#this was the most unfair and backwards society we have seen so far

[calamitycons]

Dan Heng, you don’t owe the Xianzhou fucking ANYTHING. This goddamn alliance has done nothing but bring you and your people pain for ages upon ages, they have oppressed and mistreated you and manipulated you into thinking you deserved to be punished for the actions of a dead man when you FUCKING DON’T. YOU ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THESE MOTHERFUCKERS.

THE XIANZHOU ARE ROTTEN TO THE CORE. They foster an environment of superiority toward “Outsiders” and even toward their own people they mistreat the people they consider lesser. They abuse and distrust and create and environment where the disabled are ostracized, left to fend for themselves, are threatened with losing their jobs, and don’t even provide accessibility aids for people they RESPECT AND HONOR IN HIGH RANKING POSITIONS. DAN SHU DOESN’T HAVE A CANE. WHY DOESNT SHE HAVE A CANE.

The Xianzhou essentially threatened the Vidyadhara or something to push them into the Luofu to seal away their mistake and you DON’T NEED TO FIX THEIR PROBLEMS THAT T H E Y IMPOSED ON YOU. For FUCKS sake they DON’T EVEN TREAT THE CURRENT MASTER OF MEDICINE, A VIDYADHARA, WITH A N Y RESPECT AND LOCK HER THE FUCK UP.

THEY banished YOU when you were a CHILD and YOU STILL THINK THEY DESERVE FUCKING ANYTHING god to the shitting fuck damn it i hate this shitty ass boat i want to get OFF OF IT

[thebibliosphere]

So I'm currently unemployed because I got fired for taking too much sick leave (it was legally sketchy blah blah blah but in the end I just can't work and take care of myself and investigate my mystery health problems at the same time). So I've been spending more time writing!

I really admire your writing and loved Hunger Pangs. I'm looking forward to the poly elements developing and I'm wondering if you have any advice for writing about poly. I've made one of my projects a snarky take on "write what you know" ... Apparently what I know is southern gothic meets Pacific northwest gothic, chronic illness pandemic surrealism, and falling back-asswards into threesomes.

I know this is a very open-ended question and I don't expect an answer, I'm just curious about it if you have the energy. As a writer, trying to write honestly / realistically about polyamory/enm, I'm curious if you have any thoughts on what's different about portraying monogamy or nonmonogamy in books, romance or erotica or otherwise.

I'm trying to read examples but it's hard to find examples that fit the niche I'm looking at. Excuse me if this question is nonsense, it's the cluster headaches.

I'm sorry to hear you've been dealing with all that and solidarity on the cluster headaches. But I'm glad you're finding an outlet through writing! And I hope you're happy with an open-ended ramble in response because oh boy, there's a lot I could talk about and I could probably do a better job of answering this sort of thing with more specific questions, but let's see where we end up.

There's definitely a big difference between writing polyamory/ENM (ethical non-monogamy) and what people often expect from monogamous love stories.

Just even from a purely sales and marketing standpoint, the moment you write anything polyamorous (or even just straight up LGBTQIA+ without the ENM) you're going to get considered closer to being erotica/obscene than hetero romances. It's an unfair bias, but it's one that exists in our society. But also the Amazon algorithm and their shitty, shitty human censors. Especially the ones that work the weekends. (Talking to you, Carlos 🖕.)

So not only do you start out hyper-aware that you're writing something that is highly stigmatized or fetishized (at least I'm hyper-aware) but that you are also writing for a niche market that is starving for positive content because the content that exists is either limited, not what they want, or is problematic in some fashion i.e. highly stigmatized or fetishy. And even then, the wants, desires, and expectations of the community you're writing for are complex and wildly varied and hard to fit into an easy formula.

When writing monogamous love stories, there is a set expectation that’s really hard to fuck up once you know it. X person meets Y. Attraction happens, followed by some sort of minor conflict/resolution. Other plot may happen. A greater catalyst involving personal growth for both parties (hopefully) happens. Follow the equation to its ultimate resolution and achieve Happily Ever After. 

But writing ENM is... a lot more difficult, if only because of the pure scope of possibilities. You could try to follow the same equation and shove three (or more) people into it, but it rarely works well. Usually because if you’re doing it right, you won’t have enough room in a single character arc to allow for enough growth, and if ENM requires anything in abundance, it’s room to grow.

And this post is huge so I’m going to put the rest under a cut :)

There's also a common refrain in certain online polyam/ENM circles that triads and throuples are overrepresented in media and they may be right to some extent. Personally, I believe the issue isn't that triads and throuples are overrepresented, but that there is such minuscule positive rep of ethical non-monogamy in general, that the few tiny instances we have of triads in media make it seem like it's "everywhere" when in actuality, it's still quite rare and the media we do have often veers into Unicorn Hunter fetish porn. Which is its own problematic thing. And just to be clear, I’m not including this part to dissuade you from writing "falling back-asswards into threesomes." If anything, I need more of it and would hook it directly into my brain if I could. I'm just throwing it out there into the void in the hope that someone will take the thought and run with it, lol.

I’d love to see more polyfidelitous rep in fiction, just as much as I’d like to see more relationship anarchy too. More diversity in fiction is always good.

Another thing that differs in writing ENM romance vs conventional monogamy is the feeling like you need to justify yourself. There's a lot of pressure to be as healthy and non-problematic as possible because you are being held to a higher standard of criticism. Both from people from without the ENM communities, and from the people within. Granted, some people don't give a shit and just want to read some fantastic porn (valid) but there are those who will cheerfully read Fifty Shades of Bullshit and call it "spicy" and "romantic," then turn around and call the most tooth-rottingly-sweet-fluff about a queer platonic polycule heresy. That's just the way the world works.

(Pro-tip for author life in general: never read your own reviews; that way madness lies. I glimpsed one the other day that tagged Hunger Pangs as “ethical cheating” and just about had an aneurism.)

And while that feeling of needing to justify yourself comes from a valid place of being excluded from the table of socially accepted norms, it can also be to the detriment of both the story and the subject matter at hand. I've seen some authors bend so far over backward to avoid being problematic in their portrayal of ENM, they end up being problematic for entirely different reasons. Usually because they give such a skewed, rose-tinted perspective of how things work, it ends up coming off as well... a bit culty and obnoxious tbh.

“Look how enlightened we are, freed from the trappings of monogamy and jealousy! We’re all so honest and perfect and happy!”

Yeah, uhu, sure Jan. Except here’s the thing, not all jealousy is bad. How you act on it can be, but jealousy itself is an important tool in the junk drawer that is the range of human emotion. It can clue us in to when we’re feeling sad or neglected, which in turn means we should figure out why we’re feeling those things. Sometimes it’s because brains are just like that and anxiety is a thing. Other times it’s because our needs are actually being neglected and we are in an unhealthy situation we need to remedy. You gotta put the work in to figure it out. Which is the same as any style of relationship, whether it’s mono, polyam or whatever flavor of ENM you subscribe to* And sometimes you just gotta be messy, because that’s how humans are. Being afraid to show that mess makes it a dishonest portrayal, and it also robs you of some great cannon fodder for character development.

Which brings me in a roundabout way to my current pet peeve in how certain writers take monogamous ideals and apply them to ENM, sometimes without even realizing it. The “Find the Right Person and Settle Down” trope.

Often, in this case, ENM or polyamory is treated as a phase. Something you mature out of with age or until you meet “The One(tm).” This is, of course, an attempt to follow the mono style formula expected in most romances. And while it might appeal to many readers, it’s uh, actually quite insulting. 

To give an example, I am currently seeing this a lot in the Witcher fandom. 

Fanon Netflix!Jaskier is everyone's favorite ethical slut until he meets Geralt then woops, wouldn’t you know, he just needed to find The One(tm). Suddenly, all his other sexual and romantic exploits or attractions mean nothing to him. Let's watch as he throws away a core aspect of his personality in favor of a man. 

Yeah... that sure showed those societal norms... 

If I were being generous, I’d say it’s a poor attempt at showing New Relationship Euphoria and how wrapped up people can become in new relationships. But honestly, it’s monogamous bias eking its way in to validate how special and unique the relationship is. Because sometimes people really can’t think of any other way to show how important and valid a relationship is without defining it in terms of exclusivity. Which is a fundamental misunderstanding of how ENM works for a lot of people and invalidates a lot of loving, serious and long-term relationships.

This is not to say that some polyam/poly-leaning people can't be happy in monogamous relationships! I am! (I consider myself ambiamorous. I'm happy with either monogamy or polyamory, it really just depends on the relationship(s) I’m in.) But I also don't regard my relationship with a mono partner as "settling down" or "growing up." It's just a choice I made to be with a person I love, and it's a valid one. Just like choosing to never close yourself off to multiple relationships is valid. And I wish more people realized that, or rather, I wish the people writing these things knew that :P

Anyway, I think I’ve rambled enough. I hope this collection of incoherent thoughts actually makes some sense and might be useful. 

----

*A good resource book that doesn't pull any punches in this regard is Polysecure by Jessica Fern. It's a wonderfully insightful read that explores the messier side of consensual non-monogamy, especially with how it can be affected by trauma or inter-relationship conflicts. But it also shows how to take better steps toward healthy, ethical non-monogamy (a far better job than More Than Two**) and conflict resolution, making it a valuable resource both for someone who is a part of this relationship style***, but also for writers on the outside looking in who might have a very simple or misguided idea of what conflict within polyam/ENM relationships might look like, vs traditional monogamous ones.

** The author of More Than Two has been accused of multiple accounts of abuse within the polyamorous community, with many of his coauthors having spoken out about the gaslighting and emotional and psychological damage they experienced while in a relationship with him. A lot of their stories are documented here: https://www.itrippedonthepolystair.com/ (warning: it is not light material and deals with issues of abuse, gaslighting, and a whole other plethora of Yikes.) While some people still find More Than Two helpful reading, there are now, thankfully, much, much better resources out there.

*** Some people consider polyam/ENM to be part of their identity or orientation, while others view it as a relationship style.It largely depends on the individual. 

[tepkunset]

@avatarfandompolice​​​ is a blog that likes to misuse progressive language in attempt to make ignorant, racist posts sound more intelligent than they are. While most of their blog consists of arguing about ‘zutara,’ (which I recently learned is a ship name for Zuko and Katara from an anon), there is also a large number of posts and reblogs under the premise of being “hot takes” on how unfair it is to address racism in fandom and in media.

Avatarfandompolice is very sensitive about people pointing out that Avatar: The Last Airbender is not, in fact, flawless. That a show made by two white men featuring Asian and Indigenous characters and influences is fully capable of getting things wrong. That their western colonial views are influences all on their own, and it shows. Rather than listen to fans of colour point out things like these posts for example: [Link] [Link] [Link], avatarfandompolice has decided that such things must simply be fake, and has made multiple posts complaining it. This is not just regular ignorance, this is wilful ignorance. The dismissal of critique simply because they cannot fathom not everyone being able to handle the amount of issues they are freely educating others on, or people holding the ability to like something overall while also pointing out where it could be better.

It is my firm belief that you should never absorb media with an uncritical eye. If this was the case, if people just accepted everything given to them, then we would never see any progress. We need to be able to look back at something and say here’s what we did right, and here’s what we need to do better with.

The argument that A:TLA was made in 2012 and therefore should not be analyzed with a modern understanding of the world is downright hilarious, too. As if we aren’t taught to write literature analysis on books and plays that are centuries old in school. In particular regards to the whole cop thing... if anyone reading this seriously thinks that hate and fear of the police is just a 2020 trend, you can meet me in the pit. I was four years old when I learned how terrifying cops are. If your experiences differ, let me tell you that does not make them universal. And as for all the 20-somethings talking about it today, well, gentle reminder that as said by avatarfandompolice right here, the show aired in 2012. Little 10-year-old kids don’t have social media, (at least I hope they don’t,) and unless they grew up experiencing first-hand police terror, probably were not aware of it at that age. I do not know why avatarfandompolice insults people's ability to grow and learn. I can only guess it’s jealously from their lack of ability to do so.

Now let’s address their defences of whitewashing, which is easily the most backwards reaching I’ve seen on this issue in a while. Primarily their defence relies on four repetitive “points” —

Fake minuscule percentages to downplay the high prevalence and extremity of whitewashing in the fandom

Deflecting the addressing of whitewashing with rapid-fire fake scenarios and claims of “reverse racism” / “blackwashing”

Claiming whitewashing isn’t real because people only care about it with Katara

Claiming that calling out whitewashing in fandom is wrong because it hurts artists

I have only so much as dipped my toes into the A:TLA fandom, and even I have seen a lot of whitewashed fan art. If you do an image search for fan art, I guarantee within the first couple rows of results, there will be in the absolute least, a few examples. The idea of these artworks not substantially lightening skin is also just plain inaccurate. Just from a quick Google search, this is literally the first result for ‘Avatar The Last Airbender Katara fan art’:

Avatarfandompolice is also hyper-focused on the lightening of skin, and seems to be under the impression that this is the only component of whitewashing. I come to this conclusion because when someone pointed out the equal prevalence of depicting these characters of colour with Western European features instead of their actual eyes, noses, etc., they rip a giant turd out of their ass and scrawl the words “but stereotyping” over it. No, not all Asian peoples and Indigenous peoples look the same. The original poster made no such claim of this at all. Avatarfandompolice jumped to this conclusion all on their own... (which really says a lot in itself). It is entirely unrelated to the point. The point being the erasure of how these characters look, in favour of giving them whiter features. And guess what? This does hurt. But I’ll get to that below.

