#its not a compulsory method

[talk-danmei-to-me]

It's you Xie Lian. The answer to what makes Hua Cheng, Hua Cheng is Xie Lian.

Like honestly, this boy is so dumb sometimes.. I know Hua Cheng has lost his game this book with his special person and joking about marriage, but my dude, seriously?

[gureumz]

project aphrodite

rating: explicit

member: jungwon

premise: in a post-apocalyptic world, you and jungwon are excellent scientists and are at the relative top of the list of people who are ideal parents for the next generation of this dying world. it's now your job to repopulate this earth so you ask your co-worker to pretty please knock you up.

notes: sci-fi elements, dystopian au, scientist!reader, scientist!jungwon, fem-bodied reader, reader is referred to as a woman, dom!jungwon, breeding, impreg kink (like heavily), dirty talk, platonic (?) breeding, co-workers with benefits (?), idk this is kinda speculative fiction but also suspend your disbelief a bit lol

a/n: first of my 1k follower special! not quite sure what order i'm following here but i hope you stay for the ride nonetheless! enjoy!

it's a strange feeling.

in your line of work, 'strange' is hardly any cause for concern. as a biologist with a concentration in genetics, you've seen all the ways nature does its job. from the familiar concepts almost all people learn about in science class like the basic 'mom-meets-dad-equals-baby' to the eerie methods organisms in the deep sea evolve to survive.

you've learned about it all, pored over each punnett square, stressed over the formulas. so, this shouldn't be anything to worry about.

and yet, you're still worried.

"i mean...what did we expect?" jay speaks up from beside you, eyeing the phone in his hand.

"we're presently some of the world's most brilliant minds so...," he adds, locking his phone before hunching over his desk. to your ears, it sounds as if he's trying to convince himself rather than you.

you scan over the document flashed on your own laptop screen. the harsh fluorescent lights overhead buzz nonstop, going on and on, a background hum all of you in the bunker have grown used to. at this moment, it lulls you into a daydream, vision swimming as you repeat the words in your head.

all government personnel with a status level 7 and higher are recommended to partake in project aphrodite. those falling under level 10 are strictly required. participation at this level is compulsory.

common citizens with a status of 9 to 10 are also required to participate. ample compensation for those successful will be provided.

"you're a level 8. it's not as if you have to," you mutter, fingers digging into your temples.

jay snickers. "how many level 10 government personnel are there in this ruined world? a few hundred or so doctors, another few hundred scientists, even fewer world leaders. that's not taking into account the difference in sex. my information's not up to date but last time i checked, there is a hell of a lot more men than there are women. it's a shitshow waiting to happen."

you turn to meet jay's eyes, not meaning to convey any certain emotion, but the way jay's expression falls leads you to believe that you look way more upset than you're letting on.

"oh shit, yeah," jay curses. "you're a level 10. i forgot."

you sigh, tilting your head back against the headrest of your seat.

"i'm sure they'll release more regulation soon," you begin. "this is just the initial memo. with our world hanging in the balance as it is, no one's gonna let this devolve into some patriarchal anarchy, i hope."

"yeah, of course," you hear jay agree. "most of the proponents of project aphrodite are women, anyway, so i'm sure they'll take extra measures to keep you safe."

you sit up straight, looking at jay once more. "this is the world, huh?"

you and jay pause before sharing a quick chuckle.

"'go make babies, or else,'" you say in a mock radio announcer voice. jay lets out a laugh, his voice echoing off the empty office walls.

the two of you fall into silence, as if retreating to your respective thoughts. all that's in your mind at this moment is your current project, the very thing the few people more powerful than you had assigned for you to do: leading your team in stopping that godforsaken virus ravaging the outside. you've been making steady progress so far, but with the weight of this new responsibility, you're not sure if you could keep the momentum up.

you realize with a passing thought that most of the scientists on your team are level 9s and 10s.

"well," you begin before you could stop yourself. you're suddenly overcome with a feeling of suffocation, the office space seemingly too small and continuously growing even smaller.

"i hope you find someone you'd like to procreate with," you say lightly, pushing yourself off your chair. you quickly gather your things: folders and binders and other loose papers in your arms.

you catch jay looking at you, a pensive look on his face. you stop as you're grabbing your reusable coffee jug.

"no," you deadpan. "not me."

jay's eyes widen, as if realizing he'd said something without really saying anything.

"i—no, wait—i mean...," jay stutters, ears quickly turning red.

you smile, patting jay's shoulder reassuringly. "in case you were thinking about it."

jay's mouth opens and closes like a fish out of water and you can't help but laugh.

"these are desperate times, but i'm hoping it's not too desperate," you add. without waiting for a response, you turn towards the door, already making your way to it.

"besides, dr. isa lee seems more your type," you say over your shoulder one last time before pushing the door open and stepping out into the hallway.

---

"hey."

you look up from the microscope, tearing your attention away from the specimen you were examining. your eyes readjust to their normal focal length as a tall figure enters the lab, perfectly crisp white coat hanging off his broad shoulders, thin-wired spectacles resting on the bridge of his tall, straight nose. your lips feel strangely parched as he makes direct eye contact with you and you're left with no choice but to moisten them with your tongue.

"oh hi, dr. yang."

the other scientist chuckles, setting down a stack of papers on a desk in the corner. "i've been here for three weeks. please, call me jungwon."

you swallow. "right. jungwon."

dr. jungwon yang was a new import from the seoul bunker, having come to your own area's bunker merely a few weeks prior. he was immediately put under your supervision, an addition to your already elite team of biologists, geneticists, and virologists. off the bat, you could tell he was a man of many talents, coming up with unconventional solutions and arriving at answers quicker than anyone else.

his presence in your lab made your heart swell. in pride, adoration, or desire, you're not quite sure.

"uh, yesterday's results are in that binder over there, in case you want to go over them," you begin. jungwon walks over to your side of the long table, peering over the slide loaded into the microscope.

ignoring the way he brushes ever so slightly against you, you continue. "the director's dropping by later this afternoon, but i wouldn't be too bothered with that. he's just looking for someone to blame for the slow progress at this point. if only they could get us those materials we asked for..."

"have you read the memo?" jungwon asks abruptly, straightening up. he towers over you, his eyes downcast as he stares at your face.

"of course, you've read the memo," jungwon corrects himself, chuckling. "what i meant was...what do you think of it?"

"it's a government-issued memo, it hardly matters what i think," you respond, focusing back on your work in front of you, although all you do is stare blankly at the moving microorganisms, mind unfocused with how much of jungwon's perfume you can smell.

"it's your reproductive health that's on the line. i'm pretty sure your opinion counts for something," jungwon says with a pinch in between his eyebrows.

oh, a feminist. that's even hotter.

"okay, yeah. i appreciate the new guidelines they put out," you admit, looking back up at jungwon. "though it's the bare minimum, i'm glad they're letting us keep the autonomy of choosing who to...boink."

jungwon laughs at that.

"and free fertility drugs for anyone who wants or needs it. oh, also, thank god they didn't have the brilliant idea of putting a time limit on it. having read some crazy speculative fiction myself, the things people are willing to do in fiction are crazy. who's to say they can't do the same in real life?" you continue.

you don't notice the way jungwon's smirk grows as he listens.

"kind of makes the whole thing unsexy, don't you think?" jungwon cuts in, raising an eyebrow. you blink, unsure of what he's talking about.

"i'm surprised they're not monitoring us with cameras and hooking us up to EKGs and shit," he adds.

"oh," you say with a soft giggle, finally catching on. "i'm sure some people are into being watched."

"are you?" jungwon asks.

"am i what?" you answer.

"into being watched."

a pause.

you shake your head. "how about you?"

"oh no," jungwon says. "i prefer to keep what's mine for my eyes only."

"hm. possessive. that's kind of sexy," you mumble under your breath, a sudden surge of confidence coursing through you.

jungwon just stares at you, but you can see his pupils dance in amusement, taking in your whole face and all your features. you might have imagined it but he seemed to have peeked down at your chest for a second.

"do you think it's attractive for someone to be into lego-building? or at least, used to be into it. i'd give an arm and a leg for a complete lego set nowadays," jungwon asks, leaning against the table, and only now do you notice the veins running over the back of his hands.

you think about whether his arms are just as veiny.

"do you think it's a good trait to pass on an offspring? lego-building, i mean," he presses on.

"uh, yeah. good problem-solving skills," you answer, humoring his question.

jungwon nods. "do you think leadership skills are important?"

you smile, leaning against the cabinet opposite jungwon. you nudge his foot lightly. "i lead a team of scientists myself. of course, i think leadership skills are important."

"you and i both," jungwon agrees.

jungwon shifts, placing his hands in the pockets of his lab coat.

"how about dimples? do you think dimples are cute?" jungwon asks once more, one corner of his mouth upturned. a deep crease on his cheek appears.

a dimple.

"very," you admit.

"i see."

there's a silence that stretches over the two of you, and the weight of uncertainty is daunting as you stare at a spot on jungwon's tie. finally, after a few seconds, you heave a sigh, unable to take the tension any longer.

"this is the weirdest way anyone has ever flirted with me," you declare, looking up at jungwon through your lashes. he's grinning and you nearly shiver at how utterly attractive you're finding him at this moment.

