#a century of progress international

[fitsofgloom]

July, Like The Fireworks,

He Touches The Sky

[stone-cold-groove]

Poster for A Century of Progress International Exposition (the Chicago World’s Fair) - 1933.

[tiredneutron]

Terrans

Humanity.

Listen well, for this is a tale of warning and of caution.

When humanity was first observed, many of the council thought they should be eradicated. A tumultuous and violent species who revelled in the destruction of their own kind. It was a close thing, but the council voted and humanity was allowed to develop - under the condition that none were to contact them until they were deemed ready.

Humanity never gave us the chance to do so.

They progressed their technology in timeframes yet unseen. They went from discovering electricity to landing on their own moon in a matter of decades - doing so with primitive technology, but it was a feat nonetheless.

From there they developed their own world - the space around their home planet Terra became a field of haphazard signals and messages, a bombardment of signals that interfered with our observational machinery. Due to this we weren’t ready when humanity ventured into the stars truly for the first time. They blasted themselves out of their atmosphere with controlled explosions of all things, their technology was nowhere near discovering antimatter coupling yet. Despite this they reached the edge of the quarantine zone within a matter of years, and we were discovered.

Despite our initial thoughts, humanity reacted very differently to us than expected. They didn’t wage wars on us, didn’t lay claim to our planets. They met us with unrestrained joy at finding others in the universe. They told us of their numerous attempts to reach out to us, and showed us some of their works of fiction that depicted how they imagined us (though they seemed to hide some others for reasons we couldn’t ascertain).

Humanity was welcomed into the stars, and they became commonplace. Their biology was baffling and their behaviour bizarre, but we accommodated them and they taught us how to work with them.

Centuries passed, and though the initial explorers were long gone, humanity had become a part of the council as low ranking members. Their species had become mostly peaceful, lowering their internal wars to less than skirmishes. Humanity’s violent and cruel nature seemed to have been tempered by the stars.

We were wrong.

From beyond the councils borders, beyond the observable space in the void, a threat appeared. They blasted through our sensors and demolished our border colonies in hours. Our intel on them was near zero due to the ferocity they annihilated our kin.

They reached the inner borders of the council, and the elder members prepared for a bitter battle. To our surprise, humanity asked to join the defence. They told us that their kin had settled on some of the border colonies, and that many had lost loved ones. We allowed humanity to join our last fight, even if we didn’t expect them to affect the battle.

We were wrong.

Many of my comrades who survived the battle have sleep terrors to this day. Not of the void settlers, but of the humans. The cruelty and viciousness we thought had disappeared from their culture came back with a vengeance. Who we had seen as scientists and farmers for centuries, comrades we had known for decades - they showed us that monsters don’t come from the void.

The void settlers never stood a chance. The council was barely able to get in formation before the battle was ended. If the void bringers tactics were ferocious, then the Terran’s were monstrous. For every ship they lost, every life they sacrificed, the void settlers lost a battalion, a planet’s worth of lives.

This loss brought the void settlers much shame and anger. They made a mistake that haunts me to this day. They used their speed to reach Terra before the council could relay to the humans the threat. Humanity watched as Terra split, as trillions of their families and non-fighting members were eradicated.

The fighting ceased. Humanity seemed to have frozen. Their fleets stopped dead in space and their communications went silent. Where humanity had been surrounded by wavelengths and frequencies that interfered with some technology still, the space around them became eerily silent, as though the death of the planet had killed even those off world.

The void settlers continued their attack on the council and disregarded Humanity. No need to worry about a broken opponent… Right?

They were wrong.

The Terran’s weren’t dead, or even broken. It was later revealed that the freeze had been due to grief. Humanity had lost its home world, but worse than that it had lost its peaceable citizens. The ones who should have been safe from the conflict.

All of humanity had watched, and all of humanity had grieved. But they were not broken.

The void settlers learnt this very soon.

Humanity descended on them in ways that made the last defence seem like a diplomatic discussion. We though we had seen the worst of humanity in our early observations. WE. WERE. WRONG.

Humanity has a saying “Hell hath no wrath like a woman scorned”, but the council has adapted it: “The void hath no wrath like a Terran without a home”.

The void settlers were routed from every planet they had taken. They retreated to the void leaving behind their technology and supplies, not even taking the time to recover some of their teams. But the humans didn’t stop.

In a move that the council had forbidden for millennia, the humans flew into the void. The entirety of the Terran race disappeared into the blackness beyond space and wasn’t heard from for longer than we had known of them.

The council mourned their losses, but viewed their final act as something done out of the madness of their loss. The Terran’s were remembered as warriors, as fighters, but also as family. They became known to those of us who’d seen them fight as “The angels of Death”.

I never expected to see a Terran again, assumed that the void had devoured them and their destructive grief with them. But one day a vessel I was onboard, tasked with assessing possible colonies to rebuild in the border planets - it detected something.

The frequencies and wavelengths of data that had only ever been human in nature. They were coming from the void.

The council watched as humanity emerged unexpected for the second time.

The flagship docked with our observation vessel, and the leaders came aboard to see us. I vaguely recognised the captain. Their features so slightly similar to the grief driven warrior we’d watched descend into the void. We asked what had happened, and the captain responded with the most chilling visage I had seen since the first footage of the void settlers. Their baring of their teeth was savage and joyous. So similar to the expression we saw at first meeting, yet so distorted. In that moment I saw what could have happened if the Terran’s had waged war on us.

“We won.”

[svltaf]

no, miss appleton did not single-handedly ruin japanese soy sauce forever

there's a popular post going around this week about a ghq (general headquarters, the administration of the american occupation of japan after wwii) employee, a certain ms. blanche appleton, single-handedly changing the taste of soy sauce. while her story is fascinating for sure and i await further developments on the part of the op, and had a hand in the history of soy sauce, the premise is quite a bit exaggerated, and the general narrative so far in the framing by the op somewhat problematic.

tl;dr: as with most things, this is a confluence of factors, with producers, scientists, politicians, (possibly underworld,) and administrators all having their own agency in this story. i find it unusual to sideline so many parties in favour of presenting a single foreign administrator calling the shots in the op's posts.

i've made an initial response here. i will continue my findings in a separate post here.

1. jack daniel's is swill, but it's still whiskey

i think i can distill my issues with this plot so far down to one statement in the original post:

There should be records of her policies, there should be legal documents in America which record how she apportioned out American exportation of soy beans to Japan, there should be sources talking about this woman's ability to transform Japan's soy sauce production so heavily that today only 1% of all soy sauce is made with pre-WW2 traditional techniques.

this transformative impact of one administrator is entirely overstated. this comment led me to a promo blog post where some of the original claims can be seen, and the op mentions that traditional soy sauce was made in kioke barrels, and the this method of production has dropped to about 1% now. this is true, but it appears that at least one source put the decline as starting around the end of the edo period (xvii-xix centuries). [1] sources traceable to yamaroku puts the decline more recently, at about a century ago [2, 3]

this japanese paper on fermented food production is quite clear in stating that wodden barrel production declined from the meiji period (1868-1912) onward.

江戸時代までに一般化した木桶・木樽の使用形態は、明治期以降、一般の生活や各種製造現場で近代化が進む中、コンクリートや金属、プラスチック、合成樹脂等の材質によって代替されていく。 The use of wooden vats and barrels, which had become common by the Edo period, was replaced by materials such as concrete, metal, plastic, and synthetic resin from the Meiji period onward, as modernization progressed in ordinary life and various manufacturing sites. (deepL translation)

another source from a professor on food production in japan suggests that shodoshima (where yamaroku is made) is the area that has most completely preserved the wooden vat method of production.

this survey (oguri) written by a member of the national museum of nature of science in tokyo dates the supplanting of traditional method in more industrialized regions by 1913

1913（大正2）年：栂野は「最新醤油醸造論」の中で、九州、中国地方では桶の代わりに煉瓦又は石でタンクを作り使用していると記述。 1913 (Taishō 2): Tsugano, in his "The Latest Soy Sauce Brewing Theory," wrote that in Kyushu and Chugoku regions, instead of vats, tanks were made of bricks or stone and used. (deepL translation, p.148)

1918年：西二の蔵（ヤマサ印）の建設に当たり研究中の内面塗料が完成したので、これを採用し仕込桶を角型のコンクリートタンクに改めた。 1918: The internal [coating] that was being researched for the construction of the Nishi Ni no Kura (Yamasa brand) was completed, and this was adopted and the brewing vats were replaced with square concrete tanks. (deepL translation with edits from @literaryreference, see translator's note 3, p.148)

i think it bears repetition that soy sauce production was industrializing as japan was industrializing from the meiji to early shōwa periods. as alluded to in the title, a lot of modern soy sauce is like jack daniels: industrial products that evolved from traditional methods alongside a nation's overall development.

