#market complex construction

[townpostin]

Cows Killed in Shed Collapse at Jugsalai Goshala

Shed collapses at Jugsalai Goshala due to nearby construction; two cows dead, several injured. A shed collapse at Jugsalai Goshala, caused by nearby construction, results in the death of two cows and injuries to others. JAMSHEDPUR – A shed collapse at Jugsalai Goshala, caused by nearby construction, results in the death of two cows and injuries to others. In the early hours of the morning, around…

[hearditinapastlife2019]

are you jokinggggg an iconic piece of architecture in my city (not good but iconic anyways) was bought up and slated for demo to build condos and now the project is on hold because the housing market is bad. yayyyy more abandoned buildings downtown yayyyyy trying to build luxury condos when there’s a tent city in every park in the city yayyyy closing local businesses instead of trying economic reinvigoration strategies only for the former site of those local businesses to sit vacant for probably years yayyyy no consequences for developers

[writers-potion]

I'm writing a sci-fi story about a space freight hauler with a heavy focus on the economy. Any tips for writing a complex fictional economy and all of it's intricacies and inner-workings?

Constructing a Fictional Economy

The economy is all about: How is the limited financial/natural/human resources distributed between various parties?

So, the most important question you should be able to answer are:

Who are the "have"s and "have-not"s?

What's "expensive" and what's "commonplace"?

What are the rules(laws, taxes, trade) of this game?

Building Blocks of the Economic System

Type of economic system. Even if your fictional economy is made up, it will need to be based on the existing systems: capitalism, socialism, mixed economies, feudalism, barter, etc.

Currency and monetary systems: the currency can be in various forms like gols, silver, digital, fiat, other commodity, etc. Estalish a central bank (or equivalent) responsible for monetary policy

Exchange rates

Inflation

Domestic and International trade: Trade policies and treaties. Transportation, communication infrastructure

Labour and employment: labor force trends, employment opportunities, workers rights. Consider the role of education, training and skill development in the labour market

The government's role: Fiscal policy(tax rate?), market regulation, social welfare, pension plans, etc.

Impact of Technology: Examine the role of tech in productivity, automation and job displacement. How does the digital economy and e-commerce shape the world?

Economic history: what are some historical events (like The Great Depresion and the 2008 Housing Crisis) that left lasting impacts on the psychologial workings of your economy?

For a comprehensive economic system, you'll need to consider ideally all of the above. However, depending on the characteristics of your country, you will need to concentrate on some more than others. i.e. a country heavily dependent on exports will care a lot more about the exchange rate and how to keep it stable.

For Fantasy Economies:

Social status: The haves and have-nots in fantasy world will be much more clear-cut, often with little room for movement up and down the socioeconoic ladder.

Scaricity. What is a resource that is hard to come by?

Geographical Characteristics: The setting will play a huge role in deciding what your country has and doesn't. Mountains and seas will determine time and cost of trade. Climatic conditions will determine shelf life of food items.

Impact of Magic: Magic can determine the cost of obtaining certain commodities. How does teleportation magic impact trade?

For Sci-Fi Economies Related to Space Exploration

Thankfully, space exploitation is slowly becoming a reality, we can now identify the factors we'll need to consider:

Economics of space waste: How large is the space waste problem? Is it recycled or resold? Any regulations about disposing of space wste?

New Energy: Is there any new clean energy? Is energy scarce?

Investors: Who/which country are the giants of space travel?

Ownership: Who "owns" space? How do you draw the borders between territories in space?

New class of workers: How are people working in space treated? Skilled or unskilled?

Relationship between space and Earth: Are resources mined in space and brought back to Earth, or is there a plan to live in space permanently?

What are some new professional niches?

What's the military implication of space exploitation? What new weapons, networks and spying techniques?

Also, consider:

Impact of space travel on food security, gender equality, racial equality

Impact of space travel on education.

Impact of space travel on the entertainment industry. Perhaps shooting monters in space isn't just a virtual thing anymore?

What are some indsutries that decline due to space travel?

I suggest reading up the Economic Impact Report from NASA, and futuristic reports from business consultants like McKinsey.

If space exploitation is a relatiely new technology that not everyone has access to, the workings of the economy will be skewed to benefit large investors and tech giants. As more regulations appear and prices go down, it will be further be integrated into the various industries, eventually becoming a new style of living.

[architectureofdoom]

Lake ‘bullicante’ and the anarchy of nature, Dario Li Gioi.

"In 1954, the Snia-Viscosa closed its operations for good. This area of Italy’s capital suddenly came to experience an unusual calm, with nature becoming the sole guardian of over one hundred thousand square meters of land for decades.

It was not until the early 1990s, after it was put on the market, that a new, possible future of this place began to take shape. The way it happened was completely unexpected: during excavation works for the construction of a shopping centre, the real estate company Ponente 1978’s bulldozers damaged one of the acquifers of a nearby volcanic complex. Water began to gush from the ground incessantly; water in such abundance that it filled the hollow created by the diggers.

On that day, in the area of the former Snia Viscosa factory, a lake was born. The locals called it lago bullicante (literally, ‘the boiling lake’), in reference to the sulphurous emissions that would make these once subterranean waters bubble. From that construction accident, where nature hurriedly covered the space created by human activity, what remains today is the concrete skeleton of what was conceived as a parking lot. It emerges from the water, surrounded by a thicket of locust trees, willows, and impenetrable marsh reeds."

[marxism-transgenderism]

RACIAL CAPITALISM: THE NONOBJECTIVE CHARACTER OF CAPITALIST DEVELOPMENT

The historical development of world capitalism was influenced in a most fundamental way by the particularistic forces of racism and nationalism. This could only be true if the social, psychological, and cultural origins of racism and nationalism both anticipated capitalism in time and formed a piece with those events that contributed directly to its organization of production and exchange. Feudal society is the key. More particularly, the antagonistic commitments, structures, and ambitions that feudal society encompassed are better conceptualized as those of a developing civilization than as elements of a unified tradition.

The processes through which the world system emerged contained an opposition between the rationalistic thrusts of an economistic worldview and the political momenta of collectivist logic. The feudal state, an instrument of signal importance to the bourgeoisie, was to prove to be as consistently antithetical to the commercial integration represented by a world system as it had to the idea of Christendom. Neither the state nor later the nation could slough off the particularistic psychologies and interests that served as contradictions to a global community. A primary consequence of the conflict between those two social tendencies was that capitalists, as the architects of this system, never achieved the coherence of structure and organization that had been the promise of capitalism as an objective system. On the contrary, the history of capitalism has in no way distinguished itself from earlier eras with respect to wars, material crises, and social conflicts. A secondary consequence is that the critique of capitalism, to the extent that its protagonists have based their analyses upon the presumption of a determinant economic rationality in the development and expansion of capitalism, has been characterized by an incapacity to come to terms with the world system’s direction of developments. Marxism, the dominant form that the critique of capitalism has assumed in Western thought, incorporated theoretical and ideological weaknesses that stemmed from the same social forces that provided the bases of capitalist formation.

The creation of capitalism was much more than a matter of the displacement of feudal modes and relations of production by capitalist ones. Certainly, the transformation of the economic structures of noncapitalist Europe (specifically the Mediterranean and western European market, trade, and production systems) into capitalist forms of production and exchange was a major part of this process. Still, the first appearance of capitalism in the fifteenth century involved other dynamics as well. The social, cultural, political, and ideological complexes of European feudalisms contributed more to capitalism than the social “fetters” that precipitated the bourgeoisie into social and political revolutions. No class was its own creation. Indeed, capitalism was less a catastrophic revolution (negation) of feudalist social orders than the extension of these social relations into the larger tapestry of the modern world’s political and economic relations. Historically, the civilization evolving in the western extremities of the Asian/European continent, and whose first signification is medieval Europe, passed with few disjunctions from feudalism as the dominant mode of production to capitalism as the dominant mode of production. And from its very beginnings, this European civilization, containing racial, tribal, linguistic, and regional particularities, was constructed on antagonistic differences.

— Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism: The Making of The Black Radical Tradition

[lillified]

I love your versions of the decepticons but I do have a question! I honestly love tarn and his brooding nature, so I wanted to know what happened to him? Why’s his face absolutely destroyed and why does he hate megatron,,?

hey, that’s a good question! I believe I’ve answered something similar in the past re: Tarn’s deal, but I can rephrase it again+give some additional context below the cut!

Tarn and Megatron have a very similar background. Both come from low-caste professions (Megatron, obviously, a miner, and Tarn a construction hauler) and both became gladiators to an impressive degree of celebrity. Tarn was an artist in his own right, being a musician and composer (which wasn’t as broadly commercially appealing as Megatron’s writer-artist repertoire, but certainly attracted its fans).

On Cybertron, gladiators have their own sort of “stardom.” Regular audiences aren’t just invested in the sport, but the story behind it, and so the performers become “characters” in themselves. Established fighters often have a dedicated fanbase, lore, and even “managers” or “agents” to manage that public persona. These “careers” can be lucrative, but, unsurprisingly, very brief.

In his heyday, Tarn was everything the gladiator celebrity complex favors: young, charismatic, attractive, skilled, and, above all, marketable. The music he made enhanced his character, and, in turn, his gladiatorial feats promoted his music. He found a degree of purpose in his popularity.

Tarn’s era of celebrity ended when, in his closest match, he lost his face. He survived, but this spoiling took away the foremost aspect of his fame—his identity (in the past I’ve talked about the culture around faces and their irreplaceability, which applies here). Having no choice but to wear a pit mask to protect his exposed interior, he gradually faded out of popularity, in favor of the new wave of rising stars. Over time his music lost its audience and he became cemented in the second rate.

When Megatronus came along, she was quick to gain notoriety for the same reasons Tarn had, with a very similar audience. It was almost natural that she would fill the same niche, with a similar backstory, skillset, and audience appeal. Tarn immediately became jealous, but also couldn’t resist the familiar pull of a world he’d been unceremoniously excommunicated from: in Megatron, he found a way to live vicariously, and quickly began to see her as some parallel proxy for his lost ambitions. All gladiator friendships are underscored by a sort of tired acceptance of impending doom, but, in Tarn’s case, he abused their gallows goodwill to be an extremely two-faced fairweather friend.

Though they certainly shared some traits, Megatron and Tarn were notably different. Where Tarn found earnest purpose in his success, Megatron resented her popularity, engaging with her high society pass with cynical disdain. She invited scandal and scorned the whole scheme until she could use it to get what she wanted. Tarn frequently scolded her for her shallowness, but envied her and the attention she received immensely. This resentment only ever festered and grew.

Internally, Tarn’s wish has always been to witness Megatron’s downfall, and to indulge in her suffering. As his proxy, he will only ever be satisfied to know that she is more miserable than him. The only things preventing him from killing or hurting her directly were his deep desire to live her life, and his own utter hollowness and insecurity.

[msbarrybeeson]

Before You Go | Future Donnie & April Insight (Part VI)

(Reader Included)

A/N: Any constructive criticism is appreciated. Reader comments and feedback are also welcomed a lot. 

I have been gone for a long time. Just occupied with my studies! No fan fiction author curse or anything (yet).

Summary: You’re both adopting-parents of Casey. The story follows the perspective of Donatello and April O’Neil during the Kraang apocalypse. You and Leonardo decided to ask them to watch over thirteen-year-old Casey.

In other words, familial interactions between April, Donnie, and Casey Jr.

Reader: Gender-neutral pronouns are used, except the terms “(Mom / Dad)” are also used. Second POV.

Pairing: Rise! Future! Leonardo X Reader

Warnings: Bittersweet.

Word Count:  ~3490

Parts: One / Two / Three / Four / Five / Six / ...

~

Donnie knew how much of a genius he was.

It was no surprise after all. In his late teens, he improved NASA’s satellites to communicate with planets light centuries away. He cured breast cancer through the use of protons in radiation therapy to target specific cells, rather than affecting the harmless. Hell, he even managed to discover a new type of radioactive particles: mutons. By that point, he—.

“—should have been given a Nobel Prize in Medicine and in Chemistry.” Donnie cursed under his breath. He strolled over to his lab bench, equipping his goggles.

Squeeeak. 

April– who was found seated on Donnie’s roughed-up, spinning gaming chair– raised an eyebrow. Her hair had grown out and was left unbounded. Faint wrinkles and eye bags on her features displayed maturity, in contrast to a couple of years ago. However, everyone was well aware that time was not the only factor. 

“Whatcha going on about now, Donnie?”

The softshell huffed. “Recall when I wrote a report about my experimental findings with an invention meant to revive a deceased human being?”

“...You mean the one where you thought it was a good idea to open up Curie’s tomb? Even gone as far as to ask for my help?” April grimaced. “Who’d ever forget that.”

She proceeded to massage her temples. 

“God. You were in all kinds of messed up for that, Don.”

Lightning-like yellow sparks flickered as Donnie had his robotic hands occupied with a butane torch. His goggles were sealed tight around his eyes as he built a oval-looking device on his lab bench. Titanium outer-layer over a seriously complex circuit-board; appearing as if Samsung marketed grenades.

He scoffed. “Oh please. It wasn’t as if I’d taken long to understand how Marie Curie deserves her rest for her great contributions to radiation. Thus is why–.”

“–You decided to take a poor random husband of an old wife,” April interjected.

“Ahem.” Donnie pronounced. “The poor woman was begging me for her husband to be alive again. I was simply gracious and generous enough to not charge her for the process.” He set aside the butane torch. “At least it progressed well; he stayed alive for an additional two years. It gave his wife psychological comfort, and I was able to submit my paper to the N.S.F..” 

He picked up a screwdriver. “Except....” 

April could tell her friend’s eye was twitching. 

“They rejected my findings, nearly had me detained, and claimed it was far too ‘unethical.’” Donnie raised his volume. “Scoff! As if those researchers weren’t committing the crime themselves! Taking bodies away from families and claiming them as scientific property without permission.

If I could go back in time and shove my documents in their jaws, you bet I would.”

April smirked. “Well, I have my regrets too, Donnie.”

“You sound rather amused, April. Is that so surprising? And here I never thought you would regret your part-time job at Albearto’s. Or the fact you wasted money to switch to journalism in university.”

WHACK!

April threw her bat at Donnie’s head, flying back to her hand like a boomerang.

“Watch your mouth, mister. I may have regretted Albearto’s, but not a single moment in my life did I ever regret my journalism passion.” She stood up.

“Ouch.” The softshell vocalized, squinting his eyes toward her. His robotic clampers paused, setting aside the torch and taking off his goggles. 

“Mind yourself, April. Horse-playing is forbidden in the laboratory. I am not consenting to having yet another silver-titanium apparatus get scratched because of you.” Donnie gritted his teeth. “Can you hear the negative connotation?”

“Seriously, Donnie? Where’d that come from? Not only was that years ago but it ain’t anything except a simple accident.” 

“‘Simple accident?’” the softshell repeated with dramatic offense. “An accident, like many others in science labs, which could have caused severe damage! Remember the incident when your teacher dumped bleach and vinegar into the trash bin?

You know, if you had paid any attention in your chemistry class, those two would make mustard gas?” Donnie side-eyed his friend. “Simple accidents can have serious consequences, O’Neil.”

A hand crept up the lab bench.

“Uh-huh, and I’m supposed to believe an instance of me knocking over your phone and books would kill somebody?” April crossed her arms. “If anything, the blame’s yours for not organizing your desk when you got drunk on coffee.”

The hand took ahold of the butane torch.

“Donatello? Disorganized? Sounds cheap coming from you, a student majoring in Journalism.”

April pulled up her coat’s sleeves. “Oh boy, you’re about to get it—.”

Squeeeak!

Heads spun and found a 13-year old boy, replacing April’s spot on Donnie’s chair. Casey eyed the torch with a great yet concerning amount of curiosity.

“Yo, what’s this for, Uncle Don?”

At lightning speed, while April ran to move the gaming chair away further from the workbench, Donnie snatched the tool from his hands. “Child. Casey. Young man.” The softshell heaved loudly. “I must inform you this is NOT meant to be handled with such casual ease. How in Hawking did you even—.”

