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bluerose5 · 3 years

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The Ghost of Paradise (Exile AU)

Chapter 1: Exiled

Rating: M

Word Count: 3,791

Tags: Mass Effect: Andromeda, Reyder, Exiles AU, Pre-Relationship, Drinking, Mentions of Recreational Drug Use

[Read it here on ao3.]

If there was one thing Scott used to his advantage, it was the fact that people always seemed to underestimate him. They thought him to be that sweet, lovable guy that almost everyone got along with. To them, he was simply a normal, everyday soldier who bought the Initiative's pitch like everyone else and took the leap across galaxies on a hunch.

Granted, most of that was somewhat true, but not entirely.

Like the other exiles, Scott didn't exactly wait around for someone else to come swooping in to save the day when the Initiative went to shit. Given that he was part of the original Pathfinder mission team —sent ahead on the Nexus to help prepare for the ark's arrival— he was supposed to have more say, should worse come to worst.

Yeah, because that turned out so well.

It wasn’t for lack of trying. When it was clear that the arks were delayed, it fell to Scott and the others sent ahead by their Pathfinders to call the shots on that end. That was what they had agreed upon per protocol before departing from the Milky Way.

Of course, Nexus leadership had something to say about that. They backtracked hard, citing inexperience and the lack of SAM as reasons to keep the Pathfinders' Nexus representatives from gaining power.

All Tann seemed to worry about was maintaining control over the populace, even when his choices didn't seem to be in everyone's best interests.

One after another, every attempt to establish an outpost failed. Naturally, hope began to dwindle over time, as would be expected after so many failures. It was brutal to watch, especially since Nexus leadership absolutely refused to send any of the Pathfinders' designated representatives. Scott didn't fully understand that decision. Maybe Tann thought that if he gave them an inch, then they would take a mile. Perhaps he was intimidated by the very thought that they might vie for the Pathfinder position yet again.

In the end, it didn't matter.

Scott didn't leave because they refused him the fancy title and its accompanying throne.

No, Scott left because of the utter incompetence. Kesh could handle her own as superintendent, but Tann and Addison were both a piece of work in their own right, making idiotic decisions yet never owning up to their mistakes. Making decisions that affected everyone yet never listening to the opinions of the public.

It was maddening, and Scott's eventual departure was inevitable.

Joining up with the uprising was one thing he couldn’t bring himself to regret. Scott fought to get innocent people off that station and to safety. Not everyone who left was a criminal, and they deserved better than what they got.

By the time they made it to Kadara, Scott was already tiring of Heleus. He helped take down the kett, didn't really get any credit for doing so, and jumped ship as soon as he could.

After Sloane took control of the port, Scott escaped into the badlands every now and then, only returning on occasion. She might have had good intentions in the beginning, but Scott didn’t like the direction her leadership was taking in regards to their future.

Besides, with trouble brewing between the Collective and the Outcasts, it seemed like he took the right step in venturing out on his own.

At first, he kept to himself, but it was impossible to ignore the people in need of help.

Seeds of corruption were already planted in the Outcasts' organization. Not that the Charlatan and their Collective were much better. Everything about the two factions' activities spelled trouble for all of the "little people" getting caught in the crossfire.

Scott had to do something. Ignoring the problem would only make it worse, leaving it to fester and spread like an unwelcome infection.

The gangs could beat each other up as much as they liked, but Scott was determined to make the planet safe for those who merely sought shelter from the madness. It took weeks of scouting out areas with a decent enough bedrock, weeks of surveying the angaran filtration systems, to even have a blueprint for a working water filter.

Of course, being an engineer had its perks.

Eventually, Scott managed to rig his tactical cloak for prolonged use and infiltrated one of the angaran hubs out in the badlands. He made it out with no collateral damage, taking off in the dead of night with scans of their systems. It gave him enough of an understanding to integrate their design into his own plans.

Did he feel bad for stealing as he did? Yes. Could he afford to linger on the guilt, knowing that those angara were denying the Milky Way species access to their plans? No.

Not when survival was on the line.

It was either keep giving them insane amounts of credits and supplies in exchange for a measly cup of water or take it for himself.

Scott was only glad he got in and out undetected. He would fight if he had to, but he wasn't bloodthirsty to the point that he actively sought out confrontation.

Building and perfecting his own filters took time and resources, even more so than usual since he was careful to keep any transactions out of the port under the radar. It was worth it, though. Before long, Scott had a working filtration system under his control.

And on Kadara, where there was fresh water, people soon followed.

Any exiles without gang affiliation were welcome. Most were wary to move to the area at first, understandably so, but Scott didn't force the matter. After all, it was difficult to verify whether or not this new town was a trap or the real thing. How could the exiles guarantee that it wouldn't turn out like all the other towns trying to get a start in the badlands? There one day, and burned to the ground by the next.

Hell, Scott didn't even attach his name to the place . Taking a page out of the Charlatan's book, Scott preferred a more discreet approach to leadership.

However, even Scott knew that, if he was ever going to get the place functioning properly, he would need to win some people over to his side.

Dr. Nakamoto had been the best person to off start with, and Scott didn't regret choosing him for a second. In exchange for retrieving his formula for Oblivion, Dr. Nakamoto promised his services as Scott's resident physician.

Luckily, his patients were more than happy to follow. Some even stayed, and word soon spread.

The rest, as they say, is history.

The locals started calling the place Paradise. A cheesy enough name, but it came down to a vote so Scott allowed it.

Compared to the surrounding cesspool that was the badlands, Scott figured he could understand why they would call it that. It felt like an oasis in an otherwise desolate wasteland, a place where one could go and catch their breath.

As for Paradise's "elusive leader," there was just as much speculation around their identity as there was around the Charlatan's. Although, unlike the Charlatan, all of the residents under Scott's care have met him, and all remained tight-lipped about who he was.

He was grateful for their loyalty. He never asked for it, but he was grateful nonetheless.

It prevented the gangs from painting a target on any one person's back. There were the occasional attacks on the community, but their people were stronger and smarter than the outlaws gave them credit for.

As stories of Scott's ventures spread, infiltrating and sabotaging both the Collective's and the Outcasts' operations to provide for his own people, Kadara Port started to buzz about this mysterious third party that joined in on Kadara's power play.

Truth was, Scott wasn't looking for power or influence.

He was simply looking to protect and provide, no matter the cost.

The Ghost, they called him, known for sneaking in and out without a trace.

And any time he was detected, there were never any witnesses left to tell the tale.

Those at Paradise always got a kick out of the nickname, refusing to let him live it down.

That was fine, though. Scott would rather be the people's boogeyman than to let their opposition think that Paradise will just roll over on their backs and let everyone else fuck them over without retaliation.

On Kadara, it was a dog-eat-dog kind of world. Any sign of weakness will be quickly taken advantage of.

But Scott played his part well.

Nowadays, he lived in the port more often than not, putting up with Sloane's ridiculous protection fees in order to keep the suspicion off himself and those around him.

At the slightest hint of trouble, Paradise had an emergency beacon equipped that would ping Scott's omni-tool at a moment's notice. He had the utmost faith in their capabilities, but he would be there at the drop of a hat, should he be signaled.

For now, it was time he sat back, kicked up his feet, and listened.

Crazy all the things you could find out just from listening to a conversation here or there.

As soon as Scott sat down at the bar in Kralla’s, he asked Umi for his usual.

“Starting a tab?” she asked as she wiped down the bar.

Scott was almost afraid to ask if that was blood or wine staining the rag that she was using. Then again, ignorance was bliss.

Such was the way of life on Kadara.

Scanning the area, Scott eventually nodded.

“Might as well.” He gave a long, drawn-out sigh. “I’m meeting with Reyes soon. Cheap bastard never pays for his drinks.”

“Yet you keep letting him get away with it,” Umi noted.

Scott chuckled.

“Best not to burn bridges over a few drinks,” he said, “especially when this bridge in particular filters a large majority of the goods coming in and out Kadara.”

“Whatever floats your boat, Ryder.”

While Umi continued to mix his drink, Scott tuned into the conversations around him. One caught his attention right off the bat, focused on the latest topic of discussion that was making its rounds throughout the Port.

“I’m tellin’ ya!” the human griped, words slightly slurred. “That damn place is a cult. All exclusive-like. I swear, that lot would rather sacrifice their firstborns than give up the name of their precious leader.”

“Hmph, doesn’t matter,” their salarian companion muttered. “If the outlaws in the badlands don’t take care of that group soon, chances are that Sloane or the Charlatan will, leader or no leader.”

Heh, Scott would like to see them try.

Speaking of the devil himself, Scott tensed the second he felt hands upon his shoulders, only to relax once he heard that familiar voice whisper in his ear.

“You look like you’re waiting for someone,” Reyes breathed, his lips brushing lightly along the shell of his ear.

Without missing a beat, Scott brushed him off with a playful glare.

“You’re late,” he scolded. He tried his best to sound indifferent, unimpressed. His relationship with Reyes has always been complicated at best. “As always.”

Releasing Scott from his hold, Reyes claimed the spot at his side, pretending to look properly chastised.

“I swear, it won’t happen again,” he said. He even made a show of crossing his heart. “I promise.”

“And yet, I don’t believe you.”

“Well, that’s because I was lying.”

Scott snorted, “At least you’re honest about something.”

That’s not even taking into account the whole Charlatan business, something that Reyes seemed to hold extra close to his chest with Scott around. Scott couldn’t tell if it was because Reyes had his own suspicions about him, or if he withheld that information for some other reason unbeknownst to Scott.

Either way, it took Scott a while to put the pieces together himself. Not too long, considering that the majority of the port was still puzzled over the Charlatan’s identity, but it was long enough for Scott to be as certain as humanly possible without having Reyes spell it out for him.

It was simple, really, once Scott knew what to look for. How Reyes slipped up one time about where the Collective’s base was, only to brush it off as mere rumor. How, on any job they took together, Reyes was the first to volunteer to follow up on any Collective leads. Or, better yet, how he seemed so certain whether or not an incident coincided with the Charlatan’s MO if the Charlatan was the one being implicated.

Safe to say, spend enough time with the man, and it became rather obvious over time.

As Keema was all too eager to point out, Reyes liked to think he was so subtle when, in reality, he’s not. Well, not as much as he assumed, at least.

On the other hand, maybe the Charlatan’s secret identity only became apparent to Scott because Reyes wanted him to figure it out.

If that was the case, then Scott would have to open that can of worms another day.

Right now, he needed to focus on why they were here.

Clearing his throat, Scott waited until Umi passed them their drinks and left, moving on to serve her other customers.

Scott grabbed ahold of Reyes’s sleeve and tugged. He waited until Reyes met his eyes, then jerked his chin in the direction of a nice, secluded table.

“Shall we?” he asked.

Reyes hummed, eyes twinkling mischievously.

“Trying to get me alone, Scott?” Resting against the bar, Reyes leaned in close, but Scott refused to move a single muscle, holding his ground. “You need only ask.”

“I’ll keep that in mind then,” Scott said. He gave Reyes a blatant once-over, sparing his lips an appreciative glance. “It’s not every day that I get the great Reyes Vidal all to myself.”

“Keep buttering me up, Scott,” Reyes teased, “and I might just give you that discount after all.”

“Really?”

“No.”

Scott huffed.

Picking up their drinks, they soon settled in at the table that Scott had pointed out. From where they sat, they had a whole view of the bar.

Scott took a swig of his beer, and Reyes instantly followed suit, unable to take their eyes off of each other for even a second.

They sat their glasses back down with a solid thunk.

“Okay,” Scott started, “let’s get down to business.”

“Just like that?” Reyes laughed.

“Just like that.” Shuffling in place, Scott reached into his pocket and removed a small pouch filled with seeds. At Reyes’s curious expression, Scott explained, “My payment. A rather generous one, if I do say so myself.”

After Scott tossed the pouch onto the table, Reyes picked it up. He let its weight rest in the palm of his hand for a moment before loosening the ties to sneak a peek.

His brow furrowed in confusion.

“Seeds?” he questioned, cocking his head to the side.

“Yep,” Scott said, popping the ‘p’ for emphasis. “Seeds for a ‘medicinal herb.’ My scans confirmed it. It develops antibiotic-like properties as it matures, along with some other, more recreational effects.”

And by scans, Scott meant Nakamoto. Their resident doctor was quick to jump at the chance to study the plant’s effects, especially if it could help fight off future infections in Andromeda.

Scott had started off by “borrowing” a few plants from some of their local cultivators, returning the samples to the greenhouse that they had established in Paradise.

Their latest harvest yielded a surplus, so Scott figured that any leftover seeds would be a profitable bargaining chip for trade.

Turns out, he was right.

Reyes tightened his grip upon the pouch and pocketed it, now that he knew what he was getting out of their exchange.

“A valuable product,” Reyes acknowledged, “if what you say is true.”

Smirking, Scott leaned back in his chair, hand over his heart in mock offense.

“Now, Reyes, would I ever lie to my favorite smuggler?”

“True enough. You do have a soft spot for me.”

“You’re that certain, huh?”

“As a betting man, I would say that I’m confident in my chances of being right.”

He even had the gall to throw in a wink for good measure.

Scott’s face warmed, but he ignored the sensation, trying to calm his racing heart.

Of, if only he knew…

Clearing his throat, Scott returned their focus to the topic at hand.

“Also, with that herb, you don’t have to worry about any of those nasty addictive effects like with Oblivion,” Scott continued. “I guess the high you get from it could be considered slightly addictive in more of a mental sense, but it’s relatively harmless on a physiological level.”

Reyes raised an eyebrow at him.

“Sounds like you know from personal experience.”

“I, uh—” Scott stammered, caught red-handed. “Well, what kind of salesman would I be if I didn’t sample the product for myself?”

“A poor one, indeed,” Reyes agreed. “I’m only offended that you didn’t think to invite me to the party.”

“I’ll keep that in mind next time I feel the urge to smoke the space weed,” Scott deadpanned.

“Please, do.”

“Okay, okay.” Scott did his best to hide his laughter. His lip quivered at the corner. “Back to business, mister. You’re not taking my goods and leaving me with nothing again.” Reyes had charmed his way out of one too many deals with him in the past, but not anymore. “Where’s the goods?”

“Scott,” Reyes gasped. “I am offended you would think that I would stoop so low as to steal from my favorite exile.”

When it was clear that Scott wasn’t buying it, Reyes surrendered.

“Alright, here. One long-ranged scanner, ready for use.” Taking out a small package, Reyes pushed it pointedly across the table. Scott took it instantly, unable to express his gratitude in that moment. “Sorry that I didn’t have a chance to giftwrap it. My best only deserves the best, after all.”

Scott felt his heart skip a beat.

“Don’t think anything of it.” Scott shook his head, clutching tightly at the package. “This should be enough.”

“Glad to hear it.” Reyes paused, hesitating before coming out with it. “If you don’t mind me asking, what’s it for?”

“What else would I use a scanner for?” Scott countered. “I wasn’t on the Pathfinder’s mission team for nothing. We have a whole bunch of unexplored ruins scattered all over the surface of this planet, and I plan on getting some readings.”

To be more specific, he wanted a reading on their turrets if he could examine one at a safe distance. Even the beam technology from the Observer bots would be useful in formulating a defensive matrix for the t—

“You what?”

Uh-oh, someone was upset.

Scott grimaced. He carefully avoided Reyes’s gaze, filled with heat and disapproval.

“Reyes, come on,” Scott sighed. It was weird to see him so fiercely protective, to see him act like he cared about anything other than the next job he had lined up. “I’m a big boy. I’ll be careful.”

“Kadara’s most experienced scientists were careful,” Reyes snapped, “yet that didn’t stop the Remnant from butchering them like animals. Scott, there’s a reason why even the angara avoid those areas like the plague. The security measures alone…”

Could be what kept Scott’s people safe.

Sitting up straight, Scott held his head up high with renewed purpose, meeting Reyes’s eyes with a stubborn glare.

“I’m going,” he stated, “whether you like it or not. The information stored there might be vital to our continued survival. We can’t pass up an opportunity to learn the Remnant’s secrets.”

Reyes pursed his lips, but eventually acquiesced.

“Fine, but I’m accompanying you when you go.”

“That’s not your decision!”

“You’re not changing my mind.”

They stared each other down, caught at an impasse.

After a moment of tense silence between them, Reyes grumbled. Since that argument was obviously far from being over, he was more than willing to change the subject.

“I have another exchange for you.”

Now, that got Scott’s attention. Setting the scanner aside, he would make sure to install the upgrade into his omni-tool later, curious about this second trade-off.

They didn’t have anything else planned for today, and Reyes wasn’t usually the type to drop something like this on a client at the last second.

Whatever he found, it had to be huge.

“What is it?” Scott asked, wondering what the Charlatan himself had up his sleeve.

“A little bit of intel,” he offered, keeping his reply as vague as ever.

Still, if Reyes was offering the information, then it must be important. As shady as he could be at times, information was his forte. When Reyes used it as a bargaining chip, he meant business, and chances were that it was reliable.

Scott simply wondered if he actually wanted the news that Reyes had to offer.

“What’s the catch?” Scott asked, because nothing on Kadara came for free.

Reyes shrugged.

“My shuttle needs some repairs, and I only trust one person to fix her up. Mind coming by tomorrow?”

Scott pretended to consider his offer for a moment, but in the end, he could never say no to working on that old bird.

“Name the time and place.”

“I’ll send you the details later, but don’t make me wait up.”

“And deny you of my presence for even longer? That would just be cruel.”

“Glad we can agree on something.” Reyes’s smile soon twisted into a frown. That solemn expression certainly didn’t do any favors to ease Scott’s nerves. “As for that intel, you’ve heard of Vehn Terev, right?”

“The poor, unfortunate soul whose head is next up on Sloane Kelly’s chopping block?” After all, she couldn’t afford to upset the angara, not after word spread of Vehn's betrayal. That would threaten the balance of power too much, at least in her eyes. “I might have heard a thing or two.”

“Well, you’re about to hear much more in the coming days,” Reyes explained, watching him closely for any sign of change. “I recently received a message from Evfra. Apparently, Vehn has some useful intel of his own, intel that could potentially cripple the kett’s operations in all of Heleus for good. Evfra has arranged for me to meet with one of his contacts about securing Vehn’s release from prison.”

“A difficult feat if Sloane won’t comply,” Scott noted, “but I still don’t see why this information would be of any use to me.”

