#high functioning democracy

[dusk82]

Cooperation and reciprocity are the new economics. Let's choose to build better, more inclusive narratives and enaction of economic regulation policies.

[saintsenara]

Do you think the wizarding world even has a concept of rape? I don't think this was JKR's intent but love potions are considered perfectly legal, Romilda Vane doesn't get in trouble, Dumbledore doesn't seem to think Merope did anything wrong to Tom Riddle Sr., and despite a member of Magical Law Enforcement witnessing lots of sketchy stuff at the Gaunts' no one steps in to help Merope. Plus we know their society is archaic and lacks modern values - ie. quills, slavery, lack of democracy

it's a great question pal.

the answer for which is under the cut, for the obvious reason that it comes with a trigger warning for rape.

when the statute of secrecy was signed in 1689, rape - defined as "the carnal knowledge of a woman forcibly and against her will" - had been illegal under english law since the middle ages.

however, the "against her will" bit is important here. in the seventeenth century, it was a legal requirement for a victim of rape to prove that she had maintained a continuous state of physical resistance during her assault. in cases where a victim could not prove this, her consent was presumed - even if she had been incapacitated in some way. unsurprisingly, consent was always assumed between husbands and wives.

men could not be raped under the letter of seventeenth-century english law - but the rape and sexual assault of men was illegal under buggery [sodomy] laws, and was often taken much more seriously by the state...

and i think we can plausibly say - should we want to - that, on the basis of what we find in canon, the wizarding world might retain this legal requirement for rape to be indisputably resisted, and that this explains why love potions seem to have no repercussions attached to them.

because, of course, love potions essentially function like date rape drugs, even if they leave their victims appearing to be of sound mind [the officiant who married tom and merope wasn't suspicious of anything, for example - and the only reason ron is so badly affected by the love potion he takes is because it was out of date] . they incapacitate a person to the extent that they cannot offer legitimate consent to sexual acts, and they also incapacitate them to the extent that they cannot physically resist their attacker - in their case, by compelling the person dosed with the potion to regard their attacker as someone they want to have near them.

therefore, if wizarding law only considers rape to be something which is accompanied by evidence of resistance... then using a love potion on somebody would not be rape.

the cultural implications of this are fascinating - especially since [no matter what jkr thinks] the wizarding world appears to be restrictive [by the standards of muggle britain in the 1990s and 2000s - although, unfortunately for those of us on our high horses about coming from a superior nation, not by the standards of muggle ireland...] in terms of conventions surrounding sexual behaviour and gendered expectations placed upon women.

the marriage age for women is extremely low [any woman whose wedding date we can pin-point in canon - molly weasley, andromeda tonks, lily potter, fleur delacour - gets married as a teenager]; the age for having children is also much lower than it was in the muggle world - and even than it was in the muggle world of the 1940s-1980s [all four of the women above fall pregnant before they're twenty-one, for example]; unmarried couples don't seem to live together, and there's clearly a social taboo against premarital sex [molly weasley gets a lot of flack from the fandom for making bill and fleur sleep in separate bedrooms, but nobody in the story regards this as prudish or old-fashioned]; divorce doesn't seem to be common [and blaise zabini's mother killing her husbands certainly takes on a new flavour if we assume that divorce is extremely difficult... or even illegal]; and married women - at least in the middle- and upper-classes - don't seem to work.

i also think that it's canonically plausible that arranged marriage, including between cousins, is a common cultural practice [sirius' comment in order of the phoenix about parents "letting" their children marry basically confirms this, i think] - which means we can also imagine, if we'd like, that there's perhaps little legal distinction between arranged and forced marriage.

obviously - obviously - i don't think that any of these are things the doylist text intended. the reason the story says very little about sex - both consensual and otherwise - or law or gender norms is because the harry potter series is a story about a boy-wizard who goes to a cool magic school and fights a good-versus-evil battle to the death which was written for children. i don't begrudge the publishers for not fancying a hundred pages on harry learning how to put on a condom...

[and the low marriage/childbearing ages genuinely seem to be because jkr is functionally innumerate and didn't realise how young she was suggesting everyone was...]

but from a watsonian perspective, they're really interesting - especially for the extremely disturbing paths they can lead us down as authors when we're trying to flesh out the worldbuilding of magical britain.

what - for example - is the wizarding age of consent? and how would this impact how wizards understand sexual maturity, adult-child power relations, and child abuse?

[after all, if the age of consent is unchanged from 1689... it could be as low as ten. which goes some way towards explaining why nobody thinks of tom riddle as grooming ginny...]

and does the law consider it possible for a wizard to rape his wife? and if it doesn't, what does it think about him beating her?

what legal rights do sex workers have in the wizarding world?

is abortion legal? is contraception? is homosexuality? does gay sex have a higher age of consent?

is divorce legal? can women initiate a divorce? how are single mothers treated [and, therefore, what was lupin willing to do to tonks by walking out on her]? how are the children of unmarried parents treated? what property and inheritance rights do women have? are marriages performed by muggles - or dissolved by them - recognised by the wizarding state? what position does this put a witch [like eileen snape] who marries a muggle man in? would a wizard who marries a muggle woman and then abandons her be committing bigamy if he married a witch?

would wizards ever be punished for sexual offences against muggle women? does merope get away with attacking tom sr. in the eyes of the wizarding state because of her gender or because he's a muggle or both? could a muggle raped by a wizard even report the crime?

what modesty standards are there in terms of dress and behaviour? what would wizarding feminism look like? what is it like to be muggleborn [especially from the 1960s onwards] and enter this world?

i think i'm inclined to take the grimmest possible view of all of these questions, to be quite honest...

the wizarding world is fucked up.

[cacowboysblog59]

SCOTUS IS COMPROMISED AND CORRUPT!

Alito’s flag shows the US supreme court is neither honorable nor functional any more

Moira Donegan

These people can’t help themselves. Last week, the New York Times revealed that during the days after the violent attack on the Capitol on 6 January 2021, when the US supreme court was still considering whether to take up cases challenging Joe Biden’s election victory, the home of the supreme court justice Samuel Alito, in suburban Virginia, flew a pro-coup flag. The Times printed photos of the American flag flying upside-down on a pole in Alito’s front yard; by January 2021, the upside-down flag had become a well-known symbol of the so-called “Stop the Steal” movement, champions of Donald Trump who supported his legal and violent attempts to overthrow the 2020 election.