2. babe wake up, a new semichemical soy sauce just dropped, and appleton's role in history (a corroboration of @/inneskeeper)

it seems like the plot on the original poster's part has gone to the american side, so let's try to follow the us-japan interaction but from japanese sources.

the survey cited earlier (oguri) has a lot of information that supports the original post. blanche appleton did exist, and does appear in more anecdotes from that era of the soy sauce industry.

(also, this bibliography has more sources on her time in japan, will require institutional access to japanese universities)

to start, there are two methods of semichemical soy sauce production. the first, 新式1号法 shinshiki 1-gō method (i will call it sc1) was invented in the taishō era (1912-26).

大正の末期頃になると、酸やアルカリの化学薬品を併用することによって、速醸の目的を達成しようとする研究が盛んに行われ、その代表的な「新式1号」が出現する。 Toward the end of the Taisho era, there was a flurry of research into the use of acid and alkali chemicals in combination to achieve the goal of fast brewing, and the "Shinshiki No. 1" [sc1] appeared as a representative example of such research. (deepL translation, p.158)

in the time immediately after the war, there was a shortage of supplies, and its allocation was controlled by the americans

駐留軍の総司令部 GHQ（General Head Quarter）は、1948年の春調味料の原料として「エロア資金」（占領地域経済復興資金）により、大豆ミール2万tを放出する方針を打ち出した。このことにより、その配分をめぐって醤油業界とアミノ酸業界は熾烈な競争をすることとなる。 The General Head Quarter (GHQ) of the stationed army announced a policy of releasing 20,000 tons of soybean meal as a raw material for seasonings in the spring of 1948 through the EROA (Economic Rehabilitation in Occupied Area) Fund. This led to fierce competition between the soy sauce and amino acid industries for its allocation. (deepL translation with edits by myself, p.159)

the "amino acid industry" mentioned refers to the monosodium glutamate (msg) industry (glutamate is the ion of an amino acid). essentially, in the early 20th century, both msg and soy sauce (and chemical "soy sauce") production methods have converged to all requiring many soybeans due to their protein content and fermentation properties.

this is where appleton makes her entrance:

GHQは両業界の調整窓口として、「経済安定本部」の経済科学局で調味料と乳製品の需給を担当していたミセス・ブランシェ・アップルトンをその任にあてた。アップルトンは、醤油醸造協会の茂木啓三郎とアミノ酸業界の大内鋼太郎を招いて意見を聴取し、原料の配分を「醸造醤油2、アミノ酸業界8」とすることを内定し、上司のマーカット局長に報告した。この報告内容は醸造醤油にとっては死活問題であったが、内定の根拠は次のようなものであった。 GHQ assigned Ms. Blanche Appleton, who was in charge of the supply and demand of seasonings and dairy products in the Economic and Science Section of the "Economic Stability Headquarters," (?) to serve as the coordinating contact between the two industries. Appleton invited Keizaburo Mogi of the Soy Sauce Brewers Association and Kotaro Ouchi of the amino acid industry to hear their opinions, and informally decided that the distribution of raw materials would be two for brewing soy sauce and eight for the amino acid industry, and reported this to her boss, Maj. Gen. W. F. Marquat. The content of this report was a matter of life and death for brewers' soy sauce, but the rationale for the informal decision was as follows. [...] (deepL translation with edits by myself p.159)

essentially, appleton originally intended for only 20% of the soybean meal to be handed out for soy sauce due to its relatively inefficient usage of materials compared to msg production. this would've crippled the existing soy sauce producers, and they set out to find solutions to save their industry.

醸造醤油側は、醸造醤油の「日本人の食生活における重要性や醸造醤油そのものの品質の良さ」等を強調したが、GHQはただ「脱脂大豆が有効に活用されるのはどちらか」という尺度だけで判断したのである。このような醸造醤油の存亡の危機を救ったのは、もくもくと研究に携わっていた技術陣が開発した「新式2号法」であった。本法を発明したのはキッコーマンの館野正淳、梅田勇雄等である。新式2号の製法は新式1号と同様に、蛋白質を弱酸でペプトンやペプチド程度まで分解し、その後は麹の酵素により分解してアミノ酸の形態まで持っていく半化学、半醸造による醤油の製造法である。 The brewing soy sauce side emphasized the importance of brewing soy sauce in the Japanese diet and the quality of the soy sauce itself, but GHQ made its decision based solely on the basis of "which [industry] would use the defatted soybeans more effectively". What saved brewed soy sauce from the brink of extinction was the "New Formula No. 2 method" developed by the technical staff who had been working diligently on the research. The inventors of this method were Masajun Tateno and Isao Umeda of Kikkoman Corporation. As with Shin-Shiki No. 1 [sc1], the Shin-Shiki No. 2 [sc2] method is a semi-chemical, semi-brewing method for producing soy sauce in which proteins are broken down to peptones and peptides with weak acids, and then decomposed by enzymes from koji mold to the form of amino acids. (deepL translation with edits by myself and @literaryreference, see translator's note 4, p.159)

this development, the invention of the 新式2号法 shinshiki 2-gō method (sc2), led to another round of discussions:

ミセス・アップルトンは「キッコーマンが画期的な技術を開発した」ことを聞き、新法による醤油とアミノ酸液による化学醤油を消費者に提示し、その調査結果に基づいて決定を再考しようと上申書を提出した。醤油の 味、使用テストは神奈川県の鎌倉市と逗子で行われたが、消費者の8割が新法による醤油を支持した。この結果に基づき、アップルトンは両業界で話し合って結論を出すように「正田・大内会談」を開かせた。 Mrs. Appleton heard that "Kikkoman had developed a breakthrough technology" and submitted a petition to reconsider her decision based on the results of a survey that presented consumers with both the new method of soy sauce and a chemical soy sauce made with amino acid solution. Taste and use tests of soy sauce were conducted in Kamakura and Zushi, Kanagawa Prefecture, and 80% of consumers supported the new soy sauce. Based on these results, Appleton had the "Shoda-Ouchi Conference" held so that the two industries could discuss and reach a conclusion. (deepL translation, p.160)

this source seems to suggest that the original decision was under higher-ups' pressure:

当初の提案2対8のアミノ酸業界絶対優位の配分比率は、「新式2号法」の出現により、最終的にGHQは「正田・大内会談」の「7対3協定」を認め、ここに醸造醤油の歴史的危機は回避されることとなった。醤油業界のミセス・アップルトンの評価は従来大変厳しいものであったが、後の調査で彼女は醸造醤油の良き理解者であり、当初の配分比率も上司の強い指示に抗しきれず提案したものであったようである。再度の上申は、彼女の日本の伝統的な醸造醤油への深い理解と思い入れによるものであったと考えられる。 As for the proposed allocation of 2 to 8, due to the [sc2] method, GHQ ended up deciding on the “7 to 3 Agreement” from the “Shoda-Ouchi Conference” instead, thus averting the historical crisis of brewed soy sauce.Although the soy sauce industry had been very critical of Mrs. Appleton in the past, later investigations revealed that she was a firm supporter* of brewed soy sauce and that the original allocation ratio was a proposal she made because she could not resist the strong instructions of her superiors. It is believed that her renewed offer was due to her deep understanding of and commitment to the Japanese tradition of brewed soy sauce. (deepL translation with edits from myself and @blackamite, see translators' note 1, p. 160)

the term 良き理解者 "good friend" (see bolded) i think could mean connoisseur or enjoyer here, will need help in clarifying.

