#most functional administration!!!!!

[readingloveswounds]

THE NIGHTMARE IS OVER

explanation:

i completed my concentration in 2023, prior to my prospectus defense

i thought everything was cool and fine

after the Great MPhil Debacle, I checked my grad status for the PhD and noticed my concentration wasn't listed

applying to grad opens

i want to get my concentration listed before i apply

i ask the concentration coordinator, she says the department handles this

i ask the dept assistant in mid november 2024, she says she'll email people

no response

further emails in january and february. i loop the DGS in. nothing from the registrar

i apply for graduation because i need to graduate

some updates, most of them being no information (feb-may)

the day before all university commencement (mid may), the (current) concentration coordinator emails me asking if i've heard anything. i tell him that i know nothing and everything i've done. he says he's working on it with registrar, graduation services, the grad school

prior to leaving on vacation (late may), i notice that my grad status is now 'needs action' - i email my dept assistant about this, assuming it's about the concentration

she confirms this, says she'll look into it. i am on vacation.

she says she thinks she's found the issue asks me when i started it, i ask if i should've filled out forms (undergrads have to). i am on vacation and panicked. (early june)

she gets back to me, says no, i'm all good, she's fixed it, i'm approved for grad + she had to do some extra things (?????) and that my concentration status was some weird thing that doesn't exist and that's partially why there was an issue. i am on vacation and somewhat less panicked. (mid june)

i check my grad status today: degree awarded. i am no longer panicked. i now get to worry about my diploma getting mailed correctly, but at least there's a record of my status

now, admittedly, I should have checked about the concentration process more than I did and certainly earlier, but I thought everything was recorded and chill. HOWEVER, the fact that fucking NO ONE at the registar's office could go 'xyz is missing/weird' and NO ONE got back to even my DGS about this is INSANE.

but hey, now i can put a med-ren concentration on my CV

[not-poignant]

Will there be a third book in Perth Shifters? I loved Braden’s and Aodhen’s stories.

Of all the kind of commercial-facing writing projects I've done, Perth Shifters did the worst, which is a shame, because Perth Shifters was meant to be the big money-spinner, which is why I broke with so many ways I prefer to write (more angst, longer stories, more character studies, etc.) to fit in with more conventional formulas to do so.

I enjoyed the experience very much! And I love the characters! If I ever tackle Hunter's book, it will probably be in serial format and a much longer story. I have learned that actually sticking to what I do best makes more sense in terms of both joy for the thing, and also income.

Perth Shifters was my first foray into hybrid publishing and it taught me an extremely valuable lesson. When I go back into hybrid publishing again, it will be with things I have already made work for me as serials, so whether they perform well as published novels or not just won't matter as much (and will be a bonus, so not as much is resting on its shoulders lol).

But for that reason, I can't justify putting the time aside to write a third Perth Shifters book. Still haven't ruled out revisiting the world one day though!

[crushpdf]

Make the most of the next two months

Get all your vaccines

Travel while we have a functioning DOT

Read and buy books on feminism, anti-racism, pro-lgbt

Attend drag shows

Don't skip any of your classes

Read and buy history books

Find your out-of-state networks

Learn to carry cash

Get birth control solutions

Support the Biden/Harris administration

Postpone large purchases and save money

Be careful of what you say online, like un-ambiguous attacks against the incoming administration, especially in spaces that contain your full name or personal information

Feel free to add on.

[sniperct]

NOAA “should be dismantled and many of its functions eliminated, sent to other agencies, privatized, or placed under the control of states and territories,” Project 2025 reads. The proposals roughly amount to two main avenues of attack. First, it suggests that the NWS should eliminate its public-facing forecasts, focus on data gathering, and otherwise “fully commercialize its forecasting operations,” which the authors of the plan imply will improve, not limit, forecasts for all Americans. Then, NOAA’s scientific-research arm, which studies things such as Arctic-ice dynamics and how greenhouse gases behave (and which the document calls “the source of much of NOAA’s climate alarmism”), should be aggressively shrunk. “The preponderance of its climate-change research should be disbanded,” the document says. It further notes that scientific agencies such as NOAA are “vulnerable to obstructionism of an Administration’s aims,” so appointees should be screened to ensure that their views are “wholly in sync” with the president’s.

Climate change is the single most important issue in the entirety of human history. One party wants to fight it. The other party wants to let the earth burn; in fact, they want to accelerate the fire.

[luulapants]

Some of you are falling hard for the Trump/Musk anti-federal worker propaganda. I think part of the problem is that a lot of people genuinely don't know how the federal government works, so here's an overview on the intended and current state of the so-called fourth branch of government, the federal bureaucracy:

Executive agencies are considered to be within the executive branch, officially, but can only be created, disbanded, funded, and have new leadership appointed through congressional approval. Well, in theory that is.

The majority of staff in federal agencies are called "career staff" who are nonpolitical civil servants who do every kind of work you can imagine, from IT to accounting to scientific field work to livestock inspections to nursing at VA hospitals. They do not, typically, change from one administration to the next, which is essential to ensure the government is able to continue functioning without interruption. These individuals of course can and do hold their own political opinions, but there are stringent rules on how, when, and where they can express them. It is arguably the most racially diverse workforce in the country. Many are veterans, and many are disabled.

Each agency is headed by a political office appointed by the president and confirmed by Congress. This includes a Secretary or Administrator and all of their hand-picked office staff, who are called "politicals." However, even before Congress confirms the president's nominee, the president can appoint an interim leader with no approval, who has essentially all the same powers but can't hold the position for very long. In short, even in those offices where a leader has not been confirmed by Congress, they are being led by Trump appointees.

When Trump makes an Executive Order, those orders are immediately dispensed through the executive agencies, who must abide by the letter of the order. I saw someone say NPS was "complying in advance" by taking the T off LGBT, but these changes were made across all agencies in direct response to Trump's "Defending Women" order. Any career who did not follow this order would have immediately been fired with cause, no unemployment eligibility, and in the current environment we also know their position would be permanently dissolved.

This is what we're dealing with right now. Trump (and his puppet master Musk) do not have the authority to dissolve government agencies, but they are trying to gut them, harassing careers and making the public turn against them, conducting illegal firings, threatening them into resigning. When people leave, their positions will disappear. Their intent is to diminish the staff until the agencies are non-functional. That's why careers are picking their battles. We're holding on by our fingernails to keep federal agencies alive and functioning. We're in the midst of a hostile takeover, a literal coup of the US government.

Yes, it's awful the T was removed on the website. We don't want this. But I promise that is small potatoes compared to the other battles being fought. I have trans coworkers being forced back to the office and they don't know what bathroom they can use. Our personal information is being leaked to hate groups. Careers are getting threats and spam to their work and personal emails. Most of us expect to be illegally fired. Soon. Last week was the largest layoff in American history, and it's just the beginning.

Please support federal workers. We are under attack.

[contemplatingoutlander]

“'We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected,' Russell Vought [co-author of Project 2025], who has been tapped by Mr. Trump to lead the Office of Management and Budget, has said. 'When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains.'”

If we want federal civil servants not to just abandon their jobs under the pressure of a hostile Trump administration, they will need support from the public. In this essay by Stacey Young, a lawyer in the DOJ civil rights division, explains the help that is needed. This is a gift 🎁 link, so there is no paywall. Below are some excerpts.

