I would like to create a portugese rudder for north america... is there mapping software someone would like to reccomend...?
This is what I would like the map/rudder to show:
Confluence of major rivers, bays, and harbors from ~maracaibo northward
A smattering of 17cent major cities, not much though, with an emphasis on Mississippian, Narraganset, Iroquois, and Athabascian Culture sites (like New Orleans, Coosa, Santa Fe, Texcoco...)
Mountain passes, inland lakes, river forks, and erratics (like the ohio/mississippi river forks, devils tower, ship rock)
And a smattering of major mountain peaks and divides...
Islands rocks and reefs
Magnetic deviation lines, compass rose, and every 5 deg. of latitude
region names, indigenous and some mordern~ish (like new france, or Lakota, Alabama...)
What I dont want: political borders, lines of longitude, roads- unless they match historical trails like the Ft. Steele Trail etc...
Why:
I want to make a "modern" rudder that anyone can use with the right tools and knowledge of celestial navigation and dead reckoning- with all the latitude points marked clearly and in 3/4 digit decimal, even though 2/3 decimal points would be sufficient
I'll make one copy on vellum and give out the digital file of course...

Lacrosse is a fast-paced and dynamic team sport that originated with indigenous North American tribes. Today, it's played around the world and is known for its high-energy gameplay and skilled athleticism. In this article, we'll delve into the intricacies of lacrosse game, exploring its rules, the equipment required, and some winning strategies for both beginners and seasoned players.

The Origins and Evolution of Lacrosse

Historical Roots
Lacrosse traces its roots back to indigenous tribes like the Iroquois and Algonquian peoples, who played a similar game for centuries. Originally, lacrosse was played for various purposes including spiritual significance, training for war, and resolving conflicts between tribes.
Spread and Modernization
In the 19th century, European settlers witnessed the game and helped in its adaptation and spread. Eventually, formal rules were established, and the sport evolved into the lacrosse we recognize today. The modern game gained popularity in Canada and the United States and has since expanded globally.

Understanding Lacrosse Rules

Gameplay Basics
Lacrosse is played between two teams, each aiming to score goals by shooting a small rubber ball into the opponent's net. Players use long-handled sticks with nets (known as "sticks" or "crosse") to carry, pass, and shoot the ball.
Field and Positions
A lacrosse field is typically 110 yards long and 60 yards wide, with goals at either end. Teams consist of ten players, including a goalie, and are divided into attackers, midfielders, defenders, and the goalie.
Scoring and Timing
Points are scored when a team successfully shoots the ball into the opponent's goal. The team with the most goals at the end of the game wins. Lacrosse matches are divided into quarters, with each quarter typically lasting 15 minutes.
Fouls and Penalties
Various fouls can occur during a lacrosse game, such as slashing, cross-checking, or holding. Players committing fouls may face penalties, including time in the penalty box, resulting in a temporary disadvantage for their team.

Essential Lacrosse Equipment

Lacrosse Stick
The lacrosse stick, or crosse, is the primary tool used by players to carry, catch, and pass the ball. Sticks vary in length and design based on player position.
Helmet and Protective Gear
Player safety is paramount in lacrosse. Helmets, shoulder pads, arm pads, gloves, and mouthguards are mandatory for all players to minimize injury risks.
Goalie Equipment
Goalies wear additional protective gear, including a helmet with a face mask, chest protector, throat guard, and leg pads to shield themselves from high-velocity shots.
Lacrosse Ball
The ball used in lacrosse is made of solid rubber and is typically yellow or white. It's durable enough to withstand high-speed impacts during gameplay. Read our previously published article on How Long is a Hockey Game?

Strategies and Tactics for Success

Offense
Effective offense in lacrosse involves coordinated passing, movement, and strategic positioning to create scoring opportunities. Teams often use set plays and screens to break down the opponent's defense.
Defense
A strong defense is essential to prevent the opposing team from scoring. Players must communicate, anticipate passes, and use stick checks to disrupt the offense.
Transition Game
Transitioning between offense and defense is crucial in lacrosse. Quick transitions can catch opponents off guard and lead to scoring opportunities.
Face-offs
Face-offs occur at the start of each quarter and after goals. Winning face-offs requires skillful stick work and can provide a critical advantage in possession.

Conclusion

Lacrosse is a thrilling and physically demanding sport that combines speed, skill, and strategy. Whether you're a player or a spectator, the fast-paced action and dynamic gameplay of lacrosse make it an exhilarating experience. From its ancient origins to its modern-day popularity, lacrosse continues to captivate athletes and fans alike.
In conclusion, lacrosse offers a unique blend of tradition and innovation, making it one of the most exciting team sports globally. Whether you're a newcomer or a seasoned player, exploring the world of lacrosse promises an unforgettable journey into athleticism and camaraderie.

"Contention billows from Lahaina rebuilding board bill" (full text of news story) Hon Star Adv. 2/15/24 By Andrew Gomes . Posting entire story instead of link because paper has a paywall and not everyone can get past it
Enthusiasm and concern clashed Wednesday at the Legislature over a proposal to establish an elected community board under a state agency to govern Lahaina’s rebuilding from fiery ruins.
Two Senate committees held an initial hearing on a bill that aims to facilitate rebuilding Lahaina, perhaps under a master plan with new land-use rules and $200 million in funding, directed by an elected board of West Maui residents with support from the Hawaii Community Development Authority.
Concerns over Senate Bill 3381 were raised in written testimony from Gov. Josh Green, Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen, community organization Lahaina Strong, the Maui Chamber of Commerce and Lahaina’s representative on the Maui County Council, Tamara Paltin. No decision on the bill was made Wednesday by the Committee on Energy, Economic Development and Tourism and the Committee on Water and Land. But chairs of both committees endorsed the measure’s general concept.
A vote on whether to advance a proposed amended draft of the bill to the Senate Ways and Means Committee, which was involved in drafting the measure, is scheduled for today at 1 p.m. The driving intent with SB 3381 is to empower West Maui residents to facilitate and govern Lahaina’s redevelopment.
Yet some members of this community see problems with the board being elected, HCDA power and how a community plan from the envisioned board would affect other government recovery efforts.
One major criticism of the proposal is that it would establish a new entity that might conflict with efforts already underway to guide rebuilding in Lahaina where a wildfire driven by high wind on Aug. 8 destroyed most of the town and killed at least 101 people.
“Establishing a new process and regulatory layer for wildfire survivors to now navigate and understand may introduce additional barriers to rebuilding and recovery efforts,” Bissen said in written testimony co-­authored by Maui County Managing Director Josiah Nishita.
Bissen and Nishita noted that the county already has established an Office of Recovery, and that much community input and dialogue has been and is still being received and acted upon, including the development of the community’s initial recovery needs assessment and future long-term recovery plan.
“An aggressive plan has already been put in place to allow residents to expeditiously return to their properties,” Bissen and Nishita said. “This plan includes prioritizing infrastructure repairs to residential areas and an expedited permitting center, which will be available in the Spring of 2024” Paltin said in written comments that having the envisioned board create a new community plan for what the bill calls the Lele Community District, which is an old name for the Lahaina district and stretches from Maalaea to Kaanapali, appears redundant given that the county’s West Maui Community Plan was adopted within the last two years after extensive community discussions. “An additional community plan would result in additional bureaucracy and would undermine the County’s governance and the community’s trust,” she said.
Three leaders of the Lahaina Strong organization, Jordan Ruidas, Pa‘ele Kiakona and Courtney Lazo, echoed Paltin’s community plan concern and said it appears no community disaster recovery has ever been led by a redevelopment authority like the one proposed in SB 3381. “Understanding why Lahaina necessitates the establishment of a new authority amidst a lack of precedent raises fundamental questions about the efficacy and suitability of the proposed approach,” the group leaders said.
Ruidas, Kiakona and Lazo also said several bill aspects warrant careful consideration and amendment.
Pamela Tumpap, president of the Maui Chamber of Commerce, said the proposed board may become “another level of red tape” that impedes Lahaina’s recovery.
Green didn’t take a position for or against SB 3381 but noted that there is already a state disaster recovery coordinator whose task includes recovery and resiliency planning in support of Maui County.
The governor also said seven state agencies focusing on areas that include planning, infrastructure, housing and natural resources are assisting with recovery support functions in coordination with Maui County, federal partners and private organizations. This two-piece approach, Green said, is consistent with the National Disaster Recovery Framework, a structure under the Federal Emergency Management Agency developed from the collective experience of disaster recovery managers nationwide.
Several individuals who submitted testimony were about equally divided in support or opposition. Craig Nakamoto, HCDA executive director, expressed strong support for the measure while acknowledging anticipated challenges that include mistrust or negative views of the agency. HCDA is a board-led state agency that was established by the Legislature in 1976 to facilitate redevelopment of what was then a largely near-blighted industrial area of Honolulu with neglected city infrastructure. The agency established special zoning rules, improved infrastructure and incentivized development of high-rise housing mixed with industrial and park space. In more recent years, the Legislature has added new development districts to the agency’s jurisdiction. These include Kalaeloa, where the challenge is to turn a former military base that had no local zoning regulations and poor infrastructure, into a master-planned community that has yet to develop, and Heeia, where the agency’s directive is to preserve natural resources there. Each HCDA district has its own board where community members are a minority. The new Lele district board under the proposed amended draft of SB 3381 all must be residents of the district and registered to vote in Hawaii.
HCDA has tools and powers the board can use, including planning expertise, zoning authority, financing capabilities and land acquisition through condemnation. “When this bill was submitted, we viewed it as really our call to help,” Nakamoto told the committees. “And our answer was we’re here to help. … I don’t know if there’s another body that can really do this.”
Nakamoto acknowledged that the Lahaina community may not trust HCDA, which is headquartered in Kakaako, and he suggested that he begin meeting with community members in West Maui as soon as Monday.
“I don’t expect them to trust us because we’re from Oahu and we’re a state agency,” he said at Wednesday’s hearing.
Nakamoto added that his plan will be to talk 5% and listen 95%, and that HCDA is well-positioned to help the community create a community plan. The idea that Lele district board members be elected by residents of the district raised a host of issues.
The proposed draft calls for an election in 2026 and in subsequent general elections after initial appointments by the governor subject to Senate advice and consent. Sen. Donovan Dela Cruz, who co-introduced the bill, has suggested that there instead be a Jan. 1, 2025, special election to elect the board.
Paltin and the Lahaina Strong leaders said having elected board members allows financially backed special interests to land board seats. They also said initial picks by Green could be influenced by connections the governor has with special-­interest groups. Sen. Kurt Fevella, a member of both committees that heard the bill Wednesday, said he likes the bill’s concept except for having elected board members.
“I have a problem with this election thing,” said Fevella (R, Ewa Beach-Ocean Pointe-Iroquois Point). “A lot of my Hawaiian community don’t vote.”
Some public testimony suggested that only district residents at the time of the wildfire be eligible for the board, as a way to qualify wildfire survivors displaced by the disaster and to exclude new residents with outside interests. This may be unconstitutional, according to the state Office of the Attorney General.
Sen. Angus McKelvey (D, West Maui-Maalaea-South Maui), a Water and Land Committee member who introduced the bill with Ways and Means Committee Chair Dela Cruz (D, Mililani-­Wahiawa-Whitmore Village), asked if it would be more prudent to step back from the bill and pursue a working group that can produce model legislation that addresses concerns and achieves the objective of having Lahaina residents in control of rebuilding Lahaina.
Sen. Lorraine Inouye, Water and Land Committee chair, expressed some concern over county planning work conflicting with a Lele district board backed by HCDA. But she endorsed SB 3381. “This is a good bill,” said Inouye (D, Hilo-Pepeekeo).
Sen. Lynn DeCoite, chair of the Energy, Economic Development and Tourism Committee, called SB 3381 not a perfect bill but one that deserves more discussion and possible changes. “If not this, then what?” said DeCoite (D, East and Upcountry Maui-Molokai-­Lanai). “If not now, then when?”

Hello knapping!
I am reaching out because I'm working on an educational project focused on the history of my local area here in South Central Kentucky, particularly the cultures that were once found here during prehistoric times. My primary interest lies in the Mississippian culture and its associated projectile points, but I'm also exploring the Clovis and later Paleoindian groups, all the way through the Archaic, Woodland, Mississippian, and other pre-contact cultures.
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Project Overview:
- I am passionate about fostering education for both children and adults in my local area regarding the history behind the stone projectile points that have been found here, and the people who created them. As a local historian and knapping enthusiast, my focus for this reddit post is on creating replicas of the tools used by the prehistoric people of this particular area. Through these replicas, I aim to offer tangible insights into the ancient technologies and practices that shaped our local history. While my project is still in its early stages, I've been making significant progress through research and information gathering in an attempt to lay a proper foundation.
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How You Can Help:
- While I have experience in primitive weapons and tool making, my own knapping skills leave a lot to be desired. Due to some issues with my hands, I've not been able to practice or learn the skill as I have often wished. Because of this I've had to be content with learning as much about it as I could, and appreciating it from a distance. This is where the talented individuals of knapping come in! I am seeking assistance from this community to create replicas of some of the points and tools that potentially would have been used by these cultures.
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What I'm Looking For:
- Individuals interested in assisting with the creation of replicas.
- Expertise on point styles from the Mississippian culture in particular, but also other cultures in South Central Kentucky and the area of the Pennyroyal Plateau, near Mammoth Cave National Park. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennyroyal_Plateau)
- While the exact cultures known to have frequented this area can be hard to pinpoint, later people are thought to have perhaps included: Cherokee, Chickasaw, Shawnee, Creek, Choctaw, Yuchi, Osage, Miami, Delaware, Chickamauga, Mingo, Illinois Confederation, Potawatomi, Wyandot, Iroquois (Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, Mohawk, Tuscarora), and Quapaw. All of these potentially happened at various times and periods, and this is a very loose and generalized list. Any of these could also be ruled out as I am, again, going by very broad definitions and am still in need of more information.
- Advice on knapping techniques, materials, and historical accuracy.
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Collaboration Details:
- I am open to various forms of collaboration, whether it's through donations of actual points or tools, simple discussions, or sourcing local materials for use in the project.
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Why It Matters:
- This project is not only about preserving local history but also contributing to North American history and heritage as a whole. Your contributions will play an important role in educating the community and keeping an ancient craft alive.
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How to Get Involved:
- If you are interested in being a part of this project or have insights to share, please leave a comment or send me a direct message. Your expertise and passion for knapping are highly valued, and your contribution may have a lasting impact on our understanding of the past.
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I want to clarify that while I do not necessarily need entire artifacts as I already possess an understanding of fashioning a broad array of them, I am in need of knapped flint points and tools. However, any level of contribution, whether it be crafting a complete artifact or offering simple advice, is always welcomed and greatly appreciated.
I appreciate the diverse talents within the knapping community, recognizing the beauty in your craftsmanship. Some of the work I see in this community is absolutely stunning! However, for this project, the emphasis is on the practicality and authenticity of the tools. This allows for a wide range of contributions, making everyone's skills valuable.
The overarching goal of this effort is to create a compelling presentation that captivates people, encouraging them to actively engage and rethink the world of our ancestors in the hopes of ancient history being appreciated and preserved. My dream is for the replicas and information to end up in our local cultural museum or a similar place, which is ever growing, but in need of support and appreciation.
All of this may also serve as the foundation for a possible book on the rich prehistory of South Central Kentucky. It will be particularly focused on my area, which is right next door to Mammoth Cave National Park—home to the longest known cave system in the world. This is to detail possible sites of archaeological significance in relation to the cave and it's ancient history and the people who once lived nearby. Flint working and quarrying has an extremely vital role in this. Knappers and experts contributing their knowledge and efforts will be credited for their contributions, of course.
Communication is in progress with various academics, including geologists, cultural anthropologists, and archaeologists from my local college, as well as the folks at my local cultural museum. I am also keen to connect with individuals, whether as representatives of the cultures listed above or possessing knowledge about them, as their insights would greatly enrich my research. I wish to approach this endeavor with respect and a commitment to accuracy, ensuring that the information gathered is treated with the consideration it deserves.
However, in the specific realm of knapping, I'm reaching out to the broader community to tap into your invaluable insights and skills. Given the highly specialized nature of the craft, a community like knapping is important for gaining the knowledge I may not otherwise have access to. Your expertise and contributions would be instrumental in advancing my understanding of the historical practices I'm exploring. This community is doing an incredible job preserving and knowledge of one of the oldest crafts known to humanity, and I must say it's truly awe-inspiring to witness, no matter the outcome of this post.
If there is any additional information I can provide or any way I can further support my cause or even this community, please do reach out. Your contributions and insights are very much valued.
Thank you for taking the time to read about this project, and I look forward to hearing from some truly talented knappers!
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Best regards,
David (u/SpecificWeb3595)

What happened last week?

• Busy week but it didnt translate into volatility.
  
• CPI came in higher than estimates (0%) on a MoM basis (0.1%), and at estimates YoY(3.1%).
  
• Laggards are catching, are we finally seeing money elsewhere than the MAG7?
  

https://preview.redd.it/ceiyzbe34y6c1.png?width=1018&format=png&auto=webp&s=48005b59a8ecb851b08b418c562f9491193c94e5

• New FED dot plot, vs market expectations.

https://preview.redd.it/asxn4sp04y6c1.png?width=987&format=png&auto=webp&s=6b2a5e10a1d6827ca6b16a0a298bf7394871672c

• 7th consecutive green weeks for the US markets

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• JPOW freezed as expected but gave dovish comments during the FOMC rate decision.

In response to a question, Powell said the Fed recognizes that keeping rates high for too long, and waiting too long to cut them, could endanger the economy.
“We’re aware of the risk that we would hang on too long” before reducing borrowing rates, the Fed chair said. “We know that’s a risk, and we’re very focused on not making that mistake.”

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• Triple witching on friday was uneventful.

What to watch for next week?

• Friday: US PCE prints

https://preview.redd.it/ty04jgki4y6c1.png?width=225&format=png&auto=webp&s=db7e1475646f0872d4e13da59d7265676cb317fd
https://preview.redd.it/lolw4zzj4y6c1.png?width=1457&format=png&auto=webp&s=3f3948ccb1a12a25a5186d5efbc67fa05ddff488

Monday:

x

Tuesday:

Adcore Launches Feeditor Plus+ Application for E-commerce Enterprises - ADCO.v

Today unveils its latest Marketing Cloud application, Feeditor Plus+. This new tool is tailored to support enterprises with large inventories and significant advertising budgets, streamlining their digital advertising efforts.
Feeditor Plus+ emerges as a unique solution for enterprise E-commerce businesses seeking to broaden their customer base and increase revenue. Designed to adeptly handle large feeds, it can manage millions of items, offering unmatched capabilities in digital marketing.Key attributes of Feeditor Plus+ include its intuitive, code-free feed editing, allowing users to manage their content without needing advanced technical skills.

NowVertical Group Announces New Market Expansion, A Strategic Growth Partnership with Google, and Contract Win with McDonald’s LATAM - NOW.v

Peru Expansion – A New Geography for NowVertical:
NowVertical is pleased to announce it is expanding its operational reach in South America through a strategic collaboration with Google in Peru, focusing on transformative predictive analytics projects with RIMAC Seguros y Reaseguros. NOW has secured a contract to implement a predictive analytics model to enhance RIMAC's customer experience, fortify security measures, and ensure resilient business continuity, aligning with NowVertical's commitment to delivering tangible results and industry-leading solutions.
World’s Largest McDonald’s Franchisee – NowVertical Announces Contract with Arcos Dorados (McDonald’s LATAM) across Latin America
NOW is also pleased to announce a recently secured contract with Arcos Dorados (McDonald’s LATAM). NOW will be working with the customer on several projects that include cloud data engineering and data science implementation.

Update on Hut 8’s Stalking Horse Bid for four natural gas power plants including the North Bay Bitcoin mine - HUT.v

If Hut 8’s Stalking Horse Bid receives final approval from the Ontario Superior Court of Justice and is completed in accordance with its terms, a new Ontario subsidiary of Hut 8 will become the owner of the assets of certain Validus Entities. Macquarie will receive a minority equity interest in BidCo of approximately 20% and a subsidiary of Hut 8 will be the majority owner with the remaining approximately 80%. On completion of the Stalking Horse Bid, BidCo would acquire, free and clear of any encumbrances (excluding certain permitted encumbrances) four natural gas power plants located in Ontario:
40 MW facility in Kapuskasing
110 MW facility in Kingston
120 MW facility in Iroquois Falls
40 MW facility and Bitcoin mine in North Bay

Graphite One Delivers Synthetic Graphite Material Key to Accelerating its Path to Anode Material Production - GPH.v

o announce the delivery of synthetic graphite anode material samples for analysis by U.S.-based global end-users. Three of the active anode material samples delivered are each designed to meet different lithium-ion battery requirements: high energy capacity above 360 mAh/g; fast charging above 4C; and cycle life above 6,000 cycles, respectively. Graphite One's updated plan is to first construct a synthetic anode material production facility to produce a range of synthetic anode materials. A natural graphite anode material production line would later be added, in time to receive natural graphite from Graphite Ones's Graphite Creek deposit near Nome, The synthetic graphite samples were prepared for Graphite One by Sunrise (Guizhou) New Energy Material Co., Ltd.. The Company and Sunrise are currently negotiating a technical license agreement to share expertise and technology for the design, construction, and operation of Graphite One's proposed U.S.-based graphite material manufacturing facility. The TLA is intended to comply with the requirements of the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act ("IRA").

Green Battery and Volt Carbon manufacture initial Lithium Ion Batteries with graphite anodes, that require no acid purification, flotation, spheroidization, or carbon coating. - GEM.v / SJL.b

announce the commencement of battery anode development using graphite refined from Green Battery Minerals Berkwood property, accompanied by the release of initial test results affirming the high-grade graphite's suitability for lithium-ion batteries. Utilizing the super jumbo flake graphite concentrate derived from rock samples provided by Gren Battery to Volt in July 2023, Volt's Scarborough facility successfully executed a dry separation process, yielding a record-high total carbon content of 98.4%, as announced on August 15, 2023. Under the guidance of Dr. Aiping Yu, Volt's newest Board Member and University of Waterloo Professor, the graphite underwent a straightforward mechanical reduction process to achieve battery-grade anode sizes without the need for additional purification treatment.
This process used no harmful chemicals and did not go through two very costly and energy consuming processes of sphericalizing and coating. These two steps in the future may be added and tested which may improve the battery performance.

Wednesday:

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Jordan Aviation Renews Agreement with FLYHT - FLY.v

announced that it has signed a multi-year contract renewal with Jordan Aviation PSC ("JAV"), to provide its fleet of Boeing 767, 737's and Airbus A320's with FLYHT's software solutions. The renewed agreement will help continue to improve JAV's flight operations and maximize its efficiency.
This renewal extends the relationship between FLYHT and JAV that began in 2009 and currently includes a suite of software services that includes Satcom, FLYHTLog, FleetWatch, FLYHTHealth and FLYHTQAR on five aircraft.

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Yellow Pages Limited Completes Arrangement - Y.v

Under the Arrangement, the Company repurchased from Shareholders pro rata an aggregate of 4,440,497 common shares at a purchase price of $11.26 per share and also advanced $6 million as part of the previously announced voluntary incremental cash contributions to the Company's defined benefit pension plan's (the "Pension Plan"). Pursuant to the Arrangement, the Company will also advance to the Pension Plan an additional $6 million prior to December 31, 2023, bringing 2023 cash payments to the Pension Plan's wind-up deficit to $18 million by the end of the year.

Next Hydrogen Secures Follow On Purchase Order from Casale - NXH.v

announce it has received a purchase order from Casale for development work related to integration of Next Hydrogen’s next generation products for use in Casale’s green ammonia and methanol systems.
This work advances the partnership between Next Hydrogen and Casale established under the previously announced Memorandum of Understanding. The purchase order will support testing various operational profiles of Next Hydrogen’s unique electrolysers to allow their optimization and integration into Casale’s green ammonia and methanol plants.

GreenPower Announces Production of its First All-Electric School Buses at West Virginia Manufacturing Facility - GP.v

announced that the company has completed manufacturing of its first four all-electric, purpose-built school buses at its West Virginia facility. The Type A Nano BEAST school buses will roll out of the facility today and be delivered to Cabell County, Clay County, Kanawha County and Monongalia County school districts in West Virginia this week. GreenPower took possession of the 80,000-square-foot facility in August of 2022 and since that time has prepared for the production of both the Type A Nano BEAST and the Type D BEAST all-electric, purpose-built school buses. The Nano BEAST has been in production since June and production of the BEAST will begin Q1 of 2024.

Thursday:

ARway.ai Launches Large Scale AI-Powered 3D Spatial Navigation Mapping - ARWY.cse

is an AI powered Augmented Reality Experience platform with a disruptive no-code, no beacon spatial computing solution enabled by visual marker tracking with centimeter precision announces the release of Version 2.7, marking a significant leap forward in its spatial mapping capabilities. This latest version introduces a new enhanced AI-powered process that automates the creation of 400,000 square feet 3D spatial maps from 2D floor plans, significantly improving ARway's platform performance for enterprises and developers. Watch a video showcase of Version 2.7 - click here

Friday:

Aecon awarded contract for the Eglinton Crosstown West Extension Elevated Guideway project in Ontario - ARE.to

announced today that it has been awarded a $290 million design-build contract by the Ontario government for the Eglinton Crosstown West Extension (ECWE) project's Elevated Guideway in Toronto, Ontario. The value of the contract will be added to Aecon's Construction segment backlog in the fourth quarter of 2023.

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I am going to list some reservations I have about Marxist theory. Let me preface this by saying that I am not trying to offer a criticism, as I do not believe that I have enough knowledge about current Marxist thought in order to offer any satisfactory criticisms. I will state my current thoughts and understandings in order to better allow you to offer the best response. I am not looking for a debate, so whilst I will read all comments, I likely won't respond unless I have further questions or need for clarification. I request that most claims that cannot be reached deductively be backed by a source, though I will not be providing any sources as my intent is not to convince anyone, but rather to open myself to being convinced, or at least to be better informed of Marxist thought. I will be ordering my questions by my estimation of them resulting from a deficit in my understanding as a opposed to a genuine disagreement I may have with Marxist thought, such that the earlier questions should be a simple explanation whereas the latter questions are more likely to require thorough logic and evidence in order to be convincing. 1. Dialectics and the Contradictions It seems to me that a large part of dialects, specifically contradictions and their universal generality, are more limited than they are often treated. Yes in most things one can find contradictions, things that are in tension or that are opposed, and that those dynamics may be important in change or conflict in that process, object, or conception. That does not mean however that the defining conflict or property has to be a contradiction. For example, look at a colour wheel. If one were to look for the chief contradiction in colour, it would have to be between light and dark. However I would argue that the shade of a colour is not it's primary defining property, or at least it isn't intuitively for most people. I would argue instead that hue is the primary defining quality of colour, such that people would be more likely to group dark yellow with light yellow, as opposed to dark red. Hue, in and of itself, is not a contradiction, it is a spectrum. Furthermore it is not a component or derivative of shade, but is a separate property. It contains contradictions within it, such as between red and green, but no one would put such a contradiction on the same level as that between light and dark. So it may be with society. If we look for the chief contradiction in modern society with a capitalist mode of production (and indeed most forms of production since tribal life), we do indeed find ourselves drawn to class struggle. However to assume that therefore other societal dynamics can be derived primarily from class incentives would be alike to explaining hue in terms of shade. I assume I am missing something major from the theory here, either I'm misunderstanding the use dialectics, or it's relative importance to Marxists. Would anybody be able to explain where I am going wrong with this? 2. Labour Theory of Value As far as I can tell the labour theory of value as a description of the economic value of commodities or as a fundamental decider of price is simply wrong. I know the LTV was not originally proposed by Marx, but it is central to a lot of his theories, and he has his own rationale for it, I just don't find it satisfactory. Briefly, to my understanding, he states that an exchange will only take place if there is in some sense an equal value on both sides. Since utility value differs between commodities and is non-fungible, if there is a ratio that two commodities are exchanged there must be a third value that is common to both. The only thing that is common to all commodities is that human labour was required to make it, and so therefore the universal signifier of value must be tied to human labour. Now Marx then has some caveats on how not all labour is alike, varying by skill and intensity between individuals, but how nonetheless they contribute to the same value, and that the best or easiest method for universalising labour value, would be an average of socially necessary labour required to produce such a commodity. Much of Das Kapital is dedicated to the effects of this theory. For example that since a capitalist must sell a completed commodity for a higher price than the variable and fixed capital required to make it, value must be extracted from the value added by labour, therefore by not fully compensating a worker for the contributed value in an exploitative relationship. This also leads on to an explanation for the tendency of the rate of profit to fall (TRPF), whereby an increase in the capital required for newer production methods, combined with a decrease in labour time needed by unit, will result in a decrease in ratio of exploitable labour long term, that could only be counteracted by cheaper inputs or a decrease in wages. The tendency of capitalism for short term interests to push for temporary advantages in technology will therefore lead to the ultimate death of capitalism, arising from the contradiction between growth and profitability. Using common sense, it seems to me that this conclusion is absurd. Imagine if you will the latest stage capitalism conceivable. A single capitalist is in control of all capital in a country, and technology has advanced to the point that all processes required to turn natural resources in to goods can be carried out by a single unskilled labourer. Would we expect the capitalist to be unable to sustain himself and those he cares about? I don't see any reason why not, it's not like the labour value being spread over a great many loaves of bread makes the bread any less edible. It's not like the worker could demand equal compensation, there would be millions starving on the streets eager to take his place. What about a revolution? I see no reason why a large armed police force funded by said capitalist could not keep a bunch of starving paupers at bay. One may object that such a situation would not be capitalism, for the capitalist is not engaged in trade, and that the scenario obscures fact, since LTV only matters at the point of exchange. OK fine, then we have 2 capitalists, one in control of the production of fixed capital and the other in control of consumer commodities (districts 1 and 2). Both are reliant on each other for a stable output and thus must exchange goods in order to function. Does the fact that those goods have very low labour value matter? I don't think so, if it is in their material interest to exchange they will. Add as many capitalists as is required for you to feel satisfied that this remains capitalism. Once the abstractions are taken away, I simply don't see what would stop capitalism from progressing on undeterred. I don't think capitalism is inevitably self defeating, which is why we've been using the term late stage capitalism for half of its existence at this point. In respect to international trade, there is an oft reported result of the LVT in respect to unequal trade. If a less developed country takes longer to produce the same number of goods as another country, then the labour value per product will be higher. However by the laws of international exchange, assuming no trade friction, one would expect the price to be constant. Thus the value traded away by less developed countries will usually be far higher than the value received in return, thus meaning that this sort of international free trade usually results in a monetary transfer from poorer countries to wealthier ones, with some estimates putting the transferred value from the third world to the first to be orders of magnitude greater than the amount of foreign aid sent. However again, I feel like a simple example shows this result to be rather silly. If country A requires 10 labour hours to produce 1 ton of steel and country B requires 20 labour hours to produce 1 ton of steel, then if they were to exchange 1 ton of steel each, country A would essentially be leaching 10 labour hours from country B, despite the fact that country B ends with the exact same ton of steel it started with. I expect I am missing something, especially since when presented like this it only feels natural to set their values alike and value them based on the global average in a similar way that value is calculated within a country. I'm also not stating that a wealth transfer isn't happening, I just don't think it is inherent to trade between countries of differing development. To my mind the modern orthodox definition of value, developed some time after the writing of Das Kapital, seems to make far more sense, is less mystical, and more consistent with reality. This is that value is purely subjective, and will depend on an individuals needs and available resources. This at once liquidates the discrete nature of utility value, whilst offering up a direct relationship with prices. That is that the price within a market is determined by whatever price results in an equal number of sellers who value the commodity less than the given price and buyers who value the commodity more than the given price. This comes from the idea an exchange will only occur if both sides believe they are getting value out of it. Now, I've heard that some modern Marxist economists have dropped the LTV, and that Marx himself in volume 3 of Das Kapital goes against it, however I am unaware of what the consensus is. I do think that LTV could hold a place as a notion of human potential, but that it should be kept out of the realm of direct analysis. Can anyone explain either why the LTV is correct, should be taken to be correct, or if it isn't taken to be correct, what the current Marxist models are based on? 3. Historical Materialism and Idealism This is going to be a short one, because I think the meat of my problem with this area is better covered in the next section. Whilst I do think that historical materialism is a very useful tool, in that it can help remove biases in narratives, I do not believe that it can possibly explain everything. We spent millions of years evolving in the ancestral condition, and it is only within recent times that our mode of production has changed. No other animal has the reasoning abilities of humanity, yet they are still able to carry out their natural functions regardless, migrating great distances, living peacefully within pack or herds, caring for their young, etc. Quite complex behaviour arising from otherwise dull beasts. This can only be explained by a natural instinct pushing them towards what is good for their survival. There is no cause to think that simply because man possesses reason that he must lack the instinct of his ancestral environment. An instinct that is effectively irrelevant to modern material conditions or mode of production, and yet perfectly capable of pushing history and the actions of many in ways totally incomprehensible to the world view of pure historical materialism. I want to clarify that I am not making the mistake of assuming that historical materialism is so vulgar as to suggest all action is the direct result of material conditions. I am aware that it purports there to be a super structure of culture and institutions built upon those material conditions that attempt to maintain a mode of production, whilst the mode of production shapes the culture and morality. My view however is that this isn't enough, that there are major trends that cannot be explained by such a view. This may sound idealist, but what may sound like idealism on a human timescale is simply materialism conveyed on the scale of evolution. I would love to hear your thoughts on this, whether I have sold historical materialism short, or if my claims can be shown to be false. 4. Rejection of morality Carrying on with the theme of the previous section, I have noted that Marx did not write about ethics directly, and that the bulk of Marxist ethics were instead developed by the Bolsheviks as a part of Marxism-Leninism. This set of ethics is ultimately derived from historical materialism and dialectics. It holds that there are no universal components of morality, that all morality holds a class character and that any such purported standard is simply based on the material conditions of the time. Trotsky's 1938 pamphlet “Their Morals and Ours”, directly espouses the concept of “means justify the ends”, and more radically that any means justify the end of liberation of the proletariat. Trotsky holds that any transcendental morality, one built on a supposed “moral sense” that is not based solely on material conditions can only come from God, and that the materialist atheist must therefore shed any notion of such a thing existing. That these are essentially just spooks built into us by our material culture. Trotsky admits to the fact that there are broad principles that have carried over in many if not most societies, but that it they are simply the principles required for living in any kind of group environment. Now my first issue with this is that if there are a basic set of principles that apply to living in any group environment, surely that would count as a part of transcendental ethics. Sure it doesn't come from God, but rather logic and necessity, but does that matter. If an alien society, developed on a different world with different biology, would necessarily on the whole adhere to these principles in order to live as a group, surely that is about as universal as it gets. Now there is certainly truth in the critique that exact moral prescriptions, especially described in words, are often contradictory and not practical or reasonable to carry out in all material situations. Do not kill is a fairly easy intuitive example that people point towards as a moral tenant one should follow, but that does indeed break down. What about war? What about self defence? What about executions? These are all instances where much or most of society would all the breaking of “do not kill”. However, just because our moral sense and intuitions cannot be effectively summed up in 3 words, does not mean they don't exist. When one answers that “do not kill” is a good rule to follow, they are thinking about the vast majority of situations they find themselves in, not about the exceptions. The inconsistency is more a result of laziness in defining vague sense, than in the meaningless or supposed illusatory nature of that moral sense. All mammals share a caring behaviour. Dolphins are famous for saving drowning people. That isn't to say that this empathetic response overrides other needs, for example good luck trying to appeal to the caring nature of a hungry lion, but that doesn't mean it isn't still present. As it is with humans, conditions may restrict us from acting on our best impulses, but those impulses remain remain regardless. Studies have shown that there are human virtues valued by most if not all cultures across humanity, with underlying moral values being the cause for many traditions. The moral foundations from psychology has been shown to be fairly universal across cultures (although the exact level to which they are valued varies between individuals and groups). Furthermore there are twin studies that correlate the strength of these moral senses to genetics, further underlying their natural and intrinsic quality. I believe that much of the motivation for Marxists ultimately derive from moral sense, a sense of fairness, care, and loyalty. These themes are often implicitly used through the inclusion of words such as exploitation or greed, with capitalists often portrayed as pigs. I doubt very much that most Marxists lack a moral sense, but much of the theory, especially by Marxist-Leninists seem to either ignore or actively argue against traditional notions of morality and moral sense. I don't think this is an area of belief that I can be convinced out of, though perhaps some form of word play could make me accept a slightly different conclusion. If you think I've been unfair about my critiques, or that I'm missing the context and thought held by modern Marxists I would love to hear them. 5. Nations and identity Once again related to what I consider the incompleteness of historical materialism, is the complete exclusion of national identities and tribal thinking as being anything other than the result of a false consciousness pushed by the capital class. Being an avid reader of history, I find the themes of a sense of unity based on shared language, culture, and kinship to be near omnipresent across the ages. Sure, it played a larger role with the rise of nationalism giving forms to these trends in the 19th century, but the undercurrents that gave rise to them have been with us since the start. There have often been appeals to rebellion, or to conquest, or resistance on the claims of the enemy being an other, not of the same ethnicity, and conversely trends to unity based on those same traits. The fact that these themes have been present in speeches and propaganda in Ancient Greece, to Rome, to medieval England, all the way until the modern day, with even the Soviet Union framing the second world war as the great patriotic war, is indicative of the fact that rulers make these appeals because they work. Not because that sense has been constructed by each of those rulers, but rather because an appeal to that pre-existing sense has been so effective in rallying support across the ages. Even in the state of proto-Communism of early man, we have evidence of conflict between groups, from the remains of mass graves. We see war between troops of our closest relatives Chimpanzees. As for early humans, if humanity did not exist largely within the bounds of ethnic and cultural blocks, instead operating under freely associated bands, one would expect all languages within pre or semi agricultural societies to exist on a dialectal continuum, since there would be constant and equal contact between neighbours. Whilst that is sometimes the case, more often than not we find hard linguistic boundaries for examples amongst between the various native American languages. Tribal identity seems to have always been important amongst Native Americans, and indeed all peoples of the world. One could argue that this only occurred when Europeans first made contact with them, however we have oral traditions from them that indicate that there was warfare and tribal feuds that go back long before European appearance on the continent. Furthermore we have linguistic evidence of the long expansion of the Bantu peoples from west Africa, and oral records of their displacement of local groups such as the Khoi-San peoples. For an interesting example of unification, one can look to the oral tradition of the Iroquois confederation, in which the unification of five different tribes was eased and largely based upon their shared culture and language in contrast to those around them. Their unification seems to echo the Athenian league, the unification of medieval England and of 19th century Germany. I don't think national or tribal identity is the be all and end all, but I do think that it is often overlooked by Marxists, and I find the attempts to explain it as a recent phenomena or as a reaction by capitalists to socialist threats to be rather weak. If you have any evidence or strong arguments against this, I would be very appreciative. Thank you for taking the time to read all this.

I would respectfully ask that you read this to its entirety before voting or commenting. I will attempt to keep it as concisely as possible due to the character limit, but the focal reason I stopped believing in Sam Harris’s views is an in-depth legal matter and so depressing to me that I can only give very general information and not the full extent. If anyone’s interested in further information, I made a blog post a few months ago and added citations at the bottom of the blog post to more thoroughly explain the ongoing human rights injustices that still exist to this day insofar as I understand them. Also, while I would like to believe this would provide convincing evidence, I think the way we as humans disassociate, detach, and rationalize factual evidence will make that highly unlikely. For anyone who has read Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, I’d like to point out the aspect of the book where he explains that studies have shown that people subconsciously substitute complex questions for how they feel about the questions and respond to even serious issues with real world consequences in what would appear a thoughtless way, because they’re not actually thinking over the questions presented, but rather how they feel about the questions. Please keep that in mind while reading this to completion.
Before I go into my reasons why I stopped believing in the superiority of Western values, I want to be clear that this is not an anti-Sam Harris hate rant and I do agree with him on some other issues. He’s fully convinced me that freewill is a myth, reading counterarguments to freewill being a myth only strengthened my belief that freewill was a myth, and I think he’s the only one in public celebrity circles speaking honestly about it. His detractors erroneously try to argue on the consequences of what that would mean and how it makes people feel, but that isn’t an argument based upon honesty and evidence. His arguments specifically against religious superstition are superb, he’s completely right based on evidentiary methods and rational inquiry, and nothing further really needs to be said there. When it comes to topics that are generally in the realm of his expertise, he’s amazing. When I was in high school, I believed him to be just as intelligent and articulate about the superiority of Western values due to the enlightenment, the focus on human wellbeing based on utilitarian principles of the most good for the most people, and more specifically, Christopher Hitchens arguments in favor of the values of Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, and Voltaire. In college, I had some internal disagreements based upon what Chris Hedges argued in his various books, news articles, and blog posts. Hedges “War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning” was required reading for one of my Political Science classes in college and that’s how I learned of him. A few years after college, after listening to various discussions by the nonprofit group, Ex-Muslims of North America and comparing it to how nihilistic Hedges eventually became, I eventually changed my mind to support enlightenment values with less disagreements to Sam Harris’s views. However, as of now, I completely reject all his arguments about Western values in their totality. I view it as equally harmful as neologisms like Islamophobia to shut down criticism of Islam and I feel disgusted with myself for ever having believed it. His views on the superiority of Western values are what I find to be called “Western Triumphalism” and I believe it is harmful; ironically, I first learned of this term and its application from a bemused reading of Christian missionary pamphlets in the 2010s attempting to rationalize the over 500 years of failed conversion attempts in India to Christianity. I agree with some of Sam Harris’s other views and I would go so far as to say that the New Atheist movement and main advocates like Harris, the late Hitchens, and Dawkins should be considered the most prominent and influential Western philosophers of the early 2000s. I believe it was their cultural influence that has led to the rapid decline of Christianity and religious superstitions more generally throughout the Western world. Nevertheless, I believe Western Triumphalism is built on a falsehood. I wanted to make all of that clear so that I’m not misperceived as some ignoramus that isn’t familiar with Sam Harris’s views.
The reason I’ve given up on believing in the superiority of Western values is because of the most successful and ongoing genocidal conditions imposed upon Native Americans living within the United States of America. These conditions are solely due to unilateral US legal policy forced upon Native Americans living in reservations and which have emboldened sex offenders throughout the United States to rape and murder Native Americans who live outside of the reservations too. In the Supreme Court decision of Oliphant vs Suquamish (1978), Supreme Court justice William Rehnquist in the majority decision stated that Native American reservations, upon becoming domestic dependent nations to the United States, had no jurisdiction to arrest and prosecute non-Native people coming into reservations. It also stated that the plenary power of the US Congress extended to being able to limit, modify, or remove any legal powers that Native American reservations had. In effect, non-Natives could not be arrested or prosecuted by Native American “tribal” court systems. This has led to widespread rape epidemics and murder sprees of Native American women and even men by predominately white male registered sex offenders for over forty years. These rape and murder sprees are not some bygone era of the past, they still occur to this day and have never stopped. The Supreme Court of the United States under Rehnquist effectively legalized rape upon Native Americans living in reservations because only Federal prosecutors were allowed to prosecute non-Native registered sex offenders coming into reservations to harm Native Americans. Indigenous court systems and Native American police could not arrest or prosecute them for over forty years and I’ve read articles where Indigenous police essentially admitted that if they did attempt to, then registered sex offenders could call on local police in their towns outside reservations to shoot and kill Indigenous reservation police because it isn’t a crime to harm Native Americans living in reservations and Indigenous police are committing a crime by trying to stop registered sex offenders from raping and murdering Indigenous people.
As I read more deeply into this issue, it sickened me how they’ve imposed legal decisions on reservations for crimes between Native Americans too; please bear in mind, bad actors exist in all groups and I’m not trying to disparage any person or ethnic group. Nearly a century prior to this decision, the Major Crimes act of 1885 passed by the US Congress effectively stated that only the US Congress had unilateral rights to define punishment for crimes like rape and murder on Indigenous reservations; the US Congress limited crimes of murder and rape upon reservations to six months prison or a $500 fine. In 1986, they updated it to one year in prison and a $5000 fine, and only in 2010 has the US Congress updated this to $15,000 fine and a three-year prison sentence. As many of you may know, that is far short of a 25 to life sentence for murder and five or more years in prison for rape. Native American court systems have no legal ability to update their own court systems even on crimes within their communities between their community members. Even outside of the issue that predominately white male sex offenders can come in to rape and murder an Indigenous child, Native American groups have protested and begged for over forty years for there to be updates in the penal code or for federal prosecutors to visit reservations only for prosecutors not wanting to make the trip and closing cases pre-emptively allowing no legal recourse to hold registered sex offenders accountable throughout the United States when they rape and murder Indigenous people living in reservations. There’s a disincentive for Federal prosecutors to pursue these cases due to there being more legal challenges as a result of the jurisdictional nightmare created by Oliphant vs Suquamish of 1978 and Federal prosecutors have discretion on cases they can choose to pursue. Vast majorities of cases were not prosecuted throughout the forty years of rape and murder sprees upon Indigenous people and the US federal government didn’t have a systematized measurement of cases until 2020, despite criticisms over this by Amnesty International back in 2007. Amnesty International’s own research between October 2002 and September 2003 found that Federal prosecutors declined 60 percent of cases of sexual assault in reservations where the perpetrator was a non-Native man who sexually assaulted an Indigenous woman according to their first Maze of Injustice research publication back in 2007. The updated 2022 report found nearly 57 percent of Indigenous women are likely to be sexually assaulted in their lifetime, it is usually multiple times in their lives, and approximately 30 percent of those sexual assaults were rape. In other words, approximately one in two Indigenous women will be sexually assaulted and approximately one in three Indigenous women will be raped in their lifetime throughout the United States. In both the first Amnesty International report and the local news reports by KX News of North Dakota found that approximately between 84 – 86 percent of the sexual violence comes from non-Native men; KX News of North Dakota clarified that the non-Native perpetrators are overwhelmingly violent sex offenders who use reservations as safe havens to rape or rape and kill Indigenous women.
If not for the studies by Amnesty International USA, US news agencies that originate from Great Britain, independent news organizations like Reveal News, and local news reports from various US State locales; I would never have learned of or known any of this. The majority of US-based national news agencies like NBC News deliberately obfuscate and try to re-contextualize the information as a Native-on-Native problem to protect predominately white male, registered sex offenders. They claim that Indigenous reservations are sovereign territories when they’ve been legally defined as domestic, dependent nations since Cherokee Nation vs Georgia (1831). In Johnson vs McIntosh (1823), Supreme Court justice Marshall legally defined Native Americans as “wards” of the US government and what that meant was that US penal code and US law define Native Americans as having no legal ability for rational thinking faculties. The basis of this was the Christian doctrine of discovery which Thomas Jefferson had reinterpreted into secular terms. Even as recent as City of Sherill v. Onedia Indian Nation (2005), Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg cited the Doctrine of Discovery as the reason for why the Oneida nation had to pay taxes for land it had legally re-purchased that was lost to it during colonial expulsion by white settlers. The reason the Supreme Court would decide on that basis is because currently the two competing legal theories defining US law is the originalist or textualist theories of law. What that means is, the Supreme Court of the United States can only interpret the laws on the basis of either a literalist reading of the text of the law or on the basis of the original intent of the Founding Fathers of the United States in accordance with the US Constitution and US Constitutional amendments. Therefore, because Thomas Jefferson supported the Doctrine of Discovery for all non-Christians, due to legal affirmations like the two Supreme Court cases in the early 1800s, and the Founding Fathers own racist writings such as the Declaration of Independence referring to Indigenous people as “merciless Indian savages” which was written by Thomas Jefferson himself; the Supreme Court of the United States can only pass judgments based upon that and that means the US legal system is deliberately organized to violate the human rights of Native Americans. Unless there’s a Constitutional amendment allowing genuine self-determination or simply allowing Indigenous court systems to prosecute non-Native sex offenders, these horrific conditions will not change at all. In more recent times there have been piecemeal efforts to bandage this barbaric legal system that the US created, the Supreme Court decision of United States vs Cooley (2021) now allows Indigenous police to hold and detain perpetrators while waiting for non-Indigenous police to come and arrest them and the Supreme Court decision of Oklahoma vs Castro-Huerta (2021) allows local non-Native police to arrest and prosecute non-Natives going into Indigenous reservations to harm Indigenous people. However, as Amnesty International USA reiterated, the core problem is the Supreme Court decision of Oliphant vs Suquamish (1978) which allowed registered sex offenders carte blanche access to assault, rape, and murder Indigenous people for over forty years and remains in legal effect to this day. The most recent analysis by the US House of Representatives in the Violence Against Women’s Reauthorization bill of 2021, that seems to have been killed in the US Senate’s Committee of the Judiciary, is that 86 percent of Native American men and 96 percent of Native American women have been physically or sexually violated by a non-Native offender.
I feel utterly ashamed of myself for having believed in the superiority of Western values after learning all of this. The first time I had heard of this issue was back around the early 2010s and I had misunderstood the Violence against Women’s Reauthorization act of 2013 for having covered non-Native perpetrators and not solely domestic partners; imagine my surprise when years later, I re-read the information and the actual applicable law to find out how wrong I was after reading about how rapes and murders of Indigenous people had increased throughout the years. The Republican majority Congress and President Obama had only focused on the 15 percent of sexual violence in Indigenous reservations and not the 84 – 86 percent of registered sex offenders coming in to rape and kill people including innocent kids. I feel ashamed of myself for living in ignorance thinking that Republican and Democrat politicians of the US Congress had come together to fix a pertinent human rights issue. My thinking was: why would a first-world, Western country that I’ve lived in and believed in all of my life allow registered sex offenders to rape and kill innocent women due to their ethnic background just because the Founding Fathers had antiquated beliefs? Why would a bunch of dead people’s bigotry matter more to US politicians, US court systems, and the US public than Indigenous people living here and now fearing for their lives of being raped and killed? It was irrational to me to believe that the US legal system could ever operate in such a way, but as I delved deeper after learning it still continued, I learned just how stupid I was. I couldn’t help but think of all the times I believed in and supported Sam Harris’s views on the superiority of Western values; I recall how he claimed, without any hint of irony or humor, that Christianity had modified itself to not be as violent as Islam and yet, there is an ethnic minority group – the Indigenous peoples of the Americas – being raped and killed because of a modified form of the Christian Doctrine of Discovery as a core component of US law and US legitimacy over the modern form of the US today. Even worse, this doesn’t cover the litany of historical abuses upon Native Americans even prior to Oliphant v. Suquamish (1978) that the US still legally defends in modern times: the downright genocidal boarding schools of the 1870s – 1960s which brutalized Indigenous children, the US government legally owning the Indigenous reservations and not allowing Indigenous people to legally hold them, the dumping of toxic waste that has increased child mortality among Indigenous mothers, the failed “Termination Era” policies by the US Congress trying to end Indigenous reservations by forcing Indigenous people into cities which began a legacy of pimps forcing Native American women into prostitution with local law enforcement penalizing Native women after they were drugged and pimped out by non-Native men, the sterilization campaign by several US State government agencies upon Indigenous women along with other minority women and even lower-income white Americans, and the ongoing legal justification for violations upon the human rights of Native Americans today. There is so much to this legacy of abuses that undermine Sam Harris’s arguments about the superiority of Western values.
When rethinking the arguments and beliefs of Sam Harris in his blogs about the superiority of Western values in consideration with my lessons in Political Science; I’ve come to understand that human rights is just used as a tool of convenience to support US national interests and US policy objectives. As many of you undoubtedly experienced in our lifetime, we in the US went from arguing over the brutal conditions of women in Afghanistan to forgetting about it and talking about the importance of Ukraine’s right to sovereignty and the human rights of Ukrainian children in international courts. We have constant discussions about the Israel-Palestine conflict, Syria, and briefly, about Libya when Qaddafi was deposed. Why not Sudan? Why not Tibet? And, why not the horrific conditions happening to Indigenous people in our own backyards throughout the United States? It is because the conflicts taking focus on the US national news by US corporations serve the US’s national interests and those human rights issues that do not serve the national interests of the US are ignored. The US has a national interest in conflicts like Ukraine because it puts NATO and US hegemony at risk. The US has interests in Iraq, Syria, and Libya because of the petrodollar system in which the US promised to defend specific dictatorships throughout the Arab Spring so long as they sold oil on the US dollar; thereby making the US the world reserve currency, allowing the US Federal Reserve and Banking CEOs to have significant influence over international markets to further US financial power, and making the US into the most dominant superpower in world history in terms of global military expansion. The US has a national interest in Israel predominately because of the religious majority of Americans being of an Abrahamic religious denomination who view it as their holy land, Israel helps keep a balance of power to threats like Iran, the combat experience with US-made weapons probably helps the US arms industry with working out improvements when IDF soldiers war with Palestinians and Hamas, and the cultural strife between Israel and its neighbors allow for the US to give it free billions in weapons while the US makes approximately $90 billion in sales to countries like Saudi Arabia who then sell those US-made weapons to terrorists like Hamas. The US stopped concerning itself with Afghanistan and Afghan women’s rights after the US government could get the Taliban to agree not to support any international terrorism that would negatively impact US national interests. Likewise, the attempts to downplay or re-contextualize the evidence by the US mainstream news media when they falsely proclaim sexual violence among Indigenous populations to be “intimate partner violence” as the main issue or the false claims that the Indigenous reservations are sovereign territories despite the actual legal definition; these are falsehoods to comfort people into supporting US national interests. Please think about this and I swear I do not say this lightly: I’ve come to understand that terms like “complex jurisdictional maze”, “legal loopholes”, “US trust responsibility” are merely euphemisms for the deliberate, state-sponsored genocide of the Indigenous people of the US by the US government. That is what all of what I previously mentioned about the jurisdictional issues amounts to. The Wisconsin Law Review argued the Supreme Court decision of Oliphant v. Suquamish (1978) to be legal auto-genocide. That is genuinely what the US legal policies towards Native Americans still are to this day and they’ve only been updated in response to outcries of repeated ongoing human rights catastrophes of rape crimes and murder sprees. The US government has only acted after worst-case scenarios happened, only reluctantly upon widespread condemnation from some subsets of the US public, and the US still refuses to simply allow Indigenous reservation police and court systems to prosecute non-Native registered sex offenders. Why? Because US politicians want to preserve US hegemony, US legal scholars and US prosecutors want to maintain that the institutions are perfect as defined by a “God-given” right of the US being exceptional, and the majority of us in the US public believe in this delusion of Western values being superior to all others. Sam Harris follows this deluded script about the superiority of Western values without being cognizant of how equally harmful it is to neologisms like Islamophobia.
Finally, one of the focal reasons that I have reinterpreted concepts of the superiority of Western values and Western universalism as Western triumphalism is because it is based upon a falsehood that ignores the cultural genocide of the Native Americans. Many within modern US liberal and conservative circles may recognize the physical genocide and sexual exploitation, but they still have trouble recognizing the impact of cultural genocide that persists to this day. The belief in the superiority of Western values thoroughly erases Indigenous cultural contributions to the modern United States. Many of you may recognize how terms such as Western values and Western universalism are falsely viewed as Judeo-Christian values by many Christian groups and some Jewish groups and how they attempt to co-opt the idea that two of the three Abrahamic faiths are somehow the origins for human rights. Unfortunately, US and European atheists have largely done exactly the same by conflating enlightenment values with women’s rights. Due to ignorance and whitewashing of Indigenous history in US history classes for decades, very few seem to know that while 1920 was the year in which US women finally gained national suffrage from the ratification of the 19th amendment; Indigenous women had been voting for approximately over a millennium or more prior to the arrival of white settlers within clan-based confederacies in the north-east of the Americas. Two of the three original women’s rights activists had become adopted members of the Haudenosaunee confederacy (the people of the long-house which is now more popularly called by its French name, the Iroquois Confederacy); women’s property rights, legal punishment for marital rape, women having the voluntary right to form legal and business contracts without anyone else’s approval or influence, women having sole ownership of their own land and property, child custody of children given to the woman in a divorce, women having the right to divorce, women holding legal office in official capacity, women participating in binding international treaties, women’s suffrage, and denunciations against rape within a wider society allowing women to live freely without fear of men attacking and raping them at night were all cultural contributions of the Haudenosaunee confederacy. That was how the North-Eastern Indigenous societies functioned; women held the sole authority to vote in what referred to as a Fire Council, each head of a Clan was referred to as a Clan-Mother, and women could vote the elected male chief out of power. The elected chief was more a Commander-in-Chief and not the one making domestic or national policy decisions which were reserved for the Fire Council of Clan-Mothers. Interestingly, in similar fashion to the stereotypes of patriarchal European Noble Houses, Clan-Mothers were selected based on the eldest daughter or the eldest woman that was most closely related to the previous Clan-Mother. These were a few aspects of what their societies were like, and I am not denying there were problematic aspects, but just think about how Hollywood throughout the early 1900s and US societal ignorance has stereotyped Indigenous cultures as primitive, patriarchal, and filled with rape until the white settlers came with Euro-centric values. It’s deliberate cultural genocide and a falsehood to perpetuate the idea that Indigenous cultures somehow caused the current problems of rape and murder that keep occurring. I personally do not believe that I will ever forgive myself for not recognizing these problems sooner. I don’t believe that I’ll ever forgive the national news media for continuing to falsely claim that it is due to sovereignty and not the deliberate policies that have given carte blanche access to rapists and murderers throughout the US. The US writ large imposed euro-centric, Western policies diminishing Indigenous women’s rights, livelihoods, and capacity to sue for rape and murder and then blamed Indigenous communities for it. The majority of the US public likely still believe that these changes are somehow correcting some weird or quirky “tribal” problem among Indigenous communities, when the truth is that the US has committed and is still committing state-sponsored rape campaigns upon Indigenous women even now. The two earliest women’s rights advocates would later argue for a revised Christianity in which they wrongly believed that there was a universal womanhood among more “tribal” religions all across the world; modern anthropology and archaeology has debunked much of those claims, but not those of Indigenous people’s ancient history. For example, in Missouri, the ancient site of the city of Cahokia, it was found that most of the dynastic human sacrifices were due to women competing for power and fame against each other and presumably sending the men to fight over their dynastic feuds. Brutal? Yes. Showing women held dominance in society? Also, yes. Moreover, the ignorant attempt by the two originators of feminism to reinterpret Indigenous women’s cultural contributions to US society as something that all ancient societies around the world presumably had; was a form of whitewashing the unique contributions of Indigenous societies and more specifically, the Haudenosaunee confederacy. It was the chain reaction of the Haudenosaunee having dialogue, explaining their culture, sharing their culture amicably, and allowing the white women who would become the earliest feminists and feminist theorists to participate in their culture that eventually pushed for women’s advocacy reforms and changes in US law centuries later for accomplishments like women’s suffrage in the 1920s; the push for changes in US law would later influence women’s rights globally over the centuries after World War 2. The centuries of feminist theory and influence is the result of the amicable sharing of Indigenous cultural belief structures, legal systems, and social views and the only thing the US has ever given in return is dispossession, dehumanization, cultural genocide, sterilization campaigns, dumping toxic waste into the reservations forced upon them by the US government, state-sponsored campaigns of rape and murder, and legal auto-genocide. All of these reasons are why I find Sam Harris’s political views to be incredibly shallow and ill-informed; Sam Harris’s views on the superiority of Western Values is Western Triumphalism and it is a harmful belief system that still promotes genocide to this day. I say this with all sincerity, it is historically as damaging as puritanical Islamism and both are equally false and dangerous ideas that spread genocidal levels of violence, bigotry, and hate.
---
Works Cited

1. “2 the Never-Ending Maze: Continued Failure to Protect Indigenous Women …” Https://Www.Amnestyusa.Org/Maze/, Amnesty USA, http://www.amnestyusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/AmnestyMazeReportv_digital.pdf. Accessed 29 Oct. 2023.
2. “687. Tribal Court Jurisdiction.” The United States Department of Justice, 22 Jan. 2020, http://www.justice.gov/archives/jm/criminal-resource-manual-687-tribal-court-jurisdiction#:~:text=The%20Supreme%20Court%20held%20in,the%20tribe%20in%20Duro%20v.
3. “City of Sherrill v. Oneida Indian Nation of N. Y., 544 U.S. 197 (2005).” Justia Law, supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/544/197/. Accessed 28 Oct. 2023.
4. Cooper, Renee. “Behind the Grim Statistics for Sexual Violence on Reservations.” KX NEWS, KX NEWS, 22 Dec. 2020, http://www.kxnet.com/news/local-news/being-raped-is-a-right-of-passage-behind-the-grim-statistics-for-native-american-women/.
5. “Doctrine of Discovery.” Legal Information Institute, Legal Information Institute, http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/doctrine_of_discovery. Accessed 28 Oct. 2023.
6. Golden, Hallie. “US Indigenous Women Face High Rates of Sexual Violence – with Little Recourse.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 17 May 2022, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/17/sexual-violence-against-native-indigenous-women.
7. Maher, Savannah. “Supreme Court Rules Tribal Police Can Detain Non-Natives, but Problems Remain.” NPR, NPR, 9 June 2021, http://www.npr.org/2021/06/09/1004328972/supreme-court-rules-tribal-police-can-detain-non-natives-but-problems-remain.
8. Martinez, Clara. “The Evolution of Judicial Power: How the Supreme Court Effectively Legalized Rape on Indian Reservations.” Linfield Journal of Undergraduate Research, Lindfield University, digitalcommons.linfield.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1012&context=quercus. Accessed 29 Oct. 2023.
9. “Maze of Injustice.” Amnesty International USA, 15 May 2017, web.archive.org/web/20111018194106/www.amnestyusa.org/pdfs/MazeOfInjustice.pdf.
10. “The Never-Ending Maze: Continued Failure to Protect Indigenous Women from Sexual Violence in the USA.” Amnesty International USA, Amnesty International USA, 19 July 2023, http://www.amnestyusa.org/maze/.
11. Oweiss, Ibrahim M. “Petrodollars: Problems and Prospects.” Economics of Petrodollars, faculty.georgetown.edu/imo3/petrod/petro2.htm. Accessed 28 Oct. 2023.
12. Pastino, Blake de. “Infamous Mass Grave of Young Women in Ancient City of Cahokia Also Holds Men: Study.” Western Digs, 5 Aug. 2013, web.archive.org/web/20221004092858/https://westerndigs.org/infamous-mass-grave-of-young-women-in-ancient-city-of-cahokia-also-holds-men-study/.
13. Supreme Court of the United States, http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/21-429_8o6a.pdf. Accessed 29 Oct. 2023.
14. Text – H.R.1620 – 117th Congress (2021-2022): Violence against Women …, http://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/1620/text?r=6&s=1. Accessed 29 Oct. 2023.
15. “Tribal Governance.” Crow Dog Case (1883) Tribal Governance, http://www.uaf.edu/tribal/academics/112/unit-1/crowdogcase.php. Accessed 28 Oct. 2023.
16. “United States v. Cooley, 593 U.S. ___ (2021).” Justia Law, supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/593/19-1414/. Accessed 28 Oct. 2023.
17. Vogue, Ariane de. “States Can Prosecute Non-Tribal Members Who Commit Crimes on Native American Reservations, Supreme Court Says CNN Politics.” CNN, Cable News Network, 29 June 2022, http://www.cnn.com/2022/06/29/politics/oklahoma-supreme-court-mcgirt-castro-huerta/index.html.
18. Wagner, Sally Roesch. “Sisters in Spirit: Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Influences …” Goodreads, Goodreads, http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/989655.Sisters_in_Spirit. Accessed 28 Oct. 2023.
19. Williams, Robert A. “THE ALGEBRA OF FEDERAL INDIAN LAW: THE HARDTRAIL OF DECOLONIZING AND AMERICANIZING THEWHITE MAN’S INDIAN JURISPRUDENCE.” UW Law Digital Repository Media · University of Wisconsin Law School Digital Repository · University of Wisconsin Law School Digital Repository, University of Wisconsin Law Review, repository.law.wisc.edu/s/uwlaw/media/35536. Accessed 28 Oct. 2023.

Hey folks, I’m one of the designers of /NationsAndCannons, an 18th century 5e overlay for historical adventures set during the American Revolution and beyond. We recently ran a succesful Kickstarter campaign for a full-length sourcebook called The American Crisis, which will cover events up to (importantly) the Saratoga campaign. For context here, inclusivity is an important part of our mission statement at Flagbearer Games.
The Ask: Looking to hire a Haudenosaunee writer, designer, or cultural consultant for historical TTRPG content creation. Paying $25+ / hour, estimated in the 30-60 hour range, with potential for more work. Details below.
Our main objective with this book is to lift up underrepresented voices, reclaim American history as everyone’s history, and to allow all players to have agency while roleplaying in the past regardless of their character’s heritage. We aim to do this by 1) never aligning players’ interests with those of oppressors, 2) providing appropriate sensitivity tools, and 3) creating moments where players are empowered to challenge racist or sexist attitudes of the time.
Edit: In retrospect, this reads as preachy and kinda reductive. I've tried to explain our approach to history in the comments, but sometimes it's hard to convey sensitive topics through text. Thank you for your consideration.
At its core, Nations & Cannons is an anti-colonial project and a good chunk of our content is aimed at highlighting moments of heroic resistance to European empires (and Manifest Destiny). To put it bluntly though: as a white guy, these aren’t my stories to tell. We have some very talented BIPOC contributors on staff—and are always looking to hire more—but there is a chapter in our sourcebook that needs a very particular perspective.
Historical context: In August of 1777, near the village of Oriskany, a schism occurred between the tribes of the Haudenosaunee nation (known to the French and others as the Iroquois Confederacy). The Oneida and their allies aligned with the Continental Army, while the Mohawk and many of the other tribes of the Six Nations aligned with the British after being promised territorial sovereignty. This “Breaking of the Confederation” was enormously significant and tragic moment in the American Revolution, and one often glossed over by history books. It turned brother against brother and lead to an explosion of frontier warfare. The Oneida made many forgotten sacrifices in support of the American cause. Conversely, the Continentals made little effort to distinguish friend from foe and Washington ultimately ordered the Sullivan Expedition, a genocidal scorched earth campaign directed at the Mohawk Valley. The Redcoats had little resources (or the will to share them), and thousands of Haudenosaunee refugees starved after fleeing to British-controlled Fort Niagara.
As in many wars between Europeans and colonials, Indigenous allies and their civilian population were devastated by this conflict. There is so much complexity and heartbreak to this story, and rather than glossing over it, we want to address Oriskany and its aftermath head on. In order to do so, and to do it right, I desperately need Haudenosaunee creator(s) working on it. This would be a full collaboration, and we are absolutely willing to adapt our storylines to be appropriate and meet sensitivity requirements.
Importantly, Nations & Cannons is not a jingoistic project. The campaign story is told from the American perspective, but Patriot commanders like John Sullivan will be portrayed as villainous figures, and enemy combatants like Joseph Brant will be presented in a sympathetic (if oppositional) light. For examples of how we have handled sensitive topics in the past, please check out our Free Quickstart and the Educational Program we are using to get this material into K12 schools.
If you are interested in the position, please DM me or send an email to contact[at]flagbearergames.com. At this time, we are specifically looking for Haudenosaunee creators for the Oriskany module, but are always interested in hearing from other Indigenous TTRPG designers and workshopping content for future publications. Happy to answer any questions about the project brief or our approach to historical material in the comments here.
If you can, please help us by upvoting and sharing this post. For over year, I have tried outreach through as many channels as I could think of, and haven’t had much luck so far. I really want to tell this story, and to do it justice.

Hey folks, I’m one of the designers of /NationsAndCannons, an 18th century 5e overlay for historical adventures set during the American Revolution and beyond. We recently ran a succesful Kickstarter campaign for a full-length sourcebook called The American Crisis, which will cover events up to (importantly) the Saratoga campaign. For context here, inclusivity is an important part of our mission statement at Flagbearer Games.
The Ask: Looking to hire a Haudenosaunee writer, designer, or cultural consultant for historical TTRPG content creation. Paying $25+ / hour, estimated in the 30-60 hour range, with potential for more work. Details below.
Our main objective with this book is to lift up underrepresented voices, reclaim American history as everyone’s history, and to allow all players to have agency while roleplaying in the past regardless of their character’s heritage. We aim to do this by 1) never aligning players’ interests with those of oppressors, 2) providing appropriate sensitivity tools, and 3) creating moments where players are empowered to challenge racist or sexist attitudes of the time.
Edit: In retrospect, this reads as preachy and kinda reductive. I've tried to explain our approach to history in the comments, but sometimes it's hard to convey sensitive topics through text. Thank you for your consideration.
At its core, Nations & Cannons is an anti-colonial project and a good chunk of our content is aimed at highlighting moments of heroic resistance to European empires (and Manifest Destiny). To put it bluntly though: as a white guy, these aren’t my stories to tell. We have some very talented BIPOC contributors on staff—and are always looking to hire more—but there is a chapter in our sourcebook that needs a very particular perspective.
Historical context: In August of 1777, near the village of Oriskany, a schism occurred between the tribes of the Haudenosaunee nation (known to the French and others as the Iroquois Confederacy). The Oneida and their allies aligned with the Continental Army, while the Mohawk and many of the other tribes of the Six Nations aligned with the British after being promised territorial sovereignty. This “Breaking of the Confederation” was enormously significant and tragic moment in the American Revolution, and one often glossed over by history books. It turned brother against brother and lead to an explosion of frontier warfare. The Oneida made many forgotten sacrifices in support of the American cause. Conversely, the Continentals made little effort to distinguish friend from foe and Washington ultimately ordered the Sullivan Expedition, a genocidal scorched earth campaign directed at the Mohawk Valley. The Redcoats had little resources (or the will to share them), and thousands of Haudenosaunee refugees starved after fleeing to British-controlled Fort Niagara.
As in many wars between Europeans and colonials, Indigenous allies and their civilian population were devastated by this conflict. There is so much complexity and heartbreak to this story, and rather than glossing over it, we want to address Oriskany and its aftermath head on. In order to do so, and to do it right, I desperately need Haudenosaunee creator(s) working on it. This would be a full collaboration, and we are absolutely willing to adapt our storylines to be appropriate and meet sensitivity requirements.
Importantly, Nations & Cannons is not a jingoistic project. The campaign story is told from the American perspective, but Patriot commanders like John Sullivan will be portrayed as villainous figures, and enemy combatants like Joseph Brant will be presented in a sympathetic (if oppositional) light. For examples of how we have handled sensitive topics in the past, please check out our Free Quickstart and the Educational Program we are using to get this material into K12 schools.
If you are interested in the position, please DM me or send an email to contact[at]flagbearergames.com. At this time, we are specifically looking for Haudenosaunee creators for the Oriskany module, but are always interested in hearing from other Indigenous TTRPG designers and workshopping content for future publications. Happy to answer any questions about the project brief or our approach to historical material in the comments here.
If you can, please help us by upvoting and sharing this post. For over year, I have tried outreach through as many channels as I could think of, and haven’t had much luck so far. I really want to tell this story, and to do it justice.

Hey folks, I’m one of the designers of /NationsAndCannons, an 18th century 5e overlay for historical adventures set during the American Revolution and beyond. We recently ran a succesful Kickstarter campaign for a full-length sourcebook called The American Crisis, which will cover events up to (importantly) the Saratoga campaign. For context here, inclusivity is an important part of our mission statement at Flagbearer Games.
The Ask: Looking to hire a Haudenosaunee writer, designer, or cultural consultant for historical TTRPG content creation. Paying $25+ / hour, estimated in the 30-60 hour range, with potential for more work. Details below.
Our main objective with this book is to lift up underrepresented voices, reclaim American history as everyone’s history, and to allow all players to have agency while roleplaying in the past regardless of their character’s heritage. We aim to do this by 1) never aligning players’ interests with those of oppressors, 2) providing appropriate sensitivity tools, and 3) creating moments where players are empowered to challenge racist or sexist attitudes of the time.
Edit: In retrospect, this reads as preachy and kinda reductive. I've tried to explain our approach to history in the comments, but sometimes it's hard to convey sensitive topics through text. Thank you for your consideration.
At its core, Nations & Cannons is an anti-colonial project and a good chunk of our content is aimed at highlighting moments of heroic resistance to European empires (and Manifest Destiny). To put it bluntly though: as a white guy, these aren’t my stories to tell. We have some very talented BIPOC contributors on staff—and are always looking to hire more—but there is a chapter in our sourcebook that needs a very particular perspective.
Historical context: In August of 1777, near the village of Oriskany, a schism occurred between the tribes of the Haudenosaunee nation (known to the French and others as the Iroquois Confederacy). The Oneida and their allies aligned with the Continental Army, while the Mohawk and many of the other tribes of the Six Nations aligned with the British after being promised territorial sovereignty. This “Breaking of the Confederation” was enormously significant and tragic moment in the American Revolution, and one often glossed over by history books. It turned brother against brother and lead to an explosion of frontier warfare. The Oneida made many forgotten sacrifices in support of the American cause. Conversely, the Continentals made little effort to distinguish friend from foe and Washington ultimately ordered the Sullivan Expedition, a genocidal scorched earth campaign directed at the Mohawk Valley. The Redcoats had little resources (or the will to share them), and thousands of Haudenosaunee refugees starved after fleeing to British-controlled Fort Niagara.
As in many wars between Europeans and colonials, Indigenous allies and their civilian population were devastated by this conflict. There is so much complexity and heartbreak to this story, and rather than glossing over it, we want to address Oriskany and its aftermath head on. In order to do so, and to do it right, I desperately need Haudenosaunee creator(s) working on it. This would be a full collaboration, and we are absolutely willing to adapt our storylines to be appropriate and meet sensitivity requirements.
Importantly, Nations & Cannons is not a jingoistic project. The campaign story is told from the American perspective, but Patriot commanders like John Sullivan will be portrayed as villainous figures, and enemy combatants like Joseph Brant will be presented in a sympathetic (if oppositional) light. For examples of how we have handled sensitive topics in the past, please check out our Free Quickstart and the Educational Program we are using to get this material into K12 schools.
If you are interested in the position, please DM me or send an email to contact[at]flagbearergames.com. At this time, we are specifically looking for Haudenosaunee creators for the Oriskany module, but are always interested in hearing from other Indigenous TTRPG designers and workshopping content for future publications. Happy to answer any questions about the project brief or our approach to historical material in the comments here.
If you can, please help us by upvoting and sharing this post. For over year, I have tried outreach through as many channels as I could think of, and haven’t had much luck so far. I really want to tell this story, and to do it justice.

DOWNLOAD: Robert Moss – Active Dreaming: The Essential Training
Immerse yourself in advanced practices for awakening… in your dreamtime and in your daily life.
Discover leading-edge principles of dreamwork for healing, transformation, and spiritual evolution.
Open to your higher wisdom, a magical flow of synchronicities, and an ever-expanding experience of life.

What You’ll Learn In Active Dreaming: The Essential Training

During Active Dreaming: The Essential Training, Robert Moss will guide you through the fundamental insights, skills. and practices you’ll need to use your dreams as portals for shamanic journeys into the multiverse — and to become a co-creator of the reality you inhabit.
Each teaching session will build upon the next so that you’ll develop a complete, holistic understanding of the practices, tools, and principles of Active Dreaming, enabling you to directly access the hidden orders of reality, the remembering of your soul’s wisdom, and the larger story of your life.
Module 1: Wake Up & Dream
The essence of the shaman’s power to travel and heal is the ability to dream strong. In our everyday modern lives, we stand at the edge of such power when we dream and remember to do something with our dreams. In this first module, Robert Moss will explain how real shamans are — first and foremost — dreamers who can step in and out of other dimensions.
Module 2: Become a Shaman of the Breakfast Table
We’ll discover that each of us can play guide for others, and that by sharing in the right way we claim our voice, grow our power as storytellers and communicators, build stronger friendships, and lay foundations for a new kind of community. We’ll also explore fun ways of talking and walking our dreams, and for bringing energy and guidance from the dreamworld into everyday life. Above all, we’ll learn to take action to embody this energy and guidance for incorporation into our lives.
Module 3: Follow the Royal Road to Lucid Dreaming
The easiest way to become a conscious or lucid dreamer is to start out conscious and stay that way as the action unfolds. The border state of hypnagogia — the place between sleep and awake — is a wonderful launch pad for lucid dreaming.
A remembered dream or personal image may be the ideal portal for a lucid dream adventure.
A dream is a journey; it is also a place. You went somewhere in your dream, near or far from the fields you know in your regular life; and because you have been to that place, you can find your way there again.
Yet we don’t have to travel alone on the roads of dreaming. By learning the skills of the dream tracker, we can accompany friends on their journeys — to reclaim souls and move beyond fear and regret — as true soul companions.
Module 4: Become a Kairomancer
Robert Moss invented the word kairomancy because he wanted a new word to define the art of living by synchronicity. The key element is to recognize and act in those special moments when the universe gets personal and you feel something coming through from a deeper reality.
Kairomancy literally means “divination by special moments.” For the ancient Greeks, the special moment is a god by the name of Kairos. He’s the antithesis of the old god Chronos, who represents linear time. Kairos is now time, jump time, opportunity time.
To become a kairomancer, you need to learn to trust your feelings as you walk the road of this world, to develop your personal science of shivers, and to recognize in your gut and your skin that you know far more than you can access on the surface of consciousness.
Module 5: Become a Time Traveler
Our dreams are constantly coaching us for challenges and opportunities that lie ahead on the road of life. It’s possible that we rehearse everything that will take place in the future in our dreams, though we forget most of it — until later events catch up with a dream, and we experience that familiar sense of déjà vu.
Seeing things in our dreams that later happen is called precognition. We also see things that may or may not happen, depending on what we choose to do with the information.
In this module, we’ll embark on wide-awake visionary journeys to scout out the possible future for ourselves, our families, and our world. If we don’t know where we’re going, we’re likely to end up where we’re headed. The future we can see is often a future we can reshape for the better.
Module 6: Reclaim Your Animal Spirits
When shamans go dreaming, they characteristically operate under the protection and guidance of animal guardians. Forging a close relationship with one or more “power animals” is central to developing the arts of shamanic dream travel and tracking. It’s invaluable in maintaining healthy boundaries and defending psychic space.
A conscious connection with animal guardians shows us how to follow the natural paths of our energy. A strong working connection with the animal powers brings the ability to shapeshift the energy body and project energy forms that can operate at a distance from the physical body.
Animal dreams may be the doorway to developing strong working relations with animal guardians. These dreams may hold up a mirror to our health or habits. They may show us how we need to feed and attend to our bodies. They may reveal a potential we have not yet developed. They may tell a story — like one of Aesop’s fables — about our lives or relationships. They may be the place of encounter between our dream self and a spiritual ally or guardian.
Module 7: Dreaming With Spiritual Guides
Our authentic spiritual allies and teachers come looking for us in dreams. They put on masks or costumes adapted to our level of understanding. There’s an old Greek saying that “the gods love to travel in disguise.” The sacred guide may appear in a form that has been shaped by our religious upbringing — or in a form that is wildly shocking to conventional beliefs. Genuine teachers often love to shock us awake.
The encounter with the guide may challenge us to brave up, to move decisively beyond the fear and clinging of the little everyday mind in order to claim our connection with deeper sources of wisdom and true power. And it may be that the most important spiritual teacher we can know is no stranger, but the Higher Self. The liminal state of consciousness between sleep and waking is an especially propitious time for conversation with this guide.
Module 8: Healing Our Relations With the Departed
We have natural communication with the departed in our dreams, and for many dreamers this is direct and life-changing evidence of the reality of the soul and its survival of physical death.
The departed appear in our dreams either because they have not really left, or because they come visiting, or because in dreaming we enter their realms. These encounters offer us important opportunities for healing, closure, and giving or receiving forgiveness and guidance.
Our departed may come as “family angels,” with life-supporting counsel and information. Or they may need help and guidance from us – because they have unfinished business, or are lost or confused or crippled by guilt or unable to detach from old environments and addictions. In such cases, as Yeats observed, the living may be able to “assist the imaginations of the dead.”
This week, we will seek timely and helpful communication with the departed. We will share personal experiences and needs — and develop the skills and spiritual resources to serve as guides and healers for survivors, and for the departed themselves. We’ll also develop personal rituals to honor our ancestors. We’ll learn that healing and forgiveness are always available, across the apparent barrier of death.
Module 9: The Healing Power of Dreams
Our dreams show us what’s going on inside our bodies and what we need to stay well. When we do become ill, our dreams give us fresh and powerful imagery for self-healing. By working with personal imagery — and changing the images in positive ways — we can actually create a new blueprint for the body.
When we learn to go back inside our dreams and dream them onward, we open paths of healing for others and ourselves. Active Dreaming is central to soul recovery — reclaiming any vital energy we’ve lost through pain, heartbreak, guilt, or addiction.
Module 10: Soul Recovery Through Shamanic Dreaming
Soul-loss, in shamanic understanding, is a primary source of illness, depression, and mental confusion. We lose vital soul energy through pain, trauma, and heartbreak, through wrenching life choices, and by giving up on our big dreams and ceasing to live our soul’s purpose.
When we lose the energy of soul, the magic goes out of life. We are often fatigued for no apparent reason, we can’t experience joy or love, and there’s a gaping hole in us that we try to fill with addictive behaviors. Soul-loss can put us in the procession of the walking dead, playing the roles that other people cast us for, no longer knowing who we are or why we are in this world.
The Iroquois say that if we have lost our dreams, we have lost our souls. But when we reopen to our dreams, they can show us where our soul energy has gone, and how to bring it home.
Module 11: Become a Conscious Traveler in the Many Worlds
You are ready to claim the power of an open secret: the only time is Now. All other times — past, present, and parallel — can be accessed in this moment of Now, and may be changed for the better. You stand at the center of all times. The dramas of lives being lived in other times and in parallel realities may be intensely relevant to understanding and navigating your current relationships and life issues.
Part of the secret logic of our lives may be that our paths constantly interweave with those of numberless parallel selves, sometimes converging or even merging, sometimes diverging ever further. The gifts and failings of these alternate selves may influence us when our paths converge, in ways that we generally fail to recognize.
Module 12: Become a Dreamgiver & Dream Ambassador
We dream for our communities and our world, as well as for ourselves and those near to us. We can learn to do this as a conscious practice in the service of peace and healing. By bringing dreams into the lives of people around us, we can heal and revitalize all our relations, our workplace, our schools, our health care, and our communities.

TL;DR: How would Sports, Fiction writing / Comics, and Music look in something like Roses, Tulips and Liberty?
Ok so, I was wondering more about small-time cultural aspects, more specifically sports, hobbies and other activities that would probably take off to industry-level more so between 1920 and onwards, especially in how it could define national pride and identity going into the Silent War.
Aspects like this had been expounded upon in various installments of the Atlas Altera project, but I was wondering about how north-american sports would be influenced, and propagated around the world, by a divergence as early as 1656.
I imagine Lacrosse would have a high popularity, perhaps under a more indigenous-sounding or dutch-sounding name, as the Iroquois have a far more significant historical and cultural impact upon the Dutch world, especially then upon New Netherlands and Tussenland. Would the sport propegate to some British colonies through Virginia? Would it become as prominent as any of the substrates of Association Football (Rugby, American Football, Football/Soccer, Gaelic Football, et cetera) that may come to develop? Hockey wouldn't exist without Canada (1875), so they're out of the question, but I imagine some sport played on ice would develop under the influence of the French, Amerikaens, or New-English. I have no doubt that there are versions of a football sport that could come to standardize and become prominent, but certainly not in the same ways. In 1602 there is a record of "hurling", which is pretty close to how modern American football is described.
Considering the idea of 'association football' wouldn't come to exist for another two centuries, would it even be a thing at all? would a football association come to standardize these ball-game rules in any capacity, even in places other than England? Obviously Olympic-style games would exist as well. A whole bunch of other sports as we know it wouldn't exist as well. Basketball wouldn't exist (1861), Volleyball (1895), Hockey as stated before, Bowling (~1905), Competitive Skiing (~1800s), et cetera.
Sports that did exist with clear and universal ground rules around the time of the point of divergence of RTL included Cricket, Tennis, Curling, Golf, Horse-Racing, Archery, and of course Lacrosse as stated previously. Another sport that is not often talked about, but mentioned within the Atlas Altera project as stated before, is the Mesoamerican Ball Game, known in modern Mexico as Pok-a-Tok and/or Ulama. Perhaps, something could be done with a nationally-advertised sport in RTL's Mexican Empire to become a center of Mexican pride, and maybe associations of the sport in other countries such as the AFS, Costa Rica, Peru, Colombia and Opdamsland start to gain traction?
Competitive Archery is also incredibly ancient, so I imagine hundreds of nations could eventually create archery associations? Britain, Ireland, Tussenland (especially Irokeesenland) and Opdamsland would be all over it, I imagine. I imagine there'd be different associations for different kinds of bows, to keep English Longbowman traditions alive in some small social circles. Meanwhile, I imagine there'd be more niche derivatives such as the Corean Recurve or the Penobscot Bow which could have their own association circles or fan clubs. Could other Olympic-style sports gain smaller, separate followings? I could imagine Discus or becoming popular in some places. Some African sports could even gain prominence thanks to colonialism, such as Hama, also known as Nguni Stick-Fighting, which I could see gaining traction in Cape, Natal, and some of the other southern-African countries, even with their own associations. Maybe it'd stay a lot smaller and niche because of it's cultural significance..? who knows. Martial Arts, of course, would be all over the place. Especially Tae Kwon Do, within some Dutch circles I imagine, due to the Dutch's earlier connections to Corea. Would it spread to the Asian-Amerikaener and Asian-Mexican communities? Ngolo/Capoeira could also become popular amongst African-descended communities in the regions encompassing irl Brazil, both in terms of competitive dance and as a martial sport.
Beyond sports, another school of thought I wanted to explore were the arts. More specifically, comic books. Comic-style cartoons have existed since forever, but the modern ideas of the comic book, with detective stories, comedic teen dramas, and later superheroes, started in the 1910s and 1920s. Going into World War 2, Super Man and Captain America even became somewhat of propaganda tools, especially in terms of the European front. Would the Japanese arts take off in this way in this universe as well, with Manga becoming it's own special comic-book subgenre?
What would early Superheroes as a concept in RTL look like? Would there be a universally powerful paragon like Superman, perhaps under a different appearance? What country or community would be responsible for such a concept becoming popular? What kind of heroes would the industry produce for avid readers and fans, and would they even become propaganda tools used in RTL's Great War and Silent War? would Russia invent some of their own heroes as part of their National-Republican rhetoric?
IRL, the very first superhero was known as The Phantom, published in 1936 in his own comic run. Later you had Timely Comics Magazine, and there you had stories like Captain America, Human Torch, Namor, Jack Frost, et cetera. You also had Superman, created by Action Comics in 1938. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby later created all the modern Marvel superheroes you love today, such as Spider Man. So, would there be some sort of parallels to draw between these ideas? How would the industry of films or radio be affected by these stories? If these ideas don't exist as commonly at all in the public eye, what other fantastical stories come to fill the void?
of course I am not asking these superhero questions bc i want to make an Into the Spiderverse Spider-Man OC for the RTL-verse, that's just silly ahahahaha-
Anyway, other aspects would include music. Musical genres are always growing and changing, and the European musical scene in the 1650s was largely dominated by classical and european and american folk music, not as much variety and very little was actually written down if there was anything subcultural or 'scene'. Which makes me wonder, what kind of music would develop and become popular in places like Virginia, Florida, New Netherlands, Tussenland? would Native-style music gain popularity and evolve within nations like Mexico, Opdamsland and the Native-heritage-dominated western rockies? would the Irokees develop their own version of percussion-heavy Bluegrass or something? I'd love to see something with the Amerikaens Voortrekker cultures and their own special brands of music that developed in their connections to Mexican/Spanish, TussenlandeDutch, Irokees, Russian, and various kinds of Native music. "Trekker Folk", it could be called. Or something.
What do you all think? Have any of you thought about these things?