その後醤油醸造協会の正田会長は、1948（昭和23）年7月23日に「新式2号法」の特許���開を懇請し、当時の中野社長の決断により、「新式1号」に続いて「新式2号」についても無償で業界に公開されることとなった。同年8月から講習会が全国12ブロックで開催され、約2,500社の業者が技術を習得した。 Later, on July 23, 1948, Mr. Shoda, president of the Soy Sauce Brewers Association, requested that the patent for the [sc2 method] be made public, and following the decision of then [Kikkoman Inc.] President Nakano, the [sc1 and sc2 methods] were made public free of charge to the industry. In August of the same year, training sessions were held in 12 blocks throughout Japan, and approximately 2,500 companies learned the technology. (deepL translation with edits by myself, p.160)

the main sources the survey used are a manuscript, 醤油醸造技術の近代化 by 永瀬一郎 Ichirō Nagase, kikkoman inc.'s own historical record (キッコーマン株式会社八十年史; a shorter version can be found here), and a history of choshi shoyu inc. (銚子醤油株式会社　社史). i think this confirms a lot of information the original post put out there about ms. appleton and her involvement with soy sauce. plus, it shed more light into how exactly she interacted with the condiment industries.

perhaps @/inneskeeper will find some shady dealings in their research; when you mix a foreign military force, the collapse of existing institutions, and social upheaval, you're likely to find corruption. ill keep my eyes peeled for that development.

3. no, kikkoman is not "fake" soy sauce, but you might be able to find some echoes of the past

so what happened to semichemical soy sauce now? the survey document does not track its usage after its invention and at the surface level, it seems that the original claim was right, the semichemical method has persisted since the american occupation and we're all just drinking sussy sauce.

in fact, this seemed so obvious that this rumour circulated in japan and was debunked by aficionados two years ago.

the link to kikkoman's own record earlier states that sc2 sauce was discontinued in 1970, and the japanese blog post above repeats that, adding that it has reverted back to honjōzō (本醸造) sauce. this paper in the journal of the brewing society of japan (日本醸造協会誌) has this to say about what became of sc2 sauce:

また，キッコーマンの新式 2号しょうゆ製造法の特許が公開されたのも 1948年で， しょうゆ業界は混合醸造しょうゆおよび混合しょうゆを製造することにより効率よく旨味の強いしょうゆを安価に製造し， しょうゆ原料不足の時代を乗り切ったと考えている 。現在，大手メーカーでは食の安全性や本物志向から混合醸造しょうゆおよび混合しょうゆの製造をやめ本醸造しょうゆだけを製造している 。一方，全国の中小しょうゆメーカーでは，製造設備を全て本醸造しょうゆに切 り換える資金力に乏しく．一旦，消費者に定着した混合しょうゆのニーズにより本醗造しょうゆに切り換えることが出来ず，現在も混合しょうゆが主力商品となっているのではないかと考えている 。 The patent for Kikkoman's new [sc2] soy sauce manufacturing method was also published in 1948, which allowed the soy sauce industry to overcome the shortage of raw materials for soy sauce by producing mixed brewed soy sauce and mixed soy sauces efficiently and inexpensively. Currently, major soy sauce manufacturers have stopped producing mixed brewed soy sauce and mixed soy sauce, and are producing only honjozo soy sauce, due to food safety and the desire for authenticity. On the other hand, small and medium-sized soy sauce manufacturers nationwide do not have the financial resources to convert all of their production facilities to honjozo soy sauce. Once a demand for mixed soy sauce has taken root among consumers, they are unable to switch over to honjōzō soy sauce, and even now, it's possible mixed [kongō or kongō-jōzō] soy sauce might be the top [soy sauce] product. (deepL translation with edits from myself and @literaryreference, see translator's note 2, p.78)

the three types of japanese soy sauce production methods available today are honjōzō (本醸造, fully fermented), kongō-jōzō (混合醸造, mixed fermented with amino acid added prior to fermentation, closest to sc2 method), and kongō (混合, one of the previous two types with additives). [wiki, academic source] these production methods are in parallel to the traditional varieties of sauce, which rather describe the mash and added taste; these elements of the production, rather than the fermentation process, are usually what define the lineage of the sauce in both japan and other soy sauce-producing cultures.

instead of supplanting "genuine" fermented soy sauce, the industrial descendants of sc2 sauce have become their own type of sauce and have carved their own niches in the consumer market. as someone who is not from japan, i would be careful about making any judgment on whether it is "authentic".

4. clarifications

there were a few statements by the original poster that i think need further context for a more accurate understanding. any bolding and italics are mine.

During World War 2 there was a push to industrialize the Japanese soy sauce industry to be better for mass-production. This innovated the chemical fermentation technique and the semichemical fermentation technique utilized by Kikkoman; rather than ferment for four years in gigantic cedar barrels, kioke, instead fermentation takes place for six months or a year in stainless steel barrels which utilize electrolysis to artificially speed up fermentation processes.

the first part is correct, but the word "rather" introduces a false dichotomy; soy sauce production is very diverse and progresses at different paces in different regions (see part 1 of this post). the sauce op has is simply one from a region that has kept their manufacturing method unchanged.

"four years" is arbitrary: different producers have different fermentation periods.

the last part of the statement is not universally true of industrial production; ac current may be used in brewing.

A single American woman named "Ms Appleton" was given total control of apportioning all American soy bean rations to companies, how much, and to who. She had no knowledge of soy sauce, allegedly.

we can lay that last part to rest. it appears that she does. i will also have to mention that "soy sauce" has been imported from china to the usa since the 30s.

She apparently had so much power over Japanese soy sauce production that she could singlehandedly shape its future by threatening to not give soy beans to any company, family, or factory which did not utilize her specific requirements of semichemical fermentation (reduced from chemical fermentation, since it was that abhorrent). These days, the term soy sauce is distinct from traditional shoyu, and requires distinguishment because of such a radical difference the two products are.

is girlboss applesauce really that powerful on her own? this statement was not wrong, but she did have the military that just nuked japan behind her.

did appleton specify one method over others? probably, but i think the dependency went the other way: the invention of sc2 sauce was the only way the industry could be efficient enough for ghq standards.

that last part is just straight up wrong dawg what the hell i was nicer in my first reply but im not feeling it today

[...] Because there should be way more information on her if this was the case; she was apparently powerful and influential enough during the occupation that she could singlehandedly enforce whatever arbitrary rules she wanted on the soy sauce industry and they had to comply or else have no product at all. That level of power is fucking insane. Imagine having so much raw influence over Japan that you could order them to completely renovate and change how they produce and make SOY SAUCE, literally one of if not THE most important thing in Japanese culinary history--[...]

holy exaggeration batman, this is almost insulting. as with most things, this is a confluence of factors, with producers, scientists, politicians, (possibly underworld,) and administrators all having their own agency in this story. it is incredibly unusual to sideline so many parties in favour of a single foreign administrator calling the shots.

5. what now?

i think there's much to be found out about appleton's dealings, and it would be an interesting story if there did end up being underworld dealings in those negotiations coming to light. i think it is a fascinating slice into that era and how society and institutions interacted in such a fraught situation. overall, i encourage @/inneskeeper's historian work.

that said, it is very important for people to not put a narrative ahead of the facts. i think it is human nature to be attracted to stories that have a clear causality and linearity, but it is something we need to be very careful about when communicating history to a large audience. to anyone who would like to present their findings, consider what your framing of events imply about the state of the time and place you research, and if you are doing all parties justice.

and for the love of god, cite your sources.

if there are any translation issues, please reach out to me and i will edit accordingly and post errata.

erratum 1: jack daniel's is tennesee whiskey, not bourbon, thanks @drdementogrl.

translators' note 1: 良き理解者 could also be translated more literally to “good understander,” thank you @blackamite, @monstrousgourmandizingcats, @leatherbookmark, and others who have given similar notes.

erratum 2 and translator's note 2: @literaryreference has indicated that 一旦，消費者に定着した混合しょうゆのニーズにより本醗造しょうゆに切り換えることが出来ず，現在も混合しょうゆが主力商品となっているのではないかと考えている 。 is more equivocal and did not state an outright larger popularity for kongō/kongō-jōzō type brewing, so it's possible it might be the top product. they also suggested removing redundancies and pointed out a copying mistake from the original source (left out a bit of the japanese text).

translator's note 3: @literaryreference let me know that 塗料 would more accurately be interpreted as "coating" and also gave me a link of the sauce brand mentioned.

translator's note 4: @literaryreference has provided a better translation for GHQはただ「脱脂大豆が有効に活用されるのはどちらか」という尺度だけで判断したのである, and i have made edits from their translation as well for better context.