At the time, pro-Trump social media groups were encouraging supporters to fly their flags this way; upside-down flags had been carried by some of the insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol, just a few days before the symbol appeared outside Alito’s house. In the election case that was then before the court, Alito voted to hear Republican challenges to the election results. But he didn’t get enough of his colleagues to vote his way. Not that time.

he flying of the pro-Trump, pro-coup flag is in clear violation of the ethics rules that apply to federal judges. After several high-profile controversies at the court – including investigations into gifts given to Alito and his fellow conservative justice Clarence Thomas by deep-pocketed Republican donors – a controversy arose over why, precisely, those ethics rules have never extended to the supreme court justices.

Under enormous political pressure, the court agreed to assign itself a version of those ethics rules last year, aiming, it said, to dispel any public concerns and recommit the court to maintaining an appearance of credible neutrality. (Such rules have long applied to court employees, who, the Times points out, are not permitted to so much as attend a protest or put a bumper sticker on their car.) The justices did not elect, however, to make the new ethics code in any way enforceable for themselves. They’re not rules that can be enforced; they’re guidelines that can be – and are – ignored.

The court is currently considering several cases stemming from the January 6 insurrection, and will rule on two questions that concern its aftermath in the coming weeks: first, whether insurrectionists can be charged with obstruction of an official proceeding; and second, whether Donald Trump can be held legally responsible for crimes he committed while in office. After this November’s general election, there are almost certainly going to be further legal challenges to the election results, just as there were in 2020. Alito will be on the court to hear Trump’s arguments in those cases, too.

The flag, then, is just the latest reminder of a disturbing reality: that as the Republican party further radicalizes against democracy, the supreme court – the body which is tasked with checking these unconstitutional impulses – has become their ally. The rule of law cannot be relied on to stem the tide of rising authoritarianism, because our legal institutions have been captured by the authoritarians.

Why would Alito make such a brazen display of his partisan loyalties and disregard for the legitimate results of an election at a moment when the court is under such intense scrutiny? When the Times asked him about the pro-insurrection flag, Alito blamed his wife: he said she put it up after getting in a fight with a neighbor who had an anti-Trump lawn sign. It’s not clear exactly how this story is supposed to exonerate him: it doesn’t explain why the Alitos used this pro-coup gesture, of all the possible options, as a way to retaliate against their progressive neighbors. And the story is still one in which the Alitos are affirmatively voicing their partisan loyalty in public, and showing themselves unable to tolerate even the proximate presence of Americans who do not share their own morbid, conspiratorial and punitive worldview.

But asking why Alito feels he can get away with it misses the point: he knows he can get away with it. The justice is perfectly aware that he does not need to pretend to neutrality, or hide his partisan loyalties, or behave, with anything like a convincing effort, like his work on the court is motivated by the law and not his own reactionary political preferences. Alito knows that he does not need to maintain any pretext of integrity, intellectual commitment or seriousness in his work. The supreme court has accumulated enough power to itself – and the justices have done a sufficiently good job of insulating themselves from any accountability or consequence – that he doesn’t even think he needs to lie any more. He’s comfortable being a partisan operative right out in the open.

And why shouldn’t he? He’s not even the worst offender. After all, Clarence Thomas has not recused himself from insurrection-related cases, either, even though his wife, Ginni, was a vocal supporter of the insurrection – texting Trump’s then White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, over and over about the effort before, during and after the riot, and attended the “Save America” rally on January 6 herself. Like Alito, there is no way to force him to step aside.

The justices do not enforce rules of impartiality, integrity, honesty, disclosure or decorum on themselves. And there are few mechanisms – and absolutely no political will – for anyone else to impose these on them. The people have no check on the court; Congress is dysfunctional and can’t act. And so the justices are acting like spoiled children: petulant, self-indulgent, shameless, jeering and unsupervised. Men like Alito and Thomas have not done what decency requires – and there are no means to compel them to.

If this was an honorable court, a man like Alito would never have been appointed. If it was a functional court, he would resign. If it was a court composed of jurists capable of shame, he would recuse himself from election-related cases. But it is none of these things.

It is time to admit what this court has become: an elite, but no less sadistic and vulgar, bastion of the anti-pluralist, anti-democratic forces that have captured so much of the Republican party and the conservative base. To say that the court is composed of partisan operatives – and that at least two of them are either so delusional that they have lost touch with reality or so cynical that they don’t mind when the facts diverge from their preferred outcomes – is so obvious as to be almost banal to any honest court observer. That anyone pretends that the court is a legitimate judicial body is a farce. That its actions still carry the force of law is a tragedy.

Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist

[mariacallous]

No one expects him to resign, not only because he lacks the decency and integrity to do so after arguably the worst day in Israel’s history. It's also because of the criminal charges he faces.

Resigning is counterproductive to his personal interests and they, not the State of Israel, are what counts. His trial, not Israel's security, is his priority. He has lost all legitimacy and can't be trusted, certainly at a time of war when such monumental decisions need to be made.

That he's the first prime minister in the history of democracies to wage war on his own country, on its institutions and foundations, is clear. For years, but especially since he launched his antidemocratic constitutional coup in January, he has declared war on Israel’s elites, the judicial system, the checks and balances and by extension the military he views as an elitist cabal undermining his political agenda.

The popular pushback to his attempted regime change now looks like distant history, because Saturday October 7 wasn't only a tragedy on an epic scale, it was a debacle and an inflection point. Netanyahu and his cabinet callously betrayed the sacred trust, the core of Israelis' compact with their government: security.

For this there is no redemption, no contrition, no salvation. He must go and he must go now. No excuses, no political deals, no mitigating circumstances. For all intents and purposes, he's incapacitated and can't discharge the duties of his office.

His government is extremist, messianic, hollow, inept and inherently kakistocratic – government of the worst. It buckled in the first moment of crisis. He and his dysfunctional ministers betrayed Israel, and effectively his government is no longer functional, except maybe for the defense minister.

He isn't Winston Churchill, to whom he likens himself, and he isn't Abraham Lincoln. No one looks up to him at the ultimate moment of tragedy and crisis; only sycophants trust him.

