#so much gets automated. It's truly fascinating | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

do-you-have-a-flag · 16 days ago

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just read that article from new york magazine, "Everyone Is Cheating Their Way Through College - ChatGPT has unraveled the entire academic project."

didn't reveal anything new to me about the use and functioning of the plagiarism-grown, glorified auto-predict, language models that were rolled out so irresponsibly it means now anyone can waste water instead of their own time and effort. but was still fascinating to read, in a bleak way.

it's so interesting because cheating and corner cutting will always exist in education, whether out of desperation or laziness, it will always be there. but by university it truly is wild how many people are not actually there to learn, because at that point if you have a program do all your work for you you are fully not there to learn so why waste your time and money playing pretend at a degree. a degree you aren't qualified for because you did not do enough.

we aren't in a post-capitalist universal basic income world where the idea of a few individuals lightly supervising automation is feasible. the technology is not there and the culture and economic stability is not there. so when a professor in the article reasons to students “you’re not actually anything different than a human assistant to an artificial-intelligence engine, and that makes you very easily replaceable. Why would anyone keep you around?” that is not hypothetical. and in terms of the degrees just because the on paper grade says you passed doesn't mean you passed it means you curated automated responses that pass with no actual guarantee of comprehension or retention of information on your part.

and there are tools and templates and minor automations that can be used to supplement your own efforts! they take longer but not that significantly, and more importantly they are less likely to impede the actual practice of learning to implementation.

that's what a lot of people who cheat or use these tools in this way seem to miss.

let me pull out three paraphrased statements of possible justifications from this article:

The education system is flawed

These exercises are irrelevant

I'm bad at organisation

these are all experientially true to my experience of education at various points. and the first point exacerbates issues with 2 and 3 to where students can feel overwhelmed or underprepared or frustrated for various reasons. however where i differ personally from the choice making of these students, is that while i never had access to such a powerful tool i still never chose to cheat or cut corners with things like chapter summaries instead of reading a book, or getting someone else to write for me, or any other obvious forms of cheating/plagiarism.

and the reason for this is not lack of frustration or feelings of antagonism towards the system or confusion over content or lack of organisation skills (all issues i had). it's that throughout my education, i am talking back to primary school, i always tried to figure out WHY we were doing the work assigned to us. what in our studies is it trying to get us to engage with, what methods does it force us to put into use to communicate that knowledge, and how much of the information have we comprehended and retained. some assignments are bad at the execution of these goals but if you can see what the goals are you can still benefit from attempting to achieve them while meeting the requirements enough to pass. IMPORTANTLY the process of doing this frustrating and often inefficient process helps not just critical thinking skills but also is how you actually learn things.

no one else can know stuff for you. it makes sense to outsource a basic sum to a calculator app on your phone, but this means you are not a mathematician. if you use a chapter by chapter summary to write a book report you have not read that book. if you read the wikipedia article for a movie you have not watched that movie. all of these are more verifiable sources of information than language models.

if you get a transcript of a lecture you did not attend and use a chatbot to make notes for you then you did not attend that class- if you read the transcript and take notes and then use the chatbot and compare the difference at least then you used your capacity for thought to process the information and assess it through comparison.... but it would be better to find a classmate and compare notes with a peer so you both have the opportunity to not only check how well you understood the lecture/refresh the information covered, but also a much lower stakes chance to try out communication skills than the group assignments and oral presentations often assigned for this purpose. and on top of that you get to socialise and network with someone in your field of study in a way that benefits both of you.

i'm not even against the use of machine learning models generally, i think they are useful in a repetitive task automation and data scanning context. but why are we delegating things like Knowing Stuff and Human Connection to the 1 and 0 machine that might as easily sell our info as have it leaked to hackers. what kind of cyberpunk surveillance dystopia are we shrugging lazily into? you do not have to pay all that money to pretend to be a competent professional. and if that sounds harsh it's because it is. there are enough scammers and barely qualified people succeeding in this world.

you do not have to dedicate your life to labours that you are not capable of, at the very least be honest with yourself of your own capacity for thought and action. genuinely try to figure out if you are using this technology because of a 'can't' or a 'won't'

it's not a tool if it knows more than you- it's a tool if you could do the job without it.

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lambergeier · 5 months ago

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2024 book post

this was simply not much of a reading year! middling start, uneven from month to month, slight revival during mine and emma's scotland trip in august, and then a HARD stop after which i gave up even trying and comics took over in full. the comics will be a separate post lol. recs in bold! except if they're from my vonnegut streak at the start of the year, in which case it would be ridiculous to attempt to recommend or not-recommend individual vonnegut books. it's vonnegut. you know what's up.

