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thosearentcrimes · 3 years

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In defense of "standpoint epistemology"

People like to denounce something called "standpoint epistemology". Now, in responding to this, I am faced with a dilemma. I could either interpret "standpoint epistemology" as being that which the people complaining about it are talking about, or I could interpret it as what the articles in which it was theorized described. What I will do is first present standpoint theory and standpoint epistemology as I understood them from its promoters. In particular, this essay will largely be a commentary on "Rethinking Standpoint Epistemology: What is 'Strong Objectivity?'" (1992) by Sandra Harding. First, I have to say that I do not find the text particularly satisfying. Most of its critiques are valid, but on the rare occasion that Harding implies any methodological changes, they seem infeasible or ineffective. Given that Harding is proposing a change of worldview and not directly a change in behavior, this is understandable, but it would still be nice to know what the actual implications of the change in worldview would be! All that said, I am prepared to defend the vast majority of the text.

According to Harding, standpoint epistemology is a response to the "sexist and androcentric results of scientific research". It is one of two responses she presents, the other of which she calls "feminist empiricism", which says that the biased results of prior scientific research were due to insufficient rigor, and that the underlying principles are fine. In contrast, standpoint epistemology, according to Harding, proposes a transformation of science and its mechanisms to more actively remove bias. Harding explicitly rejects relativism and essentialism, which are the positions most commonly attributed to her work. I am not sure why anyone would think she was lying, given that Harding clearly considers relativism and essentialism to be popular strands of feminist thought, and as such they are positions she could safely adopt publicly. Perhaps the jargon and the relative lack of concrete proposals have convinced people the idea is more radical than it really is.

Standpoint epistemology derives from standpoint theory, which is broadly the claim that the perspectives of people who are marginalized in society are, if anything, more relevant and accurate than those of dominant groups. Historically it draws from Marxism and the dialectic approach more generally (in particular, Hegel's Master/Slave dialectic), but the observation that marginalization compels people to understand their oppressor better than their oppressor understands themself (and as a corollary, that a life of privilege can be blinding, like how rich people do not know the prices of common household items) does not require dialectics at all. It is still however a rather controversial idea, with two major opponents. The first is that the view from the dominant position is more objective because it is less involved. This is blatantly false and silly. The more serious objection is that this theory obstructs the objective "view from nowhere". It is very important to ask - is there such a view? Is there knowledge that is not socially situated? The answer, according to Harding, is no. This is really the heart of the dispute between Harding and empiricism. It is rather difficult to prove the non-existence of "nowhere", especially on empiricist terms. If there is a "nowhere" to view reality from, then where? Of course, in reality, the view from nowhere is typically the view from above repackaged. Standpoint Epistemology can rightly be accused of self-contradiction, but at least it does so consciously.

This leads us into Harding's first methodological change, and the only one that is complete enough to be worth discussing separately. The idea is this: the lives and perspectives of marginalized people should be used as a starting point for the production of knowledge. This is as opposed to the only implied alternative of production of knowledge starting with the lives and interests of the dominant group. We might then imagine, from this, that Harding seeks to exclude men from philosophy in a mirror to the way women were historically excluded. This is however not the case. Harding believes it is desirable, and in fact very much necessary for men to also produce knowledge using the lives and perspectives of women as a base, and even names some philosophers, men and women alike, who she considers to have done important philosophy from women's perspectives in the past. Additionally, this quote from the article is extremely important here: "for standpoint theorists, reports of marginalized experience or lives, or phenomenologies of the 'lived world' of marginalized peoples, are not the answers to questions arising either inside or outside those lives, though they are necessary to asking the best questions". Clearly Harding and standpoint theorists in general are aware of the tendency that they are accused of promoting, and are just as opposed to it as the empiricists are.

Harding presents some interesting distinctions between the subject of knowledge under empiricism and under her reformed model of science. Harding alleges that it is a problem that science is presented as being disembodied, as being information existing outside of time or society, because the things science studies are embodied, exist at particular times and observed by particular societies. I'm not sure I agree here! Is it actually necessary for the object of knowledge and the subject of knowledge to be similar in kind? Surely that kind of distance has its advantages as well as its disadvantages. The next claim is more interesting. Empiricism supposedly has a tendency to consider knowledge to be generated by generated by particular individuals and not by societies or groups. This is a view that I think was significantly more prevalent last century, when the article was written, but it is still the implication behind much of the existing pop history of science and the way science is taught in schools. But why is this not correct? Harding makes the interesting point that she only considers her beliefs to be knowledge when they are socially validated. That is, while the beliefs may have been formulated by an individual such as Newton, it is a scientific community, over centuries, that transformed them into knowledge, and later restricted that knowledge to motion at non-relativistic speeds. The distinction between a belief that is true and will be turned into scientific knowledge and scientific knowledge itself is actually quite important, because it leaves the door open for true beliefs that do not, for whatever reason, become knowledge. However, the social methods by which beliefs become knowledge in science are acknowledged by empiricists and are in fact a core part of empiricist ideology. The whole point of peer review and scientific discourse is that knowledge is generated through social legitimation, so it seems a bit off to assert that the standpoint epistemological project is aware of this and the empiricist project is not. What I will say is that empiricists rarely embrace obvious conclusions of the fact that scientific knowledge is socially constructed, so I kind of understand why Harding feels the need to point it out.

