#wealth is a construct and the only thing he understands is that it can make people create pretty things. and he wants those things. thats it

[mya-valentine]

Headcanon: Working Closely with Dottore and Pantalone

Working with both Dottore and Pantalone is a constant balancing act. Dottore thrives in the realm of chaos, with his twisted experiments and disregard for ethical boundaries, while Pantalone is the epitome of control and calculated precision. Your role often involves navigating between these two extremes, ensuring that Dottore’s reckless endeavors don’t entirely destroy Pantalone’s well-constructed plans—or his profits.

When working with Dottore, you can never fully predict what kind of experiment or scheme he’ll drag you into. His workspace is full of dangerous contraptions and ominous, mysterious equipment. He treats everything like a puzzle he’s determined to solve, even if it means crossing lines others wouldn’t dare. He might request your assistance in something seemingly innocent, only for it to evolve into a disturbing and twisted experiment.

On the other hand, Pantalone runs things with the precision of a businessman. Every decision is meticulously calculated, and he expects nothing less from those who work closely with him. He’s always thinking several steps ahead, and his projects often revolve around securing wealth and influence for the Fatui. When working with him, you are exposed to high-stakes negotiations, economic manipulation, and subtle power plays.

You often find yourself playing the mediator between Dottore and Pantalone. Dottore’s mad scientist antics sometimes clash with Pantalone’s structured business endeavors. It’s not uncommon for Pantalone to become exasperated by Dottore’s unpredictable actions, and you’re the one who has to smooth things over, explaining Dottore’s reasoning—or lack thereof—while ensuring Pantalone’s operations aren’t compromised.

Joint meetings between the three of you can be tense. Dottore often speaks in vague, almost mocking tones about his experiments, while Pantalone raises a brow, always concerned about how much these ventures will cost the Fatui. You’ll feel the palpable tension as Pantalone tries to rein in Dottore’s more outlandish ideas, but Dottore never gives in easily.

While Dottore can be incredibly intimidating, there’s a certain thrill in working alongside someone as brilliant—and dangerous—as him. He occasionally lets you in on his more technical ideas, expecting you to keep up with his genius. He enjoys showing off his creations and theories, and if you’re able to contribute meaningfully, he’ll regard you with a mix of interest and amusement.

Pantalone, on the other hand, values your ability to manage things with poise. He expects you to understand the broader picture, the economy, and how to influence people subtly. He enjoys teaching you about the intricacies of wealth management and expects you to adopt his same level of attention to detail. If you manage to impress him, he might even offer you a more strategic role in the Fatui’s financial dealings.

Dottore has a twisted sense of humor, and you’ll often find yourself on the receiving end of it. He’ll make cryptic or morbid jokes about his experiments or the people involved, and you’ll need to keep your composure to avoid becoming another one of his “test subjects.” There’s a fine line between working with him and becoming part of his next experiment.

Pantalone, being a man of wealth, spoils those who earn his favor. If you manage to keep things running smoothly between him and Dottore, he will reward you handsomely—whether that’s through financial compensation, gifts, or special privileges. He values competence and loyalty, and he’s more than willing to show his appreciation through luxurious means.

Both Dottore and Pantalone hold significant power within the Fatui, but their power manifests in different ways. Dottore’s influence comes from fear and intellect, while Pantalone’s stems from wealth and control. You’ll need to navigate their distinct power dynamics carefully, knowing that they both have the ability to make or break you in the organization.

Earning trust from either Dottore or Pantalone isn’t easy. Dottore respects intellect and curiosity, while Pantalone values loyalty and efficiency. Over time, you may find yourself in a unique position where you’ve gained the trust of both men, becoming someone they rely on—Dottore for assistance with his experiments and Pantalone for managing the financial and strategic aspects of the Fatui.

Working with them can feel like being part of a dangerously effective machine. Pantalone’s resources fund Dottore’s more elaborate projects, and in return, Dottore’s inventions or discoveries can increase the Fatui’s power.

Working closely with Dottore and Pantalone is a challenging yet intriguing experience, requiring adaptability, wit, and a keen understanding of both chaos and order. It’s a delicate dance between madness and strategy, and if you manage to thrive in such an environment, you’ll earn the respect—and maybe even the protection—of two of the most powerful Harbingers in Teyvat.

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Masterlist

[tanadrin]

OK, so this post is going to probably look like I’m critcizing @jadagul quite directly, and I am, but only because he is a proximate example of something I find worth commenting on generally. This does not change the fact that I generally like and respect him, and find him pleasant to interact with.

There is a style of political thinking which seems to have an intuition that the law should work like mathematical formalism or computer programming, with a very close and literal relationship between any act of government (an executive action or an act of a legislature) and the constitutional or statutory text which enables that action. That even if the law is a messy and organic human institution, it shouldn’t be, and in ideal circumstances the whole system would be fairly mechanistic, with little room for human discretion. This line of thinking seems to work itself out in ideas like, “OK, discrimination is bad; but so is the government interfering in private actions; so anti-discrimination legislation is bad, too, in a different way.” Or “democracy is important, but part of democracy is free expression; and how you spend your money is a kind of expression, so limits on how you spend your money when it comes to politics is antithetical to democracy.” Or, in the anarcho-capitalist form I most strongly associate this line of thinking with, “OK, people seem to want a lot of freedom, low taxes, and the government not to tell them what to do; so we can (and should) construct a society where the government does very little--ideally nothing at all--and everything that can be is transferred to the private sphere, to be a matter of contract law and civil litigation. Since government power is very little or nonexistent, and all oppression comes from the government, everyone will be very free.”

This isn’t just wrong in the sense that the law is actually an irretrievably messy and organic institution because all human institutions are irretrievably messy and organic and we’re stuck with them; this is wrong because it is good that human institutions are messy and organic, and it would be bad if they were all purely mechanistic. I know this probably seems like a self-evidently silly thing to say if your intuition is toward the mechanistic and formalistic (and believe me, I share that aesthetic preference a lot of the time!) but it really is true. It is simply not possible for a legal system to reduce all potential coordination problems, political disputes, and breaches of social order to a set of general principles, and trying to would result in either monstrously cruel outcomes, like the ancient law codes that just killed everybody who broke them, or total structural collapse, like that town that got taken over by libertarians and then bears (because the libertarians didn’t understand the specific governance needs of the town, like how regular trash collection kept the bears away).

In particular, trying for this kind of metaphysical purity in your legal system often seems to cause people’s aesthetic preferences to short-circuit their moral ones; and because no legal system actually is metaphysically pure in this way, ultimately neither is satisfied. The thinking seems to go, we want a free and equal society without oppression; but government action is frequently oppressive, especially when it interferes with private business, so we don’t want to have anti-discrimination legislation. So what they get is a society without anti-discrimination legislation, that is also markedly unequal, because it turns out that bigotry just doesn’t go away by people saying “bigotry is bad, people shouldn’t do that.” Or, people want democracy; but they also want people to be able to spend their money how they want (that’s key to the liberal part of liberal democracy), so they don’t want to impose limits on spending around political campaigns. As a consequence, wealth inequalities distort politics by making the only viable candidates the ones who appeal to wealthy donors, putting a whole class of policies that poll really well outside the political pale--i.e., a profoundly undemocratic system where very popular legislation stands no chance of getting passed. Or, people want property rights and healthy markets; commensurate with that, they resist any effort to impose limits on those property rights or redistribute wealth. They get, as a result (and often hand-in-hand with the distortions of democracy that stem from the previous example), a system with a lot of rent-seeking and corruption where fair competition is almost impossible and there are a lot of monopolies that are bad for both businesses and consumers, far from the libertarian utopia of their laissez-faire dreams.

This isn’t meant to be a Chestertonian set of counterintuitive gotchas, where I try to argue that the real democracy was monarchy all along or something, just an observation that you have to look at, and argue from, actual outcomes, and not just what is conceptually appealing, even if you want to further quite lofty and abstract political ideals. Much the same way that abolishing your military does not keep you out of conflicts, if it results in you suddenly getting invaded by your neighbor, or abolishing anti-discrimination law would not result in a freer society, if you have a bunch of racists itching to discriminate against the minorities they don’t like.

I remember a post of Scott Alexander’s once expressing confusion at the idea banks would just decide not lend to black people in the midcentury US, because surely they would stand to make more money if they had more customers, and if they had more customers the banks run by non-racists would outcompete the banks run by racists, and I remember thinking, like, come on dude. There is a whole complex social ecology surrounding race and racial discrimination, which is going to drown out any possible weak effect that you are pointing to here. And he simply could not see it because it was not part of the world he knew, and he lacked the imagination to understand it.

Everything the law touches is like this. Law is not actually, nor can it be, a separate domain from politics, or economics, or private business, or religion, or any other aspect of human life. It is a loose category of thing we have drawn a fuzzy border around, like so much else. And because of the complexity inherent in the problems it presents, trying to decide which policies are best without reference to actual outcomes at best makes you prone to a kind of head-in-the-clouds idealism. But much more often, I think it means people support things actually corrosive to the principles they claim to espouse.

[crotchety-old-emu]

OLITDP chapter 24 references

as i mentioned in my author's notes of the chapter, there's a few references that i would like to share with those who are interested in them. you don't need to know about them to understand what's going on in the story, obviously, but perhaps it's nice to have some visual aids to go with some of the things that are happening.

if you haven't read the latest chapter yet, and you want to remain spoiler free, it's best to skip this post (or perhaps come back to it later). you can find chapter 24 of our love is these days' piano here!

so here's a short list of things that might be interesting - but definitely not necessary - to know about chapter 24:

penelope's dress at the trowbridge ball is a silvery sea green. the one i had in mind was kind of like this one, from the season three behind the scenes pics. nicola looks stunning in green, especially with the red hair. i found beatrice knight's regency color compendium, a stunning overview of all the fashionable colours of fabric in the regency era, with some fantastic descriptions of how they were made and when they were worn. the willow/sea green colour shown on this page is exactly the hue i was picturing while writing.

lady trowbridge's decorations: i spent days and days researching how lady trowbridge might showcase her wealth and peculiar tastes during this ball, but honestly, i didn't find much info about ballroom decorations and i didn't want to make up things that definitely could not have happened. so i settled on things that i was already fairly certain of were pretty decadent for the era: pineapples and ice cream. after reading up on ice cream in regency times through several sources, i came across the website of ivan day, who is a food historian and has worked on some bbc regency costume dramas. he had a very insightful youtube video on how ice cream was made in those days. in it, he makes one of the ice cream pineapples i mention in the story. ivan day's actual website is under construction, but i found a photo of moulded ice groups, as they were presented in regency times, on another page which was taken from his. it includes ice cream shaped like a swan (which may have been parmesan flavoured, which apparently was a popular ice cream flavour back then).

another food decoration that both eloise and penelope mention is a flummery solomon's temple. i found out about these through watching the bbc documentary pride and prejudice - having a ball, which talks about accurate representation of balls during regency times on television. the part of the doc i'm linking to is the part where ivan day reveals a solomon's temple and explains that this would be a staple on all upper-class tables in those days. the white bits, if i'm not mistaken, are milk-flavoured, the brown is chocolate and/or coffee, the pink is coloured with cochineal.

he also has a page on solomon's temples on his blog, which has a very amusing short clip of how exactly these jellies moved. if you watch it (highly recommend), i'm sure you'll understand why eloise would think it was a good thing to comment on. ivan day himself describes it as:

Because it is made of flummery, which is a kind of opaque milk jelly, the central obelisk wobbles and cavorts in a most entertaining manner, while the four little cones shake, rattle and roll in a very naughty way.

the dance: i must have watched at least fifty different dances that were popular at the time - shoutout to regencydances.org, which not only has a very extensive list of dances, but also a youtube channel and animations showing what the dances would have looked like. i based penelope and anthony's dance on the northdown waltz - which granted, only became a thing from 1820 onwards, so it's technically an anachronism for them to be dancing it. it simply was the only dance that best fit with how i wanted the scene to go. you can find an instruction video on the northdown waltz here. anthony, in this case, would be the red rectangle, penelope the green ellipsis. here's a clip of actual people performing the dance, so you can kind of imagine what it would have looked like. i always knew anthony's confession would happen during a dance, my main inspiration for that was this scene from becoming jane. if you've seen the film, you undoubtedly know exactly which scene i'm talking about without even clicking the link. i remember that when i first saw this part of the film, i stopped breathing for a minute, because it was just such an intense moment, which was exactly what i wanted for anthony's big moment.

there you go, some insight into the tiny things mentioned in the latest chapter that you might perhaps enjoy knowing more about. hope at least some of you found it interesting!

also, i want to mention: i am not a historian, i don't claim that my fic is historically accurate, not in the very least. i try to stick to period-appropriate things, which i do as much research for as i can. but some mistakes will have slipped in there, i am very much aware. so if this is a particular pet peeve for some of the history buffs among you, i apologise.

