#you cannot effectively critique a system if your fix it is to just Work the system!!!! you need to contest it!! and if not then just dont

[ssaalexblake]

Dan Lewis Is a damn icon for going 'actually I have a ton of things to make me want to be at home and not dead' and then leaving, effectively resigning his position as low-key relationship councillor and the guy voted most likely to die because he's the third wheel.

So refreshingly angst free.

[whitehotharlots]

Privilege Theory is popular because it is conservative

Privilege theory, as a formal academic thing, has been around at least since 1989, when Peggy McIntosh published the now-seminal essay “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.” Even within academic cultural studies, however, privilege theory was pretty niche until about a decade ago--it’s not what you’d call intellectually sound (McIntosh’s essay contains zero citations), and its limitations as an analytical frame are pretty obvious. I went through a cultural studies-heavy PhD program in the early twenty teens and I only heard it mentioned a handful of times. If you didn’t get a humanities degree, odds are it didn’t enter your purview until 2015 or thereabouts.

This poses an obvious question: how could an obscure and not particularly groundbreaking academic concept become so ubiquitous so quickly? How did such a niche (and, frankly, weird and alienating) understanding of racial relations become so de rigeur that companies that still utilize slave labor and still produce skin whitening cream are now all but mandated to release statements denouncing it? 

Simply put, the rapid ascent of privilege theory is due to the fact that privilege theory is fundamentally conservative. Not in cultural sense, no. But if we understand conservatism as an approach to politics that seeks first and foremost to maintain existing power structures, then privilege theory is the cultural studies equivalent of phrenology or Austrian economics. 

This realization poses a second, much darker question: how did a concept as regressive and unhelpful as privilege become the foundational worldview among people who style themselves as progressives, people whose basic self-understanding is grounded in a belief that they are working to address injustice? Let’s dig into this:

First, let’s go down a well-worn path and establish the worthlessness of privilege as an analytical lens. We’ll start with two basic observations: 1) on the whole, white people have an easier time existing within these United States than non-white people, and 2) systemic racism exists, at least to the extent that non-white people face hurdles that make it harder for them to achieve safety and material success.

I think a large majority of Americans would agree with both of these statements--somewhere in the ballpark of 80%, including many people you and I would agree are straight-up racists. They are obvious and undeniable, the equivalent to saying “politicians are corrupt” or “good things are good and bad things are bad.” Nothing about them is difficult or groundbreaking.

As simplistic as these statements may be, privilege theory attempts to make them the primary foreground of all understandings of social systems and human interaction. Hence the focus on an acknowledgement of privilege as the ends and means of social justice. We must keep admitting to privilege, keep announcing our awareness, again and again and again, vigilance is everything, there is nothing beyond awareness.

Of course, acknowledging the existence of inequities does nothing to actually address those inequities. Awareness can serve as an important (though not necessarily indispensable) precondition for change, but does not lead to change in and of itself. 

I’ve been saying this for years but the point still stands: those who advocate for privilege theory almost never articulate how awareness by itself will bring about change. Even in the most generous hypothetical situation, where all human interaction is prefaced by a formal enunciation of the raced-based power dynamics presently at play, this acknowledgement doesn’t actually change anything. There is never a Step Two. 

Now, some people have suggested Step Twos. But suggestions are usually ignored, and on the rare occasions they are addressed they are dismissed without fail, often on grounds that are incredibly specious and dishonest. To hit upon another well-worn point, let’s look at the presidential campaign of Bernie Sanders. The majority of Sanders’ liberal critics admit that the senator’s record on racial justice is impeccable, and that his platform would have done substantially more to materially address racial inequities than that being proffered by any of his opponents. That’s all agreed upon, yet we are told that none of that actually matters. 

Sanders dropped out of the race nearly 3 months ago, yet just this past week The New York Times published yet another hit piece explaining that while his policies would have benefitted black people, the fact that he strayed from arbitrarily invoked rhetorical standards meant he was just too problematic to support.  

The piece was written by Sidney Ember, a Wall Street hack who cites anonymous finance and health insurance lobbyists to argue that financial regulation is racist. Ember, like most other neoliberals, has been struggling to reconcile her vague support for recent protests with the fact that she is paid to lie about people who have tried to fix things. Now that people are forcefully demanding change, the Times have re-deployed her to explain why change is actually bad even though it’s good.  

How does one pivot from celebrating the fact that black people will not be receiving universal healthcare to mourning racially disproportionate COVID death rates? They equivocate. They lean even harder on rhetorical purity, dismissing a focus on policy as a priori blind to race. Bernie never said “white privilege.” Well, okay, he did, but he didn’t say it in the right tone or often enough, and that’s what the problem was. Citing Ember:

Yet amid a national movement for racial justice that took hold after high-profile killings of black men and women, there is also an acknowledgment among some progressives that their discussion of racism, including from their standard-bearer, did not seem to meet or anticipate the forcefulness of these protests.

Kimberlé Crenshaw, the legal scholar who pioneered the concept of intersectionality to describe how various forms of discrimination can overlap, said that Mr. Sanders struggled with the reality that talking forcefully about racial injustice has traditionally alienated white voters — especially the working-class white voters he was aiming to win over. But that is where thinking of class as a “colorblind experience” limits white progressives. “Class cannot help you see the specific contours of race disparity,” she said.

Many other institutions, she noted, have now gone further faster than the party that is the political base of most African-American voters. “You basically have a moment where every corporation worth its salt is saying something about structural racism and anti-blackness, and that stuff is even outdistancing what candidates in the Democratic Party were actually saying,” she said.

Crenshaw’s point here is that the empty, utterly immaterial statements of support coming from multinational corporations are more substantial and important than policy proposals that would have actually addressed racial inequities. This is astounding. A full throated embrace of entropy as praxis. 

Crenshaw started out the primary as a Warren supporter but threw her endorsement to Bernie once the race had narrowed to two viable candidates. This fact is not mentioned, nor does Ember feel the need to touch upon any of Biden’s dozens of rhetorical missteps regarding race (you might remember that he kicked off his presidential run with a rambling story about the time he toughed it out with a black ne'er do well named Corn Pop, or his more recent assertion that if you don’t vote for him, “you ain’t black.”). The statement here--not the implication: the direct and undeniable statement--is that tone and posturing are more important than material proposals, and that concerns regarding tone and posturing should only be raised in order to delegitimize those who have dared to proffer proposals that might actually change things for the better. 

The ascendence of privilege theory marks the triumph of selective indignation, the ruling class and their media lackeys having been granted the power to dismiss any and all proposals for material change according to standards that are too nonsensical to be enforced in any fair or consistent manner. The concept has immense utility for those who wish to perpetuate the status quo. And that, more than anything, is why it’s gotten so successful so quickly. But still… why have people fallen for something so obviously craven and regressive? Why are so few decent people able to summon even the smallest critique against it? 

We can answer this by taking a clear look at what privilege actually entails. And this is where things get really, really grim:

What are the material effects of privilege, at least as they are imagined by those who believe the concept to be something that must be sussed out and eradicated? A privileged person gets to live their life with the expectation that they will face no undue hurdles to success and fulfillment because of their identity markers, that they will not be subject to constant surveillance and/or made to suffer grave consequences for minor or arbitrary offenses, and that police will not be able to murder them at will. The effects of “privilege” are what we might have once called “freedom” or “dignity.” Until very recently, progressives regarded these effects not as problematic, but as a humane baseline, a standard that all decent people should fight to provide to all of our fellow citizens. 

Here we find the utility in the use of the specific term “privilege.” Similar to how austerity-minded politicians refer to social security as an “entitlement,” conflating dignity and privilege gives it the sense of something undeserved and unearned--things that no one, let alone members of racially advantaged groups, could expect for themselves unless they were blinded by selfishness and coddled by an insufficiently cruel social structure. The problem isn’t therefore that humans are being selectively brutalized. Brutality is the baseline, the natural order, the unavoidable constant that has not been engineered into our society but simply is what society is and will always be. The problem, instead, is that some people are being exempted from some forms of brutalization. The problem is that pain does not stretch far enough.

We are a nation that worships cruelty and authority. All Americans, regardless of gender or race, are united in being litigious tattletales who take joy in hurting one another, who will never run out of ways to rationalize their own cruelty even as they decry the cruelty of others. We are taught from birth that human life has no value, that material success is morally self-validating, and that those who suffer deserve to suffer. This is our real cultural brokenness: a deep, foundational hatred of one another and of ourselves. It transcends all identity markers. It stains us all. And it’s why we’ve all run headlong into a regressive and idiotic understanding of race at a time when we desperately need to unite and help one another. 

[ronnytherandom]

I forgot to watch content all week so i wrote about games ive been playing

9/2/2021: The Truman Show

You should fear your fears but embrace them and use them to guide you into the unknown, to explore and experience what life has to offer. Fear stands between you and the fullest experience of life so you must pass through it to better yourself. Heed not the walls built about you and the chains made to hold you. Though the architects insist it will preserve your life, containment is anathema to life. Do not take in faith the benevolence of powers that be; instead trust those who would support and liberate you, guide you through fear and into life.

As best I can lay it out, I think this is the philosophy of the Truman show but there is so much more to read into it also. There is critique of systems of commodification and celebrity (i.e. capitalism) reducing human beings to a consumable good as well as encouragement to find and pursue your goals despite adversity and even sensibility which is also tied to the illusion of economic responsibility. You can’t put a camera inside a human head, you can never “know” them without being an active and intrinsic part of their life, but also there is need for reciprocation. If one half exists with ulterior motive then the entire relationship is rotten; sincere humanity is what creates real connections. Without such your world is fake. A world built around one person is a world where no one can truly live. All these actors have given up basically their entire lives for the sake of watching Truman have his life built around him by outside forces, have allowed themselves to be commodified and dehumanised for the good of one man, Christoph. The man at the top has delusions of grandeur and thinks only of his own bottom line, he cares not for his subjects but simply wants them to do as he tells them because it benefits him to commodify their lives and interactions. Even then he cannot stand to lose control and in seeking to demonstrate Truman’s “realness” he structures his life so thoroughly that eventually there’s no reality left, only a script and adverts. But the people watching still empathise with Truman because everyone in the working class understands what it is to be trapped because real life is our own Truman show and one day we must all pass through fear, step out of the dome and create a real life for ourselves outside of the system of commodification which consumes everyone’s life and removes all realness and sincerity and emotional catharsis from it.

I unreservedly love this film.

14/2/2021: Assorted Game Reviews

Horizon Zero Dawn (Unfinished due to technical issues, 45 hours inc. parts of Frozen Wilds): This game is really cool and really fun. I think it is defined by its incredible setting which somehow creates a fresh feeling post-apocalyptic environment. Said environment creates intriguing alt-future lore and some very interesting environments to explore. I love the machine designs (especially tallnecks!) and was very sad to hear one of their contributing artists passed away recently but I’m glad their work lives on in this visually stunning game. I’m a sucker for Ubisoft-style open world games simply because it tickles a certain kind of itch and somehow this non-Ubisoft game has outdone Ubisoft on their own formula, which is hilarious, but also good for me as running around this world exploring and clearing map markers is engaging fun. Not least because of the combat. I have a minor criticism here that the combat feels slightly awkward on mouse and keyboard, the arrows never seem to go where I’m aiming, but aside from that the experience of fighting is a grand one. Enemies never lose their threat and I love the weak spot system the game employs which makes every tool useful in niche circumstance and rewards curiosity. It specifically manages this in a way that I feel the Witcher series could learn from if it ever returns; by making head on assault less viable and encouraging tactical hunting. I do feel this system makes hunting robots so fun that by contrast hunting humans becomes a chore however, though I noted this improves in the dlc with the addition of humans with elemental weaknesses limited in number as they are. I cannot speak for the story in entirety but what I encountered was pretty good, though I feel as if it was only just really getting going at the point where I could not continue. I find Aloy to be a compelling and well portrayed protagonist and though I can guess about her origin and the ultimate end of the alt-future apocalypse I still want to see how it plays out on screen, so will return to this as soon as I’ve fixed it.

Rimworld (122 hours. Familiar with but do not own Royalty Expansion):

Rimworld is one of those super special games that I don’t think I have a single problem with. Fair warning it can be brutal and is heavily dependent on RNG but this allows it to create truly unique and interesting scenarios on a constant basis. In the wider perspective it could be described as formulaic, with regular cycles of managing the settlement between raids and random events, but the devils in the details. Colonist traits, health and skills dictate how you play and sometimes you’ll be forced to adapt as some colonists simply refuse to perform some tasks. The depth of health particularly amuses me, in that each little part of someone’s body is modelled in a way. If you’re in a firefight you may take a single bullet which grazes your finger and you’re fine. Alternately it could pierce your human leather cowboy hat, your skull and kill you instantly and the game will tell you exactly what happened. The risk/reward element is addictive enough, and that’s without accounting for just how cool it is to see your colony slowly expand. Establishing more and more options for crafting is fun and shows off the full range of different items in the game which is fucking extensive. Between clothing, weapons, armour, sculpture and drugs to name only a few you have the opportunity to create many varied production lines either for your colonists or to trade for money and there is a lot of fun to be had here as well as it is quite satisfying to see psychoid you have grown personally become the cocaine your colonists snort to help them stay awake on limited sleep. From an archaeologist’s perspective it is especially cool to look back over your base and see the hints of how and why structures were built and remember the history of your limitations and development through structure. I think the lore of the universe is really cool too, a very 40k-esque kind of place except with far less order, somehow. But the universe does an excellent job of feeling alive and moving constantly on both a planetary and interstellar level. You can fully believe that while you build wooden shacks to shield yourself from terrifyingly low temperatures there are simultaneously rich pieces of shit living it up on the glitterworld that’s one system over. The music does an excellent job of creating the wild west frontier atmosphere the game cultivates to great effect. Ultimately, for just being a grid with a series of different numbers attached, this game does a fantastic job of creating a compelling, brutal and very real colony management experience. I dont think I can properly put into words the grandness and scope of this one. I didnt even mention the modding scene, which is expansive and tailors to basically any need you could have. The Rim is a terrifying place but theres so much fun to be had.

