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captainninej · 1 year

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why capitalism is the difference between the lotr and hobbit trilogies

hi i am once again back on my what happened to the hobbit movies bullshit. everyone loves to make fun of the hobbit movies and how CGI filled they are, how rushed they are, even how unnecessary they are. but i seriously urge everyone to watch some of the behind the scenes and see how exhausted peter jackson and the crew are, because of the intense, unreasonable capitalistic decisions made by studio heads. the hobbit movies went through so much jumbled bullshit, had peter jackson working 20 hours a day 7 days a week - of course the end product was going to be borderline shit!!

don't get me wrong, i'm from new zealand, i have so much respect for peter jackson for making my favourite trilogy of all time (lotr), and the hobbit movies hold a special place in my heart since they came out when i was 10 and i didn't understand all the shit that went down. but the difference in quality and love between the trilogies, i think, can easily be boiled down to one thing: capitalism. the hollywood landscape changed DRASTICALLY between the makings of these trilogies. for lotr, while many things about it were monumental, one of the most was the time that was given to peter and co to create the films from top to bottom. before filming even started, they spent LITERAL YEARS in pre-production!! not to mention FOUR HUNDRED DAYS of filming!! (helms deep alone took four months!!) they were allowed the freedom to experiment, to truly create art; while it was still to make a profit at the end of the day, they weren't being throttled by the studio the way that directors/movie crews are now - just see the MCU.

the studio wanted billions again, so they brought peter jackson back and expected him to make the same trilogy again (due to the franchise craze that hollywood found itself obsessing over in the early 2010s and is still in the throes of) without realising that the reason lord of the rings holds up is because of the time that was given to the team to craft beautiful sets, costumes, ideas and scripts, the time they were given to not only excel at doing all this, but to love and enjoy it. you can feel the love in every frame of lord of the rings. you can't for the hobbit. and while people love to blame the CGI (which is very very true), i think a lot of people should take the hobbit and its downfall from the quality of lord of the rings as a warning tale of how capitalism destroys art by pressuring artists for capital so much that all the life and joy is sucked out of what they create. peter jackson was DRAGGED through the mud in the new zealand press and beyond for supposedly 'losing his touch' (which is NOT true - just look at what he did with they shall not grow old and get back) but everyone missed the fact that this man was broken by the decisions of the studio heads above him and did the best he could with the conditions he was given.

we can see this easily with the MCU now, and how hollywood is in a bit of a slump, but i think the signs were there with the hobbit too. and i still think it's so tragic because peter jackson and his crew and everyone who worked on the hobbit are so genuinely talented, and the hobbit movies were cast PERFECTLY. martin freeman as bilbo??? richard armitage as thorin??? lee pace as thranduil??? luke evans as bard the bowman??? THEY CARRIED THIS TRILOGY, just to mention a few!! and it just shows that even if you have millions of dollars, even if you have the most talented cast and crew and directors and writers in the world, you can't make good art unless you love what you do, and are given time to love what you do. you can have everything, but if you don't have time, it won't work. which hollywood just. doesn't understand anymore. and the tanking in quality of movies recently shows this, the obsession to turn everything into its own universe with spin offs and sequels and prequels. it doesn't work. people are moved by art when the art has something to say other than 'i am completely soulless and void of any meaning and i only exist so the studio makes money.'

of course there are other reasons why the hobbit and lotr trilogies would never be the same anyway. the scales of both stories are completely different. one is three books and the other is one. one carries more serious themes of war and authoritarianism and one started as a bedtime story about a dragon for tolkien's son. but the hobbit still could have been adapted beautifully, in a way that aged well, if it only gave its creators time.

i've always been a firm believer that art can never fully translate to capitalism. we're living through it right now, with the slump of hollywood, music made for tiktok virality. because true art, art that speaks to people - movies, music, visual art, writing - can only be made with time, and love.

and neither exist in capitalism.

#the hobbit #the hobbit trilogy #this turned into a far bigger rant than just the hobbit #lotr #lord of the rings #capitalism #hollywood #mcu #peter jackson #fuck you hollywood for what you did to this man

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walkingscottst · 11 months

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BLOG 5: ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS OF TOURISM

I hate to admit it, but I did not know about the 1989 Exxon oil spill in Alaska. I was shocked, not only by the devastating shots of the oil slick beach, but by the fact that it still remains that way today! I want to say I was surprised by the fact that they got out of paying the majority of what they owed, but the unfortunate truth of the world we live in is that big companies with lots of power tend not to be burdened with the consequences of their actions.

Tourism as an industry has a responsibility to preserve the environment, because they will live and die symbiotically. From an idealistic perspective, the tourism industry should take care of the environment because it is the right thing to do, and we should be respectful and loving to the environment that we live in. From a capitalistic perspective, the tourism industry should take care of the environment because it has to. If the environment is no longer thriving, neither will the tourism industry.

The statistics on tourism in the Gulf region following the BP oil spill were STAGGERING! I had little frame of reference for how I thought tourism in the Gulf would be impacted by the oil spill, but the thing that was most interesting was the number of people who cancelled travel plans to Gulf-adjacent locations that, for the purpose of tourism, were not directly impacted by the oil spill. Not only that, but how many people made their decisions based on misinformation. We live in a world where information is taken out of context, for face value, and without follow-up. The Florida Keys did not need oil on their beaches to feel the negative effects of the BP oil spill, all they needed was the reputation of having been effected by the disaster. The clickbait culture of the internet is a petri-dish for misinformation, no matter how much evidence may exist otherwise.

I wish I could say that a disaster like Deepwater Horizon was enough to revolutionize the oil industry. And maybe it will make people think twice, at least for a minute. But women who swear they will never again during childbirth have another baby nine months later, and you never appreciate how good it is to be well until you're sick. Everyone who worked in the oil industry on April 20th 2010 will retire someday. Eventually, in a future not too far away, Deepwater Horizon will be remembered as a cautionary tale that happened to other people in some other time, because everything is always just "something that happens to other people" until the day that it happens to us.

I'm sure that the executive who made the call to run the rig after the high pressure result came back thought he was just speeding things up and cutting through some tape. Deepwater was voted the safest rig for so many years, how could just one result turn the tides? It was safe for a reason, and that reason was Jimmy's extreme attention to safety and detail, carried out through the trusting relationship he had with his team. It was just one decision made by one person, but it set in motion a butterfly effect that had an absolutely devastating impact on people, creatures, and the environment.

I can't always remember quotes, usually they are paraphrased in the back of my mind somewhere until all I can remember is half the sentiment, but this one I'll always remember, and it feels right to add it here now.

"The only thing that we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history." -- Georg Hegel

And I really hope that I'm wrong, and we learn from our mistakes, and that people do better. But I read the statistics on recent oil spills, spills I've never even heard of that still pollute the earth just as irreversibly as the ones that make headlines. And yet, still, I really hope we can start to remember.

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littlepinksockofmine · 3 years

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yells because i too was frustrated by my econ classes, kate raworth. gonna learn some stuff maybe.

“ In 1990, Raworth, now 50, arrived at Oxford University to study economics. She quickly became frustrated by the content of the lectures, she recalls over Zoom from her home office in Oxford, where she now teaches. She was learning about ideas from decades and sometimes centuries ago: supply and demand, efficiency, rationality and economic growth as the ultimate goal. “The concepts of the 20th century emerged from an era in which humanity saw itself as separated from the web of life,” Raworth says. In this worldview, she adds, environmental issues are relegated to what economists call “externalities.” “It’s just an ultimate absurdity that in the 21st century, when we know we are witnessing the death of the living world unless we utterly transform the way we live, that death of the living world is called ‘an environmental externality.’”

