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dontmeantobepoliticalbut · 1 year

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The Environmental Protection Agency unveiled a new proposal Thursday to cut greenhouse gas emissions from thousands of power plants burning coal or natural gas, two of the top sources of electricity across the United States. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), criticizing the “radical” proposal, issued his own scorched earth ultimatum on Wednesday ahead of the announcement.

Manchin, chair of the Senate Energy Committee and the top recipient of contributions from the oil and gas industry during the 2022 election cycle, vowed Wednesday to oppose every one of President Joe Biden’s nominees for the EPA “until they halt their government overreach.”

“This Administration is determined to advance its radical climate agenda and has made it clear they are hellbent on doing everything in their power to regulate coal and gas-fueled power plants out of existence, no matter the cost to energy security and reliability,” Manchin wrote in a statement released Wednesday.

The EPA proposal would require most fossil fuel-fired power plants to slash their greenhouse emissions by 90% between 2023 and 2040. The EPA projects the emissions reduction would deliver up to $85 billion in climate and health benefits over the next two decades by heading off premature deaths, emergency room visits, asthma attacks, school absences and lost workdays.

“Alongside historic investment taking place across America in clean energy manufacturing and deployment, these proposals will help deliver tremendous benefits to the American people — cutting climate pollution and other harmful pollutants, protecting people’s health, and driving American innovation,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a statement issued Thursday.

By 2035, the Biden administration aims to shift all electricity in the U.S. to zero-emission sources including wind, solar, nuclear and hydropower, Roll Call reported. In a written statement, Manchin warned the administration’s “commitment to their extreme ideology overshadows their responsibility to ensure long-lasting energy and economic security.”

Manchin is up for reelection during the 2024 election cycle, but he has not yet announced whether he will run.

Last month, West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice (R) announced his campaign for Manchin’s seat. The Democrat-turned-Republican is among the most popular governors in the country and leads a state former President Donald Trump won by nearly 40 percentage points in 2020.

Manchin has hammered the Biden administration in recent weeks for its implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act, the president’s signature climate change bill that the Democratic senator was instrumental in shaping.

“Neither the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law nor the IRA gave new authority to regulate power plant emission standards. However, I fear that this Administration’s commitment to their extreme ideology overshadows their responsibility to ensure long-lasting energy and economic security and I will oppose all EPA nominees until they halt their government overreach,” Manchin said in his Wednesday statement.

What Manchin did not disclose in his statement, however, is that the EPA proposal would jeopardize one West Virginia coal facility that’s particularly lucrative for Manchin’s family business, Enersystems Inc., POLITICO reported. Enersystems delivers waste coal to the Grant Town power plant, which was reportedly already struggling financially, troubles that are expected to deepen with the strict new climate proposal.

Manchin personally received $537,000 from Enersystems last year, according to POLITICO’s analysis of personal financial disclosures filed with the U.S. Senate, and he has been paid more than $5 million by the company since he was first elected in 2010. His son, Joe Manchin IV, now runs Enersystems. The Senator’s campaign has also benefited from political contributions from Enersystems, OpenSecrets reported last year.

“This is going to make it harder for them to stay around. You won’t find written anywhere in the rule that this is supposed to be putting coal plants out of business, but just do the math,” Brian Murray, director of the Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability at Duke University, told POLITICO.

In 2020, Manchin’s home state of West Virginia generated about 90% of its power from coal, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. By contrast, less than 20% of the energy generated nationally comes from coal. Many states, including neighboring Virginia, are phasing out coal by replacing it with natural gas.

While the U.S. may show signs of moving away from coal, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission told the Senate Energy Committee earlier this month that the country was not prepared to abandon coal and maintain a reliable energy system.

“Coal is more dependable than gas and yes, we need to keep coal generation available for the foreseeable future,” said Commissioner Mark Christie.

Manchin took another swipe at the EPA on Thursday during an energy committee hearing on permitting reform, when he accused the agency of preventing the development of carbon capture technology by denying companies the permits they need to trap captured carbon underground.

“Don’t tell me that you’re going to invest in carbon capture sequestration when we can’t get a permit to basically sequester the carbon captured,” Manchin said. “This is the game that’s being played. I know it, they know I know it, and we’re not gonna let them get away with it.”

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beardedmrbean · 1 year

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(Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to hear a bid by child pornography victims to overcome a legal shield for internet companies in a case involving a lawsuit accusing Reddit Inc of violating federal law by failing to rid the discussion website of this illegal content.

The justices turned away the appeal of a lower court's decision to dismiss the proposed class action lawsuit on the grounds that Reddit was shielded by a U.S. statute called Section 230, which safeguards internet companies from lawsuits for content posted by users but has an exception for claims involving child sex trafficking.

The Supreme Court on May 19 sidestepped an opportunity to narrow the scope of Section 230 immunity in a separate case.

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 protects "interactive computer services" by ensuring they cannot be treated as the "publisher or speaker" of information provided by users. The Reddit case explored the scope of a 2018 amendment to Section 230 called the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA), which allows lawsuits against internet companies if the underlying claim involves child sex trafficking.

Reddit allows users to post content that is moderated by other users in forums called subreddits. The case centers on sexually explicit images and videos of children posted to such forums by users. The plaintiffs - the parents of minors and a former minor who were the subjects of the images - sued Reddit in 2021 in federal court in California, seeking monetary damages.

The plaintiffs accused Reddit of doing too little to remove or prevent child pornography and of financially benefiting from the illegal posts through advertising in violation of a federal child sex trafficking law.

The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2022 concluded that in order for the exception under FOSTA to apply, plaintiffs must show that an internet company "knowingly benefited" from the sex trafficking through its own conduct.

Instead, the 9th Circuit concluded, the allegations "suggest only that Reddit 'turned a blind eye' to the unlawful content posted on its platform, not that it actively participated in sex trafficking."

Reddit said in court papers that it works hard to find and prevent the sharing of child sexual exploitation materials on its platform, giving all users the ability to flag posts and using dedicated teams to remove illegal content.

The Supreme Court on May 19 declined to rule on a bid to weaken Section 230 in a case seeking to hold Google LLC liable under a federal anti-terrorism law for allegedly recommending content by the Islamic State militant group to users of its YouTube video-sharing service. Google and YouTube are part of Alphabet Inc.

Calls have come from across the ideological and political spectrum - including Democratic President Joe Biden and his Republican predecessor Donald Trump - for a rethink of Section 230 to ensure that companies can be held accountable for content on their platforms.

"Child pornography is the root cause of much of the sex trafficking that occurs in the world today, and it is primarily traded on the internet, through websites that claim immunity" under Section 230, the plaintiffs said in their appeal to the Supreme Court.

Allowing the 9th Circuit's decision to stand, they added, "would immunize a huge class of violators who play a role in the victimization of children."

