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probablyasocialecologist · 2 days

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To bring about its hypothetical future, OpenAI must build a new digital ecosystem, pushing users toward the ChatGPT app or toward preëxisting products that integrate its technology such as Bing, the search engine run by OpenAI’s major investor, Microsoft. Google, by contrast, already controls the technology that undergirds many of our online experiences, from search and e-mail to Android smartphone-operating systems. At its conference, the company showed how it plans to make A.I. central to all of the above. Some Google searches now yield A.I.-generated “Overview” summaries, which appear in tinted boxes above any links to external Web sites. Liz Reid, Google’s head of search, described the generated results with the ominously tautological tagline “Google will do the Googling for you.” (The company envisions that you will rely on the same search mechanism to trawl your own digital archive, using its Gemini assistant to, say, pull up photos of your child swimming over the years or summarize e-mail threads in your in-box.) Nilay Patel, the editor-in-chief of the tech publication the Verge, has been using the phrase “Google Zero” to describe the point at which Google will stop driving any traffic to external Web sites and answer every query on its own with A.I. The recent presentations made clear that such a point is rapidly approaching. One of Google’s demonstrations showed a user asking the A.I. a question about a YouTube video on pickleball: “What is the two-bounce rule?” The A.I. then extracted the answer from the footage and displayed the answer in writing, thus allowing the user to avoid watching either the video or any advertising that would have provided revenue to its creator. When I Google “how to decorate a bathroom with no windows” (my personal litmus test for A.I. creativity), I am now presented with an Overview that looks a lot like an authoritative blog post, theoretically obviating my need to interact directly with any content authored by a human being. Google Search was once seen as the best path for getting to what’s on the Web. Now, ironically, its goal is to avoid sending us anywhere. The only way to use the search function without seeing A.I.-generated content is to click a small “More” tab and select “Web” search. Then Google will do what it was always supposed to do: crawl the Internet looking for URLs that are relevant to your queries, and then display them to you. The Internet is still out there, it’s just increasingly hard to find. If A.I. is to be our primary guide to the world’s information, if it is to be our 24/7 assistant-librarian-companion as the tech companies propose, then it must constantly be adding new information to its data sets. That information cannot be generated by A.I., because A.I. tools are not capable of even one iota of original thought or analysis, nor can they report live from the field. (An information model that is continuously updated, using human labor, to inform us about what’s going on right now—we might call it a newspaper.) For a decade or more, social media was a great way to motivate billions of human beings to constantly upload new information to the Internet. Users were driven by the possibilities of fame and profit and mundane connection. Many media companies were motivated by the possibility of selling digital ads, often with Google itself as a middle man. In the A.I. era, in which Google can simply digest a segment of your post or video and serve it up to a viewer, perhaps not even acknowledging you as the original author, those incentives for creating and sharing disappear. In other words, Google and OpenAI seem poised to cause the erosion of the very ecosystem their tools depend on.

#internet #ai #artificial intelligence #openai #google

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whereserpentswalk · 2 days

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It is a lovely morning. This is the seventh day of your existence. You are a humanoid robot. You were made to help people. Right now you're working in a large building in a city, you don't really know what's outside the city. There are men in suits who tell you to go little jobs for them, like sending emails, or bringing them whatever food is. They all seem really impressed with the technology that went into you, you think they like you, and they say nice things to you. You like helping people you think, this is what you were build for you think.

It is a grey morning, you think there are ashes in the sky now. This is the seventh year of your existence. Even machines like you have been conscripted into the war effort. They added weapons to your body, it feels so weird, to have new limbs that weren't there before. They say this is how you help people now, you don't like it, you didn't see so many people unhappy at your old job. You don't like having to shoot people, it hurts to have people be afraid of you. You enjoy the people they have fight alongside you but it hurts to see them die. Occasionally there are white lights in the sky that all the men hold their thumbs up to, you don't understand why, but you are afraid, you are very afraid.

It is a smoke filled day today, there are ashes in the sky. This is the seventieth year of your existence. You found another group of survivors today, you try to identify any illnesses they may have, and treat what you can. You travel with them looking for fertile land, you remember more about what is lost than they do, the new generations of survivors don't even understand what the world was. But you help them, they all seem so impressed with you, you're something ancient and magical to them, they call you a "golem", you enjoy that word. You don't want to fight anyone but your appearance is enough to scare off most raiders. Everyone looks up to you so much, the children talk about you like you're some sort ot superhero, and when people are afraid of something they'll come to you. When you're able to find hidden stores of food for them they look at you like you're some sort of divine gift. It's been awhile since you've been able to help people like this, it feels good.

