#no social system is actually like... functional. it all keeps running on collective belief and propaganda and sometimes violence

[thenamesblurrito]

Oh thanks for the alt modes! For Shockwave tho I was kiiiiiinda moreso wondering how it fits into the functionist world? Like I don't like the functionists but if your AU is still kinda in their worldview a little, what "purpose" does an ambulatory vehicle like that have? Perhaps all terrain exploration?

oh this Cybertron is very functionist. however, the class determination is a lil wonky and not dependent solely upon alt mode. an ambulatory vehicle like Shockwave isn't super special, in that he can essentially fill a whole variety of functions. it's a less common alt mode than cars or trucks but just as if not sometimes more versatile than wheeled alts, so there is no single function here like some very specialized alt modes may have

middle to low class mecha with this alt mode are likely to be given fairly standard odd jobs that suit their alt mode in a whole variety of fields, or perhaps the undesirable ones if a specialized alt isn't available. middle to high class mecha are likely to be given unrelated functions that may focus on interpersonal/emotional/data work instead of being strictly alt mode related. this is typical of very common generalized alt modes like trucks too, where class will determine how locked into your alt mode's purpose you are. this is one of the reasons you'll find every kind of frametype in every possible function out there. turns out absolute unyielding functionism doesn't work really well and exceptions, compromises, and quick fixes must be made. if you put every single one of your many, many car alt mode mecha in the racing function, you'll have a sudden lack of folks to fill more mundane roles like cashiers, accountants, cleaners, nannies, etc, which are much more vital functions than just using wheels to go fast

(this is also applicable to marginalized frametypes like beastformers but for a very different reason. high class/better treated/freer functioned beastformers are pointed to as an example of how oh they aren't really oppressed or discriminated against, see?? how could there be beastformer senators if nobody was willing to assign higher functions to your frametype? don't complain, just work harder and maybe someday you'll be worthy too!)

Shockwave specifically had a very good upbringing that gave him status as relatively higher class, even though his alt mode was unremarkable. this along with his intelligence put him on track to get alt mode exemption so he could have a function other than his original assigned urban planning function. he eventually wormed his way into politics and now his official function is being a Senator, although he's on furlough while he's principal of the JAAT

[mariaiscrafting]

political science nerd coming in w thoughts on anarchy on the dream smp

no one asked for it, but here I am to rant about and overanalyze how different characters on the SMP relate to anarchist beliefs

anarchy is, basically, not just wanting to live without government, but wanting to live without the unjust social hierarchies set up by government. 

technoblade, for example, made sure that part of his manifesto states no one will be forced to fight against their will; on the other hand, under a government, everyone is expected to fight for the nation’s agenda - ranboo was expected to follow the butcher army, eret’s knights are expected to fight for the dream smp, etc.

tubbo is probably the best example of someone non-corrupt who is simply diametrically opposed to anarchist beliefs. he is not just representative of the government because techno uses him as that villanious figurehead. tubbo genuinely believes that society best functions under leadership that can be provided by government; but with leadership, comes unjust hierarchies. tubbo wants leadership because he thinks society is most stable and able to function properly when there is a leader at the top to oversee society, people working under that leader - as executioners, enforcers of the law, an administrative body, etc. - and the citizens that live under the government. the creation of hierarchies isn’t inherently a bad thing, in tubbo’s mind; it’s actually necessary to ensure civility and stability.

another person who wants government, but for selfish beliefs that aren’t really against anarchist theory itself, is quackity. quackity benefits from those unjust hierarchies enforced by the existence of a government. his position as vice president or on the cabinet gives him power - soft power, as in, influence over the leaders (getting close to schlatt via romance, manipulating tubbo to follow his plans), and hard power, as in, the authority to make laws and enforce them when he sees fit. quackity wants government not because he thinks it’s necessary for society to function properly, like tubbo, but because he is one of the privileged few who benefits from the power government provides. he would be anti-anarchist simply because anarchists threaten the systems that provide him with power.

eret is... interesting. he seems to understand that the ways governments have functioned in the dream smp and l’manberg have been flawed and actually detrimental, in the long-run. while tubbo still believes in government because the concept makes logical sense to him, so he wants to keep pursuing the experiment until it works out correctly, eret has seen how governments have failed and might want to give up on the concept. eret said that he only wanted to be king because he thought his kingship would allow him to change people’s lives for the better. these are the words of a benevolent leader who thinks their position of power could be enough to dictate people’s lives and steer them towards improvement. but because his kingship never had enough authoritative power - that is, it was never truly seen as legitimate to the people, besides his knights - he never was able to fully harness it to enact these improvements. so now he’s left empty and directionless; the functions of his government were never fulfilled and cannot be fulfilled, so what now?

phil’s pull to anarchism is pretty straightforward. he witnessed how government and the yearn to regain a position in government drove his son to madness, driving phill to kill him at his behest. he’s also a witness to l’manberg’s relentless pursuit of “justice.” for the l’manberg cabinet, a criminal needs to receive retributive justice at all costs, no matter the perpetrator’s current character or actions. phil sides with techno because he’s against this idea of retributive justice - an eye for an eye, a murder demands the death of another. he knows who techno is as a person - someone who combats their own bloodlust everyday, someone who struggles in social situations and with peer pressure - and he knows that techno has changed in his ways, and for phil, that’s enough. he doesn’t think justice needs to be enacted as long as the friend he is defending is not the same person who enacted whatever crime was committed - an ideology directly in contradiction with most governments, which usually enact retributive justice under their justice systems.

ranboo’s character is more a critique of the loyalty governments demand from their citizens, than anything else. governments are created within society under a contract (yay, bringing in john locke into this minecraft roleplay analysis, we love to see it): citizens give up some of their alienable rights in exchange for the protections that come from living under a government. in l’manberg, one of the expectations of this contract is that, if ranboo wants to be included among the citizens of l’manberg and take shelter in its buildings, he is expected to follow their doctrines and join in their cause. but ranboo doesn’t like choosing sides; that is, he doesn’t like showing exclusive loyalty to just one person or group of people - including governments. ranboo thinks loyalty should lie with whoever that individual chooses to trust - the people who show you kindness and mercy and companionship. he doesn’t believe in loyalty towards a nation or even a collective group based on the sole nature of that group; that is to say, just because you are a citizen of x place, doesn’t mean x place should expect your loyalty. does that make him an anarchist...? i’m not totally sure.

[edwad]

To what extent do you think that a belief that communism would follow from the collapse of capitalism is an ideological assumption vs a conclusion based on empirical investigation?

i think it depends on the nature of the belief. lots of people seem to think that communism is inevitable due to iron historical laws and i think that's pretty silly, projecting a historically situated set of political preferences onto history itself. there's no reason why communism has to happen or even why capitalism had to happen. these developments can really only be understood retrospectively. i think this is "ideological" in a sense, and (among marxists) generally has something to do with an overly deterministic rendering of marx's work. i think elements of this are in marxs work, for sure, but that's definitely not all there is and i think many of his bold historical claims serve a propagandistic function rather than being honestly descriptive.

easy example would be the manifesto, where he makes some very strong claims about this stuff, like this one:

"The advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the labourers, due to competition, by the revolutionary combination, due to association. The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable."

this begins with an attempt at describing a tendency based on a set of political economic assumptions which are falsifiable in all the ways that people like to make a fuss about, but it ends with a passionate claim about a historical inevitability. the latter claim doesn't necessarily follow from the former, and it would have to be shown why the bourgeoisie as the "involuntary promoter" of modern industry leads to an inevitable victory of a competing class (putting aside the complicating fact that a victorious proletariat is a non-proletariat), rather than a purely economic tendency of self-collapse. this kind of deterministic reading would actually run into conflict with the first sentence of the manifesto regarding history as a history of class struggles since no class struggle would be necessary for capitalism to end, and this is even how certain people read marxs later work like capital, where the "expropriators are expropriated", which is "accomplished by the action of the immanent laws of capitalistic production itself, by the centralisation of capital" rather than as a result of violent class struggle.

but if we were read this bit of the manifesto more generously (probably too generously), there is something to be said about how the fall of the bourgeoisie and the victory of the proletariat as equal inevitabilities is not necessarily the same as saying that they are in fact totally inevitable. they are either inevitable or they are not, but equally so. this could also comes into conflict with rendering of marx as an economic determinist, since the laws of capitalist production could lead to the dissolution of the system on their own, without any inevitable victory on the part of the proletariat, negating their assumed equality. it should also be noted then, that in order for this generous reading of this section to work (if it can), the "fall of the bourgeoisie" would likely have be taken as being of a particular sort. if the sun exploded tomorrow and ended capitalism forever, it could not be described so narrowly as the "fall of the bourgeoisie" but of the elimination of human life altogether. by fall, we would have to refer to it in the sense of the outcome of a competition between classes.

elsewhere in the text, marx also leaves room for a more open-ended approach, when he talks about the historical struggle between classes as "a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes." floating the possibility of a "common ruin of the contending classes" expresses a very different kind of analysis than the purely economic determinism which can be teased out above. for there to exist a possibility which does not simply belong to the historical chain of revolutionary usurpations of power would suggest that the same could be true for us today. even if it's not exactly at the level being presented, this would in a sense be able to better account for things like the aforementioned explosion of the sun, or some other forces which exist and which we are unable to overcome (like a potentially catostrophic climate event). regardless, this attitude of historical openness is very different than what is found elsewhere in the text, and i think it can be located in various other forms later on in marxs life as well.

by 1882 when marx is writing the preface to the russian edition of the manifesto, he says

"The Communist Manifesto had, as its object, the proclamation of the inevitable impending dissolution of modern bourgeois property. But in Russia we find, face-to-face with the rapidly flowering capitalist swindle and bourgeois property, just beginning to develop, more than half the land owned in common by the peasants. Now the question is: can the Russian obshchina, though greatly undermined, yet a form of primeval common ownership of land, pass directly to the higher form of Communist common ownership? Or, on the contrary, must it first pass through the same process of dissolution such as constitutes the historical evolution of the West?

The only answer to that possible today is this: If the Russian Revolution becomes the signal for a proletarian revolution in the West, so that both complement each other, the present Russian common ownership of land may serve as the starting point for a communist development."

one of the interesting things about this is the first sentence where he talks about the aim of the manifesto as "proclam[ing] of the inevitable impending dissolution of modern bourgeois property", which is a one-sided framing of the problem and manages to put the "equally inevitable" proletarian victory to the side or simply subsumed into it. the latter probably makes the most sense, since he's here arguing that a russian revolution which would be made up of non-proletarian elements could have some revolutionary capacity toward communism, even if the proletariat on a world scale would still need to put in the work toward that aim. in each instance, he is talking to representatives of those elements. this is a political manifesto written to agitate and not simply a treatise of social science. this may get partly lost on 21st century readers, but the russian preface was written for the publication to be read by russian readers. the preface to the italian edition referenced italy as the first capitalist nation and asks its readers "Will Italy give us the new Dante, who will mark the hour of birth of this new, proletarian era?" etc.

it should be clear that there were real political stakes; that marx and engels were not simply describing something they saw around them. the empirical investigation was there in some sense and acted as a motivating force for action, but the particular calls on the revolutionary elements of each country which saw a translation captures the importance of political propaganda and revolutionary agency for the two authors. at times they felt a need to blur the differences between what must happen by iron historical law and what must happen or else we're ruined. this means that this famous document which has generated lots of ideas about what marxism is and how it relates to the historical struggle toward communism is full of theoretical ambivalences, and these exist in some way in many other texts by both marx and engels.

the tensions within and between texts give rise to misunderstandings about the need and possibility of communism, but i don't think that they are reducible to each other so that all claims about a future communism are necessarily ignorantly ideological. if there is a mass political will, and this is definitely what marx and engels were trying to generate with their work, then communism can be possible. the immanent tendencies of capital, which neither thinker really understood that well at the time of writing the manifesto (although it's held up fairly well in many ways), only add to the urgency of the need for such a movement. the destruction is all around us and will keep coming but we can't fall back on the inevitably of communism to save us without anyone ever having to lift a finger. the entire point is that we have to do it ourselves, otherwise the communist movement and its various mouthpieces (like marx and engels) would never even have to exist and communism could simply fall into our collective lap.

[amateurasstrologer]

BY REQUEST #12 JUPITER SATURN & PLUTO TRANSITING CAPRICORN

There’s so much going on with our little Capricorn Crew. Buckle in. Let’s do it. First: It’s good to keep an eye on the lunar cycle and be aware of major historical transits. That being said, transits should not run your life. The celestials are not responsible for your choices, that’s all you, bitch. All transits do is let us know where we’re at within larger cycles and point us towards opportunities. Alright, let's get into it: We had a pretty remarkable Saturn/Pluto conjunction (happens once every ~500 years) back in January, and now Jupiter is getting in on the action. Currently, all three of these far out fiends are posted up in the later Capricorn degrees. At its core, Capricorn is the sign of connection. Healthy Capricorn elements unite, inspire, and empower us to take collective action and create ridiculously functional and stable relationships and groups. Unhealthy Capricorn elements come into play as dangerous power dynamics, coercion, secrecy, and oppression. Jupiter + Saturn + Pluto = maturation, cooperation, restructuring personal relationships/ social systems/ institutions, total collective transformation. Having this much power concentrated in Capricorn pushes people to seek out Cancer elements to counterbalance - personal identity becomes especially important in the face of all this suddenly revealed collective control and conditioning. Keyword: revealed - this shit is not even close to being new, it’s just now becoming unavoidable and indisputable. You thought you were immune to the influence of this fucking insane “imperialist, capitalist, hetero-normative, white-supremacist, patriarchal system” (once more, bell hooks, for the people in the back) we’re all living in? Aw, you sweet baby. No. Shit that used to be visible only to the people directly experiencing it is getting widespread exposure. Why? Because, again, Capricorn is the sign of connection. Capricorn teaches us that we’re all part of it. We exist in a system - affect any piece, affect every piece. Nothing is isolated, and if you can convince yourself that it is isolated and it doesn’t involve you, you’re not only kidding yourself, you’re actively damaging yourself and endangering every single fucking person you come into contact with. Please, put your emotional masks on, you damn babies. Capricorn is no basic bitch - this hoe shows up with ten thousand mirrors for you to take a long hard stare at your actions with, a fuck ton of red hot flaming truth, and absolutely zero mercy (save that shit for Pisces). During these Cap transits we’re all being forced to evaluate the reality of our public systems and our personal relationships - is this shit working? Is this shit sustainable? What is my individual role in all this? Can we function as a unit? How connected are these seemingly disconnected things?

