#stochastic origin

[infoanalysishub]

Stochastic Meaning, Definition, Pronunciation, Examples & Usage

Discover the full meaning of stochastic, its pronunciation, definitions, synonyms, antonyms, origin, grammar rules, examples, medical and scientific uses, and much more in this detailed comprehensive guide. Stochastic Pronunciation: /stəˈkæs.tɪk/IPA: [stəˈkæs.tɪk] Definition of Stochastic Adjective Involving or characterized by a random probability distribution or pattern that may be…

[opens-up-4-nobody]

For eggtober :-P

[isaacsapphire]

How do you balance knowledge of how bad it can be with continuing to care about petty issues that most first world people spend their energy on; “You aren’t starving in a ditch, stop complaining about how horrible it is that the convenience store stopped carrying your favorite drink flavor.”

How many combat videos of guts spilled and brains spattered before the next season of whatever show or arguments about girls lacrosse just stops feeling like something anyone has any business caring about to you? Does anyone really want to kill and die and sleep and eat and shit in a hole in the woods for months over their childhood fondness for bestselling books or Marvel movies?

How do you deal with people who sincerely believe that we are months away from massive violence and bloodshed and war between the US and Canada and possibly WW3 And The Second American Civil War combined and of course food will become unavailable so there will be starvation too?

They’re incredibly stressed by this and they’re so certain. The leftlib sphere seems to be trying to make this happen, trying to stochastic terrorism their vulnerable adherents into lighting the Reichstag on fire. The well-heeled ones are bolting from the country sincerely thinking that they are rats leaving a sinking ship.

But if they’re actually right, where would even be safe? If Trump is about to annex Canada, it’s obviously not a good idea to run away from Trump to Canada. If Russia and the NATO and United States are about to have a war, neither an off-the-grid cabin in Alaska or returning to an EU country seem like places where you could sit the conflict out. If China is going kinetic, Australia/New Zealand seems kinda vulnerable too.

[historichawkeye]

There was an attack today,

But I sent no orders.

Their rhetoric I did use to parlay,

But I sent no soldiers.

Myself and allies berated his eyes,

But my, he was bolder.

Point at me till end of skies,

But I sent no soldier.

You see, this conflict is multilayered,

But I’ll keep my calm composure.

I’ll send all my thoughts and prayers,

But I sent no soldier.

Am I liable if I poison the lake?

And the populace no longer sober?

Of course, my advice they did take,

But I sent no soldier.

However, if you asked if they deserved

The gunman’s life foreclosure.

My rhetoric suddenly swerves

To there was bound to be a soldier.

“Thoughts and Slayers” -Written January 28th, 2024

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Words You Always Have to Look Up

Nonplussed

Means “perplexed.”

But there is a further point of confusion that can send someone to the dictionary: since the mid-20th century, nonplussed has been increasingly used to mean “unimpressed” or “unsurprised,” and this use, though often considered an error, has made the confident deployment of this word a fraught issue for many.

Anodyne

Sometimes words sort of seem to telegraph their meaning: pernicious sounds like a bad thing rather than a good thing, and beatific sounds like something to be desired as opposed to something to be avoided.

This is all fairly subjective, of course, but the sounds of words can have an effect on how we perceive them.

Anodyne doesn’t give us many clues in that way. It turns out that anodyne is a good thing: it means “serving to alleviate pain” or “innocuous,” from the Greek word with similar meanings.

Supercilious

Used to describe people who are arrogant and haughty or give off a superior attitude.

It comes from the Latin word meaning “eyebrow,” and was used in Latin to refer to the expression of arrogant people, and this meaning was transferred to English.

Amusingly, the word supercilious was added to some dictionaries in the 1600s—a time when many Latin words were translated literally into English—with the meanings “pertaining to the eyebrows” or “having great eyebrows.”

Stochastic

In scientific and technical uses, it usually means “involving probability” or “determined by probability,” and is frequently paired with words like demand, model, processing, and volatility.

Comes from the Greek word meaning “skillful at aiming,” which had become a metaphor for “guessing.”

It’s a term that had long been used by mathematicians and statisticians, and has come into more public discourse with stochastic terrorism, the notion that accusations or condemnations of a person or group can lead to violence against that person or group. This allows those who make the initial accusations to seem innocent from any specific violent act, but stochastic terrorism is a way to identify the motives for such an attack as being set in motion by the words of another person.

