#nihil had it coming | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

this-should-do · 4 months

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god i am obsessed eith the tonal shift between ahlf life 1 and 2 in regard to the sense of success at ur accomplisments

in 1, nothing you do ever gives u a sense of success or accomplishment, u killed people, u killed aleins but u have so much more to do. its an empty feeling, oh u killed the tentacles? cool go down the hole, dog urself deeper into this mess. oh you killed the gargantua and turned on the railway? go down deeper into the water and blood deeper into the bowels of the beast you created of the facility. you kill the nihilanth and u look up at the fireworks knoeing you are going to die, you cannot escape the explosion and the mess youve created. ur pulled from the mess and you are told you have guranteed urself a future of killing and endless battles or a battle u can never win. mothing you do matter none of it is worth anything. you are cold and alone and soaked in blood and people are only getting more scared

but in 2 the mood shifts, the smallest battles give people hope for a future. you can kill even a few soldiers and even if you do have to go deeper, the people around you cheer, if only for a moment, theyre alive and breathing and so are you. so many things yo do youre asked to do them again and again and each time these people are excited, thwyre grasping for a semblance of hope til thwir nails bleed and they cheer becuz they are alive and in the sun and watching their breath freeze as they cheer in the cold air of the mountains. the grass is green and growing and its more life than uve seen since before you moved to the middle of a desert to work in a concrete prison far from the warmth of the sun where it bakes all that it touches.

do you think gordon feels the happiness of the rebels? feels a sense of accomolishment in even the smallest thing he does? is he satisfied or fullfilled for helpjng these people? can he feel the sun warm the skin of his face and the bite of eastern european chill on his nose the way the rebels do? does he relish in that he is alive still? is he coming back? or do you think he still feels dull as he sinks deeper and deeper into the recesses of his mind and the concrete cage of balck mesa where his old life died?

#judt thinking about how often citizens and rebels in half life 2 cheer at wven pulling down a sign ir killing a robot #and how joyous and gleeful they sound at the smallest accomplisment #compared to how the guards and scientists get more and more grim the longer the game goes on in half life 1 #things get worse and worse in both games in the forces they face but the world seems brighter in 2 #maybe its becuz things in hl1 can only get worse when ur in the middle of losing ur way of life #vs things can only get better when uve got nothing to lose and every small win is more than uve had for the last 20 years #but its still just so beautiful and tangible #and i love to think about how gordon fits into it all #hes a relic of a different time a different battle where nothing he did mattered #the whole time was a battle against a derivative of nihilism a foreshadow of torment to come from the combine #and he coukdnt win that battle withiur self destructung #is it a sign of whats to come #has he changed? will he change? cna he survuve or is he stuck in a loop of the same battle over and over again #killing himself with everylife he takes as punishment for dooming hjmanity #iwillspeakincessantly #sorry #thinking

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can-of-pringles · 7 months

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Yeah Papa Nihil isn't a good father yet sometimes I still want to imagine the times he held his sons after they had been born ok I'm a sucker for fluff and feels

#he had to at least once come on #the band ghost #ghost band #ghost #papa nihil #ghost band headcanons

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shukruut · 2 years

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sharing a wip to subtly make my way into the ghost side of tumblr

#actually had a lot of fun drawing them because i love adding makeup to drawings lmao #sister imperator #papa nihil #ghost band #i come bearing gifts

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frogatz · 7 months

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ohhh dect ruined me actually

#thought too hard about mirage and now i am so weepy .#something abt the progression since the nihilism dating sim #like . she was so bought into her fear of meaninglessness and death that it was a constant state for her #which liek . i know what it’s like to live like that and Oh My God . GET OUT OF THEREEEEE #when i first read through that intrraction there was a pit in my gut . tbh . so the turnaround was a good reminder #i have also since read the interview where that is said to be at least a little bit intentional. bc it is coming from somewhere real #so besides my point . what i’m saying is that a story where she grows up and changes her mind . is already enough #but then v2 is there and she is staring death and impermanence and meaninglessness in the face again . she has never had to say goodbye #and it is not meaningless :( she remains that it is not meaningless . and she teaches v2 that it is not meaningless . even if it was just to #themselves or eachother #UM . THIS HAS GOTTEN VERY LONG #I LIKE MIRAGE 👍 SO MUCH

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genshin-projection · 10 days

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i don't think i can be normal about Sunday guys