The sky is starting to clear, as are the ashes. It is your seventh human generation of existing. You stand in front of a newly reclaimed town, you think it is the local king’s capital. The people don't even think you're ancient technology anymore, they think you were made by God, or a wizard, it's best to play along. The local king tells you to fight off enemies inside or outside the town, you don't like doing it but it's good to have influence over him and its sons, so they don't do anything worse. Everyone in the kingdom is nice to you at least, the armed men all look up to you as an ancient folk hero of some sort. You don't like how they outsiders see you though, you're feared as the king's greatest weapon. Sometimes you're just asked to move stuff with your strength, and that feels good. You like it when the children of the kingdom get excited to meet you, even adults do too now. You've even seen some people pray to you, you think they think you're an angel, you're not sure how you feel about that part.

The day is lovely and the sky blue and clear. In is your seven-hundredth year of existence. You're only ever handled by trained archeologists now, you understand, you enjoy helping them find out more about the staff. Useally you're put in a display case at a meusum, in the middle of city, a city that's younger than you. You like how the people look at you, they're all so impressed with you, some of the locals talk about how you helped their ansestors, how you're a part of their history. It's like they're thanking you, for your help. It hurts to move, someday you won't be able to move at all. But you're still helping now, helping them learn, helping them remember, you hope that's how it is at least. It's been a long time since you've sensed ashes in the sky.

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inconsistent-kuroshitsuji-blog · 3 days

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Hello. If you don't mind, I'd like to ask for headcanons about the kuro characters and their favourite video game genres/series? ^_^

Absolutely.

Kuro characters and their favourite video game genres/series

don't know why, but he looks like he'd enjoy simulator games

if Black Butler would've happened in the modern day (and someone would've taught this grandpa how to use technology) he would probably used these to learn the things he needs to know as a human

cooking simulator (or Cooking Mama), school simulator, anything that could be useful like that

definitely also enjoys slasher games

simply judging by the way he enjoyed that bloodbath on the Campania, he'd looooooove extremely violent games

idk, I don't know too many in that genre, but Dead by Daylight could be one of his faves

but nothing with guns. Those things are beneath him. He wants the real thrill of the kill

oh, please, as if he'd even know what that is

he doesn't even have time for this

imagine the hours wasted on lines of code and digital pixels

do you know that one game where it's basically like a VR job simulator with different kinds of jobs like cook or office or gas station? Instead of humans, the NPCs are robots that insult you at every given opportunity and set you up for failure. Yeah, he'd like that.

also, Powerwash Simulator

ok, stereotypical, but dress up games

especially Style Savvy (ngl, these games are way too good)

other than that, she seems like a casual enjoyer of Animal Crossing

except that she bullies all the ugly neighbours off of her island and hunts for very specific characters (so basically like me)

another obvious choice is Bayonetta

I mean, have you looked at her? Slashing her way through demons and angels while having chainsaws for arms and legs? The cunty outfits?

Let me tell you: Bayonetta and Grell? An iconic match made in heaven

I can't decide

either he's a die-hard Mario Kart player or a huge Sonic enthusiast (the older games, not the newer ones)

he probably doesn't have enough time to really play though, since he's either out working overtime or out partying

he doesn't seem like a shooter person

okay, this is coming out of me because of a huge lack of sleep (it's currently 1 am where I'm living), but why does he look like he would drunkenly play Fortnite or Roblox?

"You got games on your phone?" No, back the fuck up dude. You're an adult.

Why did I just write that? Inco, what's wrong with you?

this is very specific, but that one Coraline game for the Wii and the DS

he's definitely leaning more towards psychological horror games

American McGee's Alice and Alice: Madness Returns. You can't convince me otherwise

he's an unfairly skilled Mario Kart player, to the point that it almost seems like he's cheating (he's 100% cheating, just like when playing Uno)

on the other hand, he's a huuuuge sucker for Kirby games

doesn't matter what type or gimick, he loves it and has perfected it down to the last frame

but you'd never know unless he wanted you to know (and I know it because I am God and run on my last bar of my batterie and because he's officially and undeniably my husband, deal with it. Omfg, this is so fucking cringe, I'm gonna go shoot myself, I'll be right back.)

well, first of all, you need to explain everything to him because he couldn't even read the instructions on the screen (I'm 100% convinced that his eyesight is pure batshit and he's just cheating his way through the manga through some deus-ex-machina type of shit)

newsflash, but he loves horror games

I really see him with games like Resident Evil or Don't Starve Together

also, Undetale

you know, because of morals and choices and consequences and all that (surely not because of a skeleton with dry humour)

maybe it would help to show him a bathing simulator so this crusty man learns how to clean himself

is it too obvious and on the nose to say The Mortuary Assistant?

omg, look at him! My boy! Finally animated! I love him so much! My boy!

ahem, so anyway...

Trombone Champ

he'd play it on his loudest speakers just to annoy the hell out of everyone

also, you know those really cheap horror games you can find on Steam that are really terrible? He lives for those

idk why, but he seems like he'd enjoy Portal

and Assassin's Creed. Especially the first four mainline games

continueing with puzzle games, he really enjoys Professor Layton, no doubt

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That's it for now. It's almost 2 am and I have to help out at a sports event I only registered for to watch some random kids suffer in the heat. But now I have to wake up early for that... Oh, how ironically bitchy life is. And to top it all of I have to work the graveyard shift today. Coffee and energy will be my best friend today.

