#while i would critique one thing in an ideological sense

[rxttenfish]

honestly im calling it now. the silt verses is one of those rare perfect pieces of art for me. absolutely flawless. perfectly fitting end to the story. excellent.

[saessenach]

Thinking many thoughts about Miss Andarateia Cantori tonight because what do you mean we get to be in her house for the entire game, in which she and her boyfriend/partner-in-crime run a gambling den, assassin guild ANd find the time to argue with the public administration while opposing a military occupation?? who does it like her??

Joke aside, I think she's an incredibly fun character, and I'm really happy that hers was the lens through which we saw the Crows this game. Whenever I see random posts and critiques commenting that the Crows were too "sanitised" or "found-family", I want to yell a bit, because DATV never claims that to be the case!! Obviously everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but what we see is anchored in a very specific context: not just Treviso under Antaam occupation, but also the Cantori Diamond, which falls under Teia's jurisdiction.

She's an elven orphan turned Guildmaster and Talon, who desperately wanted to find family in the Crows! While the other Talons resisted her attempts at every step (some more succesfully than others ksks), that implies 1) her approach towards her own House was probably not dissimilar and 2) it got her the Talon position in her 20s. Ergo, her modus operandi was probably fairly successful.

For all that she threatens to evict anyone who treats her like a landlord (lol), the Diamond is very much a reflection of her as a character. It's all completely in line with both her general characterisation in 8 Little Talons and with the point she reaches at the end of that story when confronting Emil. I don't think it's a coincidence that out of our two POVs in 8LT, she's the one discussing Crow ideology with their would-be-murderer:

and

and

Following this particular set-up, of course orphans like Jacobus are treated kindly; of course fledglings have time to gossip in quiet corners while training; of course she helps the Dellamortes however she can?? She decided these people are family to her, and she wants to do better by them than what she got. This is wildly compelling to me personally, because she's such a delightful mix of idealism and disillusionment, honesty and manipulation, compassion and retribution - and she's so fucking obstinate about it!!!

There's also the little connection with the Crows' beginnings, specifically in Treviso. Iirc, it's mentioned in 8LT that her base is Rialto (she's also got gardens there), so a part of me wonders whether the Diamond was an inherited property from a previous Cantori Talon, or whether she got it up and running between then and the events of the game. I think that between that little tibdbit and with Lucanis being named First Talon at the end of the game, it's pretty obvious that the theme of rebirth is very much the point in the Crows' plotline - a messy, hopeful and spiteful rebirth.

All of this is to say, what we get doesn't at all negate the other aspects we've seen from the Crows in previous games, but rather puts them into perspective. The game just goes on to ask - isn't there another way to do this? what else is there room for us to be? is there any chance we might find some kindness in this world? and one of the ways these answers are explored is through Teia's character (we start this series with Zevran's story within the Antivan Crows - an elven orphan bought from a brothel, who doesn't have the power to change this guild, and end with Lucanis, Viago and Teia, who is, specifically, an elven orphan picked up (?) from the streets, who remains one of the powerhouses of the organisation. I love a bit of narrative symmetry ✨)

And honestly, I find this entire thing delightful - it's cheeky and dramatic and a lot of fun, and it makes sense for these characters, if you only sit with it for a second and give it a bit of thought!

(PS the way she draws Viago into her orbit and the way their partnership works is another rant entirely, and they drive me absolutely insane nghhh)

[thetrashthatsmilesback]

Watcher, Capitalism, and the Petite (Petty) Bourgeois

So the whole Watcher controversy has revealed an interesting misunderstanding of what constitutes "the rich" or capitalist beliefs. The major theme that arose during the controversy was the sense that Shane in particular had gone against his previously stated leftist beliefs - that he had, for all these years, taken up a humorous aesthetic of anti-capitalism without actually believing in what he was saying. I believe that this is due to a breakdown in definitions as they become spread to the general public. Dissemination of information is a good thing, and I would never argue against it, but one problem which arises from concepts spreading to large groups without context is that often the actual meanings break down until they are vastly different from their original, academic denotation. This is, I believe, what happened with the phrase “eat the rich” and its current colloquial usage.

I want to preface this with the fact that nothing I am about to say applies exclusively to Watcher, or that the Watcher staff have done anything wrong or misrepresented themselves. I also don’t think that the Watcher fanbase is wrong at all – the situation just happened to spawn arguments both in defense of and critique of the Watcher team which indicated, in my opinion, that an understanding of “the rich” in a capitalist society is not well understood. Disclaimers out of the way, let’s get into this.

During the controversy, two major sides arose – those who had begun to see the Watcher crew (in particular Steven, Ryan, and Shane) as “the rich” or ruling class in a capitalist setting, and those who argued against this by arguing that as Watcher is a small business, and not the upper 1%, they are not included in the definition of “the rich” expressed by leftists. I want to focus in on the counter-argument that Watcher being a small business just trying to survive means that they are not considered “the rich.”

In Marxist theory, there is a small group called the “petite” or “petty bourgeoisie.” This group is defined as those who both own and contribute to the means of production – aka, small business owners. Marx himself wrote little about the petite bourgeoisie, predominantly referencing them in passing in his essays The Class Struggles in France, 1848-1850 and very briefly in The Communist Manifesto. He does happen to criticize this group in the little writing he did on it, “Marx derides what he sees as the petit-bourgeois self-delusion that, because it combines both employment and ownership of the means of production, it somehow represents the solution to the class struggle. This class was progressive in a limited sense, as witnessed by its claims at various times for co-operatives, credit institutions, and progressive taxation, as a consequence of felt oppression at the hands of the bourgeoisie. However, these were (in terms of the Marxist view of history) strictly limited demands, just as the ideological representatives of this class have been constrained by their own problems and solutions” (“Petite Bourgeoisie - Oxford Reference”).

Now, it is very important to note that team “Watcher is a small business” aren’t completely wrong in their positioning of Watcher’s attempt to raise more revenue as Not Evil Capitalism. Marx’s belief was that eventually the Petite Bourgeoisie would be pushed into the proletariat class. I also am not positive that Watcher is a classical small business – they very well could be a worker co-op. A worker co-op is a business where the workers have ownership of the company, and significant representation on the board of directors(“What Is A Worker Cooperative? – U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives”). While some criticism of worker co-ops from a communist or socialist view exist, they are generally seen as a more socialist approach to the typical small business model.

I couldn’t find direct confirmation that Watcher is a co-op. One point against them being one is the use of titles such as CEO and Owner, but these designations could simply be for tax and paperwork reasons. Watcher is an objectively small company, they have between 25 and 30 workers, and most people cite them currently having 27 workers, but in the past they have employed interns and I am unsure of if they currently have interns on board so I am going to stick to the range. It would be incredibly easy to have a worker co-op with 25-30 people, you wouldn’t even need voted representatives; everyone could just be on the board and contribute to decisions. I figured the next best approach would be to see what the roles on Watcher’s shows are – if Steven, Shane, and Ryan contribute significantly rather than just showing up and looking pretty on camera, then there is a good chance they might be functioning as a worker co-op more than a traditional business or small business.