#nunyas news #be tough to prove they benefited #no cp subs allowed #sure they exists but they're not allowed

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anachrosims · 11 months

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I had an epiphany about the greige luxe aesthetic disk horse and I’m here to share it:

Aesthetics are (mostly) neutral things, provided the aesthetic itself isn’t evoking/promoting an ideology that’s rooted in bigotry and/or harming other people. You’re allowed to like greige luxe, which is what I am personally going to call it from now on. Basically, an aesthetic on its own is not good/evil, it didn’t kill your sensei, etc.

Trends, however? Oh, my friends in Christ! My Dear Honeys and Bunches of Oats! Here’s where it gets fun, because trends imply a group of instances within a period of time. A trend is something you can chart out using a graph to say, “this style is being used X (how much it’s used) over Y (a period of months/years).”

When people gripe about the greige luxe nightmare, it’s because we’ve been experiencing it in a gradual crescendo for well over a decade. When a person gripes about a trend, it isn’t a personal attack against people who happen to genuinely have that personal taste, though I’m sure it can often feel like one.

The problem in this specific case is that greige luxe has a lot of cultural baggage rooted in classism (this aesthetic has been promoted by companies sponsoring overpriced brands--looking at you Magnolia Home) and the diluting (literally) of other styles into being watered down. It’s taken the sleek and often fun pop of midcentury, Scandi, and midcentury modern and even rustic styles and literally neutralized them, sanding off the “rough” edges to make it all more appealing to a wider audience.

Don’t believe me? Check out this article from the Guardian from 2022, which discusses that “... the origin of this great wave of grey goes back through centuries of western culture to a longstanding prejudice against bright colors, as explored by the artist David Batchelor in his 2000 book Chromophobia.” It goes on to explain, “Goethe’s Theory of Colors, published in 1810, maintained that bright colors were suited to children and animals, not sophisticated adults. ... Still today, words such as ‘lurid’ and ‘garish’ have negative connotations. ‘Color is often represented as feminine, or Oriental, or primitive, or infantile, rather than grown-up and philosophical and serious … and it’s clearly indexed to issues of race, culture, class and gender,’ says Batchelor.”

The article further elaborates on this by comparing the trend to what is associated with “’refined taste’”-- “’...a desire for the muted, the minimal, the sparse...’ Over the past 15 years, ‘what we have seen is a move from the yellow end of the spectrum to the cooler one – from beige, to greige’, amounting to what Fox calls ‘a desaturating effect’ across culture.” (Context: British art historian James Fox, author of The World According to Colour.)

As for the Sims community? Well... I personally associate the greige trend with permapaywallers and even well-known early access (but contraversial) creators following it excessively, leading popular builders to make lots based almost entirely around this greige luxe nightmare. In addition to cultural baggage, it’s now got community baggage heaped on, and I expect that’s what’s led to the visceral reaction we’re seeing. Basically in the Sims community, greige luxe is a whole thing associated now with appropriated styles that have been watered down, commodified, and associated with “upper class refinement”, especially to the detriment of variety and vitality.

The article does also point out that as society has become more and more polarized, the trend has grown, “...[s]ince the mid-2010s especially, people have sought not to be energized by their homes – but soothed.” And yeah, that tracks-- people want calm, want simple. And that’s okay! I myself genuinely like soothing rooms, color schemes that are softer--neutrals and pastels and washed-out rustica with a soft pop of color here and there. Absolutely lovely.

I also think there’s merit to wanting something more uplifting, and the article references things like recent tentative trends toward more color, like interior designs leaning for warmer tones, red dining rooms coming back into vogue, and even Apple’s more colorful line of products: “It suggests that post-pandemic people are prioritising not serenity in their homes, but joy.”

To bring it all back home: Yeah, like what you like. Just please try to understand that trend fatigue and changing times can and will lead people to yearn for something different, and it never hurts to branch out into new palettes and decor styles. While I understand the “mass appeal” of simple neutral colors and sleek styles, my own personal happiness needs a bit more levity, more vitality, lest I feel washed out and uninspired.

(I do recommend reading the article; it isn’t an actual indictment of greige, but rather a discussion illustrating opinions both for and against and the history of the “neutral” trend.)

Further suggested reading: How Are Color Trends Decided? Article from DraperyStreet in 2017, & Color Trend Predictions for 2023, from LuxeSource in 2022, & Greige, the Color That’s Taking Over Pinterest, from Business Insider in 2015.

#greige #color theory #fashion trends #sims 4 #sims community #feel free to rb if you want #I know it's biased I'm not pretending it isn't #but I hope this can bring a little perspective to the whole discussion

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mostlysignssomeportents · 1 year

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Ostromizing democracy

Friday (May 5), I’ll be at the Books, Inc in Mountain View with Mitch Kapor for my novel Red Team Blues; and this weekend (May 6/7), I’ll be in Berkeley at the Bay Area Bookfest.

You know how “realist” has become a synonym for “asshole?” As in, “I’m not a racist, I’m just a ‘race realist?’” That same “realism” is also used to discredit the idea of democracy itself, among a group of self-styled “libertarian elitists,” who claim that social science proves that democracy doesn’t work — and can’t work.

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/04/analytical-democratic-theory/#epistocratic-delusions

You’ve likely encountered elements of this ideology in the wild. Perhaps you’ve heard about how our cognitive biases make us incapable of deliberating, that “reasoning was not designed to pursue the truth. Reasoning was designed by evolution to help us win arguments.”

Or maybe you’ve heard that voters are “rationally ignorant,” choosing not to become informed about politics because their vote doesn’t have enough influence to justify the cognitive expenditure of figuring out how to cast it.

There’s the “backfire effect,” the idea that rational argument doesn’t make us change our minds, but rather, drives us to double-down on our own cherished beliefs. As if that wasn’t bad enough, there’s the Asch effect, which says that we will change our minds based on pressure from the majority, even if we know they’re wrong.

Finally, there’s the fact that the public Just Doesn’t Understand Economics. When you compare the views of the average person to the views of the average PhD economist, you find that the public sharply disagrees with such obvious truths as “we should only worry about how big the pie is, not how big my slice is?” These fools just can’t understand that an economy where their boss gets richer and they get poorer is a good economy, so long as it’s growing overall!

That’s why noted “realist” Peter Thiel thinks women shouldn’t be allowed to vote. Thiel says that mothers are apt to sideline the “science” of economics for the soppy, sentimental idea that children shouldn’t starve to death and thus vote for politicians who are willing to tax rich people. Thus do we find ourselves on the road to serfdom:

https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertarian/

Other realists go even further, suggesting that anyone who disagrees with orthodox (Chicago School) economists shouldn’t be allowed to vote: “[a]nyone who opposes surge pricing should be disenfranchised. That’s how we should decide who decides in epistocracy.”

Add it all up and you get the various “libertarian” cases for abolishing democracy. Some of these libertarian elitists want to replace democracy with markets, because “markets impose an effective ‘user fee’ for irrationality that is absent from democracy.

