#the US government can't even agree with itself all the time. and you mean to tell me that there's a united global cabal in control of all???

[bisonofyesterday]

I've been reading a lot of conspiracy theories lately for fun and it's wild, sure, a glimpse into the mind of an insane person, but honestly it does kinda get boring after a while once you recognize all of the tropes

It's a real thing that happens and it was a fear for me at first but now? I genuinely don't get how "conspiracy reading for fun" could act as a pipeline to being a conspiracy theorist, like are you stupid?? Were you already susceptible to this brand of thought??? Literally all of these are either odd interpretations of economics, wishful thinking, reboots of antisemitism, or just plain regular bullshit, and like it's really easy to see that, like all of this is dumb, people who believe this are dumb, it's absurd

Fantastic fiction though, these could be good books or games or movies, and like that's what they are and that's their primary audience, people who want to pretend they're the protagonist of a movie, of a grand plot, every bad thing doesn't just happen or are perpetrated some random disturbed people! It's an organized movement at the top of everything responsible for every bad thing ever to keep us in line! It can be a kind of anti-religion in that sense, malevolent gods are better than none

There HAS to be gods at the top of it all, who put ridiculous references to themselves in everything and monolithically control the entire world, because if no one is in control, then that'd be terrifying

[sophiamcdougall]

I am never going to complain about Greek Duolingo again

I mean, I am. But still.

So, as some of you know, my family has been coming to this tiny Greek seaside village for several years. Just over a week ago I came out here with my mum, under the impression that early September, after the height of the summer heat, would be a good time to have a holiday. ANYWAY Storm Daniel had other ideas about that. Locally things are improving (I'm actually really pissed off about the disaster-porn tone of most English-language media coverage, but that's another post). The power is back on, there's running water most of the time, and though the latter is not drinkable, a truck from the government came and handled out free bottled water yesterday. But we are currently kind of stuck. Can't do tourist things. Can't go home. There aren't any local flights out until Saturday and the road to Thessaloniki is still closed.

So this evening, feeling kind of aimless and depressed, I go down to the nearest beach with a couple of binbags and start cleaning up in an effort to at least do something positive. I always try to do this at least once out here and obviously, after the storm, there's a lot more plastic and rubbish than usual.

At some point I find this large, round bit of metal - some kind of machinery part, I think -- that's too big for the bag, so I take it to the bins on its own, leaving the rubbish bag on the beach. And when I come back for it, something among the stones beside it moves.

Specifically, it pulls its head sharply inside its shell

So, meanwhile I've been trying to learn some Greek with the help of Duolingo.

I currently have a 33-day streak and... I have questions. Shouldn't I be able to use the past or future tenses by now? Shouldn't I be able to say "x is like y"? I can't do those things. But one thing I absolutely can say all day long is έχω μια χελώνα : I have a turtle.

This is far from the limit of Duolingo Greek's turtle-related content. "An obsession with turtles" is my mother's characterisation. I can inform you that the turtle is not a bird, and, improbably, that the turtle is drinking milk. I can introduce you to a turtle in company with a horse and an elephant. As far as Duolingo is concerned, it really is turtles all the way down.

Now this, you may be able to see, is not a turtle. It has claws rather than flippers. It is a tortoise. I know there are wild tortoises in Greece: my aunt once rescued a pair of them shagging in the middle of the road -- but that was up in the mountains. I've even seen one myself, but it was also on a road and very dead.

I am 95% certain they don't belong on beaches. There's nothing for it to eat, except, unfortunately, a lot of plastic. Even if it gets off the beach it will immediately find itself on a road where it could get hit by a car. I'm pretty sure it must have been washed down by the floodwater and has been just sitting there, dazed, ever since.

Now obviously the first thing I want to do on encountering this unusual animal is to go and tell my mummy, so I do. The tortoise immediately brightens her day. She agrees that the tortoise is not happy on the beach and needs to be taken somewhere safe. it gets surprisingly wriggly when picked up so we put it in a carrier bag with some grapes and cucumber and go looking for somewhere to rehome it.

We find a path leading up between the houses towards a likely-looking field, but before we get very far a dog in a yard goes berserk and a man's head pops over a fence and demands to know what we're doing. He does this in English, as evidently we're just that obviously tourists.

"I found a tortoise on the beach!" I explain. "We want to find somewhere to put it."

"A what," he asks.

"It's like a, you know," I begin and then to my astonishment I find myself saying... "μια χελώνα"

"Oh! A turtle!" he says.

"But from the land. δεν είναι χελώνα", [it is not a turtle,] I say, as I am worried he will tell me to put it back near the sea where I found it. As it turns out it actually IS a χελώνα, Greek does not distinguish between turtles and tortoises, but I don't know that; I can't even name the days of the week or identify any colours other than pink yet, give me a break.

The man's entire demeanour changes and thaws. He does not worry about my turtle-that-is-not-a-turtle conundrum. He knows where οι χελώνες come from and where η χελώνα μας belongs. He leads us through a gate into a courtyard area.

"[somethingsomething] μια χελώνα," he explains to the assembled onlookers, of whom there are, suddenly, a surprising number.

"ΜΙΑ ΧΕΛΩΝΑ!!!" crows the throng of delighted small children, who are, suddenly, everywhere.

"μια χελώνα!" I agree, accepting that at least for current purposes, that is what it is.

"Μπορούμε να δούμε τη χελώνα σας; [can we see your turtle?]" asks an adorable little girl, shyly, and I understand??

The children fucking love looking at the χελώνα and showing it to them is kind of magical?

I finally put the tortoise down on the grass of this wild area off to the side of the courtyard, and marvel aloud that it is weird that I barely know any Greek except how to say μια χελώνα.

"I think she will soon run off," a kind lady called Aspasia assures me, seeing I remain slightly anxious about its fate. "I don't know why I'm saying 'she'. I suppose because χελώνα is feminine in Greek."

"Yes! I know that!" I exclaim, thrilled.

"Well done!" she says. And also she asks if we are OK for drinking water after the storm and if we need any help with anything and is just generally incredibly lovely and now we know more of the neighbours!

So "μια χελώνα" has just become, by a long way, my most-used and most understood and all-around most conversationally successful phrase in Greek. So I guess I have to admit I was wrong to doubt Duolingo's wisdom: it is correct to be obsessed with turtles. And I concede that prior to learning how to count to ten or to distinguish right from left, the simple ability to yell the word TURTLE over and over again is, it turns out, a crucial element of the responsible traveller's social skills.

(I am pretty fluent in Italian and turtles haven't come up in conversation even once?)

[txttletale]

yo i really like your content and agree with you on most things but i don't really know what you mean with that last one. my friends from ukraine both oppose the war's existence but would rather not be violently annexed by an imperial power so of course they, with little other options, support resistance efforts.

it's really hard for me to understand what you're going for because if ukraine stopped fighting back it'd just get taken by russia. maybe i just have bad brainfog, but it's hard to understand what you're asking us to do and believe. should we try and take out both the russian and american imperialist powers at once? but that's unrealistic and unlikely to happen in the near future, no matter how much i personally support it, which i do.

i guess my question is, what's an actual realistic thing we should support in the meantime? we can't just pretend that somehow revolution will take out both american and russian imperialist interests immediately, so. it's like, well yes we should have a better world playing by better rules, but how do we do the right thing when we are bound by the rules now.

i have friends who have family who died in the war, and sometimes it feels like bloggers i otherwise trust say things that sound suspiciously close to "ukraine should stop this pointless fighting and give up." which i am aware isn't your intention, and i want to be an effective anti imperialist and have the correct and informed opinions on stuff like this, but i am having a very hard time understanding what you are trying to say.

i really promise i am not a concern troll or nato apologist or anything, i just also have personally been struggling with what to support and how to save innocent lives. i hate war and i wish we could magically create a situation in which ukraine didn't have to rely on horrible things for self defense. i just don't know what to do or believe because my friends would rightfully hate me if i said ukraine should stop defending itself.

i mean, first off: don't worry, you obviously don't sound like a concern troll or a nato apologist. this is an eminently reasonable question -- healed's law strikes again. & i certainly don't blame you for worrying that marxist-leninists are apologists for russian imperialism, because unfortunately many self-proclaimed marxist-leninists have been deceived by the frankly paper-thin figleaf of 'denazificaiton'--even as putin, puppet of the russian bourgeoisie denounces lenin & the bolsheviks & the soviet union with every speech he makes. it sucks!

first of all, i think the important thing here and the central point of disagreement is on what constitutes 'ukraine'. liberals and nationalists alike consider nations to be fundamentally one whole: that all the people of ukraine together constitute 'ukraine', and so 'ukraine as a whole' has consistent interests, and acts as a one--the ukrainian government represents this unitary ukraine armed forces of ukraine fight for this ukraine.

but the marxist analysis of the nation is completely different. from the marxist perspective, the nation is split across class lines. ukraine is not 'ukrainians', but in fact 'the ukrainian working class' and 'the ukrainian bourgeoisie'. now, of course, there are further contradictions even within these classes--there is a faction of pro-Russian bourgeoisie, and a faction of pro-Western bourgeoisie. but remember, we must apply the same analysis to these countries too: the 'pro-Russian' Ukrainian bourgeoisie do not wish to submit to Russia's working class, but to their oligarchs. the 'pro-Western' Ukrainian bourgeoisie are not opening the nation's economy to the European and USAmerican working class, but to their bourgeoisie. so the bourgeoisie are, in every case--even when split among themselves--only ever in league with other sectors of the bourgeoisie.

so, through this lens, how do we see the war in ukraine? well, i think that the union of communists in ukraine must have a far better handle on this than i, because they're living through it: so i will quote their analysis and then elucidate on it in relation to your question.

