#its invaluable for recognizing cults for what they are

[dipstick-university]

I also have to mention that most cults are fun...at first. That MLM conference where the leader comes out and everyone starts screaming like they're witnessing a celebrity gives you the same high as an arena concert. It sounds like a blast to get blazed on weed and meander around the country with the 'wise' lady and her other followers. Getting body high from being lost in trance before getting brain high on acid. They all make the follower feel awesome and that fun feeds into the sense that they're (finally) a part of something bigger, something worthwhile. There's often some kind of trick that makes new followers feel seen or understood as never before. This adds to the 'fun,' and confirms the knowledge of the cult is real. The cult is giving access to truth that outsiders can't or won't understand. NXVM put people into a trance in front of audiences and made them name their trauma. Many came away from the trance session feeling like they were 'seen,' or like a load had been lifted. The yoga cult I almost joined as a teen after gave out a free meal a week, yoga and meditation sessions, and free concerts. It felt like everything could and would be provided, something I agreed with politically and was desperate to find community to form around. And everyone was so dang nice.

And the Jehovah's Witnesses! They prey on you when you're grieving and give you the promise of seeing deceased loved ones on a paradise version of earth. How to join with millions of other people to spread the 'truth' gives one a positive sense of belonging. Another iteration of 'fun'. Honestly? Sometimes I still miss being in the Witnesses. That's the power cults have. It's never all bad. And that's also what makes it so difficult to see it for what it is.

My hypothesis is that in like 10 years gen z is gonna have a big cult boom the way the boomers did in the 70s

[angry-teacher-says-fuck]

A foul-mouthed teacher's take on Gen Alpha

Can we stop saying that gen alpha is DOOMED?! They just fucking got here!

fucksake, they just hit sixth grade. We are registering the warning signs right now; the lack of respect or empathy, the inability to read , the need for instant gratification OR ELSE, and don't get me started on this Sephora bullshit. Yeah, it's looking pretty bad.

The fact is though, we are their skibidi gyatdamn parents! This is our wakeup call to do better. So here's a list of a few things that might improve the situation.

If you've got a younger child, please do not get them on an i-pad until they are at least 4. Even as an educational tool, they are no replacement for the hands-on and interpersonal learning that their developing brain needs. Talk to them, give them blocks and balls and plenty of things that they can safely place in their mouths. These things help them build a deeper understanding of the world that later social skills and academic stuff can anchor to. At pre-school a little supervised and directed exposure to educational programs can be a good supplement, but do not leave them to use screens feely. As they get into middle school, you should still be aware. There are a lot of dangers on there that tweens don't have the experience yet to recognize and it's a lot wierder than you think.

2. On that note, If you must put them in front of the TV (no shame, it has to happen from time to time in this late-stage capitalist hellscape) for the love of fuck, please pay attention to what they are watching! I cannot begin to tell you, as a teacher, what a difference this can make. Don't trust that everything on Nick jr or Disney is your friend no matter how colorful or silly it looks. Watch a couple episodes either on your own or with them to determine if it has substance or if its values are ones you are ready to expose your children to (I was shocked when I sat down to watch the original Thomas the Tank Engine).

I'll do another post on shows I recommend sometime but as a teacher, PLEASE let most of their TV time be PBS Kids. I shit you not, I can tell the difference between the kids that primarily watched Paw Patrol and the kids that watched Dinosaur Train.

For younger kids, violence is a no, for sure; their brains are still developing and no matter how smart they are, a toddler is not prepared to process whatever nuance you as an adult may have the context for. You don't want to normalize it.

The same goes for adult humor. I have had to send too many kids to the office because of a racial slur or sexist comment that they pulled straight from Southpark or Family Guy. That shit should not be happening!

3. From obscure, seemingly cutesie philosophies that turn out to be cults, to the fucking manosphere and any number of hate-groups that have perfected the art of planting-the-seed with kids, you need to keep them off social media, including Tik-tok and Youtube. There are parenting aps that can block these and limit screen time, but even they cannot be used as a "set it and forget it" solution.

4. Failing all of this, the most important thing you can do for your kids may be to actually converse with them. Sit and watch some shows with them, listen to their interests, let them talk your ear off about their favorite game. Normalize them sharing with you and do this as early as possible. The benefits are numerouse

A. It opens up the lines of communication. You can identify trouble a lot faster and support their goals a lot easier when you have this going for you.

B. It establishes early that you are a safe person to share things with. This is invaluable as they get older, and for keeping them safe at any age.

C. It gives them a chance to utilize RECALL PRACTICE. this is an often overlooked brain booster, but recalling information so they can share it with you, actively helps gear their developing brain for future learning by making it easier for them to call on and access information at will.

D. It builds confidence When you take time to listen to them, you are showing them that their input is valuable; that the things that interest them are worth sharing. There may be times when it is not appropriate, and you can guide them on that, but giving them the respect of listening when you can will help them recognize their worth when future "friends", colleagues, and partners consistently dismiss them or shame them for it.

E. It builds socio/emotional intelligence and models respectful dialogue.

5. Read to them and with them. Even if you aren't a reader, listen to audio-books. Give them a chance to practice their reading skills and comprehension. Normalize the idea that reading is enjoyable.

5. Finally, understand this: you are not being an authoritarian when you set rules and enforce them. They are going to test boundaries, not because they are bad, not because they crave a lack of restriction, but because they need to know that they are there in order to feel secure. There are as many new fads for parenting as there are diets, but whatever parenting style you choose, be firm and consistent with your core rules and principles. your kids, and the people who have to interact with them, will be better off for it.

And cut yourself a bit of slack too. Parenting is tricky, and there are new challenges we are having to learn quickly as we go. It doesn't help that our generation caught so much shit, but we cannot simultaneously be parents AND continue to be victims. Seek out support, and give it whenever you can. We have to recognize our worth and our importance to this generation and take a stand now for their well being.

You are their parent and you play a very needed, active role in their lives.

[druidposting]

On the Value of Using Real World Political Allegory to Analize Fictional/Fantasy Political Structures

Figured i should just make my own post on this subject instead of trying to explain it in the comments of other people's posts.

For starters, i completely understand the distaste for bringing "politics" into discussions on escapist media. It can be boring as hell and you can get bogged down with details REAL fast if you dont know hpw to articulate your points. But that doesnt mean its invaluable, or something that ought to be avoided in discussions or metas - i think rather that a solid ability to draw parallels between irl politics and the politics of media you enjoy can help make your media literacy more robust, as well as give you a better understanding of politics in general.

When you draw these parallels, you have to be able to recognize sociological and historical patterns in groups of people throughput the world in order to understand what political attributes youre likening to the ones you think are occuring in the media youre analyzing. Im gonna use CR campaign 3 as my example here because its discussion is what inspired me to make this post in the first place.

A while back, I made a handful of posts about how and why i believed Ludinus' Ruby Vanguard could be likened to modern right wing populism (for instance, the maga movement). This was around the time that the solstice had just occured, and we'd gotten to see a little bit more into the workings of the Vanguard as a political movement, as well as Ludinus' whole evil villain speach before flipping the bridge switch. Those few episodes in the Tishtan tite were the biggest sirens for me in concluding that the Vanguard was a right wing populist allegory, but you could see the first signs even before then, when the Hells interogated that member with Ryn's help.

At the time of making those posts, id seen some dissagreement with the comparison to phony populism, specifically because there wasnt yet any evidence that Ludinus was doing outreach, or trying to pull in the common man - thus, the Ruby Vanguard should be likened more to a cult than a big populist movement.

But what is a fake populist movement if not a cult at a broader scale?

Fundamentally, cults are built on the backbones of lies told by a strongman leader in order to hold power over their people. And while looking at them throughout history, it's kind of hard to know where to draw the line on what movement is or isnt a cult (as it turns out, almost all definitions that try to capture specifics about social processes are very nebulous and riddled with caveats), but you could absolutly describe the Ruby Vanguard as a cult! Just as I beleive you can describe the american MAGA movement as a cult - and you can also describe both as fake populism. I truly think the only difference between cults vs fake populists is the scale at which theyre able to bring in people.

In regards to the broader comparison between irl right wing populism vs Ludinus', the way i saw it at the time was is like this;

You have a large population of politically disseffected or politically unknowledgable people who are upset about the current state of the world.

For MAGA, literally 50% of americans fell into this. Its not uncommon - which is why theyre such a great group to prey on if you want to bolster support for a fake cause.

For Ludinus, it seems theres a large population of Exandrians upset that the gods wont answer their every prayer, or frustrated with their lot in life and are able tp find blame in the current world regime (ie. The gods). We saw this with the first Ruby Vanguard member the Hells ever encountered, when they interogated him with Ryn - the guy was miserable about his life and the state of the world. These kinds of people are PRIME targets for faux populist rhetoric, and this was the first big red flag to me that this was the kind of thing the Vanguard would be built on.

A charismatic strongman swoops in to appeal to the frustrations of the above people to pose as the leader of the movement.

MAGA had Trump. Say what you will about the man (and i will say a lot), but he had undeniable charisma. This is a HALLMARK of fake populism.

The Vanguard obviously have Ludinus. Again, say what you will, but he seems to be capturing the hearts and minds of the commonfolk.

The things this leader says to appeal to the common man are lies, often presented as surface-level truths. When you really analize their proposed solutions though, theyre either internally contradictory, dont solve anything, or imperically will cause more harm than whats been the status-quo.

Not even gonna substantiate this with the MAGA movement because if you think theres anything good in there you shpuld unfollow me now

Ludinus preaches that all exandrians will be free of the gods, while failing to mention that the method of freeing is an unknown god-eater. Will the whole world be swallowed? Will the god-eater become the new god? This information is conveniently unmentioned by Ludinus, and theres a lot more regarding the whole god situation he's lying about or painting over, too.

Finally, the main thing that typically propells a cult-like movement into being populist-like is a big catalyst event that propells their leader's message into the mainstream.

For MAGA, i think you can chock this up to Trump as a person. The media went CRAZY with him because of how unlike every other candidate on stage was - this bolstered his voice and his ability to preach to the masses, and him subsequently taking the presidency propelled him into the stratosphere.

For Ludinus, this was VERY obviously the Maleus Key being turned on. An event seen across continents, paired with Ludinus' message being beamed into the heads of every exandrian on earth. Before this event, you could predict that the Ruby Vanguard would become a faux populist movement. This was the event that basically confirmed the hypothesis for me.

And, now that we've been able to see hpw expansive the efforts pf the Vanguard have been to draw common folk into the cause, much like right-wing populist efforts, you can even more plainly see the allegory. But as mentioned before, even without seeing explicit scenes of hologram Ludinus popping up in city squares to preach his word, or learning of the countless common folk drawn in to the cause with the hopes of a better life than their own sad lonely ones, you could use examples of very similar political movements irl in order to pretty acuratly predict where the Vanguard's movement was headed.

I'd like to extrapolate this a little further. In those same posts a while ago, I'd also theorized that Ludinus is aiming to become god-emperor of Exandria, and this is for the simple reason that this is a fundamental desire of many real world leaders like him.

With regards to populist revolutionary movements (and a revolution is undeniably what Ludinus is gearing for), you'll see there are two kinds of ways in which the leaders lie to their followers.

This one you see quite often with specifically vanguardist revolutionary movements, in which the leader knowingly lies to their masses, but in service of a greater "truth" they believe in. They beleive that in order to acheive what they truly think will be a greater world, they must lie and do bad things in order to get there

The other kind of leader lies in service of acheiving greater power for themself. There is no real "greater good" theyre fighting for, no better world on the other side. At the root of their being, they simply want to become god-emperors by any means necessary. This kind of person is very megalomaniacal and narcissistic, and will do anything for applause from the people following them. This is the kind of leader Trump is, for instance.

