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jcmarchi · 27 days

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Microsoft Expands Content Integrity Tools to Support Global Elections Amid Generative AI Concerns

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/microsoft-expands-content-integrity-tools-to-support-global-elections-amid-generative-ai-concerns/

Microsoft Expands Content Integrity Tools to Support Global Elections Amid Generative AI Concerns

The year 2024 is set to be a significant one for elections worldwide, with the European Union holding parliamentary elections this summer and approximately half of European countries preparing for national or regional votes. As this democratic exercise unfolds, the rapid advancement of generative AI has raised questions about its potential impact on elections and the broader information ecosystem. Concerns have emerged about the technology’s capacity to generate diverse content at high speed and its potential use in spreading disinformation.

Microsoft’s Announcement

In light of these developments, Microsoft has announced the expansion of its Content Integrity tools private preview to political parties and campaigns in the European Union, as well as news organizations around the world. The company stated that the tools are designed to help organizations inform voters about the origin of the content they encounter online.

The Content Integrity tools allow organizations to attach secure “Content Credentials” to their original media, providing information about who created or published the content, where and when it was created, whether it was generated by AI, and if the media has been edited or altered since its creation. By supporting the widely adopted Content Credentials standard, Microsoft aims to make these tools accessible and interoperable across platforms.

How Content Integrity Tools Work

Microsoft’s Content Integrity tools consist of three main components. First, there is a web application accessible to political campaigns, news organizations, and election officials, which allows them to add Content Credentials to their content. Second, a private mobile application, developed in partnership with Truepic, enables users to capture secure and authenticated photos, videos, and audio by adding Content Credentials in real-time from their smartphones. Third, a public website is available for fact-checkers and the general public to review images, audio, and video for the presence of Content Credentials.

The Content Credentials standard provides a means to authenticate media and inform users about its provenance. However, it is worth noting that this standard has faced criticism for the relative ease with which metadata can be removed from content. Additionally, there is currently no reliable method to detect AI-generated text, which presents an ongoing challenge in the fight against disinformation.

The first of the three images has the Content Credentials applied. (Source: Microsoft)

Microsoft’s Broader Election Protection Efforts

Microsoft has acknowledged that the Content Integrity tools alone are not a complete solution to the problem of deceptive media in elections. The company has emphasized that these tools are part of a broader defense strategy against the misuse of AI-generated content.

Earlier this year, Microsoft joined the Tech Accord to Combat Deceptive Use of AI along with 20 other companies. This initiative aims to address the misuse of video, audio, and images that alter the appearance, voice, or actions of political candidates and election officials. Microsoft is also working with global political parties to provide support and training on navigating the challenges posed by AI in elections. Additionally, the company offers cybersecurity assistance through its Campaign Success team and AccountGuard program to help protect against nation-state cyberattacks targeting elections.

A Critical Step in Protecting Election Integrity

As the 2024 global elections approach, the expansion of Microsoft’s Content Integrity tools represents a critical step in safeguarding the integrity of democratic processes in the face of evolving technological challenges. By providing political parties, campaigns, and news organizations with the means to authenticate their media and inform voters about the provenance of online content, Microsoft is contributing to the creation of a more transparent and trustworthy information ecosystem.

However, it is important to recognize that the Content Integrity tools are just one piece of the puzzle in combating the potential misuse of generative AI in elections. The ease with which metadata can be removed from content and the current lack of reliable methods to detect AI-generated text underscore the need for ongoing research, collaboration, and vigilance in this area.

Microsoft’s commitment to protecting elections worldwide through initiatives such as the Tech Accord, support for political parties, and cybersecurity assistance demonstrates the company’s recognition of the multifaceted nature of the challenge. As technology continues to advance and the threat landscape evolves, it will be crucial for industry leaders, policymakers, and civil society to work together to develop and implement comprehensive strategies for safeguarding the integrity of democratic processes in the digital age.

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xtruss · 9 months

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This picture taken on January 23, 2023 in Toulouse, Southwestern France, shows screens displaying the logos of OpenAI and ChatGPT. — ChatGPT is a Conversational Artificial Intelligence Software Application Developed By OpenAI. Lionel Bonaventure/AFP Via Getty Images

Opinion: Want Protection From AI? The First Step Is a National Privacy Law

— By Suzan K. DelBene, Democratic Congresswoman Washington | August 28, 2023

In the six months since a new chatbot confessed its love for a reporter before taking a darker turn, the world has woken up to how artificial intelligence can dramatically change our lives—and how it can go awry. AI is quickly being integrated into nearly every aspect of our economy and daily lives. Yet in our nation's capital, laws aren't keeping up with the rapid evolution of technology.

Policymakers have many decisions to make around artificial intelligence, like how it can be used in sensitive areas such as financial markets, health care, and national security. They will need to decide intellectual property rights around AI-created content. There will also need to be guardrails to prevent the dissemination of mis- and disinformation.

But before we build the second and third story of this regulatory house, we need to lay a strong foundation and that must center around a national data privacy standard.

To understand this bedrock need, it's important to look at how artificial intelligence was developed. AI needs an immense quantity of data. The generative language tool ChatGPT was trained on 45 terabytes of data, or the equivalent of over 200 days' worth of HD video. That information may have included our posts on social media and online forums that have likely taught ChatGPT how we write and communicate with each other. That's because this data is largely unprotected and widely available to third-party companies willing to pay for it. AI developers do not need to disclose where they get their input data from because the U.S. has no national privacy law.

While data studies have existed for centuries and can have major benefits, they are often centered around consent to use that information. Medical studies often use patient health data and outcomes, but that information needs the approval of the study participants in most cases. That's because in the 1990s, Congress gave health information a basic level of protection, but that law only protects data shared between patients and their health care providers. The same is not true for other health platforms like fitness apps, or most other data we generate today, including our conversations online and geolocation information.

Currently, the companies that collect our data are in control of it. Google for years scanned Gmail inboxes to sell users targeted ads, before abandoning the practice. Zoom recently had to update its data collection policy after it was accused of using customers' audio and video to train its AI products. We've all downloaded an app on our phone and immediately accepted the terms and conditions window without actually reading it. Companies can and often do change the terms regarding how much of our information they collect and how they use it.

A national privacy standard would ensure a baseline set of protections, no matter where someone lives in the U.S. And it would restrict companies from storing and selling our personal data.

Ensuring there's transparency and accountability in what data goes into AI is also important for a quality and responsible product. If input data is biased, we're going to get a biased outcome, in other words, "garbage in, garbage out." Facial recognition is one application of artificial intelligence. These systems have by and large been trained by and with data from white people. That's led to clear biases when communities of color interact with this technology.

The United States must be a global leader on artificial intelligence policy.

But other countries are not waiting as we sit still. The European Union has moved faster on AI regulations, because it passed its privacy law in 2018. The Chinese government has also moved quickly on AI, though in an alarmingly anti-democratic way. If we want a seat at the international table to set the long-term direction for AI that reflects our core American values, we must have our own national data privacy law to start.

The Biden administration has taken some encouraging steps to begin putting guardrails around AI, but it has been constrained by Congress' inaction. The White House recently announced voluntary artificial intelligence standards, which include a section on data privacy. Voluntary guidelines don't come with accountability, and the federal government can only enforce the rules on the books, which are woefully outdated.

That's why Congress needs to step up and set the rules of the road. Strong national standards like privacy must be uniform throughout the country, rather than the state-by-state approach we have now. It has to put people back in control of their information instead of companies. It must also be enforceable so that the government can hold bad actors accountable.

These are the components of the legislation I have introduced over the past few Congresses and the bipartisan proposal the Energy & Commerce Committee advanced last year.

As with all things in Congress, it comes down to a matter of priorities. With artificial intelligence expanding so fast, we can no longer wait to take up this issue.

We were behind on technology policy already, but we are falling further behind as other countries take the lead. We must act quickly and set a robust foundation. That has to include a strong, enforceable national privacy standard.

— Congresswoman Suzan K. DelBene represents Washington's 1st District in the United States House of Representatives.

#Opinion #Artificial Intelligence #Protection #National Privacy Law #Suzan K. DelBene | Democratic Congresswoman | Washington #OpenAI | ChatGPT #Conversational Artificial Intelligence Software | Developed | OpenAI #United States 🇺🇸#Artificial Intelligence Policy #European Union 🇪🇺#White House #Biden Administration #American Values #Congress' Inaction #Energy & Commerce Committee #Strong | Enforceable National | Privacy Standard

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txttletale · 7 months

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Wtf is Lancer and why is it shit (serious question)

lancer is a tabletop roleplaying game made by the guy who drew kill six billion demons and another guy. i wouldn't call it 'shit', necessarily--it's good in a lot of the ways that matter. it's first and foremost a tactical mech combat game and on that level it's incredible. its ruleset is finely tuned, provides great amounts of GM support to make running what might otherwise be overwhelmingly crunchy combat easier, and has a truly stunning and cool level of character customization available. so as a game, i think it's great fun to play and run, genuinely innovative, and a huge step forward for battlemap tactical wargame type TTRPGs in general.

the lore though, kind of sucks. i think it has two clear and overlapping core problems. problem #1 is that it is a utopia as envisioned by a social democrat. it's a world which the text describes as 'post-capitalist' (but there are still evil megacorporations with private armies who own slaves) and 'post-scarcity' (but only in the developed 'core' systems, so. y'know. there's scarcity). at many points in the text they say that Union (the game's main faction) is utopian, throwing around that exact word a bunch of times as well as 'mutual aid' and 'direct action' and the like. but what they describe is just kind of an imperialist Space Sweden with several distinct forms of slavery that constantly expands and uses its Benevolent Imperial Power to intervene on the Backwards Violent Worlds on its outer border but its good because its just trying to bring them UBI.

