#the system will eventually collapse under its own weight

[accio-sriracha]

Sirius was gone for twelve years.

Twelve years he'd spent rotting away in that fucking cell.

He'd had every bit of hope drained from his body and he had nothing to carry him through it but the image of his best friend's corpse.

Nothing but the reminders of everything that had been taken from him.

For years he'd stewed in his anger. He'd been driven mad with rage and hatred and betrayal. Of the injustice of it all.

Eventually, he learned to stop feeling all together. To protect himself.

The demontors tormented him less this way, when he was already so void of anything remotely human.

He turned into a dog to control his thoughts. Animals were easier in a way, they had very primal needs and required little else.

No longer did he think of James. No longer was he haunted by everything that used to be, everything that could have been...

He refused to feel it.

He'd gone so long without a single tear he wasn't sure he was capable of them anymore. All those years without emotion made him clear minded. All that remained was one single thought.

He needed to kill Peter Pettigrew.

That was all that ever mattered to him anymore. Not his grief. Not his sadness. No. Just the desire to finish what he should have started all those years ago.

He did not mourn his old self. He did not miss feeling emotions the way he once did.

Emotions were a disease. They'd beaten him half to death and back again.

They tore through his system like a drug, wrecking everything they passed.

And they burned. They burned him the way his lungs would burn when they screamed for air.

The human mind was next to incapable of suffocating itself, did you know?

He did.

He knew that in his fits of panic and rage his heart would beat far too quickly, struggling to adjust under the crushing weight on his chest. This- this guilt that he carried so long it had woven itself into his very soul. But he couldn't seem to hold his breath long enough.

Maybe that meant a piece of him was still alive, fighting for survival.

Or maybe his brain was just a traitorous beast with a plot of its own.

Either way, he lived to see the day he escaped.

And when he was free, when he had found Pettigrew in his hiding, he still refused to feel.

He refused to feel even as he drug his godson's best friend through the once familiar tunnel to the shrieking shack.

He refused to feel even as he heard the snapping of his bones.

He managed to keep himself emotionless, even as he transformed back into himself. To Sirius. Someone he hadn't been in a long time.

And when Harry stood in front of him, accusing him of the murder of his parents, he thought maybe he should feel. But he remembered the pain.

He could see it in the boy's eyes. He could feel the phantom of it's fingers ghosting at him as they reminded him of a brilliant witch he used to know.

No. He didn't feel. He wouldn't.

Not until Remus.

When Remus walked into the room Sirius swore his lungs had collapsed. He swore his heart could not possibly be continuing to beat.

When Remus reached out a hand and their fingers touched, that's when Sirius knew what was happening to him.

He was feeling.

And he hated it. He hated the way his body shook with fear, how his mind replayed memory after memory of all he had repressed.

He missed the numbness that had enveloped him. It was gone and left him bare and exposed to the new, to this torture.

He missed the static that saved him from his thoughts. He missed the cell that bore no reminders of his past.

When Remus embraced him, for the first time in over a century... Sirius broke.

Never before had he felt so much.

He felt unwillingly. He did not want these feelings back. He did not ask for them. He did not want his soul to burn any longer. He did not want this.

But his feelings were here, and they were overpowering, and they were real.

And among them was the strongest sense of relief he'd ever known in his life.

Remus... Moony.

Sirius realised then what he had been missing. Like the last piece of a puzzle finally working its way into the picture. Remus completed him.

He gasped, clutching onto Remus as tightly as he could manage with what little strength remained.

Remus' eyes met his and they were so full of understanding.

Remus knew. Remus believed him. Remus loved him.

The words repeated in his head like a mantra.

Remus loved him, Remus loved him, Remus loved him.

And never again would Sirius take those feelings for granted. No matter how hard or overwhelming everything got; he would never again forget his love for the boy he'd held under the stars all those years ago.

Remus loved him.

And that was enough to make him stay.

[mesetacadre]

not a marxist (yet) so can i ask if it's generally agreed upon that capitalism is the primary contradiction why theres a subset of ppl saying it's actually settler colonialism or it's actually this other thing?

You're getting a little bit confused over these terms. The primary contradiction of capitalism is class, because the antagonism between the exploiter class (the capitalist class, the group of people who own the means of production) and the exploited class (the working class, the group of people who sell their labor power in exchange for a portion of the value they create, a salary) creates a struggle between them that will, eventually, cause the collapse of capitalism, and if the working class is prepared, replaced with socialism. If you see people saying that capitalism creates its own demise, this is what they mean.

There are other contradictions within capitalism, more or less inherent, more or less specific. For example, the conflict between different sectors of the capitalist class that manifest through means like parlamentarism or interimperialist wars can create a deepened crisis that could lead to an overthrow by the working class, or it could not.

Settler colonialism, on the other hand, is a particularly oppressive form that imperialist capitalism (the current a highest stage of capitalism, as described by Lenin) can take in the imperial periphery, such as in Palestine or the Sahrawi Republic (Western Sahara). Within these states or territories that suffer settler colonialism, the primary contradiction does become the settler-indigenous* relation. It becomes the more pressing matter, the main and precedent form of oppression, and the specific contradictions it spawns will contribute to its collapse. Such has been the case in most of the world already, take South Africa, Zimbabwe and Algeria as examples. It is also important to note that a vanguard party, like the PFLP, could successfully take advantage of the collapse of Israeli colonialism and inmediately organize a socialist revolution, given it possesses enough strength and organizes a sufficient portion of the Palestinian working class, but it isn't a given. Not understanding this is the mistake more immediatist forms of communism make, such as some trotskyists saying "the palestinian working class should rise up against the palestinian bourgeoisie".

Settler colonialism is distinct from "normal" manifestations of imperialism in this fact, in the precedence the class struggle takes. Other places, such as in Burkina Faso, Cuba, or Vietnam, are places in the imperial core in which their socialist revolutions did not have to ally with non-communist elements to kick out the imperialist capitalist class and then maybe do their own revolution, because the absence of the more "aggressive" settler colonialism allowed them to get rid of imperialist subjugation and capitalism in one fell swoop. In most places in Africa, however, the more explicit forms of European colonialism (and not settler-colonialism) did eventually fall to popular uprisings or under their own weight, but were replaced by their own national bourgeoisie who still sold off their country to imperialists anyway.

Capitalism or settler colonialism are not contradictions by themselves, the contradictions are the mechanisms and elements that these systems create which have the potential to make them extremely weak or outright collapse.

[mysticstronomy]

WHAT IS THE INFORMATION PARADOX??

Blog#355

Wednesday, December 6th, 2023

Welcome back,

Afew years ago a team of chemists unboiled an egg. Boiling causes protein molecules in the egg to twist around one another, and a centrifuge can disentangle them to restore the original. The technique is of dubious utility in a kitchen, but it neatly demonstrates the reversibility of physics. Anything in the physical world can run both ways—it's one of the deepest features of the laws of physics, reflecting elemental symmetries of space, time and causality.

If you send all the parts of a system into reverse, what was done will be undone. The information required to wind back the clock is always preserved. Of course, undoing a process may be easy in simple systems but is less so in complex ones, which is why the egg unboiler was so nifty.

But there's a troubling exception: black holes. If a massive enough star collapses under its own weight, its gravity intensifies without limit and locks matter in its grip. Jump into one, and there's no going back. Merge two together, and you can't split them apart.