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One evening in December, after a long day working from home, Jennifer Drouin, 30, headed out to buy groceries in central Amsterdam. Once inside, she noticed new price tags. The label by the zucchini said they cost a little more than normal: 6¢ extra per kilo for their carbon footprint, 5¢ for the toll the farming takes on the land, and 4¢ to fairly pay workers. “There are all these extra costs to our daily life that normally no one would pay for, or even be aware of,” she says.

The so-called true-price initiative, operating in the store since late 2020, is one of dozens of schemes that Amsterdammers have introduced in recent months as they reassess the impact of the existing economic system. By some accounts, that system, capitalism, has its origins just a mile from the grocery store. In 1602, in a house on a narrow alley, a merchant began selling shares in the nascent Dutch East India Company. In doing so, he paved the way for the creation of the first stock exchange—and the capitalist global economy that has transformed life on earth. “Now I think we’re one of the first cities in a while to start questioning this system,” Drouin says. “Is it actually making us healthy and happy? What do we want? Is it really just economic growth?”

In April 2020, during the first wave of COVID-19, Amsterdam’s city government announced it would recover from the crisis, and avoid future ones, by embracing the theory of “doughnut economics.” Laid out by British economist Kate Raworth in a 2017 book, the theory argues that 20th century economic thinking is not equipped to deal with the 21st century reality of a planet teetering on the edge of climate breakdown. Instead of equating a growing GDP with a successful society, our goal should be to fit all of human life into what Raworth calls the “sweet spot” between the “social foundation,” where everyone has what they need to live a good life, and the “environmental ceiling.” By and large, people in rich countries are living above the environmental ceiling. Those in poorer countries often fall below the social foundation. The space in between: that’s the doughnut.

Marieke van Doorninck, deputy mayor for sustainability, is trying to make Amsterdam a “doughnut city” Judith Jockel—Guardian/eyevine/Redux

Amsterdam’s ambition is to bring all 872,000 residents inside the doughnut, ensuring everyone has access to a good quality of life, but without putting more pressure on the planet than is sustainable. Guided by Raworth’s organization, the Doughnut Economics Action Lab (DEAL), the city is introducing massive infrastructure projects, employment schemes and new policies for government contracts to that end. Meanwhile, some 400 local people and organizations have set up a network called the Amsterdam Doughnut Coalition—managed by Drouin— to run their own programs at a grassroots level.

It’s the first time a major city has attempted to put doughnut theory into action on a local level, but Amsterdam is not alone. Raworth says DEAL has received an avalanche of requests from municipal leaders and others seeking to build more resilient societies in the aftermath of COVID-19. Copenhagen’s city council majority decided to follow Amsterdam’s example in June, as did the Brussels region and the small city of Dunedin, New Zealand, in September, and Nanaimo, British Columbia, in December. In the U.S., Portland, Ore., is preparing to roll out its own version of the doughnut, and Austin may be close behind. The theory has won Raworth some high-profile fans; in November, Pope Francis endorsed her “fresh thinking,” while celebrated British naturalist Sir David Attenborough dedicated a chapter to the doughnut in his latest book, A Life on Our Planet, calling it “our species’ compass for the journey” to a sustainable future.

Now, Amsterdam is grappling with what the doughnut would look like on the ground. Marieke van Doorninck, the deputy mayor for sustainability and urban planning, says the pandemic added urgency that helped the city get behind a bold new strategy. “Kate had already told us what to do. COVID showed us the way to do it,” she says. “I think in the darkest times, it’s easiest to imagine another world.”

In 1990, Raworth, now 50, arrived at Oxford University to study economics. She quickly became frustrated by the content of the lectures, she recalls over Zoom from her home office in Oxford, where she now teaches. She was learning about ideas from decades and sometimes centuries ago: supply and demand, efficiency, rationality and economic growth as the ultimate goal. “The concepts of the 20th century emerged from an era in which humanity saw itself as separated from the web of life,” Raworth says. In this worldview, she adds, environmental issues are relegated to what economists call “externalities.” “It’s just an ultimate absurdity that in the 21st century, when we know we are witnessing the death of the living world unless we utterly transform the way we live, that death of the living world is called ‘an environmental externality.’”

Almost two decades after she left university, as the world was reeling from the 2008 financial crash, Raworth struck upon an alternative to the economics she had been taught. She had gone to work in the charity sector and in 2010, sitting in the open-plan office of the antipoverty nonprofit Oxfam in Oxford, she came across a diagram. A group of scientists studying the conditions that make life on earth possible had identified nine “planetary boundaries” that would threaten humans’ ability to survive if crossed, like the acidification of the oceans. Inside these boundaries, a circle colored in green showed the safe place for humans.

But if there’s an ecological overshoot for the planet, she thought, there’s also the opposite: shortfalls creating deprivation for humanity. “Kids not in school, not getting decent health care, people facing famine in the Sahel,” she says. “And so I drew a circle within their circle, and it looked like a doughnut.”

Inner Ring: Twelve essentials of life that no one in society should be deprived of; Outer Ring: Nine ecological limits of earth’s life-supporting systems that humanity must not collectively overshoot; Sweet Spot: The space both environmentally safe and socially just where humanity can thrive Lon Tweeten for TIME

Raworth published her theory of the doughnut as a paper in 2012 and later as a 2017 book, which has since been translated into 20 languages. The theory doesn’t lay out specific policies or goals for countries. It requires stakeholders to decide what benchmarks would bring them inside the doughnut—emission limits, for example, or an end to homelessness. The process of setting those benchmarks is the first step to becoming a doughnut economy, she says.

Raworth argues that the goal of getting “into the doughnut” should replace governments’ and economists’ pursuit of never-ending GDP growth. Not only is the primacy of GDP overinflated when we now have many other data sets to measure economic and social well-being, she says, but also, endless growth powered by natural resources and fossil fuels will inevitably push the earth beyond its limits. “When we think in terms of health, and we think of something that tries to grow endlessly within our bodies, we recognize that immediately: that would be a cancer.”

The doughnut can seem abstract, and it has attracted criticism. Some conservatives say the doughnut model can’t compete with capitalism’s proven ability to lift millions out of poverty. Some critics on the left say the doughnut’s apolitical nature means it will fail to tackle ideology and political structures that prevent climate action.

Cities offer a good opportunity to prove that the doughnut can actually work in practice. In 2019, C40, a network of 97 cities focused on climate action, asked Raworth to create reports on three of its members—Amsterdam, Philadelphia and Portland—showing how far they were from living inside the doughnut. Inspired by the process, Amsterdam decided to run with it. The city drew up a “circular strategy” combining the doughnut’s goals with the principles of a “circular economy,” which reduces, reuses and recycles materials across consumer goods, building materials and food. Policies aim to protect the environment and natural resources, reduce social exclusion and guarantee good living standards for all. Van Doorninck, the deputy mayor, says the doughnut was a revelation. “I was brought up in Thatcher times, in Reagan times, with the idea that there’s no alternative to our economic model,” she says. “Reading the doughnut was like, Eureka! There is an alternative! Economics is a social science, not a natural one. It’s invented by people, and it can be changed by people.”

The new, doughnut-shaped world Amsterdam wants to build is coming into view on the southeastern side of the city. Rising almost 15 ft. out of placid waters of Lake IJssel lies the city’s latest flagship construction project, Strandeiland (Beach Island). Part of IJburg, an archipelago of six new islands built by city contractors, Beach Island was reclaimed from the waters with sand carried by boats run on low-emission fuel. The foundations were laid using processes that don’t hurt local wildlife or expose future residents to sea-level rise. Its future neighborhood is designed to produce zero emissions and to prioritize social housing and access to nature. Beach Island embodies Amsterdam’s new priority: balance, says project manager Alfons Oude Ophuis. “Twenty years ago, everything in the city was focused on production of houses as quickly as possible. It’s still important, but now we take more time to do the right thing.”

