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mostlysignssomeportents · 7 months

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Stellantis wants to make scabbing woke

I'm coming to Minneapolis! Oct 15: Presenting The Internet Con at Moon Palace Books. Oct 16: Keynoting the 26th ACM Conference On Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing.

I know, I know, it's weird when the worst people you know are right, even when they're right for the wrong reasons: like, the "Intelligence Community" is genuinely terrible, pharma companies are murderous crooks, and Big Tech really does have a dangerous grip on public debate. The swivel-eyed loons have a point, is what I'm saying:

https://locusmag.com/2023/05/commentary-cory-doctorow-the-swivel-eyed-loons-have-a-point/

When conspiratorialists and reactionaries holler about how the FBI are dirty-tricking creeps who are framing Trump, it's tempting to say, "well, if Trumpists hate the FBI, then I will love the FBI. Who cares about COINTELPRO and what they did to Martin Luther King?"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI%E2%80%93King_suicide_letter

It's a process called "schizmogenesis": forming new group identity beliefs based on saying the opposite of what your enemies say, and as tempting as that is, it's extraordinarily foolish and dangerous:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/12/18/schizmogenesis/

It means that canny reactionaries like Steve Bannon can trick you into taking any position merely by taking the opposite one. Bannon's followers are even more easily led, so it's easy for him to convince them that we have always been at war with Oceania. The right has created an entire mirror world of "I know you are but what am I?" politics.

Anti-vax co-opts "bodily autonomy." Climate denial becomes environmentalism ("wind turbines kill birds"). Transphobia becomes feminism ("keep women-only spaces for real women"). Support for strongmen becomes anti-imperialism ("don't feed the war machine in Ukraine"). These are the doppelgangers Naomi Klein warns us against:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/05/not-that-naomi/#if-the-naomi-be-klein-youre-doing-just-fine

The far right has even managed to co-opt anti-corporate rhetoric. Culture warriors rail against "woke capitalism," insisting that when big businesses take socially progressive positions, it's just empty "virtue signalling." And you know what? They've got a point. Partially.

As with all mirror-world politics, the anti-woke-capitalism shuck is designed to convince low-information right-wing pismires into buying "anti-woke pillows" and demanding the right to pay junk fees to "own the libs":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/04/owning-the-libs/#swiper-no-swiping

But woke capitalism is bullshit. Corporations – profit-maximizing immortal transhuman colony organisms that view workers and customers as inconvenient gut-flora – do not care about social justice. They don't care about anything, except for minimizing compensation for workers while maximizing the risk those workers bear; and locking in and gouging customers for products that are as low-quality as can be profitably sold.

Take DEI, a favored target of the right. It's undoubtably true that diversity, inclusion and equity initiatives have made some inroads on correcting bias in hiring decisions, with the result that companies get better employees who would have been excluded without this explicit corrective.

However, corporations don't value DEI because they abhor their history of hiring bias. Instead, DEI is how corporate management demonstrates to workers that their grievances are best addressed by trusting corporate leadership to correct their error of their ways – and not by forming a union.

Before the passage of the National Labor Relations Act in 1935, corporations would create fake "Company Unions" whose leadership were beholden to the company executives. These were decoy unions: they looked and sounded like unions, but when they negotiated with management, they were actually working for the bosses, not the workers.

This is more mirror-world tactics. They're the labor equivalent of the "crisis pregnancy centers" that masquerade as abortion clinics in order to fool pregnant people and trap them with endless delays until it's too late to terminate their pregnancies. Company unions get workers to trust in negotiators who are secretly working for the bosses, who emerge from the bargaining table with one-sided, abusive contracts and insist that this is the best deal workers can hope for.

Company unions were outlawed 90 years ago, and for decades, labor had a seat at the table, with wages tracking productivity gains and workers getting protection for discrimination, unsafe labor conditions, and wage-theft. Then came the neoliberal turn, and 40 years of wage stagnation, increased inequality, and corporate rule.

Anything that can't go on forever will eventually stop. Finally, finally, we have reached a turning point in labor, with public approval for unions at levels not seen since the Carter administration and thousands of strikes and protests breaking out across the country:

https://striketracker.ilr.cornell.edu/

It's not just the Writers Guild and SAG-AFTRA, either. For the first time in history, the UAW is striking against all the major automakers, and they are winning:

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2023/10/striking-uaw-workers-win-key-battery-plant-concession-from-general-motors/

The automakers are getting desperate. Stellantis – Chrysler's latest alias, reflecting the company's absorbtion into corporate-human-centipede of global carmakers – has mobilized its DEI programs, trying to get marginalized people to believe that scabbing is a liberatory activity:

https://theintercept.com/2023/10/10/uaw-auto-strike-stellantis/

Stellantis calls each of its DEI silos a "Business Resource Group" (BRG): there's a "Working Parents Network," an "African Ancestry Network," "Asians Connected Together," a "DiverseAbilities Network," a "Gay & Lesbian Alliance" and more:

https://blog.stellantisnorthamerica.com/2021/07/20/business-resource-groups-drive-inclusion-and-diversity/

The corporate managers who lead these BRGs have established a scab rotation for each subgroup, calling on members to cross a UAW picket-line at a Michigan Parts Distribution Center run by Stellantis subsidiary Mopar:

Each BRG will pick a specific day of the week/weekend to volunteer as a team. Help continue to be the RESOURCE the BUSINESS can count on! Stellantis needs your help in running the Parts Distribution Centers (PDC) to ensure a steady supply of parts to our customers while negotiations continue. Working Parents Network has identified Friday, October 13 as WPN’s BRG Day at the PDCs!"

Now, these BRGs weren't invented by marginalized workers facing discrimination in the workplace. They come from literal union-busting playbooks produced by giant "union avoidance" firms that charge bosses millions for advice on skirting – or breaking – the law to keep workplace democracy at bay. All the biggest anti-union consultancies love BRGs, from Littler Mendelson to Jackson Lewis. IRI Strategies touts BRGs as a way to "union-proof" a business by absorbing workers' grievances in a decoy committee that will let them feel listened to.

BRGs, in other words, are the Crisis Pregnancy Centers of workplace discrimination. They're a Big Store Con, a company union dressed up as corporate social responsibility.

