#In the case of a lot of math fundamentals especially in the sciences

[xwingace]

All of the above, and....

School is preparing you for the rest of your life, but it's also preparing all of your classmates. _You_ (or I) might not need math, or english, or biology, or history, or physics or drama or spanish etc etc etc a lot in the rest of your life, but the kid sitting next you might. And maybe when being exposed to some of these things in school, you'll discover a passion for it that could influence the rest of your life in a way you don't know yet. Even if you already have a passion, as the person I reblogged from says, you'll never know _when_ you might need whatever you learn, and having been exposed to the basics in school, you'll at least have a direction to start looking in.

It’s sad how much of what is taught in school is useless to over 99% of the population.

There are literally math concepts taught in high school and middle school that are only used in extremely specialized fields or that are even so outdated they aren’t used anymore!

[mightyflamethrower]

Harvard has refused to accept the orders of a Trump administration commission concerning its chronic problems with anti-Semitism, campus violence, and racial tribalism, bias, and segregation.

Yet, unlike some conservative campuses that distrust an overbearing Washington, Harvard and most elite schools like it want it both ways. They do as they please on their own turf and yet still demand that the taxpayers send them multibillion-dollar checks in addition to their multibillion-dollar private incomes.

Aside from the issues of autonomy and free expression, there are lots of campus practices that higher education would prefer were not widely known to the public.

But soon they will be, and thus will become sources of public anger. Perhaps envision elite private colleges as mossy rocks, which seem outwardly picturesque—until you turn them over and see what crawls beneath.

So, if there are protracted standoffs, our elite campuses will be hard-pressed to defend the indefensible. This effort will be difficult because public confidence in higher education has already plummeted to historic lows in the most recent polls.

In Amerispeak public surveys, those expressing very little confidence or none at all in higher education have soared to about 30 percent of respondents, while those polling only “some” confidence rose to 40%.

Polls show that less than a third of Americans have quite a lot of confidence in our college campuses.

No wonder: Over the past half-century, tuition has generally risen at twice the rate of inflation. In part, that price-gouging became standard because federal aid to our most prestigious schools has skyrocketed, hand-in-glove with the federalized student loan program. It has become a $1.7 trillion entity in which the combined rate of both those students who defaulted on their guaranteed loans or are currently late on payments is nearing 12-13 percent. In sum, colleges counted on an ensured stream of tuition money and so raised their prices inordinately, given federal guarantees.

Note that small private Hillsdale College, which takes no federal money and is the guarantor of its own generous student aid, charges about $45,000-50,000 for combined tuition, room, and board—about half the going rate in the Ivy League and similar elite campuses.

Half the youth of the country who choose to go straight to work and not attend college might object to such use of their tax dollars. They would assume that universities with multibillion-dollar endowments and huge annual incomes have plenty of resources to guarantee their own student loans. That way, campuses would have a financial interest in seeing their own students graduate in four years, get jobs, and pay back their alma mater promptly and fully. Instead, as long as universities are paid upfront, they seem to care little that their graduates leave heavily in debt and occasionally default on their loans.

There is almost no intellectual diversity on campus.

Some recent studies have found Democrat/liberal professors outnumber their Republican/conservative counterparts by a 10-1 margin, especially in the social sciences and humanities. There are plenty of conservative PhDs on the market, but higher education has used insidious methods such as diversity oaths and covert political bias to find ways not to hire or retain them.

Colleges no longer believe in their ancient mission to teach students the ancient, disinterested, and inductive method of pursuing knowledge. Nor do they care much that their graduates leave college without a broad classical education in history, literature, language, philosophy, science, and math. Instead, they are missionaries who believe their duty is to indoctrinate youth in progressive ideology, found mostly in studies courses and deductive classes, as part of a greater project to fundamentally alter the nature of the United States.

The Supreme Court in a recent case ruled against Harvard and the University of North Carolina, stating that their use of racial and gender bias is illegal under the 14th Amendment and thus affirmative action and associated racial essentialism are forbidden.

Yet, many of our campuses simply rebrand their offices of “diversity/equity/inclusion” —the campus euphemism for using race and gender bias in applications, hiring, retention, and promotion—with newer Orwellian names like the “Office of Belonging” or “Community Outreach.” Universities are higher education’s version of sanctuary cities that likewise cavalierly believe they can largely ignore federal laws with impunity.

For example, it’s illegal to segregate university events or facilities by race. But universities sidestep the law by offering race-based graduation ceremonies as “auxiliary” or “additional” events and commemorations. Racially segregated dorms are deemed “theme” houses open to all but de facto widely known as racially exclusive. If the so-called “white” minority at Stanford—some 22 percent of the student body—opted for an “extra” white graduation ceremony, theoretically open to all students, the university would—and should—shut it down promptly.

In business and private entities, “overhead deductions” or “surcharges” usually run from 10 to 20 percent. But elite private universities charge the federal government for their faculty research grants, often between 40 and 60 percent. Apparently, they operate on the principle that their supposedly prestigious brands deserve private exemption from gouging the government.

Over the past few decades, foreign governments, without audit, have poured some $60 billion into America’s purportedly most prestigious universities. Communist China and illiberal Qatar alone gave $500 million last year. And they expect and receive something for their ideologically driven investments.

The Department of Education during the first Trump administration fined many campuses millions of dollars for not reporting these often quid pro quo gifts. If one wonders why hundreds of thousands of foreign students from dictatorial and often anti-American nations like China and Middle Eastern autocracies prove instrumental in growing anti-American and anti-Israel protests, then follow the money that funds professorships and programs sympathetic to these agendas.

The Bill of Rights and its later amendments apply to everyone everywhere in the United States. But these laws are especially operative on those entities that take federal government money and, by doing so, forfeit some of their operational autonomy.

Yet disruptions of invited lecturers who are conservative, pro-Israeli, pro-life, or who question biological males competing in female sports are commonplace on campus.

Usually, when an invited conservative federal judge, a Republican officeholder, a traditionalist activist, or a professor deemed not conservative is shouted down, or the lecture hall is swarmed with disruptive and sometimes violent student protestors, campus administrators issue pro forma stern statements about “not tolerating violations of free speech.”

And then, they do nothing.

Most campus officials either empathize with the spirit or the ideology of the disrupters. Or they are far more afraid of their own radical professors and students than they are of the federal government cutting off their funding for refusing to guarantee First Amendment protections. Harvard arguing for federal funds on the principle of protecting the First Amendment is adding insult to the serial injury it has done to free speech.

More cynically, most campus administrators assume that if conservative pro-life students ever swarmed a pro-abortion lecturer, or Jewish students ransacked a Middle East Studies classroom or chased and then trapped foreign students in a library, then they would likely be summarily expelled. Most naturally assume that universities’ selective timidity and laxity are ideologically and politically driven.

There is no guarantee of due process on campus, as understood under the Bill of Rights. Students or faculty who are accused of particular hot-button “crimes,” such as sexual harassment or “hate speech,” are often denied the right to know their accusers or to have an open hearing with legal counsel before a disinterested panel of judges.

The wronged have little redress of grievance except to use the public court system to intervene to force the university to follow the law.

The best-kept secret of our marquee universities is a radical fall-off in standards as once defined by their own, once much ballyhooed, tough requirements. Our best universities customarily now ensure that 70-80 percent of students in their classes receive A’s.

Prestigious campuses, like Harvard and Stanford, have recently introduced remedial math classes. Privately, the supposedly most demanding campuses know that their prior non-meritocratic admissions have resulted in thousands of students who enter college without the high-school preparation necessary to meet their own past traditional university requirements.

Conservative, Jewish, and religious families now doubt whether their offspring would be treated equitably or would receive a first-rate education commensurate with the four-year total $400,000 cost, or are even now safe.

When pressed, universities usually point to their professional and graduate schools in medicine, engineering, math, science, and business as integral to American prosperity. True, they are. But to the degree they are, it is likely because they have either resisted university orthodoxy or were never as politicized as the social sciences and humanities, or are already being weaponized, albeit more slowly.

If universities were smart, they would accept federal conditions to follow the law and protect the safety and interests of their own students.

That way, they would restore their academic rigor and reputations, regain public support, and enhance meritocracy, the key to their former excellence. But even if their officials are either too partisan or timid to change, they could always publicly report to their radical faculties and students that they were “forced” to comply with conditions that they might privately accept were certainly in their own interests.

Otherwise, at the present rate, employers, parents, and the public will make the necessary adjustments, and the brands once deemed the gold standard and prestigious will become mere dross.

[nostalgebraist]

how did you first approach learning how machine learning works? was there a class you took or are you self taught?

If you want to learn ML from scratch, I'm probably not the best person to ask this. Especially if you're young. (I'm 34.)

In my case it was a complicated mixture of "took a class" and "learned on the job" and "self-taught."

I did a data science boot camp in 2016 to get ready for industry jobs in that area, and I learned some of the fundamentals there.

Later, after I got a job, the job made me a lot better at software engineering -- for ML and in general -- than I was before.