Admittedly, we dont really have concrete proof that Ludinus is one way or the other in terms of how it is he lies to his followers, but i believe that he is more of the narcissistic megalomaniac style of leadership, and we'll be seeing more and more evidence of this as time goes on. It takes a true narcissist to believe they can kill god, let alone a whole PANTHEON. I also beleive that even if a leader starts out as the former, they will inevitably slip into the latter over time (take the USSR for example). When you hold such uncontested power over so many people, given enough time that power will go to your head.

Something you also see a in history, is when the leader of a vanguard populist movement aftually succeeds in their revolution, the leader then becomes a megalomaniacal dictator, again, seeking to be god-emperor of the universe. The obvious examples of this are the Soviet Union and Mao's China.

Furthermore, Ludinus is a smart guy. He absolutly has to know that killing all the gods is going to create a MASSIVE power vacuum over Exandria. He then also has to know that someone's gonna fill that vacuum, and he sure as hell hasnt posited any suggestions for how the Vanguard might go about making sure an even more oppressive system of power isnt instantly installed in the gods' place. And with as narcissistic as this man has to be, would he not think himself the most appropriate person to fill that position? Why work so hard for so long on this insane centuries long plan to rid the world of the gods?

One answer is that he truly believes its for the greater-good. This answer would be the one in which Ludinus quietly fades away into the background once the gods are dead, letting the world carry on unchained as he believes it was meant to.

The other answer is that he realized that when that power vacuum opens up, he will have put himself in the perfect position to take control over everything, thus becoming god-emperor of Exandria.

But yeah, as long-winded as this all was, you can kind of see how exercises like this can really help with media analysis and understanding the motivations of characters, or making predictions on where certain threads or story beats might be going. As humans, we are fundamentally social creatures - does it not make sense, then, that the stories we tell would be woven with the essences of social structure? And whats more fundamentally social than politics?

[sibyl-of-space]

This Tuesday I went back up to SF to attend a game dev networking Thing, and I also used the chance to visit some friends in the area and had some nice conversations with people. It's a pain in the ass to get there on public transit from where I am now but it was definitely a really fun trip and I'm really glad I went.

The event itself was nice - it was technically hosting some talks, but for about an hour and a half before the talks the space was open to meet other devs and share demos and such. Two people asked to check out the Amadeus demo and I got to a) show them the progress from the current published demo to the unpublished version I'm working on, and b) watch someone play it in person to remind myself of what a totally unbiased audience's first reaction is to it and its controls. It reminded me that while I've been revamping the point-and-click controls significantly, I need to make sure WASD is polished as well because many people prefer that scheme.

Anyway then I dipped when the talks started because I don't particularly find talks useful because I know what works for me and I don't listen to advice from people I don't know (and even sometimes from people I do know). Glad I went just for the schmoozing, though.

Spent the night with a friend who has worked in gamedev for ~8ish years now, and he is an incredibly valuable resource because he is REALLY good at giving advice/helpful feedback that recognizes "best practices" for him as someone working on a AAA team, and "best practices" for me as a solo dev of a visual novel, are completely different things. He is able to identify what values are actually worth me caring about at this point, and he also pointed out (I've very much given up on the industry completely) that once I make my own game, once I actually ship Amadeus on Steam, there are a lot of industry doors that will be open to me that aren't open yet. Many positions don't even look at you unless you've shipped a game on a major platform. So it was kind of good to hear that while I'm making this 10000% just for me on my terms, it actually could open doors much later down the line if I ever want it to.

Then I met with the professor who taught the course that got me on this path in the first place, by helping me recognize that I don't have to just be an audio person I CAN ACTUALLY BUILD THE GAME MYSELF. My final project for his class was the absolute shittiest jankiest prototype for what eventually became the Amadeus demo-- that class was HUGE for me. And my professor has given me a lot of great advice and help in Unity since then.

This meeting was interesting because I think it signified to me that, while he was the #1 most invaluable resource for me getting started in game dev, I think I've reached a point where I know what my goals are and I have the foundation to reach them, and I have somewhat found my niche and it's decidedly different from his. He definitely tried to give me advice about trying to navigate the current dumpster fire industry from the perspective of "someone who started a small studio and has done the pitching-to-publishers song and dance before" but, while he knows a LOT about the niche his own studio filled, I don't think he is equipped to understand whether the market for "4x3 SD visual novel directly inspired by a Japanese game from 2006 with a cult following" is a thing that exists. I kind of feel for him because his indie studio really tried to do everything "right" but he's having to dissolve it because the money is out and last year sucked ass. But that's exactly why I'm kind of ignoring his advice, because for me making Amadeus, it is literally not remotely about the money. I want to make this because I have a vision for a work of art that I want to bring into this world. If it never sells more than 10 copies, I'll be a bit disappointed, but I'll still consider the life I have lived as more fulfilling having made it. That's what's important to me.

I WILL burn out if I focus too hard about trying to make Amadeus into anything marketable and need it to sell X copies to be "worth it." If I continue as I have, "funding" Amadeus just by doing everything myself, creating a story I'm in love with and finishing it so I can share it with the world, then I am certain that I will finish.

It's been hard to maintain that laser focus in a world where it seems everyone wants to give me advice about how to monetize or make a career, but I KNOW that laser focus is NECESSARY to finish. I CANNOT care about the money if I want to make Amadeus what I want it to be. This game is so deeply personal to me in so many ways that I need it to be completely mine. If anything comes of it, if it sells any amount to any number of people beyond my circle of friends, it will be BECAUSE I made something incredibly authentic to my own vision and THAT is what appealed to people.

Anyway, after that conversation I met with a friend from music school, which was really wonderful because they were just excited about me making a project I'm excited about. We talked about art and passion projects and making silly things for fun. It was just nice to see them again, too.

I am extremely glad that I went, and now that I am back, I have a renewed vigor to finish Amadeus as I'd already planned on doing. Nothing is changed but everything is changed. I am bringing this game into the world and it's going to rule so hard.

[notbecauseofvictories]

oh I'm interested in the tag novel on how fan spaces becoming more meat spacey benefits the producers!! also happy Halloween! 🖤🧡🖤🧡

It’s not a particularly academic argument---I don’t have sources to back this up, I haven’t done research. I’m also wary of painting a picture of “fandom” as anything more than a lot of weasels in a trenchcoat, because that word means a lot of things to a lot of different people, some of whom hate each other. But as long as everybody understands that this is the ethnographical equivalent of drunkenly throwing darts at a copy of the AJS...sure.

[under a cut because it’s long and baseless, and also I had a lot of thoughts and feelings. Sorry.]

My basic premise is that fandom occupies “fanspace.” Fanspace is not solely online, since fanzines and conventions are fanspace too, but since the 90s it has become increasingly and primarily internet based. While some websites are designated fanspace (e.g., AO3, ff.net, stand-alone fansites) fanspace is not necessarily contiguous with a hosting site (e.g., there is fanspace on tumblr, but tumblr is not a fanspace). Fanspace is really just those urls, message boards, threads, blogs, accounts, etc. designated for fandom and/or where fannish activity takes place.

Its deeply-rooted internet presence has allowed fanspace and what I call “meatspace” to operate on different rules. Meatspace has always informed fan spaces, of course---disclaimers on fic to ward off accusations of copyright infringement, for example, or asking readers to attest that they’re over 13 before reading an R-rated fic. But traditionally, fandom has accepted as norm things that don’t apply to meatspace: fake names and anonymous posts, pictures of someone else’s characters, lengthy self-published stories featuring violence, explicit sex, sometimes even gay people. Fanspace is in many ways an artificial carve out from meatspace, where fewer of its rules apply; fanspace supplements these with its own norms.

The division between fanspace and meatspace is not and has never been a clear, settled line, however. Debates on how much meatspace should inform fan spaces have been raging for as long as I’ve been on the internet, and to be fair to meatspace, it has made good points. (I’m not sure if “don’t be racist,” counts as a meatspace rule given...racism, but fandom frequently reacts to it like a meatspace intrusion so I think it should count.)

However, what used to be intra-fandom conversations have become increasingly more public, for a few reasons:

Part of this is just the natural development of the internet---it’s not like fanspace was ever hidden, but there just weren’t as many people online, and stuff was harder to find in a pre-google, pre-algorithmic promotion world.

Part of it is the changing architecture of fanspace---websites shutting down, Strikethrough, and the tumblr porn ban have all, in their own ways, served to alter fanspace and move towards more and more public-facing sites.

But part of it---and this is the biggest factor, I think---is that over the last two decades, we’ve seen content-producers** increasingly willing to engage with fandom. 

On its face, this sounds good! After all, fans like people who make things, people who make things want fans. What could possibly be wrong about both sides recognizing their mutualism?

I think this works when the most interaction you could expect with a creator was showing up a bookstore to ask Tamora Pierce a question, or writing fanmail to Paul Gross. But it falls apart when you consider just how public-facing fanspaces have become, and just how much interest content-producers have taken in cultivating the fannish audience. Content-producers engaging directly with fandom are a thumb on the scales of mutualism, and a heavy one. After all, one side of the relationship is a loosely collected anarchic cult, migrating along a series of websites they mostly don’t control, making do with nothing but ongoing wank and general obsessive tendencies. 

The other side has D*sney, Harper Collins, and Comcast.

That thumb on the scale has paid off, more than I think even the content-producers could have anticipated. Fandom is good at loving what it loves and talking loudly about it, but capitalism is way better at doing what it does---turning everything into profit. So now people pay $100 a pop to go to Harry Potter World. Conventions are well-produced extensions of their parent companies, raking in money and providing a blitz of publicity---directly to the source most likely to take your messaging and amplify it. Make a superhero movie and the minute the trailer drops you conjure up thousands of online fans will be your de facto, unpaid publicists---generating interest via fan art, fic, and controversy with minimal corporate effort.  Of course fic writers who have established online presence are the darlings of the publishing world---what publisher wouldn’t want a built-in hype machine for a new author? 

And, just coincidentally, of course, fanspace and meatspace are drawn closer together, that line further blurred by this new and very, very interested third party.

I’m not saying this is some big conspiracy. No tv exec is out there rubbing their hands together and cackling evilly about how they’re going ruin fandom. But in exchange for meatspace validation and an endless stream of new content, I think fandom has ceded important ground. And I think it’s changing fanspaces, even now:

One of the founding rules of fanspace is that it does not generate money---you risk real copyright infringement that way. (This isn’t to say that money hasn’t been involved in a few massive fandom scandals, but it’s not typical.) Increasingly, however, the grumblings about getting paid for fan art and fic have gotten louder, probably due to meatspace’s general emphasis on the side-hustle, and seeing content-producers churn out more and more fan-like things for a profit.

(It seems unimaginable now, but once upon a time the HP Lexicon was an invaluable resource, a rare unicorn in a pre-wikipedia age. Now, D*sney wouldn’t even think of releasing a tentpole movie without a novelization, a picture dictionary, and a tie-in novel.)

Also, those calls for fan art that “might be featured” by a content-producer are (rightfully) scorned for asking for work pro bono. But the takeaway seems to be “we deserve to be paid for our fan art!” rather than “how dare the content-producer intrude on our fanspace and its activities!”

Fanspaces have never expected or required legal ID, permitting anonymous or pseudonymous activity in order to protect individual privacy. And while there’s still no expectation you link your legal ID with your online/fan ID, the norm has shifted---it’s no longer considered gauche to go by your legal ID, even necessary when turning mutuals and followers into an “audience.” We’re not anonymous fans, engaged in our mutual hobby anymore---some people are doing that, and others are potential content-creators.