"but it's effective," jungwon says. that was a statement, not a question.

you tilt your head to the side. "how do you know?"

"because you would have blown me off two minutes ago if it wasn't," jungwon reasons, crossing his arms. by doing this, he just made himself appear even wider than he is.

"always so calculated," you say, impressed.

you stretch your neck, easing your head from side to side, watching as jungwon fixes his gaze on the taut tendons of your neck. "are you also this precise in bed, dr. yang?"

jungwon approaches, a large hand resting on your hip. "that's for you to find out."

your breath hitches as you feel his thumb rub through the fabric of your skirt.

"later?" he asks.

"my place or yours?" you reply, fingertips grazing the front of his polo. you can just about feel the slope and ridges of his toned muscles.

"i'd like to be a gentleman, so mine," jungwon offers. "i'll walk you back to your room after."

"i was kind of hoping i wouldn't need to walk back after," you say, a hint of teasing in your voice.

"is that a challenge?" jungwon says, his other hand pressing firmly on your lower back. he pulls you to him and your hands involuntarily reach out towards his shoulders to steady yourself.

a few seconds pass before any of you speak again.

"that's for you to find out," you say.

---

"kind of weird, isn't it?" jungwon asks, panting against your neck.

your back is pressed firmly against one wall of his sleeping quarters, a wide, loft-like room, similar to yours. a luxury offered only to level 10 government personnel, the room gives its occupants enough space and enough privacy.

and boy, did you need privacy.

"what's weird?" you say breathily, fingers threading through jungwon's hair as he kisses down the column of your neck. his fingers nimbly undo the buttons of your blouse and you whimper when you feel him lick at the valley between your breasts.

"coming up to coworkers or friends then asking them to reproduce with you," jungwon responds, tugging your blouse off of your shoulders.

(you both held enough respect for the institution that employed you both, so your work lab coats were neatly thrown over the back of jungwon's couch before anything got too frisky.)

"see, it's the way you say it that makes it weird," you giggle. you pull jungwon back up to your face, kissing him fervently, tongue licking into his mouth.

"oh yeah? how would you say it?" jungwon challenges as he pulls away slightly, his nose grazing your cheek. he licks a stripe on the underside of your jaw.

"please, jungwon," you whimper, playing up the whine in your voice just a little bit. "need you to knock me up. make me pregnant, please."

jungwon grunts in your ear, reaching behind you to rip the zipper of your skirt down. you let the fabric fall to the floor, stepping out of it quickly, revealing the matching red lace panties you had in tandem with your bra.

"yeah? want me to cum inside you so many times that there won't even be the tiniest chance that you're not pregnant?" jungwon says lowly, kneading one of your boobs in his hands.

you nod, hooking a leg around jungwon's hip, pushing your core right up against the bulge in his pants.

"yes," you breathe out, dragging your clothed pussy over his straining cock. "let's be good citizens and have a whole bunch of kids, yeah?"

jungwon chuckles, hands hurriedly working on his belt. you take this time to kiss up his neck, still rutting against him, desperate for any contact.

"come here," jungwon says through gritted teeth as his pants and boxers fall to the floor. he kicks them off unceremoniously, yanking you towards the couch. your eyes briefly catch the flash of white that were your lab coats.

the two of you fall onto the cushiony surface, with jungwon sitting up and you falling a little less gracefully on him. the two of you laugh as you adjust yourself, righting your posture so you could look at jungwon.

"take this off," jungwon commands, pulling at your panties. you swing off jungwon for a moment, pulling off the garment in record time. you reposition yourself over jungwon, his cock standing tall, hard, and painfully red.

"come on, show me how bad you want those kids," jungwon teases, tucking your hair behind your ear.

you roll your eyes. "you gotta help with the diapers."

a second later, you sink down on jungwon, moaning wantonly at how much he stretches you out, filling you up effortlessly. jungwon throws his head back, his bottom lip pinched between his teeth.

"i'll quit my fucking job at the lab if this is how good it feels to make babies with you," jungwon groans, his fingers digging into the flesh of your hips.

you whimper at his words, rocking back and forth on his lap. you angle your hips a certain way, the tip of his cock kissing at just the perfect spot inside you. you shudder, repeating your movement.

"god, you feel amazing," jungwon praises. "so warm, so tight."

"yeah," you respond. you're gliding up and down his cock, swiveling your hips as fast as you can. you clench down around him, the thought of jungwon cumming inside you your only motivation.

"filling me up so good," you add, watching as jungwon screws his eyes shut, neck shiny with sweat.

you move forward, attaching your lips just below jungwon's ear. you suckle on the salty skin, running your tongue over the spot, savoring the way jungwon lets a moan rip out of him.

"gotta let the whole bunker know this one's mine," you whisper as you let up on jungwon's neck. a faint red spot is left in the wake of your lips on his skin.

in a blink of an eye, your whole world tumbles upside down, jungwon's hands forcing you down on the couch by your waist. in a daze, you realize that jungwon has you pinned under him, his eyes wild with a hungry look in them. he pushes your legs right up against your chest, lining himself up with your entrance.

"the moment you start showing, no one in this goddamn bunker will have a single doubt who gave you that baby," jungwon counters, thrusting into you. he gives you no time to adjust, picking up where you left off.

you cry out, trying to anchor yourself on anything your hands can find. eventually, you find purchase in jungwon's shoulders. he feels your nails digging in, and he mutters a soft 'fuck', speeding up his movements, the wet sounds of his skin slapping against yours so incredibly obscene in the confined space of his room.

"give it to me, please," you say, meeting jungwon's eyes as he continues to fuck into you. his forehead is creased, a look of concentration washing over his face.

"cum inside, fill me up as many times as you want, fuck it deep in me," you continue, cradling jungwon's face in your hands, the tender gesture a contrast to how rough he's bein.

"god," jungwon groans, voice breaking at the end as he speeds up, but then he halts abruptly, his mouth hanging open in a silent moan. you feel him twitch inside you and you gasp, clenching down as hard as you can.

"fuck, yes, milk it all out," jungwon says. he starts to thrust up into you again, watching as his cock is slowly coated with his cum spreading all over your cushy walls.

you whine, your fingers finding their way down to your cunt, your middle and ring finger pressing onto your clit. you rub at it ferociously, the idea of jungwon's sticky release inside of you turning you on impossibly.

"i'm getting hard again, jesus christ," jungwon complains but his movements don't cease. he's shaking from the overstimulation but he wraps his arms around you, pulling your limp form up against him.

"rub that pretty pussy for me, babe," jungwon requests, thrusting up into you shallowly.

"make yourself cum while i fill you up for a second time."

---

"so?"

you jump a little at the sudden intrusion. you look up at jungwon through both of your reflections in your bathroom mirror. three pregnancy tests lie in a neat line on the edge of the sink.

"i just started the timer, jungwon," you reply with a laugh. jungwon turns you around to face him, kissing you briefly.

"hm," you say, looking up at jungwon questioningly. "you never kiss me unless you want something."

"well," jungwon begins, hands slipping under your sweater. "we can always kill time while we wait for the results."

you shake your head, but you're already pressing yourself up against jungwon. "you're insatiable, dr. yang."

jungwon winks at you, undoing your bra under your shirt. "you know it."

"plus, you just look too good in this damn lab coat."

[amalgamasreal]

SOURCE

Bit of a long video but worth a watch.

TL;DW though is that hidden in the Terms and Conditions for Google's AI Labs is a nice little poison pill that says they get access to your entire Google Drive if you opt in.

So if you're an author of some type and you keep your unpublished works in your G-Drive that means an AI will get to scrape all of it and by opting in you will have given them permission to it. The content creator goes on to predict that Google is going to let out their own streaming service where the scripts, and potentially the art if it's animated, will be almost or entirely AI generated using that scraped data as a baseline and the authors/artist's who's work was essentially stolen in its most raw form to crib from will have zero way of fighting Google on that in our current legal system.

This is of course right in the middle of the writers and actors strike where we're seeing just what lengths studios will go to in order to screw everyone but themselves.

They go on to recommend that if you keep any creative or personal works on Google Drive that you pull it off as soon as possible and delete your entire Drive. They acknowledge that of course this doesn't mean Google really deleted the data but if you do it before they start compulsory opting everyone in there's a chance your work might get overlooked. They also recommend several free editing programs that aren't run by corporations like Google with LibreOffice (the default office program of most Linux distros) being named.

Finally they go over methods of shaming Google which I feel like you just have to watch for comedies sake so I won't describe them in full.

Now this is from me: I know the majority of people don't have the ability to build and manage a big archive just for themselves, but if you're a creative NOW IS THE TIME to educate yourself on what you can do to protect your works. Cloud storage was always iffy at best, but with AI scraping entering the mix it's now downright malignant. Get a bunch of thumb drives, buy some external hard drives, if you have the money buy a pre-built NAS, and if you really want to get into learn how to build your own NAS. These are the old ways before cloud and they're coming back again, more important than ever.

[communist-manifesto-daily]

Socialism: Utopian and Scientific - Part 31

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We have seen that the capitalistic mode of production thrust its way into a society of commodity-producers, of individual producers, whose social bond was the exchange of their products. But every society based upon the production of commodities has this peculiarity: that the producers have lost control over their own social inter-relations. Each man produces for himself with such means of production as he may happen to have, and for such exchange as he may require to satisfy his remaining wants. No one knows how much of his particular article is coming on the market, nor how much of it will be wanted. No one knows whether his individual product will meet an actual demand, whether he will be able to make good his costs of production or even to sell his commodity at all. Anarchy reigns in socialized production.

