Once upon a time in space (An incorrect summary)

1 King Cole: LOWER CASE LETTERS ARE FOR THE LOWER CLASS

2 Jonny: and here we have a capitalist

3 Cinders: I like the good cop bad cop act you two have going here

4 Rose: oh it’s not an act it’s just that I’m mean and Snow isn’t

5 Cinders: that’s hot

6 Snow: you can’t just kidnap people!

7 King Cole: we all agreed that a celebrity is not a people

8 Snow: where’s Rose?

9 Cinders: what you think I have a tracking device on her?

10 Snow: well do you?

11 Cinders: yeah it’s right here

12 Jonny: are you doing depressed science again?

13 King Cole: when am I not?

14 Snow: I’m not usually a mean person but I’m about to start throwing rocks

15 Briar Rose: I sleep

16Briar Rose: real shit

17 Cinders: we need a plan of attack

18 Snow: I have a plan. Attack!

19 Snow: rude

20 Rose: not again

21 King Cole: are you going to want this back?

22 Cinders: this is fine

Ponk: What should I tell him?

Purpled: Just tell him, "You're beautiful."

Ponk, to Sam: I'm beautiful.

Sam: ....

Sam: Well, I mean, yeah you are Ponkie-

Purpled, facepalms:

@incorrect-capitalist-kings THANKS :)

The touchstone for green building, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification is the most popular standard used by builders in the United States to demonstrate their environmental responsibility in metrics of increased energy and water efficiency. Notwithstanding its contributions to greener design, LEED certification also fabricates innocence for development projects with massive carbon footprints, complex problems of sourcing and finance, heavy demands on municipal infrastructure, and complicity with displacement. Sustainability is the present story of the settler colonial future. Modernism and “slum clearance” were the prior narratives of progress. Not long before that, the story was settlement and civilization on wild lands against savage people.

Undergirding the veneer of sustainability are settler colonial logics. Plantation logics. [...]

The praises of architectural wonders are always part science fiction and part historical myth. They function as advertisements for not yet possible utopias, like the promises of off-world life for earthlings on a dying planet in Blade Runner.

Myth is the pickled narrative of progress that has been preserved, canned, and fed to us on every national holiday.

Behind this myth are the structures of settler colonialism and racial capitalism, embodied by such architectural wonders as the prison, the presidio, the mission, and the plantation. Settler utopianism guides our blueprints, because settler colonists benefit from its architectures of accumulation “here,” and are insulated from its cumulative harm done to no-bodies nowhere. The logic of the plantation, when spelled out, illuminates the present of settler colonialism [...].

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Next door to us, cranes raise the newest structures on our campus colony -- LEED certified of course. [...] To say that a building is sustainable brings smiles to the otherwise concerned faces of students [...]. LEED helps us reassure each other that ours is an architecturally innocent project. Add in a landscape of native plants, water catchments, and a biodigester that creates natural gas torches to light up outdoor patios, and we have a state-of-the-future model worthy of science fiction imaginaries. [...] [O]ur massive sourcing of capital and material and water and gas and electricity are all connected in a web of extraction with its roots in a plantation logic [...]. California cities are named after Spanish missions and presidios, dots on a map connected by King’s Highways and galleon trade routes. Missions were built on plantation economies, and torture, and enslavement, and militarization, and land speculation. Mission Basilica San Diego de Acala and Friars Road and El Camino Real and Manila Galleon routes are the skeletons for our modern-day infrastructure. [...]

Plantation Homes is the name of a homebuilder in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area. Each suburban house is LEED certified. The unabashed use of “plantation” in fantasy-home-building may feel repugnant to some, maybe politically incorrect to others. Yet it is poetically truthful [...] that plantation and sustainability come crashing together in suburban home-building discourse. In this rhetoric, we see the preservation of the plantation meta-narrative, wrapped over present-day settlement, and projected as a sustainable future. The plantation meta-narrative is one of gentlemen farmers and ladylike dames with lives of opulence and leisure; of grateful smiling servants [...]; of native soil without Native peoples. [...]

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The spatial architectures of transport, imprisonment, and resource extraction sustain the plantation.

Today’s capitalist ecology is not different, only much more sophisticated and expansive in geographies, so that the barns and blocks [...] are kept at much greater sociopolitical distance from the amenities of the plantation homes. The manufacture of solar panels leaves toxic landscapes in China. Tesl@ home batteries frack Indigenous lands in the salt flats of the Andes.

Master planned suburbs need no jails as caged persons can be exported to distant townships. Toxins and state violence and homelessness can be concentrated elsewhere.

Indeed, the plantation has “a built-in capacity to maintain itself” through its interdependence with racial violence and extraction in remote elsewheres. Its economies, racial order, and ability to self-sustain through the invisibilized inefficiencies of extraction might feel familiar because we are living its science fiction future.

“The plantation moves through time, a cloaked anachronism, that calls forth the prison, the city, and so forth.”

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K. Wayne Yang. “Sustainability as Plantation Logic, Or, Who Plots an Architecture of Freedom?” October 2020.

Back at it again with the side blogs:

This time it's yet another incorrect quotes blog but it's for what I'm calling the Capitalist Kings.

Basically Sam, Ponk, George, Quackity, Tommy, and Purpled.

They're the only capitalist loving scammers I can trust.

So check out @incorrect-capitalist-kings for some content!

Animation Night 10: Web Animators

First of all, check out this fantastic illustration that @cyborg-sevalle​ drew! (ft. aeon flux, lightning, beatrice, 2b, kainé, the me! me! me! girl and terezi)

The theme tonight is independent web animators. We’re going to sample from the early days of flash animation on sites like Newgrounds and AlbinoBlackSheep, to the growing Youtube animation scene we have today. For some animators who’ve been here the entire time, we can see how their style’s developed over the years.

