#This is our third pipeline post

[purpleflameb0i]

Gaybian transfemmasc pangender person to system pipeline

-N3 (she/her)

[cleolinda]

(For our purposes, listen to it without the visuals first.)

I wasn't going to keep posting about Unreal Unearth, but something happened yesterday.

It's been five months since I first heard this song, and I'm still astonished by it. You know the tiktok skit about the Star Wars wedding music, and the guy is grooving along until the Imperial Death March filters in, and then he's kind of alarmed, like, wha—? And then he realizes it slaps anyway and he keeps dancing? That is "Eat Your Young."

It's the morning of March 17th. The EP with the first three singles from the new album has dropped. I've got my phone blasting the song on the bathroom counter, I don't understand half what the man is saying nor did I expect to, I'm cheerfully mumbling along in the shower, grooving along,

wait they did what for a war drum

Get some Pull up the ladder when the flood comes Throw enough rope until the legs have swung Seven new ways that you can eat your young Come and get some Skinning the children for a war drum Putting food on the table selling bombs and guns It's quicker and easier to eat your young

What the fuck, this song goes so hard. That's the chorus. The conceit of the whole album is that it loosely follows Dante's Inferno, so this is the third circle of hell, gluttony. Hozier himself says that he wasn't specifically thinking of Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal—

“I don’t know how intentional the reference to Jonathan Swift was in this. That essay [Swift’s 1729 satirical essay A Modest Proposal in which he suggests the Irish poor sell their children as food] is such a cultural landmark that it’s just hanging in the air. I was more reflecting on what I felt now in this spirit of the times of perpetual short-term gain and a long-term blindness. The increasing levels of precarious living, poverty, job insecurity, rental crisis, property crisis, climate crisis, and a generation that’s inheriting all of that and one generation that’s enjoyed the spoils of it. The lyrics are direct, but the voice is playful. There’s this unreliable narrator who relishes in this thing which was fun to write.” [Apple Music album notes]

—and I believe him. The song's not a suggestion, a proposal; it's an invitation to atrocity in progress. I also believe he probably wasn't thinking of Greta Thunberg's iconic speech at the UN Climate Action Summit, not specifically, but that's what I hear in the song, like the flip side of a coin:

You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I'm one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you! [...] You say you hear us and that you understand the urgency. But no matter how sad and angry I am, I do not want to believe that. Because if you really understood the situation and still kept on failing to act, then you would be evil.

I feel like on some level, even coincidentally, "Eat Your Young" is the answer to the question, what would you sound like if you were that evil? Who would you be? I can think of a dozen possibilities just off the top of my head or looking around my blog, from something as petty as studio executives mangling trees to deprive striking workers of shade (while hoping they lose their homes), all the way up to the US school-to-prison pipeline. The National Rifle Association keeps politicians in its pocket while the US has more mass shootings than days in a year, Nestlé fucks shit up around the world as a way of life, even ChatGPT sucks up water while threatening jobs—and for what? And yet, I promise you most of these things weren't the inspiration for an Irishman’s song—some of them hadn't even happened yet. There's just that much fresh You Would Be Evil to go around. I am certain that Hozier wrote the song partly about (as one article puts it) "Ireland's housing crisis: Millennials, a generation sacrificed," given that time back in the day when he helped occupy a building—a housing crisis happening in multiple countries. There's so much of the world I'm not touching on. I can stuff a paragraph with links and it's utterly inadequate.

I haven't even mentioned war.

There's an overwhelming sense this decade of the future being fed into a meat grinder. That sense is in this song. What would it sound like to be in the head of someone who didn't give a shit about anything but profit? Well, it might sound like this.

And if you haven't heard it, well—I'm going to sound absolutely out of my mind after saying all that, but "Eat Your Young" has a beat and you can dance to it. It's sexy. And I'm certain that's on purpose. You get seduced into the sound of it, as if by something demonic, something that enjoys sucking down the future and is not going to stop. And the sheer fucking catchiness of the song keeps you listening to it—thinking about it—when maybe you push away the dry headlines we get everyday. If you let this song stay in your head, it becomes a lens. Five months later, I still think about it when I read the news. Maui was on fire and tourists stayed. Within days, the prospect of developers swooping in to buy up land reared its head. If there's something still to take, there is ground to break, whatever's still to come. Get some.

I was born in 1978 —I'm late Gen X. In my forties, I'm young enough to worry about the future still; I’m neither so rich that I can just plan to retire to Mars, nor so old that I can know I'll be safely gone before the world might go up in flames. But I'm also not my nephew, whose school year just started back up, or the neighborhood kids who race him home down the sidewalk in the afternoons. Yesterday, he had his very first mass-shooter lockdown drill. He’s six.

I think music can put the feeling back into numb fingers, and I think that's why "Eat Your Young" works so well—Hozier calls the song fun and playful, and I think you have to have that, something you can live with rather than just switch off for your own mental survival. We need music to feed spirit at protests; we need something to keep our feet moving. Don’t give up, don't close your eyes and slip away. Those kids, they have dreams we could try to steal back for them.

Since I mentioned Maui:

Why Hawaiian sovereignty has undeniable context for the Maui fires

The Climate Crisis and Colonialism Destroyed My Maui Home. Where We Must Go From Here

How You Can Donate and Help Support Maui Communities Right Now

The Maui Strong Fund

[undistinguishednerdycat]

Ok there's not nearly enough feral O'dessa (2025) posting on here, so I guess I've gotta do it myself.

First point:

GodDAMN the choice to make the only three god-inspired characters the main players maintaining the fascist state is Such a strong choice. Big "no gods, no kings" energy.

Like obvi there's Plutonovich as Pluto/Hades, Lord of death and no return. He is separate and untouchable, and creates his own mythology by televising his kills, even those that leave the body but kill the will (think facejobs). He is not a gentle shepherd of the already dead. He is actively causing it to grow his power. He is a dark and twisted reflection of a natural force. And he tries to portray his twisted spectacle as "for the people" but it's all for him. He's not providing a service, he's demanding allegiance and fealty.

Priscilla/Persephone is a more complicated character, as they chose to really play up the angle of her being a literal child taken (most likely against her will) to marry the Much Older Plutonovich. She has some measure of power as a performer with name recognition, but you can see how much Plutonovich sidelines her in HIS show. He uses her as a shield to appear less diabolical. She is used to humanize him and play as a character reference, but almost certainly is being exploited and abused behind the scenes.

Dion is a cleverly subtle dark reflection of Dionysus. She presides over sex, drugs, and rock and roll, but not in a way that provides freedom and joy. She emphasizes control and profit, exploiting anyone she can find for everything they can give. She controls Euri's sexuality and body, even when he is not working, and holds the newcomer contests to scout new victims. Her divine madness manifests not in dance or song, but in violence. She was the perfect choice as the third god to feature in the story, as her real job is to sniff out dissidents to fuel the endless pipeline of "entertainment" from Plutonovich. As we see in the first Satylite city scene, she also stages her own performances featuring particularly notorious rebels.

Anyway I just think that portraying the gods not as beings with a power beyond themselves but as people with power that comes only through fear and control is just a really fun angle in our current times for no particular reason 🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️

[imperatorrrrr]

the New Jersey Devils Off-Season (according to me, T) - part two, the 25-26 season

disclaimer: these are my opinions, takes, thoughts, ideas. I am in no way an expert in hockey, I just think about it a lot and talk about it a lot. I will more likely than not try to steal your blorbo from your team in this post, so just a warning.

first, who/what do we need?

the most ideal off-season for the New Jersey Devils, sees us securing the following: top six winger, depth center, bottom six winger(s), depth defenseman, backup backup goalie

Thoughts:

our top six is whatever combination of: JHughes, Bratt, Meier, Hischier. and your bottom six is whatever combination of the survivors of the off-season: Haula, Mercer, Noesen, Cotter, Palat, Glass, Lazar, Bastian

I think the hope is that Mercer can end up in the top six, so we are only looking for a winger for JHughes.

Haula should be our fourth line center if he remains on the team, so we need a third line center. we also just need center depth just in case of injury because when we lose our centers that's when we're the most exposed.

