The Grey Tribe @the-grey-tribe - Tumblr Blog

I really like that people on tumblr don't wave their degrees around like people on bluesky, or like people did on twitter pre-Elon.

If somebody on twitter posts something, and somebody replies "Source?", then it's all "HELP HELP RANDOS IN MY MENTIONS". Twitter users are really status-conscious.

In YouTube comments, it's different. I once saw a YouTube comment that said: "I got a PhD in $TOPIC and the video is wrong." The next comment said: "I am a professor at a university and I teach $TOPIC and the video is correct and that guy is full of shit." – "Liars, both of you. Nobody who has a PhD posts YouTube comments" – "Well, I know I am a full professor, and I believe the other guy has a PhD, I just know he's wrong. One of my students pointed me here and I thought I'd weigh in".

On tumblr though, you have somebody ask "Source?", and then OP gives the source. OP usually doesn't say "I have the credential, shut up", but instead OP gives their reasoning and citations, the exact same way somebody would if their credentials were "I had to write a term paper about this and I skimmed 5 books about this topic". There is no presumption that this is about status. There is no expectation for people to shut up because one of them has a PhD. Nobody is surprised when somebody has done extensive research into some niche topic like the French penal system in the early 19th century.

I think my own expectations of evidence and how people are supposed to behave are forever tainted by the way mainstream journalists used to treat tentative results from psychology and neuroscience, and the fact that you don't actually need a degree in computer science to be a programmer, but you do need theory. Self-taught programmers often mix these up. They say "you don't need a degree", but they imply "you don't need to know about formal languages, database theory, computability, operating systems, or any of that. You can just start and do stuff."

In other fields, the difference between "knowing the theory" and "having a degree" is never hand-waved in the same way, and if it is, you're a crank. In software, cranks are the default.

Well, there are the people who say "Why are you trying to read a book of fiction? You weren't an English major!"

brazenautomaton

The fuck do you mean "OP gives the source" this is the "it's not my job to educate you, Google is free" site

tlaquetzqui

Also sometimes you give the source and the people arguing with you just continue as if you didn’t.

heardbook

Ya ever pissed on the poor op?

stupid-fat-panda

Its funny because people still lie about their education/sources.

I remember seeing some chick on instagram claim she had a phd in neuroscience or some shit and then I looked her up and she was a dealer at a casino with no education listed on her profiles. Nothing wrong with those things but why lie when you literally have your real name as your handle and none of your profiles are private. She blocked me when I called her out on it lol.

the-grey-tribe

This is interesting, but that's somebody who doesn't have a PhD in neuroscience, not somebody who definitely does.

What I said, and what I continue to see, is this: People with impressive academic credentials on pre-Elon twitter and now on bluesky get really defensive in ways people with impressive credentials just don't on Tumblr.

homunculus-argument

"I learned a lot from making this" is artist talk for "making this sucked ass and I'm not entirely happy with the result."

the-grey-tribe

On the flip side, "I had a lot of fun making this" usually implies that I didn't learn anything.

ruinedchildhood

I wanted to make a gifset ... but nothing would do this scene justice.

sighinastorm

el show de dui

garmbreak1

https://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/funding-follows-the-patient-alberta-unveils-new-funding-model-linking-hospital-funds-to-patient-care

oh yeah, "rush procedures or lose your funding" is going to go great, thanks guys

brazenautomaton

If it's anything like the "insurance only pays for a certain amount of anasthesia" thing, it's because hospitals are making procedures cost more by running them longer for no other reason

garmbreak1

I doubt it, but also I don't think random government bureaucrats should be the ones deciding how long a medical procedure should take

centrally-unplanned

You definitely dont want "doctors who are paid by the hour with blank checks" deciding on how long the procedures take either!

garmbreak1

Discover how doctors get paid in Canada. Learn about different payment models, including fee-for-service, capitation, and salaries. Understa

good news, they're paid by surgeries performed, not hourly.

the-grey-tribe

Could still be worse. A politician in REDACTED once proposed a system where surgeons would effectively lose money for every surgery they perform, because those surgeons are well-off anyway, so they can take a hit for the good of the country.