Some of the people we’re going to see...

Felix Colgrave is an Australian animator who made a big splash a few years ago with his short film Double King, using a fascinating blend of religious imagery, geometric patterns and excellent character design. As well as Double King, we’ll watch a couple of his other shorts, Dry Run and The Elephant’s Garden.

vewn, aka Victoria Vincent, is very mysterious... we know she’s from the States and a pal of Jonni Phillips, but that’s about it! Her animations are incredibly stylish and really capture a sense of brutal capitalist alienation, and she should have way more attention imo. We’ll watch four of her pieces, including her most recent Twins In Paradise.

Cyriak Harris has been at this for years, with an incredible ability to distort photos into growing fractal, body horror patterns, timed perfectly to his electronic compositions. We’re going to watch some of his older work like ‘moo!’, and his most recent film, a music video for The Existential Threat by Sparks.

Andrew Hussie has been a huge figure in the Flash world through the many, many animations he produced for his comic Homestuck. on an animation level, Hussie’s shorts lean on relatively simple motion tweens... but what makes it work is the extremely stylish editing and shot composition and what grew to be a small army of volunteer musicians and artists supplying material. Hussie knows exactly where he can use ‘incorrect’ perspective and repating patterns for greater rather than less effect. We’re going to sample three points in Homestuck: [S] Dave: Ascend to the Highest Point of the Building (one of the earliest significant animations), the (in)famous [S] Cascade (the sprawling 14 minute finale to Homestuck’s Act 5, tying up dozens of storylines all to a series of great tracks, which crashed Newgrounds and even threatened Megaupload when it was released), and then Homestuck’s finale in [S] Act 7, a ten-minute animesque short largely animated by Angela Sham.

Temmie Chang may best be known for supplying her likeness to a certain cat in Toby Fox’s Undertale, but she’s an extremely skilled animator; we’re going to watch her extremely charming short film Potion Shop, about a small witch and a dragon. Chang is a really good character animator and her creatures have ridiculous amounts of appeal.

flash animation in the 2000s was heavily dominated by one particular subgenre: the choreographed stick figure fight, a convenient way for new animators to focus on smooth motion without having to worry about 3D forms and complex drawing. and - as established by a Chinese court in a lawsuit with Nike! - these all come back to one person: Zhu Zhiquiang, whose Xiao Xiao series kicked off the whole thing. We’re going to check out one of the most popular, Xiao Xiao no. 3, which has some silky smooth, well-timed fight choreography.

Stick figures have fought in all sorts of settings, and sooner or later it would go meta. Alan Becker started an inventive series in 2006 where his stick figure battles its creator’s cursor in the Flash interface... which is somehow still going today, maybe the only stick figure series to last this long. We’ll check out the first one.

while we’re in a Newgrounds block, we’ll watch something a little self-indulgent... back when I was very small and watching a lot of age-inappropriate flash animations, I really loved one called Walk-Smash-Walk by Sakupen, a music video about a small robot which hammers nails. On watching it back, it remains a nicely timed and edited little music video.

one of the biggest names in the Newgrounds flash animation scene was Adam Phillips, whose Bitey of Brackenwood series - about a woodland full of charming creatures and a nasty little faun man who runs about causing them trouble, much to his own misfortune - was definitely one of the high points in terms of drawing and animation. We’ll watch the original Bitey of Brackenwood, and a couple of the later shorts. (Incidentally, Phillips is still working on Bitey material, now using Unreal to compose 2D and 3D animation to some pretty gorgeous effect...)

the other big name in Newgrounds flash animation was the three-person South Korean animation team SamBakZa, who produced a series of manhwa-styled short films called There She Is! about a relationship between a cat boy and a rabbit girl in a world where there is a massive cultural divide between cats and rabbits. The metaphor may be a little heavy-handed, but these shorts have a ton of good editing and charm.

next, we’ll head back to Youtube for the most recent film on this list: Little Runmo by Gooseworx, about a squishy character in a Mario-style platformer who investigates the infrastructure behind their supply of lives while desperately chasing a one-up. The sense of humour is very similar to Felix Colgrave, and this short features a ton of great creature designs as things get weirder and weirder.

also on Youtube, we have Swedish animator Guldies, who does some incredible work animating liquids, physics and transformations in clay, all conveyed with some really neat foley.

next, a couple of samples from Betsy Lee’s No Evil series, a fascinating blend of recent and more distant mythology featuring a cast of spirits who are simultaneously Aztec mythological figures, and more modern American folklore characters. And also furries. No Evil has a ton of plot that we don’t have time to show, so I’m going to play some of the self-contained musically oriented episodes and invite you to check out the rest yourself sometime.

recently, there’s been an explosion in people making animatics to play with choreography, timing and the like without the enormous time investment of full animation. One of the more interesting is ToastyGlow’s two-part Church and Heaven, about (as you might guess!) a character battling an oppressive church, all timed to music.

let’s roll the clock back a little, and check out some of the work of Monty Oum, undoubtedly the best fight animator in the machinima space. Monty made a massive splash with his films of videogame characters having absolutely frenetic martial arts fights, such as Haloid and Dead Fantasy... and then he joined the studio Rooster Teeth, first to contribute fight scenes to their long-running Red vs Blue, and then to direct an original series called RWBY, which is by and large a super chuuni excuse to choreograph fights between his characters. Tragically, he died (of complications from an operation) near the end of production of RWBY season 3 in 2015. We’re going to watch two of Monty’s RWBY trailers (which show his style better than many of the episodes), and then one of the last (non-spoiler) fights he animated from RWBY season 3.

