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omg-snakes · 3 years ago

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Hi I just want to say I love your blog and your snakes are so freaking cute!! I also had a question if you have time to answer it. I really love reptiles and would like to get into reptile keeping (probably not for a year or so as I have one more semester of my bachelor's degree and then will probably be moving). I've been doing a lot of research in preparation for bringing one home in the future. However, I've been wondering, do people ever sell fertilized reptile hatching eggs for people to hatch? I don't think this is something I would do if any breeders offered it because I don't have much experience, but I do breed chickens and people do this all the time with chicken eggs, so I was wondering if it is something people do with reptiles too. I imagine shipping would be harder with reptile eggs than chicken eggs bc of how soft they are, but I was still curious and thought it might be worth asking!

Hi there!

Okay I LOVE this ask. I think about this sort of thing a lot and while it's definitely not a thing I often wish it could be.

The very short answer is that for most reptiles, selling a fertilized egg to hatch at home is not feasible. It's definitely not possible to ship fertilized reptile eggs with any hope of hatching them, but in a few rare cases you could possibly sell one in person, in an insulated container, and if the buyer went straight home and got it into an incubator it would probably be okay.

There are a few reasons why reputable reptile breeders don't do this.

Consider that chickens have a fast rate of maturity, relatively fast incubation, regular and predictable breeding cycle, and eggs can rest for a bit before they're incubated for hatching. All of this adds up to eggs that are relatively abundant, inexpensive, forgiving in terms of being jostled since the eggs are designed to be turned during incubation, a quick turnaround from purchase to enjoying your new pet, and within a year, if you hatched a hen, you'll be able to make more eggs. As a domesticated species bred for hardiness and responsiveness to human care, healthy chicks will start eating and displaying normal chickeny behaviors right away.

Corn snakes, for contrast, take up to 4 years to mature, they only breed once per year and lay a relatively small number of eggs per breeding season compared to an average chicken, their eggs take 65-ish days to incubate, and the embryos adhere to the top of the egg very soon after the eggs are laid so they can not be turned or the embryo will be smothered by their own yolk. Once hatched, a corn snake neonate will not eat until after their first shed and sometimes a bit after that! This can be a harrowing, delicate time in a baby snake's life and they need an experienced keeper to help them thrive.

Furthermore, chickens come in specialized breeds where corn snakes are an undomesticated species. Reptiles come in color morphs but they don't have defined breeds with expected size, color, temperament, health expectations, or fecundity the way chickens do.

So if you were to, say, buy buff orpington hatching eggs, you'd reliably hatch buff orpingtons, with orpington personalities and characteristics. If you bred two hypo corn snakes, you'd definitely get hypo corn snake babies but you might also get other color morphs depending on the genetics of the parents. Unless you know very well the specific genes, temperaments, sizes, and health histories of the parents you won't have any idea of what's going to hatch. And even with all that information, it's still quite variable!

Finally, corn snakes cost a lot more than most chicken breeds and the price of a snake is in part determined by the genes they carry. Two snakes in the same clutch might vary significantly in terms of color expression, so you could have a $50 snake and a $200 snake in the same clutch! Since every egg carries a risk of failing to hatch, sellers don't usually price their snakes until they're alive, eating, and thriving. If a seller were to price their eggs, knowing the genetics of the parents that produced said eggs, they'd either be taking a huge loss on the value of a potentially valuable snake or asking their buyer to incur a significant loss should an expensive egg fail. If a breeder were to go this route, they'd probably only offer eggs that they know are low-dollar-value or have low desirability, and then we have to ask why somebody is breeding snakes they don't think are desirable...

All said and done, it's probably a safer idea to contact a local breeder and ask them to tag an egg for you, allowing you the first right of refusal on whomever hatches. They'll insure that "your" egg stays safe and if for any reason it does fail, you won't have invested anything in it except hope.

I hope this helps explain and that I didn't crush anybody's dreams.

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reverielix · 4 years ago

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Excuse me Sir, Sorry to bother you. But frankly I'm new to this astrology topic but it's very fascinating to say the least.

Friend asked me to do a natal chart? No clue. Have no clue. Saw the previous post, was wondering if you help a stranger out here ? Lol.

Hi haha!

I’m a Miss but OFC I CAN TELL YOU MORE ABOUT IT! (Can you tell I’m excited? Lol) I’ll be seizing this opportunity to make an...

Astrology basics masterpost

Okay first off, the natal chart is a “snap shot” of the sky when you were born with the earth in the middle. There are 4 compounds that birth charts are made of:

1. The signs

You’ve definitely already heard of zodiac signs. In astrology, the sky is divided into 12 equal parts, each reserved for a sign starting at Aries and ending at Pisces. It goes like this: Aries ♈️, Taurus ♉️, Gemini ♊️, Cancer ♋️, Leo ♌️, Virgo ♍️, Libra ♎️, Scorpio ♏️, Sagittarius ♐️, Capricorn ♑️, Aquarius ♒️, Pisces ♓️

Basically, each sign is associated with certain character traits (which range many more than I or any singular source could encompass in short, I left a few links for gathering information in the end of this post). But it always depends on how evolved the person is. Aquarians CAN be detached if not evolved, but also have many more qualities such as their modality and element (which imply traits such as their innovative nature, intellect, hunger for knowledge, empathy, sociability,...)

So basically there are 4 elements (fire, earth, air and water) in astrology and 3 modalities (cardinal, fixed, mutable) which all carry certain meanings to them. Those elements and modalities are evenly distributed within the zodiac and move along the signs in the order I wrote them up above. So we start with cardinal fire (Aries), then we follow up with fixed earth (Taurus), after that we’ve got mutable air (Gemini), then again a cardinal sign but this time belonging to the water signs (Cancer), and so on. Additionally, all earth and water signs are of negative polarity while fire and air are of positive polarity.

The signs are the outermost circle you see when looking at your birth/natal chart. (On the left, where the arrow points, for instance, was Virgo ♍️ when & where you were born) They represent the way that you express a certain core part (3rd point) of yourself.

2. The houses

The numbers you see around the innermost circle with the lines in it are the houses. Each house is ruled by a sign in modern astrology: Aries is the first sign, so it rules the first house,...). This means that each house is afflicted with one sign and its qualities and traits.

Each house represents an area of life: The 4th house—ruled by Cancer—represents the home, comfort zone, where we crave for stability and emotional support as well as a lot more.

The angular houses ruled by cardinal signs, so: the 1st house (ascendant/rising), the 4th house (ic/ Imum Coeli), the 7th house (descendant), the 10th house (mc/midheaven) show in the picture you sent me with arrows and have a special significance in the chart + also have aspects (4th point) to them shown.

The first 6 houses are afflicted most with yourself and the last 6 houses have to do with your social/public self (e.g.: 2nd house has to do with resources and the 8th with shares resources). This can also be applied to each sign ruling the house.

3. The celestial bodies

When somebody asks what your zodiac sign is, you would answer with Capricorn, when in actuality, it’s just your sun sign (so one of many zodiac signs in your chart).

Each celestial body represents a core part of the human psyche/personality and also rules a/two sign(s) and with that a/two house(s). Another terminology for rulership can be domicile (e.g.: Saturn is in domicile in Capricorn).

Every planet is afflicted with the signs (and houses) in the form of essential dignity (whether in terms of exaltation/fall or detriment/domicile)

The sun rules Leo and the 5th house. These connections are made as to better understand each house/sign/planet and clarify/stress the connections between these three “compounds”. So, ruling Leo and the 5th house, the sun represents how we express ourselves and how we perform along with our egos, overall sense of identity and self-awareness among other things.

Before you say that you (know people who) don’t relate to their zodiac sign or don’t seem to present yourself/themselves like that at all: a placement (celestial body in a sign in a house) always depends on the aspects and also the house that nobody talks about. You’re not only a Capricorn, but a Capricorn sun in the 4th house conjunct Mercury,... (+ other aspects). Your sun in the 12th/7th/8th houses (houses, among others, afflicted with the subconscious) can mean that your way to express yourself is more in the background or not quite figured out yet. (With Leo in the 12th house that may also apply to you:) In the case of the 12th house, you may want to express yourself, but don’t exactly know how to...

Also, all of your chart matters! The sun sign is only a part of it, though one of the 3 most important placements (sun, moon, rising).

For the following paragraph keep in mind: personal/inner celestial bodies/planets (houses and signs matter equally), generational/outer planets/placements (houses matter most because they move slowly along the zodiac. the slower they move, the less the sign matters.)

The celestial bodies used in astrology aren’t limited to a certain amount as asteroids can also be interpreted/also have meanings but the most commonly used and talked about are: the sun, the moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars (Nodes, Vertex — aren’t celestial bodies but fall into the “sign & house are important” category and are a tool that function/are illustrated like celestial bodies), Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto (Chiron, black moon Lilith)

You can see each celestial body’s name listed with its symbol in the bottom right corner of the screenshot you sent me and can then look at the circle between the signs and house numbers for where they are placed.

Lastly, planets are afflicted with each other as well since generational planets can be higher octaves of personal planets, and ��get along” or don’t “get along” just like the signs, whose compatibility is determined by...

4. The aspects

The expression of every planet depends on these! Aspects show the relationship between two placements and how they connect into one whole personality (Additional information about humans in general: our personality integrates at around the ages of 7 to 9. Before that, we have different needs and wants but not one integrated personality that is made of interwoven traits, qualities,...). They point out how many degrees two or more placements are away from each other (e.g. 180deg = opposition). So when you look at your own chart, you can see that Virgo ♍️ and Pisces ♓️ are in opposition to each other. This also means that people born during Pisces season and people born during Virgo season celebrate their birthdays approximately 6 months apart from each other (because the sun needs a year to transit through the signs).

There are major and minor aspects. Major aspects are usually displayed in the innermost space of the circle using different colored lines and are an umbrella term for: the opposition, the square, the conjunction, the trine and the sextile. Minor aspects are usually listed in extended chart selection options (semi-sextiles, quincunxes, quintiles,...)

Those are then divided into hard/challenging (square, opposition,...), neutral (conjunction,...) and soft/harmonious (trine, sextile,...) aspects. Example: your Sagittarius Mercury (communication, (early) education, rationality, speech, day-to-day expression, perfectionism/detail-orientation,...) in the 4th in a trine (same element, a “flow of energy”) with your Aries moon (emotions, empathy, feelings of security, nurture, comfort,...) in the 8th can indicate potential for the verbal expression of your emotions. You may let your emotions out by talking to people who you live with or your immediate family. Moreover, you could have a desire to write about your emotions in a philosophical/educational way to make others think, but decide to keep your writing to yourself or your closest circle nonetheless. One could chat about an aspect for sooo long just because there are so many things associated with the houses, signs, aspects and celestial bodies. There are so many different angles to take and you’re never done learning about astrology.

Whenever you ask somebody what sign is most compatible with yours, you’d look at the aspects between your sign and other signs to determine if your placements are in a harmonious relationship with each other, though synastry (astrology of compatibility between two birth chart) is much more complex then that.

Lastly, aspects don’t go specifically with one sign/house/celestial body, and some placements can also be unaspected. There are also things such as retrogrades, chart shapes, aspect patterns, dominant signs, persona charts, interceptions and much more but that would definitely go beyond the scope. Let me know if you’d like for me to make a post going in depth regarding those things.

How astrology on social media and day-to-day life has been altered to be regarded as something it is not:

The key is to view modern astrology less as a predictive tool or proof for assumption—because frankly it isn’t—but more as a tool to recognize psychological patterns and behavioral tendencies, which ultimately are what astrology illustrates through elements in the sky. So, no, actions cannot be justified because somebody has a certain placement. (As I mentioned above, it is crucial to regard that placements can be evolved or not evolved and therefore can “manifest” (not the candles in a circle for clear skin and money kind lol) differently). Lastly, astrology doesn’t tell you what to do and you alone have the power over your behavior. You can break free from the patterns illustrated and tendencies pointed out. It’s all about who you choose to be.

Please mark that the links for planets, signs and houses don’t encompass everything that the planets/houses/signs illustrate. For more information I recommend Hannah’s Elsewhere, astro-charts, astro.com, cafe.astrology or astrology.com (lmk if you know about more sources).

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arcticdementor · 4 years ago

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I recently had Robin Hanson on the CSPI podcast to talk about futarchy. It’s one thing to spread knowledge on a particular issue, it’s another to invent a new technology to create more knowledge in the world, and help apply it where needed. That’s what I see Robin doing. He convinced me that although it may take a very long time, one day humanity will give less of a role to systems like peer review and unaccountable bureaucracy in determining how we understand the world, and more of a role to prediction markets. The logic is just too compelling. But sooner is better than later, and if you want to be involved, please reach out.

…

The first step towards this glorious future is convincing people that a world where more decisions are made based on prediction markets is desirable and achievable. In that spirit, below is a transcript of our conversation, lightly edited for clarity. To read more about futarchy, see here.

…

Robin: Right. This conditional market mechanism hasn't actually been tested out in the world outside of the laboratory tests in that we haven't been able to get people interested enough to try it. We've had a lot of tests of speculative markets that aren't conditional in the sense that we've had markets on deadlines, whether you make a deadline in sales and things like that.

We've probably had 100 different trials like that over the last few decades. Typically what happens is that if there's enough support for the market in order to induce an affectivity then again the price is about as accurate or more accurate than the status quo and most users are satisfied. The costs are modest. That's been the history for many decades.

However a key problem is usually the market gets killed in the sense that an organization says to stop and doesn't continue it. The main reason is that it's relatively disruptive. These markets are politically disruptive. The way they are disruptive is analogous to, imagine you put a very knowledgeable autist in the C suite, that is somebody in the C suite that knows a lot about the company and they go to the meetings. They just blurt out when they know things that it's relevant to the conversation but they have no political savvy.

They have no sense of, what does anybody want to hear, or who will be bothered by anything they say. That sort of an autist would not last long in the C-suite. They would be shunted aside and become an advisor to someone perhaps, trusted advisor to their side but they wouldn't be allowed to speak in the boardroom. But that's what a prediction market is. It has no idea who wants to hear what it has to say.

It will often say things that people do not want to hear, and that embarrass them, and that contradict what they've said. Then all the worse of course it will be proven right.

Richard: Yeah. But what's stopping the autist, or I guess what's stopping them is nobody has just done this yet? But theoretically you could imagine the autist setting up the rules for the corporation, right?

Robin: You might if they were in charge at the beginning sure.

…

Robin: Now we move to the question of like, what fraction of companies out there are actually maximizing profits?

Richard: Yeah.