To do this, I decided to look at Watcher’s largest show for each co-owner. This means Ghost Files, Mystery Files, Puppet History, and Steven’s food series. These numbers broke down as follows:

Ghost Files: Ryan is listed as a Creator on all Ghost Files videos. Ghost Files Debriefs do not have writers, so that role will not be held against them on those videos. Ryan and Shane were listed as a Host and an Executive Producer on all videos, but neither ever held a Writer, Editor, or Sound Mixing role.

Mystery Files: Ryan and Shane were listed as a Host and an Executive Producer on all videos, but neither ever held a Writer, Editor, or Sound Mixing role.

Puppet History: Shane is listed as a Creator on all Puppet History videos. He is listed as a Host on all videos, an Executive Producer on all videos, Writer on 4 videos, and never held an Editor or Sound Mixing role.

Steven’s Food Series: Steven is listed as a Host and an Executive Producer on all videos, but neither ever held an Editor, or Sound Mixing role. This show does not require a writer so this will not be held against him.

*Do take these numbers with a grain of salt, I wrote this while in class so its possible that I missed something.*

Looking at those numbers, the main three do predominantly just film, but I don’t want to devalue the work that goes into being on camera. They are still generating capital by acting, I simply wanted to clear up confusion I had due to seeing people say they edited every Ghost Files video. From what I can see, they don’t do the editing, but as executive producers they likely have to review every video before it goes out. I also still can’t fully come to a conclusion on if the company can be considered a worker co-op, but I believe it is a standard small business – aka, the petite bourgeoisie.

All of that leads to the final point – the way that people only began to view the three lead Watcher members/founding members as “the rich” after the announcement of the streaming platform shows the way that leftist theory has become divorced from some of its meaning. I saw several people arguing “you guys can’t recognize the rich”/”you guys would attack doctors and lawyers under the guise of eating the rich,” and yes its true that doctors who work in hospitals are proletariat, but if a doctor opens a private practice or a lawyer opens a private firm, does that render them more bourgeoisie or more proletariat? At what point do the petite bourgeoisie become a part of those who we disavow? I don’t actually have answers to these questions, and I’m sure people much smarter than me or better versed in economics have written on this (one source I found that seemed good while I was skimming it despite its age is this one https://www.jstor.org/stable/2083291?seq=3 ). I didn’t make this point to argue one point over the other on whether Watcher counts as “the rich,” but more to focus on the way that term gets used. The argument could be made that we could have started questioning Shane’s anti-capitalist beliefs the moment he helped start a company, but we didn’t. We only started to criticize him on the basis of hypocrisy after the announcement and its out of touch comments. This raises so many questions about how we use the term “the rich” now – does it refer to anyone we dislike who is financially stable? Has the term become completely divorced from its original meaning? Or were we being hypocrites all along? Has Watcher Entertainment always been incongruent with Shane’s implied political beliefs? Is there a certain point at which the petite bourgeoisie become a part of the financial aristocracy? Or is that term only relegated to the industrial bourgeoisie, is it reserved exclusively for those in financial positions that no artisan could ever hope to reach?

Is it possible that both arguments are correct regarding the Watcher boys, and all other members of small business ownership and management positions? That they are both “the rich” but not a part of the proper bourgeoisie?

I don’t know. I find it fascinating though.

[kbookblurbs]

Tress of the Emerald Sea - Brandon Sanderson

5/5 - refreshing main character; well worn, familiar, comfortable plot beats; more fun worldbuilding!

Tress of the Emerald Sea is easily my favorite of the Cosmere secret projects. Much as I felt watching later MCU projects, having a book that stands largely on its own, with minimal references to other lore, and a wonderful sense of whimsy is not only a fun and approachable new entrance to Sanderson's writing, but also a nice change of pace from his other works.

The plot beats feel quite familiar because they feel somewhat like a fairy tale and the book actually benefits from this. The journey that characters are undergoing, the dogged attempts to be better and to grow and to understand how they're changing is something that is so sweet and reliable to watch.

Tress is also just a breath of fresh air among Sanderson's protagonists. Not that the others can't be kind or inspiring or protective of those they love, but Tress is all of these things to a fault. She cares for those who she's never met. She's practically overflowing with empathy for everyone around her, abhors lying, and finds herself comfortable with herself as she's changed. I do feel that Sanderson is relying a little heavily on romance at times, but having the romance be something secondary to Tress as the plot progresses was something very dear to my heart.

I know that some people dislike Hoid's narration style, but I personally find him funny. I think he also functions as a bit of a mouthpiece for Sanderson's own ideologies at times, and while I could see how that would be something to critique as a monologue or as preaching, it feels very appropriate for the character. Plus, many of the things he says poke fun at the tropes of the epic hero dramas that Sanderson is so good at - it's important to me that he's able to laugh at himself a little here.

Finally, I must profess I am obsessed with the idea of a sea of spores. And not one sea of spores, but twelve, all of which have different growth patterns and effects. Turning water, something to vital to life, into something dangerous here adds a really delicious sense of tension to the novel. The fear is also something that's easily based on something people are familiar with - if you've ever seen a documentary on ant zombies or watched The Last of Us, you'll have lasting worries about fungal infection.

[roguesynapses]

Hi!

I am a Marxist-Leninist, but lately I have been thinking about getting closer to anarchists. First and foremost because my local communist organisation behaved absolutely inhumane lately (anarchists are also not perfect but not that bad, or at least they seem so), but I also admit that anarchist criticism of ML asks questions that I also wonder about.

So like, can you share some readings on anarchist theory and practice for someone with ML background?

If you have enough spoons to waste on me, here is what made me associate with ML:

(Break is weird because I do it to separate main part from addition)

Mostly just the fact that out of people around me they were making the most sense when discussing current affairs and history, but also like most of the available alternatives range from liberals who literally admire Hobbes as great hero to open fascist (both Hitler and Mussolini types, I live in such a diverse society), so it's not hard. Also like the only revolutions that lasted more than a couple of years were ML in nature, but also all of those states while achieving things eventually decayed and gave birth to elites of their own, so like, there is something wrong with the scheme. Also as I said I care a lot about history as a foundation of my beliefs, and Marxists make the most sense out of it, but also even more advanced versions than Engels have plenty of what I assume to be blind spots. It's mostly some distant stuff like how feudalism is in no way successor to Ancient world and not as universal as it "should" be, but any failure to explain something in the past makes someone's prediction of future questionable.

I can recommend a few introductory books, though they are not by all means the be all-end all of anarchist thought. Anarchism is a widely spread ideology, and especially at its intersection of socialism, and opinions differ from theorist to theorist, even if basic principles are mostly agreed upon. Keep that in mind as you explore further.

Anarchy Works by Peter Gelderloos is probably the most popular introductory work, and explains the basic principles quite nicely, although in my opinion it does contain some inaccuracies, policies I don't support and glosses over some points which should be explored more.

An Anarchist FAQ is not so much a coherent theoretical work, but is rather an exploration and rebuttal of frequently asked questions from a social anarchist perspective. It's by no means perfect, and does not claim to be so. Personally, it's a little mutualistic for my tastes, but there's good stuff in there.