What is it that Harding actually proposes? It is to use the lives and perspectives of marginalized people as a starting point in the production of knowledge. The purpose of this is that "the subject of knowledge be placed on the same [...] plane as the objects of knowledge", that is, that we should consider the conditions under which a particular piece of knowledge was produced to be a component of that knowledge, and reported along with it, producing what Harding calls "Strong Objectivity". I think it can be useful to study the conditions under which ideas were created, and that this can provide productive avenues of critique. On the other hand, that is what History of Science and History of Ideas are already doing, so I'm not sure this point provides any methodological changes that would simultaneously be useful and not already be part of the revised empiricist model of knowledge production or easily imported into it. The last thing Harding proposes is for science to be integrated into democratic structures, but it is important to note that by this Harding means democracy in the sense that anarchists mean it, which is a notion too vague to constitute an actual methodological proposal. Harding devotes the last section of her article to explaining why it is the notion of objectivity that needs to be transformed, and not simply the scientific method, from what I gather her reason is mostly that it is the more intellectually coherent thing to do. If I were to propose my own methodological change in line with Harding's critique, it would be that scientists should attempt to identify communities that are relevant to their research, and then run their experiments and articles by sensitivity readers (which I understand is done in fiction writing), as a form of review complementary to peer review.

Harding's work is in some respects an unfortunate casualty of the march of history. She herself notes that her ideas will inevitably become obsolete over time, but I suspect that there are things she did not expect to happen as quickly as they did, that make the article less relevant now than it was when written. Her assumption that scientific knowledge production is necessarily the domain of the elite is somewhat dubious. Academia has become significantly more diverse and representative over the last three decades, and it has also become much less prestigious and well-paid (I do not think this is entirely a coincidence). It remains true that knowledge production is the domain of a particular non-representative subculture (in fact, the fact that they are involved in knowledge-production will itself make this culture non-representative in at least one way), but the only parts of that subculture that seem to be heavily integrated into the socioeconomic elite are people who were already prominent when the article was written. Additionally, empiricist science has had three decades to fortify itself against the critiques that were made of it, which it has done to at least some extent.

What have we learned? Well, first, that none of the people denouncing "standpoint epistemology" seem to know the first thing about it. This may be because there are people loudly promoting standpoint epistemology who don't know the first thing about it either. I have frequently encountered people who are clearly interacting with a large group of confidently ignorant people and then absorb their vocabulary while critiquing them. What I would suggest as a remedy is to ignore people who don't know what they're talking about. Second, we have learned that standpoint epistemology is probably not possible to do, and it is unclear if doing it would be worth the cost if it were. Lastly we have learned that critical studies are depressingly often simply studies of academic environments (reminiscent of psychology studies performed on a dozen white male college students). Why does Harding focus on scientific knowledge production, and not on knowledge production more generally? At the very least a mention of theories in media studies that are complementary to the account she provides would be appreciated. Or perhaps, even more ambitiously, any sort of reference to the real world rather than only endless discourse.

I would like to end by presenting an interesting open scientific problem that seems to be hard to grasp using empiricist methods, but might be more yielding to a standpoint approach. The article "Physician–patient racial concordance and disparities in birthing mortality for newborns" (2020) (sci-hub.do/10.1073/pnas.1913405117), an analysis of 1.8 million hospital births in Florida between 1992 and 2015, suggests that, while there is a generally higher rate of infant mortality for Black babies than for White babies, the rate of infant mortality for Black babies being delivered by White physicians is significantly higher than for Black babies being delivered by Black physicians (note that the infant mortality rate for White babies does not vary significantly with physician race). The authors of the study controlled for a number of possible confounding factors, and the only difference they reported was that specialized pediatric instruction reduced the size of the gap in outcomes but did not remove it entirely. Now, my own hypothesis to explain the data is that White doctors in Florida and likely the US more generally are doing racist, likely eugenicist, infanticide, and this hypothesis does not require the standpoint approach. But for people who want other explanations, I think approaching the issue with methods from standpoint epistemology might be productive.

#discourse #standpoint epistemology

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osberend · 6 years

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You do realise the OP is a gay dude? Who’s warning other gay dudes about date rape??

