maternal line, not by marriage. Like Russian nesting dolls, the offspring of the maternal body form a linear tradition that can never be denied. Family is about belonging to and sharing with a specific group or clan. When the father tried to make himself symbolically and in reality the head of the family, he turned the logic of matrilineally completely on its head.

▴ The maternal brother is the social father of his sister's children. He is the support of all the mothers in the family. So the maternal line also includes men, but not husbands or lovers. Sexual relationships are considered a private, very personal matter, and thus not an integral part of the familial community system. Love within the family has a completely different character and importance than the desire for a lover. For the Mosuo, who practice visiting marriages, the idea of building a life on mutual sexual attraction seems completely incomprehensible and irresponsible.

▴ Housing in a close vicinity is an important factor for the interdependence of the community and family. By forming a net of relationships, mutual support can help children grow up safely in an enduring community.

▴ Contrary to the Western concept of ego, which can only be developed by matricide, there is no need of a violent act in order to be an independent person. The idea of the 'mature ego' is usually equated with an attitude in which the objective reality is thought of as being radically separated from the subject. Instead of 'cutting the cord' as is demanded in European and North American cultures (or else risk the accusation of having failed in 'adult life' if you return to your parents' house), adult children and grandchildren in matrilinear families are still connected to their maternal home by a movement of back and forth, continually leaving and returning."

Mariam Irene Tazi-Preve, from her essay, "The Perversion of Maternal Gift Giving: Initiating the Matrilinear Motherhood NOW Movement," published in The Maternal Roots of the Gift Economy, edited by Genevieve Vaughan, 2019,

#mariam irene tazi-preve #gift economy #motherhood #maternal lineage

3 notes · View notes

script-a-world · 5 years ago

Note

Hi, I'm trying to connect land in my non earth world with tunnels under the ocean. I notice that in real life, tunnels are extremely expensive and if I could have tunnels 1000km long, that sounds impossible. But obviously that only counts real world expenses. So, yeah, how am I to judge expenses in a sci-fi setting.

Tex: A construction project like tunnels often need to consider two things when pricing the project out: cost of supplies and how hazardous the project is to build. The two are interdependent, in that the safety of the project is increased the more advanced the technology and materials are for construction.

Fritchley Tunnel in Derbyshire, England, is one of the oldest surviving railway tunnels in the world, built in 1793 - I’m not certain how it was built (Archaeology Data Service), but I’d reckon that some sort of pickaxe was used by manual laborers. Depending on how you count it, manual labor may be either cheap or expensive because of potential pay, injury incidence rate, and skill of the laborers. Since sci-fi doesn’t necessarily mean futuristic, methods that we consider old-fashioned may be the preferred method, as would laborers pressed into service from previous occupations such as slavery, jail, or poverty.

From what I’ve been able to discern, tunnels carry their own unique risks of laborer and equipment endangerment, as one wrong move and the entire thing can collapse around your ears. Preempting potential disasters at the work site may or may not incur a net financial burden, so some unscrupulous project managers may turn a blind eye in order to cut corners in the budget. This may be especially so if the cost of adding on new labor is cheaper than securing the work site.

The level of commonly-accessible technology is dictated by the constraints of the economy of which this project participates in, and the capital upon which the participating companies and/or organizations (non-profits, governments, etc) draw their wealth from. Sketching out the parameters of this project minus the fictional worldbuilding part of it might be more helpful in this case, and after that you can throw some numbers at the problem and see what looks plausible in terms of cost (do we really spend 500 space dollars on a hammer or not?).

Further Reading

PDF - Quantifying the costs and benefits of occupational health and safety interventions at a Bangladesh shipbuilding company by Irene Thiede and Michael Thiede

PDF - The business case for safety and health at work: Cost-benefit analyses of interventions in small and medium-sized enterprises by European Agency for Safety and Health at Work – EU-OSHA

Constablewrites: In the last 10 years, the cost of solar panels has decreased over 60%. This is largely due to advances in technology making the cells more powerful and cheaper to build (though increased competition in the market is likely in play as well). A century ago, owning an automobile was the provenance of the wealthy; now the average American family owns two. In other words, the cost of technology isn’t really fixed.

Your world’s level of advancement in this particular niche is likely to be a factor of how long they’ve been doing it, how much demand there is for improved processes, who benefits from the project and how, what alternatives there are to doing such a project, and what resources they have available.

So if this world decided on intercontinental tunnels, what makes traveling underwater a more compelling option than traveling across or above it? Are there unique dangers on the surface that make tunneling overall a safer and more efficient option? Is the planet’s geological makeup more malleable than ours? Do they have some significant fuel source or advanced automation that would make such a project more feasible? Is there something about the society’s culture or values that favors tunnels? Is there enough trade and migration between continents to justify such a large-scale project? How did that movement happen before the tunnels were complete, and is there a reason they can’t just keep doing that?

Basically, economics isn’t so much about specific dollar amounts as it is about trade-offs: what else could they be doing with those resources other than this? What can they not put resources into if they allocate them to this? In our world, it wouldn’t make sense to do this sort of thing because travel by air or sea is already possible and is cheaper, easier, and faster in comparison to tunneling--especially since just getting to most of the ocean floor is something we haven’t figured out how to do easily, to say nothing of staging a massive engineering project there. But on a world with shallow seas and an inhospitable atmosphere, the calculus would look very different.

tl;dr: If you want these tunnels, you have to build a world where they are (or seem to be) the most reasonable option.

#pylons #tunnels #expenses #Anonymous

14 notes · View notes

animentality · 6 years ago

Note

Is Evangelion really as deep as its fans say it is? Am I missing out on something by not watching it? I lurked a bit on twitter yesterday and everyone was collectively crying about how it is the most profound animu they have ever watched that had a super deep impact on their lives etc etc. Maybe I have lost the ability to genuinely enjoy things but most of the times I feel that the Western fanbase tends to overhype Japanese games/anime etc.

Ok, so here’s the thing.

I personally love Evangelion. I thought the original was peak 90s culture, nihilistic, anxious about technology, experimentally violent, visually impressive, and rife with sexual awkwardness.

I liked the final movie too.

I would recommend it only because the characters are very complex and rich with those nagging little human inconsistencies that make people so damn vexing.

I would also recommend it because the narrative is just very unique and strange and kind of has to be experienced for you to understand why it’s left such a lasting impact on people.

But people who try to make it out to be “deep,” well.

The Christian symbolism was thrown in there because it looked cool (legit, the creators behind it admitted as much).

Budget constraints kind of fucked up parts of the story in the original show.

And the ending is a little pretentious in that stuffy apocalyptic 90s way where the ultimate moral message is muddied by a weird non-answer to the question of what humanity really is.

So there’s that.

But honestly?

I loved Evangelion.

You don’t often get anime that explores the psychological traumas associated with being a protagonist, and you don’t often get anime that allows its adolescent teenagers to be awkward and sexually adventurous without it blatantly sexualizing them.

In the original Eva, sure, you saw female characters naked occasionally, but it was never meant to tease you. It was usually done in a horrible way, actually, where someone was trying to humiliate someone else, or someone, like Asuka, was literally sitting in a dirty ass bath tub, so psychologically scarred from all the burdens she’d been forced to carry to save the world that she’s just glassy eyed and staring at nothing with her arms around her legs.

And of course Shinji and Kaworu, the OG implied gay couple, where Kaworu was the only person who ever showed Kaworu the affection he desperately wanted, and it’s portrayed as a natural progression of human sexuality, to question what love really feels like, and who’s allowed to love who.

There are little nuances to Evangelion, to the psyches of its very flawed human characters, that make it worth a watch.

But that’s just me personally.

I don’t care for mecha anime, so when I watched Evangelion, I wasn’t sure what to expect.

But since I personally enjoy psychological and existential fiction?

I ended up loving it way more than I ever expected.

So I dunno, anon.

If you’re into that, if you really wanna check it out for yourself, by all means go for it.

But fans who like to overhype things by making them out to be the greatest thing since Macbeth, well.

ignore them. you may like it, you may not. some parts may be appealing, some parts might not be.

personally, it’s one of my favorite animes ever.

but i know it’s not for everyone.

17 notes · View notes

itsyooo · 3 years ago

Text

Being a ‘care’porate. Learning from best practices...

Covid made a lasting impact on many areas in our businesses. Needless to say it made a huge impact on the human resources side of the business. Having a great talent pool is key to any company's success and that is something everyone has started realizing. Pandemic also highlighted the best practices on the human resources side followed by the corporates during the peak Covid seasons when the folks (would rather call employees as folks to make them closer) were handled with utmost care and compassion by many companies.

In essence, Covid led business downturn brought out the brighter side of the companies while handling their folks. Hopefully such practices of care & compassion would continue in the future even if Covid subsides from this World.

In line with those best practices, I am happy to share some of the best practices towards folks which are followed by the seasoned & experienced business leader Ms Ramya Nirmal, Director - CI Global Technologies.

Flexi work hours - It's important to have a flexi work life given the constraints of working from homes in the current scenario. With more & more people opting to work from homes, it's important to give folks the option to have flexi work hours. Given the fact that many children are still working online, parents also have the responsibility of guiding them during their sessions. Flexi work option is paramount & a best practice on the work front.

Work from anywhere - Giving the folks the option to from anywhere is possibly the best option in the current scenario. Work related life made many to migrate to larger cities abandoning their home towns & their parents. By giving them the option to work from anywhere, the folks have the option to choose their ideal working conditions and it can boost employee productivity.

Upskilling opportunities - Skilling & Upskilling are the buzz words in the current scenario. With the global business conditions undergoing massive transformation, folks need to get themselves constantly upskilled to stay relevant in the changing times. Corporates giving the folks to upskill will certainly be a stand out best practice to enhance their productivity & relevance in the changing business environment. Clients too demand people with upgraded skills to be on their sites.

Health insurance for dear ones - Providing health care has gained a lot of importance in the current scenario, though it has been important all the time. In the current scenario, people are undergoing health challenges owing to Covid & corporate's enhanced support is necessary for the folks to overcome these health challenges. Only a healthy family can extract the best output from the employees.

Open door policy with top management - Having a transparent & an open system with the top management gives the folks much needed confidence. Folks working in companies undergo lots of challenges, both on professional and personal fronts. Having direct access to the top bosses eases their burden quite considerably.

Revenue sharing - Giving back to folks is something every corporate must follow in true spirit. When the folks help the companies achieve their financial targets, it's only fair for the companies to pay them back to give them incentive to work hard & more. Give them more to them and that will come back in good results for the companies.

No work on weekends - This is a phenomenal policy every company must follow to keep business away from the weekends, which are needed for the folks to spend their quality time with their families. Though most of them are working from homes, work days do not give them a break to be on their own. Encouraging the folks to keep business matters away during weekends will boost their productivity as well in the following days.

Eventually companies must create a good checklist to enhance the productivity of the folks which in turn will positively impact the results of the companies. Corporates should become ‘care’porates to inculcate care & compassion towards their folks!

Cheers

Gopal

Founder

ilEAP (Independent Leaders, Entrepreneurs and Promoters) Forum

www.upthecurve.in

0 notes

curious-glitch · 3 years ago

Text

From Infinite Money to Immutable Money

I have been taking the excellent 'Money and Blockchain' MIT course on Youtube to learn more about the technological and economic dynamics of blockchains. I am now about 2/3 of the way done, and I find the current lecture I'm on "Central Banks and Digital Currency" particularly striking. I dug deeper on central bank systems and uncovered a few absurdities:

1) Central banks literally create money out of thin air. The main tool that they use is called quantitative easing, which is a form of open-market operations. They 'buy back' government bonds and other assets in exchange for money that they create out of nothing. From the Wikipedia article: "...The central bank has the authority to bring money in and out of existence. It is the only point in the whole system with the unlimited ability to produce money." This is obviously a simplification, but I imagine that central bankers could easily play god, snap their fingers and say:

"Let there be money. And there was money.

Those digits on your ledger, they're now your money.

Now hand me your bonds.

You're welcome."

And voila, just like that money is now in the system. While there are checks and balances to this system, this kind of power corrupts.

2) Central banks can expand their balance sheets indefinitely. This can flood the market in the process and potentially devalue the currency. The central bank balance sheet can get so big that it can literally 'eat the world' and own it. After all, it has the singular authority (backed by the state's guns) to take a real productive asset in exchange for digits they can type on a computer. In countries like Sweden and Japan, the central banks have used this method to own a sizable chunk of real assets and stocks.

