#theory of civility

[postsforposting]

(speaking of a cis man) Imagine going through your life, like normal, and everyone’s decided that they should call you ma’am. That everyone was using she/her pronouns for you. And that no matter how hard you insisted that, no, you are a man, and no matter how many ways you tried to “prove” it, no one would believe you or take you seriously. That’s what it would be like if you were trans.” 

That does happen, though. This is what gender policing is, when people call cis men pussies and needle them for "acting like women" or "being homo", and when people harass women for "not acting lady like" and "acting like a man".

I think a lot of people don't see a problem with transphobia because it's actually normal behavior to them. Protesting when people treat you like this is no different than not being able to take a joke and being a snowflake and "not being able to handle the real world", among all those other lovely phrases people use to excuse this stuff and claim it's the target's responsibility to shut up and like it, that protesting means you need more of it to toughen you up so you learn what's good for you.

It's not just transphobia that works like this, either. It's part of a larger trend of callousness that's whipped into people from birth.

I think for a lot of white people, when you call them out on their casual racism (microagressions and non-overt things), they see it as a case of hurt feelings from your point of view as opposed to a discussion of harmful practices that aid the vehicle of racism. So in response, they take it as a personal attack, rather than a learning experience, and go on the defensive by bringing up a time that you made them upset as leverage. Or they defend their actions by doubling down on the behavior at hand and dismissing your criticism as over sensitivity and emphasizing their “harmless” intent. And I think that is one of the reasons why it’s so hard to address casual and interpersonal racism with the general white population (and also other poc tbh).

People in general grow up under systemic abuse as children, being taught that maltreatment is a good thing; at worst, that their "fee fees" don't matter and are a sign of their immaturity, and at best that systemic dehumanization, second class citizenship, is nothing more than a case of "hurt feelings" which are good for you to experience to become a better person, which you as the target are responsible for sucking up and getting over on your own time, and which are not the problem of anyone else. If you try to claim someone is in the wrong for doing these things to you, or even that you are hurt because of them, then you get told to "stop crying before I give you a reason to cry". That's a threat and punishment for recognizing what is actually happening. Anything overt is not to be mentioned or brought up at all, because it's explicitly required as "for your own good", and "casual" aggression is seen as you putting up a fuss and being whiny and "sensitive"--again, as you not being able to handle the real world, as evidence that you need more of the same.

You learn to shut up and smile. You learn to treat people the same way, because this is what's considered right, because you will be next if you don't and so you defend the system and slap down those who deviate from it. You learn to never admit to mistakes, because mistakes are proof you're lesser, didn't listen, and deserve punishment. All of this starts from birth.

When that's how you're taught to view yourself, of course you're not going to see identity struggles like racism and queer issues as different from what you yourself live with. It's all just people being whiny selfish snowflakes who don't know what's good for them. You justify what's happening to you because that's what you've been taught to do all your life.

You do not "see it as a learning experience" because mistakes mean you deserve punishment, so on top of being taught to straight up not see harm as harm, you will never acknowledge any errors you make because what should be a simple mistake you can correct is actually admitting you deserve torture. Forever, because there is no such thing as your mistakes being over and done with when they can be infinitely brought up to belittle you.

"Racism" of this kind isn't a problem because "people are white". Bigotry like this isn't rooted in beliefs of superiority and inferiority. It happens because people are taught to not see any harms of its kind as a problem, and are in fact taught to see its behavior the same way they see all other callous behavior: you're a snowflake, they're having a laugh. Until you can crack the idea that people deserve callousness, and that callousness is good and fun and makes you a better person, people will still insist that there is nothing wrong, not because they are "racist" or inherently defective because of their race, but because they were taught that "having feelings" and "being hurt" is weakness that must be burned out. Because they were taught that admitting to wrongdoing means they deserve that same callousness.

[rainbow-scarab]

Hallownest Symbols, the Ancient Civilization, and the Pale King

Sooo. Since I made my post on Hallownest symbols I've had some new insights.

