Professor Goodvibe's Lecture Hall

[dailyadventureprompts]

Alright, guess it’s time to address the apocalyptic legal elephant in the room:

For those who might not know, WotC plans were leaked to “update” the OGL in what is basically a scorched earth policy with regards to 3rd party material/creators in the hopes of cutting out the competition and forcing people to use their new products. 

As someone who lived through the 4th edition/pathfinder schism, the situation is laughably similar:  D&D is flourishing more than it ever has (thanks primarily to the OGL) but the execs at Hasbro want more of the money spent on the hobby to wind up in their pockets. Oblivious to the fact that the opensource nature of the game is what draws people to it,  they task the design team with creating a proprietary virtual tabletop through which they can sell d&d content without having to worry about books or pdfs being pirated. This rightfully outrages the fandom and burns every scrap of good will they had towards WotC, resulting in a dead edition that’s maligned years afterword as folks hop to the newer, easier game system. 

The thing that’s different this time is that the d&d playerbase has grown exponentially since the days of the first OGL, with 5th edition being the easiest version of the game to run/pick up and so many resources online, there’s almost no barrier to entry besides finding a stable/accommodating group.   Hell, with the explosive popularity of liveplay series you don’t even need to be actively playing in order to be in the fandom.  All of these people are networked together in a fandom hivemind spread across twitter/reddit/youtube and WotC just made an enemy of every single one of them with its shameless and destructive cashgrab.  No streamer or 3rd party publisher wants to give Hasbro 25% of their revenue, to say nothing of having their project “cancelled” if WotC sees it as a threat to any of their current projects ( see the huge number of spelljammer materials published after the company dropped the ball). 

It took about two years after the announcement of 4th edition for Paizo to come out with pathfinder, and I have no doubt the OGL leak kickstarted every major 3rd party publisher brainstorming some legally distinct version of the 5e ruleset. In the coming months I expect to see a number of these surrogate systems floating around the internet in much the same way that the onednd playtest content, but spurred on with the added “fuck you Hasbro” energy. After that, it’s only a matter of time till one of the big streamers picks up one of these systems and popularizes it, not wanting to pay the 25%tithe to WotC. Personally my money’s on Critical Role: they were one of the major factors in popularizing 5th edition and they’ve got the fandom pull to legitimize any claimant to the throne. 

To step away from playing oracle for a bit, I’d like to finish up this post by dunking on WotC:  

*ahem*

HOW FUCKING DUMB TO YOU HAVE TO BE TO TURN YOUR ENTIRE CUSTOMER BASE AGAINST YOU IN ONE NIGHT? This is some new coke/Reynolds pamphlet/invading Russia in winter levels of shooting yourself in the foot. Wizards was on shaky ground to begin with given that they’re coming off a series of notably disappointing products AND trying to launch a new edition/virtual tabletop/battlepass system, but to follow that up with a retroactive rules change that lets them outright steal from or shut down creators? It’s laughable.  Maybe, MAYBE they could have made this work if they were knocking it out of the park with new releases every year and cultivating a base of diehard WotC loyalists, but the fact of the matter is that aside from the brand name, the hobby has largely passed them by. Everything that Wizards does, from player options to settings to monsters to rules modules, someone else does better because they’re willing to take risks and put in the effort. Aside from the elegant simplicity of 5e’s base system, I can count maybe two pieces of actual game design (piety from Theros, ship combat from Saltmash) that I consider usable at my table, which is SAYING SOMETHING considering we’re nearing the end of the game’s ten year golden age. 

I know we’ll weather this storm, we always have, and regardless of what happens I still know my friends and I will enjoy gathering around the table and slinging dice even though we might not be playing “dungeons and dragons” in a couple years time.  I’ll keep my eye on the horizon, and let you know where I find safe harbour.

[gholateg]

The funny thing is CR doesn’t need ANYTHING from them. No one gives a fuck about the crunch for CR. some racial name swaps and a few class tweaks and bickity bam. Same shit, new crunch.

[professorgoodvibes]

Add to that, they were originally playing a modified Pathfinder game (because life is full of grand ironies), and you’ve got a recipe for a powder keg at Hasbro.

[nonyayo2]

Officer Begs School to Keep Armed Men Out, But Assistant Principal Told Gunmen to Enter and Stay Safe from Police

'They risked the lives of CHILDREN to show how woke they are. Can’t make it up,' the National Fraternal Order of Police wrote.

[the-davest-of-uncles]

Mr. Assistant Principal Dumbass, the only people impressed that you protected criminals from cops are other criminals.

And they’re going to come to your school and kill the kids you’re responsible for.

[theconstitutionisgayculture]

School officials have officially joined journalists, lawyers and politicians as subhuman scum.

[emmaubler]

Not only did the vice principal let armed teens into his school because “I thought they weren’t safe with the police out there,” the school board actually backed his call, saying he did what he thought was best because they were just let into the lobby.  Let it be known to the parents of the Cleveland Metropolitan School System–your school and system leaders will actively put your child in danger to protect armed teens in stolen cars running towards the building.

https://fox8.com/news/i-team/video-police-confront-kids-with-guns-at-cleveland-school/

And this is the most recent article listed–19 days ago on the local news.  No follow up on this at all, so maybe the parents were all cool with it.