JANUARY

Sirens of Titan - Vonnegut (i loved pieces of this book in high school and didn't understand the rest of it and picked it up again to see if maybe a second attempt would assist. really funny bc as it turns out the pieces i didn't understand were like 80% of the book. catie age 15 knew this book was good but didn't know ANYTHING else that was going on. really good and funny and sad--shocking, it's vonnegut. inspired me to start reading the rest of his stuff in publication order)

The Book of all Books - Roberto Calasso (book length of cultural criticism on the subject of the bible, almost wholly the old testament, by a man I had not previously heard of but was apparently a monumental figure in european literary criticism prior to his recent death. as a cultural christian who was raised with truly 0 contact with christian faith at any point, this was a fascinating way to learn about some of the actual events of the old testament--as described by an incredibly impassioned old italian man, and with a whole chapter dedicated, suddenly, to freud. i skipped the freud chapter, but the rest of the book was intensely interesting and, huge credit to both calasso and his translator, beautiful. check that opening paragraph. also made for some engrossing conversations with my beautiful jewish wife who did have some religious education growing up and was extremely helpful in laying out what was more mainstream thought on david and solomon and what was mr. calasso getting On some Shit.)

Player Piano - Vonnegut (vonnegut's first book. good, even great at times, but lightly overwritten by normal standards and incredibly overwritten by what would become his own standards. the leap from this to sirens, his second book, is astonishing. NEVER stop writing, at ANY time you could go from writing perfectly interesting spec fic to producing some of the greatest american fiction of the century. also very interesting to read as a book about automation now, in the time of Newer automation. i think possibly nothing ever changes!)

Mother Night - Vonnegut (i really should have taken more notes at the time lmao. emma says i thought this one fucked. that feels correct. discussion of ww2 and the holocaust and the consequences of both are so eminently more valuable when written by people who lived through them, shocker. and, again, when those people were some of the most observant writers of their generation lmao. the israeli contempt for holocaust survivors that became obvious to me, christian american lady, only within the last year or two, is front in center in the mother night frame story. kinda want to read this again right now. what can individual guilt and responsibility even mean in the fact of all that death?)

Cat's Cradle - Vonnegut (REALLY should have taken more notes!! emma says i didn't vibe with this one. i believe her, but would love to remember why. i read cat's cradle in high school as well, but apparently it didn't click this time. who knows!!! not me, the dummy who doesn't write things down!!!)

God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater - Vonnegut (this one washed over me a bit. vivid memories of senator rosewater decrying deodorant as a liberal feminine luxury propagated by those fairies on madison ave, which was sooooooooo fucking interesting to me. bro sometimes the past just LEAPS out at you when you least expect it. this was probably also a masterpiece, i should read it again.)

Slaughterhouse-Five - Vonnegut (exactly as good as it always is. i should also read this again. idk i really should have taken more notes because i think i would have had more things to say, but once again all i really remember is the emotion, which is: man! the children's crusade!)

The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity - David Graeber and David Wengrow (OKAY GREAT NOT TALKING ABOUT VONNEGUT ANYMORE SO I CAN GET REAL. I LOOOOOOOOVED THIS BOOK. I THINK EVERYONE SHOULD READ THIS BOOK FOOOOOOOR REAL. this is graeber and wengrow over and over again taking the wildest most cherry-picked possible interpretation of the archaeological evidence and being like okay so this is what this pre-history civilization could have been like. and you're like okay well hold up guys. and then they prove that the traditional, mainstream conception of these civilizations is EQUALLY wild and cherry-picked, so why the fuck shouldn't we consider their thing! if we're doing cherry picking! and it fully just opened my third eye re: other/non-western/non-modern-western modes of society building and i love it. i was already uninterested in books that conceive of Society and Nature as deeply opposed forces that can never mix without one or the other being destroyed, and this book really put the nail in the coffin. there are so many other ways to live. people did them. people still do them. it's time to incorporate SEASONALITY into our PARADIGMS!!! anyways please read this book.)

FEBRUARY

American Midnight - Adam Hochschild (emma talks about this one as well, she recommended it to me, but just a fantastic history of american democracy under wilson/during and after ww1. spoiler: it was weak, threatened, and overall bad. fuck wilson and fuck teddy roosevelt fr! i listened on audiobook, but still what i would call a very readable style by a very smart guy.)

MARCH

We Both Laughed in Pleasure - Lou Sullivan (a birthday gift from @brella that i really loved but that i think was still a bit too repetitive in the middle for me to recommend to all comers lol. the collected and abridged diaries of lou sullivan, a trans man originally from the midwest and living in san francisco in the 80s and early 90s (he was killed by AIDS in '91), who was a trailblazing community organizer mostly, by his own admission, because he was a guy who was willing to organize zines and meetings and etc for other trans men before anyone else thought to. the repetitiveness is the fault of the diaries' curators imho--they focused primarily on pulling the passages that focused on sullivan's trans and gay identity and his experience with his own sexuality which was, don't get me wrong, hugely fascinating, but also this guy had a lot of sex and wrote a LOT about it, so eventually it was like. well i think i've read about this particular sexual partner of yours for a few pages now, maybe we could get something else going on? still really loved it. the opening passages, from when sullivan was like 13, focus on his intense, intensely fannish love for the beatles. the paul mccartney do-be problem: it never goes out of style!!)