“Scott—” Reyes hesitated.

For once, he seemed genuinely nervous, which in turn caused Scott to panic a little on the inside.

What he said turned Scott’s entire world upside down.

“The contact is Pathfinder Ryder.”

#mass effect #mass effect andromeda #scott ryder #reyes vidal #reyder #mreyder #exile AU #my writing #my fanfic

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thatblackboianarchist · 3 years

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Banks are Dumb and Abolish Money (1/2)

Banking is like super dumb. So we all know banks, right? They’re financial institutions dedicated to the management of money, those imaginary numbers, for consumers and businesses (and I suppose the government). Most people are affiliated with a bank of some kind, whether it’s a traditional private bank or a credit union or whatever else. So, I am an anti-financialist, I think finance as a concept, field, industry, whatever, is stupid for a few reasons that happen to align with why I hate banking in specific. So let’s explain.

I’m 18, turned an adult relatively recently, so I am having to get involved in banking more. Checking balances, using my card, transferring funds, etc. And can I just say, it is absolutely horrible. Well, okay, I enjoy the independence aspect to it: I have my own bank account that I can make purchases with; I don’t want to worry about my mom looking at my purchases (you know what I mean) so I actually buy the things I want. I feel all professional and adulty when I use banking jargon like “Yes, I would like to check my balance and transfer a set of funds from my domestic checking account to my international checking account”, but other than the feeling of autonomy and independence that I get from engaging with the bank system, I don’t like banks.

For starters, there are so many fees and they’ll all stupid. Like, overdraft fees, if you try to spend money you don’t have in your checking account, you can get slapped with a $35 overdraft fee, which to me seems so, pointless? Idk, I know the point is so that the bank can make money, but like, pfft, I’m not a fucking bank, I’m not a bank CEO or shareholder or board member, so why the fuck should that matter to me? I don’t care about the profit interests of banks, it’s not like I will ever see that money in my life. I care about me and my own convenience and life. If someone doesn’t have enough money in their checking for a purchase, just reject the purchase, like the fuck? Just say you can’t buy this thing you want, you don’t have to charge them for it, that’s so stupid.

Oh, and sometimes there are withdraw fees. Why? Why should I have to pay money to access my own money? Like what the fuck? What is the point? And don’t give me the “they need to make profit” line of defense, no the fuck they don’t, it is actually possible to run an organization without extracting endless lines of cash from it. You can just provide a fucking service and not have to always get something in return; life doesn’t have to be transactional ALL THE TIME. Life is not a bank, it shouldn’t be run like a set of cost and revenues functions or risk-benefit analyses, just fucking do what you are supposed to do.

The reason I hate banks is primarily because I think money as a concept is dumb. You have this imaginary number that separates you from the goods and services and whatever else that is produced in this world. It’s like a middleman you have to satisfy before you can access anything you need or want. You have to pay for housing, clothes, computers, chap stick, vacations, and literally everything. It’s annoying and it’s incredibly unhealthy.

Have we ever considered the long-term psychological consequences of having to turn every single desire you have into a risk-benefit analysis? Like, if I want to eat raspberry-filled chocolate, I have to weigh purchasing that over other things I might need to spend my money on. What if I need a repair for my bike? What if I need to pay for that train ticket? What if I want to eat out? What if I want that sex toy from Spencers? In our consumerist economy, that is a LOT of information you have to account for, and if you are poor like me, then you have to increase that processing ten-hundred-fold. And sure, the risk-benefit analysis becomes less arduous the richer you are, but most people aren’t rich and all people can’t be rich, by definition, so idk, is this really a psychologically sustainable way to organize consumption of goods and services?

I don’t think it is, especially since money is treated as a limited resource for everyday people, and as a limitless resource for governments, billionaires, and corporations. When you're not rich, your entire ability to access resources is limited by how much money you have. Why does it have to be limited? Why can’t I just eat the raspberry-flavored chocolate because I want to eat it and you are offering for it to be eaten? Why can’t I just grab the sex toy I want? Why do we have to limit ourselves for no good reason?

Oh, but people will tell you there are good reasons for money to exist. That we need money to exist. That there is no other way to organize a society. People talk about money like it’s as natural as the rising and setting of the sun, when in contrast to a literal celestial body, money is at the end of the day just a piece of paper (or I guess numbers on a screen). It has no inherent value to anyone; it is only valuable because we collectively consider it to be valuable. We already intuitively understand that, at least, I think we do. If I take my Euros to the local fish market in Madagascar and try to buy something, they will tell me to get lost! Because Euros aren’t considered to be valuable there. All this to say, money isn’t natural, it’s artificial; it is brought into this world by human choices and it can be brought out of this world with human choices.

One reason people talk about the necessity of money is because of scarcity, that if everything was free, we would run out of everything. Well, I hate to be the one to say it, but scarcity is a myth. Well, okay, technically there are limited amounts of everything, but that statement ignores context. If you live in a forest with 1 million apples and there are 5,000 people living in the forest, including you, that’s 200 apples per person. Is that meaningful scarcity? Relative to you and the population you are part of, do the apples even appear finite? How would you go about eating all of those in a day, or even a month, and what kind of person would eat 6 apples per day? Scarcity is relative to the population it affects, and only becomes meaningful when there are small levels of stuff in comparison to a large population that wants that stuff.

The mythology of scarcity ignores many key factors about the natural world. One, lots of resources are renewable. Water is renewable, air is renewable, energy is renewable (at least with solar, wind, and such), etc. You know what else is renewable? Biomass, so things like wood, plants, animals, food, agricultural products, cheeses, milk, etc. Renewable just means that it will naturally replenish itself so long as your consumption is horribly abusive and exploitative. And how can we ensure that our consumption is horribly abusive and exploitative? Adopting a zero waste paradigm, where we recycle, reuse, reduce shit, where we repair things that are broken, rot things into compost and soil, and refuse shit we don’t want.

Nature is cyclical. Resources are cyclical. Even things that aren’t considered renewable, like clay, sand, glass, gemstones, metals, ores, ARE actually renewable, they just take a long time to renew naturally. But goods themselves are renewable if you establish cycles of use. Take a bike that you own. It breaks so you repair it instead of buying a new bike which would use even more resources. It becomes irreparable so you melt the bike down and use the metal for something else, maybe a new bike or a kitchen appliance or a cup. Metal resources are cyclical, they can always be recycled and reused.

What if we made the most out of the resources we had instead of constantly destroying the natural environment to make more things? We have literal landfills full of resources, full of metals we can recycle, biomatter we can repurpose, items we can repair, etc. Waste is an illusion, created by capitalism to necessitate infinite production and consumption. Capitalism relies upon a linear waste model, where we produce shit, use shit, and discard shit, so we can buy the next shit. Anti-financialism relies upon a cyclical zero waste model, where we take shit, use shit, use shit for something else, and something else, and something else, and something else, forever, without us having to produce new resources for each “something else”.

We don’t need money to run our economy or limit scarcity. We can limit scarcity through responsible consumption and production, where we localize production, establish complex trade networks, adopt the 6 Rs of zero waste, and rot and recycle when all other options are exhausted. Where we share the shit we already have instead of hoarding it for ourselves, where we borrow things temporarily, like with a library, until we are done so the next person can use it. Where we turn the process of accessing goods into gift-giving, offering the fruits of our labour only so that people may benefit from it.

Second part here.

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taurus-official · 3 years

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My partner was drawing fanart for a show they like. I overanalyzed it. They wanted me to share. This post is very long.

The show is called Bolts and Blip. It was made in 2010, and ran just one season into 2011. The initial premise I was told was that robots competed in sports on the moon to solve disputes that happened on earth.

Initially I thought this was an odd way for democracy to operate, but hey, I don’t make decisions for the government, so moon robot sports is how things were.

This intrigued me for a few reasons, such as

It takes place in a post-war era of “world peace”, in approximately 2080. Judging how things are going now, I find the concept of 2080 being after a world war very believable.

There was seemingly one democracy on earth now, and that democracy decided unanimously to settle all further disputes via moon robot sports, as stated.

Humanity was technologically advanced enough at this point to not only create robots that could play sports, but they played these sports in a large city on the moon!

My initial question was this: Do we know who built the robots?

Yes of course, its common knowledge on the moon. Just two scientists are responsible for all the robotic life on the moon, creating a number of robots in the ballpark in the thousands. This is a lot of moon robots.

There is a need for so much raw material to create even a thousand robots, enough for a civilization, NOT TO MENTION the massive city they all inhabit. Where they probably don’t get new shipments of materials on the reg, this would mean the scientists could continue making more until they ran out of resources.

However, besides these main robots, one of the scientists also created a race of at least 100 robot leprechauns living under the ground. Or, at least... One of the leprechauns.

Then, allegedly, this one robot created more than a hundred more. I do not know when the first robot leprechaun was created, but I fear for the safety of the human race if there was any interplanetoid travel between the earth and the moon while they existed.

The resources sent to the moon for the purposes of making robots would be very finite. Thus, if these scientists created the robot leprechauns before they had used the resources up, the leprechauns could apparently self replicate using the materials on the moon. This is how there became more than a hundred of them.

This may not be the case, but if a single one of the sublunarean self replicating leprechaun robots happened to board a spaceship that was heading for Earth... With a near infinite supply of resources, enough to spare on moon robot sports, the number of leprechaun robots would quickly grow. The earths infrastructure could be at risk. I’m talking sinkholes that are miles wide. Why?

Because the leprechauns were programmed and built for the moons gravity. The leprechauns create more of themselves on earth, as many as they are able to, but are still programmed for the moons gravitational density. The Earth is much heavier, and when the build their subterranean halls, they would not know that our planets density is more prone to collapse. Catastrophe.

But even that is purely conjecture, because Earth is never once seen in the show. Let me get back to what we know.

The leprechaun robots, as well as the main race of robots were all created by one man. Dr. Tommy, colloquially known as the ‘good’ scientist. The ‘bad’ scientist is called Dr. Blood, which is a kickass name 7 days a week. I will explain why there are ONLY two humans on the moon shortly.

The primary species of robots that Dr. Tommy makes participate in team based sports, interpersonal relationships, jokes, goofs, and gambits. The concept of Artificial Intelligence making jokes, playing sports, and creating bonds is not unheard of, or at least, it might not be in 2080. However, my next questions make me think these robots were not AI. My questions were:

Do the robots have the concept of death?

Do the robots ever say the word ‘heck’?

To both of these, the answer was a horrifying yes.

Yes, it is confirmed, that robots on the moon say heck. The implications of this are astronomical. I will spell it out thoroughly because lockdown has given me endless time with which I can do as I please.

Heck is, of course, derived from the word hell. Hell is the counterpart to heaven, both terms used to signify the existence of an afterlife. Where there is the word heck, there are beings that believe in the afterlife.

These robots have souls.

The circumstances in which these robots die, which they are entirely able to do because of their soul, is such: The Reformatter. To simplify, the Reformatter grinds the entirety of the robots body to scrap, which it then melts together to make household appliances. This is what happens to robots who are not ‘good enough’ in society.

What the nightmarish fuck.

Not only do the souls of the robots face heaven and hell, they also face being reformatted to become the brave little toaster if they do not serve their society.

Their society which is made by one human

Let me emphasize this; they treat him like he is unto a god. How can they not? He created them, their world. He is their father, their everything. They even built a statue of him, holding an enormous double sided wrench which is clearly symbolic to remind them.

Dr. Tommy gives life, and it can be taken away.

The method of which he gives life is a puzzlement to me. I am told that our dear Dr. Tommy refers to a robots as having a ‘Heart’. This Heart is described to me as a magical piece of leprechaun gold, so the robots are able to feel.

The robot Heart is likely a simplification. The show is advertised as a Family show, and must cater to the understanding of all ages, including small children. Breaching the topic of souls, mortality, and the afterlife likely wasn’t something the writers or creator were able to do. My theory is, the Heart is a future technology that can instill a soul into a robotic body,

Which, wow. Big, if true. At first I was boggling at the concept of manufactured souls being a technology that humanity could see in my lifetime, but then I remembered one of the three key pieces of knowledge I was initially given.

“It takes place in a post-war era of “world peace”"

....Throughout human history, one social class is legally subjected to inhumane treatment; Prisoners. Once you are in jail, internment camps, concentration camps, those that are keeping you there believe you have less rights as a person. Medical experimentation, slavery, abuse, forced sterilization, nothing is illegal.

And after a war like the doozy Earth must’ve recently went through, there must be a lot of war criminals. Those that were so engulfed in carnage and bloodshed, there was no way for them to reenter society. The newly forming singular government, if they had access to the necessary technology, may have used it on these criminals.

Think about it. The dust settles from an all out world war. There cannot be peace without someone to shoulder the blame of the atrocities. There must be an evil, if there is to be peace. So, the individuals who excelled in war and killing became the reason there was war and killing. These people are now less than human for what they’ve done. They can be treated as such.

I think this is when their souls were taken. As each warrior passed, their spirit was caught and kept. And then, in a classic move from 1788-1868, they transported all the criminals to somewhere they would never harm humanity again. Somewhere out of the way, remote, and it was the moon. You knew where this was going, they sent all the souls to the moon.

Along with a large amount of other people! The two scientists certainly did not build an entire moon colony on their own, and at this point, the robots were not even in production yet. The moon colony was made, and then the scientists began their work.

Starting with the leprechauns, who I believe were not made from the souls of war criminals. The first one may have been another scientist, the one responsible for creating the ‘Hearts’ in the first place. This is why that one knows how to create more of itself.

Then, the robots were made. There would have been a prototype, but let me focus on what the show covers for a bit.

The sports that these robots engage in is between two existing teams, complete with names, colors, and esprit d’corps. These games vary from episode to episode, some involving hang gliders, some with miniature fighter jets, some involve a battle with guns... that squirt water. The logic there is that if they are hit with the water, they rust and die. Which, okay. Right.

But a lot of the games and sports they play seem to be quite combat based. Furthermore, the robots seem to take to them naturally.

Not to mention, there are bomb mice and big laser guns as well. These robots are armed. Why the hell are these robots armed? Who thought it was a good idea? After all, these robots are clearly capable of malice still. Why wouldn’t they simply turn violent against the humans?

I think they did. Here’s my theory of how it went down.

Dr. Tommy begins using the souls of war criminals in a prototype of robot

The robots can recall their life on earth as humans, but are now trapped in metal vessels because their bodies have been destroyed

The robots begin reacting to the existential nightmare of being soul trapped

Some despair and destroy themselves

Some are enraged and destroy humans

Most of them, actually

Most of them turn their wrath against humans

The people who inhabited the moon, who created the cities, were suddenly under attack by the most skilled killers around.

This is when Dr. Tommy hits the kill switch for these robots. They are recycled, and maybe he even collected the souls again but maybe Dr. Blood took those ones.

These happenings left only two humans left on the moon. Dr. Tommy began making a new version of robots, who’s souls could not remember their time on Earth. Perhaps, in taking away everything about their humanity, he gave them the most innocence of anyone.

These robots now know that

Dr. Tommy is good, for he created them

They must contribute to the society Dr. Tommy has made for them

If they fail to do so, they will not only die, but go to hell

Dr. Tommy is the good scientist. He doesn’t want the robots to be used for evil, he doesn’t want them to hate each other. Not like that Dr. Blood, who encourages these robots who have no memory of who they were before and might be able to unlock those memories to become more warlike.

However, look at what Dr. Tommy makes them do. The robots are still using their combat knowledge, independently of their memories of war on Earth. Their knowledge is being honed and enhanced, while the repercussions of their actions are not something they are privvy to. But, Dr. Tommy is the good scientist. The robots know this, because he said so.

Or because they will be obliterated and condemned if they go against his word.

It is also worth noting that the good doctor also usually lives remote from his creations, in a little space shuttle.

In conclusion. I believe Dr. Tommy is knowingly creating an army of supercombatant robots, imbued with the souls of the most bloodthirsty war criminals, that will do his every will. He intentionally killed every human on the moon colony that he could. I fear what this will mean for the future Earth of this show.

Final notes:

These robots, once their souls memory was wiped clean, would have no gender. Gender is a construct originally created to indicate what a persons sex characteristics were. Not only is that a spectrum on humans, but robots would not be given any such characteristics, nor would the concept of gender transfer over. All the characters seem to perscribe gender to themselves though, which was not something they were given at their ‘birth’. This makes none of them are cisgender, so every robot in the show is transgender.

Further cementing my belief that Dr. Tommy made these robots for combat is that at LEAST the main characters have “super” modes, where they become even more powerful and capable of succeeding in combat. What’s the hyper-killing mode for, Dr. Tommy? What’s it for?

The humans that were killed on the moon are still somewhere, probably frozen? One joke alluded to the characters being able to purchase human body parts (a stomach) in the run of their average day. Its very possible that the human anatomy is being extensively studied by the robots. Whether this is for medical purposes, or to more accurately kill humans, or to satisfy their innate bloodlust, I do not know.

I am also told that at the end of the only season, a space ship that is also a school bus arrives on the moon! It is full of children. Which. Oh god oh no.

I understand this turned into a grimdark internet theory of a cartoon. I also believe that, without the ability to think critically, we will never be able to come to rue understanding of our own nature. It is still a cartoon. My thoughts and words should be taken with a singular grain of salt, because I am a human who is often wrong. That being said, Andrew Knight, if you ever read this, let me know what you think.

#bolts and blip #cartoon #cartoons #theory #tw

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revlyncox · 3 years

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Stone Soup 2020

This reflection was written for the Washington Ethical Society by Lyn Cox, November 22, 2020.

In the story of Stone Soup, we learn we are more powerful and resilient together than we are alone, and that however small we think our gifts are, they are a beautiful and necessary ingredient in the larger whole. Liz James makes a good point that we often miss opportunities because we haven’t noticed the beauty of our own gifts. It is also true that sometimes we hold back out of a feeling of scarcity, or because we’re not sure what else will be asked of us once we open up. We can tell by how many different versions of this folk tale are in existence that the legend of Stone Soup is rich with meaning. Just like a soup with many ingredients, a tale with many tellers has subtle notes and surprising flavors that we can keep discovering year after year. Today, I’d like to talk about appreciation and abundance.

Felix Adler knew that recognizing human worth is part of the project of moral uplift. He said, "May the humanity that is within every human being be held precious. The vice that underlies all vices is that we are held cheap by others, and far worse, that in our innermost soul we think cheaply of ourselves."