Now, let's not pretend that unions have a sterling record on race and gender issues. Giant labor organizations like the AFL had to be dragged into racial integration, and trade unions have sometimes been on the wrong side of anti-immigration panics:

https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1997/summer/american-labor-movement.html

But unions have also been the most reliable way for people of color and women to win better workplace treatment. The struggle for racial and gender justice was fought through labor organizing. Remember that MLK's "I've Been To the Mountaintop" speech was given in support of striking sanitation workers in Memphis:

https://www.afscme.org/about/history/mlk/mountaintop

Black organizers have always been militant labor organizers. Labor Day commemorates the victory of the long, hard-fought Pullman strike, where Black workers brought one of the most powerful companies in America to its knees:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pullman_Strike

And women have always fought for gender justice through the labor movement: the New York shirtwaist strike is the Ur-example, when women-led unions fought thugs and scabs on icy New York streets:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_shirtwaist_strike_of_1909

It's no surprise that labor activism, anti-racism and feminism go together. Since the earliest days, the labor justice struggle was also a social justice struggle. To learn more check out Kim Kelly's Fight Like Hell: The Untold History of American Labor:

https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Fight-Like-Hell/Kim-Kelly/9781982171063

The most exploited, underpaid, and abused workers in America are also the most marginalized (duh).

From nurses:

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/kaiser-healthcare-union-says-week-long-strike-possible-early-next-month-2023-10-09/

To teachers:

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-04-18/l-a-teachers-win-21-wage-increase-in-new-lausd-contract

To Amazon warehouse workers:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Labor_Union

To publishing assistants:

https://apnews.com/article/harpercollins-union-strike-ends-0a94238718879066d9b21af6266be526

To baristas:

https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/29/business/starbucks-union-wages/index.html

To fast-food workers:

https://www.ufcw.org/about/

The vanguard of today's labor surge is Black, brown, female and queer. Without a union, workers who face discrimination are on their own, hoping that their bosses will voluntarily do something about it. Black workers in Tesla's rabidly anti-union shops face vicious racism, from slurs to threats to violence. Without a union, they have to rely on the shifting whims of an Apartheid emerald mine space-Karen for relief, or hope for help from the NLRB or a class-action lawyer:

https://apnews.com/article/tesla-racism-black-lawsuit-class-action-21c88bddf60eca702560be58429495de

The far right isn't wrong when they holler that woke capitalism is bullshit. As with so many of their mirror-world causes, they've got a point, but only a limited one. The problem with woke capitalism is that it's no substitute for a union. The problem with relying on Business Resource Groups to fight racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia is that these struggles are all class struggles, and a BRG is never going to fight against the company that created it.

To understand how bankrupt woke capitalism is, conside this: Stellantis is calling on its "Working Parents Network" to scab this Friday. Stellantis is also being sanctioned by the Department Of Labor for discriminating against nursing mothers – the same "working parents" that the BRG is meant to protect:

https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/local/2023/02/08/investigation-finds-stellantis-violated-rights-of-nursing-mothers-at-sterling-heights-plant/

Woke capitalism is just another kind of "predatory inclusion," like Intuit's campaign defending its "Free File" tax-prep scam, where they're claiming that ending this ripoff is racist because it denies Black families the right to be tricked into paying for something they are entitled to get for free:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/27/predatory-inclusion/#equal-opportunity-scammers

When I learned about Intuit's wokewashing, I thought I'd found woke capitalism's rock bottom, but I was wrong. Stellantis's call for woke scabbing is a new low.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/11/equal-opportunity-class-war/#inclusive-scabbing

My next novel is The Lost Cause, a hopeful novel of the climate emergency. Amazon won't sell the audiobook, so I made my own and I'm pre-selling it on Kickstarter!

#pluralistic #race #gender #uaw #stellantis #gm #general motors #woke capitalism #wokewashing #strikes #labor #liberalism #company unions

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quasi-normalcy · 1 year

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You know...

I grew up with TNG; it’s always been my Star Trek; I spent much of my childhood obsessed with it. And there I was, watching what promised to be the Last! Appearance! by the TNG Crew! Ever!,

and I felt nothing at all.

Nothing had any weight. The Borg Collective got blowed up real good, but they’d already got blowed up real good 20 years ago, and last season set up another, vastly more interesting version of the Borg anyways if only anyone had bothered to mention them or anything else from the first two seasons, so it means nothing. Nothing had any weight. No one even died. No one even got meaningfully assimilated. Apparently you can just peel Borg implants right off your face without, you know, bleeding to death or ripping out a chunk of your brain. Someone should probably tell Seven of Nine about that.

And now I’ve had a few hours to reflect upon it and what occurs to me is: I think I hate it. Yes, that sounds right. I hate it.

I mean, Nemesis gets a lot of sh*t, much of it deserved, but like…I actually cried during Nemesis. Nemesis also had a fascinating nature-versus-nurture theme, which admittedly, was a come-down from “All Good Things’…” promise of human transcendence, but at least it was something! This just felt like empty nostalgia calories, wrapped it a blanket with bathetic MCU quips. No thought-provoking science fiction. No exploration of the human condition. Just…bloodless violence for an hour.

And then I thought back to how this series started, my beautiful, flawed, Star Trek: Picard; and here I must admit that I’m one of those sad, lonely freaks who actually really liked the first two seasons. I liked the weighty themes of living in the cognizance of death, and the serious engagement with transhumanism. Above all, I liked the characters. Elnor, Soji, Rios, and especially Agnes. And then I thought: what an absolute Insult this season is! You dump all of the characters and you can’t even be arsed to namedrop them. I mean, shit, there’s a reference to Chekov in the first five minutes, but you can’t be arsed to reference any of the characters whose series you hijacked? You have Raffi sparring with Worf and she can’t even mention that her adopted son is a Romulan swordsmaster? You have the Borg invading, and “no one’s seen them in over ten years!” and you can’t be arsed to clarify why that Borg Queen that we all saw Jurati turn into last season doesn’t count? Literally the only allusion, anywhere, to any of the characters from the first two seasons other than Raffi is Shaw telling everyone to “Forget that weird shit on the Stargazer.” That weird shit. Yeah. One of the only characters in all fiction that I’ve ever meaningfully identified with. Thanks, Terry!

But, at the same time…what a gross insult to TNG! TNG, with its humanist utopia and moral conundra and scientific grounding. TNG, which, at its best, showed us what humanity could be; which challenged us to see the world in new ways. Reduced to this. This hollow, plastic pile of rubbish.

But, hey; the reviews are positive! The series is in the top ten for streaming! And a billion YouTube comments have already informed me that, finally, REAL Star Trek is back! Forget “all that weird bullshit,” this is what we, the fandom, wanted all along!

Anyways, can’t wait to see the next exciting installment of Star Trek: Funko Pop

#star trek picard #the last generation #spoilers

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virtualgirlafterdark · 1 month

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It's been eight months since the process began.

Hard to recognize you now. Does anyone detect the flesh that trembles and aches underneath that frame? Not that it matters anymore.

I remember those early days. Bright faced and full of ambition, proudly strutting around campus. The long winded conferences and discussions on transhumanism. That passion in your eyes, I thought you were committed to something greater- Until I glanced the way you crossed your legs, squirmed as they showed the new developments.

I remember how you stared at the videos, watching the procedures- The way the implants bore into the marrow, the way the skin wept as each pin and screw tore into bone. How somber you would seem when gentler methods were proposed. Don't think it went unnoticed.