The ML field has evolved dramatically since 2016, and I've followed that evolution mostly on my own through self-study (reading papers, talking to ML researchers) and hobby work (Frank).

But also, before all of this, I had done many years of academic work in semi-related technical subjects (physics/math). And that made ML much easier to pick up than it would otherwise have been.

[dancerfelix]

Thoughts on the 'scientific theory ' things in general, as a physicist:

1. It is important to be skeptical of science as a thing to be aimed for. Science is not objective, it is generally a pretty specific set of methodologies viewed as correct within 'western' thought (not that others don't follow some objective practices of learning about the world, or even use western science, but that the canonized Science delegitimizes non western practices). Sometimes it feels like social sciences and humanities fields try to emulate science not because these methods are actually useful, but because stem is taken more seriously. I think this tends to be quite bad. It feels like an admission that actually things that cannot be directly quantified within Science are less important, which I think is pretty awful actually. Philosophy and art are still lovely and important even if they cannot be 'objective'.

2. Ignoring the flaws with science- it's really hard to fulfil the requirements for useful experimentation when it comes to people, and especially on the massive scale of Society™. We can't really run 10 Cuban revolutions with controlled variables and independent variables to figure out if we could have had the same revolution with black or indigenous or female or black+ female Castro equivalent or something. We can't know if him being a more explicit communist at the time of the revolution would have changed anything. We can't even definitely prove that the revolution wouldn't have been more successful if he had been a vocal capitalist instead. We can sometimes run trial runs of policy, ie Finland's UBI experiment. But we really cannot meaningfully test or experiment within the context of broader social theory.

3. Obviously we can make evidenced claims and extrapolations with the 'data' available to us. I'm not going to deny that, going back to Cuba, Cuba is better off than most other Caribbean nations, and we could make a solid case for communism contributing to that. But there's a lot of guessing involved in ways that are a bit incompatible with Science™. Part of why I think social sciences are softer sciences is because they do rely on a lot more personal interpretation and parsing through situations with a lot of entirely uncontrollable variables to try to eke out a coherent argument. The data is limited (can't exactly redo the cuban revolution at will to see if x changes y), the information on the data is limited (biased sources, can't repeat things to make sure x is better documented, much harder to have things translated, lost languages, different perspectives highlighted). These are actually challenges that physics gives very few solutions to, and I would go truly insane trying to learn anything about the world in those conditions. Social sciences have a lot of tools to deal with this (still bad at not projecting global northern bullshit onto global south but still), and while there are 'hard science' things I don't know (couldn't tell you what chemists are up to lol), the fundamental structures for processing and obtaining data remain pretty consistent across stem but not so in say, anthropology, or economic studies. Maybe theoretical math and theoretical physics are a little closer, they spend more time guessing, but even then, it's a lot easier for them to isolate things.

4. I do think you can do meaningful analysis of social systems and make theories from that. Materialism is useful even if it's not "science". If you are taking information about observable reality, discussing it in a grounded way, you can spit out analysis and projections that are useful. I don't think so called soft sciences / theory / whatever term you use for 'trying to understand Society™" is just wand waving magic or just people spouting bullshit (that'd be psychology). I also think a lot of so called science, especially when it comes to stuff with people, suffers the experimentation issue to some extent + medicine especially is built on shoddy foundations.

5. Some of this is just going to depend on how one defines science. I define science vaguely with the "experimentation and analysis" definition. This is why I struggle to say a field that mostly cannot experiment is probably not "science". But if we want to change how we define science, or move towards towards something that better includes 'non academic' knowledges, or even abolish the current scientific systems and replace them with something free of the historical baggage of Science™ with more broadly inclusive understandings of knowledge acquisition, that would be cool.

Political theory is actually not comparable to math or physics

It is, actually - the unscientific approach to human society and history taken by bourgeois academia is necessitated by any real extension of scientific analysis to the field of human society revealing fairly plainly the basis of bourgeois society on the exploitation of the proletariat; the further notion that human society and history are simply inexplicable by science, driven instead by great men and driving ideas, is the ideological justification within liberal enlightenment philosophy for this unscientific approach. What makes human society above the purview of science - the Soul?

[weedoccultadvice]

ALTERNATE UNIVERSE MATH IS BULLSHIT

Now that I have your attention.

I tried writing some alternate universe math. It's not even "future math" as such, it's from an alternate past or near-present where historical divergence meant they got to explore nuclear science differently.

(To put it stupidly, WWII set us up the bomb. Without military motivation, nuclear would have bent towards power generation instead of weaponization, or a number of avenues we've never dreamed of. Disasters could have been avoided in a nuclear community guided more by science and safety than by US defense contractor budgets.)

AND THAT'S COOL. But their math still sucks.

I'll explain.

You see that math up there? To us, it's bullshit. And to me especially it is because I've been staring at real equations for real stuff in my waking hours to be able to recognize the math. It doesn't matter. The math is never going to match. And by that i mean, there are symbols up there we don't have. They have a different Greek alphabet. Or maybe it's not even Greek! It might sound strange but i think the 2 isn't a number in their language, it's used like Greek letters are in our math. It looked strange, like it was very pronounced with serifs.

There's these circle things on the side of the first equation in big brackets. Apparently they use those for something, to indicate something in complex equations with multiple parts, so you'll know how to read them. But i don't know how to read those symbols and what the order of operations is. They use so many special symbols it overloaded me to write them at times and i just scrawled out an approximation (which in graphic design is called "greeking" lol).

Anyway so there's not a lot of constants between universes. Imagine a universe where humans have six fingers on each hand? A lot of the math is gonna be base twelve. Imagine the fundamental differencesin understanding we don't even know to think about or ask about? So yeah, the math is hard on first skim. I'm not sure if I'll find reusable math "out there" because their alphabets and math ARE DIFFERENT.

Heck just in case you've never seen it, try learning math or science in another language. I've been researching divergent scientific approaches in Soviet Russia to psychic research and nuclear engineering. What i found is that the Russian periodic table of elements was sometimes vertical instead of the horizontal orientation we are familiar with. It had to do with them following diverging models, and that happened in many places, to the degree that collaborating across the Iron Curtain meant you'd run into some VERY radical seeming ideas from your starting perspective.

That's just differences confined to our own reality. It magnifies A LOT across realities. It doesn't make collaboration impossible, but it does mean applying a different sort of creative problem solving. Which is why i think dreams are coming into play so much. They bring in the magic fairy dust by default.

More soon!

[reverieblue98]

How to Write a Hero: Dan Harmon Story Circle

Dan Harmon, a producer and writer, came up with this formula for writing a hero’s story. This post will take a good look at it, and break down into easier pieces to digest. 

To better explain this style of writing, I’m going to use Spider Man’s backstory, because he’s the perfect example of a hero! I’ll explain what the step involves, then compare it to Peter Parker’s origin story. There are eight steps to Harmon’s circle, so let’s get started!

1: You

The first step is very easy! Establish your character, and the world’s status quo. You can introduce what relationships they have, what job they have, etc. In Peter Parker’s case, he is a high school student in NYC who loves everything science and math. Very simple, but very important! Get all important character or world building pieces out now.

2: Need

When you see need, most authors will think of the things that drives their main character to do whatever it is they need to do. However, in this style of storytelling, the need doesn’t have to be big so long as it paves the way for a bigger problem or need. 

In Peter’s story, once he got his powers, he wanted to test them out in a fighting ring. Not a big need, but it creates something bigger...

3: GO!

In this step, your hero will set out to fulfill their need! Outline what the hero must do, and why it is important that they do it. 

In his origin story, Peter goes and fights in the ring, testing his amazing abilities. I want to point out that your step three will look different than Peter’s step three, because his is just an origin story. There’s not a whole lot of detail, but if your whole book is about the hero’s journey, yours will probably end up longer. (which is expected!)

4: Search

Here’s the part where you show the reader that the path isn’t as straightforward as it seems. Create some roadblocks or problems, anything that prevents your hero from getting what they need. 

In Peter’s case, this is where he is asked to stop a thief, which he does not. This creates the horrible event of his uncle dying. This is the big problem, the one that will change the hero permanently. 

5: Find

Now, the hero will find what they were looking for in step two, but not how they wanted to. This is where your main problem breaks down into a ton of different ones, all stopping the hero from getting what they need. 

In Peter’s story, this is when he realizes what his powers could actually do. That’s what he was intending to find out in step two, but not like this. This problem should be devastating to the hero. It can be introduced as early as step four, established in step five, and even carry on to step six if you want. So long as it forever changes the hero. It must be big!

6: Take

Now your hero has what they originally wanted, and they need to take it. But, it won’t come without a price. The hero will realize what they need to do to fix the problem introduced in step five, and it will require sacrifice. Peter realized that there were millions of people who had loved ones die to murderers as well, and knew he wanted to avenge all of them. In doing so, he could possibly be sacrificing his life. The stakes are higher and the problem is bigger, so the reward for the hero (and reader) will be sweeter. Be sure to show just how difficult solving this problem will be!

