What are the constitution types of

Millennials

2009.11.10 07:50 kbondelli Millennials

A subreddit for Millennials. We are the largest demographic currently alive that were born from the years 1981 to 1996 (or 1980 to 2000 going by the loosest definition). This community is a place to hang out and discuss content related to our Generation. Please read the rules. Enjoy your stay and have fun! Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/ErJz3ktyGk
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2012.10.04 01:23 glhfbbq Passive Income

Community of individuals who want to build their own passive income streams.
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2014.05.17 18:23 SmokeyPeanutRic DDOI

Welcome to /dontdeadopeninside, it's for signs/media that read as nonsense if read normally: from left to right: HOW EASILY YOU CAN READ IT HAS NO BEARING ON WHETHER OR NOT IT BELONGS. READ THE SIDEBAR, WHICH INCLUDES MORE DETAILED EXPLANATION OF THE RULES: http://reddit.com/dontdeadopeninside/about/sidebar first before submitting.
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2024.05.16 09:10 rafaelholmberg Commodities and Camus: a short text on the fetishism of existentialism

Commodities and Camus: a short text on the fetishism of existentialism
Some of you might find this of interest - I’ve included the full text below and the original link too if anyone wants to read more related writings. (N.B. This is not an attack on existentialism)
Salamano distraught by the loss of the dog that he himself spent a lifetime abusing; Ivan Karamazov ardent enough in his atheism to suffers a satanically-coloured psychic breakdown at the death his father; Joseph Garcin obsessed by a telephone that inevitably connects him only back to the hell of other people that he is already in; Abraham witnessing his devotion to God singularised in his love for a sacrificed son; Clamence’s critical juggling between a virtuous debauchery and a debaucherous virtue; Joseph Grand’s literary impotence and self-doubt at the production of a single line in the height of the plague of Oran - these ‘narrative object-relations’ represent a logic that lies at the heart of the existentialist tradition. Fundamentally, the avatars of the existentialist ‘method’, from the literary characters of Dostoyevsky via Kierkegaard to Camus and Sartre, define themselves broadly by their obscure attempts to treat things (whether their object, their comrade, or their duty) directly, yet by a directness adopted from a distance, in a mediated, self-reflective view - they define themselves by treating singular instances as if they were isolated from the situation of which these instances are the inevitable reproduction. In Sartre’s Huis Clos [‘No Exit’], the telephone in the hotel room which Joseph Garcin finds himself in alongside two female strangers - this room being Hell, as it is later revealed - functions only insofar as it veils its own function. The uncertainty of its connection with an outside world acts as an internally necessary distortion of the fact that its connection is a ‘closed-circuit’ connection to the crushing immanence of the inescapable room in which it is positioned, a room for which the ‘outside’ acts as an unsettling memory or an idealised, ethereal vision. In Camus’ La Peste [‘The Plague’], whilst the central characters of the plot set to work managing and planning for the containment of the plague that has struck Oran, Joseph Grand is occupied with a parallel object - his book - which veils the impasse that the general population of Oran finds itself in. Yet this impasse is veiled precisely by reformulating the impasse as internal to its own distraction (the book becomes an impasse for itself). The book, of which Grand is unable to conclude even the first line, is an object that indirectly returns him to his situation (the plague) only by removing him from this very situation, reformulating a generalised impasse into a personal, subjectivized impasse. Sartre and Camus’ dramas rely on an object, a singular point of subjective engagement, to distort or cover a situation which the object itself is a direct reproduction of. The object is treated as nothing other than itself - as being a self-explanatory x which rejects integration into its background scene, and yet it is precisely this rejection, this negative relation of the object to the situation of the drama itself, which acts as its most faithful reproduction of the drama’s central antagonism. The object veils the situation insofar as it paradoxically acts as its structural support. This object, this distortion-in-itself which acts as the support of a structure which it disguises in the very act of supporting it - this is nothing other than the quality which Marx attributed to the commodity, under the category of ‘commodity fetishism’. One of the breakthroughs of Marx’s materialism was the reformulation of the commodity as the product of a mode of reproduction that it materialises in order to reproduce this same political economy by which it is conditioned. This can be understood by firstly looking at Marx’s inversion of the category of a commodity’s ‘use value’. One of Marx’s criticisms of the classical English economists was their understanding of the form of ‘value’ which a commodity possesses: the standard understanding was that the commodity was infused with value by its usefulness being superior to that of its raw materials. Any value, in other words, was thought to be inherent to the commodity, a representation of value concentrated in its use. Hence Foucault’s description of pre-Marxist political economy as characterised by an ‘episteme [mode of discursive knowledge] of representation’. Commodities do not, for Marx, hold their value ‘in themselves’, as a constitutive quality inscribed in the essence of the object itself. Instead, the object is something ‘other than it appears’ - the commodity re-articulates the mode of economic reproduction of which it is the product. The process of commodity production and commodity circulation which Marx presents in Capital begins with an analysis of the radical re-invention of the factory, or more generally of the social mode of serialised production, which capitalism introduced. (It is worth noting that Marx is not inherently critical of capitalism in this work, but slowly begins to enumerate the social and economic conditions which allow for a capitalist mode of production, eventually extracting the inevitable forms of exploitation constitutive of this revolutionary system.) Fundamentally, the essence of the commodity is the it has no immanent essence, but that it is a product of labour-force: certain time in which a wage-labourer dedicates his energy towards production. Capitalism, Marx argues, begins where a working day’s labour time/value exceeds the ‘necessary labour time’ required for a worker to return the next day in his capacity as a worker (i.e. the necessary labour providing for rent, food, clothes etc.). The day’s labour which exceeds this necessary labour time is called ‘surplus labour’. If the division of social and factory labour is advanced enough, surplus value can reduce the amount of time needed for necessary labour times to be achieved. This is ‘relative surplus value’ (as opposed to absolute surplus value), with which, Marx notes, capitalism proper emerges. A series of investments into fixed and variable capital, calculations of turnaround times, necessary maintenance etc. are components of the mode of circulation of commodities which directly contribute to their continued production. Production, reproduction, and circulation are reciprocally supporting, requiring capital investments, planned labour divisions, and a reproduction of the social conditions in which capitalised reproduction itself can operate. The capitalist mode of production is therefore, as Marx insists, revolutionary insofar as it is a socially revolutionary political economy. It colours a domain which was previously excluded from economic consideration - the 21st century only more directly displays the non-boundary of the economic and the social, where the intimacy of everyday life lends itself to the most aggressive forms of economic appropriation. The value of the commodity lies in its support of this economic process - the commodity is the input of productive, capitalised, labour force exchanged and circulated through its social forms of reproduction. Commodity fetishism is therefore the contradictory treatment of the commodity as nothing other than a commodity - treating it as having its value inscribed within itself, detached from the situation of which it is the simultaneous product and support. The act of fetishism tells itself that an object is nothing but an object, that its value is internal. It therefore distorts the general antagonistic scene in which it is framed, by reducing its ‘difference’ to itself. Fetishism reproduces a situation in the very act of veiling it. A distortion clouding a distortion by locating the justification of its own existence within itself, a veil which clouds a situation by the very act of making it possible - this is the fetishism of the object which Marx located in the classical conception of our engagement with commodities, and as we might see, it appears to be a strange communal feature of the existentialist relation to its subjective ‘object’. Consider the miserable figure of Salamano in Camus’ L’Étranger [‘The Outsider’]: a lonesome wretch devoting his energy towards hatred for his submissive dog by abusing it - kicking and shouting at it, blaming his troubles on his unwilling four-legged companion. By an ironic inversion, Salamano’s misery is nevertheless fully actualised only once this dog escapes. The misery that he has attributed to his dog is a ‘negative support’ (what Freud would call a compromise solution), a paradoxical bulwark, against a more direct state of nothingness and desperation which emerges if this ‘compromise’ is removed (for Freud, the removal of an unpleasant symptom only leads to a more absolute state of irreparable despair). What Salamano loses with his dog’s disappearance is his functional fetishisation of this dog: this object was treated as an isolated instance of misery, yet it is precisely this focus which veils the dog’s distortion (and support) of a more absolute and universal state of misery. This is the ‘broad stroke’ of the obscure existentialist tradition - noticeable even where we turn to its earliest manifestations, the most direct example being the ‘knight of faith’, represented by Abraham of the Book of Genesis, in Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling. The paradox which, according to Kierkegaard, Abraham is forced to embody, is that whilst willing to sacrifice his son, Isaac, at the command of God, he must in the very moment of intervention (being told that he no longer needs to carry out the sacrifice), return to the position of an unquestionable devotion to his son, as itself representing his love for God. The moment of binding, Abraham’s dedication to the sacrifice of Isaac, is a horror which in the instance of its positing covers up the greater paradox of what happens without this binding. Without the binding of Isaac, the paradoxical formula which makes possible the unquestioning devotion of the knight of faith is itself removed. For Kierkegaard, faith is based on paradox: remove the paradoxical instance and you remove faith itself. This fetishism of the ‘leap of faith’ is that the contradictory instance supports, by veiling, the inconsistency structuring the religious scene as a whole. Dostoyevsky is equally a prototype of this existentialist fetishism. The atheist figure of Ivan Karamazov maintains a fidelity to his atheism despite his suggestion that without God, ethical codes would break down (here we see his nuance, irreducible to the ‘new atheism’ of Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris etc.). Yet this very fidelity to a form of pseudo-anarchic atheism leads him towards a severe psychotic break, of seeing a demon in his room, after his father’s death. The object of an amoral atheism here acts as a bulwark to a greater disharmony which nevertheless explains, by isolating, Ivan’s intellectual, anti-religious position. Precisely the same type of moral inversions would return in Camus’ La Chute: Clamance’s fixation upon virtue as an end in itself reveals itself to be a latent justification for an excess debauchery made possible by, and engaging in a dialogue with, the very category of ‘virtue’. The formula of commodity fetishism is evidently close to the existentialist mode of relating to its object. Across a series of dramas in this literary tradition, it is often a question of framing a singular subjective instance as an impasse or contradiction which veils, and in so doing supports (by reproducing), the central disharmony or paradox of a situation as a whole.
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2024.05.16 05:04 MirkWorks Excerpt from The Culture of Narcissism by Christopher Lasch (The Narcissistic Personality of Our Time Continuation)

II. The Narcissistic Personality of Our Time
...
Social Influences on Narcissism
Every age develops its own peculiar forms of pathology, which express in exaggerated form its underlying character structure. In Freud’s time, hysteria and obsessional neurosis carried to extremes the personality traits associated with the capitalist order at an earlier stage in its development - acquisitiveness, fanatical devotion to work, and a fierce repression of sexuality. In our time, the preschizophrenic, borderline, or personality disorders have attracted increasing attention, along with schizophrenia itself. This “change in the form of neuroses has been observed and described since World War II by an ever-increasing number of psychiatrists.” According to Peter L. Giovacchini, “Clinicians are constantly faced with the seemingly increasing number of patients who do not fit current diagnostic categories” and who suffer not from “definitive symptoms” but from “vague, ill-defined complaints.” “When I refer to ‘this type of patient,’” he writes, “practically everyone knows to whom I am referring.” The growing prominence of “character disorders” seems to signify an underlying change in the organization of personality, from what has been called inner-direction to narcissism.
Allen Wheelis argued in 1958 that the change in the “patterns of neuroses” fell “within the personal experience of older psychoanalysts,” while younger ones “become aware of it from the discrepancy between the older descriptions of neuroses and the problems presented by the patients who come daily to their offices. The change is from symptom neuroses to character disorders.” Heinz Lichtenstein, who questioned the additional assertion that it reflected a change in personality structure, nevertheless wrote in 1963 that the “change in neurotic patterns” already constituted a “well-known fact.” In the seventies, such reports have become increasingly common. “It is not accident,” Herbert Hendin notes, “that at the present time the dominant events in psychoanalysis are the rediscovery of narcissism and the new emphasis on the psychological significance of death.” “What hysteria and the obsessive neuroses were to Freud and his early colleagues…at the beginning of this century,” writes Michael Beldoch, “the narcissistic disorders are to the workaday analyst in these last few decades before the next millennium. Today’s patients by and large do not suffer from hysterical paralyses of the legs or hand-washing compulsions; instead it is their very psychic selves that have gone numb or that they must scrub and rescrub in an exhausting and unending effort to come clean.” These patients suffer from “pervasive feelings of emptiness and a deep disturbance of self-esteem.” Burness E. Moore notes that narcissistic disorders have become more and more common. According to Sheldon Bach, “You used to see people coming in with hand-washing compulsions, phobias, and familiar neuroses. Now you see mostly narcissists.” Gilbert J. Rose maintains that the psychoanalytic outlook, “inappropriately transplanted from analytic practice” to everyday life, has contributed to “global permissiveness” and the “over-domestication of instinct,” which in turn contributes to the proliferation of “narcissistic identity disorders.” According to Joel Kovel, the stimulation of infantile cravings by advertising, the usurpation of parental authority by the media and the school, and the rationalization of inner life accompanied by the false promise of personal fulfillment, have created a new type of “social individual.” “The result is not the classical neuroses where an infantile impulse is suppressed by patriarchal authority, but a modern version in which impulse is stimulated, perverted and given neither an adequate object upon which to satisfy itself nor coherent forms of control…. The entire complex, played out in a setting of alienation rather than direct control, loses the classical form of symptom - and the classical therapeutic opportunity of simply restoring an impulse to consciousness.”
The reported increase in the number of narcissistic patients does not necessarily indicate that narcissistic disorders are more common than they used to be, in the population as a whole, or that they have become more common than the classical conversion neurosis. Perhaps they simply come more quickly to psychiatric attention. Ilza Veith contends that “with the increasing awareness of conversion reactions and the popularization of psychiatric literature, the ‘old-fashioned’ somatic expressions of hysteria have become suspect among the more sophisticated classes, and hence most physicians observe that obvious conversion symptoms are now rarely encountered and, if at all, only among the uneducated.” The attention given to character disorders in recent clinical literature probably makes psychiatrists more alert to their presence. But this possibility by no means diminishes the importance of psychiatric testimony about the prevalence of narcissism, especially when this testimony appears at the same time that journalists begin to speculate about the new narcissism and the unhealthy trend toward self-absorption. The narcissist comes to the attention of psychiatrists for some of the same reasons that he rises to positions of prominence not only in awareness movements and other cults but in business corporations, political organizations, and government bureaucracies. For all his inner suffering, the narcissist has many traits that make for success in bureaucratic institutions, which put a premium on the manipulation of interpersonal relations, discourage the formation of deep personal attachments, and at the same time provide the narcissist with the approval he needs in order to validate his self-esteem. Although he may resort to therapies that promise to give meaning to life and to overcome his sense of emptiness, in his professional career the narcissist often enjoys considerable success. The management of personal impressions comes naturally to him, and his mastery of its intricacies serves him well in political and business organizations where performance now counts for less than “visibility,” “momentum,” and a winning record. As the “organization man” gives way to the bureaucratic “gamesman” - the “loyalty era” of American business to the age of the “executive success game” - the narcissist comes into his own.
In a study of 250 managers from twelve major companies, Michael Maccoby describes the new corporate leader, not altogether unsympathetically, as a person who works with people rather than with materials and who seeks not to build an empire or accumulate wealth but to experience “the exhilaration of running his team and of gaining victories.” He wants to “be known as a winner, and his deepest fear is to be labeled a loser.” Instead of pitting himself against a material task or a problem demanding solution, he puts himself against others, out of a “need to be in control.” As a recent textbook for managers puts it, success today means “not simply getting ahead” but “getting ahead of others.” The new executive, boyish, playful, and “seductive,” wants in Maccoby’s words “to maintain an illusion of limitless options.” He has little capacity for “personal intimacy and social commitment.” He feels little loyalty even to the company for which he works. One executive says he experiences power “as not being pushed around by the company.” In his upward climb, this man cultivates powerful customers and attempts to use them against his own company. “You need a very big customer,” according to his calculations, “who is always in trouble and demands changes from the company. That way you automatically have power in the company, and with the customer too. I like to keep my options open.” A professor of management endorses this strategy. “Overidentification” with the company, in his view, “produces a corporation with enormous power over the careers and destinies of its true believers.” The bigger the company, the more important he thinks it is for executes “to manage their careers in terms of their own…free choices” and to “maintain the widest set of options possible.”
According to Maccoby, the gamesman “is open to new ideas, but he lacks convictions.” He will do business with any regime, even if he disapproves of its principles. More independent and resourceful than the company man, he tries to use the company for his own ends, fearing that otherwise he will be “totally emasculated by the corporation.” He avoids intimacy as a trap, preferring the “exciting, sexy atmosphere” with which the modern executive surrounds himself at work, “where adoring, mini-skirted secretaries constantly flirt with him.” In all his personal relations, the gamesman depends on the admiration or fear he inspires in others to certify his credentials as a “winner.” As he gets older, he finds it more and more difficult to command the kind of attention on which he thrives. He reaches a plateau beyond which he does not advance in his job, perhaps because the very highest positions, as Maccoby notes, still go to “those able to renounce adolescent rebelliousness and become at least to some extent believers in the organization.” The job begins to lose its savor. Having little interest in craftsmanship, the new-style executive takes no pleasure in his achievements once he begins to lose the adolescent charm on which they rest. Middle age hits him with the force of a disaster: “Once his youth, vigor, and even the thrill in winning are lost, he becomes depressed and goalless, questioning the purpose of his life. No longer energized by the team struggle and unable to dedicate himself to something he believes in beyond himself, … he finds himself starkly alone.” It is not surprising, given the prevalence of this career pattern, that popular psychology returns so often to the “midlife crisis” and to ways of combating it.
In Wilfrid Sheed’s novel Office Politics, a wife asks, “There are real issues, aren’t there, between Mr. Fine and Mr. Tyler?” Her husband answers that the issues are trivial; “the jockeying of ego is the real story.” Eugene Emerson Jennings’s study of management, which celebrates the demise of the organization man and the advent of the new “era of mobility,” insists that corporate “mobility is more than mere job performance.” What counts is “style…panache…the ability to say and do almost anything without antagonizing others.” The upwardly mobile executive, according to Jennings, knows how to handle the people around him - the “shelf-sitter” who suffers from “arrested mobility” and envies success; the “fast learner”; the “mobile superior.” The “mobility-bright executive” has learned to “read” the power relations in his office and “to see the less visible and less audible side of his superiors, chiefly their standing with their peers and superiors.” He “Can infer from a minimum of cues who are the centers of power, and he seeks to have high visibility and exposure with them. He will assiduously cultivate his standing and opportunities with them and seize every opportunity to learn from them. He will utilize his opportunities in social world to size up the men who are centers of sponsorship in the corporate world.”
Constantly comparing the “executive success game” to an athletic contest or a game of chess, Jennings treats the substance of executive life as if it were just as arbitrarily and irrelevant to success as the task of kicking a ball through a net or of moving pieces over a chessboard. He never mentions the social and economic repercussions of managerial decisions or the power that managers exercise over society as a whole. For the corporate manager on the make, power consists not of money and influence but of “momentum,” a “winning image,” a reputation as a winner . Power lies in the eye of the beholder and thus has no objective reference at all.
The manager’s view of the world, as described by Jennings, Maccoby, and by the managers themselves, is that of the narcissist, who sees the world as a mirror of himself and has no interest in external events except as they throw back a reflection of his own image. The dense interpersonal environment of modern bureaucracy, in which work assumes an abstract quality almost wholly divorced from performance, by its very nature elicits and often rewards a narcissistic response. Bureaucracy, however, is only one of a number of social influences that are bringing a narcissistic type of personality organization into greater and greater prominence. Another such influence is the mechanical reproduction of culture, the proliferation of visual and audial images in the “society of the spectacle.” We live in a swirl of images and echoes that arrest experience and play it back in slow motion. Cameras and recording machines not only transcribe experience but alter its quality, giving to much of modern life that character of an enormous echo chamber, a hall of mirrors. Life presents itself as a succession of images of electronic signals, of impressions recorded and reproduced by means of photography, motion pictures, television, and sophisticated recording devices. Modern life is thoroughly mediated by electronic images that we cannot help responding to others as if their actions - and our own - were being recorded and simultaneously transmitted to an unseen audience or stored up for close scrutiny at some later time. “Smile, you’re on candid camera!” The intrusion into everyday life of this all-seeing eye no longer takes us by surprise or catches us with our defenses down. We need no reminder to smile. A smile is permanently graven on our features, and we already known from which of several angles its photographs to best advantage.
The proliferation of recorded images undermines our sense of reality. As Susan Sontag observes in her study of photography, “Reality has come to seem more and more like what we are shown by cameras.” We distrust our perceptions until the camera verifies them. Photographic images provide us with the proof of our existence, without which we would find it difficult even to reconstruct a personal history. Bourgeois families in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Sontag points out, posed for portraits in order to proclaim the family’s status, whereas today the family album of photographs verifies the individual’s existence: its documentary record of his development from infancy onward provides him with the only evidence of his life that he recognizes as altogether valid. Among the “many narcissistic uses” that Sontag attributes to the camera, “self-surveillance” ranks among the most important, not only because it provides the technical means of ceaseless self-scrutiny but because it renders the sense of selfhood dependent on the consumption of images of the self, at the same time calling into question the reality of the external world.
By preserving images of the self at various stages of development, the camera helps to weaken the older idea of development as moral education and to promote a more passive idea according to which development consists of passing through the stages of life at the right time and in the right order. Current fascination with the life cycle embodies an awareness that success in politics or business depends on reaching certain goals on schedule; but it also reflects the ease with which developments can be electronically recorded. This brings us to another cultural change that elicits a widespread narcissistic response and, in this case, gives it a philosophical sanction: the emergence of a therapeutic ideology that upholds a normative schedule of psychosocial development and thus gives further encouragement to anxious self-scrutiny. The idea of normative development creates the fear that any deviation from the norm has a pathological source. Doctors have made a cult of periodic checkup - an investigation carried out once again by means of cameras and other recording instruments - and have implanted in their clients the notion that health depends on eternal watchfulness and the early detection of symptoms, as verified by medical technology. The client no longer feels physically or psychologically secure until his X-rays confirm a “clean bill of health.”
Medicine and psychiatry - more generally, the therapeutic outlook and sensibility that pervade modern society - reinforce the pattern created by other cultural influences, in which the individual endlessly examines himself for signs of aging and ill health, for tell-tale symptoms of psychic stress, for blemishes and flaws that might diminish his attractiveness, or on the other hand for reassuring indications that his life is proceeding according to schedule. Modern medicine has conquered the plagues and epidemics that once made life so precarious, only to create new forms of insecurity. In the same way, bureaucracy has made life predictable and even boring while reviving, in a new form, the war of all against all. Our overorganized society, in which large-scale organizations predominate but have lost the capacity to command allegiance, in some respects more nearly approximates a condition of universal animosity than did the primitive capitalism on which Hobbes managed his state of nature. Social conditions today encourage a survival mentality, expressed in its crudest form in disaster movies or in fantasies of space travel, which allow vicarious escape from a doomed planet. People no longer dream of overcoming difficulties but merely of surviving them. In business, according to Jennings, “The struggle is to survive emotionally” -to “preserve or enhance one’s identity or ego.” The normative concept of developmental stages promotes a view of life as an obstacle course: the aim is simply to get through the course with a minimum of trouble and pain. The ability to manipulate what Gail Sheehy refers to, using a medical metaphor, as “life-support systems” now appears to represent the highest form of wisdom: the knowledge that gets us through, as she puts it, without panic. Those who master Sheehy’s “no-panic approach to aging” and to the traumas of the life cycle will be able to say, in the words of one of her subjects, “I know I can survive… I don’t panic any more.” This is hardly an exalted form of satisfaction, however. “The current ideology,” Sheehy writes, “seems a mix of personal survivalism, revivalism, and cynicism”; yet her enormously popular guide to the “predictable crises of adult life,” with its superficially optimistic hymn to growth, development, and “self-actualization,” does not challenge this ideology, merely restates it in more “humanistic” form. “Growth” has become a euphemism for survival.
The World View of the Resigned
New social forms require new forms of personality, new modes of socialization, new ways of organizing experience. The concept of narcissism provides us not with a ready-made psychological determinism but with a way of understanding the psychological impact of recent social changes - assuming that we bear in mind not only its clinical origins but the continuum between pathology and normality. It provides us, in other words, with a tolerably accurate portrait of the “liberated” personality of our time, with his charm, his pseudo-awareness of his own condition, his promiscuous pansexuality, his fascination with oral sex, his fear of the castrating mother (Mrs. Portnoy), his hypochondria, his protective shallowness, his avoidance of dependence, his inability to mourn, his dread of old age and death.
Narcissism appears realistically to represent the best way of coping with the tensions and anxieties of modern life, and the prevailing social conditions therefore tend to bring out narcissistic traits that are present, in varying degrees, in everyone. These condition have also transformed the family, which in turn shapes the underlying structure of personality. A society that dears it has no future is not likely to give much attention to the needs of the next generation, and the ever-present sense of historical discontinuity - the blight of our society - falls with particularly devastating effect on the family. The modern parent’s attempt to make children feel loved and wanted does not conceal an underlying coolness - the remoteness of those who have little to pass on the next generation and who in any case give priority to their own right to self-fulfillment. The combination of emotional detachment with attempts to convince a child of his favored position in the family is a good prescription for a narcissistic personality structure.
Through the intermediary of the family, social patterns reproduce themselves in personality. Social arrangements live on in the individual, buried in the mind below the level of consciousness, even after they have become objectively undesirable and unnecessary - as many of our present arrangements are now widely acknowledged to have become. The perception of the world as a dangerous and forbidding place, though it originates in a realistic awareness of the insecurity of contemporary social life, receives reinforcement from the narcissistic projection of aggressive impulses outward. The belief that society has no future, while it rests on a certain realism about the dangers ahead, also incorporates a narcissistic inability to identify with posterity or to feel one self part of a historical stream.
The weakening of social ties, which originates in the prevailing state of social warfare, at the same time reflects a narcissistic defense against dependence. A warlike society tends to produce men and women who are at heart antisocial. It should therefore not surprise us to find that although the narcissist conforms to social norms for fear of external retribution, he often thinks of himself as an outlaw and sees others in the same way, “as basically dishonest and unreliable, or only reliable because of external pressures.” “The value systems of narcissistic personalities are generally corruptible,” writes Kernberg, “in contrast to the rigid morality of the obsessive personality.”
The ethic of self-preservation and psychic survival is rooted, then, not merely in objective conditions of economic warfare, rising rates of crime, and social chaos but in the subjective experience of emptiness and isolation. It reflects the conviction - as much a projection of inner anxieties as a perception of the way things are - that envy and exploitation dominate even the most intimate relations. The cult of personal relations, which becomes increasingly intense as the hope of political solutions recedes, conceals a thoroughgoing disenchantment with personal relations, just as the cult of sensuality implies a repudiation of sensuality in all but its most primitive forms. The ideology of personal growth, superficially optimistic, radiates a profound despair and resignation. It is the faith of those without faith.
submitted by MirkWorks to u/MirkWorks [link] [comments]