The puppet regime in Ukraine participates in this war in the interests of Ukrainian oligarchs, who have made themselves completely dependent on big capital of the West and NATO, who have turned the Ukrainian army into an advanced military unit of the Western bourgeoisie. The war is not about "the Ukrainian nation," not about "the Ukrainian language and culture," not even about "European values". It is a war for the united interests of the Ukrainian and international bourgeoisie, which coincide in their desire to destroy the economic and political power of the Russian bourgeoisie. No interests or rights of Ukrainian workers are protected by this war. Both Ukrainian and Russian workers in this war have only the right and obligation to go to the front and die so that one group of the world bourgeoisie defeats the other and gains more monopoly rights to oppress the workers, both in their own country and in the defeated countries. […] For the working class of Ukraine, this imperialist war has the most tragic consequences. It lies on the shoulders of the workers the role of "cannon fodder" and the inevitable deaths in the fighting, mass impoverishment, unemployment, complete restrictions of rights and freedoms for the sake of protecting the interests of the Ukrainian big bourgeoisie, the oligarchs and the interests of the Western bourgeoisie in destroying and robbing Russia and seizing its natural resources. This will inevitably be accompanied by the destruction and seizure of Ukrainian industrial and natural resources, including in the case of Russia's success. The same fate awaits the vast majority of the Ukrainian petty bourgeoisie. The big bourgeoisie has already bought its children out of the war and taken them abroad, just as it took its capitals out. But that is not the main point: the big bourgeoisie is profiting from the war under Zelensky, just as it profited under Poroshenko: stealing finances, making money from reselling weapons, supplying the army with uniforms, food, repair work, humanitarian aid, etc. In war the bourgeoisie makes billions of dollars, while the mobilized people have to be equipped and fed by relatives, friends and volunteers – which is clearly not enough. As in peacetime, but even more brazenly, the bourgeoisie is getting rich off the bones of the working class!

—Union of Communists of Ukraine, On the War and the tasks of the working class

that is to say--the russian army, which is funded by the russian bourgeoisie, is fighting to establish the exclusive right of that russian bourgeoisie to oppress and exploit the ukrainian people. meanwhile, the ukrainian army, funded by the ukrainian and western bourgeoisie more broadly, are fighting to maintain the exclusive right of the ukrainian and western to oppress and exploit the ukrainian people. already, ukrainian public assets are being put up in a fire sale for western buyers--(and of course, should russia's offensive have been as succesful as they'd hoped and this war already over, they'd be doing much the same thing for the benefit of buyers among the russian bourgeoisie).

this is what is meant by 'inter-imperialist' war. it's easy to say 'well, the ukrainian army isn't imperialist--it's fighting for the nation's independence!' but in terms of real economic interests there is no 'the nation'. the ukrainian army isn't fighting for the ukrainian working class (which of course includes themselves!)--the government that pays them and the states that equip them wouldn't do so out of any sense of interest in the well-being of the working class. we can see this clearly as the western imperialist powers now start to equip the ukrainian army with depleted uranium shells, which will poison swathes of ukrainian land and cause sickness and death among the people this army purports to be fighting for. the goal of the ukrainian state and army isn't to protect any working class people--only to protect its total right to the economic exploitation of those people.

it's this that the ukrainian state is afraid of when it fights not to cede territory, not the (surely real, to be clear!) brutality from the russian state that would face the inhabitants of any such ceded territory. in fact, funding nazi groups that operated in those areas before the war and will surely continue to operate afterwards, the ukrainian govenrment makes it clear that brutality against the inhabitants of its eastern provinces alone does not phase it, so long as the ukrainian bourgeoisie (& their western bourgeoisie patrons) continue to be the ones profiting off the region's people and resources.

elsewhere in the article the UCU observe the same thing that can be observed by those outside of ukraine by listening to the words of zelenskyy and the ukrainian government's allies--that even the goal of 'protecting its people' [read: protecting exclusive economic/extractive access to those people] has been sidelined by the dream of a total or partial obliteration of the russian bourgeoisie entirely--not for any moral or anti-imperialist reason, but simply so that the ukrainian/western bourgeoisie no longer have competition.

[...] the goals of warfare are changing. If at the first stage of the civil conflict the Ukrainian regime aimed to restore state control over the Ukrainian territories, where this control was lost, then at the second stage it aimed to destroy Russia as a condition for the existence of Ukraine.

—ibid.

so--now that i've really dug into the precise nature of this war and why it's being waged on both sides, i'll answer some of your points directly:

if ukraine stopped fighting back it'd just get taken by russia "ukraine should stop this pointless fighting and give up."

both of these positions, both the one you hold yourself and the one you worry about others expressing, assume that what the ukrainian armed forces with NATO backing and full-throated embrace of fascist paramilitaries is doing constitutes 'ukraine' 'fighting back' against 'russia'. but it doesn't--it represents the ukrainian bourgeoisie fighting back against the russian bourgeoisie.

so, the big question--do i think that the ukrainian proletariat should abandon armed resistance against the russian invasion? absolutely not!

genuine popular resistance against the russian invasion is heroic and commendable--i am under no belief whatsoever that in the face of imperialist war the ukrainian people should not arm themselves and fight against the imperialists. i just reject the framing of the actual war as prosecuted as constituting this, because, to go back to what i've already established, there is not in fact one 'ukraine' but two--only one of which constitutes in a mieaningful sense the ukrainian people. i don't believe (and neither do the UCU, whose analysis i base mine on somewhat) that 'the war' as you ponder 'supporting' constitutes the ukrainian proletariat arming themselves or fighting against imperialism on their own behalf, but rather being armed by the bourgeoisie and fighting on their behalf.

and obviously i'm not an idiot who's blind to the actual numerial and material realities. the communist, anti-imperialist movement in ukraine, just like in most of the world, is completely dwarfed by imperialism and its footsoldiers. 'the ukrainian proletariat as self-armed acting organization rising up and challenging both imperialisms and freeing itself from both sets of bourgeoisie' is not something that's gonna happen tomorrow, and it's not an immediately actionable plan--no ukrainian communist can wake up tomorrow and say 'well, today i shall hit the big proletarian revolution button'.

the realities are that as the meeting ground between two imperialisms, ukrainian communists have to make decisions about which one they can most ably fight, might need to temporarily align themselves with or allow themselves to benefit from the ukrainian bourgeoise state--but never support it. like any bourgeoise state, a communist should know the ukrainian state is an enemy of the proletariat. yes, the pressing material realities on the ground might well make cooperation with that bourgeoise state the best temporary option--but 'cooperation' should never mean 'support' or 'loyalty', and should be done only tactically with ultimately loyalties remaining above all else with the working class.

in fact, refusing to offer the government and army a show of support and valorization is a key element of creating the conditions--radicalization, agitation--that would allow the proletariat to effectively rise up and truly combat imperialism, rather than choose under which imperialist heel they would rather be ground into dust. don't support an end to the war on either imperialist bloc's terms, but rather on proletarian terms--understand that the state of ukraine is not on the side of the ukrainian people, except tangentially, in individual moments of necessary alliance. raise awareness of the true war, the class war, and resist the ukrainian state's claims to stand with the people when it pursues the interests of the bourgeoisie.

tldr: the anti-imperialist position is not that the ukrainian proletariat should not be fighting, or that their fight is not worth supporting. the anti-imperialist action, therefore, is to draw the most awareness possible to this division within 'ukraine' among the working class themselves, make them aware of the realities of the economic condition. this is of course the foremost anti-imperialist and communist task across the entire world, because it is only through creating organizations of the working class that will fight for the working class can international imperialism be dfeated.

i'll leave this answer off by adding what the UCU said about this very topic in the same statement i've been quoting:

We understand the complexity and danger of these tasks, which inevitably cause repression on the part of the bourgeois political regimes. That is why workers' and communist organizations will need to develop illegal forms of class struggle along with legal ones in order to set and implement such tasks. The UCU has been forced to conduct its work in illegal forms since 2014. Many workers' and communist organizations may consider these antiwar tasks impossible because of their organizational weakness and lack of influence on the working class. However, historical experience shows that a correct and honest formulation of the tasks of the working class in conditions of war – real, not momentary tasks – may not yield success immediately, but will yield gains as the revolutionary situation intensifies. Since the task of destroying capitalist social relations is an international task, the international coordination of workers' and communist parties' actions, including the joint elaboration of tasks for the struggle against the imperialist war of the twenty-first century for the sake of uniting the international struggle against this war, for a communist reorganization of society and world peace, is becoming increasingly important. Proletarians of all countries, unite! 