#hsr #hsr spoilers #i haven't even FINISHED it yet but his ideology is so warped. i cheered when i thought Gallagher had killed him for real #im not upset he's alive though i do think it's a bit of a cop-out . but. ouhghhhh something is so wrong with his mind (/positive.)#it's successfully looped back around to loving his character though. when there's a fucked up guy in a story i either #1) get very hostile towards them because i feel like they aren't being portrayed enough like the villain i see them as #or 2) become Obsessed with them forever because they are just so fucking . Wrong. like .#ayato genshin impact falls into both of these categories simultaneously like a fucking electron.#but sunday. he has wholeheartedly landed himself in the second category. i need to dissect him and maybe like. idk. give him a cake (?)??#Come Experience The Joys. Idiot. and also maybe listen to your sister.#honestly i REALLY like robin i think she's super super great and has good ideas #i really really love the like. the.#the contrast between his like. his horrible pessimistic nihilistic ideology. and robins optimistic harmonious one.#like robin seems to kind of... not be able to understand that sometimes nihilism is the only way to survive and that it's a balance #survival is good but hard to break out of... you need to survive enough to be ABLE to live. she seems to idealize living in opposition to it #whereas sunday is like. there are people who can ONLY survive. sometimes living isn't an option because the world is cruel and we don't all #get that choice. sometimes surviving is all you can do. why not embrace that? why not build a place where people can postpone death?#if fulfillment isn't possible... then why not accept placation even if it is a poison to the soul? surely joyful prison is better than death #if all that awaits in the world is suffering then why not let the bird live the rest of its days in its cage... even if it is unfulfilling?#HE'S SO . RHGHHGHGHFHGHHVGJF #he feels like he's on the brink of a misanthropic suicidal breakdown to me. someone fucking help him (but not really)#(i don't think anyone should be subjected to his brain. but i would like to see him get better. actually i think robin is trying for sure)#anyway. very curious how this quest is going to end. i want to rip him limb from limb and then stitch him back together again after #my posts

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elegyofthemoon · 2 months

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bouncing between committing to the 'pull all nihility units' or 'pull all honkai expies'

#avil plays hsr #i got acheron AND bronya tonight so im like 😭😭😭😭???? og honkai trio ..... they coming together KIANA NOWS UR CHANCE........#im just happy lol #originally when i first started playing i was obsessed w nihility characters thanks to sampo #so i was kinda ready to just jump in w nihility #until i got into honkai and then i thought... expies......#as of now i think the only expies i DONT have are luocha and silver wolf (i was trying to get luocha and gave up and switched to acheron)#and well here we are.#uhhh #i actually dont know what im doing w acheron yet #i saw something something debuff and went 'mm welt time'#i had a plan to do an all nihility squad #but. i also needed at least one healer/shield so gjdjdjd #just shakes in seat ig.

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nihils-trolls · 4 months

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What if I made a couple adopts.

#nihil grumbles #ive had a theme ive been thinking of for awhile now #just never got around to it #first comes that reply. been busy

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simply---words · 1 year

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Ghost: Yeah, we’re a demonic band created to spread the word of Satan.

Also Ghost:

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vimeo

Ghost — Miasma (Live IMPERATOUR 2022 - Manchester, UK)

#listening to Miasma for the first time and hearing the sax come on had me in hysterics for 10 minutes #i have to say satan sounds funky af #ghost #ghost band #miasma #papa nihil #saxophone #sax #the sax solo #lord help me #Vimeo

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dear-mi · 15 days

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This is the creation blog, and this technically counts as creation, but let me explain why this post is gonna be this way.

So I made a new class called story walker for D&D, and for it I have too many subclasses all based around abstract concepts. Each subclass correlates to an NPC, and to fully flesh out these NPCs I've decided to fully flesh out a philosophy for each of these abstract concepts.

The first one is Nihility for the story walker Lyth Centri, and oh boy. Now, easy way out was to just make the character a nihilist, but nihilists are annoying and suck so no. Now, thanks a to a certain game, I've been prompted to reflect on the actual nature of Nihility and nothingness, and have lead to the creation of a new form of nihilism, and it's not even founded in abstractism. I'll try to keep that last bit consistent for all of them but no promises.

Either way, this form of nihilism, that I'm just going to call Nihility for obvious reasons, is centered around the actual metaphysical meaning of nothingness, what its nature is, and what its existence implies.

Baseline, there's already a paradox. That is the idea that nothingness exists, and can thereby be classified as something. Empty space and empty time are fundamentally nothing, but the weave of existence being space and time still exist. This paradox is actually very important, as this all relates to the matter of space.

Therefore, the easiest and most comprehensible way to see nihility is to think of it like negative space. When you're drawing or painting, or even writing, there's always the space of what you create and the space that is left empty, this is negative space. It's a common practice for artists to try drawing negative space, in an oxymoronic fashion they're literally drawing nothing and it's just a perspective/mind set game.

So how does negative space and Nihility correlate? Well, they share the same nature. Their existence is the definition of everything else. As the negative space defines the picture, nothingness defines somethingness.