Anathema

Means “something or someone that is strongly disliked”.

Initially used to refer to a person who had been excommunicated from the Catholic church.

Came from Greek through Latin into English with the meaning of “curse” or “thing devoted to evil,” but today refers to anything that is disapproved of or to be avoided.

There is a strangeness about the way this word is used in a sentence. Because anathema is usually used without an or the, as in “raincoats are anathema to high fashion” or “those ideas are anathema in this class” it may seem just odd enough to send people to the dictionary when they encounter it.

Bemused

So close in sound to amused that they have blended together in usage, but they started as very different ideas: bemused originally meant “confused” or “bewildered,” a meaning stemming from the idea of musing or thinking carefully about something, which may be required in order to assess what isn’t easy to understand.

Many people insist that “confused” is still the only correct way to use bemused, but the joining of meanings with amused has resulted in the frequent use of this word to mean “showing wry or tolerant amusement,” a shade of meaning created from the combination.

Words with meanings that seem to crisscross or intersect are sure to send us to the dictionary.

Solipsistic

Means “extremely egocentric” or “self-referential.”

Comes from the Latin roots solus ("alone," the root of sole) and ipse ("self").

As this Latinate fanciness implies, this is a word used in philosophical treatises and debates.

The egocentrism of solipsism has to do with the knowledge of the self, or more particularly the theory in philosophy that your own existence is the only thing that is real or that can be known.

Calling an idea or a person solipsistic can be an insult that identifies a very limited and usually self-serving perspective, or it can be a way to isolate one’s perspective in a useful way.

It’s a word with an abstract meaning, which is a good reason to check that meaning from time to time.

Tautology

A needless or meaningless repetition of words or ideas.

It’s a word about words that can be used in academic writing or as a hifalutin way of saying “redundancy,” as in “a beginner who just started learning.”

Since we value both clarity and originality, especially in writing, tautology is a word that usually carries a negative connotation and is used as a way to criticize a poorly formed sentence or a poorly argued position.

Perspicacious

The ability to see clearly is a powerful metaphor for being able to understand something.

Being perspicacious means having an ability to notice and understand things that are difficult or not obvious, and it comes from the Latin verb meaning “to see through.”

Means “perceptive,” and is often used along with words that have positive connotations like witty, clever, wise, alert, and insightful (another word that uses seeing as a metaphor for understanding).

Peripatetic

Means “going from place to place,” and comes from the Greek word that means “to walk.”

You can say someone who moves frequently has a “peripatetic existence,” or someone who has changed careers several times has had a “peripatetic professional trajectory.”

The root word “to walk” is usually more of a metaphor in the modern use of this word—it means frequent changes of place, yes, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that you are wearing out your shoes.

The original use of this word did use “walking” as a more literal image, however: it was a description of the way that the philosopher Aristotle preferred to give lectures to his students while walking back and forth, and the word has subsequently taken on a more metaphorical meaning.

Source ⚜ More: Writing Basics ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs

[comicaurora]

Hi Red!

I know you mentioned how people have been reuploading your videos to tiktok and now I have actually seen a few of them I realised they started slowing them down to escape content id. This to me implies that you are talking so fast they know it would be incomprehensible if they sped it up.

Also did you guys manage to find a way to stop or report these things?

Like many content hosting websites, tiktok's approach to reporting theft is "step 1: give us your legal name and home address so we can send it straight to the person who stole from you in case they want to fight you in court or mail you a bomb!" so. no. no I have not.

fortunately I consider this to be largely a non-problem, because

(a) tiktok has been stealing my videos in cut-up bite-sized chunks for maximum viewcounts, which renders them borderline unwatchable and compels curious viewers to just seek out the unmangled original

(b) our audience is prolific enough that the comments are unilaterally full of people saying "hey this is stolen from osp on youtube go look them up". I've gotten a handful of comments on twitter saying that's how people found me in the first place, which is hilarious. real stochastic discoverability at work

(c) tiktok's views-to-money RPM conversion is tens to thousands of times worse than youtube's, so nobody's making enough of a profit to piss me off

[a-very-tired-jew]

“It’s not antisemitism, it’s anti-Zionism!”

