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prettycottonmouthlamia · 3 months

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When I was in college, I wasn't the quote unquote perfect activist. I am definitely not immune to making mistakes, especially in the heat of emotional moments. But...let's talk about my experiences for a moment.

-During my first semester of college I joined my university's local PRIDE club. I suggest that we do some sort of clothing drive, and have a place where anyone can give or take clothing. The intent of this was obvious and person: I came from family who either did not really understand my transness or actively disapproved of it and didn't have an income. I could not be the only one. We should be helpful in this way, to our trans brothers and sisters.

Sometime later, someone suggests changing the clothing drive into a clothing sale to fund their Drag Ball. PRIDE under that semester's leadership never does a clothing drive. My vision would not be completed until a couple of semesters later, working with my university's LGBT Center, and working loosely with PRIDE's new management.

-The one thing I failed to notice coming into PRIDE was that I couldn't find other trans women. That didn't bother me, and I was fairly popular early on. This was until someone else came out as a transgender woman. Initially I was happy to have another trans woman as a friend, but I very quickly began to notice the social effect. They were shorter, smaller, and more femme. Their social transition progressed much faster than mine, because they weren't poor. They regularly got many clothes from their friends in PRIDE, even as discussions occurred about a clothing drive. I got nothing. I was being outfemmed.

-I noticed the uplifting of drag performers and drag stars by many of my cis and nonbinary peers in the group. I often asked myself why this happened. For some of these people, drag was almost a lifestyle. The performance of hyper-femininity by someone who was AMAB in the context of a drag show was met with cheers, applause, fandom. Meanwhile, my displays of my own femininity were met with nothing. Those same people never complimented me.

-The president of PRIDE gave a presentation on the history of drag. They mentioned Ru Paul, but handwaved away their trans-misogynistic comments, saying they were unimportant.

-A considerable amount of time later, our LGBT Center did a wide survey of queer people on campus. Some responses by cis lesbians bemoaned a lack of lesbian support groups, and more importantly, that they didn't feel like they ever saw anyone that looked like them at the center. I object to this finding, because I myself am a lesbian, I am what they are looking for and am always at the center. I bring up the possibility that the comment may be transphobic. I am shot down. I was denying other people's feelings. I was a trans woman, not a lesbian.

-A dear friend of mine suggests doing a PRIDE event about learning how to do make-up. This is something I was in great support of, because I did not like the extent trans women were expected in a very short span of time to grasp all the complexities of the role of woman in today's society, when cis women get so much longer. What will not be included is tutorials of using make-up to cover facial hair follicles. They did not want to focus on tutorials about passing. I protest, in part because the darkness of my follicles is something I'm very self-conscious of, and that passing in itself is something that a lot of trans woman want. The make-up event never happens.

-A trans woman is talking about her transition experience. She is notably well off and has gotten a variety of surgeries. She explains this is ultimately the path that all trans women need to take, unless they end up looking like "fishy boys". This notably impacts my friend in a severe way.

-A series of hate crimes strikes campus rapidly. Someone spray-paints the "N" word on one of the school buildings, while conversion therapy pamphlets are deliberately left in classrooms teaching about LGBT subjects. Campus police do not care to investigate. PRIDE and BSU being to work collaboratively on a protest. The atmosphere is very good, there are a variety of different but very good conversations, and both groups work well on various tasks that were planned. The protest does not focus on what happened to LGBT students. Members of the LGBT Center and of PRIDE did not speak. We, who had been working hand and hand, were reduced to a footnote and a one-liner in a chant.

-While asking for more information about the investigation into both of these incidents, myself, the Title 9 administrator, and one of my coworkers, a black queer woman, are invited to a meeting with the VP of Student Affairs and the detective on the case. None of us were made aware of the presence of the chief of police nor of a third officer whose purpose was unknown. These investigations would never result in anything.

-In the issue of the school newspaper that reported on the hate crimes, included as well along side of it was a story about how conservatives felt like they were being silenced on campus.

-When I first went to college, I went to Housing to discuss the possibility of gender neutral housing, which they have on their website. I am told there is none, but they can make an accommodation by giving myself my own dorm room on the men's floor. I had been unable to transition before this point because of living with religious conservative family members. I am told that if I want to have a room on the women's floor, where I would have a more private showering area that was not a public shower with other men, that I would need the gender on my birth certificate changed.

Both of these were lies.

-I have a discussion with my mother about her continuing to deadname me, noting that I did not want to end up confusing my niece once she became old enough to remember my name. This does not change.

This is just, the experiences that I can recall while writing this post. It is not an exhaustive list. Discussing school administrations chronic underfunding of the LGBT Center and the resulting drama that caused over years would be an entirely new post. There's possibly even more stuff that I've simply just fucking forgotten over the years. It wasn't all bad. I met some truly incredible people and did some truly incredible things.

But there was bad. Some of it was general, but a lot of it was trans misogynistic, even if I don't think it was always intentional. A lot of these experiences changed me into the jaded bitch I am today on a lot of issues.

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misnomera · 4 years

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On racial stereotyping of the Haans in TMA...

Right so as someone who is ethnically Chinese I have NO FUCKING clue how I didn’t notice this more distinctly in my initial binge of tma (going too fast and not paying closer attention to character names and descriptions, probably) but the Haan family storyline is, all horror elements aside, pretty fucked up in terms of racial representation re: stereotyping. This got long as hell, but please please please take a moment to read through if you’ve got time for it. thanks.

To start off, the Haans are one of the few characters in tma with an explicitly specified race and ethnicity—Chinese—and pretty much the only explicitly Chinese characters in tma, other than the mostly unimportant librarian (Zhang Xiaoling) from Beijing. But like, Haan isn’t even a properly Chinese surname, at least not in the way that it’s spelled in canon (it should be Han, one a. A quick google search tells me that Haan as a surname has...Dutch origins??).

Of course, that could be chalked up to shoddy anglicization processes within family histories, which certainly isn’t uncommon with immigrant families, so I’m not going to dwell on names too much (although I also find it interesting that John Haan’s name is so specifically and weirdly anglicized that he changed his own surname?? Hun Yung to John Haan is a very big leap of a name change and frankly not very believable. ANYWAY, this is not that important. I don’t expect Jonny, a white Englishman, to come up with perfectly unquestionable non-Cho-Chang-like Chinese names, though it certainly would be nice. Moving on).

What really bothers me about the Haans is how they almost exclusively and explicitly play into negative Chinese immigrant stereotypes. I don’t even feel like I need to say it because it’s like...it’s literally Right There, folks. John Haan (in ep 72) owns and operates a sketchy takeout restaurant. They’re all avatars of the Flesh—and John Haan is Specifically horrific and terrifying because he cooked his wife’s human meat and fed it to his unknowing customers. Does that remind you of any stereotypes which accuse Chinese people of consuming societally unacceptable and ethically questionable things like dog/cat/bat meat (which, if it’s not already crystal fucking clear, we don’t. do that.), which in turn characterize us as horrible unfeeling monsters? John Haan’s characterization feeds (haha, badum tss) directly into this harmful stereotype that have caused very real pain for Chinese people and East Asians in general.

And Jonny does nothing to address that from within his writing (and not out of it either). And, speaking on a more meta level, Jonny could’ve easily had these flesh avatars be individuals of any race (like, what’s Jared Hopworth’s ethnicity? Do we know? No? Well then). Conversely, he could’ve easily, easily had a Chinese person be an avatar of any other entity. So why did he have to chose specifically the Flesh?