Lianne Hulsebosch, IJburg’s sustainability adviser, says the doughnut has shaped the mindset of the team, meaning Beach Island and its future neighbor Buiteneiland are more focused on sustainability than the first stage of IJburg, completed around 2012. “It’s not that every day-to-day city project has to start with the doughnut, but the model is really part of our DNA now,” she says. “You notice in the conversations that we have with colleagues. We’re doing things that 10 years ago we wouldn’t have done because we are valuing things differently.”

The city has introduced standards for sustainability and circular use of materials for contractors in all city-owned buildings. Anyone wanting to build on Beach Island, for example, will need to provide a “materials passport” for their buildings, so whenever they are taken down, the city can reuse the parts.

On the mainland, the pandemic has inspired projects guided by the doughnut’s ethos. When the Netherlands went into lockdown in March, the city realized that thousands of residents didn’t have access to computers that would become increasingly necessary to socialize and take part in society. Rather than buy new devices—which would have been expensive and eventually contribute to the rising problem of e-waste—the city arranged collections of old and broken laptops from residents who could spare them, hired a firm to refurbish them and distributed 3,500 of them to those in need. “It’s a small thing, but to me it’s pure doughnut,” says van Doorninck.

The city says the Beach Island development will prioritize balancing the needs of humans and nature Gemeente Amsterdam

The local government is also pushing the private sector to do its part, starting with the thriving but ecologically harmful fashion industry. Amsterdam claims to have the highest concentration of denim brands in the world, and that the average resident owns five pairs of jeans. But denim is one of the most resource-intensive fabrics in the world, with each pair of jeans requiring thousands of gallons of water and the use of polluting chemicals.

In October, textile suppliers, jeans brands and other links in the denim supply chain signed the “Denim Deal,” agreeing to work together to produce 3 billion garments that include 20% recycled materials by 2023—no small feat given the treatments the fabric undergoes and the mix of materials incorporated into a pair of jeans. The city will organize collections of old denim from Amsterdam residents and eventually create a shared repair shop for the brands, where people can get their jeans fixed rather than throwing them away. “Without that government support and the pressure on the industry, it will not change. Most companies need a push,” says Hans Bon of denim supplier Wieland Textiles.

Of course, many in the city were working on sustainability, social issues or ways to make life better in developing countries before the city embraced the doughnut. But Drouin, manager of Amsterdam’s volunteer coalition, says the concept has forced a more fundamental reckoning with the city’s way of life. “It has really changed people’s mindset, because you can see all the problems in one picture. It’s like a harsh mirror on the world that you face.”

Doughnut economIcs may be on the rise in Amsterdam, a relatively wealthy city with a famously liberal outlook, in a democratic country with a robust state. But advocates of the theory face a tough road to effectively replace capitalism. In Nanaimo, Canada, a city councillor who opposed the adoption of the model in December called it “a very left-wing philosophy which basically says that business is bad, growth is bad, development’s bad.”

In fact, the doughnut model doesn’t proscribe all economic growth or development. In her book, Raworth acknowledges that for low- and middle-income countries to climb above the doughnut’s social foundation, “significant GDP growth is very much needed.” But that economic growth needs to be viewed as a means to reach social goals within ecological limits, she says, and not as an indicator of success in itself, or a goal for rich countries. In a doughnut world, the economy would sometimes be growing and sometimes shrinking.

Still, some economists are skeptical of the idealism. In his 2018 review of Raworth’s book, Branko Milanovic, a scholar at CUNY’s Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality, says for the doughnut to take off, humans would need to “magically” become “indifferent to how well we do compared to others, and not really care about wealth and income.”

In cities that are grappling with the immediate social and economic effects of COVID-19, though, the doughnut framework is proving appealing, says Joshua Alpert, the Portland-based director of special projects at C40. “All of our mayors are working on this question: How do we rebuild our cities post-COVID? Well, the first place to start is with the doughnut.” Alpert says they have had “a lot of buy-in” from city leaders. “Because it’s framed as a first step, I think it’s been easier for mayors to say this is a natural progression that is going to help us actually move out of COVID in a much better way.”

Drouin says communities in Amsterdam also have helped drive the change. “If you start something and you can make it visible, and prove that you or your neighborhood is benefiting, then your city will wake up and say we need to support them.” In her own neighborhood, she says, residents began using parking spaces to hold dinners with their neighbors during summer, and eventually persuaded the municipality to convert many into community gardens.

Citizen-led groups focused on the doughnut that are forming in places including São Paulo, Berlin, Kuala Lumpur and California bring the potential to transform their own areas from the bottom up. “It’s powerful when you have peers inspiring peers to act: a teacher inspires another teacher, or a schoolchild inspires their class, a mayor inspires another mayor,” Raworth says. “I’m really convinced that’s the way things are going to happen if we’re going to get the transformation that we need this decade.”

COVID-19 has the potential to massively accelerate that transformation, if governments use economic-stimulus packages to favor industries that lead us toward a more sustainable economy, and phase out those that don’t. Raworth cites Milton Friedman—the diehard free-market 20th century economist—who famously said that “when [a] crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around.” In July, Raworth’s DEAL group published the methodology it used to produce the “city portrait” that is guiding Amsterdam’s embrace of the doughnut, making it available for any local government to use. “This is the crisis,” she says. “We’ve made sure our ideas are lying around.”

#economics #environmentalism #doughnut economics

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rockefcller · 4 years

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&&. ( sebastian tobias rockefeller ), the ( 40 ) year old ( governor ) from ( new york ). he is a member of the ( democratic party ). he is often confused with ( chris pine ). some say that he is ( extravagant & vain ), but he is actually ( driven & good-natured ).

tw for cancer + death mention

ok so! you might recognize seb’s last name, he is in fact a descendant of the Great Businessman (tm) john d. rockefeller

he is extremely proud of his family and he WILL make sure you know who he is

can’t wait to pretend to be a capitalist :)

anyway! he got the life you’d p much expect; elite private schools, nice clothes, big house, etc.

his parents were... not distant but certainly distracted. he isn’t the rich boy who never knew love, but there were times when he felt ignored/forgotten

he got his bachelors in history and political science from nyu and got his law degree (his Juris Doctorate if ur fancy) from georgetown

while he was at georgetown he met his future wife, amanda

they actually disliked each other at first but obv that didn’t last and they fell in love

he was a p big private defense attorney for a while, he’s part of the new york, pennsylvania, maryland, delaware, and connecticut bar associations

i think he always knew he’d end up in politics, like even as he was doing law he knew that was just a stepping stone

probably believes he’s destined to be president (we don’t have time to unpack ALL of that)

in 2010 he became the governor of new york, unseating the previous incumbent, which was p sweet (he probably did a bunch of work in the government before that but i have never cared less about american bureaucracy than i do in this moment)

also in 2010 his wife gave birth to their first daughter, a little girl called alexandra

and in 2013 she had a second baby, another girl called theodora

his daughters are the most important ppl in his life, he loves them more than anything

in 2014 his wife was diagnosed with breast cancer and she passed away in 2015

and then in 2017 he met sutton whitmore at the met gala

sutton was a complete curveball for him, tbh i feel like he wasn’t expecting to ever find love again after amanda but. here we are

him and sutton are v hush hush, seb hasn’t told anyone and they’ve been v careful to avoid getting seen by the press (his kids probably know but they have been TRAINED not to say a word)

and then more recently he got called into the oval office for a Meeting

he was certain that kathleen had somehow found out about him and sutton and that the meeting would end in his death warrant

but she was none the wiser; she wanted to ask if he would be her running mate for this election

he said yes ofc, seeing it as the next rung on the ladder to his own presidency

he’s coming to phuket i think just for safety’s sake? he’s more concerned w his daughters than himself but yk

also for sutton but he’s not planning on admitting that any time soon

another fun fact: he has a golden retriever named sammy, a corgi named lucy, and a german shepherd named archie (he was pressured into adopting them by alex and dora)

plot ideas for him are p fast and loose; could be people he’s met through work, either politics or law. he’s pretty caring and easy to get along with in general (if you can get past his weird I’m A Rockefeller superiority complex). really anything dhsahdlj we can brainstorm

#hshqintro #*vine voice* it's a chris pine

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manicbeans · 4 years

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Sure Bell, Let’s Talk

Yesterday I wrote an article about Bell Let’s Talk day for my job and it was well received so I wanted to share it here (but I’m pasting the article below the cut instead of adding a link because I don’t want folks to find my job)

In 2005, the vacation company Sky Travel announced via press release that the third Monday in January is The Most Depressing Day of the Year (or Blue Monday). This was calculated by a scientific formula which measures factors including weather, number of broken New Year’s resolutions, monthly salary, and amount of financial debt. The proposed solution, says Sky Travel, is to increase your debt by leaving the country. The Geographical Cure is romantic but also falls into the symptomatology of the DSM. In the words of Lana Del Rey,

“I moved to California but it’s just a state of mind, it turns out everywhere you go you take yourself, that’s not a lie.”