The Hallownest symbol, with its lined oval and three sets of wings, predates the kingdom as it was under the Pale King and White Lady. It can be found on arcane eggs.

Lemm, on arcane eggs: This civilisation may claim itself the first, but something else did exist within this place before Hallownest. Each egg offers a narrow glimpse into that forgotten age.

It's not just the arcane eggs though. The symbol can also be found in the Abyss, on the lighthouse. Sorta.

You see, the lighthouse isn't just one structure--it's two. It's an older, crumbling structure....and then the new shiny construction that the Pale King added on top.

And looking at the older structure, the platforms themselves have the Hallownest symbol on it. Oval with wings.

Another detail I've noticed in the Abyss is that this structure isn't the only one. It can be seen in the background around the void sea:

Just, further cementing the thought that the old crumbling building beneath the shiny new top is not a construction under the Pale King, but instead something quite ancient. Just one of many buildings, a conveniently tall structure for the Pale King to repurpose into a lighthouse.

So what does this mean?

Various sources in the game point to the Pale King having portrayed himself as the creator of Hallownest. Lemm, in his quote above. And some more examples:

Lore tablet in King's Pass: Higher beings, these words are for you alone. Beyond this point you enter the land of King and Creator. Step across this threshold and obey our laws. Bear witness to the last and only civilisation, the eternal Kingdom. Hallownest

Hunter's Journal, on wingmoulds: The bugs of Hallownest believed that their King created this world and everything in it. For what purpose, I wonder? Were his subjects companions, or toys, or children? Such a mind seems unknowable.

The developer notes in the game also indicate that the Pale King wanted to get rid of other gods:

The moth tribe were (perhaps) descended from Radiance. However, the King convinced them somehow to seal Radiance away. I guess so he could rule Hallownest with his singular vision, as a monarch/god with no other gods.

The dev notes are not canon and it's clear that they were never intended to be seen by others. But I think there's something to be said at least for him attempting a "singular vision". Uniting Hallownest under one rule, portraying himself as creator, creating a certain order. Some more quotes:

Bardoon: For quiet retreat did I climb up here, away from spitting creatures. Ormmph... Yes. High up. Away from simple minds, lost to light. Theirs is a different kind of unity. Rejection of the Wyrm's attempt at order.

Mask Maker, reacting to Ghost having King's Brand: No bug has ever laid claim to this whole. Even the beasts knew their limits and bound their realm at Nest's edge. It is the ancient caste that made attempt at such vast rule. Hallownest's ruin reflects well those fared attempts.

I believe Mask Maker is referring to the Ancient Civilization having attempted to rule over all of Hallownest. There's a possibility they're referring to Hallownest under the Pale King, as "ancient" does not necessarily mean what fans call the Ancient Civilization (and indeed most instances of the word "ancient" refer to Hallownest under the Pale King). But "attempts" being in the plural, I think Mask Maker intends to draw a parallel here between the two civilizations.

Speaking of King's Brand...

I believe now this is the best symbol of the Pale King we have. His original symbol.

As I noted in my first post on Hallownest symbols, the Hallownest seal seems the most associated with the Pale King when it has the crown on it. And the few actual depictions of him, in statues, idols, and shrines, all have his crown, but lack wings. Save for the glowing silhouette of him in Ogrim's dream battle, there are no depictions of him with wings. He may lack wings entirely, or have some form of artificial wings.

In fact, I find it quite interesting how you can pick up monarch wings as an item.

They are described by the game as being made of "ethereal matter". The game manual calls them "wings of a monarchfly". It's possible that the Pale King had such wings as seen here, not part of his original body, but made somehow.

And, just to look at the symbols again...

If one were to superimpose the old Hallownest Seal from the time of the Ancient Civilization on top of the King's Brand, you'd get the current Hallownest Seal. Oval Bug body, wings, crown, and tail.