Robin: It’s a very basic question in economics and in our world. We economists tend to assume as a simple initial working model that organizations that are for profit actually do maximize profits. That's the thing they usually do. If you give them a choice of A or B, and B is higher profit they'll choose B.

Here if you apply that model you say, “Well, this looks like it would give them key information to make key decisions like, ‘Will we make the deadline,’ and it will be valuable. The cost is relatively low so of course they would do it.” That's what you would say if you were applying that theory. Then here we have a case where it looks like, well it hasn't happened yet.

You might think, “Okay, innovation is slow. It takes a while,” but we’ve been waiting several decades. Honestly if I look across a wide range of other areas of corporate behavior I can't fully support this profit maximizing theory. I think I can find a lot of other places where what they do does not maximize profits.

I could give you a long list of examples. We could go through some of those but then the question is, “Well, how do I come to terms with it? What theory do I have affirms in the absence of profit maximizing to explain the behavior?”

…

Robin: I mean I think in fact the correct response is to say the free market version is probably the best. You just have no idea how much worse things can be. People often look at the status quo of a business world say that is relatively free market. They look at this up close and they go, “This looks terrible how could you possibly be defending this?”

The argument has to be, “Well, it would just be so much worse without this.” And in fact often if you look to large stable organizations like universities and government agencies, or churches that have been around for a long time it is in fact worse. I think that's roughly right. Another story might be we've hobbled some of the competition between firms that might solve some of these problems.

I honestly think one of the biggest wins we could do is to just allow stronger hostile takeovers. The laws at the moment make it harder to do hostile takeovers. They require a substantial tax on them in essence. If you see a badly run company and you have an idea how it could be run better the problem is how are you going to profit on that? But if you could just buy up the company, change its management and then sell it again after it was better that would be a big, powerful engine for making it better.

There have been times when that mechanism has been allowed to do more and it has made huge changes. That's what inspired people to lock it down and prevent those changes because they were scared it was coming for them.

…

Richard: I've seen stuff like who will win the tip off in basketball, and who's going to win the coin toss in a football game? Who's going to win first quarter?

Robin: I once looked onto doing this for war college war games. As you may know many war colleges have war games where they put teams on different sides and give them various equipment in a simulated war. They have them go to war. You could imagine, well letting everybody else who’s watching the war game give advice about particular strategies in the war game. That seemed plausible to me but then when I talked to people at war colleges I found that most of these war games are kind of fake.

Richard: Yeah.

Robin: They have a predetermined outcome that’s some lesson they want to tell, and so they aren't really letting it be open to winning one side or the other.

Richard: No, that's funny because you'll see headlines every now and then that'll say, “Oh, my God. The US loses to China in a war game,” and yeah I always thought that that’s…

Robin: I’m sure there probably are real war games somewhere. They just aren't at the war colleges. That's where I was thinking I could convince somebody to try this sort of thing.

…

Richard: What is the advantage of the blockchain? What is the difference between a blockchain say market versus just something like PredictIt?

Robin: Well, that's an excellent question. Initially the story was that blockchain was out of control, that it couldn't be regulated so you could set up a system on a blockchain. If the regulators didn't like it they didn't have anybody to go to stop it. The blockchain just kept going regardless of who didn't like it.

That was a big selling point. People said, “Well, look at all this financial innovation we can do because we are free from existing regulations on the blockchain.” That's what they said, and then a lot of companies formed on this basis.

But these companies didn't take personal strategies to match that rhetoric. You would think if your plan was to put a product on the blockchain and that you were going to say nanny nanny to the regulators because, “You can’t get me,” you wouldn’t have a big public presence with the headquarters, and your picture in the magazines, and show up in person at conferences right? Because…

Richard: Yeah. Sure.

Robin: ...well, that makes you more obviously a target right? That's what they did though, and then they sort of back pedaled and said later, “Oh, we're following all the regulations.” But you know people don’t really believe that. It's been this big question, to what extent will governments crack down on these blockchain things that at least from the government regulators point of view are not following their rules?

Richard: Yeah. Do you have in mind the Coinbase news that had come out the last few days, or was it today or yesterday that-

Robin: This is just a continuing issue. I don't have any particular recent event in mind but there are lots of stories about regulators thinking of doing a lot more regulating and cracking down more. This is a big question about blockchain is how far will they crack down, and what will be the consequences? Of course people say, “Well, in principle Bitcoin can keep chugging along even if they do crack down,” and no doubt that's true to some degree.

But the question of how much activity there'll be is still somewhat open. You could have it chugging along with a far lower activity because a lot of people have been discouraged.

…

Robin: Let me at this point admit what I would say is the biggest problem with futarchy and with some of these other decision markets, which is that they make hypocrisy harder, which is actually a problem. You might think, “Well, hypocrisy is a bad thing. Making it harder is good right?” Well, let’s walk through that.

At the moment, say ordinary people can claim to love trees and they just care a lot about trees. Trees real estate wonderful and they certainly wouldn’t want to have fewer trees. But then they elect politicians who have to make choices about trees versus other things. Those politicians can probably read the public and say, “Well, they say they like trees but they don’t really like trees that much, so I’m not actually going to go save some trees by interfering with something else.”

Then if the public ever finds out that somehow not everything was being done to save trees, the public can complain and say, “That damn politician! They’re corrupt! They were bought out and I sure hate them. Let’s throw them out of office,”right? Because the politician is allowing the public to be hypocritical, to pretend they care more about trees than they do.

…

Robin: The pandemic was not a big enough crisis that we fired people who did badly on it. Neither was Afghanistan. We’re in a world where we have these big things we do wrong but they somehow just aren’t bad enough to really scare us into trying different things. The question is where will we ever see some nation or big organization that’s scared enough about losing to be willing to roll the dice and try some big changes?

Richard: When you look at the American Military established under World War II I mean the military establishment was a new thing. You were building basically something from scratch. Now you have all these vested interests. You know it’s funny. The places, the countries with the most US Military… the most military personnel in the world are actually Italy, Germany, Japan, and South Korea right?

Robin: Those are risky, dangerous spots. You’d want troops there wouldn’t you?

Richard: Yeah. Well, maybe but if you notice they have something in common. Those are the Axis powers and the Korean War right?

Robin: Right.

Richard: Basically they’re the exact same place they were in 1945 to 1950 and so-

Robin: Hysteresis right? Enormous path dependence?

Richard: Yeah, exactly. Enormous dependence. Yeah, Italy. Is that obvious? The most dangerous place in the world. Maybe, maybe not.

Robin: No, and it’s not remotely obviously the most dangerous place in the world.

Richard: Yeah. Do you look around the world, and right now do you see variation in the extent to which countries are willing to not only take risks but take risks specifically along the path that you suggest?

#richard hanania #substack #robin hanson #interview #prediction markets #long read

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ill-be-istj-if-no-one-else-is · 4 years ago

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Hi, I've only recently come across your blog and I'd like to ask you a question regarding my type. I've originally written a long text to mbti-notes via private messaging, but I'd like to hear your opinion as well and draw conclusion from that. In short, I've been typing myself as INFP most of the time, even though I've felt like something is off, that I don't relate well to Fi-dom descriptions, etc. so I'm now thinking I could be an INFJ. I'll provide examples for INFJ as well as some questions

Some info: I'm 20, bipolar, have PTSD and severe social anxiety (diagnosed, so I know I'm not just looping or gripping, but this leads to questions such as if I really have Fe or it's just anxiety, etc.) but I've started psychotherapy, I'm not in a depressive nor hypomanic state so nothing really influences my perception of self, etc. Pretty confident that I'm an INFx, although I'm open to other possibilites, as well. Ni usage: I have a concrete sense of direction and where I want to end up

which does slightly change when I'm going through even more stress than usual, however I have everything planned out and absorb as much information on anything that could help me achieving my goals as possible. Unlike many Ne users (even Ne-terts I know), I don't enjoy switching areas of interest every week, dedication and going for your goal is ultimately what matters to me. I often envision the ideal situation and don't enjoy preparing for everything at one time: I get disappointed whenever

doesn't go as I envisioned it, but I often subconsciously "just know" how some things will play out. Though, this doesn't mean I'm okay without thinking everything thorough and immediately reacting to everything hoping it will be all right.HOWEVER: I think anyone is capable of (thinking they're) "predicting things" for whatever reason. I do like structure, and I have the need to know everything before my mind can move on. Although I have trouble with procrastination, I see this as more of an

emotional issue, since I still need everything to be clear. But still, I'd rather delay something than set it in advance when circumstances can change uncomparingly drastically, and this just seems like common sense to me. I'm absolutely perfectionistic in what I assume is important to me. I have to have full control over specific processes since I usually have some kind of vision how they have to turn out and evolve. HOWEVER: I could definitely picture an Fi-Te user doing this with their art

Why I don't think I use Ni: despite me criticizing whatever seems superficial to me, I still would describe myself as "too shallow" to be put in the same list as other Ni doms if judging by the depth of their Ni. I can enjoy things like living in the moment or spending good time with friends possibly too easily for an Ni dom. I've also been described as scatter-brained before, and had to take the role of the class clown on some occasions (this is more stereotyping than typing by functions, tho)

Fe: I'm pretty much "anti-Fi" in some aspects: this comes more from comparing myself against other Fi dominants, but they all have a somewhat, for a lack of better word, naive way of thinking about their identity, such as that you should show who you truly are all the time and through anything you can, to the point of giving up anything that makes them take up a persona. While this can be exhausting to me as well, I just don't seem to have a sense of personal identity whatsoever

Why I don't think I have Fe: even though I care a lot about what people think of me, I wonder if it's actually just inferior Te. In the end, even though I don't have a sense of identity, I "adopt" characteristics of people who seem interesting to me and act as if they were mine. Why I don't think I have Se: I don't think I have ever looped in a way of making impulsive decisions I regret later, etc. only wasting my time sleeping, doing pointless physical activities, etc.

----------------

Hi anon,

I was not able to come up with a type from this as there are very few actual examples, and putting things in terms of MBTI jargon/comparison to people you have typed as certain types is not really useful because I don’t know if they’re actually that type; it’s also really hard to go off of “here’s everything I’m not”, so I would recommend reading through the FAQ if you’re still stuck. Also, 20 is young and you might need more time to develop, particularly if you’ve been dealing with several mental health issues during your teens.

That said, here’s what I have

- lack of examples often correlates to high intuition in that intuitives tend to go straight to their interpretation and general descriptors rather than examples of their behavior

- someone once joked that long asks are usually high Ne and while I don’t think that’s universally true, it’s often true.

concrete sense of direction and where you want to end up is usually high Ni or Si, but in particular the part about procrastination because things can change really does not sound like an Ni dom at all. Dom Ni users tend not to procrastinate but also tend to really struggle with contingency - they are often so fixated on the vision that they don’t know how to deal with the idea that it may not come to pass.

Liking structure is one thing; do you create structure? Some NPs and SPs appreciate structure as an aid/jumping off point but do not create it; they can still find it helpful. Improvisation is still something that has structure, it’s just not the set structure. So this is a case where examples are absolutely vital.

A lot of the other Ni stuff is just people stuff; I think most people have an image of the ideal, and MBTI defines more your relationship to that, not that it exists. Perfectionism is also something for which examples are pretty vital; I see high Ti users claim perfectionism when it’s more what I’d call logical consistency, and sometimes it’s just high standards.

I should also note that while the circumstances of this question make me think intuition is more likely, most of what you’ve said for Ni is equally likely (if not more likely) to be Si; there’s nothing about themes or abstraction, but rather some degree of planning ahead/closure, with an eye to contingency.

So: examples are needed for the perceiving functions.

The part about Fi is similarly not really useable; I don’t know the people you’ve typed as Fi users; I don’t know if they are actually Fi users or if they’re immature Fi users, if you’re talking about ten people or two people, or what. This isn’t to say that comparing yourself against other people isn’t useful for typing yourself - it is - but when asking people who do not know you questions, you need references that they have access to and I do not have this access. With that said, lack of a sense of identity indicates you’re probably not a high Fi user.

Inferior Te wouldn’t really make you care much about what other people think of you (certainly not more than inferior Fe), and again, it’s hard to determine anything from adopting characteristics of others since that can be normal cognition (people mirror each other in general, regardless of type) or alternately, a conscious decision to imitate someone you admire (which anyone can do since it’s by choice).

My wild guess is xNTP, actually, but it’s very tentative; this felt too rambly for high Ni and the evidence for/against feels like it’s coming from a place of high Ti, attempting to put a consistent logical “if I do not fit all aspects of this I am not this” model in place.

#mbti #nowwhatisthissite

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shannonbussberg · 4 years ago

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Shannon Marie Bussberg is a psychopath who caused me great harm in many ways. I'm writing this as an explanation to warn off any who come in contact with her. I'm not trying to exact vengeance on her. The only thing I want from her is the money that she stole from me. A sincere and deep apology, of course, would be nice, but she would never do that. The first part of the writing below largely comprises something that I sent to Shannon recently, and the rest is addressed to you, the reader. Please keep an open mind.

***

(Note: I sent an earlier version of this writing to Shannon, hoping that she would make restitution. She said that she wouldn't, and that she came here to live with me to help me with my depression. Complete BS. Shouldered no blame at all.

Shannon,

As you know, you stole, through forgeries, all the money I had, and you put me in deep shit, not to mention throwing me into tons of debt from all the credit cards you took out in my name. I was in trouble with the IRS over the documents you forged, my credit was nonexistent, and I was psychologically destroyed. You put me in a space that I would never trust anyone ever again. You know all that you did to me, and you never tried anything to make it right.

Although you cost me so, so much pain and suffering, I’m willing to let most of that go financially. But I want recompense for the money you stole and the inflation on that money. Also the damage caused to my teeth when I was unable to afford repairs because of your thefts. Steve might lend you the money--he helped you out financially when you got in trouble for taking money from credit cards under my sister's name. So maybe he'll do that for you now.

(You know, you used to tell me that you're going to Hell. I of course assumed that you were exaggerating. Now I wonder what all other things you're done. An aside: you used to tell me that you would never pay back your student loans, and that as a result you'd have to go to school periodically for the rest of your life to avoid paying the loans back. That did bother me, because it basically meant that you'd be stealing from other students in the future. More recently I saw that you'd somehow got a master's degree. That seemed strange, since you're not a good student--having me do as much as your school and work stuff for you as possible when you were here. So I assumed that you got the degree from online courses, as part of your loan payback avoidance plan. Sure enough I see that your school has optional online coursework.)