Eight months ago, you and your friends. Small group of stoners, burnouts, the odd postdoc. Late night drinking after labwork, the way your leg bounced as they announced their discoveries, we mused on our own ideas. You weren't as drunk as you pretended to be when you volunteered to be our subject.

Do you remember the first time? They say you never forget. We didn't have any anesthetic on hand, but you were so brave. Tried to play your ache as bravado, but the way you thrashed as we splayed apart those fingers. The little pool forming between your legs. A few RFID chips, a few wire inlays over your tendons- An experiment in artificially produced muscle memory. I knew before you got off that table that you wanted more. And I craved to give it to you.

Wasn't long before you came to us. What seemed to the rest of us like some fleeting stunt became a vocation. A laundry list of modifications, dozens of academic papers, speculative technologies, little-known materials and decade-old experimental surgeries. You'd been compiling this for a while. Tell me, reading those papers, did you get off then? It's almost sick, really.

Of course, we obliged. Garage skinweaving, drinking beer and passing blunts as we worked our way up your arm. A new interface now. This time aimed at generalized gesture control and interface with the bots your RFID chips were paired with. The spinal implants came next. The way you thrashed in the stirrups, arching as we flayed you. The little spurts dripping with each shot of the airgun, pushing the electrodes deep into your vertebra.

Bit by bit, your little project continued to escalate. I remember when they first started getting reservations. The way our eyes met every time you were on my table, how it was always *me* that you tried to grab- High as we often were, eventually it was transparent. You're not a good actor, little bot. I tried to preserve some of that modesty you'd forgotten, cover your little messes when and where I could. Besides, in the swirl of blood and bile, it would have been hard to detect your little indulgences.

It was Kari that left first. Do you remember her? She was your best friend. You'd talk for hours, known each other since childhood. Chose the same college. She still comes to visit sometimes. Pleading for you to remember. She always leaves in tears, and I always taunt her, saying that perhaps if she'd stayed things wouldn't have gone this far. She wants to avenge you so, so desperately, but it's all there on paper. Your signature, clear as day, forfeiting yourself as medical surplus. No longer a person, just a collection of spare parts and playthings, to be molded and shaped by inquisitive minds like your own.

I remember, winter break. We were having drinks when you shoved the phone in my face. Some new bipedal bot, clunky and barely humanoid.

"That."

"What?"

"I want- I want to be that. I want to be... her."

The tone at the table shifted. They looked at me, nervously, waiting to see my answer. Sheepishly sipping drinks, awkward laughter. Just another drunken fit. Your little stunts actually got Nathan clean. If nothing else, you served as a model of what happens to the intoxicated and ambitious. The distant stare you began to develop, datastreams and wave feeds jacked directly into your occipital. Tasting and hearing the sounds of people's lives, dreams, questions. Overstimulating, wasn't it? Shopping lists, vent posts, horny lewds, murder, live death, news, letters to fucking Santa- It was so cute watching you bump into things at first. The way you'd dribble a bit, staring off into space as the unseen world filled your new sensors.

I remember when I had to revoke your driving privileges. Driving behind a few smart cars, the way you began to breathe. Tailgating, chasing them like a dog before landing us in a ditch. Everyone was so shaken, but all I could do was laugh. You were so upset, but I sat with you until the truck came. The last straw for Nora, unfortunately. But not for me.

Every month, something new. Our little heaven, our iron paradise, dingy dorm turned operating theater. The equipment you and I cobbled together, stitching new devices and instruments capable of keeping up with your ever changing body. A garden singing with the hum of machines and the rhythm of pumps. The scent of blood, whiskey, and sex perfumed the air.

The few that remained had become desensitized. Stopped seeing you as a friend and just another project to help get by. A few voyeuristic volunteers chipped in, eager to see the former prodigy wired in the dorms. Some didn't believe you could have ever been human. Just some elaborate puppet, dangling like a Shibari angel. Some thought it gruesome when they saw the entrails, but I could only ever see the beauty of a work in progress. They saw the now, but I shared your vision. I saw what you were becoming, what we were making. We even started charging admissions for some of the other students. Our little sideshow, showing off an unfinished art too bold for the public eye- Or perhaps a coveted sculpture, prized by mine hands and my hands alone.

I helped you drink and eat for a while. Tethered to life support, you couldn't move much. I set up a cot next to you, so you could always get me when you needed. Sometimes I laid underneath you, head resting gently against what soft tissue remained. I'd always pretend to sleep when you struggled in your bonds, trying to grind against me, loosen your wrists enough to touch me. You tried to be so quiet. But I had learned your new quirks, the particular hum of your fans, the little stutter when your auxiliary coolant pump started kicking in. Learning your new speech. The way you sang.

I remember the new legs. You weren't stable yet. We had to put you through your paces. Watching old Boston Dynamics videos, I came up with ideas. Proudly taking you to parks and bars, inviting strangers and passers by to kick you, beat you, try and break you. You disappointed a few times, but the fault wasn't yours really. I hadn't made you strong enough yet. The way you gagged in shock when your leg bent backwards, metal splitting and oozing an inky black. I ran you home, carried you in my arms to the car.

Soon you were able to take it. The people came, spitting, and beating, and breaking you. And every time, you got back up. You were even polite about it, thanked them for their contribution to improving your durability features. You felt slutty every time, and I loved seeing it on your face.

I was so proud.

Do you remember it? Somewhere in there. The way you invited me into your body, tasting me, feeling me one last time before you surrendered. It was a tearful afterglow, but I remember the warmth of those now-cold cheeks- The salt of your sweat and tears on my lips as I brushed what hair remained to the side. It was going to be okay.

You screamed as we began. My hand and it's tools whirring inside of you, peeling you apart, tearing out the organs you no longer needed. The blood spilling from your lips, choking on yourself as I kissed you. The way your eyes fluttered, slowly losing yourself. I felt you quiver around my arm, pulsing and contracting as you came. I couldn't help but taste it. Biting the soft of your stomach, the last pieces of you I would be forevermore deprived of once your vision reached it's fruition.

I cried when it was done. All the reservations, all the pain, all the shame I felt finally bubbled forth. I had given you what you wanted. Always. But could I take this next step? Could I honor your wishes? Could I bring myself further?

I couldn't disappoint you. Now now. You had trusted me, and time was running then. You weren't going to die on my table. I set to work, unaided, frantically tearing away that head and suspending it in the biogel. I preserved as much of the corpus collosum as I could, rigging up the pumps and neural adapters to keep you sentient, alive, well. Oxygenators, artificial spinal fluid, new filtration to remove waste pooling under the dura mater, needles to regulate myelin levels and neuron interactions, artificial stimuli to remind you, somewhere in that buried well of consciousness, I was still out here. Still working, toiling, for you. I hadn't broken your trust yet. I kept your skull.