A black hole presents an almost completely featureless façade to the universe. Looking at it, you can't tell what fell in. The black hole does not seem to preserve information. This irreversibility, first appreciated by physicist David Finkelstein in 1958, was the earliest inkling of the black hole information paradox—“paradox” because how could reversible laws have irreversible effects? The paradox signaled a deeper disease in physicists' understanding of the world.

Scientists have many reasons to seek a grand unified theory of nature, but the information paradox is their most specific motivation, and it has guided their way when they have little else to go on.

At last, more than 60 years after this puzzle began to appear, physicists are seeing hope for a solution. In the year leading up to the pandemic and through the months of lockdown, a coalition of theorists took huge strides to understand the paradox—the most progress in decades, some say.

They bolstered the idea that black holes, despite appearances, are reversible, and they dissolved the official paradox. Physical theory is no longer at odds with itself. The work is contentious, though, and by its proponents' own admission, it is at best a starting point for a full explanation of black holes.

Until recently, most of the “progress” physicists have made on this paradox over the decades has consisted of realizing the problem is even harder than they'd thought. Finkelstein's original work left loopholes.

For one, it was based on Einstein's general theory of relativity, which physicists knew was not the full story, because it left out quantum effects. In the 1970s Stephen Hawking—in the work that made him a household name—took a first crack at including those effects. His calculations predicted that black holes slowly release energy. But this emission carries no information about whatever had fallen in, so it doesn't help wind back the clock.

If anything, the outgoing trickle of particles worsens the predicament. The black hole eventually empties itself of energy and evaporates away like a puddle on a summer's day. All the matter it imprisoned is not freed but wiped out of existence. Hawking's analysis elevated a general unease into a full-fledged crisis for physics.

Originally published on www.scientificamerican.com

COMING UP!!

(Saturday, December 9th, 2023)

"WHAT ARE WHITE DWARFS??"

[latgbg]

I want to know a bit more about Void's origin and what happened when Elios disappeared. I'd also love to find out why and how Hala's rule over the cosmos differs from when Elios was in charge.

Void was Elios’ first creation, an anchor to provide balance where her own overwhelming radiance could not. Without a balance, stars would burn too bright, planets would collapse under their own gravity, and the galaxy itself would eventually be swept up and consume everything.

Void grew envious of Elios, who was seen as the creator, while Void in comparison could only bring destruction. The balance of the universe— light and dark, hope and despair, the galaxy thrived with it, but to Void, it was nothing but fleeting and fragile.

As Elios further continued in developing the cosmos, Void’s discontent and anger only grew until it transformed into something darker— a desire to reshape the universe in his own image. To Void, true peace could only be achieved if everything was wiped away, plunged into darkness where there was no balance— only a perfect, eternal void.

The idea of life from the stars to the planets to the first aliens crafted was a fleeting distraction to the infinite stillness he sought.

With his power, he began his destruction of warping space itself, summoning black holes and void storms that consumed everything in their path.

Elios fought back against him, but could not destroy him, his own power being beyond light, something she could not combat. She sealed him in what was called the Solstice Seal into the heart of a dying star crafted from her own divine light, and bound Void into its core, using its collapsing gravity to imprison him.

The seal began to weaken over time however, and with it, so did Elios, her strength having faded upon feeling the weight of Void’s return.

She gathered all her power for one final act: a massive burst of light spreading throughout the galaxy in an effort to purify the stars in an attempt to burn away the shadows Void brought forth— but it was too late. Her light died at the edge of the universe where Void resided, his power slowly absorbing it and using the source of her strength against her.

Elios attempted to use the Solstice Seal again, but it shattered under the weight of Void’s presence and her own weakened state. With a flash of light, she disappeared into the void— and since then, the light of Elios has not been seen, with only the memory of her radiance and the growing darkness of Void’s encroachment filling the darkness she once illuminated.

Her disappearance became an unsolved mystery, stories told by those who still remembered her light. Some say she sacrificed herself to stop Void in her final moments; others, believe she was consumed by darkness by the very thing she sought to prevent, while some believe she still lingers in the forgotten corners of space, waiting for the right moment to return to pierce the darkness.

Since then, Hala, the moon deity, has taken over, her rule bordering on more of an introspective approach compared to Elios’ directness.

She ruled through cycles, similar to the ebb and flow of the moon, and attempted to guide those who followed her through it all— growth, decay, renewal, and revival. Her rule attempted to spread acceptance, of the inevitable rise and fall of the moon, and the beauty of impermanence.

But Hala’s rule soon began to fall apart, the weight of her predecessor hanging heavy on her shoulders. She found herself frustrated at her own passivity, the star systems flickering out, planets falling into disarray, and the inhabitants of the great big Galaxy falling into chaos. She was not used to taking immediate, bold actions, and what were previously careful decisions now felt like delays.

Her cool collectivity soon morphed into anger and frustration at being unable to be like Elios, struggling to move forward with the same confidence Elios radiated. To her, darkness was something she could no longer control or balance— it had become a force of despair.

The universe was desperate for clarity, action, and it was something Hala could not give, her frustration mounting day by day the the cycles she was so used to being a part of becoming almost sickening to look at.

The pressure to be a figure of inspiration while harboring anger for Elios’ disappearance was beginning to wear on her. It left a void Hala couldn’t fill, and the universe, still desperate for action— pushed her to the edge.

After all, how could she ever replace the brilliant radiance of the sun?

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

How many different titles are there for a receptionist?

Front Desk Clerk

Front Desk Lodge

Front Desk Agent

Guest Service Captain

Night Auditor

Front Desk Rockstar (the fuck does that mean?)

Customer Service Specialist

Office Assistant

Front Desk Associate

Guest Service Agent

Front Desk Receptionist

Front Office Assistant

Workplace Experience Associate

Receptionist (at least they're being honest)

Senior Executive Assistant

Front Desk Cashier (okay, a little too honest)

A wide spread from $11 to $18 per hour for the exact same job at pretty much the exact same location. This system has got to collapse under the weight of its own bullshit eventually...

[t4tmetalsonic]

that sonic blue star idea is SOOOO COOL !!! ik u said u were gnna make a comic abt it but are there any other things abt it that u can/wanna share rn ? its so interesting!!!!!

OOH I ALMOST MISSED THIS SORRY!!!

by comic i just mean like one page which hopefullyyy i'll do soon and it's not one of the many ideas i forget about gkjhdkfg

and!!! well. i've seen a lot of ppl compare sonic to the sun/stars already, like sonic and knuckles having a sun/moon dynamic (which is v cool) and then in undefeatable "i'm what you get when stars collide", which is specifically about super sonic. also super sonic being compared to the sun as yknow he's golden and glowing lol. so i'm basically taking all those ideas but then also applying my love of stars to it!!!

so by blue stars i mean both o-type and b-type main sequence stars (which is like. a normal not dying star. our sun is also main sequence) which are the biggest and hottest main sequence stars, AND live the shortest bc of it. like literally the brightest stars burn the shortest, that's not only a cool phrase but a scientific fact. and doesn't that sound like a certain blue hedgehog? going around being a bright beacon of hope and saving the world but putting himself in so much danger he'll probably die young? :')

another fun thing about these blue stars is they can go supernova!! our sun is too small so will never do this, when it gets old it'll simply expand a bit (well, enough to swallow up all the planets) and then the outer layers will blow away. but bigger stars? they go through the same process of expanding but then collapse under their own weight and depending on the exact mass and contents of the star, this collapse causes either a neutron star, a black hole or- BOOM. supernova!! (funnily enough, another way of forming a supernova is from certain types of stars colliding!) these can be bright enough to be visible in the day and be brighter than an entire galaxy. so yknow *gestures to super sonic* he's like a supernova!! albeit a lot more controlled

the detail of this comparison i like the most is that a supernova is the death of a star. a very bright and beautiful death, and the elements created in the process go on to form new stars and planets (and us) but a death nonetheless. sonic's super form uses up his life force and if he stays like that for too long, he dies! it's a controlled explosion! he is extremely powerful while actively dying, so it's an obvious connection for me to make!! also ofc because they're blue stars and he's also blue lol

unrelated to sonic now lol but supernova also leave behind rlly pretty remnants, for example the crab nebula!!

