Discoholic 🪩
Today's Document
shark vs the universe
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Origami Around
will byers stan first human second
Misplaced Lens Cap
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
Andulka
Noah Kahan
occasionally subtle
TVSTRANGERTHINGS
KIROKAZE
tumblr dot com
PUT YOUR BEARD IN MY MOUTH
Janaina Medeiros
Cosimo Galluzzi
Game of Thrones Daily
he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
seen from Bangladesh
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@hasturtimesthree
I don't know if this is the sort of thing posted here, or if it'll get any response, but:
I have been told that (and it seems accurate that) I am bad at coming up with strategies from scratch, and tend to follow whatever opportunities to do good come my way instead. Since I would like to devote my life to the truth, life, and agency of all sentient beings, and am largely lost on how to do so, has anyone any advice?
(Sorry if this is not the sort of thing one posts hereabouts)
The company was launched out of stealth last year.
The fact that Mark Cuban can do this is just further proof of how much capatalism is f*cking people over.
Billionaire investor Mark Cuban launched an online pharmacy Thursday that offers more than 100 generic drugs at an affordable price with a goal of being “radically transparent” in its price negotiations with drug companies.
For example, the leukemia drug imatinib is priced at $47 a month on MCCPDC compared to the $9,657 retail price.
The online pharmacy’s prices for generics factor in a 15% margin on top of actual manufacturer prices and a $3 pharmacist fee, the statement said.
PLEASE SPREAD THIS INFO
yes this is pretty unbelievable right now—but just look at the replies and reblogs of this post—look at all these people on twitter talking about their own experiences with it now too—this is actually real
and yes everyone is waiting for a catch, but remember it is a PRIVILEGE to think about not sharing this information out of spite for billionaires rather than needing this opportunity regardless of how long it lasts or if mark cuban is doing this for his own gain
so please share. thanks
READ THIS THREAD AND SHARE - I EXCERPTED THE KEY POINTS ABOVE
love my state, in akron the cops fired 90 rounds at a black man and 60 of them hit him, making him "unrecognizable" and the cops have done such a good job covering it up that ive only seen 2 people talking about it and afaik the only people protesting are some of his friends and family in akron. fukken burn this shithole down
"I have never seen the kind of grief and the kind of pain that I'm seeing today," the family's lawyer told BuzzFeed News.
i mentioned some details that arent in this article but i got those details from a local black activist. i hate to be ranting about this shit on today of all days but im really mad that so few people are talking about this
His name was Jayland Walker. He was 25 years old.
This all started because of a "traffic violation."
All 8 cops involved are now on paid fucking vacation.
Justice for Jayland Walker.
POSTING THIS AGAIN!!!
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE BE CAREFUL OUT THERE!!!
Self-managed abortion (SMA) with pills is very medically safe and effective throughout early pregnancy, but there is a significant risk of criminalization in many U.S. states. While it is impossible to fully eliminate the risk of criminalization when having or planning to have an abortion at home, t
Leave no online footprint of searches or purchases. Digital Defense Fund’s abortion privacy guide is your go-to resource for this. Using private browsers, two-factor authentication, encrypted messaging, strong passwords, etc. is critical. Google searches have been presented as evidence in an SMA trial before. Do not leave a digital trail.
Use the medications properly to prevent interactions with healthcare providers. The pills are very effective, but they have to be used right. Carefully follow the instructions provided on the How to Use Abortion Pill website. Note that misoprostol tablets should always be taken by dissolving them under the tongue. Do NOT insert misoprostol vaginally if you are self-managing an abortion. While this is medically safe, it can leave incriminating pill remnants that can be detected in the vagina during a pelvic exam if you end up needing to seek medical care.
If it’s not an emergency but you need expert health advice, use a free calling service like Google Voice to call or text the Miscarriage + Abortion Hotline at 1-833-246-2632. Medical complications are very uncommon with abortion pills, but they’re not impossible. The M+A Hotline is safe to use and is staffed by trustworthy clinicians who volunteer their time to help those who choose SMA. Do not use your own phone number to call as this will create a record that is visible to your cell service provider.
