#sustainable development explain

[agrocomp0sites]

Sustainable Development

Outline Headings Sub-Headings Introduction Definition of Sustainable Development Importance of Sustainable Development Global Impact Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Overview of SDGs Importance of SDGs Economic Aspect of Sustainable Development Economic Growth and Sustainability Green Economy Environmental Aspect of Sustainable Development Conservation of Natural Resources Climate…

[battlevann]

im drawing moar detty art heheheh

[skitskatdacat63]

In true tradition, here are my thoughts on my drawings, because it was in fact: 7 AM

Okay so Fernando I is, as stated, super ostentatious. Why? Because it fits him but also because it's based on the real life guy. In all the paintings I could find of Philip V, in most of them he is wearing at least some kind of armor, and if not, is dressed pretty dramatically imo. And I will not be drawing a full set of armor, but it felt a bit weird to leave it our entirely so. Also historically I do think it's so interesting he was portrayed this way, since he was described as someone who was "only interested in outward decorum and brave only in battle."(again: how fernando coded hahaha)

See! Super dramatic! Also I made this meme that is only comprehensible to me

Seriously, why is he pointing in half of his paintings???? I couldn't find a concrete answer so I will give my personal analysis 😤 I like to think that it's symbolism for how he's always moving forward, like "here's will I go will go next!" ....or the artists just couldn't figure out what to do with his hands, I feel the struggle.

Oh also important to note!! His heels!! I am obsessed with this fashion detail from the time:

Nandopoleon is super important to me, it's why @sweatyflytrap and I became friends in the first place 🥺🥺🥺 so it felt very surreal to draw him because I've been thinking about him for a while. I want to make an actual web weave with quotes lined up with Fernando's career, or stuff comparing their personalities. Or draw him recreating one of the iconic paintings(probably the one with Napeoleon crowning himself emperor, I think it's fitting.) But to draw him in that classic pose, im very happy :)

And as I said already, Hussars are very fun to draw because it is such a general AU. The joy of it is more about figuring out how to incorporate the details of the real life racesuits to the uniform. If I didn't only primarily love to draw Fernando and Seb, i would be like "request a driver for the Hussar AU!" But I don't know how well that would go 😭

Anyways end of post. I think the reason why I've been feeling a lot more creatively driven and passionate is because it's a lot easier to draw so much when you know other people will be interested/want to discuss it with you! I used to have a friend that I would talk a lot about my OCs with, and guess what, back then I drew a lot more of them than I do now. It's not that I need outside validation to draw, I draw plenty for myself, but more that it makes me feel more happy about it, because I know that I'll get to talk about it with other people and see other people's thoughts, rather than just me being the sole participant. As you guys know, I like to talk. A lot. So it's very nice for it not all to be in my head(I am crazy) 😭😭 So thank you to everyone for your continued interest <3 you sustain me 🥺🥺

[thoughtportal]

This is a developing news story and may be updated as more information is obtained. If you value such information, please support this Substack.

On Dec. 1, a woman immolated herself with a Palestinian flag outside the Israeli consulate in Atlanta.

Now, according to the Atlanta Fire Rescue Department, the woman — referred to in their report as “Jane Doe” — is alive and “in stable condition” at Grady Memorial Hospital, where she has been since the immolation.

After repeated requests for her name, the department stated to this reporter in an email that it “does not disclose the identities of victims”. Repeated inquiries to Grady, which is a public hospital, went unanswered. The hospital houses the Walter L. Ingram Burn Center.

“Jane Doe” is 27.

When asked if they had made any comment to tell the public that she was still alive this entire time, the official at Atlanta Fire Rescue Department said they “shared the last updated with local media via email on 12/21/23. The release stated: ‘The victim remains hospitalized in critical condition. The security guard, who attempted to assist the burn victim, has been released from the hospital.’” Several internet searches on that quote produce no results. This would also indicate that "Jane Doe" went from critical to stable condition without public notice. 

Aaron Bushnell immolated himself at the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C. on Sunday, explaining “I will no longer be complicit in genocide” and shouting “Free Palestine!” repeatedly as he burned alive. So, his case — unlike many other self-immolations including Gregory Levey, Raymond Moules, Timothy T. Brown, Malachi Ritscher and others — has received some attention. Thus, “Jane Doe” being ignored fits with the usual pattern. Bushnell is the exception — probably because he livestreamed it. See “Ignoring Immolators Lulls the Society to Sleep.”

As Bushnell was burning himself alive, an officer pointed a gun at him, barking orders as if he constituted a threat. A security guard, Michael Harris, sustained injuries working to rescue “Jane Doe” — but there were similarities, where she was actually viewed as a potential threat.

At one point, the police report for “Jane Doe” refers to it as being a case of “arson”.

Much of the media coverage and general discussion of her self-immolation in December focused on if she had done damage. The Atlanta Police Chief said: “We believe this building remains safe, and we do not see any threat here.” The Israeli government released a statement: “It is tragic to see the hate and incitement toward Israel expressed in such a horrific way.”

Police records indicate that they obtained a search warrant and entered an apartment they believed to be associated with “Jane Doe” — initially using a drone:

The drone was able to relay information as to the layout and the belongings inside. After it was deemed "safe" entry was made with bomb technicians. While clearing the apartment no improvised explosive devices were located.

The police report also noted:

During the search a Quran was found in the bedroom along with a [sic] Arabic dictionary and a Hebrew dictionary. The bedroom bookshelf contained books related to fiction and fantasy. A "Drug use for grown ups" book was on the bookshelf as well. Two journals were seized from the bedroom. A thumbdrive was seized from the bedroom as well. A laptop computer was seized from the kitchen counter. A copy of the search warrant was left in the living room of the apartment. The front door [of] the apartment was secured before law enforcement left the premises.

When pressed for more information in compliance with an Open Records Request under Georgia law, Atlanta Fire Rescue Department claimed: “There is an ongoing and active investigation for the incident in question, which is why the only releasable information has been shared via the incident report. Investigative documentation is not available for release until the investigation is closed.”

[reasonsforhope]

"In an unprecedented transformation of China’s arid landscapes, large-scale solar installations are turning barren deserts into unexpected havens of biodiversity, according to groundbreaking research from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The study reveals that solar farms are not only generating clean energy but also catalyzing remarkable ecological restoration in some of the country’s most inhospitable regions.

The research, examining 40 photovoltaic (PV) plants across northern China’s deserts, found that vegetation cover increased by up to 74% in areas with solar installations, even in locations using only natural restoration measures. This unexpected environmental dividend comes as China cements its position as the global leader in solar energy, having added 106 gigawatts of new installations in 2022 alone.

“Artificial ecological measures in the PV plants can reduce environmental damage and promote the condition of fragile desert ecosystems,” says Dr. Benli Liu, lead researcher from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. “This yields both ecological and economic benefits.”