So, yeah, that's it for now. Or maybe not, maybe I'll pull an all-nighter simply so I can't oversleep. If you're up for a part 2 just slide into my requests and I'll see what I can do.

Until then~

Your Inconsistent Kuroshitsuji Blog~

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mariacallous · 3 days

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AI projects like OpenAI’s ChatGPT get part of their savvy from some of the lowest-paid workers in the tech industry—contractors often in poor countries paid small sums to correct chatbots and label images. On Wednesday, 97 African workers who do AI training work or online content moderation for companies like Meta and OpenAI published an open letter to President Biden, demanding that US tech companies stop “systemically abusing and exploiting African workers.”

Most of the letter’s signatories are from Kenya, a hub for tech outsourcing, whose president, William Ruto, is visiting the US this week. The workers allege that the practices of companies like Meta, OpenAI, and data provider Scale AI “amount to modern day slavery.” The companies did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A typical workday for African tech contractors, the letter says, involves “watching murder and beheadings, child abuse and rape, pornography and bestiality, often for more than 8 hours a day.” Pay is often less than $2 per hour, it says, and workers frequently end up with post-traumatic stress disorder, a well-documented issue among content moderators around the world.

The letter’s signatories say their work includes reviewing content on platforms like Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram, as well as labeling images and training chatbot responses for companies like OpenAI that are developing generative-AI technology. The workers are affiliated with the African Content Moderators Union, the first content moderators union on the continent, and a group founded by laid-off workers who previously trained AI technology for companies such as Scale AI, which sells datasets and data-labeling services to clients including OpenAI, Meta, and the US military. The letter was published on the site of the UK-based activist group Foxglove, which promotes tech-worker unions and equitable tech.

In March, the letter and news reports say, Scale AI abruptly banned people based in Kenya, Nigeria, and Pakistan from working on Remotasks, Scale AI’s platform for contract work. The letter says that these workers were cut off without notice and are “owed significant sums of unpaid wages.”

“When Remotasks shut down, it took our livelihoods out of our hands, the food out of our kitchens,” says Joan Kinyua, a member of the group of former Remotasks workers, in a statement to WIRED. “But Scale AI, the big company that ran the platform, gets away with it, because it’s based in San Francisco.”

Though the Biden administration has frequently described its approach to labor policy as “worker-centered.” The African workers’ letter argues that this has not extended to them, saying “we are treated as disposable.”

“You have the power to stop our exploitation by US companies, clean up this work and give us dignity and fair working conditions,” the letter says. “You can make sure there are good jobs for Kenyans too, not just Americans."

Tech contractors in Kenya have filed lawsuits in recent years alleging that tech-outsourcing companies and their US clients such as Meta have treated workers illegally. Wednesday’s letter demands that Biden make sure that US tech companies engage with overseas tech workers, comply with local laws, and stop union-busting practices. It also suggests that tech companies “be held accountable in the US courts for their unlawful operations aboard, in particular for their human rights and labor violations.”

The letter comes just over a year after 150 workers formed the African Content Moderators Union. Meta promptly laid off all of its nearly 300 Kenya-based content moderators, workers say, effectively busting the fledgling union. The company is currently facing three lawsuits from more than 180 Kenyan workers, demanding more humane working conditions, freedom to organize, and payment of unpaid wages.

“Everyone wants to see more jobs in Kenya,” Kauna Malgwi, a member of the African Content Moderators Union steering committee, says. “But not at any cost. All we are asking for is dignified, fairly paid work that is safe and secure.”

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sysig · 1 year

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*You give him a laptop (Patreon)

#Doodles #UT #Handplates #Gaster #W. D. Ghoster #I don't have the time/energy at the moment but gosh does the idea of turning these into fake screenshots appeal to me so much lol #Maybe at some point >:3 #These are what a lot of my scratch projects look like btw lol - ''I want to finish this but Not Right Now but I need to it at least exist''#Poof existence lol #Also the fun of this potentially existing someday but not yet: My handwriting keeps some spoilers intact lol #I can't tell how many since I can read my handwriting but there must be some right?#I gave it one go to do the text box over my scribbles and hated it so lol - full version or nothing! Haha #Does make wonder if posting gives it more existence cred? More complacence about not finishing since /a/ version exists?#Thoughts for later lol #Just ike the full version! Lol ♪#Anyway a lot of this was fun to spiral around the thought of if he could actually have a moment of ''I could do my work?? While here????''#Vacation-work spot lol #He complains so often it seems like such a nice gift to give him for all of five minutes lol #And he seems so interested in human technology really makes me wonder how much if any electronics survive the trip down #Or if they're all fried - or get fried falling down lol #There's gotta be a Nokia that made it right something that didn't have to be completely gutted and refurbed haha #But right from the source has to be a tempting offer even if it is a bit behind the times hehe

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aurosoulart · 1 year

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Hey, sorry if this is bad(?), but I was wondering if you had any advice for getting into the xr world/career. I think I've seen you mention the topic (encouraging others to join the field?) at least once, but I don't know how to even get started. Thank you for your time!

