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nekokoaa · 10 months

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The Agreement - Miguel O'Hara x Therapist!Reader (III)

Summary: It was simple. No kissing. No sex. Hugs and hand-holding only. The goal was to help Miguel feel a little less lonely sometimes. That was your job as one of the therapists at HQ, to mentally stabilize everyone’s mind, including the boss’s.

In other words, you and Miguel make a deal.

Rated Explicit, fluff, smut

4K words | (3/5) chapters

Chapters:

(I) (II) (III) (IV) (V)

Author's notes: I work as a freelance copywriter so I had to prioritize my projects but I still managed to get this done! Enjoy! :) Let me know if you want to be a part of the tag list.

Also on AO3

III.

Sometimes you wish you were mindless—just a rusty cog of a machine in a 9 to 5 corporate job. Simply, a taciturn sheep led by a shepherd, waiting for the day a butcher’s knife is pressed against its neck. It was easier to handle life in such a way. Regrets can never be born when allied with carelessness.

But it was something beyond you. Clearly. The throes of passion had tempted you that night. His hand on your hip firmly held you in place, fingers pressed into your suit. Covetous crimson eyes searched between your eyes and lips long enough that the sweat of your skin gathered at your clavicles. But you managed to resist his heat, disappointing, yes, but at least you still had your dignity—your morals. If it wasn’t for that, you might’ve been in his bed that night, rocking your hips against his without a single care in the world.

Three weeks had passed by and you haven’t had a session with him since that night. You were canceling them in hopes that the fire between you fizzles. With distance, desire usually fades so you only hoped that night was just your hormones acting up and there wasn’t a deeper meaning to how you felt.

Between that time, you had the opportunity to meet Gwen Stacy from 65. She was a nice girl, cool, and very much like all of you. Burdened with the sense of justice with a side of wittiness.

She was popular, especially among the Peters who had lost their Gwens. They looked at her like she was a what-if moment and were impressed by her, but you knew you’ll be seeing them on your office couch soon enough.

Hobie was practically best friends with her now. The late night sessions with Hobie were a rare occurrence these days. Like a stray, he found a new person to feed his interests.

Jess favored her the most. Reminded her of her younger days, and how impressive she was at that age—still is, as she’s been carrying a baby in her stomach while doing her missions flawlessly.

Miguel was indifferent. At least that’s how he acted. But as long as work was getting done, you were leveling up the relationship bar with him.

Out of everyone, Peter B was home to her. To see a familiar face amongst like-minded strangers had helped her settle in faster than you expected. Seeing them together made them look like family.

Because of the great reputation she had around the society, today you allowed Gwen to pull you away from the safety of your office straight to Miguel’s for what she called emotional support. There was something she wanted to ask him—a request. And she had the idea that your presence would soften him up somehow.

“Why do you think that?” When you asked, Gwen looked back at you with a knowing smile. Her hand still latched onto your wrist like a snake squeezing its prey. She guided you through the cavernous hall of tech that led to Miguel’s office, the pathway seemed to grow darker the closer you got.

“I see how you two look at each other during meetings.” She said effortlessly like it was a fact. You let out a cough like you choked on air, already shaking your head to her conclusion.

“You know he’s always leading them—what? Do you expect me to look at the ceiling or something?” Gwen laughed at this, but it didn’t look like she was convinced.

Walking in, you had expected Miguel’s office to be darker than the hall leading towards it, but it was instead imbued with a ruddy tint, and streaks of sliver threads surrounded the area Miguel was standing in. He was in the middle of briefing a few Spider-Men for a mission on Gaia-3000. Miguel always made sure to remind his agents of the canon events before going on a mission to prevent the loss of the universe. It was more important than the mission itself.

The briefing didn’t last long as Miguel noticed you enter with Gwen. His gaze could’ve riveted you to the floor, the look on his face was neither soft nor austere—perhaps aloof would best describe how he looked at you. Yet you wanted to believe there was something behind those eyes of his because not once did they leave you since you entered.

It was until the Spider-Men walked into their portals that Miguel’s attention moved to the floating projections. The silver webs of fate orbited around him as if he were a sun. He would’ve looked occupied if it weren’t for his eyes moving between you and the projections.

“Doc.” He greeted you once you were in front of him, looking down at you through the hologram of a canon event that floated in between you two. There was a moment—just a moment where his eyes looked soft… but it could’ve been the trick of the hologram.

“Miguel.” You had to suck your lips in to stop yourself from smiling. You hated to admit it, but you were happy to speak to him after so long. Staying away from him was a selfish decision, one that you regretted now that you stood in front of him.

Your heart thumped in bliss, the warmth from that night revisiting you like an old friend. How inane of you to think that distance would’ve settled this emotion. It was already being stitched onto your soul from the moment this agreement started—the very needle sunken in when his hand stretched out of that portal into your apartment many months ago. You couldn’t pretend anymore.

You fell for him. Regardless of whether he felt the same or not.

“Uh, I’m here too…” Gwen had a slight smile on her face, bending forward with a small wave to Miguel.

“Gwen,” you could tell Miguel forced a smile, fangs appearing while none of the light reached his eyes. It lasted a moment before it dropped to his usual scowl. Miguel then turned around to face his floating platform that started its slow descent to the ground. “I’m sure you already had a tour of the place unless you’re just here to say hello.”

“I wanted to talk to you about something!”

“If a universe isn’t collapsing, or an anomaly hasn’t appeared, then Jess can handle it.”

“But it’s important! I just figure it would make our jobs easier. You know, making sure the universes are in order?”

The rumble of the descending platform had filled in for Miguel’s silence. He peeked behind his shoulder, his eyes looking past Gwen’s and into yours before they lowered to the ground. He then folded his arms against his chest, sighing. “I’m listening.”

Gwen immediately beamed, light filling her eyes. “Okay!” You could tell her entire energy ignited. Her arms flailed with every word that left her lips. She was animated—excited, glowing like a sun rising from the horizon, its rays brighter as the seconds go by. If anyone were to watch her, they too would feel elated by her presence alone.

But as the sun rises in one part of the world, it sets in the other. Her idea was nothing but grave to you, the dread in your face impossible to hide as she spoke with an open mind—naivety in her words. You couldn’t blame her because it’s possible no one told her yet, not Jess and surprisingly not Peter B. If she had told you of her idea prior, you wouldn’t have come here to support her. Just the thought of her idea could be considered mutiny to the entire cause… to Miguel.

You cast your eyes down, afraid to even lift them towards Miguel. You didn’t have to. You could already feel it brewing, simmering like water on a stovetop. A part of you internally begged for Gwen to shut up, or wished the sound of the descending platform was loud enough to overtake her voice. Miguel wasn’t facing either of you but you could still feel a weight on top of your shoulders, drilling you into the floors, your limbs heavier than sacks of sand.

Gwen went on and on until she was rambling, probably because she was excited or nervous. You couldn’t exactly tell. It was until the platform finally reached the ground that Gwen ended her request with a “pretty please” and a large smile on her face.

That smile didn’t last long.

“No,” Miguel spoke softly.

“Wha…” she faltered, physically her shoulders dropped. “What? Wait—why? I mean—he would be such a great asset to our group and—Probably one of the best Spider-mans I’ve met. The things he can do— He’s amazing , Miguel.”

“I said, no.” And it was final. Gwen knew that but she still pushed, making her argument, excuses, anything. Miguel silenced her with a heavy sigh, fingers moving to pinch the bridge of his nose. You expected anger when he turned to face her but no, there was nothing but sympathy in his eyes. Sympathy for what he had to reveal to her. He towered over her and with a heavy hand on her shoulder, said:

“That Miles Morales… was never supposed to be a Spider-Man. He’s not one of us. He’s an anomaly , Gwen, the original anomaly.”

At those words, it was like a string was pulled, released and an arrow soared and struck her chest. Gwen was trying to make sense of it all but nothing made sense no matter how long she thought about it.

Miguel continued regardless. With the command of his hands, the projections swirled around you three, depicting the moment when Spider-42 fell into Earth-1610, bit the wrong Miles Morales and in turn, the Spider-man from his universe died. Your real comrade.

