>those geared towards women (shojo and josei) do the same thing but they have a different drawing style. the manga guide collection is not using that style.
What? Its way closer to shojo style than it is to something like Dragon Ball Z.
I'd say the blue checkmarks are a better example. They're a stamp of approval from the global corporate hegemony. You can even have yours taken away for expressing unapproved thought.
If they were just proof that someone verified identity, and anyone could get one, they'd be a good feature. But Twitter wanted them to be culturally significant or famous people, and that's where it fell apart.
As for expressing unapproved thought, I all BS on your statement. There are blue-checked people who continued to express heterodox thought who kept their checks right up until they were permanently banned for TOS reasons.
That would be a disaster for them. But I don't think we'd have to wait decades, I'm sure those things are already known.
Although, attributing all the world's ills to a shadowy cabal of corrupt operatives is a pretty crazy conspiracy theory... that might just be the problem.
However, looking at how crazy society is today you can kind of understand how people would reach that conclusion..
So--what--if he was a "good citizen" they would have "let" him lead a normal life and build something good? But instead they (the "government" or some corporate or whatever) made him go crazy?
Well it won't work on me, I know that. I'm too strong for that.
That's what I believe, that's who I am. But here's what I think about it:
> Sometimes conspiracy theories get proven right.
Definitely they do. But in this case it's hyperbolic, I think. I don't think it's up to them. I get why people feel it's reasonable, to blame the government for these things but "the government" (or equivalently, some corporate or whatever, hereafter--just for the hell of it, let's call them, whoever this group is--"the grand ol' stinky" or "GOS") don't have the power, I'm quite sure.
I think we humans like to believe something "other" has the power, because it makes us feel easier in our lives, by providing some order and hierarchy to a crazy universe, and absolving us of some personal responsibility, not only for things happening to us, but for our responses to them.
Maybe it's more like a psychological compulsion to blame "another"? Ape-brain blame fingers, fragile limited human mind sense-making of an unimaginably vast and incomprehensibly incomprehensible universe. Conjuring little make believe figures out of the dark before our eyes, to soothe.
Now I don't think it's true (for reasons I'll outline below), but even if the theory "GOS can make people go crazy" is true (as in faithful to reality) it's not, I think, a useful theory (for reasons I'll outline at the bottom).
My motivation in writing this is to help people who struggle with this thing, because I can see traps that they'd fall into. And I think with a bit of navigation, maybe guided by these thoughts I put forward here, people would avoid falling into these traps, and they'd be more freer in their thinking, and empowered in their lives, and that would be good. And I've seen many people espouse these views.
So first let's acknowledge that both MKUltra was real and the veracity of your statement:
> Sometimes conspiracy theories get proven right.
Definitely they do. And many more pernicious ones continue operating unproved and unexposed probably. MKUltra is only the public stuff that made it out as a result of a hearing--they "destroyed" all the records. Imagine the stuff that would have been in there.
But does MKUltra prove "GOS can make people crazy"? I don't think so. Who, verified as part of it, "went crazy" because of that? I don't know of anyone. Someone died, as a result of a speed overdose...But let's assume that some of the people who have claimed to have been part of MKUltra are actually telling the truth...and they underwent "mental fracturing brain-washing" procedures, etc. They were traumatized. But they didn't "go crazy". You don't need an elaborate government mind control experiment to explain, or to make, people go crazy. People go crazy on their own. Mental illness (MI) is a big thing, but it's not because "GOS made it happen."
Even if there is, or it was discovered, that there is a correlation between actual MKUltra participants and MI, how do we know it's causative? Couldn't it just be they had a predilection for MI, not that MKUltra caused it, but maybe that the trauma they experienced in MKUltra, contributed to tipping them over the edge?
Now you don't need GOS or MKUltra for human trauma. We create plenty of trauma ourselves with our idiotic behaviors toward each other. PTSD is a MI right? Some soldiers get that...Is soldiering causative? Maybe. But then what explains the ones who don't get it? But maybe soldiering is also correlative, as in a predilection for MI, is contributed to by the trauma of soldiering.