(This is a rhetorical question. You know why. Racial stereotyping and invoking a fear of the other in an attempt to enhance horror, babey~)

On Tom Haan’s side, Jonny seems weirdly intent on having other characters repeatedly comment on his accent (or rather, lack thereof) in relation to his race. Think about how, in ep 30 (killing floor), the fact that Tom Haan had spoken a line to the statement giver in “perfect English” was an emphasized beat in that statement, and a beat that was supposed to be “chilling” and meant to signify to us that something was, quote-unquote, “not right” with Tom Haan. Implicitly, that’s saying that it was unexpected, not “normal”, and in this case even eerie, for someone who looks Chinese to have spoken in fluid, unbroken English. Mind you, the line itself was perfectly scary on its own (“you cannot stop the slaughter by closing the door”), so why did Jonny feel the need to note the accent in which it was spoken in? Why did Jonny HAVE to have that statement giver note, that he initially “wasn’t even sure how much English [Haan] spoke”?

This happens again in episode 72 with a Chinese man (and again, his ethnicity is Explicitly Noted) who we assume is also Tom Haan. This one is rather ironically funny and kind of painfully self aware, because the statement giver expresses surprise at Haan’s “crisp RP accent” and then immediately “felt bad about making the assumption that he couldn’t speak English,” and subsequently admitted that thought was “low-key racist.” Like, from a writing perspective, this entire passage is roundabout, pointless, and says absolutely nothing helpful to enhance the horror genre experience for listeners (instead it just sounded like some sort of half-assed excuse so Jonny or other listeners could say “look! We’ve addressed the racism!” You didn’t. It just made me vaguely uncomfortable). And again, having other people comment on our accents/lack thereof while assuming we are foreign is a Very Real microaggression that east asians face on the daily. If Jonny needed some filler sentences for pacing he could’ve written about Literally anything else. So why point out, yet again, that the crazy murderous man was foreign and Chinese?

At this point, you might say, right, but yknow, it was just that the statement givers were kind of racist! It happens! Yeah sure, ok, that’s a passable in-universe explanation for descriptions of Tom Haan (though not John Haan, mind you), but the statement givers are fake made up people, and statement’s still written by Jonny, who absolutely has all the power to write overt discrimination out of his stories. And he does! Think about just how many minor (and major!!) characters are so, so carefully written as completely aracial, and do not have their ethnicity implicated at all in whatever horrors they may or may not be committing. Think about how many lgbtq+ characters have given statements, and have been in statements, without having faced direct forms of discrimination, or portrayed as embodying blatant stereotypes in their stories (though lgbtq+ rep in tma certainly has their own issues that I won’t go into here). Jonny can clearly write characters this way, and he can do it well. So why, why, am I being constantly, repeatedly reminded in-text of the fact that the Haans are East Asian, that they’re from China, that they’re Chinese immigrants, that they’re second-generation British Chinese or whatever the fuck, and that they’re also horrifying conduits for blood, gore, and general fucked-up-ness? It’s absolutely not something that is Needed for the stories to be an effective piece of horror; the only thing it does is perpetuate incredibly harmful and hurtful stereotypes.

And listen, I love tma to bits. It’s taken over my blog. I’ve really loved my interactions with the fandom. And I am consistently blown away by Jonny’s writing and how well he’s able to weave foreshadowing and plot into an incredibly complex collection of stories. But I absolutely Cannot stop thinking about the Haans because it’s just. It’s such a blatant display of racial stereotyping in writing. And I’ve certainly seen a few voices talking about it here and there, and I don’t know if I’m just not looking in the right places, but it certainly feels like something that is just straight up not on the radar for a lot of tma fans. And I’m disappointed about that.

Just, I don’t know. Take a look at those episodes again and do some of your own thinking about why these characters had to be specifically Chinese (answer: they didn’t.). And in general, PLEASE for the love of god turn a critical eye on character portrayals and descriptions whenever they are assigned specific races/ethnicities (Some examples that come to mind are Jude Perry, Annabelle Cane, and Diego Molina), because similar issues, to an extent, extend beyond the Haans, though I haven’t covered them here.

You shouldn’t need a POC to do point out these problems for you when they’re so glaringly There. But for those of you who really didn’t know, hope this was informative in some way. I’m tired, man. If some of the only significant Chinese characters you write are violent cannibalistic men with a perverted relationship with meat, just don’t do it. Please don’t do it.

EDIT: Since the making of this post Jonny has acknowledged and apologized for these portrayals on his twitter and in the Rusty Quill Operations Update, which went up September 2020. A long time coming, but better late than never. This of course doesn’t necessarily negate the harm done by Jonny’s writing, and doesn’t make me much less angry about it, but is appreciated nonetheless. For more on this topic there’s a lot of productive discussions happening in my “#tma crit” tag and in the notes of this post

#tma #the magnus archives #magnuspod #tma 30 #tma 72 #tma crit #racism #sinophobia #racist stereotyping #tw cannibalism #tw violence #long post #tom haan #john haan

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demiboydemon · 4 years

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Keitor Month Day Twenty-Two: Library

Notes: Thanks to @lilflowerpot for letting me use some of their headcanons about Galra anatomy and culture for this fic. Also this features Kuron, not Shiro, but Lotor doesn’t know that. #notmyshiro

Lotor took a deep breath to calm himself. Coran had told him that the castle had a library, and that the library was on the left of this floor. What Coran hadn’t told him was how many doors were on this floor to begin with.

Lotor had already wandered into a room with a kaltenecker, a mistake he did not wish to repeat.

‘Maybe this is the library?’ He thought, opening the door. He was pleased to find that this was decidedly a library, but unpleased to see that the paladins were all gathered in the library, around a blazing fireplace.

Princess Allura was sitting next to the black paladin, Shiro. The green paladin, Pidge, typed on an old computer next to the yellow paladin, who Lotor was pretty sure was named Chunk.

Lance was sitting upside down, swinging his feet back in forth in the air. Not coincidentally, no one was sitting next to him.

“He’s just so damn stubborn.” Lance groaned. “It’s not like we wanted him to go and join a secret Galra army!”

“You know Keith.” Princess Allura sighed, “He always does what he feels is best. Never mind what others think.”

“I’m just surprised he took so long to come back,” Chunk said. “He won’t be back for the intel sharing thing until later tonight. I’m making this weird Altean recipe that seems similar to mac and cheese to celebrate. I hope he stays for dinner.”

Lotor was about to ask what ‘mac’ was when it occurred to him that the paladins didn’t know he was there. After a moment of consideration, he decided to see how long it took them to notice he was there without him saying anything as a way to test their observation skills.

“He probably won’t. He never joins in group activities unless it’s training.” Pidge said. “He just stands to the side with his arms crossed all emo and watches.”

“He doesn’t listen to anybody but Shiro.”

“Not even that, lately. Whenever I reprimand him during training he just ignores me,” Shiro complained, shaking his head.

“Are you really that dense?” Lotor chimed in, no longer able to contain his internal irritation at the team’s ignorance.

Everyone in the room jumped up when Lotor spoke.

The princess was the first to recover from the shock. “Excuse me?”

“Well,” Lotor explained, sauntering toward the group. “Either you’re terribly stupid or you’re purposefully judging Keith unfairly.”