(from the wikipedia page)

isn't she beautiful??? this one's especially cool to me as the supernova that caused this was observed in 1054! we were here before this was created!

if you want examples of actual blue stars too, the constellation orion has rigel! (the bottom right star iirc) this is actually a system of like. 4 stars? 3 of them are b-type stars and the biggest is actually a blue supergiant (essentially in the process of dying, it will eventually go supernova). another orion star, betelgeuse (top left) is currently a red supergiant but used to be an o-type (so it's also in the process of dying, when it goes boom it'll be as bright as the moon!)

so ummm yeah. i think this was more me rambling about stars than sonic LOL but yeah i think if we're going to compare sonic to a star, then a blue star is a much better fit than our sun 😤

thank u for coming to my ted talk it's now 1am goodnight

[lexlaine]

Excerpt 2 from Paragon Parting

After the Fall, nature’s reclamation was swift. In the cement laden cities where more than half the world’s population resided, verdant greenery and roiling waters overtook the streets and highways within months. Ground level streets were the first to crumble under the colossal weight of nature’s rejoice. Then, water and wind corroded the skyways and roadways of the upper echelon. Millions of tons of pavement, cement, and steel rebar collapsed with the burden of disrepair. The unrelenting force of water, spurred by the expanding system of roots and mycelia, widened the cracks to make way for the liquid onslaught.

The first 5 years after the Fall saw the violent decay of humanity’s creations. Glass windows shattered, steel rusted and crumbled, and millions of miles of single family homes ruptured their siding and wooden frames to the burgeoning breath of the living Earth.

In the next 10 years, dams ruptured and flooded hundreds of miles of valleys. What few people remained boar witness to the roaring waters, and were inevitably doomed to their own circumstance. Entire coastlines of stilted structures were consumed by salted seas. In the cycle of freezing and thawing, pipes burst. In the spring and summer, soils and natural ash from cities foam to the top of every surface, collecting mini ecosystems that attract larger wildlife like birds, rodents, and even larger mammals. Within a decade, some cities are completely reclaimed. Skeletal steel structures jutting out above verdant green lushes.

And yet, for the few rural places still maintained by human hands, it would appear that days passed without change. Temperate rural pastures, overlooked by looming farmhouses tended by survivors, were beacons to a time that only existed in memories. The only indication of the event of the Fall was the slow march of entropy upon the most ingenious of man’s creations: robotics. Without the constant production of replacement parts and software upgrades, Guardian Automatons began to show signs of their age. Those unlucky enough to be absent of the careful attention of human hands eventually succumbed to moisture, rot, or rust.

Once the pillar of civilization, the Guardian Automatons all over the United States began to fall to the relentless barrage of passing time.

In downtown Seattle in Washington state, the forces of the Taiga rainforest climate overcame most of the western part of the state. Pillars of the city like the Space Needle fell within the first few years. Waterfront homes long ago collapsed into the water on Puget Sound, Lake Washington, and Lake Union. Wildfires, blown over from the east of the state, ravaged the new construction mega structures all over the western part of the state. Unchecked, fires devastated most of the rural parts of the east as well. However, small enclaves of humanity managed to remain.

In the once thriving Pike’s Place Market, the lower levels had long ago flooded. The gum wall stood below several feet of water, the acrid sweet smell of mint and strawberry just a distant memory long faded. The waterfront, having endured many years of renovation and remodel, was now completely submerged. The anti-gravity viewing deck still hovered just above the water, mere feet above its launch pad powered by an inaccessible but infinitely renewable energy core beneath the water. The massive skyscrapers that once capped this technological marvel of a city now sat upon waterlogged foundations. Whole structures began to moan and buckle. However, protected by the sound, many parts of downtown Seattle still remained.

Around the historic Pioneer Square district, where Seattle’s founders first established their roots, great thickets of moss and vine consumed the venerable brick and stone architecture. The old totem poles stood in solemn watch as ferns and lichen made a feast of the paving stones and sidewalks. The wild, natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest had returned to reclaim the ground that had once been tamed by human ingenuity.

The splendorous glass spheres that had once housed Amazon’s headquarters were now great terrariums of nature’s own making, harboring entire ecosystems that hummed and buzzed with life. Ivy had overtaken the façade of the spheres, their tendrils creeping into every crevice and nook. Inside, all manner of wildlife flourished, from scurrying rodents to songbirds, their chittering calls echoing within the confines of the structure. The previously manicured vegetation had gone feral, creating a labyrinth of greenery thriving in the generous light the spheres provided.

Further north, the University of Washington’s sprawling campus was all but unrecognizable. The iconic Drumheller Fountain, which had once been the heartbeat of the university, was now a verdant wetland, where ducks nested, and frogs croaked in symphony. The imposing Gothic spires of Suzzallo Library had surrendered to ivy and moss, their once proud, stern lines softened by a generous green blanket.

Amid the ruin, humanity was not entirely absent. On higher grounds, where the rampant greenery was kept somewhat at bay, survivors had established enclaves. They had transformed remnants of the city’s past into fortresses against the encroaching wilds. The iconic Pike’s Place Market, though its lower levels had given way to encroaching waters, was a bustling hub of trade, where people bartered goods, shared stories and kept the spark of community alive.

At the city’s outskirts, where the Starbuck’s headquarters had once stood, small agricultural settlements had sprung up. Using the skeletal remains of the corporate behemoth, the survivors had built greenhouses, harnessing the resilient spirit of the Pacific Northwest to cultivate crops and rear livestock.

As nature spread its green fingers across the remains of the once thriving city, these pockets of humanity kept vigil, proof of mankind’s indomitable spirit even in the face of great change. Amid the ruin, the once proud city of Seattle was a testament to both the destructive and healing power of nature, and humanity’s relentless will to survive.

A few miles away in Pioneer Square, a thankful few feet above sea level, Slade stood on cement pillar. Aged pebbles, crumbs beneath his boots, crunched as he leapt down to the bed of verdant moss just below. He moved among the tin sheets, makeshift siding of constructed buildings made by hand over the last decade. He made a winding path through the multi-story buildings, the foundations of which were built on steel storage containers brought here in the early days when large gas-powered machinery was still viable. Now, they relied almost entirely on the few reserves of solar power that could be stored during the limited summer months of full sun. Long trailing wiring hung from the tops of nearly buildings, their roof covered with panels upon panels of solar sheets.