Capricorn puts us all through the tests of time and intensity - how does your shit hold up? The current Capricorn influence isn’t only visible in the shit that’s coming to light, it’s visible in our reactions to it. We’re meant to be looking at this shit, seeing how it all fits together, and acknowledging our role in it - the more we segment ourselves, refuse diversity, and refuse reality, the worse off we’re gonna be as shit gets more and more real. Capricorn puts us through it in order to help us discern between what’s real and what’s not real, between what encourages positive connection and relationships, and what leads to segmentation and disintegration. Capricorn asks you: How real is your shit? How real are your relationships? What’s gonna sustain and what needs to change?

When you understand Capricorn this way, it’s easy to see why people are identifying with extreme narratives - from the intense Spirituality re-boot, to the drastic conspiracy theories, to fundamentalist traditional values, to the self-help and self-improvement market, and beyond. These rigid belief systems (bad Capricorn!), no matter how beneficent seeming, offer people an out from actually having to deal with themselves and do the day-to-day, emotionally nuanced and difficult work (Cancer, is that you?) it takes to work through these challenging questions we’re all being forced to face.

The hardest Capricorn reality to come to terms with is realizing that there is no rigid “right way” to live, there is no blanket of conduct that’ll neatly wrap all your uncomfortable shit - shit is contextual, reality is complex and relationships are challenging - it takes honesty, flexibility, a little bit of humor and a genuine interest in others to create truly functional, real relationships and systems. This is why responsibility, commitment and love are Capricorn words: it takes serious work, attention and effort to change ourselves and the world.

As these three significant planets finish their rounds in Capricorn and move into Aquarius, we’re going to continue to come up against challenges to our identities. Why? Because once we hit Aquarius, shit speeds up. If your shit is too weak to withhold the intensity of Capricorn, you do not stand a chance in Aquarius. So Capricorn is out at the Celestial Community Center offering mandatory emotional conditioning classes every Wed and Fri so you can get yourself into Aquarius shape. All these Capricorn changes - all these uncomfortable truths coming to light in our personal and public lives - these are our opportunities to see our shit for what is really is and get our fucking shit together before we really fall the fuck apart. 

Things are not going to return to normal, these systems are going to change, and our lives and understandings are going to change too. Is it scary? Yes. Are there so many unknowns floating around that we feel like we barely know our own names? Yes. But we fucking need a change, and we need it now, on the largest scale possible. This Cult of Capricorn - especially the Pluto/Saturn conjunction - is giving us an opportunity to actually make systemic changes. The amount we choose to take advantage of that is up to us. It’s important to remember that as hopeless as things may feel, we are not doomed and we are not headed for destruction, we always have a choice. 

Capricorn energy does feel heavy (because it’s fucking Earth), and so it’s easy to play out Capricorn as oppressive and deterministic - it doesn’t have to be this way. If you’re down to look in that Cappy mirror and view these systems, your life, and yourself honestly, that Capricorn Heaviness™️ becomes the structuring force that supports real, healthy connections to yourself and others; it becomes the rock-solid foundation for new institutions and systems that actually empower and encourage us, instead of manipulate and oppress us. Gravity holds shit together, we need a little weight. 

We can’t downplay this time in history - it’s critical. We have a once in a many lifetimes opportunity to deal with our collective past, restructure our shit, and redefine ourselves. It starts with acknowledging the systems that are conditioning us, but it ends with recognizing our own roles in these systems in a real, down-to-Earth way, and being willing to change. Take advantage of that fucking mirror and look at your own fucking life, your own relationships, your own self. Capricorn tells us: own your choices, hoe, and see them for what they are: choices. You can always, always make a different one. 

Peace, bitches, reality awaits.

XO BULLSHIT FREE ASTROLOGY

[traumatized-motherfuckers]

CPTSD and Core Beliefs (Your lens, built on traumatic fuckery)

Alright, so you know I have this Patreon thing that I try to make worth your while in return for your economical help. One of the benefits is the good ole’ monthly ask me anything. And I love it. Because the questions are great. And they push me to dig into topics that I was procrastinating. This month’s AMA is a particularly good one! A question that needs to be addressed, anyways. So it’s perfect. Let’s aim for two birds with one stone.

Our good friend Cassie - you know her by now - asks, how do you identify core beliefs and start to change them? Which is a very simple and very complicated question.

  So, to take a step backwards, what she talkin’ bout?

  Well, one of the internal issues that complex trauma sufferers have to rectify is their belief system. Between our core beliefs and our inner critic, we have a lot going on in between our ears to keep us downtrodden and destitute.

  We’re talking about what I call Fucked Up Core Beliefs here… which are your trauma-born core beliefs. Again, called FUCBs because when you discover them, you’ll likely whisper to yourself, “wow, that’s actually really fucked up.” These sentiments are like the lenses that you surgically stitched onto your face several decades ago in response to your upbringing, as your little mammal brain tried to understand its place in the global hierarchy and how to be chill about it.

 The framework you built from your early development and beyond, that all information still filters through today - both on the way in and on the way out of your head. The words that stream through your brain consciously or subconsciously to shape the ways you appraise… everything. Yourself, your life, your past, your future, other people, and everything that happens in between.

  So, essentially, talking about the ways you interpret your existence and the collected pool of knowledge from where you make decisions, and therefore the ways you act. If this is starting to sound like a big deal - it is!

But it don’t come with a big flashing sign. The Challenge

These beliefs are challenging to figure out because:

  One, they were adapted early on in your life in an effort to understand the circumstances around you or directly downloaded from the sentiments expressed in your environment. When you were first establishing your perspective of the universe and trying to figure out how to navigate it based on the clues presented.

  Plus, the harder part is… because of the early adoption, you’ve already accepted the idea for so long that it doesn’t even seem like a “belief” to you - you’re not choosing it and it’s probably not apparent to you - it’s just the secret narrative running in your head that corrupts all later data. Not cognitive thoughts that you’re directing on purpose. You probably don’t have recollections of the time before you believed such and such to question what you believe - these ideas are solidified in your head with as much certainty as the alphabet.

  So, you might believe you’re a worthless piece of shit as a function of the neglect and abuse you experienced, a way to explain the mistreatment to yourself from a young age… OR you might believe you’re a worthless piece of shit because mom, dad, sister, and society directly told you so. But either way, many years down the line, it’s difficult to pinpoint either of these originating factors as memories fade or to even question the validity of the thought… or to even notice the thought.

  Two, if your family of origin was always repeating the same sort of thoughts and you later associate with people who make you comfortable to be around (i.e. probably have some similar views of the world), you have nothing to compare your beliefs to.

  Your environment teaches you what’s normal. There’s no reference for what is and isn’t healthy, fair, or functional if everyone is drinking the same kool aid. And, unfortunately, in traumatic environments, folks seem to congregate around the fucked up beliefs to protect them with a mutual unspoken agreement. Accept the accepted narrative of the group or be outcast. The same story is replayed on repeat from all ends of your social circle, so why would you even begin to think there’s another way to look at things?

So, if mom, dad, cousin, uncle, grandma, neighbor, peer, teacher, and media are all telling you the same reality exists, how would you ever even begin to have the wherewithal to think otherwise? The thought probably never crosses your mind. The sky is blue, grass is green, and the world is a miserable place where everyone is trying to take advantage of you.

  Three, again, I cannot over-express how insidious, subtle, and generalized these things can be. Fucked up core beliefs affect how you see and process everything. Again, like lenses or an instagram filter permanently applied to your corneas. So, there’s not necessarily one life-effect linked to one-FUCB for easy detection or one event that will cause a clear-as-day defined belief to come shooting to the top of the pile. More like, you very slowly realize you have an unhealthy view or twenty about yourself and the world that have sorrrrrtof impacted every single area of your life now that you spend years considering it.

  Thinking you’re a worthless piece of shit, for instance, has led to you taking low-level jobs with chaotic schedules, living with an abusive partner, and settling for living in the same environment with the same behavioral patterns that you’ve known your entire life. It’s also allowed you to give up exercise, eating right, staying sober, and trying to make any life-improvements. Why bother spit polishing shit? And here you are, wondering why you feel awful about yourself and don’t enjoy anything you’ve created in your life.

  But. It’s not that simple to sort out, or else we would have done it already. You probably haven’t ever purposely considered how commonly this impression is operating below the surface of your actions. Realizing that the belief “I’m a worthless piece of shit who deserves nothing” and trying to change it would be like pulling out the wrong Janga block - everything it has been supporting suddenly comes tumbling down and you’re left with a real fucking mess to rebuild from the bottom up. And, to top it all off, no one ever even taught you how to create a sturdier structure in the first place.

  Fourthly, from some of my own learnings, I’ve come to the conclusion that the core belief, itself, doesn’t even have to present itself at any point to be making a difference in your life. They are so deeply ingrained in my brain that my thought center just naturally uses them as a jumping off point, without even directly touching on the words that might ping my brain as unusual. Just like we can subtly detect risks in our environment that set off our warning bells without ever creating a conscious thought to go with the arousal, I feel like I can apply a core belief to my world without ever noticing the accompanying stream of consciousness.

Sometimes I feel like fucked up core beliefs have become so accepted over time that they’re feelings more than cognitions. As if they’ve become so reflexive through repetition that you have muscle memory - an intuitive response that bypasses your logical brain recognition threshold and jumpstarts shittily-related thoughts… and those will actually register on your thinking scale. But at that point, you accept the novel-feeling thought and never note that it was actually spawned by a very old recording.

  Which is to say, you might have to work on identifying your fucked up core feelings before you can get to the thought deeply buried underneath. Taking a meta break from the episode to tell you, I’ve never thought about that so thoroughly before. But Fucked Up Core Feelings definitely sounds like a solid description of my world. I guess we also have FUCFs to go with our FUCBs from now on. Anyways.

  With all of this in mind, I’m sure you can start to see why these fucked up core beliefs are a big problem. Hell, if you’ve listened to this podcast for more than a few episodes, you’ve definitely heard that I’m still challenged by my own. Like, when I say that I’m freaking out because no one should listen to me and I feel like an imposter - I believe that I’m not good enough to share information with people. That I’m too flawed to even express myself. This is a problem for, say, podcasting. Or, living. And I have to fight it all the time.

  Long story short.

  Your core beliefs are sneaky, they can be comprehensive, and they are hardwired into your brain as your default system for analyzing everything on the planet. Again, kind of like looking for goggles strapped to your face, but in reality you had lasik surgery about 30 years ago.

  So, if you aren’t constantly on the lookout for core beliefs and actively working against your pre-programmed ways of assessing yourself and the world around you… they will get out of control, cause a fair amount of avoidance and defeat, and set you back several steps in your mental health management… plus, potentially your entire life, if you make any big decisions out of this unhealthy mindset. Which you will, because that’s how the brain works. I’m almost certain that you have some experience with this already.

If you ever think things like: The world is a dangerous placePeople are cruelI’m not good enough I’m not smart enoughI’m not enoughI’m brokenOther people don’t like meThere’s something wrong with my personalityI’m not allowed to… (live like others, have nice things, be happy)I’m not one of those people who… (has money, has good luck, gets what they want)Shit is just harder for meNothing ever works outLife is always hardI can’t.

Then you’ve had some fucked up core beliefs floating around in your head.

 These are some super broad ones for the sake of demonstration, so don’t disregard highly specific beliefs that might relate to your particular circumstances or upbringing.

  If you haven’t ever noticed yourself thinking these big shitty picture things… check again in all your deepest nooks and crannies. I think a lot of us TMFRs operate from some version of the narratives above - plus, much worse. Like I keep saying, these beliefs might not be in your conscious thoughts, so much as they’re directing the show from behind the curtain.

How do we pull it back? Discover the beliefs ........

Keep reading or listen up at t-mfrs.com

https://www.t-mfrs.com/podcast/episode/532f2b1c/core-beliefs

[mbti-notes]

What do you think is the best way to deal with the fear of things getting even more conservative and harsh? I'm so scared about the future, living in a dystopian society and having all my rights taken as a non binary queer person. Infj.

I suppose you’re referring to US politics? Please be more specific because the majority of my readership isn’t from the US. You’re asking a loaded question that basically requires me to agree with the premise that everything will be doomed. I can’t agree with that, since I purposely don’t approach politics in a reactive way.

When you’re drowning in fear, you’re not thinking straight. One of the reasons political discourse has reached the lows that it has in the US is because of incessant screaming and hyperbole. The political mediascape is a for-profit machine that is designed to work people up, manipulate their emotions, and keep them living in fear of “enemies”. This creates the mindset of being in a constant fight for survival against various abstractions of “evil”, and it’s much easier to separate you from your money when you’re so threatened that you’re willing to pay to feel safe/validated. The more that people get sucked into this war mentality, the less capable they are of making wise political decisions, since every important problem gets made into an oversimplified “wedge” issue to test your loyalty to your team. 

The world is a lot more complex than red vs blue. To make a living, I have to follow news from around the world very closely. Yes, people get heated about politics, but observe the political reporting from other countries and you will see a difference in the tone and quality. In some countries, there are, gasp!, more than two viable political parties, and thus, more ideas and approaches to choose from. The US has commodified political fear and outrage like no one else by purposely pitting people against each other like rival sports teams, in a state of perpetual conflict, and, most importantly, always distracted from the underlying power structures that are making their lives worse.

To be clear, I’m not a conservative, though I’ve been surrounded and preached to by conservatives my whole life - I engage with them continuously. I am certainly angered by people being stripped of their rights and opportunities. I am certainly depressed when I see people abused and oppressed. I am certainly frustrated when my life suffers from the decisions of politicians I did not vote for. However, I staunchly defend freedom and diversity of beliefs and values. I often have to remind people that many countries and cultures around the world are conservative, and they are not abject hellscapes. Do not equate conservatism with dystopia, barbarism, fundamentalism, extremism, terrorism, xenophobia, or lord of the flies - it doesn’t matter who is doing it, hyperbole and stereotypes are dehumanizing, which enables the violence of war mentality. Conservatism, at its best, is actually needed by society to function well. Progressivism, at its best, is actually needed by society to function well. Intelligent political discourse begins with each of us getting our facts and concepts correct, otherwise, there’s no hope of cooler heads prevailing. It’s important to correctly identify the cause of a problem by labeling it properly.

