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awakenedsalamander · 6 months

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would you be willing to speak moron the Technocracy? you have very interesting takes on it and I would like to know more

Happily!

So to me the Technocracy (in its 20th and 21 century incarnations, anyway, the early Technocracy/Order of Reason is different in some significant respects) represents a view of the world that is divorced from anything other than data and hard facts. This viewpoint is not exclusive to scientism, the paradigm I discussed in my recent post on the Technocracy, and is in fact an arguable core of pragmatism itself— there are times when it is essential to put aside ideals, emotions, and speculation and work only with what you can tangibly interact with. Sometimes, you have to put aside how the world should or could be, and work only with what it provably, unquestionably is.

But if you’ve ever discussed politics with someone who keeps insisting “well, that’s just how the world is,” rather than engaging with new ways of thinking or unconventional ideals, you’ll probably have realized that this way of looking at things can be profoundly limiting.

(Incidentally, this is why I think there’s the tendency to align most Technocrats with Stasis/The Weaver— the paradigm of technology itself can be Dynamic, Entropic, and Questing in a lot of cases, but the way the Technocracy uses it is broadly static, I think.)

Let’s use an example here, and talk about climate change. There’s a tendency to view the people most effectively driving climate change— the executives who profit off it, the lobbyists and politicians who sustain it, the demagogues and conspiracists who argue against its reality— as malevolent. They know what they’re doing, they know how it hurts the world and the people who inhabit, and they’re fine with it. Maybe some of them even enjoy it. This is basically the tack Werewolf: The Apocalypse takes with Pentex, for instance.

And that view is, to a larger extent than I think is remotely comfortable, true. Reckoning with the truth in that is part of what makes Werewolf fun, and it’s also one of the drivers on Mage’s own Nephandi.

But, I think it’s also true that most of the people responsible for ecological collapse don’t see themselves as doing anything wrong, and are instead able to just elide the details of the morality and ramifications of their industry/system/ambition and focus purely on the benefit. As said earlier, that is sometimes necessary— in an immediate crisis it can even be a godsend— but in the long-term and on a wider scale it can be quite damaging.

See, if you focus only on quantifiable data, there’s a way to look at climate change as kind of a trade-off you make for important numbers to go up. Industrialization is, economically speaking, incredibly beneficial, the advancement of technology improves not only wealth, but also security, communication, and even quality of life, and from the point of view of certain fields (at least as they currently exist) like agriculture, commercial shipping, energy production, and so on, the policies that really combat the bad effects of climate change would be disastrous! Can’t we afford a few more degrees Celsius for all that?

And if you want to get really dark, there’s the fact that wealthy countries and their oligarchs are going to be the least affected by natural disasters, resource conflicts, and pandemics. It won’t be easy, sure, but nothing ever is, and from a realpolitik standpoint, if other nations (which are potential threats after all) suffer those bad effects more than you do, then maybe weathering the storm is tactically viable…

So all in all, don’t pump the brakes, and certainly don’t reinvent the wheel here! We’ve got a good thing going, and it could be chaos to stop it! Hell, with all the benefits we’re getting, we might even invent some gadget or technique to solve the worst of it.

But of course, this misses so much. In the same way that topics I wanted to touch on, like algorithmic culture and automation, may have valuable benefits from certain points of view, you have to look at the whole picture. With climate change, you already see mass extinctions, and no amount of restorative cloning is going to reverse the ecological damage there. We’re going to see an increase in displacement and homelessness by disasters and the need for people to relocate from dangerous areas, which will ruin lives, if not end them. To say nothing of the inhumanity of allowing suffering on this scale when something can be done about it, right now!

But how do you prove that “ecological damage,” “ruined lives,” and “inhumanity” are worse than the loss of trillions+ of dollars which we’d have to spend to avoid them? It’s apples to oranges— no, it’s the abstract to the concrete. If someone only wants to think about the numbers, then there’s at least a debate. There’s cost benefit analysis and logistic comparison— but not action.

Now, I am simplifying significantly here. There are many reasons that climate change and other societal crises aren’t addressed beyond scientism, or political inertia, or even just greed and selfishness. To name a few, we also struggle against ignorance, against fear, against exhaustion, against bigotry, against the unknown. It’s not so simple. One of the problems with the worldview I’m attacking is its tendency to simplify things by smoothing over the issues, so I don’t want to do that.