mollyjames

There are a lot of people who start creative projects with no business or financial plan, because "who cares, it isn't important, we'll figure that out later". And you can't let yourself become that person. Not because I'm a sneering finance bro who thinks your woke animated youtube series wont make money, but because if you don't you'll wind up financially exploiting your friends for years

mollyjames

Look, it's none of my business if you wanna work yourself to the bone for no money so you can make your dream project a reality. I think you shouldn't, but also let's be real that's basically a rite of passage for young creatives. But as soon as you start involving other people? You need a plan. You need to be able to compensate them for their time, and you need to have it in writing

the-grey-tribe

The thing that strains friendships is usually not when you let them work for free, but when you tell them you need to cut some of their work out of the finished project. Even if you pay them, the thing that stings, with friends anyway, is the way your coherent creative vision will inevitably clash with their desire to leave their mark. The very idea of "leaving your mark" usually means to add something distinctive in a way that is jarring and out of place between otherwise coherent art direction. You wish you could spend your way out of that one.

the-grey-tribe

And come to think of it, the second thing that makes your friends resent you, or makes you resent your friends, is not when you're making your friends work for free, but when you and your friends are working together on something, and one of you sees it as a hobby, but you see it as a potential for future job opportunities, a portfolio piece, or a shot at an award.

If you don't work your friends to exhaustion, but you are putting nights and weekends into finishing this project, and your friend says "Well, I had a ton of fun, and I learned a lot, but you're way too intense about this short film we are making in Blender, and i am getting bored of it", well, that's way worse, and much more of a friendship-ender than overworking your friends.

Like, if you're practising your double act for the talent show or casting, you need to have some sort of agreement about the follow-through, or you'll end up in a situation where your friend leaves early during the second round. Far more likely than exploiting your friend for years, you'll rope your friend into helping you out one afternoon, and then he'll leave you high and dry the next time because he has prior engagements.

mollyjames

I'm sorry to say, but you're very off base. Your personal desires do not entitle you to another person's creative labor, no matter how much you believe in the project. If you want someone to put in that kind of effort, pay them like it. Otherwise, don't act surprised when your friends treat it more like a hobby

the-grey-tribe

Sure, that's why you have to talk about the commitments up-front. If you are submitting something for some sort of competition, you have to be up-front about whether you want to win. The people you are up against also want to win. If you have a deadline on a project that is just for fun or just a portfolio piece, you still have to get on the same page.

In my experience, hiring your friends for actual money is also fraught. What can I say?

I have been in situations where it was clear from the beginning that the project wouldn't be "commercial", but it would be for a competition, and after the planning phase, one of the team said "well, it's been fun, but I'm not turning in my slice of the work". I have been in a situation where two thirds of the team were trying to win, and the rest were goofing off.

Maybe you think spec work and competitions are immoral. Maybe you think you should never ever split the profits on a project, just like you shouldn't work for equity. I can see that.

Personally, I think it's fine to work for equity, but working for equity and no cash means you're a co-founder, and the same rules apply. If I'm a co-founder, and you're a co-founder, I expect you to quit your job if you expect me to quit my job.

I haven't been a co-founder all that often. I, personally, have worked on a lot of small, non-commercial projects that went nowhere.

I, personally, have seen more projects go to shit over creative differences than over money. I have seen more projects die on the vine because somebody couldn't be arsed to do two hours of work after his friends had all put in days and weeks of work. I have seen more people lose friends over creative control than I have had people work for free on a project of mine or more than 18 hours total, and those were usually two consecutive days, with a couple of hours of working late in between.

In my experience, people are just far more likely to carry a grudge when you don't use 30 frames of animation they worked hard on, more than when you make them work (for free!) on 60 additional frames of animation. You don't have to pay people to work for you. You have to pay people to be okay with their work not being used.

This is not first-hand experience, but I have seen people who worked on games get the most upset about situations where the creative director carefully rips out every last line of dialogue somebody wrote, every texture, every bit of content, even if they get paid well.

Like, imagine you're 18 years old and you and your new friend from university wants to make a point-and-click adventure, and suddenly he tells you he wants to pay you for your work, because he wants total creative control and final say. Imagine your friend tells you he's on board with your point and click adventure idea, but you need to form a limited liability corporation with a contract including a shotgun clause, so when one of you inevitably abandons the project, the other can at least buy them out and release the game somehow. Remember what it was like, what you were like? Wouldn't your past self rather work itself to the bone than sign such a contract?

Things I have personally experienced:

Friends kill a creative side project on the home stretch.

Friends make me work a lot on a creative project but then don't work on it at all.

Friends want to put dumb shit and in-jokes in a creative project instead of going for a coherent vibe and the agreed-upon art direction. They ignore all lore/concept art/the production bible, and the result is an incoherent mess.

