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dagwolf · 1 year

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Recent viral images of Southwest agents getting yelled at and crying have resurfaced a valuable lesson about the nature of our economic system that’s worth examining this holiday season: the deliberate, built-in ways corporate “customer service” is set up to not only shield those on the top of the ladder—executives, vice presidents, large shareholders—but pit low-wage workers against each other in an inherently antagonistic relationship marked by powerlessness and frustration. It’s a dynamic we discussed in “Episode 118: The Snitch Economy—How Rating Apps and Tipping Pit Working People Against Each Other,” of the Citations Needed podcast I co-host, but I feel ought to be expanded on in light of recent events. Watching video after video, reading tweet after tweet, describing frustrated stranded holiday travelers yelling at Southwest Airlines workers, and hearing, in turn, accounts of airline workers and airport staff breaking down crying, is a good opportunity to talk about how none of this is natural or inevitable. It is a choice, both in corporate policy and government regulation.

There are three main ways capital pits workers against each other in the relationship we call “customer service”:

1. Snitch economy. As discussed in Citations Needed Ep. 118, we are provided with more and more apps, websites, and customer surveys to effectively do the job of managing for management—free of charge, of course. Under the auspices of “empowering” the consumer, we are told to spy on our low-wage servants and gauge the quality of their servitude with stars, tips, and reviews. Uber, DoorDash, Fiver, Grubhub—a new “gig economy” has emerged that not only misclassifies workers as freelancers to pay them less, but hands over the reins of management to the consumer directly. This necessarily increases the antagonism between working-class consumers and the workers they are snitching on.

2. Automation. Increasingly, even getting to the bottom rung employee to yell at is difficult. Under the thin pretense of Covid, increased labor power has exploded the use of automated technology that creates a frustrating maze to get a simple problem solved or task accomplished. Don’t go to the register, instead download the app and order. Scan the QR code, don’t wait on hold, go to our website and engage a series of automated prompts and maybe you can solve your problem. More and more consumers are being pushed away from humans onto automated systems we are told will “save us time,” but instead exist solely to save the corporation labor costs. So, by the time the average consumer does finally work their way to seeing a human, they are annoyed, frustrated, and angry at this faceless entity and more willing to take it out on someone making $13 an hour.

One recent visit to Houston’s George H.W. Bush airport portended our obnoxious “automated” future. To cut down on unionized airport labor, all the restaurants use QR codes and require you to order food and drinks for yourself. Per usual, it’s sold as an exciting new technology that’s somehow good for consumers, but really the basic technology is 30 years old. It’s just a screen—the same ones restaurants have had for decades. The only thing that’s changed is the social conditioning of having you do all your own ordering and menu navigation. The waiter hasn’t been replaced by an iPad, they’ve been replaced by you. Invariably, it’s clunky and annoying and reduces the union jobs that airport construction is said to provide to justify soliciting public dollars. The only winner is a faceless corporation with a Delaware LLC and its shareholders living in a few counties in Connecticut and Texas.

Automation not only annoys and adds labor burdens to the customer, there is also evidence that it is a significant contributor to income inequality. A November 2022 study published in the journal Econometrica looked at the significantly widening income gap between lesser and more educated workers over the past 40 years. It found that “automation accounts for more than half of that increase,” as summarized by MIT News. “This single one variable … explains 50 to 70 percent of the changes or variation between group inequality from 1980 to about 2016,” said MIT economist Daron Acemoglu, co-author of the study. Whether or not, under a different economic system, automation could be a force for good is a debate for another day. But what is clear is that, while both consumers and workers are harmed by this trend, there is a significant want of solidarity between them.

3. Deliberate understaffing. This is a major culprit in this week’s Southwest Airlines meltdown. In parallel with the increased use of forced automation, cost-cutting corporations, facing increased labor power, are gutting staffing to its bare bones and hoping their corporate competitors doing the same will lead to a shift in consumer’s willingness to put up with substandard service and conditions, and overall bullshit. “We apologize for the wait,” the automated phone prompt tells us. Of course a machine cannot be contrite, so the effect is both surreal and grating: You’re not fucking sorry, you don’t exist. You're a recording. But now, who am I yelling at?

...

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alienssstufff · 5 months

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I wouldn't consider myself a analysist, because I'm not big brained nor have good enough memory for that; but like (and this may be my bias speaking) double life changed life!Pearl so much in the way it just amplified her already existing traits. She's very sheep in a wolf's clothing to me especially after dl made her even more disenchanted with the inherent isolation of later life sessions (what w/ being forced into that by day one of dl, immediately distrusted at a level only just barely below reds themselves). Like I could be getting the characterazation completely wrong, as I don't remember the seasons very well, but Pearl's playstyle very much feels like she's just capitalizing on her "hidden" chaos, being the kindest ally but also down to be unhinged when the moment calls for it, losing that kindness so fast in double life from being rejected and never getting it back nearly as strong as before. I feel like life!Pearl has gotten so use to the games and Watcher schennagins at this point that she just leans hard into the premise and her innate chaos <2 (can you tell she's my favourite character lol /silly)

Post-DL!Pearl I love her especially! Do I think she’s even more chaotic than she was in DL? No but for sure DL changed her like Whwhwh permanently she’s my fave winner bc of how prevalent that development is, to make those choices on her terms - not bc the game tells her to. Her POVs are very refreshing bc -in compare to everyone else- she’s so relaxed (bc she’s won before), and she makes it clear she’s not here to win (she already has)- she wants to have fun and uplift her friends :]

Her around ppl that aren’t her teammates is… a wildcard- but the trust in her allies is unshakeable. she reminds me of a mentor figure to them she wants what’s best for the team…. I don’t like the way ppl have been undermining the Mounders this season bc they aren’t attached at the hip 24/7, to Pearl they mean a lot to her SHE chose them and vice versa. so much that they’ll mutually go do things behind the other’s back that would help them survive in the long run and she trusts them with her LIFE. This especially between Pearl and Bdubs and their allyship makes me so delirious evrrytime she brings him up I’m getting Nosy Neighbours deja vu :[

“They’re Mounders (Joel and Bdubs), they would never betray me like that.” -Pearl ep6

“You can’t just TAKE him (Bdubs), he’s a Mounder.” -Pearl ep5 in the building competition

[the whole thing with Joel and Bdubs wasting their yellow-life guesses for Pearl ep6]

“I’m not here to win. I here for Bdubs to win.” -Pearl ep6

“I can’t. I can’t… she’s (Pearl) my biggest cheerleader. I can’t do that do her.” -Bdubs ep6

That part in SL Session 6 when Pearl, her dogs, and Bdubs hid in the skeleton farm away from the Wither/Warden fight, and when a red name (Martyn) found them- I wonder if she was ever scared the game would take Bdubs too like it did to BigB last season… I mean it already took Mumbo.

