Hyvetyrant's Tumblr @hyvetyrant - Tumblr Blog

imagine if you will, a fairly dry survival crafting game in which you live in a bunker and must periodically venture out to scavenge food, set up turrets for attacking monsters, etc

now, your computer inside the bunker has a game-inside-a-game on it which is a charming farming sim of undeniably greater quality and scope than the survival game you're playing. therefore, the object of the game becomes to keep your bunker secure so you can play the farming game more.

now, once you achieve the highest rating in the farming game, a secret shop inside it unlocks, and one of the novelty items you can purchase is a game console, giving you access to games-inside-a-game-inside-a-game. most of the games for it are typical mobile shovelware, but one of them is a highly polished, extremely brutal precision platformer with amazing level design and production values exceeding that of the survival game and farming sim combined.

it is only at this point that the purpose of this entire contrivance becomes clear: to create the most deranged speedrun community the world has ever seen.

uss-edsall

At 1 PM on a Friday I get an email from my boss. I'm busy as hell so I don't check it immediately. Then I get a phone call from my boss, which has almost never happened before. I'm a white collar worker, a historian. There's never a 'historical emergency' requiring a phone call to kick me in the ass and get to work.

The request is so urgent my boss needs it by the end of the work week. Which, y'know, is 5 PM on a Friday. So I have four hours to do it.

It's a forwarded request. Somebody contacted a member of the donation team asking for help, "I need a map from the Vietnam War to use for a presentation." It's somebody she's trying to coax into giving a five figure donation to the museum.

The request was asked to the donation team member, who then emailed my boss, who then emailed and called me urgently.

This map required:

North and South Vietnam in it

All four areas that South Vietnam was divided into for military purposes ('Corps') clearly delineated

Four cities, all of them horrifically misspelled, and only identifiable because I know what battle the requester is asking about (it’s in III Corps on the border with Cambodia) (the requester danced around the battle but I’m knowledgeable enough to identify it)

Has Laos and Cambodia in it

Has the Ho Chi Minh Trail in it

So. I was mad about the 'you have literally four hours to find a map with a lot of requirements.'

I was then mad at myself about finding a copyright free map from Texas Tech University within half an hour, proving her right for asking me to do it.

Then, after I found a map that perfectly met the requirements, I was equally amazed, baffled, and horrified when I read further into the forwarded email chain.

The donation team team member they were speaking to used AI to generate a map.

The above put half of North Vietnam in South Vietnam, made the Ho Chi Minh Trail a country, made 60% of Cambodia part of South Vietnam, put the DMZ extremely high up in North Vietnam, completely disconnected the southern tip of Vietnam, misplaced all of the Corps zones, etc etc

At the very last second the donation team member had a moment of divine clarity, remembering there's three historians on payroll to ask for this kind of thing from. So she contacted my boss while saying, "I had fun with this, but I decided I should check for accuracy before I send it to the donor! I need a fact check by the end of the day, then I send it"

My boss, while not the most knowledgeable on the Vietnam War, does know her geography. She took one look, and knew it was so off she called me to tell me how urgent it is that I look at the email and respond

good fucking god, jesus tap dancing goddamn christ, I'm glad I was asked to look at it and then find a real map

the-murmuration-project

My fear has never been that AI would replace human intelligence. My fear has been that the people who Know Things and the people who Make The Decisions are almost never the same people.

We’re throwing real intelligence out on the street to starve while worshipping the shambling Frankenstein-ed corpse of knowledge puppeteered by those who see us as disposable assets.

liberalsarecool

I am unable to comprehend how everyone is not sick about what is happening.

sitting-on-me-bum

A red fox snacking on a plum.

FREDERIC DESMETTE / BIOSPHOTO / MINDEN PICTURES

depsidase

femdemon

How are we at a point now where "trans men and transmascs don't experience gender euphoria" is a real fucking take that I'm seeing people post and agree with? "Oh, trans men and transmascs will never understand the moment when you finally put on a dress or skirt and feel like yourself-" chest binders. Packers. Getting a short haircut. Being called "sir" by a stranger instead of "miss" or "ma'am." Growing facial hair. What's even really being said here, that we don't experience gender euphoria, or that our gender euphoria is less significant?

alarajrogers

Weirdly, I believe this is a knock-on effect of misogyny.

See, if women aren't real people, then the things that gender-mark women are real gender markers that identify them as not-people, but the things that gender-mark men are just normal people things, not gendered. Because the male gender doesn't exist, it's just women and people.

So you can't be gender-euphoric about becoming a man; all you're doing is shedding gender and becoming a genderless "normal person", because normal person is male.

It is really really weird that misogyny against women ends up, through a circuitous route, as redefining men as genderless, but this is the effect of generations of men being "normal" and women being "gendered".