But I do think that the biggest issues in our society can’t be tackled with cold math and a focus on what nets the best cost-to-benefit ratio. I think in a lot of cases, that kind of thinking— which, to bring it back to the point, is the kind of thinking the Technocracy embodies— is what got us these issues in the first place.

God, was this too serious for a World of Darkness discussion?

Anyway, thanks for the question! I appreciate the chance to analyze the topic.

#mage the ascension #wod #world of darkness #essay?#ramblings #also #I know it was a typo #but ‘would you be willing to speak moron’ is a hilarious phrase #and I thank you for it #the technocratic union #technocracy

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dailyanarchistposts · 1 month

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Chapter 4. Environment

No philosophy or movement for liberation can ignore the connection between human exploitation of the environment and our exploitation of one another, nor can it ignore the suicidal ramifications of industrial society. A free society must forge a respectful and sustainable relationship with its bioregion, on the understanding that humans depend on the health of the entire planet.

What’s to stop someone from destroying the environment?

Some people oppose capitalism on environmental grounds, but think some sort of state is necessary to prevent ecocide. But the state is itself a tool for the exploitation of nature. Socialist states such as the Soviet Union and People’s Republic of China have been among the most ecocidal regimes imaginable. That these two societies never escaped the dynamics of capitalism is itself a feature of the state structure — it necessitates hierarchical, exploitative economic relationships of control and command, and once you start playing that game nothing beats capitalism. However the state does present the possibility of forcibly changing people’s behavior on a massive scale, and this power is attractive to some environmentalists. There have been a few states in world history that enforced protective measures domestically, when saving the environment coincided with their strategic interests. One of the foremost is Japan, which halted and reversed deforestation in the archipelago around the Meiji period. But in this case and other cases, domestic environmental protections enforced by the state were coupled with greater exploitation abroad. Japanese society consumed increasing amounts of imported wood, fueling deforestation in other countries and providing an incentive for the development of an imperial military to secure these vital resources. This led not only to environmental devastation but also to warfare and genocide. Similarly in Western Europe, statist environmental protections came at the expense of colonial exploitation, which also resulted in genocide.

In smaller-scale societies, the existence of an elite tends to fuel environmental exploitation. The renowned social collapse on Easter Island was caused in large part by the elite, who compelled the society to build statues in their honor. This statue-building complex deforested the island, as large numbers of logs were needed for scaffolding and transportation of the statues, and farmland to feed the laborers came at the expense of more forests. Without forests, soil fertility plummeted, and without food the human population plunged as well. But they didn’t just starve or decrease their birth rate — the clan elites warred with one another, knocking down rival statues and carrying out raids that culminated in cannibalism, until nearly the entire society died off.[62]

A decentralized, communal society with a commonly held ecological ethos is the best equipped to prevent environmental destruction. In economies that value local self-sufficiency over trade and production, communities have to deal with the environmental consequences of their own economic behaviors. They cannot pay others to take their garbage or starve so they can have an abundance.

Local control of resources also discourages overpopulation. Studies have shown that when the members of a society can directly see how having too many children will diminish the resources available for everyone, they keep their families within a sustainable limit. But when these localized societies are incorporated into a globalized economy in which most resources and wastes are imported and exported, and scarcity results from seemingly arbitrary price fluctuations rather than the depletion of local resources, populations climb unsustainably, even if more effective forms of contraception are also available.[63] In Seeing Like a State, James Scott explains how governments enforce “legibility” — a uniformity that enables comprehension from above, in order to control and track subjects. As a result, such societies lose the local knowledge necessary to understand problems and situations.

Capitalism, Christianity, and Western science all share a certain mythology regarding nature, which encourages exploitation and contempt, and views the natural world as dead, mechanical, and existing to satisfy human consumption. This megalomania masquerading as Reason or Divine Truth has revealed itself beyond all doubt to be suicidal. What is needed instead is a culture that respects the natural world as a living, interconnected thing, and understands our place within it. Bruce Stewart, a Maori writer and activist, told an interviewer, pointing to a flowering vine he had planted by his house,

This vine no longer has a name. Our Maori name has been lost, so we’ll have to find another. Only one of this plant remained in the world, living on a goat-infested island. The plant could go any day. So I got a seed and planted it here. The vine has grown, and although it normally takes twenty years to bloom, this one is blooming after seven. ...If we are to survive, each of us must become kaitiaki, which to me is the most important concept in my own Maori culture. We must become caretakers, guardians, trustees, nurturers. In the old days each whanau, or family, used to look after a specific piece of terrain. One family might look after a river from a certain rock down to the next bend. And they were the kaitiaki of the birds and fish and plants. They knew when it was time to take them to eat, and when it was not. When the birds needed to be protected, the people put a rahui on them, which means the birds were temporarily sacred. And some birds were permanently tapu, which means they were full-time protected. This protection was so strong that people would die if they broke it. It’s that simple. It needed no policing. In their eagerness to unsavage my ancestors Christian missionaries killed the concept of tapu along with many others. [64]

