This is a post about propaganda. It is not about about the example I use.

Propaganda is, for lack of a better phrase, fucking insidious. You have to be extremely aware of it! Positive Antagonistic Propaganda especially so, and it's one of the reasons why you should hire someone that does messaging professionally to make sure you don't do your opponents' work for them.

Positive Antagonistic Propaganda is about getting your opponents to do your work for you. You create a messaging program that they can agree with unexamined, and then they do the work for you! Propaganda is not always about convincing you to do something. Sometimes it is about making it harder for you to do something.

The example I'm going to use to talk about this is, “No one is illegal on stolen land.” Again, this is not about this statement. I think most of the people saying this have good intentions. You should not tell strangers to stop saying this, because you're wasting the time and energy of people you agree with. This is about how good intentions can support your opponents' movement.

The problems with this statement, in no particular order: * The predication of one truth on another. * The combination of controversial topics to shift attention away from both. * The choir preaching problem.

People use this statement in the context of immigration, and that's what it's about. The point is, “No one is illegal.” When you add a predicate, you automatically concede the point that there are conditions in which some people are illegal, and you make it easier to reject your premise. I no longer have to argue against your stance on immigration, I can argue against your stance on landback. Which isn't the conversation you're trying to have! It also makes it so that even if you win, you introduce other complications. No one is illegal on stolen land, sure, but now you have to defend against people saying that folks can be illegal in other conditions.

Each of these issues on their own is controversial. Combining them into one statement, attaches all of the problems of each to the other, without attaching any of the positive points. You now have people on the fence about things, talking about their perceived negative arguments about the other topic, instead of the actual point. This is about immigration, but now you've attached peoples' negative sentiments about landback to immigration. (This can happen in the other direction too, but I don't know anyway that's pro-landback but anti-immigration. This person could exist, but I can't even conceive of a strawman lol.) You're losing people that would have been an easy win, because now you've made them worried about something else.

The point of messaging is to convince people of something. “No one is illegal on stolen land” only engages people who already agree with you. I'll write a post about political activation eventually, but for now, what you need to understand is that, fundamentally, the phrase only reaches people you agree with, and then spends their political activation, while giving your opponents will to engage with their own, effective talking points. It's a bad deal all around.

No real conclusion here, mostly education about the weird dumb ways propaganda works. Focus on the points you are making, and give your opponent the fewest edges to grab on to, so that it's harder for them to distract you from the point you are trying to make.

#politics #propaganda

jesteś przewrażliwiona – powiedział ktoś i bez znaczenia jest tu kto bo to i tak zawsze bolało jesteś przewrażliwiona – znów słyszę to jestem przewrażliwiona! i co?! i nic, jak zwykle, znów bolało bo... jestem przewrażliwiona, ot co!

szukam siebie zgubiłam się dawno temu gdy ktoś radośnie wypowiedział dwa niewinne słowa

to dziewczynka

przestałam istnieć przestałam czuć przestałam myśleć stałam się lalką którą chcą bawić się wszyscy

Like playing commander, but mad about power levels/fast mana/ramp/no more battlecruiser magic? I have the solution! It's Elder Goblin Highlander (#EGH)!

What is EGH?

EGH uses the same rules as commander, except that you can only include cards with mana value four or greater in your deck. This includes your commander! You also get two basic lands in your command zone, because I don't want to wait around for you to make good deckbuilding decisions and mulligan.

Why is EGH?

Basically all of the complaints about commander come from cards that cost three or less mana. Now, you don't have to worry about them!

Split Cards, Adventures, and cards with abilities that can be activated from hand for less than four mana

If you're trying to cast a spell for less than four mana, that's a no go, because then people start jamming all the split cards they can for advantage, and booooo on your house! This is easy for split cards, but harder for things like Adventures/MDFCs. Talk to your playgroup, but the idea is that you shouldn't be casting spells before turn four. A possible split difference is if you force Fuse casting on spells that have that option.

Activated abilities, like cycling, should be fine! We've done limited playtesting mostly around things like Krosan Tusker and Yidaro, and it played fine. If you run into problems let me know!

Banlist

In our playtesting and thought experiments, there wasn't much that arose as too problematic. Consider using the regular commander banlist, but also most of the cards there that are a pain are also less than four mana, big exceptions being Prophet of Kruphix and Primeval Titan.

A big exception to this are four and five mana smokestack effects. For this reason, the following cards are banned:

Smokestack Braids, Cabal Minion Descent Into Madness Keruga, the Macrosage is banned as a companion.

You should not play cards that look like these cards. They generate non games, and the only reason to play them is to make non-games. Braids, especially, if you go first you can just play 99 swamps and then your opponents never get to cast spells.