New eyes. A unique biomechanical composite detector, largely proteins with a few living components nestled between wafers of biofilm, borrowing inspiration from the ogre-faced spider. New teeth, metallic and sharp, predatory and pure. A new voicebox, synthetic polymer tendons vibrating like a larynx- The voice you always wanted. I hope to hear it sing.

Its been nine days since you came online. I haven't heard much from you. You drool and drone, carrying on. I catch you exploring your new body sometimes. It's a sight to behold.

Maybe this is what you wanted. To be some little toy, a chirping little pet. A marvel of engineering and science, an erotic sculpture of silicon and synthetic divinity.

But sometimes, I miss her. The girl who spoke for hours, hands dancing over the keyboard writing code and huffing at smut. The walks we took, the long academic discussions. I look at her now, hardly recognizable, but I'm so proud. I stifle my own yearning and appreciate what she has become. What she was always destined to be. You wanted to be broken.

And so I did.

Maybe one day, soon, the extruders will finish wiring together your neural interface. You'll come awake again, and can appreciate this new form to it's fullest.

My hand awaits you there, my love~

You always know how to make this girl blush and cry wow. I'll never be able to stop thinking about this.

#glitch.ask #virtualgirlafterdark #anonymous #cw: gore #surgery #empty spaces #fav

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kitsune-pop · 2 months

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how do I talk about furry rights without people rolling their eyes and ignoring me? how do I bring up issues like online bullying and exclusion from communities without people calling me "one of the annoying ones?"

furries, in many ways represent transhumanism. now, I don't personally believe every single furry is a transhuman, or even give the concept much thought. however, the very existence of furries reflect the tenets of transhumanism. the idea to reject one's very species, to find comfort and camaraderie with others who share your feelings, to make changes to your everyday life in order to pursue that comfort. you can replace "furry" with "trans" and nothing would change

both furries and trans people have communities that overlap almost completely. I myself am a furry, and I have many fursonas. I am also a therian, otherkin, otherwise known as transhuman. I feel a level of discomfort not just in the perceived gender of my birth but in my human body. I very much wish I was a fox, and often fantasize about being one, or being turned into one in an entirely non sexual way. (if it was sexual, there still wouldn't be anything wrong with it because pursuing personal happiness can only be a good thing)

regardless, concepts like transhumanism have been a part of the furry community for as long as there was a furry community. some of the earliest records show in the summer of 1990 people online who identified more as elves than humans call themselves "elfkin," and as this new vocabulary spread, there were people who identified as animals, both fictional and factual, and they were initially labeled as "otherkin" by elfkin to differentiate from their specific community, and otherkin has more recently been described as "therian" in modern conversations. and we as a people can also acknowledge that the idea of humans turning into something nonhuman is a concept that has existed for as long as man has an understanding of the difference between man and beast. and even further, we know people who have sympathized with the nonhumans, or identified with their plight, in some way, shape or form. this is most often seen in queer communities

now, with this understanding of the idea of furries out of the way, is it any surprise that a huge amount of the trans community, as well as the lgbtqia+ community as a whole, also identify as furries? the modern interpretation of nonhumans existing as themselves happily? the idea that even though you are different, you are still loved and supported by like-minded individuals? is it such a surprise that so many of us had fursonas when we were younger? that as we matured and our understanding of our identities grew and became more complex over time we began questioning fundamental parts of our identities? I, for one, did it backwards. I transitioned, came out as a lesbian, and only then did I become a furry. and since I had all the hard parts of my identity out of the way, that meant I got to scrutinize my concept of what being a furry meant to me. and it allowed me to see the parallels between the trans community and the furry community

telling your family and being mocked. telling your friends and them treating you like an outsider. being outed by others in public spaces and facing public ridicule and shaming. feeling uncomfortable in your body. performing affirmative actions to alleviate the feeling of physical and mental discomfort. finding community online. talking to others and realizing you are not alone, you are not wrong, there are so many others like you. learning new ways to express yourself. still having a feeling of discomfort in how other people, outsiders to your community, will react if they find out what you are. relationships not working because of this part of your identity. only feeling comfortable in spaces exclusive to your community for fear of being gawked at and made unsafe. physical abuse directly because of how others interpret you as a threat, or something that needs to be "fixed." the words "trans" and "furry" are interchangeable here. and in many cases for furries, all of this is applied to them if they simply are furries and don't necessarily identify as therians or otherkin. then it can be seen as a direct one-for-one experience, unfortunate as it is

if more evidence is needed, think about how furries are treated online. the word "furry" itself is treated almost like a slur, calling someone a furry as a derogatory joke, or discrediting them because they are a furry. not to mention the proliferation of aggressive misinformation to further slander the furry community as a whole, such as them being sex crazed freaks, pedophiles and rapists (sound familiar?) the idea that there are "good" and "bad" members of the communities, ones you should listen to (the ones who are palatable, who keep it private, who aren't therian) and the ones you shouldn't listen to (the weirdos, the ones with weird pronouns, the ones who wear weird things out)

trans panic has gotten so ridiculous that there has even been an attack on the furry community by legislation. senate bill 3084 in Oklahoma banned the use of litter boxes in schools based on the rumors of furry children "demanding" this be allowed. this not only shows just how ludicrous the anti trans legislation that's been swallowing up the country has gotten, but how easily furries gets swept up with lgbtqia+ in cishet spaces. I would expect more sympathy for the furry community by the trans community at least, if not the larger lgbtqia+ community. and yet furries are still allowed to be made out to be jokes and insults.

now, I'm not saying that furries have been the target for systemic oppression in the same way the lgbtqia+ community has. but what I am trying to say is that we should step up and defend those who have been by our side every step of the way, cheering us on at parades and helping us figure out our identities. there are a lot of problems with how people both on and offline treat furries, and how it is just allowed to happen. because if you speak up against violence towards a community, you are labeled as "one of the bad ones"

#silly millie speaks #furry #furry sfw #lgbtq community #lgbtq #lgbtqia #transgender #lesbian #gay #bisexual #queer #intersex #asexual #aromantic

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theworldvsyoshiko · 6 months

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Alright, current state of the colony, because children keep piling in and I haven't talked much about some of 'em.

Yoshiko "Happy" Russell: Needs no introduction. She's 22 now, which is fitting because she's currently living roughly the life of a grad student: she wakes up every day, has a beer or two with breakfast, and then spends the next sixteen hours in a cave doing research on important topics like 'how do we more efficiently generate power' and 'how do I mass produce space cocaine?'

Her mech army's grown a bit, but this is the point of the game where having a few mid-tier mechs is less 'game-breaking' and more 'allowing me to keep up with the difficulty curve despite having a mostly-pubescent population.'

