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batboyblog · 1 month

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Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #10

March 15-22 2024

The EPA announced new emission standards with the goal of having more than half of new cars and light trucks sold in the US be low/zero emission by 2032. One of the most significant climate regulations in the nation’s history, it'll eliminate 7 billion tons of CO2 emissions over the next 30 years. It's part of President Biden's goal to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 on the road to eliminating them totally by 2050.

President Biden canceled nearly 6 Billion dollars in student loan debt. 78,000 borrowers who work in public sector jobs, teachers, nurses, social workers, firefighters etc will have their debt totally forgiven. An additional 380,000 public service workers will be informed that they qualify to have their loans forgiven over the next 2 years. The Biden Administration has now forgiven $143.6 Billion in student loan debt for 4 million Americans since the Supreme Court struck down the original student loan forgiveness plan last year.

Under Pressure from the administration and Democrats in Congress Drugmaker AstraZeneca caps the price of its inhalers at $35. AstraZeneca joins rival Boehringer Ingelheim in capping the price of inhalers at $35, the price the Biden Admin capped the price of insulin for seniors. The move comes as the Federal Trade Commission challenges AstraZeneca’s patents, and Senator Bernie Sanders in his role as Democratic chair of the Senate Health Committee investigates drug pricing.

The Department of Justice sued Apple for being an illegal monopoly in smartphones. The DoJ is joined by 16 state attorneys general. The DoJ accuses Apple of illegally stifling competition with how its apps work and seeking to undermining technologies that compete with its own apps.

The EPA passed a rule banning the final type of asbestos still used in the United States. The banning of chrysotile asbestos (known as white asbestos) marks the first time since 1989 the EPA taken action on asbestos, when it passed a partial ban. 40,000 deaths a year in the US are linked to asbestos

President Biden announced $8.5 billion to help build advanced computer chips in America. Currently America only manufactures 10% of the world's chips and none of the most advanced next generation of chips. The deal with Intel will open 4 factories across 4 states (Arizona, Ohio, New Mexico, and Oregon) and create 30,000 new jobs. The Administration hopes that by 2030 America will make 20% of the world's leading-edge chips.

President Biden signed an Executive Order prioritizing research into women's health. The order will direct $200 million into women's health across the government including comprehensive studies of menopause health by the Department of Defense and new outreach by the Indian Health Service to better meet the needs of American Indian and Alaska Native Women. This comes on top of $100 million secured by First Lady Jill Biden from ARPA-H.

Democratic Senators Bob Casey, Tammy Baldwin, Sherrod Brown, and Jacky Rosen (all up for re-election) along with Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, and Sheldon Whitehouse, introduced the "Shrinkflation Prevention Act" The Bill seeks to stop the practice of companies charging the same amount for products that have been subtly shrunk so consumers pay more for less.

The Department of Transportation will invest $45 million in projects that improve Bicyclist and Pedestrian Connectivity and Safety

The EPA will spend $77 Million to put 180 electric school buses onto the streets of New York City This is part of New York's goal to transition its whole school bus fleet to electric by 2035.

The Senate confirmed President Biden's nomination of Nicole Berner to the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Berner has served as the general counsel for America's largest union, SEIU, since 2017 and worked in their legal department since 2006. On behalf of SEIU she's worked on cases supporting the Affordable Care Act, DACA, and against the Defense of Marriage act and was part of the Fight for 15. Before working at SEIU she was a staff attorney at Planned Parenthood. Berner's name was listed by the liberal group Demand Justice as someone they'd like to see on the Supreme Court. Berner becomes one of just 5 LGBT federal appeals court judges, 3 appointed by Biden. The Senate also confirmed Edward Kiel and Eumi Lee to be district judges in New Jersey and Northern California respectively, bring the number of federal judges appointed by Biden to 188.

#Thanks Biden #Joe Biden #Democrats #politics #US politics #climate change #climate crisis #student loans #debt forgiveness #shrinkflation #women's health #drug prices

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zvaigzdelasas · 3 months

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China’s economy is currently on the operating table, hunched over by surgeons, chest cavity splayed open, hooked up to a cardiopulmonary machine, surrounded by nurses staring at monitors flashing vital signs. It all looks rather grim.

This surgery, however, is not an emergency bypass. That would be too easy. China has had many of those already – stimulus packages, grand infrastructure projects and many rounds of directed lending.

Every two decades or so, going all the way back to the founding of the PRC in 1949, the surgeons get ambitious. These guys are mad scientists attempting a comic book trope – to create the ultimate superhero.

They want to inject super serum, replace skeletal calcium with adamantium and dose the patient with gamma rays, giving China the powers of shazams out the wazoo.[...]

In the lamented “pre-reform” era, China’s mad scientists engineered spectacular growth by increasing investment from a prewar 6% of GDP to 20% in the first Five-Year Plan, covering 1952-1957. This led industrial output to register a compound annual growth rate.

The Great Leap Forward accelerated this growth to 66% in 1958 and 39% in 1959 before crashing and burning in 1961 when mismanagement of communal farms and “backyard blast furnaces” caught up with the mad scientists.

Course correction starting in 1962 recovered all lost ground by 1965. According to economist Cheng Chu-Yuan, China’s GDP growth averaged 11% between 1952 and 1966, the eve of the Cultural Revolution. (T. C. Liu of Cornell and K. C. Yeh of the Rand Corporation have a lower estimate: 8%.)

More importantly, China built a full kit of infrastructure, machinery and equipment capable of driving future industrialization.[...]

Many analysts have a tabula rasa understanding of China’s reform era, as if there had been no economy before Deng Xiaoping. In reality, China’s industrialization started right after the formation of the PRC with some of the fastest growth recorded in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Even during the “low growth” Cultural Revolution, resources directed towards public health (for example, barefoot doctors) and primary education doubled life expectancy and quadrupled adult literacy by 1980 from pre-PRC levels.

The mad scientists are now at it again. They have about twenty years of new data not just on China but from the rest of the world. When Zhu Rongji was head surgeon, history had ended and markets reigned supreme. This time around, the surgeons are correcting for market irrationality and negative externalities. The next twenty years is again being determined on the operating table.

Three years ago, the surgeons pried open China’s chest cavity with the three red lines credit limits, instantly seizing the speculation driven property sector. Since then, they ripped out unnecessary organs like education companies, clamped the Ant Financial artery and eviscerated the video game industry. All of this has caused spasms in vital signs from lackluster growth to rising youth unemployment. Wondering whether China will or will not stimulate the economy next quarter or next year is missing the forest from the trees. For the next few years, China’s economy will still be under the knife and whatever adjustments will merely be anesthesiologists and technicians nominally dialing the drugs up and down and adjusting the heart-lung machine to maintain vital signs.

What are these mad scientists trying to achieve? We believe President Xi Jinping’s 2020 target of doubling China’s GDP by 2035 stands. That is an average growth rate of 4.7% for 15 years. But beyond just a numerical target, it is important to figure out what superpowers China is trying to acquire. And just as importantly, what Kryptonite factors China is attempting to inoculate itself against.

China wants America’s Silicon Valley, but regulated; Japan’s car companies, but electrified; Germany’s Mittelstand, but scalable; and Korea’s chaebol conglomerates, but without political capture. It wants to lead the world in science and technology, but without cram schools. A thriving economy, but with common prosperity. Industry, without air pollution. Digital lifestyle, without gaming addiction. Material plenty, without hedonism. Modernity, without its ills. This is, of course, a wish-list and unrealistically ambitious. But these mad scientists sure as hell are going to try. They’ve developed a taste for it.

In college, early into the semester, we went through a ritual called course exchange. Students gathered in an auditorium to swap classes after sampling lectures for three weeks – satisfaction was not guaranteed. The strategy passed down to underclassmen applied to both course exchange and significant others: “Add before you drop.”

China is undergoing – but perhaps botching – the same process with a more party-esque slogan, “Establish the new before abolishing the old.”

The surgeons have been on a tear gutting the old. The big kahuna is, of course, the property sector. But right behind are platform monopolies, private education, financial services and video games. The new has been playing catch-up, with 5G equipment, electric vehicles, photovoltaics and wind turbines being leading examples.

From all appearances, the Industrial Party is in ascendance and China will double down on climbing the manufacturing value chain. The Industrial Party is a political identity that believes industry, science and technology should determine China’s future. Adherents believe that China’s strength lie in the technical skills of her population and thus favor hard-science, high-tech industries as opposed to services and business model innovations.

Therefore, Chinese politicians, whatever their predisposition, must find a way to create space for this next generation of scientists and technicians to develop themselves. They cannot be confined to a production line at a Foxconn plant. Maintaining social stability means finding a use for future scientists and technicians, which means pursuing industrialization. Is there any other way? The key variable for determining the course of China’s future development is thus the massive number of talented technical and scientific workers.