[cookingwithroxy]

soooo, who’s going to be the one to bring up that this was literally a potential school shooting, and the principal was just fine with that?

[professorgoodvibes]

I hate to note it, but technically if a shooting happened close enough to a school, likelihood is it would still be considered a school shooting regardless of if a student or staff were involved at all.

Firerarm discharges happening in a school parking lot after hours with zero students involved have been flagged as “school shootings” before.

Not that that’s the only thing to complain about in this clown-world story.

[brantheblessed]

[xylophonetangerine]

[sklittlesowo]

ye but tbh california and new york shouldn’t dictate what the rest of the us should do imo

[xylophonetangerine]

Actually they should because there’s more people there.

[brazenautomaton]

so we should have special legal protections that ensure the 1% of the population that’s trans doesn’t get fucked over by the whim of the majority

but the 40% of the population who don’t live in big cities, they should just go fuck themselves for being in the minority?

[cookingwithroxy]

meanwhile, the representative system exists all over the globe, but somehow it’s only a major issue when it exists in the US.

Sorry to inform you OP but the US is 50 nations BARELY held together by a shared history, and in some cases even that’s not really strong enough. Most of California wants to break off and be their own states rather than deal with the costal city bullshit, Oregon’s in much the same state as well. Ever hear of the Greater Iowa movement?

That you’d rather alienate 40% of the population and pretty much everyone responsible for getting you food on your table just says you’re a moron.

[official-kircheis]

FPTP is bad everywhere, hope this helps

Also your “solution” is to “alienate” 60% instead of 40% so. Lol.

[cookingwithroxy]

Honest to fuck, if you think it ‘alienates’ 60% of the nation’s population to give a fuck about 40% of the population, I’d hate to consider what you think about gay rights.

And yes, I’m overtly calling you a bigot because you’re this fucking stupid.

[professorgoodvibes]

I also love how there’s always this idiotic assumption that none of the other states would do anything about their sovereignty being stolen by a handful of overcrowded cities on the coasts. 

Rather than the more sobering realization that disenfranchising all the other demographics to give more enfranchisement to California and New York cities alone (who already have massive advantages in our political system) would just mean the Union fractures entirely.

I’m sure none of our nation’s many enemies will take advantage of that particular turn of events.

[official-kircheis]

land shouldn’t vote, you reactionary dipshit dumbfuck. go back to the 18th century. more enfranchisement to california, there are more trump voters there than in texas, you idiot.

[professorgoodvibes]

I’ll take “completely missing the point” for 1000, Trebek. Since the complaint was about cities, not states.

That’s why the metaphor about LGBT was used, because in a pure democracy they will quite literally never have significant enough population to matter, and the majority would be deciding for them what happens to them.

That’s why we don’t have a pure democracy, because back in the 18th century a great many people were smart enough to realize that cities already were showing a disproportionate effect on politics and therefore designed two houses of the legislative that way neither the minority population, nor the majority could win a majority without actually trying to work together for a common good.

[xylophonetangerine]

[sklittlesowo]

ye but tbh california and new york shouldn't dictate what the rest of the us should do imo

[xylophonetangerine]

Actually they should because there's more people there.

[brazenautomaton]

so we should have special legal protections that ensure the 1% of the population that's trans doesn't get fucked over by the whim of the majority

but the 40% of the population who don't live in big cities, they should just go fuck themselves for being in the minority?

[cookingwithroxy]

meanwhile, the representative system exists all over the globe, but somehow it's only a major issue when it exists in the US.

Sorry to inform you OP but the US is 50 nations BARELY held together by a shared history, and in some cases even that's not really strong enough. Most of California wants to break off and be their own states rather than deal with the costal city bullshit, Oregon's in much the same state as well. Ever hear of the Greater Iowa movement?

That you'd rather alienate 40% of the population and pretty much everyone responsible for getting you food on your table just says you're a moron.

[official-kircheis]

FPTP is bad everywhere, hope this helps

Also your "solution" is to "alienate" 60% instead of 40% so. Lol.

[cookingwithroxy]

Honest to fuck, if you think it 'alienates' 60% of the nation's population to give a fuck about 40% of the population, I'd hate to consider what you think about gay rights.

And yes, I'm overtly calling you a bigot because you're this fucking stupid.

[professorgoodvibes]

I also love how there’s always this idiotic assumption that none of the other states would do anything about their sovereignty being stolen by a handful of overcrowded cities on the coasts. 

Rather than the more sobering realization that disenfranchising all the other demographics to give more enfranchisement to California and New York cities alone (who already have massive advantages in our political system) would just mean the Union fractures entirely.

I’m sure none of our nation’s many enemies will take advantage of that particular turn of events.

[anamericangirl]

“Parents should be the ones protecting their kids from misinformation”

Listen that’s great in theory but we live in a flawed world where many parents are terrible people. We need more than 2 adults raising a child. We need a community protecting them.

So what about terrible parents? Who is going to protect kids from their own parents? I’m genuinely curious. I’m a therapist for kids and from what I’ve seen, you’re putting too much trust into parents. They aren’t always right or fair, so what then?

This is honestly one of the worst takes I've ever seen.

We live in a flawed world where a lot of people are terrible people. There are teachers that are terrible people. There are children's therapists that are terrible people. Who's going to protect children from them?

You may not like it but other people's children don't belong to you and they don't belong to the community. It's a parents right and job to raise their child however they see fit. Even if you don't like how they have chosen to raise that child.