Gwen didn’t want to believe it. Shaking her head as she stared at each projection. The truth floated around her. Thoughts ran a mile a minute. It would’ve been better if Peter B. told her instead of Miguel. Maybe if she heard it from a trusted friend, it would’ve been easier to believe. But Gwen knew there was no reason for Miguel to lie about this. What motive could Miguel have to not let Miles join the Spider Society?

“Miles Morales-1610 as Spider-man was a mistake.” His words to her were the final nail to a coffin. With the skidding sound coming from her shoes, she turned around and bolted out of Miguel’s office.

“Gwen!” You were about to chase after her until Miguel’s voice cut through the air.

“You think I’m done here?”

You physically jumped at how loud he sounded like thunder had rolled and rumbled the floor under your feet. You turned towards him and immediately you regretted it. What was brewing before was most certainly his anger, saved solely for you while Gwen was spared because of her naivety. But you—you knew better than to associate yourself with the anomaly. If only Miguel could give you a chance to explain yourself.

“Miguel, I—”

He didn’t let you finish. His hand latched onto your wrist, pulling you deeper into his office and into a room beyond the shadows. It was more like a traditional office than the one outside with a desk, a bookcase, a soft couch and some cabinets. There was even a bed that Miguel probably slept in whenever he didn't want to return home. The sheets were ruffled so you could tell he often used it but never had enough time to make it because he was usually always on the go.

However, it was the last thing on your mind when you had a fuming Miguel in front of you. He didn’t even wait for the door to close before he grabbed you a little too rough by the shoulders, shaking you lightly. Red eyes lasered down on you.

Undoubtedly, you knew he was angry, but there was something else in there.

“What were you thinking? You know what Miles-1610 is to us, Doc! You know what an anomaly could do to a universe and you still supported her idea? Did you really think that was okay? Letting an anomaly join and ruin everything —!”

“I didn’t know! I didn’t know that’s what she wanted to ask! All she told me was that it would support the society and she needed me here for emotional support! If I knew it was about the anomaly, I wouldn’t have come here!”

You yelled back louder. Miguel’s talon-less fingers buried themselves in your upper arms, squeezing them. His eyes were wide, shaky red irises searching within your own for any hint of honesty. The grip on you wasn’t as firm as it looked. Like a crane holding a prize, the slightest nudge would’ve shaken his hands off. Despite how he looked, Miguel made sure he wasn’t hurting you.

“This is exactly why I told Jess I didn’t want her to join! She’s—She’s too close with the anomaly. She can jeopardize our entire cause all because of him !” He froze after, an idea appearing in his head. He wasn’t thinking rationally anymore. He released you, turning around like he wanted to leave. “She has to go home.”

“Wait! You can’t—Let’s think about this, Miguel.”

He was quick to face you again, his hands returning to your upper arms. He bent forward until his face was at your level. “I can’t have her risk all that I built—that we built.”

There it was. It wasn’t just anger he was feeling. The signs were all there; His trembling breath, the sweat that made his forehead glossy, the weakness in his hold.

Miguel was panicking.

It was fear that buried itself within his fury from the moment Gwen had asked for Miles-1610’s recruitment and when he thought you supported her idea. It was like he saw it again. His daughter disappearing in his arms, the weight of her so heavy… until he felt nothing—until nothing around him existed except for what remained of the universe: white light and empty space. He had the blood of that universe on his hands and no matter how many times he tried to wash them away, it was now embedded in his soul. All that existed ended because he was the anomaly of that world disrupting the canon events.

Months after months of research couldn’t bring him the exact reason for that universe ending, but he was sure of one thing. If everything went how it was planned, nothing like that would happen ever again.

And that’s why it was his job to put things back to how it was. It was the only thing he could do to atone.

So yes, Miguel was reliving his trauma yet again.

And it was your job to relieve him of it.

“That doesn’t mean we should make rash decisions,” you told him, gently. “She’s one of our best and letting her go would slow down our efforts. You and I both know that.”

Miguel’s energy was being sapped out of him, visibly his shoulders dropped and those red eyes were no longer on you as he hung his head low. He released you and retreated to sit on his bed. For a moment, he looked like a toy that ran out of batteries, burying his face in his hands before he ran them through his curly locks.

It was so different seeing him like this—like he was moping. You followed him and stood between his legs.

“Besides, Gwen's a smart girl. She wouldn’t do anything that would put the universes at risk.” He didn’t respond or even look at you. It made you run a hand against his cheek as your thumb brushed under his eye. “When’s the last time you slept? You look tired.”

“I don’t have time to be tired. Not when there’s a Galaxy-size mess I have to clean up. With every anomaly we restore, 10,000 more just take its place. It’s never-ending, Doc. I’m like a janitor mopping up a shoreline.”

“We all took an oath. A spider-person’s job never ends. Which is why we need to rest as much as we can to fight another day.”

“I didn’t ask for this, Doc.” He sighed, leaning his head against your hand until his cheek pushed up against it. “And I won’t be able to sleep.”

“None of us did…” you lightly smiled, “And I’ll help you.”

You pulled your hand away from his cheek, but you didn’t miss when he leaned more against it for his lips to press into your palm. The brief feel of them jolted something within you like a warm shiver struck your lower stomach. Gosh, it made you curious—too curious about how they would feel against other parts of your body.

And you didn’t miss those eyes that looked up at you, red like cherries, sweet like them too. It was hard to turn away, somewhat thankful you managed to because you didn’t want to be under their spell. You still felt the heat of them on you even as you approached his bookcase. Your palm still tingling from the feel of his lips as you pulled a book off one of the shelves. You returned to him grinning.

He was disappointed when he glanced at your book choice in your hand. “Charlotte’s web? Am I a kid to you?”

“No, but… you act like one sometimes. Lay down for me.”

You pushed against his shoulder leaving him no choice but to oblige. What he didn’t expect was you to climb in after him, settling on your side next to him while you opened the book to page one and started to read.

Miguel still couldn’t sleep. His eyes remained open, watching the top of your head as you read. A lovely smile on your face as you tried (and failed) to give each character their own distinctive voice. When you weren’t busy turning the page, the hand that he kissed was together with his, fingers interlocked. You were so used to holding his hand by now that you thought nothing of it and ignored the warmth that spread throughout your body because of it.

“Are you finally resuming our sessions?” Miguel interrupted you, pulling your eyes away from the book and into his own.

“Only if you need it.”

You knew Miguel would never admit he needed it, especially how adamant he was about them in the beginning.

“I need it.”

Oh.

“I definitely need it.”

“Then… I’ll put you back on my calendar.”

“ Muy Bien. ”

His sonorous whisper had heat searing your cheeks, not to mention, that smile that flashed your way made his fangs look bigger—so mischievous it had you biting your lip. Immediately after, Miguel’s mask materialized around his head. Much to your disappointment.

“Do you really need your mask on while you sleep?” You asked.

“You never know when the job needs you. Have to always be on the ready.”

“Words from a true workaholic… you said you wanted a family but how exactly were you going to make time for them when you’re working all these hours?”

“Oh, I always made time for mi hija . Always went to her soccer practice. Always was there to read her a bedtime story. Take her clothes shopping. I was made to be a dad but… it just isn’t in my fate to be one.”

You couldn’t see his face, but you heard his pain. You squeezed his hand, regretful.

“I’m sorry—I shouldn’t have said that.”

“No, no, no, no—It’s okay… It’s a valid question.”

Not knowing what else to say, you continued to read. Seconds, minutes, time ticked away. Miguel’s hand was still tight in yours, but his voice came out heavy whenever he commented about the book. His head was against the pillows, turned in your direction.

Your voice must’ve been soothing him because his hand would grow weak in yours and then he would suddenly squeeze it, throwing a random comment out about the main character, Wilbur, and then trying to convince you he didn’t fall asleep. Sometimes the heat where your hands came together would make him doze off and the coolness that grew when they were briefly apart would stir him awake.

“Maybe we should’ve recruited Charlotte. She really saved that pig’s ass,” he mumbled, looking like he had sunk deeper into his bed, the pillows swallowed his head.

“Yeah, she dedicated her life to saving him. All the way to the very end. She never gave up, spending hours weaving her web, trying to convince the humans no matter how tough it got. I’m sure she may have felt like she was… mopping up a shoreline too but her actions paid off in the end… the difference is, you’re not alone, Miguel. You have us—all of us to rely on, to help shoulder the burden. Please don’t forget that—that we’re here for you.”