[nogoodsheepstealing-greatgrandma]

Daenerys is 14

And she does stay in Slavers Bay and try to rebuild the economy. Source: A Dance With Dragons.

She spends much of the book trying to negotiate new trade deals with the Lhazarene and the Qartheen, trying to plant new olive groves and bean fields, trying to reform the guilds membership so former slaves can earn proper wages as skilled craftsmen. She tries to assimilate with Meereenese culture to ease a peaceful transition of power, she consults with their priestess, she adopts their religious rites and their uncomfortable traditional dress, she agrees under pressure to marry a Meereenese noble (she doesn't force anyone into marriage at dragonpoint like in the show). And she goes out personally to feed and care for the sick and starving refugees at her door, she tries to set up quarantine zones to slow the spread of infection.

And yeah she falls short. But the odds are stacked against her. She's 14, for starters. And before she arrived the slavers burnt all the olive groves and salted the soil so she couldn't use them, and as she calculates it will take 30 years before the land will be truly productive again. She also has the Meereenese slaving class working very hard to sabotage her by funding domestic terrorism within the city. And she has to deal with a refugee crisis, a famine, a plague, and an alliance of pro-Slavery states forming a blockade around Meereen and threatening to siege the city.

True the refugee crisis is arguably due to her leaving Astapor. She set up a new government, but she should have stayed longer to consolidate it. But she is only 14, and her main adviser/parental figure is too busy being a pro-slavery pedophile.

And the fall of Astapor isn't completely on her shoulders. She left adults in charge, people with qualifications and who knew the land and people better than she did. They had political agency and responsibility. As did Cleon. He could have chosen not to overthrow the Council and name himself King. He could have chosen to heed Daenerys when she told him "don't start a war with the Yunkai". And the Yunkai could have chosen not to slaughter Astapor and chase the refugees to Meereen. They could have simply removed Cleon and then recognised Daenerys had no part in his actions. The Yunkai could have chosen not to then declare war on Meereen.

The institution of slavery is complicated to overthrow and complicated to replace and even complicated in the ways it reasserts itself. Daenerys isn't the only actor here who determines the fate of Slavers Bay (though if she unleashes her dragons she can certainly become the most decisive actor again). The entire point of ADWD is that it's much more complicated than that - its GRRM's answer to "what was Aragorn's tax policy?". She is a 14 year old child who does her best against impossible odds, and who explicitly puts any dreams of Westeros on hold indefinitely. Time and time again she is offered the chance and means to sail for Westeros, and she turns it down each time because she knows she can't leave the people of Meereen behind to die.

And hopefully the lesson she learns by the end of ADWD is that she has to stop being conciliatory towards the slaving class. She spares the lives of hostages, she opens the fighting pits for them, she gives up her body in marriage, and still they try to poison her to install Hizdhar as King. Mercy isn't a weakness, but the people who have a vested interest in slavery aren't going to stop just because you ask them nicely (like that garbage show GOT seems to think). She's got to use her dragons.

No, critiquing her failures isn't the same as defending slavery. But claiming that she never tried, and ignoring the odds stacked against her, is false. As for blaming her for Slavers Bay falling into chaos and suffering... First off, again, she isn't the only responsible actor with agency - I maintain that the fall of Astapor was pretty much out of her hands. And second, it ignores the massive scale of human suffering that already gripped slavers bay. The daily violence inflicted on slaves - the families torn apart, the lives destroyed, the children mutilated, the thousands of dead babies killed to initiate the Unsullied, the tortures and crucifixions and whippings and executions and rapes.

Ignoring that isn't that far off from defending slavery. Claiming that the violence that overthrew slavery is worse than the violence that is slavery isn't that far off from defending slavery. Should no one ever dare strike off a slaves chains just because they can't account for the violence that could come after? Is the crucifixion of child-murdering Slavers worse than the crucifixion of innocent children?

Or to bring up another literary scenario with more moral equivalency and ambiguity - was the Tenth plague upon the firstborns of Egypt worse than the mass culling of infant slaves? Who do you blame for the Ten Plagues of Egypt? Should Moses have left well enough alone?

[bfdreaming]

Been obsessed with I Was A Teenage Exocolonist lately. I highly recommend it. A++ character writing, though they awkwardly tried to bring up issues they don't seem to understand.

For starters, I don't think the writers know what colonialism is.

The word fascist gets thrown around but I don't think they know what that is, either.

There's a brief subplot that demonstrates they have no idea what capitalism is. Also in this subplot, they seem to think the root of inequality is the existance of currency?

There's a part that discusses how Earth got messed up, and I think they're a little confused about some of the stuff touched upon there, as well. Like, they seem to have heard that bees are dying and that's it's bad, but IRL it's the native bees that pollinate native plants that are in danger, not the bees that pollinate crops. And this could be blamed on the protagonist's misunderstanding or the teacher, but the protagonist blames Earth's ecological problems on individual consumers rather than corporations and governments.

They also seem to be confused about what causes ecological damage. They seem to think people walking around (in places where other large animals also walk around) is a problem in itself, and that taking samples for research is bad somehow? Any hunting whatsoever done by humans is bad, but hunting done by other animals is fine apparently. Also I'm not sure if they know that invasive species are almost never an issue without people in the equation.

There's a pacifist character that takes his pacifism to such an ironically militant extreme that he uses blatant victim blaming to justify it, and you can't point this out to him as far as I can tell. I really want to sit this kid down and have a talk because he is so passionate and well meaning and so misguided. Not sure if this is intentional or not but it bugs me that you can only agree or disagree with no room for nuance.

Oh yeah, and a character born on a spaceship and exclusively raised within that ship's 100 person community (which is very intentionally a single culture) has an accent somehow.

So, the writing does not seem to understand how large systems work in general. I found myself raising my eyebrows more than a few times at their weird takes. Like... why take on these themes at all if you're not going to do any research? A little Googling could have nipped so much of this in the bud. Probably wouldn't even take an afternoon unless you went farther down rabbit holes than strictly necessary.

All that aside, the characters are super compelling, the gameplay is fun, and I still do highly recommend it.

[mitigatedchaos]

Regarding Chevron

From what I understand, the new 'Chevron Deference' ruling does not state that congress cannot delegate authority to the executive agencies, it just requires that congress actually delegate that authority.

I don't think it means that congress itself needs to set the ppm lead levels, just that the laws authorizing the agency's actions say they can regulate lead or even just heavy metals, etc.

a - The Moderates

For both parties, we can think of a district's representative as being roughly in the middle of the range of opinion of the party's primary voters in that district, with some natural variation based on individual circumstances and with different districts having different opinions.

That produces a party's extreme representatives, and a party's moderate representatives.

Nerf the filibuster by requiring representatives to actually keep talking the entire time (apparently it used to be this way and isn't anymore?), and peel off some moderates, and you can update federal regulation.

b - Friend-Enemy Politics

The problem I see is from friend-enemy politics.

Under friend-enemy politics, every institution that's roughly aligned with the other guys is "enemy infrastructure" to be captured, looted, or destroyed. Democracy is no longer a decision among family or friends about how to best proceed, but a long-rolling, low-intensity conflict.