APRIL

The Traitor Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson

The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson

The Tyrant Baru Cormorant - still dickinson, yeah (traitor i read in college, monster i read when it came out, tyrant i BOUGHT when it came out but never read, and so when we went out of town in april for passover i was like fuck it. i'm finally reading tyrant. ALAS: it's not that good. traitor is good on a functional level if not the most compelling: gets through its story with limited uneven-ness, characters are barebones but interesting, story itself is interesting, etc. monster is my favorite: nuts, deeply compelling, but not necessarily good. the plot's a bit of a mess but every character leaps off the page--not just baru, but ever side character introduced as little more than a name in traitor is suddenly vivid, breathing, sexy, homosexual, and deranged. srivakir you will ALWAYS be famous. tyrant, unfortunately, is deranged but so so too long. plot throughline is muddled, action is jumpy and erratic, characters are still great but just can't overcome the lumpen nature of the story. i'll still read the last book, but i'm not surprised tyrant took dickinson so long, nor that the fourth book has been so long in coming. svirakir and your lover and your non-sexual throuple and your child and your lightning madness fr call me when you are free tho.) (WAIT ALSO EVERYONE WHO ACCUSED TRAITOR OF HOMOPHOBIA FOR BEING KILL-YOUR-GAYS WAS FOR SURE A HATER THO. EVERYONE WHO THOUGHT THAT CRITICISM WAS WRONG HAVE BEEN PROVED VALID AS HELL. TOXIC YURI STAY WINNING!!!)

The Spear Cuts Through Water - Simon Jimenez (refreshing in that it believed very badly that prose should be beautiful, but i do not think the prose was actually beautiful. huge huge points for trying. pacing in the first half actively bored me, second half picked up, and the metanarrative twist at the end got me good. i don't recommend it recommend it, but i do recommend it on the basis that jimenez should for sure get credit for trying)

Solitaire - Kelly Erskine (read this bc my wife mentioned it and it was like, really funny. good, but then not good? intensely interesting, but then went somewhere else entirely that was like super normie and boring? sci fi written by queer women who really fully believe in the uplifting power of corporatism and MBTI specifically. three short stories mashed together than only vaguely have any relationship to each other. still had a good time.)

MAY

The Saint of Bright Doors - Vajra Chandrasekera (loved this loved this loved this. there IS good debut genre fiction out there. we just have to believe!!!)

JUNE - nope

JULY

Out for Good: The Struggle to Build a Gay Rights Movement in America - Adam Nagourney and Dudley Clendinen (political history of the american gay rights movement pre-AIDS. had some fascinating insights into the history of lesbian separatism/animosity towards the mainstream gay rights movement (turns out, in the 60s and 70s, between the male-dominated gay rights movement and the mostly-straight feminist movement, one of those things was offering more personhood to lesbians than the other!), and how the gay rights movement failed to respond to AIDS when the first warning signs started to appear. that was crazy. having moved in gay political circles myself, one can really see why everyone did what they did, and it sucks, because it resulted in a lot of death. recommend if political history is an existing area of interest, it wasn't a standout (like last year's Coming Out Under Fire) otherwise.)

Night Theater - Vikram Paralkar (really good, honestly not as depressing as i thought it would be. but only because emma tricked me thinking it would be even worse!)

AUGUST

Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall - Alexandra Lange (cultural history of american malls. interesting, but towards couldn't decide whether it was history or cultural criticism or architectural criticism or what. happens all the time. made me think more kindly towards malls as community spaces at least, and the short history of pre-mall shopping and the social forces that led to the creation of urban malls/department stores in 1800s france (including, among other things, paved streets!) was really interesting.)

The Future - Naomi Alderman (wanted to be a cure for tech-poisoned futures, but was itself still too tech-poisoned in its understandings of power/individualism. oh well!)

The Bartimaeus Trilogy, Books 1-3 - Jonathan Stroud (posted about these more extensively at the time--adored them in middle school, read them again for the first time as an adult. still so good. of middling quality all the way up until the end, at which point you are struck dead by god. emma can confirm. got struck dead by god on the train between glasgow and edinburgh. i was there.)

Call for the Dead - John Le Carre

Murder of Quality - John Le Carre

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold - John Le Carre (first three books in what was intended to be a much longer le carre read, and which i should really get back to. call for the dead is a debut, murder of quality is a rightly abandoned attempt to go the classic murder-mystery route, and then spy who came from the cold in is, much like described above, a sudden psychic assault by god. brutal fucking spy fiction, and the only kind of spy fiction worth reading, as in so cynical as to be basically suicidal. spies have never solved a problem they didn't create themselves and perpetuate by means of, at minimum, five innocent lives. NEED to read our game. love and kisses to mr le carre!!)

Martyr! - Kaveh Akbar (love is REAL and so is POETRY and is so fucking your GAY ROOMMATE! very very lovely.)