But the production of commodities, like every other form of production, has it peculiar, inherent laws inseparable from it; and these laws work, despite anarchy, in and through anarchy. They reveal themselves in the only persistent form of social inter-relations — i.e., in exchange — and here they affect the individual producers as compulsory laws of competition. They are, at first, unknown to these producers themselves, and have to be discovered by them gradually and as the result of experience. They work themselves out, therefore, independently of the producers, and in antagonism to them, as inexorable natural laws of their particular form of production. The product governs the producers.

In mediaeval society, especially in the earlier centuries, production was essentially directed toward satisfying the wants of the individual. It satisfied, in the main, only the wants of the producer and his family. Where relations of personal dependence existed, as in the country, it also helped to satisfy the wants of the feudal lord. In all this there was, therefore, no exchange; the products, consequently, did not assume the character of commodities. The family of the peasant produced almost everything they wanted: clothes and furniture, as well as the means of subsistence. Only when it began to produce more than was sufficient to supply its own wants and the payments in kind to the feudal lords, only then did it also produce commodities. This surplus, thrown into socialized exchange and offered for sale, became commodities.

The artisan in the towns, it is true, had from the first to produce for exchange. But they, also, themselves supplied the greatest part of their individual wants. They had gardens and plots of land. They turned their cattle out into the communal forest, which, also, yielded them timber and firing. The women spun flax, wool, and so forth. Production for the purpose of exchange, production of commodities, was only in its infancy. Hence, exchange was restricted, the market narrow, the methods of production stable; there was local exclusiveness without, local unity within; the mark in the country; in the town, the guild.

But with the extension of the production of commodities, and especially with the introduction of the capitalist mode of production, the laws of commodity-production, hitherto latent, came into action more openly and with greater force. The old bonds were loosened, the old exclusive limits broken through, the producers were more and more turned into independent, isolated producers of commodities. It became apparent that the production of society at large was ruled by absence of plan, by accident, by anarchy; and this anarchy grew to greater and greater height. But the chief means by aid of which the capitalist mode of production intensified this anarchy of socialized production was the exact opposite of anarchy. It was the increasing organization of production, upon a social basis, in every individual productive establishment. By this, the old, peaceful, stable condition of things was ended. Wherever this organization of production was introduced into a branch of industry, it brooked no other method of production by its side. The field of labor became a battle-ground. The great geographical discoveries, and the colonization following them, multiplied markets and quickened the transformation of handicraft into manufacture. The war did not simply break out between the individual producers of particular localities. The local struggles begat, in their turn, national conflicts, the commercial wars of the 17th and 18th centuries.

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[feministdragon]

"If one looks at the strategies, tactics and technology used in countries like India, Bangladesh, China, Singapore under the guise of ‘family planning’, one cannot help but recognize a virtual trend towards gynocide. Not only have Third World women, particularly in India and Bangladesh, unhesitatingly been used as guinea pigs by the multinational pharmaceutical industries to test dangerous contraceptives and methods, like amniocentesis,2 but contraceptives like Depoprovera, which were banned in the USA because of their carcinogenic qualities, have been massively dumped in many Third World countries.3 The government of Bangladesh was forced not only to allow all kinds of scientific experiments to be carried out on its territory, but also to buy huge amounts of contraceptives from the Western pharmaceutical industry (Minkin, 1979). In all this, some of the scientific lieutenants in the international war against population growth not only advocated compulsory measures, but also the open use and strengthening of patriarchal or sexist attitudes. Already in 1968 William McElroy, in a controversy with Kinglsey Davis who advocated compulsion, said:

‘In most societies male babies are more desirable than females and if the male were the first offspring, the motivation for having additional offspring would be reduced’ (McElroy, 1968, quoted in Mass, 1975: 22).

In 1973, the biologist Postgate goes a step further in deliberately advocating sex selection as a method of population control. Vimal Balasubrahmanyan refers to the Male Utopia thus propagated by people like Postgate:

Postgate argues that birth control ‘does not work’ in the countries that ‘need it most’ and ‘alternative methods of population control such as war, disease, legalised infanticide and euthanasia are rejected as they are not selective, acceptable, quickly effective or permanent enough’. He suggest that ‘breeding male is the only solution which meets all the above criteria’. Countless millions of people would leap at the opportunity to breed male (particularly in the third world) and no compulsion or even propaganda would be needed to encourage its use, only evidence of success by example (Balasubrahmanyan, 1982: 1725).

Meanwhile, with the advance of sex-preselection technology, amniocentesis and the ultrasound scanner, the prospect of ‘breeding male’ has become practice, not only in India but, with even more far-reaching consequences, in China. In India, the practice of aborting female foetuses, after sex determination by amniocentesis, became a public issue only after it became known that some clever doctors in Amritsar had made a flourishing business out of Indian parents’ preference for male offspring. They advertised to do both sex-preselection and abortion of female foetuses. After the protests by many women’s groups in India, the practice will, as Vimal Balasubrahmanyan fears, simply continue in a more discreet way, particularly when ultrasound scanning becomes widely available.

During a visit to India in summer 1984 I learned that sex-preselection and the abortion of female foetuses were already practised by many low caste and poor people in the countryside of Maharashtra.

The case of China is even more horrifying since here the whole mighty state and party apparatus is mobilized to implement the one-child policy which constitutes part of the modernization strategy of China after Mao. ‘Breeding male’ may not be a deliberate strategy of the Chinese government, but is, as Elisabeth Croll and other have shown, the inevitable result of the contradictions between furthering small peasants’ private landownership, the continuation of patrilocal marriage and family patterns, and the one-child policy of the state. Peasants who still largely have to depend on their children for old-age security want sons, since the sons inherit the family plot and remain in the village. Daughters are married to some other family and village, as is the case in India.

Daughters, therefore, are not wanted. This situation is aggravated by the policy of the government to reward those who follow the one-child norm: they get more private land, if they are peasants, and they get more room, more school and health facilities, more modern equipment, if they live in the cities.

Thus, those who get most land have least family labour to work on it. This contradiction combined with the compulsory measures of the government, the interplay of incentives and discentives under the total control of the party, and growing neo-patriarchal attitudes and relations put women under pressure from all sides, so much so that female foeticide has risen to alarming dimensions."

This was published in 1986, by the way. And yet it still describes what's happening now to a large degree.

Patriarchy and Capital Accumulation  Maria Mies p.185

[mariacallous]

As Moldova hurtles toward critical elections on Sunday, the stakes couldn’t be higher. Malicious actors, bankrolled by foreign sources, are working to sway the country’s public. And their target? President Maia Sandu — fighting not only for reelection but for her country’s future as a European democracy.

 As Moldova’s first female president, Sandu’s candidacy has become ground zero for a flurry of gendered disinformation attacks, all designed to undermine her leadership and derail the nation’s EU membership referendum, which coincides with the election.

This is no ordinary election. It’s an all-out assault on Moldova’s sovereignty, and at the heart of the battle lies one simple truth: Whoever controls the narrative determines Moldova’s future.

In a crowded field of 10 candidates, Sandu’s still expected to win the first round, despite being buffeted by efforts to weaken and discredit her and the women serving in her administration. These attacks are gendered, insidious and relentless, looking to exploit traditional gender norms in a country where 97 percent of the population believes women should be “cherished and protected by men.”

But this isn’t about traditional values — it’s about manipulating them to maintain Russia’s grip on Moldova.

Disinformation targeting female leaders isn’t just a women’s issue. It’s a democracy issue; it’s a human rights issue; and in the digital age, it’s also a matter of national security. These weaponized lies are meant to fracture the foundations of participatory governance and erode trust in democracy.

Our organization, #ShePersisted, has been tracking these toxic trends since 2022, identifying common gendered narratives aimed at women in politics across major digital platforms in countries like Italy, Hungary and Ukraine. Now, it’s Moldova that’s become the latest battleground in Russia’s destabilization playbook.

The parallels to the U.S. are striking here. Much like Vice President Kamala Harris, who has similarly been the target of disinformation campaigns, Sandu’s candidacy has been a lightning rod for misogyny cloaked in political rhetoric. And just as we’ve seen false claims about Harris’s identity and qualifications, Moldova’s social media platforms are awash with deepfake videos and conspiracy theories aimed at the sitting president.

Both women have dealt with an onslaught of digital attacks designed to weaken the public’s trust in their leadership — attacks that are gendered, racist and xenophobic — and it’s no accident these narratives spread so easily. Social media algorithms reward the most divisive content. For the Kremlin, manipulating online discourse by gaming algorithms is as easy as shooting fish in a barrel, all thanks to the oligarchs of tech that foster this environment, where digital distortions flourish in the name of keeping users hooked and advertisers paying.

In Moldova in particular, the malign actors are explicitly pro-Russian, using inauthentic and coordinated behavior to seed and amplify their attacks. And the campaigns are part of a broader strategy to destabilize the country, oust pro-European Sandu and drag Moldova back into Russia’s orbit.

