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fuck-customers · 4 months

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Kind of a fuck customers but also a satisfying story at the same time.

My role in the call center I work in involves taking specifically corporate calls, which means I spend all day talking to “business professionals” (and I use that term loosely) including CEOs. As you can imagine, over 90% of these CEOs are the scum of the earth and the most entitled assfaces on the planet.

A week or so ago, I took a call and went through my usual routine of greeting the cardholder and then began going over verification questions. Since we’re A.) a bank and B.) a bank that handles corporate and government credit cards, we take security seriously and require a caller to be able to verify 3 pieces of information based on what the person responsible for their credit cards put on the account. If they don’t pass, we refer them to their company to get the right details.

So as I’m doing this, the guy on the phone is getting increasingly irritated as he keeps getting the security questions wrong. I’m calm and professional the entire time but firm. Eventually I run out of things to verify with him and tell him that we won’t be able to assist and that he needs to contact his administrator. This is apparently where I went wrong.

“LADY I AM THE ADMINISTRATOR!!” He screeches. Ok, great. I look him up and that’s true but there’s a second admin listed, so I ask him to check in with him. He then yells “THERE IS NO OTHER ADMIN! I’M THE CEO OF THIS COMPANY FOR CHRIST’S SAKE!!”

I apologize and tell him while that may be true, he still got his security questions wrong and needs to reach out to his account coordinator then. This man then proceeds to scream at me for the next minute or so saying how we’re an awful bank, how he’s had problems with us for years, blah blah and how we have the worst customer service ever. Keep in mind, I’ve been nice and empathetic this entire time but also I’m not gonna lose my fucking job just because a guy in a suit doesn’t know his shit. I give him the email to his account coordinator and stress again that he needs to talk to them. Then this exchange happens:

Him: “So let me get this straight. You are saying you are REFUSING and UNWILLING to help me, right?

Me: “No, actually I’d love to help you, however we have these security procedures in place for yours and your company’s protection and cannot make exceptions for anyone.”

Him: “This is fucking UNBELIEVABLE! I’ve HAD IT with this bank!!”

Me: “Ok, I’m sorry to hear that. Anything else I can do for you before we disconnect?”

Him: “WHAT IS YOUR NAME? I NEED YOUR NAME. NOW.”

Me: *gives my first name and spells it for him even though it’s a very basic 4 letter name because I’m a bitch*

Him: YOUR LAST NAME.

Me: “We don’t give out anything but our first name for the safety of our employees.”

Him: *insert that condescending, pissed off chuckle middle aged men do when they’re mad here* “Well I’ll tell you what (My Name), when I close this account and pull my MILLIONS OF DOLLARS out of (bank name) and they ask me why, I’ll make sure to tell them that it’s (My Name)’s fault. And I will see to it that you won’t be able to get another job outside of the minimum wage fast food job or whatever you had before this. How does that sound?”

Me: “Sounds great. Now seeing as how this conversation is no longer productive or professional and threats are being made, I’ll be terminating the call, have a nice day.”

Him: “DO NOT HANG UP O-“

Me: *click*

And that’s how making rich, powerful men rage-cry became my new favorite hobby. Thankfully, I haven’t gotten any feedback on that call; not that I would, seeing as how I did my job exactly how I was supposed to. Anyways I hope I’m his 13th reason. ❤️

Posted by admin Rodney.

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halfmaskshadow · 4 months

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“It’s all Hylia’s fault, why doesn’t she talk to Zelda??? She only talks to Link thats bad” STFU STFU STFU

SHE LITERALLY DOESNT HAVE THE POWER OF A GODDESS ANYMORE????

She loses most/all of her power when reincarnating for the first time. She probably CAN’T talk to Zelda, much less awaken her power. The most she can do in botw/totk is 1. give Link health/stamina, which is something previous Links can do separately of her, and 2. give small quests and provide tips, which is little more than speaking. She can’t even give him rewards without an outside source of energy, she’s so weak.

Link DIES and is reanimated. Idk about you, but to me that sounds like something that would bring you closer to a (dead-ish) goddess. Hell, Zelda can talk to him through his mind! Maybe Hylia’s just riding that train since Zelda is (at least tangentially) her reincarnation. Hylia just doesn’t have the power or the physical form to talk to anyone other than Link.

Maybe the Hylia you speak to is just the ghost of sksw Zelda. Maybe she has no more power than your typical ghost. Maybe you should STOP FUCKING BLAMING HER for not having any power after nearly DYING trying to defend the world from a threat even bigger than Calamity Ganon. She played her role, she did her best, and now she should be at rest. The only reason she talks to Link is because she cared about sksw Link and wants to help his reincarnations the best she can. She never wanted this to happen, but she can’t break the curse of a dying god. The only thing she can do is defend her people with what little power she has left in her brittle, crumbling form.

Hylia’s statues are small and hunched over because at her heart, she is small and old and weak. She lived the life as a mortal and was never meant to return to divinity. Now she sits in her gilded cage and watches as people she can’t help plead with her, and she cries as the mortals she cares for die and bleed in a war that isn’t for them. She offers what little she has left, and fuels the champion with her frail spirit. And you laugh at her. You yell at her for not giving enough and you go and speak poisoned words to your friends about how she isn’t trying. She weeps and gives all that she has, but it’s never enough for you, is it? Take your cowardly ways elsewhere. We want you not.

(Also, “Hylia swoops in and saves the day and Link doesn’t have to lift a finger” doesn’t exactly make for a compelling game, does it? You forget that the story is in service of the game, not the other way around. We’re trying to give Link reasons to run around and chop at grass. Hylia is a story device to get Link health and stamina. It’s not that deep)

(I recognize that saying “it’s not that deep” after typing a whole essay is a bit hypocritical, but I never claimed to be the paragon of morality)

#not art #tw cursing #long post #like an entire essay #game analysis #kind of #skyward sword #breath of the wild #botw #loz botw #tears of the kingdom #totk #loz totk #legend of zelda #goddess hylia #loz hylia

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preservationofnormalcy · 3 months

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For Knight: If you're able to share, what would you equate O-Sec to as far as what you do? Are you more akin to security, police, military, etc. It seems like you guys fill a lot of roles, so I'm kinda curious what you think is the closest mundane equivalent.

Basic ideas, off the bat. I like it.

The Office Security department operates as physical and psychological security services tailored to the unique needs of Office Staff. In our line of work, sometimes defense means offense.

To put it another way, the way I tell the rookies, we protect the Ls: the Labcoats and the Lanyards. We’re in charge of locking down physical Office locations and providing security when either “Ell” is out in the field. The guys in LEP Recon sometimes have first contact with unknown threats, but when you need to bring the actual pain….that’s us. If we got a weird situation in Sheboygan that the Labcoats want to look at personally, we tag along and make sure they aren’t KIA.

Look…I don’t wanna sit here and act like a badass. The Office here, when we encounter some weird ████████, we always try diplomacy. Compassion. I’m an old dog, been through too much for new tricks. I’m not so good at that part, but I don’t have to be. It’s the Labcoats and Lanyards here who walk towards the unholy ████ with a smile and an outstretched hand. Couldn’t do that. I’m happy to sit on the side with my big stick and talk real soft so if ████ hits the fan I’m already there.

Wait, what’s a Lanyard?

Civvies who ain’t Labcoats, Halter. You’re a Lanyard.

Oh my god.

#office for the preservation of normalcy #ask #ask knight

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neverwritewhatyouknow · 10 months

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Because of all the hate I’ve been getting recently as I defend my ethnicity’s and religion’s right for representation in media, specifically the movie Red, White & Royal Blue, I did something I never do.

I went to temple.

I’m not religious. I’m culturally Jewish and really only do the high holy days, Passover, and Hanukkah. The latter two mostly just for the food.

I went for a sign that what I was doing was good. That I shouldn’t give up, even though, you know I get death threats (I don’t post them anymore) and people who actively hate me.

During the service, the Rabbi told us about the daughters of Zelophehad, and how they asked Moses for land that was rightfully their father’s. Since society at that time didn’t give land to women, Moses went to God and asked what to do. God was like “Yeah, give ‘em the land and let’s rewrite the rules on who gets land.” And they basically rewrote the system because of what they wanted.

My Rabbi then said, the daughters did it for almost a selfish reason, they wanted what was supposed to be theirs. But the selfishness was for the good of many, since they could use the land for more. Plus, their ask changed things for everyone. Their passion for the land, and their bravery to challenge the system, meant that the land they had could be used for power and change. It brought about more equality.

The Rabbi then asked us what we were passionate about. LGBTQ+ rights? Fighting against SCOTUS unjust rulings? Student loans? What do we have in our personal lives that we can be selfish about that would change the lives of many, just by us challenging the system in place?

For me, I’m selfish because I want Amazon Prime and the RWRB production (crew and cast) to apologize for erasing Nora’s Jewishness from the movie. I’m selfish because I want my representation, because I’ve earned it. I’ve watched so many things that had no Jewish characters. Or ones where there were, but no Jewish actors playing them. I’m selfish because I wanna see myself represented.