I realized that OP was warning gay dudes about date rape, which was part of why I added that it was “especially fucked up to say [that men are trash] when you’re addressing men that you purportedly care about and are trying to protect.” I wasn’t specifically aware that OP was a gay man, but I figured it was likely from context. It doesn’t really matter to my point; men can be misandrist, just as women can be misogynist. And even people who aren’t trying to be bigoted can easily lapse into bigoted rhetoric from time to time, because it supplies ready-made expressions that require little thought to use.

[Direct answer to question ends here; extended tangent follows.]

Incidentally, the same is actually true of rhetoric generally, not just bigoted rhetoric. I used to consider myself feminist, but no longer do, principally because of a change in what I’ve come to view that word as meaning, rather than in my object-level beliefs about gender, sexuality, equality, etc. So it was curious when I was thinking about a folk song ( Crow and Pie, cw: rape, victim-blaming in the third-to-last verse), and how I would discuss my thoughts on it with someone. And I found myself thinking about how the last two verses (which form one ending, and the third-to-last another, in a weird order that makes me suspect they’re originally two different versions that got stuck together) are “surprisingly feminist” for the period and context, and how that contrasts weirdly with the third-to-last verse.

And then I thought “Wait. I no longer think of “feminist” as meaning roughly ‘good, in ways that relate somehow to sex, gender, gendered social issues, etc.’, so what did that thought actually mean?“ And what I realized was that putting it into words without that linguistic crutch was actually really difficult. It was a little about not being victim-blamey (in contest to the previous verse), a little about giving a rape victim an individual voice that doesn’t fit into the standard cultural pattern of how a victim should react, a little about rejection of aspects of toxic purity culture that say that being raped means your life (at least as anything other than maybe a nun) is effectively over, etc.

It was complicated, and not really something that could easily be expressed in a few words … and when you find that happening repeatedly, it becomes really tempting to identify a word or two with "good, as relates to that vague cluster of stuff over there *waves have in general direction of a big old region of concept-space*” and just use that for whatever you see as good that is in that general area.

And this is bad. It contributes to an illusion of clarity, because two people may have very different views on what is good in a particular area, but share a word for “good, in that area.” It contributes to the “all issues are really the same issue” mindset that makes it impossible to form coalitions with people who are with you on a particular issue, because they disagree with you on another.

And it contributes massively to polarization and demonization of people from different political tribes, because their rejection of the ideology they associate with the word you use to mean "good, in this area” now sounds to you like “I am for evil. Evil is great!

The best example I can see of this is the tumblr meme of calling people who self-identify as anti-SJ “literal Batman villains” and the like, because who but a literal Batman villain could declare themselves opposed to justice and compassion!? When in reality, the issue is precisely that we don’t think that “Social Justice” is actually just or (consistently and/or correctly) compassionate. But that view sounds patently absurd if you’ve internalized the idea that “Socially Just” means “good, in relation to big social issues.”

I'm reminded of George Orwell’s remark, in the appendix to 1984(so fiction, but fiction making a real point): “From the foregoing account it will be seen that in Newspeak the expression of unorthodox opinions, above a very low level, was well-nigh impossible. It was of course possible to utter heresies of a very crude kind, a species of blasphemy. It would have been possible, for example, to say Big Brother is ungood. But this statement, which to an orthodox ear merely conveyed a self-evident absurdity, could not have been sustained by reasoned argument, because the necessary words were not available.”

And let me be clear: This bad tendency is a very human one! As noted above, I caught myself falling prey to it myself, and regarding an ideology that I no longer identify with at that! One certainly shouldn’t be too hard on oneself over it. But it is still bad, and one should still seek to recognize when it’s happening and to avoid falling prey to it.

From Orwell again, this time from Politics and the English Language: “Political language — and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists — is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. One cannot change this all in a moment, but one can at least change one’s own habits, and from time to time one can even, if one jeers loudly enough, send some worn-out and useless phrase — some jackboot, Achilles’ heel, hotbed, melting pot, acid test, veritable inferno, or other lump of verbal refuse — into the dustbin where it belongs.”

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chaospirations · 4 years

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A man leaves his house in the early morning and sees an unexplainable sight. A white stick figure runs in front of his vehicle leaving him bewildered. The figure is as thin as a stop sign post, pure white with no hands, feet or facial features. This faceless “Stickman” encounter is described by the witness in the video below.

Reported by Jim (James)

Location: small subdivision Northwest of Springfield, Ohio.

Date: June 11, 2018

Time: just after 5AM

youtube

Watch the video above, or read the full transcript at the end of this article.