Friends get offended when I try to pay them and want them to sign a contract.

Guy agrees to work on a GlobalGameJam team, we split up the work n-ways, he makes significant demands and we make concessions in terms of game design. Then he bails on us after the planning phase. "It's been fun", he says. He still expects credit "for his ideas".

I refuse to work for a start-up, because the founder wants me to work for free, but he doesn't want to give me co-founder equity.

Things I have witnessed from afar (tumblr drama):

Writers demands to be paid out and released from contract. Writer then tries to kill project. Writer gets even more irate when it doesn't work. The team meticulously pulls out all their copyrighted work and hires a replacement to write new characters and different plotlines. Writer complains about being "erased".

Ex partner of artist claims copyright on series of works, demands royalties, because "You should write a book about a murder in a fishing village" or "You could do paintings of birds" or "You should put a princess in thei JRPG" was "their idea, and they hold copyright on it".

Two acquaintances agree on a 50-50 revenue split in writing, but then one of the two checks out, but still expects 50% of all eventual revenue, effectively killing the project.

Things that baffle me to this day:

The Doom Eternal soundtrack composer held all the cards and for some reason decided not to sue. He could have screwed over Bethesda, and he could have squeezed millions out of them, but instead he burned bridges after the fact and wrote a blog post.

Things that never happened to me:

Arguing over money with friends because a creative side project was unexpectedly financially successful.

Somebody works for free with me on a creative non-commercial project for more than 18 hours actual time, or longer than two weeks from start to giving up.

Somebody works for free for me on a commercial project without agreeing on a revenue split.

garmbreak1

yeah we all know that the reason homeless people spread shit over bathroom walls sometimes is to assert control over their environment in the midst of a stressful and traumatic situation

that doesn't make me any more happy about cleaning it up, or, if i'm not working there, any less pissed that I now can't use that bathroom

doubleca5t

The only difference between a chud religion and a woke religion is whether or not said religion has the weight of the government or other powerful institutions behind it. No matter how beautiful and egalitarian and morally aspirational the original texts of a religion are, there is absolutely nothing stopping institutional actors from twisting those words to defend the powerful and demonize the powerless. Bitches in the U.S. will be like "Buddhism is such a peaceful religion, you never hear about Buddhist extremists" yeah of course YOU haven't heard of Buddhist extremists you couldn't find Myanmar on a map if your life depended on ir

isaacsapphire

I think you need to calm down a bit isaac, in regards to the heredity thing, but yes I understand what you mean in that there is a vague progressive consensus towards feeling uncomfortable to hostile around non-blank-slateism when it is brought up in relation to people and populations of people

and I'd really wonder what all the people who have parents they cut contact with would think about the very obvious hereditarian conclusion that they are more like their parents than pretty much anyone else

Though interestingly, epigenetics, to my limited knowledge, has demonstrated that there may be a kernel or more of truth to lamarck after all.

Sorry about the delay; I was writing a reply, fell asleep, and tumblr ate it.

I thought I was being calm. The fence around the law keeps getting more fences built around it in the last couple decades.

Epigenetics do provide a scientific explanation for why heredity is not necessary or sufficient to explain traits.

Two people can both be genetically inclined to a trait that certain forms of result in behaviors negative enough that many people would prefer to never speak again with a parent who expresses those behaviors. Eg the child of an alcoholic may themselves be genetically inclined to alcoholism, but also still not want to interact with their alcoholic parent ever again. This is not generally seen as a contradiction. “I will not repeat my parents’ mistakes” is a pretty common sentiment, and isn’t a contradiction. “I know that I am inclined toward a negative tendency because I saw my parents fall into it, so I will take steps to avoid that” is also fairly common.

the-grey-tribe

Epigenetics is a real thing, but it's usually deployed as a meaningless buzzword or just-so story. You can just add "because of epigenetics" to something, without thinking in terms of gene expression or genes to be expressed, and this lets you hand-wave a lot.

mariacallous

the-grey-tribe

Why would you make a separate dinner? Does he have dietary restrictions? Do you have dietary restrictions? Are you a really picky eater? Is he a really picky eater? Do you not believe in shared meals as an important thing in a family or a relationship? Is somebody on a diet? What the fuck is the story there?

I mean, I know I'm not normal. I don't know what is normal. I had an ex who bought a lot of shoes, and people told me it's normal, but she bought shoes to the point where she ran out of space. I had trouble communicating the difference between "women be shopping" and the pathological form. That ex was also a really bad cook.