Nearly 200 people lived here now, he reflected as he continued his path, trotting up stairs made from old fire escapes. When he came here with his brother Gavin, it had just been the two of them. Two kids, scared and alone after their parents passed from the Sick. That’s what they called it here. In other places, it had other names: FI, Fry, the Wake. He’d heard it called a hundred names from travelers.

They had more than a few of those. Mostly come looking for the Guardian Automatons. It wasn’t hard to see their usefulness. Built to repair infrastructure, communicate emergency messages, and respond to citizen alerts, these hulking machines were the crowning glory of modern Seattle before the Fall. Even though the progress of decay in the city was faster than they could maintain, they were still clearly coveted.

People would kill to get them. Slade had nine. He knew there were close to 20 in King County, and he had nearly half.

Most of them were here before he was, assigned to various parts of the downtown area. After all, it was Seattle taxpayers who funded their creation and maintenance.

Slade called this place the Maynard District. Actually, it was Gavin’s name for what they built here. Slade didn’t have the heart to change it.

[sabakos]

I think that the chattering class is defined by two distinct qualities: 1) a large amount of free time and 2) a complete and utter lack of creativity. People who don't have time don't care about things that aren't important, and people who are creative find interesting subjects to talk about instead of vapid ones.

Unfortunately the career that all these people seem to end up in is journalism, which is why you get the most ridiculous lifestyle articles claiming it's weird for two people to order the same thing at a restaurant, or who don't understand why other people don't want to spend all of their time sorting recycling, or are constantly policing language, both their own and others, in order to figure out how to offend as few of the imaginary people in their head as possible. Eventually this kind of system will collapse under the weight of its own incest, but until it does it mostly serves the social purpose of helping others screen out the kinds of people who do not have conscious experience.

[fxproptech]

How to be safe from investment scams? A Guide for prop firm tech users

Introduction

In the digital era, it is widely realized that opportunistic profitability— be it through investment or not— becomes accessible with relative ease through online trading platforms. Active investment fraudulent schemes materialized in recent years, though the financial world is not covered with traps and sneaky tactics. The fraudsters target both experienced investors and novices. Those who are engaged in prop firm technology know this risk on the first hand. This guide is designed so that you will be informed and will stay safe in your investment.

You can also check other top articles here, if you want:- https://propfirms.fxproptech.com/

Understanding Investment Scams

Investment scams are fraudulent schemes whereby a scammer convinces people to put money into fake opportunities. Most of the time, they will have offers with very high returns, with little or no risk—a red flag that should raise an alarm at all times. Common investment scams involve Ponzi schemes, pyramid schemes, pump-and-dump schemes, and fraudulent investment websites.

Ponzi Schemes:

In return, a Ponzi scheme involves paying off the earlier investors with the capital of the newer investors, rather than from profit earned. Thus, it appears to be a profitable concern and then collapses when there are not enough new investors to support the payouts.

Pyramid Schemes:

Pyramid schemes are of a similar nature to Ponzi schemes, except that in a pyramid scheme, people are recruited on the promise of high returns for recruiting others, who in turn recruit yet more people. In most cases, there is no legitimate product or service to sell, and eventually, the system falls under its own weight because it becomes unsustainable when the number of new recruits slows down.

Pump-and-Dump Schemes:

In such a scheme, fraudsters are involved in artificially inflating the price of the stock by making false and misleading statements. When the price of the stock is high, the scammers sell their shares at that inflated price and expose the deception.

Fraudulent Investment Platforms:

These platforms seduce investors with the promise of great returns and advanced technology. As soon as they have gathered rather large sums of money, they vanish, taking the investors' money away with them.

Why Prop Firm Tech Users Are Targeted

Prop firm tech users, most of the time, are just about the perfect and potential victims of investment scams because they are active traders and have money. Con artists may easily pretend to be some genuine trading firm, offer exclusive investment opportunities, or even boast some high-tech gadgetry to create an impression of some trustworthy platform.

The quicker pace at which prop trading happens, coupled with the pressure of making continuous profits, can further make traders more open to opportunities that are extremely risky or sound too good to be true. Therefore, understanding how these scammers work and maintaining alertness is very important to save yourself and your investment from them.

Red Flags to Watch Out For

Knowing how to identify the warning signs is all about protecting oneself from becoming a victim of investment scams. This becomes conceivable as some of the major red flags include:

Unrealistic Returns: If an investment is touting to give high returns with little or no risk, more than likely it's too good to be true. No type of valid investment can guarantee profits, especially not in the realm of volatile markets.

Pressure to Act Quickly: Scammers will typically create an element of urgency and pressure you to invest in an 'investment opportunity' that needs to take place at that very moment. Many of these opportunities will have a limited or 'only now' characteristic to them.

Lack of Transparency: Be very wary of investments that lack clear, detailed information. Legitimate investments are completely transparent about the risks involved and how they are investing their funds.

Unlicensed Sellers: Always discover if the person or company offering the investment is registered with relevant financial authorities. Unregistered sellers should be considered a huge red flag.

Complex or Secretive Strategies: Many of these scams involve a lot of jargon or very complicated strategies that elicit amazement from investors. If you are not fully aware of exactly how the investment works, you are better off avoiding it.

Unsolicited Offers: Be wary of unsolicited investment offers, especially if they came to you in the form of an email, social media, or a cold call. Scammers are known for targeting potential victims with unsolicited pitches.

Steps to Protect Yourself

Due diligence, skepticism, and vigilance are necessary to keep you safe from investment scams. Here are the steps that can help you:

Conduct Thorough Research: Research any company, platform, or person offering the opportunity before you invest in it. Look out for reviews or testimonials; find any actions or warnings coming from regulators. Check credentials and their history.

Verify Regulatory Compliance: Determine if the firm or individual is properly registered with the respective financial regulatory agencies. For example, in the U.S., you would check with the SEC or FINRA.

Consult with Trusted Professionals: Consult an independent financial adviser or investment professional who does not have any relationship with the investment offering to get an unbiased view of the opportunity.

Use Trusted Platforms: Trade or invest through reliable, time-tested platforms of prop firm tech. Avoid unknown or otherwise unproven platforms, especially those with little information available online.

Educate Yourself: Keep yourself updated on investment frauds and the modus operandi used by the cheats. The better informed you are, the lesser the chances are that you will fall prey to a scam.

Stay Skeptical: Always be skeptical—especially when things sound too good to be true. Question, seek clarification, and never rush into any investment decision.

Keep Records: Keep detailed records of all correspondence, dealings, and settlements as they pertain to your investments. This documentation could prove very valuable in the case of legal action.

Monitor Your Investments: Keep regular checks on investments and activities within the accounts. In case you come across any suspicious transactions or inconsistencies, then do bring it to the notice of your platform or concerned financial institution.

Role of Prop Firm Tech in Enhancing Security

Prop firm technology can go a long way in securing your investments. Sophisticated CRM systems and trading platforms are tailored to watch out for danger or suspicious activity. How prop firm tech can help:

Real-Time Monitoring: Most prop firm tech platforms are designed for live monitoring of market conditions and trading activities. In this respect, it makes it easier for traders to respond promptly to any suspicious patterns or activities that may indicate a scam.

Data Analytics: Advanced analytic solutions can analyze trends and anomalies to provide the likelihood of fraudulent activities. Such techniques enhance early warnings to potential scams by analysis from a variety of data sources.