In order to peel off moderate Republicans, there have to be moderate Republicans. There can't be moderate Republicans if the Democratic platform is that Republican voters or Republican voting demographics are not "fellow Americans," but the center of an identitarian threat narrative. If any power that's given up will be weaponized, then the appropriate stance is to not give up any power.

c - To Govern

Public investment (provided it is actually investment), social insurance (provided it is actually insurance), and regulation (to reduce externalities, improve information for market actors, or make it easier to make contracts, including by reducing search and legal enforcement costs), are all natural parts of governing. There are reasons for Republican officials to agree to a well-regulated market, with sound infrastructure investments, and for voters to treat them according to whether they can deliver.

That requires separating investment from consumption, insurance from extortion, and good regulation (that's aligned with the interests of the broader country) from bad regulation (for regulation, quality is more important than quantity). (That doesn't mean that you can't do consumption spending - consumption spending is just the sort of thing parties will disagree on after accounting for investment.)

That, in turn, requires a focus on reality and a shift away from managing reputation and 'public relations' as the dominant mode.

d - Compromise

Making the agency behavior more closely bound to the law may actually make it easier for legislators to compromise. Collapsedsquid has made it clear in past posts that he doesn't think this sort of thing is important (in the general sense), but I disagree - legislators and political operatives can actually notice what's going on around them, see expansive interpretations of law being used to justify agency behavior beyond what the law-as-written would be expected to authorize, and then adjust their behavior.

The less binding a deal is on future behavior, the more players have to focus on maintaining or improving their relative power position (more zero-sum) instead of making positive-sum deals.

With that said, I find it difficult to estimate what the effects will be - will the party-aligned constellations actually reduce their level of polarization to respond to an environment where getting policy requires negotiation rather than coordinating to influence executive agencies, or will they follow local and internal incentives as we saw with 2014-2022?

As one Twitter user said, "We've been electing legislators to represent us on cable TV."

I think @centrally-unplanned assumes that knowledge-generation and alignment within the political structure for both the left and right in America is utterly cooked for structural reasons (such as the Internet and economic changes), so they won't come together on truth-oriented policy (especially as that might be rather painful - to pick an uncontroversial example, giving the YIMBYs a win might reduce the de facto retirement savings of many Americans, even as it improves things for the younger generations).

[darklinaforever]

GRRM said this, GRRM said that - so what? He is the author - and he expresses his opinion and his vision in his works. It is his right to offer a point of view. But people may disagree with the opinion he is trying to convey. People have different values and views on life, so they may disagree with George's ideas. That's why the argument "George said that this is so" does not work. Yes, George said that this is so, which only means that he wanted to express some specific idea, but just because he, as the author, said so, I do not have to agree with him and share this idea.

But I never said that you had to comply with what GRRM said. What I'm saying is that he probably wrote the text with the intention that the Greens were obviously not at all a better option than the Blacks team. (Which should still at least guide our point of view. I am a supporter of the theory of the death of the author, but we cannot simply dismiss it completely and believe only what suits us. Sometimes having the opinion of the author, good or bad, helps us all the more to understand how the work is well written, or not, success or failure) And beyond GRRM's own opinion (which I don't even have not asserted, but simply theorized in view of his writing style in Fire and Blood), the text itself seems to support the negative point of view on the Greens, despite the fact that the text of the dance, in the universe of GRRM is generally told by pro Greens. Even propaganda for usurpers seems to have its limits. (Seriously, the Greens were so bad that even the propaganda in their favor couldn't hide it) Once again, I don't see what proves in the text that the Greens are better at governing and better for the people, especially with what I already said in my previous response, since I imagine that you are the same person who sent me the previous anonymous request. Once again, objectively, the Greens brought the shit. It's not my personal opinion but rather the text which shows it. You know, there is a difference between having an opinion / point of view, and downright misinterpretation. You are free to think what you want, yes. It's not my place to tell you what to think and I don't have that pretension (notably because I'm not going to harass Team Greens fans in their inboxes to explain to them how much better my opinion is, that I am right, etc. I can keep all that on my side). I simply share my opinion on generally extreme cases or subjects that frustrate me, with people who can understand my point of view. So what I'm trying to say is that yes, you are free to have your point of view, but that won't stop you from having bad interpretations from time to time. I think your interpretation is wrong. I can't change it. Only you can, and you probably won't want it. It doesn't matter, stay in your corner with people who share this opinion. See what you want in this fictional universe, but without annoying others. I don't care about people having bad interpretations in general, there will always be some, I can't do anything about it. But as long as you're happy, that's all that matters, right ? So why go send anonymous messages to someone who will never think like you and who basically has never prevented anyone from having their point of view ? That's all I would say.

[ambelle]

WHY do I have to explain these things?

People have to understand that Trump = the end of Democracy. A third party candidate has no chance of winning. It's Trump or Kamala. You really want to change the two-party system? I don't believe you. Here's an explanation as to why I don't believe you along with a lesson on how our government actually works.

People always wait until the election year to TALK about a glorious revolution but this energy is nonexistent before and after the election. It's performative showboating. Protest voters have no plan for a revolution because they don't actually want one. They talk shit on twitter for a few months then November comes along and they move on with their lives suddenly no longer pumped up to ~Dismantle the System~. Right back at work paying taxes that fund wars they don't agree with like the rest of us robots they are so much smarter than.

If Jill is serious why isn't she and her followers even attempting to start small? Run for mayor or governor or something...anything to grow your platform. Instead, it's crickets from these people right until the election comes up and they want "campaign funding" then they vanish into thin air for 3 years. Why can't she win even on a local level is it because she's not even trying? She is an agent of chaos who accepts money from shady rich people with ties to Israel just like everyone else + thinks genociding Ukraine is fine. Are we picking and choosing which genocides are okay or is the idea itself morally corrupt? I can't keep up. Should the Ukraine babies be blown up?

Real change isn't just putting a third party candidate in office. If you truly want to dismantle the way things work you have to know how the government works. You really want third parties to have a chance? Cool then you need to be having conversations about getting rid of the Electoral College. I don't ever see third-party supporters doing that. Instead they say "well if we split the vote then next time they'll take 3rd party more serious." Next time? You mean the time after the Dictatorship? This shit is so unserious. WTF were y'all doing the past 3.5 years instead of talking about the Electoral College issue?

You want the President ( or in Kamala's case Vice President) to have more power than they actually do? Cool then you have to get rid of Congress. That's how it'll be 100% up to the president whether or not we fund Israel. Because as of now CONGRESS decides that. Meaning not even President Jesus would be able to stop the aid to Israel. When a bill has passed both the House of Representatives and the Senate, it is sent to the President for review. The President has 10 days to sign the bill into law or veto it but guess what happens when he vetos...it goes right back to them and they vote to make it law. What plan do 3rd party voters have to get rid of Congress and checks and balances? How would their presidency play out any differently if the system itself is exactly the same???

If you do happen to like Democracy and checks in balances then guess what you have to do. Vote...that's right LMAO vote for the state reps who will be in Congress. Vote in all elections so you have more control over ALL three branches. The problem isn't voting for the President. The problem is forgetting to vote for the other elections and then being confused why the president can't get anything done. Congress passed the bill and Biden signed it. That's what happened.

Mind you historically black people were killed fighting for the right to vote. White supremacists were passing Jim Crow laws and doing the absolute most to suppress the black vote. If it doesn't matter then why do that? Why is Georgia secretly unregistering people who signed up on their websites as Democrats?

Voting IS power.

Below are visuals of the bill Congress passed, a breakdown of their vote (and if you look you can see by name to know for the next elections who needs to go), and a REMINDER that the Vice President has nothing to fucking do with this process whatsoever.

[titleknown]

"Some random people told me they don't think video games are necessary. And this is why degrowth should scare everyone!"

Okay. That's still a strawman. But if video games are the issue you care about most, that's fine. Just say that up front next time. So anyway, how exactly does growth make better video games than degrowth? My favorite video game is Zelda Windwaker. A decade of exponential industry growth has not been able to bring me a better game than Windwaker. In order to continue industry GDP growth, it's an endless cycle of expensive DLC and labor abuse. That's the reality.

So, once again, read some JK Steinberger and maybe you'll calm down. Or, if you don't like listening to women, you can read Jason Hickel and calm down that way.

[In reference to this post]

...I feel like I'm being strawmanned here, because it wasn't just about vidjagames, but rather about the ways in which they treat "inefficient" interests, and what that says about the problems with their philosophy.

Like, while videogames can be useful as a metonymy for that, even with devices as broad as desktop computers or art tablets, I have never heard anyone into degrowth say a fucking nice thing about any of the computing devices I use for self-expression.

From everything I've seen, they regard it as the same sort of wasteful toy for the Global North as Hummers or McMansions, even if it's a lifeline or a vital means of creation for some of us. In fact, it feels like they regard any new technology that can't be kitbashed together or that doesn't work with their "hippie aeceticism for all" vision as being Like That.