The economic implications are substantial. “We’re witnessing a paradigm shift in how we view desert solar installations,” says Professor Zhang Wei, environmental economist at Beijing Normal University. “Our cost-benefit analysis shows that while initial ecological construction costs average $1.5 million per square kilometer, the long-term environmental benefits outweigh these investments by a factor of six within just a decade.” ...

“Soil organic carbon content increased by 37.2% in areas under solar panels, and nitrogen levels rose by 24.8%,” reports Dr. Sarah Chen, soil scientist involved in the project. “These improvements are crucial indicators of ecosystem health and sustainability.”

...Climate data from the study sites reveals significant microclimate modifications:

Average wind speeds reduced by 41.3% under panel arrays

Soil moisture retention increased by 32.7%

Ground surface temperature fluctuations decreased by 85%

Dust storm frequency reduced by 52% in solar farm areas...

The scale of China’s desert solar initiative is staggering. As of 2023, the country has installed over 350 gigawatts of solar capacity, with 30% located in desert regions. These installations cover approximately 6,000 square kilometers of desert terrain, an area larger than Delaware.

“The most surprising finding,” notes Dr. Wang Liu of the Desert Research Institute, “is the exponential increase in insect and bird species. We’ve documented a 312% increase in arthropod diversity and identified 27 new bird species nesting within the solar farms between 2020 and 2023.”

Dr. Yimeng Wang, the study’s lead author, emphasizes the broader implications: “This study provides evidence for evaluating the ecological benefit and planning of large-scale PV farms in deserts.”

The solar installations’ positive impact stems from several factors. The panels act as windbreaks, reducing erosion and creating microhabitats with lower evaporation rates. Perhaps most surprisingly, the routine maintenance of these facilities plays a crucial role in the ecosystem’s revival.

“The periodic cleaning of solar panels, occurring 7-8 times annually, creates consistent water drip lines beneath the panels,” explains Wang. “This inadvertent irrigation system promotes vegetation growth and the development of biological soil crusts, essential for soil stability.” ...

Recent economic analysis reveals broader benefits:

Job creation: 4.7 local jobs per megawatt of installed capacity

Tourism potential: 12 desert solar sites now offer educational tours

Agricultural integration: 23% of sites successfully pilot desert agriculture beneath panels

Carbon reduction: 1.2 million tons CO2 equivalent avoided per gigawatt annually

Dr. Maya Patel, visiting researcher from the International Renewable Energy Agency, emphasizes the global implications: “China’s desert solar model could be replicated in similar environments worldwide. The Sahara alone could theoretically host enough solar capacity to meet global electricity demand four times over while potentially greening up to 20% of the desert.”

The Chinese government has responded by implementing policies promoting “solar energy + sand control” and “solar energy + ecological restoration” initiatives. These efforts have shown promising results, with over 92% of PV plants constructed since 2017 incorporating at least one ecological construction mode.

Studies at facilities like the Qinghai Gonghe Photovoltaic Park demonstrate that areas under solar panels score significantly better in environmental assessments compared to surrounding regions, indicating positive effects on local microclimates.

As the world grapples with dual climate and biodiversity crises, China’s desert solar experiment offers a compelling model for sustainable development. The findings suggest that renewable energy infrastructure, when thoughtfully implemented, can serve as a catalyst for environmental regeneration, potentially transforming the world’s deserts from barren wastelands into productive, life-supporting ecosystems.

“This is no longer just about energy production,” concludes Dr. Liu. “We’re witnessing the birth of a new approach to ecosystem rehabilitation that could transform how we think about desert landscapes globally. The next decade will be crucial as we scale these solutions to meet both our climate and biodiversity goals.”"

-via Green Fingers, January 13, 2025

[reallytoosublime]

Are you interested in the exciting world of Green Technology? In this video, we'll explore the history, current developments, and future possibilities of Green Technology. Let's deep dive into the video and learn more about how green technology is revolutionizing the world.

Green technology is a method of using resources more efficiently to produce goods and services. Put another way, it’s about reducing environmental impacts from production and consumption so that we can meet human needs while also preserving natural resources for future generations.

Green technology can be used to reduce the amount of energy used in production and to make products less harmful to humans and the environment. In fact, many green technologies have become so efficient that they’re able to replace other more conventional methods. Green technologies, then, are methods that are environmentally friendly and efficient. They can be used to reduce energy consumption, improve resource conservation, and create clean products.

Green hydrogen is one of the most promising developments in the field of Green Technology. Produced using renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, and hydropower, green hydrogen has the potential to revolutionize the way we produce and use energy. With this ability to store and transport energy from renewable sources over long distances, green hydrogen could play a key role in reducing our carbon footprint and transitioning to a more sustainable future five.

How Green Technology is Revolutionizing The World

[youtubemarketing1234]

Are you interested in the exciting world of Green Technology? In this video, we'll explore the history, current developments, and future possibilities of Green Technology. Let's deep dive into the video and learn more about how green technology is revolutionizing the world.

Green technology is a method of using resources more efficiently to produce goods and services. Put another way, it’s about reducing environmental impacts from production and consumption so that we can meet human needs while also preserving natural resources for future generations.

Green technology can be used to reduce the amount of energy used in production and to make products less harmful to humans and the environment. In fact, many green technologies have become so efficient that they’re able to replace other more conventional methods. Green technologies, then, are methods that are environmentally friendly and efficient. They can be used to reduce energy consumption, improve resource conservation, and create clean products.

Green hydrogen is one of the most promising developments in the field of Green Technology. Produced using renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, and hydropower, green hydrogen has the potential to revolutionize the way we produce and use energy. With this ability to store and transport energy from renewable sources over long distances, green hydrogen could play a key role in reducing our carbon footprint and transitioning to a more sustainable future five.

How Green Technology is Revolutionizing The World

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Google’s enshittification memos

[Note, 9 October 2023: Google disputes the veracity of this claim, but has declined to provide the exhibits and testimony to support its claims. Read more about this here.]

When I think about how the old, good internet turned into the enshitternet, I imagine a series of small compromises, each seemingly reasonable at the time, each contributing to a cultural norm of making good things worse, and worse, and worse.

Think about Unity President Marc Whitten's nonpology for his company's disastrous rug-pull, in which they declared that everyone who had paid good money to use their tool to make a game would have to keep paying, every time someone downloaded that game:

The most fundamental thing that we’re trying to do is we’re building a sustainable business for Unity. And for us, that means that we do need to have a model that includes some sort of balancing change, including shared success.

https://www.wired.com/story/unity-walks-back-policies-lost-trust/

"Shared success" is code for, "If you use our tool to make money, we should make money too." This is bullshit. It's like saying, "We just want to find a way to share the success of the painters who use our brushes, so every time you sell a painting, we want to tax that sale." Or "Every time you sell a house, the company that made the hammer gets to wet its beak."