2024.05.15 18:54 uhometitanic The Parliamentary Federation of Huaxia, an alternate history of China

In this alternate history, China was called Huaxia instead, and it has become a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy.

The setting is as follow.

Setting

Full name: The Parliamentary Federation of Huaxia（花夏议会联邦）
Predecessor: The United Empire of Huaxia（花夏联合帝国）

In 2025 AD, Huaxia is a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy.

A federal monarchy is a federation of states with a single monarch as the overall head of the federation, but retaining different monarchs or having a non-monarchical system of government in the various states joined to the federation. “Constitutional” means that all the federal units follow the same constitution, which also limits the power of all monarchs, including the overall head. “Parliamentary” means that the government derives their democratic legitimacy from their ability to command the support of the parliaments at both the federal and sub-national levels.

The head of state of the federation is called the Emperor of Huaxia, who only serves as a figurehead. The head of government is the Prime Minister, who presides over the Cabinet. There are two federal parliaments, the House of Councilors and the House of Representatives. At the sub-national level, the federal units also have their local heads of government and local parliaments.

All heads of government and parliaments at both the federal and sub-national levels are formed by general elections.

There are 31 federal units, and different units can have vastly different natures, ranging from kingdoms to free cities. There are two categories of federal units: monarchies and republics. The monarchical units have ceremonial monarchs as their heads of state, while in the republican units, the heads of state are the same as the heads of government.

The types of monarchical units include: kingdoms, principalities, khanates, and royal territories.
The types of republican units include: republics, autonomous regions, free cities, federal territories, and capital districts.

The following are some of the notable federal units:

Zhou Kingdom（周王国）
Category: Monarchical
Located in the north, the Zhou Kingdom is the most powerful federal unit in Huaxia. It boasts the largest population and the second-largest area. During the 19th century, it was Zhou that almost single-handedly united the various Huaxia states to form the United Empire of Huaxia and later the Federation. As such, the king of Zhou is seen as the rightful inheritor of the Mandate of Heaven. According to the constitution of Huaxia, the King of Zhou is automatically the Emperor of Huaxia.

The Capital District of Shuntian（顺天首都直辖区）
Category: Republican
Sitting inside the Zhou Kingdom, the Capital District of Shuntian is the political center of Huaxia. It is the site of the federal parliaments and much of the federal government. The capital district is often confused with Shuntian the city – the former is a federal unit separate from Zhou, has an elected mayor, and is the capital of the federation; while the latter is under the administration of Zhou, is the capital of Zhou, houses the royal family of the Emperor, and actually surrounds the capital district.

The Republic of Shenlong（申龙共和国）
Category: Republican
Sitting at the estuary of the Yangtze River, the Republic of Shenlong is a wealthy city-state. It is the most important port for international trade and the second most important financial center in Huaxia.

The Kingdom of Southern Han（南汉王国）
Category: Monarchical
Located in the south, the Kingdom of Southern Han is a wealthy kingdom that is famous for manufacturing and technology. It has a relatively small area but a relatively large population due to its population density.

The Free City of Baoxiang（宝香自由市）
Category: Republican
Located in the south and near the ocean, the free city of Baoxiang is another important port of Huaxia. It is also the most important financial center of Huaxia and boasts the highest GDP per capita. Baoxiang used to be a fishing village under the Kingdom of Southern Han but was then “rented” to the British as a colony for 99 years after Southern Han lost a war with the British Empire. When Baoxiang was later returned to the United Empire of Huaxia (the predecessor of the Federation), it became the first free city in Huaxia.

Chagatai Khanate（察合台汗国）
Category: Monarchical
In modern times, the Chagatai Khanate is seen as a backwater in the northwest part of Huaxia. However, it is actually one of the successor states of the famous and powerful Mongol empire, which at its height almost conquered the whole northern part of Huaxia. When the Mongol empire was split into four states, the Chagatai Khanate was one of them.

Dali Kingdom（大理王国）
Category: Monarchical
Located in the southwest, Dali Kingdom is a small and relatively unknown kingdom. Unknown to most, it is actually the oldest political entity in Huaxia and had already existed for more than a millennium by the time the Federation was formed.

The following are some of the important events that led to the formation of the Parliamentary Federation of Huaxia.

Some important events:

- When the Tang dynasty collapsed, it fractured into various states. Eventually, most of the north came under the rule of Zhou, one of the five dynasties.
- In this timeline, Zhao Kuangyin never rose to create the Song Dynasty, leaving Zhou to endure
- Later, many northern nomadic tribes invaded Zhou. Many of them, including the Khitans, the Jurchens, and the Mongols, have established their states in the north. At one time the Mongols almost conquered all of Zhou before being pushed back by an alliance of Huaxia states. Ultimately, none of them were powerful enough to conquer the whole northern part of Huaxia, even though their states continued to exist.
- The constant invasions from the north significantly weakened Zhou. Even though it remained the most powerful Huaxia state, it did not have the spare energy to conquer the various southern kingdoms and chose to maintain diplomatic relations with them instead.
- In the following centuries, the various Huaxia states frequently waged wars with each other, and some weak states did get gobbled up. However, none of them could establish dominance over all the others, and most of them continued to coexist with each other.
- In 1842 AD, the Kingdom of Southern Han was decisively defeated in a war with the British Empire. When the news spread to other states, the rulers were shocked at the superior power of the British and were interested in the technology behind it. This began a period of increasing trades and cultural exchanges between Huaxia and the Europeans.
- Many Huaxia states started to import European technologies and institutions, but Zhou was the most aggressive of all in this and was the first to industrialize among the Huaxia states.
- Under the heavy influence of political ideas from Europe, some Huaxia states became semi-constitutional monarchies or semi-republics after a series of revolutions.
- By the end of the 19th century, Zhou once again became immensely powerful and started a campaign of unification of Huaxia. Through a combination of military means, diplomatic means, and luck, it brought most of the other Huaxia states under control. Instead of annexing them, Zhou chose to establish the United Empire of Huaxia with them.
- In the United Empire, the emperor and some local monarchs still held significant power. The ministers and the parliaments only had limited power.
- After the world wars and after a series of revolutions, the United Empire was reformed into the Parliamentary Federation of Huaxia. In the new constitution, all monarchs were stripped of most of their power.
What do you think about it? Is it realistic? And how do I fill in more details in the important events and also the gaps between these events in the timeline?
submitted by uhometitanic to AlternateHistory [link] [comments]

2024.05.15 18:18 BorderInevitable4749 To the accused of being a scammer is rather hurtful

Just like the title states, yesterday I made a comment expressing my empathy for victims of scams and thank OP for bringing it to everyone's attention. However the OP of that post had turned around and accused me of being a scammer. I am still waiting for explanation as to how I scammed him. So u/ekovalsky if you are seeing this post, I hope you can explain to me how I scammed you when the only time I interacted with you was when you made a comment on a post I made for a Chanel bag I recently got. You asked for a factory and bag name so you can check with your sources. I replied with a bag name and comment that I don’t know the factory name since I don’t usually ask. I like for you to enlighten me on how that constitute a scam.
Additionally, look into my post history and see what type of posts/comments I've made. As a new buyer in this rep world, I am always appreciative of people who shared info on seller, because that's how I was able to successfully purchased my first two rep bags. As someone who believe in reciprocity, I always share info when asked. I did not anticipate that my willingness to share info resulted in me being labeled as a scammer. So for all other users with whom I have interacted and shared my seller contact info, I hope you can all post here and attest to rather or not I have shared legit contact info with you and help cleared my name.
@ u/ekovalsky I hope you realized the accusation you made against me is totally false and uncalled for and you should apologize.
submitted by BorderInevitable4749 to RepladiesDesigner [link] [comments]

2024.05.15 17:01 samdane7777 Obscure Constitutional Cases That Would Be Used To Erode Code is Speech--Excerpts from Coincenter

Professional conduct regulation cases do not support the constitutionality of this rulemaking

The existing broker disclosure obligations as applied to customer agents and principals, though never explicitly validated in the courts, may alternatively be found constitutional as a reasonable regulation of professional conduct that incidentally burdens some speech activities of the persons engaged in that regulated conduct. In that interpretation, the conduct being regulated is that of entering into an agency relationship with a customer or else acting as the principal in a sale to the customer. While a written contract is speech, the assumption of a legal relationship that it embodies is doubtlessly conduct and can be the subject of regulation.
As the Court held in United States v. O’Brien, laws affecting speech that are aimed at the regulation of non-expressive conduct are still analyzed under First Amendment jurisprudence, but face a lower level of constitutional scrutiny than laws aimed directly at the regulation of expressive conduct or at speech activities themselves: “a sufficiently important governmental interest in regulating the nonspeech element [of the regulated conduct] can justify incidental limitations on First Amendment freedoms.”47 The compulsion to merely report privately to the IRS and to the taxpayer certain “purely factual and uncontroversial information” about the regulated non-expressive conduct may rightly be framed as an “incidental” limitation on traditional brokers’ otherwise unabridged First Amendment rights.
The O’Brien standard, however, is only applicable if the rule is targeted at regulating non-expressive conduct. Things become more complicated when the rule is targeted at regulating expressive conduct or at speech itself. There is a long though underappreciated line of cases stemming from O’Brien that points toward a reasonably straightforward series of tests for when regulation of professional conduct that burdens speech activities is constitutional. That line has been best illuminated by attorney Robert Kry in his article, “The ‘Watchman for Truth’: Professional Licensing and the First Amendment.”48 Kry, summarizing and synthesizing many cases, finds that
In the case of a broker who is, in fact, an agent of a customer or a principal in a sale to a customer, the regulation is plausibly aimed at the non-expressive component of the professional’s activity. An agent under common law principles is acting on behalf of her customer. When a broker agrees to a sale, she binds the customer to that sale. The reporting requirement, therefore, is merely a requirement to disclose certain facts about one’s sales, i.e. one’s conduct as an agent. As a principal in a sale to a customer, the broker is, once again, engaged in conduct, a sale, and the reporting requirement merely discloses facts about that conduct. Additionally, brokers of this type are in most cases already subject to a licensing or registration requirement under other statutes.50 Those forms of professional conduct are traditionally regulated and the tax laws merely provide for an additional recordkeeping and reporting requirement associated with that conduct. Altogether, the reporting requirement, though compelled speech, appears to be a regulation aimed at the non-expressive component of a professional’s activity. It is therefore likely constitutional.
As described earlier however, the Treasury Department’s proposed rule inappropriately departs from that customer agent or principal standard and seeks to compel speech from persons who are engaged in no such regulated conduct. A mere publisher or maintainer of software, websites, or smart contracts is not in an agency relationship with any customer, nor is she selling anything to any customer apart from, potentially, a license to use her tools or a fee charged for relaying or publishing the user’s data on a communications network or blockchain. Additionally, unlike typical brokerage, these activities do not trigger any licensing or registration requirements under other state or federal statutory schemes.
Indeed, even when such person is relaying actual cryptocurrency transaction messages that, once recorded in the blockchain, will effect a sale of some cryptocurrency, these entities typically have no actual ability to act on behalf of the user and no actual or apparent authority under agency law to act on their behalf. At most, they can choose whether or not to relay the signed transaction message (but so too can an internet service provider); they cannot alter the contents of that message such that the terms of the sale would change. They cannot and do not act as an agent of any customer nor are they a principal in a digital asset sale to any customer.51
These persons may be involved in conduct in other ways, such as paying for web hosting services, paying fees on cryptocurrency networks to record software or data in the blockchain, taking fees from users to relay their messages, or simply paying rent or otherwise maintaining facilities wherein they or their employees do the work of developing software or maintaining communications tools, but all of those activities are aimed at engaging in speech, the publication of software and data, and none of those activities give rise to the type of fiduciary or agency-like financial relationship, i.e. conduct, that justifies third-party tax reporting obligations.
Moreover, these persons have deliberately designed their software, websites, and smart contract tooling such that it can be useful to a trader and capable of facilitating their trades or other desires without the need for any agency relationship or for any legal or trust-based relationship with the publisher or any other party whatsoever. The user can and does do it all themselves. That is the point of cryptocurrency and “decentralized finance.” We can debate the merit of such a design goal,52 but what is not debatable is that this is how these tools are presently designed.53 By demanding that these publishers rewrite their tools such that an agency relationship is established between the author of the tool and its user, such that the name, Social Security number, and other intimate details of the user are entrusted to the alleged “broker,” the regulation is squarely aimed at compelling not merely the disclosure of trading data and taxable gains, but also the compelled creation of significant expressive software and tooling to solicit and collect data in a manner that would otherwise be antithetical to the goals of the software developer. Such an order is so unprecedented that it is difficult to find appropriate metaphors or past examples. It is as if a state—frustrated that it cannot determine who is reading which books—ordered that novelists shall hold in-person book readings during which they must collect and report information about their audience.
Accordingly, when applied to mere publishers and maintainers of software, websites, and smart contracts, these regulations target the expressive activity of the alleged broker. That does not mean, however, that such rules will automatically be unconstitutional. The Court has dealt with several regulatory schemes aimed at expressive professional conduct, such as a lawyer giving legal advice to a client. Throughout these cases the Court has developed a robust series of standards for constitutionality that are focused primarily on “which kinds of advice are licensable based on how closely they resemble forms of communication associated with fiduciary relationships.”54 This leads us to the second question in Kry’s analysis of the First Amendment limits to regulating professional conduct, what he calls the “value neutral test” because it applies irrespective of whether the speech affected is a matter of public concern and irrespective of the motives of the speaker:
Given the in-person and client-specific nature of legal services, there should be no surprise that under these cases the professional regulation of attorneys, including licensing, limits on solicitation and advertising, and—as in this rulemaking—compelled disclosures, typically withstands constitutional scrutiny. In the context of developers of cryptocurrency systems, however, the answer to Kry’s twin questions of characteristic-dependence and person-to-person context is an unqualified “no.” It is taken as written that software, websites, and smart contracts in the cryptocurrency space are built such that they are generic, serving the needs of whoever wants to use them irrespective of the characteristics of that user. It is also a given that these tools are shared widely over the internet and used freely by whoever happens to download them or (in some cases) whoever pays to license the software or pays to have their transactions relayed by the software. As such, they are never “delivered in the context of a person- to-person relationship.”56 Accordingly, regulation of the speech activities of these developers, including compulsions to report and develop expressive software that enables that reporting, would face strict scrutiny by the Court and be found unconstitutional.
While these standards are general principles that are equally applicable to any kind of expressive conduct regulation, it is nonetheless worth noting that several of the cases that first articulated these standards dealt explicitly with speech, including software, that advised and facilitated sales of valuable assets. As such, the speech in question in these cases was very similar factually to the speech that would be burdened under the Treasury Department’s proposed rule. The value-neutral test was developed in Lowe v. SEC, a case involving the unconstitutional application of the Investment Advisers Act to a person merely publishing a public newsletter,57 and it was further reinforced in Taucher v. Born58 and two similar cases59 dealing with the unconstitutional application of the Commodities Exchange Act to the developers of commodities trading software.60
submitted by samdane7777 to Monero [link] [comments]

2024.05.15 16:48 samdane7777 Overall Strategy To Deem Hard PassPort Requirements For DeFi Will Be Based On Unfair Licensing Loopholes--Coincenter excerpts

Professional conduct regulation cases do not support the constitutionality of this rulemaking

