#that does not change the fact that a whole sector of the population will not vote because their relatives are being killed

[oros-ash3s]

🌍Does it take place on a fantasy planet, or somewhere on Earth (hidden or not-so-hidden)?

🎭Has magic brought about social good in your WIP? Social ills?

🙅Are there any kinds of forbidden magic? What kinds, and why?

🃏Wild card! Mention anything else about your WIP that you want!

For any and every wip you want ✨️

|| The Chrysalis: A State of Change

Cowritten with @ohagiwrites

Magicae doesn’t take place on the stereotypical fantasy planet that you’d expect. It’s set on Earth, or what could be considered Earth, it’s only big difference being that it takes place a bit into the future, the story starting out in 2033. The planet is also a lot more advanced than our own, with a different history amongst other things, and much more advanced technology that in normalized throughout the world.

Magic is not a known thing inside Magicae. Those that do know about the existence of Magicus (pl. Magicae) are either very prejudiced against it or neutral towards it, as there’s not much information out there to even educate people on the subject. The Government tries very hard to keep cases of large Magicae-driven disturbances shushed up, so magic as a whole hasn’t been able to affect society in a particularly negative or postive way.

Everything that has to do with magic in large has to do with the fact that magic is such a taboo subject, either seen to be this demented, cursed thing, or nothing more than crazy babble. So although there is no magic that is per say forbidden outright, the government makes sure that all those that try to practice magic and be out and proud of their status as a Magicus are quickly dealt with, thrown into institutions or found in gutters, mysteriously murdered.

And a fun fact! Although Magicae obviously isn’t very high-fantasy, taking place inside a world that is almost a direct mirror to ours, there are a few fantastical elements besides most of the main characters having powers. A big example of this being the main organization inside the story, the Alliance of Magicae, which has a base that is borne from the magic of its members and magical items that Magicae have crafted.

|| Metamorphosis

Metamorphosis takes place on a fantasy planet, named Seras. It earned its name as the planet of abundance, an irony now, as it’s a post-apocalyptic, barren wasteland that has been almost wiped entirely of its population besides for the Noroi the ravage the lands.

Mageia, having being corrupted due to the rise of Noroi, has brought nothing but ills towards society. Noroi are beings that are made of Mageia, but due to the state of the source of Mageia being corrupted, darkened, and rotted, it is reflective in Noroi. They are cruel, soulless beings that survive off of human blood and flesh, and use the weakened Mageia inside humans to absorb it into their own power. Noroi are the very things that brought on the apocalypse, and are currently the things that cause the most death inside Seras.

In the current day and age, the use of magic is mainly unknown to those who are humans, with Noroi being uncontrolled Magei creatures who cannot be contained or killed. But there is also the existence of Immortai, who are either thought to be nothing more than myths, or thought to be even more demonic than Noroi themselves. Immortai only have half a soul, which leaves them in a more curious state than Noroi, as they still have the ability to attempt to live alongside humans. This seems to be what scares humans the most, as Immortai are just as dangerous, if not more, than Noroi. A ticking time bomb. Anyone who is caught using magic in such a way is instantly shunned from society.

And a fun fact!! Although there are only seven sectors inside the Division, there are actually eight regions. The sectors are divvied up to one of the regions, and then the headquarters, which is where the Leader lives, rests inside the first region, Caerulia.

[the-starlight-writer]

Culture in TKoM's Faerie I: General Foundations of the Land

Hello! Welcome again! Today, we're going to be talking culture. "Culture" is a very broad topic so for this post, we're mainly going to be talking about the world itself and how it's set up. These are questions I got asked a long time ago in my discord server so this post is mostly going to be in the form of a Q&A. Most of these questions came from a list collated by @wondrousworldbuilding. The list can be found here.

How content is the average person?

6, 7/10. Life is okay, people are content. Things could definitely be a lot better especially considering the fact that void fae are being actively targeted and persecuted and that there's an unrest among the people since the last royal family was deposed.

How do people make their living and how big a part of their life is their career?

Some fae have arbitrary but fundamental jobs in roles and sectors like agriculture, food production, pharmacy and teaching. Careers on a whole are not required. A large percentage of the population do have jobs as healers, as bakers, artisans etc, but those who don't get by just fine either because they're being supported by relatives or because they're "civil servants", meaning they work for and are subsidised by the government. Civil servitude doesn't necessarily mean that they do clerical work but it does include that. Civil servants can also be commissioned artists, archivists, artisans, tapestry artists, collectors, weavers, elders, skilled magic practitioners, winery owners, authors etc. These positions are considered government jobs because Faerie highly values luxury and a high standard of living.

How do they treat their close friends?

That's more dependent on the fae themselves but earth fae and void fae tend to be very close knit and treat friends like family.

What virtues do they value in individuals? What virtues do they say they value? If those are different, why?

Generally the virtues most valued in individuals are secrecy and loyalty. The traits stated as most highly valued are trust and empathy but really, everyone wants to keep their best interests in mind and secrets protected from prying eyes.

How do they dress? Does it vary greatly by gender, or not? Is their focus on clothing very practical, religious, sentimental, or simply driven by the latest arbitrary fashion? How do the above answers reflect on the culture on a deeper level?

Styles of dress are cultural and are adapted to fae types and their magic. For example, fire fae don't wear lots of excess layers and tend to wear heat-resistant fabrics. Air fae wear a lot light clothes that flutter in the wind. They also wear aerodynamic clothes as well in case they need to fly. The concepts of masculinity and femininity do exist in Faerie but people are liberty to play around with expression as they see fit. The definitions of gendered fashion have changed slightly over time and more traditional fae whose clothing is deeply cultural do prefer to keep the gender divide somewhat prominent. Undoubtedly religious attire exists but seeing regular fae in that kind of garb is highly unlikely on a day-to-day basis.

At what age does a baby become a child, a child a young adult, a young adult an adult, an adult an elder?

Faerie ages are a little odd. Babies become children when they first start demonstrating outward magical proficiency and a way of deft communication. Children become young adults when their markings fully emerge, their magic proficiency (or lack thereof) is evident and they experience biological development. Adulthood is the completion of biological development and magic proficiency is well demonstrated. Being an elder is once you've existed as long as one complete generation, usually around 100, 150 years.

What is Faerie's understanding of and relationship with art?

Faerie started considering art important after a faerie's human companion pointed it out to them. visual art didn't mean much but that didn't mean they didn't have it. Some of the most famous pieces are landscape works because the world was so intricately designed that there's imagery in the hills and in the waters, especially from above. Each fae type has a kind of art that comes naturally to them e.g earth fae tend to lean toward pottery and ceramics while fire fae do a lot of metalwork.

How do the fae think of pronouns and gender?

Most people are willing to go by they/them pronouns because gender doesn't mean a lot to them but there are some people who are close to their AGAB. It's very up in the air how people identify. Some people never attach to their AGAB at all and go exclusively by they/them. Some people feel a connection to their AGAB but are okay with they/them because of the cultural backing. Other people feel very close to their AGAB and reject the idea of being nonbinary entirely but that doesn't change how it works in Faerie. This has no real effect on presentation though

Once again we have come to the end of a worldbuilding post. See you again soon for the next entry in the series!

[nursingwriter]

Health Care Reform: For quite some time, the debate on the health care reforms has been centered on a number of key issues. These key issues have included the question on whether there is an essential right to health care, who should have access to health care, the circumstances that grant access to health care, the method of government support for health care, the quality achieved for the figures spent, the sustainability of the expenditures and the role of the federal government in bringing about such change. Given the fact that health care in the United States is offered by many separate legal entities, health care facilities are mostly owned and managed by the private sector. Apart from programs such as Medicaid, Medicare, TRICARE, Children's Health Insurance and Veterans Health Administration, health insurance is mainly provided by the private sector. In 2001, it was estimated that about 15% of United States population is totally uninsured while an additional 21% of the population is under insured. This means that up to 36% of the country's population are unable to cover for the costs of their medical needs. Within the same year, statistics revealed that 62% of all of United States personal bankruptcies emanated from medical debts. Notably, the number of the uninsured and underinsured has increased since then. Consequently, more money per person in the United States is spent on health care than in any other country in the world. Actually, the greater percentage of the country's total income is spent on health care. Nonetheless, despite this greater percentage of expenditure in health care, many argue that the health care system does not deliver equivalent value for the money spent. Therefore, there is a great need for health care reform that will ensure right to health care, efficiency, access, cost effectiveness, fairness and quality. History of Health Care Reform: The plan of acquiring insurance to protect against illness came up in the early twentieth century due to the fact that advancements in the medical field placed a greater demand on these medical services. Though available, these medical services were beyond the reach for many and this problem greatly intensified with the beginning of the Great Depression. In an effort to deal with this discrepancy, the Committee on the Costs of Medical Care was formed to carry out a study in a period of five years. In 1932, the committee eventually concluded that the leading expenses were rigorous among a small group of people who have the most serious medical problems. The commission also recommended the establishment of a system which would rely on collective responsibility through the creation of health insurance. During the same time, European countries faced similar questions and consequently settled on a remedy which involved government intervention. This remedy successfully spread the financial risk amongst the whole population and considered health care as a right rather than a privilege. In the United States, the fear of communism, despotism and Nazism stirred up opposition toward government involvement in the economy and the private sector thwarted any near-future possibility of universal health care. Harry Truman's attempt at national health insurance in the 1940's was supported by some labor unions. However, these unions were satisfied by their ability to include health care in their combined bargaining agreements and permitted them to bargain a low standard premium rate for all members. Though it became a name which provoked ridicule, Blue Cross/Blue Shield was the first private entity to widely apply the concept of insurance by the establishment of a community rate which allowed all group members to pay the same amount for equal benefits. In addition, this entity practiced some form of guaranteed issue which meant that they accepted to provide coverage for anyone willing to pay the premiums, irrespective of their conditions. This private entity was a nonprofit organization, benevolent in nature and was granted tax exemptions from the government because of their work on behalf of the elderly and the needy. The Medicare-Medicaid Bill was enacted into law by President Johnson in 1965 though it only covered hospitalization during its inception. However, the Medicare-Medicaid bill served to puff up the insurance rolls with its costs rapidly exceeding projections and played a role in the reduction of poverty (Kakasuleff par, 15). The rapid increase in the bill's projections was partially due to the fact that the program had achieved its objective of bringing more of the elderly and poor into the mainstream health care. Since the early 1970s, there have been great attempts to establish comprehensive health insurance. Health care reform has been a major concern for the United States recent administrations. This push for the health care reform has been a political campaign agenda for many of the recent presidential candidates. While some administrations have been successful in pushing for some significant changes in the current health care system, other administrations have failed in their efforts to do so. For instance, though Health care reform was a major concern of the Clinton administration, the 1993 Clinton health care plan proposed by a group headed by First Lady Hillary Clinton, was not enacted into law. On the other hand, during the 2004 presidential election, both George W. Bush and John Kerry campaigns presented health care proposals. As the United States president, George Bush signed into law the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act. The Act included a prescription drug plan for elderly and disabled American citizens. During the 2008 presidential campaigns, health care reforms was a top issue considering the fact that health care costs seem uncontrollable even with 46 million Americans uninsured. Challenges to Health Care Reform: Throughout the years, American citizens have generally been supportive of the need for reforms on the current health care system. Although many still believe that America is on the brink national health care reform, the country has however been on the brink of health care reform many times before. Despite proposing significant changes to the current health care system, President Obama has found it difficult to enact these proposals into law because of a number of reasons which include: Political Affiliations: This is one of the major reasons that have served as a challenge to president Obama in the enactment of significant changes in the health care system. Throughout America's history, political affiliations have always surfaced when it comes to making changes in the health care system. Despite the fact that many Americans support health care reforms, they are divided on the method to be used in the health care reforms based on their political affiliations. For example, in 2008, when a poll was conducted to identify what Americans thought about the country's health care system as compared to other countries, the difference in views based on the political affiliations was quite evident. Sixty-eight percent of Republicans believed that the country's health care system was the best as compared to forty percent Independents and thirty-two percent Democrats. The same poll also revealed that over half of Democrats would support a presidential candidate who advocates for reform on the health care system as compared to thirty-seven percent of Independents and nineteen percent of Republicans. The political affiliations have emerged as a challenge to President Obama because the Republicans have remained skeptical while the Democrats are relentless in their pursuit of health care reforms (Iglehart par, 1). While the proposals by President Obama continue to attract the support of a sizable majority of Democrats, the Republicans have opted to be skeptical about the plans. The push for the reforms has been reduced to a political battle as the prospects of adopting the proposals by the Democrats increasing provided that they could agree on the approach. As the Democrats continue to favor the government's role in health care, though divided, the Republicans favor more market-based solutions. Republicans also fear that the management over healthcare choices is the genesis to control citizen's lives. Ideological Differences: President Obama has also found it difficult to implement the proposed significant changes to the health care system because of the ideological differences between the political parties. With the views of Americans divide based on political affiliations, Republicans are considered to be center/conservative while Democrats are considered to be center/liberals. Consequently, they disagree with each other with the conservatives' ideology being that the government should have less control over citizens' lives. Due to the fact that conservatives' ideology also strongly believe a person's success and advancement is solely attributed to dedication and hard work, republicans find it difficult to feel obligated to pay more taxes for health insurance for people who they feel have bad work ethics as proposed in the health care bill. These ideological differences also come to the surface as America was instituted on the principles of total minimalist government both economically and socially. Therefore, the country was anticipated to be run as capitalistically as possible. Consequently, Republicans believe that America's constitution firmly prohibits the federal government's interference into the citizens' personal and economic decisions, including healthcare. Complexity of Issues: The complexity of issues is the major challenge to the proposed significant changes in health care. There are a number of issues involved in health care including taxation, the fear of socialized medicine and the budget. Many Americans are opposed to higher taxes for the wealthy due to the fact that they will be the ones paying for most government spending including the proposed heath care bill. These people also argue that it's the wealthy that create jobs through investing and if their taxes are raised, there will be less investing and job creation. As stated earlier, though Republicans believe that the American health care system needs reform, they feel that the best solution is not to hand it over to the government. The handing over of the health care system to the government has led to the fear of socialized medicine. The Republicans also believe that the American government is nearly bankrupt although the president has stated the proposed health care bill will reduce government expenses ("Republicans against Healthcare" par, 7). However, there may be a reasonable risk that it does not and the government may have to take on more debt. With these issues, President Obama has found it difficult in implementing the issues. Conclusion: For quite a long time, American citizens have been in need of reform in the health care system. The current health care system is increasingly unreachable to many poor, lower-class and middle-class people. The United States government therefore continues to spend a lot of money per capita for health care. With the proposed changes by the Obama administration, the reforms will go a long way in making health care accessible to all and reducing the government's expenditure on health care. However, the president has experienced difficulties because of the underlying issues that need to be dealt with if the changes are to be enacted. Works Cited: Iglehart, John K. "The Struggle for Reform ? Challenges and Hopes for Comprehensive Health Care Legislation." The New England Journal of Medicine. Massachusetts Medical Society, 23 Apr. 2009. Web. 14 Apr. 2010. . Kakasuleff, Jenny. "Health Care Reform Series: A History of Health in the U.S. Part 1." Examiner.com: Insider Source for Everything Local. Clarity Digital Group LLC D/b/a Examiner.com., 30 June 2009. Web. 14 Apr. 2010. . "Why Are Republicans against Healthcare Reform as Outlined by Obama?" Answers.com: The World's Leading Q & A Site. Answers Corporation. Web. 14 Apr. 2010 https://www.paperdue.com/customer/paper/healthcare-quality-management-pdca-modeling-190066#:~:text=Logout-,HealthcareQualityManagementPDCAModelinginHealthcare,-Length5pages. . Read the full article