Like, I've heard them shit on automation, on nuclear power, on asteroid mining, the list goes on. I'm afraid to have any hope in any new technological changes these days because I know they'll come out of the woodwork to say "Oh, this is bad actually and you're a bad person for taking hope in it," because it always happens, in real time on my Tumblr dash!

Like, I don't bring up the person saying that "Any new technology that can't be kitbashed from existing parts would devastate the global south" and "the idea of emerging technologies is a capitalist grift" as a singular gotcha, but because I've heard the sentiments animating that from the degrowth crowd so often that it feels like saying the quiet part out loud.

Like, to cite Giorgios Kallis again, he's said stuff like this

Indeed, I have made a general case for a culture of prudence—a culture that is reflexively inclined toward limit rather than limitlessness. One area where precaution is necessary is technology. We cannot cease to pursue knowledge, but we can no longer pretend that the limitless pursuit of technology is unproblematic. Ours is the first predominantly secular society that will have to devise institutions to limit the directions that knowledge takes without limiting knowledge itself. How we will be able to achieve this is hard to say, but recognizing that we have to is a crucial start.

and

Scaling up limits controls free-riding and absolves individuals from having to be ever vigilant of their conduct. I don’t want to wonder constantly whether I should consume this or that; I want government to tell me what we have agreed not to consume.

Like, that rings alarm bells to me on the idea that the vision of degrowth includes chokepoints on resources to choke out "inefficient" uses in the arts or sciences, the same as under capitalism just with a different underlying worldview justifying it.

That you would be technically free to do whatever you want, but if whatever technological project you wanted required something more complicated than a peanut crusher you'd have to beg and plead for them to let you access it, same as under capitalism.

Like, again, these people who think that the devices I use as a means of expression and communication are decadent toys, what would they say when I need a replacement?

What would the hypothetical organization Kallis says to stop the "bad" pursuit of technology say to the scientist researching a "niche" field for science's sake, or an emerging technology that would enrich human life but would require new infrastructure?

The sort of politically-active class-resentful person who wrote "About Hating Art" and who seems to infest degrowth circles would probably love to shrink any discipline that requires specialized artists (such as say, animation) small enough to drown in a bathtub!

...To digress, the reason I haven't read Steinberger is because I haven't seen specific stuff of theirs cited in a place where I could read it (Or pirate it in the case of Kallis' book).

But I do know about Hickel. And I know he's cited a lot as a "hopeful" face of Degrowth. I also know he's buddy-buddy with Kallis. You know, the very dominant person in Degrowth circles who said all that crazy bullshit, from what I know they've collaborated a lot.

That says to me that either A) Hickel is ignorant of the implications of what Kallis says or B) He knows about them but does not care that Kallis is saying the quiet part out loud. Neither of these are good.

And like... the thing is on games you're not wrong. Like, there's a reason I mainly play indie games or older games these days.

Hell, there's a reason that, as I said in another post, I think that GDP is very stupid! I think that the modern means of growth and its dependence on collapse as a form of "degrowth" is also very bad and stupid!

The old aphorism "Fire is a good servant, but a terrible master" very much applies to growth! But it also applies to degrowth, and so much of what I read appears to show that y'all don't get that!

Like... leftism's promise to me always felt like you don't have to choose between the wellbeing of all and the freedom to create, where everyone could live comfortably and have the time and resources to pursue their passions.

But from everything I've seen Degrowth betrays those by saying you have to choose, and that the "good life" only applies if you want to live a very specific way or can forcibly modify your desires to do so. It all comes off as very "Bread and roses, but fuck you if you like tulips."

I see this especially from Resilience.org, which is where I was first introduced to degrowth, which loves the shit out of the atomized hyperlocal bootleg-Ghibli "transition town" movement, which probably shaped my negative view on it if that helps you understand me better.

And like... I get you're approaching in good faith, and I can understand where you're probably coming from. But like, I wish y'all could understand why so much of what your movement says sounds like that beyond blaming us

[critfumbled]

Hi! I'd honestly love to talk about Akira because there's no one I know who even knows what it is :') Excuse the long rant, but I guess my main issues with the movie were:

Kaneda was so ready to kill his (basically) brother even though 10 minutes before he was essentially ready to die to save him

The fact that it appeared to me that Akira was most powerful being and all the other children were just trying to replicate him, but the government tabled him away? I see no need to rip Akira apart because they wanted to use him. Was it for later? Surely Tetsuo going apeshit qualified the use of Akira

The worldbuilding was a struggle for me because it seemed like the children (and Akira) were basically gods with absolutely no rules or limitations to their power. it seemed to me like all of them could manipulate time, space, and matter, so there wasn't anything that made each special or more powerful than the other

the kids really sacrificed themselves for a random teenager they didn't know, despite the fact that they seemed to follow the goverment and the government were clearly trying to take down Tetsuo

what's to stop this scenario from happening again, because the government could totally make another Tetsuo/Akira and the entire story can just repeat itself. other than city damage and deaths, there were really no consequences because it's not like the entire government died. This seems like a small part of a bigger story that was left unfulfilled

I didn't understand Ryu's role, as seemed like he was working with the government but Kei was pretty confident he was working with their freedom group? was he working both sides? his side of the story and his goals weren't clear to me

I do know that the pills have a big role in the manga (Kaneda's jacket) but the way they were just mentioned in the movie, it gave Tetsuo a lot of power, then was never explained bothered me.

Also this is totally a personal thing but one of my biggest book/movie pet peeves is when everyone knows something, but they're just using the vaguest terms to describe it to not let the audience know. not between Tetsuo and Kaneda , but between the military, all the scientists, and the kids, they kept just saying the VAGUEST terms for Akira to not let the audience know even though they all knew what they were talking about and that just grinds my gears because it's a way to build false tension instead of naturally letting it build up

I'm sorry for doing a super long ask, but I can't reply to people on my tumblr :/ but yeah those were my issues. I appreciated the art and the music slapped though, and I appreciate how it pioneered certain animation tropes, but overall I was super confused the entire movie

I want to start by saying that basically everything you mention here is expanded upon within the Manga. As I said before it is a lot longer and it is entirely different from the movie. If you are interested in the world, and the story, and you want to know more I would definitely recommend it. I feel kind of remiss in giving you all the details here as I think it will take away from the manga if you do intend to read it. That being said I'll try to give some broad strokes.

Firstly I agree it was a little rushed in the movie, but it was basically the death of Yamagata that turned Kaneda against Tetsuo, Yamagata was also a very close friend of Kaneda, being his right hand man within the gang.

The children were not an attempt at recreating Akira's powers, Akira and the children were apart of the same experiment that consisted of 41 test subjects. Akira was just the most powerful of said subjects.

Akira was the cause of the explosion at the start of the movie, this is why he was iced by the government/military, basically because they were incredibly scared of the power that he had, and the destruction that he could cause. Also they didn't have any way of controlling Akira, so releasing him would mean they would be releasing a world endingly powerful free agent, who they weren't sure they could stop again.

Regarding the children's sacrifice, I don't want to say too definitively as I don't exactly remember but broadly I believe it is because they are altogther altruistic, and they are still children. They are afraid of killing people, and they don't want any more people to die. Also they are very afraid of Akira returning.

Ryu was working with the resistance the throughout the entire movie. Im unsure as to where you got the idea he was a double agent. It's been a while since I saw the movie. Again however the resistance and their motives get a lot more "screen time" within the manga, which I would imagine would help to ease this confusion.

In regards to it all happening over again, we see in the movie that the government do not believe in Akira, and it is only really the Colonel who is pushing for more research in this area. The rest of the government see Akira and the project as a failure and a waste of resources. This also gets expanded on by the manga, with an entirely different ending.

In regards to the pills, I agree they could use more explanation within the movie. They basically ease the migraines that Tetsuo gets, as well as giving him a short term power boost.

I hope that helps. Admittedly it has been a while since I watched the movie, so don't take these as 100% fact. Also I tried to stick with the content of the movie, however it's hard to not think about it with the context of the manga as well.

[captainwidowspring]

That is indeed something I'm aware of when watching my two favorite films; I can't help but be a little bit sad that there was so much potential in them that was completely wasted. I'm really glad I discovered the MCU after the Infinity Saga was over, so that I already knew how it ended; if I had found them while the potential for brilliance was still there, to see the downfall in real time would have been even more devastating.