I’d argue that even purity wank if an example of this new blurring, classic “don’t like don’t read” arguments taking on new life now that meatspace is so nearby---we wouldn’t want to offend the neighbors!

Even these things benefit the content-producers: the more fan-like stuff they churn out, the less fanspaces will create on their own; the more fanspaces that emphasize linking legal ID to online ID, the less people will be able to engage in fan activities privately; the more meatspace rules assert themselves on fanspaces, the less fanspace we’ll have.

Now, maybe this is just...evolution. As I said before, there is a porous and shifting border between fanspace and meatspace. I remember angry threads about whether m/m fics should be rated higher than a het equivalent; I remember the tagging debates, the incredible resistance to accurately describing what happens in your fic. Maybe in a few years, my longing to return to a more separate fanspace will seem equally as embarrassing, incorrect, and unnecessary. 

But right now, it feels more like an erosion---one fandom is about as willing or able to resist as the tide.

.

** “Content maker” is a term that’s come to mean “anyone who makes something” which is sheer nonsense. There’s a difference between publishers/television producers/movie studios and someone recording a podcast in their bathroom. There’s even a difference between D*sney, a vast undead creative monopoly animated by copyright protections, and someone like James Patterson, who uses a stable of ghostwriters to churn out “his” works. We shouldn’t be scrutinizing all these things them the same way, it’s lazy, and intellectually dishonest.

[ladyshandioftheendless]

Shandi’s KISSteria drabbles 23!

FINALLY another update! How long has it been? ^^;; The story’s coming to an end soon!

~Shandi

With the curse broken, the Scarlet Necromancer plots his vengeance.

ONE SMALL LIFE Part 9

“THIS CANNOT BE!!”

Yelling in frustration, the Scarlet Necromancer threw the crystal orb he carried to the ground, shattering it completely. As soon as the Crimson Curse was lifted it had gone dark. Useless. “How dare they break my beautiful spell?! The one chance to bring back our Mistress..and they have ruined it!! THEY WILL PAY FOR THIS!!” He grabbed one of his followers by their robes. “Gather everyone who is left!! We slaughter the KISSterians tonight and sacrifice their blood to the Mistress!!” Outside of the cave, the rest of the Wildcat Clan had regrouped. The stood at the ready with their fangs bared and their claws extended. “Keep close watch..” CatMan said, moving close to the caves entrance. “..as soon as they move out..we attack.” 

Back at the Palace StarChild was amazed at how quickly Fox was growing accustomed to playing with them. Sitting behind a drum set just seemed to come as naturally to him as breathing. As they performed in the Palace’s theater with the Council watching Fox never missed a beat. But the true test had yet to be passed. Could Fox focus his powers in perfect harmony with the others? There was no better time to do it than right now. StarChild glanced back at first Fox who nodded before looking at the others, Ace to his left and Demon to his right. The Council waited in dead silence as they began their next song. Instantly recognizing that familiar intro the Elder smiled. 

Well the night’s begun and you want some fun Do you think you’re gonna find it You gotta treat yourself like number one Do you need to be reminded

It doesn’t matter what you do or say Just forget the things that you’ve been told We can’t do it any other way Everybody’s got to rock and roll

Shout it shout it Shout it out loud! Shout it shout it Shout it out loud!

Their instruments slowly harmonized, making them all glow in their respective colors. Fox had never experienced anything like it before. As his orange aura shined brightly around him he felt a wonderful warmth. He felt like he belonged. 

If you don’t feel good there’s a way you could Don’t sit there brokenhearted Call all your friends in the neighborhood And get the party started

Don’t let them tell you that there’s too much noise They’re too old to really understand You’ll still get rowdy with the girls and boys Cause it’s time for you to take a stand

Shout it shout it Shout it out loud! Shout it shout it Shout it out loud!

While Fox played his aura floated above him, taking the shape of a fox with a long flowing tail. It ran around the theater, leaving beautiful trails of energy behind it. The crowd watched in awe, standing up to cheer as the fox floated over their heads. StarChild was intrigued. The fox’s energy clearly had rejuvenating effects which could prove to be incredibly useful. The fox circled the stage. It appeared to be gathering the others’ auras and forming them into unique shapes. Fascinating!

Shout it shout it Shout it out loud! You got to have a party!

Shout it shout it Shout it out loud! Turn it up louder!

StarChild’s aura transformed into a sleek and elegant bird with a long translucent tail. Laying its head on its master’s shoulder it raised its tail feathers and spread them apart, creating a shimmering fan.

Shout it shout it Shout it out loud! Everybody shout it now!

Shout it shout it Shout it out loud! Oh yeah!

Demon’s aura snaked itself around him, taking the form of a gigantic lizard with long, sharp claws, burning red eyes and heavy spiked armor covering its body. It flicked its long tongue as its master did, moving perfectly in sync.

Shout it shout it Shout it out loud! I hear it gettin’ louder!

Shout it shout it Shout it out loud! Everybody shout it now!

Ace’s aura crackled with electricity. At first it formed stars, which then took the shape of a large spectral bear, standing on its hind legs behind its master. As it roared its stars glittered and lightning shot from its mouth. Truly a sight to behold.

Shout it shout it Shout it out loud!!

As the song ended the ethereal creatures floated high above the stage and disappeared in an explosion of colors. The Council stood, applauding and cheering wildly. StarChild was amused. He’d never seen them so lively. He turned to Ace, smiling as the SpaceMan winked at him. Demon watched Vinneketh stand up and smile proudly, with Ayesha laughing and squealing, trying to catch stray ribbons of colored energy in her hands. Fox was out of breath. Expending so much power made him so weary..but he was excited too! His first attempt at Synergy and it went perfectly! It was certainly proof enough that he was meant to be part of KISS. The Elder approached the stage with a big smile on her face. “That was absolutely incredible..all of you~ I believe Fox will fit in with the rest of you very well~” 

“Wow!!” 

Everyone looked towards the newcomer who stood in the theater’s entrance. He walked down the center aisle clapping enthusiastically. “My Leader told me about how amazing it is when you perform together but..it’s much better seeing it for myself!” Ace narrowed his eyes. The markings were familiar but everything else was completely off. Before he could say anything however StarChild spoke first. “Have you come from the jungle? I-is CatMan..?” The young Cat shook his head. “Oh no! He’s our Leader now! He sent me to bring you word on the Cult’s movements!” Demon growled. “Did the Clan locate them?” Another nod. “Yes we have. We found them hiding in the western mountains. We think they may try to attack at any time.” 

“Oh, they will most definitely attack. Very soon.” Vinneketh interjected with a scowl on his face. “We have taken away their most valuable weapon and they will come here seeking revenge.” The Elder frowned. “Then we must prepare the Palace’s defenses. The Rock of KISSteria will provide an efficient barrier against them.” Demon watched his husband’s expression. “There’s something else isn’t there?” Vinneketh nodded. “There is. I do not think the Rock has any of its own defenses against necromancy. It is possible the Scarlet Necromancer will attempt to corrupt it. Elder, with your permission I will fetch my Master. No magic can breech his barriers. He can keep the Rock safe while the rest of us battle the Cult.” The Elder hummed in approval. “I trust your judgments on the magical, Vinneketh. Master Radames’ help would be most welcome.” Handing Ayesha over to Demon, Vinneketh was off to return to Sphynxia. 

“All that is left is to plan our attack.” StarChild said. “We will inform the Sisterhood as well. Their magic can bolster our soldiers. We will need to call upon the Alliance Army once more. Ace, send word to Jendell. Fox, inform your Clan. The Council can assemble the Palace Garrison.” He placed a hand on the young Cat’s shoulder. “You deserve our gratitude for coming here and informing us. Please let CatMan know that he is invaluable to us and we congratulate him on becoming your Clan’s Leader. We hope that you will join us for this battle. With our combined forces we can finally destroy this Cult once and for all.” The young Cat’s smile could brighten up the entire theater. “We’ll definitely be there! We don’t really have any defenses against that Scarlet person’s magic but..” 

“That’s where you’re wrong, Kitty-Cat!” Ace interrupted, handing over a small glass orb filled with blue lightning. “Give this to Cat when you see ‘im. He knows what to do with it~” The young Cat stared at the orb with wide curious eyes. “Oh..yes..I will! Thank you!” As he ran off StarChild nodded to the others. 

“It’s time for KISS to end this.” 

To be Continued!!

[sarcasticdebate]

Introduction and Excerpts from ‘Emori: A Biography’

A collection of snipets looking at the life and contributions of Emori, for the first time delving into her private life and evaluating her role in the Great Transition, as well her relationships with other notable figures. In the First Edition.

For Emori Appreciation Week Day 7 - AO3

Introduction and Excerpts from Emori: A Biography

J.J. Hedian, M.H.D. University of Cecba, Department of Earth Studies

345ɑ-322β (2372 EY)

Of Planet Earth’s survivors following the second Praimfaya, a special interest has always been paid by historians and biographers to the seven survivors of the Ark, mostly for how they evaded indoctrination into Blodreina’s cult and for the extensive detailing of their six years in space via Bellamy Blake’s diary1.  Among the seven, special attention has almost ubiquitously been awarded to Monty Green, Harper McIntyre, and Bellamy Blake for their accomplishments in regard to the salvation of the humans of Earth, or diplomatic efforts following, and for the more extensive notes on their lives.

Emori2 has received considerably less attention in literature concerning the Great Transition, in part because of the sparse information regarding her early life, but also because of the focus awarded to her companions and friends. In addition to those mentioned above, Echo has always been a worthy subject of study among researchers of “Grounder Culture” (and often favored for her high place of ranking within Azgeda). However, the heed paid by her biographers to the political, religious, and military functions of the twelve clans often leaves holes in the narrative regarding the social functionings of the society, something central to Emori’s early life. Similarly, the high regard duly awarded to Raven Reyes among historians and engineers alike often overshadows Emori’s professional and essential accomplishments.

Emori has always been a character worthy of historical note, not simply due to her association with decision-makers, strategists, or great thinkers, but because she was all of those things herself. This work aims to be the first to capture Emori’s life, accomplishments, and spirit. In doing so, it presents a new theory regarding the social hierarchy of the grounders, an additional perspective on the intersections of language and vocational instruction, as well as unveiling Emori’s unsung contributions to the integration of Earth Survivors into life on Cado.

She also offers additional perspective to the events preceding the second Praimfaya, as well as early impressions of Cado which are unique and invaluable, and have only recently been uncovered upon the discovery of a lost interview from her arrival3. Emori offers an individual outlook on human nature, the effects of ingroup vs outgroup bias, with an emphasis on the importance of human connection.

Hers is a survival story. It’s also a story of a life fully lived.  

[Excerpt from Chapter 1: Just Deserts]

“...Banishment was not an uncommon punishment among grounders7, and while it was often synonymous with a death sentence, practically it often didn’t result in fatality. Emori’s banishment was typical of those born with congenital physical defects, although how she survived early infancy until the point which she was self-sufficient (which probably occurred before the average child but nonetheless was not immediate) is unknown. Her emotional survival can in part be credited to her inherent strength in spirit, while it can also be due to her relationship with her brother Otan.

Whether Otan was her biological brother or one in spirit is unknown, but it is clear that Otan was her sole confident through her childhood and adolescence, and likely provided the necessary companionship and emotional support. In later years, Emori remembered him fondly, if sparsely. In the writings Bellamy kept in the two years following his sister’s death, he writes, ‘Emori’s the only one I talked to today. Sometimes it’s easy to forget she had a brother. She grieves in such an odd way.’ Otan died sometime before the second Praimfaya. As Bellamy noted, her distress at his passing was atypical.

