#the death of expertise

[hey-its-sybarite]

Friend texted me this today and it was too perfect not to share.

[samueldays]

Gee, RFK looks like a bad fringe pick for Secretary of Health.

Might be nice if the mainstream there had more spare credibility to draw on when objecting, rather than having spent it complaining that the lab leak theory of Covid is racist, lying about vaccine effectiveness to goad people into getting vaccinated, saying the unvaccinated should be put in prison or camps, calling Trump rallies "superspreader events" but encouraging people to attend BLM riots because those were downright good for public health (if you define public health as the self-esteem of blacks), denying whites medical treatment on the basis of their race, doubling down with a "whiteness is a disease" rhetoric to incite further racial hatred...

[samueldays]

The past 150-ish years were an anomalous era of machine-trust, where first photographs and then videos were relatively trustworthy documentations of fact that were disproportionately easy to create with true detail relative to how hard they were to fake.

On a longer timescale, this is a return to normal - the normal prior to circa 1888 and the Kodak Camera. (There were earlier cameras, but those were generally slow, blurry, and required the user to be a chemist.) People could just say things, write things, and paint things that didn't match reality. Now people can video things that don't match reality with the same ease.

"If you can't verify it, don't share it" feels like unhelpful advice that passes the problem to "verify". Sources will be mostly unverifiable by any objective means. Verify how? With whom?

One of my recurring topics here is how much the so-called experts are clueless, talking nonsense, and sometimes outright liars, and that's on topics where I'm confident that I have some means of checking them.

Keith Olbermann, for instance, is verifiably wrong because he made an expansive claim, the text of the 2nd Amendment is very very widely published in many longstanding sources that agree exactly, it's in English, it's easily accessible, it's very difficult to spread a forgery, and I could check several different thesauruses for synonyms, all of which said 'keep' is a synonym for 'own'. That's a very specific set of verification circumstances.

And he should know this. As an experienced American journalist, he is one of the people who most should know it, and he kept being wrong despite repeated correction for years, which moves him from 'wrong' to 'liar', and I assume he's lying a lot more about things that are harder to check.

My half guess, half wish for the future is that people are going to slowly, gradually, grudgingly, but eventually get a lot more serious about something like the Eighth Commandment: You shall not tell lies.

And its corollary: how to punish liars. Which lots of people will want to use to punish dissent and outgroup, and it will be a long and slow process towards the punishment-of-ingroup-liars that is a costly signal of the human-trust needed to take over again as machine-trust fades.

this is the end folks

i know people will say its not perfect and etc etc but the point isn't how convincing it is now, its how fast it evolved to this point. imperfections will be ironed out and the internet the internet is a warzone

[X]

[natecoumbe31]

Stop trying to be an influencer and become an expert instead.

[my-wordbook]

Encomium

a speech or piece of writing that praises someone or something highly

[unsolicited-opinions]

Why You’d Die for a Guy Who Makes Skincare Videos

It might be hard for some to believe now, but for millions of Millennials and Gen Z readers, JK Rowling wasn't just the author of the Harry Potter series - she was a social justice literary godmother of childhood.

For a time, Rowling was broadly loved, especially by social liberals and people who cared about social justice. It wasn't just her books - she herself was part of the emotional scaffolding of an entire generation, particularly as stories of her very generous charitable giving spread online and she said pleasant, kind things in interviews about her hardscrabble background and rags-to-riches story. She seemed someone who didn't let incredible success change her. People loved her, put her on a pedestal, and felt she was a part of their families, helping to teach their kids how and why to oppose N̶a̶z̶i̶s̶ Death Eaters.

And then came the dissonance. Rowling made increasingly ugly statements about gender identity which understandably alienated and infuriated many of her fans, who re-examined her works and found other views or tropes they found objectionable.

Jo went from hero to villain, from Hermione to Voldemort, surprisingly quickly.

But what followed wasn't just a "cancel culture" backlash and it wasn't just a steep drop in her Q score. For many, it was nearly an existential crisis. Many fans didn't just feel  disappointed - they felt betrayed. 