But my selfishness, and the challenge to the system I take on, is for the good of many. An apology from RWRB would show that it’s not okay to erase Jewish characters just because you want to. Would show that Jews deserve good roles. That we’re more than stereotypes. That Jewish actors are necessary. That Jews are more than a religion. That all ethnicities and minorities, no matter what, deserve representation. Yeah, I’m fighting for Jews, but I’m also fighting for equal and accurate rep all around. Ethnicity cannot be erased for anyone.

I went looking for a sign, and I got one. Unlike the dog in the burning room who says “It’s fine,” I’m in the room and saying it’s not. Because there’s things that have to change. And apparently Jewish women have always been the ones to bring about change for the good of many.

Red, White & Royal Blue needs to own up to their Jew-erasure and the silencing of voices who called them out on it.

#rwrb movie #red white and royal blue #red white royal blue movie #rwrb cast #rwrb #red white and royal blue movie #casey mcquiston #red white royal blue cast #nora holleran #rachel hilson #jewish #red white royal blue #cmq #rwrb film

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quasitsqueeries · 1 year

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Space Marines are not your friend

... and the Imperium of Man are not the good guys.

These guys, with the iron crosses and the scary face-masks, surprisingly not very nice.

So, there’s this idea that came up a bit in the discussions around space marines and gender that sometimes these guys can be heroic, and, um, actually it’s how they’re perceived as heroic that’s kind of the point, but we’ll come back to that.

Milton Bradley and Games workshop teamed up to release Space Crusade when I was 6 or 7 and I pestered my parents until they bought it for me for Christmas. Later, when I was 11 I was stuck at home with glandular fever and my family picked up some White Dwarf magazines from the local library for me to read and I realised there was more going on with this world, and I thought space marines were pretty cool. I used to imagine being a space marine. That’s because I didn’t understand what they represented. As I got older, and started to learn more about the symbols that GW were drawing on, that idea became less and less appealing.

In Warhammer 40,000, the Imperium of Man is a Fascist state. To be very clear, I don’t think it’s a bad game or fascist piece of media for depicting this. I think it was the intention of the game’s original creators to critically depict a futuristic dystopia, and the Fascist setting is part of that.

I think it’s clear that the Imperium engenders several of the 14 characteristics of Fascism identified by Lawrence Britt pretty unambiguously. The first is powerful and continuing Nationalism, Nationalism is based on the idea that a state should be congruent with a particular people, or volk, and outsiders should be excluded. Nationalism in the 41st Milennium is different to the Nationalism we’re used to because the volk in question is all of humanity, and the excluded parties are what the Imperium calls Xenos; Eldar, Orks, Tau, etc. Then there’s disdain for the recognition of human rights, human rights don’t really exist as a concept in 40K. You might ask the servitor or arco-flagellant about their human rights, or the 10 year-old child who’s taken from their home to begin the process of becoming a space marine. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause is a big one. The vilifcation of heretics, mutants and xenos is kind of a central tenet of the Imperium’s culture. There’s supremacy of the military, uh, I’m not sure I need to explain how the Imperium glorifies the Imperial Guard, the Astartes, all the chambers miltant, the knightly houses, the titan legions, the imperial navy, etc. etc. Rampant sexism, I hope my previous post has demonstrated this, but I think it’s important to note that sexism isn’t just disliking a particular gender, it’s expressed in the reinforcement of traditional and hegemonic gender roles, as I think the comparison of the Astartes’ and Sororitas’ roles demonstrates. There’s an obsession with national security, the Imperium’s entire economy is geared towards expansionism and dealing with internal and external threats. The intertwining of religion and government is pretty clear, the head of state is seen as a god and his church is the beaurecracy that runs the Imperial state. Supression of labour power is kind of assumed, there are no unions in the Imperium. The disdain for intellectuals and the arts is demonstrated by statements like “an open mind is like a fortress with its gates unbarred and unguarded” (That’s from Dawn of War). And there’s an obsession with crime and punishment, embodied by the existence of the Inquisition, in particular the Ordo Hereticus, who are a police force with unlimited power and the capacity to dragoon military units into their service.

These points often meet with the objection that the internal and external threats *do* exist and that therefor the Imperium’s response to them is justified, which kind of misses the point that this is a piece of fiction, an exploration of ideas. The existence of Xenos and the Chaos Gods doesn’t make the Imperium’s response to those things any less Fascistic, and they definitely don’t justify the existence of Fascism in the real world.

But, Warhammer 40,000 is an aesthetic game and Fascists looooove aesthetics, so I think an examination of how the Imperium draws on the aesthetics of Fascism is a bit more interesting.

Here’s a Susan Sontag quote I copied from the Wikipedia page on Fascism: “[f]ascist aesthetics ... flow from (and justify) a preoccupation with situations of control, submissive behavior, extravagant effort, and the endurance of pain; they endorse two seemingly opposite states, egomania and servitude. The relations of domination and enslavement take the form of a characteristic pageantry: the massing of groups of people; the turning of people into things; the multiplication or replication of things; and the grouping of people/things around an all-powerful, hypnotic leader-figure or force. The fascist dramaturgy centers on the orgiastic transactions between mighty forces and their puppets, uniformly garbed and shown in ever swelling numbers. Its choreography alternates between ceaseless motion and a congealed, static, 'virile' posing. Fascist art glorifies surrender, it exalts mindlessness, it glamorizes death."

I’m not going to provide a reference for that because this isn’t an essay and you’re not my lecturer and someone already did all the work (it’s in the wiki, linked above). I think I’m just going to take some extracts from that and juxtapose them with 40K art. Here goes:

a preoccupation with situations of ... extravagant effort

and the endurance of pain

they endorse two seemingly opposite states, egomania and servitude

a characteristic pageantry: the massing of groups of people

the turning of people into things

an all-powerful, hypnotic leader-figure or force

The fascist dramaturgy centers on the orgiastic transactions between mighty forces and their puppets, uniformly garbed and shown in ever swelling numbers

a congealed, static, 'virile' posing

it glamorizes death

(I thought about adding a little speech bubble saying “even in death I still serve” but I think most people reading this recognise that that’s a walking, fighting coffin, I don’t think there’s a more explicit depiction of the glamourisation of death than the idea of a warrior so commited to war they they allow their corpse to be interred in a fighting machine so they can continue to kill after they’ve died.)

I’m particularly interested in how space marines fill the role of the ‘hero’. Nazis loved art that showed idealised male figures, preferably from pagan myths. Here’s a sculpture of Prometheus that was exhibited at their “Great German Art Exhibition”:

They loved heroic figures, muscular and mythic men of action. They saw in Nietszche’s ubermensch an individual who had the strength and will to do what he wanted, and take what he wanted, without concern for the morality of the ‘sheep’. It goes without saying that these figures were meant to be of Aryan descent and in the Nazi state the SS were meant to be the modern expression of this. Recruits to the SS had to ‘prove’ their Aryan ancestry and Himmler had plans to institute requirements for appearance and height. I think it’s clear how they were meant to be a fighting force who’s superiority came from their supposed genetic superiority and connection to an idealised Aryan heroism.

And that’s where space marines come in. Astartes are the way they are because of their connection, through gene-seed, to the primarchs (The Emperor’s largest sons), heroic and promethean figures from the dawn of the Imperium who made war on a grand scale and spread the Emperor’s light to the far reaches of the galaxy. Their genetics make them into literal superhumans, able to perform heroic feats that would be impossible for a regular person. This isn’t a good thing, it’s an expression of Fascist ideology. Warhammer 40K, being satire, recognises this, and so it’s constantly made clear that these people are incapable of anything but war. Also the marinification process makes them so muscular they resemble sides of beef more than actual people, they’ve become a grotesque mockery of the ideal of the Hero.

Also there are skulls and eagles on, like, everything, and that’s normally a sign that Fascists are about. There’s also a particular fascination Fascists have with the imagery of the Roman Empire, the word Fascism comes from fasces, a bunch of rods bound together with an axe that was the symbol of Roman dicators. Ultramarines in particular use a lot of Roman inspired armour elements.

The headpiece, wreath at the midriff, and leather straps hanging between the legs are all screaming Rome at me, and I don’t think these guys are history buffs (They’re Fascists).

Anyway, there we go, I think I’ve established that the original 40K writers intended for the Imperium to be a Fascist state. I’m enjoying this, maybe next I’ll write something about the Eldar and Slaanesh and ideas aboout degeneracy that were floating around at the turn of the 19th Century.

UPDATE: I've developed my thoughts on this further here.

#warhammer 40k #warhammer 40000 #imperium #space marines #adeptus astartes #imperial guard

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agentnico · 1 month

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Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (2024) review

Someone should call child services, as Kong uses a baby monkey as a weapon and flails him around like a whip, using the poor little fella to bash against incoming enemies. Granted the little chap is durable, but like….. I’m sorry, this movie is ridiculous. Like I can’t even!

Plot: Godzilla and the almighty Kong face a colossal threat hidden deep within the planet, challenging their very existence and the survival of the human race.