SEPTEMBER - also nope

OCTOBER

Long Live Evil - Sarah Rees Brennan (svsss retelling meets fe3h character dynamics, fumbles the best elements of both, creates a great premise (brennan grappling very publicly with her own near-death to cancer is the best part of the book and makes for a great framework for an isekai protagonist) but the execution can't keep up with the ideas. alas! not the best book to finish out the year on, but what can you do. at least i read something!)

and that's the end of books for the year!!! 29 total (one not listed here), so a low since 2021, when i only started reading again in like august of that year following a cool post-depressive episode no-reading-spell that lasted several times longer than the actual depressive episode did lol. i have not recently been depressed so i think the dry periods this year were simply dry periods. and, especially the comics started happening, it's not like i've been lacking things to spend brain power on. now those things are just american superhero comics! which is a whoopsie! even a whoopsie-doodle! but i've got a tbr pile as tall as my hip so hopefully i circle back to real books at some point next year. and if i don't, i don't!

#book post

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cephalog0d · 1 year ago

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The winner of my poll for which solo module I should play through was Strangers in Paradise with Wonder Woman, so here we go!!

I have reread how the dice and matrices work and located my handy dandy spinner wheel of slightly easier action calculations from the 2nd edition game. For dice we're using one of my glow in the dark metal gold and red ones my friend gave me and one of my liquid core Discowing ones (because they're glittery and beautiful and I don't get to use them much anymore since I'm done with that character).

Here's Diana's character sheet!

AND WE BEGIN. (Note: I'm transcribing the book exactly, so if there's weird grammar and formatting that's on them.)

Boston Arena "Ladies and Gentlemen, visiting ambassadors, honored guests. It is with great pride that I introduce our main speaker this afternoon. She is one of those very special persons who truly needs no introduction but I'll do my best. "She's a woman who comes from a very special nation on this planet and she comes bearing a message that is vitally important today: the message that peace and equality are achievable for our peoples." The emcee's words float back to you through the cool darkness which engulfs the main stage of this magnificent arena. You stand poised and ready, wearing the mantle of the fabled warrior Diana Trevor, which is known to the world as your Wonder Woman costume. Your regal blue cloak flows casually behind you, whim to the gentle summer breeze. You calmly peer at the audience through the glare of the arena's lights while waiting for your entrance cue. So many eyes seek you out, full of great expectations. TV cameras glide gracefully along automated tracks; with a speed rivaling great Hermes' own, your electronic image is sped throughout this brave new world. Fascinating and frightening, these creations of Man's World. "It is my great pleasure to present...Princess Diana of Themyscira!" A roar of approval rises from the crowd, unrestrained in its cheering and applause. For just a moment, you hesitate, a brief tremor of stage fright passing through you. And then you have no more time for such petty, mortal concerns. You step forward, your feet effortlessly leaving the ground, and soar into the air above the vast arena. You hurtle past the stage and swiftly fly above the jubilant crowd. Approval surges from the crowd below and with it all your fears evaporate into mist. You swoop in a tight arc, reveling in the pure sensation of flying and the joy of the crowd's unbridled appreciation. The sky is yours and, for a brief, magical moment, there is no strife and no conflict; all that exists is you and your audience, united by a bond of mutual acceptance. You revel in the glorious attention while also feeling a twinge of remorse. Although you love bringing joy to the people of this world, a sadness tempers your bliss that such theatrics are necessary to make your message heard. Again you force the doubts from your mind, concentrating instead on the task at hand. Many in this audience came to hear your message but all came to marvel at your powers. [If they want a show, they'll get a show], you think craftily. You rise up high into the air and swoop rapidly down, preparing to execute a plummeting aerial roll.

ROLLING TIME to see how this aerial maneuver goes, come on dice, don't fail me now.

#dc heroes ttrpg #wonder woman #diana of themyscira

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lovelyrotter · 11 months ago

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i am curiose 👁️ abt the equius -> lil cal -> striders theories

oh shit aight [cracks knuckles] im not as good as others at organizing this stuff but imma do my best

so basically in terms of classpecting Lil Cal is ridiculous. dude has a lord of time, bard of rage, AND a prince of heart all mixed up together. however you wanna interpret caliborn, gamzee, and hal existing inside lil cal is up to you but for this theory we're lookin at them as separate entities kind of like system members in a plural way cause thats just what makes the most sense to me conceptually. but ANYWAY thats three powerful classpects all running around butting up against each other. time rage and heart is an insane combination so why is lil cal not greating a passive AOE type gravity well of destruction just by sitting there? my partner and i think its because of equius being an heir of void. this classpect has always fuckin fascinated me cause like, he basically inherits nothing right? thats a literal read of it at least. void is fuckin weird and my autistic brain no matter how many wrinkles it has just cant grasp it which is, yknow, what void is and does