His record is one of incompetence and gung ho delusion – and there is a clear and present danger that all his wartime decisions will be polluted by personal, legal and petty political considerations. He can't be trusted, nor is he credible to manage the war that is only just beginning.

His constitutional coup has categorically harmed national security and taken a high toll on the military's preparedness. He was warned about this by the military's chief of staff and by former prime ministers, defense ministers, chiefs of staff and hundreds of former generals.

In fact, in March he casually fired Defense Minister Yoav Gallant because Gallant was expected to deliver a statement arguing that Netanyahu’s constitutional coup was endangering Israel’s security. He has shown arrogant recklessness, dereliction of duty and responsibility, as well as gross negligence in managing Israel’s national security.

Now look at his foreign policy and geopolitical record. It's nothing short of abysmal. Let’s go through the areas one by one, starting with his bogus claim to fame. How ludicrous does his decade-old bragging look – that only he can save Israel, and indeed Western civilization, from the regime of the messianic mullahs?

Iran. The Islamic Republic has accumulated enough fissile material to produce five nuclear bombs, according to the Pentagon. It has reached unprecedented levels of uranium enrichment. Meanwhile, it has further deepened its hold in Syria, Lebanon and Gaza while tightening relations with Russia and China.

Hezbollah in Lebanon. Thanks to Iranian material support and political mentorship, the Shi'ite organization is as strong as ever. After what has happened with Hamas in Gaza, the arrogant statement that “Hezbollah is deterred” should never be taken seriously again.

The Palestinians. Here the record is just as ominous. Hamas has launched the most lethal attack on Israel ever. Whatever the outcome of the current war, during Netanyahu’s reign Hamas has become as strong as ever, armed as ever, audacious and murderous as ever.

Netanyahu, the man who just a few years ago vainly pledged to “obliterate Hamas,” has done nothing. Absolutely nothing. He has effectively strengthened Hamas, allowed tens of millions of dollars from the Gulf to be funneled to the terror group to implode the Palestinian Authority so he can proceed with annexation.

Under Netanyahu, the PA's weakness and ineptness has brought Israel closer than ever to the unviability of the two-state model. Israel is dangerously close to a binational state where reality is binary: Either Israel ceases to be a Jewish state or becomes an apartheid state. A majority of Israelis want neither.

In the international arena Netanyahu boasted during the 2019 and 2020 election campaigns that he's “in a different league.” Those huge posters showed him with Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, but in this arena where he pretends to be a world leader, the record is strikingly unimpressive.

The United States. He has not been invited to the White House in the 10 months since his new term began. The Americans' criticism, including by President Joe Biden, of his constitutional coup is unprecedented.

Russia. His friendship and mutual admiration with Putin was so fruitful that Russia is now aligned with Iran, buying drones and other weapons. Even his morally depraved policy of not standing with Ukraine – to be fair, a policy he inherited from the previous government led by Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid – hasn’t won him any points with Putin.

China. Two months ago, Netanyahu ostentatiously declared that he was invited by Xi Jinping to Beijing, while a “senior source” added that the idea was to signal to Biden that “Israel has options.” Not only is China expanding relations with Iran, it has also been condemned by Israel for its “balanced” stance on Hamas’ massacre of civilians.

Is Netanyahu's record so dismal? Of course not. He has forged a great friendship with Viktor Orbán, the towering intellect from Hungary. And he spent 25 minutes with French President Emmanuel Macron earlier this year. Plus he really likes Narendra Modi of India, and while Hamas was planning its attack he flew all the way to California to chat with Elon Musk about artificial intelligence. Stellar.

Netanyahu cannot and should not be trusted to manage Israel at this juncture. The mechanics for removing him are complicated and there is no clear path. But placing any trust in a man who got Israel here is far more irresponsible.

Netanyahu Must Go Now, Not After the Gaza War

[yourtongzhihazel]

How does the DOTP work in China? I'm a westerner (sorry) so I don't have a lot of knowledge on the way the Chinese political system works. Unfortunately my brain is also corrupted by electoralism so it's hard for me to conceive of how figures in power could be held accountable without robust voting and the like, not to say that I don't think such a system could exist of course, just that due to my environment I've been insulated from it. If you have some good books/articles/websites on the topic that'd be great too 👍!

Sure! Just right off the bat, it's not true that there's no elections in the PRC; elections happen on a local level, who then elect representatives to the next level and so on and so forth until you reach the National People's Congress (NPC). This distributed voting system means that to have corrupt party/government officials reach high echelons of power, they'd have to plan over the course of an entire lifetime and collude with millions of people and party members. Of course, its not impossible, which is why there's anti-corruption initiatives. So you have top down and bottom up accountability. Its not a perfect system of course, but it has worked pretty well so far.

On how the DOTP works in China, here's a textbook called How The CPC Works (谢春涛 (Xie Chuntao)) which covers the details about government structure and party functions. It's a bit old, published in 2013, but it still solid.

I want to remind you and other readers that the PRC is only one of many models of people's democracy in action. You can look at how things are run in Vietnam, Cuba, Laos, even the DPRK if you're lucky enough to get one of their textbooks. The key point is to see how these models interact with each country's respective material conditions and see what kind of model would best fit your material conditions.

[gaysails]