2021’s Godzilla vs. Kong holds a special place in my heart in that during COVID-19 it was one of the first and only films to come out during lockdown. I recall sitting in my living room suffering from high depression (I mean, who wasn’t at that time, am I right??) and I stuck on the Godzilla vs Kong film with low expectations……and I had the greatest time ever. By no means was it a masterpiece. It’s even far away from being a good film, but at that time when I was cinema-deprived and life was in a constant state of limbo, a big trashy Hollywood blockbuster with two massive CGI monsters beating the living crap of each other was exactly the entertainment I needed.

In cometh Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. Naturally we’re no longer in a pandemic so the WOW factor is gone, and also Godzilla Minus One only recently came out reminding us that Godzilla can be sophisticated when need be. That being said, am I opposed to seeing some ridiculously over-the-top kaiju brawls for absolutely no other reason other than Hollywood wanting to throw money against the wall and seeing what happens? Yes. Look, from the set-up the whole thing doesn’t make sense in the first place. I get it is fantasy and suspension of disbelief is required, but it’s a giant walking nuclear power plant that holds the title of king of the monsters against a bloody monkeh. I don’t care how cool or likeable Kong is, if we’re being realistic he’d get smushed just by touching Godzilla. Like, ain’t that lizard boi radioactive?? Last time I checked radioactivity is pretty fatal. Kong should have developed multiple forms of cancer since the 2021 film, I’m just saying. But again, that’s if we’re thinking logically, however as we’ve learned from these MonsterVerse movies, logic isn’t a word that exists. So let’s enjoy the lizard and monkeh for what they are - bring it on!!

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is exactly what you expect it to be… in the last 30 minutes. The first hour and a half is actually a casual sequel to Kong: Skull Island, with Godzilla a fleeting cameo just getting up to random shenanigans, with every appearance lasting no longer than 5 seconds. I’m serious, Godzilla to this movie is like Scrat is to the Ice Age movies. If you recall the little saber-toothed squirrel hardly ever connects to the main plot-line of those films, and instead is only obsessed with getting his stupid acorn. Same with Godzilla, he fights random kaijus just cause. He takes naps in the Colosseum just cause. He eats nuclear plants for breakfast just cause. He turns Barbie-level pink just cause. His entire role in this movie is just cause. Otherwise this is through and through a King Kong movie. Not that I’m complaining, if you want to make a somewhat engaging and emotionally resonant narrative (as if this movie has a plot!), it’s easier to focus on Kong as he has the baggage of being lonely and wanting to find a home and more of his kind, so there’s something there to work with. So we spend most of the movie wit Kong as he explores Hollow Earth that’s discovered from the previous film, and I quite enjoyed all that. Does the movie need to be 2 hours long? Nope, as the whole Hollow Earth story-line is dragged out so much when in fact all that happens could have easily been told in the size of a short film. Essentially nothing much happens is what I’m saying. Like the whole thing is a set-up for the inevitable and highly anticipated final showdown that we’ve all paid for.

About the final showdown - it’s so dumb. I mean the whole movie is dumb, but the final battle breaks any last remaining realm of reason and turns into this crazy bonkers monsters v monsters smashy-bashy bonkers beat ‘em up, and it was absolutely fantastic! Again, I fully admit the stupidity of it all, but watching this movie’s finale in a crowded theatre with everyone cheering, laughing, clapping and howling alongside all the CGI madness that is thrown at our faces - it was awesome! I’d give the final 30 minutes a 10/10 score easily, as it is exactly what we want from a Godzilla and Kong movie. Godzilla spears Kong through a pyramid and then immediately follows that up with a suplex. That right there is cinematic genius!! The rest of the movie is fine and has its moments, but is just a meandering set-up for that ending.

This being a MonsterVerse movie naturally there are also some human characters that we are forced to care about. Like I give a f***, gimme me more lizard and monkeh!!! I want them here, and I want them now! To be fair the producers must have listened to the audience feedback as there is much less human stuff in this movie. There’s a useless sub-plot with Rebecca Hall and her adopted daughter that was so boring and generic and was the dullest part of the movie. Brian Tyree Henry and Dan Stevens are a delight though, providing some enjoyable comedic tongue in cheek, with Stevens especially excelling at the one-liner quips. Nice also to see Stevens teaming back up with director Adam Wingard, the two having previously worked on the wonderful indie thriller The Guest. Honestly if you have not seen The Guest you’re missing out big time - a delightful slice of action horror with a fantastic atmosphere that sucks you in with a dash of dry black comedy edge.

Speaking of Adam Wingard, he’s evidently a good match with these goofy Fast & Furious-level silly monster flicks. He directs the movie using a fun colourful visual palette, with some fantastic sci-fi set pieces, and Hollow Earth is reminiscent very much of a Jules Verne-type adventure locale, very much in the vain of a Journey to the Centre of the Earth, or a Mysterious Island. There’s also a strong 80’s retro vibe to the movie with the techno-synth music score from Junkie XL that had strong Thor: Ragnarok feels to it. I must say through all its stupidity, visually the film is really cinematic and looks awesome on the big screen.

I had a solid time with Godzilla x Kong, especially with those last 30 minutes. Satisfyingly entertaining blockbuster fast-food. It does get a while to get there, and also the movie is fit with so many plot holes and inconsistencies, and also it really did feel like the writers were making things up as they were going along, but I don’t care. This was never intended to be high calibre award worthy filmmaking. It’s only a monkeh, standing in front of a radioactive lizard, asking him to fight together. Really entertaining and super fun. Best part was when it was revealed that Kong could talk and screamed “it’s KONGIN TIME!!’

Overall score: 6/10

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bryan360 · 6 months

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Here’s my note before I’ll get started….

(NO COPYING OR PLAGIARIZING FROM ME AND ONE OF MY CLOSEST FRIEND’S WORK! THAT INCLUDES OUR CHARACTERS, DESIGNS, STUFF, ETC. IMPOSTERS AND SEXBOTS ARE NOT WELCOME TO FOLLOW MY BLOG WHATSOEVER! 😡 That will be all….I mean it.)

”Day 30: Leader 🐶⬛️🗡️”

One more day for 🎃Halloween this year; where I can finally conclude Sallie and Awoofy’s chase from the rolling pumpkin’s wrath! Joking aside because it’s just a giant pumpkin without feeling out of revenge. Unless if you counted being possessed from the naughty red panda’s magic spell gone wrong. 😅 Just a theory to imagine yourself.

In the meantime of saving the final Inktober artwork, here’s my “Day 30th” entry that you might never expected. I had personal thoughts as a “What If” scenario for the Netflix animated worlds, but in a mashup style of “Come and Learn with Pibby”.

Just to be clear, it had nothing to do if Netflix’s planning to greenlit the “Pibby” show instead. We’re feeling bummed after Dodge Greenley’s recent update that the potential show never pick up for Adult Swim. That doesn’t mean it will moving on to Netflix too soon. (Or any other streaming services if it’s possible. Just a thought.)

Either way, I’m not giving up as I’m saving some fanarts to plan. Who knows if Adult Swim at least can acknowledge once again?

As for this Inktober artwork share, it was Chip the Pug who’s taking a role as a resistance leader. As I said before, this is a “What If” scenario by having the darkness taking over Netflix animated worlds from “Inside Job” to “Centaurworld”; including this poor female pug’s world. She lost her mouse friend named “Potato” and some to her family and friends that gotten corrupted by the darkness. (This example.⬇️)

youtube

Now she’s on her journey through different and dangerous worlds wether to save or fight off any animated characters and joining forces. Things can be intense that Chip can take; especially losing her eye due to ongoing struggles. 🫢😔

As much It was a shock; let alone a harmless pug without hurting anyone. That said, it was something to face reality as she’s growing up. Can she willingly to face bigger threats than she can encounter? Can she still have time to save her mouse friend and others? Or suffer the way that it started in the first place? That is something you can imagine yourself; for better or for worse.

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(BTW, the exact date where the short video uploaded through Adult Swim’s YT Channel since 2021. Today’s mark the 2nd anniversary for the potential show that sadly wasn’t picked up. If only someday. 🙏)

Chip the Pug (as the resistance leader) - “Chip and Potato” (2018-present); WildBrain Studios, Darrall Macqueen, Family Jr., Netflix