Factorio (86 hours, mostly 1.1): Having completed a game of Factorio I can tell you reliably that this is one of the best games ever made, thoroughly addictive and fun. If you like numbers, logistics, TRAINS, its gonna be your thing. Not to mention its probably the only documented case of a game with no bugs (so far as official forums are concerned). Strictly speaking this games combat is not the most engrossing thing but good lord do you feel it when you acquire a flamethrower. The way each aspect of the game (production, research, logistics, combat, upgrades for everything therein) feeds into the next is a really well constructed balancing act such that you must experience the full game in order to complete it and I always appreciate this kind of design. I think its one of the best tenets of factory game design especially as its something present in Satisfactory too. Beyond all of this generalised good the game is also excellent in its intricacies, the architecture necessary to build a maximum efficiency base, the level of planning and organisation that can be employed is mind-blowing. Not to mention the mod community, factorion is already an extensive experience and some mad bastards have seen fit to complicate it further, hats off to them. This really is a great moment in gaming.

 Destiny 2 (198 hours, all expansions, played some post Forsaken release, mostly Season of Arrivals onwards, spent roughly £20 on microtransactions):

This is a very interesting and enjoyable experience, but I must say it can be a bit controversial at times. What its does particularly well is moment to moment gameplay and design in all aspects. The game is stunning; between environments, cosmetics, shaders ships and ghosts there’s a vast range of incredible things to see, all rooted in the “pseudo-magi-science” aesthetic it’s got going on. The class design is excellent and you really do feel like you embody this rampaging madman / agile gunman / space wizard archetype, whichever you choose to play. The abilities, especially supers, are very satisfying. Everything has heft and power behind it which can be felt in all aspects of design; sound and animation is top notch. Movement is cool, you can feel how fast you move both on foot and in vehicles and the navigation has a little fun subtlety depending on your class jump, even if you can bounce unpredictably occasionally. But for the love of god why is the wall kick in there? It has only ever served to push me from a ledge into a bottomless pit. You're looking to remove antiquated content? Start there. Some guns are not so good to shoot but there’s such a great range of guns that are fun its like complaining about one drop in an ocean; and enemies are fun to shoot at, each faction distinct in meaningful ways and presenting an effective challenge. Speaking of oceans, that’s one way to describe the lore. I haven’t dived too deep but it keeps going down forever and everything I’ve read is intriguing. As a former Elder Scrolls lore nut this is something I could definitely sink my teeth into, though its much more of a pulpy sci-fi vibe than a pure nonsense vibe. I do think the game has a bit of a loot problem, primarily in regards to the conflict between high stats and looking good. This should never be a conflict, and yes you can apply ornaments to any purple gear but that’s not enough when I spend the entire time grinding power levels and thus must change armour and weapons on a constant basis to progress. This game needs a true transmog system and if not that, rethink how gear power level works. Perhaps rather than earning new instances of gear you always possess a version of it and the loot you acquire in missions just upgrades your instance to your current overall power level? This would serve to do away with the current upgrade system which I think is a needless additional grind. Perhaps it could be retained in using enhancement cores to empower gear as present but necessitating a whole upgrade module to keep your favourite weapon on hand is kind of painful honestly. There is also at present the issue of sunsetting gear, mildly controversial to say the least. If it’s necessary to streamline the game and make it function moving forward so be it but surely loot pools should be adjusted so you can actually get useful loot from older locations? And why sunset personal instances of gear which can be acquired at the regular power level anyway? I had to throw away my favourite bow and hunt down a new version of the exact same weapon for… what reason? I do think destination navigation leaves a little to be desired also. I get that having a physical hub world is meaningful but Destiny does not have a very extroverted community; I can count the times someone noticed me in the tower on one hand. And its not even like there’s fun activities to be found in the same sense as say Deep Rock Galactic, which really does take advantage of its hub. Perhaps for players who simply want to go about their business all of the vendors could be set into a menu system where just clicking an icon takes you to their menu from anywhere in the system rather than, per se, having to go through an entire loading screen (Which takes you to orbit and back) to reach a location which serves simply as the front for four menus. These are established player problems. As a dedicated PvE player I can say that this game is immensely fun in combat and growing in power does feel really good. It’s something I recommend getting into, there’s just some very large creases that need ironing which the Bungie should really take the time to address rather than pushing out new in game content every three months.

[whetstonefires]

i thought the narrative did allow for sympathizing with jet and hama? hell, the narrative structure with jet and hama has their sad backstories and motives placed first, then after that they do things that make katara more and more uncomfortable until it gets to something horrifying. jet even tried to make a new life afterwards and his death is nothing but tragic. azula was introduced as a terrifying sociopath and wasn't given sympathetic attention until season 3.

Weirdly this ties in to some of the themes from the Vietnam War ask I just answered! Let’s see what I can do.

The thing is. You’re allowed to pity Jet and Hama, but they aren’t presented to us in sympathetic terms, no. We aren’t meant to empathize too closely with them, or even see them as immense tragedies. Jet’s death is sad, but it’s also a relief; it isn’t framed to stick with the viewer as even a major story beat.

We are explicitly discouraged from identifying with both of them; their role in the story is as negative examples, warning the main characters away from senseless violence and extremism.

Putting their sad backstories first and then following it with a Dark Twist actually works against making them sympathetic, because it means the motion of the narrative is away from them--we start out with a positive impression that gets worse, which leaves a much more negative psychological imprint than starting with bad and getting even a little better. It draws the attention and the story away from what was done to them and toward what they did, while the order in which Azula is shown to us moves the other way.

So their traumas are provided as context for their actions, though in a very outline version in Jet’s case, but they aren’t dwelt on; we don’t get into their heads and feel their agony with them; the narrative’s engagement with their motives is restricted to explication, and the assertion that their suffering does not justify their actions.

Which isn’t exactly wrong--they both were targeting noncombatants in a way that wasn’t likely to be terribly helpful to anyone, and that really is something that deserves warning away from because it’s very tempting when you have a lot of pain, and the proxies for your real enemy are so much easier to reach with the strength you have.

(Lateral violence is born from this process of reframing, though what they were doing was not that--they both were managing to target the actual group they had beef with, which is better than a lot of people in real life manage rip.)

But that’s a specific narrative choice that was made with these characters, to create them and deal with them as dark-reflections-in-the-world of other people’s (mostly Katara’s) wounded anger, and nothing more.

While Azula got a whole episode wherein the emotional arc of the A-plot centered largely around her feelings about her own social awkwardness and relationship with her mother.

And like. This is, for the most part, a side effect of Azula’s centrality in the story and her relationship with Zuko!

And of the way the Fire Nation royal family is used as a narrative microcosm of how the ideology behind Fire expansionism is toxic and abusive all the way down, and has to be dismantled.

So it’s not bad, exactly.

But it does mean that we’re encouraged to engage far more closely and in a much more nuanced manner with the self-image and lived experience of the homicidal, consciously sadistic young fascist from the industrially developed expansionist empire...

...than we are with the experiences and decisionmaking of the oppressed people victimized by the system of which she is a leading part. 

And that’s kind of a pattern in American media, and deserves to be pointed out and critiqued where it crops up. It’s kind of inevitable, but it would be better if it could not be an unmarked default.

The narrative, in part because of the perspective from (and to) which it was being written, can more comfortably engage with Azula’s experiences because they’re ultimately personal--they interface with the broader, institutional reality in terms of allegory and in terms of consequence, but they are built on and about, and can be discussed in terms of, the interactions of individual persons.

While otoh Jet and Hama’s formative traumas are institutional in nature--it was the Fire Nation as military power that took their families and their homes and the lives they should have had away from them; it was the Fire Nation as administrator of colonial-political prison that destroyed Hama inch by inch.

And how do you resolve that? How do you parcel that down and let that go and make peace within yourself, when the thing that destroyed you is still there in the world, still taking and hurting and still beyond your reach? It hurts and it expands as if to swallow the whole world, that question, that irreconcilable need.

Katara only comes to terms with her own, in-comparison contained, experience of being traumatized by that same institution by drilling down until it’s a grudge against a single human person, who isn’t worth it.

But of course it really was the Fire Nation that took her mother away from her. And that’s difficult. That’s beyond the scope of the children’s cartoon. So they lock it away.

And Azula is locked away in the end, too, but she’s locked away as a person, whom we came close to and watched very intimately as she broke. While Jet and Hama are to a considerable degree locked away as ideas, not allowed to escape the confines of their rhetorical roles.

Making Hama a serial kidnapper/torturer/maybe-killer and locus of horror, and sending her back to Fire Nation captivity in a community with every reason to hate and fear her, and abandoning the character there with no follow-up (except using her legacy as a characteristic of villains in the sequel series) was a narrative decision that the people writing Avatar made.

There were good reasons for it in terms of the plot and Katara’s arc and it was even good storytelling! It doesn’t Ruin Avatar and there’s not an easy fix for it.

But it was a decision, and it has reverberations in terms of the history of representation of institutionally wronged people and particularly indigenous people in American media.

Having Jet be first almost a straw man of a resistance fighter, then betrayed and victimized by his own people, and finally literally disposed of, and take his rage and struggle with colonial aftermath with him, was a choice that was made, and which also has implications and an impact on the worldbuilding.

It’s a children’s series, and it’s a plot that needs to be resolvable on Aang’s terms; there’s only so far they could pursue either thread, but those decisions--especially with Hama--carry a certain subtext, and stand in stark contrast to the depth Azula in all her glorious shattered monstrosity was permitted.

And it’s worth talking about!

I mean...Korra had a lot of writing issues, like the pacing and the horrible love triangle, but a major underlying one (at least in Season One I didn’t get any further haha) was that it tried very hard to get out of realistically engaging with the aftermath of colonial violence in any depth whatsoever, despite specifically choosing to set season 1 in a place founded on the aftermath of colonial violence.

You cannot have America without genocide and colonialism, and when you try to have expy-America without talking about the genocide and colonialism you already established in the setting...you’re shooting your narrative in the gut. 

And this situation was created out of the same limitations that let Azula be more human than Jet or Hama, and dug into the ethical complexity of her situation with far more care than either of them merited.

[liverpolitics]

Liverpool’s Metro Mayor Candidates 2021: All you need to Know.

Tomorrow, on Thursday the 6th of May, the Liverpolitan people will be travelling in droves to their nearest polling station to vote on the future of the Liverpool City Region.

Yes, the 2021 Local Elections are almost upon us and the residents of Liverpool, Sefton, Knowsley, Wirral, St. Helens and Halton boroughs will all be able to vote for the councillors who they want to see represent them in their local ward. This year, Liverpolitans will also be provided with a ballot that will allow them to vote for their preferred candidate for the region’s metro mayor.

The metro mayor was a role first established in 2016 under the Cities and Local Government Devolution Act and is a title that has only ever been held by Labour’s Steve Rotherham since 2017. Now while the Liverpool Metro Mayor does not hold the same powers as a First Minister or the Mayor of London, they do have a number of important roles vital to the cities development. The Metro Mayor is responsible for uniting Liverpool’s six boroughs and encouraging them to work collectively to better Liverpool’s economic and political position. Furthermore, the Metro Mayor has a duty, to the best of their ability, to attract investment and economic prosperity across the region. They also hold certain powers, such as the management of cross-borough services, like public transport. Hence, while they are limited in what they can do in comparison to other devolved positions, the metro mayor is instrumental for our region’s future development, whether that be economical, environmental or political.

This blog is intended to provide information on the Metro Mayor candidates to help voters make a more informed decision on who they want to see as the face and voice of the Liverpool City Region. Note: I do not intend to influence how the reader will vote, but I will be asserting my own opinions on the candidates, their policies, and the parties they represent. Furthermore, the policy information included has been taken from an LCR Mayoral Election 2021 guide in order to help readers gain a better perspective of the candidates.

Jade Marsden (Conservative Party)

Now being a Conservative candidate in Liverpool already puts Marsden at a significant setback. There has and still remains a long held stigma against the Tories dating back to Margaret Thatcher, as captured in the sentiment that “Scousers Hate Tories”. Though while one would seek to disregard Marsden from the get go, I must please ask you to hear what she has to offer to Liverpool before jumping to a conclusion.

Mrs. Marsden is a current resident of South Liverpool and formerly stood as the parliamentary candidates for both Bootle and Sefton Central respectively. According the Sefton Central Conservatives, Marsden’s “wealth” of experience of local politics would be beneficial in her ability to be a strong “Fresh Voice” for the Liverpool City Region.

Marsden strongly believes that it has been under Labour’s leadership that the LCR has been let down. As a result, we have missed out on key investment, transport improvements and well-paid jobs. Thus, the LCR needs a vision that delivers for future generations, offers a solution to air pollution and secures jobs and future investment. Marsden intends to offer this to Liverpool.

Is a Blue Liverpool the way forward?

Marsden, if victorious, intends to cooperate with Westminster to “get things done”. If she was to be elected, she would:

Not charge the Metro Mayoral Precept, part of the council tax that funds city region-wide services that the Metro Mayor is responsible for.

Ensure spending is widespread and not just focused on central Liverpool.

Lobby the government to make the region an urban national park to protect Liverpolitan green spaces and the coastline.

Work to end homelessness as we recover from the pandemic, as well as improve social housing that contains dangerous living conditions.

Improve regional transport connections.

Attract new investment to help out small businesses and the high street, in order to ensure that local people have good quality jobs.

Now while this may sound ideal, I do hold certain critiques of Marsden’s policy agenda.

First of all, the Mayoral Precept, as mentioned, is responsible for funding city region-wide services. Not charging it may allow tax payers to keep more money in their pocket, a possible benefit due to the impact of the pandemic. However, a cut to the Mayoral Precept will come at a cost for local services. Public transport, for instance, would lose out on funding as a result. This somewhat contradicts her pledge to improve regional transport connections.

Secondly, while the “urban national park” label may sound good on the surface, I cannot help but think this would put the LCR at a setback. Liverpool has beautiful natural scenery, the likes of Thurstaston Beach or Sefton Park is proof of this. Liverpool thrives on its green spaces. These spaces should be protected under law. However, I believe an “urban national park” status will put the city at a disadvantage. It is not clear whether Marsden’s urban national park intends to prevent development on disused docks in Liverpool or Birkenhead. Furthermore, there are well needed transport connections that would be vital for moving cargo to or from the Port of Liverpool. Liverpool’s urban development and economic prosperity cannot be jeopardised if Marsden seeks to attract new investment and create new jobs.

Yet there are key issues that I do agree with Marsden on. While the Liverpool name is the regional “brand”, investment has been too focused on central Liverpool. The city centre is thriving while town centres in Bootle, Birkenhead, Widnes, etc. are awaiting significant investment. However, Rotherham has only been in office for 4 years. Given time, he too could secure funding for locations beyond Liverpool City Centre.

Other things to Remember:

Above, I have chosen to insert an image of Southport town centre. Southport in the 2019 General Election was the only Liverpolitan constituency to vote Conservative, represented by MP Damien Moore since 2017.