Others say we should limit voting to “Vulcans” who can pass a knowledge test about the views of neoclassical economists, and if this means that fewer Black people and women are eligible to vote because either condition is “negatively correlated” with familiarity with “politics,” then so mote be it. After all, these groups are “much more likely than others to be mistaken about what they really need”:

https://bleedingheartlibertarians.com/2015/03/the-demographic-argument-for-compulsory-voting-with-a-guest-appearance-by-the-real-reason-the-left-advocates-compulsory-voting/

These arguments and some of their most gaping errors are rehearsed in an excellent Democracy Journal article by Henry Farrell, Hugo Mercier, and Melissa Schwartzberg (Mercier’s research is often misinterpreted and misquoted by libertarian elitists to bolster their position):

https://democracyjournal.org/magazine/68/the-new-libertarian-elitists/

The article is a companion piece to a new academic article in American Political Science Review, where the authors propose a new subdiscipline of political science, Analytical Democracy Theory:

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/analytical-democratic-theory-a-microfoundational-approach/739A9A928A99A47994E4585059B03398

What’s “Analytical Democracy Theory?” It’s the systematic study of when and how collective decision-making works, and when it goes wrong. Because the libertarian elitists aren’t completely, utterly wrong — there are times when groups of people make bad decisions. From that crumb of truth, the libertarian elitists theorize an entire nihilistic cake in which self-governance is impossible and where we fools and sentimentalists must be subjugated to the will of our intellectual betters, for our own good.

This isn’t the first time libertarian political scientists have pulled this trick. You’ve probably heard of the “Tragedy of the Commons,” which claims to be a “realist” account of what happens when people try to share something — a park, a beach, a forest — without anyone owning it. According to the “tragedy,” these commons are inevitably ruined by “rational” actors who know that if they don’t overgraze, pollute or despoil, someone else will, so they might as well get there first.

The Tragedy of the Commons feels right, and we’ve all experienced some version of it — the messy kitchen at your office or student house-share, the litter in the park, etc. But the paper that brought us the idea of the Tragedy of the Commons, published in 1968 by Garrett Hardin in Science, was a hoax:

https://memex.craphound.com/2019/10/01/the-tragedy-of-the-commons-how-ecofascism-was-smuggled-into-mainstream-thought/

Hardin didn’t just claim that some commons turned tragic — he claimed that the tragedy was inevitable, and, moreover, that every commons had experienced a tragedy. But Hardin made it all up. It wasn’t true. What’s more, Hardin — an ardent white nationalist — used his “realist’s account of the commons to justify colonization and genocide.

After all, if the people who lived in these colonized places didn’t have property rights to keep their commons from tragifying, then those commons were already doomed. The colonizers who seized their lands and murdered the people they found there were actually saving the colonized from their own tragedies.

Hardin went on to pioneer the idea of “lifeboat ethics,” a greased slide to mass-extermination of “inferior” people (Hardin was also a eugenicist) in order to save our planet from “overpopulation.”

Hardin’s flawed account of the commons is a sterling example of the problem with economism, the ideology that underpins neoclassical economics:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/27/economism/#what-would-i-do-if-i-were-a-horse

Economism was summed up in by Ely Devons, who quipped “”If economists wished to study the horse, they wouldn’t go and look at horses. They’d sit in their studies and say to themselves, ‘What would I do if I were a horse?’”

Hardin asked himself, “If I were reliant upon a commons, what would I do?” And, being a realist (that is, an asshole), Hardin decided that he would steal everything from the commons because that’s what the other realists would do if he didn’t get there first.

Hardin didn’t go and look at a commons. But someone else did.

Elinor Ostrom won the Nobel for her work studying the properties of successful, durable commons. She went and looked at commons:

https://www.onthecommons.org/magazine/elinor-ostroms-8-principles-managing-commmons

Ostom codified the circumstances, mechanisms and principles that distinguished successful commons from failed commons.

Analytical Democratic Theory proposes doing for democratic deliberation what Ostrom did for commons: to create an empirical account of the methods, arrangements, circumstances and systems that produce good group reasoning, and avoid the pitfalls that lead to bad group reasoning. The economists’ term for this is microfoundations: the close study of interaction among individuals, which then produces a “macro” account of how to structure whole societies.

Here are some examples of how microfoundations can answer some very big questions:

Backfire effects: The original backfire effect research was a fluke. It turns out that in most cases, people who are presented with well-sourced facts and good arguments change their minds — but not always.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11109-019-09528-x

Rational ignorance: Contrary to the predictions of “rational ignorance” theory, people who care about specific issues become “issue publics” who are incredibly knowledgeable about it, and deeply investigate and respond to candidates’ positions:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/08913810608443650

Rational ignorance is a mirage, caused by giving people questionnaires about politics in general, rather than the politics that affects them directly and personally.

“Myside” bias: Even when people strongly identify with a group, they are capable of filtering out “erroneous messages” that come from that group if they get good, contradictory evidence:

https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674237827

Majority bias: People are capable of rejecting the consensus of majorities, when the majority view is implausible, or when the majority is small, or when the majority is not perceived as benevolent. The Asch effect is “folklore”: yes, people may say that they hold a majority view when they face social sanction for rejecting it, but that doesn’t mean they’ve changed their minds:

https://alexandercoppock.com/guess_coppock_2020.pdf

Notwithstanding all this, democracy’s cheerleaders have some major gaps in the evidence to support their own view. Analytical Democratic Theory needs to investigate the nuts-and-bolts of when deliberation works and when it fails, including the tradeoffs between:

“social comfort and comfort in expressing dissent”:

https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/S0065-2601(05)37004-3

“shared common ground and some measure of preexisting disagreement”:

https://sci-hub.st/10.1037/0022-3514.91.6.1080

“group size and the need to represent diversity”:

https://www.nicolas.claidiere.fr/wp-content/uploads/DiscussionCrowds-Mercier-2021.pdf

“pressures for conformity and concerns for epistemic reputation”:

https://academic.oup.com/princeton-scholarship-online/book/30811

Realism is a demand dressed up as an observation. Realists like Margaret Thatcher insisted “there is no alternative” to neoliberalism, but what she meant was “stop trying to think of an alternative.” Hardin didn’t just claim that some commons turned tragic, he claimed that the tragedy of the commons was inevitable — that we shouldn’t even bother trying to create public goods.

The Ostrom method — actually studying how something works, rather than asking yourself how it would work if everyone thought like you — is a powerful tonic to this, but it’s not the only one. One of the things that makes science fiction so powerful is its ability to ask how a system would work under some different social arrangement.

It’s a radical proposition. Don’t just ask what the gadget does: ask who it does it for and who it does it to. That’s the foundation of Luddism, which is smeared as a technophobic rejection of technology, but which was only ever a social rejection of the specific economic arrangements of that technology. Specifically, the Luddites rejected the idea that machines should be “so easy a child could use them” in order to kidnap children from orphanages and working them to death at those machines:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/20/love-the-machine/#hate-the-factory

There are sf writers who are making enormous strides in imagining how deliberative tools could enable new democratic institutions. Ruthanna Emrys’s stunning 2022 novel “A Half-Built Garden” is a tour-de-force:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/26/aislands/#dead-ringers

I like to think that I make a small contribution here, too. My next novel, “The Lost Cause,” is at root a tale of competing group decision-making methodologies, between post-Green New Deal repair collectives, seafaring anarcho-capitalist techno-solutionists, and terrorizing white nationalist militias (it’s out in November):

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865939/the-lost-cause

Catch me on tour with Red Team Blues in Mountain View, Berkeley, Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, DC, Gaithersburg, Oxford, Hay, Manchester, Nottingham, London, and Berlin!