Adler exhorts us to appreciate each other and ourselves.

The Washington Ethical Society Community Relations Pact includes a commitment to “express gratitude readily and accept appreciation graciously.” You already know that appreciating one another and the staff is an act that lifts everyone up, and helps us to bring out the best in each other by reinforcing what is joyful, beautiful, and supportive of our shared mission. In a community as large as WES, especially when we’re mainly a virtual community, it can be hard to figure out how to participate, how to be part of the interactions and responses that help shape this poetry in motion. Positive feedback is an extremely effective way to do that. Appreciation increases energy and resilience. You know that. You voted on it.

What might be less obvious is the part about accepting appreciation graciously. When someone offers positive feedback, or even a simple greeting, take a moment and allow yourself to be known. We can’t always see each other face to face, even when we’re on video it’s tricky to figure out eye contact. An email, a chat message, an emoji, these small acts of kindness are worth noticing and celebrating. And when messages go out to the whole community, it may not feel personal, but the appreciation expressed for your dedication, your care, your simply being -- those sentiments are sincere. Thank you for being part of WES. Yes, I mean you.

Even less obvious is appreciating yourself. Please know that you are a precious creature of worth. Even before we get into what different people bring to this community or the world, you don’t have to earn your designation as a human being. I think it is easier to be part of something larger than ourselves when we start with the knowledge that we reach out from a place of inherent worth.

We’ve just been through Transgender Day of Remembrance, and I am reminded all over again that there are beloveds who don’t know that they are valued, who are shown by state-sanctioned violence and discrimination that they don’t matter, and the results are deadly. We have to do better at protecting our most marginalized beloveds, particularly Trans women of color, and we have to do better at building a world where every person knows that they are beautiful, valued, and loved. Here, we do our best to create a community where every person can be their whole selves, with all of who they are in terms of culture, race, gender, family shape, language, and ability.

People do not have to “contribute” to have inherent worth, and it’s still lovely to notice when people do offer gifts to the community. It is not mutually exclusive to appreciate people for simply being and to appreciate the time, talent, creativity, and resources that someone has intentionally made available to benefit others. In some retellings of Stone Soup, people bring things to the table that are unusual, things their neighbors would not have thought to add to soup. Maybe it’s some tart fruit that ends up adding tantalizing acidity to the soup, or something briny like capers that gives a surprise spark of salt, or some chickpeas to add body to the broth. Sometimes, but not often, Stone Soup retellings take place in a community where different families have different food traditions, and the resulting fusion creates a soup that is an entirely new culinary snapshot of that community in that place and time. Each person’s presence makes a difference.

Appreciation of others requires a certain amount of humility, recognizing that none of us can do and be all of the things that our communities need at the same time. We are each of us always learning, there are things we have not experienced and do not know. Humility does not necessarily mean self-deprecation. We can know that we are people of worth, and that the things we are in the process of learning are valuable talents to offer, while still admiring and appreciating others. You being your whole self, making mistakes so that you can keep learning to draw out your best talents, combines with your neighbor being their whole selves and being allowed to learn and grow in their talents, until we have a learning and growing community where works-in-progress are appreciated and encouraged.

Felix Adler spoke about how ethics is a cooperative endeavor, that we need each other in our uniqueness. He said, "People may be said to resemble not the bricks of which a house is built, but the pieces of a picture puzzle, each differing in shape, but matching the rest, and thus bringing out the picture."

Let’s go on appreciating the unique shapes of our neighbors, and the bit of the puzzle that we each bring, remembering that this puzzle is a living thing with constantly shifting pictures and shapes. Let’s find ways to affirm the shapes and pictures and flavors that are present in each fleeting moment.

Another value that Stone Soup reminds us of is abundance. In a scarcity mentality, we anticipate dividing up the resources that are apparently before us, with the expectation that it will not be enough. In an abundance mentality, we imagine what could be, and open our minds to the possibility that there may be resources we have not yet noticed. In an abundance framework, we use our time and our resources creatively, we find new applications for items and knowledge available among us, we remember what we are here to do.

Something I wonder about the village in the Stone Soup story is about their purpose for being a village. Why are their homes gathered together? Is it for convenience? Safety in numbers? Is it because political forces have pushed them together? Have they gathered to share a resource like fresh water or good soil? Are they in that area as stewards, caring for a sacred place? It is possible that part of the reason the villagers have stopped valuing their gifts and channeling them together is because they don’t know what their shared purpose might be.

The Stone Soup experience suggests that, whatever brought them together originally, the villagers might find new purpose as a result of this shift in perspective. Having a “why” can unleash energy, creativity, and unity. As the soup begins to cook, the villagers find a temporary purpose in curiosity. This is enough of a goal to help them to see their individual carrots and solitary noodles with new eyes. It is enough of a purpose to inspire action.

Abundance, coupled with purpose, helps us to overcome feelings of helplessness or despair. The people of the village didn’t seem happy at the beginning, or very active. Maybe hunger had made it more difficult to think, or maybe fear of scarcity was driving them apart. Coming together for a common goal reminds us that, even when we are individually limited, collectively we have power.

As we retell Stone Soup in these socially distant times, it is natural to long for the days when we can again safely gather in person. In a moment, we’ll see a video montage that includes photos of past celebrations. It’s OK to be happy about the memories and also sad that we can’t celebrate the same way today. But let’s also appreciate the gifts we have now, and those we have discovered as we have been forced to come up with new solutions. WES is more accessible than ever to those who live at a distance, or who have trouble with mobility. There are people who have never before been able to be part of a vibrant, humanistic congregation, and who now are just as much a part of the Platform experience as someone who lives in Shepherd Park. Let’s not lose our renewed purpose of inclusivity as we re-imagine a post-COVID future.

Given the challenges of planning a virtual Stone Soup, I wonder if one of the reasons the villagers fell into scarcity is because the world changed around them, and they weren’t sure how to adapt. They would have needed a new source of motivation when they couldn’t keep doing things the way they had always been done. They would have needed a new way to apply the talents they had developed under an old paradigm. They would have needed a way to encourage each other to try new things for this new world, to learn and grow imperfectly, with appreciation and acceptance.

Our experience of the last eight months tells us that none of that is easy. I know many of us are tired. Some of us have had economic and health challenges that need not have affected us as deeply in a society with a stronger safety net. Learning how to navigate a new world, even a temporary world when we don’t know how long it will last, is exhausting.

Yet here you are, seeking ways to practice abundance. You sent pictures of food and stones. You sent recipes, over 30 last I heard, which will be emailed to members in a PDF recipe book later today. Some of our Middle School families offered their talent for the story. Maybe there are days when you can’t focus on creating something, but you can begin with appreciating someone; that makes room for abundance, too. This community, collectively, has resources and skills and curiosity and creativity that can carry you into the future. There is abundance here, ready to be coupled with purpose.

The Washington Ethical Society is a precious and valuable community, comprised of beloved people. You are worthy just as you are. If you have gifts you want to share, skills you want to develop, a heart for caring, WES and the world will be made better by your generosity of spirit. We make room by appreciating each other as well as honoring our own gifts. We make way for the future with abundance and purpose. May it be so.

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royalreef · 4 years

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(( ENJOY A MASSIVE POST ABOUT MERFOLK TAXONOMY, because biology has long been my BIGGEST special interest ( yes I’m including paleontology under this, I know it’s more considered an earth science and part of geology, shush ).

Merfolk as a whole are a part of an ancient group of animals that diverged from basal amniotes around the same time amniotes themselves came about, 312 mya (million years ago). I say about, because I haven’t fully decided where exactly to put them in this case, whether they’re fully counted as amniotes or no, and I still need to do a large amount of research into this.

I classify this split as happening there, as opposed to somewhere else, because merfolk are obviously tetrapods, and have some adaptations for full land living that amniotes have, though the merfolk themselves are fully adapted for a watery niche. Their eggs certainly were carried internally for a long time, so there’s probably some convergent evolution to how mammalian live birth happened, hence all the more reason to put them under amniotes, but they’re definitely not synapsids and thus definitely not mammals.

These early ancestors also retained their gills and ability to breathe water. They do have lungs too, and conceptually they filled a very fluid niche, where they had to be able to rapidly switch from aquatic life to terrestrial life, with most being oppurtunists who used this wide variability to be able to get a wider variety of food and resources that other animals couldn’t.

I will say these early ancestors mostly resembled newts/salamanders or small lizards, and somewhere along the line they independently evolved scales, both for providing armor and for retaining water when they were on land, along with all the other reasons to evolve scales.

( Ideally, I’d say they never evolved hair, but considering that I can’t fully redesign Miranda for this blog for fear of inability to use my icons and basically making her fully an OC, she has to keep the hair on her head. Her eyebrows are a maybe, since I joke aplenty about them just being markings or her drawing them on. Landfolk get weird when they see her without any eyebrows, so she has to appear to have them! )

They also generally retained the same amount of digits as other tetrapods, so that’s how Miranda has five fingers still, though merfolk lost one of the toes on their feet, bringing that total down to four.

And yes, all of this does mean that merfolk have plenty of ancestors in deep time that probably fossilized and could be found by even human scientists, but they’re probably thought of in this world as an offshoot of tetrapods that has no extant relatives, with what fossils remain being sparse or incomplete, or even caught in nomen dubium hell. Certainly they weren’t featured in this world’s Jurassic Park, that’s for sure, and if they are represented it’d be in something like ARK.

This also does mean that there are plenty of ancestors that fell into more unique or odd niches, with stranger body plans or something much more different from the rest. 312 mya is a long time, after all! Lots of time for there to be more experimental species, though they didn’t pan out in the long run.

So, with merfolk themselves, I generally have the idea of them as coming from a branch of that tree that hung around the ocean’s edge, sticking closer to the shoreline than the mer alive today, though they were oddly social for a tiny, lizard-like species, probably already communicating through small squeaks and chirps. Lizardy kinda sounds. They spend a good amount of their time on rocky shores and cliffs, so they’re good at climbing over and up them. Likely already had something akin to their fins on the sides of their face, used for communication and display, along with pushing additional water over their gills, or maybe even the fins being used in addition to the gills to extract extra oxygen from the water is basal to merfolk, but only the abyssals really retained most of that feature.

As token as it sounds, I think the K/T extinction event was probably what pushed them to evolve into the branch that became merfolk. The death of much larger marine creatures opened up the ability to go more fully ocean-bound, and to take over a role akin to marine reptiles in the past and the marine mammals that were also evolving at that time, but with the addition of having gills to not have to surface for oxygen.

Their evolution from that point probably was a bit like primates - lots of trying out different shapes and styles, more of that basal form than true merfolk, except their roles being out competeted or otherwise led to extinction, until you get the “true” merfolk - which would occur with a focus on social behavior and language, along with tool use, as was the bonus to being a tetrapod that went back into the ocean but never lost their hands.

This is where we get to the merfolk family tree. I’d say probably the first mer was mid-size, generally had all of the traits of the merfolk you see today, very general, but very adaptive.

The abyssal (royal) merfolk were probably the first to branch off. Their tails resemble mosasaurs’ and early icthyosaurs’ a lot, having a much larger lower lobe of their tail where the bone is, and the upper lobe, being all fleshy, isn’t too pronounced. They went down into the deep sea, branching off early from the rest of the merfolk, and thus were generally super isolated from the rest, which you can see today in how the Merkingdom itself generally is conducted.

There are plenty of other species of merfolk, however, and the abyssals (and Miranda) are not representative of the entire group. There’s a lot of different takes on the same body plan, with different niches and different adaptations and different types of behavior associated with each. They’re all super vocal and adapted to be able to hear well, so that’s also basal to the group, but that also means when they all started forming their own societies and cultures and general settlements, it’s even weirder than how humans do it.

Effectively, merfolk are a lot like the homonid family tree, and for that reason they also generally take after the concept of the “braided stream” more than just the tree of life. It’s also why I can feel more confident saying they’re seperate species and not subspecies, despite being able to reproduce and make viable offspring - and anyway species as a whole are fake and weird. There’s a lot of hybridization going on, with some populations getting some genes from others that benefit them and get genetic and physical variation. In more nomadic merfolk, there’s a lot of their genes spread around in other species and a lot of genetic variation in them, because they roam and run into different species - meanwhile, the abyssals are much more genetically restricted, since the abyss is a generally isolated place that isn’t easy to access unless you’re made for it.

I’m pretty bad at clarifying when I’m talking about abyssal mer vs all merfolk, since there’s a huge amount of difference between the two. Abyssals are probably the merfolk with the most bioluminenscence - while some species probably do have a little or even a lot, it’s not as much of a need as with the abyssals. The abyssals also might have gone through deep-sea gigantism? They’re pretty big by merfolk standards. And yes, that is taking into account how tiny Miranda herself is - since she’s kind of an exception to the rule, being that she didn’t really grow right and her bones didn’t get the chance to form correctly, leaving her as a rather unhealthy-looking runt of an abyssal. I’m generally thinking mer grow throughout their entire lives, as something that’s also basal to the group, they just slow down after a point - so if you got proper care for Miranda’s health issues she might be able to fix some of that problems, and mer medicine is waaaaay more sophisticated and generally ahead than current human medicine, so if it was treated she might be able to come up to a respectable height and avoid some of the isssues of that kind of deformity that’ll occur later in life.

I do believe as a whole, merfolk are rather large. Some are more sleek than others, but especially with abyssal mer, they put on fat and muscle really easily. They’re a lot like large crocodiles in that respect. Again, Miranda is an exception to this rule, as she’s really not healthy - but overall, merfolk are DENSE. Abyssals tend to have tough armor, dense bones, put on muscle and fat easily, and generally should be MUCH heavier than a human of the same size. Not to mention their tails, as unless a mer is in the really late stages of starvation, they keep most of the muscle on their tails. It’s how they swim and get around, so losing that muscle is basically a death sentence to merfolk.

There’s also variation in diet, dentition, and what they can digest. I will say all merfolk generally can handle meat - some of them are more adapted towards eating coral or plant matter or filter-feeding, but generally they can all digest and handle it and won’t turn it down if they do get it. The abyssals do tend towards being carnivores and most of their diet should be meat, but they can handle other biological material as well. They’re equal parts predator and scavenger - their jaw strength is a lot like a hyena’s or a T. rex’s (at least, in the theory of them being scavengers and not predators). It’s VERY useful in getting into any hard material the ocean can throw at them, cracking not only bone but shell and scale and cartilage and shell too, and to extract as much nutrition from any food they find. I can say their jaw strength is probably the strongest among the merfolk for that reason.

This also means, while abyssal mer have their triangular, serrated teeth like a great white shark’s - that tooth shape is more unique to them and their specific niche than to merfolk as a whole, who have a LOT more variation. I imagine at least one has teeth that come together a bit like a parrotfish’s beak, and one has teeth more similar to a crabeater seal’s, useful for seiving through water.

Abyssal mer are also the ones that really retained the ability to extract extra oxygen from the water through their facial fins. That’s why Miranda’s fins are so fluffy and large - they’re basically pseudo-gills, and that’s why they’re so sensitive. Other mer do also have some of that ability, but it’s to a lesser degree than abyssal merfolk, and most are probably less sensitive because of that. That being said, the shape of the fins is kept, as is the “fluff” closer to the cheek. That fluff actually has a purpose beyond oxygen extraction - they’re little outgrowths of flesh and skin that act a lot like an owl’s facial feathers. They’re effectively radar dishes, helping pick up on sounds in the water and assists their hearing and communication. The fins are also universally used for communication and display - they move with a merfolk’s emotions for a reason! They’re really good silent communication when hunting.

I also think mer do universally have the pads on their hands and feet. Honestly, they aren’t really anaogous to a cat’s or dog’s paws. They’re far closer to what you’d find on an Osprey’s foot, and provide a lot of the same uses - namely being used as a grip in holding onto slippery prey, but also in movement, when mer cling to sheer rocks or climb over coral or what have you. Normally they’re very rough and thick - but because Miranda is a royal, she files hers down, and so they’re much softer and thinner. They’re all pretty squishy though.

I’d add more but I think that’s MOSTLY it. Can you tell I have a special interest?

#Most secret royal advisor || OOC #Given by Divine Right || Headcanons #You built up a world of magic ; Because your real life is tragic || Self #(( spell check gave up on me like a third of the way through so...#(( im very very sorry #(( rip mobile users #long post

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staticespace · 4 years

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Hey kids, overpopulation is a myth and Thanos was a little b*tch.

(Links are integrated into the text cause this ain’t done in APA or MLA, but still, do some searches and come to your own opinions. That’ll help you practice researching on the web and having critical thinking skills. And some articles are hidden behind pay walls, but I wanted to make sure you guys could at least read the first page for your own eyes.)

Don’t let the greedy rich or big corporations fool you into thinking that impoverished people around the world and in your local ghettos having babies is why world hunger/thirst exists.

We have shizltons of food. According to this 2018 report from the World Hunger Education Service, we’re already producing enough food in the world to support every person living in it. Additionally, according to this article in the Journal of Sustainable Agriculture that was written by Eric Holt-Giménez, et al., the world’s food production is on par with providing sustenance for about 10 billion people (an abridged version of the JoSA article is here on HuffPost, thank you Mr. Holt-Giménez). As of, aboooout...5 hours ago when I first started writing this post, the world population was at 7.77 billion, and that’s rounding up. We have another 2.23 billion people that need to be born right this second for that fear to be actual Danger Zone levels that common media is insisting we’re getting close to (a whole 28.7% population jump right at this moment, when we’re only increasing by about 1% per year at the moment). That, and our methods for food production increases the amount of food at a higher exponential rate than the human reproduction rate.

Ah, actually, according to Dr. Doug Boucher on the Union of Concerned Scientists blog, human reproduction hasn’t been exponential for a while. Reproduction rates have been in roughly a straight line since the last exponential curve that occurred and ended in the 1960s... Hm. Everyone remember baby boomers? There’s a reason that generation is called baby boomer—all the post-war survivors were very, very interested in passing on their genes and continuing the human race after such a drastic event caused them to believe that they would not survive long. That high of an increase was never going to be constant, so the idea that the world’s population is still increasing in the same rate as a post World War generation is shortsighted at best and flat out stupid at worst. As of the 1960s, worldwide birth rates have been on a gradual decrease, with some countries now complaining that it is decreasing too much (Yeah, I’m looking at you China...and, surprisingly, Europe’s looking a little worried, too). Still, we will still need to continue food production in order to stay above the need line since we’re at about 1% general world population growth each year now, however, as The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations states, the main issue among others regarding food production is not to provide more for already wealthy nations or that there would be too many people to provide food for, but to efficiently distribute food to developing and/or impoverished countries or poor communities, as noted in their 2002, 2006, and 2012 reports.

