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thrudgelmir2333 · 4 months

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About Phoenix Ikki

This post is partially copied from a response of mine on Reddit, but I thought I'd expand on it here on Tumblr, where I can structure my ideas better. There's some thoughts I've had about the character of Phoenix Ikki for a while that I wanted to get out there. If you ask around the Saint Seiya fan community which character is their favorite, there's a relatively solid chance they're going to answer 'Phoenix Ikki'. In fact, you might even get told Ikki 'inspired' a lot of Saint Seiya fans. He's one of those shounen symbols of 'badassary' and 'uncompromising attitudes', like Takamura from Hajime no Ippo, but also of emotional distance, like Itachi from Naruto. In a lot of ways, if you grew up with Saint Seiya characters, there's a powerful possibility you looked forward to seeing Ikki show up and beat the crap out of some villain for hurting Shun, his little brother. It was an effect intensified by how much Ikki was usually withheld from the story. The absence of Ikki in a lot of ways made you want to crave this supposed member of the protagonists to show up.

Shun himself reinforces this interest, being adoring and forgiving of Ikki and his distance in every instance. This means all the reinforcement you get as a reader/audience is that Ikki is someone you're supposed to admire, to look forward to showing up, to be an example of how 'brutal and badass but also protective' a Saint could be.

I'd like to offer an alternative point of view on all this. I think Ikki is, well, actually a bad character. I also think that his absence had more to do with that poverty of personality to his character than any kind of perceived 'coolness' to him.

Maybe I'm the one off here. Maybe I just don't identify anymore with this sort of character. If you wanna conclude that from my post, that's fair. But I wanted to ask, though, "Isn't it about time we acknowledge Ikki is... kind of a bad character? And a terrible role model for young boys? And probably a sign of things that were to come in anime fandoms, even in the early 90s?"

Pictured above; Phoenix Ikki, deeply contemplating how little effort he has to put into the story

First, let's talk some technicalities.

This is where you'll see most of what I wrote on Reddit.

First off, I'd like to establish that I think Phoenix Ikki, in technical terms, is NOT the worst Bronze Saint, but he's definitely the worst after Seiya. And also that the way some of the other Bronze Saints, mainly Shiryu, outshine Ikki as quality characters should really expose how poorly written Ikki is to more people.

People rightfully talk about how Seiya's character stopped growing after a certain early point in the story. There's no denying that. Ikki, however, as a character, doesn't trail far much behind Seiya in my opinion. This is such to the point that I got a theory that maybe somewhere in Kurumada's mind he intended to kill him off after the Black Saint Arc, or ideally against Shaka.

I believe this because all of Ikki's involvements in the story past his battle with Shaka (and perhaps some of them during the Silver Saint Arc itself) have been needless interventions that either only reinforce how his character hasn't changed from his Black Saint days or steal the spotlight away from other characters, usually Shun.

Before we continue, another important technical note, this time on action, and this one goes especially to those concerned about how can such a strong character like Ikki be 'needless'. One important thing to retain here is that action can be written in a lot of ways, which is to say SCALING OF FICTIONAL CHARACTER IS A FABRICATION YOU DERIVE FROM HOW THINGS ARE ALREADY WRITTEN and not some kind of result from a scientific analysis of inalterable story facts.

So its not that Shun needs Ikki to save him, but rather that a choice was made by a human being for Shun to be written that he needs Ikki to save him. He could have been written, instead, to do it on his own, and even then something ridiculous like winning the Japanese lottery, just to add to the triumph of, idk, beating Capella.

Sorry for the earlier caps, I just always feel I have to remind people of that important fact whenever discussing action, become some people think that the usefulness of a character is derived from fights they win. Like they're real life wrestling competitors or something. The reality is, Ikki interferes in the events he does because he's written as such and he gets the results he does because, likewise, he's also written as such. They are choices by Kurumada.

And the reality of those choices is that they are open to discussion on weather or not they caused more harm than good to the plot and its remaining characters. This goes beyond the mere antipathy aspect in Ikki; the character is flat in a CREATIVE sense, being what the author of Rurouni Kenshin called "a joker card".

This means a character designed to counter the villain's respective 'joker'. AKA, Ikki exists to not to advance the plot in important ways (slaying main villains, help friends overcome trials, add to the story message) but to occasionally show off during an episode or two to deliver the audience the red meat of a high-octane action scene against a giant ogre or something.

What does Ikki actually DO in the story?

To understand the reason why I call Ikki a 'joker card', it is important to put his character's role in review. If you do, you'll find that most of his interventions in the story don't contribute to the plot's overall progression or the development of any of the characters, including himself.

So, just to quickly sum up his role; in Sanctuary Arc, after 'sacrificing himself to defeat Shaka' (which is where Ikki's character should have come to and end) he battles Saga only to stall him so that Seiya, a worse character, can reach Athena's Statue. This is something that can easily be written around to bolster Seiya instead, or have the lesser Bronze Saint character group that had just rejoined the story take on (instead of sitting back 'guarding Saori'). Ikki then contributes to a combination attack against Saga, but its mostly done by lending his Cosmos to Seiya, which means in terms of a physical measurable character choice, it's too abstract a gesture to feel emotionally impactful.

Yes, that's all he does in Sanctuary after Shaka. He then fucks off cause he's too cool to hang with his little brother and his friends. Moving on.

He comes back in Poseidon to show off to Caça, saving Shun, Hyoga and Seiya's life from him. The battle climaxes with Ikki defeating Caça but declaring that "Caça would have won if he had used an illusion of Esmeralda instead". It sounds touching, until you realise that it shows how Ikki is STILL not over Esmeralda, this despite his redemption arc. This is because, without that permanent grief, Ikki has no good reason to justify being away from everyone else other than just that he's an anti-social douchebag. Then Ikki, again, contributes nothing to the battle with Kanon and Poseidon that Shun couldn't have been written to do on his own. All of his involvements are in Shun's presence and taking away opportunities from the story to write Shun heroically.

And then Ikki fucks off again after posing for the arc ending picture.

Notice how, once again, Ikki's appearance is entirely predicated on taking action away from the main characters against a villain written to be particularly dangerous. Caça and Kanon act as the Poseidon Arc's joker cards; characters designed to give the cast a big giant obstacle to look cool overcoming, except it's really all fed to Ikki instead, who looks cool doing it but otherwise does nothing in the plot.

Finally, he stays away from Hades for the most part, thankfully, only to then show up to get the story rid of Aiacos (which was written to the point of being a non-character at the time, just a big Judge Joker) and have a fruitless battle against a Hades-Possessed Shun that ONCE AGAIN is all about drawing tears from the audience about how Ikki can't get over himself and do his job.

It's Saori, the character EVERYONE calls useless, that actually saves Shun, not Ikki. If Saori is a "useless", like everyone always says, what does this make of Ikki?

Oh, and then Ikki returns in Elysium for one final coolness shot; he takes a blow from Thanatos so that the story can reinforce the idea of "Oh, no, trust me guys, Ikki is TOTALLY special. Thanatos says so. Cause he took a hit and wasn't written to just fall over."

And then the story ends with him contributing to another abstract combination attack, instead of making any character choices. We don't even get a personal confrontation between him and Hades for, you know, HAVING POSSESSED HIS PRECIOUS LITTLE BROTHER THAT IKKI IS SO MOTIVATED FOR.

Oh, and guess what, thanks to Next Dimension, we know that after all this, with Seiya crippled and Sanctuary in ruins, Ikki fucks off yet again, cause apparently nearly losing Shun to an evil God taught him nothing about the need to stay by his loved ones.

The Terribleness of Ikki

I don't know if you've noticed by now, but all Ikki ever seems to do is pop in front in the camera, talk about how cool he is, and then whine about how "Death Queen Island was SO hard" until he Genma-Kens someone. And then fucking off.

Does he have a life? Can we imagine that he goes to a bar or something to drink his sorrows, or works in a farm like Shiryu, when not fighting a Holy War? Or does he just stalk Shun, looking for opportunities to swoop in and look like the big pathetic attention-needing loser emo older brother that he really is?

It's almost like the character doesn't exist for any other reason other than to show up and look cool, like a decoration. Almost as if, bear with me, the story of Saint Seiya didn't really have anything planned for him past a certain point, so they couldn't give him any meaningful contributions to the story.

Meanwhile, just to compare, Shiryu has a whole character arc about overcoming his crippling blindness, which he manages to do:

A) Without using it as a prop-trauma for how cool he is;

B) Without pushing away his friends;

C) Without neglecting his duty as a Saint;

D) Without disrespecting all the struggles everyone else go through;

E) And without making it the sole defining characteristic of his personality, unlike Ikki "My-girlfriend-is-dead" Kido;

Which is frankly hilarious considering that the reason Ikki told off Seiya early in the story and left the group to be on his own was because, I quote "he doesn't work well in a team", cause he's such a hardass, right?

Sorry, Shiryu. You had that whole 'character development' thing going, but look how cool I look.

Yeah, well, everyone in Seiya's team does a better job at being a Saint than he does, so maybe Seiya was on to something when he almost punched Ikki that night for saying such a dumb thing. This, of course, without going into all the things Hyoga and Shun also go through to show upstanding and emotionally strong they can be. I only mention Shiryu because if I talked about them as well, I'd be writing this post all day.

So you might be asking "That can't be it, right? You have to be acting reductive, Thrud. This can't be the extenct of such an influential character's contribution?"

No, seriously, it really is. Ikki never grows past his distant, traumatised self, he never learns to overcome his pain and personality problems and all of his contributions to the story's challenges is to act as the sleeping giant behind Shun's smiley face.

We're pretty much at the end stretch of ND, and Ikki is YET to show signs of change. He's just done a bit of fighting and hasnt had any friendly interactions with anyone. It's 2024 and Ikki is STILL a giant asshole.

Even the thing he's most beloved for, his contribution to action, ultimately falls flat in story terms because most of the antagonists he takes on, with the exception of Shaka, are written to be just temporary obstacles to the story (like Aiacos) or are people Ikki saves Shun from (like Caça). Shaka has a whole thing involving challenging the Bronze Saints conceptions of evil, and in the manga he even has his manipulation of Ikki, but everyone else Ikki defeats look like they were written in just so that Ikki could have someone to look cool beating on.

Which is to say you could probably envision a version of Saint Seiya WITHOUT Ikki, and you wouldn't lose that much, story wise.

So why is Ikki so beloved? What is going on here?

Well, because simply put, the fandom identifies with how macho and action-oriented he portrays himself. They like him BECAUSE he's an anti-social prick who tells you "You can replace having healthy emotional development by just being a badass". And to some people, especially in shounen circles, that's the ultimate power fantasy, giving you a bigger trip than being reincarnated as the most overleveled slime demon princess.

But don't take my word for it, peruse the internet yourself and try to find someone defending him who doesn't talk about how "badass" he is.

The fact is, not just in anime but in media in general, a lot of people love identifying with assholes who put down everyone else's contributions to the group, act like they are above it all and fall back on a fantasy that "they don't need anyone" and "are secretly the best". They reinforce the idea you don't have to put in effort to make others like you, because you can just be violent and dismissive and that's somehow automatically worthy of admiration.

Yet, put anyone problem in the story that cant be solved with punching, or put anything too complicated in the story to solve with a Genma Ken, like Hades' possession and Poseidon about to kill Seiya at the Main Breadwinner, and chances are Ikki won't know what to do about it. His contribution will be to put a strong face about how he wishes he had a way to fix it, but what a shame, this will just be "another trauma to add to the pile, poor Ikki"

There are terms for these kinds of role models that teach you to dismiss emotional problems, that teach you to admire those who see their self-imposed solitude as a curse, or even strength.