Client Verification: A CRM system connected to prop firm tech can sometimes contain complete customer verification procedures that ensure all clients are kosher and prevent scammers from infiltrating the platform.

Secure Transactions: Most prop firm tech platforms are using at least some level of encryption, if not more, coupled with a raft of other safety features to secure transactions and all other sensitive information, thereby minimizing the chance of a data breach or unauthorized access.

Regulatory Compliance: Many of the prop firm tech platforms are designed with a view toward compliance with financial regulations, which creates an added layer of security for traders. Compliance features will support that everything is legit and nothing goes unnoticed.

What to Do If You Suspect a Scam

If any of the warning signs scream 'investment scam' to you, act immediately to protect yourself and others. Here's what you should do:

Stop All Communications: Stop communicating with the scammer. Do not send more money; do not give them more information.

Report the Scam: You can report this to the financial authority in charge, such as the SEC or FINRA, depending on your country. You can also report back on this if it's an online scam to the platform or to whomsoever provided the services.

Notify Your Financial Institutions: Finally, contact your bank, brokerage, or other relevant financial institutions and let them know that you are a victim of fraud. They may help in recovering funds or preventing further losses.

Consult Legal Counsel: If you have lost any amount of money to a scam, consult with an attorney experienced in financial fraud cases about your legal options, including the right course of action.

Warn Others: Share your experience with others, notify them of this scam, and help them protect themselves from these kinds of people. You can report it to agencies responsible for consumer protection or post warnings online.

Conclusion

Therefore, investment scams are a big hazard in the financial world and especially in prop firm tech. Leaving the rhetoric aside, today you shall be safe from most of these fraudulent acts only if you keep yourself updated, do your homework properly, and utilize the security features that come out of the box with some really advanced trading platforms. To reiterate, always remember to remain vigilant, question everything, and never invest in something that you don't understand. Your financial security depends on it.

[jalbert-james]

hey tumblr can you beta read my short story before i try to publish it to a zine thanks

// cw for what could be considered gore

It's always been a cycle. A circle without curves.

There’s an unending family of pathways, blending and splitting that mimic the nervous system. At each crossroads, there’s a tower — like a medieval dungeon, once home to a library or cleric. Now it just stands, clearly waiting to show me some new horror.

Sometimes the path has been blurry or less obvious, but it’s always had its distinct sharp points. Sometimes the buildup lasts longer or I stay in the corners for a longer amount of time, but there’s never any curve. Always straight lines. Always a direct path. Always the same clearly lit way to get to the same rotting, colorless tower in the vertices of the path. Always the same tower.

Every jutting angle of the cycle has a tall, looming building erected in the most unnatural manner, at an angle that it almost seems it should not be able to stand at without collapsing under its own dark weight. And yet, it stands. Though the large limestone blocks look eroded from years of heavy rainstorms and the mortar could be passed as wet sand, the building wouldn’t shudder if you set it ablaze or knocked at it with a wrecking ball. The tower simply stands.

The walls used to at least have stained glass windows. Unnatractive, but they allowed some sort of color into the building. It has been nearly a decade though, and vultures have thrown heavy bones inside, attempting to dispose of whatever deep fears or sadnesses they carry. They still held them though, and day after day they would throw those huge bones at the windows and when they broke, they only tossed more. They had no shame in doing so. Held no shame in piling those bones that began to suffocate any light that tried to break in as they stood higher and higher, now spilling out of the tall windows.

Whether the path is shorter or I simply get there faster doesn’t matter, because when I see those tall, splintered doors, I know where to kneel and pray to whatever guides me through this path. Even if I don’t want to, I’m drawn to the same smooth, worn spot under the small, dark shadow. Like my feet are guided by tugging shackles, I’m pulled to my knees, and my eyes struggle to fall anywhere except the floor beneath me.

There, it is the darkest; the most devoid of color or hope, and it is right beneath me. Whether I attempt to stand and walk away or lay down and sleep myself into the ground, that shadow does not leave until I can get past the church doors and walk outside. That little shadow remains beneath my feet, avoiding the rare sunlight and stretching to get away from it. It seems to emanate from my core, and so it is attached to me and can never leave. Not until I reach the damp shade of those dreary towers, and then it blends into the darkened ground.

Even then, the trees and bushes and flowers hold shadows of their own. The pale yellow and pink petals cast an inconsequential little shadow on their subordinating stems. Still, they remind me of my own darkness, my own cycle, my own path. When the trees begin to clear away, I can see the tower ahead. I can smell the flowers and hear the bees, but sometimes I can not look away, and I cannot forget. I miss the days that the buzzing wings and floral scent drew me away, but the towers loom over everything in a more sinister way than they did before.

When I get too close to the tower, I can hear the bees’s complaints in their buzz and I can smell the despair in the flowers. The ground becomes mud and my feet get stuck, but somehow it takes no longer to find those tall, splintered doors. If anything, I feel myself slide along with each greuling step. As I approach my personal monastery, the sludge is infested with maggots and they eat at my shoes and eventually my skin and by the time I am back at my pews I find myself half-empty and full of holes.

Inside the tower, there are shelves upon shelves upon shelves of the same exact book. They all say the same thing, but each one’s words are in a more complicated order than the last. Reading the books only opens spirals in the floor you stand on. The books are meant to be read. They are the key to the cuffs on my ankles. But therein lies a gruesome truth that causes me to reel and recoil at the thought of pursuing. When one book is completed, it simply reappears on the shelf or is replaced with another. Sometimes I wonder if the shelves will overflow and they too will replace the doors, shutting me in there forever with hateful words and uneasy breath. I push it aside. I know that being afraid won’t make this any easier. I pick a book up off of the shelf.

I’m reading, and trying to make some sense of the words: their syntax is backwards and the letters are in a font I’ve never seen. It was my duty, an unspoken agreement that this is what I was meant to do for the rest of my life — or the rest of my existence, since I can’t be entirely sure that I’m alive. I need to find every bit of willpower, to overcome the anguish and exhaustion I’ve collected from my days on the road.

And while trying to comprehend those words, I got hit with a wave of deja vu. I always do, I’m not sure why it still surprised me. Naïvety, I guess. The feeling that what I was reading was some part of me before, some memory from before I was stuck in this maze. But there was no memory, just an inkling. The feeling that something was stuck in my head and it was trying to budge its way through my organs and skin cells to escape. I pushed through the sensation, starting to read aloud quietly, trying to conjure something out of the ink.

Budging became shoving, which became clawing, which became tearing. I stayed standing, but I clutched the book with pale white hands and I began to hurl from the pain. The thing, the not-memory, was slicing through layers of my insides to get out. The hurling did not get the thing out of my insides, and all that came out was the distant screams that I guessed might be mine. Nobody else is out here, I thought, so they must be coming from me. It was such a serene thought to have, quiet and calm amidst the clawing and tearing.

There was a moment. A second. A lifetime. The book fell away and the tower disintegrated and the bones and shelves were less than a detail among the cosmic disruption I was experiencing. It was bright with colors and images that overstimulated me, images that I never remembered taking. They were Polaroid photos, ones that I could hold in my hand but not fluidly think of on my own. I stared at the picture in my hand, and it melted and became liquid. I panicked to make sure it didn’t drip from my hands, but it instead chose to seep into the cracks and pores of my skin. It was a part of me, and it dug itself so deep that no hot shower or chemical bath could scrub it off. This thing swung its blades and tore through me with its teeth, it killed me to emerge, and now it was burying itself back into my being.