I don't think many people foresee our bottom six surviving the off season intact, so we need bottom six wingers.

Casey should not be spending his time sitting in a press box in the NHL as our seventh defenseman. he should be down in Utica developing and getting ice time, so we need a defenseman that can sit pretty or not pretty in the press box as a healthy scratch and step up if needed in case of injury. basically a real replacement for DeSimone who we lost on waivers.

it is indeed Daws time, but I don't think we have the goalie depth in a world where one of Markstrom or Daws goes down or god forbid both, so like either tell me we do have the goalie depth for someone to come up to the NHL from our AHL/ECHL team to goaltend or go out and get someone just in case.

second, the pipeline.

Non-Roster Players: Lenni Hameenaho, Arseny Gritsyuk, Shane LaChance, Nathan Legare, Xavier Parent

Thoughts:

don't think Hameenaho will be playing in the NHL next season. think he goes to Utica. unless he has a pre-season performance that forces Fitz/Keefe's hand and he lands himself a bottom six spot, we should not be expecting him to be NHL ready just yet.

LaChance could be a very good Bastian replacement. quietly excited about this nepo baby guy.

we've already seen what Legare can do when he was up with us last season, and he's another guy that could make a bid for a fourth line spot.

I'm including Parent because he's my little guy and I like him and this is my post and I can do what I want.

and, finally, there's Gritsyuk, my emotional support prospect, and I think a lot of people are excited to see him play with us. Gritsyuk could be the missing Jack winger we've been dreaming about, but he's at least definitely getting a chance at that middle six/third line spot. of the players mentioned, he's the one that will be in your starting lineup come October. and fuck am I pumped. that's at least one player that can be a missing piece without us having to look for outside help. I’d say his ceiling in Jack winger status but if he’s just a third line winger I also wouldn’t be upset at all.

third, targets.

UFAs: Nikolaj Ehlers, Ryan Donato, Brad Marchand, Claude Giroux, Pius Suter, Michael Eyssimont

RFAs: JJ Peterka, Marco Rossi, Fabian Zetterlund, Connor Dewar

Trade: Mason Marchment, Jason Robertson, William Karlsson

Thoughts:

unfortunately the UFA class is a lot of bang up top and then like fairly shallow after that. like there's not much going on here at least to me. but Fitz is stupid good at picking a name out of obscurity and getting them to be a fan favorite here. (see: Cotter, Kovacevic for example)

very purposefully did not include the man on the top of a lot of people's target board because I don't think we can afford him even though I do think he'd probably excel with us and a reunion with Chief Keefe.

also very purposefully didn't include the other Leaf that I would be happy to steal because I think they literally just announced the extension is happening this week or something. and we're trying to be realistic here.

ideally we want to go younger and faster, but I think there are like a few older guys that I would make exceptions for as listed above.

otherwise our identity is really our speed game especially for our top six. and we have enough slow guys in our bottom six, so we cannot afford anymore.

this section of my analysis is the most fluid since on a day to day basis the trade targets evolve. for example, everyone was excited about Karlsson being available (me) and then the next day Vegas said he's not going anywhere, so like it changes all the time. I did still include him because everyone is a lying liar who lies.

Dallas is crashing out, which honestly is so dumb, get yourself together, Nill. but one man's crashout is another man's yoink. I'd be happy with Marchment or Robertson if either of them are on the table. I'd be happy with both even. I think Marchment is the more realistic possibility and I’m on that like a car bonnet.

if any other team wants to self-implode I’d be happy to look through your rosters to see what's available.

if Fitz is thinking of doing the offer sheet game, Marco Rossi has to be a massive target. I am so high on this guy really. gimme gimme gimme.

I think, generally, Fitz should be trying to build a roster via trades versus via free agency.

yes, I am willing to accept the rat king himself on my team, but only after a formal intervention session with Hischier and Nemec, specifically. they need to work out their differences.

[monsterfuckerconfessions]

Inspired by Ben 10 alienfucking anon, but I gotta agree with the basic idea of looking back on childhood favorites and just saying

"...Ooooohhhh...Cool."

I have a lot of similar personal cases.

Some standard ones like Frankie Foster making a generation super horny for tight black dresses and chokers, or Saria giving Zelda fans some hesvy love for the childhood friend thing. The one that sticks out in my head from the same game really hard though...

Zora Princess Ruto

She did some shit to my dumb baby brain that maybe wouldn't be seen on that scale again until Undyne came along and awakened some fish dicks.

I was either 8, 9, or 10 when I played Ocarina of Time. I got on the N64 hypetrain late since I got the SNES console gaming introduction after the later rounder redesign model was out.

Had some fun starts from some classics. Donkey Kong Country 2, Kirby Super Star, Super Mario World/Kart, the usual cool shit.

But later on, when my mom's boyfriend at the time was cool about showing me some SNES and N64 gaming (He ended up being a cheating alcoholic asshole, but I didn't know that yet, so I just took him at face value here)

He'd entertain my silly gawking and plot questions while he played and ended up lending some cool ones he never came back for (which I can't help but spitefully laugh at now) and they were all pretty fun, but obvious hood classic "The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past" was particularly great and led to some Discoveries(tm) later with Ocarina of Time.

I was super hyped about getting an N64 even if a year or two late to the party. Got some staples of the time that came with it of course. The obligatory classic games, Super Mario 64, Smash Bros., and obviously OoT, some bulky unwieldy third party controllers, some slightly better than the official monstrosity, some worse, and somehow most importantly here, Nintendo Power or Game Informer or whatever paper stuff that had strategy guides with cool pictures and stuff.

Prefacing a bit here: I was a single mom's baby, my dad walked out when my sister was 3 and I was like 0.4, so our house didn't have the dad porn stash to find. There was other stuff, some Victoria's Secret ads, my kinda hot single fifth grade teacher who seemed so weirdly fixated on gushing about how cute I was that it brings up some uncomfortable implications I can't confirm now, but also basic shit like strategy guides, gaming mags, and manuals with neat illustrations.

And somehow with all that, the last option just struck first with sifting through to find tits out post-timeskip fishwife Ruto, and at that point I really couldn't not fuck around and/or find out.

So I felt some things, started the playthrough and got up to Jabu-Jabu's Belly. And hoo boy, I was sexually curious already, but her actual in-game personality just DID things to me.

The tsundere shtick got a little worn out later, but the bitchy spiteful attitude to marriage promise 180 pipeline, the love for blue colored characters that could fill a Bible thick DSM, and her overall character arc just ruined me as a person in a way I find really hot.

Yes, I was into the kid version at the time too, but I was basically the same age as her in-game, don't overthink it.

So if the childhood marriage promise thing hadn't hit hard enough, the Water Temple hit so much harder by the end.

Adult Ruto tits out fish lady fucking hotwired my dormant libido and drove that shit 0 to 150 mph into the sunset. After the infamously confusing dungeon crawl and the disappointingly easy Morpha fight, that sealed it in the Sacred Realm jail hard for me, and unlike Ganon breaking out easy peasy like a Batman villain, I was not going anywhere.

Soon as I figured some stuff out playing in the shower and making up for spacing out in early proto-sex ed talks, it was just gonna happen.

I grabbed the nearest Nintendo Power or manual etc in one hand, my dick in the other and went to town, left for Zora's Domain, and never really left from there, cause I just started jackhammering my dick til it got sore and came whatever buckets I had at the time staring at Big Blue Titty Fish.

Everyone who played it knew the drill and had their personal favorites in the Link brothel. Zelda, Shiek, Saria, Malon (more potent after the older Majora's Mask counterpart), the Cucco lady (same deal with Anju), Darunia for the gay bar crowd probably, Impa, Nabooru, and my obvs by now favorite:

Ruto.

And for a lot of shortcomings and gripes I had with Majora's Mask, I didn't actually mind her getting clothed. I missed the titty out look for a little, but the dress was cute, the Zora band gang was particularly cool and interesting to me, and even though the Great Bay Temple doubled down on the Water Temple's problems, I still enjoyed the third Mask hunt pretty well and thought the band idea was really awesome and probably low-key inspired some of my interests in making music later.

And dressed or not, the fish wife love held really strong.