Federal employees like me have been hearing a lot in recent weeks about how important it is for us to stay in our jobs, despite President-elect Donald Trump’s open animosity toward much of the federal work force. We’ve been told by friends, relatives and good-government advocates that a well-functioning government — and the survival of our democracy — depends on it. We know. We understand what will happen if Mr. Trump fills the civil service with unqualified, inexperienced people selected for their political loyalty. But to stay in our jobs, we will need more than exhortation; we will need legal, psychological and other practical support. One reason many federal employees are thinking of leaving government — often after decades of serving our country, under Republican and Democratic presidents — is that we’re afraid. The incoming leaders of the government have told us in aggressive terms that they want us either gone or miserable.  [...]

What sorts of practical support would help? For one thing, lawyers and mental health providers could offer pro bono or significantly discounted services to federal employees.... Data-removal companies that specialize in taking down personal information online could offer free or discounted plans to federal employees who are being harassed or at risk of harassment. Friends and family members of federal employees with young children or other caregiving responsibilities could offer to pitch in. (Without their help, employees who are stripped of their ability to do some remote work or forced to adhere to overly rigid work schedules may have no choice but to leave their jobs.) Concerned citizens could urge their elected representatives to promote legislation that protects civil servants and oppose draconian bills that would harm them. Those with money to spare could donate to organizations that work to protect public servants. And if you value the civil service, don’t just tell us; tell your friends, neighbors, co-workers and family members too — especially whenever the pernicious “deep state” narrative rears its ugly head.

[dcxdpdabbles]

DCxDP fanfic Idea: Silver Tounge Snake

Damian has a brother, except said brother wasn't trained for combat operations. He was trained in the administration positions needed to keep the empire Ra's built functioning.

In essence, Damian was trained to rule, and Daniel was taught to manage the estate. This does not mean Daniel can't fight because Ra would never have a regular civilian lurking around; he just wasn't physically trained as harshly.

While Damian was climbing a mountain with a broken arm at five years old, Daniel was handed account logs of failing businesses that he needed to get out of the red or else at the same age. While Damian was slashing opponents, Daniel was told to sniff out the planted traitors in the staff.

While Damian was grinding his teeth against the senses-deprivation training, Daniel was bearing his teeth in a smile as he convinced local rulers to sign over their properties to Ra without bloodshed.

Daniel was raised in this role not because he was born five minutes after his brother or because he didn't show combat talent. On the night of the twin's first birthday, Ra had a well-known magic user do a soul test on the children.

He had all of his descendants participate in said test, and they rarely came out with traits that made them possible heirs. Talia, along with her sister Nyssa, was one of the few among his children who resulted in the green glow.

Many of his children were white glows—talented in the mind rather than in the body like Daniel. Once Ra saw the white aura around Daniel, he had tutors set up for estate management. One step above servant of the family.

He was just about to doom Damian to the same fate, effectively cutting them from the line of succession until the eldest started glowing green.

His green was much more vibrant than Talia's, as she was just the lowest shade of green, right above white, which was why he had not made it clear who the inheritance would go to. Nyssa had also been a light shade, balanced with Talia's.

But Damian? His was a bright emerald, the shade of green he hadn't seen in almost seven hundred years. Ra knew the boy would be grand when he aged.

Then, one day, his daughter ran off with his heir. Taking the boy to his father prematurely because she had discovered that Ra would use his body to preserve his immortality. She had left behind Daniel, viewing her youngest the same way all green souls kin viewed white soul kin.

Damian was raised knowing that he would one day inherit everything Ra had to offer as the Heir Apparent, and Daniel was to be his most trusted right-hand man. He was meant to be a helpful tool Damian could wield.

Daniel, however, did outshine the rest of white souls. He was a master manipulator, a snake hiding in the grass, able to convince anyone of anything. He never saw a line too immoral to cross if it was beneficial for the Ghul ruling family. He even convinced Ra's to ease off many punishments for Damian with a few soft spoken words and gentle movements.

Ra's could admit that Daniel was terror in an entirely different way than his brother. His loyalty, however, was never in doubt.

In her mind, he was a servant and not worth the risk of getting him to the Detective. Ra saw no reason why he couldn't use that against her.

He had his men whip the boy's memories, set him up in an American home with a couple that owed him a favor for using his Lazarus Pit to study the undead, and sat back. Daniel would live as Danny Fenton, thinking he had been a member of that family since birth, unaware of the sleeper agent he was.

Ra faked his death, amused by the Detective's wails upon finding the trails, and waited until Damian grew soft enough from his father's foolish sentiments to throw his dead brother's fate back into his face. He allowed Daniel to be Danny Fenton for four whole years before activating the boy to kill Damian.

The last thing the runaway heir would ever see was the smile of his silver tongue brother, whom he left for dead. The twin with a sharp mind that even Timothy Drake could not predict. The one that Bruce Wayne would hesitate to kill, unlike the clones he attempted to send before.

He did not account for Daniel developing a second personality known as Phantom. He took all the sleeper agent training and somehow twisted the boy's ghostly part into thinking he was Damian's dead brother.

It was a glorious plan meant to shatter their minds as much as their bones.

Before he could activate Daniel to complete his four year old mission, the fool wandered into an experimental protal. It did not kill him, but it made some.....side effects.

Ra's waited a week to see if anything would come of Daniel's accident, but when no evidence indicated any change, he had his ninjas active, the sleeper agent.

That he had actually died that day.

Phantom did not know he lived in Fenton. Fenton was unaware that his "fainting" spills were his body, giving control to the assassin's support stored away in his mind.

Worst Phantom seemed utterly convinced that since Damian was running around as Robin, a hero of the innocent, he should too. He set out to protect the silly American town Ra's had planted him in, and then, he began managing the damn thing.

He caused the unemployment rate to drop in Amity Park, worked on getting the neighbor's company up, sweet-talked the local landlords to lower rates, and got the Americans to take their education seriously enough that every graduating student of his high school received at least two scholarships. He covered the property damages his battles caused by convincing the people they were responsible.

Ra's had trained that silver tongue had sharpened that devilish mind, and it was being wasted on the Detective's sensibilities. At least Phantom had convinced the entire town to be ecto-mindful.

It nearly made up for the ghost finding his way to Gotham. Fenton and his class won some kind of competition hosted by the Detective for all high schools in the nation. It was some idiotic science experiment, but once Phantom was there, the ghost fell into his support role of Robin like a duck did to water.

Wayne Enterprises' stock value skyrocketed when Phantom pretended to work for them, turning his silver tongue on the belly of Gotham and carefully breaking every crime origination with a smile. Fenton himself grew the eye of the Detective for being the leading mind of the experiment, and Ra knew it was only a matter of time before his son-in-law pieced it all together.

The boy would forever be out of his reach, and he only had himself to blame. He should have killed the white soul kin years ago.

[reasonsforhope]

Article | Paywall-Free

"The Environmental Protection Agency finalized a rule Tuesday [October 8, 2024] requiring water utilities to replace all lead pipes within a decade, a move aimed at eliminating a toxic threat that continues to affect tens of thousands of American children each year.

The move, which also tightens the amount of lead allowed in the nation’s drinking water, comes nearly 40 years after Congress determined that lead pipes posed a serious risk to public health and banned them in new construction.

Research has shown that lead, a toxic contaminant that seeps from pipes into the drinking water supply, can cause irreversible developmental delays, difficulty learning and behavioral problems among children. In adults, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, lead exposure can cause increased blood pressure, heart disease, decreased kidney function and cancer.

But replacing the lead pipes that deliver water to millions of U.S. homes will cost tens of billions of dollars, and the push to eradicate them only gathered momentum after a water crisis in Flint, Mich., a decade ago exposed the extent to which children remain vulnerable to lead poisoning through tap water...