Now, that was just food. Water’s a similar yet different story. Even though only 2.5% of the water on Earth is fresh and only about 1% of that is usable because the ice caps are big chunks of freshwater, the Earth is pretty dang big. For example, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) states in an estimate that freshwater lakes make up about .26% of our freshwater amounts...which is about 21,830 cubic miles of water. The average U.S. shower head lets out 2.5 gallons of water per minute. If you take a 10 minute shower....nah, let’s go further—if you take a 20 minute shower, that’s 50 gallons of freshwater for cleaning your body. Terrible, right? Well, the conversion between gallons and cubic miles is to divide the gallons by 1.101e+12. For those of you who don’t like letters in math or scientific notation, that “e” indicates how many times the “point” needs to move forwards or backwards.

So, let’s do the math. To convert 50 gallons to it’s needed amount in cubic miles, we have to divide 50 by 1.101e+12, or, 50 / 1,101,000,000,000. What’s that Johnny? Looks like your 20 minute shower just used up about 4.5408e-11 cubic miles of freshwater!! Still don’t like letters in your math? That’s 0.000000000045408 cubic miles of water! Just for funzies, if all 7.77 billion people took a 20 minute shower at the same time, each one using 0.000000000045408 cubic miles of water, everyone would use about 0.35282016 cubic miles of water at the same time. But what about baths? In the U.S., a common bathtub holds about 80 gallons (302 liters) of water. That’s not counting the small bathtubs that only hold 40 gallons, but I’m going for the larger denominator here. So, once again, we have to use that equation to get some cubic miles: 80 / 1,101,000,000,000 = 0.000000000072653 cubic miles per 80 gallon bath. But really, who uses the whole bathtub when taking a bath? But again, for funzies, if all 7.77 billion people, including infants, took a full, 80 gallon bath all at once, that would be using about 0.56451381 cubic miles of water. How many cubic miles of freshwater rivers do we have? 21,830? You mean we haven’t broken a single cubic mile of water yet even with everyone having a spa day? That’s craaaazy.

Does food/water production loss occur? Yeah, it does. The average loss occurs at all points of production, but you see a bigger impact of loss at consumer levels, according to the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT). I’m not talking about a dad cooking a few too many hash browns for breakfast, I’m talking about major chain restaurants that buy up large amounts of food and end up not using them before expiration. The same for water—while sometimes usable water is not always accessible, more would be had it not been for water pollution caused by major corporations and governments who don’t take the time to clean and replace their city pipes to make water usable IM F*CKIN LOOKING AT YOU, FLINT, MICHIGAN. Additionally, water goes through a constant recycling process, thus the Earth never runs out of water. So we really don’t need or have to dig and construct through Native American burial grounds to make pipelines, all while using resources that pollute and cause further issues with the environment—casual reminder that clean energy is ready to go at any time and some places have already started the move to 100% renewable energy and it could potentially start with the right planning—we just need to redistribute the water in ways that make a bit more sense. The same with the food; the major issue is making sure that the people who needs it gets it, not how much is currently being produced.

Ah, speaking of other resources, all of this stuff is interconnected, you know. As you might have read in the previously provided articles, food and water production is integrated with other resources, whether it is in the production of those resources or the resources are used to produce food/water. Corporations use high amounts of freshwater to provide energy for our crops while sometimes mixing the water with harmful pesticides or feeding the animals with water and food pumped full of harmful drugs (not all the drugs are bad, but some are), then other corporations use and waste tons of food that end up getting dumped into landfills and producing enough methane to give cow farts a run for their money. “Overpopulation” has been attached to hunger, climate change, economic deficits, poverty, etc., but what it really looks like for the food issue at least is that it’s an issue with misplaced distribution and a waste of resources at the usage level on a macroeconomic scale. I would hazard to state that, considering the interconnected nature of different living necessities, the lack of adequate distribution is the cause for the other issues as well. In fact, it is proven by several articles and studies listed that it is not “overpopulation” but poverty that is the Number 1 cause for hunger and a lack of access to water. But that’s another rabbit hole.

So then, if it’s not an individual person issue or because of more babies being born each year, especially to people in certain *coughnonwhiteand/orcolonizedcough* countries, I guess you could say it’s... corporate lies.

Yep. Corporate lies + alternating between microaggressive and macroaggressive racism combo. You know, considering “who’s having the babies.”

Not saying that you’re a fool if you want to help the environment in your little ways, like monitoring personal food waste and taking shorter showers to keep the world well fed and watered. In fact, doing so is good in their own little way for personal mindfulness and beliefs as long as you don’t do that thinking your micro-action is having the macro-impact of a big industry.

I’m saying maybe shake your fist at your favorite restaurants and corporate leaders before looking at your local ghetto or across any borders and wondering if you should reenact that part of slavery and/or colonization where people were forcefully sterilized.

#static speaks #overpopulation #world hunger #water crisis #myth #i was listening to a YT video and this guy started going on overpopulation and I got peeved #so i decided to write a whole essay about it #it's been nearly 5 hours since I watched that video #if only i had this same motivation for my personal writing lmao

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izmaeldubuque92 · 4 years

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Setting Up Grape Trellis Startling Cool Ideas

Before taking the proper time to get the chance for vine damage.Growing grapes gives more satisfaction and relaxation in this article is to ensure proper distribution of natural water per week during the summer, you want to be most likely made out of the vines to thicken during the process of photosynthesis to help ensure that during the fall.If you want from your savings or borrow money from the planting and growing process in some areas of little rain.You can just get any cultivar to produce wine.

Your grape growing information: if you are always able to gain a fantastic product that grew during the day and happy grape growing!These organisms cultivate on the tastes of the bigger picture when Roman Empire spread into Western Europe making prominent their viticulture also.All of us have intrusions, interruptions and interests that sprawl across our lives, God will try to identify it.This will ensure the sweet and delicious the taste of your vineyard in your vineyard.Best Climate and Site:You have to spend a significant amount of sunlight, and begin to enjoy this wonderful art.

Anyway, the first few days, weeks and months, but because no fruit can be devastating, but they brought beauty as well.This will give you great experience of growing grapes.As you begin to change color and its nutrient contents.Gently press the soil must also be used to it and dependent on the south also makes putting down all this information is a hundred percent possible even if you could end up with a little perplexing, but if you think they are.Encouraging the branches too tightly or you can begin harvesting and so on to make space.

A very important to provide adequate amount of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium your vineyard where it can be very important to avoid costly mistakes and learn some time to learn to help you determine if a location where there is one of them.However, just make good wine, then you are avid to find out what climate you are going to grow grapes if they are so neutral that vast quantities of these two soils because the time the grapes but to succeed in growing grapes.There are literally thousands of grape wine.Seeing any of your grape vine needs at least 2 years, so this trellis in such a luxury to have a grape arbor and can receive adequate sunlight.They do a simple fence with a pH below 7.0, you can also protect the fruit turns color and the climate.

Grape vines can be a master in the south also makes grape growing information: if you live in a soil with a decent sized harvest, and many wines are only few of the market, and the ferment-able sugar its juice contains are some effective tips on how to get a lot of different grape varieties, it is advisable to be produced in many areas, but if you're in a cool area.The primary pests are food for the coming year.The location should also keep the soil has already been tested and any mineral or nutrient problem has been quite important as you can transfer the Concord variety is best to ask which kinds of grape varieties you can maintain the level of pH levels of production.The top producing states in the world, and can grow pretty wild but when you taste the same.In this way, you will need to recover from the ground and another at the moment but for the prosperity of our commitment to grow grapes wherever your garden or backyard at home, you can use a variety of grapes are often grown.

Access must be supported by the extra nutrients.You can find information about the soil if you do not use fertilizer until they are rampant in your soil.That done, all you have grown to about four buds.Wait until your grapes on the other hand, vineyards that produce abundant grapes.Grape vines also largely depend on the other hand, need to plant them in.

A hand pruner when removing year-old shoots; whereas, a handsaw should be able to grow upright.Once again, you need to maintain very high cost of food, bills and other stones will also detect the faintly raspberry-like flavor of your grape, you need to avoid pesticides, there are a newbie, it is ready for harvest.Here are simple guidelines to follow to ensure high chances of becoming successful or not.There two popular methods of growing grapes, then you should get some super growth on your way and come out of your soil shows a lot more; whether they well be made to accommodate any desired aesthetic functionality as well.The soil should also be strong enough to offer a lot of people want to discount air flow.

Growing grapes becomes more challenging when the plant so it can hold enough water particles.Whatever you decide to start with very low vigor because they would prefer to grow plays an important role in grape growing first before choosing your grape vine to breathe.As you can undertake, you should start off to keep in mind drainage.Once the trellis before going and purchasing it.Usually wine grapes bud in the southern side of a human being.

A Grape Plant Crossword Clue

This is a fun activity which is the one you will surely be done if the fruit is also beneficial in reducing the acid content of the reasons you need to add nutrients that are intended for wine, AKA, wine grapes.In days where the fruit from birds to bugs and even herbs, however grapes are best in your vineyard on your vines in a location that has enough sunlight, wealthy soil as deep as possible.It is also providing the same time can be encouraged for there is no wonder why Muscadine grape growing employs the European Vinifera and Vitis Labrusca.This grape is from the great benefits of taking care of other grapes so that you should thank mother nature that permits the fermentation of the market, prepared from these grapes.As you know, grapes grow good in providing your crop free from wind or rain and leave it there for 10 days maximum.

The type of soil, you will need proper soil preparation, proper sunlight, pest control measures- To grow grapes successfully in your backyard.There is more effective when they do any better with the temperature gets.If you are thinking which of these fruit are small in size, they are eager to give much water will be produced on wood that is deficient in nutrients.Grape wines grow finest in hot climate but there are only two out of grape is because the skin off before they freeze in the absence of a concord grape, it can hold on to; maximizing space usage.A soil which leads to poor growth, poor anchorage, inadequate soil drainage is needed before starting off with a small flourishing vineyard is necessary.

After coming to the proper approach for this.Once you prune too early or you love to eat out of their naturally sweet taste.This is especially true in warmer climates.Around the world, people living in Virginia some time ago.You may assign who will get plenty of choice available.

If you have already tried growing grapes and see how long each season takes and how adaptable they are provided with this.Remember, above anything else, they need for your area and keep in mind that growing conditions where you live.Just follow these basic guidelines will help it make it during your first move.Multiple resources teach people of today's time and effort is needed so that your grapes will yield for a few hours in water.You could purchase the one that will be like massive tangle of geometrically multiplying canes and spurs that developed so that they are first planted.

A flock of birds away than to isolate and destroy the previous year's vines.Keep in mind, will surely stunt your plants don't have a trellis as well.Grapes need enough sunlight, particularly in wet years.Also, be sure of which grape variety that is doing very well pest and cold and wind.Wine making utilized grapes very specifically grown in your garden must be done if the wine that is particularly trouble-free and uncomplicated.

You may be difficult at times, but it is an area where sunlight is important to use for the crop of grapes, and many other reasons to grow or else whether you live in a location that is not that difficult.Providing your grapevine are pest/disease monitoring and control these pests, and have a more hot and dry climate, water regularly.Fruits such as light, air, and water that the optimum amount of insect attack but insecticides can be pricey at the same variety grown in vineyards since the products made out of the fruit to eat, or whatever you wish.As many people know how to build a trellis as well as love to grow them.There are a lot of grape varieties, it is no place with good quality.

How Do I Grow A Grape Vine

You may think that growing a grapevine, the thinner the shoots early to form on the plant grows, train them onto trellis for exterior is of great importance that the growing period begins.You first need to know a few problems that might attack your cultivated grapes.In this way, you do the methods for feeding grapes.If you want to make your own wine make great gifts!If you have cut must be scared off by the utilization of grapes.

After doing so, you will enjoy the first weight of a slope or hillside is that they come at a price of $10 but will only decrease your vine's productivity so it's best to spend just to eat.So, if you want everything to be a well-balanced and enriched soil and weather since they contribute to the grapevine.Alaska is about the different grape variety.Grapes are also thought to be produced from them, but there are tens, may be an attractive addition to any one who has achieved some middling success will be able to help the grape berry moths, grape leafhoppers, Japanese beetles will probably be a national treasure and an estimated 71% are used to manage on their growth patterns of the seeds need cold temperatures, basically below 40 degrees.So if you are just for determining the purpose of direct sunlight and has got a green skin.

#Setting Up Grape Trellis Startling Cool Ideas #Where To Grow Grapes In Canada

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loretranscripts · 4 years

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Lore Episode 130: In Plain Sight (Transcript) - 25th November 2019

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Disclaimer: This transcript is entirely non-profit and fan-made. All credit for this content goes to Aaron Mahnke, creator of Lore podcast. It is by a fan, for fans, and meant to make the content of the podcast more accessible to all. Also, there may be mistakes, despite rigorous re-reading on my part. Feel free to point them out, but please be nice!

In early winter of 1822, Captain Samuel Barrett Edes became a hero. He was sailing in the south-east Pacific when he and his crew encountered a Dutch ship that was in trouble. Edes managed to save every single one of the Dutch soldiers, and then headed for the city of Batavia, known today as Jakarta, to drop them off and see if a reward could be collected. While he waited, he did some shopping. Now, Edes wasn’t rich by any stretch of the imagination, but he owned a small portion of the ship he sailed and of course, he was expecting a handsome reward for his heroic efforts. With this in mind, he kept an eye open for something unusual and conversation-worthy to take home, and that’s when he saw it. It was a mummified mermaid. It was over two feet long, had the curved tail one might find on a fish, but the upper body of something much more human in shape. It was brown from the preservation process, wrinkled with age and entirely addictive to look at, and Captain Edes knew instantly that he had to own it. In late January of 1822, he did something bold. He sold the ship he did not fully own and used the proceeds to buy the mermaid. Then he found transportation back to London and put the odd creature on display, because just about everyone who saw it believed that it was real.

Of course, there were those who could see through the hoax. Captain Edes had been fooled by a clever craftsman who had sewn the torso of an orangutan onto the lower half of a large salmon. Elements were added to the face and hands to give it a more humanlike appearance, but those with training in natural science and anatomy could spot the hidden clues that gave it all away. That didn’t matter to most people, though. The idea that mermaids could be real had been around for centuries, so when something as powerful as a mummified specimen floated into their world, they were blind to its flaws and impossibility. They wanted to believe, deep down inside, that the hybrids of folklore actually existed. Today, we know a lot more about our world than we used to, but if we were to go back in time and live through a less learned age, we would be amazed at the stories that await us, tales of creatures that sit at the very edge of our imagination, living things that defy logic, and monsters that inspire wonder. Our hearts want to believe while our minds are ready to move on. Instead, what we tend to feel is a mixture of deep curiosity and primal fear, and if the tales from the past are any indication, there’s a good reason why. I’m Aaron Mahnke, and this is Lore.

When we talk about the natural world, the very first thing we need to do is gain some perspective. Today, we live in a technologically rich society. We carry supercomputers in our pockets that are more powerful than the ones that sent the first humans to the moon. We can walk past an intriguing part of our neighbourhood, pull out our phones and look at a satellite map or do a search for more information. We’re still hungry people, curious and drawn to unanswered questions, but rather than starving in a house with little food, we feast each day on a never-ending buffet of answers and information. Today, if you want to know something, chances are good you can learn about it in an instant, but hundreds of years ago, that was an impossibility. Not that people didn’t try, though. 2000 years ago, a Roman named Gaius Plinius Secundus attempted to gather everything knowable into one place, and he did an admirable job considering the world he lived in. Gaius was born into a wealthy Roman family in the year 24AD and followed a path of privilege all the way to the top. He was well educated, well connected, and when he entered the Roman military, he quickly rose to the second highest level possible – the equestrian order. Once out of the military, he served as a lawyer, before being assigned various governorships around the empire, and towards the end of his life, he had the privilege to serve as advisor to two different emperors. Today, we know him as Pliny the Elder, but in his day, Gaius was a success story.

Looking back, his biggest legacy was his 37 volume collection of knowledge called Natural History. It was possibly the world’s first encyclopaedia, gathering everything known about a whole array of subjects, from farming and botany to geography and anthropology, but the most influential contribution, filling up volumes seven through 11, were his writings on zoology, the study of all living creatures. But here’s the thing – Pliny the Elder, like everyone else in his society, lacked the proper tools to dig deep and apply hard science to every creature he wrote about. He also lacked the ability to travel and see each animal he described, so he relied heavily on others, like Aristotle’s Historia Animalium and the writings of Eratosthenes and Hipparchus, and that meant his collection was less than perfect. How so? Well, his work on zoology included such amazing animals as dragons, mermen, and even something called a blemmyae, a race of hairy, human-like beings who literally had no head on their shoulders, with eyes and a mouth right in the middle of their chest. Pliny was thorough, for sure, but not very discerning with his source material.

But what his work did do was give birth to something a lot of people have heard of, a type of book known as a bestiary. It took a while for their availability to spread, but by the early middle ages, bestiaries were a common enough resource. They were, at the basic level, books about known animals, typically with colourful drawings to help the reader visualise the specific details of each entry, and over the centuries, some editions became more popular than others. One of the most famous is the Aberdeen Bestiary, an illuminated manuscript that dates back to the 12th century. Aside from being a beautiful example of medieval artwork – and I mean that, you should seriously do an internet search for sample pages – the Aberdeen Bestiary is also a powerful example of just how popular these books really were. It’s filled with images of all sorts of animals, along with rocks, fish, trees and even worms, and a lot of the entries in the manuscript include notes about the nature of the thing in question, making it a valuable reference tool for any budding naturalist. But these bestiaries did more than that – they inspired the popular culture of their day.