Recently, Southport was awarded £37.5 Million in government funding to help in regenerating the town. This was one of the largest town deals that the government has agreed to. This money would allow the town to invest in existing attractions and all-weather attractions across the seafront, as well as attract new businesses to the area. It is believed that the masterplan will create 1,000 new jobs and it is predicted that Southport will enjoy a 1 Million increase in visitors per year.

This goes to show that there may be possible perks of having a Conservative representative for the region at a time where the Tory’s dominate Westminster. This may be something worth considering when casting your vote tomorrow. A vote for Marsden, may be a vote for an increase in Liverpool’s funding.

David Newman (Liberal Democrats Party)

Until recently, Southport local David Newman was not supposed to be the Lib Dem candidate for the Metro Mayor role. Newman “stepped forward” after the former candidate, Wirral councillor Andy Corkhill, was forced to withdraw because of his serious battle with cancer.

Newman understands that unlike other city region residents, he and his partner are fortunate to have a young family, work, own his own home and live a happy, healthy life. He identifies that others in our region are being left behind and he seeks to offer Liverpolitans a way to “Step Forward”.

Newman is offering voters to join him in creating real leadership in Liverpool and providing a real direction. Newman also seeks to tackle the climate emergency, fix the region’s broken transport system and provide hope for businesses effected by the Covid-19 Pandemic.

Are you ready to Step Forward?

Like all residents of the city region, Newman is aware of how our region has been tarnished by the actions of the city’s ‘political bosses’. It is the next Metro Mayor’s job to repair the damaged reputation caused by a handful of greedy politicians and ‘cowboy’ developers. Newman seeks to ‘clean up’ local politics and ensure that he is held accountable to the citizens of Liverpool.

Newman seeks to ensure that our region is welcoming, ensuring that all investments are ethical. He also seeks to launch a green recovery plan to tackle the current climate crisis. This would help in fixing the city’s reputation that Labour predecessors exploited for their own ends.

Newman also seeks to ensure no one in Liverpool, Sefton, Wirral, Knowsley, St. Helens or Halton are left behind. To do so, Newman intends to launch the UK’s first trial of Universal Basic Income (UBI) to put an end to the poverty that has plagued local communities. Newman also seeks to open up Liverpool to European and Global investment so that the city can once again be placed at the ‘Heart of the Globe’.

So what are Newman’s policies? For the purpose of this, I have divided his policies into four categories: Post Covid-19 Recovery, The Climate Emergency, Transport; A Global Region.

Post Covid-19 Recovery

Newman intends to deliver a new economic deal to create jobs, allow businesses to thrive and help out those in our community who have been left behind. He seeks to do this by:

Trialling UBI in Liverpool. Newman wishes to initiate a scheme that would make it so citizens would no longer have to rely on government welfare or the goodwill of landlords. Having UBI would make it so money is no longer an issue, it would allow people to learn new skills and bring an end to regional poverty.

Reinventing the High Street by introducing a number of services that people want and need, this includes child care and an expansion of hospitality.

Creating new jobs and allow for residents to develop new skills and undergo new training. 

Supporting Small Businesses and the Self-Employed by fighting for a rent relief fund for small businesses in debt and relief payments for self-employed without property.

The Climate Emergency

Newman believes that Liverpool has an opportunity to become a beacon for national and international governments on how to tackle the climate emergency. He seeks to do this by:

Creating a Green Recovery Plan which would ensure that all infrastructure plans and investments are in line with what is needed to address the climate emergency. Newman also intends to create a clear carbon budget and carbon reduction pathway.

Ensuring that all parks and green spaces across the region are legally protected to prevent future development on the land.

Investing in Clean, Renewable Energy by advancing tidal power and investing into more wind farms.

Ensuring the Port of Liverpool in Net Zero Carbon by finding a suitable, sustainable way of moving freight (not by road) and advocating for the halting of the importation of industrial-scale North American biomass.

Transport

Newman wishes to make regional public transport more accessible by reducing ticket fairs and increasing services to locations currently underserved. His transport ideas also go hand in hand with his desire for tackling the climate emergency. Newman would improve transport by:

Fixing the broken bus network and delivering on Steve Rotherham’s failed promise to introduce Bus Franchising. As well as Introduce more flexible season passes and tickets so journey’s that involve more than one bus are easier to make.

Improving the Merseyrail network by reopening lines that currently lack passenger services, building new station and making existing ones more accessible to disabled passengers. Newman also intends to push for further electrification of the local rail network and reuse the Wapping Tunnel to give Merseyrail access to the City Line.

Investing into more cycle paths and walking opportunities.

A Global Region

Newman seeks to cooperate with European and International partners to allow Liverpool to be a major player on the world stage. Newman intends to:

Work with Greater Manchester and Stormont to create embassies in European and Global cities to assist with the development of trade, industry, university links, etc.

Encourage London- based High Commissions and Embassies to create Honorary Ambassadors to Liverpool.

Work with our international football clubs and use events like the Grand National and Southport Open to showcase the region and seek new opportunities.

I must say, Newman has a lot of policies. The question is, can he realistically deliver them? Trialling UBI, further electrification of the rail network; building tidal and wind energy farms, etc. are all very costly projects. It is possible that Newman will struggle to accomplish his ideas given the financial restraint placed upon the city region.

Furthermore, his global city policies tend to be very Eurocentric, describing Liverpool as a “proud European region”. The Lib Dems should know by now that alienating Brexiteers tends not to work out very well for them. I believe that there should be a focus not simply on Brussels, but also on countries beyond Europe, such as Canada, the U.S.A., Japan, Australia, New Zealand, etc.

However, despite this, I am quite fond of Newman and what he stands for. I was particularly excited those for his transport policies as I for a long time have advocated for the reopening of the likes of the Wapping tunnel. It felt good to know that a metro mayor candidate shared this interest in disused lines. If you wish to read more of his policies, please visit: https://www.davidnewman.org.uk/

Gary Cargill (Green Party)

Actor Gary Cargill, known for his roles in Hollyoaks (2010-11,2013) and Peterloo (2018), is standing to be a Green Mayor (”For Everyone”) in the LCR. Cargill, Liverpool born and Runcorn raised, seeks to ‘turn the city region green’ and ‘inspire real long lasting change’.

His policies centre on the current climate emergency, thus prioritising environmental policies and protecting the most vulnerable suffering in our communities.

As a Green Mayor, Cargill promises the Liverpolitan people that he will:

Create new skilled jobs in Green Energy and Technology.

Build a clean, affordable transport system.

Invest in developing skills and training for young people.

Protect green spaces for future generations.

Establish a ‘People’s Assembly’ to ensure the Metro Mayor is completely accountable.

While all this sounds pretty generic and similar to previous candidates, Cargill goes a step further. Unlike his adversaries, Cargill discusses what he would do for each borough individually. This admittedly impressed me as he seems not to be focused on Liverpool collectively.

#GARY4HALTON - Cargill promises to push for an improved City Region-wide air monitoring system, particularly around sources of pollution.

#GARY4KNOWSLEY - Cargill wants to put Knowsley borough back on the map by making sure that local towns receive a fair share of regional investment and support.

#GARY4LIVERPOOL - Cargill will work towards having more safer and accessible walking and cycling networks. He also wants to develop cheaper and cleaner public transport.

#GARY4SEFTON - Cargill promises to protect Sefton’s green spaces from development and road building. He also wants to invest into more renewable energy along the Sefton coast, a valuable resource for wind a solar.

#GARY4ST.HELENS - Cargill wants to make sure that the Green Belt in St. Helens is protected. He wishes to stop local councils from building warehouses in Haydock, Bold and Newton which risk “destroying our natural environment”.

GARY4WIRRAL - Cargill insists that due to the climate emergency, the Liverpool region’s economic growth is not as important and cannot remain constant. However, Cargill wants to take advantage of regeneration opportunities, like Wirral Waters, to invest in a circular economy that provides Green Jobs in renewable energy and housing.

It is clear that Cargill, as expected from a Green candidate, is passionate about the Liverpool region’s environment. Of all of his ideas, my favourite is his idea for making use of the Sefton coastline’s valuable resources for solar and wind energy. 

However, I personally I see more flaws in Cargill’s policies than I see sensible ideas. Cargill has made clear that the climate emergency is the number one priority for Liverpool, even our regional economy is expendable for the sake of the environment. Environmental issues are undoubtedly important, but how does Cargill hope to fund his policies if he is willing to sacrifice Liverpool’s economic recovery?

This was also reinforced during his debate with Steve Rotherham where he openly condemned Liverpool’s free port status as a “Thatcherite race to the bottom”. Despite the opportunities for job creation and investment the free port could bring to Liverpool, he wishes to scrap it. As Rotherham commented, without this status, industries and opportunities will be exported to the North East. Liverpool cannot afford to pass up on investments like the Free Port.

From what I can gather, based on the policies I have seen and his appearance on the Granada Reports debate, the Greens are too one policy focused. This could be extremely detrimental for our region. Yet I could be biased, is a ‘Green Mayor’ the way forward?

Steve Rotherham (Labour Party)

The final candidate running for the Metro Mayor position is none other than Steve Rotherham who, tomorrow, is up for re-election.

Having held the metro mayor title since 2017, Rotherham promises to ensure that if he was to be elected once again, there will be ‘No One Left Behind’. Rotherham promises that he will ‘stand up for everyone’ across the Liverpool region, but how has his track record been so far?

During his time as metro mayor:

Liverpool (pre-Covid) became the fastest growing economy in the UK. Rotherham also points out his management to attain another £232 Million to fund transport, skills and tackling homelessness.

Public Transport saw Improvement. Northern’s stripped franchise aside, during Rotherham’s time as mayor, Merseyrail opened its first station in 20 years and claimed to have taken steps to take control of the region’s buses and rail infrastructure.

Young People were Helped. £48 Million was invested into upgrading school/college facilities.

He ‘Fought Injustice’ through spending £8 million to develop a Housing First pilot to tackle homelessness. He also supported 1,300 families into work.

He lowered the toll for the Mersey tunnels to the lowest it has ever been.

Was this enough for a first term? I argue no. 

In terms of transport, the new Merseyrail Class-777 trains are yet to appear on our lines. Whether or not their launch has been delayed due to Covid-19 or not, the metro mayor should have already launched the service to prove his commitment to a “London Style Transport System”. Furthermore, only opening one Merseyrail station in your first term is not an achievement. Maghull North was opened to the public in 2018, yet it took Rotherham until 2020 (his last year in office) to begin working on Headbolt Lane? I also have heard little about the supposed reopening of St. James Street. I don’t think this is good enough.

Also, as Newman pointed out, Rotherham has completely failed to deliver improved and nationalised bus services. In fact we are now “9 months behind Manchester” according to Rotherham himself. To put it simply, he failed to deliver on his promise that will Liverpool will be the first city outside of London to have a nationalised transport infrastructure. In fact, he has allowed Liverpool’s closest rival, Manchester, to get ahead in the fight for better public transport.

Speaking of Manchester, in 2020 the Republic of Ireland declared it would be opening a consulate in the North in order to “Strengthen our Bonds”. The contenders for this consulate were Liverpool and Manchester. You would think that Liverpool, given its history and much closer association with the Irish people would be chosen for the consulate. Yet, this is not what happened. Rotherham allowed, with seemingly little fight, for the consulate to go to our neighbour. One could argue that Andy Burnham has become the Mayor of Manchester and Liverpool.

How has he allowed for Liverpool to be outcompeted by our closest rival?

Now onto his response to Covid-19...

Rotherham claimed that during 2020, he took on Boris Johnson and Westminster to win more money to funding for testing, vaccinations and furlough. Though, I would have to argue that it was Andy Burnham who stood up for the people of the North. Rotherham was in fact nowhere to be seen. His track record is definitely something to be made aware of when voting for Metro Mayor.

No One Left Behind

However, while he may not be the ideal candidate based on his track record, it is still worth considering his policies before casting a final decision.

Rotherham, if re-elected, has promised to deliver:

A £150 million Covid Recovery Fund, double the number of Green Jobs and would work towards a more locally controlled London-style transport network.

A Guarantee to Young People that a job, apprenticeship or training opportunities will be made available for all school leavers within 6 months of becoming unemployed.

Greater control of the transport system with the new trains coming into service and tap-in tap-out ticketing being introduced. Rotherham also promises a cycle revolution.

A Green New Deal that will ensure that Liverpool leads the Green Industrial Revolution. He will double the number of green jobs, harness the power of the Mersey (invest into renewable energy) and ensure our region is on track to be net zero by 2040.

A Digitally Connected Region, achieved through the deliverance of ultrafast broadband infrastructure across the entire region. This would make Liverpool the most connected region in the country.

Now Rotherham does have some good policies. The question is can he deliver them?

However, it should be noted that Rotherham may not have to worry about re-election. As a twitter user put it, ‘Hitler could be a labour mayor and win’. The Liverpool region, despite years of neglect and being overlooked, is a Labour stronghold. This gives Rotherham a boost in his effort to be re-elected.

Closing Thoughts

I hope this article has allowed you to understand all the candidates in greater depth. The Metro Mayor is an important figure for our region and we must ensure that the right person gets the job. So, make sure you find the time to go out and vote tomorrow!

Best of luck to all the candidates!

[bellaslilpapercut]

vote AND...

So I’m seeing a lot of anti-voting posts again so I wanted to make this little post here to make my stance clear. (This is specific to the US) 

1. Voting IS important. Voting rights are constantly under fire in this country, from direct voter suppression to the stripping of voting rights from felons. If you can vote, you can do so strategically or you can vote for every down ballot option and leave the presidential choice blank (if you are strongly morally opposed to Biden). 

2. Voter turnout in the US rarely breaks 60% of the population because of voter suppression as well as a disillusionment with the US government. Low voter turnout and the electoral college contribute to the unrepresentative nature of our government. Despite the rising support for socialism in the US, very few of our elected representatives support socialist policies and ideals. 

3. The lack of political representation in our government can be aided by voting in every election (especially local elections! we just elected a socialist mayor in the primaries!) as well as by supporting term limits for congress members and the dismantling of the electoral college. As mentioned in the linked article, the supreme court will likely have the final say in whether the electoral college stays or goes so voting for the furthest left presidential candidate can also be an action toward abolishing the electoral college.

4. Voting is great and is also Not Enough. If Biden does win this election, many white liberals will return to their uncritical engagement in the political world. The Obama administration committed atrocities in the Middle East, continued vicious enforcement of the war on drugs, and did nothing to reform or defund police during the Ferguson and Baltimore uprisings of the 2010′s. We need to continue our activist work every day of the year, not just during election season. Every US president will be an imperialist war criminal. Every US president will be a capitalist. We need to be engaging in constant revolutionary work as well as working towards reforms that will make life better for the most vulnerable populations in the US and around the world (policies like the Green New Deal, tax reform, even Biden’s disability plan)

5. Protests and riots are not the only form of revolutionary work. You can start by educating yourself (which will be a never ending process) and sharing information with those around you. Here is a sub-list of other actions to take ranging from personal to communal. 