Don’t disclose any information about SMA to emergency room staff if you do need to seek medical care. This is how most people who are arrested for SMA are reported. Healthcare providers are almost always who calls the police in cases of SMA criminalization. Contrary to popular belief, HIPAA does not protect your private health information from being shared with police if you are suspected of doing something that could be considered a crime. If you believe you need to seek urgent medical care, do not hesitate to go. Say “I think I’m having a miscarriage” and provide your symptoms. Do not mention any use of or purchase of abortion pills. There is no widely available test to detect misoprostol in your bloodstream. If you do not disclose it, there is no way for a medical provider to tell the difference between a medication abortion and a spontaneous miscarriage.
Do not talk to the cops. Period. Do. Not. Talk. To. The. Cops. If you are questioned by police you should state, “I am exercising my right to remain silent, and I wish to speak with an attorney.” Do not speak again or nod in response to a question. Contact the Repro Legal Helpline as soon as possible for expert legal advice: 1-844-868-2812. Do not agree to questioning or speak to any law enforcement official without a lawyer present.
Incredibly fucking crucial information for Americans where period tracking digitally is concerned: DELETE YOUR DATA, DELETE YOUR ACCOUNT AND DELETE YOUR APPS
crash
URGENT: 🚨🚨EARN IT ACT IS BACK IN THE SENATE 🚨🚨 tumblr's nsfw ban hitting the entire internet this spring 2022
February 1, 2022
I’m so so sorry for the long post but please please please pay attention and spread this
WHAT IS THE EARN IT ACT?
The EARN IT Act has been roundly condemned by nearly every major LGBTQ+ advocacy and human rights organization in the country. This is a bill that will make children less safe, undermine online safety and security, and trample free expression, because it carves out another exception to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA 230), which the ACLU describes as “foundational to modern online communications.” This has been the law that has let the internet grow into what it is today, we’ve had this law since the 90s. (For context, Trump wanted to get rid of this law because he knew it would lead to mass govt surveillance and censorship of minorities online.)
The EARN IT Act will lead to online censorship. Platforms will be incentivized to scan their users’ communications and censor all sex-related content, including sex education, literally anything lgbt, transgender or non-binary education and support systems, and sex worker communication according to the ACLU. All this in the name of “protecting kids” and “fighting CSEM”, both of which the bill does nothing of the sort. In fact it makes fighting CSEM even harder.
If this bill passes, we're going to see most, if not all, adult content and accounts removed from mainstream platforms, for fear of the liability that could come with ever accidentally hosting CSAM, as well as the erasure of end-to-end encryption on messaging platforms.
This is really not a drill. Anyone who makes or consume anything “adult” online has to be prepared to fight Sen. Blumenthal's EARN IT Act, brought back from the grave by a bipartisan consensus to destroy Section 230.
EARN IT will open the way for politicians to define the category of “pornography" as they — or the lobbies that fund them — please, (Right now, right wing organizers are catgorizing books about racism as ‘porn’ to ban them from schools) which is a cherished goal of organizations that seek to reintroduce obscenity prosecutions for content now protected by Free Speech jurisprudence. This will 1000000% be used to eradicate anything LGBT online.
What this bill says it does on the surface is make platforms liable for their users’ activity if that activity involves sex and minors. However, because of 230, platforms are not liable at all about their users' activity. This has allowed platforms to grow and thrive and many niches online to as well. The bill also creates an unelected commission to create “best practices” to combat online child sexual exploitation. While these recommendations are nominally voluntary (so Americans have no decision on who gets to be on it), platforms that refuse to comply will be liable for criminal prosecutions and lawsuits should the government decide any of their users is engaging in online child sexual exploitation.
This is already a nightmare enough. But the bill also DESTROYS ENCRYPTION, you know, the thing protecting literally anyone or any govt entity from going into your private messages and emails and anything on your devices and spying on you.