3) Banks can turn the digits on their ledger into 10x more money. Bank lending is also just adding digits in the system for their client's ledgers. Essentially, also created out of thin air. This multiplies money in the system because The only constraint they have here is the reserve requirement that they need to deposit with the central bank, and the amount of interest they pay for that. It's fascinating to see the emergent effects to money supply simply simply by turning knobs called 'reserve requirement' and 'interest rate.'

4) These digits on ledgers show that our money system is already digital. Only 15-20% of monetary supply comes in the form of cash. The rest are just digits on the ledgers of the central bank. Same goes for the banks. When they issue loans and thus expand the supply of money, they just record digits on a ledger. To quote a tweet from Elon Musk: "The thing we call money is just an information system for labor allocation. What actually matters is making goods & providing services."

5) The entire financial system is built on top of debt. Money is created when it is borrowed or lent out. Treasury departments, who central banks work hand in hand with, issue debt to fund their current operations and pay back old debt. In this vein, governments borrow indefinitely from the taxpayers of the future. I wonder how this vicious cycle can be overturned if the incentives are in place to keep this going. Unlimited money is the most addictive drug, but how can this system be truly democratic if we throw this burden to the future generations who do not yet have a voice?

Central banks now have too much power. After learning all these, it makes crypto look tame in comparison. In particular the US Federal Reserve is dictating the terms for what is essentially the world currency. USD holders around the world suffer, while only the USA benefits from its programs. I see the move away from the US dollar as a global reserve currency to be inevitable at this point - the only question is when. Money is still a social construct, so it would still require believers and evangelists of the new currency to make the actual shift happen.

The good news is that the technology for immutable money is now possible now with Bitcoin, with restrictions enforced by cryptography and code to enable a monetary supply that cannot be tampered. After learning more about central banks, I see it now. Money that is backed by code instead of guns seems to be the only way out of this mess.

0 notes

keevansixx · 7 years ago

Text

Et Tu...Elohim?

Ahh, welcome welcome...do have a seat...I'm so very pleased you accepted my humble invitation, and i'm quite certain you have millions of questions floating around in you head that will be answered in the course of time, but for the interim, I will start by saying this....

Someone, glancing up at the heavens in distant longing, once penned the phrase "We are all made of stars.." never realizing how close to the ancient truth they truly were. And if they were ever privy to what really happened those many tragic millennia ago, the burden of that knowledge would surely drive anyone to madness. and a slow debilitating self inflicted death.

That's why human rationalization came up with all the stories, tales, myth, and legends. Not as an entertaining tool to while away a long winter's frigid spell, or frighten young children into eating their sprouts and greens, but as a way to remember those old truths long since dead and buried...

Sadly, the old ways have been filtered down throughout the ages by untold countless orators, each handing a story down from eldest to youngest through the passages of time, until the original truths, that were such basis of those stories, were buried under the fanciful machinations of each speakers time, or frame of reference to such a degree, that any such ancient wisdom to be gleaned was long since altered from it's original intent, into fanciful flights of creative imagination that serve now more as a guide to future humans, a bit of entertaining fluff with moral lessons, than as a warning of things to come, or what has been, and ever shall be again.

What I am about to tell you is of utmost importance to prepare you for what is yet to come. You may call them prophesies, soothsaying, mad unhinged ramblings, or whatever terminology you may deem fit to interpret as you see best, and to create a frame of reference that your mind can somewhat comprehend (or at least reasonably accept to some degree) and hopefully, somewhere in this exchange, you will find the resolve to see the great work fulfilled, and finally close the last chapter of this story for good.

Ahh, I see your puzzled expression, and assure you everything is quite alright for the moment, be at peace...no need to fret just so yet...all is well...but first, as all ancient decorum dictates, needs must come an introduction, followed by an explanation, a choice, and finally...if all goes swimmingly...hope.

Who am I?, you ask. Well...lets just say, for simplicities sake, that I have existed for a very very long time. Far longer than you've known recorded history to exist, and if I were to divulge the actual truth of the matter, you would think me insane, and most likely storm off in a flurry of self righteous indignation, then report me to the nearest psychological institution as a raving lunatic who needs saving from itself afore someone gets hurt. Let me assure you, I'm neither insane, going insane, nor inclined to prance naked through the gardens at midnight during a full moon (though, I would highly recommend trying the latter exercise at least once or twice in your lifetime as it is highly a soul cleansing liberating experience to free oneself from the constraints of polite society every now and then.) and am most astoundingly sane, given my personal knowledge of events that have transpired before, and one day, shall be again.

If I had to place a label on my existence (as the human animal is often want to do) I would say that I am a watcher....the last man on the wall, the keeper of the arcane, the wise old bastard in the shadows, that old person sitting on the street corner with the little small dog...with the hat on the pavement and the tiny sign begging for change, the alchemist, the weaver, the dreamer, the wordsmith, the alpha, the bard, the Sassenach, Oracle, doomsayer, destroyer of dreams, the original nightmare, the balance, the harlequin, or any number of descriptive titles they've used to understand the knowledge I possess down through the ages....but for simplicities sake, for the time being....you can call me Adam....

Now that the introductions are formally met, it is high time I explain to you the nature of why you are here, how you came to find me, and hopefully....a choice.

It all starts with a simple phrase told throughout history from the oldest to youngest with the magical incantation...."Once upon a time...."

Once upon a time, before things became written down, and the stories altered beyond what was true, there was a little blue gem of a world orbiting a small star. Nestled in the outer regions of a young galaxy at war with itself, this tiny world became the nexus of a great conflict.

Oh, it never started out as such...for a long time, it simply existed. Turning from a fiery amalgamation of dust and stone, to a lush living world capable of supporting life in all it's splendor. As time passed, the young world was visited by beings from afar, and as each one came and went, they left their small marks upon the young earth, leaving behind traces of themselves everywhere they touched down. As I said, war had come to the little blue gem in the middle of nowhere, as it had for billions of years on countless other worlds. Those races in conflict had used the earth as a waystation many times on their way to other parts of the galaxy. Sometimes they fought, many times they died, and every trace of them crumbled to the dust and ash of a young planet as if they had never been.

I could go on, recounting all the little changes their petty wars wrought upon the earth, but quite frankly, that would take more years in the telling than you have left upon this plane of existence, and I'm a little pressed for time this century, so I'll gloss over the boring bits, and try to keep it as simple as I can for you to understand....now where was I?

Ahhh, yes....a great cosmic war, and in the center of this region of the galaxy, the earth. now, at this point in time, I must point out that at the height of this great war, many races existed upon the surface of the earth.....not because they wanted to, mind you...but because this planet offered much in the way of rest and recovery (not to mention basic resources) from an endless pointless war. Think of it as somewhat of a truce...a sort of cold war pact between races that they would not try to annihilate each other while stopping on their way to the next big battle. Of course, sometimes things don't always go according to plan, and accidents do happen from time to time, but I digress...The earth became a sort of neutral ground for conflicting species. They, somewhat begrudgingly, existed upon this planet, before your ancestors learned to walk erect, and pick up sticks to dig grubs out of the ground.

That's where I sort of come into our little tale, you see, an accident of sorts, not out of spite nor malice, but a simple miscalculation that set me upon my current path. And the reason I say it is "our tale" is because sometimes... things happen for no reason at all other than sheer chance. It was sheer chance that humans encountered pathogens that altered their DNA, It was blind luck that out of the myriad billions of pathogens carried from distant worlds to ours, humans encountered the ones that started them on the path to sentience. You could call it fate, or destiny, or divine order......whatever gives you comfort and helps you to sleep soundly at night. But the harsh truth of humanity is.... we were an accident created by hands not our own, and when the other races learned of our existence, believe me, there was hell to pay. Some of the races wished to exterminate the entire species strain, for they saw us not as new lifeforms worthy of preservation, but a perversion of their own genetics, blaming each other for the "accident" and wishing to reconcile the matter before the contamination was irreversible. Other races saw us as a potential, or means to an end, wishing to nurture the new species like a proud parent holding a newborn for the first time, and then there were races ambivalent to humanity in general, wishing to neither help, nor harm, the new flesh whatsoever. They sort of tolerated humanity much like an elderly couple shaking their canes and telling children to "keep off their lawn".

This went on for quite a very long time, relatively speaking, humans existing underfoot of stellar beings, all the while learning from each new experience, from the stone age, to antiquity. I like to remember that early age as the age of myth and legend. You see, that's where many of our oldest stories started from...humans seeing things they cannot explain, and trying to place into words the things they seen while walking hand in hand with life not of this world.

I could tell you of the fair folk.....I think your stories called them "the Fey" or "the Aes Sidhe" such creative license you lot prescribed to them, when in all truthfulness, yes... they were beautiful (at least by human reckoning), yes... they were powerful (of course, back then it was easy to misinterpret all technology as a form of magic.) but they were also arrogant, cruel, spiteful, and clever....when they finally left earth in their stern viewports to pursue other targets, I breathed a slight sigh of relief....and wished they never to return. For all they did, and didn't do, humans still worship them like some misguided child, never knowing the horrors that could have been inflicted on them in those early days. Though, to be fair, there were a few that I had wished stayed behind, they were not like their counterparts, and viewed humanity with whimsy, bringing laughter and joy wherever they roamed....I miss those moments.

I could tell you of the Asir, but then again, I assume you are familiar with all the scandanavian myth and legends surrounding them. Warlike, fierce, proud....when they fought amongst the stars, worlds broke and shattered, stars dimmed with their passing. As with all things, they too, moved on to greener pastures and different wars, yet leaving their marks upon an impressionable young race called humanity.

Or the beings whom inhabited what you know as south America....I feared for humanity then, for those masters were not partial to us in any way, shape, or form. And when they left for their home worlds, those humans left behind in their shadow worshiped them with blood and fire, begging them to return, I hope they never do...

The Vatara, and their vimanna...I assume you are well versed in Hindu mythology? good....when their race landed upon the earth, the wars were mostly over with, with a few skirmishes over the skies that made it into folklore. For the most part, their race was benevolent towards humanity, with a few notable exceptions, but then again....all those early interstellar races had their quirks, but the Vatara....well, they did it with style.

Asian mythology? The Yi's. Yes...they too were beings from another world who came by for a visit. And like all powerful races, they came and went as they pleased. But for the most part, they were pretty neutral about the whole "humanity" thing, and they did give a few tidbits off their table to the new race on the block. I mean, paper...come on! that was sheer brilliance...without it, the humans would be still scratching away on stone walls and clay tablets. thank the Yi's for that one.

Egyptian mythology....astronauts.

Hebrew mythology.....astronauts.

every mythology.....yep....astronauts. (I know...I know....right at this moment you've got that weird crazy haired guy pic in your minds eye holding up two hands and saying "Aliens"...and I know it sounds far fetched, and that maybe you need a strong drink and some tin foil to swaddle your head in, but they are not all wrong in their assumptions. I'm not saying they are all absolutely right either, but the shades of truth are still there within the periphery of that narrative should you choose to chase that rabbit down the hole, so to speak.)

Let me tell you about dragons for a moment....don't laugh! you think they are all children's stories, but I've seen the real thing. beautiful, graceful, deadly...the perfect weapon for fighting a protracted aerial assault in atmosphere. They were loyal to a fault, tough as hell, and when they flew in formation it was perfection achieved. What's the difference? Well, different races...different aesthetics, for one. the beings who inhabited Asia preferred sinuous curves, and graceful lines than those of their nemesis across the continent. Asian dragons were known for their fluidity in battle, forming complex aerial patterns that were hard to beat in a dogfight. Their European counterparts were gene crafted to be stocky, hardier, more of a short term strike brawler than the long protracted aerial siege engines of the Asians. The Fey crafted thousands of their brawlers for every 10 of Yi's dragons....you think I am kidding? Kid, I've seen carnage across the skies the likes of beyond description when the Fey and the Yi had a squabble over a little patch of land that separated their regions from each other. Rivers burned, and mountains crumbled till all that remained was ash and ruin. I've seen millions dead, and smelled the stench of decay for thousands of years.

Heh, why are there no remains of dragons in fossil record, you ask? Yeah, you'd think there would be something left, wouldn't you? You'd be dead wrong...see, the thing with a bio-weapon, is that once you start leaving stuff behind on the battlefield, your enemies could easily take that knowledge, and theoretically turn it against you, eventually. That's why they put genetic failsafe's in the code of those great beasts. Many simply burned to ash, or exploded into massive fireballs, or rotted away to nothing where they landed. Their DNA forever lost to the ravages of time. But it was something to see...way back then. Of course, after everyone left, there were a few holdout remnants of those once great beasts, making their way into mythology and folklore, and as with all things, passed away into dreams and legend....but they did exist here once upon a time. Who knows, somewhere out there beyond the stars, they may still be gliding on the thermals of distant worlds, doing what they were designed to do. I wish you could have seen them.