The distant scream became closer as the thing settled in my chest, and I felt it come from my own throat. I had control over my voice, and I decided there was no need to scream anymore; the pain was nearly bearable. I noticed my eyes had been closed, and I chose to open them too; there were no more Polaroids to hide from. The trees and towers and books were gone, and I was left in an infinite plain. If I was going to be climbing up any towers anytime soon, I had better start building now.

Or maybe I wanted to build a house, or maybe I didn’t want to build at all. There were no paths for me to walk down, so I could leave the ground plain if I wanted. The mud had dried, and I could walk without worrying about my skin rotting.

I had a choice.

[ailtrahq]

The SEC has filed another interlocutory Appeal—designed to seek preliminary judicial review—to further its case against Ripple.Stuart Alderoty, Ripple’s Chief Legal Officer, wasted no time labeling the SEC’s recent interlocutory Appeal filing as “hypocritical.” Alderoty, who also serves as general counsel in the lawsuit, doubled down on the SEC’s Chairman Gary Gensler’s seemingly inconsistent stance. He pointed out that despite years of insisting “rules are clear and must be obeyed,” the SEC is now pleading for an urgent Appeal to unravel “knotty legal problems.”Another SEC filing, another hypocritical pivot…After years of its chairman saying the “rules are clear and must be obeyed” the SEC now cries that an Appeal is urgently needed to resolve these “knotty legal problems." https://t.co/ige4neIWRD— Stuart Alderoty (@s_alderoty) September 8, 2023 The Legal Eagle Weigh-inJohn E. Deaton, another legal ace in the crypto arena, echoed Alderoty’s sentiment. “People unfamiliar with the U.S. SEC v. Ripple Labs might think Alderoty is harsh,” Deaton said. “But those in the know realize that when Alderoty calls the SEC ‘hypocritical,’ he’s simply reiterating the federal judge’s own words.”The Regulatory Tightrope: What’s at Stake?The SEC’s paradoxical stances have not just confused the crypto industry, but they have also raised eyebrows among lawmakers and policy experts who question the regulatory body’s apparent indecisiveness.Chris Larsen, Ripple’s executive chairman, is hopeful that the SEC’s policy of “regulation by enforcement” will eventually collapse under its own weight, given the mounting critique from various quarters, including the judiciary.I sincerely hope we’re seeing the beginning of the end of the SEC’s policy of regulation by enforcement. The Courts are rejecting it, and now it’s time for Congress to take the lead on crypto policy.Thanks @EdLudlow @technology for the chat! https://t.co/3gZOR4lq5J— Chris Larsen (@chrislarsensf) September 6, 2023 The Crypto Community Sounds OffAustralian lawyer Bill Morgan was quick to critique the SEC’s portrayal of Judge Torres’s ruling, declaring, “The SEC is in trouble in this motion.” Crypto commentator Ashley Prosper opined that the SEC is making a “mockery of the U.S. government and its judicial system” and even mooted the idea of sanctions against the SEC for what she perceives as an abuse of judicial resources.With viewpoints fluctuating between criticism and support, one thing is crystal clear: the Ripple vs SEC case isn’t just a legal battle; it’s rapidly becoming a crucible for the future of Cryptocurrency law in America.!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s) if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function()n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments); if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0'; n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0; t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)(window,document,'script', ' fbq('init', '887971145773722'); fbq('track', 'PageView');

[tonguethulhu]

petition to rename investment earnings, you rent property, you own a car wash, idk how you classify that as earning. How did you earn it, what work did you perform that entitles you to the sweat of the working class

call it like it is, a tax on the poor for being poor, withholding essential goods and services for an inflated price.

Using your resources as leverage to extort and exploit people who have less than you

Like you do realize a system that is glorifies predatory economics will collapse under its own weight eventually

[thetldrplace]

The State and Revolution- Lenin

Lenin wrote his book The State and Revolution in 1917.

He gives his views on the State and what form it was to take under socialism, and his views about what it would, or might, become as it withered away when socialism turned into full communism. 

Marxists believed the State was always a product of class antagonism. The state is, in fact, an organ of class rule for the oppression of one class over another. If class antagonism could be reconciled, there would be no need for the state, but since they can’t, the state arises. The power of the state is essentially legally ordained bodies of armed men, prisons, the legal system, etc. 

Marxists believed that when the means of production were inevitably seized by the working class, and private property would be abolished, eventually, there would come a time when classes themselves would cease to exist. At that point, without different classes, there would be no more class conflict to uphold and therefore the entire reason for the state would vanish and the state itself would wither. 

Marx had originally taught that socialism would arise out of the ashes of capitalism. Capitalism would eventually collapse under the weight of its own contradictions and the working class would take over. Lenin thought this would only happen through violent revolution. He pushed for the supremacy of an educated Marxist vanguard that would instruct the working class in Marxism and lead the revolution. 

When the working class seized power and the means of production and had control of the state, what would this new state look like?

Since Marxists believed the entire reason and purpose of a state was the suppression of one class over another, then the new workers’ state would naturally be a tool for suppressing the bourgeois. He reasoned that with the change from a bourgeois state to a proletariat state, the old mindsets wouldn’t just vanish. The revolutionary Marxists would need to suppress those tendencies with an iron hand. Lenin never sees a benevolent state, that would be a contradiction in Marxist terms. If there is a state, the only reason for its existence is to oppress. Lenin meant for the Socialist state to be a means of suppressing the bourgeois. 

There is frequent mention of democracy. I should probably clarify the distinctions. Lenin saw democracy in the west as bourgeois democracy. Bourgeois democracy essentially favored the capitalists and bourgeois. He saw the system as rigged against the workers, even when they had the vote.

The basis for this is that Marxists saw the working-class proletariat as the majority of people in a society. IF those workers were truly free, they would simply vote out the bourgeois. Since they didn’t, they must not be free. Marxists thought that true freedom, true democracy, would come when everyone supports Marxism. And of course at that point, democracy as a tool for determining the will of the people would no longer be necessary because we’d all be on the same page anyway, so there would be no need to vote about it. 

Lenin makes a technical distinction between these two stages of Socialism. The first, which he calls socialism, is when the state has to enforce compliance with Marxist goals through an iron discipline. Active suppression of bourgeois (anyone who doesn’t support the Marxists) values is a part of this state. This first phase, Lenin admits, will not resolve inequalities. Injustice and inequality will still exist, because inequality in abilities will still exist.

The second stage, which he calls communism, is the stage where the populace, through engrained realignment of values, voluntarily comply with the Marxists’ goals and everyone lives happily ever after. By this time, Lenin says, production will have increased enormously because the capitalists will no longer own the means of production, and people will love their labor for labor’s sake. Everyone will work voluntarily because they love it so much, and people will take only according to what they need. 

Lenin is insistent that Marxists are not utopians. He never promises that the second stage will actually even arrive. They forecast it, but don’t promise it. Without the promise of the utopia, what they CAN promise is that they’ll take over everything, rule with an iron fist, and actively use the state to oppress those that disagree with them. 