You expected something, anything from him, but you received nothing but silence. “Miguel…? Oh…” it was then you noticed his hand was weak in yours and when you pulled your hand away, he stayed asleep.

Finally. You couldn’t help but smile, softly closing the book before sitting up.

You watched his chest rise and fall as he lay supine against his bed. You should’ve left his office but you stayed there watching him sleep, taking in the rare sight of Miguel completely defenseless. You wished you could’ve seen his face. It would’ve been the topping on the cake.

Your fingers brushed against his arm, suddenly craving the warmth of his body.

You couldn’t deny your feelings for him any longer, but you wondered if Miguel felt anything for you. You knew how lonely men acted. As long as the body was warm and could keep them company, it didn’t matter to them.

Some part of you wondered if you were just as lonely as Miguel—that these feelings were just because you craved for someone. Maybe it was even the reason why you sprung up this agreement in the first place. After your divorce, you became married to your work, the only thing that mattered was your patients as a therapist and the people you saved as a superhero. You abandoned yourself, shutting yourself off from the world within your white-walled apartment. It was why you looked up to Miguel as much as you did because he was the one who pulled you out of your darkness. So you were hoping you could do the same thing for him.

But you knew your heart beat too strongly for it to be just feelings of loneliness. It longed for him even when you were this close to him, wanting to be surrounded by the warmth that emanated from him, wanting to be touched, kissed, and held only by the man who saved you, your guiding light while you were lost at sea.

Your hand moved to caress his cheek, feeling the fibers of his mask under your fingertips. You were leaning closer to him, unable to resist like a moth to a flame. God, you were completely enamored by him. Looks like he didn’t need to look at you to be under his spell.

For the first time, you didn’t think about the consequences. For the first time, you were mindless.

You pressed your lips against his lips, closing your eyes. It was softer than you expected; light, feathery and warm. Too warm . It was brief but it was enough to light a flame within you that burned when you pulled away. Your breath shuddered as you inhaled, the warmth lasting only a second.

Your eyes opened, but you found yourself stilling. Miguel’s eyes were still closed, though half of his mask was dematerialized to the tip of his nose. His lips were out, free from the fibers.

Your mouth hung open. Miguel had removed half of his mask when kissed him and you hadn't a clue if he was asleep all this time or not.

The remainder of his mask dematerialized and you were face to face with those eyes of his. Your heart skipped a beat, knocking the air from your lungs as your palms grew sweaty.

Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.

You felt so much pressure under his gaze, his face not quite readable. You flicked your wrist towards the ceiling and a web shot out, preparing yourself to run away until a glowing red web wrapped around your wrist and riveted you in place.

“Not this time, Doc.”

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mariacallous · 2 months

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Citizens of the European Union live in an internet built and ruled by foreign powers. Most people in the EU use an American search engine, shop on an American ecommerce site, thumb American phones, and scroll through American social media feeds.

That fact has triggered increasing alarm in the corridors of Brussels, as the EU tries to understand how exactly those companies warp the economy around them. Five years ago, Shoshana Zuboff’s book The Age of Surveillance Capitalism neatly articulated much of lawmakers’ critique of the tech giants, just as they were preparing to enforce the flagship GDPR privacy law. Now as the EU enacts another historic piece of tech regulation, the Digital Markets Act, which companies must comply with starting tomorrow, March 7, a different critic du jour sums up the new mood in Brussels.

In his 2023 book, Technofeudalism, Yanis Varoufakis argues the big US tech platforms have brought feudalism back to Europe. The former Greek finance minister sees little difference between the medieval serf toiling on land he does not own and the Amazon seller who must subject themselves to the company’s strict rules while giving the company a cut of each sale.

The idea that a handful of big tech companies have subjugated internet users into digital empires has permeated through Europe. Technofeudalism shares bookshelf space with Cloud Empires and Digital Empires, which make broadly similar arguments. For years, Europe’s wanna-be Big Tech rivals, like Sweden’s Spotify or Switzerland’s ProtonMail, have claimed that companies like Google, Meta, and Apple unfairly limit their ability to reach potential users, through tactics like preinstalling Gmail on new Android phones or Apple’s strict rules for the App Store. “It’s not a problem to be a monopoly,” says Sandra Wachter, professor of technology and regulation at Oxford University’s Internet Institute. “It becomes a problem if you're starting to exclude other people from the market.”

Crowbarred Open

In answer to that problem, Brussels’ politicos agreed to the Digital Markets Act in 2022. It is designed to rein in the largest tech companies—almost all of them from the US—that act as gatekeepers between consumers and other businesses. A sibling regulation, the Digital Services Act, which focuses more on freedom of expression, went into effect last month. Wachter says they follow a long tradition of laws trying to protect the public and the economy from state power, wielded either by the government or the monarch. “With the rise of the private sector and globalization, power has just shifted,” she adds. Tech platforms rule over digital lives like kings. The DMA is part of the attempt to keep up.

The rules change tomorrow for platforms deemed “gatekeepers” by the DMA—so far including Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, and TikTok parent Bytedance. The law essentially crowbars open what the EU calls the gatekeepers’ “core services.” In the past regulators have proposed containing corporate giants by taking them to pieces. EU lawmakers have adopted the motto “Don’t break up big tech companies, break them open.”

In theory, that means big changes for EU residents’ digital lives. Users of iPhones should soon be able to download apps from places other than Apple’s app store; Microsoft Windows will no longer have Microsoft-owned Bing as its default search tool; Meta-owned WhatsApp users will be able to communicate with people on rival messaging apps; and Google and Amazon will have to tweak their search results to create more room for rivals. There will also be limits on how users’ data can be shared between one company’s different services. Fines for noncompliance can reach up to 20 percent of global sales revenue. The law also gives the EU recourse to the nuclear option of forcing tech companies to sell off parts of their business.

Homegrown Challengers

Most tech giants have expressed uncharacteristic alarm about the changes required of them this week. Google has spoken of “difficult trade-offs,” which may mean its search results send more traffic to hotel or flight aggregators. Apple has claimed that the DMA jeopardizes its devices’ security. Apple, Meta and TikTok have all filed legal challenges against the EU, saying new rules unfairly target their services. The argument in favor of the status quo is that competition is actually thriving—just look at TikTok, a technology company launched in the past decade, now designated as one of the so-called gatekeepers.

But TikTok is an exception. The DMA wants to make it normal for new household names to emerge in the tech industry; to “drive innovation so that smaller businesses can really make it,” as the EU’s competition chief Margrethe Vestager explained to WIRED, back in 2022. Many hope some of the new businesses that “make it” will be European. For almost every big tech service, there is a smaller homegrown equivalent: from German search engine Ecosia to French messaging app Olvid and Polish Amazon alternative Allegro. These are the companies many hope will benefit from the DMA, even if there is widespread skepticism about how effective the new rules will be at forcing the tech giants to change.

Today, US-based Epic Games said Apple had terminated its European developer account, soon after Epic announced it would take advantage of the DMA to open a new games store for iOS. Apple told WIRED that Epic was untrustworthy and Apple has the right to terminate the accounts of any of Epic's wholly owned subsidiaries following a 2021 court judgment. “Apple chose to exercise that right,” a statement provided by company spokesperson Rob Saunders said.

App Stores will be an early area of focus for DMA enforcement, Vestager said this week. But Europeans can’t expect the internet to transform overnight. In its early days, the new law’s effects will be more about the power struggles behind the curtain of the world’s biggest companies; not about making netizens’ lives easier. In fact, their online experience is likely to get messier at first. There will probably be even more website pop-ups. “This dominant position that these companies have is partially because we have been so addicted to convenience,” says Anu Bradford, a professor at Columbia Law School and author of Digital Empires: The Global Battle to Regulate Technology. The new rules will mean users have to reengage with what they want their online lives to look like, she adds. Defaults set by US corporations will no longer be chosen for them.

Instead the DMA’s objective is to remind Europeans what they traded in exchange for that convenience in the first place. The DMA is about power, not necessarily convenience. Whether Europeans will be able to remember that as their online worlds are cracked open remains to be seen.