If you don’t try to make things right, here’s what I will do. First off, I’ll tell the truth to your whole family. (It was so horrible to have to listen to your mother try to “explain” to me that you were living with me in order to try to “help” me--a lie you told your parents in order to cover the long period while you were not working, while living on the stolen money. Apparently you told her that you were my caretaker of some sort. I'm definitely going to set her straight on that.) My story will be a complete one, and you know that I don't lie. Plus I have *tons* of documents to back me up—everything from police and post office documents, to the forensic document examination report, to copies of the actual documents that you forged. (Plus I became something of a document examiner myself, so that people could see with their own eyes that you’re a forger. For example, doing your school years, you changed the way you form a particular letter--for example, in the forged signature for my last name--in a way that is nearly completely unique in this day and age. And the documents you created have all the hallmarks that document examiners know about forgeries.)

But I will use the internet as well. Social media of all kinds, of course. Forums, relevant sites. Anyplace I can find, with, as before, documents that back me up. People need to know who they’re dealing with in their lives.

***

To the reader: Shannon Marie Bussberg and I live in different states, and met online through a kinky match site. For a long while, we communicated with email and text. Then she told me that she was entering summer school at a prestigious university near me. This was a total lie, as I later learned from them when I was contacting them for writing samples for the document examiner. She ended up living at my place while she pretended to go to school. Then she stayed here with me after school supposedly ended for the term, and lived here for years, meanwhile stealing everything I had (except for a half ownership in the family house). She worked for a little while, but soon stopped, preferring to bleed me while she destroyed me. I loved her, which was a huge misjudgment on my part. In my defense, she hid her lies very well; she is a very good psychopath, and I never noticed any lies while she was here. After she used up all of my money and more, she stole from my sister, who was not in love and less gullible and vulnerable than I. That put the police on her tail, and Shannon, seeing a bleak future ahead for herself if she stayed, went back to Indiana. She, no doubt hoping that everything would blow over and she'd be able to return to continue parasitizing me further, perhaps taking the house (she had wanted to marry me, and I suspect that was the house was her objective for that). I truly thought she was innocent, for way too long. But since she was now back in Indiana and no longer had access to my mail (though she wanted me to send my mail to her, for her to "sort"), a letter from the IRS, telling me about taxes that I knew I didn't owe, was shocking. I still thought that, somehow, she was innocent, but before long I realized the truth. Looking back, I know that she only came to live with me for two reasons: my trusting vulnerability and her unusual sexual proclivities. She never loved me. The bottom line, for readers that encounter her, is that Shannon is a psychopath, is a very convincing liar, and neither looks nor acts like a psychopath. You should skip first impressions, and observe her for a while. I'm particularly concerned for her son, and the effect her behavior has on him.

On to my tidbits directed to Shannon.

⦁ 00, which was our code for a particular form of sex practice. I'm certain that's the main reason that you came to this city. The practice was disgusting and dangerous for me. And you should know that I’ve suffered permanent serious physical damage because of it. Maybe I should describe it in detail, but I'd truly like to avoid sharing it in public if at all possible, even though it gives a great insight into your evil. I'll probably wait for a little while to see whether you're going to make things right, and if you don't, give a more full account. There’s so much related info to tell people, such as the time you tried to drown me in the bathtub. Keep in mind, Shannon, that the story makes you look far worse than me.

⦁ You told the police—TWICE—that I sexually abused you. The irony, of course, is that our roles were exactly reversed. It’s interesting that, when I told the detective that I wanted to press charges against you, he predicted, matter-of-factly, that you would make that claim against me. At the time I didn’t believe him, but he was right. By his statement I guess that many women lie a lot about such things when claims are made against them.

⦁ When you stole the car (yes, OF COURSE I have documents about that as well—and I talked to the prosecutor later), you left a lot of my CDs in there. Then, when I got furious with law enforcement and the judicial system for picking on my poor, innocent (sarcasm), girlfriend, I persuaded you to go to your home state with me so that I could try to straighten things out for you. I don’t know why you agreed to go there, because of course you wouldn’t let me talk to the prosecutor and thereby learn the truth. More important these days is that you wouldn’t “permit” me to go to the police to pick up the CDs from the car, obviously because you were afraid of hearing the truth from them. The result is that I not only didn’t get the CDs, but I didn’t even remember all of the artists and titles, so that I couldn’t replace them. Of course, that's just one of many messes you left behind for me to try to straighten up, such as the reader you stole from the library, the tons of library fines over books you stole, all the services you secretly attached to my landline, and the bill that you ran up on the cell phone that was under my name but that you were the one that used.

⦁ When you decided to screw me over, you knew that any letters and such sent to my address increased your chance of being discovered. So you went to a nearby town's post office, and opened a post office box there. You even added my dead mother's name to the box. I still have the forged federal application in your handwriting.

⦁ One of the writings you left behind was a letter to my money fund, telling them to make you the beneficiary if I die. You sucked up my money so fast and thoroughly that you never had an opportunity to actually send it in, but of course I still have it, with your handwriting. But the take-home message is that you were hoping for my death. Or maybe planning it? If you had played it straightforwardly, you could have just asked me to write it myself. Back in those innocent days, I would have done it for you eagerly.

⦁ When you knew that time was running out between you and the police because you also stole from my sister, you prepared, behind my back, for your departure. You hid all kinds of your stuff in the attic behind the costumes you and I had gathered. That’s how I got so many writing samples for the document examiner to use. Previously I had written to your former employers for any scraps. Treasure trove, afterward.

⦁ When you left, we stayed in contact for a while, before I knew the full truth of what you had done. You asked me to mail your sewing machine to you, while you encouraged me to drink a lot of vodka so I’d finish the task. And you even had me send you money for food. You used me like a parasite does, knowing full well that I was going to have to go through total financial hell in the near future. What kind of human being does that to someone else? A psychopath.

⦁ I noticed that you were looking for a car right after you left. Which is really, really wrong, because I had no car at this point and you left me with no money for a car of my own. Which makes me wonder: there was a lot of money that we could have used to buy a car before, but instead you insisted on continually getting rental cars (supposedly paid for by your father, but really paid out of the money you stole from me). Why did you do that? Buying a car outright would have made my money last longer, so this makes no sense, even for a psychopath. Is it because it would be more obvious that I alone was paying for the car for the both of us?

⦁ I emailed with your former roommate or friend (was her name Elizabeth?—I can’t exactly remember, although I can dig it up if necessary). She said that you were the most deceptive person she’d ever met. I will give you that—you certainly don’t have the *appearance* of a psychopath, shy and quiet acting and all.

⦁ Afterward, in an email to Stacy, you said that my sister and I were totally screwed up. But neither one of us hurt anyone, while you stole from both of us and destroyed one of us.,

⦁ I remember when we were first started off with emailing back and forth, I was online, both day and night. Later I asked whether it seemed strange that I was always available, and asked what you’d thought about that. You said that you’d assumed I was a genius child, keeping school hours. I was shocked, because we were conducting some seriously kinky conversation. Didn’t you worry about damaging the kid psychologically? Nope, you said.

⦁ An aside: In college, you ran away without telling anyone, leaving people thinking, for a long time, that you were dead. (Documentation is available in newspaper copies online.) When you told me about it later, you showed me a picture of your father during the time your parents spent searching for you. He was exhausted and depressed. But instead of that making you feel bad about what you had caused, you were proud that you had evaded detection. At the time, I assumed that I was reading your emotions wrong. But I now know better.

⦁ I just remembered: Once you and I happened to be driving behind a strip mall after hours. A cop car started following us. You were cool. You suggested to me that I should get out and pretend to be examining the tire tread for a stuck rock. That worked fine, and the cop moved on. I told you that I had been nervous. You told me that you hadn't been, because you always assume that you are smarter than the police. That seemed incredibly arrogant to me. True, you might be smarter than some individual cops. But you don't have their training and experience, the capability to call other police on the radio for backup, and weaponry. Every once in a while you'd let such incredible arrogance show through.

⦁ I remembered this as well. Once you joked, about a woman whose child had been killed, that it was no big deal since she can always make another. After you left here, I read a lot of books about psychopaths, to try to figure you out. The author of one of the books told the exact same joke, as an example of how psychopaths have a lack of empathy. I always wondered whether you told the joke because you had read in the same book, while you were reading to try to understand your own self.

⦁ After the police went to Indianapolis to interrogate you, they told me that you'd agreed to pay me back everything you stole. But you never sent me anything at all. I aim to change that. Please don't make the mistake that if you just ignore this email, I will simply drop it all.

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americanphancakes · 5 years ago

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1/? I know everyone is happy about dan talking about the next chapter but I can’t help but feel bratty about it. It’s been a year and a half since dan was heavily involved with the fanbase. I completely understood time off preparing to come out that is big. But I expect him to be involved again after a couple months. A year since that happened and nothing’s changed. This isn’t meant to be negative at all just part of me can’t help but be sad. How long till the next thing happens?

2/2 Once that’s drops will be disappear again? Will he give us one upload a year? I don’t think dan wants to quit yt I just can’t think what dan actually does wants to do. And I’m not mad at dan or hate him in anyway. If anything I love him and phil so much that it’s the reason I have these feelings. I’m scared of losing hope or interest in people that have been a big part of my teen/adult life. I just waiting for nothing. I love them and I’m afraid of not caring. That’s my biggest fear. Sorry

No need to apologize! Your feelings are valid, that’s the first thing you need to make 100% sure you know. I’ve expressed some degree of frustration with people who are disappointed it Dan’s inactivity, but that doesn’t mean your feelings are stupid or even bratty. You’re fine! :)

My job here with an ask like this is to try and make you feel a bit better, I guess, but what I say may not have that function in the end, lol.

Dan walks the precarious line between being a person and being a product. That’s the case with a lot of people in social media, but also a lot of celebrities in general, which is unfortunate because it’s literally impossible for a person to be a product. They can play a role, they can present themselves a certain way, but they can’t give us what we expect from products. We want (and can usually safely expect) products to be consistent, reliable, and high quality. People, however, are inconsistent, messy, and flawed.

Dan has been a product for a decade, his ENTIRE adult life, during a period of time in which most people are free to figure out who they are without so many eyes on them, and without so many people judging them. Sure, we endure the judgement of our parents & peers, but peer groups change when we move, our parents stop watching when we move out, and even when we have those people judging us it’s only a few people compared to the scores of comments and reblogs and meetups Dan has had.

The funny thing about self-esteem is that the first ingredient is self-actualization. In order to be confident in who we are, we have to figure out who we are, on at least some level. And right now, Dan is probably spending time figuring out who he is. People get upset about Dan for not communicating his intentions for the future, but no one seems to take into account that he probably doesn’t KNOW what his intentions for the future are. Most of us spend university-age and up experimenting with majors, taking retail jobs, talking to people about their careers and families, and learning what options life has. Dan had a youtube career plus social phobias; he didn’t really have that option. He didn’t even have teen years where he experimented with career paths & talents, I mean he chose “law” as a career more or less arbitrarily -- it wasn’t a passion he was following because he hadn’t figured out what his passions were yet. Then he became a youtuber fairly young, and eyes have been on him, judging his every move and studying his habits and mannerisms, trying to predict his behavior even when, as a human, he’s never going to be entirely predictable, and that really held back his growth as an individual. When everything you do is going to have eyes on it, it’s hard to take any action that’s purely your own. You end up doing everything either to satisfy other people or rebel against them, never to serve yourself.

And clearly he’s been happy enough doing the YouTube thing for ages. It’s clear that he quickly developed a passion for connecting with people (even in AmazingDan you can hear his delight that the people on his channel can ‘be themselves’). But he never really figured out if youtube was the way he wanted to forge those connections, or if he was only continuing it because that’s what his audience expected from him.

It’s entirely possible he’ll discover that YouTube is the best way to connect with his audience in a personal way, and maybe eventually he’ll return to it full time. Or he may find that writing - whether that’s scripted fiction television or novels or anything else - is the way he’d rather go about it so he can work more independently for longer stretches of time. Maybe he’s trying to make his face less well-known so people don’t come up to him in public quite so often because that stresses him out; or maybe he’ll learn he misses those surprise fan encounters because they put a face on the people whose lives he’s touched. It’s impossible for him to know what would make him happy until he actually tries taking his life in some new directions and sees what happens.

Even now, a year after his last upload, we’re watching him and waiting and predicting his behavior based on whether he likes art on his birthday or not, and when you put yourself in the shoes of someone like Dan who has social anxiety and feels like he’s being watched all the time, you start to realize why he’s backing off. I mean.... no offense to my fellow phandom members but we are EXHAUSTING sometimes lol.

But I do truly understand the fun factor of trying to guess what he’s going to do next. The thing is, though, it’s his LIFE we’re trying to predict; not a plot twist on a tv show, or the pre-planned release schedule of a pop idol’s next few singles & album. We’re in the middle of Dan’s first proper gap year (one that, from the sound of it, is extending longer than expected because COVID-19 put a hold on something he’s been working on, so Dan can’t be blamed for that).

I think it’s very reasonable to be impatient about Dan’s absence from our lives. His content is wonderful, he’s a joy to listen to when he speaks, and he makes so many of us feel just that little bit less alone. But I do think we need to give him the grace & space to figure himself out. It’s a luxury a lot of us have, but he never really did.

I also think it’s very unlikely that Dan will stay away from us forever. That connection with us seems to be extremely important to him, however anxious he may be around people. We helped give him the strength to come out. He and Phil went on tour twice just to see as many of us as possible. He looks so genuinely happy to meet fans at conventions. He’s one of us, in so many ways, and I think he wants to empower us and make us feel like we belong. But I think it got to a point where he was letting himself burn to keep us warm, and he needed to back off for his own well-being and long-term growth as an individual. And as much as I miss him, I want to give him all the time he needs.

In the meantime, everything he’s done for us up until last year is part of us, and no one can take that away - not even Dan! Even if he never came back, even if he decided YouTube was too much and he couldn’t do it anymore, his words and the example he’s set is woven into the fabric of who we are now, and that is so incredibly important.

I strongly believe, even though we’ve never met, that Dan Howell wants me to be happy, whatever that means for me, and that he wants me to grab my existence’s reins and take my life wherever I want it to go, and that thought alone is enough to cheer me up. He wants that for you, too.

I hope this helps you feel a bit better, anon. :)

#anon #answered #dan discourse #tagging that just in case this discussion stresses anyone out #long post

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designsfromtime · 5 years ago

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A Frank Conversation About Selling on Etsy:

So, you have a hobby. Your friends and family LOVE your work and advise: “You should sell your stuff!” Maybe you need some extra income and you hope you can supplement your bank account with a side hustle. So you open an Etsy store, spend hours wording your “About Me” page, upload some pictures, and then you wait for that first sale…annnd…crickets.