The Kremlin’s use of deepfakes and false narratives — claiming Ukrainian F-16s will soon land on Moldovan soil and fabricating stories about compulsory EU-mandated “sexual education” — mirrors the chaos it tried to sow in the 2016 U.S. election. Its methods, however, have become more sophisticated. According to a joint statement by the U.S., Canada, and the U.K., Russia is now actively using “disinformation, criminal and covert activities, and corruption to undermine sovereignty and democratic processes” in the upcoming Moldovan elections.

Despite the red alert, though, it’s still largely U.S.-based digital media companies that are acting as modern-day conflict profiteers.

Earlier this year, #ShePersisted combined social listening with forensic data analytics to understand the toxicity directed at women leaders in Moldova. The results? A chilling glimpse into the future of global disinformation campaigns.

From deepfakes of Sandu resigning while wearing a hijab to offers of bribes for voters to reject Moldova’s EU integration, the manipulation is as multifaceted as it is dangerous.

In one case, exiled oligarch and opposition leader Ilan Shor — widely seen as “Moscow’s man in Moldova” — used Facebook to run hundreds of ads that were viewed 155 million times. And the fact that he could do this while not, in fact, being in Moldova is a testament to the power online infrastructure afforded him, as Meta has repeatedly failed to track and remove these coordinated campaigns.

But the threats aren’t confined to political manipulation. Human traffickers and scam artists are leveraging these same platforms to victimize Moldovans too. In a country where 80 percent of the population is deeply concerned about human trafficking, social media platforms have become the primary tool for traffickers, targeting vulnerable women and girls.

And what has Meta done? Almost nothing. Regardless of clear abuse, social media giants continue to prioritize profits over safety, allowing both gendered disinformation and criminal exploitation to thrive.

For Moldova, the road ahead is now fraught with peril— it’s a path the U.S. knows all too well. And as Sandu prepares for a tight election, the parallels between the challenges faced by women leaders worldwide are impossible to ignore.

Whether it’s Harris or Sandu, gendered disinformation is among the most powerful tools bad actors use to erode democratic progress around the world today. And if social media platforms don’t step up to enforce their own rules — removing posts inciting violence, disabling accounts that spread gendered falsehoods and curtailing the amplification of disinformation — they’ll continue to be complicit in corrosion of democracy.

Moldova’s election isn’t just a fight for one woman’s political future, it’s a fight for the future of democracy itself. Like any good fight, it requires action — in this case, both online and off. And if we fail to address the weaponization of gendered disinformation now, the next battlefield could be much nearer to home.

[transgenderer]

(for context, the Mbuti are hunter-gatherer pygmies in the congo rainforest. they live in the forest itself, while the "villagers", bantu people, farm in spaces cleared from the forest, they have a complex interdependence)

Some Mbuti have learned to use matches, when available, and a few know of the fire drill from contact with their village neighbors. There is absolutely no indigenous method of making fire, however, and it is a point of no small importance to their social life that each household maintains its own hearth. Embers from this hearth are carried, usually by the woman, wrapped in fire-resisant leaves, during the hunt or while on the trail. At each new camp site, the family hearths are kindled from embers of the old family hearths, preserving a distinct sense of continuity. Whenever a communal hearth is required, as for the molimo, communal participation is accentuated by the compulsory contribution of embers from each family hearth. Whereas matches are rarely used, becoming quickly damp and useless, even if available, they are never used for kindling family or communal hearths, but only for such relatively mundane purposes as lighting a pipe or cigarette.

Wayward Servants, the two worlds of the Mbuti, Turnbull

[septictankie]

"Terrorism and Communism" by Leon Trotsky is book published in 1920 as a reply to Karl Kautsky and others who had criticized the Bolshevik use of political terror, compulsory labor, and other tactics. It is a defense of the use of revolutionary violence by the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War. Trotsky argues that in the struggle to build a socialist state, the use of force and even terror is justified to protect the revolution against its enemies, both internal and external. He critiques those who condemn Bolshevik methods, claiming that the harsh measures are necessary to ensure the survival and success of the workers' government. The book contrasts the violent methods of the bourgeoisie, which Trotsky argues are used to oppress, with the revolutionary violence of the proletariat, which he believes is used to liberate and create a just society.

[astarab1aze]

➥ Æfre and the City of Love

Located in northeastern Myrrdin, nestled in the valley Duchy of Æfre that always seems struck with spring- and summertime life and color, enchanting and bright.

Lufian gets its name from its tourism industry, local customs, and wholehearted welcoming of nightfolk in direct opposition to the Crown - the City of Love, dedicated to love in all its forms from agape to eros, storge to philautia. Their cultural norms are similar to Myrrdin's on the whole, but do not exclude nightfolk by any means, built by nightfolk who have a great love for the country in which it resides, though not for the laws forced upon them. The Eternal Duchess, V'haidra Vortigern, an elf of Nilmyrion, rules over Lufian and Æfre with her husband, Duke Artem Vortigern, and together they challenge the King's rule - establishing Æfre as a symbol of hope for nightfolk within Myrrdin as well as displacing members of the Upper Houses in terms of power. This vie for political power has cemented a certain level of warning into Myrrdinian forces, as Lufian nightfolk are not afraid to use their magic despite their outwardly friendly and welcoming disposition. Quite an upset among the Upper Houses, and especially in the capital, though neither the Duchess nor the Duke give a damn.

As Lufian is themed around romance and other forms of love, there are many, many things a couple or group could do and see that would set the mood perfectly.

It is surrounded by little streams, rivers, and ponds that are perfect for boating, fishing, casting lanterns, swimming, and otherwise romantic outings;

Fairytale forestry with warm cottage getaways hidden within, the famous Morningstar Bridge crossing the widest river on which a romantic tradition was born - wishes cast in ribbons tied to ornate iron archways and kisses shared with a lover;

Taverns, inns, and a brothel or two primed for even the most specific couples in mind, wide ranges of imported and local wines and live entertainment from music to stage plays;

Grand festivals that last days to celebrate the seven forms of love - eros, agape, philia, mania, ludus, pragma, storge, and philautia - elegant but also loose, full of games, feasting, drinking, dancing, and merryment, with ribbons, lanterns, masks, costumes, magical displays and fireworks;

Jewellers armed with intricately-made, meaningful, enchanted, beautiful, and even simple rings perfect for a promise, or a proposal;

V'haidra's Museum of Art, the largest collection of art in the known world, open until late hours, string and wind music echoing through its opulent halls - perfect for dates;

Greenspaces of cut grass, shade trees, and flowerbeds where children can play, shifters and weres can run, without fear of persecution or threat of violence, incidentally also perfect for picnics;

Trails to run horses, farmlands, vineyards, ranches, archery ranges, an amphitheater, a school and library, a cathedral dedicated to elven, human, and shifter gods, rich and bountiful - perfect to set roots or begin a new love of any kind, be it a romance, a family, or a friendship that can withstand the test of time.

Vampires are excluded from those allowed to enter the city unless they are either Strigani diplomats or accompanied by someone willing to feed them, provably; They cannot have experienced frenzy ever in their lifetime, though how anyone is able to tell is anyone's guess (that is, they can't).

On its surface, Lufian seems a peaceful place and how they manage this is by compulsory military service. Duchess V'haidra does not take her position lightly, though she is a fair and ultimately rather generous noble, valuing her people's happiness to in turn recieve their loyalty - when a person's needs are met and they are given the opportunity to freely seek happiness, they are more likely to answer her call to action. This clashes with the King's incompetence and often heavyhanded methods of dealing with his subjects, but therein lies the problem: He views them as subjects as opposed to people, and all are unhappy, cruel, and needlessly confrontational, bitter and entitled, breaking into factions upon factions - Æfre included where that's concerned. The quality of life under her rule, even in so small a duchy, far surpasses most of Myrrdin, and for this, her people are loyal to her, willing to lay their lives down for her and fight alongside her on the battlefield, train with her in the yards - yes, she spends much time among them. Trusting them as they trust her, cultivating a new standard of living and the will to protect that way of life. For over a hundred years, she's taken great care of Æfre, slowly spreading its territory outward into the Dragon's Tail and toward the Dife Frèt, urging for more for her people, access to materials, fishing, mining, settling, farming, anything they could need. Putting them first to ensure the protection of their lands and her power.

Duchess V'haidra lives in Lufian, in the old elfhen palace, Phar Nal'len, it was built around. Much of the architecture is sweeping, curved and sharp at points, intricately carved and well-maintained whitestone, any damage caused by time repaired with repurposed whitestone and steel reinforcement, grand banners of green, white, and silver fluttering in the wind, her crest of a seven-pointed star and stylized flame in its center everywhere, green terracotta rooftops, planters for shade and fruit trees and pots of Petta blossom, moonflower, and flowering shrubs, whitestone fountains, terraced gardens- Lufian as a whole is a beautiful city, often decorated with colorful flags, magic lights, flowers, and the costume shop is always open. Its people are almost always in a state of preparation for their seven most prominent holidays, and take great pride in their work, even folk from the villages nearby and outside of Æfre prepare and visit with their offerings in tow.

Æfre is not only known for Lufian, but also for its celare, of which are the hardiest, most enduring, and fastest in all of Myrrdin, boasting lean, powerful muscles and high intelligence. Trained to understand hundreds of words, be able to tell the difference between emotions and expressions, know when to fight and when to run, what is and is not acceptable to hunt, among other things. Æfrean celare can run at roughly 80mph at full speed, well above the standard for most other celare.