This bill is going to finish what FOSTA/SESTA started. And that should terrify you.
Senator Blumenthal (Same guy who said ‘Facebook should ban finsta’) pushed this bill all of 2020, literally every activist (There were more than half a million signatures on this site opposing this act!) pushed hard to stop this bill. Now he brings it back, doesn’t show the text of the bill until hours later, and it’s WORSE. Instead of fixing literally anything in the bill that might actually protect kids online, Bluemnthal is hoping to fast track this and shove it through, hoping to get little media attention other than propaganda of "protecting kids" to support this shitty legislation that will harm kids.
The entire EARN IT act is based on *multiple* misunderstandings of the law and reality. It's a really really really bad policy that will do serious harm. But because Senator Blumenthal wants headlines, he'll pretend that it "helps protect the children." It won't. It'll do real damage. It will make CSEM much much worse.
One of the many reasons this bill is so dangerous: It totally misunderstands how Section 230 works, and in doing so (as with FOSTA) it is likely to make the very real problem of CSAM worse, not better. Section 230 gives companies the flexibility to try different approaches to dealing with various content moderation challenges. It allows for greater and greater experimentation and adjustments as they learn what works -- without fear of liability for any "failure." Removing Section 230 protections does the opposite. It says if you do anything, you may face crippling legal liability. This actually makes companies less willing to do anything that involves trying to seek out, take down, and report CSAM because of the greatly increased liability that comes with admitting that there is CSAM on your platform to search for and deal with. This liability would allow anyone for any reason to sue any platform they want, suing smaller ones out of existence. Look at what is happening right now with book bans across the nation with far right groups. This is going to happen to the internet if this bill passes.
(Remember, the state department released a report in December 2021 recommending that the government crack down on "obscenity" as hard the Reagan Administration did. If this bill passes, it could easily go way beyond shit red states are currently trying. It is a goldmine for the fascist right that is currently in the middle of banning every book that talks about race and sexuality across the US.)
NCOSE, the far right anti-LGBT hate group behind the global anti-sex legislations, is pushing the idea that any form of sexual expression, including talking about HEALTH, leads to sex trafficking. Their goal is to eliminate all sex, anything gay, and everything that goes against their idea of ‘God’ from the internet and hyper disney-fy and sanitize it. This is a highly coordinated attack on multiple fronts.
The reason these bills keep showing up is because there is this false lie spread by organizations like NCOSE that platforms do nothing about CSEM online. However, platforms are already liable for child sexual exploitation under federal law. Tech companies sent more than 45 million+ instances of CSAM to the DOJ in 2019 alone, most of which they declined to investigate. This shows that platforms are actually doing everything in their power already to stop CSEM by following already existing laws. The Earn It Act includes zero resources for proven investigation or prevention programs. If Senator Bluementhal actually cared about protecting youth, why wouldn’t he include anything to actually protect them in his shitty horrible bill?
The Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) along with a coalition of 26 civil society organizations urged the United States Senate to reject the EARN IT Act. Groups on the left and right, including the ACLU, Fight for the Future, EFF, and Hacking // Hustling oppose it. Because it threatens free expression online and will threaten marginalized people’s safety while being totally unnecessary and failing to fix the problem it claims to address. The EARN IT Act empowers states to give law enforcement access to users’ private conversations and force companies to create encryption backdoors for law enforcement. This is totally unnecessary. Platforms are already handing over CSAM to the federal government. It’s actually likely to make prosecuting child molesters more difficult since evidence collected this way likely violates the Fourth Amendment and would be inadmissible in court.
I don't know why so many Senators are eager to cosponsor the "make child pornography worse" bill, but here we are.
WHAT YOU CAN DO:
EARN IT Act was introduced yesterday! And it’s already scheduled to get marked up, which is the first step post-introduction. Most bills never go to markup, so this means they are putting pressure to move this through. IF YOU LIVE IN THESE STATES (IL, VT, CA, RI, MN, DE, CT, HI, NJ, and GA), CONTACT YOUR SENATOR AND HOUSE MEMBERS NOW. THIS IS URGENT. This is who gets first crack, and folks in all have Senators who are on the Judiciary committee.