“Don’t your lab have a passcode or something?” 

“–Is what I am wondering myself, O’Neil. I refuse to believe this child remembers the beginning thirty numbers of π–.”

“Nope, only us.” April and Donnie lifted their gazes to his lab entrance. You leaned on the frame while a dear red-eared slider stood just behind. A couple of steps inside, and the metallic lab door shut close. 

Donnie– strangely– was quick to hide his device-in-progress off to the side.

“You’re back!” April grinned. “Hell, you would not believe the convo Donnie and I were having a minute ago.” She hurried to hug you.

“Figures,” Leo remarked. “We could practically hear you yards off.”

“Sounds like things never get old.” You smiled.

There was a side-eye between Donnie and April, before the Commander proceeded to inquire, coughing: “Anyhow.. care to explain the occasion? You two don’t seem to be in a hurry.”

“The only times you ever visit my laboratory are to prepare for immediate combat engagement, and you look awfully collected.” The softshell furrowed his brows.

“No, no.” You waved your hands, shaking your head. “Thank God no. We came here to ask if you two could take care of our Casey here while we head out.” The other turtle scrunched his in-quote eyebrows. “You— You came here to request us to... babysit him?”

April jabbed him in his plastron.

“You see? Just like I said.” Leo turned to you. “I know my brother, love. Don’s not the kind of guy to take responsibility for a kid. Or anyone, really.”

“Hold on.” Donnie narrowed his eyes. “I never said I refused, Leo.”

“Don’t know, it sounds like it to me.”

“Well, my misinformed brother, contrary to your belief, I am perfectly capable of handling a child.”

You huffed with amusement. Your husband only winked back.

“If you say so, Don.”

“Where are you two heading off for if you needed us to watch over him?” April inquired. “Wondering, ‘cause this never happened even when you two leave for patrol.”

“Just finding some time for ourselves.”

April exclaimed, “As in a honeymoon? Why not just say so? We’ll leave you two alone–.”

“–In this economy and climate?” Donnie interjected. “Has it also not been six years since your yet-to-be-legal marriage?”

“Alright, alright,” Leonardo chuckled. “Cut us some slack, bro. Finding time wasn’t easy when there’s Kraang above our necks.”

“Right, and you’re going on a honeymoon, how?” The softshell crossed his arms. “Simply because you’re the leader does not equate to you making wise decisions, Leo.”

“His ōdachi can teleport anyone to anyplace, we have some hope we can easily teleport to a remote area,” you answered. “One without Kraang infestation. It’ll be hard, but we may as well try.”

“Bonus points if we find clear skies and an ocean.” The red-eared turtle grinned, wrapping his arm over your shoulders.

“What’s a honeymoon, (Mom / Dad)?”

Your hand went to caress Casey’s cheek. “Parent quality time. It just means you get to handle yourself like the responsible grown-up you’ll become one day. Just promise me you’ll be on your best behavior around Uncle Don and Auntie April?”

“I promise, (Mom / Dad)!”

“Good boy,” Leo laughed, ruffling the kid’s hair.

“You didn’t ask Mikey and Raph to help out too, or?”

“Between you and me, I think you guys are better of making sure Casey doesn’t get into any chaos,” you whispered to April. “Don’t tell them that, though.”

She laughed. “Okay, I see how it is. You both have fun.” 

Donnie bit his lip. Right as Leonardo and (Name) turn to exit the laboratory, he extended his arm out to them.

“Leo, (Name).”

You two faced back to him once more.

“Don’t kill yourselves out there.”

Everyone’s eyes widened– April, you, and Leonardo himself. But the brother in blue snickered, holding a smile that reached his eyes. “So you do also care for me, Don. And all this time I thought you were plotting to put me in my grave or something.”

“We won’t.” Leo placed a hand on your shoulder. “You got my word.”

“Bye (Mom / Dad)! Bye Papa!”

“We’ll be back soon, Casey!”

Donnie stood in silence as you finally left, leaving himself with none other than his best friend and his nephew. “I refuse to believe this is the future we have to deal with.”

“Times changed all of us, didn’t they?” April spoke. “One day we wish each other a good one, and the next, we hope we just don’t die. I could’ve been a famous news anchor by now, make my mother happy, fight crime without worrying about dying the next second.

..I wonder if there’s anyone else out there besides the small number of us down here.”

“..I doubt it.”

Donnie pulled himself together and walked back to his workbench, operating his clampers to work once again. He put on his goggles. Casey, being a young teenager of enthusiasm, peeked over.

“Watch yourself, boy,” April warned.

“Don’t worry about me, Auntie. I’m only standing over here.” Casey narrowed his eyes upon the glowing and metal-like ball his uncle had his tools on. “What are you working on, Uncle Don?”

“A sphere.”

“A sphere?”

“You heard correctly.”

“That sounds kind of boring.”

Donnie had to hold himself back from remarking with: ‘That is exactly what every child whose intellect is doomed would say.’

“I’m sure your mother would find it rather moving.”

“(Mom / Dad)? I don’t understand what’s emotional about a ball, though.”

“Hey Casey.” April coughed. “Why not tell us about your mask here? Haven’t taken a good look at it before. Maybe Uncle Don would like to hear it too.”

“You actually want me to talk about my mask?”

“Ain’t a problem, is it?”

“No.” He fidgeted with his fingers a bit. “You don’t have anything else to do?”

“We were just told to watch over you, kid.”

“Yeah, but everyone I know is always busy with the Kraang or supplying weapons. I never really get chances to hang out.”

There was a brief pause in the butane torch’s flame.

April’s expression softened. Her hand came up to brush his black hair. “Things have gotten calmer up there. So you’ve got plenty of time with us now.”

Casey smiled.

“So your mask?” 

The boy alternated between covering his face and removing it. “(Mom / Dad) gave it to me. She told me it is based on the one worn by my biological mother. (Mom / Dad) also said that my birth mother was kind of crazy-funny and likes to be loud. She would have a stick to play– what was it– hockey?

I don’t know what kind of game hockey is supposed to be, but I guess it’s nice to know how life was like before all the Kraang.”

A sad smile crept on April’s lips. 

“Anyways, I thought the mask looked kind of plain, so I decided to draw red marks on it. See?” Casey showed his mask off, fingers tapping the surface. “Guess who it looks like!”

There were two bold and thick streaks of red. Each one ran through one eye, truly a defining characteristic. The Commander chuckled, already imagining how much pride her friend in blue would feel from the fact a kid– let alone one he had been parenting– looked up to him so much.

“You know, I am seeing someone familiar here.” April hummed as she put on a thoughtful facade. Fingers holding her chin and everything. “Got to be Uncle Don.”

Named turtle paused for a moment and raised a brow.

“Seriously, Auntie April?” On the other hand, Casey gave her an incredulous look and shook his head. “You probably want to get your eyes checked out, ‘cause Uncle Don doesn’t have any red stripes.” Off to the side. “And even if he did, he won’t look as cool as Dad.”

April snickered behind her palm as Donnie eyed the boy from behind his goggles.

“You’re right, you’re right. Just messing with you, kid.” Her hand ruffled his hair once more. “Sounds like you really admire your Papa, don’t you?”

“Why wouldn’t I? Dad has an awesome sword that opens up portals. He always moves so quickly whenever he’s fighting. Bam! And the Kraang’s gone!” The teenager stretched his arm for emphasis. “Even as the leader, Papa knows when to get serious and when to make people laugh. He also cares a lot about me, (Mom / Dad), you guys, and everyone!”

It made even Donnie himself smile. 

However, the way Casey’s enthusiasm died down had not gone unnoticed. “I’ve always wanted to help out though.” He sighed, shoulders slumping. “I want to fight the Kraang right by his and (Mom / Dad)’s side. Except I barely get the chance to, because they keep telling me to stay close to base and hide behind a giant rock.”

April crossed her arms and went quiet. His feelings were nothing new. In fact, she experienced the same thing herself, seeing she had always been a human. It was like that until–.

“Have no hard feelings,” Donnie spoke up, his hands and eyes remained on his spheric gadget. The sparks were flying. “Your parents are merely worried about your well-being.”