7: Return

Now, the hero is beginning to return to the start. The calm before the storm, if you will. They have been changed fundamentally by the events of step five and six, and so they have a new need/problem that needs to be solved. For Peter, this step was realizing his new need of protecting NYC. This is a very important step in setting up a good ending, or paving the way for a series. 

Your hero needs to be a changed person, with their new goal engraved in their mind. The new goal they have should be fueled by the devastating event that happened to them. The reader should understand why the hero needs to do this, and want them to get a happy ending.

8: Change 

This step is also known as the final showdown. In this step, the hero uses everything they learned to solve the problem/fulfill the need. Peter fights the criminals who killed his uncle, and promises to protect people from this happening to them. 

The ending is sweet and makes the reader proud, because they could see how difficult it was for the hero to get there. That’s how stories that use this format should end: The reader should feel happy for the hero, because they deserved it! They went through hell, and made it out better and stronger. (This is where the circle would start again, especially if you plan to make a series out of the story.)

Whew, that was long! This plot outline really revolves around pain motivating the hero. Maybe not so good for a happy-go-lucky character, but perfect for your dark and brooding heroes. If you have any questions about Dan Harmon’s Story Circle that I didn’t address here, don’t be afraid to ask! My dms are always open. Happy writing!

-RB

[mmmleckerlecker]

I was reading the questions you've answered, and I'm curious now: you said that the co-existence between preds and prey is very recently. So I was thinking the HP world from years ago, when pred could snatch up whoever prey they wanted... How was the society in that time? How did they live? (Headcanon: prey lived underground?) Did the preds have no qualms in consuming whoever they could find? (prey children/teens or the elderly, for example?)... The harmony was founded by a prey or pred? (1/2)

What was the reason for the preds to make the jump from consuming indiscriminately to the public/private contracted prey? (another headcanon: preykind severely disminishing in numbers?) I find your worldbuilding so enchanting, I'm sorry for the avalanche of questions. You're awesome! (2/2)

AHHHH YES!!! THE QUESTION I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR!!! No need to apologize!!! I have considered making a post about stuff like this for awhile now but I’m always like “do people REALLY wanna hear all that?” But now i have the perfect excuse. Thank you, anon! You’re awesome too!! (WARNING this kinda turned into a chapter length read. So I hope y’all like to read history about fictional worlds.)

Okay so. This is all stuff I’ve sorta kept in my head and have built upon when I’ve had ideas, so sorry if there are some gaps currently haha.

So I imagine preds and prey started trying to “make peace” about five centuries ago but didn’t start living in true “harmony” until about two hundred years ago. And I use the term “harmony” loosely because clearly there’s still a lot of infighting happening. Before that, the preds and prey lived in two entirely separate cultures. The prey lived in larger, more stationary groups while the preds lived in much smaller, more nomadic groups. They also DEFINITELY didn’t speak the same language.

So for preds, the groups they would live in were more like traveling pods that consisted of maybe 1-3 families living/working together. Having groups of preds getting too large was… not sustainable. It would create too much competition for food. So each group would usually give other groups of preds a wide berth. Granted there were definitely still spats for territory, especially if said territory had a good supply of prey available.

Prey, much like in modern times, were never really the preds’ main food source, however. Preds would still hunt and gather like normal. It would usually take some organizing to get a raid together on a prey village (or a pred could just get lucky and stumble across one that wandered off alone). Consuming prey all the time was just too much effort. They weren’t a practical food source nor a completely sustainable one if they were over-predated. Also! Keep in mind, the more a pred consumes, the more their body acclimates to handling such a large meal. It would be better for the preds to consume every once in awhile and have their prey take longer to digest (hence, keeping them fueled longer) than to consume ALL THE TIME and risk addiction. I think consuming would probably become more regular in the cold months too, when it was harder for preds to find other food sources.

As for WHO the preds would consume? Definitely adults would make for the best meals. Children? Well, I imagine prey would be very protective of their children, first of all, making them difficult to obtain. But also they would just make… not as filling meals? Also prey children are mostly the same size as pred children so there might be that little hesitation there on the pred’s end as they’re reminded of their own kind. I guess if the pred is desperate? There’s always gonna be a time and place for special circumstances. As for the elderly… I imagine they also live in places that are harder for preds to get to. I also think if a prey managed to live that long, they would have a trick or two up their sleeve. But like I said, there’s always a possibility for things to happen.

Now for how prey live…. Like I said, they live in larger groups. There is safety in numbers, after all. These groups were basically villages, sometimes even cities where prey could really know their territory and set up defenses against any invading preds. (An underground dwelling is really cool idea tho! I also believe that prey evolved to be able to fold themselves up and be comfortable/feel safe in tight spaces that preds could never reach them in, so prey living in like a cave system might actually work really well!) Like it’s been stated in the story, prey tend to have a lot more children than preds for “just in case.” This could cause their towns to become rather large and populous sometimes.

Prey, also unlike preds, usually tried to keep in contact with neighboring towns/villages/cities. This was one of the key factors for what made it possible for the shift to both sides living in harmony to happen. Since the prey lived in settlements and kept in contact with other prey settlements, it allowed for a certain development of culture as well as the sharing and recording of knowledge that preds… just didn’t have. Prey were able to develop things like farming and running water. They could study math and science and share their knowledge in libraries and schools. They were really on their way to becoming an advanced society, they just had one big (both figurative and literal) problem holding them back. They constantly had preds attacking and killing off their people.

Despite their efforts to fight them off, the prey just weren’t winning. So they decided, if a war against preds wasn’t going to get them anywhere, then why not make peace? The first step for this was the prey learning the preds’ language. This was… dangerous, of course. But it was done enough that the prey were able to open conversation with preds. Just this move alone caused a huge shift between both sides. What are you supposed to do when your food, which for centuries has only babbled nonsense at you before you swallowed it down, suddenly starts speaking to you like an equal? It certainly gave preds pause, but not enough to stop consuming. Not that the prey didn’t expect this. They approached the preds with more than just a common language. Their first big move was offering them food. And not just any food, but GOOD FOOD. Cooked food, decadent food, spiced foods, foods that preds didn’t have the resources (nor the patience) to prepare.

Sharing food took… probably a little more effort than one might expect. Prey and preds view food fundamentally different. To prey, it’s sustenance but also something to enjoy and connect with. To preds, it’s simply something to stop hunger. There was a sort of learning curve for preds to actually learn to ENJOY food for its flavor, but once they got it… OH BOY!!! A door was opened! Because despite LIKING prey food, the preds weren’t always so good at preparing it, so it gave the prey something they could exchange for safety. (This is also something that persists into modern times. Preds are still often stereotyped as not having very refined palates and not being very good at preparing food. This is referenced a little in Heart Pangs itself as well as the one-shot I posted last week!) Once the food trade became established, it opened up relations enough to exchange other things!

The prey shared would they could with the preds in exchange for their own survival. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. Sometimes it SEEMED to work but then the preds turned on them and things went downhill very quickly. But the prey had the advantage of sheer numbers and determination on their side (that and if they didn’t keep pushing they would literally be eaten alive). It took generations of negotiations, but the preds and prey eventually came to a sort of truce, though consuming never stopped entirely.

The preds weren’t stupid, they saw the prey had a lot of good stuff to offer them. At first they took what they needed and went their separate ways, but as they gained more trust from the prey, the preds encroached more and more into their territories until both sides were more or less neighbors. There were some advantages to this. If both sides cooperated enough, they were able to make further advances as civilized societies. But there were also disadvantages… like the fact that the preds were always bigger and the prey were always making sure not to anger them so it became very easy for the preds to take whatever they wanted and leave the prey with less than they deserved.

The prey even began to lose their own language as most of the preds couldn’t be bothered to learn the prey’s language (although a lot of prey terms for food and science stuck around). The preds stopped being the enemy who lived outside the prey’s walls and suddenly became the bully who lived next door. Yes, technically the prey were a little safer than before, but the advantages they once held over the preds were slipping away as the preds claimed more and more of what the prey had until the preds were able to start developing their OWN advantages.

For a long time, the preds and prey operated as two different societies that lived in one space, meaning each group had their own leaders and their own laws. But as things began getting more and more strained between each side (as they tend to do when two natural enemies live side-by-side), the prey (once more) tried to make peace. They made the bold move of reaching out to the pred leaders in an attempt to work together and function as a singular society (although both sides more or less continued to live as two societies, just under the rule of one government). The preds were surprisingly open to this change, which was a relief to the prey… at first. But then it became clear that this was mostly just a power grab for the preds to acquire more status and wealth and power amongst the prey.

Besides the fact that a lot of prey were falling into poverty because of this, the most glaring issue was that the “unification” had made it even easier for a lot of preds to break the peace and consume prey with barely any consequences. This caused a lot of prey to flee and seek out safer, more remote places to live. Eventually it got to the point where the prey leaders threatened to break away from pred society completely. The preds didn’t like this, though, as they’d gotten very used to having prey within easy reach. They also knew that losing half the people in their society would cause a lot of problems in terms of keeping everything running smoothly. However, the preds very much did not want to give up consuming entirely. It was in their nature after all, they argued.