Why? Because this wasn’t just about disagreement or disappointment. It was about a parasocial bond fracturing in real time.

I'm not mocking this. It was for some as traumatic as the death of a loved one, and people experienced very real feelings of grief. I saw them experience denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally acceptance.

That’s the thing about parasocial relationships: they're emotional investments in illusions. They feel real...but they're not.

I do this, too, despite trying to stop.

I was thinking about Gal Gadot yesterday, and how I may not think very highly of her as an actor, but I sure admire her as a person and feel both admiration and affection for her…despite the fact that I don't know her as a person.

I'm not accusing Ms. Gadot of anything! I continue to cling to my impression of her as a lovely, admirable person - and I will probably fight you if you threaten that impression

…but isn't it @#$%ing weird that I cling to warm feelings about her as a human being when every exposure I've ever had to her has been through a screen and managed by a publicist?

Do you or the people you know have strong feelings about the divorce of Johnny Depp & Amber Heard?

Why?

What Is a Parasocial Relationship, and Why Do You Have So Many of Them?

Coined in the 1950s by sociologists Horton and Wohl, a parasocial relationship is a one-sided emotional bond where a viewer feels a personal connection to a media figure who doesn’t know they exist. Back then, this meant TV news anchors like Edward R Murrow or Walter Cronkite.

You probably have several yourself - not because we have people who are as universally known and broadly trusted as Murrow or Cronkite, but because the media landscape is so fractured. Now it's...almost anyone with a ring light and a subscriber count.

That soothing TikTok therapist you like or the ASMRtist who gets you to sleep. Maybe the influencer/podcaster you follow who helps you understand the news, the celebrity who always seems like such a sweet and decent person in interviews, that analyst for the Times of Israel who makes shit makes sense - or maybe it’s a fictional character who left us in 2012 and took part of your soul with them

(RIP, Leslie Knope: still alive in our hearts!)

You don't just like these figures. You feel like you know them. You trust them. You believe them.

And because the media landscape is so fractured, there's been a massive change in scale.

Parasocial relationships used to be a quirky side effect of media. now they are the media -and that's changing how we think, how we feel, and how we disagree.

Because when our media ecology changes, we do too - and it has changed a lot in the last ~30 years.

1980s

Most who were around in the 1980s used to see celebrities only if they watched the Oscars on TV or in the pages of People magazine in the waiting room of a doctor's office.

Sure, people were interested in the lives of celebrities, but didn't know much about them.

1990s

The 90s gave us 24/7 access: The explosion of cable TV, MTV Cribs, behind-the-scenes specials, paparazzi culture, and reality TV. Suddenly, celebrities weren't just icons - they were like roommates you gossiped about. Stars- They're just like us!

2000s: Social Media

Social Media (the phrase didn't become common and mainstream until arurnd 2005) changed everything. MySpace made you a brand, Facebook made you your own publicist, Twitter made you a PR disaster - and YouTube threatened to make everyone a star.

Early lifestreaming was in progress and suddenly almost everyone seemed to have a public persona.

The 2010s: Influencer Culture

If you were around then, you might remember when Instagram brought us the perfectly imperfect aesthetic. That was around the time when "aesthetic" started being commonly used as a commodifying noun.

No, really. Previously, "aesthetic" was used exclusively to describe a cohesive visual style, but as social media platforms became more commerce-driven, it evolved into a shorthand for marketable lifestyles and curated identities.

Tumblr Girl aesthetic

VSCO Girl aesthetic

Soft Grunge aesthetic

Hypebeast aesthetic

And this is when Gwyneth Paltrow's lifestyle brand GOOP took off, selling a Jade Egg for vaginal use.

YouTubers got makeup deals, product placements, and sponsorships. Twitch streamers livestreamed 12 hours a day. Podcasters often became emotional support besties. The intimacy got so strong, we started seeing strange and/or unhealthy behaviors being produced.