"If low-wage workers do not always behave in an economically rational way, that is, as free agents within a capitalist democracy, it is because they dwell in a place that is neither free nor in any way democratic. When you enter the low-wage workplace – and many of the medium-wage workplaces as well – you check your civil liberties at the door, leave America and all it supposedly stands for behind, and learn to zip your lips for the duration of the shift. The consequences of this routine surrender go beyond the issues of wages and poverty. We can hardly pride ourselves on being the world's preeminent democracy, after all, if large numbers of citizens spend half their waking hours in what amounts, in plain terms, to a dictatorship. . . My guess is that the indignities imposed on so many low-wage workers – the drug tests, the constant surveillance, being 'reamed out' by managers – are part of what keeps wages low. If you're made to feel unworthy enough, you may come to think that what you're paid is what you are actually worth. It is hard to imagine any other function for workplace authoritarianism. Managers may truly believe that, without their unremitting efforts, all work would quickly grind to a halt. That is not my impression. While I encountered some cynics and plenty of people who had learned how to budget their energy, I never met an actual slacker [. . .] On the contrary, I was amazed and sometimes saddened by the pride people took in jobs that rewarded them so meagerly, either in wages or in recognition. Often, in fact, these people experienced management as an obstacle to getting the job done as it should be done. Waitresses chafed at managers' stinginess toward the customers; housecleaners resented the time constraints that sometimes made them cut corners; retail workers wanted the floor to be beautiful, not cluttered with excess stock as management required. Left to themselves, they devised systems of cooperation and work sharing; when there was a crisis, they rose to it. In fact, it was often hard to see what the function of management was, other than to exact obeisance. There seems to be a vicious cycle at work here, making ours not just an economy but a culture of extreme inequality. [Corporate decision makers and entrepreneurs] occupy an economic position miles above that of the underpaid people whose labor they depend on. For reasons that have more to do with class – and often racial – prejudice than with actual experience, they tend to fear and distrust the category of people from which they recruit their workers. Hence the perceived need for repressive management and intrusive measures like drug and personality testing. But these things cost money – $20,000 or more a year for a manager, $100 a pop for a drug test, and so on – and the high cost of repression results in ever more pressure to hold wages down. The larger society seems to be caught up in a similar cycle: cutting public services for the poor, which are sometimes referred to collectively as the 'social wage,' while investing ever more heavily in prisons and cops. And in the larger society, too, the cost of repression becomes another factor weighing against the expansion or restoration of needed services. It is a tragic cycle, condemning us to ever deeper inequality, and in the long run, almost no one benefits but the agents of repression themselves."

-Barbara Ehrenreich, Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America

[ivan-fyodorovich-k]

I'm working on a pet theory that population density is actually the driver of a significant amount of madness

I'm going to use guns specifically as an example of what I mean

My class discussed the Constitution last week and a couple students wanted to discuss the 2nd Amendment and why it was there and whether it should be still and someone used the argument--very familiar to us all now--that when they wrote that guns just weren't as dangerous as they are now.

But of course guns were perfectly dangerous then, as the society that had just lived through a catastrophic and violent war fought with firearms surely knew from close personal experience.

The problem I think is less to do with the inherent danger of a semi-automatic or automatic weapon, or high capacity magazines, or detachable magazines at all, and much more to do with the prevalence of target rich environments

Your average American high school has a population density only matched in the pre-modern world by the largest cities. That Las Vegas shooter would have struggled to find a crowd as large as the one he shot up if he was alive in the 18th century. It's not like people never crowded together back then, there were crowds, and sometimes thousands of people would pack tightly together for a particularly electrifying riot or sermon or something, it's just a question of access. You can find huge seas of people so quickly and easily now, the risk even of accidents is much higher. If you were packing heat in London in the 18th century and your gun went off you have a good chance of hitting nothing at all. If you are packing heat in London now and your gun goes off, you're looking at property damage, sound complaints, hearing damage, and that's assuming you don't even hit one of the millions of people you're packed together with on a daily basis, which is generous.

The collapsing of distance that the internet gives us is another example of this, your readership of the pre-modern world was a relatively small group out of a population a fraction of the size of what we have now. But now almost any person on the planet has a chance of hurting hundreds of millions of people with their insane theories and ideologies.

One of the reasons Libertarianism became a political ideology when it did was that World War II had shown people what awesome destructive capacity a collectivized civilization under a government could wield, and the common thread across fascist, communist, and liberal democracies that they identified was a strong government.

But I am such a liberal that I do believe that consent of the governed is a functional reality, not even a theory (we can fight about it if you want, but I don't want this to turn into a huge reblog chain so use discretion), and I do believe that governments reflect, at least somewhat, their constituents, in this instance in this very specific way:

It is true that an industrialized nation state has awesome destructive capacity and must be controlled, limited, hemmed in, etc., but what I have yet to see libertarianism address in a way that I find compelling, is that individuals also have an awesome destructive capacity that would have been unimaginable in the premodern world, by virtue of the fact not merely that there are so many ways to hurt people, but that there are so many people to hurt.

[mbti-notes]

hi! im an entj and i wanted to know if you have any tips on how to be a better student whilst not thinking too much about grades or results. i feel like i place alot of emphasis on grades and results and i think it often hinders me at times. i often have trouble finding more ''meaning'' in my work and i'm not sure how to add more value into it other than achieving a good grade.

Your question is too vague because you haven't specified what level of schooling you're at and what your idea of a "better" student looks like. This "hinders you" how exactly? What is the exact nature or source of your discontent? What exactly are you aiming for? Without this context, it's hard to craft a response.

Did you know that professors in the US are witnessing a "literacy crisis" in their students that has never before been observed in the history of modern education? While there have always been unmotivated and underachieving students, nowadays, an alarming percentage of motivated students are barely able to handle more than ten pages of text at a time (the average assignment used to be 20-30 pages), nor are they able to analyze and comprehend the meaning, themes, or arguments being communicated in the text.

A literacy deficit poses a serious threat not just to the student's individual success, but also to the integrity of higher education and the functioning of society. Colleges have no choice but to "dumb down" their offerings over time. But more importantly, a successful democracy is difficult to sustain without intelligent and literate citizenry making sound judgments about complex social, political, and economic issues.

One obvious factor contributing to this problem is that many students have fallen behind due to the pandemic. Another obvious factor is the smartphone and the major role it has played in decimating people's attention spans. Extended focus and concentration are extremely important for learning, but endless internet scrolling trains the mind to expect rapid change and crave instant gratification. Yes, anyone who genuinely wants to be a good student should care deeply about the factors that hinder/inhibit their learning process. Increasingly, misuse of technology, such as smartphone addiction and excessive reliance on AI, is a major factor that prevents students from reaching their greater potential.

High school and college students are still in the early stages of ego development. Since their self-awareness hasn't had much time to develop, they don't tend to be aware of their own underlying motivations, for example, they will often just do something because it's just what everyone around them does. Additionally, heavy social media consumption at this stage of life leads them to believe that "success" is just for show or about obtaining likes/praise.

This brings us to the main factor to consider, which is that students are increasingly trained to be motivated by extrinsic rewards. For example, in the US, school funding is often tied to exam scores, so teachers have been forced to focus more and more on teaching only to exams, in order to secure funding. Higher education has also become much more competitive, which means excellent grades are essential for securing a seat in university.