Meanwhile, Kiswani’s Twitter.

And if you don’t know who Nerdeen Kiswani is, she’s the leader and founder of Within Our Lifetime. She and her organization are the ones routinely organizing protests in NYC. Said protests always end up harassing and threatening Jews in some capacity, their last big one to make the news ended up in front of the Nova exhibit and vandalizing an anti-Zionist Jew's home. She has spread antisemitic conspiracies repeatedly, multiple members of WOL have been arrested for hate crimes, and the “If you’re Zionist raise your hand” person is a senior member of WOL as well. Kiswani’s entire brand is violent antisemitism under the guise of “anti-Zionism”.

She is the epitome of the Sartre quote as she knows what she is doing and quickly jumps to an aggressive defense of her actions. Any time she gets called out for her antisemitism and stochastic terrorism she has rhetoric ready to go that makes her the victim and Jews Zionists the villain. Never mind that she engages in every type of antisemitic conspiracy and canard, she's the actual victim here and calling her an antisemite just shows you how much of a victim she is.

She has a follow up tweet to this that essentially victim blames Jews, but calls them Zionists who "twist everything". Disregard the fact that she's "just joking" about getting Black September originals, this is the same type of "just joking" that we see all know is a method for the person to wave away accusations of bigotry. If this was a joke trivializing a tragic event in any other ethnicity's history she would be rightfully called out and vilified.

Read that again. Why are people allowed to do this to Jews and the Left refuses to hold them accountable?

It's people like Kiswani who openly use Zionist to mean Jews and then use the old Soviet playbook of "well we're anti-Zionist, not antisemitic".

Why does the Left not hold people accountable who engage in stochastic terrorism against Jews when they do so for other groups?

Instead, Kiswani is lionized and held to no standard beyond her own.

[stalkish-shellos]

I think Chaya Raichik (libsoftiktok) is such an interesting person in terms of being a public figure.

Being a stochastic terrorist is literally all she knows how to do. Her only skill is taking clips and photos of marginalized people and posting the information of them.

But if you ever see her outside the setting of Twitter. She is a fucking idiot, a dunce, a complete brainless fool. And I don't mean in it the way her ideology is stupid and has deep-seated contradictive stances and ideas. What I mean is that she probably doesn't have an ideology at all. She is brainlessly posting anti-LGBT and anti-woke content to stir the pot in the culture war.

Chaya in many interviews and when faced with any question of anything will bumble through simple thoughts. She cannot produce an original idea that hasn't come from the lexicon of the culture war Twitter sphere she is a part of. She has never explored a deeper reason why she hates lgbt people or why she thinks Americans should know less about the racist context their history had. Instead when asked what she intends to do. She just says the one-liners from boomer minion memes or whatever.

I would almost say the same thing about Matt Walsh. He's got no charisma and no skill in anything but he's more deliberately evil. He may be easy to squash in an interview but he can make very active and thought out choices that harms other people.

But omg he is so plain looking. He's got no flare in anything. The only noteworthy thing I can tell you about him is that he sounds like instead of using Listerine every night, he uses silt from the bog he lives in.

[inuette]

Official (Anti) RQ Archive

[PT: Official (Anti) Radqueer Archive. END PT. ]

　Last Updated (DD/MM/YY): 08/01/24. This archive will be updated over time, so make sure to check back regularly if you can! If you have anxiety regarding opening links, no worries! All these posts are archived under our "archived" & resources tags.

Anti-RQ Terms/Flags

'PRAT' meaning

'Fluffy Para'

'Arissomei'/'Arissodic'

'Atypical Dysphoria Awareness' (Creator Boundary)

Reclaimed Transage, Transracial (Adoptee), Transspecies and Transabled Flags

Reclaimed Transabled Flag 2 + Symbol

BIID Flag + Symbol

Parahealth

RQ Terms/Flags

'Faux Cult'/'Fult' and Flags

Xenoanarchism

Other Terms

Doc

PSAs

Radparas

'Kandiqueer'

'Xenosatanism' and Xenosatanist Flags

'@//sophieinwonderland'

The Angel's Web "Fult"

'Not All Radqueers'

Initial 'Fult' PSA

"The Ezra Files" (Content/Trigger Warning: (Pro-C) Pedophilia, Incest, Bestiality, Zoosadism, Toddler/Baby Abuse, Grooming, CSEM Trading, Rape, Abduction, Admissions Of CSA, Admissions Of Incest, Admissions Of Bestiality…)

TransN*zi Symbols

Other Resources

What IS A Radqueer? Why Are They Bad?