Anarchy by Errico Malatesta is far closer to a classic piece of theory, if a short one, expressing the positions of a committed Anarcho Communist and one of the most prominent theorists of modern Anarchism. Although Malatesta is against syndicalism more than I would be, it's still a great introductory work.

Anarchism and Other Essays by Emma Goldman is seen as a pivotal work by many in explaining the philosophy of anarchism, as well as offering a contemporary view of anarchist theory at the previous apex of the movement at the turn of the 20th century.

As for history, many social anarchist at least largely agree with the Social view of history Marx postulated in broad terms, though there is heavy debate and disagreement on the finer points. Digressing from that, Kropotkin's Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution is probably the widest distributed work of the intersection of anthropology, history, and anarchism, even if it uses outdated terms and phrases. Debt: The First 5000 Years by David Graeber and Against The Grain by James C Scott both explore the early history of states, with the former going more into economic value theories and the latter going more into the history and causes of the state itself. Scott's other works critiquing the state (Seeing Like a State and Two Cheers for Anarchism) are also quite good, which is impressive considering he does not call himself an anarchist.

If you'd like to discuss one on one, you can message me here or on my discord, I'll be happy to discuss. Happy reading, friend.

[misterbitches]

Hi, I'm not a native English speaker at all, my lever is probably B1-and-a-half at best, but I was very interested in your most recent WTPR post. I've read the entire thing, sometimes using a machine translator. I understood some things, but I still want to ask, because I can't understand what's your point is – that we should or shouldn't apply red/green flag criticism to the non-Westen media? Because I saw your other WTPR rebblogs and you seem to enjoy the drma

Hi! Aw, thank you for reading. I have some learning disorders so it must be extra hard for people who aren't fluent to understand. My brain works so fast.

My point was that it's ok if people are concerned about green/red flags and that we shouldn't get so upset when that conversation comes up. particularly because the way younger people (like gen z young) process things has become much more stratified from material reality and packed into signifiers. that we should take time to explain properly why we have interpreted a work a certain way or why, while acknowledging unsavory elements, we can still like it.

however i do think that people should look at the contradictions and complexities in these works. we should encourage people to learn how to break down what they're ingesting and interrogate the merit behind it particularly as it relates to sociopolitical economy if they care about "the left" or progress.

i think that the idea of 'green/red flag' and what to "avoid" is limiting but i think that people ask this question so they know if they want to put time into connecting with people over a particular work! so really it's a "don't get upset people are pointing out any 'problematic' element because we are living in a destructive world where we eschew sacrifice because we need comfort."

i also am saying that there's an idea idea that asking about problematic elements means that someone has no frame of reference or ability to break down what they consume with regards to art is a very white created problem because white ideology makes people fear questioning the problems they either created or exacerbated. so asking questions or being concerned becomes an oppressive action instead of a concerned one while being self-conscious that you aren't combating what was enforced upon the colonized enough by rejecting said concerns (hope that makes sense).

whiteness requires action from critique to be solely intellectual; a process of the mind as opposed to altering actual reality in our (non white) image. when interrogating elements that could potentially be unsavory instead of asking why it has outsized importance when we are concerned about women/people's wellbeing via culture becomes worse than the actual concerns of women...that's a problem.

if messages do not matter then it doesn't matter about anything that is shown; then we do not suffer so why on earth would it matter? and the explanation that "it's fictional" is simply not enough anymore.

also i'm dead i saw your tags "i think i understand what theyr'e saying but i also dont" story of my life :'( im so sorry lol

[roobylavender]

This whole thread is so....

https://twitter.com/orikkunn/status/1754831427903074488?t=WbVE9Fu585pxZFXPbr_JlQ&s=19

It's pissing me off actually and I search the word hijab on their account and in one of their tweets they said "I think hijab is a bad thing" ??? I need non-muslims who speak on Islam without any knowledge to stfu

i'm going to apologize beforehand if this is upsetting in any way bc i'm sure you were expecting a different response but while i feel like op's wording could have been better in this thread specifically—i like their wording in this thread more—i do generally agree with them. i definitely understand there's a gut reaction to any critique of islamic practices esp in the context of modern orientalism and islamophobic sentiment, but i also think that muslims (and people of any religious faith, really) can simultaneously acknowledge that some criticisms of faith, while driven by racism and/or xenophobia, are also validly driven by a worthwhile contention with women's material circumstances over the course of history. in the other thread i linked above i think op is very much correct in that it's not constructive nor useful to criticize individual people. many individuals do choose to dress more modestly of their own volition and are privileged enough to have that available to them as a choice and nothing more bc of the environment they grow up in and the familial interpretation of religious tenets they're taught. but i don't think people are wrong when they acknowledge the larger context within which women are advised to dress modestly and how those standards of modest dress compare with those imposed on men in comparison. there's an undeniable dichotomy there and at least in my islamic upbringing i've been taught that the way some of these things diverge along the lines of gender is preordained and not meant to be perceived as inherently oppressive towards one gender or the other. a thing is simply bc it is. but religion isn't really something you can view within a vacuum much as that would be ideal. it is connected to the material circumstances of women in the real world and i do allow myself to sit with that reality even if it's weird to process at times bc i still consider myself a muslim and have no plans on ex-communicating myself

personally i like to dress modestly in the sense that i don't wear very exposing clothing. i've grown up wearing pants for my entire life. my parents are lax enough that i'm allowed to wear t-shirts but i can't wear anything where my armpits are directly exposed so that means no sleeveless tops. i can't wear anything with a deep neckline either unless i have a higher positioned undershirt on underneath. and again, i'm not particularly bothered by any of that. i do toe the line on a few occasions but generally i'm ok with how i dress bc by now i'm used to it. that being said, i know the reason i've come to be okay with dressing this way is bc it's how i was taught to dress, and towards the specific end of maintaining modesty and emphasizing on the shape of my figure as minimally as is possible without having to outright wear a bag lol. that is at large a structural reality of muslim practice towards women, regardless of what individual women choose to do in their own homes where they have the liberty to choose. and as i mentioned above, i do think we have to sit with that reality even if we acknowledge it opens us up to abuse by other people who may not have the best intentions. this is why, for example, i've really come to frown upon the way ex-muslims (esp when they're women) are almost mocked by the extant muslim community for logically reacting to patriarchal oppression under the guise of religion. bc at the outset, materially, there is no choice presented to these people. and even if there is ideologically a choice within the tenets of the religion itself, with respect to women in particular, there is still a defined gender dichotomy and hierarchy that cannot be denied and that is quite regularly used to perpetuate the oppression that many of them try to escape

what's hard to do and what requires a knowledgeable, concerted effort on our part as muslims is trying to balance the nuance of the oppression we are accessory to against the nuance of our own oppression for who we are. it's certainly cruel that we have to do so much to parse all of this because racist, xenophobic imperialists are incorrigible people who will co-opt anything if it's beneficial to them. but all the same, we do have that responsibility at minimum. we have to learn to sit in the uncomfortable reality that while many of us as individuals may choose to practice the way we do, that choice may yet be colored by how we grew up within organized religion, and it obscures our ability to recognize that while we think it's a choice for us as individuals, it's certainly not a choice on a structural level, and that's something we should vehemently argue against maintaining the status quo of

[hxhhasmysoul]

bro get over ur 'performative feminism' idiocy 🙄 personally, i think half of ur analyses r shit but i can still find valuable or at least respectable commentary in them, just like i can find valuable or respectable commentary from those 'performative feminists.' as i should. bc thats how critique and discourse needs to be approached. just bc u can write a rant and do research doesnt mean ur arguments will be worth anything. and theyre prob not worth anything if u cant even respect the ppl ur addressing

I have to tell you, I’m fucking fascinated by this. There’s just so much here.