This was an effect of her early childhood development, which necessitated an emotional distance from death, in order to kill without emotional consequences. This was mirrored by her home of twenty years. Earth deserts are an extreme environment, the planet, with its docile weather patterns, has several large areas that were near dangerously hot and arid, seeing less than six inches of rainfall a year. They are ruthless to the few creatures that try to inhabit them, a ruthlessness young Emori chose to accept and imitate….”

[Excerpt from Chapter 3: Honor among Thieves]

“...Among the group was John Murphy11. In a fashion typical to his character, and at a point in his life where he detested interaction with any of his acquaintances, he made conversation with her. Ultimately the two recognized common ground with each other, and immediately struck up a brief rapport despite the timeframe of Emori’s con12. The meeting left an impression and perhaps a certain yearning in the both of them that superseded what John would view as a betrayal, and allowed for an easy forgiveness and a solid foundation for their relationship following their three month separation….”

[Excerpt from Chapter 7: Home Free]

“...Despite the relative safety of the Ark (at least in comparison to the tumults faced by Wonkru) tensions in the early months ran high. ‘Echo and Emori are at each other’s throats,’ Bellamy wrote, ‘And I feel like Harper might step in and end them both.’ That observation occurred shortly after John entered an algae-induced coma, increasing frustrations and fears, especially on Emori’s part. It was a combination of John’s full recovery, mediation conducted by Bellamy between the two grounders in space, and Raven’s offer of technical teaching that finally began to thaw the ice between Emori and her five new companions.

The remarkability of Emori’s transition to life in space cannot be understated. The community among the Ark was, at the time, the largest she was ever a part of, and the peace time allowed her period of reflection and growth that she never before experienced….”

[Excerpt from Chapter 10: See the Light]

“...Following the descent, Emori’s transition to the life and routines on Cado was perhaps only bested by Shaw and Diyoza, who already had experience arriving in a new world. Her adaptability allowed her to sequester more equitable resources when encountered by Statesman Pallo’s demands, and helped ensure the survival of the group in the unfamiliar terrain surrounding Cecba upon their journey towards civilization. Some cite her clear headedness in these instances as an obvious continuation of character, however, in many regards it was a distraction technique to shield herself from the thoughts of the recent deaths of Monty and Harper. Similar to how Raven’s focus on completing a scientific outline of the planet for ‘better understanding of the conditions of their new world,’ was a veiled attempt at creating a monument to honor Monty, Emori’s own focus on work allowed a temporary outlet for her grief. This is evidenced by the continued dissonance in her relationship with John, whose own reaction to the death of their friends was concentrated in a brief sadness and a drawn out anger.

Gaining the rights to the New Earth lands represented a shift in Emori’s life to something far more permanent than even the Ark. More than being the ‘Final Break in the Cycle’ it allowed for her to create a sense of fulfillment, as well as for the first time providing her with choices and directions to take her life. Such choices included her reconciliation with John, as well as the development of her relationship with Jordan, despite her past miss givings. The most tangible evidence of Emori both settling down and gaining new direction are seen in the construction of her house, where she lived the rest of her life….”

1The diary, recovered from the Ark’s servers during the Return Trip, is inherently deeply biased as it comes solely from Bellamy’s perspective, nethertheless, it remains invaluable. Bellamy’s own deep appreciation for history suggests at least an attempt at objectiveness, strengthening the information that it provides.

2 Emori is sometimes addressed with the designator, ‘kom spacekru’, but I have forgone its use in this narrative as evidence suggests it was fabricated by early historians, and not used by the woman herself.

3 The overall distressing content of the interviews has prevented them from being declassified until very recently, and still transcripts are not available to the general public.  

7 This based off knowledge of Echo’s own banishment, it should be noted that grounders were equally inclined towards execution.

11 Classically John Murphy is referred to by the historical narrative by his surname, as he was mainly addressed in life, with the main exception of Emori, who addressed him by his first name. As this work is from her point of view, I will take the liberty to do so too.

12 The only record of this event is in Bellamy’s Ark diary, where he paraphrases Emori’s retelling of the story to spacekru, it is recorded as a humorous event. However, the nature of its contents, and Bellamy’s lax view of burglary, suggest it carried deeper consequences, despite John and Emori’s eventual romantic relationship.

[505anya]

i-Jusi Magazine

ijusi (meaning “juice” in Zulu) is an experimental magazine first published by Garth Walker in early 1995 from his studio in Durban, South Africa. Gradually piecing together the various cultural dichotomies and social potentialities that have evolved following the demise of apartheid, ijusi has posed an important question from the start: “What makes me South African, and what does that ‘look’ like?” According to Walker, “The magazine aims to encourage and promote a visual design language rooted in our own South African experience.” From the onset, ijusi effectively showcased a burgeoning South African visual culture, which has come to be recognized worldwide for its quality and diversity. Over the following years, subsequent issues have made invaluable contributions to the ongoing discourse surrounding representation and identity in South Africa, specifically within the context of graphic design, illustration, typography, writing, and photography. It is a noncommercial, free publication, and each uniquely themed issue is self-published by Walker in a small print run of around 300 copies, roughly twice yearly. Contributors have included Anton Kannemeyer, Mikhael Subotzky, David Goldblatt, and Pieter Hugo, among others. The magazine has released 29 issues to date, including the spring 2014 Nelson Mandela issue.

Garth Walker was born in 1957 in Pretoria, South Africa, and trained as a graphic designer and photographer at Technikon Natal in the 1970s. In 1995, he founded Orange Juice Design, which soon became one of the country’s leading graphic design studios. In 2008 he started his current studio, Mister Walker, based in Durban. Its clients include many of South Africa’s favorite consumer and corporate brands.

iJusi is an experimental magazine first published in the early years following South Africa’s inaugural democratic elections, circa 1994. From the beginning iJusi posed an important question: “What makes me South African, and what does that ‘look’ like?”. Gradually, iJusi started visualising the various cultural dichotomies and social potentialities that evolved following the demise Apartheid. As was the case with the Soviet Union in 1917, a new social order begets a new visual order.

Garth Walker published the first issue of iJusi in early 1995 from his studio in Durban, then called Orange Juice design. From its onset iJusi sponsored a burgeoning South African visual culture. Subsequent issues have made invaluable contributions to the ongoing discourse about representation and identity in South Africa. iJusi is still currently independantly published by Walker in a small print run, roughly twice yearly from his Durban based graphic design studio, now called Mister Walker.

Despite having a print-run in the low hundreds, iJusi has developed a worldwide following. Resultantly, the magazine has reached cult status, largely due to its rarity and the fact that it has never been commercially for sale, but rather distributed gratis to anybody who sees the value in iJusi’s mission. The fact that iJusi is Africa’s only experimental Art and Design magazine may also factor into its popularity amongst collectors.

iJusi can be seen as a testament to a developing country dealing with various socio-economic and political stratifications. iJusi is a platform of discovery, safeguarding the wealth of talent, rich traditions, and strong sense of heritage in South Afirca. With such diverse cultural backgrounds, each with their own contribution to make, iJusi publishes the creative poignancy of a country with a visual vocabulary that remains unrivaled. A full set, from issue #1 to issue #33, are included in the Colophon collection.

https://ybca.org/artist/ijusi-garth-walker/#:~:text=ijusi%20(meaning%20%E2%80%9Cjuice%E2%80%9D%20in,studio%20in%20Durban%2C%20South%20Africa.

https://garthwalker.com/#top

https://colophon.co.za/portfolio/ijusi/

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

“In its more harmless form, fauxtomation is merely a marketing ploy, a way to make pointless products seem cutting-edge. (The Tovala “smart oven,” for example, is Wi-Fi-connected and scans barcodes to glean reheating instructions for pre-made meals available through a subscription delivery service. Overpriced TV dinners cooked in an expensive toaster hardly live up to the slogan, “Cook your own ingredients with your smartphone.”)

The gap between advertising copy and reality can be risible. But fauxtomation also has a more nefarious purpose. It reinforces the perception that work has no value if it is unpaid and acclimates us to the idea that one day we won’t be needed.

Where Hollywood’s sci-fi futurism and leading tech pundits lead us astray, however, socialist feminism can lend invaluable insight, inoculating us against techno-capitalism’s self-flattering claims. The socialist feminist tradition is a powerful resource because it's centrally concerned with what work is—and in particular how capitalism lives and grows by concealing certain kinds of work, refusing to pay for it, and pretending it's not, in fact, work at all.

That women have special insight into technology shouldn’t come as a surprise: after all, they have been sold the promise of liberation through labor-saving devices since the dawn of mass consumerism, and this applies to kitchen appliances in particular. (It’s a short and rather sad leap from self-cleaning ovens to self-cooking ones.) Despite this, they have seen their workloads multiply, not diminish.

In her study More Work For Mother: The Ironies Of Household Technology From The Open Hearth To The Microwave, Ruth Cowan sheds astonishing light on the way innovations like electric irons and vacuum cleaners only added to the list of daily chores for women confined in the cult of domesticity. These innovations also increased cleanliness standards—i.e., ramped up the productivity expectations for home workers as well as their workloads—while transforming housekeeping into a more gendered, solitary, time-consuming occupation. Here is an especially vivid reminder from our patriarchal past that automation isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, and hardly guarantees the absence of work.

But the relevant critique here runs deeper than simply observing that better living through technology was often an empty publicity slogan. Socialist feminists have long argued that women have been fed a lie—a lie that is increasingly foisted on the entire population, regardless of gender: they have been told their labor was not worthy of a wage and thus had no social value.

The Italian theorist Silvia Federici has tenaciously analyzed the ways in which feminized, domestic work—what she calls reproductive labor—is essential to capitalism even as capitalists and bosses refuse to acknowledge its productive existence. Beginning with her activism with the group Wages For Housework in the 1970s, Federici has argued that we must recognize the underappreciated, uncompensated labor that sustains everyday life, providing the foundation that underpins all manner of paid work recognized by the formal economy. Every bridge, every factory, every Silicon Valley app is merely the visible tip of a hidden iceberg of reproductive labor.

It’s an insight that may seem obvious, but is actually revelatory. At the University of Toronto in 2017, I watched as Federici fielded an earnest question from a graduate student who said something about how automation would expand the reserve army of labor—Karl Marx’s term for the multitude of workers without access to steady employment. The graduate student took for granted that, soon enough, there would not be enough work to go around and that many people would become surplus, expendable, and effectively irrelevant to society. Many in the audience nodded their heads in agreement—including me.

Federici’s response was bracing. She vehemently denied the premise of the question—that we must acquiesce to the idea that, come the great automated apocalypse, masses of people would have no productive work to do: “Don’t let them make you think that you are disposable,” she passionately proclaimed. At that moment, I realized the depth of Federici’s insight. Her point is not that women have, historically, performed reproductive labor outside the sphere of waged work, that their efforts are supplemental to the real action. Rather, she insists that reproductive labor is utterly central: in its absence, the entire system would collapse.

The joint creation of social life is the very basis of all economic activity. There would be no GDP to contribute to without it, no assets to leverage or profits to hoard. We are more important and powerful than we have been led to believe—and the we in question here is no longer the marginalized ranks of women performing reproductive labor, but increasingly the postindustrial precariat at large.

The Robotic Reserve Army As socialist feminism usefully highlights, capitalism is dedicated to ensuring that as much vital labor as possible goes uncompensated. Fauxtomation must be seen as part of that tendency. It manifests every time we check out and bag our own groceries or order a meal through an online delivery service. These sorts of examples abound to the point of being banal. Indeed, they crowd our vision in virtually every New Economy transaction once we clue into their existence.