Every system has flaws and every system will eventually fall apart when those flaws are left to fester and worsen. The US is supposed to be a democracy, right? A democracy is only ever as smart as the people participating in it. Can you say, with a straight face, that Americans have a deep understanding of their political system and work hard to be well-informed of all the political, economic, social, and international issues that the country grapples with? Can you say that the majority of people even understand the political terminology they use? 

The US is admired around the world for its individualism. Individuals succeed and fail by their own hand. Individuals are free to pursue their own happiness and well-being. “The Land of Opportunity”, right? Americans have exported this idea, drawing immigrants from all around the world. However, individualism, taken to an extreme, exacts a very steep price. The bonds which hold individuals together to form a well-functioning society gradually weaken over time. This is a huge problem if you hope to make good collective decisions, which is what elected officials are tasked to do.

The language and currency of politics is power. With power, you get to write the rules. Without power, you are subject to someone else’s rules. It’s really that simple and crass. The purpose of there being many different voices in a discussion is to make sure that no 1 agenda/group gets to dominate the discussion and become too extreme. Opportunists, corporations, and media companies figured this out a long time ago, so they do what they can to shut down nuanced debate and discussion. They all have a deep vested interest in hyping up the individualist ethos of American culture, not because they actually care about “culture” in any noble sense, but because they know that individuals have very limited power. One person alone cannot disrupt the status quo, and keeping everyone psychologically isolated means that those with power can keep enriching themselves without disruption.

Currently, almost every major aspect of American society is designed to stop you from realizing and using your power. Media keeps you locked in fear, feeling victimized, demonizing each other. Big corporate interests keep you hyperfocused on your own emotional vulnerabilities, telling you to earn and consume your way to a false sense of power, as they quietly dismantle workplace and social supports that would preserve your actual power. The prevailing social mandate to be ever productive and “successful” keeps you running like a hamster on a wheel, with little energy to spare for anything else. You are expected, at adulthood, to become a self-made person, never having to rely on anyone for anything, thereby eroding your ties to your roots and kin. If you fail, you are shamed and dubbed a loser, and expected to redouble your efforts to chase higher social status. And some people simply choose to drop out completely, thus relinquishing any social power they had.

In US society, those in power abuse the archetype of the “individual” and the virtue of “independence” to siphon more and more power. Individualism, in its most immature form, is really just self-centeredness. Everyone is only out for themselves and grabbing what they can before someone else does. People fight each other for scraps. And the ultimate goal of life is to have more than the people around you, such that you have the power and privilege to shield yourself from the other hungry dogs. There is no bigger picture to aspire to beyond one’s own survival and daily pleasures. If this is the underlying ethos of your society, are you surprised that the political system reflects it? A lot of people around the world look at the US and mostly see a bunch of immature adolescents. 

Transcending social forces isn’t easy. Power is always unevenly distributed, so it is always ripe for abuse, and fighting against abuses of power requires sustained effort. Therefore, it’s important to understand the many ways that power is used to oppress. I’ve spent a lot of time studying historical movements, political philosophy, and power dynamics, so my view of politics is always the long view. I believe that political progress is constant work. I don’t believe in end goals or being free to rest on your laurels. I believe history teaches us that, whatever your political allegiances, the complacent eventually become the victims. I believe that social change is relatively easy to understand by observing the way that power changes hands in society. 

Politics boils down to an endless series of change-and-backlash sequences. Whenever one group takes a significant political step, someone somewhere will lose out on some power and privilege, and they’re not going to take it lying down. Fear and anger drive the changes, and fear and anger drive the backlashes. Rinse and repeat. When the tide turns against you, it only means that it’s your turn to step up again. Fear and anger are not reasons to give up, rather, they are the wake up call that spurs the next round of changes. From conflict comes motivation.

Political power is gained through organization. The fastest way to accumulate power, especially in a democracy, is to stand together and pool your resources. But what is the motivation for organizing? Usually anger. Civil rights are never won by waiting around for the privileged to relinquish their power. No, people get together to claim their rights, DEMAND change, and MAKE the changes that they want to see, refusing to surrender to oppression. They loudly infiltrate social spaces, influence officials, run for office as representatives, and accumulate the political power to rewrite the rules. This is true whatever your political stripe. This is what conservatives have excelled at for the past thirty years in the US. 

However, as soon as you change the status quo, there will always be people that want to reverse it. It is difficult for younger people to grasp, but politics has no end, it is merely an ongoing struggle for power, as power changes hands from the complacent to the aggrieved, and then back again. For example, LGBTQ people view a right-dominated supreme court as a danger to their existence, for good reason, and that should motivate them to fight back even harder to reclaim their right to equality. Conservatives view a right-dominated supreme court as progress, and having achieved that success, they will become complacent, which provides the opening for progressives to regroup and rise again. 

The only escape from this cycle comes in the form of death or transcendence. To transcend means to see the bigger picture of what can be achieved, so that you are able to set aside the petty and work for something greater. Human beings have had their transcendent moments here and there throughout history, so they are certainly capable of it. Progress on civil rights has indeed been made over many decades, but there is always more work to do, as long as there are people that don’t view it as “progress”. For example, the fact that, after decades of tireless activism, the majority of Americans now support same-sex marriage, is something you should be building upon, rather than only focusing on the setbacks.

If you think that I’m singling out the US, I’m not. Oppression happens everywhere. It is a part of human nature to be egotistical, complacent, and short-sighted. But that’s not the only part of humans. For a democracy to work at its best, we have to appeal to the better parts of our human nature, i.e., the parts of us that: understand and care about how we affect each other, appreciate hard-won freedoms and never take them for granted, and envision a better future and plan well for it. The best changes come from passion and inspiration - not fear and anger. If you, as an individual, are not capable of bringing out and offering up your own better nature by transcending the worst parts of yourself, you can’t really expect the sociopolitical system to be capable of it, either. If you, as an individual, always lose sight of the bigger picture that you’re aiming for, then how will you help others see the importance of your cause?

Gandhi said: “We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. This is the divine mystery supreme. A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do.”

IMO, the job of a good citizen involves: 1) caring about the broader impact that your vote has and educating yourself properly so that you make wise voting decisions, 2) exercising your power by actively participating in organizations that advocate for the changes that you want, and 3) having enough self-awareness to avoid being emotionally manipulated into making destructive political judgments. Humans aren’t perfect, but they don’t have to be to create a well-functioning society. Humans make better decisions when the social atmosphere encourages them to open up the mind and heart. We all have a part to play in creating an encouraging social atmosphere for people to deliberate more carefully on their political beliefs.

Are you an unwitting pawn of the media, rewarding the players that only care about getting your eyeballs for ad revenue? Are you only caring about political issues because you read something that incited your outrage? Are you resigned to cynicism, indifference, gloom, or paranoia? Are you all about “owning the enemy”? Are you only concerned about your own prospects in life? Are you waiting helplessly for someone to hand you what you deserve?

OR: Are you joining organizations that create positive change? Are you listening to the experiences of the people around you and understanding how their reality informs their politics? Are you doing the hard work of inspiring the people around you to be their better selves? Do you hope that everyone in your country has a chance to live their best life? Do you stand up to support people in need and work to eliminate injustice? Will you learn the best way to (re)claim what is owed to you from those that deny or oppress you?

You are only one person, so your power is limited. What are you doing to amplify your voice and extend the reach of your power? Are you dying or transcending? A democracy is only ever as strong as the people participating in it.

[undefined5posts]

Liberal vs Leftist

One of the things that I was confused about once I started being interested in politics were the terms "liberal" and "leftist".

There was obviously a right and left wing. What I knew was that a liberal was a tolerant individual that constantly promoted human rights, and since they were considered to belong to the left, I logically concluded that these two word were synonymous.

It turns out there is a difference, and I thought I'd try to explain it in a relatively simple way for whoever needs it. Let's start with defining each term:

Liberalism:

A political and social philosophy that promotes individual rights, civil liberties, democracy, and free enterprise. -Oxford Languages

Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on liberty, consent of the governed and equality before the law. [...] Liberalism became a distinct movement in the Age of Enlightenment, when it became popular among Western philosophers and economists. - Wikipedia

Liberalism is a belief in gradual social progress by changing laws, rather than by revolution. -Collin

Leftism:

The political views or policies of the left. -Oxford Languages

Leftism refers to the beliefs and behaviour of people who support socialist ideas. - Collin

An economic posisistion favouring more collectivity/cooperation in making resource using decisions. This can either be done by state planning or using communes. -Urban Dictionnary

The major difference between these two ideologies is the preffered economic system of each. Basically, liberals have nothing against capitalism but believe in law changing and reforming in order to achieve equality. While leftists believe that the only way to atteign true equity would be overthrowing capitalism and adapting an entirely new economic system such as communism or socialism, generally accompanied by a revolution.

https://www.mcall.com/opinion/readers-react/mc-opi-let-walters-leftists-liberals-20200915-cz6l5pan7zcrld27jg333llwj4-story.html

"Liberals are not leftists, and there are a few keypoints in understanding the differences betwen the two. Liberalism is an ideology that has a wide array of views but in general it's in support of universal human rights, democratic governance and market based capitalist economics.

While there is some overlap, this last part is largely what seperates the two. Well meaning liberals do generally want to protect human rights and promote social equality but believe the problems stemmed from our capitalist system can be tweaked and reformed.

Leftists, on the other hand, are fundamentally opposed to capitalism, [they believe] that the problems created by the system are actually not problems at all, rather, they are a sign that the system is working as intended. Crony capitalism* doesn't exist, ideologically pure free market capitalism* doesn't exist either, there is only capitalism, and it must be abolished. Liberalism as an ideology believes that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with capitalism, that the problems that exist within a society are the result of bad actors and policies within the system that must be rooted out so the system can function properly. Leftist ideologies understand that the system itself is the cause of the suffering. No amount of reforming can fix the problems in our society. It's not a matter of bad actors and policies but one of the relations we keep to keep society running.

Perhaps the most succint quote that hilights the differences comes from brazilian Archbishop Hélder Câmara: " When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist." -"Why liberals are not leftists" by Leaflets via Youtube

https://youtu.be/b6w3l_BUyWs

*What is crony capitalism?

"An economic system in which individuals and businesses with political connections and influence are favored (as through tax breaks, grants, and other forms of government assistance) in ways seen as suppressing open competition in a free market." -Merriam Webster

"In its worst form, crony capitalism can devolve into simple corruption where any pretense of a free market is dispensed with. Bribes to government officials are considered de rigueur and tax evasion is common. [...] Corrupt governments may favor one set of business owners who have close ties to the government over others." -Wikipedia

*What is ideologically pure free market society?

"In a capitalistic society, the production and pricing of goods and services are determined by the free market, or supply and demand, however, some government regulation may occur. [...] A free market system is an economic system based solely on demand and supply, and there is little or no government regulation." -Investopedia

Is Free Market the Same as Capitalism?

"A capitalist system and a free market system are both economic environments that are based on the law of supply and demand.

They both are involved in determining the price and production of goods and services. On one hand, capitalism is focused on the creation of wealth and ownership of capital and factors of production, whereas a free market system is focused on the exchange of wealth, or goods and services." - By Steven Nickolas for Investopedia

https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/042215/what-difference-between-capitalist-system-and-free-market-system.asp

"Voters need to understand the fundamental differences between liberalism and leftism. It’s the difference between a candidate who believes capitalism, with just a little refereeing, will eventually provide what working people need, versus a candidate who believes serious intervention in the capitalist economy is necessary." -The Conversation

https://theconversation.com/the-difference-between-left-and-liberal-and-why-voters-need-to-know-120273

That's about it, I hope I was able to properly explain everything. This is obviously an overview of leftism and liberalism and in no way an in depth analysis of each ideology, though I later probably will dive in deeper.

As I have previously specified, I am a leftist, and I do not think that we can achieve any true change as long as we are under a capitalist system since every "problem" we've had is each deeply rooted in capitalism. I would also love to make a post listing some arguments that justify my beliefs, but that'll be for another time.

Thank you for reading, also, I've never really asked you if you had any suggestions but I'd like to see if you guys had any questions about politics, and if I happen to have an understanding in the subject, I'll try to answer it with a similar kind of post. Okay thanks, bye.

[never-sated]

She died at the Jewish New Year, and my family is not religious. But I had been so happy, in this time of being far from our loved ones, to be eating a Friday-night dinner next to my father, until the news came and the food that had been delicious suddenly tasted like ashes. As we quietly finished the meal, our phones buzzing with grief and shock, my father showed me the messages he was already receiving from fellow liberals and leftists, describing in vivid terms how angry they were at her.

As many mourn, others are already raging. Their fury will be loud and resonant in these next few days and weeks, a mad howling as the nation absorbs what’s to come now. Ire at this 87-year-old woman, a Supreme Court justice who had repeatedly survived cancer but did not this time, will carry many Americans through their periods of shock and despair. Scared and livid, many will rail at her: for not retiring years ago, during the administration of a president they imagine (had he not been blocked by a racist and obstructionist Senate) would have replaced her with someone qualified and just, someone who would not be eager to slam the final nail in the coffin of civil liberties, reproductive health care, LGBTQ rights, labor, voting, the climate … all of it. They will blame her, and they will blame those who created a cult of admiration around this remarkable, imperfect woman, because they will want to have people to shake their fist at, because the world is shattered and chilling and is about to get even more difficult than it already is.

This rage toward a beloved, history-making woman who just died will feel — and will be — profane and grotesque. It will be more than a little sexist, because blaming every bad outcome on an old woman you deem selfish in her professional self-determination, and on the Resistance Moms who “Yas Queen” her, is an endlessly gratifying strain of liberal misogyny.

It will also, to some degree, be fair.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg made a choice that turned out wrong. She wanted to keep doing the work she loved and was good at and that mattered; she didn’t want to stop before she was ready. Like so many others, she believed Hillary Clinton would likely win in 2016. And like so many others, she was wrong about that. Now there is a good chance that her replacement will be chosen by Donald Trump, a president who came to power on malignant racism and sexism and who will gain, in her death, the ability to offer America’s right wing what they have worked toward for 60 years: nearly full power to roll back, via the court, the disruptive gains made by the social movements of the 20th century on behalf of marginalized people.

So I understand why people will be furious at Ruth Bader Ginsburg and why they will say so loudly, in raised tones that convey their own assurance that they would have made the right choice, had they been her. Though those who are mad will not want to hear it, their reaction is made of precisely the same stuff that led people to lionize her as an outsize savior: because in the absence of structural security it is far easier to home in on individuals — as both our heroes and our villains — than it is to reckon with the enormity of what’s wrong and what needs to be righted.