“I know, I know. They won’t have to though, if I can have enough training or something.” Casey sighed. “Then again, I also know I’m only a normal sensitive human.

...Why can’t I be a mutant instead?”

“Ahem. You are classified as a human. That is a true statement and one you cannot change.” Donnie hummed. “However, that does not mean you cannot be strong and capable in other ways.”

“Why does it sound like you’ve been in my place before?”

“Perhaps I did. Did you truly think being a soft-shell turtle is easy? I happened to be born as one of the only Testudines species whose outer shell cannot protect.” Donnie remarked. “Casey, your mask.” His hand signaled.

“What about my mask?”

“I merely want to add something.”

Confused, he hopped off the chair and handed the mask over. “Hmm. As long as you don’t mess with the stripes, Uncle Don.”

“Who says I won’t?”

Casey kicked Donnie’s leg.

“‘Ow,’ I say sarcastically without feeling physical pain.”

“Hmph.” He crossed his arms. “Why do you keep saying things like that?”

“Such as?”

“You say those action verbs, even when you’re already doing them.”

April snorted. “Just his thing, kid. Uncle Don’s got his special quirks.”

“Do you have a quirk?”

“Picking unnecessary fights for one,” Donnie commented.

“You only call them ‘unnecessary,’ because you never want to fix the problem.”

He rolled his eyes. “My solution would’ve been ten times more efficient if you had allowed my technology and I to do the work.”

Casey wondered. “Does your tech ever go haywire, Uncle Don?”

“No.”

“Oh man,” April began, “you should’ve been there for this one time. Your Uncle Don was building some kind of overprotective bed to keep your late Gramps from waking up from his beauty sleep.”

“Gramps likes to sleep?”

“You’d be surprised to hear that he sure does.”

“Then what happened?”

“Uncle Don asked your Dad, Uncle Mikey, and Uncle Raph to try punching, slicing, throwing whatever they could on the bed. They were attacking it like crazy!”

“And then?” 

“And the bed was even more insane, ‘cause there were actual missiles shooting out! They went straight for his brothers. At some point, it got overboard, so Uncle Don tried to command it to stop.”

“I’m hearing a ‘but’ coming.”

“But it malfunctioned and thought Uncle Don was the enemy!”

“However!” Donnie pointed his finger up, interrupting the story-telling. “It did not take long for my creation to recognize his master.”

“Still went haywire in my book,” April remarked. 

“Ignoring that.” His robotic hand tapped the edge of his workbench, grabbing Casey’s attention. “Come here, young man.” He slid back the mask, except in his hands, it felt as if the frame had thicken.

“It looks the same, but it doesn’t feel the same?”

“Try wearing it over your face.”

The boy did as told. All of a sudden, a bunch of green rectangles and words appeared in his vision. He gasped in awe. He spun around slowly, watching the rectangle focus on a figure through the wall.

“Yes yes, I know. I am well aware of how amazing I am.” Donnie huffed in pride. “I have opted to construct an interface with your mask. I cannot see why you shouldn’t have something to defend yourself with,” he reasoned. “I have other updates in mind later on. As of now, however, your mask will help you detect life forms across other rooms or through other objects.” 

“That’s so cool!” The boy hesitated though. “But I don’t want to break it or anything.”

“Hey.” April rested her hand on Casey’s shoulder, giving a firm squeeze. “Our resources are already scarce. Using then losing them is better than nothing. You better make the most of our tech. Understood, soldier?”

Casey grinned underneath his mask. He fixed his posture up and saluted. “Gotcha–! Understood, Commander!” 

He faced the inventor, whose hands were already back to being occupied with the “sphere.” “Thanks so much, Uncle Don!” Casey exclaimed, leaping towards the turtle to give a tight hug. “You’re the best!” 

Upon contact, Donnie stiffened up, but his lack of experience with physical touch did not prevent a smile forming on his face. He extended a robotic arm, patting Casey’s back. 

The boy then scanned around curiously with his mask. “Hey! Think I spot Uncle Mikey and Uncle Raph two floors down! They’re holding hands over a table or something. Why are so many people circling around them?”

April rolled her eyes. “Sounds like another arm-wrestling match between the our youngest and oldest brother.” 

Just like that, Casey booked it out of the laboratory so quickly, it reminded her of a certain red-eared slider. “What the–! Casey!” April groaned. “And here I thought we don’t have to deal with runaway kids. I better catch up to him.” 

“Would not worry about him too much,” Donnie commented. 

“What do you mean by that?”

“Considering we will not always be alive to protect him... the sooner we leave him to himself, the easier it will be for him to survive alone.” 

“Hey. Come on now.” April walked to her best friend’s side. “Don’t you say things like that. We’re all going to survive this together–.”

“April.” Slight pain wavered in his voice. “You know as well as I do how our current reality is. It is only a matter of time before the Kraang finds everyone.” 

“Yet you’re still here trying.”

No response.

“It’s all because of the kid, isn’t it?” April affirmed. “He ain’t any genius prodigy you were expecting long ago. But he gave you a reason to try– he became someone worth fighting for.”

“I would not put it as simply as that.”

She shrugged. “That’s how I’d say it. You know you’re not the only one whose life changed because of Casey.”

Donnie paused his work, turning off the butane torch and finally pulling his goggles off his eyes again. “...Casey reminds me of when we were young, being rash and immature teenagers like any other. I hate admitting to such thing, but I was one too. And I hate admitting much more how much I missed those times.

The child has known nothing of the trouble we’ve experienced outside, April: when Cassandra was killed, when Draxum was torn apart, when Dad decided to sacrifice himself despite the slim odds.” His hands clenched into fists.

“Do not expect me to have any false hope for our future, but do not assume I would want Casey to feel the same way. For as long as he can, I want him to hold onto that false hope.”

“...” April had her arms crossed. Her eyes slowly came to linger on the workbench. “Is that ‘sphere’ his false hope?”

“..No. Not his.” Donnie traced his thumb over his contraption. “It’s for (Name).”

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

hello! i didn't want to reblog the post but if you are interested in hearing how/why a specific person (me) cares about Taylor Swift's art, here is a wall of text!

i definitely think it would be hard (impossible) to pick up on this particular element of her appeal by listening to a couple of songs in isolation - it does in fact necessitate the kind of frothing all-in discography-memorizing madness that the fanbase is famous for. she is a woman who has been world famous since she was a literal child (almost 20 years!), and for a lot of that time her music has been a really interesting and increasingly complex project in engaging artistically with that experience from inside of the experience itself - ie, writing palatable, digestible pop songs for a mass market. the narrators and characters in her songs aren't her, but they're in active conversation with her public image - the harpy who dates famous men just to write breakup songs about them, the evil scheming PR mastermind, the stupid lovesick idiot who's just found her 197th soulmate, the bitch who sues everyone, the dumb blonde girl who has no talent and couldn't possibly deserve any of her fame, etc etc. the popular dismissal of Taylor Swift is that she just keeps writing songs about her famous boyfriends, but she's actually writing songs about an insanely famous woman who writes songs about her famous boyfriends, and all of those stories are in turn in conversation with the "true" stories of her experience in the public eye (relationships, lawsuits, public disputes, etc - the majority of which are constructed by the media rather than being "true" in any real sense, you know?). her level of fame means she is uniquely situated to do this, and she does a LOT with it. this is why Swifties seem insane about easter eggs and hidden meanings and clues and layers and hints and cryptic little references - it is rewarding to dig into her art like that because that is the kind of art she makes. it's deeply self-conscious and artificial and manufactured and above all, deliberate. for those who take an interest, there is a lot of fun to be had disentangling the layers. if you don't dig the tunes and aren't interested in playing that game, fair enough, and I absolutely understand getting tired of hearing about her all the time (unfortunately, hearing about her all of the time is part of the project!). but I do feel like the "crazy fanbase" stories are often weaponized as a way to discredit and diminish what is a genuinely interesting and significant facet of her storytelling, and as much as it sounds ridiculous to say this about the richest and most famous pop star in the world, I don't think she gets enough credit for how good she actually is at what she's doing (especially for her use of irony, but it's going to be a whole thesis if I follow that thread.) IN CONCLUSION: sorry to add even more Taylor Swift content to your life, but I just think she's neat.