The main technicality here is that aforementioned paradox, in which nothingness counts as something, and is thereby a part of nothingness, unlike how negative space can become filled space but it can never be both nothing and something.

So, then how does nothing, being something, retain the nature of nothingness? Sounds redundant, I know, but it's an important question to ask.

The answer I came to this is as simple as giving. It's a circular motion in which Nihility gives up everything it's not, and consequently everything it is, and that's how it's able to define existence in the first place. So another paradox.

Think of it this way. There are things that we deem possible, and there are things that we deem impossible. When a previous impossibility suddenly becomes possible, then the impossibility loses that concept.

It is the exact same situation here. We have everything and we have nothing. When something comes into existence, it is given up by the Nihility, because it is the definer of existence. The Nihility gives up a form of nothingness so that something can come into existence.

This is not a testament as to whether total existence is finite or infinite, as both could be argued under this principle.

Either way, this classifies Nihility as not a passive quality or a final end point, but rather an active origin that is constantly creating because it is constantly defining the current and new existences. And in order to do this, it has to give up 'everything.'

This makes the metaphysical concept of Nihility the ultimate benefactor and the ultimate sacrifice. In the acceptance of nothingness and the giving up of somethingness, Nihility becomes the defined by which existence is possible. It becomes the origin, the propagator, and the permeance of everything that exists.

So then what does nihilism, in relation to the revealed nature of nihility, entail? First, there's a complete flip. Instead of seeing nihility as the end, it affirms nihility as the beginning. This means that the whole nihilistic ideology falls apart, as the idea of meaninglessness motivated by an end in obscurity is completely revoked.

Our existence has implications when it comes to the greater definition. As we can't actually attest to everything ending in nothingness anymore, we can't say that the actions we take are meaningless. So then, what do we work towards? If Nihility affirms meaning in our actions, what is the meaning? What should we actually be striving for?

I think this question is best suited for personal interpretation, but for me it falls into a mimicry of Nihility. Nihility gives up everything so that existence can grow and be more. Why shouldn't we do the same? If there's any sort of direction in life, it should be towards the betterment of total existence, transcendence of all to be something more and to be something better. This code is founded on integrity and honor and respect. If the Nihility is the ultimate sacrifice, then what right do we have to spit on it?

Additionally, let's take it this way. When does existence end? When does the Nihility stop creating? And I believe that's at a moment of perfection. When existence has reached perfection, when the definition has become totally refined, the Nihility's sacrifice will finally end. And therefore, we should strive for that perfect equilibrium.

As an abstractist, I then relate this to the teleological end of forming an abstract. In forming an abstract, we then add to existence and make it more whole. For a follower of Nihility, this then attributes to the end of the great sacrifice, so from a 'philosophy on meaning' standpoint these two really complement each other.

And morally, a nihilist then is in no way someone who acts in only self interest, rather the complete opposite. To mimic the Nihility to strive for that most perfect definition, then a nihilist would be called to act with total altruism in the best interest of everything besides themselves. Taken to extreme lengths this could be toxic, as it might lead people to total self disregard and self destruction, but that can also be reasoned out. As a part of existence, you do then technically do have a duty to yourself, just first the greater whole, so moderation and proper priority is key.

So boom, perfect metaphysical philosophy. I've made two of these now, so that's crazy. Either way this one's just going to be called Nihility, and those who subscribe to it can still be called nihilists, but like change the first 'i' so it sounds different. Instead of n-I-hill-ist, make it n-i-hill-ist, like how you say 'stick.' That way, it sounds stupid lol.

#and that's the philosophy of Nihility!#basics is that nothingness defines somethingness #it therefore acts as its origin and creator in an isolated circular motion #therefore it is creator propagtor and sustainer #this means we do in fact exist and we do have meaning as we add to the greater definition of all existence #meaning even if we do become dust our existence and actions had some implications and consequences on the existence that comes after us #because of this we should strive for a better existence #and when perfection is met the great sacrifice ends

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piss-stained-jorts · 4 months

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sometimes the symptoms aren't sympathetic and i need you to understand that

#random thoughts #mental health #im just thinking about nihilism again and how this site treats it #and how it's so often a symptom of depression and yeah you'd be a ''prick'' too if you felt life had no meaning and #your brain literally wouldnt allow you to feel joy but fully allowed sadness and anger #you'd try to make sense of your reality any way you could because that's the human thing to do #it's not always broken but in a pretty way #im remembering the time years ago i told my cousin i didn't have any hope and how everything was meaningless #and he responded ''wow that's Deep''#in that sarcastic way people do to write you off #and it makes me wonder how many Pretentious and False Enlightened people are just....people trying to reach out #and using words that don't come out in a pretty way

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mostlysignssomeportents · 8 months

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Greenwashing set Canada on fire

On September 22, I'm (virtually) presenting at the DIG Festival in Modena, Italy. On September 27, I'll be at Chevalier's Books in Los Angeles with Brian Merchant for a joint launch for my new book The Internet Con and his new book, Blood in the Machine.

