#Land Acquisition Problem

[hc24news]

Bihar News: भागलपुर में ओवरब्रिज या ओवरडिले? डेडलाइन पार, भोलानाथ ROB अब भी अधूरा

भागलपुर शहर की उम्मीदों से जुड़ा भोलानाथ आरओबी दो साल में भी अधूरा है. तय डेडलाइन 20 जून को खत्म हो चुकी है, लेकिन पुल का ढांचा अब तक तैयार नहीं हो सका है. सिर्फ 76% फाउंडेशन और 16% सुपर स्ट्रक्चर ही बना है. रेलवे की मंजूरी और भूमि अधिग्रहण की अड़चनों ने इस प्रोजेक्ट को ठप कर दिया है. सवाल उठ रहा है कि बिना GAD अप्रूवल के टेंडर क्यों दिया गया? अब टाइम एक्सटेंशन की बात चल रही है, लेकिन पुल कब…

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The reason you can’t buy a car is the same reason that your health insurer let hackers dox you

On July 14, I'm giving the closing keynote for the fifteenth HACKERS ON PLANET EARTH, in QUEENS, NY. Happy Bastille Day! On July 20, I'm appearing in CHICAGO at Exile in Bookville.

In 2017, Equifax suffered the worst data-breach in world history, leaking the deep, nonconsensual dossiers it had compiled on 148m Americans and 15m Britons, (and 19k Canadians) into the world, to form an immortal, undeletable reservoir of kompromat and premade identity-theft kits:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Equifax_data_breach

Equifax knew the breach was coming. It wasn't just that their top execs liquidated their stock in Equifax before the announcement of the breach – it was also that they ignored years of increasingly urgent warnings from IT staff about the problems with their server security.

Things didn't improve after the breach. Indeed, the 2017 Equifax breach was the starting gun for a string of more breaches, because Equifax's servers didn't just have one fubared system – it was composed of pure, refined fubar. After one group of hackers breached the main Equifax system, other groups breached other Equifax systems, over and over, and over:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/equifax-password-username-admin-lawsuit-201118316.html

Doesn't this remind you of Boeing? It reminds me of Boeing. The spectacular 737 Max failures in 2018 weren't the end of the scandal. They weren't even the scandal's start – they were the tipping point, the moment in which a long history of lethally defective planes "breached" from the world of aviation wonks and into the wider public consciousness:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incidents_involving_the_Boeing_737

Just like with Equifax, the 737 Max disasters tipped Boeing into a string of increasingly grim catastrophes. Each fresh disaster landed with the grim inevitability of your general contractor texting you that he's just opened up your ceiling and discovered that all your joists had rotted out – and that he won't be able to deal with that until he deals with the termites he found last week, and that they'll have to wait until he gets to the cracks in the foundation slab from the week before, and that those will have to wait until he gets to the asbestos he just discovered in the walls.

Drip, drip, drip, as you realize that the most expensive thing you own – which is also the thing you had hoped to shelter for the rest of your life – isn't even a teardown, it's just a pure liability. Even if you razed the structure, you couldn't start over, because the soil is full of PCBs. It's not a toxic asset, because it's not an asset. It's just toxic.

Equifax isn't just a company: it's infrastructure. It started out as an engine for racial, political and sexual discrimination, paying snoops to collect gossip from nosy neighbors, which was assembled into vast warehouses full of binders that told bank officers which loan applicants should be denied for being queer, or leftists, or, you know, Black:

https://jacobin.com/2017/09/equifax-retail-credit-company-discrimination-loans

This witch-hunts-as-a-service morphed into an official part of the economy, the backbone of the credit industry, with a license to secretly destroy your life with haphazardly assembled "facts" about your life that you had the most minimal, grudging right to appeal (or even see). Turns out there are a lot of customers for this kind of service, and the capital markets showered Equifax with the cash needed to buy almost all of its rivals, in mergers that were waved through by a generation of Reaganomics-sedated antitrust regulators.

There's a direct line from that acquisition spree to the Equifax breach(es). First of all, companies like Equifax were early adopters of technology. They're a database company, so they were the crash-test dummies for ever generation of database. These bug-riddled, heavily patched systems were overlaid with subsequent layers of new tech, with new defects to be patched and then overlaid with the next generation.

These systems are intrinsically fragile, because things fall apart at the seams, and these systems are all seams. They are tech-debt personified. Now, every kind of enterprise will eventually reach this state if it keeps going long enough, but the early digitizers are the bow-wave of that coming infopocalypse, both because they got there first and because the bottom tiers of their systems are composed of layers of punchcards and COBOL, crumbling under the geological stresses of seventy years of subsequent technology.

The single best account of this phenomenon is the British Library's postmortem of their ransomware attack, which is also in the running for "best hard-eyed assessment of how fucked things are":

https://www.bl.uk/home/british-library-cyber-incident-review-8-march-2024.pdf

There's a reason libraries, cities, insurance companies, and other giant institutions keep getting breached: they started accumulating tech debt before anyone else, so they've got more asbestos in the walls, more sagging joists, more foundation cracks and more termites.

That was the starting point for Equifax – a company with a massive tech debt that it would struggle to pay down under the most ideal circumstances.

Then, Equifax deliberately made this situation infinitely worse through a series of mergers in which it bought dozens of other companies that all had their own version of this problem, and duct-taped their failing, fucked up IT systems to its own. The more seams an IT system has, the more brittle and insecure it is. Equifax deliberately added so many seams that you need to be able to visualized additional spatial dimensions to grasp them – they had fractal seams.

But wait, there's more! The reason to merge with your competitors is to create a monopoly position, and the value of a monopoly position is that it makes a company too big to fail, which makes it too big to jail, which makes it too big to care. Each Equifax acquisition took a piece off the game board, making it that much harder to replace Equifax if it fucked up. That, in turn, made it harder to punish Equifax if it fucked up. And that meant that Equifax didn't have to care if it fucked up.

Which is why the increasingly desperate pleas for more resources to shore up Equifax's crumbling IT and security infrastructure went unheeded. Top management could see that they were steaming directly into an iceberg, but they also knew that they had a guaranteed spot on the lifeboats, and that someone else would be responsible for fishing the dead passengers out of the sea. Why turn the wheel?

That's what happened to Boeing, too: the company acquired new layers of technical complexity by merging with rivals (principally McDonnell-Douglas), and then starved the departments that would have to deal with that complexity because it was being managed by execs whose driving passion was to run a company that was too big to care. Those execs then added more complexity by chasing lower costs by firing unionized, competent, senior staff and replacing them with untrained scabs in jurisdictions chosen for their lax labor and environmental enforcement regimes.

(The biggest difference was that Boeing once had a useful, high-quality product, whereas Equifax started off as an irredeemably terrible, if efficient, discrimination machine, and grew to become an equally terrible, but also ferociously incompetent, enterprise.)

This is the American story of the past four decades: accumulate tech debt, merge to monopoly, exponentially compound your tech debt by combining barely functional IT systems. Every corporate behemoth is locked in a race between the eventual discovery of its irreparable structural defects and its ability to become so enmeshed in our lives that we have to assume the costs of fixing those defects. It's a contest between "too rotten to stand" and "too big to care."

Remember last February, when we all discovered that there was a company called Change Healthcare, and that they were key to processing virtually every prescription filled in America? Remember how we discovered this? Change was hacked, went down, ransomed, and no one could fill a scrip in America for more than a week, until they paid the hackers $22m in Bitcoin?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Change_Healthcare_ransomware_attack

How did we end up with Change Healthcare as the linchpin of the entire American prescription system? Well, first Unitedhealthcare became the largest health insurer in America by buying all its competitors in a series of mergers that comatose antitrust regulators failed to block. Then it combined all those other companies' IT systems into a cosmic-scale dog's breakfast that barely ran. Then it bought Change and used its monopoly power to ensure that every Rx ran through Change's servers, which were part of that asbestos-filled, termite-infested, crack-foundationed, sag-joisted teardown. Then, it got hacked.

United's execs are the kind of execs on a relentless quest to be too big to care, and so they don't care. Which is why their they had to subsequently announce that they had suffered a breach that turned the complete medical histories of one third of Americans into immortal Darknet kompromat that is – even now – being combined with breach data from Equifax and force-fed to the slaves in Cambodia and Laos's pig-butchering factories:

https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/01/politics/data-stolen-healthcare-hack/index.html

Those slaves are beaten, tortured, and punitively raped in compounds to force them to drain the life's savings of everyone in Canada, Australia, Singapore, the UK and Europe. Remember that they are downstream of the forseeable, inevitable IT failures of companies that set out to be too big to care that this was going to happen.

Failures like Ticketmaster's, which flushed 500 million users' personal information into the identity-theft mills just last month. Ticketmaster, you'll recall, grew to its current scale through (you guessed it), a series of mergers en route to "too big to care" status, that resulted in its IT systems being combined with those of Ticketron, Live Nation, and dozens of others:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/31/business/ticketmaster-hack-data-breach.html

But enough about that. Let's go car-shopping!

Good luck with that. There's a company you've never heard. It's called CDK Global. They provide "dealer management software." They are a monopolist. They got that way after being bought by a private equity fund called Brookfield. You can't complete a car purchase without their systems, and their systems have been hacked. No one can buy a car:

https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/27/business/cdk-global-cyber-attack-update/index.html

Writing for his BIG newsletter, Matt Stoller tells the all-too-familiar story of how CDK Global filled the walls of the nation's auto-dealers with the IT equivalent of termites and asbestos, and lays the blame where it belongs: with a legal and economics establishment that wanted it this way:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/a-supreme-court-justice-is-why-you

The CDK story follows the Equifax/Boeing/Change Healthcare/Ticketmaster pattern, but with an important difference. As CDK was amassing its monopoly power, one of its execs, Dan McCray, told a competitor, Authenticom founder Steve Cottrell that if he didn't sell to CDK that he would "fucking destroy" Authenticom by illegally colluding with the number two dealer management company Reynolds.

Rather than selling out, Cottrell blew the whistle, using Cottrell's own words to convince a district court that CDK had violated antitrust law. The court agreed, and ordered CDK and Reynolds – who controlled 90% of the market – to continue to allow Authenticom to participate in the DMS market.