While there is nothing wrong with extrinsic motivation per se, there is something wrong when a person is only motivated by extrinsic rewards, to the point where they are completely ignorant/neglectful of intrinsic rewards. The research strongly suggests: People who are more intrinsically (than extrinsically) motivated tend to be better learners because they assign their own value to learning and understand the inherent virtues of intellect, knowledge, and skill, apart from their real-world applications. The topic of intrinsic motivation comes up often, I suggest you read past posts.

Before you asked me for "tips", did you put in a reasonable effort to inquire into yourself and figure out why you overemphasize extrinsic rewards? Could you come up with the reasons/causes on your own, through self-reflection? It's difficult to find the right solution to a problem when you don't understand its origins. This is an important point because a common symptom of extreme extrinsic motivation is abnormally low self-awareness due to having little to no inner life. How's your inner life?

With regard to type development, people who are very extrinsically motivated tend to a) be too easily influenced by environmental factors, and b) lack introverted development. The answer to your question already lies within you, specifically, in the state of development of your introverted Ni and Fi functions:

1) Extrinsically motivated people tend to believe that their life lacks meaning because the world lacks meaning. What they don't realize is that meaning starts from within, so the actual problem is that they aren't able to generate enough meaning on their own.

Ni is a key function for constructing meaning, usually through patiently exploring context and connections to a bigger picture (of life as a whole and/or the world at large). As such, lack of Ni development commonly manifests as:

dislike of ambiguity (due to preferring clear categorical answers)

impatience for complexity (due to wanting easy answers)

superficiality (due to not going beyond the known/obvious)

lack of vision (due to overemphasis on rapid results)

Since you didn't provide any details about function development, I can't speak to how much you struggle with the above issues. The only thing I can say is that all of them are detrimental to learning. Clarify your aim: Do you want to be a good student in school or a good learner in life? Do you know the difference? It is the difference between lower order versus higher order learning, which I have already explained in previous posts.

A good student wants to know the final answer. A lifelong learner uses ambiguity as an opportunity to explore more nuanced truth.

A good student can handle some challenges but stops at the most difficult point. A lifelong learner takes the initiative to unravel complexity and eventually encounters profound wisdom.

A good student reads the book all the way through. A lifelong learner is intellectually curious, which leads them to discover new realms of knowledge far beyond the book.

A good student follows instructions and is reasonably competent as a result. A lifelong learner sees the greater potential of the field as a whole and gradually becomes an expert as they attempt to realize that potential.

If a certain activity or subject matter doesn't hold any meaning for you, is it because it's boring, or is it because you haven't really given it a proper look? This isn't to say that you have to be an expert on everything; it is only to say that you won't be able to truly appreciate something until you dig deeper into it and actively nurture appreciation for it. This brings us to the second point...

2) Extrinsically motivated TJs tend to believe that "utility" is the only measure of value. What they don't realize is that value is inherent to existence, so the actual problem is an inability to recognize value.

Fi is a key function for assigning value, usually through forming uniquely personal and intensely emotional attachments. As such, lack of Fi development often manifests as:

taking things for granted (due to not honoring their value)

dismissive attitude (due to lack of emotional attachments)

passionless existence (due to fear of emotional intensity)

Again, I can't speak to how much you struggle with the above issues. I can only inform you that they also tend to be quite detrimental to learning:

Human beings need to stay fed and sheltered in order to survive, but they also need activities that affirm their humanity and enrich their life. What happens to learning if your only concern is securing a comfortable material life?

Human beings learn best through feeling deeply moved and inspired by the best of what humanity has to offer. What happens to learning if you remove the human component of knowledge and only treat it as "data", just another object for your consumption and disposal?

Human beings discover themselves and express themselves through their varied interests, which is how every subject comes to have its fans, devotees, and experts. What happens to learning if you refuse to take an interest, downplay enthusiasm, and temper or repress passion?

If a certain activity or subject matter doesn't hold any value for you, is it because it is "worthless", or because you are blind to its value? This isn't to say that you must love everything; it is only to say that you won't be able to know yourself truly and feel energized about learning as long as you have a habit of dismissing every aspect of life that isn't immediately or practically "useful" to you.

Having intrinsic motivation basically means you generate your own personal reasons for learning. Nobody can force you to care or take an interest. Becoming an adult means you have to be the one to realize the virtues of going above and beyond whatever is required to ace exams. It may all sound very abstract, but this makes the difference in determining whether you will end up being just another cog in the machine of society or whether your life will always feel imbued with a greater sense of meaning.

[klett161]

So I think many people are not aware about the current state of Julien Assange, the founder of Wikileaks since he‘s not getting a lot of media attention any more and the news cycle has long moved on.

Around 2 years ago the British courts already ruled that hell be extradited into the Usa where he will spend the rest of his life in jail under according to amnesty International: „a real risk of serious human rights violations including possible detention conditions that would amount to torture and other ill-treatment“. In the Usa he will face charges for his Journalistic practices such as leaking footage of Us soldiers committing war crimes.

Right now he‘s being held in Belmarsh high security prison in the east of London, England. He has been there since two years ago and is currently being held in solitary confinement. While the courts in the Uk already ruled about his extardidment to the Usa two years ago he is right at the moment in the process of making his last appeal. if it fails which it mostly likely will his last chance would be an appeal to the Un human rights comitee. The last appeal in front of the court in the Uk will be held on the 16th and 17th of February.

He is being charged for „being a risk to the national security of the United States of America“ under the 1917 Espionage act which was put in place during the Usa‘s Involvement in the first world war to fight german spy’s in Us Institutions and should have been abolished after the end of it. Instead it stayed in place up until today conveniently giving the Us-Government a reason to jail some of their stongest critics.