I'm guessing this month or March is when the bill would be passed if there is no opposition 😭 The bill was re-introduced yesterday, already set for markup this Thursday. This feels like an attempt to fast track it this month. Additionally the current makeup of Congress favors those who want it passed. Back in 2020 it was mostly Senate republicans and democrats who are basically republicans (just like now, check the sponsors) pushing it with Ron Wyden using the filibuster to stop their efforts. The house dems didn't want to give Trump a win and needed to appear as pro-privacy/free speech for the 2020 election. Now the dems have the presidency, both chambers of Congress and if you've noticed have spent a few years repeatedly demanding social media censorship and desperately want to give Biden victories. biden isn't like obama who opposed sopa/pipa to appeal to younger voters. This is similar to how FOSTA passed with the group who made it happen last time back again. Far as I'm aware Wyden hasn't spoken about new earn it yet but even if he does oppose it, it's very possible there will be enough Senate democrats to join the republicans in passing it beating a filibuster. Then pelosi's band of house idiots pass it and we have to choose between breaking the law because they can't stop us from using encryption or being obedient sheep to a group who consider themselves above laws.
It already has a fifth of the Senate cosponsoring it. There is a very very very real chance this bill becomes law. This is an uphill battle that's going to happen fast and quick. PLEASE, FIGHT NOW.
202-224-3121 connects you to the congressional hotline.
This website takes you to your Senator / House members contact info. EMAIL, MESSAGE, SEND LETTERS, CALL CALL CALL CALL CALL. Calling is the BEST way to get a message through. Get your family and friends to send calls too. This is literally the end of free speech online.
More sources to read about this bill:
https://cathyreisenwitz.substack.com/p/the-earn-it-act-is-anti-evidence
Fight for the Future’s Statement
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=678EW8v09z8&t=1s
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20220131/22423648395/senates-new-earn-it-bill-will-make-child-exploitation-problem-worse-not-better-still-attacks-encryption.shtml
EARN IT Act treats Myths as Facts.
https://surviveearnit.com/what-is-the-earn-it-act/ From 2020, but little has changed about the bill.
https://www.protocol.com/bulletins/earn-it-act-back
Center for Democracy and Technology’s Statement
TLDR: The EARN IT Act will lead to online censorship of any and all adult & lgbt content across the entire internet, open the floodgates to mass surveillance the likes which we haven't seen before, lead to much more CSEM being distributed online, and destroy encryption. Call 202-224-3121 to connect to your house and senate representative and tell them to VOTE NO on this bill that does not protect anyone and harms everyone.
I hate to do this and I hope it doesn’t come to this, but here goes:
There is a tenant in my building who has acted with extreme belligerence toward my family, has explicitly threatened to hurt me and my family, and has actually punched my mother’s 88 year old partner. Our living situation is such that we cannot access a toilet, water, or food without entering spaces this person has free access to. We judge that we are extremely unsafe in this situation. Our building management claims to be working on the issue, but so far has not taken any obvious effective action to keep us safe and claims they can’t discuss their response to the situation with us because of legal restrictions (this incident happened on 9/26, it is now 10/1). We have moved to a hotel as a short-term solution, and are safe for now, but spending $130 per day on housing is not a sustainable situation for us.
We are cautiously optimistic that the situation will be resolved in our interests in the next few days, but if not we’re not sure what we’re going to do for safe housing. If there’s anybody out there within reasonable driving distance of Berkeley, CA, who might be able to give us refuge temporarily, that would potentially be very useful to us. We don’t want to be a burden to anyone and are really hoping it doesn’t come to that, but if it does, anyone who takes us in might be saving us from homelessness or worse.
We are a 36 year old cis male (myself), a 78 year old cis woman (my mother), and an 88 year old cis man (my mother’s partner). None of us has any major disabilities or illnesses, though my mother’s partner has some mild memory problems. We are all doubly vaccinated against coronavirus. If three people is too much, even just giving a place to stay to myself or one of my family members might be helpful.