Mami "Poopy" Tanner: Now 18 years old. After getting her leg ripped off by a bear, she went to jail, found Cyber-Jesus, and converted to the Creticonian Creed. She's persuasive as hell, so she's now the preacher counterpart to Yoshiko's leadership role in the ideoligion. A mech raid smashed down the wall to her prison cell and shot off her peg leg, so Hairy made her a new bionic leg. ... I mean, they could've just put another chunk of wood on there, but it seemed like the appropriate welcome to transhumanism.

Tied with Yoshiko for the title of best marksman, the best Social person by a wide margin, and a pretty damn good doctor, botanist, and cook. 'Who installed her bionic leg if she's the doctor?' you might ask? The answer is simple: Yoshiko installed it, immediately after drinking a beer, with a skill level of 'significant familiarity' in medicine. (One step below 'capable amateur,' for the record.)

Marta "Hairy" Bryant: Now 19 years old. She's the crafting specialist, which means that she's responsible for about 80% of the colony's income, and also the backup researcher. And a backup mechanitor, for that matter. She's like a mirror of Yoshiko, if Yoshiko had learned how to do anything useful before the age of about 15. She had a prosthetic arm when she arrived, so now she's got a bionic arm, because having a better-than-nothing kinda replacement arm on your main crafter sucks.

She also has the Coward trait, so I don't know why I gave her a shotgun, because she runs away screaming when enemies get into shotgun range. Thanks to being the backup mechanitor, she's the caravaneer, since she can use a herd of non-vital mechs to haul everything.

Anyuan Ji (no nickname): He's 15 now. You can tell that he's fifteen because even though he's not really a combatant, he's decided to walk around shirtless wearing nothing but a bandolier. He's still bad at everything... except Construction, where he's a capable amateur. So he spends all day making spike traps and doing unskilled labor like making bricks and processing fuel. This has turned out to be pretty useful, because literally everybody else's time is worth too much to spend much of it on things like that.

At least he's converted to the Creticonian Creed, so now he's only constantly seething about Yoshiko's cool bedroom.

Alyona Pruitt (no nickname): Also 15 now and, fucking thankfully, no longer a member of that fascist pig religion. Unfortunately, she basically went around calling everybody else racial slurs back when she still followed it. (Again: she is also a member of the race she considered inferior.) Everyone's list of relationship modifiers with her includes things like 'Insulted x4.' So most of the colony isn't very fond of her. It's a... work in progress. Look, this is what happens when you adopt feral teenagers.

No fixed role, but she's a good all-rounder. Like, really, she's at least decent at everything but art, medicine, plants, animals, and melee, and most of those are categories I really don't need help in anyway. Her traits are Misandrist and Slob, and you'd think this would cause more problems than it has so far.

Siennah "Renze" Sia: I haven't talked much about Renze yet, which is a shame, because she's kinda been the star of the show since she arrived. Here's what you need to know about Renze: She is a Hussar, essentially a genetically engineered supersoldier. In exchange for being really aggressive (this will be a problem sooner or later), perpetually addicted to combat meth from the age of 13, and bad at lots of things, she's naturally really durable and good at fighting,

Except Renze is 11 now and she spends 90% of her time cooking and making clothes. She loves them. She would happily cook all day every day if she could. She adores Poopy, which makes sense, since Poopy was also weirdo gun gremlin as a child. Her genes make her the third-best marksman in the colony already, so she's got a sniper rifle to keep her at a safe distance. She's getting her genes catalogued, and hopefully some day we'll be able to re-engineer her without the aggression and meth addiction. Until then: the drug lab is spinning up production.

Joseph "Jam" Zarkos: I still don't know what this kid was running from, and considering that the last time a child showed up chased by mystery danger it turned into a siege that made me consider evacuating the colony, I am concerned.

He's 11. He's naturally incredibly passionate about plants and animals, except he has the trait Animal Hater and he in fact follows an ideoligion that teaches that humans are so superior to animals that being nice to an animal is an act of self-debasement.

#the world vs. yoshiko

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azureflight · 1 year

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Young Rhaenyra, Old Rhaenyra and the point of children

I have a personal pet peeve, of a certain trend I see especially in adaptations.

Stop erasing what makes a story/char unique and different from mainstream/conventional wisdom/contemporary perspective.

This used to be most dominantly seen when a non-western, or non-American work gets a "USA" adaptation. They would just erase the fundamental differences in perspective and approach to a certain topic or subject, that mostly stemmed from the cultural differences between USA and the original country.

One of the latest and most egregious examples of this would be Ghost in the Shell live action movie with Scar Jo. And no, it was not the choice of actress, that was actually fine. But they have fundamentally changed and in fact reversed the philosophy and conclusion of the story from the original, turning from a profoundly different take on transhumanism and question of what is a human and do we even have to be one, and made it into a generic "oh you are you no matter your memories or body and should stick to regular modern human individualism".

Which would be fine, if this was an original work. Ghost in the Shell 2017 would be a damn fine sci-fi action movie, if it was an original work. A bit flawed and somewhat cliche, but damn fine.

But it isn't. It is an adaptation of the iconic Ghost in the Shell, and as an adaptation, it has one of the most gratuitous examples of betraying the soul of the story.

Now, this brings me to HotD, and specifically the depiction of young Rhaenyra and the constant fandom arguments about her seemingly random turn from not wanting kids to having a brood of them.

Up until the very recent past (and indeed in a lot of countries in the rest of the world still), women having children and many of them, was the norm, the expected, the forced upon. However, within the last two generations, this has most certainly reversed in the western world, at least for the overwhelming majority of the population.

Nowadays, women not wanting kids and then not having them, is the norm. We understand and accept this as a perfectly valid position to hold. Beyond that, a lot of the traditional gender roles imposed on women got a lot of pushback, with defying and denouncing them being seen as not merely a novelty, but almost a necessary condition of being a truly independent woman.

This means we are now a different society with different norms, different expectations and different judgements. For us, now, a female character who doesn't want kids and doesn't like the traditional gender roles, is the normal person that we can all identify and sympathize with. For a lot of us, when such a character opens their mouth, our words come pouring out. And there is nothing wrong with that.

However, this does mean, now, the unique and different character would be someone who doesn't fit this new norm, this new expectation. And indeed, it is difficult to foster sympathy and connection between audience and a character, if the character has a fundamentally different perspective on some crucial social and cultural aspects of life. But therein exactly where the power and importance of fiction lies: The ability to produce and introduce different humans with different opinions and give us the ability to try and understand them.

The main function of fiction isn't to reaffirm and reinforce our contemporary morals. Indeed, validation is the least and perhaps the most debased thing fiction can do. And we most certainly oppose it, when some group or institution tries to do that for their own morals and values which we disagree with. No shortage of accusations of indoctrination and propaganda, and rightfully so.