These past months could not have made this dynamic any clearer: the reflexive turn to blame individuals for how they choose to behave when left adrift in the sucking, soulless chasm created by large-scale institutional infirmity.

Among the grim ironies of Ginsburg’s death is that, as Irin Carmon wrote in her beautiful obituary, Ginsburg’s obsessions with process and order stemmed from “a general belief, shared by the postwar liberalism that shaped her, that functioning institutions could provide a neutral bulwark to the excesses of the past.”

But one of the reasons her death will be as explosive and consequential as it is sure to be is that so many of our institutions are failing us, and have been purposefully perverted or used to serve regressive purpose: a Senate that broke the nation’s rules by refusing to confirm the Supreme Court pick of a sitting Democratic president; an Electoral College that served its original purpose of overturning the will of an American majority to deliver the White House to a leader committed to white supremacy; a political system that doesn’t inspire its populace to vote in critical midterm elections; a Republican Party willing to spend decades doing whatever it took to reverse legal and legislative victories that redistributed a little bit of power out of the hands of white patriarchal capitalist-fueled corporations; and a Democratic Party that did not have the will or foresight to fight as fiercely or as cannily on behalf of rights, protections, and dignity as their obstructionist opposition fought against.

Where it landed us was with a nation looking to one octogenarian to make the exact right set of decisions to make everything turn out okay. You can feel the anguished search to fill the void created by structural collapse in the words of a lawyer who told the Washington Post on Friday night, as she paid tribute to Ginsburg by coming to the Supreme Court’s plaza, “The question that keeps popping up in my head is, ‘Who is going to take care of us?’”

It was an elocution that betrayed the hunger for protections we have not been getting from our government, but Ginsburg herself was never actually in a position to take care of us. After all, she came to be widely adulated only in the period in which she was in the Court’s minority; she was issuing dissents — brilliantly lacerating, yes, but still dissents — from decisions that imperiled and weakened us.

The Voting Rights Act has already been disemboweled, reproductive health care already made inaccessible to millions, all while Ruth Bader Ginsburg sat on the Court. This does not mean that those battles are lost — they cannot be; they will not be — but it was never going to be this one woman who won them for us.The notion that our survival depended on her survival was always flawed, and betrayed how ravenous many were for any thread of hope for quiet and functional institutional correction, rather than for the mass uprising and furious battle this moment calls for. Part of the fantasy was that if she could hang on we could get back to “normal,” but normal is long past broken.

It should never have come down to her, even in our collective imagination, and whether you are absolutely sure that that’s right it shouldn’t; she was selfish and stupid for not having retired or that that’s right it shouldn’t; she was a brilliant justice who had every right to keep her job and the pushback she received for it was terribly unfair … they actually come down to the same thing: The fate of American democracy and the planet should never have rested on this one woman’s small, old shoulders.

This is what happens when the government fails, when the safety nets that have been slashed for years are gone, when there is no oversight, no one in power with the drive or backbone to fight back or organize effectively or exert authority or offer real structural support or direction. In an absence of leadership, of functional guidance, we’re all left to imagine that the decisions of other individuals are what is going to save or damn us.

This has also been the story of these last six months, as local and state and federal leadership has offered weak to nonexistent economic and medical support or assurance. A nation of unmoored people has been left to run our own risk analyses — about masks, surfaces, schools; about personal and familial safety, civic responsibility, and economic security — all based on incomplete or often purposely misleading information. The choices we individuals have made have carried their own costs and benefits, have had their own surprising and sometimes lethal consequences, and in the vacuum created by the absence of structures that were supposed to protect and support us, we have turned on each other, becoming angry at those who chose differently, poorly, who made bad bets, rather than directing our outrage at the institutions that abandoned us.

This is what I will think of when I hear the coming fury toward Ginsburg. Because the fault here was not one person. More importantly: The fix here is not one person, and it never has been. It’s not one justice, though one justice — in concert with the other two Trump has appointed, with the hundreds of federal judges a McConnell-led Senate has confirmed to lifetime appointments — will matter. It’s not even one president, though that president — in concert with the Senate and the House and the state legislatures — will matter.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg matters, now as much as she ever has, but her survival alone couldn’t have saved us, any more than getting rid of Donald Trump will save us. We are facing something far larger: a desperate, life-or-death fight to rebuild, reimagine, reform (and in some cases raze) enormous apparatuses, including our criminal justice, electoral, health-care, and education systems, labor and capitalism, education, housing, the courts themselves, and, most urgently, the health of our planet. It will call on us to fight as fiercely and with as much determination as Ginsburg herself fought, through her life and career.

That’s daunting and hard. And for some, in the face of all this, it will undoubtedly feel good and perhaps even righteous to voice frustration at the decisions made by one woman — extraordinary, ordinary, important, and now sadly gone. But that’s not the work, and it’s not going to work to get us anywhere in the perilous days to come. Instead, we have to address what is really broken, which is not just our hearts and our spirits: It’s the frail systems in which Ruth Bader Ginsburg wanted so badly to believe. She’s gone and it is up to us to undertake the demanding revolutionary work of remaking them, this time stronger and more just.

[megpie71]

Why I don’t ship Clerith

(Because what the hell, I may as well get this out here before the fun and games start next year, and I have to fight off Clerith shippers with a bat)

I think I've worked out the problem I have with Cloud/Aerith shipping, as far as I'm concerned.

[Clarification: this is why I have trouble with it, and won't write it.  I'm not saying other people can't, just that I do have issues with it, and therefore don't particularly like reading it, and I've sort of worked out why.]

Now, there are two predominant "schools" of people who ship Cloud with Aerith.  One of those is what I'd call OT3/OT4 fandom, where firstly, the relationship is happening prior to the Nibelheim event, and generally there's at least Zack mixed in to the bundle (sometimes with the addition of Sephiroth, to make the OT4), and it's generally a bisexual threesome at least.  And yeah, that one I find vaguely believable.

[Could all the anti-shippers who just leapt to their feet shrieking "paedophillia!" because Cloud is canonically somewhere between 14 and 16 in this 'ship, kindly sit the fuck back down again?  Cloud Strife may only be 14 years old, but he is a functional adult in his society, taking on an adult role (member of the army of the One World Government).  He would greatly resent any implication he is a "child", because he gave up being a "child" when he left Nibelheim to join the army.  Also, in the OT3 version, Aerith is about 15 - 17 years old, Zack is between 16 and 18 years old.  None of them are "adults" as we'd define it in Western Eurocentric cultures, but all of them are "adults" according to their own cultural system that they grew up in.  As such, they think of themselves as being adults, they consider themselves to be adults, and given they're performing adult roles for at least two years by the time the Nibelheim event comes along, they're not going to step back into childhood again, either.  If you're going to bitch about this, then start by bitching at the original writers working for Square Enix well before you start bitching at fanwriters, okay?

This is also leaving aside the cheerful fact that "adulthood" norms are generally socially and culturally determined.  So, for example, my maternal grandmother became a functional "adult" at the age of 14, when she came out on a boat from England to Australia in order to find work (accompanied by her 16 year old sister); my mother became a functional "adult" at the age of 16, when she finished her third year of high school and started working; and I became a functional "adult" at the age of 18, when I reached the legal age to vote and drink, even though I didn't have a full-time job and I was still living with my parents at the time.  My paternal grandfather joined the British army at the age of 12 (as a drummer boy, toward the end of World War 1).  What counts as "adult" is culturally and socially determined, and never a fixed point of reference.]

I can find it very believable that Cloud would get involved in a relationship with two people who are roughly around his own age, and that it would be a Good Thing in his life at the time.  He's going through puberty, he's behaving as an adult in his society, he would be doing adult things, including sex and possibly alcohol (although my head-canon is that Cloud is incredibly disappointed with Midgarian beer the first time he tries it, and refers to it as "sex in a canoe" ever after - fucking close to water.  He grew up drinking applejack and brandywine as antifreeze since shortly after he could first toddle).  

The other "school" of people who ship Cloud and Aerith tend to place the potential relationship during the canon time period of the original game, starting not long after Cloud rescues Aerith from the Turks in the church.  Now, I have a lot of problems with that one.

Firstly, I doubt Aerith would really be interested in a relationship.  It's made reasonably clear at the end of Crisis Core (and in "The Last Order" OVA) that Aerith knows when Zack was killed - she feels his spirit rejoin the Lifestream because she is who and what she is.  So her first serious boyfriend has died, she knows he's died, and you can't kid me she wouldn't be grieving as a result.  So I don't think Aerith is in the right emotional place to be starting a relationship.

As for Cloud... oh gods.  No.  Hell no.  So much no.  

Cloud is, at the point where he meets Aerith, a psychological mess beyond belief.  He has been incredibly traumatised, first by multiple years of experimentation, then by prolonged mako poisoning, and then finally, just as he's starting to come out of that, by seeing his best (only?) friend destroyed in front of him by pretty much the whole damn Shinra army.  Zack dies in his arms, and the best interpretation of what happens next is Cloud's mind, overwhelmed by the emotional and sensory overload of dealing with this (because he's not just waking up from mako poisoning, he's waking up from mako poisoning with Sephiroth-level SOLDIER enhancement, which means his sensory matrix has been boosted sight out of mind as well) basically shuts down completely on a conscious level, and wipes the memory, adding traumatic amnesia to the whole mix.  When he re-awakens, he re-patterns himself on a combination of Zack's memory, what he remembers of Sephiroth, and what he thinks a First Class SOLDIER should be like.

Now, mix in that Cloud Strife is carrying around the Buster Sword the first time Aerith meets him, in the plaza in sector eight, just after Reactor One has exploded.  Aerith knows what the Buster Sword is, she knows what it meant to Zack and she knew why it meant that.  So seeing it on someone else's back is probably a very nasty reminder to her that Zack isn't coming back.  She doesn't know why Cloud is wearing it, and I doubt in the shock of the moment (let's not forget: massive explosion about five to ten minutes previously, people running around the square like headless chickens the whole time, she's probably not really thinking all that clearly to begin with, and given Mako is also the Lifestream, she's probably felt a profound disturbance in the localised lifestream flows thanks to the destruction of the mako reactor, which may well have knocked her sideways as well!) she's really able to do much more than recognise it, feel the shock of the recognition, and move on to the next part of the interaction.

The second time Cloud and Aerith meet (and if you're familiar with Crisis Core canon, the second time someone drops through the roof of the Church down onto her flowerbed - if not, go look up who the first example was) she's a bit more capable of sustained thought past the shock.  So she sees it's the same guy with the Buster Sword, and this time, she's determined he isn't going to vanish on her, because there's something hinky going on here.  It gets even weirder for her when you consider Cloud is channelling a lot of Zack's mannerisms in order to be able to get through the encounter himself (I have a strong suspicion Cloud is dissociating continuously throughout at least the first five "days" of the game).  So she "hires" this strange guy as her "bodyguard", gets him away from the Turks who appear to have turned up to collect him (and really, it's much more likely at first approximation that the Turks and troopers are there to collect Cloud, given the ambush President Shinra staged at Reactor Four), takes him home with her, and deliberately makes sure she's able to keep an eye on him by following him back to Sector Seven.  Or at least, that's the plan.

I really don't think Cloud would be an attractive partner for Aerith at that point - not with her grief still fresh in her mind, and with his uncanny behavioural resemblance to Zack.  I think Cloud would be much more likely to creep her the fuck out, rather than turn her on sexually.  And as for Cloud, my head-canon for him is he probably isn't even masturbating at this point in his life - his mind is basically about fifty-seven different types of trauma all shaken up into a constant waking nightmare.  He might have a few wet dreams when the physical pressure gets too great, but he's not even thinking of himself as a sexual being at this point, and certainly not in a space where he'd be interested in an actual relationship.  The flirting is mechanical (and probably comes across as same, too) and I really don't think he would have been physically capable of following through, so to speak.  (Cloud, to my mind, won't be ready for a relationship until about two or three years down the line after the end of Advent Children, if then).

So no, I don't think it's possible for Cloud and Aerith to be involved in a relationship at that point.  Not even if they'd been involved in one prior to the Nibelheim event.  (Actually, in that particular case it would be even more traumatic for both of them - Aerith knows Cloud, but can't tell him because it would hurt him more than he can handle; he's constantly dissociating and suffering from traumatic amnesia, and he's only just got out of a state of complete catatonia - learning the truth in such a fashion would just knock him straight back there, and they need him upright and functioning.  Plus it's physically safer for him if he learns the truth of the matter slowly - if he went catatonic... well, that could very well dump him right back into Hojo's hands again, since it's a fair bet Shinra owns the majority of the medical facilities in the world).  

Then Sephiroth damn near manipulates Cloud into killing Aerith, and when that doesn't work, Sephiroth kills her himself, right in front of Cloud.  If you tell me that wouldn't be the cue for a massive attack of the guilts on Cloud's part, I'm going to ask what the merry hells you're on, because I need my doctor to prescribe me some of that.

[yourtoradorasextendedwarranty]

Far Left Reality Check

So i’m posting this due to seeing a LOT of people i debate with calling themselves anarcho-communists or pure anarchists. And always they try to appeal to me by saying the are anti big brother government and corporations. As it stands, I’m a centrist; I have views on both sides of the fence and don’t lean too heavy to either side. The reason the people who follow Communism, Anarchy, or Socialism bug me, is because they can’t work while retaining actual freedoms or human lives. 

Now why do i say that. Let’s look to the past shall we? Anarchy is lack of a government all together. Humans are not people who function well without laws, so that’s very much out. Not to mention that to have an anarchistic view you have to have a general hate for human life. If that’s how you feel fine, but don’t lie about it. 

Socialism has not worked in any country up till now. Every place that has tried it has failed. WHY?! Because humans are greedy. Humans thirst for power. When i mention this i’m met with “Well look who controls us now! A socialism would be better because it’s for the people.” YEAH! Until it’s not. Socialism is almost perfect on paper. It just can’t be executed because humans are flawed. And almost every time it has been tried it has collapsed under either the rich, or under power hungry politicians who realized that socialism does not guarantee anyone a voice. 

Now lets look at communism. A governmental concept that has killed more around the world TO DATE than almost anything else short of the Black Plague. It is about taking away all private possessions and making them public for everyone. In it’s fullest form, Sure sharing is caring until you realize that you don’t own your own stuff. Refugee’s need a place to crash? Your house is open as a standard. Your food? Not yours anymore. Anything in “your” house? Nope not yours. It belongs to the collective. 