Dealers cheered this on: CDK/Reynolds had been steadily hiking prices, while ingesting dealer data and using it to gouge the dealers on additional services, while denying dealers access to their own data. The services that Authenticom provided for $35/month cost $735/month from CDK/Reynolds (they justified this price hike by saying they needed the additional funds to cover the costs of increased information security!).

CDK/Reynolds appealed the judgment to the 7th Circuit, where a panel of economists weighed in. As Stoller writes, this panel included monopoly's most notorious (and well-compensated) cheerleader, Frank Easterbrook, and the "legendary" Democrat Diane Wood. They argued for CDK/Reynolds, demanding that the court release them from their obligations to share the market with Authenticom:

https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/us-7th-circuit/1879150.html

The 7th Circuit bought the argument, overturning the lower court and paving the way for the CDK/Reynolds monopoly, which is how we ended up with one company's objectively shitty IT systems interwoven into the sale of every car, which meant that when Russian hackers looked at that crosseyed, it split wide open, allowing them to halt auto sales nationwide. What happens next is a near-certainty: CDK will pay a multimillion dollar ransom, and the hackers will reward them by breaching the personal details of everyone who's ever bought a car, and the slaves in Cambodian pig-butchering compounds will get a fresh supply of kompromat.

But on the plus side, the need to pay these huge ransoms is key to ensuring liquidity in the cryptocurrency markets, because ransoms are now the only nondiscretionary liability that can only be settled in crypto:

https://locusmag.com/2022/09/cory-doctorow-moneylike/

When the 7th Circuit set up every American car owner to be pig-butchered, they cited one of the most important cases in antitrust history: the 2004 unanimous Supreme Court decision in Verizon v Trinko:

https://www.oyez.org/cases/2003/02-682

Trinko was a case about whether antitrust law could force Verizon, a telcoms monopolist, to share its lines with competitors, something it had been ordered to do and then cheated on. The decision was written by Antonin Scalia, and without it, Big Tech would never have been able to form. Scalia and Trinko gave us the modern, too-big-to-care versions of Google, Meta, Apple, Microsoft and the other tech baronies.

In his Trinko opinion, Scalia said that "possessing monopoly power" and "charging monopoly prices" was "not unlawful" – rather, it was "an important element of the free-market system." Scalia – writing on behalf of a unanimous court! – said that fighting monopolists "may lessen the incentive for the monopolist…to invest in those economically beneficial facilities."

In other words, in order to prevent monopolists from being too big to care, we have to let them have monopolies. No wonder Trinko is the Zelig of shitty antitrust rulings, from the decision to dismiss the antitrust case against Facebook and Apple's defense in its own ongoing case:

https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/cases/073_2021.06.28_mtd_order_memo.pdf

Trinko is the origin node of too big to care. It's the reason that our whole economy is now composed of "infrastructure" that is made of splitting seams, asbestos, termites and dry rot. It's the reason that the entire automotive sector became dependent on companies like Reynolds, whose billionaire owner intentionally and illegally destroyed evidence of his company's crimes, before going on to commit the largest tax fraud in American history:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/billionaire-robert-brockman-accused-of-biggest-tax-fraud-in-u-s-history-dies-at-81-11660226505

Trinko begs companies to become too big to care. It ensures that they will exponentially increase their IT debt while becoming structurally important to whole swathes of the US economy. It guarantees that they will underinvest in IT security. It is the soil in which pig butchering grew.

It's why you can't buy a car.

Now, I am fond of quoting Stein's Law at moments like this: "anything that can't go on forever will eventually stop." As Stoller writes, after two decades of unchallenged rule, Trinko is looking awfully shaky. It was substantially narrowed in 2023 by the 10th Circuit, which had been briefed by Biden's antitrust division:

https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca10/22-1164/22-1164-2023-08-21.html

And the cases of 2024 have something going for them that Trinko lacked in 2004: evidence of what a fucking disaster Trinko is. The wrongness of Trinko is so increasingly undeniable that there's a chance it will be overturned.

But it won't go down easy. As Stoller writes, Trinko didn't emerge from a vacuum: the economic theories that underpinned it come from some of the heroes of orthodox economics, like Joseph Schumpeter, who is positively worshipped. Schumpeter was antitrust's OG hater, who wrote extensively that antitrust law didn't need to exist because any harmful monopoly would be overturned by an inevitable market process dictated by iron laws of economics.

Schumpeter wrote that monopolies could only be sustained by "alertness and energy" – that there would never be a monopoly so secure that its owner became too big to care. But he went further, insisting that the promise of attaining a monopoly was key to investment in great new things, because monopolists had the economic power that let them plan and execute great feats of innovation.

The idea that monopolies are benevolent dictators has pervaded our economic tale for decades. Even today, critics who deplore Facebook and Google do so on the basis that they do not wield their power wisely (say, to stamp out harassment or disinformation). When confronted with the possibility of breaking up these companies or replacing them with smaller platforms, those critics recoil, insisting that without Big Tech's scale, no one will ever have the power to accomplish their goals:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/18/urban-wildlife-interface/#combustible-walled-gardens

But they misunderstand the relationship between corporate power and corporate conduct. The reason corporations accumulate power is so that they can be insulated from the consequences of the harms they wreak upon the rest of us. They don't inflict those harms out of sadism: rather, they do so in order to externalize the costs of running a good system, reaping the profits of scale while we pay its costs.

The only reason to accumulate corporate power is to grow too big to care. Any corporation that amasses enough power that it need not care about us will not care about it. You can't fix Facebook by replacing Zuck with a good unelected social media czar with total power over billions of peoples' lives. We need to abolish Zuck, not fix Zuck.

Zuck is not exceptional: there were a million sociopaths whom investors would have funded to monopolistic dominance if he had balked. A monopoly like Facebook has a Zuck-shaped hole at the top of its org chart, and only someone Zuck-shaped will ever fit through that hole.

Our whole economy is now composed of companies with sociopath-shaped holes at the tops of their org chart. The reason these companies can only be run by sociopaths is the same reason that they have become infrastructure that is crumbling due to sociopathic neglect. The reckless disregard for the risk of combining companies is the source of the market power these companies accumulated, and the market power let them neglect their systems to the point of collapse.

This is the system that Schumpeter, and Easterbrook, and Wood, and Scalia – and the entire Supreme Court of 2004 – set out to make. The fact that you can't buy a car is a feature, not a bug. The pig-butcherers, wallowing in an ocean of breach data, are a feature, not a bug. The point of the system was what it did: create unimaginable wealth for a tiny cohort of the worst people on Earth without regard to the collapse this would provoke, or the plight of those of us trapped and suffocating in the rubble.

Support me this summer on the Clarion Write-A-Thon and help raise money for the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop!

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/2024/06/28/dealer-management-software/#antonin-scalia-stole-your-car

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[dailyadventureprompts]

DM Tip: The Debt Always Comes Due

Isn't it weird how little we engage with gold as a real gameplay system? Sure, at low level wealth makes a great questhook, the party is usually hurting for a payout so that they can afford necessary gear upgrades/ubiquitous healing potion restocks/their next trip to the magic item shop. After a while though the promise of raw wealth loses its lustre, and the party is less likely to go out of their way to accept bounties, go off chasing treasuremaps, or accept gigs from shady patrons.

Generally I'd advise that this is a sign that your party are done being run of the mill sellswords, and it's time to hit them with a big epic questline that's focused more on emotional and narrative stakes than base currency. That said, sometimes you want to run a longer adventure arc that's centred around the acquisition of wealth, but to do that, you're going to need to go against the grain on one of the foundational assumptions that underpins D&D both mechanically and narratively.

TLDR: If you want your party to be motivated by gold past their first big pay off you should consider using a "wealth hurdle", which in short is a narrative and gameplay challenge that forces them to collect not only more gold than they already have but also more gold than they could get doing what they've been doing so far. This can be anything from a crimelord calling in a debt on them or one of their allies, a powerful monster swooping in and demanding tribute, comissioning some grand construction, or funding the defence of a region. Having the hurdle active should cause problems for the party, and not clearing the hurdle before a perdetermiend deadline will immensely bad things to happen. This will force the party to take risks they otherwise wouldn't, giving a high degree of focus to their subsequent adventures that they wouldn't have if they were content.

What we're trying to fix:

At it's core, D&D is a power fantasy, and a good chunk of its gameplay mechanics regardless of edition are about acquiring new strengths, options, and assets. These assumptions are likewise built into the genre and narrative structure of most campaigns: Heroes undertake quests usually for the promise of some reward, gain experiance/hit milestones along the way, and eventually stumble across some kind of loot drop at the end. There's nothing strictly wrong with this, but it does mean that all the resource problems the heroes face in the early game (and the inbuilt motivations that come along with them) are all but resolved by the time they hit the next gameplay tier.

This is complicated by the fact that outside of 3rd party options there's not much to spend money on. The DMG (which you should totally ignore) say you shouldn't let them buy magic items, and the common wisdom would say "let them buy a keep", but that solution only appeals a niche selection of adventuring parties.

Using Weath Hurdles turns acquiring gold not just into a quest goal but a gameplay challenge, forcing your party to scour the land for potential sources of wealth (and risk upsetting whoever or whatever happens to be currently holding it) and take on challenges they'd never normally attempt if there was only survival/personal enrichment at stake.

Food for Thought:

Tradional d&d structure has the party getting a huge payout at the end of their adventure in the form of a bosshoard or questgiver reward which is a very backloaded "you can have your dessert after you finish your greens" sort of attitude. Consider switching it up sometimes: have the party's patron or employer give them a small stipend to spend on kitting themselves out, have an early game treasure haul so the party can have a mid-arc shopping episode. This is especially useful in higher level games where your party may go weeks to months without a level up as it preserves the feeling of progression and gives them new toys to play with in between the big character defining abilities.