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mostlysignssomeportents · 1 year

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Google's chatbot panic

The really remarkable thing isn’t just that Microsoft has decided that the future of search isn’t links to relevant materials, but instead lengthy, florid paragraphs written by a chatbot who happens to be a habitual liar — even more remarkable is that Google agrees.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/16/tweedledumber/#easily-spooked

Microsoft has nothing to lose. It’s spent billions on Bing, a search-engine no one voluntarily uses. Might as well try something so stupid it might just work. But why is Google, a monopolist who has a 90+% share of search worldwide, jumping off the same bridge as Microsoft?

There’s a delightful Mastodon thread about this, written by Dan Hon, where he compares the chatbot-enshittified front ends to Bing and Google to Tweedledee and Tweedledum:

https://mamot.fr/@[email protected]/109832788458972865

“At the front of the house, Alice found two curious characters, both search engines.

“‘I am Googl-E,’ said the one plastered in advertisements.

“‘And I am Bingle-Dum,’ said the other, who was the smaller of the two, and sported a pout, as to having fewer visitors and opportunity for conversation than the other.

“‘I know you,’ said Alice. ‘Are you to present me with a puzzle? Perhaps one of you tells the truth and the other lies?’

“‘Oh no,’ said Bingle-Dum.

“‘We both lie,’ added Googl-E.”

It just keeps getting better:

“‘This is truly an intolerable situation. If you both lie,’

“ — ‘And lie convincingly,’ added Bingle-Dum —

“‘Yes, thank you. If that is so, then how am I to ever trust either of you?’

“Googl-E and Bingle-Dum turned to face each other and shrugged.”

Chatbot search is a terrible idea, especially in an era in which the web is likely to fill up with vast mountains of AI bullshit, the frozen gabble of stochastic parrots:

https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3442188.3445922

Google’s chatbot strategy shouldn’t be adding more madlibs to the internet — rather, they should be figuring out how to exclude (or, at a minimum, fact-check) the confident nonsense of the spammers and SEO creeps.

And yet, Google is going all-in on chatbots, with the company CEO ordering an all-hands scramble to cram chatbots into every part of the googleverse. Why on earth is the company racing Microsoft to see who can be first to leap off the peak of inflated expectations?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gartner_hype_cycle

I just published a theory in The Atlantic, under the title “How Google Ran Out of Ideas,” where I turn to competition theory to explain Google’s sweaty insecurity, an anxiety complex that the company has been plagued by nearly since its inception:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/02/google-ai-chatbots-microsoft-bing-chatgpt/673052/

The core theory: a quarter of a century, the Google founders had one amazing idea — a better way to do search. The capital markets showered the company in money, and it hired the very best, brightest, most creative people it could find, but then it created a corporate culture that was incapable of capitalizing on their ideas.

Every single product Google made internally — except for its Hotmail clone — died. Some of those products were good, some were terrible, but it didn’t matter. Google — a company that cultivated the ballpit-in-the-lobby whimsy of a Willy Wonka factory — couldn’t “innovate” at all.

Every successful Google product except search and gmail is an acquisition: mobile, ad-tech, videos, server management, docs, calendaring, maps, you name it. The company desperately wants to be a “making things” company, but it’s actually a “buying things” company. Sure, it’s good at operationalizing and scaling products, but that’s table-stakes for any monopolist:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/06/technical-excellence-and-scale

The cognitive dissonance of a self-styled “creative genius” whose true genius is spending other people’s money to buy other people’s products and take credit for them drives people to do truly bonkers thing (as any Twitter user can attest).

Google has long exhibited this pathology. In the mid-2000s — after Google chased Yahoo into China and started censoring its search-results and collaborating on state surveillance — we used to say that the way to get Google to do something stupid and self-destructive was to get Yahoo to do it first.

This was quite a time. Yahoo was desperate and failing, a graveyard of promising acquisitions that were gutshot and left to bleed out right there on the public internet as the dueling princelings of Yahoo senior management performed a backstabbing Medici LARP that had them competing to see who could sabotage the others. Going into China was an act of desperation after the company was humiliated by Google’s vastly superior search. Watching Google copy Yahoo’s idiotic gambits was baffling.

Baffling at the time, that is. As time went by and Google slavishly copied other rivals, its pathology of insecurity revealed itself. Google repeatedly failed to make a popular “social” product, and as Facebook commanded an ever-larger share of the ad-market, Google made a full-court press to compete with it. The company made Google Plus integration a “key performance indictator” for every division, and the result was a bizarre morass of ill-starred “social” features in every Google product — products that billions of users relied on for high-stakes operations, which were suddenly festooned with “social” buttons that made no sense.

The G+ debacle was truly incredible: some G+ features and integrations were great and developed loyal followings, but these were overshadowed by the incoherent, top-down insistence of making Google a “social-first” company. When G+ collapsed, it totally imploded, and the useful parts of G+ that people had come to rely upon disappeared along with the stupid parts.

For anyone who lived through the G+ tragicomedy, Google’s pivot to Bard — a chatbot front-end for search results — is grimly familiar. It’s a real “die a hero or live long enough to become a villain moment.” Microsoft — the monopolist that was only stayed from strangling Google in its cradle by the trauma of its antitrust dragging — has transformed from a product-creation company to an acquisitions and operations company, and Google is right behind it.

Just last year, Google laid off 12,000 staffers to please a private-equity “activist investor” — in the same year, it declared a $70b stock buyback, extracting enough capital to pay those 12,000 Googlers’ salaries for the next 27 years. Google is a financial company with a sideline in adtech. It has to be: when your only successful path to growth requires access to the capital markets to fund anticompetitive acquisitions, you can’t afford to piss off the money-gods, even if you have a “dual share” structure that lets the founders outvote every other shareholder:

https://abc.xyz/investor/founders-letters/2004-ipo-letter/

ChatGPT and its imitators have all the hallmarks of a tech fad, and are truly the successor to last season’s web3 and cryptocurrency pump-and-dumps. One of the clearest and most inspiring critiques of chatbots comes from science fiction writer Ted Chiang, whose instant-classsic critique was called “ChatGPT Is a Blurry JPEG of the Web”:

https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/chatgpt-is-a-blurry-jpeg-of-the-web

Chiang points out a key difference between the output of ChatGPT and human authors: a human author’s first draft is often an original idea, badly expressed, while the best ChatGPT can hope for is a competently expressed, unoriginal idea. ChatGPT is perfectly poised to improve on the SEO copypasta that legions of low-paid workers pump out in a bid to climb the Google search results.

Speaking of Chiang’s essay in this week’s episode of the This Machine Kills podcast, Jathan Sadowski expertly punctures the ChatGPT4 hype bubble, which holds that the next version of the chatbot will be so amazing that any critiques of the current technology will be rendered obsolete:

https://soundcloud.com/thismachinekillspod/232-400-hundred-years-of-capitalism-led-directly-to-microsoft-viva-sales

Sadowski notes that OpenAI’s engineers are going to enormous lengths to ensure that the next version won’t be trained on any of the output from ChatGPT3. This is a tell: if a large language model can produce materials that are as good as human-produced text, then why can’t the output of ChatGPT3 be used to create ChatGPT4?

Sadowski has a great term to describe this problem: “Habsburg AI.” Just as royal inbreeding produced a generation of supposed supermen who were incapable of reproducing themselves, so too will feeding a new model on the exhaust stream of the last one produce an ever-worsening gyre of tightly spiraling nonsense that eventually disappears up its own asshole.

This is the last day (Feb 17) of my Australian tour for my book Chokepoint Capitalism with my co-author, Rebecca Giblin. We’ll be in Canberra at the Australian Digital Alliance Copyright Forum.

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[Image ID: Tweedledee and Tweedledum, standing at the bottom of Humpty Dumpty's wall. Dee and Dum have the logos for Google and Bing on their chests. Humpty is about to fall and is being held up by a motley collection of panicking businessmen."]

#competition #monopoly #google #china #yahiko #chatbots #generative ai #bard #chatgpt #microsoft #innovation #psychoanalysis #google plus #pluralistic

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astraltrickster · 10 months

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Thing is, AI is a nuanced topic. Most big tech advances are. I think the only one I've EVER been super close to that was almost 100% cut-and-dry was NFTs and the "metaverse" sucking ass, and even THAT...well, the former at least originated from an extremely poorly thought-out implementation of a potentially good idea (i.e., an anti-attribution loss registry to counter the damage of unsourced reposting, since convincing people outside of artist communities that YES that shit is rude as fuck BECAUSE it has the potential to be actually damaging is like talking to a wall).