They're called sigmas. You know, those assholes infesting male media who blame everyone else for their problems and think mysoginy is super cool? And look at that, people LOVE how Ikki told Pandora "he ain't feminist like Seiya and WOULD hit her if she stood in his way". What a badass! Ikki isn't gonna let this goth girl stand in the way of him... failing to save Shun anyway. Wow!

So cool, guys, right? Right?

This is where my point just devolves into a rant.

Ikki isn't just one of the worst Bronze Saint characters. He is, in fact, a terrible character just in general, who gets by on having a cool power suit and reinforcing his audience's pre-conceived notions about the world. Ikki teaches you from a young age that your problems are to be dug deep down, only to be brought up to shield yourself from criticism.

His staleness ends up rivaling Seiya's, and only fails to meet it cause Seiya's case is so comically bad. Ikki happens to make a good Bronze Saint action figure, so he remains popular.

But unfortunately his influence casts a long shadow. Saint Seiya isn't nearly as popular as it used to be, but there are tons of storytellers and story followers that have been influenced by him as a character. Bleach, by Tite Kubo, drew heavily from Saint Seiya in not just story telling, but story structure and characters.

Who do you think Byakuya, Rukia's stoic, overpowered older brother is modeled after, my lovelies? And look at that, he's just as overrated as Ikki is, to the point the author didn't have the courage to truly kill him off in his final story arc, even though his arc was done and done.

Rukia: Nissan, there's some weird guys in armor staring at us over there. Byakuya: Don't pay attention, Rukia, those are just the characters our author subconsciously based us off from. Just focus on your sand scuplture of how pretty I am.

And honestly, it's tiring to see people my own age still thinking and saying that the pinnacle of character design and development is characters like Ikki, and the long trail of 'stoic badasses' he has left behind.

I don't respect this kind of anti-social glorification any more. You might even say I think it's toxic. Obviously Ikki is just a character, a bunch of ink on paper, but when you take a step back and you look at the characters that have copied him, or the legions of people online making unhinged rants about 'strong masculinity' that would think Ikki IS inspiring (especially when he slaps the hell out of Pandora), and then you combine it with the 'hate' directed at the weak characters? Then he becomes more than that.

I just think that characters like Ikki make people miss the point of stories like Saint Seiya. And if you have a character that makes you miss the point of the story, who just stick around because their toys sell?

Then they're not good characters. Not in my opinion, anyways.

#saint seiya #los caballeros del zodiaco #os cavaleiros do zodiaco #phoenix ikki

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transformers-platonic · 10 months

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Decepticons First Impression of Humans: TFP

Like I promised, these are the Decepticons first impression of humans as a species. The same format will apply where I will say what the impression and why. For the sake of this post, Predaking will be included as a Decepticon even though he left. Let me know if I missed any, I will admit that I’m more of a fan of the Autobots, so I may have missed a Decepticon. I won’t include vehicons as it’s shown they have different attitudes and I can’t go though every scene to point out every vehicon.

Megatron

- He saw humans as weak annoyances

- Why I think that; He seems to be dismissive of them by how he insults Raf when he was injured by Dark Energon

Starscream

- He finds them weird and weak, though useful at times

- Why I think that; despite clearly seeing them as weak by how he taunts Miko and Agent Fowler, he is more open to the idea of working with them than Megatron

Soundwave

- He finds them interesting

- Why I think this; he did take a picture of Jack, Miko and Raf showing he finds their involvement with the Autobots important and being so scientifically minded, he likely would be curious about a species so different than he is

Shockwave

- He would also find them interesting but doesn’t see them as individuals

- Why I think this; though he doesn’t interact much with humans, but with his sientific mind, he’d likely find the organic elements of humanity interesting for his experiments

Knockout

- He actually probably finds humans interesting

- Why I think this; he was interested in taunting with June and Agent Fowler when he captured them and enjoys racing with humans

Dreadwing

- He has a lot of respect for humans

- Why I think this; his sense of honor would make him likely to respect life and he’d notice how the humans act

Skyquake

- Even if he is curious about humans, he would never admit it due to wanting to impress Megatron

- Why I think this; Due to how close he with with Dreadwing, I’m guessing they have similar views to life (Though this isn’t always the case, I’m guessing from limited information) but he would want to impress Megatron and wouldn’t say anything questioning his views

Airachnid

- She’s interested in humans as a species, but doesn’t see individual value

- Why I think this; of course the episode “Predatory” was a major source of information but also she does enjoy working with the humans when it suits her needs

Hardshell

- He likely sees humans as just another species, nothing more but nothing less

- Why I think this; we see that insecticons are looked down on by the other cybertronians so they may not have been raised looking down on another group and likely see humans as just another species

Predaking

- He likely sees humans as weak

- Why I think this; it’s clear that power is a big thing with predacons and humans do not have the physical strength that cybertronaians have

#transformers #tfp #transformers prime #maccadam #decepticons #megatron #starscream #shockwave #soundwave #knockout #dreadwing #skyquake #airachnid #hardshell #predaking

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sparklingself · 1 year

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Hey! I wanted to ask if you could do an in depth explanation on James Jani’s video on ‘debunking’ manifesting! I’d love to hear your thoughts and opinions!

his video is debunking the law of attraction. and his main point is that there is no actual scientific proof of thoughts and feelings having “vibrations”, it creates toxic beliefs (toxic positivity etc) and there isn’t actually any proof that the things that happen in your life are related to the thoughts you think.

i don’t ever talk about “energy” or “vibrations”. it is obviously pseudoscience. “energy” is just an abstract enough term to mark it as the basis of why thought creates. if you’ve taken basic chemistry or physics then you can find plenty of examples why this is all contradicting.

the basis on which i am practicing the law of assumption is not based on “energy”. mine is a concept that can’t be debunked by empirical science. consciousness is the only reality is a philosophy. it’s a way to view life. it’s not claiming to be scientific. why consciousness is the only reality is because you can only experience life through your consciousness. for you, only consciousness exists. you cannot access anyone else’s experience because you can only access your own consciousness. even if you could access someone else’s experience then it would still be your experience because you’d be experiencing it through your own consciousness. therefore, for you, all there is is your own consciousness. therefore consciousness creates. because if there’s only your consciousness then only your consciousness can create.

i think positivity is a crucial part of the law of assumption. the attitude you have towards life are reflected on the outside. i agree that you can’t just tell people “just smile!”. obviously you shouldn’t ignore your emotions because they tell you a lot about yourself and any deeper attitudes about your life. but as consciousness is the only reality, all thoughts, feelings, problems, desires and assumptions are subordinate to you. acknowledging this can help you deal with your emotions. that is not toxic positivity. that is letting yourself be happy.

from a law of attraction perspective i could definitely wrongly associate what happens on the outside with my feelings and thoughts. my success and failure could be related to something else. but from the law of assumption perspective, however, i am leaning on a purely theoretical philosophy. you cannot debunk that you are aware right now and you have a consciousness. you cannot debunk that you experience things because you are conscious. this is common intuitive knowledge. so consciousness being the only reality is just a perspective you can take on life, something you can acknowledge if you want to, because it isn’t debunkable from an empirical science point of view.

#ask #law of assumption

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the-adventures-of-lydia-brown · 5 days

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what have you witnessed of the dead frenchmen that you have met? what are your opinions on them?

Hmm, let me think...

I met Monsieur Bory first and I found him most agreeable. I can relate to his curiosity and scientific excitement very much. I wish him nothing but the best of luck in his future endeavours.

... Marshal Soult, the Duke of Dalmatia. As proud as he is competent, and twice as intimidating. Honestly, I was a bit afraid he'd just send me away as fast as I came when I announced I could provide musical support, especially as I wasn't exactly sure about the specifics myself. I have to say, I was really relieved that my assumption regarding this realm proved correct and my presence was actually helpful. I can't imagine how his aides maintain their cheerful attitude and continue to get into trouble occasionally... But then again, maybe I'm the one who's too easily affected by the expectations and demands of those around me...

I cannot leave out the one who stood up for me in the above-mentioned situation, Marshal Lannes.

Steady as a wall of stone, ever the shoulder to lean on (- even stand on. From this point of view, he truly is a giant -)

I really hope he has someone to share his troubles with, if or when they are too much for one man to take, I hope he has someone who truly understands him.

Someone not unlike General Duroc, the Duke of Frioul. But he, too, would and did tear himself apart to make sure everything goes smoothly and no-one else gets hurt. He lays so much weight on his shoulders - shoulders that, when last I left him, didn't even have the corresponding limbs attached. He deserves his rest. His value does not only lie in his silent, often thankless endeavours.

Thus we get to the King of Naples, to Marshal Joachim Murat, whom I didn't have the chance to meet until the mission was over. His reputation preceded him to me and is quite correct. Sparkling, flamboyant and a free spirit, he seems very wholehearted about all he does. I'm... really glad he didn't take offence when I... yelled at him. I suppose when you're accustomed to throwing yourself into danger, you inevitably tend to get a little more casual with potential hazards...

Now we get to the people who aren't exactly frenchmen and those I haven't exactly met.

First of them, the Queen of Naples, Caroline Murat. A formidable lady, confident and able to sway many situations the way she wants. But I think most often what she wants is simply whatever's best for the people she loves.

Then Louise Soult, who, when I saw her, was taking care of little Helene. She looked really proficient. I must admit the responsibility of taking care of a child intimidates me a little personally - one must have empathy, attention, think strategically and often outside the box! But little Helene did seem to be a darling, definitely taking after Duroc in her cheerful nature...

Which brings me to the last person, one I haven't exactly met, but one I can still claim to know something about - Marshal Bessières, the Duke of Istria. Reserved, passionate, sociable, reclusive, immaculate, flawed - quite aware that the world is a stage, ready and eager to play his role. To have one's demons manifest so physically... I can imagine he must have squashed them under his heel whenever they threatened to rear their heads, unsure where he can let them out, when he can be fully himself, ever vigilant, ever cautious.

I do hope one day he realises many of the eyes that regard him are much kinder on him than he thinks, at least here, in this afterworld.

I would ask you one thing, my friend. Do not actively bring this letter to anyone's attention, especially not the ones mentioned here. If they find out, they find out - I have nothing to truly hide, but still... these are just my incomplete, flawed, biased impressions. None of them are set in stone and the less words I can be held to, the better.

Take care,

Lydia

#lydia answers #cadmusfly #napoleonic roleplay scene #lydia roleplays

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religion-is-a-mental-illness · 2 months

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By: David Millard Haskell

Published: Feb 15, 2024

Almost two months ago, Tesla CEO and Twitter (now X) owner Elon Musk, made critical statements on X about the field of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). In a post that’s now been viewed nearly 36 million times, Musk stated “DEI must DIE. The point was to end discrimination, not replace it with different discrimination.”

Recently, Musk showed he was willing to do his part to hasten DEI’s demise. In its official filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Tesla did a clean sweep of DEI language and references to DEI initiatives. The world’s largest electric vehicle manufacturer is now DEI-free.

Musk’s comment and related actions reflect a growing consensus that DEI ideology and instruction—educational materials steeped in critical social justice and offered as mandatory training by most corporations, educational systems and government agencies—does not work.

That is, it fails to deliver on its promise to reduce prejudice and produce greater harmony among groups. Ironically, as Musk observes, it appears to promote the divisive concept popularized by self-proclaimed “anti-racism” scholar and DEI guru, Ibram X. Kendi, that “the only solution to past discrimination is present discrimination.”