[blorbologist]

In a modern world what type of engineering do you think Percy would specialize in?

Hi anon!

This is a complicated question that, personally, varies from fic to fic based on what you want to emphasize from Percy’s canon portrayal and what you don’t mind leaving behind (in the name of realism/drama/fluff/etc.).

I’ve broken this down into parts because this is gonna get long, I have thought over this for a few days so bear with me!

First of all, I’m gonna open with the disclaimer that Percy in the Campaign (and Tal’Dorei Reborn too) is… insanely accomplished. He’s a D&D character, so he’s allowed to be. For the sake of giving us a concrete list to work with, here are some of the canon engineering-ish things he’s accomplished):

Inventor of firearms (thus has good knowledge of metallurgy, chemistry and both fine detail work and larger scale forging. Can work with hot metal and explosive materials.). Also makes his own shot.

Bad News (singled out because it has a scope, thus lenses, so he can work glass too, or at least know what he needs to commission it. Though his failure to repair his own glasses suggests the latter lmao.)

Trick arrows for Vex (similar skillsets to the above, except the grappling and tangling arrows have a little more chaos to their construction.)

Diplomacy (it needs to be charged with lightning attacks, however he at least has a primitive understanding of circuitry to get it to conduct that. Originally supposed to have a galvanized battery, but they ended up using a behir lightning gland - so can incorporate biology too. Also counts as a prosthetic in the show’s canon.)

Various other explosives (again derived from the gun skillset.)

Death from Above’s modifications (has a good understanding of comfort - he’d need to know a little wood- or leatherworking for the stocks and grips of his guns too.)

The Umbrasyl trap (large-scale simple mechanisms.)

Vax’s raven skull broach (can adapt his skillset to aesthetic work. Bird skills are very fragile and thin, so difficult to replicate. Has some skills applicable to jewelry making.)

Victor’s prosthetic hand (... *a whole ass prosthetic*)

The Heart of Whitestone (clocktower with complex mechanism, so: horology, lots of gears and such. Implies some architectural skills.)

Whitestone’s streetlamps (powered by the acid pit beneath Whitestone, so pretty much a primitive battery of sorts. Some civil engineering.)

Plans for a warm steam/water heating system to keep Whitestone’s streets clear of snow (again with civil engineering, as well as steam and piping.)

Toy guns for his children (presumably pop or potato guns.)

Sketchbook (I list this here because he clearly has a good eye for proportions and aesthetics, and can depict what he sees and/or imagines with accuracy.)

*Doty 2.0 (I only include him at the end because it’s unclear how much Percy helped with the construct-aspects, vs the gun-arm this Doty has and general help. I doubt it’d be a specialization, but he’d at least have a vague idea of how it works.)

That’s a lot of skills for one person to have, and gives us many avenues to work with! 

I personally change from AU to AU, depending on a number of factors:

Do I prioritize keeping violent invention consistent for Percy, or moreso the impact his legacy has on the world/guilt? 

Is manual tinkering his job or his hobby? 

In a similar vein: is he well-off enough to tinker for fun, or is he in poverty or otherwise disconnected from his family’s wealth and thus needs to pay the bills?

Do I want vengeance/Orthax involved as his muse? If so, how big a role? 

With that in mind, here are my main heavy hitters:

I’m very fond of Percy being involved with computer science and/or software/hardware engineering, because there isn’t really much he can do with weaponry that would revolutionize the world these days*. However, machine learning and such have been tools of great harm the last few decades. Manual tinkering can be left to a hobby, while Orthax and Ripley are somehow involved in him being behind some programming that the police or military organizations can abuse to fill him with Guilt. This is what I go with in Cat’s Cradle: Percy is responsible for a key innovation in facial recognition tech, named 0RTH-X or something, in his fervent desire to identify his family’s killers. And he could develop this completely independently even living off ramen and eggs!

Likewise, robotics is another interesting and topical field - namely drones and police robots. I don’t think he would be too involved in the circuitry of these (it’d be a great way for him to meet Tary, though), but their construction and/or weaponry could be Percy’s creation. The vengeance as a muse angle is a touch more iffy here, but you could pull it off. It’s a lot more hands-on than the above, which is great for tinkering, though his impact on the field is less likely to be as massive as a too-effective bit of programming. There’s also flexibility - he could do this on payroll, or be a random robotics nerd… with the caveat that he’d need significant personal resources, most likely. Put him in a FIRST Robotics competition or on BattleBots lmao.

However, if the obvious boom boom is important, and you want him to revolutionize weaponry… nuclear engineering is right there. By necessity this Percy would need to be heavily involved in the government of whatever nation you set him in, which might remove some of the autonomy behind his decisions and alleviate him of some responsibility. You can also very easily turn it to him trying to make up for his legacy with some nuclear power. It’s difficult to tie this one to his vengeance, unless Percy goes more ‘fuck the whole world and let it burn, and the Briarwoods too’. (Maybe have him be working on nuclear fusion, which we’re just cracking now? Very topical.)

If you want to stick close to canon, firearms engineer is an option! However, it personally stretches belief for me that he'd revolutionize guns in the modern era when... jazzhands at Everything. It's also harder to tie into vengeance, because why make his own fancy gun when he can buy one reasonably easily (in the USA, where I usually see modern AUs set - less so, say, where I am in Canada lmao). But! You could definitely take that angle and just have him produce a new sort of gun. The caveat is that the consequences for this invention getting out are uh... a very sensitive and topical subject with a lot more emotional baggage for a lot of your (again, USA-centric) readers. So for all those reasons this one is not one I favor.

You could lean more into the chemistry/metallurgy angle with a materials engineer Percy. Have him develop a new alloy that has broad applications that ends up finding military/firearm use too. Or some new explosive substance! Boom boom! This could combine the physical tinkering angle along with just how massively revolutionary his canon invention is, and you don’t need to do much research (just bullshit a fancy new metal that does X Y Z lmao). However, this is another that would require a sizeable source of funding for Percy to make this, and with little direct application to fucking up the Briarwoods, and is more chemistry-heavy than many other types of engineering. (Perhaps less so if it's just an explosive material he can make in a garage lab, however the chances of him blowing up his workshop and needing to pay fines/repair it would still exert a decent financial burden.)

Going from the micro to the macro, a civil engineer could work well given his post-canon going-ons. Architect or otherwise, it’s a very… rich-nerd job, and would feed into his posh image, and also have good potential for consequences should he design something that falls to fire/some natural disaster and kills people. There’s absolutely no tie-in to Orthax and creating something for vengeance here, though - which, if you want a Percy who didn’t invent something knowing it’d kill people so long as it killed the Briarwoods too, is great! It’s far less hands-on, though, and likely less into gadgetry than we’re used to - and instead leaning into his artistic side with drawings and schematics, as well as his understanding of physics.

I can tentatively suggest optomechanical engineering, because Bad News does use scope lenses, and he’s confident enough in glassmaking to try to fix his own glasses. However, he also completely fails at this in canon, and could have commissioned those lenses easily enough (vs needing to custom build much of his guns and such himself). So this is moreso if you have an AU where you want Percy involved with lasers, telescopes or photography. (I’m fond of Percy retiring from using guns to instead ‘shoot’ with a camera, for what it’s worth.)

Of course, these are just broad fields of engineering catered to Percy and his skillset: not every Percy needs to be an engineer. Clockmaking, coding and tinkering for fun don’t require a formal education. He can crack it as a mechanic or a gun buff too - you can tie his need to create and tweak and work with his hands (or, alternatively, to get vengeance with a tool of his making) any number of ways. 

I personally have a few limits: I can’t see Percy being a biochemist/bioengineer/etc. (too messy), or anything too theoretical where he doesn’t get to feel directly involved in creation. I also think he’d grumble and huff about making anything out of plastic, but that’s just my take because I think it’s funny that he has Opinions about the materials he uses.

Hope this was of some use anon (and others, I spent a few hours on this so I hope other people enjoy it too kgtrnktnr). Shoutout to @essayofthoughts for helping me with the list of creations and what they imply about his skillset <33

(Not quite relevant, but most modern AU Percys would 100% have a 3D printer and absolutely adore the things. He’d have so much fun, just imagine. But a Percy who works with metal might grumble and huff about working with plastic instead, a la Chetney.)

[catachyler]

A Wizard’s Tower (but not actually)

I built this Wizard’s Tower. You can download it from Planet Minecraft (also, I have a video on my channel about that).

But first, let me tell you the story of this Tower.

Because this Tower hasn’t always looked like that. Before it looked like this:

And even before that, there was nothing. And darkness was over the surface of the hill (I’m kidding!). Many many years ago there was nothing in this barren distant land but wind. It was the outskirts of the Kingdom and few people came here and mostly by mistake. But at one moment, no one knows which (because so few people have come here that it was very hard to pinpoint exactly when), the Portal to the other world appeared on the water. No one dared to explore the world behind this Portal. And assumingly no one dared from the other world to explore this side, so the Portal stayed here ominously on the water and only strange vegetation moved slowly on the wind.

The King of the Kingdom, on which outskirts this Portal appeared, wisely decided to watch this Portal day and night, to be on guard of any threat this Portal may spawn, and, if the gods favor him, be the first one to meet the guests from the other side in case they conclude to pay a visit. Of course, he wasn’t doing that himself, he assigned the squad of his most devoted Royal guards to this. And, well naturally, that squad has to sleep somewhere, and hide from unpleasant weather, and, just in case, hide from unpleasant visitors, so Watch Tower was built on the very top of the hill to have the most advantage point over guarded land.