 A. To my fellow white people- learn to interrogate your internalized racism without becoming a mess of White Guilt TM. Learn to interrogate your past mistakes from a place of forgiveness and accountability (meaning: do not beat yourself up for being indoctrinated by a racist society but do not expect every Black and non-white person in your life to absolve you of your past actions).  

B. Once you have learned how to sit with the discomfort of your past bigotries, learned how to actively interrogate racist, sexist, ableist, transphobic, etc. knee-jerk reactions and impulses, you can begin holding the people in your life accountable as well. If you are white and your family poses no danger to you, TALK to them about their internalized racism. It takes a lot of long, patient, understanding conversations, but it works. My own father went from actively condemning the Baltimore uprising to telling me just this year that he understands that riots are an effective path to change. Do not frame these conversations as “call outs.” Calling someone out is not the same as accountability. True accountability means that YOU believe that the person you are holding to account is capable of change and deserving of the chance to grow and learn. The linked article above (linked again here) gives a decent starting point for how to go about changing someone’s mind. Try it with your friends who may have expressed some bigoted views, conservative family members, basically anyone who you know personally. 

C. Donate to mutual aid funds, bail funds, Indigenous peoples, and houseless folk in your own community. Many people on here are already doing a great job with sharing information and donation links. Let’s keep it up! It doesn’t feel revolutionary but strengthening communities is a radical practice. Everything about capitalism and the US is meant to isolate us, to keep us trapped in a nuclear family structure, to distrust our neighbors and communities. It is radical to help one another. 

D. Learn to live your politics. If you believe in a system based in an ethic of care, practice kindness as a discipline. Continuously critique your own political views and strive toward ideological consistency (ie if you believe in prison abolition, the solution to police brutality CANNOT be throwing cops in prison.) Read and study always. 

E. Take a break from global news and even federal news from time to time but always stay up to date on your local situation. Try to ground yourself where you are. You cannot fix the world but you can make a huge difference to your neighbors and loved ones. Sometimes it helps to think small and remember- the revolution is a million tiny moving parts as well as the large tapestry of movements.

F. Join a union! Or start a union! The folks at the IWW are very helpful to anyone looking to start their own union in an industry that doesn’t already have one. 

G. If you have disposable income, try to use it wisely. If you can afford to not use Amazon- don’t. If you can afford to avoid chain groceries, agracorp, monsanto, try! Farmers markets are expensive but they are a great way to divorce yourself from corporate foods. Also, shop Indigenous!

H. Learn about land back. If you know someone who owns land (do your parents own a house? do you?) Find out whose lands you are occupying and connect with the tribes in your area to determine how to best give the land back. (As mentioned in other posts, this does not mean that you need to leave: land back returns stewardship of the land to the indigenous people it was stolen from.) 

I’m going to wrap this up because it is Long as Hell. I hope this is a useful jumping off point! I will continue to share educational and donation resources on my main blog. 

[drewyth]

Black Lives Matter

I just want to make it unequivocally clear that I support the Black Lives Matter Movement. Yes, that includes the riots. Riots are a legitimate form of protest that happen when peaceful voices go ignored. America was built on violent protest, and property can always be replaced - Black lives cannot. I don't mean to glorify violence. I don't like violence. Most people don't. But before you pass judgement, it's important to remember two things: First, we've tried protesting peacefully. We kneeled, and the president called us "sons of bitches." Our concerns were not addressed. We marched quietly, holding homemade signs and calling for justice. The police showed up in riot gear to force us home. Our voices were ignored.

Second, don't forget that, in many cases, it is the police and white supremacists that are inciting violence at these demonstrations. The protests start peaceful. It is the police that escalate the situation, so they will be allowed to use force on the protesters. There is photographic and video evidence of this happening. Look outside your major news sources. Black protesters are not trying to start a race war, they're trying to end one that's been waging for centuries. And bad people are taking advantage of that. If there is violence, try shifting the blame off of the protesters and onto the corrupt police who have been murdering people without consequence. The police started the violence, and now the responsibility falls on them to listen if they want it to end.

I find it incredibly disheartening that people are so quick to call our protesters "thugs," yet they get defensive when we critique the criminal (in)justice system by saying "All Cops Are Bastards." If these violent demonstrators are "invalidating their cause" by showing aggression, how have cops not invalidated their entire profession with the amount of people they've killed? Yes, I'm aware that White people are killed too. If anything, that should just create more solidarity against the police system as it stands now. Even so, Black people are killed disproportionately compared to how much of the population they make up.

In 2017, White people made up 63% of the population, and only 48% of killings by police. That's still a lot. That's still unacceptable. But the point is, if this didn't have anything to do with race, White people would make up 63% of police killings - The same percentage that they take up in the population. By contrast, Black people made up only 13% of the population, but accounted for 27% of killings by police. That percent is more than DOUBLE the percent of the Black population. And if you say it's because they commit more crimes, again, you're misdirecting the blame. Police arrest more Black people, certainly. They are on record as committing more crimes. But that's because the police target people of color while excusing White people who commit the same offenses. Black people also face greater charges than White people when committing the same crimes. No matter how uncomfortable it may be to discuss, racism is at work here. Police ASSUME that Black people commit more crime, so they're more likely to profile and arrest Black folks, which perpetuates the illusion that Black people commit more crime, and the cycle continues.

Another thing: If Black people do commit more crimes in some places, perhaps we should examine why that is. Qualified Black people are hired at high-paying positions at lower rates than White people. Black people have historically been forced into poor living communities; in many places, property values actually drop when Black families move in. You say slavery isn't relevant anymore, but its repulsive legacy lives on through racism. Racism has kept Black communities poor and created barriers for Black people trying to move up the social and economic ladder. So yes, White people are killed. But Black people are killed for being Black.

Saying "All Cops Are Bastards" doesn't mean there aren't some cops out there who happen to be good people. And if this is a hard concept to wrap your head around, it's because you - like most of us - have been lied to about the purpose of the police. The police were originally created to punish runaway slaves, and the laws they enforce continue to target people of color to this day. I would recommend the documentary "13th" on Netflix for more information on this. No cop can be good because they have chosen to put on a badge and work for a system that, by design, is tainted. It's okay to support what the justice system should be while still critiquing what currently needs to be fixed. And a lot needs to be fixed.

If you grew up poor, or black, or female, or mentally ill, or LGBTQ, you might have dismantled the myth early on that the cops are there to protect everybody. The fact is, many communities need to protect themselves because cops are just as likely to hurt them as any other criminal. How can we excuse trained professionals for shooting innocent people when they get a little nervous, but we expect untrained civilians to stay calm when guns, and tear gas, and batons end up in their faces? That is why we need to defund the police, who use excessive force to arbitrarily enforce discriminatory laws. Instead, we should start funding community initiatives that get to the roots of most crime before it happens, and get perpetrators help and reform instead of punishment. If you still hate the violent protesters, but support the violent police force, the reason is a matter of race-driven hypocrisy. We must unlearn so much of the nationalistic, pro-military propaganda we've been fed throughout our lives. America is its people, and its people are dying. America is being killed by a corrupt system that only pretends to protect it.

Black Lives Matter. There's no need to refute this by saying, "Well, ALL lives matter." All lives cannot matter until Black lives finally matter too. No one's saying Black lives matter more than White lives, or more than YOUR life. Just. Black Lives Matter. The only appropriate response to that is, "Yes. They do." If your friend falls and scrapes open their knee, you're not going to give everyone else a bandage before getting to them because "all lives matter." You're going to pay attention to your friend who is bleeding. The same applies here. We cannot give attention to "all lives" without first focusing on the ones that are hurting the most.

I will be taking a class next month on "Radicalism and Protest in Post-War U.S." If anyone is curious about America's history of change through violent protest (like the Women's Suffrage Movement, the Stonewall Riots, the Civil Rights Movement which we're still fighting, etc.), I encourage you to talk to me in August. Or we can discuss what I know now with my Sociology and Psychology degrees, and my subplan in Law, Justice, and Social Change. There will never be a "right" way to protest in the eyes of the system you're protesting against. Historically, progress only comes through force. Our fighting is effective.

Here is a link full of resources for donating, protesting, and educating. I know most of us don't have a lot to give right now (I certainly don't) but I've donated what I can and I hope you guys will do the same. Every little bit adds up. Most of all, I want us to take this time to spread awareness and open our ears, hearts, and minds to the Black voices that matter most right now. Every one of us can join this fight. Every one of us must. There is always a way to contribute to a just cause, whether it be through protests, donations, or simply by listening and showing support. I'm going to continue to do my part, and I urge every one of you reading this to do the same. Black Lives Matter.

[fursasaida]

this is totes random sorry pls feel free to ignore but is there a 'STATE' that's completely independent from like elected government, heads of state, partisan politics etc.. like what's this state that some ppl talk abt that doesn't include the elected president? e.g."korea and france have greater deference to state." is there polisci literature/concept on this? what is this STATE that doesn't include the president or CDC head nominated by said president? im sorry im just so ignorant of polisci

This is not at all an ignorant question! This is a huge issue people argue about--maybe less in poli sci than in other social sciences, because poli sci has gone so completely up its own quantitative ass that it has abandoned what should be its obvious theoretical domain and so other disciplines have kind of taken over this kind of question. There are full professors who cannot answer this question (I know because some of them are on my listservs).

So: what is the state. Seriously, really, there is no one widely accepted answer to this. So I’ll go through a few of them under the cut for you. This ended up being really long because it’s something I’ve been thinking about lately, so the simplest, shortest answer to your question is the first one.

1. Institutions

In this view, “the state” means the institutions and bureaucracy that stay on when political leadership changes. The political leadership is called either “the regime” when we want to imply it’s evil or “the administration” or “the government” when we don’t. (I think this terminology is silly and “the regime” should mean the whole arrangement plus some other things--as in a regime of power--without negative or positive implications, but I don’t make the rules.)

Obviously these two things are not firewalled apart. Elected officials can alter the state through policy and/or direct reforms (creating, merging, or eliminating existing state organizations), and the existing state can constrain what elected officials can do through anything from ethics laws to bureaucratic foot-dragging. (In the US context, when we talk about “political appointees,” we mean high-level officials in “the state” that get appointed by elected leaders, but they take over organizations generally staffed by people who have come up through the bureaucracy and are supposed to be “apolitical,” i.e. just there to do a technical/bureaucratic job. So that’s another way that the two blur.) A great example of this would be what happened with the US’s Syria policy under Trump. Trump (”the administration”) wanted to pull out of Syria. The Pentagon, The State Department, various diplomatic branches, etc. (”the state”) did not. The state succeeded in putting him off executing his desired policy for years, even though as the Commander In Chief Trump in theory had really extensive authority to do whatever he wanted. Eventually he exercised that authority and state officials found themselves scrambling madly to try and salvage something of their preferred policy, which is how the US military ended up with this ridiculous non-presence in NE Syria. Another example would be the attempt to take down the USPS.

That’s why partisan politics and elected leaders are excluded from “the state” in this view; “the state” forms the organizational containers that those movements and individuals fill, and the structures they seek to act on or act from. You can think of it like the ground they stand on. This doesn’t have to mean it is itself “apolitical,” since the terrain has implications for everyone standing on it, but it is the object or delivery channel of politics, not politics itself. (Again I don’t agree with this, but it’s what you’re seeing reflected in the discourse you’re talking about.)

When people go on about “the deep state” they’re espousing a conspiratorial version of this view, where they think the ~real behind-the-scenes power lies in these institutions and the long-term bureaucrats who (sometimes) staff and run them. Definitely some power does lie there, but the conspiracists overweigh this into an Elders of Zion type thing.

2. A sovereign entity.

This is more about distinguishing states from other kinds of political entities, and as a result it’s less concerned with fine distinctions about what is and isn’t “political.” The idea is that there are lots of political structures and systems in the world (anything from tribal law to international associations like NATO) but not all of them are states. States are distinguished from other things by virtue of sovereignty. The classic definition (from Max Weber) of sovereignty is “a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence within a clearly bounded territory.” In other words, a state’s police, military, national guard, security forces, etc. have a license to use violence within its borders that no one else has--anyone else engaging in violence is a criminal. It is these groups’ status as “agents of the state” that grants them this license. The bordered, yes/no territorial nature of this status--Turkish security forces have no mandate to act in Greece and vice versa--is also distinctive; fixed, defined, cartographic borders are not necessarily a given. In this view, all power and indeed all law is ultimately founded in violence (enforcement), so what matters is who/what can use force with impunity. (When the state’s monopoly on force is challenged in its territory--e.g., Hizballah making war on Israel without the Lebanese army, the original Zapatistas forming a breakaway region during the Mexican Civil War, or any occupation by a foreign force--then the state’s sovereignty is “weakened” or “under attack,” etc.)

Lots of people have criticized and elaborated on this definition. I don’t want to go on forever about all the critiques that exist, but basically in reality, sovereignty is not a yes/no binary where either you have it completely or you don’t have it at all. Things tend to be more mixed and blurry. It also has more dimensions: two important examples are 1) controlling and disposing of the territory itself (exploiting natural resources, moving people around, etc.), and 2) recognition. In many cases, the difference between a state and a non-state is whether other states recognize it as such, i.e. act like it is one. So for example, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus exercises sovereignty and has a state bureaucracy, elections, etc., but because it is not recognized by ~the international community~ it isn’t “a state.” (This isn’t just semantics; it may seem arbitrary when you just think about what goes on inside the TRNC, but when its citizens try to emigrate, for example, they encounter very specific, concrete problems on this basis--e.g., their passports will not be recognized as valid.)

I find this more useful personally, especially because it doesn’t assume a liberal democratic state--it can apply to a dictatorship or a monarchy or whatever you like. But in practice, i.e. how people use it, I still think this approach is frequently too worried about pinning down differences that aren’t always useful. On the one hand, I wrote my BA thesis about how Hamas and Hizballah aren’t states (it was common for a while to refer to them as “states within states”) while also not just being political parties, terrorist organizations, service providers, or any of the other things they get tagged with, precisely because of the way they relate to the Palestinian and Lebanese states. This is worth understanding because it helps explain their political projects and their successes. On the other hand, I don’t think it’s very helpful to go around arguing that, say, ISIS was a state (or state-like) and the Houthis are not because of some detail of how they think/thought about territory, or courts, or bureaucracy. Like what do you get out of making that distinction. If you want to argue that a tribal council somewhere is “the state” for its context I think that’s fine depending on what you’re trying to get at. It all depends on what kind of question you want to answer, and on what scale.