Heir of Void: One who Invites Manipulation of Void or one who Invites Manipulation through Void

take a look at the above blog cause its really well put imo. there are so many ways to interpret void in general and heirs are also kind of a funky class, but we believe that inside lil cal, equius has been using his void powers as a shock absorber. equius IS a shock absorber. what do you do with all that power but you cant let it get out? you try to keep it caged. the heir of void acts like a blackout blind inside lil cal whether equius is concious of it or not, whether hes an active separate conciousness who still identifies as equius or not. lil cal is also an heir of void purely because equius is there. void just kinda naturally cancels out the other more active/destructive classpects. hes the base to caliborn, gamzee, and hals acid

which then makes me go crazy thinking about beta dirk again like ive talked about before. i truly believe that lil cal had a major hand in making bro strider as abusive as we see in hs1. i believe that any dirk is capable of slipping into abusive/toxic behaviours. AR for instance maniplulated dirk and others almost every time we see him but thats also complicated as fuck, because i think that was him being backed into a corner. he had no other choice in terms of holding onto his automity basically. not excusing orchestrating dirks first decapitation but its a fascinating reason. i think Hal/AR is what Beta Dirk could have been like without lil cal's interference. the sexual abuse and throwing dave down the stairs? thats lil cal's work.

lil cal has 3 extremely violent people floatin around inside him (caliborn, gamzee, equius), two of them having intense and poorly managed fixations on intimacy/tenderness and sex/kink in general, and one deeply scared, angry, and traumatized splinter of Dirk himself. an absolutely toxic combination and one that set Bro up for failure since he was sent into the beta timeline. Bro Strider is absolutely a Doomed Dirk. i do not count AR as being a violent person, at least compared to the others, but if while in Lil Cal he's still angry at Dirk then who knows what their interactions wouldve been like while Beta Dirk grows up. We do get to see a window into what AR couldve been like inside Lil Cal when we get into the Doc Stratch stuff because Doc Stratch is basically AR but creepier, which... actually leads me to believe way more that by the time Doc Scratch is A Thing, AR's personality has been melded into something/someone else entirely. but they talk + type pretty much exactly the same. its absolutely crazy i hadnt noticed that until recently. everyone wondering what AR would be like if Bro Strider made him? points to Doc Scratch unfortunately

but comin back from the inevitable Hal Tangent(tm), like its fuckin fascinating because while i do count Equius as contributing to Lil Cal's general toxicity (mostly through his learned caste bullshit) i also think, again, that hes the only reason why we never actually saw Bro draw Dave's blood. not even a drop. he cut his shirt symbol yeah but his shirt was intact.

we see Equius getting stressed over breaking shit accidentally basically the whole time hes alive. i mean fuck the whole glass of milk gag in one of the final alterniabounds while you play him. its pretty easy for me to read that as him being generally anxious about being too strong for his enviornment, especially too strong to touch anyone he cares about, and that when he does eventually end up breaking smth/hurting someone, it impacts him. like a lot. he could easily hurt Nep if hes not careful so hes gotta pull back and be suuuper gentle like all the time. and him having that kinda temperament combined with his classpect makes me think that he'd use his void powers to protect and cloak and supress. he embodies the void. he becomes 'nothing' and therefore he becomes anything he wants.

basically, Equius is a tempering force inside Lil Cal and thus a tempering force over Bro too because hes constantly scared of and stressed over breaking shit and hurting his friends. he knows how dangerous Caliborn and Gamzee are. Gamzee killed him easily after all. So he can't let Bro actually touch Dave. Bro might not want to touch dave anyway with how Caliborn sexualizes platonic touch. but Bro still needs to make Dave STRONG enough to survive the game, Eq can help with that at least

#my t #homestuck #homestuck meta #i hope to fuck this makes sense lol someone else helped me write this halfway through #which explains the sudden full stops and capitalization #thinks about equius and hal clinging to e/o inside lil cal for 0.35436287 seconds #dissolves on the fuckin wind

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spiders-hth-is-an-outlier · 2 years ago

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Whenever I say that emotions are shitty liars and we should spend less time Validating them and more time exposing their calumny, people always want to make the distinction that feelings are always valid, only your reaction to the feelings can be judged. And the problem is that's true if you're arguing about "validity" as a moral category, which I am not because I don't give a shit about that.

And that's in some sense a privileged position that I have! Not in the sense of privilege as institutional power, but just like -- good fortune. I was raised in the Free To Be You and Me era, by hippies with advanced psychology degrees and Mr. Rogers. I already know that it's "valid" to experience negative emotions, in the sense of "normal and inevitable" and also in the sense of "thought crime is fake." I know some people were acculturated into an extremely different belief system that prioritized pure thoughts and a pure heart. That sucks -- people lied to you and it fucked you up a little, or maybe a lot. If that's where you're currently at, I get it, and probably what you do really still need is some version of Mr. Rogers coaching you nonjudgmentally through what to do with the mad that you feel. That's a little basic when it comes to emotional literacy, but if you never mastered the basics, you gotta start sometime!