But when we are faced with characters, societies and stories who defy and challenge our own conventions, suddenly we get chicken shit and start bending them to make them palatable ourselves instead of enjoying the difference and charging into see what this other perspective might provide us.

Rhaenyra in the books, never had a "not like other girls" phase. She was not a tomboy, she was not a generic pseudo-modern "gender no-confirming" girl from west coast who didn't want no kids and no husbands.

Rhaenyra was very feminine and enjoyed it. She wanted power and felt entitled to it, without trying to imitate traditionally masculine behaviors or trying to fit into some Madonna role. As far as we know, she wanted to have children, wanted a large family, and loved her kids to bits. Her being fully and unapologetically female, feminine and embracing all of the sensual, sexual and biological aspects of it while still demanding power and authority, is what drove the sexist green shits up the wall.

If she had been some tomboy, her attempts at trying to be "more like a man" would actually garner her more sympathy and support, as she would be seen as admitting and accepting the "weakness" of her sex. If she stuck to some virgin/maiden role, she could have been put on a pedestal and celebrated by the established sexist power holders.

Instead she was the Realm's Delight. A gorgeous woman who didn't know how to fight but dressed impeccably, who was not interested in swords or pants, but rode, hawked and feasted, who flirted and danced with admirers and deigned to tour the realm to see if there was a man she would enjoy having as a husband and when she was forced to marry a gay guy, she took a lover and started to pop out kid after kid with him.

Rhaenyra was undeniably female, in a society where being a woman was lesser. She was not someone they can put into a sterilized icon to strip from her flesh and blood humanity and she was not some "not like other girls/almost like a boy" type that they could rationalize accepting as their ruler because she "technically didn't count as woman" due to how different she behaved.

She was the embodiment of every fear about women these people had: Powerful despite lacking traditional mastery of arms, charming and hot, making her deeply desired by men which meant she could influence and "control" them, sexual meaning they couldn't control her, holding authority, meaning she could reject them, and cuckolded her husband, meaning she could emasculate them. Oh, and she also had a dragon so she would most definitely win if they were to ever try to assert themselves physically against her, as they would try against women like this in general.

The books try to paint Alicent as virtuous against fat Rhaenyra with her whorish ways, but it cannot hide the fact that Rhaenyra had men fighting, dying, killing and conspiring to be with her, even when she was "fat".

The Rogue Prince they all feared, despised and admired, was caught in her orbit since she was 14 and stayed there until his death and despite all the attempts at trying to make Nettles into a big deal, the man died fighting for Rhaenyra.

Almost all of the lords who courted her, save for Lannister twins, remained loyal to her to death and even beyond her grave.

She was not a warrior herself, but she had gallant, honorable sons all accepted as competent and capable. And she was a mother who loved her children to the death, to the point of insanity and her sons loved her back, to their own ends.

Erasing this more feminine and traditionally conforming aspect of Rhaenyra, robs the story of the fundamental dynamic of her tragedy, how her more traditionally "normal" sides conflicts with rest everything else about her and work to exacerbate the opposition and vitriolic, murderous hate against her.

HotD traded away a beautifully complex character and a very interesting take on a sexist social dynamic, for a cheap narrative shorthand of "this is the character you should like".

If they had stuck to the truth of the story, of the child Rhaenyra who was isolated, tormented and abused in her own home by her own step-mother and her lackeys, under her father's nose, with his willful ignorance, they wouldn't need to invent such a generic skinsuit to shove her younger version into, in order to make the audience "sympathize" with her. A dutiful daughter, who loved her father but still felt entitled to her birthright, a feminine woman who still wanted to rule, a sensual woman who wanted to have a brood of her own because she lacked a proper family to belong to in her own youth, would be a much more complex, deep and interesting character. And one we could all cheer for, if the writing was decent.

Instead we have a pretty generic teenager powergirl who then grows up to be a completely different person as an adult and half the audience complains about how this was a “disservice” to her character or the change didn’t make sense. And you know what? They are right. The show never explained it because of time constraints, but also the show just refuses to properly set-up and explain stuff when they know the plot demands something happen anyway, which is shit tier writing. And it is a great disservice to Rhaenyra’s character, but in the opposite direction.

The story didn’t take a strong, independent woman who wanted no kids and made her a mother of 5. The story took a strong, independent woman who loved and wanted her kids and injected a completely made up phase of not wanting them into her youth just to make her more palatable to modern audiences with minimal effort.

So now, half the people who liked the first 5 episode version of fake Rhaenyra are stuck with a never explained, never resolved dissonance and all of us are robbed of a truly interesting and unique character and story.

#house of the dragon #rhaenyra targaryen #hotd

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call-of-ishmael · 5 months

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Canto III is kinda sloppy

Seeing the post on Ncorp and the Carl Jung essay and the nazi parallels

I have to say that makes the writing of Canto III messy in a pretty bad way?

So transhumanism is not a new subject to Project Moon, in particular i think of The Brotherhood of Iron

They are people who spent their savings on full body prosthetics to be able to work more efficiently. But they got real low end ones, they stutter, get stuck and paralyzed, feel hunger yet dont need to eat

Then we have the inhabitants of Cawl and this is where it gets bad imo

We take in the flashbacks Sinclairs perspective, how terrified he is of the augmentation, and well how is this framed?

While Sinclair 100% is framed as having made a mistake letting Kromer into his life, his fears arent rejected

The family dinner scene, switching from bright and cheery to a gloom foreboding oppressive atmosphere is visual cues that yeah this is kinda scary right dear reader? The body horror aspect is present as much as it was in the Brotherhood of Iron reception, but from a different perspective, one of rich out of touch people. Sinclair recounts how his family told him their new bodies are more efficient, productive, no need to eat and sleep and that terrifies him, he doesnt wanna lose those experiences

In Cawl prosthetics are basically fashion, and we see this detachment from Sinclairs classmates talking about where they are getting their procedures done and their shiny new models they will get

And lets to go back now, Nagel und Hammer is meant to be also a nazi allegory

And heres the issue, this transhumanist angle meshes real bad with it

If you wanna draw parallels to a group who did ethnic cleansing, the inhabitants of Cawl and their prosthetics are a terrible parallel!

Not only is your ethnicity not a choice, they get prosthetics and talk about them like a sillicon valley CEO would, about productivity and in a superficial rich asshole way.