The lack of understanding of whitewashing is on full display when avatarfandompolice talks about “blackwashing”; the idea that colouring characters with darker skin is just like whitewashing. Firstly, there is no such thing as “blackwashing.” “Blackwashing,” “brownwashing,” etc. does not exist because it is a false equivalency to whitewashing. It is a false equivalency to whitewashing because white people are not even in the slightest loosing representation when a white character is re-imagined as a racial minority, whereas when racial minorities are re-imagined as white people, they are taking away from what is already very little representation for us. If we lived in a world where the statistics of representation were not so drastically disproportionate, then there would be something to talk about. But if you are really wanting to support equality, you should focus on equitably supporting those who actually need it, not white people. As for specifically depicting characters like Sokka and Katara with darker skin than what they have in the show, the same applies, (so long as it’s not racebending them as we really shouldn’t be taking representation away from each other, and the artist avatarfandompolice ridicules above has done no such thing,) because colourism also exists within nonwhite communities as well.

As for the fake questions about cosplaying, the answer is really simple: Cosplay however you want, but don’t make pretending to be a different race part of your cosplay. If you want to cosplay Katara, you can do it without painting your skin darker, aka brownface. If you want to cosplay Zuko, you can do it without editing yourself to look East Asian, aka digital yellowface. The racist history behind this is an internet search away, but I suppose that is too difficult for avatarfandompolice to do.

Avatarfandompolice has made multiple claims that people must not really care about whitewashing if they only call it out for Katara. It is laughable at best, and sad at worst, that this is the conclusion they come to, and not the fact that unfortunately Katara just happens to be subjected to more whitewashing than other characters. I assume this is from a mix of her popularity as well as being a WOC and not MOC. This is not to say that whitewashing does not exist with male characters—not in the slightest. Half the images on this “10 fan art pictures of Sokka that are just the best” list from CBR are whitewashed. Only that across fandoms, whitewashing is more prevalent in female characters, by my observations at least.

Finally—and this one pisses me off the most—avatarfandompolice claims that whitewashing is no big deal, but calling out whitewashing is too harmful to justify. How fucking dare you put the feelings of artists who can’t handle critique of their work (that they publicly share) over fans of colour, who are constantly subjected to seeing our identities and looks not being worth respecting. As if it doesn’t imprint on your mind from a very young age how only villains ever have your facial features, because they’re ugly and I guess that means you’re ugly. As if there is something wrong with you. As if respecting you is regarded as extra effort, and not just common courtesy.

Whitewashing is a form of colourism, which is a form of racism. It is the favouritism, unconscious or not, of white features and the erasure of visible characters of colour. It is not fandom drama. It is not being too lazy to focus on “real issues” because it is part of a real issue. It is yet another part of why fandom spaces are so uninviting to POC. We live in a society that favours lighter skin. Corporations make fortunes from selling products to bleach your skin, products to contour your features away or go as far as surgery, all to meet beauty standards set by and influenced by white colonizers. That does not exist in A:TLA, and that’s called refreshing escapism. But it’s hard to escape that when the fandom constantly reminds you otherwise. It is a perfect example of how the classic “just let people enjoy things” complaint is nothing but disguised racism, because it’s only ever said regarding white fans’ enjoyment, at the expense of fans of colour.

None of the characters in A:TLA are white. Redesigning them and recolouring them as if they are, be it out of accident or intent is wrong. If you get called out for it, apologize, learn from the experience and do better going forward. You’ll also improve your art this way.

Beyond excusing whitewashing, avatarfandompolice has overt racist posts as well. A Black fan said they like to headcanon Katara as being partially Black; “I swear Katara was a sister. Im convinced there ain't no way she didn't have some black in her.” Avatarfandompolice jumps in saying “She's literally an Inuit but ok” as if being an Inuk person means Katara can’t possibly also be Black. The OP never claimed Katara was not Indigenous, simply that they also saw her as Black. Black Indigenous peoples exist. Black Inuk peoples exist. It is overtly anti-Black to say otherwise. But what even is the point of talking to avatarfandompolice about that? You know, you would think in trying to put such a front up of caring about the Inuit, they would do the most basic learning of the proper grammatical use of Inuit and Inuk. (As is the case with a great many Indigenous Nations, Inuit is both the Nation and plural. Inuk is singular. “An Inuit” / “Inuits” as avatarfandompolice has used just makes their dressed-up racism all the more pathetic. It’s similar to as if you said “Chinas” instead of “Chinese”.)

But all this is nothing, nothing compared to the worst post I had the displeasure of seeing. In a single post, avatarfandompolice manages to squeeze in insult against low income people, Mexican people, Jewish people, and Black people in a mockery of financial help posts. Absolutely disgusting, childish behaviour from a place of privilege. As someone who has had no option but to make such a post before, more than once, let me fucking tell you that the embarrassment and desperation when in that situation is unparalleled. It is not done lightly. It is done when you are at the last resort of having nothing but hope that the combined generosity of others will be enough to save you and your family. And what adds a whole other level to the odiousness of avatarfandompolice’s post is that they specifically targeting low income minorities to boot. Because we’re all poor beggars, right?

All in all, for someone who prides themselves in calling others ignorant, avatarfandompolice has to be one of the most obtuse fandom blogs I have ever scrolled through. They are as vile as they are pathetic, and my sincere sympathy for anyone who has been unfortunate enough to interact with them. It has been a while since I so strongly recommend blocking someone.

[wellamarke]

@synth-recharge-challenge: Week 2 Meta Challenge

Overall, which series (1-3) has been your favourite?

Hmm…. I’m going into this essay without much idea what my conclusion will be, so let’s see where this goes, shall we?

Series 1 is obviously the OG - it has all the intrigue and character driven storylines, it’s very inward-looking and contained, which I definitely don’t mean as a negative - it made the storytelling very rich. The screentime was more fairly apportioned, too, I thought. I’d have liked more Fred, but other than that I feel like we got a fair amount from each character. The various storylines (of which there weren’t TOO many) fed into each other beautifully.

Series 2 expanded the world, put our faves in new situations, explored new dynamics and gave us the flagship Nistrid. It developed characters we already loved as well as giving Hester (a new character) a meaningful arc. It was gripping and exciting. However… some aspects were a bit disjointed. Not all threads contributed to the main story, but instead took time away from characters whose (more interesting) arcs were left a little depleted.

Series 3, in my view, combined something of the magic of series 1 with that of series 2. It was full of parallels of now-iconic series 1 scenes and motifs, had some brilliant character scenes, and fewer random plotlines (only Niska’s diverged from the rest, really, everyone else had lots of intersection with each other). It also brought in plenty of new characters and built on series 2’s world expansion and thriller-y elements. However, it killed a bunch of characters, and while I actually accept each one in isolation as being well handled… as a pattern, it doesn’t sit well. Once every two episodes, a female character died for the cause she was fighting for. These are all tragic, beautiful stories in themselves, with each character giving her life in a different way (and with varying levels of agency) that, individually, might be seen as something that makes sense for her personal story… but in terms of the “overall”, I can’t bring myself to love this trend.

Okay, so those are some general thoughts. Based on this I would rank them in the following order: 1 - 3 - 2.

Now let’s rank them more scientifically, using some categories.

Opener (3 - 2 - 1)

This one isn’t very fair because Series 1’s opener has a very different job, and I didn’t watch it for the first time after months of anticipation (pretty sure I only knew about it 6 days in advance lol and I had no pre-existing interest in any character). So the only victory here is (narrowly) 3 over 2. I was just SO VERY PUMPED after 3.1.

Characterisation (1 - 2 - 3)

I can’t speak highly enough of Series 1 when it comes to characterisation. The other two… I originally had them the other way round, but then I was comparing what I see as the major failures of each, and I’ve decided that 3’s crimes (Toby and Leo) are worse than 2’s (Mattie and Sophie). Toby might as well not have been in series 3, and Leo felt like a different person for most of it. In Leo’s case that might have been intentional because of his change of, well, species, but I don’t have to like it! In contrast, Mattie and Sophie bounced back entirely from the whacky things series 2 had them do (Mattie not giving half a damn about Odi and Sophie forgetting that she’s the only kid in the country who knows that synths CAN have feelings). Possibly S3’s good characterisation outweighs S2’s, but I decided to judge this one on the cons rather than the pros. They’re easier to quantify.

Themes (3 - 1 - 2)

In a sense 2 was an interim year, between the story at its core and the story of the world: it had more to do in terms of transitive plot, driving forward to point we’re at in series 3, where we can tell these huge, thematic stories on a global level. Series 1 did beautiful things with themes like humanity, family, technology, trust. Series 3 was at times a horrifying mirror to our own failures as a species. I’ve seen the creators characterise s1 as being about family, s2 as being about relationships/couples, and s3 as being about societies. Maybe from this point of view it’s not much of a wonder that I list s1 first and s2 last, hehehehe.

Plot (3 - 2 - 1)

This is kind of a hard category to call so I don’t really know why I put it down. I think I agree with this ranking. But let’s also say:

Integration of Plots (1 - 3 - 2)

Nothing will ever beat the beautiful tapestry that is series 1, where everything weaves together so well. S3 did a better job of joining things up than S2, but then as mentioned, S2 kind of had to be about fragmentation in order to expand the world.

Shipping (2 - 1 - 3)

Hello, I’m still bitter about S3 Nistrid so here S2 has to win. It also gave us several Karpet gems, and Flax and Trenie. Series 1 has so much beautiful Miaura, and the beginnings of Leotilda. S3 Leotilda felt a LITTLE rushed (working backwards from the finale it’s like: oh, we need her to be pregnant with Miracle Hybrid Baby by episode 8 so they’ll have to be making out ASAP!). Oh, but s3 did have the Nistrid ILYs… they were obviously quality content. Just not enough of it. Plus, my OTP got sunk in the FIRST EPISODE. Boo.

Finale (2 - 3 - 1)

I think series 1’s finale is pretty weak, compared to the rest of it: things are worked out a little too easily, and I love it as a character episode more than a culmination-of-the-plot-I’ve-been-invested-in episode. Series 3’s finale was sooo impactful and beautiful in many ways, but I can’t quite forgive it for Mia, yet, or the STUPID HYBRID STUFF. Whereas the Series 2 finale is, quite honestly, one of the best 45 minutes of TV that I’ve ever seen. It’s so satisfying, on both plot and character levels. I was literally watching curled up in a little ball, for some of it. It had the most gorgeously-shot closing scene, with all the synths waking up. I’ll admit that Mia’s memorial scene is also visually stunning, but I’m usually crying too much to really appreciate it.

Scoring time: let’s say it’s add a point for ranking first, and deduct a point for ranking last.

Series 1 ends up with a score of -1!

Series 2 ends up with a score of 0!

Series 3 ends up with a score of 1!

Itemised ranking: 3 - 2 - 1

This is hilarious! How has Series 1 lost?

Averaging my initial ranking with my itemised ranking, then:

1 - 3 - 2 versus 3 - 2 - 1 gives us 3 - 1 - 2.

So it would appear that Series 3 might be my favourite overall… which was NOT the outcome I was expecting. I think it’s probably fair, though. There has been a lot of gorgeous stuff this year.

What this system I’ve improvised doesn’t do is measure how MUCH the things that were better were better, and how MUCH the things that were worse were worse. I feel that s3’s crimes are worse than s2’s, but s3’s high points are higher than s2 ever really reached. S1 is at the perhaps unfair disadvantage of not being in the position to have taken many risks, because it was only building, not expanding, so I suppose it makes sense that it’s ended up in the middle.

Maybe one day I’ll do this on a proper 1-10 system that measures amount of individual merit, rather than just pitting them against each other directly. But for now… this will do.

If you’re wondering why you read this far, well, so am I, pal.

[wrath-ruin-reddawn]

Radicalism in Medieval Settings and the Scioa’tael

One of the most common complaints hurled against the Scioa’tael and its members is that, “they’re terrorists”. This slight is hard to refute, because, according to the most basic definition of terrorist– i.e. “ a person who uses unlawful violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims “– they are. However, as this essay will explain, calling the Scioa’tael terrorists overlooks several centuries of social, political, and martial development, making it an unfair comparison. 

First, we must address the elephant in the room. We live in a post 9/11 world; many of us from the United States grew up in the atmosphere of pervasive fear that dominated the Bush era and the so-called War on Terror. Other nations have been similarly affected by their own tragedies, their own acts of terrorism, both foreign and domestic. This makes it difficult to talk about terrorism because it evokes deeply rooted emotions, for everyone, and understandably so. Even so, we must endeavor to dissociate our present connotations from the word itself, in order to better discuss terrorism both as it now exists and how it functioned in medieval societies. The main problem with terrorism in modern free societies, and why it is particularly reviled, is that it is fundamentally unnecessary. In cultures where people are guaranteed the right to vote, protest, and assemble, resorting to violence, especially violence against civilians, is abhorrent because the will of the people can be expressed through other ways. Voting out people whose political views we disagree with and protesting unjust laws with marches and rallies are just two of the ways in which citizens of a democracy can communicate and enforce their wishes. 

Of course, even in a democracy, there are ways in which the will of the people can be subverted. Systemic factors like social class mean that the rich individuals and powerful companies can afford to lobby and donate money to politicians in ways that the poor cannot. Heck, I have seen politicians win the popular vote but still lose the presidential election twice in my lifetime thanks to the weird setup of the American electoral college. However, even with these issues, citizens still have important, legal rights that protect their ability to assemble and protest…. rights that were largely absent under feudal systems like the world of the Witcher. The consideration of this setting is what we will discuss in the rest of this essay, to better contextualize the Scioa’tael as a movement, and to led to a discussion of revolution under oppressive regimes.