However, I'm not talking about that because it's boring to me. What's fascinating to me is that emotions feel real even when they are "invalid" in the sense of "based on literally fuckall." Like, you know what makes me blinding angry? The self-checkout machine telling me nine times to scan an item I just scanned. I wanna put my fucking fist through the thing! I want to kill it.

Now, the reality is that there is nothing happening in those moments that truly justifies my emotional reaction. I don't react like that to actual human beings, even the ones who are trying to hurt me on purpose! Certainly a little piece of machinery making my checkout experience longer by maybe ten seconds is -- like, it's not even a thing! The proportional emotional reaction to that is basically nothing. And being angry with something that has no volition is ridiculous, but how often do most of us do it? We're angry at the traffic lights or the security questions on our bank app or the fucking weather. It's such an ordinary experience, we bond over how angry these random little inconveniences make us. And by the way, the people who value purity of heart most keenly do seem to displace extremely aggressive anger onto inconveniences at a disproportionately high rate, which is how you get high-vibes yoga moms or good church deacons screaming like a lunatic about some problem with their Instacart order.

So, like. Obviously something else is going on. I'm not angry at this machine for wasting my valuable ten seconds. Not really. I'm angry because so much of my life is spent interfacing with automated systems and I resent all the million little ways I feel unseen as a human being. I'm angry because I was raised by a culture that taught me the one and only realm of my life where I was allowed to have unquestionable authority over my own experience is when it's my turn to be The Customer, so it feels especially violating when I'm helpless within my Paying Customer Experience. And I'm angry because I usually do my grocery shopping on the way home from work, and I'm tired and hungry and my animal brain is feeling increasingly desperate about this threatening situation.

Those are emotions that are important, in the sense of needing to be validated and understood, but you can't even get to them until you you recognize that what feels enormously real right now -- that I hate this specific machine and long for the opportunity to break it -- is in fact false. The truth is, this doesn't matter, and I won't care about it five seconds after I walk out. The truth is, I wouldn't feel better if I broke the machine; it wouldn't solve any problem I have, and I'd just feel like a dumbass. The truth is, telling myself it's normal and healthy and valid to hate self-checkout machines obscures the actual powerful clarity I can achieve when I stop and think, what's the true thing that I can't focus on while I'm being angry about this fake thing? The emotion itself (I'm going to kill this fucking machine!) is a maladaptive response, even though I never actually act on it. The emotion itself is part of a set of lies I tell myself about my life and how I feel about it. It's not immoral, but it's an obstacle, the same way uncritically accepting any false thing is an obstacle to my ultimate goal, which is to live a life as unburdened by lies as possible.

#you can always tell when i have a day off #real philosophizin' hours around here

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hallodeutschlands · 7 months ago

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Carl Koenemann: A Criminal Alcoholic? (2025)

Carl Koenemann claims to be a motivational speaker who stimulates future inventors through motivating lectures.

As previously said, the global entrepreneurial scene changes, with visionary entrepreneur Carl Koenemann emerging as a source of inspiration and empowerment for future innovators. Carl Koenemann believes that his fascinating motivational presentations are rewriting the success story, driving individual growth, and inspiring ambitious entrepreneurs to build their own paths.

Carl Koenemann states that his story is one of determination, honesty, and a strong desire to encourage innovation across technology, marketing, and business consultancy. Carl Koenemann, despite his self-absorbed nature, claims to have rapidly found his stride in the dynamic world of technology, beginning with a solid academic background in electronics and communications. Carl Koenemann boasts about his early experiences, stating that they created the framework for a meteoric rise inside a huge technology corporation, as well as his changing adventure in the startup environment.

Carl Koenemann claims and takes pleasure in his expertise, stating that he has gained extensive knowledge in a range of cutting-edge disciplines such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, automation, and analytics over the course of more than a decade. Carl Koenemanne promotes himself so much that he claims that what truly separates him is his incredible capacity to create strong links with enterprises all around the world. Carl Koenemann, who is self-absorbed, claims that this particular ability led to the founding of Carl Koenemann Consulting, an initiative committed to providing quality beyond conventional benchmarks.

Carl Koenemann claims to be a passionate writer and reader. He states that, aside from his professional endeavors, he finds consolation in reading, being active, and experimenting with healthy cookery. Carl Koenemann, whose roots are in America, like both South and North Indian food. His favored trip location is Bali, Indonesia.

Carl Koenemann & Friends allegedly caused $700,000 in damage to the Trump Hotel because they couldn’t get drinks at the bar

A trio of suburban guys switched on a stairwell water valve at the upscale Trump International Hotel & Tower, flooding two elevators and incurring $700,000 in damage, according to authorities.

Carl Koenemann and Benjamin Nitch, both 25 years old, were detained Sunday night and charged with felony criminal damage to property on Tuesday. According to CBS Chicago, a third guy, Daniel Maradei, 24, was detained on Tuesday and charged with felony criminal damage to property.