Lenin spends a portion of the book countering other Marxist theoreticians. He calls them philistines, opportunists, or revisionists. There is a religious zealotry about the way these men pored over the writings of Marx and Engels as if their writings were holy writ. They would argue over how words were parsed, and the interpretations would vary accordingly. Lenin sees himself as the most orthodox of Marxists, and his advocacy of violent revolution as the only way socialist revolution would ever be accomplished. 

For all the Marxists claims of the ideology being the most practical, scientific and well-reasoned using Hegelian dialectics, what I find a Marxist characteristic is an overly dogmatic approach.

Hegelian dialectics was supposed to enable Marx to make the most accurate models of economics ever conceived. The process of considering the entirety of history using dialectics would consistently bring a more nuanced understanding of the significance of events. Engels, for instance, in his Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, told us that an exact replication of the universe, its evolution, and its consequences for man can only be understood through dialectics and its regard for fluidity.

I’ll give Marx credit too for submitting his ideas as scientific. He looked at data, he hypothesized what was happening, and he made predictions as to where that would lead. That is, indeed, a scientific approach.

But then, the Marxists seemed to get locked in. The Hegelian dialectic approach seems to have stopped and there is no more consideration of the fluidity of the events in a complex system.

Marxists locked into the most hardline predictions. They wrote capitalist axioms in stone, and then reasoned syllogistically that if X then Y; X therefore Y. The Hegelian dialectic should have them reconsidering their predictions in the face of the constant fluidity in the complex system of economics and society. But they don’t. They just keep going back to Marx as if he were a prophet from on high. The things they saw as inevitable in capitalist societies simply didn’t turn out that way.

Marx thought that greedy capitalists would always win out over more careful capitalists. As such, capitalism was doomed to increasingly concentrate until it all broke down. But it didn’t happen that way. Unions came about and businesses came to agreements with labor. Regulation of businesses for the common good came into play. Workers’ rights increased. There were a thousand small adjustments that rendered Marx’s predictions moot. There was fluidity in the historical developments, as they should have known from the dialectical approach, but they ignored it after Marx. 

[mysticstronomy]

HOW MUCH LONGER WILL OUR SUN BURN??

Blog#376

Saturday, February 17th, 2024.

Welcome back,

If you worry about when the sun will die, never fear: that moment is billions of years away.

The sun gives energy to life on Earth, and without this star, we wouldn't be here. But even stars have limited lifetimes, and someday our sun will die.

You don't need to worry about this solar death anytime soon, though. Like all stars, a churning fusion engine fuels the sun, and it still has a lot of fuel left — about 5 billion years' worth.

Stars like our sun form when a huge cloud of gas (mostly hydrogen and helium) grows so large that it collapses under its own weight. The pressure is so high in the center of that collapsing mass of gas that the heat reaches unimaginable levels, with temperatures so hot that hydrogen atoms lose their electrons.

Those naked hydrogen atoms then fuse together into helium atoms, and that reaction releases enough energy to counter the intense pressure of gravity collapsing the cloud of gas. The battle between gravity and the energy from fusion reactions fuels our sun and billions of other stars in our galaxy and beyond.

But in about 5 billion years, the sun will run out of hydrogen. Our star is currently in the most stable phase of its life cycle and has been since the formation of our solar system, about 4.5 billion years ago. Once all the hydrogen gets used up, the sun will grow out of this stable phase.

With no hydrogen left to fuse in the core, a shell of fusion hydrogen will form around the helium-filled core, astrophysicist Jillian Scudder wrote in an article for The Conversation. Gravitational forces will take over, compressing the core and allowing the rest of the sun to expand.

Our star will grow to be larger than we can imagine — so large that it will envelope the inner planets, including Earth. That's when the sun will become a red giant, which it will remain for about a billion years.

Then, the hydrogen in that outer core will deplete, leaving an abundance of helium. That element will then fuse into heavier elements, like oxygen and carbon, in reactions that don't emit as much energy. Once all the helium disappears, the forces of gravity will take over, and the sun will shrink into a white dwarf.

All the outer material will dissipate, leaving behind a planetary nebula.

"When a star dies, it ejects a mass of gas and dust — known as its envelope — into space. The envelope can be as much as half the star's mass," astronomer Albert Zijlstra of the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom, said in a statement. "This reveals the star's core, which by this point in the star's life is running out of fuel, eventually turning off and before finally dying."

Astronomers estimate that the sun has about 7 billion to 8 billion years left before it sputters out and dies. One way or another, humanity may well be long gone by then.

Originally published on www.space.com

COMING UP!!

(Wednesday, February 21st, 2024)

"BLACK HOLES CAN CREATE SPACE LASERS??"

[dailyadventureprompts]

Piggybacking off that monster girl ask, in an attempt to actually make something interesting from that: Rescuing a wizard from his own demiplane after he got stuck in there and is now hunted by the creatures he either created or invited to his own plane.

Dungeon: The Splendarium of Magus Marasuvaa

The mind is a garden, be careful what takes root

Adventure Hooks:

A wizard ally of the party calls them in to help investigate when an outbreak of fungus in the dreams of the city’s nobility is traced back to a painting depicting a strange and twisted palace. Following up on a series of bizarre leads and similar incidents, they discover  an avant-garde artist that has been imbibing magical hallucinogens and using what they’ve seen while tripping through the astral plane to spice up their work. 

In the belly of the black market, one of the partymembers discovers what might be the map to the mansion of an obscure but powerful (and surely long dead) mage. All it requires is the use of a teleport spell, and the plunder is surely theirs. When they get there however, they find the mansion more of a sprawling temple complex, infested with all manner of unearthly horrors.  

An artifact essential to the metaplot was last seen in the possession of a powerful wizard, and the only hope of recovering it is to charter an astral cutter and sail the silver sea to reach the remote fortress he built there. Along their journey the party must clash with space pirates, horrors from the deep void, an an ancient defense system put in place to deter trespassers.  

Setup:  The fate of Riggs Marasuvaa serves as a cautionary tale for those magical practioners thinking of creating for themselves an astral sanctum.  During his lifetime Marasuvaa was thought of as a prince among mages, influential and inspiring in addition to being a skillful channeler of the arcane, sought out by sovereigns and celestials for council and pleasant company. 

To entertain these guests, Magus Marasuvaa built a domain in the astral sea he called his “Spendarium”, a grand home that expanded along with his reputation until it rivaled the great palaces of the mortal realm. Filled with delights beyond counting and great arcane laboratories, what none including the magus suspected was that this gleaming temple was founded on rotten foundations, as Marasuvaa’s mind was infected by a self willed parasitic thought known as a Quori. Having only intended to leech off a few of the mage’s stray thoughts, this dream spirit  was swept up in the part of his imagination used to give shape to the primordial chaos of the astral sea, becoming trapped in the Magus’s mental construct. 

As Marsuvaa expanded his sanctum, he gave the infection more places to take root, until eventually like a house riven with dryrot and overstuffed with furniture, his mind collapsed under its own weight. Bloated by this explosion of the energy the Quori poured out of the places it had remained hidden for so long, spreading as fungal dream flesh in the astral plane while releasing a deadly burst of psychic energy on the material plane that tore the magus’s psyche apart. 

Since then the Splendarium has been kept under astral quarantine, warded off by those mages planear travelers with the foresight to recognize it as the memetic hazard that it is. Marasuvaa’s body met with a similarly ignoble fate, tossed into a magically warded dark pit far away from where it could actually hurt anybody. 