Saria gave people some weird feelings about The Friend Zone, Cremia gave people some extra love for titty hug motorboats, and Ruto cemented my love of blue girls and fish girls of any cup size, and she all-around gave me some lasting complexes for years to come.

Not for everyone, but my older sister used to watch me play Majora's Mask and comment on how horny she got about Zora mask Link, so it might just be for more people than I thought.

Undyne has some strong dom lesbian appeal that fed some stuff I already had brewing about strong ladies by the time Undertale hit, but for me, the bitchy to lovingly clingy fish wife will hold a special place as my first true furry/scaly/monsterfucking-adjacent experience.

Undyne could suplex me into dust and I'd still be really into that, but Ruto was THE og Blue-coded fictional crush that defined a lot of weird boners for me that can still be felt over half-mast today. (Don't ever ask me about my thoughts on Ranni the Witch, that question is turning the safety off a loaded gun and deepthroating it) (I love her and it's positive, I'm just exaggerating to say how annoying I will inevitably get about it)

Anyway, point is I fucking love clingy fish tsundere and if there was a canon choice for everyone's dumb elf-eared heart, for my heart's canon, that was her.

That was Ruto <3

.

[circuitfurscaleandvine]

Inspired by @princess-maid, who makes way great hdg posts and you should absolutely be following if you're into that.

Self Discovery Pipeline (post turning 16):

Pansexuality: Look, nobody is hot, so I guess we should try dating boys too. (tbh, still need more boys in my life) (And no, we didn't realize we were ace-spec for another 8 years)

Polyamory: Look, if you want to date someone else at the same time, I really won't mind. I want you to be happy, no matter what shape that takes. (5 years later) wait there's a word for that!?

Healthy Plurality: We heard randomly this phrase from across the room at a UU brunch and it changed our life. Just... oh, there's a healthy way to be us. Oh, MPD doesn't have to be a struggle. (NGL, tulpamancy techniques helped us selfcare more than books on DID that pathologized the whole thing)

Service Oriented: (honestly this wasn't a single realization, it was a dozen across years) Helping is the best. Clear instructions are the best. Praise is so good. Why can't we find that? Doesn't anyone need a servant? It hurts so much to not have a master. It's debilitating. It's a hole in our soul... (this colors all six of us even now, we all cope in different ways)

Demisexuality: When people say some celebrity is hot, they /actually get aroused/? wtf. No. (queue AVEN deepdives) (🦉Sensuality-gated Sexuality, to be more accurate. Until touches have been exchanged, you're not a sexual thing for us.)

Not Human: Sure, we've had a dog headmate since we were first plural, yeah she kinda bottles up a lot of painful unfulfilled needs so the rest of us don't have to handle them, but like, seriously nobody /wants/ to be human. fantasizes about replacing joints with servos

Gender - Nah, I'm not trans, I took E for two weeks and felt nothing. goes off. worst week of our life. OKAY Trans it is then. (we checked again 3 months later and it was /also/ the worst week of our life) (Also yes you can be cis on HRT, but we definitely aren't)

Autism: "No seriously, you're autistic, how did you not know? Wait, HOW DID YOUR PARENTS NOT KNOW??" - literally 10 people within a single week. (Relatedly, our parents trust the medical system enough to put us in therapy, but not enough to accept diagnosis. They never mentioned our therapist's suspicions to us. Found out later they're both medicating to stay functional, while telling our brother and us not to do the same.)

PDA Autism: Wait… that explains why we get full body lockdowns when a request hits us at the wrong angle… and why we need 24 hours advance notice to agree to anything… and why were so obsessed with social theory since like 10.

Sweet, I finally got it all figured out, with these tools I have achieved self-enlightenment. Only took 30 year-

ADHD

Therapist: "No seriously, your struggles to maintain habits aren't just Autism" Me: "I just have lots of memory gaps from Dissociation and Autism makes me need structure but not always know what sort I need." Therapist: "You explained very clearly what structure you need, and then gave a dozen reasons you were unable to follow through. You have executive dysfunction." Me: "Can't be, like, I work a job." Therapist: "You're only able to stay employed because you have two partners caring for you parttime, and most of what they do is assist you with self-care. Take some tests" Me: first test Fuck. second test Fuck. third test Fuck. Fine.

Final Note: 🦎we didn't put headmate tags on these because most these realizations happened via previous headmates. A big realization often causes one or more of us to shift heavily, and struggle to identify with who we were before the change.

[digitalizedera123]

Future-Proof Your Brand: Why a Holistic Digital Marketing Strategy Matters in 2025

An in-depth guide by Digitalized Era

In the post-cookie, AI-driven landscape of 2025, piecemeal tactics are no longer enough to keep a brand visible, relevant, and profitable. Whether you run a local bakery in Jacksonville or a SaaS start-up in London, you need a holistic digital marketing strategy that ties every channel—SEO, social, paid ads, content, email, and web development—into one cohesive growth machine.

1. The Shift From “Channel Thinking” to “Customer Journey Thinking”

Old model

“We need Facebook posts.”

“Let’s run a Google Ads campaign this quarter.”

New model

“Sarah discovers us on TikTok, reads a blog we rank for on Google, joins our email list, and finally converts through a retargeting ad.”

This journey mindset forces you to optimise touchpoints together rather than in silos—exactly what Digitalized Era’s 360-degree process delivers:

Site Audit & UX checks

Deep market + keyword research

On-page & technical SEO

Cross-channel content mapping

Unified paid + organic reporting

Continuous CRO (Conversion Rate Optimisation)

2. Data Privacy & First-Party Data: The 2025 Reality

By the end of 2024, Chrome will have deprecated third-party cookies. Brands that fail to build first-party data pipelines will pay up to 35 % more for the same ad results. Digitalized Era helps you:

Capture consent with value-driven lead magnets

Segment subscribers in GDPR/CCPA-compliant workflows

Deploy personalised email drips that nurture, upsell, and retain

Result: lower acquisition costs, higher lifetime value.

3. AI Is Only as Good as Your Strategy

Tools like ChatGPT, Midjourney, and Google Gemini can accelerate content production—but they can’t replace:

Brand voice & POV

Strategic keyword selection

Human-centred storytelling

Our content marketing team blends AI efficiency with senior-level editorial oversight to create assets that rank and convert. Expect:

Long-form pillar pages

Social micro-content repurposed from cornerstone blogs

Data-rich infographics coded for fast mobile load times

4. Local, National, or Global: SEO Tactics That Scale

Local SEO – GMB optimisation, NAP consistency, hyper-local schema

E-commerce SEO – faceted navigation fixes, Shopify/Woo Commerce technical audits

International SEO – hreflang mapping, currency/region-specific content

Digitalized Era’s proprietary reporting dashboard shows real-time rank shifts across markets so you can allocate budget where ROI is highest.

5. Paid Media Is No Longer “Set & Forget”

Average CPCs rose 19 % last year in the US. To stay profitable you need:

Intent-driven keyword clusters, not vanity terms

AI-augmented bid strategies with human QA

Cross-channel attribution (PPC + organic + email)

Our PPC specialists iterate weekly, pausing under-performers and reallocating spend to winning ad sets—so every rupee, dollar, or pound works harder.

6. UX-Focused Web Design: Your New Sales Rep

A 0.1-second improvement in load time can boost conversions by 8 %. Digitalized Era’s design & dev squad builds:

Mobile-first, Core Web Vitals-optimized sites

Shopify, WordPress & Wix builds that integrate seamlessly with CRM and marketing automation

Accessibility-compliant interfaces (WCAG 2.2)

Beautiful and built to rank.

7. Measuring What Matters

Vanity metrics (likes, impressions) don’t pay the bills. We align on KPIs tied directly to revenue:

Qualified leads generated

Customer acquisition cost (CAC)

Average order value (AOV)

Customer lifetime value (CLV)

Return on ad spend (ROAS)

Our live dashboards deliver clarity, not confusion.

8. Success Stories

Leather Made In Italy moved from zero top-100 keywords to page-one dominance. Prevail Clothing scaled organic traffic 3× in six months. Cozyts saw Instagram engagement jump 220 % after a visual revamp.