One recent afternoon I stood waiting at a restaurant for a to-go meal that I had ordered the old-fashioned way—by talking to a woman behind the counter and giving her paper money. As I waited for my lunch to be prepared, the man in front of me appeared astonished to receive his food. “How did the app know my order would be ready twenty minutes early?” he marveled, clutching his phone. “Because that was actually me,” the server said. “I sent you a message when it was done.”

Here was a small parable of labor and its erasure in the digital age. The app, in its eagerness to appear streamlined and just-in-time, had simply excised the relevant human party in this exchange. Hence the satisfied customer could fantasize that his food had materialized thanks to the digital interface, as though some all-seeing robot was supervising the human workers as they put together his organic rice bowl.

Our general lack of curiosity about how the platforms and services we use every day really work means that we often believe the hype, giving automation more credit than it’s actually due. In the process, we fail to see—and to value—the labor of our fellow human beings. We mistake fauxtomation for the real thing, reinforcing the illusion that machines are smarter than they really are.

Though omnipresent, fauxtomation can sometimes be hard to discern, since by definition it aims to disguise the real character of the work in question. The Moderators, a moving 2017 documentary directed by Adrian Chen and Ciarán Cassidy and released online through the Field of Vision series, provides a rare window into the lives of individual workers who screen and censor digital content. Hundreds of thousands of people work in this field, ceaselessly staring at beheadings, scenes of rape and animal torture, and other scarring images in order to filter what appears in our social media feeds.

If what we encounter on Facebook, OkCupid, and other online platforms is generally “safe for work,” it is not because algorithms have sorted through the mess and hid some of it from view. Rather, we take non-nauseating dips in the digital stream thanks to the labor of real-live human beings who sit before their own screens day and night, tagging content as vulgar, violent, and offensive. According to Chen, more people work in the shadow mines of content moderation than are officially employed by Facebook or Google. Fauxtomatons make the internet a habitable place, cleaning virtual public squares of the sort of trash that would chase most of us offline and into the relative safety of face-to-face interaction.

Today many, though not all, of the people employed as content moderators live abroad, in places like the Philippines or India, where wages are comparatively low. The darkest tasks that sustain our digital world are outsourced to poor people living in poorer nations, from the environmentally destructive mining of precious minerals and the disposal of toxic electronic waste to the psychologically damaging effects of content moderation. As with all labor relations, race, gender, and geography play a role, determining which workers receive fair compensation for their labor or are even deemed real workers worthy of a wage at all. Automation, whether real or fake, hasn’t undone these disturbing dynamics, and may well intensify them.” - Astra Taylor, “The Automation Charade.” LOGIC. Issue 5

[utterlypure]

A story for Ariadne

You were born on the isle of Crete in ancient times, in a year when your people still danced in honor of the bull. But for you, there would always be a dark secret behind that dance—

Your trouble must have started with your name. Your parents named your sisters sensible things for princesses: Phaedra, the shining one; Xenodike, justice for the stranger. But you they dared call Ariadne, and what mortal woman can live up to such a divine epithet? "The most holy" — you were born a mere girl. "The totally chaste" — like all women, you were fated to marry someday.

Were you old enough to know what it meant when the beast was born into the world? Surely you were old enough, as time passed, to recognize the shame that Minotaur brought to your family, to your people. What could you do then? You did the most you could possibly have done, princess: you stepped up among your siblings to claim responsibility for tending him.

From the court artificer you learned the secrets of the Minotaur's prison, the labyrinth built to contain him; from your people you learned the sacred dances through that terrifying place; from within yourself you drew the magic to empower them. There in the court of Knossos, you danced to keep the bull sane and contained by the foreign sacrifices to him. For centuries the bards would remember your performances; someday, the singers of the Iliad would recall your mysterious dancing grounds in the designs on the shield of Achilles.

And in your dance alone, you knew you were whole and holy, just as your name claimed.

But you grew older, and your innocence began to fade. You knew what you danced for, and you knew how much blood was shed. You knew your twirling steps through the labyrinth fell to the beat of death. And what mortal girl could live with that? Still you danced, but your heart wept.

When you were a young woman grown, then, a hero came to the island, bright of face and full of hope like the proper servant of the gods he was. He was the prince of a city across the sea, full of sunlight and olive trees, with no dark secret at its center, and he came to put an end to the beast you danced for and save his own people in the process. You loved him desperately.

So for this prince you betrayed your name: you profaned the holy bonds of family and gave him the secrets of the labyrinth which let him kill your brother, the Minotaur; you gave him a magic thread which led him safely to the beast. You betrayed your name twice: in your heart you desired this Theseus, and you planned to throw away your pure maidenhood with him and become his wife.

He slew the beast and he took you away.

But mortal men always make mistakes, and Theseus made the mistake of stopping his ship at the little island beyond the port of Heraklion, Dia; that little island known to be holy to the Nysan god, he of the bull and the vine. You were both tired, though. Perhaps he simply couldn't have known.

And as you slept there on the shores of that isle, exhausted from your adventure, Theseus looked upon you and saw who you really were and where you really belonged. The gods to whom he was loyal whispered dire threats in his ears of what would come if he took you away from your sacred home. So with their blessing, he fled, and he left you there—

When you woke, you saw his ship departing, and you were alone. You raged then in the surf; you yelled curses after him as you saw your love sailing away. You had betrayed your name once for him, but you hadn't even had the chance to consummate it.

Dionysos stole you then. He came to you, dancing as you once had with the joy of his love for you, and so the bull-god offered to take you home as his bride.

You saw in him terror and beauty, and you saw you could love him more than you ever loved a mortal prince, if you let yourself.

In the darkness of Dia, you turned your face away from him, and you did not listen to his pleas.

At last he offered you a gift: a holy crown of laurels, shining as bright as the stars, and he swore to lift you to the sky with its power. He swore to make you a queen among the gods, where you belonged.

So you let him place the crown upon your head, and you let him raise you up to the stars, where you could dance with him for ages to come.

No two ancient sources tell the same story of Ariadne. This is not uncommon; the concept of a single overarching religious canon is a relatively new concept in the West. Some Classical poets attempted to popularize pan-Hellenic versions of myths, but they were not authoritative.

The above is my version of Ariadne’s story in the Homeric through Classical eras — the one that has come down to us from the Greeks. Most of my actual sources are collected here on Theoi.com, but my reasoning for assembling them the way I did bears further discussion.

A number of my ideas come from Károly Kerényi’s (also called Karl or Carl, if you’re looking him up on Amazon) section on Ariadne in his book Dionysos: Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life. I don’t take all of his conclusions as gospel, especially given that the author died in 1973 and therefore sadly missed almost half a century of research and discussion, but he had a useful habit of explaining his sources and logic such that readers could follow along and draw their own conclusions as necessary. Combine that with the fact that he is one of the very few Dionysian scholars who even gave Ariadne serious consideration, and he’s an invaluable source to me. The aforementioned book itself was the first major study of Dionysos that I read, and I highly recommend it to devotees willing to slog through somewhat dry mid-twentieth-century academic text and step lightly around some questionable inferences.

Now to address my story.

You stepped up among your siblings to claim responsibility for tending him. There is no direct historical evidence for the idea that Ariadne was specifically the caretaker of the Minotaur, but of all the children of Minos and Pasiphae, she is the one whose name comes up most in connection with her half-brother and his dwelling-place the labyrinth. As I make a point of trying to give agency to Ariadne where the original texts do not, I made this her decision.

The court artificer. A number of elements in this tale are attributed to one “Daidalos,” often identified as a singular culture hero by that name. However, Kerényi devotes some verbiage to discussing how this name originated in a pan-Hellenic title rather than one man’s name. It is likely that the name’s use in Crete predates the concept of Daidalos as a single trickster-hero. To keep the focus of this story on Ariadne, I’ve identified him simply as a fixture of the Knossian court.

The biggest change I’ve made to the common tale was to add Ariadne’s past as a performer of sacred dances. This is, again, an idea I borrowed first from Kerényi, but which I feel suits Ariadne very well. Its usage here in specific may be traced to a single line in the Iliad, as mentioned in the story, where the labyrinthine design on the shield of Achilles is compared to “the dancing grounds Daidalos made for Ariadne.” On its face, this is slender evidence for quite a significant addition. But given the persistent association of Dionysos and the women around him with ecstatic ritual dance, I consider it an important part of Ariadne’s story that should be restored here. I will talk more about the significance of dance to Ariadne and the “Dionysian women” in another post. It’s quite a daunting subject.

The choice to characterize Theseus as a loyal “servant of the gods” comes from another source entirely: Morris Silver’s Taking Ancient Mythology Economically, which mentions that the earliest Linear B appearances of the name Te-se-u describe its bearer as a servant of the gods. The text goes on to speculate that this meant he was a hired worker of some kind, but in later sources, he was definitely a prince, and that’s important to this story, so I kept that part.

It’s common to suggest that Ariadne, like her cousin Medea, was compelled by a goddess to love and assist the heroic prince who came to her land, but I haven’t found many good sources on that. In any case it doesn’t fit with my version of the story, where she falls in love with him because he represents freedom from the darkness of her duties in the labyrinth.

So for this prince you betrayed your name. I have discussed Ariadne’s name before, both in this story and in earlier posts. It’s interesting to note that despite being named as the ultimate holy virgin goddess, she persistently betrays that expectation.

That little island known to be holy to the Nysan god. The earliest sources for the story of Ariadne place her death — and therefore, as I have discussed, her meeting with Dionysos — on Dia, not Naxos. It was probably transferred to Naxos to fit better with later holy sites of the Dionysian cult. I name Dia as a holy island here, rather than just some random bit of rock, for two reasons:

Its name. Dia is transparently a geographical version of the very persistent root Dios, which simply means “god” or “the divine.”

Being the place where Dionysos married Ariadne would probably have conferred some divinity upon the little island anyway, as well as an association with the god himself.

Incidentally, Dia today is an uninhabited national park accessible by boat.

So with their blessing, he fled. The stories do not agree on why Theseus abandoned Ariadne; many don’t even give a reason. But some of the stories say the gods commanded him to, and multiple pieces of ancient art show him being spirited away from the sleeping Ariadne by gods or a god. I take from this the implication that the gods believed Ariadne already “belonged” to another, more powerful entity than Theseus, and as their loyal servant in this story, Theseus would have accepted that judgment.

You had betrayed your name once for him, but you hadn't even had the chance to consummate it. When the Odyssey refers to the story of Theseus and Ariadne, explaining that she was struck down by Artemis on Dia rather than abandoned by her prince, the text notes that Theseus “had no joy of” Ariadne before her death.

Despite the violent undertones to the language casually used by the ancients of Dionysos taking Ariadne as a bride (see my earlier post on the matter), those sources that actually go into the marriage in detail tend to describe him making advances on Ariadne but leaving the decision to reciprocate up to her. The texts repeatedly focus on the presence of the crown of laurels, which Dionysos would later place among the constellations as Corona Borealis to symbolize Ariadne and his love for her, as a bride-gift. It is my final touch in this retelling to cast the crown and the power it represented as the object that swayed Ariadne’s heart — she would return to the home she’d fled from, but only if she could go back with the power of a queen and a goddess.

[wineanddinosaur]

Blind Tasting Wine Is a Cool Party Trick That’s Professionally Invaluable

Unlike those of us who spend our evening commutes trying desperately to think about anything but work, employees of importer Skurnik Wines used theirs to hone their blind-tasting abilities. In 2014, Skurnik staffers would share bottles and sip from plastic cups on commuter trains home from Long Island, N.Y., trying to determine the grape variety, origin, and vintage of different wines by taste and smell alone.