Unless the child is in a dangerous and extremely harmful living situation, like their parents are abusive, it's no one's right to intervene and decide they aren't being raised right because they aren't being raised in accordance with your values.

You're putting too much trust into people that aren't the parents. I imagine in your line of work you get exposed to the bad side a lot but in general parents are actually the most trustworthy people when it comes to their own children.

[buryprogs-notrifles]

@leanybeany09

[leanybeany09]

I tend to choose the side of structured education over parents tbh. Too many parents are doing the exact thing they don’t want schools to be doing.

[anamericangirl]

Well that's great for you choose whatever you want but you don't get to choose for everyone. Parents have the right to educate their children however they wish even if the children don't learn what or how you personally think they should learn.

I choose the side of parents over public education any day. And if you think parents aren't capable of structured education you have a lot to learn.

[leanybeany09]

I’m a teacher. I see what the parents teach their kids or lack there of… very few parents are actually parenting any more. And a huge influx of personal beliefs ever since trump was elected. We had a two year old show up with a racist shirt on the other day that the parents pulled him for because we changed it. Parents want to create their kids into who they want them to be not let them be who they are and it’s gross

[anamericangirl]

It doesn't matter if you're a teacher. When parents send their kids to school they tend to have the impression that the school is educating their children, even though school does a pretty shit job of that these days. Public education has gone way downhill in this country.

Personal beliefs are things people are allowed to have and you disagreeing with a person's personal beliefs doesn't make them wrong. It's a parents job to raise their children. It's not the government's job to raise children and make sure they are only learning what you want them to learn.

And I've seen the things you claim are racist. When you say the kid has a racist shirt my first thought is it wasn't racist at all. Teachers like you thinking parents shouldn't be trusted to teach and raise their children because you disagree with some decisions they make doesn't make public educators look too great.

These children do not belong to you. They do not belong to the state. They belong to their parents. You don't have to like it but you don't have the right to do anything about it. Your personal beliefs are certainly not anything you're supposed to be imposing on your students. All you're supposed to do is teach children reading, writing and arithmetic.

And when parents take on the schooling of their own children they actually do a better job than the public education system. You're not actually that aware of what parents are doing outside of the school system.

[leanybeany09]

We do teach them. We also teach them inclusion and emotional skills. Something severely lacking at home. They also don’t “belong” to their parents. They aren’t property or slaves. School is a safe place for most kids to get away from their home life. I don’t teach my beliefs. The parents do and that’s the issue I have. They push their beliefs into their kids then get mad when their kids choose other life styles or beliefs than their parents. Then the parents blame the schools simply because we allow the kids to realize actual life outside their home views

[anamericangirl]

Instilling beliefs is part of raising children. How do you raise children without teaching them what you personally believe?

And yes kids aren't property but they do belong to their parents.

If you have an issue with parents teaching their own children their personal beliefs then you just don't understand what parenting is.

You're like an advertisement for not sending kids to school.

[leanybeany09]

It’s incredibly easy. You tell them about things and let them decide what they believe not force it. Exactly what we do in schools

[anamericangirl]

"It's incredibly easy."

lol spoken by someone who is definitely not a parent.

It's ridiculous to think we should be allowing 2 and 3 year olds to decide for themselves what they believe. That will happen naturally as they get older. At that young of an age children need guidance. They need adults to give them structure and tell them what is true. Little children do not have the strongest grip on reality and the fact that you think we should be letting small children decide for themselves what to believe is very concerning. Like should we tell children not to play in the street because it's dangerous but let the child decide for themselves if they believe that and not force it?

It's a parents right and their job to teach their children right from wrong and to raise them according to their own beliefs.

And that is not what is done in schools. All schools should be teaching is academic subjects. If you're teaching children as young as two how to form their own personal beliefs you're being a teacher wrong.

[professorgoodvibes]

I think fundamentally this puts way too large an onus on us as educators.

The term we use is in loco parentis. “In the place of the parents.” We have to operate in the role of the parents when the students are present, because that’s our job. But I think it’s frankly somewhat delusional to think that our two hours per day, per class is going to have nearly the same impact as the many years of work a parent puts in to raise a child.

I’m not saying we as educators shouldn’t care, nor that we shouldn’t attempt to instill good values in our students when they’re present. But I think it’s unrealistic to think we’re going to have the same impact as a parent. A job, mind you, that we’re paid far too little, to do far too much, in far too short a time. If I teach my students ethics, it’s because I should live in an ethically sound way, not because that is the crux of my position towards them.

But then, I’ve only worked as a history teacher, so perhaps my take is a bit off given the importance of learning lessons form the past.

[fefeman]

I think the reason why the Soulsbornes are so widely discussed and sometime targeted by other devs that feel insulted by their success, it's that it's a niche series with the popularity of major "generalist" titles.

It's an rpg with the combat... and not much else. Quests are barebone and easy to miss, you got few indication but overall you gotta find your way yourself, and almost every step on the way is a fight. Just you, the enemy, and the level design. It's similar in how TTRPGs were borne from wargames, scalling down the scope to increase the complexity of one aspect.

Compared to that, a lot of major "mainstream" release try to be all encompasing. Dozens of quests and storylines, a focus on multiple target audiences, etc...

