#coalescence might be chris’ best work

[greetings-inferiors]

Coalescence

#I think the risk of rain soundtrack is weaker (still great) than the risk of rain 2 soundtrack in every way #the only exceptions are chanson d’automne (to a lesser extent) and coalescence (to a BIG extent) #coalescence might be chris’ best work #I was listening to it on the bus and started tearing up #obviously my knowledge of the story of providence and mithrix (both of whom I’ve killed now… I’m gonna need a second…) #helps #but the song is really just extraordinary #the whistle is so ethereal #brb gonna cry again #risk of rain #risk of rain 2 #risk of rain returns #I hope rorr doesn’t TOUCH it #all the other songs? fair game #remaster away #I hope coalescence isn’t touched #it’s that good #ror #coalescence #providence #risk of rain providence #risk of rain mithrix #SoundCloud

[peekbackstage]

Would you be willing to talk about how standards of masculinity and femininity in Asia differ from those in Europe/North America? I know, it's a ridiculously broad question but I think you mentioned it in passing previously and I would be really interested in your answer especially in the context of the music industry and idols. I (European) sometimes see male Asian idols as quite feminine (in appearance, maybe?) even if they publicly talk about typically masculine hobbies of theirs.

Hi Anon,

Sorry that it took me over a month to get to this question, but the sheer volume of research that is necessary to actually answer this is significant, as there is an enormous body of work in gender studies. There are academics who have staked their entire careers in this field of research, much of which isn’t actually transnational, being that regional gender studies alone is already an incredibly enormous field.

As such, in no way can I say that I’ve been able to delve into even 1% of all the research that is out there to properly address this question. While I can talk about gender issues in the United States, and gender issues that deal with Asian American identity, I am not an expert in transnational gender studies between Asia and Europe. That being said, I’ll do my best to answer what I can. 

When we consider the concept of “masculinity” and “femininity,” we must first begin with the fundamental understanding that gender is both a construct and a performance. The myth of gender essentialism and of gender as a binary is a product of patriarchy and compulsory heterosexuality in each culture where it emerges.

What you must remember when you talk about gendered concepts such as “masculinity” and “femininity” is that there is no universal idea of “masculinity” or “femininity” that speaks across time and nation and culture. Even within specific regions, such as Asia, not only does each country have its own understanding of gender and national signifiers and norms that defines “femininity” or “masculinity,” but even within the borders of the nation-state itself, we can find significantly different discourses on femininity and masculinity that sometimes are in direct opposition with one another. 

If we talk about the United States, for example, can we really say that there is a universal American idea of “masculinity” or “femininity”? How do we define a man, if what we understand to be a man is just a body that performs gender? What kind of signifiers are needed for such a performance? Is it Chris Evan’s Captain America? Or is it Chris Hemsworth’s Thor? What about Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark? Do these characters form a single, cohesive idea of masculinity? 

What about Ezra Miller’s Barry Allen? Miller is nonbinary - does their superhero status make them more masculine? Or are they less “masculine” because they are nonbinary? 

Judith Butler tells us in Gender Trouble (1990) and Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex” (1993) that what we call gender is inherently a discursive performance of specific signifiers and behaviors that were assigned to the gender binary and enforced by compulsory heterosexuality. She writes:

Insofar as heterosexual gender norms produce inapproximate ideals, heterosexuality can be said to operate through the regulated production of hyperbolic versions of “man” and “woman.” These are for the most part compulsory performances, ones which none of us choose, but which each of us is forced to negotiate. (1993: 237)

Because gender norms vary regionally, there are no stable norms that coalesce into the idea of a single, universal American “masculinity.” What I mean by this is that your idea of what reads as “masculine” might not be what I personally consider to be “masculine,” as someone who grew up in a very left-leaning liberal cosmopolitan area of the United States. 

What I am saying is this: Anon, I think you should consider challenging your idea of gender, because it sounds to me like you have a very regionally locked conception of the gender binary that informs your understanding of “masculinity” and femininity” - an understanding that simply does not exist in Asia, where there is not one,  but many different forms of masculinity. 

China, Japan, and South Korea all have significant cultural differences and understandings of gender, which has a direct relationship with one’s national and cultural identity. 

Japan, for example, might consider an idol who has long, layered hair and a thin body to be the ideal for idol masculinity, but would not consider an idol to be representative of “real” Japanese masculinity, which is epitomized by the Japanese salaryman. 

South Korea, however, has a very specific idea of what idol masculinity must look like -  simultaneously hypermasculine (i.e. extremely muscular, chiseled body) and “feminine” (i.e. makeup and dyed hair, extravagant clothing with a soft, beautiful face.) But South Korea also presents us with a more “standardized” idea of masculinity that offers an alternative to the “flowerboy” masculinity performed by idols, when we consider actors such as Hyun Bin and Lee Min-ho. 

China is a little more complex. In order to understand Chinese masculinity, we must first understand that prior to the Hallyu wave, the idea of the perfect Chinese man was defined by three qualities: 高富帅 (gaofushuai) tall, moneyed, and handsome - largely due to the emergence of the Chinese metrosexual. 

According to Kam Louie:

[The] Chinese metrosexual, though urbanized, is quite different from his Western counterpart. There are several translations of the term in Chinese, two of the most common and standard being “bailing li'nan” 白领丽男 and “dushili'nan” 都市丽男，literally “white-collar beautiful man” and “city beautiful man.” The notion of “beautiful man” (li-nan) refers to one who looks after his appearance and has healthy habits and all of the qualities usually attributed to the metrosexual; these are also the attributes of the reconstituted “cool” salaryman in Japan, men who have abandoned the “salaryman warrior” image and imbibed recent transnational corporate ideologies and practices. 

[...]

In fact, the concept of the metrosexual by its very nature defines a masculinity ideal that can only be attained by the moneyed classes. While it can be said to be a “softer” image than the macho male, it nevertheless encompasses a very “hard” and competitive core, one that is more aligned with the traditional “wen” part of the wen-wu dyad that I put forward as a conventional Chinese ideal and the “salaryman warrior” icon in Japan. Unsurprisingly, both metrosexuality and wen-wu masculinity are created and embraced by men who are “winners” in the patriarchal framework. 

The wen-wu 文武 (cultural attainment – martial valor) dyad that Louie refers to is the idea that Chinese masculinity was traditionally shaped by “a dichotomy between cultural and martial accomplishments” and is not only an ideal that has defined Chinese masculinity throughout history, but is also a uniquely Chinese phenomenon.

When the Hallyu wave swept through China, in an effort to capture and maximize success in the Chinese market, South Korean idol companies recruited Chinese idols and mixed them into their groups. Idols such as Kris Wu, Han Geng, Jackson Wang, and Wang Yibo are just a few such idols whose masculinities were redefined by the Kpop idol ideal. 

Once that crossover occurred, China’s idol image shifted towards the example South Korea set, with one caveat: such an example can only exist on stage, in music videos, and other “idol” products. Indeed, if we look at any brand campaigns featuring Wang Yibo, his image is decisively more metrosexual than idol; he is usually shot bare-faced and clean-cut, without the “idol” aesthetics that dominate his identity as Idol Wang Yibo. But, this meterosexual image, despite being the epitome of Chinese idealized masculinity, would still be viewed as more “feminine” when viewed by a North American gaze. (It is important to note that this gaze is uniquely North American, because meterosexual masculinity is actually also a European ideal!)

The North American gaze has been trained to view alternate forms of masculinity as non-masculine. We are inundated by countless images of hypermasculinity and hypersexual femininity in the media, which shapes our cultural consciousness and understanding of gender and sexuality and unattainable ideals. 

It is important to be aware that these ideals are culturally and regionally codified and are not universal. It is also important to challenge these ideals, as you must ask yourself: why is it an ideal? Why must masculinity be defined in such a way in North America? Why does the North American gaze view an Asian male idol and immediately read femininity in his bodily performance? What does that say about your North American cultural consciousness and understanding of gender? 

I encourage you to challenge these ideas, Anon.  

“Always already a cultural sign, the body sets limits to the imaginary meanings that it occasions, but is never free of imaginary construction.” - Judith Butler 

Works Cited

Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble. New York, NY, Routledge, 1990. Butler, Judith. Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex. New York, NY, Routledge, 1993. Flowerboys and the appeal of 'soft masculinity' in South Korea. BBC, 2018,  Louie, Kam. “Popular Culture and Masculinity Ideals in East Asia, with Special Reference to China.” The Journal of Asian Studies, Volume 71, Issue 4, November 2012 , pp. 929 - 943 Louie, Kam. Chinese, Japanese, and Global Masculine Identities. New York, NY, Routledge, 2003. 

#masculinity #asian masculinity #gender performativity #wang yibo #gender studies #Anonymous #ask #peek answers

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Maybe this is a dumb question, but how do I write whump? I can't think of any ideas for my writing in general, even if they're stupid ideas my brain just goes blank trying to think of anything at all and I can't get past that.

I think probably you’re maybe putting a little too much pressure on getting the ‘right’ kind of idea, or that something needs to be a certain way. Whump is a very wide open genre of writing to explore!

One way I found inspiration early on was by looking up whump writing here, searching ‘whump’ or ‘whump series’ and checking out what others were doing. I mean, that’s how I learned in the first place there was a whole community of writers here who were into the same kinds of stories I was!

Think about what kinds of whump you like most to read, and that might give you a good starting point. Do you like isolation and captivity? Whipping or branding scenes? Pet whump and dehumanization? Spicy whump that gets into the nsfw side of things? Long-term whump with stores that take place over the course of years, or shorter ones that portray a month or two in the life of an OC?

If you’re drawn to, say, branding scenes, you might consider writing a little branding scene of your own. And my number one advice would be to not tell yourself you are writing it because you’re going to post or publish it. That can immediately put an internal pressure on you that might make it more difficult to keep writing. Instead, just tell yourself - it doesn’t matter what the ‘quality’ is, just get the thought on the page. Even if it’s just a plot synopsis more than a fully written piece, describe the idea you had and you might find that once you see the concept sketched out in broad strokes, it’s easier for your brain to focus on the ‘prompt’ and keep going to fully flesh it out.

I would also tell you that odds are good they’re not stupid ideas, because that’s not how ideas work. Your imagination is a good thing! It sounds like you’re getting a little down on your ideas before you ever give them a chance to breathe. Some of my pieces are based on seriously the weirdest random thoughts that ran through my brain one day. Don’t apply judgements to a daydream because some of your best plotting or writing work can happen before you ever put your fingers to a keyboard, and you need to give your thoughts the time to coalesce and breathe without value judgements.

I like to do what I call “blocking out the scene” before I get into a piece - a short couple sentences at the top on what I expect to happen and how the scene will be initially set up. For instance: “Chris wakes up hungover and sad, Jake brings him coffee and they talk, Jake reveals childhood” becomes a much longer piece - but that little bit of blocking gave me a place to jump off of.

Or I’ll start with dialogue. If you look, you will likely see that a huge percentage of my work begins with a single sentence of dialogue I use as a jumping-off point for the rest. Or a single action works well for this, too.

In the end, the best advice is to write it. Get the words on the page. Even if you don’t end up finishing the scene itself, or you don’t like it, you may find bits of writing or dialogue you DO love and can use in another piece later on. I have TONS of abandoned WIPs I didn’t like that I shamelessly steal fragments of for finished pieces later on. I have entire folder in my google drive called “Well That Didn’t Work” where I keep them. 

Think of the whump you like most to read, maybe sketch out a quick little prompt or concept idea that pops into your head, and then just keep expanding it. You may find that once you get going, the words come more easily than you expected. 

Hope this helps!

#writing #writing advice #writing whump

[stereksecretsanta]

Merry Christmas, noahreidhours!

For @noahreidhours. You wanted angst, have some angst (and some fluff, I guess)

*****

It starts like an avalanche, a small, defined moment that coalesces into something much bigger. Derek can’t pinpoint the exact moment everything clicked into place and the snow started, metaphorically, tumbling down the mountain, but once it started, it didn’t slow, didn’t stop, and couldn’t be avoided.

Derek has been convinced for so long that good things didn’t happen to him, that when things start looking up, he tries to quash it away as best as he can, in the only way he knows how; he bares his claws and snaps his fangs.

He doesn’t know when it stopped working on Stiles.

— — — — — —

It must be a day that ends in Y, because Stiles goes missing a few days after the pack discovers something hinky going on out in the preserve. Boyd and Erica have both found evidence of some sort of magical presence - fire pits that stink of non-native herbs, a spool of twine, a silver coin, several rocks and tree trunks painted with strange runes that even have Deaton scratching his head - and not even Derek is able to catch a scent.

Things really go ass over tea kettle when, one day later, Alison goes missing, too.

Chris Argent calls in every favor owed to him to aid in the search. Chris vouches for every hunter that comes to town, swears that they keep to the code, but Derek trusts them about as far as he can spit.

Derek delegates that Chris and his hunters can search one half of the preserve, while he and his wolves check the other half. Boyd and Erica make up one group, Scott and Isaac the other. Jackson and Lydia are holding down the fort, so to speak; Danny’s hacked into the database that stores the video for traffic cams across town, and the three of them are going through it in hopes they can find something. Thus, Derek searches alone. After all, he’s the strongest, he’s the alpha.

It’s more coincidence and dumb luck than expert tracking that Derek finds them at all.

The moon is high, and he pauses by the stream that runs through the preserve, scenting the air. He smells nothing but the forest around him, crisp and clear and just a little damp from the afternoon rain.

That’s when he hears it, a strange sound that has him freezing in place. It sounds muffled, like hearing a TV or radio in another part of a house, softly faded but just loud enough that, if you listen closely, you can make out a word or two every now and then.

Derek hears the sound again, but this time he’s ready for it, and he leaps off his vantage point and tears through the underbrush, teeth gnashing, eyes red.

He skids to a halt when he enters a small clearing. A length of red twine connects seven trees until it comes back on itself, making a lumpy circle of sorts. Off each length of twine, between one tree and the next, hang small wooden tokens, square in shape, twine threaded through a hole near one of the corners. Derek thinks there might be writing or runes on them, but he’s too focused on what’s inside the circle to investigate further. On two slabs, floating several feet off the ground, are both Stiles and Alison, tied up with what looks like the same twine that surrounds them. He can’t make out Stiles’ upper body due to a tree blocking his line of sight, but he’d recognize those lanky legs and scuffed-up high-tops anywhere. He sees Alison’s profile, and, unfortunately, she doesn’t look too great. There’s a length of cloth tied around her head acting as a gag, and her face is sporting more than a few bruises and cuts.

That’s not all, though, because of course it isn’t. Good things don’t happen to Derek Hale, remember?

Not one, not two, but three hulking, vaguely human-shaped figures stand within the circle, along with a single hooded figure.

What’s more is that Derek can’t smell any of them.

When he sees one of the mammoth figures move a bit, he realizes that he can’t hear them, either.

The figure that had started moving comes to a stop next to the slap Stiles is tied up on. It raises a gigantic, meaty fist and-

Derek is moving before his brain can catch up with his feet. He tears out of the foliage, and as he passes into the circle, a strange feeling ripples through him, sends a shiver down his spine.

Witchcraft.

The hooded figure takes one look at Derek and then flees like his ass is on fire. Derek moves to give chase, but narrowly misses the haymaker one of the lumbering figures throws at him. He flips backward to dodge it, and with it his shoulder catches a length of twine, his body weight snapping it easily.

A little more hell breaks loose after that, because why not, right? In for a penny, in for a pound. As soon as the twine snaps, the two slabs holding Stiles and Alison fall to the ground with a tremendous sound that makes Derek wince.

The three figures don’t pause in their assault, however. They move fast for their size, and when Derek executes a move that would take off the arm of a normal being, he almost twists his spine in two trying to dodge the creature’s countermove.

“Derek!” he hears Alison yell.

“Little busy!” Derek shouts back, snaking behind a tree.

“No, Derek, they’re golems! There’s a word carved into their foreheads! If you erase the first letter, they’ll stop moving!”

It takes some fancy footwork on Derek’s part to manage to get high enough to reach the creature’s forehead, but one well-placed claw swipe has the golem crumbling into dirt. The next golem goes down as easy as the first, but the third gets in a good punch. It sends Derek flying back, but he easily rights himself. As he moves back to his full height, he bites his teeth and pops his shoulder back into the socket. For one moment, he feels a searing pin-point of white-hot pain, but it’s over in the blink of an eye, and Derek’s back to being fight-ready.

He snarls, then charges the creature, his dense muscles knocking the thing off balance. Another swipe to a forehead and the golem crumbles under him.

Derek jumps back to his feet quick as he can, rushing back to where Stiles and Alison still are. Alison’s managed to free herself, and Derek dashes to her side, using the claw of his index finger to cut loose the twine that binds Stiles’ hands together. After that, he cuts the gag free from the boy’s face.

Stiles doesn’t thank him, because Stiles is out cold, and a little more than a little worse for the weather. He’s got a black eye and a fat lip, and there’s a dark, ugly bruise peeking out from the dip of his t-shirt.

“Can you-” Alison starts to ask, but Derek’s already scooping Stiles’ unconscious body into his arms.

“Are you alright to walk?” he asks Alison.

“I’ll be fine if we go slow.”

It takes almost an hour to get back to where Derek had parked the Camaro. Derek has Alison reach into his pocket to grab his phone and call the others, then, when that’s done, she tells him the story of what had happened since she’d been taken.

Stiles wakes up right as Derek is able to see the road.

“Am I being carried like a damsel in distress?” Stiles slurs.

“I could have thrown you over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes,” Derek answers. He’s at least a little pleased Stiles feels good enough to be sarcastic. Though, to be fair, there’s never really a time Stiles isn’t sarcastic. Even in life-or-death situations, he can’t keep his mouth shut.

“Oh, man, don’t talk about food. I haven’t eaten in three days.”

Derek growls at that, displeased. He thought it had been a trick of the moonlight, but Stiles’ cheeks and eyes looked sallow and thin when Derek had picked him up.

Alison reaches into his other pocket and frees his keys and helps Derek gently heft Stiles into the passenger’s seat, the back of the chair laid as far back as it can go. Once safely seat-belted in, Derek lets Alison climb into the back.

The trip back to town is quiet. It’s a little disconcerting, considering what a motormouth Stiles usually is. Derek can tell he’s not sleeping from the patterns of his breathing and heartbeat, but he keeps his eyes closed and his body still all the same.

Everyone is already gathered back at Stiles’ house, and Derek is more than relieved for the lack of police cruiser in the driveway.

Scott crowds around Alison, helping her out of the back seat of the Camaro, and Chris’ face scrunches up like he’s just caught a bad smell.

Derek doesn’t really bother with anyone else, though Erica is the one who opens the front door for him. He carefully navigates up the stairs and brings Stiles into the bathroom that’s across the hall from his room, carefully seating him atop the closed lid of the toilet. He rids the boy of his shoes first, then his shirt, while allowing the sink faucet to run until the water turns warm. He wets a washcloth and rings it dry, handing it to Stiles as he fishes for the first aid-kit under the sink.

“Wait, you get the golems?” Stiles asks, scrubbing at his face.

“All three that were there. It was eerie, the way they didn’t give off a scent.”

“Golems are made out of clay or dirt. If they were made out of stuff from the preserve, of course you wouldn’t be able to sniff ‘em out. They’d just - ah, hey, careful!”

“Quit whining, it’s just peroxide. There’s a few cuts next to your black eye. And they’d just what?”

“They’d just smell like the rest of the forest.”

Derek nods, feeling a little relieved over the idea that his inability to scent the monsters hadn’t been due to some inadequacy on his part. Still, if the witch decided to make more, he’d have the same problem…

Once Stiles is patched up, Derek helps him into his bedroom and gets him to sit on the bed, grabbing him a change of clothing.

“How did you find us, anyway?” he asks.

Derek furrows his brows. He can no longer hear anyone outside of the Stilinski home, and finds himself inexplicably annoyed over the fact that no one else had come to check on Stiles after Derek had brought him into the house.

“I heard something. I don’t know what it was, but it was loud enough to get my attention.”

Stiles’ grin is blinding. “Knew it!”

Derek raises an eyebrow, trying to appear unimpressed.

“The twine wrapped around the trees and the runes on the square pieces of wood made up a silencing spell. I managed to snag a handful of gravel, and had spent the next, like, hour throwing it outside of the barrier, piece by piece.”

Derek blinks, taken off guard. Stiles’ thrown-together-on-a-hunch plan had literally been what helped Derek find them. “Smart,” he says, as close to a compliment as he’s willing to give.

Stiles grins wider in response, and something inside Derek twists a little.

“Well, I mean, it’s what got me clocked upside the head,” Stiles says as he gestures to his rather beat-up face. “And, hey, thanks for patching me up, man.”

Derek nods. “Get dressed, I’ll get you something to eat.”

Down in the kitchen, Derek makes two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, then fills a glass with water, since he figures if Stiles is hungry, he’s likely a little dehydrated, too. When he’s back inside Stiles’ room, Stiles has changed his clothes, though the boy is now laying half on the bed, his knees bent and feet flat on the floor.

Derek puts the food on the bedside table.

“Get some rest,” he tells Stiles and he heads for the window.

“Derek,” Stiles calls.

Derek stops, and then turns his head over his shoulder.

“I mean it.” Stiles’ voice is softer, and Derek can hear the sincerity in his tone. “Thanks for the rescue and the Florence Nightingale treatment. And thanks for, you know, the whole golem-slaying thing. Though I am a little disappointed I didn’t get to see them go down. You’ll have to give me a play-by-play so I can add it to the bestiary.”

“Get some rest, Stiles,” Derek reiterates, avoiding saying anything else by means of jumping out the window.

He knows what that pang had been, there, in his chest, behind his heart.

After all, he’d felt it twice before.

And each time had ended in utter ruination for him.

So Derek does what he’s taught himself to do in order to keep himself safe.

He ignores it.

— — — — — —

Three weeks later and the door to the loft swings open, and Stiles, in a flurry of over-gesticulation and an almost-incomprehensible string of words, storms inside. He smells like anger and hurt, and makes a b-line for the musty, second-hand couch.

“What are you doing here?” Derek asks, crossing his arms in front of his chest and doing his best to glower.

But Stiles is already unloading his laptop from his backpack, his face screwed up in frustration. “I just need, like, an hour, okay?”

“For what?” Derek snaps back.

Stiles doesn’t even seem to notice how angry Derek had made himself sound.

“Dad’s up my ass about why I looked like I went ten rounds with Muhammad Ali the other week. I hate lying to him, but I’m not about to spill the proverbial beans about Beacon Hill’s propensity for the supernatural, so I didn’t have a choice. He’s not listening to it, which, hey, I get, but I can still get mad about it when he accuses me of being in a gang.”

Derek sits in his favorite armchair. It’s the one with the least amount of foreign scents.

Stiles turns to look at him. “Me. In a gang. I’m hardly a buck forty soaking wet.”

He can’t help it, Derek lets out a soft wuff of a laugh.

Stiles blinks at him a little in surprise and a little in awe, and Derek doesn’t miss the sudden uptick in the boy’s heartbeat. He quickly schools his features back into a scowl. “So you need an hour because your dad thinks your extracurricular activities are of a more nefarious nature?”

The spell is broken and Stiles rolls his eyes. “I need an hour because I’m really good at being an asshole when I’m mad and blurting stupid things out.”

“No, you do that on a pretty continual basis, angry or not.”

Stiles glares. “Yeah, ha ha, sassy-wolf. Laugh it up. I need an hour to do my homework in peace before he leaves for his shift, and this was the only place I could think of with a couch and outlet where I didn’t have to buy a menu item every half hour to occupy.”

Derek leans back, reaching for his unfinished book on the coffee table. “If you take anything from the kitchen, I’m charging you.”

“Love you too, big bad,” Stiles says, eyes focused on the start-up screen of his computer.

And while the boy does well to hide his tone with layers of sarcasm, Derek almost drops his book when he doesn’t hear the tell-tale skip of a lie in Stiles’ heartbeat.

He swallows, breaths out through his nose, then pushes it out of his mind. It doesn’t matter, it will never matter. Derek Hale doesn’t get nice things. No, that’s not entirely true - when Derek Hale gets nice things, the world around him crashes and burns. Sometimes literally.

— — — — — —

Isaac gets launched backward, and Derek hears him hit the wall. The concrete indents slightly where Isaac had landed, but he’s back on his feet in a heartbeat, looking more than a little pissed.

“Once I’m in charge of the territory,” the beastly intruder growls, “I’ll kill everyone that ever associated with you.” The creature laughs. “And then, I’ll turn everyone else!”

Derek��s ready for the creature to charge at him. He’s the alpha, and the beast - Derek’s weary to call it a werewolf, given how different it looks in comparison, but Stiles had been adamant - wants that alpha spark.

But even as Derek braces for impact, the blow never comes because in the next second, moving with a speed Derek didn’t know he was capable of, Stiles runs and leaps at the beast. Above his head, ready to be swung downward and clutched tightly in both hands, is, of all things. A baseball bat.

But Stiles never does things in halves, oh no. It’s not in his nature.

The baseball bat connects with the back of the beast, an awful, meaty sound echoes throughout the room. The creature stills, then falls to his knees.

“Wh-wh-wh-”

Derek notices that Stiles’ hands are empty and the bat is somehow stuck to the back of the creature.

“I carved that from a branch of mountain ash, and drove nails coated with a liquid wolfsbane mixture.”

In complete and utter awe, Derek blinks at Stiles.

The boy doesn’t notice. He’s still staring at the incapacitated creature as it sways on its knees, then falls on its side.

“The nails make sure it stays niiice and stuck in you, and the mountain ash is a great paralytic when used like this.”

“Holy shit,” Derek hears Scott whisper.

“Now, because the wolfsbane is a mixture, there’s no way for you to naturally find what’s in it before it kills you. I have the antidote.”

True to his word, Stiles pulls out a small vial from his pocket.

“I’m giving you two options. You can lay here and die, and hey, that solves all of my problems. Or I can take the bat out, give you the antidote, and you’ll never hurt anyone again.”

The beast growls from his position on the floor. “Wh- what’s to st-st-stop me from going b-b-back on my w-word?”

Stiles smiles. “Because Alison Argent’s archery skills rival Hawkeye, and I made her entire cache of arrows the same way I made the bat stuck in your back.”

“Okay, I s-s-swear.”

It’s hard to miss the fear in the beast’s eyes.

Stiles, without any soft of gentleness, puts his foot on the side of the beast, then uses it as leverage to pull what Derek now knows to be a nail bat from his flesh. It’s a sickening sound, and a few of the nails drip with fur and blood, but as soon as it’s free, the beast takes in a shuddering gasp of air. Stiles tosses the vial on the floor next to the creature, then digs out a lighter from his pocket.

“You have until sunrise to get out of the county.”