SECTION I: FEUDAL SOCIETY

I. Contextualizing the Problem

Before we can even begin to talk about the social context of the Scioa’tael, we need to try and establish what kind of world the Witcher takes place in. Although, obviously, the setting is fictional, our best bet is to try and draw connections between the Witcher universe and our own. 

One of the easiest ways to narrow our focus is to try and establish what historical time-frame the Witcher roughly corresponds to. Now, there are multiple ways to do this, but I will focus primarily on the technology, vocabulary, and historical references. Of course, this is difficult, because the fantastical elements in the Witcher use very modern terms. For example, the words “mutagen” (1946) and “gene” (1909) which both appear in the series, were only conceived in the 20th century, which clashes heavily with the Witcher’s decidedly medieval aesthetic. However, these words are derived from pre-existing French/Latin bases, so they could have hypothetically been devised earlier in the universe of the Witcher to fulfill a need. (Sorceresses, after all, are able to do some pretty incredible things, and they clearly have an advanced understanding of biology. See: the fact that they can intentionally mutate living organisms via gene therapy.) 

As for historical references, we can see a few characters mentioned in the Witcher universe who have clear parallels to real life figures. For example, Dandelion mentions a revolutionary named “Joan of the Arc Coast”, whose name is obviously very close to Joan of Arc. The real life Joan of Arc lived between 1412 and 1431. Further backing up this rough estimate for the time period is the fashion. We see several men in the Witcher series wearing chaperons (Roche’s head-gear of choice), that became particularly fashionable in the 15th century. The attire of most nobles (hose, a tunic, and shoes) also fits with this time-frame.

This places the Witcher during the medieval period. 

II. The Medieval Period in Europe Was Especially Shitty, and Here’s Why! 

In news that probably surprises absolutely no one, the medieval period was pretty awful for anyone who wasn’t a rich male noble. The primary economic and political system was feudalism, a social structure that’s basically a pyramid. At the bottom of this structure were the peasants and serfs, who worked the land overseen by knights and vassals, who in turn reported to lords, who answered to the monarchy. Obviously, in this structure the king had absolute power, and the serfs practically none. 

This imbalance of power was maintained in a multitude of ways. For starters, even though peasants comprised the majority of European populations, they lacked the resources of the upper classes. If they wanted to resist with physical force, they could find themselves up against knights: men with expensive life-saving armor who were literally trained since childhood to fight. And refusing to pay their taxes simple wasn’t an option– they didn’t even legally own the land they worked on, remember. Even free peasants still technically rented their land from their lords. If they refused to work, they could suffer terrible repercussions, and without the ability to unionize or go on strike en masse any attempts to hurt their lords by refusing to work would fail. 

An additional form of control was the church. The clergy helped maintain the power structure of the feudal system by “sanctify[ing] the divine rule of the king and justify[ing] royal measures to the rest of the population” (Ishay). Under conventional European feudalism, the church was not “a free agent… but rather an intrinsic part of the apparatus of power” (Ishay). 

Now, admittedly, the religious structures in the Witcher are different than that of the Catholic church in medieval Europe. For starters, Catholicism was incredibly influential precisely because of how singular and all-encompassing it was. “Religion permeated every pore of medieval life,” (Ishay). However, in the Witcher universe, there are at least several different religious organizations in the North. The cult of Melitele is “the most widespread” of all the Nordling’s religions, but even so it is a far cry from the utter domination of the Catholic church in Western Europe. (Of course, eventually this would change during the Protestant Reformation, and the Orthodox Church has always held sway in the East. But the important factor here is more that there was utter hegemony by one religious institution than what institution it was.) 

Despite this difference, we do see that religious institutions do seem to prop up the monarchy in the world of the Witcher, even if their reach isn’t as lengthy. We see priests at peace talks, on battlefields, and most importantly performing coronations. Nobles still use the excuse of divine right to justify their actions and their rule. Clearly, this parallels the rhetoric used in medieval Europe. To my own interpretation, although the Cult of Melitele is no stand-in for the Catholic Church, it still bolstered the institution of feudalism.

Feudalism was a system of finance as much as a governmental one, and as such examining the economies of the Northern kingdoms can provide further insight to the political weight (or lack thereof) of the lower classes. Now, towards the end of the medieval period there was an increase in the power of merchants and traders-- essentially, the foundation of what we today call nouveau riche; people who were not from genteel families rising to prominence (think of the Medici in Florence). This correlated to the flourishing of city-states and the birth of the middle class. There was also a corresponding increase in the right to own private property; something that, while uncontroversial today, was revolutionary at the time. 

"The gradual decline of feudalism and its monopolistic economy, for instance, eventually would lead to the free markets of capitalism based on the concept of the individual’s right to private property, thereby providing greater individual autonomy and opportunities for the beneficiaries to transform their newfound economic power into political power.” (Lauren)

Of course, this point would be meaningless if the Witcher did not have a similar economy to typical ones in medieval Europe. Fortunately for us, it is-- or at the very least, it appears to be. Although Geralt isn’t exactly reading newspapers with descriptions of the stock market, we can see several things that provide insight into the fiscal reality of the Nordling economy. From what we can see, there is a decent merchant class in cities like Vizima, Flotsam, and Novigrad, and there is clearly a class of people who have risen themselves up above their station. This implies that the economic situation in the North does resemble that of late medieval Europe. 

However, it is important to note that greater economic mobility did not necessarily contribute to the development of better freedoms and living conditions nearly as much as other factors.  “As long as the public realm was dormant, closely linked to the private realm, and subservient to religious and feudal authority, the state, however backward, was still uncontested” (Ishay). Funnily enough, the sense of community built up through religious institutions eventually lead to people having a public outlet for their frustrations... but the world of the Witcher isn’t there yet, and so that will remain a topic for another day. 

SECTION II: THE ETHICS OF TERRORISM, ESPECIALLY IN A FEUDAL SOCIETY        

I. There Are No Alternatives

As shitty as it is to say, there really aren’t many options for nonhumans in the North. Hell, there aren’t many options for anyone in the North, even human peasants. Like we discussed above, the feudal system was crappy all around, and particularly resistant to change, as “no significant public space permitted democratic communication between the peasantry and feudal authorities” (Ishay). In some cases, like in Russia and parts of Eastern Europe serfdom continued up until “the wars, revolutions, and upheavals of the nineteenth century br[oke] practices of the past” (Lauren). 

Considering how marginalized nonhumans are, is it really surprising that the Scioa’tael formed? Although peaceful methods of resistance might be possible, it remains a fact that feudalism leaves no room “for the advancement of political and economic rights” (Ishay). Let us not forget what Dandelion says about nonhuman rights:

“It is a fact that, as the scrawlings on the wall of the University of Oxenfurt say: "Pacifying nonhumans is like wallowing in mud – everyone gets dirty, generally with blood."”

The dream of the Scioa’tael for a world in which they can self-determine, and have the same freedoms and respect that humans enjoy, is dangerous. Because “these visions of human rights possess the capacity to challenge, to generate fear, to hold out hope and inspire, and to change the world” (Lauren).     

In light of these facts, I don’t think that it’s really possible to deny that open rebellion is pretty much the only way for the Scioa’tael to gain any rights. As for how bad nonhumans have it... well, that’s an essay for another day. I’ll just say that there is definitely some racial/ethnic coding going on with the nonhumans, and that we can use this to form an even more grim outlook of their prospects than the already bleak view offered by the novels and video game series. 

II. Methodology and the Ethics of War

Now that we have established that nonhumans have almost no choices or ability to enact political change by peaceful means, we can now talk about the morality of terrorism, and try to come to a consensus about the Scioa’tael. 

Of course, ethics are inherently subjective. Although I have described, at length, how revolution in feudal societies practically demands violence, I am sure that some of you will remain unconvinced. That’s your prerogative. I think that it’s crazy, but you do you I guess. But for the rest of us, we now have to address the muddy waters of rebellion and warfare. Namely: what makes war just? What actions are permissible in war?

These questions are not easy to answer. Some believe that, as long as the cause is just, any action is justified; others that just actions are what make the cause just. I think that the reality is probably somewhere in the middle. 

This brings up another issue: namely, that the Scioa’tael don’t function as a single unit. Each unit reports to a commander, and therefore the conduct of each commando can vary wildly. For example, the unnamed leader of one Scioa’tael group abducted Ves as a young woman, keeping her as his sex slave and prisoner. Other commanders are more discerning-- although they may torch villages and kill merchants who infringe on their territories, these Scioa’tael don’t seem to take prisoners for such extended periods of time and seem to have some sense of decency. Sure, they’ll torture their enemies for information, but they draw the line at, you know, raping children.    

Two of the main criteria for defining whether a cause is just or not are just cause and right intention: i.e are you fighting for a good reason? And do you have good intentions? And in the case of most Scioa’tael groups, we can assuredly say that they have just cause (they want freedom), and right intentions (that one only does actions with the goal of seeing your cause realized-- and that you intend to stop when you win).��   

And two of the main aspects of the waging of war itself is that of proportionality and non-combatant immunity. The ideal of proportionality essentially states that you should not use unnecessary force: or at the very least, force that is not greater than what you enemies use against you. Non-combatant immunity states that you should, you know, only attack viable military targets. 

Considering that the Scioa’tael aren’t using methods more extreme than the humans, we see that the moral of proportionality is maintained. Really, the only point of contention with the Scioa’tael is the principle of non-combatant immunity. Of course, the Scioa’tael would make the argument that humans violate this principle every day, and that they are only responding in kind; or they might make the argument that all humans are part of the system of oppression and thus bear some culpability for it. 

SECTION III: CONCLUSION  

In the previous sections, I have laid out the social context and justification for the Scioa’tael as best I can. I can’t offer a simple, easy answer as to whether they are doing the right thing or not. Their methods are definitely questionable, but, as American Revolutionary Thomas Paine once said, “Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered.” However, I do hope that this essay can help elevate the discourse from mud-slinging the term “terrorist” to an honest discussion, especially one that takes the sociopolitical setting of the Witcher into account instead of borrowing the word’s modern connotations wholesale. I think that, although difficult, the ethical questions raised about warfare and conduct are things that we must all consider, especially given the way the political climate is turning. How far can we go to defend liberty? Under what conditions are acts of violence permissible?  

References  

Ishay, Micheline R. The History of Human Rights: From Ancient Times to the Globalization Era. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008   

Lauren, Paul Gordon. The Evolution of International Human Rights: Visions Seen (Third Edition). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011 

“Mutagen”, “Gene”. Oxford English Dictionary, www.oed.com. Retrieved 04/28/18.  

Steinhoff, Uwe. On the Ethics of War and Terrorism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007 

[angelholme]

May, Myself and I -- Year 3, Day 20 : Cats and Dogs

“Nostalgia is the last refuge of the moron, to paraphrase the great Dr Johnson. Mind you, they don’t make writers like him any more”

Following on from my post about muffins, you will probably not be all that surprised that I am not one who gets nostalgic about the past. Mostly because I think people who "long for those sunny uplands of yesteryear" and the "golden age of Britain" are not only wearing rose-tinted glasses but a rose-tinted brain.

I grew up in the eighties, and -- I am told -- it was a time when family life was strong, when communities were real communities, when life was good and society was wonderful.

But if you look through all the figures, the statistics and so on, divorce rates were sky rocketing, there were news reports of various communities burning and rioting through the country, there was record unemployment and poverty and the entire country was in chaos. But if you were rich, white and straight then sure -- life was good.

Every generation believes that the younger generation -- their younger generation -- is far worse behaved than they were. And even on the face of it that can't possibly be true, because the entire world would have been ripped apart by now. And if you work backwards through time, I saw groups of football hooligans that ripped up towns on a weekly basis, before that there were mods and rockers, before that there wree teddy boys......... throughout history there have been "rebellious youth" who defied their parents because that is what children do.

Even during the two world wars, when most of the rebellious young men had their rebelliousness curbed by being sent halfway round the world to die a pretty bloody, horrible death at the hands of another army there were still groups of young men who stayed at home to cause trouble for their parents.

There has never been a golden age, there has never been a perfect generation. And the people who look back on their youth as "a time of perfection and ideal"

But even without the political side of things -- even without the idea of LGBT rights, of women's rights, of politics and so forth -- there's the whole other side of nostalgia. The films, the music, the books, the plays -- the culture in general.

All the discussions centre around "the music of today just isn't as good as it was when we were kids", "the films today aren't as good as they were when we were young", "the books today aren't as good as they were in the good old days"

Except I want you to stop and think about that for a moment. Because, as I said, I grew up in the eighties, and I have to say, most of the music in the eighties was -- objectively -- pretty crap. I am not suggesting much of the music that is around today is any better, but to suggest that the eighties was a time of musical wonder and glory is more than a little misleading.

The same with films -- even though there was less reliance on computers, and digital effects, that didn't make them better. The plots, the acting, the music and so forth were still about the same as we have now.

There are some films that are considered classics -- The Godfather, Gone With The Wind, Star Wars and so on -- and when people say "films today aren't as good as they used to be" they sometimes mean "films today aren't as good as "The Godfather" or "as Star Wars".

Which, for me, seems like a bit of an unfair comparison. Because even if you made the best film of the current era, it would still pale in comparison to The Godfather, or Star Wars, or Gone With The Wind because they have been around for decades -- nearly a century in the case of Gone With The Wind -- and so any new film isn't going to be able to compete.