If you think you might be able to help us, please contact me. If you know any resources you think might be helpful to us, please suggest them. Otherwise, please at least signal-boost this. I don’t like begging people for favors like this, and I really hope things don’t come to the point where I’d actually have to take someone up on this, but I am more than a little desperate right now and I don’t really have anyone to turn to in this situation.
Thank you for anything you can do to help.
Update on this:
On 10/4 I received an email from my building management telling me that “Due to some legal roadblocks, it may take more than a few weeks before we can take any direct action.” On 10/21 I received another email from the building management saying “The process of having [the violent tenant] leave their premises may take more than a month. We’ve initiated certain things in motion but have to wait for the law to play out.” And yes, by “more than a month” they mean “more than a month from 10/21,″ I asked for clarification about that. Other than that the building management has been basically keeping us in the dark, claiming that legal restrictions prevent them from giving us more information. To be honest, I suspect that they are not taking the situation very seriously and are prioritizing their business interests above tenant safety.
Aside: I don’t like the idea of getting anyone evicted, especially these days, it’s definitely not my ideal solution to this issue, but I don’t have much control over how the building management responds to this situation, and my family having basic physical safety is a very high priority for me, and we’re not safe if we’re forced to live within 20-30 feet of a person who has explicitly threatened violence against us and already been violent to one of us and we’re forced to risk an encounter with that person every time we need to access food, water, or a toilet. And our circumstances are such that finding a new place ourselves is problematic (I’m not going to detail my family’s financial vulnerabilities in a place where millions of strangers can see it, but I’ll just say we would not be living in a place where we have to share a toilet with the neighbors if we had good options!).
Staying in a hotel for another month would be financially ruinous for us. We’ve tried contacting various organizations for help, but so far none of them have been very helpful.
I’m thinking of reaching out to the Berkeley Tenant’s Union and Tenants Together, but I’m a little reluctant to do so; given it’s fundamentally a tenant vs. tenant issue, I’m not 100% sure they’d be on our side. What do you think?
I have one lead on somebody willing to offer us a place to stay, which I’m very grateful for and will definitely be following up now, but having all our eggs in one basket like that makes me nervous. So I’ll renew my appeal; if anybody within reasonable driving distance of Berkeley, CA can offer me and/or my mother a place to stay for a while, it might make a huge difference to us and we’d be very grateful, please contact me (my mother’s partner has alternate arrangements and does not need a new place to stay so far, though it is possible that may change in the future). Even if you couldn’t put us up for a whole month, anything might be helpful.
Aside from that, any relevant resources people know about or constructive advice on what to do in this situation would be welcome and appreciated. And I’d appreciate if people who can’t or won’t help in any other way at least reblog this so it can be seen as widely as possible.
Again, thank you for anything you can do to help.
Update on this: all our attempts to resolve this situation so far have been fruitless and the money we’ve been using to rent temporary safe alternate housing is running out. I’m following up the lead on somebody willing to give us a place to stay, but it’s far from a sure thing right now. Ordinary people are sympathetic when they hear about what’s happening to us, but the general attitude of the authorities seems to be basically “you’re on your own, this is your problem.” Apparently having to worry about a violent (and physically strong!) person jumping you and breaking three or five of your bones or worse when you go to urinate at night is something you’re just kind of expected to put up with if you’re poor. The situation is getting pretty bad, to be honest; I’m pretty scared right now. Also angry and disgusted, but mostly scared.
If any affluent person is reading this and feels like doing a random act of kindness, a few thousand dollars would probably be enough to save us from this situation, and a few hundred dollars would buy us a day or two more of safety. Just putting that out there.
Any help anyone can give us would be appreciated. We’re getting pretty desperate.
Update: I’ve made a PayPal.me link if anybody wants to help me out with some money: here’s the link. I’ve also made a Venmo if that’s more convenient for anyone (the address has my real name in it and I’d prefer to keep that off this Tumblr for now, so please message me if you want to use that).