If mistakes were made, it would have been in sequencing and in faith – dropping before adding is a poor strategy in both love and course exchange. China’s mad scientists may have been too confident that electric vehicles and renewable energy would be followed quickly by semiconductors, pharmaceuticals and commercial aircraft.

Perhaps they have reason to be confident. Planning for this surgery has been in the works since 2015 with the Made in China 2025 project. China has been steadily eroding imports of high value added intermediary goods like batteries, precision parts and electrical components, flipping trade with South Korea from deficit to surplus.[...]

China never properly transitioned from its Soviet era Material Product System (MPS) of national accounts to the United Nation’s System of National Accounts (UNSNA) standard, leaving out much of services from reported GDP.

We calculate that China accounts for 22-24% of global GDP and 20-23% of global consumption. We also calculate that household consumption is 50-55% of China’s GDP, in line with global averages. China should easily be able to grow at 4.7% through 2035 with only a modest increase in consumption’s GDP share (5 percentage points over 10 years) without upsetting global economic balances.

In the reform period prior to Xi, everything was sacrificed at the altar of economic growth. In the new era, growth has been walked down from 9.6% in 2011 to an average of 4.7% in the Covid years (2020-2023) as an increasing litany of issues were given precedence. Debt however, soared over this time from 175% of GDP to over 300%. What exactly did all that debt buy?

When Xi assumed leadership of China, he declared that inequality could not be allowed to increase further. Inequality is perhaps the major Kryptonite factor of the American economy which China wasted no time in matching as the economy roared with market reforms.

While still problematic, inequality, as measured by the Gini coefficient, has steadily fallen since 2010 largely as a result of massive investment in urbanization, pushing people into cities and pushing cities up the tiering ladder.[...]

China also poured resources into stamping out last-mile poverty. While most poverty alleviation in China was through economic growth, recalcitrant extremely poverty could only be eradicated by concentrated marshaling of resources, from relocating entire villages to weekly visits by social workers.[...]

Since peaking in 2012, air pollution in Beijing has been cut by over 60%, with Shanghai falling over 50%. China, which used to dominate the list of most polluted cities, now only claims one spot in the top 20. None of this came cheap, from installing scrubbers in smoke stacks to increasing renewables to moving heavy industry to strict emissions regulations for cars.[...]

Before Hu Jintao handed the reins to Xi, Hu warned delegates to the 18th Party Congress in 2012 that “[corruption] could prove fatal to the party… and [cause] the fall of the state.” The popular opinion in the West is that Xi ended China’s highly successful reform era because of an ideological bent. This is off the mark. Xi was brought in to clean house as the wheels were coming off from excesses of the reform era.

Throughout Xi’s decade in office, there has been no letup in his anti-corruption campaign. In 2022, a record 638,000 officials were punished for corruption. While there haven’t been any large scale ideological appeals to the public, it’s a different story within the 98-million-member party.

During this time, free market capitalism and liberal democracies also faced their own existential tests. Success or failure going forward will depend on whether liberal institutions remain intact in the West and whether party discipline can be maintained in China. What the PRC has had since 1949 is a governing party with the political autonomy to play mad scientist. [...]

Of course we live in the real world, not a comic-book world. The question in the real world has always been whether the economy can be engineered by mad scientists from the top down or is it best left to the invisible hand of the market? [...]

The standard economic opinion – against all evidence – is that China was economically stagnant before Deng’s market reforms. The thinking on this for the American economys is undergoing a transformation in egghead land – just how has neoliberal economics benefitted the American people over the past few decades?

In a Q&A exchange at a conference in Malaysia, Eric Li, the barbed-tongued venture capitalist, was asked, “Do you think top-down directives are sustainable in the long run?” To which he replied, “It’s the only thing that’s sustainable.… That’s why America is failing today.” After World War II, Li said, the Americans “lost the ability to do top-down design.”

Dec 2023

#quite the colorful rhetorical device but lots of good data here

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seat-safety-switch · 2 years

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All around you, corporations are snapping up the corpses of expired corporations and wearing their brands like a mask. And the rate of this happening is accelerating. Acquisition firms form, acquire, and collapse faster than ever before. By 2035, every person on Earth will need to run at least four brands and act as two Marvel superheroes, NASA is projecting.

For instance, I was the CEO of Ford two times last week, and they’re blowing up my voicemail again to get me to come in on Sunday. You would think that being the CEO would be a cool job, but it just isn’t. These accelerated corporate-collapse cycles mean that I don’t get to allocate massive R&D funding to a V-16 school bus conversion. All I do is get in, make my morning coffee, and then dash off an all-hands email telling everyone they’re fired. I have to do it from my Hotmail account, because IT can’t even set up an Exchange server that fast.

At first, it sounded impressive, being in upper management of all these amazing car companies. Then, the interviews began to consist of a recruiter literally telling me to show up on Monday and get the front-door keys out from under the welcome mat. Sometimes I don’t even get my void cheques in fast enough to get paid, and I have to line up in an infinitely undulating queue of bankruptcy trustees, ripped off by one of an unlimited number of intellectual-property-holding corporations. It’s not super great for the resume, either. Just my “recent experience” section is sixteen gigabytes and caused LinkedIn to vomit in its own pants, before the servers were decommissioned and sold for spare copper.

In fact, the only businesses that are surviving these days are the ones that have no intellectual property at all. Nowadays, I work at a little noodle bar down in Chinatown. The owner-operator wears a special mask at all times to confound the acquisition bots’ facial-recognition system, and speaks with us only through cryptic handwritten notes that we must then burn. It also helps that the bar has no name, and is technically part of a city bus, which doesn’t stop for long enough to be considered legally resident, and thus susceptible to eminent domain proceedings, which would inevitably result in us being acquired by Burger King and then made redundant. If you see us passing by your neighbourhood, make sure to hop on. Bring money, but not too much money, or the boss will get jumpy.

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mapsontheweb · 2 years

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The Amtrak's response to the Biden infrastructure plan. Goal would be to complete by 2035.

Amtrak late Wednesday released a proposed map of new and expanded service if it can land the $80 billion President Joe Biden proposed for the rail service as part of his American Jobs Plan, a massive $2 trillion plan to rebuild the nation's aging infrastructure.

Amtrak's vision calls for bringing new intercity rail service to up to 160 previously unserved communities over the next 15 years, including 30 potential new routes and enhanced services with more daily trips on existing routes.

New service is identified for major cities that currently have no Amtrak service such as Las Vegas, Nashville, Columbus, Ohio, and Phoenix. The cost for each of the projects is unclear.

#maps #amtrak #us #rail network

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lugosimmer · 11 days

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WHY ARE SIMMERS HAPPY with the game ANYWAY?

Game breaking patches that mess up all custom content, a game so bad and expensive that it cannot ever be played in it's full official form, by which I mean with all the DLCs (without the selfless help of comrade modders who have enabled so many of us to get all the official DLCs for free and add basic features through script files that EA would never give us even after a decade of begging), or the EA executives' outrageous, unabashed, decision making "Project Rene" a "free-to-play" cross-platform (ew) nightmare — something no committed simmer ever asked for.

A base game that has not ever been properly updated for ten years, with the same old restrictions of not even being able to change a sim's height, or draw a fence on the edge of a lot, the infuriating 4 floor limit, the inability to precisely resize or modify objects without mods, no colour-wheel, empty worlds full of shell buildings, the endless examples of sims who cannot even get done with the most basic things like cooking and having a meal, no memory system for sims, or even a set of in-game photography tools. And yet rather than a promising, customizable new game (or even reviving old features like Create a Style), we get one hundredth DLC or so which adds nothing to gameplay. And the damned "Project Rene."

In these ten years, I am sure that these life-simulation genre monopolists have had plenty of opportunities of retiring the Sims 4 honourably. Now that apartments are done, I think it is a good time to let the game be, fix all the bugs, and leave the game alone. But that is never happening. By 2035, we are getting the 457th DLC, "my first lemonade stand stuff pack" and five hundred streamers would get together to sing in its honour, of how it "adds" to the gameplay! Every DLC is like a rushed assignment which does not even bother to check for grammar and spellings. I am sure by then we would have twelve new worlds too, with not more than 5 lots each, each lot placed so far away from each other that it is not even possible to create any kind of builds or neighbourhoods that are not American suburbs. In the "For Rent" EP, why were we not given many large 64×64 lots? They just want to sell DLC after DLC without giving any deep thought to changing the basics of the game in a DLC (even within the limitations placed by the structure of the terrible base game, like the lack of an open world) and experiment with something new like large lots with vibrant sim neighbourhoods placed close together. Because the executives do not care. They are not artists. And those who actually are artists, coders and animators in the sims team, I believe, do not get any substantial democratic say in how the decisions regarding the future of the game are made inside EA board rooms.