Edited image of the Netflix logo - Link Here

Tagged: @murumokirby360 @carmenramcat @alexander1301 @rafacaz4lisam2k4 @paektu

Previous: ⬇️

“Day 1: Looney 🐰🔨” - Link Here #1

“Day 2: Imposters 🕷️👉👈🕷️” - Link Here #2

“Day 3: Wild 🌲🐶” - Link Here #3

“Day 4: Thief 🐰💰” - Link Here #4

“Day 5: Moon 🌙🎣” - Link Here #5

“Day 6: Love 🐰❤️🐲” - Link Here #6

“Day 7: Dogs 😣🐶” - Link Here #7

“Day 8: Shake🥤☠️” - Link Here #8

“Day 9: Act ☎️ 🤹‍♀️” - Link Here #9

“Day 10: Pirate 🏴‍☠️🗡️” - Link Here #10

“Day 11: Shadows 🔦🙌” - Link Here #11

“Day 12: Baddies 🚘 🎃” - Link Here #12

“Day 13: Transform 🪵💨” - Link Here #13

“Day 14: Bad Hair 💇‍♀️😱” - Link Here #14

“Day 15: Phantom 👻🦸🏻‍♂️” - Link Here #15

“Day 16: Fighters 😈👊💥” - Link Here #16

“Day 17: Ninjas 🌃🥷” - Link Here #17

“Day 18: Grim 💀🐑” - Link Here #18

“Day 19: Hill 🩻❤️👩‍🦰” - Link Here #19

“Day 20: Fury 🐢🔥⛈️” - Link Here #20

“Day 21: Farm 👩‍🌾🛸🥦” - Link Here #21

“Day 22: Magic 🐰🪄🎩” - Link Here #22

“Day 23: Smile 🐰👩‍🍳😈” - Link Here #23

“Day 24: Arcade 🕹️🦁🗡️” - Link Here #24

“Day 25: Camp 🐿️🐶🔥” - Link Here #25

“Day 26: Pets 🎧😌🎃” - Link Here #26

“Day 27: Lantern 🐱🏮⬛️” - Link Here #27

“Day 28: Five Nights 🐰🤖🍕” - Link Here #28

“Day 29: Rollout 🎃🏃‍♀️” - Link Here #30

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radical-revolution · 5 months

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The Wisdom of Anger

BY MELVIN MCLEOD, AUGUST 15, 2018

"Is anger an empowering and appropriate response to suffering and injustice, or does it only cause more conflict? Is it skillful or unskillful? Does it help or hurt?

With so many bad things happening in the world these days, there’s a lot of debate about the proper role of anger. The answer may lie in the fundamental distinction Buddhism makes between anger and aggression.

According to Buddhism, aggression is one of the “three poisons” that drive our suffering. Even a brief moment of reflection on our own lives, our society, and human history will confirm that aggression is the greatest cause of destruction and suffering.

As with the other two poisons—ignorance and passion—what defines aggression is ego. Aggression is the energy of anger in the service of all we define as “self,” ready to attack anyone and anything we deem a threat. But when anger is released from its service to ego, it ceases to be aggression and simply becomes energy. The pure energy of anger has wisdom and power. It can even be enlightened.

The Buddhas Are Angry

The buddhas are not just the love-and-light people we like to think they are. Of course, their enlightened mind is grounded in total peace, but in that open space compassion spontaneously arises. It has many manifestations. One is the pure energy of anger.

Anger is the power to say no. This is our natural reaction whenever we see someone suffer—we want to stop it. The buddhas say no to the three poisons that drive injustice. They are angry about our suffering and they will happily destroy its causes. They aren’t angry at us. They’re angry for us.

Traditionally, it is said that the buddhas’ compassion expresses itself through four types of energy. These are called skillful means, the different ways wisdom and compassion go into action to relieve suffering.

First, the buddhas can pacify, helping suffering beings quench the flames of aggression, passion, and ignorance. The calm and pacifying buddha is the one we’re most familiar with, whose image brings a feeling of peace to millions around the world.

But sometimes more is needed. So the buddhas can enrich us, pointing out the wealth of resources we possess as human beings and healing our inner sense of impoverishment. Then, if need be, they can magnetize us, seducing us away from the suffering of ego to the joy of our inherent enlightened nature.

Finally, there are times when the compassionate thing is to destroy. To say “Stop!” to suffering. To say “Wake up!” to the ways people deceive themselves. To use the energy of anger to say “No!” to all that is selfish, exploitive, and unjust.

In its pure, awakened form, when it is not driven by ego, anger brings good to the world. In our personal lives, it helps us be honest about our own foibles and have the courage to help others see how they are damaging themselves. On a bigger scale, anger is the energy that inspires great movements for freedom and social justice, which we need so badly now. It is a vital part of every spiritual path, for before we can say yes to enlightenment, we must say no to the three poisons.

The energy of anger is an inherent part of our nature—we can no more have yes without no than light without dark. So we need a way to work with the energy of anger so it doesn’t manifest as aggression, as well as methods to tap its inherent wisdom. We need a profound understanding of where aggression comes from, how it differs from anger, and a practical path to work with it. That path begins where all healing begins.

First, Do No Harm

Most of us aren’t physically violent, but almost all of us hurt other people with aggressive words and harsh emotions. The sad part is that it’s usually the people we love most whom we hurt. We can also acquiesce in or implicitly support social evils and injustice through our silence, investments, or consumption habits.

Buddhism, like all religions, offers guidelines to help us restrain ourselves. We may not like rules and limitations, but the morals, ethics, and decorum taught directly by the Buddha are guides to doing no harm.

The principle of right conduct applies to acts of body, speech, and mind. Guided by the inner attitudes of gentleness and awareness, we monitor what arises in the mind moment by moment and choose the wholesome, like peace, over the unwholesome, like aggression.

Buddhism teaches helpful meditation techniques so we are not swept away by the force of conflicting emotions like aggression. These techniques allow us to take advantage of the brief gap in the mind between impulse and action. Through the practice of mindfulness, we become aware of impulses arising and allow a space in which we can consider whether and how we want to act. We, not our emotions, are in control.

I’m in Pain, You’re in Pain

Without excusing or ignoring anything, it’s helpful to recognize that aggression is usually someone’s maladapted response to their own suffering. That includes us and our aggression. So caring for ourselves and cultivating compassion for others are two of the best ways to short-circuit aggression.

We are suffering beings, and we don’t handle it well. We try to ease our pain and only make it worse. The practices of mindfulness and self-care give us the strength and space to experience our suffering without losing our stability and lashing out. And when we are targets of aggression ourselves, knowing it may come out of the other person’s pain helps us respond skillfully.

Without Suppressing or Acting Out

Fear and shame distort the basic energy of anger and create suffering. We fear that intense emotions like anger will overwhelm us and make us lose control. We’re ashamed that such “negative” emotions are part of our makeup at all. So we protect ourselves against the energy of anger by either suppressing it or acting it out. Both are ways to avoid experiencing the full intensity of emotion. Both are harmful to ourselves and others.

What we need is the courage to rest in the full intensity of the energy inside us without suppressing or releasing it. This the key to the Buddhist approach to working with anger. When we have the courage to remain present with our anger, we can look directly at it. We can feel its texture and understand its qualities. We can investigate and understand it.

What we discover is that we are not actually threatened by this energy. We can separate the anger from our ego and storyline. We realize that anger’s basic energy is useful, even enlightened. For in its essence, our anger is the same as the buddhas’.

Discovering the Wisdom of Anger

We have the same power to say no that the buddhas do. Traditionally, it is said that the enlightened energy of anger is the wisdom of clarity. It is sharp, accurate, and penetrating insight. It sees what is wholesome and unwholesome, what is just and unjust, what is enlightenment and what is ignorance. Seeing clearly, we lay the ground for action.

We all experience the wisdom of anger when we see how society mistreats people. When we have an honest insight into our own neuroses and vow to change. When we are inspired to say no to injustice and fight for something better. This wisdom is a source of strength, fearlessness, and solidarity. It can drive positive change.

If Buddhism offers us one piece of good news it is this: in our basic nature, we are enlightened and our anger is really wisdom. The confused and misdirected aggression that causes such suffering is just temporary and insubstantial.

When the energy of anger serves ego, it is aggression. When it serves to ease others’ suffering and make the world a better place, it is wisdom. We have the freedom to choose which. We have the power to transform aggression into the wisdom of anger. There is no greater victory, for us and for the world."

♦️..

Melvin McLeod is the Editor-in-Chief of Lion's Roar magazine and Buddhadharma. McLeod has edited three books of teachings by Thich Nhat Hanh and is the series editor for The Best Buddhist Writing series. He lives in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.

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Why “Lion’s Roar”?

"Our name is taken from a quote attributed to the Buddha: “The proclamation of the truth of the dharma is as fearless as a lion’s roar.” In this context “Lion’s Roar” expresses the fearlessness and confidence needed to present the profound truths of dharma, by way of any and all skillful means."

https://www.lionsroar.com/

➖➖➖..

The protector Vajrasadhu, painted by Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. Used by permission of Diana J. Mukpo

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mariacallous · 5 months

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In Russia, where nearly anything can lead to criminal prosecution, repression affects an increasing number of people. Jennifer Earl, a sociology professor at the University of Delaware whose research on repression is among the most respected and cited in the field, has spent over 20 years studying the mechanics of repression. Earl calls for a wider than usual understanding of repression, explaining that threats to society come not only from the governments, but also from private entities. Just before the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repressions in Russia, Meduza special correspondent Margarita Liutova spoke with Jennifer Earl about the various forms of repression in Russia and around the world — and what society can do to resist them.

Defining repression

While many scholars of repression focus on state violence, Jennifer Earl prefers a definition of repression that encompasses any actions that “raise the costs” of organizing or “actually constrain or influence the ability to act.” Taking a broader view of who engages in repression, she looks not only at governments but also at private actors. “It gets riskier and riskier not to notice the important role that companies and private organizations are playing in repression, because that role is becoming bigger over time and certainly more complex,” she explains.