But while I do have the awareness that the MCU did everything in its power to pretend that The Winter Soldier didn't happen, it did, and I refuse to let the old glory die. I mean, I would argue that the MCU also tried to make The Avengers irrelevant. Even though Tony came within seconds of dying when he fixed the government's terrible response to the Chitauri invasion, for example, he just sat there and accepted Ross pinning the damage for that situation on the Avengers. (Not to mention, saving civilians was a major focus of that battle.) Also, there's this one comment from a Civil War critique video that I thought was really interesting: "It's baffling that in Avengers when they weren't even a team and most of them had barely met, AND they had Loki working against them with all his powers, his thousands of years of knowledge, backing of an army and an Infinity Stone, he still couldn't break the Avengers apart. But some dude with no resources gets extremely lucky with the timing of the events of the movie and gets the Avengers to turn on each other? This makes Loki look like a chump." Finally, the end of the movie promised that the Avengers would become like a family, but the only time we got anything remotely approaching that was Age of Ultron, and even there it was pretty clear they weren't one. We were found family trope baited.

Honestly, it's quite telling that the MCU ended up having to completely ignore two of its best films in order to tell the stories it did; it's not surprising they lost their quality. I refuse to let the MCU tell me that those films do not matter, however, just as I refuse to let them tell me that Wanda is bad. We do not have to accept what the MCU gives us if it is very clearly wrong. @luna-rainbow made a very good point: "At this rate, fans, who’ve spent years poring over tiny details, know much more about canon than some half-hearted writer who barely watched the movies once...The MCU thinks it has the power to dictate fandom...It doesn’t. It surrendered its claim to canon the moment it decided to disregard its own story. It made itself a derivative work, just as any other fanfiction, and a bad one at that." That is why I continue to watch and enjoy The Avengers and The Winter Soldier, and sing their praises, even though the MCU ended up doing everything it could to undermine both of them.

But I definitely agree with you, if by some miracle we get a good movie about Wanda, that would definitely take a top spot.

what they say: im a marvel blog!!

what they mean: there’s only one marvel movie i completely like and thats captain america: the winter soldier but i tolerate the rest because i have no other choice

[bandofchimeras]

hey dude, sorry not trying to be an ass w this but I saw u had a post where in the tags you used delusional and narcissist as pretty derogatory insults towards the govt. Bashing the government is good and great but using terms that we (at least currently) need to describe mental illness (and definitely associate with it!)... in ways like that... its ableist and dehumanizing and leads to more abuse, even if it feels innocent, because if everyone who's a narc or who's delusional is dangerous....that's everyone w/ npd, or a schizospec disorder, or any other things.

Sorry this is long, and again, not trying to be rude! Just wanted to inform you and ask that you maybe be a little more careful with word choice in the future :)

hey anon, yeah thanks for your concern. I do understand the movement to change language usage around mental illness and destigmatize. And it is well intentioned.

Unfortunately, narcissistic and delusional are still pretty generally derogatory words. A person with NPD may not cause harm simply by virtue of having the diagnosis but we all agree narcissism itself isn't a fun cool trait to have. Delusions are obscurations of reality.

We still say manic, depressed, obsessive, etc in both outright negative ways and descriptive but not morally loaded ways. to me it's just part of language, and the ethics of most derogatory language does depend on who's using it.

I'm absolutely behind not calling everyone who sucks a narcissist. and would like people to stop saying "I'm being OCD" or "that's so bipolar," "he's a schizo" and so on. The "delulu" trend online is weird and fetishizes mentally ill people.

For context: I am a person with a narcissistic tendency, due to my childhood. My life has been a long train of psych symptoms... delusions of grandeur, maladaptive daydreaming, hallucinations, psychosis, derealization, depersonalization, dissociative identity states. psychology is one of my longest hyperfixations simply because I needed to understand my experience. it's been helpful and unhelpful in different ways. Pathologization is a phenomen that can't be understood separately from language, culture, history, and violence.

And yet I don't really have a problem with calling things crazy, insane, or batshit. in fact I find power in redefining and playing with these terms. I've been called crazy in a demeaning, invalidating way. And yeah, I'm a lil crizazy, a bit unhinged one might say. But if a motherfucker calls me crazy to invaldiate my argument, I instantly know they've lost. They're being weak, and abusive. It will also piss me the fuck off. I may want to show them what "crazy" looks like. The better angels of my nature will whisper "keep your head."

With the movement to neutralize mental health terms, what's always confused me is the understanding of language itself. I experience words autistically - they have multiple overlapping meanings all the time. Words are like composite images composed of billions of instances of use, fluttering and evolving as they are spoken and written. Vernacular is messy, sputtering and ever changing. Therefore words carry a multitude of connotations. When different people say them in different contexts you can see and hear different implications.

So, I really don't care if a dude at work says "that's fuckin insane bro" ...to a gnarly kickflip. Or a devastating news article. Insane delineates the magnitude of his emotion. It's out of bounds. Something normies and straights would try to contain, institutionalize, label. Christ, that's juicy. It's why I adore skater boy lingo and teen slang. It's careless and crunchy.

English itself, especially corporate and institutional English, can be a strict, bland, and often abusive language. My fellow autistic homies tend to enjoy a rousing jaunt down into the annals of historical parlance for our everyday linguistic transactions because it's fucking boring, the clinical way we are expected to speak here and now.

So therefore: thanks for your message calling attention to my words and their impact.

There are deeper better more poetic words to call the government and frankly I believe the best ones might be found in other languages.

All in all, you're right that "narcissistic" and "delusional" are not the most accurate, potent words to describe the US government. How to convey the twisted, detached from reality, spirit of that entity best in language, though, I need to expand the lexicon. Maybe using these words is cheap. Maybe it covers over the intentionality and corruption at play.

So I'm going to open this up to some language play - and ask you, anon, and anyone else what words can we find to convey the negative meaning of delusional (detached from truth) and narcissistic (inverted and self concerned to the point of dysfunction), in English? or in another language?

I hope you can take this in good faith not as a deflection but really engaging with your ask.

Being language corrected can trigger my harshest defenses. I can feel in my body all the times someone has punished, invalidated, dismissed something I've said because of using "uncivil" or foul or imperfect language. In general, trying to conform to correct ideological forms of language is like, major wretched, dude.

Hell my dorky ass disingenuous nerd of a brother yesterday called a message I sent the family group chat about Palestine "blasphemous" because I said " my god" and used it as an excuse to delete every impassioned exchange we had so the "children wouldn't see," - him be racist, cough. can't make this shit up.

But that's my background. Catholicism is a mental illness. (Sorry in advance to all mental illness havers for associating you with Catholics)

[emergingmediaculture]

Graphic created by Kiersten W. on Canva.

Readings: Q&A: How to combat the infodemic with digital solutions to reduce health risks during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond

Digital media and misinformation: An outlook on multidisciplinary strategies against manipulation by Danielle Caled & Mário J. Silva

How To Fight Vaccine Misinformation by Andrew Thurston

Misinformation and Mass Audiences by Brian G. Southwell, Emily A. Thorson, and Laura Sheble

The start of the COVID-19 pandemic feels both ages away and like it just happened yesterday. The pandemic itself feels as though it has disrupted our concept and flow of time. While we can constitute a large part of that to the shutdown itself, a time that seemed to last both forever and pass rather quickly, I believe it would not be incorrect to say the wave of both information and misinformation hitting us at a speed we were not used to processing at once has a part to play as well. This is what the World Health Organization has called an “infodemic” or information epidemic.

The WHO defines this as “an overabundance of information, including false or misleading information, in digital and physical environments during an emergency”. Think back to the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic before what we know now about the virus was known. There was a time when it was said the virus would be like the flu and be gone by summer. Mind you, lockdown in many states did not end until August 2020 and that was definitely not because the virus was gone. COVID-19 cases, in fact, rose (CDC) during the summer months. I am sure no one has forgotten about the myth that the use of Ivermectin, the horse medicine, is a cure for COVID-19. Let us not forget the back and forth about how the virus came to be and false claims that were spread once the vaccine came about like how it can “alter human DNA” or how it “allows the government to track you”. It can't and does not.

No matter what you believe or do not believe, false and misleading information was abundant during the pandemic and, a lot of the time, was dangerous information. During a time when social media is one of the main forms of media where anyone can post anything with no concrete facts or sources to back it up, it is no wonder this was such an issue. It has also been proven by research (research provided in the link) that “fake news spreads faster and further than real news on Twitter” so this is not surprising. Not to mention, when it comes to the social media sites that had the biggest part to play in the spread of misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic, Twitter and Facebook sit on the throne. Even more than that, “misinformation is more impactful than the correction”, meaning the truth that comes out after fake news does not spread nearly as far as the original news did. In response to this infodemic, the WHO has “launched a variety of initiatives at global and regional levels” that include AI-based innovations for rumor tracking, multi-language fact-checking, partnerships with social media & web companies, and more.