“What do you mean?” The green Paladin piped up from their place on a couch. “Judging him unfairly? He straight up ignores Shiro.”

Lotor kept himself from rolling his eyes. “So at least you’re not being cruel, I suppose. Galra, and Keith by extent, will ignore you while being scolded as a sign of submission.”

“Submission?” Shiro asked, “But he’s ignoring me. He’s being disrespectful and sulky. Just like back at the Garrison.”

“Galra are different than humans, socially. I assume that the former red paladin, despite his mixed lineage, is the same. What you see as him being quote-unquote ‘sulky’ is him acknowledging your dominance and accepting the reprimand. By turning his back and looking away he’s telling you he does not wish to defy you. In human terms, it’s closer to an apology than a sulk. Not that you deserve the apology, based on your judgement of him.”

No one said anything for a long moment.

“Oh.” Pidge eventually spoke, “What about the other things?”

Lotor stride over to and sat down next to them. “Other misconstrued behaviors? Well, I assume you’ve misunderstood many of the former paladin’s actions.”

“Why do you assume that?” Lance demanded, looking about as defensive as possible for someone sitting upside down.

“Isn’t it obvious? There’s a reason he left your team and joined the Blade of Mamora.”

Everyone around Lotor grew outraged.

“Hey!” Chunk said, “Keith left for the Blade to find his mom!”

“Don’t assume good know things about Keith that we do not!” The princess yelled at the same time.

“Keith left because he was being stubborn!” Lance yelled a moment later, the same time as Pidge.

“He just wanted to be with other Galra!”

“I find it interesting that you all take such a defensive stance for being completely in the right. Although you are correct in saying I don’t know Keith as you do,” Lotor admitted, “I do what what it’s like to be a hybrid. To be forced into one box when you belong in two.”

“You’re not half human.” Shiro said.

Lotor mentally rubbed his temples, wishing that thinking about it would be enough to ward off his headache. How could the paladins of Voltron, the supposed saviors of the universe (a universe containing so many alien species,) know so little about the people in said universe.

He supposed that the Galra Empire hadn’t known much about hybrids either, but Lotor had, for some reason, expected Voltron to be less ignorant. Especially since they had a Galra hybrid within their own number.

“You are aware that there are more than just Galra-Human hybrids, no?” Lotor said, “I myself am half Altean.”

“You’re what?” Princess Allura all but screamed, shooting up from her seat.

“You’re Altean?” Pidge stopped typing.

“No way you’re Altean!” Lance stopped kicking his legs.

“What is it with you all and shouting things all at the same time?” Lotor grimaced, making a conscious effort not to cover his ears. “Yes, I am half Altean. My mother was Empress Honerva.”

“Your mother was Honerva? As in the scientist who experimented on Diabazol?” Allura asked.

“Indeed.”

Lotor could practically see the gears turning in Princess Allura’s head as she spoke. “I thought Coran and I were the only ones.”

‘If any of you had ever willingly had a civil conversation with me,’ Lotor thought, ‘You would know about all the Alteans.’

“If you’re Altean, why didn’t you tell us earlier?” Lance asked, obviously suspicious.

‘I would have told you,’ Lotor thought, ‘Had you only asked.’

“It’s common knowledge,” Lotor responded instead, “I thought you knew. And I’d remind you to at least pretend to trust me, for the sake of this alliance.”

“Can we get back to the matter at hand?” Chunk said, “We were talking about Keith. Lotor said he did Galra stuff.”

“Yeah,” Pidge said, “What do you mean about ‘misconstrued behaviors?’”

“Well,” Lotor began again, “I believe you were groaning about Keith never participating in activities, but standing to the side. He does this not because he would rather not take part, but so he can have all of you in his sights to protect you from potential threats. For lack of better phrase, he is keeping look out.”

“So... he’s not being a jerk?” Lance asked, resuming his vexatious kicking.

Lotor sighed. “Obviously not. You know, you really should learn more about different species if you wish to be a good advocate for all the universe.”

“What about when he gets all emo and ignores us?” Lance asked, “Since we’re asking questions about the things we hate about Keith. He always make me feel like I’m not even worth the effort it takes to argue.”

Lotor sighed. ‘I suppose I’m the expert on this.’

“Similarly to your misunderstanding about Shiro, Keith isn’t disrespecting you. By ‘getting all emo’ as you put it, he is attempting to de-escalate the conflict.”

“But how would it de-escalate conflict? It’s kinda dismissive in human culture to cross his arms and turn his head all snoody.” Pidge said, computer keys clacking loudly. Lotor wondered if they were taking notes of what he was saying, or if they were simply multitasking. Or perhaps they weren’t paying attention at all, which would explain how they kept asking such redundant questions.

“Crossing his arms makes him smaller, and turning his head, thus exposing his throat, is a sign of trust and loyalty.”

Lotor sat there at least another varga answering questions, some of which’s answers were almost too simple.

“Galra are excessively social creatures. Keith’s emotions bleed out in his every movement.” Lotor said, “It’s not his fault humans only pick up on the aggressive part.”

The paladins all looked to each other, looking for signs that they were somehow in the right. When they found none, everyone looked back to Lotor.

“So you’re saying that Keith is lonely and needs a hug?” Chunk asked.

Lotor sighed. “That wasn’t what I was saying, but I suppose it’s not incorrect. Keith is terribly touch starved.”

“I feel awful,” Princess Allura said. “We know so little about the Galra. I didn’t think our ignorance would affect Keith, since he was raised on Earth. But I suppose I was mistaken.”

Shiro put his hand on the princess’s shoulder. “We didn’t know. We’ll read up on Galra body language and then it’ll be fine.”

Chunk pulled a tablet from his vest. “Keith’s here! Let’s go give that touch starved buddy a hug!”

The paladins ran off, leaving Lotor alone in the library. He smiled to himself. “Oh, beautiful Keith. I do hope he gets the love he deserves.”

@keitor-month-2020

#keitor month 2020 #keitor #we have the power of keitor and satan on our side #lotor vld #kuron vld #keith vld #lance vld #pidge vld #hunk vld #allura vld #vld #voltron #fanfiction

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feministdragon · 6 years

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People need trees

KUO: The way I got into the research on the effects of the natural environments on people was I was interested in the dark side of the environment. I was interested in how violent or dangerous or, you know, bad urban environments had detrimental effects on people. And I only got into this by accident, and then I only came up with this view of the effects of nature through the data. So I have been kind of dragged (laughter) - I have been dragged into this all the way kicking and screaming. I did not have that view of people that I set out to test. I came upon that view because I was trying to make sense of what the findings have been.

VEDANTAM: I'm glad you said that because, you know, this idea that people need greenery or that greenery is essential to, you know, human satisfaction, well-being, thriving - you know, when I first heard that, I sort of said, you know, that sounds like a really feel-good idea that I could, you know, hear on a New Age...

KUO: (Laughter).

VEDANTAM: ...Magazine.

KUO: Right.

VEDANTAM: I find it appealing that, in some ways, you were a skeptic yourself - that, for a long time, you found this idea to be sort of squishy.