This is a scenario that is repeated thousands of times every day. I hear it constantly from disappointed and angry Etsy shop owners. So what do you do? Blame Etsy? Pay money for one of those “opportunists” who promise more sales if you buy in and follow their model with little to no success? Get angry and give up?

This isn’t a post telling you “how to be successful” on Etsy. Rather, it’s a very frank conversation to help with your “expectations” and, yeah, maybe give you a little advice.

Before you open your store answer some very frank questions: Did you do your homework? - Did you go on Etsy and search for items similar to yours? Is the market already saturated? – or do you have a unique item that isn’t available? If there are items similar to yours are they of better quality and workmanship? - or poorer quality than your work? Answering these questions is ESSENTIAL and it will take total HONESTY and objectivity on your part, as well as from your friends and family who are advising you.

The first step is to self-assess your quality of work and your business model, as well as your expectations. The raw truth is, I don’t know ANYONE who has quit their day job and is supporting themselves through their Etsy store – Including ME!!

So let’s talk about each of these topics individually.

DID YOU DO YOUR HOMEWORK:

Whether it’s bath bombs or historical gowns, you have to research your target market. You cannot skip this step!

For example, my daughter recently started a side-hustle making all-natural stain-free bath bombs, sugar scrubs, body butter, and whipped soaps to help with her Bachelor’s degree. Before she began, she purchased items from the most successful company offering bath bombs and tried them out. Turns out, they weren’t the same quality as hers – just mass produced. She researched the pros and cons of bath bombs using the feedback from those in her inner circle. What did they like or dislike about the competitor’s product. The biggest complaint - - they stain the bathtub and they weren’t hydrating! So, taking that feedback she played with her recipe and came up with bath bombs that are not only moisturizing, but DON’T stain the bathtub. She also offers themes and scents inspired by books or movies such as Harry Potter. That’s her hook! That’s what makes HER product stand out.

https://www.etsy.com/shop/NightMareBathandBody?ref=pr2018_faveshops

It’s essential that you do your research before you open an Etsy store - or move to the on-line market in general.

To use historical costuming as an example. Let’s say you bought a slanted riding hat pattern and made yourself a ridding hat to wear at renfaire. You got lots of compliments on your hat and some of your fellow Rennies asked, “Where did you get your hat?” You tell them you made it, and they ask you to make them one. In consequence you decide if “so-and-so” liked my work, maybe I can parlay this into a side hustle? But before you make that leap, have you researched how many 16th Century riding hats are available on Etsy?

Let’s say there are quite a few listings already on Etsy. Let’s say you look up the seller who has the most sales of that particular item. So, how does your work compare? Is your fabric smooth on the base, or are their visible puckers? How is their hand-stitching? – are your stitches as small and even as your competitor? How much are they asking? Be objective! It can be painful to compare your work, but it’s important if you want to be competitive.

Let’s say, your work is passable. Maybe it’s not exactly the same quality as your competitor, but pretty darn good in your opinion, so you decide that your way “in” is to undercut all those who are selling similar items. This is a tactic I see ALL THE TIME. But have you actually calculated your costs? How many hats can you get out of one yard of fabric? How many hats can you make with a yard of trim? Are you buying your bases ready-made, or making your own? How much does it cost for you to make your base versus buying ready-made? How much is the millinery wire you need to use? How much wire do you need to use for one hat?

All these questions are essential to calculate your TRUE costs. In addition, have you factored in the fees Etsy will charge you once a sale is made – to include the actual listing fees, as well as the cost of shipping.

When you undercut your competitors you cheat yourself, and then wonder why you aren’t making a profit! I’m not talking a few dollars. I’m talking about setting your prices so low you are barely making a profit. You say: “But, I’ll raise my prices later after people get to know my work!” Yeah - - I actually did that. BIG MISTAKE! I started off at a competitive price and the orders came pouring in. It felt great! I felt validated. But when I factored in all the extras I was offering that made my work stand out, and was not charging for, guess what happened? When I started charging what my hats and headdresses were actually worth, and factoring in my actual costs, I saw a drop off in sales. Did I lower my prices again? NO! Every bead, every piece of trim, every stitch has value. So does your time!!!! Value your work and value your time. If it is quality it will stand alone among the hundreds of others being sold.

When you value your time and price your items accordingly, you will attract a caliber of customers who recognize the quality of your work. But your work needs to hold up in terms of quality. This is where you will need to be objective. That process can be painful. Trust me, I know!

I randomly run searches on Etsy to gauge what’s selling and what’s not – what’s available, and how they are similar to mine, and how much they are selling it for. What I often find are sewists selling items at ridiculously low costs. So low, in fact, I often wonder how in the world they can justify selling a gown for $200 when fabric and supplies make up 75% or more of their total listing price. I know what fabric costs. I know how many hours it takes to construct that item, and when I see shop owners selling items at ridiculously low prices the first thing I do is check where they are located. Many times they are over-seas sellers. The US dollar is worth more in many countries, but there are HUGE risks buying from over-seas vendors. I’ve heard too many horror stories, and quite frankly their work just doesn’t stand up to my standards for historical accuracy. But that’s another story for another time.

NEVER price your items based on the lowest prices! Figure out your costs, to include your Etsy fees, and pay yourself a FAIR wage. Ignore, the bargain basement over-seas sellers. What you need to be putting your energy toward is honing your skills and making your items truly competitive. If an item is of the highest quality, people will recognize it and they will remember you.

If you cannot self-assess your work honestly and be objective and see where you need to improve, chances are you will be disappointed in the outcome of your shop. Just as important is to VALUE your work. If your work is not the same quality as your biggest competitor, you are setting yourself up to fail. Yes, there is a market for everyone’s work, but here’s the honest truth: Just like you “get what you pay for” you attract a certain caliber of customer by what you charge!

Here’s an example for you! I have a young friend who likes to sew. She made an Outlander costume for her mother for Halloween using the American Duchess pattern. At her mother’s encouragement, she decided to open an Etsy store and she listed the costume she had made for her mother, and set her price at a ridiculously low cost, at least in comparison to mine. A woman who “claimed” to be a reporter purchased an item in January 2019. She ordered a pair of stays and a bodice and skirt. She claimed she wanted to wear it because she was going to “interview” the cast of Outlander. (I called bullsh*t, and her behavior only validated my prediction). My friend followed the same procedure I do, making the stays first and sending them to her, because you need measurements wearing your stays in order to construct the gown and have it fit properly. After multiple messages to the buyer, in which she tried to get the buyer to give her correct measurements, the buyer wasn’t responding, or was avoiding it claiming she was “too busy.” I saw my friend the following AUGUST and the woman still had not complied with her request for proper measurements!! She sent her a picture wearing her stays and expected my friend to figure out her size by the picture!!

My friend asked me for advice on how to handle the situation. With my assistance, we wrote the buyer on Etsy and explained IN DETAIL what she needed and WHY, and informed her that because she had not complied with getting her the specific measurements needed to complete the commission she would place the order on hold until the woman had time to provide her with what she needed. The woman tried to wiggle her way out of the commission after nine months by stating how busy she was in her work, and how she didn’t have a measuring tape and how inconvenient it was for her to find someone to take her measurements, and that maybe my friend should just cancel the order and refund her deposit as she didn’t want to keep “her” waiting. Yeah – Nice try, right?

Well, my friend had used the deposit to purchase fabric and supplies! – Not to mention, after NINE months it was too late to issue a refund. After 60 days PayPal won’t issue a refund.

Come October, two months after she reached out to me for help, my friend was still battling with this woman for the measurements she needed, and the hateful snit complained to Etsy, and then tried to open a dispute with PayPal! She claimed she didn’t believe her deposit had been used for supplies! I instructed my friend to send the woman the unfinished gown and ALL the supplies she’d purchased, stand her ground and NOT issue a refund, and chalk it up as a lesson learned. Bottom line? If this gal really WAS scheduled to interview the Outlander cast, she would have made more of an effort I’m here to tell you! But this client more than likely saw a seller who was just starting out, had only a couple of items in her Etsy store, purchased the costume on the cheap, and then tried to get one over on my friend.

This example is something you need to be prepared to deal with. You will need to be comfortable setting boundaries and being assertive! You need to be able to intuit when someone is trying to scam you, and you also need to know PayPal and Etsy’s policies. One of the mistakes my friend made was taking her conversation off the Etsy site and emailing this client. Communication on Etsy is a pain in the arse, but you CANNOT take your discussion off site! Doing so is against Etsy’s policies. Why? You need a paper trail, so to speak, of your communication. You need to document your conversations in an Etsy thread so that if a dispute is raised, Etsy can review your conversation. In this instance, my friend had documented her difficulties through the Etsy thread and they saw the efforts she had made to gain the client’s compliance and they ruled in my friend’s favor. But this is not always the case!

The moral of the story: If you price your work at bargain basement prices, you will more than likely attract clients JUST like this person. Now that’s not always the case. There are shady people out there, and even if you charge what you’re worth you will find clients who test your patience.

For instance, I had a client order a riding hat from me a few years back. She had a short deadline, so I went to JoAnns and purchased the silk and began construction. After two weeks she tried to cancel the order stating she found a hat to borrow and didn’t need to buy one at this time. I told her it was too late to cancel as I had already purchased fabrics and started construction, so she opened a dispute with PayPal and told them it was a fraudulent purchase! – claiming someone used her PayPal account without her permission. I supplied PayPal with documentation of our conversations, but they ruled in her favor because it fell within their 60-day deadline! It turned out I had another client who wanted a hat in the same color and was the same size, so I went ahead and issued her refund, but I told her that because of her shady behavior I would not accept any commissions from her in the future. She actually had the audacity to become highly insulted that I would refuse any future commissions and actually made ME out to be the bad guy for setting boundaries with a client who had wiggled their way out of a commission by lying!! Yeah…There are some “special” people out there, and it’s all part of working with the public, so be prepared!

I’ve also had people contact me to request I sell them one of my headdresses, but they only wanted the base. They didn’t want me to cover it and decorate it. I’m highly intuitive and I smelled a rat. I knew instinctively that what they wanted was to take my base and replicate my pattern, because I have created my pattern and it’s not for sale - anywhere! Working with the public can make you question the future of mankind, because there are some shady creeps out there with zero integrity. You will need to be prepared to bite the bullet and deal with them if you plan to work in customer service.

IS THE MARKET FLOODED:

There are a TON of historical costumes listed on Etsy. Your first step is to evaluate what’s being offered and judge whether or not you are offering something that is actually needed. When I have an idea or find an item I want to make, the first thing I do is run a search for that item. If there are tons of the same item, here’s where you need to be objective and realistic. What’s going to attract sales to your store if there are dozens and dozens of shops offering the same thing?

I participate in some of the groups Etsy offers just for sellers. We try out new functions offered on Etsy and discuss our experiences as a seller. I hear people complain ALL the time about their items not selling. But let’s get honest. How can you expect to be competitive if your product doesn’t stand out from all the others? What makes yours unique when dozens of sellers are offering the same thing? Lowering the price isn’t a strategy that is recommended. Running sales and promotions are fine, but as we’ve already discussed selling yourself short may only be a temporary boon. It’s just not a sustainable business model. Not when you are selling your items for less than what your supplies and labor costs. Find your niche!

If the market is already flooded, perhaps you might reconsider offering that item or reconsider opening a store all together. Chances are, if you ignore that advice, you will not see any activity in your store. That’s probably not the advice you want to hear, but wouldn’t you rather someone be honest with you?

Also, and you’re gonna hate this one as well – Your family and friends are NOT objective! It’s human nature. What might look great to them, might not attract attention in a larger market. That’s a painful truth.

ARE THE ITEMS SIMILAR TO YOURS BETTER QUALITY?

Being objective is painful, but it’s necessary.

If you’ve decided to press forward and offer items that are already being sold on Etsy, the essential next step is to assess the quality of your work. Before you enter the retail arena, take the necessary time to hone your craft. Quality is the ONLY way you will attract attention when you are offering items that are already flooding the Etsy or on-line market. Again, undercutting costs is not a sustainable business model, so take the time – however long it takes – until your products are comparable and marketable. If your workmanship isn’t on par, then work for the next year or so to hone your skills and find people who can be kindly objective that can counsel you on where or what needs improvement. Don’t take that criticism personally. We all start somewhere. I wish you could see some of my first corsets! God, they were BAD. I mean – REALLY BAD!

One of the things you can do to hone your craft is to AVOID commercial patterns! These commercial patterns are not always historically based – In fact, most are not even close! Some are pretty good but DO YOUR RESEARCH. Read books on costuming. Invest and develop your reference library. Participate in historical groups on social media – hopefully you find those who are inclusive rather than snits who pick apart others’ work, and admins who DON’T participate in the petty drama. Unfortunately, that has not been my experience, so I avoid these groups. But for those who are just starting out, they can be helpful to lurk and absorb information. Ask questions if you participate in groups. BUT be prepared to deal with the costume nazis who hide behind the anonymity of the internet and are hateful and judgmental.

Rather than commercial patterns like Simplicity or McCalls, I recommend you purchase patterns that are more historical. Yes, they are expensive, but you need to invest in your craft and having the proper patterns are just as essential as your equipment. If you cannot tell the difference between Medieval, Elizabethan, Tudor, Rococo, Colonial, Regency, Victorian or Edwardian – You need to start studying! – Starting with underpinnings! There are subtle and not so subtle clothing style differences in each era. Nothing drives me more crazy than Etsy sellers or those on Ebay who buy a commercial pattern that isn’t fit for anything but a Halloween costume, and label it, “Renaissance” when it’s a mish-mosh of colonial and medieval eras. PLEASE, take the time to read and study. Do your due diligence. I have been creating historical costumes professionally since 2012 when I retired early, but I’ve been studying historical clothing since 2001 and I learn something new ALL THE TIME! I push myself and tackle new eras to hone my craft. There will always be someone who knows more than you do. Just keep learning!

I am always available to give feedback, but actually teaching construction techniques over the internet is a challenge for me because I’m generally pressed for time. Watch You Tube tutorials, take sewing lessons, learn how to drape and draft patterns, but along with all of that…Practice…Practice…Practice. I learn something new every time I tackle a new project or venture into a different era.

MANAGE YOUR EXPECTATIONS:

I am busy all year long with commissions, but most of the time we don’t get paid until a commission is complete. I also have expenses such as fees for an upgraded Etsy store, Etsy fees to list items – plus the percentage they take from each sale, as well as website fees – all of which are necessary to get your brand out there.