#ask stufff #stufff rambles #pearlescentmoon #bdubs #secret life spoilers #sorry. word vomit from last session and the whole slew of secret live tweeting #id say also that postDL Pearl and Grian are similar in regards to how they play (for fun)#the big difference is that clearly one is more competitive than the other #thus is represented much differently as much as I wish that fun-side of grian should be brought up more

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best-underrated-anime · 3 months

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Best Underrated Anime Group C Round 3: #C8 vs #C2

#C8: Government employee and his white cat boss

#C2: High social anxiety girl has to befriend her whole class

Details and poll under the cut!

*Text in green indicates that something has been changed.

#C8: White Cat Legend 2020 (Dali si Rizhi)

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Summary:

Chen Shi, a young man from the countryside, journeys to the capital in search of his missing older brother, whose existence he only knew about upon his mother’s death. He knows neither the name nor face of his brother, and after finally arriving at the capital, he runs out of money as well. One thing led to another, and he finds himself employed at Dali Court, where he works for Vice Minister Li Bing, a large white cat.

On the other hand, Li Bing is of royal blood who was imprisoned because of his family’s treason. Now, he has to work in the government to atone for the crime.

At Dali Court, they review court cases from all over the country. But when an incident involving the esteemed ministers of the royal court breaks out, Dali Court is called to help, only to find themselves entangled in political threads and hit heads with an eccentric demon.

Li Bing is determined to get to the bottom of this, but how far can he go when he could regress into a real cat at any time when left unchecked?

Propaganda:

I’m tired of writing new propaganda every round, so I’m begging you to just trust me that it’s GREAT.

Intriguing plot? Check. Complex and interesting characters? Check. Comedy? Check. Drama? Check.

The blend of comedy and drama is just so good. I started the show because I love cats and supernatural stuff. Who would’ve thought it would pull me into an abyss of despair of political intrigue. The cat demons turned out to be just the icing on the cake.

We have all these different characters brought up in different ways that their ideas of what is Right conflict with each other. None of them are exactly Wrong or inherently Evil (well, except for maybe one guy), and this makes it so much more difficult to choose who to root for. You’d think everyone against the protagonists are the Enemies, but turns out even the protagonists are limited by their biases and unintentionally harm others. Even the two protagonists themselves get into arguments because of their different standpoints.

And I just love this because it makes them realistic, you know? The characters don’t always agree with their friends, and their enemies are not completely hostile either. It really all boils down to what they believe in. Sometimes their beliefs align with existing comrades, and sometimes they find it on the other side.

Production-wise, this show also gets a check on everything. As an adaptation, it’s amazing. The original manhua has quite a simple style—kind of like comic book drawings, and panels are all rectangles in one straight line. Storytelling is also simple and straight to the point.

But the 2020 donghua? God, it went far and beyond that. The animation team does not cut corners at all, which is a feat considering the show has a low budget from what I’ve heard.

A short, simple scene in the manhua becomes an emotionally-devastating experience in the donghua. The animation choices, angles, music, and just everything else blend so well to deliver a STORY. This adaptation does not just copy frames from the source (like Blue Lock) or cut/reorder some of the scenes (like Horimiya and Sasaki to Miyano). White Cat Legend 2020 understands the material so well that it can creatively use the advantages of the animation medium to deliver an experience that exceeds even that of the source. Think Mob Pyscho 100 or One Punch Man s1 level of creativity. It even has mini stories at the end of the ending song. For s1, the mini stories are in stop-motion, while for s2 it’s formatted like a video game. You gotta appreciate the effort.

Please just vote for this show. It deserves to be in the Finals.

Trigger Warnings:

Cannibalism - There’s a cat demon who appears in human form, and he eats humans (it’s not shown explicitly, though).

Animal Cruelty or Death - said cat demon also eats animals raw (again, not explicitly)

Graphic Depictions of Cruelty/Violence/Gore - There’s blood and fighting, and somebody also gets tortured in season 2. But again, nothing too graphic

#C2: Hitori Bocchi’s ○○ Lifestyle (HitoriBocchi no MaruMaru Seikatsu)

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Summary:

Many of us know what it is like to transition to a new school with few to no friends in a new environment, going through the arduous process of getting to know people again. Bocchi Hitori knows this struggle all too well, having just graduated from elementary school and thrown into middle school. Unfortunately, she suffers from extreme social anxiety: she faints when overwhelmed, vomits when nervous, and draws up ridiculously convoluted plans to avoid social contact. It does not help that her only friend from elementary school, Kai Yawara, will not be attending the same middle school as Bocchi. However, wanting to help her, Kai severs ties with Bocchi and promises to reconcile with her when she befriends all of her classmates in her new middle school class.

Even though Bocchi has no faith in herself, she is determined to be friends with Kai again. Summoning all of her courage, Bocchi takes on the daunting challenge of making friends with her entire class, starting with the delinquent-looking girl sitting in front of her…

Propaganda:

This is a fun and lighthearted show. Watch it if you need something cute to chill out! The art is cute and colorful, the music lively, and the animation fine enough.

As it's adapted from a four-panel gag manga, the story is simple and focuses on the various characters. They all have pun-based names related to their main personality trait, so they're easy to remember if you know some basic Japanese (Hitori Bocchi means all alone, for example). The girls are all adorable and fun in their own quirky ways, and I loved seeing the heroine doing her utmost best to overcome her fears -and other challenges- to befriend them in the hope of fulfilling her promise. That's the power of the Do-Your-Best Fairy! They all care for each other (despite some teasing) and help Bocchi with her monumental task, never pulling her down for her struggles but gently pushing her in the back when needed.

But most importantly, Hitori Bocchi is a very relatable character. As someone suffering the same trouble, I related a lot with Bocchi, from her silliest worries to her escalating panic and weird schemes in an attempt to prevent anything wrong. Anxiety is faithfully represented, mixed with the right amount of laughing to how far Bocchi can get to avoid fearful situations in her very cute ways. It feels good to see a character like me in a such positive light! The struggles are real and acknowledged, and it’s really moving to see our heroine overcome them little by little in a very humanizing way.

This series has become one of my comfort materials, and I come back to it when I need hope and inspiration in everyday social interactions! If you need one last thing to be convinced, listen to that most adorable and silly song that will give you the Power of Motivation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGoGwlNmZUQ

Trigger Warnings: None.

When reblogging and adding your own propaganda, please tag me @best-underrated-anime so that I’ll be sure to see it.