This will be an honest attempt at interpreting this, a long and at times quite serious reply to your rather unserious anon. 

What is the point of sending this, anon? When I get anons like this, I can’t help but muse what prompts their authors. 

1. I mean the least charitable interpretation would be that you want to insult me but in a way that to you subjectively upholds the pretence of respectability or intellectualism? 

2. Or maybe your goal is to actually encourage me to change my behaviour?  

3. Maybe you want to educate me on the proper way to do fandom “discourse”? Or on the merits of the philosophy you present here?

Any of those? None? All of the above a little bit? 

______________

If option 1 was your sole objective, I’d say it works only as an insult. The tone of your ask is all over the place and it doesn’t really match its content. If I were writing this, I wouldn’t have called my analyses “shit” and the “performative feminism” “idiocy” while chastising me for lack of respect for the opinions of others. I don’t mind you matching my lowbrow energy and tone, it’s just that in my opinion you contradict your point by going down to my level.

Maybe something closer to this:

“(...)the phrase ‘performative feminism’ doesn’t have a place in proper critique or discourse(...)”

“(...)I find half of you analyses poor quality, unwarranted or downright wrong(...)”

______________

If you were aiming for 2 exclusively then, alas, shaming and condescension doesn’t work on me at all, for personal reasons. 

______________

Third option is the one actually fascinating to me. You’re not the first person here that would be trying to lecture me on how there is a right approach to fandom “discourse”, namely your way. But you know, why not. I too hold very strong beliefs.

There are two issues with this working, though.

1. I don’t find your argument internally coherent. I will try to interpret what you’re saying, to show you how I understand it. Which may be completely contrary to what you were trying to say.

2. If my reading of what you’re trying to say is close to your intentions, I sense that we’re not really close ideologically and we don’t share values. 

1. 

The way I understand your last sentence is that according to you an opinion loses its value by default if it doesn’t meet some respectability standards. 

Yet a few sentences up you claim that you manage to find some “valuable or at least respectable commentary” in my rants, I’m not 100% sure which rants do you mean exactly here. All of them? Or just those that are “shit”? How can you find value in something that you seem to consider to be by default void of value? 

I’ll be real, idk what “respectable commentary” could possibly be, but if I show no respect to the people I address, then how could my commentary be respectable. 

This confusion is also amplified by the mismatch of tone and message. Because according to the rules you laid out I should disregard what you’re saying completely, because how can your arguments be worth anything if you aren’t showing respect to me. 

2. 

And here we come to the clash of values. 

The way I understand yours, is that you subject yourself to fandom takes that you find low quality or wrong because that’s the right thing to do. That according to you we should all strive to find something positive in all sides of an issue. 

It reminds me of the centrist political “both-sidedism” almost turned into an art form. And centrism irks me because I’m a nasty lefty, a social justice warrior. I’m very far from the so-called “centre”, which in real politics is usually just non extremist right wing ideology. I will use “leftism” as an umbrella term here for various ideas, both economic and social, including feminism. It's a very reductive approach but in this case I don’t think a distinction is needed. 

Social media platforms can have a heavy political slant, and fandom Tumblr on average slants left.

The problem is that in many cases it’s image building and not true understanding of the issues that comprise the political leaning. It’s using, but more often misusing buzzwords and appropriating language, sometimes in active attempts to render words or terms meaningless. All in the pursuit of maintaining the image of being “for the good things and against the bad things”. It’s a performance.

Performance that is self perpetuating because the people, who indulge in it, will pressure one another to express “correct opinions” on whatever is the hot topic of the hour. To always be available for outside scrutiny. Those people feel obliged to have public opinions, and have them fast.

Fandom and social media are a funny territory where petty arguments about characters or plot choices get mired in real world political topics and ideologies. While it is true that art is always political, political criticism usually can’t be nailed down in one catch phrase. And it definitely can’t be done without honestly engaging with the text and the context it exists in. 

In the JJK Tumblr tags you will find a shit ton of posts, no longer than a paragraph, usually no longer than a single sentence, that call Gege a misogynist, that say that “Gege hates women”. And they will usually use one argument for that, namely that female characters die in JJK. Or more recently, that they are irrelevant to the plot. Both these takes stem from bastardisation of academic discourse surrounding female characters in fiction. They are in bad faith, they show that the person reflexively regurgitating them has no desire to engage with the text seriously and probably doesn’t know where such considerations came from, or understand how they functioned in their original context. But sometimes you will see more dedicated clout-chasers, who try to write meta posts on the misogyny in JJK without having a basic understanding of feminism, just trying to string together popular hot takes. Just to show that they don’t “mindlessly” consume media, that they are not afraid to criticise it and its author, an all out a woman hater. Show it in the most vapid and thoughtless way possible. 

That’s why they are a performance. And this performance is to build the image of the op as a feminist, a "Tumblr good person". That’s why they use the trappings of feminist critique. That’s why I call it “performative feminism”. 

An important thing to understand about me is that I don’t treat leftism as a zero sum game. I believe that political movements, organisations, people and works of art, can be doing some leftist things right and some wrong. That perfection on this is impossible. But there are also non negotiable issues, issues that you can’t really do a bit right, because human dignity, safety and livelihood is at stake. For example I’m not interested in listening to people who will condone genocide, I don’t think I should try to find value in their arguments. But I also don’t find value in reactions to genocide that dehumanise and use genocidal language towards a different group, even if a subset of that group is committing genocide. For me genocide is a non negotiable issue. I don’t respect people who try to perform support for genocide victims by justifying genocide others. People who instead of donating to relief support, or promoting relief support and direct pressure on government, chase clout by shouting out their vile opinions under the guise of supporting the victims, regardless whether they understand their own bias or not. 

But you may say that I’m exaggerating, using a real life issue to illustrate my disagreement with your values, when maybe you were just limiting your philosophy to fiction. But my character flaw is that I’m very principled. Especially when it comes to my grander principles trickling down to more trivial stuff. 

I don’t think I should respect people who appropriate and misuse feminist language to chase social media clout. I don’t find any value in their behaviour. I find it actually harmful. It reinforces this trend in first world leftism that activism can be done by yelling the right buzzwords on social media. Especially the right buzzwords about popular media. That activism and social critique doesn’t require engaging with the ideas, interrogating their own preconceived notions. That it makes them a “good person” when they misuse academic language to shit on a work just because it’s popular, just because they want the clout of an intellectual who can see through the mainstream. While it’s painfully obvious that they have no idea what feminist critique academic or casual is, or what the words they abuse mean, or what modern feminism even entails. 