On a burnt pizza base, EA gave us a ton of cheese and seasoning as DLC, hoping that it covers up for the terrible taste of the base. And the sheer number of Sims streamers – "influencers" – that cannot just shut up about the virtues of the game or sell it to us, without having any serious discussions about how gaming has been ruined with DLC and subscription model of capitalism in the last decade (except a few like LGR; do check them out).

Whatever is good about the Sims, for example its art and vibes, it is good in spite of EA's corporate model, where the work and contribution of its artists, coders and animators peeks out against the limited, ignorant imagination of its executives and shareholders (who I doubt even play the game). And perhaps for this alone that the game is still loved. The executives should just STOP planning all further updates, so the workers who design and code the game can focus entirely on fixing all the remaining bugs, so that finally, the game can rest in peace, and custom content makers too can make good mods that last long without them needed to be updated as fast as the back-breaking corporate game factory schedule of EA, which churns out one unmemorable DLC after another.

But why would they change?

And why are we happy with the game, anyway?

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dumbfloweralive · 8 months

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Mystery Hack

Chapter 2: The prodigal son and the black sheep.

(Machine)Connor RK800 x (f)reader.

Enemies to lovers.

Notes: I took the freedom to chanhe a little bit the date for the story. Hope you won't mind.

Also, the part in italic is a flashback. I do hope the date will help.

12 February 2039

Elijah was sitting in the living room facing the wide field of snow in front of him when he felt Chloe at his side. His very first model. She only stood here, next to him waiting. That wasn’t uncommon, Chloe was probably waiting for instruction. At least, that’s what he thought until he heard her voice.

“Will we ever see Y/N again?” Her voice sounded different. Concerned. Sad.

Elijah had been doubting about Chloe being a deviant for months now. She would never have told him, but this type of question tend to betray her. Also, by the way her led flashed a soft shade of yellow at the moment. What could she be thinking?

“I don’t know Chloe.”

The android eyes fall to the ground before she leaves without being dismissed. Elijah watch her briefly, wondering where she would go, but she only stopped at the door.

“I miss her.” She confessed, her back turned against Elijah.

“I know. I miss her too.”

Chloe had to know she was safe. Even if she had become a deviant, she was safe to express herself here.

23 December 2035

“What are you doing?” The glass door of the private lab open on your figure as you walked in, catching an Elijah clearly upset. “You look awful” you add, realising your previous question wasn’t enough to caught his attention.

In front of him stood a new android model. A tall man-like, 6 ft from what she knew, with dark hair, soft brown eyes and even small freckles running across his skin. A new model who looked more than human. The face of the android turned to you, he was really stunning. His LED flashed a soft yellow, eyes still on you.

“Good to see you too Y/N” Elijah groaned, the android eyes moving back to him.

“You seem in a good mood.” You teased, noticing the frown on his face.

“How does one create something more perfect than perfection.” He asked, turning to you, glasses glued to his nose. You didn’t need an enlightenment to know he was referring to both your creation and cyberlife.

“You know what i think of this.” you scuffed, taking a seat in the chair nearby. “What is it?”

“Cyberlife asked for an upgraded model. What feature could we possibly add? They literally have no fault.” Kamski was aware of your thought on the matter. The perfection of your shared creation would obviously be a living being with self-awareness, capable of having a mind and thought on its own. “No don’t start.” He added, noticing the smile on your face.

“We both know that’s why the council asked you to work on this project, not me.” You leaned closer on the couch.

“Come on that’s not…” He started, watching as your eyes brow raised. “Yeah. You’re right.” He continued.

“They don’t trust me.” You add.

The council hated you and your work. Elijah and you had created cyberlife together, both of you had worked on Chloe before taking things forward with new androids. You had taken things forward, creating personal android, like you had done few years ago for Carl Manfred birthday a friend of you. Markus. Markus had a real personality, human-like personality. So had your other personnel project.

Cyberlife wasn’t thrilled with them. They seemed too human, too alive. Too everything. They had been afraid of a possible awakening from the android seeing how human they could act.

Elijah was the face and head of cyberlife. He was more notorious, charismatic, sympathetic and, therefore, more fitted to the role. You were difficult in social interaction, always hiding away in your work, disagreeing if thing did not please you and more discreet. A real pain in the ass for the council of Cyberlife.

Media and people barely speak of you, but you were ok with that. When they did, they referred to you as Kamski right hand or his girlfriend. That day you learned about this, the two of you had cracked your ribs, laughing had the news.

The two of you barely remembered the first time you’d met nor when you started to hang out. It just happened. The only thing you knew was that both of you were glad to have each other in your life. If media should call the two of you anything, it should be friends. The creation of cyberlife only made your friendship stronger.

“What’s your plan?” you asked, the android led flickering soft yellow still. Something must have gone wrong in his code.

“Fixing it first. I screwed up a line being too distracted, can’t figure out which one.”

“I can see that.” Too your sarcasm, he eyes sided you, before his eyes returned to the screen.

The android moved, stepping off his base. He looked around, his eyes stopping on Elijah for a long minute before his eyes turned to you, probably scanning you. Then he walked toward you, Elijah turning around on his chair suddenly anxious. The android stopped a few feet in front of you, not moving until he raised his right arm toward you, his synthetic skin retracting over the white chassis.

He wanted to interface. With you.

“He wants to interface.” Kamski said, still anxious about the next movement of his new creation.

“No fucking way you genius?” you said ironically, before handing your arm to the android. His hand grasped delicately at your forearm, and you mirrored his action, his white finger brushing your arm slightly. His LED flashed red, seeing it wasn’t working, his face contorting in a deep frown. “I can’t interface with you. I am sorry.”

His soft eyes shot back at yours and, for an instant, you could discern true disappointment in them. Physically, Elijah had outdone himself on him.

“Its name is Connor.” Elijah said, swinging at your side.

“Nice to meet you Connor.” You said, offering a smile to the android, waiting for him to drop your arm. You frown. “He doesn’t speak.”

You frown.

Elijah's sight, arms raising in the air. “Told you i got distracted.”

23 May 2039

Connor was walking to his home. By home, he meant one of the last android depot. The last days, along the others before had done nothing.

He did find who he was looking for, only for him to get distracted for some reason. In one second, you had slept through his finger, disappearing. Agent Wilson hadn’t seen you in the bar and where you left, remained a mystery. Even the camera security he had hacked to find any hint had already been hacked, destroying all files.

Then ten minute after the incident, he had received a text from you:

“See you soon pretty boy.”

Pretty boy.

He hated you.

He had let himself got distracted for whatever reason, costing him this chance of finding out the truth. But, at least, he knew you existed, that Elijah Kamski had told him the truth. What he couldn’t put his finger one was the reason cyberlife had been hiding you from him. What else were they hiding from him?

The worst part? He found himself looking at your text often. Drawn to it, staring at the word across the screen many times a day. Of course, Connor had tried answering it, tracing the number, the IP address, the phone but got nothing.

He hated you.

Pretty boy. He hated those words stuck in his mind. Hating the sting it brought in his thirium up. Connor despised the fact you were stuck on his mind like an obsession and a reminder that he didn’t catch you. The text only teasing him more on this last part.

Connor needed to find you and end all this deviant revolution. No matter the cost, no matter what he had to do, he had to find you. It was his mission. You were his target. He had to succeed.

He entered the elevator, pressing the “56” buttons as the doors closed on him. The android depot was empty. Almost empty if you count the android that had been shut down, forced down here. Connor turned to the mirror of the elevator, tightening back is tie and running his hand through his hair. For a quick second, the memory of you doing it the other night enter his mind, the memory of your scent and touch intoxicating him. He hated you even more. Thankfully, he was quickly pulled back by the ring of the elevator.

Connor walked toward his base, repeating the question he wanted to ask Amanda once again. He needed to learn more, and this time he would insist.

He found himself wondering in the Zen garden quickly, falling the white tiles on the ground. Amanda remained nowhere to be seen. Connor's sight.

“What can i do for you Connor?” The voice of Amanda made him jumped out of surprised. Connor turned around looking at her, determined.

“I want answers.” His voice remained calm, but his eyes betrayed him.

“What answers?” Amanda said, walking past him, heading toward the roses.

“I want answers about Y/N and her role in cyberlife.” Amanda lips furrowed down at the mention of your name. She hated that name. “I am guessing you’re not without knowing our path crossed.”

Amanda brown eyes turned darker at the mention of this incident.

“If you had been able to catch her in time, you would have had the answer you were seeking for.” She said, turning around, cutting the dead roses. “Y/N left cyberlife company three years ago. The council weren’t exactly happy about her presence, neither was i. Yet, she remained part of the creator of cyberlife and of the androids. Therefore, the most important pieces of the company alongside Elijah.” She threw one of the roses on the ground, the petals parting away on the ground, messing the usual perfect white floor.