Misinformation has existed far beyond the COVID-19 pandemic, however. There has always been misinformation regarding things such as vaccines, politics, science in general, and much more. Science, a field with concrete evidence and credible sources, is the last place, next to mathematics, that you would expect misinformation to live but it has unfortunately found a way with those with extreme views who have gone far enough to question real evidence that is backed by sources that can prove it. This has further spread to arenas like politics where political ideology and beliefs affect what someone identifies as the one truth.

Simple fact-checking across all these readings seems to be what everyone agrees to be the most effective choice throughout history. The problem, though, is that fact-checking has lost its appeal to the public. So many people are taking things at face value despite the tools being available to verify any information you may come across. I feel as though this then goes back to our previous topic of media literacy and its importance. What role does media literacy play in helping to counter misinformation? Could it really be that easy?

[angrelysimpping]

omg please do wedding hcs for the love interests (or at least just the ones who would crash pc's wedding)

(DoL relationships, wee bit of breeding kink/pregnancy talk [like, one line])

Alex

It's after a particularly exhausting interaction with Remy.

You're in the kitchen, making two cups of tea. Alex is sitting in front of the TV, eyes closed, not even listening to the program.

You get Alex's attention, handing them their tea.

"Marry me."

Both of you are a bit shocked at Alex's words.

They hadn't meant to say that, but they don't regret it.

Alex slides off the sofa, getting on one knee, and repeats their request.

Alex already thinks of you as their partner. You guys are already living together. Why not make it official in the eyes of the law?

Alex wants to get married as soon as possible, within the month if they can. They want to be able to have some time alone with you before having to worry about Remy again.

The whole week leading up to the wedding is a wild affair.

Alex’s whole family can’t be there the day of the wedding, but they try. Everyday a new redhead shows up on the farm. Some stop by on their way somewhere else. Some stay for a meal. Some end up helping out on the farm to give you a chance to nail down any last minute details. You think you’ve met most of Alex’s family, but you can’t be sure.

The ceremony is on the farm.

It's nothing too extravagant, you guys will have all the farm work to attend to.

Alex might cry a little. They'll be quick to wipe away any tears.

Same with the honeymoon, it's on the farm. You guys can't afford to leave for too long.

Alex is going to try their damnedest to make the honeymoon special. Anything you want Alex to do, consider it done.

Avery

Avery is asking you to marry them in private. No matter how confident they are that you will say 'yes,’ they will not risk you turning them down in public.

“I’ve been thinking, how do you feel about getting married?”

After agreeing to marry them, Avery will do a public proposal.

Avery does most of the planning. You have some say, picking between options that they've already approved.

The wedding itself is a great networking event.

A very elegant networking event.

You probably don't know anyone at the wedding. No one you know from school would get approved by Avery. You might spot a familiar face behind the wedding photographer’s camera or wearing the catering staff’s uniform.

Bailey might be there. Avery and Bailey don't get along. It might look suspicious if the person who ‘raised’ you wasn't at your wedding.

(Bailey's showing up for the free fancy food and to make you feel uneasy.)

Avery might tear up a bit at the altar but they're trying their hardest to ignore it.

Probably the only LI who would take you out of town for the honeymoon.

You’ll be seeing the inside of the hotel you’re staying in more than wherever Avery took you for the honeymoon.

Eden

Doesn't see the point in getting married.

It's just a piece of paper. The government recognizes you guys as married? Since when has Eden cared about the government? They're living in the middle of the woods!

If it means a lot to you, Eden will propose. The ring is either something they've made themself or kept from their life before they left town.

They'd propose at the Lake. They're a little embarrassed when they drop to one knee and pull out the ring. No matter how long Eden has lived with you, they're still not used to being open with their emotions.

Eden doesn't ask you to marry them, they just present the ring and wait.

If you're adamant about having your marriage ‘official,’ Eden will go into town to get the paperwork done. It will be hard, seeing as they need a bunch of documentation that Eden doesn't have, but they'll find a way.

(Bribery. They're bribing whoever they need to for your marriage to be legally recognized.)

Otherwise, Eden is skipping the ceremony and going straight to the honeymoon.

It's a day of continuous sex. Eden has gone out of their way to make it so you guys have everything stocked up. No going out hunting. No chopping wood. No distractions. Just a day devoted to the two of you.

Kylar

Asking you to marry them the moment after the graduation ceremony is over.

They pull you into the park, to the bench where you guys have spent so much time together, and direct you to sit down.

Kylar is stuttering so hard through their preamble. They've practiced their speech but they can't help fumbling over their words now. They can hardly even look at you.

You'll have to wait for Kylar to finish their speech about how much they adore you and how they can't imagine their life without you. Eventually, they get to the point and drop to one knee.

"W-will you do me the h-honor of marrying m-me?"

When you say yes, Kylar is going to cry.

Kylar already has a lot of the wedding planned out, you just have to give your approval. You hardly even have to look at Kylar’s plans, they've done everything with your tastes in mind.

Kylar’s only request is that the location of the ceremony be in the woods.

The only people in attendance are Kylar's parents and anyone you invited.

Kylar cries the moment they see you in your wedding attire.

They really try to control themself but every time they manage to calm down, they look at you and fresh tears form.

Kylar writes their own vows. The guest can barely understand Kylar through their tears, you can understand them fine.

So excited for the honeymoon!

Like, sure, you guys have had sex before but now you're married! It will be the first time they have sex with their spouse!

Besides, this is when most couples focus on making babies!

Robin

Robin is really tempted to ask you to marry them through a note. Is it romantic? No. Did it work to get you dating them in the first place? Yes!

They won’t ask you through a note but they’re so tempted.

They do write out how they want to ask you. Several times. They don’t want to screw up.

They want to wait to ask you to marry them after you’re both free from Bailey.

Though that day seems to be getting further away instead of closer.

It gets to the point where Robin isn’t sure if they can wait anymore.

They figure after graduating would be a good time to ask.

They pull you into the forest, taking you to the spot where you would normally go to picnic.

"Will you marry me?"

It's blunter than Robin would have liked. During their practice sessions, Robin has found that they need to get to the point as soon as possible. Otherwise, they ramble until they lose their nerve.

The wedding itself is rather simple. Even if you have the money for a fancy wedding, Robin would feel more comfortable with a smaller ceremony.

Robin holds themself together right up until the ‘I do’s, then they start crying.

Honeymoon is also rather simple, staying for a few days in a modest hotel in town.

Robin just wants to spend time with you, away from everyday life, and relax. They don’t care where their honeymoon takes place, as long as it’s with you.

Whitney

Whitney doesn't see the point in marriage. You already belong to them, after all. Why would Whitney care about the legal status of your relationship?

Sees weddings as pointless.

It doesn't help that Whitney doesn’t like formal ceremonies, they hate having to act all prim and proper.

They hate grand declarations of emotions, especially emotions that they would consider weak.

A wedding is literally a formal ceremony that is a grand declaration of love.

Love, an emotion Whitney hates to acknowledge they feel.

It doesn't matter how much you might want to get married. Whitney needs their own motivation to ever consider getting married.

And they get one.

It happens at the beach, some tourist starts getting handsy with you. Whitney appears behind them in a rage.

That’s their bitch, hands off!

The tourist tries to placate Whitney. They thought you were single! That this kinda thing was accepted, expected, in this town! It’s not like you were wearing a ring or anything!

Whitney doesn't care and still gives them a bloody nose before grabbing you.

“Fuck it, we’re getting married.”

They drag you to Town Hall to start the paperwork.

Whitney doesn't plan on having a ceremony, yet one gets planned anyway.

Don’t ask how, even Whitney isn't sure what events lead to them standing across from you at the altar.

Don’t ever mention how you saw Whitney’s eyes get brighter when you said ‘I do.’

The honeymoon is the part Whitney is actually interested in.

They take you to a cheap, shitty hotel and plan on fucking you until they pass out, preferably on top of you.

[kanansdume]

I can't really tell what you're trying to say with this reply, whether this is agreeing that Bo-Katan refuses to acknowledge anything when she first meets Din and you agree with me, or whether she DOES acknowledge her past when she first meets Din and so you don't agree with me.

If it's the second one, here's my counter. I just rewatched The Heiress for the first time since it aired, which was an interesting experience. I didn't watch The Clone Wars or Rebels until AFTER I'd seen The Mandalorian season 2, so that's actually where I first met Bo-Katan and it was my introduction to her character and her history. Watching it now, with all of the context of her character, feels very different.

