#like this is the problem with trying to attach real world policies and views to a fantasy series written in the 90s

[navree]

at the risk of sounding facetious but if you’re categorizing the targaryens as colonizers then i think you also need to categorize nymeria and the rhoynar as colonizers too or just realize that the dragon incest show and all its varied source material written by a white guy who thought these ideas up forty years ago is not in fact that deep

[wisteria-lodge]

bird primary (system in progress) + burnt badger secondary (really loud bird model)

Howdy! I’m still trying to figure out my own houses and was wondering if you could provide some insight. I haven’t exactly mastered the system so I don’t know how accurate/inaccurate my claims are, so bear with me.

The “why”/Primary: I am extremely motivated by knowledge. I want to know things, not just out of intrinsic curiosity (though that does play a role), but because knowing why things work helps me protect myself more effectively.

One of the trickiest things about this system is separating motivation from method. Because yeah, they are related, but they're also really different. Like this example: "I protect myself by learning things." That's a how, that's secondary stuff. (Bird secondary of course.)

A recent example is this— a group of my former friends all ditched me because I discussed a heavily stigmatized mental disorder that I show symptoms of. And my first response (other than bawling) was to ask them why. And when I got the answer, I was hurt, but I understood. I don’t say this for you to show me pity, but rather because it illustrates this model in action.

This is a really interesting example. Your friends acted in a way that emotionally hurt you. First you processed your feelings (which you talk about in a dismissive, lighthearted, jokey way) then you asked them for more information... which hurt you, but also made you more secure. This is very Bird primary. You feel feelings, but they're whatever. What actually bothers you is not having the data.

(I suspect you're going to end up being a Double Bird. And Double Birds are unique in that their morality and problem-solving are SO interconnected, that they think I'm crazy for saying that for most people, they are in fact two very different things.)

When I got the why and processed my emotions, I cut off ties and realized that their severe judgy-ness had hindered my life for 2 years. And now that I know the “why”, I won’t bring up said disorder again until I know it’s safe. It might never be, but I still have hope.

You updated your system, and you cut away the parts that aren't serving you anymore. Bird primary.

Morally-speaking, I am very sensitive to the views of others around me.

External primary.

I’m not proud of this. In fact, it’s a detriment.

A lot of Birds feel this way. It's a big part of why they tend to like Lion primaries. Lions are much more able to dismiss things with "sounds like that's a them problem."

I won’t go into details, but my parents are… bad. Not wholly, but they are bad. I’ve tried for years, and still do, to escape their opinions because I know it’ll influence mine.

Parents are sticky. They do that. I've been a happily UnBurnt Lion primary for a while now... but I still sometimes hear that voice in my head that sounds like my mother.

And, much like them, I tend to get over-passionate in what I stand for. Unlike them, I’m willing to change if evidence supports this change. I always, however, carry the burden of my former hatred. I always feel guilt over my old beliefs. Even if I’ve changed, the pain I’ve done can never be reversed. And this guilt eats me alive, this shame of being fundamentally wrong.

Okay. You got really emotional on me really quickly here. This could mean a couple things. Your parents sound like fairly toxic Idealists, either Exploded Lions or Exploded Birds (I'm sort of leaning Lion due to the more emotion-heavy words like "passion" and "hatred.") Birds can feel bad, feel guilt, feel shame when looking back at an older version of themselves that they now consider morally repugnant. (Birds are human.) Idealists struggle with the angst of worrying that they are fundamentally wrong about the world. So you could be a guilty Bird, especially if your emotions feel wrong or unhelpful somehow. But you could also be a very Burnt Lion modeling Bird - because Bird seems safer, and you don't want to be a Lion the way your parents are.

When the friend-event happened, I thought that I was in the wrong, and that I had once again fucked myself over because of my passion and sureness in what I have.

"I thought I was wrong because I was acting like an Exploded Lion primary." Yeah, I'm thinking there's some sort of outside influence here that needs to be unpacked.

It took a lot of convincing and evidence for me to see that they were the assholes (albeit I wasn’t pure either— I was their friend, after all).

I'm definitely leaning Bird for you. A bird surrounded by Lions maybe, who sometimes uses Lion terminology. But Bird.

I am a planner and system-lover at heart. I’m not proud of it, but it’s just part of me.

What's with all this negative language? Being a planner and a system-lover is a wonderful thing to be. There's some Burning here.

The caveat— I have autism, so I’m not sure if it’s due to that or not. Hence the shortness of this section. Take it as you will, regardless of if it’s evidence or not.

I have autism and I'm a Lion Badger. People are different. The only real pattern I've observed is the way nerodivergent people disproportionately build Bird secondaries as coping strategies.

Honesty is maybe not the best policy, it’s still an admirable one. I wish, frankly, that my moral system was more honest. I feel like I have no set morals. That it all comes from elsewhere. Lion primaries have this set, intrinsic morality that I envy. My friend is a lion primary, and while my views have radically changed, hers haven’t inched. She’s always been honest about herself and what she holds true.

I'm doubling down on Bird primary for you. This is the perspective of a Bird looking in on a Lion. Lion morality isn't set or intrinsic - it's built, and it changes, but it builds and changes differently than a Bird's does (more slowly, usually). But there really is a pattern of Birds seeing it as more moral/easier/better.

And I’m still trying to figure out what “truth” means to me. I mean, yes, I’m a dry and blunt asshole, but that’s not really the same as gut morality. Internal honesty is what I want, and external honesty is what I have to some extent.

It sounds that you are going though a lot of very intense shifts in your life right now. You've got a diagnosis that has you questioning your place in the world. You've followed your parent's system all you life, and are now deciding that you don't want that. But now comes deciding what you do want, and that's a lot harder (especially for a Bird, who has to build it from the ground up.) You like the way Lions do things, but Lion primaries do not feel accessible.

I’m very clear with who I like. I can admit their faults, and even get annoyed or angry at them, but not even betrayal can stop me from loving them. I’d compare myself to the Twelfth Doctor from “Doctor Who” and Ponyboy Curtis from The Outsiders in that regard.

So maybe you are building a system with very Snake values.

Loyalty is one of my weaknesses. I get overly-attached to people, and so if/when they leave me, it shatters my world. But my brand of loyalty is mostly to people, not philosophical ideas.

... but you're not *really* comfortable with Snake either, if you consider it to be a "weakness."

I would consider myself somewhat philosophical (well, as much as a fucking teenager can be)

Teenagers are *extremely* philosophical, stop being so down on yourself.

but I can be somewhat vague in my beliefs.

Because you're still building them, give yourself a *second.*

If I were to rate the likelihood of what primary I think I am, it’s something like this:

Bird: 9/10 probability (maybe burned)

Snake: 7/10 probability

Badger: 6/10 probability (maybe burned)

Lion: 2/10 probability

What is it with Birds and numbered lists?

The “how”: I feel like I change in order to fit in. I mean, to some extent, we all do, but it’s far more drastic for me. With the lion primary friend, I act as a “Jason Todd” to their Batman. I challenge them, egg them on, crack jokes and become violently passionate and act like a nerd, and she simply watches, usually adding her own comments but mostly sitting on the sidelines by choice. We also joke that I’m the Ferris Bueller to their Cameron Frye. But, with another friend, I’m a parent figure. I listen most of the time, and sometimes jump in with creative ideas and we talk for hours about it.

I'm guessing Actor Bird, both because you can specifically list out the qualities that you "act" out. And because you're invoking and basing your performance off specific [fictional] characters. Which is a HUGE Actor Bird thing.

I go with the flow of a given situation as best as I can (with the added caveat of being autistic, because that does affect how well I can read a room). However, that’s where the adaptation ends.

Huh. I'm hearing Burnt secondary language here. "I'd like to go with the flow and read the room - but I can't, because I'm autistic." You can definitely *learn* how to read a room. Why do you think I'm so interested in (and good at :) personality systems? This is how I learned to use my Courtier Badger. I used to model Bird secondary like crazy, and I kind of don't bother anymore. I don't need the training wheels.

Planning: like I stated before, I’m a planner. I try to learn the most about a situation before jumping in. Sometimes, however, I stall the inevitable and miss my chance, so I jump in and wind up nearly drowning. And this dichotomy repeats. I overcompensate for a lack of knowledge in a situation by micromanaging, or I wind up sitting bored when I’ve already done everything I need to do. And yes, stress and boredom are equally as destructive for me. I try so hard to plan to avoid both of these outcomes, but it only works half the time. So, I guess I’m a bit of a “planster” overall.

I want to learn about a situation... but sometimes I "stall" or "drown" (Burnt language.) But planning also leads to "micromanaging" and "getting bored" (model language.) I think you've got a really loud Bird secondary model... but there might be something else underneath.

Collecting things is fun. Postcards, candles, lighters, crystals, rocks, 1940s hats, knowledge, stories, music, (original) characters, the list goes on. I’m a collector of whatever I can get my hands on. Hell, by this point, I can’t tell what’s my special interest and what I just enjoy (again, autism).

Oh my goodness gracious 'my special interest' and 'what I enjoy' are not two different categories!

But my systems and collections are my coping.

Figured.

I can’t say, though, that they hold any weight outside of emotional release. There’s nothing practical about knowing how they shot The Outsiders movie, or how crows have a flat tail and ravens have two main sections on theirs. All of this knowledge almost feels useless to me. I mean, sure, I’m great at school, but what else? Nothing, it seems like. And being good at school and nothing else makes a person go crazy when they can’t achieve their academic goals. But that’s a bit besides the point— I’m a collector, but I’m unsure how well this really fits into a secondary beyond a model.

Bird secondary model.

I invest in others more than I care to admit.

Oh man, are you a Badger secondary like me?

I genuinely believe in the goodness in humans, no matter how impossible it becomes. Even those who I don’t see any good in aren’t wholly evil. My perception isn’t law.

^ That's primary stuff. Maybe a more Badger-flavored system is going to work better for you than a Snake-flavored one.

But some people trust me: with their secrets, with homework, with relationship issues, with their religious struggles. And I try to help. I might not be good with it, but I do try to help as best I can.

Kinda sounds like a Badger secondary.

I use my planning and my categorizing skills and my knowledge to benefit others. I show up, I do what I need to do, and I don’t usually expect much to come of it. It’s nice when something does, but it’s not expected. And sometimes, these investments into others' lives and grades and relationships do pay off. I make friends. Those friends stick by me, and I trust them. I continue to invest in others, because I am a lover even though I’m cynical.

I think you're a Badger secondary.

And when that trust is broken, like the example in the beginning, I go to people who won’t abandon me to get a second opinion. When I say that I love someone, I mean it. So it hurts when they leave. It always does.

Oh that's your friends leaving hit you so hard. It's not an abstract morality thing at all, it's practical. You're a Badger secondary, and they were your base of support.

I’ll be frank on this— I’m almost entirely sure that I’m not a lion secondary. I’m fiercely efficient and some people see me as a good leader, but that’s it.

Lion and Badger are the two Inspirational secondaries. They're the one who sort of manage to collect armies or families as a side effect of existing.

Even with the leader example, I prefer interpersonal relations or to be alone. I’m not a big fan of group settings.

That's fair. I am also a Badger who really, really likes my own company. Or small groups of interesting people.

If I were to rate the likelihood of what secondary I am, it’s like this:

Bird: 7/10 probability

Badger: 6/10 probability

Snake: 5/10 probability

Lion: 0/10 probability

Other systems for comparison: I’m aware that MBTI and enneagram are, at worst, pseudo-science, but I still enjoy them regardless. At best, they’re fun self-help tools, and that’s how I try to use them.