Recently I've been learning my way around blades in the dark (can't reccomend it enough btw), and just like any other time I've wanted to learn a new ttrpg system I'm having to do a bit of neural rewiring when it comes to figuring out how to write and run sessions of the game. Coin in BitD is both an XP (used for upgrading the party's shared crew sheet) a resource (burned to upgrade the results of various rolls) and a stat ( rolled to see if the players can lay their hands on various hard to come by items). It didn't really click for me until my first group messed up really badly on what was supposed to be their introductory adventure and pissed off the local crimeboss. I was just going to have him bully them, lock them up and then have a jailbreak the next session ( it's what I'd do in d&d), but on the fly I had the idea that he'd let them go with a massive debt they needed to pay off, which forced them to either pay him a percentage of their takings on all future jobs, or do small jobs in utmost secrecy so that they could build up their own strength under his nose.

Interestingly enough, the d&d game where I thought player wealth as a resource was most interestingly used was Dimension 20’s starstruck Odessy, which was a conversion of the amazing fanmade  starwars5e system. Starstruck is a parody of hypercapitalism and aptly uses money as both a narrative and gameplay feature. One character is stuck paying weekly insurance premiums on a debt he would never be able to pay down forcing him to act recklessly to acquire wealth in the immediate future. Another character was a economic and political power player and some of the best moments in the series come from her high stakes wheeling and dealing and bouncing money between accounts while the rest of the group engages in epic space battles; the rest of the crew might’ve barely got their ship out of the dogfight, but she’s the one who ensures they can pay for the repairs once they get to the space dock.   None of this would be possible without completely ignoring the normal constraints of wealth per level: gaining and losing huge sums based on moment by moment player decisions, The need for them to play along with the absurist gig economy to boost their rating and get better paying jobs, making a devil’s bargain with a corporate sponsor all so that they could risk their lives in a deadly arena fight all for the (very unlikely) chance of winning the equivalent of a million GP.  Not every campaign should, or even could so focus on money in this way, but it was FASCINATING to watch it in action. 

Artsource

[nthspecialll]

Red Dead History: My problems with it

Red Dead History is a book that does a great job at casting light over the history and background to the scenes, places and troubles we meet in Red Dead Redemption 2. Talking about both the things done well and the things done not so well, what is true to the time and place and what is not.

It is clear that the author knows alot about history and studied it, however there are times where I find it clear he spent more time focused on the real history rather than the in game and thus forgetting facts and drawing wrong conclusions.

When talking about the real life criminals that Dutch and Arthur are based on (Butch Cassidy, Sundance Kid and their gang The Wild Bunch) this very lovely and wrong sentence comes up: "Like Dutch and company, the Wild Bunch undertook robberies primarily for personal gain, not as a moral crusade against capitalism. Butch and Harry, like the van der Linde crew, certianly had a disdain for the corporate titans of their day, but it was desire for their wealth far more than social justice that motivated their heists." (The Wild Bunch, page 86) I do not think the author understood Dutch Van Der Linde very well, I don't think he understood the gang very well.

Dutch is a man based on princips, who can be found on any time of the day reading a philosopher who challenges capitalism and questions what man has become. "Men are fixated on greed, on desire, and on the acquisition not of experiences or pleasures but the ability to acquire." This is Dutch's hero, and he has several interactions with different characters like Mary-Beth, Molly, John, Abigail, Lenny and Arthur reading up quotes and discussing them, praising Miller to the heavens!

If that is not enough, lets look at the very first bank robbery that they commited, they did not keep the money, they gave it to the poor! And they still have their morals, like not robbing the poor, only the rich. We also have the fact that Javier joined the gang because of these morals, because he agreed with them.

While in the end, yes it might have been more for themselves, to get them to Tahiti because they got too big a price on their head, the majority of their time has not been.

Another example, just a bit further down the page that is wrong: "Another parallel to Arthur and Dutch, Butch Cassidy had a pronounced distaste for the racist ideologies so dominant around the turn of the century." While I can agree with him on Arthur, I can't agree with him on Dutch, Dutch is fairly racist, slowing his speech with people of other origins, calling Bronte a slur and "Here we are in this strange land of Papists and rapists." Papists meaning catholics, and the fact that a lot of minorities were hated on due to being catholics. (Read more detailed here)

Now this sentence is followed by: "One Black gambling companion of the gang noted that if anyone treated him unfairly, Butch would "get after them" with furious vengeance." Now that is not at all like Arthur or Dutch who are both in on the "stand up for youself" idea which is why they condone Micah because they expect Javier, Lenny and Charles to stand up for themselves. They ain't going to do anything. Also when they return with Sadie and Micah complains about having to sleep around people of color, Butch would have acted, Dutch and Arthut did not.

Several many pages later while talking about blood feuds we have this line "Like the mysteriously stolen gold from Red Dead Redemption 2" (The Blood Feud, 235) where I would like to point out that it is neither mysterious nor stolen(at least not by who you think). While it is not told in the story, we as players have the ability to learn about what happened to the gold.

On an island not far outside Saint Denis, hidden under a tree in a chest we can find a letter. This letter comes from Lucille Braithewaite and was written in 1803 to a Douglas Gray, whoms story was esencially that of Penelope and Beau, except Lucille was exiled by her family and took her family money, hiding it for Douglas to find and give to an organisation that would abolish slavery.

While it is not common knowledge about the letter, the other two things are, and if you are writing and publishing a book I would expect you to know your things.

A minor problem I have with his writing is that he puts the player experience into unenssesary boxes. For example he talks about the KKK and how Arthur encountered them: "One evening soon after their arrival, Arthur is riding on the outskirts of the dusty plantation town of Rhodes when he notices a constelllation of bright lights in the nearby woods." (The white-hooded menace, 115) He continues to talk about how Arthur curiously dismounts and sees who it is and that the player then has the choice to kill the KKK or watch them die.

While I do understand setting a scene, I think it is such an unessesary thing to add with the timing and place and what Arthur does when reacting to them. Rdr2 is known for being so unique and it feels so wrong to remove that, also because this encounter can happen at any time pretty much anywhere. I have never met them in Rhodes but I have met them in Big Valley twice, one time in chap 6 and one time with John.

Similarly he talks about the racist guy in Saint Denis and how it leads to the "inevitable conclusion of violence, with Arthur beating ot shooting the pamphleteer" (The Paradox of race, 96) as if it isn't completely possible to just walk away. And it isn't like the author never talks about the many choices the player can make, for example he talks about how Rockstar was under critisism because some boys had a kick out of tying up and killing women NPCs in different ways.

Red dead is such a wide experience and I don't understand why he is trying to narrow it down and tie it up into a box when he could have gotten his point across without needing to.

Last point I want to talk about is his idea for red dead three, that being Arthur Morgan in 1871 (Epilogue, 242), where I feel that it is more because he liked the time period more than anything. Arthur would be eight at this point and living with his dad (the one pic we have of him is taken in 1874). From what the author presents of the time period it does sound interesting with a lot of possibilites but I do not think it should be with Arthur if so, maybe with Black Belle or someone.

While I do really like all the history facts that the author brings, I am surprised at his lack of understanding for the gang considering his 3 playthroughs and 300 hours in game.

I have also heard rumors of historical inacuracies, and I am trying to dig deeper into that to see if there is something, but if anyone uses his work for something I would fact check him just to be safe.

[whencyclopedia]

Bleeding Kansas: Dress Rehearsal for the American Civil War

'Bleeding Kansas' was a term coined by the New York Tribune in 1856, referring to the escalating hostilities in the Kansas Territory between pro-slavery activists and anti-slavery 'free staters' following the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. Violent confrontations between these two factions went on from 1854 to 1859, though hostilities would continue through 1861, when Kansas was admitted to the Union as a free state, and continue through the American Civil War.

Bleeding Kansas is understood as an overture to the American Civil War (1861-1865), as the factional violence clearly showed that the issue of slavery could only finally be dealt with through military action. It also highlighted how divided the United States had become over slavery as neighbor killed neighbor in disputes over whether Kansas should be a free state or a slave state.

These disputes were encouraged by the provision in the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 allowing for popular sovereignty in deciding the matter. The people in the Kansas Territory would vote on which they wanted their state to be. The problem with this, as became clear quite quickly, is that it drew people from both sides of the issue to fill the region with as many supporters of their respective causes as possible and also encouraged pro-slavery 'border ruffians' from Missouri to cross into the territory to vote illegally.

The tensions in the region were never resolved, and hostilities between free staters, pro-slavery advocates, and their allies, the border ruffians, continued throughout the Civil War. At least 60 people died between 1854 and 1859, though that number is most likely low. Although Bleeding Kansas is usually understood in reference to the years 1854-1859, hostilities were only finally ended by the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865, abolishing slavery.

Background

In 1787, Congress passed the Northwest Ordinance, prohibiting the spread of chattel slavery into the Northwest Territory, and, in 1807, it abolished the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Slavery was restricted to those states in which it had already been established, and each state could decide for itself whether to maintain the 'peculiar institution' or vote for abolition.

Northern states, generally, were less dependent on slave labor than those in the South and so slavery was gradually abandoned there, but in the South, with its large plantations of cotton and tobacco, slavery continued to flourish, especially after the invention of the cotton gin in 1793, which sped up the process of cultivating cotton but required more labor in picking and transporting the crop.

The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 nearly doubled the size of the United States but created controversy over whether that region, once it was divided into states, would be admitted to the Union as free or slave. This problem was addressed by the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which admitted Missouri (part of the Louisiana Purchase) as a slave state and Maine as a free state in 1820, thereby maintaining the balance of power between slave and free states. The Missouri Compromise also outlawed slavery north of the 36°30´ parallel and west of the Mississippi River except for Missouri.

After the Mexican American War (1846-1848) and the acquisition of more land in the so-called Mexican Cession, the question arose again and was answered by the Compromise of 1850, which included the provision that slavery in the states of New Mexico and Utah would be decided by popular sovereignty. The compromise also included the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, compelling authorities, law enforcement, and private citizens in free states to help capture and return fugitive slaves to their masters; a law which was extremely unpopular and increased tensions between free and slave states.

The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 was drafted by the same man who had submitted the final version of the Compromise of 1850, Senator Stephen A. Douglas (1813-1861) of Illinois. Since Kansas and Nebraska were both north of the 36°30´ parallel, Douglas' act abolished the Missouri Compromise of 1820 in leaving it up to the people themselves to choose slavery or reject it. As Nebraska was further north, it was assumed the people would reject slavery, but Kansas, bordered by the slave state of Missouri, and with wide open plains for cultivation of crops, was expected to enter the Union as a slave state.