This concept and formula has since been co-opted to sell everything from alcohol to office supplies. This year, Blue Monday fell on January 20th. By then, Bell’s annual Let’s Talk campaign was well underway.

Since 2010, the Canadian telecommunications giant Bell has spearheaded an annual initiative to “begin a new conversation about Canada’s mental health”. This includes a “tool-kit” with a conversation guide and a powerpoint to help you talk to your friends and family about their mental well-being, as well as resources for teachers to pass on to students. One page sends you to a website which offers a list of “crisis centres across canada”, but when I looked, there were no resources offered in Montreal (where Bell is centered), and one of the first listings took me to the website of a funeral home in Surrey.

The Let’s Talk campaign culminates with 24 hours where Bell will donate 5 cents every time users send a text, make a phone call, or use social media. While this contributes to projects in desperate need of funding, it’s tough not to be cynical when looking at Bell’s annual 5.5 billion dollar profit. Bell exists to make money, and the more times we say their name the more money they make. The campaign also came under fire in 2017 when an employee of a Bell media company was fired after requesting time off for mental health reasons. CBC reached out to Bell for a statement during their coverage of the incident but Bell didn’t want to talk about that.

Other criticism of the Let’s Talk campaign centers around the over-simplification of mental health issues, and the pressure on individual experiences and actions instead of systemic discussion. Bell ads on social media encourage gestures like supporting a coworker over coffee, but what if your coworker needs support because they’re not being paid a livable wage, or they’re dealing with workplace harassment? Teachers are offered lesson plans or workshop slides to start conversations with students about “mental illness”, but not how to connect it to larger issues like sexual violence, addiction, or eco-grief. As the effects of climate change and biodiversity loss become more obvious and the conversations turn darker and more urgent, more people around the world are attributing symptoms of anxiety, depression, and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder to concerns about the future of the planet, and having to deal with the aftermath of increasingly common catastrophes like the ongoing fires in Australia. Mental health is an environmental, social, and economic issue, and leading workshops on meditation in the face of these kinds of challenges feels like cleaning up a beach to prepare for a tsunami.

University students are a specifically vulnerable population when it comes to mental health issues, due to factors ranging from academic and financial pressure to isolation and distance from friends and family. Illnesses like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder also most commonly emerge in your late teens or early twenties, and can be triggered or worsened by drug and alcohol use. Despite long-standing statistics that demonstrate the mental health crises on most university campuses, support is difficult to find. Often the waitlist to see a psychiatrist or counsellor is months long, and the follow-up can be sporadic and unreliable. Grassroots groups offer free peer-support services, but these groups are always fighting for their existence in the same capitalist hell-scape that leads students to their door.

On their website, Bell insists that if this is a crisis you should go to a hospital or call 911. My friends and I look at each other and solemnly promise never to call 911. Police are usually the first to respond to a mental health call, and those interactions can be traumatic at best and fatal at worst. The US-based Treatment Advocacy Center reports that “people with untreated mental illness are 16 times more likely to be killed during a police encounter than other civilians”, and this risk is always higher for people of colour.

What’s the answer, then? The sun sets before 5pm, Australia is still on fire, when François Legault does something racist it’s not even news anymore. I skip a party to work on a paper about wealth inequality and then fall asleep before 10. My roommate comes home from the late shift and we don’t see each other for days. We leave words of encouragement on sticky-notes in the kitchen. I get an email about my school’s next Mental Health Fair and think about whispering all my fears into the soft ear of a Cocker Spaniel. He can’t do anything about it either.

I guess one of the things that irks me is that Bell is making money off of communication. When they say “let’s talk”, they mean “use our products”. Pay us so you can connect with your home. Pay us so you can be there for your friends. They’ve turned connection into a commodity when it’s vital for human survival. Connection and communication are free and radical, and they’re all we’ve got. Let’s talk about potlucks, eco-grief circles, singing together. Support your coworkers by starting a union. Support your friends by feeding each other and telling stories. Bell wants to “begin a new conversation”, I want to continue the one that’s been happening for thousands of years, where a community supports each other and makes sure no one gets left behind. As Lana Del Rey would say, “Fuck it. I love you.”

#Bell Let's Talk

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alexsmitposts · 4 years

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Profitable all Scam of the XXI century German doctor Wolfgang Wodarg, who now heads the Council of Europe's health Committee, once said honestly that in 2009, large firms organized a "panic campaign" around swine flu to pressure the world health organization (who) to declare a "false pandemic" for the sale of vaccines.

He called the swine flu pandemic company "one of the greatest medical scandals of the century."

The 2009-2010 swine flu pandemic turned out to be a big hoax.

The "coronavirus 2020" Scam that is taking place before our eyes is already many times greater than the hoax of a decade ago.

This Scam will go down in textbooks as an example of how you can blow up an elephant on a global scale.

Let's start with the facts.

Every year, up to 650 thousand people die from the usual seasonal flu in the world. This is an average of 54 thousand monthly.

And no one is sounding the alarm or crying out for a " pandemic."

Flu vaccines have even been invented, but how many residents get their annual flu shot?

But the usual seasonal flu and acute respiratory infections in Russia are affected annually by an average of 37 million people, i.e. about one in four residents of the country.

9 thousand people died from complications of the super-dangerous and mega-dangerous coronavirus in three months.

The most dangerous complication is manifested in the form of pneumonia.

But here's what the academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences chief pulmonologist of Russia Alexander Chuchalin says about pneumonia:

"Every year in Russia, more than a million people carry pneumonia. However, only 500-600 thousand people are diagnosed; the rest learn about the disease only in connection with the development of complications. And the mortality rate for this disease reaches 12%."

Friends, as they say, compare the scale.

At the moment, about 150 people are infected with coronovirus in Russia.

The mortality rate from coronavirus is highly dependent on the average age of the population and is comparable to the mortality rate from regular seasonal flu, i.e. 1-4%.

And at the same time, 1 million people in Russia suffer from pneumonia every year, the death rate from which reaches 12%.

But that's not all.

The 2020 coronavirus has an interesting feature. Children, teenagers, and pregnant women carry it without symptoms, I.e. they do not even notice that they have been infected with this virus.

The usual seasonal flu works the opposite way – it is dangerous just for children, teenagers and pregnant women.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said a week ago: "from 60 to 70% of German residents will be infected with coronavirus."

But German health Minister Jens Spahn immediately clarified: "80% of those infected will pass through the epidemic with virtually no symptoms."

But if the disease passes without symptoms – sneezed once and went on - what kind of "pandemic"is it?

This is not a pandemic, but a mild seasonal ARI.

And yet, we are seeing unprecedented measures around the world.

They close borders, let school children go on vacation, send workers to work remotely, and close them for a two-week quarantine for visiting a European or Asian country.

And what conclusion can be drawn from all this?