[max1461]

I have the following Grand Theory of the Twenty-First Century that I would like to put forth. I don't know if it's true, but sometimes I think it's true.

Many of you will have heard of the Flynn effect. This is the observed effect that average performance on IQ tests has gone up since these tests started being administered. On a first glance, it appears that people all over the world have gotten measurably smarter in the past 100 years.

There are a variety of proposed explanations for this. Probably better childhood nutrition and the like has something to do with it. But another proposed explanation is this: IQ tests are known to be trainable. You can practice and get better at them. And you can practice the sorts of tasks that show up on an IQ and get better at those sorts of tasks, which might be why (IIRC?) standardized education seems to improve IQ scores. What sorts of tasks are on an IQ test? Abstract thinking tasks. Tasks related to abstract pattern recognition.

It has been proposed that people today live their lives in a world much more governed by these sorts of abstract tasks. We interface with bureaucracy and paperwork, we manipulate strange little symbols on a computer screen, we internalize the various abstractions we are (explicitly and implicitly) taught in school in order to receive the best grade. Where children 100 years ago were taught by their environment to do physical, concrete things, children today are taught by their environment to engage with abstract systems. And success at engagement with abstract systems is what determines success in life, which was much less true 100 years ago.

There are ways in which I think this is a good thing. Abstract systems have both many uses and many joys, which mathematicians have regaled us with since Euclid, and I think it's a good thing if people are more prepared to engage with abstraction these days. But it's probably not wholly a good thing. After all, there is also much utility and many joys in the physical and concrete, and I suspect that today we live in a world which prepares people markedly less well to succeed at the concrete. This is particularly troubling since many concrete activities make up the very most fundamental bedrock of the human condition (as it has hitherto existed).

In-person social relationships are of a concrete character. Leaving your house and doing shit is of a concrete character. Making and fixing things with your hands is concrete. Fucking is concrete.

I think it is possible, and potentially explanatory of some of the malaise I see among my peers, that we have grown up in a world which has taught us to shuffle symbols instead of to do things. People will blame this on their political opponents, leftists will attribute it to capitalism and rightists will attribute it to this or that form of effeminate progressive ideology, but (at the risk of being immediately dismissed by certain people) I want to suggest that, insofar as this is true at all, it might simply be best understood a consequence of industrial society itself. Abstract tasks simply get more useful and more in demand the greater the complexity of society grows and the more technology expands into our lives.

I don't want to present this sociological theory with too much confidence, and I am certainly not claiming we should burn down all the factories and go live in the woods or whatever. I'm just saying, uh... maybe this is something that's going on. I sometimes look around and think "this definitely might be something that's going on." And if it is going on, we should think about what its implications are.

[she-is-ovarit]

By EDITH M. LEDERER Updated 9:11 PM PST, March 8, 2024 UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Legal equality for women could take centuries as the fight for gender equality is becoming an uphill struggle against widespread discrimination and gross human human rights abuses, the United Nations chief said on International Women’s Day. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told a packed U.N. commemoration Friday that “a global backlash against women’s rights is threatening, and in some cases reversing, progress in developing and developed countries alike.” The most egregious example is in Afghanistan, he said, where the ruling Taliban have barred girls from education beyond sixth grade, from employment outside the home, and from most public spaces, including parks and hair salons. At the current rate of change, legal equality for women could take 300 years to achieve and so could ending child marriage, he said. Guterres pointed to “a persistent epidemic of gender-based violence,” a gender pay gap of at least 20%, and the underrepresentation of women in politics. He cited September’s annual gathering of world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly, where just 12% of the speakers were women. “And the global crises we face are hitting women and girls hardest — from poverty and hunger to climate disasters, war and terror,” the secretary-general said. In the past year, Guterres said, there have been testimonies of rape and trafficking in Sudan, and in Gaza women women and children account for a majority of the more than 30,000 Palestinians reported killed in the Israeli-Hamas conflict, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. He cited a report Monday by the U.N. envoy focusing on sexual violence in conflict that concluded there are “reasonable grounds” to believe Hamas committed rape, “sexualized torture” and other cruel and inhumane treatment of women during its surprise attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7. He also pointed to reports of sexual violence against Palestinians detained by Israel. International Women’s Day grew out of labor movements in North America and across Europe at the turn of the 20th century and was officially recognized by the United Nations in 1977. This year’s theme is investing in women and girls to accelerate progress toward equality. Roza Otunbayeva, the head of the U.N. political mission in Afghanistan, told the Security Council on Wednesday that what is happening in that country “is precisely the opposite” of investing in women and girls. There is “a deliberate disinvestment that is both harsh and unsustainable,” she said, saying the Taliban’s crackdown on women and girls has caused “immense harm to mental and physical health, and livelihoods.” Recent detentions of women and girls for alleged violations of the Islamic dress code “were a further violation of human rights, and carry enormous stigma for women and girls,” she said. It has had “a chilling effect among the wider female population, many of whom are now afraid to move in public,” she said. Otunbayeva again called on the Taliban to reverse the restrictions, warning that the longer they remain, “the more damage will be done.” Sima Bahous, the head of UN Women, the agency promoting gender equality and women’s rights, told the commemoration that International Women’s Day “sees a world hobbled by confrontation, fragmentation, fear and most of all inequality.” “Poverty has a female face,” she said. “One in every 10 women in the world lives in extreme poverty.” Men not only dominate the halls of power but they “own $105 trillion more wealth than women,” she said. Bahous said well-resourced and powerful opponents of gender equality are pushing back against progress. The opposition is being fueled by anti-gender movements, foes of democracy, restricted civic space and “a breakdown of trust between people and state, and regressive policies and legislation,” she said. [Click on the link to continue reading]

[armoricaroyalty]

Film Grammar for Simmers

What is film grammar?

"Film grammar" refers the unstated "rules" of editing used in movies and TV. Different types of shots have different associations and are used by editors to convey different types of information to the audience. Many of these principles were first described in the early 20th century by Soviet directors, but they're used consistently across genre, medium, and even language: Bollywood musicals, English period dramas, Korean horror movies, and American action blockbusters all use many of the same techniques.

Because these rules are so universal, virtually everyone has some internalized understanding of them. Even if they can’t name the different types of shots or explain how editors use images to construct meaning, the average person can tell when the “rules” are being broken. If you’ve ever thought a movie or episode of TV was confusing without being able to say why, there’s a good chance that there was something off with the editing.

Learning and applying the basics of film grammar can give your story a slicker and more-polished feel, without having to download shaders or spend hours in photoshop. It also has the bonus of enhancing readability by allowing your audience to use their knowledge of film and TV to understand what's happening in your story. You can use it to call attention to significant plot details and avoid introducing confusion through unclear visual language.

Best of all, it doesn't cost a dime.

The basics: types of shots

Shots are the basic building block of film. In Sims storytelling, a single shot is analogous to a single screenshot. In film, different types of shots are distinguished by the position of the camera relative to the subject. There are three big categories of shots, with some variation: long shots (LS), medium shots (MS), and close-ups (CU). This diagram, created by Daniel Chandler and hosted on visual-memory.co.uk illustrates the difference:

Source: The 'Grammar' of Television and Film, Daniel Chandler, visual-memory.co.uk. Link.

In film, scenes typically progress through the different types of shots in sequence: long shot, medium shot, close-up. When a new scene begins and the characters arrive in a new location, we typically begin with a wide establishing shot of the building’s exterior to show the audience where the scene will be taking place. Next comes a long shot of an interior space, which tells the where the characters are positioned relative to one another. The next shot is a medium shot of the characters conversing, and then finally, a close-up as the conversation reaches its emotional or informational climax. Insert shots are used judiciously throughout to establish themes or offer visual exposition.

Here's another visual guide to the different types of shots, illustrated with stills from Disney animated films.

This guide is almost 2,000 words long! To save your dash, I've put the meat of it under the cut.

Long shot and extreme long shots

A long shot (sometimes also called a wide shot) is one where the entire subject (usually a building, person, or group of people) is visible within the frame. The camera is positioned far away from the subject, prioritizing the details of the background over the details of the subject.