And it makes me look at Canto III in a worse light, cause it makes the writing real messy and have weird implications

If you are gonna write a fascist group with nazi allegory imagery, and they will be persecuting a group, you really have to think about how you are gonna portray the oppressed group or things will look BAD

Another thing to point out is people say Ncorp is really ableist

And while i dont doubt that theyd be just as violent against people using prosthetics to aid their disabilities, lets again think of the framing, the people in Cawl get these cause they can and want to, the usage of the word "prosthetic" to refer to these is understandably going to evoke the thoughts of prosthetics used irl, but in universe it can refer to something like that, and also things you just get as an augmentation, so while undoubtedly ableist, its badly also not too well executed here

Its not well executed writing, in my opinion

#sinclair lcb #kromer #limbus company #sinclair limbus

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howtofightwrite · 2 years

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I have a world which is mostly underwater and has life of all kinds, whether aquatic or not. That does mean a lot of weapons need to work underwater or held by someone who is underwater. What are the options for creating fictional melee weapons or fighting techniques?

So, I was originally researching an answer that didn't really match the question above. The short version if you've got three options, and you probably want to explore all of them to varying degrees.

The first is looking at the real world. This gets a little tricky in this case, because a lot of the ocean is unexplored. There's an entirely accurate cliché that holds we know more about the surface of the moon than the bottom of the ocean, so, while we have an idea what's down there, a lot of it is unexplored, and unknown.

That said, there is a lot of information on real sea life, and that gets even wilder if you start digging into the fossil record. (Incidentally, Earth does fit the definition of being mostly aquatic. 71% of Earth's surface is covered by water.)

Somewhat obviously, if you're looking at the real world, that will give you a lot of potential weapons and fighting techniques to consider. Now, when you're specifically looking at aquatic melee weapons, the list drops sharply. Knives, and various piercing pole-arms (mostly spears, tridents, and harpoons) account for the vast majority of underwater melee weapons, and a lot of that comes down to practical considerations. Water impedes your movements, and it makes weapons like swords or axes much harder to use.

Your second option is to look at fantasy or fictional examples. I spent some time skimming through a tabletop RPG Polaris for this question before realizing that the sci-fi elements might not be relevant to your question.

Tabletop RPG splatbooks can be very useful for this kind of prep-work, and it can help you finely tune what you're wanting to do. In most cases, these will provide a somewhat diverse toolbox for building a story within the range of the book. (Obviously, this varies wildly based on who wrote the splatbook, and what game it was intended for.) Usually the first place I'd look is GURPS, though in this specific case, that's not exceptionally useful. There was a sci-fi suppliment, “Under Pressure,” which is tied to their Transhuman Space setting, and an Atlantis supplement which spends a lot of time working through the details of Plato's, “ideal society,” that he assured the reader, he absolutely did not just make up on the spot to illustrate his argument. Moving beyond that, I don't have a lot of deep sea splatbooks sitting around. (I've probably only got four or five splats of any variety dealing with ocean based adventures. This is, legitimately, a pretty niche topic. And there isn't even that much pop fantasy lit on the subject.)

Also worth remembering that any rule-based system like RPG splats, are likely to have some assumed design limitations that might not work for you. For example: It's worth remembering if your characters are fighting in open water, then movement up or down is likely to also be an option, but a game designer might not consider that when writing up their splat.

Your third and final option is to wing it, and try to make something up. I mean, it worked for Plato. Fortunately, you can take what you found while exploring the first two options to start nailing down some more concrete ideas about what you want. You can also start pulling in ideas from outside of the scope of your initial research.

-Starke

This blog is supported through Patreon. Patrons get early access to new posts, and direct access to us through Discord. If you’d like to support us, please consider becoming a Patron.

#Starke answers #how to fight write #writing advice #writing reference #writing tips

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the-kipsabian · 1 year

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okay so an attempt at a mama šč explanation incoming! (also crossing my fingers for you both for the interview and the postal service job! 🕯🤞💖)

the most important thing to know about let 3 is that they are a punk band who is doing satire. the entire thing is an anti-war song, against the russian attacks on ukraine.

the lyrics is very pointed against russia, the mama in question is primarily mother russia, and the second verse mama lyublia morona means mother [russia] is kissing the idiot [their leader].

their look is a reference to their idea of transhumanism, i haven't really looked into this. but to me, it almost looks like drag lenin is singing, which could be a point against or to the anti-homosexuality laws of russia.

this is um. what i and my mother could explain of the top of our heads, but i can also try to answer more questions or send a video with a good explanation of it NDNDK love youuu, have a great day💖🥺

yeahyeahyeah this already helps a lot thank you!! i got some of these before and during the song since our broadcast is pretty good at giving back stories to the artists and we have translated lyrics on screen during the songs, but yeah definitely didnt catch all of this and it makes more sense now, thank you!! youre so great i love you too i hope you have an amazing day 💜💜

#love insights like this thank youuuu 💜#eurovision #thetimecrystal #thank you for asking! <3 #(also thank you! i hope to do well in both of those asdfghjkl)

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hasufin · 7 months

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Box-less solutions

Here's something I've been chewing on.

Okay, so the idea of transhumanism is basically that the body is fungible; that with Sufficient Technology it should be possible to create a body and load your mind into it.

In this way, some people imagine they will be able to achieve immortality and overcome or sidestep medical problems. This also, inevitably, gives rise to notions of improvements. Clearly you don't have to go into the same body. You can be taller or shorter. Have purple hair and bigger breasts. You can change genders. Get eyes that can see into the UV spectrum. And so on.

This kind of tends to go to a bad place when you think about it. The idea is Humanity, But Better. People who are smarter, stronger, better-looking, healthier. Who have added abilities. Improved. Needless to say, that's not necessarily wise, you know?

Now, the transhumanist community has rightly been called out at times for ableism. One of the core conceits is that with transhumanism there's no such thing as disability: if there's a problem with your body we can fix or replace it.

What I'm wondering is, would that really be what a disabled person would want?

Suppose we live in a world where everyone has three legs, and I'm a freak who only has two. Sure, that's inconvenient - tailoring costs alone, you know? - but by the time I'm an adult I've got that pretty well sorted. If it becomes possible, am I really going to want a body with three legs? Or do I maybe just want some kind of gyroscope so it's easier for me to keep my balance where I struggle compared to my tripedal brethren?

What will people would someone who is disabled actually desire? Would a deaf person want to suddenly be able to hear? Or would they rather something that transcribes the spoken word into text for them? Would someone with only one hand want a second hand, or just one hand but with more strength and dexterity?

What would they perceive as their points of pain, and what would be the solutions which best fit them?

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incarnation-issues · 9 months

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are you trans-detrans solidarity stances biased in one direction or another? I imagnie most anyone that brands themself as that title will understandably prioritize pro-transition stances. so I am skeptical someone would actually take on a neutral position that benefits any kind of detransitioner.

Hi, anon. Thank you for your concern. If this post doesn't engage with your question on the axes you were trying to ask about, please re-send a clearer question. I obviously can't tell if my stances are biased, so I'll summarize some of them here and give you some backstory.