[rakenvs3000w25]

Unit 5 blog post

Hey fellow interpreters!

Have you ever wondered how we can really inspire people to care for the environment and take action? As academics, our participation in nature interpretation often centers on learning about the environment. Our lens is frequently narrowed to solely gaining knowledge through reading and researching, with less emphasis on practical application. This aligns with what Wals et al. (2014) describe as science education: a focus on what we know about the environment in terms of facts, data, and processes, such as understanding photosynthesis and cellular respiration. However, there's another crucial sector of education: environmental education. This focuses on why we should care and how we can make a difference. Think about understanding the impact of pollution on a local river and then organizing a community cleanup (Wals et al., 2014).When engaging with this week's content, I was excited to learn about the concept of convergence – blending scientific and environmental learning (Wals et al., 2014). We need both the scientific knowledge and the passion and motivation to drive change. Imagine if every science lesson included a real-world environmental problem and a clear call to action! And what about the people who teach and guide others? This is where naturalist programs come in!

 So, how does convergence work in practice?

Citizen Science: This is where everyone can get involved! Citizen science empowers everyday people to collect data and monitor the environment. Think about participating in a butterfly count, identifying different species in your garden, and sharing your observations with a conservation organization to track population trends. You don't need a science degree to contribute. Naturalist programs often lead to volunteer opportunities in citizen science projects.

Technology: Apps and online tools make it easier than ever to share information, track environmental changes, and connect with other citizen scientists. Speaking of technology, our group's podcasts are a perfect example of how we can use it for convergence. We're targeting different age groups with children's and adult podcasts, discussing important environmental topics relevant to our university's Arboretum.

Whole-School Approaches: This involves creating eco-schools and incorporating sustainability into all aspects of the school curriculum, from school gardens and composting programs to energy-saving initiatives. The concept of eco-schools was new to me, but I was excited to discover the EcoSchools program here in Canada! EcoSchools is an environmental education and certification program for grades K-12 that helps schools develop environmental literacy and reduce their ecological impact. The program provides a framework for schools to assess their environmental performance, implement action plans, and track their progress. They also focus on student leadership, empowering kids to be environmental stewards within their schools and communities. Check out this video for a more in-depth look at how EcoSchools work:

Why is convergence so important?

By combining science and environmental education we can create informed and engaged citizens who are equipped to tackle complex environmental problems.

Participating in citizen science projects can help us develop a deeper connection with nature and a stronger sense of responsibility for protecting it. Naturalist programs can facilitate this connection through training and volunteer opportunities.

By focusing on local issues and places, we can make environmental problems feel more relevant and inspire action in our own communities.

What can you do?

Look for opportunities to participate in citizen science projects in your area. Your local conservation authority or naturalist group is a great place to start.

Encourage local schools to incorporate environmental education into their curriculum and consider becoming an EcoSchool!

Talk to your UofG friends and recommend ENVS3000 to them! (Shameless plug, I know!)

Let's bridge the gap between science and environmental education, support naturalist programs, and work together to build a more sustainable future for all!

References

Wals, A. E. J., Brody, M., Dillon, J., & Stevenson, R. B. (2014). Convergence Between Science and Environmental Education. Science, 344(6184), 583-584. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1250515

[jptamvada]

Corporations want to profit from the world’s problems – here’s how they can solve them instead

Jagannadha Pawan Tamvada, University of Southampton and Rashedur Chowdhury, University of Essex

There’s a good chance that you would like to see COVID disappear for good. And you may also wish for an end to the war in Ukraine – or any other war for that matter.

But would you feel the same way if you were the head of a big pharmaceutical corporation which has seen a massive surge in profits over the last couple of years? Or if you ran a company which manufactures weapons?

For these industries, a pandemic or a war might be considered a time of clear economic opportunity, when it would make no sense for them to work towards ending a particular illness or conflict. They have no motivation or incentive to do so.

But this creates a serious problem. How does society as a whole tackle major issues when the people with the power to do something are economically motivated to do nothing?

Take COVID for example, and the massive profits made by the pharmaceutical firms which succeeded in coming up with effective vaccines. Arguably the best economic scenario for them is to keep selling booster shots for billions of people around the world for years to come.

Of course, that doesn’t really work for the rest of us. But our research shows why many industries thrive on the fact that problems are more profitable than solutions.

The idea that corporations are not always motivated to seek solutions which are in wider society’s best interests is something we call the “paradox of incentives”. This refers to when corporate structures are more favourably aligned with the world’s biggest problems than with finding answers.

In fact, think of any serious issue facing the world, and there is likely to be a corporation, or a group of powerful people, who benefit from its existence. The paradox of incentives can be seen in everything from the staggering profits of the oil sector as climate change accelerates, to gun lobbies preventing reforms restricting access to weapons, and increasing house prices benefiting property investors and developers over buyers.

Another example is weapon manufacturers, which make astronomical profits during a conflict. Increased demand allows these firms to charge high prices and make more money.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has had a negative economic impact on millions around the world, has led to record profits for some of the biggest corporations in the defence and energy sectors. One of the world’s biggest problems has led to some major profits being made.

The case of COVID

Our research into the actions of big pharma during the pandemic, highlights the negative effects of this approach on society. But it also gave us some hints on how things might be improved.

To begin with, we found that there should be a limit to the rewards given to CEOs and executives who often receive large salaries and bonuses directly tied to a firm’s profits. Such financial incentives motivate leaders to make decisions that generate greater profits for their firms rather than advancing public interest.

If pharmaceutical companies became more open in this way, firms in developing countries would be able to manufacture similar products at significantly lower cost for some of the poorest populations in the world.

At a global level, there should be efforts towards an international agreement (it does occasionally happen) to offer significant rewards to firms which fast-track innovations for a more enduring treatment for COVID.

For while there may be significant benefits for the company which finds a cure (or a one-off vaccine), the overwhelming effect of the paradox of incentives in the pharmaceutical industry means more needs to be done to counter it.

More broadly, to resolve the universal and detrimental impact of this paradox of incentives, an even bigger shake up of capitalism is required. The arms trade needs to be deescalated through global treaties to the point that it no longer exists, while the world’s natural resources should be widely shared and treated as common global assets.

For the time being though, we should at least try and become more aware of how the paradox of incentives affects all of our lives. The next time you test positive for COVID, or despair at the missiles being launched in Ukraine, or worry about your next gas bill, remember that not everyone sees these incidents as problems that need to be fixed. Your problem equals someone else’s profit – and until that changes, the world’s biggest challenges will remain unresolved.

Jagannadha Pawan Tamvada, Associate Professor of Strategy and Innovation, University of Southampton and Rashedur Chowdhury, Professor of Business and Management, University of Essex

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

[expression-of-doubt]

john-doe.html

Good morning, truthheads!

News flash: We just got a fresh batch of sweet details on the incidents taking place in The Capital. Never-before-seen stuff coming right up:

As far as our research on the young man goes, there are a lot of unknowns. Nothing really beyond purely biographical information, provided in the police report. Who knows if that isn’t just some made-up John Doe kind of conjecture as well. Our attempts to find any relatives or next of kin have exclusively resulted in dead ends, with our PIMS clearance being denied by almost every institution left in charge of clean-up after the incident.

What we can tell you, based of anecdotal information, is that he had recently moved to The Capital from one of the rural agricultural centres out east. This seems to coincide with the recent news of changes in policy, devaluing a lot of family-owned plots, which the agriculture sector was already seeing complications with keeping competitive, in light of the new “green” requirements. No doubt targeted by unfair competition and cheaper foreign imports, fruit and vegetable producers, and livestock breeders are incentivised to sign unfavourable contracts for land nationalisation, or risk losing hundreds per hectare while they push for fairer subsidies.

It remains unknown whether or not the young man was on the other side of such a deal and with whom. It is also currently unclear what the government plans to do with the newly acquired land. The current press release states that such matters will be “considered after a careful analysis of which ministry has done what”. Typical!

Our sources say he was seen arriving at the train yard a week prior to the incident, which would make it slightly before the public announcement of policy changes. There is speculation as to whether or not the young man was involved in organising the demonstrations and traffic obstruction that followed, with the protests demanding the resignation of the recently appointed minister.