MBTI: INTJ (Ni-Te-Fi-Se)

Enneagram: 5w4, tritype 514

Sagittarius sun libra moon cancer rising in astrology

FLEV or LFEV in attitudinal psyche

sx/sp (sexual and self-preservation) in instinctual variants

MBTI, Enneagram, and astrology are all fun in their own ways. (I don't actually know the last two!) And I can talk about them on their own terms. But this system was the best, and the most useful, when I went looking for words to describe myself.

I hope this is enough information, and thank you again if you do happen to do this! If you don’t, that’s totally okay. Have a good day!

Thank you for writing in. That was a journey! Thanks @thesketchykid for the submission.

[luna-rainbow]

Another character who I feel like the writers and especially Kari Skogland, the director, had favoritism toward was Karli. Even though personally I felt like the writing for her was pretty awful too. There's an interview floating around somewhere where the interviewer asked Skogland about the theme of redemption and she said that Karli embodied it more than any other character.

Karli, the girl who:

-blew up buildings with people inside them

-killed a man when he got in the way of her killing his best friend

-said that Lemar "didn't matter" after she killed him

-threatened Sarah and her small children

-tried to kill Bucky by throwing a metal spike at his head

-was 0.01 seconds away from KILLING Sam before Sharon shot her

And yet she just gets a tearful "I'm sorry" to Sam and all is forgiven. Say whatever you want about her cause, if it was good or bad, but her methods were HORRIBLE. And again, just like with John we have a character actively and brutally trying to murder our two protagonists and yet they are supposed to be the most sympathetic to us.

Not to mention the hypocrisy in regards to Bucky, who unlike Karli who actually did all of these horrible things of her own free will, gets cast in a much more unsympathetic light by the writers and director both in interviews and on screen.

Thanks for the rant LOL

Honestly, sometimes I really don't know what state of existence the creators are in. I mean I see what they're intending to do, but they're doing it so poorly you sort of wonder how they got blindsided so badly.

Boiled down to its essentials, Karli's story is of a rebel vs authority. The thing is...not all authority is oppressive or unnecessary. In the same token, not all rebellions are disruptive or gratuitous. Depending on how you establish each side, this will define how the audience respond to the conflict and who they side with.

What they wanted is for Karli to be a sympathetic antihero who leads the necessary rebellion against an oppressive authority. Except they failed to establish either of this. Karli's actions are not shown to be necessary (or even worthwhile, because it is never shown to bring about the change that she purportedly wants). The GRC is never established as oppressive, aside from the kneejerk policy of repatriating refugees. To handwave these details aside is an insult to political activists and asylum seekers who are fighting similar fights in the real world. I've done a super long rant some months ago which is exceedingly boring in its detail, but the GRC should have been established as a bloated bureaucracy that cares more about numbers than actually getting things done; show us the corruption, inefficiency, inequity and incompetence that...sorry to say, a lot of real life bureaucracies have. Then, from Karli's point of view, show us her people dying (not just an old woman attached to a breathing machine) in the streets from the cold and starvation, show us people being unable to get into hospitals, kids unable to go to school, whole families literally pushed out onto the street. Show don't tell, because if there's anything the opening scene of Black Widow achieved is that when you have an audiovisual medium in your hands, use it for impact instead of having characters exposit stuff.

Again, I don't know if this is a directorial failing, because TFATWS has a consistent problem of not showing visual evidence of events, and using heavy exposition instead, which puts a wide distance between the audience and the events. To actually see children dying from hunger on screen, as opposed to just hearing Karli rave about the GRC not doing its job, makes a huge perceptual difference.

Sometimes violent revolutionaries are necessary. Sometimes they are justified. Sometimes they are understandable if misguided. Karli was none of these things because they did not build her a background she deserved. Heck, they didn't even give her a proper motivation apart from a nebulous "it was better before the Blip". It was utterly impossible to comprehend how she escalated from stealing vaccines to blowing up a building with live humans inside.

So yeah, I think in Karli's case it was both a directorial failing in representing the real plight of refugees and poverty, and a writer failure in building the world in a way that gave Karli's cause some dignity.

I think there is also likely a executive choice somewhere for the GRC, as a symbol of the government, to not be "too bad" so that Sam could eventually end up siding with them. Which is why the morality of the series just comes across as all over the place. How can you, as a creator, say you sympathise with Karli while completely bungling her motivations, and basically end the story with the GRC being an entity that the heroes need to save, then have Sam give a long rant about how the GRC was terrible and Karli was right. Like what are you actually trying to say before you shoot yourself on both sides of your foot?

Aaaaannnnd yeah, most of the fights in this series is just full of people being handed idiot balls.

[itsclydebitches]

Here's a quandary I've suddenly found myself in: where do you stand on writers deleting their own works, fanfiction or otherwise? I've had this happen to me on more than one occasion - I go to look for an old favorite and find it's since been deleted from whatever site I read it on.

On the one hand, I'm inclined to think that, "Sure. The author wrote it, it's their call. I don't own the work - I certainly didn't pay for it. It's their decision, even if it's disappointing."

But at the same time I can't help but consider the alternative - if I believe in death of the author (and I do), that an author's work fundamentally isn't solely theirs once it's been published, posted, etc., then it also seems wrong to have a work deleted. Stories aren't the sole property of their creator, after all.

But then I circle back. D'you think there are different obligations between authors and readers and the works being made in fandom space? I know if I had bought a book and the author decided they wanted it back, I would feel pretty comfortable telling them no, given I'd paid for it and whatnot. But that's a different world from fanfic and fandom space generally.

So. You're insightful Clyde, I'm curious as to what you'll have to say here (and to all y'all thinking about it, don't flame me. I haven't decided where I stand here yet - haven't heard a good nail-in-the-coffin argument for or against yet).

Val are you a mind reader now? I’ve been thinking about this exact conundrum the last few days!

(And yeah, as a general disclaimer: no flaming. Not allowed. Any asks of the sort will be deleted on sight and with great satisfaction.)

Honestly, I’m not sure there is a “nail-in-the-coffin argument” for this, just because—as you lay out—there are really good points for keeping works around and really good points for allowing authors to have control over their work, especially when fanworks have no payment/legal obligations attached. In mainstream entertainment, your stories reflect a collaborative effort (publisher, editor, cover artists, etc.) so even if it were possible to delete the physical books out of everyone’s home and library (and we're ignoring the censorship angle for the moment), that’s no longer solely the author’s call, even if they have done the lion’s share of the creative work. Though fanworks can also, obviously, be collaborative, they’re usually not collaborative in the same way (more “This fic idea came about from discord conversations, a couple tumblr posts, and that one headcanon on reddit”) and they certainly don’t have the same monetary, legal, and professional strings attached. I wrote this fic as a hobby in my free time. Don’t I have the right to delete it like I also have the right to tear apart the blankets I knit?

Well yes… but also no? I personally view fanworks as akin to gifts—the academic term for our communities is literally “gift economy”—so if we view it like that, suddenly that discomfort with getting rid of works is more pronounced. If I not only knit a blanket, but then gift it to a friend, it would indeed feel outside of my rights to randomly knock on their door one day and go, “I actually decided I hate that? Please give it back so I can tear it to shreds, thanks :)” That’s so rude! And any real friend would try to talk me out of it, explaining both why they love the blanket and, even if it’s not technically the best in terms of craftsmanship, it holds significant emotional value to them. Save it for that reason alone, at least. Fanworks carry that same meaning—“I don’t care if it’s full of typos, super cliché, and using some outdated, uncomfortable tropes. This story meant so much to me as a teenager and I’ll always love it”—but the difference in medium and relationships means it’s easier to ignore all that. I’m not going up to someone’s house and asking face-to-face to destroy something I gave them (which is awkward as hell. That alone deters us), I’m just pressing a button on my computer. I’m not asking this of a personal friend that is involved in my IRL experiences, I’m (mostly) doing this to online peers I know little, if anything, about. It’s easy to distance ourselves from both the impact of our creative work and the act of getting rid of it while online. On the flip-side though, it’s also easier to demean that work and forget that the author is a real person who put a lot of effort into this creation. If someone didn’t like my knitted blanket I gave them as a gift, they’re unlikely to tell me that. They recognize that it’s impolite and that the act of creating something for them is more important than the construction’s craftsmanship. For fanworks though, with everyone spread around the world and using made up identities, people have fewer filters, happily tearing authors to shreds in the comments, sending anon hate, and the like. The fact that we’re both prefacing this conversation with, “Please don’t flame” emphasizes that. So if I wrote a fic with some iffy tropes, “cringy” dialogue, numerous typos, whatever and enough people decided to drag me for it… I don’t know whether I’d resist the urge to just delete the fic, hopefully ending those interactions. There’s a reason why we’re constantly reminding others to express when they enjoy someone else’s work: the ratio of praise to criticism in fandom (or simply praise to seeming indifference because there was no public reaction at all), is horribly skewed.

So I personally can’t blame anyone for deleting. I’d like to hope that more people realize the importance of keeping fanworks around, that everything you put out there is loved by someone… but I’m well aware that the reality is far more complicated. It’s hard to keep that in mind. It’s hard to keep something around that you personally no longer like. Harder still to keep up a work you might be harassed over, that someone IRL discovered, that you’re disgusted with because you didn’t know better back then… there are lots of reasons why people delete and I ultimately can’t fault them for that. I think the reasons why people delete stem more from problems in fandom culture at large—trolling, legal issues, lack of positive feedback, cancel culture, etc.—than anything the author has or has not personally done, and since such work is meant to be a part of an enjoyable hobby… I can’t rightly tell anyone to shoulder those problems, problems they can’t solve themselves, just for the sake of mine or others’ enjoyment. The reason I’ve been thinking about this lately is because I was discussing Attack on Titan and how much I dislike the source material now, resulting in a very uncomfortable relationship with the fics I wrote a few years back. I’ve personally decided to keep them up and that’s largely because some have received fantastic feedback and I’m aware of how it will hurt those still in the fandom if I take them down. So if a positive experience is the cornerstone of me keeping fics up, I can only assume that negative experiences would likewise been the cornerstone of taking them down. And if getting rid of that fic helps your mental health, or solves a bullying problem, or just makes you happier… that, to me, is always more important than the fic itself.

But, of course, it’s still devastating for everyone who loses the work, which is why my compromise-y answer is to embrace options like AO3’s phenomenal orphaning policy. That’s a fantastic middle ground between saving fanworks and allowing authors to distances themselves from them. I’ve also gotten a lot more proactive about saving the works I want to have around in the future. Regardless of whether we agree with deleting works or not, the reality is we do live in a world where it happens, so best to take action on our own to save what we want to keep around. Though I respect an author’s right to delete, I also respect the reader’s right to maintain access to the work, once published, in whatever way they can. That's probably my real answer here: authors have their rights, but readers have their rights too, so if you decide to publish in the first place, be aware that these rights might, at some point, clash. I download all my favorite fics to Calibre and, when I’m earning more money (lol) I hope to print and bind many for my personal library. I’m also willing to re-share fic if others are looking for them, in order to celebrate the author’s work even if they no longer want anything to do with it. Not fanfiction in this case, but one of my fondest memories was being really into Phantom of the Opera as a kid and wanting, oh so desperately, to read Susan Kay’s Phantom. Problem was, it was out of print at the time, not available at my library, and this was before the age of popping online and finding a used copy. For all intents and purposes, based on my personal situation, this was a case of a book just disappearing from the world. So when an old fandom mom on the message boards I frequented offered to type her copy up chapter by chapter and share it with me, you can only imagine how overjoyed I was. Idk what her own situation was that something like scanning wouldn’t work, but the point is she spent months helping a fandom kid she barely knew simply because a story had resonated with her and she wanted to share it. That shit is powerful!