to show what i mean, here's one of the game's writers¹ talking about how it would be morally wrong for Union to, say, appropriate the property of a private military corporation that also operates as a fascist nation-state:

it's 'revolution' as imagined by the limpest of social democrats. and of course this would honestly be fine, whatever, most sci-fi settings are fundamentally achingly liberal, but the game goes so out of its way to signpost how Radical it is and how Hopeful and Liberationist you're meant to see the setting as

the other core problem is closely related--it feels like the lancer guys put every cool sci-fi idea they had into lancer even when it completely clashes with the core ideas behind it. like, AIs in this settings are callled 'NHPs' (non-human persons) and they're eldritch god-like beings from another dimension who have be kept 'shackled' (lancer's words, not mine!) to keep them as pliant and obedient AI assistants instead of hostile eldritch abominations. this is obviously horrifying and dystopian but it rules, it would be sick fucking worldbuilding for something with the tone of 40k or a one-off doctor who or star trek episode--but as a fundamental technology foundational to what we are supposed to believe is a post-revolutionary society founded on mutual aid and solidarity and blah blah blah it's glaringly dissonant.

bear in mind this is all just going off the rulebook. lancer fans have told me that the supplements and campaign modules fix some of this or contextualise it. but on the other hand communists have told me that they make it worse and i trust the communists more. i leave you with this incredible passage from the game's foreword:

#ask #brendanicus #ttrpg #lancer

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radiofreederry · 1 year

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Happy birthday, Vladimir Lenin! (April 22, 1870)

One of the most relevant and influential revolutionary figures of the 20th century, Vladimir Lenin, birth name Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, was born in Simbirsk to a well-off family. Lenin's brother was himself a revolutionary, and his execution in 1887 for the attempted assassination of Tsar Alexander III spurred Lenin to embrace revolutionary socialist politics. He was eventually sent into internal exile in Siberia for his activities, before relocating to Western Europe. Lenin became a prominent figure in the Russian Social Democratic Party, and led the Bolshevik faction in the party's split, opposing the Menshiviks. During World War I, Lenin articulated the position of the international socialist movement's left wing, arguing that socialists should oppose their imperialist governments in wartime and work to convert the imperialist war into a war to enact the overthrow of capitalism. After the Tsar was overthrown in the February Revolution, Lenin returned to lead the Bolsheviks in Russia, and they soon seized state power in the October Revolution. The Social Democratic Party was soon reformed into the Communist Party, and Lenin led the new Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in withdrawing from the world war, defeating the right-wing Whites in the Russian Civil War, and establishing the Soviet Union. Lenin also founded the Communist International in order for the international socialist movement to coordinate strategically. In the aftermath of the civil war, Lenin promulgated the New Economic Policy, which was intended to help the Soviet Union rebuild and develop its productive forces. Lenin died soon after the end of the civil war in 1924, and was ultimately succeeded as leader of the Soviet Union by Joseph Stalin. Lenin's developments to Marxist theory are known as Leninism, and his most prominent works include What is to be Done?, The State and Revolution, and Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism.

"The dictatorship of the proletariat, i.e., the organization of the vanguard of the oppressed as the ruling class for the purpose of suppressing the oppressors, cannot result merely in an expansion of democracy. Simultaneously with an immense expansion of democracy, which for the first time becomes democracy for the poor, democracy for the people, and not democracy for the money-bags, the dictatorship of the proletariat imposes a series of restrictions on the freedom of the oppressors, the exploiters, the capitalists."

#birthdays #vladimir lenin

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racefortheironthrone · 2 months

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Which federal laws and policies would you get rid of or modify in order to help the American labor movement.

I was looking through the labor law tag on my blog and your ask reminded me I haven't actually written a comprehensive post about this on Tumblr. (Indeed, you'd have to go back to my old, old policy blog from 2009...it's been a while.)

One silver lining of the Sisyphean struggle to restore American labor law that's been going on since the 1970s is that the labor movement and their allies in Congress, academia, think tanks, and progressive media have been thinking through this very issue of "what reforms would make a real difference" for a long time. I'm not going to say it's a solved question, but the research literature is pretty robust.

For the purposes of this post, I'm going to focus on the three most recent reform packages: the Employee Free Choice Act that was the main vehicle during the Obama years, Bernie Sanders' Workplace Democracy Act (which was introduced repeatedly between 1992 and 2018), and the Richard L. Trumka Protecting the Right to Organize Act (PRO Act) that is the current proposal of the Democratic legislative caucuses. There's going to be quite a bit of overlap between these proposals, because it's very much an iterative process where allies in the same movement are trading ideas with one another and trying to stay abreast of new developments, but I'll try to tease out some of the similarities and differences.

EFCA

While EFCA contained a number of provisions that sought to close various loopholes in U.S labor law, the three main provisions largely target the flaws that have made it extremely difficult to win a union through the National Labor Relations Act process devised in 1935 that has turned into a Saw-style gauntlet thanks to the professionalization of union-busting and the Federalist Society's strategy of death-by-a-thousand-cuts:

"Card check." Probably the most common pattern of union-busting in the workplace today is a war of attrition by management waged by an industry of specialized law firms. Generally what happens is that the union files for election with a super-majority of ~70% workers having signed union cards, then management delays the vote as long as possible to give their hired "union-avoidance" firm to systematically intimidate, surveil, propagandize, and divide workers, up to and including illegally firing pro-union workers pour encouragez les autres. Over several months, what happens is that the initial 70% of pro-union support starts to erode as workers decide it's just too dangerous to stick their necks out, until the vote happens and the union loses either by a squeaker or a landslide.

Card check short-circuits this process by just saying that if the union files with a majority of cards, you skip the election and the union is recognized. And for all the pearl-clutching by the right, this is actually how labor law works in many democratic countries, because the idea of a fair election that lets management participate is an oxymoron.

Arbitrated first contract. In the event that enough workers keep the faith and actually vote for a union, management's next move is to draw out collective bargaining for a year or more. After a year, the original vote is no longer considered binding and employers can push for a "decertification" vote, which they usually win because workers either give up hope or change jobs. So this provision says that if the two sides can't reach an agreement on a first contract within 120 days, a Federal arbitrator will just impose one, so that at least for two years there will be a union contract no matter what management wants.

Strengthening enforcement. As I said above, one of the problems with existing labor law is that there are basically no penalties for management knowingly breaking the law; companies literally just budget in a line-item and do it anyway. This provision would allow unions to file an injunction against employers for unfair labor practices or ULPs (at present, injunctions are only required for violations done by unions), and would add triple back pay for illegal firings and fines of $20,000 for each ULP. This would make union-busting much more expensive, because companies routinely rack up hundreds and hundreds of them during a campaign.

Workplace Democracy Act

Sanders' proposal includes the main proposals from EFCA, and adds a bunch of additional reforms, like mis-classifying workers as independent contractors, banning captive audience meetings, making "joint employers" liable for labor law violations by franchisees, legalizing secondary boycotts, and requiring employers to report to the NLRB on all anti-union expenditures during a campaign and barring anyone convicted of an unfair labor practice from being hired for anti-union campaigns and making "union-avoidance" consultants liable for fines for ULPs (which would kill the "union-avoidance" industry, because they commit ULPs for a living).

PRO Act

The PRO Act is very much an updating of the previous efforts we've talked about. It bans captive audience meetings, allows for secondary strikes and boycotts, massively increases fines and allows for compensatory damages, ends mis-classification, speeds up the election process, etc.

It also contains a couple new and ambitious proposals:

it allows unions to sue management in court instead of having to complain to the NLRB, which opens management up to a very expensive legal proceeding and discovery.

it bans "right-to-work" as established by the Taft-Hartley Act.

it requires that any worker who's fired for pro-union activity be immediately reinstated while their unfair labor practice process or civil lawsuit is going through the process. This would be enormous just on its own, because it changes the entire veto structure of illegal firing. As it stands, employers fire people and maybe maybe have to pay some back wages in a couple years when the worker has found another job and is unlikely to come back. This would reverse the balance of power, such that the worker is immediately back and other workers can see that they can speak up without getting fired, which makes illegal firings a giant waste of time and money for management.

In terms of stuff that's not on this list that I would add, I would say that an enormous difference could be made by simply making it illegal for management to lock-out their workers or hire scabs. You do that, and unions can win almost every strike.

#labor law #labor law reform #labor movement #trade unions #unions #union movement #public policy

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tennessoui · 5 months

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kit's fics year in review (2023)

it turns out i wrote a LOT this year (last year now, i guess) according to my ao3 stats, and i saw one of those recap games for another fandom floating around my dash so im absolutely gonna pilfer some of those questions for my own little review + add a few!!

how many fics did you write in 2023? it was definitely the year of the silly short fic for me -- i published a total of 6 new oneshots on ao3 along with 5 fics only on my kofi! i also added at least one chapter to 9 other fics that were already posted. and i started and completed 1 long stand alone fic this year (if you love me let it remain unnamed, clocking in at 37k)

what are you most proud of fic-writing wise in 2023? i finished foolproof, foolhardy! it took more than a year to write, from first published to last updated, but i think the lion's share of the work happened during 2023; it's sort of rare for a fic of mine to get that long (72k), so it was fun to write through all the developments. truly a cracky premise that grew legs and ran away from me, but i'm really proud of how it turned out. the last 4 chapters contain some of my best writing in my opinion and the whole story is a love letter to padawan obi-wan, who will always be my beloved lol

what is the fic you had the most fun writing? this is a tough question because i'm torn between two fics; sun, sun, sun here it comes is probably my favorite oneshot that i've ever written. it sorta incorporates everything that makes a silly little au in my mind, from miscommunication to banter to bonus babies. but then there's i pray the same, but my gods have changed, aka the democratic fic- now that's such a fun fic to write, and i'm going to get more into it this year again. it's the one where tumblr votes on what should happen next, which i absolutely enjoy - especially when people send me propaganda about which option should win....thought the amount of ties that have happened is mind-boggling lol

what is a fic you didn't expect to write? hahaha well this is easily 'a more perfect union' which has been sooo fun to write so far but also definitely has had a very short gestation period from nascent tumblr au post to 25k on ao3 lol and still one more chapter to go!!!

what fic surprised you when you were writing it? oh hands down this is 'hand me down dreams got me high in the rafters', aka the pool boy au from tumblr. the adaptation of it from tumblr au to a fic on ao3 has a crazy tone shift where the obi-wan in that fic is much, much darker than the one in the tumblr au - i really ended up leaning into the unequal power dynamics of a boss/employee relationship and exploring how unhealthy it could be while keeping it consensual -- but only because anakin would allow obi-wan to do whatever he wanted to him

what's a fic you wanted to write but didn't? my poor neglected hunger games au!! i really want to get the first chapter of that posted because i am so excited about this fic and writing it as a new big, long project -- i'm excited about the dark anakin, the differently dark obi-wan, the hunger games set in the gffa, etc etc etc

what is something you learned this year that you'll take into 2024? set is the only acceptable name for anakin to use undercover <3 we will be taking the set cinematic universe into 2024 <3

what's a project you're excited to carry into the new year? um all of my wips lol but especially time & tide and the couples counseling au - i have about half of the next chapter of t&t written, and before i got sidetracked by a more perfect union, i was on track to get that posted by christmas....obviously that did not happen lol but i'm expecting to get back to working on a few more chapter updates at the beginning of this year!