[Image ID: A lab-coated scientist amidst an array of chemistry equipment. His head has been replaced with a 19th-century anatomical lateral cross-section showing the inside of a bearded man's head, including one lobe of his brain. He is peering at a large flask half-full of red liquid. Inside the liquid floats the Capitol building.]

#pluralistic #epistocracy #analytical democracy #echo chambers #issue publics #stop confusing the issue with facts #cognitive elites #rational ignorance #backfire effects #analytical democratic theory #scholarship #political science #democracy #epistemic democrats #microfoundations #libertarians #elinor ostrom #ostrom #deliberation

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cuppacuppacoffee · 8 months

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Here's some more silly doodles ft my TTCC characters. This small comic was rushed, but it was something that was living in my head rent free. Ponzi is unintentionally very good with kids, and Betty thinks its so cute. This was based off this clip from the Looney Tunes

youtube

Finally, a personal headcannon I have for Cogs within TTCC. I thought about the after effects of Ponzi completely leaving his position at COG Inc to live a life closer to Toons, and it made me think that with the change in his perspective and abandonment of the workplace ideology that the Cogs have- he'd actually change (mentally and physically) to match that of the Toons. The changes are very slow, but overtime, Ponzi personally begins to slowly understand jokes, and other Toon-centric things that normally would cause Cogs to explode. He becomes far different from the Cog he used to be.

#cuppaart #original character #originalcharacters #toontown #toontown cogs #toontown corporate clash #traditional art #ttcc #ttcc oc #ttcc au #corporate clash #ttccommunity #Youtube

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thislovintime · 1 year

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Peter Tork at a Renaissance fair, 1969; photo by Henry Diltz.

“Right now I’m working with my friend Bobby Hammer on a film. I’m going to deliver a lecture on the generation gap in Aspen, Colorado, and I’m going to show a film just to keep them interested.” - Peter Tork, NME, January 25, 1969

“Early in February, [Ruth M. Adams, Wellesley student] served on the resource staff of a five-day Humanities Seminar for the Young Presidents’ Organization, Inc. in Aspen, Colorado. […] In Aspen, ‘Generation gap or civilization gap — can we cope with it?’ was the question at hand. The delegates included both members of the sponsoring organization, (which consists of men who became president of the businesses before they reached the age of forty,) and resource consultants in widely varied fields. Among these consultants were Miss Adams, author Max Schulman, Peter Tork of The Monkees, SDS leader David Littman, and Edgar Friedenberg of the State University of New York. Vast differences in backgrounds and occupations served to split the conference delegation into two ideologically distinct groups. ‘It must be remembered,’ observed Miss Adams, during a News interview last Friday, ‘that many of the delegates were men in their forties, often parents of children of high school or college age… As parents and as men carrying corporate responsibility, they found it difficult to comprehend, to understand, the views of the radical left.’ At Aspen, this radical view was voiced primarily by Littman, Tork, and Friedenberg.” - The Wellesley News, February 20, 1969

“Tork, now 36, is an avowed socialist and lives in Venice, California." - New West, January 1979 (x)

“‘We’ve all got to stick together or we’re all going to come unglued.’ [Peter] noted a drive for only one’s own fortune is at the expense of others. 'Without community, the individual is dead.’” - The Life, May 3, 1996 (x)

“Now, the business of wresting power away from those who make a specialty of wielding it will be a long and protracted struggle, with a lot of setbacks along the way. The outlines of the new style of governance are only dimly perceivable, and won’t become clear for a long time to come. In the meantime, our job is to practice the principles of fairness and service to the extent possible. One thing is clear: there is a much higher joy in service than there is in acquisition of wealth. (Remember that it isn’t money that’s the root of all evil, it’s the love of money.) Hanging together in brother - and sisterhood is so happy-making you want to sing right out loud. Yeah, I feel the same about those ideas as I did then…in case you couldn’t tell. heheheh, Peter” - Ask Peter Tork (x)

“I believe very much in all that I believed in back in the 60’s. I hope I’m more aware of the practicalities than I was then, but I am positive that the values and principles I held then are critical to the well-being of the planet, or at the very least, critical to growth and contentment in the population. As to the practicalities: the chance of no more war in our lifetimes is so close to zero that I don’t imagine it possible, tho’ there well may be progress along these lines. May be. Sometimes I see the world as an eternal horse race between salvation and dissolution, now one, and now the other gaining the lead. But to the extent that we can learn, each and all of us, that the cooperative good is good for the greatest individual good (with safeguards, to be sure), that forgiveness is the route to true inner peace, and that not everything we deem wrong or bad may be so, to that extent hassles of all shapes, sizes and colors will diminish. I am so sure of all this that I would, I hope, be willing to bet my life on these principles.” - Peter Tork, Ask Peter Tork (x)

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manorpunk · 1 year

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“The thing about fascism is that it’s fun. You get a uniform and a cool title and the Blood of the Covenant, and for some people that’s all they want out of life. Class Consciousness is a more difficult path, but it is a hundred times as rewarding as the false promises of fascism. And listen, you’ve got to remember, some of these people out there are just hogs. Don’t blame ‘em, it’s not their fault, they were born with a dozen boots on their neck, but you’ve got to remember, they have been so atomized, so rusticized, that you will have to drag them kicking and screaming to any conception of the world larger than their immediate surroundings.“ - Dashiell Redacted-Bezos, co-founder of the State Pantheon and father of Sunny Roosevelt

“tgirl swag has the sanction of heaven” - Sunny Roosevelt

President Sunny Roosevelt is a “second generation” Muskling. Her mother, Theophania Bezos-Redacted, was a Bezos-baby Muskling who worked as the High Priestess for a coven of Etsy-witches. Theophania’s husband was Dashiell Redacted-Bezos, a “man behind the curtain” of the State Pantheon, hanging out in dingy Bay Area flophouses with Hyperwonks and Soulhackers and refining their cokehead ramblings into a complete self-contained ideology (he neglected to mention how he was also heavily influenced by his wife’s practices, because god forbid women do anything).

You may have guessed by now that ‘Sunny Roosevelt’ is not her given name; it is the name of the avatar she controls, though by this point the line between the two is nearly invisible. Born in 204X, she started her vtuber career in the late fifties, and then became the mascot for Frontwave Imaging Inc, a Southeast Asian company that specialized in tensor holography, as a public advertisement for their tensor holography tech. The ad campaign was a runaway success. Sunny was launched into public awareness, where she will remain until she dies.

Naturally, there are countless rumors surrounding Sunny Roosevelt’s ‘real body’ - she’s a robot, she’s a brain in a jar, she‘s in cryogenic stasis, she was cloned from the DNA of George Washington king-in-the-mountain style. Official stance: no comment.