The biggest thing is don't be a jerk! Stax is fine (though difficult, a lot of stax pieces cost less than four mana), being a jerk about it is not.

#MagicTheGathering #CustomMagicFormats #CustomMagicRules

This is my hello-world post on this platform. I like the no-distractions writing interface.

I started developing pain in my right heel a little over a month ago. Feels a little like plantar fasciitis, which I had a few years back. Some mornings the first few steps would be really painful until my foot sort of loosened up. Although the symptoms would sometimes abate, they kept coming back, so I made an appointment with a local orthopedic surgeon to have a look.

They started with a couple of xrays, which showed no breaks or tears: https://flic.kr/p/2rK3cee.

The doc pretty quickly diagnosed it as Achilles' tendonitis and said that it might have required surgery if left untreated!

The upshot: I'm wearing a “boot” for the next couple of weeks to immobilize my ankle. It's a heavy, Velcro-loaded piece of footwear with super-high arch support and a snug inflatable pocket for my heel. The med tech who fitted it said it would feel like wearing a high-heeled shoe.

So now I know how that feels. My drag career may not be happening.

I can get around in it fine but feel a bit like Herman Munster. Walking around on our hardwood floors makes an ominous, shuffle-clump, approaching-horror sound. Driving with it on is basically impossible, but I can remove the boot whenever sitting or lying down, so I'm not trapped in the house. I've already confirmed that I can make it to the pub and play pool.

So at the moment it's basically an inconvenience. I still get a little pain from the heel now and then, but I can already tell after a couple of days that I'm not making it worse. We'll see how it goes....

nie chcę być tym, kim jestem nie mogę być kim chcę ktoś mi powiedział że jestem nikim tak, to jedno potrafię to jedno wiem

wszyscy wiedzą lepiej ode mnie co powinnam robić a czego nie jak powinnam się zachowywać a jak nie co powinnam czuć a czego nie kim powinnam być a kim nie jako kobieta matka autystka bo jako człowiek to raczej nie

Este fin de semana me senté con mi hijo a ver la película “Vengadores: La era de Ultrón”, e incluso llegamos a ver una parte de su secuela “Vengadores: Infinity War” y me impresionó mucho la fuerte presencia de arquetipos de la derecha populista iliberal, o sea, del movimiento MAGA y similares.

Destaca la figura de Tony Stark-Iron Man, el tecnoligarca, que respresenta un tipo de personaje que en los últimos años ha sido importantísimo en el movimiento reaccionario, con personajes como Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg o Peter Thiel. Lo presentan bajo una luz muy favorable, un mago que salva a la humanidad con su tecnología mágica y conduce el mundo hacia el futuro. La forma aspiracional del tecnoligarca es el criptobró y cierta estirpe de emprendedores adultescentes en cuyos modales a veces de adivina la influencia de Tony Stark. En el caso de Elon Musk, la retroalimentación con el personaje de Tony Stark es muy significativa, es difícil saber si Tony Stark imita a Elon Musk, si Musk diseña su imagen pública buscando el parecido con Stark o es más bien una mezcla de ambas cosas.

Siguiendo con Tony Stark, resulta dolorosa la transformación de Spiderman en sus películas. Peter Parker era un chico de clase trabajadora, con escasísima conciencia de clase pero de clase trabajadora y con valores de clase trabajadora. En algunas de sus últimas películas Peter Parker-Spiderman se convierte en ilusionado empleado de Tony Stark y es el millonario el elemento motriz de su vida, el que hace que le pasen cosas y prospere, y Peter Parker busca ser validado por su líder-patrón con una actitud de entrega propia de un perro faldero. El rol de Tony Stark en la vida de Spiderman y en la de otros personajes recuerda a la del Tío Gilito en la vida de sus sobrinos, pues es el magnate el que hace que pasen las cosas y Donald, Juanito, Jaimito y Jorgito disfrutan de aventuras y una vida excitante en tanto en cuanto se arrimen al magnate y sigan sus instrucciones. A un rol así se ha visto reducido Spiderman.

Junto con la figura del tecnoligarca, en estas películas de los vengadores también está representado el hiper-macho, esa estética cultivada por Desokupa, el Batallón Azov y muchas peñas ultras futbolísticas, en “La era de Ultrón” representado por el vikingo Thor. La figura del hiper-macho, supermusculado, con estética entre neonazi y yihadista, se ha extendido mucho en los últimos años, probablemente con cierta relación en la película “300” y con cierta relación con la postmoderna doctrina queer. Al no ser la condición de hombre o mujer una simple circunstancia biológica si no una autoidentificación con un cánon de género establecido social o comercialmente, volvemos al viejo problema pre-feminista de que había que demostrar que se es un hombre de verdad si es que uno se autoidentifica como tal, por lo que se hacen necesarios modelos incuestionablemente masculinos a los que adherirse, y ahí está la ultraderecha, como antaño el ejército, para validarte como macho.