RQ Original Coining Info

RQs are a Cult

RQs and Stochastic Terrorism

The Insult of 'Cisdisabled'

BIID and RQ Grooming

RQ '2024 Calendar'

Talk of Atypical Dysphoria

WHY Misuse of Transrace and the term 'Trace' are Bad

Talk of "Transautism"/being "Transautistic"

You Cannot 'Coin' A Medical Disorder/Talk of "MUDs"

Intrusive Thoughts About =/= Actually Believing in Them

'I have intrusive thoughts about ...' isn't a 'Valid' Excuse

Transitioning When It Comes To TransIDs and TransX Identities

Transethnic People Aren't Valid (Focuses on East Asians & Koreans)

There Are Better Ways to Cope with Atypical Dysphoria

Why Arissomei/Arissodic is its Own Term

Racial Hierarchy and Being "Trace"/"Transracial"

Blackface is Blackface — Your "Intent" Doesn't Matter

Alternative (Non-TERF Rhetoric) Anti-Radqueer Arguments

Suibaiting Radqueers ISN'T Okay

If You're Thinking of Leaving the RQ Community

'Cracker' is Not a Slur

Suibaiting RQs isn't Welcome Here

Radinclus does NOT Mean Radqueer

Misusage of Languages in RQ Spaces

How-To's

Reporting a RQ for Inciting Violence

(Fighting Against) RQs Rebranding Terms as 'RQ Terms'

Coping with Atypical Dysphoria

Getting Out and Staying Out Of the Community

General Tips

Reaffirmation

Reaffirmation of Why RQs are Bad (TWs included in the post)

BIID (Body Integrity Identity Disorder) =/= Radqueer (Affirmation)

[utilitycaster]

But wouldn't you say that at least the fandom experience during c3 was a lot nicer than during c2? I mean, the characters all got along immediately so no room for unnecessary drama and no ship wars, I heard it was really toxic during c2 so I'm glad that c3 had none of it.

Anon, the polite answer to this that assumes you are very new to this fandom and blog and also, if I'm being honest, reality, is "No." Drama in a fandom is largely decoupled from whether the characters actually get along on screen (much like "I wish these characters would talk" is often decoupled from them actually talking and much more about whether they're talking about the thing OP wants them to talk about). More importantly, Campaign 3 had something far stupider and more unkind and insidious than ship wars, which is people harassing you for saying a ship simply wasn't very interesting. I would also say that one of the loudest voices in the area of fans who defend Campaign 3 claiming it's more toxic is specifically speaking about their very individual Twitter experience which I do not think is indicative of the larger fandom. I do think that C2 had more fans harassing the cast on Twitter, which on the one hand is far worse behavior; but it also kind of meant that the fandom on Tumblr, while not without ship warring, was somewhat quieter. I will also acknowledge that my own personal experience is heavily colored by the fact that I was new to the fandom in C2 and so did not have a significant following until late in the game, but Campaign 3 was rife with people who, as best as I can tell, serially show up to fandoms and attack whoever they perceive as popular, sometimes genuinely popular people and sometimes it's just someone who can eloquently string together meta they disagree with, and then when you hit back go "I'm just a little guy just a little birthday boy you're so MEAN." On Tumblr, at least, toxic C2 fans were easy to stop and frankly only turned post-hiatus and many of them prided themselves on not posting hate in the main tag (and quit the fandom altogether); toxic C3 fans have the tenacity and intellect of the average cockroach.

The real answer is: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA what PRIMORDIAL ROCK have you been under. Even if you believe everything the serial liar I suspect you are listening to said about C2 drama how did you miss ALL of C3 drama, especially on like, my blog specifically, as an initially unwilling participant who eventually, as discussed below, decided that if these wretched stochastic parrot morons wouldn't leave me alone I may as well pull out the metaphorical shotgun and make starting shit with me as unpleasant an experience as possible.