In the US, several high-profile controversies have further solidified the connection between questionable concepts (like Kendi’s) promoted in DEI training and reverse discrimination against Caucasians as well as academically successful Asians, and Israel-supporting Jews.

There have been similar DEI-influenced controversies in Canada. The suicide of Toronto public school principal Richard Bilkszto awakened many to the destructive nature of this caustic curriculum. When announcing his death, Bilkszto’s lawyer traced his deteriorating mental health and ultimate demise to a series of diversity, equity and inclusion workshops he had attended. (The allegations have not yet been proven in court.)

Recordings show that Bilkszto was subjected to repeat harassment and humiliation based on his skin colour after he politely questioned the DEI trainer about one of her claims.

Shortly after Bilkszto’s death in July of 2023, the trainer in question, Kiki Ojo-Thompson, released a statement on the website of her consulting company, the KOJO Institute. It said: “This incident is being weaponized to discredit and suppress the work of everyone committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion” which is “building a better society for everyone.”

But is it true that the concepts and training of DEI builds “a better society for everyone?”

This was a question that the Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy asked me to answer. To do that I examined the findings of the most significant DEI studies from recent decades published in top social scientific journals like the Annual Review of Psychology, Anthropology Now, Journal of Experimental Psychology, Psychological Science, and Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Authors of the reviewed literature are from various universities including Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Michigan, Syracuse, Aberdeen and others.

What the research shows is surprising—for some. For example, claims that “DEI works!” are not supported; multiple meta-analyses of hundreds of studies could not discern any clear evidence that DEI instruction changes people’s attitudes for the better.

In one particularly damning analysis, the researchers concluded “Implementation of DT [Diversity Training] has clearly outpaced the available evidence that such programs are effective in achieving their goals.”

On the other hand, the research provides clear proof: DEI instruction can activate and even increase bigotry among participants.

You’d think that such a conclusion would cause our corporate, academic, and political leaders to immediately withdraw the millions they’re spending on DEI programs and DEI staff. But old habits die hard, especially when those enforcing the habits have to admit that they’ve been hoodwinked.

The practice of blood-letting lasted more than one thousand years and only began to fall out of fashion in the mid-1800s when a Parisian physician, Pierre Louis, finally decided to measure patient outcomes. To his surprise, the application of leeches to a person’s back or the cutting and draining of the vein at their elbow didn’t do anything positive and could make matters worse.

We now can say the same about DEI.

History is riddled with instances of scholarship exposed as snake oil. Let’s learn our lesson: In the absence of evidence, you need to throw out the leeches.

David Millard Haskell is the author of “What DEI research concludes about diversity training: It is divisive, counter-productive, and unnecessary.” He is a professor and researcher at Wilfrid Laurier University and a Senior Fellow with the Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy.

By: David Millard Haskell

Published: Feb 12, 2024

Introduction

In July 2023, public school principal Richard Bilkszto killed himself. When announcing his death, Bilkszto’s lawyer traced his deteriorating mental health and ultimate demise to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) workshops his school board required him to attend.1 Recordings show that he was harassed and humiliated by the DEI trainer for questioning one of her claims.2

A growing number of high-profile cases suggest that diversity workshops and their supporting materials regularly promote questionable claims—particularly about the overarching, malicious character of the majority population.3 Similarly, hostility toward those who challenge DEI claims is part of the pattern.4 In Canada, students who challenge claims have been punished or expelled5; employees have been suspended.6 One whistleblower who leaked DEI training session material maligning the majority population lost his employment.7

While the hostility Bilszto was subjected to during his DEI training is not unusual, his extreme response to it is an outlier. But it also sounds an alarm. It draws our attention to the potentially negative nature of this instruction that is now ubiquitously conducted— usually as a mandatory exercise—in most corporations, educational systems, and government agencies.

The DEI training that Bilkszto attended focused heavily on race; this is typical. While DEI instruction can be as varied as it is pervasive, so-called “anti-racism education” tends to get the most attention during workshops.

Supporters justify DEI training—in particular, the “anti-racist” variety—with the argument that Canada, and Western nations generally, are systemically racist. The logic is this: the medicine must be applied everywhere because the disease is everywhere.

Specifically, DEI advocates assert that discrimination against minorities, while not explicit, is embedded in society’s institutions, and therefore leads to disparities. They hold up any difference in outcomes between the country’s majority and minority populations— at least when they skew negatively for the minority—as obvious proof of systemic racism.8

However, a rudimentary understanding of statistical analysis leads to the conclusion that it is in fact not “obvious” that differences in outcomes between racial and ethnic cohorts are evidence of racism; correlation does not equal causation. In fact, in his recent Reality Check on systemic racism claims in Canada, the Aristotle Foundation’s Matthew Lau evaluates the empirical data and comes to this conclusion:

If the typical anti-racism activist in Canada today is looking for widespread institutional or systemic racism… they will not find it. …Moreover, the data on disparities in income, educational attainment, occupational outcomes, and public school test scores show that, on average, Asians are doing better than the white population.9

Operating under the assumption that society is overrun with intolerance, the expressed goal in DEI workshops is to generate harmony amongst diverse populations. To that end, independent consultants or in-house DEI staff lead participants through a curriculum focusing on such concepts as implicit bias, white privilege, and micro-aggressions.

With reference to the existing scholarship, this Reality Check investigates whether diversity, equity, and inclusion instruction actually leads to greater harmony and tolerance—or to the opposite. As we will see, the national and international research10 shows there is often a disconnect between the evidence and the claims of DEI advocates. (See the appendix table for a short summary of the literature on DEI instruction.)

Diversity training in practice: Aggressive, and justified by circular “proofs”

To “prove” the effectiveness of DEI instruction, proponents often point to surveys conducted before and after workshops that show, following training, participants are much more likely to articulate answers that align with the pro-DEI ideas. That is to say, someone who takes the training can, afterwards, recite what they were told. In these testimonials it is seldom mentioned that for many participants job security and career advancement is contingent on giving the “right” answers.11

This type of methodology has drawn criticism and has proven to be unreliable. In a 2022 article, after reviewing the scholarly literature on DEI instruction, psychological researchers Patricia Devine and Tory Ash concluded that scholars of diversity training “too often use proxy measures for success that are far removed from the types of consequential outcomes that reflect the purported goals of such trainings.”12

A disconnect between DEI claims and DEI outcomes: A look at the literature

Despite criticism of their methods, proponents of DEI instruction continue to assert that it is effective. “Effective,” for them, means more than just reciting talking points from a workshop, they claim that their programs actually change behaviour. Websites and public documents from independent DEI consultants and in-house DEI office staff promise that because of their instruction, workplace harmony, productivity, and collaboration across groups will increase, discrimination will be reduced, and bias and bigotry will be lessened.13

However, the research does not support claims of behavioural change. For example, in their 2018 article “Why Doesn’t Diversity Training Work?” published in Anthropology Now, Harvard Sociologist Frank Dobbin and colleague Alexandra Kalev observed:

Nearly all Fortune 500 companies do training, and two thirds of colleges and universities have training for faculty according to our 2016 survey of 670 schools. Most also put freshmen through some sort of diversity session as part of orientation. Yet hundreds of studies dating back to the 1930s suggest that antibias training does not reduce bias, alter behaviour or change the workplace.14 Supporting Dobbin and Kalev’s observation, numerous systematic reviews and meta-analyses—an advanced research method that combines the data of multiple studies to identify overall trends—have determined that the ability of DEI training to elevate harmony and/or decrease prejudice (in any lasting way) is undetectable or negligible.15 Those systematic reviews and meta-analyses are cited in this paper’s endnotes; however, for the purpose of illustration, the key findings of some of the most significant and representative works are discussed below.

In a review of all available research between 2003 and 2008 focusing on the impact of DEI programs, Elizabeth Paluck, then at Harvard and now at Princeton, and Donald Green at Yale generated a sample of 985 studies. After aggregate, statistical assessment they concluded:

… the causal effects of many widespread prejudice-reduction interventions, such as workplace diversity training and media campaigns, remain unknown… Due to weaknesses in the internal and external validity of existing research, the literature does not reveal whether, when, and why interventions reduce prejudice in the world.16

Updating her research in 2021 with a second meta-analysis of over 400 current studies, Paluck and colleagues again found little evidence that instruction in diversity, equity, and inclusion works to decrease prejudice. They begin by stating: “Although these studies report optimistic conclusions, we identify troubling indications of publication bias that may exaggerate effects.”17

They then clarify what they mean by “exaggerate effects.” When examined through the lens of their rigorous methodology, Paluck and team found that the effect size of diversity-type training is near zero. This is of consequence because effect size measures the difference between those who participated in the training and those who did not. DEI proponents say their training makes a difference; the research disagrees. Importantly, the effect size (minimal as it was) decreased as the academic rigour of the study increased (e.g., as the sample size became larger).18

In their 2022 meta-analysis, Divine and Ash uphold the findings of Paluck and others writing:

Our primary conclusion following our review of the recent literature echoes that of scholars who conducted reviews of the DT [Diversity Training] literature in the past. Despite multidisciplinary endorsement of the practice of DT, we are far from being able to derive clear and decisive conclusions about what fosters inclusivity and promotes diversity within organizations. Implementation of DT has clearly outpaced the available evidence that such programs are effective in achieving their goals.19

Contributing to the muted outcomes of DEI programs, the meta-analyses repeatedly observe that even when diversity-type training seems to produce a measurable, positive effect, that effect tends not be enduring. Negative stereotypes and prejudices that appear to decrease immediately following a DEI workshop typically re-emerge when evaluated a few weeks or months later.20

DEI does have an impact… but it’s not positive

While the “good” of DEI training remains elusive, the harms associated with such instruction are less equivocal.

DEI instruction has been shown to increase prejudice and activate bigotry among participants by bringing existing stereotypes to the top of their minds or by implanting new biases they had not previously held. Reviewing the related findings of past research, Dobbin and Kalev state: “Field and laboratory studies find that asking people to suppress stereotypes tends to reinforce them—making them more cognitively accessible to people.”21

For example, in a laboratory setting, a University of Toronto research team led by Lisa Legault (now at Clarkson University) determined that race-focused DEI campaigns that exert strong pressure on people to be non-prejudiced backfired, yielding heightened levels of bigotry.22

Similarly, for their landmark paper “Out of mind but back in sight: Stereotypes on the rebound,” the University of Aberdeen’s Neil Macrae and colleagues conducted experiments measuring the outcomes of DEI-type training that, like Legault et al., asked participants to reject prejudicial stereotypes. They confirmed that in trying to suppress bigotry, DEI-type training can activate it:

Indeed, this work suggests that when people attempt to suppress unwanted thoughts, these thoughts are likely to subsequently reappear with even greater insistence than if they had never been suppressed (i.e., a “rebound” effect). … The results provide strong support for the existence of this effect… stereotype suppressors [those told to suppress their bias] responded more pejoratively to a stereotyped target on a range of dependent measures.23

Simply put, numerous studies show that when DEI-type workshop leaders instruct participants to suppress their biases—be they existing or newly implanted—many will cling to them more tightly and mentally generate additional justifications for their presence.24

The language and practice of division: DEI’s inequitable treatment and impact

While DEI-type instruction can activate prejudice in individuals of any race, in its ability to produce feelings of isolation and demoralization, it has a singular effect on the majority population.25 In his article “Diversity-related training: What is it good for?” Columbia University sociologist and research fellow Musa al-Gharbi summarizes the findings on that phenomenon:

Diversity-related training programs often depict people from historically marginalized and disenfranchised groups as important and worthwhile, celebrating their heritage and culture, while criticizing the dominant culture as fundamentally depraved (racist, sexist, sadistic, etc.) … In short, there is a clear double-standard in many of these programs… The result is that many members from the dominant group walk away from the training believing that themselves, their culture, their perspectives and interests are not valued at the institution—certainly not as much as those of minority team members—reducing their morale and productivity. … The training also leads many to believe that they have to “walk on eggshells” when engaging with members of minority populations…. As a result, members of the dominant group become less likely to try to build relationships or collaborate with people from minority populations.26

Illustrating al-Gharbi’s point that DEI instruction can lead participants to perceive the majority population less sympathetically, researcher Erin Cooley at New York’s Colgate University and her team found that teaching students about white privilege, a core component of the DEI curriculum, does not make them feel more compassion toward poor people of colour but can “reduce sympathy [and] increase blame… for White people struggling with poverty.”27

To al-Gharbi’s point that such instruction hinders unity, a 2022 study from the University of Michigan analyzed online discussions and found that mention of white privilege made even previously “supportive whites” less supportive of racially progressive policies, less engaged in group discussions, and “led to less constructive responses from whites and non-whites.”28

While the Caucasian majority is typically the focus of contempt in DEI instruction, leaving them feeling isolated and demoralized, increasingly participants of Asian ethnicity are also being targeted. In achieving, on average, greater salary and educational outcomes than the majority population (as Matthew “DEI instruction has been shown to increase prejudice and activate bigotry among participants by bringing existing stereotypes to the top of their minds or by implanting new biases they had not previously held.” What DEI research concludes about diversity training Lau showed in his Reality Check),29 this community presents a problem to the major claim of DEI instruction that skin colour or ethnicity matters most for success.