“The glassware wasn’t ideal,” admits brand manager Gabriel Clary, “but it was about honing our sense of taste and creating associations between grape variety and place. We still blind-taste almost every day, but just not on a train any longer.”

The ability to identify a wine “blind” might seem like little more than a party trick to those outside the wine trade, but many industry professionals believe it’s an invaluable skill. It can directly improve sommeliers’ service, advocates say, and eliminate biases. While it’s certainly not without its flaws, the intentions of blind tasting are noble, and it’s arguably the best method of remaining objective in certain situations.

How do you blind-taste, exactly? Some rely on the tasting grids provided by educational bodies such as the Court of Master Sommeliers and the Wine and Spirits Education Trust (WSET). The grid guides them to identify different characteristics, including appearance, aromas, flavors, and texture. By assessing these characteristics, and calling upon theoretical knowledge, proficient tasters can identify a wine.

One key component of blind-tasting is typicity, or the degree to which a wine represents the typical grape varieties, climate, soils, and winemaking practices of its origin. Identifying a wine blind is hugely reliant on it being a good representative of its category, or showing “typicity.”

“Finding typicity and quality level are the most important things in blind tasting,” NYC-based Master Sommelier Dana Gaiser says. “It’s very hard to critically analyze a wine if you can’t recognize it blind.”

Sommelier-turned-winemaker and celebrated blind-taster Rajat Parr agrees. When Parr assembled the wine program at San Francisco’s Fifth Floor in 1999, he tasted all the potential wines for his list blind. His criteria for inclusion were simple: “If I could identify the wine, the region, and a rough price point, then I would consider buying it,” he says.

But linking quality to typicity can come with shortcomings. In quality winemaking regions, local appellations dictate aspects of production, ranging from grape varieties used to vineyard practices and aging techniques. These controls have helped strengthen the notion of typicity — but just because something has always been done a certain way doesn’t mean that should be the only way.

Take Super Tuscan wines. In the 1970s, a handful of Italian winemakers decided that Bordeaux varietals aged in new French oak would be better suited to their coastal terroir. Typicity was the last thing on their minds. Now, wines in this category, including Sassicaia, Ornellaia, and Tignanello, rank among the most revered (and expensive) in Italy. Conforming to the idea of typicity would have deprived the world of these bottles.

Blind tasting can also help overcome both positive and negative biases. “A lot of people chase cult producers and the ‘greatest wines,’ but if they can’t tell you blind whether it’s a grand cru or village level wine from Burgundy, that kind of negates the whole point of spending all the money on a grand cru,” Gaiser says.

Meanwhile, blind tasting wines from larger-scale wineries — an uncool category for some sommeliers — can help individuals overcome their production prejudices, Gaiser says.

Perhaps the most famous blind tasting of all time is the 1976 Judgment of Paris. During the historic tasting, judges from France, Britain, and the U.S. deemed a California Chardonnay to be better than bottles from Burgundy, and a California Cabernet Sauvignon to be better than the finest Bordeaux blends. At the time, it was front-page news.

Unfortunately, blind tasting is not an exact science. “I find emotion changes the way you recognize wines very quickly,” Gaiser says. “The more stressed you are the tougher tasting is.”

Tasters are only human, after all. In 2005, California winemaker Robert Hodgson approached the organizers of the California State Fair wine competition with an experiment: Each of the competition’s four judges would be presented with a flight of wines. Within each flight, certain wines would be poured three times — each glass from the same bottle.

Unbeknownst to the judges, Hodgson carried out his experiment over four years. The results were staggering.

Only 10 percent of the judges were consistent in their scoring. Those who were consistent one year were less so the next. Results from the first four tastings showed that judges’ scores varied by an average of plus or minus four points over the three glasses. This means that a judge might have scored a wine 90 points when they tasted it from one glass, but then also judged it an 86 when it was poured elsewhere.

Perhaps blind tasting’s biggest shortcoming is how far removed it is from consumers’ purchasing habits. Chicago-based wine professional Belinda Chang saw this firsthand when she hosted a luncheon in the city’s chic Gold Coast neighborhood. She thought it would be fun to do a “blind bubbles challenge.” Each of the attendees had little or no experience tasting wine this way.

“I wanted to get them to really pay attention to the wine, and to codify what they do and don’t like to help them understand their tastes,” she recalls.

Chang poured four bottles: a Prosecco, a Cava, a non-vintage Champagne, and an old vintage of Dom Perignon. After tasting the wines, each of the ladies voted for their favorite by raising their hands. At least 95 percent voted for the Prosecco. When she revealed their favorite bottle, the tasters were mortified and embarrassed. “Afterwards, I asked what they wanted another splash of, and they all asked for the Dom Perignon, which they truly did not enjoy,” she says.

Blind tasting can be revealing for novices and pros. We just don’t always like what we see.

The article Blind Tasting Wine Is a Cool Party Trick That’s Professionally Invaluable appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/blind-tasting-wine-professionals/

[johnboothus]

Blind Tasting Wine Is a Cool Party Trick Thats Professionally Invaluable

Unlike those of us who spend our evening commutes trying desperately to think about anything but work, employees of importer Skurnik Wines used theirs to hone their blind-tasting abilities. In 2014, Skurnik staffers would share bottles and sip from plastic cups on commuter trains home from Long Island, N.Y., trying to determine the grape variety, origin, and vintage of different wines by taste and smell alone.

“The glassware wasn’t ideal,” admits brand manager Gabriel Clary, “but it was about honing our sense of taste and creating associations between grape variety and place. We still blind-taste almost every day, but just not on a train any longer.”

The ability to identify a wine “blind” might seem like little more than a party trick to those outside the wine trade, but many industry professionals believe it’s an invaluable skill. It can directly improve sommeliers’ service, advocates say, and eliminate biases. While it’s certainly not without its flaws, the intentions of blind tasting are noble, and it’s arguably the best method of remaining objective in certain situations.

How do you blind-taste, exactly? Some rely on the tasting grids provided by educational bodies such as the Court of Master Sommeliers and the Wine and Spirits Education Trust (WSET). The grid guides them to identify different characteristics, including appearance, aromas, flavors, and texture. By assessing these characteristics, and calling upon theoretical knowledge, proficient tasters can identify a wine.

One key component of blind-tasting is typicity, or the degree to which a wine represents the typical grape varieties, climate, soils, and winemaking practices of its origin. Identifying a wine blind is hugely reliant on it being a good representative of its category, or showing “typicity.”

“Finding typicity and quality level are the most important things in blind tasting,” NYC-based Master Sommelier Dana Gaiser says. “It’s very hard to critically analyze a wine if you can’t recognize it blind.”

Sommelier-turned-winemaker and celebrated blind-taster Rajat Parr agrees. When Parr assembled the wine program at San Francisco’s Fifth Floor in 1999, he tasted all the potential wines for his list blind. His criteria for inclusion were simple: “If I could identify the wine, the region, and a rough price point, then I would consider buying it,” he says.

But linking quality to typicity can come with shortcomings. In quality winemaking regions, local appellations dictate aspects of production, ranging from grape varieties used to vineyard practices and aging techniques. These controls have helped strengthen the notion of typicity — but just because something has always been done a certain way doesn’t mean that should be the only way.

Take Super Tuscan wines. In the 1970s, a handful of Italian winemakers decided that Bordeaux varietals aged in new French oak would be better suited to their coastal terroir. Typicity was the last thing on their minds. Now, wines in this category, including Sassicaia, Ornellaia, and Tignanello, rank among the most revered (and expensive) in Italy. Conforming to the idea of typicity would have deprived the world of these bottles.

Blind tasting can also help overcome both positive and negative biases. “A lot of people chase cult producers and the ‘greatest wines,’ but if they can’t tell you blind whether it’s a grand cru or village level wine from Burgundy, that kind of negates the whole point of spending all the money on a grand cru,” Gaiser says.

Meanwhile, blind tasting wines from larger-scale wineries — an uncool category for some sommeliers — can help individuals overcome their production prejudices, Gaiser says.

Perhaps the most famous blind tasting of all time is the 1976 Judgment of Paris. During the historic tasting, judges from France, Britain, and the U.S. deemed a California Chardonnay to be better than bottles from Burgundy, and a California Cabernet Sauvignon to be better than the finest Bordeaux blends. At the time, it was front-page news.

Unfortunately, blind tasting is not an exact science. “I find emotion changes the way you recognize wines very quickly,” Gaiser says. “The more stressed you are the tougher tasting is.”

Tasters are only human, after all. In 2005, California winemaker Robert Hodgson approached the organizers of the California State Fair wine competition with an experiment: Each of the competition’s four judges would be presented with a flight of wines. Within each flight, certain wines would be poured three times — each glass from the same bottle.

Unbeknownst to the judges, Hodgson carried out his experiment over four years. The results were staggering.

Only 10 percent of the judges were consistent in their scoring. Those who were consistent one year were less so the next. Results from the first four tastings showed that judges’ scores varied by an average of plus or minus four points over the three glasses. This means that a judge might have scored a wine 90 points when they tasted it from one glass, but then also judged it an 86 when it was poured elsewhere.

Perhaps blind tasting’s biggest shortcoming is how far removed it is from consumers’ purchasing habits. Chicago-based wine professional Belinda Chang saw this firsthand when she hosted a luncheon in the city’s chic Gold Coast neighborhood. She thought it would be fun to do a “blind bubbles challenge.” Each of the attendees had little or no experience tasting wine this way.

“I wanted to get them to really pay attention to the wine, and to codify what they do and don’t like to help them understand their tastes,” she recalls.

Chang poured four bottles: a Prosecco, a Cava, a non-vintage Champagne, and an old vintage of Dom Perignon. After tasting the wines, each of the ladies voted for their favorite by raising their hands. At least 95 percent voted for the Prosecco. When she revealed their favorite bottle, the tasters were mortified and embarrassed. “Afterwards, I asked what they wanted another splash of, and they all asked for the Dom Perignon, which they truly did not enjoy,” she says.

Blind tasting can be revealing for novices and pros. We just don’t always like what we see.

The article Blind Tasting Wine Is a Cool Party Trick That’s Professionally Invaluable appeared first on VinePair.

Via https://vinepair.com/articles/blind-tasting-wine-professionals/

source https://vinology1.weebly.com/blog/blind-tasting-wine-is-a-cool-party-trick-thats-professionally-invaluable

[isaiahrippinus]

Blind Tasting Wine Is a Cool Party Trick That’s Professionally Invaluable

Unlike those of us who spend our evening commutes trying desperately to think about anything but work, employees of importer Skurnik Wines used theirs to hone their blind-tasting abilities. In 2014, Skurnik staffers would share bottles and sip from plastic cups on commuter trains home from Long Island, N.Y., trying to determine the grape variety, origin, and vintage of different wines by taste and smell alone.

“The glassware wasn’t ideal,” admits brand manager Gabriel Clary, “but it was about honing our sense of taste and creating associations between grape variety and place. We still blind-taste almost every day, but just not on a train any longer.”

The ability to identify a wine “blind” might seem like little more than a party trick to those outside the wine trade, but many industry professionals believe it’s an invaluable skill. It can directly improve sommeliers’ service, advocates say, and eliminate biases. While it’s certainly not without its flaws, the intentions of blind tasting are noble, and it’s arguably the best method of remaining objective in certain situations.

How do you blind-taste, exactly? Some rely on the tasting grids provided by educational bodies such as the Court of Master Sommeliers and the Wine and Spirits Education Trust (WSET). The grid guides them to identify different characteristics, including appearance, aromas, flavors, and texture. By assessing these characteristics, and calling upon theoretical knowledge, proficient tasters can identify a wine.