Look, I'm not going to pull up my posts in which I've called people by name since I don't think you will care and/or will consider those unnecessary drama, despite the genuine erosion I believe they have committed towards the quality of discourse through their bigotry, and lack of intellectual rigor, empathy, or ability to criticize things through any lens other than false accusations of the Leftist Epithet Du Jour (eg: calling Delilah Briarwood a colonizer, which is simply untrue). But also, starting from barely 6 months into Campaign 3 and continuing through the end, ie, this is three years now.

I personally got hate for saying "It is valid for Imogen to be mad at Laudna for breaking the gnarlrock, and moreover, I feel like Laudna is given more leeway for her behavior than almost any other past character" to the point that someone joined Tumblr only to block me and then stalk me and post about me in the discourse tag.

That eventually came to a head when they called me out by name for replying to a response on a post I had originally made in which I said "Imogen's powers aren't a good metaphor for queerness in that her lack of control actually causes real problems for other people," a statement that a lot of Imogen and Laudna shippers and fans are still to this day throwing fits about despite it being over two years ago.

Multiple people, including people who had lost friends or relatives young and at least one cancer survivor, were sent outright death threats for saying nothing harsher "I think the story is interesting if Laudna remains dead." Now, I was only a lurker when Molly died, and I know people quit or were mad and harassed the cast on Twitter, but the worst I saw on Tumblr were people either quitting, or being weird and annoying about prioritizing Molly over the captured party members and later being kind of dismissive of Caduceus as "temporary".

I was repeatedly harassed to the point of at least two individuals making multiple alternate accounts to reblog my posts or send hate to me and just random people who had interacted with said posts for saying "I don't think Imogen and Laudna is a very good ship"; while we're at it, ship wars are something I dislike but expect in fandom, but I cannot stress how fucking wretched a subset of Im/odna shippers were to the point that to this day they look at people who created genuine content and meta for a competing ship that was always tiny in comparison and have decided it was done purely out of bitterness.

In general, there was just an utter incapacity among many C3 fans to accept "I don't care for your blorbo/ship/campaign" as a post on one's own blog. I was talking with some like-minded friends yesterday and to this day, over a month and a half after the campaign ended, actually a decent amount of people who liked Campaign 3 have almost identical criticisms (pacing, not following on a number of character centric-threads, lack of inter-character interactions, a resolution that is intriguing but was poorly set up, cutaways to other parties at inopportune times, and generally the campaign feeling like they put out all the ingredients on the table and said "here's a finished cake.") but it's fine if they say it, because they preface it with "I loved Campaign 3 and Bells Hells, but." In the end a lot of C3 fans will just attack if you don't think Bells Hells are great and the best. Again I am not naming names but there are even multiple people who openly prefer Campaign 2 by a margin but avoid this criticism simply by being like "Campaign 3 is also really really good, although [same list of criticisms I have]"; see lack of intellectual rigor and analysis. I think it's actually a very simple split: C2 is my favorite because the campaign allowed the characters so much leeway to interact and change and grow that they became my blorbos, whereas I would have liked to have liked BH more but the campaign was ill-suited for them and they didn't really talk.

At least Campaign 2 people wanted their stuff to be canon, and threw fits because it wasn't. Campaign 3 people are like BUT THE 20 HOUR SUPERCUT?????? and cannot accept that they have a canon ship that some people find dull or a blorbo some people think isn't a great person. If someone is mad about not getting something in the story, that's fandom as usual, it's irritating but it's life. Many campaign 3 fans cannot tolerate a whisper of dissent with their opinions without shitting themselves and making it everyone's problem. I know multiple people whom I followed during Campaign 2 for their meta who straight up stopped writing it because if you said anything even mildly critical of Campaign 3 you'd get hate. Campaign 2 harassment on Tumblr was something that largely ended shortly after story beats that proved one person right; Campaign 3 harassment was unending unless you either bow to the people sending it and say "I'm sorry for saying anything other than that your blorbo and ship is perfect," stop posting, or, and I'm really the only person who took this route, make it clear that you can and will hit back ten times harder.