I still don't get it but I'm glad she provides you with joy.

[brf-rumortrackinganon]

It's a very different world now. 2016 PR shenanigans are not going to work. If they want their PR to be effective at changing public perception, they need to play the 2024 game. But they refuse to.

what would the 2024 game be like?

Old asks from April 2nd. (These came in 5 minutes apart, so grouping them together here.)

So PR is managing reputation/image and relationships. Note that this is a very broad generalization. PR is actually much more complex but we're going to keep it simple here.

"Old" PR is very much about controlling how people perceive you. The celebrity (or the company) develops relationships with journalists and communicates to their audience through those journalists, who are largely using traditional media (e.g., newspapers, magazines, television interviews). There's not much interaction with the audience or if there is, it's very one-way; i.e., the celebrity/brand/company is speaking to the audience via a spokesperson (whether a journalist or an actual representative) and there's no chance for the audience to respond, engage, or interact back.

And when social media is involved, the celebrity is still using social media in an "old" PR kind of way - to send messages directly to their audience but they're still not engaging. It's kind of like the old fan clubs of the '80s and '90s, where if you subscribed, you got the newsletter; the celeb's social media account is the new fan newsletter.

"New" PR has evolved to be more about communications and content marketing and, increasingly, involves more and more crisis management. It prioritizes direct, personal two-way relationships with the audience (so no spokesperson or journalist in the middle), where the celebrity is engaging/interacting with the audience and the audience is engaging/interacting with the celebrity, and largely using new digital media - e.g., social media, podcasts, etc.

More and more nowadays, "new" PR is also about authenticity and transparency. It's still a form of controlling your image, but done correctly, it feels more organic, not as constructed or manufactured. Particularly with the crisis management aspect of "new" PR - that's why we see celebrities making apologies or personal statements directly to their audiences via iNotes screenshots posted on social media (like Dave Grohl's statement today) instead of going through a media rep or a journalist spokesperson.

"New" PR uses social media as storytelling and for content marketing. Celebrities/brands/companies still post photos and messages, but that's not the only thing they're doing with those channels and accounts. They're creating videos, they're producing content, they're interacting with audiences and they're connecting with peers.

But all that said, it's the content of how "new" PR uses social media that has evolved the most, and that's the change I was thinking about when I made those comments about the Sussexes.

Ten years ago, the content celebrities/brands/companies were creating for social media was about and for the celebrity. They were using charities/philanthropy, public appearances, their work (e.g. movies, film, theatre, books, etc.), their brands, their merching to promote or market themselves.

Nowadays, it's mostly the opposite. Celebrities are using their platforms to promote charities, philanthropy, speaking engagements, their work, etc. They're still promoting themselves, it just isn't as obvious and it's more carefully done (especially with new rules for merching and sponsored content).

Now with specific regards to the Sussexes, they're in kind of a weird place. Their media strategy is still very much "old" PR like the BRF - they've courted specific journalists, they communicate to their audiences through spokespeople (whether they're friends or Archewell or journalists), they predominantly use traditional media to communicate, all of the communication is very one-way (no personal or direct engagement with the audience) (Sussex Squad doesn't count), and everything they put out is very controlled.

Their content strategy, which drives their PR and media/audience relations, is still very 2016 in that it's almost exclusively designed to promote and market the Sussexes. There's very little (if any) information about the charities they support, the people they visit, the work they actually do, because all of that is meant to prop up the Sussexes and give them publicity. And that is one of the biggest criticisms they deal with; they're so obsessed with promoting themselves and managing their own images that it sucks all the attention, spotlight, and air from their actual work, such that the legit, real, movers and shakers and king-makers they want to connect with ultimately want nothing to do with them.

The Sussexes are uniquely positioned that they could go full-force into "new" PR with a modern content strategy focused on visual storytelling of their work and their philanthropy and it would be quite successful and innovative - and this is, in fact, what they demanded in the Megxit Manifesto. They wanted to be more "new" PR, to not have to deal with the media, to be able to connect and interact and communicate directly to their audience. But someone somewhere lost the plot - it probably happened when Facebook refused to port over all the bots followers from Sussex Royal IG to whatever their new IG was and they threw a massive "well we're just not going to have social media anymore (which was honestly very much a kiss of death for them, PR-wise and image-wise) - and now we're seeing the Waleses start to do this, so the Waleses are getting the innovative edit.

The videos the Waleses have made (for their 10th anniversary, Earthshot, the coronation, and now Kate's message) is very much "new" PR in terms of a content strategy for engaging and interacting with their audience. That kind of visual storytelling is exactly what social media is today, and look how much more effective that's been for them in terms of PR and image management than relying exclusively on the palace's machinery of press releases and portraits.

They're also using their social media platforms to share their personal statements - while it's certainly not the iNotes screenshot of Hollywood lore, it's still personal and it's still direct to their audience in a way that Buckingham Palace's press releases are not - and they're no longer using favored journalists to release and distribute their photographs. They're still using traditional media (and journalist relationships) to communicate longer-form stories to their audience, but I wouldn't be surprised if we see that start to change when William becomes King.

William and Kate do still need to get a better handle on the crisis management side of "new" PR. They have the right attitude of "never complain, never explain and it all blows over sooner" but they do shoot themselves in the foot, quite a bit, with their approach to work, which affects their crisis management. They tell us all the time that they do a lot of behind-the-scenes work, valuing quality over quantity, and that's why they're not as publicly engaged as we may want or expect them to be, but there's mounting frustration and mounting impatience over a lack of visible, transparent results from that work. And because there's no visibility into that work - no Court Circular records, no behind-the-scenes documentation, no tangible outcomes, no public disclosures, no public engagements - it makes the crises they deal with (well, some of them) really easy to explode into huge maelstroms. That's why it's so easy for Sussex Squad to spread the conspiracy theories and rumors; there's nothing coming from KP to offset it or redirect the narrative because their work is their crisis management strategy. Right now - for perfectly legitimate and valid reasons - because there is no work, there is no crisis management and because there is no crisis management strategy, KP looks, and is, caught with their pants down when these crises do pop up.

My hope is that when Kate is back to full health, whenever that is and however long it may take her, the Waleses do escalate their work and do become more visible with their behind-the-scenes work so that their work truly becomes as effective and as powerful for crisis management as it is for the rest of the BRF. Once they improve their work performance, they'll have a crisis management strategy, which should take the sting out of Sussex Squad's social media attacks.

I think I lost the plot here. Oh, well. It's late. Enjoy the rambling.

So that's the PR paradigm shift, with a little bit of social media evolution. Hopefully that explains things a little better. Remember, this is all VERY boiled-down-and-simplified because PR is so nuanced and complex.

If anyone who actually works in PR or media or communications or crisis management wants to chime in, please do!

[probablyasocialecologist]

These claims of an extinction-level threat come from the very same groups creating the technology, and their warning cries about future dangers is drowning out stories on the harms already occurring. There is an abundance of research documenting how AI systems are being used to steal art, control workers, expand private surveillance, and seek greater profits by replacing workforces with algorithms and underpaid workers in the Global South.

The sleight-of-hand trick shifting the debate to existential threats is a marketing strategy, as Los Angeles Times technology columnist Brian Merchant has pointed out. This is an attempt to generate interest in certain products, dictate the terms of regulation, and protect incumbents as they develop more products or further integrate AI into existing ones. After all, if AI is really so dangerous, then why did Altman threaten to pull OpenAI out of the European Union if it moved ahead with regulation? And why, in the same breath, did Altman propose a system that just so happens to protect incumbents: Only tech firms with enough resources to invest in AI safety should be allowed to develop AI.

[...]

First, the industry represents the culmination of various lines of thought that are deeply hostile to democracy. Silicon Valley owes its existence to state intervention and subsidy, at different times working to capture various institutions or wither their ability to interfere with private control of computation. Firms like Facebook, for example, have argued that they are not only too large or complex to break up but that their size must actually be protected and integrated into a geopolitical rivalry with China.