You just have to really think about the Implications that this whole case carries with it, if the Us Government can classify every document they don‘t want the public to know about because it would Inform them about their atrocities and crooked doings and everyone leaking them can get charged how can you still talk about a functioning Democracy? Not that I think that any representative democracy especially not the one in the Usa represents the true will of the people. But even taken this aside the rational of a democracy must be that information is somewhat available for voters to base their decision on. The thing is the Us-Government knows and this includes both parties that all of their little war adventures in the middle east and the all civilian casualties, displaced people and other atrocities commited would,even under the most ignorant Americans, raise some eyebrows. THEY FEAR THE TRUTH

And I think all of this is not only typical for the Us but for basically every liberal democracy. Nominally there is a right to free speech for everyone up until the point that you pose a real thread to the Government. And no, the constitution will not defend you because guess what even if there are no convenient laws like the Us espionage act that help to prosecute you, there are all sorts of secret services that don’t give a fuck about the constitution and their only purpose is to do what ever is best for the nation-state they are serving weather that is overthrowing government’s, bribing a court or assasinations doesn’t matter. And if the Usa can keep on silencing its sharpest critics without international condemnation or condemnation by their citizens, other western countries will follow this example and be more confident to prosecute their own critics openly, I do believe this is somewhat of a slippery slope.

There will be some last big demonstrations on the 20th and 21st of February outside of the royal court where the hearings will take place. Demonstrations starting as early as 8:30(GMT) so if you live in the area consider going. And even if you don’t live near london you can still get active, share Information, talk to friends and family, make solidarity graffitis, write an article for a local newspaper or zine, attend solidarity demonstrations or if there are none in your area organize one yourself. Anything really just don‘t look away

Please Reblog and share not only this post but all posts aiming to raise awareness about this topic.

This struggle is not merely about Julien Assange it‘s about press freedom as a whole. And not just in the Us but everywhere, so go and fight for free speech while you still can

Source:

amnesty International: https://www.amnesty.org/en/petition/julian-assange-usa-justice/

[continentalblue]

A continuation of your all tomorrows headcanons?

👀

👉👈

SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG I FORGOT TO ANSWER LMAOOO

i said I would do these yesterday but it's like 12 am so it still counts #slay

also lemme know if u want me to rewrite/clarify any of these I'm typing all that comes to mind

also I wouldn't mind writing more of these lmaoo. this one got a teensy bit long

______________________________

🌌 Bug Facers had a bartering/trade system rather than a cash system. This trade system was highly complex; people who tried to pass off their goods as being more high-quality than they really were were punished severely. They also had a monarchy, with the Queen being 25% larger than the other people. Her citizens were taxed and the best food went to her. Her function was the same as that of an ant's queen. Actually, more to the point, I picture their monarchy as being similar to that of ant's. However, after their invasion, the monarchy was dissolved and turned into a democracy.

🌌 Despite their relative immobility, the Temptors actually developed some form of culture. Males would spread ideas between females, who rued the fact that they could not meet other members of their species. I also feel that the males could talk, though their enunciation wasn't really that good. Based on the sharpness and shape of their beaks, it's possible they were all-purpose feeders who preyed on insects, nuts, and other worms. The females required three times the amount of food as males in order to provide enough energy for their brains.

🌌 The Lopsiders actually experienced some sexual dimorphism. The reason for this is because their designs remind me of anglerfish. Females were markedly larger than males, and the males depended on the females for sustenance. This was slowly phased out as they evolved, as the species would cannibalize others for food. They had no trade system; they operated under a "it's yours if you're fast enough mentality."

🌌 Because their experience became so automized, the Tool Breeders actually evolved away from actually having blood at all! As a result, their flesh became more gelatinous. While a drought would have slowly but surely dehydrated the species' flesh and caused the end of the species, they learned how to make water from seemingly thin air. They have a capitalistic system that constantly pushes new inventions.

🌌 Much of the Titan's mythology focused on figures who were more mobile; ie., those that had two legs. When a Titan was born with two limbs, they were hailed as a god. They were seen as prophets and harbingers of good luck. They emphasized an ideal that the species could no longer go back to.

Since they lived in a savannah, they also grew thick skin on their bodies to account for the insects and the spikes on their favorite plants. They also transferred to a more vegetarian diet, consuming foods similar to those that giraffes and African elephants eat.

🌌 Hand Flappers had mating dances similar to those of birds-of-paradise. Had they developed sapience, Hand Flappers would have pioneered acting as an art form, using their wings to emphasize their stories. High-class Hand Flappers wore bracelets of precious metals that surrounded their wings. Wing care became an important social aspects; to groom someone else's wings was tantamount to declaring your love for them.

🌌 Satryiacs had fairly short lifespans, which accounted for the amount of parties that they had. As a result, their minds matured remarkably quickly: by their first birthday, their minds were already fully developed. Their bodies followed soon after, and six months later, they were already considered adults. They had very loose views on monogamy; as a concept it simply did not exist. They had relationships with whomever they wanted, whenever they wanted.

🌌 Despite their lack of sapience, the Blind Folk actually had fairly defined parental relationships, mirroring that of humans on Earth. Blind Folk babies were born helpless and unable to do much of anything. A cry from a baby would inspire all the adults in the surrounding area to come to their aid, a fact that was occasionally exploited by predators.

🌌 If put on Earth's atmosphere, Spacers would get crushed underneath their own weight. Also, since they have such modified internal systems, they do not need to eat. However, they need to sleep for fourteen hours in a day to recuperate enough energy to move.

[ncon29]

Helvetica - The Documentary

The Rise, Flatline, and Fall of the Modernist Movement's Darling Poster Child

Name: Helvetica (Die Neue Haas Grotesk) Parents: Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann Nicknames: "Perfection" / "Ubiquitous" / "Air" / "Ultimate Typeface"

1950’s - post-war period - feeling of idealism

Social responsibility for designers

More democracy, clarity, rebuilding

Early experiments of High Modernist period - Swiss style

1957 - HELVETICA IS BORN !!! - rational typeface for all kinds of information to present ideas in intelligible/legible way - loud and clearly modern

Interesting that early modernism (dadaism, futurism, surrealism) was more subversive and that functionality emerged later

Would you use Helvetica in your designs?

I don't have particularly strong feelings toward it. Jonathan Hoefler says "it's like off-white paint" and many of the other designers in the documentary say it's like air. It's just there. I would use it if it matches the look that I'm going for, but I typically prefer more expressive typefaces - I'd probably manipulate the original form, at least. It's ubiquitous, versatile, and functional, sure, but why would I use it when there are so many other typefaces. Bit corporate. Bit SnoozeVille.