It seems like a fairytale dream, and it is. It's one of the safest places in Myrrdin, let alone the entire western half of the continent. Its citizens are armed, well-trained, and willing to fight to the death to protect what they have. Although, that isn't to say there isn't darkness within it, within Lufian. Love can be lost as easily as it's gained, and it's never to be taken for granted, lest one be cursed, doomed to die- Crimes of passion, adultery, and murder happen more often than one might think, and individual vampires slip in all the time, those who would trespass against them all. There are some who would even say the Duchess is a weak ruler, too focused on the small picture to see the bigger one, questioning her rule - those people are free to have their opinions, but only insofar as they don't cause harm. Otherwise, they'll be killed and swiftly. She is just, but she doesn't have much time for third or fourth chances - much to do, many people to delegate and care for. Don't cause her any problems, she won't even hold you prisoner.

[omnitheist27]

The 40 - The World of 2138 (2/3)

—-

@the-ravenclaw-werewolf, @purplemochi20055, @hulkchloron99, and @maximum18

—-

If the uninhabitable climate wasn't bad enough, The 40 learns of how the current civilizations function.

After the collapse of the traditional governing body, massive conglomerates have taken over their respective countries by seizing all the legislative, executive, and judicial powers during the power vacuum.

Those in the conglomerates had taken refuge in "complete environment cities" called arcologies. Employees and affiliates exulted in how different they were from the outside world. So arcologies ended up becoming states with cities built around them.

Then, one of the sinister things the conglomerates have done is dismantle the compulsory education system under the pretext of "getting public expenditure under control", when its true aim is to rob the poor of their ability to think. In the World of 2138, tuition was required to attend even elementary school level. Parents who wanted their children to be able to get a halfway decent job still sent them to school, but wasn't easy for the poor to scrape together tuition. Many bent over backward and ruined their health working to pay for it. Really, elementary education shouldn't have cost that much, but prices soared because the wealthy wanted to rob the poor of educational opportunities.

So, as The 40 adjust themselves to the World of 2138, they all made a vow to fix its sorry state no matter what (so long as their methods don't cross a line). As they delegated some of their members to study and develop a chemical that could "reverse" the pollution and integrate themselves into the societies of the civilizations, starting with the World of 2138's version of Japan.

One part of their plan involves elevating the common people's elementary-level education into having more practical, technological, and financial knowledge (though still teaching the children academic subjects). Given that it's a known fact that children can learn very fast at a certain age, The 40 takes advantage of this by having elementary school students become interested in learning the academic and practical subjects that would prove beneficial to their futures once they go off into the workforce after graduation. Also, The members of The 40 who are teaching elementary students would also cultivate the image of a "caring and ideal teacher" looking out for the student's well-being in addition to their education and helping instill values that would also prove instrumental for the upcoming revolution against the conglomerates.

For the other part of their plan...will be shown in the next update!

[dailyanarchistposts]

G.2.4 What other reasons do individualists give for rejecting communist-anarchism?

The other differences are not as major. Some individualist anarchists took umbrage because the communist-anarchists predicted that an anarchist society would take a communal form, so prescribing the future development of a free society in potentially authoritarian ways. As James Martin summarised, it was Tucker’s “belief that ‘in all subsequent social co-operation no manner of organisation or combination whatsoever shall be binding upon any individual without his consent,’ and to decide in advance upon a communal structure violated this maxim from the start.” [Men Against the State, p. 222] Others took umbrage because the communist-anarchists refused to spell out in sufficient detail exactly how their vision would work.

Communist-anarchists reply in four main ways. Firstly, the individualist anarchists themselves predicted roughly how they thought a free society would look and function, namely one on individual ownership of production based around mutual banks. Secondly, communist-anarchists presented any vision as one which was consistent with libertarian principles, i.e., their suggestions for a free society was based on thinking about the implication of anarchist principles in real life. There seemed little point in advocating anarchism if any future society would be marked by authority. To not discuss how a free society could work would result in authoritarian solutions being imposed (see section I.2.1). Thirdly, they were at pains to link the institutions of a free society to those already being generated within capitalism but in opposition to its hierarchical nature (see section I.2.3). Fourthly, presenting more than a sketch would be authoritarian as it is up to a free people to create their own society and solve their problems themselves (see section I.2).

Clearly, A. H. Simpson was wrong when he asserted that communist-anarchists argued thusly: “Abolish private property by instituting compulsory Communism, and the State will go.” No communist-anarchist has ever argued for compulsory communism. Somewhat ironically, Simpson went on to argue that “difference between Communism and Anarchy is plainly observable in their methods. Abolish the State . .. that bulwark of the robber system … says the Anarchist. Abolish private property, the source of all evil and injustice, parent of the State, says the Communist.” [The Individualist Anarchists, p. 92] Yet communist-anarchists do not subscribe to the position of abolishing private property first, then the state. As we note when refuting the opposite assertion by Marxists in section H.2.4, anarchists like Kropotkin and Malatesta followed Bakunin in arguing that both needed to be abolished at the same time. Kropotkin, for example, did not divide economic and political issues, for him it was a case of “the political and economic principles of Anarchism.” [Anarchism, p. 159]

This unity of economic and political aspects of anarchism exists within Individualist Anarchism too, but it is hidden by the unfortunately tendency of its supporters of discussing certain forms of private property as state enforced monopolies. So to a large degree many of the disagreements between the two schools of anarchism were rooted in semantics. Thus we find William Bailie arguing that the anarchist-communist “assumption that rent and interest are due to private property is not proven” as “both rent and interest are the result of monopoly, of restricted individual liberty.” [Liberty, no. 261, p. 1] In other words, rent is caused because the state enforces property rights which the individualist anarchists disagree with. Thus when individualist anarchists argue they seek to get rid of the state, they also mean the end of capitalist property rights (particularly in land). That this can lead to confusion is obvious as, in the usual sense of the word, rent is caused by private property. The communists-anarchists, in contrast, generally used the term “private property” and “property” in the same way that Proudhon used it in 1840, namely property which allows its owner to exploit the labour of another. As such, they had no problem with those who laboured by themselves on their own property.

The lack of a market in communist-anarchism led some individualist anarchists like William Bailie to argue that it “ignores the necessity for any machinery to adjust economic activities to their ends.” Either its supporters “exalt a chaotic and unbalanced condition” or they will produce an “insufferable hierarchy.” [The Individualist Anarchists, p. 116] Thus, to use modern terms, either communist-anarchists embrace central planning or their system simply cannot produce goods to meet demand with over-production of unwanted goods and under-production of desired ones. Needless to say, communist-anarchists argue that it is possible to bring the demand and production of goods into line without requiring centralised planning (which would be inefficient and a dire threat to individual freedom — Kropotkin’s arguments against state capitalism were proved right in Soviet Russia). It would require a system of horizontal links between self-managed workplaces and the transmission of appropriate information to make informed decisions (see section I for a discussion of some possibilities).

Another objection to communist-anarchism was raised by Proudhon during his debates with the state communists of his time who also raised the slogan “from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs.” For Proudhon, wages in the sense of payment for labour would still exist in a anarchist society. This was because of two main reasons. Firstly, rewarding labour for its actual work done would be a great incentive in ensuring that it was efficiently done and meet the consumers requirements. Secondly, he considered communism as being potentially authoritarian in that society would determine what an individual should contribute and consume. As he put it:

“Who then shall determine the capacity? who shall be the judge of the needs? “You say that my capacity is 100: I maintain that it is only 90. You add that my needs are 90: I affirm that they are 100. There is a difference between us of twenty upon needs and capacity. It is, in other words, the well-known debate between demand and supply. Who shall judge between the society and me? “If the society persists, despite my protests, I resign from it, and that is all there is to it. The society comes to an end from lack of associates. “If, having recourse to force, the society undertakes to compel me; if it demands from me sacrifice and devotion, I say to it: Hypocrite! you promised to deliver me from being plundered by capital and power; and now, in the name of equality and fraternity, in your turn, you plunder me. Formerly, in order to rob me, they exaggerated my capacity and minimised my needs. They said that products cost me so little, that I needed so little to live! You are doing the same thing. What difference is there then between fraternity and the wage system?” [The General Idea of the Revolution, pp. 96–7]

Yet even here Proudhon shows the libertarian communist solution to this possible problem, namely free association. If there were a conflict between individuals within a free commune in terms of their contributions and consumption then the individual is free to leave (and, conversely, the commune is free to expel an individual). Said individuals can seek another communist commune and join it or, conversely, work for themselves in their present location. Ultimately, free association means the freedom not to associate and libertarian communism is rooted in that truism. Thus, communist-anarchists would agree with the French anarchism when he “conclude[d] that a single association can never include all the workmen in one industry, nor all industrial corporations, nor, a fortiori, a nation of 36 millions of men; therefore that the principle of association does not offer the required solution.” [Op. Cit., p. 85] Like Proudhon, communist-anarchists base their anarchism on federations of associations and communes, with these federations and associations formed as and when they were required for joint activity. Thus the federation of communist communes and workplaces would play a similar role as Proudhon’s “agro-industrial federation,” namely to end “wage labour or economic servitude” and “to protect” against “capitalist and financial feudalism, both within them and from the outside” as well as ensuring “increasing equality” and the “application of application on the largest possible scale of the principles of mutualism” and “economic solidarity.” [The Principle of Federation, p. 70 and p. 71]