Second, that hostility to democracy, more than a singular product like AI, is amplified by profit-seeking behavior that constructs increasingly larger threats to humanity. It’s Silicon Valley and its emulators worldwide, not AI, that create and finance harmful technologies aimed at surveilling, controlling, exploiting, and killing human beings with little to no room for the public to object. The search for profits and excessive returns, with state subsidy and intervention clearing the way of competition, has and will create a litany of immoral business models and empower brutal regimes alongside “existential” threats. At home, this may look like the surveillance firm and government contractor Palantir creating a deportation machine that terrorizes migrants. Abroad, this may look like the Israeli apartheid state exporting spyware and weapons it has tested on Palestinians.

Third, this combination of a deeply antidemocratic ethos and a desire to seek profits while externalizing costs can’t simply be regulated out of Silicon Valley. These are fundamental attributes of the industry that trace back to the beginning of computation. These origins in optimizing plantations and crushing worker uprisings prefigure the obsession with surveillance and social control that shape what we are told technological innovations are for.

Taken altogether, why should we worry about some far-flung threat of a superintelligent AI when its creators—an insular network of libertarians building digital plantations, surveillance platforms, and killing machines—exist here and now? Their Smaugian hoards, their fundamentalist beliefs about markets and states and democracy, and their track record should be impossible to ignore.

[markrosewater]

Echoing what that other guy said, I have felt a rise in complexity recently. With so many new cards that not only make you read and remember what they do, but what the tokens they make do, then what the tokens that that token makes does, it really adds to the mental load. Some examples would be Ring Tempts You, daybound/nightbound, initiative, Venture into the dungeon, stickers, attractions, and many more.

For instance, had a vindicate, and was debating between killing Frodo, sauron’s bane and Nahar, selfless paladin, I would have to read a total of 6 cards. Each of the original creatures, plus the 3 dungeons and the Ring card. And this problem gets worse the more effects you add on, many of which don’t go away as the game continues. If someone introduces the initiative, I now have to worry about nahar exploring the underdark. This scaling complexity as the game continues now means there’s an insane amount layers of the game, which while fun, is also very daunting, and somewhat of a headache.

If nothing else, I’d really like if “reading the card explains the card” was true, not “reading the card, then the three different extra cards that it makes explains the card”

I do appreciate your listening, and generally a lot of the new stuff has been cool. However, this push for many “outside the game” mechanics is not great for paper play, and I would prefer less of it.

Here's the core problem. A huge part of Magic is that we keep making new cards. When we do that, the audience wants new mechanics. (Market research shows again and again that one of the biggest draws to new sets is new mechanics.) We're thirty years in. We've made a *lot* of mechanics, so we have to go to new spaces to make new things. It's not as if there's lots of simple, elegant, non-complex design space that we're actively choosing not to do.

What this means is if you want to play constructed formats that don't rotate, complexity will rise with time. There's literally no way around this. Every new card we create, every new mechanic we make, every set we put out adds complexity to the system.

So if you're finding the mental load too much, there are ways to play Magic where this isn't an issue. Limited formats and rotating constructed formats limit complexity. Or you can choose to build your decks such that you focus on less mechanics you have to track.

That said, I don't think there's a way for me to do my job (aka keep designing new things) that isn't going to raise complexity. We can look at how many things we add to any one set. Maybe slow down the rise in complexity a little. But can we do so in a way that the audience is getting what they want? I'm not sure.

One of the mechanics I get asked most to bring back is mutate, and that's confusing even without the rest of Magic, so there are many forces pulling in different directions.

I do like hearing the specific things that cause you all problems, because it's possible I can figure out the style of designs that cause people problems. But the idea that we just stop making mechanics that reference things not on the card is a tough one given where Magic design technology is currently at.

I do appreciate all the input, and I hope the dialogue helps me better understand what specific things are causing problems.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The Collective Intelligence Institute

History is written by the winners, which is why Luddite is a slur meaning “technophobe” and not a badge of honor meaning, “Person who goes beyond asking what technology does, to asking who it does it for and who it does it to.”

https://locusmag.com/2022/01/cory-doctorow-science-fiction-is-a-luddite-literature/

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

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/07/full-stack-luddites/#subsidiarity

Luddites weren’t anti-machine activists, they were pro-worker advocates, who believed that the spoils of automation shouldn’t automatically be allocated to the bosses who skimmed the profits from their labor and spent them on machines that put them out of a job. There is no empirical right answer about who should benefit from automation, only social contestation, which includes all the things that desperate people whose access to food, shelter and comfort are threatened might do, such as smashing looms and torching factories.

The question of who should benefit from automation is always urgent, and it’s also always up for grabs. Automation can deepen and reinforce unfair arrangements, or it can upend them. No one came off a mountain with two stone tablets reading “Thy machines shall condemn labor to the scrapheap of the history while capital amasses more wealth and power.” We get to choose.

Capital’s greatest weapon in this battle is inevitabilism, sometimes called “capitalist realism,” summed up with Frederic Jameson’s famous quote “It’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism” (often misattributed to Žižek). A simpler formulation can be found in the doctrine of Margaret Thatcher: “There Is No Alternative,” or even Dante’s “Abandon hope all ye who enter here.”

Hope — alternatives — lies in reviving our structural imagination, thinking through other ways of managing our collective future. Last May, Wired published a brilliant article that did just that, by Divya Siddarth, Danielle Allen and E. Glen Weyl:

https://www.wired.com/story/web3-blockchain-decentralization-governance/

That article, “The Web3 Decentralization Debate Is Focused on the Wrong Question,” set forth a taxonomy of decentralization, exploring ways that power could be distributed, checked, and shared. It went beyond blockchains and hyperspeculative, Ponzi-prone “mechanism design,” prompting me to subtitle my analysis “Not all who decentralize are bros”:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/12/crypto-means-cryptography/#p2p-rides-again

That article was just one installment in a long, ongoing project by the authors. Now, Siddarth has teamed up with Saffron Huang to launch the Collective Intelligence project, “an incubator for new governance models for transformative technology.”

https://cip.org/whitepaper

The Collective Intelligence Project’s research focus is “collective intelligence capabilities: decision-making technologies, processes, and institutions that expand a group’s capacity to construct and cooperate towards shared goals.” That is, asking more than how automation works, but who it should work for.

Collective Intelligence institutions include “markets…nation-state democracy…global governance institutions and transnational corporations, standards-setting organizations and judicial courts, the decision structures of universities, startups, and nonprofits.” All of these institutions let two or more people collaborate, which is to say, it lets us do superhuman things — things that transcend the limitations of the lone individual.

Our institutions are failing us. Confidence in democracy is in decline, and democratic states have failed to coordinate to solve urgent crises, like the climate emergency. Markets are also failing us, “flatten[ing] complex values in favor of over-optimizing for cost, profit, or share price.”

Neither traditional voting systems nor speculative markets are up to the task of steering our emerging, transformative technologies — neither machine learning, nor bioengineering, nor labor automation. Hence the mission of CIP: “Humans created our current CI systems to help achieve collective goals. We can remake them.”

The plan to do this is in two phases:

Value elicitation: “ways to develop scalable processes for surfacing and combining group beliefs, goals, values, and preferences.” Think of tools like Pol.is, which Taiwan uses to identify ideas that have the broadest consensus, not just the most active engagement.

Remake technology institutions: “technology development beyond the existing options of non-profit, VC-funded startup, or academic project.” Practically, that’s developing tools and models for “decentralized governance and metagovernance, internet standards-setting,” and consortia.

The founders pose this as a solution to “The Transformative Technology Trilemma” — that is, the supposed need to trade off between participation, progress and safety.

This trilemma usually yields one of three unsatisfactory outcomes:

Capitalist Acceleration: “Sacrificing safety for progress while maintaining basic participation.” Think of private-sector geoengineering, CRISPR experimentation, or deployment of machine learning tools. AKA “bro shit.”

Authoritarian Technocracy: “Sacrificing participation for progress while maintaining basic safety.” Think of the vulnerable world hypothesis weirdos who advocate for universal, total surveillance to prevent “runaway AI,” or, of course, the Chinese technocratic system.