There are good uses of it. There are horrible uses of it. We made the necessary breakthroughs in calculation at one of the WORST possible times, socioeconomically speaking. That doesn't mean we can unmake them. It's putting nearly every single common ethics violation in the world of tech as a whole into the spotlight, from the lack of protections against datamining to the abuse of outsourced labor in moderation work and much more. It didn't invent any of them, and in fact is BETTER about some of them than many other things we just let slide (and shouldn't). Technology marches on, in this form or any other. It changes industries and workflows. It CAN be for the better. The BOSSES always push to make it for cheaper and worse. This isn't the first time it's happened - not even in your lifetime if you didn't have to lie about your age to get here - and it will not be the last. It's just the most visible relative to its absolutely horrendous timing.

I'm in agreement with...some of the more technically-oriented circles I work with irl that it can be genuinely useful. I PERSONALLY do some hobby work in trying to make it more human-positive, for both accessibility and safety, as well as where that overlaps with just...fun. I'm in agreement with both the popular attitude among actors and commercial artists that the way corporations want to use it is absolutely fucking disgusting, and the recognition that a lot of people out there (especially on the fucking bird site) are being total fucking assholes with it. I'm in agreement with labor organizers that we need to place contractual and cultural limits on how it can and should be used. It's a complex subject!

Because of that complexity, I don't mind AT ALL if someone comes to a different conclusion about using it for small-time funsies than I do.

I DO mind when people resist the shitty usage via reactionary sentiment ("this tech is LAZY and DEGENERATE and ANYONE who uses it for ANY reason is a GREEDY ENTITLED SMOOTHBRAIN PARASITE!" - let's play "count the dogwhistles" btw!), blatant ableism ("there's NO ONE in the WORLD who's SO disabled they ACTUALLY need this to help with anything from basic communication to self-expression, or if there are it doesn't COUNT because the COMPUTER did it, not THEM!"), misinformation about how it works (e.g., the copy-paste myth - if that was how it worked ChatGPT papers wouldn't be absolutely full of fictitious citations and AI hands wouldnt look Like That, you realize this, right?), missing the forest for the trees (please do call out asshole usage of AI but not to the point of just forgetting that people were stealing other artists' WIPs to "finish" and making hoaxes and deepfakes and lean-staffing and cheating people out of credits LONG before we had this way to do it and they WILL continue to do so with OTHER new tech as well, an asshole will be an asshole no matter what tools they have; fighting the tech instead of the assholery will only let it happen again as soon as the method changes), using frameworks to fight that asshole usage that are ACTIVELY counterproductive (if it's legally declared that using your work as less than ONE BILLIONTH of my starting point, or developing a style too similar to yours, is infringing on your copyright, this will have WAY more negative impacts than positive; I sure hope the author of your favorite thing isn't the type to go full Anne Rice or JKR; plus even when ignoring the assistive usage of AI as we very much should not, GPT detectors throw a lot of false positives at non-native English speakers, so crackdowns against its usage end up hurting a lot of very vulnerable people far more than they hurt the people using it to do actual tangible harm), or just plain using it as an excuse to bully random other people who individually have about as much power to impact The Issue as dropping a soggy pea on the floor does.

...I also mind when people go full There Is No War In Ba Sing Se about it, but that's not a problem I encounter as much here on tumblr.

#tech #ai tag #current events #serious tag

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daisychainsandbowties · 1 year

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bruh what. lilith ac au??

yes so one of the neat things about assassin’s creed is that the lore contains certain magical objects called Pieces of Eden - profoundly ancient tech designed by ‘the ones who came before’, objects of immense power. SO powerful, in fact, that they were instrumental in the formation of the Catholic Church.

it’s hilarious, actually; one piece of Eden was kept underneath the Vatican, locked away where it could not tempt various religious leaders to wield it as a means of literal mind-control. sounds familiar...

the Pieces of Eden are the basis of an ancient war between two groups - the Templars, who want to secure these objects to bring order (derogatory) and civilization (aka control) to the world; and the Order of Assassins (aka the Assassin Brotherhood... or, i suppose Sisterhood), who believe that mankind should be free, and that the pieces of Eden are too powerful to rest in the hands of any human being.

the Templars, as the current state of the world abundantly suggests, are winning.

the pieces of eden also look like this

looks a lot like a little ring of metal we know and loathe?

picture this. the halo is a Piece of Eden. now, there are many different pieces of Eden (most notably there is an Apple, a Staff, a Spear, and a Sword) are one thing: POWERFUL.

they also have different kinds of powers (though, in general, every piece of Eden will follow the halo-like habit of making its bearer extremely powerful and VERY difficult to kill.)

assassin’s creed basically operates on the premise that there is a machine, called an Animus, which allows individuals to relive the genetic memories of their ancestors.

but what if the halo, specifically, allowed the its bearer to relive ANY period of history? and, as with the canon halo, extend that power somewhat to nearby people, allowing them to carry others there with them, folding an entire team seamlessly into other bodies and other lives, making the ‘treasure hunt through time’ that typifies each entry in the assassin’s creed series infinitely more efficient.

picture Lilith, in line to recieve the halo. destined for it, trained for it, genetically predisposed to it. Lilith and Beatrice following a tip-off they received from their inside agent, Dr Jillian Salvius, suggesting that the Templars have moved the halo to their base of operations in Rome.

breaking in, silent and deadly with all the ruthless grace of the Sisterhood of Assassins. quick blades darting in dark corridors, guards dropping before them, moving as one body through the corridors of Abstergo - the mega-corporation serving as the modern cover for the Templars. each door giving way before them at the distant, phantom touch of Camila.

Lilith, raised with the ridiculous skill-set of an Assassin - able to climb anything, kill anyone. an expert in swords and daggers and the archetypal Assassin weapon - the hidden blade. Lilith who has, with the aid of the Animus, relived the lives of her ancestors, dozens and dozens of Assassins - women scattered across time and the world, beautiful and terrible and steeped in blood.

Beatrice trailing second in line to her, eternally limned in her shadow, a quickstep to Lilith’s unmatched aggression. catching bodies as they fall and guarding Lilith’s back, anywhere her gaze is too direct to reach. the pair of them of course of course tangled in more ways that violence. blood on their hands and hands on each other.

Mary, who is AWOL after the Templars captured Shannon, dragging her to their base in London. Mary who, even as the opening scene unfolds, is driving cross country following the cold trail of the halo, and Shannon, towards Rome.

Ava, an orphan, plucked out of her near-death by Abstergo agents in need of a body to use without oversight. her death certificate filed away, an empty coffin put in the ground and Ava shipped from Spain to Rome. Ava whose ancestors are more auspicious than anyone had guessed, a mess of mixed Assassin and Templar lineage, of doomed love stories and crossed stars. Ava, given over to the halo, which has a tendency to burn right through people, sapping them of strength and will and sanity.

Ava who is called Subject 17, folded into the Animus with a magic circle in her back, tingling in her long-silent nerves and the tips of her fingers, not expected to survive long enough for the halo to heal her. Ava who hears whispers, as she is plunged into lives and deaths and disparate times again and again and again, waterboarded through history in a futile attempt to locate more pieces of Eden by throwing darts at a board the size of history. Ava, almost torn apart by the chaos of it, dying in every way a person can die, plunged from body to body, tragedy to tragedy. Ava with her mind held together by a presence. a ghost in the machine called Subject 16 - the previous sacrifice to the halo.

whispers in her head and they have a name. Shannon.

Beatrice and Lilith cutting through the building expecting to find an ancient treasure and unearthing, instead, a girl.