Your brand could be next.

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📞 +91 674 357 6892 📧 info@digitalizedera.com

Digitalized Era—your gateway to digital excellence. Let’s make 2025 your breakout year.

[vidreview]

VIDEO ESSAY ROUNDUP #2 [PART 1]

[originally posted november 14 2023. NOTE: while migrating the archive from cohost i've discovered that tumblr has a 10 link-block limit, which means i have to split some of these roundups up in order to maintain the embeds. we love websites don't we folks]

hello from the pits of november! between random youtube recommendations and time spent trawling through cohost's video essay tag, i've discovered a lot of bangers this month. so let's just jump in!

"Why Does Attack of the Clones Look Like a Video Game?" by Empire Wreckers.

this is a fresh take on one of the internet's oldest, most time-honored traditions: complaining about the stars wars prequels. fresh in the sense that creator Edan has worked in hollywood VFX, and so brings an eye for hyper-specific details that you'll be amazed you never noticed before. clean, no-nonsense presentation full of surprising insights. immediately after finishing this video i then watched "How Bad Movies Are Made feat. The Rise of Skywalker" whose thesis that "bad movies aren't made on purpose" yields to a refreshingly nuanced perspective on exactly why the third star wars sequel was such a mess without resorting to droll hyperbole about JJ Abrams being a hack or whatever. these are great examples of materialist media criticism, in that they are as much a criticism of the production pipeline as they are the finished product. after watching these videos, i actually think that any other perspective on these later Star Wars is… kind of missing the forest for the trees? impressive stuff all around.

"women who wish they were 𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐛𝐢𝐚𝐧𝐬: an analysis" by Costanza Polastri.

a quick and honest overview of how straight women often misunderstand the nature of lesbian relationships, thinking them somehow free of the conflict they experience in heterosexual ones. the insight that "you don't want a girlfriend, you just want men to be better" reminded me of when i admitted to having a crush on a cisfem friend shortly after coming out as trans, only for her to get mad at me and end our friendship because "i told you i'm not a lesbian and it's frustrating that everyone mistakes me for one!" this was before i'd even decided on Sarah as my preferred name. she was more invested in my newfound femininity than i was! anyway, Costanza Polastri has an enjoyable screen presence and brings a really interesting perspective to the table-- and in pretty short videos, to boot! not an easy feat by any stretch.

"A real history of video games | Pay to Win" by Jimmy McGee.

an essential deep dive into how the history of the modern video game industry is inextricable from the history of legal gambling. if you think you know how bad it is, trust me, it's so much weirder and more frustrating than you thought. Jimmy McGee is doing some really great stuff on his channel, providing an honest materialist perspective on media analysis that i've found sorely lacking. "The AI Revolution is Rotten to the Core" digs past the obvious criticisms of AI and LLM mania into the much more pressing question of what we, as a society, value in our art. for something shorter, i also recommend "The Dream of the Internet", about the war on the internet archive and why it's such an essential pillar of the open web.

"I Played EVERY Star Fox Game… Here's What I Learned" by wizawhat.

starfox 64 has been my favorite video game since i was a child, so naturally one of my favorite genres of youtube video is "Let's All Gawk At All The Ways Nintendo Has Catastrophically Mishandled The Franchise." wizawhat does a good job giving each game its due, mostly avoiding hyperbole while still acknowledging that picking favorites in a history this checkered is an inherently emotional, subjective process. the highest praise i can give to entries into this genre is that i was nodding along violently the whole time AND actually learned a lot of stuff i didn't know before, which i genuinely didn't think was possible! his other video "I Miss the Old Nintendo" is the closest i've seen anyone else come to really hammering home why i've soured so hard against nintendo over the last few years, despite having been a nintendo defender most of my life. my only complaint is that he uses some hack corporate language at times ("content" instead of "media," "consumers" instead of "audiences," etc), but i'm gonna dig deeper into that in a dedicated vidrev another time.

"Why We Can't Stop Mapping Elden Ring" by Ren or Raven.

a great little exploration of what maps in games do, and what they mean in an era of video games dominated by post-release patches and balance tuning. i'll be brief here because i've got a full length vidrev queued up for this one too, but it's worth stating that creator Renata Price is a games writer who has turned to video essays after being laid off by Vice earlier this year. as the first entry in a presumed corpus by an experienced critic from a very different critical tradition, i find this video exciting because it's an opportunity to study how the medium affects one's message. right now it feels like Renata Price doesn't quite know how to take full advantage of the video part of the video essay just yet, and that's a great place to start from. i just find it to be such a privilege when you get to watch someone grow their craft in real time!

"Death and Thriving - Discussing 920 London" by Wolf Witch.

just a solid textual analysis of the graphic novel 920 London, Remy Boydell's followup to their devastating prior book The Pervert. digs into serious questions about the death drive, and whether or not people can change or recover from trauma. not much else to say except that Wolf Witch is on Cohost doing speedruns of Snake Farm. Snake Farm rules! support your local Snarmers today!

"That one speedrun where you change your gender" by Minoan.

an astonishing little coming-out video in the form of a Dark Souls 2 speedrun tech overview. i don't have much to say about this one except that it put a huge smile on my face and gave me some serious vicarious gender joy. i love the sound of trans women's voices!!!

[scr-ppup]

Day 2 of @radiomogai's event texts! This is late but I wanted to separate the second and third days into their own posts.

2. What are your experiences with names, pronouns, and other referential language? How does it relate or not relate to other aspects of your identity?

Two experiences with names.

Our experiences with names on media platforms are kind of nuanced, I mean we're a name hoarder that's pretty much it. Using Nominalfluid and -flux as terms at some point for that matter with a name hoard link attached to that. I used to go by Saku when I was younger on Instagram, it was a short name from Sakura (mind you I was like 9-10 years old at the time. Besides, Saku stuck longer around than the original name due to it being a masculine Finnish name and I was primarily in Finnish spaces at the moment roleplaying and such on Instagram, so people rarely even called us Sakura lol.) And then I switched to non-traditional names such as Hyena per username change, then it became Benne, and Krisse and back to Benne. As of now, collectively we go primarily go by Koiri on media platforms.

Our experience irl is more anticlimactic, we never liked our first deadname (a basic christian origin 9 letter name) as we always got called by a shortened nickname that was 4 letters long. We grew up with that, even like 80% of our family called me by the shortened nickname instead for like 60% of the time. More recently we took our chosen name (Krisse), which was closely related to our third name (we use our chosen name as a nickname currently (also as a compromise with our mother so she won't be mad at us lol she was genuinely pissed at first when speaking to her about name changes to something completely else than any of our given names.), bc people are more inclined to using it as such more often than our third name which is also another long 9 letter christian name. Originally we thought about taking the male version of our third name as our chosen name, but went against it in the end when we realized it was our brother's second given name lol.) So we kinda stuck with that.

Funnily enough we started to think about name change around when we were 17 years old! So name change wasn't really that important to us on an irl basis due to trying to fit into the premade mold our mum attempted to force us into lol. But we're happy.

On pronouns

Okay, so we went to the pipeline of she/her, she/they, they/she, he/they, he/him, it/it's, any pronouns, no pronouns to he/it over the years. That's not to talk about the neopronouns we used around 16-17 years old, we discovered them back on like at 14 years old and from that vamp/vamps stuck, other that stuck were sie/sien, che/Cher, rot/rots, and kit/kits I believe? Now we have a hoard and use he/it/xe as auxiliary pronouns with any specific theme neopronouns (this list is long collectively and individually. But for example any canine themed or war themed pronouns would be sufficient as an example.)

On referential language.

The usage of girl and boy is rather complex to us.

We never felt like a woman, barely even a girl even if we were brought up as one (we became conscious of this fact at like 9. Which was like, an interesting development for me personally.). This was around when we were for the first time like 9-10, back then we didn't even know what non cis or nonbinary meant either so we just identified as cis and a girl.