Aside from operating fees, I have equipment payments – because just ONE of my embroidery machines cost me over $5,000! But you see, my niche is historical embroidery and highly embellished work. I also have material fees, and repair fees on my equipment. You will need a quality sewing machine that is gear driven, rather than belt driven in order to make corsetry and to sew through layers of heavy fabric that you use in historical costuming. I have two embroidery machines, an air threading Serge/overlock machine, and a Juki semi-professional straight stitch sewing machine, as well as a smaller Brother sewing machine that we use for shirts and thinner fabrics when we both need to do machine work. I also have a cutting table with fold out eaves and cabinets that cost me $1200!! All of these tools of the trade costs MONEY. You will also need dress forms in various sizes for both men and women. The cheap ones that are adjustable are too flimsy to hold up to these heavy costumes. Dress forms can cost anywhere from $300 to $1000. If you plan to compete, you need the tools of the trade.

There are hundreds and hundreds of hobbyists who are attempting to use Etsy as a platform to sell historical clothing to supplement their income, but there are VERY few shops that offer quality items with quality workmanship. If your work isn’t a cut above, you will find yourself disappointed when your expectations fall short of reality.

Even though we stay busy all year long, I don’t make enough to support myself just on my costume commissions alone. After my husband passed away in 2009, I was fortunate enough that he left me and the kids financially stable. Without his retirement income (he was a police officer who died as a consequence of his job) I could not pay my monthly bills on my commission income alone. Lalana works three days a week doing hair and works three days a week with me in my design studio. We do this more for the passion and the creative outlet, than we do for the money. Neither of us are rolling in it!

I have had young mothers approach me about advising them on how to do costuming so they can stay home with their kids. First of all, costuming is production work. When you have a deadline to meet your clients aren’t going to understand when your kids are sick or when your husband wants to spend quality time with you, or your house is filthy. Self-employment is NOT the answer to staying at home and earning an income. Unless you have extra household money to invest every month to keep you afloat and purchase supplies while you’re waiting to be paid for a commission, you’ll be working at a deficit.

There is also the issue of taxes. Etsy collects sales taxes on your behalf, but they don’t collect your federal income taxes or state income taxes, if you live in a state like California. Working under the table is a risky endeavor! Do you really want to risk being audited for income you didn’t report? My advice: Just don’t do it!! It’s not worth the risk. So, be prepared to hire a tax specialist to do your taxes every year. You will need to keep good records of all your expenses and income. Every spool of thread, every yard of fabric needs to be accounted for in order for you to have a REAL picture of your profit and loss. The purchase of equipment will help, but there again, you need to be able to afford to pay the monthly payments on equipment loans.

In conclusion, there are more CONS than pros to self-employment and opening an on-line business, not just on Etsy. For me, I found Etsy to provide me more traffic in my store than a high-priced website. Unless you have a website manager that constantly monitors your Search Engine Optimization and other such tech stuff that is beyond my comprehension and skills, you won’t get enough traffic to your website to make the expense worthwhile. This is exactly why I switched my fancy-schmancy website to a “Pattern” website via Etsy. It allows me to keep my domain name, while using Etsy’s platform to funnel traffic through my page. I get about 10,000 hits per month in my Etsy store alone.

The bottom line is that Etsy has worked for me, but it may not be a platform that works for you. There are tons of variables – as I’ve addressed above.

So, before you jump into the pond, make sure you know the temperature and depth of the water! Trust me, you’ll thank me for being honest with you.

#Etsystore EtsySeller Costuming HistoricalCostume CostumeDesigner SelfEmployment Artist

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elireah · 5 years ago

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Doctors of tomorrow: showdown

Authors note: Hey guys! This is kind of the first real short story that I have written so let me know what you think! I appreciate your imput and I hope everyone is staying safe out there :)

“Doctor Walker, come quick, it is Miss Evans again!”

Nate glanced at Nia as she rushed in the breakroom of the Cardiology department. The nurse panted a little from what it looks like a full-on sprint only to take a big gulp of air before continuing her plea of help.

“Heartrate unstable, extensive sweating, heavy feeling on the chest. I don’t understand what is could be, I checked her treatment but it should be fine,” She rambled.

Nate laid down his juice box and lifted his hand as to halt Nia before she lost consciousness due to a lack of oxygen.

“Alright, alright, breathe. I will be on my way to check on her,”. Nia’s shoulders lowered themselves slightly, only to tense again.

“Thank you so much, it is rather urgent so if you could…”

Little did she know, Nate was already at Miss Evans’ door. He heard a view cries of surprise down the hall that he had taken. Well, Nia did say to be quick.

He sighted. Miss Evans was not particularly his favorite patient. Opening the door, he put on his best charming-old-people smile.

“Good afternoon, Miss Evans. How are you doing?”

Not a second later, Nate found himself dodging a gurgle of spit, impressively aimed at his head. For the urgency of the manner, Miss Evans seemed to be lively enough. Straightening his spine, he once again faced his patient.

Clustered to the hospital bed sat a fuming 76 year old Miss Evans, already reloading her ammo. “I told them over and over again that I don’t want to be treated by you, you… bloodsucking bastard!”

Mentally, he sighted. Why did everyone always play the race card against him. Miss Evans brought her cross out from under her hospital garment, presenting him with the new member of her arsenal. If looks could kill, he would have met his demise eight times already. Well. If it was possible for him to die again.

Contrary to the earlier chain of events, the unsteady rising of Miss Evans chest indicated that she was not well at all. Good that Nia will be here any second now.

And just as predicted, Nia, undoubtedly having taken another sprint, rounded the corner of Miss Evans’ room. At the sight of Miss Evans harassing me with her cross, she paused her movements. Not that Nate could blame her. It must be quite a sight. Doctor versus patient. Vampire edition.

Nia regained her senses, as well as her breath, and rushed to the struggling Miss Evans. “Miss, please, try to calm yourself. Doctor Walker is only here to take your pulse, please…”

Nate leaned back against the wall close to the door, putting his hands in his lab coat in an effort to look less hostile. Nia should not have said that.

He saw the last of the color in Miss Evans’ face vanish as quick as his mortality had. People are usually not very fond of him coming near their pulse. On the other hand, screw them. It was not like he had wanted to become a vampire. He would remember it until the last of his days. It had been the day before his graduation. Nate could still recall how excited he had been to finally receive his certificate. All that, literal, blood, sweat and tears would finally pay off. So, he and his mates had the brilliant idea to end the era with a bang and go party. One thing led to another and the next thing he knew, he woke up buried under the ground. He did not dig that. Turns out, there is not a manual on how to be a vampire so that was a whole second identity crisis right there. In the end, he managed to receive his certificate while a whole confused audience wondered why he was covered in dirt. After that, he had wondered what to do. Most fantasy novels suggested to join a cult of vampires that would fight for world domination but he did not even know his so-called sire, aka douchbag. Also. He did not fucking go to medical school for ten years to just throw his degree out of the window because of minor physical changes. Let alone the lifetime of debt that he had built up to get his degree in the first place.

Nate had started visiting hospitals, applying for a doctors position. One could imagine how that would go. Most hospitals were satisfied with his specifications and soon enough he was offered a trial position at the Nursery department. It turned out that babies are more perceptive than the common human-being. Needless to say that none of the babes particularly liked him.

Every time he had entered the nursery, a whole orchestra of children would start to cry. This had intrigued a few of his colleagues to experiment a bit. He could still remember Lea holding a baby continuously in- and outside the room he would currently occupy, creating the effect of a human siren. In the end, they had to let him go. His presence had overworked a large part of the department staff.

The next hospital was, ironically, understaffed at the Haematology department. Something about a certain virus that kept them working around the clock. Nate had been a relative new vampire and did fail to mention to his superiors that he was one at all. It is not like he wanted to drink blood but he needed to feed once in a while.

For quite some time, work was fine. He gained more experience in the field and learned his limit regarding his feeding. However, one day the limit was pushed to the edge.

Patient after patient had needed immediate medical attention and although his stamina was infinite, his self-proclaimed iron-deficiency was not. In the end, he may or may not have been caught feasting in the blood donor bank. The room had been an absolute mess. Blood was splattered everywhere. Walls were stained with a blood pattern that even serial killers could learn from. His colleague had seen him, fangs out and crazy eyes. It had been the first time another human realized that he was a vampire. What a great fucking milestone had it been. In the moment, Nate had identified a few stages of behavior that would later serve as his personal tree-chart guide to human-vampire reactions.

First and foremost, shock. Symptoms: mouth agape, pupils dilated and breathing non-existent.

It than took about a minute for his colleague to turn to confusion and denial to explain the sight of him. Shaking his head, mumbling something about ketchup. Third in line was disgust followed by the emptying of the stomach. Mild digestion, horrific smell and an unhealthy looking sausage. It ended with pure terror. High pitch screaming, body fluids dispersing and pants wet. However, the side note must be made that the last reaction can vary between terror and fainting.

Well, after that, the cat was out of the bag. The hospital was evacuated because of an alleged ‘fire’ and Nate had spent the following year avoiding a mild vampire-hunt. Looking back now, it had been a mistake on his part. But just like every fresh-out-of-college doctor, Nate had been desperate for the experience. At least he had learned something. However, he made a promise to himself that he would get the next job on his terms and his terms only.

Nate had walked into his current hospital and demanded to have an interview directly with the head of Cardiology, his preferred department of work. With some willful persuasion, he had ended up in the office of Karen Deas.

Karen had been unlike your typical Karen. Composed, perceptive and in-charge but equally as terrifying as all Karen’s. She just sat there at her desk sizing him up for a while, legs crossed, gaze sharp as a scalpel. Eventually, she had sighted.

“What do you want? My staff knows better to not disturb me with whatever nonsense you have to present to me. Just fill in the form like everyone else and we will consider it.”

She started to ruffle in a pile of clearly unorganized documents and pulled out a form but not without sending the rest of the pile to the floor. Before Karen knew what happened, Nate had intercepted the documents consisting out of new research for a semi-automatic heart prototype, specific patient data and a Tikka Masala recipe. Not a second later, the papers laid neatly on the corner of Karen’s desk. Organized from A to Z. Karen had been frozen in her chair.

Most people just told themselves to be amazed at Nate’s quick reflexes, dismissing the unnaturalness as mind games. But Karen was not most people. She was a goddamn doctor of science.

A few moments of eternal silent consideration later, Karen had lifted her arm slowly to unwind her hair from her tight bun. Her hair flowed to the small of her back as she struggled to get a cigarette out of her backpack.

Unwinding the buildup stress? No, looking back now, her blond locks had been an ever so small layer of defense against him. After all, he had not missed the slight shacking of her hand as she had lit the cigarette.

She had leaned back in her chair, inhaling slowly. Shakely, a big cloud of smoke floated in his direction, barely missing him. Karen again pinned him down with her stare full of questions.

“State your business,”

So he had told her. About his story, about his vampireness and his ambition. Karen had grown more and more pale during his story but still had maintained her surveilling stare. A whole of six cigarettes had not survived the conversation. She had been silent for while after he had finished. With a long exhale, she had thrown the last of her cigarette in the ashtray.

“What is it that you want from me?”

“A job. I did go to college to be a doctor and I intend to make that true,”

Karen had choked out a laugh, shaking her head.

“And what makes you think that I would let a vampire, a goddamn vampire, in the OK treating patients with heart problems?! The fucking organ responsible for the blood circulation,”

Again she had laughed, a stressed-out and broken sound. “It would be an ethical nightmare.”

Nate had suppressed the urge to role his eyes. As if he didn’t know that. He had experienced it first hand after all. But he had not come in empty-handed. Nate also leaned back in his chair, mirroring Karen’s position.

“Alright. I get your point. But let me strike you a deal. I will play by your rules, obey every tiny detail of them and you will let me work here,” Nate could already tell that she wanted to interrupt him. He lifted his hand to still her already open mouth.

“In exchange, I am willing to cooperate in any medical research you may want to perform on me. Within the bounds of humanity, of course.”

Nate could have practically seen the wheels spinning in Karen’s head. No medical researcher in her right mind would pass on this opportunity. He was the epitome of unknown medical science. Regenerate limbs? No problem. Stop aging? Sure, why not. Cure Cancer? Who knows. All he knew was that this was the only bargain he could make to gain a doctors position. And Karen was tempted. Extremely tempted by the looks of it. He could tell by the way she forcefully pursed her lips on each other and stared into his soul. Willing him to be as good of a person as he had presented himself to be. Again a few moments of silence lay in between them.

Nate had sighted.

“Look, I get it if you need some time to con…” Karen abruptly stood, shoving her chair against the wall. The speed of it made Nate question who the vampire in the room really was.

“Rule number one: Under no circumstances, and when I say no I mean no, will you talk to someone about this,” She started to pace in the small room. “I will introduce a small team who will be notified of your… condition.” It was like she was talking more to herself than to Nate. The following hour, Karen went on with a list of rules that he would need to follow.

“One last thing that I need to know. You must tell me your weakness. If you go out of control, I must know that there is a way to defend ourselves against you.”

Gods, that had hurt his pride a little be he figured it was only fair. Karen was responsible for the lives of all on the department and she was willingly striking a deal with the devil for all she knew. Nate scratched the back of his neck, staring at a crease in Karen’s wooden desk.

“I’m not that familiar with my weaknesses myself to be honest,”

Nate abandoned his chair. Karen visibly stiffened but did not move as he walked in her direction. As he stood before Karen, Nate turned his back to her, presenting her with the nap of his neck.

“However, some time back, I was hunted by some fanatics and they took a pretty good swing close to my neck,” He moved his fingers to the tiny scar on the back of his nap. “I regenerate from all injuries I receive. Whole limbs grow back in a matter of minutes and don’t show any permanent sign of physical harm.” He again faced Karen, who was at this point more curious than scared.

“But this, this wound left a scar and shows no sign of going away.” Nate felt a little sheepish. This was not really a concrete weakness though. It was more of a hypothesis than anything else. Karen’s questionable look had reflected how he felt.

“There is truly nothing else? Not a stake through the heart? A little bit of sunlight? Or perhaps some garlic?,”

She could not be serious. Nate had laughed out loud. The abrupt sound made her cross her arms over her chest. Apparently she had been dead serious.

“How do you think I walked in here? The sunlight thing is just a myth and I am especially fond of some garlic in my food. And a stake? Seriously? It is not like I come close to death every day.”

“I thought you were already dead,”

Nate threw her a glare. “You know what I mean,”

Karen arched a well-maintained brow but did not push it any further. Nate offered her is hand.