The groundbreaking regulation, called the Lead and Copper Rule Improvements, will establish a national inventory of lead service lines and require that utilities take more aggressive action to remove lead pipes on homeowners’ private property. It also lowers the level of lead contamination that will trigger government enforcement from 15 parts per billion (ppb) to 10 ppb.

The rule also establishes the first-ever national requirement to test for lead in schools that rely on water from public utilities. It mandates thatwater systems screen all elementary and child-care facilities, where those who are the most vulnerable to lead’s effects — young children — are enrolled, and that they offer testing to middle and high schools.

The White House estimates that more than 9 million homes across the country are still supplied by lead pipelines, which are the leading source of lead contamination through drinking water. The EPA has projected that replacing all of them could cost at least $45 billion.

Lead pipes were initially installed in cities decades ago because they were cheaper and more malleable, but the heavy metal can wear down and corrode over time. President Joe Biden has made replacing them one of his top environmental priorities, securing $15 billion to give states over five years through the bipartisan infrastructure law and vowing to rid the country of lead pipes by 2031. The administration has spent $9 billion so far — enough to replace up to 1.7 million lead pipes, the administration said.

On Tuesday, the administration said it was providing an additional $2.6 billion in funding for pipe replacement. Over 367,000 lead pipes have been replaced nationwide since Biden took office, according to White House officials, affecting nearly 1 million people...

Environmental advocates said that former president Donald Trump, who issued much more modest revisions to the lead and copper rule just days before Biden took office, would have a hard time reversing the new standards.

Erik Olson, the senior strategic director for health at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said that the Safe Drinking Water Act has provisions prohibiting weakening the health protections of existing standards...

Olson added that the rule “represents a major victory for public health” and will protect millions of people “whose health is threatened every time they fill a glass from the kitchen sink contaminated by lead.”

“While the rule is imperfect and we still have more to do, this is by far the biggest step towards eliminating lead in tap water in over three decades,” he said."

-via The Washington Post, October 8, 2024

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The one weird monopoly trick that gave us Walmart and Amazon and killed Main Street

I'm coming to BURNING MAN! On TUESDAY (Aug 27) at 1PM, I'm giving a talk called "DISENSHITTIFY OR DIE!" at PALENQUE NORTE (7&E). On WEDNESDAY (Aug 28) at NOON, I'm doing a "Talking Caterpillar" Q&A at LIMINAL LABS (830&C).

Walmart didn't just happen. The rise of Walmart – and Amazon, its online successor – was the result of a specific policy choice, the decision by the Reagan administration not to enforce a key antitrust law. Walmart may have been founded by Sam Walton, but its success (and the demise of the American Main Street) are down to Reaganomics.

The law that Reagan neutered? The Robinson-Patman Act, a very boring-sounding law that makes it illegal for powerful companies (like Walmart) to demand preferential pricing from their suppliers (farmers, packaged goods makers, meat producers, etc). The idea here is straightforward. A company like Walmart is a powerful buyer (a "monopsonist" – compare with "monopolist," a powerful seller). That means that they can demand deep discounts from suppliers. Smaller stores – the mom and pop store on your Main Street – don't have the clout to demand those discounts. Worse, because those buyers are weak, the sellers – packaged goods companies, agribusiness cartels, Big Meat – can actually charge them more to make up for the losses they're taking in selling below cost to Walmart.

Reagan ordered his antitrust cops to stop enforcing Robinson-Patman, which was a huge giveaway to big business. Of course, that's not how Reagan framed it: He called Robinson-Patman a declaration of "war on low prices," because it prevented big companies from using their buying power to squeeze huge discounts. Reagan's court sorcerers/economists asserted that if Walmart could get goods at lower prices, they would sell goods at lower prices.

Which was true…up to a point. Because preferential discounting (offering better discounts to bigger customers) creates a structural advantage over smaller businesses, it meant that big box stores would eventually eliminate virtually all of their smaller competitors. That's exactly what happened: downtowns withered, suburban big boxes grew. Spending that would have formerly stayed in the community was whisked away to corporate headquarters. These corporate HQs were inevitably located in "onshore-offshore" tax haven states, meaning they were barely taxed at the state level. That left plenty of money in these big companies' coffers to spend on funny accountants who'd help them avoid federal taxes, too. That's another structural advantage the big box stores had over the mom-and-pops: not only did they get their inventory at below-cost discounts, they didn't have to pay tax on the profits, either.

MBA programs actually teach this as a strategy to pursue: they usually refer to Amazon's "flywheel" where lower prices bring in more customers which allows them to demand even lower prices:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaSwWYemLek

You might have heard about rural and inner-city "food deserts," where all the independent grocery stores have shuttered, leaving behind nothing but dollar stores? These are the direct product of the decision not to enforce Robinson-Patman. Dollar stores target working class neighborhoods with functional, beloved local grocers. They open multiple dollar stores nearby (nearly all the dollar stores you see are owned by one of two conglomerates, no matter what the sign over the door says). They price goods below cost and pay for high levels of staffing, draining business off the community grocery store until it collapses. Then, all the dollar stores except one close and the remaining store fires most of its staff (working at a dollar store is incredibly dangerous, thanks to low staffing levels that make them easy targets for armed robbers). Then, they jack up prices, selling goods in "cheater" sizes that are smaller than the normal retail packaging, and which are only made available to large dollar store conglomerates:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/27/walmarts-jackals/#cheater-sizes

Writing in The American Prospect, Max M Miller and Bryce Tuttle1 – a current and a former staffer for FTC Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya – write about the long shadow cast by Reagan's decision to put Robinson-Patman in mothballs:

https://prospect.org/economy/2024-08-13-stopping-excessive-market-power-monopoly/

They tell the story of Robinson-Patman's origins in 1936, when A&P was using preferential discounts to destroy the independent grocery sector and endanger the American food system. A&P didn't just demand preferential discounts from its suppliers; it also charged them a fortune to be displayed on its shelves, an early version of Amazon's $38b/year payola system:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/28/enshittification/#relentless-payola

They point out that Robinson-Patman didn't really need to be enacted; America already had an antitrust law that banned this conduct: section 2 of the the Clayton Act, which was passed in 1914. But for decades, the US courts refused to interpret the Clayton Act according to its plain meaning, with judges tying themselves in knots to insist that the law couldn't possibly mean what it said. Robinson-Patman was one of a series of antitrust laws that Congress passed in a bid to explain in words so small even federal judges could understand them that the purpose of American antitrust law was to keep corporations weak:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/14/aiming-at-dollars/#not-men

Both the Clayton Act and Robinson-Patman reject the argument that it's OK to let monopolies form and come to dominate critical sectors of the American economy based on the theoretical possibility that this will lead to lower prices. They reject this idea first as a legal matter. We don't let giant corporations victimize small businesses and their suppliers just because that might help someone else.

Beyond this, there's the realpolitik of monopoly. Yes, companies could pass lower costs on to customers, but will they? Look at Amazon: the company takes $0.45-$0.51 out of every dollar that its sellers earn, and requires them to offer their lowest price on Amazon. No one has a 45-51% margin, so every seller jacks up their prices on Amazon, but you don't notice it, because Amazon forces them to jack up prices everywhere else:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/01/managerial-discretion/#junk-fees

The Robinson-Patman Act did important work, and its absence led to many of the horribles we're living through today. This week on his Peoples & Things podcast, Lee Vinsel talked with Benjamin Waterhouse about his new book, One Day I’ll Work for Myself: The Dream and Delusion That Conquered America:

https://athenaeum.vt.domains/peoplesandthings/2024/08/12/78-benjamin-c-waterhouse-on-one-day-ill-work-for-myself-the-dream-and-delusion-that-conquered-america/

Towards the end of the discussion, Vinsel and Waterhouse turn to Robinson-Patman, its author, Wright Patman, and the politics of small business in America. They point out – correctly – that Wright Patman was something of a creep, a "Dixiecrat" (southern Democrat) who was either an ideological segregationist or someone who didn't mind supporting segregation irrespective of his beliefs.

