#value learning

[ponder-us]

Humanity hanging in the balance

JB: Hi Gemini, I just read an article from BBC Wildlife titled, “What would happen to the Earth if humans went extinct? Here’s what scientists think.” In it, author Debbie Graham laments that “human activity is causing a huge fall in biodiversity — species are dying out an an estimated 1000 times faster than the natural background rate.” But she asserts in her summary that despite taking a while…

[nova-moon13]

[marzipanandminutiae]

accused 17th-century English or English colonial witches in a certain subset of modern pseudo-feminist fiction: I'm a girlboss who can read, unlike other women! I live apart from the community and use herbs to basically invent modern medicine! my views align perfectly with many modern progressive talking points! also I wear my hair down because I'm a ~free spirit~

actual accused 17th-century English or English colonial witches: I'm homeless and mentally ill and my community just kind of wants me gone. or I'm Jewish or Romani. or maybe I have property that someone else wants. I could have strong opinions but that's usually not enough to attract witchcraft charges on its own unless the community is REALLY in a mess. I might even be an unpopular MAN who someone has an interpersonal squabble with, although statistically I am more likely to be a woman (unlike in Scandinavia, where the reverse is true)

[taraxippos]

One of my all time biggest pet peeves with historical(ish) fantasy is when the writer constructs a religion with a clear bias that it's stupid and false and therefore only the Stupid People and/or commoners believe in it and all the smart/elite main characters are like, quasi-atheists or otherwise just routinely flout established religious conventions of orthodoxy and/or orthopraxy because they're Too Smart for it or etc.

It's usually an extension of assumptions that people in the past were just less intelligent than in the contemporary, just being like "I know that the sun is a star millions of miles away that the earth orbits, but this ancient religion describes it as a chariot flying through the sky" and not really bothering to learn the context and just (consciously or subconsciously) settling on 'that's a crazy thing to think and was probably believed in because they were Stupid'.

And that whole attitude pisses me off so much. People were as 'smart' 10,000 years ago as they are today. These beliefs aren't just desperate, random flailing to explain phenomena that could not directly be accounted for either, it's not like people just looked at the sun and went "Uhhh I don't know what the fuck that thing is, actually. I guess it might be a chariot or a boat or something?? Yeah let's go with that." and based entire religious practices on this. Every well-established belief system exists within broader contexts of cultural values/subjective perceptions of reality/knowledge systems/etc, and exist as part of a historical continuum of religious practices that came before. Even when not Materially Correct, they have context and internal logic, they're not always dead literal with zero levels of allegory, and they're never a result of stupidity.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Who is this sassy lost child?

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[teaboot]

People keep asking me how one could steal and get away with it, and while I can’t tell you any kind of useful information on the topic without ruining my professional credibility and therefore my value as a security professional, the one thing I CAN tell you is that the way anti-theft measures work, the safest way to steal and the safest THINGS to steal would be so low-value and low-volume and would waste so much of your time to take that you’d honestly be better off panhandling, which kind of defeats the purpose of theft to begin with

[kkoct-ik]

caved

[egg-noodle]

[haunting-hole]

heterosexual doomed yuri

[askoverkill]

transcript below:

(As the Director distracts themselves with the voices, you figure now is a good time to leave.)

(Just as you had previously, you run aimlessly through the darkness.) (In the distance, you can hear your party from afar.)

(Once you arrive, the same concerns are given.) (Time truly is repeating itself as it should. Good.)

What matters is everyone’s okay.

But it's not okay, we're out of ammo for the KAG! It won't work without any!

AH! The lights are back?!

Housemaiden, (SKIP ICON) fear not! I play my games fairly.

(Okay. Don't step on the glowing tile like an idiot this time.) (...Shame you forgot to ask what the solution back when your party knew it.)

SIFFRENT!

I guess they were feeling pretty DOWN!

Wait, hold on-

[styxxsyringe]

artificial intelligence ghost

[kiragecko]

Story Idea

Telekinetic supervillain who REALLY loves historical architecture. Living in a superhero universe where heroes keep crashing through stained glass windows and leveling entire streets. As well as the normal corruption causing building to be demolished or “restored” in extremely destructive ways.

Kinda has Poison Ivy vibes, without any of the femme fatale trappings - her entire focus is preserving historical valuable buildings, and she doesn’t really care if humans that get in the way die. But she also isn’t going out of her way to kill people.

And the leader of the local superhero team can see where she’s coming from. And decides that just throwing her in jail every time she acts up is a sign they’re failing in their duty to protect the city. Instead, he starts trying to gain her trust. He doesn’t care that much about buildings, but he works on lessening his team’s collateral damage. He promises the supervillain that he’ll try to pressure the city government if she brings problems to him rather than taking them into her own hands. Eventually, he convinces her that she can protect the city’s infrastructure better by being on his team than she can on her own.

She’s incredibly helpful! She will keep burning buildings from collapsing until everyone can get out and the fire is extinguished. She’ll hold skyscrapers up while supervillains reign destruction down around them. She’ll deconstruct traps and grumpily direct her teammates towards the hidden mastermind who set them up. And when the crisis is over, she’ll see what can be salvaged and rebuild it if possible.

But she’s a PR nightmare.

Former Supervillain refuses to help people. She DOES NOT care. Your kid is trapped in the burning building? That is not her problem. Go bother someone else. Dude is holding a bunch of people hostage? It’s fine, he’s not causing any damage to the building he’s in.

People DO NOT like this attitude. People do not accept that she’s part of a team, and other heroes are capable of filling the “empathy” and “human rescuing” gaps.

And she’s high maintenance! The team frequently end up in situations where protecting lives is in conflict with protecting property. They take missions that mean very little to them, because they’re important to her. And the leader is constantly having to talk her out of rampages, pressuring the government to drop lucrative and unethical contracts, and making sure she’s sticking to the plan in the field. And she isn’t interested in interpersonal relationships or social niceties, so none of them are even doing this out of friendship!

-

Sometimes, you help someone not because they’ll be grateful, but because it will make your community better. Sometimes, you help the local drug addict not because he’s likely to turn his life around, but because he smashes less windows when he has a warm, quiet space to stay. And sometimes, keeping that community benefit takes a long term commitment.

I want to see a superhero team turn a villain as harm prevention and then willingly bear the cost of keeping that villain from causing harm. Not because it’s rewarding (though there are rewards) but because it’s more effective than any other method. And I want the villain to go along with it because the heroes actually found a more efficient way for her to reach her goals.

And it being messy for everyone, but I want them to make it work. And it to be worth it, in the end.

[pant--eater]

the Vi x Gert truthers (BassBreaker, that's the ship name right?) won me over with this ship, Vi deserves a badass Zaunite rebel girl with chill energy who treats her right. In return Gert gets a super devoted protective girlfriend who enjoys her sick tunes and would punch god in the face for her 😭😭😭❤️❤️❤️

[frayed-symphony]

I know it's all about Tokyo Ghoul this week but it's been one year since the All Things Wicked chapter of Dead by Daylight released so I wanted to celebrate with a Sable and Unknown drawing!

[lxoys]

Day 414🦉