Tikopia, a Pacific island settled by Polynesian people, provides a good example of a decentralized, anarchic society that has successfully dealt with life-and-death environmental problems. The island is only 1.8 square miles in area and supports 1,200 inhabitants — that is, 800 people per square mile of farmland. The community has existed sustainably for 3,000 years. Tikopia is covered in multi-storied orchard-gardens that mimic the natural rainforests. At first sight, most of the island appears to be covered in forest, though true rainforests only remain on a few steep parts of the island. Tikopia is small enough that all its inhabitants can become familiar with their entire ecosystem. It is also isolated, so for a long time they could not import resources or export the consequences of their lifestyle. Each of the four clans have chiefs, though these have no coercive powers and play a ceremonial role as the custodians of tradition. Tikopia is among the least socially stratified of the Polynesian islands; for example, the chiefs still have to work and produce their own food. Population control is a common value, and parents feel it is immoral to have more than a certain number of children. In one striking example of the power of these collectively held and reinforced values, around the year 1600 the islanders reached a collective decision to end pig-breeding. They slaughtered all the pigs on the island, even though pig meat was a highly valued food source, because keeping pigs was a major strain on the environment. [65] In a more stratified, hierarchical society, this might have been impossible, because the elite would typically force poorer people to suffer the consequences of their lifestyles rather than give up an esteemed luxury product [66].

Before colonization and the disastrous arrival of missionaries, population control methods on Tikopia included natural contraception, abortion, and abstinence for younger people — though this was a compassionate celibacy that amounted to a prohibition on reproduction rather than on sex. Tikopians also used other forms of population control, such as infanticide, that many people in other societies would find impermissible, but Tikopia can still provide us with a perfectly valid example because with the effectiveness of modern contraception and abortion techniques, no other methods are necessary for a decentralized approach to population control. The most important feature of the Tikopian example is their ethos: their recognition that they lived on an island and resources were limited, so that increasing their population was tantamount to suicide. Other Polynesian island societies ignored that fact and subsequently died off. The planet Earth, in this sense, is also an island; accordingly, we need to develop both global consciousness and localized economies, so we can avoid exceeding the capacity of the land and stay aware of the other living things with whom we share this island.

Today most of the world is not organized into communities that are structured to be sensitive to the limits of the local environment, but it is possible to recreate such communities. There is a growing movement of ecologically sustainable communities, or “ecovillages,” organized on horizontal, non-hierarchical lines, in which groups of people ranging from a dozen to several hundred come together to create anarchic societies with organic, sustainable designs. The construction of these villages maximizes resource efficiency and ecological sustainability, and also cultivates sensitivity to the local environment on a cultural and spiritual level. These ecovillages are at the forefront of developing sustainable technologies. Any alternative community can degenerate into yuppie escapism, and ecovillages are vulnerable to this, but a leading part of the ecovillage movement seeks to develop and spread innovations that are relevant to the world at large rather than to close itself off from the world. To help proliferate ecovillages and adapt them to all regions of the globe, and to facilitate coordination between existing ecovillages, 400 delegates from 40 countries met in Findhorn, Scotland, in 1995 and established the Global Ecovillage Network.

Each ecovillage is a little different, but a few examples can provide an idea of their diversity. The Farm, in rural Tennessee, has 350 residents. Established in 1971, it contains mulch gardens, solar-heated showers, a sustainable shiitake mushroom business, straw bale houses, and a center for training people from around the world to build their own ecovillages. Old Bassaisa, in Egypt, contains a few hundred residents and has existed for thousands of years. The residents have perfected an ecological and sustainable village design from traditional methods. Old Bassaisa now contains a Future Studies center, and they are developing new sustainable technologies like a methane gas producing unit that extracts gases from cow manure to save themselves from having to use scarce firewood. They use the leftover slurry as fertilizer for their fields. Ecotop, near Dusseldorf in Germany, is an entire suburb with hundreds of residents living in several four-story apartment buildings and a few detached homes. The architecture fosters a sense of community and freedom, with a number of communal and private spaces. Between the buildings, in a sort of village center, is a multi-use courtyard/playground /pedestrian zone, as well as community gardens and an abundance of plants and trees. The buildings, which have a completely modern, urban aesthetic, were constructed with natural materials and designed with passive heating and cooling and biological on-site wastewater treatment.