#manorpunk #no longer canon #though I am absolutely saving the name 'Dashiell Redacted'

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papirouge · 1 year

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≤0.05% of women die of childbirth in developed country

🗣️

I'll repeat it as much as it takes for abortion fearmongers to grasp that safe pregnancy is

1) an accessible goal which is only conditional to decent and accessible healthcare

2) this safety isn't conditional to the accessibility of abortion though

3) the way abortion is obsessively brought up by abortionists as the end all and be all of female healthcare is inversely proportional to the actual relevance of abortion to prevent death in childbirth

4) abortionists are the 'Monsters, Inc.' of obstetrics healthcare : they cling to fear to impose their ideology, and exactly like Waternoose, they a) act like children are "toxic", "parasite" etc. b) think that the end justify the mean.

#papi truths #pro life #abortion #health

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themthouse · 1 year

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The "National Emergency Library" & Hachette v. Internet Archive

While the Internet Archive is known as the creator and host of the Wayback Machine and many other internet and digital media preservation projects, the IA collection in question in Hachette v. Internet Archive is their Open Library. The Open Library has been digitizing books since as early as 2005, and in early 2011, began to include and distribute copyrighted books through Controlled Digital Lending (CDL). In total, the IA includes 3.6 million copyrighted books and continues to scan over 4,000 books a day.

During the early days of the pandemic, from March 24, 2020, to June 16, 2020, specifically, the Internet Archive offered their National Emergency Library, which did away with the waitlist limitations on their pre-existing Open Library. Instead of following the strict rules laid out in the Position Statement on Controlled Digital Lending, which mandates an equal “owned to loaned” ratio, the IA allowed multiple readers to access the same digitized book at once. This, they said, was a direct emergency response to the worldwide pandemic that cut off people’s access to physical libraries.

In response, on June 1, 2020, Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, John Wiley & Sons, and Penguin Random House filed a lawsuit against the IA over copyright infringement. Out of their collective 33,000 copyrighted titles available on Open Library, the publishers’ lawsuit focused on 127 books specifically (known in the legal documentation as the “Works in Suit”). After two years of argument, on March 24, 2023, Judge John George Koeltl ruled in favor of the publishers.

The IA’s fair use defense was found to be insufficient as the scanning and distribution of books was not found to be transformative in any way, as opposed to other copyright lawsuits that ruled in favor of digitizing books for “utility-expanding” purposes, such as Authors Guild, Inc. v. HathiTrust. Furthermore, it was found that even prior to the National Emergency Library, the Open Library frequently failed to maintain the “owned to loaned” ratio by not sufficiently monitoring the circulation of books it borrows from partner libraries. Finally, despite being a nonprofit organization overall, the IA was found to profit off of the distribution of the copyrighted books, specifically through a Better World Books link that shares part of every sale made through that specific link with the IA.

It worth noting that this ruling specifies that “even full enforcement of a one-to-one owned-to-loaned ratio, however, would not excuse IA’s reproduction of the Works in Suit.” This may set precedent for future copyright cases that attempt to claim copyright exemption through the practice of controlled digital lending. It is unclear whether this ruling is limited to the National Emergency Library specifically, or if it will affect the Open Library and other collections that practice CDL moving forward.

Further Reading:

Full History of Hachette Book Group, Inc. v. Internet Archive [Released by the Free Law Project]

Hachette v. Internet Archive ruling

Internet Archive Loses Lawsuit Over E-Book Copyright Infringement

The Fight Continues [Released by The Internet Archive]

Authors Guild Celebrates Resounding Win in Internet Archive Infringement Lawsuit [Released by The Authors Guild]

Relevant Court Cases:

Authors Guild, Inc. v. Google, Inc.

Authors Guild, Inc. v. HathiTrust

Capitol Records v. ReDigi

Index:

MASTER POST

First-Sale Doctrine & the Economics of E-books

Controlled Digital Lending (CDL)

The “National Emergency Library” & Hachette v. Internet Archive

Authors, Publishers & You

-- Authors: Ideology v. Practicality

-- Publishers: What Authors Are Paid

-- You: When Is Piracy Ethical?

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zorrxchicle · 1 year

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i was going to leave it alone but i can't how do you type all of this down and don't realize what you're saying. yes maybe lately Mattel™ Inc. has tried to put a "feminist" spin on Barbie™ to appeal to a new generation of potential customers by modeling her body more realistically (no permanent heel feet!!), dialing it down with the Girl Color™ and making her "independent" from the man doll but like...??? not out of any genuinely held ideological position or any honest rejection of patriarchal gender roles cause Mattel Inc. does not believe in anything it's a company whose only true goal is making money how is it surprising that they singed off on the movie of the summer that will put their trademarked property on screens all over the world the one with every other actor in it. come on please

#like i get it i get it. fun movie margot robbie hot fun poster format #but if we're turning our brains off we're turning our brains off for everything #no ''meaningful'' commentary on the rebelliousness of the Barbie movie

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ingeniousowl · 9 months

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India that is Bharat!

Let me tell you first what these words actually means, Are they really just synonyms in different language or they have any other significance?

'India' is more of a 'geographical Connotation ', specifically "Land beyond Indus" . we can find its earliest examples in Herodotus work as well as in Megasthenes 'Indica'.

Whereas, 'Bharat' represents more of a 'Culture' which is linked to Vedic period, named after Samraat Bharata of Chandravamsha daynsty.

Now the name has always been a contested topic, and debate over it emerges from time and again. So let's try to understand why this time?..... Could it be a result of rising Hindu Nationalism? or an another effort to revive our cultural symbols (which got diminished or subverted under the reigns of foreign invasions)? or may be just a political move for their domestic gain?

Well it is difficult to say, as the timings are too coincidental - # As few weeks back major opposition parties of the country came into a grand coalition named I.N.D.I.A and not to miss the leading grand old party, Indian national congress (major challenger in the upcoming election). # Bhartiya janta party has always been an ardent promoter of cultural nationalism. And name BHARAT consequentially is in coherence with their ideology.

Now the question is whether it was already in their bucket list or a retaliation against the INC's move because however you may see it, you will find consequentially more weight in the BJP's basket due to the rising consciousness of Cultural Nationalism.

Anyways if we just talk about names, it would not be wrong to say that Indeed 'India' has been used by foreigners first and not indigenous which was later become the prominent mode of reference of this land after MUGHALS. And on the other hand culture gives a sense of belongingness, it's an emotion and if not get perversed will give a sense of unity and thus help in nation building. However, exploiting it only for the political gain will not do it any good and might create political awkwardness internationally and divide internally which is neither desirable nor acceptable.

Hence, even if we talk about BHARAT before INDIA today, it should be bolstered up by a greater discourse which cut across all political line and petty gains because it is the name of our motherland whom we all so much proud of.