Can you see how funny it is? This idea that they can position themselves as above the mainstream, as the betters of those who enjoy mainstream, by reflexively regurgitating the most popular hot takes. And this lazy behaviour is purely voluntary because no one has to have an opinion on everything. It’s actually impossible to have an in-depth and well researched opinion on everything. So if you don’t have the time to do research, or to even properly familiarise yourself with the work you have the very valid choice not to. Have the choice not to parrot a hot take for the sole purpose of performing activism. You have the choice to just divert your attention elsewhere, towards things that you will engage with in good faith. 

Because this kind of bad faith approach can lead to darker things. Because you can actually make yourself believe that your behaviour isn’t just a vapid social media act, you can convince yourself that you’re on some moral high ground, that you’re actually fighting against evil.

If Gege is a misogynist, if they hate women, it means that they are actually vile, a bad person and it’s ok to use violent ideation while writing about them. This is normalising dehumanisation for clout points. Priming yourself for viewing people and situations like this.

Gege is kind of an abstract entity for these people, it feels harmless because, come on, they will never meet Gege. And obviously this is all hyperbole and they wouldn’t really get violent. 

I witnessed it in real time when a group of people in fandom decided that my friend was a bad person. Over trivial fandom shit. They dehumanised my friend amongst themselves and proceeded to attack my friend for months, until they left Tumblr. Attack them in racist, misogynist and queerphobic ways, while claiming it’s okay because my friend is an actual evil person, they are actually dangerous for existing in the fandom. And also their attacks are okay because they are PoC/queers/women and as members of these groups their behaviour can't be racist, queerphobic or misogynist by deafault…

You also misunderstand my actions towards those people. I’m not engaging in “discourse” with them. This is not academia, I’m not an academic. I’m pushing back against their behaviour. I’m expressing my distaste towards the groupthink. I’m not pretending to be respectable because I don’t think their behaviour deserves respect.  

This is the crux of our disagreement, anon, our values don’t align.

[female-malice]

Read this thread about cult social relationships by Matthew Remski:

When you deconstruct harmful ideas and beliefs—from antivax positions to reactionary social views—you will inevitably be seen and felt as attacking the relationships that people form through those views. That’s a big problem in a lonely world, and there will be blowback. 

In anti-cult theory and journalism, this alienation is usually seen as unavoidable. The idea is that the relationships within a toxic group are transactional, unfulfilling, and fragile. The gamble is that the person will wake up into wholesome relationships outside of the group.

That may work out. Or, the person will crawl out of a mid-level engagement with NXIVM and find themselves in late stage capitalism looking for gig work, missing the friends they had on the inside, and the sense of shared purpose.

This analysis can scale up: It’s been helpful for some to look at QAnon, the Trucker Convoy, and antimask protestors through a cult studies lens. All the boxes get ticked: information silos, emotional manipulation, charismatic leaders and their failed prophecies. But there is never a single explanation and the activities within these groups are diverse. It was dangerous for antivax parents to open mask-free homeschool spaces when the schools had to shut down. But the reason for the school was the outer layer on what it felt like to be in the school, or teach in it.

In researching an antivax parenting group on IG, I saw they posted about their parties and playdates in politicized language. They were also parenting at the time, doing all the things that parents do. Shooting criticism into that space will feel like an intimate attack.

There was a lot of disgust at the Convoy crowd for partying on Parliament Hill. But pissing on snow while rave music throbs can signify bonds that may outlast any incoherent ideology. Which is why the same group will cycle through different ideas. The ideas may be fragile.

The most dangerous bonds are locked in with fascist hatred and must be resisted. But most participants are not leaders, and not monetized. Many of the yoga and wellness people I interviewed had no idea how toxic the views of the leaders were. But they did feel they had friends. 

These groups are diagonalist, distrusting all power structures, including (maybe most of all) an interpretive power structure that would discredit their views without knowing or valuing their relationships. 

The truckers hated Trudeau’s position on vaccines and fossil fuels, but they may have hated more what they saw as his smug privilege and mastery of national hypocrisies. He stands outside and above their society and friend circles, like Clinton using the word “deplorable.”

There’s an amazing passage in Naomi Klein's Doppelganger where she basically asks Why should we be shocked that after decades of neoliberal cruelty and individualism, people will say Fuck you to the “elites” who are suddenly asking them to act like we’re a society after all?

I think this problem scales further, with different political valances, up to broader critiques of religion from rationalists/skeptics, where the target is low-hanging fruit: crazy shit people believe. The collateral damage is usually a neglect of social desires and needs. 

Currently there’s this question floating around about how so many former members of rationalist and skeptic movements, and IDW influencers, slid rightward and conspiratorial in their politics. Many answers there, including: “They might have always been like that.” But one answer is that when Hitchens guts Mother Teresa like a fish, there’s schadenfreude, but no more clarity around the diverse reasons for what people experienced when they gathered around her. The charismatic religious is taken down by the charismatic debunker.

And what is left over, aside from lonely smug men? Are people forming real communities of solidarity and resilience through Sam Harris’s meditation app, or in Bill Maher’s garage? Is there a single pro-community initiative that has emerged from this commentariat?

If not, could this be because they never really took an interest in the day-to-day lives or shared needs of the people whose ideas and beliefs they preferred to snigger at?

I’m not debunking all debunking here because we’re all doing what we can. But I am advocating for a more social and anthropological approach, an approach that offers more than “follow the science” or “develop critical thinking,” or anything else that implies stupidity among people who need friends and meaningful work. We all guffawed when Ron Watkins, pretty much caught out as Q, gave up on the LARP by saying “Maybe QAnon was all about the friends we made on the way.” It was a POS statement for a POS dude to make.

But he wasn't all wrong. That’s the thing about grifters. They exploit a social vacuum progressives often think they can fill with irony. They wrap their followers in flags or ideas, but in that huddle there are real connections that have to be understood and not dismissed.

–

This is very relevant when dealing with cults on all sides of the political spectrum.

Most young people are wrapped in colorful flags and anti-scientific homophobic ideas pushed by big industries. But they also find community through those flags and ideas. No young person wants to be outcast by their peers.

And then there's the people who deny climate science and oppose catastrophe mitigation policies. These people also find a powerful form of community. They are uniting through a shared relationship to the land. The relationship they all share with the land is toxic and misinformed. But uniting over your shared perspective and feelings about land is powerful. Human-land relationships are neglected by modern neoliberal society. But solastalgia is now causing everyone to reach desperately for that human-land connection. And we're all coming up with different perspectives on land and forming social groups around those perspectives.