As a teenager growing up in Ontario, I always envied the kids who spent their summers tree planting; they'd come back from the bush in September, insect-chewed and leathery, with new muscle, incredible stories, thousands of dollars, and a glow imparted by the knowledge that they'd made a new forest with their own blistered hands.

I was too unathletic to follow them into the bush, but I spent my summers doing my bit, ringing doorbells for Greenpeace to get my neighbours fired up about the Canadian pulp-and-paper industry, which wasn't merely clear-cutting our old-growth forests – it was also poisoning the Great Lakes system with PCBs, threatening us all.

At the time, I thought of tree-planting as a small victory – sure, our homegrown, rapacious, extractive industry was able to pollute with impunity, but at least the government had reined them in on forests, forcing them to pay my pals to spend their summers replacing the forests they'd fed into their mills.

I was wrong. Last summer's Canadian wildfires blanketed the whole east coast and midwest in choking smoke as millions of trees burned and millions of tons of CO2 were sent into the atmosphere. Those wildfires weren't just an effect of the climate emergency: they were made far worse by all those trees planted by my pals in the eighties and nineties.

Writing in the New York Times, novelist Claire Cameron describes her own teen years working in the bush, planting row after row of black spruces, precisely spaced at six-foot intervals:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/15/opinion/wildfires-treeplanting-timebomb.html

Cameron's summer job was funded by the logging industry, whose self-pegulated, self-assigned "penalty" for clearcutting diverse forests of spruce, pine and aspen was to pay teenagers to create a tree farm, at nine cents per sapling (minus camp costs).

Black spruces are made to burn, filled with flammable sap and equipped with resin-filled cones that rely on fire, only opening and dropping seeds when they're heated. They're so flammable that firefighters call them "gas on a stick."

Cameron and her friends planted under brutal conditions: working long hours in blowlamp heat and dripping wet bulb humidity, amidst clouds of stinging insects, fingers blistered and muscles aching. But when they hit rock bottom and were ready to quit, they'd encourage one another with a rallying cry: "Let's go make a forest!"

Planting neat rows of black spruces was great for the logging industry: the even spacing guaranteed that when the trees matured, they could be easily reaped, with ample space between each near-identical tree for massive shears to operate. But that same monocropped, evenly spaced "forest" was also optimized to burn.

It burned.

The climate emergency's frequent droughts turn black spruces into "something closer to a blowtorch." The "pines in lines" approach to reforesting was an act of sabotage, not remediation. Black spruces are thirsty, and they absorb the water that moss needs to thrive, producing "kindling in the place of fire retardant."

Cameron's column concludes with this heartbreaking line: "Now when I think of that summer, I don’t think that I was planting trees at all. I was planting thousands of blowtorches a day."

The logging industry committed a triple crime. First, they stole our old-growth forests. Next, they (literally) planted a time-bomb across Ontario's north. Finally, they stole the idealism of people who genuinely cared about the environment. They taught a generation that resistance is futile, that anything you do to make a better future is a scam, and you're a sucker for falling for it. They planted nihilism with every tree.

That scam never ended. Today, we're sold carbon offsets, a modern Papal indulgence. We are told that if we pay the finance sector, they can absolve us for our climate sins. Carbon offsets are a scam, a market for lemons. The "offset" you buy might be a generated by a fake charity like the Nature Conservancy, who use well-intentioned donations to buy up wildlife reserves that can't be logged, which are then converted into carbon credits by promising not to log them:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/12/fairy-use-tale/#greenwashing

The credit-card company that promises to plant trees every time you use your card? They combine false promises, deceptive advertising, and legal threats against critics to convince you that you're saving the planet by shopping:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/11/17/do-well-do-good-do-nothing/#greenwashing

The carbon offset world is full of scams. The carbon offset that made the thing you bought into a "net zero" product? It might be a forest that already burned:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/11/a-market-for-flaming-lemons/#money-for-nothing

The only reason we have carbon offsets is that market cultists have spent forty years convincing us that actual regulation is impossible. In the neoliberal learned helplessness mind-palace, there's no way to simply say, "You may not log old-growth forests." Rather, we have to say, "We will 'align your incentives' by making you replace those forests."