The guarding labor of the squad was so successful that no one had ever dared to spawn from that Portal. No anyone had ever dared to go near it. This way years passed, and then decades. The King lost his throne (but that is a whole another story), and the Kingdom faded and converted into dozens of provinces that drowned in the dozens of feuds. No one cared anymore about the distant Watch Tower and its ominous target. Thus centuries have passed, and decay established its ownership on the granite body of the building. And barren soil spread out its few feeble green arms around it.

A couple more centuries passed by before this tumble-down tower was found by one Cleric. He was from the Kingdom nearby, which was the successor of a few provinces that managed to unite and hence gave birth to a new power. The power which unlike its predecessors knew what lay behind the Portal. Well, not everybody actually knew what lay behind, only the bravest or reckless ones. And this Cleric was one of them. You see, he wasn’t like other clerics who were fine with just making some weak brews and mixtures to heal some minor injuries and give some minor influences, he wanted to know the real secrets of the brewing stand. And the brewing stand requires blaze powder and nether wart. 

I’ll tell you the wonderous adventures of the Cleric in the Nether some other time, for today’s story the main thing that we need to know is that the Cleric decided to dwell here in this very Tower. Understandably, it would be more convenient to have a house just next to the Portal rather than travel here far from the Capital, where he lived, and back every time.

He cleared rubbles, reinforced the structure, expanded spaces according to his needs, and furnished by his wish (pretty sure he just hired some construction workers and hadn’t done all of this with his own hand). And now he’s living here in this redesigned Watch Tower and accumulating wealth by selling his unique and powerful potions that no one except him dares to make.

The End.

So how do you find my Story of the Brave Cleric? Also, yeah I understand that with Cleric it’s not much of a Wizard Tower it’s technically a Cleric’s Tower (hence why the comment in the title) but with the presence of the magical Portal to some Other World, and hardly obtainable Blaze Powder, and semi-mythical Nether Wart it starts looking wizardry enough I think. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it.

Friendly reminder that you can download the final structure here

More rumblings about the Tower with time-lapses here:

[titleknown]

HELLOWEEN #9: GENTIFLACCIO

-GENTIFLACCIO is a Great Mesne-Lord of Hell, with 144 Buroughs and 1,285 individual dwellings to his name. He may create mansions and fotresses in a night, and may be called to extract unpaid debts and transmute the flesh of others into gold piece-meal.

He appears as an ugly giant with a mouth in his chest, a great castle sprouting from his back and siege engines jutting from his upper body. He requires blood for his summoning, freely given by its owner as payment for a debt, though this blood may be taken from the summoner and given to Gentiflaccio to pay their debt to him-

...The author of the Final Testament seemed to struggle to understand the appearance of Gentiflaccio, as rooted in modernity as his construction-equipment arms and horrible McDonalds-Mansion-meets-post-modern-skyscraper acme may attest. Though, at least they tried, which as an author who is also a book is an effort most appreciated.

One might make the joke that "Of course there are landlords in Hell," but that would perhaps undercut the true gargantuan nightmare of Hell's land-lords. There are depths of rent-seeking depravity that would chill you to the bone, innovations that break the very laws of life itself. I have seen a streamlined biomechanical demonic Human Centipede as a rooming arrangement. I have seen a potential tenant call it "a good deal, for this side of town"

In that respect, the horror of Gentiflaccio's operations might seem superficially tame. But the scale of his operations and the gaudiness of his actions was evident in our conversation. 

His office was gaudy in a way that went past charmingly tacky into grotesque, not helped by the majority of the architecture being the bodies of certain tenants transmuted into gold, twisted and screaming. This was apparently common enough that he had developed a process for warping them into the positions he desired as they coagulated "A great asset to any showcase" he said.

The place was at once gargantuan and lonely, containing only him and me and the ugliest furniture excessive quantities of money can buy. He was easy to speak to, as my superficial flattery convinced him this was a puff piece, but the casualness with which he spoke of atrocities was in itself revealing. 

He spoke of tenants forced to give up their limbs to afford increased rent, leaving them crawling like worms to offer their tongues in exchange, of homes flattened (Perfectly legally according to the laws of hell) with the tenants still inside in such a way that their flesh was perfectly preserved to sell or; of course, transmute, of the efficiency of the boxes he built where "nobody knows anybody, so they don't have anything to distract them," and spoke elegaicly at the violence over two individuals eating each other alive over a singular apartment that he was offering.

He in particular was proud of the innovative home system he had based upon his own crainium. At the lower-level (As is considered the acme of Hell) was a simple suburban pseudo-mansion, which he described in the most glowing of terms in a way that boiled down to it being bloated, tacky, soulless, and built for the semiotics of wealth without any purpose therein, then ascending to the apex of skyscrapers as designed by a worm-ridden mind, studio-apartments into cubicles into pods, in an inverted pyramid that both conveyed excess and blocked out competition.

In particular he was proud of the rental arrangement where, at random, one individual studio was given to the dweller in the pseudo-mansion to do with as they wished, tenants included, "It's like they get to be little landlords" he said after describing something done by one bottom renter that was so profoundly hideous that I do not dare share it here.

He spoke with pride at the violence at which accompanied his housing plans, oblivious to any veiled criticisms I spoke of, thanking me whenever I voiced them. I recall him saying "The thing you oughtta know, and I say this as a gift most people don't get this for free, is that business is violence! And If i can inspire one person to go into business, I know I've done my part."

As he spoke to me, he was shoveling money into his gullet. Just, eating money, right in front of me. His mouth was full as he spoke as well. At one point he broke a tooth eating a particularly large jewel. He ate both the tooth and the jewel.

Expected, but unpleasant.

-Xavier X. Xolomon , Monsterologist and Understudy to The Librarian Of Babel

----------------------------------------------

So, I had that brainworm of the castle-headed guy Wayne Barlowe previewed in his old Guide to Extraterrestrials, and I figured I might as well combine it with the horror that is McMansions for this guy.

I will say, I may re-write this later, or at least further revisit Xavier's meeting with this character, as I feel unsatisfied with it in terms of conveying what a big deal this guy is and how his operations hurt people, at least with it rushed on this deadline. Even if I did include a little dude next to him for scale.

The buildings I used for the skyscraper part were actually mainly from PD/royalty free pictures of Frank Gehry's work because... God I hope I don't come off as reactionary for this, but his buildings look like if skyscrapers had tumors and then those tumors were extracted to become their own buildings. 

They look like if Everywhere at the End of Time was a Dr Seuss book. They look like if Cool World underwent gentrification and Barry Jackson was always  offscreen weeping a single tear like in a political cartoon.

And for the record, yes the money-eating was inspired by a very specific ProZD sketch, and yes the use of a McMansion as a base was inspired by the great @mcmansionhell

As per usual the whole descriptions, designs, ectcetera from this project are free to use as you see fit under a CC-BY 4.0 license so long as I; Thomas F. Johnson, am credited as their creator!

[egipci]

thank you for bringing awareness to this grievous issue. how is there possibly not more huntercorp content out there?? the overlap between the succession freaks and spn freaks on here is practically a circle. then supernatural does a literal canon succession au and… crickets. i don’t understand. cmon ladies we can do better

Thank you for your solidarity! I agree: we CAN do better!

To be fair, I totally understand the paucity of content in the field, simply because those guys are just not really recognizable as Sam and Dean. They're vacuous spoiled dudes for us to laugh at for the five minutes they're on screen, unlike our very serious special Winchesters Prime, God's favorites, etc. We don’t really even know anything about them, other than they still live with their dad into their late thirties? And Sam is like "haha Dad is the best guy I wanna live with him in the same house forever cheers," which makes me think the CTE finally caught up with him. So fanon interest doesn't really extend beyond heehee silly wincest-twincest foursome business, or maybe there's some cracky Daddycestuous harem going on that I haven't heard about--- which is great if you're into that sort of thing.

What I think is more interesting though is to use that world as a springboard to construct a more canon-feeling AU that retains the characters' personalities and dynamics. Like, just take all the deeply traumatizing shit that comes with hunting from a young age and add to it all the fucked-up-ness of excessive wealth and access.

Say, John, at some point when Dean and Sam are much younger, decides it would be better to work with other people for resources and efficiency (lol), and doesn’t burn quite as many bridges as he could, and whenever someone offers to pay a little something to show their gratitude he agrees. Along the way that turns into a hunting business, recruiting hunters, etc, and it picks up, and it's lucrative enough obviously because monsters are plentiful, and so the kids grow up with money, comfortable. There's the old "I want you to go to school and I want Dean to have a home," so he probably did buy a home base, extra fortified, and there were babysitters to watch after Sam, a little less pressure on Dean with the co-parenting. More creature comforts and safety and stability available, but maybe even more emotional distance between John and Sam than in canon. Dad's trips last for months and months, Sam is fine, he goes to the same nice private school for most of his life, gets with Jessica in high school or something, whatever, you can fill in the blanks here. Maybe he goes to a military school or something, in this strange world where people know about monsters, but his dad is still very much distant and mysterious.

Depending on when the transition towards more financial stability happens, Dean would have more vivid memories of serious poverty that he shares with his dad that Sam might not fully remember/appreciate, and as he gets older Dean’s off with Dad more and more, staying away longer and longer, etc, and that in itself is an interesting question, I think: if Dean doesn't have to parent Sam as much, what does that mean for their relationship? There's always the baseline of the older brother duty/younger brother admiration going on, but maybe it's more like 2x20 than canon--- or not, maybe it translates into more closeness than the canon pre-canon! A good writer can convince you of anything, but it's essential that their relationship only flourishes in the absence of their dad, not only physical absence/death, but also his absence in Dean's emotional life, and all of that is deferred for as long as you keep the old man around. the idea of 60's John/40's Dean makes me....

Anyway, the Succession comparison in particular is really compelling here because 1. in a world where people know about monsters, and monster-hunting is a lucrative empire-building business, the Winchesters (assuming they are actually as good as they are in the main timeline) would hold huge influence. Like, serious political influence. Depending on the size and boundaries of his operation John Winchester could be the owner of an extremely powerful militia trained to kill both people and monsters? And that's... kind of insane! (And with that power and influence, did Sam and Dean grow up in the public eye to some degree, like president’s kids and various d-listers? What sort of rich people vices were they exposed to? Are hunters seen as celebrities or as soldiers, or something in between like in, eg, The Boys?”)

Therefore 2. the stakes of succession are extremely important, and also 3. as an au-explorer, that's how you get to keep some semblance of the John-Dean-Sam dynamic from canon. Say, Sam goes to Stanford on Dad's dime, no need for a scholarship, he fits in with the other kids fine, at least along socioeconomic lines. But obviously he's still very well trained as a hunter, and he may or may not be dealing with demon blood-induced uncleanliness. And let's say Dean is groomed into both hunting but also the business side of things, slated to run the family business when the time comes, maybe he goes to college too and studies something soul-sucking he thinks would be useful for the business and would make Dad proud. Or not, he already has charm and looks in spades, no need for a fancy degree.

But what if at some point John changes his mind? It's not Dean, but Sam who should be king. Or Sam and Dean together as partners. Sam of course doesn't want it. He wants to be a lawyer, or whatever it is the Lebanon alt!Sam does. Adam doesn't want it, he doesn't know anything about hunting, he's probably only seen his dad a total of five times since college, and no one showed up to his engagement party. Who knows, maybe he's already been eaten by the ghoul and no one has noticed yet. Obviously Dean doesn't want to run anything, either, but no one cares about that. He'll do it if he has to, because he's a good son, and in that way this is the weird inverse world of Succession where no one actually wants the inheritance. They do want the elusive kiss from daddy, they're just not under any illusions that the family business is an adequate substitute.