#kit to kit #obikin #i would tag people but i think im really late for this sort of review #and people probably did it a few days ago #but i would love to see any fic reviews other writers do if you use these questions!!!#pls tag me <3

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leonaquitaine · 8 months

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On the subject of generative AI

Let me start with an apology for deviating from the usual content, and for the wall of text ahead of you. Hopefully, it'll be informative, instructive, and thought-provoking. A couple days ago I released a hastily put-together preset collection as an experiment in 3 aspects of ReShade and virtual photography: MultiLUT to provide a fast, consistent tone to the rendered image, StageDepth for layered textures at different distances, and tone-matching (something that I discussed recently).

For the frames themselves, I used generative AI to create mood boards and provide the visual elements that I later post-processed to create the transparent layers, and worked on creating cohesive LUTs to match the overall tone. As a result, some expressed disappointment and disgust. So let's talk about it.

The concerns of anti-AI groups are significant and must not be overlooked. Fear, which is often justified, serves as a palpable common denominator. While technology is involved, my opinion is that our main concern should be on how companies could misuse it and exclude those most directly affected by decision-making processes.

Throughout history, concerns about technological disruption have been recurring themes, as I can attest from personal experience. Every innovation wave, from typewriters to microcomputers to the shift from analog to digital photography, caused worries about job security and creative control. Astonishingly, even the concept of “Control+Z” (undo) in digital art once drew criticism, with some artists lamenting, “Now you can’t own your mistakes.” Yet, despite initial misgivings and hurdles, these technological advancements have ultimately democratized creative tools, facilitating the widespread adoption of digital photography and design, among other fields.

The history of technology’s disruptive impact is paralleled by its evolution into a democratizing force. Take, for instance, the personal computer: a once-tremendous disruptor that now resides in our pockets, bags, and homes. These devices have empowered modern-day professionals to participate in a global economy and transformed the way we conduct business, pursue education, access entertainment, and communicate with one another.

Labor resistance to technological change has often culminated in defeat. An illustrative example brought up in this NYT article unfolded in 1986 when Rupert Murdoch relocated newspaper production from Fleet Street to a modern facility, leading to the abrupt dismissal of 6,000 workers. Instead of negotiating a gradual transition with worker support, the union’s absolute resistance to the technological change resulted in a loss with no compensation, underscoring the importance of strategic adaptation.

Surprisingly, the Writers Guild of America (W.G.A.) took a different approach when confronted with AI tools like ChatGPT. Rather than seeking an outright ban, they aimed to ensure that if AI was used to enhance writers’ productivity or quality, then guild members would receive a fair share of the benefits. Their efforts bore fruit, providing a promising model for other professional associations.

The crucial insight from these historical instances is that a thorough understanding of technology and strategic action can empower professionals to shape their future. In the current context, addressing AI-related concerns necessitates embracing knowledge, dispelling unwarranted fears, and arriving at negotiation tables equipped with informed decisions.

It's essential to develop and use AI in a responsible and ethical manner; developing safeguards against potential harm is necessary. It is important to have open and transparent conversations about the potential benefits and risks of AI.

Involving workers and other stakeholders in the decision-making process around AI development and deployment is a way to do this. The goal is to make sure AI benefits everyone and not just a chosen few.

While advocates for an outright ban on AI may have the best interests of fellow creatives in mind, unity and informed collaboration among those affected hold the key to ensuring a meaningful future where professionals are fairly compensated for their work. By excluding themselves from the discussion and ostracizing others who share most of their values and goals, they end up weakening chances of meaningful change; we need to understand the technology, its possibilities, and how it can be steered toward benefitting those they source from. And that involves practical experimentation, too. Carl Sagan, in his book 'The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark', said:

"I have a foreboding […] when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness."

In a more personal tone, I'm proud to be married to a wonderful woman - an artist who has her physical artwork in all 50 US states, and several pieces sold around the world. For the last few years she has been studying and adapting her knowledge from analog to digital art, a fact that deeply inspired me to translate real photography practices to the virtual world of Eorzea. In the last months, she has been digging deep into generative AI in order to understand not only how it'll impact her professional life, but also how it can merge with her knowledge so it can enrich and benefit her art; this effort gives her the necessary clarity to voice her concerns, make her own choices and set her own agenda. I wish more people could see how useful her willingness and courage to dive into new technologies in order to understand their impact could be to help shape their own futures.

By comprehending AI and adopting a collective approach, we can transform the current challenges into opportunities. The democratization and responsible utilization of AI can herald a brighter future, where technology becomes a tool for empowerment and unity prevails over division. And now, let's go back to posting about pretty things.

#stream of consciousness #ai #ai art

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fictionadventurer · 1 year

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@ellakas I'm so glad you asked!

Zachary Taylor is one of those presidents that no one talks about in history class. But the thing is, in the 1840s, everyone was talking about him. He was the war hero of the Mexican-American War. The war itself (a blatant land grab by President Polk) was unpopular, but Taylor emerged as a beloved hero, because was a really good military commander, and because stories emerged about how humanely he treated Mexican prisoners.

Taylor was so popular that both political parties asked him to be their candidate in the next presidential election. He had never held political office. Never shown interest in politics. He had never even voted in a presidential election before! (His reasoning was that, as a military man, he didn't want to serve a commander-in-chief that he had voted against). Yet he was eventually persuaded to run--and win--as the Whig Party candidate.

(Fun fact! His wife, who had no interest in being a politician's wife, prayed that he'd lose the election. Taylor also showed his religious convictions by refusing to be sworn in on a Sunday, so his inauguration was delayed by a day, leaving the US president-less for twenty-four hours).

Even after he was president, Taylor had no interest in playing politics. He wanted to serve the country, not the party. He refused to play political games, purposely not appointing some of the big names of the party to his Cabinet so he could have more diverse voices representing a wider swath of the country. Still in the military mindset of "I give orders and people obey", he was frustrated that he was constantly questioned by Congress, and was very much at odds with them.

The big issue of his presidency was the fact that the US had just gained a ton of land from Mexico, and they had to decide if they'd enter the Union as slave or free states. Since Taylor was a slave-owning Southerner, the Southern Democrats hoped he'd side with them. But Taylor didn't want to expand slavery. First, because it's dumb--it's not like we can grow cotton or sugar in New Mexico or Arizona, so why would we even need plantations? But also because he was coming under the influence of some of the most vocal anti-slavery New York Whigs. To the great anger of the Democrats, Taylor said he wanted California to enter immediately as a free state, and would prefer all the territories to be free states. Before the issue could be resolved, he died. He got violently ill after Fourth of July celebrations in 1850 (because the White House water was still contaminated by human feces), and died five days later, after only a year and a half in office.

A year and a half isn't much time to make an impact. But I'm still fascinated by this president. He was a wonderful mess of contradictions. He was a Southern slave-owner who joined the Northern anti-slavery party. He was against all talk of secession--on the grounds of "I spent forty years serving this country and I want it to stay in one piece"--even though his son-in-law was (I'm not kidding) future president of the Confederacy Jefferson Davis. As a slave-owner and US military leader in the 1800s, he logically can't be a totally good guy, yet I get the sense that he was genuinely trying to be, in the context of his time. And he was showing signs of further character development. If he had lived, who's to say what he could have become, what he could have done?

But we'll never know, because his death left the country in the hands of Millard Fillmore, possibly the most aggressively mediocre man ever to become president (though I have high hopes for Chester Arthur). He actually has a pretty amazing origin story. He was the son of a dirt-poor farmer who apprenticed him to a cloth-maker in what became an indentured servitude situation. He scraped up enough money to buy his freedom and return home. Growing up, the only book he had to read was the Bible, until he turned 17 and bought himself a dictionary. At 20, he started taking adult classes to finally get the education he'd been denied; his teacher was a woman two years older than him who he eventually married. He became a lawyer, and then went into politics, serving in the New York State Legislature. He authored no significant bills. Made no big impact. The main traits people noticed about him were "tall" and "good-looking" (Queen Victoria did later call him the most handsome man she'd ever met). He was just kind of... there.

He was picked as Taylor's vice president for much the same reason Taylor was recruited as presidential candidate--he was moderate enough to appeal to both sides of the polarized political spectrum. New York was the home of the most vocal anti-slavery Whigs, but Fillmore was moderate on the slavery issue. As vice president presiding over the Senate, people mentioned he was "very fair" in how he let both sides speak. And that's like...the best people can say about him.