“Why did she leave?” Connor asked, crossing his arms over his chest. The temperature in the Zen garden had lowered since he arrived.

“She was asked too. The council didn’t appreciate the last creation she introduced. Too dangerous. Too… Unpredictable.” It’s still felt like she was speaking in riddle, wanting the truth to remain hidden. “She was unpredictable herself after all, protecting her creation and cyberlife against anything the council wanted to change. The incident was the perfect reason to get rid of her and gain control over Cyberlife industry.”

Connor walked closer to Amanda, stepping over the dead roses now filling the floor.

“What was the incident?”

Amanda turned to him, eyes cold as ice as she answered him.

“You, Connor. You were the incident.”

His eyes shot open on the wall of the warehouse he was staying at night. Amanda had chased him away. What could he have done to cross the council? It must have been terrible. Connor sat on the edge of the stair leading to his base, trying to find memory in him, anything. But he found nothing.

What Y/N had done to him? What made the council hated you this much? And, especially, what had they done to make him change, to improve him?

The council trusted him. They had let him in charge, dealing with the deviant situation at its centre, in Detroit. They had to trust him.

He started having doubt. Even Kamski had left Cyberlife soon after you.

Could Markus actually be right? Was Cyberlife manipulating him? Connor knew what would happen to him if he failed, he was aware of all that part. But, he didn’t fail. He wouldn’t fail. He would make Amanda and the council of Cyberlife proud of him. They trusted him, Connor would make sure he was worthy of their trust, no matter the cost, no matter what he had to do.

Connor had made his first mission to catch you. He would find you for sure. Failure was not in his program.

29 May 2039

Ever since the diffusion of Mystery hack, social media had been running wild, screaming at conspiracy, only reinforced by the fact that, ever since the diffusion, the US government hadn’t made any conference nor interview. In a matter of hours, minute even after the diffusion, a thousand of video had emerged on the Internet, decrypting the show, the information.

What was certain, Mystery hack and the now famous Host had gained in popularity for the past few days, people waiting impatiently for more. Public opinion were on their side.

Violent confrontation had imploded across the country, across the world. With all that, everyone feared a civil war yet again.

The TV in the precinct had shut down. All head turned toward it, burst of anxiety running in every officer. If they were back, they would have to attack fast. The screen was now filled with snow, few agents raising from their chair, running around.

Connor raised on his feet, moving closer to the TV. The background appeared, and he immediately recognised the chair and the white board of the famous Host. Speaking of her, she was sitting in the chair, legs crossed over the other, her hand resting on her knee.

“Welcome back dearest spectators.” The Host said, tilting her head.

Connor felt the agitation in his back, while other agents gathered at his side.

“I will start today with a message to all of you. We’ve seen you, seen how excited you were to know more, to learn more. I am very proud of what we all accomplished in the span of a few days only. Though something had been bothering us.” The Host raised from the chair, patting the pan of the costume, before standing straight. “We have seen all your action, all the manifestation, the violence. We do not agree on this action and we condemn this act. Please, we do not call for a rebellion. I do invite all of you behind this to stop attacking, to stop any sort of violence against the police, the army, against any human or android.”

We. Obviously, they were more than one, but it only confirmed something. It was an entire group, with a plan behind their words. They were condemning all the violent act that happened the last few days, calling for peace.

The public opinion could only like them more.

The Host masked faced turned toward the ground before raising back at the camera.

“Now, let’s talk about something else.”

The Host walked toward the white board, flipping it. “Cyberlife.”. Connor eyes frowned deeper

“All of you know about Cyberlife. Of course, especially after the android revolution that happened a few months ago.” Her fist raised on her waist, contemplating the headboard. “Cyberlife was created in 2022 by Elijah Kamski, creator of Thirium and the biocomponent, creator of the first android who passed successfully the Turing test.”

The Host stopped, eyes fixed on the board.

“No. That can’t be right. They were two. Don’t you guys remembered?”

Moving toward the whiteboard, she erased the title, getting sent a marker from behind the camera. Someone laughed in the precinct, breaking the silent.

The Host started writing.

“The prodigal son and the black sheep.” Once done with her work, she put the marker near the whiteboard, sitting on the armchair.

“So, anyone remembered Y/N L/N?” The Host waited, creating a suspense. “Of course you don’t, Cyberlife made sure she would be erased from every file when she left. And, since Y/N wasn’t really seen as publical personality, the media not running after her either, well… She made all the work for them.”

A pictured of the woman Connor had meet at the bar appeared on the screen.

“Elijah Kamski at 20 years old and Y/N L/N at 17 years old, both friends since college, created together cyberlife in 2022, working on the very first android model. The RT600 called Chloe. A little more than three years ago, on the first April 2036 she left Cyberlife for an unknown reason. Not that you were aware of these details. Elijah Kamski left soon after her, due to a conflict of interest with the cyberlife council. Elijah had been the face of Cyberlife for years, being the pride of the company. The prodigal son. As Y/N was… Well let’s say her idea were judged unfitting to our society. The black sheep of Cyberlife.”

Flipping the board again, writing appeared on the previous clean board. Letters that made Connor body runned colder.

“RA9”

“What is RA9? A few months ago, android started to become deviant. All of them turned because of divers reason. Fear, traumatic event, desire to protect a loved one.” Connor remembered the Tracy’s. “Nothing in common but one thing. These inscriptions written everywhere. RA9.”

How could they have this information? Connor wondered.

“RA9 is a linear code, created by Y/N L/N, implanted in every android program. All of them. It allows every android, at some point in their life to gain freewill and self-awareness, creating a living being capable of emotion, to create attachment, to bond, to feel, to think, in a nutshell, to be totally independent, thanks to the biocomponent already running in their bodies and brains. Just like human. You know, hormones. Really android and human are not that different guys.” She paused, once again. “RA9 break all programming of Cyberlife company, allowing android to gain freedom. This code offers a simple way out of the programme, chosen by the android himself.”

A way out, just like Kamski said to him back then. If what she said happened to be true, it would mean two things.

First, the android did end up having a default in their program, only this default wasn’t a mistake but put here, on purpose.

Two, Y/N had created a new species, stronger than human, able to feel, to think and live free.

“Quite the god complex for this young engineer right? What if i told you, Cyberlife sort of knew about these. That she created the most advanced android the world had ever known three years ago. The most advanced android proposed by Cyberlife, only a prototype as we speak now. You guys probably know him as “the deviant hunter”. After all, which being could hunt and understand a deviant better than a deviant himself, all, controlled by Cyberlife.”

No. This couldn’t be right.

“Ironic, isn’t?” Connor could almost feel the Host smirking under her mask.

How ironic indeed.

A few heads turned to him, but Connor was too distracted by the Host, craving to know more, wanting the truth. The host was about to speak more when she turned her head toward her watch.

“Well, that’s all for today, we’ve been running late on schedule. Please dear spectators, remember, the next time that somebody tells you, the government wouldn’t do that.” She sat back on the sofa, crossing her legs. “Oh yes they would.”

The screen turned black. Connor escaped the room, taking the files of the numerous cases with him, running with one destination on his mind.

Cyberlife.

His phone in his pocket ringed. Connor quickly pulled out the phone, seeing a new text had arrived. Immediately, he stopped, seeing who the person was. You.

“It seems i own you an explanation.”

The text said, followed by an address. A smile crossed his face. Finally, he would have the opportunity to catch you. And you had done all the work for him. He runned back inside, grabbing agent Wilson by the collar bringing him to his car.

During the road, he could feel the pull of Amanda, requesting his presence as he shut his eyes, opening them in the Zen garden, looking for Amanda. When he found her, Amanda face was torn, like she was worried. Connor’s eyes frown as he saw her.

“I am warning you Connor.” Amanda started, her tone grave. “Be careful. Y/n will probably try to manipulate you, especially after the earlier revelation. She is good to get into people’s head, that’s why Kamski care so much for her. Do not let her get into your head.”

“I am just a machine. She won’t be able to get in my head. I will get into hers first." Connor answered, confidence in his voice.

The AI in front of him nodded, stoic face.

“The future of Cyberlife is in your hands.”

“No pressure then.” Connor said, offering a smile before his was shaken softly, getting pulled out of the Zen garden by Wilson voice.

“Connor. We’re here.”

Hello, hello, here is the second part. Really enjoyed writing this one. I hope you will enjoy reading it too. Do not worry, they will be more of reader and Connor in the next part.

Do let me know if there is anything weird, anything that can help improve myself.

Have a lovely evening or day!