Look, I could tell you every interstellar race that ever came to this planet, but to make this story more concise, let's just say that every pantheon you have ever heard of, every religion you've ever seen, every story you've ever heard in your lifetime, all had a glimmer of truth buried deep within that has been altered with the passing years by human hearts telling the oldest of stories in the newest of ways. And that sliver of truth is this: they all came from the stars....and left their marks upon the human race.

Oh oh oh,....I almost forgot to tell you....the Great Experiment. Well, that's what I call it at any rate, but human mythology simply refers it by another word....Atlantis. Oh, don't roll you eyes as me young one....the great experiment came at great cost, and even greater sacrifice than you could ever imagine.

Let me just say this....by the time of the great experiment, the wars that were raged across the cosmos were mostly over. I say mostly, because no matter how warm and fuzzy it makes you feel to think that everyone just one day dropped their armaments eventually, and shook hands, turning swords into plowshares, and singing KumBiYah around a campfire, the real history is just this....old animosities never die, they just get buried underneath diplomacy, bureaucracy, and routine, till both sides eventually forget what ever the hell they went to war for in the first place, moving on with their existences as best they can, while remaining largely distant to their neighbors in the great cosmic 'hood. Distance...makes the best fences, they always say, and so the other races tried to put as much distance between themselves as imaginatively possible, while maintaining a modicum of respectable decorum between themselves. Hence the great experiment.

Now, you must understand that during this time, the human race had developed sufficiently, both mentally and socially, to start writing stuff down, and when ol' Plato recorded his story of Atlantis in Timaeus and Critias all those years ago, he just wasn't giving lip service to an analogy of state versus outside influences. He was 3rd partying events that actually happened, but in his own biased human way.

Atlantis was a jewel, filled with the remnants of all those interstellar races (humans included...think of us early humans as party crashers. We weren't exactly invited, but we showed up anyway, and well, they tolerated our presence without too much pretext....that's how we sort of wormed our way into their company...blind endearing curiosity, eagerness, helpfulness, all those traits that didn't annoy our interstellar visitors...so they basically let us hang and learn) whom had, as yet, to flee back to the stars or return home. It was a lovely place, filled with the kind of people you'd really love to party with given the chance, and everyone got along for the most part. There were comings and goings of a dozen or more races, as they zipped to and fro between their outposts, knowledge was exchanged freely....think of it as coin of the realm, with vast libraries cataloging the wealth of knowledge into great halls for everyone to share. There was peace and prosperity for a time, and it looked like humanity was on the fast track to join their interstellar neighbors soon, as the human race in Atlantis was like kids in a candy store, going respectfully buck wild, and soaking up the knowledge faster than a sponge, or like a kid whipping down pixie sticks with a jolt cola chaser. Damn, it was good to be alive in those days...there was peace, stability, prosperity for the human race. I could spend years perusing the stacks at the great library, and I tried to every chance I got. learning the histories of hundreds of worlds, seeing all the different technology up close and personal, meeting different races over drinks and nibbles, while dreaming of a bright and glorious future that lay before us. It was the closest thing to heaven for me, than I would ever see again.

That's when the troubles started. Seemed innocent enough at first, we were learning how to harness the atom, bending space/time to our whims, almost about to make that breakthough with fusion technology, when things went all tits up, and ended with a massive explosion and drowning beneath the waves.

Now, for the record, please don't hold humanity accountable for all that had transpired there, we were curious.....maybe a little too curious for our own good, and the other interstellar races were mostly amused at our endeavors, and for the most part helpful when they deemed it necessary to intervene on our behalf, lest we do something incredibly stupid, and accidentally crack the earth in twain from a misaligned core. But those damn Athenians! jealous bastards the lot of them...couldn't wait and play nice like the rest of humanity...nooooOOOOOoooo, they just had to be the ultimate buzzkill. *sigh* lets just say, a small party of them felt threatened at all we had accomplished there, going on about sovereignty and states rights, the rights of man, and how we Atlanteans were threatening their very existence, when all we wanted to do was party and learn, trying to be good little humans, and not step on the daffy Athenian buggerers like all the other star races had done before to humanity. When they raided the research centers and literally axed (i'm not kidding, they took an axe...a stupid bronze axe) and fractured a fusion core setting off a fatal chain reaction....the mantle moved...not rumbled, not a tremor, nor an earthquake....moved, as in Hebrew biblical Armageddon moved. Many of us made it out, but not enough for my tastes, so many lost...all that knowledge....poof....gone in one night. A lifetimes work gone in a blue/green flash because a bunch of stupid humans felt threatened. but that's life for you.....you make it to the top, only to have the proverbial rug yanked out from under you when you least expected it. The Athenians cheered, we wept, buried what remained of our dead, and moved on with our lives as best we could given the circumstances.

The party was over as far as the space faring races were concerned. and over the course of a couple of thousand years, they eventually left taking all their toys with them in the process....so much lost...

The saddest departure was of the Vatara, they championed the cause of humanity the most, as I saw the last of their beautiful vimanna exit the skies, I shed tears at their passing. The Yi's with their dragons, The Asir astride their giant war horses, their beautiful Valkyrie singing songs of old celestial battles, Yahweh and his amazing sciences. Even those beings of the central Americas....they may have been cruel, but some of them were kind, as with all the star races, and I like to think I was their friend, in some small measure, and hope they remember me fondly wherever they ended up in the cosmos. They were my friends and teachers, and I miss them....

The remnants of the Fey were the last to go. I spat on the ground, at the sight of their ships leaving the atmosphere, good riddance, they were the cruelest to humanity after Atlantis's fall. They blamed humanity for everything. The cruelest blow is when a beautiful friendship turns sour, and all that was once joyous and good turns to naught but ash in your mouth...To those Fey who were kind at the end, I beg forgiveness for the human race. We were still young then, and will make mistakes from time to time, hold not the future of our species in ill regards going forward...I cherish the fond memories we made together in the Mediterranean.

we tried again, you know...we humans....to uphold those ideals the others instilled into humanity all those centuries ago, in our own limited way of course. As each age passed, we tried again and again and again. The Babylonians, who worshiped an aerial sand skiff one of the races used to cross the desert, and left busted down outside a goat herders tent, I gave it a once over, and figured out it was a simple misalignment of the grav core due to sand fouling in the intake manifold. A couple of swift kicks to free the fouling, and the thing worked good as new...that is until that moment when that fool Marduk crashed landed it in the town square. *sigh* they thought he was a deity, and spun one hell of a yarn about the whole affair, I just shook my head and walked away.....once human get their minds wrapped around something it's almost impossible to change.

The library at Alexandria, now that was a tragic loss....we tried so hard to reclaim a 10th of the knowledge we lost when Atlantis fell, but the human race had grown stubborn in our isolation, and everything burned....again. The wonders...monuments and structures built to honor those whom departed using ancient knowledge to craft....so much lost.

Ah, Egypt....that was a funny time....they actually thought they could build a giant radio transmitter to contact those beings out there who once occupied their lands, using geometric stone to build a transmitter...some nonsense about stellar alignment, harmonic resonance, and ridiculously huge funky radio tubes they fashioned out of silica glass, meteorite filaments,and powered by vinegar in a makeshift battery....I told them it would never work, as the power output necessary to accomplish such a task was well beyond their technological capabilities...still, had to give them points for trying (three more times, to be exact, each one crazier and bigger than the one before it).

The hanging gardens....I am sad for their passing, we tried to save every remnant of the other races unintended "gifts" to humanity. So many plants lost to time, there were even genuine cures there. The visitors genetically modified domestic plant species to meet their needs... medicines, foods the likes of which will never be seen again. At one time, whole fields of plants that served unique purposes, could be harvested, refined, turned into raw materials to fashion the most astounding things.......what...you think I got to be this old with a wave of a magic wand, and a few mumbo jumbo words? When I say cures, I mean CURES with a capital C. They made this one concoction with the roots, bark, and leaves of a beautiful heart shaped plant that was bitterly destroyed when the gardens fell. I remember at the beginning being offered a cup by the Yi's...they called it "elixir vitae" a battlefield medicine used to treat serious wounds. Humans would later go on to give it more fanciful nomenclatures as time progressed, but to most interstellar visitors, it was go go juice to keep the troops alive and fighting. It was bittersweet, burned with a pleasant warmth, and got you slightly high the more you consumed it (as Pink Floyd would later go on to sing...quite comfortably numb). I loved it, it kept me going through decades of research, and more than one close scrape or two....unfortunately, for all species involved, it had the unforeseen curious side effect of completely arresting the aging process in the human animal, saturating the cells in a chemical cocktail of cellular metabolic arresting clusterfeck that left the unfortunate human bereft of death, disease, and decay, and no longer craving normal biological sustenance. Fairy food, humans would later mythologize it, a cursed substance to be avoided lest your soul rot in damnation, and all that other superstitious nonsense. Oh, I could eat regular food if I wanted to, don't misunderstand, it's just after having consumed a substantial quantity over decades, the body no longer needed sustenance to maintain itself, just a little water now and then to keep things fresh, and everything moving in all the right ways. You may laugh, but all those stupid stories of ancient mummies were only slightly right, they weren't exactly cursed per say (depending on your point of view)....more like they were saturated with battle meds, and through their own choices decided to take a long nap in the hopes they would desiccate, wither, and disintegrate back into the dust from whence they were proverbially spawned. Tired souls who no longer wished to go on, but were too afraid to self immolate, and end it quickly. The dragon wars ended many of my fellow comrades, as they chose to go out with a blaze of glory instead of the long slow path of time. My partner and I...my partner....my.....

*pauses for a moment to wipe away an errant tear*

So....much.....lost......

Excuse me for a moment, will you? I know this seems like a fairy tale to you, the fanciful tall tale of an old dotering mad fool, but for me it only seems like yesterday. The memories fresh and vibrant like a well spring. I try to keep them in check, but sometimes my resolve wavers for a moment, and all the grief and joy, heartache and bliss, wistful longing, and humanist curiosity overwhelms me....forgive me. Just a moment longer, if you please....

*pinches the bridge of his nose, trying to massage the eons of grief from old and tired eyes. Removes an old threadbare handkerchief from a well worn pocket, and proceeds to loudly blow nose, with a slight sniffle at the end *

Thank you....Ahem, yes....now where were we? Oh? Aliens...Absolutely, they all departed in their own ways over time, leaving humanity to it's own devices. Where they are now, I haven't a clue. You see, that's the funny thing about mythology, no matter whose you happen to research on this small planet, they all share some similarity, a common thread of continuity that unites almost every one of them. Oh, the stories may change, and the characters a little different with each and every generation and in the telling, but the common denominator is still there all the same. That same warning over and over and over again....."we will return".....

You were invited here. That's the reason why we are now having this unique conversation. Humanity is entering into a new phase of it's existence, and I need fresh eyes out there watching, waiting, detailing all the little things humanity is doing. We've become noisy....sending calling cards out into the cosmos practically screaming "HERE WE ARE!!! SUPRISE!!" and I'm still not to entirely sure that whomever is out there has forgotten us completely.

It's all the little things....strange sightings, odd random flyby's that cannot be rationally explained, sightings over south America, crop circles popping up randomly across the globe, all that tin foil crap humans scoff at, and dismiss as flights of fancy, or delusional paranoia. We tend to overlook such things as we go about oblivious to what's going on in the greater cosmos around us...but I suspect that we've slightly got the attention of things not of this world, and if we're not careful, humanity might just end up on the cosmic chopping block after all. We weren't meant to exist, yet here we are....and maybe some beings out there are still carrying a grudge after all this time. Better safe than tragically sorry, I always say... That's why you are here...

Out of the billions of souls on the planet, you and others like you, have shown that spark of human curiosity that goes beyond the pale of human normality. You dream, you seek, you create. All those things I seek in a recruit to assist me in the great work ahead. It was by no mere coincidence that you happen to have found my calling card. In the words of my dear departed friend Tolkien, "Not idly do the leaves of Lorien fall..." you were chosen...as others were before you, and others still, after I am long since gone. You will become the new watchers on the wall, the patient, the dreamers, the do'ers, the makers.... you will forge new paths, and be called many new names in return. A new legacy, for a new generation of humans. They are coming...and you will be ready for the day they finally arrive.