machinima hasn’t gone away, but now it’s increasingly identified with Valve’s Source Filmmaker package. as an excellent example, we have the mysterious “McVee”’s End of the Line, which uses Source Filmmaker to tell a story about the TF2 characters with a strikingly similar tone to Valve’s own work. McVee gets a lot of great bits of character animation and weighty action out of Valve’s rigs, and it’s a strong, well-paced short.

multiple have asked, so we’re going to include one Weebl’s Stuff video, Badgers. if you like looping animations with silly lyrics though, oh boy does that guy have you covered.

likewise, David Firth leaves a long shadow, mostly for his early series Salad Fingers about a mouldy, dirty world where a green guy says mildly disturbing things in a funny voice. he’s continued making films, moving into a more photo-manip oriented style to parody the news and tell quite heavy-handed parables such as Cream. but i’m just gonna put salad fingers in unless there’s a really high demand tonight :p

in a different direction, the whole pony fandom thing is now largely regarded as an embarrassing memory, but in its time it was an explosion of fan work. one of the most impressive is the work of Duo Cartoonist, consisting of Spanish-Canadian couple Richard Sirois and Jordana González. we’ll watch their film Children of the Night, which approaches a similar animation quality to the original show. Princess Luna guides a group of children to the Moon in a kind of pied-piper scenario, set to Kate Covington’s haunting cover of a song from the film Hocus Pocus. sadly, Duo Cartoonist have removed their work from the internet following Youtube’s new rules about monetising videos aimed at children, but a fan has preserved a copy for us to watch.

to finish up, we’ll check out the work of Jonni Phillips, starting with her collaboration with vewn A Dog That Smokes Weed, which is kind of a satire on the state of animation nowadays, and has a really neat paper cutout animation style. then we’ll check out a few episodes of her Secrets and Lies in a Town of Sinners series, which strikes a very similar tone to vewn with low-key voice acting and a sketchy, lively art style...

and then if people still want to watch stuff, we’ll be back on the PV list.

Animation night will be playing at 7pm UK time at twitch.tv/canmom, four hours from this post going up! hope to see you all there! in the meantime I’ll be working on some animation of my own.

What can you tell us about your ocs?

alright So! we’ve got the Main 3 who start off the adventure

Sahai (no last name yet)- an Aften (elves with a twist) Battlemage who joined the Aelif military in order to study Majjyk and science because the military is the only group allowed to study Majjyk. She got injured in a military experiment and was stranded, the sole survivor of the Gravity Bomb, but terribly injured. Fruit Loyal, seemingly the only inhabitant of the land that the military tested on. Realizing the mistake of the Aelif military, but not realizing how deep it goes, she vows to protect this small Feyseed and deliver her from her now-scarred home to a safer, kinder one.

Fruit Loyal- a Feyseed. [Feyseeds are considered bad luck by many farmers, as they materialize when the last living plant of a species dies, holding a bottomless pouch of seeds and knowing exactly where on the planet would be the most fruitful for the now extinct breed of tree to re-populate. However, recently there has been a mass materialization of Feyseeds who seem to be popping out of plants who are nowhere near extinction. the new Feyseeds all seem to be traveling in the same direction, which has been frightening people.] Fruit however does not have a pouch of seeds for the tree she was born from (Whispeter tree) and has none of the knowledge that Feyseeds otherwise would materialize with. she was raised by a group of assorted avians, not the least of which is the bone-witch Grandmother Cravidi. the day before the Gravity Bomb went off all of the assorted avians disappeared. she finds herself at odds with Sahai often not only because she kind of blames Sahai for the ruination of her homeland, but because she was not raised in any kind of capitalist society and has a different idea of what ownership is. Together Sahai and Fruit Loyal set out in search of, the seedpouch of the Whispeter tree, the fate of the Feyseeds, and a better life.

Paris of Sále- a wayward prince of the Human kingdom of Sále Ánbaiv. Sále is an isolationist kingdom ever since the rise of the Treading Angels (ask for more detail) and has huge walls keeping everyone out. Paris provided a way in for Fruit and Sahai, undercover as a dock worker. his mother lives on the outside of the kingdom, because, although she was a good queen (more of a political rank than a denotation of a true monarch) and was well loved by the people of Sále, she hated the work and hated the amount of greed and sycophantry she encountered on a daily basis, and how frequently her work to give the common-folk of the kingdom was negated by someone with a personal agenda in the political realm. she left to practice Encantry and train Wyrrm (snake headed lesser dragon) because of this she is called the Wyrrm Doctor. Paris’ mother taught him everything she knows about how to be a good leader, but he doesnt want to be king either. he wants to learn about the Majjyk like Sahai, and leaves with her to study Encantry (the majjykal medium unique to the Human creed)

alright that covers the 3 we start the story with. i might show up with a second part later today outlining

Heathyrr Starsetter- the trans Drivvia (dwarves with a BIG twist) who is in search of an entrance to the Cavern Network--home of the Drivva--to warn them of the Aelif plan to wage war with more fearsome weapons than the world has ever seen.

A Knight Called Clockwise-  a seemingly robotic guardian of The Forest of Graves. it is rumored that they behave erratically... almost like a wild animal.

The history of the Treading Angels, and the event that made travel without an adventurers license incredibly dangerous

the history of the Earthen Peoples (Aften, Drivva, Human, etc.) and why it isnt incorrect to call the Human Kingdoms “human” but it isnt quite right either

ps. feel free to ask more questions, this was fun!

i love that kopil “king in red” craftsequence is such a complicated character and that i can love and hate him at the same time, that i can feel deep empathy for him and also want to punch his jawbone out of alignment, and also, h ave a crush on BIG GAY SKELETON MAN,

like he’s an evil capitalist but also unfortunately i am gay, the voice acting in the audiobooks Does Not Help

like you see exactly why he is the way he is and how he’s trying to do what he thinks is right but unfortunately he is, incorrect, GAH THESE BOOKS.