#politics #education #polls #important #writing #bharat #india #bjp #congress

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mariacallous · 1 year

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Having vanquished the manufactured menaces of vaccine mandates, the gay agenda and widespread election fraud, Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, used his midterm’s election victory speech to position himself as a wartime leader. Now, he was preparing his constituents for the existential battle posed by their newest imaginary adversary: wokeness. In Churchillian tones, he announced: “We fight the woke in the legislature. We fight the woke in the schools. We fight the woke in the corporations. We will never, ever surrender to the woke mob. Florida is where woke goes to die.”

DeSantis was summoning the resentment that produced the racial terrorism of Reconstruction, the pro-lynching Red Summer of 1919, and the pro-segregation states’ rights movement. This time, it was called anti-woke: a modern-day mixture of McCarthyism and white grievance.

In 2021, the right became increasingly irate at what it described as “wokeness” but which tended to mean any attempt to engage in civil rights or social justice. In 2022, anti-woke became an ideology in itself, an attempt for the right to rebrand bigotry as a resistance movement.

The movement found a leader in DeSantis, who leveraged the anxiety of white voters to win re-election and author the Stop Woke Act, a legislative prototype that would prevent educational institutions and businesses from teaching anything that would cause anyone to “feel guilt, anguish or any form of psychological distress” due to their race, color, sex or national origin. A federal judge ultimately struck down large parts of the bill, calling it “positively dystopian”.

DeSantis is not the only soldier in this war. Tucker Carlson, Fox News’ most celebrated anti-woke host, has informed his audience that everything from Black Lives Matter to brown M&Ms are purveyors of evil wokeism. He told his viewers that the threat from the woke was far greater than the threat from Russia, asking: “Has Putin ever called me a racist? Has he threatened to get me fired for disagreeing with him?”

Then there’s Steve Bannon, a mercenary for hire who sympathized with the Russian president in February because “Putin ain’t woke, he is anti-woke”. They have ground support from infantrymen like Vivek Ramaswamy, a Fox News contributor and biotech founder who believes conscious investing is going to destroy America (the New Yorker described him as “the CEO of Anti-Woke Inc”).

Toby Neugebauer, another foot soldier, attempted to start an anti-woke bank this year until he was forced to step down after allegations of workplace misconduct (the bank shuttered shortly after). Elon Musk also signed up when he took over and torpedoed Twitter, declaring: “The woke mind virus is either defeated or nothing else matters.” And the movement has found a British ally in Piers Morgan, who rails against Meghan’s “woke war”.

These men are united in their crusade against consciousness. They say they are serving a patriotic ideology that will deliver America from the scourge of Black history, diversity, equity, inclusion, trans rights, homosexuality and women choosing what to do with their own bodies. Just as conservatives managed to turn terms like “political correctness”, “family values” and “religious liberty” into bludgeons with which they can beat back the specter of equality, they successfully redefined “wokeness” by turning it into a pejorative that is synonymous with the demise of everything good and white about America.

It’s a neat trick, really. But it’s nothing new.

Staying woke is predicated on a maxim so common in Black America that the New York Times once simply called it a part of the “Negro idiom”. The first documented use of the phrase “stay woke” occurred in 1938, when Huddie “Leadbelly” Ledbetter ended a song about nine Black men by advising Black people traveling through Alabama to “stay woke … Keep your eyes open.” In 1940, a member of the Negro United Mine Workers promised that the striking members would “stay woke up longer” than their opposition.

When Martin Luther King stood before Morehouse College’s graduating class to deliver the first draft of an address that would serve as his go-to speech for the rest of his life, he knew he was becoming a pariah. By 2 June 1959, the US government had already started a program aimed at “maintaining the existing social order” by “neutralizing individuals perceived as threats”. Long before King warned the students against complacency and racial backlash, the FBI had created what a Senate intelligence report referred to as “labels without meaning” that would eventually convince white Americans that King was an anti-American Marxist hellbent on destroying their beloved country.

On that day, King debuted his Remaining Awake speech, explaining: “There would be nothing more tragic during this period of social change than to allow our mental and moral attitudes to sleep while this tremendous social change takes place.”

But less than a decade later, many white Americans were ignoring the central theme of King’s most consistent message: stay woke. By 1964, a majority of white New Yorkers felt that the civil rights movement had “gone too far”. In 1965, a Gallup poll found that 85% of Americans believed that communists were involved in the civil rights movement. By 1966, only 36% of white Americans believed that King “helped the negro cause”.

My, how the times haven’t changed.

The war against wokeness is an inevitability, one that is either ignored or unknown to those who accept the whitewashed history that the anti-woke warriors seek to preserve. While some see this as part of the backlash to the racial reckoning of 2020, the cyclical effort to stymie progress is as predictable as a pendulum.

Historical precedent

When more than 90% of Black men in the post-civil war south registered to vote, the racial resentment resulted in poll disenfranchisement, Jim Crow, and the Black codes that fed the exploding prison labor industry. After the first world war, more than 380,000 Black veterans returned to the south and began asserting their rights, producing a nationwide lynching epidemic. The integration of the US armed forces created the Dixiecrat movement. Civil rights legislation created a mass migration of southern conservatives from the Democratic Party to the GOP.

And this year, the pro-racist movement convinced its followers to publicly come out against antiracism, empowering “small government” conservatives who were previously whining about the whittling away of their “freedoms” to start demanding that the government regulate reproductive rights, sexual identity and gender expression.

Our nation has always used misinformation as kindling for a bonfire that draws “patriotic” moths to an undemocratic flame. Ultimately, the rise of the anti-woke movement is the latest iteration of the effort to maintain the existing social and political order. It is just another “label without meaning”: a cloak for racism, homophobia, transphobia and all manner of inequality. At its core is the desire to form a less perfect union, establish injustice and dismantle domestic tranquility. It is unpatriotic. To be anti-woke is to be anti-American.

Contrary to the claims of those who profess to know “what MLK would have wanted”, King spoke more about being woke than he did about dreams or mountaintops. His Remaining Awake speech contradicted the conservative assertion that institutional racism is a myth and dispelled any notion that the US is not a racist country. In his 1964 address to Oberlin College, King called racism a “national problem”, explaining that “everyone must share in the guilt as individuals and as institutions”. Anti-woke activists would have hated his 1966 lecture at Southern Methodist University, when the speech included a version of history that began in 1619 as the “first Negro slaves landed on the shores of this nation … against their will”. That sounds a lot like critical race theory. Maybe he was trying to teach people how to be an anti-racist.

On 31 March 1968, King decided to sprinkle a few Bible verses into his trusty speech for a sermon at the National Cathedral in Washington DC. In the church called the “spiritual home for the nation”, King gave the most complete version of Remaining Awake Through a Revolution. It was longer than the I Have a Dream and I Have Been to the Mountaintop speeches combined. King explained that battling injustice would cause some Americans to lash out against those fighting to live in a free country. Still, he admonished the worshippers to stay woke, while he offered what still stands as the clearest explanation for the entire phenomenon.

“I say to you that our goal is freedom, and I believe we are going to get there because however much she strays away from it, the goal of America is freedom,” King preached, before revealing the reason why he believed the beta version of the anti-woke movement was doomed.