The question of the slave states eventually produced a bill that came to be known as the Compromise of 1850. Taylor--the enemy of compromise--was against it. Fillmore, a few days before Taylor's death, stated he would support it. After Taylor died, his entire Cabinet resigned rather than serve under a president who supported the Compromise. When the bill passed, Fillmore signed it into law.

The Compromise stated 1) California would enter the union as a free state; 2) the slave trade would end in Washington D.C.; 3) The other territories would decide for themselves if they wanted to allow slaves or not. Most importantly, it put the Fugitive Slave Act into effect, requiring all citizens, even in Northern states, to help return runaway slaves to their owners. The North was outraged over the Fugitive Slave Act; they wanted nothing to do with the practice of slavery and now the government was forcing even free states to support the institution. This law was meant to bring together both sides and prevent war, but it probably had the opposite effect, deepening the divide and hastening the plunge toward armed conflict.

This has led historians to speculate--if the more forceful, principle-driven Taylor had lived, could the path to Civil War at least have been delayed? No way to say, of course; maybe Taylor's solution would have made things worse. But the contrast between these two presidents is so fascinating. In Taylor, you have the apolitical war hero who sticks to his guns--the increasingly anti-slavery slave owner. Meanwhile, Fillmore is a bland politician from the most anti-slavery state who refused to speak against slavery--a man who never really achieved anything because he never really stood for anything. They're such complex characters, full of irony and contradictions, and I'm outraged that my history classes completely skipped over them on the way to Lincoln.

#history is awesome #answered asks #ellakas #my reaction to the taylor episode was outrage i'd never known any of this #the only thing animaniacs taught me about him was he 'liked to smoke his breath killed friends whenever he spoke'#(which is a tidbit the podcast failed to mention)#i feel like there should have been *something* about this guy's ridiculously colorful life worth mentioning #now i'll have to fight the urge to track down my brother again to tell him i forgot to mention the jefferson davis thing #talk about irony!#presidential talk

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torchship-rpg · 9 months

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Dev Diary 10 - Martians & Spacers

Hello cosmonauts! Today we’re going to go into some more detail on human identities (don’t worry, we’ll get to aliens soon enough). Torchship development is progressing behind the scenes, albeit a bit slowly (the last two weeks especially have been hellish), and in particular we’re working on a revision of some of our core systems in a way that hopefully we can touch on in our next dev diary.

Until then, let’s wrap up the Sol-based human identities today.

Spacers

It’s safe to say that humanity in Torchship are a bunch of space cadets, and an awful lot of them were eager to live in space the moment the opportunity arose. The result is that, in the year 2169, there are entire cities floating free in the Sol system, and thousands of small stations for mining, processing, and refining the near-limitless resources of the asteroid belt and Oort cloud.

Spacers live in much-reduced gravity to the Earth norm; 0.35g is the ‘standard’, originally because of mechanical limitations in the construction of stations and now simply their norm. This means they’re recommended the ‘Freefaller’ trait, just like Lunars. They are also recommended the Radiation Hardened trait, representing modifications and pre-emptive treatment to cope with living outside of a planet’s magnetosphere and atmosphere. This gives you inbuilt reduction against radiation damage in exchange for slower passive healing due to the metabolic cost of those redundancies.

Spacers are divided into two broad categories; Habitat Spacers and Deep Spacers. As the name implies, ‘Habbers’ live in the many purpose-built space habitats which orbit Earth and, to a lesser degree, the other planets in the Sol system. These habitats are enormous technological wonders and a vital step in the space-based economy of the Solar Union, containing the light manufacturing facilities which turn the resources of Luna, the outer system, and beyond into consumer goods. They also help route the people and resources flowing to and from Earth, ensuring the colonies get fed and Earth reaps the benefits of large-scale industry without the environmental cost.

Habbers might live in space, but their day-to-day isn’t much different from their Terran cousins. Their habitats are huge, massive cities with equally large green areas. Standout habitats include L5 Hab, home of Star Patrol HQ and Academy, L4 ‘Guest Star’, the former headquarters of the PLA’s astromilitary and current HQ of Star Force, and Destination Station, the orbital anchor for Earth’s space elevator.

Habbers, especially L4 and L5 citizens, made up a disproportionate amount of Solar Patrol members back in the day, so they get recommended the ‘Veteran’ Trait, scoring you reduced Stress in combat and bonus Security/Tactical certs in exchange for a lowered total Stress threshold. The strong presence of both the play market and shipping bureaucracy come with the Entrepreneur trait; you’re a better negotiator than average because you’re used to these kinds of transactions, but take Stress from both offering the Union’s Credits in negotiation and from the Union being in debt, as you have a much better handle on what it might mean for people when the Union’s economic systems are strained.

By contrast, Deep Spacers don’t live in cushy habs. No, these crusty cosmonauts make their living out in the farthest reaches of the Sol system, mining ice from Saturn’s rings, breaking up distant asteroids, and sending the bounty back on slow orbits. Not long ago, before the FTL drive was invented, this was the farthest you could get from the authority of the Union; most Deep Spacers are anarchists of various sorts who very much prefer their little self-contained communities to the stifling oversight and endless democratic procedure of Earth, who eschew the ration credit and play market for gift economies and black markets of their own devising. Their relationship with Earth never has to get deeper than minerals for biologicals, and most of them prefer it that way.

Still, Deep Spacers are the rock-solid core of the Patrol, because a lifetime on stations and rockets give them unparalleled instincts for the job. They are recommended the same Claustrophile trait as Mazedwelling Lunars and the same Communal Spirit trait as Urban Terrans, meaning they’re great working in a team or on EVA. They also pick up languages quickly with Polyglot, because many of their stations are extremely multicultural, and it's not uncommon for deep spacers to speak five or more languages, plus whatever pidgins are used at their trade posts.

Finally, both types of Spacers are recommended two traits which make them beloved by Star Patrol. Voidborn gives a bonus to patching hulls in exchange for added Stress when the vehicle is low on Supply, representing both their lifetime of decompression drills and their deep awareness of how thin the margins are in space. They are also recommended the Well-Connected trait to always have friends in the Patrol wherever they go, because for many Spacers, this is the family business!

As a final note, Spacers get a unique third sub-identity, the Daedalus Children, which is mostly a way of showing players that they’re free to go wild with the Trait choices even if they’re playing with humans. The Daedalus Children are a small group of artificial, silicon-based human duplicates created by the sapient supercomputer running Sagan Station, orbiting the distant planet Minerva 500 AU away from the sun. They have a psychic connection to the Daedalus computer (who they affectionately call their ‘Daed’) through the Patron Being trait.

This gonzo addition makes it clear that this is a big, strange, somewhat silly world, and you should feel free to make your blorbo whatever you want, and damn the canon!

Martians

Let’s go down the gravity well again and meet the Martians. Mars is well on its way to being humanity’s second homeworld by 2169, the result of a near-obsessive colonisation and terraforming effort through the 21st century. More or less the moment fusion engines made it viable, humans were throwing comets into the poles and setting up artificial magnetospheres, excited by the possibility of using their new high-energy toys to create a livable planet in less than a century.

Unfortunately, though perhaps not surprisingly, their maths were somewhat off. Mars is lingering in a low oxygen state, and has too many people and too much infrastructure now to try any of the big flashy high-energy terraforming anymore. Instead, it’ll be slow centuries of cultivating an artificial biosphere before Terrans can breathe unaided on the surface; despite the rapidly spreading greenery and brand new oceans, Mars’s current average surface oxygen level rivals the peak of Mount Everest.

Undeterred, the Martians turned to genetic engineering so their children could play outside. The result is that Martians get recommended the Hypoxic Conditioning trait, which gives them total immunity to low oxygen conditions and a shocking ten minutes of normal activity in total oxygen deprivation. In exchange, they take a penalty to their physical capabilities, reflecting the metabolic changes and the fact they’ve all ended up a good eight centimetres shorter than they would be without the modifications.

Martians also get recommended the Driven and Lone Wolf traits, neurological consequences of this engineering; these traits combine to mean that Martians work best when they’re alone and hyperfocusing on a single task. This may or may not be familiar to some of you, which is very much intentional; Martians are a not so subtle fantastical allegory for neurodivergence.

The two major Martian sub-identities are The Red Frontier and The Dome Cities. The Red Frontier represents what is often thought of as the archetypical Martian lifestyle, even if it’s slowly being displaced; small groups of people living in bunker-like bases deep in the vast Martian wilderness, tending to the massive fleet of agriculture, survey, construction, and maintenance drones which are both building infrastructure and tending the genetically-engineered biosphere of Mars. This job gets them recommended the Machine Minded trait, which eliminates the penalty normally taken when working remotely with machines in exchange for one to social interaction in person.

Mars’ fragile ecology manifests as a strange sort of tundra, with spindly evergreen trees, hardy lichen, and a variety of engineered animals. A lot of work has to be done to keep it all going, especially because insects can’t survive the oxygen-poor environment, which makes pollination difficult. Martians get recommended the appropriate Environmental Adaptation trait for this tundra; they know all about survival in cold, dry environments.

Finally, if you wanted to play one of those terraforming drones instead, that’s always a viable option; we dropped Machine Life in there as a reminder!

The dwellers of the Dome Cities are part of Mars’ high tech industry. Because of the gravity well in the way, Mars doesn’t export much in the way of material goods. Instead, it uses the concentration of expertise needed for terraforming and drone management to make cutting-edge software and media for the rest of the Union, and the cities are where this takes place. Martian cities are much more high-tech than their Earth counterparts, with lots of automated systems designed either to make up for the smaller population, or simply because Martians are already used to making robots do as much work as possible; Machine-Minded is unsurprisingly also recommended here.

Because Mars is a world of specialists, where being the best at your One Thing is a strong cultural value, the Prodigy trait is recommended for citizens of the Dome Cities, allowing them to pick three certs as Focuses and advance them faster, at the cost of advancing the others slower. Finally, the greater reliance on automation sees the Prosthetics trait recommended, representing both the greater reliance on mechanical parts over regrown tissue in medicine and the fact Martians aren’t adverse to a bit of computerised self-improvement.