One of the most common uses of long shots and extreme long shots are establishing shots. An establishing shot is the first shot in a scene, and it sets the tone for the scene and is intended to give the viewer the information they’ll need to follow the scene: where a scene is taking place, who is in the scene, and where they are positioned in relation to one another. Without an establishing shot, a scene can feel ungrounded or “floaty.” Readers will have a harder time understanding what’s happening in the scene because on some level, they’ll be trying to puzzle out the answers to the who and where questions, distracting them from the most important questions: what is happening and why?

(I actually like to start my scenes with two establishing shots: an environmental shot focusing on the scenery, and then a second shot that establishes the characters and their position within the space.)

Long shots and extreme long shots have other uses, as well. Because the subject is small relative to their surroundings, they have an impersonal effect which can be used for comedy or tragedy.

In Fargo (1996) uses an extreme long shot to visually illustrate the main character’s sense of defeat after failing to secure funding for a business deal.The shot begins with a car in an empty parking lot, and then we see the protagonist make his way up from the bottom of the frame. He is alone in the shot, he is small, and the camera is positioned above him, looking down from a god-like perspective. All of these factors work together to convey his emotional state: he’s small, he’s alone, and in this moment, we are literally looking down on him. This shot effectively conveys how powerless he feels without any dialogue or even showing his face.

The same impersonal effect can also be used for comic purposes. If a character says something stupid or fails to impress other characters, cutting directly from a close-up to a long shot has a visual effect akin to chirping crickets. In this instance, a long shot serves as a visual “wait, what?” and invites the audience to laugh at the character rather than with them.

Medium Shots

Medium shots are “neutral” in filmmaking. Long shots and close-ups convey special meaning in their choice to focus on either the subject or the background, but a medium shot is balanced, giving equal focus to the character and their surroundings. In a medium shot, the character takes up 50% of the frame. They’re typically depicted from the waist-up and the audience can see both their face and hands, allowing the audience to see the character's facial expression and read their body-language, both important for interpreting meaning.

In most movies and TV shows, medium shots are the bread and butter of dialogue-heavy scenes, with close-ups, long shots, and inserts used for punctuation and emphasis. If you’re closely following the conventions of filmmaking, most of your dialogue scenes will be medium shots following the convention of shot-reverse shot:

To keep long conversations from feeling too visually monotonous, consider staging the scene as a walk-and-talk. Having two characters move through a space can add a lot of dynamism and visual interest to a scene that might otherwise feel boring or stiff.

Close Ups

Close-ups are close shots of a character’s face. The camera is positioned relatively near to the subject, showing just their head and shoulders. In a close-up, we don’t see any details of the background or the expressions of other characters.

In film, close-ups are used for emphasis. If a character is experiencing a strong emotion or delivering an important line of dialogue, a close-up underscores the importance of the moment by inviting the audience to focus only on the character and their emotion.

Close-ups don’t necessarily need to focus on the speaker. If the important thing about a line of dialogue is another character’s reaction to it, a close-up of the reaction is more effective than a close-up of the delivery.

One of the most iconic shots in Parasite (2019) is of the protagonist driving his employer around while she sits in the backseat, speaking on the phone. Even though she’s the one speaking, the details of her conversation matter less than the protagonist’s reaction to it. While she chatters obliviously in the background, we focus on the protagonist’s disgruntled, resentful response to her thoughtless words and behavior.

In my opinion, Simblr really overuses close-ups in dialogue. A lot of conversation scenes are framed entirely in close-ups, which has the same effect of highlighting an entire page in a textbook. The reader can’t actually tell what information is important, because the visuals are screaming that everything is important. Overusing close-ups also cuts the viewer off from the character’s body language and prevents them from learning anything about the character via their surroundings.

For example, a scene set in someone’s bedroom is a great opportunity for some subtle characterization—is it tidy or messy? what kind of decor have they chosen? do they have a gaming computer, a guitar, an overflowing bookshelf?—but if the author chooses to use only close-ups, we lose out on a chance to get to know the character via indirect means.

Inserts

An insert shot is when a shot of something other than a character’s face is inserted into a scene. Often, inserts are close-ups of a character’s hands or an object in the background. Insert shots can also be used to show us what a character is looking at or focusing on.

In rom-com The Prince & Me (2004) (see? I don’t just watch crime dramas…) the male lead is in an important meeting. We see him pick up a pen, look down at the papers in front of him, and apparently begin taking notes, but then we cut to an insert shot of his information packet. He’s doodling pictures of sports cars and is entirely disengaged from the conversation. Every other shot in the scene is an establishing shot or a medium shot or a close-up of someone speaking, but this insert gives us insight into the lead’s state of mind: he doesn’t want to be there and he isn’t paying attention.

Insert shots are, in my opinion, also used ineffectively on Simblr. A good insert gives us extra insight into what a character is thinking or focusing on, but a poorly-used insert feels…unfocused. A good insert might focus on pill bottles on a character’s desk to suggest a chemical dependency, on a family picture to suggest duty and loyalty, on a clock to suggest a time constraint, on a pile of dirty laundry or unanswered letters to suggest a character is struggling to keep up with their responsibilities. An ineffective insert shot might focus on the flowers in the background because they’re pretty, on a character’s hands because it seems artsy, on the place settings on a dining table because you spent forever placing each one individually and you’ll be damned if they don’t make it into the scene. These things might be lovely and they might break up a monotonous conversation and they might represent a lot of time and effort, but if they don’t contribute any meaning to a scene, consider cutting or repurposing them.

I want to emphasize: insert shots aren’t bad, but they should be carefully chosen to ensure they’re enhancing the meaning of the scene. Haphazard insert shots are distracting and can interfere with your reader’s ability to understand what is happening and why.

Putting it all together

One of the most basic principles of film theory is the Kuleshov effect, the idea that meaning in film comes from the interaction of two shots in sequence, and not from any single shot by itself. In the prototypical example, cutting from a close-up of a person’s neutral expression to a bowl of soup, children playing, or soldiers in a field suggests hunger, worry, or fear, respectively.

The Kuleshov effect is the essence of visual storytelling in a medium like Simblr. You can elevate your storytelling by thinking not only about each individual shot, but about the way they’ll interact and flow into one another.

Mastering the basics of film grammar is a great (free!) way to take your storytelling to the next level. To learn more, you can find tons of guides and explainers about film grammar for free online, and your local library doubtless has books that explain the same principles and offers additional analysis.

Happy simming!

[joaofelix70]

MISS DIPLOMAT & MR. CHARMING |

dominik szoboszlai x female reader.

author's note: this handsome man's living rent-free in my head. he's a freaking masterpiece. talented, funny, charismatic, attractive. i watched interviews, tiktok videos made by supporters and much more to understand a little bit of his language, personality and what he does towards friends and loved ones. laughed a lot! i made my homework as a writer, hope you enjoy it! (compliments and any kind of retributions are more than welcomed).

summary: your job is involving the commitment of unify the population and create interrelations to another countries, using the eurocup qualifiers and the hungary national team executions. you just didn't expect to fall in love with the no. 10's captain player.

words and characters: 1,811/11,223. it was three days working too hard on this story. i'm begging for your consideration, lol.

────

sports diplomacy: it's the unique power of sport to bring people, nations, and communities closer together via a shared love of physical pursuits. this responsibility is the reason of a transition between strangers to connected individuals, advancing foreign policy goals and augmenting sport for development initiatives. the complex landscape where sport, politics, and diplomacy overlap become clearer, as do the pitfalls of using sport as a tool for overcoming and mediating separation between people, nonstate actors, and states. the power of sport has never been more important. so far, the 21st century has been dominated by disintegration, introspection, and the retreat of the nation-state from the globalization agenda. in such an environment, scholars, students, and practitioners of international relations are beginning to rethink how sport might be used to tackle climate change, gender inequality, and the united nations sustainable development goals, for example. to boost these integrative, positive efforts is to focus on the means as well as the ends, that is, the diplomacy, plural networks, and processes involved in the role sport can play in tackling the monumental traditional and human security challenges of our time. credits: international studies association and oxford university press.

────

MLSZ (hungarian football federation) ──

new training ground at telki.

"i can't believe that being in places like this made up my most theoretically utopian childhood dreams. what a progress in front of me!" you still witness exciting moments where you pinch yourself, trying to believe in the reality that surrounds you: visiting the new training center of the players who are just a few meters away from you, getting ready to represent an entire country.