So if someone wants to delete—if that’s something they need right now—I believe that is, ultimately, their decision… but please try your hardest to remember that the art you put out into the world is having an impact and people will absolutely miss it when it’s gone. Often to the point of doing everything they can to put it back out into the world even if you decide to take it out. Hold onto that feeling. The love you have for your favorite fic, fanart, meta, whatever it is? Someone else has that for your work too. I guarantee it.

So take things down as needed, but for the love of everything keep copies for yourself. You may very well want to give it back to the world someday.

[disparition]

What is a “Police State”?

Over the past week the issues of police violence and institutional white supremacy, which have plagued America for years, are now being discussed in many arenas in which they have long been ignored. Ideas ranging from moderate reform to outright dismantling of police departments are being discussed in increasingly mainstream circles. In earlier days of social media I used to sometimes express my views that America was a police state. This was mostly during the Bush administration, and I feel the idea was generally dismissed as an exaggeration even though I meant it quite literally. I felt like I wasn't very good at talking about it and unfortunately, rather than get better, I mostly just stopped. I am trying to rectify that now. It is time to speak up and more frequently - in this post I'd like to try explain the issue a different way, using a local example:

I live in Los Angeles, California - a city and state broadly perceived as liberal or even (by American standards) "progressive", with a Democratic mayor, a Democratic city council (14 out of 15 seats), and a Democratic sheriff. At the same time, Los Angeles police department has a nationwide reputation for racism and brutality, largely dating back to the 1991 assault on Rodney King - a crime which similarly brought the issues of police violence and structural racism into mainstream discussions, in an unprecedented way.

Those discussions happened at the scale and level they did because the beating of Rodney King was caught on camera. At that time, video cameras were still relatively new and not a lot of people had them. In the thirty years since, the world has changed and now the average citizen has a camera in their pocket at all times. I cannot even count how many incidents of police brutality - from beatings to outright murder - have been captured and discussed at all levels of society in the thirty years since. In the past decade alone the frequent murders of Black citizens at the hands of police, and the brutality with which police respond to calls for justice for those murders, have frequently reappeared in mainstream news cycles, and even been acknowledged at multiple levels of government.

Take all of that into consideration when you consider the chart attached to this post (graphics below by Peoples Budget LA), which depicts the proposed Los Angeles city budget for the year 2021, thirty years after the assault on Rodney King, after hundreds of clearly and widely documented incidents have made it obvious just how violent and racist the police in this country are. The chart shows billions of dollars going to the LAPD while all other areas, from emergency management to housing to community investment, receive crumbs.

Not only is the overfunding of a violent racist police force a problem, but the underfunding of every other area of city life contributes to the conditions causing crime in the first place. Adequate funding of areas from mental healthcare to social work to housing would go far further towards combatting many of the issues we face in this country than overemphasis on law enforcement.

This is not an accident. The mayor and city council of Los Angeles have not been living under a rock for thirty years. They have seen the same videos we've seen, they are well aware of police brutality, and similarly they are well aware of the fact that underfunding areas from community services to housing contribute to crime. This is entirely on purpose - and the pattern you see here in Los Angeles is repeated all over the country. This is why all over the United States we see police forces armed to the teeth with expensive weapons and armor while basic infrastructure, schools, and housing are neglected, especially in marginalized communities. This is exactly what is meant by a police state: there is one primary beneficiary of the state, and it is increasingly militant police forces, propping up an increasingly nakedly racist power structure.

There is a tendency in liberal and even progressive circles to frame racism as a "Republican problem" and to focus on the current president. It isn't, not even remotely. Hopefully the example I'm showing you in this post can illustrate the point that simply "voting blue" is not remotely a solution to police brutality or structural racism, and that these problems are and have been severe all over America no matter which party is in charge, whether at municipal level or federal.

We are well past the point where reform is an option. The idea of law enforcement and "policing" need to be rethought and rebuilt from the ground up. Personally, I see the idea of "policing" as something that starts with the _self_ first, and then extends to one's own community, and with increasing patience and kindness as one goes further from the realm of one's own knowledge and experience - and I realize that's not a "realistic policy proposal", it's a mentality, a framework. In terms of real change, I think we need to push for the abolition of existing police forces and of the idea of a permanent police "identity" and push towards community oriented solutions that involve the participation of all, with a strong emphasis on deescalation and conflict resolution.

[largemaxa]

Devotion Without Religion

Devotion to God has been at the figurative heart of man's religious and spiritual quest for millennia. Saints and texts alike have spoken of man's love for God, God's love for man, and the ecstasy that comes from realizing that love within oneself. But we live in a rational and secular age, and the path of devotion has been de-emphasized. When we admit to having spiritual urges at all, we often speak of the search for peace, with its main route being through meditation. When the emotions are engaged in the spiritual search, they are directed towards aims like self-actualization and healing. Actual devotion—the practice of love, worship, and prayer—is viewed as misguided at best, and dangerous at worst.

It is not at all clear how to reconcile the path of devotion with the independent spiritual path. This is because the way of devotion is associated with the worst aspects of religion, such as irrationalism and fanaticism. The argument goes that only a force like religious devotion is able to lead otherwise intelligent people to embrace the irrational aspects of religion, such as beliefs that contradict mainstream science, or partisanship that rejects or persecutes those who hold differing religious opinions. Therefore, for the modern reformer of spiritual seeking, devotion with its irrational emotional intensity is the force that must be excised when we go to recover what is good about spirituality.

But it's unfair to blame religious devotion for all the problems that the emotions bring to man. On one hand, emotional attachments can lead to fanaticism even without a religious component, as we see in the case of nationalist passion. And on the other hand, as we learn more about man's psychology, we see increasingly that emotional attachments are a key factor that keeps human life and society running. In his treatise The Origins of Political Order, Francis Fukuyama points to research that shows that man was always involved in social and political groupings held together by emotional ties and was never in a solitary state of nature. Modern psychology emphasizes the fact that human relationships are essential for mental health. Even in the hard-nosed field of business management, ever since the publication of In Search of Excellence by Thomas Peters and Robert Waterman, it has been acknowledged that emotional factors like pride in one's work and the joy of serving the customer, as opposed to the rational pursuit of wealth alone, are crucial for success in business.

Therefore, we can't rule out the engagement of the emotions in spirituality solely on the basis of the negative aspects of religion. And while it may seem easier to leave the emotions to the adjacent fields of mental health or business success coaching, the essential connection between engaging the emotions and the search for the Divine cannot be neglected indefinitely. Most people would never be able to undertake an endeavor as difficult as the search for the Divine, not even on the austere path of formless meditation, without a strong emotional connection to the path. And once we admit the possibility of engaging the emotions, we must also admit that deepening that emotional connection to God is one of the most accessible and powerful paths to God.

Devotion to Forms, Abstract and Concrete

The contemporary understanding of God does not allow us to easily see how to do this. Because of the aversion to the religious approach to God, which is caricatured as propitiating a stern old man in the sky, the contemporary tendencies are to either view God as a pure abstraction, a powerful deity but one who is ultimately unknowable in a human way, or otherwise to deny that there is a God in the sense of a conscious being, imagining only an abstract energy. If those two conceptions of God exhausted the reality of God, that still wouldn't necessarily mean that the path of devotion is impossible—after all, such abstractions as a flag, nation, or business organization are all able to command sustained emotional commitment and sacrifice. But it remains true that devotion to tangible forms is a powerful practice—the practice which gives religious devotion its power and which makes the modern spiritual reformer wary.

One interesting thing to note is that just because we find the approach of devotion to concrete forms problematic doesn't make those forms of God any less real. The modern reformer takes God to be an abstract energy because it would be distasteful to worship God in the specific form of Krishna or Christ; but if God really does take the form of Krishna or Christ, the opinions of the modern reformer wouldn't matter. Of course, the modern reformer would hold that there is no specific evidence for God having the form of Krishna or Christ either. Still, if we are open to the idea of devotion at all, we must hold out the possibility of the validity of the recognized forms of God; after all, any argument that discounts the God of specific religious forms could easily be modified to discount the formless and abstract God as well.

But whether we admit traditional forms of God or only abstract forms, the problem for those on the independent spiritual path remains as to how we are to pursue a path of devotion that avoids the trap of the religious approach of exclusivity, irrationalism, and fanaticism. It's hard to see what the options are, but if we are clear eyed we can see that there are only so many possibilities. One is to preserve the old gods of the religions, but to try our best not to get stuck in the religious traps. This approach would acknowledge that there is an unknowable mystique around the forms of God that have been handed down, and that it is not possibly to synthetically come up with a new form or abstraction which can command the same reverence or devotion. In this approach, the heart would be devoted to Christ or Krishna without participating in the other social and institutional structures of organized religion. The danger of this option is that it will slide too far to the faults of the old religious mentality. After all, if the revered forms of God are worth preserving because of their irreplaceable essence, why shouldn't the associated religious practices and social forms be viewed as similarly meritorious? It may not be clear how to extract devotion to these forms of God from concrete religious practice.

A second approach would be to channel devotion to human gurus. There are obvious problems are here as well, and they may even seem to be worse than the problems with the previous option. Namely, this option could lead to personality cults, which are regarded as the worse and more extreme than even religious institutions. If an individual human is loved and regarded as God, they may feel as though they are granted absolute power, which no human being should have. Further, it is not clear whether anyone currently existing on earth is worthy of being placed in this position. What makes this opportunity worth considering, though, is that the human guru provides a target for the devotional impulse that is tangible without relying only on the classical forms of the religions. And in an ideal world, there might be enough spiritual masters and gurus that would make this a legitimate outlet for the devotional impulses of the spiritual seekers.

A third approach would be to reserve the devotional impulse for the forms and institutions of human life as they are: the family, the nation, various secular and religious institutions. This approach would powerfully ground spiritual seeking in the structures of everyday life. The problem with this approach is that even though the human affections can work effectively through these human organizations, it is not clear if the highest form of religious devotion could flow through these mundane channels. A fourth option would be not to try to send the religious devotional impulse towards any forms or structures at all, and instead to focus on revering the abstract forms of God instead. This approach would seem to at least avoid the problems of the earlier methods in principle, though in practice one may wonder if the human heart could really love an abstraction. The modern reformer or critic may hold that any effectiveness of the concrete forms for devotion is still too big of a risk, and that man will have to learn to love the abstract. But it must be noted that even movements with aniconic policies or tendencies have had trouble with fanaticism.

It may seem like there are no good options for how to safely direct the devotional impulse: either there is the option of a cold abstraction that doesn't inspire devotion, or otherwise the problems that come with emotional attachments to people, forms, or institutions that are not fit to bear the pressure of being loved as God. But there is a subtle shift of framing we can use to open another option. In options one through four, we assumed that we were disconnected from God and needed to find the right way to connect with him; if we didn't find it, we might be disconnected forever. In this way of thinking, the old religions may have had a channel through their various forms, and if we can't use their channel as it was initially set up, we could lose access to God completely.

But we don't need to make that assumption. We can assume instead that we already have a relationship with God, and from there assume that we will be guided to the right devotional channels when the time is right. This is a fifth, all-encompassing option that gives us not a simple answer for how we should direct our devotional impulse but rather a way of living that will dynamically channel our devotion. The specific devotional forms may be different at different times; and they may include some of the options from above that may seem "dangerous" for their proximity to religious methods, such as the use of older religious forms of God, devotion to human spiritual teachers or institutions, or the sanctification of human relationships like the family, romantic love, or friendship. But as long as we keep in mind that our relationship with God is prior to any given form of him that we are devoted to, we will be relatively safe as we negotiate the shifting tendencies of devotional spiritual practice.