What do you think is Caliginously attractive to the friendsim trolls? Like what kind of pitch partner is their soulmate?

this got...so long. These are all just opinions too so please feel free ot disagree and engage in discussion about it!

edit: I fucking skipped Elwurd!???!

Ardata - Someone who is much more vicious than the cerulean Ardata feels she is supposed to be.  Someone who doesn’t pretend that things don’t bother them but who is truly unbothered by their acts and who is far less flashy than she is because how dare they!

Diemen - The best meat maker and connoisseur.  He would need to prove he’s the best at eating, finding, getting, meat.  Anyone who is better and is not sharing or helping him to improve is his pitch mate.  the person who will drive him to be the best meat boy.

Cirava - this one is tricky because I don’t see Cirava as having much of a non-platonic hatred for others.  They seem to be someone who either is ok with you or just wants you to disappear.  It would have to start as a petty rivalry online - either about music or creating in general.  It would be a slow burn and require someone who is also not super into the black quadrant either - roasting that goes a little too far but nothing physically violent.

Bronya - Someone who is staunchly about the jade rules of culling.  Who questions Barony's every move and makes her feel as though she is not fit to be the head of her jades.  Someone who makes her prove her worth of being in charge

Skylla -  Someone who has no respect for nature or animals.  Someone who seems them as trivial and a waste.  Bronya would not be able to let someone like that go on without proving to them how incorrect they are about the natural world and the importance of hard work

Tagora - Someone boring and stuffy with no imagination or eye for decadence.  

Vikare - Someone who - not only doesn’t believe in flight - but who openly disdains it and makes Vikare feel stupid for wanting to do it while simultaneously demanding he prove himself that is can be done. 

Polypa - Someone who can best her in assassination kills and matchmaking.  It would be frustrating and drive her to do more

Zebruh - a better ally than him who is higher blooded

Elwurd - canonically stated she falls for good girls because she thinks she can change them.  She’s interested in someone who needs to be toughened up, who is too nice and too quiet.  She’ll notice them because it’s frustrating for her to see  girl who isn’t at their full potential and seems uninterested in doing so.  

Folykl - someone who doubts her abilities because of the voidrot

Kuprum -  Someone who doubts him because of his blood color.  

Remele - Any one who can prove she’s a fake who has more fans than she does, someone who pulls better heists off 

Konyyl - Someone who makes her feel unintelligent and weak.  Someone who tries to us their with against her and makes her work on a strategy to get to them when muscle alone won’t cut it.  Someone who verbally insults her, likes getting into physical altercations with them

Chixie - Anyone who would doubt her strength and ability because of where she comes from.  Anyone who thinks that high bloods are paying her way and who don’t believe she writes her own music

Tyzias - Someone who questions her morals and dreams, someone who makes her feel powerless in trying to go against the empire while flaunting their own progress towards their means

Chahut - A doubter of her faith among the family.  It would be someone who is entrenched in scripture who uses that to cut her down or make her feel as though she has not given her all to the messiahs.  Someone who is ultimately weaker than her physically but who has pretty good control over their voodoos.

Azdaja -  Someone who doubts him because of his blood color and claims he’s a cheater.  Someone who calls him delusional and doesn't play by his rules.  

Zebede - someone who is better at writing.  Someone who gets all the best compliments while leaving rude reviews on Zebede’s works.  this would be a fight of words and kudos

Tegiri - the true otaku king who feels they are above the law and gives Tegiri someone to chase and track down. 

Mallek - A better hacker who appears to have little struggles with doing the things Mallek has had to work hard to accomplish.  Someone cocky who rubs their accomplishments in his face and sabotages him

Lynera - anyone who calls her out on her bullshit and is not afraid of her.  Someone who 

Galekh - someone sleazy who uses the rules to their advantages and purposefully misconstrues things

Boldir - someone as intelligent as her, this would be a battle of wits, cunning, speed, and agility. She would want someone who can not only keep up with her but who can surpass her in knowledge gathering, keeping, and who uses it to manipulate others.  

Stelsa - Someone lazy who still does well.  She’d be frustrated by a person who seems to have all the answers but who doesn't put any work in.

Marsti - She’s so unbothered by things...she’s tough tbh...I think someone who is too positive about the future, who thinks that things will go well and that there’s nothing to worry about.  Someone so unapologetically and sickeningly optimistic that it makes her want to prove them wrong but also inadvertently encouraged her to continue to seek out learning about medicine and healing.

Charun -  someone who is - quite frankly - better than they are at art.  They’ll need to be brutally honest in critique and willing to fight through creative endeavors and not so much words or fists.  

Fozzer - all capitalists, landlords, debt collectors, & enemies of the people

Marvus - Someone who doubts his talents, someone who makes it apparent his success is due to his blood color and not his own hard work.