So no: I found the Campaign 3 fandom on Tumblr specifically uniquely toxic because it fell outside of normal fandom toxicity. I think Campaign 2 toxic fans were deeply shitty, but they largely left and I think their unpleasantness is mostly confined to a fandom space and did not degrade the conversation; I think at least some Campaign 3 toxic fans are both genuinely stupid and genuinely bad people who are a negative influence on the fandom at large and I hope we recover during a hypothetical C4; I am cautiously optimistic if only because I think on the basis of mutual blocking they have largely self-selected out and will exist in their own weird echo chamber.

I will also note at this point my criticism of Campaign 3 is almost entirely untagged both as discourse and main and almost entirely either reblogs, or in response to asks such as this one. To be transparent, while I'm sure some critiques will arise as I work through my C2 rewatch I plan on keeping them again, untagged such that only followers, people who follow people who reblog such critiques (not many, I usually get mostly likes on those), and people looking at my blog specifically. I think it will taper off, particularly since a lot of C3 fans had little interest in anything else CR has done.

And finally: again speaking only for myself I'd rather have a brilliant campaign with a toxic fandom, where I can minimally participate in the fandom by reblogging posts I like and enjoy myself with a great show and a handful of likeminded fans in a discord (indeed this is kind of what I do for Veilguard), than a mediocre campaign with a delightful fandom. As demonstrated "it's eh but the people are nice" is not, for me, a defense of Campaign 3 but further condemnation of its quality, and then the people weren't even nice and were in fact in my estimation far worse than those from Campaign 2.

Anyway: I just want to put this out there but I am vanishingly unlikely to be swayed on anything by an anonymous ask. If you want to actually have a chance you better be saying what you say with your whole chest. But also, this is just. Extremely wrong, and you have a very incorrect read on what I personally value in addition to having a poor understanding of the CR fandom history on Tumblr but another problem about the C3 fandom? I got a lot of asks like this one where I cannot tell if the person is just naive to the point of not even realizing how little they know, or if they're trying to be manipulative but are exceedingly bad at it.

[batmannotes]

DC Comics Style Guide

About

The long-awaited reissue of the DC Comics Style Guide is now available.

Reproduced from a rare original copy, the book features 187 highly-detailed scans of the legendary art by José Luis García-López, with an introduction by Paul Levitz, former president of DC Comics.

First issued in 1982, the Style Guide aimed to assist licensees in delivering a consistent look for DC’s Super Heroes. The reissue is based on the original copy held by Standards Manual, containing an amalgam of pages added by the owners of the original from ’82 to ’85.

Currently only available in US/Canada.

Specifications

368 pages 187 image plates 9.5 × 11.5" 24.1 × 29.2 cm CMYK + 1 PMS® custom metallic ink Detailed stochastic offset printing Perigord Matte 135 gsm paper Case-bound hardcover binding Gloss UV spot varnished cover Belly band (removable) around cover Printed in Italy Ships in custom protective mailer

This amazing hard back in now available from Standards Manual and comes shipped in custom protective mailer.

You can order it directly from them here.

Our video review of this wonderful book below:

[banrionceallach]

I used to write a moderately popular HP/Good Omens crossover. I started it before JKR made transphobia her entire personality.

I decided to stop writing it in 2021 when I could no longer justify engaging with HP in any way, because making any kind of content for it, even transformative content, contributed to JKR's money pile, even just indirectly.

I left the fic up, because people had got enjoyment out of it and I was proud of the effort that went into creating it, but I left a note on the fic explaining exactly why I personally could no longer engage with HP, even though I had fun writing the fic and really missed doing so.

Most people who read the fic either weren't that invested in it and so moved on with a shrug, or were invested but understood that HP was, to quote a tumblr post 'just covered in the fucking ooze'.

But every now and then I get well-meant comments along the lines of: I want more of this fic, please continue it, it's not harming trans people to continue engaging with HP, you can solve the problem just by adding trans representation to your fic! You can engage with HP all you like as long as you don't directly buy things!

And yes, I can see that argument has a couple of valid poins. Transformative art is one of the points of fan fic. And if the author has been dead for donkey's years and is no longer using the income from their creation to get people oppressed and killed, then I'd agree.

I can, just for example, engage with works by HP Lovecraft and quite like transformative works based on his original material. (Salute to the monsterfuckers!) Because he is six-feet-under and me commissioning art of sexy cthulu in no way benefits him.

But JKR is alive, wealthier than god, and actively engaging in stochastic terrorism against trans people. It is not the same.