A Devotional Relationship to God

The possibility of a devotional practice in the contemporary era requires that we have a relationship with God that is prior to any specific form of God, and use that as a basis for devotional relationship to various forms of God. But what is this relationship with God? This may seem like an impossible query. How can a human have a relationship with God, the creator of the entire universe? We are used to relationships with our fellow humans; these relationships are characterized by mutual support, or antagonism, or indifference. Assuming God is a real being, we have a relationship with Him, just as we have relationships with our fellow humans on Earth; if it doesn't seem like we have a relationship with Him, that just means that our relationship is characterized by ignorance, or perhaps worse, indifference, just as so many of our relationships with humans are.  

The first step to improving this relationship is to acknowledge that God exists and try to be more open to Him. The first step in improving a human relationship is to listen more, to be more attentive; so it is with God. We do this by being quiet and listening for what God has to say to us. But what if God says nothing? In that case, we might feel that our relationship with Him is characterized by abandonment—as with a child whose father or mother has left. In an adult relationship with God, though, there can be no question of abandonment; we must realize that the issue is not with us or with God but with the limits of our human finitude, our ability to hear. So if God seems quiet, we must trust and wait for His voice to be heard more clearly, whether that takes a day, or a week, or even many years. A relationship with God must take into account the type of being that God is, which means understanding God as a being that works on timescales that are vaster than ours are; we cannot be upset if he doesn't immediately answer us as we might expect a human relationship partner to return our texts and calls on the same day. The relationship with God is not a relationship between humans but rather a relationship between a human and the all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-loving creator of the universe. We must trust his timing, and we must trust that the circumstances he arranges for us are the best ones for us to be in.

We must be present in our relationship with God just as we stay present in a relationship with a human, being open and listening and staying connected; only then does the possibility of insight and trust open up. We don't need to start with trust—we simply need to start with staying connected. As we communicate and listen, the forms that we need to interact with God will be suggested, whether these are human relationships in our life that are symbols of the Divine, or are ancient forms of the Divine that have been revered through the ages and find a renewed relevance for us, or are the beloved forms of spiritual teachers that come into our lives. By following the path that opens up, we find the forms that are needed to practice the path of devotion. Even in this modern era that has identified the problems with religion without providing a replacement, if we trust the spiritual path that unfolds, the heart will still be able to fulfill its desire for the Love of the Divine.

[cybersecopossum]

Parler: Less Free Speech, More Analytics

The free speech social media platform that disallows dissenting opinions and promises to farm your data

In the summer of 2020, Youtubers started bring up the social media platform Parler as a new alternative to Twitter and Facebook, after many of the same creaters also promoted Minds, Gab.io, and Candid (the platform that was allegedly a front to run analytics on users that were likely to be troubling). The appeal: free speech. Free to say anything you want and defend your ideas.

Truth be told, I've been to these sites, and I've been disappointed by every one of them. I support free speech, but I have no patience for a platform with the majority of their users are explicitly trolls or seemingly crazy people. These platforms have a habit of rapidly devlolving into holocost and world order conspiracy theories. It's a fine thing to offer everyone to say their piece, but I think apealling to the people that normally can't stay civil on major platforms is a recipe for disaster. Parler, however, has moderation, which seems a bit counter intuitive to free-speech, but it offers a clean image for new members. It's going into it a bit further that reveals that there's a lot more going on than a bunch of conservatives and Trumpettes getting a platform to say their tagline of the week.

My Views on the Relationship between Privacy and Free Speech

This is important, as I am often seen as trying to get away with saying my own crazy spew and not answering for it. That is not my intention. Today the public forum is used by special interest groups for unethical studies on users and as targeting platforms for retaliation. All I want is to seperate speech from identity and livelihood. The express purpose for doing so is to allow people to know what is being said and argue with the ideas while avoiding violence and the distraction of ad hominem. I do not support the use of social media bots at all, and I appreciate removing harassing content, spam, and obvious trolling from a forum. I do not appreciate removing one's sincere opinion while of sound mind or tracking them across platforms and this does a disservice to everyone to either have things hidden from them about a person and their beliefs or reading too far into their behavior and even predicting their real-life behaviors which puts many individuals at risk of violence.

Their Problems with Privacy

When you sign up for Parler, just like Twitter, you have to provide a phone number. This phone number is attached to your account, and by extension, your activity. While this is a way to ensure that people are not easily making replacement, spam, or bot accounts, it's also a bit of you that they get to market. You likely use your cell phone for other social media, it's used for a lot services like shopping rewards programs as well.

Who's interested in your phone number and why? Well, we can take a look at Parler's own Privacy Policy. For them they want to market things to you, identify you along with more personal details if you want to be a part of their influencer network, and to sell as part of their company to whomever that may be. They also allow for 3rd party analytics just like Facebook allowed Cambridge Analytica to view users on their platform.

Now, depending on how you connect to the platform, either by their webpage or their app, you can expect more information to be taken about your device. If you're using their app, their Privacy Policy specifically states that they will collect your contacts if you permit them. It's already required when you install the app, so by installing it, you already permitted them. More on the app store, on Android, they request to read, modify, and delete the contents of your SD card and take pictures and video from your camera. While these can be used implemented selectively in the code for uploading videos and pictures to your post, it's concerning given their other behaviors, such as requesting other applications that you have installed.

Regardless of whether you're using the web or app, you can expect that 3rd party cookies like those from Google, Amazon, and Facebook will be used to track you while you use the website. This along with information about what posts you view, searches you make on the site, times that you're online and active, and the people you follow make a nice package for people interested in your data, such as Google and Facebook, meaning the same exact companies may still be able to track you and affect your experience browsing online through ad services.

Overall this Privacy Policy leaves a lot to the imagination but still emphasizes enough that they will collect data on you to monetize it as an asset and with 3rd party research and advertising analytics. It is the same problems as Google, Facebook, and Twitter, but now with a neat controlled group of a mostly conservative user base. This, in the wrong hands, might be an interesting petri dish for highly-targeted political research.

Just My Privacy? Is that so bad?

Their ToS is a garbage fire, and I highly encourage everyone to read it just for the audacity of what it says outright, and what it carefully leaves out.

The Censorship-Free Twitter Alternative: Now with Censorship!

Probably the goofies thing to come out of Parler is all of the stories of people's accounts getting deleted for sharing their opinions. To add to this, I was having trouble getting my account removed (more on that later, so I opted instead to use the trending hashtags and tag a few popular users in a post where I stated that the website had all of the hallmarks of being shady. I waited over two days to have my account deleted the normal way, but within ten minutes of posting that Parley, I was banned. Amazing. But don't take our words for it, they explicitly tell you that if they don't like you, they'll ban you in section 9 of their ToS!

Coming soon: Worthless Microtransactions!

Section 6 of their ToS describe their virtual items. Interestingly, they outright deny you the right to trade or sell any of the items on the site without their permission. This is interesting not only because they are explictly enforcing the worthlessness of their virtual items, but this also precludes anyone from exchanging their account, and thus all the associated virtual items for money, goods, or services. This means if you grew an engaging account on the platform and a company is interested in buying access to it, you have to ask Parler's permission, and then they may only allow it contingent upon you giving more personal information such as, in their own example of them buying items back from you, your social security number.

Old Issues: The Deleted Sections

Very recently, the ToS have been changed. As you can see in this reddit post from the time of Parler's launch, any user of their platform was legally bound to be ready to defend and idemnify Parler in court for actions you take on the platform, and you are already bound to pay their fees in court if you are defending yourself against them or anyone responsible for Parler. You also were not allowed to sue them or be a beneficiary of a class-action lawsuit against them.

Final Thoughts

Parler is yet another alternative social media site which is has attracted the worst users from other sites right away. This makes the platform less attractive to "normal" users. Interestingly, their banning practices seem to indicate that they only want the conservative, but not too edgy crowd, the kind that is of really big importance socially and politically right now; the middle of the road, fly-over state blue collar family type that got excited about Trump because of the chants and rallies without really understaning the greater policies.

Now, I'm not going to sit here and outright describe Parler's intentions like I know them, because I don't. But I know that if I wanted to do market and polling research on the group of people in Europe and America that fit this general trend of hyper politics, I would curate similarly to Parler, protect myself from litigation from the users, collect as much information as I could on them and share that information with other websites to get a holistic picture of the users. I would make their usage of the platform unempowering and worthless to see what they were willing to do for minimal incentive. I would attract A and B-list figures within the different movements thant have supported the shift in politics and have them promote it for me, as well as get the alternative media sites to do gushing admiration articles on it over and over while more generally well regarded sites scoff and criticize it to get this particular subset of users into this one place where I can observe them.

Bottom line: this website's policies and behaviors are antithetical to free speech. You cannot advocate for free speech and be so anti-privacy in my view. You cannot claim to be a legitimate alternative to other sites when you are curating an environment for a specific group. You cannot be against censorship and then censor users for the most mundane posts that go against your image. This website is DOA, worst than the ones that came before it, because where as the others had hope of being normal that just ran out, this place squashes it right away. Parler is an exclusive right-wing platform and my personal opinion is that it is also a petri dish for analytics for this political persuasion

[count-yeti]

Ever since I was born, I was able to see them: the beings that live alongside us. Some call them demons, some call them ghosts; there’s a million and one names for them, just as there’s a million and one different “species” out there. Some are bipedal, some quadrupedal – some don’t even walk on legs at all. But, because I could see them, my life has been a constant pain. Everyone around me called me crazy, said I should be institutionalised – and I was, several times. Every time, they let me out, because I was entirely mentally sound. The day after my 15th birthday, one of the ones who live alongside us, a ghost in this case, entered my family’s home. It followed me the entire day, and then I confronted it when I thought no one was listening, but both my parents heard me talking to it. When they came in my room and saw that I had been talking to nothing, the kicked me out of the house for the evening. I don’t know what was special about that particular incident – they’d kicked me out several times before – but after that I never went home again.

I didn’t much mind; I’d never felt any special connection to my parents. Probably a product of them being very open about finding me a nuisance. They were the people who birthed me, and I viewed them as nothing more than that. After leaving home, I sort of floated around for a few years; never truly homeless, living in this friend’s house or that, but there were times where I wound up sleeping outside in bus stops or in alley ways. I never liked sleeping in alley ways though, they were far too open. I don’t really know why child services never stepped in, but I never once had to deal with them, thankfully. I would have hated to have been a burden to some kindly family who opened their home to me, only for them to think of me as a crazy child.

My little journey around came to an end not long after I turned 18. I was walking down the street after getting some money for collecting cans in the park – something the park rangers often paid me to do – when one of the Others walked past me, searching about as though looking for something. At first, I ignored it, as I always did; it was generally the best policy in dealing with them – if I spoke to them, they’d become attached and expect even more of me, and then there were the Others who were dangerous, and took my response to them as an invitation to attack me; I have many scars from dangerous encounters with Others.

But, a few moments after passing the Other, something inside of me, some instinct, told me to turn around and ask if it needed help. And so, I did. I turned around and was faced with a young woman. I couldn’t quite tell you what her features were like, for they seemed to shift and change while I looked at her: one second her eyes would be blue in colour, the next they would be green. When she noticed I’d seen her, she gave me a warm smile, and her features seemed to stabilise for a moment.

“You can… see me?” she asked me, her eyes going wide with surprise.

“Yes,” I answered simply, not knowing what else to say.

All my life, I had merely considered the Others to be annoyances, beasts, something only I could see that made people think I was insane. It never really occurred to me until that moment that some of them might be little different than myself, that they might be people in their own right. But, faced with this woman who was clearly needing help with something, I suddenly realised the errors of my 18 years of thinking.