And note that they're not talking about shared risk here – no one at Unity is saying, "If you try to make a game with our tools and you lose a million bucks, we're on the hook for ten percent of your losses." This isn't partnership, it's extortion.

How did a company like Unity – which became a market leader by making a tool that understood the needs of game developers and filled them – turn into a protection racket? One bad decision at a time. One rationalization and then another. Slowly, and then all at once.

When I think about this enshittification curve, I often think of Google, a company that had its users' backs for years, which created a genuinely innovative search engine that worked so well it seemed like *magic, a company whose employees often had their pick of jobs, but chose the "don't be evil" gig because that mattered to them.

People make fun of that "don't be evil" motto, but if your key employees took the gig because they didn't want to be evil, and then you ask them to be evil, they might just quit. Hell, they might make a stink on the way out the door, too:

https://theintercept.com/2018/09/13/google-china-search-engine-employee-resigns/

Google is a company whose founders started out by publishing a scientific paper describing their search methodology, in which they said, "Oh, and by the way, ads will inevitably turn your search engine into a pile of shit, so we're gonna stay the fuck away from them":

http://infolab.stanford.edu/pub/papers/google.pdf

Those same founders retained a controlling interest in the company after it went IPO, explaining to investors that they were going to run the business without having their elbows jostled by shortsighted Wall Street assholes, so they could keep it from turning into a pile of shit:

https://abc.xyz/investor/founders-letters/ipo-letter/

And yet, it's turned into a pile of shit. Google search is so bad you might as well ask Jeeves. The company's big plan to fix it? Replace links to webpages with florid paragraphs of chatbot nonsense filled with a supremely confident lies:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/14/googles-ai-hype-circle/

How did the company get this bad? In part, this is the "curse of bigness." The company can't grow by attracting new users. When you have 90%+ of the market, there are no new customers to sign up. Hypothetically, they could grow by going into new lines of business, but Google is incapable of making a successful product in-house and also kills most of the products it buys from other, more innovative companies:

https://killedbygoogle.com/

Theoretically, the company could pursue new lines of business in-house, and indeed, the current leaders of companies like Amazon, Microsoft and Apple are all execs who figured out how to get the whole company to do something new, and were elevated to the CEO's office, making each one a billionaire and sealing their place in history.

It is for this very reason that any exec at a large firm who tries to make a business-wide improvement gets immediately and repeatedly knifed by all their colleagues, who correctly reason that if someone else becomes CEO, then they won't become CEO. Machiavelli was an optimist:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/microincentives-and-enshittification/

With no growth from new customers, and no growth from new businesses, "growth" has to come from squeezing workers (say, laying off 12,000 engineers after a stock buyback that would have paid their salaries for the next 27 years), or business customers (say, by colluding with Facebook to rig the ad market with the Jedi Blue conspiracy), or end-users.

Now, in theory, we might never know exactly what led to the enshittification of Google. In theory, all of compromises, debates and plots could be lost to history. But tech is not an oral culture, it's a written one, and techies write everything down and nothing is ever truly deleted.

Time and again, Big Tech tells on itself. Think of FTX's main conspirators all hanging out in a group chat called "Wirefraud." Amazon naming its program targeting weak, small publishers the "Gazelle Project" ("approach these small publishers the way a cheetah would pursue a sickly gazelle”). Amazon documenting the fact that users were unknowingly signing up for Prime and getting pissed; then figuring out how to reduce accidental signups, then deciding not to do it because it liked the money too much. Think of Zuck emailing his CFO in the middle of the night to defend his outsized offer to buy Instagram on the basis that users like Insta better and Facebook couldn't compete with them on quality.

It's like every Big Tech schemer has a folder on their desktop called "Mens Rea" filled with files like "Copy_of_Premeditated_Murder.docx":

https://doctorow.medium.com/big-tech-cant-stop-telling-on-itself-f7f0eb6d215a?sk=351f8a54ab8e02d7340620e5eec5024d

Right now, Google's on trial for its sins against antitrust law. It's a hard case to make. To secure a win, the prosecutors at the DoJ Antitrust Division are going to have to prove what was going on in Google execs' minds when the took the actions that led to the company's dominance. They're going to have to show that the company deliberately undertook to harm its users and customers.

Of course, it helps that Google put it all in writing.

Last week, there was a huge kerfuffile over the DoJ's practice of posting its exhibits from the trial to a website each night. This is a totally normal thing to do – a practice that dates back to the Microsoft antitrust trial. But Google pitched a tantrum over this and said that the docs the DoJ were posting would be turned into "clickbait." Which is another way of saying, "the public would find these documents very interesting, and they would be damning to us and our case":

https://www.bigtechontrial.com/p/secrecy-is-systemic

After initially deferring to Google, Judge Amit Mehta finally gave the Justice Department the greenlight to post the document. It's up. It's wild:

https://www.justice.gov/d9/2023-09/416692.pdf

The document is described as "notes for a course on communication" that Google VP for Finance Michael Roszak prepared. Roszak says he can't remember whether he ever gave the presentation, but insists that the remit for the course required him to tell students "things I didn't believe," and that's why the document is "full of hyperbole and exaggeration."

OK.

But here's what the document says: "search advertising is one of the world's greatest business models ever created…illicit businesses (cigarettes or drugs) could rival these economics…[W]e can mostly ignore the demand side…(users and queries) and only focus on the supply side of advertisers, ad formats and sales."

It goes on to say that this might be changing, and proposes a way to balance the interests of the search and ads teams, which are at odds, with search worrying that ads are pushing them to produce "unnatural search experiences to chase revenue."

"Unnatural search experiences to chase revenue" is a thinly veiled euphemism for the prophetic warnings in that 1998 Pagerank paper: "The goals of the advertising business model do not always correspond to providing quality search to users." Or, more plainly, "ads will turn our search engine into a pile of shit."

And, as Roszak writes, Google is "able to ignore one of the fundamental laws of economics…supply and demand." That is, the company has become so dominant and cemented its position so thoroughly as the default search engine across every platforms and system that even if it makes its search terrible to goose revenues, users won't leave. As Lily Tomlin put it on SNL: "We don't have to care, we're the phone company."

In the enshittification cycle, companies first lure in users with surpluses – like providing the best search results rather than the most profitable ones – with an eye to locking them in. In Google's case, that lock-in has multiple facets, but the big one is spending billions of dollars – enough to buy a whole Twitter, every single year – to be the default search everywhere.

Google doesn't buy its way to dominance because it has the very best search results and it wants to shield you from inferior competitors. The economically rational case for buying default position is that preventing competition is more profitable than succeeding by outperforming competitors. The best reason to buy the default everywhere is that it lets you lower quality without losing business. You can "ignore the demand side, and only focus on advertisers."

For a lot of people, the analysis stops here. "If you're not paying for the product, you're the product." Google locks in users and sells them to advertisers, who are their co-conspirators in a scheme to screw the rest of us.