Private entities engaged in repression can take the form of mercenary organizations, such as Russia’s Wagner Group. But companies selling surveillance technology to states and private actors fall into this category, as well. “Private companies are allowed to grab a very large amount of information about individuals and then begin to collect and organize that information so that what a company may know about an individual can be much more substantial than individuals realize,” explains Earl. “And then that can be bought and sold or fed into services.”

This information can be used for a variety of purposes, including creating targeted Facebook ads, which push offensive content to people in order to induce “a sense of distaste” that encourages them to disengage from politics.

Influencing the amount of dissent and the way in which it is expressed is what Earl refers to as “channeling.” This could be through the creation of systems for “voicing discontent in more manageable ways” that are easier for the authorities to contain, react to, and control. “What essentially that does as a state government is say, ‘We’re willing to listen, but only if you speak in this way,’” Earl explains. “And that is a way of controlling how people engage in activism.” Another example of “channeling” could be the implementation of laws that provide “tax advantages to organizations that do not engage in certain kinds of political activity.”

Repressive capacity

Repressive actions aren’t limited to autocracies. “Democracies hold a lot of repressive capacity,” Earl tells Meduza. “They just don’t necessarily use it as much as more authoritarian nations, although they certainly have the ability to use it — and they do.” At the same time, she notes that democracies generally don’t wield their repressive capacity as regularly or to the same extant as authoritarian governments. “It’s a different thing to live in North Korea, China, or Russia than to live in Britain, France, or the U.S.,” she underscores.

In order to properly understand repression, Earl stresses the importance of looking at a government’s administrative capacity rather than simply whether it’s democratic or authoritarian. “If you’re investing in your military, if you’re investing in local policing heavily, you have repressive capacity,” she explains, adding that investment in digital monitoring and surveillance technologies is another key indicator.

The more administrative capacity you have, the [more] quickly that can turn into repressive capacity, whether you’re a democracy or an authoritarian state.

The U.S. authorities, for example, took measures to restrict protest in response to unrest caused by the 2016 presidential election and the Black Lives Matter protests. At the time, those supporting restrictions on protest in the U.S. argued that it was “more important to have law and order and control than to have a voice.”

Calculating the costs of repression

How do repressive actors decide to engage in repression? They may engage in a cost benefit analysis when deciding how to best achieve a goal. This could include calculating the cost of financing the military and police to carry out repressive work, explains Earl. What’s more, there are potential costs in terms of the repressor’s international reputation and there’s always a risk of repressions backfiring, resulting in more protests, rather than less.

But Earl doesn’t think that this can fully explain how actors decide whether to engage in repression, because it “may be assuming the ability to calculate things that are not calculable.” Instead, she suggests the role of perceived weakness.

[According to this school of thought,] the exercise of repression is in some ways performative. And so as a power holder, one would not want to perform repression and fail because you would actually make your appearance weaker. And some have argued that that makes repressive actors particularly likely to go after weaker groups or people so that they can have the performative success.

Others believe it is a probably a combination of the two: repressors find it easier to repress weaker groups but also respond to those who they perceive as posing a serious threat.

‘Active measures’

In order to understand the motivation for repressive actors, Earl references Russian journalist Masha Gessen who has argued that people “misunderstand why Putin may say things that are objectively untrue.” Earl explains:

The exercise of saying something that is verifiably untrue but confidently putting it [out there] to be repeated and believed is itself an exercise of power. [It shows] that [what’s] much more powerful than controlling a government is controlling reality. […] You are showing that you have the ability to control what people do not just through carrots and sticks; […] that you have the ability to control how people understand the world.

Asked about whether misinformation campaigns are more effective than traditional censorship, given that many people in Russia believe Putin’s version of reality despite having access to verified information, Earl explains that they operate “in relationship to one another.” “Certainly disinformation campaigns benefit from some level of censorship,” she says. “Although they may be able to be effective even when censorship is pretty low.”

Recently, however, governments in many countries have realized that it’s nearly impossible to have complete control over information. This has led to “active measures campaigns,” Earl says. Realizing that information can’t be fully controlled, governments instead take advantage of how much information is out there and attempt to distract audiences or feed them disinformation. States often attempt to focus people’s limited attention and information consumption on non-political or very patriotic content, explains Earl.

“Active measure campaigns” work to promote favorable messaging, constructing a specific reality and demobilizing specific groups. Earl points to Russia’s influence campaigns in the U.S. as one salient example.

The Russian influence campaigns in the United States, for instance, appear largely to be about using polarization not to support one actor versus another, but rather to create more disagreement between actors. [This] has the benefit, from a Russian government perspective, of creating more tension, disagreement, [and] gridlock in American politics, and also moderating the influence of people who have less extreme views.

At the same time, some Russia experts argue that disinformation spread by Putin or the government is not intended to construct another reality, but rather to convince people that there is no truth at all. This, in turn, convinces people that they shouldn’t believe anyone — especially not independent media outlets, which the Russian authorities paint as Western agents.

In Early’s opinion, “not believing anything is a very demobilizing point of view.” In the absence of anything trustworthy, she explains, people may begin to “substitute [their] own personal experience as a totalizing truth,” which would have its own set of consequences.

Repression is often much more effective in preventing people from engaging in certain actions or making them ignore repressors altogether. Engaging in the opposite — attempting to induce certain actions through repression — is much more difficult, as seen in the challenges Russia faced during their efforts to mobilize recruits to fight in Ukraine.

‘As a repressor, you’re rolling the dice’

There is a substantial amount of research into the causes of repression, explains Earl, but research on its actual deterrence ability has been much more limited. There are still questions about whether repression is actually successful in stopping people from engaging in undesirable activities or if it instead radicalizes them or even brings previously uninvolved people into the conflict.

As a repressor, you’re rolling dice on what happens when you repress. There is a possibility that you succeed in your repressive goals and deter people from participating. There is also a very real chance that some of the people who experience repression become more committed to their cause by virtue of the experience of repression. And there’s a very real risk that other people in your country or around the world observe that repression and become supporters of that cause when they weren’t already supporters before.

When repression backfires, continuing to repress can become a riskier course of action, given concern that it can cause a situation to further deteriorate. That’s why finding ways to make sure repressive actions backfire is key to making repressors “think twice before repressing.”

As for the feeling of helplessness among people in authoritarian states such as Russia, Earl says that this is the exact aim of authoritarianism. “What you often see in authoritarian nations is periods of quiescence ended by periods of mass mobilization when there was an appetite building for backfire,” she says. “But it all needed to come together in a particular moment.” Referencing the recent protests in Iran and the Arab Spring, Earl says that particularly repressive incidents can suddenly catalyze protests, even in the face of ongoing repression:

Looking at mobilization as the only indicator of the potential for backfire is like looking at the surface of the ocean and not knowing that there are currents.

These currents, which can take the form of underground networks, are capable of going unnoticed by repressive actors. Earl stresses the importance of supporting any such initiatives which help build capacity to create “a much bigger wave” and cause future instances of repression to backfire.

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dontmeantobepoliticalbut · 1 year

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Texas officials on Wednesday announced a state takeover of Houston’s nearly 200,000-student public school district, the eighth-largest in the country, acting on years of threats and angering Democrats who assailed the move as political.

The announcement, made by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s education commissioner, Mike Morath, amounts to one of the largest school takeovers ever in the U.S. It also deepens a high-stakes rift between Texas’ largest city, where Democrats wield control, and state Republican leaders, who have sought increased authority following election fumbles and COVID-19 restrictions.

The takeover is the latest example of Republican and predominately white state officials pushing to take control of actions in heavily minority and Democratic-led cities. They include St. Louis and Jackson, Mississippi, where the Legislature is pushing to take over the water system and for an expanded role for state police and appointed judges.

In a letter to the Houston Independent School District, Morath said the Texas Education Agency will replace Superintendent Millard House II and the district’s elected board of trustees with a new superintendent and an appointed board of managers made of residents from within the district’s boundaries.

Morath said the board has failed to improve student outcomes while conducting “chaotic board meetings marred by infighting” and violating open meetings act and procurement laws. He accused the district of failing to provide proper special education services and of violating state and federal laws with its approach to supporting students with disabilities.

He cited the seven-year record of poor academic performance at one of the district’s roughly 50 high schools, Wheatley High, as well as the poor performance of several other campuses.

“The governing body of a school system bears ultimate responsibility for the outcomes of all students. While the current Board of Trustees has made progress, systemic problems in Houston ISD continue to impact district students,” Morath wrote in his six-page letter.

Most of Houston’s school board members have been replaced since the state began making moves toward a takeover in 2019. House became superintendent in 2021.

He and the current school board will remain until the new board of managers is chosen sometime after June 1. The new board of managers will be appointed for at least two years.

House in a statement pointed to strides made across the district, saying the announcement “does not discount the gains we have made.”

He said his focus now will be on ensuring “a smooth transition without disruption to our core mission of providing an exceptional educational experience for all students.”

The Texas State Teachers Association and the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas condemned the takeover. At a news conference in Austin, state Democratic leaders called for the Legislature to increase funding for education and raise teacher pay.

“We acknowledge that there’s been underperformance in the past, mainly due to that severe underfunding in our public schools,” state Rep. Armando Walle, who represents parts of north Houston, said.