The key difference, of course, between Proudhon’s mutualism and Kropotkin’s communism was (as latter stressed) that the former supported payment for labour in terms of money or labour-cheques while the latter argued that this would be a modification of the wages system rather than its total abolition. Yet by divorcing payment for labour from its consumption, Proudhon argued that communism, like monopoly, made it difficult to determine exactly the costs involved in producing goods. The French anarchist argued that there was no way of knowing the real cost of anything produced outside the market. This could be seen from monopolies within capitalism:

“How much does the tobacco sold by the administration cost? How much is it worth? You can answer the first of these questions: you need only call at the first tobacco shop you see. But you can tell me nothing about the second, because you have no standard of comparison and are forbidden to verify by experiment the items of cost of administration…. Therefore the tobacco business, made into a monopoly, necessarily costs society more than it brings in; it is an industry which, instead of subsisting by its own product, lives by subsidies.” [System of Economical Contradictions, pp. 232–3]

Communist-anarchists reply by noting that the price of something is not independent of the degree of monopoly of an industry and so natural barriers to competition can skew prices. Equally, competition can be a race to the bottom and that competitors can undermine their own working conditions and enjoyment of life in order to gain an advantage (or, more often, simply survive) on the market. As we argue in section I.1.3, markets have a tendency to undermine equality and solidarity and, over time, erode the basis of a free society.

As an aside, Proudhon’s argument has obvious similarities with von Mises’ much later attack on communism which is usually called the “socialist calculation argument” (see section I.1.1). As discussed in section I.1.2, von Mises’ argument was question begging in the extreme and our critique of that applies equally to Proudhon’s claims. As such, communist-anarchists argue that market prices usually do not reflect the real costs (in terms of their effects on individuals, society and the planet’s ecology) — even those prices generated by non-capitalist markets. Moreover, due to Proudhon’s opposition to rent and interest, his own argument could be turned against mutualism and individualist anarchism as followers of von Mises have done. Without rent and interest, they argue, there is no way of identifying how much land or credit is worth and so resource use will be inefficient. Of course, this assumes that capitalist definitions of efficiency and “cost” are the only valid ones which is not the case. So, arguing that markets are required to correctly value goods and services is a two-edged sword, argue communist-anarchists.

One of the joys of Proudhon is that he provides material to critique both Kropotkin’s communist-anarchism and Tucker’s individualist anarchism for while opposed to communism he was equally opposed to wage labour, as we indicate in section G.4.2 (as such, those who quote Proudhon’s attacks on communism but fail to note his attacks on wage slavery are extremely dishonest). Under mutualism, there would not be wage labour. Rather than employers paying wages to workers, workers would form co-operatives and pay themselves a share of the income they collectively produced. As Robert Graham put it, ”[t]hat both Tucker and Bakunin could claim Proudhon as their own illustrates the inherent ambiguity and elusiveness of his thought … With his death, that synthesis broke down into its conflicting parts.” [“Introduction”, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, The General idea of the Revolution, p. xxxi] Social anarchism emphasised the self-management, associational and federalist aspects of Proudhon’s ideas along with his critique of private property while individualist anarchism tended to stress his support for possession, “wages” (i.e., labour income), competition and markets.

[seekerofeden]

Content Warning: Disturbing Content Eden Sanctions: Failure to adhere to established regulations will result in disciplinary measures for captives. The severity of these repercussions will be determined by higher-ranking authorities within the hierarchy, such as Riddles and Nott, with subordinates responsible for their implementation. The degree of punishment will be adjusted based on the seriousness of the transgression. All disciplinary actions will be conducted under supervision. A variety of dark spells and binding charms may be utilized, including but not limited to the Crucio curse, favored for its discreet nature due to its lack of visible evidence, the Imperius curse, spells for immobilization, the Silencio spell, the Obliviate spell, and additional options. Physical discipline, such as corporal punishment administered on exposed areas of the body or elsewhere, may be utilized. Methods of humiliation may entail compelling individuals to engage in degrading acts in the presence of others. Incidents of unwanted sexual contact or coercion, as well as the imposition of additional client obligations, may occur. Compulsory engagement in rigorous physical exercise may be enforced. Individuals may be required to consume potions as part of disciplinary actions, the specifics of which will vary. Forced deprivation of meals or ingestion of repugnant or inedible substances may be enforced as punitive measures. Individuals may be mandated to forgo clothing, with mattresses and/or pillows removed. Subjected to confinement within an underground cell, individuals will be compelled into isolation for a predetermined duration of time. Various forms of torture, including waterboarding, electric shock therapy, shock collars, handling hot coals without protection, and forced suspension from a pole by the arms, may be utilized as methods of inflicting suffering.

Interested in joining our RP server? DM us!

Eden's Embrace ❤️ 

[scorchedthesnake]

Where This All Began

Originally posted here, May 10, 2011.

Read the many fond reviews now appearing of Sleep No More, the immersive theatrical mashup of Macbeth and Hitchcock staged in Chelsea by the British company Punchdrunk, and you will find a third player frequently mentioned alongside the Bard and the Master of Suspense. Stanley Kubrick's name is often also counted among the forebears of Sleep No More, and while some reviewers reference The Shining, most invoke his name on account of the masks worn by Sleep No More audiences, which seem to be a touchstone for Kubrick's final film, Eyes Wide Shut. It is not an inappropriate connection to make. After all, from behind Sleep No More's masks, one can witness, among other things, an orgy.

But from my perspective this is an altogether too simplistic account of the ties between a set of works with numerous shared themes, among them dreaming, obsession and voyeurism. Neither orgies nor Venetian masks were truly at the core of Eyes Wide Shut, though that was surely the most significant impression the challenging, critically beleaguered film left behind in the imagination at large. And while these elements of Sleep No More's production are surely a deliberate nod to Kubrick’s film, I am inclined to suspect a much more interesting, complicated and elucidating relationship, most likely unintentional, between Sleep No More and Eyes Wide Shut, or more specifically the text on which Eyes Wide Shut is based, Arthur Schnitzler's 1925 Traumnovelle. 

Schnitzler's work seems fated to be known in the English-speaking world mostly in the form of adaptations. His most famous play, Der Reigen, is produced today under the name La Ronde, as it first became widely known through Max Ophüls' 1950 film. A more recent stage variant starring Nicole Kidman, The Blue Room, had less of an impact. Similarly, Traumnovelle broke out to British and American audiences by way of Kubrick's version. A contemporary of Freud and a physician, Schnitzler was both sexually adventurous and methodically taxonomical, and his work known for its psychological complexity and his sexual frankness.

Kubrick took some liberties with Schnitzler's text. Some help to restate the story from early twentieth century Vienna into contemporary New York. Other changes weaken the structural order of a novella that Schnitzler himself often called Doppelnovelle, as it was intended to contain two stories in delicate parallel; one mostly a vivid dream, the other real but so unbelievable, so uncanny and mysterious that it may just as well have been a dream itself. The conflict in Kubrick's film is set in motion by Alice's confession to Bill that she lusted after a sailor she had seen fleetingly while on vacation; this episode is in the original text, but Fridolin (adapted into Bill) also had a temptation, a young girl he met on the beach during this same trip to Denmark. "Denmark" of course ends up being the password to the masked ball, not "Fidelio" as in the film. Kubrick freely interprets what Fridolin sees at the 'orgy', though it is likely in line with visions that Schnitzler's language could merely hint at. Alice's dream however, though full of her endless sexual betrayals, is absent the capture and enslavement of her husband, prefigured in the novella's opening lines as their young daughter reads a passage from The Thousand and One Nights, as well as the crucifixion and torture of Fridolin, which make Albertine's version much more potent as a countersubject.

Yet in both the novella and the film, the episodes of dreaming, whether while sleeping or in the waking state, are bracketed by interludes of confession. These dialogues are instances of compulsory narration: Fridolin/Bill and Albertine/Alice each must in turn recount the experiences of their various adventures: at the ball (the Ziegfeld's Christmas party); in their bedroom remembering their vacation (in the novella, their Denmark trip, and their engagement years before); Albertine/Alice's dream, and ultimately, Fridolin/Bill also retells the entirety of what he witnessed at the masked ball, what led him to it, and what he did while trying to force that experience to make sense: "Ich will dir alles erzählen," "I'll tell you everything."

It is on account of this structure that the usefulness of Traumnovelle / Eyes Wide Shut as intertextual relatives to Sleep No More becomes clear. Like the âventiure of medieval epic, the dream sequences are departures from the bourgeois family's equivalent of the court: security, stability, childrearing, profession. Schnitzler, for his part, accentuates this with particular attention to the contact of Fridolin's and Albertine's hands. Their hands touch and intertwine in all of their scenes together, until their jealousies and admissions finally become, as Fridolin states, "ein Schwert zwischen uns," a sword between them, and something else to grasp at. They then go their own ways in 'dreams' of infidelity. For Fridolin in particular the contact points of his hands are representative of his attempt to gain traction and knowledge within his waking dream. 