The existing broker disclosure obligations as applied to customer agents and principals, though never explicitly validated in the courts, may alternatively be found constitutional as a reasonable regulation of professional conduct that incidentally burdens some speech activities of the persons engaged in that regulated conduct. In that interpretation, the conduct being regulated is that of entering into an agency relationship with a customer or else acting as the principal in a sale to the customer. While a written contract is speech, the assumption of a legal relationship that it embodies is doubtlessly conduct and can be the subject of regulation.
As the Court held in United States v. O’Brien, laws affecting speech that are aimed at the regulation of non-expressive conduct are still analyzed under First Amendment jurisprudence, but face a lower level of constitutional scrutiny than laws aimed directly at the regulation of expressive conduct or at speech activities themselves: “a sufficiently important governmental interest in regulating the nonspeech element [of the regulated conduct] can justify incidental limitations on First Amendment freedoms.”47 The compulsion to merely report privately to the IRS and to the taxpayer certain “purely factual and uncontroversial information” about the regulated non-expressive conduct may rightly be framed as an “incidental” limitation on traditional brokers’ otherwise unabridged First Amendment rights.
The O’Brien standard, however, is only applicable if the rule is targeted at regulating non-expressive conduct. Things become more complicated when the rule is targeted at regulating expressive conduct or at speech itself. There is a long though underappreciated line of cases stemming from O’Brien that points toward a reasonably straightforward series of tests for when regulation of professional conduct that burdens speech activities is constitutional. That line has been best illuminated by attorney Robert Kry in his article, “The ‘Watchman for Truth’: Professional Licensing and the First Amendment.”48 Kry, summarizing and synthesizing many cases, finds that
In the case of a broker who is, in fact, an agent of a customer or a principal in a sale to a customer, the regulation is plausibly aimed at the non-expressive component of the professional’s activity. An agent under common law principles is acting on behalf of her customer. When a broker agrees to a sale, she binds the customer to that sale. The reporting requirement, therefore, is merely a requirement to disclose certain facts about one’s sales, i.e. one’s conduct as an agent. As a principal in a sale to a customer, the broker is, once again, engaged in conduct, a sale, and the reporting requirement merely discloses facts about that conduct. Additionally, brokers of this type are in most cases already subject to a licensing or registration requirement under other statutes.50 Those forms of professional conduct are traditionally regulated and the tax laws merely provide for an additional recordkeeping and reporting requirement associated with that conduct. Altogether, the reporting requirement, though compelled speech, appears to be a regulation aimed at the non-expressive component of a professional’s activity. It is therefore likely constitutional.
As described earlier however, the Treasury Department’s proposed rule inappropriately departs from that customer agent or principal standard and seeks to compel speech from persons who are engaged in no such regulated conduct. A mere publisher or maintainer of software, websites, or smart contracts is not in an agency relationship with any customer, nor is she selling anything to any customer apart from, potentially, a license to use her tools or a fee charged for relaying or publishing the user’s data on a communications network or blockchain. Additionally, unlike typical brokerage, these activities do not trigger any licensing or registration requirements under other state or federal statutory schemes.
Indeed, even when such person is relaying actual cryptocurrency transaction messages that, once recorded in the blockchain, will effect a sale of some cryptocurrency, these entities typically have no actual ability to act on behalf of the user and no actual or apparent authority under agency law to act on their behalf. At most, they can choose whether or not to relay the signed transaction message (but so too can an internet service provider); they cannot alter the contents of that message such that the terms of the sale would change. They cannot and do not act as an agent of any customer nor are they a principal in a digital asset sale to any customer.51
These persons may be involved in conduct in other ways, such as paying for web hosting services, paying fees on cryptocurrency networks to record software or data in the blockchain, taking fees from users to relay their messages, or simply paying rent or otherwise maintaining facilities wherein they or their employees do the work of developing software or maintaining communications tools, but all of those activities are aimed at engaging in speech, the publication of software and data, and none of those activities give rise to the type of fiduciary or agency-like financial relationship, i.e. conduct, that justifies third-party tax reporting obligations.
Moreover, these persons have deliberately designed their software, websites, and smart contract tooling such that it can be useful to a trader and capable of facilitating their trades or other desires without the need for any agency relationship or for any legal or trust-based relationship with the publisher or any other party whatsoever. The user can and does do it all themselves. That is the point of cryptocurrency and “decentralized finance.” We can debate the merit of such a design goal,52 but what is not debatable is that this is how these tools are presently designed.53 By demanding that these publishers rewrite their tools such that an agency relationship is established between the author of the tool and its user, such that the name, Social Security number, and other intimate details of the user are entrusted to the alleged “broker,” the regulation is squarely aimed at compelling not merely the disclosure of trading data and taxable gains, but also the compelled creation of significant expressive software and tooling to solicit and collect data in a manner that would otherwise be antithetical to the goals of the software developer. Such an order is so unprecedented that it is difficult to find appropriate metaphors or past examples. It is as if a state—frustrated that it cannot determine who is reading which books—ordered that novelists shall hold in-person book readings during which they must collect and report information about their audience.
Accordingly, when applied to mere publishers and maintainers of software, websites, and smart contracts, these regulations target the expressive activity of the alleged broker. That does not mean, however, that such rules will automatically be unconstitutional. The Court has dealt with several regulatory schemes aimed at expressive professional conduct, such as a lawyer giving legal advice to a client. Throughout these cases the Court has developed a robust series of standards for constitutionality that are focused primarily on “which kinds of advice are licensable based on how closely they resemble forms of communication associated with fiduciary relationships.”54 This leads us to the second question in Kry’s analysis of the First Amendment limits to regulating professional conduct, what he calls the “value neutral test” because it applies irrespective of whether the speech affected is a matter of public concern and irrespective of the motives of the speaker:
Given the in-person and client-specific nature of legal services, there should be no surprise that under these cases the professional regulation of attorneys, including licensing, limits on solicitation and advertising, and—as in this rulemaking—compelled disclosures, typically withstands constitutional scrutiny. In the context of developers of cryptocurrency systems, however, the answer to Kry’s twin questions of characteristic-dependence and person-to-person context is an unqualified “no.” It is taken as written that software, websites, and smart contracts in the cryptocurrency space are built such that they are generic, serving the needs of whoever wants to use them irrespective of the characteristics of that user. It is also a given that these tools are shared widely over the internet and used freely by whoever happens to download them or (in some cases) whoever pays to license the software or pays to have their transactions relayed by the software. As such, they are never “delivered in the context of a person- to-person relationship.”56 Accordingly, regulation of the speech activities of these developers, including compulsions to report and develop expressive software that enables that reporting, would face strict scrutiny by the Court and be found unconstitutional.
While these standards are general principles that are equally applicable to any kind of expressive conduct regulation, it is nonetheless worth noting that several of the cases that first articulated these standards dealt explicitly with speech, including software, that advised and facilitated sales of valuable assets. As such, the speech in question in these cases was very similar factually to the speech that would be burdened under the Treasury Department’s proposed rule. The value-neutral test was developed in Lowe v. SEC, a case involving the unconstitutional application of the Investment Advisers Act to a person merely publishing a public newsletter,57 and it was further reinforced in Taucher v. Born58 and two similar cases59 dealing with the unconstitutional application of the Commodities Exchange Act to the developers of commodities trading software.60
submitted by samdane7777 to ethereum [link] [comments]

2024.05.15 15:29 tempmailgenerator Implementing Email Validation and Uniqueness Check with jQuery

Ensuring Data Integrity in Web Forms

In the world of web development, ensuring the accuracy and uniqueness of user input is paramount, particularly when it comes to email addresses. Email addresses serve not only as a primary method of communication but also as a unique identifier for users across various platforms. As such, validating the format of an email address and verifying its uniqueness against a database becomes a critical task for developers. This task ensures that the data collected is not only formatted correctly but also unique, preventing issues such as duplicate accounts or incorrect user data.
jQuery, a fast, small, and feature-rich JavaScript library, offers an efficient way to perform these validations on the client side, improving user experience by providing immediate feedback. However, the challenge doesn't stop at client-side validation. Developers must also implement server-side checks to ensure data integrity and uniqueness across their databases. This dual-layer approach to validation ensures a robust and error-free user registration process, laying the foundation for a secure and user-friendly web application.
Command/Function Description
$.ajax() Sends asynchronous HTTP requests to the server.
emailRegex.test(email) Tests if the email string matches the specified regex pattern for emails.

Deep Dive into Email Validation Techniques

Email validation is a critical component of modern web development, ensuring that user input is both correct and useful. The process involves two major steps: format validation and uniqueness verification. Format validation is typically achieved using regular expressions (regex), which are patterns designed to match character combinations in strings. In the context of email validation, a regex pattern verifies that the email address entered by the user adheres to a standard format, such as including an "@" symbol and a domain name. This step is crucial as it helps prevent users from accidentally entering incorrect information, such as missing the "@" symbol, which is a common mistake.
However, format validation alone is not sufficient to ensure the quality of data. Uniqueness verification steps in as the second layer of validation, ensuring that the email address has not been used to register another account in the system. This is typically achieved through a server-side check against a database. Implementing both levels of validation requires careful consideration of user experience and system performance. For instance, performing an asynchronous request to check for email uniqueness can provide immediate feedback to the user without requiring a page reload. This enhances the user experience by providing instant validation results, making the registration process smoother and more efficient.

Email Validation in jQuery

jQuery & JavaScript
const emailRegex = /^[a-zA-Z0-9._-]+@[a-zA-Z0-9.-]+\.[a-zA-Z]{2,4}$/; $("#email").on("blur", function() { var email = $(this).val(); if(emailRegex.test(email)) { // Proceed with uniqueness check $.ajax({ url: "/check-email", data: { email: email }, type: "POST", success: function(data) { if(data.isUnique) { alert("Email is unique and valid."); } else { alert("Email already exists."); } } }); } else { alert("Invalid email format."); } });

Enhancing Web Forms with jQuery

Email validation and uniqueness check are crucial components of web development that ensure user data integrity and prevent common issues like duplicate registrations. Validating an email involves checking whether the input matches a pattern that resembles email addresses, a process typically achieved using regular expressions. This client-side validation improves the user experience by providing immediate feedback, helping users correct errors before submitting the form. However, client-side validation alone is not foolproof since it can be bypassed, emphasizing the importance of server-side validation for security and data integrity.
On the other hand, checking the uniqueness of an email address against a database is a server-side operation. It ensures that each registered email is unique within the application, preventing multiple accounts from being associated with the same email address. This check is particularly important in applications where the email address acts as a primary identifier for users. Implementing both email validation and uniqueness check requires a combination of client-side and server-side programming, with jQuery being a popular choice for the former due to its simplicity and efficiency in handling DOM elements and Ajax requests.

Frequently Asked Questions About jQuery Email Validation

  1. Question: Why is email validation important in web forms?
  2. Answer: Email validation ensures that users enter information that follows the correct format, improving data quality and communication efficiency.
  3. Question: Can jQuery be used for server-side email uniqueness checks?
  4. Answer: jQuery is primarily used for client-side scripting. Server-side checks require a server-side language like PHP, Python, or Node.js in combination with jQuery for Ajax requests.
  5. Question: How does client-side validation improve user experience?
  6. Answer: It provides immediate feedback, allowing users to correct errors before submitting the form, reducing frustration and unnecessary server requests.
  7. Question: What is the best practice for email validation and uniqueness check?
  8. Answer: The best practice involves combining client-side validation for immediate feedback and server-side validation for security and data integrity.
  9. Question: How do you handle false positives in email validation?
  10. Answer: Implementing a more comprehensive regex pattern and allowing users to correct their input based on specific error messages can reduce false positives.

Wrapping Up Our Insights

Implementing robust validation mechanisms for email addresses in web applications is not just about enhancing the user interface or experience; it's a fundamental aspect of securing and maintaining the integrity of the system's data. Through the use of jQuery for client-side validation and the incorporation of server-side verification, developers can ensure that an email is not only formatted correctly but is also unique within their system. This dual-layered approach minimizes potential security risks, such as unauthorized access or data breaches, and operational issues, like duplicate records or miscommunications with users. Furthermore, it underscores the importance of a thorough understanding of both client and server-side scripting among developers, empowering them to create more reliable, secure, and user-friendly web applications. As we've explored, the combination of immediate feedback on the client side and definitive verification on the server side constitutes best practices in modern web development, ensuring that user data is both valid and unique.
https://www.tempmail.us.com/en/jquery/implementing-email-validation-and-uniqueness-check-with-jquery
submitted by tempmailgenerator to MailDevNetwork [link] [comments]

2024.05.15 08:22 c1j0c3 Career aspirations- JD, MS, or PhD?

Hi, I have a broad range of interests and am highly keen on pursuing many of them. I really need help in picking a path and discipline for a career, and really just need insight on what’s potentially out there for me. I am currently an undergraduate rising senior and am working towards degrees in both international affairs and anthropology. For the past year I’ve been set on law school for stability/money (I want kids but won’t have them unless I’m well-off) and I think I’d do well, my father is a lawyer and we both are logically inclined and naturally debate often as we have very different perspectives but respect the others’. Recently he’s taken to making me prove every statement so that he can accept them but generally I hold my own and navigate oral conversational analysis well. He’s always told me to just take the LSAT and see how I do because he thinks I’d be really fit for law school. I can see myself being a lawyer and think its somewhat up my alley but I’m just not passionate about the law or constitution or anything else other pre-law students seem to revere. I currently intern in one of the deans offices of the law school at my university and have really gotten to see what it all entails, how everything works both for the students and behind the scenes and think it would work for me. I was helping with exam scheduling and saw the course titles, looked at some of their coursework documents and was interested, particularly those in international law, as an IA major. The extracurriculars just aren’t what I’m passionate about but I could see myself enjoying the experience. Though, with law school, I am tempted to venture out and apply around the country as I want to spend my twenties in a city or stimulating environment. I don’t plan on staying or settling in my state nor practicing law here, though I guess I could and build myself up for a while, I just dream of doing so in New York or California if possible.
In terms of careers I’m passionate about, I’ve really enjoyed my courses in international relations and am very interested in learning more about everything that's just only been barely introduced to me. I would love a really comprehensive understanding of global politics within historical context, and have been researching masters programs, but honestly really just love the one my current university has. There’s also a joint JD/MS in international affairs at my university that really interests me, but I don't know the specific careers relevant to this that I could pursue. I think if I opted to go to law school, I would definitely factor in which schools have such programs in applying, and would probably just stay where I am because it seems most feasible for me, and I think i'd be ok with that? The networking is good in my city because I’m in my state’s capitol, but it’s all in very domestic realms. I just want to be where I am exposed to the most opportunity. I think I'd be most interested in criminal law, and international law naturally sounds good to me, though I'm not entirely sure what it is; it seems very broad and economic.
I just had an interview for a writing internship with the state department and it seemed like a super cool way to network into international careers in general but also international writing, as I am also passionate about writing nonfiction, essays, memoirs, etc- pieces where I can express a subjective perspective within context and generate meaningful impact. I like to submit to local literary magazines in my free time. I’m inspired by types like Joan Didion and would love to pursue a similar lifestyle. That’s just kind of a distant dream though. But with intl affairs, I’d also like to pursue anything relevant that would just allow me to experience, get involved, possibly go into policy/diplomacy, i don’t know. I just cant see a clear path.
However, more than intl relations, I am passionate about anthropology. I operate solely from an anthropological perspective and am incredibly interested in getting a masters from my university as my heart swells reading the course descriptions. I could get a joint MS/MS in Anthro and intl relations, but that just feels redundant and i'd be in the same position I am now in not knowing where to go or what to choose. But I just can't see myself solely getting a masters in anthropology and then getting a PhD, I feel id need some time in between to get more experience out in the world, do some international work, pursue other interests. It would just feel scary for me to go down a somewhat unstable path just to critically study the discipline I love the most. My overall “dream” job would be a paleoanthropologist/prehistoric archaeologist, pursuing some sort of research or fieldwork, or working at an institution and being a professor. I just don’t really know whats possible for me out there, what potential paths I could take, or just how/when I could actually do this. i would ideally like to research/excavate in the eastern hemisphere as I’m more interested in human origin rather than North American prehistory, so I don’t know if an American or International university would be best? The anthropology department at my university is extensive and well-developed as we are located in rich archaeological areas of North American activity, but I really don’t see myself staying here for a PhD, though I would definitely get a masters. Again, if anyone knows anything about such a profession and has some insight, I would appreciate it.
Basically I am just a clueless undergrad who doesn’t know much about careers in the fields I am interested in or the best path to follow to maximize my interests and life experience. I’ve asked my professors who tell me to look online, like on AAA but I think reddit just always has so much more insight. If anyone is in any fields, knows anyone, or has any knowledge on careers/university programs regarding intl affairs, intl law, intl journalism, law in general, or paths in anthropology phd’s/professor positions/prehistoric archaeological endeavors, please let me know :’)
submitted by c1j0c3 to gradadmissions [link] [comments]

2024.05.15 03:15 fuzzy_bud13 Condo board rights

I am appalled by what my condo board decided to do and am wondering if it is legal/ specificity of the legalities.
Apparently this morning people were calling the condo management about a bird being caught in the netting I have put up to deter pigeons. We have a SERIOUS pigeon problem in the city so many of the suites in my building have put up netting and other things to keep them and their poop out. I didn’t find anything in the condo docs about rules on netting, plus others have it up, so I did the same.
I got a call from a no caller ID phone this afternoon at 1:27 which I did not answer as I was in class (my phone was off). Since it was no caller ID I couldn’t call back to see who it was once my class was over. I then went to a doctors appointment. During my appointment I got an email from the condo management that I didn’t see it. I got home about 530, started doing chores, and went to take a bag of cans into the storage unit on the balcony. It was then that I noticed that the netting was gone.
I checked my call log where I found the missed no caller ID call. Then I checked my email and found an email that was sent to me at 321 this afternoon. It said there was a bird caught in the netting and that they tried to contact me but I didn’t answer. So the manager was going to let in a wildlife person to remove the bird. They had to enter my suite for access to the balcony. By the time my boyfriend got home at 445 they had already come and gone so there wasn’t much time for us to arrange to be home.
They also cut down the netting and took it rather than leaving it for me to be able to reuse in a different manner! They also said that while netting and other things are allowed to keep pests out, this type wasn’t allowed. They never gave me any insight to what would be allowed and it is not a part of the condo documents I received when I bought the place.
My understanding is they need to give 24 hours notice to enter unless there is an emergency. Would this constitute an emergency? I can’t see how it would be honestly. They also made a very poor effort in contacting me, especially since no caller ID means I can’t call back or know who called!
Don’t need advice on if I can sue or anything like that, just want to understand better and possibly include some references from the law or something like that when I reply to them. I will be replying saying I am disappointed in their efforts for contact especially during work hours and not allowing me time to respond.
I should also note the netting had been up for over a month without anyone saying it was improper. I purposely placed the netting inside the railing so the birds could land and turn themselves around. The betting I bought specifically said it was to keep out birds.
submitted by fuzzy_bud13 to legaladvicecanada [link] [comments]

2024.05.15 00:46 HypeLanesDrifter What happens if a council provides facilities which implicitly contradict the text of bylaws?

My council has a bylaw saying that "No person may drive, ride or otherwise bring any vehicle into a reserve, except on any part of the reserve set aside by the Council for vehicular traffic." In this context all local parks are "reserves."
However, one of the local parks has bike stands in the center, which cannot be accessed by "any part of the reserve set aside by the Council for vehicular traffic." There's also a BMX track which can't be accessed via "any part of the reserve set aside by the Council for vehicular traffic." The bylaw says people may not "otherwise bring any vehicle into a reserve" so it doesn't allow for bikes to be walked or carried to the above areas. Also, people bike in the park all the time with seemingly no problem.
What exactly is the situation here? Does the provision of cycle facilities negate the text of the bylaw because actions speak louder than words? If the council decided to prosecute someone for having a bicycle in the park, is there a defense on this basis? (Note the defense isn't based on ignorance, because in this hypothetical situation the person is aware of the bylaw but has observed it being contradicted by the council's active provision of facilities).
I'm not really interested in the pragmatic likelihood of a hypothetical person being caught or prosecuted, or even about cycling; I'm here to find out about what the law actually is with respect to this type of situation, which is why I've flaired this "constitutional/government" rather than "traffic."
EDIT: A few minutes after posting, I came back and made numerous small edits to punctuation and wording.
EDIT2: Bicycles do fall under the given definition of "vehicle." There are exceptions allowing council workers and emergency services to bring in vehicles.
submitted by HypeLanesDrifter to LegalAdviceNZ [link] [comments]

2024.05.14 20:21 Ill_Variation_2480 TTPD's new nickname "Female Rage: The Musical" should upset you.

Edit: If you are going to comment on the length of this post, please don't. This is not a simple snark but rather an actual critical think piece about feminism and Taylor Swift.

Introduction

Pertaining to Taylor Swift, "Female Rage" has deviated from its intended meaning after Swift debuted a new performance of The Tortured Poets Department during the Eras Tour. Now, according to Swift's use of the phrase, female rage is interpreted as public backlash against Swift's dating choices rather than as a response to the broader injustices against women and women's rights. This post examines Taylor Swift's flawed feminism, philanthropy, branding, and the controversial trademark petition for the phrase "Female Rage: The Musical". Swift's background as an entertainer, indeterminate politics, and alignment with capitalism over feminism pervades her legacy, again threatening her public tolerance as not just an individual but as a brand.

Once Upon a Female Rage...

If you were cognizant in the early 2010's, you've heard countless jabs at Taylor Swift in the media. Magazines, radio, or online. Music critics did not take her seriously as a songwriter; parents put a woman on an unrealistic pedestal as the ideal role model for their children; she dated too much and used men as lyrical fodder. No matter the story, it inevitably spread, conjoined with everyone's respective opinions, and you'd be left to wonder, "Why does everyone hate this girl so much?"
Taylor's target demographic has always been young or adolescent girls, more so when Swift herself was one. She made music that spoke to the awkward misfit, cultivating a para-social relationship with fans on MySpace, then later twitter, Instagram, and YouTube, where Taylor posted relatable vlogs showcasing the life of a homegrown American girl. Taylor had a delayed public "growing up" and, compared to her female pop contemporaries, Swift never "gratuitously sexualized her image and seems pathologically averse to controversy" (and, apparently, never even had a sip of alcohol until she turned 21). She was more than happy to spin this narrative to allude to an inherent moral superiority above other women in the industry (Better Than Revenge, heard of it?), engaging in the very slut-shaming that she herself endured (the Madonna and Whore archetypes). The victim complex arose with the need to prove Taylor as a different type of pop girl. Based upon her holy and clean image, Swift had been dubbed "a feminist's nightmare", and that "[To Swift] other girls are obstacles; undeserving enemies who steal Taylor’s soulmates with their bewitching good looks and sexual availability." Feminism and Tennessee-Christian country values don't exactly mix, it seems.
Years later, Swift befriended Lena Dunham and thus experienced white feminism osmosis, where Dunham taught Swift that real feminists defend rapists, makes insensitive jokes about rape and abortion, and prioritize all-white casts. Swift then declared herself a feminist in 2014, saying,
"Becoming friends with Lena – without her preaching to me, but just seeing why she believes what she believes, why she says what she says, why she stands for what she stands for – has made me realize that I’ve been taking a feminist stance without actually saying so."
I suppose the male-centric songwriting subject that permeates Swift's discography contained covert feminism and that we just didn't see that. Perhaps, the "Bad Blood" song and music video were written only in jest and not about poor Katy Perry, for Swift, as a feminist, would "never make it a girl fight" or tear other women down (though all Katy did was date your terrible ex-boyfriend and allegedly steal three backup dancers from your tour). In 2013, Swift said, in response to Tina Fey and Amy Poehler's joke towards her serial dating, "There is a special place in hell for women who don't help other women."
There was that time in 2015 Taylor said that Nicki Minaj was "invited to any stage [she is] on" (as if Taylor expects to have access to every stage, award, and platform that Nicki might not otherwise have as a black female artist...yikes!) in response to Nicki's criticism of the white + thin VMA nominations. Later, Nicki responded with confusion, as Swift continued, "It’s unlike you to pit women against each other. Maybe one of the men took your slot..". Of course, this 'beef' was 'squashed' when Nicki performed with Taylor at the VMAs, with Nicki quite literally only having 38 seconds of stage time without Taylor. Maybe all that parading around with a legion of famous white women - similar to the way Taylor might've done with her numerous 1989-era handbags - was in fact a stance against gender inequality, and that this display of "girl power" should be enough to constitute Swift as a feminist icon.
Even while Swift says that Dunham informed her feminist outlook, she dances around the exact contents of those beliefs: "what she believes, what she says, what she stands for" is not exactly insightful towards what beliefs Swift might have inherited. Taylor never broaches women's rights topics such femicide, FGM, forced pregnancy & marriage, sex trafficking, women in slavery, women's financial and political oppression, women's educational rights, women's health, or women's autonomy, so we can assume she only gives a fuck about "girls supporting girls" (whatever that fucking means).
Despite some questionable (and sometimes vindictive) behavior, Taylor as a young woman did not deserve every media lashing that she received. We cannot deny that most headlines and criticisms perpetuated a misogynistic rhetoric which has plagued Swift for a majority of her career. Acknowledging events such as the development of her ED, her sexual assault trial, "Famous" lyric and MV depiction of Taylor, and the explicit Twitter deepfakes, for example, as both disgusting and unfortunate things that happened to a young woman in Hollywood does not negate the fact that Taylor is mostly a performative feminist.

Get Your Fucking Ass Up and Be a Philanthropist, It Seems Like Nobody Wants to Be a Philanthropist These Days

In 2013, Taylor Swift cut the ribbon at the grand opening of the Taylor Swift Education Center at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, Tennessee. The donation amount - $4 million - was the largest individual artist gift ever donated to the Country Music Hall of Fame, which is, of course, mentioned on Swift's website. The two-story facility features three classrooms, an instrument room, and an interactive children's exhibit gallery. Swift also performed at "All for the Hall" charity shows and has donated numerous artifacts from her career (such as notable guitars, tour costumes, etc) to the museum.
This was over 11 years ago, and it is still the only notable philanthropic contribution Taylor Swift has made.
For a woman of her net worth and stature, and a woman who recognizes the difficulties for women in film and music, you would think that Taylor Swift might establish a scholarship program for women to study the arts or something. Perhaps Swift might even consider becoming a member of organizations that support female artists, or one that supports LGBTQ+ causes (since she is now proudly an ally), yet she remains superficial with her graces. Broader philanthropy, such as donating relief aid to Palestinian women or women impacted by violence and discrimination will probably never receive any financial support from Miss Swift because then she'd be using her money towards philanthropies involving anyone but white entertainers.
She even says herself in Miss Americana, "My entire moral code as a kid and now is a need to be thought of as 'good'." Well, she's certainly thought of as good, though her actions say otherwise. She's more than happy to do a vaguely altruistic song and dance for a clip-worthy interview quote and mass appeasement, then fuck off to one of her mansions on a 20 minute private jet flight, rather than actually contribute to anything pertaining to the causes she has endorsed. Yet, far too many people continue to give a woman such as her their money, time, and energy, and she hoards these resources to herself.

I Like Some of the Taylor's Songs, But What the Fuck Does She Know About Feminism?

Swift continued with her self-proclaimed feminist campaign, positioning herself as a political activist and LGBTQ+ ally in the Miss Americana documentary. The primary focus of the documentary consists of the sexual assault trial, Andrea Swift's cancer diagnosis, Taylor's ED and body dysmorphia, media scrutiny, and, largely, finally speaking up about her politics publicly, mostly her opposition to the 2018 Tennessee Republican senate candidate, Marsha Blackburn, and Blackburn's beliefs. Swift says, following a scene discussing her experience during the trial,
"I just couldn't really stop thinking about it. And I just thought to myself, next time there is any opportunity to change anything, you had better know what you stand for and what you want to say."
We must ask ourselves, though: when has Swift ever spoken up to change anything? Okay, pulling her entire catalogue from Spotify because they didn't pay their artists enough and similarly pulling her catalogue from Apple Music are changes that she leveraged due to her revenue potential and power, but they are not pertinent to the average woman's rights. Moreover, these are issues that directly impacted Taylor's income, which was enough reason for her to protest in the first place. Swift has sold the most units for a female artist in first week sales, is the first female artist with 100k monthly Spotify listeners, is the first female artist to win the Album of the Year Grammy 4 times, and is the first female artist to do X, Y, and Z, all while being inoffensive and family-friendly to boot. The actual Taylor Swift seems unwilling to compromise the brand of Taylor Swift by contributing in meaningful ways to feminist causes, especially if it is for women outside of America and Hollywood.
The reason political anthems such as "The Man" and "Only the Young" of the Lover era feel disingenuous and corporate is because, well, it is. Taylor has taken every opportunity to advance her career or public image at the expense of other women. What is truly genuine to Taylor's outlook on other women is vying for male attention, taking down female competition, and vocalizing feminist injustices only if they directly impact her and her money. Some will argue that it's satisfactory for a woman with such a huge platform to even TALK about feminism, but that just isn't enough. It's even less impressive when you candidly look at the scope of her feminist lens: "If I was the man, then I'd be THE MAN", or "I really resent the ‘Be careful, buddy, she’s going to write a song about you’ angle, because it trivialises what I do", and, of course, "We all got crowns". Feminism, but only when it happens to me. It gets worse when you look at Taylor's track record of copying other famous women and removing other female artists as potential threats to her pop prowess.
It's good for PR to align yourself with certain blanket feminist and political beliefs, therefore good for branding, therefore good for ticketing and merchandise sales, therefore good for business. And Taylor Swift is a business.
She's not a feminist. Taylor Swift is a capitalist.

I Can't Pay Those Sweatshop Workers a Livable Wage or Benefits! How Else Would I Make My Billions?

Recently, Taylor's team filed to trademark the phrase "Female Rage: The Musical" after Taylor said during Paris N1 of the Eras Tour,
"So you were the first ones to see The Tortured Poets at the Eras Tour...or as I like to call it, 'Female Rage: The Musical'."
This trademark petition was filed last week on Saturday, and news comes about just as numerous unofficial fan-made merch designs have cropped up with this phrase plastered on Fruit of the Loom basics. I'm of the opinion Swift's team motioned for a trademark so that they can send out cease & desists to all those that make knockoff merch, which disrupts potential sales for Bravado, UMG's choice merchandising company; however, since it was filed earlier, perhaps Swift has bigger plans with the bizarre use of the gendered phrase. One Swiftie referred to the phrase "female rage" as "a funny Eras Tour joke". Could it be a possible fourth version of the Eras Tour Movie? Whatever the reason, the motion to capitalize off of such a concept is disgusting, but not unsurprising, for a woman that profits on her vain feminism.
Swift, through her company, TAS Rights Managements, has also trademarked over 200 phrases, including "1989", where she owns the property rights to this calendar year on keychains, phone cases, sunglasses, stationary, bags, beverage ware, clothing, entertainment services, your subconscious, and, of course, Christmas ornaments.
The vapid consumerism in Swiftie culture is, frankly, disgusting. Bravado's sustainability statement is non-existent, the quality control is abysmal, and the materials they use are horrible. The materials, such as acrylic and polyester, are made from petrochemicals. This means they are non-renewable, shed microplastics, and are quite toxic in production. The manufacturing process to make all of those lazy-rushed Eras Tour logo graphic tees is a huge blow to environmental well-being. Apparently, though, Swifties don't give a fuck. They sell out products in seconds and either have to face the manufactured scarcity or buy from a scalper that resells for 200% of the already ridiculous retail price. This doesn't include the environmental impact of vinyl records, CD, and cassette production, of which Taylor produces many variants that sell unsustainable amounts.
If we're talking about women's rights violations, why is no one acknowledging the women that work in the inhumane sweatshop conditions that have to pump out fugly t-shirts and hats? The millions of plastic microfiber dander they are inhaling, or the toxic dyes that touch their bare skin? Are they being compensated fairly for their skilled labour and are they in safe working environments? Do these women have minimal bargaining power, and do they have authority over their worker's rights? Is Taylor Swift female raging at their injustices? Does Taylor Swift ever feels bad that her wealth was built on the backs of women of color, disadvantaged by the demands of the global economy and garment industry? Do you think she ever says a little white feminist prayer for them before she goes to sleep at night?
What's even crazier is not that Taylor herself doesn't care, it's that Swifties don't care. There CANNOT BE ethical billionaires. You only make a billion dollars if you are exploiting other human beings for capital gain. Based on public perception of the possible "Female Rage: The Musical" trademark, it seems like Swifties are already asking for merch with this phrase. "If Taylor made it, I'd buy it." Oh, cool. So not only do you champion Miss Swift's avarice and billionaire status, but you also are unashamed to admit to your blind consumption of her music and merchandise, no matter where they might originate in production or sincerity. Just as Swift takes and takes and takes, Swifties' consumerism of Taylor Swift cannot be quelled.
The tortured artist's most vulnerable and sincere poetry...available now in 21 different versions!

I Am Tortured Poet, Hear Me Whinge

Look - even if Taylor's intention is to characterize TTPD as more "tortured" and "angry", the main thread of the album is "I was ghosted by my decade-long situationship with a controversial indie boy and my fucking stupid fans wrote a 'Speak Up Now' open letter prompting me to drop him" anger, which is adequately expressed in the lyrics and performances. The extent of Taylor's "female rage" on TTPD is on tracks such as "Who's Afraid of Little Old Me?", which contends with relentless media scrutiny; "But Daddy I Love Him", where Swift firmly states she'll date whoever she likes no matter how "Sarahs and Hannahs" may react; and "The Albatross", a track mythologizing her reputation and the consequences of dating her. Of course, these coincide with deep psychological wounds that formed during Swift's early years in the media, and so, from her feminist perspective, these subjects tackle the misogyny and double standards that she faced.
Yet Taylor Swift still has no grounds to be claiming that TTPD best exemplifies female rage and therefore she, in the context of this album, is female rage incarnate. As the daughter of a stock broker and mutual fund marketing executive, Taylor was born into wealth and allowed privileges like trips and subsequent relocation to Nashville all so that she might get a record deal. Her father even invested at least $120,000 into the then-fledgling label, Big Machine Records, which ensured Taylor's place with Borchetta after leaving her dead-end development deal with Sony. The fact that her parents were able to buy her a fucking brand new guitar for Christmas and pay for music lessons says so much about the financial security and safety of her childhood.
Money is privilege and protection, and despite Swift's experiences with misogyny and loser boyfriends, she does not know what female rage is.
Her rage is derived from her frustrations with her obsessive fans pulling the moral superiority card on Taylor in response to her rebound with Matty Healy. That's literally it. She's just pissed that the monster she created is no longer obediant, it's become a feral, sovereign entity that depletes the world of its natural resources and thinks it is more intelligent than it actually is because it's mommy has started to talk to it with big words. Apparently, 'illicit', 'elegy', 'nonchalant', and 'precocious' are considerably big words for the oafish monster, and I find it strange that this level of literacy is present in a group of fans that allegedly have GPAs of 3.5 or higher, but I digress.
Taylor Swift has never been one paycheck away from destitution. Taylor Swift has never experienced racial discrimination. She may have instances of gender discrimination, but she possesses the ideal white, blonde American beauty standard and therefore reaps the benefits of being a conventionally attractive woman. Taylor Swift has sufficient social capital. Taylor Swift is a billionaire woman prolonging her victimhood though she, as a woman, has mostly had control over her image and music (unlike her contemporaries). Taylor Swift is NOT entitled to be championed for her "female rage", nor should she be. Taylor Swift has never even been the struggling artist, for fuck's sake. I don't give a fuck if she's trying to fill the empty lunch tables of her past. Taylor Swift purporting herself, her unpolished album, and her lukewarm feminism as a musical bleeding with female rage is asinine.

Sigh Try and Come For My Job, Poors

Out there in the world right now is a 23-year-old woman, a recent college grad, who works as a barista. She has to wake up and get ready to go into a minimum wage job because she cannot get a job in her field. She doesn't have healthcare benefits or sick time, so she has to go into work no matter how she's feeling. All day long she is berated by vicious customers and creepy men, and, exhausted from being on her feet, she knows she has to go home to her shitty roommate that never does the dishes and her roommate's shitty dog. To comfort herself, she considers getting a treat, but thinks against it when she remembers that matcha lattes cost $15 and they taste like milky dirt. She knows that she needs to buy groceries this week, and so the woman resolves to go home, but notices that her gas tank is low. She goes to put gas in the car, but the pump stops at $27.86 because that's all that she has in her checking account. The woman, bereft and reeling, sinks into the driver's seat. "Well," she thinks, her head in her hands, "at least I don't have Taylor Swift's job. I just couldn't imagine."
Fame is somewhat of a choice. If at any moment Taylor feels that she is misunderstood, misconstrued, or overwhelmed by public opinion, she can LEAVE the public eye - Lord knows she has the retirement fund and residuals to do so. In "I Can Do It With a Broken Heart", the TTPD song about meeting the demands of your career-zenith mega-tour while in the relationship trenches, Taylor ends the song by rambling,
"You know you're good when you can even do it with a broken heart...you know you're good...and I'm good, cause I'm miserable, and no one even knows!...try and come for my job."
Yeah, obviously we wouldn't know, you recently passed the billionaire threshold and are the most famous and in-demand performer in the world right now. Taylor Swift makes an estimated $10 to $13 million dollars A NIGHT on the Eras Tour. Furthermore, the Eras Tour movie grossed $261.6 million globally, (which, as the producer, Taylor takes home 57% of the ticket sales) not counting the streaming revenue from Amazon Prime Video and the estimated $75 million deal that Disney paid to have it on Disney+. We're not even considering the income from cheap plastic popcorn buckets and drink cups plastered with colored squares in her Era-specific likeness.
It's funny. Taylor Swift often said that being famous wasn't hard, that she "isn't complaining". I'm sure it is difficult to always have to present in a good mood, else you'll end up misrepresented in the media, and I'm sure it's invasive to virtually have no privacy or semblance of anonymity. Still, Taylor Swift shows up each night of tour and performs. For a majority of her career, she has penned her sad songs while on the road. Most of "Red", her breakup album, was written in the thick of the Speak Now World tour. Now, some Swifties say they almost "feel bad" for attending the Eras Tour with Swift's revelations in this song, that they have had a 'dimmed experience' upon hearing Taylor's misery whilst performing. Despite the fact that Taylor said that "this was the happiest she's ever been" at Gilette Stadium in May, the lyrics "boohoo, woe is me, smile for the cameras and make the fans happy!!!" are jarring for Eras attendees.
While Taylor Swift was making double-digit millions a night in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and feeling miserable, Ana Clara Benevides Machado passed away due to heat exposure. The concert promoters, Time For Fun, are now the subject of a criminal investigation due to their lack of adequate hydration and safety. Taylor Swift cancelled the Sunday show that was to follow and offered VIP tent tickets to Benevides Marchado's family, which was a kind gesture, but perhaps incongruous to the incident of which they were offered as consolation. Everyone grieves differently, of course, but I'm not sure attending the very show at the very same venue that my daughter or sister passed away in two days prior, where the singer CONTINUED the show despite her death, would be healthy for closure.
There was no female rage at the show as Swift never saw Benevides Machado pass out. There was no female rage towards the disregard for fans as humans while Swift elected to proceed with her Brazil tour dates despite the country being in historic heatwaves (at risk of overheatting herself). If Taylor Swift was so shaken by touring with a broken heart or a fan's passing, she wouldn't have added an additional North American leg of Eras just two months after the Matty breakup. She's brokenhearted but willing to mend the cracks with your money and move onward with her worldwide female rage induced pillaging.
No matter what happens, even if you die at a Taylor Swift concert, Taylor collects a big fat check and flies away. She doesn't know you as anything other than a conversion rate or earning potential despite what her nearly 20-year long parasocial relationship with fans might otherwise indicate. She knows that, while some Swifties are without disposable income, they feel obligated to spend on a "48 Hours Only!" exclusive vinyl variant instead of necessities because they are so entrenched in Taylor Swift's intoxicating celebrity, they'll prioritize materialistic fandom before their needs. This is good enough for her because this means she can expand her real estate portfolio and finance her cat's lavish lifestyles. They're worth an estimated $100 million dollars. Her three cats could pool their net worth and solve world hunger.
While you and I might be denied bereavement leave and barely surviving the current political and economic climate, Taylor Swift has to, instead of gets to, perform for stadiums at full attendance for three nights in a row across the globe. You and I might be replaced by AI at our longtime jobs, but Taylor Swift is threatened with losing more and more money each time you listen to a "Stolen Version" of her songs. If we don't buy every variant of all of her albums, then who is going to pay for the fucking cats?
It is tone deaf to spend as she spends and lives as she lives in this economy, but this is her reality. She was able to donate $100,000 to all of her tour truck drivers, and that's wonderful, but it leads me to wonder about the ethos of the 2020s where one woman can hoard such life-changing amounts of money. Remember in 2014 when she gave a fan $90 ($120 in today's money) to get Chipotle because she had no fucking clue how much it cost? This is a 34-year-old woman who is increasingly out of touch with the reality for working class people and women in general. Normal everyday adults must wake up and go to their thankless jobs, and yet Taylor Swift, despite all her riches, incessantly references the lows of her life and career as a public figure and entertainer to farm sympathy and drive sales. And still, the corporate women have latched onto "I cry a lot, but I am so productive! It's an art!" as their cubicle battle cry.
Do you think that, from up in her private jet, Taylor Swift gazes at the world through her poetic, tortured eyes, and thinks, "All the little people, in their cars, walking, going about their lives...all those girls that don't support girls...do they know that I've made an album about female rage?"

Conclusion/TLDR

Thank you for reading. I would love to hear your critical insights towards this entire ordeal: TTPD, the trademark, the implications of it all.
TLDR: Taylor Swift is a bad feminist and is delusional to think that the TTPD eras set exemplifies female rage at women's injustice.
submitted by Ill_Variation_2480 to travisandtaylor [link] [comments]

2024.05.14 18:19 HeidiInWonderland Busted and house arrest

9:30am PA announcement for Heidi Goldstein to report to Ms. French's office. Embarrassing, class staring at me.
Waiting around the table for me was Ms. French, Coach (!), the dean (!!)...and Mom (!!!). Faces were not friendly.
Me: Mom, why are you here? Is Dad OK? Lita?
Mom: Everyone is fine.
Me: Am I in trouble? Did I do anything wrong?
Silence
Dean: We received an anonymous tip this morning, Heidi. The person claims you are engaging in behavior that could be dangerous to yourself or others. By law, we are required to investigate any and all such claims, whether or not they are anonymous.
Me: Whaaaat??? Who reported me? Why? Self-harm myself? Harm others? How? I love my school and also feel blessed for every single aspect of my life, from the time I wake up to the time I go to sleep. How can I be self-harming?
Dean: Coach, can you provide some background?
Coach: Two weeks ago I met with you and Lita. You talked about wanting to train to run the 10K. Do you remember what I said?
Me: Yes. You said I would need clearance from my doctor and I would have to do cross training with a certified coach.
Coach: Did you follow up?
Me: Yes, Lita and I spoke to our parents and they said they would support us. We've been researching gyms with a pool and with the right equipment. And also trainers who are certified.
Dean: But did you fulfill what you promised?
Me: No, but it is all in the works. There was just no time in our schedules to finalize the details yet.
Coach: The person who filed the complaint said you started training for the 10K on your own. Is this true?
Me: Yes, but just on weekends on our own time. Why does that matter? Why is that your business, Coach? It's my time.
Coach: Didn't I tell you about how much physical stress is involved in this type of training? It's not simply 5K + 5K. If you do not train carefully, you can injure yourselves very seriously. I am sure that your doctor would probably recommend that you even consult with a cardiologist.
Me: But before the track meets we were running well past the 5K together with you!
Coach: Gently. Under my supervision. With me walk/running in the pack, right there.
Ms. French: And, God forbid, if you had gone into cardiac arrest and died on the "it's-none-of-your-business" run, don't you think it would harm every single person in our school community, not to mention all of your family members and friends?
Me: I see where you are going with this. I understand. I'm sorry and accept responsibility.
Coach: And didn't we go through something just like this when Lita came early to the Morning Run after already doing unsupervised training? And didn't you observe her getting suspended for a week? Didn't you learn from that? You broke the trust between a coach and the athlete. That trust is not easily restored.
Me: OK. I get it. I apologize again. I deserve a suspense from the Morning Run.
Ms. French: It's not so simple, Honey. You observed Lita's punishment, right? That constitutes being forewarned and you went ahead and did virtually the same thing again on your own.
Dean: Agreed. I think we need to go further than suspending you from the Morning Run. I think a 2-day suspension from school is warranted.
Me: You can't do that to me! I'm a straight A student. I've read the Citywide Student Code for Behavior. Since when is doing more than expected a violation of "Rights and Responsibilities"?
Dean: Heidi, you said you understood, but you didn't digest what your coach said five minutes ago! You are now in denial. I don't think you have learned anything from what was just said to you. It's now a 3-day suspension.
Me: But I have important rehearsals in Jazz Band. And we are doing such an important project in Global History and Geography. You can't do this to me!
Dean: There are consequences for our actions. Should there be different standards for straight A students?
Me: Yes! We deserved it!
Dean: You are now insubordinate and bordering on racism and and classism. You are overentitled and talk too much. It's a 4-day suspension now. Anything else to say? I can go up to 10 days.
Me: This is so unfair. I don't want a suspension on my record!
Mom: Heidi, shut up. It's time for us to go home.
Dean: I am concluding this hearing at 10:05am. Thank you, everyone.
Here is actually when Mom came to my aid.
Mom: Wait a second. As you know, I'm an attorney and know that my daughter has due process rights. You did not provide me with written notification that this would be a suspense hearing rather than a guidance intervention. We are going to appeal this decision and we will win even at the first level. Come on, Heidi, let's go.
Ms. French: First go straight to your locker, Heidi, and get your things. No talking or signaIing to your friends. I will have your teachers email you your assignments and homework.
As I was leaving I saw Ms. French sit down with Mom. This what came out on our walk home.
Mom: You know, you can really be arrogant and self-righteous, Heidi, and you made things worse for yourself! Couldn't you read what was happening there? Couldn't you tell you were dealing with a Dr. Andrews with that Dean? Did you get enough of an adrenaline rush to make a couple of extra suspense days and a new enemy worthwhile?
You and Lita never even told us that you were trying to break the 5K unsupervised. You broke our trust as well. You guys promised to never endanger the family with your behavior. That is exactly what you just did. They were absolutely right in suspending you.
And there are going to be consequences at home. I will have to talk to your father and Lita's parents but for now you are completely grounded until your suspension is over on Friday. We are talking about house arrest. And that means no sleepovers. And don't you dare roll your eyes, pout, or start acting like you are a victim.
And do you know what Ms. French shared with me after everyone else left? It was how much she and Coach have come to love you over the course of your year at the school, that this is just a learning experience, and I shouldn't be too tough on you. It seems that a lot of planning went into that little meeting we just left. I suspect that out of respect for you, they intentionally neglected to provide me with that due process notification so you could win an appeal and the suspense won't be on your record. There's a lot for you to reflect on.
I'm going back to work.
Me: You're right, Mom. I love you. But can't you spend the day with me?
Mom: No, I can't. Go commiserate with Frank Sinatra.
But she did give me a wink and kiss.
submitted by HeidiInWonderland to LoHeidiLita [link] [comments]

2024.05.14 15:01 wisdomperception Making the Breakthrough (SN 56.32)

Making the Breakthrough (SN 56.32)
Just as it’s impossible to keep water in a basket of pine needles, it’s impossible to end suffering without penetrating the four noble truths.
A container for carrying water made with lotus leaves depicted in a Japanese woodblock printing style
"Bhikkhus, if someone were to say: 'Without truly understanding the noble truth of suffering, without truly understanding the noble truth of the origin of suffering, without truly understanding the noble truth of the cessation of suffering, and without truly understanding the noble truth of the path leading to the cessation of suffering, I will completely end suffering' — it is not possible.
Just as, bhikkhus, if someone were to say: 'I will make a container out of acacia leaves, or pine leaves, or tamarind leaves, and with it, I will fetch water or carry palm fruit' — it is not possible; similarly, bhikkhus, if someone were to say: 'Without truly understanding the noble truth of suffering, the origin of suffering, the cessation of suffering, and the path leading to the cessation of suffering, I will completely end suffering' — it is not possible.
However, bhikkhus, if someone were to say: 'By truly understanding the noble truth of suffering, by truly understanding the noble truth of the origin of suffering, by truly understanding the noble truth of the cessation of suffering, and by truly understanding the noble truth of the path leading to the cessation of suffering, I will completely end suffering' — it is indeed possible.
Just as, bhikkhus, if someone were to say: 'I will make a container out of lotus leaves, or Butea leaves, or Hibiscus leaves, and with it, I will fetch water or carry palm fruit' — it is indeed possible; similarly, bhikkhus, if someone were to say: 'By truly understanding the noble truth of suffering, the origin of suffering, the cessation of suffering, and the path leading to the cessation of suffering, I will completely end suffering' — it is indeed possible.
Therefore, here, bhikkhus, effort should be made to understand: 'This is suffering. This is the path leading to the cessation of suffering'."
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The Buddha encouraged his students to inquire into suffering: to see its presence across all of one's experiences, to understand its cause, and the way of practice that leads to its cessation.
He personally inquired into this actively for over a period of 6 years, and then shared teachings for over 45-years helping his students be able to do the same. The key aspects of what he found and shared as I understand are:
  • This inquiry encompasses all of the intelligent inquiries that a being can make, and is of the highest consequence and relevance.
  • The cessation of suffering is also the ending of a life lived under the influence of craving/desire/attachment. It is not death or extinction, rather a new life that knows no death: which is lived with wisdom and mindfulness.
  • The way of practice to realize this is gradual, the benefits realized are gradual, the ceasing of operating under the influence of craving/desire/attachments is gradual, the cultivation of wisdom is gradual and even the experience of the state of enlightenment itself is gradual.
  • That Enlightenment can be experienced only for oneself: and it is a state of joy that is independent of all conditions, where one has blossoming relationships, is operating with ease in the world, is freed from beliefs about "self", has a high degree of concentration and is able to recollect what was said and done long ago (has sharp mindfulness).
#1. The Noble Truth of Suffering (dukkha, discontentment, Stress)
The Five Aggregates of form, feeling, perception, volitional formations, and consciousness are subject to clinging (grasping, holding on, attachment, involvement). These aggregates, which constitute what an ordinary person perceives as 'self,' are impermanent and subject to change. The misunderstanding of their nature—clinging to them as if they are stable and permanent—leads to discontentment, stress, suffering, sorrow, lamentation. This truth encourages us to recognize the inherently unsatisfactory nature of conditioned experiences.
The five aggregates are what makes a living being a living being, i.e. all living beings have these five aggregates, e.g. humans, animals. In contrast, non-living beings do not have all five of these aggregates, e.g. plants, AI, Covid virus.
#1. The noble truth of discontentment should be understood Picture credit: https://twitter.com/AlexJenkinsArt/status/1750174065954811930
The five aggregates are:
  1. Form: the physical body
  2. Feeling: pleasant, painful, neither painful-nor-pleasant feeling experienced due to contact at one of the six sense bases
  3. Perception: a belief or opinion based on how things seem, experienced due to contact at one of the six sense bases. Perceptions can be of forms, sounds, odors, tastes, tactile sensations, and mental objects (ideas)
  4. Volitional formations: Intentions, choices, decisions. Volitional formations can be relating to forms, sounds, odors, tastes, tactile sensations, and mental objects (ideas)
  5. Consciousness: The subjective awareness. There is eye-consciousness, ear-consciousness, nose-consciousness, tongue-consciousness, body-consciousness and mind-consciousness.
Verifying discontentment in the here and now:
On contact through the six sense doors: on eye (seeing forms), ear (hearing sounds), nose (smelling odors), tongue (tasting flavors), body (tactile sensations, touch), mind (mental objects, idea), a living being experiences either a pleasant, painful or a neither-painful-nor-pleasant type of feeling. This is often accompanied by perceptions of the same:
  1. Pleasant feeling: Feeling/Perception of happiness, excitement, joy, elation, thrill, exhilaration, euphoria
  2. Painful feeling: Feeling/Perception of sadness, anger, frustration, irritation, annoyance, guilt, shame, fear, stress
  3. Neither painful-nor-pleasant feeling: Feeling/Perception of boredom, loneliness, melancholy, shyness, displeased, uncomfortable, unsatisfactoriness
These feelings and perceptions, including those of happiness, excitement, joy, elation, thrill, euphoria; being impermanent, have the characteristic of discontentment.
Across all contacts that a "being" who is not enlightened has, the experience of discontentment is present and it is possible to become aware of it. Under the mistaken belief of seeing the impermanent pleasant and agreeable feelings and perceptions to be permanent, living beings operate based on craving/desire/attachment. This however typically leads to furthering of conflict in one's relationships, to dis-integrated experiences that grow over time, and to burdensome beliefs/assumptions. Beings operating in such a way find themselves entrenched by what is seen, heard and assumed.
Here are a few exercises to aid with cultivating an understanding of impermanence:
  1. Visualise the life you have spent till now as a number of days. What is the perception of the time that has gone by: Does it appear as whole on reflection, or perhaps mere minutes or seconds? Although many experiences felt that they would last "forever", one can observe through reflection that they arose, they changed, and they passed away. This is the universal truth of impermanence.
  2. Next, visualise the life you've likely remaining to spend based on median life span where you live at, as the number of days: Does it appear that one has "forever" (a lot of time) still left? If so, this is the mind not understanding the universal truth of impermanence. Perception of youth, health, and life, leads one to complacency, leads one to indulge in sensual pleasures.
  3. Cultivating mindfulness of death, contemplating the likely manner in which one may die, coming to terms with the impermanent nature of life is what arises diligence, a desire to learn about that which is not subject to impermanence, and towards building of a life practice that helps with this. A teaching to aid in cultivating mindfulness of death
Abiding in jhānas and cultivating mindfulness of the body through a dedicated gradual practice of the gradual training guidelines (based on MN 107) enables one to investigate into the nature of impermanence of the five aggregates. For it is due to seeing permanence where there is impermanence that the aggregates become subject to clinging (grasping, holding on).
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2024.05.14 13:44 Remote-Cartoonist460 What Is a Health Maintenance Organization (HMO)?

What Is a Health Maintenance Organization (HMO)?
An individual who needs to secure health insurance may find a variety of insurance providers with unique features. One type of insurance provider that is popular on the Health Insurance Marketplace is a Health Maintenance Organization (HMO), an insurance structure that provides coverage through a network of physicians.
health insurance - owntic
Key Differences Between HMO Plans and PPO Plans
There are several key differences between HMO plans and Preferred Provider Organization (PPO) plans. With an HMO plan, your primary care physician (PCP) will refer you to specialists, and you must stay within a network of providers to receive coverage. On the other hand, HMO plans typically have lower premiums than PPO plans.
Key Takeaways
What is an HMO?: A Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) is a network or organization that provides health insurance coverage through a network of doctors and other healthcare providers for a monthly or annual fee.
Coverage Limitations: An HMO limits coverage to certain providers within its network.
Lower Premiums: HMO contracts allow for lower premiums, but they also add additional restrictions for HMO members.
Primary Care Physician Requirement: HMO plans require you to first receive medical care services from a primary care physician (PCP).
Alternative Health Plans: Preferred Provider Organizations (PPOs) and Point-of-Service (POS) plans are two types of healthcare plans that serve as alternatives to HMOs.
How a Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) Works
HMOs provide health insurance coverage for a monthly or annual fee. An HMO limits member coverage to medical care provided through a network of doctors and other healthcare providers who are under contract with the HMO. These contracts allow for premiums to be lower than those for traditional health insurance, since the healthcare providers benefit from having patients directed to them. However, these contracts also add additional restrictions for the HMO’s members.
Factors to Consider When Choosing an HMO Plan
When deciding whether to choose an HMO plan, you should consider:
The cost of premiums
Out-of-pocket costs
Any requirements you may have for specialized medical care
Whether it’s important to you to have your own primary care physician (PCP)
Rules for HMO Subscribers
HMO subscribers pay a monthly or annual premium to access medical services within the organization’s network of providers, but they are limited to receiving their care and services from doctors within the HMO network. However, some out-of-network services, including emergency care and dialysis, can be covered under the HMO.
Those who are insured under an HMO may have to live or work in the plan’s network area to be eligible for coverage. In cases where a subscriber receives urgent care while out of the HMO network region, the HMO may cover the expenses. But HMO subscribers who receive non-emergency, out-of-network care have to pay for it out of pocket.
In addition to low premiums, there are typically low or no deductibles with an HMO. Instead, the organization charges a co-pay for each clinical visit, test, or prescription.
Role of the Primary Care Physician (PCP)
The insured party must choose a PCP from the network of local healthcare providers under an HMO plan. A PCP is typically an individual’s first point of contact for all health-related issues. This means that an insured person cannot see a specialist without first receiving a referral from their PCP.
However, certain specialized services may not require a referral. For example, screening mammograms in most cases will not require a doctor’s referral.
Specialists to whom PCPs typically refer insured members are within the HMO coverage, so their services are covered under the HMO plan after co-pays are made. If a PCP leaves the network, subscribers are notified and are required to choose another PCP from within the HMO plan.
HMO Regulation
HMOs are regulated by both states and the federal government. The McCarran-Ferguson Act of 1945 established that states regulate the insurance industry, and no federal law overrides state regulation unless it explicitly does so.
As such, regulation of health insurance is largely left to the states, though legislation—such as the HMO Act of 1973 and the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974—can bring some aspects of the health insurance business under the purview of the federal government.
That said, the federal government does maintain some oversight of HMOs. The 2010 Dodd-Frank Act created the Federal Insurance Office (FIO), which can monitor all aspects of the insurance industry.
The Affordable Care Act of 2010 created an agency charged with overseeing the implementation of the act's provisions, called the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight (CCIIO).
HMO vs. Preferred Provider Organization (PPO)
A Preferred Provider Organization (PPO) is a medical care plan in which health professionals and facilities provide services to subscribed clients at reduced rates. PPO medical and healthcare providers are called preferred providers.
PPO participants are free to use the services of any provider within their network. Out-of-network care is available, but it costs more to the insured. In contrast to PPO plans, HMO plans require that participants receive healthcare services from an assigned provider. PPO plans usually have deductibles, while HMO plans usually do not.
Both programs allow for specialist services. However, the designated PCP must provide a referral to a specialist under an HMO plan. PPO plans are the oldest and—due to their flexibility and relatively low out-of-pocket costs—have been the most popular managed healthcare plans. That has been changing, however, as plans have reduced the size of their provider networks and taken other steps to control costs.
HMO vs. Point-of-Service (POS)
A Point-of-Service (POS) plan is like an HMO plan in that it requires a policyholder to choose an in-network PCP and get referrals from that doctor if they want the plan to cover a specialist’s services. A POS plan is also like a PPO plan in that it still provides coverage for out-of-network services, but the policyholder has to pay more for those services than if they used in-network providers.
However, a POS plan will pay more toward an out-of-network service if the policyholder gets a referral from their PCP than if they don’t secure a referral. The premiums for a POS plan fall between the lower premiums offered by an HMO and the higher premiums of a PPO.
POS plans require the policyholder to make co-pays, but in-network co-pays are often just $10 to $25 per appointment. POS plans also do not have deductibles for in-network services, which is a significant advantage over PPOs.
Also, POS plans offer nationwide coverage, which benefits patients who travel frequently. A disadvantage is that out-of-network deductibles tend to be high for POS plans, so patients who use out-of-network services will pay the full cost of care out of pocket until they reach the plan’s deductible. However, a patient who never uses a POS plan’s out-of-network services probably would be better off with an HMO because of its lower premiums.
If you don’t travel frequently, you’ll be better off with an HMO plan than a POS plan because of the lower costs.
Advantages and Disadvantages of HMOs
It’s important to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of HMO plans before you choose a plan, just as you would with any other option. Here are some of the most common pros and cons of the program:
Pros
Lower Out-of-Pocket Costs: You’ll pay fixed premiums on a monthly or annual basis that are lower than traditional forms of health insurance. These plans tend to come with low or no deductibles, and your co-pays are generally lower than other plans. Your out-of-pocket costs will also be lower for your prescriptions. Billing also tends to be less complicated.
Primary Care Physician Directing Your Treatment: You'll have a PCP who you choose and who is responsible for managing your treatment and care. This professional will also advocate for services on your behalf, including making referrals for specialty services for you.
Higher Quality of Care: The quality of care is generally higher with an HMO plan because patients are encouraged to get annual physicals and seek out treatment early.
Cons
Must Use Medical Professionals in the Plan’s Network: You’re restricted on how you can use the plan. You’ll have to designate a doctor who will be responsible for your healthcare needs, including your primary care and referrals. However, this doctor must be part of the network. This means that you are responsible for any costs incurred if you see someone out of the network, even if there’s no contracted doctor in your area.
No Specialist Visits Without a Referral: You’ll need referrals for any specialists if you want your HMO to pay for any visits. If you need to visit a rheumatologist or a dermatologist, for example, your PCP must make a referral before you can see one for the plan to pay for your visit. If not, you’re responsible for the entire cost.
Emergencies Must Meet Certain Conditions: There are very specific conditions that you must meet for certain medical claims, such as emergencies. For instance, there are usually very strict definitions of what constitutes an emergency. If your condition doesn’t fit the criteria, then the HMO plan won’t pay.
Examples of HMOs
Almost every major insurance company provides an HMO plan. For instance, Cigna and Humana provide their own versions of the HMO. Aetna offers individuals two options: the Aetna HMO and the Aetna Health Network Only plan.
The main benefits are cost and quality of care. People who purchase HMO plans benefit from lower premiums than traditional forms of health insurance. This allows insured parties to get a higher quality of care from providers who are contracted with the organization. HMOs
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2024.05.14 13:01 FelicitySmoak_ On This Day in Michael Jackson HIStory - May 14th

On This Day in Michael Jackson HIStory - May 14th
1975 - Michael had a private meeting with Berry Gordy to discuss the Jackson Five's future & after being denied creative freedom once again, the brothers started shopping for a new record deal. The Jackson Five had begun to ask to produce, write and record their own material in the previous year but all their requests for creative control had been denied.
1985 - Michael met Ronald & Nancy Reagan at White House for the launch of a campaign against driving under the influence of alcohol. In the spring of 1984, Michael's team received a call from the Secretary of Transportation, Elizabeth Dole, asking for Michael to give "BEAT IT" as background music for a television commercial and a 35 second radio spot on the dangers of driving a car under the influence of alcohol.
Even though the initiative was initially rejected by Michael, once he meditated a bit, he explained to his representative, John Branca
"You know what? If I can get some kind of prize from the White House then I will give them the song. How about?".
Intrigued, Branca asked: "Like what?"
Jackson listed: "I want to know the White House. I want to be on a stage with the president and receive an award from him. I want an event with children. And I also want to meet Nancy. All that. Why not? Can you get it? "
Branca was given the task of obtaining a positive response in the shortest time possible, which was not entirely difficult due to the fascination of the Reagans with show business. And so, the meeting was scheduled for the morning of 5/14/84
For such an important occasion, President Reagan dressed in a navy blue suit, a gray and navy blue striped tie & a white shirt. Nancy,on the other hand, chose a white suit, Adolfo brand, adorned with buttons and gold stripes. Nothing too spectacular to overshadow Michael's attire: an electric blue sequined jacket, adorned with sequined laces, a band of golden sequins, and epaulettes with golden sequins. He also wore his famous white sequined glove.
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Two thousand people in total, including officials, admirers and security met in the central garden to see Michael.
Once everyone was up on stage, the Republican president pointed out that:
"Michael Jackson is proof of what a person can accomplish through a lifestyle free of alcohol or drug abuse. People young and old can respect that. And if Americans follow his example, then we can face up to the problem of drinking and driving, and we can, in Michael's words, beat it."
- a brief speech of just 5 and a half minutes. Then he handed a plaque to Michael, a gesture that he thanked before the microphone with an even more brief intervention, saying a mere 13 words:
"I'm very, very honored. Thank you very much, Mr. President and Mrs. Reagan."
https://reddit.com/link/1crpctu/video/r07t0142k80d1/player
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During his tour of the halls of the presidential residence, he showed his fascination with a portrait of Andrew Jackson, dressed in a military suit very similar to the blue sequins he wore that day.
Until Michael's visit, only Elvis Presley, received this distinction, in 1970, when President Richard Nixon opened the doors of the Oval Office. Michael would return to the White House twice more during the terms of George W. Bush, Sr & Bill Clinton
https://reddit.com/link/1crpctu/video/o2x9r4cyj80d1/player
1985 - Michael Jackson received a royalty check from Epic Records for $53 Million for sales from his Thriller album.
1988- Michael is on the cover of Fresh! magazine
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1996- Michael visits Chateau de Pierrefonds in Northern France, rumors were he wanted to purchase a French chateau.
The Château de Pierrefonds, classified as a historic monument and managed by the Center des monuments nationaux, was not for sale. Michael was aware of this so his visit was simply a pleasure visit.
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The guides at the Château de Pierrefonds keep the memory of this arrival, completely unexpected, on 5/14/96. They speak with pleasure of this moment when the King of Pop arrived, surrounded by his bodyguards, to discover this castle worthy of fairy tales.
According to one of the guides, he arrived in a limousine which he parked in front of the village pharmacy. Michael, in fact, came in a station wagon type car which parked as close as possible to the entrance to the castle.
Wearing a red jacket and his mask, Michael arrived late in the morning when there were not too many people. However, it was school field trip time and a group of children were present. One of the guides explains that he then hid in a corner, near the stairs where the visit to the castle begins, so as not to be seen and disturbed
Michael paused for a long time in front of the model of the castle, located at the end of the guard room. Made in 1878 for the Universal Exhibition, this stone model built at 1/50 scale remains impressive (height: 145cm, width: 250 cm, length: 350 cm). Michael's bodyguards reportedly took a lot of photos and it is said that Michael asked for the plans of the model.
What is certain is that Michael had a model of the castle made for his Neverland ranch. It measured 269cm x 335cm x365 cm. A little larger than the model present at the castle. Michael's model sat in the middle of his living room, with, for a time, a framed photo of the castle on the wall.
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The model was one of the objects that Julien's Auctions wanted to sell at auction in 2009, before Michael prevented this sale.
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Although shy and discreet, Michael did not hesitate to pose for photos with the employees, who were quickly aware of his presence
Michael also leaves a strong memory of his visit with employees through his visit to the site's souvenir shop. He spent a large sum on history books, an amount which, according to the guide, “is not seen every day here” .
2004 - The Defense team, headed up by Thomas Mesereau, have decided to agree with the DA's Office of Santa Barbara to uphold the gag order in the case against Michael. Mesereau wrote that he and his client support the gag order and withdrew any objections to it made by Jackson's prior counsel.
In court documents filed , Attorney Theodore Boutrous, who represents the news organizations, criticized Santa Barbara County DA Thomas Sneddon's condemnation of the intense media coverage.
"Eliminating the gag order will ensure that more accurate information will be disseminated, and will reduce the amount of rumors, speculation and gossip about which the District Attorney complains," Boutrous wrote.
The news organizations have been annoyed by Sneddon's clampdown on information about the case. They have asked the California Supreme Court to overturn the gag order on the grounds that it violates the freedom of speech guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.
Thomas Sneddon and Gerald Franklin, filed a motion earlier in the week, to the California Supreme Court to uphold the gag order in this case. He argued that the media was hoping to profit by pandering to a "gossip-hungry readership." He proceeded to write in his letter, "Despite the perhaps inevitable leaks, the public knows little more about the facts of this case than that Michael Jackson has been indicted on serious charges and that a jury will be asked to consider the evidence that may be presented to determine his guilt or innocence based on that evidence. And that's the way it should be."
Mr. Sneddon's letter was a response to the media's attorneys that wanted the gag order lifted which was imposed by the sitting judge in the case, Superior Court Judge Rodney Melville. The gag order prohibits participants involved in the case to discuss any particulars about the case to the media.
Sneddon argued in his letter that the news organizations have no standing to challenge the gag order because it applies only to case participants, not the media. He also said that such an order is required in a case that has drawn sensational worldwide attention.
"What is reported as fact becomes the nucleus of intense speculation, conjecture and discussion among commentators, particularly in the tabloid media and the audience they appeal to," Sneddon wrote. "Gossip -- and the 'news' tidbits that are gossip's grist -- translate into income."
2009 - In the last Family gathering Michael, Prince, Paris & Blanket attend Katherine & Joe's 60th wedding anniversary at the Indian Restaurant, Chakra in Beverly Hills with the whole family including all the grandchildren. Randy is the only one not in attendance. This is when most of Jackson siblings saw Michael for the first time since the 2005 Trial.This is also the last time Michael will see most of his family, including Janet & LaToya
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2009 - AEG sent a 2nd email to Conrad Murray
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​
2012 - Katherine Jackson & Brett Livingstone Strong give an interview on Piers Morgan Tonight. They show some of Michael's artwork
Brett Livingstone Strong is the artist responsible for "The Book", the only portrait that Michael ever posed for
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2013- Day 11 of the Jackson vs Aeg Live trial
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2024.05.14 11:52 MirkWorks Notes on Recent Episode I

Here. And I’d like to start by noticing that Steve Sailer is obviously Delicious Taco’s dad. Having said this.
Good episode. Lots of engagement which I suppose is a net positive for all involved. Obviously a lot of the injury stems from a distortion. The episode’s content fantasized and in fantasy warped into something constituting a threat (no, an outright assault) to the listener’s person. One can simply listen to the episode and see that some (in fact the bulk) of the negative responses are from people reacting to some spectral absent-presence rather than to what is actually being said over the course of the 2 hour long episode. The voices and the discourse have instead been shaped into sonic receptacle containing the reflection of something wildly ugly. Injuriously ugly.
Past few days have been brutal. Found myself doom-viewing the main sub, should know better at this age. Feels like I’ve been transmogrified into an absurd and wretched thing. Must've transgressed against a gnome or something. Fascinating to think about.
I would like nothing more than to shame you.
Miami Summer is a killer. Urine is blood-orange. And my mother deserves better sons.
Why would A&D do this?
Witnessing the rankest comments. In bygone age I’d found them tolerable. Having imagined them delivered by high society homosexual. A damned dandy; chubby, sinister, and flamboyant. Capri on a stick limply held between index and middle fingers, twirling wrist ash’ing on expensive Persian rug. The blurry ghosts of his mother and the kid brother who drowned in the pond all those years ago glaring at him from far-off corner. Clearing throat he launches into sing-song slander head peeling back cackling at his own wickedness. Vile and venomous but charming. Instead what we get is 30+ year old mentally-ill men. Men whose Twitter activity has atrophied their cock and balls. Genitals withering away like the Worker's State, in its place a gasping cloaca, worry not I can clock em from miles away. The odious cloaca-havers are soon joined by ruined drug-addled children and the other women. They talk about A&D in disgusting ways. This is unfair and nasty. I confess to being angry. Sweating blood-specked kerosene. Let the scent fill up the empty air between us. My wrath singeing those overgrown nose hairs.
Of the two I think Anna is the one that inspires the harshest parasocial spite. So much so that I’d recommend she take some protective measures against evil eye and tongue. Maybe take baths with hyssop herb, rose water perfume, and holy water.
It’s as if Anna Khachiyan is a Giant Floating Vagina with teeth and a noticeable overbite. Viewed from another angle it transforms into a Madonna encircled by cherubim. Perhaps we are cruel to Anna in order to be kind to our mothers.
All very pre-Oedipal.
Had to step back and parse it out. Anna draws a comparison between herself and Sailer while also asking him a great question,
07:12-07:49
Anna: “I started reading it during the pandemic because it was the pandemic. I was pregnant and bored and I really relate to you as a person who everyone thinks is like evil and monstrous on the internet, but is actually like quite agreeable and mild mannered in real life. And I was going to ask you this question last, but I may as well just ask it now. How do you feel about your new found popularity? And especially, how do you feel about the fact that you have been effectively adopted by or identified with the hard right?”
The first part of the above extract, the sympathetic recognition, brings to mind a bit of 20th century Hermetic theory concerning harmful thought-forms. Our unconscious self-destructive impulses animating the fantasy-phantasm of the other. Inhabiting their shape. Gaining a degree of autonomy. This artificial entity is vampiric by default, provoking what the Czech magician Franz Bardon calls a "magical persecutory complex"... He goes into detail about such entities in Step VI of his seminal work, Initiation into Hermetics. Describing different types of artificial elementals and phantasms along with details on how to consciously go about creating and dissipating them. One of those artificial psychic entities, the one that concerns us, he calls the schemata. Bardon details two variants, one connected with paranoid persecutory fantasies and the other with erotic obsession. The first type comes about when someone who is “easily excitable, easily influenced or self-important” (Narcissist?) has a run in with another person who has, to put it mildly, a memorable visage and dark personality. The schemata is born from the phantasm modeled after this demonic-looking disagreeable person. The victim begins to attribute all kinds of minor inconveniences to the influence of the ugly person. Deludes themselves into thinking that the ugly/disagreeable person is a powerful black magician. Everything appears to reinforce their paranoid delusions. The schema grows in power feeding off the anxieties of their creatohost. The person might end up committing suicide. This was the persecutory schemas desire, having achieved its goal Bardon notes, “how great is the shock when such a spirit realizes on the mental plane that he has committed a very successful magical suicide. What a bitter disappointment! The demonic looking person, however, has no idea what happened; he was actually only the means to an end.”
God gave us eyes so that we might notice things.
The way I see it:
Being social animals the subject of our fantasy, of our fixations, is the fantasy of the other. What makes the human Human is not that we desire but rather that we desire the desire of the other. An excess desire. We fantasize about what the other is fantasizing and enjoying. Our fantasy of the fantasy of the other is the outlines a fundamental lack within our person, a negativity. Experienced as a splitting of consciousness. Intuiting this lack, becoming aware of it, and attempting to articulate it, we are self-consciousness. This negativity or void is in psychoanalytic terms, the unconscious. We likewise intuit that there had once been some original state. One without lack and contradiction. A state of fullness, without the division between self and object. A harmonious whole. A pure consciousness or as Freud refers to it in Civilization and its Discontents an oceanic feeling. The Original Desire, one that is authentically my own, which was not the desire of the other but which unites our desires in itself. This desire is the extinction of all desires.
The eye that perceives the lovely is at once the eye that perceives what I lack. Perceiving this lack, which explains my present condition, I covet. This is an evil eye. The lover’s gaze is of the same type as the infirm or pathic gaze. Reminded of Zizek’s formulation of one of Hegel’s insights, “Evil resides in the very gaze which perceives Evil all around itself" itself a variation of Meister Eckhart’s “the eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me.” The recognition of evil, the ability to see and judge evil, stems from our ability to recognize disparity. This disparity is already present within our own person, the split-consciousness. The feeling cognized, the awareness of our condition as beings separated from the whole. The clairvoyance of the tyrant and the philosopher.
Suppose that psychopathology is born from our inability to recognize an image as an image.
I intuit something more in this person, something they’re hiding. It can’t just be envy, no. It has to be because I can feel that this thing they’re hiding is sinister. It can’t just be that I feel animosity towards this person, no. It has to be because this person is evil and not just an isolated evil but rather a symptom of a much larger evil. An evil that is responsible for all the suffering in the World, for why my World isn’t the way it should be. It can’t just be attraction, no. It has to be that I intuit something more in this person, something hidden, that I must destroy in order to go on living.
If vile shit comes to mind (as vile things often do, especially when one is immersed in ambient algorithmically-summoned vileness, namely outrage and atrocity porn) they won't affirm it to themselves or try to justify or rationalize it or present it as a rational political stance. And they don’t abstract this particular form of vileness into the primary lens through which they view and interpret cultural phenomena. Unreflexive racial animosity is ugly and fetid. We’re capable of recognizing it, feeling it, as something pathological. We’re also capable of laughing at it. Laughing at ourselves. Look at what our ladies have to say about Stuart Seldowitz (the dude who went viral harassing a halal street vendor) in I’ll Be Missinger. “He sucks,” “he’s a loser,” “he’s obviously sick,” and that he gives the impression of someone who lives alone, will die alone, and will be found weeks or even months after the fact.
Perhaps Red Scare is special in how it manages to elicit absurd, wildly inappropriate responses from listeners. Vulgar and revelatory was it? Steve Sailer elicits a similar response and has become an expert in turning said absurd reactions to his advantage. Generally the cooler-head in any given exchange. While the other person shouts obscenities at a ghost, smashing fists against the post, looking crazy, like a proper hysteric. Sailer breaks the fourth-wall, making eye-contact with the would-be noticer, with a little shake of the head, a little chuckle, a little shrug… “you’re noticing right? See what I have to put up with? Imagine these people defining my legacy.” Still he seems to take it with the good humor of an uncle who will still call you on your birthday, despite your drunken outburst during holiday get-together he will admit to not having resisted the temptation to provoke you, it use to be fun, recall all the cool bands I introduced you too? We use to be best buds, “do you really think anything I’ve said merits this sort of response? Honestly?”
Has to be a cheap trick. A technique employed by an old trickster in decades long honing of craft. Maybe not. Maybe what we see is precisely what we get. Most of the very upsetting things being jokes sincerely intended to lighten the mood. Steve Sailer doesn’t care about the particular political orientation of his audience. He just cares that he has an audience. Grateful for the fans he has. Nonetheless happy that they’re not seething malcontent racists. Even if one disagrees with the methodology, the heuristic, the conclusions. That’s secondary, perhaps even tertiary to the recognition sought. His craftsmanship as a writer.
Why I loved his conflict with Will Stancil. Stancil inspired a lot of pondering for me. Putting things in place…
01:29:22-01:29:28
Anna: “You come for the race science and stay for the prose-styling and vivid story-telling.”
In trying to survive as a writer exiled from Mainstream Conservative media (ConInc) during the Bush Jr years. In fact, correct me if I’m wrong but the cancelation that actually impacted Steve Sailer, setting him down the path we find him in, was brought about not by blue-haired hall monitor millennial leftists but by his “fellow” Conservatives. I imagine that he just went with whoever was willing to take him adapting to the editorial standards and audience sensibilities of the publications willing to provide him succor. Not charity mind you but an ability to engage in his own little labor of love.
Read some Sailer. Might get into that later. But that’s the initial impression I got from Steve. Would be utterly mortified if memorialized as a Racialist Ideologue rather than as an entertaining and thought-provoking journalist. Think I also benefited from seeing how he’s actually received by people who are navigating through (or in certain cases, are mired in) the marginal “Hard Right”-spaces or the Rightwing Digital Ghetto. End up realizing that he isn’t hateful, that what you see is precisely what you get, that he privileges craft over ideology, that his reception and exile from Neocon dominated media outlets (remember these are the people gushing ecstatic over the US invasion of Iraq, manufacturing consent for our adventures in the Middle East) was exceedingly unfair but that he nonetheless managed to persevere. And that he really never goes beyond Norm McDonald in terms of his sardonic wit or The Boondocks animated series in terms of his criticisms. His normality is a great source of stability and comfort for his readers; “noticing” and speculating about these topics doesn’t necessarily lead to one becoming a seething racist.
Returning for a moment to Will Stancil, this was what he inspired:
As the last man standing I spend countless hours immersed in detailed fantasies about the coming apocalypse and my enemy's bliss. A dumb and wicked happiness proportional to my suffering. Easy to imagine other people happy. Hearts unbroken. Unburdened, hydrated, sexually satisfied, debt-free, lucky, successful in all business endeavors. Brute, jezebel, schemer, parasite, rival, betrayer... the whole lot of them thriving. Frolicking in my mind's eye. When the time comes I won't forget that they were happy while...others...suffered.
Find that trying to void your mind of all thought or sit perfectly still for 10 minutes. End up feeling like something requires much less energy from us than nothing. Causes coalescing. Conspiring, to what ends?
You see. The very same principle appears to be at work here. Same pathological base that undergirds genuine racial or ethnic animosity. Fantasizing about the other’s enjoyment and being unable to distinguish between the persecutory Phantasm and the actual human being whose shape it appropriates.
Had a friend recommend forgetting. Forgetting is a dialectical exercise, first you have to acknowledge the thing living rent free in your head and acknowledge its origins... then you have to take the steps to stop feeding it. Letting the thought-form dissolve. Let it be put to rest. Reminded of the practice Orthodox Christian contemplatives call Nepsis.
Other approaches as well, acknowledging the presence of anima veiled in shadow.
But listen…
The podcasts I consume, are a reflection of me as a person. Being what I associate and consume. What does it say about me in particular? Reveal about me? That they should have Steve Sailer on the pod. Settling down. Perhaps some responses could be understood in this light. That a Sailer episode reflects poorly on the listener. Constituting a great betrayal of the love and energy and time I have dedicated over the years to you.
I’m not a racist.
Show me your likes on Twitter and I’ll tell you who you are. The most punitive and brutal god. The idea of the AI nu-god being this, utilizing that standard, is horrifying. Show me your likes on Twitter and I’ll tell you who you are, everything you are, and whether or not you qualify to live.
Shamed, I quietly remove the upvote I gave to the hysterical person and the downvote I gave to him.
Hysteria like a yawn is an empathic contagion.
Back to Anna it’s not because she’s ugly and it sucks that she might nurse this delusion. I actually think Anna is really pretty. Rather I think it’s because she’s a mom. She registers as a maternal figure. That’s one of the reasons I think people respond to her the way they do. As stated earlier. We are cruel to Anna in order to forgive our moms.
[To be continued: Wherein I say horrible things that should never be said to the people I claim to love. Will also interrogate Sailor Socialism]
submitted by MirkWorks to u/MirkWorks [link] [comments]

2024.05.14 08:28 calvinthesmurf Burrito/3-Pointer Help

Gonna start off by saying I love Chipotle and I’m utterly addicted. I’ve gone to my nearest chipotle everyday for the past 5 weeks and have gone very regularly before that for the past 11 years (again, I’m addicted).
I get the exact same thing every time I go: “Burrito, no rice, no beans, double chicken, cheese.”
That’s it! Well, that and a kids bag of chips.
I didn’t know what a 3-Pointer was until about about 5 years ago when a cashier rang me up for it and explained why they did (a Chicken 3-Pointer with extra Chicken). They said I should have been run up for it like that and I’ve been rung up like that ever since. About 8 months ago, my local chipotle went through a management change and ever since then it’s been very miss or hit when it comes to my usual order. Especially for the past few weeks, I’ll be rung up for a Chicken Burrito with Extra meat, sometimes I’ll get a regular scoop of chicken and get extra Al Pastor and I’ll get rung up for an Al Pastor Burrito with extra Al Pastor; even though it’s just chicken and cheese.
I personally hate complaining/confrontation with store employees in general so I just smile, pay for my food, and leave. However, after a month of this it’s kind of added up and has left me wondering whether I’m being ordered up wrong or there has been a change in policy. I asked an employee the other day what constitutes a three pointer and they said a serving of meat and anything other than guacamole and cheese because those are also 2 points. However, after reading other posts people are saying cheese is only 1 point. So idk.
Basically, my questions are:
❤️🌯
Edit: I replied to a few comments with the same copy and paste message, I didn’t feel like typing out the same thing 3 times. So far, corporate has said Cheese is 1 point. Reddit says 2 points.
submitted by calvinthesmurf to Chipotle [link] [comments]

2024.05.14 07:46 MelanieF1 Texas DUI Laws: Penalties and Defense Strategies

Texas DUI Laws: Penalties and Defense Strategies
https://preview.redd.it/ltjr12efsb0d1.jpg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3c4fdfceaec6d9a4b070971059d8f73347f603b6
Driving under the influence (DUI) in Texas carries substantial legal consequences, which can affect various aspects of a person's life. Understanding the nuances of these laws and the available defense strategies is crucial for anyone facing such charges in the state.
DUI Violations in Texas

Key Takeaways

  • Texas DUI laws are strict, with severe penalties for offenders, including hefty fines, license suspension, and potential jail time.
  • Defense strategies vary from questioning the legality of the stop to challenging the accuracy of breathalyzer tests.
  • Legal representation is crucial in navigating the complexities of DUI charges and ensuring a fair trial.

Understanding Texas DUI Laws

What Constitutes a DUI in Texas?

In Texas, DUI typically applies to individuals under 21 who operate a vehicle with any detectable level of alcohol. For adults over 21, the term DWI (Driving While Intoxicated) is used when their blood alcohol concentration (BAC) exceeds the legal limit of 0.08%​​.
Legal Consequences and Penalties
Penalties for DUI Offenses
The penalties for DUI/DWI in Texas escalate with each offense:
  • First-time offenders might face fines up to $2,000, up to 180 days in jail, and a license suspension for up to a year.
  • Subsequent offenses can lead to higher fines, longer jail time, and longer license suspensions​.

Aggravating Factors

Certain factors, such as having a minor in the vehicle, can exacerbate the penalties significantly​.
Tips when the police stop you

Defense Strategies for Texas DUI Charges

Challenging the Traffic Stop

One common defense strategy is to challenge the legality of the initial traffic stop. If the stop was deemed unjustified, the case might be dismissed​.

Questioning Test Accuracy

Another approach involves challenging the accuracy of breathalyzer or blood tests used to measure BAC. Issues like improper calibration or handling errors can invalidate the results​.

Rights of the Accused

Every individual charged with DUI has the right to remain silent and to attorney representation, which are crucial in protecting their interests during legal proceedings​​.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q1: What is the difference between DUI and DWI in Texas?

A: DUI generally applies to minors with any detectable alcohol, while DWI refers to adults with a BAC above the legal limit.

Q2: Can you refuse a breathalyzer test in Texas?

A: Yes, but refusal can lead to automatic license suspension and other penalties.

Q3: What are the consequences of a DUI with a child passenger?

A: This situation is considered a felony in Texas, leading to increased penalties including fines and potential jail time.

Q4: How can a DUI affect your future?

A: A DUI conviction can impact employment opportunities, increase insurance rates, and result in significant legal costs.
Celebrity Corner: Shannon Beador's DUI Incident: Legal Impacts
Penalties and Legal Processes

Immediate Legal Consequences

Upon arrest for a DUI, the immediate consequences can include jail time, court appearances, and fines. The administrative side involves dealing with the Texas Department of Public Safety for license issues​.
Understanding Traffic Stops: "Why did I get pulled over?"

Long-Term Impacts

Long-term effects of a DUI conviction can include difficulties in obtaining certain types of employment, higher insurance premiums, and potential international travel restrictions​​.

Navigating DUI Charges in Texas

To effectively navigate DUI charges, it is advisable to seek experienced legal counsel who can offer strategic defense options and guide you through the complexities of the legal system. Here are some additional resources:
Join the Conversation:
"Should DUI laws differentiate more clearly between alcohol and drug impairment?"
Share your experiences and stories with us.
submitted by MelanieF1 to LawOfficeBryanFagan [link] [comments]

2024.05.13 22:51 adventurepaul E-commerce Industry News Recap 🔥 Week of May 13th, 2024

Hi - I'm Paul and I follow the e-commerce industry closely for my Shopifreaks E-commerce Newsletter. Each week I post a summary recap of the week's top stories, which I cover in depth with sources in the full edition. Let's dive in...
___
STAT OF THE WEEK: Kohl's sales have shrunk by $2.3B since 2019. During that same period of time, the company lost 1.3M customers who no longer shop with the retailer.
___
BigCommerce is exploring a sale after attracting takeover interest, according to sources who chose to remain anonymous due to the confidentiality of the information. The sources said that BigCommerce asked investment bank Qatalyst Partners to solicit interest from potential buyers that include private equity firms, but that the discussions are at an early stage and no deal is certain.
___
Squarespace announced that it will be going private in a $6.9B all-cash deal with private-equity firm Permira, who agreed to pay $44 per share (a roughly 30% premium). Although Squarespace never lost 90% of its share price like BigCommerce, it has experienced a tumultuous time on the market since its IPO in May 2021 — opening around $49.50 and at times trading in the low $20s. Shares rose nearly 13% to $43 in pre-market trading upon release of the news.
___
ByteDance filed a lawsuit in US federal court seeking to block the new law that would force the sale or ban of the app within the country. The lawsuit challenges the law on constitutional grounds, also citing commercial, technical, and legal hurdles, as well as opposition from Beijing. Legal experts say the legal battle will play out in the courts in coming months and likely will reach the Supreme Court.
___
OpenAI unveiled its newest model, GPT-4o, designed to turn ChatGPT into a digital personal assistant that can engage in real-time, spoken conversations and interact with users using text, screenshots, photos, documents, and charts. The new version of ChatGPT also has memory capabilities, which means it can learn from previous conversations. It will be available to both unpaid and premium customers alike. OpenAI also announced that it would be launching a desktop app with the GPT-4o capabilities, giving users another platform to interact with the technology outside of a web browser.
___
Amazon launched in South Africa last week, marking its first marketplace in sub-Saharan Africa, and bringing its total number of marketplaces worldwide to 22. To launch the new marketplace, Amazon is offering free delivery on first orders and on subsequent orders above R500 (about $27), access to 3,000 pick-up points, status updates via WhatsApp to track orders, 30 day refunds, and 24/7 customer support. The marketplace was supposed to launch in the country in 2023, but got delayed due to changes in priorities within Amazon.
___
In an unlikely partnership, Instacart is partnering with Uber Eats to expand into the restaurant delivery business. Instacart will add a new tab for restaurant delivery to its app in the coming weeks, the listings will be provided by Uber, and the food will be picked up and delivered by Uber Eats drivers. Customers will receive the same prices on both apps and Instacart will receive an affiliate commission on orders. It's a strange partnership though given that Instacart and Uber Eats actively compete on grocery delivery. Are they planning to merge? Uber says no.
___
Apple's advertisement for its latest iPad Pro sparked criticism for showing an animation of musical instruments, paint cans, cameras, record players, and other symbols of creativity being crushed by a giant machine, with the output being the new iPad Pro, which the company says is the thinnest Apple product ever. In this context, “crushing” was supposed to symbolize “consolidating” and “compacting” — with the visuals meant to showcase how the new iPad Pro puts the power of all these tools into the hands of creators in one thin device. However online commenters criticized the ad as insensitive and as symbolizing a “destruction of the human experience.” The ad hit the web on Tuesday, and by Thursday, Apple issued a mea culpa and apologized for the campaign.
___
Google is encouraging merchants to enable conversion annotations on their Google Shopping ads, which offer social proof that highlight a product's popularity. Conversion annotations like “best selling” or “3K shopped here recently” would provide visual cues about a product’s popularity or sales performance directly in the ad unit. Annotations like these are par for the course with e-commerce retailers including Amazon, Walmart, and Temu, which all employ similar tactics. They can provide valuable info for shoppers and also help with conversions. However they also open data privacy concerns, given that Google is not the actual retailer or marketplace selling the items, so a merchant would have to share this purchase history data from their e-commerce platform with Google — which technically most already do by giving access to GA4.
___
Shein is attempting to join the National Retail Federation as it pursues regulatory approval to go public in the US. The company believes that NRF membership would boost its chances of receiving SEC approval. However so far, Shein has been rejected numerous times. An anonymous source familiar with the matter said someone with heavy influence at the NRF is strongly against the Shein's admittance. However board members who spoke to CNBC said that Shein's membership application hadn't come up in meetings, and that they aren't involved in deciding which companies are granted access.
___
Amazon is leading the way with selling home goods, capturing 18.8% of consumer home furnishings spending, compared to Walmart's 7.3% market share. Notably, Amazon’s gains in the furniture category come in spite of the company’s decision to phase out two of its three furniture brands last year.
___
Stanley, which is projected to do $750M in sales this year, up from $73M in 2019, after seeing its water bottles become a status symbol thanks to TikTok, is now expanding into trendier accessories. The company is launching a line of bags called the All-Day Collection which include a mini cooler, backpack cooler, and Quencher Carry-All, designed for someone to sling their Stanley over their hip.
___
Jack Dorsey left the Bluesky board and deleted his account on the service he helped kickstart, claiming that Bluesky was “literally repeating all the mistakes” he made while running Twitter. Dorsey says he never intended Bluesky to be an independent company, but rather, an open source protocol that Twitter was supposed to be the first client of. He also confirmed that he is financially backing Nostr, another decentralized Twitter-like service popular among crypto enthusiasts and run by an anonymous founder.
___
Amazon is deploying 50 electric trucks in California, which it claims is the largest EV fleet in the country, as part of its mission to eliminate pollution from its global operations. The trucks will be integrated into first-mile operations, moving goods from container ships at the ports to fulfillment centers, as well as middle-mile operations, transporting packages from fulfillment centers to delivery centers.
___
Wix launched a new tool called AI Portfolio Creator, which allows a user to upload and organize large-scale image collections, select the type of portfolio they want, and then have the AI tool sort and generate a portfolio with clustered images, recommended titles and descriptions, and personalized layout options.
___
Amazon is now requiring all dietary supplements to be verified by a third-party testing, inspection, and certification organization — which is something that not even the FDA requires. Amazon is the largest supplement retailer in the US ahead of Walmart and Target, and its new requirements are expected to put more pressure on the industry, which is being scrutinized more than ever.
___
Alibaba is revamping its flagship retail website Taobao for the first time in seven years with a focus on providing a smoother search and buying process. The website overhaul comes ahead of the 618 sales event, China's second-largest annual shopping event. A few weeks ago I reported that Eddie Wu, the CEO of Alibaba Group, would now be directly overseeing its domestic e-commerce arm which includes Taobao and Tmall Group, and it sounds like he's hitting the ground running with his new responsibilities.
___
Amazon is hosting its first-ever Amazon Book Sale, a new shopping event starting on May 15th that offers up to 50% off print best sellers and up to 80% off Kindle Books. The six day shopping event will exclusively run in the US, and Prime-membership is not required to take advantage of the deals.
___
FTX reported that nearly all of its customers will receive the money back that they are owed, two years after the cryptocurrency exchange imploded. The company owes about $11.2B to its customers and estimates that it has between $14.5B and $16.3B to distribute to them. The caveat is that customers will receive the USD value of their holdings at the time of the exchange collapse, and not the actual crypto holdings themselves, which means that they'll miss out on all gains during the past two years during which BTC went from around $16k to now over $60k. Better than nothing though, that's for sure.
___
800,000 consumers in Europe and the US were duped into sharing card details and other sensitive personal data with a network of fake online designer shops operated from China, which comprised one of the largest scams of its kind with 76,000 fake websites created. The scammers used expired domains to host its fake shops in order to help avoid detection by websites or brand owners, and more than 1M orders were processed in the past three years alone.
___
Beyond Inc, which owns Bed Bath & Beyond, Overstock, and Zulily, reported that its Q1 net loss swelled to $72M from $10M a year ago, while its operating loss widened to $58M from $8M. The company's active customers grew to 6M, up 26% from nearly 5M a year ago, however, its average order value dropped to $173 from $220 a year earlier.
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TikTok will begin automatically labeling AI generated content when it is uploaded from certain platforms like DALL.E 3, Adobe Firefly, Photoshop, and Microsoft Copilot. TikTok will also start attaching Content Credentials to content, which will remain on the media when downloaded, allowing other platforms to read the metadata.
___
eBay is testing an Add To Cart button in search results that opens a Quick View window, allowing buyers to skip the listing page. Technically the button should probably not be labeled “Add To Cart” since it doesn't perform that action, but rather, displays a quick view window with three buttons: Buy It Now, Add To Cart, View All Details. Sellers are worried that buyers will miss crucial details in the product description that may lead to increased returns and negative feedback.
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Amazon is planning to launch its fleet of drones in Tolleson, Arizona, but the city's extreme temperature is hampering its efforts. Drones can't operate in temperatures exceeding 104 degrees Fahrenheit, a temperature that Tolleson crosses for a full three months of the year.
___
A US district judge dismissed X's lawsuit against Bright Data, a data-scraping company accused of improperly accessing X system and violating X terms and state laws when scraping and selling data. The judge basically said that if X owned the data, it could perhaps argue that it has exclusive rights to control it, but then X wouldn't be able to enjoy the safe harbor of Section 230, which allows the platform to avoid liability for third-party content. Can't have it both ways!
___
Nintendo is discontinuing its X integration for the switch on June 10th, which means users will no longer be able to post screenshots or videos to the platform from their device. The drop in support also affects games like Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, which had game-specific options to send out tweets. Microsoft Xbox dropped support for X in April 2023 and Sony Playstation dropped the service in October 2023 due to the increase in X's API access fees.
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Amazon claimed that its recordable incident rate — a metric that comprises all injuries requiring “more than basic first-aid treatment” — at its US warehouses has improved by 24% since 2019. However the National Employment Law Project challenged Amazon's injury data in a report last week, claiming that Amazon's overall injury rate in 2023 was 71% higher than that of other employers in the sector at 6.5 cases per 100 workers.
___
Amazon Ads announced three new advertising formats for streaming TV including shoppable carousel ads, interactive pause ads, and interactive trivia ads. Amazon did not say when the new ad types would officially launch, but noted that it will formally present them at a presentation on May 14th.
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Meta is rolling out an expanded set of generative AI ad tools that can create full image variations with text overlays, expand images to fit across different aspect ratios, and generate alternate versions of headlines and other ad text. The features will become available globally to advertisers by the end of the year.
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Square introduced a tool called Square Kiosk to allow self-service ordering at fast food restaurants. The device is a combined software, hardware, and payment solution that allows customers to select exactly what they want with customization options, upgrades, and add-ons.
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The European Parliament announced new measures to make packaging more sustainable and reduce packaging waste in the EU, including reduction targets of 15% by 2040 — which sounds far away but is only 16 years away?! As part of the new rules, the EU will set maximum empty space ratios for e-commerce transportation, ban certain single-use plastic packaging types, and beverage distributors and take-away food will have to offer consumers the option of bringing their own container.
___
Indians who pre-ordered Teslas in 2016 are giving up and seeking refunds of their deposits after Elon Musk canceled another visit to the country last month. Disillusioned Tesla enthusiasts in India say they will now buy a car from the company only if they see it in a showroom, or they'll buy a different electrical vehicle from a company that actually exists in the country.
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Target is limiting its Pride Month collection to select stores this year instead of rolling out the merchandise nationwide like it typically has for the past decade, due to backlash the retailer experienced last year. Last May customers in certain stores knocked down LGBTQ+ merchandise displays, angrily approached store employees, and posted threatening videos on social media from inside the stores.
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E-commerce spending from Jan 1 to April 30, 2024 rose 7% YoY to $331.6B, according to Adobe Analytics. One trend Adobe identified during the period is a shift of online spending to purchasing the cheapest goods across personal care, electronics, apparel, home & garden, furniture, and grocery.
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Plus 7 seed rounds, IPOs, and acquisitions of interest, including Shopify's acquisition of Peel, a tool that integrates with a merchant's tech stack including Klaviyo and Recharge and helps them analyze their sales data to improve customer retention.
___
I hope you found this recap helpful. See you next week!
PAUL Editor of Shopifreaks E-Commerce Newsletter
PS: If I missed any big news this week, please share in the comments.
submitted by adventurepaul to ecommerce [link] [comments]

2024.05.13 22:46 adventurepaul What's new in e-commerce? 🔥 Week of May 13th, 2024

Hi - I'm Paul and I follow the e-commerce industry closely for my Shopifreaks E-commerce Newsletter. Each week I post a summary recap of the week's top stories, which I cover in depth in the newsletter. Let's dive in...
___
STAT OF THE WEEK: Kohl's sales have shrunk by $2.3B since 2019. During that same period of time, the company lost 1.3M customers who no longer shop with the retailer.
___
BigCommerce is exploring a sale after attracting takeover interest, according to sources who chose to remain anonymous due to the confidentiality of the information. The sources said that BigCommerce asked investment bank Qatalyst Partners to solicit interest from potential buyers that include private equity firms, but that the discussions are at an early stage and no deal is certain.
___
Squarespace announced that it will be going private in a $6.9B all-cash deal with private-equity firm Permira, who agreed to pay $44 per share (a roughly 30% premium). Although Squarespace never lost 90% of its share price like BigCommerce, it has experienced a tumultuous time on the market since its IPO in May 2021 — opening around $49.50 and at times trading in the low $20s. Shares rose nearly 13% to $43 in pre-market trading upon release of the news.
___
ByteDance filed a lawsuit in US federal court seeking to block the new law that would force the sale or ban of the app within the country. The lawsuit challenges the law on constitutional grounds, also citing commercial, technical, and legal hurdles, as well as opposition from Beijing. Legal experts say the legal battle will play out in the courts in coming months and likely will reach the Supreme Court.
___
OpenAI unveiled its newest model, GPT-4o, designed to turn ChatGPT into a digital personal assistant that can engage in real-time, spoken conversations and interact with users using text, screenshots, photos, documents, and charts. The new version of ChatGPT also has memory capabilities, which means it can learn from previous conversations. It will be available to both unpaid and premium customers alike. OpenAI also announced that it would be launching a desktop app with the GPT-4o capabilities, giving users another platform to interact with the technology outside of a web browser.
___
Amazon launched in South Africa last week, marking its first marketplace in sub-Saharan Africa, and bringing its total number of marketplaces worldwide to 22. To launch the new marketplace, Amazon is offering free delivery on first orders and on subsequent orders above R500 (about $27), access to 3,000 pick-up points, status updates via WhatsApp to track orders, 30 day refunds, and 24/7 customer support. The marketplace was supposed to launch in the country in 2023, but got delayed due to changes in priorities within Amazon.
___
In an unlikely partnership, Instacart is partnering with Uber Eats to expand into the restaurant delivery business. Instacart will add a new tab for restaurant delivery to its app in the coming weeks, the listings will be provided by Uber, and the food will be picked up and delivered by Uber Eats drivers. Customers will receive the same prices on both apps and Instacart will receive an affiliate commission on orders. It's a strange partnership though given that Instacart and Uber Eats actively compete on grocery delivery. Are they planning to merge? Uber says no.
___
Apple's advertisement for its latest iPad Pro sparked criticism for showing an animation of musical instruments, paint cans, cameras, record players, and other symbols of creativity being crushed by a giant machine, with the output being the new iPad Pro, which the company says is the thinnest Apple product ever. In this context, “crushing” was supposed to symbolize “consolidating” and “compacting” — with the visuals meant to showcase how the new iPad Pro puts the power of all these tools into the hands of creators in one thin device. However online commenters criticized the ad as insensitive and as symbolizing a “destruction of the human experience.” The ad hit the web on Tuesday, and by Thursday, Apple issued a mea culpa and apologized for the campaign.
___
Google is encouraging merchants to enable conversion annotations on their Google Shopping ads, which offer social proof that highlight a product's popularity. Conversion annotations like “best selling” or “3K shopped here recently” would provide visual cues about a product’s popularity or sales performance directly in the ad unit. Annotations like these are par for the course with e-commerce retailers including Amazon, Walmart, and Temu, which all employ similar tactics. They can provide valuable info for shoppers and also help with conversions. However they also open data privacy concerns, given that Google is not the actual retailer or marketplace selling the items, so a merchant would have to share this purchase history data from their e-commerce platform with Google — which technically most already do by giving access to GA4.
___
Shein is attempting to join the National Retail Federation as it pursues regulatory approval to go public in the US. The company believes that NRF membership would boost its chances of receiving SEC approval. However so far, Shein has been rejected numerous times. An anonymous source familiar with the matter said someone with heavy influence at the NRF is strongly against the Shein's admittance. However board members who spoke to CNBC said that Shein's membership application hadn't come up in meetings, and that they aren't involved in deciding which companies are granted access.
___
Amazon is leading the way with selling home goods, capturing 18.8% of consumer home furnishings spending, compared to Walmart's 7.3% market share. Notably, Amazon’s gains in the furniture category come in spite of the company’s decision to phase out two of its three furniture brands last year.
___
Stanley, which is projected to do $750M in sales this year, up from $73M in 2019, after seeing its water bottles become a status symbol thanks to TikTok, is now expanding into trendier accessories. The company is launching a line of bags called the All-Day Collection which include a mini cooler, backpack cooler, and Quencher Carry-All, designed for someone to sling their Stanley over their hip.
___
Jack Dorsey left the Bluesky board and deleted his account on the service he helped kickstart, claiming that Bluesky was “literally repeating all the mistakes” he made while running Twitter. Dorsey says he never intended Bluesky to be an independent company, but rather, an open source protocol that Twitter was supposed to be the first client of. He also confirmed that he is financially backing Nostr, another decentralized Twitter-like service popular among crypto enthusiasts and run by an anonymous founder.
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Amazon is deploying 50 electric trucks in California, which it claims is the largest EV fleet in the country, as part of its mission to eliminate pollution from its global operations. The trucks will be integrated into first-mile operations, moving goods from container ships at the ports to fulfillment centers, as well as middle-mile operations, transporting packages from fulfillment centers to delivery centers.
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Wix launched a new tool called AI Portfolio Creator, which allows a user to upload and organize large-scale image collections, select the type of portfolio they want, and then have the AI tool sort and generate a portfolio with clustered images, recommended titles and descriptions, and personalized layout options.
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Amazon is now requiring all dietary supplements to be verified by a third-party testing, inspection, and certification organization — which is something that not even the FDA requires. Amazon is the largest supplement retailer in the US ahead of Walmart and Target, and its new requirements are expected to put more pressure on the industry, which is being scrutinized more than ever.
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Alibaba is revamping its flagship retail website Taobao for the first time in seven years with a focus on providing a smoother search and buying process. The website overhaul comes ahead of the 618 sales event, China's second-largest annual shopping event. A few weeks ago I reported that Eddie Wu, the CEO of Alibaba Group, would now be directly overseeing its domestic e-commerce arm which includes Taobao and Tmall Group, and it sounds like he's hitting the ground running with his new responsibilities.
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Amazon is hosting its first-ever Amazon Book Sale, a new shopping event starting on May 15th that offers up to 50% off print best sellers and up to 80% off Kindle Books. The six day shopping event will exclusively run in the US, and Prime-membership is not required to take advantage of the deals.
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FTX reported that nearly all of its customers will receive the money back that they are owed, two years after the cryptocurrency exchange imploded. The company owes about $11.2B to its customers and estimates that it has between $14.5B and $16.3B to distribute to them. The caveat is that customers will receive the USD value of their holdings at the time of the exchange collapse, and not the actual crypto holdings themselves, which means that they'll miss out on all gains during the past two years during which BTC went from around $16k to now over $60k. Better than nothing though, that's for sure.
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800,000 consumers in Europe and the US were duped into sharing card details and other sensitive personal data with a network of fake online designer shops operated from China, which comprised one of the largest scams of its kind with 76,000 fake websites created. The scammers used expired domains to host its fake shops in order to help avoid detection by websites or brand owners, and more than 1M orders were processed in the past three years alone.
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Beyond Inc, which owns Bed Bath & Beyond, Overstock, and Zulily, reported that its Q1 net loss swelled to $72M from $10M a year ago, while its operating loss widened to $58M from $8M. The company's active customers grew to 6M, up 26% from nearly 5M a year ago, however, its average order value dropped to $173 from $220 a year earlier.
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TikTok will begin automatically labeling AI generated content when it is uploaded from certain platforms like DALL.E 3, Adobe Firefly, Photoshop, and Microsoft Copilot. TikTok will also start attaching Content Credentials to content, which will remain on the media when downloaded, allowing other platforms to read the metadata.
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eBay is testing an Add To Cart button in search results that opens a Quick View window, allowing buyers to skip the listing page. Technically the button should probably not be labeled “Add To Cart” since it doesn't perform that action, but rather, displays a quick view window with three buttons: Buy It Now, Add To Cart, View All Details. Sellers are worried that buyers will miss crucial details in the product description that may lead to increased returns and negative feedback.
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Amazon is planning to launch its fleet of drones in Tolleson, Arizona, but the city's extreme temperature is hampering its efforts. Drones can't operate in temperatures exceeding 104 degrees Fahrenheit, a temperature that Tolleson crosses for a full three months of the year.
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A US district judge dismissed X's lawsuit against Bright Data, a data-scraping company accused of improperly accessing X system and violating X terms and state laws when scraping and selling data. The judge basically said that if X owned the data, it could perhaps argue that it has exclusive rights to control it, but then X wouldn't be able to enjoy the safe harbor of Section 230, which allows the platform to avoid liability for third-party content. Can't have it both ways!
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Nintendo is discontinuing its X integration for the switch on June 10th, which means users will no longer be able to post screenshots or videos to the platform from their device. The drop in support also affects games like Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, which had game-specific options to send out tweets. Microsoft Xbox dropped support for X in April 2023 and Sony Playstation dropped the service in October 2023 due to the increase in X's API access fees.
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Amazon claimed that its recordable incident rate — a metric that comprises all injuries requiring “more than basic first-aid treatment” — at its US warehouses has improved by 24% since 2019. However the National Employment Law Project challenged Amazon's injury data in a report last week, claiming that Amazon's overall injury rate in 2023 was 71% higher than that of other employers in the sector at 6.5 cases per 100 workers.
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Amazon Ads announced three new advertising formats for streaming TV including shoppable carousel ads, interactive pause ads, and interactive trivia ads. Amazon did not say when the new ad types would officially launch, but noted that it will formally present them at a presentation on May 14th.
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Meta is rolling out an expanded set of generative AI ad tools that can create full image variations with text overlays, expand images to fit across different aspect ratios, and generate alternate versions of headlines and other ad text. The features will become available globally to advertisers by the end of the year.
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Square introduced a tool called Square Kiosk to allow self-service ordering at fast food restaurants. The device is a combined software, hardware, and payment solution that allows customers to select exactly what they want with customization options, upgrades, and add-ons.
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The European Parliament announced new measures to make packaging more sustainable and reduce packaging waste in the EU, including reduction targets of 15% by 2040 — which sounds far away but is only 16 years away?! As part of the new rules, the EU will set maximum empty space ratios for e-commerce transportation, ban certain single-use plastic packaging types, and beverage distributors and take-away food will have to offer consumers the option of bringing their own container.
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Indians who pre-ordered Teslas in 2016 are giving up and seeking refunds of their deposits after Elon Musk canceled another visit to the country last month. Disillusioned Tesla enthusiasts in India say they will now buy a car from the company only if they see it in a showroom, or they'll buy a different electrical vehicle from a company that actually exists in the country.
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Target is limiting its Pride Month collection to select stores this year instead of rolling out the merchandise nationwide like it typically has for the past decade, due to backlash the retailer experienced last year. Last May customers in certain stores knocked down LGBTQ+ merchandise displays, angrily approached store employees, and posted threatening videos on social media from inside the stores.
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E-commerce spending from Jan 1 to April 30, 2024 rose 7% YoY to $331.6B, according to Adobe Analytics. One trend Adobe identified during the period is a shift of online spending to purchasing the cheapest goods across personal care, electronics, apparel, home & garden, furniture, and grocery.
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Plus 7 seed rounds, IPOs, and acquisitions of interest, including Shopify's acquisition of Peel, a tool that integrates with a merchant's tech stack including Klaviyo and Recharge and helps them analyze their sales data to improve customer retention.
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I hope you found this recap helpful. See you next week!
For more details on each story and sources, see the full edition: https://www.shopifreaks.com/bigcommerce-for-sale-openai-gpt-4o-instacarts-unlikely-partnership/
What else is new in e-commerce? Share stories of interesting in the comments below (including in your own business) or on shopifreaks.
-PAUL Editor of Shopifreaks E-commerce Newsletter
PS: Want the full editions delivered to your Inbox each week? Join free at www.shopifreaks.com
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2024.05.13 18:57 PoppaSquot The standard characteristics of all Japan's New Religions - including Soka Gakkai - see how many you recognize

I tells ya, so much falls into place here. This comes from Helen Hardacre's book Kurozumikyō and the New Religions of Japan, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1986. First, some background:
The contemporary religious scene in Japan is commonly divided into the "established religions" (kisei shūkyō) and the "new religions" (shinshūkō). These categories are further divided into Buddhist- and Shintō-derived varieties of each as well as into further subcategories.
The titular "Kurozumikyō" is a Shintō new religion founded in 1814 by the Shintō priest Kurozumi Munetada. As of this publication, it had a total membership of 220,000.
Founded by a priest of the "established" Shintō tradition, it is one of the oldest of the so-called new religions and seems to combine aspects of both new and established types. (p. 3)
THE NEW RELIGIONS OF JAPAN
The new religions and their members represent an important and distinctive sector of Japanese society. In spite of the great variety of their doctrines, new religions share a unity of aspiration and world view significantly different from those of secular society and from the so-called established religions. New religions constitute the most vital sector of Japanese religion today and include perhaps 30 percent of the nation's population in their membership. (p. 3)
A source I read recently noted that the Soka Gakkai grew from poaching members of other new religions; it seems this demographic was the most fluid and changeable of Japan's religious demographic. However, at just 30% of the population, even if the Soka Gakkai had managed to claim 100% of these new religions' memberships, it would still have fallen short of Ikeda's self-defined minimum requirement of 1/3 of the population.
Among the doctrines of the new religions there is great variety, since doctrine frequently originates in revelations to a founder. (p. 5)
Here is the Soka Gakkai's version:
Founders tend to be charismatic individuals who attract a following through faith healing rather than through ordination and textual erudition.
The Soka Gakkai version:
Also here and here and especially HERE - DEFINITELY with the "faith healing".
As far as the "textual erudition" goes, Toda's post-WWII lectures on the Lotus Sutra were expected to be accepted as the "gold standard" of textual interpretation, and today, SGI members study Ikeda's lectures on texts rather than the texts themselves - see here and here. Who needs any priest??
The new religions tend to recruit their following through evangelistic proselytization and dramatic conversion, at least in the first generation. They promise followers "this-worldly-benefits" in the form of healing, solution of family problems, and material prosperity. In ethics they emphasize family solidarity and qualities of sincerity, frugality, harmony, diligence, and filial piety. Between laity and leaders there is only a vague dividing line, and for the most part, anyone may acquire leadership credentials, including women. Frequently the new religions recognize no sacred centers but those of their own history. (pp. 5-6)
While the Soka Gakkai initially embraced pilgrimages ("tozan") to the Nichiren Shoshu Head Temple Taiseki-ji, their regular activities were centered on Soka Gakkai buildings ("kaikan", or "centers") rather than on Nichiren Shoshu temples. In fact, this was an early source of conflict, as the Nichiren Shoshu priesthood justifiably questioned WHY the Soka Gakkai was putting so much more effort and resources into building NEW Soka Gakkai centers than on building Nichiren Shoshu temples, which would have been the proper function of any religion's legitimate lay organization. Add to that the bad optics of Ikeda's cult's attempted steeplejacking of established Nichiren Shoshu temples, and there was DEFINITELY something rotten in Denmark, so to speak. The Soka Gakkai's focus was trained on IKEDA rather than on the priests of the order they supposedly belonged to as a lay organization. That's some fucked up priorities and it was only a matter of time before that became an open, obvious problem. Of course Ikeda hoped to delay that reckoning until he was in a position to seize the entire Nichiren Shoshu religion for himself. Too bad, so sad, the Nichiren Shoshu priesthood headed him off at the pass and spoiled all his beautiful plots.
The world view of the Japanese new religions conceives of the individual, society, nature, and the universe as an integrated system vitalized by a single principle. Every level represents the manifestation of that principle on a larger scale. The relationships among the levels, however, are not static. They must be maintained in balance, harmony, and congruence. These qualities are manifested in conditions of happiness, health, social stability, abundant harvests, and regular succession of the seasons (free of such calamities as flood, drought, and major earthquakes). The opposite conditions (unhappiness, illness, social unrest, scarcity of food, and natural disasters) are symptomatic of a lack of harmony or congruence. Everything is interconnected so that a change in one dimension, no matter how small, eventually ripples out and affects other dimensions in a larger context. Religious practice is a striving for continuous integration of self with the body, society, nature, and the universe. This involves careful management of the most basic components: the self, the faculties of mind and emotion, and the personality. (pp. 11-12)
This thinking was the basis for Nichiren's Rissho Ankoku Ron, or "On Establishing the etc. & whatever".
Here is the chart that illustrates this thinking; you can clearly see the basis for "A great human revolution in just a single individual will help achieve a change in the destiny of a nation and, further, can even enable a change in the destiny of all humankind". There is no scientific basis for this kind of delusion; ignorant people just LIKE believing it. "Look how IMPORTANT and INFLUENTIAL I am!! Everything is all about MEEE!!!" The Soka Gakkai has been in existence (in a continuous state) for some 80 years now; if this sort of thing DID happen, we'd see it. We already know Ikeda had such high hopes for his followers, but the truth is that the membership never lived up to Ikeda's expectations. No "world leaders" emerged from Soka Gakkai ranks; they didn't even become rich! That simply isn't something that happens because of "this practice", no matter how much Ikeda misled all the gullibles. Daimoku is obviously NOT "the perfect solution for all problems".
Although the new religions inevitably adopt the system I have just described, they state it in different idioms. They may use Buddhist, Shintō, or colloquial terms for the self, calling it variously the kokoro (heart-mind or heart), konjō (guts), *reikon (spirit), tamashii (soul), and other terms. Similarly, they may name the principle vitalizing all existence by Shintō, Buddhist, or other terms: kami-nature, Buddha-nature, karma, ki, yōki, and so forth. They may predicate the existence of a variety of supernaturals who exist on a different plane than human beings, intervening in human affairs from time to time. These may be kami, Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, or ancestors. Alien to the system is the notion of a single deity standing outside the whole and manipulating it by means of an unknowable will. The supernaturals of the integrated system are subject to its rhythms and generally conform to its principles. The system is compatible with a variety of cosmological ideas and world pictures, including horizontal and vertical cosmologies seen in Japanese myths and in Buddhism's many-tiered realms of existence. (pp. 12-14)
Because self-cultivation is the primary task of all, textual erudition, esoteric ritual, and the observance of abstinences are rejected or relegated to secondary significance.
Because "Earthly desires ARE enlightenment", right?? And all that other Buddhism stuff, well, that's all obsolete now, "as useless as last year's calendar", right??
The notion of kokoro is a hallmark of Japanese culture, and it is the central pillar of the world view of the new religions. Consider the following proverb, one that could be endorsed by the new religions and is a stock saying in secular society: "Both suffering and happiness depend on how we bear the kokoro." Kokoro is borne or carried in a certain way, good or bad, and according to that we suffer or are happy. We are in control. An ordinary, nonreligious interpretation of this proverb would say that our attitude toward circumstances determines in large part whether we are happy or unhappy, or that an attitude of "positive thinking" can improve our experience of unfavorable situations even if the circumstances are not thereby altered. (p. 19)
You can see Ikeda alluding to this here:
Even a man who has great wealth, social recognition and many awards may still be shadowed by indescribable suffering deep in his heart. On the other hand, an elderly woman who is not fortunate financially, leading a simple life alone, may feel the sun of joy and happiness rising in her heart each day.
An interpretation of the proverb among the new religions is likely to be much stronger, to hold that human beings certainly have the power to be happy, depending solely on the manner in which one bears kokoro. We need only exercise that power by self-cultivation.
And remember - NO COMPLAINING!!
Moreover, the idea that circumstances can be changed by the power of diligently cultivated kokoro is pervasive. It is a question not only of a change of attitude but sometimes of radical material change, such as an improvement in economic situation or a miraculous healing. It is understood that the cultivated kokoro has the power also to change external persons and events, and that nothing is impossible. Exercising the full power fo the kokoro is possible for anyone who practices self-cultivation through the spiritual disciplines of the particular religious group. (pp. 19-20)
Isn't that the whole basis for the idea of "human revolution"? How else could anyone understand "You can chant for whatever you want!"? Don't the Dead-Ikeda-cult SGI culties love to talk about "making the impossible possible"?? Hmm..I wonder why they never do...🤨
Here Ikeda likens the Soka Gakkai practice to the magic lamp of the "Aladdin" story. And it only works for Soka Gakkai members, of course.
We chant to make the impossible possible, we want extraordinary, not ordinary. Let's get those benefits flowing, let's appreciate those challenges that allow us to grow and win and share those victories with others so that they can be inspired and win. Source
While the terminology of the self is basic to understanding Japanese constructions of self, the patterns of action and affect in which these are embedded constitute the functioning of the world view of the new religions. Here I identify four such patterns:

(1) the idea that "other people are mirrors,"

(2) the exchange of gratitude and repayment of favor,
(3) the quest for sincerity, and
(4) the adherence to paths of self-cultivation.
So much for the supposed "novelty" of Dickeata's supposedly eternal "clear mirror guidance", eh? Oh, and EVERYBODY owes Scamsei and the SGI their eternal gratitude, too, and you NEVER EVER get to finish your "human revolution" ("self-cultivation")!
Each of these patterns represents an indispensable element of Japanese culture, and thus their implementation in Japanese religions is not unique. (p. 21)
Nope. The Soka Gakkai is just bog standard for a Japanese New Religion. Nothing unique or special. Just like all the rest.
The idea that other people are mirrors makes the individual totally responsible in all circumstances. Although the burden is heavy, there is also a tacit message that the self can control any situation. Placing blame and responsibility on the individual also denies the idea that "society" can be blamed for one's problems; hence concepts of exploitation and discrimination are ruled out of consideration. On the whole the new religions are uninterested in political action to improve society; to them it is a question of individuals improving themselves individually and collectively through self-cultivation. (p. 23)
Remember, this author ISN'T talking about Soka Gakkai here! This a feature of ALL Japan's new religions!
Since self-cultivation is the primary determiner of all human affairs, notions of fate or divine wrath (karma or bachi, for example) are reinterpreted, ignored, or denied.
Or introduced when necessary to blame a member when the promises of SGI leaders are proven empty and false. It's always the MEMBERSHIP's fault somehow, never that the teachings are wrong or deceptive.
In like manner, because of the primacy of self-cultivation, the concept of pollution cannot be fully credited, and this opens the door to greater participation by women than is the case in the established religions.
In the case of the Soka Gakkai, "greater participation by women" has been implemented as "greater exploitation of women". The women of the Soka Gakkai were expected to deliver daily newspapers for no pay throughout the Soka Gakkai's history; it is only recently that their numbers have declined so catastrophically and they have aged so much that the Soka Gakkai finally had to contract with a delivery service - which of course Soka Gakkai has to PAY now. Newspapers are SO much more profitable when you can find some suckers to deliver them at no cost to YOU!
Thus the new religions stress unquestioning performance of their established disciplines, fully aware that the demand for uncomprehending obedience (at least iat the beginning) will cause the convert frustration. Also involved as a minor theme is the pedagogical principle that "physical action can be perceived as isomorphic with spiritual change." Thus, for example, polishing floors can be assumed to "polish" the self. If one enters through form, eventually the kokoro will follow.
Speaking of exploiting women, who else heard that when women were cleaning the toilets for free at the local SGI center, they were "cleaning their karma"??
The hardship entailed is not to be avoided; no one denies that it is punishing to polish floors by hand, recite sutras, or endure cold water ablutions. Hardship in itself is virtuous and confers compassion and maturity.
Isn't that the essence of SGI's much-vaunted "youth division training"? Basically, it's SGI leaders getting off on forcing young people to do all sorts of scut work and to engage in unpleasant activities just because they can - somebody has to do the grunt work, right? Make THEM do it! Tell them it's "training" when actually it's just training them to allow themselves to be exploited. For a funny example of this attitude, see how this colossal doofus was trying to cajole and coerce his employee into joining SGI before he aged out of the youth division, so he could get him some of that gooooood "youth division training"!!
Meanwhile, now I worry about Chad, who has only a few months left to obtain YMD training, to whom I had to slip September Living Buddhism under his door, since his subscription is on the internet, and I want him to start working on the Introductory Exam material. Yesterday he did not answer or reply when he was supposed to be at work. (He is paid per day of work from his home.) Today when I arrived he was not even there. So I have been chanting for his welfare. He recently reported to me a medical difficulty he has that may be interfering with his efforts, or worse.
That's ONE way to duck an annoying self-important SGI stalker-nag! "Sorry, can't talk - have the plague..."
All the new religions agree that a person's real potential cannot be fulfilled without suffering, and in this they share with secular society the suspicion about someone who has failed that perhaps kurō ga tarinai, "the person hasn't suffered enough." That is, if one had endured sufficient trials before the present ordeal, one could have conquered this hardship. Accordingly it is important to establish how much leaders and founders have suffered in the course of their own self-cultivation. (p. 28)
See More myths about how the young Ikeda suffered so much and was so sickly wah wah
All problems can be traced to insufficient cultivation of self. Thus it is misguided to expect fundamental social change from political ideology. Instead, society can be improved only through collective moral improvement, the doctrine of meliorism. Similarly, attempting to cure disease simply by treating the body alone is useless. Healing can come about only through rededication to ethical values; hence medicine is effective only in a provisional way. Education and secular achievements apart from faith and cultivation of self are houses of cards, castles on sand. Accordingly, media-sponsored presentation of thoroughly secularized views of life are disapproved. (p. 14)
You can see the clearest examples of this thinking in the teachings of Ikeda and the Soka Gakkai from the 1960s, before people understood how immediate and pervasive "political ideology" could effect fundamental social change, as in the US when the anti-race-mixing "anti-miscegenation" interracial marriage legal prohibitions were swept away in the US Supreme Court's 1967 judgment on "Loving v. Virginia". That changed society more fundamentally and pervasively than any religion's doctrines that people's "hearts" must be changed FIRST before anyone could hope to see societal change realized, or in the terms above, "collective moral improvement". No. Remove unjust laws and establish penalties for behaving unjustly, and voilà! Society changes!
See SGI is actively OPPOSED to social justice and thus will NEVER contribute meaningfully to world peace and More on why SGI will never make any significant changes to society.
Back when Japan's medical system was primitive, with limited availability, the new religions advertised "faith healing", as seen above and here. But as medical care improved and, most importantly, became widely accessible, that became people's healing option of choice, so the new religions (and all the rest) had to drop it as a selling point, because nobody was buying it any more. Within the ignorant and indoctrinated ranks of SGI members, we can STILL see claims of "faith healing"; they apparently don't realize this isn't a compelling sales pitch any more. Except that in house, the superstitious, magical-thinking culties still eat it up with a spoon 🙄
But you can see Ikeda here explaining that medicine is unnecessary to treat various ills; there must be a "faith" component or the treatment will inevitably be ineffective. OR that having faith will make even a nonsensical nontreatment effective! Also slamming medicine as harmful and condemning members as somehow "deserving" of terrible illnesses.
And remember when Ikeda told "girls" they didn't need to go to college? That was fun. And how Icky denigrated university graduates??
Let's not forget how the Soka Gakkai has always been anti-union and has never established any charitable services anywhere, not even for the needy within its own struggling membership.

Lacking justification for a strong differentiation between the religious lives of priests and laity, the tendency to make the laity central is strong and pervasive. (p. 14)

This was a primary issue within the Soka Gakkai that festered until Ikeda brought it to a full boil out of his obsessive desire to BE the object of worship. The Soka Gakkai/Nichiren Shoshu alliance, while expedient for the Soka Gakkai and undeniably profitable for Nichiren Shoshu, was nonetheless an uneasy alliance, given the Soka Gakkai's defining characteristics as a "new religion" and Nichiren Shoshu's "established religion" status. Those two simply don't mix. Especially on this last point, you can see that it is a characteristic of a "new religion" to have the fundamental attitude that "priests are unnecessary". Ikeda simply wanted to USE Nichiren Shoshu for his OWN convenience, in service to HIS plans, instead of directing the Soka Gakkai to function as a legitimate lay organization whose focus was their religion, Nichiren Shoshu. Ikeda made it all about himself and his goal of maximizing his own power and control. Ikeda was never a religious person.
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