The solution that some DEI advocates have adopted is to deny that Asians qualify as visible minorities. They claim that having outcomes similar to the majority population puts one in the majority population and excludes one from being a “person of colour.”30 Borrowing ideas from academic race studies,31 some DEI proponents have begun to refer to Asians as “white adjacent” (or near white) and have accused them of perpetuating “white supremacy.”32 On the extreme end, certain school boards in the United States have gone so far as to remove the category “Asian” from student profiles, lumping anyone of Asian ancestry into the “White” category.33

Beyond denying minority status to those of Asian ancestry, the current trend among DEI consultants and departments is to weight the scales against them (a move reminiscent of the institutional racism they faced in some Western countries during the 19th and early 20th century34). Nowhere has this been more obvious than in college admissions in the US. Striking evidence shows that, for the benefit of diversity and inclusion, Asian students are being excluded from some of America’s most elite universities.35

Specifically, submissions before the US Supreme Court disclosed that when applying to Harvard, the University of North Carolina, and other universities, students of Asian descent are required to hold entrance exam scores “450 points higher than black [students]… to have the same chance of admission.”36 Thus, out of a possible score of 1600 for combined math and verbal skills on the SAT, Asian students need to be nearly perfect.37

Such universities justify their unequal standards for admission by citing their commitment to a core notion of DEI instruction: “Diversity is our strength.” They note that without intervention, the proportion of Asian students would skyrocket leaving less room for other visible minorities. That is, there would be “diversity” but not the right type of diversity. Therefore, to achieve the right outcomes, criteria other than academic merit need to be implemented.38

In the US, these unequal standards have been successfully challenged. In summer of 2023, citing violations of America’s Fourteenth Amendment and federal civil rights law, the Supreme Court ruled that universities cannot discriminate by race when making admission decisions.39

Canada has no such legislation; in fact, our Charter of Rights and Freedoms40 and our human rights laws41 allow for discrimination against the majority population. This constitutional allowance has now resulted in employment postings that, in the name of DEI, explicitly promote reverse or “recycled racism.”42

Conclusion

While job candidates not categorized as a minority are increasingly prevented from applying for certain employment openings, the research shows that a reputation for promoting DEI can more generally affect job applications to an organization. Specifically, findings reveal that some Caucasian candidates perceive organizations that heavily promote messages of diversity and inclusion as potentially discriminatory work environments.43

DEI’s negative perception extends beyond potential job candidates. Two-thirds of human resource specialists—those in charge of overseeing DEI initiatives—report that diversity training does not have positive effects.44 Interestingly, both the research into DEI and the majority of those involved in such training have arrived at the same conclusion: when it comes to harmony and tolerance, DEI does not make things better, but it can make things worse.

It's time to start talking about DEI the same way we talk about homeopathy. It's fake, it's unscientific, it's not based on evidence, and not only doesn't work, it makes things worse.

In the case of DEI, this is not a bug, it's a feature.

Marx was frustrated that he could not get the proletariat to rise up against the bourgeoisie, because they were comfortable, especially with the free market producing inexpensive items of comfort.

DEI's objective isn't to unify, it's explicitly to divide, to agitate for "liberation," a violent revolution in which liberal secular society is torn down. Those designated "oppressed" are supposed to come out feeling paranoid and persecuted, and those designated "oppressors" are supposed to come out feeling guilty and shamed. Because then the expectation is they'll both work together to destroy society and replace it with a Maoist, Leninist "utopia." The kind that killed millions.

#David Millard Haskell #diversity equity and inclusion #diversity #equity #inclusion #DEI bureaucracy #DEI apparatchiks #antiracism #antiracism as religion #neoracism #pseudoscience #cultural homeopathy #religion is a mental illness

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solarpunkpresentspodcast · 5 months

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Fantasy, feminism, and philosophy

Recently, I picked up two novels published in the late 1980s by CJ Cherryh. I’ve been avoiding reading books since I finished my dissertation, as the act of opening a physical book seems a little too reminiscent of work, no matter the content - I’ve been enjoying audiobooks, but find it more difficult to listen to fiction than non-fiction, and so my consumption of published material has been skewed one way for several years.

I decided to break that cycle by returning to one of my pre-teen loves, which I read voraciously: high fantasy, the kind of novels with swords and sorcery right there on the cover, in all their pulpy ‘80s glory. I am a fast reader and can finish a ~250-page novel in an evening, given few interruptions, so long as I am hooked. I was looking for that hook.

I found it! And one other book by the same author, which I thought was high fantasy, but turns out to have a science-fiction, world-hopping backdrop. But I also am now armed with a lot more knowledge of feminist theory and the rise of women’s and feminist fiction* (well, science fiction) during the ‘70s and ‘80s, and so I found myself reading with an eye to the representation of women and a constant feminist narrative analysis going in the back of my brain (don’t be sorry; it was rad as hell). It takes a lot more for me to be satisfied with a narrative these days, and it’s not necessarily any sort of literary snobbery on my part, although I do consider myself to have higher standards now. I will read the pulpiest genre fic that I can find, but I will only truly recommend it if I find something redeeming in it - and not just plot and characters. I’m looking for a specific kind of feminist philosophy in the narrative.

Seems like a lot to ask from genre fiction, right? But to me (and to scholars in the entire discipline of English literature going back centuries), stories aren’t just stories: they’re vehicles embodying cultural attitudes and messages about the way the world works. Even a hastily-written piece of flash fiction will still contain the author’s biases and worldview in it, from the characters, the plot, and down to the words they choose to use (or avoid). Science fiction are stories (often) told in the future, but they are actually about present issues; fantasy are likewise stories (often) told in the past, but they reflect the author’s (and audience’s) view of and struggles within the present.**

And so I couldn’t help thinking, as I was reading, about my thesis’s second chapter, which was all about gender and post-apocalyptic science fiction during feminism’s second wave, because I think there’s a fair amount of those conclusions which are cross-applicable to fantasy from the same period.*** Not to put too fine a point on it, but post-apocalyptic sf is itself a fantastical narrative, and though it’s not “fantasy” as we think of the genre, it certainly draws from some of the same imaginative sources.

Some background

I’m gonna try to keep this brief, not least because others have written on it better and more comprehensively. In 17th century Europe, the Western scientific enterprise as we know it today was coalescing, and unfortunately for all subsequent practitioners of science, the values of 17th century European cismales were hard-coded into the philosophy underpinning the scientific worldview. Hence fun things like scientific racism, eugenics, devaluing animals and nature, and sexism, which keeps cropping up throughout the subsequent centuries, and is also what I’m going to focus on now.

You know what else was happening in 17th century Europe? Witch hunts. I’ll spare you a history lesson about it but in short, that’s the background cultural context of what was going on at the time. The milieu of misogyny, you might say. Carolyn Merchant, who wrote a pretty foundational ecofeminist text tracing this history, points to the writings of Francis Bacon as instrumental in advocating for “the control of nature for human benefit” in which he “used the language of nature as female to articulate an experimental philosophy that would extract nature's secrets.” (ENVIRONMENTALISM: FROM THE CONTROL OF NATURE TO PARTNERSHIP, 4).

Merchant argues that scientific discourse about nature codified the gender of nature as a female to be exploited, inviting abusive interrogation much in the same way as a torture victim on trial for witchcraft; her link between women’s persecution and the ramping-up of the exploitation of nature is echoed by socialist ecofeminists such as philosopher Val Plumwood in articulating the fundamentally misogynist underpinnings of a rationalist economics system that glorifies a separation of (masculine) intellectual reason from denigrated (feminine) bodily situatedness. Thus developed a scientific ethic that saw no problem with manipulation and use of the earth to satisfy scientific curiosity and capitalist gain within a patriarchal system of society.

Still with me? The female-nature connection in western culture is actually a lot older than 17th century, but before the industrial revolution there was emphasis on the mystery and power of nature and the life-giving capacity of women, which inspired respect or, at least, fond feelings for a “Mother Nature”. This crops up a lot in a lot of fantasy narratives, by the way, since most of them are set in a pre-industrialized past and also in some post-apocalyptic sf that assumes a catastrophe of some sort will set humanity back a millennia or two and with it will come this older worldview. Merchant argues that this older attitude served as a “cultural constraint” on the actions of human beings, since “[o]ne does not readily slay a mother, dig into her entrails for gold or mutilate her body” (Death 3). The advent of the industrial era and of scientific inquiry was made possible not just by advances in technology but in a philosophical shift in attitude to view feminine nature as inviting—and deserving—of violation by scientific and technological enterprises - which were, of course, male-coded.

Feminist critiques of (old) feminist fantasies

These two different attitudes - let’s call them the science fiction (post-17th century) and fantasy (pre-17th century) attitudes - aren’t as different as they might seem at first glance. Both adhere to an essentialist logic that is hierarchical, valuing “masculine civilization/culture” as inherently superior to “feminine nature.” I’m just going to mostly quote my thesis in the next two paragraphs here:

Essentialism understands “the feminine” as a repository of unchanging truths, determining substances, and ground of being, quite literally: it holds the historical European cultural conflation of women and nature as truth, and radical feminist political thought (and many feminist utopian fantasies) of the 1970s leaned into this binary, but flipped the moral hierarchy. Publications such as Mary Daly’s Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism (1978) and Starhawk’s The Spiral Dance (1979), for example, embraced the identification of non-human nature and the feminine, celebrating the power of chthonic forces, the moon, fertility, and historical goddess worship. Radical, goddess, and other essentialist feminisms drew on deep ecology, following the same binary logic as Francis Bacon did, but reversing the moral weighting, holding the “male” forces of civilization, culture, and science as bad, or at least incredibly sus, given their collaboration with/outright endorsement of the systematic oppression/torture of women and the earth, if not the very reason for women’s suffering. Ciswomen’s bodies, traditionally the reason for their exclusion from cismale-only spiritual and intellectual spheres, were instead celebrated by some feminists as the ground of human life and part of the mystery of creation itself. ***

Feminist community based on an essentialist notion of cisfemale experience was and is a fantasy that, in addition to being violently exclusionary to trans and genderqueer persons and invested in creating and maintaining a distance between ciswomen and all others, at base replicates the same power structures that fuel patriarchal ideology, only with the values reversed. There is still a hierarchy in place, a flipped version of the fantasy attitude: there is the same conflation of women with nature and its consequent essentialist logic. Female empowerment is crucial to the realization of women’s full humanity, but its celebration at the expense of others leads directly to an ideology of exclusion, perpetuating the structures of oppression that make it necessary for female empowerment in the first place.