Problems began with the provision of popular sovereignty in the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, as each side of the issue saw an opportunity to increase their power in representational government by filling the region with supporters as quickly as possible. Consequently, immigrants from free and slave states hurried to Kansas to establish the residency required to vote on the issue. Since Kansas was so close to Missouri, pro-slavery activists arrived first, establishing the towns of Atchison and Leavenworth. Anti-slavery free staters also arrived in 1854, setting up communities in what would become Lawrence and Topeka. The vote was set for November 1854, and all the players were in place for the hostilities to begin, which would, within two years, be referred to as Bleeding Kansas.

Read More

⇒ Bleeding Kansas: Dress Rehearsal for the American Civil War

[cheeseanonioncrisps]

So, fun detail I just noticed about Megamind:

Famously, throughout the film Megamind mispronounces certain words, most notably: "hello" ("olo"), "Metro City" ("Metrocity") and "school" ("shool").

Like many fans, I'd attributed this and other oddities— like not knowing what a window is— to his unconventional upbringing and general social isolation. His speech sounds a lot like the way people pronounce words that they've only seen written down, so maybe he just hasn't had enough practice talking to other people out loud.

Lovely theory, very angsty, makes sense that this would be what the film-makers intended.

Except…

You know who doesn't seem to have this problem with pronunciation? And who in fact attempts to correct Megamind's pronunciation of various words more than any other character?

Fucking Minion.

Minion was there for literally every step of Megamind's childhood. They were raised on Earth together and went through seemingly the exact same experiences. Yet somehow Minion came out the other end knowing how to answer the phone and what a window is and why people use codes, while Megamind didn't.

And I am just so fascinated as to why.

Top three theories:

1. Megamind isn't actually mispronouncing words due to lack of practice, but rather for some other reason.

Maybe there's something up with his ability to hear certain sounds, or his alien anatomy makes it harder to pronounce them. Maybe he's neurodivergent (I mean, he definitely is, but maybe that fact is affecting his speech).

2. Megamind is mispronouncing things due to lack of practice, but there's something about Minion that makes him need less practice to pick up new languages.

Possibly as part of their protective role, his species has advanced language acquisition programmed in so they can act as translators. Else, while Minion and Megamind landed on Earth together, it's not 100% clear whether they were actually at the same age/developmental stage when that happened. If Minion was an adult (or older child) when he became fluent in English, he might have consciously focused more on accurate pronunciation than Megamind did.

3. Megamind is mispronouncing things due to lack of practice, but Minion is getting more practice than him.

This is… honestly the theory with the most evidence behind it. Like, we know that Minion isn't in jail at the start of the film, so he's clearly mot spending the same amount of time in solitary confinement that Megamind is.

He also appears to be in charge of providing Megamind with the resources needed to carry out his plans, which would presumably require him to communicate with scrap merchants, crocodile breeders and Romanian outlet store owners (among others) on the regular.

And like… if he's not getting thrown in jail whenever Megamind does, and Megamind is spending a fair amount of time on the inside, then Minion has to be doing something to pass the time. He's clearly a bit of an extrovert, and seems to take more pleasure in interacting with people than Megamind does.

It seems unlikely that he'd spend all his time sitting in the Evil Lair waiting for Megamind contact him or escape. So what does he do?

I find it both sweet and hilarious to imagine that Minion actually does have his own social circle outside of Megamind.

Minion goes to DnD on the second Tuesday of every month.

Minion gets advice on making costumes for Megamind from his weekly sewing circle.

Minion has been going to university online for the past eight years and is currently working towards his PhD in Marine Biology.

Minion is a semi-regular at Metrocity Night Clubs.

Minion does volunteer work sometimes with kids at the Metrocity hospital.

Megamind has barely any idea about any of this. Like, he knows Minion goes places at various times.

He knows that when he's rampaging through the streets Minion will sometimes stop to wave hello to various people that Megamind has never met. He's seen the half-orc paladin costume that Minion made for DnD.

But he's never really asked about it, and Minion has never seen the need to tell him. So long as Minion's happy, Megamind's happy, and so long as Megamind's happy, Minion is happy.

Meanwhile Roxanna, post-movie, has to grapple with the fact that sometimes she'll go to visit her boyfriend only for him to ask if they can go out for dinner instead because Minion's book club is meeting in the Evil Lair, and he's been gently encouraged not to come back after what he said to Helen about her (wrong) opinions on To Kill A Mockingbird.

[gothamgabber]

Excitement! Relief! Interaction!

42 is truly the answer to All Things!

42 names went into a hat! Let's see who gets paired with who and what their circumstances are! Please remember to be responsible roleplayers and communicate however you like! The prompts are optional, too, if you come up with something else, that's awesome! If you've been matched with yourself or you can't play with your partner, let me know, no explanations needed. I'll see if anyone wants to double up!

@izakk-tiberius-kyle & @belladonna-ismyfavoritecriminal : you've both been following leads to a small new crime group and they've landed you in an abandoned garden center.

@cutelover76 (Bast or Kidcanine) & @jules-the-vampire : I'm excited for this! Some people talk to bartenders, some talk to baristas, some people even talk to therapists! This one talks to the vampire on the McDonald's graveyard shift.

@cecilistired & @taught-by-the-alley : A Perfect Pairing! I wish I could take credit, but the random generator decided this was fate! A case of mistaken identity leads the Zoology major to be brought to a mob boss...who looks weirdly like their English Lit professor.

@sleep-deprived-tim & @belladear (find blog through @cecilistired if needed!) : let's face it, you're both fans of Spoiler and Nightwing. You've been chatting about how cool they are on the same message board for years. You know each other's first names. Today's the day you're meeting up with your Internet friend.

@eleanor-wayne & @junior-super-lord : This pairing made @flyingprodigy's mun laugh when he read it out to me! To quote him, "Steal the child! Steal the child, Eleanor! Become your father's daughter!" So, let's go with that. Welcome to the Wayne family, Jon. This one has therapy!

@xxapollo & @obsession-withthenight : a child mercenary meets a vigilante fresh out of her origin story! Is this an accidental sidekick acquisition or the start of a dark comedy duo? This rooftop feels a little crowded!

@rowanvitale & @did-i-ghost-you : Another genuinely hilarious random pairing! The necromancer and the ghost kid, like peanut butter and honey! Or will you be like olive oil and peat moss? Either way, you two do need to find where Constantine left that book of summoning rituals unless you want a certain sarcophagus opening back up.

@raven-thewaygate & @damian-demonspawn : I chose the best classroom organizer tool, clearly. A finicky magical problem in Gotham has Raven visiting for a week. (It's not dangerous, just time consuming) Damian is interested in stories and what Nightwing and Red Hood were like as kid heroes, and maybe how he compares. Maybe a cross generational friendship is in the works. Or maybe Raven's had enough demons in her life.

@json-todd & @drake-wayne-enterprise : This Jason Todd has adopted a million kids. This Timothy Drake Wayne is pulling CEO double duty. Sometimes they meet up at a secret location to do something that relaxes them (sparring? Spa days? Floor time?) and commiserate.

@babsggordon & @ivy-rose-walker : Magic and tech don't always see eye to eye, and Barbara is curious why cameras around this one tattoo artist sometimes pick up weird effects. Maybe some personal investigating will end with new friends and extra protection for both of them, magical and technological!

@grantagonist & @caspianova : sometimes being a baby gang member means trying to sneak out of the ER before the CPP get there. Or any of the people you've met who would care when you get knocked unconscious. Good luck!

@flyingprodigy & @seam-queen : This one's tricky! Luckily, I can look Brad's mun in the eye as I tell him that Brad's looking for a therapist unconnected to Arkham, the Batclan, or the Wilsons. He doesn't want to worry his people or get them more tangled up in his recovery, so maybe a certain info dealer can help? Unless she decides this could be great info gathering and encourages the guy with no danger sense to share things with a masked stranger. He's weirdly well connected for a civilian.

@gothamizhome & @best-detective-since-sherlock : One of you is a supervillain. One of you is a detective. Both of you are trying to hide this from each other at this wedding. Too bad you've been assigned to work together to make sure things go right for the next three days. Your friends the Bride and Bride really are gonna owe you for this...

@bstandsforbabydaddy & @lexcorp-luthor : This one is tricky, too! Again, either of you are uncomfortable with this random pairing, let me know! If you're up for it? A fight with yet more alien invaders sent Luthor's office to the End of Time and it's taking up space. Time for Peter B to take his weirdest rescue road trip yet! And maybe he can give a little advice out to this villain who doesn't realize he's crushing hard on his hero.

@le4ves-1n-the-w1nd & @jean-paul-azrael : This could be so interesting! Azrael had heard rumors of a Saint. Honestly, it sounds fake, but if there truly is a Saint popping into this sinful dimension, it could be that the title "Saint of Overseeing Bullshit" is correct. And if not... One less heretic! Look out, Leaf!

@marthajo & @alfred-worth-every-penny : I swear it was a random generator, I put you all in a big Internet hat and shuffled three times. A chance encounter; one of Martha's fun little plots is about to go down until she recognizes a long lost friend among the potential casualties.

@that1greendude & @gothambarista : Gar swings by one of the many late-night cafes that Gotham boasts. He's in town to help/get helped by Nightwing with a villain connected to both Jump City and Gotham and he needs his vegan snacks! He was not expecting every animal instinct in him to hone in on the person behind the counter.

@akatarantula & @circus-champion : I STG it was random. This is fate. This could be interesting! Do the timelines align at all?! Tarantula's been in Gotham long enough to be noticed. Maybe Dick needs to kick her out. Maybe Dick needs to confront her. Maybe Dick's never met her before and this is about to get weird. Who knows what's going to happen when they discover each other while breaking into a mobster's business office.

@candy-corn-requested-by-shadows & @gothidaii : It's another unexpectedly perfect match! It's entirely possible that an insect themed vigilante would stalk and/or "gently kidnap" the guy working for Beau the big bug villain. Finding out that Dai has physical insect wings? That's wild. Now Reaper really wants to talk about bugs!