Now:

TikTok, YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels - they all learn who you emotionally bond with and spoon-feed you more of them. It’s not a conspiracy - it’s just capitalism doing what capitalism does.

Parasocial Relationships Aren’t New, So What's Your Problem, You Prolix Old Prick?

Parasocial relationships used to be background noise and now they're shaping politics, public health, and how we perceive reality itself.

Back in the day, one might love Mister Rogers, Mr. T, Mr. Bean, or Mr. Spock..but nobody looked to them for their opinions on nutrition, investment portfolios, foreign policy, child-raising.

Today, though? A Twitch streamer or TikTok creator might change views on vaccines, war, or economics. Sometimes people will take them seriously because they once cried on camera, shared the viewer's Enneagram or Myers-Briggs type...or otherwise felt very relatable.

(Spoiler: Star signs, Enneagrams and MBTIs are all bullshit)

And because the internet flattened the distinction between expert and entertainer into influencer, you may not be able to tell whether you’re being informed, manipulatedo...or emotionally catfished. But almost always, you're being sold something.

Familiarity Replaces Credibility

Parasocial attachment makes us treat familiarity like credibility and that's hacking our brains by hijacking our emotions.

If someone feels trustworthy, we believe them, even when they’re wrong, wholly ignorant, and have no qualifications/education/expertise in the topic. Lack of those things is no longer an impediment.

And if someone says something true but doesn’t give us good vibes, we are likely to tune out.

This is how Joe Rogan becomes more influential on health than the CDC (when he's really sort of GOOP for men).

It's how TikTok herbalists convince you to eat raw garlic to cure anxiety. (So you'll be both anxious and lonely!)

It's how people with ring lights and relatable feelings become political thought leaders. (How the fuck else can one explain Theo Von having millions of followers?)

We don't want good information anymore. We want someone who makes us feel heard and seen.

Parasocial Politics

It’s not just about influencers and skincare routines. It's also about political discourse. We now follow pundits the way we used to follow bands. They have fandoms. Beefs. Merch. Lore.

2024 saw the rise of Parasocial Politics. Trump didn't do a lot of interviews on policy with MSM journalists. He shot the shit with bro podcast influencers. They helped Trump get votes, and he returned the favor (ever transactional) by inviting influencers into the White House.

Debates often aren't debates anymore - they’re turf wars. You're not just disagreeing with a perspective or an opinion, you're attacking someone’s internet chosen family member. 

Did you see how many people needed to take sides over Douglas Murray's appearance on Joe Rogan's show?

That's why criticizing Elon Musk, Chappell Roan, Jordan Peterson, or Hasan Piker online feels perilous. Their followers aren't just fans. They're emotionally bonded. You're not merely wrong, in their view - you’re a threat to someone they love.

When identity and ideology get parasocially fused, people will defend a belief not because it's right, but because their digital chosen family member (who doesn't know they exist) believes it.

Vibes > Facts

Truth used to be about evidence. Now it’s about vibes. Welcome to the epistemic hellscape where:

"That doesn’t feel right" > "That is verifiably correct"

"He seems genuine" > "He cited a source"

"She gets it" > "She has a degree in it"

Call it emotional resonance, emotional realism or vibe epistemology, but the result is the same - a society where public consensus is based not on shared facts but on shared feelings.

Remember when public health was guided by epidemiologists? Now many people get their health advice from whatever talking head on YouTube seems aesthetically pleasant and relatable.

This is why there isn't more widespread panic over an absolute crackpot like RFK Jr running US health agencies. It's been normalized to discard expertise.

Trust him, bro. He works out and stuff and the brainworm is dead now, so he's all good...!

Why This Makes Public Discourse Unbearable

Good faith arguments are increasingly rare: You’re not challenging ideas, you’re insulting someone’s digital soulmate.

Criticism becomes betrayal: Calling out a creator’s bad behavior becomes a moral offense.

Debate becomes drama: Instead of changing minds, we’re trying to win comment-section custody battles.