#this is kind of what i've been thinking #i mean damn the ac lore is literally tailor-made to fit as a warrior nun au #and the sexist of all time at that #wn assassin's creed au #might tap out a sample of it soon since i'm playing the games again #casper writes

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aurosoul · 2 years

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perhaps im being a luddite but all this AR VR immersive reality stuff is... kind of frightening? i know there's a lot of really good benefits to it when it comes to disability and such so it's a complex thing but man. i already feel i have too much screen in my life as is and the idea of making it even *more* immersive and having to Enter it to partake in it just... ugh

oh man no you're absolutely right to feel this way, and you're not the only one feeling it either.

addressing this fear was a huge part of what people were talking about in this space - there was an entire talk dedicated specifically to avoiding a "HYPER-REALITY"-esque future, and also for making sure people still have privacy, bodily autonomy, and free control over HOW exactly they want to interact with this new tech

the idea is that the ever-increasing amounts of screen time demanded of us are bad, and that we need to find a better way to interact with the digital world as it continues to expand... because, well....... it sure is continuing to expand.

the idealized dream I'm seeing from the 'metaverse' people is that everyone wants it to be........ an easier way of accessing digital information? a way of bringing it more seamlessly out of our screens, so that we spend less time in front of them and more time interacting with the world?

one example I saw was a minimalist AR display of a cookie recipe that made measurements hover over their related ingredients, so that you spend less time looking at a recipe on your phone and more time actually cooking. another is an example of, instead of Zoom meetings where everyone is stuck at their computers for hours, you meet in a virtual space where you can stand up, walk around, and share (virtual) things with each other by actually handing them to someone instead of using a mouse and keyboard

at the end of the day I have no idea how any of this will shake out in practice - I'm just a concept artist who's suddenly found themselves designing for these virtual worlds - but you're not wrong.

if history tells us anything it's that advertisements and corporations WILL find ways to make things worse, and that the information super highway will still have huge problems with misinfo and right-wing radicalization - BUT...... despite everything, it's still an absolute wonder that we can walk around carrying the entirety of all the world's knowledge and connection to other human beings inside our pocket. we're just still working out the kinks around the fact that our brains aren't built to process all that information at once.

ultimately, for better and worse, technology marches forward... and it's up to us as individuals to figure out the best ways to use it for good, and to protect ourselves from its negative aspects

#incessant meowing #long post #SORRY I WROTE A NOVEL I JUST HAVE A LOT OF COMPLICATED THOUGHTS TOO #as i get forced into learning more and more about the metaverse i don't want to sound either totally for it or against it #because it's given me an amazing new career in 3d concept art #where i can work standing up inside a virtual world of my own creation #with my clients inside this world WITH me giving feedback #which is just. it's unreal!! it's pure science fiction!!!!#but at the same time i KNOW the threat of looming cyberpunk dystopia #the one thing i would say as the world of the metaverse keeps coming closer #is to keep speaking up about privacy and accessibility in virtual spaces!#and to keep informed on what data is being taken from you and to protect yourself whenever possible #we are all going to have to learn tech literacy and data protection #which we should all be doing anyways because smartphones and websites and browsers are spying on us already #this shift has been happening for a long time and we are just recently hitting a crest in the wave

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thrythlind · 9 months

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TORG

Torg is probably one of the earliest seeds of my interest in genre blender settings though it was eventually cemented by Fred Perry's Gold Digger and my own fanfictions. I was able to play a few games of this back in the 90s, short run games and one-shots that didn't go very far.

The basic premise of this game was that there were two cosmic forces, one of creation and one of destruction. And the force of destruction created Darkness Devices in order to tempt people to serve its cause by using them to slowly limit and destroy possibilities until things got to a point where the cosmic force could crush it all at once.

Part of how this would work is that the Dark Lords would anchor the axioms of their realities (called "Cosms") to the level of magic, tech, social, and spiritual development that they most desired with a handful of corollary side rules unique to each reality. And once they've succeeded in shaping their reality to their desire, they would begin to go out and conquer other realities and forcing it that image as well.

If a critical mass of residents from one region came into another one with the aid of the appropriate dark powers, then the invading realm would over-write the native one. Magic or tech native to the target Cosm would fail and residents would find their minds and memories rewritten to accept their position within the new Cosm.

The ultimate goal of these villains is to achieve enough power to claim the title of "TORG" (which I've heard is an acronym based on the working title of the game system)... but of course they're a pawn for destruction seeking to break everything, them included.

The original game focused on a version of Earth that was being invaded by several other Cosms:

Aysle - A fantasy realm of D&D style magic.

Cyberpapcy - A realm of advanced cybernetics and religious oppression.

Living Land - A realm of sentient dinosaur people and prehistoric or stone age action.

New Nile - A pulpy story of 1920s superheroes, gadgeteers, occultists, and a madman who believes himself to be a pharoah.

Nippon Tech - A near future (honestly, RL 2020s) realm of corporate greed and financial oppression. And because it was the 90s, cyberninja.

Orrosh - A realm of Victorian horror and colonialist invaders. Vampires, werewolves, zombies, white supremacists.

There were later one or two other Cosms involved, including a sort of "good guy" Cosm that still came across pretty pretentious.

The world of the original game eventually fought off their invaders and the world of the more recent version, Torg Eternity, explicitly features an Earth where things didn't go near as well.

The But...

I liked the basic idea here but there were things that bothered me at the time and bother me more now.

First of all, the fact that Social development was quantified.

Cosms had 4 axioms rated from 0 to 30 that rated the development of native magic, tech, spiritual involvement, and....social development.

On the one hand, they talk about the potential of these axioms fluctuating in different places and with enough people changing entirely. But it describes changing a rating by 1 point over 10 years to be very fast, with 1 point over 500 years being more likely.

(looks pointedly at real history)

Okay.

The very idea that there is a hard cosmic law that limits society from advancing is horrific to me and I hate it. And from a game play perspective, it is actively saying "you don't get to make real substantial changes to the world" to the players.

And yes, you can ignore that for your own game, but it does represent a rather horrific impression that that is the default.

To be clear.

I'm completely onboard with horrific invaders enforcing alien thought patterns, behaviors, and even natural or supernatural laws onto people. That sort of identity theft is a thing I dip into quite a bit.

Where I find it distasteful is that this hard limit of imposition is the default nature of the setting.

You can't share cultural points across Cosms. Unless you're one of those special Storm Knights who keep their own identity when traveling to other Cosms, then you hold tight to your own native-concepts and reject other concepts on a basic, cosmic level.

Which brings me to another problem.

You can't have healthy interaction between Cosms by default beyond a handful of Storm Knight envoys.

The most healthy way for different Cosms to exist is to stay separate and never interact with each other. And yeah... separate but equal is not a thing I like to deal with.

You can't have a character go around and acquire trainings and techniques from alternate Cosms... because their most base nature will reject that other Cosm.

Say you have a bunch of heroes from different Cosms finish the campaign by kicking out the invaders and even freeing the other Cosms from their tyrants...

Well the next thing is they all get separated not to mix again.

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nachoscheesy · 2 years

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Matt Mullenweg

I recently read @photomatt post about why casual porn doesn’t work in the current era of the internet. While I understand what he is getting at, I do not agree with the way he’s framing the issue. He claims that companies are anti-porn and that the stringent rules enacted by app stores are what makes managing porn on social media sites so difficult. I think this is an oversimplification and what the real issue is.

To his first point, Credit card companies are not strictly anti-porn, they are in fact anti-illegal porn. I mean who wouldnt be? This includes things like, child porn, revenge porn, and nonconsensual porn. Companies like Mastercard, Visa, and Paypal didn’t just decide to no longer deal with Pornhub anymore, they saw reports that these things were on Pornhub and decided to pull out. More than likely to avoid, what I can only imagine to be a legal headache for all parties involved. These are also the same exact things that Tumblr was having huge problem with in 2018, instead of dedicating the resources to fixing the problem Tumblr pulled the plug on it all together. This was also something users had been telling Tumblr about for a long time, but a mix of a bunch of different issues made it impossible for them to handle it effectively internally.

Like I said I understand where Matt is coming from, but instead of acting like it’s out of everyone’s hands maybe just admit plainly that dealing with porn is a massive headache that Tumblr doesn’t have the resources to deal with right now. (Which he KINDA does at the end of his post.)

His second point is true however, Apple has been historically anti-porn for a long time. However, I think this has more to do with the fact that Apple knows how big it is and how much power it has to shape the tech landscape. That’s why Apple gets to basically do whatever it wants with anyone who wants to deal with them.

Why do Twitter and Reddit get to have adult content and still exist on the app store? Well that’s because Twitter and Reddit managed to get around Apples rules by not allowing someone to just see NSFW content without at least logging in to the service. As well as not being exclusively advertised as apps/sites for porn, although I don’t think Apple personally cares if Reddit or Twitter are on their store or not.