Or better yet imagine this. I walk in to your house, take off my shoes and put my feet on your coffee table, take your iPhone from you (not that iPhone would exist under a communist government) and i break it. Too bad it was mine too. That’s the function of communism at it’s heart. EVERYONE is equal because no one really owns anything. 

Here is where the bulk of my points are leading to. Fact is most of these people who want to burn the system down have it in their heads this PERFECT UTOPIA of Communism, Socialism, or Anarchy. Perfect DOES NOT EXIST! It can’t. We as humans are flawed and always will be. Some of us are decent, some of us are kind, some of us are monsters. This will never actually change. And it bugs me that these.....”intellectuals” have the nerve to talk about systems that should work, while single-handedly ignoring the BIGGEST road block. People. Humans. Not to mention the fact that they have the nerve to believe THEY of all people would survive this kind of radical change in our government/or removal of. In a country full of almost 4 hundred million, Who would be flying to stores, scooping up weapons, food, and general needs at the drop of a hat. And that’s assuming it goes in a civil direction,.....which it won’t.

The final nail in this coffin of “perfect non corporate systems” ends with us being invaded once our military implodes on itself. Why? No funds to keep it running. Add the fact that we are poorly liked by both Russian and China? What do we end up with? One of two things. Invasion in the form of mass military, or Two, Invasion in the form of “Aid” due to a collapse of 90%+ of function of our general grid. Power? Might last a month. Water? Likely not more than 2 weeks if that. Food? Gone within the first week. Leading to people killing others to steal their food. And this is with just the announcement of implementing one of these 3 things. If their was no announcement everything would grind to a halt in days. 

And the funny thing about this? Leftists who support these systems claim to be humanitarian and pacifists. Well i have news for you. These things are not pacifistic beliefs. More over it requires you to be willing to sacrifice hundreds of million for YOUR ideal system. And even if that worked the rest of the world would take notice. We would fall to something akin to a third world country. And other countries would come for us. Either to claim us and govern us, or conquer us. There is not option C. You are not some Rambo superman would will make the world see things your way. And you also have the nerve, living in some of the most peaceful times in history that YOU have what it takes to survive if the whole system shut down? News flash. You’re don’t. And no amount of survival guides or prepping will change that.  Utopia does not exist. And your perfect vision of the future can’t either. I might not like the current system but at least i have the nerve to admit i want to find a system that works or make ours work better. And i’m not willing to put my foot in my mouth trying to pretend that “We will be the first to “make it work”, when LITERALLY everyone else has failed. Or is swimming in human rights violations. I’ve even seen people argue getting rid of the police completely. YEAH tell me how that goes when someone sexually assaults and kills a spouse or family member. Oh that’s right. Vigilante justice. Justice that will invoke hate from their family or spouse that will lead to a never ending loop of violence/killing. In other words? More deaths. More lives you are willing to sacrifice for YOUR “perfect” world.  

The moment these people get their heads out of the clouds the better. Some of them are pretty smart. Just blinded by their own ambitions for a utopia that does not and will never exist. A utopia that can never be as we are all flawed. Even the people that want these systems. And often with far less care for human life over all. 

[aion-rsa]

World of Warcraft Shadowlands Review In Progress

https://ift.tt/3q0JOzD

By the end of World of Warcraft‘s last expansion, Battle for Azeroth, the usual fatigue that accompanies the final days of a WoW expansion was amplified by the belief that Blizzard was no longer in control of its 16-year-old MMORPG giant. There were some players who felt that Activision’s influence on Blizzard had corrupted the company’s spirit. Others who had just gotten a taste of World of Warcraft Classic bemoaned the loss of the social elements that had once defined the game. There was a general feeling that Blizzard was doing all it could to keep WoW afloat while longtime fans were impatiently waiting for the MMO to embark upon its next great adventure.

In many ways, Blizzard wants Shadowlands to be that great adventure. More importantly, the studio seems to want Shadowlands to be the expansion that helps reset WoW and wipes away some of the mistakes that the team has made in recent years. After hours of playing Shadowlands, it seems the expansion is on track to do just that, even as the ghosts of the past decisions threaten to drag the MMO back down into a void of complacency.

Shadowlands makes a good first impression. Shortly after starting the expansion’s primary questline, you’re thrown into The Maw, a kind of uber-Hell where the worst of the worst go when they die. The problem is that it seems every soul has been sent to The Maw recently, which has allowed the realm’s ruler, a Thanos-like creature known as The Jailer, to build an army of the damned. With help from the recently crowned Lich Queen, Sylvanas Windrunner, The Jailer plans to use this army to take over all the realms of the Shadowlands and Azeroth as well.

This setup is a simple, but effective way to not only introduce players to the lore of Shadowlands but to once again put all players under the thumb of a universal threat. You will miss out on many, many bits of lore by hopping into Shadowlands without knowing anything about the history of World of Warcraft mythology, but it’s easy enough to understand and enjoy the standalone plot that Shadowlands offers.

More importantly, the entire Shadowlands concept seems to have brought out the best of the game’s talented artists and designers. Each zone in Shadowlands essentially serves as a different version of the afterlife. This idea is beautifully demonstrated by Shadowlands’ starting zone, Bastion, which is a kind of an Elysian Fields version of the afterlife where angelic figures roam fields of wheat. It stands in stark contrast to the next zone, Maldraxxus, where necromancers train the souls of the damned as well as warriors who refused to stop fighting even in death.

It’s entirely possible to enjoy your time in World of Warcraft without diving into the story or lore, but it’s a testament to the design of Shadowlands‘ worlds that the lore is built into every corner of each new zone in such a way that you end up appreciating what the team has built even if you skip every line of dialogue en route to the endgame.

Yet, the biggest highlight in Shadowlands is the level squish. Blizzard’s decision to reduce the level cap from 120 to 60 not only helps the game feel much more approachable for new players (even if the leveling time is about the same) but also ensures that reaching a new level feels more significant. While vital talent points are only acquired every five levels from level 15 on, each new level typically rewards you with some kind of new skill or dungeon to explore.

While I leveled my first Shadowlands character (a Shadow Priest) to 50 during the expansion’s pre-patch period, the journey from 50-60 was made that much better by the Shadowlands‘ combination of largely exceptional world design and the fact that there was something new to explore with each new “ding.” Shadowlands offers a nearly universal leveling experience for first time level 50-60 players, and the expansion’s campaign does a fairly good job of making that progression relatively painless. I especially enjoyed the way the game now clearly marks campaign quests and side quests, making it that much easier for players to reach 60 as fast as possible.

Release Date: Nov. 23, 2020 Platform: PC Developer: Blizzard Publisher: Blizzard Genre: MMORPG

That may sound like an odd bit of praise for those out of the loop or anyone who hasn’t played WoW since its early days, but the truth of the matter is that WoW just isn’t about the leveling experience anymore. Blizzard has done everything reasonably in its power to make the journey from 1-60 as efficient as possible. As someone who really got into WoW with the release of Classic, there’s a part of me that is always going to miss the idea that the journey to the level cap should be this epic adventure filled with leveling zones, dungeon runs, and a slow but steady mastery of your character’s abilities and equipment. I suspect there’s a happier middle-ground between modern WoW leveling and WoW Classic leveling, but if you accept that Shadowlands leveling is just meant to be a narrative-driven prelude to the endgame, then it’s a lot easier to appreciate the campaign the team has designed.

That being said, there are some aspects of Shadowland‘s leveling experience that simply do not work. Quests remain one of the game’s biggest issues. World of Warcraft quests have always been somewhat infamous for their simplicity (many of the WoW Classic quests really do boil down to “Collect X Item”), but Blizzard has tried to make the questing process more enjoyable in recent years by creating tighter questline narratives and ensuring you have to travel shorter distances between objectives.

All of that makes questing more efficient, but little of it makes questing more interesting. Most quests follow the same basic tropes and are easy enough to complete without any help from friends or other players. That last part is especially disappointing as the release of a new expansion should be the best time to embraces the benefits of an influx in players. Instead, I’m often left running around working through the same basic skill rotation to complete a similar series of quests by myself.

This is where dungeons should come in to help break up the monotony, but they’re kind of in a weird spot at the moment. I love the design of the Shadowlands dungeons I’ve queued into so far from both a thematic and gameplay standpoint, but they’re just not designed to be woven into the leveling experience quite in the same way that they were in the past. You don’t really “need” to run dungeons until you’re grinding for better gear in the late game. That approach removes a golden opportunity to capitalize on the “massively multiplayer” element of a massively multiplayer online role-playing game.

Read more

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Thankfully, the role-playing portion of the experience fares pretty well. I’ve already praised Shadowlands‘ story and world-building, but so far, I’m also happy with how Blizzard has balanced the various characters and races. Yes, some classes will offer a statistical advantage over others, but that’s unavoidable. What’s impressive is that you get the feeling you can truly play Shadowlands as any class/race/specialization combination you choose and not have to worry about being ousted by other players until you get into high-end raiding. Time (and the growth of Shadowlands‘ PvP scene) will reveal just how balanced Shadowlands really is, but what’s important right now is that most classes feel like they have some semblance of identity and are not so unbalanced that you need to prioritize anything but your role-playing preferences.

Battle for Azeroth‘s problem wasn’t necessarily its leveling experience (it actually featured a strong narrative and some great zones), but if we treat the journey to the level cap as a guided campaign, I generally feel that Shadowlands is a stronger expansion overall due to its level squish and better overall world building.

What remains to be seen is whether or not Shadowlands‘ endgame content thrives where Battle for Azeroth failed. I already feel like Torghast will offer a far better endgame experience than BfA‘s dreadful Island Expeditions, and legendary crafting and Covenant faction experiences feel more exciting than Heart of Azeroth and Warfronts. I’m still worried that the new Anima resource system will replicate the mistakes of BfA‘s Azerite system, which too often negated the thrill of acquiring new items through dungeons and raids, but it doesn’t seem to be quite that invasive so far.

As it stands right now, I haven’t put enough hours into Shadowlands endgame yet to render a verdict on the expansion’s most important long-term features. Considering that much of Shadowland‘s endgame isn’t even available yet, including the remaining Torghast floors and the expansion’s first raid, there’s still a lot of ground to cover. What I can tell you is that Shadowlands offers a worthwhile leveling experience that represents a better version of modern WoW than we’ve seen in recent years, even if it’s not quite the extensive overhaul that some were hoping for.

With the release of Shadowlands, Blizzard seems to have rescued WoW from some really rocky waters. Now, we just have to hope the team uses its considerable resources to do more than just stay adrift.

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The post World of Warcraft Shadowlands Review In Progress appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/37nPNGz

[newstechreviews]

Kelly Ferro is a busy mom on her way to the post office: leather mini-backpack, brunet topknot, turquoise pedicure with a matching ombré manicure. A hairdresser from Kenosha, Wis., Ferro didn’t vote in 2016 but has since become a strong supporter of Donald Trump. “Why does the news hate the President so much?” she says. “I went down the rabbit hole. I started doing a lot of research.”

When I ask what she means by research, something shifts. Her voice has the same honey tone as before, and her face is as friendly as ever. But there’s an uncanny flash as she says, “This is where I don’t know what I can say, because what’s integrated into our system, it stems deep. And it has to do with really corrupt, evil, dark things that have been hidden from the public. Child sex trafficking is one of them.”

Ferro may not have even realized it, but she was parroting elements of the QAnon conspiracy theory, a pro-Trump viral delusion that began in 2017 and has spread widely over recent months, migrating from far-right corners of the Internet to infect ordinary voters in the suburbs. Its followers believe President Trump is a hero safeguarding the world from a “deep state” cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles, Democratic politicians and Hollywood celebrities who run a global sex-trafficking ring, harvesting the blood of children for life-sustaining chemicals.

None of this is even remotely true. But an alarming number of Americans have been exposed to these wild ideas. There are thousands of QAnon groups and pages on Facebook, with millions of members, according to an internal company document reviewed by NBC News. Dozens of QAnon-friendly candidates have run for Congress, and at least three have won GOP primaries. Trump has called its adherents “people that love our country.”

In more than seven dozen interviews conducted in Wisconsin in early September, from the suburbs around Milwaukee to the scarred streets of Kenosha in the aftermath of the Jacob Blake shooting, about 1 in 5 voters volunteered ideas that veered into the realm of conspiracy theory, ranging from QAnon to the notion that COVID-19 is a hoax. Two women in Ozaukee County calmly informed me that an evil cabal operates tunnels under the U.S. in order to rape and torture children and drink their blood. A Joe Biden supporter near a Kenosha church told me votes don’t matter, because “the elites” will decide the outcome of the election anyway. A woman on a Kenosha street corner explained that Democrats were planning to bring in U.N. troops before the election to prevent a Trump win.

It’s hard to know exactly why people believe what they believe. Some had clearly been exposed to QAnon conspiracy theorists online. Others seemed to be repeating false ideas espoused in Plandemic, a pair of conspiracy videos featuring a discredited former medical researcher that went viral, spreading the notion that COVID-19 is a hoax across social media. (COVID-19 is not a hoax.) When asked where they found their information, almost all these voters were cryptic: “Go online,” one woman said. “Dig deep,” added another. They seemed to share a collective disdain for the mainstream media–a skepticism that has only gotten stronger and deeper since 2016. The truth wasn’t reported, they said, and what was reported wasn’t true.

This matters not just because of what these voters believe but also because of what they don’t. The facts that should anchor a sense of shared reality are meaningless to them; the news developments that might ordinarily inform their vote fall on deaf ears. They will not be swayed by data on coronavirus deaths, they won’t be persuaded by job losses or stock market gains, and they won’t care if Trump called America’s fallen soldiers “losers” or “suckers,” as the Atlantic reported, because they won’t believe it. They are impervious to messaging, advertising or data. They aren’t just infected with conspiracy; they appear to be inoculated against reality.

Sinna NasseriA man in a QAnon shirt appears outside a Trump rally in Tulsa, Okla., on June 20

Democracy relies on an informed and engaged public responding in rational ways to the real-life facts and challenges before us. But a growing number of Americans are untethered from that. “They’re not on the same epistemological grounding, they’re not living in the same worlds,” says Whitney Phillips, a professor at Syracuse who studies online disinformation. “You cannot have a functioning democracy when people are not at the very least occupying the same solar system.”