Shared Stagnation: “Sacrificing progress for participation while maintaining basic safety.” A drive for local control above transnational coordination, unwarranted skepticism of useful technologies (AKA “What the Luddites are unfairly accused of”).

The Institute’s goal is to chart a fourth path, which seeks out the best parts of all three outcomes, while leaving behind their flaws. This includes deliberative democracy tools like sortition and assemblies, backed by transparent machine learning tools that help surface broadly held views from within a community, not just the views held by the loudest participants.

This dovetails into creating new tech development institutions to replace the default, venture-backed startup for “societally-consequential, infrastructural projects,” including public benefit companies, focused research organizations, perpetual purpose trusts, co-ops, etc.

It’s a view I find compelling, personally, enough so that I have joined the organization as a volunteer advisor.

This vision resembles the watershed groups in Ruthanna Emrys’s spectacular “Half-Built Garden,” which was one of the most inspiring novels I read last year (a far better source of stfnal inspo than the technocratic fantasies of the “Golden Age”):

https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/26/aislands/#dead-ringers

And it revives the long-dormant, utterly necessary spirit of the Luddites, which you can learn a lot more about in Brian Merchant’s forthcoming, magesterial “Blood In the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech”:

https://www.littlebrown.com/titles/brian-merchant/blood-in-the-machine/9780316487740/

This week (Feb 8–17), I’ll be in Australia, touring my book Chokepoint Capitalism with my co-author, Rebecca Giblin. We’ll be in Brisbane tomorrow (Feb 8), and then we’re doing a remote event for NZ on Feb 9. Next are Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra. I hope to see you!

[Image ID: An old Ace Double paperback. The cover illustration has been replaced with an 18th century illustration depicting a giant Ned Ludd leading an army of Luddites who have just torched a factory. The cover text reads: 'The Luddites. Smashing looms was their tactic, not their goal.']

[utilitycaster]

A few recent books I've read and disliked led me to this conclusion but it feels like there's been this switch over time with queer stories. It used to be that queer relationships (or queerness in general) had to be Show Don't Tell because, well, you could not make them textual! So you get, for example, shows like Legend of Korra, or Xena: Warrior Princess, where you have women who are clearly devoted to each other to a degree that goes beyond mere friendship, and a ton of effort and care is put into that depiction because they can't actually be shown in an explicitly stated relationship. And as a result, these relationships, while they never receive confirmation in the show, are rich and complex.

Now not only is it much easier to make explicitly queer stories outside of niche areas; it's even popular (and, cynically, a marketing tactic). The problem is I've run into a bunch of stories that are marketed very clearly as A Queer Story that forget to like...be a story, or show me why these characters should be in a relationship. It's All Tell No Show: I'm told that the characters are gay and are in a relationship, but no work is done to actually explain why I should care about this beyond "well they are gay and in a gay relationship."

I'm not going to rehash what I discussed here, but Baru Cormorant is an example of those books where I'm given no real reason to care. The protagonist is a lesbian but the prose reads like a phone book. On the other hand, while Starless has a queer disabled woman as a one of the two protagonists, it also provides her with traits other than "queer, disabled, woman, important" and grants her a rich interiority (even though the story is told entirely from the first person point of view of the other protagonist.)

And the thing about the good examples in that link (Starless, Teixcalaan): they show and tell. It's both explicit that these are queer stories with a canon romantic relationship, but the little moments that make up the tapestry of a relationship are given the time that moments in a subtextual - or frankly, even a queerbaiting work are. That's the real tragedy; for queerbaiting to work, you have to actually make the relationship compelling enough for people follow it until you pull the rug out from under them; whereas you can slap a cold fish kiss on a cold fish queer relationship and technically you are Better because it was Explicit Representation even though everything about it was poorly constructed. I would rather have an lazy and shoddy explicit relationship than queerbait just on principle; but honestly I'd rather have a good story that does neither.

One of my more cynical interpretations of this is that writers are either intentionally or inadvertently taking advantage of the legacy of the Show Don't Tell era of queer coding to place the burden of those small moments on the audience. They know that people looking for queer relationships in fiction are used to having to dig for moments and subtext; but instead of providing that subtext, they set up the clunky text and assume the subtext to support it will emerge from the fandom. Or perhaps, more generously, especially for younger queer writers, they are just so used to having to provide that work themselves that they forget they are doing the writing and are able to (and should) layer subtext and text together and weave something actually good.

Either way, it's this that's led to the "Lesbian necromancers in space, need I say more"* era of recommendations, taglines, and writing, in which explicit representation is, if not plentiful, at least available; but a worrying amount of it forgets to actually write realized characters or a relationship with chemistry or a plot that makes sense.

I should also note: there's obviously a TON of straight romances and books that range from mediocre to abominable. I am under no circumstances arguing that "gayboring" media shouldn't exist. But while I don't think queer stories should be held to a higher standard, I don't think I should be obligated to settle for a lower standard either simply because it's gay. I know it's fraught, in that we're at risk of publishers and producers taking away the message "people hate this because it's gay" rather than "people hate this because it's poorly developed," but like...at the very least, could we recommend things in terms of "this is a great book that has a wonderful queer romance" and "this show is gay but it is also deeply mediocre, and if it weren't gay I wouldn't recommend it at all; do what you will with this information."

*I should note: I happen to like The Locked Tomb (of Lesbian Necromancers in Space fame) a lot! I know it's not for everyone; I know it can feel very gimmicky at times. But no matter how you feel, that tagline is DIRE and does a miserable job of representing the books. Like, that premise could suck, actually (and plenty of people find it does) if you're not sold on the mere fact that it's got lesbians, necromancy, or space in it. Worth noting that neither Starless nor the Teixcalaan books were heavily marketed as Queer Romance Fantasy/SF even though both very much are, which does further make me think this is a case of people writing good books that are queer, vs. people writing books with the intention to be on some New Queer SF list or, god forbid, Booktok.

[eightyonekilograms]

What are the left-NIMBYs' policy positions? What are the YIMBY policy positions? I mean I know what they are in a broad sense (more regulation on constructing housing vs. less), but I'm curious to know in more detail. Obviously some regulation is good (living in California, I'm glad there are standards for earthquake safety), and some is bad (I'm generally against single-use zoning for a bunch reasons you probably agree with). The basic supply and demand stuff and how it affects the cost of housing is obvious enough to me, but the weeds of how specifically regulations should be changed in light of this seems like a more complex issue.

I don't identify as either a NIMBY or a YIMBY; this discourse is somewhat foreign to me, but I probably have some mixture of NIMBY-sympathetic and YIMBY-sympathetic positions, and I'm interested in getting a better picture of the details of the debate from someone who clearly knows a lot about it.

Also as an aside, if you have any good sources of information you can recommend on the present state of housing policy in San Francisco, and/or how it's changed over the years, I'd be very interested in them.

At least from my POV, left-NIMBY policy prescriptions generally seem to fall into one of three camps (arranged from least to most radical):

non-zoning regulatory updates to try and make housing more affordable; the canonical example being adding low-income requirements to new housing developments

large expansions in government-funded housing projects, possibly to the point of having all housing construction be government-funded

"housing can't be fixed until we abolish capitalism"

Each of these has a flaw, although they need to be analyzed separately.

The people in camp 1 are well-intentioned, but unfortunately in practice they are useful idiots for the people who want less housing to be built (landlords, homeowners who want to Preserve the Neighborhood Character, the aforementioned BlackRock investors from my original post, etc.). Those people know full well that the actual effect of attaching more requirements to new housing construction is that less new housing (of all kinds, low-income, high-income, etc.) gets made, because projects which were just-barely profitable get pushed into being unprofitable, and so they don't happen. Obviously individual cases vary, but in general, if you say "you can't build those 50 new housing units unless you also add 15 low-income units in that development" is not that you get 50 market-rate units and 15 low-income units, but that you get zero new units. Which helps nobody.