And the conclusion is very simple.

We are present at a big performance on artificially inflating panic from an insignificant cause.

Every major global player solves their own problems at this performance.

For example, China is actively buying up collapsed shares of enterprises that belonged to Western companies but are located in China. In addition, months of protests in Hong Kong ended immediately. China has shown the world the effectiveness of its medical services and now sends its doctors to train colleagues from Europe.

The US is at the peak of the election campaign, Donald trump is fighting for re-election and therefore, as a General on the battlefield, is leading the fight against a "terrible epidemic". This gave him the opportunity to announce the abolition of the payroll tax and turn on the printing press.

The leaders of the European Union, which lost a significant share of the budget after the UK's exit, found a good reason to reduce funding for freeloading countries from southern and Eastern Europe.

Russia also benefits from this "pandemic" – millions of citizens will not go abroad, which means they will spend their money within the country. In addition, the closure of borders is a powerful push to import substitution in a variety of industries. And, of course, the plus is that good funding has gone into medicine. New hospitals are being hastily built, equipment is being purchased, research is being conducted, and so on.

There is also a global benefit from this "pandemic".

As we remember from school, capitalism as a whole is characterized by crises of overproduction. This is a state of the market when there are so many products that the price of them falls sharply, and at some point it becomes more profitable to not sell them for a penny, but simply destroy them.

By the beginning of the "pandemic" capitalist countries just came to this line – a terrible overstocking.

There were a lot of goods and sellers, and buyers were not in a hurry to buy something.

And that's when the "pandemic" appears, and products begin to be swept off the shelves of supermarkets.

The Internet is full of photos of empty shelves from stores in various countries.

What used to be a dead weight on the shelves and warehouses, now bought, Packed and lies in the homes of customers who are happy to successfully purchase another kilogram of toilet paper.

Friends, this "pandemic" benefits everyone!

But it has nothing to do with medicine.

These are big political games of big uncles in good suits.

This explains the unprecedented measures that have affected virtually every citizen of our country.

Is this good or bad for all of us?

Of course, good.

Soon the panic will end, and the new hospitals, equipment, pharmaceutical and biochemical industries will remain.

Measures to control coronovirus will dramatically reduce the number of diseases (and deaths) from regular seasonal flu and from pneumonia.

Mass testing of remote technologies is carried out – training and work at home.

So, friends, everything will be fine.;)

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berniesrevolution · 6 years

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If you stand on your head, close one eye, squint, and take a massive rip of DMT, it looks like we just might be brushing up against full economic capacity.

America gained 244,000 jobs in May, and 213,000 in June. Payroll growth has been down just slightly, but finally the number of job seekers has dipped slightly below the number of job openings. Meanwhile, inflation has been ticking up slightly. All around, there are at least faint signs of hope.

In response, the capitalist class is stoking one of its signature coordinated freakouts. At business house organ CNBC, Jeff Cox writes with aching pathos: "America's labor shortage is approaching epidemic proportions, and it could be employers who end up paying." (Pardon me briefly to dry the tears from my cheeks.)

This is pretty obnoxious. But it's also illustrative of how capitalists strangle the American economy.

To review: Though it has been largely forgotten or ignored, the American economy has not remotely recovered fully from the Great Recession. While unemployment is low and growth at least trundling along, economic output crashed badly in 2008, and instead of catching up to trend, growth kinked down by something like 40 percent. This is because of the inadequate Obama-era stimulus, and the turn to austerity after 2010.

As a result, we are further away today from the 1945-2007 trend than we were in 2010, and it's getting worse with every passing year. Productivity has also consistently been far below average since about 2011. If we had just followed the previous pattern of catch-up growth after recessions, American output would be something like $3 trillion (or more than the GDP of California) more than it is in reality. Indeed, we are now doing worse on this metric than at a similar point after the Great Depression.

It is virtually certain that a lot of that lost growth could be restored with a program of ferocious economic stimulus and investment, because that is exactly what happened during the war mobilization from 1940-1945. Before that time, the American economy was stuck in a very similar sand pit, unable to muster the political energy to attack the depression with enough force to fix it fully. Franklin Roosevelt's Democrats did fix about half of it with the New Deal, but they got cold feet in 1937 and turned to austerity, dropping the economy right back into depression. It took the war to break through the political deadlock.

Alas, any sort of turbo-stimulus and investment seems out of the question. President Trump's tax cuts were a stimulus of sorts, but the weakest kind, and will also tend to increase inequality and thus sap growth.

It's possible some of the lost ground might be made up through ordinary economic activity, with more people getting jobs and spending, leading to more sales and investment, and so forth. But that can only happen if the Federal Reserve doesn't throttle the recovery. By raising interest rates across the country, they make it harder to get credit, and thus slow the economy down. (Monetary policy may not be great at stimulating a severely depressed economy, but it can unquestionably slow one down.)

But that is precisely what the Fed has been doing for the past three years, driven by exactly this sort of pressure from the business community. Whether we could have undone some of the damage of the Great Recession by "letting it ride" as Alan Greenspan did in the late '90s is an experiment that will go untried. The Fed is going to lock in this crummy economy and make the damage of the 2008 crash permanent.

Why the capitalist class does this is something of a mystery. Don't they love growth? Well, they do, but only under the right circumstances. They present themselves as concerned with growth, productivity, and output above all else, but it turns out they are in reality a lot more concerned with high profits and a politically quiescent working class. A big economic boom is fine, but a tight labor market requiring wage increases that come out of the capitalist share of the corporate surplus — or worse, workers confident that they can get another job organizing union drives — is horrifying to them. Our capitalist overlords think they deserve easy profits and beaten-down workers who will take crappy wages and bad benefits without a peep or protests, and mobilize politically to rig the economy to make that happen.

(Continue Reading)

#politics #the left #the week #capitalism #economics #economic inequality #economic growth

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somethingdamnedgy-blog · 5 years

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Indian cinema: hundred gods, a million more possibilities

Here is an image: I’m lying down on my bed, I have a buzzing headache. The expression on my face is not one of pain, but interestingly, of bewilderment. I get up, scratch my head, and trod over to my bench that is roughly 5 feet away from my bed. I open my laptop, and begin watching something I’ve never seen before. I could say that was my first taste of ‘experimental’ film. I’d just seen Stom Sogo’s Ya Private Sky (2001) and my head was buzzing from the assault on my senses. I had the weirdest headache ever, because it didn’t hurt, but sort of buzzed with a curious puzzlement. Shortly after that, I began watching Kamal Swaroop’s masterpiece, Om Dar-B-Dar (1988). And you could say this was my first taste of Indian ‘experimental film.’ The imageries, setting, references to mythology, all distinctly Indian, but the narrative and idea, freakishly alien to someone who was just beginning to get into alternative film. I would go on to watch Om Dar-B-Dar four more times during the next few months, ecstatically sharing my experience with people, urging them to see for themselves that brilliant work of art. The few who did, scratched their heads and probably repeatedly muttered “what the fuck?”

It is possible that the first formal experiment in Indian cinema was Mani Kaul’s debut film, Uski Roti (1969). And it is also worth noting that because of it’s unconventional elements, it wasn’t exactly well received, it was attacked by popular media to the extent where it didn’t get a commercial release. It did however, go on to win the favour of the aesthetically aware critics who defended it and it even went on to win a Filmfare Critic’s award in 1970. This new movement of Parallel Cinema, or the “Indian New Wave,” interestingly, was possibly birthed by a bureaucratic decision, rather than a resistance against a tide of popular and commercial cinema. It is possible that this interest in fostering the growth of the film industry was a result of Satyajit Ray’s international success in the 1950’s. The state attempted to promote and advance a new Indian cinema as an alternative to commercial productions. During Nehru’s reign as PM, the Film Finance Corporation (FFC) was initiated, and would later go on to become the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC), a merger of two agencies (the FFC and the Film Export Corporation), which sought to diversify funding sources for filmmakers, promoting independent, “quality”, or art films. The effect of this public institutional aid was questionable, the financial aid was meagre and sometimes could not aid in the realisation of many a filmmakers vision. While many said it was a waste of funds that could otherwise be used for the development of far more serious things, state funded filmmakers scrupulously experimented with the camera and its possibilities. Parallel Cinema, as it was called, referenced the growth of a line of smaller, low budget, yet artistic films alongside larger, big budget commercial films for entertainment.