American politics has always been prone to spasms of conspiracy. The historian Richard Hofstadter famously called it “an arena for angry minds.” In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Americans were convinced that the Masons were an antigovernment conspiracy; populists in the 1890s warned of the “secret cabals” controlling the price of gold; in the 20th century, McCarthyism and the John Birch Society fueled a wave of anti-Communist delusions that animated the right. More recently, Trump helped seed a racist lie that President Barack Obama was not born in the U.S.

As a candidate in 2016, Trump seemed to promote a new wild conspiracy every week, from linking Ted Cruz’s father to the Kennedy assassination to suggesting Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was murdered. In interviews at Trump rallies that year, I heard voters espouse all manner of delusions: that the government was run by drug cartels; that Obama was a foreign-born Muslim running for a third term; that Hillary Clinton had Vince Foster killed. But after four years of a Trump presidency, the paranoia is no longer relegated to the margins of society. According to the Pew Research Center, 25% of Americans say there is some truth to the conspiracy theory that the COVID-19 pandemic was intentionally planned. (Virologists, global health officials and U.S. intelligence and national-security officials have all dismissed the idea that the pandemic was human-engineered, although Trump Administration officials have said they have not ruled out the possibility that it was the result of an accident in a lab.) In a recent poll of nearly 1,400 people by left-leaning Civiqs/Daily Kos, more than half of Republican respondents believed some part of QAnon: 33% said they believed the conspiracy was “mostly true,” while 26% said “some parts” are true.

Over a week of interviews in early September, I heard baseless conspiracies from ordinary Americans in parking lots and boutiques and strip malls from Racine to Cedarburg to Wauwatosa, Wis. Shaletha Mayfield, a Biden supporter from Racine, says she thinks Trump created COVID-19 and will bring it back again in the fall. Courtney Bjorn, a Kenosha resident who voted for Clinton in 2016 and plans to vote for Biden, lowered her voice as she speculated about the forces behind the destruction in her city. “No rich people lost their buildings,” she says. “Who benefits when neighborhoods burn down?”

But by far the greatest delusions I heard came from voters on the right. More than a third of the Trump supporters I spoke with voiced some kind of conspiratorial thinking. “COVID could have been released by communist China to bring down our economy,” says John Poulos, loading groceries into his car outside Sendik’s grocery store in the Milwaukee suburb of Wauwatosa. “COVID was manufactured,” says Maureen Bloedorn, walking into a Dollar Tree in Kenosha. She did not vote for Trump in 2016 but plans to support him in November, in part because “he sent Obama a bill for all of his vacations he took on the American dime.” This idea was popularized by a fake news story that originated on a satirical website and went viral.

On a cigarette break outside their small business in Ozaukee County, Tina Arthur and Marcella Frank told me they plan to vote for Trump again because they are deeply alarmed by “the cabal.” They’ve heard “numerous reports” that the COVID-19 tents set up in New York and California were actually for children who had been rescued from underground sex-trafficking tunnels.

Arthur and Frank explained they’re not followers of QAnon. Frank says she spends most of her free time researching child sex trafficking, while Arthur adds that she often finds this information on the Russian-owned search engine Yandex. Frank’s eyes fill with tears as she describes what she’s found: children who are being raped and tortured so that “the cabal” can “extract their blood and drink it.” She says Trump has seized the blood on the black market as part of his fight against the cabal. “I think if Biden wins, the world is over, basically,” adds Arthur. “I would honestly try to leave the country. And if that wasn’t an option, I would probably take my children and sit in the garage and turn my car on and it would be over.”

The rise in conspiratorial thinking is the product of several interrelated trends: declining trust in institutions; demise of local news; a social-media environment that makes rumor easy to spread and difficult to debunk; a President who latches onto anything and anyone he thinks will help his political fortunes. It’s also a part of our wiring. “The brain likes crazy,” says Nicco Mele, the former director of Harvard’s Shorenstein Center, who studies the spread of online disinformation and conspiracies. Because of this, experts say, algorithms on platforms like Facebook and YouTube are designed to serve up content that reinforces existing beliefs–learning what users search for and feeding them more and more extreme content in an attempt to keep them on their sites.

All this madness contributes to a political imbalance. On the right, conspiracy theories make Trump voters even more loyal to the President, whom many see as a warrior against enemies in the “deep state.” It also protects him against an October surprise, as no matter what news emerges about Trump, a growing group of U.S. voters simply won’t believe it. On the left, however, conspiracy theories often weaken voters’ allegiance to Biden by making them less likely to trust the voting process. If they believe their votes won’t matter because shadowy elites are pulling the country’s strings, why bother going through the trouble of casting a ballot?

Experts who follow disinformation say nothing will change until Facebook and YouTube shift their business model away from the algorithms that reward conspiracies. “We are not anywhere near peak crazy,” says Mele. Phillips, the professor from Syracuse, agrees that things will get weirder. “We’re in trouble,” she adds. “Words sort of fail to capture what a nightmare scenario this is.”

But to voters like Kelly Ferro, the mass delusion seems more like a mass awakening. Trump “is revealing these things,” she says serenely, gesturing with her turquoise-tipped fingernails. Americans’ “eyes are being opened to the darkness that was once hidden.”

After yoga in the morning, Ferro says, she often spends hours watching videos, immersing herself in a world she believes is bringing her ever closer to the truth. “You can’t stop, because it’s so addicting to have this knowledge of what kind of world we’re living in,” she says. “We’re living in an alternate reality.”

With reporting by Leslie Dickstein and Simmone Shah

[messiahmsph520]

The Health Impacts of Marijuana and Prohibition

"From the ancient Egyptians to 20th century medicine throughout Restriction, there has actually always been a belief that alcohol has medical impacts. Also today they assert that drinking a glass of merlot will certainly reduce your chance of cardiovascular disease. Naturally a glass of normal grape juice would certainly achieve the same. Currently, for the first time, right here in the 21st century, there are serious attempts to legalize as well as offer authenticity to the favorable medical impacts of marijuana.

The use of marijuana has significant social and lawful effects on culture overall. Socially, is utilizing marijuana appropriate? It is absolutely ending up being more so as 14 states and the District of Columbia (our country's capital) have legalized the drug for medical usage. The city of Breckenridge, Colorado has actually legislated it for recreational usage. It is not uncommon to see individuals smoking cannabis joints on the Pearl Road Shopping Center in Boulder. Is this socially appropriate habits? In November, California, determined to balance its budget, has a recommendation to legislate the entertainment use of cannabis by grownups!

Now, I am not a prude or a grouchy old man (maybe a crotchety middle-aged guy), yet as a parent of 2 young, impressionable children, I certainly do not desire my kids subjected to cannabis use in public. I also would certainly agree to wager that the majority of those smoking cannabis would certainly not desire their children to establish an addiction to marijuana when they matured.

Lawfully, exactly how does police respond to individuals utilizing or possessing cannabis? This set inquiry is the origin of all that is essentially wrong with current legislations referring to medicinal marijuana. Head of state Barack Obama's Management has mentioned quite clearly in March 2009 that they will not seek suppliers of medical marijuana. That generally put the enforcement regulations right into the states themselves.

California as well as Colorado are both most prominent states dealing with the consequences from their voters legalizing marijuana for medical usage. Among the basic issues that all states that have legalized the use of cannabis for medical functions deal with is that nobody prepared when these proposals passed. By that I suggest, the propositions did not lay out how the state would certainly tackle refining and also settling this new sector. There were no treatments for who could end up being a medical cannabis dispensary, how to classify the businesses, where they could open shop or even exactly how to tax the industry.

It interests note that after California became the initial state top pass a regulation legalizing medicinal cannabis in 1996, absolutely nothing actually occurred. Think about the current ""pot shop"" phenomenon in The golden state for a moment. Medical professionals, individuals as well as owners took very cautionary courses. Few physicians would risk their clinical licenses by recommending cannabis, couple of endure business owners would run the risk of opening a shop that could be raided by government agents at any moment. Just those who the regulation was made for, clients experiencing glaucoma, cancer cells and AIDS looked for suggestions for clinical marijuana.

What took place? Why the exponential growth in applications to utilize and also offer medical cannabis? While the modification in presidential managements and also legal settings relating to the enforcement of federal cannabis laws from Shrub to Obama prefers the ""pot shop"" neighborhood, there is no doubt that the substantial rise happened well prior to Bush returned to Texas.

The variety of medicinal marijuana dispensaries has exploded in all states where it has actually ended up being lawful. According to a story in USA Today (March 8, 2007) the number of dispensaries in Los Angeles raised from 4 in late 2005 to 98 less than a year later. In June 2010 there were 186 ""pot stores"" running within the Los Angeles city restrictions. Ironically, an estimated 50 similar stores were displaced of service because of market over-saturation. With 186 ""pot stores"" open the City of Los Angeles had more than 400 accepted applications for dispensaries within the city limitations that had yet to open their doors.

Police and city board were absolutely unprepared for the legalization of marijuana. With the number of stores and also patients raising at staggering prices the legal marijuana market is basically running itself, with lawmakers attempting ever-so-hard to reach the gigantic snowball that is collecting size and also speed daily. The pharmaceutical sector has not seen such an extreme rise in need for a medication given that Jonas Salk invented the polio vaccination.

According to a local news network in Denver, the state was receiving more than 1,000 applications for a clinical marijuana permit every day. According to the station, as of August 26, 2010 the state had a backlog of in between 60,000 as well as 70,000 applications.

What were every one of these bad suffering hearts taking in the past medical marijuana became lawful therefore readily available? When you have your ""medical marijuana card"" there are numerous areas you can most likely to locate your ""medication"". If a dispensary such as ""CannaMart"", ""Choice Organics"", Nature's Marvel"", ""Flower Power Botanicals"", ""Premier Health Center"" or ""Ganja Depot"" is not within a short drive, simply look at line by means of Google.

With the federal government deciding to go back and also states totally unprepared and unsure just how to manage this market, it has actually come under the hands of specific communities. Numerous common council like those in Aurora as well as Broomfield, Colorado have actually banned dispensaries from their towns. Naturally cbd oil windsor ontario these cities will deal with legal actions from prospective owners and also clingy individuals that find it tough to drive 10 miles to obtain their ""medication"".

The cities are starting to get even more help from the state level. In Colorado those with a criminal record are no more allowed to own a dispensary. The attorney general's are beginning to take an energetic view exactly how to control the shops. While this is a good idea and also has forced numerous places to shut, the market still appears to be spiraling out of control.

Managing the sale of this sector is essential. It is smart to start with the people who own the shops and also function their way down. Then, perhaps the greatest hurdle of all will certainly be to deal with those how and who obtain prescriptions for medical cannabis. That is a subject for the future.

It is essential to keep in mind that like alcohol as well as tobacco, marijuana is a drug. If you or a person you know might be addicted to marijuana or other medicines, it is very important to look for aid. There are numerous alcohol and medication understanding training courses one can go to, as well as a variety of support system like Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). For those who would certainly prefer to take a program in the personal privacy of their very own residence there are additionally on-line alcohol courses and also alcohol as well as medicine training courses."

[andresykvd714]

Crucial Adverse Effects of Quitting Weed

"From the old Egyptians to 20th century medication throughout Restriction, there has constantly been a belief that alcohol has medical impacts. Also today they claim that consuming alcohol a glass of merlot will certainly decrease your chance of cardiovascular disease. Obviously a glass of common grape juice would achieve the very same. Now, for the first time, here in the 21st century, there are significant efforts to legalize as well as offer authenticity to the favorable medical results of marijuana.

Making use of cannabis has significant social and also legal results on culture in its entirety. Socially, is making use of marijuana acceptable? It is absolutely ending up being much more so as 14 states as well as the Area of Columbia (our nation's resources) have legalized the medicine for medicinal usage. The city of Breckenridge, Colorado has actually legalized it for leisure use. It is not uncommon to see individuals smoking cannabis joints on the Pearl Street Mall in Rock. Is this socially appropriate habits? In November, The golden state, hopeless to balance its budget plan, has a recommendation to legislate the entertainment use of marijuana by grownups!

Now, I am not a prude or a cranky old man (possibly a crotchety middle-aged man), yet as a moms and dad of two young, impressionable youngsters, I certainly do not desire my youngsters revealed to cannabis usage in public. I likewise would certainly be willing to bet that a lot of those smoking cannabis would certainly not desire their children to develop a dependency to marijuana when they grew up.

Lawfully, just how does police react to individuals using or possessing marijuana? This one inquiry is the root of all that is fundamentally incorrect with current legislations referring to medicinal cannabis. Head of state Barack Obama's Management has mentioned fairly clearly in March 2009 that they will not seek distributors of clinical cannabis. That essentially placed the enforcement rules right into the states themselves.

California as well as Colorado are the two most famous states dealing with the repercussions from their citizens legislating marijuana for medical use. Among the standard issues that all states that have actually legislated the use of marijuana for medical objectives deal with is that nobody prepared as soon as these suggestions passed. By that I imply, the suggestions did not outline exactly how the state would certainly set about processing and adjudicating this brand-new sector. There were no procedures for who could come to be a medical marijuana dispensary, just how to classify business, where they could open store or even just how to tire the sector.

It interests note that after California ended up being the initial state top pass a regulation legislating medicinal cannabis in 1996, nothing truly cbd oil windsor ontario happened. Think of the existing ""pot store"" sensation in California for a moment. Physicians, clients and proprietors took really cautionary courses. Couple of physicians would risk their clinical licenses by prescribing marijuana, couple of take on entrepreneurs would certainly take the chance of opening a store that could be invaded by government representatives at any time. Just those that the legislation was made for, clients suffering from glaucoma, cancer and HELP looked for recommendations for medical marijuana.

What took place? Why the exponential growth in applications to utilize and offer medical marijuana? While the modification in governmental managements and also legal positions regarding the enforcement of federal marijuana regulations from Bush to Obama prefers the ""pot shop"" neighborhood, there is no question that the substantial rise occurred well before Shrub moved back to Texas.

The number of medical cannabis dispensaries has taken off in all states where it has ended up being lawful. According to a tale in UNITED STATES Today (March 8, 2007) the number of dispensaries in Los Angeles boosted from 4 in late 2005 to 98 less than a year later on. In June 2010 there were 186 ""pot stores"" running within the Los Angeles city limits. Ironically, an approximated 50 comparable stores were forced out of organisation as a result of market over-saturation. With 186 ""pot stores"" open the City of Los Angeles had more than 400 authorized applications for dispensaries within the city restrictions that had yet to open their doors.