But that's not right. For one thing, paying for a product doesn't mean you won't be the product. Apple charges a thousand bucks for an iPhone and then nonconsensually spies on every iOS user in order to target ads to them (and lies about it):

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

John Deere charges six figures for its tractors, then runs a grift that blocks farmers from fixing their own machines, and then uses their control over repair to silence farmers who complain about it:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/31/dealers-choice/#be-a-shame-if-something-were-to-happen-to-it

Fair treatment from a corporation isn't a loyalty program that you earn by through sufficient spending. Companies that can sell you out, will sell you out, and then cry victim, insisting that they were only doing their fiduciary duty for their sacred shareholders. Companies are disciplined by fear of competition, regulation or – in the case of tech platforms – customers seizing the means of computation and installing ad-blockers, alternative clients, multiprotocol readers, etc:

https://doctorow.medium.com/an-audacious-plan-to-halt-the-internets-enshittification-and-throw-it-into-reverse-3cc01e7e4604?sk=85b3f5f7d051804521c3411711f0b554

Which is where the next stage of enshittification comes in: when the platform withdraws the surplus it had allocated to lure in – and then lock in – business customers (like advertisers) and reallocate it to the platform's shareholders.

For Google, there are several rackets that let it screw over advertisers as well as searchers (the advertisers are paying for the product, and they're also the product). Some of those rackets are well-known, like Jedi Blue, the market-rigging conspiracy that Google and Facebook colluded on:

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

But thanks to the antitrust trial, we're learning about more of these. Megan Gray – ex-FTC, ex-DuckDuckGo – was in the courtroom last week when evidence was presented on Google execs' panic over a decline in "ad generating searches" and the sleazy gimmick they came up with to address it: manipulating the "semantic matching" on user queries:

https://www.wired.com/story/google-antitrust-lawsuit-search-results/

When you send a query to Google, it expands that query with terms that are similar – for example, if you search on "Weds" it might also search for "Wednesday." In the slides shown in the Google trial, we learned about another kind of semantic matching that Google performed, this one intended to turn your search results into "a twisted shopping mall you can’t escape."

Here's how that worked: when you ran a query like "children's clothing," Google secretly appended the brand name of a kids' clothing manufacturer to the query. This, in turn, triggered a ton of ads – because rival brands will have bought ads against their competitors' name (like Pepsi buying ads that are shown over queries for Coke).

Here we see surpluses being taken away from both end-users and business customers – that is, searchers and advertisers. For searchers, it doesn't matter how much you refine your query, you're still going to get crummy search results because there's an unkillable, hidden search term stuck to your query, like a piece of shit that Google keeps sticking to the sole of your shoe.

But for advertisers, this is also a scam. They're paying to be matched to users who search on a brand name, and you didn't search on that brand name. It's especially bad for the company whose name has been appended to your search, because Google has a protection racket where the company that matches your search has to pay extra in order to show up overtop of rivals who are worse matches. Both the matching company and those rivals have given Google a credit-card that Google gets to bill every time a user searches on the company's name, and Google is just running fraudulent charges through those cards.

And, of course, Google put this in writing. I mean, of course they did. As we learned from the documentary The Incredibles, supervillains can't stop themselves from monologuing, and in big, sprawling monopolists, these monologues have to transmitted electronically – and often indelibly – to far-flung co-cabalists.

As Gray points out, this is an incredibly blunt enshittification technique: "it hadn’t even occurred to me that Google just flat out deletes queries and replaces them with ones that monetize better." We don't know how long Google did this for or how frequently this bait-and-switch was deployed.

But if this is a blunt way of Google smashing its fist down on the scales that balance search quality against ad revenues, there's plenty of subtler ways the company could sneak a thumb on there. A Google exec at the trial rhapsodized about his company's "contract with the user" to deliver an "honest results policy," but given how bad Google search is these days, we're left to either believe he's lying or that Google sucks at search.

The paper trail offers a tantalizing look at how a company went from doing something that was so good it felt like a magic trick to being "able to ignore one of the fundamental laws of economics…supply and demand," able to "ignore the demand side…(users and queries) and only focus on the supply side of advertisers."

What's more, this is a system where everyone loses (except for Google): this isn't a grift run by Google and advertisers on users – it's a grift Google runs on everyone.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/03/not-feeling-lucky/#fundamental-laws-of-economics

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

[mesetacadre]

do you have any posts explaining dialectics?

if not, what is dialectics? i have several friends interested in the study, but not so interested as to read Lenin or Stalin, im hoping to 1.) study more for myself, and 2.) have a simple explanation i can send to people

you are very good at these things

Dialectics revolve around contradictions and how to resolve them. I'll take an example first and then define it more precisely.

There exists a contradiction between the interests of the proletariat, a class defined by its exchange of its labor power for a portion of the value produced, and the capitalists, a class defines by its private ownership over the means of production and its dominant position over the proletariat through salaried work. It is in the proletariat's interests to reap the full value produced by its labor power, and it is in the capitalists' power to continue extracting part of that value and sustain that relationship through the myriad mechanisms of class domination. If you take both of these facts, fundamentallt at odds with one another, informed by history and its previous, comparable class societies, you can arrive at the conclusion that, fueled by that constant and irreconcilable contradiction, the proletariat will aim to rid itself of the "leech" that is the capitalist class, and with it create a new society on the foundations of its class interests

The dialectical process, that oft repeated thesis, antithesis, synthesis, is not putting two concepts together, it's not thesis and antithesis, nor is it taking the common elements of each concept or object. It's placing the contradiction, the dialectical relationship between them, at the center of the analysis, and synthesizing a new conclusion, which might or might not have common elements with the contradictory elements. A dialectical relationship is like a conversation (hence the name), the elements influence, limit, allow and develop each other. It's similar to the kinds of relations that govern the biosphere. For instance, the soil and the vegetation on a slope. The soil, via its chemical components, allows and disallows, or rather, facilitates and hampers, the kinds of vegetation that can grow on it. At the same time, the vegetation, through its mechanical stabilization via its roots and through the organic matter it contributes to the soil (hummus), also modifies the soil to be closer to what it prefers. If there was no vegetation, soil on a slope is washed away after a few rains. If there is no soil, there can be no vegetation. The vegetation and the soil allow each other's existence, and they also modify each other.

[rosyblooom]

could you please do lando and a stem girl who goes to uni but has a private life please

they don't know about us | ln4 smau

pairing: lando norris x private fem computer science major!reader a/n: this took me forever but hope u still like :) also, if you've got requests could u add if you want it to be smau or fic pls <3

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landonorris posted to his story!

[ caption: Mind you, I just woke up... ]

[ tagged: yourusername ]

Twitter

Instagram

landonorris posted to his story!

[ caption 1: 🕒✈️ ] [ caption 2: miami 👋 ]

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yourusername posted to her story!