But what I NEVER saw in that episode was Bo-Katan owning up to being part of Death Watch. She does make the "Mandalorians are stronger together" comment, but she also calls Din a cultist and deceives Din into helping her, only revealing how much she's asking him to do mid mission and refuses to help him if he backs out after he's accomplished what he originally agreed to. So she's a deceiver who can't keep her own promises in this episode after she makes the claim that Mandalorians are stronger together.

The other thing she does is give us the name of Din's covert/religion for the first time, Children of the Watch, and a very brief description of who and what they are which is a faction of Mandalorians that broke away a little while ago that is focused on bringing back "the old traditions." Which mostly seems to amount to the helmet rule as the biggest difference, quite honestly. It's the one that alerts them to what Din is. But there's zero mention of Death Watch and the connection Din's covert may have had to Death Watch and certainly no mention of BO-KATAN being in Death Watch.

A lot of what happens with Bo-Katan in The Mandalorian, and even in Rebels to some degree, COMPLETELY relies on you knowing her backstory from The Clone Wars. If you don't know she was in Death Watch, if you don't know the part she played in Satine's death and what Satine was to her, if you don't know the part she played in bringing Maul to power on Mandalore, then a lot of what Bo-Katan says doesn't mean very much. She says "Mandalorians are stronger together" but without all of the context, you have no way of knowing that that concept comes from having been part of a faction of Mandalorians that broke away from her sister's peaceful government and then overthrew it. You don't know that part of it comes from Death Watch itself breaking into factions after Maul kills Pre Viszla.

If you DON'T have that context, it often just sounds like Bo-Katan is talking about everyone else and not including herself as "part of the problem." And that's my issue with the writing here. For people who aren't familiar with Bo-Katan, her entire context is lost and her character gets totally retconned. In season 2, they make all of her guilt be about surrendering to Moff Gideon rather than her history in Death Watch and what it led to. Her redemption isn't about Satine or Death Watch, it's about Gideon and the Dark Saber. So many people mentioned that Satine's name literally never even gets MENTIONED. The most we got was one quick throw away line about not wanting to be an embarrassment to her father the way her sister was. But none of the other Mandalorians ever bring up Satine, Bo-Katan never talks about her, there's no indication of Bo-Katan's history as a terrorist and the horrific things she did in that time. Or the part her actions played in making Mandalore weak by helping keep it divided. Without that being made explicit, fans who don't know Bo-Katan outside of this show will see her dramatically different than the fans who do. And that feels deliberate to me.

It starts to feel less like bad writing that's forgotten they need to discuss it and more like an intentional retcon of Bo-Katan to make her easier to redeem.

The absolute hilarity of Axe Woves immediately turning to ask the Armorer if her covert was Death Watch as if it's a bad thing when Bo-Katan, Known Terrorist Who Was Second In Command of Death Watch, is sitting RIGHT THERE, is simultaneously very funny and very frustrating.

Very funny because it's so awkward for Bo-Katan to be watching that, knowing that everyone there probably disrespects her for that and not being able to say shit about it.

Very frustrating because dear fuck how many times are they going to dance around the fact that Bo-Katan was a terrorist in Death Watch who CAUSED a lot of the divisions and warring factions they keep saying were the problem? Bo-Katan's big emotional speeches about unity would be WAY more impactful if they just let her acknowledge her own culpability in that problem instead of pretending it's something everyone else did but not her.

[smhalltheurlsaretaken]

What's your opinion on Padmé falling in love with Anakin while knowing that he killed a bunch of tuskin people and how he technically can't be in a committed relationship? Do you think it makes her an immature person or just someone who made the wrong choice?

Different anon:

Aaaah, I have a bit of a complicated relationship with Padmé. I dislike her as a character - as in, I don't particularly enjoy seeing her onscreen - but I try not to let that affect my opinion on her moral character. (I mean, I absolutely adore Dooku but I'm aware that he's a piece of shit, and I'm not really into the OT but I am aware that Luke and Leia are objectively shining beacons of goodness even if I'm not really interested in them.)

So since I kinda dislike her - again, based purely on personal taste, and I do genuinely recognize and appreciate her bravery or kindness even though I skip the Padmé-centric eps/scenes given the choice - I don't really think about her, or talk about her, except in the context of Anidala. (And that's because it's often brought up when talking about the Jedi Order, the one thing I'm much more interested in.)

Hence, I have to honestly say that I don't entirely know how she was intended to be understood. I do think at least some of the issues with the discrepancy between her morals and her behavior can be attributed to clumsy writing. If I had to go and hazard a guess as to how we were meant to see her behavior, it'd be blinded by love ('her judgement clouded by her emotions,' to use the appropriate Star Wars term), and somewhat selfish - but I certainly don't think Lucas meant for her to be a self-centered oblivious monster.

Regarding her telling Anakin he's breaking her heart, I disagree with the interpretation that it was because he was advocating for fascism now, and that was worse than what he'd done. I think it's simply that she was in complete denial up to that point - she didn't believe that he had killed the younglings, because she couldn't believe it (and she could still lie to herself about it because Anakin wasn't admitting to anything up to this point, just saying vague stuff about his powers and saving her). But then he says "I have brought peace to the Republic," and she just can't deny the truth any longer, and that's what makes her back and way and change her mind. It's not that fascism is worse than slaughter, it's that Anakin spewing bs is what opens her eyes, and so it's fascism and slaughter hitting her in the face at the same time.

The issue of the Tuskens is a more complicated one - though believe me, I have ripped into her often enough about it. But what are we meant to understand? That she takes Anakin at his word and thinks the Tuskens are indeed animals? That she just refuses to delve too deeply into the implications of Anakin's actions because she cares about him and she doesn't want to see his life ruined, and so she purposely blinds herself to reality?

I honestly don't know.

I don't know what we were meant to take away. I don't know how Lucas and Co wanted her to be read.

But if you're asking me how I read her...

My understanding of her marrying Anakin despite the rules is that she doesn't get the Order's rules, and so both her and Anakin convince themselves that What They Are Feeling Isn't Wrong (which, true, their love in and of itself isn't wrong) - when it's not the issue with their marriage. I think it was terribly near-sighted of her to marry him (in regard to her own career + the issues it raised regarding the Jedi's neutrality) and disrespectful to the Order as well (which again, I don't think she really understands). As Senator, she has some degree of power over them - so her flouting their rules and marrying one of their apprentices (not even a Knight) really rubs me the wrong way. She could have - should have - asked him to leave the Order for her, instead of accepting to live in secret, and he probably would have done it if she'd been the one asking. (And yeah, "but how could she ask that of him?" - well, Satine couldn't ask that of Obi-Wan so the two of them didn't get together - conundrum solved.)

Also, not disclosing such a connection to anyone - in the middle of a war - was beyond irresponsible. Irl, a high-profile member of government marrying a general during a full scale conflict and not telling anyone would get their asses in SO. MUCH. TROUBLE, and justly so. (And Padmé and Anakin's relationship ended up being a huge liability in the war on multiple occasions).

Her attachment to Anakin blinds her to who he is, to her duty, and to everything that truly matters. She is willing to overlook things she should never have let happen - like the whole situation with Clovis. Can you imagine the political shitshow that would have caused? You have the Senator of the planet the Chancellor is from manipulating her ex - the head of the neutral Banking Clans - with her current Jedi love - a member of the politically neutral Order the Senate oversees - shadowing them both and eventually beating the crap out of said ex. What would that look like? Are the Jedi influencing her? Is the Chancellor using her connection to Clovis? Is she the one influencing both the Order and the Banking Clans to profit her planet, with the approval of the Chancellor? We know it's not what's happening, but it could have led to a complete catastrophe, and she did nothing to safeguard herself against that.

Or when she traded Anakin for Grievous without telling anyone. That was a political nightmare as well, not to mention highly unethical.

So all in all, I don't know how much we were meant to criticize her for all of it, and how much we were meant to empathize with her. Since I personally don't like her, I had a hard time feeling sorry for her most of the time - except for when Anakin scares her or physically hurts her - but that's my own bias. I don't think she's a bad person - or at least, I don't think the worst implications of the way she was written were intentional. (Like how she waited eight months to tell Anakin she was pregnant, since RotS happens over a week max.)

I don't agree with bashing her, or tearing her character down completely, since I don't think that's what we were supposed to take away, but again I don't really know. But to sum it up: to me, Anidala was a gigantic mistake on many different levels, for many more reasons than just Anakin being a Jedi.