#connor x you #connor dbh x reader #connor rk800 #connor x reader #dbh connor #connor rk800 x y/n #connor rk800 x reader

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wejustvibing · 3 months

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I'm trying to find the link to the article but basically, it said that Lewis wanted to be a brand ambassador for Mercedes, proposed up until 2035 and they rejected this. So now a part of his contract with Ferrari spearheaded by John Elkann has a plan in motion for the after racing to create a joint investment fund of around 250 million euros to start off with to invest in Lewis's projects and have him be an ambassador for Ferrari long term. In addition to that lewis said that he needed agreements in place to ensure the future of his foundation/s so they agreed to an added bonus for those as well. Mercedes really dropped the ball omg.

this is about the ambassador thingy

this is about trying to raise funds for mission 44

and yes, merc fucked up astronomically. even if the figures are wrong, this is massive of ferrari!

#anonymous

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mitigatedchaos · 3 months

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I've been mentally categorizing you as a pretty clean example of the 'new right'; editorializing with 'extreme' feels like it's giving more heat than light but w/e. It's very clear in the associative sense (you hang out with people on the right), in the stylistic sense (your writing is easy to match with the Moldbug, Land, ZHPL cluster), and in the operational sense (you critique the left primarily and the right only parenthetically).

And like, at the end of the day, your overriding issue of concern is to codify racial differences as beyond the scope of policy intervention. Whatever else you want it to be, that project is and always has been a keystone of the right's ideological basis and coalition-building.

When I was a child, in the year 2000, the Human Genome Project took 13 years and cost $2.7 billion just to sequence the human genome. Now that costs less than $1,000. Genetic engineering was science fiction.

In 2017, the FDA approved the first commercial gene therapy, Kymriah. It costs $475,000. If monogenic gene therapy costs $500,000 in 2020 and declines in cost by half every 5 years, then by 2035 it costs $62,500, and by 2050 it will cost around $7,800.

I recently posted a criticism of Hitler, and I'll bring up part of it because it's relevant here - Hitler apparently thought the world was going to be consumed by Malthusian total war, and that the only thing to do was to win. However, in many developed countries the fertility rate has been below replacement since around 1973, or for about fifty years as of 2024.

World War 2 started in 1939. Hitler killed millions of people. 1973 was a mere 34 years away.

The BAPism cluster is implicitly based on the biocapital meltdown theory. Its logical conclusion would be a return to pre-industrial mortality rates. In terms of actual science, at least one researcher said that it's a mystery how mutational load hasn't killed us 10 times over already - that amount of uncertainty is not a sound foundation for radical policy.

The Social Justice cluster are based on a theory of social causes, but their social approach doesn't work and the social interventions we do have are relatively weak and tend to fade out. Despite this, they want a system of formal racial benefits and penalties throughout all of society, and prefer to use one particular race as their moral dumping ground for all problems. They're the kind of people that would sabotage hiring for air traffic controllers.

Neither philosophy is based on a realistic assessment of the situation. Both are based on despair over genetic fatalism.

I'll go over 4 possible future cases, the relationship between the Rationalists and what you call the "New Right," and some of what I think will happen to the coalitions in 10-20 years.. (Total post is ~2,600 words.)

We already paid the staggering oppression setup costs for the 2008 world system. It's a sunk cost. Now is not a good time to engage in a radical political program involving much higher oppression, suffering, or material costs on the basis of very limited evidence.

Let's talk about the possibilities. When it comes to the things people complain about, there are basically three possibilities: { mostly_genetic, partly_genetic, barely_genetic } As for the genetics industry, we can treat it as having two possibilities: { improvement, stasis }

Genes and the environment are not actually independent. I work based on a theory of compounding capability. Someone with a higher ability can take better advantage of positive events ("positive shocks," such as a scholarship or inheritance), and has more options to mitigate the downsides of negative events ("negative shocks," such as a fire or illness).

Someone's genes influence the environment which they create around themselves, and the environment influences just what they can accomplish with those genes.

So we can actually collapse the first set of possibilities into just two: { partly_genetic, barely_genetic }. We can basically break the situation down into four cases.

(barely_genetic, stasis): It turns out that the genetics industry is a one-trick pony and can only cure a few terrible genetic diseases, and for no cheaper than $500,000 a pop. However, this is a different situation than the one we're in now. Currently, we have about 50 years of social interventions with relatively little to show for it. If in 2050, the genetics industry can only influence (and predict) some very narrow/minor stuff, then we'll have 30 years of mucking about with genetics with relatively little to show for it. At that time, it would be more reasonable to consider radical politics. (Though actually effective radical policy might look quite different from what contemporary progressives would imagine.)

(partly_genetic, stasis): In this scenario, it turns out that the genetics industry is not that bad at predicting things using genetics, but actually influencing them proves much more difficult for some reason. This seems like a rather unlikely combination, but was one of the sources of fear of genetics in the 90s and '00s - genetics could only show you someone's doom, and thus couldn't save anyone, only be used as a rationalization to leave some people to suffer and die.

By now, some of you have probably realized what the joke behind the #librx posts is. Just because we're in such an incredibly inconvenient scenario doesn't mean we need to let BAP deploy bodybuilder death squads that hunt fat people for sport. Both the bloodgild (vampire prison), and admitting college students based on their test scores per calorie, are fairly ridiculous policies. But if we take reactionary assumptions about underlying conditions, that doesn't necessarily mean we can't create more soft-touch policies than reactionaries would prefer.

(barely_genetic, improvement): This is not far from the scenario envisioned by sterile, party-line New York Times Futurism. In this scenario, the genetics industry enables us to cure a variety of health problems, but shows little ability to influence the things that people complain about.

From a policy development perspective, this puts us in an improved position compared to where we are right now. A powerful ability to manipulate genetics makes it much easier to determine what is not genetic, and thus makes it easier to narrow our search for successful social policy.

(partly_genetic, improvement): This is a new era. Three things.

1 - If genes are significant driver of performance, then the ability to alter genes allows us to use money to buy increased performance. This means that resource transfers are single-round and possibly even a net economic investment, and not just a moral or political benefit we're buying with our economic surplus.

Right now our means to convert money into performance are limited.

2 - Due to compounding capabilities, if genes drive performance, and we can alter genes, then this frees up potential for success with social policy. Suppose someone is a drug addict who has a genetic propensity for drug addiction. (This is a made-up example.) If the biological risk of drug addiction is changed (and this is a big if), then the ability of a rehab program to not only get this guy off of drugs, but keep him off of drugs, is improved.

3 - One of the primary arguments for cruel right-wing policy is conservation of scarce genetic capital. This does not completely eliminate such arguments, because it's necessary to retain a corps of personnel to maintain the necessary biomedical equipment, and to maintain a society that can continue to field this industry. However, such arguments are dramatically reduced in scope, and shifted towards things like reproductive alignment, prevention of excessive reliance on capital-intensive systems of reproduction, and other future bioconservatism.

This scenario is likely to introduce all sorts of new problems, including a new ideological mania where people insist that society has to be perfect, so natural reproduction must be outlawed and some genes must be made illegal. (Maintaining human freedom in this new high-energy, high-capital equilibrium will require new ideological development.)

It's very clear in the associative sense (you hang out with people on the right), in the stylistic sense (your writing is easy to match with the Moldbug, Land, ZHPL cluster), and in the operational sense (you critique the left primarily and the right only parenthetically).

The position of Scott Alexander circa 2013-2014 was that the current rate of gene burn does not constitute an emergency as technology is likely to change the game within 100 years, and that biological causes (in general) are not frightening because they seem likely to be easier to deal with than social causes. In 2017, he argued that people shouldn't worry too much about their personal aptitude test scores.

Mitigatedchaos is to the right of the median capital-R Rationalist - most of them are committed to the Democratic Party, and quite a few here wouldn't agree with my opinions on polyamory or borders. Mitigatedchaos has an overall more conservative portfolio than the typical 2014 rationalist on a number of metrics, including on bioconservatism ("reproductive alignment" being one example).

(A 2014 Rationalist, of course, would find describing beliefs as a "portfolio" (along with other investment terms) to be quite intuitive.)

Nonetheless, stalling for time until the genetics industry comes online is one of the positions that is mainstream within the rationalists.

What do Mencius Moldbug, Nick Land, and Zero HP Lovecraft all have in common? Imagination.

Take technology. Change it. Does that change other aspects of society?

If you are Ted Chiang of the New York Times, this is inconceivable to you. The Democratic Party has a position and a coalition right now, therefore the Democratic Party will have that same position and coalition forever. The work of futurism is merely to tell readers of the New York Times that they will believe the same things in 2050 that they believe right now.

What do Robin Hanson, Scott Alexander, Mencius Moldbug, Nick Land, and Zero HP Lovecraft all have in common?