Before I take a deep dive into this bizarre whirlpool of high strangeness let me just make something clear. I will provide no definite answers here. There is no amount of scientific evidence that could lead one to the conclusion that there is a population of “stick people” that roam the shadows of the United States or elsewhere.

As far as I am aware, there is no creature in documented science that fits the profile of what the witness described, or others that have claimed to witness these unusual “stick people.” So for the remainder of these NCS notes I’m going to present you nothing but stone-hard opinion and speculation, with a smattering of additional alleged similar sightings.

Most of these “Stickman” reports are of black or dark creatures and have a tendency to describe them in terms of being of a supernatural origin. Although it is EXTREMELY unusual, the description by the witness makes no reference to something that would not defy the laws of physics.

Biologically on the other hand, this or any of the “stick figure” humanoids do not share physical characteristics of any known animal with the exception of perhaps a stick insect (or walking stick if you will). These creatures for the most part are absent of some very critical physical attributes common to… well… let’s say creatures that are bipedal in nature. Just looking at some of the most important features, many of these Stickmen lack hips, shoulders, hands, feet and even faces. The humanoid described above had no observable hands to grasp and no feet to balance themselves when running. What strikes me as odd about this thing is that it had no observable facial features; no eyes, nose, mouth or ears. Aside from terrestrial organisms requiring at least a combination of the above to make their way around in the world, the total absence of a mouth or nose would mean there is no normal way for this creature to consume nutrients in the way of food, and respiration without an observable way to breathe in air is possible, but usually on a small and slow scale (many amphibians can respire through the skin). However, running takes an awful lot of metabolic energy, even in small bursts. If this thing did have lungs, they would have to fit in the incredibly slender torso that was described to be the width of a stop sign post. Then again, just because the witness did not observe facial features, hands or feet does not mean that this thing may not have had them. The encounter was only a few seconds at the most and it is entirely possible that the focus was on the most observable portion of the subject darting out in front of the vehicle. The way I am dealing with this sighting is as if it is a biological creature of some sort, although it in no way resembles any earthly animal, and I’ll explain why. As I stated before, in the case of the Clark County Stickman there is no reason to think that there is any supernatural, ghostly, extra-dimensional or magical qualities associated with this creature. The behavior of this thing resembles what an animal would do when it runs out in front of a car, then finds cover and glances back at the vehicle it for whatever reason decided to run in front of. If the thing would have stayed still, there is a good chance the witness would have never had their attention drawn to it.

So, when I think of this encounter, I assume that the “Stickman” had some sort of survival instinct that kicked in after it ridiculously stepped out onto the road into oncoming traffic. And that is what interests me about this sighting vs other “Stickman” encounters, as there was no stalking of a witness, no evil, foreboding feelings, and no hint of supernatural speculations.

The thing ran out in front of the witness’s car. It ran across the road and hid. The witness lost sight of it. It left some kind of imprints on the grass. That’s it. If this story is fictional or embellished, there’s very little creativity to it… which IS NOT A BAD THING.

And as mundane and boring of a sighting you think that might be, in my humble opinion the blandness of the encounter (although it was bewildering to the witness) does lend some credibility to the account. Sometimes a sighting does not have to be elaborate to be straight-up unsettling.

It was difficult to find a sighting that described a subject similar to the Stickman of Clark County Ohio. As I said before many “Stickman” sightings are of dark, black shadowy figures in which many of the themes lean toward a supernatural vibe.

However there were two somewhat similar encounters I was able to look at, both being witness accounts and neither verified. The first comes from a commenter on a Reddit thread I posted seeking similar encounters like the Clark County Stickman. Here is their comment:

“In 2017 I was at Ohio University and around 1-2 AM I decided to go to “The Ridges” with some friends (haunted asylum on campus).

We walked… which was about a 45 minute to an hour walk and once we got there we got a really bad feeling, I’ve been there before and never felt the way I did so we turned back.

We noticed on the way back we were being followed by a car so we had to try and figure out how we were going to lose the creepy guys that were following us.

We got turned around and we’re in a courtyard and all the university help phones were all out so we couldn’t call for help and our phones were dead.

So we peeked around to see if the guys were still following us and all we saw was something that was taller than a stop sign, [two-dimensional] and didn’t really have a face and it was running across the field as fast as a car could drive.

I’ve never been able to find any paranormal thing to compare it to but this is the closest yet.

Every time I talk about it I tear up.”

When we posted the video on our Reddit page, one responder made this interesting comment:

“So this might be a coincidence but there is a native American reservation in Yakima Washington.

There is a tribal legend about stick who come out at night and try to trick people into following them.

They talk to each other with whistles, and you can hear them giggling.

They have the ability to sound like people to help lure their prey.”

A related encounter with a “Stickman” comes from the Reddit page Humanoid Encounters:

“Okay so. Where do I start? I was walking up to my local park with 2 of my friends.