This is my other problem with nostalgia -- people who look back tend to only remember the good from their past. The best films, the best music, the best books, the best part of their history, the best part of their childhoods. The "rose-tinting" on their brain filters out all the badness but also highlights all the badness in the current era.

If you actually look at some of the songs from the eighties you would realise that they were appalling, and you would wonder what were we thinking? If you look at some of the films you would understand why they went straight to video and have never been seen since.

There are the odd moments, the odd flashes of genius, that should be remembered and kept, but for the most part I am generally of the opinion that -- as a wise woman once said -- the past is in the past and should be kept there.

So while we can study the art of a man who once painted cats and dogs, we don't need to live in a world where that is all we do.

[writerman]

Power and Control-|| ArdynxRavus

Chapter One

A shrieking alarm dragged Ravus from the land of sleep, with a groan he grabs his phone and taps the screen, while squinting at the brightness, in a desperate bid to cease the wailing.

 Head falling back against his pillow, Ravus took a moment to collect himself from his racing heart at being woken so abruptly. How long had it been since he had slept so deeply that his alarm actually woke him?

 Rather than dwell on it any longer than he needed to, he got up with the intention of getting ready for his job as TA at a prestigious high school. It was NOT what he wanted to be doing in his late 20’s but he was given the job as a favour from the headmaster who was close to his family. All he really did was help kids with math and English in study hall and covered classes when other teachers were sick. It wasn’t a hard job and the kids… actually seemed to like him.

 The whitehaired man picked his way through the bedroom picking up various articles of clothing and inspecting whether or not they could be worn for work.

 Eventually he found a pair of grey jeans, a white t shirt and a, slightly wrinkled, blazer a shade or two darker than his jeans that passed the stain test with flying colours which made him think that maybe it was new and he had just throwing it on the floor one morning when he was in a hurry, like always.

 Standing in the bathroom, the naked bulb illuminating his tired face, he grabbed the toothbrush from the little cup on the side of his sink and averted his gaze from the dark bags under his eyes and busied himself with getting somewhat fresh for his job.

 A feeble beep from the kitchen reminded him that he needed more coffee for his machine, the pot that was being poured out now was the last of it, he would need to stop off at some store and grab more, though this was the least of his problems.

 Checking the state of the outside world through his kitchen window, he found that it had snowed heavily and would need to leave that very second to dig his car out, with a huff of irritation he poured coffee into a travel mug, taking his sweet ass time as he did so.

 If he was late for work someone would cover for him, Loqi probably, the guy that ran the reception like it was a night club cloakroom would definitely cover his ass while he made his way to work, rolling his eyes at the time as though that changed anything, he headed out.

 At first he thought he had imagined the snow piled over his car earlier, until he heard the tell-tale sound of a shovel scraping over tarmac.

 Walking around his car, expecting the worst, he found his neighbour, Aranea. She merely saluted him in greeting as she chucked a shovel full of snow over her shoulder and onto the pile behind her. Ravus wasn’t sure what had made her want to do this, usually they didn’t speak much, and when they did they shared a beer and only talked about car parts for his ailing Nissan 300Zx from the 90’s.

 It was really the only friendship he could honestly say he had but they weren’t close… not by a long shot. He had never confided in her about anything, she didn’t even know his surname. Or even that that he was the estranged eldest child of an aristocratic family that, by the way, was mired in such darkness, that even with all the old money and all blood diamonds they possessed could not buy them out of the infamy that was the name Nox Fleuret.

 So, Aranea had dug out his car without any hesitation on her part, it seemed, and Ravus was not going to be late for work… well as late.

 “Let me guess, I owe you a beer now?” Before the blond could even respond someone from behind Aranea called out, the door to the little house opened and Gentiana, Aranea’s wife steps out with a plastic box in her hands.

 “Ravus, I’m pleased I got you before you left for work, my plan for Aranea to help you and slow you down worked. I made too much for dinner last night, please take it to work and have it for lunch, ok?” Her tone was kind and yet insistent, even if he had wanted too, which he did not, he could not deny Gentiana.

 “Great, we adopted a 28-year-old son with a bad attitude and a smoking habit” This was all his blond friend could say as Ravus hopped in the car with the Tupperware under his arm. He wound the window down as he started the car.

 “Thanks for lunch, Gentiana. Aranea, beer tonight at 8 usual place?” His friend nodded and he screeched out of his drive way tearing down the road, absolutely over the speed limit, which he kept up all the way to work.

Luckily classes started at 9:15 and when he arrived at 9 he thanked whatever Gods supposedly existed, his good mood plummeting as he is blocked from his parking space due to a cherry red 1965 MG Spider, it gleamed under the weak winter sun almost mocking the TA.

 Growling under his breath Ravus pulled into the student parking lot, luckily most of the kids were dropped off by chauffer driven luxury car, so it was easy to get a spot but it was further to walk to the office.

 Loqi greeted him cheerfully, Ravus pointedly ignored him as he stalked into the staffroom with a face like thunder, his frown was intimidating to most which meant he could hopefully get the idiot in his pot to move their stupid car.

 “Who, may I ask, is the jackass that has parked their damn car in my spot?” The staffroom falls silent, Ravus usually did not speak, when he did it was merely to answer questions someone asked, always quiet and always so polite… well.

 Ravus had felt a sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach when he had seen the car, but had brushed it off as anger when he had first arrived, but that vehicle was too familiar and he hoped with all his being that it was not who he believed it was.

 Regis, the headmaster, cleared his throat as he approached Ravus looking, somewhat, amused. Resting a hand on the TA’s shoulder he turned him round to face someone, a smug son of bitch type of smile on his lips as he nodded his head to Ravus, who was stood mouth dry, heart thudding as the sound in the room faded.

 No.

 Not him.

 “Ravus, you are aware we have invited a university professor to work with us for a few weeks, you agreed to help him out should he need anything. Let me introduce you to-“ Regis was stopped mid-sentence by the visiting professor raising his hand to speak, and by the fact Ravus was visibly shaking with anger.

 “You, sir, throw yourself off a damned cliff!” Ravus, now pointing at the professor, whispered violently before turning on his heel and stalking off without even so much as an explanation.

 With shaking hands Ravus pulled the packet of cigarettes from his pocket along with a near empty lighter and stormed out past Loqi in the lobby who had detained a few late students, he threw the doors open and stumbled down the steps through the snow and behind a tree to smoke.

 It wasn’t that he disliked the professor that visited, he didn’t know him as well as he once had to truly still hate him, but memories followed him and at times that man was the reason he could not sleep at night, it was absolutely unfair of life to throw this at him now.

 His phone vibrated in his pocket he wanted to ignore it but it was likely something important, his mother or father calling to be reassured that he still had a job, or he wasn’t dead- the usual things parents called about when they had unruly offspring ruining their reputation in high society.

 The ID was a number he did not recognise most of the time this was a decent excuse to ignore the call but knowing his luck it would be hugely important, so with irritated huff he answered it.

 “Hello?”

 “Ah, so you really are still using the same number.”

 It was him, that damned… Ravus took a long drag from his cigarette and glanced from behind the tree, the professor was stood on the steps of the school eyes trained on Ravus’ smoking spot, the teaching assistant moved to hide himself away again.

 “what the f u c k are you doing here?”

 “Now, now. There’s absolutely no need to be so childish, I thought at your age you would have grown up at least enough to be respectful and civil to an old friend…” The way he said friend was far too suggestive and Ravus wanted nothing more than to punch him, punch him right in the face and maybe bust his nose.

 “Listen, old man. I am already tired of your antics and you’ve just shown up. I’m not sticking around to see you ruin this place and for me to lose my job so just make some excuse and leave.” He was behaving so out of character, usually when people bothered him he would simply avoid that person unless absolutely necessary and speak the minimal amount to them should he have to have some kind of conversation with said person.

 But no, this man had always brought out the worst in him, and it was a lie when he believed he could not still hate him, because he did. Passionately.

 “Ardyn, seriously just fuck off.”

 He hung up, sadly, as he moved from behind the tree he was caught by the wrist and pulled backwards. He may have had hs back to him but he knew damn well that the chest he had just been pulled into was none other than Professor Izunia.

 A hot breath in his ear before the other spoke. An unwelcome shiver ran down Ravus’ spine and he struggled to pull away.

 “Don’t tell me you haven’t missed me, not even the most minuscule amount?”

[synthsizedproductions]

The Gathering

I examined my cork board to ensure I had set everything up in a way that would make sense to my trio of associates. Everything I had pieced together over the last three years was compiled on that board. I knew there were still holes in the story I had constructed, but this would have to do until we found more answers. 

"You didn't connect the Minister of Resources to that fake charity he has been funneling money through."

I attached the picture of Minister Saltyr to the People's United Fund. "Thank you, Anak. This is why I keep you around."

My companion chuckled. "Yes, just this. I'm just your fact checker."

I rolled my eyes. "You know what I mean. How's everything else look?"

Anak stepped up to the board and touched each connecting point. "Looks good to me. You sure your friends will be able to follow along?"

I shrugged as I hung the cork board on the wall. "That is the hope. Also, they aren't my friends. I barely know any of them."

Anak lounged on my bed. "You were pretty willing to offer your help to people you barely know. This is quite a dangerous venture to take part in with strangers."

I slid my gloves over my black veined hands. "Desperate times call for desperate measures. This might be our only opportunity to change things before everything goes terribly wrong. Again."

My concentration was broken when there was a knock at my door. I let Xamber, Kolyver, and Maera in, quickly closing the door behind them. "Thank you for meeting with me. Make yourselves comfortable."

Maera tilted her head as she sat at the head of my bed. "Were you talking to someone, Ryka?"

I gestured to the terrarium in the corner of my room. "Just my shade snake, Anak."

Kolyver suddenly changed their mind about which side of my room they were going to sit on. "Wish you would have mentioned you had a pet snake." They turned my desk chair backwards and sat so they could keep an eye on Anak's habitat. 

Xamber sat at the foot of my bed with a small laugh. "I don't see why you're so scared of snakes, Kol. It isn't as though shade snakes get big enough to hurt anyone, much less an individual your size."

Kolyver shrugged with a grumpy look. "I'm not scared of them. I just dislike being around them. They creep me out. I think it's the lack of legs."

I raised an eyebrow. "Finding something creepy means you find it frightening."

Kolyver crossed their arms. "Being scared and being creeped out are different."

"Folx." We all turned our attention to Maera. "We can have a snake intervention for Kolyver later."

Kolyver glared at her. "The hell we can."

Maera smirked at her friend. "We came here to talk about your insane plan to investigate the disaster in Omega-Delta."

Kolyver huffed and made an attempt at ignoring my companion by examining my cork board. "This looks...complicated."

I scanned my handiwork. "Conspiracies are always complicated. Especially ones that are this deeply embedded in our society. This mess goes way back. Get ready for a small history lesson."

Xamber groaned. "I just had history today. Please be more interesting than Instructor Corik."

"I promise, this will be far more riveting than anything the instructors will teach us. These are the things they don't want us to know. It would threaten their precious power balance." 

I removed a laser pointer from my coat pocket and aimed it at the first point of interest. "I won't bore you with facts we all know. There was a war on the surface, some of humanity escaped underground, everyone else was left for dead. The plan that was set in place had a one thousand year timeline. The scientists said that should be enough time for the surface world to become livable again."

Xamber tilted his head. "How did they decide that? Thought the bio-weapons weren't that well understood when they went off."

I moved my laser to the next point. "A very good question, Xamber. They weren't actually estimating how long it would take for the surface to be safe again. They were estimating how long the life support systems could maintain the population. A millennia was an ambitious estimate, but not an improbable one. The issue was that these numbers were based on only a small fraction of the human population. They set up the lottery which was supposed to give everyone an equal opportunity to survive. At least everyone who could afford to pay. Tickets weren't cheap and everyone could buy as many as they could afford, giving the rich and powerful an unfair advantage. This caused a lot of unrest, but none of that matters at this point."

"So, let's skip ahead. Lottery happens, riots and murders occur, colony doors close and condemn millions. Those that do get in are separated into the various sectors. It's pretty hard to miss the class hierarchy this caused. Those who could afford it got to live in the inner colonies while those who could not were segregated into the outer colonies. The differences in quality of life were not immediately evident. Not until things started to break down. Despite having higher population numbers, the outer colonies were seen as less important. The shortages, malfunctions, and deaths went unnoticed by those of us in the inner colonies because it was hidden from us. Why? Because this was always part of the plan."

Kolyver furrowed their brows. "What do you mean?"

"I mean there is a portion of the population that those at the top consider a sort of buffer. People they are willing to let die in case something ever went wrong. I don't think they thought things would go wrong two hundred fifty years early. That's why they're intentionally sabotaging the outer colonies."

Maera's eyes went wide. "Whoa, backup. There is no way the government murdered most of a colony to extend our deadline."

I shook my head, pushing my glasses up. "I didn't say the government was doing this. Not all of it, at least. Have any of you heard of The Invialoti?"

Maera crossed her arms with a dismissive scowl. "You mean the supposed secret cult that rules the world from the shadows? You don't actually believe in them, do you?"

I took a rust colored ring from my pocket and offered it to Xamber. I watched as he ran his thumb over the engraved eye with an "i" where the pupil should have been. He handed it to Maera who examined it closely. 