One key component of blind-tasting is typicity, or the degree to which a wine represents the typical grape varieties, climate, soils, and winemaking practices of its origin. Identifying a wine blind is hugely reliant on it being a good representative of its category, or showing “typicity.”

“Finding typicity and quality level are the most important things in blind tasting,” NYC-based Master Sommelier Dana Gaiser says. “It’s very hard to critically analyze a wine if you can’t recognize it blind.”

Sommelier-turned-winemaker and celebrated blind-taster Rajat Parr agrees. When Parr assembled the wine program at San Francisco’s Fifth Floor in 1999, he tasted all the potential wines for his list blind. His criteria for inclusion were simple: “If I could identify the wine, the region, and a rough price point, then I would consider buying it,” he says.

But linking quality to typicity can come with shortcomings. In quality winemaking regions, local appellations dictate aspects of production, ranging from grape varieties used to vineyard practices and aging techniques. These controls have helped strengthen the notion of typicity — but just because something has always been done a certain way doesn’t mean that should be the only way.

Take Super Tuscan wines. In the 1970s, a handful of Italian winemakers decided that Bordeaux varietals aged in new French oak would be better suited to their coastal terroir. Typicity was the last thing on their minds. Now, wines in this category, including Sassicaia, Ornellaia, and Tignanello, rank among the most revered (and expensive) in Italy. Conforming to the idea of typicity would have deprived the world of these bottles.

Blind tasting can also help overcome both positive and negative biases. “A lot of people chase cult producers and the ‘greatest wines,’ but if they can’t tell you blind whether it’s a grand cru or village level wine from Burgundy, that kind of negates the whole point of spending all the money on a grand cru,” Gaiser says.

Meanwhile, blind tasting wines from larger-scale wineries — an uncool category for some sommeliers — can help individuals overcome their production prejudices, Gaiser says.

Perhaps the most famous blind tasting of all time is the 1976 Judgment of Paris. During the historic tasting, judges from France, Britain, and the U.S. deemed a California Chardonnay to be better than bottles from Burgundy, and a California Cabernet Sauvignon to be better than the finest Bordeaux blends. At the time, it was front-page news.

Unfortunately, blind tasting is not an exact science. “I find emotion changes the way you recognize wines very quickly,” Gaiser says. “The more stressed you are the tougher tasting is.”

Tasters are only human, after all. In 2005, California winemaker Robert Hodgson approached the organizers of the California State Fair wine competition with an experiment: Each of the competition’s four judges would be presented with a flight of wines. Within each flight, certain wines would be poured three times — each glass from the same bottle.

Unbeknownst to the judges, Hodgson carried out his experiment over four years. The results were staggering.

Only 10 percent of the judges were consistent in their scoring. Those who were consistent one year were less so the next. Results from the first four tastings showed that judges’ scores varied by an average of plus or minus four points over the three glasses. This means that a judge might have scored a wine 90 points when they tasted it from one glass, but then also judged it an 86 when it was poured elsewhere.

Perhaps blind tasting’s biggest shortcoming is how far removed it is from consumers’ purchasing habits. Chicago-based wine professional Belinda Chang saw this firsthand when she hosted a luncheon in the city’s chic Gold Coast neighborhood. She thought it would be fun to do a “blind bubbles challenge.” Each of the attendees had little or no experience tasting wine this way.

“I wanted to get them to really pay attention to the wine, and to codify what they do and don’t like to help them understand their tastes,” she recalls.

Chang poured four bottles: a Prosecco, a Cava, a non-vintage Champagne, and an old vintage of Dom Perignon. After tasting the wines, each of the ladies voted for their favorite by raising their hands. At least 95 percent voted for the Prosecco. When she revealed their favorite bottle, the tasters were mortified and embarrassed. “Afterwards, I asked what they wanted another splash of, and they all asked for the Dom Perignon, which they truly did not enjoy,” she says.

Blind tasting can be revealing for novices and pros. We just don’t always like what we see.

The article Blind Tasting Wine Is a Cool Party Trick That’s Professionally Invaluable appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/blind-tasting-wine-professionals/ source https://vinology1.tumblr.com/post/188277900744

[xhostcom]

The Best Designers Are Taoists (Sort Of)

Okay, for the love of any God you prefer, read this bit before you start writing comments…please? I’ve been studying up on philosophical Taoism lately because someone very near and dear to me is a (philosophical) Taoist, and I wanted to understand her better. What I’ve found is that web and UX designers have, by studying the data, come to a lot of the same conclusions as ancient Eastern philosophers. While the lessons in this article may not be new to most of you, I thought it would be interesting to see how the principles of good design match up with Lao Tzu’s1 principles for good living. The world’s top designers are not, to my knowledge, actual Taoists. Neither am I evangelizing for Taoism. For one, I do not consider myself to be a Taoist, and secondly, evangelism as we know it is largely anathema to the ones I’ve met. Thirdly, the practitioners of philosophical Taoism I’ve met will get a little annoyed if you call it a religion. Philosophical Taoism is just that: a philosophy, and many people adopt the philosophy alongside any religion they might already have.2 But without getting further into that3, here’s what I’ve found.

1. Don’t Struggle

“Struggle” as a concept, is unavoidable. We struggle so we can eat. But Taoist philosophy says that we should not struggle more than we have to. Take a lioness, for example: she may struggle to hunt down enough food for her cubs and her pride, but she does not struggle to be a lion. That part is instinctual, and she revels in it. We humans, and designers/developers in particular, are very good at overcomplicating things for ourselves. We struggle not just to design and improve at our jobs, but we often struggle in ways that simply aren’t necessary. If you need examples, I’m just going to refer you back to Zeldman’s article: The Cult of the Complex. Smart designers keep it simple. Another way good designers embrace this principle is in our love of workarounds and adaptability. While Bruce Lee himself was apparently non-religious, that whole “be like water, my friend” speech is actually one of the most important metaphors in the Tao te Ching. Water doesn’t struggle against obstacles, it goes around them. Nowadays, that sort of adaptability is basically a requirement for getting hired onto any studio or team that know what they’re doing.

2. Don’t Meddle

The Tao te Ching was, like many early self help books—I’m kidding—intended to be read by people in positions of leadership. Much of the advice is geared toward teaching local leaders—referred to in the book as “sages”—how to lead people, and more importantly, how not to. Most of the verses regarding this topic advise the sage against meddling too much in the affairs of their people. Good designers would advise the same. Give your users a clear and easy path to the end goal, and then let them do their thing. Attempting to meddle with the way people browse will usually just annoy the hell out of them. Think of scroll jacking, modal pop-ups, the old pop-ups, obscure and unnecessarily creative navigation, and that sort of thing.

3. Be Slow to Judge

I know, Jesus said that, too. But the Tao te Ching takes the concept a bit further in suggesting that we should refrain from calling anything, anyone, or any circumstance good or bad until things have truly had a chance to play out. That is, don’t pass judgement until all the data is in4. Designers these days are increasingly coming to rely on this same principle to inform their work. It’s one thing to “feel” like a big blue button would be better than a small green one, or vice versa. It’s another to know without a doubt that one is working better than another. While A/B testing is not always the best way to make design decisions, the importance of actually following the data to its conclusion cannot be understated.

4. Show, Don’t Tell

Taoists might make good designers, but they’re terrible marketers. I’m kidding again. It’s just that the Taoists I’ve encountered so far place far more importance on showing, rather than telling. Evangelism, as I’ve said, is not something they do. They believe that the only way to truly convince another to follow the Tao is to do it themselves, and let others observe the benefits. Design is inherently visual, so this comes rather naturally to most of us. Good designers embrace this principle at every level with marketing, tutorials, or app walkthroughs, and of course, with the actual images in our content. After all, seeing is believing. A picture is worth a blah blah blah. We know this one.

5. Do No Harm

Correlating with that “Don’t Struggle” bit, philosophical Taoism encourages people to be themselves, to live how they want, and do what they feel is right, with just one very important caveat: don’t hurt anybody else. Violence is a last resort for self defense, and infringing on the freedom of others is anathema. What we designers have discovered is that bad designers—the ones using dark patterns, trying to abuse SEO, and injecting two hundred trackers and a Bitcoin miner through ads—make the Internet worse for everyone. As the ecosystem of the Internet tries to defend itself, the bad actors find their gains are short-lived, sites find themselves struggling to make any kind of ad revenue, and the reputation of the whole industry is tarnished.

6. Contribute With no Expectation of Reward

Conversely, Taoism teaches that when we do good, we should do it without expectation of thanks, or reward. People who do this are often (though I’d say not always) given that recognition, and greater access to the community’s resources. Meanwhile, people that do good for recognition are usually found out, and fade into obscurity. We’ve found this out in our community: the names we recognize in the design world are most often those of people who made our lives as designers easier. The people who wrote tutorials, ran educational podcasts, made videos, and did it all for free. Eventually, many of them did get recognition, and money, and invaluable contacts in the industry, but they had to put in a lot of thankless work first. People like me are design writers. They are design heroes.   1 Lao Tzu is the reputed author of the original Tao te Ching: a collection of 81 verses that outline principles for good living and leadership. 2 There is a branch of Taoism that is steeped in a fair amount of mysticism and incense which makes it look, sound, and smell like religion, but even these practitioners may tell you it’s not one. And then there’s another branch that is rather religious, with various gods and so on. There are lots of branches, and it gets complicated. 3 Wikipedia is your friend. Heck, I started my study with Dudeism, a form of Taoism that uses the movie The Big Lebowski as the source of all its symbolism. 4 There is a famous Taoist parable which illustrates this type of indifference and its utility: A farmer has only one horse. When the horse runs away his neighbors say “What bad luck!” The farmer merely says, “Is it?” Days later, the horse returns and brings with it a beautiful wild stallion. His neighbors say “What good luck!” The farmer replies, “Is it?” Enchanted by the new horse, the farmer’s son tries to ride it, but is thrown and badly injured. The neighbors say “What bad luck!” To which the farmer shrugs, “Is it?” Not long afterwards the country is under threat and every able young man is conscripted into the military, but the son cannot go because of his injuries. “What good luck!” the neighbors say. The farmer again only says, “Is it?” – Benjamin, Oliver. The Tao Te Ching: Annotated Edition (pp. 75-76). Abide University Press. Kindle Edition.   Featured image via DepositPhotos. Add Realistic Chalk and Sketch Lettering Effects with Sketch’it – only $5!

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[iyarpage]

The Best Designers Are Taoists (Sort Of)

Okay, for the love of any God you prefer, read this bit before you start writing comments…please? I’ve been studying up on philosophical Taoism lately because someone very near and dear to me is a (philosophical) Taoist, and I wanted to understand her better. What I’ve found is that web and UX designers have, by studying the data, come to a lot of the same conclusions as ancient Eastern philosophers.

While the lessons in this article may not be new to most of you, I thought it would be interesting to see how the principles of good design match up with Lao Tzu’s1 principles for good living. The world’s top designers are not, to my knowledge, actual Taoists. Neither am I evangelizing for Taoism. For one, I do not consider myself to be a Taoist, and secondly, evangelism as we know it is largely anathema to the ones I’ve met.

Thirdly, the practitioners of philosophical Taoism I’ve met will get a little annoyed if you call it a religion. Philosophical Taoism is just that: a philosophy, and many people adopt the philosophy alongside any religion they might already have.2

But without getting further into that3, here’s what I’ve found.

1. Don’t Struggle

“Struggle” as a concept, is unavoidable. We struggle so we can eat. But Taoist philosophy says that we should not struggle more than we have to. Take a lioness, for example: she may struggle to hunt down enough food for her cubs and her pride, but she does not struggle to be a lion. That part is instinctual, and she revels in it.