The Climate Ad Project's "Murder Offsets" video deftly punctures this bubble. In it, a detective points his finger at the man who committed the locked-room murder in the isolated mansion. The murderer cheerfully admits that he did it, but produces a "murder offset," which allowed him to pay someone else not to commit a murder, using market-based price-discovery mechanisms to put a dollar-figure on the true worth of a murder, which he duly paid, making his kill absolutely fine:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/14/for-sale-green-indulgences/#killer-analogy

What's the alternative to murder offsets/carbon credits? We could ask our expert regulators to decide which carbon intensive activities are necessary and which ones aren't, and ban the unnecessary ones. We could ask those regulators to devise remediation programs that actually work. After all, there are plenty of forests that have already been clearcut, plenty that have burned. It would be nice to know how we can plant new forests there that aren't "thousands of blowtorches."

If that sounds implausible to you, then you've gotten trapped in the neoliberal mind-palace.

The term "regulatory capture" was popularized by far-right Chicago School economists who were promoting "public choice theory." In their telling, regulatory capture is inevitable, because companies will spend whatever it takes to get the government to pass laws making what they do legal, and making competing with them into a crime:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/13/public-choice/#ajit-pai-still-terrible

This is true, as far as it goes. Capitalists hate capitalism, and if an "entrepreneur" can make it illegal to compete with him, he will. But while this is a reasonable starting-point, the place that Public Choice Theory weirdos get to next is bonkers. They say that since corporations will always seek to capture their regulators, we should abolish regulators.

They say that it's impossible for good regulations to exist, and therefore the only regulation that is even possible is to let businesses do whatever they want and wait for the invisible hand to sweep away the bad companies. Rather than creating hand-washing rules for restaurant kitchens, we should let restaurateurs decide whether it's economically rational to make us shit ourselves to death. The ones that choose poorly will get bad online reviews and people will "vote with their dollars" for the good restaurants.

And if the online review site decides to sell "reputation management" to restaurants that get bad reviews? Well, soon the public will learn that the review site can't be trusted and they'll take their business elsewhere. No regulation needed! Unleash the innovators! Set the job-creators free!

This is the Ur-nihilism from which all the other nihilism springs. It contends that the regulations we have – the ones that keep our buildings from falling down on our heads, that keep our groceries from poisoning us, that keep our cars from exploding on impact – are either illusory, or perhaps the forgotten art of a lost civilization. Making good regulations is like embalming Pharaohs, something the ancients practiced in mist-shrouded, unrecoverable antiquity – and that may not have happened at all.

Regulation is corruptible, but it need not be corrupt. Regulation, like science, is a process of neutrally adjudicated, adversarial peer-review. In a robust regulatory process, multiple parties respond to a fact-intensive question – "what alloys and other properties make a reinforced steel joist structurally sound?" – with a mix of robust evidence and self-serving bullshit and then proceed to sort the two by pantsing each other, pointing out one another's lies.

The regulator, an independent expert with no conflicts of interest, sorts through the claims and counterclaims and makes a rule, showing their workings and leaving the door open to revisiting the rule based on new evidence or challenges to the evidence presented.

But when an industry becomes concentrated, it becomes unregulatable. 100 small and medium-sized companies will squabble. They'll struggle to come up with a common lie. There will always be defectors in their midst. Their conduct will be legible to external experts, who will be able to spot the self-serving BS.

But let that industry dwindle to a handful of giant companies, let them shrink to a number that will fit around a boardroom table, and they will sit down at a table and agree on a cozy arrangement that fucks us all over to their benefit. They will become so inbred that the only people who understand how they work will be their own insiders, and so top regulators will be drawn from their own number and be hopelessly conflicted.

When the corporate sector takes over, regulatory capture is inevitable. But corporate takeover isn't inevitable. We can – and have, and will again – fight corporate power, with antitrust law, with unions, and with consumer rights groups. Knowing things is possible. It simply requires that we keep the entities that profit by our confusion poor and thus weak.

The thing is, corporations don't always lie about regulations. Take the fight over working encryption, which – once again – the UK government is trying to ban:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/feb/24/signal-app-warns-it-will-quit-uk-if-law-weakens-end-to-end-encryption

Advocates for criminalising working encryption insist that the claims that this is impossible are the same kind of self-serving nonsense as claims that banning clearcutting of old-growth forests is impossible:

https://twitter.com/JimBethell/status/1699339739042599276

They say that when technologists say, "We can't make an encryption system that keeps bad guys out but lets good guys in," that they are being lazy and unimaginative. "I have faith in you geeks," they said. "Go nerd harder! You'll figure it out."

Google and Apple and Meta say that selectively breakable encryption is impossible. But they also claim that a bunch of eminently possible things are impossible. Apple claims that it's impossible to have a secure device where you get to decide which software you want to use and where publishers aren't deprive of 30 cents on every dollar you spend. Google says it's impossible to search the web without being comprehensively, nonconsensually spied upon from asshole to appetite. Meta insists that it's impossible to have digital social relationship without having your friendships surveilled and commodified.