I guess it can be frustrating, when your own project is bound by a lot of rules of marketing and you constantly have to worry about making something that'll drive your audience away, and you look at that other game that basically decided to completly ignore most of those principles, which would be marketing suicide if you did it, but somehow their work overshadow yours.

It's understandable to complains, but at the same time it's missing the point that the soulsborne show : sometime, doing one thing very VERY well will matter more than doing a lot of things wells, and peoples will look beyond the flaws.

[queenofthefullmoon]

this is true but also to some people the way the quests are designed and the lore is told in these games in an inherent part of why they love it. they’re not flaws to look beyond of. the puzzle and mystery of it all, and also the community aspect of coming together with your friends and other players to figure out ways to do things and obtuse lore points is extremely important to these games. some people don’t want a ton of exposition and the joy of figuring out the story on your own and finding npcs in the wild is much more rewarding than following a quest log with 10 markers on the map.

these are clearly design decisions from the fromsoft team, and to the dedicated player base, absolutely paramount to their enjoyment of the game. the fact that other devs in the industry don’t understand that and are on crybaby mode on twitter really shows that some of their approach game creation as a product with an instruction manual instead of a piece of art lol

[professorgoodvibes]

I think the issue comes down to two things intersecting: the feeling of catharsis being central to the Soulsborne games, and the internal mechanics that support it in both gameplay and narrative.

The games are made to be punishingly difficult, but fair. Most bosses follow very strict rules with very few of them ever deviating from them, and a great many follow the exact same rules you have as well. So the players end up in roughly the same place over time, slowly mastering mechanics and with it, the game. It’s even reflected in Miyazaki’s commentary about keeping the playerbase together. As a result, it forms a strong bond between the players who have overcome the same difficulties. It’s why we all know the joy of shouting “TARKUS, TARKUS” after slogging all the way through Sen’s House of Traps and Suffering or the newer legend of “Let Me Solo Her”. Difficulty made an environment for legends to be made.

The same applies to the narrative, because it’s very hard to collect all the pieces and then put them together. Item descriptions tell the majority of the story, with only small amounts being actually shared by characters in game. Add on to this item placement, puzzles, and translations, and you can quickly see why it’s rather hard to be a true lore master for this series. But for those who enjoy that, it’s made a wide community that focuses on learning every little detail they can, again, forming a strong bond between players.

From Software focused on one element of difficult, but fair gameplay and managed to build a mainstream success from a very niche title, and I think other devs should think about it in the future. You don’t have to be everything to everyone to be successful.

[bitchboynasty]

Fucked up how this is true

[thetatteredmind]

Girl help I wanna exercise to improve my mental health but I have no stamina nor motivation. Exercise for me is always boring, gruelling busywork and idk how to change that even though I want to

[cookingwithroxy]

Honestly personally? I multitask. My work is heavy physical labor and is pretty much exercise that I get paid to do, and if I ONLY did it I'd go mad or quit. So I watch shows or listen to audiobooks so that instead of focusing ONLY on the work, I'm also enjoying what I'm listening to. I know it's dumb but it DOES work. And watching TV while even just slow walking on a treadmill is better than sitting around doing so.

And once you get used to doing it, it becomes a routine and you'll tend to default into doing it.

[professorgoodvibes]

Can confirm. A good part of the pattern is mixing in things to make the task less tedious. Think why gyms often blast music.

Play video games on an exercise bike, since you can pedal and work a controller at the same time. Or listen to audiobooks while walking around. Just do whatever it takes to make sure your brain doesn’t associate exercise with boredom.

Hell, podcasts like Critical Role or Cosmic Crit have done wonders for making jobs that require little supervision, but are high in labor demand, quite enjoyable.

[jerry-of-rivia]

[jerry-of-rivia]

I posted this as a joke and am cursed with every new addition.

But! I like that many of you have correctly noted that both sets of armor are perfectly serviceable AND have historical context. Geralt's leather armor isn't going to hurt him a bit, and the exaggerated muscle sculpturing IS 100% a hilarious design choice, but it's also one ancient cultures employed all the time. (Romans in particular loved this shit)

The problem with feminized tiddy armor that hugs each breast isn't that it's sexualized, but that it will kill you. Armor cupping each boob and having an indention in the middle of your chest means that any blow to the torso drives the mid-tit indention RIGHT INTO YOUR STERNUM. It's not decorative, it's arguably more dangerous than no armor at all. Meanwhile I'm looking at Geralt, and his flexible leather armor has minor intentions and is probably over a base plate, Roman style. He's not in danger he just wants to be cute.

Both Calenthe and Geralt are fully protected and you're doing amazing, sweetie.

[stele3]

Nothing will ever be as hilarious to me as discovering from bts interviews that Henry Cavill helped design that armor. That man knows what he’s about.

[locked-keye]

The problem with feminized tiddy armor that hugs each breast isn't that it's sexualized, but that it will kill you. Armor cupping each boob and having an indention in the middle of your chest means that any blow to the torso drives the mid-tit indention RIGHT INTO YOUR STERNUM.

Except this is actually nonsense because A)armor doesn’t move around on your body that much, and B) there are multiple layers of mail/leather/cloth between the outer plate and your skin.

[alaija]

“...  are perfectly serviceable....”

They really aren’t. 

“ Geralt’s leather armor isn’t going to hurt him a bit,....”