And so the undertone to these comments, whether intended or not, is 'can't you compromise on people's safety and human rights? Just a little? Pweez? My personal entertainment is important!'

Do the commenters intend this? No, I don't think so. I think their argument is made in good faith.

But the comments, like HP, are just covered in the fucking ooze.

To those commenters, I am sorry, believe me. It is the most minor, not even microscopic-violin-worthy of problems, but I do resent the fact that JKRs shite spoiled an act of creation for me. I understand that it does suck when you lose something that brought you joy.

But she is helping to get people killed.

There are so many other authors out there who have brilliant stories and are not using their earnings to hurt trans people.

Please try them instead.

[birdbrainstudies]

re-introduction

hi everyone! it's been a couple of years since i've been active in the studyblr community (like. i was a first year in undergrad) and i wanted to rejoin the community!

about me: my name is shef (she/her), i am a second-year phd student in engineering! also im desi

academic interests: my research area is broadly applied probability, more specifically stochastic processes

nonacademic interests: a lot of stuff! i like birding, embroidery, improv, and tactics/deckbuilding videogames. media wise i have been having a teeny little percy jackson renaissance b/c of the release of the tv show ^^

what you can expect: will post some original ~aesthetic~ study/journaling content, reblog lots of research-oriented tips/masterposts

looking for: if you are a phd student studyblr or honestly just an active studyblr please let me know! i am looking to follow a ton more people now that I'm back. would be forever indebted to you if you would reblog this

[isaacsapphire]

It’s interesting how “stochastic terrorism” doesn’t seem to be discussed much in the last few years or months, even though it’s increasingly prevalent in public discussion.

[frank-olivier]

Foundations in Flux: Rethinking Quantum Mechanics

At the forefront of modern scientific inquiry lies the intriguing convergence of philosophy and physics, particularly within the realm of quantum mechanics. A discourse with Professor Jacob Barandes, a scholar bridging fundamental physics and philosophical introspection, offers a nuanced exploration of this intersection.

Challenging the orthodox view, Professor Barandes posits wave functions as mathematical constructs generating probabilities, rather than physical entities inhabiting space. This paradigm shift underscores the notion that quantum mechanics' peculiarities may originate from its representational framework, rather than the intrinsic nature of physical systems. By demoting wave functions from ontological status to epistemological utility, we may uncover a more parsimonious explanation for quantum phenomena.

The introduction of C*-algebras as an alternative, mathematically equivalent formulation, prompts a reassessment of Hilbert spaces' foundational role. This approach, highlighting the potential redundancy of Hilbert spaces in certain quantum systems, invites a critical examination of quantum mechanics' axiomatic underpinnings. The implications are far-reaching, suggesting that a reevaluation of quantum theory's foundations may yield novel insights into the nature of reality.

Eugene Wigner's thought-provoking experiment serves as a catalyst for exploring the intricate dance between consciousness, wave function collapse, and the observer's role. By interrogating the fundamental status of wave functions and Hilbert spaces, Professor Barandes' framework may provide a novel lens through which to resolve the measurement problem, thereby illuminating the complex interplay between observation, reality, and the quantum realm.

Professor Barandes' "deflationary" approach, seeking to clarify quantum mechanics by positing a more intuitive, classical-like ontology, warrants careful consideration. By modeling quantum systems as probabilistic, classical entities governed by indivisible stochastic processes, this perspective potentially reconciles the theory's interpretational ambiguities. However, the success of this endeavor hinges on its capacity to generate empirically distinguishable predictions, thus necessitating rigorous experimental verification.

Jacob Barandes: There's No Wave Function? (Curt Jaimungal, Theories of Everything, November 2024)

Thursday, November 14, 2024

[cryptovalid]

The politics of Operation Zero Tolerance

If you've followed X-men '97, you know that's it's more than competently executed nostalgia-bait. It's a deconstruction of the original ideological framework of the X-men. I'll be riffing off of the way that Operation Zero Tolerance mirrors real world alt-right ideology and where the show might lead this theme. Spoilers ahead up to episode 8. It's a long one.

So the reflections of the January 6th insurrection, Great Replacement conspiracy and stochastic terrorism are pretty spot on. But what do the Prime candidates actually believe?