It was about 9.

There is a path when you first walk to the park that leads to this elementary school that I used to go to.

There is a fence on the side of it, its gated and on the other side of the path is just a hill leading to the park.

There is then a street light on the path. We were walking past this and one of my friends said what’s that?

We looked and kept walking toward to seem like a dog. It was just frozen and staring at us.

I got closer and It ran away then and I saw its spine and it was nothing that I’ve seen before.

It had short legs but was weirdly long. That’s not where it gets interesting tho. We just walked up to the park.

When we were leaving (about 10 mins later) we were walking and wondered if we would be able to see it again. So we stopped and stared down the path. It’s more like a concrete path.

Then me and my one friend saw this stick-man like thing running down the hill towards the woods!

It was going mad fast, it hit the feet. It was about 7 ft tall maybe a little shorter. Point legs and arms… I didn’t really get a good look at its head.

I saw it for maybe a good 4 seconds. It wasn’t really black it was like black and grey, I saw it clear it went in the view of the street light.

It was just running then before it got to the path it vanished.

It was terrifying and I got the chills.

I explained it and then my other friend said he saw the same thing. My other friend didn’t tho, idk why.

We are going tonight again, at the same time, and to do the same thing and see if we can get it on video. I’ll post a picture of where I saw it later and hopefully a video of proof.

That was extremely disturbing. I researched it a little last night and came and saw “the black stickman phenomenon”.

I saw another story like this one on reddit. He said him and his mom saw it run across the road and his dad didn’t.”

Unfortunately, the person who posted this encounter did not update with photos or video. However, another commenter did reveal that they had had a similar experience before.

“So, I just happened to stumble into this subreddit but thought I’d mention this while I’m here.

There was one of these lingering around my house when I was 14-15.

I saw it a few times at a distance but never really got close enough to it to ever see any features.

It always showed up around twilight hours or just after dark.

I haven’t seen it in over 10 years at this point though.”

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These sorts of encounters with Stick Men can be extremely unsettling for those who experience them, and can really cause people to reassess what they thought they knew. One good example of this is a commenter on True Ghost Stories Archives who is a self-proclaimed skeptic and seems to be having a hard time reconciling his own brush with a Stick Figure, of which he explains:

“I honestly thought I was crazy. I’m 33, level headed, and while I won’t rule anything out I generally don’t think much of the paranormal.

The other night (morning maybe, I keep odd hours) I went outside for a smoke.

My lawn has a low retaining wall, about bench-height, and a long, sloping road down to the creek, noted for its malfunctioning street lights.

I saw something walking down the middle of the road.

I have a neighbor who walks at all hours day or night, I didn’t think much of it.

As it got closer, it looked like a pencil drawn picture of a man done by a kid.

It wasn’t black, so much as it was nebulous, like the static on a TV channel. Grey and black moving in a blur, in the shape of the sign that lets guys know which door to go in.

The street lights flicked on and it stopped, “looked” around (I assume as much, all I saw was its head move) and saw me.

As soon as it did, it took off down the road faster than my eyes could follow.

I didn’t tell anyone for a few days, then did the “promise you won’t think I’m crazy” with my girlfriend.

She said she had heard of similar stories, and asked it I’d googled it. I did, and here I am.

At least if I’m crazy I’ll have company.”

From “The Truly Bizarre World of Encounters with Real Stick Figures”

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that there are certain tales of “Stickmen” that are ENTIRELY fiction. One such story I found on the Reddit forum r/nosleep from 2015, and some may liken “Stickmen” encounters with the Creepypasta meme “The Slenderman.” Also recently, an encounter tale was removed from the Reddit forum r/humanoidencounters after the individual was called out for writing fiction, and the post was locked by moderators. However, many of the stories from sources mentioned above are elaborate and the “entities” are evil and intend to do harm to individuals.

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Other links concerning “Black Stick Men”

ObscUrban Legend Wikia: Black Stick Men

Cryptid Wiki: Black Stick Men

Paranormal Kativity [YouTube] Black Stickman Phenomena

Blogtalk Radio: The Mothman of Chernobyl & Black Stickman Phenomena | Peck Report Ep.218

Beyond Creepy [YouTube] “The Black Stickman Phenomenon”

The Fortean Slip: The Black Stickman Phenomenon

Mysterious Universe: The Truly Bizarre World of Encounters with Real Stick Figures

Mysterious Universe: Extremely Bizarre Encounters with Truly Surreal Mystery Humanoids

Phantoms and Monsters: The Stickman Entity

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Related NCS Case Files:

“SLENDERGUMBY:” Humanoid Figure Leaps Through The Forest at the Same Time on Consecutive Nights in Florida NCS Case File #23: Slender-Limbed Shadow Creature (possible Black Stick Man) NCS Case File # 3: Unknown Pale White Beings in the Midwest

Full Transcript of the Video “Stickman of Clark County Ohio”

[Jesse] can you tell me what your general occupation is?