It’s not going to protect him much either.

“ Geralt’s leather armor ....“

And that’s the main problem. It’s normal leather, not cuir bouillie. 

“ ...flexible leather armor....   “

Cuir bouillie is rather inflexible... that’s why it was used.

“ ...also one ancient cultures employed all the time. “

As long as you ignore all the ones that didn’t and its relative rarity.

And that leather armour and linothorax leave little evidence.

[thespectacularspider-girl]

“Boobplate won’t protect you” was never a historical argument because tiddyplate or not, steel is going to protect your chest AND armor had concave surfaces that would’ve operated like what ‘boobplate’ was claimed to do.

It was done purely because people didn’t like how ‘sexual’ boob plate was and they made up a stupid, vaguely reasonable argument to push their position.

@alaija​ is also right. Geralt’s armor is going to do nothing because it isn’t ‘boiled leather’ armor. 

OP tries to cloak their opinion in ‘historical accuracy’ when it’s anything but. They don’t know what they’re talking about, they’re just trying to justify the difference between the two because they like Geralt’s armor.

And that’d be fine, but if you like Geralt’s armor, then you need to shut the hell up about tiddyplate.

[professorgoodvibes]

Real fights don’t work like in games. There is no comparison between a well designed breastplate, (pun intended) and what is basically a glorified bondage suit.

Nobody is just going to pierce a steel plate easily, and anyone expected to fight in or around it planned to incapacitate the wearer for an easier kill, or cave it in with a heavy blunt object like a mace, hammer, or big frickin’ rock. So the thing about “tiddyplate directing blows inward” is sort of irrelevant. Sword isn’t going to suddenly cut through it either way. And leather was basically unheard of as a source of armor. Iron is simply so plentiful and easy to acquire that it is the ideal armor making material, or just use a gambeson, which does the same job without requiring a remarkable amount of dead animals, urine, and work to even mimic a fraction of the efficacy in a gambeson, let alone mail or plate. So they’re both fine, they look great but complaining about one and not the other on the grounds of historicity is utterly hilarious.

[dashaibo]

People who think not opposing Russia on Ukraine would prevent WWIII:

[switch-up-snowfox]

to show off my historical ignorance, who is this?

[dashaibo]

Peace for our time - Wikipedia

[homochadensis]

ppl rly do be forgetting how Hitler managed to conquer huge swathes of Europe without firing a single bullet, simply because everyone thought that appeasing a megalomaniacal tyrant would prevent a WW1-esque war from happening

Just let him have one more Land u guise i swear it will work This Time :)))

[switch-up-snowfox]

to be fair another chunk of why they did it was because they figured Hittle boi was sane enough to not want another meatgrinder war, since everyone else had just finished filling entire graveyards.

Unfortunately he was not sane.

[professorgoodvibes]

Well that and they were well aware that they couldn’t necessarily pursue another war immediately after the close of the Great War.

The technological and military landscape had changed massively in only a few short years, and the war had opened up deep political and social rifts in the nations that were nowhere near repaired by the time the Hitler rose to power. This is as well entirely ignoring the economic devastation the war wrote upon the globe. So the hope was that Hitler and Germany could be mollified into avoiding a political conflict entirely, or if not that, then at least delay the opening of a war until the military apparatuses of the Entente powers could be brought up to a more suitable readiness.

Appeasement fails if you assume its only goal was to avoid war entirely, which for some was true. Neville Chamberlain certainly seemed quite keen on pursuing it for those reasons, yet for others the objective was quite clear. Rebuild, recover, and prepare so that another war like the Great War need not be fought again, with the dreadful killing fields, utter stalemate, and incomprehensible waste of wealth and lives.

[memeseverdie]

So I made a thing.

[memeseverdie]

damn look at the notes on this bad boi 

[sophiaslittleblog]

ITS TRUE

[the-davest-of-uncles]

Blind adherence to zero-tolerance policies is easier than thinking.

[sindri42]

The one and only time I got detention it was because another kid threw a fist-sized rock at my head and I dodged. He was not punished in any way. That incident formed the basis for a lot of my response to authority figures I think…

[kob131]

They tried putting me in Special Education because I was bullied.

… I was an A/B student

[professorgoodvibes]

Got suspended for slamming a kid’s head into a cafeteria railing....after about 5 minutes of telling them to please stop punching me.

Don’t get me wrong, I get what the goal is. Mandatory punishment as a deterrent for infraction. But this just reinforces that you can’t trust administration and should just settle it for yourselves out-of-class. “Snitches get stitches” and all that. I get it, trust me, I can speak from experience how hard it is as a teacher to maintain control over a class of students, especially in primary school where students have no choice but to attend. But this week should teach a fundamental lesson. When the people who are supposed to protect us fail, the victimized will often be forced to solve it themselves in much less ideal situations.

[guerrillatech]

[under-the-arch]

This sounds great but “learning” is a really abstract thing to be a right. Nobody is entitled to years spent at a college taking classes to earn a degree, unless you think that the professors should work for free.

[edgar-allan-possum]

Why are they acting like plumbers are poor? A good plumber makes bank.

[under-the-arch]

Because they hate the working class, they don’t view the work we do as having value.

[edgar-allan-possum]

Can't argue with that.

My other question is why "learning is a right" has to mean "college degrees are a right"? Nothing is stopping our hypothetical plumber from researching medieval studies all he wants through libraries and online resources.