Fast forward to India today, and one can see some of the most peculiar cultural imageries and art that absolutely smashes any preset rules, and interestingly, a stark contrast on the cinema end, which shies away from any experimentation. Unfortunately, this lack of forward thinking work traces back to political and moral censorship because of pressure from different groups. Some might even argue that the so called B grade films are more interesting in their form, because it is possible a majority of the Westernised youth in India find commercial films lacking in any artistic thought, or perhaps even because of the hilariously tacky tropes and plots. It is no secret that this kind of resistance to forward thinking cinema or simply, cinema that is confrontational and personal, is stunting the growth of Indian cinema, which in all possibility has an incredible amount of artistic potential due to the evergreen cultures, languages, mythologies and ideas that surround it, both in the present and the past. The state funding for art like the 60’s and 70’s isn’t exactly ubiquitous, as it is apparent that the film industry is now developing towards a more capitalist structure. However, with this change of seasons, the development of individualised technology like digital video, where anyone can put forth their vision. Whether an audience for their vision exists or not, is another problem by itself. Amrit Gangar, Indian film scholar and writer (among other things) coined the term Cinema of Prayoga, which aims at recontextualising the English word ‘experimental’ which is inherently Euro-centric in its context. In a conversation with Shai Heredia, curator and filmmaker, Gangar said, “I thought the English word ‘experimental’ that is generally used in the film vocabulary especially in the West and accepted by the rest of the world is either not adequate or doesn’t represent the essence of a particular filmmaking praxis. So I thought our own Sanskrit word ‘prayoga’ could be a better alternative. The compound word prayog is made up of pra + yoga (pronounced yog), where ‘pra’ as a prefix to verbs would mean ‘forward’, ‘onward’ or ‘before’ and with adjectives it would mean ‘very’ ‘excessively’ and with nouns, whether derived from verbs or not, it is used in several senses. Among other means, ‘yog’ means a ‘deep and abstract meditation’. In a dramatic sense, ‘prayog’ also means ‘representation’.”

The term ‘experimental’ does often become problematic in this modern age, because so called experimental films are all done with clear intent, and not born out of mere experiments, as Gangar said, “there is an element of chance; there is a joy of an unexpected discovery of a relationship between images. But in a capital-intensive medium such as cinema, the risk-taking element plays a crucial role” The term Prayoga is a word that is more profound and dare I say, appropriate with respect to Indian cinema. But is there any hope for Indian Cinema at all? In a system that limits artistic parameters, where everything is market driven, can forward thinking alternative, inventive cinema still bloom? There is evidence that all is not lost. Filmmakers like Amit Dutta, Ashish Avikunthak, Kamal Swaroop, Vipin Vijay and many others continue to push the boundaries and create rich pieces of art that are equal parts impactful, surreal and personal. Amit Dutta’s Nainsukh (2010) is a visually spectacular, dreamy tribute to the Pahari painter of the same name, channels the same poetic spirit of Mani Kaul. It is also reminiscent of another master of poetic cinema, Sergei Parajanov, whose film Color of Pomegranates, is a work so ingrained into the psyche of its subject that it requires every cell in your body to be tuned to its wavelength, rewarding a viewer with some of the most breathtakingly beautiful images in the history of cinema. The same could be said for Nainsukh, which reminds me of being instantly transported to the inside of a painting. Ashish Avikunthak’s Katho Upanishad (2011) which is a metaphysical dialogue between Nachiketa, a young Brahmin boy and Yama, the God of Death. It is an adaptation of a two and half thousand years old Sanskrit treatise of the same name, where Yama instructs Nachiketa about the path towards enlightenment; or even his film Vakratunda Swaha (2010) a short film which could be described as a pilgrimage through the concurrent forwards and backwards of time, which Avikunthak himself calls a “requiem to a dead friend”

I often think about the possibilities in Indian cinema. What it could be. In a country that is rife with religion, mythology, culture and experience, the possibilities for inventive cinema are endless. There is so much scope to create intensely artistic, personal, deep and subjective work that uses all the spaces that the beautiful medium of film gives us. The deeply market driven film industry also limits the exposure of artists who actually committed to creating intensely personal, formally radical cinema. It is unfortunate, because it feels like artists do not aspire to create great work, to truly experiment and make art with their whole being rather than pander to the needs of an entertainment hungry audience.

Rouzbeh Rashidi, founder of the Dublin based Experimental Film Society explains this resistance against the growth of cinema in an interesting way, he says, “Perhaps this reaction of violent rejection is a natural defence mechanism that kicks in when someone is confronted with the shock of an idea that is so alien as to seem fundamentally inappropriate. Of course, the history of alternative cinema is also a history of such confrontations. When a filmmaker gets this type of response, unless he or she is interested in provoking the audience for the sheer sake of provocation, it is because the viewer’s received understanding of how to ‘communicate’ with a film has been thrown into crisis. As an experimental filmmaker, one hopes that if the film works, this confrontation will result in the viewer’s perception rising to the challenge and that ideally he or she will leave with an ‘opened’ mind or even an expanded consciousness. And not just with a broadened understanding of cinema but with a somehow enriched (or, indeed, disturbed) sense of perception itself.” One can only hope that people will begin to become aware of this side of cinema, that unknown artists who create art from within will soon become known and that this country with endless possibilities eventually develops a filmic pantheon of its own. Until then, I suppose we’ll continue to drop our panties every time a new Dhoom movie comes out. by Nisanth S

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welcometomy20s · 3 years

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March 27, 2021

Hololive Minecraft and the Impending Meaninglessness of Work

For the past decade or so, I have been looking for work, for about half that time, I was successful at securing work, mostly in tutoring, but at the time of the writing, I am currently on the other side. While I was looking for work, I was also working to get a degree, mostly to show competency of my skills as a person in a society...

But lately, those skills have become harder for me for no discernable reason, other than perhaps aging, and I have become increasingly frustrated by the current process of finding work and measuring my productivity. It seems that all I want to do is to watch and gather data about a bunch of people rigged to look like anime characters playing video games, especially an open-world sandbox game made in the early 2010’s.

And I will precisely use the video game and people playing them to illustrate why I should be so frustrated with the current system and why I should just watch and gather data about people rigged to look like anime characters playing video games.

When you start Minecraft, your first objective is... to survive. To gather resources necessary for your continued existence. The world is out there for your own taking, punch some wood, gather some fruit, build crude items to gain minerals in which to build standing structures... eventually you will become efficient enough that you don’t need all the stuff that you have accrued for your survival. This is what we know as surplus. And if you try to reach this state intentionally, that surplus is now known as profit, and if you use this idea of surplus as a commodity in itself, then the term that describes this new commodity becomes capital.

But fortunately, you live in a society. Our species was somehow evolutionary pressured to create initial organisms that are not very much equipped. If giraffes are like your standard indie game, where you just have to download and off you go, then humans are like your free-to-play mobile game, where when you download you have a basic structure of the game, but to have a game that actually functions, you need to pay more. Why is human designed in such a resource-grubbing hack way, well, that’s for a different post, but suffice to say, we need a lot of people around to be at a point where we could be one of the people who is around those proto-people.