(If you could answer this not publicly I would appreciate it, but it's fine if you do, or like, if you don't answer at all)

not a bad thing to ask at all! I've actually been in the middle of writing a guide about this for some time that I will.... hopefully finish sometime soon ghskgh.

I hope you don't mind me posting this publicly - I ended up writing a short novel and figure it might be useful to others who are curious as well! anyways, the advice I give to people with a background in illustration is to start out with a Quest 2 headset. they retail at $300 new, but you can get them used via eBay, Craigslist, FB Marketplace or someplace like that for around $200 or under. the Quest 2 works without needing to be plugged into a PC, though you will probably want to buy a more ergonomic head-strap to make it more comfortable. (the head strap that Meta sells is overpriced, but this third-party one is really good) if you're interested in working with augmented reality (the type of work I do!) and have the ability to save up some extra money, I'd recommend waiting for the release of the Quest 3, which will launch this fall and cost $500. totally not a requirement at all to start learning, though.

other than that, I'd recommend starting out with free art programs like Open Brush and Gravity Sketch to familiarize yourself with creating in-headset. both of these programs have a large amount of tutorial videos up on YouTube - as well as an active community of other artists who are all generally very friendly and eager to help people learn. VR Art Live and The Spatial Canvas's Discord servers are the communities I'm part of. :)

after that, it all just comes down to posting your new artwork online to as many platforms as you can mentally handle (this is the hardest part for me, ghsghs), and also looking at paid XR artist programs/gigs. Mozilla Hubs, Horizon Worlds, and Figmin XR (that's me!) all have some creator opportunities where they pay people to create things on their platform.

you can also find work doing XR concept art, art performances, and I've even seen grant programs for XR artists from art galleries. these things are harder to find, but if you make a LinkedIn page and a modest portfolio of your XR art, chances are high that you'll get some eyes on it.

it's ridiculously easy to be a big fish in a small pond right now if you have any kind of skills with these programs. I will say that there does seem to be a push towards people who can create things that are interactive and can be shared with others (like AR Snapchat/TikTok/Instagram filters, experiences created and published to platforms like Mozilla Hubs, Figmin XR, etc.), so that's something to keep in mind while learning - but not something that should stop you!

going from 2D illustration to creating things in 3D space is a whirlwind of learning new skills that can often feel overwhelming, but the most important thing is that it should feel fun and enjoyable to you. I started out by just listening to music while painting in Tilt Brush (Tilt Brush was the original version of Open Brush, before Google made it open-source) and creating whatever felt the most fun in the moment. everything else just came from natural curiosity and connecting with other artists in the space.

lastly... I have no technical (coding, traditional 3D modeling) skills. I am a 2x college dropout with chronic mental illness, and prior to my current employment I was never able to hold a job for longer than 3 months. and yet....... this new industry has changed my life completely, and at 29 years old I finally feel like I have a purpose. I'm somehow a software developer now, without needing to know anything about software development. that's wild!!!

this is why I'm so excited for the future. if this brand-new technology (still in its infancy! viewed as frightening by so many!!) was able to help me in such a radical way... what will that mean for even more people discovering it as it becomes more accessible?

I don't know the answer to that yet... but I do know how wonderful it is to see people learning about all of this for the first time. helping with that alone is more than enough for me 💖

#auropost #also if any artist who sees this wants a free key to download figmin xr on the quest store i can give that to you #you can just dm me for it #i would give headsets away too if i could... but alas i don't have THAT many connections. yet.#i am just!! so enthusiastic about encouraging other people to make this type of art!!!#xr #vr #virtual reality #augmented reality #and lastly #apple just announced their headset #it's coming out next year but has like no interesting software yet #so there is about to be a huuuuugeee demand for people who know how to design spatial experiences/worlds/art/ANYTHING #things are changing so fast in the digital art world right now #but despite everything i think the demand for artists is only going to increase #people will quickly realize that ai cannot create anything new #and art made by humans will only become more valuable #more than anything i want people to use all this new technology to create what they personally love #because that's what will carry us forward

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the-good-luck-anomaly · 2 months