So, like, you can take those two weirdo throwaways and make them infinitely more interesting. You can kill John, you can throw in the Azazel hunt, or introduce the Heaven mega-bureaucrats, or whatever. Maybe Sam gets on the demon blood in his fancy private school and is surrounded by demons for years and it’s John’s fault because he sent him there, thinking he'd be safe. Or maybe none of that other mytharc stuff comes in and at the heart of the story is just the family drama. Sprinkle in some more sex, drugs, and rock n roll, etc— so many little choices to make for people who like the work of intricate world building and crossovers! Good for them, whenever they get their hands on this.

Of course the thing that matters to me most is the J/D of it all and Dean's feelings about it--- like he is daddy's golden boy in pretty panties and a cock cage, but what I've been thinking about (like, actually thinking about, for fic writing purposes) is why is he in the cock cage? What if he likes it? What if he wants it and likes it and hates that he likes it? Succession is part of a huge tradition of works preoccupied with wealth and moral decadence and corruption, and those things can only be compounded by the reality of not only wide-spread knowledge of monsters, but also the existence of an industry dedicated to the sanctioned extrajudicial killing of "creatures" that look and live just like normal people 99% of the time. It's extremely fucking bleak, more so in some ways than canon, and it's the kind of world where dad/son incest is possible, where alcoholism/addiction would be much closer to the surface, where Dean is rewarded for Dad’s parasitic dependence in different, slightly more complicated ways than canon, where Dean's baitboy duties probably extend to various unsavory human actors, men and women, starting when he was way too young. And it's not necessarily always the sort of seduction/manipulation/self-objectification that ends with Dean on his back, and John is not a mustache-twirling villain who's looking it in the face and ambivalently sending his kid to the slaughter, but shit happens and it's part of life and it's for the greater good and it's for the family business and Dean's a man and he can handle it and when he comes back tongue-tied and flushed, wearing his cute little panties under his slacks and holding a matching cage in his hand John will tease him first, always, and then he will put his hands on the kid and make it better.

[momthesearemydinnerguests]

Also, I haven't seen anyone talking about this, but re: the train scene, did anyone else notice the parallel between that scene and the church scene in episode 1? Like specifically the way that Lestat uses violence against innocent bystanders in order to force Louis and Claudia's hands, and the way the tone seems completely different in each scene but the underlying effect is the same.

In the church scene, Louis is already absolutely broken at the beginning. Every last defense he had against Lestat has been driven away - chiefly Louis's belief in his family and community's love. He is grieving alone, he's obviously fucking traumatized by witnessing Paul's death, and all his illusions about himself have been shattered. Because Louis is already completely broken and vulnerable, Lestat is able to present himself as a savior. A dark, tainted savior, sure, but one who sees and understands Louis and loves him anyway.

In Claudia's case, we kind of have the opposite. She's been through plenty of trauma already, but she never really had a community to begin with. She was always alone, and her status as the outsider in the marriage allows her to see Lestat for who he really is. She doesn't need him to save her, and he DIDN'T save her when she was hurting. So she learned to save herself. Lestat can't make her his obedient little daughter, he can't enforce the vision he so desperately clings to that they are a happy family. Much like Daniel tearing apart Louis's construction of events, Claudia threatens Lestat's. But as sick and fucked up as his "love" is, he can't let her go because she is essential to that vision. So instead he terrifies her, threatens extreme violence, forces her to come home.

In both scenes, Lestat uses violence against an innocent observer to threaten his family into submission. In Louis's case, the violence we see is much more extreme, but the threat is subtle. With Claudia, we only see the aftermath of the violence (head puppet, anyone?), but his threats are explicit. In both scenes, however, the effect is the same: Lestat is basically saying they can either join him and be a family, and his love/wealth/color can shelter them from the outside world (Louis from the judgement and condemnation of others, Claudia from the physical abuse she's suffered), or they can suffer. There are threats out there much worse than him, and if these are things he is capable of - he who loves them - then what are they capable of?

This is further reinforced by the tenderness that Lestat shows moments after - to Louis in the church scene, and to that gorgeous mastiff in the train scene. Lestat is capable of great monstrosity, yes, but he can use that monstrosity to protect them! They could be Happy™️. And the sad part is that Lestat himself believes this. He wants desperately for them to be a family, because in his own fucked up way, he does live them. They are supposed to be his chance at happiness and being loved in return. But he's so gucking divorced from what love actually looks like, that in the end he's just recreating the very life he is trying so hard to escape.

[zeph1981]

The End of the Petit Picpus is Now

“In the meantime, let us study things which are no more. It is necessary to know them, if only for the purpose of avoiding them. The counterfeits of the past assume false names, and gladly call themselves the future. This spectre, this past, is given to falsifying its own passport. Let us inform ourselves of the trap. Let us be on our guard. The past has a visage, superstition, and a mask, hypocrisy. Let us denounce the visage and let us tear off the mask.“

Boom!  Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it.  This hits so hard right now.  This is about people using religion as an excuse to exploit and marginalize other people and as a tool to amass money and power.  

But I think he’s saying here that religion itself is not the real problem.  If we denounce religion as superstition, that’s not going to solve the problem alone.  “There is no vacuum in the human heart.”  If we’re not ready to construct a better social system, getting rid of religion will not get rid of the hypocrisy or the cruelty.

-

My thoughts on the rest of this are really messy, but I need to try to put them down.

In this digression, Hugo is showing these women who are not collecting endless power and wealth (though we look askance at orders that require high entrance fees, those are nothing compared with the lavish wealth of most Bishops).  These women are living miserable lives in backbreaking labor and he says we don’t have to understand it, but if that’s what they want to do stopping them isn’t going to do any good.

“As for convents, they present a complex problem,—a question of civilization, which condemns them; a question of liberty, which protects them.”

-

The church is a big horrible system but if we were to get rid of the church altogether, we would not automatically be getting rid of hypocrisy and cruelty and in the attempt we would damage the parts of the system that are actually addressing real needs.  Many of the nuns in this convent are not from this order.  They are the last survivors from orders that had been massacred during the revolution.  This is an absolutely horrible image, and horribly true to life.  Too many social revolutions have forced secularism on huge populations and done so using violent and traumatizing means.  None of them have successfully eliminated superstition or hypocrisy or exploitation or cruelty.

I feel like the convent digression sits in a direct relationship with the Bishop.  In the book about Monseigneur Bienvenue Hugo attacks the habit the church has of amassing great wealth and power.  The church is deeply complicit in the horrors of exploitation of marginalized peoples.  In the Petit Picpus, he’s giving us a different facet of the church.  We see these women creating sanctuary for each other in a world where otherwise women would have to get married and bear children, whether they want to or not.  The convent is dark and scary, but for some women and girls it’s safer than the alternative.

The Bishop tells us we can do better.  We can be better.  We can choose better.  

“There is no vacuum in the human heart. Certain demolitions take place, and it is well that they do, but on condition that they are followed by reconstructions.“

Monseigneur Bienvenue is the model to which Hugo wants us to reconstruct.  He wants us to take that amassed wealth and use it to make sure no one is hungry or unsheltered or unvalued.

I like this.

[astrologyindia]

Who Can Marry Mrigashira Nakshatra?

The Mrigashira Nakshatra is the fifth nakshatra among the 27 nakshatras in Vedic astrology. Mrigashira Nakshatra zodiac sign lies from 23°20' in the Taurus sign to 6°40' degrees in Gemini. The nakshatra's symbol is a "head of a deer" and thus represents timidness, restlessness, seeking things out and traveling, etc. The people born under Mrigashira Nakshatra have a creative, enthusiastic, cheerful, humorous, and social nature. They love to live life and are pretty impulsive in their approach. As represented by a deer's head, they have many suspicions in their minds and face troubles in their marriage. They are very possessive about their partners, and sometimes this over-possessiveness spoils their marital relations.

Mrigashira nakshatra natives should learn to respect the personal space of their partners to attain marital stability and blissful relationships. We suggest they marry only those stars compatible with them for marriage. It would be easier to develop a good understanding of the compatible stars. One should know about the stars that are compatible with them as a Mrigashira native. 

General characteristics of Mrigashira natives

Mrigashira nakshatra male- If we look at the prominent traits of Mrigashira nakshatra male, we will find them full of suspicions. However, he possesses a genuine attitude and gesture, but over-possessiveness in any matter is not desirable. They are timid and tend to trust anybody they meet, which sometimes leads to heartbreaks later. He has high values in life and can't stand dishonesty, prejudices, and judgmental behavior. He may have dual personality for the world than who he is. 

Mrigashira nakshatra female- The females born under Mrigashira Nakshatra are intelligent and kind. Mrigashira nakshatra females can be humorous and alert but selfish. They may be short-tempered and talk harshly to hurt others often. The female natives have an interest in reading, writing, and arts. She proves to be a good wife and a loving mother. Also, she gets wealth from many resources and is fond of luxuries and comforts in life.

Both males and females need to control their temper else they may harm themselves. Mrigashira Nakshatra Lord is Mars, and thus it attributes its inherent qualities of rude behavior, sturdy attitude, love for spicy food, harshness, strong determination, etc., within the natives. Mars, with its great influence on the natives, makes them adopt the career fields indicated by Mars. They can get employed in the military, police, body-building, bakers, fire-related work, electricity, engineering, construction, etc. The natives can become excellent authors, writers, managers, coaches, teachers, researchers, etc.

If Mars is not in a good position in the birth chart, the person should perform nakshatra career puja for Mrigashira nakshatra. Pacifying Mrigashira nakshatra helps in attaining desired results in career.  

Mrigashira Nakshatra puja involves chanting the nakshatra Vedic mantra in specified numbers by a scholar or priest. The puja may start on Tuesday (the day of Mars) to be finished the following Tuesday. The Nakshatra puja is highly beneficial for those born under Mrigashira nakshatra. One can get the following benefits by performing Mrigasira nakshatra puja-

1. The nakshatra puja helps provide true purpose in life.

2. Mrigasira Nakshatra puja helps those born under it attain the desired job and career. 

3. The natives get freedom from worries and obstacles in life. 

4. The nakshatra puja helps to get results in your favor in case of any legal or property dispute.

5. The Mrigasira Nakshatra puja bestows health and prosperity on its natives. 

Mrigashira nakshatra's marriage and love life

The Mrigashira nakshatra marriage life is full of fun, passion, romance, travel, and happiness. Mars is the lord of this nakshatra; thus, there is no lack of passion and happiness in a person's married life. You are short-tempered and can't stand any dishonesty on the part of your partner. Your over-possessive behavior towards your partner may trouble your relations. The relations can be short-lived for the need for freedom and personal space. There can be heated arguments with the life partner as they may deny following your advice every time. However, sexual encounters will be more, but there will be a lack of mutual understanding and warmth in the relationship. Your spouse is obedient and supportive but may have materialistic inclinations. Sometimes, over-demands and expectations may cause bitterness in relations. Depending upon the position of Mars in the horoscope, the Mrigashira nakshatra marriage age is generally between 24-29 years of age. As an aggressive planet, Mars can give a sharp tongue you need to control in soft relations like marriage. You may face problems in your married relations in the beginning years, but later everything will be good. The marriage is long-lasting with charm in marriage. The partner may be dominating, but still, you will stand by him for his innumerable qualities. Here, we suggest avoiding suspicion in relations else these will get spoiled for no reason.   