So, what I'm thinking, the impression that I'm getting....

The Pale King came to Hallownest. He saw all the evidence of the Ancient Civilization, which had already fallen. He took on bug form (which may have happened before or after he saw the symbol and other evidence of the ancient civ, but I have to wonder if witnessing Hallownest's history and symbols influenced even this decision to become small). He, for reasons beyond the purpose of this post, decided he wanted to rule Hallownest as king and "creator" (which again may or may not have been part of his decision to be reborn).

He established his kingdom. He took on aspects of preexisting Hallownest, essentially claiming the legacy of the Ancient Civilization as his own. He took on bug form, and gave himself wings, to match this old image, as if it was always about him.

He established his palace in the Ancient Basin. He had access to the Abyss, mostly closed off from the rest of the populace. He studied the void. But the bugs of the Ancient Civilization had a different attitude about void, as indicated by Lemm in the Hunter's Journal entry on the void idol:

Inspired or mad, those ancient bugs. They devoted their worship to no lord, or power, or strength, but to the very darkness itself.

The Pale King instead was worshipped as a god by his people. He instead treated the void as something to control. He studied it. He tested it. He created void constructs to guard his palace. He used it, to stake the future of his entire kingdom on.

I could go on and on about this. And I intend to. But this is as far as I will go in this post, meant to be an update to my last post on symbols. But, I already have a long post I put together months ago, didn't post, and just have to update with new thoughts. So hopefully, I'll be expanding on all the implications here for Hallownest history soon enough.

[fotibrit]

This scene, when Tony shows off B.A.R.F. tech, is used as a way to show a little more of Tony's backstory to the audience. But the thing is, canonically, he is presenting to a whole crowd, who are all watching the memory with him. This is the memory that he chose to present to the public. He didn't have to choose the memory before they died, he didn't have to choose a particularly traumatic memory at all. He could have made a funny moment out of it, or something that makes the Stark company look really good. But he didn't. He chose this one, a warped version of this one that reflects his guilt and his faults.

He had to have intentions for that, especially given how protective he is of his fathers reputation despite the resentment he holds towards the man. Tony chose this memory for a reason.

Now, it's not the greatest memory. It doesn't make Tony look great, it doesn't make Howard look great, it isn't an effort to get the public to like either one. A point could be made that it's an effort to get the public to like Maria, but there must be a reason beyond that. Tony himself in the scene admits thats not how it actually went. He had to have a reason for showing this scene in this way to this crowd.

Many possibilities here, but my favorite and the one i choose to believe: Tony was making a first step towards opening up to the public about his own struggles regarding his upbringing. Such a famous person from such a famous family, and he was so hesitant to talk about his father. I think this was his effort to show the public that the dynamic wasn't as black and white as they might want or expect.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

When parties fail, movements step up

This Saturday (19 Aug), I'm appearing at the San Diego Union-Tribune Festival of Books. I'm on a 2:30PM panel called "Return From Retirement," followed by a signing:

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/festivalofbooks

Does anyone like the American two party system? The parties are opaque, private organizations, weak institutions that are prone to capture and corruption, and gerrymandering's "safe seats" means that the real election often takes place in the party's smoke-filled rooms, when a sure-thing candidate is selected:

https://doctorow.medium.com/weak-institutions-a26a20927b27

But there doesn't seem to be any way to fix it. For one thing, the two parties are in charge of any reform, and they're in no hurry to put themselves out of business. It's effectively impossible for a third party to gain any serious power in the USA, and that's by design. After the leftist Populists party came within a spitting distance of power in the 1890s, the Dems and Repubs got together and cooked the system, banning fusion voting and erecting other structural barriers.

The Nader and Perot campaigns were doomed from the outset, in other words. Either candidate could have been far more popular than the D and R on the ballot, and they still would have lost. It's how the deck is stacked, and to unstack it, reformers would need to take charge of at least one – and probably both – of the parties.