If you want to criticize one of the shows above to give the one you’re rooting for an advantage, then do so constructively. I do not tolerate groundless hate or slander on this blog. If I catch you doing such a thing in the notes, be it in the tags or reblogs, I will block you.

Know one of the shows above and not satisfied with how it’s presented in this tournament? Just fill up this form, where you can submit revisions for taglines, propaganda, trigger warnings, and/or video.

#anime #donghua #best underrated anime #polls #poll tournament #tournament #anime tournament #animation #group stage #group stage round 3 #tournament polls #group c #white cat legend #大理寺日志 #dali si rizhi #da li si ri zhi #hitori bocchi’s lifestyle #hitori bocchi no marumaru seikatsu #hitoribocchi no marumaru seikatsu

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communistkenobi · 1 year

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Your recent post about how learning information is not inherently revelatory and ignorance isn't the sole cause of conservatism reminded me of how often (liberal)people will jump to pointing out hypocrisy to conservatives as if the "gotcha!" moment is the action that is going to save the world. People will try and argue till they're blue in the face about how they aren't factually backed and how they'll cherrypick rules and concepts to fit what their agenda (which is annoying, so i get the impulse to do that!). And then how that just doesn't work because more often than not conservatives know what they espouse isn't factual and there isn't consistent logic inside it besides getting them the right wing political outcomes they want. Yet so much time and energy and airspace is devoted to Just Only That and nothing else. just got me thinking

Yes exactly! Adorno’s work has been very illuminating for me in this regard (I wrote a long-ish post about this exact thing here). He talks about the American sense of democratic duty to “know about the issues” and “vote with your brain” - there is a generalised sense in the US/Canada that your primary political function as a citizen is to be educated and understand who to vote for in every election. This frames voting as primarily a function of knowledge as opposed to class interests or religious interests or whatever else. This is why you frequently hear liberals say “the truth has a liberal bias” - they believe their political beliefs are to some extent above politics, because the mythology of liberalism (in the American understanding of the word, not the global sense) is that it’s a belief system based primarily on fact. Therefore, the primary issue with conservatives is that they don’t have the correct information, and must either be educated or shamed for not knowing something.

I have only read some of Fanon and Said (pulling from Wretched of the Earth and Orientalism, respectively), but they both talk about the history of rationality and scientific inquiry as a tool of empire - IQ, race science, eugenics, phrenology, psychiatry to a large extent (see Fanon), anthropology, geography - these fields were (and still are) imperial projects that were used to “calculate” populations and space, to collect information about territories and people under imperial control, to quantify the conquest of colonial domination and systemise it for the purpose of ruling. These things rose alongside capitalism, where quantification is valuable because it allows you to precisely calculate your (and everyone else’s) class position.

It also allows colonial powers to present themselves as “objectively correct” - colonial invaders are positioned as civilising and intellectualising forces on colonised populations, organising settler society along “factual” lines. Neocleous in Off the Map: On Violence and Cartography talks about how, as the monarchy and the church began to recede and was replaced by The State as the dominant power, there was an intellectual shift from viewing Divine Right of Kings as the ultimate authority to state sovereignty, which is a secular “unit” of authority. Divinity was replaced by state rationality - the state authors truth, and it uses scientific inquiry as the tool by which it does so.

Which again, the conclusion is not to do away with scientific inquiry, but to always understand it in relationship to class interests and the interests of the state. Going back to Adorno, he stresses the importance that class in particular has on ideology - it is not so much your ability to learn information, but the way you process that information and internalise it, and that processing is deeply influenced by class (and race! And other things, but in the American context, white supremacy is central to class and vice versa). Communists make the claim that their beliefs are scientific, and my own ideological commitments make me ultimately fall on the side of “objective truth exists and communists know what it is”, but the way truth gets produced and how it gets used is always going to be problematised by who controls the institutions that produce that truth (whether that’s the state, the academy, the church, etc)

So, when you look at American Liberals, who are deeply committed to the imperial American project, they are concerned primarily with information because they understand that their beliefs flow from state-sanctioned fact. And like, that’s true! Just not in the way they think lol.

#asks #effortpost #book club #sorry. insanity moment. I hope this is like even slightly coherent lol #I need to read more said and fanon so some of this is messy/probably too generalised

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howieabel · 11 months

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“Well, it's been obvious for centuries that capitalism is going to self-destruct: that's just inherent in the logic of system―because to the extent that a system is capitalist, that means maximizing short-term profit and not being concerned with long-term effects. In fact, the motto of capitalism was, "private vices, public benefits"―somehow it's gonna work out. Well, it doesn't work out, and it's never going to work out: if you're maximizing short-term profits without concern for the long-term effects, you are going to destroy the environment, for one thing. I mean, you can pretend up to a certain point that the world has infinite resources and that it's an infinite wastebasket―but at some point you're going to run into the reality, which is that that isn't true. Well, we're running into that reality now―and it's very profound. Take something like combustion: anything you burn, no matter what it is, is increasing the greenhouse effect―and this was known to scientists decades ago, they knew exactly what was happening. But in a capitalist system, you don't care about long-term effects like that, what you have to care about is tomorrow's profits. So the greenhouse effect has been building for years, and there's no known technological fix on the horizon―there may not be any answer to this, it could be so serious that there's no remedy. That's possible, and then human beings will turn out to have been a lethal mutation, which maybe destroys a lot of life with us. Or it could be that there's some way of fixing it, or some ameliorating way―nobody knows.” ― Noam Chomsky, Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky

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firjii · 3 months

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I feel like fanworks of any medium in any fandom can be an inherently double-edged sword and the reason why, in a way, I'm glad I haven't tried to religiously pursue it.

On the one hand, it's a beautiful example of dedication, creativity, and often otherwise undiscovered/overlooked talent. It can also be a legitimate stepping stone to bigger things or, in a few lucky cases, the start of a career that utilizes those same interests or talents.

On the other hand, much of the audience has extremely specific desires and is commonly in flux in ways that some other areas of life and society don't have an exact equivalent for. To be blunt, they're really damn fickle sometimes.

You can be dazzlingly, brilliantly skilled at your craft and have good relations with your admirers/followers/clients, but if something else captures their attention for a sustained amount of time, you either have to adapt to what they want or accept that you might've lost that connection with that particular person or persons.

Some people adapt to other fandoms just fine and continue to enjoy that dynamic. Some even ride a "wave" effect (i.e. their own personal interests coincide with fans') as a new fandom crops up or an old one surges in popularity again. I wish those people all the best because that, too, is beautiful to see.

But for lack of a better word, it's problematic for some creatives. Y'all like to say "death to capitalism," but artists (*general term meaning any people who make stuff in any medium) doing things for money are, in fact, technically participating in capitalism in some shape or form. That's just how it is.