Digital Elysium

Just like Spacers, Martians have a third, highly-specific sub-identity. Where Daedalus Children are a gonzo departure from the setting’s norm, the citizens of Elysium City instead are instead deeply rooted in the history of the setting. Remember how we said the Star Union isn’t a utopia? Well, this is one of the major ways it has failed, and a resolution is one of the things that can emerge over the course of the campaign.

Forty years prior to the modern day, a group of Cybernetic Democrats calling themselves the Lab Rats hatched the brilliant scheme to all move to one of the brand-new Martian cities together and use their newfound political majority to set up one of their predictive networks, peacefully starting the cybernetic revolution on a new world. They built themselves an automated city, possessed by a ghost of convenience which always knew exactly what you needed, always had a train ready when you reached the station, and always had a task you wanted to do ready to go every time you looked at your smart watch. It was efficient, seamless, responsive, and incredibly alienating, replacing any real sense of community with quest markers in your smart glasses.

When vital colonists tried to leave the city, the algorithm predicted the majority wouldn’t like that, and it locked the doors to stop them. Then the Solar Guard showed up to the ‘hostage situation’. Nobody listened to one another, both sides refused to understand what was going on. The Solar Guard rolled in tanks, and the algorithm helped the Lab Rats ambush them. After a month of brutal street to street fighting, the first war on another world, the Solar Guard retreated, and bombed the city with jumpjets until the terrified defenders lost hope. Once the majority no longer wanted to fight, the algorithm dutifully switched off.

Forty years later, Elysium City is still under military occupation. It was supposed to be brief, but the neighbouring cities who now have the controlling vote keep extending it whenever violence flares up, and each extension radicalises a new generation of Elysium citizens. Both sides are incredibly unpopular with a majority who just want peace and a greater Union who find it all monstrous, but the systems of the Solar Union are paralyzed by their own democratic checks and balances, leaving the city in a horrible limbo.

If you want to be from Elysium, you get recommended a whole pile of traits reflecting the extreme circumstance. Vengeful and Fretful are two recommended Traits representing the understandable anger and anxiety which come from living in a city where drone bombing still happens with regularity. Prodigy reflects how Elysium City is the single largest concentration of computer science geniuses in the entire Union, due to the fact that none of them are allowed to leave. Dark History can represent in equal parts being a member of the Lab Rats or the Sol Guard, both staggeringly unpopular organisations to everyone else in the Union.

Finally, Patron Being represents how, despite the best efforts of generations of computer engineers, the self-replicating Network still lingers deep in the electronic bones of Elysium, waiting for the day that a majority want it back. Hackers and technomancers both claim they have made contact with the Network, and this trait can represent your dedication to bringing it back.

#torchship ttrpg #torchship #ttrpg #dev diary #rpg

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dailyanarchistposts · 24 days

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A.2.11 Why are most anarchists in favour of direct democracy?

For most anarchists, direct democratic voting on policy decisions within free associations is the political counterpart of free agreement (this is also known as “self-management”). The reason is that “many forms of domination can be carried out in a ‘free.’ non-coercive, contractual manner… and it is naive… to think that mere opposition to political control will in itself lead to an end of oppression.” [John P. Clark, Max Stirner’s Egoism, p. 93] Thus the relationships we create within an organisation is as important in determining its libertarian nature as its voluntary nature (see section A.2.14 for more discussion).

It is obvious that individuals must work together in order to lead a fully human life. And so, ”[h]aving to join with others humans” the individual has three options: “he [or she] must submit to the will of others (be enslaved) or subject others to his will (be in authority) or live with others in fraternal agreement in the interests of the greatest good of all (be an associate). Nobody can escape from this necessity.” [Errico Malatesta, Life and Ideas, p. 85]

Anarchists obviously pick the last option, association, as the only means by which individuals can work together as free and equal human beings, respecting the uniqueness and liberty of one another. Only within direct democracy can individuals express themselves, practice critical thought and self-government, so developing their intellectual and ethical capacities to the full. In terms of increasing an individual’s freedom and their intellectual, ethical and social faculties, it is far better to be sometimes in a minority than be subject to the will of a boss all the time. So what is the theory behind anarchist direct democracy?

As Bertrand Russell noted, the anarchist “does not wish to abolish government in the sense of collective decisions: what he does wish to abolish is the system by which a decision is enforced upon those who oppose it.” [Roads to Freedom, p. 85] Anarchists see self-management as the means to achieve this. Once an individual joins a community or workplace, he or she becomes a “citizen” (for want of a better word) of that association. The association is organised around an assembly of all its members (in the case of large workplaces and towns, this may be a functional sub-group such as a specific office or neighbourhood). In this assembly, in concert with others, the contents of his or her political obligations are defined. In acting within the association, people must exercise critical judgement and choice, i.e. manage their own activity. Rather than promising to obey (as in hierarchical organisations like the state or capitalist firm), individuals participate in making their own collective decisions, their own commitments to their fellows. This means that political obligation is not owed to a separate entity above the group or society, such as the state or company, but to one’s fellow “citizens.”

Although the assembled people collectively legislate the rules governing their association, and are bound by them as individuals, they are also superior to them in the sense that these rules can always be modified or repealed. Collectively, the associated “citizens” constitute a political “authority”, but as this “authority” is based on horizontal relationships between themselves rather than vertical ones between themselves and an elite, the “authority” is non-hierarchical (“rational” or “natural,” see section B.1 — “Why are anarchists against authority and hierarchy?” — for more on this). Thus Proudhon:

“In place of laws, we will put contracts [i.e. free agreement]. — No more laws voted by a majority, nor even unanimously; each citizen, each town, each industrial union, makes its own laws.” [The General Idea of the Revolution, pp. 245–6]

Such a system does not mean, of course, that everyone participates in every decision needed, no matter how trivial. While any decision can be put to the assembly (if the assembly so decides, perhaps prompted by some of its members), in practice certain activities (and so purely functional decisions) will be handled by the association’s elected administration. This is because, to quote a Spanish anarchist activist, “a collectivity as such cannot write a letter or add up a list of figures or do hundreds of chores which only an individual can perform.” Thus the need “to organise the administration.” Supposing an association is “organised without any directive council or any hierarchical offices” which “meets in general assembly once a week or more often, when it settles all matters needful for its progress” it still “nominates a commission with strictly administrative functions.” However, the assembly “prescribes a definite line of conduct for this commission or gives it an imperative mandate” and so “would be perfectly anarchist.” As it “follows that delegating these tasks to qualified individuals, who are instructed in advance how to proceed, … does not mean an abdication of that collectivity’s own liberty.” [Jose Llunas Pujols, quoted by Max Nettlau, A Short History of Anarchism, p. 187] This, it should be noted, follows Proudhon’s ideas that within the workers’ associations “all positions are elective, and the by-laws subject to the approval of the members.” [Proudhon, Op. Cit., p. 222]

Instead of capitalist or statist hierarchy, self-management (i.e. direct democracy) would be the guiding principle of the freely joined associations that make up a free society. This would apply to the federations of associations an anarchist society would need to function. “All the commissions or delegations nominated in an anarchist society,” correctly argued Jose Llunas Pujols, “must be subject to replacement and recall at any time by the permanent suffrage of the section or sections that elected them.” Combined with the “imperative mandate” and “purely administrative functions,” this “make[s] it thereby impossible for anyone to arrogate to himself [or herself] a scintilla of authority.” [quoted by Max Nettlau, Op. Cit., pp. 188–9] Again, Pujols follows Proudhon who demanded twenty years previously the “implementation of the binding mandate” to ensure the people do not “adjure their sovereignty.” [No Gods, No Masters, vol. 1, p. 63]

By means of a federalism based on mandates and elections, anarchists ensure that decisions flow from the bottom-up. By making our own decisions, by looking after our joint interests ourselves, we exclude others ruling over us. Self-management, for anarchists, is essential to ensure freedom within the organisations so needed for any decent human existence.

Of course it could be argued that if you are in a minority, you are governed by others (“Democratic rule is still rule” [L. Susan Brown, The Politics of Individualism, p. 53]). Now, the concept of direct democracy as we have described it is not necessarily tied to the concept of majority rule. If someone finds themselves in a minority on a particular vote, he or she is confronted with the choice of either consenting or refusing to recognise it as binding. To deny the minority the opportunity to exercise its judgement and choice is to infringe its autonomy and to impose obligation upon it which it has not freely accepted. The coercive imposition of the majority will is contrary to the ideal of self-assumed obligation, and so is contrary to direct democracy and free association. Therefore, far from being a denial of freedom, direct democracy within the context of free association and self-assumed obligation is the only means by which liberty can be nurtured (“Individual autonomy limited by the obligation to hold given promises.” [Malatesta, quoted by quoted by Max Nettlau, Errico Malatesta: The Biography of an Anarchist]). Needless to say, a minority, if it remains in the association, can argue its case and try to convince the majority of the error of its ways.

And we must point out here that anarchist support for direct democracy does not suggest we think that the majority is always right. Far from it! The case for democratic participation is not that the majority is always right, but that no minority can be trusted not to prefer its own advantage to the good of the whole. History proves what common-sense predicts, namely that anyone with dictatorial powers (by they a head of state, a boss, a husband, whatever) will use their power to enrich and empower themselves at the expense of those subject to their decisions.