KUO: Yeah. I think, like a lot of people, I thought of the environment as, you know, trees, grass, gardens, flowers. I thought of that as kind of a nice amenity, you know? They're not functional (laughter), right? They're not what we need. And so it's only when you look at the patterns of what people are like with more and less access to nature that you start to see this pattern - where, gosh, you know, we see the same thing in humans that we see in zoo and lab animals, which is the wonderful quote from E.O. Wilson - is that organisms, when housed in unfit habitats, undergo social, psychological and physical breakdown.

And we are seeing precisely that in people. So when you have people who are - who have a certain amount of access to nature and then you give them a bit more, you see better social functioning. You see better psychological functioning and better physical health.

VEDANTAM: In some ways, this argument is saying that humans today - or many humans today - are living in the kind of conditions that we used to keep zoo animals in 50 years ago.

KUO: I mean, obviously, we are doing better by a lot of humans than most zoo animals did in the old days. But I think we are, to some extent, housing Homo sapiens with that same functional view that, OK, well, as long as they have shelter, water, food, safety, you know, that's pretty good. That should do it, right? And then anything else beyond that is sort of a plus and it's nice. It's yummy (laughter). But it's not - it's not important.

VEDANTAM: I want to take you methodically through some of the empirical evidence that persuaded you that this was more than just a feel-good theory. And I'm wondering if we could start with the studies that you and others have conducted in Chicago. Walk me through this research starting with the study that you conducted at the Robert Taylor Homes.

KUO: Sure. So Robert Taylor Homes is a - or was a series of 16 10-story buildings sort of along a particular corridor in Chicago. And they were originally designed with greenery all around them. But over time, as you can imagine, if you have a ton of kids...

(SOUNDBITE OF CHILDREN LAUGHING)

KUO: ...Running around in a courtyard space - you don't have much money for maintenance - if it rains, they get mud everywhere, and the grass gets trampled, and it very quickly tends to die. And so there are very few cases in which the building managers didn't end up just paving over what used to be grassy areas. And so if you pave over those areas, you take the trees out, then you just have asphalt. So we had this beautiful kind of experiment where people are randomly assigned to different buildings that are identical. And some of those buildings have a bit of trees and grass around them, and some of them don't. And we just went about studying what the outcomes were in those different buildings.

VEDANTAM: And what did you find?

KUO: Well, we looked at a bunch of things, but I think the sort of short answer is we found - (laughter) we found social breakdown in buildings without trees and grass around them. That is to say, when we asked people did they know their neighbors, did they speak to their neighbors, do they know them on first-name basis, could they rely on their neighbors for, you know, for a favor, to take care of their kids if they had an emergency, then the people in the buildings with a bit of greenery were much more likely to say yes. We also found that the folks who are in the less green buildings are reporting more aggressive behaviors.

And, of course, we had reasons to think this might be the case according to theories. So there's this attention restoration theory, which says that when people are - don't have access to nature, they're going to be more mentally fatigued. So when you're mentally fatigued, you're also less good at handling difficult social situations. And so we thought, OK, if nature is helpful for rejuvenating people from mental fatigue, then folks in buildings who don't have any access to nature are going to be that much more fatigued and that much more irritable and that much more difficulty handling conflict in a productive way. And what's - of course, when we got these findings, we were kind of like whoa, you know. I mean, I know the theory predicts this, but I didn't think we'd actually get it.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

KUO: And so I did a follow-up involving Chicago Police Department crime statistics. They were very good about giving us two years' worth of crime statistics from another development. We wanted to see if this general effect showed up in other Chicago public housing developments. So we looked at a low-rise one instead of high-rise, and we see the same pattern in police records of crime.

VEDANTAM: So it can't just be that people living in closer proximity to trees maybe have rosier memories of their interactions with others. In fact, you know, hypothetically, you're seeing maybe the same amount of disagreement and conflict, but people are just remembering it differently.

KUO: Right.

VEDANTAM: You're saying the police records, in some ways, provide an objective measure that there actually is less conflict in these buildings.

KUO: Right. Right. Exactly.

VEDANTAM: So I'm wondering about other confounding things in the study. I mean, is it possible that apartment buildings with more green space had different numbers of people living in them? You know, I know the buildings themselves were identical, but is it possible there were fewer people for some reason living in the greener buildings and what you're measuring is really related to crowding and not related to green space?

KUO: Good question. But as you remember, those were the variables I cared about (laughter) right? So I wondered about is there more noise, or was there more crowding? What else is going on in these buildings? And so because I was interested, I made sure to measure all of those things. And it turns out that those did not explain the relationship. So let's just take crowding as an example. If there was crowding, then it didn't fit the pattern that the violence fit, or it didn't fit the pattern of the green space, or both.

VEDANTAM: I understand there's been research done out of Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania that has explored what happens when you green parts of a city - add more trees and grass to parts of a city - that this has measurable effects, not just on the quality of life but even on the crime rate.

KUO: Right. And the numbers are really pretty startling. So they - these researchers worked with the city to coordinate their vacant lot program. And basically, what they did was they designated a bunch of vacant lots as eligible for "cleaning and greening," quote, unquote. So that involves taking out all the trash - the little bits of glass, cigarette butts - cleaning it up, putting in some turfgrass, you know, a nice panel of lawn, and then some trees.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

KUO: So fairly inexpensive intervention, and they randomly assigned which lots would get this intervention and which ones would not. And then they tracked what happened in those lots afterwards. And it turns out that in the lots that receive this intervention, gun assaults go down - by police records - 9.1 percent, which is really, you know, like, (laughter) boy, you know, if we have anything that cost any amount of money that can reduce gun assaults by 9 percent in a city, you know, any mayor in the U.S. is going to trumpet that. And we see similar patterns for burglaries and other complaints. So it was a very exciting finding.

https://www.npr.org/2018/09/10/646413667/our-better-nature-how-the-great-outdoors-can-improve-your-life

https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=646413667

#solarpunk #solar punk #mental health #positivity #design

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backstorywithdanalewis · 3 years

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Digital Monetary Revolution On Back Story with Dana Lewis podcast https://www.buzzsprout.com/1016881/6798991