In the ensuing days, the man was seen squatting in a makeshift village with the homeless population of The Capital down by the western parks. After masterfully haggling up the price on this information, the other residents described him as “not particularly talkative” and “seemingly lost in thought”. I wonder what he could have been thinking about so much.. hmm!? Though most seemed convinced that he was highly educated in some way – his alma mater, however, was apparently not discussed. Most of the stories seemed to overlap at the fact that he showed up, sat on a bench for a while, shared a meal, then went to sleep for the night.

The only reason why we even have tertiary biographical information on the guy is because he was flagged for shoplifting the literal day after. Apparently wasted no time getting acquainted with the lowlifes in town. Wonder where you could have met those!

He then goes off the radar for a week before his documents and personal belongings are found on an elderly homeless woman several hundred meters away from where that headless rich guy from last week’s article was found.

Here’s what the editorial team thinks on the matter:

This guy gets handed a rough deal by one of the institutions, and then has essentially no prospects, because parliament is making his life a living nightmare by nuking his business, importing foreign goods at a price and scale that is simply unachievable for the agricultural sector in this country – shitty soil and all. More requirements, more upfront costs, higher prices on goods. The guy is essentially forced out of business or is fired from a larger co-op to cut corners.

As time goes on, the guy is getting a little bit spiteful towards the big man in The Capital, and wants to show him a piece of his mind. He gets on the first train here and lo and behold, turns out he doesn’t know shit about life. Suddenly, he’s a guy, who spend his whole life digging up dirt with a shovel in a town that has more to do with science fiction than whatever reality he had in mind.

Seems like he was desperate too, seeing as he couldn’t find a place to crash for the night. Probably didn’t know anyone here either. His money should have been good around here, considering that he was probably on the other end of a land deal. Guess it mustn’t have been much – the greedy bastards. He then gets to know the lowlifes around town and starts using that fancy education of his to wow them all and get them to get all riled up enough to start protesting, even if they didn’t even plant a seed in their life. Liberals and influencers immediately jump on the band-wagon, because it’s hip to be green, and start spreading the word on social media, leading to last week’s demonstrations. Everyone starts pointing a finger at him, whenever the police start asking who’s responsible for the whole thing, and they flag him for something as innocuous as shoplifting, just so they have probable cause for something where they can detain him.

His new buddies then hide him somewhere in the basements where they grow and multiply, and then he walks out with a new set of documents and probably a makeover as well. Old lady finds his old ID it in a trash can and thinks she can make a buck out of it, if someone needs some inspiration for some other art project.

Who’s to say he isn’t responsible for the suit either! Might have been some minister’s son for all he cares! Real kind of eat the rich behaviour, if we’re being honest. Almost admirable, even.

That’s been all for this week, more truths inbound from The Capital’s favourite devil’s advocates coming your way very soon. Remember to love each other and stick it to the man on the daily!

[jake213j]

Advertising in VR Apps: A Menace or a Golden Opportunity?

To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, we can be sure of nothing in this world but death and taxes. Given how the information age is shaping up, we should include advertisements in this list.

Ads are inescapable – we are bombarded with them on websites, videos, even on city streets. For years, people have escaped to virtual reality for some respite, seeing it as one of the last bastions without annoying banners. Well, no more Advertisements are coming to VR apps.

Before you groan and toss your VR headset in the bin, consider that these ads might not look the way you expect them to, and it’s not exactly like VR apps have been free from monetization in the past. In this article, we want to examine the implications of these changes, and the unique opportunity available to those who release a monetized app, especially within emerging sectors like virtual training solutions.

The state of VR in 2021

What is it about VR that has attracted the focused gaze of advertisers? Well, first of all, the technology is quite popular. The overall market cap is estimated to be over $20 billion, and an estimated 16 million active headsets – about the population of Switzerland and Denmark combined.

Adding to this, VR headsets have become quite affordable. The first mainstream VR headset (Oculus Rift) cost $599, but the newest and more advanced Oculus Quest 2 costs half as much – $299. We see the same trend across other manufacturers. For reference, next-gen game consoles like the PS5 and Xbox Series X cost $499. If you want to know more about the amazing headsets currently available, be sure to check out our analysis of the best VR headset of 2021.

Another factor that makes VR fertile ground for monetization is its broad appeal: it is no longer a niche technology for gaming and entertainment. Modern VR apps are often targeted for general use functionality (e.g. virtual tours and conferences) or even specialty use by enterprises (professional apps for internal company use). In fact, an estimated 23 million jobs should be using the technology in the next 10 years.

Thus, this is a valuable market for both businesses and consumers.

Why monetization is important for VR apps

No matter how much we might wish the opposite were true, buying a VR headset does not instantly give you access to all VR apps on the platform. To be worthwhile to produce, VR apps still have to generate profit or value, and the first target is covering development costs.

While the very simplest of apps generally cost about $40K-$60K to develop, VR apps are on a whole other level. Due to the technical complexity involved and the amazing 3D content normally featured in this software, costs usually go for upwards of $100K.

App development is no joke or charity, so it would be unfair to expect a popular app to survive without financial support. As much as we might whine about ads and monetization, we wouldn’t have the amazing selection of VR apps available today without them. Beyond covering costs, monetized software also provides the opportunity for studios to reward developers with bonuses for motivation and fill their coffers for new and ambitious projects.

How VR apps are monetized

Developers and publishers can make money off VR apps through a variety of means and mechanics: some subtle, others not so much.

1. Initial purchase

This is the most common and transparent business model. The user makes a single payment and gets access to the app functionality for an unlimited amount of time. At the same time, this approach is a bit risky for developers, as their compensation is tied directly to total sales.

2. Subscription

The subscription payment model has become quite popular over the last decade, serving as a middle ground between full-purchase and free apps. Typically, users pay a small amount each month (which would be higher in a single-purchase model), letting them stop payment at any time. On the other hand, if the users stick around for many months and years, publishers can get a huge return on investment.

3. Ads

Ads in VR are unlikely to be presented in the form of banners and pop-ups. Instead, we can see targeted text and images being interwoven into the game world in a way that hopefully feels organic and not too jarring.

4. Branded apps

Some apps exist not to generate profit, but rather to have users engage with their brand and products in a fun and innocuous way. In the long term, this should stimulate sales and business growth. Sometimes, branded content is just added to third-party games in the form of product placement, subtle advertising, etc.

5. Premium content

In-app purchases, add-ons, paid items – you get the idea. Premium content can be a great additional (for some apps, primary) source of revenue, and we see it used in both paid and free apps. Still, some users are hostile towards additional paywalls in apps they already purchased, so we see such content more in free apps (via the so-called “freemium” business model).

6. Data sales

That’s right, user data in VR is valuable. By now, everyone knows that services like Facebook and Google share their data, so why would other platforms be any different? Just imagine how much information about user behavior and preferences can be collected just by recording what users look at and interact with in a virtual environment.

To illustrate, a company that is planning to roll out a new product but has not settled on a design might include ne

Can you turn a profit with a monetized VR app?

As we have mentioned, app development is very costly, and the same goes for supporting the software and delivering regular updates and features. To be profitable, not only does your app have to be well-made and popular, but you should also choose a smart monetization strategy. Thankfully, there are plenty of opportunities available, and the recent addition of ads sweetens the pot even further. There has never been a better time to make a money-making VR app.

If you go this route and choose to create an app for VR, you can get a big boost by enlisting the backing and services of a VR app development company. Unless you have specialists at your company with experience in VR design, it can take a lot of time for the project to take off without external assistance. A good partner should have years of experience in this field, and manage to build and package all the features you need rapidly.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Ant, Uber, and the true nature of money

The US election news has largely overshadowed a seismic moment in global finance: Ant, a fintech company that spun out of Alibaba/Alipay, was scheduled to have the world's largest IPO, topping even Aramco, the Saudi sovereign wealth fund.

Then Chinese regulators canceled it.

As Yves Smith writes in her excellent Naked Capitalism breakdown, the consensus narrative on this is capricious Chinese regulators changed their minds and jerked the rug out from under Ali's billionaire owner Jack Ma.

The reality is a lot chewier.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2020/11/china-takes-step-against-securitization-consumer-borrowing-with-suspension-of-ant-ipo.html

To understand it, you need to understand the difference between the Chinese and American "money story." In the US, there is widespread, unquestioning faith in the fairytale that money predates the state and is separate from it.

In this story, people come together to trade but are plagued by disparate goods: if I want to pay for your chickens with a cow, how do you make change? They spontaneously decide that something (gold?) is money and price their cows and chicks in it.

Then, governments come along tax our gold away, and then to add insult to injury, governments abandon gold and insist that paper is as good as gold, print too much of it and crash the economy!

This probably sounds familiar to you, but it's just not true.

The actual historical reality, supported by history, archaeology and anthropology, is that governments created money by creating tax. The first "money" was the Babylonian ledgers that recorded how much of their crops farmers owed to the state and their creditors.

Money took a leap forward with imperial conquest: emperors solved the logistical problem of feeding and billeting their occupying soldiers by charging the occupied a tax that had to be paid for in coins stamped with the emperor's head.

They paid the soldiers in these coins, and demanded that their conquered populations somehow get the coins in order to pay their tax, with violent consequences if the tax wasn't paid. So the people sold food and other necessities to soldiers to get the coins.

Money, in other words, is how states provision themselves, and it derives its value from the fact that you have to pay your taxes in it. Governments spend money into existence by buying labor and goods from the public, and then tax it out of existence once a year.

The money the government spends, but does not tax, is the public's money - the money left over for us to transact. All the money in circulation is the sum total of all the money the government spent but didn't tax - that is, the government's deficit is the public's asset.

When governments run "balanced budgets" (or budget surpluses), they remove money from the economy, leaving the public with less to spend. That can be a good thing - a way to fight inflation, which is when too much money chases too few assets.

Low government spending slows growth by taking away the private sector's ability to spend. When the private sector is at full employment, when it is buying all the stuff that's for sale, you need to do something to keep inflation at bay.

During WWII, the USG competed with the private sector for stuff and labor. Uncle Sam spent lots of new money into existence, paying people to build munitions - but then convinced people to buy war bonds, burying that new money for years to come.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/07/taxes-for-revenue-are-obsolete.html

But when governments run so lean that there isn't enough money in the economy for the private sector to buy the stuff it needs, it seeks out other forms of money, like bank loans (which generate interest income for shareholders - one reason the market likes austerity).

In theory, bank lending is tightly regulated. Banks are the government's fiscal agents, creatures of the state, only able to trade because of a government charter. But when there isn't enough money in the system, unregulated banks spring into existence.

Another word for "unregulated bank" is "fintech" (h/t Riley Quinn).

And now we're back to China and the money story. Chinese finance regulators have always treated money as a public utility, to be spent or withdrawn to accomplish public purposes.

During the country's rapid industrialization, regulators loosened the flow of money to allow for rapid capacity-building, directing the country's productive capacity to building factories that would multiply that capacity.

But when they shut off the spigot and told factory owners that their future growth would come from making and selling things, the wealthy rebelled and sought out money from unlicensed banks or banks that were willing to break the rules.

This led to a string of subprime debt crises over the past five years, as regulators crushed these wildcat money-creators as fast as they popped up.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2016-02-17/china-s-600-billion-subprime-crisis-is-already-here

China's 1% fought back. They emigrated:

https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2012/08/rich-chinese-flee/

They used cryptocurrency (aka fintech) to evade capital controls, inflating the Bitcoin price-bubble and the Vancouver/Sydney/etc real-estate price bubble as they laundered their money and stashed it in safe-deposit boxes in the sky:

https://www.ft.com/content/bad16a88-d6fd-11e6-944b-e7eb37a6aa8e

As China's shadow economy ballooned it also grew in criminality. There was the wave of Chinese debt-kidnappings, which became so widespread that hostage-taking was described as "China's small claims court."

https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/08/chinas-police-think-hostages-arent-their-problem/

No wonder regulators fought back.