We humans, and designers/developers in particular, are very good at overcomplicating things for ourselves. We struggle not just to design and improve at our jobs, but we often struggle in ways that simply aren’t necessary. If you need examples, I’m just going to refer you back to Zeldman’s article: The Cult of the Complex. Smart designers keep it simple.

Another way good designers embrace this principle is in our love of workarounds and adaptability. While Bruce Lee himself was apparently non-religious, that whole “be like water, my friend” speech is actually one of the most important metaphors in the Tao te Ching. Water doesn’t struggle against obstacles, it goes around them. Nowadays, that sort of adaptability is basically a requirement for getting hired onto any studio or team that know what they’re doing.

2. Don’t Meddle

The Tao te Ching was, like many early self help books—I’m kidding—intended to be read by people in positions of leadership. Much of the advice is geared toward teaching local leaders—referred to in the book as “sages”—how to lead people, and more importantly, how not to. Most of the verses regarding this topic advise the sage against meddling too much in the affairs of their people.

Good designers would advise the same. Give your users a clear and easy path to the end goal, and then let them do their thing. Attempting to meddle with the way people browse will usually just annoy the hell out of them. Think of scroll jacking, modal pop-ups, the old pop-ups, obscure and unnecessarily creative navigation, and that sort of thing.

3. Be Slow to Judge

I know, Jesus said that, too. But the Tao te Ching takes the concept a bit further in suggesting that we should refrain from calling anything, anyone, or any circumstance good or bad until things have truly had a chance to play out. That is, don’t pass judgement until all the data is in4.

Designers these days are increasingly coming to rely on this same principle to inform their work. It’s one thing to “feel” like a big blue button would be better than a small green one, or vice versa. It’s another to know without a doubt that one is working better than another. While A/B testing is not always the best way to make design decisions, the importance of actually following the data to its conclusion cannot be understated.

4. Show, Don’t Tell

Taoists might make good designers, but they’re terrible marketers. I’m kidding again. It’s just that the Taoists I’ve encountered so far place far more importance on showing, rather than telling. Evangelism, as I’ve said, is not something they do. They believe that the only way to truly convince another to follow the Tao is to do it themselves, and let others observe the benefits.

Design is inherently visual, so this comes rather naturally to most of us. Good designers embrace this principle at every level with marketing, tutorials, or app walkthroughs, and of course, with the actual images in our content. After all, seeing is believing. A picture is worth a blah blah blah. We know this one.

5. Do No Harm

Correlating with that “Don’t Struggle” bit, philosophical Taoism encourages people to be themselves, to live how they want, and do what they feel is right, with just one very important caveat: don’t hurt anybody else. Violence is a last resort for self defense, and infringing on the freedom of others is anathema.

What we designers have discovered is that bad designers—the ones using dark patterns, trying to abuse SEO, and injecting two hundred trackers and a Bitcoin miner through ads—make the Internet worse for everyone. As the ecosystem of the Internet tries to defend itself, the bad actors find their gains are short-lived, sites find themselves struggling to make any kind of ad revenue, and the reputation of the whole industry is tarnished.

6. Contribute With no Expectation of Reward

Conversely, Taoism teaches that when we do good, we should do it without expectation of thanks, or reward. People who do this are often (though I’d say not always) given that recognition, and greater access to the community’s resources. Meanwhile, people that do good for recognition are usually found out, and fade into obscurity.

We’ve found this out in our community: the names we recognize in the design world are most often those of people who made our lives as designers easier. The people who wrote tutorials, ran educational podcasts, made videos, and did it all for free. Eventually, many of them did get recognition, and money, and invaluable contacts in the industry, but they had to put in a lot of thankless work first. People like me are design writers. They are design heroes.

  1 Lao Tzu is the reputed author of the original Tao te Ching: a collection of 81 verses that outline principles for good living and leadership.

2 There is a branch of Taoism that is steeped in a fair amount of mysticism and incense which makes it look, sound, and smell like religion, but even these practitioners may tell you it’s not one. And then there’s another branch that is rather religious, with various gods and so on. There are lots of branches, and it gets complicated.

3 Wikipedia is your friend. Heck, I started my study with Dudeism, a form of Taoism that uses the movie The Big Lebowski as the source of all its symbolism.

4 There is a famous Taoist parable which illustrates this type of indifference and its utility: A farmer has only one horse. When the horse runs away his neighbors say “What bad luck!” The farmer merely says, “Is it?” Days later, the horse returns and brings with it a beautiful wild stallion. His neighbors say “What good luck!” The farmer replies, “Is it?” Enchanted by the new horse, the farmer’s son tries to ride it, but is thrown and badly injured. The neighbors say “What bad luck!” To which the farmer shrugs, “Is it?” Not long afterwards the country is under threat and every able young man is conscripted into the military, but the son cannot go because of his injuries. “What good luck!” the neighbors say. The farmer again only says, “Is it?”

– Benjamin, Oliver. The Tao Te Ching: Annotated Edition (pp. 75-76). Abide University Press. Kindle Edition.

  Featured image via DepositPhotos.

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Source p img {display:inline-block; margin-right:10px;} .alignleft {float:left;} p.showcase {clear:both;} body#browserfriendly p, body#podcast p, div#emailbody p{margin:0;} The Best Designers Are Taoists (Sort Of) published first on https://medium.com/@koresol

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The Best Designers Are Taoists (Sort Of)

Okay, for the love of any God you prefer, read this bit before you start writing comments…please? I’ve been studying up on philosophical Taoism lately because someone very near and dear to me is a (philosophical) Taoist, and I wanted to understand her better. What I’ve found is that web and UX designers have, by studying the data, come to a lot of the same conclusions as ancient Eastern philosophers.

While the lessons in this article may not be new to most of you, I thought it would be interesting to see how the principles of good design match up with Lao Tzu’s1 principles for good living. The world’s top designers are not, to my knowledge, actual Taoists. Neither am I evangelizing for Taoism. For one, I do not consider myself to be a Taoist, and secondly, evangelism as we know it is largely anathema to the ones I’ve met.

Thirdly, the practitioners of philosophical Taoism I’ve met will get a little annoyed if you call it a religion. Philosophical Taoism is just that: a philosophy, and many people adopt the philosophy alongside any religion they might already have.2

But without getting further into that3, here’s what I’ve found.

1. Don’t Struggle

“Struggle” as a concept, is unavoidable. We struggle so we can eat. But Taoist philosophy says that we should not struggle more than we have to. Take a lioness, for example: she may struggle to hunt down enough food for her cubs and her pride, but she does not struggle to be a lion. That part is instinctual, and she revels in it.

We humans, and designers/developers in particular, are very good at overcomplicating things for ourselves. We struggle not just to design and improve at our jobs, but we often struggle in ways that simply aren’t necessary. If you need examples, I’m just going to refer you back to Zeldman’s article: The Cult of the Complex. Smart designers keep it simple.

Another way good designers embrace this principle is in our love of workarounds and adaptability. While Bruce Lee himself was apparently non-religious, that whole “be like water, my friend” speech is actually one of the most important metaphors in the Tao te Ching. Water doesn’t struggle against obstacles, it goes around them. Nowadays, that sort of adaptability is basically a requirement for getting hired onto any studio or team that know what they’re doing.

2. Don’t Meddle

The Tao te Ching was, like many early self help books—I’m kidding—intended to be read by people in positions of leadership. Much of the advice is geared toward teaching local leaders—referred to in the book as “sages”—how to lead people, and more importantly, how not to. Most of the verses regarding this topic advise the sage against meddling too much in the affairs of their people.

Good designers would advise the same. Give your users a clear and easy path to the end goal, and then let them do their thing. Attempting to meddle with the way people browse will usually just annoy the hell out of them. Think of scroll jacking, modal pop-ups, the old pop-ups, obscure and unnecessarily creative navigation, and that sort of thing.

3. Be Slow to Judge

I know, Jesus said that, too. But the Tao te Ching takes the concept a bit further in suggesting that we should refrain from calling anything, anyone, or any circumstance good or bad until things have truly had a chance to play out. That is, don’t pass judgement until all the data is in4.

Designers these days are increasingly coming to rely on this same principle to inform their work. It’s one thing to “feel” like a big blue button would be better than a small green one, or vice versa. It’s another to know without a doubt that one is working better than another. While A/B testing is not always the best way to make design decisions, the importance of actually following the data to its conclusion cannot be understated.

4. Show, Don’t Tell

Taoists might make good designers, but they’re terrible marketers. I’m kidding again. It’s just that the Taoists I’ve encountered so far place far more importance on showing, rather than telling. Evangelism, as I’ve said, is not something they do. They believe that the only way to truly convince another to follow the Tao is to do it themselves, and let others observe the benefits.

Design is inherently visual, so this comes rather naturally to most of us. Good designers embrace this principle at every level with marketing, tutorials, or app walkthroughs, and of course, with the actual images in our content. After all, seeing is believing. A picture is worth a blah blah blah. We know this one.

5. Do No Harm

Correlating with that “Don’t Struggle” bit, philosophical Taoism encourages people to be themselves, to live how they want, and do what they feel is right, with just one very important caveat: don’t hurt anybody else. Violence is a last resort for self defense, and infringing on the freedom of others is anathema.

What we designers have discovered is that bad designers—the ones using dark patterns, trying to abuse SEO, and injecting two hundred trackers and a Bitcoin miner through ads—make the Internet worse for everyone. As the ecosystem of the Internet tries to defend itself, the bad actors find their gains are short-lived, sites find themselves struggling to make any kind of ad revenue, and the reputation of the whole industry is tarnished.

6. Contribute With no Expectation of Reward

Conversely, Taoism teaches that when we do good, we should do it without expectation of thanks, or reward. People who do this are often (though I’d say not always) given that recognition, and greater access to the community’s resources. Meanwhile, people that do good for recognition are usually found out, and fade into obscurity.

We’ve found this out in our community: the names we recognize in the design world are most often those of people who made our lives as designers easier. The people who wrote tutorials, ran educational podcasts, made videos, and did it all for free. Eventually, many of them did get recognition, and money, and invaluable contacts in the industry, but they had to put in a lot of thankless work first. People like me are design writers. They are design heroes.

  1 Lao Tzu is the reputed author of the original Tao te Ching: a collection of 81 verses that outline principles for good living and leadership.

2 There is a branch of Taoism that is steeped in a fair amount of mysticism and incense which makes it look, sound, and smell like religion, but even these practitioners may tell you it’s not one. And then there’s another branch that is rather religious, with various gods and so on. There are lots of branches, and it gets complicated.

3 Wikipedia is your friend. Heck, I started my study with Dudeism, a form of Taoism that uses the movie The Big Lebowski as the source of all its symbolism.

4 There is a famous Taoist parable which illustrates this type of indifference and its utility: A farmer has only one horse. When the horse runs away his neighbors say “What bad luck!” The farmer merely says, “Is it?” Days later, the horse returns and brings with it a beautiful wild stallion. His neighbors say “What good luck!” The farmer replies, “Is it?” Enchanted by the new horse, the farmer’s son tries to ride it, but is thrown and badly injured. The neighbors say “What bad luck!” To which the farmer shrugs, “Is it?” Not long afterwards the country is under threat and every able young man is conscripted into the military, but the son cannot go because of his injuries. “What good luck!” the neighbors say. The farmer again only says, “Is it?”

– Benjamin, Oliver. The Tao Te Ching: Annotated Edition (pp. 75-76). Abide University Press. Kindle Edition.

  Featured image via DepositPhotos.

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