Dana Lewis - Host: (00:30) Hi everyone. And welcome to another edition of backstory. I'm Dana Lewis in this edition, a digital revolution driven in part by COVID-19, but there are many other factors digital because it's not a coin or a bill that you carry in your wallet or your purse, but an electronic holding, maybe on your phone or your computer, you already may use payment applications for some of your shopping and bill pay. But at lightning speed governments are adopting electronic currencies. They can track and control and off the government grid. Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are soaring in value on this backstory. Can you trust it? Will you use it? I have no doubt. And we talked to digital currency experts about the future and the China analyst, because China is rolling out digital currency. As we speak in wild, they say it's to get away from the U S dollar. It's probably more about tracking every aspect of how its citizens behave in the new digital marketplace of the world. All right. In London now nickel digital asset management, uh, builds itself as Europe's leading digital asset management company. And I'm joined by Anatoly Crachilov and Michael Hall. I Hi guys, good morning. How are you? Good, good to be here. Bloomberg recently wrote we're living through a monetary revolution. So multifaceted that few people comprehend the full extent that the technical technological transformation of the internet is driving the revolution. The pandemic of 2020 has accelerated it. What do they mean, Michael? Do you want to take a shot at it? Michael Hall/ Nickel Digital: (02:17) Well, I think we're seeing a new form of money. If you look at the evolution of money, we started off bartering, sheep and cows. We moved to coins and or seashells maybe before that coin, some, we used to move to paper, money, and paper money was tied to gold. And then it was that link was cut. And when paper, money departed from the gold standard, it became fit money that central banks could conjure up with, uh, you know, turning the printing process a bit faster, or now they just put more zeros in a digital bank account. And as a reaction to that, we've seen digital currency starts off with the com with limited supply. So that I think what's really, what's really interesting. COVID has kind of forced people away from physical cash into using contactless cash. And the next evolution of that is using a blockchain based cash Dana Lewis - Host: (03:10) And Anatoly why is it, uh, completely taken off Bitcoin, you know, has risen. I don't know what it is today. You can give me the price today, but I mean, it's, it's essentially gone up like 139% year to date. Anatoly Crachilov/Nickel Digital: (03:21) That's correct. Yes. It's uh, 18, 18,000 plus essentially I would say 2020, the year of COVID to the grid, the entire kind of important evolution in digital currencies specifically, there was a sequence of events, uh, COVID triggers, mass unemployment, mass unemployment triggers a response by central bank, which can be summarized by flood market with money. And that's exactly what central bank did. Dana Lewis - Host: (03:50) Everybody's printing money, every nation that's trying to get itself out of it. The financial disaster they're in are, are printing money, correct? Anatoly Crachilov/Nickel Digital: (03:58) You have roughly $11 trillion printed over the last 10 months by a major economists around the world. And certainly if you look at that at the very least, you, by the way, you appreciate why central banks do that. But as holder of capital, you have to preserve this capital, right? And your concern is how to avoid inflation, which started to loom at some stage and currency debasement, which inevitably will hit. And we all know that every single FIAR project in the world being a kind of paper money, right, ultimately ends at zero. So kind of intrinsic value is zero. This paper and given the central bank so easily can inflate this people, investors are looking for hard assets and your classical heart assets would be real estate gold, will these kind of overcrowded traits. And then suddenly you come with Bitcoin as a new form of hard asset. And specifically within BTC, you have a scarcity element similar to gold. There is a certain number of coins ever to be printed. And the schedule, the issue and schedule is very precise. I can tell you exactly how many say Bitcoin's going to be there in the system in say March, uh, 2042. Can you tell me how many us dollars would have been circulated? Of course not because there is no, Dana Lewis - Host: (05:29) Probably probably a lot more than there are now because they're just going to keep printing them. Anatoly Crachilov/Nickel Digital: (05:32) So you can say directionality is clear. They're going to be more dollars around with BTC. You have this scarcity element and that would drive the price up. And essentially we've seen this unfolding demand, which to some extent was triggered by forward-looking investors, such as Paul Tudor Jones letter, uh, bill Miller and all of them. They look for a new to protect capital. Bitcoin became one of the doors, Dana Lewis - Host: (06:00) Michael, the, uh, if I can get Michael to jump in here. So, you know, Nouriel, Roubini, Roubini, uh, the New York university economist wrote in, um, 2018. He told CNBC it's the biggest bubble in human history talking about Bitcoin. Uh, and that the price would crush to zero. Then eight months later in congressional testimony, he said, Bitcoin's the mother of all scams. It's a quote shitcoin unquote, uh, and then fast forward to 2020. And now he has changed his story. Uh, and he's talking about while, you know, it's, it's not going to be easily DC-based, uh, and that there there's value there. So I would say that's a pretty big step back, but, but just not Roubini, but mainstream finance, mainstream banks, that would kind of turn their nose up a digital currency. Now, I guess just mainly because of demand also their customers want to want to invest in it. Michael Hall/ Nickel Digital: (07:00) Yes. I mean, banks are customer led and they follow the money. And if people want to invest in a product, they will meet that demand. Dana Lewis - Host: (07:08) And is that product now more credible than it was even a year ago? And why do you think? So? Michael Hall/ Nickel Digital: (07:14) I think it's attracting more institutional interest of the names. People mentioned. They were the original, you know, the, the, the leaders, uh, the Pathfinders in the hedge fund industry. And they started hedge funds. People like Paul Tudor Jones and Stanley Druckenmiller when hedge funds weren't institutional businesses and a pension fund would never, they was pension funds were still in stocks and bonds fast forward, 30 years, pension funds and insurance companies invest in hedge funds that, which they didn't do 30 years ago. So these people are innovative. These people are leaders, they're innovators, and they are investing in Bitcoin now. And in 30 years time, maybe sooner pension funds and insurance companies will be investing in Bitcoin as well. Dana Lewis - Host: (07:59) Electronic payment platforms, I'm stunned. I mean, you guys know these numbers quite well, but, uh, you know, $40 trillion in transactions through Ali pay and we chat pay, we're talking about China now, uh, which is leading in terms of the development of digital currency so far. Um, so the, the amount of transactions are huge. Do you see a difference between the boom in Bitcoin and, and digital currency and these currencies now that governments are talking about bringing in and they've done so on an experimental basis in China? Anatoly Crachilov/Nickel Digital: (08:36) Yep. Well, uh, you're absolutely right. There is the whole evolution of central bank digital currency. So-called, uh, to some extent it was triggered by a 2020. And if you look in the us, the whole model of, uh, distributing certain, uh, financial aid to ultimate population, right, goes through commercial banks. And it's not necessarily the most efficient way because in the U S only 29% of these financial aid ended up in consumption and other four to five and the top in saving and in our 40 to five and up in repaying, various form of debt, like credit card debts, and so on. So from the point of view of stimulating the economy, it wasn't really that efficient only 29% when consumption now in China or to the, to the, to in contrast, there has been an experiment which was run earlier this year. And the idea was a certain number of people were given, uh, what's called airdrop. Anatoly Crachilov/Nickel Digital: (09:41) When you got certain amount of cash, say a thousand dollars on your equivalent of $30, each person, whatever is the amount, the idea was kind of, you can spend this, uh, amount of free cash given by the government in the next three months on a certain type of goods. Can you fraud in stock exchange? Nope. There is no purpose of that. Can you save them? Nope, because you're going to expand them three months and essentially they forced population to stimulate certain areas of the economy. And that may be this precision, which kind of classical monitoring system, ALEKS and central bank digital currencies can provide Michael. Michael Hall/ Nickel Digital: (10:24) So I think central bank currencies are very interesting, but they suffer from like three basic flaws. One is that, um, they don't stop the central banks printing, printing money in the same way. They print physical money. They can print digital money as well. They can just multiply the bits on the computer drive and they print more, more