El Capitán América representa el arquetipo del W.A.S.P. tradicional, en este caso con un sesgo militarista, pues este Capitán América de las películas de los Vengadores aparece caracterizado como un yonqui de la guerra. En estas películas el Capitán América ha perdido las connotaciones liberales y antifascistas que solían impregnarlo en los comics.

¿Y Wakanda? Un país situado en el tercer mundo pero redimido por la tecnología y un estilo castrense, al estilo del publicista y político Bukele.

El único perfil del movimiento reaccionario que eché de menos en estas películas de los Vengadores fue el del reaccionario cristiano, tipo evangélico fundamentalista o católico integrista tipo J. D. Vance. Por lo que veo la religión es bastante tabú en el cine, lo que puede explicar la ausencia de ese perfil. La única presencia de lo religioso en estas películas es la versión comiquera de la teosofía representada por el Doctor Strange.

Mask Magic

It first comes in the night, a flicker of a nightmare. A crash of thunder, the sound of stone on metal.

They don't think much of it at first, but then the images start showing up in the daytime. A crow, a fox, flint, steel, hands grasping up from the earth, attacking the senses. An Icon beckons to them.

The first mask usually isn't even a mask, just a fever of earth and dye, almost plastered on their face, thick with unrefined emotion. It is then that the totem can speak.

And there is much to teach.

#Writing #ShortFiction #MagicUsers #Sorcerers

zużyta wyeksploatowana zniszczona jak sito podziurawiona w sam raz już tylko do punktu selektywnej zbiórki odpadów komunalnych

I have spent a short session testing weapons. My go to weapons, have been Pulse lasers to take out shields and multi cannons to do hull damage. This combination is what I have used for years, because I had no idea what the other weapons were good at, and had no interest in spending time finding out.

I realized that now, was the right time to test this though. My enemies are fairly easy at this level, and I have basically nothing to lose. So currently, I am testing out various weapons and weapon combinations

I know that I can't share any information that you can't find online, but I can share my amazement at how impressive the torpedoes were, how frustrating the fragment cannons are and how interesting the rail guns felt. I will be looking more into the variations, but for now, the main points are as follows

• Thermal weapons, remove shield from the target.
  
• Kinetic weapons, are mainly used for hull damage. They require ammunition though
• Thermal Kinetic weapons are a mix of the above. They do equal damage to both shield and hull, but require ammunition, create a lot of heat and can damage your own ship
  
• Explosive Weapons are great for hull damage, but do very little damage to shields

I go for gimballed weapons for now, as I am not a very good flyer yet. They follow the target, unlike fixed weapons that only point straight out at a fixed point. They use more energy, but are easier to use, so for me, it's worth it

I will keep testing these for a few days still, as I figure out what each of them can do, but for now, I am having a lot of fun figuring things out!

also I am very grateful to CMDR GFLDEX for helping boost my credits from 4mil to 450mil the other day, by sharing a bunch of missions with me. It opens up a whole new aspect of the game that I hadn't expected to mess with for at least a few months!

Rookie Combat

Today I have been playing Elite Dangerous, and I chose to venture into game play that I previously haven't felt brave enough to do. I took some combat missions! Most of them were missions where I had to kill a specific pirate. As I am a new player, my combat rank is “Harmless”. This allows me to take some easy missions that are pretty straight forward. Go there and kill this guy.

I can find them pretty fast, but once I get there, I am not very good at engaging them in combat. I was streaming the session, and some viewers explained that I need to stay within 800meters, to do the most damage. This means that I need to get a lot better at flying! An other steamer suggested that I practice “Flight Assist Off” for this.

Other missions were to kill ships from a pirate fraction. These were more complicated, because once you find them, they may have friends defending them. Here, I had to give up my first encounter, and go back to my base in order to change into a better ship. I had been flying an Imperial Eagle that I had bought earlier today, but hopped into a Cobra Mark III for the rest of the missions.

I'll get back into the grind tomorrow, and probably get better as time goes by. I also learned about the SCO frame shift drive. I believe that I already had one of those in one of my ships, but only today did I realize that it allows you to boost while in super cruise mode! This is very handy and makes long distance trips within systems a lot faster!

Hello Worlds....

I am new here, so I wanted to say hi!

My name is Steph and I play games when I have the time. I am quite hooked on space games, and in the tech around these. Currently I spend a lot of time on a game called Elite Dangerous.

The challenges are these:
– I am not very good at gaming
– I am easily distracted and very forgetful
– I am quite technically inept
– I play on Linux (Mint)

Nonetheless, I plan on having fun, and I plan to share it all here with you!