People say "we need to talk to each other again," but we often can't, because we're often not talking to each other - we’re too often talking through our parasocial avatars who are louder, more dramatic, and less reasonable than the real us because that's what drives engagement and makes the algorithm go brrr.

How many times do you encounter someone who can't promote or defend their view except by insisting you watch this YouTube video and educate yourself?

What Can We Do About It?

We don't need to avoid all parasocial bonds, but we do need to expand our media literacy to include being parasocially aware.

Ask Yourself: Do I Feel Like I Know This Person? ...because you don’t. You know their content. That’s different. Remember that you're not engaging with a person, but a media product.

Separate Vibes from Truth Just because someone is relatable doesn’t mean they’re right. Love with your heart - but use your head for everything else. Be skeptical, be cynical, and accept no 'facts' you haven't verified.

Remember the Algorithm Feeds You Your Own Reflection Although it may feel like it, that’s not validation - it's manipulation. Don't let it make decisions for you, don't mistake feelings of validation for a solid argument. Use tracking blockers, use VPN, don't log in to use YouTube, whatever- but stop using the For You Page (which is pushed on all social platforms) as your go-to for anything, not even for boredom relief.

Let People Be Wrong Without Making It a War or Personal If your fave (or anyone else) says something dumb, it’s okay. You can keep watching and still think critically. (I still like much of John Green's work, despite having issues with his video on Judaism.)

Diversify Your Feeds If everyone you follow makes you feel emotionally safe, you're likely in a digital echo chamber with throw pillows and padded walls - and that's awful for your mind. Start following smart, intellectually honest people you disagree with. If you get nothing else out of it, you'll train yourself to think critically while disagreeing with them - and you might discover a good point you haven't considered or common ground you hadn't been aware of. Stop regarding anyone with views counter to yours as evil, stupid, or driven by hateful intent. There are people who disagree with you who are smart, intellectually honest, decent people. Engage with them in good faith.

In a world where everyone is a brand and every argument is a fandom war, the only way forward is to get smarter about the people we let live in our heads rent-free.

Above all else, remember that relatability is not trustworthiness.

Stay skeptical, stay curious, ask every question which comes to mind, and maybe call your irl friends more often to touch some grass together.

About the Author: @Unsolicited-Opinions thinks too much about internet culture, media ecology, media literacy, and how brainrot seems to be accelerating. He is probably not your friend, even if you like everything he posts and seems like a good dude on Tumblr. (He is, however, grateful that you actually read this far.)

[samueldays]

Another one for the cauldron, @giantpetrel:

Like several previous journalists, this muddies the waters by saying

Gay experienced more scrutiny after plagiarism allegations.

when it should say that she committed plagiarism. Repeatedly. Blatantly. Incompetently. I'm a little curious how many of these journalists are in on the lie about "allegations", and how many genuinely believe this because all their own echo chamber sources are repeating the same line. Either way, journalism delenda est.

Even setting the plagiarism aside for a moment, there still was no excellence on display here. Gay did not have novel fields of study, nor original ideas, nor particularly competent execution of the boring subjects.

See for example Gay's paper: The Effect of Black Congressional Representation on Political Participation. It could be an example of the replication crisis and p-hacking: "look I got p<0.001 results" on results that flipped signs from case to case, probably because she was running multivariate models and estimates-built-on-estimates on top of a sample size of ten.

This person is not very smart. This person has been handed the tools of smarter people and used them to generate a flurry of numbers.

Gay’s experience is not unlike that of other prominent Black women leaders; there’s a disturbing trend where Black women are promoted and elevated into leadership positions and despite how qualified they are, they experience hyper-scrutiny once they take on the position.

That is a reality inversion. There's a disturbing trend where black women are promoted and elevated into leadership positions despite how unqualified they are and a lack of scrutiny. When a little bit of scrutiny then happens to Captain Plagiarism, who plagiarised so much she was plagiarising several times per paper, the journo whines about "hyper-scrutiny".