Daraya -   someone who tries to get her to conform to the Jade way of life by saying she isn’t doing enough to change it or society.  The challenge is not making her lose faith in her convictions while also pushing her to do more, by being what she wants to be

Nihkee - Someone stronger than her who doesn’t train and who has no theatrical talents

Lanque - Someone who puts him down for being cloistered, someone who shows off their own freedom and mocks him for his inability to do what he wants.  Someone who is sharp tongued and witted but who doesn't feel the need to be as dressed up 

answered June 4, 2020

Q: it's a weird phenomenon to see bts put on such a radically progressive pedestal bc you're right, most of their positions are bare minimum, middle of the road. even at the height of their "rebellion," their songs focused primarily on the generational divide in korea. i get it, that's honestly a radical thing to put into a mainstream idol song. but messages like "kids these days have it hard" or "the older generation doesn't understand us" are hardly political statements. bts rarely, if ever, venture into anything remotely more specific or radical or active. even the main message of their unicef campaign is just "stop bullying," which is nice and all, but the campaign never addresses the issues that lead to bullying in schools which INCLUDES racism and other kinds of institutionalized discrimination. it's just. stop bullying. even their biggest work of activism is incredibly moderate. bts has marketed themselves as politically conscious, which isn't entirely incorrect, but the fandom has spun its collective perception of their politics out of control. yoongi saying "capitalism is a scam" once does not mean he's a raging socialist. collabing with troye sivan and wearing an occasional piece of traditionally feminine clothing does not equal allyship. i do truly believe that bts as individuals have good intentions. but when fans are like "THEY SUPPORT X" there's just. no way of knowing. we don't know anything about their political opinions. i completely understand why people are angry and upset that they're not using their platform to say something, this fandom can really mobilize for good when prompted. do i really expect it since (like you said earlier) bts the entity has made it pretty clear that they aren't going to address Any specific issue At All Ever? no. that doesn't justify it, it just means i came to terms with their silence quite a long time ago and have been enjoying them, as op said, as a mildly aware and uplifting group. anyway there's no pressure to respond to this at all, i know you get a lot of ccs and you put a ton of effort into answering each one. thank you for that. mostly just wanted to voice a frustration to someone and not into the void. (in response to)

A: i'm publishing this without much input bc i think this is very well said. i literally saw a thread once of "hobi supporting lgtbq causes!!!" or something, and i swear to god half the thread was just pictures of him on stage from the crowd where you can see a pride flag somewhere in the crowd. like "oh my god he stood next to a pride flag once!! and then remember that time he wore a rainbow belt??? KING OF LGBTQIA+ SUPPORT!" and i absolutely don't discount the fact that i DO think they try; doing things like not specifying gender when they talk about dating in american interviews, or namjoon saying "gender identity" in his UN speech are certainly not nothing, and i think it's fair for fans to take those crumbs and hold onto them as signs that maybe bts support them, but yeah, i think army loves to get up on their high horse abt how bts are WOKE ANTI-CAPITALIST QUEER ALLY KINGS when there is absolutely no evidence to support that.

asks in response to this one: #1

7 Things About crowdfunding just giving Your Boss Wants to Know

Rob Rhinehart, a co-founding father of nutritional consume begin-up Soylent, declared inside of a site article last week that he was supporting Kanye West for president.

“I am so sick of politics,” Mr. Rhinehart wrote. “Politics are abruptly everywhere. I can't stay away from them.”

David Barrett, the Main executive of Expensify, a company computer software start off-up, went in An additional course. Within an email to his corporation’s ten million buyers previous 7 days, he implored them to embrace politics by selecting the Democratic presidential nominee, Joseph R. Biden Jr.

“Everything fewer than a vote for Biden is a vote in opposition to democracy,” Mr. Barrett proclaimed.

With days to go prior to the election on Tuesday, Mr. Rhinehart and Mr. Barrett characterize the dual poles of a start-up society war which has overtly erupted in Silicon Valley. Commence-ups including the cryptocurrency enterprise Coinbase plus the audio application Clubhouse have become embroiled inside a discussion around just how much politics needs to be A part of the office. And undertaking capitalists and various tech executives have weighed in on social networking with their own individual views.

“I have never observed another occasion like this in my profession,” explained Bradley Tusk, a venture capitalist and political guide. “There’s no authentic separation any longer, in The present political local weather, concerning politics and anything else. It has permeated Totally every little thing.”

Silicon Valley tech staff have lengthy been considered liberal but not politically overactive. Right after President Trump’s victory in 2016, even so, staff at massive tech firms such as Google and Amazon commenced agitating additional on challenges just like the ethics of synthetic intelligence, immigration and climate adjust.

Now many commence-up personnel, who are already marketed on a mission of adjusting the entire world, assume their employers to help their social and political results in, business owners and traders stated. This summer time’s protests in opposition to law enforcement violence prompted quite a few tech organizations to re-examine their own concerns with race. And the strain for making political moves prior to the election has only intensified.

The shift has grown partly outside of a realization that no tech platform is completely neutral, stated Katie Jacobs Stanton, who invests in begin-ups by her undertaking funds business, Moxxie Ventures. Founders who build providers with an incredible number of buyers “seriously have an obligation to have a point of view and ensure their products are getting used permanently,” Ms. Stanton mentioned.

“It’s disingenuous and it’s also the luxury on the privileged to convey, ‘We don’t Have a very viewpoint,’” she included.

But Many others claimed they feared getting a lightning rod or inflaming tensions at a hypersensitive instant over the coronavirus pandemic. Some anxious that their corporations could be sued by staff who could say they had been discriminated versus due to their political beliefs. Other folks claimed any go may very well be attacked by people that discovered the actions inauthentic or not enough.

Those people tensions exploded in general public very last thirty day period when Brian Armstrong, the Main government of Coinbase, penned a two,000-phrase weblog article to “explain” his corporation’s culture. Mr. Armstrong wrote that he preferred Coinbase to frequently avoid engaging with broader social challenges and office discussions about politics. He stated it absolutely was a method to attenuate distraction and target the start-up’s mission of making “an open up economical system for the earth.”