“If the inexpressible cruelties of slavery couldn’t stop us, the opposition that we now face will surely fail … however dark it is, however deep the angry feelings are, and however violent explosions are, I can still sing We Shall Overcome.”

Four days after he assured the nation that “we shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice”, an anti-woke warrior fired a bullet into Martin Luther King’s face.

So was King wrong?

Maybe the moral arc of the universe is just part of a circle that bends towards whiteness. Perhaps the lesson of 2022 is those who refuse to teach America’s true history have doomed us to repeat it. Or maybe it is a lesson in physics – for every positive action there is an equal and opposite backlash. Emancipation, then mass incarceration. Reconstruction, then segregation. The civil rights movement begat the states’ rights movement. The 1619 Project spawned the 1776 Project. LGBTQ+ pride produced “don’t say gay”. The response to critical race theory was the “great replacement theory”. Black Lives Matter spawned White Lives Matter. And when the murder of George Floyd opened the eyes of people who say they “don’t see color”, the racial reckoning resulted in an equal and opposite white backlash that morphed into the anti-woke movement.

On 5 April 1968, the president of the United States joined an estimated 4,000 mourners to remember King at the church where he delivered his last sermon. As a bell tolled and worshippers exited, a group of white children standing outside began singing We Shall Overcome.

This, my friend, is the oxymoron of America. And that is the lesson for 2022. The only reliable thing in America is the recurring racial backlash; everything else is sermon and song. Progress is fragile. Momentum is fleeting. This country is not a pendulum; it is a metronome. And King was right: we shall overcome. He was also correct when he told the audience at the National Cathedral that “truth, crushed to the ground, will rise again”.

2022 was about the crushing.

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aurianneor · 10 months

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Ecoterrorism

Terrorism is the use of terror for ideological, political or religious ends. The word "terrorisme" was first used in November 1794, when it was used to describe the "doctrine of the partisans of the Terror", those who, some time earlier, had exercised power by waging an intense and violent struggle against the counter-revolutionaries. It was a way of exercising power, not a means of acting against it. The word evolved during the 19th century to mean action against the state rather than action by it (Terrorisme: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorisme).

Terrorism therefore stems from action by the State against its own people. Eco-terrorists are defined as "threats, intimidation and acts of violence against property or persons (civilians, police or military) committed in the name of ecologism". (Ecoterrorisme: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Écoterrorisme).

But doesn't terrorism come from those in power who use the police and the army against people who follow the advice of scientists to avoid the deaths and migrations linked to global warming? This is illegitimate violence.

These people in power could have acted in the 1990s to prevent the current disasters and can still act to prevent them in the future. This inaction in the face of global warming and despite the warnings of the scientific community is a form of terrorism that is amplified when these people use the police and the army against desperate environmental activists to make their voices heard. In effect, the people are allowed to elect but not to decide. Instead, our leaders encourage pollution. The Légion d'honneur for Total's boss, the difficulty for farmers and fishermen to convert to organic farming in the face of a system that only allows them to survive by polluting, and so on.

Rather than attacking immigrants who come to take up jobs in developed countries, wouldn't it be better to attack the oligarchs who plunder the wealth of developing countries, making life miserable for the people in the countries they pollute to no end? If people were treated well in their countries of origin, they would not seek to emigrate. And what about the migration caused by natural disasters resulting from climate change brought about by the thoughtlessness of these oligarchs?

The police and the army have a responsibility when they defend this oligarchy instead of defending the will of the people and saving lives by using the advice of scientists who have all the solutions to stop polluting and upsetting the climate. We have the solutions, we just have to do it!

This oligarchy is taking all the wealth and running our so-called democracies. When will we have popular initiative referendums so that we no longer need violence to make ourselves heard?

France is the 7th world power (https://www.journaldunet.fr/patrimoine/guide-des-finances-personnelles/1209268-classement-pib-quelles-sont-les-puissances-mondiales/#quels-sont-les-30premiers-pib-du-monde-). Why is it that the French have such problems with their purchasing power that they can't, for example, afford unsubsidised and overpriced organic produce or invest in a greener home? Wouldn't it be better to introduce a universal basic income so that everyone can live decently, rather than engaging in a race for jobs that leads to the suffering associated with unemployment, the RSA and bullshit jobs (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_jobs) that we are already paying for with our taxes? With the development of technology and AI, work will not be there for everyone, with or without immigrants. A universal basic income would enable everyone to live decently, so that wealth is redistributed and not monopolised by the oligarchy.

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

L’écoterrorisme: https://www.aurianneor.org/lecoterrorisme/

Tomorrow – Chap 4: La démocratie: https://www.aurianneor.org/tomorrow-chap-4-la-democratie-the-panama/

Basic Income is possible: https://www.aurianneor.org/basic-income-is-possible-the-instrument-of/

Nos ancêtres les marrons: https://www.aurianneor.org/nos-ancetres-les-marrons-il-nexiste-quune-seule/

Police and justice for the people: https://www.aurianneor.org/police-and-justice-for-the-people/

4-day workweek: https://www.aurianneor.org/4-day-workweek-2/

Rob the poor to feed the rich: https://www.aurianneor.org/rob-the-poor-to-feed-the-rich/

The American people’s choice: https://www.aurianneor.org/the-american-peoples-choice-fahrenheit-119/

“The world has enough for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed”.: https://www.aurianneor.org/the-world-has-enough-for-everyones-need-but-not/

Popular Initiative: https://www.aurianneor.org/popular-initiative-petition-to-the-un-in/

Police, Armée: https://www.aurianneor.org/police-armee-manif-des-policiers-je-suis-gilet/

Le référendum est une arme qui tue la violence: https://www.aurianneor.org/le-referendum-est-une-arme-qui-tue-la-violence-oui/

Electing is not voting: https://www.aurianneor.org/electing-is-not-voting-oui-au-referendum/

What kind of democracy do we want?: https://www.aurianneor.org/what-kind-of-democracy-do-we-want-a-multitude-is/

Juste une question de culture; et de politique…: https://www.aurianneor.org/juste-une-question-de-culture-et-de-politique/

AI: https://www.aurianneor.org/ai-what-a-surprise-to-find-a-comic-strip-on/

Heaven For Everyone – Queen: https://www.aurianneor.org/heaven-for-everyone-queen-this-could-be-heaven/

Protecting water: https://www.aurianneor.org/protecting-water/

Fair trade and organic farming: https://www.aurianneor.org/fair-trade-and-organic-farming/

Les autorités illégitimes: https://www.aurianneor.org/les-autorites-illegitimes/

#aurianneor #climate change #democracy #ecology #ecoterrorism #immigration #oligarchy #organic farming #police #pollution #power #purchasing power #scientists #terrorism #violence #wealth

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strongislandsuperfan · 2 years

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Chess, Not Checkers

Taking power back, one chess move at a time.