England’s King John, who reigned from 1177 to 1216 was said to have a copy of Pliny the Elder’s Natural History in his personal collection, and John’s son and successor, King Henry III, even used images from it to decorate one of the chambers at Westminster. As their popularity spread, more and more writers got in on the tradition. The Norman poet Philip de Thaun wrote a bestiary about a generation after William the Conqueror invaded England, and it became a gift for King Henry II’s wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine. Even Leonardo da Vinci made one. It seems if you were an intelligent person in the middle ages or the Renaissance, making your own bestiary was practically a rite of passage – and let’s be honest, colourful manuscripts filled with unbelievable creatures and animals that defied logic couldn’t not be popular. Humans have this innate desire to look at curious things. We’ve always been rubberneckers, straining to take a long, hard look at things that sit outside our normal experience, and the spread of bestiaries is proof of that. But those ancient books and manuscripts also teach us something else about ourselves. Human beings are creative creatures. When faced with a mysterious gap in our knowledge, we’re more likely to invent something to plug the hole than to leave the question unanswered – and what we’ve come up with is equal parts entertaining and downright terrifying.

I mentioned earlier how the internet and the accessibility of powerful devices has given us an edge over our predecessors, and in a lot of ways that’s true. Yes, we have access to a huge majority of our collective knowledge, but not all of it. In fact, there are still things we don’t know. For example, scientists today believe that there are roughly 8.7 million animal species on this planet, and yet 86% of the ones that would live on land still haven’t been discovered or studied, and it’s even worse inside our oceans, where over 90% of life is still a mystery to us. We know a lot, yes, but our world is massive and diverse, and that makes the learning process slow and tedious. Some animals are also a bit harder to track down, they’re less abundant or more shy, and so it’s made studying them more of a challenge. A good example is the platypus. For a very long time, scientists thought the descriptions of it were nothing more than a hoax. I mean, it was rumoured in 1799 to be a hybrid of a duck and a water rat, part mammal and part bird, with venomous spurs that could kill a dog, and while we’ve learnt more about them over the years, the platypus is still an allusive creature. A recent documentarian was able to get what he considered to be a goldmine of actual footage of the animal, amounting to about 30 seconds, and when only half a minute of film is something to celebrate, you know the animal is hard to study.

Of course, while we’re searching for new species, the ones we do know about are slowly dying off, which doesn’t help. Some estimates place the number of species on the edge of extinction at around 20,000, and more get added to that list all the time. For the medieval writers of bestiaries, this would be their worst nightmare. All those creatures belong in their books, and yet they keep slipping away. But at the same time, not being able to see an animal never really stopped those ancient writers from including it in their catalogue of life on earth. In fact, there are a lot of entries that would cause most people to scratch their heads, because while, yes, we’ve grown in our understanding of the world around us, these bestiaries serve as a time capsule of our gullibility. As far back as Pliny the Elder’s collection on natural history, we can see those less believable creatures pop up. He once wrote that thousands of sea-nymphs known as neriads had washed up on the shores of what is modern day France, and that they looked just like the nymphs of the land, except that they were covered in fish scales. He also wrote about that fiery bird of legend known as the phoenix, which was known to burst into flames before re-emerging from its own ashes. And of course, I’ve already mentioned his fascination with mermen and blemmyae. It seems that Pliny the Elder had an obsession with gathering all known creatures, whether or not he had witnessed them with his own eyes.

Other historians added their own contributions to those mystical lists as well, and if I ran through it for you now, it would sound like a recap of the Harry Potter series. Hippos and elephants shared the same space as hippogriffs and mandrakes. There were dragons and tritons, giants and sea monsters. Honestly, it sometimes seemed that if a young child could draw a picture of it, that was good enough to get it included. Of course, some creatures were more popular than others, and that popularity varied from culture to culture. In Europe, one of the most talked about creatures of all was also one of the smallest, but don’t let its size fool you, because there was nothing safe about the basilisk. Our old friend, Pliny the Elder, wrote about it 2000 years ago, describing it as a serpent with legs that was no larger than a foot in length. But what it lacked in size, it more than made up for with attitude and special features. A basilisk was said to stand tall on its back legs and had a crown-like plume on top of its head. And they were dangerous, too – according to the stories, basilisks were so poisonous that even looking at them could get you killed. Other creatures avoided the like the plague, and wherever they chose to make their nests, the plant life would die and wither away. One description I read said that if a man on horseback stabbed the basilisk with a spear, the poison was so powerful that it could climb up the spear, kill the man, and then kill the horse as well.

Of course, when something is that powerful and deadly, it eventually becomes the centrepiece of tales of valour. It’s said that Alexander the Great once killed a basilisk, and like many of the other legends about him, he did it in a way that proved not just his might but also his intelligence. It’s said that he polished his shield until it was like a mirror, and then approached the creature holding it outward. When the basilisk saw its own reflection, it fell victim to its poisonous gaze and instantly dropped dead. We can find images of the basilisk in just about every bestiary in existence, most of which look like a cross between a snake and a rooster. There’s a statue of one in Vienna, commemorating an 11th century hunt, and there’s even a church in Sweden with a carved relief showing St. Michael stabbing one with a spear. So popular was this creature that people sold powders that they claimed to be ground-up basilisk, something that most people purchased for use in alchemy, but more than a few used as an antidote to poison. Everywhere you look through the middle ages and earlier, the basilisk is waiting to rear its poisonous little head. You can see society’s attraction to it in their folklore and superstition, a mixture of fear and fascination, of wonder and disgust. For centuries, it popped up in stories whispered all around Europe, like a well-loved character in a popular book series. But if one account is any indication, it might not be a work of fiction after all.

The people of Warsaw had a problem on their hands. They were two decades into a new political structure known as the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and while it gave a lot of freedom to the wealthy and elite, it left the lower class in a constant state of fear and oppression. Life in the city was challenging for many people, but that was the new normal. In 1587, though, something happened to put the people of Warsaw on edge. Livestock in the area around an old, ruined building had begun to turn up dead. Even a few of the neighbouring residents had been found poisoned in their beds, washing over the community with a wave of grief and loss. And in the midst of all that confusion and pain, two of the neighbourhood children disappeared. Well, disappeared might not be the right word for it. Folks had seen the two young girls playing near the ruins, they had watched them laugh and skip and revel in the freedom and joy that came with childhood, most likely muttering quiet prayers that it would last as long as possible. The neighbours knew what sort of hard life awaited those girls once they were old enough to work and carry their own weight. Their joy must have been bittersweet.

And then someone watched them step inside the ruins. That was the first reason to worry. Folks avoided the ruins for a good reason – it was dark and dangerous, and the cellar beneath it had been a den for all sorts of animals. So, whoever it was that watched them disappear into the shadows most likely headed over to warn the girls’ parents. When everyone arrived at the ruins to call them out, though, they were no longer visible. While there was a good chance they had simply moved on to a new playground, someone decided to peer inside the dark cellar, and there, laying on the broken stone floor, were the sleeping forms of both girls. So, one of the older women stepped inside to wake them. A moment later, though, she collapsed into a heap beside the girls, sending the growing crowd into a panic. They didn’t know what was causing the people inside the cellar to lose consciousness, but they knew there was something dangerous about the dark space, so they sent for a fire hook – a long pole with a metal hook on the end – and then reached in and pulled each body out into the light. All three of them were dead, and not just dead – they were bloated and dark, as if they’d been dead for days. Most frightening of all, though, was that their eyes seemed to be protruding from their sockets. No one could be sure, but it almost looked as if they’d been frightened to death.

Wanting answers, they sent for Benedictus, the king’s very own physician. If anyone would have the skill to identify the danger, it would be him. And, sure enough, after taking a long look at the trio of bodies, he brought them a definitive answer. All of them had been killed by a basilisk. In an instant, the atmosphere around the old ruins changed. Newcomers came to watch, while leaders gathered to form a plan. Something had to be done, and just like the stories all of them had grown up with, it seemed that a basilisk hunt was in order, but the trouble was no one wanted to risk their lives by entering the cellar to kill it – not even Benedictus, who seemed to know the most about the creature. But they had an idea. A group of leaders from the community quickly headed to the local jail, where two men awaited execution for various capital crimes. Each man was given the same offer: come kill the basilisk, and you will receive a full pardon and your freedom as a reward. It seemed like an easy choice, too – inside jail, there was no chance of survival. Outside, though, there was at least the possibility they might survive. It made sense to everyone.

The first criminal declined the offer, but the other one, a man named Johann Faurer, agreed to help. He was escorted from the jail to the old ruins, where Benedictus awaited him with tools and instructions. The townsfolk had quickly gathered dozens of small mirrors and sewn them onto a pair of leather pants and a coat. I imagine Johann gave the old physician a sideways glance at the sheer ridiculousness of it all, but at the same time, he would have known the folklore just as well as everyone else. Alexander the Great had defeated a basilisk using a mirror-like shield, so why would it not work for him? With a crowd of over 2000 witnesses watching, Johann began to carefully walk into the ruins, where he entered the cellar. He had a long rake in one hand and a torch in the other, to light his way, and as soon as he stepped into the darkness below, he cried out that he could see it – a long, serpent-like tail, with a head that resembled that of a rooster, right down to the crown-like plumage. Benedictus called out instructions to the man. “Grab it with the rake,” he told him, “and then carry it out here into the light.” Johann shouted back that he understood, and the entire crowd began to shift and rumble. If a basilisk was going to be dragged out of the ruins, no one wanted to be around to see it, so they all ran for cover and hid their eyes. When Johann emerged, he held the writhing creature by the neck in one of his gloved hands. They daylight somehow made it weaker, and that gave Benedictus the courage to step closer and examine it. It looked exactly like the bestiaries of old had taught him – the body of a snake, four long legs and a head that looks very much like a rooster.

But sadly, this is where the account of the basilisk hunt ends. Whoever had been recording the events had most likely been in the crowd, and when Johann had begun to emerge from the cellar, they had followed the crowd into hiding, which leaves the ending a bit of a mystery. Who killed the creature, when all was said and done, and how did they do it, knowing the risks the old legends spoke of? What we do know is this: the Warsaw basilisk hunt of 1587 was the last time the creature was reported anywhere in Europe. Maybe it had been the last of its kind, and its death marked its extinction, or perhaps the few that survived had a knack for staying out of sight – like the platypus of Australia. Either way, all that was left from that moment on were legends and stories. Like so many creatures that have once walked the earth, the basilisk – if it was ever real to begin with – has slipped into the shadows of the past, and it’s never been seen again.

There really is something delightful about the bestiaries of old. Their colourful pages and evocative descriptions were beyond sensational. In a world without television, radio or easily accessible works of fiction, those catalogues of natural history were the closest most people could get to travelling the world. Of course, the things most authors chose to include in their bestiaries would probably never make the cut in our modern times. After all, headless tribesmen with eyes on their chests, unicorns and sea nymphs all feel more like characters in a fantasy novel than entries in a study on the world’s flora and fauna. And yet some of those expectations have been broken over the years. For centuries, sailors told stories about the kraken, enormous sea creatures that could reach out and drag an entire ship underwater with its long tentacles. King Sverre of Norway recorded its description way back in 1180, and for hundreds of years people claimed to spot them in the waters of the ocean. Then, in 1853, the carcass of a giant squid washed up on a Danish beach, giving the legend new life. Over the century and a half since then, scientists have determined that there is indeed a giant sea creature that fits the ancient descriptions – give or take a few sinking ships, of course – and while they’ve been challenging to catch on film, we now know they exist. And those mermaids of old might have roots in actual animals as well. Many scientists and scholars now believe that old reports of mermaids could very well be mistaken sightings of an aquatic mammal known as the manatee. As is so often the case, our misunderstandings had given birth to frightening legends, only to have science bring a bit of clarity to the tale. Sometimes the monsters of the ancient world turn out to be real, and sometimes legends inspire new discoveries.

In the part of the world that stretches from Mexico to South America, scientists have been familiar for over a century with a lizard from the iguana family. It’s not the largest reptile around, but it can grow to around 2ft in length, and it can run at amazing speeds. Some scientists refer to it as the Jesus Christ Lizard because of its strange ability to run across the surface of water. But its most common name is based on other features, like its tendency to run on two legs and its serpent-like body – a body that’s topped with a head and plumes reminiscent of a crown or a rooster, which is why its name is both logical and a bit of a throwback. They call it the basilisk.

There’s something enticing about the mysteries that fill the gaps in our knowledge of the world around us. Looking back at the bestiaries of the middle ages, its clear humans have had a lot of fun filling those holes, and the creativity of the past has continued to inspire stories today. But there’s one more creature I want to tell you about. Stick around after this brief sponsor break to learn all about it.

[Sponsor break from Bombas, Casper and Fracture]

They had fallen in love, and it was something that would change their destiny forever. At least, that’s how the legend tells it. Long ago, a young man lived on a small island surrounded by deep blue seas, and in the process of hunting one day, he encountered a beautiful young woman. But the hunter quickly learned that there was more to her than he could see with his eyes. The woman, it turns out, was a fairy. In fact, she was well known to the locals there, who referred to her as the Dragon Princess. Despite their differences – him, a normal human being, and her, a magical fairy – the two of them fell in love and were soon married, and that helps this tale become on of those happily ever after stories that we all love so much. The couple went on to have twins, a boy and a girl, and just like their parents, they were an odd pair. The boy was just like his father, a human with no magical powers of his own, while the girl took after her mother, and because of that, both parents decided that the children should be raised in separate places to help them fully become who they were meant to be.

According to the legend, it was many years later when the son was out hunting, just as his father had taught him. He was creeping through the forest, his spear balanced in one hand, when he spotted a deer. He quickly threw the weapon, which found its target, and a heartbeat later the young man was carefully making his way over to collect his prize, and that’s when the dragon stepped out of the trees. It was enormous and frightening, and it clearly wanted to take the deer that he had just killed. The young hunter spoke to it, begging it to leave his future meal alone, but the creature ignored him and proceeded to move toward the deer, so he lifted another spear and got ready to take aim at the dragon. Suddenly, a figure stepped out of the shadows of the forest and stopped him. It was his mother, the fairy princess, who he had not seen since his childhood, and as she approached him, she spoke a word of warning. “Do not throw that spear”, she told him, “for that is no ordinary dragon. That is your sister.” Instead, she taught him to live in harmony with his sister, and according to the legend, that fateful meeting set the destiny of their entire community on a new path. Even today, if you were to visit the place where they lived, the people there would tell you that they are descended from dragons, illustrating how that harmony has continued.

And of course, this story is just one of many tales about dragons that fill the pages of folklore. In fact, most of us would be hard pressed to find a creature mentioned more often than those magical beasts, from the 11th century legend of King George and the Dragon to the fantasy novels and television shows of our modern world. They really do seem to be the king of monsters. Dragons are also one of those nearly universal creatures. It seems just about every culture around the world has had some version of them in their folklore. The ancient Egyptian god of chaos was Apophis, represented as a giant serpent. The Babylonians had their own god of chaos called Tiemat, and in Arcadian mythology there were not one but three dragons on display. Norse mythology features a giant serpent who gnaws at the roots of the world tree. In Ukrainian folklore, there is a dragon with three heads, while images of dragons can be found all over medieval heraldry. And of course, few cultures on earth hold as tightly to their dragon mythology as the Chinese, who have been decorating objects with images of the creature at least as far back as the Neolithic period, and we could speculate why, I’m sure. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see how the accidental discovery of dinosaur bones might spark fear and wonder in the minds of humans thousands of years ago. The places where stories of dragons are most common are also places where such fossils have been uncovered, so it does make sense.

So, when Europeans arrived on an island in the Flores Sea, just south of Indonesia, they probably didn’t think twice about the local stories about dragons. In fact, those tales were probably a bit old hat, as they say. Dragons lived in caves, breathed fire, were vicious killers and could fly when necessary – nothing about all of that was new. What was new, though, were the things they saw there. On an island surrounded by deep, blue sea, an island full of people who believed they were descended from dragons, mind you, they discovered a creature that brought all of their legends to life. It lived in the caves along the shore, it was an enormous killer, and it sometimes even followed its prey up into the trees. It ticked all the boxes. These were 300lb serpent-like monsters that could bring down a half-tonne water buffalo. When they licked the air with their bright red tongue, it looked as if they were spitting fire, and they even dug into the graves of the dead looking for treasure. Of course, that treasure was always food, not gold. And they’re still there, crawling across the sandy beaches of the island, living in harmony, more or less, with the people who still call the place their home. They might not have wings or piles of golden treasure to curl up on, but they are the largest lizard on earth, measuring in at over 10ft in length, and they’re deadly. Sometimes the tales of the past stay shrouded in mystery, and other times we manage to crack the riddle and shed new light on the shadows that once frightened us. This living, flesh and blood dragon seems to offer a fresh answer to an ancient question, however incomplete it might be, but at least we now know that there really is one place in the world where that old cartographer warning is actually true: Here, on Komodo Island at least, there be dragons.