China's regulators didn't win a decisive victory, but they retained enormous control over their money-supply, and that REALLY paid off when the pandemic hit and they suspended all debts, rents, and taxes and mothballed the entire productive economy.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/01/cant-pay-wont-pay/#jubilee-now

Contrast with the US where the finance sector is an industry, not a public utility. Finance flexed its political muscle and diverted nearly the whole stimulus to itself, then crushed the productive economy by demanding debt service and rents.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2020/09/michael-hudson-how-an-act-of-god-pandemic-is-destroying-the-west-the-u-s-is-saving-the-financial-sector-not-the-economy.html

The ability to use finance as a utility is one of China's crucial assets, and it defends that asset ferociously. And THAT'S why the Ant IPO got killed. Ant's major source of income is short-term, high-interest lending, what Chinese regulators call "pawnbrokering."

China's pawnbrokers are a $43B shadow banking sector, and the country's regulators have been cracking down on them for the past year.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-12/china-is-said-to-scrutinize-43-billion-pawn-shop-lending-boom

$43B is a drop in the bucket of China's shadow economy (valued at $9T!), but it has real metastatic potential.

Ant's innovation is to fintechify the pawnbroker industry, by tying it to apps (on the front end) and to a US-style debt-brokerage (on the back end).

IOW: Ant's business model is that desperate people use an app to request and quickly receive high-risk, high-interest loans.

Then Ant sells the loans to "investors" (AKA "securitization"). Converting debts into income streams for third parties is the true basis of the finance industry. It's the means by which socially useless intermediaries extract ever-mounting rents from the productive economy.

And as Smith writes in her breakdown, the fact that Chinese finance regulators weren't going to let Ant explode his mass-scale, app-based payday-lending pawnbrokerage is not a surprise. They've been telling Jack Ma this for MONTHS, publicly and privately.

Ma thought he could simply bull his way past the Chinese regulators - that because he runs Alibaba and its subsidiaries, that they would defer to him. But the whole point of a finance regulator is NOT to let the finance sector write its own rules.

That's because bankers will cheerfully set the whole economy on fire to turn a buck (see, e.g., America).

Ant was on track for the largest IPO in world history due to investors' appetite for converting Chinese money from a public utility to a private enrichment vehicle.

So yeah, you're goddamned right the Chinese regulator wasn't going to let him do it. Their whole JOB is to not let him do it.

If you read this far, you may be asking yourself why, if governments don't need taxes to fund programs, they bother to tax at all?

There are two important reasons. The first is to fight inflation, by removing existing money from circulation so that when the government spends new money into existence to pay for the things it needs, that money isn't bidding against the existing supply.

But the other reason is to deprive the wealthy of the power that money brings, lest they use that power to pervert policy. Jack Ma's billions are what got him to the brink of a disastrous IPO for his unregulated bank.

And the US election demonstrates just how badly public policy fares when concentrated money is brought to bear on it for parochial purposes. Take Prop 22, the California ballot initiative to allow Uber and Lyft to misclassify their employees as independent contractors.

No on Prop 22 is a no-brainer. Vast numbers of gig workers are full-time employees, not contractors, and Lyft and Uber and other gig economy companies have pioneered labor misclassification as a tactic for paying literal starvation wages.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/10/14/final_ver2/#prop-22

And yet, Prop 22 passed, thanks to the largest-ever spending on any ballot initiative in California history: $205 million ($628,854/day!), spent pn 19 PR firms (including Big Tobacco's cancer-denial specialists).

https://jacobinmag.com/2020/11/proposition-22-california-uber-lyft-gig-employee/

The spend included a bribe to the NAACP Chair's consultancy that made sub-minimum wage jobs with no benefits for people of color (the majority of gig workers) seem like a blow for racial justice.

All told, Uber/Lyft's campaign outspent 49 out of 53 CA House races COMBINED.

And it was a bargain. Lyft and Uber have stolen $413m from California's employment insurance fund since 2014 - and that's just one cost they ducked through this victory. Far more important are the savings they'll realize on worker safety and job-related death claims.

The gig economy companies are the epitome of the financial economy destroying the productive economy. None of these companies turn a profit, after all - all they do is destroy actual, profitable businesses.

Currently the entire restaurant sector is being laid to waste by Postmates and Uber Eats (even as both lose vast sums):

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/19/we-are-beautiful/#man-in-the-middle

And the workers who lost out with Prop 22 are being "chickenized" - having all the risk of operating a business shifted onto their side of the ledger:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/14/poesy-the-monster-slayer/#stay-on-target

(No surprise, one of Prop 22's signature achievements was denying workers the right to unionize).

The desperation of chickenized workers is downright dystopian:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/02/free-steven-donziger/#phone-trees

and chickenization (not automation) is the major cause of falling wages:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/17/on-face-interaction/#zombie-robots

Lyft, Uber, Postmates, and the whole gamut of gig economy companies are all haemorrhaging money. Uber alone lost $4.7B in the first half of 2020. That's how you can tell they aren't tech companies: tech companies profited during the pandemic.

Gig-economy companies aren't part of the productive economy - they're part of the finance economy. They rely on investors, not profits from delighted customers, to stay afloat. They make nothing. They destroy everything: workers' lives, productive businesses.

They will never be profitable. Ever.

Take Uber. The company only exists because the Saudi royals amassed so much money that they could bend reality. The "Saudi Vision 2030" plan calls for the creation of new sources of post-oil wealth.

To that end, the Saudis have poured money into the Softbank VC fund, which then supported global-scale, money-losing, predatory businesses in the hopes of securing a monopoly (or, failing that, unloading the company onto dazzled suckers).

When the company IPOed last year, it had already lost $10b. It loses $0.41 on every dollar you spend on your fare. And yet, the Saudis got away clean, off the backs of investors who assumed that a pile of shit this big must have a pony under it somewhere.

Some believed the company's lies about the imminence of self-driving cars. Uber is not going to make a self-driving car.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/30/death-to-all-monopoly/#pogo-stick-problem

Some believed the company's lies about profitability via growth. It can't grow to profitability. By its own disclosures, profitability depends on every public transit system in the world shutting down and being replaced by Ubers. #Nagahappen.

https://48hills.org/2019/05/ubers-plans-include-attacking-public-transit/

The Saudi strategy - and its punishing, economy-destroying reality-distortions - are exemplary of what happens when government let too much money accumulate in unaccountable, private hands. Prop 22 will kill and starve workers, and the public will pick up the pieces.

The businesses that profit from these deaths and immiseration will fail anyway, but not before their major backers and top execs make hundreds of millions or billions.

Recall: the Ant IPO was set to smash the existing record: Saudi Aramco (AKA the money behind Uber).

Meanwhile, all the blood and treasure squandered on Prop 22 - the $205m spent on the Yes side, the $20 spent by unions on the No side - won't save Uber or other gig economy companies.

Not only are they bleeding money, but as Edward Ongweso Jr explains, "Uber is losing legal challenges in France, Britain, Canada, Italy," turning drivers into employees or allowing "lawsuits reclassifying them as such."

https://www.vice.com/en/article/3annmb/proposition-22-passes-in-california-but-uber-and-lyft-are-only-delaying-the-inevitable

And other US states - NY, MA, NJ - are working to end the misclassification of Uber drivers and other gig workers.

Permitting Uber and other gig economy companies to flout the law did not make the economy better. All it did was transfer more money to the wealthy.

And the money they wealthy amass is converted to political power, usurping money's role as a public utility and converting it to a means to seek private gains at public expense.

[eelhound]

"The cost of the subsistence and reproduction of workers is both socially and historically determined. It reflects the changing cost of producing food or acquiring skills; as well as differences — based, for instance, on the balance of class forces — in what is deemed a socially acceptable requirement for subsistence. For both of these reasons, the cost of labor differs, too, between countries or regions with disparate levels of productivity and histories of class struggle. This is why US based companies chase cheaper wages to other countries like China or Mexico, or to the closer distance of the 'right-to-work' states within the US.

The cost of labor also reflects the injustice of oppression. As of 2019, women in the United States were still paid 79 cents to a man's dollar. (Or in the case of the country's most talented and famous soccer team, the United States women's national soccer team earns 38 cents to their male counterparts, despite generating greater revenue.) Black men are paid 70 cents and Black women 61 cents in comparison to their white counterparts. Latina women earn 53 cents to a white man's dollar. Increased education does little to change this ratio for women or people of color. Blacks, Latinxs, and women at all education levels earn less than white men. Women of color occupy the bottom of the totem pole. American capitalism relies upon women and people of color to populate permanent, low-wage sectors of the labor force.

The disparities in racial and gender wage gaps point to the fact that 'socially determined' is not only dependent on public perception of what is acceptable, but is also based on historic and systemic institutions of oppression. People of color, for example, have less inherited familial wealth on average to draw from, and therefore disproportionately suffer from the accumulation of considerable amounts of debt in order to go to college or earn an advanced degree. Combined with the reality of severely underfunded, under-resourced, segregated public schools, this ensures that they never enter a level playing field. Then come long-documented discriminatory practices, which ensure that they are the last to get hired and the first to be fired, contributing to higher rates of unemployment and a more desperate workforce, forced to accept lower wages for equal work.

Capitalism also depends on the superexploitation of immigrants — and particularly those who are not protected by legal documentation. Disenfranchised and disempowered by the threat of deportation, undocumented workers are subject to draconian conditions and wages, and fired if they protest or attempt to unionize. As author Justin Akers Chacón has written, the criminalization of immigration has been 'used widely by employers to structure lower-wage tiers within and across whole industries, setting the low-wage standard of immigrant labor by the early 1990s. The declining wage benchmarks for undocumented labor had the further effect of holding all wages down within those same industries.'

Inequality has long been built into the core fabric of the American business model. Pitting Black workers against white workers against immigrant workers has been a particularly potent, tried-and-true tactic of employers to drive down all wages. But the cursory sketch laid out here does not even begin to discuss the very many oppressions of people with disabilities, of gay people, of transgender people, of Native peoples, of elders, and more that play an integral role in upholding the profitability of US capitalism. In fact, any place where bosses can hold down the wages of one section of the workforce not only ensures a cheaper labor pool among the oppressed demographic, but also, in the words of abolitionist Frederick Douglass, divides both in order to conquer each, so that everyone's wages are pushed down.

Lastly, the value of labor will also vary among industries and skills. One reason is the cost of education and training required for different jobs, and another is the expectation of how stable of a workforce bosses are looking to buy. Fast food workers, home health aides, farm workers, and other low-wage workers are consistently paid wages far short of the cost of living (and therefore their true value). The capitalists bank on getting away with it because they expect, in fact depend on, a high turnover rate and unemployment rate, which will ensure that those positions will fill easily. Bosses see low-wage workers as quickly replaceable commodities, bought and employed as easily as one would buy other cheap 'inputs.'

Meanwhile, higher paid workers don't suffer the crushing weight of poverty, but this does not mean that they are not exploited. In fact, they often face even greater rates of exploitation if the value of the goods that they produce are significantly higher. A Boeing engineer may earn over a hundred thousand dollars a year, but she contributes to products that sell for millions or billions of dollars. More importantly, varying rates of exploitation make up an integrated web of labor. The extraction of value does not happen on a case-by case basis, but is a collective process. Google's high-paid programmers work in buildings cleaned by low-paid janitors. The one's work is, in fact, dependent on the other's, and therefore so is the extraction of its value."

- Hadas Thier, from A People's Guide to Capitalism: An Introduction to Marxist Economics, 2020.