Anarchists recognise that majorities can and do make mistakes and that is why our theories on association place great importance on minority rights. This can be seen from our theory of self-assumed obligation, which bases itself on the right of minorities to protest against majority decisions and makes dissent a key factor in decision making. Thus Carole Pateman:

“If the majority have acted in bad faith… [then the] minority will have to take political action, including politically disobedient action if appropriate, to defend their citizenship and independence, and the political association itself… Political disobedience is merely one possible expression of the active citizenship on which a self-managing democracy is based … The social practice of promising involves the right to refuse or change commitments; similarly, the practice of self-assumed political obligation is meaningless without the practical recognition of the right of minorities to refuse or withdraw consent, or where necessary, to disobey.” [The Problem of Political Obligation, p. 162]

Moving beyond relationships within associations, we must highlight how different associations work together. As would be imagined, the links between associations follow the same outlines as for the associations themselves. Instead of individuals joining an association, we have associations joining confederations. The links between associations in the confederation are of the same horizontal and voluntary nature as within associations, with the same rights of “voice and exit” for members and the same rights for minorities. In this way society becomes an association of associations, a community of communities, a commune of communes, based upon maximising individual freedom by maximising participation and self-management.

The workings of such a confederation are outlined in section A.2.9 ( What sort of society do anarchists want?) and discussed in greater detail in section I (What would an anarchist society look like?).

This system of direct democracy fits nicely into anarchist theory. Malatesta speaks for all anarchists when he argued that “anarchists deny the right of the majority to govern human society in general.” As can be seen, the majority has no right to enforce itself on a minority — the minority can leave the association at any time and so, to use Malatesta’s words, do not have to “submit to the decisions of the majority before they have even heard what these might be.” [The Anarchist Revolution, p. 100 and p. 101] Hence, direct democracy within voluntary association does not create “majority rule” nor assume that the minority must submit to the majority no matter what. In effect, anarchist supporters of direct democracy argue that it fits Malatesta’s argument that:

“Certainly anarchists recognise that where life is lived in common it is often necessary for the minority to come to accept the opinion of the majority. When there is an obvious need or usefulness in doing something and, to do it requires the agreement of all, the few should feel the need to adapt to the wishes of the many … But such adaptation on the one hand by one group must be on the other be reciprocal, voluntary and must stem from an awareness of need and of goodwill to prevent the running of social affairs from being paralysed by obstinacy. It cannot be imposed as a principle and statutory norm…” [Op. Cit., p. 100]

As the minority has the right to secede from the association as well as having extensive rights of action, protest and appeal, majority rule is not imposed as a principle. Rather, it is purely a decision making tool which allows minority dissent and opinion to be expressed (and acted upon) while ensuring that no minority forces its will on the majority. In other words, majority decisions are not binding on the minority. After all, as Malatesta argued:

“one cannot expect, or even wish, that someone who is firmly convinced that the course taken by the majority leads to disaster, should sacrifice his [or her] own convictions and passively look on, or even worse, should support a policy he [or she] considers wrong.” [Errico Malatesta: His Life and Ideas, p. 132]

Even the Individual Anarchist Lysander Spooner acknowledged that direct democracy has its uses when he noted that ”[a]ll, or nearly all, voluntary associations give a majority, or some other portion of the members less than the whole, the right to use some limited discretion as to the means to be used to accomplish the ends in view.” However, only the unanimous decision of a jury (which would “judge the law, and the justice of the law”) could determine individual rights as this “tribunal fairly represent[s] the whole people” as “no law can rightfully be enforced by the association in its corporate capacity, against the goods, rights, or person of any individual, except it be such as all members of the association agree that it may enforce” (his support of juries results from Spooner acknowledging that it “would be impossible in practice” for all members of an association to agree) [Trial by Jury, p. 130-1f, p. 134, p. 214, p. 152 and p. 132]

Thus direct democracy and individual/minority rights need not clash. In practice, we can imagine direct democracy would be used to make most decisions within most associations (perhaps with super-majorities required for fundamental decisions) plus some combination of a jury system and minority protest/direct action and evaluate/protect minority claims/rights in an anarchist society. The actual forms of freedom can only be created through practical experience by the people directly involved.

Lastly, we must stress that anarchist support for direct democracy does not mean that this solution is to be favoured in all circumstances. For example, many small associations may favour consensus decision making (see the next section on consensus and why most anarchists do not think that it is a viable alternative to direct democracy). However, most anarchists think that direct democracy within free association is the best (and most realistic) form of organisation which is consistent with anarchist principles of individual freedom, dignity and equality.

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eretzyisrael · 17 days

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by Robert Williams

To assess correctly the damage that Qatari influence in the US is causing, it is essential to understand what Qatar stands for and promotes. Qatar has for decades cultivated a close relationship with the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, whose motto is: “‘Allah is our objective; the Prophet is our leader; the Quran is our law; Jihad is our way; dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.” It aims to ensure that Islamic law, Sharia, governs all countries and all matters.

Hamas, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, has enjoyed Qatar as its main sponsor, to the tune of up to $360 million a year, and was until recently the home of Hamas’ leadership. In 2012, Ismail Haniyeh, head of the terrorist group’s political bureau, Mousa Abu Marzook, and Khaled Mashaal, among others, moved to Qatar for a life of luxury. This month, likely because of Israel’s announcement that it will hunt down and eliminate Hamas leaders in Qatar and Turkey, the Qatar-based Hamas officials reportedly fled to other countries.

Qatar was also home to Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, who was exiled from Egypt until his death in September 2022. According to the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center:

💬 “Qaradawi is mainly known as the key figure in shaping the concept of violent jihad and the one who allowed carrying out terror attacks, including suicide bombing attacks, against Israeli citizens, the US forces in Iraq, and some of the Arab regimes. Because of that, he was banned from entering Western countries and some Arab countries…. In 1999, he was banned from entering the USA. In 2009, he was banned from entering Britain…”

Qaradawi also founded many radical Islamist organizations which are funded by Qatar. These include the International Union of Muslim Scholars, which released a statement that called the October 7 massacre perpetrated by Hamas against communities in southern Israel an “effective” and “mandatory development of legitimate resistance” and said that Muslims have a religious duty to support their brothers and sisters “throughout all of Palestine, especially in Al-Aqsa, Jerusalem, and Gaza.”

Qatar is still home to the lavishly-funded television network Al Jazeera, founded in 1996 by Qatar’s Emir, Sheikh Hamad ibn Khalifa Al Thani. Called the “mouthpiece of the Muslim Brotherhood,” Al Jazeera began the violent “Arab Spring,” which “brought the return of autocratic rulers.”

In 2017, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Egypt made 13 demands of Qatar: “to cut off relations with Iran, shutter Al Jazeera, and stop granting Qatari citizenship to other countries’ exiled oppositionists.” They subsequently cut ties with Qatar over its failure to agree to any of the demands, including ending its support for terrorism, the Muslim Brotherhood, and Al Jazeera.

The Saudi state-run news agency SPA said at the time:

💬 “[Qatar] embraces multiple terrorist and sectarian groups aimed at disturbing stability in the region, including the Muslim Brotherhood, ISIS [Islamic State] and al-Qaeda, and promotes the message and schemes of these groups through their media constantly,”

US universities and colleges are happy to see this kind of influence on their campuses in exchange for billions of dollars in Qatari donations. According to ISGAP:

💬 “[F]oreign donations from Qatar, especially, have had a substantial impact on fomenting growing levels of antisemitic discourse and campus politics at US universities, as well as growing support for anti-democratic values within these institutions of higher education.”

#qatar #american universities #ivy league #ivy league schools #foreign influence #muslim brotherhood #yusef qaradawi

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mariacallous · 5 months

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While the failure to break through Russia’s fortified defensive lines on the southern axis this summer has been disappointing for Kyiv, the news on the diplomatic and political front is far more alarming.

Speaking about the progress of Ukraine’s counteroffensive in early December, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told The Associated Press: “We wanted faster results. From that perspective, unfortunately, we did not achieve the desired results. And this is a fact.”

While Ukraine has achieved some limited successes this year, with results in the Black Sea in the summer and a Kherson-region bridgehead firmly established east of the Dnipro River in the fall, the lack of significant territorial gains is a bitter pill to swallow for Kyiv.

But despite these setbacks, with the final taboos overcome regarding providing the heavy weaponry and long-range missile capabilities needed to win this war, the trajectory of the conflict was still arguably trending in Ukraine’s favor, according to many Western military experts, just as long as the coalition of democratic nation states maintaining Ukraine’s wartime economy held strong and the arms transfers kept arriving.

Winter’s developments, however, paint a far worse picture. Given the immense risks ahead, it is imperative that Kyiv starts preparing now for a future in which that coalition has fragmented.

In Europe, election victories for allies of Russian President Vladimir Putin in Slovakia’s Robert Fico and the Netherlands’ Geert Wilders have potentially added further blocks on European Union financial and military aid packages. Hungary’s Viktor Orban now has more leverage in his attempts to disrupt the bloc’s Ukraine policy, including holding up a new round of sanctions on Russia and a proposed 50 billion euro ($54.9 billion) aid package, even if his opposition to the EU opening accession talks for Ukraine has been successfully navigated by the bloc.

Orban was previously isolated inside the EU, which overtook the United States as the largest overall donor of aid to Ukraine over the summer. If Wilders manages to form a governing coalition and become prime minister, it could not only imperil the planned transfer of Dutch F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, but also become a major threat to future EU aid packages going forward.

Winter has also seen a truck driver protest in Poland and Slovakia, which have been blocking Ukrainian border crossings in a dispute over EU permits for Ukrainian shipping companies, which has in turn impacted the flow of volunteer military aid coming into Ukraine.

While Kyiv will be disappointed by these events, they are not insurmountable. Support for Ukraine remains high in Brussels, and Orban has proved himself capable of relenting on similar packages in the past, leveraging Hungary’s veto in exchange for EU concessions toward Budapest. Individually, member states such as Germany and the Baltic nations also continue to send substantial military aid to Kyiv outside of the structures of the European Union.

The news from the United States, however, is far more bleak. Speaking to reporters on Dec. 4, White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan laid out in stark terms that the funds allocated by the government for Ukraine were spent, warning that if Congress did not pass further funding bills, it would impact Ukraine’s ability to defend itself.

“Each week that passes, our ability to fully fund what we feel is necessary to give Ukraine the tools and capacities it needs to both defend its territory and continue to make advances, that gets harder and harder,” Sullivan said.