The inspection and interrogation that leaders face is even more severe for Black women leaders, especially those who are the “firsts.” This was evidenced during the confirmation hearings of the first Black female U.S. Supreme Court justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.

That's an interesting choice of example, because Jackson is such an overpromoted, underqualified, affirmative action hire, on the bloody Supreme Court, she cannot tell de facto from de jure.

The journalist goes on like this with Hannah-Jones of the 1619 Propaganda before closing with a delusional complaint about all the black excellence supposedly being suppressed.

No amount of wealth, achievements, accolades, or notoriety will offer safety and protection in an anti-black world.

Apart from the fact that your examples are bad, journo scum, there's the fact that your examples are in fact very safe and protected and well off and hyper-privileged by a pro-black world despite their misdeeds.

Gay is getting a million bucks a year and staying at Harvard in a different position, Jackson is still on the Supreme Court, Hannah-Jones got tenure. The journalist acts offended that they got pushback and that they aren't even better off.

Journalism delenda est.

[i-wish-i-were-softer]

I just realised the minstrels in rote are basically reporters and starling is the chief journalist of The Buckkeep Times. Suddenly her bitchy attitude makes so much sense.

[thelastspeecher]

One of my favorite things in Redwall is when Martin the Warrior gives someone a dream but makes sure they don't remember the dream until The Right Moment, even if it's like, days later.

Sometimes he even tells them in the dream "hey you'll remember the rest of this on Thursday" so they remember part of the dream and that there was more, but not all of it.

One of my other favorite things in Redwall is when Martin the Warrior fuckign possesses someone for a little bit bc they weren't doing anything and they needed to do something so well guess ole Martin will have to step in AGAIN.

[bluebellwrenart]

Anderson: It's like Park said—give him a wide berth. Take it from me...you're better off just leaving it alone.

Refined and colored this sketch.

I'm nowhere near close to publishing my BOCW fic (I just started the BO1 fic) but I have dialogue snippets jotted down. I want these two to have a conversation at some point...Claire is involved in Bell's brainwashing, arguably moreso than Park, and since she's closer to Adler I think she'd likely be the one to repeatedly remind Bell/Nadia not to push him too much.

After all, she knows better than anyone what happens when he's pushed too far.

Bell/Nadia catches on pretty quickly to the fact that Adler is not the same as he is in her memories. There's a wall up, and everyone is keeping her at arm's length. Claire, however, master of mind games and psychology she may be is a listening ear first and foremost and an expert at assessments and advice. Adler, Sims, and Hudson aren't happy, Lazar, Lillian (another of my OCs), Weaver, and Park have their doubts, Mason and Woods have no clue, Bell is frustrated, and Claire is stuck doing damage control. As usual. She's not happy about Nadia's situation, but she's involved nevertheless, and she might as well try to the best of her abilities to make everyone's life easier.

Version w/out text & cleaned up sketch below the cut.

[samueldays]

I clicked through and found the researchers say that ranching loses immense amounts of money, to the point where I think the researchers should have their heads examined for not spending ten seconds thinking about whether these figures make any sense. They do not make any sense.

The cow and calf meat industry had an expense ratio of 142.50%; for every $100 of sales, the industry had $142.50 of expenses. This generated a systemic LOSS. The cow’s milk industry had an expense ratio of 135.95%; for every $100 of sales, the industry had $135.95 of expenses. This generated a systemic LOSS.

This is stupid. The researchers should be embarrassed to publish this. (If they're actually "researchers" at all and not pranksters seeing how stupid you can be and still get into ResearchGate.)

But as to your specific thesis about doing things that make money, Foss, the researchers are at least retarded in an internally consistent way: they also say most plant-based agriculture loses large amounts of money! (Eggs and melons are reportedly profitable, though.)

The grains and oil seeds industry had an expense ratio of 115.45%; for every $100 of sales, the industry had $115.45 of expenses. This generated a systemic LOSS. The fruit industry has an expense ratio of 124.40%; for every $100 of sales, the industry had $124.40 of expenses. This generated a systemic LOSS.