[1949coupe]

Freelance journalist and entrepreneur Tucker Benedict just wrote an open letter to Trump to remind him what it means to be American. Benedict’s message has officially set the internet on fire! Read it below:

Donald Trump,

My family immigrated to the United States of America on the third boat after the Mayflower. Our heritage precedes any records of Trumps, or Drumpfs, in America. Members of my family have served in every major conflict in US history with the exception of Iraq; your family cannot say the same. Yet, you continue to act as if you’ve sacrificed for the betterment of our country when the reality is: we don’t even know you’ve paid taxes half the time. Instead of acknowledging your past though, and honorably promising to change from a position of great entitlement, you accost service members you don’t care for, threaten democracy with attacks on the media, and worsen divides that threaten to tear America apart. Moreover, there’s a part of me that’s angry from a personal standpoint, my father founded the criminal divison of the EPA, and was the senior environmental prosecutor in the country until 2014, and whose storied career began with work on Watergate. You’ve destroyed his life’s work in under 7 months, but I’m not writing this from a position of anger or even from a personal standpoint, I’m trying to speak for a great many Americans who are understandably frightened for the future; who feel they’re watching the degradation of our way of life. This letter isn’t about me, or my feelings, but it is intended for you, Mr. President.

There’s a storm coming and as our enemies around the world lick their chops watching the division within America, we continue to charge towards a future in which we tear ourselves apart. Many of us, yourself included, seem to have forgotten what it means to be American. If our memory continues to fail and we forget entirely what being American truly means, we’ll not only lose our status as the world’s leader, we won’t deserve it anymore. This is not a world I can imagine nor that I have any desire to. Without America to serve as an eternal source of light within the darkness the world will be cast into chaos. In order to preserve what so many gave so much to obtain, we must first remember what it means to be American. While we seem hopelessly intertwined in a national, and very partisan, identity crisis we can only hope to pull out of it by remembering the lessons our founding father’s taught us all those years ago when they first defined, through their actions, what it means to be American.

Currently, there are a few misconceptions on what makes someone American; there seems to be a great deal of entitlement when considering the term. I was born a white male and a citizen of The United States of America but I don’t think that makes me an American. There seems to be a lot of controversy swirling around this notion but the reality is being born a certain way entitles me to nothing. The circumstances of birth don’t make you American, they never have, but actions do.

We earn our status as American through our actions day to day, month to month, and year to year. In doing the right thing by our loved ones, our countrymen, and ourselves we become American. There’s not flashy gesture or fancy piece of paper that can make you truly American but living the right way can; waking up and doing the right thing everyday, no matter how big or small the action, is what makes us American. It isn’t a static definition either, it’s a dynamic one just like we are as people; always changing, growing, and working towards the betterment of not only ourselves but our society as a whole. When considering how we define being American it’s worth noting those criteria.

When I voted it was in a densely populated, urban sector of Philadelphia. There were four booths for hundreds of people; many of whom were elderly and couldn’t stand for hours. It was a very telling few hours. Some of those elderly individuals struggling the most sported Make America Great Again hats. Instead of being happy at your supporter’s misfortune though I spent my day making trips to a conference room located at the back of the line hundreds of people long in order to ferry chairs to those who couldn’t stand. It wasn’t a big gesture or one that required a tremendous effort, it certainly DID NOT deserve any praise, because I knew it was merely the right thing to do for my fellow American. This attitude seems to be dying though, as we forget more and more what being American means. As I walked back and forth with chairs under each arm I watched many of my young peers barely look up from their phones; some even seemed noticeably annoyed that a fellow millennial would go out of his way to help your supporters. Make no mistake, those watching seemed to have forgotten what being American means just as much as anyone. When nobody joined in to help I was only made more aware of the change I’ve seen in my lifetime; the gradual shift many of us have noticed in our culture. It might seem subtle to some, but many have forgotten to do the right thing for no other reason than it helps another American. If this lack of support for each other continues to proliferate we’ll witness the decay of American values and worth This is something I attribute to the win at all cost/look out for yourself mentality that’s taken over politics and permeated into our culture; winning has become more important than standing up for each other. Americans used to do the right thing automatically, while many still do, others have stopped if there’s no reward or personal incentive. Americans used to help each other no matter who was President and that’s truly what made America great; our uniquely American loyalty. That loyalty, love, and solidarity saved us from the greatest threat the world has ever known, liberated Europe, and won two world wars. There’s been a change though. It’s apparent everywhere. We saw it when 23 of 24 Texas congressmen voted to deny aid when Hurricane Sandy hit, now faced with Harvey, Texans find themselves in an unfortunate position. This is merely one example of a larger problem within our society though and if this cancerous divisionist mentality continues to spread we’ll witness our downfall.

Hope is not lost though because it isn’t too late to start putting America, and each other, first again; all that’s required is remembering what made us Americans in the first place.

In school, when I was young and studying our history, I learned a great lesson; one I think is important enough to share. I learned that being an American isn’t something you obtain from being born here, or even from keeping other people out; being American is something you become through your actions and character. Defining what it meant to be an American was something our founding father’s sacrificed all that they had for.

Today, with all the modern luxuries we have it’s hard to understand being so passionate about something you’d die for it but our founders had that passion for the characteristics which would later define our nation. By fighting so fervently amongst ourselves that we forget the value of other Americans we put into jeopardy all that we have. It’s all of our duty to honor that which our founding father’s felt defined America. Honoring those traditions can mean different things to different people but all of us must find a way to honor them, every day if we are ever to truly Make America Great Again. This isn’t hard to do, it only takes remembering to do the right thing. I’m not perfect, in fact, I would consider myself the last person for anyone to take their cues from, but for me, I honor those traditions by trying to do the right thing every day to the best of my ability, whether it’s big or small, seen or unseen, noted or unnoticed. You see, if you remember to do the right thing, to treat others how you’d like to be treated, and do everything to the best of your ability, I promise everything else, all the nonsense in the media, won’t matter a single bit, because we’ll once again have a country of people who look out for one another. The alternative is unacceptable.

So Mr. President with this in mind I wanted to give you some advice for salvaging your presidency:

Tell the truth. In times of doubt, the truth is always the right answer. If lies are allowed to be believed as fact America will continue to forget that the real enemy isn’t each other, it’s those who seek to end democracy, freedom, and our way of life.

Stop defining what it means to be American from a partisan stance. You have no right. None of us do. Being American is defined by those who came before, and it’s defined by those whose examples will survive the test of time. If someone is willing to come here, work hard, abide by our laws, and protect our way of life, then you, Donald Trump, have no right to tell them they cannot be Americans. Being born to millions in New York, dodging your country’s call in its time of need, and verbally accosting service members does not make you the one to decide what it means to be an American.

Stop attacking the media. You bear a great responsibility; millions of Americans look to you for guidance and comfort during hardship. If you continue to point their anger at the media we may lose an integral pillar of democracy. If you do not you will cement your legacy as the enemy of democracy. History will condemn you.

Stop using radical Islam and immigrants as scapegoats to bring people together. We’ve seen in history scapegoats unite the masses but at great cost. Instead of pandering to the fears of your base you could teach them to accept. You’ve uniquely been able to reach the individuals that make up your base unlike any before you; you have the opportunity to take advantage of their love for you and to teach them that being American really means doing the right thing above all else. In doing this you could not only save your legacy but America as a whole.

There is a storm coming and it cannot be defeated by a divided nation; a storm that doesn’t care if you’re liberal or conservative, a storm that seeks to upend democracy, freedom, and our way of life. As Americans, we have to do the right thing even when it isn’t easy, even when there’s no reward because that’s truly what makes us Americans and if we forget that, we’ll truly be lost.

Respectfully,

Tucker Benedict.

[thevividgreenmoss]

Let us now turn to some contradictions and ironies inherent in postmodern thought.

The first irony that strikes me is its great popularity in countries like India and China. All the fundamental presuppositions of postmodern social and economic analyses refer to the structures of advanced capitalism. Looking at things from India, it seems implausible that postmodernist analyses could apply to societies that are not modern even by the standards of 19th century Britain or France or Germany. Nor is it possible to be postindustrial in predominantly agrarian societies.

Definitive decline of the industrial working class is a central tenet of postmodernism. This too does not apply. Given the demographic size of China and its rapid industrialization in recent years, there has been greater expansion of the industrial proletariat there in mere three decades than perhaps in all of Europe during its industrial revolutions. A small number of countries - East and South East Asian countries, plus India, Brazil and Argentina, let us say - has experienced a demographically much larger process of proletarianisation than the West did in all its history, and this has happened precisely during the half century which has witnessed the ascendancy of postmodern ideas in the higher echelons of university education.

As for the great prosperity and generalised ownership of housing and consumer durables that capitalism is said to have delivered, the fact is that (a) the vast majority of people outside the Euro-American zones never experienced anything of the kind, and (b) that kind of prosperity, including homeownership for the working classes, is precisely what is getting dissolved by the current offensives of the capitalist class across Europe and North America. And if the credit system was the great motor for the making of the ‘consumer society’, ‘affluent society’ etc, it is precisely the scale of private and state debts that is bringing that whole phase of American prosperity to a close under our very eyes.

We shall ignore here the absurd idea of the disappearance of the capitalist class in the United States. But something needs to be said about the opposite thesis, regarding the working class. I have already pointed out the actual and historically unprecedented expansion of the proletariat in numerous Third World countries over the past half century. Moreover, the dramatic decline of the industrial working class in the US is an index of the general decline of manufacture in US economy as such, and this decline is proving to be not a sign of prosperity but the key cause of the decline of American economic power as such. That is certainly not the case in the most powerful European economy, namely Germany, where industrial working class continues to have far greater social weight. In another frame, as early as the 1970s, when ideas of the death of the working class were swirling around on both sides of the Atlantic, Harry Braverman, in his brilliant book Labour and Monopoly Capital, had demonstrated that some 90% of the US population owned no income-generating property and relied exclusively on an economy of salaries and wages. A sectoral breakdown of jobs and incomes then showed a very high degree of proletarianisation.

Meanwhile, since at least the advent of Lenin, communists have never believed that the industrial working class will necessarily become the majority of the population or the exclusive agent of revolutionary change; nor has it been postulated that the industrial working class is the only kind of working class we have. The proletariat has always been conceived of as the leading nucleus of a revolutionary movement which will, however, necessarily rely on mobilization of and joint action with other oppressed classes, such as the peasantry, the rural proletariat and the mass of workers in branches other than manufacture, not to speak of numerous other social strata. The postmodernist idea that communism has somehow become irrelevant because the industrial proletariat constitutes only a minority of the population - and even of the proletarianised masses - thus has no bearing on how the role of the industrial proletariat is actually conceived in communist thought.

We can thus say that so far as the social and economic analyses of postmodernism are concerned, we can treat this part of the ideology essentially as a reflection of a particular phase of western, especially US, prosperity, with the assumption that this particular kind of prosperity will now be permanent. Moreover, the ideology is quite an accurate reflection of the class location of the new and prosperous middle class which itself a product of the type of capitalism that arose in the imperialist core of contemporary capitalism during the ‘Golden Age of Capitalism’ between 1945 and 1973. This class has actually continued to gain during the whole period of the Bubble Economy that speculative capital was able to sustain even after the recessionary trends set in after 1973. Moreover, key producers of such ideologies tend to be concentrated, even when they come from Third World origins, in institutions of higher learning and cultural management in those countries. This highly Westocentric ideology was presented, moreover, as a universalism, i.e., as if conditions prevailing in the West were somehow global conditions and ideas produced in specific circumstances had universal validity.

[...]

About Foucault I shall be brief. He is more a philosophical historian and little concerned with active politics. He was as opposed to the fundamentals of Marxist thought as Lyotard but had absolutely no truck with neoliberalism. His opposition to Marxism can be illustrated with a brief but paradigmatic formulation of his difference from Marxism: ‘no narrative of history can be assembled from the twin sites of political economy and the state.’ What does this mean? First, classes are not the fundamental units of society; economic power is just one kind among many kinds of power; the state is just one social actor among many other kinds of actors; to abolish one kind of state (e.g., the capitalist state) and replacing it with some other kind of state (e.g., the proletarian state) amounts to no more than replacing one kind of power over the people with another kind of power. Second, society is composed of countless complexes and organisms of power: the family, the prison complex, the schooling complex, the medical complex, the technologies for management of sexuality, and so on and on and on. Each has to be addressed in its own terms, not in the overall framework of class struggle.