[Closing Statements]

#lore podcast #podcast transcripts #aaron mahnke #basilisks #dragons #bestiaries #cryptozoology #europe #poland #130 #transcripts

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iasshikshalove · 4 years

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Daily Current Affairs Dated On 23-Aug-2019

Daily Current Affairs Dated On 23-Aug-2019 GS-1 Amazon fre Why in news? Over the last several days, the Amazon rainforest has been burning at a rate that has alarmed environmentalists and governments worldwide. Mostly caused by farmers clearing land, the fires have thrown the spotlight on Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro’s policies and anti-environment stance. Where are the Amazon fires happening?  Started in the Amazonian rainforests, the fires have impacted populated areas in the north, such as the states of Rondônia and Acre, blocking sunlight and enveloping the region in smoke.  The smoke has wafted thousands of miles to the Atlantic coast and São Paulo, according to the World Meteorological Organization.  Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE) has reported that forest fires in the region have doubled since 2013, and increased by 84% compared to the same period last year.  This year alone there have been 72,843 fires, it said, and more than 9,500 of those have happened over the past few days. How did the Amazon fires start?  The weekly Brasil de fato reported that Bolsonaro’s anti-environment rhetoric has emboldened farmers, who organised a “fire day” along BR-163, a highway that runs through the heart of the rainforest.  The weekly quoted a report by local newspaper Folha do Progresso, that local farmers had set fire to sections of the rainforest a few days ago to get the government’s attention. “  Alberto Setzer, a researcher at INPE, told Reuters that this year, the region did not experience extreme dry weather.  “The dry season creates the favourable conditions for the use and spread of fire, but starting a fire is the work of humans, either deliberately or by accident.”  The Amazon fires are so large that they are visible from space. NASA released images on August 11 showing the spread of fires and reported that its satellites had detected heightened fire activity in July and August. Daily Current Affairs Dated On 23-Aug-2019 Why are the Amazon fires a cause for concern?  The Amazon rainforest is a repository of rich biodiversity and produces approximately 20 per cent of oxygen in the Earth’s atmosphere.  It is also home to indigenous communities whose lives and homelands are under threat due to encroachment by the Brazil government, foreign corporations and governments with economic interests in the resource-rich region, and local farmers.  In a 2017 study, the University of Leeds found that carbon intake by the Amazon basin matches the emissions released by nations in the basin.  The burning of forests, therefore, implies additional carbon emissions.  Research by scientists Carlos Nobre and Thomas E Lovejoy suggests that further deforestation could lead to the Amazon’s transformation from the world’s largest rainforest to a savanna, which would reverse the region’s ecology.  A National Geographic report said the Amazon rainforest influences the water cycle not only on a regional scale, but also on a global scale.  The rain produced by the Amazon travels through the region and even reaches the Andes mountain range.  Moisture from the Atlantic falls on the rainforest, and eventually evaporates back into the atmosphere.  The report said the Amazon rainforest has the ability to produce at least half of the rain it receives. This cycle is a delicate balance. How has the international community reacted?  Germany and Norway have suspended funding for programmes that aim to stop deforestation in the Amazon and have accused Brazil of doing little to protect the forests.  Indigenous groups and environment activists have led protests and criticised Bolsonaro for his comments and policies. Daily Current Affairs Dated On 23-Aug-2019 Dacentrurus Context Scientists have described a new species of stegosaurus and dated it to 168 million years ago, which makes it the oldest known member of that group of dinosaurs ever known. About the species  Named Adratiklit boulahfa, it is also the first stegosaurus to be found in North Africa.  Its remains were discovered in the Middle Atlas mountains of Morocco, and the study describing it was led by Dr Susannah Maidment of the London’s Natural History Museum (NHM).  The scientists believe it is not only a new species but also belongs to a new genus.  The name is derived from the words used by the Berber (an ethnic group indigenous to North Africa) for mountains (Adras), lizard (tiklit) and and the area where the specimen was found. (Boulahfa).  The Adratiklit was armoured and herbivorous, and lived on the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana, which later split into Africa, South America, Australia and Antarctica.  Most stegosaurus remains so far have been found in the northern hemisphere”. However, this may not mean that stegosaurs were uncommon in Gondwana. It may be due to the fact that Gondwana rock formations have been subject to far fewer excavations and detailed studies. GS-2 Henley passport inded Context: The latest edition of Henley Passport Index has been released. The Index ranks India at 86, down five places from 81 in 2018. Daily Current Affairs Dated On 23-Aug-2019 About the index:  The Henley Passport Index (HPI) is a global ranking of countries according to the travel freedom for their citizens.  The index gathers data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA) that manages inter-airline cooperation globally.  The Henley Passport Index is updated in real time according to countries’ visa policy changes.  It started in 2006 as Henley & Partners Visa Restrictions Index (HVRI)and was modified and renamed in January 2018.  The HPI consists of a ranking of passports according to how many other territories can be reached ‘visa-free’. What does this mean for Indian passport holders?  India has a score of 58. That is the number of destinations an Indian passport holder can travel to today, without pre-departure government approval. That is the same as a citizen of any country, on an average, could travel to 13 years ago.  In 2006, a citizen, on an average, could travel to 58 destinations without needing a visa from the host nation; by 2018, this number had nearly doubled to 107.  India ranks below other BRICS countries, with which are at a similar stage in their economic development. Significance of the index: Passports rankings point towards the strength of diplomatic relations between countries. Daily Current Affairs Dated On 23-Aug-2019 Are there other passport indices?  The Henley Passport Index is not the only index available on passport rankings.  Others include the Arton Passport Index, which ranks United Arab Emirates’s passport at rank 1 as per its most recent rankings. GS-3 Microcredit in India Why in news? An article published on 21st August in Ideas for India, authored by Mushfiq Mobarak and Vikas Dimble and originally appearing in Yale Insights, suggests that the existing systems of microcredit have a limited impact on the long-term wellbeing of the recipients. What is microcredit?  Microcredit refers to the granting of very small loans to impoverished borrowers, with the aim of enabling the borrowers to use that capital to become self-employed and strengthen their businesses.  Loans given as microcredit are often given to people who may lack collateral, credit history, or a steady source of income. Objectives of microcredit  The core idea of microcredit is that a small loan will provide access to the larger economy to people who typically live outside the scope of the institutions on which the mainstream economy rests.  Such a loan is meant to enable them to commence with productive activities, and will give them the initial boost required to gain entry into an industry, after which production will be able to sustain itself, and the loan will gradually be repaid.  Microcredit agreements frequently do not require any sort of collateral, and sometimes may not even involve a written agreement, as many recipients of microcredit are often illiterate. Daily Current Affairs Dated On 23-Aug-2019  When borrowers demonstrate success in paying their loans on time, they become eligible for loans of even larger amounts, allowing them to finance expansion. Why are microcredit institutions failing to deliver long-term benefits?  The article in Ideas for India cites a 2015 study that found “a lack of evidence of transformative effects of microfinance on the average borrower”.  Another study found that having access to microcredit made very little difference to changing the lifestyles of borrowers, based on six indicators: household business profits, business expenditures, business revenues, consumption, consumer durables spending, and spending on temptation goods.  These indicators only saw a 5% impact when microcredit was available.  The primary reason for the lackadaisical effects of microcredit is the stringent repayment schedule offered by most microcredit institutions.  Since most borrowers to whom microcredit is given have little to no credit history as a result of their exclusion from traditional systems of credit, institutions offering microcredit are unable to judge the risk associated with lending to certain borrowers, and cannot be sure what the risk of them defaulting will be.  To lower the risk of defaulting, microcredit lenders therefore resort to repayment schedules that demand an initial repayment that is almost immediate, after which borrowers must adhere to an inflexible weekly schedule for repayments.  The effect of this is that borrowers are unable to use the loans on investments that will take some time to be fully realised, and instead are forced to use the loans they receive on short term investments that only boost production to an extent, and the overall growth of their incomes remains meager. How can the microcredit system be reformed to have greater benefits for borrowers?  Once repayment began, both groups again had the same schedule.  Three years after the initial loans were given out, the study found that borrowers who received the grace period were more likely to have started a new business, and also reported both higher profits and household incomes.  As for the barriers to assessing credit risk, these can be mitigated by using community information. Daily Current Affairs Dated On 23-Aug-2019  Communities can be an accurate source of information about credit risk for microcredit institutions, though the article notes that the implementation of such processes would require the elimination of bias and incentivising accurate information. What are the other applications of microcredit?  Conventionally, microcredit has been used mainly for entrepreneurs to begin production and attain self-sufficiency.  However, the Ideas for India article notes new, mostly unexplored paths for the utilisation of microcredit as a poverty alleviation and productivity-boosting measure.  A study found that small microcredit loans can allow rural labourers –those who are employees, as opposed to entrepreneurs, who are employers– to migrate to urban areas to find work during the lean season, when there is no work to be found on farms.  Those who migrated temporarily during this season experienced increased spending in both food and non-food areas, and increased their calories consumed.  Microcredit can also be used to dampen the effects of shocks like floods by providing people with a form of insurance that both increases production before the shock and provides a safety net after.  Microcredit has a vast range of applications for poverty alleviation and general development, but existing systems require reform in multiple areas to allow for unfettered benefits that last.  Furthermore, in areas were the application of microcredit is relatively new, microcredit systems must be carefully evaluated before they are put into place, so as to enable the greatest benefit from such institutions. FATF Why in news? The Asia-Pacific Group (APG) of the global terror financing and money laundering watchdog Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has put Pakistan in the Enhanced Expedited Follow Up List for failing to comply with commitments, PTI has reported, quoting unnamed officials. . Daily Current Affairs Dated On 23-Aug-2019 About FATF  The FATF is an inter-governmental body that is now in its 30th year, working to “set standards and promote effective implementation of legal, regulatory and operational measures for combating money laundering, terrorist financing and other related threats to the integrity of the international financial system”.  was founded in 1989 on the initiative of the G7 to develop policies to combat money laundering.  In 2001 its mandate expanded to include terrorism financing.  It monitors progress in implementing the FATF Recommendations through "peer reviews" ("mutual evaluations") of member countries.  The FATF Secretariat is housed at the OECD headquarters in Paris India vs Pakistan at FATF  India is a voting member of both the FATF and the APG, and co-chair of the Joint Group, where it is represented by the Director General of India’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU).  Pakistan had asked for India’s removal from the group, citing bias and motivated action, but that demand was rejected.  India was not part of the group that had moved the resolution to greylist Pakistan last year in Paris.  The movers were the US, UK, France, and Germany. China did not oppose the move then.

#ias academy #ias coaching #ias preperation #current affairs

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savetheeplanetttt-blog · 4 years

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General Info on the Environmental Movement and What you Can do to Help

It is no secret that there is an on going environmental movement around us and although it may seem like the majority of people support it, it is getting a change of behavior that is needed, not just support. Throughout this blog, you will be able to find information on whats going on, how to help, and much more.

For this post, I would like to begin by talking about the book communicating nature, by Julia Corbett. In chapter one, she describes how environmental beliefs and ideologies affect the way an individual behaves and regards their environment. These environmental ideologies are developed over time through childhood experience, a sense of place, and historical and cultural contexts.

Childhood experience, for example, refers to a memory or special moment in an individuals childhood (in nature) that makes the child like nature and appreciate the environment. This could be something like camping, picking flowers, going to a neighborhood park, hiking, and so on. Memories like these lead people to an appreciation of the environment because good memories are associated with it.

When talking about a sense of place, Corbett is referring to when an individual has a sense of home or belonging somewhere. This could be feeling at home when you're near a large body of water, a forest, mountains, desert, climate, and really anything. When an individual has a sense of place somewhere they are much more inclined to help preserve it and keep it nice.

Lastly, historical and cultural contexts are how different cultures regard nature, which then reflects into individuals attitudes and behaviors. An example of this would be white settlers opposed to native Americans. Both cultures regarded and respected nature different which was reflected in their actions.

The start of the increased support for the environmental movement was in 1960 and has declined since then. We have been taught in school to think that all resources are ours for the taking and although there is a strong support for the environment, the actions and changes in behaviors do not change. All the support in the world will not save the planet, but small changes to individuals daily lives will. A factor that effects this is what an individual sees on tv and how the people around them act. If someone is seeing everyone doing things that are helping the environment, opposed to someone disregarding it, they are more likely to gradually change their behavior for the better. According to Corbett, any attempt so change someones behavior that puts all the responsibility on them will never be successful. I understand being passionate about the environment but, it is better to start small with minimal changes that could develop and grow over time. Furthermore, there could be many reasons why someone who supports the movement, does not change. For example, it could be a social norm thing, it could be various expectations, limited time, etc.

Many people assume they are aware of how important preserving the environment is but, do not realize how much humans have really impacted it and continue to. For instance, every hour, Americans throw away 2.5 million plastic water bottles and every week, the world as a whole produces 10 billion plastic bags per week. In addition, 14 billion pounds of trash will be added into the ocean from this year alone. Trash is not the only problem also. Not everyone has access to clean water and 4 people every minute die due to water poisoning. The amount of access to water also continues to decrease as population size and use increases over time making the amount of water used by each person become more important than ever. The US uses about twice as much water than Europe does, and third world countries use only about 1.3 gallons per person per day which is less than a low flow toilet uses for one flush. The average person only NEEDS about 1 gallon of water per day but it is unrealistic to ty to get people to change their lifestyl so drastically since most people use much more. Below are a few different ways for you or someone you know to make small changes that will greatly reduce their trash output and water use.

For reducing trash, try avoiding plastic. Every piece plastic that has been made is still on our planet. Of course you cannot avoid plastic completely but maybe try getting a reusable water bottle and straw and/or using reusable shopping bags for when you go to the store.

For reducing the amount of water you use, you could shower with low water flow. This way you do not have to shorten how long you shower for but it still uses significantly less water. Choosing tea over coffee sometimes is also a good way to minimize your water use because tea uses 28 gallons less water than coffee does. In addition to coffee and tea, choosing beer over wine has the same effect. When trying to decide what protein to buy, choose chicken instead of beef once in a while. I have started to do some of these changes and if It makes it easier there is no problem with starting small and taking your time. Any action is better than no action because these small changes can help reduce the amount of water you use by hundreds of gallons per day.

Follow for more info and tips on being environmental friendly!

Sources:

Communicating nature by Julia B. Corbett (2006)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZ71svh1RVo&list=PLE7EBB5F57EA9F190&index=

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOLf2RbxmzE&list=PLE7EBB5F57EA9F190&inde=

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTcYkTZCgb0&list=PLE7EBB5F57EA9F190&index=47

#environment #environmetalists #savetheplanet #reducereuserecycle #plants #planet #lovetheplanet #savetheearth #savetheocean

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less-than-hash · 5 years

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Holes in the Firmament

Every dev I know has at least one dream game - stuff that they'd love to be able to make some day. The more ambitious these get - the more complex or long - the less likely they are to get made. And in a collaborative medium like games, the more people (and the more money!) involved in a project, the less control any given individual has over it.

This isn't intrinsically bad. (It can also be wildly valuable to a project and rewarding personally.)

But we devs still dream of those games we'd make if we had, say, the resources of a two hundred person studio, the backing of a major publisher, and absolute freedom.

Three of mine are behind the cut.

As a note, none of these reflect upcoming Obsidian projects. Nor are they projects Obsidian would likely ever make. They don't fit the studio's brand. Which is why I'm dreaming about them here, and not pitching them internally.

So, first up!

A Squad-Based 1st-Person Firefighting Game with a Robust Relationship System and a Branching Narrative

I don't understand why there aren't more games about firefighting - though if I had to guess it's largely because making fire look good in-game is extraordinarily difficult. As is making an environment decay over time (though I suspect there are probably some pretty good, easy solutions for this using dev sleight-of-hand).

There are actually a Iot of interactive sim games about firefighting for training purposes. Much like war and flight, firefighting is something best trained without risking real life and limb.

Firefighting appeals to me as a gameplay space because it's actively protective - it's about limiting destruction and saving lives. But it can very easily be modeled with similar gameplay loops to shooters - ultimately both are about emptying rooms of danger - here it's just with water instead of bullets.

I could be water!

In short, firefighters engage in almost unequivocal good. They're heroic. They’re human. They’re flawed. And they brave dangers every day. But our industry basically ignores them.

Firefighting would give us the opportunity to set games in the modern world with people who, during their off hours, experience much more relatable struggles than your average freedom fighter, super spy, or elite soldier - relationship difficulties, debt, children, and the like.

So what would this game actually look and play like? It would likely be mission-based (calls come in of their own accord, after all), make use of movement and environmental hazards (not unlike a cover-based shooter), and have simple companion-direction mechanics similar to the Mass Effect trilogy or Spec Ops: The Line.

(Alternatively, the action could be dialed down a bit to focus on positioning a la Valkyria Chronicles.)

The gameplay would be focused on keeping your squad alive while saving as many people as possible.

Between missions you hang out at the station, or the bar, or at home - or try to balance all three, a la Catherine. You build relationships, helping your squad perform better together. You never recruit anyone, but your companions, your fellow firefighters, can die in missions, altering the narrative in both tone and content.

tl;dr: Mass Effect 2 meets Rescue Me with some dashes of Catherine

Next!

Narrative-Focused Urban Fantasy RPG/Immersive Sim

How does this not exist yet? Where's our Dresden Files or Hellblazer inspired RPGs? Or even The Magicians or Harry Potter, for that matter?

Where my Chilling Adventures of Sabrina RPG?

There's Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines, which, while fantastic, is 13 years old.

While I'm looking forward to Necrobarista, that seems like a pretty tight, focused experience.

We've plenty of games with magicians in fantasy realms or in space - AKA BioWare's entire oeuvre - but few in the AAA space set in the modern world.

Unless you count superhero magicians.

Wait. Did Dr. Strange even get a game? Google suggests no. What’s going on here, videogame industry? Why won’t you suffer a witch to live?!

Honestly, I get to an extent why this is. There's a reason there've been Vampire: The Masquerade and Werewolf: The Apocalypse games, but no Mage games, either for Ascension or Awakening. Magic is broad, and often (especially in games) wildly destructive, which can be at odds with a modern setting (or rather what makes a modern setting interesting).

Art by Jason Chan, from Reign of the Exarchs by White Wolf.

But it doesn't have to be.

The flexibility of magic actually allows for a lot of different gameplay styles. You can do straight up first-person action like The Darkness or stealth survival like Last of Us. If I were to adapt Phonogram, a comic I love deeply, you can bet your ass there'd be beatmatch spellcasting.

A lot of gameplay mechanics we take for granted are actually damned-near magical.

Maps that point you where to go and tell you where your enemies are?

Dropping from a second story window without difficulty?

Regenerating health?

Items that make you smarter, stronger, or more likable?

Bullet time?

Rewinding to an earlier point in time to avoid death or a bad decision?

So that's another question a developer has to answer: if magic comes in so many shades, what color is yours? What are you hoping to accomplish?

For me, the presence of magic in the modern world demands a layer of secrecy that implies other layers of secrets. A modern world in which magic functions immediately deepens. What else lurks out there? Where are the other magicians? How are they using their abilities?

Additionally, magic is surreal. Bend and twist reality, and you're forced to look at it from new angles. If you can tweak people's emotional responses to you, how do you know the relationships around you are real?

And that's before you realize your dreams literally might come true - especially the nightmares. Is the face in the mirror a reflection, or something sinister and jealous? Is the ghost haunting you your literal past reaching out to reclaim you?

My dream modern magician game is an open-world immersive sim in an urban setting. Drop Prey, Dishonored, or BioShock style gameplay into a sprawling city filled with physics objects ripe for transmutation and NPCs waiting to be enchanted. Add an otherworld accessed by stepping through mirrors (the entire map within is reversed).

It's about what power can accomplish, what justifies its use, and what its limits are.

Populate the world with a few powerful magician NPCs with their own agendas; dozens of NPCs to chat up, learn more about, seduce, and manipulate; and a threat that could consume reality's very soul if someone doesn't step up to deal with it. Shake. Serve.

tl;dr: Dishonored meets Vampyr by way of Hellblazer and Hellboy

And finally!