[ caption 1: shoutout to the inventor of coffee i owe u big time🙏 ] [ caption 2: uhm i was just going to rest my eyes for 2 minutes?? good morning i guess💀 ]

f1gossip

liked by username, username, username and 12,057 others

f1gossip Y/N L/N, current girlfriend of Lando Norris, has been photographed arriving at the paddock for today's Miami GP.

Y/N's presence comes as a bit of a surprise, considering she was absent during practice and qualifying sessions, and rarely attends races. Speculation about a potential breakup has been rampant, but her appearance suggests that there might not be trouble in paradise after all... 👀

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username she always looks so classy and put-together, i'm obsessed <33

username no bc am i the only who has no problem with her only attending a few races a year? some ppl don't have time to jet off across the globe 24/7 like

username it's the fact that they literally travelled to miami together and she still didn't go to quali or practice😐 the other wags do it, why can't she?

username i just know lando had to beg her to come smh

username why are y'all so rude omg?? some ppl are introverts...

username when you're in the public eye, you don't get to be "introverted"🙃 username that's an insane take wtf?

username GUYS i think she's a uni student cause peep lando's story a few days ago🧐 that explains why she's never at gps

username so? i'm a senior and i went to the aus gp this year username okay... do you want a cookie ?

username if a wag is at all races she's fame-hungry, and if she doesn't she's unsupportive like make up y'all's minds pls 🙄

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yourusername posted to her story!

[ caption: YOU DID IT!!! HE DID IT!!! MY BABY IS AN F1 WINNER OMFGGG🥹🥳👏 you deserved this so so much, i'm sooo proud of you ❤️❤️❤️ ]

[ tagged: landonorris ]

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landonorris

liked by yourusername, _aarava, martingarrix and 2,005,872 others

landonorris Memories for life ❤️

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username aw the 5th pic🥹

username do you think number six is y/n??👀 username 100%

username 🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡

username LANDO NOW WINS IKTRRRRR‼️🤩

username ofc y/n couldn't even be bothered to comment... and the most unsupportive wag award goes to y/n l/n!! congrats hun x

username y'all are weird YOU DON'T KNOW THESE PPL!! username it's the 'be kind' in ur bio for me miss gurl 🤡

username best day ever 🤧

lewishamilton 👏👏👏

(liked by author)

riabish sooo happy!!!

(liked by author)

username not ria being more of a gf then y/n oop username thanks for being such a good friend to lando, we love you💖

username next goal: beome world champion 👀👀

username yessirrrr

yourusername posted to her story!

[ caption 1: back to reality 💔 ] [ caption 2: jkjk it's not that bad, i don't cry nearly as much as i did in first year 🙂‍↕️☝️ ]

[ tagged: yourbestfriend, yourfriend + more ]

harvard

liked by yourusername, username, username and 29,063 others

harvard Final projects, theses, dissertations, and more! Check out what these soon-to-be graduates explored in some of their last assignements on campus.

Y/N's thesis navigated the intricate relationship between privacy and secure multi-party computation, enhancing data analysis while safeguarding sensitive information.

2. Steve's environmental science project examined urban development's impact on local biodiversity, providing insights for sustainable urban planning.

3. Nya's dentistry research poster explored new methods to improve dental implant success, promising better patient outcomes and oral healthcare.

—

We are celebrating the extraordinary members of the Class of #Harvard24 🎓

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username 👏👏👏

username Awesome!

username Very good! Congrats to all these students!!💪

username wait am i tripping or is this y/n as in lando's gf y/n???😳 btw my biggest dream is to go to harvard in '26 !!!! 💕

username 😍😍

username streets are saying y/n goes to harvard so i had to come check and omg??😩

username no bc wag AND harvard girly?? just looked at myself and sighed fr... username now i feel bad for talking shit🫤

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yourusername posted to her story!

[ caption 1: pulling an all-nighterrrr 😁 ] [ caption 2: nevermind, lando just made me promise to get some sleep :( ]

A few months later...

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yourusername posted to her story!

[ caption 1: couldn't ask for better shoulders to cry on srsly 🙂‍↕️ WE DID IT MY LOVESSS 🎓❤️❤️ ] [ caption 2: this us? 😏 (corny, i know...) ]

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lando.jpg

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lando.jpg 🍾🎓❤️

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username a win for women iktr 😌

username wow i'm so happy for her omg 🫶🫶 (jealous too but mostly happy loolol)

username LMAO are we the same person?

carlossainz55 👏👏👏

username now she has no excuse anymore

username if lando's completely happy with it all, why the hell are u upset? 🤡

username 2024 really gave us lando's first ever win and now this?? we love to see it 😍

yourusername ❤️❤️

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username we love you y/n <333 username i hope you'll be able to attend more races from now on!! i love seeing you in the paddock 💕

username the way i still haven't fully processed the fact that harvard gave her a shoutout goddamn🤯

usernmae not you calling that a shoutout bye💀💀

username AAHHHH YAYY CONGRATS Y/N YOU'RE DOING AMAZING SWEETIE 🤍🤍🤍🤍

0:33 ───ㅇ───────── 2:40

[ontherunnt]

hii. do you mind doing a sleep talker reader with ghost?

hii! of course, pookie ˙ᵕ˙ hope you enjoy! <33

Ghost with a sleeptalking partner

pairing: ghost x reader

wc: 1085

warnings: none!

To say Ghost’s sleeping schedule was thoroughly fucked would be an understatement. Even before he enlisted, he’d had his fair share of reasons to indulge in insomnia. Sleep had never come easy to him, no matter what pills he took, which meditation techniques Gaz wouldn’t shut up about, or the amount of times Soap had offered to knock him out with the butt of his gun—tempting, but not sustainable. 

Which is why it was so jarring to have met you. A soldier, hardened by bloodshed and angry COs who, somehow, was able to fall asleep on command. At first, it was odd to find you sleeping in every possible place, flat surface available or not. Briefing room, supply tent, comms building, mess hall—sometimes your head would fall against a table, sometimes you’d be seated, sometimes, somehow, you’d be standing up, asleep like a mummy. 

He didn’t understand how you’d developed the habit—not until he slept with you for the first time. It was that night, when both of you were covered with a shit blanket that did little to keep out the cold, that he realized why you were exhausted all the time. 

You talked in your sleep. And not just talked—you rambled like crazy. It made sense why you got no rest, given you spent most of your time asleep arguing with people who didn’t exist. 

Tonight, far from the gunfire, safely tucked in your flat while the two of you awaited deployment instructions, you were still plagued by dreams you couldn’t explain once awake.

He exited the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist, drying his hair with another—the one he always stole from you after insisting he didn’t need a second one. Steam followed behind him as he took quiet steps across the room, eyes locked on your sleeping form. 