@onyxdayy ( @mydayinthebuilding )& @damietheprideprince ( @yippiescorneroftheinternet ) : Oh dear! The villain of the day actually managed it this time! They actually completed the summoning despite the Young Justice team doing their best to stop it! Even the. Summoner looks surprised! The demonic being that trips out of the portal looks the most surprised of all, though! Lucifer's great grandson is from a world barely related to the Young Justice one. They'll have to keep him (and the world) safe until they find a way to send him home. In the meantime, Damien is taking notes on his to improve his evilness. Or is he making friends?

@ravonna-lexus-renslayer & @bearspiracies : honestly, this might be the best thing. A former Time Variance Authority Judge from another, very removed dimension, and a gay teenage conspiracy theorist. Is the weird pull of this dimension a result of the timelines breaking down with nothing like the TVA or Loki to prevent them? Sitting in Gotham's City Park, Ravonna has some theories and Bernard is there to walk his duck broadcast them!

AND THAT'S IT! That took hours! Special thanks to @donkoogrr for following everyone and helping me stalk. And for letting me make a murderboard before talking me out of my perfectionist spiral <3

This is not a dating app, this is a goofy little thing that I hope people enjoy!

Look! Look at all the cool people who want to RP! Let this encourage you in the future to reach out even if you can't think of a reason to interact - maybe they can imagine one! You, yes you, might be the person they've been too shy to talk to!

Good Luck! I'm going to relax now!

[johnnypecanpie]

we’re so damn patriotic we wrap the flag around our eyes as it fucks us over again and again and again

9/11 was a tragedy. Let’s start off with that. Nothing will make it alright, or justified. When we discuss the events of history, however, providing ample focus towards the various aspects of a topic is necessary in keeping the most unbiased lense. To put it lightly — the events of 9/11 paled in comparison to those that happened before and after during the Pan-American era. The Middle East’s history, especially with conflict, goes far back — and playing the blame game is always easy. How far back do you start? With the Ottomans? Crusades? Caliphates? Romans? It’s impossible.

Certain actions, however, were taken with no pre-qualification or previous event in mind. Western interference in the Middle East during the Colonial era follows the same. British and French influence in the region following the full acquisition of British India and the Scramble for Africa was increased to the point of near complete control — especially piqued by the interest in oil reserves discovered. This land, over the course of fifty years, was divided and extracted till both empires acknowledged they had grown too large to maintain and began to slowly break apart. The first problem arises here: the intentional division of regions through containing ethnicities and religions to create conflict. Secondly, the most valuable resources of the region had been extracted — and those that hadn’t had were trapped in contracts which would keep them feeding the same to companies like British Petroleum and Total.

This leads into the second acquisition: as the Cold War continued, the strategic importance of both the resources and locations of the nations there became incredibly important to both the USSR and NATO. After many internationally influenced wars in the region, the USSR directly invaded Afghanistan in 1979. This conflict worried the United States, which trained the Muhjadeen, a local militia, to fight against the invading forces — and incorporated the idea of Jihad. It wasn’t difficult for so called religious leaders to then enter the fray and seize power for themselves. Osama Bin Laden, an anti-American terrorist, formed the Al-Qaeda out of many of the same, using Saudi wealth — which, you guessed it, was supported by the United States against the Shah of Iran, which was supported by the USSR. On 9/11, they then attacked one of the wealthiest places in the world, the World Trade Center. How did the United States retaliate? A million killed in Iraq for “weapons of mass destruction” which didn’t exist. Upwards of two trillion dollars spent on the war in Afghanistan.

Maybe every year we should have a memorial on medical discrimination against people of color because that death toll is in the hundreds of thousands each year when it doesn’t have to be. Maybe every year we should have a memorial on the tens of millions of Native Americans that were killed through evidenced and recorded biological warfare. Because it feels every damn time, like one white life is worth a thousand coloured ones. But God bless America right? We’re so damn patriotic we wrap the flag around our eyes as it fucks us over again and again and again. We’ll continue to feed this behemoth till the day it takes us down with it, but history will see us as complicit to the crime.

[dittolicous]

yet another zosan 'accidental child acquisition' fic idea for the ether

the strawhats land on an island that is having a bit of a pick-pocket problem caused by a sneaky young girl and dont think much about it cuz same-old same-old, yknow? its just one kid so how bad could it be?

until she pick-pockets sanjis lighter, thus leading the crew on a wild goose chase, constantly spotting her just to hit dead ends or see her appear somewhere else. a devil-fruit user, they assume. finally after two days of scooby doo-like chase sequences, theyre able to capture the child

only for it to turn out, no, she doesnt have devil fruit powers, she is actually just one half of a pair of twins pretending to be one singular little girl to better enable their thievery! mystery solved, sanji demands for his lighter back....

only for the room to be thrown into chaos when a third little girl causes the roof to cave in on them

because its actually triplets pretending to be one singular girl and the last one is here to rescue her sisters =)))

this leads to a long series of shenanigans, including the girls stowing away on the sunny to get back at the strawhats for blowing their scheme, constantly stealing and hiding sanjis lighter from him, and being general nuisances that eventually leads to playful gags and eventually bonding, with the crew, particularly sanji amd zoro, dreading their eventual departure when they reach the next island

(sanji gives them the nickname of 'eenie, meenie, and moe' after they refuse to tell them their names. unfortunately for him, zoro's nicknames for him quickly enter the girls' vocabulary in turn)

[mostlysignssomeportents]

AI is a WMD

I'm in TARTU, ESTONIA! AI, copyright and creative workers' labor rights (TOMORROW, May 10, 8AM: Science Fiction Research Association talk, Institute of Foreign Languages and Cultures building, Lossi 3, lobby). A talk for hackers on seizing the means of computation (TOMORROW, May 10, 3PM, University of Tartu Delta Centre, Narva 18, room 1037).

Fun fact: "The Tragedy Of the Commons" is a hoax created by the white nationalist Garrett Hardin to justify stealing land from colonized people and moving it from collective ownership, "rescuing" it from the inevitable tragedy by putting it in the hands of a private owner, who will care for it properly, thanks to "rational self-interest":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/04/analytical-democratic-theory/#epistocratic-delusions

Get that? If control over a key resource is diffused among the people who rely on it, then (Garrett claims) those people will all behave like selfish assholes, overusing and undermaintaining the commons. It's only when we let someone own that commons and charge rent for its use that (Hardin says) we will get sound management.

By that logic, Google should be the internet's most competent and reliable manager. After all, the company used its access to the capital markets to buy control over the internet, spending billions every year to make sure that you never try a search-engine other than its own, thus guaranteeing it a 90% market share:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/21/im-feeling-unlucky/#not-up-to-the-task

Google seems to think it's got the problem of deciding what we see on the internet licked. Otherwise, why would the company flush $80b down the toilet with a giant stock-buyback, and then do multiple waves of mass layoffs, from last year's 12,000 person bloodbath to this year's deep cuts to the company's "core teams"?

https://qz.com/google-is-laying-off-hundreds-as-it-moves-core-jobs-abr-1851449528

And yet, Google is overrun with scams and spam, which find their way to the very top of the first page of its search results:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/24/passive-income/#swiss-cheese-security

The entire internet is shaped by Google's decisions about what shows up on that first page of listings. When Google decided to prioritize shopping site results over informative discussions and other possible matches, the entire internet shifted its focus to producing affiliate-link-strewn "reviews" that would show up on Google's front door:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/24/naming-names/#prabhakar-raghavan

This was catnip to the kind of sociopath who a) owns a hedge-fund and b) hates journalists for being pain-in-the-ass, stick-in-the-mud sticklers for "truth" and "facts" and other impediments to the care and maintenance of a functional reality-distortion field. These dickheads started buying up beloved news sites and converting them to spam-farms, filled with garbage "reviews" and other Google-pleasing, affiliate-fee-generating nonsense.

(These news-sites were vulnerable to acquisition in large part thanks to Google, whose dominance of ad-tech lets it cream 51 cents off every ad dollar and whose mobile OS monopoly lets it steal 30 cents off every in-app subscriber dollar):

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/saving-news-big-tech

Now, the spam on these sites didn't write itself. Much to the chagrin of the tech/finance bros who bought up Sports Illustrated and other venerable news sites, they still needed to pay actual human writers to produce plausible word-salads. This was a waste of money that could be better spent on reverse-engineering Google's ranking algorithm and getting pride-of-place on search results pages:

https://housefresh.com/david-vs-digital-goliaths/

That's where AI comes in. Spicy autocomplete absolutely can't replace journalists. The planet-destroying, next-word-guessing programs from Openai and its competitors are incorrigible liars that require so much "supervision" that they cost more than they save in a newsroom:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/29/what-part-of-no/#dont-you-understand

But while a chatbot can't produce truthful and informative articles, it can produce bullshit – at unimaginable scale. Chatbots are the workers that hedge-fund wreckers dream of: tireless, uncomplaining, compliant and obedient producers of nonsense on demand.

That's why the capital class is so insatiably horny for chatbots. Chatbots aren't going to write Hollywood movies, but studio bosses hyperventilated at the prospect of a "writer" that would accept your brilliant idea and diligently turned it into a movie. You prompt an LLM in exactly the same way a studio exec gives writers notes. The difference is that the LLM won't roll its eyes and make sarcastic remarks about your brainwaves like "ET, but starring a dog, with a love plot in the second act and a big car-chase at the end":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/01/how-the-writers-guild-sunk-ais-ship/

Similarly, chatbots are a dream come true for a hedge fundie who ends up running a beloved news site, only to have to fight with their own writers to get the profitable nonsense produced at a scale and velocity that will guarantee a high Google ranking and millions in "passive income" from affiliate links.