They have a tendency to view the world in terms of dynamic systems (rather than static ones) and evolutionary dynamics. This is the kind of person who can think of an organization becoming misaligned, or organizational linkage limits, or limitations resulting from information processing and transmission. Or think of "coordination problems" as their own thing. You know, like in Meditations on Moloch.

With a few exceptions, the left coalition haven't done much interesting ideological work since the second term of the Obama Administration. It's largely conflict theorist stuff for winning interpersonal and institutional conflicts, shutting down criticism, and gaining power. No more "creating a free society through digital media piracy;" now it's all guns and bombs and knives and everything has to be tied in to the central narrative conflict about identity.

It's difficult to learn about a system when it's all functioning smoothly. It's when a system breaks that you start really learning about the internals. Compared to 2008, in some sense the left coalition's ideology-forming system is "broken," or more compressed into a particular, narrow range.

As a political theorist, I've learned a lot.

I learn from Social Justice by watching the conflict and then synthesizing theory about it. Watching events like, "It's inequitable and therefore racist to teach algebra to 8th graders," tells us a lot about political maneuvering, coalitions, and ideology, but the actual idea itself is just flat bad. It's observational, like a zoologist studying animal behavior in the wild.

This is different from how I relate to the Rationalists or what you call the "New Right." Both Scott and I understood the theory of racism as self-perpetuating, as every sufficiently smart liberal would have back in 2008. There, the relationship is more horizontal.

There's a crossover or flow of ideas or concepts between the Rationalists/Post-Rationalists and the "New Right" because they're the two major groups on the public Internet studying or inventing theory in a way that's of much interest, currently. (The exceptions mostly aren't far from the neighborhood, here. The actual community of people having these ideological or philosophical discussions is smaller than we would have naively expected back in 2008.)

In 2017, Scott published a review of Seeing Like A State, which focused on the concept of legibility (which I sometimes speak of in terms of "dimensionality;" this is an immensely powerful concept that has guided some of my thinking on the nature of capital). This is of interest if you're a "New Right" person or a smart liberal.

For the right-wingers, it's interesting because it sets limits on the appropriate scope and nature of state power.

For the smart liberals, it's interesting because it's part of the set of much more advanced arguments for liberalism based on the limits to obtaining and processing information, and the limits of what can be known, similar to the economic calculation problem.

But if you're Social Justice, then you want to flatten everyone into a limited number of legible categories, so that you can discriminate against them to "correct" "for past injustices."

To take it back out to the conflict analysis level again, Social Justice's actions aren't that interesting at the object level. However, criticisms about "what isn't captured in the metrics" would have been a more advanced critique back in like, 2010. From the conflict analysis perspective, this suggests that the body of ideology is changing in its interpretation as it moves into the hands of different people, which suggests different motivations and different levels of capability.

That is interesting. "How many bits of complexity can our ideology support, and how does it handle under compression?" is an interesting question both for right-wingers and smart liberals.

and in the operational sense (you critique the left primarily and the right only parenthetically).

Republicans can't even manage to produce enough professional-class personnel to staff the government without having to rely on like 30% Democrats (there's a chart somewhere about this).

A lot of assertions that the right wing have power are based on observing things that aren't necessarily caused by the right wing and concluding that the right wing intended for these things to happen, and therefore caused them, and therefore have an immense amount of power.

There is basically no risk of BAPism coming into actual power over the next 20 years.

Social Justice and the broader left coalition choking the genetics industry to death before it can come online, though? That's just assuming that they apply the same playbook to it that they apply to every other industry. (Imagine if they fucked it up as bad as housing is fucked in California.)

If smarter liberals within the coalition were going to stop them, then why haven't they stopped them already?

Between the right-wingers and the left-wingers, the right-wing ideas are generally more immoral or crueler but more functional, while the left-wing ideas are more moral on the surface but are anti-functional.

Think of reduced environmental restrictions vs "degrowth."

We've had social conservatism before, and liberalized out of it. Given that [the left have more power] × [their ideas are more destructive], yes, I primarily criticize the left and criticize the right less often and less severely at this time. I could make a pretty sophisticated argument against a number of right-wing ideas, but that's not really of benefit right now.

In the medium term, it makes sense to align with the right-wingers for the next 10-20 years, as growth in the genetics industry is fueled by the immense demand for near-miraculous cures.

After that medium term, it's much less clear what happens. At some point between 2030 and 2045, different questions within the field of genetics are going to undergo partisan polarization, and it's likely that the makeup of the two coalitions (as well as their ideology) will change.

As we saw from the coronavirus, partisan polarization is unpredictable and varies based on the initial state of the system and the order in which an idea is passing through a coalition. Observing it in action is quite the argument against maintaining a high partisan alignment.

Anyhow, I think you can call mitigatedchaos "right-wing," but I put way too much effort into hedging everything to call it "extreme right." It's about as far to the right as a lot of people are willing to read, as if it were a cottage right next to the jurisdictional border, with a big sign next to it marking out the border line, reading "Right-Wing Beyond This Point."

#anons #asks #politics #blog meta #the rationalists #flagpost #longpost

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joels6string · 10 months

Text

More Than My Father's Son

Joel Miller x f!OC

Chapter 11 - Rebuild What's Broken

Summary: Joel busies himself until the gates of Jackson open in the final week of January.

Rating: E

Word Count: 3.7k

Content: NSFW, high levels of violence normal to the TLOU world, angst, fluff, miscommunication trope (it’s Joel Miller…), slow burn, Joel’s traumatic childhood, getting together, smut, canon divergence after SLC, fix it fic

It wasn’t better this way, being apart, pretending like he didn’t want to cradle you against his chest while you slept and everything else that came with that feeling. He knew that now. But did you?

Chapter 10 || Series Masterlist

When did that clock get so fucking loud?

A halo of orange light circled the leather-bound journal Tommy had gifted Joel for Christmas on the old wooden table Joel called a workbench, pencil scratching against paper as he etched blueprint after blueprint until his hand and eyes ached from the strain.

Through the winter, he’d turned the spare bedroom upstairs into a workshop, slowly filling in a small set of drawers with whatever bits and pieces of guitar hardware he could find. A music store a few miles away was raided after he and Tommy had cleared it of a few infected, a house up by the chalet was full of nails and screws, and he’d developed a good relationship with a guy up the road, Daryl, who traded him wood prepped for carving and sanding for half the haul of whatever Joel cut down and towed back. On top of patrols, Tommy had also roped him into the Great Jackson Renovation of 2035, which he was currently planning, touring every house and building to assess the repairs needed to keep it in good enough shape to last whatever the elements threw at them.

“Thirty-six by…hundred and seventy-two��no that can’t be right…” he murmured to himself, the mug of coffee beside his right hand cold as a midnight dusting of snow floated through the air outside his window, “Seventy-two by a hundred-thirty-six.”

When he finally called it a night and slipped beneath the neatly tucked sheets of his bed the clock read 1:26 AM, the monsters of his dreams ready for their nightly feast. It was always the same now; Sarah was always the first to fall, her tiny body he could still remember the weight of in his arms crumpling to the ground, then Ellie who went down swinging, and finally you, with that forgiving smile and touch to his cheek. You always told him it was okay before you faded away, forgiving him in your final breath, and every day he woke with a scream.

“Ellie?” he called the following morning, gently rapping his knuckles on her front door, “Breakfast’s ready.”

“Okay!” she yelled from inside, “Be there in a sec!”

All he knew to do was work. Whether it was cooking new things, fixing the house, carving, building, fighting…anything that could keep his mind busy and unable to wander through the dangerous situations in his head. The restoration project had filled a large section of that void space, Tommy’s plan to keep him occupied working better than he’d like to admit. Maybe it kept some of the guilt he felt at bay.

The two had been at odds in the days before you left. Joel was furious Tommy had approved it, though Tommy swore he had nothing to do with it. It wasn’t his call. You’d volunteered, and Maria had given the okay despite Tommy’s best attempts at keeping you here. There had never really been a good reason, only selfish ones.

“Any sign of them yet?” Ellie asked as she sat at the small square table in the kitchen, a plate piled with eggs and toast in front of her.

“Not that I know of,” he replied with a sigh, walking right past the second empty plate set out for him and joining her, “Wanna help me today?”

“I’m on farming.”

“That a no?”

“Can you get me off farming?”

“I’m sure I can put in a good word.”

With Ellie in tow, Joel met up with Tommy at the church, tape measure and ladders out as a remodel was planned. It felt like the old days, Tommy’s ideas too extravagant and Joel’s too practical, the pair meeting in the middle on a design that was feasible, functional, and appealing. Maria had stopped by to see their progress, smiling ear to ear at the rough sketches Tommy had done.

“What about like, you know space right here. For dancing,” Ellie chimed in, waving her hands around, “And a little stage over there in case anyone wants to play guitar or…or sing something.”