Such ideas then lead to a very restricted notion of what forms of politics might be permissible. One of Foucault’s key political ideas is that no one can really represent any one else without a coercive relationship with those who are represented. All you can do in the social domain is try to help enhance the power of people to represent themselves. For this you need what Foucault calls ‘micro-politics,’ local, issue-based, time-bound. You help others if you can but you make sure that you don’t try to represent them, since self-representation is the only authentic form of representation.

Foucault’s idea of ‘micro-politics’, local and issue-based, and especially the rhetoric of ‘empowering’ without organizing politically, does authorize the kind of politics that has come to be practised now on such a vast scale by the NGOs and the so-called social movements. His proposition that (a) every society is composed of countless centres of power and great many institutions, and therefore (b) what is required is not a unified political party but a whole plethora of agents addressing those multiple centres of power resonates well with the very structure of the postmodern politics that have arisen in our times, especially in the form of identity politics. And, for all its radical claims, this kind of politics is perfectly acceptable to Anglo-Saxon liberal statecraft which has always understood that capitalist state power is safest when it can fragment the opposition into diverse claimants competing for a share in the national revenue - atomisation of politics, so to speak - and most vulnerable when it has to face a united opposition to its rule. In immigrant societies such as the United States, where the population itself is composed of diverse social groups-distinguished by countries of origin, religious affiliation, racial divides etc--this atomisation of politics in the shape of ‘identity politics’ has always been the principal weapon against class politics, as Marxist historians such as Mike Davis have shown with extensive documentation. By the end of 1960s, this politics of ethnic identity became state policy not only in the US but also in Canada as ‘multiculturalism’ and in Britain as ‘race relations’--increasingly with the high philosophical rhetoric borrowed from French postmodernism. This Anglo-Saxon manoeuvre was then imported into India, often with postmodernist authority; even the word ‘ethnicity’ was a gift to Indian social science from the Ford Foundation and its funded scholars, institutes, publications and seminars. Until the 1970s, hardly any Indian social scientist used this word.

[...]

Let us recall some of the features of American and French postmodernisms we discussed earlier. First, there is a revolt against Enlightenment ideas of Rationality, Universality and Progress. Second, in political theory, there is widespread rejection of the state and political organizations - parties, trade unions etc - as mere bureaucratic machines for mass coercion. Politics, then, can only be local, community-based and issue-based. The Nazi death camps and technologically produced weapons of mass destruction are cited again and again to debunk the idea that Science can be an instrument of human emancipation. Most of the postmodernists equate communism and fascism as ‘totalitarian’ ideologies and systems, borrowing this equation from the Far Right. Rejection of Modernity then often leads to a certain romanticization of thepremodern - the traditional, the primordial - as something authentic (Foucault, for instance, not only debunked communism as ‘totalitarian’ but also wrote essays praising the clerical revolution in Iran). Versions of all this re-appear in various shades of Indian postmodernism - as we shall see below.

The postmodern political forms in India typically take the shape of ‘social movements’, ‘civil society organizations’ and the funded NGOs. It is important to understand these terms. ‘Social movement’ is contrasted to ‘political movements’. Politics addresses the issue of state power, but if state is dismissed as realm of corruption and bureaucratic manipulation then political parties--even workers’ parties which participate in the political field and fight for state power--are also seen as part of that corruption, as yet other kinds of bureaucratic machines. Logically, then, the political is replaced by ‘the social’; the objective now is not to work toward a different kind of state power but to bypass the issue of political power altogether, and to work, in stead, for ‘empowerment’ of individuals, local communities and social groups where they exist, in relation to the specific issues that concern them in their daily lives. The same applies to the concept of ‘civil society organizations’. ‘Civil society’ is equated with ‘the people’ and is differentiated from ‘the state.’ Another term for the same is ‘people’s movements’. All of these typically take the form of the NGO. Much is made of NOT taking state funds, which is said to guarantee independence from the state. This is an interesting claim considering that great many of the most successful NGOs do take money from the Scandinavian governments, German foundations, various institutions of the United Nations, or such entities as Action Aid which is itself an arm of the British government - and for some years, increasingly, the World Bank, Ford Foundation etc. More recently, a number of Indian corporate houses have also moved into this field of patronage for NGOs. In practice, then, the national Indian state is the one that is treated as particularly unworthy, while funding from virtually anywhere else is considered clean.

Now, local work, among particular communities and on specific issues, is as old as 19th century reform movements, and most political parties which have any kind of ideological claims do have such programmes. But all such works was historically done with the idea of building larger and larger unities and organization for emancipation of the nation as a whole, of the peasantry and the working classes as entire social units, or of women on the national scale. What was new with NGOs etc was an exclusive emphasis on local work and the small group, with great contempt for electoral politics and with deliberate refusal to work in terms of classes, national liberation, or even trade union work. The phenomenon of the NGOs--many of whom starting calling themselves ‘social movements’ etc - arose in India as a major, distinct phenomenon when European social democratic parties - with their governments and foundations - began funding such organisations, essentially to compete with communist organizational efforts among the peasantry, the working classes, women and artisanal groups. On the global scale, those social democratic parties were already closely aligned with US imperialism since the beginning of the Cold War but much of the broad left in India which was opposed to the communist parties came to see those very social democratic parties as a progressive, democratic alternative to communism. There is reason to believe that CIA money was also funnelled through those European parties but the anticommunist projects of those parties themselves were now just as extreme as those of US imperialism. They funded anti-communist NGOs not only in India but across Asia and, especially, Africa.

Once that breach was in place, other funders could also move in. This phenomenon remained relatively restricted during the period when ideologies of anti-imperialism, economic nationalism and independent Indian development were strong and, rhetorically at least, the state itself paid lip service to such ideologies. As neoliberalism took hold and those ideologies receded, inhibition about getting funding from foreign agencies and domestic corporates also fell off. Then, as the state started withdrawing from direct involvement in providing social entitlements, it also began farming out some of its own work to NGOs, as had previously been done in weaker states such as Bangladesh. Over time, these ‘social movements’, armed with the rhetoric of ‘micro-politics’ borrowed from French postmodernism have come to occupy more and more of the political space in the name of ‘civil society’ and ‘the social’. This atomization of politics, which undercuts the politics of organized unity against the ruling class and its state, is greatly favoured by global capital itself.

[...]

In an article published in 1993, Dipesh Chakrabarty ascribed this great change in the very nature of the original subalternist project to, in his words, ‘the interest that Gayatri Spivak and, following her, Edward Said took in the project.’ Having thus identified the main influences behind the mutation, he also identifies the precise nature of the shift: from the project to ‘write ‘better’ Marxist histories,’ free of ‘economistic class reductionism’ to an understanding that ‘a critique of this nature could hardly afford to ignore the problem of universalism/Eurocentrism that was inherent in Marxist thought itself.’ This is a significant formulation, since it suggests that subalternism rejected the fundamentals of Marxism not once but twice. In the original project itself, Chakrabarty says, Subalternism rejected what he calls ‘economistic class reductionism’ - in other words, it rejected the idea that (1) that economy was the backbone of any society, (2) that the classes that are fundamental to the working of a capitalist system are the fundamental social forces of that society, (3) the idea that class struggle is the motivating force of history around which other kinds of struggles are shaped, and (4) the idea of the proletarian revolution itself. These are the ideas that are here described as ‘economistic class reductionism,’ which, Chakrabarty says, subalternism rejected at the very beginning. In the second phase, after American postmodernism - represented in this case by Said and Spivak - blessed the project, subalternism also rejected Marxist thought for its ‘universalism.’ Here, ‘universalism’ is again a code word for a number of ideas that are sought to be rejected, such as the idea (1) that there is a common humanity, beyond race or ethnicity or even nationality, which is exploited under capitalism, (2) that the proletariat cannot really emancipate itself without emancipating society as a whole and thus emerging (in Marx’s words) as ‘a universal class,’ (3) that what we have so far had is capitalist universality (my term for what the bourgeoisie calls ‘globalization’) and it cannot be overturned with anything less than a socialist revolution which itself will have to be, eventually, universal (global), and (4) that identities and ethnicities, important as they undoubtedly are, involve, in each instance, only a small part of humanity, whereas exploitation is what is ‘universal’ for the vast majority of humanity, beyond identity etc.

In short, then, rejection of what subalternists, in their code language, call ‘class reductionism’ and ‘universalism’ amounts in fact to rejection of Marxism as a whole, regardless of how often they invoke Gramsci or Mao or whoever.

This rejection of Marxism, coupled with growing identification with postmodernist ideas, and especially with postmodern antirationalism, then leads the subalterns to adopt positions on the issue of secularism and communalism, for instance, which are clearly rightwing even though they cannot be identified with Hindutva politics as such.

Aijaz Ahmad, On Postmodernism

[medical877]

The Definitive Guide to Medical

What Does Medical Mean?

Table of ContentsExcitement About MedicalMedical Fundamentals ExplainedThe Greatest Guide To MedicalIndicators on Medical You Should Know10 Simple Techniques For MedicalMedical for BeginnersUnknown Facts About Medical

Indicators on Medical You Should Know

The precision and efficiency of innovation in the health care landscape will certainly help in simplifying as well as decreasing a whole lot of troubles (medical). Lots of wellness specialists agree that medical care markets will certainly not look the method it is today as well as this is primarily since many of them will move their focus to avoidance and also treatment, to population health, to affordable strategies, to even more individualized treatment, and so on

All About Medical

Due to modern technology and a growing labor force in the healthcare sector, there will certainly be fewer individuals in medical facilities.

Everything will certainly be readily available, therefore, individuals will not see the demand of scheduling for a consultation with their physician, take some time off from job as well as after that most likely to the hospital. Insurer have already carried out the required changes to make sure that high price or risky people can remain out of the healthcare facilities.

4 Simple Techniques For Medical

Supervisors have already been hired to keep track of individuals that are considered to be high price and make certain they keep a healthy lifestyle to ensure that they will not wind up in health centers. The high-tech and growing labor force will maintain individuals healthy and balanced as well as aid them stay out of hospitals; this is helpful to patients but what concerning the registered nurses, doctors along with assistance personnel in medical facilities? This suggests that several of them may lack work or couple of individuals will certainly want to be doctors or nurses.

As these existing health care fads continue, expect to see brand-new innovations, brand-new structures, as well as lowered prices over time., BUDDIES, and also BLS courses for medical professionals including Emergency Area Registered nurses.

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In 2020, extra medical care organizations will shift from hand-operated scheduling to digitized, smart routines. Medical care companies can now schedule the right medical professional on a digital on-call scheduler and also automate the alert. These routines are complemented by acceleration plans, which re-route critical notifies to the next medical professional if the very first is unavailable.

Patients dial just one number to directly link with their doctors on a real-time telephone call, reviewing their immediate as well as time-sensitive clinical concerns. In the not likely instance that all doctor don't respond to the telephone call, the individual is then asked to leave a callback number and/or voicemail. This year will certainly be loaded with technology innovation and also adoption.

Indicators on Medical You Need To Know

Wellness details technology is constantly adjusting to satisfy the changing needs of healthcare suppliers. With regular interruption, it can be difficult to recognize which features as well as tools your healthcare organization will benefit from specifically.

The price of a medical care data violation mores than 60% greater contrasted to other markets, costing companies nearly $6. 5 million usually - medical. Io, T and also Medical Tools Medical devices are prevalent, and also when integrated with the internet of things, their value can be measured in expedited workflows, improved supply management and better staff member tracking.

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Throughout recent years, using several Io, T and also clinical tools has become the requirement for many health centers, with the variety of connected gadgets growing. Also expanding is the marketplace for such devices; estimates vary, with one record claiming that the international Io, T medical care market is forecasted to grow to an impressive $534.