"your presence is our privilege. a voice of the spread of eurocup to our nation, right here…" the technical director gives you deference, obtaining a measure of humbleness and respect by you.

"the honor belongs to me in its entirety. grateful for having me, sir. while the view is immersive and captivating — my fervent congratulations to everyone involved — could we retreat from the pleasant glass-enclosed room and see everything closer, on the outside? please? i will never get used to this atmosphere." you pour politeness and charisma to the staffs around you, being directed to the proximity of the field and saluting the employees who pass through your path.

meet dominik — your szobo — instigates the nostalgic combination of detailed moments in which your thoughts display as photographic retrospectives. you're incapable to oppose the little enthusiastic laughs, fidgeting the rings between your fingers and avoiding possible suspicious glances from others. however, for you, this wouldn't actually work. the lives of you both are correlated, but different.

the training session is finished. clapping your hands and celebrating the performances, you greet the athletes and recognize some familiar people. nevertheless, reality slows down after those dark woody eyes capture through your soul. his arms tattoos are glorified by the sun's rays, the same illuminated smile is offered to you: that one you got during the very first time you saw him — instantly knowing he made you testimony the accuracy of freedom, catharsis and emotional amorous complement. that he'd be the one to introduce you what you never experienced, what you thought you'd never receive or deserve. what love truly is. when you were novices in your actual professions, not even imagining the future gifts of your unreal purposes.

"there you are!" intimately, dominik points at you, being reciprocated by vibrant nods and your old sort of secret — not that mysterious or serious — handshake. "még mindig emlékszel rá? (still remembering it?). you're a real one!"

"hogy tudnám elfelejteni? alábecsülsz engem. (how could i forget it? you're underestimating me)". your defensive actions demonstrate purposeful falseness. masking any sensitive, verbal or figurative communicative fragment from him is a difficulty that makes you give in over time. honestly, you never complain about this. it's like he wants to understand the factors and layers of you.

"a te kézfogás fickó. ne merészelj lecserélni engem. (your handshake man… don't you dare to replace me)". a shameless wink is send to you, butterflies acquiring space in your stomach.

"és hivatalosan is a szavamat adom rá. (and you officially have my word on it)." your gloss is pigmented against your fingers while you raise it up, displaying an oath, wondering if szoboszlai comprehends that his replacement in your life would be blasphemous.

"diplomata kisasszony, (miss diplomat)…" the hungarian fingerprints are shared and you recognize the sign to hold them, ready to perform your typical fashion icon moment. "gorgeous as always. go ahead! you know what to do!".

amusement surrounds you with the nickname's citation. although, you could feel some curious glances, from the outsiders, about the intimacy between you and him. "i appreciate, our top-class national bless…" you move your body in rotations to exclaim the outfit's characteristics, lifting your feet to show off the specificities of your heels. "how is your hair so well-groomed after sweating, though?" your arms cross and you raise an eyebrow in questioning, trying to hide your fascination.

"thank you, my number-one fan, but don't change the subject. finish our inside joke, c'mon!" dominik grabs his water bottle and spreads the cooling liquid on his forehead, wiping the glowing droplets across his face as he lifted his jersey high enough to exhibits his fortified abs.

your attention is directed to any surrounding scenery, throat being piked. szoboszlai pretends he doesn't notice, preventing to embarrass you.

"alright, alright! you've won, bájos úr… (mr. charming)". your final comment escapes as, practically, a whisper. you can't control the shy laughter, coupled with the considerable redness invading your cheeks.

"that's the secret to make my day!" using his tongue to reproduce a sharp noise, he matches your humorous reactions. "would you like me to show you the infrastructure changes? i'm just gonna take a shower!"

"i've already been granted a tour around here, but in case you insist…" during the dialogue, some athletes cross your space, wishing them good luck for the competition. your concentration on the activity is significant, at the point that dominik's silent admiration goes unnoticed.

"i mean, you know me! i'm gonna insist anyway, so…" he reaches your captivity, bringing you jollification.

"i'll rate you as a personal tour guide. now, go there!" jesting each other, you both exchange exaggerated reverences, like a challenge of who makes the most chaotic one.

────

walking around the area, various subjects are explored, informations entrusted. you ask and are updated about his ethereal younger sister.

portraits of the generations are framed. you magnifies his presence in celebratory pictures, dedicated to find him in the memories and achievements on that wall. pride shines from you and the hungarian finds it lovely.

"you know i'm a sucker for accents… they're much more than mere verbal characteristics, they're stories: life experiences, marks and scars. identities and cultural integrations." the topic is random. through generalized opinions, you're explaining conceptions and dominik is retaining mental observations. he exalts every scrap of your identity, like a faithful worshiper.

"basically, you're admitting being enchanted by my accent. i can see the stars in your eyes. a win is a win!" szoboszlai and his frequent attribute to physical touch, tickling your ears and playing with them. it doesn't bother you, actually: adoring the affection exuded by you and him. you feel like a little girl dealing with your one and only love.

"it's beautiful, how can you blame me? and hey, i know mine's making you grin too." he holds your arm, shivers running down your spine, the two of you being euphoric in the midst of your own enthusiasm.

"putting me against the wall? okay, hum… what were you saying before?" he's changing the subject and you have a natural wit to boo him. lifting his shoulders as a surrender, the hungarian focuses on the specific loose strands of his simple bracelet, which you get used to help him tie it again, willingly.

"trying to avoid the truth? fine! let me take care of you while i talk about my admiration towards globalization and communication. like, with every fiber of me…" you accept the conversation's direction and utter a 'voilà' towards the accessory's new appearance.

"that's why you're the best person i've ever seen doing this job." dominik compliments you, an act full of honesty.

"thanks a lot, mate. but which job? as your bracelet helper or my real one?" you provide tenderness, looking amused.

"i mean… both of them." szoboszlai chuckles, revealing courtesy by your continuous helpfulness.

"literally? because i know you know a lot of people. you're so young and already is the national team's captain." you nudge him in a form of tease. he's a starboy, it's undeniable.

"flattered! literally, thought. you were born for this, believe me." vulnerability collides to you, as his words are deliberated: emotions embracing you and warming your insides.

"dominik szoboszlai, my dear friend, you're gonna make me cry, right here. i'm sorry, i need to do it…"

innocent satisfaction builds strength over you and executes unthought-of approach to the tangibility of your gratitude — his colony enrapturing your sensitive olfaction — in the most out-of-control way. the sounds reach your hearing: a choir of angels singing hallelujah. he reciprocates the contact, laughing at your juvenile excitement. joining him and doing the same thing, harmonizing the triumph. in the separation of the touch, you both remain close to each other and the hungarian doesn't miss the opportunity to feel the softness of your side face, caressing the skin. appreciation and satisfaction invade your structure, delighting on the palm of his hand.

"just a dear friend? why are we pretending all this time?" dominik's reading you. the intimidation at the sight of him overhanging you is paralyzing. you don't usually back down, but in that instant — superior than your most repressed desires — your gasps are escaped.

"who is putting who against the wall now?" insisting and failing on your witty answers, shyness and uncertainty corrodes you.

"please, look at me! i'm not kidding anymore." his voice is questioning, intrigued — contradictorily vulnerable and calm — your rationality being fragmented, fragile.

"you know i'm not the kind of woman you're surrounding by, domi. i'm not an influencer, bikini model. i'm not a public figure. i don't live for the cameras and gossip platforms. i live to work hard. i didn't achieve any of this with some type of perk. my routine and your routine are based on traveling..." who could deny it? szoboszlai's always been all that you see. it's much more than a mere passion. your attraction to him is magnetic, intense, vivid. consequently, terrifying.

"i'm just asking for a chance, (your nickname). i don't lie when i say i've never met someone like you. i may be surrounded by a crowd and you'll still be the one to steal my attention, because nobody compares to you."

your eyelids are closed and the exhalation of his sigh penetrates your lungs with the numbing breath of life you've never experienced before. it's happening: the rare situation where thinking carefully about the pros and cons is unworthy, dumbness. your decision is made and the privilege's resolution unify your lips. the beginning demonstrates slowness and patience — the intensification through the concluded wait of the longed-for reality, transforming light and magical kisses into open mouths discovering each other and witnessing the endearment that both offer — hairs, necks, shoulders and waists captured.