Screaming red text in original. The whole thing makes me [sic], this is less of a "source" and more of a clownshow in a dumpster fire, because the people who wrote it have not done elementary proofreading or arithmetic. Elsewhere someone has tried to do per-pound counts and written:

Overall, farmers generate a value/sales of $1.52 for every pound of cow/veal meat. Overall, farmers incur $1.52 of expenses for every pound of cow/veal meat. Every pound of beef generates a net LOSS of $0.64.

This does not add up. Compare:

Overall, farmers generate a value/sales of $1.40 for every pound of eggs. Overall, farmers incur $1.18 of expenses for every pound of eggs. Every pound of eggs generates a net income of $0.22.

@horsesarecreatures I think you should edit your post, remove your link, and instead put a notice that you had accidentally spread misinformation.

Not gonna start a fight with anyone in particular, but "some people's livelihoods rely on animal agriculture" annoys me.

Yeah, some people's income comes from killing and/or abusing animals. And some people's income comes from abusing people. Living off it doesn't make it right.

Like would you say it's ok for higher ups in things like Amazon or Shein to enforce horrible conditions onto others because that's what gets them paid?

I can very much want someone to be able to live comfortably and also want them to not make the money for that from shit like factory farming.

[a-very-tired-jew]

Let's Talk Expertise

This will anger some people, like my age post did, but it also needs to be said and is about something I have been seeing consistently. If you are in your undergrad and taking major courses, you are not an expert on the subject material, let alone the profession itself. You are a student who is just building their foundational knowledge for your chosen field. You have not accumulated enough knowledge on the subject matter to speak from a place of expertise, nor have you learned enough to parse through the nuance of your chosen field or reached any of the milestones to be considered as such. There's a reason why we actually have an expertise system here in the USA that is paired with the legal system and our government employment system. If you go onto a government job site and look at their listings you will see some combination of Degree, Degree + Experience, Degree + Equivalent Experience and Amount of Time. What does this mean? It means that if a job is asking for someone with a Master's degree in a specific field they will consider individuals with the appropriate degree, but they will also consider people with a Bachelor's degree and the equivalent amount of time and/or experience in their field that makes them as knowledgeable as the MS candidate. The reason for the Time/Experience component is that not everyone pursues a graduate degree, but that does not mean they lack the knowledge required. However, there is an equivalency in Time/Experience to those graduate degrees and the special knowledge they impart. This gets even more complicated in higher levels when a position is asking for a PhD + 10 years of experience, that means a BS might be right out unless they have 20+ years of experience and an MS might need 15-20 years alone. In my time as a professor I have seen scores of undergrads present themselves as their major professions when they haven't even finished their junior year. Sometimes it's benign so that they can puff up in mixed company. Other times? Not so much. Several years ago I saw an undergrad present themselves as a psychologist that was "recovering traumatic memories" and got a multitude of people falsely accused of various violent crimes. This culminated in several court cases where the student had to admit they were falsely representing themself as an expert and therefore falsely producing "evidence". In light of the ongoing conflict I have seen a number of blogs on here present themselves as historians/experts on various related subject matter, while openly admitting that they are undergrad students and/or do not work in any capacity relating to the material. The latter can be fine up to a point, but if you are not working in your field and it comes to being an expert according to the GS and/or Daubert Standards, you most likely are not making the cut. The person regularly publishing papers and working as the profession will be considered the expert over you. If all you have is a few papers to your name and no other activities relating to the subject...well it's not a good look to be considered an expert. "AVTP this is elitist! Not everyone can go to college/grad school on *subject matter*" That's right. Not everyone can go to school for psychology, history, ecology, polisci, let alone go and make it their career. These people are not experts then. Plain and simple. You don't get to call yourself an expert because you listen to podcasts or do deep dives on Wikipedia. (And note, this is not about the blogs who are posting about how they did a hyper fixation deep dive on frog naming nomenclature when they were in high school. I am talking about the persons who are presenting themselves as knowledgeable authorities and using phrases like "As a *insert specialist field here*" while they pick courses for their sophomore/junior/senior year.)