An annual Census Bureau survey of public school funding showed Texas spent $10,342 per pupil in the 2020 fiscal year, more than $3,000 less than the national average, according to the Kinder Institute for Urban Research at Rice University in Houston.

The state was able to take over the district under a change in state law that Houston Democratic state Rep. Harold Dutton Jr. proposed in 2015. In an op-ed piece in the Houston Chronicle on Monday, Dutton said he has no regrets about what he did.

“We’re hearing voices of opposition, people who say that HISD shouldn’t have to face consequences for allowing a campus to fail for more than five consecutive years. Those critics’ concern is misplaced,” Dutton wrote.

Schools in other big cities, including Philadelphia, New Orleans and Detroit, in recent decades have gone through state takeovers, which are generally viewed as last resorts for underperforming schools and are often met with community backlash. Critics argue that state interventions generally have not led to big improvements.

Texas started moving to take over the district following allegations of misconduct by school trustees, including inappropriate influencing of vendor contracts, and chronically low academic scores at Wheatley High.

The district sued to block a takeover, but new education laws subsequently passed by the GOP-controlled state Legislature and a January ruling from the Texas Supreme Court cleared the way for the state to seize control.

“All of us Texans have an obligation and should come together to reinvent HISD in a way that will ensure that we’re going to be providing the best quality education for those kids,” Abbott said Wednesday.

Schools in Houston are not under mayoral control, unlike in New York and Chicago, but as expectations of a takeover mounted, the city’s Democratic leaders unified in opposition.

Race is also an issue because the overwhelming majority of students in Houston schools are Hispanic or Black. Domingo Morel, a professor of political science and public services at New York University, said the political and racial dynamics in the Houston case are similar to instances where states have intervened elsewhere.

“If we just focus on taking over school districts because they underperform, we would have a lot more takeovers,” Morel said. “But that’s not what happens.”

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wizardheart83 · 1 year

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Rings of Power Analysis part #6

Elrond and Galadriel as they relate to the Khazad-Dûm and Númenor storylines

Both are elves, though Elrond is on the young side. Both have come out of a war where they lost their most important people and had to move forward. Both are still affected by their losses. Both have one grief they have talk about (finrod and earendil ) and one that’s too close for words for much of the season ( celeborn and Elros).

Both come to the kingdoms in their plot lines needing something and are met with resistance and I’m not repeating the opening monologue but that. All of that.

The differences in the kingdoms work well with the differences between our elves.

Númenor in its decline gets a Galadriel who’s been forcibly retired. Both have fallen short of their best selves by shutting out people who might have helped. Both tend to rewrite the story of the war in ways that suit them. Elros was at most in his late teens as an elf during the war, he and the men fought but to say they won by their own power and therefore bought the island by their service is a stretch. Galadriel’s opening description of the war leaves a lot of people and motivations out. Both Galadriel and Numenor are being manipulated by people this season as well. Its queen regent is tired and troubled and you have not seen what she has seen.

Khazad-Dûm is, like Elrond in a moment of success that hints at possible stagnation. Elrond is the king’s herald but not a lord to have a seat in the councils of the wise, and Khazad Dûm is great but not what Durin 4 believes it can be. Young and optimistic Durin 4 has seen his share, but his world is still a bright and mighty thing, and he just wants to be allowed to make it that much brighter.

If the two had been switched, what would we have lost? If Elrond had begged leave to sail west but heard the distant call of Numenor and the warnings of Galadriel in his ear and jumped ship, if an optimist with ties to the royal family arrives in numenor, while Galadriel, who we know to be on good terms with the dwarves later goes to khazad dum, presumably having been read in on the mithril issue, what then?

A different story, I think. Elrond would be fascinated by Numenor and maybe emotionally invested in preventing its fall and exploring the life his brother built and what it’s all meant. Without the drive to leave and get back when Galadriel did, the southlanders are probably dead, but maybe Numenor is saved?

If Galadriel talks to Durin 3 and finds in him a much different response to catastrophic loss, does she accept death or does she jump start regime change, putting Durin 4 on the throne and hastening the waking of the balrog?

It could have been different, but I’m not sure that it could have been better.

Though while we’re writing not-fic and switching elves around, imagine if Galadriel had been sent south to get her out of the way while Arondir had been talked onto the boat by Médhor or someone. Arondir in Numenor doing the Galadriel role while trying to get back to bronwyn because Sauron’s landscaping project is a threat to her… and Galadriel going toe to toe with Adar more?!.

Ahem. Ok, back on task.

Galadriel is chaotic ambition at the start and kind of still at the end with the making of the rings.

Elrond starts in lawful ambition and moves into trying not to die by the end, or a neutral place where he knows who he is and he can stand firm in that, whatever comes.

I need a chart for the ambition/ lawfulness thing so there may be a follow up to this series. There’s so much in this show y’all, so much and we’ve had less than one fifth of it.

Of the parallels I’ve discussed Celebrimbor and Pharazôn was the most personally surprising for me, though maybe they shouldn’t have been. Did any of them strike you? Are there other parallels in the show among the plot lines I haven’t talked about? I largely didn’t discuss kemen or elendil’s children here, do you think we’lI get some significant dwarves to balance them out? Look forward discussing with you.

Thus ends the essay (for now)

#rings of power #wizardheart83 rants about parallels #the rings of power #rop meta #the rings of power spoilers

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lyledebeast · 2 years

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I’m seeing these great gifsets of Abigail, Akinbode, and Cicero in Turn Week gifsets, and they’re reminding me of how much I love these characters. But they’re also reminding me of how dirty they’re done by the storyline.

To the Turn writers’ credit, they do try to portray these formerly enslaved characters with some complexity, to avoid simply using them to shore up the righteousness of White men like, uh, other representations of the American Revolution. But Abigail and Cicero’s investment in the Patriot cause leaves a lot wanting in terms of making sense. The deal Abigail makes with Anna Strong is that she will spy on Major Andre--”I’ll do your laundry in New York”--in exchange for Anna looking after Cicero in Setauket. That Abigail believes she has to put her own life in constant danger in order to ask this considerably less perilous favor of Anna says very little for their relationship or Anna herself. This is not an equal exchange; Cicero is under no direct threat while in Setauket, and that has little to do with Anna’s protection. Separated from her husband, she has little power to protect even herself.

And yet, when Cicero joins his mother as a member of Andre’s household in Philadelphia, does she step out of her dangerous role now that it is no longer necessary? Nope! Now there are TWO Patriot spies in the same house, and the best reason the writers give us is that Cicero wants to “help Miss Anna.” This is possibly the closest Turn veers in a Patriot-ward direction. Cicero wants to risk his life every hour of every day because a White person was comparatively nice to him? And his very clever and practical mother is okay with this? . . . Alright.

Akinbode’s storyline makes more sense. His consistent goal, once he sets one, is to get Abigail and Cicero and taken them to Canada. He is never a Patriot, and he’s only playing a role as a Queen’s Ranger. He seems to appreciate the power it gives him and the fact that Simcoe, in spite of being a bloodthirsty lunatic, treats him with more respect than any other White man ever does. But when he gets a chance to get away, he doesn’t look back. If we’re being very generous to the writers, there is something refreshing about Akinbode being free and on his way to Canada with half of the family he wants without having had to earn his reward with Patriot sympathies. However, that possibility is immediately soured when Abigail, who has given more than Akinbode and Cicero to the Patriot cause, is the most hurt by the war’s outcome.

Turn is honest very early on about the reality than no longer being enslaved did not make Black people free. The only agency any of these characters have is what they take for themselves, but some of their choices are difficult to fathom. Of course, there were Black Patriots, and their service having been forgotten SO quickly after American Independence is all the more reason to remember it now. I’m not sure what is the best way for film and television to do that; I do think it begins with Black writers and directors telling those stories. And it’s very likely that, if we’re going to do justice to the sacrifices Black Patriots made, we need to let go of the idea that White Patriots deserved them.

#turn: washington's spies #black patriots #abigail #akinbode #cicero #black history

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thursdayisbetterthanfriday · 1 year

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Cybernetics 控制論 with Chinese Characteristics & why we suck at the real Grand Strategy Game

If you’re someone who enjoys Crusader Kings, or Hearts of Iron, you’ll know the joy of Grand strategy games. Executing economic, political and military prowess, you can rule the world... well, just a model of it. But compared to the masters, you’re trash tier. The real Grand Strategy masters didn’t play Paradox games - they played the game of life. Imagine not just having to play the game, but building the computer from scratch and the software necessary to play the games. It’s time to introduce the real Epic tier gamers:

Everyone agrees living in the West is like living life on easy mode. Norbert Wiener and Stafford Beer were two of the best known cyberneticists in the US and UK respectively during the later 20th century, but what about those in the non-Anglo speaking world? We’re looking for the most hardcore players after all.

China is the perfect example. The country was a mess after the civil war - perfect conditions for a hard-mode run. Search for articles on China in the West and you will find plenty with titles such as “The country is perfecting a vast network of digital espionage as a means of social control” and “China’s increased surveillance capacity could be dangerous”. So who, was behind the rise of these surveillance style systems in China.