[emmaubler]

I think some people view learning as almost a passive exercise--you go to the school/university, and they input the knowledge into your brain. They don't have a concept that there are people who are so interested in subjects they go out and read and study and research on their own, because you have to be guided by experts to learn or else you might do it wrong.

[cookingwithroxy]

I may or may not be alone in this, but I've always held the view that the qualifications to achieve a degree should be standardized not as to 'takes a certain selection of classes in college' but rather 'passes a certain level of qualification tests that anyone can take.' Strictly and only so that people who care to learn such things through independent study can get the accreditations that they deserve without having to give time and money to some private institution for the privilege of 'education'.

That, at the very least, would be a FAR more effective way of achieving the goal of the bozo in the image OP posted than whatever 'free education' plan he's probably thinking of.

[professorgoodvibes]

I can tell you with full experience that academic bloat is the biggest thing keeping people from pursuing their ambitions.

Part of it is logistical. There just isn’t a standardized way to prove someone has qualifications in most fields to be considered an expert. Which means you have to go to college, take a shed’s load of classes, most which have only a tangential relevance to your field of study, to then get a fancy piece of paper that cost way too much, to officially say you graduated from XYZ College of Blank with a major in Field just to be given the time of day. And sure, there’s the argument that college doesn’t teach you about a field, but more about the process of analysis and critical thinking. Sure, there’s a degree of truth to that. (Even if I think a lot of colleges are actually failing at that miserably)

But the problem is that does put the entire burden on someone to pay a heck of a lot of money to only potentially pursue their interests, when at least in the more academic fields like History (which I hold my degree in), there’s just no real need for half of it. A dedicated enough researcher can absolutely compile the sources and do the analysis themselves without footing that bill. Hell, that’s where the foundations of most learning lies. In the individual pursuing it themselves, drawing their own conclusions, and then teaching others of their perspective. A surgeon will still need to go to Med School. An engineer will still need their time in the lab and maths department. And I certainly still want to be paid to do my research and teaching, but I also know that half of the time, it doesn’t actually help much at the actual job people want to do.

[takashi0]

>Be John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

>Sign up to fight in WWI and come back as a man changed and haunted by war

>Write a Fantasy series based loosely on your Christian Beliefs, Your Experiences in the War, and your raging boner for language that’s so fucking good and in-depth that it codified the Fantasy Genre TO THIS DAY

>Write a scathing letter to the Nazis that you WISH that you were Jewish and that their ideology of Racial Superiority is Morally repugnant when they contact you to proclaim you an “Honorary Aryan”

>Borrow from various myths and legends all around the world, and create Orcs based on a quirk of language that goes all the way back to fucking BEOWULF.

>Characterize them all as evil servants of a Dark Sorcerer based on your experiences fighting German Infantry, who were very much NOT Black people

>Decades after your death, Mediocre Fake Nerd White Men who want to play White Savior declare you a racist for this, and use the characterization of Orcs as Primitive, Savage, Crude and Murderous as a sign that what you secretly intended them to be a metaphor for Black people.

>This despite the aforementioned hatred of racism being common knowledge

>This despite many, MANY people pointing out how drawing such a conclusion on a completely fictional race of typically tusked, green-skinned, pig-nosed monsters is actually pretty fucking racist because you’re saying that Black people are all Violent Savages 

>Woke Mediocre Fake Nerd White Men ignore this and keep trying to rewrite history in an even more egregious version than what happened to Lovecraft (Since you were never racist to begin with), all to shill their subpar products or otherwise fish for clout

If there was ever a reason that proved Social Media was a mistake, Progressivism is a Cult, and that fandom gatekeeping was actually good, it’s fucking this. Holy shit someone please kill Twitter. 

[takashi0]

This is post is a year and a half old now and since some of you still aren’t getting the goddamn hint of what Tolkien was going for and continue to die on the dumbest hill possible by making mountains out of molehills, I’m going to make this as simple as possible for you:

[thesplendidsnout]

This just in: Orcs have never been, nor ever could be portrayed in a racist way, by anyone ever, because Tolkien created them and Tolkien didn’t mean it.

This just in: there is a very long troubling history of discourse about this exact question. Entire essays have been written on The Problem of Orcs, and a quick google brings about a lengthy wikipedia page for Controversies in DnD, but let’s sweep that all under the rug because, hey, Tolkien didn’t mean it!

This just in: it is entirely possible to use any fantasy species as an outlet for very real racism, but if pointing that out angers the nerds who don’t want to think about the troubling nuance of things they enjoy, then YOU’RE the REAL racists, because hey, Tolkien didn’t mean it!

I guess JKR’s massively anti-semitic portrayal of goblins in her own books can’t actually be anti-semitic because TOLKIEN DIDN’T MEAN IT

[plaguebringerswife]

Also we’re talking about D&D which was not made by Tolkien and maybe, just maybe doesn’t necessarily follow the original intentions of Tolkien???

Like let’s actually get back to the original content:

That’s not saying anything about “war makes people evil”- it, in fact, makes a point to say that “oh, even if they were raised outside of the indoctrination they’d still be bad because they’re bad by nature.”