“Oh, thank goodness! C-Can you help me?” she asked me, standing closer – too close.

“Wh-What do you need?” I asked, nervously. She was standing too close…

“I-I seem to have forgotten something… something important… it hurts…” she explained sadly.

“What hurts? What have you forgotten?” I asked, feeling concerned for the Other against my better judgement and years of conditioning.

“I don’t know! I don’t know what I need to remember. It’s on the tip of my tongue, but… I don’t know,” she said, tears filling her ever-changing eyes.

“Wait, wait, don’t cry! I’ll help you,” I said quickly, grabbing her shoulder.

“Thank you. Thank you. Thank you,” she repeated several times, almost silently.

“What’s your name?” I asked her.

Her eyes went wide at my question, and she started stammering. The look on her shifting face told me that she didn’t know. She looked like she was in pain. Was that what she was looking for; her name, who she was? It looked like that was the case.

“That’s okay, don’t hurt yourself,” I said. “My name is Mark Fisher. I’ll help you remember your name.”

“Thank you,” she repeated once more.

“No problem,” I responded. “Do you mind if we go somewhere else for now?”

She nodded her head, and the two of us went to a nearby park and sat on a bench away from other people. I didn’t want anyone to see me having an earnest conversation with her, because I knew they wouldn’t be able to see her, and they’d call the cops or something. It had happened before, unfortunately.

“What do you remember?” I asked her after we’d taken our seats next to each other.

“N-Not much… The first thing I remember is waking up near where you found me. My head was killing me, and I couldn’t find anyone who could see me… Wait, is that normal? I feel like that’s normal for me, but saying it out loud makes it sound weird,” she answered.

I laughed a little at her last statement, and explained everything to her. How there existed essentially two worlds, and while everyone she had seen had been part of one world, she was part of the second world, which meant people from the first world, the world of humanity, couldn’t see her. The whole time I was explaining it, she seemed to have no trouble understanding it, as if she already knew all the information I was telling her, and simply couldn’t remember it.

“Why can you see me, then?” she asked after I had finished explaining.

“I don’t really know. I’ve been able to see you – the Others – since I was born, though I don’t want to be able to. It’s nothing but a burden,” I answered sadly.

“I’m glad you can, though. It means I have someone who can help me,” she said softly, her face briefly ceasing its constant shifting and freezing on the same face she had briefly shown me earlier when she realised I could see her.

She was beautiful.

“I-It’s no big deal,” I said, feeling kind of flustered all of a sudden.

“I’m sorry I don’t know anything more to tell you. I spent several days after waking up just wandering around the area where we met. There were others like me, but they all turned away from me, or even tried to attack me, but I managed to keep them away before meeting you,” she told me.

“I see. How can we find out more about you? Do you know anybody? Can you try to remember somebody that you know? Maybe they’ll be able to tell us more. For now, though, maybe we should just look around like you had been doing,” I said.

“No… the only person I remember is you, but we only met today,” she frowned.

“Well, that makes our job a little harder, doesn’t it?” I smiled.

“I’m sorry,” she frowned even harder.

“No, don’t worry about it! I promised I would help you, so I will, no matter how hard it is. I just don’t know where to start,” I reassured her.

We spent the rest of the day wandering around town, trying to find things that might spark her memory. By the time the sun had set, we still hadn’t found anything, and she was getting increasingly anxious.

“Let’s call it a night,” I said, sighing and stretching.

“Okay,” she said dejectedly.

“I… don’t know what you people normally do, but do you have a place to stay?” I asked.

“N-No, I don’t,” she answered simply.

“Th-Then, do you want to stay with me?” I asked, feeling awkward and flustered.

“You’re already doing so much for me, I don’t want to be a burden,” she said sadly.

“Don’t worry about it, you’re not a burden,” I responded to her.

“Thank you,” she said softly, so softly I almost didn’t hear her.

“Oh, by the way. What should I call you until we find out your real name?” I asked her as we walked to my house.

“I don’t know…” she said, looking off into the distance, thinking.

“Hmm, what about Eve?” I said after a moment.

“Okay,” she replied simply, though she couldn’t hide a small smile that momentarily caused her face to stop shifting.

[alexsmitposts]

Lebanon: Colonial Thieves & Conflicting Networks of Patronage I am trying to think how best to write about Lebanon, about the BIGGER picture and the complicated political situation and structure there. It goes beyond the Beirut port bombing or the source of the fertiliser, well beyond the recriminations, and what is actually being reported in the news as well. This is a topic we have covered earlier in NEO, even before Lebanon was so newsworthy. But as with everything, the first rule of a journalist is to not to believe in coincidences. Blast from the Past Let’s just assume readers know all about the current situation, the corruption, the banking mafias and the humanitarian crisis on the horizon. Lebanon is a country collapsing, crashing and burning, and its banking system with it. The country is about to hit rock bottom—at least in the opinion of most pundits. As mentioned in previous NEO articles, the lack of a government isn’t going to get foreign troops out of Lebanon, or stabilise its currency and persuade its neighbours to respect its position. Nor is it going to keep it out of the shadows of Israel and Syria. But having a new government which isn’t backed, or at least tolerated, by public consensus won’t bring about immediate change; it won’t be the magic cure. On the contrary, it will for sure raise new issues, create new groups willing to be bought off and create greater instability, simply because it is easier to fight an enemy you know. Changing the political-sectoral structure of the government, an ongoing issue in Lebanon, isn’t going to prove a panacea for all either – not because no solution would satisfy the Lebanese, but because the very existence of its government system doesn’t satisfy everyone else. But what comes next? At the heart of this system lies a social compact which connects individuals to political leaders based on sectarian identity — Maronite Christian, Sunni Muslim, Shia Muslim, Druze, to name a few of the country’s 18 different religious sects. Each knows its place, and is closely linked to various networks of political and financial patronage—and these have existed from generation to generation. In layman’s terms, if a whole new order is put in place in Lebanon – based on liberal, deliberative politics, not doling out privileges to various religious and ethnic groupings, and with well-delineated representative electoral boundaries drawn up following the first census the country will have seen in decades – most of the confessional groups will most likely lose out, or persuade their supporters they will. The sectorial elites are very entrenched, and run their own self-sustaining networks of patronage, so it isn’t hard to predict how they will react. If something the West recognises as “liberal democracy” is introduced in Lebanon, the elites’ spheres of influence will contract, and their interests will have to come second to those of the locals. At least, that is the theory – as ever, Westerners are unable to understand that “liberal democracy” is itself a sect, run by a particular segment of the population, holding certain approved views, which sustains itself by even more extensive networks of patronage. The elites and the locals are not two separate groups in Lebanon. All the various groups and elites are in some sense local, the outcomes of waves of past immigration and a system which, though antiquated, was questioned far more by outsiders than it ever was by Lebanese, whose only argument is who should have which slices of the cake, and for what reason. The Maronites claim to be the “original” Lebanese, descendants of the Phoenicians. But their claim to being the real Lebanese is no more or less valid than those of the Sunni or Shia populations, or the Druze, or even the Armenians who have a clear, century-long presence in the country—ever since the Armenian genocide at the hands of the Ottomans. This is why nationals outside the country simply call themselves Lebanese – they identify more with Lebanon than with the ethnic groups and associated states everyone else tells them they belong to. In the nineteenth century it was often said that the differences between the dominant political parties lay in which gentleman’s clubs their members belonged to, rather than in their ideologies. The differences between Lebanese lie in which networks of patronage they can access, not their religious or ethnic identity. Lebanon has never been a nation-state or national state, so all groups have a more or less equal participation in its identity. No one group can claim that it is the true local population, and the rest are minorities. Everyone is a minority, and it is only the much more recent Palestinian and Syrian immigrants and refugees who might remain out of the social and legal framework, even though they largely migrated there to find one. Trying to upset the delicate balance of interests which holds the country together, when outsiders allow it to, will certainly lead to a great deal of acrimony from almost anyone who has enjoyed any degree of power over the past seventy years and more, who won’t want to give up any privileges and share things with Johnny come lately “newcomers”. As we have learned from too many other fledgling states or flickering beacons of democracy, be careful for what you wish for. Change for its own sake is not always for the better, especially in complicated parts of the world. This has been a lesson learned in the wake of the so-called Arab Springs. High Wire Act Perhaps the best starting point is to assume that the present Lebanese government is a high-wire act. By any measures it should have failed long ago, even before it resigned, as it represents too many competing and diametrically opposed interests, sects and political agendas, pieced together into a government out of sheer desperation amidst almost impossible political realities. Corruption is endemic, as to a cat who likes to climb trees and claw things. Much of the problem has to do with the fact that Lebanon is deeply rooted in its old colonial past, and its former masters, powers such as France and Turkey, are completing for a place at the table in a bid to retain their historic influence. When Lebanon was the Las Vegas of the Middle East, wealthy and attractive, these powers tried to exert this influence in a much more covert way, not wanting to interfere with the operation of a gravy train. Now those days have gone, they are setting themselves up as the solution to the problems they themselves created by refusing to accept a Lebanese system they were incapable of emulating. From 1920 until its independence in 1943, Lebanon was under French colonial rule, while before that the Ottomans ruled for four centuries. This is why it was predictable that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has accused his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron of “colonial” aims in Lebanon, and called his recent visit to Beirut a “spectacle”, amid growing tensions between Ankara and Paris. The meddling from outsiders has made Lebanon a modern-day Casablanca, full of cross-sections of intrigues. Not only France and Turkey but the US and Israel see it as the beachhead for influencing regional affairs, as if things are not already complicated enough with Iran, Saudi Arabia and Syria engaged in an ongoing proxy war within Lebanon’s internal politics. No one wants them there, but if the state isn’t strong enough to protect particular groups of locals from people sponsored by the other side, they have little choice but to put up with the “protection” of people they do not actually regard as representing their interests. Macron and Erdogan have enough problems at home, but prefer meddling in an area that is already a tinderbox, so they can blame the other, and therefore by extension all it represents in their respective countries. All this is contributing to a perfect storm which will leave Lebanon a failed state amongst failed states. What will actually have happened is that everyone else has failed because Lebanon is intrinsically sounder than they are, but it is the Lebanese who will be expected to pick up the pieces. Shallow-minded State While France and Turkey are making worrying bids for renewed influence, the US is trying to call the game from a distance. US motivations are simpler, and easier to understand – the US answer is always, “I blame Iran for the problems in Lebanon,” with a few soundbites about Hezbollah to boot. As ever, this line has everything to do with the US, and nothing whatever to do with Lebanon or the reality of life there. IRAN-Hezbollah is a label of convenience for State Department types and the John Boltons and Mike Mike Pompeos of this world, i.e., the proverbial “shallow-minded state”.It is really interesting to listen to State Department briefings and read press releases. What they don’t say is most revealing, like Pompeo’s statement in the aftermath of the only too convenient fertilizer explosion at the Port of Beirut: “I want to extend our deepest condolences to all those who were affected by the massive explosion at the port of Beirut yesterday. We stand ready to assist the Government of Lebanon – as it grapples with this horrible tragedy. You’ll see the United States announce a number of things we intend to do to assist the people of Lebanon in the coming days.” Such as what? Everything has strings attached, especially when it concerns providing aid to a country during a humanitarian crisis. We only have to look at the developmental model imposed on any country, the USAID Missions and IFO, IMF and World Bank advisers, designed with no other purpose but to ensure the US takes control “lock, stock and barrel”. Let’s hope that a new model evolves (not a feeding frenzy), and one not based on externally imposed structural adjustment policies or economic shock treatment, as if the economy hasn’t been shocked enough. It should be more needs driven, and must not identify the locals as the problem, particularly when you are expecting those locals to vote the way you want them to when your new system is in place. Baking a new cake will require time, and enough time must be afforded for the evolving protest movement and other independent figures to politically organise. Early elections will result in the same sectarian elite getting elected, but then not being allowed to operate, so Lebanon will again be lumbered with the worst of both worlds. To go back and see where it all began, one only needs to check out the secret 1916 Sykes Picot agreement between England and France about slicing up what would be left of the Ottoman Empire after World War One. It would be naïve to think that anyone can get a grasp of what is going on now without understanding the historic intrigues. The Bolsheviks found a copy of the Sykes-Picot agreement when they seized power, and had the audacity to publish it. Lenin called it “the agreement of colonial thieves”. This might also be an appropriate title for what may come in the wake of the resignation of the most recent Lebanese government, and any conditions imposed by the West or the IMF on Lebanon in exchange for a financial lifeline.