When we were 11 we started to question our gender and came to the conclusion that we were nonbinary, we identified as nonbinary and came out as one at 12 years old. We denied being a girl and a woman to the hilt until we were like 13-14 give or take bc the thought of it genuinely made us uncomfortable, which is when we started to question being transmasc (thus the thought of using boy and man to refer to ourself became a thing to explore.) At 13 we were hopping between genderfluid and nonbinary (relevant to questioning what referential terms we wanted to use) and At 15 we came to the conclusion that 1. We're a boy, and 2. We're a trans boy in specific but also still nonbinary? We didn't know what enby or enban as ref terms were at the time, and we never to this day identified with the term (related to feeling disconnected from the nonbinary term.).

At 16 I started to question using girl again, and then I found the genderqueer label and went that feels like me. Then I got comfortable being both a girl and a boy, nowadays a boygirl and a girlboy.

Also, note to this we are so much more comfortable being referred to as a girl in our language's slang. Tyttö or Nainen (meaning girl and woman respectively in Finnish) is kinda fine, yeah. Mimmi, mirkku, muija etc, Hell yeah, that's fine as long as it's not done with an offensive or negative intent lol.

Neogender related ref langs are more nuanced topic. If they stick to our personal liking then we will identify with them. in most cases the ref lang label needs to grow on us a little if it's not something we have made; for example lurkerian, Toxionatalismaen, subwaysurfian and such ref langs are something so personal for us that it skips the growing part bc logically we made those and we identify as them (this was not the case always, we did not identify as a lure for the better of like a year into making lurkerian until we remade that label). However, we can grow out of these labels (regarding our Neogender umbrella ref lang) and sometimes we stick with a ref lang label from them that we physically wouldn't fit as an adult anymore. The change from minor to adult ref lang terms is something we tend to struggle with even if we by sense shouldn't probably? It's the familiarity and all, and the fact that we constantly tend to even forget what labels we might use.

All of these experiences directly impacted our identity growing up. The ref lang thing prompted gender questioning which then slowly snowballed and nowadays If we find ourselves uncomfortable suddenly with a specific ref lang term or even pronouns for that matter then it most likely means our gender identity has shifted.

[coconut530]

ok I'm rambling again so yeah. Hello veteran worshippers I'm new :)

I mean, like I knew about Sleep Token, heard The Summoning first in one of my Trigun artist’s Tiktoks, then heard Take Me Back To Eden in a video by the creator of Covenant Webtoon. Listened to those songs for fun sometimes, but then TMBTE got ✨stuck✨ in my head. Then I was like “Live video of TMBTE??? Does it exist?”

And like. Why didn’t I get into this band sooner.

First off here’s The Summoning and TMBTE so you can see my pipeline:

And then THIS RITUAL introduced me to the band, which was FREAKING AMAZING IT’S SUCH A GOOD RECORDING!!

I love their aesthetic, secondly. You don’t see many mysterious bands these days, and these guys deliver so well. Every single member has a distinct and interesting look that's all so cool. I love how the Vesselettes/Espera exist, like that's amazing and I love seeing them. Vessel looks so fun to draw I wanna do it at some point. This is the first band I’ve found that just speaks to my OCs more than other fictional characters. Probably gonna see me animate Dark Signs with one of them soon enough.

Third, like… their lyrics are some of the most creative and evocative things I’ve heard in so long. It kinda sucks they don’t do many interviews bc I’m dying to know what goes through their heads when they write this amazing music. Some of my favorite lyrics are in a list below so you don’t read a gigantic paragraph, and will also show you my favorite songs I’ve found:

Chokehold: Still getting into this one, but "So show me that which I cannot see / Even if it hurts me / Even if I can’t sleep / Oh, and though we act out of our holy duty to be constantly awake / You’ve got me in a chokehold" is a build that always gets me so hyped up

Granite: just found this one, it's so BADASS!! "When you sit there acting like you know me... So keep an eye on the road, or we'll both be here forever" is so freaking awesome. I need like an animated music video that just illustrate the lyrics bc that'd be so cool

Like That: "Fall into your eyes like a grave (all that is inside, all your anger) / Bury me to the sound of your name, no (all your disgust, all your resentment) / Fall into your eyes like a grave (all your difference, all your pain) / Bury me to the sound of your name (all your pain)." There's so much resentment in this song and it's dripping off of these lyrics specifically, it's awesome

Missing Limbs: just found this one also but OMG it made me tear up the first time watching it in the Red Rocks Ritual! It's so sweet and tender, by the time you get to the title at the end you just get punched in the feels. "I'd give anything / To balance your conviction with certainty / To fall asleep without you lying next to me / To sever my connection with everything ... And I'll live like I've got missing limbs for you" IS SO GOOD HURTS MEEEEEEEE

The Summoning: -insert the rest of the song after 5:00- Obviously this is the part everyone uses in their social media posts, and I am not immune to its allure. It’s amazing!

Take Me Back To Eden: -insert the entire second chorus- and "And I don't know what's got its teeth in me / but I'm about to bite back in anger / And no amount of self-sought fury / will bring back the glory of innocence." The way Vessel sings this is so desperate and like enhances the lyrics so much more augh

Aqua Regia: honestly like all of it. The rap-ish style with the creative lyrics is so cool and the imagery of it all is so vivid. I love how the second chorus builds with the verse. It has such a steady, pungent rhythm that's so fun to sing

Rain: "I know, I know, I am what I am / The mouth of the wolf, the eyes of the lamb / So darling, will you saturate? / -second chorus-." I love the opposites in this verse, so interesting. The chorus has that yearning (tm) and I'm all here for ittttttt

The Night Does Not Belong To God: "When you live by daylight / With angels at your side." It's literally two lines but after the beautiful build that intros the song and his angelic voice, it does something to you

Dark Signs: I melt into a puddle every time I hear "I might break and bend to my basic need to be loved and close to somebody." The line is evocative enough just hearing it once, but making it a backing vocal that’s always playing just makes it punch you over and over. All the beat drops in this song are amazing

Atlantic: EVERY FREAKING WORD AND NOTE IN THIS SONG

I need y'all to like... hear Atlantic at Red Rocks specifically (cw: flashing):

This is the main reason I made this post bc... LIKE EVERYONE NEEDS TO HEAR THIS HELLO?!?!?!?!?!?!?!! This version is so amazing I barely listen to the studio version. "Sobbing as they turn to statues at the bedside / I'm trying not to crush into sand." I can't tell you what exactly but this makes me feel things. "Call me when they bury bodies underwater / It's blue light over murder for me / Crumble like a temple built from future daughters / To wastelands when the oceans recede" is a phenomenal verse and I've never felt more connected to the ocean when I hear it. The piano, the vocals, the instruments, the venue, II singing at the end, the vesselettes, the lights. Oh my god. The outro. Soothing and angelic omggggg. That beat drop?!?!?! ✨ w h a t ✨ . They've put an addictive substance into every one of their songs but this one is like an overdose. Can't get anything done all I'm thinking about is this -flails hands at video-. Vessel is literally a vessel in this song bc whatever entities the band made a deal with to have music this good are singing through him here.

And like the fourth thing. By now listening to all these songs may have made you realize:

what can’t they do?!?! Their music just goes into so many different genres sometimes and it’s amazing. Never heard a band this versatile.

Uh, yeah. That's been my experience with Sleep Token so far, and I am so normal about them, as you can see :D !!!!! Excited to be into them and this community. Any of my followers reading this who don't know who they are, go check them out, they're freaking amazing. They will change you.

[skateebrat]

Blog Post Due 4/10

What is striking vs boycotting? 

When I came up with this question I thought it was kind of stupid. They are related but have  different meanings. To go on strike is the stopping of work or a withdrawal of workers by putting pressure on their employers to ignite change about their terms and conditions set by that employer. To boycott is to make people stop buying or using products or services in order to make a statement. These forms of protests are so powerful in numbers. For example, a day without immigrants was kind of both actually and protesters happened to shut down the 101 freeway. 

Why is it that native americans are treated less than other minorities? 

This is a pretty open ended question and many of you can have different answers. I think Native American/Indigenous people are treated less than other minorities because of how some cultures make them feel completely invisible, it’s really disheartening. Our guest speaker Nicholet Parkhurst mentioned the outreach program MMIW: Missing, Murder, and Indigenous Women. Murder is the 3rd leading cause of death in Native women. On the MMIW website there is a statistic that states, “The National Crime Information Center reports that, in 2016, there were 5,712 reports of missing American Indian and Alaska Native women and girls, though the US Department of Justice’s federal missing persons database, NamUs, only logged 116 cases”. 