Mrigashira nakshatra compatibility

The Mrigashira natives are hyperactive. With Mars as their Lord, these natives are restless and short-tempered. They wish to act without thinking much, which sometimes leads to worries later. However, the influence of Venus and Mercury as signs lords are also there, which makes the natives imbibe the qualities of these three planets. Based on the nakshatra pada of Mrigashira, the native can have dominant qualities of any one planet out of these three. The natives need someone who can calm down their restlessness. They need to think before they act, and for that, they need those nakshatras who possess these qualities. As per the compatibility table, the natives of Pushya, Ardra, and Ashlesha will be compatible signs with Mrigashira natives.

 In contrast, the nakshatras Chitra, Dhanishtha, and Ashwini are the worst match for Mrigashira natives. These nakshatras have somewhat similar tendencies and thus can’t complement each other. 

[dragontrailz]

Monbiot, Ecomodernism and the Pritzkers

I've been joining the dots and making some truly bizarre links between the Pritzker family of US billionaires and Guardian journalist, George Monbiot.

This article was inspired by a film that Paul Mobbs made about Monbiot in December 2022.

Some people find this quite challenging to watch as it's very information dense, so here's the text version which is fully referenced.

"As a Guardian Columnist, George Monbiot essentially states opinion, not facts. The problem is, in the public debate which then ensues from those opinions, his narrowly focussed articles are cited as if what is said were wholly true – when in fact the wider evidence base is being strategically ignored.

Monbiot is not alone: I could equally cite journalists such as David Shukman; ideological media constructs such as 'Countryfile'; pundits like Mark Lynas; or ‘green’ entrepreneurs such as Dale Vince. As these figures overwhelmingly embody the affluent middle class of the establishment, that debate not only downplays the trends which are the result of that lifestyle; but also fails to connect to the people who stand to benefit the most from this debate – the 'average' person living within the increasingly precarious UK economy."

Who are the Pritzkers?

The Pritzkers made their wealth from the Hyatt Hotel Corporation (the family have been top 10 of Forbes magazine's "America's Richest Families" list since the magazine began such listings in 1982).

Jennifer Pritzker (first transgender billionaire who was a Lieutenant Colonel in the US Army) has a niece called Rachel Pritzker.

Rachel Pritker, is chair of Third Way, the Breakthrough Institute, and the Pritzker Innovation Fund.

As an interesting aside, Rachel's mum Linda, is a Tibetan Buddhist Lama.

The Breakthrough Institute was founded in 2007 by Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus and is a key cornerstone of the philosophy called Ecomodernism. Shellenberger is a sixth extinction and planetary boundaries denialist, who's also capable of some good research when he puts his mind to it. A real maverick and almost impossible to understand.

What is Ecomodernism?

Ecomodernist philosophy centres on a belief in:

Decoupling economic growth from ecological impacts;

Industrial-Scale Renewable Energy;

Hydrogen and Carbon Capture and Storage;

Nuclear Power;

Large-Scale Rewilding projects e.g. Yellowstone, which are tantamount to colonial land grabs;

GMOs, Gene-Editing and Synthetic Food;

Tech Fetishism and a belief that the (US) technology sector can solve all our environmental problems (this is obviously nonsense);

Since there is no such thing as 'Green Growth', I would consider Ecomodernism largely a fell ideology; but it has its champions and I'm sorry to say that I met quite a few students who studied at the Centre for Alternative Technology at CAT over a two year period when I studied there, who tend to believe in this nonsense. These beliefs are quite common within environmental circles and the platform afforded to George Monbiot, who is viewed by many as a leading thinker in this field helps reinforce this perspective.

The UK's, leading advoocate for Ecomodernism is Mark Lynas (Cornell University). George Monbiot outed himself as being involved with Lynas' RePlanet organisation (now rebranded as WePlanet) in 2023 after doing a speaking tour with them.

Lynas was born in Fiji, grew up in Peru, Spain and the United Kingdom and holds a degree in history and politics from the University of Edinburgh.

RePlanet are funded by Quadrature Climate Foundation, who are funded by Big Oil e.g. Valero, Conoco Philips, Chevron, Halliburton and some of the most environmentally destructive industries on the planet. RePlanet 'activists' attended COP28 in Glasgow, on behalf of Net Zero Nuclear (NZN) – a lobby co-founded by the World Nuclear Association, which “represents the global nuclear industry”.

People like Monbiot thrive as they can't easily be pigeon-holed, they cover many topics, switching between environmentalism and geopolitics, have huge platforms like the Guardian and relatively few on the left are savvy enough to track what they say over longer periods of time. When you keep a close eye on what he's saying from month-to-month and year-to-year, you start to notice him shifting position and adopting technologies and positions that he was once against. I think the opportunity to debate him now has passed as he refuses to engage with the vast majority of his critics. He just isn't going to play fairly it seems.

A number of Monbiot's Oxford friends have approached him in order to query these positional shifts and each has been stonewalled, as they've attempted to reason with him.

This insightful critique of Regenesis by Jim Thomas references such an encounter.

Chris Smaje wrote a whole book, 'Saying No to a Farm-Free Future', pulling apart the flaws in Monbiot's Regenesis.

https://chrissmaje.com/book/saying-no-to-a-farm-free-future/

Monbiot's response was to write a sneery essay 'The Cruel Fantasies of Well-Fed People' where he failed to really address any of Smaje's points. Chris has tracked the debate via this page on his website.

https://chrissmaje.com/the-saying-no-debate/

Paul Mobbs clearly states the problem in response to the video he made about Monbiot and Ecomodernism.

"The issue is not so much George Monbiot himself, as the ‘class’ of people he represents; and why that is ‘leading’ – managerially, and politically – the environmental movement to fail so abysmally. As my film outlines, ‘Bright Green’ environmentalism doesn’t challenge ecological destruction; it props-up the current systems of inequality and exploitation in order to preserve the economic status quo. And it’s their failure to fully account for their plans, especially in terms of the resources required or the emissions created by the transition process, which renders their ‘positive’ view of change deeply flawed."

"This is the ‘danger’ of pundits like George Monbiot: Fixating on a certain technology that will ‘save us’, while the ‘elephant in the room’, our lifestyle, goes unchallenged."

The same dynamics are common to Extinction Rebellion, as I experienced first hand, they simply would not engage in democratic processes in order to decide movement strategy.

I raised a complaint and engaged them via their so-called 'restorative justice' process in March 2019 in Bristol. The outcome was clearly rigged to protect key thinkers in the movement such as Roger Hallam, now twice convicted of 'Conspiracy to Cause Public Nuisance' and serving a five year term at His Majesty's pleasure.

According to one of the facilitators of the session, a healer, who lives in Mid Wales, I wasn't the first to go through this process with Hallam and it was unlikely I would be the last. Five years have now passed since that process was unresolved. I was encouraged to write about XR and critique it from a distance. This led to me publish 'Roger Hallam - Extinction Deception' in 2020, a searing critique of the man and his highly irregular methods.

Who are the other famous Ecomodernists?

Other famous Ecomodernists who co-founded the movement include:

Linus Blomqvist (Breakthrough Institute)

Stewart Brand (Long Now Foundation)

Robert Stone (Filmmaker)

Peter Teague (Breakthrough Institute)

Most of the rest are Americans, but there are two Australians.

John Asafu-Adjaye (University of Queensland)

Barry Brook (University of Tasmania)

Plus one that's outside the AUKUS pattern.

Joyashree Roy (Jadavpur University)

It almost goes without saying that Ecomodernism and Extinction Rebellion are quite tightly-coupled. Many of their activists are advocates for one or more of the technical solutions that the Ecomodernists peddle.

The interesting thing about Monbiot and Ecomodernism, is that when their manifesto was published in 2015, Monbiot was quick to respond to it, critiquing the philosophy in his Guardian column.

Fast forward 8 years to 2023 and he's now fully embraced their ideology.

What has Gender Ideology got in common with Ecomodernism?

Image Credit: Micheal Swifte @empathiser on X

When we understand where Ecomodernism is going with regards to tech fetishism, synthetic biology, AI, robotics and the integration of the human and the artificial realms you can see the agenda bleeding out into many different spheres.

Donna Haraway warned of the fusion of these themes in 'A Cyborg Manifesto'.

Beware of some interpretations of this text and authors such as sci-fi writer, Ursula K. Le Guin. Postmodernists love to try to hijack these concepts for their own purposes.

A Cyborg Manifesto was published in 1985 in the Socialist Review (USA).

"In it, the concept of the cyborg represents a rejection of rigid boundaries, notably those separating 'human' from 'animal' and 'human' from 'machine'."

In 2006, under the umbrella of the UN, a group of international academics met to outline a set of principles relating to sexual orientation and gender identity at a summit in Indonesia. These became known as the Yogyakarta Principles, which began to formalise a postmodern twist on LGB rights, that begin to shift the narrative in favour of trans rights and queer perspectives that was broadly aligned with both Transhumanism and Ecomodernism.

The UK's representative was a trans man called Prof. Stephen Whittle. They reconvened in 2017 to update the framework, at a meeting known as YP+10.

By now, what had become a neoliberal project, with major support from philanthropists such as the Pritzkers, was well under way. NGOs such as Stonewall changed their direction to accommodate this postmoderning and new organisations such as Mermaids and Gendered Intelligence were created in the UK to push for policy changes. One of the fundamental changes that occurred was a redefinition of the language in the sphere of LGBQT+ rights, that begun to undo years of hard won progress for women's and children's rights.

Indeed many campaigners have not been fooled by this reframing of LGBT issues. @ForWomenScotland take a strong stance with this tweet.

"Transgenderism aimed at children has been engineered by a billion-dollar global medical, corporate industry and Scotland aimed to put itself at the forefront of this disingenuous movement masquerading as a human rights issue."

Which only makes Monbiot's late arrival to the debate all the more strange. In fact, he's yet to really make clear his position, instead he takes a more roundabout approach in aligning with the US techno-fetishist movement, Ecomodernism which masks his position.

Ecomodernism is a subtle attempt to merge these streams of thought towards a dystopian future, where nature is monetised and destroyed, as climate change is prioritised as the existential issue. The tech-futurism it espouses has a lot in common with Italy's flirtation with Fascism in the 1920s and 30s. All things considered, it's an odd position for the Oxford-educated zoologist to take.

The wider agenda is more clearly outlined by the film, Banking Nature. Biodiversity offsetting, nature credits and gene banking are the mechanisms that the banksters offer up in order that nature can be given it's true value.

Banking Nature (2015) [Films for Action]

https://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/banking-nature-2015/

The problem is that they say one thing, while they actually mean another. Their primary agenda is to make money and capture political systems.

This film needs a whole article in its own right, to really understand the true horror of the neoliberal plans to capture the lesser known Biodiversity COP process, which now almost 10 years after this film was made, is well under way.