While they're not lying about encryption, they are lying about these other things, and sorting out the lies from the truth is the job of regulators, but that job is nearly impossible thanks to the fact that everyone who runs a large online service tells the same lies – and the regulators themselves are alumni of the industry's upper eschelons.

Logging companies know a lot about forests. When we ask, "What is the best way to remediate our forests," the companies may well have useful things to say. But those useful things will be mixed with actively harmful lies. The carefully cultivated incompetence of our regulators means that they can't tell the difference.

Conspiratorialism is characterized as a problem of what people believe, but the true roots of conspiracy belief isn't what we believe, it's how we decide what to believe. It's not beliefs, it's epistemology.

Because most of us aren't qualified to sort good reforesting programs from bad ones. And even if we are, we're probably not also well-versed enough in cryptography to sort credible claims about encryption from wishful thinking. And even if we're capable of making that determination, we're not experts in food hygiene or structural engineering.

Daily life in the 21st century means resolving a thousand life-or-death technical questions every day. Our regulators – corrupted by literally out-of-control corporations – are no longer reliable sources of ground truth on these questions. The resulting epistemological chaos is a cancer that gnaws away at our resolve to do anything about it. It is a festering pool where nihilism outbreaks are incubated.

The liberal response to conspiratorialism is mockery. In her new book Doppelganger, Naomi Klein tells of how right-wing surveillance fearmongering about QR-code "vaccine passports" was dismissed with a glib, "Wait until they hear about cellphones!"

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/05/not-that-naomi/#if-the-naomi-be-klein-youre-doing-just-fine

But as Klein points out, it's not good that our cellphones invade our privacy in the way that right-wing conspiracists thought that vaccine passports might. The nihilism of liberalism – which insists that things can't be changed except through market "solutions" – leads us to despair.

By contrast, leftism – a muscular belief in democratic, publicly run planning and action – offers a tonic to nihilism. We don't have to let logging companies decide whether a forest can be cut, or what should be planted when it is. We can have nice things. The art of finding out what's true or prudent didn't die with the Reagan Revolution (or the discount Canadian version, the Mulroney Malaise). The truth is knowable. Doing stuff is possible. Things don't have to be on fire.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/16/murder-offsets/#pulped-and-papered

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ambreiiigns · 1 year

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people talk too much abt terzo coming back from the dead stop before i start believing there's a real chance and then when it won't happen i'll be so sad :(

#do i think it could be genuinely cool like for the story and not just cause he's my beloved? yes.#do i feel like things have been to weird w him for it to not lead anywhere? yes #do i feel like it would be a waste if it didn't lead anywhere? yeah kinda #but like realistically. i don't think they'll go for that #tobias is many things but Respectfully i don't know if he'd be this clever Lol #but. you know. i wish #but then i truly don't know what COULD be next. would they really do another cardinal???#there can't keep being more secret emeritus kids here and there. not that i doubt that nihil wasn't enough of a manwhore to leave kids #fuckin everywhere that he never knows abt but like. it would be abbit boring & repetitive? but then what are we doing ! i'm soooo intrigued #oh nay #like main reason i truly kinda hope terzo can come back is bc we have a bigger budget now so maybe he can also get a bunch of #nice nice cunty clothes to slay in harder than ever like copia #terzo deserves those lewks way more than copia ever did. so. i kinda hope he #like genuinely 80% i want him back so he can slay and we can play barbie dress up games w him #10% is for a chance to be ciriced by him #10% is ??????#but then i also Don't want him back bc if i think he would have to get new ghouls it makes me sad. he cared his ghouls #i know he already pretty much had a whole new set after the lawsuit but. it feele a liddol sad to me anyway

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hyperfixat · 7 months

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hehe here's this 2k brain rot that @suiana's post gave me (permission proof - not a thief!)

i turned caelus into a they them not sorry. also if the formatting is odd, i’m on my pc and i usually use my phone so.

They’re back. Again.

March has to stifle the screams of anger she wants to let out as the shackles of stillness finally free her. Like ice melting Caelus and Dan Heng begin to move around, continuing where they had left them stranded and abandoned, left to stay stagnant at their whim.

The worse thing is that she can’t even complain, not for lack of desire to do so, no, no she physically cannot voice her complaints. And March knows she isn't crazy, she’s caught the twinge of annoyance in Welt’s eyes when he unpaused; seen the ghost of a scowl on Seele’s face; even the carefully controlled hardened gaze of Dan Heng has cracked before.