Friendship Simulator 2019

My favorite parts of the Persona games and Catherine are the things outside of the core gameplay loops. The bits where you're hanging out with your friends, chatting with them, finding out more about them, and guiding and supporting them (or tearing them down).

Or hiding in the toilet to text your significant other.

One of the things I love about Persona 5: Dancing Star Night in Starlight is that the narrative is almost solely in this mode. It's entirely about learning more about your fellow Phantom Thieves.

Lest you think I uncritically and unabashedly love it, P5D has some major narrative problems - it entirely fails to pay off its initial premise, for example, and there's no persistence to the player choices or (player-driven) reactivity within the narrative.

Nor does the way the player "progresses" the narrative make a tremendous amount of sense within the fiction of the world.

Sorry I got distracted.

Point is, from a narrative perspective it's a game about getting to know people better - literally exploring their lives - and then supporting (or undermining, if you're terrible) them.

Similarly, nothing the player says in Persona (or, for the most part, Catherine) has any impact on the game. The player might progress a Social Link more slowly by being an ass to the protagonists' friends, but they'll still increase that Link over time, provided they put time into it.

And I don't want to be dismissive here. Time management is one of the major ways in which the player engages with the Persona games. Outside of combat and maybe monster-training, it's probably the most important mechanic at play. Taking longer to max out a Social Link means you're missing other content and missing opportunities to increase your stats. Or maybe the Social Link doesn't get completed at all. (Sorry, Haru.) Or maybe you’re not powerful enough to overcome the next Shadow in time and your game ends. Those are non-trivial consequences.

But the story of the Social Link, or the story of the game, will never change based on (the vast majority of) the player's interactions with their buddies.

Despite that, the games give the player a lot of freedom as to when (or whether!) they approach those relationships.

On the other end of the spectrum, Life is Strange (and Before the Storm) does a fantastic job of letting the player get to know the characters around Max (and Chloe) and responding logically to the player's choices.

The kid who has a crush on Max (Warren, I think?) remembers what the player promises him and then responds to whether or not the player follows through on it.

If Chloe plays A Game That Absolutely Involves Neither Dungeons Nor Dragons with her friends, they'll refer to it excitedly later and ask her to join in another round.

The TellTale games are also pretty good at this, especially Wolf Among Us, but that'll take me a bit far afield.

What Life is Strange does not provide the player is any control at all over the flow of the narrative. When the player completes a narrative beat within a scene, they're rushed along to the next scene, which is never one of their choosing. There's plenty of flexibility within the relationships (and within many of the smaller subplots), but little within the game's larger structure.

Ultimately, Persona provides little variability, while Life is Strange provides little narrative control.

I want to make a game that grabs the strong aspects of both of these while jettisoning their weaknesses.

(Far, far easier written than done!)

Basically, I want to make a game focused on the exploration of relationships. Where the personalities are the mysteries to unravel, and the interpersonal relationships between characters the dungeons to be navigated. Where the inner demons are the beasts in need of slaying - not through mystically entering the subconscious and doing battle with the Shadow, but through conversation.

I want a game about building a community, a family, and helping it come to support itself.

I think that one essential change that would make this significantly more doable is discarding the larger threats to the characters, especially those supernatural in nature. The relationships among the cast of Persona 4 are propping for the story of the Midnight Channel Murders. Arcadia Bay's pending apocalypse distracts from the relationships that seem to be the actual core story of Life is Strange.

(I find Before the Storm a stronger narrative than the original Life is Strange in large part because it's not being torn in multiple directions.)

Which isn't to say that there can't be threats, obstacles, and dangers. The world presents all manner of difficulties. Most of them requiring far more challenging and interesting solutions than "stick a sword in it."

That's a lot of abstraction, so what would this game actually look and play like?

Well, as I mentioned above, I think the Persona games, esp. Persona 4 Golden and Persona 5 already do a fantastic job of providing the player the framework for exploring a space and approaching relationships at their own pace.

Add into this characters that the player can engage with in order to learn more about them (not unlike Vampyr), help with their problems, and build (or break!) relationships with them or others, and you have something of an open-world interpersonal relationship game.

The narrative of these relationships would change based on the player's actions (both in regard to how they interact with the character and how they deal with (or fail to deal with) the character's problems). So would the player's reputation, which impacts their interactions with other characters.

(The reputation system is actually one of my favorite ideas in Pillars, but I think we sometimes fail to use it to its full potential. I certainly know I do.)

Side note: in this dream game, the relationships I'm describing are not expressed in a systemic way. They're not ranked like Social Links, and they don't have reputation bars like in Dragon Age or Tyranny. It's much more akin to Life is Strange here, with each character containing their own narrative(s) to be navigated.

Over time, you bring some of these characters closer to your protagonist, recruiting a tight-knit circle that helps you face the game's primary conflict. These relationships bounce off of one another. You can never make everyone happy, after all, and some people will never get along. Late game play requires that the player balance these relationships and help forge friendships or avoid catastrophic fallings out.

Yeah, but what is that primary conflict?

Potentially anything the world could throw at a person. A lot of television shows have provided us a framework we can borrow from. Veronica Mars comes immediately to mind. (Or one of my favorite films, Brick.) Then there's Lost, which is overtly about building communities and relationships in order to survive. The Wire is another possibility. (Imagine playing as a Stringer Bell type trying to build a crew while maintaining relationships with rival crews.)

My point being that we already know what these kinds of stories look like. We just have to be brave enough to make a game that's focused around understanding other people rather than shooting them.

tl;dr: Life is Strange meets Persona, minus the strange and the personas

And that’s three glimpses into my brain. Into my dreams.

You may have noticed a few through lines. I'm pretty clearly interested in making games:

Set in the modern day

That tackle modern, realistic (and I use that term extremely loosely) concerns

That are largely non-violent

With non-linear narratives

That involve exploring the lives and feelings of non-player characters

And give those interpersonal relationships systemic narrative bite

Obviously, the projects I've been involved in recently don't check off every one of those boxes on my wishlist. That's generally how it is, if you're making games with other people.

But if you're very, very lucky, you get the opportunity to work on projects that scratch at least one or two of those itches.

I've been very, very lucky.

Cheers, <3 <3 <#

#gamedev #game design #narrative #relationships #persona #catherine #mass effect #life is strange #prey #dishonored #vampyr #necrobarista

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bcgeog4390-19-blog · 5 years

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Opportunities and Connectivity

Hi everyone,

I hope everyone had a good reading week. I sure had a great time travelling during this period unlike my past semesters back at home. When I was in NUS during a normal school term, reading week’s sole purpose was to catch up on my readings and revise for midterms. However, since its an exchange semester, I decided to book a trip to Yellowknife in the province of Northwest Territories for a short getaway. The main reason I travelled to the Canadian capital of northern lights because it has a lifelong dream for me to witness it in person. Besides the freezing temperatures (seriously, no amount of clothing is enough to defend against the cold), Yellowknife is really gorgeous. I also really love the place for its Inuit culture. It was a great experience overall, but during one of the conversations with my tour guide, Robert, really made me ponder about the discussion in class about the theme of connectivity and opportunities in rural areas.

This photo cost me the inability to use my fingers for 10 minutes. Location: Prosperous Lake.

Connectivity

Why did I bring up these two topics? Firstly, for connectivity, based on my exchanges with the local people in Yellowknife, I see recurring implications for the lack of connections. Although Yellowknife is NOT considered rural, personally I think that the connectivity can definitely be improved thus this discussion about connectivity in rural areas. Before the completion of the Deh Cho Bridge in 2012 that links Yellowknife with the rest of Canada, there is largely no road connections. This is because road construction in Yellowknife is difficult due to the presence of permafrost which degrades the roads via freeze-thaw action.

The relatively new connection of Yellowknife to the rest of Canada. Deh Cho Bridge is near Fort Providence Source

For example, as compared to the Walmart in Guelph which as a fresh food section, Walmart in Yellowknife only consists of packed and canned food goods. It is not surprising considering the fact that transportation costs would hinder the incentive for Walmart to bring in a wider selection of fresh food into their stores in Yellowknife. The aforementioned reason coupled with the fact that local food sources would pose a fiercer competition for Walmart in the provision of fresh food. Similar to Yellowknife, many rural regions in Canada has natural geographical barriers which hinder connectivity to urban Canada. The insufficient connectivity really poses problems for the development of the rural as it impedes the flow of resources, capital and human traffic into the area.

Sunset in Yellowknife Source

Opportunities

Opportunities are closely linked and coexist with connectivity. I think that opportunities are lacking in rural areas just like connectivity. Opportunities can be interpreted as the availability of services and access to such commodities. Compared to urban areas, the rural does have opportunities like the urban. One example is internet access as well as employment opportunities. People are also drawn to the urban for other needs such as education. In order for the continuous growth and development of rural areas, needs must be met. As argued by Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the basic needs of a human are safety needs and physiological needs. Within these two broad categories includes the need for safety, shelter and stability (safety) and the need for air, water, rest and health (physiological). Most of the time, the provision of these (public) goods and services is the responsibilities of the government. If the political will of the authorities for development is unevenly distributed, uneven outcomes are inevitable. To me, the level of opportunities determines a lot of things like development in different areas and development thus results in different levels of connections.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Source

I just want to end off with a question. What would be the most important area of focus to speed up development in rural regions?

Also, if you happen to still be reading, I would like to know what you guys do during reading week.

Cheers,

B.C.

(Proudly NOT sponsored by Coca Cola)

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thegreenline · 2 years

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Blog Final

Overpopulation and Its Effect on the planet

Blog #7

How fast does the population growth and how does it affect urban growth?

In the last 200 years, populations have reached a higher level of growth (Miller and Spoolman, 110). Every year population grows more and more. When looking at the World population clock it becomes evident that there are more births per second than death leaving us at a constant incline in population. In the US clock, it shows that there is one birth every 8 seconds and one death every 11 seconds. The more the population begins to grow the harder it is for resources to keep up. There are only so many resources that can sustain an ongoing population especially in urban areas where there is a constant influx of people. The more advanced society gets the higher birth rates and lower death rates will become due to the access to resources. This can become a major economic factor in the future as many families in poverty-dense areas plan to have more children than they believe to survive and the more they survive the harder the economic burden on those families. As the population grows, more has to be built to keep up and more traffic, water, and food consumption in a more dense area.

Why are people driven out from rural areas?

There are basic needs a human has to have to survive. Many people move from rural to urban areas in search of jobs, education, healthcare, and entertainment (567). Another big issue is famine, loss of land, a decline in environmental conditions, war, religion, and political conflicts (567). All of these issues are reasons that drive people out of rural areas in search of a better and safer life for themselves and their families. Rural areas have fewer opportunities to expand and are usually a part of the working class or those in poverty. India is an example of a densely populated country struggling with resources and development. There is a high amount of water stress on populations there and a heavy reliance on vehicles to make their way around, leading to a high amount of traffic. The air quality begins to diminish through this abundance of vehicles as well as reliance o fossil fuels and natural fuels for burning and cooking. This will then affect the health of the population as every action affects everyone in the area. Ensuring that people have enough access to clean water, air, and shelter is a basic human right, however, many countries don’t have the access to these resources because of overpopulation and a decrease in material to provide for the people.

What are the Pros and Cons of Urban areas?

Urban areas bring access to innovation, cultural diversity, jobs, technological advancements, an increase in life span and life expectancy due to better healthcare, and better education opportunities. One issue is the more people move into this picture-perfect image of a city many of these benefits begin to decline. As the influx of people increases, there will begin to be more traffic, water scarcity, and vehicle use. Although it is great that more and more people will have access to better resources there is a time where it needs to be controlled. If more people need to travel longer distances there should be good public transport implemented, and if people still need to use cars some sort of restriction must be made. Vehicles pollute our environment due to the burning of fuels and it’s important to keep the pollution to a minimum.

What are some ways to solve these issues?

Exposing families to family planning and ensuring people have more adequate health insurance as to where they dont have a large abundance of children thinking only a couple will survive. This would already eliminate the increasing quantity of births that offset the ratio to deaths. Another issue is that of air pollution, implementing policy such as PlaNYC where fees will be implemented on cars during traffic hours to encourage people to find a different, climate-friendly alternative. This especially is a great plan for NYC where the subway is an easy resource to use at our disposal. It is important to amount that as populations begin to grow there will be more competition for daily needs. Anything that can be done to avoid this overconsumption must be implemented.

How long will it take for resources to be depleted fully at the rate our population is growing?

word count:744

Biodiversity and Forest Protection

Blog #8

What are the dangers approaching species?

Many species have been moving towards endangered and threatened species lists as many factors are contributing to possible extinction. Loss of habitat stemming from human intervention and over-harvesting is a major contributor to this issue (Miller and Spoolman, 178). Large industries such as palm oil and vegetable oil largely advance the deforestation process that has been occurring for years. This large amount of deforestation in turn destroys ecosystems that house countless species. When these habitats are gone these animals are left without a home and begin their road to extinction. An example of this would be the orangutans who are immensely affected by the deforestation in the Amazon due to the palm oil industry. As they begin to die off and are being taken to restore the species, they are disrupting the food chain as a whole as many animals rely on them as a source of food (179). Losing one species is detrimental to the planet let alone a whole ecosystem. There is a chain reaction that stems from the smallest change, this exemplifies the importance of protecting every part of our planet as no matter how small it is essential to how the world survives.

How do non-native species affect the environment and people?

There are both beneficial and nonbeneficial sets of nonnative species all over the world. Things such as corn, cattle, livestock, rice, and wheat are all nonnative species in many regions, however, they are used to sustain human life and pose very little threat to the surrounding areas. Invasive species are the issue that pertains to many environmental problems. In recent news the mention of the spotted lanternfly that was taking over many parts of the northeast from Asia and can cause major damage to agriculture in the states. Mandates had to be created to begin killing these pests as they have no main predator in this new habitat and can multiply at dangerous rates. The main issue with invasive species is they have no way of being controlled in a natural and contained way as many of our plants and animals are controlled. They aren’t a part of the main food chain of the area thus, creating a cycle and explosion of population.

Why are forests so important?

Forests are our main resource for depleting countless amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere and they house large populations of species. They provide large economic as well as ecosystem services (206). Many materials such as wood, raw materials, and natural medicines are created through harvesting parts of forests and while this is a great economic opportunity there are issues in which people grow money-hungry and take more than they should.

What is affecting our forest systems?

The most recent issues that have been evident in the news are the large amounts of forests fires, especially in California. Fires attribute to the loss of many of our forests and can be categorized into two main types of fires. Surface fires are those that burn the undergrowth, areas such as grass, and small trees. Crown fires are those that burn the entire trees and are heavily based on the tops of trees causing them to burn top down. Deforestation is another one as mentioned previously, over-harvesting from areas for oil and wood products diminishes the number of trees in areas. There is also the issue of an increase in temperature which doesn’t seem like it would affect trees very much however, this increase causes bugs such as the Pine bark beetle to multiply and can kill countless trees (207). The last main issue is a disease, an example would be the white pine blister rust which is a fungal disease that spreads rapidly on white pines (207).

How can forests be managed and sustained?

Some examples described in the book where maximum sustainable yield management which harvests trees in their intermediate size as they approach the longer part of growth and it can be efficient to replant after taking it down at midsize and ecosystem-based management which harvests renewable resources in attempts to minimize the harm done. Finding new ways to manage forests fires could help avoid large amounts being burned down and would help the number of carbon emissions produced from these fires, creating regulation to protect from over-harvesting, establishing sanctuaries and protected spaces, reducing demand for tree-based products, and replanting. The same can be said for protecting biodiversity as many extinction issues are rooted in forest management.

If there was a way to implement policy at large could there be a way to oversee and take action to protect the ecosystems?

word count: 780

Effect of Food Production and Aquatic Biodiversity

Blog #9

What are the threats to Aquatic Biodiversity and why should we care?

The ocean and bodies of water on our planet provide countless of species of animals with habitats and protection. The vast majority of our planet is underwater naturally. The ocean generates 50-70% of the Oxygen we breathe as well as helps slow atmospheric warming by absorbing 90% of excess heat (Miller and Spoolman, 233). This in turn raises the ocean temperature which then creates a major phenomenon called coral bleaching. Corals all over the world have turned white in color to protect themselves from the wave of heat being produced. If this increase in temperature continues they can never release their polyps and can no longer feed themselves so it dies. Corals are a major ecosystem that provides homes to the vast amount of creatures in the ocean providing a home for biodiversity. These animals are also major contributors to economic factors to our economy. Fishing and tourism are the providers of more than 300 million jobs around the world. However, overfishing is starting to cause great harm to these beautiful underwater ecosystems. Fish species are being so over-harvested that there is an imbalance. Pollution also causes massive outbreaks in algae blooms which are extremely hard to control and eventually will overpower the ecosystem it takes over (236).

How to improve the stigma on sharks?

Sharks are portrayed in the media as dangerous and aggressive creatures. Movies such as Jaws and the Megladon are prime examples of sharks having no mercy on people and seeing them only as food. In reality, sharks are incredibly important to life in the ocean, and on many occasions in which they run into a human nothing happens. Sharks are a keystone species, they help control the overpopulation of many species and maintain balance. These false accusations lead to companies killing large amounts of sharks with no one fighting against them as it makes humans feel “protected”. Shark finning is an industry that creates an influx of need for shark fins as they are highly valued and considered a delicacy in Asia. This industry causes a massive decline in shark populations which in turn can disrupt the entire food chain and ecosystem of an area.

What can we do to help our ecosystems?

Places such as the everglades in Florida heavily rely on both protecting the wildlife and incorporating tourism. Growing up I went once a year for school field trips and saw how they cared for the animals and environment less and less. For many people in the area, it was simply a way to make money. Animals began experiencing habitat loss due to countless endangered species being released into the ecosystem due to unwanted pets. Biodiversity started declining as more new predators with nothing to control them were added to the ecosystem. This area is so rich in biodiversity that it must be protected along with the marine and aquatic life around the globe. By creating marine reserves and helping restore these ecosystems there is a good chance that these creatures can continue to survive(246). We must start to understand that there are limits to how much we can take that is not ours, to begin with.

Why are there so many issues with access to food?