“Do we have a deal or not?”

Still skeptical, but swayed, Karen took his hand. “So you know, I’m not done making rules yet,”

“Yea, I figured.”

And so Nate came to work at the Saint Andrews hospital. It has been three years since the little job interview. And a lot had changed. Yes, there are more rules but he had also gained more freedom. More and more employees got to know about his state of being. He still could not tell if that was a good thing. Some people were just plainly fascinated with him. Others felt the need to make themselves his warden. As if they could. But Nate played along just to fain the illusion of security. And it was surprisingly fun to see Ethan stress-out at everything he did. Drinking a juice box is apparently highly dangerous to the small village that made out the hospital. If Ethan had looked closely, he might have noticed that Nate was drinking plain old tomato juice. A crime in its own right but whatever. Eventually, most of the staff had warmed up to him and even some of the patients came to know what he was. It turns out that people didn’t really mind his existence when they were already busy dying. In the department of fear, he would not stand a chance against Death. But hey, wouldn’t it be way more interesting to be killed by a vampire than by a popped artery? Not that he would, of course. But there were also some people that that did not like him too much.

Like Miss Evans. If he had to believe Miss Evans, the bible apparently had a passage dedicated specifically to male, allegedly bloodsucking, vampire doctors.

A rallying warcry pulled Nate from his thoughts. Miss Evans was screaming bloody murder at Nia as she was trying to calm the wailing women. This had taken long enough. He pushed himself from the wall and striked back his hair. In all the commotion, Miss Evans had lost an IV from her left arm. The punctured skin had soon enough made room for a dark beat of blood.

Nate sniffed the air. Interesting.

While Nia was still occupied on the right-hand of Miss Evans, Nate used his speed to intercept the drop of blood on Miss Evans’ left. To her it must have felt like a gust of wind, but Nate was already back in his place like nothing had happened. He licked the blood from his finger. Just like he expected.

Disgusting.

Everyone always made the mistake that he must love the taste of blood. Nate absolutely loathed it. The blood is only needed to prevent him from going 100% feral and even then he preferred animal blood over human blood any day. Rabbit blood to be specific. The thing about blood was that he could taste everything from the persons emotions and worries to their opinion about him or others. Therefore human blood was always clouded with envy, anger, love or loathing.

Yes, our lovely human-nature tastes like shit.

So he liked his blood bland and free, just like most animals were. However, in the medical field it was quite handy.

Due to the nature of the blood, he could easily diagnose the disease the patient was suffering from. The first time he had tried it, Karen had held him at gunpoint. Although, her silent rage had been more frightening than the M9 pointed at his face. She had locked him in the freeze cell until she had tested the patient on the particular illness he had mentioned. It had taken two whole days. Nate was to only do it again with Karen’s permission. Which meant that there will be some trouble in store for him later on.

Miss Evans blood was laced with her disgust for him. The feeling almost overpowered any other details but he could still distinguish the drugs present in the little drop. But mostly interesting about the taste was that it was ever-changing. One could mostly describe the after taste as ‘selective happiness’. Which is quite a contradicting flavor to her disgust.

“Say Miss Evans, you wouldn’t happen to have had any visitors these days haven’t you?”

The old women stopped her attack on Nia and returned her attention to him.“I don’t answer to you,” Miss Evans proclaimed through her grinding teeth.

Nia dropped her arms to the side of her body in defeat and sighted. “She has had a visit from her pastor this morning. It had something to do with cleansing the room.”

Of course it had.

“Filthy traitor,”. Miss Evans murmured some other insults under her breath while Nate tried to still his murderous thoughts. Him being a vampire had nothing to do with it, any human would have just about enough of this shitty behavior. He took a step closer to monitors surveilling Miss Evans. Her blood pressure seems to have skyrocketed since 1 pm. He narrowed his eyes.

“Now, now Cindy, it is not nice to lie to the people trying to save your life.” he purred.

Upon using her first name, Miss Evans seemed to shrink back a little. So she does sense when he had enough. Good.

“I seems like that pastor of yours and you had a nice chat. He even brought you flowers.”

Miss Evans’ eyes shot to the bouquet of flowers on her nightstand.“Yes, yes, he is a very nice man indeed. He even recited a verse from the bible.”

She grabbed for the bible on the edge of the nightstand. No insult this time. Nate fondled a rose petal from the roses as Miss Evans frantically tried to seek the verse in her worn-out bible. “Ah yes, here.”

God, give me grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, Courage to change the things which should be changed, and the Wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.

Amen.

Nate snorted. Amen indeed.

Still fondling the rose petal, he let out a fit of laugher. It was just too damn funny. Slowly pulling himself together, he met Miss Evans’ baffled stare.

“You must feel very serene or am I perhaps mistaken Miss Evans?”

Miss Evans went stone-faced. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

Oh, she was proper nervous now. Beats of sweat started to form on Miss Evans’ brow.

“No? A pity that you have not changed a bit. But I’m glad for you that God supports your little addiction.”

With one sweep he pulled the flowers from the vase.“I mean, flowers do heighten ones spirits around here.”

Nate carefully avoided the thorns on the bouquet and fished out a little transparent bag of pills.

He heard Nia gasp behind him. Miss Evans watched the event unfold without a sign of emotion.

“Oh my, he must have forgotten his pills.” She did not even bother to sound believable.

This goddamn women.

He must say that he admired the audacity to flat-out lie without giving a crimp. Even when caught red-handed.

Behind him he could feel Nia regaining her fighting spirit. “Miss Evans! We have talked about this. You are a heart patient and some drugs could further endanger your life!”

“Methylfenidate to be exact, also known as Ritalin,” he stated.

Nia grasped the pills from Nate’s hand, storming towards the sink. She dumped the contents in the basin and let the water run.

Miss Evans did not move an inch. However, the clenched jaw and the vain throbbing in her forehead told him that she was about to lose it.

Nia huffed as if to let out her anger and turned to him. “I will notify the other nurses to sharpen control for visitors. We will start adjusting her treatment. Thank you for your help, doctor Walker.”

Before he could reply, she was already out of the room. Fuck. Time to get out.

“Well, as always, it was a pleasure but I’m afraid I have to leave and…”

He turned to Miss Evans just in time for her explosion. A string of curse words that God for sure would disapprove of made its way to him as she reached for the vase resting on the nightstand. He reached the vase before her, putting it out of her reach. This led her to go for her second option, the bible. Already rushing out, he closed the door just in time to escape. The holy book slides of the door in response.

Thank God that was over. He smirked at the thought.

A fair opponent she had been but the final outcome was inevitable. Vampire: 1. Patient: 0.

“You determined the state of the patient remarkably quick, did you not Nate?”

The ice in her voice told him enough. She already knew. Karen stood a few meters from the room, already a hand on her gun. He was so fucked.

#vampire #vampire au #short story #doctor #writing prompt #writing #clash #funny #urban fantasy #creative writing

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britt-rae-law · 6 years ago

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It wasn’t Rocket Science, It was just Brain Surgery

09.12.2016 - It has been 10 months since my brain surgery to partially remove a central brain tumor. Emotionally and psychologically coming to terms with the experience has been the hardest part. It has been a difficult topic to really talk about and explain to others, which is why I have found it easier to shrug it off as no big deal. I also feel self-conscious about my experience to a certain degree. But lately I have been thinking about how reading other people’s stories about brain surgery recovery helped me in a way no one else could have: explaining what to expect, if certain things are normal or not, the do’s and don’ts of recovery and finding the personal motivation to recover. I have learnt a lot about myself and have had an epiphany about life and identity. I came to realise that your entire being - who you are - is shaped by your brain. You are because you can think and feel; and you can’t do that without your brain. Your whole body is just there to protect and utilise your brain. I have decided that it might not only be cathartic for me to write my own experience, but could also be encouraging and useful for others.

On the 2nd of February 2016, my world was changed forever. After months of going to doctors in order to treat - or at least find out the cause of - severe migraines, random projectile vomiting, pins and needles, constant fatigue and sometimes blurred vision, I finally found out from a specialist that I have a brain tumor. Sitting in the waiting room and seeing the nurses facial responses to my MRI scan was unsettling. Waiting rooms are undoubtedly a symbol of anxiousness. I remember not knowing what I was about to be told, but feeling the tangible sense of unease fill the room. I could never have predicted how much my life was about to change.

The news was surreal, one of those “this happens to other people, not to me” moments. I didn’t grasp then what I was being told. After a couple of days back at home, I returned to hospital where I met the neurosurgeon who was to perform my operation. He carefully explained the procedure; cut open my head, remove the veins of the tumor, cut down the middle of my brain, drain the growth then cut out what they can. Funny how the first time I cried was when he told me that I would be missing three months of varsity.

I don’t remember much after that. I had the surgery on the 9th of February and had been in a deep sleep for a couple of days. I was told that I had two grand-mal seizures and an aneurysm; my left side having lost motion. Waking up and becoming conscious really are two different things. I had been told stories about being awake and having conversations with people, but I do not remember any of those experiences. During the process of becoming conscious, I was suddenly aware of how different everything felt. How difficult it was to perform simple tasks and that everything over-stimulated me to the point of exhaustion. As I was slowly becoming aware of my body and what I had just been through – knowing the long row of stitches across my head is evidence of the trauma – I became responsive and emotive. I was experiencing fear, anxiety, restlessness, nervousness, worry, doubt, and a lingering unknown. There was a massive flood of emotion for a couple of weeks owing to the realization that I was alive and had survived something so traumatic. Then I couldn’t sleep. I was so scared. The nurses would bathe me and talk to me until I calmed down. I remember having asked to brush my teeth at 3 A.M and the nurse said no. That was the first time I cried since the operation. I think I cried every day after that. They don’t tell you if you will eventually stop being so emotional; and if so, when?

My biggest shock came when the physiotherapist asked me to move my legs up and down and I could only move my right one. I would lie there for ages thinking, “move”, and picturing my left leg sliding upwards and downwards. But nothing would happen. The frustration experienced in that moment was something I had never felt before. The disconnection between my thoughts and actions and that loss of control was absolutely terrifying. Looking at me, you would never think I was having such an intense internal struggle. I may have just been lying there, but I was spending every waking moment trying to overcome my body’s resistance to movement through thought. I felt trapped inside my own body. That’s when I realised that you and your body are so separate. I experienced this again in situations where I would grab things tightly in my left hand, clenched fist, and be unable to let go. I had grabbed a nurse once, and no matter how much I wanted to let go, my hand was not listening. This was a similar side effect to split brain patients; my left side of my body was not listening to the right hemisphere of my brain.

The realization that I stuttered, and spoke very slowly, frustrated me. I would try to speak as little as possible and would grow despondent upon hearing myself, as it did not coincide with what was going on inside my mind. I had uncontrollable tremors in my hands and arms. An occupational therapist tested me with some basic mathematics and memory exercises. It was harder than I thought it would be. I felt like a child as I struggled to identify shapes and objects. At times I would be okay then suddenly hit a complete blank and panic. She said this is called a “brain stutter” and occasionally this still happens to me now. But I have learnt to take a moment to think of something else until I am settled enough to return to the previous task. I have forgotten things. But I don’t know what things I have forgotten until I am presented with a person that I should know or story that I should remember, but don’t.

Learning to walk was the strangest feeling. I never knew how much thought and co-ordination goes into something so “easy”. I noticed how my concentration during such a seemingly simple task was affected so greatly by the environment. I became aware of how different walking is in a crowded space versus an empty space; a well lit space versus a dim space; stairs versus the ground, ect. I eventually changed my mind-set so that instead of feeling frustration or upset when I was struggling or unable to do things, I would celebrate small victories. Victories such as eating without messing, going to the bathroom on my own, putting on my slippers by myself, using a zip or fastening a button and picking things up with my left hand. These are small achievable goals that kept me positive and motivated me to recover.

The aknowledgement of this tumour and the aftermath of the surgery changed me. I became aware of this foreign body within my brain and its presence became defining. In order for me to move on in life I had to accept and normalise its existence. No one has the intention of making someone diagnosed with a tumour feel like a pariah, but it tends to happen with the sensitivity of a life altering diagnoses. The fact that I was someone with a brain tumour surrounded by people who do not have one; or that I am someone who has had multiple brain surgeries, automatically makes me feel like an outsider.

Audre Lorde in her Cancer Journals said “either I could love my body one breasted now, or remain forever alien to myself”. This statement hits hard. Coming to terms with your own identity is no easy task especially when it is something life altering; I had been through this process once before with my sexuality. And so I decided that I needed to accept myself with a tumor and as a brain surgery survivor, or be alien to myself once more.

These internal struggles continue – even now - unbeknownst to those around me. My thinking is definitely slower than before and it takes me longer to process and respond to things – sometimes this can be overwhelming, even if I am the only one aware of it. This is where insecurity comes in to play; at times I wonder if I am being perceived as “normal” in social situations. This then makes me feel like I should explain to to strangers that I am still recovering so that my behavior can be understood. I don’t know then if people are looking at me with curiosity, concern or confusion. Sometimes I feel strong in what I have overcome, and at times I feel so alone in my experience. I learnt to go easy on myself, and take things slow. My happiness comes from being myself in comfortable spaces; a renaissance that is truly liberating. I say renaissance because there is a clear distinction of myself and life before and after the surgery. Things feel different. Things are different. There is no way to tell if what I feel/ felt was normal. But my new normal involves an inner peace that does not take life for granted.

I didn’t know that It would take this long. I didn’t know that I would have such difficulty placing my own personality. I didn’t know that I would feel so foreign in my own body, so much so that I didn’t like looking at myself in mirrors or photographs. I wasn’t okay with being this person. That I would put on so much weight from the medication and the lack of mobility. Or that I would be so fearful of old symptoms returning and that I would feel a sense of guilt for surviving something that so many others didn’t.

The surgery is physically over, but mentally, I am still processing everything that had happened. I could go on but instead I will say that I am thankful my surgery went so well and that I was where I needed to be at that time. Now I am able to adjust to new strategies and am dealing with these overwhelming feelings in healthy ways.

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20.09.2019 - Today I write this 10 months after my second craniotomy under completely different circumstances. I have experienced this recovery at a different stage of my life, I am older, wiser and more motivated; facing a new perspective on the human experience. Learning from everyone around me as I know that everyone has a story and everyone is a lesson, offering a unique perspective on the chaos of humanity. My second diagnosis and surgery did make me wonder what lessons I still needed to learn. I was angered. Then depressed. Wasn’t one surgery enough? Then I surrendered. Truth be told, there has been a lot to learn... and there’s still so much more! The most valuable lessons about my body, health, consciousness, community and purpose came from the aftermath of the second surgery. I suppose at some point, you need to decide whether you are going to be a victim or if you are going to use the resources you have access to in order to deal with the situation you are faced with.