For example, some questions that bubble up when I encounter certain stories ask things like, Is this lady knight actually a strong female character, or a vehicle for a male power fantasy with a ciswoman subbed in and nothing else changed? Is this story about a witch/sorceress/magick-user main character really compelling, or is it subject to tropes from both the science fiction and fantasy attitudes, so she is either an evil conniving force to be subjugated (or romanced, depending on flavour) or a mystical feminine cipher in touch with the natural world…. or both? Both happens a lot.

In my thesis, I have a whole paragraph following those paragraphs on essentialism to disclaim that I’m not dissing the enormous contributions of many writers to fantasy whose works completely upended the hierarchical gender binary, boldly challenged gender roles, and stomped all around a genre that up until the ‘70s was almost exclusively made up of male writers. I’m convinced that we’re politically and socioculturally in those authors’ debt! I’m just skeptical of the fantasy genre because of the abovementioned history of the fantasy attitude. In my view, it takes an author who has an attitude (fantasy OR science fiction) that is consciously disloyal to its own roots in essentialist, sexist nonsense to write a narrative that isn’t fundamentally regressive.

Moar, tho…

It’s nice to fantasize about a world where the people whose gender that we identify with are pedestalized, taken care of, comforted, respected, given the benefit of the doubt, empowered, etc. Especially in this day and age when the demands of neoliberalism and late-stage capitalism pile up into an exhausting, overwhelming, threatening force against which it feels impossible to stand alone. Escaping into a world where powerful women are actually respected and can make tangible change in the world (through politics, or magic, or swinging a big sword around) is pretty great.

But it’s not wrong to demand more of our narratives. It’s not wrong to be critical of something that you love (I often joke that it’s the things that I love most that get the most harsh criticism). It’s not wrong to ask that the stories that I read articulate a non-binary, non-hierarchical society that people of all genders can move freely in, instead of being expected to act a certain way (and punished if they don’t perfectly conform).***** Flipping the gender hierarchy just isn’t enough anymore and isn’t even all that feminist, in the end.

In any case, I can highly recommend the work of CJ Cherryh; I think even thirty-five-odd years on, it still holds up because of the way she writes her characters, regardless of gender or age, as human beings and not essentialist tropes. I’m not surprised she won the Hugo, multiple times. She seems to have an underlying philosophy that values humans for who they are, not who they are supposed to be dependent on their predetermined roles in society.

What are some fantasy novels you would recommend? I’m not a huge short-story reader, and I’m a fan of wordplay and have spent the last eight years or so thinking about novels written by and for people living in the 1950s-80s. I need some good contemporary stuff! Or perhaps there are classics I am missing out on? Let me know in the comments!

PS: I’m indebted to the works of Donna Haraway, Celia Åsberg, Myra Hird, Helen Merrick, Élisabeth Vonarburg, Joanna Russ, Carolyn Merchant, Lisa Hogeland, and way too many others to list for influencing the direction of my ruminations here. Any issues are a result of my taking research on historical Canadian SF and bending it to apply to fantasy. ___

*They aren’t the same. It’s akin to assuming all Jewish people are Zionists. One is an identity category, the other a political one.

**Caveat: I’m not saying authors of sff sit down and are like “ah yes what issue griefing me right now am i going to put into this book” - it’s usually a subconscious thing. Sometimes authors do that! But it’s rare.

***Again, they aren’t the same: I’m not a scholar of fantasy, merely an observant fan who has a bit of a scholarly background in another genre literature.

**** This attitude is alive and well today in the politics of trans-exclusive radical feminists (TERFs), a subgroup of radical feminists whose reification of biological essentialism leads them to deny trans peoples’ identities. Fuck TERFs. Their philosophical worldview is warped.

******It’s also not wrong to love something even though it’s Problematic (tm), or just want to turn your brain off with a fluffy read. So long as you’re self-aware.

#feminism #philosophy #writing #worldview #gender #hierarchy

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wartakes · 9 months

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Some Musings on Avoiding Empire (OLD ESSAY)

This essay was originally posted on July 14th, 2021.

In this essay, I continue my musings on how a democratic socialist state engages in warfare in support of like-minded allies and partners and peoples across the world without falling into the trap of becoming the same as the empires it wishes to both forsake and combat. I don't pretend to have the answers completely, but I at least try to get the ball rolling.

(Full essay under the cut).

When I first started writing these essays, the earliest topics that I covered – and the ones that I keep returning to consistently throughout the overall thread of my work – is that a.) war isn’t going anywhere, and b.) it’s something that we need to understand and be prepared for on the left, even under a different system to the one we live under now. To that end, I’ve talked about the circumstances under which it may be necessary for us to go to war.

However – disregarding those who are acting in bad faith or have ulterior motives – there are still many people who have justifiable misgivings about the idea of the United States or any great power or superpower using force, even under a hypothetically more just governing system and even if it is defendable as the right thing to do under specific circumstances. I’ve had a number of conversations with friends on this topic, which has come up sporadically as various events and crises unfold in the world and the topic of outside intervention invariably arise. While I hold a different view, I can understand why some folks may be suspicious of or hesitant to suddenly get behind the idea of a powerful state notionally using its military power for “good” – especially those who live in other countries and have had to live at the whims of U.S. foreign policy or that of other foreign powers. To some, it may simply seem like empire under a different name.

That raises a question that I felt was worth an essay in its own right: in that hypothetical future I try to think about from getting too bummed out with the present, how do you conduct a global foreign and defense policy without being an empire? While I don’t think the idea of a changed-United States or any country using military power in a more just fashion is equivalent to empire in its own right, I feel like the danger of backsliding into imperialistic attitudes is still very much present and a danger. I see how it could be very easy to make a poor decision here, an exception there, and end up doing the same sort of foreign policy that got us where we are today.

After spending some time pondering this, I’ve come up with an extremely non-scientific, purely vibes-based set of principles that – while I make no claims towards being definitive, exhaustive, or foolproof – seem like a good starting point for how to carry out the kinds of concepts I rail on about without just being what we currently have and have had before but in a different guise. Those four principles, which I will go into more detail on each below, include: being selective of allies and partners, respecting countries’ consent, promoting countries’ self-sufficiency, and maintaining a minimal international footprint. Some or all of these may seem obvious to some, but I’ve found in this day and age, I can’t take anything like this for granted. So, let us begin.

1. Being Selective of Allies and Partners

To be a good leftist or socialist or however you label yourself, one almost by definition needs to be a good internationalist. You should care not only about improving the lives of everyone in your own community, city or country, but also about improving the lives of all people, everywhere. Thus, part of this naturally should entail establishing partnerships and forging alliances with countries that are similarly inclined in order to defend one another from hostile forces and to continue to try and improve things the world over (yes I realize this may sound a bit sappy and idealistic as I type this out, especially in the current environment, but I have to believe that something like this is achievable and that life is not endless sorrow and agony).

Note, that the key terms here are finding allies in countries that have similar principles, those principles of course being things like a democratic system of government, freedom of expression, freedom of the press, a legal and judicial system that isn’t draconian and doesn’t grind a bootheel into the neck of its citizens, supporting said citizens from want and deprivation, etc. etc. All that good stuff that we’re into, and that some governments claim they’re about.

When you look back at the history of the United States and other great powers from the past, you’ll find that the track record of finding allies based on these principles is “spotty” if I’m going to be charitable. The Cold War is an excellent example of this. When the United States searched for partners across the globe in its competition against the Soviet Union, its criteria were more about whether or not governments or leaders opposed communism rather than sharing any sort of affinity towards the principles that the United States claimed to value. What this resulted in was the United States supporting or installing regimes that were extremely right-wing or even fascistic purely on the basis of them hating communism (or any form of leftism) and doing everything they could to oppose it – including mass oppression, imprisonment, and murder of their own citizens. From Latin America, to Africa, to the Middle East and the Far East, you’d be hard pressed to find an area where the United States didn’t support a questionable regime in the course of great power politics.

This practice found new life to a different ideological end following the September 11th Attacks and the outbreak of the Global War on Terrorism. This time, the enemy wasn’t communism, but Islamic fundamentalist terrorism. If the United States wasn’t choosy about its allies during the Cold War, it was even less so in finding allies and partners to help it fight al Qaeda and similar groups – some of which were about just as bad as al Qaeda, had a role in its formation, or were even actively supporting them or other similarly minded or aligned groups like the Taliban.

This is a very long-winded way of me saying, in the future, if we want to conduct ourselves justly in the world of international relations, it means thinking critically about who our friends are. This is a problem that not only conservatives and liberals have, but far too many people on the left have when it comes to uncritically supporting unabashedly authoritarian regimes just because they’re aesthetically leftist or just anti-American. If we don’t want to be morally bankrupt to our own beliefs, then we’ll have to take a long, hard look at any country we consider as an ally and about whether aligning ourselves to them is the right thing to do, or something we’re doing purely out of self-interest or for political or ideological street cred.

2. Respecting the Consent of Other Countries

Our being more selective of allies and partners based on our principles and beliefs is only one part of the equation when it comes to working with other countries throughout the world. The flip side to aligning ourselves to countries more in sync with what we believe, is also realizing that countries and their populaces may not always necessarily want to be our ally, even if we think they have much in common with us and we’d like to help them. As with many other things in life, the magic word here is consent. If a country and its people do not consent to accepting help from us, then forcing the issue is simply adopting a paternal or imperialistic attitude.

There may be a myriad of reasons for this. Part of it may be the suspicion and wariness that I spoke of earlier, which may take generations to pass for some – or may potentially never pass for others. But there may be other reasons as well. The reasons matter less though, then what a country – but more importantly, its people – want. At the end of the day, if a government does not want anything to do with us or any other country offering help, and this is a genuine reflection of the will of its people as a whole, then that’s that. Unless they change their mind at some point in the future, any further efforts are simply trying to unjustly impose your will on another country – the very thing we’re supposed to be trying to avoid.

This same sort of logic applies to supporting movements seeking liberation, whether they are trying to establish an independent state for their people, or to overthrow a government that is oppressing them. Even if we have much in common with the principles of a liberation movement and want to help them, if they want nothing to do with us, we really have nothing else we can do other than cheer them on and wish for the best and hope maybe they change their minds. If I’ve found one thing out from being active on the internet as an artist and writer for most of my adult life, it’s that you can’t force people to be you friends. Sometimes, things just don’t ‘click’ from one end, and you just have to accept you’ll never be as close as you’d like things to be. Sometimes people may warm up to you over time or under different circumstances, but the key thing is that’s up to them, not you. In my eyes, the same thing applies to this case.

Now, I feel like there are potentially exceptions here. One big one that comes to mind is when humanitarian intervention comes up, such as intervention to provide aid to a starving populace or to stop the genocide of a group of people by a state – something behind the basis of the United Nations concept of Responsibility to Protect (something that is invoked far too little in my opinion). These are cases where you can strongly argue that its acceptable to intervene without a request for help – or that it is actually necessary to do so in order to prevent further death and destruction. That all being said, I also think if you look back through history, you’ll be very hard pressed to find any situation where a people were being brutally massacred or were starving to death and were flatly refusing any assistance and aid rather than begging any country with the means to do so to save them from being wiped out. But I felt I should bring that one up regardless just for the sake of being intellectually honest on the issue of consent.