Challenges & Complications:

The Quori’s psychic rot is a constant hazard when delving the Spendarium, as even light exposure can cause unnerving visions and the atrophy of the party’s thought-selves, while prolonged exposure might bring about temporary madness. Every time they party rests within the bounds of the sanctum, they may even risk becoming infected with their own Quori, which will ride back with them to the material plane. 

Though there are innumerable treasures scattered throughout the Splendarium, would-be looters would be careful to priorotize those goods actually brought physically into the astral plane, as anything conjured up by Marsuvaa as a decorative flourish are liable to vanish when returned to the waking world. 

Scattered remnants of Marasuvaa’s mind hold dominion over different wings of his palace, either lost in memories or sent rampaging through the depths by the chaos that undid him. Some will help, some will hinder, and others will unwittingly trap the party long enough for the rot to take hold. 

For its part the Quori is mostly docile, locked in the moment of its host’s mental collapse and still reeling from the explosion of psychic energy it cause. Large sections of the Spendarium appear frozen in time, only changing once the party or some other interlopers perform some fundamental alteration, which will fundamentally shift how they navigate those spaces.  Should enough of the Quori be freed, it’s likely the whole Splendarium will collapse back in on itself, colasping down into a single comingled mind that will likely be very confused and very dangerous should it be unleashed on the dreamscape. 

Art

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

13 Keys to the White House: 2024 prediction (as of August 15, 2021)

Midterm gains: false, the Republicans are going to sweep the House

No primary challenge: probably true, no Democrat with a future would dare to challenge Biden or Harris

Incumbent seeking re-election: probably true, Biden has indicated he's going to run again even though he'll be 82 at the time

No third party: too soon to tell, we won't know how the Libertarians/Greens fare until 2023 at the earliest

Strong short-term economy: too soon to tell, who knows if we'll be in recession in 2024?

Strong long/term economy: probably false, inflation is rising and Republicans are threatening to let us default on our national debt, so things are looking bad going forward

Major policy change: false, Biden hasn't done shit, and if he doesn't do shit NOW he won't be able to do shit after the Republican dominated midterms

No social unrest: too soon to tell, it will depend on how bad things get between now and 2024

No scandal: too soon to tell, all eyes are on Biden, but there's no telling what he'll do

No foreign/military failure: FALSE, Afghanistan is going down in flames, tens or hundreds of thousands of civilians are going to die when the Taliban takes over, it'll be the worst humanitarian crisis in the planet

Foreign/military success: probably false, withdrawing from Afghanistan was supposed to be a huge success, but the last 20 years have been pointless.

Charismatic incumbent: false, Biden wasn't charismatic in 2020, he's not gonna magically gain 20 or 30 percent more approval going into 2024

Uncharismatic challenger: true, none of the Republican challengers resonate with anyone outside their base, Trump or DeSantis or Cruz or Cotton or anyone else

Democrats need 8 true to hold power

Republicans need 6 false to retake power

1 is definitely true

2 are probably true

4 are too soon to tell

2 are probably false

4 are definitely false

Republicans are almost certainly going to win in 2024 unless Biden pulls a rabbit out of his ass and magically reverses course in the next 15 months; things are in flux now, but come November 2022 they will be set in stone.

Key 1 is a lost cause because of partisan gerrymandering; the Republicans will take the House by force, though they'll likely lose the nationwide popular vote

Key 2 is probably safe because it would require a challenger to get 33% of the vote, and I just don't see that happening against a sitting president

Key 3 is true as of right now, but could easily flip false for any number of reasons. Biden ran on the unspoken promise that he was a transitional president and would step down in 2024, but Kamala Harris isn't more popular than he is (in fact, she's less popular), so the Democrats have painted themselves into a corner; either it's an old old old man or Hillary Clinton 2.0

Key 4 is beyond Biden's control; over the last century, third party candidates have gained traction about every 10 years, once every 2 or 3 election cycles. They did well in 1968, 1980, 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2016, so 2024 is up in the air.

Key 5 could go either way, I don't know enough about economics to make any informed predictions

Key 6 is more nuanced; the creator of the 13 Keys defines it as "real per capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms." The economy grew under Obama's second term, and tanked under Trump's first, so the average of the last two terms is either zero net growth or very slight shrinkage. If Biden can grow the economy at all, even a little, this key could flip in his favor. If he continues to do nothing, he's as good as gone.

Key 7 is a nonstarter; W turned the US into a police state, Obama slightly improved healthcare, Trump changed taxes from the ground up (and dismantled liberal democracy through a rigged judiciary and disintegration of federal authority over the states), but Biden and the Democrats have pretty much wasted the last 8 months, accomplishing zero of their campaign promises. They passed a neutered stimulus package, and might pass a neutered infrastructure deal, both of which gave major concessions to the Republicans even though they supported neither. Biden is Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and George H.W. Bush rolled into one.

Key 8 could very well lead us into another 2020 situation; not only have zero communities defunded the police, many of them have actually INCREASED funding. Republicans continue to dismantle our democracy by passing voter suppression laws, and are going to gerrymander their House into an unbreakable conservative majority despite only making up about 40-45% of the population. I expect to see major protests against Republican legislatures across the country, which will be quelled by both state and federal forces because Democrats never support active protests, only passive peaceful ones (ones that fail, but look polite on TV)

Key 9 could be real or invented; no matter what Biden does, whether he's squeaky clean or rotten to the core, the Republicans are going to impeach him in 2023. Hell, they'll almost certainly run in 2022 on the platform of "we will impeach Biden if we win." He'll be acquitted of course, but Republicans will control the narrative and gain popular support going into 2024. They might wait to impeach him until the election starts, or impeach him and hold a long protracted trial throughout the primaries and well past the national conventions. If they win the House, they'll almost certainly win the Senate too, which means they have all the power, even if they can't remove him.

Key 10 is a lost cause; there's no coming back from this, Afghanistan is an absolute failure, full stop.

Key 11 is very closely tied to key 10, so I don't see it flipping true because Biden doesn't really have any other major foreign policy objectives within his grasp.

Key 12 is a doubly lost cause because both Biden and his chosen successor are terrible candidates. Biden was picked by the establishment as a milquetoast "civility" candidate in opposition to Trump's extremism, and Harris is so unpopular she dropped out of the presidential race due to lack of enthusiasm before a single vote was cast. Biden was the lesser of two evils, and Harris is a lying centrist cop pretending to be a progressive. As I said in Key 3, the Democrats painted themselves into a corner; Biden/Harris is Carter/Mondale all over again.

Key 13 is safe now and forever because no candidate will ever have national appeal again. The creator of the 13 Keys gave examples like Lincoln, the Roosevelts, and Kennedy, as well as controversial picks like Reagan and Obama in 2008 (though not in 2012). Love them or hate them, these candidates resonated with the entire country in their day, but America has become too polarized for a member of one party to gain support from the other.

This is a disaster waiting to happen. It's unfolding before our eyes in slow motion, and we're unable to stop it. I feel trapped all the time, trapped in the world, trapped in the system, no agency,m, no control, no hope. I don't know what to do, because the powers that be are FUCKING EVERYTHING UP ROYALLY! This party is a laughingstock, and the alternatives are either pure evil or insignificant; I'd be a Green if they stood a snowball's chance in hell, but they don't, not even in a single district, neither federal nor state.

The system has to collapse in my lifetime, it's not tenable as is.