[troubleswift22]

Posted this on Facebook, but wanted to share here as well.

Alright so I don't like to post politics on my Facebook for many reasons(and was hoping to post some cool personal updates), but I think I need to speak out on some things that i've been wanting to talk about for years(but have been afraid to do so due to antagonizing people that I am close with in my life). If you have time, please please read as i'm about to say some things i've been wanting to get out for years and i'm about to get real vulnerable here about some subJects that I can no longer be silent about......

The state of the world we are in right now is far too dangerous to ignore, and i'm sick and tired of people in my life who are defending Trump and who have no idea what's going on other than their own personal beliefs they get from Fox News. I'm going to hide this post from family and a bunch of people, but if you see this and are a huge Trump Supporter or something and disagree, we can have a civil debate in my messages, or feel free to remove me if you are going to be rude about it(or ignore it, like I probably usually do for you.) I simply don't have the time, energy, or resolve to get into a long argument, but it is what it is. Feel free to leave a comment though, Just be nice. 

As the protests are going on now in Kenosha Wisconsin after the shooting of James Blake, a far-right militia member about an hour or so ago murdered 5 protesters. These protesters were not causing any damage or any problems, and I saw this as it was happening live on Periscope, no media spin attached.  As many other cities have done, they are fighting for the simple reason that Black Lives Matter, and enough is enough. I'm sick and tired of seeing new names being added to an ongoing list of innocent black lives being murdered. Breonna Taylor. Philandro Castille, Trevon Martin, George Floyd, Sandra Bland, and many more names. Seeing the video of what happened with James hit me even hard then George Floyd for some reason. Maybe it was the fact that gun-shots were featured idk. While I understand the convenient narrative being pushed that rioting is bad, as Martin Luther King Jr says "A riot is the language of the unheard".  Anyone who knows me knows I don't condone violence, as i'm a huge pacifist, and have even had this used against me in my life to take advantage of my kindness. However, who is really listening to black lives when they do try to speak out? Collin Kapernick sat down during the national anthem, he got criticized. So he changed to kneeling, still criticized.  People were(and still are in many instances) peacefully protesting, and many still aren't being heard. I'm studying Psychology as an Undergrad, and it makes sense that when people aren't being heard they tend to lash out and violence often ensues.  That's what tends to happen when your community constantly is having trauma inflicted on them.  I'm not condoning it, but maybe we should listen to people who have been trying to get our attention for years and do something to fix the root cause of this issue.

Most politicians on both sides don't care. Just like Trump didn't care when he's personally made decisions that affect either myself, many of my friends I have made both online and offline, as well as my basic sense of empathy for humanity.  A sampling of these actions include trying to remove DACA, eroding LGBT rights or attacking those in the LGBT community, Trans-Military Ban, Muslim Ban, promoting violence through his Twitter, ruining the mail system that many people rely on for basic needs, saying that there were "good people on both sides" in Charlottesville when Heather Hayer(a Bernie supporter) got run over by a car by Neo-Nazis, gaslighting anyone who disagrees with his views, among others.  It's not a political issue. I don't care if you support Republicans because you believe that "Socialism is a bad economic policy that would ruin our country" or something like that. I'm a Libertarian Socialist, but that's beside the point, vote for who you want. But when Trump systemically comes for my friends and attacks those I love and care about, I'm not going to stay silent. 



Finally, this also ties into my religious faith. Growing up as a Christian, I grew up with the teachings of Jesus Christ and i'm sick and tired of so called "Christians" using their beliefs to try to Justify voting Trump, because they want "A conservative maJority on the Supreme Court" or are "Pro-Choice", or "Mike Pence is a strong Evangelical." Trump is the biggest con artist this country has ever had, and I can't believe so many people I love and care about are falling for this. He doesn't care about Evangelicals. He doesn't have love in his heart, and Jesus would probably be out there with the protesters right now fighting for Change. I had to fight with whether I was still a Christian for many years after graduating High School, due to seeing how so called "Christians" and people I love have so much hate in their heart. I have Just recently reconciled with the fact that there are many other Christians Just like me who want to do what's right. Innocent people are dying from Covid due to our president. He's trying to divide us up in order to win, as that's all he has left. I've been called not a "true Christian" due to my views(which is literally a logical fallacy by the way), and i've gotten so much hate from people due to being Bisexual, a Libertarian Socialist, and a Christian who is mostly alienated from those I grew up with. But idc anymore. I'm not arguing to vote for Biden at all, I personally don't like either candidate. But please, don't vote Donald Trump. I don't know what else to say, but seeing constant hate and divisiveness has really being causing some awful depression lately, and I needed to share. 

I'm going back to bed, and then continue working on my Junior Year Psychology courses that I started Monday with UCF Online. I have known since 2017 I want to work in Mental Health, and we need/will need it more than ever. This post might have a lot of spelling and grammar errors, and normally I would spend time proofreading my post more. But it doesn't matter. Innocent people are dying every day, things like that are insignificant. Make sure you use your platform to do what you can to change the world. Silence is complicity. Black Lives Matter. LGBT lives matter. If you are also a Christian, please consider your actions and how they might be impacting those around you. Because for all you know they are absolutely heartbroken, and have reconsidered whether their morals are in line with the Christian faith. If I can share something as vulnerable as this publicly on Facebook(which could get me in huge trouble with my family), then you can put a little effort in to make some change. Register to vote by mail at vote.gov. Vote the day(or within a few days of) when it arrives, or early-vote/ drop it off to ensure it's counted. Finally, make sure to have these tough conversations with those you care about. Remember it's supposed to be uncomfortable, as creating change around you shouldn't be comfortable.  If you read all this, please stay safe, wear a mask, and consider how your actions affect those around you.


In solidarity,


Alex Morgan

[adeltaintegral]

Autoethnography vlog script

I think I should start with a personal story. This is autoethnography, right?

So my first exposure to communal living was in college. Upon arrival, I very quickly got involved with a collective house called Crafts house. Living there had a huge impact on me and I still return there from time to time doing recruiting work for the FEC. After I had lived there for a few years, I began to put words to a sensation that I was having when I entered the house. The sensation was that I was entering into a larger creature, and becoming it in some way.

I started dumpster diving and thinking about death and rebirth. I was studying philosophy of biology and Isaac Newton’s alchemy. I got really into Jungian psychology – even entered Jungian psychotherapy. I wondered about what magic and souls were, if anything at all. I learned about endosymbiosis and the word superorganism.

When I graduated, I tried to start a collective house similar to Crafts House. I made a video about an idea I had called the The Gleaner’s Kitchen, and I said I was starting a Dumpster Restaurant. The video went viral, and I was totally unprepared. I raised some money, put it all into a summers rent of an apartment + basement. We began moving in, and then were evicted within a week. The landlord had googled me, and found out I was planning on starting a dumpster restaurant in his basement. I neglected to tell him this information before signing the sublease. oops.

I was pretty devastated by the whole affair. My overconfidence had gotten me and my friends evicted, and I had no plan for what to do next. One upside of the whole thing was that I had gotten a publishing offer to write a dumpster cookbook, so I spent the summer working on that, in a cramped, hastily rented apartment, feeling anxious and self-pitiful. When September came, I decided I wanted to live in community somewhere else, so I scheduled a visitor period at Twin Oaks.

When I got there I had an anxiety attack, mostly due to shock but partially because I had a cookbook to write, and no time to do so in community. So I left, and finished the cookbook at my mothers house.

I just went back to read the introduction to the book now, and much of it made me cringe. But still I suggest you read it here, I’ve attached a PDF. It’s not long.

One thing that I’m particularly embarrassed by in that intro is how I insisted on using the word We when I was talking about how *I personally felt about Crafts House, or The Gleaners Kitchen. I spoke for the collective in ways I had no authority to – I still wanted very badly to feel fused to that community. There are a bunch of other clumsy parts of the text too, but I’m including it here because I see in it the beginnings autoethnographic documentation. It contains primitive versions of the themes that I’ve been asking questions about ever since.

Those questions lead me to study with Terry Deacon – I was trying to think about identity from an autopoietic perspective. Then they brought me to Binghamton, because David told me that I would be able to study intentional communities from an evolutionary perspective. As my relationship with the FEC has matured, it seems time to shift to asking these questions from an autoethnographic perspective.

I’m concerned with selfhood, and agency, and want to know how the kinds of things which some people call souls emerge from a world in which they were formerly not present. I want to know how those sorts of things persist over time, even as the systems in which they are instantiated in change radically.

I have unnecessarily speculative ideas about the patterns which relate genomes to policy documents, and the both of those to sacred texts. In my daily life I am practically concerned with how to build a functional institution. How do we make decisions? How do we relate to members and non members? How do we make money? How do we hold each other accountable? How do we heal after a conflict? How do we create a system which can outlive its members? I need real world answers to these questions in order to make a living. But behind it all I have a belief that the theoretical answers to my questions about the emergence of self will imply functional suggestions about the practical community building problems that I work on daily.

My current goal is to be able to describe how communities think. I want to be able to thickly describe semiotic patterns as they develop in a community. These patterns take many hours, or years, of thinking with the communities to be able to describe them properly. And an autoethnographic perspective is essential to observe them, because how can I better understand how a semiotic process is unfolding than by thinking it myself?

After going through several difficult experiences while living in the FEC, I’ve started to think that one effective way to trace the patterns of communal thinking is to explore conflict. Interpersonal conflict is a serious handicap for the communities movement. Communities fail frequently, for complex reasons, but one major factor is almost always interpersonal conflicts which escalate until they permanently damage the whole.

I’ve started to think about conflict from a semiotic perspective. If communities think, then conflict is Thought, Disturbed. Or, maybe another way to say it is that conflict represents an information disruption in the system; A pattern (or several) which needs to be shared by all parts of the network is blocked from being expressed in some nodes. The thinking task at hand is to make sure the thought patterns are replicated in all the nodes necessary for the community to remain healthy. How must these thoughts change and adapt to fit certain minds, and how must our minds adapt to fit the thoughts?

An important theme here is interpenetration, of the types that go by fancier than necessary names like autogenesis, symbopoeisis, endosymbiosis, and pratītyasamutpāda – names which recognize that in physical biological systems, self and other are blurred and put in tension with one another in strategic ways that emerge a whole.

This is of course the way that I would choose to describe it, and the way that I was thinking about it when I started dumpster diving when I was 19 and thinking about death and rebirth. I’m sure that few people I live with in community think about it this way. It might be a foolish way to think! But there are echoes elsewhere. Nearly all the FEC businesses are in food systems, and for good reason. Acorn runs an organic heirloom seed saving business. I think about the resonances with genomes frequently. I even made a video about it.  At East Brook, we often talk about our goals of living “symbopoetically with nature” (or some other jargon) through the framework of holistic management . More simply, I think a lot of people choose to live in community in order to live a life which is less separate from non-human ecologies.  