Now just because there's no evidence of any GOS capability to make people go crazy, doesn't mean they don't possess that capability. But let's consider what would have to be true if that were the case:
- You can "give" people MI. Can you really tho? You can traumatize them, but can you give them a DSM MI? Or can you only contribute to their existing predilection, and then, in only some cases? But let's assume you can give people MI, and GOS has weaponized the technology. We should then see that some notable people, rabble rousers, etc, mysteriously "go crazy" right when they look like having a big impact. I don't see any evidence for this. I see people getting taking out the old ways: honeytrap blackmail, attempted reputational assassination via fake sexual assaults accusation, physical assassinations, ensnarement in psychological/operational 'denial-of-service' such as endless litigation, and just plain old imprisonment. I mean, if it ain't broke...Seems the old ways provide plenty of scope for GOS to take out 'troublemakers'. Who knows...you might get unlucky with your fickle MI technology and end up giving someone superpowers...then you got trouble on your hands. Finally on this point, plenty of people undergo extreme trauma (hello, Africa, sadly), people are imprisoned, tortured, raped, get sick...and undergo trauma not just criminally, but even in the normal course of their lives like getting ill, or going through a traumatic breakup, or loss. But people recover. Even extreme traumatic experiences don't succeed in breaking people. Not with any reliability. And really I mean that makes sense. Humanity has evolved to become somewhat resilient. Our entire history is exceedingly traumatic, but most people are not "crazy" (heh, at least in the DSM sense).
But let's assume GOS has the tech and can make people crazy, what else would need be true:
- the person's case would have to justify the use of that tech. What would this mean? You could invoke a whole lot of esoteric principles about free-will, non-interference, cosmic law, minimizing the disturbance to the timeline, etc, etc etc...but that's like Occam's razor stuck in the really hairy tail that's wagging a tiny dog: what's the cost benefit of this? It's subtle, it's specialist, it's secretive...all that makes its deployment expensive. It's not just set and forget, you probably have to monitor people. So it seems to make sense for only the biggest most secured targets. If someone has a lot of money (lawsuits fail), close protection (assassination fail), savvy (honeytrap fail), lots of connections (judicial harassment fail) the only thing you have left is fake sexual assault accusations. That's easy enough to manufacture...but it's also not guaranteed to work. But it sounds a hell of a lot easier than making someone go crazy...But just say it's not, where is the evidence of people who are getting taken out by this? It's nowhere. The people who are apparently, "going crazy" as targets of this elaborate "GOS crazy-maker tech" are like small time, mostly poverty stricken (to a relative degree), big nothing burgers in the geopolitical/security/intelligence/corporate scheme of things. I mean, don't poor people have a higher incidence of MI simply because their lives are more traumatic and therefore any demographic-invariant predilection rate is more contributed to for lower wealth people? It's not a very nice truth, and by no means does it mean that we shouldn't do anything about trying to bring more support for MI, but it makes a helluva lot more sense than "GOS is targeting vagrants to make them go crazy". These people don't matter to GOS, they don't matter at all..not in the scheme of things, the calculus of power, they matter as humans--but these are the people who are "going crazy".
So I think it's highly unlikely that this technology exists, but even if it does, I think it's really highly unlikely that it's being deployed--because there's no evidence for it. All the people who are "going crazy" are not significant in any way. Not really. I mean they are significant as people, and their suffering is painful and sad, but they are not significant in the calculus of power. And the people who are significant in the calculus of power, are not "going crazy"--they are being taken out in other ways: the old ways.
So I think there's a psychological compulsion to believe the "other" is the cause. It evokes our ancestors sacrifice to the gods mentality. Plus, like I said earlier, it brings order to an incomprehensibly incomprehensible universe. And it absolves individuals for some of the personal responsibility both for things that happen to them, and for their responses.