[kelly-danger]

I actually kinda agree with radfems in that I dont think that the terminology or idea of a "cisgender" person is particularly meaningful. Like "cis men are this, cis women are doing this". I mean if manhood and womanhood truely are just the roles built on the 'discursive foundation of sex' or whatever the hell Judith Butler says, then why are we involving biology in it? Are trans people not ocupying the role that you are critiquing? Are they not the gender they identify as? But then the Butler stuff can cause there to be offence taken when discussing things that deal wholly with sex such as male and female socialization for instance, which I beleive in generally speaking. I guess it depends on the way a person defines "cis". Like if cis is described as people "identifying with the gender of thier birth sex" then the overwhelming majority of gender critical feminists online are not cis (and take offense to being described with the term justly imo) ...a good amount of the people I know in life who would generally be called cis do not strongly identify with thier birth gender. So like idk i have yet to encounter a perspective to reconcile with this. I think terfs generally discount the role aspect of gender and focus on sex too much to the detriment of the feminist movement, and then I also think ""trans ideology""" focuses too much on the role aspect while refusing to reflect on issues relating to sex, which is, after all, the 'discursive foundation on which gender is built' and shouldnt be discounted. Idk i identify as male and a woman (at least ive become/am becoming one, to an extent... in a simone bouvoir kind of sense) and so I dont really feel like I have a home in either of those ideological frameworks.

[1time2study4ravages]

some comparative notes regarding Ravages

for some time, The Ravages of Time has been discussed and appraised in relation to Kingdom, but usually the conversations tend to highlight more superficial elements (one is harder to get into, the other looks more exciting, etc.), so this short post will try to look at some topical and thematic differences especially when it comes to the matter of 'war and peace' (I'll throw in Vinland Saga as a third wheel to enhance or more like pad the discussion)

Kingdom (especially as the narrative perspectives have matured in the late game) leans in on unification discourse as its main thrust (to the point I've joked about how the manga is basically the sort of propaganda piece Qin would have wanted to disseminate), and while the series does acknowledge the complications and suffering that result from state intrigues and invasions there's an emphasis on 'getting things over with' (with the right leadership who can handle the burdens and respond to the times using appropriate methods of conquest/conversion) for a fresh start (in a sense this does mirror rhetoric and arguments in favor of imperial or hegemonic dominance as the way to bring various peoples to heel and stop them from fighting, though there's also a bright utopic side to this in that unification is supposed to mean bringing the whole world together with shared standards and common prosperity)

Vinland Saga (once one can get over the allure of the prologue and get into the more serious drama that comes later) can be summed up as a search for longstanding diplomatic coexistence in a war-torn world of feuding factions (ironically enough the story is only made possible because of already existing not-too-hostile networks of selective interaction plus the story sort of glosses over a lot of medieval ideological fixtures and fixations, but the tragic point still stands that the quixotic quest to radically overcome the conditions of enmity has yet to be accomplished), and although the foregone conclusion highlights how peaceable relations can all too easily break down (and not even due to some simplistic antagonism between tribes, but more due to a pileup of factors that lead to misunderstandings and distrust) there's also the flip side (more like the cold comfort of 'the friends we make along the way') that amicable interpersonal outreach across differences can break out through a variety of channels

Ravages on the other hand... well, it doesn't quite cling to the grand promises of unification (in the best case scenario it's a lesser evil and a noble lie that requires a whole lot of scheming and violence to maintain) and it takes the world of warfare and statecraft for granted as the normal course of things (so there's less emphasis on principled peace projects since the various factions try to backstab and one-up one another, and the shared methodology boils down to pragmatic pacification through manipulation), and though the series is by no means a shining example of 'anti-war' literature (there's still too much glorification of heroic violence coupled with devious stratagems, and regrettably the spectacular gimmicks can occlude whatever critical message) Ravages nonetheless stands out by providing a relatively ruthless immanent critique of war machines (and elite regimes at large), not just through some subversive glances here and there (the incessant interrogation of history-making and loyalty discourse and morale management, among other things) but more importantly by its excessive emphasis on how dirty the business of 'war and peace' can get under the mismanagement of the ruling strata (too bad Ravages stops short of declaring a more radical political horizon and thus can end up reinforcing the 'cynical common sense' of elite-centered perspectives, but I guess Chen Mou's 'moderation' helps shield the series from further censorship so there's that perk)

[basedkikuenjoyer]

I finished another novel right before the end of the year, one I figured would be good but ended up surprising me. We by Yevgeny Zamyatin. And I can solidify it's importance really quickly. George Orwell cited it as a huge influence on his landmark 1984. Huxley denied it being one on Brave New World but that's been disputed and notably the big feminist dystopian authors like Margaret Atwood and Ursula K le Guin have a lot of good things to say about this one. We was written by a Russian author during the very early days of the Soviet Union. Which gives things a very different tone if you keep in mind he's writing this well before the most brutal years with Stalin. This one is much more about taking the Bolshevik ethos to it's logical conclusion mixed with a pretty heavy critique of religion. The shared space of ideologies trying to create a "perfect" society.

What does that look like in practice? We don't see as much brutality in the United State. A city under a great glass dome where everyone moves according to a very orderly schedule. The apartments are all glass as well, there's no privacy aside from brief scheduled sexual encounters and it's all very stable, very sterile. Where I feel this one really shines is in the mindset of our protagonist, spaceship engineer D-503. It made me realize right away how other dystopian heroes are often written to be relatable to us to the point they don't always make sense if the world's been like that for a while. Like, it makes sense for June in The Handmaid's Tale because Gilead is still in its early stages but D-503? He feels very appropriately alien to the reader. The writing style to convey this really makes We stand out, because he describes things so mathematically and like someone who has only known this society that existed long before him. Makes it a little harder to read, but the book is also broken up into 40 very digestible journal entry chapters so it balances out.

All in all, solid piece of literature. Has that element of a lot of foundational pieces in a genre where the norms it didn't set really stand out. I feel like especially if you look at the newer wave of dystopian YA fiction there's been this trend since 1984 of focusing more and more on the gore and the appeal of following revolutionary zeal because we all want to stand up against something. Which isn't a bad thing but it takes away from the critique of modern society the genre is supposed to be. Not saying it's a fault of The Hunger Games, but have you ever noticed how popular that series is with people today who are completely unable to recognize they themselves are championing the elements of our culture it criticizes? By being willing to be less accessible, having a protagonist that really feels like part of his world, We nails it better than anything else I've come across.

[cin-cant-donate-blood]

I don't think it's "bourgeoisie ideology" (sic) per se (you can just say capitalist, btw, it's easier to spell, too). Obviously it's interesting that the game mechanics often run specifically around managing a small business, but farms are small businesses in the modern era, and nobody romanticizes being a medieval peasant so if you want to romanticize the rural life you have to make it modern rural life, to contrast it with modern urban life.

So what are some interesting things we can learn from this?

Firstly, these escapist games tend to identify a duality: on one hand, we have urban life, modern misery, and wage slavery (e.g. the Stardew Valley intro cutscene). On the other hand, we have... what exactly? A petty bourgeois fantasy? I'd argue that it's mainly a dream of autonomy and simplicity. While you do play as a small business owner in most farming games, the main attraction is obviously not property ownership per se, but on one hand autonomy and on the other simplicity. You want to escape the complicated, roundabout way your real job works. Perhaps your urban wage slave job is, and I hate to use this term, a bit alienating and you don't fully understand who benefits from it even existing. Farming is not simple, but the tasks in farming games are, and more importantly what you're doing is simple: you're growing food – the thing everybody needs to survive. The task is clear, its context and purpose is clear, and nobody is telling you how to do it.