Stiles doesn’t look back as he walks toward the door, and everyone follows suit, including Derek.

Outside, as they near their cars, Derek watches as Stiles gestures for Isaac to come near. Careful to stay a fair distance away, Derek watches as Stiles looks over Isaac like a doting mother hen might.

“I’m fine. The broken ribs already healed,” he hears Isaac say.

Stiles nods, then pats Isaac on the shoulder. As Isaac walks away, Stiles looks around and makes eye-contact with Derek. The boy gestures him over, then turns around and starts digging in the back seat of his Jeep, where he’d stashed his ridiculous weapon.

“What?” Derek asks as he nears.

Stiles doesn’t even turn around, just hands him a bundle of stuff. When Derek takes it, he sees it’s a pack of baby-wipes and a new shirt.

Derek’s lack of movement is likely what tipped Stiles off, because it’s not a moment later when he speaks. “I know how much you hate getting crap in your car. Figured this would come in handy eventually.”

Staring at the shirt and package of wipes in his hands, Derek’s mind races. Stiles had kept an extra shirt in his car. But not an extra shirt for him, no. Because as Derek holds up the shirt, he can see that it’s not in Stiles’ size; it’s in his.

His mouth goes dry as he turns away and heads toward his Camaro.

— — — — — —

It never gets any easier, the anniversary of when his family had…

But he hasn’t visited his mother’s grave since he and Laura left, and as much as it hurts, he knows he should. Maybe it’ll finally give him a little closure, or maybe Derek just likes inflicting all manner of pain upon himself; it could go either way.

What surprises him, however, is the fresh bouquet of flowers already decorating his mother’s headstone. He blinks in surprise, then furrows his brow. It’s been years since his family had died. Who would bring them flowers after all this time?

The cemetery is mostly dark. It’s just before sundown, and the tall trees that pepper the pristine-grass and well-kept headstones make long shadows. But who is Derek kidding, he’d recognize that stupid red hoodie anywhere.

Part of him is mad, and he doesn’t quite understand why. Misplaced anger, maybe, or something more deeply rooted. As he nears Stiles’ sitting form, ready to verbally tear into the kid, he stops short.

“And, like, you should have seen it! The whole kitchen was a mess!” Stiles laughs, then the sound tapers out into a sigh. “He misses you. I mean, I miss you, too. But I know it’s different for dad. When you lose someone you love the way dad loves you, it’s like you’ve lost a piece of yourself.”

Derek swallows.

Stiles sighs again, then rubs a palm over his face. “And I know I’m not making it any easier on him. But you understand why I can’t say anything, right? He’d blow his top, never let me leave the house. Sometimes I wish I could tell him. And maybe someday I might, or I might be forced to. But I have to protect my friends before I can protect his feelings.”

There’s a long, sad silence that follows. Eventually, Stiles moves to stand and Derek maneuvers to hide himself behind a tree. “Thanks for listening, mom. And thanks for sharing your flowers.”

When Derek gets home, he showers, then eats a bowl of cereal just to get something into his system. He lays in bed, staring at the exposed pipes and beams of the ceiling. Sleep doesn’t steal him away for some time.

— — — — — —

Things stay quiet for a time, which suits Derek just fine. It means he doesn’t have to deal with people; he holes up in his loft and marathons shitty TV shows on the streaming service Stiles had insisted be set up. When he can’t stand to look at the TV any longer, he reads. And, when he runs out of books, he finally leaves the warmth and solitude of his flat to venture out to the grocery store. He stocks up on what he knows he’s out of, without any sort of meal-plan in mind, then scours the pathetic section of books he finds in the same aisle as the greeting cards. Most of them have ridiculous covers and names - bodice-rippers, uncle Peter used to call them - but he finds a few that at least look somewhat promising before he heads to the checkout.

He’s almost completely done putting away the groceries when he hears Stiles let himself in. How the little shit had managed to get a key made or copied in the first place is outside the realms of Derek’s imagination.

When he turns around, it’s to see Stiles, holding out two small, wrapped gifts.

Derek furrows his brow.

One present is wrapped in Star Wars Christmas paper - R2D2 is sporting a rather stylish Santa hat - and the other, much to Derek’s surprise, is wrapped in what appears to be birthday-themed paper.

He looks up and is met with Stiles’ soft smile. “One’s for Christmas, one’s for your birthday,” Stiles tells him, like this kind of interaction is completely normal for the two of them.

When Derek doesn’t move to take them, Stile rolls his eyes and just puts them on the table. “Open ‘em or don’t, Scrooge-wolf. I’m not trying to put pressure on you or anything.”

Even though Stiles has told him there’s no pressure, Derek’s pretty sure the amount of pressure he currently feels rivals that of the deepest part of the ocean. After a moment, he musters up his, what? Courage? Fortitude? Doesn’t matter. He takes a deep breath, and reaches first for the Christmas present first. Red and green light-sabers and Princess Leia with reindeer antlers peel away to reveal a box. Inside the box is a little tissue, and when Derek finally gets what he supposes is the actual gift free of the packaging, he stills. The mug is plain white, but on the side are printed letters.

What do you call a wolf that

has his shit figured out?…

Aware-wolf!

Derek shoots Stiles a look of disdain, but it doesn’t seem to deter the boy. He’s grinning like an idiot. “I got one for Isaac that says ‘What do you call a beta wolf? A sub-woofer.’”

Derek rolls his eyes, but he lets his lips curl up into a slight smile. Terrible as the Stiles’ jokes may be, it’s not hard to see that they are never meant to be harmful.

The birthday present is next, and Stiles seems excited about this one. He leans forward a little as Derek tears open the paper. It’s another box, but it’s much smaller, and when Derek opens this one, he’s confused for a moment.

It’s a ring. But it looks like some kind of wood and epoxy mixture, with the wood making the ring portion of it and the epoxy forming an almost rectangular shape on one side. He takes it out of the box carefully and looks it over. The wood inlay looks splintered, and the transparent epoxy holds… a little moon?

“I don’t expect you to wear it or anything,” Stiles says. “It’s, uh, it’s a piece of wood from your old house. And I made the moon out of clay, because I thought, well, with the whole werewolf thing and-”

“Get out.” Derek’s voice is low and cold.

Stiles freezes. “I’m sorry, I thought you’d-”

“Get. Out.” When Stiles doesn’t move, Derek growls and lunges forward, taking a handful of Stiles’ shirt and pulling him toward the door. He shoves Stiles through and into the hallway, then slams the door before he can catch a glimpse of Stiles’ expression. He locks the door, then leans on it, the ring still clutched in one hand.

“I’m sorry, Derek,” Stiles says.

Derek doesn’t move, hardly breathes. He stays pressed against the door as he hears Stiles walk away. He remains there longer still, far past when he can hear the Jeep start and Stiles drive away.

He peels off his clothes and climbs into bed, despite it being four in the afternoon. He pulls the covers over his head like he used to when he was little, when his mom would turn out the light after tucking him in.

For a long time now, Derek’s mastered the art of trying to not care. The walls around his heart are made of solid steel, layers upon layers.

But now there’s a hole somewhere in that barrier.

He doesn’t cry. To be honest, he doesn’t think he can. He’d cried himself stupid after the fire, had sobbed almost every night for the six months following, and then he just… closed up. He’d shut the door and locked the deadbolt, because kindness and sincerity and just a dash of naivety had been the perfect mix to allow for someone to manipulate him. What had he left now? Every one he’d ever allowed himself to love were dead and gone.

And Derek couldn’t do that to Stiles, couldn’t put the burden of the curse of his heart, of him vulnerable, on Stiles’ shoulders.

— — — — — —

“Stiles, hey - hey, keep your eyes open!”

Derek’s voice is frantic. He cups Stiles’ head in his broad palms, a protective barrier between the back of the boy’s head and the cement below.

Stiles blinks one eye open - the other is already swollen shut.

They’d found the witch with a penchant for creating golems, the one that had kidnapped Stiles and Alison months ago. But this time, instead of three, the damn bastard had made an army of the fuckers, giant, lumbering automatons that swung their ham-sized fists without restraint.

The fight was dirty and tiresome, and even Derek, who’s been a wolf since birth, is tired and nearly out of breath.

Stiles’ good hand, the one not resting in an unnatural manner, rises up and tugs on something that’s dangling from around Derek’s neck. His blood-splattered lips curl up into a smile, or as much as he can make of one, considering the awful state he’s in.

“Scott’s already called Malissa; there’s an ambulance on the way. Just stay awake for me, just-”

“Sourwolf, you kept it.”

Derek pauses, then looks to see what Stiles holds.

It’s the ring made with the wood of his house and the little moon sculpted by Stiles’ own fingers.

“Thought you hated me after I gave this to you.”

Unsure of what to say, Derek just shakes his head.

Stiles coughs, and Derek can hear the strain. It’s a wet sound, and Stiles is slow to take air back in. One of his lungs has likely either been punctured, or has already collapsed.

Derek’s hands are shaking.

“I need a favor, big bad.”

Stiles cuts Derek off before he has time to protest.

“If I don’t make it, keep my dad safe, alright? Make sure he’s… make sure he’s okay.”

“You’re going to be fine, Stiles.”

Stiles just smiles, blinking slowly.

“And you.”

“Me? Derek breathes.

“Allow yourself to have something nice, damnit. You deserve nice things. I know that shit’s been really bad for you for a long time, but you shouldn’t let the hurt that might come outweigh any good that comes before.”

It feels like someone has Derek’s heart in a vice-grip. He swallows, licks his lips, then does just that.

Derek Hale allows himself to have something nice.

He kisses Stiles square on the mouth.

— — — — — —

There’s no other choice to make.

They tell the sheriff what happened. Exactly what happened. Scott fumbles through a lot in his attempt at an explanation, but Derek backs him up, and is the one to shift when the sheriff threatens to have them all arrested unless they tell him the actual truth.

How could they not? His son, his only living blood, looks like he’d been in a one-on-one match with a woodchipper. The hospital did well to keep Stiles alive, but he’d flat-lined on the operation table twice, and Derek had nearly cracked his teeth from clenching so hard. Once stable, Stiles had been set up in a private room, though he hadn’t woken up yet.

Derek’s been at his side for three straight days.

Isaac brings him a change of clothes and something to sleep in, saying that even the nurses were starting to complain.

Sheriff Stilinski doesn’t seem to know what to make of the twenty-something-year-old young man that never leaves his son’s side longer than it takes for him to use the shower or restroom. But, well, he can guess. He’s not really happy with it, of course not. All things considered, however, his son is still alive, isn’t some kind of creature of the night of myth or legend, and has what likely constitutes to be as close to a superhero as you can get at his son’s back; things could have gone a lot worse.

He’ll give Stiles a week before he’s grounded until he’s eighty.

— — — — — —

Derek slides the window open. He sees Stiles partially sprawled out on his bed, laptop balanced precariously on top of a pillow.

“Hey, sourwolf,” he greets. His eyes look less sunken in, though he still hasn’t gained back all of the weight he’d lost.

Clothing the window, Derek toes his shoes off and comes to rest on the other side of Stiles’ bed. It’s small, more than a little cramped, but they make it work.

He gets comfortable, and, as soon as he’s settled, Stiles hooks a leg over his, then reaches out and laces their fingers together, all the while never moving his eyes from the screen.

It’s slow-going, this thing between them, partially because Stiles is still very much on the mend, and partially because Derek still has a hard time with intimacy, especially showing affection.

If it bothers Stiles at all, Derek would never know because it’s never been brought up. Stiles is perceptive, can obviously guess why Derek sometimes still stiffens when they touch, but he doesn’t push. It’s sweet, he thinks, the way they are slow-dancing around one another. They hold hands and watch movies, with legs or heads in laps. They press their shoulders against one another when they go out to eat and take up a single side of the booth.

They kiss.

That’s something new to Derek, the slow press of lips without the promise of something in the distance, kissing just to kiss, tasting one another for the sheer thrill of it, and then backing off slowly, with no one’s feelings hurt.

Stiles falls asleep, his head resting on Derek’s shoulder.

The avalanche has passed.

#noahreidhours #stereksanta20 #*fic20 #*gifts20

[shelovescontrol91]

Shawn Mendes is putting his money where his fans are. The multiplatinum recording artist is investing in 237 Global, the fan engagement company that created and launched his ShawnAccess app, which has been downloaded more than 700,000 times.

Mendes and his management company, the Andrew Gertler-led AG Artists, are leading a funding round and have joined the advisory board for the tech, services and ticketing company founded by entrepreneur and former Warner Bros. Records exec Mark Weiss to superserve superfans of music artists, athletes and other influencers. Via its apps, 237 Global offers direct access to tickets, merch, exclusive livestreams and custom content; the company also provides paid in-person and virtual VIP experiences ranging from meet-and-greets to backstage tours to private Q&As.

Notably, 237 Global also provides clients with a magic bullet they don’t get when they connect with fans via most social media platforms: Access and control of their own data.

“Artists don’t own their own data on these social platforms,” Weiss says. “We don’t say to an artist, Stop using Instagram or Twitter and start using only an app. But we say make it part of your whole ecosystem. I have a passion for  early-stage artists that are starting to buzz; it’s a great time to start collecting your own data.”

The conversation, he says, has grown more vigorous as the live music lockdown motivated both legacy and emerging artists to embrace their direct relationships with fans. At the same time, the company continues to prove its mettle and add features such as internal message boards, commerce opportunities and user-generated content.

Within the past year, 237 Global launched apps for Weezer, Barenaked Ladies, 24KGoldn, Tate McCrae and 311, among others. A New Kids on the Block app is in beta, and Avril Lavigne, Trippie Redd and Iann Dior apps are slated to drop shortly. The company has also provided interactive tour experiences for Justin Bieber and Panic! At The Disco, and is currently activating on the Hella Mega outing featuring Green Day, Fall Out Boy and Weezer, and on tour dates for Alanis Morissette and Lynyrd Skynyrd.

It’s also rapidly expanding to other verticals. Weiss just signed SmartLess, the podcast from Will Arnett, Jason Bateman and Sean Hayes, as a client and recently offered virtual meet and greets with Philadelphia Eagles’ newcomer Landon Dickerson and culture creator Maggie Lindemann. 237 Global is also working with athletes including Kansas City Chiefs defensive lineman Chris Jones to develop an app prototype for the sports arena—an area Weiss believes will soar.

“Athletes are interested in selling merch, building fandom and talking to fans outside of their franchise,” he says. “And they tend to have exposure for a long time, so they can really build their base.”

A Paradigm Shift

Weiss has been evolving what became the core DNA of 237 Global for decades as he iterated his fan engagement vision, most notably through Artist Arena, a company he launched and sold to Warner Bros. in 2011. The core thread has been consistent: Facilitating the ability of talent to connect directly with fans through widely adopted technology, and building out businesses around those connections.

“I saw the paradigm shift happening more than 20 years ago where artists could, in their own way, become their own media play. And then the question was, How do you monetize that,” Weiss says.

When he began working five years ago with former Artist Arena exec Gertler and Mendes, fresh off of Vines, everything coalesced. “Forward-thinking are the best words I can use to describe Shawn and Andrew and everybody in that camp. They’ve pushed the envelope for the live fan experience in terms of VIP for so long, and have been such a great partner for us,” he says. “For them now to show this vote of confidence to be investing in us is just incredible.”

“Mark’s dedication to providing incredible service to fans and artists is unmatched in the industry,” says Gertler. “I learned a great deal from working at Artist Arena and am excited to continue this longstanding relationship with Mark and 237 Global.”

Other seed investors include Bret Disend of Ozone Entertainment, Jonathan Gordon and David Ruttenberg of RGI, Matt Galle of CAA and Photo Finish Records, Steve Greenberg of S-Curve Records, Jeremy Levin and David Silberstein of Megahouse Music, business manager Phil Sarna and entertainment attorney Lisa Socransky. Weiss says 237 Global will be going into a series A funding round in the coming months.

Also coming are additional monetization plays. Aside from generating income from custom app creation and management—which Weiss says runs “in the six figures” per app—the company takes a cut of any income generated directly on the app, be it a VIP experience or merch sale. Artists are able to sell a portion of tickets through the app, Weiss says, via a longstanding arrangement with Ticketmaster based on the fan club model which enables them to directly sell a small allocation, usually 8 percent-10 percent depending on the venue.

Most often, though, fans are directed to promoter and ticketing company platforms for ticket sales, says Weiss. “One of the things we built into our apps is a very robust tour section, and we like to think we’re helping everyone in the ecosystem because we are here to help sell more tickets. And we want to drive more livestreams, we want to drive more audio streams, we want to drive more podcast listeners, more merch sales.”

To that end, he’s exploring an elevated marketing relationship with promoters around the apps’ ability to generate those sales. “We are having discussions around our own internal data and algorithms to see if there’s some kind of marketing arrangement that might happen should we start to prove we really are moving a lot of tickets,” he says.

A subscription model is also in the works. “We think subscription income will ultimately become a big game-changer,” Weiss says. “Download the app and get some level of first access to tickets or content or merch. We’ve experimented with that a bit and we’ve seen that this kind of first access drives memberships.”

#shawn mendes

[thefilmsnob]

The New Mutants: *** out of 5

Has there ever been a movie as destined to fail as The New Mutants? The latest superhero film from 20th Century Fox is based on an X-Men comic book spin-off launched in 1983, not well known by the general public. Even if ‘X-Men’ were added to the film title, it still would be associated with a dwindling movie franchise whose assets have just been absorbed by Disney. The film’s suffered from a lackluster marketing campaign and poor reviews, and oh, we’re also in the midst of a pandemic; folks aren’t exactly rushing to theaters and if they do muster the courage, they’re surely seeing Tenet or the third Bill and Ted adventure.

True, it’s hard to shed many tears over the misfortune of a big studio production or pretend it’s some sort of game-changer…but, it’s actually not terrible. That is to say, considering everything going on in the world right now, it’ll do.

Don’t expect to see any A-listers that you’ve come to know and love like Wolverine, Storm or Professor X. Here, we’re introduced to an entirely new batch of young mutants navigating puberty along with the angst and superpowers that accompany that crucial life stage. You won’t find the typical Marvel template here either, at least with respect to tone. Instead of a light action-adventure with heroes battling villains for the fate of the world, writer-director Josh Boone and co-writer Knate Lee have gambled on a horror story set in a confined space where our heroes battle (mostly) internal demons.  

Danielle ‘Dani’ Moonstar (Blu Hunt) acts as our surrogate for this pocket of the Marvel Universe. We’re introduced to the young Cheyenne Native American as she flees the destruction of her reservation to find shelter during a tornado. After being knocked unconscious, she awakens in an eerie hospital run by Dr. Cecilia Reyes (Alice Braga, an odd choice for an even odder character adaptation) who informs Dani that she’s a mutant and suggests she stay put until she discovers and controls her power. The doctor also introduces her to the other young mutants who have been brought to the hospital with similar baggage.

This all sound familiar? I did say it was an X-Men spin-off; the patients even think they’re being trained as the next generation of the iconic team. Well, they’re not and although Dr. Reyes tells them they’re to remain in the facility for the protection of themselves and others, she may be omitting some important details. That’s where the narrative diverges from the typical X-Men film. So, besides the appeal of a superhero tale mixed with horror elements, the other major selling point is the idea of a group of impressionable young mutants being discovered by actors much less benevolent than the great Charles Xavier.

The filmmakers are on to something here, but the short 94-minute run time and all-but-certain interference from studio execs don’t leave the artists much room to juggle a horror film, superhero film and coming-of-age story all at once. There are moments throughout when the various genre elements do work—alone or in conjunction—but they never coalesce into something that transcends their potential. It’s not scary enough, the action is sparce and the character arcs are unremarkable. It’s a shame; the X-Men franchise has always worked as an allegory for the anxieties and struggles that accompany puberty and the additional horror element could’ve really amplified this idea had the film dared to dig deeper.

It’s not as if the movie’s devoid of interesting characters with which to explore these issues. In fact, the core mutants and their interactions arguably are more compelling than those in the original X-Men from 2000, where some iconic superheroes like Cyclops and Storm felt like afterthoughts.

That said, the quality of character and performance on display is still inconsistent. Maisie Williams gives the best performance as the earnest Rahne Sinclair whose power of lycanthropy is at odds with her religion. This kind soul quickly befriends the alienated Dani. Anya Taylor-Joy and Charlie Heaton are fine as Illyana Rasputin and Sam Guthrie; the former can summon magical swords, armour and portals while the latter blasts through the air like a cannonball, becoming invulnerable mid-flight. They’re skilled actors but lay it on a bit thick with her Russian accent and his southern drawl; though, you have to respect Taylor-Joy’s charisma and her amusingly hostile attitude toward Dani. Henry Zaga plays Roberto da Costa, the typical cocky playboy who can manipulate solar energy. He has his moments.  

Unfortunately, Hunt gives the weakest performance as Dani whose powers are as hard to pin down here as they are in the comics (something about creating illusions based on emotions). She’s the one with whom you’re supposed to empathise the most, but it’s challenging when the pain and vulnerability on display rarely feel authentic. 

Kudos to the production team, though, for following the lead of comic book icon Chris Claremont and including several females and people of colour in the film while adding a same-sex relationship. Kudos to them, as well, for staying faithful to the mutants’ cool powers from the comics despite them being exhibited so sparingly. It would’ve been nice to see Sam blasting around a bit more or Rahne in full ‘beast mode’. This goes for the action in general. It’s refreshing to see a superhero film that doesn’t bombard our senses for 2.5 hours, but in The New Mutants, the pendulum swings too far the other way. The final battle practically ends before it begins, but at least a certain purple creature makes a most welcome appearance.

It’s hard being too critical toward a comic book film with a relatively small budget whose creators really tried to do something different. You almost feel bad that it’ll be lost amidst Disney’s acquisition of Fox and their incorporation of the X-Men properties into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Honestly, the restructure is for the best; the famously inconsistent franchise could use the MCU makeover. And, yet, when the credits started rolling and I realized I might not see these five individuals again, imperfections and all…I felt a little bummed out. That’s gotta count for something, right?

#new mutants #marvel #movie review #comic books

[sabine-leo]

A smile to remember

Chapter 26

Author: @sabine-leo

Chapter: 26 /?  

Genre: Fluff, Humor, Romance, Insecurity, Smut

Note: I DO LOVE ALL OF YOUR COMMENTS AND LIKES AND REBLOGS THANK YOU SO MUCH !!! 

Well, inthis chapter there is a debt to pay....

Yesterday you both had been to tired to actually even THINK about what you had played for in the game of pool. But the grin on Toms face told you that he definitely would make you pay your debt. Well, it wasn´t really a hardship to fulfil it, having him naked under your hands was more like if you had won a price. Stealing a kiss from this incredible human who just told you he loved you, you sat up and went into his bathroom. Leaning in the doorframe 2 minutes later you held up a bottle of body lotion. Tom smirked and hummed in foreseeable pleasure.

 “On your belly and off with the boxers!” You said grinning and walked over.

“I thought you would be the naked one! Naked massage you said!”

“Play your cards right and you might get just that!” You teased and climbed back onto the bed as Tom went commando.

“I think I have trouble laying on my belly now!”

Tom laughed but turned and made himself comfortable hugging a pillow under his head.  

Straddling him you applied lotion onto his back in form of a heart…yeah, silly but you felt like it.

 Your hands started to roam his muscled back. Up to his shoulders and down his arms. Listening to his sounds you quickly knew what he liked best and tried to make him as relaxed as possible. Slowly you worked yourself down to the mount of his buttocks and shimmied down his legs. The view his firm cheeks gave you made you grin as you applied lotion to them and massaged it in.

“Getting more uncomfortable to lay that way!” Tom murmured huskily.

“Deal  with it Thomas, you won you get the WHOLE price!”

Chuckling into the pillows he took a calming breath before he tried to enjoy what you were doing again. His long, long legs came next. You massaged one down and the other one up again. Somewhere in between you got rid of the shirt you wore and said “Turn please!”

Tom gasped as he saw you in just the black pantie you were wearing. He bit his lip and his eyes roamed your body. The reaction to it you had directly before you as you straddled his thigs another time. He was twitching and growing under your eyes.

 “Darling…” Tom rasped but you shook your head. “Massage first! I am not done with you yet!”

“Oh god!” Tom breathed out loud and his hands gripped the back of the bed.

Leaning a little bit forward you applied lotion to his chest. Stroking it in more than massaging him properly. Tom didn´t seem to mind, he was taking deep breaths and his eyes were fixed on you. Working yourself down to his abs and the V that directly lead to his erection you let a little moan escape your lips as you saw the size of him. Toms voice was hoarse as he said.

“Forget my legs, love, I don´t think I can take any more!”

Oh, he shouldn´t have said that…

“But you have too, I do pay ALL of my debt!”

Groaning Tom wanted to grab you but you went out of his grasp. Pushing his legs apart you kneeled between them and stroked them both with both of your hands full of lotion. Nearing his groin you let your thumbs brush along it and watched with pleasure as Tom gasped and grabbed both your hands in a quick motion. Sitting up he pulled you close and bit your lower lip.

 “I am not sure if I won or if you won and I got tortured with pleasure just now. Remind me to lose next time so that I can retaliate!” Then he crashed his lips to yours and branded you with a hot, passionate and longing kiss while he ripped your panties in two.  Your arms came around him as he lifted you a little to get rid of the fabric between you. “Are you ready to take me in?” He rasped at your lips as a finger of his found your centre and stroked you a few times.

“Oh I think you are Darling!” The grin in his deep sensual voice made you even more wet.

 With a quick shift of his hips he had himself seated at your entrance and pulled you down on himself with a hand on your hips. You both moaned as he dipped into your hot core and slowly went deeper and deeper. The most intimate part was, that you were looking into each other’s eyes as he filled you up completely. “Move with me love!” He cajoled near your lips and the hand around the back of your neck stroked down your spine, making you shiver.

 For a single clear moment you felt as if you had coalesced with Tom, as if you were one entirely.

Like two beings who found the part of it´s soul that was missing, the part of it´s heart that was needed to feel complete.

 Slowly moving your hips in small circles your head tilted back in pleasure. Tom started to kiss your neck and held you as he moved with you in a slow but mind shattering rhythm. He was so deeply embedded in your core that you could only move leisurely but OH, was it phenomenal.

“Kiss me darling!” He breathed and held your head in the back of his hand while the other one guided your hips the way he wanted them to move. His tongue teased yours with languid strokes, his lips caught your moan and gave back one of their own as you both climbed higher and higher on the mountain of lust.

 Your mingled breaths got erratic and your movements started to get a bit faster as Tom pushed his hips upward and grabbed your buttocks to lift you up and let you down on him again.