But that's not cause for surrender – it's a call to action. In an interview with Seymour Hersh, Thomas Frank (Listen, Liberal) sets out another locus of power, one with the potential to deliver control over the party to its base: social movements:

https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/ordinary-people-by-the-millions

It's been done before. The parties are routinely transformed by power-shifts within their internal coalitions: since 1970, corporate Dems have consistently pushed the party to the right, making it the power of white-collar professionals and relying on working people showing up and marking their ballots with a D because they have "nowhere else to go."

Bill Clinton was the most successful of these corporate raiders, delivering the parts of the Reagan Revolution that Reagan himself could never have managed: dismantling tariffs and bank regulations, passing the crime bill and welfare "reform." He came within a whisper of (partially) privatizing Social Security.

This set in motion the forces that made Trumpism possible: when Dems told deindustrialized workers to "learn to code" and blamed them for the destruction of their communities, it opened a space for Make America Great Again, the (empty) workerist rhetoric of the GOP. The Dems' plan of putting "really smart people" in charge and letting them run things was a (predictable) disaster. "Really smart" isn't the same as "infallible" and really smart people can be spooked or bulled into doing the wrong thing – like Obama "foaming the runways" for the banks with the houses of mortgage holders, and leaving the bankers responsible for the Great Financial Crisis unscathed:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/15/mon-dieu-les-guillotines/#ceci-nes-pas-une-bailout

"Really smart people" can't get us out of this mess. Instead, we need the kind of muscular political action – the "whirlwind" – that characterized FDR's New Deal: "complete reformation of the banking industry.. just about every other industry as well. Regulation. Social Security. Public works. Antitrust. Soil conservation."

FDR got there by alienating his former classmates and refusing the go-slow entreaties of his cronies. He got there because there was a mass social movement that made him do it ("I want to do it, now make me do it"):

https://humanizingthevacuum.wordpress.com/2014/09/16/i-agree-with-you-i-want-to-do-it-now-make-me-do-it/

Every time in US history where one of the political party duopoly listened to its base, it was because of a mass social movement: the farmers' movement (1890s), labor (1930s), civil rights and antiwar (1960s). As Frank says:

Social movements succeed. They build and they change the intellectual climate and then, when the crisis comes, they make possible things like agrarian reform or the New Deal or the Civil Rights acts of the 1960s.

Today, we see the seeds of those social movements: the new union movement. Black Lives Matter. Neobrandeisians with their "hipster antitrust." These are the movements that are creating "ideas lying around": ideas that, in time of crisis, can move from the fringe to the center in an eyeblink:

https://doctorow.medium.com/ideas-lying-around-33a28901a7ae

They are setting in motion another transformation of the Democratic Party, from its top-down, "really smart people" model to a bottom-up, people-powered one, kept in check by movements, not party bosses. As Frank says, "They require the mass participation of ordinary people. Without that, I am afraid that nothing is possible."

I'm kickstarting the audiobook for "The Internet Con: How To Seize the Means of Computation," a Big Tech disassembly manual to disenshittify the web and make a new, good internet to succeed the old, good internet. It's a DRM-free book, which means Audible won't carry it, so this crowdfunder is essential. Back now to get the audio, Verso hardcover and ebook:

http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org

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

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/17/popular-front-of-judea/#speaking-frankly

[toastedclownery]

Okay I'm gonna be a bit crazy on the main tag and share a theory

I think Beebs tried applying for Civil service but couldn't because of his... History

I think it went like this

He was studying/training for it and he was about to be accepted

Something... Tragic happened. The "accident" where he lost his limbs? That might or might not have been his fault. But he was charged for it

He was no longer able to apply because he has a criminal record now?

We've seen a couple of times that he's ready and prone to help and protect people, it's just something in his nature

Also he's very quick to adapting to other species' customs or societies, or their biology. Like being respectful to Punti, and being surprisingly chill when he was communicating with the Agari's phantom.