We see the repercussions of ignoring the idea of consent across twenty years of Forever War, in particular Afghanistan and Iraq. While the United States may have initially been welcomed as liberators in both countries and both the Taliban in Afghanistan and Ba’athist state in Iraq were objectively terrible regimes, at the end of the day there was no genuine, country-wide mass movements or representatives of said movements requesting that the United States aid them in their liberation. Our invasions of those countries were forced on them from the outside, and that is part of why they were doomed to failure from the start – as most regime changes are.

3. Promoting Self-Sufficiency

Throughout the modern era, great powers have lavished military aid and arms sales upon allies and partners that suited them. Such aid could be made under the claims of ensuring that country’s ability to defend itself or being out of some notion of brotherhood and comradeship. Of course, like so many things, this aid is also about the game of great power politics and serves just as much as an instrument of influence and control as it did as a means of self-defense – if not more. As much great powers have an interest in ensuring certain countries could defend themselves and their regimes, they also had a vested interest – for many reasons – in making sure said countries were dependent upon them in some shape or form for defense.

There are some glaring examples of this seeding of dependence in how the United States provides military aid or sells arms to other countries currently, especially in an age of more complicated and technologically sophisticated weapons. Often the United States provides arms and armaments to an ally or partner without going through the effort of teaching and enabling them how to maintain them. Instead, it will simply employ contractors or even U.S. military personnel to maintain the equipment for the country, meaning that country is dependent upon the U.S. and U.S. companies (who also naturally have a vested interest in continuing to make money from servicing said equipment) for their defense – putting them in a precarious position.

Under a more just system, the intent of such aid prior to a conflict actually breaking out, would be the exact opposite. The primary purpose of our support to a country in bolstering its defense should be to make it self-sufficient as possible in its own defense, so that it will only need outside help under the most dire of circumstances. We should be genuinely trying to help a country stand on its two feet and not be beholden to any outside power for its survival (and this should be the case in general with all things, though obviously I’m focusing on defense and the military here as that is my wheelhouse and the focus of this blog, but felt it needed calling out). This would mean not only providing arms to a country, but also teaching them how to maintain them, helping them build the means to maintain them domestically, or even setting up their own domestic ability to produce weapons and material, and more – if they are able to do so.

The old adage goes that if you love something, set it free. Well, if we truly care about the well-being of an ally, then we should be building them up so that at the end of the day, they either don’t need us at all or only need us when things get really bad. If we treat them well and help them earnestly and in good faith, then even when they don’t need us, they will want to stand alongside us in defense of the same, shared ideas and belief. Likewise, we’ll have made that community of like-minded peoples and governments stronger by increasing the overall ability to defend itself as a whole against hostile, reactionary forces.

4. Maintaining a Minimal Footprint

One of the aspects of U.S. imperial attitudes that is brought up much on the left is the expansive, worldwide U.S. military presence. The United States maintains bases and troops to varying degrees in a wide swath of countries across the globe – around 40% of the world’s countries in 2019. These bases can serve as a point of serious contention even in countries where their presence is more welcome or at least not reviled. Even if they are not significantly or directly affecting the country they are located in, overseas bases are a lightning rod for their role in perpetuating conflict and U.S. imperialism. As a result, what I often have heard on the left is a desire for the United States to vacate all of its overseas military bases and bring all of its troops back home. While I completely understand this desire and empathize with it, I also feel it is unrealistic if in the future we want to be anything other than isolationist and inward looking – something that is incompatible with the very idea of socialism.

Contemporary warfare is a fast-moving endeavor, under which reacting quickly can mean the difference between victory and defeat – as well as how much destruction is visited and how many lives are lost. Even if we wish to spurn being an imperial power, if we want to be in any position to help other countries that come under attack by an aggressor and are unable to defend themselves on their own and request assistance, we need to be able to react swiftly so that our solidarity doesn’t end up coming too late to be of any help to those under attack. Having a military that can rapidly deploy, rather than be permanently or semi-permanently forward-deployed – may actually deter potential conflict better anyway.

Of course, rapid deployment of forces this still means crossing vast distances of time and space to get to wherever an ally may be in danger. So, in my typical wishy-washy, “enlightened centrist leftist” fashion, I advocate there has to be some kind of middle ground. If we want to be of any help to allies and partners but still avoid empire, any overseas military installations we maintain need to be kept to a bare minimum. They need to be limited only to what we think we really need. What we “need” should be based on doing actual analysis and assessment of what our stated national security goals are, who are allies and partners are that we anticipate we may need to come to the aid of, where they are located, and etc. It basically just requires us going through the effort of thinking critically about what we need to do what we think is important and in line with our principles and not just gobbling up bases left and right in order to further our own power, influence, control as an imperial power does.

This can’t account for every instance, of course. There may be a case when we need to come to the aid of a country or group that we did not anticipate. This is just a risk you run when planning for various scenarios of war. You set yourself up to be ready for the most likely cases, and then when the least likely or unexpected ones occur, you make do best you can. In those instances, we may be able to lease bases or request temporary access for the duration of a campaign from a third country along the way to the operational area – packing up and going home ASAP once our (hopefully) very clearly defined objectives have been completed.

With that in mind, we should be viewing these bases as being temporal in general. None of them should be thought of as “permanent.” We should be planning out our needs with the idea that they will change over time. We should be reassessing on a regular basis as to what ones we still need, based on the abilities of our allies and partners, the various threats we face, and so on. Over time, it may make more sense to leave one base and set up shop somewhere else. Not only does it make good strategic sense, but it also aids in avoiding digging in roots and fostering imperial attitudes towards the lands that we’re supposed to be guests in – not overlords of.

At the end of the day, no matter how good of relations you have with a country, over time you’re going to wear out a welcome. That in itself is not a good reason to not have military forces stationed overseas at all, but it is a good reason to make sure we only maintain the bases and troops we really need to honor our principles and commitments – especially in peacetime. Despite our widespread military presence currently, most of the military still is stationed in the United States, so it really wouldn’t be that huge of a change. It would just mean thinking harder about what paths and processes we need to rapidly move it to a conflict zone. Really, a lot of this is about thinking harder in general, not only about what we believe as leftists, but also about practical applications of military force and the challenges that involves. We just need to think.

We Can Try (And We Should)

One of the things I grapple with when I try to think of a more ethical and just use of military power is, no matter how I try to dress it, there are always going to be people that I otherwise express solidarity with that are going to be suspicious of it and opposed to it. Some people may take a very long time to come around to the idea and may only do so in part. Some may never come around to it. Frankly, I’ve come to accept that. As much as I want to try and educate and elaborate on why I think this is the realistic and right thing to do, I know that I can’t convince everyone and that ultimately, I can only do so much to try and convince people and the rest is up to them and is their own choice. That, and I can’t blame people – especially those living overseas who have been more directly affected by imperialism than I ever have – for having these attitudes towards the idea of foreign military intervention.

While that is definitely a little discouraging and demoralizing, I try not to let it get me down too much. God knows there so many traps I can fall into – and still fall into – on a daily basis that can lead to depression, discouragement, and borderline “doomerism” and “black pilled” thought with how the state of the world is and the likelihood for change. But I have to believe in something. I have to believe there can be a better world, and I also have to believe I can somehow use what I know from my professional life to contribute to that.

I strongly believe war isn’t going anywhere even if we do (and I hope we do) affect political change. I think we’re going to want to help people beyond our own borders and that will sometimes require providing military aid or carrying out military action. Doing so runs the risks of falling back into old habits unknowingly. While the ideas I’ve laid out here are by no means a panacea for avoiding that sliding back into imperialism, I feel like its maybe a solid starting point. Even if there are going to be people who will still be justifiably suspicious of trying to use military power throughout the world for any sort of positive ends – and that may create stumbling blocks towards doing so, I still think we owe it to try and be a global force for good in that hypothetical future even if it may be difficult and frustrating at times. Why? Because it’s still the right and necessary thing to do. If there’s one thing we know as lefties, it’s that doing the right thing is sometimes a demoralizing pain in the ass – but that doesn’t make it any less right.

#essay #War Takes #War Takes Essay #leftism #leftist #socialism #democratic socialism #international relations #IR #national security #national defense #international security #foreign policy #foreign affairs #military intervention #internationalism #war #empire #imperialism

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newtonian-tragedy · 1 year

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[Review] Dark Matter: The Private Life of Sir Isaac Newton

I guess I’m just writing this review for myself, as I have so much to process, but nowhere else to go with it. Alas, I am literally the only one in my ‘book club’ who actually has the time/patience to read books, so there’s no one to discuss anything with at the end of the day. So sperging into the void it is.

I just finished reading a novel about Newton that puts more of a detective/murder mystery spin on his days working at the Royal Mint in London. Although the plot is a work of fiction, most of the characters and broader events actually did take place.

I wanted to like this book. I really did. I loved how the author seamlessly wove so many of Newton’s quotes from throughout his life into the dialogue. The humor ranged from Newton’s dry wit to the scatological to some outright raunchy descriptions of a sexual nature, mostly involving lewd women and their “bubbies” and “cunny parts”—the kind of offensive humor that you can’t help but be amused over, unless you’re super uptight.

Awkward, to say the least. But she also could’ve just, you know, not done that in front of him. But as you will see, there isn’t much she isn’t willing to do while her uncle is under the same roof.

The thing I enjoyed most of all was Christopher Ellis’ (the narrator’s) relationship with Newton, and how the book explored his own shifting attitudes toward his master and the total loss of his religious faith that resulted from a deep understanding of the scientific lens through which Newton viewed the world.

Unfortunately, the thing that ruined it for me was Ellis’ doomed-to-fail relationship with Miss Barton.

As far as I can tell, Ellis, despite being an actual person, was never romantically involved with Catherine. And despite the vague warning in the beginning of the tale that things don’t end well (and whether or not you know that Catherine was ultimately fated to marry John Conduitt later on), the book still does a damn good job of building your hopes up and making you root for the two to remain together—all the time they spend together at Newton’s house, Catherine lovingly nursing Ellis back to health when he falls ill, etc.

…Only for it all to just fall apart, and on the very same night when they finally become intimate for the first (and final) time.

I would laugh if it wasn’t so depressing.

This feels all the more cruel once Newton invites Ellis to stay over at his place for the first time in months for the purpose of serving as his bodyguard after a recent assassination attempt. He tries to mend things with Catherine, but she is colder than ever and tells him that she cannot help with his “repugnant views” because “faith cannot be taught”.

I say “cruel” because I get the feeling that Newton knew all along and was unnecessarily insensitive to Ellis’ feelings (which he also knew full well about). I doubt it was just autistic obliviousness on Newton’s part either, especially when Halifax was not only an old friend of his from Cambridge who was in and out of his house where his own niece lived as well, but he and Ellis had only just gone to meet with him to inform him of some very important plot exposition.

That, and the book makes him into this Sherlock-like character who could tell what kind of person you are just by looking at you, so I seriously doubt something like this would escape his notice.

I mean, it’s quite obvious to me at this point that Catherine (like so many modern women today, unfortunately) was just another shameless whore who used men to ascend the social ladder. This seems to be the case even outside of fan-fiction, as she latched right onto John Conduitt (another wealthy man who would be elected as a member of Parliament shortly after their marriage) hardly before Lord Halifax’s grave had a chance to cool.

She didn’t need her uncle to pimp her out for his own benefit, certainly, but still… neither did he have any reason to complain, because there was nothing to lose and everything to gain.