Like Rick Poynor put it (regarding designing with Helvetica over a period of time), “There’s a law of diminishing returns”. More exposure -> more use by designers -> more predictability -> uh oh it's dull now.

No flavour is the point but that doesn't mean I have to love it.

It's ok but why limit yourselfffff (to one type family). I guess to push your ideas as a designer. But experimenting outside that seems more fun to me. Some people favour restrictions though, so to each their own.

My view leans towards that of Erik Spiekerman (Gemini King), who says “[Type] just makes my words visible” and that “A real typeface needs rhythm, needs contrast; It comes from handwriting. That’s why I can read your handwriting, and you can read mine. And I’m sure out handwriting is miles away from Helvetica… But we can read it because there’s rhythm to it, there’s a contrast to it.” Obviously, you can't always read handwriting, but personally I'm pretty good at it and find it much more compelling than consistent, uniform typefaces. Spiekerman on letters designed to look the same: "Hello??? You know, that’s called an army. That’s not people.” This sentiment is interesting and appeals to me, because I like it when type has personality, as it's a means for social communication -- informed by people. Then again, uniformity is just another style. But, I personally like when you can tell that a human being made something with heart and intention, and if you can do that with Helvetica, then knock yourself out ig. Michael C Place expresses that though he doesn't know the fancy type terminology, he values the emotional response that type can bring and enjoys "the challenges of making Helvetica speak in a different way”. I can admire that idea: Originality with Helvetica depends on execution.

I do like how the designers in the doco describe the typeface in regard to the space between characters as opposed to the space that the characters fill. Mike Parker says “It’s not a letter that’s bent to shape; It’s a letter that lives in a powerful matrix of surrounding space”. The negative space is said to contain the characters which is an effective, formidable way to put it. Similarly, Massimo Vignelli says "typography is really white" which I find to be a refreshing perspective.

Would you use Helvetica for one context (type of work/audience) but not another?

Yes, as long as it suits the content, my vision/the client's vision. It would not be my first choice unless I was going for that neutral look, modernist style, or just maximising attention to the actual text, rather than its appearance.

Not as passionate about this topic as some designers involved in the documentary but it's fun/ny to watch them talk about it with such vigour.

____________________________________________________________

Michael Bierut: “In Helvetica. Period. Any questions? Of course not”

Wim “Gridnik” Crouwel:

“But if I see today's designers, they use all typefaces-one day one typeface, the other day the other typeface, all in favor of a certain atmosphere, I'm not... I don't like that... The meaning is in the content of the text, not in the typeface.”

Why must the meaning derived from either or be mutually exclusive ? Surely both the content and typeface can be used to amplify the message. It's about feeling and communication. Typefaces are just tools. Ricky P says type gives words "a certain colouring" which conveys a sense of a ranging intensity.

Paula Scher: "I was also morally opposed to Helvetica because I viewed the big corporations that were slathered in Helvetica as sponsors of the Vietnam War." <- Personal, moral implications.

Massimo Vignelli: thinks postmodernism is a DISEASE

Tobias Frere-Jones: Type Expression = important

“The same way that an actor that's miscast in a role will affect someone's experience of a movie or play that they're watching. They'll still follow the plot, but, you know, be less convinced or excited or affected.”

David Carson

“Don’t confuse legibility with communication.” I agree.

“If something is a very important message and it’s set in a boring, non-descript way, the message can be lost.” I neither agree nor disagree. Depends on execution.

Questions:

Why are there so many Michaels?

How was Erik's birthday?

Why do I prefer this typeface to Helvetica? It's cuter.

✋︎ ⬥︎♋︎■︎⧫︎ ⧫︎□︎ ⬧︎♏︎♏︎ ⧫︎♒︎♏︎❍︎ ❍︎♓︎⌧︎ ♋︎■︎♎︎ ❍︎♓︎■︎♑︎●︎♏︎ ♌︎♏︎♍︎♋︎◆︎⬧︎♏︎ ♓︎⧫︎ ⬥︎□︎◆︎●︎♎︎ ♌︎♏︎ ♐︎◆︎■︎■︎⍓︎ ✏︎

[jjs-brainrot]

Confirmed: Rupa is a certified chick magnet

When you made a wittle fucky-wucky but you gotta stay silly about it.

The most functional democracy in existence

The most comfortable place to sleep in a van: your gf's lap

The most comfortable place to sleep after drinking the bar dry: your gf's lap...

HELL YEAH, NAMELESS NAME FINALLY GOT INTO THE ANIME! It's very high up there in my favorite Togenashi Togeari songs so I'm very happy it's finally here.

(the full studio version music video)

[tomorrowusa]

Two headlines which help explain the victory of Poland's pro-democracy opposition in Sunday's election...

Opozycja zmobilizowała niegłosujących. Na PiS głosował żelazny elektorat (The opposition mobilized non-voters. An iron electorate voted for PiS)

Stats are preliminary, but voter turnout was around 73% in Sunday's parliamentary election – a post-Communist high. The opposition got out the vote – big time. As many as 31% of the eligible voters who did not vote in the 2019 election voted in this one. Meanwhile, the ruling party whose acronym is PiS tightly held on to its own voters; it wasn't enough for them. 87% of PiS voters had voted in 2019.

Wśród młodych najwięcej stracił PiS (PiS lost most among young people)

Of the five party groupings which won seats in the Sejm, PiS came in fifth among voters under 30. Donald Tusk's Koalicja Obywatelska (KO) came in first and Lewnica came in second. The rigid socially conservative agenda of PiS was regarded as repulsive by many young people in Poland.

But wait, there's more!

One aspect of the youth vote which the second TVN24 article did not emphasize is that women were particularly important in the turnout. This is from a DW article about the defeat of PiS.

High turnout thanks to young and female voters

Observers say young and female voters, motivated by the issue of abortion rights — which the ruling PiS has sought to curtail and Donald Tusk has promised to liberalize — turned out in large numbers to support opposition parties. "Until recently, half of women said they would not vote," sociologist Justyna Kajta of SWPS University in Warsaw told AFP news agency. "Now these exit polls actually show more women than men voted."

From "half of women said they would not vote" to "more women than men voted" shows how decisive increased involvement by women, especially younger women, can be.