Trans men, of course, know better; they can clearly see the gender marked-ness of masculinity, and feel euphoria when they reach it, because they're specifically looking for it. But cis men don't see it because women are the gender-marked class, and trans women might not see it for that reason and because they've been trying to achieve gender-markedness. Maybe they haven't put enough thought into the construction of the gender they're trying to leave behind to recognize that in fact masculinity is marked. (Any enby could have told them that, but it can be genuinely hard to recognize how marked masculinity is because even feminism falls into the trap of "women are the gender marked class and everyone else is just a person".)

Given how hard people have to fight to be seen as "manly" you'd think we'd all understand how very gender-marked masculinity is... but the fight to be manly is often constructed as the fight to not be womanly. Like, this is how normal people behave, and this is how girls behave, and you don't want to be a girl, do you?

"Trans men don't experience gender euphoria" needs to be called out as a belief that's caused by patriarchy, and a form of internal misogyny if it's a woman (cis or trans) saying it. It's the belief that only women have gender... which comes from the belief that only men are normal humans.

the-haiku-bot

Weirdly, I believe

this is a knock-on effect

of misogyny.

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

mousegirlheart

I WANT MARRIAGE EQUALITY NOW

SURE, I CAN LEGALLY MARRY MY WIFE RIGHT NOW, BUT IN DOING SO BOTH OF US WILL HAVE OUR DISABILITY BENEFITS CUT AND WE WILL THEN BE STRUGGLING FINANCIALLY.

THAT IS MARRIAGE INEQUALITY

WE, AS DISABLED PEOPLE, ARE PREVENTED FROM BEING MARRIED OR WE WILL BE FUCKED FINANCIALLY

I WANT TO MARRY MY WIFE

THIS IS UNFAIR

liberalsarecool

Cosign.

biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist

no more historic events this decade that is ENOUGH, i’m putting my foot down

alettertofutureme

History is not done with us yet my friend

biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist

I have received all manner of threat, up to and beyond “I will play a flute carved from your femur,” and yet this is the first time I’ve felt truly threatened

biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist

i knew posting this in 2022 was risky but holy fucking shit

cursed-dolphin-witch

Did anything special happen today or are we just reblogging this?

fforsythiaaa

Once when I was in undergrad, someone described something as “problematic” in class and our professor was like, “That’s cool, but ‘problematic’ doesn’t really mean anything. It means that the thing you’re describing has a problem, and in and of itself that’s not bad. Art, especially, should always have problems, or else it’s not interesting and not art, either. It sounds like you’re trying to say that this is bad, but you don’t want to say ‘bad.’ Is that right?”

So from then on whenever one of us called something problematic, he would make us talk it out until we could name the “bad” thing we were hinting at. In this particular class, 7/10 it was some type of oppression, and the remainder was like, “I’m uncomfortable because this is very new/confusing/pushing boundaries that made me feel safe.”

Once we stopped calling things “problematic” and stopping at that, class got way more interesting and... we all had to say, like, “that’s racist” or “that’s misogynistic” or “ew capitalism gross” out loud, which a lot of us had never done in a classroom before. Or we had to be like, “Uhhh... I’m not sure what’s so bad?” and confront our own beliefs and that was maybe even more useful.

Anyway. Whenever I see the word problematic, I can’t help but think of this professor being like, “Good starting point, now let’s get specific.” I think when we have to commit to saying “that’s ___” it requires a lot more careful thought about the truth and impact and complexities of whatever we’re claiming. Sometimes there really is some bullshit afoot, and also sometimes it’s art, and it should be full of problems, because that’s what art is.

hypokeimena

#'this is present in the text' is often a good first step #but those second and third ones (naming it; describing its function) are vital (via @elucubrare)

pirateprincessjess

Friendly reminder as we get closer to the launch of the ModRetro M64. ModRetro is owned by Palmer Lucky, a self described “Radical Zionist” who fundraises for Donald Trump.

Palmer Lucky also has another company, called Anduril Industries, that manufactures and sells AI powered weapons and surveillance systems. ModRetro even sells Anduril branded gameboys that were made from the same metal that they use to manufacture attack drones.

Don’t buy this thing. A 200 dollar Nintendo 64 clone is not worth your soul.

pirateprincessjess

The reason I’m bringing this up now is because there seems to be a new marketing push happening for this device. It’s all over my feed on TT and IG right now.

They seem to be pushing the fact that there are new Nintendo64 games being made for the M64. This is very misleading because any game that runs on the M64 will run on a real Nintendo 64.

There’s also been new games coming out for the Nintendo 64 for years. ModRetro didn’t make this happen. They’re just publishing a few games. The Nintendo 64 Homebrew scene has been thriving on its own.

defka99

Also also, while they claim to have good performance for the majority of n64 games, the games that run worse on this thing than actual n64 are popular games like majora's mask. It's not even that good for its price. DON'T. BUY. THE ZIONIST. N64 CLONE.

pirateprincessjess

Wait, I didn’t know this part. So you’re telling me it’s not even a good n64 clone?!

pangur-and-grim

Please look at the baby chinchilla from work. Look at as much of it you can see without a microscope. Please PLEASE I need people to see it's it's such a THING

how can that exist