I also had an ex who was a good cook, but a really picky eater, and she constantly insisted she wasn't a picky eater. She definitely was. She wouldn't eat stuff I cooked after asking me to cook it, because it had stuff it in she didn't like (THAT SHE KNEW ABOUT). Often she wouldn't eat food she ordered at a restaurant. Like, I don't know what is normal.

I had an ex who insisted on making salad dressing with more vinegar than oil, but that's just eccentric.

But honestly, this feels like a weird thing to complain about. You're cooking for two, and your fiance doesn't eat what you eat, and you don't eat what he eats. This is... fine? I guess you have to cook two different dishes. I can't even determine who is to blame here. I mean, it's implied that he is to blame, but like... there isn't enough information here.

As for folding laundry, this is such a weird one. Folding laundry isn't a chore, or even a task. "Folding laundry" is the simulacrum of a household chore that you get when you exclusively wear no-iron shirts or tumble-dry all your clothes. Folding laundry is hardly worth complaining about. It's like... I don't know, it's like you're trying to find a modern equivalent to "churning butter", so you complain about having to put the nitrogen capsules into the heavy cream, and then you suffer from some sort of nervous breakdown when you see whipped cream in a can in the supermarket.

I do my own laundry. I line-dry. I iron my trousers. I hand-wash the cashmere sweaters. I just don't get it.

snovyda

And when you tell them that, they will make you pay for it.

An extremely good and important article, please read and share.

"There is a machine in Western liberal culture, and it runs on one specific fuel: the Good Russian.

The Good Russian is not a person, exactly. He is a function. He is the individual Russian who opposes Putin — usually through artistic or journalistic or activist means, usually having suffered professionally or personally for it, usually now residing in comfortable exile in Prague or Berlin or London or Copenhagen — who the Western liberal establishment elevates as proof that Russia is not irredeemable. That Russia contains, within its vast and complicated body, the seeds of its own moral reconstruction. That if we are patient and generous and appreciative enough of the Good Russians among us, the arc of history will eventually bend.

The machine is always running. It has been running for decades. Before Talankin there was the Navalny documentary. Before that there were the dissident artists, the exiled journalists, the human rights lawyers who became household names in Western capitals while remaining strangers in their own country. The cast rotates. The function does not change.

Here is what the function is.

The Good Russian releases the West from a demand it cannot tolerate: the demand for a reckoning with Russian society, not just Russian leadership. Ukrainians have been saying for four years — for longer, since 2014, since before — that this is not just about Putin. That Putin is the expression of something, not the cause of it. That Russian imperial culture, Russian colonial consciousness, the Russian refusal to acknowledge Ukrainian identity as real and distinct and sovereign — these are not the invention of one man and they will not die with him. That the poll numbers showing majority Russian support for the war are not manufactured by the Kremlin but reflect something real and deep and socially embedded about how Russian society understands its relationship to the territories it considers its own."

sixty-silver-wishes

I love it when headlines get cut off

jazzy-mint-219

the-grey-tribe

Venti if true

misanthropymademe

aspiring Scientologist Obama: let me be Clear

cromulentenough

The Real North Korea: Life and Politics in the Failed Stalinist Utopia, Andrei Lankov (Oxford University Press, 2014).

In the 1980s, Japan experienced a crisis of disinformation. For years, there had been mysterious disappearances of Japanese people with no known history of mental illness, drug addiction, or gambling debts. All kinds of people — men and women, young and old, just suddenly vanishing without a trace. Many theories were put forward to explain the puzzle (for instance, some believed it was alien abductions), but the most widespread, pernicious, and dangerous view was that North Korea was responsible. There were people who claimed to have actually seen teams of North Korean commandos lurking on beaches, nabbing random passers-by, and bundling them into waiting submersibles just off the coast. This was obviously crazy. Products, no doubt, of atavistic xenophobia and reactionary sentiments. The Japanese media, government, and academic authorities put a lot of effort into refuting this dangerous disinformation throughout the 1980s and 1990s…which made them look real silly when in 2002 Kim Jong-Il issued a formal apology for the abductions and ordered the surviving captives returned to Japan.

argumate

gotta admit that is pretty funny

fandom-man

enki2

wormcosmologies

i just saw the phrase "unregistered molotov cocktails" in a news article and im really enjoying imagining this world where you have to register molotovs to the state

balaclava-trismegistus

That's literally how it works in the US if you don't want to catch a felony charge and a ten-year prison sentence for an NFA violation.

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