This is one example of a depressingly common pattern where left-NIMBYs unfortunately make it very easy for themselves to get played like a fiddle by people who say they have the interests of low-income renters at heart, but absolutely do not. As I said, the sorts of "wealthy suburban single-family homeowners" who go to their community meetings and demand that new construction include low-income unit requirements are doing that to murder low-income housing, but because it's an invisible murder (since the development simply doesn't happen), those homeowners with their In This House We Believe signs can keep saying they want to help the poor get housed, while guaranteeing that won't happen.

With camp 2, in general it seems to me like a lot of them aren't paying attention to what YIMBYs actually say, and instead have built up a strawman in their mind of YIMBYs as diehard anti-government libertarians. Some of them are, but most YIMBYs— myself included— do want more government-funded construction and think it definitely should be a part of a comprehensive solution for housing affordability.

The issue is, if you want government-funded housing, the government still needs to pay for the land, and the construction. And if land and construction are more expensive than they could be because of limited supply and burdensome, then the government has to pay more for this housing, and gets less for its money. I know a lot of left-NIMBYs tend to scoff at fiscal/budgetary constrains, but they are a real thing, if only because eventually you'll get voter revolt, and if you have X dollars of taxpayer money to spend on new housing construction, it would surely be better to make that X dollars go as far as possible and build maybe 5,000 units instead of 1,000. This is a case where the libertarian and socialist views do not need to be opposed and can in fact work in concert: the more land reform you have, the cheaper land gets and so the more bang for you buck you get. So even if you are a Camp 2er, you should support YIMBY policy reforms anyway.

The people in camp 3, well... I wanted these posts to be as factual and non-ideological as I could, but at some point there's no getting around the fact that camp 3 is delusional. We're not going to abolish capitalism, at least not any time in the foreseeable future. It could happen in succeeding decades, but in the meantime, wouldn't it be nice if people could have an affordable place to live now? Note that there are differences in housing affordability across areas, based mostly on to what extent they have YIMBY-like policies in place, so the claim that only abolishing capitalism can help seems empirically wrong. (And if the response to that is that helping people now is bad because it would delay the revolution, that's when I start yelling and pounding on my keyboard again. Accelerationism is fundamentally a monstrous, evil ideology, gleefully throwing people under the bus for the sake of a fantasy world).

[fatehbaz]

Ecologies of Imperialism in Algeria, by Brock Cutler, begins with an account of food poisoning in nineteenth-century French Algeria. A deep rural crisis of drought and famine in the late 1860s had reduced the amount of fuelwood coming into the city of Algiers, leading one baker to use construction debris shipped to the colony from Paris to fire his bread oven in early 1869. The lead paint on that metropolitan rubble, product of Baron Haussmann’s transformation of the French capital, became a toxic element in the bread that sickened settlers in the colony. The author [...] treats this small episode as a microcosm of the divides, the unruly circulations, and the nonhuman actants and processes that characterized the early decades of colonial rule in Algeria, which the French invaded in 1830.

These divisions and circulations include those between metropole and colony, between modern and not modern, between person and environment, between human and nonhuman, and across the colonial frontier with Tunisia. [...]

---

The first [of three major narrative veins in Cutler's study involves] [...] bread [...], the consumption of wheat grown on the Mediterranean plains of Algeria [...]. The toxic bread affair of 1869, however, was a reminder that the distance between metropole and colony was not so great. [...] The second vein examines the production of new ecosystem relations [...]. [T]he violence of decades of uneven conquest and the confiscation, appropriation, and enclosure of land and its reorientation toward regional and international [European] markets between 1830 and 1870 thoroughly destabilized rural Algerian life. This fragility turned lethal in the final years of the 1860s, when a series of environmental crises - locust plagues and drought - caused widespread famine and ultimately the deaths of up to eight hundred thousand Algerians. [...] The emptied land and cheap labor that were outcomes of the environmental crises enabled [France] to complete the capitalist transformation of rural Algeria [...]. Another outcome of the environmental crisis was an increase in the number of rural Algerians migrating to cities, where they were perceived as both a threat to public order and a reservoir of potential labor energy. [...]

[D]ivisionary logics, including the line between city and countryside and the modern gendered subject, were being performed, produced, and reproduced in the context of environmental crisis.

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[Another] major element [in Cutler's scholarship] [...] is an exploration of the complex politics of policing French Algeria’s eastern border with Tunisia, in the era before French colonial rule began in the latter polity in 1881. [...] [T]his border, officially demarcated in 1846, was only integrated into local ecosystem relations over the course of subsequent decades. Repeated performance of sovereignty through patrols and taxation of pastoral communities that lived and worked in the frontier commons instantiated the border, but the border region remained resistant to the forms of modern statecraft, such as standardization, bureaucratization, and written transactions, that French authorities preferred. [...] [Cutler] draws on intentionally “mundane” examples to show how they were critical to the steady reproduction of a modern imperial border (p. 47). [...] [A specific] episode of transborder [dispute] [...] in 1869 [...] became a referndum within the settler community on the virtues of military rule and a reminder for that [European] community of [supposed] indigenous incompatability with modernity. [...]

[T]he various divisions illuminated by the story - between modern and not, between inside and outside, and between European and Algerian - were performances staged at various times and places, not eternal features of the society or landscape. The repetition of “divisionary logics,” in the author’s telling, were at the heart of French colonial modernity (p. 149). [...]

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[T]horough reading of the French colonial archive, from official sources as well as memoirs, newspapers, and periodicals [...], [t]he first two narrative threads, on bread and disaster, demonstrate the significance of moments of crisis [...] in actually changing the course of history [...] [and] longer-term [...] ecological transformations. The other thread, however, examines how the mundane performance of modern sovereign power and its divisionary logics, over time, made real or even naturalized the new imperial frontier between Algeria and Tunisia. Both [...] society-wide crises or the steady performance of the mundane logics of power [...].

---

All text above by: Jackson Perry. "Review of Cutler, Brock. Ecologies of Imperialism in Algeria". H-Environment, H-Net Reviews. April 2024. Published online at: h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=59842. [Text within brackets added by me for clarity. Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me.]

[reachartwork]

did some brainstorming now i need some help narrowing the ideas down. vote for the one that's most interesting to you.

"Concrete Dreamscape": The player finds themselves trapped within a surreal, ever-shifting labyrinth of concrete structures. As they navigate the cold, grey passages, they encounter strange, biomechanical entities that offer cryptic clues and conversation.

"Interfacing": Set in a dystopian future where humans have become increasingly integrated with technology, the player takes on the role of a technician tasked with maintaining a vast network of bio-computers.

"The Flesh Mechanic": In a world where the ultra-rich can purchase genetically engineered "flesh mechs" to house their consciousness, a skilled technician specializing in maintaining these grotesque constructs begins to question the ethics of their work.

"Labyrinth": A skeptical hypnotherapist becomes entangled with a mysterious client who claims to have discovered a hidden labyrinth within their subconscious. As the therapist delves deeper into the client's mind, the boundaries between reality and perception begin to blur, and they find themselves trapped within their client's dreamscape.

"Meat Market": A protagonist stumbles upon a mysterious online marketplace that specializes in selling "ethically sourced" human body parts.

"The Architect's Daughter": A young girl with a mysterious connection to her father's latest architectural project begins to exhibit unsettling changes in her behavior and physiology. As the building nears completion, it becomes clear that the girl and the structure share a symbiotic, and potentially dangerous, bond.

"Skin of the Wall": A dermatologist is called to investigate a strange outbreak of skin-like growths on the walls of a prestigious university campus. As they delve deeper into the mystery, they uncover a disturbing connection between the growths, the building's architecture, and the students' increasingly erratic behavior.

"The Hungry Stairs": An elderly woman living in a dilapidated apartment building begins to suspect that the creaking, groaning stairs are not just old, but actively hungry for human suffering.

"The Doll's House": A person with a collection of unsettlingly lifelike dolls begins to suspect that their partner is not only jealous of the dolls but actively trying to sabotage their relationship with them.

"The Concrete Womb": A pregnant protagonist, confined to a brutalist apartment complex due to a mysterious pandemic, begins to experience unsettling changes in their body and psyche.

your vote does not guarantee that i will write the thing this is mostly just an interest check. it might be a twine thing or a visual novel. or it may just be a normal short story.

please feel free to leave commentary in the replies or reblogs