That's a valid critique of Wright Patman, but it's got little bearing on the substance and history of the law that bears his name, the Robinson-Patman Act. Vinsel and Waterhouse get into that as well, and while they made some good points that I wholeheartedly agreed with, I fiercely disagree with the conclusion they drew from these points.

Vinsel and Waterhouse point out (again, correctly) that small businesses have a long history of supporting reactionary causes and attacking workers' rights – associations of small businesses, small women-owned business, and small minority-owned businesses were all in on opposition to minimum wages and other key labor causes.

But while this is all true, that doesn't make Robinson-Patman a reactionary law, or bad for workers. The point of protecting small businesses from the predatory practices of large firms is to maintain an American economy where business can't trump workers or government. Large companies are literally ungovernable: they have gigantic war-chests they can spend lobbying governments and corrupting the political process, and concentrated sectors find it comparatively easy to come together to decide on a single lobbying position and then make it reality.

As Vinsel and Waterhouse discuss, US big business has traditionally hated small business. They recount a notorious and telling anaecdote about the editor of the Chamber of Commerce magazine asking his boss if he could include coverage of small businesses, given the many small business owners who belonged to the Chamber, only to be told, "Over my dead body." Why did – why does – big business hate small business so much? Because small businesses wreck the game. If they are included in hearings, notices of inquiry, or just given a vote on what the Chamber of Commerce will lobby for with their membership dollars, they will ask for things that break with the big business lobbying consensus.

That's why we should like small business. Not because small business owners are incapable of being petty tyrants, but because whatever else, they will be petty. They won't be able to hire million-dollar-a-month union-busting law-firms, they won't be able to bribe Congress to pass favorable laws, they can't capture their regulators with juicy offers of sweet jobs after their government service ends.

Vinsel and Waterhouse point out that many large firms emerged during the era in which Robinson-Patman was in force, but that misunderstands the purpose of Robinson-Patman: it wasn't designed to prevent any large businesses from emerging. There are some capital-intensive sectors (say, chip fabrication) where the minimum size for doing anything is pretty damned big.

As Miller and Tuttle write:

The goal of RPA was not to create a permanent Jeffersonian agrarian republic of exclusively small businesses. It was to preserve a diverse economy of big and small businesses. Congress recognized that the needs of communities and people—whether in their role as consumers, business owners, or workers—are varied and diverse. A handful of large chains would never be able to meet all those needs in every community, especially if they are granted pricing power.

The fight against monopoly is only secondarily a fight between small businesses and giant ones. It's foundationally a fight about whether corporations should have so much power that they are too big to fail, too big to jail, and too big to care.

Community voting for SXSW is live! If you wanna hear RIDA QADRI and me talk about how GIG WORKERS can DISENSHITTIFY their jobs with INTEROPERABILITY, VOTE FOR THIS ONE!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/14/the-price-is-wright/#enforcement-priorities

[rhsofttech2023]

A Guide to SAP HCM Online Training in India

[weaselandfriends]

Ender's Game (novel)

Is Ender Wiggin (pictured above as the little brother from Malcolm in the Middle) guilty of xenocide?

Actually, let's first answer a different, but related, question:

What game does the title "Ender's Game" refer to?

It's not as simple a question as it seems. There are three games that have a prominent role in the plot, all very different from one another.

The obvious answer is the Battle School zero-gravity game, where teams of competitors play glorified laser tag in a big empty cube. In terms of page count, most of the book is dedicated to this game. It's also the game depicted on the cover of the edition above.

Yet this game vanishes during the story's climax, when Ender is given a new game to play, a game he is told is a simulator of spaceship warfare. This "game" turns out to not be a game at all, though; after annihilating the alien homeworld in the final stage, Ender learns that he was actually commanding real ships against real enemies the whole time, and that he just singlehandedly ended the Human-Bugger war forever via total xenocide of the aliens. This is both the final game and the most consequential to the plot, despite the short amount of time it appears.

There's also a third game, a single-player video game Ender plays throughout the story. The game is procedurally generated by an AI to respond to the player's emotional state, and is used as a psychiatric diagnostic for the players. Of the three games, this is the one that probes deepest into Ender's psyche, that most defines him as a person; it's also the final image of the story, as the aliens build a facsimile of its world in reality after psychically reading Ender's mind while he xenocides them.

Because all three games are important, the easiest answer might be that the question doesn't matter, that the story is called Ender's Game not to propose this question at all but simply because the technically more accurate "Ender's Games" would improperly suggest a story about a serial prankster.

Fine. But why does the title use the possessive "Ender's" at all?

He does not own any of these games. He did not create them. He does not facilitate them. All of these games, even the simulator game, predate his use of them as a player, were not designed with him in mind, were intended to train and assess potential commanders for, ostensibly, the hundred years since the last Human-Bugger war.

It's in this question that we get to the crux of what defines Gamer literature.

These games are Ender's games because he dominates them into being about him. He enters a rigidly-defined, rules-based system, and excels so completely that the games warp around his presence. In the Battle School game, the administrators stack the odds against Ender, thereby rendering every other player's presence in the game irrelevant except in their function as challenges for Ender to overcome. The administrators acknowledge this in an argument among themselves:

"The game will be compromised. The comparative standings will become meaningless." [...] "You're getting too close to the game, Anderson. You're forgetting that it is merely a training exercise." "It's also status, identity, purpose, name; all that makes these children who they are comes out of this game. When it becomes known that the game can be manipulated, weighted, cheated, it will undo this whole school. I'm not exaggerating." "I know." "So I hope Ender Wiggin truly is the one, because you'll have degraded the effectiveness of our training method for a long time to come."

In this argument, Anderson views the game the way games have been viewed since antiquity: exercises in acquiring honor and status. This honor is based on the innate fairness inherent to games as rule-based systems, which is why in ancient depictions of sport the chief character is often not a competitor but the host, who acts as referee. In Virgil's Aeneid, for instance, the hero Aeneas hosts a series of funeral games (the games themselves intended as an honor for his dead father). Despite being the principal character of the epic, Aeneas does not compete in these games. Instead, he doles out prizes to each competitor based on the worthiness they display; his fairness marks him symbolically as a wise ruler. The Arthurian tournament is another example, where Arthur as host is the principal character, and the knights (Lancelot, Tristan, etc.) who compete do so primarily to receive honors from him or his queen.

In Ender's Game, it is the antagonistic figure Bonzo Madrid who embodies this classical concept of honor; the word defines him, is repeated constantly ("his Spanish honor"), drives his blistering hatred of Ender, who receives both unfair boons and unfair banes from the game's administrators, who skirts the rules of what is allowed to secure victory. Bonzo is depicted as a stupid, bull-like figure; his honor is ultimately worthless, trivially manipulated by Ender in their final fight.

Meanwhile, it's Ender's disregard for honor, his focus solely on his namesake -- ending, finishing the game, the ends before the means -- that makes him so valuable within the scope of the story. He is "the one," as Anderson puts it, the solipsistically important Gamer, the Only I Play the Game-r, because the game now matters in and of itself, rather than as a social activity. In the Aeneid and in Arthur, the competitors are soldiers, for whom there is a world outside the game. Their games are not a substitute for war but a reprieve from it, and as such they are an activity meant to hold together the unifying fabric of society. The values Anderson espouses (status, identity, purpose, name) are fundamentally more important in this social framework than winning (ending) is.