I’m also not trying to downplay the missing and murders of other minorities but there is a significant difference in Native Americans. 

What are misrepresentations about Native Americans that were taught in school ?

First of all, we were taught that Christopher Coloumbus discovered America. Then growing up, everyone realized that was incorrect. Native Americans had been living in America for years before he showed up. I also remember hearing that the Natives were ‘savages’ mainly because of cultural differences. I feel like colonizers refused to try to understand their culture and were power hungry. When Native Americans were defending their land, that reinforced the belief that colonizers thought they were dangerous. 

How does the Dakota Pipeline affect the Natives? 

There are plenty of reasons how the Dakota Pipeline affects the Natives that were still fighting for. First off, it is sacred land. For example, the Standing Rock and its burial ground. Second, it will affect the water supply of millions of people by contaminating it with the project itself. Which leads me to my third point, environmental integrity. By contaminating the water supply, you are disrupting the ecosystems, therefore impacting the culture of the Natives traditional hunting, fishing, and etc. 

Native Hope. (n.d.). Missing and murdered Indigenous women (MMIW). Native Hope.

[canmom]

(Me again! Previously I had bothered you in DMs about an article, but figured it might be better to send an ask in this case.) On the topic of environmental concerns, I did have a question about James Hansen's 'Global Warming in the Pipeline' which was published last year. A previous (and rather bleak) Medium article you analyzed had cited this particular paper as proof that we're on track to exceed 3C in our lifetimes, even if emissions were to suddenly halt today. https://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abs/ha09020b.html Since this paper has now passed peer review, what exactly does this mean in simplistic terms? I understand this means that the climate scientists that have analyzed the paper agree with what it states (and see no issues with it's logic), but does it actually mean we'll reach 4C by 2100? Or have I misunderstood what this is stating? The only way I see this not being the case is if somehow Hansen's paper later turns out to be incorrect (which seems unlikely).

I also understand that the paper heavily advocates for a level of geoengineering, which I think is a better alternative to letting a large majority of people suffer, but I'm not sure if you have any opinions on when you think that'd be best to do.

oooh, i've put off answering this because it's perhaps a bit above my pay grade, but let's see

so as far as passing peer review - it's hard to say how robust that is in terms of whether you should believe its conclusions. it depends a lot on the field, the reviewers, and so on - papers are retracted frequently, even if the initial round of reviewers advised to publish.

in climate science we are engaged in a spectacularly difficult modelling task. this paper also speaks on a pretty broad range of subjects. let me quote the full abstract, adding some paragraph breaks:

Improved knowledge of glacial-to-interglacial global temperature change yields Charney (fast-feedback) equilibrium climate sensitivity 1.2±0.3°C (2σ) per W/m2, which is 4.8°C±1.2°C for doubled CO2. Consistent analysis of temperature over the full Cenozoic era — including 'slow' feedbacks by ice sheets and trace gases — supports this sensitivity and implies that CO2 was 300-350 ppm in the Pliocene and about 450 ppm at transition to a nearly ice-free planet, exposing unrealistic lethargy of ice sheet models. Equilibrium global warming for today's GHG amount is 10°C, which is reduced to 8°C by today's human-made aerosols. Equilibrium warming is not 'committed' warming; rapid phaseout of GHG emissions would prevent most equilibrium warming from occurring. However, decline of aerosol emissions since 2010 should increase the 1970-2010 global warming rate of 0.18°C per decade to a post-2010 rate of at least 0.27°C per decade. Thus, under the present geopolitical approach to GHG emissions, global warming will exceed 1.5°C in the 2020s and 2°C before 2050. Impacts on people and nature will accelerate as global warming increases hydrologic (weather) extremes. The enormity of consequences demands a return to Holocene-level global temperature. Required actions include: (1) a global increasing price on GHG emissions accompanied by development of abundant, affordable, dispatchable clean energy, (2) East-West cooperation in a way that accommodates developing world needs, and (3) intervention with Earth's radiation imbalance to phase down today's massive human-made 'geo-transformation' of Earth's climate. Current political crises present an opportunity for reset, especially if young people can grasp their situation.

As I've split it, the first paragraph is a quantitative statement about equilibrium warming, which is the paper's scientific contribution. The second paragraph adds some qualifiers about the expected trajectory "under the present geopolitical approach". The third para is a political argument - a 'what is to be done' type statement.

That's a lot to cover in one paper! It also invites different kinds of approaches to peer review. A scientist reviewing the first half of this paper would be making a technical analysis: do Hansen et al look at the right data, analyse it rigorously, etc. etc.

Why is this all so complicated? Well, lots of things change on Earth when it gets hotter and colder. The amount of cloud coverage, the amount of ice, the way the oceans mix hot and cold water, etc. etc., the amount of dust and soot in the air from forest fires - all of this affects how much energy comes into the atmosphere, how much gets reflected into space, etc etc.

The main things that the paper talks about are...

the equilibrium climate sensitivity: basically, if you add a bunch of extra energy to the system (what climate scientists call 'forcing'), once everything settles down, what temperature do you end up at, per unit of forcing?

the speed of various feedbacks - how quickly the clouds, ice, etc. etc. change in response to the forcing, which determines how quickly you approach this final equilibrium temperature. Knowing which feedbacks are fast and slow is important since it tells us what we can expect to happen when we cut CO2 emissions.

It's naturally a pretty involved discussion and I don't pretend to have the background to follow all the ins and outs of it, but Hansen et al. use various lines of evidence to try to assess these parameters, see how they affect climate models, and the like. They perform an analysis of how temperature and estimated CO2 varied during the Cenozoic era, and there's a section on estimating the effects of aerosols, both natural and human-made.

On the subject of aerosols, Hansen et al. suggest that previous climate models may have made two mistakes that cancelled each other out:

Recent global warming does not yield a unique ECS [Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity] because warming depends on three major unknowns with only two basic constraints. Unknowns are ECS, net climate forcing (aerosol forcing is unmeasured), and ocean mixing (many ocean models are too diffusive). Constraints are observed global temperature change and Earth’s energy imbalance (EEI) [80]. Knutti [150] and Hansen [75] suggest that many climate models compensate for excessive ocean mixing (which reduces surface warming) by using aerosol forcing less negative than the real world, thus achieving realistic surface warming.

What they're saying here is, though we have a pretty good idea of how much CO2 we put in the atmosphere, since we don't have a good measure of aerosols we don't actually know for sure how much energy humans were adding to the atmosphere. Like, CO2 adds energy, but sulfur dioxide reflects it away.

There's three unknown parameters here, and two constraints (things we can calculate for definite). We use a model to tell us one of those unknowns (the ocean stuff), and that allows us to tune the effect of aerosols until our model Earth matches our measurements of the real Earth. But, if our ocean model is wrong, then we end up wrongly estimating the effect of aerosols.

The upshot is that aerosols have been a bigger deal than we thought, and as the world cleans up the atmsophere and removes the amount of aerosols, the rate of warming will increase. It's definitely plausible - but it's such a complicated system that there could easily be some other nuance here.

I won't try to summarise every point in the paper but it's that kind of thing that they're arguing about here. This isn't a mathematical proof, though! Since it's touching on a huge range of different parameters, trying to draw together lots of different lines of evidence, there is still a fair bit of room for nuance. It's not so simple as 'Hansen et al. are right' or 'Hansen et al. are wrong' - they could be wrong about one thing and right about another.

To say they've passed peer review is to say that they've done as reasonable a job as anyone can expect to try and figure out this kind of messy problem. However, other scientists may still take issue with one or another claim. It's not as definitive as a maths paper.

That said, Hansen's arguments all seem pretty plausible to me. The tools he uses to assess this situation are sensible and he talks about cases where things weren't as expected (he thought that improved climate models would change in a different way, and they didn't). But while I know enough about the subject to be able to largely follow what he's saying, I'm not confident saying whether he's right.

The second half takes on a different tone...