It would explain the speech he gave before attacking Us, it'd be something that he learned from his training

Maybe his glove which is a similar blue to Killix' uniform and his multi-tool?

Now I don't have evidence for this last point but it's giving me vibes okay. I think he might have been banished from his home planet for what happened in the accident, too.

We barely know anything about Walrinian culture, but I figure their tusks are important. At least with real walruses, tusks are a form of status. I think him removing his tusks (or possibly having them removed against his will?) could be a sign of dishonor.

Or maybe he just lost them in the accident and he just filed them down. But either way, the Symbolism is still there. He no longer has a connection with his home planet and culture.

Beebs strikes me as someone who knows what it's like to lose it all, and he really doesn't want it to happen again, so he plays it very safe with everything he does. Like for example how he wants to slowly build up on the Monkey Wrench company

And I'm willing to say he's taking this approach with Shrike's friendship too.

He's the opposite to Shrike, he dislikes risk. I think it was this accident or... Whatever happened that shaped him into what he's like today. And it would make this conversation with Us make more sense.

If all of this is right (or close), that means he's lost so much. The majority of his limbs, the direction he was going to take with his life as a civil servant, possibly the link to his family and his culture. All of this happening so quickly might have motivated him to...

Yeah.

[tonythr]

Sometimes you are so sad you turn into a game construct, and that's ok

Part of the reason I love Hollow Knight is that you never know when a certain phenomenon is a part of the game's actual lore or simply a gameplay convenience, but most of the time it's up to you to decide anyway. Like, yeah, I know that looking too much into what should be just a game mechanic and/or a simple animation effect makes you more of a clown than a lore master, but, honestly, at this point the entire fandom wears rainbow wigs and squeaky red noses in order to forget about the pain of no Silksong, so no one has the right to stop me from having fun with some observations I made and how they might be intentional lore pieces. So yeah, what I'm trying to say is that this theory might be a bit of a stretch, but I think it's neat, so I'm gonna post it anyway.

Now, here's the question: what do you think these two have in common?

Both are very sad because they lost someone who was close to them.

2. Both give the Knight a Mask Shard when they die.

My theory here is that these two things are connected.

Now, Mask Shards are weird, lore-wise. The locations where they are found don't always... make much sense. Like ok, aside from the two that I mentioned above, we have ones that are found on top of ancient black statues — this implies that those shards are connected to (and probably were made by) the Ancient Civilisation.

We also have some shards that we get from various NPCs (Sly, Bretta, Seer) — those also make sense, since there's nothing wrong with those weird bugs possessing some ancient artifacts. But then we have Mask Shards that just kinda... float there.

No ancient pedestals. No reason to suggest someone actually owned them. No reason for them to be there aside from the game wanting to reward the player for something.

This is also true for some of the Vessel Fragments.

Although the fountain one is exceptional. The fragment is actually a part of the Pale King's statue, but it detaches once the needed amount of geo is reached. It looks like this statue actually 'gives' it to the Knight once it puts enough geo in the fountain. It could be something that has to do with PK's magic, or with the whole 'sacrifice' theme that's going on with him. Anyway, it's not hard to come up with an explanation for how that one works. What is more interesting is how these shards and fragments are created.

Because apparently this mf can just materialize them out of thin air.

Now, I KNOW this is probably just a nice animation to emphasize how cool of an award a mask shard is, but it also wouldn't be much of a stretch to say that what happens here is Grubfather actually manipulating Soul to create this shard for the Knight. I mean, Grubs do possess some sort of 'holy strength' that was never properly explained to us (that's why I'm hoping to see some grubs in Silksong), and one of the two charms created from their power is something that straight-up gives the Knight extra Soul. If we don't count the Shaman charms, which were used only to extract and use Soul more efficiently, the only other charm that does that is Kingsoul, the embodiment of the union between two Pale Beings. So yeah, the Grubs are totally OP, and Grubfather probably does create a Mask Shard out of Soul here.