The answer, in fact, is the FBI.

Note: This is a less serious version of Dylan Levi King’s article. Link at end!

Enter Qian Xuesen ( 钱学森 )

Enter Qian Xuesen. Qian was described, by most contemporaries, as a genius and a quiet but serious man who asked very precise questions. Qian had been born during the fall of the Qing dynasty in China and had been a strongly academic child. He went on to study at M.I.T on a Boxer indemnity scholarship and found himself a position in the newly founded Jet Propulsion Laboratory during World War 2.

His contemporaries, included colourful characters such as:

Frank Malina – Stellar engineer, and later the director of the Division of Scientific Research at UNESCO and creator of kinetic artworks.

Jack Parsons – A talented engineer, and later an acolyte of Aleister Crowley’s Thelemite Occultism alongside L. Ron Hubbard. Yes, the Scientology one.

Together, with others such as Sidney Weinbaum, Qian was able to assist the US achieve it’s first rocket program.

Enter FBI

After the end of World War II, it became apparent to the United States that the Soviet Union would be its greatest threat in world politics. The rise of communism in Eastern Europe led to those such as Senator John McCarthy pushing to remove “communist influence” within the United States. Working with the FBI, the entire team of the nationally sensitive Jet Propulsion Laboratory were investigated.

Many members, such as Parsons and Weinbaum had discussed communist ideals in the past which were quickly unearthed and used to push them out of their positions in the organisation. Qian, on the other hand, was someone who didn’t particularly seem to care about politics. He mostly spent his free time at home with his wife and children, and one colleague described him as having a “typical aloof oriental attitude.”. Despite this, the FBI were able to find a connection with Malina and himself.

Sensing the changing public mood, Qian decided it would be best to leave the country and set off to return to China in 1950.

This was generally considered a bad move by the FBI.

Qian had been personally involved in:

Helping to create America’s first missile program

The creation of the Toward New Horizons report for the Army Air Forces Scientific Advisory Group detailing future advances in aviation

A seat on the U.S. Air Force Scientific Advisory Board

A consultancy role on the Manhattan Project (ie. Nuclear Weapons Research)

After realising the consequences of their actions, the Immigration and Naturalization Service forced Qian into a legal purgatory for five years in fear that he would leak important matters of classified national security to the Chinese. It was in this period, however, that Qian began a deep dive into the world of cybernetics.

He wrote a book, Engineering Cybernetics, published in 1954. In it, he technically outlined a field of feedback control systems for engineering purposes, inspired by the use of automatic missile control guidance systems. In his own words:

“The celebrated physicist and mathematician A. M. Ampere coined the word cyberne~tique to mean the science of civil government (Part II of " Essai sur la philosophic des sciences/' 1845, Paris) . Ampere's grandiose scheme of political sciences has not, and perhaps never will, come to fruition. In the meantime, conflict between governments with the use of force greatly accelerated the development of another branch of science, the science of control and guidance of mechanical and electrical systems.”

Importantly, he was able to build on previous work. He made the crucial step of moving away from fully assumed knowledge to systems

“...where no exact knowledge of the properties of the controlled system is necessary for the design.”

Finally released from detention, he moved overseas to China in 1955 to begin his career.

Enter China

Qian immediately set to work. The Science Planning Commission of the State Council had just begun drafting a 12-year plan for future progress in China, and Qian was quick to give his input.

From computing, to semiconductor technology, automation to wireless control systems and more he was key to the scientific advancement of the country. He was also keen to put his ideas into action, advocating for cybernetics and systems theory to be front-and-centre in agriculture and manufacturing. We can only speculate on what kind of Farmville player Qian would have been, but he definitely would have used a custom macro spreadsheet like some kind of freak.

It was in this time period that China began to import foreign based computing technologies which they sought to reverse engineer and replicate for themselves. Political instability, however, led to his ideas for cybernetics shelved for another decade, only to re-emerge in the 1970s. With the rise of Deng Xiaoping in the late 70s, Qian was able to take advantage of Deng’s opposition to the Gang of Four’s Maoist principles.

But what computing power would the cyberneticists use? Indigenous computers were, unfortunately, still pretty bad and the Chinese government had to use Soviet design machines and illegally acquired IBM machines which belonged to the Bank of China.

Not only were the Chinese cyberneticists eventually able to build their own rigs they stole their opponent's technology as well, like some kind of Dengist mainframe hackers.

In 1974, Qian and his team of researchers attended the Helsinki Triennial World Congress of the International Federation of Automatic Control and were astounded by the uses that Western, and Soviet, cyberneticists had been putting their computers to – namely economic planning. Inspired by Neo-Malthusian scholars at The Club of Rome, and their MIT led population overload models, Qian was instrumental in putting forward the One Child Policy.

Qian’s was also a pioneer of “legal systems engineering” – the use of cybernetics in law enforcement. The Public Security Bureau (PSB) set up Golden shield, a system which allowed law enforcement to access information on citizens tax records, personal details, criminal record and more. This is the system which has led to the current Chinese surveillance state in the 21st century.

Cybernetics vs Reality

Theory and reality don’t always mix. Qian was responsible for many policy successes, but some of his policies are responsible for a number of issues that China is experiencing today.

Take China’s One Child Policy. This is the ultimate example of theoretical idea combined with real world culture and consequences. The idea behind the policy is sound �� keeping population within set limits to prevent over-burdening the country and its resources. The reality is more difficult:

The state apparatus needed the tools to enforce this policy. This wasn’t always possible, and in many rural communities many children were sent to orphanages and weren’t observable in the system of control.

Culture led to more women being aborted than men - a male child being more valued in society. This resulted in gender imbalances that still plague the country to this day.

This underlies the failings of many cybernetic systems: They cannot measure that which they can’t observe. In data-science terms, crap goes in, crap comes out. The Chinese cyberneticists were most successful where they were able to use reality to update their systems, and take into account how the bureaucratic systems functioned.

Qian, in his later years, was remote and distant. He refused to interact with anyone outside the country and eventually died in 2009.

Lessons to be learned?

So what can we learn from this?:

Persecuting people for no reason can backfire, and lead to the Chinese Nuclear Program. You would have thought people would have realised this after The Treaty of Versailles, but there we go...

Cybernetic systems are only good if they adapt to fit reality, otherwise they can make things worse. You may think that your economic strategy in HoI II is working, but if you don’t invest in your military in response to foreign force build-up then you’re fucked when they knock on the door with a blitzkrieg.

Grand Strategy Games are a great analogue for control systems - a simplified abstraction of reality. They often don’t model the difference between assumed input and what the input actually means in reality. Practical cybernetics need to take into account real world use of systems and societal/cultural/social implications.

The main fable behind this story is to do your research, and consider the real world implcations of your actions. You may be tempted to put your feet up and stick with a simplified understanding of the world - this is bad. The blind ideology of the McCarthy & his FBI investigators, and the lack of effective monitoring system for Chinese families by Qian, both led to bad outcomes.

One bad choice by the FBI led to not only Qian helping China advance technologically, but also it’s mass surveillance system and the One Child Policy and it’s now serious effects on China’s society.

Sources (I’ve missed some out, but can provide links on request):

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/02/china-surveillance/552203/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2023/01/10/china-surveillance-covid/

https://archive.org/details/fbi-file-tsien-hsue-shen/FBIFile_Tsien_Part1/page/n25/mode/2up

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0895717788904438

https://www.palladiummag.com/2022/10/17/the-genealogy-of-chinese-cybernetics/

#cybernetics #qian xuesen #chinesecharacteristics #control theory #grand strategy #gsg #meet the

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gogogoats · 1 year

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Dragonblade Deep Dive - Chapter Ten

Chapter Nine

Synopsis/review, just my opinions.

Chapter Ten – Questions

The cave isn’t naturally occurring, hand carved in recent years, probably as a mine. There’s a draught blowing through it from somewhere. Jane is looking for Robert, who isn’t dead because she can’t smell cooked meat.

Robert appears with his flashing smile, pleased that Jane has decided to trust him.

Jane says she is curious and Robert mentions cats and how many lives they need to have to deal with their curious streak. He asks how many lives Jane will need by the end of the day, which seems like a threat? He prepares to head further into the cave and Jane asks how long this will take. Robert says most of the day so Jane says she will let Dragon know so he can return to the castle to tell Theodore. This would leave Jane without any lifeline, but I guess we trust Robert now so it’s hunky dory.

Dragon has had an abrupt change of heart and berates Jane for leaving the cave when she should be learning all about runes.

Jane wants him to update Theodore and then go ask Squeaky the bat if she’s open to some roommates. The only problem Dragon has with this plan is that he’s not Jane’s servant? Sorry, have we just gone from stress and anxiety and concern over Jane’s safety and Robert’s intentions to business as usual, nothing to worry about here? WHY?

Jane promises to scratch behind Dragon’s ears for a whole day and Dragon accepts, leaving.

Back at the castle, we are learning about the cellars. Okay, castle history, great. Love it. It’s a fairly detailed description of the location. Theodore is leading Haroldus down the stairs.