3. There’s no such thing.

This view recognizes that the state is a salad bowl full of different organizations, individuals, ideologies, etc. that do not actually all work in lockstep together or have the same goals. To talk about “the state” is to reinforce the fallacy of unified power and cooperation. Instead, we should recognize that actors within states have their own agendas, institutional cultures, power struggles, etc., and that whatever the state does is the outcome of 1) these internal dynamics, 2) the ability of different external actors (from citizens to foreign governments) to play on/appeal to/push back against different pieces of the state, and 3) the interactions of 1 and 2.

This to me is common sense. You just have to be careful not to take it too far. We can acknowledge that the state is internally differentiated/not any one single thing without going so far away from what most people understand about their worlds. There’s no point saying “there’s no such thing as a state” when people still have to pay taxes.

4. "The state effect,” or: there both is and is not any such thing

This idea, put forward by Tim Mitchell, is my favorite. It is also the subtlest, and a little tricky to explain, but I think it’s the most useful.

This view steps back and looks at all the endless, elaborate debates about every possible nicety of “stateness” and says: perhaps we are asking the wrong question here. Maybe it doesn’t matter what the state is. Maybe it matters what the state seems to be; how it seems to be that; and what “resources of power” are generated by these impressions.

This is the tricky explanation part, so bear with me for a few paragraphs.

Where exactly do we draw the line between “the state” and “civil society”? Are NGOs and nonprofits part of the state? What if they get government funding? Especially in a neoliberal context, when so much policymaking is done through contractors, consultants, tax breaks, etc., are these kinds of organizations not carrying out the state’s agenda, consciously or otherwise? Okay, that’s tough, let’s try something easier: individual people and families aren’t the state. But if a household depends on an income from state employment, does that not affect their politics and their actions in society? Is a person “part of the state” in one building and not in another? How do we account for the way off-duty cops behave, for example, then? You can do this same exercise for “the economy” or any of the other things that are supposedly separate things/domains that the state manages. How can, e.g., the American economy be separate from the state when the state prints and guarantees the currency, sets interest rates, enforces contracts, and generally sets the terms on which the economy can exist? (Going back to your original question, you could probably also do this same exercise re: political parties, or partisanship.)

The point here is not that absolutely everything is actually the state. The point is also not that there is no state. It’s that there are not firm lines. Amazon may be the state when it builds systems for the Pentagon even though it is also, clearly, a private company and not part of the state’s institutions or subject to the same kinds of political controls that state institutions are. Similarly, the state itself is not one smooth solid object (as in #3). But it seems obvious, common sense, that “the economy” is a thing, just as “public health” is a thing, etc., and both of these things are objects of state management/governance/power.

This makes it easy for political leadership to make claims on the basis of these other things as separate “objects.” I.e., “we need to take drastic action to save the economy.” So the impression of these divisions can be used to justify or legitimate state action. You can see this super clearly in the current coronavirus situation. How many times have we been told the US has to “reopen” for “the economy,” and how many times has it been pointed out that the government could just take its own economic measures to allow people to stay home--because “the economy” is not some separate object that works by itself. (I myself had to explain to a friend that the government couldn’t just switch the economy back on by “reopening.” I think we underestimate how powerful these conceptual divisions really are in people’s understanding of how the world works.)

So, therefore, “the state” is the effect of ideas and practices that make things that political leaders and institutions do seem like they form a freestanding, separate structure, a thing, that we call “the state.” It is the ensemble of all these pieces (as noted in #3), and said pieces often include things that are generally thought of as not the state; these lines between state/nonstate shift all the time. What matters is not where the line is at any given moment but what the particular configuration allows state power (including the consideration of force from #2 and the structural concerns from #1) to do.

The problem I have with this is that it doesn’t really account for state capacity very well, but that’s for another day because I haven’t figured it out via paper-writing yet.

[partygaming924]

Why is my gaming pc running games so badly

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Exactly how To help Win Supporters With Control People with GAMING

The future of India's game development neighborhood appears bright and there is no purpose why it can't become the selected location for international gaming business. The customer base for games is increasingly growing, specially on mobile, and the proper e-commerce options are already in spot to facilitate micro-transactions and ad revenue. The Indian game app developers will thus have ample opportunity to innovate, style, and create compelling game content for both the Indian and global audience.

If you are reading this from a mobile device, chances are you have a laptop or computer chip complete of games that have intrigued your require for gaming, but not very satisfied it. With the invention of the clever phone, mobile gaming device, and transportable computer system straight out of Star Trek, gaming has a lot more platforms than ever, along with as numerous blogs as ever.

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EDIT:I utilized to watch the Feedback video more than at G4 each week, but it is gone down hill the final couple of instances I watched it and now that Adam Sessler is not on it and they have that girl from IGN that everybody hates in each and every episode I just cannot be bothered to watch it any much more. Nonetheless worth going back and watching some of the older ones although. Klepic utilized to be on that show and back then in the early days was when it was the most effective. Back when they in fact talked about gaming news with some semblance of intellect as an alternative of just gushing about what ever game they are told is cool this week.

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[stumpyjoepete]

Reasonably interesting Cowen post. I think it’s at least noticing something important. Pull quoting it all, so you can be spared the temptation to gaze upon the hive of scum and villainy that is the MR comment section:

Having tracked the libertarian “movement” for much of my life, I believe it is now pretty much hollowed out, at least in terms of flow.  One branch split off into Ron Paul-ism and less savory alt right directions, and another, more establishment branch remains out there in force but not really commanding new adherents.  For one thing, it doesn’t seem that old-style libertarianism can solve or even very well address a number of major problems, most significantly climate change.  For another, smart people are on the internet, and the internet seems to encourage synthetic and eclectic views, at least among the smart and curious.  Unlike the mass culture of the 1970s, it does not tend to breed “capital L Libertarianism.”  On top of all that, the out-migration from narrowly libertarian views has been severe, most of all from educated women.

There is also the word “classical liberal,” but what is “classical” supposed to mean that is not question-begging?  The classical liberalism of its time focused on 19th century problems — appropriate for the 19th century of course — but from WWII onwards it has been a very different ballgame.

Along the way, I believe the smart classical liberals and libertarians have, as if guided by an invisible hand, evolved into a view that I dub with the entirely non-sticky name of State Capacity Libertarianism.  I define State Capacity Libertarianism in terms of a number of propositions:

1. Markets and capitalism are very powerful, give them their due.

2. Earlier in history, a strong state was necessary to back the formation of capitalism and also to protect individual rights (do read Koyama and Johnson on state capacity).  Strong states remain necessary to maintain and extend capitalism and markets.  This includes keeping China at bay abroad and keeping elections free from foreign interference, as well as developing effective laws and regulations for intangible capital, intellectual property, and the new world of the internet.  (If you’ve read my other works, you will know this is not a call for massive regulation of Big Tech.)

3. A strong state is distinct from a very large or tyrannical state.  A good strong state should see the maintenance and extension of capitalism as one of its primary duties, in many cases its #1 duty.

4. Rapid increases in state capacity can be very dangerous (earlier Japan, Germany), but high levels of state capacity are not inherently tyrannical.  Denmark should in fact have a smaller government, but it is still one of the freer and more secure places in the world, at least for Danish citizens albeit not for everybody.

5. Many of the failures of today’s America are failures of excess regulation, but many others are failures of state capacity.  Our governments cannot address climate change, much improve K-12 education, fix traffic congestion, or improve the quality of their discretionary spending.  Much of our physical infrastructure is stagnant or declining in quality.  I favor much more immigration, nonetheless I think our government needs clear standards for who cannot get in, who will be forced to leave, and a workable court system to back all that up and today we do not have that either.

Those problems require state capacity — albeit to boost markets — in a way that classical libertarianism is poorly suited to deal with.  Furthermore, libertarianism is parasitic upon State Capacity Libertarianism to some degree.  For instance, even if you favor education privatization, in the shorter run we still need to make the current system much better.  That would even make privatization easier, if that is your goal.

6. I will cite again the philosophical framework of my book Stubborn Attachments: A Vision for a Society of Free, Prosperous, and Responsible Individuals.

7. The fundamental growth experience of recent decades has been the rise of capitalism, markets, and high living standards in East Asia, and State Capacity Libertarianism has no problem or embarrassment in endorsing those developments.  It remains the case that such progress (or better) could have been made with more markets and less government.  Still, state capacity had to grow in those countries and indeed it did.  Public health improvements are another major success story of our time, and those have relied heavily on state capacity — let’s just admit it.

8. The major problem areas of our time have been Africa and South Asia.  They are both lacking in markets and also in state capacity.

9. State Capacity Libertarians are more likely to have positive views of infrastructure, science subsidies, nuclear power (requires state support!), and space programs than are mainstream libertarians or modern Democrats.  Modern Democrats often claim to favor those items, and sincerely in my view, but de facto they are very willing to sacrifice them for redistribution, egalitarian and fairness concerns, mood affiliation, and serving traditional Democratic interest groups.  For instance, modern Democrats have run New York for some time now, and they’ve done a terrible job building and fixing things.  Nor are Democrats doing much to boost nuclear power as a partial solution to climate change, if anything the contrary.

10. State Capacity Libertarianism has no problem endorsing higher quality government and governance, whereas traditional libertarianism is more likely to embrace or at least be wishy-washy toward small, corrupt regimes, due to some of the residual liberties they leave behind.

11. State Capacity Libertarianism is not non-interventionist in foreign policy, as it believes in strong alliances with other relatively free nations, when feasible.  That said, the usual libertarian “problems of intervention because government makes a lot of mistakes” bar still should be applied to specific military actions.  But the alliances can be hugely beneficial, as illustrated by much of 20th century foreign policy and today much of Asia — which still relies on Pax Americana.

It is interesting to contrast State Capacity Libertarianism to liberaltarianism, another offshoot of libertarianism.  On most substantive issues, the liberaltarians might be very close to State Capacity Libertarians.  But emphasis and focus really matter, and I would offer this (partial) list of differences:

a. The liberaltarian starts by assuring “the left” that they favor lots of government transfer programs.  The State Capacity Libertarian recognizes that demands of mercy are never ending, that economic growth can benefit people more than transfers, and, within the governmental sphere, it is willing to emphasize an analytical, “cold-hearted” comparison between government discretionary spending and transfer spending.  Discretionary spending might well win out at many margins.

b. The “polarizing Left” is explicitly opposed to a lot of capitalism, and de facto standing in opposition to state capacity, due to the polarization, which tends to thwart problem-solving.  The polarizing Left is thus a bigger villain for State Capacity Libertarianism than it is for liberaltarianism.  For the liberaltarians, temporary alliances with the polarizing Left are possible because both oppose Trump and other bad elements of the right wing.  It is easy — maybe too easy — to market liberaltarianism to the Left as a critique and revision of libertarians and conservatives.

c. Liberaltarian Will Wilkinson made the mistake of expressing enthusiasm for Elizabeth Warren.  It is hard to imagine a State Capacity Libertarian making this same mistake, since so much of Warren’s energy is directed toward tearing down American business.  Ban fracking? Really?  Send money to Russia, Saudi Arabia, lose American jobs, and make climate change worse, all at the same time?  Nope.

d. State Capacity Libertarianism is more likely to make a mistake of say endorsing high-speed rail from LA to Sf (if indeed that is a mistake), and decrying the ability of U.S. governments to get such a thing done.  “Which mistakes they are most likely to commit” is an underrated way of assessing political philosophies.

You will note the influence of Peter Thiel on State Capacity Libertarianism, though I have never heard him frame the issues in this way.

Furthermore, “which ideas survive well in internet debate” has been an important filter on the evolution of the doctrine.  That point is under-discussed, for all sorts of issues, and it may get a blog post of its own.

Here is my earlier essay on the paradox of libertarianism, relevant for background.

[dreamworksconvict]

She-Ra: Racism Problem Pt. 3

Alright, time for part 3! This time we’ll be talking about Hordak.

Again, I’’ll be referring a lot to the same article from Pt. 2.I also will be referring to this 2-hour video by Lily Orchard. Trigger warnings for that video (and this article) as it has some white supremacist/neo-nazi imagery. The part I’ll mainly be referring to starts at 1:38:52. I’ll also refer to this article about “space racists.”

So last time we talked about Adora and the white savior trope. I want to jump right into discussing Hordak and the Not-So-Bad Colonizers trend in animation.

2. Hordak

Season 3 of She-Ra revealed that Hordak, literal commander of the Horde whose goal is to take over Etheria and wipe out the Princesses (aka, committing genocide), actually isn’t so bad of a guy! Sure he wants to murder people, but he really just has an inferiority complex to his older brother/original clone Horde Prime and has a deteriorating body akin to a disability (oof, like really... Noelle that’s so yikes, but that’s for a separate part), so that’s why he’s so mean! :( But it’s ok! Entrapta can change him through the Power of Friendship! uwu

...hey thanks, I hate it!

There is a strange yet somewhat predictable trend in popular kid’s animation right now where Space Colonizers are set up as the villains, committing unforgivable crimes, and then are somehow redeemed anyways. Well, let’s consider the article from Teen Vogue about white saviors again: “To this day, some people still latently believe what imperialists such as Rudyard Kipling said, that colonialism was important for everyone: the conqueror and, most importantly, the conquered. That without the colonizers, the colonized had no hope of survival.”

Now does every white person wake up and think this each morning before having cereal? No, not necessarily. Is every white person still responsible for perpetuating this norm? Yeah, pretty much! 

As I noted before, white people have been raised in a society where they have white privilege. Without even being cognizant of it, white people benefit from the labor and persecution of others. America, where the three shows I’ll discuss were primarily produced (VLD, Steven Universe, and of course She-Ra), came into being by taking land and resources and lives from Native Americans, and enslaving black people. White people in America have, since the beginning of this country’s inception, been taught that they are owed privileges. Rarely do American history classes take the gravitas of the country’s colonial legacy into consideration. When confronted with that reality, many white people will claim that they are different from the rest, or that they’re really not as bad as others who openly state their fervent desire to continue spreading an “American agenda” to the rest of the world. Yet oftentimes, these people do not challenge the very ideology that colonialism rests upon. 

Ok, so what does America’s colonial history have to do with cartoons?