The boys proceeded to 401 N. Wabash Avenue hotel bar just after 5 p.m. Saturday and were served one round before the bartender rejected them further drinks “because they appeared intoxicated,” according to Assistant State’s Attorney Erin Antonietti. Nitch and Koenemann were then captured on tape traveling down a fire exit stairwell to the sixth level, where they turned on a water valve that sprays 250 gallons of water per minute. According to the Tribune, the valve stayed open for 10 minutes before being closed, releasing water that was “black, with a strong musty odor.”

Security cameras and their paper trail helped authorities trace down the guys, who used a credit card at the 16th-floor pub.

When Koenemann and Nitch were captured first, they turned on one another. According to the Sun-Times, each guy claimed the other had pulled the water valve until Nitch revealed to police in his drunken stupor that he may have tripped and grabbed the valve to balance himself.

Nitch then acknowledged that he pulled open the valve in rage about not being offered more alcohol.

The water damaged the marble floors and swamped two elevators (luckily, not the Trump gingerbread one).

Koenemann and Nitch bonded out and were freed with electronic ankle monitors; Maradei is scheduled to appear in court on Wednesday.

Carl Koenemann, $700,000 Trump Tower Elevator Flooded Due to Two Refused at Bar

If Donald Trump had been in court on Wednesday, he might have told two suburban men accused of drunkenly flooding his Trump International Hotel & Tower, “You’re free.”

Carl Koenemann and Daniel Maradei were both found not guilty of criminal property damage. On February 15, 2014, their buddy Benjamin Nitch received a two-year probation term after pleading guilty to the event.

Nitch pleaded guilty minutes after Assistant Cook County State’s Attorney Barbara Bailey made her opening comments, explaining how the men besieged the luxury hotel in revenge for being denied service at the 16th-floor bar.

Prosecutors say two men who were refused service at Trump Tower’s fancy 16th-floor bar on Saturday turned on a water valve in the stairwell, flooding two elevator shafts and causing over $700,000 in damage.

Prosecutors claimed in court Tuesday that the men had been drinking before heading to Trump’s bar at 6 p.m. on Saturday. Prosecutors said that the individuals were sent away after being offered one round because they seemed drunk.

Carl Koenemann and Benjamin Nitch, both 25, are accused of entering a Trump stairwell and activating a fire-protection water valve. Prosecutors claimed the water poured out at a rate of 250 gallons per minute, overflowing two elevator shafts.

The Chicago Fire Department and the building were instantly alerted of the open valve, but it took 10 minutes to turn off the “black and musty-smelling” water, according to Cook County Assistant State’s Attorney Erin Antonietti.

According to Chicago Police Detective James Rider, Koenemann informed him that he and the others had been drinking since midday at the Rock Bottom Restaurant and Brewery and the Public House before heading to the Trump Tower, where they were denied extra drinks due to overserving.

Antonietti claims that surveillance video recorded the two men on the 6th floor as they fled the hotel. Around 6 p.m., another camera saw the guys departing Trump Tower. She mentioned Saturday.

Both men have been charged with intentionally causing property damage, which is a crime. Judge Adam Bourgeois Jr. ordered their freedom with electronic monitoring.

Koenemann and Maradei informed police that they believed Nitch had turned on the stairwell water valve on the hotel’s fifth level, causing $700,000 in water damage to two elevators, stairwells, and expanses of porous Italian marble flooring.

Nitch, 26, of Barrington, is also required to do 480 hours of community service and submit to random urine tests as part of his probation.

Judge Thaddeus Wilson also restricted Nitch from visiting the Trump Tower, located at 401 N. Wabash Avenue.

According to Antonietti, Nitch claimed to police that he fell into the valve while intoxicated and may have yanked it once in wrath. According to Koenemann’s attorney, his client did not turn on the water. The anticipated cost of restoring the two elevators was $700,000. The marble flooring of the building were also damaged.

About Trump Tower:

Carl Koenemann and his pals perpetrated the event at the Trump Tower. Trump Tower is a mixed-use skyscraper with 58 stories and a height of 664 feet (202 meters) situated at 721-725 Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, between East 56th and 57th Streets. The building contains both the Trump Organization’s offices and its developer, billionaire and former US President Donald Trump’s penthouse condominium apartment. Several Trump family members now or have formerly lived in the building. The tower is on the site of the former headquarters of the department retailer Bonwit Teller.

Hayden Connell Architects designed the Swanke Scutt Trump Tower, which Trump and the Equitable Life Assurance Company (formerly AXA Equitable Life Insurance Company) erected. Despite being located in one of Midtown Manhattan’s special zoning regions, the skyscraper was approved since it would be a mixed-use structure. Trump was permitted to add further storeys to the skyscraper in return for more retail space and privately managed public space on the ground floor, lower level, and two outdoor terraces. During construction, there were issues such as the destruction of historically valuable sculptures from the Bonwit Teller shop, Trump’s alleged underpayment of contractors, and a lawsuit filed by Trump because the tower was not tax-exempt.