Do you get it now? It's not a "bourgeoisie fantasy" (sic; yes I'm gonna keep clowning on you for using the noun instead of the adjective because you chose the more complicated word to sound smart despite not knowing the difference), it's a number of fundamental human needs, filtered through a romantic fallacy.

I'm using romantic in the 19th century sense of the word by the way: wretched urbanites dreaming about a basically imaginary countryside idyll, a la Young Werther, or anything by Emily Dickinson.

So, should we take the romanticist binary of wretched city life and idyllic country life as basucally true? No. There are many advantages to living in a city, of course: it is far easier to meet new people and to have an active social life, the impact on the environment per capita is less than that of rural life and especially suburban life and it is easier to push yourself out of oppressive social situations like a toxic family life or an insular religious community.

The reason city life tends to be so wretched in pop culture (dating back all the way to the romantic movement and all the way forward to today) can almost entirely be blamed on the wage-cage: ironically a hell most rural people must suffer as well. Perhaps to an extent it can also be blamed on perceptions of crime and poverty; as cities are more interconnected types of community, failing social systems become more readily apparent. In the country, the poor suffer silently and out of sight; in the city, they sleep on your sidewalk – or straight-up steal your wallet.

Cities are a symbol of capitalism. Many clumsy critiques of capitalism made by people not willing or able to strike at the very heart of the peoblem thus find it easy to fantasize about countryside idyll. The same type of person is also likely to fantasize about gaining autonomy through property ownership rather than any other means, since this may be the only path to self-actualization they can actually imagine.

So what should you want? Would it really be so bad to work at a burger joint and rent an apartment if you were paid enough to live a fulfilling life? If your manager was elected by you and you coworkers and there was no franchise to answer to? If you knew that the food your were serving was good for the customers? If your apartment had more than one room in it? If your rent was at most ten percent of your income and you knew it went to maintaining the building and not to enriching your landlord? If forty hours per week was the most you ever worked, if even that? If you didn't have to worry about insurance and healthcare? If you could afford to go to the bar with your friends? If you had the time, money and energy to have a social life? If you knew that even if your job shut down and you were out of work, everything would still be fine?

*whispers* it's the bourgeoisie ideology

[theabstruseanon]

I'm so tired and I made the mistake of wading into 🎲2️⃣0️⃣ discourse posts so dont expect the following to make much sense LOL

I do get the narrative critiques of it not feeling like the themes of rage/interrogating rage/countering rage are being engaged with on a sliding scale from effectively to at all (idk if said interrogation of rage mechanically was hinged on only the rage tokens but thematically yeah I do get the critique re ep19 there).

For example it's like on one hand I did like how quickly they shut porter down because yeah his ideology is the kind that sounds justified on paper but then in praxis all he's doing is selfish destruction. On the other I really wish they had a philosophy-off with him about one of the core central themes of the season LOL. Also navigating the fandom balance between [it's interesting mechanically that trg fight was so one sided as commentary on how trg cut corners while still 'acting entitled' (tho tbf. This is really only kippelilly)] and [god I wish the fight had more juice or narrative payoff because of the role trg were set up to play as rivals and foils who gave into rage].

Re trg, Im just musing on how it feels like the banality of 'evil' is actually applying to them at this point. They were manipulated teens who were unfairly forced to accept a horrifying cosmic deal. Theyre characters who are selfish and jealous and willing to hurt others and gave in to these base emotions for personal gain which is the aforementioned banality. Their emotions are being heightened by the rage.... We're pretty sure? Again we only really actually see this in action with kpl, which is unfortunate and I think one of the main reasons why this is such a hot bed LOL (that BC they lacked on screen substance ppl are filling in the gaps with stronger narrative hc's that they're now attached to which makes sense. Fanon Buddy you will always be legendary to me LOL).

Trg really are in a strange narrative position to me too BC like ppl have pointed out even despite the bad rolls it wasn't for lack of trying that the players tried to engage with them earlier on before switching focus BC of a combination of bad rolls and the NPCs being rp'ed as hostile/uninterested. It's like how much of a role (not just plot wise but mainly thematically wise) were they actually supposed to play. So significant yet insignificant unfort.

But regarding the themes of rage yeah, it's been kinda all over the place to me narratively. I think the start of the end was when the players were like. Won over by Porter's teaching for a while like 'wow he did make sense' msmsmsm like noooooo 😂. The rage thing is so pervasive yet also feels so disconnected often which yeah improv hard to juggle themes and u can't edit things for clarity and adherence of narrative but overall I do wish they had more time to engage with this overarching season theme. It's certainly no TUC American dream for me.

I want to say that the diff btw Tbk rage and the general 'rage bad' is that we're meant to see Tbk rage as being protective, but that's just me projecting a layer of meaning on it 😂. I'm not as broken up about how the narrative theme feels kinda weak but I do see where this critique is coming from. It's like, on the meta narrative level it feels disconnected/unsatisfying that the rage of trg is narratively punished but the rage of Tbk is so far narratively neutral or rewarded when the theme specifically is /rage/ regardless of who has it, regardless of whether there is dnd combat going on or not, and BC trg were set up to be foils to tbk. The fundamental basis of the critique is different between the people using in-verse explanations and the ppl making observations about the overarching meta narrative. I know I reblogged posts that counter the critique (well mainly focusing on trg discourse) but personal enjoyment aside yeah. Things I would edit if this was a script LOL

The final thing is the perennial critique of the violence inherent to dnd and the more academic literary critiques of the fetishisization/glorification of violence but to that I am taking off my critical analysis hat because I like dumb shounen action violence in stories sorry for being a bad leftist 😔 (big neon sign that says: I am being tongue in cheek). I get that it's coming up a lot again esp for this season cause it's the "we should self reflect on the nature of rage" season but yeah.

[hospitalterrorizer]

diary233

5/5-6/2024

sunday - monday

read an interesting thing about ai,

there it is, the thing.

i think it says a lot of what i tend to say about ai, things i've said here though in a very different way, the convergent regions are that ai as it is talked about tends to wash away involvement of humans, both in the creation of the data, which she notes here as being consistently and always ideological/ideologized. it is also a kind of labor often ignored or rather we use the sheen of technology and development to imagine it away. beyond this convergence, there is the other that ai is not inhuman or outside the human, but that it is of the human, informed by it and importantly, now informing it. the author writes:

"Computer vision doesn’t learn to see like humans, but the other way around; the task of labeling vision datasets conditions our seeing."

this is not to say, i think, that our involvement in the development of this supposed/fantasized outside makes us inhuman, or whatever, i think the point, for me at least, is precisely that this is the writing of humanity, the creation of new disciplines, a new monologic formation , or perhaps simply, nothing new, the classically monologic, formation, yes this is better, this is right i think, that develops the category and science of the human. we are defined in the negative by the creation of the outside, the outside enables us to act in certain ways by washing hands of intent. as she describes here these systems which might merely suggest killings are in truth, using categories and annotated information already labored upon and spat back out, to offer direction to killing. everyone is signing off on things, sanitizing themselves of the act. this is then, the human.