The both of you couldn´t take it another time, holding each other you felt his hot lust pulsing into you as your trembling core closed around him. Shuddering you needed to hold on to Tom to not fly away in absolute pleasure. Tom was out of breath himself and had the most adorable grin on his face as he looked at you. “I love you darling!” he said breathless and kissed you slowly as he fell back into the sheets with the both of you still entwined. “Love you too!” You gasped and smiled at him as you cuddled your head into the nock of his neck to take a breath.

 Tom held you close and stroked your back for a while. Your heartbeats got even again and your breath normalized. Slowly lifting your head you looked at him and smiled. “I like to lose!”

Tom started to laugh and stole a kiss. “Oh, I think YOU will win the next game we play!”

“We will see about that!” You slowly, gaspingly lifted yourself off of Tom.

He looked at you with a glint in his eyes.

“Where do you think you are going?!”

 Uh oh, this look…. “Uhmmm…shower?!” You said with a grin and walked deliberately backwards into the bathroom. Tom sat up slowly, but then he lunged forward making you squeal and jump into the shower trying to close the glass door before he could reach you. Giggling you tried to keep him out, but he had you in his arms only seconds later. You turned on the shower and the first cold water hit him before it warmed. “Oh, you will pay for that!” he said with a hint of villain in his voice and pressed you against the cold tiles. Lifting one of your legs up to his waist, he held it there and began to kiss you ravishingly. There was no mistaking his arousal, in a swift thrust he was inside you again.

This time around it was neither slow nor languid…

 45 minutes later Tom was dressed in jeans and a shirt prepping a late breakfast for the both of you.

Looking out of his window he gave a sound that did not bode well for getting out of the house today. You dressed yourself in jeans and a top before you joined him in his kitchen.

“Do I want to know why you look all grim again?”

Tom made a face and tucked you close. “No, you better don´t ask or look out the window.”

You were save inside his home and nobody dared to walk onto his property but you never knew just how desperate they were to get a picture. Giving Tom a reassuring kiss you hugged him tight for a second before you looked up again and said “So, what´s for breakfast?”

 Tom started to laugh and shook his head “That´s all you say regarding our little problem outside?!”

You nodded. “Yes, they are outside and we are inside…so for now we don´t need to think about worst case scenarios nor do we need to give them more of our precious time together than they already stole yesterday by making it hard to get home.” Tom took a deep breath.

“You are phenomenal, you know that?”

“Well thank you, but I am just rational about it. The world already knows that you are seeing someone and I don´t plan to disappear any time soon.” Hugging you close he smiled down at you and stole a slow kiss. “From moment to moment then?” Nodding you smiled.

“Yes, I think this is all we can do or all that I can handle. I don´t want to think “what ifs” I am not that accustomed to this situation and if I think too much about it I might get scared.”

You were honest and Tom appreciated it, his kiss and his nod told you so.

 At this day you just stayed in and ordered some food. It was enough strain for Tom to get the food inside the house without being blinded by flashlights. You watched a movie, talked and cuddled up.

Toms friends checked in with him during the day. Ben called, Chris and Chris send texts and made sure you were save and not hassled to much. In the afternoon Tom got a call from his agent. Apparently, he got flooded with requests regarding Toms relationship status.

You lay cuddled up with your head in his lap. Absently Tom was playing with a strand of your hair as he talked to his agent. “No, this isn´t a fling. You can go with No Comment, but I will tell them anyway when I go out and get asked the next time.”

 Tom really was serious about the both of you… good, because you were too!

 Tags for : @theoneanna @shegatsby @wabisabigrl @everything-is-awesomesauce @drakesfiance @spoopyfoxxtropical @yokaimoon @kjjazzy23 @confessionsofastrugglingteen  @shinebrightlikeafanbase @snarkalumpf @coniumalces @lisastandford95 @imjustlonelyanddepressed @inlovewithfreyamikaelson @heart-shaped-hell @marikochi @xxxeatyourh3artoutxxx @awkwardfangirl2014

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[letterboxd]

Sommar Loving: The Ari Aster Q&A.

“The best filmmaking is mischief-making.” —Midsommar director Ari Aster confesses to being a nervous wreck while answering Letterboxd members’ questions about pagan rituals, grotesque imagery and psychedelic drugs.

It’s crazy to think that only two years ago, Ari Aster was just another New York filmmaker with a few shorts under his belt. But by this time last year, his debut feature, the Toni Collette-starring Hereditary, had taken out the title of most popular film on Letterboxd for the month of June, and ended the year as our Highest Rated Horror for 2018.

Not that he had a moment to enjoy it. Last August, while Hereditary was still in cinemas, Aster was already in Hungary (standing in for Sweden) filming his new horror, Midsommar, with Florence Pugh in the lead role. It was an assignment from a Swedish production company that he almost refused, until he saw it as an opportunity to process the break-up he was going through at the time.

In an insanely tight turnaround, Midsommar is out less than a year since it was shot, and feedback for the film on Letterboxd is largely positive. Midsommar “manages to be the perfect rom-com and the most mesmerizing horror film of the year,” according to Owen, and the film proves to SilentDawn that “Aster is a capable craftsman and an auteur with many dastardly thoughts on his mind”. Laura declares: “Nobody makes me feel as icky, awful, and downright dreadful as Ari Aster, and for that, I’m very, very grateful.”

It’s safe to say that Aster is a Letterboxd MVP, so we thought it only fair to invite you to submit your questions for our interview with him. Ever the optimists, you pitched us well over a hundred, so Jack Moulton got the tough job: whittling, coalescing and combining your thoughts, tucking them in among a few of our own, and putting them to a guy who has “more fun talking about other movies than talking about my own”.

One thing we didn’t ask? The most popular question of all: “Ari, are you okay?” The better question, after watching his films, is: are we okay?

Isabelle Grill (center) and some Swedish friends. / Photo: Csaba Aknay

You wrote both Hereditary and Midsommar while you were in a personal crisis, and you consider that writing was your remedy. Do you think you can make great art—to explore the depths of existential questions—when you’re more comfortable and content? Or is suffering the root of your success? Ari Aster: I’m sure I can. I’ve written a lot of films when I’ve been more comfortable and content. The two short films that I made first were written in that place. I’m a filmmaker who likes conflict, which is not unique to me of course, but I do have a dark side and I go there in my writing.

I’m also someone who believes the best filmmaking is mischief-making and I’m always trying to come from a place of mischief as a writer. But, whether I’m going through a crisis or writing in a more or less relaxed state, I’m also a very neurotic guy. Even when there’s relative peace in my life, I’m kind of a nervous wreck.

That’s relatable. Grief is a catalyst for both films, and both Toni Collette and Florence Pugh’s big scenes of anguish are really the most horrifying parts of the films, because they’re so raw. AlecDouglas asks: what is your approach to directing actors’ performances? More specifically, can you talk about how you prepared each actress for these gut-wrenching moments. A lot of that was laid out in the script as clearly as I could. Beyond the script, it was just a matter of talking through the material with them and explaining what I felt was needed. Luckily both actresses are extraordinary artists who knew exactly what was necessary and were fully committed. They gave themselves to the material in a very generous way and were prepared to dive in headlong.

Florence Pugh (center) has a good cry in another memorable scene from ‘Midsommar’.

Chris Flores, Timur Dzhambinov and Kahlen all asked about your obsession with mutilated heads and/or skull trauma. I grew up loving horror films and subjected myself to a lot of grotesque imagery. I’ve always had a feeling for the macabre. There are a lot of images that traumatized me and I’m sure that they lingered in my mind in a way that conditioned me to pursue images like that and come up with them myself. In all of my stories, the imagery comes after the ideas and characters, so it tends to fall in line with the story. In some cases it does come first, but it’s very hard to trace any of that to any origin.

Several people, including Mark and MrJoshua, would like to know how many of the pagan rituals and artwork in Midsommar are legitimate, and how many were invented by you. Most of the rituals are references in one way or another to actual traditions and laid out in pre-existing folklore, but I did take a lot of liberties from there. So there are certain things in the film that are pure invention and there’s certain things that are absolutely pulled from reality. The pubic hair in the food and the menstrual blood in the drink, for instance, is tied to my actual research.

Gunnel Fred. / Photo: Gabor Kotschy

Scott Stamper, Sam Sellers-King and Ash were interested in your obsession with cults, or, as Deryn asks: “Ari Aster what the fuc— okay, what is it with you and pagan cult-themed horror movies?” I don’t know if I have an obsession. It just so happens that the first two movies that I got made featured cults. They’re also both films that are very much about family and are asking questions about the families you’re born into, surrogate families, and the families you find. So for both films it made sense. A cult is a very useful metaphor when you’re digging into material.

Another common question: how much “research”—personal or professional—did you do into psychedelic drugs? When it comes to the psychedelic stuff, I didn’t really do research. I had taken psychedelics about ten years ago and I had some very bad trips when I was in college.

That counts as research. Inadvertently, yeah.

Laura Valentina asks: which films inspired the look and feel of Midsommar? Can we ask you to also talk about cinematography influences? For the tripping scenes, we weren’t looking at any influences. We didn’t want to do the 1960s and 1970s psychedelia that you might see in Easy Rider, Midnight Cowboy, or the films by Kenneth Anger. I love all those films and really enjoy them, but they’re dated due to that. If anything we just knew what we wanted to avoid.

For the cinematography in general, we were pursuing a three-strip Technicolor look. We were talking a lot about the color films of Powell and Pressburger and looking at older movies when we were color-correcting the film. When I was finishing Hereditary, I was working on a shot-list [for Midsommar], but it was a more accelerated process because of our extremely punishing and tight prep schedule. On Hereditary we did a lot of screenings for the crew of given movies that I thought would get people in the right mood, but we weren’t able to do that on this film.

You’ve mentioned this was a gruelling shoot on a tight timeframe, but Mariela and NineTailedFox would like to know what the most satisfying part of the production of Midsommar was for you? It’s always satisfying when you have a good scene in the can and when you’re able to achieve certain things. Everyday there’s satisfying moments but it’s also loaded with little disappointments. You’re just always praying for something that will help move the shoot along and keep people’s spirits high. There were a lot of scenes that we were happy with so that’s always something to be grateful about.

Jack Reynor, Ari Aster and Florence Pugh. / Photo: Merie Weismiller Wallace

Many in the Letterboxd community are raving about Midsommar’s stellar cast. Half the character work is achieved in those selections. Can you talk about where you first saw your actors and how you knew they were right for the roles? For a lot of the parts we had people tape and send in auditions, so it’s really a matter of instinct and feeling these people fit. In the case of Florence Pugh, Jack Reynor and Will Poulter, they were people who were at the top of our lists early on who we persisted on that they were right. It was a real joy to work with all of them. William Jackson Harper, too.

Florence Pugh can really do anything. She’s an incredible actress who’s wonderfully endowed with amazing talent. Will Poulter is a total professional and a brilliant actor. Vilhelm Blomgren was somebody we pulled on pretty late in the process and it was very exciting to find him and know we had our Pelle.

Bran asks: how different did Hereditary and Midsommar end up being from your initial ideas for them? They changed in the sense that what we ended up shooting were a lot longer than we could keep them, so the movies were cut down a lot. I feel both films are pretty close to what I was imagining. Midsommar was more ambitious and so there were more compromises, which is just what happens. You’re chasing this thing and you get as close as you can to your vision.

So then, given that Midsommar was significantly cut down, we’ll jump to Joshua Booker’s question: what was the hardest stuff to cut? There’s more rituals and we get to meet more people in the community to get a more nuanced view of them. There are more scenes between Dani and Christian so that their journey to that ending is a little bit more circuitous. There’s more of the thesis competition between Christian and Josh too, that originally had more body to it.

Right out of the gate your vision as a filmmaker feels fully formed. You’ve said that you intend to explore different genres. Do you want to continue working with cinematographer Pawel Pogorzelski, and do you plan on exploring different styles? I’m always interested in developing different styles but the style needs to fit the film. I’ve been working with Pawel for a long time—he’s one of my best friends and we understand how the other person works. We have a very satisfying shorthand and our own processes, which is great. I definitely plan on keeping on going with him.

Ari Aster with cinematographer Pawel Pogorzelski. / Photo: Gabor Kotschy

Everybody wants to know whether you’ve ever written a script, or a scene, or a short, and then thought “I’ve gone too far”? I admit have a problem with brevity. That’s maybe where I wonder if I’ve been a bit too indulgent, but not if I’ve gone too far with the taboos.

MaxT26 asks: do you think it’s important for modern horror films to push the boundaries in terms of being disturbing and creative? Related: Tobias Soar wonders what recent horror movies you’ve admired. There’s a tradition in horror of confronting taboos and twisting the knife, so to speak. The Wailing is a film I absolutely loved and already has a place among my favorite horror movies. I would describe that as a masterpiece.

I’m excited by South Korean filmmakers in general, by the way they approach storytelling and juggling of tones. Their films defy categorization while also tempting it. Later this year, we’re all going to get The Lighthouse. I wouldn’t necessarily categorize that as a horror film but I’m excited for people to see it. I’m a big fan of Robert Eggers. I saw an early cut of it and it’s great.

The final question/answer contain spoilers for both films. Read on at your peril.

You’ve mentioned building the script for Hereditary around the image of both Charlie and Annie’s deaths and the way they mirror each other. What image was your starting point for Midsommar? Some of the final images were certainly the things that came to me first. In particular, it was the image of the wide-shot with Dani and the house burning behind her. The prologue of the film came to me pretty early on too.

‘Midsommar’ is in US and UK theaters now, and coming to other festivals and markets soon. All photographs courtesy of A24. Our thanks to Ari for his time and to everyone who asked a question. Still not sated? Enjoy this Letterboxd list of Ari Aster’s favorite contemporary directors.

#ari aster #hereditary #midsommar #horror #filmmaker #toni collette #florence pugh #pagancommunity #sweden #pagan rituals #a24 #a24 films #letterboxd #q&a

[ratherhavetheblues]

QUENTIN TARANTINO’S ‘ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD’ “Lightning in a bottle…”

© 2019 by James Clark

     The films of Quentin Tarantino are arguably the gold standard of amusement while indirectly excoriating the history of reverence. His recent shot, Once upon a Time… in Hollywood (2019), attends in a rather special way toward his enmity regarding pious foot-soldiers on guard for the sake of half-truths, at best. The target of Hollywood might seem to be a rather minor concern, not to mention that nearly everyone intuits its flaws already. But do they?

We take a ride with Cliff, a movie stunt man/ and double, for actor, Rick, in Rick’s cream-colored Cadillac convertible. While the actor attends to his well-known métier of Western adventures, overblown, underwhelming but passionately popular, Cliff, not being needed to spare the daring in this outing, takes up his other functions as chauffeur and handyman at Rick’s mansion in the exclusive hills. This day, there is the insupportable collapse of the perhaps, sinking brand’s television antenna, the year being 1969. Two magical events occur during Cliff’s hiatus. The first is the remarkable agility of his reaching the roof—sheer acrobatics in leaping from purchase to purchase. When on the irregular roof, his panache is not only bankable but poetry. The second surprise occurs on the freeway with the top down, of course, and music on the radio, to a tune called, “Gamblin’ Man.” The pitch and volume of the sound inundating the fast car can be discerned, with the driver in closeup, that intensity of this degree is, however unspoken, a field of grace. Much remains to be explored regarding Cliff’s solitary day off; but this film invites disparate, rare and desperate action to coalesce. Some months later, and late at night, with the sidekicks about to go their separate ways (and making a last-ditch party of the crisis), Cliff and his pit bull, Brandy, take a walk in the vicinity of Rick’s opulent (but now financially threatened) castle. The acrobat, saying nothing of the earthquake but feeling much, evokes another ecstatic song, far more explosive than the treacly film productions which made the actor affluent, namely, far from matinee-idol, Chris Farlow’s, one-hit-wonder, “Out of Time”—“Baby, Baby, Baby, you’re outta’ time…” And it’s freeway-time again, because the Stones (far more explosive than the earnest writer) know their Hollywood-Rare. The latter’s, wisely distorting the phrase, “Baby, Baby, Baby, you’re outta’ ooaa” [connoting, both “time” and “sight”]. The fateful musical presentation penetrates the mansion next door, the short-lease range of the now-pregnant starlet, Sharon Tate, where a dizzy anti-climax is about to unfold, which obliges us to consider a step far more demanding of nuance than Hollywood can afford. Back to Cliff, on the rich man’s roof, who couldn’t miss hearing the neighbor’s music, a bemusing effort by the laughably named, “Paul Revere and the Raiders.”

We had been up close to her the night before (at an intersection between convertibles; the play-list no improvement on her home choice), on their drive back to Rick’s, not the restauranteur, of course, but the ravenous, for Bogart’s fame. Here she was accompanied by her recent husband, Roman Polanski, still, at that point, a bright light of European avant-garde movies. (His elevated stature depended upon two early 1960’s efforts, Knife in the Water and Repulsion; from there he coasted and became a notorious child molester.) Rick, regarding this sighting as an epiphany, gushes to a less than thrilled Cliff, “He’s been living next door for a month and this is the first time I’ve seen him. I could be one pool party from starring in a Polanski movie…” Rather typically, he cites the big name for bringing to us, Rosemary’s Baby. The “glamorous couple,” dressed in rococo-era costume (once-stifling for all it’s worth in the 18th century) were en route to the Playboy Club, where Sharon cavorted as more polka-Polish than anyone else in the establishment. She and Mama Kass were the life of the party. But the real story had to be “no-bullshit,” tough-guy, Steve McQueen, describing, Louella Parsons-style, the tangled affections of Sharon’s depths. (A pan, while Cliff was still fighting off her music on Rick’s roof, discloses very briefly a lithographic poster by Alphonse Mucha. The sensitivity of the woman’s presence in that work must clearly derive from Polanski’s better days. That day, the so-called auteur was tossing a ball to her miniature dog, while the sweetheart slept snoring.)

There is about the first moments of our film today such miasma-inducing artificiality, that a whole universe of sensibility has to be invented to counter such an aberration. Firstly, there is a clip of a re-run of Rick’s television series of yore, namely, “Bounty Law,” the facile and preposterous rhetoric there being perhaps engaging for an eight-year-old. But soon we realize that those far more advanced in age than that swear it to be some kind of elixir. In the instalment mentioned, after dispatching five attackers in two seconds, he intones, “Amateurs don’t make it!” Cut, then, to a TV fan program where Rick can do no wrong. The peppy master of ceremonies, one, Allen Kinkaid, congratulates himself for including Cliff—by which he gets to maintain that the viewers are not “seeing double.” Rick explains that Cliff saves him from falling off his horse in high action. He admits, “Yes, I can fall off a horse.” This causes mysterious mirth all round. Then Cliff, convinced that the exercise doesn’t make it, blurts out, “I carry his load,” and more slippery goodwill fills the airwaves.  Scatology closing the mainstream show. But there is more to Allen Kinkaid (and more to Hollywood madness) than that. The seeming inconsequential host is sitting on Hollywood gold dust, in the figure of Jeramiah Kinkaid, a farm boy and his black lamb, in the Disney film, So Dear to My Heart (1948). Jeramiah brings the lamb to the county fair and goodwill prevails. But the action having occurred in 1903, the lamb and the boy are no longer a joy. (The boy, played by Bobby Driscall, died destitute at age 31.) The skills invested in that little story did manage a topspin that fans are not to be ridiculed for cherishing. But, in failing to vigorously discern the hardness and settle for a pathos rapidly becoming bathos, those fans fail to appreciate how few such gems obtain; and they fool themselves that sentimental and melodramatic extracts are close enough to the template. They actually, in great numbers, become an uncritical and militant cult. Rick moves on to an appointment with his agent who urges, in light of his frequent drunkenness wrecking for good “Bounty Law,” and doing “guest appearances” on the order of a cover of the “Specialty Song,” “Green Door,” that he reboot in Italy, where American has-beens enjoy a second life. Over and above the insider’s savvy pragmatism, he enthuses about what is obviously his client’s favorite role, from some time quite long ago, as wiping out much of the Nazi hierarchy with a flamethrower, in the movie, “The Fourteen Fists” [recalling the many fists in play, killing the fearful pagan, Johan, in the Ingmar Bergman film, Hour of the Wolf ]. The unctuous go-getter, mimes the attack and we hear our protagonist call out the comic-book line, “Anybody for sauerkraut?”

   Before plumbing here any more details of this nearly inscrutable myopia, let’s bring to bear more detail of that vigilante saga—from 1968 (set, wouldn’t you know it, in Germany)—where another homogeneous group of militants see fit to kill a painter who does not subscribe to an infinite future in a heaven. The painter, Johan Borg, could be described as some kind of acrobat, inasmuch as he has ventured to reach a dimension of life with which the vast majority are unconcerned. (“Borg,” denoting, in Swedish, a mountain, a castle stronghold. The film in point being set on a German island, there would be the very different lexical sense of a male castrated pig when young.) Cliff, a self-styled, easy-going guy, carries his skillset with significantly more panache than Johan.  But, like the artist, who had repeatedly crushed the skull of a rude boy on a deserted beach, along a steep cliff, there is a past in which Cliff has murdered, in this case, his wife; and gone free, as with the kills Cliff delivered during his military days. (The relentless smashing of an intruder at that swan song party, by the sometime reckless athlete, will give us much to ponder.)

During his day with Rick’s Coup de Ville, Cliff, giving a lift to a teenage girl (1969, again)/ entrepreneur who’d rather do tricks than go home, show’s no enthusiasm for the trade (and its possible quicksand); but, on hearing that “home” is the ranch just beyond LA where the boys worked on “Bounty Law,” he persuades the hooker to ease up for the afternoon and let him see a place he hasn’t visited for years. What he sees is another homogeneous group bent on murderous coercion of heretics—a group, however, right across the board, so inept, you’d think they were in some form of rehab, their main action watching television series, in the energies of a seraglio. This being the notorious Manson marauders, another form of resentment arrives therewith, to make us think. “Pussycat,” the unthinking navigator bringing the Cadillac to the cesspool, declares, angrily—after our protagonist discerns that the once-friend and owner of the property receives, as rent, daily favors from a dogma official, named, “Squeaky”— “You’ve embarrassed me!” She, operatically, like the patrician wolf-pack, in Hour of the Wolf, sneering that the now-non-owner whom the cult kept from Cliff on a pretext of his blindness, is a lie, “He’s not blind—you’re the blind one!” (Her ready playfulness, before the reversal, lingers as somehow at least a bit incisive.) More to the matter of short fuse, by remote soulmates, Johan and Cliff, one of the few males of the entourage (the big beachboy nowhere to be seen) has had, while Cliff was weighing the weight, the temerity to cut one of Rick’s tires. On discovering this, and seeing the sneering perpetrator nearby—a scrawny boy looking as if he should get a checkup—our anti-hero, in the course of ensuring that the inmate install the spare, beats the rascal, repeatedly and very bloodily, to within an inch of killing him. That the first punch lifted the vandal skyward, as in Hollywood cartoons, brings to bear Cliff’s state of far from immunity from the general crap. Later he crushes a sneering Bruce Lee during a lull of a very-short lived assignment. And later still, as mentioned, when Squeaky and a few others (still sans-Manson), have the temerity to invade Rick’s place with Cliff visiting, the latter, receiving a superficial gunshot wound (like that received by wife, Alma, from Johan, the hopeful killer), the retaliation is his taking the pudgy lieutenant by the neck and smashing her face, very often, and very hard upon the telephone receiver (more 1969) and other appliances, leaving her unrecognizable as a head. (Could there ever be anything about that sorority which makes your day? Come to think of it, early on, as the so-called “doubles” [Rick and Cliff] pass by to do their storied errands, there are several of them scavenging through a dumpster, pleased to discover and catch by the wind some white sheets [somewhat like Johan’s lost wife and her sheets in the wind]; and as they squeal like happy seagulls, they have something. They have something far more palatable than do-gooders, Simon and Garfunkel, chiming in here, with their so arch, “Mrs. Robinson.” Hollywood being predictable, but Tarantino, not.)

   The anticlimax—a maneuver in the same league as Bergman’s theatrical jolts—pertains, not to movie lore in general, nor to crime thrillers in particular, but to the explosive and lovely ways of intent within everyone’s grasp to sustain, however difficult. Tarantino’s priority is to see how advantages, far more cruel and formidable pieties than stupid murder, derive their monstrous power, and can be, though never not numerically dominant, eclipsed by courage and wit. The dust-up with Bruce Lee, eliciting from the now marginal pieceworker, Cliff,  the sneer, “You are a little man who [far from the boast he could beat up Cassius Clay] couldn’t hope to carry his [the boxer’s] trunks,” concerns a ridicule of the entire Hollywood Establishment, perhaps a failing of taste, on Cliff’s part, but a revelation of the metaphysical crisis here. More modulated mockery is to be seen during Rick and Cliff’s evening watching old tapes of “Bounty Law.” Depressed Rick can only register contained grief for a lost past. Non-depressed Cliff laughs out loud, seeing through the dramatic travesty, from beginning to end.

It is, then, the seeming fine Sharen Tate, who can lead us, in special ways, to the poison. We first see her returning to LA from Europe, accessing her priority luggage—including a small dog—in the vicinity of a carousel nudging her to be forever a child, as recommended on the highest authorities. She strides, in a slight slow-motion pace, along a corridor with only one exit, emphasized by the glimpse of her Pan-Am stream-line plane. Soon there is a day, like Cliff’s roundabout at the ranch, where, in her tiny, convertible, foreign vehicle (a 1969 phenomenon), she picks up a woman hitchhiker, very unlike Pussycat. Seen from above, there is no doubt that Sharon, granted good bones and good skin, can be as congenial as the girl next door. (The prelude to the lift is a Buffy Sainte-Marie anthem, in tremolo on the radio— “The Circle Game”—a decided improvement over what she listens to at home.)

(“And the seasons they go round and round

And the painted ponies go up and down

We’re captive on the carousel of time

We can’t return we can only look behind

From where we came.

And go round and round and round

In the circle game.”)