And that's OK. It's OK to try to make a living from things you like for the simple purpose of paying bills and eating 3 times a day and not needing to sleep in an alley. That's not a vice and it sure as hell isn't grounds for canceling.

I've seen so many shitty takes on this about how fans are entitled to fully rendered OC portraits or an entire 50k novel or a whole-ass crocheted blanket or an album-length music project for free because "*nonchalant shrug* I simply don't believe in The System(TM)," with no regard for the logistics involved and no understanding that the time it takes to make stuff is time that can't be used on other things (whether that means employment, sleep, eating, or basic mental health self-care).

There are people online - and especially here - who scrape by at a subsistence level by making art/crafts or writing fics or coding IFs or writing music. Some artists (*general term meaning any people who make stuff in any medium) do it specifically because they have a disability or health problem that precludes them from other options. Some are autistic or are dealing with other things that fundamentally impact how they function as a human in the world.

Translation: some people literally can't just yo-yo into a new subject at the whim of fandom trends. It literally doesn't compute for everyone. They're faced with the choice to force themselves into other subjects just to maintain connections/a little money or to become legitimately interested in said thing "too late" when the height of fandom enthusiasm has long since peaked.

I used to think that people just meant politics or cancel culture when they said "fandom is kind of like high school," but now I get it: there's a distinct popularity contest element to it - or there easily can be one - not necessarily about the quality of the creatives' finished expressions or even fans' personal tastes of those expressions, but the level of fandom involvement and population size itself.

It's no one's fault that it happens and it's usually totally innocent and incidental. It's also not necessarily a bad thing - far be it for me to discourage people from moving on to things that are better for their mental health or move away from things that were bad for it. But it's inevitable that some are left behind in the dust from time to time, even if the other/new fandoms make every effort to be welcoming.

The basest advice you often get is "go with the flow," but some people simply can't do that. They pour their hearts into a particular medium or niche topic or inspiration source because that particular Thing(TM) clicks for them in ways that other stuff doesn't. It's not as simple as "yeah sure w/e I'll draw the little space man today instead of a salmon."

So idk I would just suggest that, as one example, when y'all want to get an OC portrait and the artist you want to make it explicitly states which fandoms they can do and yours isn't on their list, at least ask NICELY if they'd be comfortable trying something new. Don't barge in and pressure them, because we tend to already pressure ourselves more than our due.

You'd be amazed how many people don't grasp this.

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la-pheacienne · 1 year

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A random information while reading your answer to the post saying Rhaenyra is a bloodthirsty tyrant. I find funny to say that a lot of king fell in the 1700' because of their greed because, one of the most famous example of monarchy failing in this period, the French one, did not begin because of the king's greed per se. It began because the king wanted to tax the nobility. Of course the latter reacted badly and manipulate the population to confront the king and make it stop. Of course it backfired on them at some point but... it was not really the king's greed and disregard for the folk that lead to the revolution. More of the nobles' greed. And well, Martin did not take the french example for his story but the greens would make fine french nobility.

Thank you anon for your excellent point, I didn't want to include that in my answer because it would be even longer. So I just said "it's complicated" 🤣 And here you are explaining exactly how complicated it is.

In the case of the French Revolution, the King was the LEAST to blame for all this mess. French people may disagree with me, but I've read a ton of stuff on the French Revolution and I don't really care. That's facts. The King wanted to reform the Monarchy actually (by taxing the nobility as you say). He tried. Maybe he didn't try hard enough but he did try. The system was much bigger than him. It's the nobility, (the other Aristocrats) along with the church that are to blame for what happened. They caused the fall of French monarchy. Not the King. The English nobility for example was smarter, knew how to reform itself, they understood that their aristocratic titles cannot get them very far, they had to make alliances with the bourgeoisie, they had to acknowledge the power of money and not just the power of blood. So they avoided getting their head chopped off basically (not all of them).

It is extremely simplistic and oh so american to think that monarchs have this inherent vice by definition and that any non-feudal system is fundamentally better. It's better in some aspects bro. Some. Current "democracies" are still characterised by a very strict hierarchy and very solid inequalities (capitalism hello), it's just that money has replaced origin. That's cool, it's a progress, but it shouldn't be venerated so much and the old system shouldn't be demonized that much. It depends on what we're talking about in every case. You need to be more specific. Of course you cannot be specific when you want to cherry-pick certain historical examples, misinterpret them and then project them to a fictional story that has absolutely no relation to them.

If anyone resembles greedy french nobility that's the Greens LOL. Not the Targs, and certainly not the BLACKS as opposed to the Greens which is even funnier. It's still not a relevant comparison but just saying

#insane rambling today #hotd #house of the dragon #fire and blood #GRRM #anonymous #now I'm gonna be accused of being an anti-democrat coloniser bigoted piece of shit #I'm impatiently waiting #french Revolution I guess?#frev

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prinsavvy · 4 months

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USA Presidency CONT; RE:

This thread emphasizing the importance of voting and the evil of both Biden and Trump

Please read and share the linked thread. It is important to acknowledge that if you have the power to vote, that opting to not use it at all is selfish and counterproductive to the progress you wish the world was making. You look at both candidates and the duopoly as a whole, and you go 'I don‘t want to support either of them!'

This is a very sane thought to have. Rejection of the duopoly and realizing the popular candidates and imposition of 'well you have to have bad (1) or bad (2)' is inherently oppressive is a first step in the right direction. When you choose to opt out of participating in the system instead of attacking it from the inside, however, your agency and influence is lost. To remove yourself from the responsibility of contributing to society because it is easier is to be lazy, complacent, & priveleged.

After you know that the duopoly is bad, the next natural question to have is 'What are the alternatives?'

The inherent corruption of American politics as they are now tends to make ideally-progressive people tired. The disharmony makes putting effort in to understand it unappealing. The chances that you and your friends don‘t understand the meaning of the words and labels used in political discussions, or the procedures and technicalities involved in electing these powers is high. You dislike the concept in itself, so your most surface level reaction to it is to not engage.

You will have to stop correlating 'the act of learning about something' to 'enjoying the subject matter'. You will have to learn about politics and about history and they will have to be subjects that discomfort and enrage you. You will have to develop your own understandings of the labels imposed onto your political society if your true goal is to be free from them. Ignoring them is not being free from them. You cannot effectively resist what you do not understand.

I am 16. I am not of age, so I cannot vote. I am a volunteer for Claudia De la Cruz‘s presidency campaign

votesocialist2024.com | twt:@votesocialist24 | insta:@claudia_karina2024

You can read in depth about Claudia and her vice-president candidate Karina Garcia on their website and hear them on their socials. Personally reading how they define themselves, their ideals, and their program will be the best way to understand and resonate with them. For the sake of an introduction and the purpose of this post, I can summarize:

Claudia De la Cruz is running for President of the United States in 2024. Karina Garcia is running for Vice President alongside her.