she says as much here

"Due to cultural depictions and the imprecise and fantastical language we use to talk about it, we have reified AI as something outside of us, something alien and inhuman summoned from elsewhere which strains towards the phantasmagoric goal of ‘approximating’ human intelligence, and that is what is incorrect and dangerous. It is perhaps one of the most human of engineering systems we have ever built. If we want to form a coherent critique of technology, capital and militarism, it is then even more important to be clear-eyed about what we mean when we say ‘artificial intelligence’—without metaphors, anthropomorphization or alarmism—given the seriousness of the stakes."

it develops, fashions, enables the human to go on, the processes of the enlightenment subject, the rationality we assume, so on and so forth. under this monologic gaze, madness becomes less and less a form of life, and more and more it becomes a problem as one might see in the ai, the metaphor develops that beyond the norm lies error, rather than refutation. it is not solely a technology of, maybe barely even a, efficiency

perhaps my biggest disagreement here would come from her rather well stated though maybe, missing something, argument that ai is mostly this nothing-apparatus. i do think that, in its math, it does something beyond enable these awful decisions, this laundering (she says eventually, against myself here: "I’m not trying to say that AI is in itself just a conceptual cheat"), it does something. nothing good or defensible, mind you, this connects to my sense of it as a custodian of language, creating the possible of expression, creating the norms and measuring them and ensuring they are spat back out. we are not training it, we learn from it, from our supposed outside which observes from vantages we feed it, that we maybe lose sight of because of some sort of, idk, through so manay apparatuses the evolution of the system i guess makes it easy to lose sight. this is likely intended. i suppose the custodial aspects aren't special to ai, rather that it is a technology that enforces the human while expanding the human capacity, labor becomes mechanized in one's self interest, one's mind turns to the norm as repeated and safely guarded, again, repetition here becomes important i guess. scattered thoughts dealing with computer stuff as i speak (going well, though).

a final point, relating to this quote which i will pull:

"The excessive pride over our domination of the natural world with technology leads to the delusion that humanity encounters itself and only itself everywhere it looks; a species-level narcissism which appears to be reflected in, for example, the hand-waving we do in order to relate artificial neural networks to the biochemical mechanisms of the human brain."

i think here is a missing opportunity though i know the author is not fond of tiqqun as far as i am aware (i think more regular-ish marxists tend to dislike them because they can be... anarchists, i guess, i d k!!). but what she outlines here is without a doubt part of the cybernetic hypothesis, that nature is a system, is one, and that humans being of nature are another system, via the elucidation of, research into, the science of / creation of technologies to measure these systems, "ai" becomes possible. this is nothing short of the creation/refashioning of the ideal of the human into something more utile, or rather, the taking up of the project of the human as something to extract more out of. the cybernetic hypothesis when thinking of this narcissism of the vision of nature and worldly / bodily / existential functioning/living becomes indispensable i believe.

i want to put a pin in this article and come back tomorrow maybe. it is very ripe and i am not getting my thoughts out as i would like, but it is very very true, in most ways. and it's very useful for me as a referent.

another thing from today, that i have lots of odd feelings about.

i tend to be fond of birardi, here i don't think much less of him, for the most part, though i must say the end is rather odd. i think it's easy to respond to it kind of uh, not as well as he'd like. is what i might say. really it feels mostly like his point might be semi-salient but to put such little hope into, or to assume that everyone has no faith in, hamas. it just comes off as someone who doesn't really entirely get, as i do not entirely get, the factions of the region or islam. i can't suggest i know anything beyond the fact that i really feel it is impossible for me to assume much of what discourses go on over there or what they know or think. my windows into that are limited, i would like to know, but basically so much of what circulates comes off as totally racist and islamaphobic that you have to be pretty guarded when these discourses appear.

as i write that, i see in my yt recs, visiting the most dangerous country on earth, afghanistan. no comment really beyond, why be so awful.

alright, the system image thing didn't work (dumb of me) but whatever. i think i can figure something out. i can basically get most everything back, and then i need to just... re do a couple things. should not be too much.

beyond that, i was just watching cutie honey episode 1, the old 70s one, it really is just better than kill la kill in every way.

i also watched one of the violence jack ovas. i didn't expect so much. it was kind of insane and terrible and stuff but really good also. so that was fun. i kind of want to rip bits out for a music vid.

anyway, that's a lot of stuff done today, and time wasted basically buuuut... tomorrow things should be better with the computer. it seriously stresses me so much when it doesn't work, i got drenched with sweat!! i was like panicked and stuff and it made my hair all screwed up kinda and stuff. i hate it but it'll be okay. i will figure it out. i have to!!!!

i simply have to

so with that,

byebye!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[aftonfamilyvalues]

This is a huge ramble of me mostly tooting my own horn so feel free to ignore, but I honestly do my best work as a crypto. I’d love to be out and proud about it, but I’d lose my job and that’s the primary way I’m able to help other women the most. I’m good at finding ways to translate radfem ideas into more acceptable language, getting other women thinking about them without feeling like they’re committing a thought crime, and then slowly working through it until they start to use the words that actually apply to their experiences (female, woman, misogyny, etc) instead of the TRA terminology. I got my entire libfemmy gender studies class from “sex work is work!” to genuine critiques of the existence of prostitution. I got multiple women involved in my college’s trans org to come around on trans women in female sports, in female prisons, so on. TRAs are telling the truth when they whine about how us “cis bitches” and “nb afabs” and “straight” trans men are always one conversation away from going terf. The key is using trans inclusive language only as long as they do, setting up the conversation and letting their common sense fill in the gaps for what you can’t say. When in doubt, if you need to get a discussion on misogyny going, just say whatever the problem is must be even worse for trans women. The goofier you sound saying it, the better, because every woman you’re talking to will think “how the fuck would this particular issue affect them more than me.” Be a well meaning, safe feminist who knows her shit about the theory and how men work but seems to only get her knowledge on trans issues from the assumption that trans women truly are just like us, and the women around you will peak themselves trying to figure out how someone who’s so ideologically sound on every other issue could possibly think trans women are more oppressed by abortion bans than actual women. That’s the problem with a movement based on language policing and denying reality, all it takes is a good public speaker with some political savvy to play into it while actively leading people away. The one time I got accused of terf rhetoric because one guy got mad I’m openly anti porn, I had a dozen trans and pronoun in bio people going to bat for me. By the time four of them realized I actually was one, they all were too lol

exactly! i think a lot of women are in the dark about these sorts of issues. the whole "sex work" thing for example, theyve been told that these women WANT to do it! and porn? well they have this notion that its all consensual, it doesnt hurt anyone, its actors and actresses doing a job! but once you start to expose hoe cruel and fucked up it is, a lot of them come around. when that was me, my thought process was i didnt want anyone discriminated against, i didnt want anyone hurt, i just wanted people to be able to do what they wanted and live their lives how they wanted as long as it didnt hurt anyone. i still think that way but learning the truth about how these thing are harmful, it changed my outlook on these issues. i wish i could redo college with what i believe now, i can think of a few class discussions i would have completely flipped changed.