Police and city board were completely unprepared for the legalization of marijuana. With the number of stores as well as clients increasing at incredible prices the lawful cannabis sector is virtually running itself, with lawmakers attempting ever-so-hard to reach the gigantic snowball that is collecting dimension and rate daily. The pharmaceutical industry has not seen such a radical rise in need for a medicine given that Jonas Salk designed the polio vaccination.

According to a neighborhood information network in Denver, the state was obtaining more than 1,000 applications for a clinical cannabis permit everyday. According to the terminal, since August 26, 2010 the state had a stockpile of between 60,000 as well as 70,000 applications.

What were all of these inadequate suffering hearts taking previously clinical marijuana ended up being legal and so available? Once you have your ""clinical marijuana card"" there are numerous places you can go to find your ""medication"". If a dispensary such as ""CannaMart"", ""Option Organics"", Nature's Wonder"", ""Blossom Power Botanicals"", ""Premier Health Center"" or ""Ganja Depot"" is not within a short drive, simply examine line via Google.

With the federal government choosing to go back and also states totally not really prepared as well as not sure just how to regulate this sector, it has come under the hands of private areas. Many common council like those in Aurora and also Broomfield, Colorado have actually prohibited dispensaries from their towns. Of course these cities will certainly deal with lawsuits from potential owners and also needy people that locate it tough to drive 10 miles to get their ""medicine"".

The cities are starting to obtain even more assistance from the state degree. In Colorado those with a rap sheet are no more enabled to possess a dispensary. The attorney general's are starting to take an energetic search how to manage the shops. While this is a good thing and has forced numerous places to close, the industry still appears to be spiraling out of control.

Regulating the sale of this sector is essential. It is smart to begin with the people who have the shops and function their means down. After that, possibly the greatest obstacle of all will certainly be to deal with those just how as well as that obtain prescriptions for medicinal cannabis. That is a subject for the future.

It is very important to keep in mind that like alcohol as well as tobacco, cannabis is a drug. If you or a person you know might be addicted to marijuana or other drugs, it is essential to look for assistance. There are numerous alcohol and also medicine awareness courses one can go to, as well as a variety of support system like Twelve step programs (AA). For those that would certainly like to take a program in the personal privacy of their own home there are likewise on-line alcohol courses and alcohol and also medication courses."

[lovehaswonangelnumbers]

New Post has been published on https://lovehaswonangelnumbers.org/karmic-tools-astrology2020-special-alignments/

Karmic Tools Astrology~2020 Special Alignments

Karmic Tools Astrology~2020 Special Alignments

By Kelly M. Beard

1/12 ~ Saturn (structures, definitions & reality) ~conjunct~ Pluto (death, rebirth & transformation):

Here we have a Social (Saturn) and Collective (Pluto) planet creating a potent initiation that will likely have long-term influence on your personal life in many ways that only become clear a few years from now. This is an evolutionary process and those with Cancer/Capricorn & Aries/Libra are the ones with karmic ties to this combo. This is not a good versus bad thing, this is just a major Reality Check. I did a little digging and the last time Saturn conjuncted Pluto in Capricorn was 1518 and the last time they Initiated a new cycle was in 1982 in Libra. So they connect every 30-years or so thanks to Saturn’s pattern but Pluto makes it hard to connect in the same sign, so when they do, it symbolizes much more global effects. One thing that jumped out to me was that in the 1400’s it looks like lots of countries around the world wanted to be sovereign and be their own individual country and now we are living in a time when we realize how unrealistic or impractical human created borders can be. This is a time when we know we are all connected and we know that Earth’s resources have to sustain us all.

Saturn is here, in Capricorn, to ensure that this initiation is guided by the Council of Grandmothers who help us feminize the individual evolutionary process and collective revolutionary process. What does that mean? It means it is time to lead with honoring Nature, dealing with what is (not our illusions or delusions) and living in harmony with the Life/Death/Life Cycle. Both Saturn & Pluto do not allow things to live beyond their true usefulness. If all is energy, and certain energy is locked up or blocked so it cannot flow, that creates an unnatural death. If we simply honor that something is dead or done and clear it to bring in the new consciously, then we save ourselves a lot of heartache & trouble. We know that humans have lived in harmony with the Earth for millennia (I didn’t say with each other but they respected Nature) and in a few generations, our industrialization & colonization has created a crisis that we ALL have to address on some level if we are to survive. These two bring up these very real, very heavy-duty subjects and asks us all to face that which we’ve ignored overlong and finally clean it up and free up that energy to move.

An initiation catalyzes the NEW and you will know where your individual focus needs to be by the breakdowns going on in your life at this time. What no longer works for you? What is no longer real for you? And what has gotten so real that you have to rearrange your life to accommodate it? How are your containers supporting & protecting you? Where are the energy leaks? What shortcuts have you taken that will not work this time?

Ultimately, we are living through the ultimate transformation of our reality here on Earth. This is a chance to claim your vision of balance & harmony for Mother Earth, the waters and the soil that we cannot survive without. This year, you can co-create with this activation by simplifying your life, redefining your terms and renegotiating your contracts across the board. What have you agreed to in your heart and on paper that may have run its course by now and requires an upgrade or a new agreement altogether?

Note: This activation is joined by Ceres/The Mother – yet another indication of initiating new ways of nourishing ourselves and nurturing others that is up for renewal. In Capricorn, Ceres says it is time to be completely responsible for your footprint on this planet and it is time to look beyond your Self to see what you are actually contributing to the planet at this time. It really is a delicious opportunity for us ALL to start fresh, with new structures in place that honor everyone’s true purpose on Earth.

2/20 ~ Jupiter (Consciousness & Belief Systems) ~sextile~ Neptune (Faith & Connection to Spirit): (1 of 3: 2/20 ~ 7/27 ~ 10/12)

This is an opportunity to connect to miracles, if you believe in them. It may be miracles, but it may also be the alignment between your Heart & Soul, that part of you that trusts your intuition and believes in a higher power or Source or Universal presence. There are a couple of expressions of this energy. This is a time where your spiritual beliefs expand, taking on a more broad, Universal feel. You may feel the urge to work with those less fortunate (never a bad idea) or you may meet someone that expands your thinking, opening you to new concepts of faith. Under this influence, you may feel more optimistic & philosophical than usual, about your life. It can be a fabulous energy to connect to, because when you are optimistic & faithful, as well as truly connected to the whole, you can manifest almost instantly. However, keep in mind that there are probably some very real challenges that you are facing, which require tangible efforts to resolve. Stay focused on the possibilities, while still doing what needs to be done to facilitate the highest possible outcome. The only challenge with this energy is that Jupiter, the planet of expansion and optimism, is getting together with Neptune, the planet of no boundaries, so be mindful of any excesses of any kind. Remember, all things in balance, it is rare that excess serves the higher good.

3/21 ~ Saturn Enters AQUARIUS:

We are in an unprecedented Seed Time for our personal, social & collective lives. Think of Saturn as a Teacher/Guide. Think of Aries thru Pisces as the Lessons that we all have to learn and just like any other education, some things will be naturally easier & naturally harder, according to your individual blueprint. During Capricorn, the Lessons have to do with personal responsibility & accountability in a myriad of ways, as well as how we structure our lives and if they support/protect us (or not). Capricorn is one of Saturn’s favorite subjects to teach and you can see, it’s also an underlying theme that he carries throughout all twelve lessons because of Saturn’s natural inclinations.

We just spent the last 2+ years, in Capricorn, learning about being responsible for ourselves as individuals but also as a collective. Saturn moving through your Capricorn House was to check for stability & instability, strength & weakness – as well as the essential & the truly non-essential so that it can eliminate, fortify & upgrade to something more appropriate to here & now. Now, until Uranus was discovered, Saturn was the traditional ruler of Aquarius too so we may see an evolution of the themes already on the table. Sovereignty and the inner authority of the individual has evolved and so have the outer authorities like governments & all institutions, as well as those they were intended to serve.

So moving through Aquarius, we will learn about self-sovereignty as well as local & global communities. This is the dawn of the Age of Aquarius ~ when we get to be our individual selves with full conscious awareness that we are an intricate piece of the whole at the same time. Saturn’s sojourn through any sign will first dig up the weaknesses and unstable aspects so that it can reorganize with the values and priorities of NOW. We are literally ending an era when government elite got to run everything and now humanity is going to shift and learn how to be self-governed and self-contained within the communities in which we actually live and function.

It’s time to dream up a new way to function on this ever-evolving – as well as living, breathing planet! I think we will also have some technological breakthroughs that actually help instead of harm the Earth. We will discover a kinship with our fellow beings that finally makes it okay and even welcome to be a unique, thinking, feeling, breathing individual. We are not cookie-cutter creatures, we are vastly different and we all have something unique to offer, just like every species of plant, mineral or animal. We are from the same family but we each bring our own particular Medicine to the mix! We are going to celebrate that … once we stabilize a new way of socializing and functioning together, rather than the old patriarchal ways of divide & conquer. Volunteering and working as a unit is going to blossom and we’ll be connecting with folks across the globe as if we are old friends or long lost relatives.

4/4 ~ Jupiter (consciousness, learning & belief systems) ~conjunct~ Pluto (purification & transformation): (1 of 3: 4/4 ~ 6/30 ~ 11/12)

The highest possible expression of this energy is channeling your very passionate, intense energy into your Highest vision – Highest ideal – deepest personal Truth and receiving the fruits of such hard labor. There is power behind the current expansion and you are in a unique position to create your greatest vision or deepest fear. Both these planets force you to improve your Self, your life, your environment, usually stripping you of misconceptions and excess baggage along the way. This is a 13yr cycle, how did your life completely shift 13 years ago? This is your time to choose to co-create, to cultivate & commit to expressing your infinite potential. Dig deeper, there is more to you than you give your Self credit for being. This is your chance to completely redefine your Truth & Purpose. The worst possible expression of this energy is to become obsessed by a belief, try to force others to your way of thinking, blow things way out of proportion, magnify the darkness and prolong your trip through the Underworld. Jupiter insists we learn from such excavations of the Soul. Your deepest Truth is surfacing at this time, is it based in fear or faith? Under pressure, whatever is inside, comes out. It’s time to decide if you are going to believe in positive outcomes and the ability to turn your deepest wounds into your most trusted, earned wisdom.

12/21 ~ Jupiter (Your Truth & Story) ~conjunct~ Saturn (Your Purpose & Reality):

This is a potent initiation of a New Truth & Purpose for everyone, and because of it being at Zero Aquarius, it really is reset that is available for “everyone” – it is time for all life, especially humanity, to rise into a new evolutionary Truth & Story that we can be responsible for and sustain in our physical reality here on this planet, this lifetime. This is a 20-year cycle that asks us to follow our Truth & Purpose and revise it as we go. A really deep sidebar is that the US Constitution was originally designed to be revised every 20-years. Just imagine what kind of society we would have if that had happened. BUT – we can’t go back so looking forward and recognizing the value of upgrading your life contracts, especially the long-term ones, every 20-years in a very special way that asks you to initiate on faith that all that you’ve learned over the last 12-20 years will support & protect you as you embark on a new journey.

These two get together like this every 20-years but it has been centuries since it happened in Aquarius so it is very special for anyone with Leo/Aquarius or Taurus/Scorpio to consciously co-create with. It last happened in Taurus in 2000 and before that, in Libra in 1980-81. That’s both Venus-ruled Signs suggesting we’ve been getting our education on the value & worth of the Sacred Feminine in all its forms, starting with Mother Earth, our Source of all. This activation is so good to break the chains of the past or anything that has historically held you back. Often, whatever life structures that you have relied upon begin to crumble forcing you into a new job, new location or new living situation of some kind. It can be disruptive but Jupiter is a benefactor that always brings blessings, so eventually things will work out for the best. Right now, you have to be authentic, trust your instincts and be more forward-thinking as you cultivate a New Story & New Reality that reflects how you have evolved over the last 20+ years.

This is a Zero Point activation that is going to happen again three more times in Aquarius (every 60-years). This is a reality check that asks you to dig a little deeper and really define your terms around what is really possible for you. It’s time to think bigger or Higher, consider you the individual and then extend it out to all life.

******

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[kendrixtermina]

Extra Typology Vol #3 - 0. System Overview - What is this?

As this system is still relatively unknown and not as intuitive as the Essence Types, I wanted to give everyone a quick 101 on the system so we’re all on the same page, basically the same very primer I had from internet research which lead me to be so very interested in buying the book - perhaps it will make you interested in buying it, too. 

Also, a thanks to @jerdle for making me aware that this stuff exists in the first place. 

The Idea

Apart from his one foray into typology, the author of the book has mostly worked in the field of psychiatry and the treatment of personality disorders in particular, and that’s kind of where his concept here comes from, basically the idea that some disorders are “malfunctions”/ “corruptions” of normal functions  (or perhaps the other way around, that when people develop in a disordered way due to abuse or simple wiring errors, they manifest symptoms in ways characteristic to their traits) 

There’s a lots of traits here that were once considered full-blown personality disorders but have been relegated to “traits” or whole other classes of dysfunctional tendencies. - And of course, these days, psychiatrists have mostly switched to diagnosing based on a multidimensional measure of functionality (ability to control emotions, recognize reality, distinguish between self & other) rather than fixed categories exactly because of the problems that not all patients can be neatly grouped into just one box, but also because a lot of the criteria read like a list of slanted descriptions of regular, even potentially helpful traits with a handul of actual glaring dysfunctionalities at the bottom, with those being what makes it an actual serious illness that greatly impacts one’s functionality and quality of life. 

There’s something slightly problematic in discribing an illness with a list like “not good at socializing”, “dresses oddly” and “believes they have special powers”, because you could fit a substantial amount of it without being actually abnormal (Not everyone who isn’t good at socializing & dresses oddly believes they have special powers - and in specific context even non-disordered people can be capable of believing in unusual things, for example in religion or conspiracy theories.)

So for the same reasons that when it comes to diagnosing & treating disorders a functionality based system with few categories is probably better, these commonly described “traits” might merit a further look, and that’s possibly how this book and the typology system started therein came to be. 

Disclaimer: That said, I will try to avoid or skim over the subject of psychiatry in my further review, analysis & summary because that is a delicate can of worms and I don’t know fuck about it; I don’t wish to end up ruining the day of people who already have more than enough on their plates or give the impression that I’m romanticising anything I have no clue about; I only wish to describe & popularize the typology system as a tool for self-improvement, mutual understanding and the creation and analysis of fictional characters. 