Ender's game, as the Goosebumps-style blurb on my 20-year-old book fair edition's cover proclaims, is not just a game anymore. Its competitors are also soldiers, but the game is meant to prepare them for war; the spaceship video game is actual war. And as this is a war for the survival of the human race, as Ender is told, there is no need for honor. The othered enemy must be annihilated, without remorse or mercy.

This ethos of the game as fundamentally important for its own sake pervades Gamer literature beyond Ender's Game. In Sword Art Online (which I wrote an essay on here), dying in the game is dying in real life, and as such, only Kirito's ability to beat the game matters. Like Ender, Kirito is immediately disdained by his fellow players as a "cheater" (oh sorry, I mean a "beater") because he possesses inherent advantages due to being a beta player. In an actual game, a game that is only a game, Kirito's cheat powers would render the game pointless. What purpose does Kirito winning serve if he does it with Dual Wielding, an overpowered skill that only he is allowed to have? But when a game has real stakes, when only ability to win matters, it is possible to disregard fairness and see the cheater as heroic.

This notion of the "cheat power," a unique and overpowered ability only the protagonist has, is pervasive in post-SAO Gamer literature. To those for whom games are simply games, such powers can only be infuriating and obnoxious betrayals of the purpose of games; to those for whom games mean more than just games, for whom games have a primacy of importance, these powers are all that matter.

That's the core conceit of Gamer literature: the idea that the Game is life, that winning is, in fact, everything.

What sets Ender's Game apart from Sword Art Online is that it creates the inverted world where the Game matters above all, but then draws back the curtain to reveal the inversion. The Buggers are, in fact, no longer hostile. They are not planning to invade Earth again, as Ender has been told his entire life. The war, for them, is entirely defensive, and Ender is the aggressor. And due to Ender's singleminded focus on Ending, on winning, on disregarding honor and fairness, he ultimately commits the xenocide, erases an entire sentient species from existence. He wins a game he should never have been playing.

The obvious counterargument, the one I imagine everyone who has read this book thought up the moment I posed the question at the beginning of this essay, is that Ender did not know he was committing xenocide. The fact that the combat simulator game was not a game was withheld from him until afterward. Plus, he was a child.

Salient arguments all. Ones the book itself makes, via Ender's commander, Graff, to absolve him of sin at the end. They're probably even correct, in a legal sense (I'm not a legal scholar, don't quote me), and in a moral sense. In real life, it would be difficult to blame a 10-year-old in those circumstances for what he did. But in the thematic framework of Ender's Game the book, these arguments are completely inadequate.

Ender has been playing a fourth game the entire story. And this is the only game he doesn't win.

A game is defined by its system of control and limitation over the behavior of the players. A game has rules. His whole life, Ender has been playing within the rules of the system of control his military commanders place upon him.

Their control extends even before he was born; as a third child in a draconian two-child-only world, his existence is at the behest of the government. Graff confirms this to Ender's parents when he recruits him to Battle School: "Of course we already have your consent, granted in writing at the time conception was confirmed, or he could not have been born. He has been ours since then, if he qualified." Graff frames this control utterly, in terms of possession: "he has been ours." He does not exaggerate. Since Ender was young, he has had a "monitor" implanted in his body so the army could observe him at all times, assess whether he "qualifies"; even the brief moment the monitor is removed is a test. "The final step in your testing was to see what would happen when the monitor came off," Graff explains after Ender passes the test by murdering a 6-year-old. Conditions are set up for Ender, similar to the unfair challenges established in the Battle School game; he is isolated from his peers, denied practice sessions, held in solitary confinement on a remote planetoid. It's all in service of assessing Ender as "the one."

Ender wins this game in the sense that he does, ultimately, become "the one" -- the one Graff and the other military men want, the xenocider of the Buggers. He fails this game in the sense that he does not break it.

The other three games Ender plays, he breaks. Usually by cheating. In the single-player psychiatry game, when presented with a deliberately impossible challenge where a giant gives him two glasses to pick between, Ender cheats and kills the giant. "Cheater, cheater!" the dying giant shouts. In the Battle School game, Ender is ultimately confronted by insurmountable odds: 2 armies against his 1. He cannot outgun his opponent, so he cheats by using most of his troops as a distraction so five soldiers can sneak through the enemy's gate, ending the game. At the school, going through the gate is traditionally seen as a mere formality, something done ceremonially once the enemy team is wiped out (there's that honor again, that ceremony), but it technically causes a win. Even Anderson, the game's administrator, sees this as a breach of the rules when Ender confronts him afterward.

Ender was smiling. "I beat you again, sir," he said. "Nonsense, Ender," Anderson said softly. "Your battle was with Griffin and Tiger." "How stupid do you think I am?" Ender said. Loudly, Anderson said, "After that little maneuver, the rules are being revised to require that all of the enemy's soldiers must be frozen or disabled before the gate can be reversed."

(I include the first part of that quote to indicate that Ender all along knows who he is really playing this game against -- the administrators, the military men who control every facet of his life.)

Ender beats the war simulator game in a similar fashion. Outnumbered this time 1000-to-1, he uses his soldiers as sacrifices to sneak a single bomb onto the alien's homeworld, destroying it and committing his xenocide. Ender himself sees this maneuver as breaking the rules, and in fact falsely believes that if he breaks the rules he will be disqualified, set free from the fourth game: "If I break this rule, they'll never let me be a commander. It would be too dangerous. I'll never have to play a game again. And that is victory." The flaw in his logic comes not from whether he's breaking the rules of the game, but which game he is breaking the rules of. It's not the fourth game, Ender's game, but the war simulator game, simply a sub-game within the confines of the fourth game, a sub-game the fourth game's administrators want him to break, a sub-game that gives Ender the illusion of control by breaking. When Ender tells his administrators about his plan, the response he receives almost taunts him to do it:

"Does the Little Doctor work against a planet?" Mazer's face went rigid. "Ender, the buggers never deliberately attacked a civilian population in either invasion. You decide whether it would be wise to adopt a strategy that would invite reprisals."

(And if it wasn't clear how much the administrators wanted him to do this all along, the moment he does it, they flood the room with cheers.)

Ender wins his games by cheating -- by fighting the rules of the game itself -- and yet he never cheats at the fourth game, the game of his life.

In this fourth game, he always plays by the rules.

In the inverted world of Gamer lit, where games define everything, including life and death, it's a common, even natural progression for the Gamer to finally confront the game's administrator. Sword Art Online ends when Kirito defeats Akihiko Kayaba, the developer. In doing so, Kirito exceeds the confines of the game, not simply by ignoring its rules and coming back to life after he's killed, but by demonstrating mastery against the game's God. Afterward, Sword Art Online truly becomes Kirito's Game, with nobody else able to lay claim to the possessive. Kirito demonstrates this control at the end of the anime by recreating Sword Art Online's world using its source code, completing the transition into a player-administrator.

(Though I wonder, how much of a class reading could one give to this new brand of Gamer lit? If classical games were told from the perspective of the one who controlled them, then is there not something innately anti-establishment in Kirito overcoming the controller? This is the gist of many other death game stories, like The Hunger Games, though none of them may be the most sophisticated takes on the subject, more empty fantasy than anything else.)