So, it's at this juncture I offer you an opportunity....a doorway, if you so please, into a different life than the one you knew before. Oh, I could make some witty remark at this juncture about Orpheus, and be all cryptic with the whole red pill/blue pill spiel, wake up neo! bullshite, Or I could just simply offer you a drink, and a handshake.... the choice is ultimately up to you.

Before you on the table is a tome, handmade. you will find it's leaves blank. This is your book now. You will record your observations in as you see fit. Customize it as you see fit. There is no rhyme nor reason to it, just simply write....the knowledge will flow freely once you begin. It's not magic....just a higher form of technology than what you may be currently acquainted with, and will serve you well in the times ahead. I would recommend a lovely pen that would suit your needs adequately, but I surmise that you'll find something on your own in due time...

Now, to your right, on the small side table you will notice a petite glass. Within that glass is a liquid, and if you were paying attention this whole time, I surmise that you have a question to the legitimacy of that claim, as the source was long ago since lost. Let me assure you, that it is true....every word of it. The source is indeed gone. The caveat emptor being that I did manage to squirrel away a few bottles for a rainy day...I may be old, but never unwise....as I foresaw the future a millennia before you were born. I won't bore you with all the tedious details, but that brief stint on the British isles almost brought everything to wreck and ruin....I fancied myself a bit of a hand wizard in those days, foolish me. Suffice to say, wars have been fought over a single drop, and mighty civilizations toppled in their haste to acquire it. It is a dangerous gift, and should be respected as such. Don't look so apprehensive.... It's been diluted on purpose, and you shall live a long and fulfilling life, full of the stuff of myths and legends, then you will eventually pass away, as all good things must finally come to bare when the time comes, but not before passing on what you have learned to the next watcher you choose. That is the gift I am offering. A brief pause of mortality with the freedom to explore all that was, is, and might shall be again.

*A brief pause. Fingers tapping on the armrests of the worn leather high back chair in contemplation. The pop and gentle crackle of the fire in the mantle place....a sense of self confirmation followed by an audible gulp and a smile*

Excellent! Welcome to the society *hearty handshake*, on the table to your left you will find your credentials, watch, badge, and communicator. The communicator doubles as a homing signal with GPS, all the current lovely technology and apps humans are so fond of, in case of trouble, alerting all nearby members of your location. I trust everything else is satisfactory for now, any further information can be gleaned from your tome as needed. Keep a weather eye on the horizon, and good luck.

*soft footsteps on the old carpet, as the newest explorer makes their way to the door, and a much bigger world than they knew before.*

Oh...I almost forgot...one last thing...above all else, have fun with it, and welcome to the Elohim...

*the door closes with a soft click, leaving the tired ancient watcher alone again with his contemplation, waiting for the next soul willing to step into the unknown to cross the threshold...*

#dreams #humans are weird #fiction #scifi

15 notes · View notes

protagonistheavy · 4 years ago

Text

Shitblast about the Pokemon Presentation incoming:

That sucked the life out of me to be totally, un-exaggeratedly honest. It sucked pretty much any care I could have about Pokemon for a good couple of years at least. The downward slant of the franchise is just ridiculously obvious, and genuinely I don’t think I want to buy into the series anymore -- I’ve gotten burned enough times to not even try and get hyped for anything as ugly as the DP remakes or Legends.

Before I even get into the games they talked about, I just want to rag on that opening video thing. The huge montage of all the different things the pokemon franchise has, uh, infected I guess. Am I the only one that was really, really put-off by this? It just seemed like such a huge ass pat for themselves, like, “woo-hoo, look at our millions of dollars we spent on NOT the video games.” And it’s not even structured in some kind of catchy song, it’s just people chanting out hashtags that pop up on screen. It’s so cheaply made and they do shit like this pretty much every fucking year, I’m sorry but I just found this whole thing to be a waste of time. It didn’t get me hyped for anything to come, that’s for sure, it just reminded me that I’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting for Pokemon to actually progress itself and catch up with a modern market.

Pokemon Snap was the only cool thing from the presentation, and that’s a game we’ve already known about and is honestly too simple to fail. They would have to REALLY fuck up a game as straightforward as Snap. And this presentation didn’t bring any exciting new light to the game, just confirming that yes, yes you will indeed be taking pictures of pokemon, and then sharing those pictures with friends. Everything they’ve talked about is just the natural modernizations I’d expect from any game claiming to be about photography and made in 2021. The most exciting thing they could show off was the illumination item thing, which is just sorta, okay I guess.

The DP remake was disheartening. I honestly wish they didn’t even bother, and just ported the game as-it-was to the Switch.

I hate these graphics. And no, no it’s not some “style.” This isn’t a stylistic choice, this isn’t a “theme,” whatever this toddler’s toy aesthetic is supposed to be. It isn’t. It’s a budget constraint -- it’s a compromise. And I honestly hate that people are trying to defend it as some sort of art style, when I know 100% they would never defend another game like this nearly as hard. They would look at ANY game with graphics this shit and call it out.

There’s this excuse that it’s an art style theme, akin to Link’s Awakening remake on the Switch. Except, did people forget that Link’s Awakening actually looked good? Because it was actually designed to look like everything was a miniature. They used proper shading and texturing to sell that aesthetic, to make it look pleasing to the eye. Link’s Awakening is proud of its graphics and it does as much as it can visually to lean on that aesthetic. These DP remakes? There’s no heart put into this “art direction” at all. The textures are all plastic and flat and even downright muddy -- compare any screenshot of the remake to an original location and you’ll see how awful the colors are now, and how vague some of the models are after having been transformed from sprites. There’s no intent at all from the devs to actually include the polish necessary to make this style work -- it’s not an art style decision, it’s a budget constraint. They chose this design for the game because it would be easy to make, even easier to animate, and they could then justify slapping both of these games with $60 price tags. And yeah I get it -- “we don’t know how much these games are going to be!” -- no we do, it’s going to be fucking $60 like anything else released on the Switch, but if you seriously think this is worth $50 or even $40, then whatever, spend your damn money.

And yeah I am bitter that this is against precedent of the previous remakes. Every other remake before this had the time taken to update the graphics and direction to modern standards, and every remake was better because of it. It was refreshing to revisit these older worlds with modern sensibilities and an updated perspective -- the whole appeal of updating these older games is to give them the love and depth that technology at the time wouldn’t allow. At least that’s the appeal for me, I guess there’s a LOT of people out there whose appeal to Pokemon as a franchise is just buying whatever fucking comes out next and just mashing that A button into a state of satisfaction. This bums me out so bad that instead of getting something with passion and care, we get the absolute cheapest output; a remake that doesn’t promise anything new or exciting, burdened with absolute shit graphics.

And again, this style just sucks. It isn’t cute lol. I guess some people are gonna be into it, that’s fine I guess, but wow I don’t believe a single person that claims “this is what I imagined DP to be like.” No you didn’t, fuck the shut up? You’re really going to tell me that, in your most immersed state of playing this game, you imagined everything to be these fucking toddler toys? Okay you’re just on your own for that one -- I and every other normal human did not think of the DP world as some chibi fantasyland full of lego people. I hate that this is even excused as being some sort of “hark back” to the older art style -- the older art style wasn’t toy-themed or plastic-themed! What the fuck are people trying to pull here? It’s such a shame that DP had amazing sprite work and a wonderful world and an enticing story, but its remake is just going to underplay all of that, abandon it all just so it can have some gimmicky art style -- at best it’s a gimmicky art style riding the coattails of Link’s Awakening, and at worst it’s a budget cut done to make the game as cheap as possible to shit out.

I’m so disappointed in this. I was really looking forward to experiencing DP as a remake, I’ve never played this generation before. I wanted to play the remakes because I didn’t want to adapt to the older logic of the games, and I wanted to be able to bring in my own pokemon, have my own adventure. I wanted another experience like ORAS or HGSS. I didn’t want to go through the work of trying to play the original in a reasonable way. But since this is the direction of the remake, to make it look cheap as hell and totally heartless, then I’m just forced to play the original, and that sucks on a lot of layers.

And then Legends of Arceus or whatever.

Look. I want to like this game. And realistically I do like the idea of this game. But just like the DP remake, it looks like it’s the absolute cheapest response to what fans have been asking for, and it looks like it just wants to ride off the success of another, better franchise. I’ll make a wish now that I hope this game proves to be so much better than it looks in this presentation.

But wow, wow. I don’t think that’s going to happen. This looks like full-on garbage.

I wanted a BotW-like Pokemon game ever since, well, BotW. I think an open-world format would do wonders for the Pokemon formula, and SwSh had potential with its Wild Areas. But again, all the cheapest choices have been made. This game reeks of developers being told that fans want a BotW-styled Pokemon game, and then responding by just inserting pokemon assets into a beta test world of BotW. They didn’t show anything that looked promising for Pokemon gameplay, they just showed elements that are enough to convince an audience, “trust us, this is an open-world, with open-world mechanics -- like stealth! Rolling into bushes! Isn’t that cool? Isn’t this how you want to catch pokemon?”

It’s heartless. The developers clearly don’t care about making an open-world pokemon game; they’re interested in making pokemon an open-world game, the difference being that they don’t care about actually organically mixing the two. It’s just going to be a slop of open-world mechanics, set in an open-world that has no reason to be explored and is ugly as sin to look at, with mechanics designed to slow you down and fill in that 40-60 hour expectation. And I say this with as much confidence as I do because if they did have anything interesting to mention about Legends, they would have fucking said it -- they would have highlighted where pokemon gameplay intercepts open-world gameplay in a meaningful way, they would have brought attention to new mechanics that could only work in an open-world pokemon game.

They didn’t. They showed off a player character rolling into some bushes, and manually throwing a pokeball.

And that’s just the gameplay. Can’t we all agree this game is visual vomit? Just utterly fucking terrible to look at? There are literally fangames with SUCH better graphics. And there’s no excuse here like “oh it doesn’t LOOK like shit, looking-like-shit is its aesthetic!” No it just looks terrible on every level. The textures are so fucking muddy and stretched. The terrain is cobbled together and without inspiration; flat fields, angular hills, and randomly placed trees and bushes, all of which are rendered so badly that you can always see how 2D they are. The player models are uncomfortably stiff and expressionless. And the pokemon? The fucking pokemon?

Why do the pokemon look so fucking ugly? What’s the goddamn excuse? We see pokemon in the overworld, moving around and prancing about -- and they’re animated at like ten frames per second. That’s being generous! These pokemon look like they had three frames of animation to swap between! What the fuck is this?! Sword and Shield have overworld pokemon running around, and those didn’t need significant frame cuts! So how the hell did they manage to stumble so far backwards?! Why is this even a fucking challenge...?!?! Why do I have to be gaslit to believe that video games can’t do more than this? There are so many games doing so much, so much fucking more in even just one second of gameplay. So many games with intense graphics, explosive effects, tons of enemies and players on-screen, all this happening at once... sometimes online... and yet Pokemon still can’t even animate a fucking monkey dancing around in an empty field. What the fuck is the excuse here? How can they honestly show off this gameplay footage and feel proud of their work, without at least saying something like, “This is early-as-fuck test footage of the game, this is like one week into development, this is why it looks so ugly and unpolished.”

You know those throwaway junk games on Steam? That sell for like three or five dollars, and it’s just a really terrible FPS set in a generic wasteland environment? Yeah THOSE games look ten times better than this shit. There are so many pokemon fangames that exist that do this exact concept but DON’T look like utter garbage on the eyes at the same time. It’s baffling -- why is it so difficult for them to not make an ugly-as-sin game? Why does it have to be this way? How can the Switch host a game like BotW or Mario Odyssey but it can’t fucking handle Pokemon?

And this idea doesn’t even sound fun, the concept of being in the “ancient past” of the Sinnoh region just isn’t what I wanted. When I wanted an open-world Pokemon game, I expected it to be... you know, pokemon! I expected gyms or some kind of equivalent, I imagined it having modern sensibilities... But instead it’s this really gimmicky concept, because I guess the devs can’t possibly imagine the normal pokemon world even possibly engaging with something new and different -- no, we have to go to effectively a whole other planet just to let players have pokemon in an open world.

Ultimately these games are fucking disgusting to look at and it’s so disappointing to see them in this state. The DP remakes chose a cheap art style not because they thought it complemented Sinnoh or its story, but because it was the bare minimum to making the game and justifying a $60 price tag. Legends of Arceus has potential, but it’s showing right off the bat that it doesn’t have the manpower or passion behind it to actually live up to it, making it just another cash grab that relies on chasing the coattails of a more successful franchise. And both seem like insulting cheap answers to the two things die-hard pokemon fans have been asking for, making this situation all the worse.