[James] I am a truck driver

[Jesse] okay how long have you been doing that?

[James] about 16 years.

[Jesse] do you wear eyeglasses or corrective lenses?

[James] no had laser surgery about 20 years ago very good vision. I get my eyes checked every year.

[Jesse] this sighting occurred in Clark County Ohio, is that correct?

[James] yes

[Jesse] and this was June 11th 2018 is that correct?

[James] yes

[Jesse] and could you tell me the time approximate time that this occurred?

[James] it was 503 a.m.

I was heading to work morning of June 11th 2018 rural

subdivision area low traffic pulling out my driveway… went down the street turned left

at the stop sign.

As I turn left I’m there very short distance I noticed something

running from my right to my left…

as it got to my headlights it was a brighter white, very bright white [it] ran very fast covering probably close to 100 yards in 3 to 4 seconds…

it had a long abdomen a long head I believe it didn’t look like a neck… a long top / head… ran like a person… the legs and arms equal-sized… did not see feet or hands… it ran beside… it passed a stop sign as it went by and was a little bit shorter than the stop sign…

…got brighter as it was in my headlights, faded out… not as bright as it went by.

It had rained 2 days, the day before and the day before that so the road was a little damp

and the grass was wet so as it went by… by up in the grass into… behind a pine tree.

As I was turning right on the road it ran down… I could see it behind the tree as I was turning looked over at it… startled obviously not really staring to get a good look but i drove by and did look over there.. as I turned by to head on that road it came from looked in the rear view mirror I didn’t see anything.

My first thought as it started happening was that a car might have been behind

me out where I live in the country.

There’s very few cars on the road that time of day… would have been behind me I did not see any there was no car… there was no cars in the road anywhere. no reflections anywhere.

I went to work that day as I came home I came back the same path the only way in the subdivision… as I came to that stop sign I looked up where it had run and there were long

almost like footprints where the glass had been pushed down and drug maybe three or four or five maybe footprints… as I drove by, I looked at that.

[Jesse] What’s the prevalence of wildlife in that area like deer raccoon I know I live in a […]

South of a suburban area out in the country we do have we have deer we have raccoons

we have all sorts of stuff that crosses [the road] all hours of the day and night and what

were the prevalence of wildlife coming in to that area specifically?

[James] I’ve seen a few deer and the subdivision trash cans been knocked over by raccoons in the past. I’ve never seen any around I do hear coyote mostly in the fall in the winter but that’s about it really nothing more than that.

[Jesse] have you ever… has any of the other [neighbors] spoken about something seeing

something strange like this?

[James] couple that I do know and one of them I did really say anything about it they just never seen anything like that…

[Jesse] so what is it what what do you think you saw I mean do you have any ideas?

[James] I don’t know I’ve looked online for stuff like that and the closest thing I can see that somewhat resembles it is all those little stick figure things out like in California and Arizona…

[Jesse] Night Crawlers

[James] yes… yeah I mean that kind of resembles with the color but I mean those just have

like… they don’t look normal this thing… almost look like a person running that’s the closest thing I can say that resembles it I mean I don’t even know because I’ve been looking all over trying to find something… figure out what it is…

[Jesse} okay ould you describe [the motion] as a person… a person running and would you describe them as just completely unnaturally thin?

[James] like a stick figure I mean it ran by the stop sign… there’s a stop sign there and it was like pretty close to the same width as a stop sign.. oh and just a little bit little bit shorter and just like the the abdomen and the head there wasn’t a neck the abdomen and the head and head were long like longer than a person would be and really the arms and the legs were about the

same length… I mean they’re really short not really short but I mean shorter proportionally than a person would be

[Jesse] now when this thing ran did it did it run like a person (James: Yeah) or did it have a different gate… okay

[James] yeah it was just like it was like a person but I didn’t there were no feet or hands or you know… I don’t know the head was just… really long

[Jesse] Was there any facial features on this thing?

[James] no, it was a it was white and as I ran past my headlights it was brighter it was like a now once I realized you know what I saw… when it went past it was… it wasn’t as bright, but it

was still light and ran behind a pine tree actually and stopped and like as I was going by it I could see it was kind of like still there behind the tree.