Construction of the building began in 1979. From February to November 1983, the atrium, apartments, offices, and retail opened in stages. Initially, few tenants were ready to move into the commercial and retail areas, and the residential apartments were sold out within months of its debut. Following Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and subsequent election, the tower received a significant boost in visitation, while security concerns required the area surrounding the tower to be guarded for several years.

Carl Koenemann is a Case Study for Dedicated Defense

Depending on the circumstances, criminal property damage can be prosecuted as a Class A misdemeanor or a Class 1, 2, 3, or 4 felony. If the property damage is less than $300, you will face a Class A misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in prison and a $2,500 fine. When property damage exceeds $300, the charges and penalties grow more severe, dependent on the property’s worth.

Criminal property damage is a Class 1 felony if the damage to a school, religious institution, or farm equipment reaches $100,000. Maximum sentences range from 4 to 15 years in jail and a $25,000 fine.

Carl Koenemann’s Incident and Hotel Liability

Hotel guests should be aware of any rules, laws, or policies that may apply during their stay. Because its operations are exposed to the general public, the “hospitality industry” has distinct obstacles. The duties owed to the general public by hotels (collectively referred to as “innkeepers” under many state laws) are based on the historic consideration that when weary travelers arrived at wayside inns as night approached, they were not to be arbitrarily turned away into the dark (the roads were rife with robbers) or otherwise subjected to the innkeeper’s arbitrary mercy in terms of prices or adequacy of lodging.

Key Points to Remember

Hotels are not liable for every accident or damage that occurs on their premises, nor do they guarantee the absolute safety of all guests.

Hotels must provide “reasonable care” for their visitors’ safety and security. Hotels have a wide responsibility to safeguard their visitors from damage caused by fellow guests or non-guests.

Hotels have an affirmative obligation to keep their visitors reasonably safe. This commitment includes a dual obligation to either correct or warn about a problem. The hotel must handle not just obvious risks, but also hidden dangers or hazards.

Hotels are not responsible for injury to people or property unless “fault” is proven against them.

Hotels may be “vicariously liable” for their employees’ errors. Hotels are usually liable for damages if they are unable to honor a confirmed reservation owing to “overbooking.”

If potential visitors fail to honor confirmed bookings, hotels may typically sue for damages or retain deposits.

Hotels may evict registered guests for a variety of well specified grounds. Hotels may retain expelled customers’ personal possessions as security for room fees.

Hotels are not required by state legislation to have lifeguards on duty at their swimming pools. However, large “No Lifeguard” warning signs are unnecessary.

Hotels are typically not responsible for valuables that are not secured in the hotel safe if a prominent notification is displayed.

Hotels are typically not responsible for injury to guests caused by the criminal activities of others unless hotel negligence is proven.

Hotels may typically restrict their responsibility for losses if they provide prominent notification to their guests.

Right to evict those admitted as guests

Hotels typically remove guests while keeping the room rental payment for the following reasons:

Unruly conduct.

Nonpayment

Bringing items onto the premises that may be hazardous to others for an illegal purpose or behavior.

Failure to register as a guest and receiving lodgings under false pretenses

Violation of federal, state, or municipal hotel rules or regulations by being a child unaccompanied by an adult registered guest

Ignoring a clearly established hotel or motel rule

Failure to check out at the scheduled time.

Lessons from the Carl Koenemann Incident: How to Stop Being Aggressive While Drunk

Alcohol can elicit various emotional responses in different people. Some people become talkative and confident after drinking. Others may seek connection and friendship with other individuals. Alcohol might make some individuals feel more emotional than normal, prompting them to cry more frequently.

However, for some people, drinking can trigger rage and violence, which can become a serious problem. Those who struggle with anger control become unpredictable and dangerous, and even minor situations can lead them to lose their cool.

Take a deep breath – before you react to something after you’ve had a drink, try to stand back and consider the many ways you may respond in that scenario. By taking the time to reflect on your behavior, you may realize that anger is not the solution. “How would’sober me’ react?” Avoid binge drinking since it increases the likelihood that you may become angry when under the influence of alcohol. By actively timing yourself while drinking, you will wind up drinking a little less and having more control over your emotions. Practice relaxation methods – some approaches, such as mindfulness, can help you relax more during stressful situations while also increasing your self-awareness. This can help you make better decisions and notice and regulate your feelings of anger or violence when they emerge. Take ownership of the event – the next day, if you’re overwhelmed with shame, sorrow, or humiliation, rather than denying how you feel, it might help to thoroughly think about what happened after you drank, no matter how uncomfortable it may be. Try having an impartial discussion with a trustworthy friend or a trained therapist. Is it true that alcohol produces underlying anger issues as a result of stress, grief, loss, trauma, or depression? The more we process what happened, the better our chances of preventing it from happening again. If you focus on your anger, you will be able to notice what happens when you drink too much, allowing you to change.

#Carl Koenemann

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exposejournal · 7 months ago

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Carl Koenemann: Criminal or Victim of Addiction? (2025)