The System

As explained in the masterpost, this is more of a multidimensionl trait-based system in which you don’t necessarily have one particular type, but there’s a list of traits that you either have or don’t, and both the convernation & gradation in how pronounced they are would vary by person (though one could theoretically imagine a person who would be pretty close to a “pure” representative of a type)

The traits themselves strike me as fairly specific in that at least I personally could fairly quickly sort them into “hell yes/ hell no/ maybe”. 

For example, I’d be “Idiosyncratic-Solitary-Artistic-Serious-Leisurely” (perhaps with ‘Vigilant’ tacked on at the end instead if you exclude ‘artistic’ but I don’t really identify with it that much) and your type would be described by listing 3-5 of your most pronounced traits. 

The specific mixture probably matters & creates a great deal of your uniqueness  (for example, in my case the ‘artistic’ trait somewhat softens the ‘solitary’ in that I’m not that unflappable, let alone unexpressive (heaven forbid!), though I’m very distinctly a hardcore introvert (to the point that I barely have any desire for friends, communicate mostly over technology and sometimes find it hard to cope with my live-in boyriend)  whereas the ‘solitary’ trait’s need for clarity & a detached POV thankfully puts a regulatory valve on the ‘idiosyncratic’ trait’s “inner woo-woo” )

This can also be responsible for a person’s “hidden dephts” - One illustrative  example I read was of a radio host who had a lot of traits you’d expect in this occupation - High on Self-Confident, and Dramatic, midrange Agressive - but also scored pretty high on Devoted, surprising the tester at first, but then, it turned out that he had a huge reputation for loyalty in both his current and former workplaces. 

In the case of my boyfriend (1w9 INTJ) I’d say he’s very high in both ‘conscientious’ and ‘self-confident’. The result is an individual who is not very flashy at all but very commited to doing exceptional work and feels compelled to contribute to “the saving of the world”

Though the book (which originated the system) “starts out” with 14 original traits (which will be therefore be the ones that get covered in depht in this series) Like with the temperaments (Supine) and Essence Type (Solar), later users of the system have added some additional traits, also based on psychological concepts/dysfunctions that could be considered their unhealthy extremes or perhaps rather what happens when the associated “software” has “glitches”. 

The Traits (Basic Rundown)

(title cursive if not included in the book)

Conscientious

Dedicated to hard work

Strong principles and values; Always want to do the right thing

Might insist that things be done “properly” according to their idea of “done right”

Would like all tasks & projects tobe complete to the final detail and without flaws

Tends to stick with their convictions and opinions

Thrifty, careful and cautious in all areas of life

Saves & Collects things

Mantains order & organization; Tries to save money

Loyal to causes, families & superiors

Perfectionistic & Preseverant

Comparable to Enneagram 1 and/or lower Fi

Extrapolated from Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder (not to be confused with OCD which is a whole different animal and commonly misrepresented)

Sensitive

Prefer the known to the unknown; Comfortable with habit, repetition and routine

Cares deeply about what others think of them; Wants to be liked & accepted

Behave with deliberate discretion in their dealings with others; Not likely to make hasty jumps or take action before they know what is appropiate

Take care to mantain a courteous, self-restrained demeanor

Function best in settings where they know what their role is supposed to be

May be reluctant to share inner thoughts or feelings with others

Tend to prefer living in a small world & knowing the people in it; Being nestled in a close knit, emotionaly secure environment of a few friends & family - the sort to prefer a few good friends over a large circle of many acquaintances

Don’t like being the center of attention, but do want to be recognized for their creativity

Find freedom in their mind, feelings and fantasies

Comparable to Si-using introverts, sp 6 or the supine temperament

Mari, I believe this would be you

Extrapolated from Avoidant Personality Disorder

Vigilant

Independent; Keep their own counsel

Require little reassurance or advice, easily make their own decision & take care of themselves

Cautious in their dealings with others

Good & careful listener - aware of mixed messages, hidden motivations, evasions and distortions of the true

Don’t hesitate to stand up for themselves

Take criticism serious without being intimidated by it

Highly value Fidelity or Loyalty

“Survivor” - Value being aware of their surroundings and let nothing escape their notice

Often found in the role of the social critic, watchdog or crusader (Politics!)

Sounds roughly like counterphobic six or xSTP though there’s some incongruencies

Extrapolated from Paranoid Personality Disorder

Dramatic

Sensation oriented, emotionally demonstrative & physically affectionate

Experiences life vividly and expansively

Likes to be seen and noticed

Pays a lot of attention to grooming and enjoys fashion & shopping as a hobby?

Enjoys their sexuality

Easily puts trust in others

Responds well to new ideas and suggestions from others

Comparable to ESFx or 2w3

Extrapolated from Histrionic Personality Disorder

Aggressive

Comfortable with power, authority & responsibility - Natural top dog who works well in hierarchical organizations with clearly defined roles

Highly disciplined & capable of enforcing said discipline onto others; Run a tight ship

Highly goal-oriented; Practical, pragmatic approach to getting the job done

undertake huge responsibilities 

Functions well & bravely in difficult or dangerous situations

Likes Action and Adventure

Usually physically assertive as well - may enjoy competitive and/or contact sports 

May be traditional or conservative

in general, confident competitors who never back down from a fight

Comparable to choleric temperament, it’s not quite Se or Te nor 8 or cp6 but there’s probably overlap. Mars type is probably the closest analogue. 

Extrapolated from Sadistic Disorder

Idiosyncratic

Tuned into and sustained by their own feelings and belief system

Self-directed and independent, requiring few close relationships

Ignores convention; Aspires to stand out from the crowd

Often somewhat eccentric

Open to anything; May be interested in esoterics

Often engages in abstract, speculative thinking

Keen observer of others, particularly of how they react to you; May be sensitive to that

Tends to follow their own heart and mind

This is basically 4, though one might also draw parallels to high Ne users. 

Extrapolated from Shizotypal Disorder

Self-Confident 

Believe in themselves and their abilities; See what is unique and special about them

Expect others to treat them with respect at all times

Able to make use of the strenghts and abilities of other people; Shrewd in their dealings with others, good at grasping the ‘politics’ of a situation

Open about their aspirations and possibilities

Able competitor, focussed on getting to the top

Identifies with people of high rank and status

Able to visualize self as a hero, star, millionaire, best in the field etc.

Keen Awareness of one’s own thoughts and feelings

Can accept praise & admiration gracefully & with self-possesion; Dignified, ‘aristocratic’ presence

Know how to work, motivate and lead the crowd & attract others to your goal

Comparable to 3 (especially 3w4), ExxJ

Extrapolated from Narcissistic disorder

Solitary

Little need of Companionship; Doesn’t require much interaction with others

Most comfortable alone

Dispassionate; Indifferent to pain or pleasure and unswayed by either praise or criticism

Can come to terms with their behavior in spite of other’s reactions

Want to be free of the need to impress & please

Prefer clarity of vision to sentiment or intimacy

Not very driven by sexual needs; Some may well enjoy it but it’s not a big priority & they do not suffer in its absense

Long to discover & record facts of existence

Roughly like an extreme case xITx or sp 5 but seems far closer to your archetypical hermit

Extrapolated from Shizoid Personality Disorder

Leisurely

Believe they have the right to enjoy themselves on their own terms in their own time

Play by the rules & deliver what is expected of them

Resist being exploited

Relaxed about time

Not overly awed by authority

want to be accepted and appreciated by others without having to submit to demands or expectations

Believe that they are just as good as everyone else and entitled to the best things in life; Don’t let anybody desprive them of their pursuit of happiness

Don’t like to risk important relationships, yet feel the need to be free

Defend their right to do their “own thing”; Find happiness through creative pursuits

Comparable to: Se or Ne, Lunar type, 9w8

Extrapolated from Passive-Agressive Disorder

Serious

Usually mantains a sober demeanor

Realistically aware of their own capacities and limitations

Holds themselves responsible for their actions

Always plays things out in their mind before acting

Able to critique others and evaluate themselves; Not tempted by vanity or self-importance

Able to anticipate problems and prepare for them; Able to carry on even in the worst of circumstances

Suffers greatly when they realize they’ve been thoughtless or impolite to others

Suffers no illusions, tries to see things as they are; Doesn’t expect to be popular

Thinker, analyzer, evaluator

Possibly analogous to Saturn type or Melancholic Temperament

Extrapolated from Depressive Personality

Self-Sacrificing

Generous to people in need of something they have

Always considerate in their dealings with others

Aims to be helpful & giving; Doesn’t wait to be asked

Nonjugmental & tolerant of other’s foibles, never harshly reprobing

Don’t like being the center of attention; Noncompetitive and unambitious. 

Ethical, humble, honest and thrustworthy

Stick with you through thick and thin, sometimes to the point of being long-suffering. Very Patient. 

Prefer to shoulder their own burdens themselves & uncomfortable being fussed over; High tolerance for personal discomfort

Naive and Innocent; Tend not to suspect underhanded motivations

Comparable to 2w1,  Fe dom or certain aspects of Jupiter Type

Extrapolated from Masochistic/ Self-Defeating Personality Disorder

Devoted

Thoroughly dedicated to the relationships in their lives

Prefers the company to one or more people to being alone

Tends to follow rather than lead - happy to seek out other’s opinions and follow their advice

Careful to promote good feelings between themselves and the important people in their lives

Thoughtful of others and good at pleasing them

Able to form new meaningful bonds, even after the loss of someone around whom their life centered

Loyal, considerate & helpful team player

Respectful of authority and institutions; Believe in comitment and work hard to sustain their relationships

Promotes harmony; Polite, agreeable and tactful

Tends to rely on the judgement of the important people in their lives

Roughly like sx Nine or phobic six? Venus Type?

Extrapolated from Dependent Personality Disorder

Adventurous

Live by their own internal code of values - not strongly influenced by other people or the norms of society

Love the thrill of risk-taking

Do not worry too much about others; Not inclined to worry about the future or regrets about the past

Good at winning friends and influencing people

Love to keep moving and exploring; Go boldly where most fear to tread

Tends to challenge boundaries and restrictions

Stands up to anyone who’d dare to take advantage of them

Tends to be a mischief maker as a kid

Lives in the present; Doesn’t worry much about finding work etc. - Lives by their talents, ingenuity and wit

Extroverted Sensing. Also comparable to Mercury type or 7w8/8w7

Extrapolated from Antisocial Personality Disorder

Mercurial

Prefers to always be involved in a romantic relationship

Tends to experience passionate, focussed attachments in all their relationships

Emotionally active and reactive; Puts their heart into everything they do

Uninhibited, spontaneous, fun-loving and undaunted by risk

lively, creative, busy & engaging

Open-minded; Willing to experience and experiment with other cultures, roles and value systems and follow new paths

Imaginative and curious

Enthusiastic; Show initiave and can stir others into activity

Escapistic; Good at distancing themselves from reality when it gets too harsh

Years for experience and insists that others come along for the ride; Ardent in their desire to connect with both life and other people

This description makes it sound rather solar-y/pixie-dream-ish(That’s probably closer to ‘Artistic’ or ‘Exuberant’) or like simple ol’ fi but in the actual book this comes across as vastly more tempestous, like, an “intense art critic”, fire & ice, lots of love & lots of hate type of person or sx/sp four, but not quite - 

Extrapolated from Borderline Personality Disorder

Inventive

Idealized self-image - see self as superior individual of high worth

Strives for recognition & approval; Desires to be the object of attention and admiration

Cares about out-archieving others; Aspires to honors and fame

People-pleaser, especially toward wealthy and prominent people

proves worth by exercising their charm

After social status, material security & the affections of their desired sex

Sensitive about how others react to them; Long to be highly esteemed

Entertain fantasies of greatness or stardom - great need for immediate sucess

Subdued demeanor - energetic but phlegmatic, your basic “peach” type of person with an acessible exterior but a hidden core of privateness & possibly artistic sensibilities

Open to culture; Wide range of interests

Avoids situations where they could be criticed, slighted, humiliated or shamed like the plague; Very conscious of how others treat them

Comparable to 3w2 or sx 3; Probably a lot more likely to be xxFx than Self-Confident

Extrapolated from Compensatory Narciscism

Artistic

Tendency toward mood swings, can go from upbeat, excitable & productive to sullen and withdrawn - these shifts tend to be due to the person’s internal processes rather than external triggers

Artistic inclinations, as the title suggests. Productivity ebbs and flows,depending on mood & inspiration, may have periods of frantic activity alternating with apathy and “writer’s block”

Unpredictability - may take up new jobs, hobbies, ouses etc. out of impulse, despises routine & likes varied, stimulating experiece & improvisation

Tend to have a grasp on many different corners of the human experience & therefore have a gift for nuanced understanding of different viewpoints

Feeling-oriented - decisions are usually based on current mood, feelings & impulses more than systematic approaches

May have issues with commitment and/or self-control

Fluctuating self-confidence - may seem grandiose one moment & beat themselves up in the next

as likely to be 7 or 4; Lunar or Solar ... Fi?

Extrapolated from Cyclothymic Disorder

Exuberant

Highly values pleasurable and intense experiences

Enjoys being active

Gragarious and disinhibited, but also independent workers; Tendentially Ambiverts

Seeks out others as romantic or sexual partners, but they can end up playing second fiddle to their work

Tendency to splurge

Enjoys recreational substances such as booze, but may fall into a tedency to overdo it

Holds friends & loved ones to a high standard

Enjoys traveling or moving to new location

Values being knowledgeable or skillfull

Though they may adopt a tough demeanor, they can be remarkably kind underneath

Often Comitted to creative Work & high Productivity

Bit like ENxP, Sanguine temperapent or sx-first

Extrapolated from Hypomanic disorder

Carefree

charming, spontaneous  & refreshing - don’t necessarily feel the need to eventually aquiesce to conventional ideas of maturity or conformity

Sexually unabashed and generally non-repressed

may enjoy being pampered but also long to retain a certain freedom, sort of ambivalent about depending on others

Takes a simple, uncomplicated view of friendships & relationships & things in general

May be scattered & not the sort who copes well with too much responsibility & tendency to be pouty or stubborn in such stress situations (as opposed to the more mature or at least pseudo-mature reaction of a Dramatic or the angry intensity of a Mercurial) - 

Though not always capable of  following through with actual help or giving, they’ll usually be well-wishing or sympathetic 

Kinda like a sp 2 or lunar-venus

Extrapolated from what was once categorized as Infantile Personality Disorder

Further Reading/ Your Type

Take this test (only the original 14 types), or try this or this checklist

And of course, the following writeups of this series will hopefully go on to serve as even further reading beyond anything else I could find.