"To know how to recognize an opportunity in war, and take it, benefits you more than anything else." -Niccolo Machiavelli

In 2018, James was criticized by Fox News host Laura Ingraham, who told him to “shut up and dribble” in response to him expressing his opinion on political and social issues.

According to Uninterrupted Inc.’s trademark filing, the phrase would be used on “downloadable virtual goods” and “other entertainment services”.

It is painfully obvious that the United States of America is at a fever pitch, with tension at an all-time high. Much of the warfare we see today is more of a cultural "cold war" with opposing audiences threatening "cancellation" by way of social media posts or the old fashioned way, which is with violence.

Unfortunately, some are reducing themselves to levels of pettiness and violent behavior, trying to gain the most immediate satisfaction just to get their point across. Some completely ignore the problem and remain silent, hoping that not acknowledging the problem will eventually go away. Some try to combat the madness with kindness and the humiliation either works in their favor or against them.

Others, are taking a more "Machiavellian" route.

Its been my experience that the art of war approach, while time consuming and mundane, gets the best results. This is the day in age where everyone wants something for nothing or wants the quickest results. Its predictable and expected. Taking an unorthodox approach is rare, often times seen as a route that many do not have the patience or the resources for. In some instances, it requires a level of tact that is missing in our world today.

Take this situation regarding Laura Ingraham and Lebron James, for example.

This is a situation that could have easily reduced itself to a shouting match or a petty tit-for-tat roast session that would be plastered all over social media. In some instances, it has but not enough to ignite a after school fight similar to the 80's film Three O'clock High.

I mention this, after this headline broke today on July 25th, 2022 for several reasons. Yes, everyone is entitled to their own opinion and Laura Ingraham is very much entitled to hers, just as Lebron James is entitled to his, whether we agree or disagree. However, an opinion is just that. An opinion. It shouldn't warrant bullying tactics or someone being "cancelled" until a justified explanation is given.

With regards to Ms. Ingraham's perspective, since the conflict in difference of opinion has made headlines & opened up to an uncomfortable conversation that this entire nation needs to have with each other and amongst ourselves, I find her perspective gross, ignorant, hypocritical and bothersome.

She is the same type of person that will demand that these same athletes or anyone of fame, use their spotlight to take a stand and be a role model for the youth, but when its a perspective someone like her disagrees with or has little to no knowledge of because it doesn't line up with her experience or her beliefs, suddenly its an issue and here comes the ,"This country is going to hell" sermon that we are all tired of hearing.

For the record, I promise you my disdain for her & her ignorant statement has nothing to do with politics or Ingraham being a conservative. I'm pretty fed up with you liberals also and if her attitude came from the "Left", she would get the same treatment. I am no respecter of any ideology, political party or whatever famous person that the world puts on a pedestal just to knock them down later. We are human. We make mistakes. Siding with an ideology will not save you, just because someone with a difference of opinion angers you with his or her perspective. Grow up & get over it!

The point is, we can't demand that someone, in the spotlight, use their platform to stand up for what's right or for what they believe in if we are just going to have a fit about it later. Furthermore, we can't demand that someone lives their life as a prototype role model, knowing that not only is it impossible to appease the masses 24/7, but we cannot demand that someone be held to a standard that we ourselves fall short of or aren't willing to do.

So, for Lebron James to take this action, its not only taking power away from those who still see athletes as spoiled attractions who have no right to speak or to have an opinion, its a chess move that places an unlikely piece that no one sees coming, in position to maneuver towards victory.

Checkmate.

#lebron nba #basketball #ballislife #nba #lebron james

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osamu-jinguji · 1 year

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My favorite books in Apr-2023 - #2 The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition into the Forces of History – January 1, 1995 by Howard K. Bloom (Author) The Lucifer Principle is a revolutionary work that explores the intricate relationships between genetics, human behavior, and culture to put forth the thesis that "evil" is a by-product of nature's strategies for creation and that it is woven into our most basic biological fabric. In a sweeping narrative that moves lucidly among sophisticated scientific disciplines and covers the entire span of the earth's, as well as mankind's, history, Howard Bloom challenges some of our most popular scientific assumptions. Drawing on evidence from studies of the most primitive organisms to those on ants, apes, and humankind, the author makes a persuasive case that it is the group, or "superorganism," rather than the lone individual that really matters in the evolutionary struggle. But, Bloom asserts, the prominence of society and culture does not necessarily mitigate against our most violent, aggressive instincts. In fact, under the right circumstances the mentality of the group will only amplify our most primitive and deadly urges. In Bloom's most daring contention he draws an analogy between the biological material whose primordial multiplication began life on earth and the ideas, or "memes," that define, give cohesion to, and justify human superorganisms. Some of the most familiar memes are utopian in nature - Christianity or Marxism; nonetheless, these are fueled by the biological impulse to climb to the top of the hierarchy. With the meme's insatiable hunger to enlarge itself, we have a precise prescription for war. Biology is not destiny; but human culture is not always the buffer to our more primitive instincts we would like to think it is. In these complex threads of thought lies the Lucifer Principle, and only through understanding its mandates will we be able to avoid the nuclear crusades that await us in the twenty-first century. Editorial Reviews From Publishers Weekly The "Lucifer Principle" is freelance journalist Bloom's theory that evil-which manifests in violence, destructiveness and war-is woven into our biological fabric. A corollary is that evil is a by-product of nature's strategy to move the world to greater heights of organization and power as national or religious groups follow ideologies that trigger lofty ideals as well as base cruelty. In an ambitious, often provocative study, Bloom applies the ideas of sociobiology, ethology and the "killer ape" school of anthropology to the broad canvas of history, with examples ranging from Oliver Cromwell's reputed pleasure in killing and raping to Mao Tse-tung's bloody Cultural Revolution, India's caste system and Islamic fundamentalist expansion. Bloom says Americans suffer "perceptual shutdown" that blinds them to the United States' downward slide in the pecking order of nations. His use of concepts like pecking order, memes (self-replicating clusters of ideas), the "neural net" or group mind of the social "superorganism" seem more like metaphors than explanatory tools. Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library Journal Pop-culture Renaissance man Bloom-former PR agent for the likes of Prince, writer for Omni magazine, and so on-seeks to explain why civilizations rise and fall, why nations go to war, and why violence and aggression don't disappear with the ascendancy of culture. Big task. The "Lucifer Principle" is based on the metaphors of the "meme" (ideas that arise across cultures and epochs) and "the pecking order" (from chickens to nations, and all in between). This sort of slippery extrapolation is at once cleverly neat and maddeningly suspicious, and the pitfalls of trying to unite animal biology, genetics, cultural history, anthropology, and philosophy are apparent in that sundry causes and effects are all lumped together as equals: rats in a cage do this, "primitive" cultures do that, Sumerians did a third thing, so therefore we do this. The 800 footnotes are symptomatic: sources range from the Information Please Almanac to a textbook on surgical nursing and a sprinkling of audiobooks. This book falls somewhere between Paul Kennedy's Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (LJ 12/87) and John Naisbitt's Megatrends (LJ 10/1/82). For general audiences. Mark L. Shelton, Worcester, Mass. Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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