So I think the prompt you gave me was to think about what I’m doing in terms of intentional communities, autoethnography, and social ecology; To explore where the three intersect, and to explain why my method is required to meaningfully understand the overlap. And I think the answer to the prompt might sound like this:

If my goal is to understand something better about the emergence of selfhood, then a productive way to explore that could be to examine selfhood as it emerges and develops across multiple communal scales. I (and others at East Brook) view the creation of the community as a kind of birthing process (Sarah has used this metaphor several times). In this metaphor, as a higher order kind of agency emerges, the selves which constitute it are transformed. These transformations are particularly apparent in times of conflict, when the community is compelled to think extra carefully, and when collective thought becomes difficult. The result of this process, if it goes well, is a new type of symbiotic hybrid agency, consisting of all the different species of self which have evolved to live together, as well as new ones created in the exchange.

Damn, I really need to massage these ideas better so they sound less like woowoo hippy BS.  

What do you think?

[loveliesloveme]

The Changes in iOS 12 for Developers

It's here, iOS 12 - Apple's latest operating system, and it's full of changes in all areas, from user experience to programming. In addition to the new operating system, Apple has also introduced a new cycle of hardware, in particular with larger screens, a faster A12 chip and the new Apple Watch Series 4. We have all seen the introduction of the keynote and the specifications piloted correctly on the sheets? But what does all this mean for

Best Mobile developers

? ARKit 2 First of all, now you can create multiplayer games in AR. This is a huge step forward, leading to all kinds of gaming scenarios, including archiving world map data structures to be shared across multiple games. ARKit 2 also adds object recognition, which in a sense gives you AR "without markers" in a sense. For example, suppose you are in an airport and want to get information about the plane you are looking at. Point the phone at "this" level and the object detection rules can show the details. Or an even simpler example would be the recognition of different types of flowers or trees. If you go further, you can also scan objects in the real world and integrate them into your AR experience. As I suspected, the faster the iOS device, the faster the object is scanned. However, this little nugget has far-reaching capabilities that we can not fully imagine. abbreviations Siri Now you can define shortcuts that Siri can use through donations that your code provides to Siri. Allow what actions are available to the user as shortcuts and purple! Now users can open your app, review some data, perform actions and continue - all without opening your app! Wait, is not it a bad thing for the developers? What about showing my ads or is the user going to interact with my screens so he can continue to be involved? Welcome to the world of "Well spent time", my friends - a methodology that aims to reduce the time that people spend on electronic devices. In the new world of trying to convince people to stop using their cell phones and waste time repeating the same things again and again, Apple is loading the Siri shortcuts and the usual Buzz Feed app Evernote and Payal already. In fact, today we count over 200 apps with enabled Siri shortcuts. Since users have a habit of not touching their mobile phones to perform common tasks, they may also consider enabling keyboard shortcuts in the app or being beaten by competitors who have already done so. medical records If you have a health app, this is a big problem. Users can now share clinical history with their app by providing developers with read-only access to so-called FHIRs (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources) from the same HealthKit store. The data stored in FHIR are regularly updated by Apple. So if you have an app to lose weight and you want to incorporate someone's real medical history into your app's algorithm to help them lose weight, you can do it. Naturally, an absolutely strict privacy policy is required. effects This applies to the iOS stickers packages displayed when using iMessage in Messaging. If a pack of stickers is already installed in your app, users will not see it in the iMessage and Facetime Effects section. The interesting part is that users can now attach their stickers in real time, so the door opens up a little to clean the face with small animations of any kind. Interactive controls in notifications The notifications in total have received an important update. Grouping user notifications now means that only a single message from your app will appear on a card-like stack (the most recent first). This is useful, but also emphasizes the importance of having your messages important to the user. Now you can also make interactive notifications so that the user can touch the message. Instead of getting details about your app, they will see the details directly in the message. authentication services Now you can share authentication profiles between Safari and apps. Suppose you have a website blocked behind an access and a mobile app that accesses the same data: now you can allow the app to use any saved access previously used on the Web access your app or vice versa. CarPlay for navigation apps Do you have an application with GPS or some other form of navigation in the game? With iOS 12, developers can now view specific parts of this app in CarPlay-enabled car audio systems. This is enabled only for browsing-based apps. network framework There is a new network structure designed to replace sockets and provide developers with direct access to protocols such as TCP, TLS and UDP. The new framework offers advantages over the current native socket processing, as the clean state and wait state are more powerful. Another goal is the duration of connections in different network environments and switching between them (WLAN-> mobile). Natural language The Natural Language framework enables natural language processing on the device and supports speech recognition, tokenization and tagging. Tokenization divides the text into single words, sentences or paragraphs. The marking identifies parts of the language, people, places and organizations. The Natural Language framework can also use custom ML core models to classify and tag text in specific contexts. The NSLinguisticTagger class is still available. However, the Natural Language Framework is the preferred mechanism for processing natural language. depreciation With the old and the new in progress, iOS 12 requires the end of some classic calls that you could use. Here's what Apple refuses (we do not recommend using it and will eventually kill it). OpenGL ES (together with OpenCL) will be replaced by Metal. For now you can still use OpenGL ES on iOS 12. There are many games and platforms that use OpenGL, so this is a bit of a shock. But to know that Metal is linked to Apple and xCode is evident for the development on the iPhone. Metal has some advantages, but I think Open GL will be supported in the coming years. On both sides of this barrier there are fierce arguments from the developers. The push for subscriptions purchases in your apps Last year, Apple held a secret meeting with a select group of iOS app developers in New York to discuss the modification of the current app provisioning model from single purchases to subscriptions. From Apple's point of view, these one-time purchases are generally inexpensive ($ 1-2), but offer end users unlimited access to the app and support. This can be expensive from a service as well as from the research and development perspective. Apple's expectation was that developers were moving towards a different way of thinking about long-term customer engagement and recurring revenue, which is easier said than done. Today there are few successful subscription apps in the Apple Store. To change this reality, it is necessary to modify the development, distribution and maintenance of the app. As users commit to subscribe on a monthly or annual basis, they have clear expectations in terms of service, support, quality and value. Apple has always encouraged app developers to switch to a subscription model. The reasons are obvious: who does not want to make money while he sleeps? But keep this in mind. Not all apps are eligible for subscriptions.

[assethunter537]

Microsoft Office For Mac 2011 Download Online

Office 2011 For Mac Download

Microsoft Office 2011 Download Free

Microsoft Office Free Download Mac

Microsoft Office Mac 2011 Download

Our software library provides a free download of Microsoft Office 2011 14.7.7 for Mac. This Mac download was checked by our built-in antivirus and was rated as malware free. The latest installation package takes up 113.6 MB on disk. Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac lies within Productivity Tools, more precisely Office Tools. Download the installation file by clicking on the link below, save it to your computer. After download finishes, locate the file Office-Mac2011.dmg and double click on the file. The file will extract and launch the installer automatically. Get Free Microsoft Office Mac 2011 is somewhat limited as compared to Microsoft Office 2010 on the Windows platform. So, there is no support for right-to-left languages, like Hebrew and Arabic, or no support for.ODF file format. Download free Microsoft Office 2011 for macOS - Mac Informer Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac The first variant of Mac OS X.

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Since its initial release nearly 30 years ago, Microsoft Office has become one of the world’s most popular productivity suites. With programs like Word and Excel for Mac, it’s no wonder that the MS Office suite is a must-download on any computer.

Microsoft Office for Mac 2019 includes the most modern versions of Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook, and OneNote. These apps are all available for download at the Mac App Store. Alternatively, with Office 365 for Mac, you can work online or offline and collaborate with others in real time, which is especially useful for any kind of team work.

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If you’ve been asking yourself questions like “what is Office 365 for Mac” and “how much is Microsoft Office?” — the guide below will help dispel your confusion. Besides, do you know how you can download Microsoft Office?

How To Download And Install MS Office For Mac

As mentioned above, Microsoft Office suite and all of its apps — Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook, OneNote, and OneDrive — are now available at the Mac App Store. This makes it easier than ever to get the most current versions of MS Office for Mac (note that you’ll need an Office 365 subscription to use these apps). There is also a Microsoft Office trial available that allows you to use Office 365 free for one month.

To buy Microsoft Office outright, visit office.com. At the Office home page, select Install Office. Then follow the instructions for the installer file that has been downloaded to your computer.

System requirements to download Microsoft Office

Before downloading Office for Mac, make sure you have the fitting system requirements that allow for the best experience with Microsoft apps. For example, Microsoft Office suite always supports the latest three versions of macOS. Currently, it’s 10.14, 10.13, and 10.12.

As new versions of macOS are released, Microsoft shifts its support to the newest ones. While your Office apps might still work on older unsupported versions of macOS, you won’t be able to get security or feature updates.

To run Microsoft Office at the moment, you’ll need macOS 10.12 (Sierra), 4 GB RAM and 10 GB of available disk space.

The difference between Office 2019 and Office 365 for Mac

You can still buy Microsoft Office without getting into a subscription. The downside is not getting continuous feature updates, which will in turn be bundled altogether in the following year’s release.

Office 365, on the other hand, is based purely on a subscription model and powered by Microsoft’s cloud service. It frequently receives updates and provides full access to the whole suite of services.

How much is Microsoft Office?

As MS Office for Mac is available in two versions — a one-time payment and subscription — there are two prices. If you want to buy a license for Office Home and Student 2019 for Mac, which includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote, it will cost you $149.99. If you’d like to use Microsoft Office Outlook, you’ll need to purchase the Office Home and Business 2019 for Mac at $249.99.

For the subscription model, Microsoft Office 365 for Mac, you pay a month-by-month or yearly fee. Download qt creator for mac. And as new versions are introduced, you automatically get them as part of your subscription. Office 365 for Home costs $99.99 a year or $9.99 a month.

What about MS Office vs. iWork

Apple’s free iWork has a great price advantage over the MS Office suite, but is it better than all the Microsoft’s popular productivity apps?

iWork includes Keynote, Pages, and Numbers, but is generally best suited for smaller businesses or home use. Additionally, if you already use Microsoft Office extensively at home or work, being able to switch between Macs and PCs gives Microsoft Office Suite a big plus.

Microsoft Office is known for having a slight edge for ease-of-use and is packed with more features. The latest version of the suite also looks brand new compared to iWork’s currently outdated version. As Microsoft Office continues to learn the macOS, it continues to grow.

MS Office Touch Bar features

Trackpad and Touch Bar, unique to MacBooks, have made great new features available on Office for Mac.

In Microsoft Word for Mac, you can use the Touch Bar to insert hyperlinks, comments, or photos right in the text editor. It’s especially great when you’re working in Word Focus Mode without access to the controls on the screen.

Outlook 2008 for mac download. In Excel for Mac, using the equal sign on your keyboard will launch most recently used commands on the Touch Bar. Then you can select a range of commands or perform specific actions.

In Microsoft Office Outlook, Touch Bar makes recent files appear when you’re composing an email. From here, you can attach relevant files with a single tap. In Outlook’s Today view, you can use the Touch Bar to get a quick look at your daily calendar events or launch a Skype call.

During slideshow presentations in Powerpoint, you can use the Touch Bar to view specific controls. The function integrates slide thumbnails and includes a timer to make moving through your presentation on time a snap.

Great Substitutes For MS Project, Visio, And Publisher

If you’ve used MS Office tools on Windows before, you may have noticed that some of them aren’t available on Mac, specifically Microsoft Project, Visio, and Publisher.