I’m thinking maybe he purposely conspired to lead Ellis on for selfish reasons as well—in order to try and keep his assistant/bodyguard from becoming too emotionally incapacitated to focus on what was unquestionably a critical case?

Just… fuck me, man.

I guess the point I’m trying to make is, did the fictional Ellis really deserve such a tragedy? Could the author really not have employed a little more artistic license and tweaked the ending for his sake?

TL;DR: It's a good book over all, and I certainly recommend it if you're a Newton fan or even just into 17th century mysteries, but if you have a soft spot for characters who are left coping with the injustice of a "bad ending", then I should warn that it's going to leave a bitter taste in your mouth.

#isaac newton #books #dark matter: the private life of sir isaac newton

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ant1quarian · 1 year

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Peaceful (BRT!Sans x reader)

(Note, this is my original Sans AU. He’s one of my best boys.)

Note: This story may contain very slight triggers? If you’re not a fan of thinking of the endless void or don’t like reading someone being eternally trapped in it, then I suggest you don’t read this?

- Also, Reader has a scientific background (And is a scientist)

“Peaceful.” You murmured softly, your voice barely audible from where you sat in your labratory.

That was the perfect word for him. Peaceful.

In your mind, you pictured the skeleton you’d come to know so well- the skeleton you had been able to contact through hitting the right magic frequencies is a row.

A pure coincidence, it had been. Yet it brought you to the very place you sat today- close friends with a monster that shouldn’t have even been alive.

He shouldn’t have existed. It wasn’t a hypothesis, it was a fact. But similar to the fact that scientists- much like yourself- couldn’t explain how a bumblebee was capable of flight; He simply did. In a sense, at least.

Last night, he’d asked you what you’d thought of him. You’d had to think about that question. In a scientific point of view, he was dangerous beyond comprehension. A monster with the ability to send out a ghost form of himself that could physically interact with things? The very thought was terrifying. The things that he’d be capable of if he wished them sent a shiver down your spine.

Yet he didn’t.

He was peaceful- capable of great amounts of damage and destruction- but simply decided against it.

He had every right to. Every reason to. Yet he didn’t.

Instead he chose to help others. He’d done countless things for monster-kind, which was the only reason they were able to live upon the surface today.

Sacraficed himself, even, when the void demanded a the soul of a boss monster before it would let them free.

And they hadn’t so much as thanked him. They’d forgotten about him the instant they set foot (Paw, or talon) on the surface.

In your mind, you saw the very same skeleton that you visited in dreams every night. ‘Drop’ he’d nicknamed himself, even though his actual name was Sans.

A translucent body, grey against the inky darkness of the void holding him ensnared in its grip. A blue, orange and white jacket- each colour taking up thirds of the soft-looking material. Golden fur lining the rim of the hood he placed over his head whenever he got embarrassed, or remembered something he didn’t want to. His light grey turtleneck t-shirt that seemed to be stained with darker marks- chocolate sauce, if your analysis had been correct.

The red streak running down his left cheek, appearing as if he was crying blood. His two heterochromatic eyelights- the right coloured in the purest of whites, surrounded by the same crimson that ran down his cheek; the left a simple gold that somehow managed to glow even in the void. The warm, laid-back smile. The nonchalant attitude. The wistful glances. The nostalga-filled, infectious laughter.

Drop. The word resonated in your head. An interest name for a skeleton that held you so captivated.

Little did you know, you hold him just as captivated from where he stood in the void, the very last miniscule sliver of his soul glowing as if it was unrestrained by the darkness. The very last sliver of his hope, holding his life together by a thread.

#fluff #xreader romantic #xreader platonic #xreader #void #trapped in the void #Big oof #Sans au #Original Sans Au #Mentions of being trapped?

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sophieinwonderland · 2 years

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why are sysmeds so 'source: trust me' about everything

'do you have any proof that endos dont exist?' 'yeah, common sense'

you cant make a point about psychology and have no source, especially if you arent a psychologist.

they just arent aware that actual psychologists disagree with their point and then hide behind "we believe in science"

I think you answered your own question. 🤪

Looking at science and listening to the opinions of scientists is hard. Reading a blog that claims science agrees with you and doing zero follow-up research is easy.

I feel that it's a lot like how many Christians will base their opinions on what a preacher says about what's in the Bible, rather than the actual text of the Bible. There's this very pseudo-religious air with how the anti-endo community approaches science. Very rarely will sources be used. And when they are, they almost never support the point being made.

If you replace the word "science" with "Gospel" then their whole attitude starts making more sense.

To them, science isn't a process of learning filled with many voices challenging each other. It's statements of absolute truth. And like with many religions, they throw out the parts that don't support them and unquestioningly cling to those that do, or those that they can twist to give the appearance of supporting them, while covering this up with vague platitudes like "I believe in science(/the Gospel)."

The fact that they're approaching science as religion also would explain why they so often mix moral arguments with scientific ones, and attempt to look for ways to invalidate or dismiss the science based on morality.

I still can't get over a prior conversation when I pointed to the study into the Vineyard Evangelicals talking to God, and anti-endos responded by mentioning how predatory the Vineyard church is. And... Okay... Sure... That's not wrong. But I can't possibly see how that factors into the current conversation. I'm not endorsing the practices of the Vineyard church by citing a psychological study into their members who engage in a practice that lets them carry out two-way conversations with "God." I'm just demonstrating the existence of the psychological phenomenon with accounts of the method of achieving it.

The morality of the subject of the study is just completely irrelevant to the topic at hand, but they seem incapable of separating the science from morality, and I think this plays into the whole pseudo-religious view they've taken towards the idea of science.

Okay, I'm going to go on an even less relevant side tangent below that's completely removed from the current topic...

I still roll my eyes every time I think of that old callout post accusing me of ignoring "abusive sources" in reference to that. The "source" isn't even the what's being accused of abusive behavior. The subject is in a matter completely unrelated to the study.

But also, studies like the Milgram obedience experiment or the Stanford Prison Experiment, while considered unethical, are taught in every basic psychology course. Similarly, treating patients through lobotomy is horrible and monstrous, but the data we gathered from patients like HM was invaluable to understanding the functioning of human memory. Those things may be immoral, but the data from those terrible practices has provided huge amounts of information for modern psychology. We should obviously never do those things again and clearly shouldn't have done them in the first place, but at the same time, you wouldn't tell a psych professor that they can't teach any information that was obtained through these studies.

Science needs to be conducted in a way that is ethical and doesn't cause harm to subjects. I agree with that. But ethics also has no bearing on the validity of data from studies already conducted. "You shouldn't conduct this experiment because it's unethical" is a good and valid position. "You can't cite this study because it was unethical" would be silly and isn't at all how science works.

Again, the study I cited in this instance was completely ethical regardless of other accusations against the subject of the study in other contexts. I just wanted to get that off of my chest, because I could easily see someone applying the same logic to say that the Milgram Obedience Experiment can't be cited because it's an "abusive source." Or even that every contribution Stanley Milgram made to the field is invalid because HE'S an "abusive source."

Sorry for the tangent.

#ask box #syscourse #psychology #psychiatry #science

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automatismoateo · 13 days

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all religions are scams via /r/atheism

all religions are scams every last one of them is garbage, utterly worthless, junk-ass belief systems, scams of the highest order, insults to human dignity, a net drain on my life. they lie about what has happened, what is happening, and what is likely to happen, and they make people who believe in them unreliable and less trustworthy. they perpetuate censorship, anti-science beliefs, and help prevent actions on global warming. they encourage people to do things contrary to reality. they create unkillable, unreformable institutional power structures. they discourage independent development and interpretations. they make ethical people who express contrary points of view into very strong enemies of religious people, rather than allies. they encourage people to adopt regressive attitudes towards gender and sexuality. they ruin countries and systems of cooperation between countries. they encourage and perpetuate arguments from logical fallacies, so that, for example, arguments from authority are preferred. they discourage curiosity and becoming individually powerful. every time i think ive hit the end of this list, i find some new thing that religion and religious people have ruined for the sake of very superficial interpretations of imprecise words on a page written by morons. they hold back the advancement of science (as mentioned), and indeed they are increasingly brittle, dogmatic, and weak in the face of accelerating tech change and the increasingly large panorama of scientific and technical possible futures we are barrelling into without much serious discussion, planning, or even much in the way of critical thinking, all of which religions naturally seek to suppress. they are agents of capitalism and capitalist oppression. show me a religious person today, and ill show you a slave to capitalism, a person so under the thumb of those in power they are almost incapable of loving themselves. 'the pope is a fraud, the church is a lie, the king is the same damn thing you should pray to your fake god that he die.' ~rtj Submitted April 29, 2024 at 08:26AM by workingtheories (From Reddit https://ift.tt/mahNQdC)

#reddit

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1punch · 15 days

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@06142012 sent:

"come back alive. it'd be an awfully empty galaxy without you." ( from genos! )

[ PROMPTED ] ... ▬▬▬ accepting !

RED BOOT TAPS THE GROUND TWICE, experimental and quick. It echoes massively, bouncing off nonexistent walls. He acknowledges the unusual thing with a quiet hum, looking intently at his feet, beyond his feet, beyond his stand, questioning the existence of bright stars and aligning planets and glittering dust of galaxies and cosmos. It's mind-boggling, and he is already confused enough, he can't let himself question anything else, there is no way it'd make sense anyway, why bother ?

A dissatisfied huff escapes him, arms crossing over his chest as he takes a second to somewhat appreciate the rest of the view; space is enormous, bright & colourful and otherworldly dark, endless & full yet so painfully empty in the vast voids of the in-betweens. And in return it doesn't fill him with anything, it fails to, when compared to other things he's seen. The view from what used to be his own roof, a home carelessly destroyed in the whims of heroic deeds. There was no light pollution in that isolated place, and one night he gave a little remark about the creativity of connecting stars reminding him of clouds and the various shapes imaginable, it was stupid and pointless. But Genos would've almost became background noise of scientific constellations documentary had it not been for the occasional look at the starry sky, point and trace, stare and wonder.

Space warps, a portal stands on one end, somehow even darker than the hollow spaces between the cosmos. There is no time for appreciating the view anyway, he's been given a job. One for himself and himself alone. He's never been a fan of orders, but it feels different to suddenly become the center of something. Not good, simply different. God, he wishes there was more to this, this vague sense of unfamiliarity, the emptiness in his chest devouring any possible nervousness, any anticipation, any expectations he could possibly begin to have. There is only unjustified frustration, with himself and himself alone, with the lacking, the inhuman, and the strongest alive.

Come back alive.

" Why would I not ? " He asks the cyborg all too quickly, eyes sharp and callous as they stare intensely. It doesn't take long for him to realize where his irritation is going, what it targets, and he catches himself and deflates in well hidden shame that disguises itself as softness. Genos didn't deserve that, he really doesn't, he deserves a better person to care for, better than the asshole who's throwing accusations instead of offering reassurance ... far more better. But Saitama isn't that, and it doesn't change the fact that Genos still cares.

Why are you worried ? I'm just too strong. Why would you think otherwise ? Don't be like that. Don't give me hope.

" You know what, Genos ? " A smile slips into his visage, a smile that -in its guilt and fondness- aims to correct a mistake, and he steps closer & he points a swift berating finger up at his student. " This kind of attitude can really affect a battle outcome ! How do you intend on winning if the first thing you think about is failure ? Lighten up. " For your own sake, at least. Saitama thinks, even if he can't look positively at this situation in any way. For him, thinking positively here means he gets a chance to maybe bleed to death ... but he's sure that's the exact opposite of what Genos would look forward to. And Saitama doesn't know what to make of this nor that.