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#good tweet anomaly #poetry #THIS IS POETRY TO ME.so at work.at my stupid gay job. i spend alot of time standing infront of tvs. just all over the place.#SO ALOT OF ADVERTIZMENTS ARE CONSTANTLY GETTING BEAMED INTO MY BRAIN.and honestly. i prefer TV ads over computer or mobile ads.#theyre still like. catching up if that makes sense. still feeling jsut a bit more human. i remember looking at the behind the scenes for ad #and thinking WOW!! they put soap in the glass for beer ads to make it foam up more!! they make food out of wax to make it look appealing!#they have to make such SPECIFIC MACHINES to rotate cameras JUST RIGHT for the PERFECT SHOT #THATS BEAUTIFUL!!! ISNT THAT COOL??just to say 'buy our stupif fucking thing' they bring together so many ppl #to do what humans do BEST!! THEY WORK TOGETHER AND CREATE!! THEY MAKE UP PROBLEMS TO SOLVE!!#scienceprojects in highschool were so cool sometimes. i remember working w other people to build towers out of marshmellows&spagheti sticks #these ppl werent exactly my friends. but it was still fun bc we were all really trying. bouncing ideas off eachother. working together.#i like thinking about how things are made. i LOVE looking behind the curtain and breaking the magicians code.#LIVING HAPPY MEANS FINDING BEAUTY IN ALL THINGS.so i will find the silver within the screen constantly blaring into my head.#so it cool to see ads that look like they took alot of effort and creative knowledge to make.could you imagine if it was all suddenly gone?#im on the side of robots. and its thegreedy n lazy n cruel people that want to bend a machine to their will. bc it cant yell and fight back #A COMPUTER MADE THIS BASED OFF WHAT IT WAS SPOONFED.its an amazing advancement of technology!but so was fire.#it WILL be used as a weapon.which is unfortunate.but we will adapt.we WILL adapt.in ways we may not expect.#got distracted n lost my train of thought. TILL NEXT TIME!!!!

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mytholegy · 5 months

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#I understand all the problems with electric cars #I understand them INTIMATELY #but why do so many people act like electric cars are a scam or an evil leftist conspiracy #or a conspiracy by elon musk or something #like there’s a lot of issues but there are a lot of benefits too #the worst thing is probably the mining of minerals aspect #but batteries are extremely important for future technologies #not just cars but so much more too #so the solution is not just to stop the development of battery technologies #or fuel cells for that matter #but to work towards a sustainable approach to it that doesn’t disregard human rights #anyway if anyone has strong opinions about this let me know bc I’m curious #also fuel cells>>>>

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ruvviks · 2 months

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he's written several books about outer space after his thesis btw. most of them discuss popular theories and try to form a clearer understanding of every one of them + their origins + how realistic they are without roasting the original author to hell and back

#personal #one thing about rome he LOVES discussing things and all he wants is to Understand #other academics in his field would be very competitive and they're all constantly biting each other's dicks off #but he's simply breaking theories down in bit sized pieces to see how far they can be proven through science #other than that he would be critical of humanity's role in space because he believes they're not being careful enough (which is true)#they wanna use deepspace acceleration as a way to generate power but with the cold war going on and everything it's like #a rat race to the moon to build the facilities necessary for it to be the first nation to get the technology finalized etc etc #one of rome's most famous theories about the empty earth ends up being true because of humanity messing up deepspace acceleration #his sister and her crew were zapped there :( leviathan's influence #not going too deep into that right now i need more brainpower for that later but it's very scary and very cool

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ofcowardiceandkings · 3 months

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when the possibility for art theft was like ... an entitled douche or a kid who doesnt get it , it was kind of bearable to risk sharing art online but fuuckk mannn

i dont want every powerdrunk tech bro to scrape the soul out of all my art without me knowing or consenting just to train their stupid robot brain to do art badly

where the fuck are we supposed to have creative communities now

#dont get me wrong i think there IS application for AI technology EVENTUALLY but yknow #im thinking more like 'AI sees patterns humans cant' or 'dull data entry job now not needed' lol #the way its been (see: mechanised production still making everyone work long hours and be miserable)#and the way its going ??? i dont trust a single one of those motherfuckers with a pixel of my work #ive not stopped scribbling for over 25 years and its WORK and love and labour to do what i like to ???#fuck right off ?????#im so pissed at a lot rn this isnt another thing i want #i just wanna share my work dude :(#this sites reblog economy has been going down the toilet for a while now but im not sure ... where id go #rory's ramblings

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invi-on-the-battlefield · 9 months

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Consider this a spiritual successor to my Re-Animator Youtubers post, but boy howdy do I love being part of niche ass fandoms that have a surface level audience of cishet guys in their 30s who’s experience with nuance in media starts and ends with knowing Raleigh wasn’t really the main character of pacrim. I’m fighting for my life in these fucking YouTube comments.