The food production and distribution process has many issues within it. There is always an excess of food being created yet, so many lives every day in hunger. Families go hungry for weeks at a time and food is a human right that should have an easier way to access it (263). From area to area there is a clear example of the food distribution issue, countries have drastic opposites such as a homeless person going hungry to overweight individual eating out of excess (264). This rapidly growing industry then in turn creates more jobs and pollution. More fields are being cleared to create more space for crop growth and more companies are producing cheaper food that is overproduced. The meat industry is another contributing factor to field clearing as the cattle being raised need shelter and spaces to graze, separate from the factor of methane being contributed by cows. Thankfully, new processes have been developed in our growing industrialized agriculture economy in which farmers can actually grow more crops in less land (272). Things like this can help limit the amount of land we use for ourselves and leave more natural habitats intact.

Why do industrialized countries find it necessary to overproduce cheap goods?

Word count:761

The Importance of Knowing Where our Food Comes From

Blog #10

Why is soil so important?

Soil contains so much from prehistoric times, every layer is older than the other and remains to be a show of the time. Nutrients flow within it and because of this the ecosystem as a whole can survive. In the documentary The Symphony of Soil it is demonstrated just how important soil is to plants as well as the food industry. Good natural soil is better than the new industrial-created soil full of pesticides. Soil that is taken care of and provided for like farmers in the past before new technology was developed can benefit the planet and the food market. Pesticides are not necessary, in fact, they often hinder the quality of the fruits and vegetables being grown and the life surrounding them. Soil is necessary to grow everything around us and is not appreciated as it should be.

Why are pesticides and fertilizers so bad?

Fertilizers incorporate so much excess nitrogen into the soil and atmosphere and cause the need for extra water, pesticides, and other nutrients. Once stopping this the soil itself becomes so waterlogged and gets “sick”. Pesticides and fertilizers can cause many issues with areas surrounding the farm especially in bodies of water. Some issues can be those of dead zones in which no life can thrive due to the lack of oxygen in that body of water. There are dead zones all over the world including the Gulf of Mexico as well as the Chesapeake Bay. These areas were affected by so much nutrient pollution that caused all the oxygen to be absorbed by algae, causing algae blooms, and removing all the oxygen which then furthermore kills the rest of the population in the area. These algae blooms can appear in a very short amount of time and can cause immense damage to the ecosystem and the organisms within it.

What are some of the better ways for soil to be treated?

Composting as referenced in the documentary is very important in this scale of production as it is cheaper than fertilizers and pesticides and helps reduce the amount of excess was and nitrogen being put into the atmosphere. These people who switched from the usual way of harvesting and producing saw a significant change in the way their fruits and vegetables tasted as well as grew. The example they made was how in their childhood there use to be holes in the cow patties and in recent times they had not seen them until they switched to a more natural way for growth. This led to the discovery that the use of pesticides and fertilizers wiped out a breed of dung beetle naturally occurring in that ecosystem. These natural and organic plants were growing stronger and had a much richer taste. Due to the well-taken care of nature of these farmers. Their vegetables are used by a world-renowned restaurant where their quality of food is praised. Well-produced produce is the difference in taste and health that we must turn to.

Why is the food production industry so bad?

Food in this day in age is created at a mass-produced level with little regard to its effects on the surrounding environment. Large corporations are just trying to get the cheapest and fasted fruits and vegetables on the market, thus creating a need for inventions to make growth faster. Genetically modified organisms are an example of this. Genes within these fruits and vegetables are changed in order for them to be able to withstand different soil types as well as different conditions, even speed the growth process. The problem is that this is created by humans and is no longer a natural product. We are filling ourselves with genetically created lab veggies and creating unnecessary harm to ourselves. So many fruits and vegetables go bad every day, why is it that we need to produce more faster and faster. This endless chain leaves us with countless amounts of produce that get spoiled because of the lack of consumers keeping up. Overproduction is also encouraged by overconsumption as well as purchasing from the consumers part. People buy way more than what they need and then end up throwing it away because it went bad. Our resources need to be taken care of. Produce should be created at a normal pace with natural resources to minimize the amount of environmental and physical harm upon us.

Why are consumers so oblivious and careless to the products they buy and put into their bodies?

word count: 760

Hazardous Toxins to the Environment and Humanity

Blog #11

Why is risk assessment important and what constitutes a risk?

Risk assessment is the method used to determine how much harm can be caused and a way to avoid and manage the risks at hand (Miller and Spoolman, 409). Risk management establishes how and if a risk should be reduced and the cost of this occurring(410). A large risk that is very harmful is the issue of infectious diseases. Bacteria (which is a rapidly multiplying single cell organism), Virus(a pathogen that invades a cell and genetic material which then causes it to multiply and spread around the body), Parasite (lives on or inside another organism and feeds on it) (410). Another issue is the distinction between non-transmittable and transmittable infectious diseases. Non-transmittable diseases can not be spread from person to person through bodily fluids, it develops within a person especially through outside interference, an example would be cancer and diabetes. Transmittable diseases are those that can be transmitted from one individual to another through water, air, food, and bodily fluids. An example of these would be the flu, HIV, and Covid. These are major risks because as time goes on these disease-carrying bacteria begin to develop genetic immunity to these modern-day antibiotics as well as become resistant to pesticides. Covid is a great example of how a virus can be a detriment to society beyond the fact of how it infects people. Countless people died due to one strand and as soon as people started protecting themselves from one more and more strands of the virus started appearing. These are strong and fast-moving infectious diseases that can wildly affect human life.

How do chemicals affect human lives?

Chemicals are another risk that puts human lives at stake. Infants and youth are the most affected by these chemicals. Any risk must be multiplied by ten and that is the estimated amount in which it would affect children (415). In the womb exposure to these chemicals can cause autism, childhood asthma, as well as many types of learning disorders (415). One reason in which it is very difficult to manage is the lack of data and the high costs it takes to enforce regulation so governments overlook the issues. These are even worse in less developed countries around the world.

What are the issues with waste management?

Solid waste has begun to pile up and is either being buried or burned (538). This is extremely harmful to the environment as well as our quality of life. Solid waste is any material that is thrown away by people that does not include liquid or gas. Industrial solid waste is what provides us with goods and services and municipal solid waste is the combined waste from people everywhere (538). Most of the municipal waste ends up in the ocean. Believe it or not, this can also affect the spread of infectious diseases. In Kenya, there were outbreaks of malaria due to plastic bags lying around holding water in which these malaria holding mosquitoes could breed (538). The united states alone created 40 percent of the world’s solid waste and it only amounts to four percent of the world’s population. This high waist economy is what makes so much excess waste spread around the planet.

How does this affect wildlife as well as humans?

Wildlife is the most affected by issues of waste, especially marine animals. Seabirds, marine mammals, and sea turtles all mistake pieces of plastic floating in the sea such as plastic bags to be jellyfish, and end up consuming them (539). Not only are we polluting the planet for our selfish reasons but we are endangering the lives of these creatures who can not tell the difference. Toxic waste is the main aggressor towards humans. Many are used in everyday life and can be detrimental to our health. Things such as pesticide products, car batteries, coal-burning power, and industrial power plants. One way to reduce this harm is to control the production and pace of waste. Being able to reduce it finding a way to get rid of it in a more effective way in which it is disposed of correctly will eliminate the issue of it landing in our oceans. At the end of the day, everything comes down to reducing, reusing, and recycling. The less waste we produce and the more we can reuse, the less of an environmental as well as detrimental health effect we will have.

What is a good alternative for waste disposal?

word count:763

Water Over Usage and Pollution

Blog #12

How is freshwater being distributed and how does it affect us?

Water is the most important aspect that supports human life. It is what makes it possible for life to thrive. However, we as a population waste, pollute and undervalue the water resources we have available to us. Access to clean water is an issue all around the world even in the United States. 3.4 million people die from waterborne infectious diseases ( Miller and Spoolman, 9,300). 9,300 of those deaths occur daily. 57% of people have access to clean water piped into their homes (301). It is terrible to see how many people living on this planet have so little access to clean water especially in their own homes, many people have no access to clean water within their proximity or maybe at all. This is a right that we all deserve as human beings especially with something necessary for life to thrive and be healthy.

What are the issues with over-pumping and aquifers?

Aquifer depletion is an ever-growing issue in our modern-day. More and more water is taken every day and eventually, this overpumping can lead to many negative effects on this clean water. Overpumping from these aquifers can lead to saltwater being pulled into the freshwater inside the aquifer leaving it unusable since the freshwater will be contaminated(310). However, there are some ways to remove this saltwater in attempts to create freshwater. Desalination can follow two different processes such as distillation, heating until salts are left in solid form, as well as reverse osmosis, where high pressure is applied to saltwater until it begins to evaporate leaving the salt to condense and freshwater is left (310).

What are some causes of water pollution?

Water pollution is a change in quality where humans and all living organisms are unable to have water access that is fit for them. Many places in the past years have become more and more polluted through human activities and disregard of surroundings. Pollution is a major issue that has left people with lead-poisoned water and oil-contaminated water and no access to clean drinking water and farmers without it for their crops. The lead is because of outdated pipes that are still being used today to pump freshwater which leads to severe lead poisoning in people. However, fossil fuels will always be a leader in water pollution. Whether there is a direct oil spill from a pipeline that contaminates the water or if it’s from the combustion of fossil fuels that end up in the air and into rainwater, the oil will always be a major culprit.

How is water being wasted?

Most of the freshwater being used is put into irrigation for crops, food production, and clothing production. The high market for clothing and fast fashion has become a prevalent issue over time and the increasing consumerism is a cause for this large misuse of water. Overconsumption of meat and the overproduction of crops that aren’t being used also contributes to immense amounts of water. Not only does this consume large amounts of water but it pollutes a lot of our water as well. There is so much water being used in indirect consumption especially in things such as filling pools, cleaning houses, washing away waste, cleaning and making clothes, cooling down nuclear plants, and many more. When looking into my water footprint it says that I use 693.4 m³ per year and although it is less than the global average I am still unsure how accurate this test is. There are no specifically accurate categories that could inform on how much water I use. I am not a very avid meat eater but I do every once in a while consume meat so I would not categorize myself as an average consumer or a vegetarian. This as well as the other question such as income are the only ones that relatively contribute to the change in the number so I don’t feel like my results are extremely accurate. Although, it did open my eyes to how much one person can contribute to water waste every day.

What are some possible ways to increase the information access people have to their water footprint? Why do people avoid informing themselves about this matter when it is such a large issue around the globe?

Word count: 738

Glasgow '21 Climate Report

Blog #13

What are some plans that have still not been achieved?

There were plans in which have not been achieved yet that were reported at the Glasgow ‘21. Some of these include an end to fossil fuel subsidies, phasing out coal use, establishing and providing a carbon price, and helping to protect vulnerable communities. There are so many great ideas that were promised that still have not been achieved that could immensely help move things in the right direction. Many countries are still avoiding their deadlines and there is a struggle to create a set time where emissions will be reduced. However, because of Covid-19, there was a halt in many plans on the part of these countries. Another thing to focus on as to why this change is taking longer also involves the amount of funding many underdeveloped countries have.

What are some achievements from this report?

Even though many things were not achieved as promised there have been achievements to come out of these meetings. Over 120 countries have promised to stop and help reverse the effects of deforestation by the year 2030. 100 countries including the U.S and EU have agreed to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 as well. Getting large countries involved in this change is what will lead to a global scale change in our environment’s health. Especially the involvement of China who pledged alongside the U.S to boost climate cooperation and preservation over the next decade. Although this is not the longest time it is a start especially from such high powers that can drastically change the state of our planet. Glasgow’s declaration that there will be zero emissions. Many countries such as Poland, Chile, and Vietnam all agreed to shift their use of coal to other resources.

What are some things that Glasgow hopes to achieve in the coming year?

Many countries still have not decided what they will commit to as a change and Glasgow asks them to attempt to commit to a pledge by next year to bring on all efforts to combat the ongoing change of the climate for the better. The goal is to start moving towards these pledges faster than 2030 and attempting to get more countries involved on such an important issue. Especially with removing the reliance on fossil fuels as well as coal-fired power. Some countries have made their goal far from the near future so there is some work to be done. Goals such as holding a deforestation pledge, methane abatement pledge, ending overseas financing of oil and gas, and a steel and aluminum trade agreement.

What groups of people should be helped?

Hopefully, those who are most affected by the ongoing climate crisis will gain an advantage from all these goals for the future. Indigenous populations especially are immensely affected as they live off the land and have to suffer the consequences and damages of our modern society. With these new pledges, low-income groups will hopefully be less affected by things such as polluted air and water. Still, even with these pledges, it does not improve their lifestyles. In the case of the indigenous population many groups especially the Navajo, who work for coal mines, have a lack of energy and electricity in their lives. Providing solutions such as providing them with environmentally friendly energy resources such as solar panels on their land could drastically change their daily lives. Being able to inform and take care of these groups of people is largely important as they take care of our planet and live off of it.

What is my opinion of this summit?

Many great promises have been made in this meeting and there is a hope that these promises will be kept. Places with overwhelming issues and blame for the mass destruction of our planet need to take responsibility and soon. Promises are not set in stone and it is our job to keep them in check. If we want something to be done we must speak out. One issue I still do not think will be addressed and is being overlooked too much is how little indigenous rights are being addressed as well as how the largest countries and powers are not ready to do more than what they promise. It may be expensive and it will take time but the more we do now the less we will have to watch die in the future.

Why are so many countries still avoiding making some sort of change to help benefit the future?

Word count: 770

Work cited:

Miller, G. Tyler, and Scott Spoolman. Living in the Environment. 20th ed. Cengage Learning, 2021.

Climate Change Practicum report:

I joined the Climate Impact initiative at the beginning of the year and although I still have not been able to do any of the activities I have been able to sign up and join the composting initiative within the club. I have always been intrigued by the thought of composting and wanted to learn more about it and how I can implement it in my own life and inspire others to do the same. It took a while to get everything up and running since everyone in the club is a student and midterms came up. However, we finally got together as a group to decide the times at which we can meet. These meetings have shown me how many people are willing to make small changes that can create big outcomes to help our planet. There were many options such as helping run the social media or business partnerships but after reading about how much goes into landfills or ends up in our oceans I knew that actively learning about how to compost can provide me with knowledge and a course of action to start with. I was not as active as I wished I could be especially since many activities take place on Rose-Hill and I had A Capella practice most of the days during the meetings and it was difficult to make it to these meetings as a whole. It is hard to involve people when they might not know how much this will affect their daily lives so providing fun and informative activities is a great way to spread awareness. One thing I have especially learned while trying to keep up with the meetings is that regardless of everyone’s activities and issues within their own life there is a sense of commitment and community within the groups to do everything they can to help our environment. I do wish I was able to do more especially since my major is Environmental Studies and this is an important collaborative aspect that will help me in the future. Since I have not been able to be involved in many of these activities as many times it interfered with my work or practice I tried my best to get people I knew involved or inform them on what activities are going on since I have many friends on the Rose Hill Fordham campus that would have an easier time getting access to these activities they were hosting. I also started a small personal project where I started taking all the glass and plastic bottles my roommates have been getting rid of and I started planting seeds into them as a way to avoid waste in buying pots for my plant and I can have a small impact on the plastic waste at Fordham. I have also got some friends involved in doing the same thing in their own rooms so even though it is not a huge change it is a small way to eliminate our own waste within the Fordham dorms. I also had many conversations with Sam Bowin about different things we could get done whether at or outside of campus. It was hard for me to make it to these meetings but meeting up with people who went to them and staying informed was very important to me as I loved to learn about the ideas for projects and how committed everyone is to help the planet one step at a time. I have also started helping one of my friends back home who started a clothing (mainly sweaters) company called See The Good by Sofi where she has started coming up with a collection where part of the funds she made would go to an environmental cause. The last one I helped her on was around the time I did my presentation for class here I focused on the Amazon rainforest and deforestation as a whole. Her last sweater collection which I think is still up is the one where proceeds go to help stop deforestation in the Amazon especially. I have also helped my roommate who is in Gabelli and trying to come up with an environmentally friendly company for one of her projects on informing her what is good for the environment and what she could use as alternatives for things that could have some negative impacts. Another person I did my best to help was another one of my roommates who writes for the observer and would ask me for opinions or information on current climate change news. When the issue regarding Spotted Lantern fly’s was occurring

throughout New York City I sat with her and we figured out just how these were negatively impacting the ecosystem around us and what we could do to help. I realize how many opportunities I have to share my knowledge regardless of how large it is with the people around me. Everyone I know has been so open to learning about everything going on in the world and I have encouraged them to spread the word and learn how to incorporate things I have shown them into their own profession. The Climate Impact Initiative, while it was hard for me to stay super active within it, helped me know how much power as a generation and a handful of students we have to help the planet in many small ways. I really hope to keep going and have more time to set out and go to Rose Hill for some of the activities.

Word count: 919

Environmental Stakeholder Statement:

This class has helped me learn a lot about more than just environmental issues at hand. Going forward, I believe this class has helped me know how many resources I have access to fight for what I believe in. Although learning about these issues did help me learn a lot and at times I did lose hope about the future of the planet, it gives me more motivation to push forward and have my voice heard. I have seen and heard so much about people’s opinions on the ongoing crisis the planet is going through and how so many people still refuse to acknowledge everything that is happening and continuing to happen. It is hard as a citizen to see how little people care and how little they do to change their minds on what is going on. The urge to go away and seclude oneself would be the easiest way to keep going but I feel a personal obligation to do all in my power to not give up. Coming from Miami, Fl I saw firsthand how little people care especially in a place that is on the coast and is of the first to disappear forever. With my knowledge, I plan to try my best to inform everyone around me about what we can do and why there is so much that is ongoing and will not be over until something is done about it.

I am thankfully very fortunate to be able to study this topic and be so informed yet, I feel a burden knowing everything that is going on and having such little power to fix it fast. One thing I severely want to focus on is figuring out how to incorporate the things I have learned to determine what specifically I can focus on in the future. Whether becoming an active member in my community or partaking in informing people around the world, I just hope to see a change in the perception of climate change in both societies as a whole and especially in the government/politics. The fate of our people has become a game between republicans and democrats instead of a humanitarian issue. There is so much I want to do and so little time to get it done especially and the rapid rate that everything is occurring. As a knowing citizen of this collapsing economy and society, my only goal is to make this planet a better place and to hopefully get it to a point where there is a reason for me to even consider bringing children into this world. Our generation was given a burning planet with no help on how to put the flame out.

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