Earthhaven, with about 60 residents, was founded in 1995 in North Carolina by permaculture designers. It is composed of several neighborhood clusters set in the steep Appalachian hills. Most of the land is covered in forest, but the residents recently made the difficult decision to clear some of the forest for gardens so they could come closer to food self-sufficiency rather than exporting the costs of their lifestyle by purchasing food from elsewhere. They talked about it a long time, prepared themselves spiritually, and attempted to clear the land in a respectful way. This sort of attitude, which capitalist ideology would dismiss as sentimental and inefficient, is exactly what could prevent destruction of the environment in an anarchist society.

Also necessary are fierceness and the willingness to take direct action to defend the environment. On the isthmus of Tehuantepec, in Oaxaca, Mexico, anarchist and anti-authoritarian indigenous people have shown exactly these qualities in protecting the land against a series of threats. Organizations such as the Union of Indigenous Communities of the Northern Zone of the Isthmus, UCIZONI, which includes one hundred communities in Oaxaca and Veracruz, and later the anarchist/Magonista group CIPO-RFM, have fought against the environmentally devastating construction of wind farms, shrimp farms, eucalyptus plantations, and the expropriation of land by the lumber industry. They have also reduced economic pressures to exploit the environment by setting up corn and coffee cooperatives and building schools and clinics. Meanwhile, they have created a network of autonomous community radio stations to educate people about dangers to the environment and inform the surrounding communities about new industrial projects that would destroy more land. In 2001, the indigenous communities defeated the construction of a highway that was part of Plan Puebla Panama, a neoliberal megaproject intended to connect North and South America with transportation infrastructure designed to increase the flow of commodities. During the Zapatista rebellion of 1994, they shut down transportation lines to slow down the movement of troops, and they also blocked highways and shut down government offices to support the 2006 rebellion throughout Oaxaca.

In 1998, the Minnesota Department of Transportation wanted to reroute a highway through a park in Minneapolis along the confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi rivers. The proposed reroute would destroy an area that contained old trees, a precious oak savanna ecosystem, an ancient freshwater spring, and sites sacred to Native Americans — a vital wild space in the middle of the city that also served as a refuge for many neighbors. Indigenous activists with the American Indian Movement and the Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota Community came together to work in coalition with white residents, environmentalists from Earth First!, and anarchists from all over the country to help stop the construction. The result was the Minnehaha Free State, an autonomous zone that became the first and longest-lasting urban anti-road occupation in US history. For a year and a half, hundreds of people occupied the land to prevent the Department of Transportation from cutting down the trees and building the highway, and thousands more supported and visited the Free State. The occupation empowered countless participants, reconnected many Dakota people with their heritage, won the support of many neighbors, created a yearlong autonomous zone and self-organizing community, and significantly delayed the destruction of the area — buying time during which many people were able to discover and enjoy the space in an intimate and spiritual way.

To crush the occupation, the state was forced to resort to a variety of repressive tactics. The people at the encampment were subjected to harassment, surveillance, and infiltration. An army of police officers raided and destroyed the camps repeatedly; tortured, hospitalized, and almost killed people; and carried out over a hundred arrests. In the end, the state cut down the trees and built the highway, but the protestors did manage to save Coldwater Spring, which is a sacred site to the area’s indigenous peoples and an important part of the local watershed. The Native participants declared an important spiritual victory.

People throughout Minneapolis who had initially supported the destructive project because of its supposed benefits to the transportation system were won over by the resistance to save the park, and came to oppose the highway. If the decision had been up to them, the highway would not have been built. The Free State created and nurtured coalitions and community bonds that last to this day, shaping new generations of radical community and inspiring similar efforts around the world.

Outside Edinburgh, Scotland, eco-anarchists have had even more success saving a forest. The Bilston Glen anti-roads camp has existed for over seven years as of this writing, drawing the participation of hundreds of people and stopping the construction of a bypass desired by large biotech facilities in the area. To allow people to live there permanently with a lower impact on the forest, and to make it harder for police to evict them, the activists have built houses up in the trees which people occupy year round. The village is certainly low technology, but it is also low impact, and some of the houses are clearly works of love, comfortable enough to be considered permanent homes. The dozen or so inhabitants have also been tending the forest, removing invasive species and encouraging the growth of native species. The Bilston Glen tree village is just one in a long line of anti-road occupations and ecological direct actions in the UK that create a collective force that makes the state think twice about building new roads or evicting protestors. The village also crosses the line between simply opposing government policy and creating new social relations with the environment: in the course of defending it, dozens of people have made the forest their home, and hundreds more people have personally seen the importance of relating with nature in a respectful way and defending it from Western civilization.