On-premise systems may protect against online hazards extra thoroughly, yet numerous cloud-based options have actually started to secure their information with even more reliable and also safe and secure securities. Here's the key for those inclined to stick with an on-premise-based remedy: as Finn clarifies, "The cloud is not naturally troubled, yet it's a different type of safety and security.

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As with whatever else in our lives, the need for medical care is becoming significantly shaped by flexibility. People want the very same access to medical care that they have for every little thing else in their day-to-day lives. While some companies may not have embraced this more-recent fad, that will not stop linked tools and also on-demand care from ending up being increasingly much more traditional.

[sthephannyexo]

Hey @taylorswift @taylornation, I wanna tell you a little bit about what’s happening here in Brazil.. We have a president that is worse than Trump and he is telling everyone that the coronavirus is just a “little flu” and that people have to go to work, he wants to reopen all the schools and wants everyone to stop the quarantine because of the country's economy. According to him: “he has the health of an athlete and if he gets this little flu nothing will happen to him”. He is telling the whole country that this virus only kills old people, people over 60 and that they are the only ones who should stay in quarantine, that all the kids have to go back to school and people have to work. Today he also announced that: “Brazilians have to be studied. They never get sick. You see a guy jumping into the sewer over there, gets out, dives, ok? And nothing happens to him. I think that many people have already been infected in Brazil, a few weeks or months ago, and they already have the antibodies that help not to proliferate the virus”. So now we have 2 sides: the people that defend this president and want to go out and work, that think the virus will only affect old people (having the argument that they only have 2 choices: either stay at home and die of hunger or go out and get the “little flu” and that they would rather get the virus), a lot of ignorant people saying that nothing will happen to them if they get the virus and the other kind of people SEE what’s happening in the world and think our president is crazy. But there are so many people here that truly believe what he is saying and want to go out. What we are living is so scary and I am worried about how many people will die because I have been following all the news since the pandemic started in China and have seen so many interviews and sad things. This virus is serious and people here are not taking it seriously. Italy didn’t take it seriously and now look what happened to them! And people can’t see that!! They always have an argument for everything we say! When we say that, they say: oh but Italy’s population is mostly elderly people. We don’t have a good health care system, it is really poor actually.. there aren’t even enough safety equipment in the hospitals. My aunt’s friend is a doctor and she had to buy her own goggles and masks because there aren’t enough masks in the hospitals anymore. She said she had patients dying from the virus that are kids, a 4 year old that had all the symptoms here died before they even tested her so that is just one example of unregistered deaths, because another problem here is the lack of test kits. There aren’t enough and they are only testing those in CRITICAL condition.. and the results are taking 15-30 days. If a family, for example, has someone with the virus, they only test one, and consider it to be one for the official number. So as of today there are 77 confirmed deaths and almost 3,000 cases. A doctor said that we can multiply that number by 15 because of all the testing problems here and the worst part is there aren’t enough hospital beds for people. The government here is not helping us with money, food or anything and that is why most people, even if they don’t agree with the president, say that they have to go out to work otherwise they will starve. My mom, for example, has a travel agency and I am the one who does all the paperwork for the visas and I get some money from that which helps pay my bills but now in the situation that we are in with this pandemic, no one is travelling so it’s a struggle for all the sectors. I am grateful that I have a small amount of reserved money that can get me by for a short while but also scared of how long this situation will last, and also there are so many people here that don’t have any money and that is so so sad. I have been on all social media trying to get those people who defend the president to open their minds and see the bigger picture, see that they have to stay inside, quarantine and it’s been so stressful because they always have some sort of ridiculous argument to defend him and I said it’s not even about POLITICS anymore people!!! It’s about people's health!!! It’s about saving lives!! Every day it’s a struggle, trying to change their minds, showing them the facts, that not only old people die, that they have to take this seriously but they are so stubborn and now we might all be doomed. I am so disappointed and perplexed at how ignorant people can be.. thinking a PANDEMIC is just a little flu. Ugh, I am so sad for our whole country… of how many deaths there will be if people don’t quarantine. I am praying that they find a cure for this soon and praying for everyone out there. Just wanted to get that out, share this with you and ask you to please stay safe. Praying for the world. I have seen you lurking and wanted to thank you so much for being so kind to others. You are a true angel, Tay. I love you so much!! <3

[gemmasianpowellphotography]

The creative economy is of rapidly growing significance in most countries but is a new concept and we are still learning how to value it, measure it and understand its relationship to the wider economy and its impact on society

In the last decade the creative economy has come of age for policymakers and the wider public. The economic performance, previously unobserved, and the cultural transformations that the creative economy embodies have brought with them new challenges and perspectives. First, the unifying vision of the creative economy has been a major step forward, giving practitioners, politicians and policymakers, and the general public, a concept that enables us all to discuss a common concern. Second, the notion of the creative economy whilst playing a unifying role still remains a Pandora’s Box: not simply of the various components of the creative economy, but also of tensions between the for, and not-for-profit, value (economic value v cultural value), and between the formal and informal aspects of activities that comprise them. In order to consider the challenges that lie ahead, we need to also cast our minds back.

Youth

The first phase of the creative economy emerged out of the value question: the tension between economic and cultural values; usually reflected in priorities for public policy supporting market failure in culture. The emergence of the cultural industries as an economic and cultural force in the 1960s challenged notions of culture, and who and what it was for. From the 1980s award the notion of the cultural industries attracted academic and some policy debate. From the late 1990s the notion of the creative industries was led by the UK, but founded on important statistical work in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. This provided a template - albeit rooted in nation states - that engaged politicians and challenged traditional monolithic ideas of culture. The last decade has seen authoritative international statistic frameworks (UNESCO), and policy development (UNCTAD/UNESCO), as well as international comparative data on the sector. The UNCTAD data pointed to a significant growth in the whole creative economy, even through the recession, and showed that the global South was outpacing growth rates in the North (and driving dramatic growth in South-South trade: Northern states prominence will wane). Critically, these reports have been an inspiration to nation states to examine their own creative economies.

Middle age

Now that the first flush of political and policy enthusiasm has passed, the long and careful journey to develop more robust and inclusive understanding of the creative economy is called for. The good news is that there is political momentum; the bad news is that it is difficult and costly: the data simply does not exist in many fields. Nearly every nation state is now pursuing creative economy strategies; notable enthusiasts are the emergent economies of Asia and Latin America. Thus, local capacity building in data collection and analysis, as well as in policymaking, is a major challenge. In parallel, the more obvious point is local capacity building in the creative economy. The barrier here is that the creative economy is unique in its organisation and work patterns; generic industrial policies tend not to be effective.

Maturity

The drive to maturity in the creative economy is one of the sector itself, as well as its governance; and the shifting impacts on populations. The issues that are on the agenda for the next decade relate to understanding the processes of cultural production and their relation to other creative industries, to all industries and the rest of society. Policy will only be effective if the processes (that is the operation and organisation of the creative economy) are appreciated. One of the challenges will be that demographic and social changes of affluent middle-class growth in India and China will dominate cultural consumption and production in the global economy. A second major challenge that we face concerns that nature of work and employment in the creative economy. Many of the jobs are insecure, and poorly paid: class, gender, age, and race discrimination is rife. The rich web of the formal, and informal; the for and not-for-profit; the cultural and the economic is the biggest challenge to understand. In this sense the creative economy is the canary in the coal mine for the rest of the economy. Given the fact that the creative economy is reaching the middle ranking of most economies in terms of jobs and earnings, let alone innovation, the struggle is not going to be over the knowledge economy, but knowledge of the creative economy. 

Andy C Pratt is Professor of Cultural Economy, and Director of the Centre for Culture and the Creative Industries at City University of London.

[chicagocityfclanspromoblog]

Robert J. Fischer → Charlie Webber, Justin Theroux, Alexander Skarsgård, Aly Michalka → Human Shifter

→ Basic Information

Age: 297

Gender: Male

Sexuality: Straight

Birthday: May 29

Zodiac Sign: Gemini

Religion: Christian

→ His Personality

Robert is thoroughly a product of his upbringing. A smooth con artist mother plus her clingy husband, he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Seeing his mother die at the hands of his father, and then his father’s subsequent death has left a scar in Robert’s psyche that often makes it difficult to form long term romantic connections. He’s terrified of marriage and has walked away many times from relationships that became too serious. Despite this, Robert at his core is lonely. He hates being alone, and loved living with his three best friends. He currently finds his apartment deafeningly quiet and a miserable place to be. Being the child of millionaires, created an ego in Robert, one that he has tamed enough to listen to others and not immediately assume he’s the only right one.  

Robert is a very suave individual, able to talk to anyone and sweet talk his way into their hearts. His ability to shift like a chameleon and mirror other’s abilities goes far beyond many human shifters. Another way he draws people in is with his passionate ideals, often spoken loudly, and a desire to make positive change in people. He regularly puts his money where his mouth is, and has funded numerous improvement projects in various low income communities. He very much enjoys spending his money on people and has a generous spirit. Despite any and all flaws that Robert may have, he is a great friend, it is clear he cares for everyone’s well being and is a great support system. Robert will occasionally surprise his friends with expensive gifts, despite the fact that as a whole human shifters rarely need it.

→ His Personal Facts

Occupation: Political Candidate for Mayor

Scars: None

Tattoos: None

Two Likes: Cocktail parties and Arguing

Two Dislikes: Pinstripe suits and Being the last one at a party

Two Fears: Marriage and Guns

Two Hobbies: Rugby and Chess

Three Positive Traits: Suave, Passionate, Generous

Three Negative Traits: Egotistical, Repressed, Lonely

→ His Connections

Parent Names:

Eloise Fischer (Mother): Eloise Fischer was one of the greatest conwomen of her time. Seamlessly stealing faces and heart, becoming very wealthy in a short amount of time. She taught him how to charm and schmooze his way to whatever he wanted.

Michael Fischer (Father): Michael Fischer was the sad sack that fell in love with Eloise. A powerful human shifter himself, he always played second fiddle to her games. Michael murdered Eloise over these games, and then himself, leaving Robert with a complex and a lot of money.

Sibling Names:

None

Children Names:

None

Romantic Connections:

None

Platonic Connections:

Churchill Darling (Best Friend): Church and Robert clicked as soon as they met unexpectedly. While their histories are nowhere near the same, they both enjoyed taking faces and living as the person they wear. Robert, Churchill, Vincent and Patch all shared one apartment until recently, when Robert was tasked with running for mayor. Robert misses his best buddies but has an unknown form (Alexander Skarsgård) designated for hanging out and having fun.

Vincent Kane (Best Friend): Vincent and Robert grew up together. In the past they would take on sibling forms and live as brothers. Robert, Churchill, Vincent and Patch all shared one apartment until recently, when Robert was tasked with running for mayor. Robert misses his best buddies but has an unknown form (Alexander Skarsgård) designated for hanging out and having fun.

Jev ‘Patch’ Cipriano (Best Friend): Patch is a godsend and a joy to be around. Robert feels as if Patch is the younger brother his parents never had the chance to give him. It’s a plus that Patch’s parents love and care for Robert also. Robert, Churchill, Vincent and Patch all shared one apartment until recently, when Robert was tasked with running for mayor. Robert misses his best buddies but has an unknown form (Alexander Skarsgård) designated for hanging out and having fun.

Sirius Cobic (Old Friend): Robert has known Sirius his entire life. Robert was destroyed by his mother’s death. He was acting recklessly, needlessly spending money and spiraling out of control. Sirius pulled Robert out of his reckless depression and straightened him out. Sirius then took Robert under his wings.

Douglas Gish (Good Friend): Douglas is a good time walking. He always knows he can rely on him to be there at a moment’s notice. They were partners for a while when they both worked the beat. Though they were only together for a decade, the two formed a lifelong bond.