"you're the first to create a meaningful presence in my mind and heart. i want you to be the last one too. i love you, kincs (my treasure). i'm finally brave enough to demonstrate it with no fears." dominik's forearm covers your upper torso. your back against his chest, noses resting on each others. rejoicing at the miraculous, incomparable circumstance.

"i love you, drágám (my precious). you're finally mine and it was so fucking worth waiting." his whisper: the living proof of celestial existence.

"how blessed we are…" intertwined bodies, coalesced essences. solitary melodies turning into the sweetest and most complete symphony.

[togglesbloggle]

So the original Monty Hall game show is midcentury, and the connotation of the 'goat' prize has been drifting over time since then. For us, it's a kind of flagrantly random and useless result, possibly a slightly adorable one depending on your temperament, but it's worth remembering that Monty's audience was a recently-urbanized population that had mostly grown up on farms and was living through rapid industrialization; they were enjoying a modern world in the context of the subsistence farming that preceded it. And the goat isn't just a random animal. It's an agrarian economic object, a farm animal, and a fairly dippy low-value one at that.

The goat is a joke about capital-P Progress, and being left out of it. It's about skyscrapers, monorails, chrome fins, the world of the future. Goat or new car? Goat or labor-saving kitchen devices? Goat or all-expenses paid vacation to international destinations, courtesy of American economic dominance and passenger airlines? Are you cunning enough, and lucky enough, to be swept up in the wealth of the new era? Or are you left behind, with your goat?

We can't quite even capture this in media any more, because progress itself is a much more complex proposition for us. It's sort of... getting away from us. It feels less like a human accomplishment in the early 21st century than it did in the early 20th, and more like we're all buckled up and along for the ride whether we want it or not. But there's still a bit of it left, especially around consumer electronics.

What I'm saying is, in an updated Monty Hall show, the consolation prize would be a Zune.

[40ouncesandamule]

"The global south should remain half a century to a century behind the imperial core for the rest of humanity and/or the global south should never progress beyond the technological capacity of the 1940's" is something you'd expect to hear out of a guy wearing a plinth helmet but is actually the cornerstone of the liberal rules based international order

[fitsofgloom]

So I Take Her Out With Pride,

Flaunt My Dinosaur Girl Tonight

[stone-cold-groove]

A Century of Progress International Exposition opening day ticket. Chicago - 1933.

[oldshrewsburyian]

I love this ask! A Persuasion Campus novel please. (Must go lie down at the thought of Ciarán Hinds as a college professor.)

So, to address your parenthetical first: you've seen Circle of Friends, right? I didn't love it, and his role, iirc, is not sympathetic; however:

The academic gown over the three-piece suit is just gratuitous. AHEM. A Jane Austen campus novel AU is tricky, I think, because I have to undo most if not all of the family relationships in favor of other connective nexuses (nexes? nexii? help). Here goes. I might have spent too much time thinking about this over my morning tea.

Sir Walter Elliott is, inevitably, the college president. He's photogenic. He loves uttering empty and incorrect platitudes about his own achievements. He loves schmoozing with important people. Unfortunately, he's perfect for the job.

The Admiral and Sophy have been at the university for ages, and the Admiral loves to tell the story about how he was her spousal hire in 1987, not the other way around.

Elizabeth is using family money to take a never-ending PhD in fashion history. She's always weirdly vague about her project, and finds a way not to participate in chapter exchanges. Rumor says that it's Sir Walter's influence keeping her from being kicked out.

Mary took an M.A., married money, and has been (dis)contentedly living on the UWS ever since. It's not quite true to say that she's never looked back. She visits colloquia and other open department functions with a depressing persistency, and appears not to notice that this is sometimes awkward for people who are united by their passion for a subject in which she never excelled.

Louisa and Henrietta are grad students, and remarkably carefree with it. Somehow their work does, in fact, get done.

Harville is, I think, Wentworth's sailing club buddy.

Mr. Elliott will be a smarmy visiting academic at another area institution. Unfortunately, I know his type. Eventually it will come out that he's eternally "visiting" because of a plagiarism scandal in his past.

Lady Russell is, of course, Anne's PhD supervisor. Who else would be in loco parentis and giving prudent and unwelcome advice?

Anne administers the interdisciplinary center in eighteenth-century studies. While she is several decades younger than those who usually take on such jobs, this works out well for several reasons. She has a head for detail, and is conscientious to a fault. Also, the faculty are (almost) all extremely fond of her, and the importance of this in getting academics to comply with bureaucratic necessities cannot be overstated. She's an alum of the program, and did finish her PhD. Lady Russell still sometimes sighs, a little too audibly, when she sees her erstwhile star student being competent in the front office. But care-taking duties during her mother's long illness meant that Anne's progress through the degree was slow, and international conference travel to boost her reputation didn't happen. The job market, with its precarity and long-distance upheavals, didn't either. So here is Anne, still in the department. Anne herself may not have the career or the life she dreamed of, but she has employment and health insurance, which is more than many recent PhDs can say. She sings in a choir. She tells herself that she has a good life.

Frederick Wentworth was Sophy's student. (I will miss her big sister energy, but a PhD supervisor also has the lifelong privilege of dragging you and telling you to get your life together, so here we are.) Lady Russell thought he was always going to burn out. Sure, he looked good on paper: a bright scholarship student from a state school in the fields of nowhere. But his project, studying contested empire and constructions of masculinity in the Atlantic world using network analysis, was always too ambitious. Until it wasn't.

With several fellowships, a postdoc, and a visiting position at a SLAC behind him -- the OUP monograph is in press -- Frederick Wentworth is back. Lady Russell wasn't on the search committee. But not only is Frederick Wentworth competent to teach the gender studies courses the department wants and the survey courses the university wants, he is also willing to take on the military history courses that the jocks want. "Thank God," says Sophy bluntly, once he's accepted the offer, "I won't have to read their opinions of my haircut in the student evals anymore." Also, there's that OUP monograph. No one quite says out loud that they have in their midst that rarest of creatures, the photogenic male historian who actually is a historian. But the consciousness runs through the halls like a current. This, for the department, could be a beginning.

For Anne, it is something else. It's not that they dated, exactly. It was never that formal, or that limited. Only in retrospect, really, did she realize that it was odd to spend an entire day walking around looking at architecture, or to end up with intertwined ankles on a museum bench, or to cook freely in each other's kitchens, before having an understanding. The understanding came. It was a November night, and they were sitting on a bench in Riverside Park, and she didn't feel the cold. They had agreed that they'd go on the job market together. They would read each other's applications the way they read each other's dissertation chapters. And they'd move to wherever one of them got a tenure-track job first. And then everything fell apart. Anne still thinks that Dr. Russell was right, that it wouldn't have been fair to hold him. More, she thinks that she herself could not have borne to lose what they had in a slow death of long-distance phone calls, too-brief visits, awkward negotiations of what they could and could not expect. Better to be sensible. Better to make a clean break while they were still young, still resilient. But she has never felt resilient. And now Frederick Wentworth is back.

[txttletale]

socialism: elysian and scientific

[whispering to you in a movie theater in between mouthfuls of salted caramel popcorn--other moviegoers who just want to watch we bought a zoo (2011) are glaring at us but i don’t care]

so in 1880 friedrich engels wrote a snappy little number called ‘socialism: utopian & scientific’. it’s a foundational marxist text and one i’d recommend to everybody--and i think some of the ideas in it are incorporated and built on in disco elysium in really interesting ways.

socialism: utopian & scientific does a few things. first, it lays out the ideas of the 18th century utopian socialists and explains the societal context in which they developed their ideas--and the core idea of the dialectic development of ideas. engels harshly critiques the enlightenment's conception of the history of thought as a history of individual thinkers attempting to capture an eternal, immutable corpus of truth and justice--he describes this worldview thusly (emphasis mine):

What was wanted was the individual man of genius, who has now arisen and who understands the truth. That he has now arisen, that the truth has now been clearly understood, is not an inevitable event, following of necessity in the chains of historical development, but a mere happy accident. He might just as well have been born 500 years earlier, and might then have spared humanity 500 years of error, strife, and suffering.