The Pokemon Company doesn’t care, and neither do I anymore. I genuinely don’t see myself playing another pokemon game. It’s so sad because these games are full of potential, and a long-term commitment is obviously one of its appeals. But if this is the direction of the franchise, then fuck me. I don’t want to support ugly-as-hell spinoffs that exist only to shut up the fanbase, I hate how Sword and Shield came out and I hated how scummy the DLC was to add onto it. This series is blatantly trying to rob players by producing as absolute little as possible, they want to make money out of nothing, and I’m not coughing up that money anymore. This is ridiculous. Sword and Shield being so disappointing was one thing... the DLC being cashgrabs for material that should’ve just been post-game content was mind-numbing... but these two games looking like total garbage is on another level. It’s beyond disappointing; it’s insulting that they would even bother making these games with as little heart as they are, so clearly and obviously making games that they know players will shell out cash for regardless of its quality.

I hope the fanbase really matures and wisens up to this because that’s why we’re in this mess. You’re allowed to enjoy this “art style” of the DP remakes, you’re allowed to be hyped for the new gameplay of Legends... but please, for the love of god, have some higher standards than this. Please look at what other game companies can do with their games, and how much they charge, and how much fulfillment and content is in those games. We need to expect more from the literal most-profitable franchise of all time -- they have the resources, they have the capabilities, they choose to be lazy so that they can get as much money out of us as possible. It’s got to be put to an end. Please ask for more from these games. Please don’t settle for these games “because at least they’re still pokemon,” “because at least the pokemon battles are the same,” “because at least the older games are still technically playable.”

After all this, I just don’t believe Pokemon anymore when it tries to sell itself “to everybody.” That’s just plain not true. Their core audience is the dumbest of 10 year-olds and the dumbest of die-hard fans. They don’t care about their community any deeper than their wallets.

0 notes

moderngirlinthedas · 7 years ago

Note

Why are there so many MGIT fics that have their MGITs paired with Solas? He's an emotionally abusive racist with a superiority complex, yet so many in the fandom find him attractive. He barely registers Dalish as elves so he wouldn't find human MGITs attractive or even consider them real people. So why do so many of you want to pair off with him? It wouldn't be a healthy relationship, even if you end up as an elf. Can you shed some light?

First, I want to say that I’m extremely sorry for how long it took me to answer this.

I had so many directions I wanted to take when answering your question, Anon (far too many, really). I started and stopped many times in a separate word doc, trying to address this in as complete a manner as I could.

But I had too much to say, real life responsibilities got in the way, and suddenly it had been so long that my brain went yikes and shoved it in the back of my thoughts, ever present but easier to skip over.

So I’m going to give this a new shot and hope that my tardiness hasn’t soured you on the whole Asking process because I do love answering questions and opening topics for discussion.

[Disclaimer: The following is an expression of my own opinion, based on my experiences and perception. I will try to present it in an unbiased manner, but I am human and entirely fallible.]

There are so many MGIT stories with Solas in the main pairing because, to put it simply, he is a fascinating character. (Note: I say fascinating, not morally infallible or intrinsically superior to the other characters).

He is an intelligent, compassionate character who offers a refreshing perspective toward mages, the Fade, and spirits. From the very beginning, he proves to be a font of knowledge for the Inquisitor. He appreciates inquisitiveness and self-examination in a way that is scarcely seen elsewhere.

And yet.

For all his open-mindedness, he can be exceedingly narrow in his views once he has reached a conclusion (i.e. the Dalish, other elves, etc.). He has made mistakes. Catastrophic ones. He believes the ends justify the means in his quest to “correct” his past mistakes. Worse still, he has the knowledge and power to deliver.

And this, all of this just makes him so fascinating. To see what could drive an intelligent, compassionate person to such terrible lengths, to see the limits of such compassion when “the Greater Good” is at stake.

His character is interesting and flawed, repentant even as he manipulates and schemes. A hero and a villain in turns.

But perhaps I’m getting sidetracked. This isn’t about proving why Solas is interesting or dissecting his flaws. That would be another post entirely. This is about why so many of the MGIT writers and their Modern Characters are interested in Solas.

So, let’s take a look at who Solas is:

someone who is from another time

someone who possesses and withholds knowledge about the world, magic, and etc.

someone who struggles with the relative ignorance of the people around him (ex: magic, spirits, ancient Elven society, etc.)

someone who struggles with feeling more “real” than the people around him

someone who attains a position of power/rank in the Inquisition as a valued source of knowledge

someone who uses hidden knowledge to alter events

Now, who else does this sound like?

The Modern Character in Thedas.

Think about it: this trope, particularly when anchored in the Inquisition timeline, tends to feature these key elements:

the Modern Character is from another world/time

the Modern Character has played the Dragon Age games and withholds knowledge about in-game events (and other characters)

the Modern Character struggles with the relative ignorance of the people around her (ex: racism, sexism, unsanitary practices, primitive technology)

the Modern Character struggles with feeling more “real” than the people around her, in the sense that she is often painfully aware that Dragon Age and the people therein are constructs of a game or potentially figments of her imagination in a coma-induced dream

the Modern Character attains a position of power/rank in the Inquisition, usually as the Inquisitor herself or as a valued adviser

the Modern Character uses their foreknowledge to alter events

Barring some exceptions, Foreknowledge and how one uses it, is one of the biggest themes in the Modern Character in Thedas trope.

Using foreknowledge to alter events, however good the intentions, is a form of manipulation. Every choice is but a ripple in a greater wave. Inaction is a choice in itself, so even if the Modern Character refrains from actively altering events, they can still be held accountable for “allowing” events to proceed unimpeded.

These are real struggles that both the Modern Character and Solas face as people who possess world-changing knowledge and the ability to spark change.

“When you can do the things that I can, but you don’t…and then the bad things happen, they happen because of you.” -Peter Parker

Does this ability always yield altruistic superheroes like Peter Parker here? No. With great power comes great responsibility, not necessarily good choices or a moral compass.

So why is this important?

Because with so much power, forced to hide their origins in a new world that fears and often hates the different, the magical, how alone would the Modern Character feel?

Who else could understand what it’s like to bear that kind of burden? Who else might be willing to even entertain the idea of another world/reality, much less accept someone so different?

Solas.

The Modern Character is playing chess on a whole other board than the rest of Thedas, but so is Solas.

It’s not the same, of course. But it’s enough. Enough to help the Modern Character not feel so alone.

And if that’s not enough, consider this: if you were stuck in another world, desperate to find a way home, who might just have the means to help you?

Phew. That was long-winded.

Now for your questions about attraction!

“He barely registers Dalish as elves so he wouldn’t find human MGITs attractive or even consider them real people. So why do so many of you want to pair off with him?”

It is my understanding that one of the main reasons (if not the only reason) Solas is both gender and race-gated in the game is due to time constraints. His romance was written in the span of a weekend, late in the development of the game. It is easier and less time consuming to write and animate a romance for one specific gender/race (i.e. female/elf), especially for a last minute addition.

There aren’t any moments during in-game dialogue wherein which Solas displays a genuine romantic or sexual preference for a particular gender or race. The flirt options simply aren’t there when the player isn’t a female elf.

This is important to note because this is not the case for the other characters’ romances. Both Dorian and Sera express a genuine romantic/sexual preference for one gender. You have the option to flirt with both Dorian and Cassandra as a female. They both turn you down. You have the option to flirt with both Sera and Cullen as a male. They both turn you down. Cullen, who is also race-gated, will turn down a female-dwarf.

So, in the absence of in-game dialogue that denotes an actual preference, it isn’t unreasonable to think he might not have one.

And thus, it is entirely possible that Solas would find a human from another world romantically and/or sexually attractive.

On the Subject of Realness:

Solas’s perception of “realness” is relative to the people of Thedas.

[And here we get a little meta]

He considers the people in the present canon to be less real, due to the fact that his actions in his original timeline (the canon’s past) had, in part, caused the current worldstate, which he views as not only a mistake, but a mistake he’s going to rectify.

The people of Thedas, in the present canon, are less real to him because he likely has plans to revert the world back to a previous state, thus erasing the people in the current timeline (much like the Inquisitor does with the Red Lyrium future in the “In Hushed Whispers” quest).

So! Since the Modern Character isn’t a native to Thedas, that perception of “unrealness” doesn’t really apply to them. In fact, in some ways, Solas might even perceive them as more real, if not just as real as himself.

“It wouldn’t be a healthy relationship, even if you end up as an elf.”

How healthy or unhealthy a relationship is depends entirely upon the characters themselves and the way they’re written/portrayed. There’s nothing intrinsically unhealthy about the pairing of the Modern Character and Solas.

Now, if Solas or the Modern Character are depicted as emotionally and/or physically abusive to the other, then you’d be right, it wouldn’t be a healthy relationship.

Not because of who they are, but because of their behavior.

So, to sum up–because I have rambled so much here, wow–

Why are there so many Modern Character/Solas stories?

because Solas is a fascinating, flawed character

because Solas’s experience makes him relatable to the Modern Character

because Solas could make a good ally for an Otherworlder

because arbitrary game mechanics shouldn’t dictate a character’s love life

because “realness” is relative

because the pairing of Solas and a human isn’t inherently unhealthy

And the bonus: Because the Solas romance was extremely popular among Dragon Age gamers, and many of those gamers set out to write a story

And there we have it. The end of a long-winded spiel from me.

I hope I kept things relatively objective. I appreciate dissecting characters’ motives and exploring their flaws, even when I love them.

You can love or hate Solas (or something in between) and still note his flaws…as well as recognize his more redeeming qualities.

And always remember: to love a character is not to condone all their actions.

#MGIT asks #modern girl in thedas #modern character in thedas #modlas

135 notes · View notes

ivy72376 · 4 years ago

Text

FEEDING THE FLOCK - August 10, 2020

The Word we read today in the first epistle of the Apostle Peter, chapter 5, is where one of Jesus Christ’s most passionate apostles have given some of the most encouraging and powerful exhortations not only applicable to spiritual or church leaders, but even to all situations of leadership whether in community, at work or even in government.

Verse 1 states what he has lived and believed in as the foundation of true leadership—“witnessing and partaking of the sufferings of Christ, and one who is also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed”. A true leader then, is one who, rather than by mere appointment or election or personal will, roots his principles and systems of administration first, on the model of selfless, servant leadership that Jesus Christ has shown.

Verse 2 states the true function of an elder or a leader—to feed the flock—whether they be spiritual lessons gleaned from GOD’s Word, empowerment and guidance at work, or love, encouragement and truth in learning about life’s lessons. The responsibility is one of “oversight”, never dictatorial, “neither by constraint” or coercion, but “willingly” or voluntarily between the leader and the one being guided, “not for filthy lucre” (or selfish and greedy intentions), and “of a ready mind”, where the leader does not only entrust or command but he or she too must learn continuously in order to have a ready mind to understand facts and situations and people, and so be able to act properly and with wisdom in any kind of situation. One could only wish this verse is known to the kind of leaders our world has now.

Verse 3 is a 2,000 year old leadership principle even the Apostle Peter, a mere fisherman by profession, knows by heart—a leader does not lord over or act like a dictatorial king over his dominion, but one who is a good example for others to follow. One famous management and leadership consultant posted a Facebook status which I read earlier today, and it contains the similar thought: a manager says, “Go”, while a leader says, “Let’s Go”. A leader or elder therefore, does not only command or give orders, but that for every task he or she assigns, the leader is the first one who shows the way on how to do it well.

Verse 4 show us an award truly more valuable than any citation from any award-giving body or association here on earth, for it is from the “Chief Shepherd” Himself, who when He “…appears, you shall receive a crown of glory that doesn’t fade away.” In true humility, the apostle said that though a leader may be unrecognized by the world, either through the lowliness of his position, or the low-key attitude he or she manifests at work, but when he is found faithful, the leader receives an eternal reward from the highest award-giving authority in all of creation.

Verses 5 and 6 are the apostle’s reiteration of a famous Proverb, and reminds the younger generation to be humble and to subject themselves to the elder. If only our youth today could imbibe these words, for, even if they say they are more adept at the latest digital technologies of the world, still, the elders had more experience, they also had a lot of dreams and talents when they were younger, and learned a lot more lessons in life, thereby having gained more wisdom, hindsight and foresight about life. And the apostle repeated what the ancients have said in the books of wisdom: “GOD resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” Time and again we see this, even today, how people who were so proud of themselves, of what they know and of what they have, were “resisted” by GOD in terms of receiving grace and blessing, and true satisfaction from life. Yes, they may get rich or famous, but with their pride, they would not be able to partake of the deep peace and contentment that only those who have humbled themselves to GOD’s leading can enjoy.