They label themselves with the socialist party rather than democrat or republican. They need help from of-age petitioners to obtain ballot access. They’re aiming for ballot access in as many states as possible. Their names being a pre-set option on the ballot will increase their visibility.

They collaborate with the Party for Socialism and Liberation, established in 2004. Their ideal is to dismantle capitalism and imperialism.

The candidates have been involved in activism for the majority of their lives. Relevantly, they have been speakers at protests against the US‘ enabling of the occupation and genocide in Palestine.

The way official media frames Trump and Biden as the only two options is only true if you let it be. The imposition that the duopoly is simply too powerful and popular for resistance to do anything is what they count on discouraging you.

No matter what, there will always be another option. There will always be the option of a world that doesn‘t let political powers desecrate their own population for the purpose of funding genocide and slavery. It‘s a simple fact that relies on your love and your anger. As long as the people exist, the option of the people‘s freedom exists. And we know the people will always exist. All you have to do is fight and celebrate for it.

Even if you are not of age to vote, learn about the other options. Use your knowledge to influence and motivate the people around you who can. Talk to your friends and family about politics and study the options together. Attend teach ins and protests. Read articles and watch videos from independent media sources.

Part of life is advocating for it.

#politics #socialism #claudia de la cruz #karina garcia #long post #activism #free palestine #free congo

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falseandrealultravival · 8 months

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Churchill's Actions and Quotes: Are They Profitable? (Essay)

Sir Winston Churchill is famous for his victory over Hitler's Nazi Germany and the temporary world peace, but I wanted to know more about him so I did some research.

--Winston Churchill

British politician. He first joined the Conservative Party and then the Liberal Party, successively serving as Minister of Commerce and Minister of Home Affairs, Minister of the Navy and Minister of Defense during World War I, and Minister of War and Minister of Colonization after the war. He later returned to the Conservative Party and became Minister of Finance. He returned to the gold standard. He served as prime minister during World War II and contributed to the victory of the Allies. After the war, he became prime minister again. He is the author of "The Crisis of the World" and "Memories of the Second World War". He won the Nobel Prize in Literature. (1874-1965)

He was by no means an omnipotent person, and he often failed in the war. (According to the wiki, when he was a child, he was rather an inferior student. At Harrow School, he was not allowed to study foreign languages because he did poorly, and was made to study only English. It is said that it helped him to improve his English expressiveness and led to winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in later years.) On the other hand, he has a certain eye as a politician. Germany opposes the appeasement policy, saying that it will only increase the number of Nazis. This achievement is probably due to the fact that he came from a military background and was able to realistically analyze the current situation with his sharp eyes. Anticipating the Cold War, he envisioned the unity of European nations, so to speak, anticipating the EU. (I wonder how he sees the current so-called Brexit.) Churchill was the foremost anti-communist.

Here are three of Churchill's most famous quotes.

＠The greatest lesson in life is to know

Even fools are right sometimes.

＠I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober,

and you are still ugly.

＠The inherent vice of capitalism is

the unequal sharing of blessings,

The inherent virtue of socialism is

the equal sharing of miseries.

The second statement would now be flagged as misogyny. I didn't say it, Churchill said it, sorry. BGM: Pomp and circumstance No. 1 (“British Second National Anthem”)

#Churchill #prime minister #WW2 #Nobel Prize in Literature #rei morishita #Cold War #EU #anti-communist #Brexit #Pomp and circumstance #essay

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gayleviticus · 1 year

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not doing a 'ed and al failed when they tried to perform human transmutation. but did you know there's an even more powerful alchemist out there who managed to resurrect himself from the dead?' youth pastor moment here but something ive been thinking abt re fullmetal alchemist 2003 is the biblical Book of Job. (ofc cw christianity/religion)

There's a common thread throughout the Bible that views disaster and misfortune as a punishment for sin - the plagues sent upon Egypt; the plague sent upon Israel because of King David's error; and most significantly, the extremely traumatic exile and captivity of Israel, God's chosen people, because they oppressed the poor and engaged in idolatry. We also see more generally in Deuteronomy blessings promised for keeping God's Law and curses threatened for breaking it, and lots of Proverbs speaks about the ruin that inevitable comes to the wicked and foolish. And of course, in the Christian New Testament, Revelation promises a judgment of the world and wickedness at the apocalypse.

This kind of viewpoint is probably something we associate fairly often w religion (and not just organised religion - new agey law of attraction type stuff is not a radically different concept). Goodness is rewarded, evil is punished. A kind of equivalent exchange concerned primarily with ethics rather than 'hard work' as such, but even then they're not that disconnected; we do, after all, view diligence as a virtue and laziness as a vice.

Now, I don't think this is an inherently 100% wrong notion. The idea that goodness should be rewarded and evil punished is a sympathetic one, and to a certain extent it's true; often being an asshole ends up alienating everyone and making them hate you, and arguably on a mass-scale we see the self-devouring consequences of evil in the way ruthless oppressive capitalism is destroying the world through climate change.

But if we take this notion of divine judgment or karma or equivalent exchange as absolute… well, we end up with some extremely nasty ideas. AIDS was God's punishment on sinful homosexuals, or cancer is a consequence of not praying/believing/thinking positive thoughts enough. Poor people deserve their poverty because they didn't work hard enough and the rich deserve their wealth to do with as they please because it's a divine blessing. If we believe in a rigid one to one correlation between action and consequence then we can't avoid the unfortunate conclusion that victims of war and murder and genocide actually had it coming to them for their sins.

fortunately the Bible isn't absolute on the topic. It has voices that offer a more nuanced, alternative take. One of the most obvious is Jesus, literally God who was executed as a common criminal. Did he deserve to die? Was it a punishment for his sins? No, of course not. So if God himself can get brutally murdered by the state's 'justice' that puts a huge hole in a nice, straightforward theory of 'bad things only happen to bad people'.

But another big example is the Book of Job, which is essentially just the story of Job, a very upstanding guy who loses everything - children, property, his health. And so naturally, when his friends come to visit to comfort him, they assume, of course, that this is some kind of punishment for his sins and that he needs to ask God for forgiveness. Job is adamant he's done nothing wrong, but his friends continue to insist that these things happen for a reason.