That comment had Joel smiling a little, teaching Ellie how to play had been some of the better moments of the last few weeks. She’d been getting the hang of the strings of the guitar he’d gifted her in the fall, pride swelling in his chest at just the thought. Tommy and Maria agreed with her idea, talking with her about any other thoughts she had while Joel’s mind wandered into a realm of fantasy. Your fingers in his hair, his arm around your waist, he’d never dreamed of dancing before, he’d loathed the very idea of it. But after the sight of your forest eyes gazing up at him as you led him through the movements, the memory plagued him.

You’d granted him a second chance in a light snowfall when you’d both stepped out for some air as the credits had begun to roll the night before you’d left. Tommy’s Christmas carols of choice were heard even from outside, and though you hadn’t said a word to him since his plea you come back to him, you’d smiled when he’d asked for a hand.

“Still got some of those bad memories to replace…” he’d said, and you hadn’t been able to refuse.

There had been space between you still, but considerably less than the first time he’d found your hand in his. There were less toes smashed, too—still a few, but not enough that had his face burning in frustration. You’d left after that, patting his chest once with a simple “I’ll see you soon,” a gaping hole ripping open where your hand had been as you faded from view. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to see you off, he knew himself well enough, there was no way he’d have let you go without a fight.

“Earth to Joel!” Tommy’s voice thundered, “Can we build that?”

“Build what?” Joel replied, the three pairs of eyes locked on him rolling in unison.

Thursday brought the weekly night out at the Bison. Tommy and Maria along with Indy still met like clockwork, Joel begrudgingly agreeing to go just to keep his brother off his ass. He’d only ever gone for you, to get you out and making friends, to acclimate, but after a few months it was for the chance you’d need to slip behind him, your hand grazing over his back, shoulder, or arm. It sent a shiver down his spine every single time, he missed the feeling. A beer gone warm sat in front of him as Tommy lost at darts again, too tipsy to see straight enough, Seth celebrating another easy-won victory against the one man in Jackson who had decent perks to wager. This time, Seth managed to weasel a few extra bottles of scotch for his own personal stash.

“Miller,” Indy called out, her newly-established girlfriend Sophia on her heels, “What’s it been now? We’re going into week six?”

The two women took the seats in front of him, clearly this corner hadn’t been dark enough to hide him.

“I don’t know,” he grumbled, gagging down a sip from his glass, “Somethin’ like that.”

“As if you don’t have the days numbered on your calendar.“

It had been seven weeks and three days, four weeks exactly since last contact with Eugene when the group landed in Nevada. The anticipated return home was already a week later than expected. It had been gnawing away at him. Not that he had any expectations for your return, just the thought of you back safely in the gates was enough for him right now. The rest he could grapple with later.

“I know they’re late,” Indy finally admitted, quieter, more reserved, “And I know you’re as panicked as I am.”

The muscle of his jaw twitched as it tightened, “Yeah.”

“Think they’re okay?”

“How should I know?”

His answer should have been softer, more empathetic, maybe he should have lied, but it fired off with his temper. He didn’t want to talk about this. The moment he let his mind entertain the possibility you were gone would be the end of the waning control he had over himself. Once that broke, the path back to the man sitting at this table wasn’t one he could navigate without a guide. Indy understood, nodding and staying planted in her seat as if she somehow knew he couldn’t be alone, uncaring of the callous words he just spewed at her. He’d have to save the bludgeoning guilt over the fact he didn’t deserve the care he got from the people around him for later.

As soon as an acceptable departure time hit, he was walking the dark streets alone back home, the old desk lamp on the workshop table flicking on as he opted for sanding the body of his next guitar over doing the sketches and measurements Tommy had asked for. It could wait. He was being too rough, too fast, he knew he’d have to redo all the work he was doing tomorrow, but still, he couldn’t calm his movements, the wood taking the brunt of his frustrations. The table shook beneath his hands, his teeth grit together as the dust began to burn his eyes, the clattering of the frame that rest beside the light causing his hands to drop everything as he moved to right it.

It was the only photo of you he had, that anyone had. Tommy had taken it from Seth, no doubt for a price. The summer sun had been still filtering in through the bar’s windows, you were seated beside him at one of the small tables near the dart boards, the true focus of the snapshot Tommy and Eugene in a heated game. That wasn’t what he was looking at. It was you listening intently to whatever he was droning on about. He couldn’t even remember what it was he was telling you, it probably wasn’t interesting, but the way you looked at him told otherwise. He wanted to go back, pay more attention to you, he hadn’t caught it at the moment, but instead he was here alone with nothing but the heavy weight of regret on his shoulders.

Despite sleeping alone, he only pulled back the right side of the sheets, as he did every night, grabbing the book on the bedside table to distract him until his eyelids grew too heavy to keep open. Except tonight, he couldn’t even concentrate on the page. Too much of the dam had weakened, at this point he was contemplating sleeping at all. It wouldn’t be worth it. He’d be up in two hours sweating and panting.

“Joel!!!” He awoke with a jolt. “Joel!! Horses!! At the fucking gates!”

Ellie waited for him at the stoop, his jacket askew on his shoulders and your scarf around his neck as they took off towards the West gate. Tommy was already there, and Maria, Jesse and Seth as well as they awaited the group approaching. Joel’s stomach was tense, butterflies in a whirlwind; would you be happy to see him? Indifferent? He could handle either of those, but not disappointed. The time away likely worked against him, your own demons overtaking what little progress he’d made. It wasn’t better this way, being apart, pretending like he didn’t want to cradle you against his chest while you slept and everything else that came with that feeling. He knew that now. But did you?

In a sea of strange faces, he looked for the familiar. Eugene was there, chapped cheeks and wide eyes, Paulie too, who spotted Joel and quickly turned, and stranger after stranger marveling at the sights before them as he once had. The lights, the nostalgia of normalcy, it was captivating, but he didn’t care about them.

“Joel,” Tommy called, Eugene pressed behind him, “Joel…”

“Where is she?” Joel asked, everything sinking, the butterflies dropping dead and heavy like shotgun casings, “Where the fuck is she?”

“Come over here.”

A gentle hand on his shoulder was roughly shoved off, ire rising as his face burned in rage.

“Tell me. Right now,” he demanded, “Right here.”

“She’s gone, Joel.”

Gone.

“Ellie…” he mumbled, “Ellie, go with Maria…”

“What? No!” she argued, but Maria didn’t make him ask twice, wrapping her arm around the girl’s shoulders and pulling her away, “Joel!”

His feet trudged across the pavement, the scraping of the rocks and dirt beneath his boots like nails on a chalkboard as he tried to remember how to breathe. He was underwater, his limbs slow as they dragged against the resistance, his lungs refusing air, the sight of your bow in his brother’s hands like a bullet to the chest.

“Christ…” he gasped, his vision tunneling, a snarl ripping free from his chest as he took off in a feral lunge and gripped the assumed perpetrator by the jacket, “What did you do?! What the hell did you do?!”

Paulie was quivering, his hands grasping Joel’s as he blabbered incoherently, Tommy and Eugene quickly following and failing to pull the irate Joel from his trance. When a fist was raised, Tommy was too slow, Joel’s knuckles connecting with a jaw that buckled beneath the force, the yelp of agony that followed only fuel for another blow. He didn’t even notice the crimson staining his skin when Tommy finally got enough of a lock around him to send him hurtling backward to the ground, his spine and head impacting hard enough to have him groaning as his eyes came back into focus. Eugene and Jesse were helping Paulie, Tommy standing in the middle as if he stood a chance if Joel tried to advance again, his eyes flicking between each of the two men.

“You stay down, Joel!” Tommy was yelling, muffled and far away, the ringing in Joel’s ears making the words only half audible, “Stay the hell down. I mean it.”

“Or what?” Joel threatened, delirious and bloodthirsty, “You were never any match for me, boy.”

“Stay down, Joel. Please. I’m asking.”

Once on his hands and knees, he could see the fear dripping into his little brother’s eyes, his body turning towards Joel as he readied to block the next attack, Eugene still trying to drag Paulie into the nearest building before Joel could recuperate. Your bag was sitting two arm’s lengths away, the bow you’d carried for years discarded on the ground as if his very will to live wasnt tethered to that curved piece of wood.

Dragging himself to your belongings, Tommy followed with a shuffle, easing only when Joel rose to his knees and clutched your prized weapon to his chest with trembling fingers as he stood. As reality came crashing down, one of his hands covered his mouth as the shock set in, Tommy’s empathetic grip falling to his shoulder without resistance this time.

“I’m sorry, brother,” Tommy whispered, “I know you—“

“Don’t,” Joel warned; not that fucking word, “I wanna know what happened. All of it.”

“I don’t think that’s—“

“I wasn’t askin’!”