One of the premier profitable nonsense companies is Advon, which helped usher in an era in which sites from Forbes to Money to USA Today create semi-secret "review" sites that are stuffed full of badly researched top-ten lists for products from air purifiers to cat beds:

https://housefresh.com/how-google-decimated-housefresh/

Advon swears that it only uses living humans to produce nonsense, and not AI. This isn't just wildly implausible, it's also belied by easily uncovered evidence, like its own employees' Linkedin profiles, which boast of using AI to create "content":

https://housefresh.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Advon-AI-LinkedIn.jpg

It's not true. Advon uses AI to produce its nonsense, at scale. In an excellent, deeply reported piece for Futurism, Maggie Harrison Dupré brings proof that Advon replaced its miserable human nonsense-writers with tireless chatbots:

https://futurism.com/advon-ai-content

Dupré describes how Advon's ability to create botshit at scale contributed to the enshittification of clients from Yoga Journal to the LA Times, "Us Weekly" to the Miami Herald.

All of this is very timely, because this is the week that Google finally bestirred itself to commence downranking publishers who engage in "site reputation abuse" – creating these SEO-stuffed fake reviews with the help of third parties like Advon:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/03/keyword-swarming/#site-reputation-abuse

(Google's policy only forbids site reputation abuse with the help of third parties; if these publishers take their nonsense production in-house, Google may allow them to continue to dominate its search listings):

https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2024/03/core-update-spam-policies#site-reputation

There's a reason so many people believed Hardin's racist "Tragedy of the Commons" hoax. We have an intuitive understanding that commons are fragile. All it takes is one monster to start shitting in the well where the rest of us get our drinking water and we're all poisoned.

The financial markets love these monsters. Mark Zuckerberg's key insight was that he could make billions by assembling vast dossiers of compromising, sensitive personal information on half the world's population without their consent, but only if he kept his costs down by failing to safeguard that data and the systems for exploiting it. He's like a guy who figures out that if he accumulates enough oily rags, he can extract so much low-grade oil from them that he can grow rich, but only if he doesn't waste money on fire-suppression:

https://locusmag.com/2018/07/cory-doctorow-zucks-empire-of-oily-rags/

Now Zuckerberg and the wealthy, powerful monsters who seized control over our commons are getting a comeuppance. The weak countermeasures they created to maintain the minimum levels of quality to keep their platforms as viable, going concerns are being overwhelmed by AI. This was a totally foreseeable outcome: the history of the internet is a story of bad actors who upended the assumptions built into our security systems by automating their attacks, transforming an assault that wouldn't be economically viable into a global, high-speed crime wave:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/24/automation-is-magic/

But it is possible for a community to maintain a commons. This is something Hardin could have discovered by studying actual commons, instead of inventing imaginary histories in which commons turned tragic. As it happens, someone else did exactly that: Nobel Laureate Elinor Ostrom:

https://www.onthecommons.org/magazine/elinor-ostroms-8-principles-managing-commmons/

Ostrom described how commons can be wisely managed, over very long timescales, by communities that self-governed. Part of her work concerns how users of a commons must have the ability to exclude bad actors from their shared resources.

When that breaks down, commons can fail – because there's always someone who thinks it's fine to shit in the well rather than walk 100 yards to the outhouse.

Enshittification is the process by which control over the internet moved from self-governance by members of the commons to acts of wanton destruction committed by despicable, greedy assholes who shit in the well over and over again.

It's not just the spammers who take advantage of Google's lazy incompetence, either. Take "copyleft trolls," who post images using outdated Creative Commons licenses that allow them to terminate the CC license if a user makes minor errors in attributing the images they use:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/01/24/a-bug-in-early-creative-commons-licenses-has-enabled-a-new-breed-of-superpredator/

The first copyleft trolls were individuals, but these days, the racket is dominated by a company called Pixsy, which pretends to be a "rights protection" agency that helps photographers track down copyright infringers. In reality, the company is committed to helping copyleft trolls entrap innocent Creative Commons users into paying hundreds or even thousands of dollars to use images that are licensed for free use. Just as Advon upends the economics of spam and deception through automation, Pixsy has figured out how to send legal threats at scale, robolawyering demand letters that aren't signed by lawyers; the company refuses to say whether any lawyer ever reviews these threats:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/13/an-open-letter-to-pixsy-ceo-kain-jones-who-keeps-sending-me-legal-threats/

This is shitting in the well, at scale. It's an online WMD, designed to wipe out the commons. Creative Commons has allowed millions of creators to produce a commons with billions of works in it, and Pixsy exploits a minor error in the early versions of CC licenses to indiscriminately manufacture legal land-mines, wantonly blowing off innocent commons-users' legs and laughing all the way to the bank:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/02/commafuckers-versus-the-commons/

We can have an online commons, but only if it's run by and for its users. Google has shown us that any "benevolent dictator" who amasses power in the name of defending the open internet will eventually grow too big to care, and will allow our commons to be demolished by well-shitters:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/04/teach-me-how-to-shruggie/#kagi

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/2024/05/09/shitting-in-the-well/#advon

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

--

Catherine Poh Huay Tan (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/68166820@N08/49729911222/

Laia Balagueró (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/lbalaguero/6551235503/

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

[bonefall]

Since the ask box commands to vote Bumble in that tourament (which I did, cuz she was SCREWED over to the extreme) could you talk a whole lot about BB!Bumble's dyspraxia? Since we are talking about the *everything in canon* she got for the High Crime of being a fat foreigner woman and abuse victm in warrior cats, let's talk about the universe where we add disabled to her list of High Crimes but she isnt done dirty as balls(sorry if all this is worded weird)

Plus, I'm personally having issues writing a dyspraxic character (mostly because i kinda suck at absorbing information about things like disability when not using characters as exemples) and you've really helped me in the past with making characters with BPD, so it would be personally useful in character making

(Sorry if I'm rude, I deeply respect your work and it greatly inspires me, especially Clanmew)

All righty! BB!Bumble's dyspraxia!

First off, for newcomers;

WHY I ADDED DYSPRAXIA TO BUMBLE

In canon, Bumble is called a fat, useless kittypet, before being dragged back to her domestic abuser. She then dies while trying to survive on her own, starved to the point of emaciation before Clear Sky murders her.

A very common fandom response to this is essentially, "shes NOT useless! She could hunt/fight if you taught her!" And a lot of AUs will have her survive, learning how to be Truly Useful with all the same skills as everyone else.

I won't lie; I think that's very disappointing.

You're not refuting the rotten heart of this ideology, you're just doing what DOTC already does with Jagged Peak. You're AGREEING. You're saying she WOULD be useless if she couldn't hunt or fight like a wild cat, giving her Coolgirl Badass moments to haha embarass her bigots, and Actually the only problem here is that they didn't give her a chance.

What if they GAVE her that chance, and she COULDN'T hunt or fight like them? Would it be okay to send the battered housewife back to her domestic abuser? Hopefully fucking not!

Let's be frank; None of the groups in DOTC are starving. Not even after the prey sickness pandemic.

"Starvation Rhetoric" is an excuse, only ever rolled out by monsters like Clear Sky as justification for stealing land, murder, and throwing out cats the groups deem unworthy of life.

Yet, this gets rolled out for Bumble specifically, by the MOOR CATS, who are supposed to be opposing his ideology.

And that's where I'm starting from.

Okay. What if she couldn't perform physically like other cats?

What if she was part of a group that DID have real concerns about not having enough food?

How does Bumble herself cope with her feelings, and her desire to help her friends and contribute to a group that loves her?

Let's go through all that, and attack the heart of the idea. In fact, we're going to be doing a lot of it, with a significant portion of early ThunderClan being disabled cats.

(Thunder Storm has three legs. Bright Storm has asthma. Sunlit Frost loses the use of both front paws and ends up with chronic pain.)

Bumble's Dyspraxia

The first thing to know about dyspraxia (or DCD, Developmental Coordination Disorder) is that it comes in a LOT of different forms. The next thing to know is that it's RIDICULOUSLY common. Some estimates say 5% of the population has it-- 1 in 20 people.

It's heavily associated with autism and ADHD. The "classic" symptoms are general clumsiness and motor control issues, like having a hard time tying shoes. But these are also symptoms of dyspraxia;

Short-term memory issues, but not long-term

Being constantly covered in bumps and bruises

Having a hard time telling lefts and rights

Difficulties holding pencils or writing in general

"Wobbliness" including tripping mid-step or tripping over your own feet

Issues in the acquisition of "muscle memories," being slow to acquire physical skills.

Stuttering and taking long pauses before responding to someone else speaking

Most dyspraxics won't have all of these, these are symptoms. Not a checklist.

My partner describes theirs as like "constantly working with cold hands through a layer of gloves." The stiffness of being in a freezer, paired with the general delay of having a cover over your skin.

Mine is more focused on the mental side, acquiring new skills is unnaturally difficult, my reaction time is delayed, and I stumble into things.

Every person with dyspraxia is different, but what links us is that we're uncoordinated. We can't help it, telling us to try harder or pay more attention doesn't work. We aren't being careless-- our brains don't send signals to our bodies properly.

I'm basing Bumble's off my own. Her mate, Turtle Heart, shows her over and over how to hunt. It never sticks. She tries to pick up battle moves from Thunder Storm to help defend herself from Clear Sky's goons. It doesn't work.

She's really trying, she really is. The Moor group quickly loses patience with her, and Bumble is well aware that she's only tolerated on Turtle Heart's vouch. Her worst fears come true when Tom steals their children, and her mate is killed trying to retreive them.

That messes with her, and makes her believe that she really is worthless and a burden.

ThunderClan was FOUNDED on Thunder Storm's fury, breaking off his supporters to retreive her from exile, and Bumble's struggle with self-worth begins in earnest.

There's one thing she's confident about, and really loves. Bumble is trilingual, outgoing, and confident in her ability to talk to others. That's what she can add, and what she wants to do.

ThunderClan is different. It works with every strength and weakness of its members, and values diplomacy to keep it afloat against the odds. Bumble really is needed, but eventually even her translation work becomes less special as more kits grow up bilingual. Eventually, this too feels taken from her.

And then it's back to square one. Her mate is gone, one of her kits betrayed her, Owl Eyes is a big strong man who doesn't need his mum anymore. She's left with her fumbling paws, taking more from the pile than she puts in.

One can only hope she realizes that ThunderClan was born out of love for her. That it was never about what she could add. She didn't have to confront it in the main story because so much was happening, but as peace settles over the forest, it's time for her to start to unpack that idea.