Mutants are constantly referred to as 'the next step in human evolution'. This frightens some non-mutants, who see themselves being replaced. Their solution is to subjugate mutants.

I want to focus on some of the ways this doesn't make sense first.

1. Evolution doesn't have well defined 'next steps': every new generation is slightly different from the previous, so that over time new traits will emerge and become common, and others will become less widespread. In the comics, this is not why mutants exist: the are the result of alien tampering with human dna: the Celestials implanted the X-gene in some humans. So 'mutants' are demonstrably just a strain of humanity, and the main reason humans have mutant babies is that their own genes are getting expressed in a new way.

2. No amount of control or violence can stop this. The rate at which mutants appear isn't even dependent on their own reproductive success since most mutants have human parents.

We don't know why more and more mutants are being born now, but OZT will not stop this. It's not even their goal. When they say human being are being 'replaced', they actually mean replaced as the ruling class of the planet. Bastion's 'utopia' doesn't have less mutants being born, just used as slave labor.

This really puts the anxiety of OZT into focus: they want to maintain privilege. They aren't really being 'replaced', any more than older generations are always 'replaced' by younger generations. They are primarily afraid that mutants will render them obsolete in the labor market. But if mutants can be forced to do unpaid labor for their benefit, that doesn't threaten them.

The way this parallels the rhetoric of the alt right is striking. Obviously, the reasons why jobs are moving overseas are different: colonized populations are more exploitable by capital. But the fears are the same: my children are different from me, and if I'm not valued for my labor, I will become poor. Like OZT, the alt right also chooses to enact violence even though it won't solve either of these issues. the MAGA-crowd threatens non-conformity and asserts its dominance to maintain its relative privilege over other groups. This is why it's all culture war stuff. The alt right isn't interested in striking to improve conditions for workers, it will attack immigrants and minorities they perceive as competition. Never the bosses that make the hiring decisions. It's scapegoating.

Even child and slave labor are on the table. Because again, this 'economic anxiety' isn't triggered by other people doing the work, just by other people getting money, care and respect that they feel they are owed.

It's not the solution that matters to OZT or the alt right: it's the catharsis of violence and control. It's interesting that OZT actually has a better point: mutants are inherently better at some jobs, some mutants ARE inherently dangerous. Their anxiety is way more warranted.

And I think that is what makes OZT hit so hard as an allegory: it is a steel man version of every bigot's rhetoric, and it is horrifying.

Where might the show take this theme? I don't think the show will end with the X-men fighting Magneto, as that would undermine the show's thematic support for his ideals. Magneto might be defeated, but that will not be the finale. I think the institutional support for OZT will be the closing statement.

The events of episode 8 will be blamed on the X-men. There's just too many ways that a sleeper that Wolverine cut to ribbons can be spun and Bastion has stated multiple times that he understands the optics of martyring mutants. In my opinion this explains how the primes failed to kill a single X-man, even though Trask could take down the whole team.

This twist will (I think) be used to set up the Avengers as the final threat: the X-men try to reason with Magneto, the Avengers attack him, and maybe Xavier erases Magneto's memory as a prelude to Onslaught.

Onslaught can then lead into Heroes Reborn; when Onslaught threatens to kill the Avengers and Fantastic Four, Franklin Richards creates a parallel universe, where they live out their lives in blissfull ignorance of mutants. I believe this could explain why the MCU does not have mutants: it's the Heroes Reborn Universe (The FF could live in a separate universe).

So how to put a button on OZT? I don't think that they will end as a political force (these ideas will remain relevant in the fiction as in the real world). I think the show will obviously set up a fight with Bastion, but the ideological refutation will have to come from Mrs. Da Costa. She is the poster child of an apathetic liberal, who will only support mutants in fashionable ways. If she ends the series giving up her social status to save her son, perhaps even dying, it will thematically reinforce the need for allies to be traitors of their own privilege.

This ties in with my final speculation. This is a weird one and a reach. We have not seen Roberto Da Costa's father. We also don't know where Bastion's father is (who is essentially Nimrod). Is it possible that they are half-brothers? Emmanuel Da Costa is a prominent anti-mutant member of the Hellfire Club, and it's strange he hasn't shown up yet. Honestly, this could possibly explain why Roberto is so light-skinned. Which I do not want to make excuses for otherwise.