(But does this bit of taste rise to the celestial heights her promotors would insist? Or does it speak to the volatility of cogency?)  Arriving to the studio and giving the stranger a goodbye hug, we see the sign reads, “Fox.” (The infrastructure by Bergman reads “Wolf.”) Foxy advantage, all the way. Soon she’s done for the day, and she comes upon a movie house showing a film she’s in, along with Dean Martin. We can report she’s not another Jerry Lewis, but her enjoyment of seeing herself cavorting to little palpable effect finds her at some level of apparently remarkable fulfilment. She kicks off her sandals and places her dusty feet on the chair in front; and she foxes down every laugh and cheer in the theatre regarding her supposed martial arts skills. (Back to Cliff and Bruce; and wouldn’t you know, the latter—with his effete wolf howls—is a frequent guest of hers.) She had basked, coming into the show, in finding the cashier and the owner of the theatre typically elated by the presence of a goddess. But there’s a coda to this day even more edifying, in the goddess’ excellent day. On the way home she stops by a bookshop (remember them?) to pick up an order of the Victorian novel, Tess of the D’Urbervilles (1891), by Thomas Hardy, for her brainy husband who must, like her, be a Victorian softy. (Bergman kicks ass, similarly, in Cries and Whispers [1972], where Charles Dickens is seen to be an antiquated wimp, and avatar of advantage in the sense of precious careers, precious families and precious patrimonies. Since we’re drawn, by both Tarantino and Bergman being adept dramatic phenomenological philosophers in lodging a pushback against lead-pipe dogmatists, we seem to require mentioning that maniacal, militant careerists, and such, stem from that ancient Platonic myopia as to dynamics while overestimating inert matter. From there, religion, and its causal conclusion, humanitarianism and its obligations to coincide with the former, and science and its quietist retreat have enjoyed pushing around those who see much farther and braver than those who have gone too far with Plato.) With that ascension coming to bear in the anti-climax, we find Rick, a near-perfect wimp, out on the private road, invited to Sharen’s—she being tantamount to an addict of Rick Dalton action television (when she’s not listening to Paul Revere and the Raiders—“Hungry for the good life, baby!”) She wears a team jersey showing 17, her emotional age.

   The suffocating majority that is Hollywood is at its apex with the pedantry of those behind the scene—producers, directors, agents, promotors, lawyers, accountants… The breathless Kinkaid raises “double” about our protagonists, only to show he doesn’t know what to do with it, having, the years gone by, allowing a swollen prose to predominate and a withered poetry to die. Earnest cheering for lead-pipe nonsense (see the hunks, see the babes) is the order of our function here. Just as egregious as the bishops presiding over The City of Angels, there is Rick, in semi-depression that his career options have dwindled, meaning that others will man the idiocy where he used to be quite paramount. Before the fading actor takes the advice of the savvy cash-sniffer sold on Italy, there is one more push we need to take into account—involving a director, seemingly near dementia—showing the last of Rick’s several-year stint as a villain. (Immediately after the interview about Italy, Rick rejoins Cliff and cries on the vigorous acrobat’s shoulder. “Don’t let the Mexicans see you crying,” the latter urges, a concern reaching as far as the appalling Mexican directors’ film coups of the present day.)

The obsequious last American helmsman he’ll see, for quite a while, probably aware of a disaster in the making, but knowing a way to lessen the cheapness, promises that modernity and novelty will be the watchword. His patter and timbre of voice about the quality of the chestnut in point somehow overruns his standard positivity, in fascinating ways. Aiming for “lightning in a bottle” and “zeitgeist,” he’s all about changing Rick’s image to “Hell’s Angels” and a new hair style. “I want this to be caliber, not cowboy… Hip…” Rick balks in hearing “hippie…” Though our fading star has for years seen himself as a lucrative entertainer first, to those easily entertained (having purchased a castle of sorts with a pool segueing to the heavens, Architectural Digest-perfect); and a participant in the arts running about #99th (the Polanski moment being a rare jog), that he cared at all would perhaps have factored in the eccentric leader’s rhetoric. And there’s something else crossing Rick’s path which Sam, the inflected snake-oil cheerleader, had to regard as a big plus. Waiting at lunchbreak for an early afternoon first take, he wants nothing more than to read his cowboy novella, and he pauses along a shady point of the concern’s walkway. Nearby, a little girl is reading a script. He asks if he could sit down there; and, after a long pause she says, “Sit.” Not the most cordial welcome; but her presence being far more mature than her age, he becomes curious. Lighting a cigarette and responding to her not small ego, he learns that she never eats before going in front of the cameras, because she wants to concentrate upon her persona. “If I can be a tiny amount better, I will.” She then, the sense of deep resolve losing some traction, declares that Walt Disney is the greatest human to have lived over the past hundred years. She goes on to ask about his book—with a topic about a once-world’s-best wild horse trainer in his 20’s becoming far less than that in his 30’s. Falling, as he would have done during those later acrobatic feats, he’s facing the future with “spine troubles.” “He’s not the best anymore. He’s far from it…” This state of affairs rather oddly brings upon Rick a spate of tears. She tries, by her sincere caring, to help lift the spirits he in fact seldom deals with. But the presence of a vigorous, though wobbly, commitment, has dredged up something he has failed to master, an acrobatic challenge demanding nerve and wit far beyond the ways of those million-dollar dogs. In this crisis, the strain of cheapness cannot be stanched. “Fifteen years, you’ll [the girl] be living it!” [no longer disinterestedly transcending that horde of wolves]. On to the oater and its cliché-fest. Rick flubs many lines; and on a break, back in his trailer, he beats himself up for being so unprofessional and being a drunk. (There are, as mentioned, stories tossed around about his addiction causing the end of “Bounty Law”—lacking bounty and lacking law. Having been inspired by the serious girl, he determines to stop drinking and yet he has a shot before tossing out the bottle). Rick does some homework and his subsequent deliveries of evil do surpass—for how long? —his usual Saturday morning television bilge. (This lost cause is interspersed with Sharen’s delight in a film of hers not noticeably any better than Rick’s. Moreover, Cliff’s radio, as he drives Pussycat to the Spahn Movie Ranch, plays, “Brother Loves Travelling Salvation Show,” another touch of bathos to make to make full sense of.) With a staged conflict between Rick’s “evil” emoting and a Bostonian rationalist, we have the goofy makings of a primal conflict no one is ever going to see as such. The empathetic girl, who was supposedly being held for ransom, tells Rick, “That was the best acting I’ve seen in my life!” Sam, sticking to his sticky story, finds that Rick had reached Shakespearian levels.

There is one more current to add, needing as much pondering as we can manage, that being Cliff’s. We’ll see how amenable our picaresque protagonist can see fit to be stronger and brighter than the level he’s settled for. After the brush with Polanski and Sharon and their effete, rare roadster, the “double” retrieves his severally damaged, early 1960’s Karmann Ghia convertible from Rick’s spacious entrance, performs a little UCLA huddle unwind and returns home—home being a severally damaged trailer at the backside, mud bowl of a drive-in movie of poor status, amidst a terminal truck, various bits of garbage and an operating oil well. (Would that latter apparatus have anything to do with depths?) He kisses and plays with his pit bull, “Brandy,” and presents him with a “Wolf Tooth” dog bone. The easygoing “nonentity” does demand some decorum and patience, at dinner, from the companion/ Alfa. His television, seemingly never turned off, is tuned to a pop singer in a tux, namely, Robert Goulet, a Canadian far less alive than Buffy Sainte- Marie. Discerning the spigot of entertainment may be a large obligation most of us neglect. How Cliff performs, as it happens, is far more momentous than that of anyone else in view here, and we’re obliged to see where he’s going. (Another prelude to a hidden slippage of dialectic is the two hand chow cans being slowly pulled by gravity to the bowl.)

Where he’s going, on that putatively fateful farewell party is far from transparent. It doesn’t involve Brandy chewing off one the intruder’s cock; but hostility does reign. Getting a bit closer is the Manson irregular and enduring fan of “Bounty Law,” lawyering, “My idea is to kill the people who taught us to kill.” Though far from  a debater, Cliff, were he to have been able to listen to such entitlement, he’d have recognized the mob murderousness, in lieu of serious discernment. He’d have recognized it, because everyone around him uses it, in order to rough up those, like him (far from fully acute), by way of ostracism, contempt and sabotage. Even more a setback than the flesh wound contracted in the skirmish, there would be weepy Rick, using a flamethrower to kill a wounded sitting duck; and dissolving a supposed friendship and livelihood, for reasons of clinging to advantage. (How anyone can see staunch buddies here must indulge in large selective cognition. Sure, Cliff goes over old episodes with the star, and enjoys them. But he’s especially savoring the stunts [the acrobatics]. Anyone on to “Outta Time/ Sight” is not apt to be a fan of what Rick does.) After the Manson massacre, there’s the likelihood of some contact, on Rick’s terms. More good-natured balance and risk.

   In the run-up to Sam’s hoopla, Rick lobbies to the producer to give Cliff some work, somewhere. “He’ll do anything…” That’s tastes of an in-crowd regarding a no-crowd. (On the plane home from Italy—where the jobs were easy for a Hollywood name, and Rick showed much more acute critical powers about European entertainment errors than the American brand—there was the name and his new wife in opulent “Business Class;” and Cliff getting drunk amidst the also rans.) On trampling Bruce Lee, Cliff loses that job, but occasions more gold than the studio is worth. Alma, the widow in Hour of the Wolf, the endeavor being consulted by Tarantino’s golden touch here, quite remarkably shows very little concern for her artist’s husband’s having stoned to death a young boy. Cliff, too, doesn’t lose any sleep about killing his wife. Here we’re in a volatile territory of crime, coming face-to-face with the heroes of civilization (Rick’s work) being strains of a plague the body-count of blasted fruition impossible to count, especially in view of the fact that it will never end. But the tuning is remarkably upbeat, because dudes like Cliff find a way. A T-shirt of his, somewhat covered by a full shirt, spells Champion. (Our film today, despite so many coincidences with the somber defeat in Hour of the Wolf, becomes a cornucopia of inflected  verve.)

A coda at the ending credits, finds black and white Rick urging the viewer to smoke, “Red Apples Cigarettes,” which cuts down “bitter, dry” intake and delivers “healthy flavor.” Hollywood and its dubious logical props not nearly seen for its poison the way cigarettes have come to be discerned.

Someone who would have had no difficulty spotting the poison of world history and the merchants getting rich on it, is Heraclitus (flourishing about 500 B.C.); but left behind by pedants and sissies. One of his aphorisms, paradoxically counselling long-term, creative civilization, proceeds, “War is the father of all and the king of all; and some he has made gods and some men, some bond and some free.”

Let’s close things here with those well-known Heracliteans, the Stones.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tyCOV3SyQc

#Quentin Tarantino

[aion-rsa]

John Boyega Speaks Out About Being Sidelined in Star Wars

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We don’t deserve John Boyega, his inarguable acting talent, or his captivating Black Lives Matter speech, speaking to the world without fear of reprisal, which will undoubtedly go down as one of the most important moments of 2020/the decade. It’s a shame that we even live in a society where a Black actor would have to worry about “having a career” after speaking out against racial injustice and inequality. As Boyega would say, “Fuck that.”

Boyega is once again speaking out in a new interview with GQ, this time about being one of the stars of the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy. In his chat with the magazine, which also covers the events leading up to his BLM speech, his work with Steve McQueen on the new BBC series Small Axe, and his family life, the actor is very candid about his time working with Disney on the multi-billion-dollar trilogy that capped the Skywalker Saga last year.

In the interview, Boyega is particularly critical of the way his character was sidelined from the main storyline. It’s no secret that as the Sequel Trilogy proceeded, Finn’s role in the story was diminished by saga’s end — from brandishing a lightsaber in The Force Awakens as one of the movie’s central and more complicated heroes to barely being given anything to do in The Rise of Skywalker at all.

“You get yourself involved in projects and you’re not necessarily going to like everything,” Boyega said of jumping into the six-year blockbuster gig, criticizing Disney for the way it approached characters of color in Star Wars. “[But] what I would say to Disney is do not bring out a Black character, market them to be much more important in the franchise than they are and then have them pushed to the side. It’s not good. I’ll say it straight up.”

Boyega could be referring to any number of things here — from being marketed as a true heir to the Skywalker legacy in The Force Awakens trailer and then having his involvement in the movie minimized in the marketing for other parts of the world because he’s Black to the way he was relegated to side character with the other actors of color in The Last Jedi.

Boyega has been particularly vocal in the past about his thoughts on the trilogy’s middle chapter. “I liked the idea of these characters being challenged and separated and stressed, like everyone’s just trying to get to each other – that excited me,” he told THR in 2019 while promoting The Rise of Skywalker. “But I will be honest in saying I think that they could have done better with it, especially with Finn and Rose [Kelly Marie Tran].”

His feelings haven’t changed since then. In the GQ interview, he points out Disney’s failure to highlight the trilogy’s characters of color in any meaningful way.

“Like, you guys knew what to do with Daisy Ridley, you knew what to do with Adam Driver,” he said of the way the movies explored Rey and Kylo Ren’s stories versus Rose, Finn, and Poe’s. “You knew what to do with these other people, but when it came to Kelly Marie Tran, when it came to John Boyega, you know fuck all. So what do you want me to say? What they want you to say is, ‘I enjoyed being a part of it. It was a great experience…’ Nah, nah, nah. I’ll take that deal when it’s a great experience. They gave all the nuance to Adam Driver, all the nuance to Daisy Ridley. Let’s be honest. Daisy knows this. Adam knows this. Everybody knows. I’m not exposing anything.”

Indeed, by the end of the Sequel Trilogy, Finn is relegated to delivering funny quips with only a hint of a storyline that never coalesces and is mostly tied to Rey anyway. It seems that Naomi Ackie’s character Jannah can only exist as a part of the saga because she might be Lando Calrissian’s daughter. Oscar Isaac’s Poe is revealed to have been a drug smuggler at one point in his life, a dangerous stereotype often lodged at Latinx people (this Colombian writer knows). Kelly Marie Tran’s Rose never even gets to leave the Resistance base.

The franchise’s approach to creating a more diverse Star Wars galaxy on the big screen has so far been shallow at best. The way the film saga approached a “scene” meant to represent a LGBTQ relationship in The Rise of Skywalker is another shining example of how far Disney still has to go to catch up with the times.

That said, Boyega is quick to defend J.J. Abrams, The Rise of Skywalker‘s director and co-writer (with Chris Terrio), saying, ““Everybody needs to leave my boy alone. He wasn’t even supposed to come back and try to save your shit.” He is of course referring to how Abrams was asked to direct the final chapter of the Skywalker Saga after Lucasfilm parted ways with the movie’s original director, Colin Trevorrow.

It all hardly seems worth it when you consider the amount of abuse and bullying actors of color faced when they were cast in Star Wars. This is especially true of Boyega, whose casting in The Force Awakens led to a racist campaign against him led by a group of racist crybabies who shouldn’t even remotely be considered “fans.”

“I’m the only cast member who had their own unique experience of that franchise based on their race,” Boyega said. “Let’s just leave it like that. It makes you angry with a process like that. It makes you much more militant; it changes you. Because you realize, ‘I got given this opportunity but I’m in an industry that wasn’t even ready for me.’ Nobody else in the cast had people saying they were going to boycott the movie because [they were in it]. Nobody else had the uproar and death threats sent to their Instagram DMs and social media, saying, ‘Black this and black that and you shouldn’t be a Stormtrooper.’ Nobody else had that experience. But yet people are surprised that I’m this way. That’s my frustration.”

Boyega speaking out when so many other young actors of color still feel like they can’t will hopefully pave the way for a better future not only for Star Wars but the film industry as a whole. As Boyega said in his BLM speech, “Now is the time.”

The actor will next be seen in the anthology series Small Axe, which premieres on BBC One and Amazon Prime Video on Sept. 25. He also stars in the film Naked Singularity, which is currently set for a 2020 release.

The post John Boyega Speaks Out About Being Sidelined in Star Wars appeared first on Den of Geek.

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#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

[cathrynstreich]

Unstoppable: Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices—Building an Unwavering, Unrelenting Team

Editor’s Note: This is the cover story in the August 2020 issue of RISMedia’s Real Estate magazine. Subscribe today.

RISMedia invited Allan Dalton to pen this month’s cover story—given his status as a long-time executive, thought leader and author—in order to provide an insider’s view of the leadership mission at Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices. Thanks to his unique vantage point within the organization, along with his deep industry knowledge, Dalton offers an insightful look into the brand and its strategic vision. “Unstoppable” is a one-word mission statement, selected by Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices CEO Chris Stuart, to describe one of his many global network goals. The inspiration behind this power-packed proclamation is none other than Warren Buffett. When the so-called “Oracle of Omaha” remarked, “Get on a train that is going 80 miles an hour; don’t get stuck on the sidelines,” Chris, who ironically worked for years at Oracle, took this sagacious advice as…if you will…an oracle, inferring that Mr. Buffett was using this transportation metaphor to ask, “How fast and how resolute are we to achieve our goals? Are we unrelenting, unwavering or even unstoppable?”

According to our CEO, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices must continue to be unstoppable. Such superhero-like and overtly aggressive statements by Chris are surprising to many who know him—especially given his highly scientific, strategic and scholarly presentations and speeches. Chris is certainly more professorial than pompous, and decidedly more erudite than egotistical.

Rather than resorting to brand-related hype, Chris is instead renowned within the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices global network for his elevated and comprehensive consumer-centric rhetorical style. Our leader routinely speaks of “closing the real estate loyalty gap,” “creating a sustainable real estate ecosystem” and becoming a Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices “Forever Agent.” Chris also recently announced the development of The Real Estate IQ Institute, dedicated to increasing the “influence quotient” of all those within the network.

While the academic nature of Chris’s vision might seem at odds with the locker room-like and feisty fanfare surrounding the use of “unstoppable,” one can find an explanation in his background. Many know of Chris’s brokerage and high-tech pedigree from his years at Oracle and his senior management brokerage years at Intero. Often overlooked is that Chris is from Texas, where he played high school football. His background as a bio-science graduate, along with his years on the gridiron, explains his fusion of grit and genius…two staples of his remarkable leadership.

When I ask Chris if he believes that Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices is unstoppable, he rationally responds, “Only time will tell if we are truly unstoppable. We only focus on being unstoppable in terms of our unwavering commitment to enhancing the lives of consumers through the efforts of our clients, brokers and agents. We would never convey to consumers that we are unstoppable. Our fate or fortune is not a public concern. I want our network brokers and agents to realize that we can only achieve unstoppability through providing consumer solutions. Unstoppable for us must never imply being arrogant, pompous or self-congratulatory. Unstoppability also requires that I surround myself with people who want to serve our network and cannot be—or who do not want to be—stopped. Our network is replete with the highest quality of brokers and agents who not only deserve our unstoppable efforts, but demand the same.”

I also asked Chris to introduce his Unstoppable Team, and unsurprisingly, he begins with his mentor. Gino Blefari is described by Chris as the real estate industry’s GOAT (Greatest of All Time), an attribution usually reserved for generational athletes or entertainers. Chris’s admiration for Gino, the chairman of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices and CEO of HomeServices of America, knows no bounds.

“The impact that Gino continues to have on the real estate industry is unrivaled,” Chris explains. “Gino’s incomparable and varied industry background began with his becoming the top-producing agent in highly competitive Santa Clara County, Calif. Gino then became president of the largest CENTURY 21 brokerage in the world at the time. Amazingly, seven of the top 11 offices in CENTURY 21’s global network were in his company.”

The ‘GOAT’ subsequently founded and led Intero Real Estate from being a start-up vision to a North American Top 10 brokerage. Of note is that this epic growth was attained without acquisitions. Instead, his company owed its success to Gino’s legendary ‘West Coast Real Estate Offense,’ a behavior-changing accountability system, which Gino is currently employing to help numerous brokerages achieve documentable, exponential growth and profits. After the sale of Intero to HomeServices of America, Gino became CEO of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices, and is now CEO of HomeServices of America.

“Gino’s illustrious real estate road, while well-traveled, represents a journey that is unlikely to ever be traversed again,” adds Chris. “I believe his best years are still ahead due to his legendary regimen, discipline, work ethic and talent. Gino is the very definition of what it means to be unstoppable.”

Chris’s team is composed of several other “unstoppable” executives who support the network and its members, such as Chief Financial Officer Steve Ladd, whose financial rectitude is essential for the company and the brand.

“I refer to Steve as the financial conscience of our organization,” says Chris. “His mission is to help both our brokers and our organization maximize profitability. Steve does an impeccable job managing the inevitable tension that exists in all companies between revenue pursuits and expense vigilance. He is all about doing everything possible toward driving profitable growth.”

In explaining the value of his Executive Vice President, Business Development Michael Jalbert, Chris is equally laudatory.

“Michael is a gift to every existing and future network broker who appreciates the inextricable link between their success and global growth. He is peerless in our industry when it comes to inspiring the combination of domestic and global expansion. His track record of building out brands and brokerages throughout the world is a tribute to his strategic brilliance, brand loyalty, meticulous diplomacy, deep business and franchise background. His communication skills and leadership ability to inspire his global team of franchise consultants makes Michael and his team unstoppable.”

Chris also shares high praise for Senior Vice President of Network Services Rosalie Warner, a former president of Prudential Real Estate Affiliates. “Rosalie represents the gold standard for how a leading executive of a global brand should deliver consultative and administrative services to its network,” he says. “Rosalie is our executive glue. She not only makes sure that our metaphorical trains all run on time, she is also instrumental in helping us build our unstoppable trains. Rosalie is where effectiveness and efficiency meet to deliver incomparable value to our network.”

When I ask Chris about myself, I am humbled (although a little disappointed with his brevity!): “Allan, given your many years of brokerage and brand-effective leadership, you provide our organization with an invaluable resource for both agents and brokers alike. You are also, due to your legacy of creating innumerable consumer-centric systems, a great sounding board for my strategic vision, including collaborating with me on the development of the Real Estate IQ Institute. Allan, in a word, you are unrelenting.”

Chris describes Vice President of Diversity, Inclusion and Women in Leadership Teresa Palacios Smith as an unstoppable force for progressive and necessary change.

“While Teresa is passionately intent on correcting injustices in the entire industry, country and world at large, the impact she is having on our brands regarding her mission to make real estate more diverse and inclusive is truly inspirational,” he says. “The former president of the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals and the founder of Woman Who Lead, Teresa is an incomparable crusader for equality across all professional and human segments of the industry. She is an epic change-agent for social, professional, economic and societal justice. Beyond all of Teresa’s brand and association contributions, she is respected as a mentor for a wide variety of network agents and brokers.”

“Gino deserves credit for having the sensitivity and notable foresight, back when he was CEO of HSF Affiliates, for creating my position,” Teresa adds. “He has long been a strong advocate for diversity, inclusion and women leadership.”

For Chris to satisfy his quest for Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices to become and remain an unstoppable brand and network, world-class marketing driven by a marketing maestro is required. He believes he has just that in Vice President of Marketing and Communications Wendy Durand.

“Wendy has impeccably defined and delivered on our brand promise,” Chris explains. “She is indispensable in helping me merchandise and then market our value proposition, and meticulously drives our brand’s cultural and business values. She promulgates our value proposition across vast media, social media, and global broker and agent channels, and has proven to be extremely deft in coalescing the marketing efforts of our brokerages’ marketing directors. Wendy also provides vital guidance to our ad agency and media partners, like the Wall Street Journal, and is our greatest consumer influencer in transforming our luxury marketing.”

Chris describes Vice President of Operations Edward Maldonado as one of his resident geniuses and an indispensable part of the team. “Edward is universally respected,” he says. “His high-level operational acumen speaks to his ability to take complex challenges and opportunities and break them down into workable solutions. Perhaps more than any other executive on our team, he never seeks recognition. His humility is one reason why he is so effective in leading collaborative teams in his endless pursuit of problem-solving and the development of opportunities for our organization. No one on the team applies metrics, science and recommendations more than Edward.”

When it comes to Vice President of Program Management Karen Cain, Chris uses the “five i’s”—”Karen is intelligent, inspirational, involved, integrated and indispensable,” he explains. “She is at the heart of virtually every initiative within the organization—every aspect of our value proposition that requires planning, systems, measurement and execution. Karen’s ability to execute, while always remaining highly positive and team oriented, is second to none. I can’t recall ever approaching Karen with any task where she did not immediately grasp the need then help build out the necessary strategy and solution.”

Vice President of Global Conferences and Meeting Services Denise Doyle, according to Chris, is unparalleled in her field. “Denise possesses the unmistakable ability to demonstrate supreme respect, love and devotion to our global network of brokers and agents,” he explains. “These qualities manifest in her excellence in staging both global extravaganzas and regional gatherings. She accomplishes all of this while also being a fierce negotiator with the unending number of convention and meeting operators with whom she transacts. Our ‘General of Galas,’ Denise is unstoppable in ensuring our network receives value through highly organized educational, networking, recognition and entertaining events, including our epic annual global business conference.”

In commenting on his Vice President, Solution Strategy Mike Fortes, Chris says, “Mike is a remarkable combination of strategist and solutionist. I know of some executives who are strategy-centered, but cannot drive their strategy into a solution, while others can only be part of the solution without being part of a strategy. Mike, because he looks at challenges and opportunities from the perspective of both the consumer and the needs of the network, is brilliant in the development and execution of our technological needs. He is a tireless worker who is always there to serve the needs of our network.”

Given the high value Chris places on his organization’s educational and consultative deliverables, he expects much from Vice President of Network Services Bob Watson…and Bob exceeds expectations.

“What Bob provides our global network is anything but elementary,” says Chris. “His level of sophistication begins with how he has deeply examined our brand culture, including my vision and strategies. From there, Bob has built delivery systems to carry out our cultural offerings globally. He has simultaneously trained and led both our educational and consulting teams in their successful execution. Other than Michael Jalbert, nobody in our organization has been more valuable in assimilating our brand value and culture globally than Bob. This is in addition to his immense value domestically.

“I would be remiss,” Chris adds, “if I did not include two of the more invaluable, and at times most valuable, executives on our entire team: our accomplished attorneys, David Beard and Patti Mansur-Brown. Each of them is enormously valuable to the proper and legal functioning of everything for which our organization is responsible. I have saved them for last because more than any other executives in our organization, they prefer to remain out of the limelight.

“I refer to our Vice President and Corporate Counsel David Beard as our legal solutionist. I don’t always understand how he accomplishes the results that he does, but I do appreciate how he expertly balances and protects our organization in terms of risk and our business objectives.

“David works closely with our highly esteemed Vice President and General Counsel Patti Mansur-Brown,” Chris continues. “Patti is the ultimate defender of our brand. Her level of legalistic vigilance ensures that our entire existing, pending and future network members understand and comply with our legal guidelines. Regarding issues related to brand usage, along with her steadfast and unwavering dedication to ensuring that all our internal and external communications comply within legal and ethical guidelines, Patti is legendary and deeply appreciated. Patti keeps all of us out of trouble, even though at times it can be a thankless task, but one for which I am forever grateful.”

Chris ended our interview as he began—with the word “unstoppable.”

“In an age where much attention is devoted to naming teams, such as The Avengers or The Dream Team, I like to define what we have developed as ‘The Unstoppable Team,'” he says. “Think about it—within the word ‘avengers’ is the concept of vengeance; and when it comes to ‘dream teams,’ I believe more in reality than in dreams. I completely support the idea and the ideal that Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices is real estate’s 80-mile-an-hour train…we’re unstoppable.”

For more information, please visit www.bhhs.com.

Allan Dalton is Sr. Vice President of Research and Development for HSF Affiliates LLC. HSF Affiliates operates both Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices and Real Living Real Estate brands. Dalton is CEO of the Real Living brand and the former CEO of realtor.com®.