Although living in the past can hinder your ability to move forward/overcome. Looking back and consciously reflecting on how far you have progressed through a certain phase in your life is rewarding. I often do that of course when I think about my progress from my first surgery until now. But do not stay there too long. Do not allow your past experiences to define you. Allow them to inform your future and motivate more progression. I am also acknowledging the importance of bridging the gaps between geography and lifestyles as the older you get, the more you realise you need the people from your past. I have been pleasantly suprised by the teachers, friends, classmates, mentors and family members that have laid branches and connections to me in the most unexpected ways and places. I reflect on these relationships and acknowledge their contributions with gratitude.

I came across a quote by Tony Robbins that said: “it is not the events of our lives that shape us and who we are, but rather our beliefs as to what those events mean.” And those beliefs are determined by the way in which we tell our story. The meaning we attach to the events—how we interpret them— is what shapes who we are today and who we’ll become tomorrow. And I am now actively telling a better story in this chapter of my life by creating the reality I experience rather than passively becoming my default self. Now knowing that things happen FOR you, and not TO you has been game changing for me. And since curating the world I immerse myself in - deciding which communities I am a part of, deciding what motivates me and why, choosing to only invest my energy into things that will contribute to achieving my goals - I have recognised the power in my sense of self.

This is a new sense of self whereby the changes and transformations I am making on the other side of this trauma have presented an opportunity to identify and build a new structure and way of living. This change has at times been uncomfortable - but as Nerri Oxman said in ‘Abstract Art of Design (Season 2 episode 2), “If it feels uncomfortable, you’re probably doing something right.” This process of change has also brought along with it responsibility, which I now understand as the ability to respond to circumstances. I am in control of my responses and no longer a victim of my diagnosis or as a patient, providing a reorientation around healthcare and healing. Now knowing that ‘Doctor’ means ‘Teacher’ (and not healer) and that movement and food is the best medicine, I can asses that medication, doctor visits and language were not the best ways for me to recover, but rather movement, community and nourishment has allowed me to surpass previous mis-understandings of what my healthy self should be, look and feel like. For me, the courageous part of it all has been turning towards the self, orienting the symptoms - how I feel and what could have caused the tumor to manifest - and making the necessary changes. Everyday I see how I have progressed in different facets of my life, I can’t help pass judgement on myself but i am aware that it is an endless process.

This has cultivated a new kind of strength coming from a different place of mature consciousness - one that has developed from healthy habits, consistency and daily practices.

And so the journey continues...

#survivor #Brain Health #Brain Tumor #Personal

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kkglinka · 6 years ago

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I really love the complexity of the parents we see in RWBY, because every one of them is presented with both positive traits and countering flaws that affect their children in different ways. See, you can be a great person, but have lousy parenting skills in some area, or even overall. Likewise, you can be a mediocre or shitty person but have great parenting skills. Because like all skills, they require education and practice which, in this case, is typically acquired from their own parents or extended family. I'll start with the easy ones:

Jacques Schnee is socially well-regarded, has productive business acuity, demonstrates high self control, but is a horrible. He provided for all of Weiss' material needs to excess, along with a vast array of complex social skills — though limited on the interpersonal front. He ensured his child was well-educated and wanted for nothing, so long as she obeyed extremely rigid and limiting household rules that created a highly intimidating atmosphere. This type of extensive control and manipulation is what makes his otherwise supportive parenting abusive in nature, chiefly affecting Weiss' emotional development and sense of autonomy — the latter being her chief motivation to become a huntress.

Raven Branwen is a skilled tribal leader/chief, highly capable individual, perceptive, displays strategic intelligence, but poor adaptability. She is demonstrably intolerant of any display of emotional vulnerability and has an excessive need to save face. We can only speculate on the specifics, but drawing on common real life scenarios, she was young when she had her daughter, Yang, and in a highly stressful period of life. Based on what we know, I believe she was aware of her poor parenting skills, her inability to be emotionally available/supportive, all of which conflicted with what she felt were social obligations to her tribe.

She made the correct choice to do what was best for her child and surrendered her to her father. I know there are people who assume that she would have been a great mother if she stayed with him, but some people just can't and shouldn't be parents. If that was the case, it was admirable that she recognize her flaws, even if it was overwhelming fear of being a mother. Unfortunately, younger children and teens often fantasize about absentee parents, creating unfair expectations rooted in a desire for love. When those hopes are dashed, the child may become depressed or resentful, psychologically rejecting that parent...who is a source of some of their own character traits. Consequently, this can become a form of self-hatred that only time and perspective can cure.

Taiyang Xiao Long is a steady, reliable man who emotionally withdrew following the dissolution of his huntsman team, loss of one partner, followed by a loss of a second. This would have been a powerful series of emotional traumas for a very young man, and his resulting depression and severe withdrawal were completely natural and predictable. He was in a position where he required extensive emotional support but was forced to care for two young children instead. We can see from how both daughters grew up to be confident, socially adept, friendly and capable that he has relative good parenting skills.

Nevertheless, his withdrawal was a form of benign neglect that affected his older child more severely than the more psychologically malleable and therefore adaptable younger one. His older daughter was forced to shunt aside her own emotional needs and personal goals to partially assume the role of caretaker for some significant but unspecified period of time. In the long term, this resulted in his eldest daughter demonstrating high degrees of altruism and supportive behaviors, but at the expense of her own future goals and desires. She has repressed those to the point that she feels aimless.

Finally, while in a state of acute ptsd following a severe set of traumas, Taiyang's own aversion to dealing with further trauma leaves him incapable of offering emotional support. As his own response was withdrawal, he lacked the skills necessary to guide Yang to a healthy recovery. Instead, she further repressed her own emotional needs to fulfill her expected responsible and self-sufficient role. While there was no malice in Taiyang's actions, it doesn't change a series of belittling and dismissive comments he made about Yang's behavior, along with some uninformed reductive judgments.

Which leads straight into Qrow Branwen, who we know took on a primary mentoring role for his niece (in-law), Ruby Rose. We see Ruby demonstrate open love and admiration for him, which tells us that he was a very positive and encouraging influence on her. We know very little of Ruby's relationship with her father, beyond his protective nature, but she respects Qrow a great deal. At the same time, she is deeply frustrated by his alcoholism. Qrow has socially stagnated to the point that even his alleged semblance has failed to change or develop in any way. He's an example of a kind of shitty person with good parenting skills.

Which he mostly devoted to his niece, because we see little evidence of a similar relationship with his sister's child, Yang. From their very first exchange playing video games together, he is subtly contemptuous toward her (and her team mates). At the time, this was played as a humorous challenge, but when coupled with his continued lack of attention, along with a dismissive attitude toward any anger and hostility from Yang, his attitude is troubling. I'm forced to wonder just how much Yang reminds Qrow of his own sister. Regardless, we see from both father and uncle an unwillingness to assist Yang when she displays stress or unhappiness.

In an almost complete inverse, we have Ghira and Kali Belladonna. We retroactively know that their daughter, Blake, was in the throes of acute ptsd during volume one of the show, meaning much of her antisocial and avoidant behavior was not representative of her base personality. But we now see that Blake is decisive, highly devoted, emotionally expressive and driven by a strong sense of justice and compassion. She was comfortable speaking to her parents about her interests and concerns and they responded immediately with supportive actions and attitudes. They gave no recriminations, prioritized forgiveness and, unless I'm mistaken, the only parents we've seen hug their child.

Unfortunately for them, they raised a headstrong child, teaching her to question and challenge whatever she found just, including their decision to withdraw from a political organization that they saw was going off the rails. They did not have Blake's full respect and had somehow left her vulnerable to an abuser's manipulation. Abusers such as Adam begin by offering false emotional support or otherwise providing for a victim's unmet needs to lure them close. (Because narcissists make up the majority of abusers, and they're emotional attention vampires, they tend to seek out genuinely supportive wellsprings). I infer that Blake's parents were, despite their very strong emotional skills, frequently inattentive workaholics. This is another form of benign neglect and it caused their daughter to seek out another source of attention, during a period of her teen development when she needed more stability than they could provide.

Just as with real life, while the shittiest people were good parents in some ways, even the best parents had blind spots resulting in long-term consequences for their children.

#fandom #rwby #rwby meta

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nebris · 6 years ago

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The Book No One Read

Why Stanislaw Lem’s futurism deserves attention.

I remember well the first time my certainty of a bright future evaporated, when my confidence in the panacea of technological progress was shaken. It was in 2007, on a warm September evening in San Francisco, where I was relaxing in a cheap motel room after two days covering The Singularity Summit, an annual gathering of scientists, technologists, and entrepreneurs discussing the future obsolescence of human beings.

In math, a “singularity” is a function that takes on an infinite value, usually to the detriment of an equation’s sense and sensibility. In physics, the term usually refers to a region of infinite density and infinitely curved space, something thought to exist inside black holes and at the very beginning of the Big Bang. In the rather different parlance of Silicon Valley, “The Singularity” is an inexorably-approaching event in which humans ride an accelerating wave of technological progress to somehow create superior artificial intellects—intellects which with predictable unpredictability then explosively make further disruptive innovations so powerful and profound that our civilization, our species, and perhaps even our entire planet are rapidly transformed into some scarcely imaginable state. Not long after The Singularity’s arrival, argue its proponents, humanity’s dominion over the Earth will come to an end.

I had encountered a wide spectrum of thought in and around the conference. Some attendees overflowed with exuberance, awaiting the arrival of machines of loving grace to watch over them in a paradisiacal post-scarcity utopia, while others, more mindful of history, dreaded the possible demons new technologies could unleash. Even the self-professed skeptics in attendance sensed the world was poised on the cusp of some massive technology-driven transition. A typical conversation at the conference would refer at least once to some exotic concept like whole-brain emulation, cognitive enhancement, artificial life, virtual reality, or molecular nanotechnology, and many carried a cynical sheen of eschatological hucksterism: Climb aboard, don’t delay, invest right now, and you, too, may be among the chosen who rise to power from the ashes of the former world!

Over vegetarian hors d’oeuvres and red wine at a Bay Area villa, I had chatted with the billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel, who planned to adopt an “aggressive” strategy for investing in a “positive” Singularity, which would be “the biggest boom ever,” if it doesn’t first “blow up the whole world.” I had talked with the autodidactic artificial-intelligence researcher Eliezer Yudkowsky about his fears that artificial minds might, once created, rapidly destroy the planet. At one point, the inventor-turned-proselytizer  Ray Kurzweil teleconferenced in to discuss, among other things, his plans for becoming transhuman, transcending his own biology to  achieve some sort of  eternal life. Kurzweil  believes this is possible,  even probable, provided he can just live to see  The Singularity’s dawn,  which he has pegged at  sometime in the middle of the 21st century. To this end, he reportedly consumes some 150 vitamin supplements a day.

Returning to my motel room exhausted each night, I unwound by reading excerpts from an old book, Summa Technologiae. The late Polish author Stanislaw Lem had written it in the early 1960s, setting himself the lofty goal of forging a secular counterpart to the 13th-century Summa Theologica, Thomas Aquinas’s landmark compendium exploring the foundations and limits of Christian theology. Where Aquinas argued for the certainty of a Creator, an immortal soul, and eternal salvation as based on scripture, Lem concerned himself with the uncertain future of intelligence and technology throughout the universe, guided by the tenets of modern science.

To paraphrase Lem himself, the book was an investigation of the thorns of technological roses that had yet to bloom. And yet, despite Lem’s later observation that “nothing ages as fast as the future,” to my surprise most of the book’s nearly half-century-old prognostications concerned the very same topics I had encountered during my days at the conference, and felt just as fresh. Most surprising of all, in subsequent conversations I confirmed my suspicions that among the masters of our technological universe gathered there in San Francisco to forge a transhuman future, very few were familiar with the book or, for that matter, with Lem. I felt like a passenger in a car who discovers a blindspot in the central focus of the driver’s view.

Such blindness was, perhaps, understandable. In 2007, only fragments of Summa Technologiae had appeared in English, via partial translations undertaken independently by the literary scholar Peter Swirski and a German software developer named Frank Prengel. These fragments were what I read in the motel. The first complete English translation, by the media researcher Joanna Zylinska, only appeared in 2013. By Lem’s own admission, from the start the book was a commercial and a critical failure that “sank without a trace” upon its first appearance in print. Lem’s terminology and dense, baroque style is partially to blame—many of his finest points were made in digressive parables, allegories, and footnotes, and he coined his own neologisms for what were, at the time, distinctly over-the-horizon fields. In Lem’s lexicon, virtual reality was “phantomatics,” molecular nanotechnology was “molectronics,” cognitive enhancement was “cerebromatics,” and biomimicry and the creation of artificial life was “imitology.” He had even coined a term for search-engine optimization, a la Google: “ariadnology.” The path to advanced artificial intelligence he called the “technoevolution” of “intellectronics.”

Even now, if Lem is known at all to the vast majority of the English-speaking world, it is chiefly for his authorship of Solaris, a popular 1961 science-fiction novel that spawned two critically acclaimed film adaptations, one by Andrei Tarkovsky and another by Steven Soderbergh. Yet to say the prolific author only wrote science fiction would be foolishly dismissive. That so much of his output can be classified as such is because so many of his intellectual wanderings took him to the outer frontiers of knowledge.

Lem was a polymath, a voracious reader who devoured not only the classic literary canon, but also a plethora of research journals, scientific periodicals, and popular books by leading researchers. His genius was in standing on the shoulders of scientific giants to distill the essence of their work, flavored with bittersweet insights and thought experiments that linked their mathematical abstractions to deep existential mysteries and the nature of the human condition. For this reason alone, reading Lem is an education, wherein one may learn the deep ramifications of breakthroughs such as Claude Shannon’s development of information theory, Alan Turing’s work on computation, and John von Neumann’s exploration of game theory. Much of his best work entailed constructing analyses based on logic with which anyone would agree, then showing how these eminently reasonable premises lead to astonishing conclusions. And the fundamental urtext for all of it, the wellspring from which the remainder of his output flowed, is Summa Technologiae.