Some good people sent me money after I posted the previous addition to this so I’m not as desperate right now now as I was when I wrote it, but I’ll be back in the same place soon if nothing changes, so I could really use some help. Anything people can spare would be helpful and appreciated!
I am working on following up several leads for a place to stay, but nothing is certain as yet. I will post another update if the situation changes
I tried making a separate post for this because I feared this version might be getting TL:DR, but it hasn’t gotten much engagement so far (though somebody did send me $20, so sincere thanks for that!), so I’m hoping attaching this to a post that already has extensive reblog chains will make it spread around better. If people could reblog this so it can be seen as widely as possible, that’d be very helpful and I’d really appreciate it!
If you want to help me but you want me to treat your contribution as a loan, please message me about that. In the absence of such a message I will by default assume your contribution is a gift.
I may pin this to the top of my tumblr so it stays visible.
Back in defiance of staff and popular sentiment
@memecucker @triviallytrue @unknought @nostalgebraist @argumate I think that covers a lot of my reach? Rebagels to spread the news are appreciated
If I haven’t refollowed you yet it’s probably bc I am just kinda overwhelmed by the numbers of blogs to refollow :3
Tumblr,
Earlier today we announced to the press that we are running a beta test program for Post+, Tumblr’s newest add-on subscription tool. Post+ is a completely optional tool that will allow creators to make some of their posts exclusive to their paid subscribers. You can read more about it right over here on our @postplus Tumblr. This feature is being tested by a small group of incredible creators on Tumblr.
We want to hear about what you like, what you love, and what concerns you. Even if it’s not very nice. Tell us. We can take it. We WANT that feedback. It helps us make Tumblr better.
What we won’t ever accept is the targeted harassment and threats these creators have endured since this afternoon. These creators are some of the most talented people around, and all they’re doing is testing out a feature. These are the people who graciously agreed to pilot a program to help us discover bugs before we open it up to all creators. These are the humans who are testing a feature that we hope will soon help thousands of Tumblr creators feel empowered, get rewarded for their efforts, and find support within their community.
Our Community Guidelines are clear: Don’t engage in targeted abuse, bullying, or harassment.
Anyone in violation of these guidelines will be dealt with swiftly and will be forced to contend with the appropriate consequences. It’s okay to tell us how you feel. It’s not okay to bully someone because you disagree with their choices.
POST PLUS IS COMING, WHETHER YOU WANT IT OR NOT
Despite the fancy survey, changes to the UI and TOS reveal we’re getting the service in the future whether we want it or not. Obviously, Post+ is a terrible idea that is trying to bank revenue on user content. Unlike patreon or onlyfans, tumblr’s primary focus is on FAN content. The legality of this is NOT in the users favor and as the new tumblr TOS states, said users will be entirely liable for whatever legal matter arise.
SO WHAT ARE WE DOING?
Besides filling out the survey, it’s time to show tumblr we mean business and show our displeasure by hitting them where it hurts.
Ad revenue.
We’re proposing a 24 hour log off as phase one of this protest.
WHEN IS THE PROTEST?
AUGUST 6th, 2021 12 am Eastern Time (US0 5 am Greenwich Mean Time 6 am Central European Time 8 am Moscow Standard Time 1 pm Australian Western Time 2 pm Japan Standard Time 3:30 pm Australian Central Time 4 pm Australian Eastern Time AUGUST 5th, 2021 11 pm Mountain Time (US) 9 pm Pacific Time (US)
THE END TIME IS 24 HOURS FROM START TIME!!!
So no posting, no queues, no likes, and no reblogs!
WHAT IF I CAN’T/WHAT ELSE CAN I DO?
Like this post and share it. Use the hashtags #tumblrlogoff2021 or #postplusprotest on ANY and ALL social media.
WILL THIS WORK?
Maybe, maybe not. It’s an attempt at doing SOMETHING.
!!!!!!!
So.