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[airoasis]

Nationalism vs. globalism: the new political divide | Yuval Noah Harari

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Nationalism vs. globalism: the new political divide | Yuval Noah Harari

Chris Anderson: hi there. Welcome to this TED Dialogues. It’s the primary of a series that’s going to be completed in line with the present political upheaval. I don’t know about you; I’ve turn out to be really concerned concerning the growing divisiveness on this country and on the earth. No one’s listening to one another. Right? They don’t seem to be. I imply, it feels like we want yet another sort of conversation, one that is based on — I do not know, on reason, listening, on working out, on a broader context. That is at least what we’re going to try in these TED Dialogues, establishing today.And we could not have any one with us who i’d be more excited to kick this off. It is a mind correct here that thinks most of the time like no person else on the earth, i might hasten to claim. I am critical. (Yuval Noah Harari laughs) i am severe. He synthesizes history with underlying suggestions in a technique that variety of takes your breath away. So, a few of you are going to know this booklet, "Sapiens." Has anybody here read "Sapiens"? (Applause) I imply, I would not put it down. The best way that he tells the story of mankind by way of gigantic recommendations that fairly make you feel in a different way — it’s sort of mighty. And here is the comply with-up, which I think is being released in the united states next week. YNH: Yeah, next week. CA: "Homo Deus." Now, that is the history of the next hundred years. I’ve had a chance to learn it. It can be incredibly dramatic, and that i daresay, for some humans, rather alarming. It is a need to-read. And actually, we couldn’t have anyone higher to aid make experience of what in the world is taking place on the earth correct now. So a warm welcome, please, to Yuval Noah Harari.(Applause) it is nice to be joined by way of our acquaintances on fb and around the web. Hi there, fb. And all of you, as I begin asking questions of Yuval, provide you with your own questions, and now not always about the political scandal du jour, but about the broader understanding of: the place are we heading? You competent? Ok, we’re going to go. So right here we are, Yuval: New York city, 2017, there’s a new president in power, and shock waves rippling all over the world. What on this planet is happening? YNH: I consider the basic factor that occurred is that we’ve lost our story. People think in studies, and we try to make experience of the arena by means of telling reviews. And for the last few many years, we had a very simple and really attractive story about what’s taking place on the earth. And the story stated that, oh, what’s going down is that the economic climate is being globalized, politics is being liberalized, and the blend of the two will create paradise on this planet, and we simply need to hold on globalizing the economic system and liberalizing the political method, and the whole thing will be distinctive.And 2016 is the second when an extraordinarily big section, even of the Western world, stopped believing on this story. For just right or dangerous explanations — it’s not relevant. Humans stopped believing in the story, and when you wouldn’t have a story, you do not comprehend what’s happening. CA: part of you believes that that story used to be actually an extraordinarily effective story. It labored. YNH: to a degree, sure. In accordance to a few measurements, we are actually within the first-rate time ever for humankind. Today, for the first time in history, more individuals die from eating too much than from consuming too little, which is an powerful fulfillment. (Laughter) additionally for the first time in historical past, extra persons die from historical age than from infectious illnesses, and violence is also down. For the first time in history, more people commit suicide than are killed by crime and terrorism and warfare put together. Statistically, you might be your own worst enemy.As a minimum, of all the humans on the planet, you’re definitely to be killed by using your self — (Laughter) which is, once more, very good information, in comparison — (Laughter) compared to the level of violence that we noticed in earlier eras. CA: however this approach of connecting the arena ended up with a giant group of folks sort of feeling neglected, and so they’ve reacted. And so we have now this bombshell that’s kind of ripping by way of the whole process. I mean, what do you make of what’s occurred? It feels just like the historical approach that folks idea of politics, the left-proper divide, has been blown up and replaced. How should we believe of this? YNH: Yeah, the historical 20th-century political mannequin of left versus correct is now mostly inappropriate, and the true divide at present is between global and national, global or local.And also you see it once more all over the sector that that is now the essential battle. We typically need absolutely new political items and fully new ways of interested by politics. In essence, what which you can say is that now we have world ecology, we now have a world economic system but we have now country wide politics, and this does not work together. This makes the political system ineffective, because it has no manage over the forces that form our lifestyles. And you’ve got in actual fact two options to this imbalance: either de-globalize the economic climate and turn it again into a countrywide financial system, or globalize the political method. CA: So some, i assume many liberals out there view Trump and his govt as style of irredeemably dangerous, simply awful in each means. Do you see any underlying narrative or political philosophy in there that’s as a minimum worth understanding? How would you articulate that philosophy? Is it simply the philosophy of nationalism? YNH: I think the underlying feeling or suggestion is that the political method — some thing is damaged there. It would not empower the ordinary man or woman anymore. It does not care a lot about the ordinary man or woman anymore, and i believe this analysis of the political disease is correct.In regards to the solutions, i am far less special. I believe what we’re seeing is the immediate human reaction: if anything would not work, let’s return. And you see it far and wide the world, that folks, just about no one in the political process in these days, has any future-oriented imaginative and prescient of where humankind goes. Practically far and wide, you see retrograde imaginative and prescient: "Let’s make the usa high-quality once more," love it was once great — I don’t know — in the ’50s, within the ’80s, someday, let’s go back there. And you go to Russia a hundred years after Lenin, Putin’s vision for the long run is essentially, ah, let’s return to the Tsarist empire. And in Israel, the place I come from, the freshest political vision of the gift is: "Let’s build the temple again." So let’s go back 2,000 years backwards.So people are pondering someday up to now we’ve misplaced it, and usually prior to now, it’s like you’ve lost your method in the city, and also you say good enough, let’s return to the factor where I felt comfy and once more. I do not feel it will work, however quite a lot of humans, that is their intestine instinct. CA: however why could not it work? "the united states First" is a very appealing slogan in lots of methods. Patriotism is, in many methods, an awfully noble factor. It can be played a function in promoting cooperation among significant numbers of humans. Why couldn’t you might have a global prepared in nations, all of which put themselves first? YNH: for many centuries, even hundreds and hundreds of years, patriotism worked quite good. Of direction, it resulted in wars an so forth, however we mustn’t focus too much on the bad. There are additionally many, many constructive matters about patriotism, and the capacity to have a massive quantity of men and women care about each and every different, sympathize with one a different, and come collectively for collective action. When you return to the primary countries, so, countless numbers of years ago, the persons who lived alongside the Yellow River in China — it used to be many, many specific tribes and they all depended on the river for survival and for prosperity, however all of them additionally suffered from periodical floods and periodical droughts.And no tribe might quite do anything about it, considering every of them managed just a tiny element of the river. And then in a protracted and tricky process, the tribes coalesced together to form the chinese language nation, which managed the entire Yellow River and had the capacity to deliver enormous quantities of hundreds of folks together to construct dams and canals and keep an eye on the river and hinder the worst floods and droughts and raise the level of prosperity for every body.And this labored in many areas around the world. But in the 21st century, technology is changing all that in a predominant method. We are now dwelling — all people on the earth — are dwelling alongside the identical cyber river, and no single nation can keep an eye on this river by way of itself. We are all dwelling together on a single planet, which is threatened by our own movements. And when you wouldn’t have some variety of world cooperation, nationalism is just not on the right stage to sort out the problems, whether or not it can be climate alternate or whether or not it can be technological disruption.CA: So it was once a wonderful proposal in a world the place many of the motion, many of the disorders, took location on countrywide scale, however your argument is that the disorders that topic most today not take place on a countrywide scale but on a worldwide scale. YNH: exactly. All the major issues of the world today are international in essence, and so they cannot be solved until by way of some form of world cooperation. It’s not simply climate exchange, which is, like, essentially the most apparent example persons give. I think extra in phrases of technological disruption. In case you think about, for example, synthetic intelligence, over the following 20, 30 years pushing thousands of millions of humans out of the job market — it is a situation on a global degree. It will disrupt the economy of all of the countries. And in a similar fashion, if you happen to think about, say, bioengineering and men and women being afraid of conducting, I have no idea, genetic engineering study in people, it will not support if just a single nation, let’s say the USA, outlaws all genetic experiments in humans, but China or North Korea continues to do it.So the united states can’t remedy it through itself, and really speedily, the pressure on the united states to do the identical shall be mammoth when you consider that we are speakme about excessive-chance, excessive-achieve technologies. If somebody else is doing it, I cannot allow myself to stay behind. The only way to have regulations, strong rules, on things like genetic engineering, is to have international regulations. For those who just have countrywide laws, nobody want to keep behind. CA: So that is fairly fascinating. It appears to me that this may be one key to provoking at least a positive dialog between the exceptional sides right here, on account that I think each person can agree that the point of a number of the anger that’s propelled us to where we are is when you consider that of the professional concerns about job loss. Work is long past, a normal lifestyle has long past, and it’s no wonder that persons are livid about that. And most commonly, they’ve blamed globalism, world elites, for doing this to them without asking their permission, and that seems like a reliable grievance. However what I hear you announcing is that — so a key query is: what is the actual cause of job loss, both now and going forward? To the extent that it can be about globalism, then the correct response, sure, is to shut down borders and preserve men and women out and alter exchange agreements and many others.However you are announcing, I think, that really the larger cause of job loss will not be going to be that at all. It is going to originate in technological questions, and we don’t have any chance of solving that until we operate as a related world. YNH: Yeah, I feel that, I don’t know in regards to the reward, but looking to the longer term, it’s not the Mexicans or chinese language who will take the jobs from the people in Pennsylvania, it is the robots and algorithms. So until you intend to build a large wall on the border of California — (Laughter) the wall on the border with Mexico goes to be very ineffective. And i used to be struck once I watched the debates earlier than the election, I used to be struck that without doubt Trump didn’t even try to frighten persons through announcing the robots will take your jobs.Now even supposing it’s now not true, it doesn’t matter. It would have been an totally potent manner of frightening humans — (Laughter) and inspiring folks: "The robots will take your jobs!" And nobody used that line. And it made me afraid, on account that it intended that no matter what occurs in universities and laboratories, and there, there is already an intense debate about it, but within the mainstream political process and among the basic public, humans are just unaware that there might be an colossal technological disruption — now not in 200 years, but in 10, 20, 30 years — and we have to do something about it now, partly on account that most of what we educate youngsters today in tuition or in university is going to be completely irrelevant to the job market of 2040, 2050. So it’s not some thing we will need to think about in 2040.We have got to consider in these days what to teach the younger people. CA: Yeah, no, surely. You’ve got usually written about moments in historical past the place humankind has … Entered a new technology, unintentionally. Choices have been made, technologies have been developed, and abruptly the world has changed, most likely in a technique that is worse for everybody. So one of the vital examples you provide in "Sapiens" is solely the entire agricultural revolution, which, for an precise individual tilling the fields, they just picked up a 12-hour backbreaking workday rather of six hours in the jungle and a way more fascinating culture. (Laughter) So are we at another possible phase exchange here, where we type of sleepwalk right into a future that none of us truly needs? YNH: yes, very much so. For the duration of the agricultural revolution, what occurred is that massive technological and financial revolution empowered the human collective, however while you look at specific individual lives, the life of a tiny elite grew to become significantly better, and the lives of nearly all of persons became radically worse. And it will occur again within the 21st century. Definitely the brand new technologies will empower the human collective.However we could turn out to be once more with a tiny elite reaping all of the advantages, taking all the fruits, and the masses of the populace discovering themselves worse than they were earlier than, without doubt a lot worse than this tiny elite. CA: and people elites might no longer even be human elites. They perhaps cyborgs or — YNH: Yeah, they might be enhanced tremendous humans. They could be cyborgs. They could be fully nonorganic elites. They could even be non-aware algorithms. What we see now on this planet is authority moving far from humans to algorithms. More and more selections — about individual lives, about financial concerns, about political issues — are clearly being taken by using algorithms. In the event you ask the bank for a loan, probabilities are your fate is determined by using an algorithm, not by using a person. And the overall influence is that maybe Homo sapiens simply misplaced it.The world is so intricate, there’s a lot knowledge, matters are changing so speedy, that this factor that developed on the African savanna tens of enormous quantities of years in the past — to cope with a specified environment, a unique volume of understanding and knowledge — it simply cannot handle the realities of the 21st century, and the one thing which may be in a position to manage it’s huge-knowledge algorithms. So no wonder increasingly authority is moving from us to the algorithms. CA: So we’re in NY city for the first of a sequence of TED Dialogues with Yuval Harari, and there is a fb are living viewers available in the market.We’re excited to have you with us. We will begin coming to some of your questions and questions of folks within the room in just a few minutes, so have those coming. Yuval, if you’re going to make the argument that we have to get past nationalism given that of the coming technological … Risk, in a way, presented by using so much of what is happening we now have acquired to have a worldwide conversation about this. Drawback is, it is rough to get men and women fairly believing that, I have no idea, AI fairly is an forthcoming threat, etc. The things that individuals, some men and women at least, care about far more immediately, probably, is local weather alternate, perhaps different disorders like refugees, nuclear weapons, and many others.Would you argue that the place we are proper now that by some means these issues must be dialed up? You’ve gotten mentioned climate change, but Trump has mentioned he does not suppose in that. So in a way, your most strong argument, you can not surely use to make this case. YNH: Yeah, I feel with local weather exchange, to start with sight, it’s relatively shocking that there is a very close correlation between nationalism and climate change. I mean, regularly, the humans who deny climate alternate are nationalists. And at first sight, you feel: Why? What is the connection? Why don’t you have got socialists denying climate alternate? However then, whilst you think about it, it’s obvious — due to the fact that nationalism has no method to local weather alternate. If you wish to be a nationalist within the twenty first century, you ought to deny the quandary.If you accept the reality of the situation, then you ought to take delivery of that, sure, there is nonetheless room on the earth for patriotism, there may be nonetheless room on the planet for having special loyalties and obligations closer to your own persons, toward your possess nation. I don’t believe any one is really pondering of abolishing that. However as a way to confront climate trade, we want further loyalties and commitments to a degree past the nation. And that must no longer be unimaginable, seeing that people can have a few layers of loyalty. That you may be loyal to your loved ones and to your neighborhood and to your nation, so why can not you also be loyal to humankind as a whole? Of direction, there are events when it becomes problematic, what to position first, however, you know, existence is elaborate. Handle it. (Laughter) CA: ok, so I would really like to get some questions from the audience right here.We’ve got a microphone here. Communicate into it, and fb, get them coming, too. Howard Morgan: one of the vital matters that has obviously made a significant change in this country and other countries is the revenue distribution inequality, the dramatic alternate in sales distribution in the U.S. From what it was 50 years in the past, and world wide. Is there anything we will do to affect that? Because that gets at quite a few the underlying factors. YNH: so far i have never heard a very good proposal about what to do about it, once more, partly seeing that most recommendations remain on the countrywide level, and the challenge is global. I imply, one notion that we hear rather lots about now’s common general earnings. However this can be a situation. I imply, I consider it is a good , but it’s a challenging notion seeing that it can be no longer clear what "universal" is and it’s now not clear what "general" is. Most persons after they speak about common normal revenue, they certainly mean countrywide normal sales. However the quandary is global.Let’s say that you have AI and 3D printers disposing of millions of jobs in Bangladesh, from all the folks who make my shirts and my sneakers. So what is going on to occur? The united states executive will levy taxes on Google and Apple in California, and use that to pay common revenue to unemployed Bangladeshis? In the event you suppose that, that you could simply as well believe that Santa Claus will come and resolve the challenge. So except we have fairly universal and not countrywide normal income, the deep problems aren’t going to go away. And in addition it is not clear what normal is, seeing that what are common human needs? A thousand years ago, simply meals and shelter was once enough. But today, men and women will say schooling is a general human want, it must be part of the bundle.However how so much? Six years? Twelve years? PhD? Similarly, with wellbeing care, shall we embrace that in 20, 30, forty years, you’ll be able to have costly remedies that may extend human life to one hundred twenty, I have no idea. Will this be part of the basket of common earnings or no longer? It is an extraordinarily elaborate challenge, seeing that in a global where people lose their potential to be employed, the one thing they are going to get is this basic revenue. So what’s a part of it is a very, very complicated ethical query. CA: there is a bunch of questions on how the arena affords it as well, who can pay. There may be a question here from facebook from Lisa Larson: "How does nationalism in the USA now compare to that between World struggle I and World struggle II within the final century?" YNH: good the excellent news, with regard to the hazards of nationalism, we’re in a much better function than a century in the past. A century in the past, 1917, Europeans have been killing every different through the hundreds of thousands. In 2016, with Brexit, so far as I take into account, a single person lost their existence, an MP who was murdered by some extremist.Only a single character. I imply, if Brexit used to be about British independence, that is the most peaceful battle of independence in human historical past. And shall we say that Scotland will now prefer to depart the united kingdom after Brexit. So within the 18th century, if Scotland wanted — and the Scots desired a couple of occasions — to interrupt out of the control of London, the reaction of the government in London used to be to send an military up north to burn down Edinburgh and bloodbath the highland tribes. My guess is that if, in 2018, the Scots vote for independence, the London govt is not going to send an army up north to burn down Edinburgh.Only a few people are now willing to kill or be killed for Scottish or for British independence. So for the entire talk of the rise of nationalism and going again to the 1930s, to the nineteenth century, within the West at least, the power of national sentiments at present is a long way, a ways smaller than it used to be a century ago. CA: although some men and women now, you hear publicly demanding about whether that maybe shifting, that there could virtually be outbreaks of violence in the united states depending on how things prove. Will have to we be concerned about that, or do you relatively feel things have shifted? YNH: No, we will have to be concerned. We must be conscious of two matters. To begin with, don’t be hysterical. We are not again within the First World struggle but. However however, do not be complacent. We reached from 1917 to 2017, not with the aid of some divine miracle, but without problems by means of human selections, and if we now begin making the improper decisions, we would be back in an analogous hindrance to 1917 in a couple of years.One of the crucial matters i do know as a historian is that you just must by no means underestimate human stupidity. (Laughter) it’s one of the most strong forces in historical past, human stupidity and human violence. People do such loopy things for no obvious rationale, but again, whilst, yet another very strong force in human historical past is human knowledge. We’ve got both. CA: now we have with us right here ethical psychologist Jonathan Haidt, who I believe has a question. Jonathan Haidt: Thanks, Yuval. So you appear to be a fan of global governance, however while you seem at the map of the world from Transparency worldwide, which premiums the level of corruption of political institutions, it can be a tremendous sea of red with little bits of yellow here and there for those with good associations.So if we have been to have some variety of global governance, what makes you feel it might end up being more like Denmark alternatively than extra like Russia or Honduras, and aren’t there possible choices, similar to we did with CFCs? There are ways to remedy international issues with country wide governments. What would world govt actually seem like, and why do you think it could work? YNH: well, I don’t know what it could appear like. No one still has a model for that. The main rationale we want it’s because many of these problems are lose-lose occasions. In case you have a win-win drawback like trade, either side can advantage from a alternate agreement, then that is anything that you can determine. With out some kind of global executive, national governments each have an curiosity in doing it. But if you have a lose-lose trouble like with climate exchange, it is way more problematic with out some overarching authority, actual authority.Now, the way to get there and what would it not appear like, I don’t know. And obviously there is no obvious intent to believe that it might appear like Denmark, or that it might be a democracy. Undoubtedly it would not. We don’t have viable democratic items for a global executive. So maybe it could seem more like ancient China than like modern-day Denmark. However still, given the dangers that we are facing, I think the critical of getting some type of actual capacity to drive via difficult choices on the worldwide stage is extra predominant than practically something else. CA: there is a question from facebook here, and then we will get the mic to Andrew.So, Kat Hebron on facebook, calling in from Vail: "How would developed nations manage the thousands of local weather migrants?" YNH: I do not know. CA: that is your reply, Kat. (Laughter) YNH: And i do not consider that they understand either. They will just deny the trouble, probably. CA: but immigration, customarily, is an extra illustration of a crisis that’s very difficult to resolve on a nation-by-nation basis. One nation can shut its doors, however possibly that stores up issues for the long run. YNH: sure, I mean — it is one more excellent case, peculiarly considering it is a lot simpler to migrate in these days than it was in the core a long time or in ancient occasions. CA: Yuval, there may be a belief among many technologists, most likely, that political considerations are style of overblown, that without a doubt, political leaders should not have that much impact in the world, that the actual resolution of humanity at this factor is by using science, through invention, via businesses, by using many matters as opposed to political leaders, and it can be truly very hard for leaders to do a lot, so we’re clearly stressful about nothing right here.YNH: good, first, it will have to be emphasized that it’s authentic that political leaders’ ability to do good is very limited, but their potential to do damage is limitless. There’s a normal imbalance right here. That you would be able to nonetheless press the button and blow all people up. You have got that sort of capability. But if you need, for example, to scale back inequality, that is very, very problematic. But to a warfare, which you can nonetheless accomplish that very without difficulty. So there’s a built-in