As a point of comparison, Sleep No More is often described as being like witnessing someone else's dream. It is, like Traumnovelle, the experience of inhabiting a sequence of coinciding dreams. The audience member is initiated into the dream-realm of the McKittrick through a maze of dark corridors that lead into the bar. Here however one is already in the performance per se. Characters, albeit less alien ones, circulate and interact with the audience, who, ordering drinks and waiting for their cards to be called, enjoy one final act of speaking before plunging into the ensuing hours of muteness and voyeurism. 

Once inside, key points of traction come largely through the hands. One pores through documents and artifacts, one tries doorhandles and knobs, and, occasionally, one of the dream-figures takes you by the hand and leads you deeper into the dream. When this concludes, the audience is led back to the bar, where one simply must talk about what has just been seen. It is a compulsory confession, as reunited parties of visitors compare what each witnessed, nervously and often questioningly recalling strange, confusing scenes, knowing full well that if they are not confessed and mutually confirmed, they will slip into unknowledge and oblivion. Every visitor's account is fragmentary and incomplete. Even the collective recollection the production's structure encourages is not enough to account for the enormity and mystery of the space one has only just begun to explore. It is hard to not be reminded of the conclusion reached by Fridolin and Albertine about what they have undergone: 

"... Ich ahne, dass die Wirklichkeit einer Nacht, ja dass nicht einmal die eines ganzen Menschenlebens zugleich auch seine innerste Wahrheit bedeutet." "Und kein Traum [...] ist völlig Traum." (in Eyes Wide Shut: The reality of one night, let alone that of a whole lifetime can never be the whole truth. [...] And no dream is ever just a dream.)

Sleep No More is driven by a comparable degree of pervasive ambiguity. It is telling, perhaps, that the production has relied so heavily, and so successfully, on word-of-mouth in lieu of conventional marketing. As something that defies traditional description and explanation, it seems to want its fans to be stammering and incoherent, and altogether glad to bring new visitors in with high, but curiously inarticulate expectations of what they are about to experience.

If Sleep No More, like Eyes Wide Shut and Traumnovelle before it, is a dreamscape with indeterminate boundaries with waking, then its name is perfectly appropriate. This title derives from Act II, Scene 2 of Macbeth, after Duncan has been murdered:

MACBETH Methought I heard a voice cry, "Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep" – the innocent sleep, Sleep that knits up the raveled sleave of care, The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath, Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course, Chief nourisher in life's feast LADY MACBETH What do you mean? MACBETH Still it cried, "Sleep no more!" to all the house. "Glamis hath murdered sleep, and therefore Cawdor Shall sleep no more. Macbeth shall sleep no more."

Sleep, so commonly metaphor or metonym for death, is made to be the locus of peace, calm and life. Macbeth betrays the uses of sleep, and so the Macbeths are repaid with the ultimate corruption of their sleep with ghostly visitations, madness and death. Schnitzler, alternatively, approaches sleep as the avatar of sexuality, but it is still the gateway to a realm of betrayal. The treacheries in his text occur in dreams, where they are only barely confined and threatening to burst out. 

But there, confession brings the couple back together. After their adventures, they again clasp hands and are grateful for being awakened: "Nun sind wir wohl erwacht - für lange," says Albertine ("now we're awake," in Kubrick's film, "and hopefully for a long time to come." At the novella's conclusion, Schnitzler identifies dreams as an agent of isolation only temporarily overcome, and as certain to reemerge as each coming night: "So lagen sie beide schweigend, beide wohl auch ein wenig schlummernd und einander traumlos nah" - "and so they lay silent, both surely slumbering and dreamlessly near the other." The admonition to not look too far into the future is both fitting and haunting. The command to ‘sleep no more’ is the damnation of Macbeth and an impossible prescription for the temptations of Fridolin and Albertine, and Bill and Alice. For the Sleep No More audience, it is intended as an omen.

I felt an acute terror during my second visit to Sleep No More, when in a private moment with Banquo, he pulled a huge sword from beneath his mattress and thrust it into my hands. My terror was less the fear that he would strike me with it, or ask me to use it, but instead arose from a sudden sadness. The sword was not real, neither heavy nor sharp. This whole experience was not real, and nothing I could imagine coming of the encounter with the performer would happen other than what was scripted. Rather, I knew for certain in that moment that I was having "merely" the brilliantly executed approximation of a dream. "Ein Schwert zwischen uns," I immediately thought, and felt yanked back into drab, sober reality. Unlike Fridolin, my grasp on this theatrical, not psychical, sword reminded me that this is, in fact, just delightful artifice. But it is also not paradoxical that this moment, perhaps the most powerful so far in my exploration of the McKittrick Hotel, accounts for why I think so highly of this production. Ordinarily, the fourth wall is the front of the stage and the edge of your seat. Here, I find myself reaching the boundary of reality and performance only fleetingly, and in the most surprising and captivating of ways.

[lboogie1906]

Onesimus (the late 1600s–1700s) was an African born man who helped mitigate the impact of a smallpox outbreak in Boston. He was enslaved by Puritan minister Cotton Mather, he introduced Mather to the principle and procedure of inoculation. Mather used this knowledge to successfully advocate for inoculation in the population. In a 2016 Boston Magazine survey, he was declared one of the “Best Bostonians of All Time”.

When Boston experienced a smallpox outbreak in 1721, Mather cited him and his people as the source of the procedure. He had described to Mather the process of inoculation that had been performed on him and others in his society in Africa “People take Juice of Small-Pox; and Cutty-skin, and Putt in a Drop.” The variolation method of inoculation was long practiced in Africa among sub-Saharan people. The practice was widespread among Colonial slaves from many regions of Africa and, throughout the slave trade in the Americas, slave communities continued the practice of inoculation despite regional origin. Mather followed his medicinal advice because, as he wrote, “inferiority had not yet been indelibly written onto the bodies of Africans.” He and Mather believed that disease, specifically smallpox, was a spiritual and physical punishment, so Mather saw a cure as God’s “providential gift”, as well as a means of receiving recognition from New England society and re-establishing the influence of religious figures in politics. Boston and London, respectively, performed trials on citizens and, on average, inoculation decreased the mortality rate from 17% to 2% of the infected population.

The inoculation methodology he introduced was replaced by the development of vaccination for smallpox and cowpox. Vaccination became compulsory in Wales and England and variolation became banned for its side effects. The World Health Organization declared that smallpox had been eradicated due to global immunization efforts, making the disease the first and only infectious disease to have been wiped out.

He earned independent wages and afforded a household for his wife and two children, both of whom died before they were ten years old. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

[digitaldetoxworld]

Poverty Alleviation Of India Pathway To A More Equitable

 Poverty Alleviation Of India  remedy is one of the most urgent challenges faced by way of societies throughout the globe. It refers to the efforts, policies, and strategies designed to lessen or take away poverty, permitting individuals and communities to break unfastened from the cycle of deprivation. Despite worldwide advancements, over seven-hundred million people nonetheless live in excessive poverty, surviving on much less than $1.90 a day according to the World Bank. Alleviating poverty is not just about growing earnings; it involves enhancing access to schooling, healthcare, decent housing, clean water, and primary rights. Addressing poverty comprehensively is vital for fostering social fairness, enhancing health consequences, and promoting sustainable development.

Understanding the Root Causes of Poverty

To effectively deal with poverty, it's miles vital to recognize its root reasons. Poverty is usually a result of numerous interlinked factors, such as:

Lack of Access to Education: 

Education is a powerful device for breaking the poverty cycle. Those without get entry to to nice training frequently battle to secure well-paying jobs, perpetuating generational poverty.

Unemployment and Underemployment:

 Economic instability, activity marketplace fluctuations, and a lack of task opportunities are direct participants to poverty. In many developing nations, even folks that are hired earn low wages which can be insufficient to fulfill primary wishes.

Poor Health and Lack of Healthcare Access: 

Health crises can push people and households deeper into poverty, specially in international locations with out customary healthcare. Chronic illnesses, disabilities, or unaffordable medical costs force families to spend their confined sources, leaving them prone.

Inequality: 

Social, gender, and monetary inequalities make a contribution to uneven get entry to to sources, opportunities, and rights. Marginalized businesses, inclusive of women, ethnic minorities, and people with disabilities, frequently face additional obstacles to escaping poverty.

Environmental Factors: 

Natural failures, weather trade, and environmental degradation disproportionately affect poorer communities, mainly those that depend on agriculture. Droughts, floods, and meals insecurity can ruin livelihoods, forcing human beings into poverty.

Political Instability and Conflict: 

Regions laid low with conflict, political instability, and corruption frequently enjoy excessive poverty rates. The destruction of infrastructure, loss of jobs, and displacement of populations exacerbate poverty in war zones.

Key Strategies for Poverty Alleviation

There are severa techniques and techniques to alleviate poverty, each tailor-made to address the particular causes and demanding situations confronted by impoverished groups. Below are a number of the simplest methods:

 Education and Skills Development

Education is often considered the maximum powerful weapon to combat poverty. Investing in education equips people with the abilities they want to go into the body of workers and improve their earning capacity.

Universal Primary Education: 

Providing free and compulsory primary education is critical in breaking the cycle of poverty. Ensuring that youngsters, especially girls and marginalized groups, have get right of entry to to first-rate schooling empowers them to steady better possibilities in the future.