Which only proves the fact that both Mask Shards and Vessel Fragments are made out of Soul. I mean, come on, the Knight literally consumes them just like it consumes each of the spells and the Soul of its enemies, AND it takes Soul to restore broken masks. I think it's safe to assume that those ancient masks that the Knight is using to strengthen its shell are made out of Soul, or at least some material that is heavily tied to Soul in some way.

Another fact is that those masks and vessels have big connections to the Ancient Civilisation. Aside from the obvious things like the fragment/shard statues that I mentioned earlier having clear similarities to the Soul totems, there's this whole thing with the engravings on those masks and vessels having a bunch of connections with magical secrets of the Ancient Civilisation...

What I'm getting at here is that the bugs of the Ancient Civilisation probably knew the secrets of manipulating Soul and used those secrets to create masks (for protection) and Soul Vessels (for containing Soul), as well as Soul Totems. It means there is a way a Mask can be created out of Soul, aside from what we see the Knight do when it heals (which is an interesting process, btw - when a mask breaks, the Knight can restore it using Soul, but it can't create new masks to have infinite HP, so the masks it collects must have unique properties that prevent them from being completely destroyed and instead allow them to be recovered after breaking). And maybe that process was already shown to us.

Ok, now I'm actually talking about my theory again. See, the reason I think there's more to these two moments than just a simple reward being given to us by the game is because there's some overlapping philosophical (symbolical?) motifs that connect Brooding Mawlek and Grey Mourner AND possibly give us a glimpse into the secrets of Soul discovered by the Ancient Civilisation. I'm talking about what Soul itself might represent as a sorta metaphysical concept (I don't know how to say that properly... Just bear with me pls).

In the world of Hollow Knight, there are many philosophical concepts that give depth to the nature of various in-world phenomenons. For example, the Void is heavily tied to regrets, perhaps dark memories that keep us from moving forward. That's why it makes sense that, ultimately, Pale King faced his demise at the hands of the Void - he sacrificed thousands of his own children in order to save Hallownest and failed anyway, so there is no way he could avoid (pun intended) being overwhelmed by his regrets about this whole thing.

The Soul is the power that contrasts the Void.

It's implied by Jiji that, when the Knight leaves behind its Shade, it starts to drain *hope* from it.

This line was probably left there to explain this game mechanic:

When the Knight dies, it can no longer fill its Soul meter to the full, until it finds and defeats its Shade. This implies that Soul represents *hope* in contrast to the Void representing regrets.

If we accept this assumption, we can see that it makes sense how:

The White Palace is shown as a beautiful, calm, hopeful place despite it being filled with thorns and sawblades (that might or might not be a metaphor for the PK's pain of trying to hide his mistakes and regrets).

The shamans' dying thoughts are often their last hopes of being free, being heard etc.

The Soul is literally what gives the bugs' bodies the energy to move.

I feel soulless when I wake up at 7 a.m.

All things considered, it's easy to see how Soul is something that might represent such things as hope, motivation, faith - all those feelings that make a person feel whole.

And when the fate forces someone into situations where those things are lost, their inner self breaks. When something separates us from our loved ones for a whole eternity, leaving us as lonely, empty shells of our former selves, our soul hardens.

We already know that masks in this game directly correspond to the person's self, their ability to define themselves as who they are. A mask is literally the core of the person's mind.

And when a person breaks, when their hope becomes eternal sadness, when the essence that animates their body becomes a solid rock, their mind shatters, leaving only a single shard of what should have been a whole mask.

Perhaps, something like that also happened to the bugs of the Ancient Civilisation? Or maybe they found a way to control that sadness, just like they found a way to manipulate the power of regrets? They look like a bunch of cool goth bugs, so I wouldn't be surprised if that was their thing.