"That ring belonged to my grandfather. He wore it until the day he died. He brushed off questions with generic stories of a fraternity he belonged to in university. When I told him I couldn't find a fraternity that symbol represented, he told me the fraternity had been disbanded due to internal conflict. When my grandfather died, I acquired it so I could find more answers. My hunt led me to The Invialoti and a frightening number of powerful figures. They are few and far between, but I have found several images of these people with rings that match my grandfather's almost exactly. The latest picture is the one that worries me the most."

I moved my pointer to the Director of Resources. "This is Minister Saltyr, Director of Resources. This man has the power to distribute all resources in the colonies where he wishes. His position answers to no higher power and there is nothing keeping things fair. You can see the ring in this image."

All three of them moved closer to examine the vaguely grainy picture. Maera held the ring up to the picture, the doubt fading from her eyes. She stood and offered me the ring back. "Are you saying he's withholding resources from the outer colonies to ensure the inner colonies can live out the rest of the original timeline?"

I nodded as I took the ring back. "Exactly."

Kolyver scratched their head. "How do you plan to prove this by checking out Omega-Delta?"

"If explosives were used, this man has his fingers in the situation. There is almost no way someone could construct a bomb without at least stealing from the Resources Department."

Xamber rubbed the light peach fuzz on his chin. "And you know what to look for to tell if it was an explosion?"

I gave him a short nod. "You could say I've dabbled in incendiary methods. Did you have any luck with Evans?"

Xamber shook his head with a sigh. "He said it was too dangerous."

I rolled my eyes. "As if he has any right to pretend the safety of students is one of his priorities."

Maera furrowed her eyebrows. "What do you mean by that?"

I made a politely dismissive gesture. "Don't worry about it. I'll talk to him. We'll have an instructor sponsor by the end of the week." I was glad when they didn't push the issue.

I ushered the three of them toward the door. "I hate to seem rude, but I have to feed Anak." Kolyver was out the door almost before I opened it.

Xamber chuckled at his friend's behavior. "No worries. Thanks for sharing all of this with us and for talking to Instructor Evans. You have a good night, Ryka."

I sighed in relief when they were gone. "Being around other people is so draining." I relaxed a bit further when cool hands began rubbing my shoulders.

"You did a good job, Ryka." 

I leaned on Anak, sharing my body heat with my reptilian friend. "That was the easy part. I had hoped Evans would just say yes to them."

"You've got this."

"I hope so."

[firstumcschenectady]

“What Had He Heard?”based on Job 38:1-7 and Mark 10:46-52

I'm told that there are preachers in the world who can speak without putting the readings in context. I am not that preacher. This is my third sermon in a row on texts from Mark 10, and I'm aware of how profoundly this gospel reading exists within its context in Mark.

I recognize the risk of boring people to death, and yet I find that we need to look both backwards and forwards in Mark form this text in order to make any sense of it. #sorrynotsorry Two weeks ago we dealt with the story of the rich man who asked Jesus how to inherit eternal life. He was invited by Jesus to sell all he had and follow Jesus, but he went away sorrowful because “he had many possessions.” Jesus then taught his disciples, “How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God.”

Last week, we heard about the disciples James and John who asked a favor of Jesus. Jesus responded, “What would you have me do?” The disciples were looking for security and power, Jesus corrected them by teaching that he wasn't offering security, nor power. Instead, he was offering a radical way off life where the first become last, the last become first, and those who are leaders are servants first.

As soon as today's reading is over, the Palm Sunday ride into Jerusalem begins.

Crowded in the midst of these teachings and misunderstandings, we have this obscure little healing narrative. It is all happening on the way to Jerusalem, which in Mark is the way to death on the cross. It would be easy to overlook this healing narrative, especially since Jesus just healed another blind man in Mark 8, and that was a far more interesting story. It is the one where Jesus' healing takes two tries. But here it is, our text for the week, and the more I looked at it context, the more brilliant it started to appear.

The rich man couldn't bear to sell all he had, yet in this story an impoverished beggar throws off his cloak in order to get up faster to get to Jesus. The cloak was not only his only possession, it was likely his home. His cloak was what kept him warm enough to stay alive at night, and it was also a tool. Beggars spread out their cloaks to receive alms.1 Yet, in his haste to get to Jesus, he discards it. The rich man couldn't let go when he was asked to, but the poor man throws away everything he has in one single motion simply to meet Jesus.

The disciples James and John had approached Jesus to gain a favor, and tried to trick him by opening with “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” Jesus had responded, “What is it you want me to do for you?” Here, Jesus begins the interaction with the blind man who had been begging with almost the same words. “What do you want me to do for you?” While the established disciples had been seeking status, despite Jesus' teaching; Bartimaeus requests healing. He says he wants to see again. Jesus isn't about status, but he is about wholeness.

We sometimes miss the nuances in the healing stories in the Bible because our worldview and the worldview of the ancients are so different, including the fact that they didn't have germ theory yet. Bruce Malina in the Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels says, “Anthropologists carefully distinguish between disease (a biomedical malfunction afflicting and organism) and illness (a disvalued state of being in which social networks have been disrupted and meaning lost). Illness is not so much a biomedical matter as it is a social one.”2 Ancient healers, including Jesus, were working on ILLNESS. Malina says, “the healing process is considered directly related to a person's solidarity with and loyalty to the overall belief system of the culture in general.”3

So ancient healing was, in effect, a healing of both the individual and the community. The individual who was ill was separated from the community by the illness, and thus the illness impacted the community as well, since they were separated as well. A community is only whole when all of its members are present and connected.

Bartimaeus's blindness would not be a considered a disease today, nor a reason for him to be outside of community, but I think it was then. This is where the gospel gets a bit confusing. The gospel says that Bartimaeus regained his sight when Jesus spoke.  In the act of healing him, Jesus says, “Go, your faith has made you well.” This indicates that the healing of sight was seen as the healing of illness. It also fits with the other healing stories in Mark. The people are to “go,” to leave the live of illness behind and re-enter society. Sometimes they're even told to go to the priests to be assured of their healing. However, Bartimaeus does not “go.” He does not return to his community. This healing is, sort of, cut off then. It isn't complete. Instead of returning to the community, Bartimaeus followed Jesus on the way.

In essence, this healing story is ALSO the LAST story of Jesus calling his disciples. After this, the story starts to move towards his death. This is a transition point, in function it is the end of his active ministry. Everything changes with the entrance into Jerusalem, and that begins with the verse that follows this story.

The first disciples were called away from their fishing boats. Even at this late point, they're still very confused about what's going on. This final disciple though, isn't told to follow at all. He's told to “go” not to “come” and he follows anyway. We give the first disciples a lot of credit for following Jesus when he said “come” – do we give enough for the one who followed when he was told “go”?

As a whole, this story is a fantastic example of Mark's earlier point about “the first being last and the last being first.” The first disciples are still struggling to understand, the last disciple is the one yelling “Jesus, son of David” - and he is the FIRST person in Mark to make that claim about Jesus. To call Jesus son of David was to claim him as Messiah.

I struggle though, to make sense of the healing that didn't restore community. Maybe I'm not supposed to worry about it because it restored the kindom community around Jesus instead of the community of Jericho? I'm not sure.

I'm also worried about the rest of the beggars in Jericho. You see, as Ched Myers says in Binding the Strong Man, “Jericho was the last stop en route to the city of David; the road out of town, representing the final, fifteen-mile leg of the pilgrim's journey, would have been the standard beat for much of that city's beggar population. The odds were good that the pilgrims would have the mood and means to give alms.”4 Which is to say that Bartimaeus was likely not was the only beggar on the route – nor even in the vicinity when this healing was happening. The setting means there were a lot of beggars, and Bartimaeus was just one of them.

Why was he chosen? Why did Jesus call for him? Was Bartimaeus the only one crying out? Was he the only one crying out “Jesus, son of David”? If so, was this the first time he'd used a line like that, or did he try some variation of it every day? If it was the first time, what had he heard about Jesus leading him to believe he was the “son of David?” Or, was he the one who needed it the most? Was he the one the crowd spent the most energy silencing (and if so, why)? Was he the squeaking wheel – and that got Jesus' attention? Or was everyone crying out too?

It is hard for me to hear a story of Jesus picking one suffering person out of a crowd and healing only that one. While it is an unexpected grace for that one person, if Jesus could heal, why did he stop with one?

My struggles with the Bartimaeus story also extend to the Job narrative. Our reading today is well into the book of Job, so I'm going to do a quick plot summary to catch us all up. Job was a wealthy man with a great life, and then it all came crashing down – his herd died, his tents collapsed, his children died, and he got sick all at once. He felt like this was a punishment from God, and an unjust one, because he hadn't done anything wrong. His friends tried to tell him to repent, and he refused because he hadn't done anything wrong. He asked God to explain God's self. 38 chapters into this drama, in the passage we read this morning, God finally does.

It isn't the answer Job was looking for – Job wanted to ask questions of God and make God answer them! Instead Job got questioned by God. Experientially, that sounds like God. The answer responds to the person's need, but not their wants! God's response could be heard as “who are you, and what do you think you know?” It could be heard in other ways too, “there is a whole creation here, it isn't all about you”, or “things are more complicated than you can see” or “there is a lot of wonder, even in the midst of the horrors.” God's answer is complicated, and I think our own moods impact what we hear it in.

But, I think the key piece of the story is that God ANSWERS. Job isn't left to his suffering alone, and God cares. Yet, I have known people whose life experiences feel like Job. They're at rock bottom and they've lost everything, and most of them don't have an experience of noticing that God is listening or responding when they are at the bottom. Thanks be, some do! But most don't.

Sure, Job is a story expressing a lot of theological questions. But it is also a narrative telling us that God cares, and God responds. Yet, people don't always sense that in their own lives. It can feel like the problem of Bartimaeus, YAY for his healing, what about everyone else. YAY for Job's answer, where is mine?

Or maybe I'm unfair. When, bad things happen to people and I don't think those are punishments from God. I think they are things that happened, and God is with us to help us through it. So, then, why am I worried about GOOD things happening to people? Yes, some people get healed, and others don't! There are reasons to be grateful for healings, and for spiritual insights, and for experiences of the Divine.

Maybe, it needs to be said that things aren't always fair, including the distribution of blessings. I would like them to be fair! But I can hear God suggesting I gird up my loins and get over it. Sometimes blessings come and the last become first. But only sometimes. In any case, in this story, Jesus is still heading to Jerusalem, Bartimaeus follows Jesus to Jerusalem, Job's life goes on. Our faith doesn't let us be dependent on miracles, they may or may not come. But they are not indications of God's love. God's love is there all the time, equally distributed, fair, accessible, transformational. We can depend on God's love, and let God's blessings be bonuses. I think that's all we can do. May God help us. Amen

1Myers, 282.

2Bruce J. Malina and Richard L. Rohrbaugh Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003) p. 368.

3 Malina, 369.

4Ched Myers, Binding the Strong Man (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1998 and 2008) page 281.

--

Rev. Sara E. Baron 

First United Methodist Church of Schenectady 

603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305 

Pronouns: she/her/hers

http://fumcschenectady.org/

https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

[kristinsimmons]

Make Hackathons Fair Again

By FRED TROTTER

On Oct 19, I will begin to MC the health equity hackathon in Austin TX, which will focus on addressing healthcare disparity issues. Specifically, we will be using healthcare data to try and make an impact on those problems. Our planning team has spent months thinking about how to run a hackathon fairly, especially after the release of a report that harshly criticized how hackathons are typically run.

A Wired article written earlier this year trumpets a study called “Hackathons As Co-optation Ritual: Socializing Workers and Institutionalizing Innovation in the ‘New’ Economy,” which criticizes the corporate takeover of hackathons. Hackathons are inherently unfair to participants according to these two sociologists.

They argue that hackathons have become a way for corporations to trick legions of technologists into working for free. To a sociologist, that looks like exploitation, and it is hard to see how they are wrong.

After reading the article, I was struck by how many things about typical hackathons are backward:

Hackathons romanticize workaholism and celebrate insomnia – With hackathons typically running 24-72 hours straight, sleep is for the weak. Those who don’t sleep are seen as heroes.

Junk food is the only option – Most hackathons provide unhealthy snacks, high in fructose and low in protein. Participants are expected to fuel their unpaid work sprints with sugar and caffeine. These are frequently the only eating options available.

Healthy work patterns ensure that there are breaks. Opportunities to chat, or walk and take a break from work. And the idea of encouraging people to get up and move, let alone stretch, is unheard of at these hackathons. Hundreds of geeks, unable to shower, or leave the room, can create a pretty bad smell.

Judging is at best arbitrary, and in some cases completely rigged, with winners sometimes chosen in advance.

On occasion, I have seen harder stimulants used. Although I have never seen anyone on cocaine win, it does make for super-engaging project presentations. The presentations were not good, mind you, just engaging… In the “Holy Moses, this guy is about to present when he is clearly high AF” sense.

Twitter user @evasynder after the annual Penn hackathon:

As a society, we expect that bartenders have some obligation to ensure that people do not drive after drinking at their establishments. Should hackathons be putting so much stress on participants that they have similar concerns getting home? It’s one thing if this is something that participants are doing to themselves, for fun, but it’s another thing if this is the default expectation. This is especially troubling if the judging is set up so that only people who participate in all-night marathon work sessions can effectively compete.

Hackathons frequently celebrate competition as king. Winning is “the only thing” mentality – It’s a spitting contest. The participants are pitted against each other for prizes, rather than focusing on collaborating. Coders are looking to see who is the best and the brightest. Who can come up with the best solution to the problem, or at least who can come up with a solution the fastest?

Corporate sponsors dangle the carrot of a job opportunity over the heads of the attendees. Most do not leave with an offer or even a conversation. A Dice article written last year praising how one can be hired after a hackathon is an anomaly, not normalcy.