money. Secondly, they can, these currencies enable the central banks to do things they weren't able to do with paper money. One of these is negative interest rates. So are you seeing that, you know, interest rates on bonds have gone negative, but it's very difficult to have negative interest rates. Because if your bank's going to charge you a negative interest rate, you take all your money out and you just put that money underneath the, uh, underneath your mattress. And it keeps the same value. So that, that's how you get around that issue. Michael Hall/ Nickel Digital: (11:10) Um, with, uh, the third floor is, is a privacy. Now I'm not saying that everyone should be trading like privacy coins like Monero, but I think people expect that they have a level of privacy from the government, and it's not big brother where the government has a television and your TV camera in your living room. And they're not looking over your shoulder when you're using a bank account, you may not be doing illegal things, such, just buying drugs, but you might be buying a birthday present for your girlfriend was a question, Michael. Yeah, exactly. So, so you might be buying a processor, a birthday present for your girlfriend. You might, might not want her to know how much you've spent on it and what, and where it was purchased. So people expect a level of privacy with their money and cash gives them that privacy. And the question is what should digital cash gives them that? And that we have to strike a balance between having people being able to money on the drugs, which we would not want to have happen, but we also expect to not personalize a certain amount of money we can use to spend without the influence and knowledge. Dana Lewis - Host: (12:09) It's an interesting range of balance that you talk about, right? Because China, they are absolutely tracking every single purchase and they know exactly what everybody's doing. And it's the ultimate big brother through the use of, of their new digital currency. And then, like for instance, the Soufan center came out today and they said, cryptocurrencies are potentially a cover for a lot of elicit businesses. It's not the first time we've heard that. Right. But they talked about Hamas Qaeda, the Islamic state, uh, the, the, the, uh, U S intelligence agencies are trying to track digital currencies and Bitcoin and different coins that have been used by illicit organizations. So what's the middle ground here as this matures and develops and more mainstream investors are involved in it. What's the balance between, you know, kind of big brother and the bandit down the road that uses cryptocurrency to, to do, uh, to do bad things. Michael Hall/ Nickel Digital: (13:04) Okay. So, so we hit those arguments a lot and the more money has been laundered and used to finance terrorist activities using us dollar bills, but no one is proposing banning the U S dollar bill. Dana Lewis - Host: (13:16) No, but they are proposing tracking the accounts and tracking the transfers, right. Not proposing, but they do do it. Michael Hall/ Nickel Digital: (13:21) Okay. They should get rid of the a hundred dollar bill. The Germany should get rid of the European union should get rid of the 500 Euro bill. I mean, if that's, if you want to launder money, that's, that's the place to go, right? Your $500. And then the Swiss have a 1000 Frank bill. I mean, those are the ultimate money laundering tools, Bitcoin isn't, by the way, anyone who tries to launder money using Bitcoin isn't for surprise, because every transaction is publicly recorded and accessible to anyone. Who's got an internet connection. If you have a browser window connect to the internet, you can put in a blockchain address and you can see every single transaction that's gone through that address. Now there have, there have been some digital currencies, uh, designed for privacy, which we don't treat him. And the only real use case for those is that. So that's why we don't trade them. But it's a matter for the regulators. It's a matter for the central government to figure that out. The beauty is that if the government acts with two heavier hand, there are tools that exist for people to circumvent them. And just as the people in China who wants to use the internet, they can use the VPN. And so rather than have to read the Google search results filtered by the Chinese communist party, they can use the VPN and find out what Google really thinks. Dana Lewis - Host: (14:35) And I totally would you just look, as we wrap this up, guys, would you just look down the road, uh, and tell me, where do you see this going now? Because now you have governments that are getting into digital currency. You have investment companies that, and, and very reputable ones that before didn't want anything to do with digital currency. Now they're slowly opening the door because their clients want it. Where are we? Two and three and five years. Anatoly Crachilov/Nickel Digital: (15:03) Yep. We're being asked. Uh, one of the questions is whether the central bank digital currencies can distort to some extent or compete with, uh, Bitcoin as the pure cryptocurrency. And in my view, they cannot because Bitcoin is an asset with no monetary discretion, right? Nobody can influence the patient schedule while central bank currencies are there for completely different reasons. One of them is increased transparency of all the transactions, essentially you, as we discussed, eliminate any remaining privacy, but that allows States to create this kind of extract, valuable behavioral information about every single client, a customer, and ultimately allows a 4g to better manage the economy. Because what they're gaining is the real time spending updates for the whole economy and becomes what they're getting this kind of on demand, monetary policy, which they in a very precise manner now manage the economy by injecting money in various sectors. So for that purpose, it's completely different, uh, uh, use cases, right? From big investment point of view, digital central bank, digital currency are not attractive. You cannot really preserve your wealth. Dana Lewis - Host: (16:21) Why, why do it then, like, why are there calls? I mean, I know like the, the former national security advisor of Britain has just come out and said that Britain should have its own digital currency soon. So Anatoly Crachilov/Nickel Digital: (16:32) From the government perspective, as I just mentioned, that's a beautiful instrument to control micromanage the economy, right? So you have these very, uh, finely tuned spending, which you cannot observe on the individual level. You can transfer to individuals rather than you give money to commercial banks and the commercial banks push them into economy. And as we discussed in a not very efficient manner. So from the state point of view, having digital currents makes total sense. Now from investor investors, point of view, investing in digital currency makes no sense if you need store of value, you have to revert to an independent currency, which is one of them would be Bitcoin. And from here, Dana Lewis - Host: (17:18) Just because it's more navigate, not navigable, because there are limited assets like in Bitcoin. Anatoly Crachilov/Nickel Digital: (17:25) Exactly. As you know, there are 21 points ever to be issued of which 88% has already been issued. The balance of 12% will be issued over the next 120 years in a super predictable manner. So that's why you want to get exposure to that hard asset. What are we going to be for years, five years from now? I believe it will become part of institutional allocations as we have today, fixed income equities. Dana Lewis - Host: (17:50) So we'll be allocation, good digital assets. It will not, it will be kind of two percentage points. One, two [inaudible] fetal 5%, but there is a significant, important role. It's a diversifier of the portfolios and it creates efficiency on the institutional portfolio level improves your returns. We filed really boosting your risk, Michael, last word to you. Michael Hall/ Nickel Digital: (18:15) So one of the issues that the central banks had when they printed money is they gave it to all the banks and the banks went out and bought stocks and they Geoff basis a billionaire or sorry, made him more of a billionaire even richer. And it just increased wealth inequality. One of the benefits of central bank digital currencies is they, as Anatolia says, they can be very precise and targeting who gets the money and what the money gets spent on. And that's a much more efficient way of doing quantitative easing. They're just giving it to bank. So they have bigger balance sheets and the stock market goes up. So this is digital currencies, central bank, digital currencies enable them to actually give money, spend money where they want it and do that money printing in the, in the right way. Dana Lewis - Host: (18:57) You mean like for instance, like right now in this crisis where they're saying to people that, you know, people who are not being employed or unemployed, or, or who need, uh, some support during the COVID 19, they would be able to actually send a directly to a family or a person, and then they would allocate it only for food rent, something like that. Michael Hall/ Nickel Digital: (19:18) Exactly. A lot of those, uh, furlough checks that went out, went directly into people's bank accounts and that stimulated the real economy. It didn't make the stock market go higher in, in the first case, but it did stimulate the real economy. Dana Lewis - Host: (19:33) All right, guys, from nickel digital asset management, thank you so much. And