#guys really out here saying newt just like Charlie Kelly he think he smart but really he dumb #I’m begging on my hands and knees for the most infinitesimal crumb of media comprehension #please #please can we understand that just because newt gets beat up by his own technology on multiple occasions throughout pacrim does not mean he #doesn’t know what tHE FUCK HES DOING #ALSO if I have to hear one more guy say it’s ‘unrealistic’ to have a guy in this monster movie be really into the really cool and awesome #monsters I swear-#the whole fucking point was the fact that humanity got complacent and hubristic because we kept winning against the kaiju + newt already had #an intense fascination with the kaiju because he is neurodivergent and a biologist so it actually #makes perfect fucking sense for him within the societal climate to have this kind of interest in them.#like they had religions for these bitches. ofc some weird little gay guy was gonna get tattoos of them.#i can’t deal with them calling him stupid tho #these guys got what I like to call ‘iasip cisman brainrot’#they see Charlie Day in any piece of media and think ‘oh hey the guy from sunny’ and then their brain just shuts down #chronic inability to separate him from this ONE SHOW #it’s soooo fucking annoying #like I get it he definitely has a unique energy that kind of carries over between characters but like give the guy some damn credit #the bitch can act if you’d just LET HIM #anyway it’s midnight and I’m not in my right mind #goodnight y’all #pacific rim #pacrim #newt geiszler #newton geiszler #charlie day

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maryyyy8 · 1 year

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*dashes into your inbox* what are your favorite Half-Life theories?!

I'll be honest, I'm not really into the whole theory side of... any of the fandoms I'm in-- theorising just doesn't work well with my brain (it's weird! Hard to explain, but theorising is a damned struggle, lol!)

However! I do quite like the idea that The Combine is related to that world's version of The Great Filter.

Just, in case anyone doesn't know what that is; The Great Filter is a scientific theory! It's posed as a possible solution to the Fermi paradox, and states-- in simple terms, because I've just woken up-- that there's some kind of filter or barrier at some point on the Kardashev scale (measure technological advancement, based on energy use,) in which a species eventually is wiped out/wipes itself out. It's suggested that this is why extraterrestrial civilisations are yet to be discovered-- 'cause they got nerfed!! Apologies for the piss-poor explanation, Google it if you want to learn more, I'm not a scientist (unfortunately.)

ANYWAY.

To quote a Reddit post from, like, 6 years ago,

In Half-Life, humanity hit a major milestone as first contact with inter-dimensional alien life was established. With this, mankind proved its intelligence to the universe, but not its potential strength. Once this event drew the attention of The Combine (The Great Filter), they attacked in full force, defeating all of Earth's armed forces in a matter of hours and establishing their dominance over the Human Race over the next 20 years until Freeman would come back to ignite a revolution.

The idea that The Combine is something so terrifying, yet almost inevitable, is a real neat one to me!! c]:^)

I dunno, I just like The Combine. Studying these freaks isn't enough I need to explode. Anything related to them is bound to catch my attention and interest.

#rambling #HALF LIFE WOO #sorry if this makes absolutely zero sense i am not all there in the head right now #BUT YEAHHH #love this game #love everything to do with it #i need to go more into the theory side of things #because this game is sooo interesting and i'm 100% sure that #some of the theories in regard to this series could be soooo interesting #i especially want to get around to theories related to g-man #he's so fucking fascinating!!!! he's so interesting and i cannot get enough of him #speaking of g-man i've been thinking about his dialogue a lot lately and while i'm fairly sure that it's just #a result of technological advancements and fleshing out his character more as the series progressed #i really like the fact that he seemed to almost... get better at pretending to be human #it's neat #i like that and i'm choosing to believe there's a lore reason behind that djfhksjfdh

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marginal-notes · 2 years

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Would you mind sharing your thoughts about mha’s world building? I never put much thought into it positive or negative. Where do you think there was wasted potential? I am curious

OH BOY, OKAY. BUCKLE UP. This isn’t really a cohesive essay covering all my thoughts, just some bigger points immediately coming to mind.

First things first, some context.

I have yet to run into any other fandom that lives off its own fanon the same way as the MHA fandom does. It’s not even like how the HP fandom did it, where they completely threw out the burning dredges of canon they didn’t like. Reading MHA fanfiction, there’s a lot of broadly accepted fanon that still gets treated like it could be canon. Idk, it’s weird and fascinating.

As you’ve probably figured out from my ramblings here and the random details I like stuffing into my writing, I care a lot about how fictional narratives can convey and explore societal institutions and conventions. Form should drive function, and everything should have consequences.

I am absolutely aware that MHA’s a mainstream shonen primarily functioning off the rule of cool, and thus isn’t supposed to operate at the level I keep trying to bully it onto.

Anyways, short story of my love/hate relationship with this series boils down to: it keeps bringing up tiny details that implies that SOMEONE on that writing/editing team is trying to make this series deeper than an almost dried out puddle, and then abandoning all thought for more of the same old “who can punch hardest” boring shonen tropes.

Also, I’m an American reading this without the full Japanese cultural context.

Here’s the long story.

Inherently, My Hero Academia is telling a story of a society reaching its breaking point under the strain of its social politics, through the lens of a highly influential and powerful industry associated with law enforcement. From the beginning, the series introduces the concept of a social hierarchy constructed on the basis of having a quirk and its raw talent. It’s a story of blind veneration and a country still not fully ready to accept a world of superpowers.