The Trailblazer is the only one who hasn’t cracked, obediently stopping when they will them to do so, and ever so happy to come back at their will. March wants to corner them and ask how and why, if they know what's going on, but alas: she must trot along with her friends at their wicked will.

Dan Heng doesn't know what you are, because surely you can’t be an Aeon. Aeons don’t hold the powers you do, even if they did surely there would be some record of you in the archives, right? No Aeon dead or alive has the ability to puppeteer humans, and it frightens him that there is something out there that is using him in such a way. It embitters him, both the unknown surrounding them and the way he is treated; how his whole world is put on a pause while he remains aware. Aware of how the breeze stills and the stars stop twinkling, how the world goes silent. What could hold such power?

A shudder runs down his spine as he follows the Trailblazer’s party.

Welt has witnessed a lot in his time. Nothing quite like them, though.

Himeko has witnessed a lot in her time. Nothing quite like them, though.

Bronya, Seele, Sampo, and Natasha have witnessed a lot in their time. Nothing quite like them, though.

Yukong, Loucha, Fu Xuan, and Jing Yuan have witnessed a lot in their time. Nothing quite like them, though.

Kafka, Blade, and Silver Wolf have witnessed a lot in their time. Nothing quite like them, though.

The different paths they all walk may intervene, as their personalities and beliefs may differ but there is one truth they can all agree on.

They hate you.

Caelus doesn’t. Rather, Caelus can’t help but love you; you gave them life and led them through their trials. You keep them safe and armored. You help them find the words to face others when their mind goes blank.

To Caelus you are the world.

The Aeons came to know of you when Dan Heng’s frantic searches focused on them for a little too long. While he was scanning the records they saw you. You were intriguing from the get go, a pretty thing, sitting comfortably as a figure in the sky. The Preservation and The Nihility, whose current forms allow for more ease with floating went as far as they could to reach you.

Yet you remain just out of reach of the Aeons.

The Abundance uses one of her many arms to steady herself as she crawls along the very fabrics of their reality to get a closer look at you. And what a darling thing you are! Excitement that she hasn’t felt in a long, long time, perhaps for the first time ever fills her up inside. With a shaky hand, she motions for the other Aeons to take a closer look at you.

From there the… shall we say, worship, began.

Nanook, The Destruction, takes note of your fondness for certain characters, and what his darling likes, he likes, so when the Antimatter Legion he has blessed come across the ones you are fond of, their attacks are lighter and they lose his blessing temporarily. Sure, he wished some of the gushing from beyond the sky was for him, but you so rarely see his face on the screen (only ever in the Simulated Universe you put that Caelus through) he can’t blame you.

IX, The Nihility, will not change in their ways, not even someone like you can shift the nihilism they embody, but, perhaps you don’t notice it, your teams deal better damage over time, don’t they? Don’t take their blessings lightly, it took a lot to bring them there.

Yaoshi, perhaps makes it the most obvious (despite you never noticing), your favorite vessels get a wonderfully boosted health bar. You never knew to question how Blade managed to get nine thousand hit points.

It’s hard to pinpoint who thought of it first, perhaps IX or Fuli, but the Aeons, the strongest Aeons, gathered to pull you down from beyond the sky. Through a (top secret) ritual you find yourself being hurtled down like a meteor into the freezing snow of the Outlying Snow Plains.

…

You wake to the kind face of Caelus, which is a bit odd because he’s not supposed to be so… high res. Or real.

“Are you alright, My Lord?” The title doesn’t immediately resonate with you, so you disregard hearing it. When you don’t answer right away they frown in worry, hands moving to yours, gently covering them with their warmth.

“What happened? Why am I here?”

“You fell from the sky, do you not remember?”

“No,” what sky would you have fallen from? You tend to stay on the ground.

Caelus worries their bottom lip and helps you sit up. “Oh.” There’s a pause. “Did you not mean to come here? I thought….”

“Hm?” You prod, gently encouraging them to talk.

“I thought you were coming to see me,” their face is tinged pink and facing down in their lap. Caelus’ hands feel hot and you rush to reassure them.

“I’m glad to see you, but I don’t know how or why I’m here,” you pause, cringing internally. “Caelus.” Fuck, that is their name right? No last minute changes?

Luckily their face lights up when you say it and you find yourself pressed into their soft chest, their arms around you in a bear hug.

“You’re really them.” A breathy, ecstatic phrase. Their face buries into your hair and Caelus doesn’t loosen their hold until a knock at their door.

“Trailblazer! Pompom here, requesting an update on Their Grace’s status.”

Caelus gently detaches themself from you and opens the door to reveal the tiny rabbit-oid conductor. Pompom bashfully rubs their hands together when they catch sight of you awake and looking at them.

“Hello, Your Grace, Pompom is glad to see you awake and healthy.”