the Tony Graciela and Michael Hall, Michael Hall/ Nickel Digital: (19:39) Thank you, Dana. A real pleasure thing this morning, Dana Lewis - Host: (19:47) Joining us now from Berlin. Germany is Max Kiernfelt, who is an analyst with Merics in Berlin and Merrick's is the marketure Institute for Chinese study. And they, uh, they analyzed sort of anything out of China and all things. And max, uh, has written a brilliant article in, uh, or co-authored a brilliant article in the diplomat, uh, on China and its digital currency. Hi max. Hi. So give us a background a little bit here. Some 5,000 people in Shenzen saw their phones light up in October, and they got a read on envelope digitally, which gave him about $30. Max Kiernfelt/ Merics: (20:24) That's right. So the Chinese government is launching a new digital currency, which is called digital currency, economic, electronic payments, which is perhaps not the most exciting name. So the idea is to use something, something similar to Bitcoin to create a virtual currency so that the, the paper renminbi, it has a digital, um, correspondence or a digital version of itself. And they've been testing this project in several different cities like [inaudible], and it started with this lottery where they're just giving money away, but some, uh, some government employees in some cities have also received the, uh, part of their paycheck in this, in this new currency. Dana Lewis - Host: (21:10) So it's really look, this is a very interesting shift for a lot of different reasons, right? And I want to, you know, take you through some of that, but, um, the people's bank of China said that this will make the, the RMB more popular around the globe. Are they trying to replace the U S dollar and trying to disengage from using the U S dollar as safe Haven and push their own currency? Op? Max Kiernfelt/ Merics: (21:34) Um, yes and no. Uh, this has been going on for a long time, and there's nothing new for th for Chinese officials to say that, uh, they want to replace the dollar or that they need to reduce the reliance on the dollar. So this is just the latest step in a, in a long process or where this has been talked about. But I mean, if you look at the actual results instead, it's pretty clear that the [inaudible] has not been growing in popularity around the globe, particularly much the last say 10 years. Um, it's, it's stable around two to 2.5% of, uh, Swift messages go are cleared in renminbi. Um, the reason for this is largely that China prefers it that way. Um, a great amount of, uh, renminbi usage would probably lead to appreciation of their currency. So Dana Lewis - Host: (22:23) Just to talk about it for a second though, why does Russian president Vladimir Putin, why do other countries, including China keep talking about not being reliant on the U S dollar because that promotes sort of American economic domination, is that what they're trying to get away from? Max Kiernfelt/ Merics: (22:40) I think there's two parts to this. First of all, it's, it's a practical issue in the sense that the us has sanctioned countries in the past, uh, um, yeah, like around they, they can, uh, even though Swift is a Belgium company that can put a lot of pressure on Swift and banks to not do business with Chinese party parties, if they wanted to. And in the case of Iran, this, this led to them having to greatly devalue their currency to, to protect their economy, which was under enormous pressure. Um, then there is of course, a, a question of a narrative as well. These, these, uh, countries, uh, Russia and China don't want to see themselves as a part of the American system, they want to be respected equally. And of course, part of that means that anytime you have an opportunity to talk about being independent, to being strong individually, you have to take that opportunity. Dana Lewis - Host: (23:39) All right. So, so w when I took a look at some of the statistics, I mean, they jaw dropping in terms of the Chinese market on digital payment systems, like 80% of China is 900 million mobile internet users use their mobile phones for transactions, Chinese shoppers and merchants represent almost half the world's digital wallet users and Alibaba, and Tencent control, 95% of the market and cleared 50 trillion with a T in transactions in 2019. It is huge, the use of digital currency. Max Kiernfelt/ Merics: (24:17) Absolutely. Um, I think it's a little bit analogist to the way airports and subways were set up in China in the sense that if you look at a air, if you look at the infrastructure in the West, this is rather old and oftentimes built very long ago. Well, if everything in China is sort of new and fresh, and if I wanted to launch a payment system today, I wouldn't be using these old things that we use that we use in the West, but in China to have, um, they have, um, it's an emerging market. So they set up a new, fresh things. Um, this digitalization has been, um, the way it's been rolled out into the Chinese market has been very successful. I mean, everyone almost will use a, some form of online payment system, even farmers and, and surprise in the most surprising places. So you can go to the countryside in China and see people use these kinds of technologies to make payments. Dana Lewis - Host: (25:15) All right. So I've led you through this, and I've, we've kind of painted a picture that, you know, China innocently just wants to roll out a digital currency for efficiency, uh, to make them less reliant on the dollar. And probably at the end of, at the end of what we've talked about so far is, is where you take a turn in your article and the diplomat is that really, it's not about that. It's probably more about surveillance and control, is that right? Max Kiernfelt/ Merics: (25:43) Well, to some extent, yes. Uh, the fact that it, so most of the digital payment systems in China retinol are run by companies, Alibaba and Tencent. Now, if the central bank launches its own digital payment system, then that gives them control over the amount, the, the, uh, the monetary base to a large extent. And they already have, they can issue as much currency or as little currency as they want. They will have complete visibility of overall transactions that are made through their network. And they also have great ability to make users use their own preferred payment system. So it will undoubtedly result in a situation where, where the central bank has much more oversight of what's going on in the economy and can control things more in various ways. Dana Lewis - Host: (26:37) This is the ultimate big brother tool, Max Kiernfelt/ Merics: (26:42) What could be. But I think that something like this has multiple uses, obviously. So on the one hand, you can use this for things like this, but, but I think there are also a quality of life things here, uh, for the central bank sake, you can have greater control of inflation. Uh, oversight can be very good at, uh, at catching illicit transactions, transactions, and all sorts of things. So even though there is a control element, I don't want to be saying that that's the only use or the test, the main purpose of, I think that the policy makers in China are, are generally speaking, thinking rather broadly. And they are, uh, there are multiple goals with most of the policies they launch. Dana Lewis - Host: (27:26) You've obviously become a bit of a digital currency expert in, right in writing this piece and watching it. I mean, I guess because if you take a look at what's happening in digital currencies around the world, I mean, Bitcoin is punching through, you know, record levels. Um, uh, as many other digital currencies are cryptocurrencies are, but the whole design of those were to have anonymity, um, through blockchain technology. So do we need to separate the two, you know, topics when we're talking about China's digital currency and other governments, which are talking about moving towards digital currency in the original kind of cryptocurrency model, which was, you know, you could move money between people, um, and you could do it w with, with, you know, virtually anonymously. Max Kiernfelt/ Merics: (28:19) Yes. I think you need to do need to separate these two, because the technology that you use for, um, for Bitcoin is the blockchain, right? Where you are having something unchangeable as the main strength of the currency is that you have this, uh, you have this ledger that cannot be altered, or at least not easily altered. There are some blockchain experts who do say that it could potentially be hacked. Not that I know very much about that, but I think someone, someone said once that the distinction between, um, uh, an authoritarian regime will tend to gravitate towards AI solutions and a more democratic regime will tend to gravitate towards the blockchain solution. So this blockchain was, cannot be altered by the government as much. Uh, there will be a constancy of, of, um, of units, or maybe there is some sort of algorithm that produces units at some set pace. Whilst in this case, the central bank can of course issue as much currency as they want. Um, and I don't think it's very surprising that a central bank do they have control over instead of a currency that unalterable program Backstory on the digital revolution. Dana Lewis - Host: (29:43) It was supposed to take about 10 years, but it's been compressed and supercharged in the last year, mostly because of the pandemic. And it will change the way we do business, the way our governments operate remarkable. And it's happening now. I'm Dana Lewis. Thanks for listening. Please subscribe the backstory and I'll talk to you again soon.