So after A LOT of negotiations, both sides came to a compromise. The preds would actually start enforcing consuming as something illegal UNLESS the prey being consumed had agreed to it beforehand. Obviously the prey leaders couldn’t see any prey ever AGREEING to being consumed, so they settled on the compromise thinking that was the end of it. This was the true beginning of the “harmony” between preds and prey, but of course, the preds always have something up their sleeves.

Rich preds began offering up money and food and shelter to all those desperate prey in poverty. Those prey could get everything they could ever want for, the only payment was their lives ending in said pred’s gut (after a specified amount of time). These ventures started slow, but once they started to catch on, BOY DID THEY CATCH ON. The desperate prey began hearing about certain preds who were practically giving away wealth, all it took was a signature written in (figurative) blood. Meanwhile preds began hearing about other preds who had found a loophole in the consuming law and wanted in on the action. Like any good entrepreneur, the preds turned their contracts into a business and started selling them to other preds.

The prey leaders, of course, despised this, but what could they do? It all aligned with the compromise they had made. The only thing they could do was stand by and help come up with regulations for this new practice. So they did. Over the decades, the contracting businesses grew to what they are today (large corporate monsters… although the smaller, more private contracts still exist) as well as became the core to keeping the peace. Even the government itself offers contracting services now.

Society has shifted considerably in the years since harmony was reached. The two sides have mostly learned to live with each other. Prey have fought viciously to be treated as equals while a lot of preds go their whole lives without consuming (particularly fatally) even once. And, as you know, the development of neutralizers allowed preds to experience consuming without having to hurt anyone. A lot of progress has been made, but a lot of progress still needs to happen.

And I think that pretty much catches us up to the setting of Heart Pangs (whew)! I keep thinking it would be really cool to write a story that takes places in an earlier time period to further explore how different the relations between preds and prey would be, but I have yet to come up with a plot haha. Maybe someday. I’m sure an idea will come to me at a proper time. Anydays, thank you for your interest! It was really nice to be able to (finally) type all this up somewhere!!

[fursasaida]

do you have sources or opinions about the uh. development of the idea of the 'veil between the worlds' stuff and how it relates to how we understand ... space and place? question brought to you by "i just read some fantasy fiction that royally hacked me off"

lmao did you know one of my big “i don’t work on this but i lowkey develop expertise in it as a hobby” things is fairy tales and folklore

Anyway, I don’t know very much about the history of the “veil” thing, but I am given to understand it originated with the Victorians. Google Scholar has been unforthcoming on this point, so while I do not have sources, I do have opinions! My opinions are these:

As previously discussed, most people in most places were not, until recently, of the opinion that the world is made of space and space is the universal extensive backdrop, the dimension in which things happen. Moreover, even if we more or less think the world is made of space semiconsciously and in our uses of language, it's not really how most people think most of the time, even in contexts where space in this sense (as opposed to "room") has been invented/internalized. Instead, the knowledge of the world was and is structured much more around places, routes, and regions (which are just a kind of place distinguished by being part of a larger whole). Places have insides and outsides. They are distinct from one another. (Although, as with regions, they can also nest or overlap; this isn't state territory or administrative boundaries we're talking about. Those are spatial artifacts.) Therefore, in a spaceless world, there is nothing contradictory about believing that there are, simply, places where magic is stronger or where the gods dwell or where time behaves differently, and so forth. Just because things aren't like that here means nothing about whether they're like that there. To be clear: I am not saying people in the past (or who practice such traditions today) had or have no sense of a visible/invisible, mundane/extraordinary, or material/immaterial divide. That, I think, is pretty truly universal, and simply a product of human cognition. We have myths in many cultures about a deep past when knowledge (or ignorance) was perfect and the world was immediate, young, more alive, partly because, for whatever reason, the way we experience reality includes the sense that there are some gaps in it, or a little too much room. ("A mystical experience" is basically--and across many traditions--an experience of the full immediacy we normally don't have.) However, places like Olympus or Tir-na-Nog or the realm of Ereshkigal are, still, places. You may not think you will find yourself in Hades or the land of the ancestors if you fall down a well,* but you can still think it is possible for someone to go there in a non-metaphorical sense. They may need extra steps or divine/magical assistance, but going is still going. You know, like people do in the stories.  And at the same time you can very easily accept that some extraordinary kinds of creatures or spirits really are here in this realm, and that their personalities and behaviors differ from place to place (animism, genius loci, some types of ancestor-honoring practices, etc).

(*Or in other words: to think you will end up in Hades if you fall down a well is actually to think about it spatially, or indeed geologically, as simply being what is found at a certain distance down. Why should Hades/Hell/etc, as a place, be under this well, all wells, any wells, just because it's under the Earth? These places have defined entrances, in the same way that you can walk up to a city wall as much as you like and this means nothing about whether you’ll get in if there’s no gate there.)

So I do think plenty of archaeologists, anthropologists, folklorists, etc. who study this kind of thing and look at the iconography or narratives as "obviously" portraying distinct realms in the sense of dimensions are unwittingly applying their commonsense, spatial sensibility to something that is much more ambiguous--because almost none of them have thought seriously about place as anything other than a location in space. They see a line or a boundary drawn and assume this means two existential dimensions, rather than two places. What now follows is basically the speculative explanation for how we got into this situation. It is based on a lot of things I know for sure, insofar as "for sure" can be known re: intellectual history; but I have not demonstrated a direct link, only surmised it. In Europe--more particularly, to my knowledge, in England, France, and Germany--space in our current sense really starts to get cemented in the 17th century. Notably, at the same time, people suddenly get interested in the scientific question of "the figure of the earth." It had long been known the Earth was round, of course, but suddenly it mattered to people what its precise shape could be. Is it a perfect sphere? An ellipsoid? What kind? What is the precise length of a degree of longitude? Is the Earth longer than it is wide or vice versa? This was the first time that intellectuals in these countries started seriously trying to reconcile the Biblical narrative of the Earth's formation with ~Science. They cared about this for some obvious reasons, like figuring out whether Newton or Descartes was right about the physics of motion, and testing Newton's gravitational theory; and there were practical reasons as well (the modern science of geodesy, which is what you need to make "accurate" maps for consolidating your state and conquering places, and to, say, build a railway, gets born as part of this). But they cared about it for another reason too. Namely: after the Thirty Years' War, there was a real sense of dislocation in Western Europe. This dislocation was religious, political, and social all at once. There was thus a serious need to realign political and social order with the cosmic order, and the Enlightenment and Scientific Revolution are significantly responses to this. Empirical knowledge (especially math) was to be the universal language that would allow people to communicate across differences rather than engaging in bloody warfare (they were quite explicit about this, especially Leibnitz, but if you know to look for it you can read it in Hobbes, Locke, Newton, Descartes...there was a reason they all suddenly got obsessed with reason), and the "Quest for the Figure of the Earth" was part of that. So was the emergence of geology a bit later, as the history of the earth becomes increasingly scientific rather than Biblical; the questions that created geology came out of these initial struggles to conceive of the Earth as a "natural" artifact to be known by science. This matters here because it means a redefinition of what the Earth is and what can happen there that is not just a matter of scientific debate but is fundamentally connected to social and political understandings of the world. In other words, it redefines what “the Earth” is as a place and in its cosmic place. One consequence of the new rational empiricism as a reaction to a war understood as being caused by religious ontological commitments and enthusiasms was a transformation in what counted as real. On the one hand, things that under the old Aristotelian paradigm were treated as real but imperceptible and therefore impossible to study (like magnetism) became newly study-able. In the Newtonian, empirical paradigm, you don't have to be able to say what something is or even what physical qualities it has; only to demonstrate its reliable and reproducible effects. On the other, things not observable in these terms become defined as unreal. At the same time, the shift from an Aristotelian to a Newtonian science is itself, precisely, a shift from a world explained by regions to a world explained by space. "Regions" here means places, but it also means directions like up and down. Aristotelian physics held that substances behaved in certain ways (like smoke rising and rocks falling) because it was in their essential nature to belong in different places. In other words, different areas of the world, as well as different substances, were ontologically different in real ways that had real effects. In modern empiricism, this is not at all the case. The laws of how things behave are universal laws. They are not about belonging, difference, and places/directions that have their own meanings and hierarchy; they are about forces interacting contingently. It's exactly Newton who formulates the idea of "absolute space" as an infinite and homogeneous, but insensible (like magnetism) extent over which things are distributed. Forces’ specific interactions may be locally different, but the forces are translocal and indeed universal, because they happen in the single homogeneous substrate that is space. So all of this percolates through various levels of society and fields of knowledge through the 18th century and into the 19th (and up to today). One effect is the redefinition of ghosts, fairies, elves, and so on as not real. It takes a very long time for this news to really reach everybody, though; I've read accounts of rural peasants in the British Isles and Ireland who still fully believed and practiced fairy lore into the 20th century. You also see some wobbles, like the famous hoax involving fairies and Yeats, in part because new technologies are making new things observable and therefore potentially “real” in the Newtonian terms. Thus Spiritualism, for example, was in many ways a practice of reliably producing observable effects of things that are not themselves observable; its attempt at credibility was pursued in Newtonian terms.