Two months previously, dozens of Coinbase staff members experienced staged a walkout just after executives were being sluggish to precise solidarity with Black Lives Subject protesters and minority workers, many workers said. In his submit, Mr. Armstrong stated workers who disagreed along with his “no politics” stance could go away.

His situation quickly established waves throughout Silicon Valley. Some praised the transfer, with just one Coinbase investor comparing Mr. Armstrong to Michael “Jordan in his key.” Other people stated opting outside of politics was alone a political assertion.

Dick Costolo, a former Main government of Twitter, tweeted that “me-first capitalists who Believe you could different Culture from company” might be shot in “the revolution.” He deleted the article immediately after, he claimed, it established off violent threats and harassment.

Within an interview, Mr. Costolo mentioned it was impossible for corporations to separate their mission from their effect on the whole world. “If you are trying to independent the social contract within the financial agreement, don’t be amazed when there’s an uprising, mainly because they’re linked,” he claimed.

Some Coinbase personnel disagreed with Mr. Armstrong. “I’m just so mystified by the clear lack of awareness from the web site post,” Ryan King, a Coinbase engineer, wrote on the business’s internal Slack messaging procedure. The concept was reviewed via the Ny Times. “A declaration that we’re not heading to the touch ‘broader societal issues’ fails to admit that we’re a A part of Culture.”

About sixty Coinbase employees, or five per cent of the work force, have resigned, the corporation stated. A spokeswoman declined even more remark.

Fred Wilson, an Trader at Union Square Ventures in addition to a Coinbase board member, claimed within an interview that there were no easy answers for start out-up leaders. “Many, many C.E.O.s have instructed me privately which they would want to have carried out what Brian did but don’t need to go ahead and take warmth that he has taken,” he claimed.

On Monday, Mr. Wilson wrote a web site post about removing begin-up chief executives who have “failed to deal with numerous critical challenges.” The article prompted speculation that he was referring to Mr. Armstrong, but Mr. Wilson reported it had been a metaphor for President Trump.

The political debates among the Silicon Valley begin-ups have ramped up Considering that the Coinbase episode. Very last week, Soylent’s Mr. Rhinehart printed his article supporting Mr. West’s presidential bid. Mr. Rhinehart, who is about the board although not associated with the corporate’s day-to-day functions, also attacked the political process plus the media, writing that “politics has often been based upon jokes.”

Demir Vangelov, Soylent’s Main govt, mentioned Mr. Rhinehart’s article didn't characterize the organization. Soylent’s emphasis is on bringing “the most beneficial comprehensive nourishment to Everybody,” he stated, and it does not acquire political stances.

At Expensify, located in Portland, Ore., Mr. Barrett took a special situation. Soon after paying much more than ten years in Silicon Valley, in which he identified a “uniform watch” that politics was not very good for business, he moved to Portland 4 many years back. Now, he reported, “selecting not to take part is also a alternative — it’s a choice to defend the status quo.”

So when Expensify employees drafted an email to tell customers to vote for Mr. Biden, immediately after concluding in an inside discussion that re-electing Mr. Trump could be a risk to democracy, Mr. Barrett favored sending it out. Although roughly a third of Expensify’s top administration opposed sending the e-mail since it could alienate prospects, The bulk ruled, Mr. Barrett stated.

Last Thursday, Expensify blasted its information to its ten million people. “Not quite a few expenditure reports get filed for the duration of a civil war,” Mr. Barrett wrote.

The e-mail instantly drew criticism and praise on social websites. Job programs, World-wide-web website traffic and client indicator-ups have considering that spiked, Mr. Barrett reported. But he also obtained Dying threats, prompting him to hire non-public stability. No consumers have quit, potentially for the reason that Expensify’s process usually takes months to change out of, he stated.

Tayo Oviosu, Main executive of Paga, a payments commence-up in Lagos, Nigeria, mentioned Expensify’s email had crossed a line. Mr. Oviosu isn’t opposed to providers’ Talking up on social justice concerns, “but that is quite distinct than leveraging The truth that you utilised my individual information to tell me I need to vote in a certain way,” he stated. “That is definitely Incorrect.”

Mr. Oviosu, who was utilizing a demo Variation of Expensify and was contemplating adopting the compensated version, mentioned he now prepared to have a look at solutions. “I feel they shed me entirely on this,” he mentioned.

The start-up culture wars will also be apparent on Clubhouse, in which folks be a part of rooms and chat with each other. The application is a popular spot for buyers which include Marc Andreessen together with other techies to hand around in the pandemic. (Mr. Andreessen’s venture business, Andreessen Horowitz, has invested in Clubhouse, Coinbase and Soylent.)

On Oct. 6, Mr. Andreessen started off a Clubhouse place identified as “Keeping Place for Karens,” which describes obtaining empathy for “Karens,” a slang phrase for any pushy privileged girl. One more team, “Keeping Room for Marc Andreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeessen,” quickly popped up. There, people today reviewed their disappointment with the Karen dialogue together with other occasions when, they stated, Clubhouse was hostile to people today of shade.

Mr. Andreessen and others later on started a Clubhouse home known as “Silence,” the place nobody spoke. Andreessen Horowitz declined to comment.

In a “city hall” Within the application on Sunday, Clubhouse’s founders, Paul Davison and Rohan Seth, have been requested about Coinbase’s and Expensify’s political statements and where by Clubhouse stood. They reported the company was venture capitalist definition still determining how Clubhouse would publicly back social results in and felt the platform really should enable for various points of watch, a spokeswoman stated. She declined to comment further.

Yet even All those wishing to stay away from politics are finding it challenging in order to avoid. On Saturday, Mr. Armstrong shared Mr. Rhinehart’s weblog write-up endorsing Mr. West on Twitter. “Epic,” tweeted Mr. Armstrong.