D.W. Colt (Good Friend): When Robert found himself in the advocacy track for a decade, D.W. trained him and tapped into some of the very repressed aspects of his personality. She showed him how to connect to the victims and he credits this for his impeccable listening skills. Robert didn’t last his typical full decade as an advocate, due to getting too invested with his cases, especially those involving familial murder and femicide. This was his last job in the police and law sector before he and Sirius decided he should run for office. He credits D.W. with a lot of his growth, but is very worried for her. The Colts are vicious and he can’t lose her to their violence.

Arthur ‘Art’ Milligan Jr. (Friend): Art and Robert worked together in the 1970s investigating the Chicago Outfit. They took a few mobsters out in their time, but it never really held interest for Robert. Art was a good partner and friend. They don’t get to speak as much lately, but Arthur always attends his retirement parties.

Winston ‘Sticks’ Abioye (Friend): Winston and Robert partnered up during the 60s on Homicide. They had a prolific career and caught, at the time, the largest number of suspects. It was a wild ride, and their energies often boosted one another up. He was sad to see his time in Homicide end, but he knew if he stayed he’d regret it eventually. Winston regularly gets an invite when the boys hang out together.

Shannon Harris (Media Consultant): Shannon is quieter, but has a good perception of public image. She is genuinely a very likable person which has reflected well on himself and his campaign. In addition to keeping Vee on as an advisor, he’d like to tempt Shannon to stay too.

Vanessa Stone (Campaign Manager): Vee is a spitfire. Always ready to argue her point to the death, she is prepared to stand firm in her beliefs until you go to her side. He’s found that hearing her idea out often gives him a better insight to the population he’ll be running soon, and has caused him to change his mind on a few issues.

Katherine King (Finance Consultant): Katherine is good at handling the finances. He wasn’t sure if there’d be a member of the Jackals he could trust with the job, but she’s doing well. It’s even better that she never asks where the money is coming from and simply does her job.

Greta Bow (Friend): Robert has a lot of money, and enjoys spending it on people. Greta is one of his favorites to surprise with something. She never expects it and her face lights up when she sees whatever it is.

Hostile Connections:

Colin Colt (Dislike): Robert is aware of D.W’s undercover status with the Colt Hunter Family. He is absolutely disgusted with Colin and thinks he is an idiot.

Roman Cleirigh (Dislike): Roman is known for selling drugs to supernaturals and some of them have made it into the hands of humans. When Robert worked in narcotics in the 1980s, he ran into a lot of problems with Roman and tried to take him down by the book. It failed and Robert was a target of the entire Cleirigh clan. Every now and again, Robert believes he’s being haunted or stalked.

Jim Montgomery (Dislike): Jim has no respect for boundaries and neither does the rats who work under him. Robert had heard that the rats have truces with the Jackal and Cat clans about work spaces and some homes. He tried to talk to Jim once in public and it ended with Robert’s car, clothes, and shoes being bugged.

Jaxson Idris (Dislike): Jaxson knows how to make Robert’s life hell and is the reason behind Robert’s constant changing or retiring of forms. He found the intrusive rat watching him and a lady friend in the shower once. Robert has a low tolerance for rat shifters or rats in general and always goes in for the kill.

Pets:

None

→ History (paragraph(s) on background)

→ The Present (paragraph(s) on how the character connects to the plot)

→ Available Gif Hunts (we do not own these)

Charlie Webber  [1][2][3]

Justin Theroux  [1]  

Alexander Skarsgård [1][2]  

Aly Michalka  [1][2]

[halfcharacter]

Rufus Shinra Analysis in FFVII Remake (2020) vs FFVII (1997)

taken from my original thread on twitter here.

[MASSIVE REMAKE AND OG GAME SPOILERS, you have been warned]

From what we’ve seen in Final Fantasy VII Remake so far, Rufus (in my opinion) is 100% more interesting than he was in the original Final Fantasy VII. In the original game, Sephiroth/JENOVA infiltrates the Shinra building and murders everyone inside. Then, Sephiroth/JENOVA stabs President Shinra and leaves his body at his desk with Masamune sticking out of his back. Palmer, who had witnessed the entire thing, calls Rufus (who is in Junon) for backup. Rufus responds by boarding a helicopter to come assume command of the company in the wake of his father’s death.

Rufus arrives just as the protagonists discover President Shinra’s body, and they rush out to confront him. Rufus doesn’t know who they are, so he asks. Each of the gang gives a brief one-liner of their “occupations”, and Rufus responds with “what a crew” which is A REALLY GOOD SNARKY LINE I’M SAD ISN’T IN THE REMAKE. In Final Fantasy VII Remake, the part where the party reveals their ‘occupations’ is instead given to Heidegger, and only Aerith, Barret and Red XIII are present.

An interesting major divergence from the original game then happens in Remake. In the original, Rufus begins his inauguration speech:

That’s right. I’ll let you hear my new appointment speech. ...My old man tried to control the world with money. It seems to have been working. The population thought that Shinra would protect them. Work at Shinra, get your pay. If a terrorist attacks, the Shinra army will help you. It looks perfect on the outside. But, I do things differently. I’ll control the world with fear. It takes too much to do it like my old man. A little fear will control the minds of the common people. There’s no reason to waste money on them. 

As Rufus begins by talking about how Shinra used to work, the player starts to think “Oh good, maybe things are about to change for the better. Maybe he’s a good guy!” WRONG.

Rufus then drops the bombshell that he has no intention of being ‘better’ than his father—in fact, he’s worse. While his father used money to rule, Rufus will instead rule with fear. I’m not sure why this speech was cut from the Remake, but my guess is that they’re going to keep it for a later instalment because it’s just a+ in terms of setting up just how cruel Rufus actually is.

In the original, Cloud then asks Barret to take Aerith and escape the building (present in Remake) because the revelation that Sephiroth is alive “is the true threat to the planet” (not present in Remake). when Rufus and Cloud are alone, Rufus asks, “why do you want to fight me?”

Cloud responds, “you seek the promised land and Sephiroth.” Rufus’ last line before the boss battle is “I see. I guess this means we won’t become friends.” THIS IS A REALLY INTERESTING LINE which is not in the Remake because OG!Rufus and Remake!Rufus are quite different.

In the original it is implied that Rufus was planning to team up with Cloud, or at least gain their support since they’re both going after Sephiroth. It’s only after Cloud refuses his offer that they fight, and the fight was more of a story fight than a true challenge.

HERE IS WHERE THE FINAL FANTASY VII REMAKE REALLY DIFFERS RE: RUFUS. Remake gives us a short scene with the Turks thinking back on their actions regarding the Sector 7 pillar, before Tseng gets a phone call from Rufus and says, “the VP needs us.” The Turks then leave. 

The first time Rufus is seen is when the AVALANCHE helicopter is shot down, and Reno asks, “you sure you want to do this personally, boss?” to which Rufus smirks. In the original, Rufus arrives at the Shinra HQ because he heard that his father had died. In the Remake, Rufus was already on his way to Midgar when his father dies. Why is this? An important clue comes from the Turk-centric game Before Crisis, as well as the actual boss battle vs Rufus himself.

Before Crisis reveals that Rufus had previously planned to assassinate his father with the help of AVALANCHE but was found out. This assassination attempt is confirmed to be canon within the Remake from one of Heidegger’s lines early in the Remake. President Shinra placed Rufus under house arrest, but still retained him as VP (even if in name only). While fighting Rufus in the Remake, he tosses two coins in the air and the camera gives us a closeup of them. The coins read “Shinra Inc.” and “A New Era”, among other things. 

Players of the original will know that “A New Age” is how Rufus brands his version of Shinra, particularly seen on his banners during his parade in Junon. Remake!Rufus has already managed to have his new currency minted BEFORE HIS FATHER EVEN DIES. So, what does this mean?

It means that what’s likely to be the case in Remake is that Rufus called Tseng to come pick him up because he’s either staging another coup/planning to take control right there and then. He just happened to have weird timing and arrived at the same time as Sephiroth/JENOVA and the protagonists, and his father had just died (at the hands of Sephiroth/JENOVA).

Rufus in the original didn’t show any sadness about his father dying, but Remake!Rufus appears to have taken that one step further in that he was preparing for another attempt, and had already had his new currency minted in preparation for his success and ascension.

It’s interesting also to compare President Shinra and Rufus. President Shinra is very much tied into the corporate structure—he rules using his wealth, he’s very business minded, and his closest allies are his execs. Rufus on the other hand prefers to use fear and black ops to get his way, which is shown by how he has a much stronger relationship with the Turks. The Remake showcases this internal conflict nicely with a brief scene near the end.

In this scene, Heidegger slips up and calls him “Mister Vice President”, which Rufus ignores. Tseng then walks in and says, “Mister President”, and Rufus replies, “that’s right.” Tseng smirks at Heidegger as they leave. This shows how Heidegger (and the other exec’s) control is being usurped by the Turks. I’m interested to see how the Shinra power struggles are going to be further explored in the Remake, because it’s one of my favourite parts of the whole game.

With regards to the actual boss battle itself, it’s very interesting how much stronger they’ve made Rufus in Remake. the original boss battle was very easy and was more of a story fight than a true fight. Rufus in the Remake is one of the hardest bosses because he just fucking counters EVERYTHING you do. he’s DESIGNED to be irritating as shit to the player, because he has a single attack that staggers him instantly, but the game doesn’t tell you what it is. Furthermore, the way Rufus fights is incredibly flashy—spins and twirls, shooting coins, etc. it’s all a dance to him. It’s very strongly implied that he must have been trained by the Turks, because he’s still a regular human, but he’s on a comparable level to Reno and Rude, if not even stronger.

In the original, Rufus fights Cloud because Cloud refuses to let him leave, Cloud having recognized him as a threat. In the Remake, Rufus HIMSELF chooses to fight Cloud. He willingly gets out of his helicopter to confront cloud BECAUSE HE WANTS TO. Reno even points out that Rufus doesn’t have to do it personally, but Rufus craves a fight with cloud. Rufus in the Remake fights cloud for sport and takes great pleasure in doing it as well.

In the Remake he comes off as a highly dangerous opponent who is both smart AND a capable fighter, giving Cloud a run for his money, while in the original he was pretty much just trust fund kid with shotgun and dog.

Remake!Rufus and Dark Nation/Darkstar combo off each other incessantly, implying that they’ve been fighting together for a very long time. Rufus also CONSISTENTLY taunts you throughout the entire fight, while Cloud (and the player) are getting really annoyed at him.

All of these elements set Rufus (and by extension, New Age!Shinra) up to be way stronger and more dangerous opponents than they were in the original game, where after the beginning Midgar portion they were pretty much just joke opponents vs the real threat, Sephiroth. 

Another extra thought: Why can Rufus seemingly see the whispers? 

The whispers are said in the Remake to be drawn to people who attempt to alter destiny’s course and ensure that they do not. Rufus seems to be able to see them, but Tseng cannot, and is confused by it. I’m assuming what this means is that Rufus’ actions have already defied fate in some way. Nothing of what he did on-screen really changed the original game’s timeline, so I think this means that he has done something off-screen that we the player hasn’t seen yet, but had timeline changing effects. Another idea is that in the original game Rufus and Shinra just “follow” sephiroth in the same way cloud and co. do. If the Remake is giving Rufus/Shinra more agency, as well as Cloud and co. themselves, it’s not hard to imagine that now Rufus himself can possibly pursue new timelines/events, rather than just following after Sephiroth. In the original, you have parties of people just following “Sephiroth” to the northern crater for the Reunion, but now all bets are off. Rufus also “dies” in the original and Advent Children retconned it, and I’m wondering if this means Rufus is also defying his fate to “die” on top of Shinra HQ near the endgame.

I'm REALLY interested in this re-imagining of Rufus and Shinra, and i can't wait to see more of them in remake. THANK YOU FOR READING ALL THESE MUSINGS ON MY FAVOURITE CHARACTER IN FFVII.