Haroldus is asking Theodore how much he has told the other members of the castle, and Theodore doesn’t really answer. In the conversation it’s revealed that Haroldus’ “crew” was just some phonies he paid off. Theodore delivers him to a Master Gorga and asks him to show Haroldus a sample of his product. We’re supposed to wonder, as Haroldus is, if this is about to devolve into torture, but I’m pretty sure Gorga is a winemaker and a fan of the saying ‘in vino veritas’.

Theodore leaves to tell the King what’s happening, with the intention of returning. His joints protest at climbing up the stairs but so far his injury hasn’t been mentioned. He took Haroldus to the cellars rather than the knight’s quarters for privacy, because even Lavinia doesn’t go down there.

Theodore needs time to think, this day has been a long time coming, he has tried to prepare as best he can, there are lots of complexities, etc, etc. but the day was becoming a mess. He hopes Jane stays alert. Too bad he didn’t give her any helpful advice before she set out blindly this morning.

He made a promise with Theodore many years ago which has lived in harmony with his oath of service to the King but is now starting to butt up against it, because of Jane, and what she may or may not represent. There’s a lot of musing here which is hard to summarise because we’re not actually being given much solid information.

Basically, from what I can gather, Theodore and Haroldus made a commitment to each other that probably has something to do with dragons, and now Jane probably has a role to play in that but Theodore doesn’t know what that role is, and it’s all very complicated and he’s not sure if Haroldus has betrayed their agreement or not.

Lavinia is waiting at the top of the stairs and demands to know where Jane is. She accuses Theodore of locking her and Jester in the cellar??? She can’t find Jane and Jester, she’s bored with no one to play with or teach her, Theodore is now being called the “terrible Black Knight” instead of the Grey Knight but I’m not sure if that’s a typo. She wants Theodore to entertain her but he’s trying to see the King when she spots Dragon flying towards the castle and thinks it’s Jane returning.

But of course, Dragon is alone.

Back to the cave, where Jane is returning to the waiting Robert. He tells her that command comes easily to her and they discuss the merits of that vs. diplomacy, which seems to be his preference. It’s kind of implied that he thinks diplomacy would make Jane seem weak since she’s a woman, but maybe I’m just not getting it.

They continue on until they reach a cavern, but the walls hold no runes. Robert tells her to extinguish her torch so their eyes can adjust to the ambient light. Jane is hesitant but decides to comply. Flash back to Theodore teaching her and Gunther how to fight in the dark.

There are glow worms in the cave which are lighting the way. They travel downwards and further in, past stalactites and mites. Jane mention’s Dragon’s huge ego to Robert. The tunnel and cavern is beautiful and Jane would like to bring Lavinia one day if the Queen will allow it. She knows Dragon would like it too if only he could fit.

They enter another, huge cavern, where the glow of the worms is less effective. Robert tells Jane to wait a moment so he can light a fire. He has been camping here for some weeks. Jane sits and starts talking about cheese, and the three sisters, but Robert calls it a performance, saying that while she’s blabbing about that she’s inspecting the cave. Apparently Jane looking around the space she has been brought to by this manipulative stranger is an impressive skill she must have been taught by Theodore. Imagine having eyes and using them. The audacity!

Robert asks Jane if Theodore has taught her everything he knows about dragons. When Jane says she believes he has, Robert responds “I doubt that.”

She is annoyed by his baiting, but she has had plenty of practice with Gunther and doesn’t respond. Robert apologises for annoying her and Jane tells him to speak plainly. He says he will but I don’t think he’s capable of it.

Instead, he unleashes a barrage of questions at her. About Theodore, and his pre-castle history, about the castle’s history, about a book, mysterious and valuable that he says Theodore wants for himself. Basically the implication is that the Long Siege was because the invaders wanted this book of dragons and King Bartok kept it hidden all through the Wilderness Years.

For some reason, which frankly makes absolutely no sense, Jane goes into fight mode because Robert’s questions had affected her composure which apparently makes her vulnerable to attack?

So she prepares to fight??

End Chapter

Overall impressions:

The abrupt shifts in characters’ moods from anxious to blasé and back again are becoming increasingly jarring. Literally the end of the last chapter Dragon didn’t want Jane to go into the cave, yet she goes in and talks to Robert for like 30 seconds and goes back out and Dragon is practically chasing her back in?

I’m not sure how much of the random information we are half-heartedly being given is going to come to anything or be elaborated on vs. how much is just going to be forgotten, but there is some potentially interesting stuff being touched on. Has the entire history of the castle been manipulated to conceal the existence of this precious book, or is Robert making stuff up?

WHY would Theodore not share at least some of his knowledge with Jane or even Dragon? He has turned her into a sitting duck and then thrown her out into a hunting field if even half of what Robert is alluding to is true. He has known there are multiple other players in this game he is playing and that they aren’t all playing with good intentions. It’s no good worrying frantically about Jane now when he could have done so much more to help her.

It’s hard to tell if Lavinia is accusing Theodore of locking Jane and Jester in the dreaded cellar as a joke or as an actual possibility she believes could be true? It was a weird comment that wasn’t really explained.

There’s zero logic behind Jane shifting into combat mode, but I guess we needed that cliff hanger.

I should have started a count of mentions of Robert’s smile. For the record: SO. Many. Mentions.

Time passed since the start of the novel: day two, afternoon

#jane and the dragon #JATD #dragonblade #dragonblade spoilers #dragonblade deep dive

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kolbisneat · 2 years

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MONTHLY MEDIA: May 2022

It’s getting warmer out and yet I’m still inside watching movies and reading books. Maybe in June I’ll at least read in a park or something.

……….FILM……….

Space Adventure Cobra: The Movie (1982) So close to being a film I’d recommend. It starts with really great visuals and a big expansive world but by the end I felt like that had all melted away into a sort of Saturday morning cartoon. Certainly not terrible but I’d say the first 20ish minutes are lts best.

The Virgin Suicides (1999) Oof I was not ready for how sad this movie was. The life those sisters had? Feeling like there’s nothing left to live for? Ugh just so sad. It beautiful and felt so personal and poetic; it really captured the spirit of reading someone else’s diary. So great and so SAD!

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022) The more interesting visuals (and by that I don’t mean the CG stuff but rather the portrait overlays and wonky camera work) really clicked for me and the whole thing had far more personality than I expected. Exasperated Strange paired with a plucky sidekick was a fun choice. Lots of fun choices here. But it still felt like a cotton candy movie. Maybe that’s okay.

……….TELEVISION……….

Fleabag (Episode 1.01 to 1.04) Have you ever just started a show and immediately known you were going to love it? This is that. The characters, the editing, heck even just the music sting at the start and end of each episode: it’s all perfect. Really trying to savour the series knowing there’s only two seasons but also really respect that it has a goal and will wrap when it’s ready.

Our Flag Means Death (Episode 1.01 to 1.10) It took a long time for this to click with me. I was told it would take a few episodes to get into the groove and that’s partially true. For me it wasn’t about the plot or tone, but rather the...genre? I went in expecting a much sillier and funnier show (of which it certainly has moments) but once I adjusted to a light-hearted character piece, it was more enjoyable. It wasn’t quite a comedy in my books but that’s okay. We’re moving into an era of television where nice people doing nice things is celebrated and I’m into it.

……….READING……….

Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (Complete) So great. This series is only two books deep and already so so good. The first one was great, then the second one comes in with a different protagonist, a slightly different style, and a totally different tone and yet it all feels entirely cohesive. It’s fantasy. It’s sci-fi. It’s meme culture. It’s everything I want out of a book.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass and what Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll (Complete) I always catch something new with each reread. Just great stuff and so inspiring.

The Secret Service Vol. 1 by Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons (Complete) Turns out the movie Kingsman: The Secret Service was based on this so I was excited to dive in! The premise and threat are loosely adapted from this volume but the most charming bits (gentleman tech, the themes of class, the trainee conflict/camaraderie) is mostly absent. Eggsy isn’t much of a character here and the overall tone feels a little more mean-spirited than campy. Your mileage may vary but for me, it’s a case of the adaptation improving upon the original.

Dorohedoro Vol. 2 by Q Hayashida (Complete) Having already watched the anime on Netflix, most of this volume was familiar. The new stuff was fun and has me looking forward to continue with this series!

……….AUDIO……….

The Fundamental Slimes and Humours by Nekrogoblikon (2022) Big fan of their previous album but this one isn’t connecting with me yet. It just feels like each song kinda...happens? Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised that they’re noisier but it feels muddled. Hopefully that changes with further listens.

No Second Chances (Podcast) Nothing has gotten me more amped to vote than listening to this podcast.

……….GAMING……….

Neverland: A Fantasy Role-Playing Setting (Andrews McMeel Publishing) My weekly game just reached their 100th session in Neverland! They’re currently pursuing the youngest Pirate who fled with information and a magic sword. Meanwhile my biweekly group (the Mof1 crew) have returned to Neverland after a few months in Oz and are hopping around the island using magical whirlpools to get to know the area better.

And that’s it! If you have anything to recommend then send it my way; I’m always looking to discover new stuff.

Happy Tuesday!

#Monthly Media #Kolbisneat #Andrew Kolb

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