Eventually God himself appears, and Job demands an answer - which God refuses, instead displaying his tremendous, terrifying power to argue Job as a mere mortal has no right to argue with him. But crucially, in the end, God states that only Job - who maintained his own righteoussness, and rejected the logic of suffering as punishment, all while refusing to curse God - spoke rightly of him, not his friends. In the end Job is given no clear-cut answer to why he has suffered so, but he is restored to full health and prosperity, and his innocence is vindicated.

so i guess to me fma 03 feels like a similar kind of take to Job, cutting against the grain. It goes into the depths of misfortune and suffering to question a naive, childish notion of equivalent exchange - but also, to find what's valuable in it and preserve it. Equivalent exchange as a way of rejecting reality - or as a pious fiction to constrain and capture the terrifying reality of God - is a lie, but the Elrics find value in it as a driving ethical ideal, and Job maintains that fundamentally the misfortune that has befallen him is not fair.

Neither work descends to cynicism either. Their conclusion is not that life is cruel and capricious and therefore meaningless, but I think actually the opposite; their rejection of absolute equivalent exchange is a compassionate move rejecting the cruel logic that people who suffer had it coming, while also arguing that tragedy doesn't have to mean despair. They're grim, perhaps, but not for the sake of revelling and indulging in it but because sometimes grimness is a necessary antidote to toxic positivity.

Ed and Job's friends also share a similar kind of spiritual sloth I think - a clinging to certain ideas because it makes the world a more palatable place, regardless of the implications or consequences. Ultimately there is comfort in facing the truth and understanding there is no magical defence against sickness and poverty and war and loss - but it can be terrifying too for those who would rather ignore it.

#fma 03 #fma 2003 #fma 03 meta #fma #cw religion #cw christianity #i feel like this is simultaneously really obvious and not worth talking about and also a really bizarre and weird stretch lol

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interlagosed · 2 years

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This is a draft of an article I started writing earlier this year after Jeddah. It’s not finished, and there’s a chunk in the middle missing, but I think the point stands even further today. The actual article has links and stuff, but the formatting didn’t allow for that alas.

During the first free practice session of the Formula 1 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit, an Aramco facility 10 miles away from the circuit was attacked. The Houthi group, who claim to be the legitimate government of Yemen, claimed responsibility for the attack. The airstrike caused widespread concern in the paddock, and although race organizers and team principles alike appeared ready to continue the race, Formula 1 drivers themselves - numbering twenty, spread equally across ten teams - were less certain. The evening culminated in a meeting between drivers, closed to the media, that spanned about four hours. Team principals and members of the administration filtered in and out. Lewis Hamilton, one of the most prominent names in Formula 1 and a driver who has not been shy about his political advocacy, was a prime figure in those meetings. While the drivers agreed to continue participating in the weekend as planned, reportedly despite continued misgivings, there is no understating the importance of the drivers’ response to the air strikes.

Before limiting the rest of this article to a single sport, it is morally imperative to discuss the Yemeni civil war. Like many of its counterparts in the MENA/SWANA region, the Yemeni people rose up against Yemen’s longstanding, authoritarian president. The vice president at the time, Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, took over leadership of the country. This change in leadership heralded more insecurity, however, as the Houthi group asserted its own challenge for the helm. Thus began a protracted conflict, simultaneously a civil and proxy war, which has seen the Hadi regime (supported by Saudi Arabia and its allies, including the United States, and internationally recognized as the legitimate government) assert its claim to Yemen from exile in Saudi Arabia, and the Houthis (backed by Iran) de facto administering Yemen from the capital Sana’a. Houthi forces periodically launch air strikes against infrastructural targets in Saudi Arabia - the latest of which was the Aramco facility ten miles from the Jeddah Corniche Circuit.

The human consequences of the Yemeni civil/proxy war have been reprehensible. Over 100,000 people have been displaced by the conflict. 80% of the population is in need of humanitarian aid, including 12.9 million children. One million people have suffered because of a cholera outbreak. By all accounts, Yemenis are suffering some of the worst humanitarian conditions in the world. Just a few months into 2022, the conflict appears to be ramping up again - and civilians, as is the case in any war, continue to bear its consequences.

It is against this backdrop that, last year, Formula One Management (the main operating organ of Formula 1 racing) ran the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix for the first time in December 2021. The controversies were several and urgent. Notably, there were concerns about Saudi Arabia attempting to sportswash its image, the ethics of racing in a country that routinely abused human rights, and - fundamentally for the racers - the safety of the Jeddah Corniche Circuit itself. Regardless, the Formula 1 administration was evidently satisfied with the circuit, because, just a few months later, the Jeddah Corniche Circuit hosted the 2022 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, the second race of the season.

The 2022 season has been an eventful one already. It is outside the scope of this writing to detail all that has transpired so far, but even set against that context the proceedings of Friday night into Saturday morning were still remarkable for the sport.

Most sports are inherently political, even when they actively distance themselves from politics. Sports that center competition between countries (such as cricket) engender nationalism, to the extent of precipitating (international) conflict. Even sports that center leagues and teams that aren’t drawn across national lines reflect politics, allowing wealthy people and organizations to exert influence over the machinations of a team while further enriching themselves. Sportswashing is frequently implicated in sports, allowing host-countries to paper over their international image with the glitz and adrenaline of massive sporting events.

Formula 1, of course, reflects many of these realities - but it is also notable for the fundamental elitism involved in actually engaging in the sport. More or less twenty individuals from around the world are chosen to compete in the “pinnacle of motorsports,” spread evenly across roughly ten teams. The barrier to entry is commensurately high, and thus the Formula 1 “grid” reflects power distributions writ large in the world. F1 drivers are predominantly rich, white men (often with legacies, usually fathers who were prominent in the sport as well) chosen not only for their skills, but also for the sponsorship money they bring in. Frequently, money and image are weighed more heavily than skills. Outliers, while extant, are few and far between, and may be backed by interests other than pure skill (e.g., their nationality, particularly if underrepresented in motorsports). That is, like any other sport, to be an F1 driver requires skill and luck in large measures - but it mostly takes money, and money, in F1, is more reliable than luck and skill, unless skill attracts and is also backed by money. And money, of course, is a matter of luck.

Formula 1 also requires a functionally literal lifetime commitment. Future motorsports professionals are scouted as young as four years old at various “karting” events (usually in Europe). Logically, for a four year old to show interest in karting, they would usually require some level of intervention, perhaps by a parent with prior interest or experience in motorsport. Scouting is not a one-off event. Young karters are toted around in international “circuits,” an endeavor that requires money. Current F1 driver Esteban Ocon frequently recounts how his parents sold their home to finance his racing career; current F1 driver and greatest-of-all-time Lewis Hamilton’s father, Anthony Hamilton, struggled similarly, juggling several jobs to support the future seven-time champion’s career. This is not a sustainable expectation, nor should it be.