During the 2020 demonstrations against the extremist anti-abortion law authored by PiS I saw a sign which this election reminded me of. It displayed a fundamental truth as well as a great bilingual political pun based on a classic song by Bob Marley.

The word kraj is pronounced like the English word cry. In Polish, kraj means country though in certain contexts it tends to refer to Poland in particular. For language nerds, you may recognize it as coming from the same Slavic root as Ukraine (Ukraina as written in Polish).

For a well-functioning country, you need active participation by women in the political process. That happened this week in Poland. ❤️🇵🇱

So massive GOTV and appealing to forward-looking young people had a considerable impact in Poland. Those are lessons which should not be overlooked by center-left parties and coalitions in other countries.

BTW, a second exit poll was released for Sunday's election. It showed the current opposition with 249 seats in the Sejm; that's one more than the earlier poll. But the official results should be available by the middle of the week.

[warsofasoiaf]

What actions do you believe would be necessary to turn Russia into a functioning liberal democracy? Considering the state of the Russian political spectrum and the lack of a perceptible desire for a peaceful society among a substantial amount of Russian voters, I'm rather sceptical about the potentials of simple regime change. Is it even possible for Russia to join the free world (or, at least, the community of nations not currently waging wars of imperial conquest), in your opinion?

That's a tough question and I'm not sure if there's a good answer to the first one.

Even among Russian liberals, there is a strong sense of Russian chauvinism and support for Russian imperial ventures in the near-abroad; Navalny supports the Crimean annexation. As I've mentioned before, the Russian elites have expended great amounts of social capital to crafting their society to support Russian imperial ventures, and the narrative of a Russia betrayed by the duplicitous West, fostering paranoia and promoting the establishment of buffer states to guard against any invasion. But even that undersells the problem. The Soviet Union's entire society was built on the notion of conflict with the West and the notion that liberal democracy was anti-Russian, which would make it very difficult to foster a true multi-party democratic system in Russia. It would be a very long process, one that would likely take generations that would require not only stoking civic participation among ordinary Russians, but creating the conditions for material prosperity so authoritarians can't create democratic backsliding by taking advantage of economic insecurity. That's a pity, Russia is a country with a rich history, but we cannot reward this brutality.

Now, not engaging in wars of conquest, that's a bit easier. Crushing the Russian army in Ukraine is an effective way to do that, as would conducting anti-Vagner action in the Sahel to prevent their goon squad from plundering West Africa, as would restricting their acquisition of combat technology to prevent them from rearming. If they lack the capacity to do so, and the threat of deterrence remains high, then they won't be trying to attack other countries.

Thanks for the question, Anon.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

[mariacallous]

Despite Bosnia and Herzegovina’s progress towards European Union accession, Bosnian Serb authorities continue to “actively subvert” the state, peace overseer Christian Schmidt said in his latest update to the UN secretary general, citing in particular “unprecedented pressure” on the judiciary.

The leaked 40-page report is the sixth submitted by Schmidt, a German politician, since his appointment in August 2021 to oversee the country’s adherence to the peace deal that ended its 1992-95 war. The five others made similar complaints about authorities under Bosnian Serb strongman Milorad Dodik in the predominantly Serb-populated Republika Srpska entity.

Their threat to “paralyse” state authorities, he wrote, “is a threat to the functionality of the State and its ability to carry out its responsibilities”.

Dodik repeated the threat most recently last month in response to a German and Rwandan draft United Nations resolution that would declare July 11 an international day of remembrance for the 1995 Srebrenica genocide, a characterisation the Republika Srpska disputes.  

In March, the European Union gave the green light to the start of accession negotiations with Bosnia, a major milestone in the country’s recovery from war and integration with the bloc. But even against such a backdrop, the pressure on the state from the Republika Srpska continued.

“Besides promoting the abolishment of the BiH Court and the BiH Prosecutor’s Office, the RS ruling coalition undermines the BiH Constitutional Court as the guardian of the constitutional and legal order of BiH,” wrote Schmidt, whose official title is High Representative.

“If pursued, these actions could lead to a de facto if not a de jure dissolution of the State of BiH, which is what RS President Milorad Dodik continuously advocates. This would be a scenario with grave consequences.”

Historical revisionism

Schmidt noted that, during the reporting period from mid-October 2023 to mid-April 2024,  the ruling coalition in the Republika Srpska continued to organise rallies on the administrative line between Republika Srpska and the mainly Bosniak and Croat Federation entity under the banner, ‘The Border Exists’. 

“Besides promoting the idea of secession, these rallies create a divisive environment prone to security incidents,” Schmidt wrote in the report, which BIRN has seen. 

He also warned of efforts by Republika Srpska authorities to limit civic action and suppress political dissent via intimidation and punishment.

Dodik and the Republika Srpska government do not recognise Schmidt as High Representative, citing the abstention of Russia and China when his appointment was voted on in the UN Security Council; the report noted their continued “inflammatory rhetoric and actions” aimed at undermining his office.

The report also cited further regression in how the past is addressed as well as a rise in ethno-nationalistic historical revisionism, denial of genocide and war crimes and the glorification of war criminals. 

Such trends go hand in hand with broader declines in “democracy, human rights, and the rule of law, leading to increased mistrust and polarisation within society”, Schmidt wrote.

He cited deteriorating inter-community relations in Srebrenica over the previous two years, as well as incidents targeting returnees. 

The report should come before the UN Security Council on May 15. 

[eightyonekilograms]

do you think disintermediation is a specific problem for american democracy or do you think making democracy more direct/accountable to the electorate is always destabilizing? if the latter, what do you think the ideal democracy looks like?

This is the million-dollar question, and I don't pretend to have all the answers, but I think a plausible first step is that people need enough civic education to recognize when some proposed update to the forms of government looks more democratic but is actually less, or when some mechanism of government looks bad at first glance but is actually a load-bearing member keeping things functioning.

"More direct democracy" is a high-level goal which has many different specific instantiations. Probably some of these are good and others are destabilizing, and people should be able to recognize which is which. "Replace nomination by party delegates with primary elections" and "get rid of pork riders" are examples of destabilizing changes I think should never have been made, and should probably be rolled back, but I don't think any and all moves toward more direct democracy are bad per se.