What a cute creature, you think. “Thank you, Conductor Pompom.”

They let out a squeak at your words and nod. “Pompom needs to go check in on the other passengers, but let Pompom know if you need anything, okay, Your Grace?”

“Oh, thank you Pompom.” They hurry away, stubby feet padding quickly down the carpeted halls. You turn your head to Caelus, “what was that about?”

“Hm?” Their golden eyes meet yours, head tilting.

“Why did they call me those things, Your Grace?”

“Because you are our God above Aeons. Do you… were you somehow unaware of that?”

The words hit you like a freight train. “No, I’m not.” It’s all you can think to say.

Caelus sits next to you on the bed, placing a hand on your knee. “Yes you are. We can feel it. You are the one that controls this world and gives us life.”

Controls this world… and gives them life… fuck, the game… you’ve been playing these sentient beings. Your tummy hurts at the knowledge .

“Oh, I’m— I’m sorry.” Your eyes prick with tears, the gravity of what you’ve been doing; how you’ve dragged these people into battles for fun. You couldn’t have know, but it doesn’t stop the guilt eating at you.

“No, no, what are you apologizing for?” Caelus’ hands cup your face, a finger catching the tears that drip over the brim of your waterline. Their voice drops to a whisper, “please don’t cry, My Lord.”

You suddenly feel very watched, like a million eyes are on you. Caelus never closed his door. You look up and catch sight of March 7th’s glare. The intensity of it makes you flinch back, making Caelus look up, over to:

“March, don’t give them that look.” They scold the girl, who turns the withering look to them.

“Why are you taking care of that monster? We told you to leave them to freeze in the snow.” The words make your heart sink. Being on this side of such venomous words stings, especially from someone you never would have pegged to be so hateful.

Caelus bares thier teeth, a mix of offense and hurt on their face. “And I told you I would do no such thing to our God.”

“That is no God.” Her voice shakes as does her head, before turning around and walking away.

“Don’t listen to her.” Caelus shakes their head in disappointment. “She doesn’t understand what all you do for us. Please don’t hold it against her.”

…

They, the Astral Express, do not like you. Caelus and Pompom do, they hold you in reverence, which is better than how March, Himeko, Welt, and Dan Heng treat you. It’s all dirty looks and only partially veiled insults. Caelus gets into arguments with them over you.

You hate to think that you’re harming the friendships between them, and when you brought your concern up, Caelus dismissed you saying you are worth it all.

Yeah, there’s that. You’ve tried to explain that you are not God, but they won’t hear you out. :(

It’s a perfectly normal day on the Astral Express when the Aeons come.

Nanook is the first one to descend into the Parlor Car; Caelus and Dan Heng immediately drawing their weapons, The Destruction laughs once, eyes moving to focus solely on you.

“It’s so good to see you, My darling Lord.” His voice is low and deep, and the gold flowing freely from the wounds (?) on his arms leaves a trail on the carpet as he approaches to kneel in front of you. From your peripheral you see Dan Heng and Caelus share a look before lowering their respective weapons.

Nanook, you recognize him from the Simulated Universe blessings screen, grabs your hand, gracing the back of your palm with a chaste kiss. His golden eyes peek up at you from behind long lashes.

“How has the Express been treating you? I regret not being able to welcome you to this existence, but alas the ritual took a lot out of us…”

What.

“Oh, uh,” your eyes flicker around the cabin nervously. “I’m doing alright, th-thanks…”

“Now, now, don’t tease the poor thing,” a beautiful woman (Aeon) walks in, one with many, many arms draped in soft looking, white cloth. Yaoshi’s eyes soften when she meets your gaze. “Hello, Your Grace, it’s an honor to meet you in the flesh.”

Caelus, Dan Heng, March, everyones’ (save for you and the two Aeons) bodies droop, posture faltering. IX, The Nihility, has arrived. An odd feeling, akin to that of a weighted blanket, is pushed onto your body. It’s them, their astral, cosmic form much smaller than what should be made of their status, laying on your body like a boa. They don’t speak, though you aren’t sure they could in this form.

Yaoshi’s eyes flicker with amusement, and Nanook pulls himself up. “The others were unable to make it, but,” her gaze chills and is directed at the crew of the Express. “We all wish to make it known that disrespect, anything short of reverence toward Our Grace, will not be tolerated.”

Welt visibly shudders at the threat, and Himeko shares a look with Dan Heng. They need to reflect on how they feel towards you, tha much is certain.

#verified hyperfixat post #honkai star rail #honkai star rail x reader #hsr #hsr x reader #sahsrau #self aware honkai star rail #honkai star rail aeons #aeons hsr #aeons x reader #caelus x reader #nanook x reader #yaoshi x reader #astral express #astral express x reader

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