Ender never fights or defeats his administrators. He never even tries, other than rare periods of depressive inactivity. He doesn't try even though the option is proposed to him by Dink Meeker, an older student whom Ender respects:

"I'm not going to let the bastards run me, Ender. They've got you pegged, too, and they don't plan to treat you kindly. Look what they've done to you so far." "They haven't done anything except promote me." "And she make you life so easy, neh?" Ender laughed and shook his head. "So maybe you're right." "They think they got you on ice. Don't let them." "But that's what I came for," Ender said. "For them to make me into a tool."

Instead, Ender finds comfort in the control exerted on his life. When sent to Earth on leave, he seeks out a lake that reminds him of living in Battle School.

"I spend a lot of time on the water. When I'm swimming, it's like being weightless. I miss being weightless. Also, when I'm here on the lake, the land slopes up in every direction." "Like living in a bowl." "I've lived in a bowl for four years."

Because of this, Ender never cheats against Graff. He could; Graff states several times that Ender is smarter than him, and the fact that they have Ender fighting the war instead of Graff is proof he believes it. But Ender never considers it. He never considers gaming the system of his life.

If Gamer literature emphasizes the inversion of the world order, where games supersede reality in importance (and, as in Sword Art Online, only through this inverted order is one able to claim real power by being a Gamer), then Ender's Game acknowledges both sides of the inversion. For Ender, the games he plays are not simply games anymore. The psychology game, the Battle School game, the war simulator game; all of these he must win at all costs, even if it requires disrespecting the foundational purpose of these games. But his real life? Ender wants that to be a game, craves it to be a game, can't live unless the walls slope up around him like a bowl, can't stand it unless there is a system of control around him. He does what Graff tells him, even though he recognizes immediately that Graff is not his friend, that Graff is the one isolating him from others, rigging things against him. He does what Graff tells him all the way up to and including xenocide, because Ender cannot tell game from real life. That's the core deception at the end: Ender is playing a game that's actually real and he doesn't know it -- or refuses to acknowledge it, since nobody has ever tricked the genius Ender before this point.

Actually, that's not true. They tricked him twice before. Ender twice attacks his peers physically, with brutal violence. The administrators conceal from him that he murdered both his foes; he simply thinks he hurt them. The only way to trick Ender is to do so in a way that insulates him from the consequences of his actions. The only way he will allow himself to be tricked.

So, is Ender guilty of xenocide?

Under it all, Ender believes he is.

The dying Buggers, after reading Ender's mind, recreate the psychology game in the real world. The story ends when Ender finds this recreation, yet another blurring of the lines between game and reality.

The psychology game is different from the other games Ender plays, because nobody expects him to win it. Its purpose is not to be won, simply to assess his mental health. Yet Ender approaches it like the other games, cheats at it and systematically kills all his enemies until he reaches a place called The End of the World. (Another End for Ender.) His drive to win, to dominate, does not come solely from the pressures of the system around him, but from deep within himself, which is what Ender fears the most. But it is here, at The End of the World, where Ender finds atonement, both in the game and in the game-made-real. In the game, he kisses his opponent instead of killing them, and reaches a resolution he is happy with. He stops playing the game after doing this, though the game seems to continue (when an administrator asks him why he stopped playing it, he says "I beat it"; the administrator tells him the game cannot be beaten). It is through this act of love that Ender can escape the game-like system of control that puppeteers him no matter how smart and clever he is or thinks he is.

In the game-made-real, Ender finds his atonement in the same place, The End of the World. The Buggers left for him here, in this place that they (reading his mind) understood as the location of his mercy and compassion, an egg that can repopulate their species. Through this egg, Ender is given the chance to undo his xenocide. But that chance is also contingent on what The End of the World means to Ender, an end to the game, not simply the games he plays but the fourth game, the game of his life. Ender's Game.

[4chan]

Still standing

On the afternoon of April 14th, a hacker using a UK IP address exploited an out-of-date software package on one of 4chan's servers, via a bogus PDF upload. With this entry point, they were eventually able to gain access to one of 4chan's servers, including database access and access to our own administrative dashboard. The hacker spent several hours exfiltrating database tables and much of 4chan's source code. When they had finished downloading what they wanted, they began to vandalize 4chan at which point moderators became aware and 4chan's servers were halted, preventing further access.

Over the following days, 4chan's development team surveyed the damage, which to be frank, was catastrophic. While not all of our servers were breached, the most important one was, and it was due to simply not updating old operating systems and code in a timely fashion. Ultimately this problem was caused by having insufficient skilled man-hours available to update our code and infrastructure, and being starved of money for years by advertisers, payment providers, and service providers who had succumbed to external pressure campaigns.

We had begun a process of speccing new servers in late 2023. As many have suspected, until that time 4chan had been running on a set of servers purchased second-hand by moot a few weeks before his final Q&A, as prior to then we simply were not in a financial position to consider such a large purchase. Advertisers and payment providers willing to work with 4chan are rare, and are quickly pressured by activists into cancelling their services. Putting together the money for new equipment took nearly a decade.

In April of 2024 we had agreed on specs and began looking for possible suppliers. Money is always tight for us, and few companies were willing to sell us servers, so actually buying the hardware wasn’t a trivial problem. We managed to finalize a purchase in June, and had the new servers racked and online in July. Over the next few months we slowly moved functionality onto the new servers, but we had still been relying on the old servers for key functions. Everything about this process took much longer than intended, which is a recurring theme in this debacle. The free time that 4chan's development team had available to dedicate to 4chan was insufficient to update our software and infrastructure fast enough, and our luck ran out.

However, we have not been idle during our nearly two weeks of downtime. The server that was breached has been replaced, with the operating system and code updated to the latest versions. PDF uploads have been temporarily disabled on those boards that supported them, but they will be back in the near future. One slow but much beloved board, /f/ - Flash, will not be returning however, as there is no realistic way to prevent similar exploits using .swf files. We are bringing on additional volunteer developers to help keep up with the workload, and our team of volunteer janitors & moderators remains united despite the grievous violations some have suffered to their personal privacy.

4chan is back. No other website can replace it, or this community. No matter how hard it is, we are not giving up.

[hyperlexichypatia]

I'm not, generally speaking, a fan of punishment as a solution to social problems. Punishment is often overly harsh, ineffective as a deterrent, and doesn't solve the actual problem. The punitive mentality is more focused on making sure the "bad guys" "don't get away with it" than on actually solving the problem.

But I get a lot more worried when people talk about "alternatives to punishment", or when they support their proposed solutions because "it's not punishment."

Because what that means, in practice, is "I'm conceptualizing this form of coercive control as 'not punishment,' and therefore not subjecting it to the rigor, due process, or evidentiary standards of punishment."

The U.S. loves punishment. It's one of our favorite national pastimes. But we do have, both legally and culturally, some limitations on punishment, at least in theory. Punishment isn't supposed to be "cruel and unusual." It's not supposed to be inflicted without "due process of law." You're supposed to be convicted by a jury of your peers.

But if you call it "not punishment," none of that matters!

You can force people to register under a law that didn't exist when they committed their crimes, because it's "administrative," not punitive.

You can subject disabled people to shocks similar to a cattle prod -- which would surely be cruel and unusual punishment -- but it's okay, because it's not "punishment," it's a "treatment" called an "aversive" (that's therapist for "punishment").

You can have people locked up and forcibly drugged solely because they can't afford housing, but it's okay, because it's "help," not "punishment."

Police can kill people in cold blood -- judge, jury, and executioner -- and it's fine, because it's "self-defense," not "punishment," even if they argue after the fact that the victim "deserved it."

It's also a matter of cultural attitudes. If you said "The punishment for trespassing should be life in prison," or "The punishment for loitering should be permanent loss of the right to control one's body, money, or living space," or "The punishment for turnstile-jumping should be lifelong forced ingestion of drugs that numb basic cognitive functions," most people would think this was horrific, much too harsh a punishment for a relatively minor crime.