imbalance within the political method today which is very frustrating, the place you can not do numerous good but which you can still do plenty of damage. And this makes the political method still an extraordinarily significant quandary. CA: in order you seem at what’s going down in these days, and placing your historian’s hat on, do you seem again in historical past at moments when things were going just fine and an person chief quite took the arena or their country backwards? YNH: There are fairly just a few examples, but I will have to emphasize, it is by no means an man or woman leader. I imply, somebody put him there, and a person allowed him to proceed to be there. So it can be certainly not fairly simply the fault of a single individual.There are various men and women behind every such individual. CA: Can we have now the microphone here, please, to Andrew? Andrew Solomon: you’ve gotten talked rather a lot concerning the international versus the country wide, however more and more, it seems to me, the sector trouble is within the hands of identity agencies. We seem at individuals within the USA who have been recruited via ISIS. We look at these different agencies which have fashioned which go outside of country wide bounds but nonetheless symbolize gigantic authorities. How are they to be integrated into the procedure, and the way is a various set of identities to be made coherent underneath both countrywide or international management? YNH: well, the situation of such numerous identities is a obstacle from nationalism as good. Nationalism believes in a single, monolithic identification, and unusual or as a minimum more severe versions of nationalism think in an unique loyalty to a single identity. And thus, nationalism has had a lot of issues with folks looking to divide their identities between various corporations.So it is no longer only a concern, say, for a worldwide imaginative and prescient. And i consider, once more, history indicates that you simply mustn’t always feel in such individual terms. For those who suppose that there is just a single identification for a individual, "i’m just X, that’s it, I can not be a couple of things, i will be able to be simply that," that’s the of the crisis. You have got religions, you could have countries that often demand exclusive loyalty, but it’s now not the only option. There are many religions and plenty of international locations that enable you to have various identities even as. CA: but is one clarification of what’s happened in the final yr that a group of persons have got uninterested with, if you happen to like, the liberal elites, for need of a better time period, obsessing over many, many exclusive identities and them feeling, "but what about my identity? I am being entirely unnoticed here. And incidentally, I suggestion I was once the bulk"? And that that’s truely sparked a number of the anger. YNH: Yeah.Identification is continuously complicated, seeing that identification is continually founded on fictional studies that in the end collide with truth. Practically all identities, I imply, beyond the level of the fundamental group of a few dozen people, are situated on a fictional story. They are not the reality. They are not the truth. It can be simply a narrative that humans invent and tell one a different and believing. And consequently all identities are highly unstable. They aren’t a biological truth. Many times nationalists, for illustration, feel that the nation is a biological entity. It’s made from the blend of soil and blood, creates the nation. But this is just a fictional story. CA: Soil and blood kind of makes a gooey mess. (Laughter) YNH: It does, and likewise it messes with your mind when you feel an excessive amount of that i’m a combination of soil and blood. For those who seem from a organic standpoint, surely none of the international locations that exist today existed 5,000 years in the past. Homo sapiens is a social animal, that’s for definite. However for millions of years, Homo sapiens and our hominid ancestors lived in small communities of a few dozen participants.Every person knew each person else. Whereas cutting-edge countries are imagined communities, in the experience that i don’t even know all these persons. I come from a somewhat small nation, Israel, and of eight million Israelis, I never met most of them. I will on no account meet most of them. They clearly exist right here. CA: however in phrases of this identification, this staff who feel omitted and might be have work taken away, I mean, in "Homo Deus," you actually speak of this workforce in a single experience increasing, that so many individuals can have their jobs taken away through technology one way or the other that we might come to be with a quite massive — I think you name it a "vain type" — a category where ordinarily, as viewed via the financial system, these humans have no use.YNH: yes. CA: How seemingly a possibility is that? Is that something we will have to be terrified about? And can we address it in anyway? YNH: We will have to consider about it very carefully. I mean, no person rather knows what the job market will appear like in 2040, 2050. There is a chance many new jobs will appear, however it’s now not designated. And even if new jobs do show up, it will not always be handy for a 50-yr historic unemployed truck driver made unemployed via self-riding vehicles, it will not be convenient for an unemployed truck driver to reinvent himself or herself as a designer of virtual worlds. Earlier, for those who seem on the trajectory of the economic revolution, when machines replaced humans in one style of work, the solution most commonly came from low-ability work in new lines of business.So that you did not need any further agricultural workers, so persons moved to working in low-talent industrial jobs, and when this was once taken away by using more and more machines, people moved to low-skill service jobs. Now, when persons say there shall be new jobs at some point, that humans can do better than AI, that humans can do higher than robots, they more often than not believe about high-skill jobs, like program engineers designing digital worlds. Now, i don’t see how an unemployed cashier from Wal-Mart reinvents herself or himself at 50 as a designer of virtual worlds, and definitely i don’t see how the millions of unemployed Bangladeshi textile staff will likely be in a position to do that.I mean, if they will do it, we must teaching the Bangladeshis today methods to be application designers, and we are not doing it. So what will they do in two decades? CA: So it seems like you are really highlighting a query that is fairly been bugging me the last few months more and more. It is nearly a rough query to ask in public, but if any mind has some knowledge to present in it, possibly it can be yours, so i’m going to ask you: What are people for? YNH: as far as we know, for nothing.(Laughter) I imply, there’s no quality cosmic drama, some quality cosmic plan, that we have a position to play in. And we simply have to realize what our position is and then play it to the fine of our ability. This has been the story of all religions and ideologies and many others, however as a scientist, the nice i can say is this isn’t authentic. There is no common drama with a role in it for Homo sapiens. So — CA: i will push back on you only for a minute, just from your own booklet, due to the fact in "Homo Deus," you give fairly one of the vital coherent and understandable bills about sentience, about cognizance, and that designated kind of human talent. You factor out that it can be specific from intelligence, the intelligence that we’re constructing in machines, and that there is absolutely quite a few thriller round it. How can you be sure there isn’t a intent once we don’t even recognize what this sentience thing is? I mean, on your own considering, is not there a risk that what humans are for is to be the universe’s sentient matters, to be the centers of joy and love and happiness and hope? And possibly we can construct machines that really aid expand that, even if they may be not going to turn out to be sentient themselves? Is that crazy? I type of discovered myself hoping that, reading your guide.YNH: good, I absolutely consider that essentially the most intriguing question at present in science is the question of realization and the intellect. We have become higher and higher in understanding the brain and intelligence, but we’re not getting a lot better in figuring out the intellect and attention. Individuals mainly confuse intelligence and awareness, notably in areas like Silicon Valley, which is understandable, when you consider that in humans, they go collectively. I mean, intelligence clearly is the capacity to clear up issues. Realization is the capability to think matters, to think joy and disappointment and boredom and suffering etc.In Homo sapiens and all other mammals as well — it is no longer detailed to people — in all mammals and birds and any other animals, intelligence and awareness go together. We ordinarily remedy problems by way of feeling matters. So we are likely to confuse them. But they’re distinctive things. What’s taking place today in locations like Silicon Valley is that we’re creating artificial intelligence but not synthetic attention. There has been an robust progress in pc intelligence over the final 50 years, and exactly zero development in laptop consciousness, and there is not any indication that computers are going to end up aware anytime soon. So to start with, if there is some cosmic position for consciousness, it’s not specified to Homo sapiens.Cows are conscious, pigs are conscious, chimpanzees are conscious, chickens are aware, so if we go that approach, to begin with, we need to increase our horizons and do not forget very obviously we are not the only sentient beings on the planet, and when it comes to sentience — in the case of intelligence, there may be excellent motive to think we are probably the most intelligent of the entire bunch. However in the case of sentience, to assert that people are more sentient than whales, or more sentient than baboons or extra sentient than cats, I see no evidence for that. So first step is, you go in that path, expand. After which the 2d query of what is it for, i’d reverse it and i would say that i do not consider sentience is for something. I think we do not need to in finding our position within the universe. The particularly important factor is to liberate ourselves from suffering. What characterizes sentient beings unlike robots, to stones, to something, is that sentient beings endure, can suffer, and what they will have to focus on is just not finding their position in some mysterious cosmic drama. They must center of attention on working out what suffering is, what causes it and how to be liberated from it.CA: i know this is a huge trouble for you, and that was once very eloquent. We’ll have a blizzard of questions from the audience right here, and perhaps from fb as well, and probably some comments as good. So let’s go speedy. There is one right right here. Preserve your hands held up at the back if you need the mic, and we’ll get it back to you. Question: to your work, you speak loads about the fictional stories that we be given as truth, and we reside our lives by means of it. As an individual, figuring out that, how does it have an impact on the studies that you just decide on to reside your existence, and do you confuse them with the reality, like several of us? YNH: I try to not. I imply, for me, perhaps the essential query, each as a scientist and as a person, is how you can tell the difference between fiction and fact, due to the fact truth is there. I am not saying that the whole thing is fiction. It can be just very elaborate for human beings to tell the difference between fiction and reality, and it has emerge as increasingly problematic as historical past improved, on account that the fictions that we now have created — countries and gods and cash and enterprises — they now manage the world.So simply to even believe, "Oh, that is just all fictional entities that we now have created," may be very complex. But truth is there. For me the great … There are a number of exams to tell the change between fiction and truth. The easiest one, the best person who i can say briefly, is the test of suffering. If it may undergo, it is actual. If it cannot undergo, it’s not real. A nation can’t undergo. That is very, very clear. Although a nation loses a war, we are saying, "Germany suffered a defeat within the First World warfare," it’s a metaphor.Germany are not able to endure. Germany has no mind. Germany has no attention. Germans can suffer, yes, but Germany cannot. In a similar fashion, when a bank goes bust, the financial institution cannot undergo. When the buck loses its price, the buck does not suffer. Folks can suffer. Animals can endure. That is real. So i might start, if you happen to rather wish to see truth, i’d go via the door of struggling. If you can fairly appreciate what struggling is, this offers you additionally the important thing to realise what fact is. CA: there is a fb question here that connects to this, from any individual world wide in a language that I can not learn. YNH: Oh, it is Hebrew. CA: Hebrew. There you go. (Laughter) are you able to learn the title? YNH: Or Lauterbach Goren.CA: well, thanks for writing in. The query is: "Is the post-truth technology relatively a brand-new generation, or simply a further climax or second in a under no circumstances-ending development? YNH: personally, i don’t join with this idea of put up-truth. My general response as a historian is: If that is the generation of publish-fact, when the hell was once the technology of fact? CA: correct. (Laughter) YNH: was it the 1980s, the Nineteen Fifties, the middle ages? I imply, we have at all times lived in an generation, in a technique, of post-actuality. CA: however i would chase away on that, for the reason that I believe what individuals are talking about is that there was once a world where you had fewer journalistic retailers, where there were traditions, that things were reality-checked.It used to be included into the charter of these organizations that the reality mattered. So if you believe in a reality, then what you write is information. There was a belief that that know-how must hook up with reality in a real approach, and for those who wrote a headline, it was a major, earnest try to mirror whatever that had absolutely happened. And persons did not continuously get it proper. However I consider the trouble now’s you will have bought a technological process that is totally robust that, for a while at least, massively amplified whatever without a awareness paid to whether it related to reality, simplest to whether it linked to clicks and concentration, and that that was once arguably toxic.That is an inexpensive quandary, is not it? YNH: Yeah, it’s. I imply, the technological know-how alterations, and it can be now easier to disseminate each reality and fiction and falsehood. It goes both ways. It’s also a lot simpler, though, to spread the reality than it used to be ever before. But i do not consider there may be anything just about new about this disseminating fictions and mistakes. There may be nothing that — I have no idea — Joseph Goebbels, failed to know about all this notion of fake news and post-actuality.He famously said that if you repeat a lie most likely adequate, men and women will believe it can be the truth, and the greater the lie, the easier, considering folks will not even suppose that whatever so big could be a lie. I think that fake information has been with us for countless numbers of years. Just suppose of the Bible. (Laughter) CA: however there’s a drawback that the fake news is related to tyrannical regimes, and when you see an uprise in fake news that may be a canary within the coal mine that there may be dark times coming. YNH: Yeah. I mean, the intentional use of fake news is a demanding signal. But i’m not announcing that it’s now not bad, i am simply pronouncing that it can be not new. CA: there may be quite a few interest on fb on this question about global governance versus nationalism. Question right here from Phil Dennis: "How can we get men and women, governments, to relinquish vigor? Is that — is that — sincerely, the textual content is so enormous I can’t read the entire query.However is that a necessity? Is it going to take war to get there? Sorry Phil — I mangled your question, but I blame the text proper right here. YNH: One option that some folks talk about is that handiest a catastrophe can shake humankind and open the trail to a real method of global governance, and they say that we can’t do it earlier than the catastrophe, but we have got to start laying the foundations so that when the catastrophe strikes, we are able to react rapidly. But people will just no longer have the incentive to do this type of factor earlier than the disaster strikes. A further thing that i might emphasize is that anyone who’s quite enthusiastic about international governance will have to perpetually make it very, very clear that it would not substitute or abolish local identities and communities, that it will have to come each as — It will have to be part of a single package.CA: I wish to hear extra on this, since the very words "global governance" are almost the epitome of evil in the mind-set of quite a few folks on the alt-proper right now. It simply appears frightening, far flung, distant, and it has allow them to down, and so globalists, global governance — no, go away! And lots of view the election as the perfect poke within the eye to any individual who believes in that. So how do we alter the narrative so that it doesn’t appear so frightening and faraway? Construct more on this thought of it being compatible with nearby identity, nearby communities. YNH: well, I think once more we must particularly with the biological realities of Homo sapiens. And biology tells us two matters about Homo sapiens that are very vital to this trouble: initially, that we’re completely based on the ecological approach round us, and that today we’re speaking a few world process.You are not able to get away that. And whilst, biology tells us about Homo sapiens that we are social animals, however that we’re social on a very, very local level. It can be only a easy truth of humanity that we can not have intimate familiarity with more than about one hundred fifty members. The scale of the natural staff, the usual neighborhood of Homo sapiens, shouldn’t be more than one hundred fifty contributors, and the whole thing past that is particularly headquartered on all types of imaginary reviews and huge-scale institutions, and i consider that we can have the ability, again, headquartered on a biological working out of our species, to weave the 2 collectively and to comprehend that today in the 21st century, we want both the global degree and the regional group.And i would go even further than that and say that it begins with the physique itself. The sentiments that folks in these days have of alienation and loneliness and now not discovering their location on the planet, i’d consider that the chief trouble is not international capitalism. The chief difficulty is that over the last hundred years, people have been fitting disembodied, have been distancing themselves from their physique. As a hunter-gatherer or whilst a peasant, to outlive, you must be always in touch along with your body and with your senses, every second.If you go to the woodland to look for mushrooms and you don’t pay attention to what you hear, to what you odor, to what you style, you are lifeless. So you need to be very related. Within the last hundred years, persons are dropping their ability to be in touch with their body and their senses, to listen to, to scent, to feel. Increasingly awareness goes to screens, to what’s happening somewhere else, any other time. This, I consider, is the deep purpose for the feelings of alienation and loneliness and many others, and as a consequence part of the solution is not to bring again some mass nationalism, but additionally reconnect with our own our bodies, and in case you are back in contact with your physique, you are going to believe rather more at home on this planet also. CA: good, relying on how matters go, we may all be back in the forest soon. We will have a further question in the room and one other on fb. Ama Adi-Dako: hi there. I am from Ghana, West Africa, and my question is: i ponder how do you present and justify the concept of worldwide governance to nations which have been traditionally disenfranchised by way of the effects of globalization, and likewise, if we’re speaking about global governance, it sounds to me like it’s going to surely come from a very Westernized thought of what the "world" is supposed to appear like.So how will we reward and justify that idea of worldwide versus absolutely nationalist to people in countries like Ghana and Nigeria and Togo and other nations like that? YNH: i’d begin through announcing that historical past is incredibly unfair, and that we should comprehend that. A few of the international locations that suffered most from the final 200 years of globalization and imperialism and industrialization are exactly the international locations which might be also definitely to undergo most from the following wave.And we must be very, very clear about that. If we would not have a global governance, and if we endure from local weather alternate, from technological disruptions, the worst suffering is probably not in the united states. The worst struggling shall be in Ghana, can be in Sudan, shall be in Syria, shall be in Bangladesh, shall be in those locations. So I consider these nations have a good better incentive to do whatever about the next wave of disruption, whether it can be ecological or whether it’s technological. Once more, in the event you think about technological disruption, so if AI and 3D printers and robots will take the jobs from billions of persons, I fear some distance much less about the Swedes than about the humans in Ghana or in Bangladesh. And accordingly, considering the fact that historical past is so unfair and the outcome of a calamity might not be shared equally between each person, as usual, the rich will likely be equipped to get far from the worst consequences of local weather trade in a technique that the terrible will not be equipped to.CA: And here’s a excellent query from Cameron Taylor on fb: "at the finish of ‘Sapiens,’" you stated we will have to be asking the query, ‘What will we want to want?’ good, what do you consider we must wish to need?" YNH: I suppose we should want to wish to comprehend the reality, to fully grasp truth. Customarily what we wish is to change reality, to suit it to our own wants, to our possess needs, and that i think we should first wish to recognize it. When you appear on the lengthy-time period trajectory of historical past, what you see is that for 1000s of years we people were gaining manage of the arena outside us and looking to form it to fit our possess wants. And now we have received manage of the other animals, of the rivers, of the forests, and reshaped them absolutely, inflicting an ecological destruction without making ourselves satisfied.So your next step is we flip our gaze inwards, and we say ok, getting manage of the sector outside us did not really make us convinced. Let’s now try to attain manage of the sector inside of us. That is the quite significant project of science and science and enterprise within the 21st century — to check out and attain control of the arena inside of us, to be taught the right way to engineer and produce bodies and brains and minds. These are prone to be the primary merchandise of the 21st century economic climate. When folks feel about the future, very frequently they think in phrases, "Oh, I need to attain manage of my physique and of my mind." and i believe that is very dangerous. If now we have discovered whatever from our prior history, it can be that yes, we obtain the power to control, however for the reason that we didn’t rather have an understanding of the complexity of the ecological process, we are actually facing an ecological meltdown.And if we now attempt to reengineer the world inside us without particularly working out it, chiefly without figuring out the complexity of our intellectual process, we could cause a kind of interior ecological disaster, and we will face a type of intellectual meltdown inside of us. CA: hanging all of the portions together here — the current politics, the approaching technology, considerations like the one you could have just outlined — I imply, it looks as if you yourself are in fairly a bleak position when you consider in regards to the future. You are lovely concerned about it.Is that proper? And if there was one intent for hope, how would you state that? YNH: I focal point on probably the most harmful potentialities partly on account that that is like my job or accountability as a historian or social critic. I mean, the enterprise focuses as a rule on the optimistic sides, so it’s the job of historians and philosophers and sociologists to highlight the more unsafe abilities of all these new applied sciences. I do not think any of that’s inevitable. Technological know-how is not ever deterministic. You need to use the identical technological know-how to create very distinct forms of societies. In the event you seem at the 20th century, so, the applied sciences of the economic Revolution, the trains and electricity and all that could be used to create a communist dictatorship or a fascist regime or a liberal democracy. The trains did not tell you what to do with them. In a similar way, now, artificial intelligence and bioengineering and all of that — they don’t predetermine a single end result. Humanity can stand up to the assignment, and the excellent illustration we’ve of humanity rising up to the assignment of a brand new technological know-how is nuclear weapons. In the late Nineteen Forties, ’50s, many persons had been satisfied that eventually the bloodless struggle will end in a nuclear disaster, destroying human civilization.And this didn’t occur. Correctly, nuclear weapons brought on humans all over the world to change the way that they manipulate worldwide politics to lower violence. And many countries truly took out struggle from their political toolkit. They not tried to pursue their pursuits with war. Not all nations have executed so, but many countries have. And this is probably the main reason why international violence declined dramatically considering the fact that 1945, and in these days, as I said, more men and women commit suicide than are killed in warfare.So this, I feel, gives us a just right instance that even the most horrifying science, people can get up to the mission and genuinely some good can come out of it. The crisis is, we have little or no margin for error. If we don’t get it correct, we might now not have a second option to take a look at once more. CA: that is an extraordinarily strong word, on which I feel we must draw this to a conclusion. Before I wrap up, I simply want to say one factor to humans right here and to the worldwide TED neighborhood observing on-line, any individual observing on-line: help us with these dialogues.If you consider, like we do, that we ought to in finding a different variety of conversation, now more than ever, support us do it. Reach out to different humans, attempt to have conversations with individuals you disagree with, comprehend them, pull the portions together, and aid us determine methods to take these conversations ahead a good way to make an actual contribution to what’s happening on the planet correct now. I believe all people feels more alive, extra concerned, more engaged with the politics of the second. The stakes do look really excessive, so support us respond to it in a shrewd, sensible means. Yuval Harari, thanks. (Applause) .