TL;DR: ancient masks that the Knight uses are made out of Soul, and Soul is a power that represents hope. When a person experiences a feeling of strong loneliness and hopelessness, their mind literally breaks, and their Soul literally hardens, resulting in the creation of Mask Shards. The bugs of the Ancient Civilisation might have known this.

Kinda edgy.

I like it.

[asteroidtroglodyte]

Blockbuster Video Game Franchises

[with the MTG Color pie]

Civilization

Horizon Zero Dawn

Mass Effect

Stardew Valley

Minecraft

[stinkgh]

So I have this theory that Nintendo really said fuck the timeline fuck the lore, let's fuck em up with this ancient civilization we've literally never heard of before BOTW came out and never really talked about until now. And let's make this civilization EVEN MORE OBSCURE than the only other ancient civilization we've ever had, and let's give them MAGICAL POWERS too and let's have them play the most vital role in Hyrule to date. Triforce? Don't know her. All my homies hang with the Zonai. 😎

[thepastisalreadywritten]

Papyrus of Ahmose or Mathematical Rhind (1500 BC / 1550 BC) is the oldest manuscript written in Algebra and Trigonometry.

Manuscript shows that Egyptians used first-order equations and solved them in several ways.

They know quadratic equations and solve them. They also know numerical and geometric sequences and know quadratic equations like two :

X2 + y2 = 100,

Y = 3/4 x, where x = 8, y = 6,

This equation is the origin of Pythagoras theorem, a2 = b 2 + c 2, and Egyptians used to call unknown number (koom).

Pythagoras developed his mathematical theories after travelling to Egypt and learning from Egyptian priests.

This has been proven in books of Greek historians and scholars such as Farpharius of Sour, Herodotus, and Thales.

Egyptians had Algebra, Trigonometry, and Geometry about 2000 years before the birth of Pythagoras and about 3000 years prior to al-Khwarizmi being born.

—

The Rhind Mathematical Papyrus (RMP; also designated as papyrus British Museum 10057 and pBM 10058) is one of the best known examples of ancient Egyptian mathematics.

It is named after Alexander Henry Rhind, a Scottish antiquarian, who purchased the papyrus in 1858 in Luxor, Egypt.

It was apparently found during illegal excavations in or near the Ramesseum. It dates to around 1550 BC.

[just-late-roman-republic-things]

I wonder about 13. If Caesar really was unlikely to face prosecution, why the Civil War? We know that had he been elected Consul again, the threat of prosecution would have virtually disappeared. If he could have crossed the pomerium without fear, why wouldn't he?

From @solidorange69 on my misconceptions post. I've made a few posts before about why Caesar's civil war erupted:

Why I don't believe Caesar was at risk for prosecution, and alternate explanations for his behavior.

The Road to War: A Timeline of Caesar and Pompey's Breakup

Erich Gruen argues that multiple factions strained Caesar and Pompey's alliance to the breaking point.

Robert Morstein-Marx puts a lot of blame on the anti-Caesarian hardliners in 51-49 BCE, and believes there were genuine ideological differences in each side's arguments, as well as several missteps that eroded trust between Caesar and Pompey over the course of 50 BCE.

Fred Drogula also has a good discussion of the civil war's causes in his biography of Cato. He also faults Cato and the anti-Caesar hardliners, and believes they were trying to bluff Caesar into stepping down from his command. They misjudged, badly.

Gruen and Morstein-Marx don't agree with the prosecution theory; Drogula and some other historians do. Personally, I think Morstein-Marx's arguments are the most thorough and plausible. If you want to judge for yourself, check out Drogula's Cato the Younger (chapter 7), Morstein-Marx's Julius Caesar and the Roman People (pp. 259-263, 622-624) and Gruen's Last Generation of the Roman Republic (chapter 11).

[paddockpatrol]

Shall we see how the 3rd 1-2 of the year is celebrated?

Then he says, uh, the team manager, Jonathan Wheatley, [Christian Horner] congratulates him.

Helmut Marko is standing there. He doesn't get a handshake.