Prizes beget secrecy. Teams are looking for a crown, and for their idea to be selected as best. They aren’t focused on the potential of working together and collaborating with like-minded individuals. It’s us vs. them mentality.

Hackathons help the rich get richer (lining the pockets of well-established companies). And the previously mentioned salesforce hackathon corruption scandal opened up a can of worms. It shed light on the fact that hackathons aren’t always about innovation and community. They’re about companies fooling vulnerable data geeks into working for free, by pretending that they had a “chance”.  Salesforce “resolved” that drama by also giving the $1 million award to the second place team, without noting that the second place team also violated the rules of the contest (they were from a company that Salesforce had invested in).

Teams are judged on their coding/design/etc skills (in the span of 48-72 hours). Like a contest, a pageant if you will. Who made the best product? Whose idea is most useful? What can we capitalize on from here? Rather than taking smart and skilled people and helping them hone their skills, their projects are paraded around execs like an FFA student parades its cattle, hoping to win best in show.

In my experience, most hackathons result in the creation of “toy” projects. Projects from hackathons usually die at the end of the hackathon, as project participants entirely lose interest once the potential of “winning” disappears. This puts the hackathon judges (and I have done this several times) into a bit of a bind. The Judges can tell that all of the projects are useless in the real world, but they want to reward the good ideas that are trapped inside the toys (and there good ideas hiding there, frequently).

Is every hackathon that has a winner-take-all theme exploitative? Not at all. I think there are ways to run a competitive hackathon ethically. But from my perspective, it is much easier to remove the competitive aspect altogether.

The simplest way to run an ethical hackathon is to host a “barn building” and not a “beauty contest”.

Here are the rules that we are following at the Health Equity Hackathon. We hope that other cooperative hackathons might find these principles useful too.

If possible this tweet should be embedded in the article.

First, this is a barn-building style hackathon. We want people working together to address an issue.

Not every problem is a good hackathon problem. You want to be able to make real progress on a real problem. That means that you need to have subject matter experts available. For our hackathon, that means patients, doctors, nurses, and public health experts, in addition to the developers, designers, and inventors that typically mentor at a hackathon.

Do not condone workaholism! Sleep matters for health. To the best of our abilities, we will make sure that no one is required to work through the entire weekend with little to no sleep. There are hard stop times in the evening when the doors will close, and we’ll begin again the next morning. Obviously, we cannot stop participants from continuing to hack throughout the night, but we can avoid celebrating it, and we will also avoid incentivizing it.

There is no competition and there are no prizes. There will be challenges, and we are seeking good ideas to address issues. This is not a winner-takes-all event. It’s not even a winner-take-any event. We’re hoping to garner trust and cohesion within the community. How can we fix these problems together? Great ideas and innovations will be celebrated, but so will solid work done on boring but important chores.

As far as food is concerned, find some healthy options. We are working with incredibly generous donors and should be providing at the very least, healthy-ish food. No pizza. No cookies… Ok, maybe some cookies. At a minimum, vegetarians should find good options. Preferably, those who are on keto diets and vegans should also have reasonable options. Packing your own lunch should be encouraged, many people need to do this in order to ensure that they stay healthy. Bringing a box lunch should not exclude you from participating in lunch as a networking event.

A hackathon should not be a recruiting ploy, but it can be a professional networking event. We will intentionally provide opportunities for people to meet others who are interested in working with health tech. We will either not have a job board at all, or have one that any participant (not just sponsors or hosts) can post jobs to.

Carefully make the decision about whether you want to have a competition at your hackathon. If you decide to have a competition, take great care to make it fair to participants, and to ensure that your participants are not killing themselves to win.

It is much simpler to run a cooperative hackathon, which is what we decided to do. It is ok to have prizes and rewards, but you need to make them “stuff everybody gets” or, randomly distributed. At best we’ll have door prizes for attendees. If there are rewards, make them focused on next-stage work. So if you have a project that makes a useful app, try and reward them with the cloud resources they need to host their app for a year. If they build something useful for hospitals, make the thing they “win” an introduction to a hospital CEO. Try to keep your rewards as “intrinsic” as possible. No one should leave feeling jealous of something that someone else achieved at the conference.

You should not have to pay a huge amount to attend a hackathon. Nominal costs are ok because they help to ensure that hackathon planners know how many people are coming. In our case, the cost of entry guarantees you food and a t-shirt. There should not be a profit for hackathon hosts. Hosts are not trying to get free labor that we will later monetize. Instead, we are interested in collaboration on projects that have no monetization strategy but would serve to make the world a better place. This is not a good place to launch a company, but it might be a good place to launch a technical revolution.

The projects and challenges that you are promoting should clearly be for the good of the world. Focus on things that can be contributed to Wikipedia, or open sourced through GitHub or perhaps even Thingiverse. For our hackathon, we have a massive chore list from Wikipedia Project Medicine. When possible, leverage Free and Open Source licenses (FOSS) or Creative Commons licenses for the work produced. Open Source software has demonstrated that it is possible to make society better by celebrating a technology gift culture (if you want to read more about that, consider Homesteading the Noosphere). By leveraging Open Source, it is really important to communicate to participants that their work is going to the good of the world, rather than toward a company, via some proprietary “hook” ( For Salesforce they were promoting an API when they had their dramatic fail).

The idea is to come together for rapid collaboration for the good of us all.

Replace judges with mentors. The real reward for attending the hackathon is to learn. Find some experts that are willing to teach and guide throughout the hackathon, rather than to just sit in judgment at the end. A lifeline of sorts. We want people to learn and grow, and attendees should be prepared to both learn and to teach. We are not looking to see who has the best skills or who is the smartest. We want people to work together and become better while helping others in the process.

Be student friendly and celebrate ignorance. While attendees should be willing to teach what they know, try and make your hackathon friendly to those with little-to-no experience. For our hackathon, we have developed a series of tools that can allow anyone who has basic computer skills to contribute. To be a useful hackathon, you might have to make requirements about who can attend, but for the most hackathons, you can assume that anyone who is actually interested in attending probably should be allowed to attend.

For those who are near Austin next week, I’m inviting you to our Hackathon on October 19-21 at the Capital Factory. Food will be provided. You’ll have the chance to work with some incredible healthcare equity experts. And we won’t run you into the ground or milk you for your work.

Fred Trotter is a healthcare data journalist and author.

Make Hackathons Fair Again published first on https://wittooth.tumblr.com/

[isaacscrawford]

Make Hackathons Fair Again

By FRED TROTTER

On Oct 19, I will begin to MC the health equity hackathon in Austin TX, which will focus on addressing healthcare disparity issues. Specifically, we will be using healthcare data to try and make an impact on those problems. Our planning team has spent months thinking about how to run a hackathon fairly, especially after the release of a report that harshly criticized how hackathons are typically run.

A Wired article written earlier this year trumpets a study called “Hackathons As Co-optation Ritual: Socializing Workers and Institutionalizing Innovation in the ‘New’ Economy,” which criticizes the corporate takeover of hackathons. Hackathons are inherently unfair to participants according to these two sociologists.

They argue that hackathons have become a way for corporations to trick legions of technologists into working for free. To a sociologist, that looks like exploitation, and it is hard to see how they are wrong.

After reading the article, I was struck by how many things about typical hackathons are backward:

Hackathons romanticize workaholism and celebrate insomnia – With hackathons typically running 24-72 hours straight, sleep is for the weak. Those who don’t sleep are seen as heroes.

Junk food is the only option – Most hackathons provide unhealthy snacks, high in fructose and low in protein. Participants are expected to fuel their unpaid work sprints with sugar and caffeine. These are frequently the only eating options available.

Healthy work patterns ensure that there are breaks. Opportunities to chat, or walk and take a break from work. And the idea of encouraging people to get up and move, let alone stretch, is unheard of at these hackathons. Hundreds of geeks, unable to shower, or leave the room, can create a pretty bad smell.

Judging is at best arbitrary, and in some cases completely rigged, with winners sometimes chosen in advance.

On occasion, I have seen harder stimulants used. Although I have never seen anyone on cocaine win, it does make for super-engaging project presentations. The presentations were not good, mind you, just engaging… In the “Holy Moses, this guy is about to present when he is clearly high AF” sense.

Twitter user @evasynder after the annual Penn hackathon:

As a society, we expect that bartenders have some obligation to ensure that people do not drive after drinking at their establishments. Should hackathons be putting so much stress on participants that they have similar concerns getting home? It’s one thing if this is something that participants are doing to themselves, for fun, but it’s another thing if this is the default expectation. This is especially troubling if the judging is set up so that only people who participate in all-night marathon work sessions can effectively compete.

Hackathons frequently celebrate competition as king. Winning is “the only thing” mentality – It’s a spitting contest. The participants are pitted against each other for prizes, rather than focusing on collaborating. Coders are looking to see who is the best and the brightest. Who can come up with the best solution to the problem, or at least who can come up with a solution the fastest?

Corporate sponsors dangle the carrot of a job opportunity over the heads of the attendees. Most do not leave with an offer or even a conversation. A Dice article written last year praising how one can be hired after a hackathon is an anomaly, not normalcy.

Prizes beget secrecy. Teams are looking for a crown, and for their idea to be selected as best. They aren’t focused on the potential of working together and collaborating with like-minded individuals. It’s us vs. them mentality.

Hackathons help the rich get richer (lining the pockets of well-established companies). And the previously mentioned salesforce hackathon corruption scandal opened up a can of worms. It shed light on the fact that hackathons aren’t always about innovation and community. They’re about companies fooling vulnerable data geeks into working for free, by pretending that they had a “chance”.  Salesforce “resolved” that drama by also giving the $1 million award to the second place team, without noting that the second place team also violated the rules of the contest (they were from a company that Salesforce had invested in).

Teams are judged on their coding/design/etc skills (in the span of 48-72 hours). Like a contest, a pageant if you will. Who made the best product? Whose idea is most useful? What can we capitalize on from here? Rather than taking smart and skilled people and helping them hone their skills, their projects are paraded around execs like an FFA student parades its cattle, hoping to win best in show.

In my experience, most hackathons result in the creation of “toy” projects. Projects from hackathons usually die at the end of the hackathon, as project participants entirely lose interest once the potential of “winning” disappears. This puts the hackathon judges (and I have done this several times) into a bit of a bind. The Judges can tell that all of the projects are useless in the real world, but they want to reward the good ideas that are trapped inside the toys (and there good ideas hiding there, frequently).

Is every hackathon that has a winner-take-all theme exploitative? Not at all. I think there are ways to run a competitive hackathon ethically. But from my perspective, it is much easier to remove the competitive aspect altogether.

The simplest way to run an ethical hackathon is to host a “barn building” and not a “beauty contest”.

Here are the rules that we are following at the Health Equity Hackathon. We hope that other cooperative hackathons might find these principles useful too.

If possible this tweet should be embedded in the article.

First, this is a barn-building style hackathon. We want people working together to address an issue.

Not every problem is a good hackathon problem. You want to be able to make real progress on a real problem. That means that you need to have subject matter experts available. For our hackathon, that means patients, doctors, nurses, and public health experts, in addition to the developers, designers, and inventors that typically mentor at a hackathon.

Do not condone workaholism! Sleep matters for health. To the best of our abilities, we will make sure that no one is required to work through the entire weekend with little to no sleep. There are hard stop times in the evening when the doors will close, and we’ll begin again the next morning. Obviously, we cannot stop participants from continuing to hack throughout the night, but we can avoid celebrating it, and we will also avoid incentivizing it.

There is no competition and there are no prizes. There will be challenges, and we are seeking good ideas to address issues. This is not a winner-takes-all event. It’s not even a winner-take-any event. We’re hoping to garner trust and cohesion within the community. How can we fix these problems together? Great ideas and innovations will be celebrated, but so will solid work done on boring but important chores.

As far as food is concerned, find some healthy options. We are working with incredibly generous donors and should be providing at the very least, healthy-ish food. No pizza. No cookies… Ok, maybe some cookies. At a minimum, vegetarians should find good options. Preferably, those who are on keto diets and vegans should also have reasonable options. Packing your own lunch should be encouraged, many people need to do this in order to ensure that they stay healthy. Bringing a box lunch should not exclude you from participating in lunch as a networking event.

A hackathon should not be a recruiting ploy, but it can be a professional networking event. We will intentionally provide opportunities for people to meet others who are interested in working with health tech. We will either not have a job board at all, or have one that any participant (not just sponsors or hosts) can post jobs to.

Carefully make the decision about whether you want to have a competition at your hackathon. If you decide to have a competition, take great care to make it fair to participants, and to ensure that your participants are not killing themselves to win.

It is much simpler to run a cooperative hackathon, which is what we decided to do. It is ok to have prizes and rewards, but you need to make them “stuff everybody gets” or, randomly distributed. At best we’ll have door prizes for attendees. If there are rewards, make them focused on next-stage work. So if you have a project that makes a useful app, try and reward them with the cloud resources they need to host their app for a year. If they build something useful for hospitals, make the thing they “win” an introduction to a hospital CEO. Try to keep your rewards as “intrinsic” as possible. No one should leave feeling jealous of something that someone else achieved at the conference.

You should not have to pay a huge amount to attend a hackathon. Nominal costs are ok because they help to ensure that hackathon planners know how many people are coming. In our case, the cost of entry guarantees you food and a t-shirt. There should not be a profit for hackathon hosts. Hosts are not trying to get free labor that we will later monetize. Instead, we are interested in collaboration on projects that have no monetization strategy but would serve to make the world a better place. This is not a good place to launch a company, but it might be a good place to launch a technical revolution.