and of course it jumped out to me playing disco elysium that this is exactly how human development works the world of elysium--innocences are singularly world-changing individuals who personally establish systems and ideologies within their lifetimes:

dolores dei in particular is a pretty clear synechdoche (both narratively and, because of how innocences work, diegetically) for the bourgeois revolutions of the enlightenment--her followers, the moralists, are clearly analogous to the real-world post-enlightenment liberal international system. the “kingdom of conscience”, is, i think, also a pretty heavy-handed reference to engels’ sardonic use of the “kingdom of reason” to describe the empty promises of the 18th century bourgeois revolutions:

Now, for the first time, appeared the light of day, the kingdom of reason; henceforth superstition, injustice, privilege, oppression, were to be superseded by eternal truth, eternal Right, equality based on Nature and the inalienable rights of man.

so--moralists are liberals, that’s not exactly groundbreaking. the innocentic system is a literalization of the metaphysical vision of the history of ideas--that’s interesting, but it doesn’t really say anything in and of itself. so let’s go a little deeper. if engels doesn’t think philosophers, are accessing a nebulous immaterial well of absolute truth, what does he think--well, he cites hegelian dialectics, a system he and marx develop into material dialectics and historical materialism. what the fuck are hegelian dialectics--well there’s a lot of really long fucking books that answer that, but let me just quote engels here:

In his system — and herein is its great merit — for the first time the whole world, natural, historical, intellectual, is represented as a process — i.e., as in constant motion, change, transformation, development; and the attempt is made to trace out the internal connection that makes a continuous whole of all this movement and developmen

hegel posits the history of mankind as the history of ideas evolving in concert with one another--the ideas of, say, the enlightenment weren’t just waiting in the aether during the age of feudalism, fully formed until some singular genius could grasp them--instead they are the product of the ideas before them interacting through the process of thesis-antithesis-synthesis. this is dialectics--the idea that progress broadly takes the form of contradicting forces generating a novel force through their interaction.

now, engels identifies one key flaw in hegel, which is that he’s still idealist--he is putting the ideas first in this historical model, positing them as drivers of history rather than products of it. engels then goes on to lay out the fundamentals of historical materialism, which is the application of dialectics to a material view of history--when engels says “all past history [...] was the history of class struggles”, this is what he means, that historical development is the process of the creation and resolution of contradictions between modes of production and exchange (how stuff gets made and who gets it and why).

[i take someone elses double gulp soda out of their hand and slurp it loudly, ignoring their obvious outrage]

okay that’s all cool but what does this have to do with beloved crpg disco elysium (2019)? well, for a start it takes a very distinctively historical materialist worldview when it comes to its own history--the history of revachol is very much the history of class struggle, from the revolution to the strike--and the idea that the elements from which future society will arise are already present with current society is a recurring theme:

the future is change--society is in motion, contradictions must resolve, the world is dialectic--and the moralists are in opposition to this, desperate to maintain the status quo, to maintain contradictions perfectly suspended forever. from the dialectic point of view, moralism in disco elysium is the quest for no future at all:

as engels explains, a dialectic view of history means that you need to understand the past if you want to understand the present, because the present is born from elements of the past:

From this point of view, the history of mankind no longer appeared as a wild whirl of senseless deeds of violence, all equally condemnable at the judgment seat of mature philosophic reason and which are best forgotten as quickly as possible, but as the process of evolution of man himself.

for the moralists, the past is something to be forgotten, cast aside for an eternal unchanging present. which is interesting because in disco elysium there happens to be a global world-threatening force which is forgetting the past: the god damn pale. the pale is the accumulation of all human history into something flat and meaningless, the detachment of history from its context--the pale is the future, past, and present not as dialectical continuum of cause and effect but as meaningless incoherent chatter. the pale is the moralist’s view of history made real global force--

--and it has the potential to destroy everything--

and this is what moralism is. engels says of metaphysical philosophy:

In the contemplation of individual things, it forgets the connection between them; in the contemplation of their existence, it forgets the beginning and end of that existence; of their repose, it forgets their motion. It cannot see the woods for the trees.

by understanding the world in repose, as a dead thing, moralism is killing it. by discarding the past it is creating a debt that can’t be repaid. and what brings this all together is this bit of information from the game’s concept art:

innocences create the fucking pale. what they’re doing, their immanentized personificaton of the kingdom-of-reason model of history, is destroying the future. very literally, the non-dialectic view of the status quo--the quest for the right ideas to ensure endless stagnant stillness--is killing the world. the man who killed dolores dei was right:

we were supposed to come up with this ourselves. so--all that done--what’s the point of this post? what do i think any of this proves, other than that i and the DE writers are fancy communists who read books? well, my read on it at least: the pale is the destruction of history for a purpose--because if we do not understand history, we will think we cannot change it. we will wait for the great people to do it for us--we will wait for them to invent a future to live in and we will wait until we die. we are supposed to come up with this ourselves. as engels says:

The possibility of securing for every member of society, by means of socialized production, an existence not only fully sufficient materially, and becoming day-by-day more full, but an existence guaranteeing to all the free development and exercise of their physical and mental faculties — this possibility is now, for the first time, here, but it is here.

liberalism tells us that the future is unknowable, untouchable, that all we can do is wait for it to arrive. socialism--and disco elysium--tell us that the future is here, now, that everything we need to build it ourselves is already in the world. the second hardest part of that is realizing it--the hardest part is doing it.

[i am dragged bodily out of the theater by my ankles, frantically snatching snacks out of other people’s hands as i go. for the road]

[reasonsforhope]

gahh, are there any big recent good news stories❔everything i can find seems so . small. which is ok and good but gahhhhhhhhh mental health explode my brain aaaaa

Oh yeah, 100%

Do your mental health a favor and read some of this. It's a giant compilation of good news newsletters that is very good at finding big stories and has a very large-scale and international focus: https://futurecrunch.com/goodnews/

Future Crunch's top story from two weeks ago, for example:

"Humanity has made astonishing progress on access to water, sanitation and hygiene in this century. Between 2000 and 2022, 2.1 billion people gained access to safe drinking water, 2.5 billion gained access to safely managed sanitation, the number of people using unimproved facilities has been halved, from 1.1 billion to 545 million, and the number practising open defecation has fallen by more than two thirds, from 1.3 billion to 419 million. Source: WHO"

[olderthannetfic]

https://olderthannetfic.tumblr.com/post/749680765765337088/a-food-but-in-this-context-it-doesnt-really#notes

Ohhh, it's good to have a term for this. Out of curiosity, what would you say is the line between like.... not whitewashing a character, reflecting their culture, not just Writing Them Like a White Person.... vs. giving into these kinds of stereotypes?

I'm in a fandom with a prominent MENA character who is one of the more popular characters in fanfic, and this character largely isn't defined around "his culture" in the canon. A lot of people see this as a problem to correct. I think sometimes that they could do some thinking for why a non-white character needs to be "close to their culture" and they don't similarly do this for white characters who come from specific countries, but I get that some of this is coming from people from that background who want to see themselves represented better in media and are tired of their culture being erased. To me the difference between what I've seen in fic from those people reflecting their real-world experiences (or also, non-MENA people who are more informed) is that there's an awareness of how modern culture is not the same as traditional culture, and how most real people do some picking and choosing of what practices they embrace and which they are could do without. The stuff where you can tell it's an ignorant person trying to be "progressive" but just being Orientalist is when they feel like they have to check off every single box for what it is to be "Middle Eastern" to them, and all those boxes just so happen to coincide with media stereotypes. I was wondering if you thought that was the line too or if you also had some other ideas about how to avoid the "space tamales" thing.

--

The biggest help is just to write a three-dimensional character with internal motivations that make sense. A decent amount of stereotypical tripe is the result of weak writing skills. But yes, thinking there's one specific standard for a group and needing them to be very different and marked is a lot of the issue.

The space!tamales problem shows up heavily when people do things like conflate completely different cultures (Latin America has more than just Mexico in it) and when they completely ignore canon to graft on what they think of as "authentic" (many canons set in space are not actually set in the future of our earth, and the ones that are are often set many centuries in the future when cultures will have changed).

The equivalent would be the Old Guard fandom thinking that people from the Crusades era are going to strongly identify with the modern cultures from their places of origin. I mean, they might... if they've been living there lately... But that's certainly not the only possible interpretation, and they're absolutely not going to be equivalent to a current 30-something from there.