Since, you are surrounded by those people, you can throw the surplus into a big pile along with other people’s surplus, and just take whatever you need from there. Note that money doesn’t come at this stage. If you participate or witness a bunch of kids finding many sugary edible substances, you will find that allocation of resources doesn’t quite require the presence of tokens which we call money. Now, when you do need money is when those surplus and resources are not enough and we have to delineate who gets to live and who has to die. This is basically how sovereignty works, and this is the power that governments use to create and circulate a token known as money.

Money is a token given for service of some work which the society think it’s necessary, which can be exchanged for goods and services, including ones you need for survival. Therefore, it’s a form of coercion that we willingly participate because we believe society has rightly allocated things that need to be done and how much they are valued.

But are they? Bullshit jobs are jobs that exist to stamp people as valued by society but are not necessary for society’s continuation. There might be jobs that people value but are not necessary that people want to do... and there might be jobs that people don’t usually want to work at, but are necessary for society’s continuation so we put a high benefit to entice people to work. Those people do work for the paycheck, but work is valuable in itself, so we can kind of get away with it. And we can see those jobs make quite a lot of money, I’m thinking plumbers and garbage collectors and so on...

But if a work is not wanted by people, or the society... then why does it exist? Perhaps it’s because society is very... emo. As in they believe induced misery is a necessary part of life, and that we must force misery on people in order for... society to hold?

I’ll go back to this idea in a moment, but let’s continue with our analogy.

Now, if you are skilled enough in Minecraft, then you might create something that gives you infinite resources. And if you create that... well, you are kind of done. Well, least you don’t need to work to survive. In fact, you don’t need to work at all, I mean you might need to maintain your miraculous machine, but all you are doing is for non-work purposes. There’s always a time where you need to defend against acts of God, but most of the time, you can just chill and rely on your creativity to work for whatever.

Hence the state of something like the Hololive Server. You come in and out as soon as you have an idea to add to the land, and those landmarks and entertainments will slowly fill the landscape. This is the world of post-scarcity, where technology has outstripped our need for work for survival. Surplus is a guarantee and we don’t need to worry.

Indeed, as technology improves, it will start to displace work, and most of the productivity will come from improving technologies rather than labor. And that has been the case in the 1970’s... not because technology reached a certain stage, but because the government realized that’s basically the case and made it so to be that way.

Money can be still used as a token of approval, but it’ll just be that token of approval... unfortunately things become a little screwy in the between phases. Think about those entertainers in our original analogy, we throw them money because we appreciate their... well, existence, in a sense, but this appreciation becomes the approval in order to live, which really must screw up with your sense of work, and that’s because we decide to smash two very different things together in an unholy combination.

At this point, let’s get to the emo-ness of society, this idea that society wants to force misery into people. Well, one explanation for such emo-ness is the ideology of Capitalism, as in society’s purpose is to create profit for the capitalist class. And society uses coercion to force extract the worth of labor into the profit of the capitalist few... but in this post-scarcity society, not only is this idea quite mean, it’s meaningless, since endless profit can be created without using any labor or least minimal labor. So the fat cat can be fat as they want and workers don’t have to be miserable for it.

So the reason for this induced misery must be something a bit deeper, in fact it’s probably foundational. Idea of hierarchy is that some people should be miserable and others should be happy. It’s a foundational scarcity... and the most reasonable foundation for this is... well, what Noah Smith quietly points out, love.

And that’s why far-right organizations usually spring from relationship forums, or forums complaining about one’s lack of love or relationships. Because there’s the foundation. But by now, we have strayed too far away from our original topic, so I’ll stop here.

#economics #socialism #work

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kelseyyfloyd-blog · 6 years

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Instagram There are No Nipples. But You Can Find Fentanyl

Why square measure opioids thus addictive? you'll not see women's nipples on Instagram, however you may notice anodyne. A quick search will present itself many accounts full of photos of assorted pills. They usually list contact details -- email addresses, phone numbers, and usernames for chat apps and encrypted traveller services like Kik and Wickr -- to attach off of Instagram. place 2 and 2 along, and these square measure doubtless drug dealers, illicit on-line pharmacies, or scammers.

Earlier on, Instagram, that is owned by Facebook, quietly took some action to throttle on drug-related posts. a probe for #Oxycontin on the app on weekday morning turned up zero posts.

Kik Finder

On Monday, it turned up quite thirty,000 posts. The hashtags #Fentanyl, #ketamine, #opiates square measure currently equally distributed, with notes like "recent posts from #Fentanyl square measure presently hidden as a result of the community has according some content that will not meet Instagram's community pointers."

In a statement, associate degree Instagram proponent told CNN its community pointers "make it clear that purchasing or merchandising prescribed drugs is not allowed on Instagram, and that we have intolerance once it involves content that puts the security of our community in danger."

Related: Opioid addiction treatments square measure cost accounting employers billions

Critics square measure questioning what took Instagram ciao. After all, Facebook (FB) chief operating officer Mark Zuckerberg aforementioned himself 5 months agone that the "biggest surprise" throughout his questionable "year of travel" round the U.S.A. was seeing the "extent of opioid problems."

Overdose deaths from prescription and illicit opioids have doubled over the past six years alone -- from twenty one,089 deaths across the state in 2010 to forty two,249 in 2016.

The Instagram takedowns came when a technical school businessperson flagged many accounts and customary hashtags to a Facebook government on Twitter.

Glassbreakers chief operating officer Eileen Carey aforementioned she has been following the problem for years. tired posts among the app did not appear to make any tangible modification, she told CNN. "Instagram has allowed this to happen to some extent wherever nobody is activity it," aforementioned Carey, WHO antecedently worked on pharmaceutical belongings abuse.

The Facebook government told Carey that the corporate is functioning to form it easier to report these issues among the app. however within the meanwhile, numerous accounts and hashtags Carey flagged were taken down.

"In this case, we tend to square measure grateful to people who according the content. we tend to took swift action to get rid of the content and place in situ extra measures to confirm the security of our platform," the proponent side.

This issue is not new: A 2014 article from technical school web site Venture Beat highlighted the utilization of hashtags like #XanaxForSale to sell medicine on Instagram. At the time, Facebook issued a generic statement that for the most part shirked its responsibility. "...If your photos or videos square measure promoting the sale of regulated product or services, as well as firearms, alcohol, tobacco, prescribed drugs, or adult merchandise, we tend to expect you to form positive you are following the law and to encourage others to try and do identical," the statement aforementioned.

Posts that seem to be from drug sellers became a much bigger issue on Instagram within the past year or 2, in step with Carmen Catizone, decision maker at the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy. "I assume the businesses square measure troubled to determine what to try and do and what to not do ... [But] additional due diligence would save a life."

Related: Amid opioid crisis, some patients communicate technical school alternatives.

kikusernameslist.com

Internet firms will typically avoid liability for user-generated content due to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which provides them a broad layer of immunity. however firms square measure imagined to act in straightness to safeguard users.

Critics have aforementioned that Instagram typically responds to flagged content instead of proactively improvement house. It has, however, illegal some hashtags and pictures, like, for example, nipples.

Tech firms square measure tight-lipped concerning the content moderation method, that is sometimes a mixture of technology and humans. throughout a decision with media on weekday, Zuckerberg aforementioned the corporate has fifteen,000 individuals performing on content review and security, variety that may grow to twenty,000 by the tip of the year.

Facebook has quite 2 billion users.

Takedowns may be a game of whack-a-mole: whereas #Xanax posts were removed, accounts tagging #Xanaxplease that seem to be merchandising pills square measure still seeable. #Oxy additionally turns up variety of pill posts.

Expect to ascertain additional pressure on net firms. This week, bureau commissioner Scott Gottlieb referred to as out specific technical school outfits -- as well as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Google (GOOG) -- for facultative opioid sales.

"We notice offers to buy opioids everywhere social media and therefore the net," he aforementioned in an exceedingly speech on weekday at the National Rx abuse and diacetylmorphine Summit in Atlanta. "Internet companies merely are not taking sensible steps to seek out and take away these smuggled opioid listings."