Office 2011 For Mac Download

The good news is you can easily substitute lacking MS Office apps with Setapp.

Take care of your publishing needs

With Microsoft Publisher for Mac currently unavailable, you need an app that is easy to use but, at the same time, delivers professional results when you’re looking to put together greeting cards or self-publish a magazine. Enter Swift Publisher.

Swift Publisher has a robust set of design tools that allow you to apply gradients, draw freehand shapes, and control different aspects of your design layout at once. The app also features an extensive graphic library with over 2,000 pieces of clip art and 100 image masks.

Make publishing easy with Swift Publisher’s support for exports to a variety of digital formats, including social media. You’ll find that quickly Microsoft Publisher for Mac will become a thing of the past.

The best alternative to Microsoft Visio

With the need to create flowcharts, diagrams, and organizational tables for your projects, you may miss Microsoft Visio. Fear not. You can easily brainstorm and create long-term plans with iThoughtsX instead. Even better, you’ll never lose important information with its built-in cloud integration.

iThoughtsX lets you visualize an idea, track to-dos along with deadlines, and check on the team's progress. You don’t have to interrupt your workflow at all, as this app supports multiple file formats that can store your ideas in .rtf, .txt, Microsoft Word (.docx), .csv, MindGenius (.mgmx), MindNode (.mindnode), .opml, and more.

Plan projects with Merlin Project Express

Merlin Project Express will help you plan both home and professional projects. It’s a great solution for managing budgets and resources available for any endeavour.

Just like Microsoft Project for Mac, Merlin Project Express lets you create tasks, manage dependencies, and track progress with ease. You can also come up with project templates to streamline your workflow, set daily goals, and visualize the timeline. Consolidate all information in one place with project info at hand by attaching emails, images, costs, and notes.

Microsoft Office 2011 Download Free

Best of all, three substitute apps: Swift Publisher, iThoughtsX, and Merlin Project Express are available on Setapp, a platform of more than 150 Mac apps and utilities that you can use at home and work to improve all aspects of interacting with your Mac. Get yourself a perfect complement to your Microsoft Office suite purchase and try Setapp free for seven days. Working smart doesn’t have to feel like a trade-off.

Setapp lives on Mac and iOS. Please come back from another device.

Meantime, prepare for all the awesome things you can do with Setapp.

Read on

Microsoft Office Free Download Mac

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Microsoft Office Mac 2011 Download

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Microsoft Office 2010 For Macbook Air Free Download

Can you get Microsoft Office for free on Mac? We look at the options. New MacBook Air. It's not just Word that's free, as you can also download Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote too, with the. Microsoft Office for Mac 2019 includes the most modern versions of Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook, and OneNote. These apps are all available for download at the Mac App Store. Alternatively, with Office 365 for Mac, you can work online or offline and collaborate with others in real time, which is especially useful for any kind of team work. Microsoft Office 2010 is now available as a free download on microsoft.com/office. Alternatively, you may use this link to access the directly installer of Office 2010 Professional edition - the link may require you to. Update Office from the Mac App Store. If you downloaded Office from the Mac App Store, and have automatic updates turned on, your apps will update automatically. But you can also manually download the updates: Open the Mac App Store from your Dock or Finder. Unlock the full Microsoft Office experience with a qualifying Office 365 subscription for your phone, tablet, PC, and Mac. Office 365 annual subscriptions purchased from the app will be charged to your App Store account and will automatically renew within 24 hours prior to the end of the current subscription period unless auto-renewal is.

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Since its initial release nearly 30 years ago, Microsoft Office has become one of the world’s most popular productivity suites. With programs like Word and Excel for Mac, it’s no wonder that the MS Office suite is a must-download on any computer.

Microsoft Office for Mac 2019 includes the most modern versions of Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook, and OneNote. These apps are all available for download at the Mac App Store. Alternatively, with Office 365 for Mac, you can work online or offline and collaborate with others in real time, which is especially useful for any kind of team work.

Get a perfect alternative for MS tools on Mac

Try Setapp, an all-in-one toolkit that covers apps substituting Microsoft’s Visio, Project, and Publisher. All in a single spot on your Mac.

If you’ve been asking yourself questions like “what is Office 365 for Mac” and “how much is Microsoft Office?” — the guide below will help dispel your confusion. Besides, do you know how you can download Microsoft Office?

How To Download And Install MS Office For Mac

As mentioned above, Microsoft Office suite and all of its apps — Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook, OneNote, and OneDrive — are now available at the Mac App Store. This makes it easier than ever to get the most current versions of MS Office for Mac (note that you’ll need an Office 365 subscription to use these apps). There is also a Microsoft Office trial available that allows you to use Office 365 free for one month.

To buy Microsoft Office outright, visit office.com. At the Office home page, select Install Office. Then follow the instructions for the installer file that has been downloaded to your computer.

System requirements to download Microsoft Office

Before downloading Office for Mac, make sure you have the fitting system requirements that allow for the best experience with Microsoft apps. For example, Microsoft Office suite always supports the latest three versions of macOS. Currently, it’s 10.14, 10.13, and 10.12.

As new versions of macOS are released, Microsoft shifts its support to the newest ones. While your Office apps might still work on older unsupported versions of macOS, you won’t be able to get security or feature updates.

To run Microsoft Office at the moment, you’ll need macOS 10.12 (Sierra), 4 GB RAM and 10 GB of available disk space.

The difference between Office 2019 and Office 365 for Mac

You can still buy Microsoft Office without getting into a subscription. The downside is not getting continuous feature updates, which will in turn be bundled altogether in the following year’s release.

Office 365, on the other hand, is based purely on a subscription model and powered by Microsoft’s cloud service. It frequently receives updates and provides full access to the whole suite of services.

How much is Microsoft Office?

As MS Office for Mac is available in two versions — a one-time payment and subscription — there are two prices. If you want to buy a license for Office Home and Student 2019 for Mac, which includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote, it will cost you $149.99. If you’d like to use Microsoft Office Outlook, you’ll need to purchase the Office Home and Business 2019 for Mac at $249.99.

For the subscription model, Microsoft Office 365 for Mac, you pay a month-by-month or yearly fee. And as new versions are introduced, you automatically get them as part of your subscription. Office 365 for Home costs $99.99 a year or $9.99 a month.

What about MS Office vs. iWork

Apple’s free iWork has a great price advantage over the MS Office suite, but is it better than all the Microsoft’s popular productivity apps?

iWork includes Keynote, Pages, and Numbers, but is generally best suited for smaller businesses or home use. Additionally, if you already use Microsoft Office extensively at home or work, being able to switch between Macs and PCs gives Microsoft Office Suite a big plus.

Microsoft Office is known for having a slight edge for ease-of-use and is packed with more features. The latest version of the suite also looks brand new compared to iWork’s currently outdated version. As Microsoft Office continues to learn the macOS, it continues to grow.

MS Office Touch Bar features

Trackpad and Touch Bar, unique to MacBooks, have made great new features available on Office for Mac.

In Microsoft Word for Mac, you can use the Touch Bar to insert hyperlinks, comments, or photos right in the text editor. It’s especially great when you’re working in Word Focus Mode without access to the controls on the screen.

In Excel for Mac, using the equal sign on your keyboard will launch most recently used commands on the Touch Bar. Then you can select a range of commands or perform specific actions.

In Microsoft Office Outlook, Touch Bar makes recent files appear when you’re composing an email. From here, you can attach relevant files with a single tap. In Outlook’s Today view, you can use the Touch Bar to get a quick look at your daily calendar events or launch a Skype call.

During slideshow presentations in Powerpoint, you can use the Touch Bar to view specific controls. The function integrates slide thumbnails and includes a timer to make moving through your presentation on time a snap.

Great Substitutes For MS Project, Visio, And Publisher

If you’ve used MS Office tools on Windows before, you may have noticed that some of them aren’t available on Mac, specifically Microsoft Project, Visio, and Publisher.

The good news is you can easily substitute lacking MS Office apps with Setapp.

Take care of your publishing needs

With Microsoft Publisher for Mac currently unavailable, you need an app that is easy to use but, at the same time, delivers professional results when you’re looking to put together greeting cards or self-publish a magazine. Enter Swift Publisher.

Swift Publisher has a robust set of design tools that allow you to apply gradients, draw freehand shapes, and control different aspects of your design layout at once. The app also features an extensive graphic library with over 2,000 pieces of clip art and 100 image masks.

Microsoft Office For Macbook Pro

Make publishing easy with Swift Publisher’s support for exports to a variety of digital formats, including social media. You’ll find that quickly Microsoft Publisher for Mac will become a thing of the past.

The best alternative to Microsoft Visio

With the need to create flowcharts, diagrams, and organizational tables for your projects, you may miss Microsoft Visio. Fear not. You can easily brainstorm and create long-term plans with iThoughtsX instead. Even better, you’ll never lose important information with its built-in cloud integration.

iThoughtsX lets you visualize an idea, track to-dos along with deadlines, and check on the team's progress. You don’t have to interrupt your workflow at all, as this app supports multiple file formats that can store your ideas in .rtf, .txt, Microsoft Word (.docx), .csv, MindGenius (.mgmx), MindNode (.mindnode), .opml, and more.

Plan projects with Merlin Project Express

Merlin Project Express will help you plan both home and professional projects. It’s a great solution for managing budgets and resources available for any endeavour.

Just like Microsoft Project for Mac, Merlin Project Express lets you create tasks, manage dependencies, and track progress with ease. You can also come up with project templates to streamline your workflow, set daily goals, and visualize the timeline. Consolidate all information in one place with project info at hand by attaching emails, images, costs, and notes.

Best of all, three substitute apps: Swift Publisher, iThoughtsX, and Merlin Project Express are available on Setapp, a platform of more than 150 Mac apps and utilities that you can use at home and work to improve all aspects of interacting with your Mac. Get yourself a perfect complement to your Microsoft Office suite purchase and try Setapp free for seven days. Working smart doesn’t have to feel like a trade-off.

Setapp lives on Mac and iOS. Please come back from another device.

Meantime, prepare for all the awesome things you can do with Setapp.

Read on

Sign Up

Setapp uses cookies to personalize your experience on our website. By continuing to use this site, you agree to our cookie policy.

Microsoft’s newest version of the extremely popular Microsoft Office software suite is now available for as free beta download! Though the software is still in beta phase, it’s fully functional and offers an inside look into the next generation of Microsoft Office. You can grab a beta copy of the Microsoft Office Professional Plus edition at this link or by clicking the picture below! The download comes with a free license key which remains valid through October 2010, meaning you’ll plan of time to mess around the software.

Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 provides the complete suite of programs including:

Microsoft Word 2010

Microsoft Excel 2010

Microsoft Outlook 2010 with Business Contact Manager

Microsoft PowerPoint 2010

Microsoft OneNote 2010

Microsoft Access 2010

Microsoft SharePoint Workspace 2010

Microsoft InfoPath 2010

Microsoft Publisher 2010

Microsoft Office Web Apps

Microsoft Communicator

Microsoft Excel 2010

Microsoft Outlook 2010 with Business Contact Manager

Microsoft Office For Macbook Air

Microsoft OneNote 2010

Microsoft SharePoint Workspace 2010

Microsoft Publisher 2010

Microsoft Office 2010 For Macbook Air Free Download 64-bit

Microsoft Communicato

This is a great opportunity to see if the new upgrade is something that’s right for you! If you already have a copy of Office on your notebook, you should be able to install the new version and have it run side by side. You’ll be able to get answers to most of your installation questions at Microsoft’s FAQ page. If you’d like to take a peek at the new interface before installing the software, Digital Inspiration has a nice write-up about Office 2010 with plenty of screenshots!

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