#environmentalism #environment #solarpunk #anti colonialism #anarchism #daily posts #communism #anti capitalist #anti capitalism #late stage capitalism #anarchy #anarchists #libraries #leftism #social issues #economy #economics #climate change #anarchy works

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weirderscience · 3 months

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anyway hi to the people who find me thru my brief dhmisposting phase of last year on occasion. if i may direct you to my original work of not that stuff you may find funny things such as:

- cosmic horror machine elves

- space ferrets dealing with the ramifications of their long extinct domesticators causing an extinction event level ecological disaster that destroyed their home planets stability, that continues to shape their cultural values far into their space age

- wacky 90s teen mystery

and of course:

- clown

#setting: worlds a stage #setting: loamcats #setting: machine elves #labz.txt

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fatehbaz · 2 years

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Very big happenings in Persian cheetah news in 2022:

In early 2022, it was announced that only 12 Persian cheetahs, the last of the cats to roam anywhere in all of Asia, survive in the wild. Despite conservation efforts, no Persian cheetahs have ever been bred or born in captivity. Until now, as, in spring 2022, 3 cubs, triplets, were born in captivity. But as of September 2022, only one survives. Meanwhile, in India, the same species/subspecies of Persian cheetahs have been extinct for nearly 70 years. But the federal Indian government is going to release cheetahs, an African subspecies, flown in from Namibia. The cheetahs will be released, apparently, on 17 September 2022, to coincide with the birthday of notorious prime minister Narendra Modi, in what critics and many ecologists consider a nationalist publicity stunt.

Mostly in the past 125-ish years, the cheetah has been eliminated from over 90% of its distribution range. With the exception of a population within Iran, the cheetah is now extinct all across Asia, where until recently it lived from the shores of the Mediterranean, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, and the Arabian peninsula through Central Asia, across India, and into Bangladesh.

Not all cheetahs are the same of course.

The so-called “Asiatic cheetah” or “Persian cheetah” is the subspecies Acinonyx jubatus venaticus.

Here are the generally recognized subspecies:

Less than 50 Persian cheetahs left alive.

And in early 2022, Iranian ecologists/conservationists announced that there are apparently only 12 Persian cheetah surviving in the wild. This is scary, since in 2010, there were an expected 100 wild Persian cheetahs alive.

Captive breeding programs for the Persian cheetah have never been successful. No Persian cheetahs have been born in captivity.

Until now.

3 cubs, triplets, were born in spring 2022:

But.

More bad news.

2 of the 3 cubs have so far died.

One cub remains.

Meanwhile..

The nation-state of India will be reintroducing cheetahs for the first time since their extinction 70-ish years ago.

However, citing low population numbers, Iran cannot/will not donate any of the appropriate native Persian cheetah subspecies.

So, India is instead transplanting/importing a non-native African cheetah subspecies.

And there are other complications.

Like how hundreds of local villagers have been relocated to accommodate the newly-designated cheetah habitat zone. And how India already struggles to support local populations of leopards and the nearby similarly-critically-endangered final surviving population of the Asiatic lion (sub)species.

But there are also the political ramifications

And critics say that ethnonationalist/fascist prime minister Narendra Modi is hijacking the cheetah reintroduction as a nationalist publicity stunt, as the cheetahs will be released on his birthday, 17 September 2022. (There are other ecology-based criticisms involving habitat integrity, prey species population viability, long-term habitat health, competition with leopards, and the nearby Gir forest Asiatic lions.)

Much to think about.

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cruelsister-moved2 · 5 months

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do u have reading recs on the rituals of slaughter? i’m very interested

I actually don't think I do because I haven't read about this specifically I just keep noticing it as a thread in more general ethnographic readings over the years (and often like the author doesn't treat it as particularly consequential). I might have a dig and get back to you though because I would love to see what work has been done on it.