Verse 7 is the apostle’s encouragement for the brethren and even for all of us today who have grown weary with life, who had grown anxious about our health and our future, and in response to Jesus Christ’s very own words in the gospel of Matthew chapter 11 verses 28-30 when he said, “Casting all your care upon Him; for He cares for you.” (Matthew 11:28-30 says: “Come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly (humble) in heart: and you shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”)

Verses 8 and 9 are empowering words for us all; to be sober (to think clearly), be vigilant (to be watchful for any untruths or deceptions the world may hurl at us or use to tempt us), because our “true” adversary is not people, but the one behind them, who is also GOD’s enemy, and we call him, “the devil”, who is “roaring like a lion, walks about, seeking whom he may devour”. I’d like to point out that this verse in no way refers to the enemy as A LION, but only ROARS LIKE A LION. This is relevant and as emphasized by the Hebrew Bible studies teacher, because in nature, the Lion is King of the Jungle, and in the faith, we only have One Lion as Our King, the Lion of the Israelite tribe of Judah, as referred to in the book of Revelation chapter 5 verse 5, who is both spiritually a Root of King David (one of the fathers of the faith), and his physical and legal descendant (in the gospel of Luke chapter 1 verse 27). With this Lion as our leader, how can we not subject ourselves in humility and faith?

Verse 10 is the apostle’s revelation of why we all must suffer now, because, “…the Lord of all grace, who has called you unto His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that you have suffered a while, make you perfect, establish, strengthen, settle you.” All of us are called, but only a few are chosen (Matthew 22:14), hence, all of us suffer now, but only those who can endure in faith and persevere in faithfulness get the chance to be perfected spiritually (mentally, emotionally, too), established, strengthened and “settled” to receive and be partakers of greater things ahead. The last word is extremely relevant because in our world today, all the calamities we face have made millions of us as refugees and immigrants, people who strive so hard to “settle” somewhere in their very own place. But thanks be to GOD, we have this hope of proper relocation and “settlement”, if we can only endure and be patient with all the trials and tribulations we are going through right now.

And verse 11 says why He has the capacity to do all these in our lives because, “To Him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.” The GOD we worship and serve deserves and inhabits all glory and dominion over all of creation, both the things we can sense and the things too far and too complex for us to comprehend. If He can put all these things in perfect order, how can He not much more order our lives and see us through?

Therefore, this is no time to get distressed and discouraged, nor is it the time to grow apathetic and cold. Just as a jungle lion is energized for the hunt even during the darkest night, so too as children of GOD, even in the darkest moments of our lives, let us all the more be energized to live the faith we profess, and do our best to encourage and push others to the same path too. Verses 12 to 14, the last three in the chapter and in this epistle expressed these things. We need to support one another, especially the brethren in the faith, the church and everyone we can, so that we will not grow weary and weak, we will gain the wisdom to know how to do things right, and we will get to know and traverse the right path. This is a universal mandate, a command that those who have come before us have lived through their powerful yet short and tragic lives, to feed the flock under our care.

0 notes

csrgood · 5 years ago

Text

Tetra Tech’s Jamie Brescol Wins Company’s 2019 Technical Achievement Award for Integrated Planning and Optimization Software

Technology Solutions

Tetra Tech believes in the loyalty, effort, and excellence of its employees and initiated its annual Excellence and Achievement Awards program to recognize individuals and teams for achievements that demonstrate best-in-class performance and service to the community.

Managers of sewerage systems impacted by wet weather spend billions of dollars on improvements to meet regulatory requirements, improve the level of service to customers, and reduce the risk of flood damages. To make good decisions and reduce cost of controls, Jamie Brescol developed the Integrated Planning and Optimization Program (iPOP) to address these issues using the computational benefits of cloud computing and optimization routines. iPOP performs functions that directly compete with commercial software and has two primary capabilities: model calibration and alternative selection for capital planning efforts.

Calibration

Accurate model calibrations are critical for regulatory acceptance and proper sizing of new infrastructure. iPOP performs many thousands of model runs, comparing model results to flow metering data, and tracking the model’s ability to predict measured flows. It allows the user to perform many calibration runs to identify those parameters that best fit the observed data. Constraints are placed on each calibration parameter to ensure the parameters stay within a reasonable range based site-specific conditions and engineering judgment. Calibration and validation metrics can be customized among a many industry accepted approaches to meet the owner’s standards and the local collection system. iPOP allows the engineer to calibrate to peak rates, volumes, and peak levels. In addition, Tetra Tech has been using iPOP with the Metropolitan Sewer District of Greater Cincinnati to develop a new approach and metric for model calibration. This new sub-event zone analysis approach has shown to be more consistent and accurate than industry standard approaches.

Alternatives Selection

Our customers need to make decisions based on strategic and optimized solutions to comply with regulatory and asset management requirements. Optimized solutions reduce the financial burden of these programs. iPOP was developed to perform, evaluate, and optimize the universe of control alternatives available. iPOP works directly with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Stormwater Management Model and is capable of automatically simulating thousands of model scenarios and evaluating system performance, capital and operation and maintenance costs, and optimization objectives to identify the optimum solution. This GIS-based tool supports the engineer-driven alternatives identification process by carrying the load of iterating the wide-range of sizing of alternatives, providing detailed analysis of model results, and tracking of costs and benefits to help the engineer select the optimum solution. iPOP evaluates and optimizes alternatives including any combination of source control, increased conveyance (gravity and pumping), storage (tunnel and basin), high-rate treatment, weir/orifice modifications, and real-time controls.

Optimization software in the wet weather market is dominated by a commercial program that is sold directly to end clients for up to $150,000 per year. iPOP provides a similar level of analysis without the software expense and competitive pricing in cost-conscious markets. The automated calibration provides improved results with more automation, reducing staff time. Additionally, the software has provided the following Tetra Tech competitive benefits:

Technical industry recognition and repeat work

Improved cost competitiveness

Differentiation to challenge incumbents

“I am honored and truly thankful to have been selected for this award,” said Jamie. “It’s very humbling given the caliber of the nominees from across Tetra Tech. We strive to bring new ideas and approaches to our projects, and to provide high-quality and innovative deliverables. iPOP will help us to deliver a unique service and improved products to our clients.”

Jamie has worked with our Quebec-based water infrastructure group to integrate iPOP with Tetra Tech’s Csoft® platform. By building a bridge to link iPOP with Csoft, we are working towards optimizing alternatives that also reflect the benefits of Tetra Tech’s real-time control capabilities.

Congratulations to Jamie Brescol and his team for developing an innovative software that not only improves the quality of deliverables but also provides an alternative, more affordable solution for our clients.

source: https://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/43974-Tetra-Tech-s-Jamie-Brescol-Wins-Company-s-2019-Technical-Achievement-Award-for-Integrated-Planning-and-Optimization-Software?tracking_source=rss

#CSR #corporate social responsibility #social good #philanthropy #employee engagement #workplace givi

0 notes

acme-aspirations · 5 years ago

Text

ccst essay draft for testing purposes

You may have read or heard news stories about the imminent takeover of robots and machine learning algorithms that will eliminate jobs for human workers, including factory workers, taxi drivers, human resources, paralegals, doctors, and even teachers. Do you agree? Which jobs do you think are truly disappearing? Which will not? And why?

In what is being dubbed the fourth industrial revolution (Moloney, 2018), big data and robotics have been deemed important areas of study for the future. Already, automations and robots have taken over jobs, a prominent example being e-commerce company Amazon (Melendez, 2018). This raises the question of whether the combination of advanced technology and the availability of big data will cost people their jobs in the near future. Despite all the doom and gloom and dystopian movies like I am Robot, a complete robot takeover is unlikely – but it will dramatically change the marketplace and cost some of us our jobs.

Already, a huge amount of data is being collected and by combining big data, cloud computing, collective learning and human computation, it is guaranteed that technology's impact will rise exponentially in the coming years. The development of robotics and artificial intelligence alongside such a large pool of information means there are many options for growth and development in different sectors.

Jobs at the highest risk are low-skilled jobs, such as one found in the manufacturing sector. As previously mentioned, Amazon employs more than 100,000 robots alongside their 125,000 human workers to deliver and help with organizing products (Wingfield, 2017). For Walmart, they have begun to find robots in order to take over cleaning (Wingfield, 2017). But has this taken away some people’s jobs? According to both companies, they both say that these ‘associates’ are responsible for overlooking these processes and are crucial to production and instead of taking away jobs, it has simply lessened the burden on workers and created more jobs elsewhere. According to Vice President of Robotics in Amazon, Brad Porter, the only effects were lower prices and high efficiency, so consumers benefited. By increasing the business’ success, they were able to then hire more employees in other sectors (Melendez, 2018). For Walmart, the company stated the usage of cleaning machines allowed human workers to be reallocated to areas that machines could not be used (Melendez, 2018). These companies are not looking towards AI to provide more personalized shopping experiences for customers (Melendez, 2018).

Other than manufacturing jobs, by inputting algorithms, manual jobs such as construction and farming can reduce the number of accidents by having less or even no human staff on-site. By using robots for riskier or health-damaging tasks, work-related deaths and diseases can be avoided and 35% of work days lost to injury (Owen-Hill, 2019). Repeated actions such as bricklaying or collecting fruit on a farm can increase efficiency as they do not experience fatigue and construction accidents can be avoided, preserving human lives. Currently, robots are able to lay bricks, but grouting has to be done by humans, indicating that for now, humans have to work alongside robots (Garfield, 2018). In the future, grouting may also be done by robots as technology improves, but supervision is still likely to be required (Barden, 2017).

Driverless cars are not something of the future, but of now. As late as 2004, MIT and Harvard economists argued at the inability of technology to self-drive due to vast amounts of complex information required for processing (Mirnane & Levy, 2004). With services like Uber, there is large areas for expansion for technology in the driving and chauffeuring and especially for long-distance truck drivers (YellRobot.com, 2019). With evidence showing that autonomous drivers have less accidents than human ones, a driverless future may be ahead of us.

Jobs that are considered 'higher status' are not free of risk though - talk that robots may take over legal business have alarmed some (Del Prado, 2015), but the proposition is not far off a very realistic reality. Legal work such as legal discovery and writing up contracts can be handled by artificial intelligence. Further down the road, it may also be possible for robots to handle simple court cases such as parking fines and divorces (Cuthbertson, 2016), however, as a job that requires some emotional appeal to a jury, court barristers are still likely to exist in the future.

Young lawyers unable to handle the use of technology in replacement of traditional paperwork will be at a disadvantage. Data entry clerks are also unlikely to survive when the investment in technology has a much better payoff for companies. Not only is there no need for wages, robots are also loyal and more accurate workers. Ironically, the existence of data entry clerks now is vital for the development of such technology. With increasing importance of data and such information required in order to 'educate' robots, this job may enter a period of flourishing before disappearing.

Asian families always tell their kids that being a doctor is a reliable, respected, irreplaceable, high-paying job - except not anymore. Algorithms and AI have been found to recognize patterns in sick patients in order to make even better diagnosis than human doctors such as in cancer cells. Robots carrying surgery to reduce fatal human error has already been done (Matthews, 2018), bringing the question - will we even need general practitioners anymore, when a little doctor can reside in our pocket in the form of technology such as our phones? (Batista, 2013). Instead of being direct competitors, technology may just be an aid to improve the healthcare system. Technology and big data gathered for healthcare purposes can help the government in formulating policies as well as reallocating resources (Hochtl, 2015).