Al Williams (2021) 'The Kunming Declaration: Why It's Deeply Flawed'

https://dragontrailz.tumblr.com/post/664980397196787712/the-kunming-declaration-why-its-deeply-flawed

The 16th Conference of the Parties will meet later this year in Cali, Colombia (October 21 to November 1).

Monbiot and Trans Rights

Monbiot did back Sian Berry, the Green Party General Election candidate for Brighton Pavilion, who replaced Caroline Lucas at Westminster and has been quite outspoken in her support for 'trans rights'.

Notably, he didn't explicitly back either co-leader, Adrian Ramsay or Carla Denyer, who it's now clear have differing views on the issue.

Gender Ideology and Ecomodernism appear to be two converging Neoliberal projects and it's not surprising that they have aligned.

Neoliberalism has a mechanism by which it attempts to capture political systems in order to achieve more power for corporations.

First academics are positioned to seed articles in peer-reviewed journals, but the peer-reviewers and often also the journal itself is in on the game.

Secondly, NGOs and think tanks are constructed and positioned to help influence public opinion.

Third, the mainstream media now come on board, citing the academics, NGOs and think tanks. There's no consensus, but it now appears that the debate on this issue is beginning to be settled as the experts have arrived and first defined, then solved the problem.

In parallel other public institutions are captured: healthcare, education and policing align which now suggests there is no longer any real debate on these matters.

Finally, the politicians can now safely state that that they back this new position as there is a clear consensus for it.

Legal firms are set up which specialise in this new field to challenge the old laws, which are now deemed old fashioned or even bigoted. Indeed, one of the main architects of Gender Ideology was a law firm named Dentons.

Alignment of powerful corporate and political interests is also a feature of another ideology that's come back into vogue in recent years, Fascism. The sudden emergence of Gender Ideology over the last decade is clearly fascistic in it's mechanism.

Fascism is said to only truly emerge when it's 90% formed. It's acceleration across the final 10% is thus rapid and disorienting, since it feels new, yet to many uncomfortable. However, it has by this point, clearly captured the political system, the police and the main media channels and thus feels unstoppable.

Robert Paxton - The Anatomy of Fascism (2004)

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/188378.The_Anatomy_of_Fascism

To some who saw Gender Ideology rapidly take root within political campaigns across the 2010s, the same degree of bewilderment was common. However, some of those co-opted by it were unaware they were part of the mechanism. These beliefs have been seeded into activist campaigns, political parties and universities and are now common on the left.

Since Extinction Rebellion erupted in 2018, carbon-fundamentalism now seems more common, with climate change increasingly framed as THE existential issue and that's led to a stronger belief in Ecomodernist ways of thinking where tech solutions are prioritsed.

The trouble with this and the 'Climate Emergency' framing is that there's no real evidence to suggest that climate change is more important than any of the other Planetary Boundaries. The term 'Climate Emergency' seems to have originated with Al Gore, but has only really been popularised in recent years with a profusion of fake astroturf climate groups backed by US funds like the 'Climate Emergency Fund', who are aligned with Democrat Party interests.

https://timhayward.wordpress.com/2024/04/22/who-says-there-is-a-climate-emergency/

We saw these dynamics at play in 2020 and how this position is defended, when professional activists George Monbiot, Josh Fox and Naomi Klein came together to denounce the 'Planet of the Humans' documentary. Max Blumenthal's article outlines how the unseen hands of these 'Green' Billionaires are directing the narrative.

https://thegrayzone.com/2020/09/07/green-billionaires-planet-of-the-humans/

Although the film has its flaws, it offers up a critique of technofix climate 'solutions' that many middle class environmentalists found jarring.

In 2021, a film called 'Bright Green Lies' by Julia Barnes developed these arguments further into a more coherent critique of the modern environmental movement. This time, Monbiot and the other critics of 'Planet of the Humans' offered no response.

https://www.brightgreenlies.com/

As the film states: “Bright Green Environmentalism is founded on the notion that technology will solve environmental problems; and that you can, through 100% recycling, through wind and solar power, have an industrial economy that does not harm the planet. Deep ecology is the belief that we need to radically change the way society functions in order to be sustainable.”

The film was accompanied by a book by some of its key contributors: Derrick Jensen, Lierre Keith and Max Wilbert.

Jensen notes in the film:

“The thing that blows me away is the lengths that people will go to avoid looking at the problem. That they will create all these extraordinary fantasies in order to do something that’s not going to help the planet so they can avoid looking at the real issue. Which is that industrial civilisation itself is what’s killing the planet.”

Paul Mobbs offered up his thoughts, drawing attention to the class bias within environmentalism and affluence, that the film somewhat overlooks, in his review for Resilience.

"When it comes to consumption it is not an issue of ‘we’. It is about how an extremely narrow social and economic elite exploit the majority by giving them the illusion of affluence. Albeit one that is today precariously founded upon deepening debt and doubtful economics.

Simple logic demands that this minority urgently change their lifestyle, lest the majority, threatened by ecological breakdown, seek to rest it from them."

https://www.resilience.org/stories/2021-05-10/bright-green-lies-review/

Sadly modern university courses don't really take people past these 'Bright Green' or 'Ecomodernist' ways of thinking and towards a deeper green critique of society. Neither do mainstream media pundits, or environmental NGOs like Extinction Rebellion, Friends of the Earth or 350.org.

The corporatisation and neoliberalisation of universities is well-advanced now. Joe Healy's 2021 essay, 'The Neoliberal University in Wales' in 'The Welsh Way' [Parthian Books] outlines how the rot has set in. I was warned about this towards the end of my PhD in the late 1990s at the University of Bristol. Anyone going to university in the modern era needs to be aware of this and also the cost of undertaking such a venture. Education is in danger of once again becoming the preserve of the rich. That will limit opportunities and entrench inequality. This regression within one of societies key pillars is a very worrying trend.

Although there were some brilliant minds teaching at CAT and some great guest lecturers (e.g. Professor Tim Lang, Professor Kevin Anderson), some of the lectures we had there didn't help with this - they seemed to swing between brilliant minds who spanned subject areas and really made you think, and those advocating for a certain technology, who were always notably less impressive with their delivery and at answering questions.

The 'Science Prize' mentality that was pervasive during my second/third year there, which encourages tech solutions to climate change didn't help. It just encouraged these type of students to double down and of course the framing was always 'climate solutions', never ecological.

I think the narratives that Paul Allen (who leads the Zero Carbon Britain at CAT) promote, encourages students to take this hokum seriously. Dr. Ruth Stevenson did a lecture on Ecomodernism in the politics module (but she seemed really unhappy to be having to teach it) and Dr. Adrian Watson, who was Head of Graduate School seemed to be quite keen to blur the boundaries by refusing to rule out technologies like nuclear and CCS when I discussed some of these grey areas with him. His lecture on persistent organic pollutants in our food system was brilliant, as you might expect from a PhD chemist. But later discussions seemed to suggest his hands were tied by other agendas and it was noticeable that after the departure of Adrian Ramsay as CEO (he is now the Green Party MP for Waveney Valley in Norfolk/Suffolk), funding seemed to quickly become a problem (the site is now closed to visitors, but the MSc courses and Conference Centre remain and there are plans to reimagine the site).

In a series of online dialogues I had with him, Paul Mobbs noted that CAT was a victim of the corporatisation of the green movement that proceeded apace over the 1990s, which also captured the Green Party, WWF, Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth. I was aware of these dynamics when I took up my place on the course in autumn 2018, but wanted to put myself back into that environment, immerse myself in the literature and meet other like-minded people. It was the right decision and I don't regret it one bit.

I certainly chose an interesting year to begin, as Extinction Rebellion's 'Declaration of Rebellion' (October 31st, 2018) took place between the first two modules. I was still living in London at the time and I enjoyed those week long trips to study at what must rank as one of the UK's most unique campuses, a former slate quarry in Mid Wales at the edge of a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve and Eryri, that's Snowdonia National Park if you're still stuck in 1970s thining.

There are rumours that the nuclear lobby and possibly also the hydrogen and CCS lobbies are active at CAT (certainly some of the students are plants, there is no doubt about that whatsoever, it's a very cheap way to get some of your narratives floated if you're a Big Corporation).

Fortunately, the biomass question has now been addressed and a film was shown when I was there (which was presented by an activist from Biofuelwatch), which directly challenged CAT's long-held beliefs on the subject. Some of the lecturers seemed surprised but open to understanding it better. Unfortunately they are still quite deep down the rabbit hole with regards to biochar and it's clear there are links to industry with this one.

There are no obvious funding links for nuclear, CCS and hydrogen, but also, I haven't looked very deeply and I do fear what I might find.

With regards to GMOs and gene-editing, the negative influence here seems to come from Aberystwyth University. Us foodie students were a bit shocked in July 2019 when we were sold gene-editing as a sustainable solution. The Professor who gave the lecture (I will have to dig his name out of my notes as I can't recall it) received some real push back and I think that changed the way the subject was taught in 2020. I have to say it was sessions like that one, which was the reason I signed up for the course in the first place. If that sort of debate was occurring on evening TV in the UK, the technology would never get a foothold.

Nobody paid me or my friends in the 'Wild Wales' and 'Extinction Reality' Collectives to research this. We did it because we like trying to understand complex, 'wicked' problems and someone has to bring these issues into the public realm. Like the 'Free Range Collective', we operate as Dysorganisations, which means we are decentralised and we share knowledge across distributed networks that are loosely-coupled.

This is a long way from 'normality' even for my research, which can sometimes be quite 'out there'.

Paul Mobbs might argue that 'normality' ceased to exist some time ago. It's about time more people joined us in this free-thinking space. It can be liberating. Free Range Collective, Wild Wales and Extinction Reality would love to hear from you.

Disclaimer: If that's too much information for some of you ex-CAT students then sorry, not sorry. Deal with it.

Critique is a reality in a corporate learning environment in 2024 when the word 'normal' no longer has any real meaning.

Let's end with a few critiques of Ecomodernism

Caradonna et al, et al (2015) A degrowth response to an ecomodernist manifesto

Eileen Crist - 'The Reaches of Freedom: A Response to An Ecomodernist Manifesto' (2016)

'All facets of the Manifesto's argument revolve around the mandates of its humanism. Mass extinction thus remains unaddressed in the document, one, for lacking a technological solution, and two, for having a robust solution with the drawback of significantly limiting human freedoms.'

https://read.dukeupress.edu/environmental-humanities/article/7/1/245/8205/The-Reaches-of-Freedom-A-Response-to-An

[pall0r-mortis]

NAME: Sid Philips

GODLY PARENT (IF APPLICABLE): Hephaestus

AFFILIATION: Alumni (2013 - current)

SPECIES: Demigod

ABILITIES: Technokinesis

BIOGRAPHY:

(CW: Child abuse (past), injury, death)

Sid has never been anything but bold.

It was a survival necessity, right from the time he was old enough to understand his father's anger would always spin towards him, and he did learn that so very young. A man with so much wealth and notoriety in the medical field, and such shockingly little patience for his son, so little respect for his wife's success; Paul Philips was never fit to be a parent.

Sid tried to remedy the mistake as soon as he could start formulating plans to run away; he didn't belong there. But they always brought him back. They never listened. Home was not home for him.