I have seen a lot of conversations on halal and especially kosher practises from an ecological perspective BUT I'm mostly interested in the like spiritual/social/psychological ramifications of actually killing an animal and how that is mitigated ritually, which i really haven't seen any work actually analyse that even if it relates examples of it happening. and relatedly the idea of hierarchy in relation to animals - which varies a lot, but the whole 'man is the master of the beasts who owes them nothing in return and should have no concern for their suffering' is a pretty western christian perspective.

i am really not a fan of comparative religion and other comparative study [too long to get into here but I think it's important to study cultures in their own right & recognise specifics & especially not try to rationally 'justify' cultural beliefs or force connections to some kind of 'universal human nature'] so i want to make the distinction here between that mode of study - I just think it's interesting that many individual cultures share some aspect of contrition for the killing of animals and various responses to that. relatedly i have noticed a bunch of animist beliefs (especially in hunter-gatherer societies who don't/didn't traditionally raise animals) make some kind of distinction between the killing of an animal's physical body for sustenance and the sense of domination or triumph over the animal's being. there are a lot of various formulations of this, but i always loved this ainu chant in which a fox's upper and lower jawbones have to be buried under the men's and women's toilet to stop the spirit of the fox from basically regenerating after the body is killed. beliefs in which certain parts can't be eaten and/or slaughter must be performed in certain ways are common and mostly defy any kind of 'logical' rationalisation (e.g hygiene). there's also an interesting resonance in the fact that kosher and halal dietary laws both specifically forbid the consumption of blood, because it's associated with some kind of 'life force'. i.e: you can consume this meat as is necessary for you to survive but you are not entitled to this creature's very existence. the torah as a whole is like extremely ambivalent towards animal slaughter; at once a sacred ritual and blessing, but also dangerously intoxicating and needs to be constrained. at points slaughter of animals is explicitly linked to slaughter of humans; the intitial permission to eat meat is sort of grudging (and a midrash suggests it's basically offered for noah and his family to take out their bloodlust rather than kill humans); the ideal state is still a world in which humans and animals don't prey on eachother. i think its all very buberian (you thought i wasnt going to bring martin buber into this) in that it's accepted as something which is not ideal but may be necessary for survival.

sorry that this is just anecdotes and not a reading list! i am going to scout the work looking at this in detail but i would have to read it first before i felt comfortable recommending it! when I finish work though I will reblog this post with all the readings i can remember where i encountered specific examples although none of them are specifically about animal slaughter, but some of them are more broadly about relationships with the natural world. im glad other people find it interesting anyway, i think it's a super rich topic!

#ask #traderjoeshater #girl i want to write an article about thsi so bad 😭😭 maybe ill just go rogue i have a background in ethnomusicology so its not like its #miles off

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salemoleander · 1 year

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A common issue with minecraft villager reimaginings is that they are trying to make trading so locked behind requirements that players have to treat villagers well, OR make trading even less efficient in the hopes that villager farms just don't make sense.

This will never work.

Players fucking love automating! They love farms, and efficient ways to get items, and taking advantage of janky game mechanics to do so. If you try to add a 'comfort' mechanic, or a social structure, or generally impede current 'villager breeders' (ugh) or farm designs, players will just build a better mousetrap.

You cannot drastically change player behavior by adding new hoops to jump through; the players will adapt and immediately hop through them like clever little border collies.

My 2 cents are that the mechanical need for "way to generate large quantities of items/blocks" should be completely decoupled from villagers (and piglins¹). It makes initial sense from a worldbuilding perspective (villagers trading! Barter!) but it violates so many tenets Minecraft tries to follow with its wildlife, and that grossness is amplified because these are intended to be people². If Mojang nixed fireflies because eating them would poison frogs, it seems like a mechanic that incentivizes putting sentient creatures in cages should be even more urgent to remove.

My 'hard and fast rule' is that resource farming should always be covered by one of four categories:

Actual irl domesticated animals - Cows, pigs, chickens, bees. This obviously has its own ethical stuff, but this is imo a reasonable thing for a game to include.

Hostile mobs - If something wants to kill me, it's fair that I steal its bones.

Plants/natural worldgen - Ecological ramifications are a whole other post, but at least dirt isn't sentient³.

Machines/workstations - Enchanting table, furnace, crafting bench

To me, that last option seems underutilized! I really hope that Mojang is willing to apply the same thoughtfulness to villagers that they apply to animal and biome additions!

And if not, hopefully you at least will, dear reader. (I am going to stop here and add my ideas in a reblog, bc I think this post would be undermined by ending in my speculative Minecraft fanfic.⁴)

¹ Piglins are functionally villagers. However, I do appreciate the difference- that if you fuck with them, they just stab you. Villagers, take notes!