You lay sprawled on the bed, wearing nothing but your underwear and an old shirt he’d accidentally forgotten once and never managed to recover. Not that he’d tried very hard to get it back—he loved seeing you in it. The only source of light in the room came from the bathroom behind him, engulfing you in a warm hue of yellow in an otherwise dark room. The blanket was kicked to the feet of the bed, covering only half of your leg. The clock on the nightstand glowed in neon-red, late enough to let Simon know he wouldn’t be getting any sleep tonight. 

As he was about to turn to the dresser where you’d mercifully given him a quarter of a drawer to put all of his belongings in, you muttered something under your breath. He halted at the noise, knowing exactly what would follow. You had the same routine—mumble, conversation, yawning, sleep. He’d memorized it, as he had memorized all the…characters that seemed to live in your dreams. 

Tonight, however, it wasn’t a non-existent figure who had earned your anger. Tonight, you were mad at Soap.

“Can’t understand shit he says, Simon,” you whined lowly, barely comprehensible as you drawled out the words. “Stop him.”

Ghost stilled, hand covering his mouth to keep his smile from breaking into a full grin. He walked closer to the bed, legs pressed against the mattress by your feet. He tilted his head, wondering what Johnny could’ve done to be a subject of your irritation tonight. He let the spare towel fall to the floor, knowing you’d be annoyed at it the following morning.

“Those bloody Scots,” you huffed out. Despite the arm thrown over your eyes, he could practically hear the frown forming on your face. 

He pressed his lips into a thin line, bending forward to place his hands on your ankles. “Yeah? What’d he do this time?”

You hummed at the touch, seemingly struggling to form a sentence as he ran his hands up your leg, fingers digging into your skin once he reached your thighs. After a beat, you dropped your arm from your face and sighed softly, eyes still closed. Ghost lifted a knee to the bed, letting some of his weight fall on your thigh as he leaned forward, eyes practically glowing with amusement. 

It seemed the topic was too much for you to linger on Ghost’s touch, however. You pouted as you answered, as if this weighed heavily on you. “He keeps askin’ me to eat haggis, Simon. Haggis.”

 He couldn’t stop himself from snorting. The sentence was so ridiculous he couldn’t help it. Yet, a small part of him wondered how much of it was true—Johnny did like haggis, after all. 

He dipped his head lower and planted a kiss on your hipbone. “You don’t have to eat haggis,” he assured you, enjoying the way you shivered beneath him as he placed a kiss on the other side. “I’ll kill him if he makes you.”

Ghost finally placed both knees on the bed—one between your legs, the other to the side. He placed slow kisses on your stomach, your ribs, your collarbone. Each kiss caused your voice to come out quieter and slower than before. As much as he enjoyed your nonsense and barely-coherent conversations, the longer you talked, the less you rested. 

By the time his lips reached your jaw, you had stopped talking about sheep intestines and Soap—thank God. Speaking about Johnny in your bedroom at four in the morning was far from his definition of late-night romance. 

He planted a slow kiss on your jaw, feeling the vibrations of your hum against his lips. You yawned once, loud and wide. That was the cue he’d learned to interpret as your rambling finally coming to an end. He let himself fall by your side, still wearing nothing but a blanket that seemed to struggle to stay in place. 

You turned your body with impressive speed. In a blink, you had already wrapped a leg over his, and had snaked his middle with your arm. After another, briefer yawn, you placed a slow, lingering kiss on his throat. If you felt the way he swallowed dryly at the sudden proximity, you showed no signs. 

“Haggis,” you muttered, and it was the last thing Ghost heard from you that night. 

He shook his head as he pressed his palm against your warm cheek, rubbing your cheekbone gently. He let his forehead fall against your own, smiling at the sight. 

“Bloody haggis,” he muttered back, well aware that you wouldn’t remember any of this in the morning. 

[thedansemacabres]

On Helpol tumblr there has been some discourse on the worship of Ares and it is completely justified for a personal practice why someone would not honour him. However, though, I would enjoy to bring up points from history on a reconstruction angle on why to worship Ares. I appreciate the critical examination into who and what we worship—we should be more critical of stately portrayals of the divine and understand ancient politics less we reconstruct something wretched. These points are sourced from Cults and sanctuaries of Ares and Enyalios: A survey of the literary, epigraphic, and archaeological evidence by Matthew Paul Gonzales.

It is deeply historically attested, for anyone thinking that it was not. The anti-Ares classical sentiment can be traced back to WWII for reasons that do not need explaining. The emphasis on his pathetic myths also partially stem from this.

Ares was and is deeply concerned with justice and Dike is described as his lead. He is shown as the blood vengeance in particular, which still does have modern importance—many of us endorse the guillotine. This could inspire modern worshippers to take to action for causes to support good, justice, and love in their communities. Love and war, mayhaps?

He is also connected to peace and restraining violence alongside war-like desires. This is depicted in the homeric hymnal.

Ares is also close to defending land, especially that of floral and agricultural bounty: he is often positioned with fertility goddesses, such as Aphrodite, Despoina, and Cybele.

He is a vengeful protector, when people are wronged or land is stolen and waged against. Athens used this for defending their land—chaining Ares to the land meanings bringing in his power to serve you and your land’s interests. I do not endorse the usage of this to support oppressive regimes, but it could be adapted in a more liberation focused fashion.

Through Ares, some facets of prosperity is given, and I do not take it as a coincidence he is paired with Athena, who directs while Ares rushes.

Worship is also used to avoid conditions; Apollon to keep the plague away, Ares to keep war and strife away, such as his homeric hymn entails.

Courage is also stated to be a condition he gifts.

Lastly, I find it of vast importance to establish modern ideas of gods that are honest to the historical record and finds fluidity in them. Gods can change and they can be discussed with. Perhaps this is my Roman pagan influences, but we can influence and argue with the gods on points we believe in—for justice and ultimate good, as Zeus does mandate divine justice. We can show Ares, more than he already knows and has, the importance of supporting the revolutionary, and we can invoke his power in fighting for the sovereignty of nature. I am also personally fond of the feminist interpretations of him, and while not likely accurate to history, we should be adapting and developing with the gods in the modern period. Ares as a symbol of violently defending women against patriarchy is ripe for expression and movement, though not without due issues.

We should be striving towards ultimate good and Ares’ power in the modern era, with a modern lens, can continue to give weight to this pursuit. If he can encourage us and take a stand against the machismo ideas of “spartan” ideals that dudebros often have, we can make beneficial cultural changes. The gods do not just belong to history, they are history, and Historia is here to inspire and defeat us at every turn. 

I will say my dea Bellona is more of the historical revolution divinity that people want. She has a lot more of the epigraphic record to support this, but nonetheless, there are many reasons to honour Ares outside of war. Especially in his connections to nature and fertility, which strikes my heart happily as a sustainable agriculturalist. If it is Ares that can motivate more Hellenic pagans to embrace liberation and revolutionary ideas, that is something to preserve.