#@crachilov #@nickeldigital #@bitcoin #bitcoin #cryptonews #backstory #@danaslewis #china #china and digital currency #@merics

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son-of-alderaan · 7 years

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The Fate of ‘The Last Jedi’ Is in His Hands

NICASIO, Calif. — Skywalker Ranch, the 5,000-acre spread that George Lucas established here in Marin County, is hardly a shrine to the “Star Wars” movies; the quiet campus has no giant Yoda statue or Death Star murals. If you weren’t looking carefully, you might have missed Rian Johnson, the director and writer of “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” (due Dec. 15), having breakfast in a guesthouse on a recent August morning.

Mr. Johnson has established his genre bona fides as the writer-director of the time-traveling neo-noir “Looper,” and as a director of TV shows like “Breaking Bad.”Now, he is picking up the baton from J. J. Abrams, who reinvigorated the “Star Wars” universe with “The Force Awakens.” That wildly successful 2015 film — the seventh chapter of the galactic saga — began a new adventure for Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) and Princess (now General) Leia (Carrie Fisher) and introduced the enigmatic Rey (Daisy Ridley) and her sullen nemesis, Kylo Ren (Adam Driver).

“Star Wars” is a gargantuan franchise, and Mr. Johnson, 43, is a soft-spoken, unassuming man. But right now its destiny lies in his hands, and he said he was free to make the movie he wanted. No requirements were imposed by Mr. Abrams or Kathleen Kennedy, the Lucasfilm president, who did not hesitate to call for significant changes on the stand-alone “Rogue One,” the coming Han Solo film and “Star Wars: Episode IX.”

On a break from finishing the sound edit for the movie, Mr. Johnson spoke about the making of “The Last Jedi,” “Star Wars” characters new and old, and Ms. Fisher’s death in December. Here are edited excerpts from that conversation.

How important were the original “Star Wars” films for you?

“Star Wars” was everything for me. As a little kid, you get to see the movies only once or twice, but playing with the toys in your backyard, that’s where you’re first telling stories in your head. It was so emotional to step onto the Millennium Falcon set, because that was the play set we all had when we were kids. Suddenly, you were standing in the real thing. There’s this rush of unreality about it.

How did you learn you were being considered to write and direct a new “Star Wars” film?

It was really, really out of the blue. I had a few general meetings with Kathy Kennedy when she took over Lucasfilm. I never thought I was actually in the running, because I assumed every director on the planet would want to be doing a “Star Wars” movie. And then it was sprung on me. It was like a bomb dropped. I suddenly realized, Oh, this meeting is about this. I didn’t try to hide the fact that I was freaking out. But I also said, “Can I think about it?”

Why the hesitation?

After “Looper,” I had been approached with other franchise stuff and gotten used to saying no. And I knew this would mean so much to me — the worst thing I can imagine is having a bad experience making a “Star Wars” movie.

Do you think Ms. Kennedy was surprised you didn’t accept immediately?

She was slightly confused, I think. The next few days, I couldn’t sleep. I thought I was going to do a pros-and-cons list, but the truth is, it was more a decision from the heart. There was no way I could not do this.

How much of the story of “The Last Jedi” was dictated to you, either by events in “The Force Awakens” or by Lucasfilm?

I had figured there would be a big map on the wall with the whole story laid out, and it was not that at all. I was basically given the script for “Episode VII;” I got to watch dailies of what J. J. was doing. And it was like, where do we go from here? That was awesome.

So there’s no one telling you that your film has to contain certain plot points, or that certain things have to be achieved by its end?

Nothing like that. But it’s the second film in a trilogy. The first film got these characters here. This second movie has to dig into and challenge these characters. I wanted this to be a satisfying experience unto itself. I didn’t want it to end with a dot, dot, dot, question mark.

What inspiration did you draw from the raw footage of “The Force Awakens”?

Rey and Kylo are almost two halves of our protagonist. It’s not like Kylo is our Vader. In the original trilogy, Vader is the father — he’s the one you’re afraid of and who you want the approval of. Whereas Kylo represents anger and rebellion, the sometimes healthy — and sometimes not — desire to disconnect from the parents. It’s my favorite kind of quote-unquote bad guy, because you can genuinely see what their weakness is.

“The Force Awakens” left you with many significant unanswered questions: Who are Rey’s parents? Why did Luke flee? Who is the mysterious villain, Supreme Leader Snoke? To the extent that “The Last Jedi” answers any of them, did you feel obliged to consult with J. J.?

If I had questions — what did you think this was going to be? What were your ideas for this? — I could always ask him. But those questions only address what these characters want and how they get there.

Take the question of who Rey’s parents are: If you get the information — oh, it’s that! — who really cares? I know a lot of people care, but it’s interesting as opposed to impactful. Now, what is my place in the world? Where do I come from? Where do I belong? O.K., I understand what the weight of that is. We could play with those questions and their answers to have the biggest emotional impact on these characters.

You get to give Luke Skywalker his first lines of dialogue in this trilogy.

That was the first thing I had to figure out. Why is Luke on that island? And I didn’t have any answers. But it’s not like you can just pick anything you want out of the air. I grew up having a sense of who Luke Skywalker is. It guides you to a very specific path. I know he’s not hiding on the island. I know he’s not a coward. He must be there for a reason that he believes in. You’re finding a path forward, but there end up being fewer choices than you think.

Since you grew up a “Star Wars” fan, were you intimidated to work with longtime franchise stars like Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher?

It took a while before I could sit across the table with Mark and not, every three seconds, think, I’m talking to Luke Skywalker. With Carrie, I felt we connected as writers very quickly. She spoke her mind, man. They both did. Anyone whose life is that weirdly tied to a character like this, where you drop a script in their lap and say, “Now it’s this,” there’s no way it’s not a discussion. But they were both so engaged in the process, and trusting. The fact that both of them at some point said, “O.K., even if this isn’t what I was expecting, I’m going to trust you” — that was really touching.

Ms. Fisher died shortly after she finished filming. How did you absorb this tragedy? Did you feel as if you had to alter the movie?

When she passed away, we were pretty deep into postproduction. When we came back to the edit room after New Year’s, it was so hard. We went through all her scenes. I felt very strongly that we don’t try to change her performance. We don’t adjust what happens to her in this movie. Emotionally, you can’t help recontextualize it, now that she’s gone. It’s almost eerie how there are scenes that have an emotional resonance and a meaning, especially now. She gives a beautiful and complete performance in this film.

What is your working relationship with Colin Trevorrow? [Editor’s note: This interview took place before Lucasfilm parted ways with Mr. Trevorrow, who was to have directed “Star Wars: Episode IX.”]

It’s been very similar to J. J. and I. I’ve given it some trajectory forward, and now I get to see where another storyteller is going to take it. I’ve been available, and he’s shot me questions. But I’m pretty much sitting back and seeing how it’s all going to come together for him.

What does “The Last Jedi” mean?

It’s in the opening crawl of “The Force Awakens.” Luke Skywalker, right now, is the last Jedi. There’s always wiggle room in these movies — everything is from a certain point of view — but coming into our story, he is the actual last of the Jedi. And he’s removed himself and is alone on this island, for reasons unknown.

We hear a voice in the teaser trailer say, “It’s time for the Jedi to end.” Is that Luke speaking?

That’s him. It sounds pretty dire. That’s something that we’re definitely going to dig into. The heart of the movie is Luke and Rey. It follows all the other characters, but its real essence is the development of the two of them. And it’s absolutely tied up in that question of, What is Luke’s attitude toward the Jedi?

And Han Solo returns as a Force ghost?

Han Solo as a Force ghost, obviously. And Jar Jar, he’s Snoke. Everything I’m dropping is gold, right here. (x)

#star wars tlj #rian johnson #rey #kylo ren #luke skywalker #carrie fisher

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