At the same time, after initial big achievements in geodesy, the figure of the earth keeps getting refined, details filled in, and so on. The same thing happens to the underground with geology. It similarly takes a while for this to really settle in; you have older formats like isolaria and cosmographic maps overlapping with properly spatial, cartographic mapping. (An isolarium is a world atlas that doesn't try to put all the pieces together but treats every landmass individually as an island. The islands tend to get filled in with what we would now consider fantastical stuff because the mapping enterprise, with isolaria, was all about places and their different characters; things did not have to be consistent, there was no homogeneous substrate. That fantastical stuff is part of what's called "cosmography.") So by the time you have people studying folklore in the 19th century, in these same countries and others, as part of nationalist projects and what have you, these educated elite types are likely to have accepted the following. 1) We know the shape and nature of the earth--not in every particular, but we know that physical conditions are basically the same everywhere--and 2) what is empirically unobservable is not real; and 3) space is a dimension, it is homogeneous, it is the dimension in which things that exist exist. (Plato is howling somewhere.) To be clear, #1 especially matters here because it means the idea that there might be places where things behave/occur abnormally gets ruled out. Long before the maps had actually been filled in, there were "no blank spaces" on them anymore. (Insofar as they ever did get filled in, that still hadn't happened by the turn of the 20th century. I actually have a personal theory about where the blanks are now, but that's a whole other digression.) Therefore, if you want to collect and make a fuss over stories about unreal beings and events occurring in places where the universal laws of physics and histories of geology do not seem to obtain, you cannot fit these beings, events, and settings into the world in which you understand yourself to live. There is quite literally nowhere to put them. They cannot exist in a physical, geodetic, geologic world of space; they cannot coexist with its elements. Let us now note that in the 19th century we also get the Spiritualist movement, which conjures up lots of ghosts and puts them behind a Veil. Ghosts in this framework are real, but they cannot be here. They can visit, but only by "piercing the veil." I therefore further surmise that, likely without being fully conscious or intentional about it, these folklorists and such had to assume that when people talk about a fairy court, etc., they are talking about another dimension, one different from the spatial dimension that we live in. (This is the same assumption the experts I was dumping on at the beginning make; this is what I mean about a commonsense spatial sensibility.) The language of "the veil" may well be influenced by Spiritualism, or may not; I think the "thin places" and "times when the veil is thinnest" stuff is even more recent than the Victorians, like mid-20th century. But what matters more IMO is that the two moves--what happens to ghosts in Spiritualism and what happens to fairies etc. in folklore--are parallel. They both get kicked out of here, they get made not part of "the world." The world is one place, and what is "not real" has no place in it. So in order to talk about interacting with those things that have no place here in the world, it becomes natural, maybe inevitable, to talk about what separates them from us. You need a barrier to explain why something that exists (if you believe it does) is not visible and testable all the time and everywhere, or to make sense of how other people could believe such a thing exists.

There is a very deep irony to all this, though. In making the world a single place with a single set of conditions and a single set of possibilities for what can happen and what can exist, right, we end up creating this “other realm” where all the other stuff is. In physics there is talk of a “quantum realm” exactly because the conditions, behaviors, objects, and so forth found there seem to behave differently from the “classical realm” of our experience. But "realm” is a very unstable and ambiguous word, not clearly spatial or placial. The irony is that what we have here is, still, in fact a discourse about two places. We just don’t even know that, because our formal thinking has become so spatialized. Thus the nature of the barrier between the two or how it could be possible for conditions to be so different in the “other realm” remains fundamentally mysterious--let alone what “crossing over” could possibly entail. Hence a metaphor like “the veil” becomes important and necessary not just to generate another place to put these unreal things, and not just to explain why these unreal things are not here in the real world/place, but also to paper over the basic absurdity of the whole premise. We have come full circle in that we are still basically talking about there being other places where things are different, but we have made it much more mysterious and confusing than it was (I believe) when it was just accepted that the world contains many places where things may be different.

[truffledmadness]

Millenial Trad Politics: A Modest Proposal

So, based on this post and after the go-ahead from @funereal-disease, I’ve got a pet theory about the tendency of both the Millenial Hard Right AND the Millenial Hard Left to contain a strong undercurrent (and, in the case of the right, overcurrent) of trad social mores.

I don’t think it’s actually about politics at all.

Internet Millenial Leftists and the Internet Millenial Right seem to share quite a few commonalities, if you read between the lines. Specifically, in the demographics and personality quirks of some of their members. They all appear to have been raised by (or at least, in very close proximity to) what might be described as Whole Foods Liberalism--well-off, majority-white, neoliberal suburban American culture. Both the left and the right will imply that this is the dominant American (or even global!) culture. It’s not, not even remotely, but that you would ever make the mistake of thinking so suggests that you were raised in that culture, and that you were very, very sheltered within it. But this not only explains a lot of the rhetoric, but also the weird tendency to imply that sexism and particularly racism are things that one learns about in college courses (and the deeper implication that everyone goes to college).

The sheltered perspective of this brings in the second commonality: shelteredness more generally. Again, a lot of this is reading between the lines, but the Internet Millenial Right is often quite famous for being a space where socially alienated young white men come because they feel starved of community, and I’ve noticed similar tendencies on some of the left, especially tankies. I think that this tendency is fundamentally inextricable with the trend towards affluent neoliberal upbringing. And inextricable with a third thing, that might be the most important: a certain amount of rebellion as an adolescent, as we switch from being parent-oriented to peer-oriented, can be a very important developmental milestone. And a HUGE number of millenials never really got to have that. This is not an original point, although while most will argue that this is because of parenting trends (”helicopter parents”) or blame social media in some nebulous way, I think there’s actually an overlooked economic aspect--in the 2000s, particularly post-GFC, a lot of the traditional “safe” ways for teenagers to slouch around and feel dangerous became too expensive for teenagers to actually do. Fast food, clothes, movies, etc., all got more expensive, while part-time job opportunities got scarcer, leaving a lot of the “traditional teenage experience” effectively out of the price range of actual teenagers.

So, what you’re left with is a bunch of people who feel that they were deprived of an adolescence, living in a culture that (VERY VERY WRONGLY, in my opinion) glorifies adolescence, and are looking for outlets for that. Now, there are healthy ways to explore that (gay male culture has long provided an outlet of this kind for people who were deprived of an adolescence because they were closeted at the time) or merely aesthetically unpleasant but basically harmless (see: the entirety of so-called “Instagram culture”). But there is a faction that’s interested not merely in adolescence, but in rebellion, specifically.

Enter politics. Now, a LOT of factors go into whether or not you end up on the left or right wing of this, but the Angry Trad thing seems to me to be fundamentally rooted in rebellion. When you’re raised by neoliberals, most “traditional” outlets for rebellion don’t actually feel like a departure from your native culture and its expectations. If your parents are aging hippies with a “Coexist” bumper sticker on their Prius, joining a weird band or doing some spiritual exploration through different faiths won’t shock them--they think that’s normal. Being trad, however, does feel legitimately shocking and rebellious. Especially if, on some level, it’s all completely theoretical.

Which brings me to my last point: none of these people have read a history book. And let me be clear, I am not actually faulting them for that, and I don’t think their ignorance is because they’re stupid--generally, they’re not. Since around the 1990s, with the advent of Common Core American education has undergone a major push to legitimize math and the hard sciences (and, to a lesser extent, “reading levels”) as the only legitimate subjects of study, while gutting the humanities, especially history and civics. While certain events are obvious and broad enough that collective understanding of them has survived, more or less, most hasn’t. This is why so many people think that feminism began and ended with the suffrage movement, and racism began with slavery and ended with the Civil Rights movement, and why they’re less likely to understand why these ideas are still important or relevant. The right then glosses this over by saying that women and minorities are inferior, and the left glosses it over by saying these are nebulous distractions from class struggle (never mind that issues of racism and sexism are often most immediate and pressing for people who are also struggling economically). But the root of this appears to be a genuine ignorance.

[eadazlesbian]

writing part 1: show, don’t tell

the fundamental rule of any writing is “show, don’t tell” -- i’m sure you have heard this a million times. but does anyone ever provide a helpful instruction guide for this? NO. lucky for you, your local idiot has decided to make one of these guides!