He likes to think it was his real father looking out for him when one of his attempts to run led him right to a winged horror, snapping teeth, and a sudden realization.

He really didn't belong there.

The creature that found him - a satyr, he found out soon enough - was surprised. But Sid had been cultivating a talent for hiding all his life; it served him well when the beast came hunting for him. Nobody saved Sid, he saved himself; and he already knew the answer before the question was asked.

He was going home.

He went to his father.

Not the mortal man who had snapped his wrist in a fit of anger before it told him he was useless with the same regularity most parents say I love you, his real father. A god, a being who had never known him so had never forsaken him. The one who claimed him, the one Sid has worked hard to make proud.

That was where he belonged.

Sid never left. Why would he?

He has freedom he didn't before, he can build, he can enjoy the simple pleasure of creating with his own hands, melding and crafting and constructing what is needed, and whatever strikes him to. Hard work has never bothered him, he thrives there, meticulous, unwavering. It's a strange thing to feel content some days, but he is.

And the monsters don't frighten him, he knew plenty of those with human faces before, so he can handle the ones with claws just fine. In fact, Sid can handle a lot. He went to war without blinking, a child still, because every effort to shelter him in camp he ignored. He played no resounding part perhaps, but his cultivated talents served him well; he was impassively vicious when need be, detached, always a survivor. He returned when some didn't, and he accepted that was just the cost.

In the years since he's realized that cost was too high and has grown cold towards the gods who stir up war, but he is his godly father's son; his will is iron if it must be.

Sid remains at camp; most of his time is spent fixing things his less focused siblings break in their eagerness to create, or directing the newcomers around the cabin with a non-nonsense air. Because he wants to keep the monsters at bay for them, he wants them to survive. He wants to see some of the horror in their eyes fade faster than it did from his own.

But if any of his siblings happen to catch one of the younger ones running around camp with some intricate clockwork toy in hand, huddled together laughing over some gleaming trinket fit together with springs and scrap metal by a particularly talented hand, they know he'll only shrug off the questions about what he does so many late hours alone in the cabin workshop.

Maybe the cost of the years past have begun to add up in his mind; he sees too many mirrors of himself in the broken children who often arrive only to watch them fall later, far too many times.

But he can't save them, he knows; they have to save themselves.

He isn't as warm as he is direct, but he's learned to temper his anger away from the youngest and picks his fights with those better suited to matching his ironclad opinions and sharp tongue. He enjoys it, actually; sometimes the pressure builds so hot under his skin it has to go somewhere.

People returning back to camp to celebrate an old victory feels laughable to him, but ultimately he doesn't care; the gods like the attention and if it keeps them from starting little squabbles it's less hassle for him.

[steveezekiel]

THE SUPERNATURAL EMPOWERMENT 1

29 And God gave Solomon wisdom and exceedingly great understanding, and largeness of heart like the sand on the seashore. 30 Thus Solomon’s wisdom excelled the wisdom of all the men of the East and all the wisdom of Egypt. 31 For he was wiser than all men—than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman, Chalcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol; and his fame was in all the surrounding nations. 32 He spoke three thousand proverbs, and his songs were one thousand and five. 33 Also he spoke of trees, from the cedar tree of Lebanon even to the hyssop that springs out of the wall; he spoke also of animals, of birds, of creeping things, and of fish. 34 And men of all nations, from all the kings of the earth who had heard of his wisdom, came to hear the wisdom of Solomon." 1 Kings 4:29-34 (NKJV)

Believers need the the supernatural to be outstanding in life.

Being supernaturally empowered makes you distinct, different from others.

As a Believer in Christ Jesus, you can be supernaturally empowered for wisdom, knowledge, and understanding.

One can be supernaturally empowered for favour, success, and protection. IN short, experiencing the supernatural is possible in every area of life. You can enjoy supernatural rest. Receive supernatural help and whatever.

You can also be supernaturally empowered in whatever you do, and be outstanding in your field.

Solomon was supernaturally empowered for wisdom. The wisdom he exhibited surpasses the wisdom of others in His Days (1 Kings 4:29-34).

God said the wisdom given to him would have no equal. That is not an ordinary or common wisdom that is available to every other human being: 12 BEHOLD, I have done according to your words; SEE, I HAVE GIVEN YOU A WISE AND UNDERSTANDING HEART, SO THAT THERE HAS NOT BEEN ANYONE LIKE YOU BEFORE YOU, NOR shall Any LIKE YOU ARISE AFTER YOU. 13 AND I have also GIVEN you what you have NOT ASKED: BOTH RICHES AND HONOUR, SO that there shall NOT be ANYONE like YOU among the KINGS all YOUR DAYS" (1 Kings 3:12,13 (NKJV).

Solomon's wisdom, wealth, and honour were supernatural. They were not like that of every other person (1 Kings 4:29-34).

The description of Solomon's wisdom mentioned in the above Bible passage is supernatural, It could only be done or given by God to whoever belongs to Him and Desires it.

You can be supernaturally empowered for skills in whatever you do, like God did for Bezalel and Aholiab when the tabernacle was to be built for God in the wilderness: 1 THEN the LORD spoke to Moses, SAYING: 2 “See, I have called by name BEZALEL the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah. 3 AND I HAVE FILLED HIM WITH THE SPIRIT OF GOD, IN WISDOM, IN UNDERSTANDING, IN KNOWLEDGE, AND IN ALL MANNER OF WORKMANSHIP, 4 TO DESIGN ARTISTIC WORKS, TO work in GOLD, in SILVER, in BRONZE, 5 IN cutting JEWELS for SETTING, in CARVING wood, AND TO WORK IN ALL MANNER OF WORKMANSHIP. 6 “AND I, indeed I, have APPOINTED with him AHOLIAB the son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan; AND I HAVE PUT WISDOM IN THE HEARTS OF ALL THE GIFTED ARTISANS, THAT they may MAKE all that I have COMMANDED YOU: 7 THE TABERNACLE of meeting, THE ARK of the Testimony and THE MERCY SEAT that is on it, AND ALL THE FURNITURE OF THE TABERNACLE" (Exodus 31:1-7).

In the above passage, all the artisans mentioned were supernaturally empowered for wisdom and knowledge and understanding, to do artistic works for the construction of the Tabernacle.

Note: If what we have shared Thus far happened in the old testament, the better of it, the one that surpasses that could be done for the Believers in the New Testament; because we have a better covenant: "BY so much more JESUS HAS BECOME A SURETY OF A BETTER COVENANT" (Hebrews 7:22 NKJV).

6 BUT now He [Jesus] has OBTAINED a more EXCELLENT MINISTRY, INASMUCH AS HE IS ALSO MEDIATOR OF A BETTER COVENANT, WHICH WAS ESTABLISHED ON BETTER PROMISES. 7 FOR if that FIRST COVENANT had been FAULTLESS, THEN NO place would have been SOUGHT FOR A SECOND." Hebrews 8:6,7 (NKJV)

If something is considered to be better, It means It has All the features of the old and other New ones in addition. The new covenant, or Testament, was ESTABLISHED on better Promises (Hebrews 8:6).

Jesus said: 41 THE men of Nineveh will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; AND INDEED A GREATER THAN JONAH IS HERE. 42 THE queen of the South will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, FOR she came from the ends of the earth to HEAR THE WISDOM OF SOLOMON; AND INDEED A GREATER THAN SOLOMON IS HERE" (Matthew 12:41,42 (NKJV).

Jesus surpasses Solomon in wisdom, and the Believers in Christ have the potentials to surpass Solomon or whoever had lived in the old testament.

Jesus said: 10 This was written about him: ‘[Look; Behold] I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare ·the [your] way ·for [before; in front of] you [Mal. 3:1].’ 11 I tell you the truth, JOHN the Baptist is GREATER than any other PERSON ·ever BORN [born to women], BUT even the LEAST important PERSON in the KINGDOM of HEAVEN is GREATER THAN JOHN [because John prepares for, but does not fully participate in the blessings of the Kingdom]" (Matthew 11:10-12 Expanded Bible).

In other words, from the Old Testament till the time John the Baptist was born, no one could be compared in greatness to John the Baptist. But the least person in the New Testament is greater than him.

Thus, the least person in the new Testament is potentially greater than Solomon and all others who dazed the people of the old testament with their Wisdom and power.

As a Believer in Christ Jesus, you can be supernaturally empowered for wisdom, knowledge, and understanding. You can be supernaturally empowered to Excel in whatever you do.

You will not fail in Jesus' name.

Should there be any ailment in your body, receive your healing now in Jesus' name.

You are delivered from the oppression and it will never rise again in Jesus' name. Peace! TO BE CONTINUED

[zannatykhatun]

Qualifying begins: three decisive points for financial institutions to operate online

In recent years, the accelerator button for online financial services has been pressed.

Taking advantage of the cold wind of the epidemic, financial institutions have either been forced or voluntarily embraced online operations. With the end of the epidemic, the first phase of online operations, which involves frantic and extensive customer acquisition, is about to come to an end and officially enter the second phase of intensive cultivation.

The second stage is full of dark horse opportunities. Everyone can pick up a hoe and cultivate their own three-acre land, so the competition becomes more intense, just like a new round of qualifying. The duration of this round of qualifying is about 3-5 years, and it develops together with large models. The results of the qualifying competition directly determine whether financial institutions will prosper or survive for at least fifty years in the future.

In the author's work practice and observation, I believe that there are three points that have a relatively large impact on the ranking victory in the second stage. I will elaborate on them one by one. If there are any mistakes, please discuss them.

1. Customer label: Knowing is not important, what matters is whether you do it or not.

The most important thing in qualifying is   

development. In the early stage, you need  HE Tuber to fight wild monsters one after another, and you may even be killed by wild monsters, but this is a quantitative change in the early stage that you must endure in order to make a qualitative change in the later stage. In my opinion, whoever can endure the seemingly hopeless development in the early stage in the direction of "Customer Tag" will be able to make a killing in the later stage.

At present, regardless of large, medium or small institutions, there is a consensus on customer tags: in the future, financial marketing will inevitably shift from "product-centered" to "customer-centered", and customer-centeredness will inevitably avoid customer tags. Because only through labels can you understand your customers and be qualified to talk about anything customer-centric.

In my observation, not to mention the leading institutions, the city commercial banks, securities firms in the middle and even the small banks in the tail also have a basic understanding of "customer tags", that is, this thing is very important, but the problem lies here. Okay, this thing is very important, what should I do now? Most organizations simply choose not to do it because they don’t know what to do at the moment.

Of course, whether you do this or not is just the beginning of development. If you want to develop well, the most important thing is how to do it and how to do it efficiently, and this is the most difficult and challenging part.

Establishing a customer labeling system is like building a floor. The theoretical logic is that you should draw the drawings first and then start construction. But the practical logic is that you must draw while starting work, and therefore, the accuracy of the drawings will be extremely high. What do you ultimately want the "customer-centric" business blueprint to look like, what kind of customer needs it satisfies, and what kind of labeling system is needed for this...break it down layer by layer, even at the edge. Taking it apart to verify it is actually quite brave.