And like… you can be aware of and recognize stuff that resembles racial stereotypes and not be racist??? And that’s kinda what you have to do to combat it?

like no one’s saying “black people are like orcs”- people are saying that they resemble stereotypes

Also you acknowledge the idea that orcs could be “made racist” and blame it on us

is it really so hard of a concept that once orcs got into the public sphere, Tolkien’s original intentions don’t matter because other people (like WoC) can take them and use them for other things and maybe we should talk about their intentions with what they made and not Tolkien’s?

like would you say a skeleton who acts like a gay stereotype is not a gay stereotype because “oh skeletons weren’t intended as stereotypes”? Let’s say all skeletons in a piece of fiction are being portrayed as gay stereotypes, would you still say “ oh they’re not stereotypes”?

Like once someone else is using the original creator’s idea it’s out of the creator’s fucking hands and it can change

Would a shipping fanfic of two characters who were never intended to be in a relationship not have shipping in it because “they weren’t intended to be in a relationship”?

Bringing up Tolkien in this is a fucking distraction.

[transcatgirl551]

In dnd Ork blood rage can be handled in a much better way and keep it around. Even the “instinctive love for battle” bit can be kept without it being a problem. Maybe something like “Orks will often declare friendly rivalries, constantly seeking competition in whatever it is they are doing. As such, Orks are often very good at whatever profession they are in, as their competitive spirit drives them to be better than their rival”

Alot of races in dnd are unavoidably inherently evil because that race was created that way by their gods, you can’t change that without a big lore rewrite. I don’t think inherently evil aligned races are a bad thing either, just gotta not make that inherently evil race an allegory for a real world group.

Orks actually wernt created evil, Orks rased outside their cultural influence are not inherently evil. The main problem is the Ork gods kinda suck and without their influence Orkish civilization would be alot better.

Another group that are only evil because of culture is the Drow. A Drow raised outside of the influence of Lolth and their culture is basically just a dark skinned elf with an aversion to sunlight.

[professorgoodvibes]

Heck, think about it for a second. Any free thinking Drow is probably not going to be racist.

You’re a surface. Drow. You grew up around a very dangerous religion and culture that has very strict hierarchies and roles in place. You have trust issues because weakness was always exploited.

You escape, but only the most well known Drow ever really manage to escape the stigma associated with their kind. Other elves distrust you on principle, and because you don’t Trance like they do, you don’t even have the benefit of experiencing your memories to help develop your understanding of the world.  You can’t be sure your own kind wouldn’t sell you out for their own profit, and short-lived races come and go so fast it’s hard to really establish much of a rapport. There’s a lot of complex emotions that go on for a surface drow, or really any traditionally evil group in DND that manages to avoid drinking the kool-aid.

But Drow have one thing that’s a little bit extra.  They also just generally have a near functional inability to see color. You either get blinded by sunlight in the daytime, or see in grayscale at night. So it’s a heck of a lot harder to judge on physical appearances the same way as others would.

And that’s a rich and fascinating role playing angle for people to work with that just doesn’t work without that complicated cultural problem at the forefront. Sure, it can go questionable places (I’ve seen my fair share of “noble savage” tropes), but it’s also a rich space to work through emotions that just don’t come up naturally in other ways. A lot of us do struggle with our thoughts, our histories and legacies, and it’s such a solid way to try and work through that as well as reaffirm that basic fundamental truth that anyone can be heroic. Cultural legacies shouldn’t be held as definitive either for or against someone. It’s all about how they choose to act in the now.

[shutyourmoustache]

White supremacy and colonization really forced that male/female binary forced onto so many communities, lands, and cultures, huh?

[molothoo]

I’m noticing that trend ☝🏾...a lot of cultures historically recognized more than the binary system that they’ve been shoving down our throats for centuries. Because they came and pushed their beliefs on everyone and made them assimilate. Come to find out that they were wrong...about a lot of things. But the irreparable damage they’ve caused 🤧.

[sindri42]

See I look these up and it always seems to be something like “historically māhū were male at birth... performed the roles of goddesses in hula dances that took place in temples which were off-limits to women... described as not having access to political power, being unable to aspire to leadership roles, and perceived as always available for sexual conquest by men...”

Almost every time I hear about a “third gender” in historical indigenous peoples, it ends up being less like ‘we have a complex spectrum of gender and sexuality with deep respect for non-binary people’ and more like ‘well there are women who have to do woman things, men who get to be in charge of everything, and broken men who aren’t up to real men’s roles so they don’t get shit’.

I’m totally in favor of the idea of maintaining the best parts of your ancient traditions while discarding the fucked up bits, but the idea that everything was a magical utopia until the evil white men arrived is just continuing the missionaries’ work, erasing what’s left of the real history of these places to replace it with something that won’t offend your modern sensibilities.

[professorgoodvibes]

In perhaps the most hilariously (or depressingly) ironic twist, I’d reckon half of these are the worst parts of the “Noble Savage” but woke.

They often appeal to a magical existence that was before colonization, and ignore that the cultures in those regions were significantly less “uwu pure living with nature as it should have been” and more “rigid societies where failure to fulfill the role assigned by one’s sex left you completely without social or personal power.” 

And rather than take a long, hard look at what this actually says, people spin it as a racial criticism and not the more concerning one regarding how near universally societies viewed (and still view) the worth of men and women. 