Matts point on a dedicated service or company does not make a lot of sense to me, because these services already exist, online and most adults would not have any issues finding it if they really wanted. The issue comes back down to content moderation and verification, this isn’t just a porn specific issue but an internet issue.

Not to mention the fact that Matt seems way to into the crypto hype that will surely bring about a magic bullet that fixes all of the online issues that come along with running an online space of any kind. but thats a post for another time.

I'm not criticizing @photomatt expertise or insight on how difficult content moderation is, let alone adult content moderation. My criticism is that he tells users to go and bang on the doors of these corporate giants to enact change. While @photomatt and @automattic have the full power in their hands to lobby themselves for these changes.

If Matt wants that crypto-utopia to come to life, he should acknowledge that the foundation for that is being built on sand. As we've seen with Meta and the rest of these services, this includes the current dumpster fire that Elon Musk has created over at Twitter. In the end I want to see Tumblr grow and be the comfy website I think its always been, but that wont happen until they pull up the rug and address the foundational issues that are leading all other sites down the drain.

#tumblr staff #tumblr app #twitter migration #follow me #follow back #tumblr related #tumblr advertising #bring the hellsite back #matt mullenweg #automattic #thought of the day #all hail elon musk #elon twitter

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venusiansilk · 1 month

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⋆˙⟢ COMPETING WITH SUPERNOVAS.

꒰ you’re on a trip to observe the aurora borealis, and it’s exactly as hard as taehyung thought it’d be. ꒱

ᴍᴅɴɪ. f!reader. non-idol, marriage au. tiny angst. fluff. slice of life. corporate, mathematician!taehyung x astronomer!wife. 1.6k. sfw. ୧ ‧₊ part of after midnight au.

another dark and cold arrival home from another long and tedious day. upon passing the threshold, taehyung sighs deeply while dejection and yearning swaddle his heart and squeeze with all the might they can muster, keeping him in a stronghold. his stomach ties itself in knots again at the remembrance of how much he misses you. taehyung sickens himself with desire and devotion. he’s walked into silence for twelve days in a row, only the sound of his entrance filling the air. he remembers how much he’s been aching to hold your left hand to feel the band of the ring he’s placed there that holds all his love, promise, and future.

all mine. that’s what you swore, but you belong to some massive, combusting star, too. it’s okay. you chase stars and i chase you. all mine. all ours.

flipping the lights on is a miserable task, he must admit. it’s bad enough to wander in and feel the emptiness mixed with the layers of his loneliness lingering behind wherever he goes. he doesn’t want to see it, too.

but the bruises on his shins remind him of the consequences for blatantly ignoring the truth. the truth is you aren’t here. it takes approximately five days and roughly twelve bruises to accept your absence and turn on the lights when he enters the home.

it’s not home without you. it’s so goddamn quiet in here. i hate it. i miss you. feel nauseous about it. your lips are the softest things i’ll ever know. i complain about your strawberry lip balm, but i miss the taste of it you leave behind. you’re the only flavor of welcome i ever want to taste again. i hate coming home to stale air. i’ve been counting the hours. i know you told me not to. you also told me i’m meticulous in everything i do. right now, all i do is miss you. meticulously. you’ve been gone for just under 306 hours. that’s what, approximately 1,101,600 seconds? i feel every single one. i keep working late because i don’t want to come home to all this liminal space. you’re right. it is creepy. are you thinking of me? the thought of you is consuming me.

taehyung’s grown accustomed to being the one who leaves for days at a time on a work excursion. working for one of the fastest-growing tech companies in the world and being its vice president now means that taehyung’s feet are routinely in and out of the skies. he’s traveled damn near everywhere in the last eight years alone. this time, though, it’s you who disappears on him to fly to iceland for two whole weeks with your colleagues and observe the aurora borealis, also known as the northern lights. while taehyung is thrilled to death that you have a job now you love and want as an observational astronomer, he’s not fond of the fact that this position will decidedly take so much of you away from him, and will likely continue to. taehyung’s life is a whirlwind of board meetings, conferences, business trips, scheduled calls, and networking events. but no matter where he goes, you’re by his side.

because time away from you is difficult. finally making his way to the little microcosm he shares with you, his heart sinks when he turns on the lights and everything around him is precisely as he left it. any room your feet meander into, it’s a guarantee your hands are busy too, picking things up on a whim and putting them down much the same.

nothing’s been touched. not a thing out of place. meticulous. just the way i like it. today, the pristineness of our microcosm means you haven’t been in it. it makes me want to make a mess of all my order just so i can pretend you have. it’s not the same, though. i grumble that i always have to tidy up after you. i won’t say that again. promise. i’ll be happy that i get to. i won’t take for granted the little things that mean you’ve made a home out of me.

the hours pass. taehyung continues to count each one, a tally mark on the wall in his brain. you said you’d call at six pm tonight, iceland time. that’s four am for him. he promises you he’ll sleep until then, but he can’t. you have to know he won’t. he’s so anxious when you’re not with him. the house is too quiet. the bed is too big. you’ve been gone long enough that your side only ever smells like him anymore.

i don’t like it. why did you agree to stay for so long? you know i don’t like sleeping alone. you know i need something to cling to at night. you know it has to be you, angel. but you’re off with your lover, aren’t you? i know. yes, i know you’re knee-deep in constellations and observations with that telescope. i’d laugh because i think you’re adorable with your little head behind an enormous lens, but i might start crying. i’ve managed not to, but i always want to.

he almost wishes you’d go back to that awful place with those awful young girls just so he knows you’ll be home to greet him with a ginger kiss upon his arrival. but he’ll never truly want that because it means your blatant unhappiness. he hasn’t seen you smile this much in about two years. he won’t say it, but it breaks his heart and he’s been jealous that the curve of your smile can’t be attributed to him. the same way he knows you won’t say it, but you’re not happy like this because you keep seeing new places; all of it’s for him, and none of it’s for you. you’re only happy at all because you’re with him.

i’m sorry. i know. i know. i keep telling myself not to be selfish, but i feel like i’m competing with supernovas. what could i give you that the celestial can’t counter tenfold? stars hold you in a way i can’t. i know you still love me; maybe not more than orion’s belt or pegasus, but more than everything else.

when his phone rings, he feels that same rush of emotion in his chest that he always does. he answers every time with no hesitation. “angel,” he breathes. you sigh contentedly. and he knows you are because he’d know the tone of your soft joy anywhere. “ah, i missed your voice, hyungie. i feel like my day is complete now.”

my day started when you left, and it has yet to end. my day has lasted over three hundred hours thus far. a new record.

“hm, is that so?” he asks, a smile tugging at his lips. “how was your day, baby? what did you do besides miss your perfect husband?” a feathery giggle. “well, i did that for most of the day, if i’m honest, but during some downtime, i managed to get some work done. i did some data compiling and organizing information. and i cleaned my telescope. what did you do besides miss me, hm?”

i knew you were with your lover; meanwhile, i did nothing else but miss you.

“day’s been a blur,” he admits sleepily. “i only remember the part where missing you was so bad i almost threw up. no joke.” you feign a worried gasp. “that sounds awful. what part of the day was that?” “coming home.” his voice is small, full of all his melancholy. he sinks into a pile of feathered pillows and satin sheets. “every day is arriving to silence. worst homecoming ever.” your voice coos gently as you speak, but underneath it is where all of your genuine concern lies. “are you okay, honey?”

if i lie, you’ll know i’m lying, but if i tell you the truth right now, it’ll dismantle my resolve. but you only deserve the truth, don’t you? yes, you only deserve the truth.

“not at all, angel. 316 hours on the nose. i’m dying without you.” you’re silent at first. he can’t begin to fathom what you might be thinking. he only hopes you aren’t angry because his brain keeps track of it even without him meaning to. then, he hears a very light sniffle. the sound and his crumbling heart make his lip quiver. he’s managed not to cry the entire time, but here you go holding the floodgates open on his tear ducts, starting as drops and quickly becoming warm streams. “oh no…angel, don’t cry. please, please, please.” he begs, and he realizes from the sound of his shaky voice that he’s already lost the battle. wiping at his eyes, he gripes. “fuck,”

you sniffle again. “sorry, i’m okay. i just…this is way harder than i thought it would be? it’ll be over soon, but this is awful.” “agreed,” the soft and broken murmur of a teary-eyed man. you seem to shake off your little burst of emotion easily, taking an audibly deep breath and rebuilding your composure instantly. he wishes he could do that. hearing his hiccups, your voice is low and tender. “only two days left, yeah?” “yeah,” he sighs. “i’m sleepy.” a groan of sheer displeasure. “you stayed up all night, didn’t you?” “no,” his voice is drowsy and croaky. “yes,” “i swear you’ll be the death of me.” you grumble.

ha! says wander woman who’s made it a game to see how many times a week she can nearly give me a stroke from all her curiosity and listlessness.

he smiles despite his woeful disposition. “i could say the same to you.”