Well, consider this: She-Ra, Voltron, and Steven Universe all have plots that center an Evil Colonial Entity from Space. They also feature victimized characters apologizing to those associated with the Evil Colonial Entity. Take Season 2 of Voltron, where Keith is revealed to be part-Galra and Allura, a black woman, apologizes to HIM for feeling unsettled by the revelation. Remember the situation with Glimmer apologizing to Adora in Season 1 Ep. 2? It’s the same thing. This article summarizes the situation with Allura, but I want to focus on this quote: 

“When I see characters like Bill and Allura being branded as “racist” for actions their white counterparts are never chastised for, it feels like these creators are laughing at us—like they’re sneering at me and every other black person out there who so desperately want to see ourselves reflected in our favourite shows and characters, saying “See, you’d be racist, too, if given the chance.””

VLD takes it even further by making the main villain secretly Honerva, an Altean, and then making her “motive” that she just wants to go back to the good ol’ days, and THEN talking her out of her evil ways at the end and THEN sacrificing her and Allura to fix everything....... The “victims of genocide were secretly the bad guys” plot twist is EXTREMELY antisemitic. (I hate it. I hate it sooooo much.)

Steven Universe does a similar thing, where the Diamonds, who had been established as the Evil Colonizers from Space (literally, they wanted to colonize and destroy life on Earth), get talked out of being Evil by Steven; it turns out they all just had a complicated family relationship, and that’s why they were colonizers...? Yeah don’t worry about the whole Cluster situation--you know the superweapon made up of the bodies of shattered gems? Or the whole shooting a superweapon at Earth to kill all the rebels. Or the fact that they’ve colonized other planets. Or the fact that Steven’s mom had a LITERAL HUMAN ZOO. (REBECCA!!!! WHAT!) 

There is a very good video essay critiquing Steven Universe on a variety of points, (the person who made it also has the same name as me so HECK YEAH) but I want to pull out a specific quote from it: 

“The deliberate scrubbing of the elements of fascism that make it so vile and horrible in the first place is done so people don’t have to think about things that make them uncomfortable.... There are very rare instances where these issues are openly presented... Steven Universe [and Voltron, and She-Ra are] one of those rare instances.... [yet] Sugar [and Lauren Montgomery, and Noelle Stevenson] spends the latter half of the series woobifying space fascists to a disturbing degree... To so thoroughly depict a fascist regime with a disturbing amount of accuracy, only to then turn and insist that they’re just misunderstood babs that need a hug...  war, abuse, genocide, these things cannot and should not be forgiven.”

On top of this being just deplorable on a basic human decency level, the fact of the matter is that these white creators simply do not understand, or perhaps are unwilling to understand, that colonialism, fascism, and genocide are all tied to white supremacy and antisemitism. To suddenly forgive regimes where this has been the norm is to say that systemic violence against people of color is ok, and that people who support or create this systemic violence are also ok. To claim that everyone can be just as bad as a fascist is disturbing and also ignores the fact that fascism targets people of color. To say that Allura’s distrust of Keith is somehow just as bad as the Galra’s imperialism is to ignore thousands of years of history. 

Hordak is the same: his character has been established as a ruthless leader (ie punishing Catra with death and/or banishment for not doing well enough), who wants to destroy life on Etheria (including the Princesses, their allies, and the land they live in, which is a common colonialist tactic--think about the NODAPL movement, where white people continue to destroy Native Americans’ land and resources). He demands respect, and keeps his plans to himself. He does not care how many soldiers he has to sacrifice, or the amount of people he needs to destroy, to get what he wants, which is to get MORE soldiers to Etheria to more effectively take over. He is, by all accounts, a fascist leader. To claim that Hordak just needs a friend and can be forgiven for his rampant colonialism and abuse IS RACIST. 

Fantasy stories may be fictitious, but they are still shaped by real-world ideologies. No one writes in a vacuum. White showrunners’ white guilt is incredibly palpable in these narratives. They are unwilling to acknowledge their place in the legacy of white supremacy.

On another note, it’s also harmful to assume that forgiveness is the right strategy for LGBTQIA+ audiences, too. The Steven Universe narrative claims that Steven considers the Diamonds family--well, sometimes family can be awful and abusive, or, in the case of Steven Universe, they can be evil dictators who want to destroy you and the rest of your family. Does that mean that you should put yourself at risk and “forgive” them? No! The same goes for VLD and She-Ra. 

I could write about this for days, but I’ll leave it at that. I want to end with a cartoon quote that actually makes fun of woobified villains: Avatar the Last Airbender (see the video on SU at 1:50:34). 

Aang: Maybe we can make some big pots of glue and then I can use gluebending to stick his [Firelord Ozai’s] arms and legs together so he can’t bend anymore!

Zuko: Yeah, then you can show him his baby pictures and all those happy memories will make him good again.

Aang: You really think that would work?

Zuko: NO!

[softersunshine]

This post is literally for @liarparrish and @liarparrish ONLY. If you are not tumblr user @liarparrish please keep scrolling.

“It’s what Karl would have wanted” - Me, 2020

As someone who has a very very slim grasp on communism but a very strong grasp on one direction here is the extensive list of clearly communist lyrics within One Direction’s debut album Up All Night (2011).

9. I Want: Track nine on the album may be a strange place to start but there would be no way to pick out singular lyrics from this communist anthem, clearly critiquing the ways in which the capitalist society puts value and strain on genuine human relationships

1.What Makes You Beautiful: “Don’t need makeup to cover up / Being the way that you are is enough” this lyric criticises the superficial products marketed to women to achieve an impossible beauty standard, the lyric states that by shedding the shackles capitalism holds us to and being a part of the community created through communism as you are is enough. This lyric crushes sexism and the capitalist agenda in one fell swoop.

2.Gotta Be You: “‘Cause I’m the foolish one that you anointed with your heart/ I tore it apart” similarly to track one this lyric is sung by Liam and is also cleverly tucked into the first verse. The suggestion here that having personal ownership over possessions can only lead to heartache and pain.

3.One Thing: “So get out, get out, get out of my mind/ And come on, come into my life” this lyric was clearly written after the band collectively read Marx’ work. Through this lyric we can hear the boys begging for these incredible ideas to be seen executed in real life and not just stay a dream in their heads.

4.More Than This: “‘Cause we are the same” Similarly to track three this song has a chorus that could easily be warning the audience about the dangerous lull of capitalism. However I thought this simple lyric from verse two sums up perfectly the ideals of communism.

5.Up All Night: “Don’t even care about the table breaking/ We only wanna have a laugh (Up, up, up all night)” The titular track of the album provides us with this wonderful lyric showing how care free we can be if we only rid ourselves of personal possessions and their monetary ties.

6.I Wish: “If only time could just turn back” “Oh, how I wish that was me” track six brings us a twofer (if you will) of lyrics. Through these we see the boys wishing to go back to a time where communism was more in the mainstream. Slightly risqué based on how those leaderships ended, however much like those times these lyrics are in the past.

7.Tell Me A Lie: “As you take what’s left of you and I” another beautiful metaphor here from the boys tying the strains of capitalism into personal relationships. Showing that we as humans should work together as a community rather than continually put a price on not only inanimate objects, but ourselves.

8.Taken: “Thank you for showing me who you are underneath/ No thank you, I don’t need another heartless misery” A scathing critique of capitalism, the boys sing about being able to see through the shiny, exciting mask and are able to see the seedy underbelly of capitalism, attacking the heartlessness used to manufacture and distribute products.

10.Everything About You: “You know I’ve always got your back, girl” another simple lyric beautifully surmising the heart of capitalism, togetherness, being there for your fellow man and sharing the wealth, through communism all this is possible.

11.Same Mistakes: “But we're making all the same mistakes/ Yeah, yeah, that's what crazy is/ When it's broke and you say there's nothing to fix” another song where truly any lyric could showcase the true meaning of communism. These few lines truly drive the message home, paraphrasing Einstein the band laments over the broken system we live in that consistently follows the same patterns without learning anything from past experience.

12.Save You Tonight: “What you want, what you need has been right here, yeah” this lyric pleads with the audience to notice that the simple answer to escape the cruelty of capitalism has been here the whole time, just out of reach, but if the proletariat were to rise together to create an equal space for all we could build a better world, we just have to see what’s in front of us.

13.Stole My Heart: “As we lay on the ground I put my arms around you and we can stay here tonight” Through this lyric sung by Zayn we hear the yearning for a simpler life, where all we need is the ground beneath us and the people we love around us to create a meaningful existence.

14.Stand Up: “I will be there, yeah, I know it to fix you with love” Another song where it was difficult to choose just one lyric. Albeit this song does provide an idealistic view of the theory, with a few passing “fuck you”s to capitalism along the way. This idea of fixing someone with love rather than with meaningless possessions creates a romantic look into communist ideals.

15.Moments: “Hands are silent, voice is numb/ Try to scream out, my lungs” this lyric truly emphasises the feeling of being trapped in a capitalist society, the feeling of being silenced by “The Man” and not being seen or valued within your community and how harmful that can be.

16.Another World: “Words will be just words ‘til you bring them to life” Niall here bringing to attention the thought that, until the proletariat work together to overthrow the oppressive capitalist system, the readings of Marx will only ever be words, sweet, wonderful, wonderful words.

17.Na Na Na: “We’ve got a bit of love hate” another simple, but effective (haha) lyric here showcasing how, even One Direction, famously known for being fierce communists, will be tempted in my the lure of capitalism as she is a cruel mistress and we cannot help the world we are born into.

18.I Should Have Kissed You: “I keep playing it inside my head, all that you said to me” bringing us home with track eighteen this lyric clearly expresses the countless sleepless nights spent mulling over the words of Marx, unable to sleep after having these incredible ideas brought to mind. Also as this is the bonus track of the album I thought I’d include a bonus lyric: “I should, I should oh, I should have kissed you” this lyric is about wanting to kiss Karl Marx.

Thank you for joining me on this wonderful exploration of the classic communist anthem that is the entirety of the album Up All Night by One Direction.

(Lyrics provided by genius.com)

[sociologyboom]

Sociology as a science?  How would you get on with these theory questions Yr13?

ITEM A

It is often debated as to whether or not sociology is a science.  Positivist sociologists believe that sociology should reflect the natural sciences in order to map patterns in society to discover social facts.  These social facts can be used to benefit society.  They gather evidence to support their claims or hypotheses. 

Other sociologists believe that sociology cannot reflect the natural sciences.

Question 1: Applying material from Item A and your own knowledge, evaluate the view that sociology is, and should be seen as, a science. (20 marks) spend around 30 minutes on this response.

HINTS TO HELP YOU RESPOND:

Start by explaining the positivist argument that sociology can reflect the natural sciences, use the item to support this.  Evaluate the positivist stance with interpretivist views that sociology fails to explain human behaviour effectively, this can be supported with action theories.  Use Popper to explain that sociology is often not falsifiable and therefore not a science, support this with a critique of Marxism.  Note Kuhn’s notion that sociology is pre-paradigmatic and that this means that it cannot be scientific.

Question 2: Outline and explain two theories which suggest that sociology should not reflect natural sciences. (10 marks) spend around 15 minutes on this response.

HINTS TO HELP YOU RESPOND:

Select any two arguments from Interpretivism: Kuhn or Popper.  Explain each in its own separate detailed PEEL paragraph. For example, ‘Karl Popper suggests that sociology cannot reflect natural sciences as he believes that sciences should be able to face falsification.  He suggests that sciences often use inductive logic, gathering information to support their claims.  Popper believes that it is more scientific to take a theory and bombard it with research that aims to finds flaws within it and so falsifying it.  Popper notes that sociological theory often fails to be falsifiable, making it unscientific.  For example, Marxist views that there will be a proletariat revolution are difficult to falsify as Marxists could simply claim that the revolution is yet to happen.  Popper believes that this makes sociology unscientific.’

  Sociology as a Science

Whether or not sociology is a science has been heavily debated.  Positivists believe that sociology should take the form of natural sciences, however, interpretivists believe that scientific methods are not suitable for the study of humans.

Positivism believes that it is possible to use scientific study to discover and provide solutions for problems in society.  Positivists believe that reality exists beyond the human mind.  This reality has laws of cause and effect which can be carefully measured using scientific methods.  These laws can be verified through gathering evidence to support their claims, this is known as gaining ‘inductive logic’.  This, newly found objective information can be used to guide policy making in order to improve society.

Quantitative research methods are more likely to follow the scientific process which positivists prefer.  They like the systematic testing of a hypothesis in an objective and detached way.  Due to this they favour the use of official statistics, questionnaires and experiments.

EVALUATION POINT: The interpretivists view below is a direct evaluation of positivism and can be used to draw effective comparisons.

Interpretivism states that scientific study using inductive logic is not suited to the study of humans. They believe an individual’s level of free will makes the study of meanings which people attach to their actions a better method of understanding society.  Sociology, therefore, cannot be a science as laws of cause and effect fail to explain these meanings. Natural sciences fail to study consciousness, they are only good at studying automatic reactions to external stimuli.  People are not passive puppets to the forces of society and therefore cannot be studied scientifically.

EVALUATION POINT: Points from the Social Action Theories chapter can be used to support the study of individuals.

Interpretivists prefer qualitative research methods that do not reflect the scientific method in order to uncover the meanings that people hold.  Max Weber notes that using ‘verstehen’ (developing an empathetic awareness of an individual’s actions) is key to the study of society, the sciences fail to do this.

There are two key views of interpretivism that view the study of society slightly differently.  Interactionists note that causal relationships can be discovered in society, they must, however, come from the study of individual interactions to carefully uncover ideas through observations.  Ethnomethodology and phenomenology suggest that society does not simply exist beyond the individual and therefore set patterns cannot be discovered.

EVALATION POINT: Postmodernists support interpretivists in rejecting the natural sciences suggesting that science is a mere ‘meta-narative’ or ‘big story’ which just explains the truth that some people hold but not all.  They believe science to be dangerous as it is so often used as a fixed truth which some say cannot be disputed.

Karl Popper is interested in how science has become such a favoured discipline.  Popper disagrees with the positivist notion that science is based on inductive logic and that a theory can be proved by just gathering evidence that supports it.  Popper notes how science should be based on falsification, he thought that if a statement is truly scientific it should be able to withstand being ‘falsified’, by attempting to gather data that disproves it.  Popper states that all theories are provisional in that they are only correct until they are disproved.  Theories that last a long time appear to be the truth as they haven’t been falsified despite the length of their existence. 

Popper suggests that much of sociological theory simply can’t be scientific as it is impossible to disprove through falsification.  For example, the Marxist view that a proletariat revolution will occur can never be disproved as Marxists could claim that it is simply yet to occur.  He notes that sociology can be scientific though if it produces hypotheses that could be falsified through empirical research.