That’s that’s when I was the closest to it and as I drove away… yeah I didn’t see anything

[Jesse] okay… there was no… there was no eyes that you could tell (James: no) no mouth (James: Nope none of that)

[Jesse] when you say the head was longer was the head generally shaped like a person’s head? (James: no) or was it about him a long long oval or…

[James] I would describe him more like a pencil [laughs] all the whole thing, I mean it was like body, head… I mean they’re all just straight lines and I didn’t see a head…

My first impression was you know like if you’re sitting in a house on the car drives by you see that light go by in your house or somebody drives behind you and turns? My first thought was I glanced in my rearview mirror thinking it was crazy to see a car at this time of day because I just you know went by… that like that reflection would go by. Obviously there’s no car back there but it just again moved like that… just straight.

I was expecting to see a car behind me and kind of in disbelief from what the heck I just saw.

[Jesse] so is that why you remembered there was no other traffic is because you checked… because you saw that creature first you thought the crea… the.. the thing… the whatever it was… was a flash from another car’s headlights?

[James] it was like in between… and I noticed it was going and it got brighter as I got in front of my headlights and as it was going by I looked up in my rearview mirror quick because where we live there’s no traffic at all… I mean I’m actually sitting in my driveway right now I just pulled in and there’s no… no cars around, especially at that time in the morning. That’s why I kind of caught me off guard and I glanced in my mirror thinking that’s weird because I thought it would

have been a car turn exactly the way I just did to be the headlights like that that would have gone that direction.

I wasn’t like scared of it… my first thought was like a… that like a like a person as as something else I mean that was my kinda… my thought i guess… almost you know like when it ran behind the tree it uh you know I was like cuz I could almost see it like peeking through the tree as I was turning right it was in the trees right there because that a person?

My wife thinks I’m crazy!

[Jesse] you’re not alone… a lot of people see weird things

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#Ohio #Stickman

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projectnero · 5 years

Text

PSYCHOLOGICAL PROFILE: THE SHRUB

The brass never cease to amaze me at how ridiculous their codenames for our operatives are. Ms. Agave could slice any of them open and they give her a nickname that basically equates to a harmless bush, just because it is associated with a bush.

Ms. Agave is thankfully one of the least complicated members of this team, so this profile should end up being rather short.

NAME: Dinah Agave

ALIASES: Ms. Agave, Shrub, Prick, Cowgirl, Desperado

AGE: 44

HEIGHT: 5′6″

WEIGHT: 185 lbs.

SPECIES: Agave Barrel Cactus Dryad; American Southwestern; Century Variation

NOTABLE ABILITIES:

When it comes to survival, it seems that none of our operatives can beat out Ms. Agave. Dryads are known to take on the attributes of the plants they serve host to, and Ms. Agave seems to have taken the barrel cactus’s acclimation to harsh environments, ability to subsist on little water, and general energy stockpiling abilities to become almost completely self-dependent.

This holds true for endurance and stamina as well.

While Ms. Agave is no Aloe plant, she does seem to have profound healing abilities. Being the most natural being on the team, one literally connected to the Earth, it seems only natural. As such, Ms. Agave seems to be the plant-based equivalent of a universal plasma and blood donor, and provided she is given enough water, she can pump out an endless amount.

Ms. Agave also seems to be one of the few nonhumans on the team who bothered to pick up a gun before being recruited. Her former location was in what was previously the “American Frontier”, the Wild Wild West; she witnessed many encounters and seemingly scavenged what she could to become a legendary figure in her own right, and a deadly gunslinger.

I suppose nobody ever figured out that if you just shot the cactus she always stood next to, you wouldn’t die.

Ms. Agave’s aim with lever-action firearms is unrivaled, so much so that our resident cold-blooded sniper (who doesn’t even have a heartbeat to trip him up) was outgunned by Ms. Agave.

While nearly all other operatives on the team seem to be highly specialized in some form or another, Ms. Agave is a jack-of-all-trades. She is skilled in CQB and adept at providing firing support to front-line combatants such as Agent Shepherd or Agent Shifter, her high adaptability and low maintenance allows for her to be dropped behind enemy lines and engage in surveillance activities (she’s a fucking cactus, what enemy would shoot a cactus unprovoked), and she has seen enough and been around long enough to help me with the more technological aspects of my job, as well as serving as a go-between for the rest of the team and our head strategist, Mr. Takahashi.

This being said, Ms. Agave’s unique natural skills allow her to instantly tame any wild beast, sometimes even better than Mr. Amos can, and she is skilled at the art of terraforming, surpassing what even modern science is capable of.

As a cactus dryad, Dinah is capable of summoning the large, pin-like needles that surround her body at will, serving as a biological form of extra armor, though given the ready availability of other armor types, this seems to be redundant and only useful as a last-ditch effort. As it stands, the needles she produces while in Dryad form are much longer than that of a normal cactus and can be weaponized as crude projectiles.