𐙚 ‧₊ tags. @taehyungcentral. @dollsuguru. @bbearie-ful. @hellkaiserinphoenix. ৎ୭

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mariacallous · 1 year

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A strange thing happened in the eurozone economy at the end of last year. Despite widespread forecasts that the common currency area would plunge into recession and register negative growth in the last quarter of 2022, it managed to eke out a small gain of 0.1 percent. What is remarkable is not that Europe beat expectations, but that it was one small country—Ireland—whose surging economy single-handedly prevented the eurozone from slipping into the red.

Almost unbelievably, little Ireland, with a population of only 5 million, now has the economic scale to shift the growth statistics of the entire eurozone and its 343 million inhabitants. In 2022, Irish GDP growth of 12.2 percent compared to 3.5 percent in the eurozone as a whole. In absolute numbers, only Germany, France, and Italy contributed more than Ireland to eurozone GDP growth in 2021 and 2022. Ireland’s economic boom has enabled the country’s government to post a budget surplus of 1.6 percent of GDP, even as eurozone countries struggled with an average deficit of more than 3 percent.

Honestly, who wouldn’t want this luck of the Irish?

Look closely, however, and Ireland’s so-called economic miracle looks more than a little odd. The country’s growth is simultaneously both real and artificial. Much of it is driven by a handful of U.S. multinationals, which continue to route global sales and profits through their Irish operations to take advantage of Dublin’s lower business taxes. Although difficult and complex to calculate, Apple��s shifting of intellectual property assets to Ireland is estimated to have contributed half of Ireland’s miraculous 26 percent GDP growth in 2016. That bizarre fact inspired New York Times columnist Paul Krugman to ridicule Ireland’s “leprechaun economics”—and the Irish statistics office to move away from using GDP as a measure of economic growth.

Yet the surge of U.S. investment in Ireland is also real. In particular, Ireland’s role as a pharmaceuticals manufacturing hub dramatically increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. Nine out of the world’s top 10 drug companies have significant production facilities in Ireland. The U.S. State Department thinks the corporate build-out in Ireland will continue, given Ireland’s status as the only remaining English-speaking European Union country following Britain’s departure. That makes it easy for international companies to operate and enjoy barrier-free access to the EU’s single market.

It’s hard to exaggerate Ireland’s dependence on U.S. tech and pharma companies for investment and taxes. Corporate tax receipts are now the second-largest source of tax revenue (after income tax) for the Irish state: 27 percent of all tax income in 2022. The average was just 9 percent in the 38 member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 2020, the last year for which data is available. This, in turn, is fueling an unprecedented torrent of tax income for the Irish government. Corporate tax revenues were up nearly 50 percent in 2022 alone.

Just 10 multinationals—all of them U.S.-based tech and pharmaceutical companies—now pay nearly 60 percent of Ireland’s corporate tax. Directly and indirectly, U.S. multinationals employ more than 375,000 people in Ireland, approximately 15 percent of the country’s labor force. Driven by investment from the United States, foreign multinationals now account for 53 percent of all payroll taxes paid by corporate employers.

Driven by the windfall in corporate tax receipts, the Irish government’s budget surplus is expected to swell further, to 10 billion euros in 2023 and 16 billion euros in 2024. Relative to the size of the economy, this would be equivalent to a U.S. budget surplus of more than 1 trillion dollars in 2024.

The problem for Ireland is that this singular dependence exposes the country to growing risks. Take the tech sector: As multinationals like Google, Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon see their profits shrink and slash jobs worldwide, it will not only hurt the Irish economy, but deprive Dublin of tax income as well.

What’s more, the threat to Ireland’s stability from its overdependence on U.S. companies is about to be multiplied. In 2021, nearly 140 tax jurisdictions, including Ireland, agreed to a major reform of how multinationals companies will be taxed in the future. Pillar 2 of these reforms—a minimum corporate tax rate of 15 percent for large companies—is already coming into effect. In 2024, Ireland’s corporate tax rate is due to increase to 15 percent from its current level of 12.5 percent, reducing its attractiveness as a tax haven compared to other countries. The United States also approved the minimum tax plan in August 2022, despite significant private sector and political opposition.

However, it is Pillar 1 of the OECD’s reforms that will dramatically erode Ireland’s future income from corporate taxes. This reform will reallocate a share of company profits to where sales (or users) are actually located. Previously, tax liability was calculated on where the company or its subsidiary was legally based, no matter how many profits it rerouted from other parts of the world for tax-avoiding purposes. For Ireland, the consequences are obvious: U.S. multinationals operating in the EU will be forced to divide some of their sales by member state, thus significantly reducing the amount of sales and profits that can be “booked” through Ireland. This reform is due to come into force in 2024. The end of Ireland’s windfall is therefore only a matter of time.

The Irish Department of Finance estimated in January that around half of Ireland’s corporate tax receipts—$10 billion—are “transitionary” and will be lost as the new tax rules are implemented. That translates to more than 10 percent of total government spending in 2022—more than the entire Irish education budget. This is putting the Irish government on the precipice of another financial disaster, little more than a decade after it had to be bailed out of impending bankruptcy by the European Commission, European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund. That disaster left Ireland with one of the highest per capita public debt levels in the world.

Regardless of the impending financial train wreck, however, Dublin is unlikely to wake up from its American dream anytime soon. Diversifying its economy and revenue sources away from U.S. multinationals would require Ireland to shift its economic and geopolitical orientation, downgrade (in Dublin’s eyes) its deep relationship with the United States, and seek greater integration into the EU economy and its myriad rules.

That’s because Ireland’s dependence on U.S. multinationals is just another expression of the country’s affinity with the United States—the “shared heritage” referenced by U.S. presidents from John F. Kennedy to Ronald Reagan to Joe Biden. These ties to the United States long precede Dublin’s embrace of European integration and make it unlikely that Ireland will ever have the same intensity of economic, cultural, and other ties to France, Germany, or the rest of the EU.

The approaching economic and fiscal train wreck resulting from the new tax rules requires a fundamental change of mindset from Irish policymakers. Squaring the circle—holding on to its deep U.S. ties while integrating more closely with the EU to diversify its economy—means Dublin must give a little (and lose a little) to both sides. Yet Ireland’s ability to navigate this conundrum is doubtful. Even though the coming changes have been plain for all to see, Dublin’s current Trade and Investment Strategy does not contain any concrete policies to mitigate the overdependence on U.S. investment flows. Although the document acknowledges that EU market opportunities are underutilized, it again recognizes the importance “markets such as the UK and the US, which offer familiarity with language and culture.”

If there is no short-term solution to Ireland’s financial vulnerabilities, a few longer-term needs stand out. Dublin should ensure that its current budget surplus is invested wisely to help diversify its drivers of growth. One such driver would be significant increases in public investment in housing and public transport infrastructure to bring the country closer to Western European standards. Ireland’s tax base should be widened to allow for a wider distribution of income sources. For example, In 2021, Ireland gained just 5 percent of its tax receipts from property taxes, compared to more than 11 percent in both Britain and the United States.

Most importantly, Ireland must deepen its trading relationships outside the English-speaking world. Notwithstanding the country’s 50-year membership of the EU, a dearth of foreign language teaching has created a monolingual business culture, which priorities existing links with the United States over the development of new markets, both within and outside the EU. This needs to change if Ireland is to build a sustainable economic model.

Biden—whose family, like so many in the United States, has Irish roots—said in 2021 that “everything between Ireland and the United States runs deep.” This is Ireland’s economic reality today. As the corporate tax boom ebbs, Ireland should ensure that its American dream doesn’t become a recurring economic and financial nightmare.

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