Another 751 unmarked graves were found at a Saskatchewan residential school.
Seven hundred fifty one.
This school, The Marieval Indian Residential School, operated from 1899 to 1997.
It was one of the last residential schools to close in Canada. One of more than 130.
In case you didn’t know, residential schools were created to “cleanse” the people of Canada. These schools operated from 1831, when the Mohawk Institute Residential School opened, to 1996, when residential schools were finally outlawed.
That is 166 years of cultural genocide.
An estimated 150 000 children attended these schools, and an estimated 6 000 children died at these schools (current records of death are incomplete)
These children were beaten, sexually abused, even experimented on. They were treated like prisoners, like they were sub-human.
A child’s likelihood of dying in a residential school was one in twenty-five. In comparison, a Canadian World War 2 soldier’s odds of dying were one in twenty-six.
I am not Indigenous. I cannot pretend to know how painful this may be. But what I can do is speak out. This inhumane treatment of citizens of Canada must be condemned.
The government of Canada, and The Catholic Church, must. make. reparations.
Today I’m thinking about game shows
I’m thinking about the fact that for decades, we have watched game shows. It doesn’t matter, whether the contestant wins through trivia knowledge, through skill, or just through luck, if the frivolously awarded prize of life-changing amounts of money can really be earned or if the outcome is predetermined from the very beginning. The effect on the audience’s psyche, that keeps them watching, is somehow the same.
It’s all so artificial, artifice that we willingly are taken in by, for the chance to imagine ourselves as the lucky contestant. How are the contestants selected? Are we truly seeing reality, real risk, real chances taken? It doesn’t matter. What would we do if we won 10,000 dollars? That doesn’t matter either.
I’m thinking specifically about the game show Deal or No Deal.
When I was like 7, I was obsessively fixated on Deal or No Deal. Autistic kid gotta autism, I guess. I will always remember Deal or No Deal, and also specifically that my Mamaw said that the host Howie Mandel reminded her of Satan.
The fascinating thing about Deal or No Deal is how boring it should be. The gameplay is as follows: There are twenty-six numbered briefcases, each of which contains a plaque with a dollar amount of money, from $1,000,000 to $0.01. The contestant selects a briefcase. In each round of the game, they choose briefcases to open. The prize amounts in opened briefcases are eliminated. At the end of each round, a shadowy figure, the “Banker,” makes the contestant an offer of money that they can either accept, or turn down in favor of continuing to play.
Deal or No Deal has a much more pronounced psychological atmosphere than many other game shows. There’s the theatrics surrounding the Banker, whose face we never see, and who is portrayed as an adversary—“his” silhouette is shown trashing his office in anger on the one episode I can recall where a contestant won the $1,000,000 prize. There’s the fact that the briefcases are accompanied by somewhat scantily clad female models, who Howie Mandel charmingly addresses as “lovely ladies” and other such epithets.
There’s also the…weird accuracy of the “Satan” comparison. Howie Mandel, as the host of the show, was much more actively manipulative of the contestants than other game show hosts that I can recall.
Mandel did not, however, seek to change the contestant’s behavior. What is fascinating about Deal or No Deal is the way it manipulated its contestants—and the audience—into believing that they were playing a game.
The show awarded prize money whether the contestant chose to play through to the end or accepted an offer from the Banker. One could, as a contestant, expect to be offered a prize of at least $50,000-$100,000 in all but the most extraordinary circumstances, which they needed only to accept. Chance was overwhelmingly on the contestant’s side in that respect.
What drove contestants to keep playing was not simply the human tendency to be drawn to gamble, but the honor in risk-taking, the shame in safety. Accepting the Banker’s offer awarded a prize but it was not winning, and that alone drove the game. I remember specifically how Mandel would refrain that winning took a variety of skills: it took nerve, it took luck, it took guts. Things that are not “skills,” but that audiences, and contestants, are all too willing to believe are within our own control.