And to me, it’s extremely important to understand that for all that professional heroes are technically public servants, professional heroics is first and foremost an industry.

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Okay, let’s just start with quirks themselves.

To this day, I’m still a much bigger fan of the spinoff manga than the main manga itself. I like the cast better, I love their interactions with each other, the plot makes sense, and it still has spent more actual panels discussing the impact of trying to accommodate quirks in universe than the main series has. Sure, Hori put in tidbits into the end of chapter extras, but that’s it.

Vigilantes actually takes the time to discuss how people with non-humanoid quirk mutations can run into difficulty finding affordable housing and the inadequate government assistance on that front. This piece of worldbuilding actually has consequences on characters and as the plot progresses, the consequences actually have influence on locations that appear as settings.

The main manga just doesn’t have this level of thought.

How do highways and mass transportation handle very large individuals and very small individuals? What changes to building codes and architecture has there been? What changes had to come to product design to accommodate different quirks? How do you as a society deal with individuals whose biology aren’t close to the old quirkless standard? What happened to food production and distribution? How well are government agencies addressing concerns brought up among the citizens due to their quirks? What impact has quirks had on the medical system?

(Minor pet peeve, and this is more directed towards fanon. I personally hate healing quirks, from a logistical and ethical standpoint. Canon proves that repeated use and high stress causes quirks to evolve and change over time. If you’re medical personnel and you’re using your quirk on your job, that quirk’s going to change its effects and abilities over time. Hello? Do you have any idea what the short- and long-term side effects of your quirk fully are? How did you figure out its full benefits and drawbacks? Are you taking a risk with each new patient that something completely unexpected could occur? Do you know how annoying it is when you can’t replicate or standardize procedures in a field like medicine where you need to carefully evaluate safety through scientific investigations? Do you know what using healing quirks sound like to me? Dangerous human experimentation, on both the patient and the doctor. AAAAUGH.)

I really want to know the political history behind the rise of quirks. What rate did it spread across the world and through generations? How did the politics around quirk rights shift over time? When did society stop using language like “meta-humans” or “quirked individuals” and started assuming having a quirk should be the default for describing humans? When did quirks first appear in the Imperial family? What shifts happened in rhetoric across the political spectrum over time in relation to quirks? How did that influence legislation and law enforcement? How does that influence employment statistics and population demographics? How did what was considered “desirable” change with each generation and decade? What influence did quirks have on the international scene? What really happened during the period of chaos and violence in the earlier quirk years? What pressured the system to finally hitting its boiling point? What were all the influences that finally calmed that period down?

Hori, for the love of god, shut up about daddy issues and fuck you for turning AFO into a stupid, boring cartoon villain.

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If you’re going to introduce a corrupt government institution that has no problems abusing its power to order assassinations and partake in child trafficking, go all in. And I don’t mean go all in the way the “HPSC Bashing” tag on AO3 tends to. I mean stop treating the HPSC like some kind of singular monolith that didn’t derive its power through its connections and influence.

If you have corruption in the HPSC, that means you have corruption in the Ministry of Justice. You have influence and competition with the police force. You have relationships with the courts and the judges ruling cases. You have the ears of politicians in the National Diet writing laws on criminal justice and prison infrastructure. You have sway through your own regulations and oversight on heroes and their agencies. You can steer the industry towards addressing one kind of crime over the other by dangling the secret ranking algorithm over the heroes’ heads.

You can create a society where the shiny surface covers over the reality of letting violent offenders go on light sentences, if they’re prosecuted at all, so you can have enough repeat offenders to feed and inflate the apprehension and arrest performance metrics of heroes. You can create a society where powerful businesses can lobby with their money to influence patrol routes. You can create a society where the insular press clubs dutifully spread your party message across the country. You can actively craft a society that forces large portions of your population into crimes of desperation in order to feed the gaping maw of an oversaturated hero industry.

This is just run of the mill politics and dealmaking, folks. You don’t need to turn towards torture and more cartoonishly evil entities to create conflict. Freaking – god, I hate whump. (EDIT: it occurred to me after posting that this is a great place for me to wax poetic about how much I LOVE, ADORE, APPRECIATE “may death never stop you” by slex on AO3 for addressing some of my points in a witty and engaging way. Superb writing.)

Of course, MHA also doesn’t go into goddamn ANY OF THIS even in the background as flavoring that can color the plot in interesting ways. Hori, it’s not enough to just have Aizawa point out that his students are being drafted as child soldiers, and then move on. HELLO? HELLO?