PART I: PRACTICAL ADVICE

immerse yourself in your character. make sure you are thinking like the character, talking like them, moving like them. the author no longer exists -- only the character does, so it makes it that much easier to put them down on paper. think of it as writing about yourself, except you... aren’t you

everyone has a very different thought process with particular hallmarks of that process. for example, i think in long and full sentences, but i also jump steps and connect dots in a way that seems out of the blue. you want to figure out how your character thinks, and then implement that thought process onto paper, with slight changes to fit that character’s personality

know what you’re doing. you need to know your character, their personality and motivation, and you need to weave this into your story seamlessly. you need to know where the story or scene is going and what emotion you want to create in the reader’s mind. this allows for a cleanly structured and well written story

the above also helps in choosing a good writing style. now when i say writing style i dont mean a personal style but the overall method of writing. so if you were writing a historical fiction or fantasy, you would do simple past and third person; less is more with this story type. it creates greater immersion and immersion is always the goal. but there is always an exception: sometimes you don’t want to immerse the reader in the character. you want them to feel as if they are outside looking in, to create that slowly-growing horror. in that case, you’d go for present tense third person. in conclusion to this overly long point, writing style is the greatest key for the effect you want to leave on a reader

tone is super important, especially for emotionally charged scenes. you can set the atmosphere with a colour scheme or an environment or a sentence style. it can either drive home how the character is feeling and make the reader feel the same, or set a contrast to make the reader curious. for example: “As the first rays of sun painted the room light yellow, they lingered on the tear tracks almost etched into his cheeks.” this sentence both shows us what’s going on (a new day, symbolic of hope, but character is upset) and excites us for more (why is the character sad on a happy day?).  “The sea battered against the rocks just the way her heart was battering against her ribcage, drumming a tattoo of fearful excitement there.” this sentence makes you ask what the character is gonna do. why is she near the sea? it also sets up tension (why is she fearfully excited, isn’t that contradictory?)

when writing, turn your brain off. you need to feel the story with your heart rather than see it with your mind. readers relate to human emotion and feeling the most -- would it be a fun book if we didn’t feel hollow when dobby died, or laugh out loud when fred and george pulled their pranks? (ftr i dont give a shit about hp but its the simplest example i can give) so yeah, feel first think later.

PART II: TECHNICAL ADVICE

try not to use filter words. words such as “felt”, “heard”, “realised” are like being told what the character is feeling/thinking/realising instead of letting the reader see it through character’s eyes. they filter the experience completely and make it bland. consider:  “She heard a sudden loud noise, which made her jump. Her heart rate slowly returned to normal as she realised the noise had come from outside.”  versus “A sudden loud noise made her jump. It had come from outside, she thought, as her heart rate slowly returned to normal.” the second is both more concise and far cleaner to read. you can actually feel your heart jump in your chest because you, at that point, are the unnamed woman.

watch out for crutch words. we all do this -- we overuse certain words. for me, that word is... ‘word’. this repetitiveness tends to stick out and ruin the feel of the story, but this is also what editors are for. so summary of this point: listen to your editor please. they know what they’re doing

LESS IS MORE!! overly long sentence that loses its thread in the middle? break it up or cut out some of the flowery language. to an extent it depends on the character and their thought process, but at some point you have to pick conciseness over pretty words. at all times it is most important that the reader understands what you’re going for. simple, to the point language is the best way to go (and by using this, you can create a much greater impact when you do use poetic words!)

adding on to the previous, don’t go for too much complicated real-world science and maths and fight choreography. break it down for your readers and let them come to understandings on their own. KISS - keep it simple, smartass

now this post is long enough already and i wanted to talk about a lot of other things but i guess i will do those in a part 2. hope this helped :D

[mr-entj]

hey mr entj! i’m an infp-t. i retake the test every year and i keep switching between isfp-t and infp-t. i don’t know what i should pursue. wanted to be a doctor since i was 6, i’m 17 now. currently doing a chemistry diploma, i was always interested in science. i’m total trash at math and science though. forte: languages, literature & visual art. i’ve done a lot of research on medicine. but maybe just i’m just in love with the idea of being a doctor? i don’t know what i want. please help me :/

[2/2]  i’m that INFP-T person! “I dislike work that’s monotonous, repetitive, and too focused on the little details. I dislike caretaking and looking after other people’s emotional needs. I dislike doing the same thing after I’ve mastered it, I get bored without progression and without variety.” what you said is somewhat like me! oh! i can’t process in the brain just with listening i zone out very easily...i have to do it or read it on my own to understand!

Remember that I’m not in the business of telling people what to do with their lives, I’m here to provide some insight so you can find your own way. With that said, three things about your question immediately jump out at me:

1. “i’ve done a lot of research on medicine. but maybe just i’m just in love with the idea of being a doctor?”

You may be idealistic but at least you know it. Idealism is dangerous because it creates an inaccurate and unrealistic picture of something or someone, it minimizes the negatives and emphasizes the positives which intuitives and especially INFPs are prone to doing. Get a healthy dose of empirical evidence and shadow a doctor, preferably not right now during a global pandemic, but once this is all over. Research is an excellent start but remember that when you research anything on the internet you are reading someone else’s interpretation. It’s helpful, but it’s not your personal interpretation. You won’t know if you’re in love with the idea of being a doctor until you understand what doctors do in their day-to-day lives. The idea of being a doctor is a fantasy, the action of being a doctor is a reality.

2. "i’m total trash at math and science though.”

Yes, you are absolute trash at math and science-- right now, but you won’t always be trash at math and science. This is a problematic way of thinking that goes beyond your current situation because it’s a static mindset. Intelligence isn’t static or fixed, it’s fluid, and you can get better at any subject with enough persistence and effort. Since you’re an Fi-dom, I’ll toss in some nuance in case you’re triggered by ExTJ sounding absolutes: not always, but barring something exceptional like a learning disability, you should be able to learn those subjects. If you can learn languages, literature, and visual art-- math and science should’t be an exception. Remember that the path to get what you want can be paved with things you don’t enjoy doing-- you must do them anyway. The goal outweighs the method.

3. Make sure you completely nail down the “why” part. Why do you want to become a doctor? If you want to become a doctor because it’s what you think society wants you to be and it’s what your parents are pushing you to be, then you have a higher chance of failure. If you want to become a doctor because providing life-saving services to vulnerable people in need is the best use of your time and energy, then you have a higher chance of success. As an INFP, the core reason for why you want to become a doctor and how that aligns with your values is fundamental to your success because it’ll get you through the rough times. It’ll make you more resilient to the bumps and bruises of the journey.

[exmcr-moved]

REALLY gets my goat when people choose math specifically to target when it comes to “things not being real”— like i know it’s an easy target. schools don’t teach it well, it’s put up on this pedistal of being a “smart person only” thing, it’s prioritized over literally every other subject save maybe science so there’s a huge pressure to invest in it when it’s taught terribly so it causes a lot of people to burn out, etc.

but there’s a part of me that’s like, alright. math isn’t some magical concept that people just simply Decided should be a thing one day. i mean, it is and it isn’t. because of course it had to start somewhere. but math exists in the world around you without having words to describe what’s happening. cuz that’s exactly what it is, describing. and i think this is the first issue with how math is taught: it’s taught abstractly. almost every other subject you can tie to a specific goal. when am i going to use this? why is this important? most other subjects can give you an answer. math, on the other hand, most people end up confounded. when am i going to use calculus? and i concede— probably never, but that’s not calculus’s fault. math, at it’s core, is an exploration of how things function. one thing i like about math is how the laws can’t actually be broken. like, yes, if you add two things together, you’re always going to have that sum of numbers. but that’s not because it was Spoken into Existence, We Agreed Those Were The Rules, and That Was That. no! it’s because we, as humans, looked with curiosity into the way the world functioned and said, oh, every time i increase this by some number, i have that number of things! if there were ever a case where that weren’t true, the law would adapt. it’s the same thing with science— the law of gravity can’t be broken, it was a law that describes a felt experience. if that experience were to change, so would the law, because the experience comes first.

it’s the same with almost everything in society. the rules we make up are only how we communicate what is already being felt. words, language, social structure, money, math, gender, all of that! they’re all collections of symbols to describe experiences to communicate. and they’re all constantly changing and adapting when society proposes new rules, or faces new situations to adapt to it.

the difference with math, i would say, is that lower level math (at least, in the way it’s taught), doesn’t change much at all. plus, it’s harder to feel that difference when it mostly occurs in specialized fields. especially since a lot of those changes happen over centuries, so, say, if it doesn’t change much in the 20 years you’ve been alive, then it must never change! but it does! people are researching math daily in the same way that people are experiencing new things daily, since math is just a specialized language to express experiences.

and at the same time, when math DOES change, there’s an uproar about how it’s supposed to be math! it’s supposed to be a fundamentally perfect and stable system, right? well, no, because again, there could be a new experience, a new way to express that. a change in language could mean a change in math, because they’re both based on expressions. so many comedians attack “new math”— while at the same time, on the opposite end, comedians make fun of “2+2 could equal fish for all i care, it could change on a dime because nothing in math matters!”

i think the most frustrating part is there is some validity to that. yes, you could redefine math that way, but you’re also redefining fish, and i know that’s a joke. but sometimes it’s disheartening, i guess. i’ll see maybe a rant on why words are just noises we choose to give meaning, which means none of it matters, but there’s some disconnect between this revelation and the revelation that We Could Just Change Math? the point is they’re social constructs! so of course they can have fluid interpretations. but that’s the beauty of it. math partially does just have meaning because we give it meaning, but we gave it that meaning born out of a drive and a curiosity to share our experiences. the same goes for words! and that’s a wonderful and beautiful thing to me, not something that’s meaningless. not something that calls for the uselessness of math. it calls for an admiration of the human experience, that nothing is too small for a human to care about, name, and share.