Living in a relative spotlight one’s whole life has another consequence. Toto Wolff, team principal of Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 team referred to F1 drivers as “little traumatized kids [that were] left in a go-kart in the rain and were sent out to … drive around, fearful.” Motorsport drivers may not complete their secondary education, or pursue higher education. PR becomes a large part of drivers’ lives once they are signed on by a team; their image and speech is managed, and it takes a lot of clout to be able to be outspoken on political matters. Drivers may be fearful to speak openly on sensitive matters until - or, more realistically, unless - they attain the status of drivers such as Lewis Hamilton or Sebastian Vettel (a four-time world champion). Alternatively, drivers may only begin speaking out if the matter is sanctioned by the sport’s governing authorities - whether against racism and inequality, or most recently - against the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine.

So much for the drivers themselves. The actual operation of the sport turns on the availability of tracks, built in countries around the world (sometimes for the express purpose of Formula 1 races). Each track is inspected for its conformity to the International Automobile Federation (FIA’s) grading system. To be suitable for Formula 1 racing, a track must conform to the highest grade. Beyond this, however, states pay fees for the pleasure of hosting Formula 1 races. The venues that pay the most to host a race are, in order, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Azerbaijan, China, Russia, and Bahrain - all states with tenuous human rights records. However, this is not meant to absolve other states from their own human rights abuses; the United States, which is due to host three Formula 1 races in 2022, has perpetrated human rights abuses domestically, and enabled many of the aforementioned states in their own escapades. States routinely engage in abhorrent activities - but, like in other sports, spectators are largely content to be apolitical, and the sport follows suit.

But there is an elusive critical mass of public opinion that shifts the tide, that forces “apolitical” institutes to weigh in on politics. The Russian war in Ukraine was one such example.

When asked whether he would race in Jeddah again, current Alfa Romeo driver Valtteri Bottas dodged the question, noting, instead, that the GPDA was “really united at the moment.”

“With any issues, we will always regroup and go through them and give our view, if it makes a difference. That's nice. But it's not always guaranteed it will."

It would be overly optimistic to assume that F1 drivers’ present sense of camaraderie will continue, or that they will be on the same page regarding other sensitive (particularly political) matters - but the precedent has been set, and rather publicly. And while such questionable decisions will be made by Liberty Media and the FOM again, the institutions underpinning F1 racing will be hard-pressed to erase this moment from the minds of drivers and fans alike.

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kradogsrats · 2 years

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(1/2) Just a theory: It's possible that Dark Magic is meant to be corruptive in a more passive way than the narrative devices it's typically compared to. The One Ring had a will of its own, so it was actively corrupting its bearers. The Dark Side of the Force is just corruption incarnate and is often compared to a drug.

I would actually argue that the consumptive nature of Dark magic has more influence than the nature of the person necessarily does--the repeated process of extracting power directly from resources that way is likely to cultivate the kind of ends-justify-the-means attitude toward those resources and toward the world in general, as we see with both Viren and Claudia. Is Dark magic also likely to therefore attract a certain type of people as practitioners? Absolutely--Callum's clearly not into it, though he's too polite to say "Claudia, crushing the life out of magical creatures is creepy as hell and I find you significantly less sexy than before." You have to be willing to accept that step of consuming a living, potentially non-renewable resource to accomplish your immediate purpose. (And really, what's more human nature than that? We're all doing it, to varying degrees.)

Dark magic also definitely produces a pathway to some really heinous actions--if you've decided that the ends justify the means, Dark magic is very flexible in what kinds of means will get you results. Like, daily reminder that we still don't know what Viren did, but it was bad enough that it made his teacher reconsider the entire practice of Dark magic.

(Also I mention "non-renewable" because someone recently reblogged my post speculating about the Mage Wars and I have kept forgetting after my rewatch to note down something publicly about how I've definitely come down on the side of "the human kingdoms were originally similarly rich in magic to the rest of Xadia, and it was all strip-mined for Dark magic over the course of several hundred years" and probably the Mage Wars kind of exhausted themselves because the balance between how much destructive power a mage could command versus how much destructive power a non-magical army could command shifted at that point. But anyway, Dark magic definitely also poses a significant ecological threat.)

(Incidentally, there is 1000% for sure a black market trade in smuggling magical resources across the Xadian border, and it's not entirely directed by humans. Nyx is absolutely involved.)

So like, it's bad. I'm not arguing that it's not bad, and I'm not arguing that the text didn't purposefully create a non-neutral system. I'm not even arguing that a non-neutral system is bad story design, though I admit I prefer stories that start with a neutral system and bring the corruption from the characters or societal end, because I think evil being a possibility inherent in ordinary people is a more valuable exploration overall than evil as an external force.

And like... on some level the text has to be decent at implicitly conveying all of this, or I wouldn't be sitting here jawing about it so much. But what drives me up the fucking wall is what it explicitly says but then completely fails to convey, partly because those things are so entrenched in other supernatural corruption narratives that they stick out very prominently. Specifically:

Dark magic is a "shortcut" (i.e. the dark side of the Force is the "quick and easy" path): This definitely stems from the concept that has been baked into American culture for like 400 years that anything that doesn't take stupid amounts of labor is inherently suspect and you probably don't deserve it, perverted under capitalism to if you don't have enough resources to sustain yourself it's probably because you're lazy. Anyway, work is virtue, sloth is vice, so anything that is "too easy" is automatically bad. In real life, "shortcuts" (derogatory) generally introduce some element of risk, whether to safety, longevity of the solution, whatever. That would be both thematically appropriate and understandable. But we have not, even one single time, seen that happen with a Dark magic effect. Or even heard it described, despite the "it's too easy" line coming out multiple times.

Dark magic carries an unpredictable price (i.e. some kind of implied monkey's paw thing, idek): Like, here's the thing about this: I'm 100% behind there being a price, here, from "you are now .004% closer to death from magical radiation cancer, and now glow in the dark" to "when Elarion's Midnight Star returns, he will reward all who have been touched by his gift by reaping their souls and making them his zombie army." This is touched on a lot in the meta materials, particularly in things like the explanation of the difference between consumable primal magic sources like moon opals and Dark magic--those natural sources are incredibly rare and the cost of obtaining them puts a significant limit on their use, whereas Dark magic can use much more obtainable resources to produce an equivalent effect. The implication is that while the external magical resource cost is lower, there is some other cost that balances it. Dark magic takes a piece of the mage with it, etc. What kind of a piece? Soul? Lifespan? Youthful good looks? Toenails? We just don't know right now, which is fine, whatever. (Just as a side note, a lot of the Dark magic effects we see are cast with preserved parts. Hell, the dragon whose horn Viren uses to part the lava river is still alive. So while "ah, it's the consumption of the magical creature's life force that makes up the difference!" would be a solid explanation, it's also not the case.) The problem, again, is the way that characters talk about this cost--everything we've seen as a possibility is strictly internal to the mage. But Sarai and Harrow both talk about this cost as if it's something everyone, collectively, will have to pay. As with the shortcut issue, this would absolutely be thematically appropriate and also probably cool, but it's simply not in there at any point. There isn't a single example.