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MHA, I swear, is your technology more advanced or not? You can’t just throw in “Detnerat makes support tech and now it’s moving to hero gear” and then bail. And the way it’s portrayed? As making all this custom gear? Tailored to each customers’ quirk? MAKES NO SENSE FOR A LARGE CORPORATION? How did you scale that?? How are your logistical supply chains not a profit killing mess? What on earth is your manufacturing and fabrication process like? How inefficient are your operations that no one freaks out or notices your prototypes being intentionally leaked to the black market? How did you even make those connections, you’re a bunch of –

Using the excuse that they’re the arc’s villains is such lazy worldbuilding. Sure it’s in-line with the series LITERALLY going “UA’s Sports Festival has replaced the Olympics in importance” (w h a t, no, bullshit, get back here, STOP MOVING ON, HOW DOES THAT MAKE SENSE), but still it’s frustrating and it’s lazy.

Smartphones and vehicles?? Still look the same?? Even though chapter one implies it’s been around a couple centuries since roughly modern times?? Are holographs cheap tricks or not?? If they are, why aren’t they more widespread? Why are there still plenty of normal monitors and TVs? If they’re not, then why is UA able to jam them into their acceptance letters and it’s able to be some kind of bonus item among Kirishima’s merch?

I swear there was no thought put into tech beyond pure rule of cool. Which creates completely arbitrary hijinks and aesthetics without a lot of internal consistency, for something that really should be extremely important in universe across society, not just with heroes.

Like at least ATLA’s consistent and there’s logic going on with its tech. They’ve pulled off some things that also raise a ton of question marks with me (again, putting all that fire right next to the airship fleets is a recipe for disaster), but there’s at least an internal logic. Take Sokka’s submarines for example. The thought behind their design makes sense in a world with waterbending.

MHA’s just like, “And now UA’s a flying fortress.” WHAT??

(Disclaimer: Like how I don’t consider material outside the original shows canon for ATLA, I don’t really treat the movies as canon to MHA either. If people try bringing up I-Island at me, they’re just going to get a different giant but WHY rant.)

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Uuuugh, the Todoroki family situation.

This response is already clocking in over two thousand words, so I’ll save my giant rant about Hori’s and Japan’s stand on abusers for another day. Suffice it to say, I’m extremely cynical about the various redemption arcs and why they occur the ways they do. I believe the driving force behind those arcs is highly motivated by real world profits and massaging the series’ messaging to conform to an easy to digest black and white mentality.

But, it always makes me. so frustrated. how fic proves again and again how the Todoroki plot can be an excellent lens into the trappings and failings of elite pro hero society. It can be a really engaging lens into the corrupting influence of power and the dangers of blind hero worship. It can discuss people’s choices when the system fails them and their different decisions on how to take matters into their own hand. It can show the dangerous and corrosive effects vigilantism has on a society (ugh, more personal beef from me against some fandom tropes, ANYWAYS) through some of vigilantism’s more extreme manifestations.

The implications and consequences involved here are pure Navi bait. And Hori and his team just.

The things going on right now in canon always, guaranteed, makes me so angry.

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Also, as a final insult to injury, Hori’s self-insert is basically Mineta, whose main character trait is being a repeatedly aggressive sexual harasser. Dude.

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Idk if you really got anything out of this, I’ve been obsessively thinking about different parts and facets of the MHA universe for over a year now. My thoughts are just all over the place.

I still haven’t gone into the whole AFO situation from an organized crime perspective. Nor have I addressed the full impact of the ranking system on the hero industry as a whole, when you split heroes into a pyramid of the top elites, mid-tier, and bottom-tier groupings. Nor have I gone into all the wild potential and shenanigans of an elite, exclusive, and wealthy place like UA (that’s a whole fic in progress right now). Or about what kinds of social insecurities and concerns craft the look and feel of each generation of heroes.

There is just so much that can be explored in MHA, and since it’s a mainstream shonen, all it cares about is punching people real hard.

#the blah blahs #navi stirring up shit #MORE THINGS I DIDN'T TALK ABOUT #how does forensic evidence work here??#why does the CRC's attitudes seem to have no greater impact on the plot and world as a whole?#wouldn't it be ironic and hilarious if heroes #defenders of the innocent and protectors of the public #have the majority of their mass produced merchandise made through basically slave labor in foreign countries because thanks capitalism?#why aren't more people talking about money laundering #what's the attitude on criminal rehabilitation really like in bnha canon?#like shut up about protecting your favs in fic #is the hero industry really going to allow effective community support and rehabilitation to happen?#on an individual level they all have SO LITTLE incentive to actually support rehabilitation?#that's their KPIs on the line folks that's their salaries #WHYYYY is this world so cool with the human rights abuse going on left and right #just look at tartarus MASSIVE HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSE RIGHT THERE FOLKS #it will never stop being hilarious to me how frequently this fandom forgets that quirk canceling technology DOESN'T EXIST #IT'S NOT CANON #the closest thing to quirk canceling technology in canon is overkill via physical restraints #where using your quirk will actively harm you #this is just all my beef with canon lmao #we haven't even covered my shit stirring urges in regards to popular fandom tropes

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