[halfofxerxes]

Housekeeping notes before the read more, this is going to be a headcanon post that goes into child exploitation, abuse in both adults and children, slavery, narcissism, and will likely include more than a few segments on sexual exploitation as a theme.

If you wanted to use any information in this post, please plot with me first. Hohenheim does not talk about this, and it is very rare for him to open up about any of this.

While most general catagories of abusive behaviour and descriptions will probably be present, I want to make it clear that if you're thinking about reading this and you're not 100% sure if you're ready, then maybe don't lol. I'm going to attempt to describe the mentality behind the acts, which I personally can find more disturbing than the acts themselves.

It takes a lot to normalize this kind of behaviour, and lack empathy to other living beings, especially other humans. This sort of thing does happen in real life and to real people. While Xerxes is a fictional place, the attitudes I am describing are very much based in reality and things that people have done and will continue to do.

'The true monster is man... And canablism is frowned on in New York' -Brain David Gilbert

Xerxes sucks. Okay bye.

Slavery in Xerxes comes from the idea that people must have some sort of function or that they are useless. Even free Xerxeans are encouraged to produce value, though it can be art, farming, food, science, maths, or other thoughts. They don't care much as long as the individual has a task they devote themselves to.

Children are routinely given up to be slaves for currency, especially when no one wants to take care of the child. Depending on how old the child is, they usually go into manual labor or jobs that require high level cognitive function rather than personal servitude as they are stronger and more equipped mentally to do tasks correctly. This also means that they have higher rates of buying themselves out of the system and becoming free again.

In some cases this ends up not being called slavery but enforced apprenticeship, but tbh it's still slavery. Just because it isn't rights systematically stripped from birth doesn't mean it isn't still awful. You'll still get whipped and starved. You're just probably gunna resent it more.

Unsurprisingly, a lot of people who would be uncomfortable with slavery are a lot more okay with sending their unwanted children to be apprenticed. Some people might even claim that because it isn't true slavery, it's fine and doesn't contribute to the problem (if they see it as a problem at all.)

It also means that those who have freed then are more likely to replace their masters and perpetuate the cycle. When Hohenheim proved himself as valuable to his master, he switched slave classes from chattel to servent which... Might not seem gr8 from an outside perspective, but until Van proved himself a component alchimest he stayed on this class.

Xerxes is affluent in the sense that it is comfortable and produces enough exess for the population to turn to leisurely activities. The demand the slaves fill are cheap labor and cheap sex, and as the population itself is providing the labor, most slaves that are bred are bred for the later.

Xerxes is home to extreme views, which includes a strong xenophobia. They understand the value of trade, Xerxes is also the oasis in the middle of the desert making it a part of the trade routes. However, they have an incredible ability to think of groups of people as 'other' than them, they do think of themselves as 'the master race' or the peak of humanity.

...They're really fucking inbred.

They are really into the idea that even their 'impure slaves' are better than the rest of the world and would rather have a slave that looks like them, especially one they're trying to get horny with, than someone who looks like a stranger.

It is a choice that is made deliberately and repeatedly to raise slave children for a singular task. The parents of these children are very rarely born slaves, and are usually people who were given to slavery young enough that they don't really know how to get a better life, but too old to manipulate into behaving how Xerxes likes them to.

Hohenheim's parents are odd in particular bc his father was privately owned and had a name not bc he was free at one point but because his family before him had a debt with the people who owned him. You know, making him something between a pet and a slave which-- by the way is also a thing that happens. Hohenheim vaguely knows about this, but his family line doesn't intrest him much, because Xerxes records are so fucked that if he wanted to track down the story he would literally have to go through business transactions rather than names of people and that kinda freaks him out tho he doesn't like to admit it.

His mother is something he doesn't like to think about because she very much was a sex slave and it makes him really sad to think about, even more than his dad does lol. Both his parents died in their 30s and though he as a child never thought this, it is the reason he projects 'middle aged' onto his 13/15 year-old self even tho he's. You know. 450.

He only found out about these records after Xerxes fell but between them and the people who actually knew his parents who live inside of him now... He gets strange when he thinks abt it. He has trouble conceptualizing the idea that people are okay with abusing other people despite having gone through the abuse and also having half of-- well you know.

Unlike Hoho who fundamentally believes that all living things have value, Xerxes common attitude is one of narcissism and disdain. Homeless? Hurt? Sick? Well have you tried not sucking? Have you tried improving yourself? Have you tried not being weak? It is more important for Xerxeans to protect the idea of Xerxes than it is to protect each other.

This isn't a headcanon either, in the manga there is literally a panel where Hoho is like >:/ gosh I hate the fact that rebel slaves are rebelling against Xerxes! Like Ho, baby, 1st of all that's the king killing his people, and 2nd you were literally a slave my dude you should know how much it sucks ok. But go off I guess. I get it Hoho, I used to be mormon we have bad takes as brainwashed kids.

It also means that both slaves and citizens are taught that there is value in loving the state, if you work within the system you will have your needs met, if you do not then you will be fed to the system. Xerxes is a cycle of canablism, even before the dwarf did his thing.

Xerxes becoming literally cannibalized into pure energy is literally what they have been doing to their own people since they became homogenous. I'd say they didn't deserve it, but yeah. They did.

Hohenheim has trouble thinking of it in these terms, the people in Xerxes don't think of themselves as evil, they don't think what they did was bad. Owning a slave wasn't a crime after all, it doesn't count if the child you hurt wasn't going to live long anyways. No one would actually Hurt a child that was Worth Something after all.

Wouldn't it be better for them to use slaves so that the Population would never have to be hurt by dark urges?

Even if they do grow up, then they'll be entertainment and decorations. It's not like a slave would ever be worth anything more than the money you pay for him.

Some Xerxeans are externally pissed about Hohenheim being alive.

A system cannot work unless people around to it consent and participate it. In my opinion, the fact that the opinion Hohenheim expresses in canon to the idea of a revolution is anger, says more than anything else. Once a society actively resists change that would result in more people experiencing happiness, that society is corrupt.

Like the Roman Empire collapsing under its own weight, Xerxes was doomed to extinction.

[hometuitioninchandigarh-blog]

Benefits of Home Tuition

Home Tuition in Chandigarh

The Private Home Tuition

We are going to discuss private home tuition and its benefits. These days, rivalry, as well as innovative headway, has changed the instruction situation of India today. Youth is presently expected to perform well to sparkle in their very own profession. A home tutor can go over anything that a student didn't comprehend at school.

Remember that you can likewise get an online guide as well as a home tutor. Big cities like Chandigarh, New Delhi, etc has more numbers of home tuition as compared to the small cities. For example, home tuition in Chandigarh.

Numerous individuals discover maths as trouble. So we also provide the best teacher for it. Other subjects are important too. So, you can generally get a specific material science guide, science coach, or science mentor, also. All things considered, a particular math coach can assist understudies with doing inconceivable things like really like maths. Henceforth, we trust that there is a developing requirement for private schooling. Private educational costs, basically home tuition bring along advantages in abundance to encourage quality instruction in the solace of your home. It guarantees the quality time for balanced association among understudies. We trust that watchful arranging and following an appropriately sorted out routine can enable a kid to soak up the best of both, removing the most extreme from the advantages of home coaching. Each understudy is unique, including their learning capacities. A few understudies can comprehend their exercise rapidly, while a few understudies need additional direction to examine viably. In this manner, home educational costs or private educational costs might be important so as to get quality instruction. A lot of guardians are as of now contracting the best guide for their youngsters to aid their investigations. Private coaching is ending up progressively famous, which is not really astonishing as it is especially successful in improving an understudy's scholastic evaluations as well as their common sense comprehension of a wide scope of subjects. There are numerous reasons why getting educational costs can have such a positive effect on an understudy's capacities. Here are some advantages of private education costs for understudies.

Here I talk about the best some advantages of returning home educational cost: Get educational cost whenever it might suit you

The incredibly preferred standpoint of home mentoring is the accommodation for the understudy. Instruction comes at your entryway, with no compelling reason to invest profitable energy going to training focuses. With home mentoring, understudies can learn at their own solace. It gives you the adaptability to choose your favoured days and time for setting educational costs. Understudies can likewise talk about with their mentor in regards to the educational cost spot, time and days.

Open doors for pre-learning

Home or private educational cost gives understudies the open door for learning a subject or idea before it is examined in school. In this procedure, the school or classroom can help understudies reconsidering their subjects and implant trust in them. With this model of home mentoring, adapting any subject turns out to be very simple. Understudies can rapidly pick up directly over their subject which will likewise build their proficiency. The fundamental favourable position of this technique is that it makes a superior picture of the understudy inside his hover and among the educators since he is as of now refreshed with all their homework.

Point by point profitable input

A response to a particular inquiry has numerous viewpoints and requests appropriate direction to compose the right answer. In school or any traditional instructing focus, an instructor may pass up a major opportunity vital nuances. Because of as far as possible, a teacher might be notable right all the flawed territories of every understudy. The home educational cost helps the understudy in breaking down or amending answers at each progression. The guide gives definite gainful criticism to understudies, which additionally propels them to improve and improve next time.