The White House has been trying to pass a $61.4 billion aid package for Ukraine (part of which would go to replenishing U.S. Defense Department stocks), tied together with a package of aid to Israel and Taiwan, which is being blocked by congressional Republicans in a dispute over the Biden administration’s border policies.

Despite a majority of Republicans supporting increased military aid to Ukraine, bills trying to secure further funding have stalled in both the Senate and the House of Representatives since the caucus of far-right, pro-Trump House Republicans ousted Kevin McCarthy as the speaker of the House of Representatives, replacing him with Ukraine military aid opponent Mike Johnson.

After Johnson was elected speaker, he appeared to walk back his opposition to Ukraine funding, in an apparent bid to win over some of his Reaganite skeptics in the Republican Party. However, he has chosen to try to leverage the urgency of the Biden administration’s Ukraine package to advance the Republicans’ anti-immigration platform.

This is no longer isolated to the House, as even pro-Ukraine senators, such as Lindsey Graham, joined Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in blocking the White House’s security package amid chaotic scenes in the Senate. With Senate Republicans falling in line with the legislative agenda of the House’s hard-right “Freedom Caucus” Republican wing, Ukraine will enter the Christmas period under sustained Russian aerial bombardment with depleted air defense ammunition stocks.

The United States is incapable of replenishing those stocks due to the domestic political wrangling of a small band of hard-line, anti-immigration Republican lawmakers, and Ukrainian civilians will likely die as a result of this amoral legislative obstinance. In Kyiv, where I live, the sense that these conservative lawmakers are willing to recklessly endanger Ukrainian lives for selfish political ends is palpable.

The Biden administration has expressed a willingness to compromise in order to try to break the impasse, but there is no certainty in where these negotiations could go. The size of this aid bill is itself a strategic move. The $61.4 billion package dwarfs any of the previous U.S. aid packages to Ukraine (which as of August 2023 totaled more than $77 billion), representing a more “one and done” approach to meeting Ukraine’s military aid needs for the entirety of 2024 and the remainder of President Joe Biden’s term.

If it passes, there will be no further opportunities in the short term for the Make America Great Again caucus to hold Ukrainian aid to ransom.

But the problems don’t stop there. The United States and Europe have both failed to produce enough artillery ammunition to meet Ukraine’s needs, and this shortfall led to South Korea becoming a larger supplier of artillery ammunition in 2023 than all European nations combined. But Korea’s supplies are not limitless, and U.S. and European production is still not at the levels needed to sustain Ukraine going forward. If this shortfall is not addressed, the consequences could be disastrous.

There are more hopeful signs that these problems are well understood, and that the coalition of nations supporting Ukraine remains committed to the cause in the long term. “Wars develop in phases,” said NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg in a recent interview with the German public broadcaster ARD in early December. “We have to support Ukraine in both good and bad times,” he said.

Everything now points to a long war in Ukraine, although none of this should have been unforeseeable for Western policymakers and defense chiefs. Ukraine’s top military c, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, gave a much-publicized interview with the Economist in November, in which he said “just like in the first world war, we have reached the level of technology that puts us into a stalemate.”

These comments, however, despite appearing to create the impression of a public rift between Zaluzhny and Zelensky, are not a concession of defeat from the four-star general. Zaluzhny made clear that he is trying to avoid the kind of grinding attritional warfare that favors Russia’s long-term strategy for wearing Ukraine down.

But a long war also heightens one of the biggest threats. Even if the Biden administration manages to get the new aid package over the line, effectively securing Ukraine’s military funding for 2024, the specter of another presidency for Donald Trump still looms large on the horizon. The polling for Biden less than one year away from an election is deeply concerning, and Trump’s prospects for victory need to be taken seriously, even in the face of his growing legal jeopardy.

A second Trump presidency would imperil not just U.S. democracy, but also the entire global world order, and the consequences for Ukraine could be potentially devastating. Trump’s refusal to commit to continuing to support Ukraine should be setting off alarm bells—not just in Kyiv, but across Europe too, where the greatest impacts from this change of policy would be felt.

Trump’s first impeachment was over his attempt to extort Ukraine to search for compromising material that he could use against Biden in the 2020 election, and there is no reason to believe that Trump has moved on from this. Many in Washington expect that a second Trump presidency will be marked by his desire for revenge against anyone that stood in his way. As the U.S. analyst and author Michael Weiss told me, “Trump’s first impeachment was over Ukraine, and he sees it as an abscess to be lanced. … A Trump presidency would be an unmitigated disaster for Ukraine.”

There are also signs that the Russians are acutely aware of this, and that their strategy in the short-to-medium term is simply to hold out in Ukraine long enough for a Trump presidency to pull the plug on the vital military aid keeping the Ukrainians in the fight. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu recently remarked that the Russians expect the war to last beyond 2025, and in an address to his own propaganda think tank, Putin said that Ukraine would have a “week to live” if Western arms supplies were halted.

Ukraine cannot plan for a war that may extend beyond 2025 without preparing for a potential Trump presidency and all that would entail. The Ukrainian government must prepare for every eventuality, including a White House that is actively hostile toward Kyiv. To his credit, Zelensky appears to have acknowledged this possibility, going as far as inviting Trump to visit Kyiv.

Putin has made it perfectly clear that he sees his war in Ukraine as being part of a wider war that he is waging against the entire West. Western policymakers to take him at his word on this. Putin and his regime have been waging a hybrid war against the West for many years, and he considers his support for European extremists such as Fico, Wilders and France’s Marine Le Pen to be part of that war and part of undermining the Western liberal democratic institutions, such as the EU and NATO, that stand in opposition to Putin’s tyranny.

But there is no single individual on the planet more important to Putin’s global war agenda than his pet authoritarian in Mar-a-Lago.

Moscow’s goals in Ukraine remain unchanged; the Putin regime still maintains maximalist aims in Ukraine and is in this war for the long haul, with the total subjugation of Kyiv as its goal. Putin made his position very clear during his annual news conference. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has also been explicit about this, and Europe should take the ongoing threat that a Trump administration poses to Ukraine seriously. There may well be a potential future in which Europe is forced to carry the burden of Ukraine’s war without its North American ally at the helm of the coalition, or even at the head of the collective defense strategy at the heart of European foreign policy.

Looking forward to 2024, there remains no path to peace in Ukraine without a Russian defeat. Looking beyond 2025, the future of Ukraine as a free and democratic nation-state, and potentially the entire security of Europe, hang in the balance.

This is why Europe, in particular, cannot afford to be complacent in the face of the rising threat of a Trump presidency. Opening EU accession talks for Ukraine is a good start, but until the bloc can match or outperform Russia’s current levels of ammunition production, the tide will start to turn against Ukraine if U.S. leadership on this war continues to falter. The truth is that U.S. leadership on this and on any other pressing international issue cannot be guaranteed.

For Ukraine to stand a chance of victory, its allies must begin preparing for catastrophe now.

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radiofreederry · 1 year

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By 9 ABY, the New Republic had liberated Coruscant, the Galactic capital, and established its government there. After leading the Rebellion and then the Republic through the heady days of the Galactic Civil War, Mon Mothma stepped down as Chancellor, leaving behind a Senate divided into four major power blocs.

THE ORGANA BLOC

Progressive People's Party (center-left, 364 seats): The majority successor to the original Progressive Party which acted as the Rebellion's political wing in the Republic and Imperial Senates, the PPP is majority social democratic and socially progressive. As it carries the Progressive Party's reputation of being the "party of the Rebellion" and the standard-bearer of Mothmism, the PPP enjoys widespread popularity and is the largest party in the Senate, despite surging poll numbers for the opposition after a half-decade of PPP governance. Led by Leia Organa of Coruscant.

Liberal Party (center, 56 seats): Socially liberal and fiscally moderate, the Liberal Party is one of the few parties to survive from the time of the Old Republic in its current form. The Progressive Party was originally a splinter faction from the Liberals, and they affiliate with its successor the PPP in the government coalition. Led by Rees Vera of Mikkia.

Federalist Party (center-left, 39 seats): A social liberal party which advocates for increased decentralization of the New Republic and the establishment of devolved regional governments. Led by Boona Kalan of Taris.

THE IBLIS BLOC

People's Union Party (far left, 122 seats): A socialist party which advocates for the restructuring of Galactic society on a free and equal basis, the transfer of the means of production into the hands of the working class, and the development of a socialist mode of production. In practical terms, the party is democratic socialist and draws strong support from industrial worlds and unions. Local parties such as the Communist Party of Corellia and the Gran Socialist Union are affiliates of the PUP. Led by Garm Bel Iblis of Corellia.

Reform Party (left, 44 seats): A democratic socialist party which argues for a fundamental restructuring of the New Republic into a "Federation of Free Alliances." A successor to the original Reform Party in the Old Republic. Led by Cal Omas of New Alderaan.

Libertarian Party (far left, 2 seats): A loose affiliation of anarchists. Collective leadership.

THE FEY'LYA BLOC

Progressive Conservative Party (center right, 201 seats): A liberal conservative party which is hawkish on military matters and foreign affairs. Generally socially conservative with more liberal factions while remaining economically liberal. The minority splinter of the original Progressive Party. Led by Borsk Fey'lya of Bothawui.

Constitutionalist Party (center, 89 seats): A centrist party, and a revival of the Old Republic party of the same name. Advocates of a return to the structure of the Old Republic as it existed in the High Republic and Republic Classic eras, before what they see as its distortion under Palpatine. The text of the Ruusan Reformations serves as their guiding charter. Led by Waltyr Valorum of Hosnian Prime.

Free Hyperlanes Party (center right, 24 seats): A classical liberal party, economically hypercapitalist and disdainful of government intervention in the market, and supportive of corporations. Socially libertarian. Led by Udo Mopot of Giju.