And regardless, if I can worship Ker without expecting much benefit, we can easily worship a god that is not literal murder. 

[literaryvein-reblogs]

When your Characters Need to Build Trust in their Relationship

High trust levels are key to a healthy, lasting relationship—here are a few tips on how to build trust from psychotherapist and relationship expert Esther Perel.

Trust - the act of feeling comfortable, safe, and cared for in a relationship.

It is a vital bedrock of a successful relationship because it allows each person to be vulnerable with the other and continue to feel supported and sustained.

It encourages teamwork, collaboration, and healthy interdependence and is a sign of emotional intelligence (or, as Esther calls it, “relational intelligence”), effective communication, mutual respect, emotional intimacy, and overall well-being.

In a romantic relationship without a foundation of trust, partners may feel uncomfortable, insecure, or anxious. Sustained trust issues or a complete lack of trust in a long-term relationship can lead to overwhelming emotional strain, burnout, breakup, and even physical and mental health problems.

How to Build Trust With a Romantic Partner

Trust is one of the building block of a healthy relationship. Here are a few different ways to build trust according to Esther:

Determine your relationship to trust and risk. In Esther’s experience, building trust starts with understanding your own needs. “Do you see yourself as someone who needs to trust first? Or do you see yourself more as someone who is more quick at taking risks?” Taking stock of your own needs allows you to “ground yourself in the reality of the here and now” before building trust with a partner. “Some people say that you need to trust someone, a relationship, before you are feeling okay to take risks with that person. But some people will say—and this is how the research divides around trust as well—that it is actually by taking risks that the trust develops.”

Embrace taking micro-risks with your partner. Esther recommends taking very small risks as a way to practice trust-building in a relationship, creating a little trust at a time as you work toward deep emotional intimacy. “A micro risk … is not a specific thing,” she explains. “It’s the thing that I don’t usually do.” Examples of micro risks may be sharing information about your personal life, making an observation of the other person, challenging yourself to say “no” to something, or challenging yourself to ask for something—as long as it’s something you don’t normally do. Once you take the risk, you can see how the other person responds to it and continue building levels of trust (or identify that something isn’t working). “It's an experience that is built through mutuality and reciprocity,” Esther explains.

Learn to navigate breaches in trust. “When [trust] breaks, it feels shattered and unable to ever be put back together,” Esther says. That response is completely normal—breaches in trust hurt, especially in lasting relationships. “But, in fact, [trust] is quite malleable,” she says. “Life and new experiences, like grafting new cells on top, slowly allow us to experience the trust again.” Avoid jumping to conclusions or making hasty judgments—instead, give the other person the benefit of the doubt, allow yourself time to recover from breaches in trust, and then check in with yourself using your new life experiences to decide how to move forward and whether you can repair things. Even when trust decreases, it is possible to slowly rebuild trust through careful, hard work.

“Trust is one of these concepts that suffers from a definitional vagueness. We all know when we feel it, and we all know when we don’t. But what is it? Is it a feeling? Is it a condition? Is it an outcome? Is it a state? What is trust? And the research is all over the place. At the end of many, many, many papers, what you hear is the sentence, ‘The research could use more research on how to define trust.’” —Esther Perel

Source ⚜ More: Writing Notes & References ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs

[long-live-astronerd-ghost-king]

DPXDC prompt. Ghost King uses Uno Reverse Card

Ghosts are not a race of evil creatures that most people think they are. And Danny was really happy when the Infinite Realms were able to make peace treaties with most countries of the human world. Ghosts, however, are a very vindictive race. At least that’s how young Phantom explained himself to Batman afterwards.

It just so happens that a couple of hours before the event aimed at expanding intergalactic unions most of the JLeague members due to an emergency call went on a mission. Which means people who had any authority in Phantom’s eyes became unavailable for a while.

So Shazam and Phantom as the most known outside the Earth were assigned to greet the guests and most importantly to entertain the visitors until the founders of JL return.

According to Phantom, Batman, being such a good detective with a bunch of backup plans, should have known that Danny’s favorite cereal ran out this morning, that he was late for first class, and that after school he had a fight with his parents. No, seriously, aren’t so-called scientists supposed to be able to admit mistakes in their own judgment? Danny got tired of being constantly ashamed of their behavior near other ghosts. It's bad enough that his authority as a ruler is sustained only by the support of those Ancients with whom he maintains friendly relations. Average citizens still doubt that he is a is sufficient to claim the throne. He’s had enough of being accused of not being a full-fledged ghost.  He’s not ready to hear rumors that he supports his parents' racist judgments too. In short, his day sucked. And all his ghostly nature now wanted to do something nasty to his neighbors to get rid of the tension.

Alien leader stretched out a hand to Phantom and Shazam. “Your Majesty Phantom, Champion of Magic. It’s an honor to meet you. I hope I learned the proper greeting gesture of the local intelligent race.”

And with that Danny’s reserve of conscience ran out. It’s a perfect moment to feed his need to be a little shit.

“The local intelligent race?’ Danny had this extreme bewilderment on his face. “Which one do you think..? Earth was the home of the Gods and of various inhabitants of the galaxy but it was a long time ago.”

Woman is clearly confused. Great. “E-Earthers. I think they’re called that.”

“Earthlings, intelligent race? You must be mistaken.” Danny faked a giggle. “Who told you that crap?”

“Phantom, what are you doing?” Batman hissed at him from an earpiece. Danny turned the sound off with a clear conscience. “I mean, seriously, there’s not a single serious study in the science library in this galaxy or any other galaxy that says humans are intelligent. Shazam, do you think they’re..?”

For some reason, Billy immediately remembered watching a man spend his entire salary on lottery tickets last week. And of course he was careless enough to shake his head and snort. That was all Phantom needed.

“Exactly. Earthlings don’t have to be intelligent to mimic the behavior of more evolved species. Surely you are well aware that Martians and Kryptonians, and many others have visited Earth at different stages of human development. My supervisor Clockwork and I have long been observing this strange species. In many ways, their behavior resembles a mixture of instinctive reactions of specimens from the 126 sectors of the nearest SBc Galaxy and several other creatures from planets of the galaxy KV59. However, even I, as an anthropologist with extensive experience of observing human species in their natural habitat, still have to explore and discover many of their secrets.”

“I do not understand. According to the documents among the delegation that greets us there are Earthlings. I mean I don’t question the scientific evidence of a respected Chronos or you, but why then..”

“Of course you don’t! It’s really quite simple. For the purity of the clinical experiment, which we are conducting now, it is necessary that Earthlings feel themselves ostensibly full participants of the «society» consisting of members with developed intelligence.”

“So, any luck, colleague?” Shazam, who realized that Batman would now skin them anyway, decided to at least participate in this theater so that the punishment would be at least deserved.