The treasure trove of data waiting to be unlocked means AI is applicable to financial analysis. Artificial intelligence can sort through and analyses this data quickly, spotting patterns and going through with appropriate action to maximize sales and reduce losses much better than a human analyst could. For those working in banking, this news is alarming, as a report predicted about 30% of banking jobs would be replaced by AI in the next decade. For consumers and the continuous complaints of slow service, being able to increase automated tellers that can provide personalised services can dramatically improve consumer satisfaction. (Dormehl, 2018)

There is also talk regarding the decreased importance of journalists. The public sphere is one of great importance and the press is seen as the bridge between the government and general public (Livingstone, 1994). With such power, it is unsurprising how biased media articles and even fake articles have a large and widespread impact, such as in the American presidential election of 2016, where fake articles boosted Donald Trump's approval (Blake, 2018). Journalism has also been known as a tedious job filled with hours of research and low pay, but with technology and big data allowing algorithms to writing sport stories, there is a possibility that freedom of press may soon lie in the hands of robots. Artificial intelligence is being tested for more in-depth investigative journalism and the improving ability of technology to write up creative stories (Castellano, 2018) shows that effective journalism may lie in AI and big data. On the other hand, journalism may not die out immediately. As a mouthpiece of the public (Livingstone, 1994), journalism can be intended to be biased - such as editorials and opinion pieces. In addition to these articles, an updated and appropriate sense of humour is still required for articles that may want a more 'human' style of telling - whether it's explaining a world event with a light-hearted tone and dispersing it with jokes, or a more opinionated angry article regarding the lack of attention towards global warming. These more 'human' and emotive articles require a human writer - because as readers, we are more affected by these due to empathy. Instead, journalism may receive a boost from utilising big data and algorithms. With media companies experiencing dismal financial situations (Thompson, 2017), algorithms will be able to speed up the research process in order for journalists to achieve more efficiency when writing up articles. There is also experimentation undergoing that uses artificial intelligence to reword articles to fit the demographic of the reader - allowing information to be more accessible, regardless of education level (Narula, 2019).

In schooling environments where resources are limited and there have been calls for more personalised teaching experiences, robot teachers have been looked to as a possible solution. For now, there are technical constraints such as the inability to accurately recognise the speech of young children (Dearborn, 2014), as there are large variations for this age group and they might not be able to communicate effectively. Yet, as technology advances and this is overcome, data and artificial intelligence will enable robots to be trained to understand and predict different behavior patterns so students can be rewarded, reprimanded and taught accordingly. On the other hand, teachers are not simply instruments to teach academic material. A large of part of education is learning to interact with peers as well as older authoritative figures such as teachers ("What We Are Learning: The Science of Human Connection", 2018). A teacher's work encompasses a comprehensive and empathetic experience and placing full responsibility of teaching into a robot's mechanical hands may not be ideal in developing social skills with the older figure a human teacher can represent.

In this case, it may be more ideal for robots to act as a teaching aid instead of allowing them to take over the entire education system. Research shows the use of robot teachers are effective, but in a social context may actually prove detrimental to children’s learning (The Robot Who Tried Too Hard: Social Behaviour of a Robot Tutor Can Negatively Affect Child Learning).

The future holds many possibilities and undoubtedly, the future job market will change accordingly with technological advances. Technology will not necessarily take over – but instead, technology will be utilized as a tool to improve accuracy and efficiency to elevate services already available. The human voice is still required, even in the aforementioned jobs – bank tellers can increase customer loyalty by fostering human connections, and a provoking human voice is required to appeal to fully appeal to the audience’s empathy. For those in the medical sector, it’s likely that machinery will be used to reconfirm diagnosis and search for more patterns to provide better medical care. The fact is, jobs will definitely be replaced – but new opportunities will also open up, such as the development of programs, and the qualitative analysis to formulate policies based on an even larger pool of data that is likely to be available in the future. There is a myriad of possibilities – and that includes jobs that have yet to be created. In conclusion, low-skilled jobs are likely to be affected, and it is the government’s responsibility to educate its citizens accordingly to prepare them for the aftermath of this new industrial revolution. For all the previously mentioned jobs, by adapting them for future purposes by combining degrees with ones in computer science or statistics, people can find prospects in helping develop the technological future we are now moving towards. Overall, it looks like jobs will not be lost – but simply, the population and job market will adapt to these changes to bring continued benefits to society through technology and data.

0 notes

marymosley · 6 years ago

Text

In conversation with Syed Asif Iqbal, co-founder advok8.in on Third Party funding in Litigation

Adv. Syed Asif Iqbal, Advocate, High Court of Delhi who practices in the field of Contracts, Land acquisition, Consumer & Arbitration matters. He is also Co-founder, advok8.in; a technology and Artificial Intelligence driven company making legal profession easier and ensuring access to justice for all.

Interviewed by Anuj Kumar, Founder- Legal Desire

Anuj: Would you like to introduce yourself to our readers?

Asif: In last few years the legal domain has witnessed an acceptance for technology and has created a new branch of professionals, who are lawyers by profession and entrepreneurs from heart. I would like to associate myself in that club.

I graduated in law from Lloyd Law College in 2015 and started practising litigation with some reputed senior lawyers. My practice areas were arbitration, IPRs, consumer and commercial disputes. While I was practicing law I got associated with advok8, which is a legal tech start-up. I was fascinated by the vision of this start-up, which is now an integral part of my life. I also work as an RTI activist and have raised many important issues with the Government. I am glad to share that I also contribute as a columnist for Legal Desire.

I have actively worked on Third Party funding for the past two years and aided in making it a reality for the Indian scenario. As I got the chance to lead Third Party funding with advok8, I tried and was able to develop an indianised version of Third Party funding. I love working on innovations in the legal sector and believe that advok8 will come out with many path breaking developments in the legal sphere.

‌ Anuj: How did you become interested in Legal Innovation and Legal Tech?

Asif: I think the simple answer for this would be the timing. Around 2016, India was witnessing a huge wave of start-ups. OLA, OYO, PAYTM were a few such start-ups who were making it big like never before. Almost in every segment there was disruption. I had been reading daily about them and their success stories when I was approached by advok8 and I just fell for it. Also when you are first generation lawyer you look for a chance to make quick growth in this limited lifespan, while everybody around you will push you to wait for 5-6 years to start something of your own. I believe that if you want to do it, you must make a move for it, and the people around will gradually start accepting it.

‌Anuj: What is Advok8? Tell us about Advok8 and how it all came about?

Asif: Advok8 is a legal cum fintech start-up which is devoted towards making justice and legal services accessible to all at an affordable price.

In the initial stages, advok8 mapped courts, the inflow of cases and the readiness of legal infrastructure to deal with the growing number of cases. Kundan, who is one of the founders of advok8, attempted to understand these potential threats which would hit the Indian legal dispute resolution system in next few decades, and wanted advok8 to be a platform to minimize the harm and reduce the increasing number of cases through technology while promoting access to justice.

‌Anuj: What is the common line that your start-up works on? What is the pain area you want to resolve for people at large?

Asif: The pain area which we want to resolve for people is legal cost.

In my opinion, high legal cost or legal expense is a barrier for access to justice. If the cost of accessing justice is high then the taste of justice for different strata will be different. So, advok8 started helping out litigants with legal cost and making it a neutral factor.

Keeping this is as its mission and vision, advok8 started Third Party Funding in India and is currently working on certain other products to resolve the issue of cost in litigation.

‌Anuj: Third Party Funding has witnessed a sudden rise in India. Tell us about it as you are the first movers?

Asif: Before I discuss more about Third Party funding, I would like to explain it to the readers. Third Party funding is the funding of litigation costs of a claimant, by a funder, in exchange for a share in the successful litigation or settlement amount. There are a few reasons why there is a sudden rise in the popularity of Third Party funding. The first is awareness after the Supreme Court judgment. The second is the interest of international litigation funders in India for exploring the Indian multi-billion dollar litigation market. The third is clarity on law that, unlike other countries Third Party funding was never illegal, so there is no point legalising it. Fourth, India is trying to become an Arbitration hub and Third Party funding accelerates arbitration as a dispute resolution mechanism.

‌Anuj: How you are planning to take Third Party funding to a bigger scale? How does it help individuals and Businesses?

Asif: We need to understand that Third Party funding is not just a necessity for individuals who don’t have money and to fight cases but it is a strategy for businesses to cope with legal costs and expenses. Scaling Third Party funding will require two things; greater involvement of corporates and creating a new investment class where individuals can invest in cases and earn high returns in comparison to any other mode of investment.

Individual are benefitted by Third Party funding as they can avail it to fight for their rightful claims without worrying about the deep pockets of the opposite party. On the other hand, Third Party funding is a tool to manage huge legal costs for businesses. Businesses can improve their EBITDA and cash flow by availing Third Party funding, and by using the previously allocated resources of the legal department in operation.

‌Anuj: Recently you came up with another line of product, tell us about that?

Asif: As we work to make legal cost a less relevant factor for access to justice, we are trying to introduce something by which individuals can pre-plan their legal expenses or cost. Of course, if you can pre-plan your legal expenses, like other potential expenses, your pocket will not get hurt when you face legal problems.

Our product is currently in process and is not ready to be delivered yet. It will take few weeks to hit the market.

‌Anuj: What is your vision and mission?

Asif: Like most start-ups who made elite products accessible to masses by introducing technology in a viable business module, our vision is to provide standardised, affordable and reliable legal services to masses. Our team is also working on introducing AI and ML in certain existing processes which will make legal systems more accessible and efficient. Most importantly, we encourage ADR and ODR as methods of dispute resolution as we would like to prevent petty cases from entering in the system by resolving disputes through ODRs as this will reduce burden of the judiciary.

‌Anuj: What impact do you think your product will have on the society?

Asif: I foresee that over a period of time the most important impact would be a shift in the mindset of litigants or masses about legal disputes.

Today anything related to legal is considered a woe unlike a blessing in the developed nations. Running away from the legal and justice system will not help rather understanding the empowerment it can provide will make us a better nation, because it’s not only rights but also the enforcement of rights that matters in a democracy. If we can contribute in bringing a slight shift in this, we will be happy that we have done something worth.

‌Anuj: Will that help generating opportunities for lawyers?

Asif: Of course, this is one of the most delightful aspects of advok8. We already have a very big network of panel lawyers who are diligently pursuing cases for us and various parties associated to us. With our new line of products we believe that many more opportunities will hit the market specially for young talents, who find it difficult to start their independent practices due to lack of clientele.

To make legal services cost efficient, distribution of cases among lawyers is an important aspect.

Over the period of time a pyramid is formed whereby 80 % of cases are handled by 20% of lawyers in every state. This structure somehow ignores many talented minds and they fail to survive in the long run. We are trying to provide opportunities to those who are in the middle of this pyramid; this will ensure low cost and high quality legal services without effecting the practice of the group at the top.

‌Anuj: What is the real need for this product? Does it target any specific need of the people/society?

Asif: Our services enable access to justice which drives it to be a product for the masses. Here I would like to borrow a famous quote from Robert Kennedy as he said, “The glory of justice and the majesty of law are created not just by the Constitution – nor by the courts – nor by the officers of the law – nor by the lawyers – but by the men and women who constitute our society – who are the protectors of the law as they are themselves protected by the law.”

‌Anuj: What constraints, challenges and opportunities exist in the development, design and usage of Third Party funding?

Asif: Third Party funding has been in existence for a few decades in other jurisdictions, but the legal position was very unclear in India in spite of the fact that no law bars Third Party funding in India. So the biggest constraint was to find the legitimate scope of Third Party funding in Indian legal system. When we entered the market, it took a lot of time and effort to confirm that Third Party funding is legally possible in India. Our second challenge was to communicate that Third Party funding is different from litigation finance by a lawyer, which is not permissible as per the BCI Act. Third, of course, was the trust of people. Nobody believes you when you are a first mover of something. People were very sceptical when we first pitched crowd fund based Third Party funding, however things have started working for us. The traction is encouraging.

The market of Third Party funding is of around 80 billion US dollars in India and with nearly 3.3 crore cases pending in the courts, the opportunity is huge. Therefore, one can find that India is becoming a place of interest for international funders.

‌Anuj: Recently CAM has started “Prarambh”. How do you see it?

Asif: I think it’s a wonderful move and I am really inspired by this step of Cyril Amarchand & Mangaldas. CAM has always taken the lead in shaping the legal sphere. This will encourage students from legal background to get into entrepreneurship with confidence. I think the idea behind this is to create greater acceptance for technology in the legal sector and to make a shift from traditional exhausting processes.

‌Anuj: Do you encourage Entrepreneurship as a career to lawyers?

Asif: Yes, of course! I firmly believe that lawyers can be great entrepreneurs. Aditya Ghosh, who recently joined OYO as CEO, is a role model on how big you can make as an entrepreneur with a legal background.

‌Anuj: How can we deep root entrepreneurship at the law college level? Are you doing something for it?

Asif: The most successful entrepreneurs are coming from IIMs or IITs. The reason behind this is that these institutions celebrate entrepreneurship and innovation. Entrepreneurship is a part of their curriculum. If we want to deep root entrepreneurship in law colleges, we need to make it a part of the curriculum, like moot courts and client counselling. Colleges must encourage Entrepreneurship cells to promote innovations in legal and non legal sectors.