Many end users pointed out the hypocrisy in Mr. Armstrong’s sharing some thing political just after telling personnel to abstain. Certainly one of his workers, Jesse Pollak, wrote that Mr. Armstrong experienced shared anything with “numerous inaccuracies, conspiracy theories, and misplaced assumptions.”

Shortly following, Mr. Pollak and Mr. Armstrong deleted their tweets.

Ponk: My Valentine is too tall for me to kiss. What should I do?

Tommy: Punch him in the stomach and when he doubles over in pain, kiss him.

Quackity: Tackle him.

George: Dump him.

Purpled: Kick him in the shins.

Sam: NO to all of those! Just ask me to lean down!

@incorrect-capitalist-kings

youre tearing this family apart!!!

Most conservatives, when asked about indigent people, respond by talking about fiscal responsibility. The US dollar used to be based on a "gold standard" - how much gold the US government had in Fort Knox, for instance. The "gold standard" originated from an incorrect belief that medieval economies were based on how much gold the king owned. Actually, medieval economies were based upon swords:  kings, and fellow royals,  had gained the upper hand, so to speak, that allowed them to be the only ones in possession of the highest technology weapons of the time. This advantage had been gained early on, and was passed down from offspring to offspring, as monocracies have inheritable rights. Consequently, members of royalty owned all of their country's wealth, plus, any person who was not a royal. Before the US adopted the "gold standard", the US constitution prescribed that US currency would be distributed as the US government, which was controlled by popular vote, saw necessary.Pres. Nixon decided that basing the dollar on economic forecasts by international banks, was better. Around about the same time, most large US corporations began shifting their manufacturing facilities from the US, to foreign countries; mostly Asian. Guess what? Simultaneously, there was a disproportioned exchange rate between the US dollar and all Asian currency, favoring the sale of imported goods over domestically produced goods, in the US. If the system were "capitalist", and based on Adam Smith's theories of "supply and demand", wouldn't the exchange rate shift in the opposite direction, since more stuff was imported to the US than exported? Even, in spite, of any regulation, which, there is very little of, and little importation tax. Nope. Apparently not. Guess it explains Pres. Reagan's "supply side economy" and "service economy". It isn't right that private corporations, with minimum oversight, should be allowed to create a system that allows them to exploit other people's money excessively. There is nothing in the US constitution to substantiate basing the dollar, or the issue of currency, upon a small group of private corporations' beliefs of how to do that. To the contrary, currency is to be issued, as needed, by the US government.

Top Nine Reasons why Marxism Failed in Implementation

100 years ago (though not on this day) The Soviet Union overthrew the Tsarist goverment to usher in a new age of Utopian politics..and that didn’t go so well (and now a bunch of tankies are pissed at me). So why is it that Marxism tends to not work out so well in the implementation.  Just forward note, I am mostly talking about the schools of Marxism that are descended from Leninism and actually attempted to control a nation, so when Marxists Orthodoxy folk come in and say “Hey Lenin skipped the Capitalist step” yes I know, I”m talking about the Marxist states that actually exist.  

Number 1: Party Vanguardism 

So while the popular image of Marxist revolutions is a giant crowd of people storming the palaces and killing all the nobles, Marxist organization principle was based around Party Vanguardism, basically a small elite group of ideologically pure Marxists will take over the country in a lightning coup, seize control of the goverment and implement the necessary social reforms for the sake of the people.  The idea is that since the average people are far too ignorant/stupid/religious/superstitious/easily confused what have you appreciate the Marxist Utopian vision, they would basically forcibly implement the system upon them from above.  Party Vanguardism came about in the French Revolution with the Conspiracy of Equals as a response to the sort of self destructive nature of French revolutionary mob politics.  Problem is when you give a small elite total control of the country whose primary qualification is their ideological purity you wind up with a bunch of people living in a total fantasy world and people who aren’t actually qualified are put into positions of power.  Small groups like that are also really suitableness to infiltration by opportunistic egotists (Stalin) but also are prone to corruption and autocracy by those within because those in the vangaurd are like “I seize power” and then they are like “I has power” but they never seem to get to the “giving up power” stage....hmmm

Number 2: No Balance of Power 

So why is it that Marxists regimes always become dictatorships (Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Tito, Castro, the Kim Family and much much more) If your nation is led by a single Party who can best implement the great wonderful Utopian vision, then there isn’t really any room for an opposition party.  At first glance this sounds great, no stooges of the capitalist machine trying to gum up reform and plan military coups (that wasn’t sarcastic that happens a lot with right wing opposition parties), but here is the problem.  If you’re regime has no built in mechanism to counter the leadership if they go wrong....then holy shit will they go wrong.  And ambitious morally dubious men will quickly realize “Wait...if I seize control of this goverment, then I will live out the rest of my life as a communist god king cause there isn’t any check on my power”.  And those men will fight to obtain as much power, and once they have it, it is basically too late for the Communist state, because once a dictator seizes power they can ruin the state so thoroughly it is impossible for it to right itself under communist principles, as we have seen in both the Soviet Union and Maoist China.  Because while Marxists never intend to implement a horrible dictatorship, there is not safeguard to stop it, and that is why it always happens.  Absolute power corrupts absolutely.  

Not that I want to defend the US system too much because it is a mess, but Trump obviously wants to make himself into an autocrat...but he can’t, at least not yet.  The system is so decentralized and opposition is so easy that he can’t even get his travel bans implemented.  Power needs safeguards put into place to keep it in check, otherwise autocracy.