² I do not want to argue about how intelligent/ sentient/ sapient villagers are.

³ Mycelium might be. If so, I argue it falls under hostile mobs. Categorical crisis averted.

⁴ No, I don't feel it's undermined by instead ending in a series of footnotes.

#salem chatter #salem tag #minecraft #minecraft villager #minecraft villagers #meta #txt #long post #i hope ive articulated myself adequately here #i say as if this isnt So Fucking Long and only stopped bc ive saved my brainstorming for a part 2

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headingalaxys-spicy · 1 year

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🌟Last Writing Post of 2022!🌟

The Golden Nightingale part.2 @nubigenouss as promised a tag in the newest part.

Enjoy y’all . Also in 2023 I will be going back though my work to make edits so there is more to read and so I can improve the writing.

Part 1

America- The Tourmaline Daydream

The World stage where Hero’s came to showcase their powers and prove to the world their worth. Hollywood dazzle need not fail Alfred F. Jones now.

He cleared his throat and coughed a little. Time to walk on that tight line of being strong yet allowing vulnerabilities to show. The con man has come alive. The hot ash from the already burning fire sucked the miniscule amount of oxygen from the room. Causing tensions to run higher.

“My people have been suffering in the health department. Many of them have succumbed to mental or physical illnesses that have left me in a state of national emergency. A specialized type of forest fungus has taken over the eastern and western coasts of my nation. The spores are beginning to spread across the midwest as we speak. Production will creep to a crawl, not enough for me, then none for trade. The world will feel the brunt of my nation’s suffering if I don’t have the nightingale.”

He begins to pace and make individual eye contact with everyone as he continues.

“If this fungi is allowed to continue… then future generations will be smaller in comparison. Less people to contribute to ground breaking research, production, and less brilliant minds to lead America! We’re all interconnected and the leading nation of innovation. If I begin to slag behind so will the rest of you!”

“Explain how you’re the only one who has ‘innovation’ Pompous American.” Was what some wanted to say but kept it to themselves in the back of their minds.

“If I have the golden nightingale. I will carry on bravely. I want to MARRY Y/N the nightingale. It’s the only way that I can get my nation back on track so I can aid the rest of you and finish some of the commitments that I have with some of you.

His eyes wander over all the nations briefly making eye contact with his cunning fox-like smile. Without looking into the windows of his soul it portrayed the expression of one who is trying to be brave in the face of adversity.

“As an example of some of the commitments I won’t be able to finish…..Germany. I won’t be able to send over that new medical technology that we’ve discussed. I’ve had to divert 20% of it into resources that can help me stop the fungi from spreading further into our forests and wildlife. Containment has become difficult since the spores do attach themselves to any animal that brushes up against them or bees that carry them to other parts of my ecosystems. The longer this goes on who knows… it could be right on your doorstep by next week. There are still some effects of the mushrooms that we haven’t identified yet. And things can get worse.”

He faces his audience head on as if he expected them to state some absurd objection. He was searching for doubt. So he could devour it. All in the room had barely readable expressions that were laced with concern.

The Italian had his amber orbs open, for once not distracted by doodling or chowing down on Pizza during the middle of the meeting. The ramifications of not handing the Nightingale over to America would mean all may have an ecological disaster that can severely damage the quality of life for all the people in his nation.

‘Merda. The American has a point. If he doesn’t get the Nightingale to repel the ecological / endemic in his nation that doesn’t bode well for my population that is struggling with crops. I’ll disappear like Grandpa Rome.’ Italy simply kept his hands folded in front of his mouth as he let the American continue on during his last minute to make his case.

“So if you dudes don’t want fungi that tampers with brain matter within humans and give them hallucinations for 78 hours which leads them to their deaths, makes a person or animal a brain dead potato, or can paralyze you I suggest you allow me to Marry Y/N so this can all go away and we can be safe. That elusive mushroom is well on its way to entrapping the world in a glittery neurotic yellow haze. None of you would be prepared for it. So grant the Hero his superpowers!”

‘Verdammt! So America has a different type of endemic that has sprung from the forests’ fungi while in my nation it’s more of a poisonous moth that makes people and animals sick. Hm. I wonder if this means….’

He allows his eyes to wander over to your unconscious form that was in a glass and lonsdaleite orb. One of the multitudes of rainbow rays that reflected off of the shiny bubble that encased you and struck his brilliant blues. He’s never seen a more beautiful person in his life.