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Nationalism vs. globalism: the new political divide | Yuval Noah Harari

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Nationalism vs. globalism: the new political divide | Yuval Noah Harari

Chris Anderson: hi there. Welcome to this TED Dialogues. It’s the primary of a series that’s going to be completed in line with the present political upheaval. I don’t know about you; I’ve turn out to be really concerned concerning the growing divisiveness on this country and on the earth. No one’s listening to one another. Right? They don’t seem to be. I imply, it feels like we want yet another sort of conversation, one that is based on — I do not know, on reason, listening, on working out, on a broader context. That is at least what we’re going to try in these TED Dialogues, establishing today.And we could not have any one with us who i’d be more excited to kick this off. It is a mind correct here that thinks most of the time like no person else on the earth, i might hasten to claim. I am critical. (Yuval Noah Harari laughs) i am severe. He synthesizes history with underlying suggestions in a technique that variety of takes your breath away. So, a few of you are going to know this booklet, "Sapiens." Has anybody here read "Sapiens"? (Applause) I imply, I would not put it down. The best way that he tells the story of mankind by way of gigantic recommendations that fairly make you feel in a different way — it’s sort of mighty. And here is the comply with-up, which I think is being released in the united states next week. YNH: Yeah, next week. CA: "Homo Deus." Now, that is the history of the next hundred years. I’ve had a chance to learn it. It can be incredibly dramatic, and that i daresay, for some humans, rather alarming. It is a need to-read. And actually, we couldn’t have anyone higher to aid make experience of what in the world is taking place on the earth correct now. So a warm welcome, please, to Yuval Noah Harari.(Applause) it is nice to be joined by way of our acquaintances on fb and around the web. Hi there, fb. And all of you, as I begin asking questions of Yuval, provide you with your own questions, and now not always about the political scandal du jour, but about the broader understanding of: the place are we heading? You competent? Ok, we’re going to go. So right here we are, Yuval: New York city, 2017, there’s a new president in power, and shock waves rippling all over the world. What on this planet is happening? YNH: I consider the basic factor that occurred is that we’ve lost our story. People think in studies, and we try to make experience of the arena by means of telling reviews. And for the last few many years, we had a very simple and really attractive story about what’s taking place on the earth. And the story stated that, oh, what’s going down is that the economic climate is being globalized, politics is being liberalized, and the blend of the two will create paradise on this planet, and we simply need to hold on globalizing the economic system and liberalizing the political method, and the whole thing will be distinctive.And 2016 is the second when an extraordinarily big section, even of the Western world, stopped believing on this story. For just right or dangerous explanations — it’s not relevant. Humans stopped believing in the story, and when you wouldn’t have a story, you do not comprehend what’s happening. CA: part of you believes that that story used to be actually an extraordinarily effective story. It labored. YNH: to a degree, sure. In accordance to a few measurements, we are actually within the first-rate time ever for humankind. Today, for the first time in history, more individuals die from eating too much than from consuming too little, which is an powerful fulfillment. (Laughter) additionally for the first time in historical past, extra persons die from historical age than from infectious illnesses, and violence is also down. For the first time in history, more people commit suicide than are killed by crime and terrorism and warfare put together. Statistically, you might be your own worst enemy.As a minimum, of all the humans on the planet, you’re definitely to be killed by using your self — (Laughter) which is, once more, very good information, in comparison — (Laughter) compared to the level of violence that we noticed in earlier eras. CA: however this approach of connecting the arena ended up with a giant group of folks sort of feeling neglected, and so they’ve reacted. And so we have now this bombshell that’s kind of ripping by way of the whole process. I mean, what do you make of what’s occurred? It feels just like the historical approach that folks idea of politics, the left-proper divide, has been blown up and replaced. How should we believe of this? YNH: Yeah, the historical 20th-century political mannequin of left versus correct is now mostly inappropriate, and the true divide at present is between global and national, global or local.And also you see it once more all over the sector that that is now the essential battle. We typically need absolutely new political items and fully new ways of interested by politics. In essence, what which you can say is that now we have world ecology, we now have a world economic system but we have now country wide politics, and this does not work together. This makes the political system ineffective, because it has no manage over the forces that form our lifestyles. And you’ve got in actual fact two options to this imbalance: either de-globalize the economic climate and turn it again into a countrywide financial system, or globalize the political method. CA: So some, i assume many liberals out there view Trump and his govt as style of irredeemably dangerous, simply awful in each means. Do you see any underlying narrative or political philosophy in there that’s as a minimum worth understanding? How would you articulate that philosophy? Is it simply the philosophy of nationalism? YNH: I think the underlying feeling or suggestion is that the political method — some thing is damaged there. It would not empower the ordinary man or woman anymore. It does not care a lot about the ordinary man or woman anymore, and i believe this analysis of the political disease is correct.In regards to the solutions, i am far less special. I believe what we’re seeing is the immediate human reaction: if anything would not work, let’s return. And you see it far and wide the world, that folks, just about no one in the political process in these days, has any future-oriented imaginative and prescient of where humankind goes. Practically far and wide, you see retrograde imaginative and prescient: "Let’s make the usa high-quality once more," love it was once great — I don’t know — in the ’50s, within the ’80s, someday, let’s go back there. And you go to Russia a hundred years after Lenin, Putin’s vision for the long run is essentially, ah, let’s return to the Tsarist empire. And in Israel, the place I come from, the freshest political vision of the gift is: "Let’s build the temple again." So let’s go back 2,000 years backwards.So people are pondering someday up to now we’ve misplaced it, and usually prior to now, it’s like you’ve lost your method in the city, and also you say good enough, let’s return to the factor where I felt comfy and once more. I do not feel it will work, however quite a lot of humans, that is their intestine instinct. CA: however why could not it work? "the united states First" is a very appealing slogan in lots of methods. Patriotism is, in many methods, an awfully noble factor. It can be played a function in promoting cooperation among significant numbers of humans. Why couldn’t you might have a global prepared in nations, all of which put themselves first? YNH: for many centuries, even hundreds and hundreds of years, patriotism worked quite good. Of direction, it resulted in wars an so forth, however we mustn’t focus too much on the bad. There are additionally many, many constructive matters about patriotism, and the capacity to have a massive quantity of men and women care about each and every different, sympathize with one a different, and come collectively for collective action. When you return to the primary countries, so, countless numbers of years ago, the persons who lived alongside the Yellow River in China — it used to be many, many specific tribes and they all depended on the river for survival and for prosperity, however all of them additionally suffered from periodical floods and periodical droughts.And no tribe might quite do anything about it, considering every of them managed just a tiny element of the river. And then in a protracted and tricky process, the tribes coalesced together to form the chinese language nation, which managed the entire Yellow River and had the capacity to deliver enormous quantities of hundreds of folks together to construct dams and canals and keep an eye on the river and hinder the worst floods and droughts and raise the level of prosperity for every body.And this labored in many areas around the world. But in the 21st century, technology is changing all that in a predominant method. We are now dwelling — all people on the earth — are dwelling alongside the identical cyber river, and no single nation can keep an eye on this river by way of itself. We are all dwelling together on a single planet, which is threatened by our own movements. And when you wouldn’t have some variety of world cooperation, nationalism is just not on the right stage to sort out the problems, whether or not it can be climate alternate or whether or not it can be technological disruption.CA: So it was once a wonderful proposal in a world the place many of the motion, many of the disorders, took location on countrywide scale, however your argument is that the disorders that topic most today not take place on a countrywide scale but on a worldwide scale. YNH: exactly. All the major issues of the world today are international in essence, and so they cannot be solved until by way of some form of world cooperation. It’s not simply climate exchange, which is, like, essentially the most apparent example persons give. I think extra in phrases of technological disruption. In case you think about, for example, synthetic intelligence, over the following 20, 30 years pushing thousands of millions of humans out of the job market — it is a situation on a global degree. It will disrupt the economy of all of the countries. And in a similar fashion, if you happen to think about, say, bioengineering and men and women being afraid of conducting, I have no idea, genetic engineering study in people, it will not support if just a single nation, let’s say the USA, outlaws all genetic experiments in humans, but China or North Korea continues to do it.So the united states can’t remedy it through itself, and really speedily, the pressure on the united states to do the identical shall be mammoth when you consider that we are speakme about excessive-chance, excessive-achieve technologies. If somebody else is doing it, I cannot allow myself to stay behind. The only way to have regulations, strong rules, on things like genetic engineering, is to have international regulations. For those who just have countrywide laws, nobody want to keep behind. CA: So that is fairly fascinating. It appears to me that this may be one key to provoking at least a positive dialog between the exceptional sides right here, on account that I think each person can agree that the point of a number of the anger that’s propelled us to where we are is when you consider that of the professional concerns about job loss. Work is long past, a normal lifestyle has long past, and it’s no wonder that persons are livid about that. And most commonly, they’ve blamed globalism, world elites, for doing this to them without asking their permission, and that seems like a reliable grievance. However what I hear you announcing is that — so a key query is: what is the actual cause of job loss, both now and going forward? To the extent that it can be about globalism, then the correct response, sure, is to shut down borders and preserve men and women out and alter exchange agreements and many others.However you are announcing, I think, that really the larger cause of job loss will not be going to be that at all. It is going to originate in technological questions, and we don’t have any chance of solving that until we operate as a related world. YNH: Yeah, I feel that, I don’t know in regards to the reward, but looking to the longer term, it’s not the Mexicans or chinese language who will take the jobs from the people in Pennsylvania, it is the robots and algorithms. So until you intend to build a large wall on the border of California — (Laughter) the wall on the border with Mexico goes to be very ineffective. And i used to be struck once I watched the debates earlier than the election, I used to be struck that without doubt Trump didn’t even try to frighten persons through announcing the robots will take your jobs.Now even supposing it’s now not true, it doesn’t matter. It would have been an totally potent manner of frightening humans — (Laughter) and inspiring folks: "The robots will take your jobs!" And nobody used that line. And it made me afraid, on account that it intended that no matter what occurs in universities and laboratories, and there, there is already an intense debate about it, but within the mainstream political process and among the basic public, humans are just unaware that there might be an colossal technological disruption — now not in 200 years, but in 10, 20, 30 years — and we have to do something about it now, partly on account that most of what we educate youngsters today in tuition or in university is going to be completely irrelevant to the job market of 2040, 2050. So it’s not some thing we will need to think about in 2040.We have got to consider in these days what to teach the younger people. CA: Yeah, no, surely. You’ve got usually written about moments in historical past the place humankind has … Entered a new technology, unintentionally. Choices have been made, technologies have been developed, and abruptly the world has changed, most likely in a technique that is worse for everybody. So one of the vital examples you provide in "Sapiens" is solely the entire agricultural revolution, which, for an precise individual tilling the fields, they just picked up a 12-hour backbreaking workday rather of six hours in the jungle and a way more fascinating culture. (Laughter) So are we at another possible phase exchange here, where we type of sleepwalk right into a future that none of us truly needs? YNH: yes, very much so. For the duration of the agricultural revolution, what occurred is that massive technological and financial revolution empowered the human collective, however while you look at specific individual lives, the life of a tiny elite grew to become significantly better, and the lives of nearly all of persons became radically worse. And it will occur again within the 21st century. Definitely the brand new technologies will empower the human collective.However we could turn out to be once more with a tiny elite reaping all of the advantages, taking all the fruits, and the masses of the populace discovering themselves worse than they were earlier than, without doubt a lot worse than this tiny elite. CA: and people elites might no longer even be human elites. They perhaps cyborgs or — YNH: Yeah, they might be enhanced tremendous humans. They could be cyborgs. They could be fully nonorganic elites. They could even be non-aware algorithms. What we see now on this planet is authority moving far from humans to algorithms. More and more selections — about individual lives, about financial concerns, about political issues — are clearly being taken by using algorithms. In the event you ask the bank for a loan, probabilities are your fate is determined by using an algorithm, not by using a person. And the overall influence is that maybe Homo sapiens simply misplaced it.The world is so intricate, there’s a lot knowledge, matters are changing so speedy, that this factor that developed on the African savanna tens of enormous quantities of years in the past — to cope with a specified environment, a unique volume of understanding and knowledge — it simply cannot handle the realities of the 21st century, and the one thing which may be in a position to manage it’s huge-knowledge algorithms. So no wonder increasingly authority is moving from us to the algorithms. CA: So we’re in NY city for the first of a sequence of TED Dialogues with Yuval Harari, and there is a fb are living viewers available in the market.We’re excited to have you with us. We will begin coming to some of your questions and questions of folks within the room in just a few minutes, so have those coming. Yuval, if you’re going to make the argument that we have to get past nationalism given that of the coming technological … Risk, in a way, presented by using so much of what is happening we now have acquired to have a worldwide conversation about this. Drawback is, it is rough to get men and women fairly believing that, I have no idea, AI fairly is an forthcoming threat, etc. The things that individuals, some men and women at least, care about far more immediately, probably, is local weather alternate, perhaps different disorders like refugees, nuclear weapons, and many others.Would you argue that the place we are proper now that by some means these issues must be dialed up? You’ve gotten mentioned climate change, but Trump has mentioned he does not suppose in that. So in a way, your most strong argument, you can not surely use to make this case. YNH: Yeah, I feel with local weather exchange, to start with sight, it’s relatively shocking that there is a very close correlation between nationalism and climate change. I mean, regularly, the humans who deny climate alternate are nationalists. And at first sight, you feel: Why? What is the connection? Why don’t you have got socialists denying climate alternate? However then, whilst you think about it, it’s obvious — due to the fact that nationalism has no method to local weather alternate. If you wish to be a nationalist within the twenty first century, you ought to deny the quandary.If you accept the reality of the situation, then you ought to take delivery of that, sure, there is nonetheless room on the earth for patriotism, there may be nonetheless room on the planet for having special loyalties and obligations closer to your own persons, toward your possess nation. I don’t believe any one is really pondering of abolishing that. However as a way to confront climate trade, we want further loyalties and commitments to a degree past the nation. And that must no longer be unimaginable, seeing that people can have a few layers of loyalty. That you may be loyal to your loved ones and to your neighborhood and to your nation, so why can not you also be loyal to humankind as a whole? Of direction, there are events when it becomes problematic, what to position first, however, you know, existence is elaborate. Handle it. (Laughter) CA: ok, so I would really like to get some questions from the audience right here.We’ve got a microphone here. Communicate into it, and fb, get them coming, too. Howard Morgan: one of the vital matters that has obviously made a significant change in this country and other countries is the revenue distribution inequality, the dramatic alternate in sales distribution in the U.S. From what it was 50 years in the past, and world wide. Is there anything we will do to affect that? Because that gets at quite a few the underlying factors. YNH: so far i have never heard a very good proposal about what to do about it, once more, partly seeing that most recommendations remain on the countrywide level, and the challenge is global. I imply, one notion that we hear rather lots about now’s common general earnings. However this can be a situation. I imply, I consider it is a good , but it’s a challenging notion seeing that it can be no longer clear what "universal" is and it’s now not clear what "general" is. Most persons after they speak about common normal revenue, they certainly mean countrywide normal sales. However the quandary is global.Let’s say that you have AI and 3D printers disposing of millions of jobs in Bangladesh, from all the folks who make my shirts and my sneakers. So what is going on to occur? The united states executive will levy taxes on Google and Apple in California, and use that to pay common revenue to unemployed Bangladeshis? In the event you suppose that, that you could simply as well believe that Santa Claus will come and resolve the challenge. So except we have fairly universal and not countrywide normal income, the deep problems aren’t going to go away. And in addition it is not clear what normal is, seeing that what are common human needs? A thousand years ago, simply meals and shelter was once enough. But today, men and women will say schooling is a general human want, it must be part of the bundle.However how so much? Six years? Twelve years? PhD? Similarly, with wellbeing care, shall we embrace that in 20, 30, forty years, you’ll be able to have costly remedies that may extend human life to one hundred twenty, I have no idea. Will this be part of the basket of common earnings or no longer? It is an extraordinarily elaborate challenge, seeing that in a global where people lose their potential to be employed, the one thing they are going to get is this basic revenue. So what’s a part of it is a very, very complicated ethical query. CA: there is a bunch of questions on how the arena affords it as well, who can pay. There may be a question here from facebook from Lisa Larson: "How does nationalism in the USA now compare to that between World struggle I and World struggle II within the final century?" YNH: good the excellent news, with regard to the hazards of nationalism, we’re in a much better function than a century in the past. A century in the past, 1917, Europeans have been killing every different through the hundreds of thousands. In 2016, with Brexit, so far as I take into account, a single person lost their existence, an MP who was murdered by some extremist.Only a single character. I imply, if Brexit used to be about British independence, that is the most peaceful battle of independence in human historical past. And shall we say that Scotland will now prefer to depart the united kingdom after Brexit. So within the 18th century, if Scotland wanted — and the Scots desired a couple of occasions — to interrupt out of the control of London, the reaction of the government in London used to be to send an military up north to burn down Edinburgh and bloodbath the highland tribes. My guess is that if, in 2018, the Scots vote for independence, the London govt is not going to send an army up north to burn down Edinburgh.Only a few people are now willing to kill or be killed for Scottish or for British independence. So for the entire talk of the rise of nationalism and going again to the 1930s, to the nineteenth century, within the West at least, the power of national sentiments at present is a long way, a ways smaller than it used to be a century ago. CA: although some men and women now, you hear publicly demanding about whether that maybe shifting, that there could virtually be outbreaks of violence in the united states depending on how things prove. Will have to we be concerned about that, or do you relatively feel things have shifted? YNH: No, we will have to be concerned. We must be conscious of two matters. To begin with, don’t be hysterical. We are not again within the First World struggle but. However however, do not be complacent. We reached from 1917 to 2017, not with the aid of some divine miracle, but without problems by means of human selections, and if we now begin making the improper decisions, we would be back in an analogous hindrance to 1917 in a couple of years.One of the crucial matters i do know as a historian is that you just must by no means underestimate human stupidity. (Laughter) it’s one of the most strong forces in historical past, human stupidity and human violence. People do such loopy things for no obvious rationale, but again, whilst, yet another very strong force in human historical past is human knowledge. We’ve got both. CA: now we have with us right here ethical psychologist Jonathan Haidt, who I believe has a question. Jonathan Haidt: Thanks, Yuval. So you appear to be a fan of global governance, however while you seem at the map of the world from Transparency worldwide, which premiums the level of corruption of political institutions, it can be a tremendous sea of red with little bits of yellow here and there for those with good associations.So if we have been to have some variety of global governance, what makes you feel it might end up being more like Denmark alternatively than extra like Russia or Honduras, and aren’t there possible choices, similar to we did with CFCs? There are ways to remedy international issues with country wide governments. What would world govt actually seem like, and why do you think it could work? YNH: well, I don’t know what it could appear like. No one still has a model for that. The main rationale we want it’s because many of these problems are lose-lose occasions. In case you have a win-win drawback like trade, either side can advantage from a alternate agreement, then that is anything that you can determine. With out some kind of global executive, national governments each have an curiosity in doing it. But if you have a lose-lose trouble like with climate exchange, it is way more problematic with out some overarching authority, actual authority.Now, the way to get there and what would it not appear like, I don’t know. And obviously there is no obvious intent to believe that it might appear like Denmark, or that it might be a democracy. Undoubtedly it would not. We don’t have viable democratic items for a global executive. So maybe it could seem more like ancient China than like modern-day Denmark. However still, given the dangers that we are facing, I think the critical of getting some type of actual capacity to drive via difficult choices on the worldwide stage is extra predominant than practically something else. CA: there is a question from facebook here, and then we will get the mic to Andrew.So, Kat Hebron on facebook, calling in from Vail: "How would developed nations manage the thousands of local weather migrants?" YNH: I do not know. CA: that is your reply, Kat. (Laughter) YNH: And i do not consider that they understand either. They will just deny the trouble, probably. CA: but immigration, customarily, is an extra illustration of a crisis that’s very difficult to resolve on a nation-by-nation basis. One nation can shut its doors, however possibly that stores up issues for the long run. YNH: sure, I mean — it is one more excellent case, peculiarly considering it is a lot simpler to migrate in these days than it was in the core a long time or in ancient occasions. CA: Yuval, there may be a belief among many technologists, most likely, that political considerations are style of overblown, that without a doubt, political leaders should not have that much impact in the world, that the actual resolution of humanity at this factor is by using science, through invention, via businesses, by using many matters as opposed to political leaders, and it can be truly very hard for leaders to do a lot, so we’re clearly stressful about nothing right here.YNH: good, first, it will have to be emphasized that it’s authentic that political leaders’ ability to do good is very limited, but their potential to do damage is limitless. There’s a normal imbalance right here. That you would be able to nonetheless press the button and blow all people up. You have got that sort of capability. But if you need, for example, to scale back inequality, that is very, very problematic. But to a warfare, which you can nonetheless accomplish that very without difficulty. So there’s a built-in imbalance within the political method today which is very frustrating, the place you can not do numerous good but which you can still do plenty of damage. And this makes the political method still an extraordinarily significant quandary. CA: in order you seem at what’s going down in these days, and placing your historian’s hat on, do you seem again in historical past at moments when things were going just fine and an person chief quite took the arena or their country backwards? YNH: There are fairly just a few examples, but I will have to emphasize, it is by no means an man or woman leader. I imply, somebody put him there, and a person allowed him to proceed to be there. So it can be certainly not fairly simply the fault of a single individual.There are various men and women behind every such individual. CA: Can we have now the microphone here, please, to Andrew? Andrew Solomon: you’ve gotten talked rather a lot concerning the international versus the country wide, however more and more, it seems to me, the sector trouble is within the hands of identity agencies. We seem at individuals within the USA who have been recruited via ISIS. We look at these different agencies which have fashioned which go outside of country wide bounds but nonetheless symbolize gigantic authorities. How are they to be integrated into the procedure, and the way is a various set of identities to be made coherent underneath both countrywide or international management? YNH: well, the situation of such numerous identities is a obstacle from nationalism as good. Nationalism believes in a single, monolithic identification, and unusual or as a minimum more severe versions of nationalism think in an unique loyalty to a single identity. And thus, nationalism has had a lot of issues with folks looking to divide their identities between various corporations.So it is no longer only a concern, say, for a worldwide imaginative and prescient. And i consider, once more, history indicates that you simply mustn’t always feel in such individual terms. For those who suppose that there is just a single identification for a individual, "i’m just X, that’s it, I can not be a couple of things, i will be able to be simply that," that’s the of the crisis. You have got religions, you could have countries that often demand exclusive loyalty, but it’s now not the only option. There are many religions and plenty of international locations that enable you to have various identities even as. CA: but is one clarification of what’s happened in the final yr that a group of persons have got uninterested with, if you happen to like, the liberal elites, for need of a better time period, obsessing over many, many exclusive identities and them feeling, "but what about my identity? I am being entirely unnoticed here. And incidentally, I suggestion I was once the bulk"? And that that’s truely sparked a number of the anger. YNH: Yeah.Identification is continuously complicated, seeing that identification is continually founded on fictional studies that in the end collide with truth. Practically all identities, I imply, beyond the level of the fundamental group of a few dozen people, are situated on a fictional story. They are not the reality. They are not the truth. It can be simply a narrative that humans invent and tell one a different and believing. And consequently all identities are highly unstable. They aren’t a biological truth. Many times nationalists, for illustration, feel that the nation is a biological entity. It’s made from the blend of soil and blood, creates the nation. But this is just a fictional story. CA: Soil and blood kind of makes a gooey mess. (Laughter) YNH: It does, and likewise it messes with your mind when you feel an excessive amount of that i’m a combination of soil and blood. For those who seem from a organic standpoint, surely none of the international locations that exist today existed 5,000 years in the past. Homo sapiens is a social animal, that’s for definite. However for millions of years, Homo sapiens and our hominid ancestors lived in small communities of a few dozen participants.Every person knew each person else. Whereas cutting-edge countries are imagined communities, in the experience that i don’t even know all these persons. I come from a somewhat small nation, Israel, and of eight million Israelis, I never met most of them. I will on no account meet most of them. They clearly exist right here. CA: however in phrases of this identification, this staff who feel omitted and might be have work taken away, I mean, in "Homo Deus," you actually speak of this workforce in a single experience increasing, that so many individuals can have their jobs taken away through technology one way or the other that we might come to be with a quite massive — I think you name it a "vain type" — a category where ordinarily, as viewed via the financial system, these humans have no use.YNH: yes. CA: How seemingly a possibility is that? Is that something we will have to be terrified about? And can we address it in anyway? YNH: We will have to consider about it very carefully. I mean, no person rather knows what the job market will appear like in 2040, 2050. There is a chance many new jobs will appear, however it’s now not designated. And even if new jobs do show up, it will not always be handy for a 50-yr historic unemployed truck driver made unemployed via self-riding vehicles, it will not be convenient for an unemployed truck driver to reinvent himself or herself as a designer of virtual worlds. Earlier, for those who seem on the trajectory of the economic revolution, when machines replaced humans in one style of work, the solution most commonly came from low-ability work in new lines of business.So that you did not need any further agricultural workers, so persons moved to working in low-talent industrial jobs, and when this was once taken away by using more and more machines, people moved to low-skill service jobs. Now, when persons say there shall be new jobs at some point, that humans can do better than AI, that humans can do higher than robots, they more often than not believe about high-skill jobs, like program engineers designing digital worlds. Now, i don’t see how an unemployed cashier from Wal-Mart reinvents herself or himself at 50 as a designer of virtual worlds, and definitely i don’t see how the millions of unemployed Bangladeshi textile staff will likely be in a position to do that.I mean, if they will do it, we must teaching the Bangladeshis today methods to be application designers, and we are not doing it. So what will they do in two decades? CA: So it seems like you are really highlighting a query that is fairly been bugging me the last few months more and more. It is nearly a rough query to ask in public, but if any mind has some knowledge to present in it, possibly it can be yours, so i’m going to ask you: What are people for? YNH: as far as we know, for nothing.(Laughter) I imply, there’s no quality cosmic drama, some quality cosmic plan, that we have a position to play in. And we simply have to realize what our position is and then play it to the fine of our ability. This has been the story of all religions and ideologies and many others, however as a scientist, the nice i can say is this isn’t authentic. There is no common drama with a role in it for Homo sapiens. So — CA: i will push back on you only for a minute, just from your own booklet, due to the fact in "Homo Deus," you give fairly one of the vital coherent and understandable bills about sentience, about cognizance, and that designated kind of human talent. You factor out that it can be specific from intelligence, the intelligence that we’re constructing in machines, and that there is absolutely quite a few thriller round it. How can you be sure there isn’t a intent once we don’t even recognize what this sentience thing is? I mean, on your own considering, is not there a risk that what humans are for is to be the universe’s sentient matters, to be the centers of joy and love and happiness and hope? And possibly we can construct machines that really aid expand that, even if they may be not going to turn out to be sentient themselves? Is that crazy? I type of discovered myself hoping that, reading your guide.YNH: good, I absolutely consider that essentially the most intriguing question at present in science is the question of realization and the intellect. We have become higher and higher in understanding the brain and intelligence, but we’re not getting a lot better in figuring out the intellect and attention. Individuals mainly confuse intelligence and awareness, notably in areas like Silicon Valley, which is understandable, when you consider that in humans, they go collectively. I mean, intelligence clearly is the capacity to clear up issues. Realization is the capability to think matters, to think joy and disappointment and boredom and suffering etc.In Homo sapiens and all other mammals as well — it is no longer detailed to people — in all mammals and birds and any other animals, intelligence and awareness go together. We ordinarily remedy problems by way of feeling matters. So we are likely to confuse them. But they’re distinctive things. What’s taking place today in locations like Silicon Valley is that we’re creating artificial intelligence but not synthetic attention. There has been an robust progress in pc intelligence over the final 50 years, and exactly zero development in laptop consciousness, and there is not any indication that computers are going to end up aware anytime soon. So to start with, if there is some cosmic position for consciousness, it’s not specified to Homo sapiens.Cows are conscious, pigs are conscious, chimpanzees are conscious, chickens are aware, so if we go that approach, to begin with, we need to increase our horizons and do not forget very obviously we are not the only sentient beings on the planet, and when it comes to sentience — in the case of intelligence, there may be excellent motive to think we are probably the most intelligent of the entire bunch. However in the case of sentience, to assert that people are more sentient than whales, or more sentient than baboons or extra sentient than cats, I see no evidence for that. So first step is, you go in that path, expand. After which the 2d query of what is it for, i’d reverse it and i would say that i do not consider sentience is for something. I think we do not need to in finding our position within the universe. The particularly important factor is to liberate ourselves from suffering. What characterizes sentient beings unlike robots, to stones, to something, is that sentient beings endure, can suffer, and what they will have to focus on is just not finding their position in some mysterious cosmic drama. They must center of attention on working out what suffering is, what causes it and how to be liberated from it.CA: i know this is a huge trouble for you, and that was once very eloquent. We’ll have a blizzard of questions from the audience right here, and perhaps from fb as well, and probably some comments as good. So let’s go speedy. There is one right right here. Preserve your hands held up at the back if you need the mic, and we’ll get it back to you. Question: to your work, you speak loads about the fictional stories that we be given as truth, and we reside our lives by means of it. As an individual, figuring out that, how does it have an impact on the studies that you just decide on to reside your existence, and do you confuse them with the reality, like several of us? YNH: I try to not. I imply, for me, perhaps the essential query, each as a scientist and as a person, is how you can tell the difference between fiction and fact, due to the fact truth is there. I am not saying that the whole thing is fiction. It can be just very elaborate for human beings to tell the difference between fiction and reality, and it has emerge as increasingly problematic as historical past improved, on account that the fictions that we now have created — countries and gods and cash and enterprises — they now manage the world.So simply to even believe, "Oh, that is just all fictional entities that we now have created," may be very complex. But truth is there. For me the great … There are a number of exams to tell the change between fiction and truth. The easiest one, the best person who i can say briefly, is the test of suffering. If it may undergo, it is actual. If it cannot undergo, it’s not real. A nation can’t undergo. That is very, very clear. Although a nation loses a war, we are saying, "Germany suffered a defeat within the First World warfare," it’s a metaphor.Germany are not able to endure. Germany has no mind. Germany has no attention. Germans can suffer, yes, but Germany cannot. In a similar fashion, when a bank goes bust, the financial institution cannot undergo. When the buck loses its price, the buck does not suffer. Folks can suffer. Animals can endure. That is real. So i might start, if you happen to rather wish to see truth, i’d go via the door of struggling. If you can fairly appreciate what struggling is, this offers you additionally the important thing to realise what fact is. CA: there is a fb question here that connects to this, from any individual world wide in a language that I can not learn. YNH: Oh, it is Hebrew. CA: Hebrew. There you go. (Laughter) are you able to learn the title? YNH: Or Lauterbach Goren.CA: well, thanks for writing in. The query is: "Is the post-truth technology relatively a brand-new generation, or simply a further climax or second in a under no circumstances-ending development? YNH: personally, i don’t join with this idea of put up-truth. My general response as a historian is: If that is the generation of publish-fact, when the hell was once the technology of fact? CA: correct. (Laughter) YNH: was it the 1980s, the Nineteen Fifties, the middle ages? I imply, we have at all times lived in an generation, in a technique, of post-actuality. CA: however i would chase away on that, for the reason that I believe what individuals are talking about is that there was once a world where you had fewer journalistic retailers, where there were traditions, that things were reality-checked.It used to be included into the charter of these organizations that the reality mattered. So if you believe in a reality, then what you write is information. There was a belief that that know-how must hook up with reality in a real approach, and for those who wrote a headline, it was a major, earnest try to mirror whatever that had absolutely happened. And persons did not continuously get it proper. However I consider the trouble now’s you will have bought a technological process that is totally robust that, for a while at least, massively amplified whatever without a awareness paid to whether it related to reality, simplest to whether it linked to clicks and concentration, and that that was once arguably toxic.That is an inexpensive quandary, is not it? YNH: Yeah, it’s. I imply, the technological know-how alterations, and it can be now easier to disseminate each reality and fiction and falsehood. It goes both ways. It’s also a lot simpler, though, to spread the reality than it used to be ever before. But i do not consider there may be anything just about new about this disseminating fictions and mistakes. There may be nothing that — I have no idea — Joseph Goebbels, failed to know about all this notion of fake news and post-actuality.He famously said that if you repeat a lie most likely adequate, men and women will believe it can be the truth, and the greater the lie, the easier, considering folks will not even suppose that whatever so big could be a lie. I think that fake information has been with us for countless numbers of years. Just suppose of the Bible. (Laughter) CA: however there’s a drawback that the fake news is related to tyrannical regimes, and when you see an uprise in fake news that may be a canary within the coal mine that there may be dark times coming. YNH: Yeah. I mean, the intentional use of fake news is a demanding signal. But i’m not announcing that it’s now not bad, i am simply pronouncing that it can be not new. CA: there may be quite a few interest on fb on this question about global governance versus nationalism. Question right here from Phil Dennis: "How can we get men and women, governments, to relinquish vigor? Is that — is that — sincerely, the textual content is so enormous I can’t read the entire query.However is that a necessity? Is it going to take war to get there? Sorry Phil — I mangled your question, but I blame the text proper right here. YNH: One option that some folks talk about is that handiest a catastrophe can shake humankind and open the trail to a real method of global governance, and they say that we can’t do it earlier than the catastrophe, but we have got to start laying the foundations so that when the catastrophe strikes, we are able to react rapidly. But people will just no longer have the incentive to do this type of factor earlier than the disaster strikes. A further thing that i might emphasize is that anyone who’s quite enthusiastic about international governance will have to perpetually make it very, very clear that it would not substitute or abolish local identities and communities, that it will have to come each as — It will have to be part of a single package.CA: I wish to hear extra on this, since the very words "global governance" are almost the epitome of evil in the mind-set of quite a few folks on the alt-proper right now. It simply appears frightening, far flung, distant, and it has allow them to down, and so globalists, global governance — no, go away! And lots of view the election as the perfect poke within the eye to any individual who believes in that. So how do we alter the narrative so that it doesn’t appear so frightening and faraway? Construct more on this thought of it being compatible with nearby identity, nearby communities. YNH: well, I think once more we must particularly with the biological realities of Homo sapiens. And biology tells us two matters about Homo sapiens that are very vital to this trouble: initially, that we’re completely based on the ecological approach round us, and that today we’re speaking a few world process.You are not able to get away that. And whilst, biology tells us about Homo sapiens that we are social animals, however that we’re social on a very, very local level. It can be only a easy truth of humanity that we can not have intimate familiarity with more than about one hundred fifty members. The scale of the natural staff, the usual neighborhood of Homo sapiens, shouldn’t be more than one hundred fifty contributors, and the whole thing past that is particularly headquartered on all types of imaginary reviews and huge-scale institutions, and i consider that we can have the ability, again, headquartered on a biological working out of our species, to weave the 2 collectively and to comprehend that today in the 21st century, we want both the global degree and the regional group.And i would go even further than that and say that it begins with the physique itself. The sentiments that folks in these days have of alienation and loneliness and now not discovering their location on the planet, i’d consider that the chief trouble is not international capitalism. The chief difficulty is that over the last hundred years, people have been fitting disembodied, have been distancing themselves from their physique. As a hunter-gatherer or whilst a peasant, to outlive, you must be always in touch along with your body and with your senses, every second.If you go to the woodland to look for mushrooms and you don’t pay attention to what you hear, to what you odor, to what you style, you are lifeless. So you need to be very related. Within the last hundred years, persons are dropping their ability to be in touch with their body and their senses, to listen to, to scent, to feel. Increasingly awareness goes to screens, to what’s happening somewhere else, any other time. This, I consider, is the deep purpose for the feelings of alienation and loneliness and many others, and as a consequence part of the solution is not to bring again some mass nationalism, but additionally reconnect with our own our bodies, and in case you are back in contact with your physique, you are going to believe rather more at home on this planet also. CA: good, relying on how matters go, we may all be back in the forest soon. We will have a further question in the room and one other on fb. Ama Adi-Dako: hi there. I am from Ghana, West Africa, and my question is: i ponder how do you present and justify the concept of worldwide governance to nations which have been traditionally disenfranchised by way of the effects of globalization, and likewise, if we’re speaking about global governance, it sounds to me like it’s going to surely come from a very Westernized thought of what the "world" is supposed to appear like.So how will we reward and justify that idea of worldwide versus absolutely nationalist to people in countries like Ghana and Nigeria and Togo and other nations like that? YNH: i’d begin through announcing that historical past is incredibly unfair, and that we should comprehend that. A few of the international locations that suffered most from the final 200 years of globalization and imperialism and industrialization are exactly the international locations which might be also definitely to undergo most from the following wave.And we must be very, very clear about that. If we would not have a global governance, and if we endure from local weather alternate, from technological disruptions, the worst suffering is probably not in the united states. The worst struggling shall be in Ghana, can be in Sudan, shall be in Syria, shall be in Bangladesh, shall be in those locations. So I consider these nations have a good better incentive to do whatever about the next wave of disruption, whether it can be ecological or whether it’s technological. Once more, in the event you think about technological disruption, so if AI and 3D printers and robots will take the jobs from billions of persons, I fear some distance much less about the Swedes than about the humans in Ghana or in Bangladesh. And accordingly, considering the fact that historical past is so unfair and the outcome of a calamity might not be shared equally between each person, as usual, the rich will likely be equipped to get far from the worst consequences of local weather trade in a technique that the terrible will not be equipped to.CA: And here’s a excellent query from Cameron Taylor on fb: "at the finish of ‘Sapiens,’" you stated we will have to be asking the query, ‘What will we want to want?’ good, what do you consider we must wish to need?" YNH: I suppose we should want to wish to comprehend the reality, to fully grasp truth. Customarily what we wish is to change reality, to suit it to our own wants, to our possess needs, and that i think we should first wish to recognize it. When you appear on the lengthy-time period trajectory of historical past, what you see is that for 1000s of years we people were gaining manage of the arena outside us and looking to form it to fit our possess wants. And now we have received manage of the other animals, of the rivers, of the forests, and reshaped them absolutely, inflicting an ecological destruction without making ourselves satisfied.So your next step is we flip our gaze inwards, and we say ok, getting manage of the sector outside us did not really make us convinced. Let’s now try to attain manage of the sector inside of us. That is the quite significant project of science and science and enterprise within the 21st century — to check out and attain control of the arena inside of us, to be taught the right way to engineer and produce bodies and brains and minds. These are prone to be the primary merchandise of the 21st century economic climate. When folks feel about the future, very frequently they think in phrases, "Oh, I need to attain manage of my physique and of my mind." and i believe that is very dangerous. If now we have discovered whatever from our prior history, it can be that yes, we obtain the power to control, however for the reason that we didn’t rather have an understanding of the complexity of the ecological process, we are actually facing an ecological meltdown.And if we now attempt to reengineer the world inside us without particularly working out it, chiefly without figuring out the complexity of our intellectual process, we could cause a kind of interior ecological disaster, and we will face a type of intellectual meltdown inside of us. CA: hanging all of the portions together here — the current politics, the approaching technology, considerations like the one you could have just outlined — I imply, it looks as if you yourself are in fairly a bleak position when you consider in regards to the future. You are lovely concerned about it.Is that proper? And if there was one intent for hope, how would you state that? YNH: I focal point on probably the most harmful potentialities partly on account that that is like my job or accountability as a historian or social critic. I mean, the enterprise focuses as a rule on the optimistic sides, so it’s the job of historians and philosophers and sociologists to highlight the more unsafe abilities of all these new applied sciences. I do not think any of that’s inevitable. Technological know-how is not ever deterministic. You need to use the identical technological know-how to create very distinct forms of societies. In the event you seem at the 20th century, so, the applied sciences of the economic Revolution, the trains and electricity and all that could be used to create a communist dictatorship or a fascist regime or a liberal democracy. The trains did not tell you what to do with them. In a similar way, now, artificial intelligence and bioengineering and all of that — they don’t predetermine a single end result. Humanity can stand up to the assignment, and the excellent illustration we’ve of humanity rising up to the assignment of a brand new technological know-how is nuclear weapons. In the late Nineteen Forties, ’50s, many persons had been satisfied that eventually the bloodless struggle will end in a nuclear disaster, destroying human civilization.And this didn’t occur. Correctly, nuclear weapons brought on humans all over the world to change the way that they manipulate worldwide politics to lower violence. And many countries truly took out struggle from their political toolkit. They not tried to pursue their pursuits with war. Not all nations have executed so, but many countries have. And this is probably the main reason why international violence declined dramatically considering the fact that 1945, and in these days, as I said, more men and women commit suicide than are killed in warfare.So this, I feel, gives us a just right instance that even the most horrifying science, people can get up to the mission and genuinely some good can come out of it. The crisis is, we have little or no margin for error. If we don’t get it correct, we might now not have a second option to take a look at once more. CA: that is an extraordinarily strong word, on which I feel we must draw this to a conclusion. Before I wrap up, I simply want to say one factor to humans right here and to the worldwide TED neighborhood observing on-line, any individual observing on-line: help us with these dialogues.If you consider, like we do, that we ought to in finding a different variety of conversation, now more than ever, support us do it. Reach out to different humans, attempt to have conversations with individuals you disagree with, comprehend them, pull the portions together, and aid us determine methods to take these conversations ahead a good way to make an actual contribution to what’s happening on the planet correct now. I believe all people feels more alive, extra concerned, more engaged with the politics of the second. The stakes do look really excessive, so support us respond to it in a shrewd, sensible means. Yuval Harari, thanks. (Applause) .