“Well, we’ve certainly come up with some interesting preliminary insights about the adaptive capacity of the human brain in limited contact with Martians. Of course, humans do not have real emotions to be full participants in communication, but their attempts and zeal are very inspiring.”

~~~~~

Meanwhile, Fentons watching a live broadcast of what was supposed to be an interplanetary friendship encounter are beginning to realize that if trying to punish a rebellious human teenager has always been difficult for them, the attempt to control the behavior of the 14 y/o half-ghost may become a nightmare not only for them.

Jack: Honey, I think Danny’s still a little upset about our old theories about the ability of ghosts to feel or think.

Jazz, sitting between them with the face of a man resigned to the chaos around her, could not restrain the sarcasm: Really? Why would you think that?

[communistkenobi]

a very common mistake people make in political/social discourse is applying individualist thinking to some social phenomenon or theory. one of the most common examples is someone responding to the theory of white privilege with “but there are poor white people” or male privilege with “I’m a man but I have no power” etc. and in order to refute that properly you have to essentially get into a philosophy of science debate, to explain that the benefit of a given social theory is its ability to be generalised above the level of the individual, that what is being described is a social process, that human beings occupy various positions within a social space (a family, a neighbourhood, a workplace, a state) that are not individual. To be able to give an account of some social force you necessarily cannot be just talking about the particularities of a single person - if you were, all you would be expressing is an individual opinion about a single person. If you want to rise above the level of ‘mere opinion’ you need to actually provide an account that is general enough to apply to multiple people of varying social situations but systematic enough to be able to differentiate between who you are and are not speaking about. Of course data are lost in this endeavour - probably best summed up by the aphorism “all models are wrong but some are useful” - but the success of a given social theory is its ability to sustain its explanatory power despite these data losses. Like the whole game of generalisation is building a theory to figure out what data points to discard and which to retain. It is no more contradictory to say white privilege is real even though there are poor white people than to say the police are a white supremacist institution even though there are non-white police officers. In fact these seeming contradictions are accounted for in these same social theories - white supremacy has had centuries of policy development at this point, it is a fairly well-tested set of logics that have adapted to a variety of conflicts, problems, and political/economic/social developments (Sylvia Wynter talks about this in the context of the post-slavery US for example). White supremacy is thus resilient to these apparent contradictions (and these contradictions generate further social developments, such as the shifting meanings and locations of whiteness), which is why zooming into the level of the individual is often not helpful in explaining its effects on a social level.

Weber says that I need not know Caesar to understand Caesar - that to talk about Caesar as a historical figure and as a particular location in ancient Roman society is fundamentally different than a description of him as an individual. And nobody actually talks about Caesar as an individual anyway! Even psychological or biographical profiles of him are premised on the fact that Caesar is worthy of this profile as opposed to any other person living in the Roman Republic. The reason we all know his name is that his place in history is extended beyond the individual. A Roman general and leader is fundamentally not an individual, not a private person. The very fact that I can say “Roman General” but not say any person’s name and have people understand what I’m saying is evidence of this. By definition ‘Caesar’ the historical figure is not an individual in any meaningful sense, he has power that is only available through social institutions and formations, and that is why he is known even today. Even the most liberal Great Man Theories of history locate an engine of history within the general position of Great Man (this is a fundamental contradiction within this type of thinking, the generalised Individual). If there can be more than one Great Man in history then he is not an individual, he is occupying a generalisable position in human history that can be calculated, bounded, and studied.

So it’s very frustrating to deal with! It’s an attempt to refute an explanation of a social phenomenon with individual anecdotes, much of which is already accounted for in said explanation. It makes many, many, many discussions about the social and political world endlessly repetitive and uninteresting, because you are always stuck at litigating the most basic, atomic point of reference. And of course that is the point for many people, they aren’t interested in any of this because they are racist and they are misogynistic and so on. It is an extremely effective derailing tactic, but part of the reason why it’s so effective is because individualism is such a pervasive mode of thinking. All of the groundwork is already laid out for people who say white privilege isn’t real because the social and epistemic infrastructure necessary to get other people to buy that argument has already been built for them to make that type of claim. Which is why the people who smirk at the camera when they say shit like this are so pathetic because they behave like they thought of that all by themselves, unaware or (more probably) deliberately ignoring the fact that they live in a society specifically built to facilitate, automate, and celebrate the garbage coming out of their mouth

[reasonsforhope]

"As 3D-printing methods continue to evolve, it’s not uncommon to see this method employed for various engineering projects, especially in the construction of affordable housing, structures, and schools.

In Ireland, a first-of-its-kind social housing project has been built from the ground up, using 3D printing as a time and money-saving solution.

In fact, it’s Europe’s first 3D-printed social housing project, fully compliant with international standards. In Grange Close, Dundalk, the three-unit terraced build is now a milestone achievement in eastern Ireland. It was created by Harcourt Technologies Ltd (HTL.tech) and assembled using COBOD’s BOD2 3D construction printer.

The unit is 3,550 square feet and is divided into three separate homes, each measuring 1,184 square feet.

The use of this technology allowed for a 35% faster construction process, which took 132 days from start to finish. During that time, the 3D-printed superstructure itself was completed in just 12 printing days. 

Conventional construction methods usually require more than 200 days, according to COBOD, meaning this method could be transformative in quickly scaling affordable housing options.

“Ireland’s housing crisis, driven by a decade of under-construction and rising demand, has reached critical levels, leading to widespread protests and influencing national elections,” HTL.tech shared in a press release.

“The rapid construction made possible by 3D printing offers a promising solution. The homes in Dundalk demonstrate how this technology can address housing shortages by dramatically reducing construction time and costs.”

In the 132 days it took to go from initial site preparation to handing over keys to the client, builders say approximately half of the time savings came directly from 3D printing. 

Additionally, during the project, COBOD upgraded the concrete hose of its printer, which increased its output by 40% and significantly increased the printing speed. With this upgrade, the company estimates that printing times for similar structures would be reduced to nine days instead of 12.

“We continue to improve our technology,” Henrik Lund-Nielsen, general manager and founder of COBOD International, said in a statement, “and although a hose update can be seen as a small step, the numbers from HTL.tech proves that it is not.”

Now, the client — a local housing council — will finish furnishing the homes and will rent them to social housing tenants at an affordable price.

It’s a success that will surely have ripple effects.

“As the first 3D-printed social housing project in Europe, the Grange Close development sets a precedent for future housing solutions,” a press release from HTL.tech explained. “With countries like Sweden and Germany also experimenting with 3D-printed homes, this technology is poised to become a standard approach for addressing housing shortages.”

The statement also added that governments across Europe may increasingly adopt 3D printing to “deliver faster, more cost-effective housing solutions for low-income residents.” 

“This project not only showcases the potential for rapid, sustainable construction but also serves as a blueprint for other nations facing similar challenges,” the statement concluded. “As 3D printing technology evolves, its role in shaping the future of housing construction looks increasingly promising.”"

-via GoodGoodGood, January 23, 2025

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