[valzhangism]

hi! i was wondering your thoughts on accidental baby acquisition valzhang down the line? would they keep the baby or do you imagine a setting where they temporarily take care of a baby together before finding the baby's family and returning it? i know frank has his whole loyalty thing but i'm wondering which would be more painful for him: to have a glimpse at a future domestic life with leo (hell imagine this prior to them even getting together...) or realizing that the life trajectory he's currently on is going to get him killed and he can't put a kid through what he went through with his own mom and maybe have a little deconstruction arc with him </3 love your blog but you already know that and also who sent this!

whole week late to this but thank you for the ask!

whether they would keep it i think depends on the scenario. if they were able to find the baby's original family (and it was a relatively stable one) i think they would have no qualms giving it back. but if the kid had nowhere else to go, i think frank and leo would be predisposed to keep the baby themselves and form an attachment. they're both afraid of being bad parents but imo they're also the type of people that can't just turn away from someone in need (especially a child).

when it comes to imagining domesticity, i imagine leo would have more problems with it than frank; which in turn would be painful for frank himself. frank comes from a demigod family and governs new rome/cj, a place where technically domesticity can coexist with demigodliness. i don't think leo would share much of that same view, considering his own fears regarding his powers and him associating his birthright with inherent suffering.

i think it would hurt a lot if they got that glimpse together of a family life, only for leo to peace out the second they returned the child. or even for him to distance himself from the child they're currently raising. leo would probably see it as an act of selflessness (to spare a child from his own nature). but he's also famously obsessed with fixing things and helping others so there's lots of ways it could play out.

i don't think the crisis about his own way of life would come to frank right away or even all at once. considering his own relationship to his mom he probably tries his best to strike a balance between his dangerous lifestyle and his family. and if he dies selflessly, well, that's just the way it is. he'll set a good example for the kid. even though he himself suffered so much when his mom died, he would struggle to think of how he in turn would affect his child. in a way it's poetic, because he is now his mom, understanding why she made those same decisions he used to hate.

in the end, though, if he had the help of others and the chance to mature more than his mother, he'd probably realise it eventually. i can't see him completely quitting to a domestic mortal life like percy but he'd probably slow down a bit, think twice before throwing himself into danger and try to be less... load-bearing.

anyway, i love Accidental Baby Acquisition valzhang. it just seems like the type of wacky situation they'd land themselves in lol. i can't say they would be great if they were younger than like... 30, but ultimately they'd still be loving parents. they'd try their best. even though they have their own problems.

[hyperthusiast]

Chapter 15: Recognition of my dark RadioStatic fic Prized Acquisition has been posted!

“¡Hijo de puta!” Valentino slammed his hands down on the table and shot to his feet. “What the fuck is your problem?!” “Oh, come on, it’s fuckin’ obvious.” Velvette waved her hand at Vox exasperatedly. “He’s in love with the radio prick.”  The moth demon scoffed as he propped himself on the table, leaning his weight on one of his lower hands. “Please. Love isn't real, it's just chemicals. I should know.” He leaned forward to blow a puff of smoke into Vox's face.  He waved the smoke away with a scowl. “My feelings for Alastor are irrelevant,” he insisted firmly. “I know him. I've known him since I landed in Hell. I know… it’s not just a soul contract between us. He wants me around.” “Yeah, Angel was the same way before he ran off to the princesa's hotel,” Valentino taunted slyly. Sparks jumped around Vox’s screen. “That's not even fucking close to the same thing,” he spat. “You never cared about a real relationship with Angel. You don’t love-” He cut himself off with a curse as Valentino threw his head back in a laugh.  “Oh, so you do love your little deer,” he cooed, sliding off the table and stepping over to run a hand over Vox’s shoulder salaciously. “That’s precious, Voxxy. But if you love and trust him so much, why not just set him free? See what happens.” He turned as though to walk back to his chair, but paused, leaning back to look over his shoulder with a cruel smile. “Spoiler alert - he won’t stay with you.” 

This is a dark fic where Vox owns Alastor’s soul, so please heed the warnings on AO3!

[nthspecialll]

Rdr1 newspaper "Blackwater #59" transcriped

Masterlist link.

Blackwater Beset By Savages. Notes Anthropologist Survives.

A vicious gunfight on the streets of Blackwater, perpetrated by a barbaric gang, including some Indians, has further compounded claims that the Native problem in the region is worsening rather than improving. The subject of the attack was a certain Professor Harold MacDougal, a prominent academic on sabbatical from Yale University to carry out a study on the Native population with a view to identifying the true root of their resistance to civilization, culture and religion. Professor MacDougal, proving the true robustness of a classical education, and an unnamed gunman were able to subdue the assailants and make their escape. It is believed that this abhorrent band of savages is being led by notorious outlaw Dutch van Der Linde. Man say van Der Linde, who disappeared without a trace around six years ago, has been living amongst the Natives for some time now, raising the question of whether he is inciting the unrest, or has fallen victim to a process of ‘de-civilisation’ much like the Wolf Girl we reported on last year.

The Ladies Battle: Suffragists march On Capital

Suffragists marched on the capital Tuesday in a beleaguered effort to secure the vote. Yet how does the acquisition of the vote affect the property privileges of men? Until this question is satisfactorily answered it shall remain the complication preventing women voting. Granting of property rights in women would result in cataclysmic confusion and the destruction of our core values as well as our families. These shrieking and savage mobs of harpies make Uncle Sam shudder.

French Literature “Little More than Pornography”

A powerful group of Congressmen in Washington are pushing forward with plans to outlaw French literature in this country. The congressmen, who cross party lines, but none of whom actually speak French, argue that French literature is little more than cheap pornography. They believe it is sure to rip the soul out of the nation and do little to help the hard working American family. Referencing words by Zora, Diderot and Voltaire, one congressman listed the horrors these books contain. “There’s tales of nudity illicit sexual congress, incest, prositution, sexual pleasure and much else besides. While having these books translated for me, I came over all funny and took a turn. I am not ashamed to say I disgraced myself. A less upstanding person than myself could have been destroyed by the revelations in these books and seen his life reduced to a rubble of self pleasure and Onanism. Thankfully, it will take more than Onanism to take me down, but the same cannot be said for the population at large.” The group is suggesting that all French books, along with the language and even French bread and letters be outlawed in the US.

Industrialist Comes Under More Fire

“In the fight for progress there have been many casualties,” Jeremiah Somerset once said. However, the wealthy industrialist’s business practices have come under scrutiny once more following accusations that he has been poisoning horses to make way for his mechanized threatening machines. This strikes a particular chord in the aftermath of last year’s allegations that Mr. Somerset was behind the weevil epidemic that ruined crops in New Austin, forcing farmers to sell their land at a fraction of its worth, and the infamous Irving factory explosion that killed over 400 child workers in 1903. A staunch supporter of prohibition, Mr. Somerset is also said to be manufacturing and stockpiling vast quantities of alcohol. He has so far declined to comment on these allegations.

Automobile Deaths - 30. Lynchings - 127.

While the fascinating march of science brings us the sweet sounds recorded for a victorla, the sound of automobiles has spelled death for an increasing number of citizens as safety fears grow about the horseless carriage. Lynchings are up, which many attribute to the weather.

Patent Medicine Picture Show In Blackwater

Druggists and shopkeepers expressed consternation at the new motion picture show currently playing in Blackwater. It is titled, “The Dangers of Doctors and Patent Medicines.” Taken to task are the patent medicines and traveling salesmen who ply their wares. This publication has enjoyed a long and happy relationship with many patent medicine companies who support the newspaper and we agree that death, drug addiction and other hazards from such compounds are completely baseless. 

Tax Increase Necessary To Fund Government Expansion

Law makers in Washington DC yesterday insisted that significant tax increases were necessary in order to pay for the greatly expanded federal government. When challenged that such actions were unconstitutional, and that the states had powers that could and should not be dismissed by the federal government’s ceaseless growth, law makers laughed and said the alternative is that we simply print more money and devalue the currency, so either way, do not forget who is in charge.

Dinosaur Fossil Hoax Embarrases Scientists

Scientistswere rushing to explain the recent report that prominent dinosaur researcher Prof.Bellum Brown was observed making plaster casts of dinosaur bones. Brown claims it was for research purposes. Critics say that dinosaur bones are manufactured in labs and buried by scientists who later excavate them in an attempt to stray mankind. They also indicate that nowhere in the historical record is there a mention of giant lizards.

Nipping Conception In The Bud

The North American Birth Control League published newest list of pregnancy prevention techniques. Coverings for the male member fashioned from animal intestines are found to be the most useful. Additionally, marital congress should occur shortly after a woman’s curse. Suffragettes spoke out against birth control methods, saying that devices that cover the member are indicative of brother creeping. After publishing their recommendations, members of the League were arrested and failed due to laws prohibiting the discussion of sex in our society.

Etiquette Tips

Excerpts from William Laggard’s Guide to Manhood

I, Etiquette prescribes that men of distinction eat alone in a room, uninterrupted by the frivolity of women and children.

II, A code of manners in street greetings, such as throwing down one’s outerwear into puddles or the doffing of one’s headwear will give evidence of correct breeding.

III, if you are going to be in the presence of ladies, beware of onions, spirits, flatulence and tobacco.

IV, When making a formal call on a lady, hat and gloves should be in his hands and, although his happy demeanor may, his pantaloons should not betray his excitement.

V, Men are expected to be extremely active in the ballroom. While dancing, hands should never touch the corset less they spoil her dignity. If uncertain about their technique or gracefulness, it is suggested men dance with each other until they are more sure of themselves.

Miscellany

Natas (Surname Unknown), of Indian descent, has passed away at Bear Claw Cabin in Tall Trees. May you find God, my dear friend, Prof. Harold MacDougal Esq.

MISSING PERSON: Sam Odessa, age 35, disappeared from his home six weeks ago. Possibly heading West towards California. His wife, Elena, seeks any information as to his whereabouts.

Make your hard earned money work hard for you. Daily poker and blackjack tables at the Blackwater Saloon. Serious gamblers only.