But if you change it to "Instead of jailing and punishing unhoused people with mental health issues, we should respond to their minor crimes by Getting Them Help, like institutionalization, conservatorship, or outpatient commitment," people now think this is completely reasonable.

Even being the victim of a crime can get someone not-punished far more severely than the perpetrators are "punished." People might serve jail time for financial fraud, but not usually a life sentence. Being the victim of financial fraud, however, can lead to a life sentence of institutionalization -- which fraud investigators have cited as a barrier to getting victims to report fraud. I personally know of multiple disabled young adults who were afraid to report being the victim of sexual assault or other kinds of assault because they knew that if they reported it, the perpetrator might or might not face some kind of punishment, but they would definitely face some type of "not-punishment" coercive control, like forced therapy, forced drugging, supervision, or having to leave school.

You want a society with less punishment? Me too. But only if you acknowledge that "punishment" includes all forms of coercive control. If you do something to someone against their will, if you restrict someone from their right to live as they choose, that's a punishment, regardless of whether you call it that.

[communistkenobi]

By worrying endlessly about what makes men fight for their servitude as if it were their salvation, Western Marxism rigs the deck against ever becoming hegemonic. […] The celebration of transgression, so characteristic of queer theory, is incompatible with the struggle for legal sovereignty waged by movements of national liberation and people’s democratic dictatorships. […] Trans studies, infused with an ambivalence between gender-deviance and the desire to pass, cannot take up queer theory’s exaltation of transgression uncritically. Eastern Marxism simply does not valorize transgression as such, since its goal is hegemony, to function as a legitimate ruling party representative of the general interest, and the collective transgression of one norm in particular: imperialism.

— Nia Frome (2024), The Problem of Recognition in Transitional States, or Sympathy for the Monster

The author makes the case why 1) various strains of Eastern Marxism (MLism particularly) seem so compelling to transgender people specifically 2) how this is reflected within the tension between queer theory (what Frome describes as having a general preoccupation with the ‘exaltation of transgression’) and trans studies (what Frome describes as being more preoccupied with political goals of hegemony, eg gender-affirming healthcare, control of administrative gender data about ourselves, etc) is directly comparable to the West/East Marxist split, with the author firmly placing queer theory within Western Marxism’s anticommunist preoccupations and theories of state.

I think this is most compellingly argued when she points to the homonationalist (homo-imperialist?) commitments of western LGBT organisations, NGOs, thinktanks, etc. to ‘spreading democracy gay tolerance’ to the backwards Global South. One only need to refer to the photo of an IOF soldier standing in a bombed street in Gaza holding up a gay pride flag to recognise the academy’s role in ‘queering’ imperial pursuits. Now obviously this doesn’t mean trans studies is exempt from this (far from it), but what I think this essay does well is demonstrate why trans studies has been famously called “queer theory’s evil twin” and why more broadly the political goals of transgender people are on some level incommensurable with queer theory’s (and downstream of this, the western queer community’s) commitment to transgression as the primary mode of resistance and action.

And, ironically, why despite this desire for eternal transgression, the headline political goal of western gays for the past few decades has been marriage equality, a desire to be folded into pre-existing hegemony (perhaps another example of its Western Marxist tendencies?), in contrast to the transsexual goal of gender liberation and eventual abolition via the pursuit of using medicine and administrative state power to make ourselves our own frankenstein monsters, both scientist and creation (a goal that also necessarily requires a transitionary state, a “monster” state that is neither full capitalism (cissexualism) nor full communism (transsexualism), but an apparatus that gets us from A -> B. This description is blatantly one of both socialism and gender transition itself, and in this comparison it is revealed why the transsexual may desire Marxism-Leninism). This also reveals why transmedicalism - the desire to uphold cissexual, psychiatric, pathological conceptions of transgenderism as a mental illness and/or sexual perversion - is a dead-end, a forfeiting of even more power to those who already have it, and fundamentally different from the goal of free HRT, surgery, name changes and gender marker changes for everyone forever amen

[gabriel-seths-pr-assistant]

Do space marines wear any normal clothes, like something a baseline human in Imperium would wear but made for their size? I'm new to warhammer and in most art of them I have seen they are either in armor or naked in underwear.

Yes, Space Marines do have "normal" clothes for everyday use.

They will often use their power armour for formal occasions since it's more impressive and intimidating — one of my favourite Gabriel Seth moments is in the short story Know Thyself by Andy Smillie when an Inquisitor pays the Flesh Tearers a surprise visit and Seth is literally not wearing pants:

Seth knelt in the Reclusiam’s centre, naked save for an ashen tunic that draped his broad frame.

Seth has to send two battle-brothers to distract the Inquisitor while he scrambles into his power armour to make a good first impression. 😂

However, as I have mentioned earlier, wearing power armour for extended periods of time creates an ungodly body odour. So when they're not in a combat AO, Astartes wear various types of formal, military, or casual clothes.

In general, Astartes are warrior-monks and will often wear monastic robes and habits (which can be quickly shed for a duel or close combat like Jedi in Star Wars:)

However, some Chapters also follow the fashions of their homeworld.

Here are some descriptions of Astartes clothes from the canon:

Ultramarines

Ultramarines are culturally inspired by Ancient Rome and often wear tunics or togas when performing administrative duties among mortals:

— Marneus Calgar.

Messinius was garbed in simple clothes: loose trousers, boots and a tunic that left his massive arms bare. He enjoyed the freedom of movement they gave him. So much of his life was spent enclosed in ceramite, he enjoyed being free of it.

— The Avenging Son.

They spoke in Guilliman’s library, his most sacred sanctum. Guilliman had removed the Armour of Fate, though it physically pained him to do so. Like Maxim, he wore a tunic and trousers. The primarch’s clothes were ultra­marine blue to Maxim’s forest green, and unlike Maxim’s heavily embroidered garb, Guilliman wore no decoration besides the buckle stamped with the ultima that fastened his belt. As usual, he sat at his desk, working while he talked.

— Godblight.

However, Ultramarines also have more formal wear:

Sicarius left his former quarters a short while later. He had donned a gilt-edged red cloak and light carapace breastplate over his training fatigues.

Prabian wore fatigues and light training armour like Sicarius, but he also had a small combat shield strapped to his left arm and wore a sheathed gladius at his left hip. A soft blue cloak with a silver trim swished in his wake.

— Knights of Macragge.

War Hounds

We also get descriptions of formal wear from the Great Crusade era, specifically the War Hounds (early World Eaters):

He looked at Dreagher again. Like Khârn, the man was dressed in white, bands of blue glittering across the high-collared tunic, boots and gauntlets a dark ceremonial blue rather than functional shipboard grey. The Emperor's lightning-bolt emblem gleamed at his collar and shoulder. His dress matched Khârn's own: the formal garments with which the War Hounds symbolised they were about their most solemn business.

— After Desh'ea.

Dark Angels

Dark Angels embrace the ascetic warrior-monk aesthetic to a very high degree:

— Will of Iron.

Space Wolves

Like most Fenrisians, Space Wolves wear furs and deerskin leather clothes:

Arjac moved to the other side of the throne to Fenrir so that he could see the vid-feed from the frigate approaching the space hulk. Like the Lord of Fenris, he was not in his armour, but dressed in a hide tunic and leggings, his arms banded with leather totem cords hung with fangs and bones, his thick belt riveted with iron honour badges. His freshly shaved scalp shone with the speckled starlight from the display. He dragged his fingers through his thick, newly trimmed beard.