The core of the book is a heady mix of evolutionary biology, thermodynamics—the study of energy flowing through a system—and cybernetics, a diffuse field pioneered in the 1940s by Norbert Wiener studying how feedback loops can automatically regulate the behavior of machines and organisms. Considering a planetary civilization this way, Lem posits a set of feedbacks between the stability of a society and its degree of technological development. In its early stages, Lem writes, the development of technology is a self-reinforcing process that promotes homeostasis, the ability to maintain stability in the face of continual change and increasing disorder. That is, incremental advances in technology tend to progressively increase a society’s resilience against disruptive environmental forces such as pandemics, famines, earthquakes, and asteroid strikes. More advances lead to more protection, which promotes more advances still.

And yet, Lem argues, that same technology-driven positive feedback loop is also an Achilles heel for planetary civilizations, at least for ours here on Earth. As advances in science and technology accrue and the pace of discovery continues its acceleration, our society will approach an “information barrier” beyond which our brains—organs blindly, stochastically shaped by evolution for vastly different purposes—can no longer efficiently interpret and act on the deluge of information.

Past this point, our civilization should reach the end of what has been a period of exponential growth in science and technology. Homeostasis will break down, and without some major intervention, we will collapse into a “developmental crisis” from which we may never fully recover. Attempts to simply muddle through, Lem writes, would only lead to a vicious circle of boom-and-bust economic bubbles as society meanders blindly down a random, path-dependent route of scientific discovery and technological development. “Victories, that is, suddenly appearing domains of some new wonderful activity,” he writes, “will engulf us in their sheer size, thus preventing us from noticing some other opportunities—which may turn out to be even more valuable in the long run.”

Lem thus concludes that if our technological civilization is to avoid falling into decay, human obsolescence in one form or another is unavoidable. The sole remaining option for continued progress would then be the “automatization of cognitive processes” through development of algorithmic “information farms” and superhuman artificial intelligences. This would occur via a sophisticated plagiarism, the virtual simulation of the mindless, brute-force natural selection we see acting in biological evolution, which, Lem dryly notes, is the only technique known in the universe to construct philosophers, rather than mere philosophies.

The result is a disconcerting paradox, which Lem expresses early in the book: To maintain control of our own fate, we must yield our agency to minds exponentially more powerful than our own, created through processes we cannot entirely understand, and hence potentially unknowable to us. This is the basis for Lem’s explorations of The Singularity, and in describing its consequences he reaches many conclusions that most of its present-day acolytes would share. But there is a difference between the typical modern approach and Lem’s, not in degree, but in kind.

Unlike the commodified futurism now so common in the bubble-worlds of Silicon Valley billionaires, Lem’s forecasts weren’t really about seeking personal enrichment from market fluctuations, shiny new gadgets, or simplistic ideologies of “disruptive innovation.” In Summa Technologiae and much of his subsequent work, Lem instead sought to map out the plausible answers to questions that today are too often passed over in silence, perhaps because they fail to neatly fit into any TED Talk or startup business plan: Does technology control humanity, or does humanity control technology? Where are the absolute limits for our knowledge and our achievement, and will these boundaries be formed by the fundamental laws of nature or by the inherent limitations of our psyche? If given the ability to satisfy nearly any material desire, what is it that we actually would want?

Lem’s explorations of these questions are dominated by his obsession with chance, the probabilistic tension between chaos and order as an arbiter of human destiny. He had a deep appreciation for entropy, the capacity for disorder to naturally, spontaneously arise and spread, cursing some while sparing others. It was an appreciation born from his experience as a young man in Poland before, during, and after World War II, where he saw chance’s role in the destruction of countless dreams, and where, perhaps by pure chance alone, his Jewish heritage did not result in his death. “We were like ants bustling in an anthill over which the heel of a boot is raised,” he wrote in Highcastle, an autobiographical memoir. “Some saw its shadow, or thought they did, but everyone, the uneasy included, ran about their usual business until the very last minute, ran with enthusiasm, devotion—to secure, to appease, to tame the future.” From the accumulated weight of those experiences, Lem wrote in the New Yorker in 1986, he had “come to understand the fragility that all systems have in common,” and “how human beings behave under extreme conditions—how their behavior when they are under enormous pressure is almost impossible to predict.”

To Lem (and, to their credit, a sizeable number of modern thinkers), the Singularity is less an opportunity than a question mark, a multidimensional crucible in which humanity’s future will be forged.

I couldn’t help thinking of Lem’s question mark that summer in 2007. Within and around the gardens surrounding the neoclassical Palace of Fine Arts Theater where the Singularity Summit was taking place, dark and disruptive shadows seemed to loom over the plans and aspirations of the gathered well-to-do. But they had precious little to do with malevolent superintelligences or runaway nanotechnology. Between my motel and the venue, panhandlers rested along the sidewalk, or stood with empty cups at busy intersections, almost invisible to everyone. Walking outside during one break between sessions, I stumbled across a homeless man defecating between two well-manicured bushes. Even within the context of the conference, hints of desperation sometimes tinged the not-infrequent conversations about raising capital; the subprime mortgage crisis was already unfolding that would, a year later, spark the near-collapse of the world’s financial system. While our society’s titans of technology were angling for advantages to create what they hoped would be the best of all possible futures, the world outside reminded those who would listen that we are barely in control even today.

I attended two more Singularity Summits, in 2008 and 2009, and during that three-year period, all the much-vaunted performance gains in various technologies seemed paltry against a more obvious yet less-discussed pattern of accelerating change: the rapid, incessant growth in global ecological degradation, economic inequality, and societal instability. Here, forecasts tend to be far less rosy than those for our future capabilities in information technology. They suggest, with some confidence, that when and if we ever breathe souls into our machines, most of humanity will not be dreaming of transcending their biology, but of fresh water, a full belly, and a warm, safe bed. How useful would a superintelligent computer be if it was submerged by storm surges from rising seas or dis- connected from a steady supply of electricity? Would biotech-boosted personal longevity be worthwhile in a world ravaged by armed, angry mobs of starving, displaced people? More than once I have wondered why so many high technologists are more concerned by as- yet-nonexistent threats than the much more mundane and all-too-real ones literally right before their eyes.

Lem was able to speak to my experience of the world outside the windows of the Singularity conference. A thread of humanistic humility runs through his work, a hard-gained certainty that technological development too often takes place only in service of our most primal urges, rewarding individual greed over the common good. He saw our world as exceedingly fragile, contingent upon a truly astronomical number of coincidences, where the vagaries of the human spirit had become the most volatile variables of all.

It is here that we find Lem’s key strength as a futurist. He refused to discount human nature’s influence on transhuman possibilities, and believed that the still-incomplete task of understanding our strengths and weaknesses as human beings was a crucial prerequisite for all speculative pathways to any post-Singularity future. Yet this strength also leads to what may be Lem’s great weakness, one which he shares with today’s hopeful transhumanists: an all-too-human optimism that shines through an otherwise-dispassionate darkness, a fervent faith that, when faced with the challenge of a transhuman future, we will heroically plunge headlong into its depths. In Lem’s view, humans, as imperfect as we are, shall always strive to progress and improve, seeking out all that is beautiful and possible rather than what may be merely convenient and profitable, and through this we may find salvation. That we might instead succumb to complacency, stagnation, regression, and extinction is something he acknowledges but can scarcely countenance. In the end, Lem, too, was seduced—though not by quasi-religious notions of personal immortality, endless growth, or cosmic teleology, but instead by the notion of an indomitable human spirit.

Like many other ideas from Summa Technologiae, this one finds its best expression in one of Lem’s works of fiction, his 1981 novella Golem XIV, in which a self-programming military supercomputer that has bootstrapped itself into sentience delivers a series of lectures critiquing evolution and humanity. Some would say it is foolish to seek truth in fiction, or to draw equivalence between an imaginary character’s thoughts and an author’s genuine beliefs, but for me the conclusion is inescapable. When the novella’s artificial philosopher makes its pronouncements through a connected vocoder, it is the human voice of Lem that emerges, uttering a prophecy of transcendence that is at once his most hopeful—and perhaps, in light of trends today, his most erroneous:

“I feel that you are entering an age of metamorphosis; that you will decide to cast aside your entire history, your entire heritage and all that remains of natural humanity—whose image, magnified into beautiful tragedy, is the focus of the mirrors of your beliefs; that you will advance (for there is no other way), and in this, which for you is now only a leap into the abyss, you will find a challenge, if not a beauty; and that you will proceed in your own way after all, since in casting off man, man will save himself.”

Freelance writer Lee Billings is the author of Five Billion Years of Solitude: The Search for Life Among the Stars.

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the-book-no-one-read

Summa Technologiae https://publicityreform.github.io/findbyimage/readings/lem.pdf

#The Sisterhood

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sol1056 · 7 years ago

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Something I don't understand. According to those stats you posted, VLD has got more or less similar traffic rates as other shows like Castlevania and The Dragon Prince. So why is its Twitter and Tumblr presence so massively higher? For example the trailer for S8 on Twitter has 12k likes, but the trailer of S2 of Castlevania has only got 3.6k, almost just 1/4 of Voltron. I know you said Fandom can't be used to detect actual traffic, but I thought different Fandoms could be compared to each other.

You can compare fandoms, yes, but what you’re comparing in twitter stats vs the stats I listed is the difference between engagement and viewership.

We can determine engagement by looking at traffic on twitter, tumblr, facebook, instagram, and google searches. As google is the only one of those five that has a reach beyond 20% of the internet-using public, I find it’s the best for a blunt-force measurement of audience engagement, which really boils down to “how much people are talking about it.”

Wikipedia’s page views are an extrapolation of viewership. That’s a massive segment of the population who don’t get on twitter, use facebook for family stuff, aren’t into instagram, and have never heard of tumblr (yes, lots of those people exist).

Remember, a controversial show can get people talking but that doesn’t translate automatically to them watching. If you go by twitter stats, S7 should’ve been THE most watched season of VLD ever, ‘cause boy was it blowing up the charts in terms of engagement. Thing is, its viewership stats were just fractionally higher than S6, and still nowhere near S1/S2 levels. It didn’t bring in that many more eyeballs; it just got talked about. A lot.

The other thing to keep in mind is that you’re comparing one show’s seventh season to another show’s first season and a third show’s second season. VLD has had 2 more years to build up its audience than tDP, and a year more than Castlevania (which also doesn’t come with the massive marketing push that DW puts into even its half-assed-marketed shows).

On top of that, Castlevania’s audience skews older, and those of us with jobs don’t have the time to spend all day on various platforms, so our engagement may be as strong but it’s rarely as noisy. (in other words, we’ll miss stuff ‘cause we don’t have the time to go back and see everything in our feed that happened while we were busy elsewhere.) Meanwhile, tDP’s audience skews slightly younger, and twitter is much more a 18-30 kind of platform. So tDP’s audience is either slightly too young for twitter, while its other audience (parents) are just a little older than twitter’s core audience.

So, comparison graphs. Colors for each show in each graph are:

blue: Voltron (VLD)green: She-Ra (SPOP)red: The Dragon Prince (tDP)orange: Castlevaniapurple: Trollhunters (TH)

Viewership stats (via Wiki)

Stats run from 6/1/2016 to 11/17/2018.

VLD’s S1 viewership peaked at about 38K; TH’s S1 peaked at about 21K, same as SPOP over on the far right. Castlevania hit about 72K in its first season, so its S2 drop to around 48K is about standard. tDP managed almost 50K in its first season.

Viewership drops by 30-40% with each subsequent season for the average show; a drop of less than 20% means you have a major hit on your hands. The last season almost always shows a spike, as people come back to see how it ends. If a show ends without that spike, consider it dying a quiet death.

That reality of each subsequent season losing viewers means SPOP is in a really bad place right now, unless it can do a turn-around like TH and have a powerful ending. If SPOP has more than three seasons, by the time it gets to its final season (and that resurgent viewership for the finale), it might barely be a blip on the scale. The longer the show, the higher you want the S1 levels, to offset that expected decline over the seasons.

Engagement stats (via Google)

Here’s the chatter, of people searching for each show (or related topics like toys, merch, news, fic, art, etc). Same colors as above, for each show, for the same time period.

Unfortunately, Castlevania drowns everyone else out by such a degree that we can’t really see much until we get that out of the way. So this second one, I narrowed it down to ‘Castlevania netflix’ to temporarily quiet it, a little.

Compare this to the viewership, and you can see some interesting behaviors. People talked about TH a lot more than VLD, despite TH having such lower viewership stats. There was a major spike when SPOP released its character designs, and kerfluffles get people talking. For VLD, its S3 viewership dropped as in standard but the chatter went up; S3 and S7 came close to matching S1 levels of engagement (for not always good reasons, natch).

Notably, tDP may be somewhat quiet (comparatively) over on twitter, but it’s got people talking, too. If you’re wondering, the most common related search terms are for the cast overall, then ‘avatar the last airbender’ and then Ralya, Callum, Amaya, and Claudia. Going by frequency, Rayla is the most popular character by a large margin.

The dotted line in green, at the far right, is Google’s prediction based on the past few days’ traffic, as we haven’t quite completed the first week. (A query for a year+ gets compressed to a weekly Sun-Sat view.)

Speaking of which, let’s take it down to just the past 90 days, and remove the narrowing filter on Castlevania. This graph has a bumpier view because it’s back to a daily value for each.

tDP and SPOP look very close, and there’s really only a few points difference: tDP maxed out at 43%; SPOP maxed at 37%. (Basically, take Castlevania’s highest-rated day as x, and tDP’s highpoint is 43% of x.) If I narrow Castlevania down again, we can see tDP vs SPOP chatter.

People are talking about SPOP but still not quite to the degree of engagement as tDP. Then again, SPOP also hamstrung itself by releasing three days early without a lot of warning, so it’s possible we may see another spike similar to tDP’s once word gets out that the series is actually released. Or, once early adopters create buzz and lure more people into watching.

bottom line

What people talk about isn’t always what they’re watching. And people will watch and not have the place, time, or energy to chat about it online. All of these shows are on Netflix, too, so no advertising income as a comparison point. That makes engagement a more useful data point, because the income doesn’t change based on viewership.

By that measure, TH is probably DW’s most successful series of these, followed by VLD, and then SPOP. TH is the only one inside shouting distance of what tDP managed it its first season, and none of them come close to competing with Castlevania’s numbers.

Hell, if I were DW, right now I might be having serious regrets of making VLD a Y7 property, considering Castlevania’s M rating. By platform and viewership, Netflix might be the best home for adult-oriented series where stories can explore darker themes. Of all the franchises DW has right now, VLD was possibly the best candidate for taking advantage of the platform. That M rating hasn’t hurt Castlevania in the least, and in fact may’ve been part of what propelled it so high.

#vld #voltron #castlevania #the dragon prince #she-ra #trollhunters #doing the data cronch #sol thinks about stuff

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