[totheidiot]

L. is so mosquito to me. do you get me? do you understand? light is the human being of course, just the parasitism of it… the casual nuisance that never leaves you alone. draws on your blood because it is in its nature. and all you want to do is reach forward and kill it right between your hands. you strike it down and in your palms, its blood sticks, all red and gross. you have to kill it. if you don't, it'll kill you first with its disease.

[freddyyeti]

Collection of My Girlfriend who is approximately only two apples tall

[samueldays]

It's not just that the petroleum innovations are more important, it's also that the political innovations category includes colossal negatives like Communism, and keeps generating new negatives which strongly obfuscate and resist evaluation, and there's a large random-walk factor where political innovations go in and out of fashion.

Sometimes there's an "anti-innovation" like Nayib Bukele showing that you can cut the murder rate by a factor of 10 by locking up many criminals, which should have shamed a lot of criminologists because their field turned out to contain so much bunk. Nothing about Bukele's approach was new a century ago; what have criminologists been doing since then?

My question was rhetorical, but I found a review of twentieth century developments in criminology that attempts to answer it, and apparently part of the answer is It's Fucking Communism Again.

Capitalism theoretically promotes selfishness and greed, which motivates people toward crime. At the same time, it undermines moral feelings or sentiment that might inhibit criminal behavior. The result, presumably, is selfish decisionmaking and a high rate of deviance in all capitalist societies, with rates of crime among them varying by the actual extent to which their economies are capitalistic. In addition, rates of crime among cities, regions, and communities within given societies reflect capitalistic economic decisions and their consequences for workers.

The dominant theoretical stream stemming from social disorganization theory has not incorporated the political and economic decisionmaking variables that are at the heart of Marxian conflict theory. And conflict theorists have paid little attention to the ideas of social disorganization, instead devoting their efforts to pinpointing specific manifestations of capitalist activity affecting crime rates. Yet, each of these streams could benefit from taking the other seriously. For example, insights about capitalist decisionmaking could enhance social disorganization theory in the same way that the “new” urban sociology’s emphasis on global and local corporate decisionmaking might. Alternatively, Marxian conflict theory could be energized by admitting the influence of informal community networks or such structural conditions as population size and heterogeneity.

🤮

No you will not benefit from taking seriously the commie propaganda that crime rates go up with capitalism.

100% track record for being a red flag is any political theory that rests on the idea of 'in the past we were a Real People', the past fucking sucked and everyone was worse off, you just don't know that because you werent there.

[aizawashuichi]

for my fic, i ended up overanalysing Kiichiro Osoreda's incident. I was trying to understand what drug he was addicted to and how I can explain the bus hijack without taking Light into consideration, but then I got to wonder, how were the bus and car drivers legally dealt with?

i studied all the manga panels, the possible speed of the vehicles, the japanese law regarding negligence ("carelessness and the breach of duty of care which results in foreseeable consequences") and the Road Traffic Act, and obviously, neither the bus or the car driver are going to be persecuted. i won't bore you with all the details, just going to say that the bus driver was under duress, so even though he didn't exactly comply to the RTA, that's a (legal) excuse; the car driver did anything he could to avoid the impact, since the car did slide a bit and Kiichiro didn't fly across the road.

this got me thinking back to the truck driver in chapter 2. that does fall under negligence. he was driving at high speed on a pedestrian-heavy area and near the crosswalk. he basically disintegrated that motorcycle, so surely above the speed limit that should be 30-40km/h (18.6-24.8 mph) on that road.

now, the question is, did Light make the truck driver liable for Negligent Driving Causing Death or Injury (article 5) with, i don't know, the death note making the driver lose control of the car? or was the truck driver already having a careless conduct? does the death note make innocent people liable for something or does it take already negligent people and use them (that would've been prosecuted even without its involvement)?