#Chris Anderson #division #Global issues #globalism #Government #History #Leadership #nationalism #TED Dialogues #ted talk #ted talks #Yuval Noah Harari

[junker-town]

The Houston Astros started from the bottom, and now they’re World Series champions

The Astros were the butt of baseball’s jokes not that long ago. Now they’re having a whole lot of fun.

LOS ANGELES — The Houston Astros were a joke. A literal punchline to whatever baseball joke you could come up with. They were “The Aristocrats!” of baseball, something you could say at the end of a long, drawn out explanation of utter and total baseball incompetence. Say the word “Astros,” and you would get laughs.

The Houston Astros are World Series champions for the first time in their 56-year history.

It took skill, luck, talent, and smarts, which is what it took for every other championship team before them. The 2017 Astros were an incredible collection of talent. They were found talent, acquired talent, developed talent, and bought talent. They won 101 games in the regular season, and then they won 11 games after that. When future generations look back at the 2017 season, they won’t think, “Now how did that happen?” It makes sense. What with the talent and all.

But I want to talk about how bad they were if that’s okay.

I can’t stop thinking about this.

... not a single, solitary Nielsen household tuned in for as long as a few minutes in any given quarter-hour to watch the Astros lose to the Indians for their 105th defeat of the year.

The Astros pulled a 0.0 Nielsen rating for a regular season game in 2013. A total goose egg. The next year, it happened again. It was possible to sample nearly 600 Houston households and not find a single one that would turn the Astros on for a second. For perspective, note that about four percent of the population believe that lizard people control the government. Five percent believe Paul McCartney has been dead for decades.

Zero percent were willing to watch the Astros on purpose in 2013 or 2014, give or take.

And those people shouldn’t be blamed. The Astros were transcendentally terrible. If you want moving images, here’s a tidy collection. If you want words, oh, there are words. If you want a single video, this will do:

For my money, I’m very much into this kid losing his innocence just to laugh at how horrible the Astros were:

He wasn’t wrong.

The Houston Astros are World Series champions, though. It didn’t take witchcraft or space-age technology. They put out a “QUIET! WE’RE SUCKING TO GET BETTER” sign in front of Minute Maid Park, and they asked for patience, which they couldn’t possibly have expected to get. Then they built the foundation. Then the frame, then the plumbing, a little drywall, and it was up before we had a chance to realize it.

Suddenly, the Astros were a contender. The high draft picks, the deep farm system, and the twists of fate conspired to make them relevant again. But contending teams are a dime a dozen. The Twins made the postseason this year. The Rockies, too. The Angels and Brewers cared about what was going on in September, somehow. Next year, the Marlins, A’s, and Rays might all care about September.

No, the Astros were a contender, a juggernaut, a team with enviable talent stacked upon enviable talent. It’s important to remember how they got that talent.

There were the players who required a lot of losing. The Astros lost 86 games to get George Springer. Tommy Manzella started more games at shortstop for them than anyone else in 2010, and that’s part of how they got Springer. They lost 106 games in 2011 to get Carlos Correa and Lance McCullers. They lost 107 games in 2012 to get Not Kris Bryant, who turned into Ken Giles, who most definitely didn’t close out Game 7.

They lost 111 games in 2014 to almost get Brady Aiken, which is how they ended up with Alex Bregman in a roundabout way, but that was all a huge mess. People are still arguing about it.

They weren’t all nonsensical losing seasons, though. They built players, too. Charlie Morton was someone available to all 30 teams, but only one of them was creative enough to sign him. Dallas Keuchel was a 23-year-old non-prospect, striking out five batters per nine innings in Double-A. He was brought up to the majors because the Astros were that bad. The new guard rebuilt him and turned him into a Cy Young winner.

They bought players. Brian McCann came over because the Yankees wanted to shed payroll, which is inherently funny. Yuli Gurriel was a high-risk investment, and because of his advanced age, that move didn’t have a huge window with which to work. Carlos Beltran and Josh Reddick sure weren’t cheap.

They traded for players. Justin Verlander was the obvious get, but there were more than that. They gave up a strong prospect to get Evan Gattis. They made a lesser deal with the A’s to get Brad Peacock.

Perhaps most importantly, they inherited players from the people who built those 110-loss teams. I keep thinking about Jose Altuve, who was brought up as a sacrificial lamb in 2011, straight from the low minors. Someone from the Bad Astros had to recognize him as a diamond in the rough and follow through with that evaluation, signing him and developing him, and all that. Keuchel was already here and nothing more than a generic organizational arm. A particularly funny one is Marwin Gonzalez, who came over in the Rule 5 Draft the same day in 2012 that GM Jeff Luhnow was officially hired. That’s a heckuva mint to leave on the pillow for the new guys.

It all coalesced into a team of disparate parts that liked each other. They were from all over the globe. The World Series MVP was Connecticut-born to parents from Panama and Puerto Rico. There was Cuba and Puerto Rico and Venezuela and New Mexico, and the Jewish kid from New Mexico really wanted to learn Spanish so he could speak to his teammates from Cuba and Puerto Rico and Venezuela.

This team, the one that rose out of the depths of the deepest, stinkiest compost pile, that was cobbled together and reinvented itself several times over, was the one in place for a city that needed something to distract itself from Hurricane Harvey. There are still people without homes, people who need a car to function, and the damage isn’t completely fixed, not even close.

But everyone can rally around the sports, now. It’s a small token, but it’s an important one. In Houston, everyone was jabbering about the Astros. There were handwritten notes on the menus of restaurants all over town, and there were large, silkscreen signs in front of the hotels. The Nielsen rating was higher than 0.0 this October. Everyone was very much into this team winning for this city.

It took transactions, sleights of hand, unexpected developments. players left over from the last tenants, and talent, talent, talent. Oh, how the Astros had talent. Their star middle infielders were a second baseman who was cross between Bilbo Baggins and Pete Rose, and a shortstop who was a Greek god with puppy dog feet.

They weren’t a joke anymore, an automatic punchline. The 2017 Houston Astros were the best team around, and they went through the Red Sox, Yankees, and Dodgers to get there. That’s 366 combined years of baseball history standing in their way, and the Astros navigated it deftly.

The Astros are World Series champions. If you were around in 2011 or 2012, that still reads weird, right? They were so bad, everyone.

I’d like to bring this to your attention, via Baseball-Reference.com:

What a marvelous collection of faces and names. The first two rode a tandem bike to work every day, but they couldn’t win a World Series. There was Jose Cruz, and Lance Berkman, and Joe Morgan, and Nolan Ryan, and Mike Scott, and Terry Puhl, and Glenn Davis ...

It all led to this team, this one right here. This was the team that did it. The Astros had a secret legacy of pain that started with this 1980 NLCS, in which there were four straight extra-inning games. Can you imagine that stress? You cannot. From there, the Astros biffed it against the ‘86 Mets, and they lost to the White Sox in ‘05. They were incapable of winning in the postseason.

Until they did.

This brings us to the Dodgers, the other side of the tale. The last time they won the World Series, the Astros were as old as the Rockies. Nobody is worried about the Rockies’ legacy of pain. No one is contemplating the championship curse of the Rays.

Which is to say, it’s been a long, long time since the Dodgers have won the World Series.

This is the season in which they did everything right. They built the team that went on the historic run. They traded for the complementary ace at the deadline. They took great pains to make sure they didn’t overwork Clayton Kershaw and strip him down for parts. This was the team with Chris Taylor and Justin Turner batting seven times every inning, somehow.

Let them be an example of how hard it is to win a World Series.

They had everything going for them. They had the money. It was the kind of money that let their Plans A, B, and C fall through, like it was no big deal. They had the talent. They had the brain trust to dig up more talent than they thought they already had. And it still wasn’t enough.

The Dodgers had a plan going into Game 7. They were going to count on the All-Star to start the game. Then they were going to bring in the All-Star to bridge the gap until the next All-Star. It was a fine plan, until the first All-Star messed the bed.

There was no reason for Yu Darvish to face George Springer. That’s not something we needed the benefit of hindsight to complain about; it looked dicey at the time. But it wasn’t the only reason the Dodgers lost the 2017 World Series.

They lost because of absolutely crappy luck, among other things. The Dodgers were 1-for-13 with runners in scoring position, and they left 10 men on base. Some of those outs were hit exceptionally hard. Joc Pederson pounded a grounder that deserved better in the first inning with the bases loaded. Chris Taylor roped a ball that should have been a triple, at least, in the second inning, except it was a flukey double play. Yasiel Puig just missed pitches, fouling them back or popping them up. On another day, he would have been the hero.

On another day, they all would have been the heroes. What we know is this: The Dodgers planned better than any team in modern history. They spent more, and they built the best baseball players they possibly could. They still couldn’t navigate around the tricky obstacle of “Oh, by the way, Yu Darvish is Scott Erickson now.” They couldn’t overcome the classic baseball booby trap of all-your-hitters-hit-it-straight-into-a-mitt. You can spend all the money in the world to create the best team, but baseball can still take your wallet and dump it into a fountain when you aren’t looking.

The Dodgers are proof of that.

The 2017 World Series was a tremendous contest, filled with twists, turns, landmines, and locusts. Game 7 happened to be the most boring of them all, a game with the obvious conclusion telegraphed from the very beginning.

Except it wasn’t that boring because you kept waiting for the ninjas to pop out of the jack-in-the-box. You kept waiting for the blernsball nonsense from Games 2 and 5 to pop up again. It never did.

The Houston Astros are the World Series champs for the first time in their history. Congratulations upon congratulations to them.

Before the game started, the Dodger Stadium PA was playing Drake at 400 decibels, as they do. It wasn’t just any Drake. It was this one:

This video could have been a five-minute loop of the butt slide. Or the quintuple-error that captured our imagination back in 2012. Instead, it was a standard hip-hop video with Brian McCann and/or Evan Gattis.

And while it was supposed to fire up the Dodgers, ostensibly, it reminded the Astros of where they came from. Dallas Keuchel and Jose Altuve were footnotes on some of the worst baseball teams in history. Now they’re champions, actual World Series champions, because they persevered and everyone got a lot smarter around them.

The Houston Astros used to be funny. Trust me, really, really funny. Now they’re a model franchise, and they have the championship that previous iterations couldn’t figure out. The ‘90s/’00s had two inner-circle Hall of Famers, and the supporting cast wasn’t too shabby, either. The ‘70s had some of the most underrated players in baseball history, with Jimmy Wynn and Cesar Cedeno. The ‘80s had Nolan Ryan and Mike Scott and some fantastic chances.

This was the team that did it, though. It came with the backdrop of a city trying to rebuild, trying to shake everything off. This was a city with “Fuck it, try again” as an unofficial motto. They don’t have to try again. The Houston Astros are World Series champions for the first time in franchise history. I’m not going to say they deserved it, because deserve’s got nothing to do with it. But it was long overdue.

It was long overdue and well-timed. The Astros are champions, even though they were a blight on baseball, a complete embarrassment, just three years ago. They started from the bottom and now, well, you know. Smart teams don’t have to succeed.

This one did. The 2017 Astros won the World Series. You’ve seen the Sports Illustrated cover predicting it. It’s real now. The message for the rest of baseball is this: If they can do it in just a few years, buddy, your team can definitely do it.

That’s a lesson that doesn’t have to be applied in 2018. Or 2048. It’s a universal lesson, and there’s no better example than the Astros. They were so bad. So, so, so bad. Now they’re the champions, and they’re carrying a city on their shoulders.

I remember the butt-slide. I remember the multiple errors on one hilarious play. But it all led to this. The Astros are World Series champions. It seemed like an obvious possibility before the season. It seemed unthinkable just a couple years ago. But it’s here, and it’s glorious.

.

[nofomoartworld]

Hyperallergic: Tongue-in-Cheek Fetishism, Tied Up with a Pretty Bow

Heather Bennett, “The Loved One for JLM” (2017) (all images courtesy Bruno David Gallery)

Best known for her photographic interventions into the narrative bandwidth of female subjectivity, performing visually à la Hannah Wilke or Cindy Sherman, artist Heather Bennett has long plumbed the depths of bodily perceptions — the object looked at slyly looking, the subject desiring to be desired.

That such simultaneity defines the vagaries of daily life is hardly new; nor is the idea that women might be particularly well schooled — via the open-admission reality of sexism — to navigate these dualities in creative ways. In Bennett’s work, this creativity is anchored by a feminist sensibility laced with wry humor. It is serious but not self-serious; it means without bluntly moralizing.

In her latest series, Photos of Gifts, on view at Bruno David Gallery in St. Louis through November 11, Bennett removes herself as a visible player in order to toy with questions of frivolity, adornment, and the rituals of consumption. Each expansive print hints at the artist’s presence in depicting presents she has hand-wrapped in magazine ads. Titled diaristically, according to the item wrapped and its lucky recipient — a Mary Gaitskill book for “JLM,” a pair of tuxedo ruffles for “Correos”— the collection reads as both irreverent and deeply personal, each present staged as fleeting surface pleasure rendered permanent on fiber rag paper.

And that’s where shit gets weird (if delightfully so). Through selective focus and a distorted scale between gift and domestic backdrop, visual planes collide and coalesce, upending the conventions of high-end fashion spreads to expose how easily model and consumer good can be instantly fetishized. Are we gazing at a real-life green-eyed woman, her dark mouth lacquered behind an emerald sash? Or at her flattened visage against a box? And — perhaps most troublingly — does the difference even make a difference in how we respond? Bennett’s gifts may be (literally) tied up with a pretty bow, but her feminist inclinations are anything but.

“I’m coming at fetishism from a different angle here than in my earlier projects,” she explained as we toured the gallery. “It’s a bit more subtle — about the objecthood of the photograph in an ironic sense. Through illusion, I’m bringing promises of possible promises of a narrative — then purposefully breaking them.”

In such deception lies the humor, a droll distraction from what is at stake that nonetheless forces one to reckon with it. In “Hey Baby Book for Catalina O.” (2015), the gift box appears upon a white leather skirt — mirroring the red ones the models wear in the spread festooning the foreground. From a distance, the leather creases resemble storm clouds looming above the cumulus in the fashion fantasy. As the blonde duo aloofly ponders the perfect sky above them, the viewer gets a glimpse of something darker, a riposte to bland escapism. “Humor is such a powerful too, but one you have to wield very carefully,” says Bennett. “For me, it’s always there, even though I’d never call my work laugh-out-loud funny. Especially navigating women’s images and media, humor informs how we deal with it on a daily basis.”

Heather Bennett, “Hey Baby Book for Catalina M” (2015)

Compared to Bennett’s elaborate filmic narrative projects — many of which boast production credits of their own—Photos of Gifts follows a simpler, more spontaneous process. “I’m taking something that seems frivolous and feminine and exploding it and making it something new,” says the artist of her penchant for gift-wrapping. Shot intuitively at her home once a gift is ready and ribboned, each cumulatively chronicles a life of giving while probing gendered cultural assumptions.

Further wrapping the frames to match the jewel tones of each image, Bennett conflates the performance of femininity with the pretext of art itself. “I’m very much a person who loves contradiction,” she said. “My primping of the art object — making this overtly beautiful object that you desire — is a method of being critical of that even though the objects are that.”

Heather Bennett, “BFG for Mark et al” (2016)

Propped up against cushions, textiles, or articles of clothing partially or wholly obscured, each gift is granted a dreamy, if vaguely sinister, boudoir quality. In “BFG for Marc Et-al” (2016), a reddish-peach swatch at first resembles a sepia smudge or blood stain, but up close becomes the upper arm of a woman swathed in frilly cream chiffon. Her head cut off by the upper edge of the gift box, the model fades into the background’s shaggy white fringe. Death by throw pillow? A bridal bust gone bust? The joke, it seems, isn’t only on us.

“Isn’t the greatest freedom in the world the freedom to be wrong?” Chris Kraus asked in her cult-classic, newly popular novel I Love Dick. Bennett’s take on feminism, fetishism, and the crankbait of beauty enthralls in part because she’s willing to take that risk — the lines between sincerity and parody as blurry as a model’s airbrushed brow, and the stakes as timely — and intimate — as a gift worth wrapping and giving way.

The post Tongue-in-Cheek Fetishism, Tied Up with a Pretty Bow appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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[flauntpage]

Meet Your 2020 NBA Champions, the Minnesota Timberwolves

For our 2017-18 NBA Season Preview, we're doing deep dives on five teams who can beat the Warriors in the next five years—and the players who can push them over the top.

The play that morphed Karl-Anthony Towns from a highly impressive rookie into a flashpoint in the progression of NBA history, inspiring visions of the recaptured transcendance of the big man, came not in a poster dunk, or game-winning shot. In fact, on that night in April, 2016, he put up a relatively average (for him) 20 points and 10 rebounds, as the lottery-bound Minnesota Timberwolves handed the historically great, 73-win Golden State Warriors their ninth loss and final of the season.

The moment that dazzled NBA junkies—and offered a glimpse that perhaps the Warriors were indeed fallible—came on defense. Late in the fourth quarter Towns switched onto Steph Curry, stayed in front of a swarm of crossovers, and contained his drive. It was all of Towns' defensive potential wrapped into a single high stakes play.

The Timberwolves are not your everyday up-and-coming NBA franchise. In fact, they are one of the few teams to have not been rendered inconsequential by the Warriors juggernaut. That's because they have on their roster the rare player who, under the right circumstances, is capable of knocking down a dynasty. It might not happen now. It might take two or three seasons. But Karl-Anthony Towns is that player.

In the NBA's annual GM survey, Towns was chosen as the "player that GM's would sign first, if starting a franchise today." He is a threat on all levels, with silky low-post moves, and a soft touch that extends beyond the arc. For a young big man, he can dish it with the best of them. The Warriors, who have an answer for everything, do not have an answer for him.

For a long time, the Timberwolves have operated with high potential and low expectations. That is no longer the case. There is Towns. There is Andrew Wiggins. Head coach Tom Thibodeau is entering his second season. Three-time All Star Jimmy Butler is on board. "If you're waiting on potential, you're waiting on losing," Thibodeau recently told USA Today's Sam Amick. "We can't wait on potential any longer."

Thibodeau and Butler were kindred spirits in Chicago. When Thibodeau was fired, Butler bristled at his new coach Fred Hoiberg's easygoing manner, and didn't hesitate to share his opinions with the media. He doesn't suffer fools, and he is intolerant of anyone who fails to meet his lofty standards. Thibodeau, a notorious grinder, meets them. He conducts legendarily tough practices and his players are always ranked famously high in league-wide minutes totals. Into this dynamic steps Karl-Anthony Towns. Towns spent his rookie year learning from Kevin Garnett, the snarling no-nonsense Hall-of-Famer who showed him the difference between working hard and working harder than everybody else. Under Thibodeau, Towns and Butler ought to coalesce into some sort of hard-nosed transcendent basketball force.

The Warriors aren't your run-of-the-mill championship team. They are on a deliberate, uninterrupted march towards perfection, with an ethos, after multiple championship runs, of self-improvement for its own sake. Any team that wishes to unseat them must, aside from having the talent to match up, be institutionally sound enough to knock them off their path.

With a core of Thibodeau, Butler and Towns, who possess an insatiable, incorruptible, drive to improve, the Wolves have the potential to be that team.

"We want the same things." Photo: Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports

But there's a rub: Towns didn't actually make a defensive leap in his sophomore season. In fact, he may even have regressed. In the absence of Garnett, he struggled to man the paint when he was the lone big man on the court. Thibodeau's system registered as a foreign language to most of the team, leaving Towns with a larger mess to clean up.

(Towns ranked 61st out of 61 centers in Defensive Real Plus-Minus—one spot behind Jahlil Okafor—and Minnesota's defensive rating was at its best when he sat and its worst when he played.)

Cramming a big old platter of schemes and scouting reports tends to make young players inherently bad at defense. "He's a great shot blocker," says Tayshaun Prince, who played alongside Towns in his rookie year. "But a lot of times, he would be out of position. Just his basketball knowledge, basketball IQ means he can still block shots, be a big rebounder."

The Timberwolves were the second-best rebounding team in the NBA last year. In two preseason games against the Warriors, Towns ate Zaza Pachulia's lunch down low, a development made more significant by the fact that Towns is one of the only big men who can punish the Warriors when they sub out their traditional big for Green and employ the vaunted Death Lineup. The reigning Defensive Player of the Year is a mismatch nightmare for most big men, running them off the court on one end and possessing the requisite strength to outmuscle them defensively in the paint. With Towns, that isn't the case, and Green can't sag off to wreak help-side havoc, a key staple of Golden State's defense at its best.

While he has yet to harness the sum of his abilities on the defensive end, he has the tools to be a nightmare for the Warriors —a 7-footer who could hold his own down low against Draymond Green and have the quickness to switch onto Steph Curry.

More experience, more determination, and more time in Thibodeau's vaunted system, could eventually morph Towns into the defensive player everyone envisioned during his rookie year. If that happens, there will be elements to his games that no team will be able to handle. He will be a force on defense. And on offense, the Timberwolves success will simply be a matter of taking advantage when opposing defenses—Golden State's and otherwise—bend to Towns' will.

At the eight-minute mark in the first quarter of Minnesota's first preseason game of two against the Warriors, Butler faces up against Klay Thompson. He drives, but Thompson forces him to kick the ball to Jeff Teague, so he sets a pick. The Warriors switch, leaving Curry on Butler, who dives towards the paint. Teague charges into traffic and shovels the ball to Taj Gibson, who misses from deep.

But with the smaller Curry on him, Butler is able to tip the rebound over to Towns, who pitches it right. Butler pump-fakes, angling for a lay-up, and Green crashes toward the rim, leaving Towns wide open. Butler hits the most talented teammate he's ever had, then watches him evade Green's contest with a pump fake right before he nails the triple. It was the Wolves at their platonic ideal, utilizing every advantage they have over the Warriors.

When the future is bright. Photo: Chris Humphreys-USA TODAY Sports.

The difference between the version of the Wolves that can and can't take down the Warriors is the divide between who they are, and who, fully realized, they could be. Their success, if we are to glean anything from the preseason, will rest on discipline. No more errant shots (looking at you, Wiggins). If Butler wants to roam into passing lanes on defense, he sure as hell better not do it when he's guarding Curry. If Thompson gets caught on a switch against Towns, Minnesota's hammer needs to touch the ball. When Towns, a savvy passer, is doubled, his teammates must ensure that there's an easy angle for him to find the open man. If you get a second chance opportunity, don't just chuck up the first reasonable shot to come your way. It's not house money—offensive rebounds can be, if utilized correctly, a necessary and potent weapon to weaken the Dubs. It will be, to say the least, difficult.

Maybe that's why the best way to give the Warriors trouble is to employ as many dynamic players as possible. One-dimensional players are too easily neutralized by the Golden State defense—which is what makes Teague, a crafty creator with a knack for sneaking into the paint, such a compelling fit. There is, as always, the risk of too many cooks. Then again, the Warriors employ Curry, Durant, and Green, and they seem to be doing fine.

To put it another way: the Warriors excel at neutralizing their opponent's strength. If you don't have your main skill, what can you do? And how quickly can you do it?

"[Towns] has the talent and he has all the attributes," says Prince. "It's obviously a big task for any player to take down the Warriors so to speak but I know KAT is a determined guy, and obviously Thibs is a determined coach."

In the end, it is hard to trust any team to maximize its abilities and become the best version of itself. There is a reason, after all, why the Warriors are the Warriors, and why, on the other hand, I—err, a friend of mine—recently put processed cheese and deli meat into a bagel and microwaved it.

But the Wolves aren't your average franchise, and their core is, even for the NBA, unusually driven. If there's one thing we've learned about Thibs, Butler, and Towns, it's that they're determined to reap every opportunity for what it's worth. Their success will be predicated on building a culture where every player has that instinct. It will be predicated on Towns becoming the history-altering player everybody saw switch out onto Steph Curry that night in 2016. It may take time. Even a few years. But the Timberwolves are young enough, and talented enough, that when it happens, they will be able to take down anybody.

Meet Your 2020 NBA Champions, the Minnesota Timberwolves published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv