Guess who's back? @thepoeticpaladin - Tumblr Blog

Saying there are no aliens in the universe is like scooping a cup of water out of the ocean and saying there are no fish.

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How do u just….. Not believe in aliens

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An Update

So if you read any of my old posts, particularly any that have gotten any strong traction, you’ve probably noticed that historically I have a tendency to be a bit... Opinionated.

I still do that I just think my old posts are kinda cringey too tbhidgafos though.

Anyway if anyone ever wants to talk to me I’m active on Telegram: https://t.me/TheRatPrince. My name’s Brant. I don’t bite, (if you bite me you’ll go into septic shock and die, I suggest resisting the urge).

#mercury in my veins #icewater in my fangs #a caustic miasma in my brains #broken fragments where once were chains #a madman's guide to earning acclaim

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“I had to wonder if men were so blinded by beauty that they would feel privileged to live their lives with an actual demon, so long as it was a beautiful demon.”

— Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha

thepoeticpaladin

I’ve spoken to hundreds of men who have attempted to summon succubi, so the answer is a resounding “yes”.

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I get my news from the only reliable source, cryptic symbolism in my dreams

thepoeticpaladin

Unironically this.

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thepoeticpaladin

You’re more likely to die of most cancers in the UK than in the USA. The “studies” that indicate that “other countries have higher quality health care than the USA” all rely on subjective, personal opinions. Studies that rely on objective measures of health care (such as life expectancy and rates of recovery from injury and disease) routinely place the USA at or near the top of the list.

Additionally, approximately half of worldwide R&D funding for healthcare comes from the USA, with the other half being a mixture of all other industrialized nations. Those advances that are taxpayer-funded in socialized nations were privately developed in the USA. You’re welcome. If it weren’t for us, your free healthcare would be leeches.

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Coping with COPPA

There’s been a lot of hullabaloo about the FTC regulations regarding Youtube content. I’m sure if you’ve been keeping up, you’ve heard a lot of fear messaging and tales of what will happen. Granted the worst case scenario could be pretty bad, but here are my thoughts on the matter: Youtube is a predatory company. According to some reports, more than half its viewership are bots. After that, the next largest demographic are children. Why? Because the site is designed around ad farming. Youtube measures the value of content based on its watch minutes, but can’t evaluate the quality of those watch minutes. That means that if something is just barely watchable, and it’s posted all the time, it has higher value to Youtube and gets promoted more because it runs more ads.

But here’s the kicker, for a discerning adult, familiarity breeds contempt. You see too much of something and you get tired of it, and I think many of us can think of at least one Youtuber we used to like before we got sick of hearing their bi-weekly opinions. Youtubers are making so much content, they don’t have time to think about what they’re making, and eventually they grow to sound arrogant and misinformed - which of course leads to engagement by people trying to correct the record, which leads to the positive reinforcement of viewership and money. As they run out of ideas and choose to focus on what works for the site, to stay charming is all but impossible.

However, children have a more tolerant threshold for annoyance, and they know less about the world than the average adult. Every minor fumble in the sphere of video gaming and cartoons that can be harped on by a Youtube personality is a fresh new experience for them. Especially small children can’t even read, and will let the auto-play function roll over to whatever Youtube chooses next.

This environment guarantees that the “nine year-old army” has been the core audience of every successful Youtube channel in at least the past five years. The result has been worse content, repetitive content, boring content, and shocking content, all directed specifically to kids and bots simultaneously. It needs to stop, and it should never have started, but none of us have control over Youtube and there is nothing we as individuals can do.

However, the new COPPA rules, which prohibit collecting data on children without parental consent, are now promising to hold individuals liable for the environment of a defective product. And it’s important we understand it this way: Youtube is a defective service, and we as individuals are consumers of this service. We do not control the service, how it handles data, nor who the service targets.

While the potential fines will seriously damage any individual targeted by the FTC, if you think about this from the regulatory perspective, it doesn’t make any sense. For one, the FTC does not have adequate staff to pursue cases against thousands of individuals. Regulatory agencies aren’t designed to attack consumers of a defective service - they are designed to attack the business that operates the service.

Furthermore, the majority of predatory Youtube channels aren’t even based in the US. Some of the largest, cheap, children’s channels, like Little Baby Bum and Chu Chu TV are based in India where the FTC has no authority. This means that while these rules sound scary, in practice they can only pursue consumers in the United States who are worth the agency’s time and money to go after, which is a much more limited pool than the “every gamer and animator apocalypse” everyone is in a tizzy about.

So when you look at it, the Federal Trade Commission is being incredibly lenient with Youtube and has agreed to what is likely to be a functionally inadequate approach to the problem. Youtube paid a fine that their parent company, Alphabet, likely barely noticed, and the FTC promised to focus on a group so large that they will never have the resources to control it. Because everyone with internet access can upload video to the service, they have sworn to police potentially billions of individuals, many of which aren’t even within their jurisdiction.

At the end of the day, I think the main group this approach has the potential to harm are honest people who are not trying to hide. Meanwhile, scammers and content farms operating outside the country or through VPNs can continue business as usual and abuse the honor system without any legal repercussions at all, and Youtube, who provides the defective service, is being shown clemency. Basically, it’s untenable, there aren’t resources to enforce it as broadly as it implies, only shows teeth towards people who have extremely limited influence over the service, and is not going to be as big a game changer as everyone is saying it will be if Youtube doesn’t adequately, unilaterally change the game themselves.

Manipulation

Breeze: Well, let us begin, then. First, you must understand that Soothing is about more than just Allomancy. It's about the delicate and noble art of manipulation.

Vin: Noble indeed.

Breeze: Ah, you sound like one of them.

Vin: Them who?

Breeze: Them everyone else. You saw how that skaa gentleman treated me? People don't like us, my dear. The idea of someone who can play with their emotions, who can 'mystically' get them to do certain things, makes them uncomfortable. What they do not realize—and what you must realize—is that manipulating others is something that all people do. In fact, manipulation is at the core of our social interaction.

Breeze: Think about it. What is a man doing when he seeks the affection of a young lady? Why, he is trying to manipulate her to regard him favorably. What happens when two old friends sit down for a drink? They tell stories, trying to impress each other. Life as a human being is about posturing and influence. This isn't a bad thing—in fact, we depend upon it. These interactions teach us how to respond to others.

Breeze: The difference between Soothers and regular people is that we are aware of what we're doing. We also have a slight . . . advantage. But, is it really that much more 'powerful' than having a charismatic personality or a fine set of teeth? I think not.