I actually am kind of a detransitioner. I'm an AFAB/natal female who used to have a masculine nonbinary identity and stopped, and I still have some unwanted physical effects from having been on testosterone. I just also have a social circle full of trans people, really dislike cishumanism, and am perpetually frustrated with radfems, which is why I put stuff like "highly masculine right-brain systems thinker disconnected from Nature" in my tumblr bio.

(I never took exogenous testosterone, my body was like "hey, want to have a neckbeard and chest hair and horrible acne and a teenage-boy-tier sex drive and a face that people sometimes gender as male if paired with a t-shirt and short hair? no need to go to a doctor, I've got that covered". Now I take spironolactone, which I would recommend with caveats. I spent some time in detransition-oriented social groups, but got frustrated with them for what I saw as denying the realities of biomedical transition and having a cruel attitude towards some transgender women I was and am friends with. Discussing dysphoria with transgender women led me to start antiandrogens, which have done infinitely more for my mental health than any radfem has.)

Some policies I think benefit both groups include:

Not making a big deal about people having nonstandard presentations. If we want to avoid people feeling excess time pressure to transition, and be nice to people who temporarily took hormones they didn't want, we need to fuss less over lasting signs of nonstandard hormones, like breast development and hair pattern changes. Furthermore, if we want youth exploring their gender identities to not feel pressure to take hormones/bind/etc, we need to avoid making fun of youth who want to change their names and pronouns without significant physical changes.

Stop requiring people to give pronouns. Trans people mostly seem to not like it and detrans people seem to mostly not like it. It seems to be by and for DEI teams or something.

Doing more research into long-term health outcomes for people who take or have taken cross-sex hormones. Though this is still IIRC better studied than long-term puberty blocker usage! It is genuinely plausible to me that if a child or teenager wants medication for transition stuff, it's safer for them to be on cross-sex HRT than it is for them to be on puberty blockers.

Make checking sex hormone levels a standard diagnostic for miserable teenagers who hate their appearances. Sometimes these are screwy in ways which cause non-transgender dysphoria. At least in the case of AFABs, spending a month trying spiro probably won't set back their goals if they later turn out to benefit from exogenous androgens.

Policies which are less specific to the case of transgender people and detransitioners below the cut.

In general try to reduce child abuse, especially gendered child abuse, and try to avoid making kids do unpleasant unnecessary stuff, especially if it's gendered. Also, don't judge parents for having gender non-conforming kids.

Build more housing to lower housing costs so it's easier for adults to avoid living with their parents. Bad parents can be a huge stressor.

Full transhumanism now:

Look into synthesizing gametes from regular cells. Sometimes people care about being able to have biokids. If you've had your ovaries removed right now, that's a huge pain.

Solve artificial uteri. The root of sex-based oppression is, well, biological sex, which is rooted in disparate parental investment strategies. Artificial uteri are a step in making it more possible to equalize the costs child production puts on parents.

In general making it easy to change one's body reversibly. Right now that's a pain.

Blah blah full biological immortality and uploading and cognitive enhancements and stuff. Because those are nice things.

#detrans #detransition #politics cw

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reasonandempathy · 2 months

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Ultra ball, Level Ball and Dream Ball, please ^-^

Ultra Ball - Favorite Pokemon Game

By time played, Pokemon GO. Sentimentally, Blue.

Level Ball - What is your best talent?

Asking me, I'd probably say my planning ability. Asking my partner, my patience. If you're looking for something practical or "playing piano", I don't know, sorry.

Dream Ball - What is your biggest dream?

Right now, I just got what is reasonably one of the biggest reputational practical dreams in my career, and at this point it's victory laps or increases only in wealth or income.

So for now, I want to live with my partner. It is so, tantalizingly close, but still a distance away. That's the real answer.

The more ridiculous one is transhumanism. I want to live long enough to reach the point that I can extend my life and the lives of the people I love. So that we can live as long as would be fruitfal, happy, and healthy until it was time to go.

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innistrahd · 1 year

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Makin some daemons!

Be'lakor, the dark master. Very happy with how he turned out. Such a big model, painted him up in 4 separate parts (2 wings, body, and the base) and it felt like it took a long long time to wrap it up. Love the look of the model mostly being greyscale, with some pops of color, I think it ends up looking really good

Vashtorr the Arkifane, who is not the fifth chaos god sadly. Maybe in 10th edition. Tried doing some NMM on this and that just really is not my forte. Gonna need a lot more practice with NMM, but that's why we do it. For practice.

Originally didn't think I'd get the new version of the Daemon Prince model since I already had a copy of the old one, but since Ascension to Daemonhood is an option for your warlord during a Chaos Space Marines campaign, I ended up deciding I'd make a new one specifically for the warlord of my crusade

Comparison of him as a daemon prince and him as a transhuman. We'll see if he actually does ascend to daemonhood by the end of the crusade, but when he does, I've got his model ready

And he's got his apostles with him, with some slightly updated looks

#eri blogs games #warhammer 40k #chaos space marines #alpha legion

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synthient · 1 year

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Ok the Wachowskis have to have read this '96 wired Sandy Stone interview, right

Stryker: Then how did you end up involved with personal computers?

Stone: Shortly after Wozniak and Jobs started Apple, I found one of their prototype boards for the Apple II in a dumpster. I had no idea what it was. It was just this beautiful object. I put it up on my wall.

Stryker: You first got your hands on a personal computer by dumpster diving?

Stone: Uh-huh. A few weeks later, a friend of mine who had gotten a job at Apple told me what it was. He agreed to steal some ROM so I could make it work. We scrounged up chips here and there. We found where the traces were defective and fixed them. We needed a power supply, which at this point was very proprietary. It was difficult, but eventually I had my own computer. I began writing programs. One day I accidentally fell into the disassembler and made this kind of intuitive symbolic connection to the machine. It was so intense. The wheels began to turn. I could see the planets moving and the atoms vibrating, and I could see mind with a capital M. I could reach down into the very soul of this thing. I could talk to it. It was this sense of, well, here was the physical machine and here was the virtual machine, the abstract machine. It was a living creature that I could reach into and feel the circuitry. I could feel what the code was like. And I wasn't the only person who experienced this. For many people who tended to be socially inept and quite shy anyway, the quasi-intelligent character of the machine has replaced human social interaction.

Stryker: You treat desire as a movement across a boundary in the attempt to satisfy a need. If boundaries between humans and machines, or between species, or between the sexes, continue to shift or break down, is that the end of desire as we know it?

Stone: That's one of the big questions of transhuman theory and the area that currently most interests me - transgender theory.

Stryker: You yourself are transgendered. Is that a form of reality hacking - you "change sex" by using for your own purposes the codes that regulate how we understand gender and the body?

Stone: The body is an instrument for involvement with others. It's a site for the play of language, a generator of symbolic exchange. The thing that generates the language of social interaction is first and foremost the human body. Body, language, consciousness - they are aspects of the same thing.

#granted i think the earliest version of the script predates it

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