THE MOTHMA BLOC

Galactic Unity Party (far right, 151 seats): A far right, traditionalist party which advocates for ultraconservative social policies and an immediate cessation of hostilities against the Imperial remnants, arguing that the war was won when the Core was liberated. Often accused of Imperial sympathies and of being a continuation of the Galactic Integralist Party, the state party under the Empire; several GIP Senators have reentered politics under the GUP banner. Led by Leida Mothma of Chandrila, the daughter of former Chancellor Mon Mothma, who does not share her mother's politics.

Core Alliance (right, 10 seats): A coalition of wealthy and influential Core worlds, whose priority is securing and expanding the privileges traditionally afforded them. Led by Jonas Piven of Alsakan.

Anti-Jedi Party (far right, 3 seats): One of the few parties to exist in its current form since the time of the Old Republic. Far right and conspiratorial, it gained some popularity after the Clone Wars due to a conspiracy theory spread by its leader about Emperor Sheev Palpatine being a secret Jedi who had worked with the Jedi Council to seize power, only to then betray his fellow Jedi in order to consolidate power around himself. Currently opposes the nascent New Jedi Order and has taken credit for Luke Skywalker having declined to base it on Coruscant. led by Alyx J'onzz of Tekaris.

#star wars #long post #my writing #some worldbuilding i've been working on with the Italian

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aimeedaisies · 4 months

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The Princess Royal’s Official Engagements in January 2024

04/01 With Sir Tim As Honorary President, attended the Oxford Farming Conference.

05/01 unofficial Sir Tim, as Trust President of the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway, visited emergency work at the Stanway Viaduct near Toddington. 🦺🚂

10/01 Princess Anne, accompanied by Sir Tim, carried out the following engagements in Colombo to commemorate the 75th Anniversary of United Kingdom-Sri Lanka Bilateral Relations;

As President of the United Kingdom Fashion and Textile Association, visited MAS Active in Katunayake. 👚

As Patron of Save the Children UK, visited the Save the Children Sri Lanka Head Office to mark its 50th Anniversary. 👧

As Patron of Save the Children UK, visited a Save the Children Sri Lanka programme at Lady Ridgeway Hospital for Children. 🏥

Called upon The President of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka and Mrs Wickremesinghe at The President's House. 📩

Attended a Dinner given by The President of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka and Mrs Wickremesinghe at The President's House to commemorate the 75th Anniversary of United Kingdom-Sri Lanka Bilateral Relations. 🍽️

11/01 Princess Anne, accompanied by Sir Tim, carried out the following engagements in Kandy and Jaffna to commemorate the 75th Anniversary of United Kingdom-Sri Lanka Bilateral Relations;

Visited the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic, Sri Dalada Maligawa in Kandy. 🛕

Met representatives of the Tamil Community at Jaffna Public Library. 📚

Visited the Halo Trust De-mining site, the United Nations Development Programme and International Organisation for Migration Resettlement site in Muhamalai. 🧨

12/01 Princess Anne, accompanied by Sir Tim, carried out the following engagements in Colombo to commemorate the 75th Anniversary of United Kingdom-Sri Lanka Bilateral Relations;

Visited the British High Commission Office. 🇬🇧

As President of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, laid a wreath at Jawatte Cemetery. 🪦

Visited Vajira Pillayar Kovil Hindu Temple 🛕

As President of the English-Speaking Union of the Commonwealth, visited the British Council. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🗣️

As President of the Mission to Seafarers, visited the Mission to Seafarers Colombo. ⛵️

Visited Hatch Works. 📆

As President of the Mission to Seafarers, attended a Key Supporters Reception at the Cathedral of Christ the Living Saviour. ⛪️

Attended a Reception given by the British High Commissioner to Sri Lanka at the Residence in Colombo. 🍹🇬🇧🇱🇰

16/01 As Patron of Police Treatment Centres,visited Castlebrae Treatment Centre in Perth. 👮🩺

As Vice President of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, and Former Patron of the Heart of Arabia Expedition, attended a Reception at the Royal Scottish Geographical Society. 🌍

Opened the Vertical Farm Engineering Innovation Centre in Inverkeithing. 🌾⬆️

17/01 Held an Investiture at the Palace of Holyroodhouse.🎖️

As Chancellor of the University of Edinburgh, attended a Reception to mark the 60th Anniversary of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence and later opened the Institute for Regeneration and Repair at the University. 🎓🎮

As Honorary Member of the New Club attended the 70th Anniversary Amalgamation Dinner. 🍽️

18/01 As President of the UK Fashion and Textile Association, visited Advanced Clothing Solutions in Motherwell. 👗

As Patron of Citizens Advice Scotland, visited Hamilton Citizens Advice Bureau. 👩‍⚖️

23/01 Opened the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Medical Sciences at Imperial College NHS Hospital in London. 🏥

As Patron of Livability, attended the Thanksgiving Service to mark the 180th anniversary at All Hallows by the Tower. 🎂⛪️

As Royal Honorary Colonel of the University of London Officers’ Training Corps, attended the Annual Reception at Yeomanry House. 🎓🫡

24/01 On behalf of The King, held an Investiture at Windsor Castle. 🎖️

As Patron of Save the Children UK, visited the London Head Office. 👧👦

As President of the City and Guilds of London Institute, visited Cox Workshops Limited in London. 🛠️

25/01 As Royal Patron of the National Coastwatch Institution, visited Cromer Station. 🛟

As President of the Royal Yachting Association, opened Norfolk Schools Sailing Association’s new facilities at Filby Centre, Norfolk. ⛵️

As Patron of National Association of Official Prison Visitors, visited HM Prison Norwich. 🔗

30/01 As Patron of Save the Children UK, visited the Stockton Heath Charity Shop. 🛍️

Visited Jodrell Bank Observatory UNESCO World Heritage Site at the University of Manchester. 🌌🪐

As President of the Riding for the Disabled Association, opened the new Centre and Platinum Jubilee Stables at Reaseheath Equestrian College in Nantwich. 🏇🏼

31/01 Held an Investiture at Buckingham Palace.🎖️

As Royal Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, attended the 10th Anniversary Reception of the Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation at Prince Philip House in London. 🏆

Total official engagements for Anne in January: 41

2024 total so far: 41

Total official engagements accompanied by Tim in January: 17

2024 total: 17

#january was so fab #in royal watching may i add 😂#not irl #i loved the sri lanka tour 🇱🇰#lots of rugby for the next 2 months! and i am very excited #princess anne #princess royal #tim laurence #timothy laurence #january 2024 #aimees unofficial engagement count 2024 #i am keeping track of everyone else’s engagements i just aren’t posting them #if you wanna know their numbers please dm me

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kid-az · 9 months

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All Tomorrows: Vanga-Vangog’s Puppeteer headcanons

Conceptually, the Temptor’s were one of the most interesting of the posthumans, with the males being worker drones and the woman immobile flesh trees with much greater intellect and the ability to control these men. They were however killed off by a comet in canon, unable to become sapient like many other extinct posthumans.

Vanga-Vangog would however explore their potential in the form of their descendants, the Puppeteers. These sapient people would further exaggerate the features of their ancestors, the males being what are effectively mindless meat robots controlled by the pheromones of the much larger, sapient, yet now completely immobile females.

I wish to go on a tangent about the possible culture, values, and the state of their world like I did for his other fanmade species, the Clicker’s

-Due to the male drones being mindless and viewed more as extensions of their body than independent, the act of sexual love is foreign in the Puppeteer’s culture, with romantic love being exclusive to unions between woman. These individuals would act as pen lovers, sending eachother messages, specially made robots/designer drones, and the occasional meetup via their equivalent of Zoom.

-Occasional, these romantic pairs would decide to move into their partner’s tower, living alongside them inside the same atrium room. This was a more recent tradition, as their post scarcity society and technology allowed themselves to be moved easier.

-Because of how individuals couldn’t meet up physically due to the obvious, the Puppeteer's never developed any actual table manner’s, often messily devouring meat, vegetables, and many other types of food via overhang conveyer belts. By the end of their meal sessions, they would be covered in chunks of their food and juices, having to be sprayed by their drones via hoses filled with soapy, scented water.

-Inspite of their seemingly draconian biology, (Often by people mistaking the male drones as sapient, which they are not) their post-scarcity government was one of the most democratic among the Second Empire, with every civilian having equal say and rights in politics. These debates were set up in their zoom equivalents.

-Puppeteers, surprisingly enough, do have fashion. During their ancient history, they would often need to wear thick blankets wrapped around them every winter so as to not freeze to death, and this tradition of having drones make blankets carried onto their modern day, even though they live in temperature-regulated towers. These blankets would be made out of fur and wool of non-sapient cousins, their cotton plant equivalent, or silk, and be very thick yet also soft and secure.

-The male drones would also be decorated, early on by dyeing and tattoos, but later more conventional clothing after it was introduced by their posthuman cousins. And no, their fashion wasn’t gender-based, male drones would be given either female, male, or gender neutral clothing by the queens.

-Baby Puppeteer’s would live right beside their mothers early on, being tended to and cared for by her drones while they would converse. For most of their history, this was the only time female puppeteers would physically meet eye-to-eye. These children, once of age, would often have a tower built by their mothers and her friends, and would move into them to spend the rest of their lives.

-Infertile Puppeteer females, due to their inability to birth males to use as extensions of their bodies, had to be well-cared for by the drones of their friends and/or family, and would traditionally be given the task of being soothsayers or recorders of oral tradition, since their was not much else they could do. The development of robotics allowed these infertile individuals more independence and personal freedom.

-They we’re huge, avid consumers of TV media and literature, with them spending much of their times either reading or watching screens, eating food, talking to friends and neighbors on their screen, or watching their drones and robots perform and do silly antics for their enjoyment. (They’d often recreate other posthuman memes with their drones.)

#all tomorrows #all tomorrows temptor #temptor #nemo ramjet #cm kosemen #posthuman #puppeteer #fanmade species #headcanons #worldbuilding

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