[stimman4000]

Since pretty much no major news sites (at least in the US) are covering it, please look into how Julian Assange, who isn’t an american citizen, will most likely be approved to be extradited to the United States, where if he’s found guilty he’ll spend the rest of his life in prison at best, and be tortured to death at worst.

While he himself hasn’t hacked into or stolen anything, he’s the man behind wikileaks, which revealed a lot of unsavory information about the United States government- including the barbaric torture of political prisoners and their families, the cold blooded, deliberate murder of iraqi civilians and two Reuters journalists (and the subsequent coverup), the active participation in genocide in yemen, and how the CIA uses smartphones, TVs, and cars to spy on their owners.

While the official ruling won’t be announced until January 4th of next year, he never had a chance at winning the extradition trial- it was purely for show. He’s spent the last years being constantly monitored and bugged- all his meetings with his lawyers have been recorded. He was also kept in a glass cage during the trial, usually reserved for dangerously violent offenders, preventing him from speaking with his legal team.

If/when he’s extradited to the United States, he will absolutely be found guilty of the charges against him and die in prison. This is an incredibly dangerous precendent- a journalist who isn’t and has never been an American citizen, will essentially be put to death for helping expose America’s crimes. Notice the silence around this from everyone- you’re not going to hear about this on CNN, or read about it in the newspaper, or see either of the presidential candidates tweeting about him, except maybe to condemn him. This is a deliberate silence, and if we don’t take it upon ourselves to learn about the blood our government has on its hands and spread that information to others, it’ll go unnoticed- which is exactly what they want. Be aware. Be angry.

[association-of-free-people]

Let’s not play games.

Julian was just fine doing his thing, in fact he was tolerated, up until he fucked up Clinton Inc., Hillary’s emails and the 2016 election.

[margaret-thatcher-ad]

i’m not seeing enough leftist support for assange

[association-of-free-people]

He’s blamed for Hillary losing.

Exposing war crimes, assassinations and mass surveillance is a bush league footnote when you’ve done something so utterly unforgivable as shining a light on that witch.

[bigwordsandsharpedges]

[thespectacularspider-girl]

Do you think everybody in the world should give back all the land they stole and go back to where they came from?

Nearly every piece of land is stolen. Nation stolen from nation, people from people, tribe from tribe. How far back do we go?

Who do we give Mexico to? The indigenous Nahua? What about the Mexicans who descended from Spanish and natives both? Do they get shipped off to Spain?

And then what? Who had that land before the Aztecs? Should the Nahua give their land to them?

Or does it just stop at the Nahua/Aztecs because the Aztecs killed/assimilated the original population they conquered?

Because if that’s the case, that leads to some pretty awful implications. Probably the worst being that if you don’t want to ever have disputes about your land you gotta kill every single person you take it from so they can’t make a claim later.

So no, I don’t think land should go back. The unfortunate truth is conquest was how it was done for thousands of years. Everyone is standing on a mountain of bodies. We just have to hope that we’ve moved beyond that point now.

[thespectacularspider-girl]

Oh, and on top of this, one has to wonder what will happen if tomorrow everyone fucks off back to ‘where they came from’.

In the Canada and US, how many indigenous people are there?  And how spread out are they?  How many can manage power plants?  How many are farmers?  How many are doctors?  And can those individuals support the ‘newly liberated’ indigenous population?

Or are we expecting that it’s now everyone else’s duty to support all the infrastructure left behind?  To man the hospitals.  To fix the roads.  To keep the lights on.

Let’s just assume that other global powers, like China or Russia abides by this rule too.  Because if they didn’t and they saw all that free real-estate populated by only about 8 million people and no standing, mechanized army, then boy I hope we’re all ready for a new wave of colonization and genocide.

[professorgoodvibes]

Feel like people seem to miss the obvious that this current predicament? Yeah, that’s the result of not exterminating the population of captured territories.

That’s actually a bit of an abnormality historically, because pre-modern civilizations were not nearly so kind to captured or subjugated populations. If you did not assimilate, you were often simply killed, and that’s assuming you were given the chance to assimilate at all.

Now, I’m not saying we shouldn’t be compassionate to indigenous peoples, but let’s also note that the sheer fact these cultures survived at all is remarkable. Doesn’t mean we can just up and decide “you get to have all this land because it was traditionally yours” because as emphasized above, it’s always been someone else’s first, and conquest has always been the litmus test of ownership. You own it until you can’t physically control it anymore.

It’s just not useful or practical to wax philosophical about giving all the land back, when it’s far more prudent to emphasize solutions to coexisting in the now, and preventing full culture loss.

[savleye]

I know we all think it's funny that Facebook and Instagram are down but I think it should be noted that these large-scale cyber attacks are most likely the result of people trying to bury information that was uncovered in the Pandora papers yesterday

This twitter trending summarizes it quite well. This is the biggest undercover investigation since the Panama papers and it covers the same premise. It uncovered large quantities of unreported wealth and spending by the richest people in the world. The cyber attacks against these large social media and communication apps are most likely an attempt to divert attention away from this. For more information look at the articles I linked below:

Offshore havens and hidden riches of world leaders and billionaires exposed in unprecedented leak - ICIJ

The Pandora Papers reveal the inner workings of a shadow economy that benefits the wealthy and well-connected at the expense of everyone els

A simple guide to the Pandora Papers leak - BBC News

A massive leak of documents reveal hidden wealth, tax avoidance and in some cases, money laundering.