The projects and challenges that you are promoting should clearly be for the good of the world. Focus on things that can be contributed to Wikipedia, or open sourced through GitHub or perhaps even Thingiverse. For our hackathon, we have a massive chore list from Wikipedia Project Medicine. When possible, leverage Free and Open Source licenses (FOSS) or Creative Commons licenses for the work produced. Open Source software has demonstrated that it is possible to make society better by celebrating a technology gift culture (if you want to read more about that, consider Homesteading the Noosphere). By leveraging Open Source, it is really important to communicate to participants that their work is going to the good of the world, rather than toward a company, via some proprietary “hook” ( For Salesforce they were promoting an API when they had their dramatic fail).

The idea is to come together for rapid collaboration for the good of us all.

Replace judges with mentors. The real reward for attending the hackathon is to learn. Find some experts that are willing to teach and guide throughout the hackathon, rather than to just sit in judgment at the end. A lifeline of sorts. We want people to learn and grow, and attendees should be prepared to both learn and to teach. We are not looking to see who has the best skills or who is the smartest. We want people to work together and become better while helping others in the process.

Be student friendly and celebrate ignorance. While attendees should be willing to teach what they know, try and make your hackathon friendly to those with little-to-no experience. For our hackathon, we have developed a series of tools that can allow anyone who has basic computer skills to contribute. To be a useful hackathon, you might have to make requirements about who can attend, but for the most hackathons, you can assume that anyone who is actually interested in attending probably should be allowed to attend.

For those who are near Austin next week, I’m inviting you to our Hackathon on October 19-21 at the Capital Factory. Food will be provided. You’ll have the chance to work with some incredible healthcare equity experts. And we won’t run you into the ground or milk you for your work.

Fred Trotter is a healthcare data journalist and author.

Article source:The Health Care Blog

[curdinway-blog]

Millennium Actress

In 2001, Spirited Away won the Grand Prize for Animation at the Japan Media Arts Festival.  That would be of no surprise to most people; Spirited Away is one of the most critically-acclaimed and commercially successful animated films of all time.  What might be a surprise to some, but not all, is that it had to share the award with a film you’ve probably never heard of-named Millennium Actress.

It says a lot about Millennium Actress’s quality that it stood toe-to-toe with the greatest anime of all time and lived.  And yet it doesn’t really say enough.  Millennium Actress is truly seminal filmmaking, the great Satoshi Kon’s most ambitious and cinematic work.  Equal parts fictitious biopic and cinephilia, Millennium Actress functions at the same time as a love tale of sweeping proportions, a war-time period piece, and a working account of Japanese history.  It is utterly unique in the anime landscape, and one of its very best features.

The film centers around retired actress Chiyoko Fujiwara.  Once the movie industry’s brightest star, she quit abruptly at the height of her fame to disappear into solitude.  Now, the studio she used to work at is being torn down; a movie enthusiast and his cameraman show up to interview her about her legendary career.  A key is produced in conversation; the key carries a story more wondrous and moving than anything the Big Pictures could ever have conjured up.  It is the Key to The Most Important Thing There Is; and it unlocks the secret of Chiyoko’s life.

In short order, the film buff, his cameraman, and us, by proxy, are quite literally whisked away to the various scenes of Chiyoko’s memories.  This is where the magic of the movie sets in. Satoshi Kon is well known for his subversion of reality with other elements.  Here, Chiyoko’s actual experiences alternate with, and in many cases, blend together with her cinematic work.  It is up to the viewer to decide what is real and what is fiction, and more importantly, how much that matters.  Millennium Actress celebrates the concept of movies to an extent and level perhaps unsurpassed in film.  Take, for example, the role of movies in self-expression.  Chiyoko’s experiences and acting career overlap in a way that transcends mere coincidence; it becomes clear, and increasingly tragic, that her great performances were inspired by her own feelings and experiences.  On the other side of the coin, we see how audiences participate and interact with movies.  The interviewer, a raging cinephile, joyfully relishes each opportunity to play the character of his choice, be it the knight or hero, alongside Chiyoko.  In the same way, a viewer helps create the movie by “becoming” the characters; feeling and experiencing their world by proxy.  At the same time, they project their own feelings and experiences into the movie, fostering a deep emotional and intellectual connection.  Without audience engagement, the illusion collapses; one of my favorite aspects of the movie is the cameraman.  Younger and more disinterested, he doesn’t understand the framework of Chiyoko’s retelling, the disorienting jumps between old films, old memories, and so on.  His frustration and confusion at what he sees is both hilarious and a welcome dynamic to the wide-eyed enthusiasm of his boss; a means to disarming potential cynics and grounding the increasingly wild proceedings.

Millennium Actress’s analysis of cinema goes even further.  The snippets of Chiyoko’s film career are loving tributes to Japan’s cinematic culture. Ninjas and samurais are of course represented; along with wartime propaganda, post-war regret pieces, and even new-age space and science-fiction.  Taken together, the genres also become a living representation of Japan’s history, encompassing feudal, fascist, and modern eras, respectively.  Movies, in this way, become a reflection of our society; our histories, our unique cultures, and how we relate back to these elements and interpret them.  Movies help us remember who we are.  This occurs not just on a societal level, but on an individual level as well. The strong experience of film can stir up memories or recollections we might have forgotten otherwise.  This is played out perfectly in the movie; it is suggested that Chiyoko may be suffering from some type of memory loss or dementia.  Her film roles blending with personal memories may then not be a creative choice on Chiyoko’s part as much as a means to resurface deeply buried memories, or to act as close surrogates in order to complete her retelling.

The movie, at once deeply intellectual, is also a wonder to look at. As we are gazing through Chiyoko’s collected personal memories and a series of movies set in the past, present, and future, there are massive leaps backwards and forwards in time and across multiple realities, different color and tonal aspects, and fantastical elements appearing and disappearing at whim.  This kaleidoscope of textures and visions is delightful and endlessly interesting, but handled in a way to minimize disorientation.  Contrast that with Perfect Blue, where Kon took a similar concept but used it to maximize viewer disorientation. The animation is crisp, colorful and vibrant; probably the best of any Kon film until Paprika came out in 2006.

The soundtrack is one of the best in anime.  Kon wanted Susumu Hirasawa as his composer for a long time, and his tracks in Millennium Actress demonstrate why. Sampling everything from bells and whistles to soaring Malaysian vocals, Hirasawa infuses catchy electronic beats with a life and vitality rarely, if ever, seen in synthesis pieces.  The perfect score reaches as far as the onscreen ambitions of the film, allowing it the necessary gravitas and atmosphere to truly flourish.  The music of Millennium Actress, as the film itself, is a celebration of life.  And life, as we all know, comes with a side of bittersweet.

While only his second film, Millennium Actress is perhaps Satoshi Kon’s defining swan song.  One of the very best and most inventive directors in all of animation, Kon’s work was nonetheless never a big hit internationally, or at the box office.  The same year Spirited Away smashed box office records, earning almost $275,000,000 on its way to an Oscar, Millennium Actress garnered a meager $37,285 in the US and mostly disappeared from memory.  Even Kon’s most profitable film, Paprika, failed to crack the million-dollar mark in the USA, earning a gross total of $881,302.   Kon’s tragic, untimely death from pancreatic cancer at the age of 46 was just another unfair circumstance stacked against him.  In his heartbreaking goodbye essay to the world, the director expressed regret that his films never made much money.

Satoshi Kon never received the generous acclaim of Studio Ghibli and Miyazaki.  He was not rich by the end of his career, and not particularly famous outside circles of contemporaries, critics, and devotees.  Yet, he was perhaps animation’s truest artist.  His collection of works is towering; oozing ambition, skill, and tenacious devotion to the craft.  Satoshi Kon loved animation.  He loved to create.  That love, that drive to make things wholly new and wonderful, is the legacy he leaves behind for all of us; it is also what is important.  We cannot control how our lives will play out, whether the goals and dreams we strive for will ever come to fruition.  But perhaps the end accomplishment of the goal is not really the point.  The point of art-and of life-is in the striving for our passions, in pouring all the contents of the heart forth so that not a drop is left unspent.  The effort is in itself beautiful.  It is what is worthwhile.  It is, perhaps, The Most Important Thing There Is.  Millennium Actress echoes this sentiment to perfect sublimity.  As a piece of art, it is fantastic.  As a sendoff to Satoshi Kon, one of the finest directors I know, it is even better.

You can read Satoshi Kon’s goodbye letter here.  I highly recommend that you do.  

http://www.makikoitoh.com/journal/satoshi-kons-last-words

[leviathangourmet]

Cultural criticism is taboo. In polite company, all cultures are created equally. None is better or worse than any other; they’re just different. We aren’t responsible for the culture we were born into, so there’s no objective basis for criticism or judgement.

In progressive ideology, this idea goes a step further. Not only must we respect all cultural differences, we mustn’t stray outside the norms of the culture we were born into. A white woman with dreadlocks, for example, should respect black culture and shave her hair off, rather than “steal” a hairstyle from a different culture. They even have a special word for this grievance: cultural appropriation.

I think cultural appropriation is a load of baloney, based on the most persistent errors in political/social thought: abstraction errors – misunderstanding the relationship between people and labels, between aggregates and concretes. These errors are not only imprecise, but they are counter-productive, divisive, and downright dangerous.

Equal Equivocation

The first abstraction error goes like this, “All differences between people are benign differences. Some people are born with light hair; others with dark hair. Neither is superior to the other. In the same way, all cultural differences are benign. Some cultures value monogamy; others are more sexually liberal. Neither is superior to the other.”

This concept is applied across the board. Some cultures are more religious; some value education more highly; some are more hierarchical, etc. These differences should not be judged, any more than we should judge somebody for their height or the amount of freckles on their face.

Then, the story goes, because all cultures are essentially equal, any differences in the socio-economic status of ethnic groups must be a function ofdiscrimination. Without racism or discrimination, all cultures would be equally represented across the socio-economic spectrum.

In reality, we’ve no reason to believe this is true. Nowhere in the world – nowhere in history – are all cultures represented equally across the socio-economic spectrum. The idea is an appealing, aesthetic one, no doubt, but it’s not grounded in the real world.

Different cultures value different things; some skills are valued more highly than others; throughout the world, Chinese immigrants tend to have the highest average income of any demographic. Why is this? It’s not because they are genetically superior; it’s not because of pro-Chinese discrimination (in fact, it’s largely despite negative discrimination); it’s because Chinese culture heavily emphasizes academic performance in the hard sciences, and the hard sciences tend to pay more than other fields.

But the purpose of this article isn’t to explain the relationship between culture and economic status. I’ll leave that to the fantastic work of Thomas Sowell. My point is to illustrate the concrete fact that some cultures are superior to others in specific ways.

Heritage Schmeritage

The second abstraction error goes like this: cultural heritage is intrinsically valuable. Preserving ethnic culture is an end by itself, regardless of the specifics. Progressives are especially fond of “indigenous cultures”, that are assumed “pure” because they haven’t been polluted by Western society. Whenever a new tribe of indigenous people is discovered, for example, progressives are adamant that we shouldn’t disturb or influence their way of life – they want the complete preservation of cultures, the positive and the negative.

I have a radically different view. Cultures are not intrinsically valuable, nor should they be preserved by virtue of their uniqueness. Cultures emerge from different groups of people trying to best navigate the world. Sometimes, they do a good job. Other times, they do a bad job. If a bad cultural trait emerges, it should be destroyed and replaced – no different than bad theories about physics or mathematics.

In my mind, cultural “pride” is absurd. You are not responsible for the culture you’re born into. There’s nothing to be proud of. By happenstance of birth, you happen to have an ethnicity. It isn’t superior or inferior to any other. You have nothing to defend or preserve. If you’re fortunate, you’ll be born into a positive culture. If you’re unlucky, you’ll be born into a toxic one.

For the sake of human progress, we should try to eliminate negative cultural values and promote positive ones. Saudi Arabian culture promotes beheadings for breaking the law – even for minor offenses. This is backwards, unnecessary, and a toxic cultural phenomenon. It shouldn’t be preserved; it should be eliminated.

Group Identity

There’s a fundamental abstraction error underlying all of this: group identity is inescapable. Individuals, in the progressive worldview, are seen as essentiallytied to their ethnicity/socio-economic status. They are white men. Black women. Upper-class kids. They aren’t “individuals with black skin” or “individuals with Scottish parents”. The group identity is foundational; the individual is intrinsically a product of his environment and larger society.

You also see this phenomenon with progressives and their obsession with sexual orientation/gender labels. They self-identify first with their labels. They are fundamentally “lesbian”, “trans-gender”, or “cis-gender”. All experiences are first filtered through the lenses they identify with – as if there’s an entire category difference between humans with different sexual orientations.

I think this gets it backwards. Group identity is a label; it’s a conceptual tool to more easily categorize people. It isn’t foundational. The individual is the base-unit insociety, and any labels we attach to them are secondary.

Practically speaking, the stronger people self-identify with labels, the more division it creates in society. “Class struggle” is a powerful idea, and it’s entirely a function of group-identity. When you view people as individuals first, the differences between us seem minor and petty. I view my black neighbors as fundamentally peers. Not as aliens I can never relate to. They have a different daily experience than I do – as a function of their skin color – it’s true. But it’s not an essential difference, and it’s absurd to obsess over it. We have far more in common than different.