Yes, I am working with some influential leaders who are also entrepreneurs with a legal background, to establish and promote end-to-end entrepreneurial setup for law students. When I say end-to-end I mean that when a law student has decided to take entrepreneurship as a career, he must have multiple opportunities waiting for him in the market.

Anuj: What is your message to young lawyers?

Asif: I will say let’s stop cribbing, blaming the seniors, hoping for clients, planning for independent practices and expecting magic to happen which will change your life. Believe me when I say, that you are the magician in your story. It is human nature that if you compromise once in your life, you will make a habit out of it.

Send your feedbacks/leads for interviews to [email protected]

The post In conversation with Syed Asif Iqbal, co-founder advok8.in on Third Party funding in Litigation appeared first on Legal Desire.

In conversation with Syed Asif Iqbal, co-founder advok8.in on Third Party funding in Litigation published first on https://immigrationlawyerto.tumblr.com/

0 notes

robonomics · 6 years ago

Text

A Letter to Local Rulemakers

Recently, DC announced new regulations for dockless sharing vehicles, i.e. electric scooters and electric bikes provided by private transportation companies. I am not against regulation generally, just bad regulation. In this instance, the DC Department of Transportation (DOT) proposed a number of bad regulations, in some instances with poorly written legal language. In response to this, I sent the rulemakers comments. I imagine they will all go on deaf ears. Their attempts at rule making show the problem many local governments have with business regulation: the rulemakers believe more regulation is good without considering the costs or practical realities of how the rules operate. Complete safety is over weighed at the expense of the actual probability of injury. This is the letter I sent on 11/13/18 during the public comment period to the new rules, corrected with [] for the spots I made spelling errors (doh):

Department of Transportation Rulemakers,

I am against most of the proposed regulations DOT wants to implement beginning next year under Notice ID: N0074553. The following lists my logic for the reasons why, as well as some language areas of the proposed rules that need to be clarified as a matter of statutory construction. The basics are: it will cost riders more because of decreased speeds, the speed limit is unrealistic and arbitrary, it unfairly targets a more efficient means of transportation over alternatives, and generally the regulations seems intended to punish and control a newly popularized form of transportation that is better designed for urban environments.

Changes based on Jeff Marootian's Press Release (I can't find the following proposed rules on the website)

1. It will cost more. Currently, scooter providers charge $1 + $0.15/mile to ride a scooter. The proposed rules intend to lower the maximum speed to 10 mph. This is slower than the current maximum of around 17 mph (not accounting for downhill rides) for many scooters in use. The lower maximum speed will force users to ride the scooters for a longer time, and thereby increase the cost for each person to use them.

Let's assume a person takes 21 minutes to travel across town on a scooter at an average speed of 15 mph including stops. That would cost the person $4.15 ($1 + $3.15 for 21 minutes of use). Because the maximum speed under the proposed rules would decrease, people will spend more time riding the scooter for the same trip. Even assuming a person drove at the maximum 10 mph for the entire trip without any stops at all (unlikely), the person's trip would now be 1/3 longer. This costs an additional $1.05 (21 x [1+(1/3)] x $0.15), and adds an additional 7 minutes onto their trip.

The trip becomes both less efficient, and more expensive. This doesn't even take account of the fact that the imposition of proposed fees on the scooter companies will lead to increased costs, and therefore increased prices as they pass them on to consumers. No matter how you look at it, the proposed rules by their nature make scooter riders poorer.

2. 10 mph is not proportionate to the realities of safety. A human sprinter maxes out at around 25 mph. It doesn't make sense that there is a higher fear of a scooter going 17 mph than the fastest speed a person can sprint at 25 mph.

It is impossible to regulate the speed of how fast a human runs, whether they are on the sidewalk, a track, or really anywhere. If they fall, they will stumble. They may even get hurt. But to force them to slow down just because sometimes people get hurt while sprinting misses the fact that people also get hurt tripping over themselves while walking. Yes, it seems like an absurd point, but both the rate of accident and the average severity of them with scooters is not commensurate with a governor being placed on the devices. Most of the time, when people fall off, they simply stumble and get right back on, not killed or side swiped by a car. The fear of people getting hurt at 17 mph is not commensurate with lowering scooter speeds to an inefficient 10 mph.

A fair comparison to riding scooters is riding a bike in the city. People ride bikes on the street, either in bike lanes or not. They are not governed by a 10 mph speed limit. They also are not required to wear a helmet. Why should scooter companies, which do not present any additional risk compared to bikes, be subject to heightened rules without a basis in the nature of scooters? It appears that a 10 mph limit is an arbitrary rule imposed on scooter companies but not on city bike share systems.

The same logic applies to dockless bikes as well. Remember, for both, if a person uses a person[al] bike or scooter, a governor is not placed on them. If anything, a spe[e]d limit applicable to the driver makes more sense than requiring the producer to make his products of lesser quality (I am not for speed limits that are different than cars either, to clarify, without a reason that presents itself, like scooters and bikes going as fast as cars).

I'd also like to point out t[he] extreme hypocrisy of a governor on dockless bikes at 20 mph, but none exist on bikes that have dock stations, let alone for any private bike on city streets. The rule is completely without a basis in fact if it is okay in one instance, but not another. The fact of "type of ownership" makes no difference to it's operation, but the proposed rule tries to correct the later through the former.

3. The rules propose increasing the per operator cap at 600 dockless sharing vehicles per company. Currently, every company reports that thousands are needed to adequately fulfill the needs of the District. I constantly have to walk blocks to find a scooter to use because there just aren't that many in Park View or Columbia Heights. Normally, I have to walk about 5 blocks to Howard University's campus to find a scooter, and many of the times it is checked out by someone else right before I arrive. In theory, if the city had enough scooters, I should be able to easily find one within a block of my condo. This is the case only about 10% of the time.

An increase in the limit to 600 is helpful, along with it[]s quarterly potential for a 25% increase. Realistically, the companies should be able to fill DC with scooters to meet demand. In the process, they will likely overshoot demand temporarily in the short run, but then in the long run, the companies will know how many to deploy to adequately provide their service, in the process, lowering the need for taxis and other cars as well. If companies were allowed to do this, there would be little worry of ineffective allocation, especially in areas like Southeast, which currently is inadequately served (as proposed section 3314 tries to fix with a mandatory 6 dockless sharing vehicle requirement). The constraints placed on the total amount of dockless sharing vehicles currently creates what Econ 101 teaches about the problems of output quotas: lower supply, higher prices, and poor[] allocation. Here, that problem applies to dockless scooters and bikes.

DOT needs to be okay with a temporary year or so for this newly popularized form of transportation to feel itself out instead of trying to limit it[]s expansion arbitrarily. The past year hasn't been adequate because quotas were put in place almost immediately when the vehicles showed up on the street. If cluttered sidewalks is the issue, limiting the amount of vehicles isn't the solution. There certainly isn't an issue of too many people riding scooters and bikes on the road given DC's urban environment and high parking rates for cars. We don't limit the number of cars, why do it for scooters and bikes?

Also, the rule creates an easy work around for a smart and enterprising company to simply charter a subsidiary or wholly separate company under a different name in order to have more than 600 vehicles on the road. Let's say John Doe owns two wholly separate scooter companies, and gets all the permits for each one to own 600 scooters each. The rules have no real way of denying him a permit for his second scooter company other than an arbitrary decision by a regulator who doesn't want John Doe to have two companies operating in the District. And it just makes it less user friendly when people have to switch between apps.

4. Dockless sharing vehicle companies should not have to create a non-mobile app or cash payment system for users. There is no rule that requires Google to have telephone support for searches on their website when a person is not able to work a computer. The same logic applies [] here to those who do not have smart phones. It is completely anti-technological progress to require a mobile scooter/bike company to become more inefficient in order to meet the needs of the few who do not have a smart phone (especially since they likely will in a short period of time!).

Lots of people do not have smart phones. They likely cannot afford one. However, the additional hurdle bike and scooter companies would have to go through in order to meet the needs of people who do not have a technology that the vast majority (77%, and quickly rising) of adults in the US have, or will likely have in a short time, is overly burdensome. I'm sure these companies have the capability of fulfilling this demand (putting Square payment readers for credit cards on vehicles, for instance). However, it does not seem that it should be their burden to meet the demands of a market that they have yet to determine is in need, unless the District of Columbia intends to fully subsidize the implementation of the new feature. I don't think the District wants to because the cost without a doubt will be higher than any return to either the company, or the marginal end user of this benefit.

This is the proposed rule that most clearly shows some of these proposed rules are out of touch with reality in 2018.

Comments Based on Proposed Section 3314:

5. Proposed Section 3314.4 is unnecessary and an unfair burden. As DOT is the manager of traffic patterns within the city, it makes no sense for the scooter providers to have to submit proposals for how to decrease traffic. Based on the information DOT gets from proposed Sections 3314.5(f) & (h), it seems like DOT is requiring by administrative order scooter companies to do its statutory mandated traffic research under threat of the scooter companies not getting "Director approval" to operate in the city. Proposed Sections 3314.5(f) & (h) provides DOT with all the necessary data for them to make administrative decisions about traffic patterns. Proposed Section 3314.4 should instead be something DOT asks for scooter companies to volunteer if they want a say in the rule making process, but not be a condition to operate. It seems overly authoritarian to force private companies to do the work of public entities as a condition of operating their business.

6. There is no need for bikes to be locked to fixed objects. Currently, public bikes do not have separate locks. They have have a mobile signal to detect when they are moved from where they were last parked, as well as to track them. A lock is a completely arbitrary and unnecessary regulation for something that doesn't currently exist, nor is filling an unmet need. This rule should be completely removed and left up to the bike companies to implement on their own if they decide that they want their bikes to be locked up to a fixed object.

If this is a means to get bikes to be parked in a certain spot, this is not the way to do it because it does not adequately limit them from being dropped off almost anywhere in the city. This rule is like requiring shoe store[s] in the city to have gated locks on their doors. It is a need that a private shoe store may decide is right for them, but should not be imposed on them if they believe their store is adequately safe from harm.

Additionally, if these companies' insurers require them to put on locks similar to how the rule proposes, it would be a better process of reaching the goal of the rule than the current proposal via use of government force.

7. Proposed Section 3314.5(h) should clearly state that all requested information is anonymous. It doesn't look good if the government is requiring companies to hand over the information of where people travel on a day to day basis. Currently, the language uses the word "anonymous" as a catchall, but not as a requirement. The rule should instead state, "The dockless vehicle operating company shall electronically report to the Department [the following anonymous information:]* the origin..." Any improper interpretation from future DOT administrators could lead to a problem if they determine the law says that they can get such information (especially if a regulatory agency can then become an illegal work around for an otherwise constitutionally required criminal warrant process through the courts).

8. Per vehicle fees are unrelated to the cost of DOT's ongoing process that isn't already covered in other fees. Proposed Section 3314.3(b)(5) installs an annual fee on each dockless sharing vehicle. Unlike other fees, which pertain to the application, technology, and general company wide permit fees, this section's fees are needlessly in addition to the companies operating their system. It appears to be nothing more than revenue generating for DOT. The other costs are associated with DOT's management of public dockless sharing vehicles for costs incurred. This seems like a way to use government's regulatory authority to demand revenue in excess of taxes imposed by the city counsel. Philosophically, I disagree with regulatory bodies imposing revenue generating fees for non-cost reasons. I know this particular complaint will fall on deaf ears.

With that, I hope the DOT considers my voice and actually discusses some of the points I've made with the rule making committee. In summary, the proposed rules I've discussed above from DOT are mostly arbitrary in nature, and do not seem likely to help the city's congestion needs. Rather, they seemed aimed to punish scooter companies (and bikes) for doing nothing but providing a better means of transport than cars or train in an urban environment for many citizens. At the very least, the rule makers should remove the language about a cap on the speed of the vehicles at such a low and arbitrary level, and fully remove the caps on the number of scooters/bikes a company may have in operation. These regulations will destroy the positive innovation these companies brought to residents like me, and the many who still have yet to try out and fall in love with these newly popularized means of transport.

If you have any questions or wish to speak to me about this, I am happy to help.

Sincerely,

Rob Schwartz

*The use of “[]” in this sentence was part of the actual letter and is not a correction.

**Yesterday, 12/11/18, I rode an electric scooter where a speed governor was put in place. It would not go above 10.2 mph, making me upset. I imagine this letter was not adequately considered in DOT’s rule making.

0 notes