EVALUATION POINT: Thomas Kuhn rejects the ideas of Popper arguing that all scientists follow the same strict patterns and are not willing to look beyond the scientific paradigm.

Thomas Kuhn suggests that science operates within a ‘paradigm’, a paradigm is a framework that is shared by a group of individuals.  Kuhn notes that science works on a set of practices and routines that are not questioned by those involved.  He states that scientists are socialised to accept the scientific paradigm and that without this shared view science could not exist.  Popper notes that ‘normal science’ is mainly unquestioned until ‘anomalies’ occur causing the process to need to be questioned. This questioning makes science fall into a period of ‘crisis’ and, in turn, a ‘scientific revolution’ occurs where the scientific community accept changes to the paradigm based on new discoveries.

Kuhn argues that sociology is not a science as it is ‘pre-scientific’.  It does not operate in one shared paradigm, instead there are a range of theories which are adopted by sociologists with very different views.  Sociology could only become scientific if these differences didn’t exist.

ECVALUATION POINT:  The notion that even within perspectives there is a lack of agreement supports Kuhn’s view.  Look back at the chapter on feminist theories to see an example of this.  Also note the stark differences between perspectives like Marxism and functionalism.

The realist view of science differs from that of positivist again.  Realists aim to uncover hidden structures and patterns in society, rather than gather evidence to support hypothesis.  Sayar says that there are closed systems and open systems in scientific study.  Closed systems are studied in the laboratory, where all variables can be controlled. Open systems have variables which cannot be controlled making it hard to make predictions.  Realists see it as possible to explain open systems through looking at underlying structures.  They see sociology as still able to be scientific as it aims to uncover structural forces in society and this can be done systematically like in natural sciences.

EVALUATION POINT: This realist view can be supported by theories that examine the impact of structures in society such as Marxism and capitalism and also feminism and patriarchy.

              SUMMARY:

·         Positivists believe that sociology should reflect the natural sciences, using scientific methods which gather quantitative data in order to discover laws of cause and effect.

·         Positivists use inductive logic in systematic testing of hypotheses.

·         Interpretivists argue that sociology is not scientific as natural sciences are unable to study consciousness and free will.  They use qualitative methods including verstehen.

·         Interactionsists believe that individual interactions create causal relationships.

·         Ethnomethodologists and phenomenologists believe that society does not exist beyond the individual.

·         Postmodernists reject natural sciences seeing them as a meta-narrative.

·         Karl Popper believes that sociology is mainly not scientific as most theories cannot be falsified.

·         Thomas Kuhn sees sociology as pre-paradigmatic making it lack the structure needed to be scientific.

·         Realists see that even though it is an open system scientific study can be relevant to society.

[funkymbtifiction]

Enneagram 1 Fixes

BY ENTP MOD

What is a trifix?

The Enneagram consists of three centers. The Head, Heart/Image, and Gut Center. You will typically identify with the core fears and drive of one number in each of these centers, more than the rest. These numbers make up your tritype, and are called trifixes. For example, in the tritype 358, 3 has a 5 fix and this is depicted as 3-5. This is different from the 385 tritype where it is a 3-8 fix. These little details differentiate the 358 from the 385.

1-2: A kind, helpful and loving 1. Their preaching corrective behavior is how they show love. Perfection oriented givers. Prim and proper beings who want to help you do the right thing, or show you it can be done better. They lead by example.

2-1: Nurturers with a strong streak of morality. Idealistic nitpickers. Can pronounce harsh judgement on loved ones for not following the rules. The kind of person who might offer to contribute to a bake sale for charity, and be extremely hard on themselves if their baked goods aren't of the quality.

1-3: Efficient taskmasters, emotions are masked in favor of appearing cool and in control. A bit more morally flexible than the average One. Wants recognition and admiration for how they have managed to stay on the straight and narrow.

3-1: Very hard on themselves if they do not produce work of the highest quality, moralistic Threes. Their sense of self is shaped by their values and how tightly they adhere to it while managing to make an effective, glamorous presentation of themselves. The effusive behavior, and inherent narcissism of the Three is held in check by the One.

1-4: Ones with a hidden side of idealism and aestheticism. They want not only perfection but require a stamp of their uniqueness on all that they produce. Sensitive, dramatic Ones who see beauty in suffering. Glamorizing the struggle of doing things the right way, and singling themselves out for it. Express their critique of systems and people through artsy means.

4-1: Quicker to bounce back from their melancholy if they perceive that they have a duty to perform. Constantly seek ways of betterment in who they are. Can be very creative, and perfection seeking. Harshly shut down or impose moral sanctions on those who hurt their feelings.

1-5: Surgical approach to emotions. Ones with intellectual proclivities, loner tendencies. Emphasis on precision and accuracy in presentation, repression of emotions, poor sense of aesthetics or doesn't care about it.

5-1: Moralistic fives. May look to correct people by sharing their knowledge with them. Sets high standards for themselves and others, and will accept their work only when it meets internal standards. May use their knowledge/intelligence to produce works that will guide people in the direction they think is the right way. Fears being seen as morally bankrupt, and intellectually incompetent.

1-6: Seeks certainty. Over thinks, critiques frequently. The inherent duality of the 6  softens the rigid moral stance of 1, lending it a more grounded, exploratory flavor. Anger is always accompanied  by an undercurrent of anxiety. Reactive when they see slackers, people not doing the right way.

6-1: Inflexible, friendly, moralistic. This combination can induce perfection-in-performance related anxiety. Meticulous to the point of being neurotic about it. OCD likely in either combination.

1-7: Visionaries with high personal standards and attention to detail who want things *just so*, judgment is combined with idealism to soften it making them more likely to give people more chances. Firm but pretty chill. Work first, play later.

7-1: Restrained exploration. Fun but in a responsible manner. Play first, work later. The ones likely to be bummed out if they go to a karaoke bar, and they fumbled on a note or lyric during their performance. There is more emphasis on high quality than enjoyment.

Note: 1 will not have an 8 or 9 fix, because they are all part of the same center (Gut Center) and cannot therefore be fixed to/with one another. However 9 can be a wing to the 1 (and vice versa), the description of which has been laid down in the Enneagram Portraits, and Core type post.

What matters most is your core type and wing; the order of your fixes is less so. More “Fix” comparisons coming (for each Enneagram type) stay tuned!

[k-waza]

Butterfly Effect Capture/Invite system Demo has launched on my Patreon!

In the old game, Esthe Hunter, the capture mechanic was similar to Pokémon

-Cast Dofuba successfully -Damage monster to a certain point -The battle ends and if you have a Creature Crystal in your inventory, the capture will be successful. If you don't have one in your inventory, the capture will fail and you'll have to fight an uncapturable, un-tameable enraged version of the monster.

Here I'm playing more on the Carrot vs Whip system. Here you can. . .

-Use the old method and capture the monster (higher chance of capture and slightly easier but uses LOTS of MP and Tension Point)

or

- Invite the monster to go with you with the new "Invite" technique that takes less Tension Point and no MP but has a LOWER chance of success. All while the monster still may attack Chie at will. -Also you must not damage the monster during the battle ONCE or the Invitation will never be accepted if the monster is hurt.

-Captured/Invited monsters cannot join Chie's Party, instead, they're going to be the ones to administer the Spa treatments at Pecil's Resort once Pecil has trained them to do so.

The Gameplay Demo is available to 2$ + Tier Patrons on my Patreon. https://www.patreon.com/KeiWaza

I'll PUBLICLY release this demo earlier IF this post gets more than 53 notes But just to warn you this demo just contains test monsters of 3 silkwurms testing the Escape Method, Carrot vs Whip Mechanic, and Base Capture mechanic as well as a random mob to test for fighting balance.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/e56vky9l0ckjivi/Project_OneGraphicFix.rar/file

Here is a Public Release of the demo before the latest as promised. Comments and critiques are encouraged, as long as you're aware of the following

1. Though I am open to constructive criticism, I am the one who makes the decision on what goes into the game and where.

2. I am SUPER open to any malfunctions and bugs that must be fix 3. Please no "Put my fetish Here" comments, those are reserved for Patrons participating in Patron Polls.

4. Please be aware that I am ONE GUY working on this and there are limits to what I can and cannot do. If you're going to suggest anything that is outside my weight class, please give me some sources and references that can help with making it happen.

[sfactuary]

Asset Liability Management

2. MODELLING AND PARADIGMS

2.1 Introduction

2.1.1        Thinking about the detail

•        Ex 2.1 Read the case study and produce a one-paragraph summary that shows you have thought about the issues raised.

Reddington queried the implicit assumptions in the formal expression of calculating present value of cash-flows. Reversing the present value process required the investor to obtain the exact interest specified in the present value calculation and this is almost impossible in practice. Thus, the word ‘interest’ was used both in the physical sense (i.e. a rate quoted by an entity) and the everyday actuarial jargon of a hypothetical quantity used to calculate a present value. Separating these two quantities allowed him to develop the algebra for his theory of immunisation.

•        Need to critically analyse methods, models and assumptions. It is important to not only perform calculations correctly, but to also tell the story behind the numbers.

•        Need to understand why a method is chosen for a problem and learn to question whether the underlying assumptions are valid/justifiable.

2.2     Generic modelling framework

•        The general modelling framework as applied to investment advice is an example of the control cycle in action. The framework requires:

o   data (e.g. past returns, liability profile of the investor);

o   a method that defines how to assess the risk and return drivers;

o   assumptions about the future;

o   a model that can perform the calculations;

o   output of the results;

o   a comparison of what was expected and what occurred;

o   communication of results;

o   a feedback mechanism to update assumptions; and

o   an overarching governance process

•        e.g. portfolio construction will require a model to capture the interaction between A&L, therefore mismatches.

•        Model is affected by assumptions, data and methods. And also professional requirements and an external environment

•       

2.2.1        Models

•        Model is a mathematical representation of a real-world phenomenon, therefore required to simplify the assumptions about real world.

•        The model also needs to be calibrated to the phenomena it is supposed to represent.

•        Degree of simplification will depend on the purpose of the model.

o   LI pricing model use some broad asset assumptions (e.g. constant future returns), as more refined asset model would not materially affect the derived prices

o   Building a model to advocate investment in a new and complicated asset class, such as emerging market private credit, could involve multiple extensive models including:

§  Detailed investigation into each model’s sensitivities to the parameters that would be required

§  Detailed communications on how to manage the risk exposures to help decision-makers decide whether to proceed with the proposed investment

•        Model’s calculations need to be reviewed technically and peer reviewed for materiality.

•        Randomness when modelling the future: all actuarial models are stochastic (uncertain future and events are random). But those models are simplified to be deterministic. E.g. pricing a savings product that has no investment guarantees, assume 6%pa as a mean return on underlying assets, but actual returns will not be constant. Randomness of outcomes are captures via stress testing deterministic model.

•        Types of deterministic sensitive testing

o   Apply fixed % stress test to test the sensitivity of each assumptions

o   Apply a stress test to material assumptions in line with the uncertainty in those assumptions

•        Stochastic investment models are used widely nowadays. Materiality and ability to select future distributions needs to be considered.

•        Ex 2.2:

o   Deterministic models:

§  Pricing insurance contracts where investment returns are not material (e.g. term insurance, ST GI, PHI)

§  Pricing investment linked business (unit linked) where the sensitivity to investment returns are usually captured through sensitivity testing.

§  Valuing a DB scheme in a merger or takeover.

o   Stochastic models:

§  Valuing a guarantee that depends on the path of investment returns. E.g. a stochastic model is required if an investment-linked contract offered the return of the original investment at a specified future date.

§  Calculating the required amount of capital for an insurer so that the insurer is 99.9% certain they can survive for a specified time.

§  Using a stochastic mortality model when considering the risks in offering lifetime annuities.

•        All the models require parameters (assumptions) and data which affects output quality.

•        Deliverables can be restricted by time, labour and IT systems.

2.2.2        Assumptions

•        The general process for selecting and deriving assumptions is:

o   the parameters (i.e. assumptions) of the model are identified through a mixture of factual knowledge (e.g. examining an Investment Product Disclosure Statement and historical data) and experience

o   the assumptions are quantified as arising from statistical distributions and either a single value is selected for ‘deterministic’ models or the full distribution is retained for a stochastic model

o   the quantification process (ACC) involves considering:

§  the purpose of the advice;

§  government intervention via prudential regulations, taxation, or other legislation;

§  the quality of data available;

§  the materiality of an assumption; and

§  how the future will differ from the past, especially considering the external environment and how that may change;

o   assumptions may be changed as experience is obtained; and

o   experience may suggest that other assumptions are required

•        Models with implicit assumptions e.g. using inflation-linked bonds as a solution for hedging against domestic-relate cash outflows lined by inflation implicitly assumes there is enough supply/ liquidity and access to such instruments in the domestic market in practice.

•        Sources of uncertainty when making assumptions

o   Values for assumptions are deducted from an observed sample rather than population

o   Assumptions are derived from old data and then adjusted for future time period where it is uncertain about size and direction of adjustments

•        Investment advice models for LI and retirement schemes are often represent mean outcomes but some require 99.5% CI level.

2.2.3 Data

•        Have regulations on the disclosure

•        Ex 2.3 Issues that may arise if the source of investment return data and timing are not disclosed to retail investors:

o   May be illegal not to disclose and hence the company may be reprimanded by a regulator, face a fine, and possibly lose some brand integrity through negative media releases.

o   If the source is not disclosed, then the user, or other interested third parties such as trade press, cannot check the accuracy of the data.

o   There is the danger that the timing chosen by the company ‘cherry-picked’ dates that made published returns look good.

•        Historical returns are examined to help justify future returns and as a proxy for experience.

2.2.4 Professionalism

•        All actuarial work should be completed in adherence to the local actuarial standards and expected professional behaviours

•        Actuary should be comfortable to defend their work in a court of law in public or media.

•        Actuary should ensure that they are competent with knowledge and skills in relevant area to complete the task.

•        Ex 2.4: You work as an enterprise risk actuary on life insurance products. Your company has a small business division that provides actuarial services to defined benefit (DB) schemes and has one actuary who signs off on reports. He has recently taken six months of paternity leave. You have been asked to transfer to the business division to provide sign-off on defined benefit ALM reports. Discuss your choices.

You have a number of options available to you. Which option you decide to exercise will depend on your specific circumstances as well as your previous experience in other roles before this. The options could be, but are not limited to:

•        Decline to take up the responsibilities. This is particularly appropriate if you do not possess the required experience and/or knowledge and are unable to get the required support to be effective in your new role.