As of [DATE REDACTED], Ms. Agave has been discovered to have an altered, superior state when continuously hooked up to a water source. The constant influx of water through apparatus similar to an oxygen canister mixed with an IV bag have significantly improved Ms. Agave’s response times, sturdiness, durability, strength, and cognitive activity. Some of our younger human colleagues have described her as the dryad version of a fictional character known as “Bane”. Given that both Bane and Ms. Agave are technically Mexican superhumans capable of great feats of strength and intellect and rely on various liquids for both sustenance and power, I would say the comparison is not completely unwarranted.

NOTABLE WEAKNESSES

Do you remember how I said water was a great source of strength for Ms. Agave? It also turns out to be a great weakness in many ways.

You see, the laws of nature dictate that no one species can be dominant, and if something does not have a natural predator, evolution will either make it so they do, or it will find ways to make them weaker. When evolution gave cactus plants their extreme adaptability, prickly spines, and resilience, it came with an unspoken contract. Immobility. Complete fucking immobility. Through intense training of her dryad form, Ms. Agave has slowly begun to overcome that, but she is still not as mobile as the typical human; indeed, were it not for the support devices hooked up to her, she would be even slower than Mr. Amos.

Given that Dinah still infuriatingly obeys the laws of nature and physics, she, like any other dense and immobile object when placed in water, will sink and drown. Swimming is a definitive no.

Dinah is insusceptible to psychological attacks and yet this also leaves her as the least relateable member of the team. Nobody seems to understand the gravity of a situation such as Dinah being in danger. Due to her status as a jack of all trades, she is one of our greatest trump cards, and even though the others should know better by now, they have a tendency to overestimate her abilities.

“Dinah got captured? Can’t she just like turn into a cactus and then escape by herself?” No Dean you absolute himbo, she CAN’T, and even if she COULD, we do NOT abandon team members.

Dinah is unable to speak, and unlike Dean’s telepathic communication abilities, she can only use sign language and written language. She is also unskilled in the art of body language despite logic dictating that, as a nonverbal communicator, other nonverbal communicative forms should be even easier. This is not the case.

DIAGNOSES

Inconclusive evidence.

BACKGROUND

My name is Dinah Agave. Doctor Fero was kind enough to at least allow me to write my own background.

There isn’t much to say, I suppose. I used to have a nice family, and being a barrel cactus wasn’t so bad.

Humans came along and the predictable, inevitable happened. The once peaceful desert was now inhabited by loud, somewhat annoying folks.

I remember the town vividly. They called it a boom town; lots of prospectors came and went, and law had yet to come to the waste. Well, law as the humans knew it. Somewhere along the line, the humans began to build closer to our edge of the valley... but never beyond. It was like we were used as markers. Eventually a sign with the town name was placed to sit next to us. It brought unwanted attention.

You see, as a cactus, I am not interesting. I am not supposed to be interesting. This is how it is. But humans are fascinated by the mundane aspects of nature, perhaps because they strayed so far from their own true selves, and time and time again, my family and I remained the only ones in the town unchanged. I remember one day a young woman from a nearby town came stumbling through the night, seeking refuge.

She collapsed just before the entrance to town, just at my feet, and her blood soaked my spines.

What followed was one of the most bizarre experiences of my life.

The body disappeared and for the first time in my life I ceased to be aware of anything. It was terrifying. This sleep you humans talk about is horrible. When I... awoke, I was dressed in leathers of all kinds, a long duster, and a wide-brimmed hat. I looked down and what were once nice little spines had changed into horrible fleshy human arms, ending in multi-limbed little things called hands. My body once straight and hard was now curvy and soft, and I felt myself slouch uncomfortably from the weight of the world. Why do humans fight against the gentle breeze, against gravity?

It seemed the woman who had stumbled into town in a bloodstained dress, who died at my feet, had been resurrected, only with my memories and perspective. Disgusting. If humans have such a thing as a soul, then I hope hers found the peace it needed.

Still, this body had its uses. I could now stand as a watchful guardian for my family and, begrudgingly, for the town I had come to care about. Thousands of so-called vaqueros, cowboys, and desperados came to the town. So many outlaws, too. I didn’t have much except for a six-shooter and a lever-action rifle.

And fucking invulnerability. That too.

None stood a chance and I became known as the Agave Guardian. Stupid, but it gets the point across. Eventually the town bustled into a metropolis and my work was done. The Sheriff once saw fit to award me with a gold star, unofficially deputizing me. I think all of them in that town knew the truth. I wasn’t just some woman who appeared overnight.

My confirmation that they had always known came in the form of some G-men showing up in the early 1900s, accusing me of being a “dryad” and conscripting me into their little task force.

So, there. Dinah Agave. The cactus prick from Project Nero. Don’t piss me off, and if you even think about hurting the people I care about, you will pay.

#project:nero #inhuman #dryad #agent shrub

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