It doesn't matter.

" I'll be back in no time. " He says with dismissive lighthearted air, and carefully taps two of his knuckles to Genos' forehead before turning to walk away. " Don't forget to take Rover on his walk, okay ? " And invite Kuseno over for dinner, and Visit old man Bang for hotpot, and give Mumen Rider a hand every once a while. It won't be empty, and it won't be lonely, he's sure of that. Sorry for leaving you behind. He wants to add, but it dies -gets killed- the moment he thinks of it, and just what the hell is that ? Too conclusive, too sad it's almost like a goodbye, but there is no way this could be it. In fact he doesn't think there would be any it at all, but is it a cynical fear of disappointment, or an underestimation of what could possibly turn Genos' anxieties reality ?

" Genos, " He pauses, centimeters away from his door, and spares a look behind. He's obnoxiously blank as ever and most likely unaware of it, of everything warping together into nothing, conflicted confusion canceling itself out in its pointless mindless collision.

" It's cold in here, so don't stay for long. "

His cape is sickeningly white as it flutters through the void darkness of the portal, the space remains as bright and as colourful.

#smthing smthing omw to fight “god”. there are some leftovers in the fridge. dont wait for me on dinner.#IDK WHAT IS THIS. ME WORD VOMITING CUZ SAITAMA MAKES ME UNWISE BYE #⋆ ★ 【サイタマ】 : ̗̀➛ writing.#⋆ ★ 【サイタマ】 : ̗̀➛ inbox.#THANK U BRENNAAAAA #06142012

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celinedionswang · 1 month

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novellette in progress pt 1

Prologue

The Night on Bay Street

It was 3 AM in the slums of New York City.

No woman should’ve been walking on the streets at this time, especially alone – but nevertheless, Mandy walked, mascara-streaked tears running down her face as her fake, cheap nails tapped frantically at the screen of her phone. Her client was somewhere behind her, abandoned on the third floor of the hotel with a knife stuck in his neck. When police arrived at the scene, they would find an empty gun, and a pack of unloaded bullets in the mobster’s pocket. But Mandy didn’t have time to think about all of that – she needed a way out, and she needed one fast. Her pimp wasn’t going to be happy, that’s for sure, but he didn’t need to know it went south until they were far, far away from the crime scene. She could take a beating. She knew she could. She could take anything, but the police? She shuddered at the thought, remembering how she’d gotten into this sick, fucked up prostitute chain in the first place. One accident. One call. And her life was ruined forever.

Again, didn’t have time to think about that. Walk faster, but not too fast, anyone will see you and think you’re running. Straighten shoulders, adjust clothing, make it look like you’ve just finished a job. Maybe some scumbag will pick you up for a good time. If he doesn’t get here, that’ll be our only way out of this. No sirens yet, so she allowed herself to breathe, her chest showing off an unhealthy piano of ribs as it moved up, and down, slowly. She was halfway into her purse looking for some powder when a commotion a few blocks down grabbed her attention. She frowned. Had she really already walked all the way to Main Street? As she tiptoed over (as quickly as she could in her sock-feet, stilettos long ago abandoned), she realized with dismay that she had arrived at Main Street, one dark alley away.

The crowd that had been screaming was just a bunch of girls, no older than college age. From their blushing, freckled skin to their carefree attitude, it was clear they were just towngirls in the city for a night of fun. They were staring at the billboards high above them, the bright, colorful flashing drawing Mandy’s curiosity until she stepped into the light as well, craning her neck to get a good view of the video screening. The man wore a suit, stark in contrast against the all-black background. He didn’t look happy (she could tell that much) as he began to speak. “INHABITANTS OF NEW YORK CITY,” his voice boomed, loud enough to wake even the dead, “WE ARE IN THE NINTH STAGE OF ENVIRONMENTAL EXTINCTION. IF YOU CARE AT ALL ABOUT YOUR PLANET, YOU WILL LISTEN TO WHAT I HAVE TO SAY. AS YOU NOW KNOW, WE ARE IN THE NINTH STAGE OF ENVIRONMENTAL EXTINCTION. THE TENTH COMES SOONER THAN YOU THINK. THERE IS ONLY ONE THING THAT CAN PREVENT THIS FROM HAPPENING. THROUGH A RECENT SCIENTIFIC BREAKTHROUGH, WE HAVE FOUND THAT BLOOD IS NOT ONLY A SUPERSTARTER IN THE PROCESS OF BIODEGRADATION, BUT AN AMAZING SOURCE OF PROTEIN FOR ALL FORMS OF LIVING LIFE, AS WELL AS BEING A FANTASTIC FERTILIZER.” The man paused, seemingly for dramatic effect. “LADIES AND GENTLEMEN – WHAT YOU ARE THINKING IS RIGHT. HUMAN SACRIFICE IS THE ONLY SOLUTION TO SAVING THIS PLANET.”

With that, the screen turned completely black, only to restart the same video after a couple seconds. Mandy watched it a few more times, confused. Was this real? Her vision began to burn at the edges as she finally tore her eyes away, looking around to see others doing the same. “Look!” Someone cried, pointing to a building further down on the street. “They’re all broadcasting it!” With horror, Mandy realized they were right – every screen in her sight played the same video, over and over without end, the man in the blue suit never growing tired, his speech never growing weak. Was this some crazy terrorist stunt? Or communist propaganda? Everything she’d been worrying about ten minutes ago seemed so small and trifle now. What was there to worry about guns or officers when some psychopath was telling everyone to kill themselves? Shakily, she took out a cigarette, unsure of what else to do. Everything is fine. This is just some foreign bullshit video that the government’ll all have explained by tomorrow. She started her lighter, about to burn when a man cleared his throat behind her. She turned around, relieved to see it wasn’t anyone she recognized. “Weird shit, huh?” He joked, eyes to the ground. “Yea,” she replied flatly, annoyed. She drew the cigarette to her lips and lit it quickly, slumping against the wall as she took a deep, much needed inhale. The smoke clouded her vision and she hoped when it cleared the man would be gone. He wasn’t. “What’s your name?” He asked. And it would’ve sounded genuinely curious if not for the nervous fidgeting, the hands in his pockets. All of this Mandy noticed. “Laura,” she lied, still staring straight ahead. That man stepped closer. “That’s a nice-” “I charge one-fifty an hour,” she interrupted him, finally turning her head. “More if you want perks.” She shook her pocket, highlighting the obvious sound of pills. The man swallowed. “And where – ?” With a sigh, she got up, stubbing her cigarette out on the brick wall. She nodded at the man. “Follow me.” Her ears had grown accustomed to the sound of the video now, now longer deafening as she walked the man down the same street she’d come from. Little bits interrupted their peace. “...NINTH STAGE…ONLY ONE…AMAZING SOURCE OF…” “Do you think it's real?” The man piped up, taking a few long strides to walk directly next to her. It took her a few seconds to respond. “Dunno,” she finally replied, taking a sharp turn. “Would it really matter anyways?”

After this, the man was quiet. Mandy rode him well into the morning and left the hotel puffing yet another cigarette from her tired lips.

#novel #writing #writers on tumblr

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culttvblog · 2 months

Text

Doomwatch: By The Pricking of My Thumbs

In my last post I performed the remarkable feat (to me) of trying to get my head round how best to understand a TV series about the genetic condition XYY Syndrome, with the remarkable layers of the character being wrongly assumed to be criminally-inclined and that that theory is well and truly discredited.

In fact, of course, the idea that the XYY syndrome predisposes the men who have it to crime, had been well and truly discredited well before The XYY Man was broadcast. Probably a current comparison would be with the idea that the MMR vaccine causes autism: the evidence has clearly never been strong enough to say that it does, the original paper was not conclusive, and subsequent follow up has shown no connection. But the misinformation persists. Carrying on misinformation was pretty much what The XYY Man was doing, and in fact the writers didn't need to understand scientific research, merely watching more TV would have shown them they were on the wrong path. Of COURSE prescient series Doomwatch had already waded into the miasma about the XYY syndrome and cut through the nonsense (yes, I know there is some very mixed imagery in this sentence indeed).

The premise of this episode is strong and simple: in a school some boys play around in chemistry and end up blinding someone. The headmaster singles out the tallest and expels him. It turns out that Doomwatch have been doing research on the syndrome and that has involved taking blood samples in various settings including the school. The expelled boy actually does have the XYY syndrome and ultimately his desperate father appeals to Quist because of the injustice he has suffered (although personally if Colin Jeavons played the headmaster of a school my child was at I'd take them out PGQ). Quist, of course, knows full well that there is no connection between XYY and criminality, but it turns out that the scientist doing the research has unethically gained the knowledge because the boy had blood taken at the institution he was at before being adopted by his parents. He didn't even have blood taken in the school where the accident happened; it was all years before.

The entire point of this episode is crappy science, crappy research, a crappy attitude to research ethics, and the simple fact that the only possible outcome from this will be utter nonsense. It's a very straightforward, rather didactic, plot. It does make rather uncomfortable viewing, because it doesn't examine the consequences of unethical and just wrong research, it examines the situation from the point of view of the boy's own life only, without suggesting that there would be any consequences for breaking confidentiality and research ethics. This criticism is probably a personal preference and I wouldn't want you to run away with the idea that these criticisms of the show are terminal: if it wasn't worth watching it wouldn't appear here, and this *is* Doomwatch. Of course what should have happened is that Quist should have applied disciplinary measures. Again the MMR/autism myth is a good comparison because Andrew Wakefield got struck off as a doctor for spreading irresponsible misinformation which would expose people to illness unnecessarily. The plot would have been dramatically improved by including at least some of the aftermath, although I may be expecting too much. I do wonder whether this noteable omission is a result of the veneration in which 'scientists' were held by the TV of this era: perhaps the assumption was that this misconduct would all be taken care of behind the scenes and it was none of our business.

There is another, more major, criticism of this episode, in my opinion. The actor playing Stephen Franklin, the boy with the XYY syndrome, is Barry Stokes, who was born in 1948. This episode aired on January 18th, 1971, so was presumably made the year before which would make Stokes 22 or 23 when it was made, playing the role of a 17 year old. And I'm afraid it shows. He's clearly too old for the role, and while you can get away with this with older actors in his home, it shows up that they've got a grown man in the classroom and it's just wrong. That said, this is a demanding, conflicting role, and I wonder whether they cast an adult because a youngster couldn't portray the range of emotion necessary.

My only other criticism is that there's something wrong with the way everyone treats him, leaving aside his appearance. Stephen is supposed to be seventeen, and people keep referring to him as a child. At the time in the UK seventeen was the age at which you couldn't be brought back if you ran away from him and didn't want to go (currently it's sixteen, and one of these days I'm going to do the 1975 documentary Johnny Go Home but the list of content warnings would take about a paragraph). Stephen is actually above this age, and is clearly not a child, yet keeps being called one and treated as one. Perhaps this criticism should be placed in the context that he is adopted in the series, so it's posssible that he was being treated with kid gloves because he had had difficult experiences previously, and certainly the relationship between his adoptive parents and him is portrayed in a delicate, understanding way which is quite touching. The desperation of his father to get help and the subtleties of his existing relationship with Quist are portrayed very carefully in an excellent, nuanced way.

So this is another excellent episode of Doomwatch, which despite being open to some criticism, is a subtle portrayal of some very complex and weighty ethical and emotional matters. It could have been improved by casting a younger actor, and by us seeing what happens after a researcher is found acting unethically.

(NB Comments are always welcome but I will not give room to ones promoting medical misinformation or disinformation.)

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#70s tv #doomwatch

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