‘It’s your pack, you choose the marking,’ growled Ullr. He was out of his armour too, but unlike the grey robes of Gaius and his companions he wore hide breeches tied with thongs from ankle to knee and a fur-lined jerkin that left arms and chest exposed.

— The Wolftime.

Blood Angels

In Dante, Dante himself dresses casually in red and gold day robes while doing office work. In Devastation of Baal, Dante also asks the assembled representatives of the Blood Angels Successor Chapters to attend a meeting in their day robes:

Erwin looked around, his curiosity piqued by the diversity of men who staffed his brother Chapters. As a last symbol of peace (although Erwin thought it more to save space) Dante had ordered that they attend in their day robes. These were almost as varied as their wearers.

— Devastation of Baal.

Blood Drinkers

The Blood Drinkers' homeworld, San Guisiga, is described as a hot, volcanic planet criss-crossed with lava rivers. In addition, a mutation of the mucranoid geneseed organ causes the Blood Drinkers' skin glands to atrophy, giving them very dry, itchy skin. As a result of the hot climate and skin irritation, the Blood Drinkers wear loose trousers and tend to go shirtless:

Chapter Master Caedis worked in his chambers. He was stripped to the waist; baggy, blood-red trousers on his lower half, soft black boots on his feet and a black tabard hanging between his legs – the manner of dress all Blood Drinkers affected when out of their battle-plate. The battle-barge was warm, the way the Blood Drinkers preferred; warm as the volcanic halls of San Guisiga, warm as blood.

— Death of Integrity.

Novamarines

The Novamarines, an Ultramarines Successor Chapter, lean more towards the battle-monks aesthetics:

Like him, he wore a bone-coloured habit, a deep-blue tabard hanging down the front displaying the Chapter badge: a skull surrounded by a stylised starburst. A silver sash embroidered with many campaign markings, the honours of a Deathwatch kill-team veteran, crossed the brother’s chest.

— Death of Integrity.

Entertainingly, in Death of Integrity, the Novamarines invite the Blood Drinkers to a formal dinner before embarking on a joint campaign and then fret among themselves about what to wear when welcoming the other Chapter, discussing the symbolic value of different attires. They finally decide on wearing their armour because they want to show the Blood Drinkers that the Novamarines are ready to follow the other Chapter into battle.

Iron Snakes

The Iron Snakes are heavily inspired by Ancient Greece, which also shows in their clothing:

Barefoot and dressed in a loose white chiton, Priad stood on the marble deck of the observation platform at the summit of the Chapter House's fortress.

— Brothers of the Snake.

Raven Guard

Agapito was dressed in black trousers and a sleeveless tunic. His arms bulged with muscles studded with the silvery wink of nerve shunt ports. His pale skin was shadowed by subcutaneous black carapace.

— Lord of Shadows.

Unnumbered Sons

His wargear was held in a makeshift armoury Daelus had set up at one side of the room. He left his armour on its stand and dressed himself in a loose tunic and trousers, pulled on his boots, and belted his bolt pistol around his waist. It was freezing in the station, but he didn’t feel it, and besides, nowhere was as cold as those millennia on board Cawl’s vessel. It was good to be out of his armour for a while. He had a loathing of confinement.

— The Great Work.

Areios had a few inches on the Firstborn Messinius. Neither of them wore their armour. Messinius was dressed in simple robes, Areios the off-duty uniform of short-sleeved tunic and trousers common to all the Unnumbered Sons.

— Throne of Light.

Knights Errant (early Grey Knights)

Clad in a long chiton of unadorned grey over a tan bodyglove with plastek-seals over his armour interface sockets, he was armed only with a few gardening tools hanging from a leather work belt.

— Luna Mendex.

Night Lords

In the Night Lords omnibus by ADB, the Night Lords are described as wearing robes or traditional Legion tunics (those of them that can still remove their armour, that is).

I hope this gave you a fair idea of how Space Marines might dress when they're not wearing armour. 😊

If others have more examples, feel free to add them!

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Keith Edwards at No Lies Detected:

Fascism doesn’t come for every generation, but it has come for ours.  This is not a fight on the beaches of Normandy, but in our own country. This article begins a series on what opposing Donald Trump and his movement can look like. I hope you will join me as these progress.

[...]

Do not leave. Faced with the might of the United States government aligned against you, you might consider resigning preemptively to avoid the humiliation of inevitable termination. This is counterproductive for at least two reasons: If you leave, you save Trump Administration officials the time and effort of identifying you, which otherwise could have taken months or years. Second, your principled stand would likely only result in your replacement by an unprincipled Trump loyalist. By staying on, you may find yourself helping to implement policies you find hateful, but by refusing to leave, you can ensure that you have some influence on those policies, because then you can...

Delay. Delay. Delay. Waiting out the enemy until he moves on, gives up, or forgets is a time-honored strategy not just among civil servants but also history’s best generals. That email about a proposed rule change to healthcare protections? Bury it in everyone’s inbox by sending it late. A meeting on reviewing the U.S. government’s foreign aid commitments to a region you oversee? Oops, you’ll be out that day! That agency conference your political-appointee boss requested you arrange? Next month didn’t fit everyone’s schedule, so you had to push it to after the new year! Slow-walking is the classic tool in any bureaucrat’s toolbox, and in the next Trump Administration, you can use it in defense of the Constitution.

Be intentionally incompetent. As a career employee, you likely have always had the advantage of knowing your workplace better than your politically appointed overlords. This is perhaps your most potent weapon against Trump. Draft rules unlikely to survive judicial review. Favor lengthy rulemaking or review processes over expedited ones. Complete tasks sequentially rather than in parallel to draw out timelines. Add complexity, stakeholders, and process wherever possible. In short, exploit the knowledge gap you hold over your bosses to diminish, defuse, and defeat their plans.

Leak. Federal employees have the right to report what they believe to be illegal or abusive of authority to their agency’s inspector general (IG) without fear of retaliation. Trump however has singled out IGs for replacement after one played a pivotal role in his first impeachment, so the availability of this option may depend on how politically prominent your agency is. Fortunately, you can anonymously tip prominent news outlets like the New York Times and Washington Post, which boast extensive investigative units and employ rigorous safeguards to protect sources’ identities. You can also seek out sympathetic elected officials, such as Democratic members of the House Oversight Committee, whose main function is investigation of the federal government. (If you choose disclosure, be sure that the information is not classified, the unauthorized disclosure of which carries stiff federal penalties.)

Disregard and refuse. When you have exhausted all other options, you may want selectively to resort to riskier behaviors. These include going behind political appointees’ backs to subvert their activities, say by picking up the phone and countermanding their directions. In extreme cases, you may have outright to refuse direct orders to the appointee’s face. Though such actions seem like a fasttrack to termination, you may still be protected by the fact that overwhelmed political appointees might hesitate to go through the onerous process of finding a politically reliable replacement. Remember, the longer you stay in, the harder you make it for Trump to do what he wants. Know your rights. If the worst happens and your agency moves to terminate you, you can still fight back. There are multiple avenues an employee designated for dismissal can pursue to delay, reduce, or reverse agency penalties against them.1 The beauty of these options is that they can take months or even years to resolve and may be appealed to higher bodies, further extending the process. All the while, you are collecting a salary and occupying a full-time equivalent (FTE) position that your agency can’t fill until you finally depart. (This is not legal advice. If you find yourself in this situation, please seek a lawyer.)

Keith Edwards writes in his No Lies Detected Substack on how civil servants can show resistance to the tyrannical Trump 2.0 Regime from within.