This section is the first author’s perspective based on more than 20 years of experience on policy issues that began with a paper [179] and two workshops [180] that he organized at the East-West Center in Hawaii, followed by meetings and workshops with utility experts and trips to more than a dozen nations for discussions with government officials, energy experts, and environmentalists. The aim was to find a realistic scenario with a bright energy and climate future, with emphasis on cooperation between the West and nations with emerging or underdeveloped economies.

So this is more of a historical, political analysis section, addressing why we are on this trajectory and why scientists may be institutionally underestimating the threat ('scientific reticence', 'gradualism' and so on). Well, more precisely, it's a polemic - a scientifically informed polemic, but this is basically an editorial stapled to the science part of the paper.

This includes an account of how a previous paper ('Ice Melt') led by Hansen was reviewed, and sidelined by other scientists, for what Hansen considers unsound reasons. It leads into something of an impassioned plea by Hansen addressed at his fellow scientists, complete with rhetorical questions:

Climate science reveals the threat of being too late. ‘Being too late’ refers not only to warning of the climate threat, but also to technical advice on policy implications. Are we scientists not complicit if we allow reticence and comfort to obfuscate our description of the climate situation? Does our training, years of graduate study and decades of experience, not make us well-equipped to advise the public on the climate situation and its policy implications? As professionals with deep understanding of planetary change and as guardians of young people and their future, do we not have an obligation, analogous to the code of ethics of medical professionals, to render to the public our full and unencumbered diagnosis? That is our objective.

This leads into Hansen's proposal for how to get out of this mess: a price on carbon dioxide, nuclear power, and rushing to research geoengineering such as spraying salt water in the air. And then e.g. specific political proposals, like 'a political party that takes no money from special interests', ranked choice voting and so on.

Naturally this is a lot harder to take technical issue with. It's more like an editorial. As a reviewer you'd probably say it's worth publishing because it's well argued, etc. etc., without necessarily agreeing with every one of Hansen's proposals. You can say 'that obviously wouldn't work' and so on, but it's a different kind of argument.

So re your questions:

does it actually mean we'll reach 4C by 2100?

If Hansen et al. are right, the IPCC reports are underestimating the equilibrium we approach for the current amount of CO2 in the atmosphere - which would lead to 2°C well before 2050, so 4°C by 2100 seems plausible (I didn't spot a timeline that goes that far in the paper when I skimmed through but I could have missed it).

This isn't the amount of warming that will happen, because the Earth has many systems which gradually scrub CO2 from the atmosphere. If we stopped pumping out CO2 suddenly, the amount of CO2, and the amount of extra energy it adds, would gradually decline. So we wouldn't necessarily approach that equilibrium. On the other hand, the amount of CO2 forcing is only going up as things currently stand - and if the amount of forcing stayed the same, Hansen says it would eventually deglaciate Antarctica, leading to over 10°C of warming.

But working out what will actually happen by 2100 depends on a lot of modelling assumptions - how long do you assume we keep pumping out CO2? Hansen addresses this when talking about the subject of 'committed warming':

‘Committed warming’ is less precisely defined; even in the current IPCC report [12] (p. 2222) it has multiple definitions. One concept is the warming that occurs if human-made GHG emissions cease today, but that definition is ill-posed as well as unrealistic. Do aerosol emissions also cease? That would cause a sudden leap in Earth’s energy imbalance, a ‘termination shock,’ as the cooling effect of human-made aerosols disappears. A more useful definition is the warming that will occur with plausibly rapid phasedown of GHG emissions, including comparison with ongoing reality. However, the required ‘integrated assessment models,’ while useful, are complex and contain questionable assumptions that can mislead policy (see Perspective on policy implications section).

So, will we reach 4C by 2100? We can only phrase this question in a conditional way: if we continue to add this much energy, then...

In practice we will probably end up reducing our emissions one way or another - which is to say, if our present complex societies collapse, they ain't gonna be emitting much carbon anymore...

I also understand that the paper heavily advocates for a level of geoengineering, which I think is a better alternative to letting a large majority of people suffer, but I'm not sure if you have any opinions on when you think that'd be best to do.

The way things are going, I think it's likely that people will try geoengineering when the climate-related disasters really start to ramp up, so whether or not they should ends up kind of besides the point.

Hansen doesn't really advocate a specific programme to pursue - only one paragraph in the whole paper talks about geoengineering:

Highest priority is to phase down emissions, but it is no longer feasible to rapidly restore energy balance via only GHG emission reductions. Additional action is almost surely needed to prevent grievous escalation of climate impacts including lock-in of sea level rise that could destroy coastal cities world-wide. At least several years will be needed to define and gain acceptance of an approach for climate restoration. This effort should not deter action on mitigation of emissions; on the contrary, the concept of human intervention in climate is distasteful to many people, so support for GHG emission reductions will likely increase. Temporary solar radiation management (SRM) will probably be needed, e.g. via purposeful injection of atmospheric aerosols. Risks of such intervention must be defined, as well as risks of no intervention; thus, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences recommends research on SRM [212]. The Mt. Pinatubo eruption of 1991 is a natural experiment [213, 214] with a forcing that reached [30] –3 W/m2. Pinatubo deserves a coordinated study with current models. The most innocuous aerosols may be fine salty droplets extracted from the ocean and sprayed into the air by autonomous sailboats [215]. This approach has been discussed for potential use on a global scale [216], but it needs research into potential unintended effects [217]. This decade may be our last chance to develop the knowledge, technical capability, and political will for actions needed to save global coastal regions from long-term inundation.

He says 'we need to research this more to figure out the risks, since we'll probably have to do it' basically. Climate researchers have historically been reluctant to advocate geoengineering for fear it will be mistaken as a way to solve the climate problem without reducing GHG emissions, so honestly seeing them suggest it now maybe brings to light the atmosphere of desperation in the field.

Unfortunately, when talking about politics and economics, Hansen is on much less firm ground than when he's picking apart the intricacies of climate feedbacks. He clearly wants to try to discourage doomerism, and he's rightly critical of cap-and-trade and similar schemes, but he has his specific political fixations and what he suggests is all a bit unconvincing as a programme. I don't say this because I've got a better idea, though.

The problem is that the future is really hard to predict. It's bad enough when it's climate systems, but humans are even more complicated little nonlinear freaks. This isn't a new problem for Hansen's paper. I am pessimistic enough by nature that I don't really trust my ability to predict what we will do when climate change gets more severe. Hopefully by the time we finally decide to stop kicking the can down the road, there will still be something to be done.

[frances-kafka]

The big thing with Cause-and-Adjacency becoming a dominant social logic, is that we dominantly meet online now, downstream from SEO and marketing algorithms. And there is almost no separation between grass-touch life and the internet anymore. So whatever you do in the 3d world, is going to have a feedback loop with the internet. To extend the dumb example I used again, about "the railroad fandom" being an intersection of WWII Nazis, train autists, New Urbanists (many examples possible, but limiting the field for simplicity's sake): In the 1980s, if you were in a third space dealing with Train Fandom as a topic, it was a *very different experience* from dealing with Train Fandom online.

(I was not part of train fandom, but I was part of other spaces this applies to.) One big thing is that the third space in question may in fact be under Robert's Rules of Order, or have to default to the "house rules" of wherever it's being hosted. And there is a certain amount of stuff that people just weren't going to say right to another person's face. You are also having participants in your space, in an in-person third space, sorted by area. (This has plusses and minuses. It's great if you fit into your area and it's terrible if you don't. But a big thing is that the more extreme people aren't actually going to physical spaces, where I live. Your Mileage May Vary.)

You meet the people you like, you leave with the people you like.

Modern internet interaction *isn't like this.*

Anything within the latent space of a thing you're into, will get spammed into your face. The only real surefire way to avoid Nazis for example is to have a rule about contamination; if Nazis even like this thing, it's not "safe." SEO will drive the Nazis to wherever you are if you like *anything* that shares a latent space with Nazis.

You either have to keep running until you find something they are categorically Not Into or you have to somehow learn to interact in a space that contains Nazis (which can include all kinds of strategies, but none of them will 100% remove Nazis from your existence.) This is downstream of SEO and marketing silos, and is a massive failure mode of most of our life being online. Radicalization pipelines worked differently before the internet.