•        Accept the role, but with the condition that appropriate use will be made of subject-matter experts to provide comfort and guidance in performing your duties. This can potentially be through external consultants as there has only been one actuary internally in the past who signed off.

•        Accept outright. If you have performed similar roles in the past and are comfortable that you still have the required knowledge and expertise (and that these are reflective of current best practice), then it could be appropriate to take on the role.

The ethical considerations should also be clearly understood before exercising an option, such as whether a potential conflict of interest exists or even just the perception of such a conflict, between this role and the usual role performed. This will ensure that reasonable steps are taken to meet policyholders’ reasonable expectations and that the appropriate care is taken in signing off the DB reports.

Your work may well be peer reviewed or audited or reviewed by a regulator — you need to be able to show the reviewer that you have the professional competencies required and your work complies with all professional requirements. These considerations should be made before accepting the role, not after accepting the role and delivering the reports.

It is worth pointing out that if you take responsibility and problems arise (e.g. the wrong thing happens either due to bad luck or negligence), then the quality of your work will be peer reviewed by other actuaries who are subject experts and they may appear as expert witnesses in a potential court case. These peers will critique your judgement and the decisions you made even on very technical matters, so you should keep this in mind if you decide to accept full responsibility for the task. Remember, you can be held accountable, even for complex subject matter.

2.2.5 External environment

•        E.g. applicable regulations and taxation rules

•        Insurers can influence internal factors such as expense costs and policyholder behaviour (e.g. contacting lapsed customers to reinstate their policy), but actual market investment returns are largely external to insurers or superfund decisions.

2.3     Investment paradigms

•        Need to understand both side of the arguments e.g. theories and approaches

2.3.1 Long-Term Capital Management hedge fund

•        LTCM was a hedge fund led by Wall St bond traders and Nobel prize winners

•        Used complex mathematical models to derive huge returns

•        Before 1997, Held $30 debt to every $1 capital with high leverage of 25:1

•        When Russia devalued its currency and defaulting on its bonds, i.e. liquidity crisis and made leverage of 250:1 making the fund vulnerable to shocks

•        Fund lost 44% of its value by Aug-1997. Federal reserve gathered 11 banks to bail out LTCM

•        Assumptions include:

o   Sovereign states will not default on bonds or currency

o   Perfect market liquidity – the flight to quality was not foreseen

o   Returns follow the normal dist’n – price changes were rapid and well outside plausible scenarios under normal dist’n

2.3.2        Causation and correlation Background

•        Pearson correlation coef: Cov(X,Y)/√[Var(X) x Var(Y)]. The measurement is an indication of the linearity of the relationship, but it is not always capable of evaluating the strength of the relationship

•        The Pearson correlation coefficient, lies between -1 and 1, has the following limitations in evaluating the strength of relationship between two or more variables:

o   it does not capture nonlinear effects;

o   if the knowledge of one random variable provides exact information about another random variable, then the correlation coefficient may still take any value between -1 and 1;

o   the correlation coefficient may be quite different under monotonic transformations of the variables— for example, the correlation coefficient of X and Y may be different from the correlation coefficient of log(X) and log(Y); and

o   some insurance risks are heavy tailed, with potentially infinite variances, making the Pearson correlation coefficient indeterminable.

•        It can be overcome by the Spearman rank correlation coefficient (‘Spearman Rho’) and the Kendal rank correlation coefficient (‘Kendall’s Tau’). These are non-parametric methods that do not depend on the marginal distributions of the underlying risk variables. The rank coefficient methods are less affected by outliers compared with the Pearson method.

Causation

•        Issues with above 3 correlation methods:

o   They are numerical measure of dependency but do not fully characterise the dependency structure

o   Independent rvs have 0 correlation, but doesn’t mean they are independent

•        If correlated, possible relationships include:

o   A causes B

o   B causes A

o   A and B are consequences of common cause but not of each other

o   A causes B and B causes A

o   There is no correlation b/w A and B, it is a coincidence

•        Correlation does not imply causality i.e. past data might show correlation but does not mean they are causally linked

•        If A causes B, 3 conditions must be satisfied:

o   A must precede B

o   B occurs iff A occurs

o   There are no other causes or effects

•        If there is causal relationship, then we can assume it’ll continue in future – causal law

•        It not causal relationships and can only observe historic correlation – historical regularity

•        Example: shares outperform bonds over long periods (supported historically), but it is not universally agreed.

o   There are periods where this is not the case.

o   But the long term relationship: Return on equities = real return on bonds plus inflation plus equity risk premium (ERP)

o   Why did shares outperform bonds in that period? Why will that reason be valid in the future?

•        Ex 2.5: Your studies of Life Contingencies would have introduced you to Gombertz’s law of mortality. That law assumed that the force of mortality increased with age. Makeham refined the law through the addition of a constant that allowed for an age independent rate of accidental death. Perks (1932) generalised those laws with an upper limit to the rate of mortality. An expression for Perks’s law is 𝜇𝑥= 𝐴 + 𝐵𝑒𝜌𝑥 /(1+𝐶𝑒𝜌𝑥).

In practice, the differences among the three laws are not numerically material except at young or old ages, although they are clearly different from a scientific viewpoint. Is Perks’s law a law of nature or a regularity?

Numerical values will have to be derived from observed data for the parameters — and be invariant in the future. We know that mortality rates have been improving for all ages for many years, except for recent data in the UK suggesting a fall in life expectancy. This suggests a regularity rather than a law of nature.

 The form of the law is based on these three conditions:

1. Whilst it appears true that the force of mortality will increase with age, one has to find evidence that the force of mortality is of the suggested analytically tractable form.

2. The force of mortality may reach a limiting value but that appears to vary over time.

3. There is a constant mortality rate representing accidental deaths — which is a good first approximation over many age ranges. (The suicide rates for males in 2018, per 100,000 of population, were 20.2 (ages 15–24), 22.7 (ages 25–34), 25.6 (ages 35–44), 27.5 (ages 45–55) and 24.9 (ages 56–65). The figures do not appear in the top 10 causes of death for older age groups because of the rapid rise in death from other causes.)

 More importantly, we need to identify a cause for the force of mortality in the form expressed in Perks’s law. Given the multitude of causes of death, changes in medical knowledge, and lifestyles, it seems more likely that the law is an artefact of fitting data to observations. The laws were derived in times where calculations were much more laborious than today. We may use the ‘law’ but should note that it is a regularity derived from data rather than a natural physical law.

2.3.3        The philosophy of Thomas Kuhn

•        In 1962, Kuhn proposed that science does not develop in a linear manner.

•        The science progresses in various stages:

o   Pre-science: lack of agreement over fundamentals

o   Normal science: work of scientists who improve accepted theories

§  Paradigm – the entire constellation of beliefs, values, techniques and so on shares by scientific community. Paradigm include: clearly stated fundamental laws with associate assumptions; agreed methods of applying the fundamental laws; and definitions of measurable quantities and how to measure quantities.

§  Normal science assumptions: type of questions that are deemed relevant to the field of study; the process by which these questions are studies; and how results are interpreted.

§  Normal science progresses by solving puzzles within the framework of the paradigm

§  When odd results are encountered, the researcher will question whether they did something wrong

o   Crisis: if anomalies question the validity of the fundamentals of a paradigm and cannot be explained away

o   Revolution: occurs when scientist start to lose confidence in paradigm

o   New normal science: lead by new paradigm to reject the old one (called paradigm shift)

o   New crisis

The process of normal science, the accumulation of anomalies, the move into a scientific crisis, and the paradigm shift are collectively labelled by Kuhn as a scientific revolution.

•        Social and cultural norms and incentives may reduce objectivity of scientific output. Scientists may be reluctant to give up on paradigms due to either rejecting until a new/ better one developed or don’t want their work and expertise to become irrelevant and superseded by others. Therefore, paradigm-shifts might take time – a generation or longer.

2.3.4        Exemplars

•        Concrete problem-solving solutions that students encounter throughout their scientific education

•        Assumptions that are taught make is not the case in real world e.g. the assumption that stock returns are independent, identically distributed, log-normal random variables.

•        Ex 2.6 Exemplars used in Foundation:

o   the Black–Scholes model

o   using q(x) as a deterministic function;

o   believing that the version of the central limit theorem is the only version whereas the conditions taught in Foundation (IID and finite variance) may be relaxed;

o   the existence of the risk-free rate

o   risk-free rate invariant by duration

o   a focus on parametric probability laws.

2.3.5        Duhem-Quine thesis

•        It argues that no scientific hypothesis is by itself capable of making predictions. Instead, deriving predictions from the hypothesis typically requires background assumptions that several other hypotheses are correct.

•        Collection of background assumptions and hypothesis – bundle of hypotheses

•        It says that it is impossible to isolate a single hypothesis in the bundle

•        The evidence might be insufficient to make a decision e.g. insufficient data to give conclusions

•        The Duhem–Quine thesis, also called the Duhem–Quine problem, after Pierre Duhem and Willard Van Orman Quine, is that it is impossible to test a scientific hypothesis in isolation, because an empirical test of the hypothesis requires one or more background assumptions (also called auxiliary assumptions or auxiliary hypotheses).

•        The Duhem–Quine thesis argues that no scientific hypothesis is by itself capable of making predictions. Instead, deriving predictions from the hypothesis typically requires background assumptions that several other hypotheses are correct — that an experiment works as predicted, or that previous scientific theory is accurate.

•        Ex 2.7: E.g. where actuaries make conclusions using limited data.

In general, actuaries advise decision-makers on potential consequences of decisions. The data is often not sufficient to make a 100% accurate prediction, but that is not the focus of actuarial advice.

For example, consider the output from an experience investigation into lapses across a portfolio of policies.

Policies will be suitably grouped into homogeneous groups (e.g. by age, duration, premium size, gender, etc.). The actual experience for each group can be compared with the expected broad-brush results for each group. A series of ratios of actual/expected are tabulated, possibly showing trends in prior years. These tables are then used to assess whether changes to expected rates for the future are necessary. The data contains significant amounts of noise, which often makes it difficult to obtain clear signals. It is the role of an experienced actuary to determine the need, and implications, of any change to the assumptions.

2.3.6        Historical development of investment theory

•        Technical analysis

o   Charting (19th century)

o   Method to estimate short-term movements in asset prices based on an examination of past prices and trading volumes

o   Assumes there is a correlation between past price movements and trading volumes with future price movements.

•        Fundamental analysis (1934+)

o   Attempts to derive the intrinsic value of an asset by analysing the factors that could affect its price in the future.

o   Uses financial statements, past trends in data, compared with companies in similar industries as well as external factors.

o   Intrinsic value will not be same as current market price but using it an analyst may derive an intrinsic value that will lead to buying, selling or continuing to hold a stock.

•        Modern portfolio theory (1952+)

o   Alternative to mean-variance analysis (trade-off between the return on a portfolio and variance –‘risk’)

o   Ideas developed: investors were making rational decisions; the equity risk premium as the reason why investors purchased risky assets; volatility as a proxy for risk; and correlation across assets — the ‘beta’ as part of the Capital Asset Pricing Model.

o   Current prices reflect all current market information

•        Behavioural finance (1979+ with Prospect theory)

o   Investors aim to achieve maximum utility – more is preferred to less

o   Explains actual investor behaviour. Affected by biases and act irrationally.

 2.4     Governance

•        Investment governance and investment management are different.

•        Governance is focused on defining the objective, key roles, and responsibilities and reviewing progress towards achieving the objective.

•        Management is concerned with the implementation and execution of the plan.

•        General approach to investment governance structures for institutional investors:

o   Investment committee: BoD with external investment specialist appointed for their expertise.

o   Investment staff: BoD appoints internal committee for investment governance responsibilities

o   Third party or external resources

•        The Board is responsible for purpose, philosophy and goals made with input from committee and staff. They also delegate responsibilities with varying accountabilities depending on factors:

o   Size of the organisation and FUM

o   Knowledge, skills, experience and capabilities of investment staff

o   Amount of time investment staff can devote, especially if they have competing priorities

o   Number of staff and depth of the team, considering business continuity, costs, efficiency and succession planning

2.5     Qualitative aspects

•        For actuarial advise, consider quantitative techniques (what and when) and qualitative questions (why and how)

•        It is important to see if past events will be replicated in the future. E.g.

o   When sample data is small, non-existent, or not reliable to build statistical distributions for the assumptions

o   Law of large numbers may be used to show the sample mean coverages to the true underlying mean, assuming its underlying distribution is stationary which is not true.

•        Risk is when outcome is unknown, but probability of the outcome is definable. Uncertainty applies when we are incapable of having sufficient information to formulate a probability (unknown unknowns).

•        A/L modelling is uncertainty.

2.6     Key learning points

•        The examination questions will expect you to develop clear, concise, and coherent arguments to support the claims that you may make.

•        A model is a mathematical representation of real-world problems and involves simplifying assumptions that must be calibrated against the real world.

•        Even if results are sometimes presented as a single deterministic outcome, most actuarial problems and models are stochastic because the future is uncertain, and events are random.

•        Data is critical to actuarial work and the actuary must consider the accuracy of data and comment on data issues.

•        Assumptions need to be appropriate for future experience. In setting assumptions, historical data and experience and the interpretation of emerging trends are important.

•        All actuarial work should be completed professionally and in accordance with required standards and expected behaviours.

•        An actuary as a professional advisor must consider not just quantitative techniques and the delivery of numerical answers, but also answer qualitative questions. The implications of the numbers you produce must be carefully explained to decision makers.

•        Actuarial work must also consider relevant wider issues and trends in society.

•        Correlation does not imply causality — are past observations merely a historical record or will they occur in the future?

•        Normal science progresses by solving puzzles within the framework of the agreed paradigm.

•        The accumulation of anomalies may push science out of ‘normal science’ into a scientific crisis.

•        A new paradigm, which would lead to new normal science, must emerge before the old one is rejected. The move from paradigm to another is called a ‘paradigm shift’.

•        Exemplars are concrete problem-solving solutions that students encounter throughout their scientific education and may entrench paradigms.

•        The Duhem–Quine thesis argues that no scientific hypothesis is by itself capable of making predictions, because background assumptions are required.

•        There are multiple paradigms in investments, suggesting that the subject is in a ‘crisis’.

•        Investment governance is focused on defining the objective, key roles, and responsibilities and reviewing progress towards achieving the objective.

•        Investment management is concerned with the implementation and execution of the plan decided by the governance process.

•        Risks can be defined as applying to situations where the outcome is unknown, but the probability of the outcome is definable; and uncertainty as applying where we cannot obtain sufficient information to formulate a probability.