Maybe I'll be surprised. Maybe it'll all swing around and make sense. Maybe Aaravos will enslave the souls of every human touched by Dark magic and it'll turn out that was the price to all of humanity incurred since its inception. (There's no evidence for this, I literally made it up just now don't @ me.)

Anyway. To bring things back to what you like... actually said, instead of my weird rant about tangentially-related stuff? IMO it's not purely about the power and exercise of it, because then we'd be prompted to ask questions about like... does the fact that Callum worked really hard for his connection to the Sky arcanum mean he's automatically a good custodian of the power to hit someone with lightning basically whenever he wants? (Side note: if Callum goes underground with Ezran in S4 and can still cast Sky spells, I will riot.) We've seen legitimately terrible uses of primal magic, as well--Khessa is definitely framed as some kind of dystopian despot who draws casual enjoyment from subjecting people to the judgement of the Light the same way that creepy kid in ASoIaF (since you mentioned it) enjoys people being made to "fly," and if the spell Aaravos uses to disintegrate her is primal-based (unclear) that means someone at some point thought "what if I could use the power of my innate mystical connection to the Sun (or whatever) to break another living being down into their component molecules?" and then went for it. Why is one worse than the other? We could extrapolate further, into why the text never seems to interrogate the power of the throne or political power, if what it's trying to explore is power, itself. No one's talking about whether like... maintaining an elite group of assassins constantly is likely to make you more willing to assassinate people instead of a less easy solution, since they're right there ready for use.

Like, it could be that Dark magic was simply designed as a corruptive magic system, full stop, no further explanation necessary. But then the purpose really can't be to interrogate the corruptive nature of power itself, because the narrative isn't exploring the corruption of any other kind of comparable power, only the one that was specifically designed as corruptive.

#ANYWAY #the dragon prince #dark magic #i'm just real salty rn #it'll pass at some point #but yeah y'all don't want to hear my rant about the force and the light side/dark side thing because it's... woof #like at least dark mages choose to be dark mages #force-sensitives are unlucky pawns in an endless war with their morality choreographed by literal cellular parasites

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forfoxessake · 1 year

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March (2023)

It’s silly but I’m happy I managed to watch some recent works that I was interested in, I sometimes get trapped into watching what I think I should watch, and not what I want. I can say the same for books, although I’m still finding it difficult to truly focus for more than a few pages.

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8 films

Catherine Called Birdy (2022) - directed by Lena Dunham, Bella Ramsey is a coming-of-age story, with a lovely cast and a profound reflection on what is to be a woman, and how you can find yourself among all the many things expected of our “designated roles” in society. Bella truly shines here and I want her to do more diverse roles.

Disenchanted (2022) - I love the original film and was genuinely excited for this, the trailers looked fun, and I was disapointed by the quality delivered, it’s a good idea badly executed, and while Amy Adams is forever delightful, and especially when she is being bad, but it’s not enough to make this an enjoyable film, not even for a 10 year old.

Glass Life (2021) a short documentary insanely full of references, I could barely keep up with it and need to watch it at least 5 times more. But I loved it. It’s a reflection on our choices in regard to our daily life, our capitalism image-obsessed life.

Holy Spider (2022) directed by Ali Abbasi (who also directed two great The Last of Us episodes) it’s not an easy film to watch, a real-life story about a serial killer who targeted sex workers and used a religious belief to justify his killing. It doesn’t hide anything, it hurts to watch it, but it’s necessary, it can be like many other similar crime films that make it all seem glorious.

Happy Together (1997) directed by Wong Kar-wai I’m slowly going through his most famous work and loving the way his movies have textured, you can feel them with our of our senses. It’s love in a non-Hollywood way, it’s real.

A Quiet Place II (2020) The first one is so refreshingly good, unfortunately, the sequel is unnecessary, more of the same but not in a good interesting/captivating way.

Inherent Vice (2014) directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, this was the wrong movie to start watching on a long daytime flight back home, and it took me many weeks to finish it, and I won’t pretend to understand anything that was happening here, I’m not even sure we are supposed to understand anything.

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022) Pedro Pascal and Nicolas Cage have fun being meta. Paddington 2 is in fact the best movie ever.

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4 books

Anton Chekhov - read two of his plays, Uncle Vanya and The Cherry Garden, both really good works and now I need to watch “Drive My Car” again to better understand how they use the complexity of the play in the film's narrative.

Victor Hugo - Toilers of The Sea - I have read Moby Dick so I didn't think I could have a hard time reading something complex about the sea, and especially something written by Victor Hugo who does it so beautifully, but I just suffered silently until there was only 20% left and everything was sewed together beautifully.

Bernard Cornwell - The Last Kingdom (The Saxon Stories, #1) I love the Netflix series and postponed reading the books until it was all over, I wanted to focus on that, and not to confuse any divergent timelines or anything like that. Because I believe Cornwell is an exceptional historical/fantasy writer and I knew this was going to be good.

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3 tv series

Landscapers (2021) it’s a true crime mini-series that does a wonderful job integrating the main character's (Olivia Colman) fantasy of old Hollywood life into the narrative, making her seem almost innocent, and childlike. We almost forget that she did kill her parents and buried their bodies in their backyards.

Aftershock: Everest and the Nepal Earthquake (2022) a shocking natural disaster that leads to the worst of humanity. I saw this alongside the last few episodes of The Last of Us, and that helped me understand what they were trying to say.

The Last of Us (2023 -) already one of my favorite series ever, a brilliant first season, it says so much more than anyone was ever expecting. I’m not a fan of apocalypse-based fiction, and I give this a shot thinking that it sounded more than that, and I was right. There’s a lot more here than mushroom zombies, what is even more frightening is what we do as humans to survive, and how far we will go. It’s almost what we see on a smaller scale happen in Aftershock.

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Music

Vide - Hanging By the Bayou Light (2020) weirdly, this helps me focus on studying, I call it atmospheric black metal.

Comeback Kids - Heavy Steps (2022) I love when my friends recomend me stuff that fits my mood perfectly

Paramore - This is Why (2023) I gave this a try even though I have never really enjoyed their work, what made me listen to it was a vinyl reviewer tik toker that said this sounded almost nothing like their original work, more jazz than pop rock.

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