He reaches for his pure aquamarine tourmaline and holds it up to his assembly.

“I am Alfred F. Jones and I want the right to marry y/n so I can become strong and fulfill my solemn duty as a Hero to save the world!”

England couldn’t help but grimace at that statement. He allowed his verdant eyes to admire the enchanted shackles that you were in. They were gold and had been placed upon your neck, ankles, and wrists. If only performing the spell he had in mind didn’t take so much energy from him.

The room was smoldering over with heavy silence. Many wanted to add in their logs to keep the blaze going.

“Okay only two questions can be asked. Who has some?” Germany states as the timer on his phone signaled that America’s Heroic speech time has officially ended.

“Question America. How long have you known about this invasive fungus and its devastating effects?”

“Within the last week.”

“When were you planning to tell all of the international community? Or were you planning to keep it a -”

“That’s three questions. Keep it simple Russia. We do need to keep this meeting moving efficiently seeing that we all have urgent matters we need to attend to.”

“Now, after I had all of the necessary information ready to announce.” He pulled out a newspaper and iPhone that showed news of the fungus running amok in an international UK publishcation.

His flaxen eyebrows lowered while his smile remained plastered on his face. The answer was just satisfying enough to where he couldn’t add in more fuel currently.

Sounds of cellphones sending mass messages tore through the room while some were simultaneously writing. Even Germany was distracted .

“Entshuldgung. I needed to alert my officials of something. Next, China. You have five minutes to make your case.”

‘Of course. I’ve been skipped.’ He drums his fingers in annoyance as he passively listens to Yao try and convince the nations to not hand you over to America.

His violet eyes wander over to your form. You had moved slightly with your forearm covering your eyes from the concentrated light in your constricting dome. ‘Poor Y/N being auctioned off just so that these jerks can gain power. Not even recognizing that you’re human and have dreams.’ As he struggles with how the others could be selfish. The Angelite on his necklace emitted a soft glow beneath his flannel.

In the inner depths of your subconscious you saw a calming sky blue light filled your vision. Curiosity filled your mind. You felt drunk and in a winter star haze. Miniscule snowflakes touched your face and an ease swept over your body.

You soon found yourself near a flame and had a hot chocolate that shimmered with peppermint flakes and marshmallows and foam that formed the shape of a polar bear.

‘Well at least it’s nice where I am.’ You sip at the piping hot drink leisurely as you pay no mind to the rest of the void that surrounded you and the fragments of memories that some you could recognize but others were foreign to you. They floated in the air like bubbles traveling aimlessly through space.

‘Y/N? Y/N?’ A muted male voice echoed through the thick navy blue blackness. You didn't react to it. You let your mind wander as you stared at your drink.

‘Y/N! Y/N! Can you hear me? Please Maple. I won’t harm you!’

This time your ears perked up to the disembodied call.

‘Okay. Uh Hello? Where are you? Who are you but also what?’

‘You’re in danger in real life Y/N.’ The voice was closer and it lost its echo.

‘Definitely don’t know what you mean. I exist…. And seem very much so free.’ You gesture to all of the speckled blank space that was filled with memories of both you and Canada.

‘So you don’t know you’ve been captured? That your life now hangs on the line. That all who are in our meeting room are in the middle of determining your fate as if you were a criminal of sorts. All because you have an actual heart of gold.’

You couldn't help but laugh at his ridiculous statement.

‘Okay, whatever you say uh… bear man with a curl.’ You giggle and Canada is caught off guard by how cute you sound in your subconscious. Would it be the same as if in person?

‘I’m Matthew. Y/N and I’m here to help you. Please listen to me when I say that you’re in danger!’ His panic ignited the power of his Angelite. He wanted to shield you from the iniquitous master plans that he knew the others had for you.

Your eyes concentrated on how his soft yet angelic face contorted worry. As you were about to elaborate on what sort of danger you were in you suddenly felt the ground beneath you drag you down.

‘Y/N!!!’

It felt like thousands of points on a multitude of stars decided to dig into your legs and you sunk deeper into the pitch black that was laced with fragments of memories.

‘Matthew! Save me!’ The tar had fully consumed you, disconnecting you from Matthew.

England thumped his gloved fingers against the mahogany table top as he looked at his viridescent diamond. It projected to him what was going on in your subconscious. He hid his frown with his hand as he glared at the Canadian that gawked at you. Not even remotely listening to Yao make his case for you.

‘Looks like Canada is going to be an issue for me.’

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