Get customized consideration

It's very incomprehensible for educators to take care of each understudy, which results in your kid not understanding an exercise intensely. Home educational cost accompanies an affirmation that the mentor's prime spotlight will be totally on your youngster and his challenges. The other advantage of a balanced educational cost is that it is less prohibitive contrasted with any ordinary training focus or school.

Degree for development in understudy's execution

On the off chance that an understudy is powerless in a specific subject, at that point he needs uncommon consideration from the educator to improve execution. This isn't frequently, if by any means, conceivable in school. With home educational costs, an understudy can get unmistakable consideration from the mentor and dedicate more opportunities to that subject. A home guide isn't only to give an educational cost on subjects, however. He can likewise be a tutor to the understudy, controlling in creating time the board and better investigation abilities. This improves an understudy's general act.

Degree for better learning

In view of this balanced investigation strategy for home educational costs, mentors are additionally ready to apply new examination strategies. The coach can take additional consideration of their understudies so as to convey quality instruction.

Positive condition

Understudies regularly waver to ask an educator any inquiry in a huge classroom setting. The primary purpose for this is the aggressive class condition where understudies don't feel great to stand up. In any case, learning with home educational cost gives them much-required certainty and opportunity to share their contemplations. A positive and empowering condition is vital for better learning.

Lesser diversions

Understudies face a lot of diversions in schools, universities, training focuses and other open learning settings. Home educational cost gives a rest from those diversions, giving a happy with learning condition.

Get educational cost from the best

Schools and regular training focuses don't give the chance to choose educators, which likewise specifically impacts results. The significant favourable position of self-teaching is that here you can pick the best coach for your specific subject. Nowadays a ton of home educational cost office or private educational cost offices can be counselled as you pick the best coach. This is urgent in light of the fact that just a fantastic teacher can comprehend the understudy's needs and offer appropriate direction.

Association of guardians

Private educational cost gives the chance to talk about a kid's advancement, monitor execution, and request suggestions for development. Guardians likewise can check whether their tyke has finished the relegated homework.

Altered LESSONS

One of the greatest favourable circumstances of the private educational cost is that exercises can without much of a stretch be redone to suit every understudy. While in school an understudy might be off guard, if, for instance, they work at an alternate pace to whatever remains of the class, or need to concentrate on a particular part of the course, the private educational cost to a great extent discredits these issues. Students will profit by the way that a mentor can alter the pace, centre, and objectives of an exercise contingent upon the requirements and capacities of the understudy, implying that learning productivity will be amplified. This is a particularly vital point to note for any understudies that have a learning issue, for example, dyslexia or dyspraxia. A decent coach will most likely consider and be an incredible advantage to an understudy.

Coordinated TEACHING, MORE TIME AND ATTENTION

Another enormous positive picked up from private educational cost is the measure of time an understudy will get from an instructor. As private educational costs are for the most part on a balanced premise, instructors can concentrate completely on an understudy. This is clearly an immense favourable position contrasted classes of twenty with thirty understudies where an educator's time is separated and people can all-around effectively turned out to be lost in the group. With fewer diversions, the coach is better ready to acknowledge and chip away at an understudy's feeble focuses, making the entire learning process progressively viable.

CAN CHOOSE THE RIGHT TEACHER

Understudies will react better to an educator that is fit to them, regarding both demeanour and learning style. In contrast to class, where understudies, for the most part, have practically nothing, assuming any, decision concerning who their instructors are, deciding on private educational cost allows the understudy or their folks to pick a guide that they feel good with. As there is such a wide scope of guides accessible, each with their very own qualities, specialities and learning styles, there will undoubtedly be a mentor that is appropriate to every single understudy. Finding the correct mentor, that can draw in and rouse can truly have a major effect on the student.

Expanded CONFIDENCE

As private educational cost is normally balanced, guides and understudies can work significantly more intently and create more grounded connections than would some way or another be conceivable in a bigger class. The effect this can have on an understudy is significant, as instructors will most likely become more acquainted with their understudies better, thus will think that it's less demanding to spot potential issues and give them help. For timid understudies, being in a learning situation with fewer individuals can likewise assist them with expressing themselves, as they are under less weight from their companions.

HELP WITH HOMEWORK AND TEST PRACTICE

Homework can regularly be exhausting, and once in awhile overwhelming, background for understudies. Left to their own gadgets, many will simply work through it without truly captivating in the subject, and it turns out to be even more a container ticking exercise. Having a guide who can keep the understudy focussed and intrigued will guarantee that the homework isn't just finished to a higher standard yet, more critically, is progressively powerful as far as what an understudy can pick up from it. Additionally, guides can be particularly successful with respect to testing planning. The exhortation and help that they can give ranges from the organizing of amendment to investigating frail focuses on the understudy's information. All things considered, a coach.

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"Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans" with Professor Melanie Mitchell

In this post, the discussion revolves around an interesting topic that movies and science fiction often portray as ominously imminent – Artificial Intelligence and its progress toward being sentient or achieving human-level intelligence.

Much of what we know today of Artificial Intelligence is not intelligence per se, but hundreds of thousands of mathematical computations and iterations done on extremely fast machines very quickly, all wrapped up behind the internet highway and packaged as a humanoid animation on our computer screen. In other words, it's essentially maths, statistics, and computation. Given this, it seemed very compelling to unearth how AI works, and if it was in fact possible to achieve a true artificial intelligence that goes beyond statistical analysis and computation.

The guest for this discussion talks about where AI is going, especially in achieving human-level intelligence, and its benefits for humanity. Professor Melanie Mitchell works at Santa Fe Institute. She is currently focusing on progressing toward conceptual abstraction, visual recognition, and analogy-making in AI systems. In addition to the book in this discussion, Professor Mitchell has a number of other publications as well, including books, academic papers, and essays.  (Mitchell, n.d.)

One of the topics that the discussion focuses on is rather fundamental: what is artificial intelligence exactly? Professor Mitchell had two definitions for it; one that defines the current state of AI, and the other that she foresees AI becoming eventually. According to Professor Mitchell, the current state of AI can be best defined as a big umbrella term that defines a lot of different computational methods that work towards achieving human-level intelligence or mimicking it. However, she ideates that AI is still a work in progress, and can be truly called so only if it is able to like humans in all kinds of different circumstances; such as using common sense or being self-aware even in a general sense. This goal, however, is far from being achieved yet. We’re only at a point where we can get computers to get very good at very specific tasks. Generalizing, or making computers capable of being generic problem solvers, is an extremely challenging task.

One of the more successful approaches to achieving this has been to look at the next best thing that can do this – the human brain. Neural networks are essentially a graph of information that tries to store information the way that the human brain does. It stores information in nodes and edges to represent the synapses in the human brain. Similar to how the connection between a series of brain cells becomes more pronounced with habits (the same route being taken during, for example, practicing a certain skill – often called “muscle memory”), we’re trying to model systems that add “weights” to connections between different nodes. This way we can eventually define distinct paths between nodes that eventually lead to an intelligent input -> process -> output flow. Except, in this case, the process is the neural network.

The discussion also touches a bit on some episodes of the history of AI. Initially, there was a trend where “AI” was built based on human-fed rules and conditions rather than self-learning and pattern recognition or actual learning. This was called an “expert systems approach” because it relied heavily on inputs provided by field experts, and those inputs being fed directly into the logical code of the software system. This was disappointing because many of the things were difficult to put into the system because many things could only be learned by experience. Also adding to the problem was that many of the experts, although very good at their field, could not articulate some of the niche areas of information that was critical. This was information at the subconscious level and was difficult to put into words, let alone as instructions to the computer.

Meanwhile, mathematicians and computer scientists were also experimenting with statistical inferences for a wider variety of use cases, which ultimately proved to be more successful than the aforementioned “expert systems” approach. It is interesting to note that the mathematical method found increasing success with the availability of the massive amount of data generated through the Internet and its spinoff technological advances.

The next challenge for the AI system is also its implementation. The way that we implement an AI system has a big impact on how it can help us further its technological horizons. If we are to limit AI always as a very powerful statistical computer that can take hundreds of variables, it will always be so. But if we truly want an intelligent AI, Professor Melanie thinks that it is important to incorporate the notions of causality. In addition to making statistical correlations, if we’re also able to make the system understand the “why” of it, we’d have made a breakthrough in the domain. For example, an autonomous car can map the area around it and is programmed to brake if there is an obstacle ahead of it. However, it does not yet understand the humanity of it, such as the brakes would prevent itself from being involved in an accident. This notion of understanding the cause for its actions is important to make our AI better.

On a final note, the discussion also skirted around the idea of how a better understanding of how the human brain works would be beneficial for improving our AI system. A stark example of this is how an AI can only “learn” something after thousands of iterations and examples being fed into the system, but the same for humans can be achieved within a few iterations. Perhaps instead of mimicking human decisions, if we could mimic human brain activity, we could have far more advanced AI systems. Mitchell, M. (n.d.) Melanie Mitchell. Available from: https://melaniemitchell.me/ [Accessed: 4th September 2022]