Adrian Newey right now also not [a handshake].

And Max's race engineer on the other does.

Uncomfortable and..

Oh and after that he just stands there like that.

Crashen in de Keuken (5:30)

Ronald Doornbos and Rob Kamphues discuss the implication of this video being it evidencing the ongoing division in top-management at Red Bull. Make of it what you will...

[mememan93]

my fave thing abt TP actually is that Shad is obsessed with the ancient civilization that "might have created the people of hylia [Hylians]" and they were advanced and stuff and it just turns out to be these fuckers

[phoenixyfriend]

Hey, just wanted to let you know that that Cal and Obi art you just reblogged is AI generated.

Ehhh, @fonmythenmetz (OP) has been pretty clear that it was also hours of drawing; they did the sketch, used the program to generate texture and color, and then went in and manually fixed/detailed/adjusted things to their satisfaction. Is that enough to not qualify as an abuse of the program in the way we understand it to be? Maybe, maybe not, but it's definitely not completely ai-generated.

I'm not sure at which point we distinguish between ai-generated and ai-aided, but I believe it's more of a 'used a program to do roughs for the colors and generate texture on the trees so I could focus on the faces and figures' than 'I fed it a prompt and posted the result.' It's significantly more effort than most AI art since they did the initial sketch and all the detail work, but less than something like the program that the itsv/atsv team used to overlay lines on the characters for that comic-book look (they manually drew a bunch to train the program, and then used that to simplify the process for the rest of the movie).

In this particular case, I think I'll leave it up, but I'm open to hearing the discussion on where this falls on the spectrum of AI use, morally.

[aibidil]

On “Civilization” from The Dawn of Everything

One problem is that we’ve come to assume that ‘civilization’ refers, in origin, simply to the habit of living in cities. Cities, in turn, were thought to imply states. But as we’ve seen, that is not the case historically, or even etymologically. The word ‘civilization’ derives from Latin civilis, which actually refers to those qualities of political wisdom and mutual aid that permit societies to organize themselves through voluntary coalition. In other words, it originally meant the type of qualities exhibited by Andean ayllu associations or Basque villages, rather than Inca courtiers or Shang dynasts. If mutual aid, social co-operation, civic activism, hospitality or simply caring for others are the kind of things that really go to make civilizations, then this true history of civilization is only just starting to be written.

As we’ve been showing throughout this book, in all parts of the world small communities formed civilizations in that true sense of extended moral communities. Without permanent kings, bureaucrats or standing armies they fostered the growth of mathematical and calendrical knowledge. In some regions they pioneered metallurgy, the cultivation of olives, vines and date palms, or the invention of leavened bread and wheat beer; in others they domesticated maize and learned to extract poisons, medicines and mind-altering substances from plants. Civilizations, in this true sense, developed the major textile technologies applied to fabrics and basketry, the potter’s wheel, stone industries and beadwork, the sail and maritime navigation, and so on.

A moment’s reflection shows that women, their work, their concerns and innovations are at the core of this more accurate understanding of civilization. As we saw in earlier chapters, tracing the place of women in societies without writing often means using clues left, quite literally, in the fabric of material culture, such as painted ceramics that mimic both textile designs and female bodies in their forms and elaborate decorative structures. To take just two examples, it’s hard to believe that the kind of complex mathematical knowledge displayed in early Mesopotamian cuneiform documents or in the layout of Peru’s Chavín temples sprang fully formed from the mind of a male scribe or sculptor, like Athena from the head of Zeus. Far more likely, these represent knowledge accumulated in earlier times through concrete practices such as the solid geometry and applied calculus of weaving or beadwork. What until now has passed for ‘civilization’ might in fact be nothing more than a gendered appropriation – by men, etching their claims in stone – of some earlier system of knowledge that had women at its centre.

—The Dawn of Everything, Graeber and Wengrow

[hindahoney]

The only people who benefit when black people and jews are divided are white supremacists