Appropriate Appropriation

Put all the abstraction errors together, and you get the ultimate heresy: cultural appropriation – adopting some element from a culture outside your own. White people having “black hairstyles”. Caucasians wearing Native American garb. Upper-class kids using inner-city slang.

Supposedly, cultural appropriation is insensitive. It trivializes the struggles and history of the culture being appropriated. Some people have even said, “Blues and rock’n’roll is ‘black music’. If white people ‘steal’ it and make money, that’s unfair!”

Ultimately, they are saying, “You are only allowed to behave in accordance with the culture into which you were born.”

Again, it’s abstractions first, individuals second. I find this idea preposterous and counter-productive. It’s a tyranny of labels.

Based on the happenstance of your birth, progressives will assign you a list of approved behavior based on the genetics of your parents and grandparents.It’sinvoluntary group membership with specific behavioral regulations.

And to what end? To preserve the divisions between people? To preserve different cultures for aesthetics’ sake? It seems much more “progressive” to treat cultures like we do any other set of beliefs – we don’t insist that “Islamic scientists refrain from doing American science” or “White philosophers only theorize about white philosophy.”

I didn’t choose my culture at birth, and I’ll be damned if some progressive with a penchant for labels insists I must act in accordance with his list of “white, middle-class behavior”. A few years ago, I moved to Atlanta, and there’s always hip-hop and reggae music on the radio. I love it. I blast it when driving down the road. I also think afros look fantastic. If I had the hair for it, I would wear one myself. I also love soul food. The black culture in Atlanta has perfected fried chicken and collard greens (In fact, I ate some for lunch today).

Here’s a healthy response to my love for blues music, soul food, and afros: it’s wonderful. It helps bridge the gap between white and black people. Every individual is not only a consumer of culture, but a creator of culture. I want my behavior to incorporate the best of black culture, and hopefully the same is true in reverse.

It’s an exciting idea: if you see everybody as individuals, then you’ll see we’re all trying to do the same thing in life. Different groups of people have discovered different truths, and why in the world wouldn’t we want to share this knowledge with each other? We can, quite literally, take the best of all cultures and create something new and better.

How many black people discovered the game of golf through Tiger Woods? How many lives and careers have changed for the better because of it? It’s a wonderful thing. How many white people have discovered rap through Eminem? I did, and it’s a wonderful thing. We should celebrate cross-cultural exchanges of information, not lament them because the ambassador has an unapproved skin color.

The Flip Side

Of course, the same is true about the negative aspects of cultures. It’s naïve to overlook cultural shortcomings because you don’t want to offend people. From my experiences, I want to emulate parts of Chinese culture in terms of academic excellence. I don’t want to emulate their emphasis on hierarchy. In my evaluation, Chinese parents can be too strict on their kids and are too focused on “family honor”. So, I want to find a middle ground. Does that make me some anti-Chinese racist, because I recognize tendencies in that culture? Of course not.

I respect Chinese individuals enough to see positives and negatives in their culture, and I want the same treatment in return. The same is true for black culture, Hispanic culture, and every other group on the planet. There’sabsolutely no reason to take cultural norms as all-or-nothing. There’s nothing to preserve for preservations’ sake; let the positive live and the negative die.

For almost twenty years, I lived in an economically-depressed part of upstate New York. The culture was largely toxic and anti-intellectual. In terms of sorting the good from the bad, I’d say I’m leaving most of it behind.

My father was raised by a racist. My mother helped him see through the errors of racist ideas, and he raised all of his kids without an ounce of racist bias. That Southern racist culture died in my family, thanks to my parents, and I certainly will not resurrect it for my kids. This is progress and should be celebrated.

Imitation, Regulation, and Sex

Before the fairly recent invention of intellectual property, artists took imitation and copying as a compliment. The myriad of “Variations on a Theme from Paganini” are all compliments to the wonderful work of the violinist Paganini. The same should apply to cultural phenomena.

Copying is only a compliment. It’s an acknowledgment from one human to another that, “Hey, this is awesome. You’re doing something right.”

Versus, “Hey, you weren’t born with the right ethnic membership to behave in this way. Stick to the white/black ways of doing things.”

Instead, I think we should support cultures having sex with each other. Mix the genetics together, if you will, and see what offspring we can produce. If you like another culture’s music, imitate it. If you like their fashion, wear it. The language, speak it. If you like how they raise their kids, then do the same. We’ll all be better off.

Cultures are not delicate flowers that must be preserved until the end of time. They emerge from groups of people attempting to best navigate life. Some elements are good; others are bad. It’s about time we grow up and recognize this. A lot of good will come from it.

[kristinsimmons]

Make Hackathons Fair Again

By FRED TROTTER

On Oct 19, I will begin to MC the health equity hackathon in Austin TX, which will focus on addressing healthcare disparity issues. Specifically, we will be using healthcare data to try and make an impact on those problems. Our planning team has spent months thinking about how to run a hackathon fairly, especially after the release of a report that harshly criticized how hackathons are typically run.

A Wired article written earlier this year trumpets a study called “Hackathons As Co-optation Ritual: Socializing Workers and Institutionalizing Innovation in the ‘New’ Economy,” which criticizes the corporate takeover of hackathons. Hackathons are inherently unfair to participants according to these two sociologists.

They argue that hackathons have become a way for corporations to trick legions of technologists into working for free. To a sociologist, that looks like exploitation, and it is hard to see how they are wrong.

After reading the article, I was struck by how many things about typical hackathons are backward:

Hackathons romanticize workaholism and celebrate insomnia – With hackathons typically running 24-72 hours straight, sleep is for the weak. Those who don’t sleep are seen as heroes.

Junk food is the only option – Most hackathons provide unhealthy snacks, high in fructose and low in protein. Participants are expected to fuel their unpaid work sprints with sugar and caffeine. These are frequently the only eating options available.

Healthy work patterns ensure that there are breaks. Opportunities to chat, or walk and take a break from work. And the idea of encouraging people to get up and move, let alone stretch, is unheard of at these hackathons. Hundreds of geeks, unable to shower, or leave the room, can create a pretty bad smell.

Judging is at best arbitrary, and in some cases completely rigged, with winners sometimes chosen in advance.

On occasion, I have seen harder stimulants used. Although I have never seen anyone on cocaine win, it does make for super-engaging project presentations. The presentations were not good, mind you, just engaging… In the “Holy Moses, this guy is about to present when he is clearly high AF” sense.

Twitter user @evasynder after the annual Penn hackathon:

As a society, we expect that bartenders have some obligation to ensure that people do not drive after drinking at their establishments. Should hackathons be putting so much stress on participants that they have similar concerns getting home? It’s one thing if this is something that participants are doing to themselves, for fun, but it’s another thing if this is the default expectation. This is especially troubling if the judging is set up so that only people who participate in all-night marathon work sessions can effectively compete.

Hackathons frequently celebrate competition as king. Winning is “the only thing” mentality – It’s a spitting contest. The participants are pitted against each other for prizes, rather than focusing on collaborating. Coders are looking to see who is the best and the brightest. Who can come up with the best solution to the problem, or at least who can come up with a solution the fastest?

Corporate sponsors dangle the carrot of a job opportunity over the heads of the attendees. Most do not leave with an offer or even a conversation. A Dice article written last year praising how one can be hired after a hackathon is an anomaly, not normalcy.

Prizes beget secrecy. Teams are looking for a crown, and for their idea to be selected as best. They aren’t focused on the potential of working together and collaborating with like-minded individuals. It’s us vs. them mentality.

Hackathons help the rich get richer (lining the pockets of well-established companies). And the previously mentioned salesforce hackathon corruption scandal opened up a can of worms. It shed light on the fact that hackathons aren’t always about innovation and community. They’re about companies fooling vulnerable data geeks into working for free, by pretending that they had a “chance”.  Salesforce “resolved” that drama by also giving the $1 million award to the second place team, without noting that the second place team also violated the rules of the contest (they were from a company that Salesforce had invested in).

Teams are judged on their coding/design/etc skills (in the span of 48-72 hours). Like a contest, a pageant if you will. Who made the best product? Whose idea is most useful? What can we capitalize on from here? Rather than taking smart and skilled people and helping them hone their skills, their projects are paraded around execs like an FFA student parades its cattle, hoping to win best in show.

In my experience, most hackathons result in the creation of “toy” projects. Projects from hackathons usually die at the end of the hackathon, as project participants entirely lose interest once the potential of “winning” disappears. This puts the hackathon judges (and I have done this several times) into a bit of a bind. The Judges can tell that all of the projects are useless in the real world, but they want to reward the good ideas that are trapped inside the toys (and there good ideas hiding there, frequently).

Is every hackathon that has a winner-take-all theme exploitative? Not at all. I think there are ways to run a competitive hackathon ethically. But from my perspective, it is much easier to remove the competitive aspect altogether.

The simplest way to run an ethical hackathon is to host a “barn building” and not a “beauty contest”.

Here are the rules that we are following at the Health Equity Hackathon. We hope that other cooperative hackathons might find these principles useful too.

If possible this tweet should be embedded in the article.

First, this is a barn-building style hackathon. We want people working together to address an issue.

Not every problem is a good hackathon problem. You want to be able to make real progress on a real problem. That means that you need to have subject matter experts available. For our hackathon, that means patients, doctors, nurses, and public health experts, in addition to the developers, designers, and inventors that typically mentor at a hackathon.

Do not condone workaholism! Sleep matters for health. To the best of our abilities, we will make sure that no one is required to work through the entire weekend with little to no sleep. There are hard stop times in the evening when the doors will close, and we’ll begin again the next morning. Obviously, we cannot stop participants from continuing to hack throughout the night, but we can avoid celebrating it, and we will also avoid incentivizing it.

There is no competition and there are no prizes. There will be challenges, and we are seeking good ideas to address issues. This is not a winner-takes-all event. It’s not even a winner-take-any event. We’re hoping to garner trust and cohesion within the community. How can we fix these problems together? Great ideas and innovations will be celebrated, but so will solid work done on boring but important chores.

As far as food is concerned, find some healthy options. We are working with incredibly generous donors and should be providing at the very least, healthy-ish food. No pizza. No cookies… Ok, maybe some cookies. At a minimum, vegetarians should find good options. Preferably, those who are on keto diets and vegans should also have reasonable options. Packing your own lunch should be encouraged, many people need to do this in order to ensure that they stay healthy. Bringing a box lunch should not exclude you from participating in lunch as a networking event.

A hackathon should not be a recruiting ploy, but it can be a professional networking event. We will intentionally provide opportunities for people to meet others who are interested in working with health tech. We will either not have a job board at all, or have one that any participant (not just sponsors or hosts) can post jobs to.

Carefully make the decision about whether you want to have a competition at your hackathon. If you decide to have a competition, take great care to make it fair to participants, and to ensure that your participants are not killing themselves to win.

It is much simpler to run a cooperative hackathon, which is what we decided to do. It is ok to have prizes and rewards, but you need to make them “stuff everybody gets” or, randomly distributed. At best we’ll have door prizes for attendees. If there are rewards, make them focused on next-stage work. So if you have a project that makes a useful app, try and reward them with the cloud resources they need to host their app for a year. If they build something useful for hospitals, make the thing they “win” an introduction to a hospital CEO. Try to keep your rewards as “intrinsic” as possible. No one should leave feeling jealous of something that someone else achieved at the conference.

You should not have to pay a huge amount to attend a hackathon. Nominal costs are ok because they help to ensure that hackathon planners know how many people are coming. In our case, the cost of entry guarantees you food and a t-shirt. There should not be a profit for hackathon hosts. Hosts are not trying to get free labor that we will later monetize. Instead, we are interested in collaboration on projects that have no monetization strategy but would serve to make the world a better place. This is not a good place to launch a company, but it might be a good place to launch a technical revolution.

The projects and challenges that you are promoting should clearly be for the good of the world. Focus on things that can be contributed to Wikipedia, or open sourced through GitHub or perhaps even Thingiverse. For our hackathon, we have a massive chore list from Wikipedia Project Medicine. When possible, leverage Free and Open Source licenses (FOSS) or Creative Commons licenses for the work produced. Open Source software has demonstrated that it is possible to make society better by celebrating a technology gift culture (if you want to read more about that, consider Homesteading the Noosphere). By leveraging Open Source, it is really important to communicate to participants that their work is going to the good of the world, rather than toward a company, via some proprietary “hook” ( For Salesforce they were promoting an API when they had their dramatic fail).

The idea is to come together for rapid collaboration for the good of us all.

Replace judges with mentors. The real reward for attending the hackathon is to learn. Find some experts that are willing to teach and guide throughout the hackathon, rather than to just sit in judgment at the end. A lifeline of sorts. We want people to learn and grow, and attendees should be prepared to both learn and to teach. We are not looking to see who has the best skills or who is the smartest. We want people to work together and become better while helping others in the process.

Be student friendly and celebrate ignorance. While attendees should be willing to teach what they know, try and make your hackathon friendly to those with little-to-no experience. For our hackathon, we have developed a series of tools that can allow anyone who has basic computer skills to contribute. To be a useful hackathon, you might have to make requirements about who can attend, but for the most hackathons, you can assume that anyone who is actually interested in attending probably should be allowed to attend.

For those who are near Austin next week, I’m inviting you to our Hackathon on October 19-21 at the Capital Factory. Food will be provided. You’ll have the chance to work with some incredible healthcare equity experts. And we won’t run you into the ground or milk you for your work.

Fred Trotter is a healthcare data journalist and author.

Make Hackathons Fair Again published first on https://wittooth.tumblr.com/