And over and over again, contestants would persist in playing a game with a predetermined outcome, where the odds were overwhelmingly against them, in pursuit of the fantasy of “earning” the $1,000,000 prize. Because there is no honor, no charisma, in realizing that the game is rigged. Because that does not capture our imaginations in the same way as an exceptional individual that has what it takes to win.
How beautifully, chillingly capitalist.
I read three stories in the news this week that aren't on the surface directly connected, but are all a part of a wider system. This is also a prediction. I don't often make predictions based on information I can't directly cite (as opposed to like, scanning something like the contents of r/parlerwatch and using my own models of fascism and the fascist mentality to predict what fascists will do next), I guess out of fear that I'd be wrong and would be contributing to a climate of fear and so make the world a bit worse in the process. That's less salient to me as a reason to avoid making public predictions now, so here it is:
The first is a story about companies looking to "hire" prisoners so they can use slave labor instead of paying workers a higher fee. In the last few months, the relationship between workers and companies has changed somewhat in the workers' favor. Typically, that'd result in higher wages and better benefits, but the decision-makers of today aren't interested in paying more. They'd rather acquire slaves. This creates an incentive for finding more people to enslave.
In Maryland, cops arrested several gay men for "perverted sexual practices," as it seems they haven't taken anti-sodomy laws off the books. There are 16 states in the US which have refused to remove their homophobic laws from the books, (and more) even following the 2003 Lawrence decision, which made those laws unenforceable. Supposedly. But people are still being arrested under them. There's clearly still an interest in arresting and harassing people for being queer.
And recently, I heard a story about a catholic publisher buying GPS data and grindr data to out queers. It's not just the NSA and google that have your data. Jim Bob from your local queer-hating right-wing militia can also buy it. Your local police, composed of Jim Bob's friends and perhaps Jim Bob himself, also have access to that data. The Heritage Foundation can afford to out every closeted queer in the US, and we still have a lot of propaganda being pushed by states, thinktanks, political parties, religions, and individuals which paint queers as an urgent threat to peoples' children. Like, there are people who think all queers are pedos, and who are trying to "hunt pedos" and use that line to glorify violence against queers. (I'm not linking to those accounts, but if you want more information, my dms are open.)
The state is incentivised through bribery to find more people to put into prisons, because prisons use the people imprisoned within them as slaves, then reap the profits. The people who choose who goes to prison are often cops. Cops tend to have right-wing sympathies, and many who are in the force are also members of extremist organizations, ones which are currently being fed the line that queers, but especially trans women, want to rape their children. If you're a queer, there are a lot of cops out there interested in identifying you, to find an excuse to put you in prison. And politicians and judges aren't incentivised to do much about this, because when they look the other way, they get rich.
I predict that as the state continues its slide into overt fascism, police and right-wing militias will explicitly target queers through data gathered from apps like twitter and grindr. I don't think police will necessarily need to use those sodomy laws to do it, either. I expect that if you're queer, on grindr/twitter, and have police in a right-wing milita in your town, you may have cops showing a lot of interest in your overdue parking tickets, and face additional harassment. I expect this is already happening.
...
Even if you use different user names for every social media account, and associate every social media account you use with a different email address, many of these services still require your phone number. Your phone number is often tied to your identity, (unless you go out of your way to pay in cash, and never use your phone where you live. (If you use the phone at home, then your sim card & phone number become associated with that address.)) and because your number is tied to your identity, that means any account (twitter, gmail, grindr, etc.) tied to your phone number is tied to your real identity. And since most of these apps record your location data, they can almost always identify who you are from where you live.
There are services out there which build models of your social network, your political beliefs, and which can infer your sexuality from that information. Simply avoiding a few bad apps won't cut it.
When I try talking to people about this kind of thing, the usual response I get is, "it's too late for me, they already have all my data already so what's the point?" The point is it's not just about you. It's about the young queers growing up today who are looking for a safe community to be a part of, and giving them the tools they need, making sure they know how to be safe online so there's one less way they can get got.
so it turns out the US does have at least one state owned company. its just.... you know
slavery