Number 3: Militancy 

This isn’t unique to Communism, and it isn’t always the communists fault, but the violent militant methods embraced by the Leninists descended communist (Yes yes i know not all Communists are Leninists many are peaceful I’m talking about the historical states that have existed).   I know that violent revolution gets romanticized but you know why it so many times turns from “overthrow the fate elites” to “Lets murder everybody” is because it starts as it means to go on.  Once violence becomes an acceptable form of political expression, then violence is just going to happen more, and it becomes just easier to murder you’re political opponents than deal with them in other ways. And when you have an external enemy who the state has to be focused on battling on the first thing to go is individual rights, which is why the French Revolution really went to crazy land once they went to war with Austria and we have seen how the American political system deteriorated once we went to a 16 year long war.  Wars make autocracy more likely, and Marxists states often emerge in a state of war.  This is to say nothing of the fact that when you seize power with weapons, the person with the weapons is always going to be thinking to themselves “I can do this again.”

Number 4: Winner Take All Politics

One of the greatest advantage of democracies is that political losers can still exist within society (one of the greatest failings is that there isn’t any room for economic loser).  Because when making an incorrect political move could result in death, people get a lot more scary.  In a democracy, even a horribly mismanaged one, if you lose an election and can go home to move on with your life, the state as a whole is more stable.  If losing a political battle results in death, then people are going to use any means possible to win, and this is why communist auto-cannibalism comes so quickly, because pretty much everybody has their back to then they will gladly destroy the state in order to come out on top or avoid being killed.  Or like what we saw happen with the Great Leap Forward, people knew that if they didn’t meet production quotas they would be shot, so they lied and said they did, which caused those on top to make terrible estimations about how powerful the state actually was and oh shit famine.  

Number 5: Totalitarianism

Totalitarianism basically means that the state has no independent groups, they have a totality of political power.  I have railed long and hard about how states rights are awful and racist and how much I think the states power needs to be curtailed in favor of the federal goverment, but there is a very good reason why I want state governments to exist.  And I”m not talking about balance of power, by having the implementation of policies go to local governments rather than the central goverment, you can adjust policies to address local concerns.  There are a lot of problems with this like Pork Barrel politics, but one thing you avoid is the constant communist problem of “Lets implement a single policy that doesn’t vary across the entire giant country” which worked out so well with the Great Leap Forward....oh wait.  And since there is no recourse...whoops.

Number 6: Religion

I’m am not trying to get into a religion vs. atheism debate here because I find those debates extremely stupid, just from a practical level targeting people’s religion leads to much more violent reprisals because the common people will ignore their own best interest in order to defend their religion.  The French Revolution really lost its international appeal when they targeted the Catholic Church, same with the Russian and Chinese revolutions, just leave the Church alone and your state will just live longer, no matter how corrupt and conservative they tend to be.

Number 7: Poor Incentive Systems 

One of the biggest issues with communist states  is that it kinda wants people to run on ideologies and so either doesn’t design incentive systems to encourage people to do the work they want, or they only rely on “Do the work or I will shoot you” motivation which just causes this mess of ironically enough, labor problems.  it also makes corruption and needlessly complicated bureaucracy inevitable, which compounds with reason 5 and 1

Number 8: Doesn’t play well with others

Again this isn’t entirely their fault, but communist systems don’t really work co-existing with other countries which means that you don’t usually get a good trade relationship going and the benefits of a debt based economy never really come in, which is why they tend to stagnate economically...along with all the other reasons

Number 9: Its Utopian.  

The problem with Utopian political ideology is that it basically makes any middle ground impossible.  After all, if you are going to bring about a glorious Utopia, then pretty much any crime to achieve that end becomes justified. And if the goal is utopia, why bother with the boring regulatory details like a constitution or specific system. While the American constitution is a giant mess of contradictions and bullshit and it desperately needs reform, but one thing I really like about it is that it assumes everybody is a selfish asshole who is trying to take as much power as possible.  So its designed to try to prevent that, and worked well when it was designed...we haven’t updated it for decades but that is a new problem.  You need to design systems to assume the worse, because the consequences of people taking absolute power are disastrous.  And that is always my issue when I talk to Marxists is that they love theory, but kinda lose when you get to details, which is why marxism is always better as a form of critical theory than an actual implemented policy. 

Ironically bemuse this is a long post, the only people who are going to read it...are Marxists.  Evidently I wasn’t having enough fun getting into fights with Neoreactionaries.  

Malcolm X lives

By Monica Moorehead

Malcolm X’s advocacy for the right to armed self-defense against state repression influenced mass organizations such as the Black Panther Party, the Deacons for Self-Defense, the Young Lords, the American Indian Movement and many others. These groups eventually were targeted by Cointelpro, along with countless heroic leaders like Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Assata Shakur, Fred Hampton, Safiya Bukhari, Mumia Abu-Jamal and Leonard Peltier.

Malcolm X’s political consciousness broadened from revolutionary Black Nationalism at home to anti-capitalist internationalism based on his travels abroad, especially to Africa, Asia and the Middle East. He once stated, “The same man that was colonizing our people in Kenya was colonizing our people in Congo. The same one in the Congo was colonizing our people in South Africa, and in Southern Rhodesia, and in Burma and in India, and in Afghanistan, and in Pakistan. They realized all over the world where the dark man was being oppressed, he was being oppressed by the white man; where the dark man was being exploited, he was being exploited by the white man.” (Malcolm X Speaks, 1965)

A week before his assassination, he stated, “It is incorrect to classify the revolt of the Negro as simply a racial conflict of Black against White, or as a purely American problem. Rather, we are today seeing a global rebellion of the oppressed against the oppressor, the exploited against the exploiter.”