Vocational Training and Skills Development: 

In addition to formal education, vocational education programs can assist individuals expand marketable talents in fields inclusive of agriculture, technology, and change. Skills development permits people to get right of entry to higher-paying jobs and begin small businesses.

 Employment Opportunities and Economic Growth

Creating employment opportunities is vital to poverty comfort. Governments and international businesses must paintings collectively to foster economic boom, spend money on industries that may create jobs, and sell entrepreneurship.

Microfinance and Small Business Support: 

Microfinance programs offer small loans to people in poverty to help them begin or make bigger small groups. These tasks are specifically beneficial for girls and rural populations, who regularly lack access to traditional banking services.

Job Creation Programs: 

Governments can put in force public works packages to offer short-term employment, especially in areas with excessive unemployment costs. These programs can also contribute to building infrastructure, including roads, colleges, and healthcare facilities, benefiting entire communities.

 Healthcare Access and Social Protection

Access to lower priced healthcare is essential for maintaining individuals and households out of poverty. Health crises are a extensive cause of impoverishment, mainly in countries with out comprehensive healthcare structures.

Universal Healthcare: 

Providing loose or lower priced healthcare to all citizens reduces the financial burden of scientific expenses, enabling households to allocate their resources towards other requirements like training and meals.

Social Protection Programs: 

Social protection measures, which includes unemployment benefits, meals help, and pensions, assist cushion the impact of poverty on prone populations. These applications provide a protection net for individuals in the course of instances of financial complication or health crises.

Agriculture and Rural Development

Agriculture remains the primary supply of earnings for lots humans residing in poverty, mainly in developing countries. Improving agricultural productivity and rural infrastructure can drastically enhance the livelihoods of rural populations.

Sustainable Farming Practices: 

Training farmers in sustainable agriculture strategies, along with crop rotation and water conservation, can assist growth meals production and reduce the environmental effect of farming. Sustainable practices make certain lengthy-time period meals security and profits stability.

Access to Markets: 

Providing smallholder farmers with get admission to to markets, generation, and economic services allows them to promote their produce at honest fees, enhancing their earnings and standard of living.

 Empowering Marginalized Groups

Marginalized businesses, along with girls, indigenous peoples, and people residing with disabilities, are often disproportionately suffering from poverty. To correctly combat poverty, techniques ought to cope with the precise challenges confronted via these populations.

Gender Equality

Empowering ladies thru training, employment opportunities, and get entry to to healthcare extensively reduces poverty. Women who're economically empowered make investments extra of their households and groups, breaking the cycle of poverty.

Inclusive Policies:

 Governments ought to implement inclusive policies that shield the rights and get admission to to services for marginalized companies. This consists of making sure that those groups have a voice in policy-making and improvement initiatives.

 Sustainable Development and Climate Resilience

Environmental sustainability and poverty alleviation are interconnected. Climate change and environmental degradation disproportionately affect impoverished communities, in particular the ones reliant on agriculture or herbal resources for their livelihoods.

Investing in Green Technologies: 

Developing inexperienced technology and renewable electricity assets can create jobs at the same time as lowering environmental harm. These industries additionally provide sustainable, lengthy-term answers to electricity access in impoverished regions.

Climate-Resilient Infrastructure: 

Governments can put money into infrastructure that is designed to withstand herbal failures, lowering the vulnerability of groups to weather-related shocks.

Global Efforts Toward Poverty Alleviation

Poverty comfort is not only a local or national problem; it calls for international cooperation and collaboration. Numerous international businesses, such as the United Nations (UN), the World Bank, and non-governmental agencies (NGOs), are operating together to address poverty on a worldwide scale.

 The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

In 2015, the UN mounted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a hard and fast of 17 international goals aimed at addressing a huge range of social, financial, and environmental problems through 2030. The first of these desires is to "End poverty in all its paperwork everywhere." Achieving this purpose involves reducing the range of people living in excessive poverty, imparting get right of entry to to critical offerings, and selling sustainable monetary growth.

International Aid and Development Assistance

Foreign useful resource and improvement assistance from wealthier countries play a important position in poverty alleviation. These price range are frequently directed toward building infrastructure, enhancing healthcare structures, and supporting training projects in developing international locations.

NGO and Grassroots Initiatives

Causes OF Poverty Alleviations  and grassroots businesses are essential actors inside the combat against poverty. These agencies paintings immediately with groups to offer instant comfort, inclusive of food, safe haven, and healthcare, at the same time as additionally implementing lengthy-time period development projects aimed toward improving livelihoods and fostering economic growth.

[chaoticneurodivergent]

Ok I'm so pissed at this point that I have to make a Tumblr post about this. Reasons nobody should take IQ seriously (as a measurement of a person's intelligence):

* Warning this will be long because I'm pissed off in 7 dimensions

1. The French

It hasn't always been taken for granted that intelligence can be tested and measured in numerical form. The French are to blame for that (sorry France). In 1904, the Ministry of Public Instruction of France made primary school compulsory. The easiest obvious method for sorting the massive influx of new students into class years was by age. However, prior to 1904, a massive percentage of French children had not been schooled at all or not been consistently schooled, so age was not a reliable predictor of knowledge / education level. So the French government sponsored a man named Alfred Binet, along with his partner, Theodore Simon, to create a test that could sort children based on their school-readiness.

The Binet-Simon scale was not originally designed to assign children an IQ number (with the average being 100), but instead, a mental age. The children would be placed into a school grade corresponding to their mental age, as determined by the "intelligence" test. Now you'd think that it would be obvious to everyone involved that students coming from backgrounds with little to no literacy and education would get lower scores and be placed into lower grades, regardless of how much potential they had at birth. But this was not the case. Many conflated intelligence with performance.

Binet realized that intelligence is complicated and multi-faceted and can't be perfectly studied in a quantitative way. He admitted his tests were limited. Second of all, he realized that environment plays a huge role in intellectual development, and he realized that delays in intellectual development could be repaired (they are not necessarily inherently a part of a person). The goal of his test, after all, was not to score children, but to sort them into the education system. Unfortunately, as the 20th century progressed, eugenics and its array of awful ideas became widely popular, and many successors were more interested in how they could use his test and his ideas to determine people's value and worth than they were in truth.

2. Yes, intelligence is a social construct

We decide what intelligence means. It's based on what our culture values. If we want an IQ test that we are designing to measure intelligence accurately, we first have to decide what is and is not a part of intelligence.

On a wide level, this includes questions like: Should social and emotional skills be measured? (Our culture says no). Should the kind of thinking necessary for motor coordination and quick thinking in athletics be measured? (Our culture says no). How about skills specifically involved in literacy? (Remember, until very recently, the vast majority of humans on earth were not literate, and the vast majority of cultures would not have valued those skills).

On a narrow level, this includes questions like: If we want to test quantitative reasoning (so roughly, math intelligence), should we be testing mental math skills (whether you can do 56 x 17 quickly in your head), or more abstract math skills, like those necessary for understanding a calculus class when you have a calculator in front of you? Should we test general knowledge? (The WAIS, the most common professionally administered IQ test today, does have a general knowledge section, which includes questions such as, who was the president during X war)? If so, how do we account for differences in exposure to information?

There is no such thing as intelligence outside of what we decide it is. There are so many skills we arbitrarily choose to include or not include. And when we measure whether our IQ tests are accurate, we can only do so by comparing those tests to other tests (which probably also come from our culture) or by measuring how well they predict success in some other environment, like school (which isn't a very objective way of measuring intelligence).

3. Neurodiversity and "general" intelligence

Finally, the entire concept of IQ as it exists today centers on a major hypothesis: For most people, there is a general intelligence across all categories that can be summarized with a single number. This is the only way we can justify giving somebody a test that has them identify patterns (for example, the Raven inventory, another highly credited IQ test) and then make a claim about their entire intelligence. We make this assumption because of something called the G factor, which is basically the level of correlation between measured intelligence in one area (using X set of skills) and another area (using Y set of skills). The higher the G factor, the more correlation there is between skill in one area and skill in another area. And there's a lot of research suggesting that in most people, that correlation is pretty high. The problem word here: Most.

Much of psychology focuses on the abnormal (in popular interest as well as in research). When people talk about IQ, they're rarely interested in Suzie who scored a 105. They're interested in those scoring in the margins. They're interested in intellectual disability, learning disabilities, and "giftedness." And while IQ admittedly is a useful tool for identifying certain fringe cases, such as disabilities and those with certain exceptional skills, we quickly run into a problem here.

If you're Autistic there's a decent chance you've heard phrases like "spiky profile," "splinter skills," or "uneven cognitive profile." Essentially, if you're Autistic, there's a pretty high chance all your cognitive skills don't cluster around one measurable number, and IQ tests with massive differences in scores on different sections are pretty common for Autistic people (take me as Exhibit A). And that's just Autism. Take any learning disability and you'll very quickly realize why this is such a problem. If somebody can be in the 99th percentile in one area on a test and the 10th percentile in another, there's not much point in trying to give them a summary intelligence score. Neurodiversity, as a concept, can't really coexist with the idea that each person has an intelligence number that all their skills cluster around.

So yeah, basically IQ, as a way of "objectively" measuring someone's intelligence, is 2 degrees shy of idea mush.

Ok that was long my God if you read this all, I appreciate your patience and have a nice day. Of course this is all my opinion and I'm interested to hear differing ones.