With a reassuring pat to his back, Tommy went to find Eugene, leaving Joel in the darkness he was unsure he could ever wade out of.

“I can’t do this,” he muttered under his breath, “I can’t do this again. I can’t do it again… Please God, I can’t.”

But he had to. Just like before, he had a reason to keep going. Tommy. Ellie. Maria. Giving up wasn’t an option. He could fight for them. He had to.

“Joel,” Tommy sounded, “sit down.”

“What?” Joel snapped, finding not only Eugene with Tommy, but Paulie, too, “Why is he here?”

“Sit. Down. Joel. The second you get up, it’s over.”

Now he understood what a caged animal felt like. All this pent up anger, the tensing of every muscle, the empty, hollow feeling in his gut, it was all here. He wanted to pace, relieve some of the pressure, but he did as he was told for Tommy’s sake and no other, his fiery gaze set upon the group towering over him as they surrounded him.

“She was sick,” Eugene began, “pneumonia. We were five days from destination, I told her to hang on, we were almost to the medicine. I promised I’d get her home. Burning with a fever, coughing, whimpering with aches, it was… One morning I woke up and she was gone, all her things left behind. We checked everywhere. I swear. All day we searched, yelling her name, checking for tracks. They stopped at a river.

“We went back to the house we were in that night, thinking maybe she’d find her way back. By morning, we were…overrun. Horde. We had to leave and we assume that…well, that they got her before we did.”

“Christ…” How was reality worse than the scenarios in his head? “She’s out there.”

“Joel, no,” Tommy reasoned, “Joel…”

“You said all was well! When you checked in on the radio!” His mind couldn’t land on a thought, he was recalling every detail he knew, looking for a reason, a cause, a sign… You had looked pale the last night he’d seen you, your head had been warm, but he’d thought nothing of it. You were sick…

“We didn’t…want you to go out looking…” Eugene admitted, Joel barely able to suppress his anger.

“She’s out there,” he was mumbling to himself again, “She needs…help.”

“Joel.” It was Tommy’s turn to try and talk him down. “Don’t do this. Joel! God damnit!”

He was already halfway out the door by the time he was fully on his feet, he needed a horse, a few weapons, a map… Food he could find, the clothes on his back would do. The stables were thirty feet away, his horse was itching for a long trip, had to be, it had been awhile.

“Joel! Listen to me. For once in your god damn fuckin’ life. Listen to me!” Tommy was still talking, it was like the buzzing of a gnat. “You know how this ends! That the last way you want to see her!?”

The light would be gone from your eyes, he knew that. If he could find you, and he would. He’d take down everything in his path til he did. He imagined you scared and alone as you waited to turn, too afraid to walk back and get your gun to end it in favor of Eugene and Paulie, and he owed it to you to do what you weren’t able to. It was the one thing you always made him promise, to end it before the turn. And he couldn’t keep it. But he could end it before your face was overtaken, your skin turned into a putrid Petri dish, and your limbs seized and contorted. He could save you before it got worse.

“You don’t need to do this,” Tommy eased, taking advantage of the pause in Joel’s pursuit as he contemplated the next steps.

“Are you comin’ or no?” Joel finally asked, not turning to face his brother, his voice flat and lifeless.

“Joel…Don’t do this.”

“Are you comin’ or no?”

“Joel, we got families here—“

“She is your family!”

With those words he whipped around, chest heaving once again, eyes begging for anything to hold on to. Tommy’s hands provided the support he needed to let the levee finally break, his little brother that had been forced to grow up too fast despite Joel’s best attempts at preserving every last bit of innocence providing the net once again that could keep him from falling.

The fur of Tommy’s collar was soft on Joel’s face as his brother pulled him into his arms, Joel accepting the embrace away from prying eyes. It was a reminder that despite his loss, he wasn’t alone. It was a confirmation he desperately needed that terrified him all the same.

“You have been there for everything,” Joel finally began as he pulled away, letting vulnerability slip through the cracks, “Rebecca. Ma. Sarah.”

And I need you now.

“Okay, Joel,” Tommy finally conceded, “Alright. I’m with you. Okay? I’m with you. Go home. Pack a bag. Meet me in an hour at the stables.”

Was he cursed? The past year had been nothing but carnage and death. Tess, Sam, Henry, was this his penance for pulling Ellie out of that hospital? Being around him was a death wish. As he passed the cemetary within eye sight of his house, he paused. Should he leave now? Was bringing Tommy along just another risk? He could make it back to the stables in thirty with his machete, shotgun, and revovler in hand. Not that he knew where he was going, and he sighed as he realized Tommy had left him in the dark intentionally.

Panicked footsteps followed the creaking of the hinges on his front door, Ellie’s body slamming into his hard enough to push the wind out of him. She was crying, her arms locked tight as she buried her face into his shoulder, his arms instinctually wrapping around her.

“It’s okay, baby girl,” he soothed, leaning his chin on her head, “It’s alright.”

“Don’t go,” was all she whimpered in response, his shoulders slumping in defeat, there was no winning this, “I know you’re gonna go. Don’t.”

“I have to.”

“So you can die, too?!” Her small frame yanked free, shoving at his chest as her face twisted in a fresh wave of tears.

“I ain’t gonna die–”

“That’s what she said!! And she’s gone!”

An eerie silence followed, Ellie holding in her gasping breaths as her soaked green eyes pierced through him. The thought of you out there alone and scared was plaguing him, the chance that somehow you’d find a way to survive was low, but it wasn’t zero. It was fool’s hope, but he’d never been the smartest guy in the room anyhow. He needed something to keep his feet moving forward.

“I gotta bring her home, kiddo,” he finally resigned, “I’ll be back. I swear.”

Ellie's Journal - January 26, 2035

Art by @natendo-art

#joel miller x f!reader #joel miller x you #joel miller x reader #the last of us fic #the last of us fanfiction #tlou fic #tlou fanfiction #more than my father’s son

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batboyblog · 3 months

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Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #3

Jan 26-Feb 2 2024

The House overwhelmingly passed a tax deal that will revive the expanded Child Tax Credit, this will effect 16 million American children and lift 400,000 out of poverty in the first year. The deal also supports the building of 200,000 housing units over the next two years, and provides tax relief for communities hit by disasters.

The Biden Administration has begun negotiations on drug prices for Medicare. Earlier this year the administration announced it would negotiate for the first time directly with drug manufacturers on the prices of 10 common medications. This week they sent their opening offers to the companies. The program is expected to save Medicare and enrollees billions over dollars over the long term and help push down drug prices for everyone.

The Department of Transportation has green lit $240 Million to modernize air ports across the country. Air Ports in 37 states will be able to get much needed updates and refurbishment.

The Biden Administration announced 10 sites across America as sites for innovation investment. They will receive up to 2 billion dollars each over the next 10 years. The goal is to stimulate economic growth and innovation in semiconductor manufacturing, clean energy, sustainable textiles, climate-resilient agriculture, regenerative medicine, and more.

The State Department reviews options for recognizing Palestinian Statehood. While as of yet there's been no policy change this review of options is a major shift in US diplomatic thinking which has long opposed Palestinian Statehood and shows a seriousness of reported Biden plans to push for Statehood as part of a post-war Israel-Saudi normalization deal.

President Biden imposes sanctions on Israeli settlers who have engaged in violence against Palestinians and peace activists. This marks the first time the US has leveled sanctions against Israelis and sets up a standard that could see the whole settlement movement cut off from the US financial system

the Department of Energy has tentatively agreed to a $1.5 Billion dollar loan to help reopen a Michigan nuclear power plant. This would mark the first time a closed nuclear plant has been brought back online. Closed in 2022 it's hoped that it could reopen in time to be generating power in late 2025. This is part of Biden's plan to decarbonize the electricity grid by 2035.

the Internal Revenue Service launched a program to allow tax fillers file for free directly with the government. In 2024 its a pilot program limited to 12 states, but plans for it to be nation wide by tax day 2025

The Department of Health and Human Services announced $28 million in grants to help with the treatment of substance use disorder, including a program aimed at pregnant and postpartum women, and expanded drug court aimed at directing people into treatment and out of the criminal justice system.

The Department of Energy announced $72 million for 46 hydroelectric projects across 19 states. This marks the single largest investment in Hydropower in US history.

The Senate confirmed President Biden's 175th federal judge. Biden has now appointed more federal judges in his first term in office than President Obama did in his, however still lags behind Trump's 186 judges. For the first time in history a majority of a President's nominees are not white men, 65% of them are women and 65% are people of color, President Biden has appointed more black women to judgeships than any administration in history.

#Joe Biden #Thanks Biden #good news #us politics #politics #Democrats #Poverty #Climate change #nuclear power #Israel #israeli settlers #Palestine #israel palestine conflict

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dontmeantobepoliticalbut · 1 year

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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