But even if it is true, the theory that "GOS can and does make people go crazy" is not a useful theory, because if you believe that, and if attempts are being made to make you go crazy, then you only make yourself more vulnerable by believing that people have the power to do this to you. This tech, even if it existed, cannot be perfectly reliable, because if it was, you'd already be drooling in a sanatorium somewhere, or on the streets. It's more useful to believe it's something you can fight back against. Believe that you're too strong for that. That you're responsible for what you do in your life, not some "other".
Because whether the theory "GOS can make people crazy" is true or not, that's a more useful theory to have. Because if they do, believing you can win will make you better, and survive. And if they don't...then you will end up taking responsibility for your own shit rather than blaming it on some "other" and that's more useful for you.
So really, rather than inventing some physical technology to enslave people with MI, if GOS really wanted to make people go crazy, they might just invent some "narrative technology" to seed the mass consciousness with the idea that this technology existed, thus making vulnerable those people who believed that, to surrendering personal responsibility, and doing and being less, than they otherwise could have been.
That's what I think. Hopefully that helps some people.
Sorry, 'Western' was lazy shorthand for 'Western civilization', which covers most places geographically. I meant to exclude from my statement only poorer societies that don't have the luxury of being stupid in their healthcare approach to this disease and time.
You can find these anecdotes for every one of these companies. My perception is that Amazon has the worst reputation but I haven't done any market research or worked at any of them.
Yes, but bad in different ways. Amazon's reputation is that they overwork you and people only stay until their "golden handcuffs" vest. But their code quality and tooling is seen as excellent.
Ew. At the beginning I was expecting it to be somewhat interpretive, but some of those statements are indefensible to me, and there's quite a lot.
Some might attempt to explain it away as Twitter's model and ecosystem encouraging ill considered statements, but the adult response to that is to take more care in what you say or stop using the medium that encourages you to say horrible things you regret.
Edit: I will acknowledge the data I was looking at is a few years old, and I don't know if the person in question has since recanted on those views. I believe people change and should be given the chance to leave their past misdeeds behind, and I have no knowledge one way or the other if that happened here, and that would be important to know to have an informed opinion.
Relevantly enough, given this is about moderating the rust technical team, Rod Vagg had this to say about moderating the nodejs technical team:
“My assessment of the claim that I am a hindrance to inclusivity efforts is that it hinges on the singular matter of moderation and control of discourse that occurs amongst the technical team. From the beginning I have strongly maintained that the technical team should retain authority over its own space. That its independence also involves its ability to enforce the rules of social interaction and discussion as it sees fit. This has lead to disagreements with individuals that would rather insert external arbiters into the moderation process; arbiters who have not earned the right to stand in judgement of technical team members, and have not been held to the same standards by which technical team members are judged to earn their place in the project. On this matter I remain staunchly opposed to the dilution of independence of the technical team and will continue to advocate for its ability to make such critical decisions for itself. This is not only a question of moral (earned) authority, but of the risk of subversion of our organisational structures by individuals who are attracted to the project by the possibility of pursuing a personal agenda, regardless of the impact this has on the project itself. I see current moves in this direction, as in this week’s moderation policy proposal at nodejs/TSC#276, as presenting such a risk. I don't expect everyone to agree with me on this, but I have just as much right as everyone else to make my case and not be vilified in my attempts to convince enough of the TSC to prevent such changes.”
I don't really understand what you mean by that. They're completely different families of drugs used to treat different diseases, and have different side effect profiles. Opioids are typically used to treat pain, while Benzodiazepines treat anxiety disorders.
Addictive profiles was my meaning, Benzodiazepines (apparently using the abreviated form is offensive for some) making opiates look like a walk in the park when it comes to addiction.
Additionally there is a large boxy of work for prescribing Benzodiazepines to treat pain, as well as pairing the two for chronic pain, which seems to be an absolute recipie for disaster if used for anything but the shortest periods of time.
What? Its way closer to shojo style than it is to something like Dragon Ball Z.