In the direction of customer labeling, I have seen a good example so far, which is the customer labeling system of Ping An Bank. It divides customers into 112 customer groups around the three core labels of "customer life cycle, wealth level, and professional attributes". Make a preliminary diagnosis of customer needs; secondly, by selecting eight preference feature tags such as customer account information, product holding information, consumption behavior, and psychological preferences, we further analyze customer demand preferences and rely on seven major categories of content libraries to provide customers with Design some specific combinations of products, services and content; then, by superimposing four tags of reach scenarios, timing, content, and channels, we can more accurately understand customers' service preferences and achieve precise reach.

This is actually a relatively clear blueprint, but in fact there should be many problems when it is actually implemented. The biggest one is how do you collect customer tags, and the boundary between customer tags and customer privacy? Recently, I have seen too many strategies that are logically perfect but difficult to implement in reality, which also made me rethink the relationship between logic and reality. I still think that it would be better to make a defective product with 80 points on the ground than to sketch an imaginary product with 120 points in my mind. Friction exists in reality, and friction factors must always be considered.

2. Equipment: You really can’t save money technically.

With the advent of Open AI, I don’t think anyone will underestimate the power of future technology anymore. It’s just a matter of whether they have the ability and whether they are willing to spend money. Regarding AI, especially the direction of AIGC, I am actually not that enthusiastic. This is a cold reflection I wrote in a memo:

AI is absolutely valuable for content production with clear standards, but let’s not forget that these “standards” are generated through countless trials and errors. AI can shorten the production process, and it will also shorten the thinking process. Many times, we don’t know what kind of thing we want. Only in the process of creating garbage can we clarify our thinking logic. In other words , the waste itself is a necessary cost to produce non-waste.

The most valuable thing for a person is the ability to think, but thinking ability is never achieved overnight, nor can one see the truth at a glance. Thinking is a dynamic process that cannot be standardized. The creativity of many great works is born when garbage is made.

But even if I am not keen, I am still shocked by the power of AI. At the same time, I have a new idea: the way humans think as I mentioned above is based on the previous production methods of humans. In the same way, when new production methods emerge, human thinking will naturally be iterated. Perhaps due to the current way of thinking, we cannot yet describe how humans will think in the future, but it will inevitably be very different from today.

When playing ranked matches, what matters is the equipment. Whoever has better equipment will naturally have an advantage. AIGC is just the beginning of the power of AI. No one can say what it will do in the end. All we can say is to spend some money on technology, which is true.

3. Teammates: You don’t have to carry, but don’t hold back.

Everyone who plays ranked knows that losing the game will not make you depressed. What really makes you depressed is your teammates. You want to develop in a wretched way, but he insists on one-on-three. You ask him to gather for a group fight, but he insists on going to the jungle to get the red buff. Will he collapse? If you win this kind of game, you will collapse.

Before today, I had not actually considered the issue of my teammates. I was more concerned about personal awareness and growth. But yesterday I listened to a live broadcast sharing on online operations, and the most important part of it was that the person sharing it pointed out the importance of aligning awareness from top to bottom.

Although it is difficult to change people's ideas, there is still room for manipulation. If long-term goals are inconsistent, you can reach agreement through short-term goals, or reach agreement with key people. Of course, this process is difficult, but it is precisely because of the difficulty that we can sift out the gold. It’s precisely because it’s difficult that it’s called qualifying, and the reward for upgrading will be greater in the end.

Each of these three points affects one party independently, but in fact, the three influence each other. For the customer label to be truly implemented, it requires the support of equipment and the cooperation of teammates. In my opinion, if any organization does these three things better, or simply surpasses competitors in the same track, it would be great.

By the time this ranking battle is over, the financial industry may have undergone earth-shaking changes, and I am still very much looking forward to the new results.

This article was originally published by @Antoniomullet on Everyone is a Product Manager. Reprinting without permission is prohibited.

The title picture comes from Unsplash and is based on the CC0 license.

The opinions in this article represent only the author's own. The Renren Product Manager platform only provides information storage space services.

[divyabhat]

Financial Advisor In Bangalore

A Financial Advisor is a finance professional who provides consulting and advice about an individual’s or entity’s finances. Financial advisors can help individuals and companies reach their financial goals sooner by providing their clients with strategies and ways to create more wealth, reduce costs, or eliminate debts. A financial advisor is your financial planning partner. Together, you and your advisor will cover many topics, including the amount of money you should save, the types of accounts you need, the kinds of insurance you should have (including long-term care, term life, disability, etc.), and estate and tax planning. The financial advisor is also an educator. A financial advisor can help individuals to meet their financial objectives. In the case of an individual, a financial advisor can provide insight into how they can save more and build their wealth. This is often done by constructing a portfolio of investments that are well suited to the client’s risk attitude. Some clients are more willing to take on risk if the prospect of a potential greater reward is more compelling to them than the prospect of potentially losing money. Thus, a financial advisor may ask about things like the individual’s age, income, marital status, indebtedness, or savings in order to gather a solid understanding of their client. A financial advisor is often responsible for more than just executing trades in the market on behalf of their clients. Advisors use their knowledge and expertise to construct personalized financial plans that aim to achieve the financial goals of clients. These plans include not only investments but also savings, budget, insurance, and tax strategies. Advisors further check in with their clients on a regular basis to re-evaluate their current situation and plan accordingly. You do not need to be wealthy to benefit from the services of a financial advisor. Some financial planners assess every aspect of your financial life—including saving, investments, insurance, taxes, retirement, and estate planning—and help you develop a detailed strategy or financial plan for meeting all your financial goals. When hiring a financial planner, you should know what services you need, what services the planner can deliver, and any limitations on what he or she can recommend. In addition, you should understand what services you're paying for, how much those services cost, and how the planner gets paid. Before you get financial advice, decide what you want to get out of it. This depends on your stage of life, how much money you have, and what you're trying to achieve. A financial adviser can help you make financial decisions and plan for the future. This might include advice about budgeting, investing, super, retirement planning, estate planning, insurance and taxation. A good adviser will get to know you, keep you informed, and help you achieve your goals. They'll also discuss how much risk you're comfortable with. Remember- the more you save towards your retirement, the greater your chances of enjoying a financially secure retirement. Remember to create a budget plan, diversify your investment portfolio, and choose the right investment options. And don’t be afraid to ask for help if you need it!

[the-blaze-empress]

hi i am about to get my degree in classical studies!! i watched this video and immediately went what the fuck this guy made pediment reliefs and fucking METOPE RELIEFS AS WELL he MUST have been studying ancient greek temples.

because thats what this is. its a temple. you dont. you dont get civic buildings like that. the aiakeion in athens was just a fuckin empty rectangle of walls, that was likely a law court. temples are the only things that are lavishly decorated, and thats for a reason. its fair to compare this to the parthenon, its like the most famous greek temple out there but it is also far from the only one. they were built all over, not just in high points. yeah okay a lot of them werent grand like the parthenon, but lots of them also. were. they were also often somewhat individually sponsored. you and/or your polis show your wealth with the temples and dedications you make to the gods, the bigger the better.

its difficult to get a proper measurement for the size of bdubs' courthouse in terms of pillars, because there was in fact a standard size. and that standard size had 6 pillars across the front. also i believe the vibe bdubs is going for here with his choice of the chiseled tuff is ionic pillars, instead of the parthenon's doric. i can see an argument for corinthian as well, the slender nature and pronounced base could be either, but definitely not doric.

again with the metopes, the choice of chiseled tuff seems to indicate another similarity to the parthenon, being the only temple we know of with relief on all its metopes. something more to say for the grandiose nature of it.

i also happen to have had an exam earlier today where i talked about what myth tells us about modern societies, so forgive my rambling here i have been studying a lot of this. there is something to say not only about which myths and parts of classical culture society places focus on, but also how they do so. its not always for the themes and understanding and the same reasons as it was in classical society, there is a tendency to allude to modern perceptions of classical conventions to seem sophisticated, and perhaps in this instance, highly democratic.

its a facade though. it doesnt have the same depth and care and meat that it would have in a time long past. the metopes are squiggles. the pediment relief isnt even a scene its just a bunch of figures standing around. the columns are way off, the dimensions aren't considered. i wish i knew what direction it was facing but i cant be sure. bdubs has constructed this building to make an impression, something grand and sophisticated and old and traditional and rooted deeply in democracy—it is, after all, a courthouse. but a little bit of a closer look reveals to you just how off it all is, just how skewed he's made it. he wants to liken himself to the greats and the gods, but his hubris gets the better of him.

this is to say this is a fucking excellent build, i was also fucking blown away seeing the tv set because I AM ALSO GETTING A FILM DEGREE anyways he seems to have his barn doors on. backwards. but that is another conversation for another time.

i have a feeling this is a lot of disconnected thoughts, you will have to forgive me, it is late, i had an exam earlier today, and i only just turned in my final essay about the archeological processes in minecraft and how they compare to the real world. anyways. what was i saying?

hm ok so interestingly, bdubs’s courthouse is built on an odd number of blocks. note the roof of the facade coming to a point, but more importantly, the nine pillars….

you don’t use an odd number of pillars. like ever.

let me get this out of the way first: i get why you’d build with odd numbers in minecraft. i usually do it myself, to not run into problems like double doors or two-wide pointed roofs or frustrating spacing/symmetry between decorative elements. however. to not even out the design of something so unequivocally done in every other example of columns and pillars…. fascinating implications…

every other example guys. every other building with columns like this has an even number of them.

doing so sets the line of symmetry at an invisible point between two pillars, an even number on each side. but an odd total number of pillars makes the central pillar itself the line of symmetry. this does a couple things.

one, it upends the sense of community and equality. which i know sounds crazy, but really, a group of columns are all put there to hold up a structure. there’s no focus on one because they are all are working as supports.

symbolically, at least when first used in ancient greece, pillars represented people. and it makes sense for courthouses, especially, to want to show an even, fair, equal number of people on each side. no focus on any one, no inherent bias right off the bat just looking at it.

with an odd number of pillars, though, one will always be placed front and center.

and THEN. and then you walk in the courtroom itself (also odd-numbered blocks) and you are immediately opposite the judge, bdubs, located exactly centrally. and true, courtrooms are often set up like this anyway. but bdubs ups the ante and reaffirms that no, focus is on him by staging it all as a daytime court show, boom mic just over his head, cameras pointed in, spotlights on him.

literally by design, it was not built for justice. it’s built for show, for entertainment. and just look at the credits to know exactly what sort of message you’re supposed to be getting from this show.

the biblical story he used, with king solomon. it’s about king solomon. isn’t really about the trial itself, or the babies, or the women. it’s about showing (off) how wise and just he is. that’s the point. hm. interesting.

now, getting to the second point that etho also picked up on: it feels like a prison.

it’s not just the color palette. when your eyes naturally draw to the center point, you aren’t seeing an open space. instead of feeling like an arch or gateway or otherwise some kind of opening, the pillar there makes it feel closed off. the overall effect is that of prison bars. not pillars lining the entrance to a place of order or a temple. bars of a cage, a cell.

imagine the lincoln memorial were set up with 11 or 13 pillars. he’d look so much more trapped in there.

having a central pillar blocks the entrance. it’s not welcoming. you have to go around it; it’s immediately inconveniencing you. and when you go to leave, it’s there blocking you again.

this courthouse was not designed and built to be fair, nor accomodating, nor equitable, on any terms. even if unintentional, i wouldn’t call it so much coincidental as i would… subconscious.

after all, y’know. form follows function.