Web 2 has actually created a public world where nothing can even be engaged.

1980s talk shows' formats of doing hard hitting investigative journalism or interviewing Nazis or what have you, couldn't really exist in this context because we've come to see "sharing latent space" (being in the same room) as a broad social taboo and under the New Social Rules, even arguing is platforming. But I think a chunk of this is downstream of SEO and of internet-first social interaction, because of how much post-Web 2 online interaction *does* require a bit of an eggshell walk. Unfortunately, it means there is a massive amount of stuff that can't really be talked about in the open. And we have lost a half century of work done just to secure that very thing, to get people talking in the open about real problems. And for the most part, now, you just can't talk about anything.

Web 2 has turned every conversation into a contextless public square argument between people that, in the past, you could just... not invite to your space.

[mytheetarecold]

Quick chibi token to use on roll20 of my modded Calendula (Minotaur) frame, RESOLVER. Pilot Kirin Delastre, callsign PROMISE, the code monkey in our party.

Former counter-intelligence for the Second Committee, Kirin Delastre went into cold sleep to be shuttled in a long multi-transfer journey between workplaces. Unfortunately, when his pod arrived to one of the stations along the way, said station had just changed hands. With the shuffle of new administration, a few normally harmless logistic delays and changes in the paperwork pipeline combined with successive physical rearrangements and expansions to the station resulted in the perfect storm that kept the next leg of Kirin's journey pending indefinitely.

Hundreds of years later, civil war had seen to it that Sec Com was no more, and the galaxy was brought into a more peaceful era by the Third Committee. Looking for salvage for areas out of operation, workers at the station chanced on a forgotten section sealed from all sides, and found Kirin's pod with him still alive in it. To add to the horror story, his prolonged long sleep resulted in Post-Cryogenic Hypersensitivity Disorder, or PCHD; a rare health condition. Symptoms include hypersensitivity to most sensory input, resulting in over-stimulation. He has been working to build a new career as well as afford better treatment.

Recently, Kirin was chanced upon by members of the Mirror Smoke Mercenary Company. Poking around their dossiers for salary information to investigate employment prospects, he realized that one of them was a Union outlaw- and that in putting those feelers out on the Omninet, he may have alerted them to his current location and place of employment. Out of guilt for potential consequences, and also in the hopes of getting in on what turned out to be a great payroll, he's offered his services to the mercenaries for their upcoming mission.

[opalwatch]

wasnt gonna come back for at least one more day but i just need to get this out there-

i normally make jokes about politics from a hxh lens and you already KNOW i use the phantom troupe to cope with everything but i just can't anymore, i can't find any humor in it. the sentence "saiyuu threw up the third reich heil" isn't funny. it just isn't. none of this is funny. elon musk threw up two sieg heil signs today and he's in charge of our government. trump stated there are only two genders recognized by the US government. this will ultimately create a pipeline where my girlfriend cannot get the care she needs and we cannot get married. trump is backing out of the paris climate agreement when the US is already destroying the climate. he's backing out of the world health organization. he pardoned jan 6 insurrectionists, which is a blatant endorsement of their actions. his first act tomorrow will be rounding up immigrants and stuffing them into cages, just as he did four years ago.

im in southern florida at a college being targeted by Ron Desantis. i already face CONSTANT bullying and harassment from the people in my dorm hall because im queer. it's only going to get so so much worse now.

i'm going to get personal now so skip this section if you dont wanna hear opal lore. i have a terrible relationship with my birth family. they're all major trump supporters. they're racist transphobic pieces of shit who do everything in their power to make me feel unsafe. i don't have a fucking family. my parents were brainwashed into the maga cult. i lost my fucking parents to fascism.

i've been agonizing over how to word these thoughts for a few days now and maybe this isn't the most succinct post but i don't give a fuck. do you know how fucking bad shit has to be for me to not be able to find ANY comfort in my special interest? that sentence sounds so fucking stupid but the shit going on in this country has deprived me of all my joy and optimism and hope for the future and this earth that i cant even find joy in the one thing that has consistently brought me endless joy for the past 2 years.

idr what my point with all this was. i would call it a cry for help but there's no one to help us. i guess i just wanted to make people who don't live in the US aware of just how bad things are getting. this is only the first day of the orange bastard's presidency. just know that if i stop posting about things that make me happy it's 100000% of the fact that i now live in a fascist oligarchy where I now have to live knowing that I'm going to have everything I love ripped from me and there's nothing i can do. i just want to be able to think about the phantom troupe again.

[wastedawayagaininmargaritaville]

I'm just curious, so please don't mind me asking.. why interest in the Green Party? I'm trying to better understand this viewpoint as I've voted democratic in the last 2 elections. I was always told a third party vote wasn't a sure thing.

Thanks for your reply!

Hi! First I don’t mind you asking and I’m sorry if the way I post makes it seem like I’d jump down your throat for a question like this. I use my blog to blow off a lot more steam than I used to but it’s not how I want to approach things in general.

I should mention I’m registered to vote in MO, the last time the dem presidential nominee won was the 90s I believe (McCain won very narrowly over Obama in 2008) and we are a winner take all state. As long as the electoral college exists, I’m “throwing away my vote” unless I vote for the republican nom. The blue cities scattered across the midline of the state don’t have enough weight (at least not in my lifetime they haven’t)

If you mean “wasn’t a sure thing” as in it has been a successful way to elect someone who isn’t one of the two parties, yeah I’d say that’s an understatement. I have little faith in a third party running in our electoral process and actually gaining enough momentum and support to win. People talk all the time about how gen Z is one of the largest and most politically engaged generationsin a while, but we don’t have the electoral organizing experience (nor desire tbh, at least for me and lots of people I know) and certainly not the resources.

The only sort of caveat I guess would be a dem taking on the Green Party nom as their VP, but that requires sacrificing most of what is typically on the Green Party platform and I would consider them compromised anyway.

The pipeline post was what I have done and I was wondering how common it is for people in my general demographic (young adult, raised liberal and middle class) who were brought up being taught the Democrat Party is a beacon of progress and the only thing regular people have to fight for the rights we want for ourselves and the people in our communities is to vote for them once every 4 years.

Then…

To be served the Clinton dynasty for our first chance to vote as 18 year olds, become totally disillusioned by the 2016 election (I was too young to remember the 2000 election), becoming radicalized and opened up to the world throughout late teens/early 20s by going away to school or simply meeting more people and viewpoints that aren’t from your parents/family/immediate community, living through and beginning to organize during the 2020 uprising, feeling a slight pull back into the dem party by Sanders and then seeing how the establishment pushed him out, and then saying fuck it my (albeit still shaky and developing) principles won’t allow me to hold my nose and vote again but I guess I like the green party’s platform. That’s honestly as much thought as I put into voting for the Green Party in 2020, i googled their platform and said ok this sounds nice, I won’t entirely feel gross with myself throwing my hat in with people who want to enact this. Reading that back feels very silly and simply an act of wishful thinking. But I couldn’t bring myself to vote for the champion of segregation and the crime bill after what I learned and witnessed in the streets in 2020.

Now we’ve seen what the democrats can and will do for us (very little) and importantly to the world (destruction, extraction, destabilization) I know too much now to delude myself into thinking these parties are functionally different from each other. I know too many people impacted by BOTH party’s policies to throw them under the bus. I understand more clearly what it means to be a citizen of the United States and what it means to vote in a country with so much influence and presence in other countries that I’m basically casting a vote on behalf of those people too.

But again, it doesn’t matter who I vote for where I live. If I was in a swing state I’d maybe be slightly more engaged with the electoral discourse but I don’t have a dog in the fight.

Hope this answers your question or at least gives you some stuff to think about. I didn’t wake up one day after being raised by Obama-loving liberal white people for most of my life saying “fuck the democrats and fuck voting!” It took time, experience, and pushing myself outside of the ideas that comfort me into denying my (and your) agency and power. We can accomplish so so much more life saving and politically altering work expending our energy the other 1,460 days of the election cycle than any candidate or electoral system in the US will grant us.