Libby Baney, founder and decision maker of Alliance for Safe on-line Pharmacies, told CNN that whereas technical school firms should not be curst for the opioid epidemic, they're essential to quelling efforts. "This epidemic has not been caused by the web -- however it is the next wave," she said.

Baney aforementioned that technical school firms haven't done enough to throttle on illicit posts the approach that they did with advertisements for smuggled medicine.

In 2011, Google in agreement to pay $500 million to the Department of Justice for showing prescription ads from Canadian on-line pharmacies to U.S. consumers. It stopped the follow in 2009, once it became alert to the U.S. Attorney's Office's investigation.

Kik may Pave The approach For additional thought technical school Company ICOs The technical school trade is close to get its largest clue on simply however thought ICOs will become.

Most of the calculable $1.7 billion that has been raised this year from ICOs (initial coin offering), additionally referred to as token sales, has been from firms or comes designed round the blockchain technology that powers crypto coins like Ethereum and bitcoin. Most of these token sales have focused around bold merchandise that aren't nonetheless assembled however are developed mistreatment the yield. the businesses behind the ICOs themselves square measure, for the foremost half, fairly new, and definitely so much less mature than the common initial public offering candidate.

In short, ICOs have barely touched thought technical school firms nonetheless.

But that every one changes on as Kik begins merchandising its Kin token in associate degree ICO targeted at raising $125 million that runs from Tues till weekday. The sale usd those ICO trends, and it may influence be a seminal event for the technical school trade at giant.

Unlike typical ICO firms, Kik…

was based in 2009 has thought traction via its electronic messaging app, with fifteen million monthly users has raised quite $170 million from investors that embody Chinese net large Tencent is valued at quite $1 billion Beyond the maturity of the corporate and recognition of its product, Kik’s ICO may be a large check of whether or not crypto coins associate degreed blockchain technology may be enforced among an existing, thought client net business.

Applying crypto tokens to a longtime business While a lot of attention is given to the capital-raising aspect of ICOs, the implementation part of a token sale is important and usually under-reported. That’s maybe to be expected, as long as the flow of capital has taken center stage because the trade has mused on the potential to boost Brobdingnagian sums of capital while not the necessity for venture capitalists.

But there’s lots additional on the far side the money; specifically, however associate degree ICO company plans to utilize their token among its business. That’s the crucial half to merchandising a token. Tokens aren't equity. they're additional just like the oil that greases the machine, or a key that unlocks and powers a localised network on the blockchain.

For example, Omise Go (OMG token) plans to make a localised payment system during which its tokens validate transactions. Qtum (QTUM token) is making a platform for developers to utilize blockchain technical school. And FileCoin, that recently command a record $257 million ICO, is developing a localised storage network mistreatment the blockchain.

Kik’s approach is biological process. it'll use its token to make a developer scheme for its electronic messaging app. basically, it's bolting onto its service a currency float for developments to provide people who develop apps and bots for Kik some way to get cash while not advertising or hoping on users to shop for things.

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The company tested virtual points among its platform in 2014, and, pleased with what it saw, it's currently progressing to ensuing level with associate degree scheme that, if all goes well, becomes self-sufficient. That’s to mention that developers may earn Kin tokens supported metrics that reward user engagement — like time-spent among their app or service — to assist concentrate on building things individuals really like and use.

Further down the road, Kik hopes alternative social platforms and apps could adopt Kin to decriminalise in an exceedingly approach that's additional easy.

Challenging the social monopolies It’s associate degree bold vision, however one that might simply be changed to be used by alternative firms that sit outside of the crypto house and aren't typical ICO material.

“I got lots of requests, individuals square measure terribly curious about what we’re doing,” Kik chief operating officer tough guy Livingston told TechCrunch in an exceedingly recent interview.

“In client technical school, we’re at some extent wherever there square measure simply a number of huge firms. the planet wants a replacement thanks to contend with these monopolies [and] you’ll see immeasurable individuals happening this [ICO] route,” he added.

Livingston admitted that observation Snapchat struggle to indicate its price to Wall Street whereas Facebook — the monopoly whose name he didn’t mention — was biological research its product in its social network and Facebook-owned Instagram and WhatsApp services, helped push Kik toward associate degree ICO possibility. As did the chance to form Kik associate degree freelance running business that may ne'er ought to be oversubscribed, or face the trials of going public.

“When we tend to checked out raising another spherical [of VC funding], we tend to asked ourselves however will we answer the question concerning however we'll become a profitable business and the way we'll contend with these monopolies,” Livingston aforementioned. “We didn’t have a solution we actually believed.”

“Anything you are doing are derived by these monopolies… everything we've come back up with and launched initial has been derived. Even Snapchat [which has raised billions of bucks and has sizable R&D resources] can’t contend.

“We we tend tont back to our board and aforementioned we tend to may keep happening this losing route however we won’t win — these firms square measure bullying individuals around.”

Now Livingston hopes that Kik will notice the monetary stability it has to build a platform which will thrive.

“The token sale is utterly aligned with our users and developers. we will build lots of cash as a result of we will hold thirty %, and U.S.A.e a giant chunk of the token pool facilitate|to assist} developers help us contend,” he explained.

Kik chief operating officer tough guy Livingston mentioned the ICO in June at TechCrunch China in Shenzhen

Token sale structure Kik’s token sale isn’t simply distinctive for the applying of the token, or the standing of the corporate, though. The startup has additionally endowed wide resources on the legal aspect, notably in light-weight of the SEC’s issues around whether or not bound tokens represent securities.

The sale is usually hospitable the U.S., not like alternative ICOs, though those living in Washington and the big apple are excluded because of native regulation issues. China, wherever ICOs square measure presently illegal, is additionally off the list, as is North American nation, the country from that Kik hails.

“Despite putting in Kin to own one amongst the foremost honest TDEs [token sale] to this point, and despite our greatest efforts to figure with the OSC [Ontario Securities Commission], they need didn't provide U.S.A. clear direction on once Canadian law can or, additional significantly, won't apply. Our Kin project has to move forward, thus to avoid risks arising from this uncertainty, we, a Canadian company, have determined to maneuver forward while not North American nation,” Livingston wrote in an exceedingly diary post revealed simply every week before the token sale.

The OSC revealed in August a warning of links between ICOs and securities and, in an exceedingly statement in Bloomberg, it claimed it had suggested Kik that the Kin token sale would represent associate degree providing of securities.

Finer points aside, the omission deeply bothers the Kik chief operating officer, WHO has been a champion of startups in North American nation through donations to his alma mater: the University of Waterloo.

“It is that the most disconcerting issue we've encountered on our crypto journey to date,” he told TechCrunch following the choice. “We can see what it lands up cost accounting Canadians.”

Despite those restrictions, Kik registered quite seventeen,000 prospective token sale consumers from 139 countries. They submitted basic identification to qualify for the white list that enables them to shop for a little of the $75 million Kin tokens obtainable for public sale. These individuals have twenty four hours to buy a most of fifteen.20 ETH ($4,393) of Kin, a limit generated by dividing the whole sale cap by the quantity of registered users.

Any unwanted tokens from that day-long window are oversubscribed to the white list in another spherical. The $75 million public sale is combined with associate degree earlier $50 million token sale that was command for authorized investors, and enclosed ICO-focused firm Pantera Capital.

You can make sure that the Kin token sale has drawn interest on the far side those consumers and capitalist. despite the result, it's absolute to be a case study documented by alternative technical school firms within the future to investigate their own potential to embrace tokens and therefore the blockchain. What we tend to don’t grasp is what happens next.

Livingston is certain that, despite the exaggerated noise around ICOs and therefore the potential for scams, it'll be transformative.

“Ninety-eight % of those things can come back to nada,” he told TechCrunch. “But a number of large entities like Google and Amazon can set out of this era of technology.”

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