Dorothy Maygrove wishes to retract the hasty, and somewhat hopeful, notice of her husband’s death. Archie Maygone is decidedly alive, well and, for the time being, sober.

Medicine of the finest quality. Origin unknown but efficacy unequaled. Dr. Archie Gallagher. General Practitioner, Thieves’ Landing. New Austin. 

Experienced and punctual stenographer of trustworthy appearance announces that is available for office work. Swift and proficient, despite slight aural impairment. No references available at this time.

It aint pride. It’s honor.

[pannaginip]

Located 62km north-east of the capital Manila, Daraitan village in Rizal province is home to about 5,700 residents, a majority of whom are members of the Dumagat-Remontado indigenous people who consider vast hectares of the mountain range as part of their ancestral domain.

But the village may soon disappear under the same waters that give it life, once the Philippine government finishes building the Kaliwa Dam – one of 16 flagship infrastructure projects of former president Rodrigo Duterte that is being funded by China.

The new dam is expected to provide Metro Manila with an additional 600 million litres of water daily once it is finished by end-2026. Officials said building the 60m-high reservoir is even more necessary now that the country is starting to feel the impact of the El Nino weather phenomenon.

But it was only in 2021 under Mr Duterte that construction finally broke ground, three years after Manila and Beijing signed the 12 billion peso (S$288 million) loan agreement.

Of the 119 on the list [of flagship projects of the "Build, Build, Build” infrastructure programme], Mr Duterte turned to China to finance 16 big-ticket projects in a bid to cement his legacy by the time his presidency ended in 2022. He embraced Beijing during his term and even downplayed Manila’s claims in the disputed South China Sea in favour of securing loans and grants from China.

Analysts have criticised Mr Duterte’s infrastructure programme as ambitious. Perennial domestic issues like local politics, right-of-way acquisition problems, lack of technology and red tape in bureaucracy led to severe delays in the projects.

The same issues hound the China-funded projects – which come under Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to build infrastructure in developing nations – with the problems made more severe by Beijing’s high interest rates in its loan agreements and local backlash due to displacement of residents or potential environmental damage.

Critics say the BRI has been detrimental in the long run to some recipient countries, especially those that have been unable to repay their loans, like Sri Lanka and Zambia.

The Duterte government’s failure to take advantage of its BRI loans was a “missed opportunity” for the Philippines, said infrastructure governance specialist Jerik Cruz, a graduate research fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The four completed China-funded projects under Mr Duterte were controversial too. But they came to fruition because they had the support of local politicians allied with Mr Duterte and therefore increased his political capital, said Dr Camba.

Tribal leaders said they were not properly consulted regarding the project that threatens their traditional way of life. Environmentalists from the Stop Kaliwa Dam Network also say the project would destroy 126 species of flora and fauna in the Sierra Madre.

The Philippines’ Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act states that the government must first secure a tribe’s free, prior and informed consent before building on its ancestral lands.

But Ms Clara Dullas, one of the leaders of the Dumagat-Remontado in Rizal, alleged that the Duterte government had either misinformed or pressured other tribe members into giving their consent.

She could not bear to hold grudges, though, noting that the Dumagat-Remontado organisations that eventually agreed to the Kaliwa Dam were each given 80 million pesos, or $1.9 million, in “disturbance” fees.

“The Kaliwa Dam is the reason why our tribe is divided now. There is a crack in our relationships even if we all come from the same family,” said Ms Dullas. “I can’t blame the others because we lack money. I believe there was bribery involved.”

The government requires them to present identification documents, and only those given passes may enter. Mr Dizon said this is to ensure that no unidentified personnel enter the area [close to the construction zone].

“We feel like we are foreigners in our own home because the Chinese and the people in our own government are now preventing us from entering the lands where we grew up,” said tribe leader Renato Ibanez, 48.

Mr Ibanez also accuses the Philippine authorities of harassing tribe members who are vocal against Kaliwa Dam. Some of them have been accused of working with communist rebels, a charge the tribe vehemently denies.

Unlike his predecessor, Mr Marcos is more aggressive in defending Manila’s overlapping claims with Beijing in the South China Sea, but still fosters economic ties with it.

Geopolitical tensions between the two nations and Mr Marcos’ stance towards Beijing are going to dictate the fate of the pending China-funded projects the President inherited from Mr Duterte, said Mr Cruz.

Tribe members said they would be more amenable if Mr Marcos would revisit Japan’s proposed Kaliwa Intake Weir project that Mr Duterte had set aside.

“We like Japan’s proposal. It would not destroy our forests. It would not affect residents here. The Philippines would not be buried in debt,” said Ms Dullas.

This was among the alternatives the Dumagat-Remontados offered during their nine-day march in February 2023, when some 300 members walked 150km from Quezon and Rizal all the way to Manila to protest against the Kaliwa Dam.

But they failed to secure an audience with Mr Marcos. They remain wary of the President’s position on the Kaliwa Dam and other controversial China-funded deals.

“As much as we want to fully pin our hopes on him, we don’t. We’ve learnt from past efforts to trick us, make us believe a project is about to end, only for it to be resurrected again years later,” said Ms Dullas.

2024 Mar. 3

[rheanyraaaa]

In the Public Eye

pairing: robb stark x roslin frey

Fake Dating, Emotional Slow Burn, Media Pressure, Public vs Private Identity, Power Couple Dynamics, Journalist/Politician Romance, Mild Enemies to Allies, Legacy & Duty, Soft Angst, Mutual Healing - Part 2

・┆✦ʚ♡ɞ✦ ┆・・┆✦ʚ♡ɞ✦ ┆・・┆✦ʚ♡ɞ✦ ┆・

The apartment was too quiet when they got home, Not silent no, silence was something Talisa didn’t allow. The moment they stepped through the door, she was already kicking off her heels and turning on music, something low and pulsing, expensive lounge pop from some Icelandic singer she claimed was “years ahead of Spotify’s taste.”

Robb dropped his keys onto the counter. The penthouse’s skyline view blinked back at him through the floor-to-ceiling glass.

“Well?” Talisa called from the hallway, shrugging out of her coat. “Was I tolerable enough for your mother tonight, or do I owe her a handwritten apology for existing again?”

Robb didn’t answer right away. He loosened his tie, eyes fixed on the lights of a nearby building. Some of the floors were dark. Peaceful.

“You know she’s not going to like anyone I bring home,” he said eventually. “It’s not about you.”

Talisa emerged barefoot, wine already poured. “It’s always about me, Robb. That’s the problem.”

She handed him a glass. He didn’t take it.

She raised an eyebrow. “Still brooding about the dinner? Or just mad I out-talked Mace Tyrell on energy reform?”

Robb’s jaw ticked. “You baited him, Talisa.”

“I corrected him.”

“You humiliated him.”

She grinned, unrepentant. “He’s a billionaire who thinks wind farms give people cancer. I consider that a public service.”

“You know what I mean,” Robb said, finally turning to face her. “You don’t just challenge people. You corner them. And it reflects on me.”

She blinked once, mockingly slow. “Poor Robb Stark. Legacy prince. Politely raised. Never says what he actually thinks.”

“Stop.”

“You want the press to love me, your mother to tolerate me, your donors not to flinch when I show up at a fundraiser but you still want me, Robb. You can’t have all of that.”

“I don’t need you to be anyone else. I just need you to stop burning down everything you touch.”

She paused, swirling her wine.

“And I need you to admit you’re scared,” she said softly. “Not of me of them. Of your family. Of their shadow. You’re terrified of messing up the image.”

“I’m trying to protect it.”

“Exactly.”

She walked past him, her perfume trailing like heat. “You’re not a man, Robb. You’re a Stark. And that’s all you’ll ever be.”

・┆✦ʚ♡ɞ✦ ┆・・┆✦ʚ♡ɞ✦ ┆・・┆✦ʚ♡ɞ✦ ┆・

They fought quietly, always. There were no screaming matches, no thrown glasses. Just barbed words in pretty tones. She moved like a storm; he responded like a wall. They kissed in public and argued in private, and somehow they always ended up in bed again if only because it was easier than talking.

But it wore on him.

Talisa wanted fire. Headlines. Legacy-shattering scoops. She had a folder on her laptop labeled “Unfiled,” full of half-finished drafts and veiled threats that made him sweat when she left it open.

One of them was about the Stark Foundation’s land acquisitions in rural Dorne. Another hinted at a potential conflict of interest with a major donor. Nothing she’d published yet. But she flirted with them, even used one as a casual anecdote over coffee once.

He asked her to delete them.

She laughed and said, “If you want safety, date a girl from the riverlands with no Twitter.”

・┆✦ʚ♡ɞ✦ ┆・・┆✦ʚ♡ɞ✦ ┆・・┆✦ʚ♡ɞ✦ ┆・

Later that week, Catelyn called.

He ignored it the first time. Picked up the second.

“Did you read the article she published this morning?” she asked, without preamble.

Robb rubbed his eyes. “Yes.”

“She mentioned the Boltons.”

“She didn’t name names.”

“She didn’t have to. She’s drawing blood, Robb. And when it rebounds, it’s your name on the headline, not hers.”

“She’s not the enemy.”

“No,” Catelyn said evenly. “She’s just someone who wants to win. At anything. Against anyone. Even you.”

He was quiet for a long moment.

Then, quietly: “She’s not all bad.”

“I know,” Catelyn said. “She’s brilliant. Beautiful. Strategic. She photographs well. But Robb…”

A pause. A breath.

“You don’t need someone who challenges the world to a duel every morning. You need someone who doesn’t make you fight when you come home.

・┆✦ʚ♡ɞ✦ ┆・・┆✦ʚ♡ɞ✦ ┆・・┆✦ʚ♡ɞ✦ ┆・

That night, Talisa climbed into bed after finishing a call with one of her editors, phone still buzzing on the nightstand. Robb stared at the ceiling beside her, fully awake, fully still.

She curled against him, warm and humming with energy. “You’re thinking too loud,” she murmured.

He didn’t answer. And she didn’t press.

・┆✦ʚ♡ɞ✦ ┆・・┆✦ʚ♡ɞ✦ ┆・・┆✦ʚ♡ɞ✦ ┆・

severe lack of fanfics. Here is one . Tell me if you want to be tagged.