I just finished Oathbringer and am fully invested in figuring out all of the intricate details of this series that has quickly become my new obsession. I’ve loved diving into the lore and seeing how our characters have been handling growing through their serious brokenness. Just wanted to post a lot of my thoughts, ideas, and questions here. Please let me know if any of these can be answered with information through OB. Otherwise, I’m sure most of this is RAFO and I’ll see as I jump right into Dawnshard and RoW!
Radiance

• Will Kaladin even say more of the Windrunner Ideals? There is something weird going on with the Radiants and why they decided to break their oaths at the Recreance and I don’t think we have the full story yet. Perhaps we don’t need our main characters to finish all of the Ideals? Not sure.
• I’m thinking that the 4th Windrunner Ideal might be something along the lines of “I accept that I can not protect everyone” and Kal must learn to live with the fact that sometimes he will fail and it will be very hard for him.
• What is our count on number of Ideals sworn by Shallan? Shallan’s are, of course, the truths that she tells to Pattern and those include the murders of each of her parents as we found in WoR. But what more could she say? There is still a lot of mystery with her family and their ties to the Ghostbloods, especially the mother and Helaran.
• Let’s get Shallan soulcasting more! She’s been way out of practice on that end.
• What about Dalinar’s Ideals? Dalinar becoming Unity seemed to be the second of his Ideals as the Stormfather accepted his words during the Battle for Thaylen City. I’m interested to see more of his development as a Radiant. It seems that the Bondsmiths are particularly important and I want to know more about each of the three of them and what their specific roles are. Will we see the other two appear as the series goes on?
• I’m glad Dalinar learns to read and write, it’s about time we give up some of those old-fashioned Vorin ideas. I was kinda hoping his Bondsmith powers would let him learn immediately in the same way he learns other languages by touching someone who speaks it, but oh well.
• I do not think we’ve seen much of the Surges of Cohesion and Tension (Stoneward territory) and I’d love to learn more about what they are, how they work, how different Radiants manifest powers through them. The Ars Arcanum descriptions of them are vague and mysterious. Dalinar can gain the power of Tension through being a Bondsmith, but I’m not sure if we’ve seen that explicitly yet?
• Just how powerful was Dalinar’s Unity stand? Odium retreated immediately after the conjunction of the three realms. Was Odium’s claim of (paraphrase) “I though we killed you” referring to Honor, or perhaps something different? Is this one of Dalinar’s powers now, i.e., will he be able to regenerate Stormlight at his will? It seems so since he reloaded Kaladin before he flew off to recover Skar, Drehy, and co., but it seemed to be quite taxing on him.
• Man I just want to know all about the different powers that Surgebinders carry. There are 10 surges total, and if each Order of the KR can access 2, then there are 10!/(8!2!) = 45 unique combinations of two surges… too bad there are only 10 orders instead of 45 to match all combinations :( Might have been an undertaking for Brandon to create all of these orders.
• It’s been hinted that upper-level Ideals must be sworn for Radiants to get Shardplate? Maybe we’ll see that happen in RoW.
• Of course Malata is siding with some antagonists. Fits the trope that fire/destruction powers = evil. Bummer. Maybe someone else will come up who can use this power for good.
• Renarin’s bond is interesting to me. His spren is either corrupted or simply one of the Voidspren, but he still seems to maintain good intentions as a character. I’m interested to see what happens with him. Maybe not all Voidspren have to side with Odium/the Fused. He is also mentioned (secretly to Odium) in the Diagram, so he’ll obviously play an important role.
• Similarly, I’m interested in Venli’s role. Seems like she recognizes that things are off with the Voidspren and Odium. Is her spren Timbre a lightspren? Willshaper Venli? Her ties to Odium, the Listeners, the Fused, etc. will be interesting after having said the First Ideal. Especially with the Voidspren that is in her gemheart.
• Jasnah clearly is very powerful (as shown at the Battle for Thaylen City) and it was an interesting choice to make her queen. I’d have figured she would want to devote her time to her scholarly work rather than dealing in politics, but we’ll see how it goes I guess. Might be hard to find time to mentor Shallan on Soulcasting too.
• Man we gotta find a way for Lift to either take in Stormlight in the normal way or to just get her a huge duffel bag full of food all the time, especially during battles.

Gods, Heralds, all things of power:

• What are the different “levels” of power that each of the gods possess? Honor has obviously been killed, but I get the sense that he might still be able to “come back” through DalinaStormfather? I don’t know. These gods can be killed I guess, so not quite true God-gods, just some supremely powerful beings.
• What are the motivations of these different gods (Odium, Cultivation, pre-death Honor, others)? It’s hard to get a reading on why Odium wants to be so involved with the Singers’/Listeners’ return instead of just existing as a god somewhere. I know he’s trapped somehow, hence the barter with Dalinar, but like why does he cause so much mischief in the first place? Just his nature I guess?
• Wit has got to be up here with this crew of gods, no?
• Who is Rayse? We hear about him through the letters exchanged with Wit in the epigraphs, but still so mysterious. Again, what are these higher-beings’ motivations? Perhaps his role is clearer by reading some of BS’s other books prior to the SA?
• I do believe that Adonalsium is the true OG God, and he somehow split into “Shards” that might be these other gods known as Honor, Odium, Cultivation, etc., but that is surmised through some reading online. Not sure exactly where that information has come out and what I need to read for better background on this. How did the Shattering occur? Why did the Shards gain sentience? Why do they have different personalities and motivations?
• This Voidlight is mysterious still. How is it different in nature to normal Stormlight? Can Knights Radiant take it in the same way? Can the Fused take in regular Stormlight? I don’t think it’s been explicitly stated, but this must be what was in the sphere that Gavilar gave the Szeth on the night of the assassination. Also is that sphere the same thing Navani hinted at when Dalinar showed her the Nergaoul-infused King’s Drop?
• I’m interested to find out why are Honorspren looked down upon in Shadesmar at the moment.
• Szeth’s blade Nightblood is very different — talks to him, needs to be sheathed instead of vanishing, has a very skewed sense of time, drains color. People on Reddit have recalled this blade from Warbreaker, which I have not read yet, and thus already know about it, Vivenna/Azure, and Zahel, among others.
• I am hoping that the Heralds are able to make somewhat of a recovery from their insanity and we can see them in power. Too bad Jezrien has been killed. I was looking forward to his return in particular. Nale is… coming around? We got a few glimpses of Ash in Oathbringer, and I realized she is the same character as the woman destroying paintings in the WoK interlude. Taln is so noble… was not even mad about holding the gates for 4.5 thousand years, just happy to have given humans the time to develop. Taravangian hinted that Dova in Kharbranth is Battar. Seems like Ishar will come into play given all his mentions in Oathbringer. Haven’t heard much (or don’t remember) much of the others (Kalak, Pailiah, Vedel, and Chanarach), but hopefully they show themselves soon!
• Ok, so the secret came out that the humans are the Voidbringers and came from another planet that they destroyed and caused a lot of problems here on Roshar. The timeline for this is confusing to me. If the humans are the invasive species, then why were the Heralds created in the first place? It’s my understanding that the Heralds (or all of the ones we’ve seen so far) are human. The old story says (or implies) that the Heralds were created to bring an end to the Desolations. So does that mean that the humans invaded, then Honor gave a handful of them additional powers (Surges) to help exterminate the Singers and the other Rosharan inhabitants? And then, of course, the formation of the Knights Radiant. When did they come about? Did the Heralds fight for a few hundreds/thousands of years before the KR were formed or were they around earlier? I’m missing the motivations of the gods here… why would Honor create these powerful beings to help invade a new planet? Not very honorable if you ask me. What kinds of powers did the early Listeners have that required the use of Surgebinding to defeat? How do the Voidspren and Fused play into this? Are they native Roshar spren that are just angry at being taken over by humans with their bonds to other higher spren? Something is fishy with the relationship between the Listeners and the Voidspren — they banished them at risk of being enslaved for thousands of years. Most of the Listeners are rightfully angry at the humans for millennia of enslavement, but very few actually want to kill the humans. Rather, they seem content to just cohabit Roshar. I am hoping for further clarification in RoW.
• The Unmade are so fascinating to me. They are described as being of Odium, but do not necessarily want to remain tied to him, some of them having minds of their own, fueled by the specific Passions relevant to them. Interesting how these powerful spren will continue to influence Roshar. Also being made, then unmade?? What’s that all about?
• Cultivation is being foreshadowed a lot and I am wondering what her influence will be in the coming books. She had the interaction with Dalinar in his flashback, but they talk about her so much more than just referring to this one instance. The Nightwatcher’s powers (with the boons/curses) are still so interesting to me too.
• Have we seen Odium’s analog to the NightwatcheStormfather? I’m assuming that if Cultivation and Honor have these more-powerful spren, then so will he. Maybe you could consider the Unmade to satisfy this role?

Secret Organizations:

• Ghostbloods — I feel like we’ll get a lot of info. on these guys soon. We know somewhat little about them. Members include Mraize and Iyatil, both mysterious, and members of House Davar. They are good at finding Honorblades and Heralds. Lots and lots of secrets. They’re gonna keep on manipulating Shallan it seems… hopefully she can maintain an upper edge.
• The Diagram — I am inclined to think that the Diagram may be right, but I am hoping that it’s flawed. Interesting that there were parts of the Diagram that even Odium couldn’t see (Renarin’s name). Seems they have good intentions, but are ultimately perilous to our protagonists through their means to save Roshar and, thus, are “bad guys”. I seems to me that Taravangian just wants what’s best for Roshar, and it’s too bad his one day of genius has painted all of our main characters as roadblocks/liabilities/etc. Always so sneaky, Taravangian, but also very interesting. I hope he has another day of brilliance, I loved reading the day on Urithiru where he was quite intelligent (still not the same as the Diagram day, of course).
• Sons of Honor — my least favorite of the secrete organizations tbh. Glad Amaram is dead after being infused by the Unmade (can’t remember which one. Yelig-Nar maybe?). Amaram seemed to have met with Odium prior to the battle for Thaylen City though… is that consistent with the SoH or did he break off from the group to do this? Other members of SoH that we know of so far?

Bridge Four:

• The connection between squires and radiants is still kinda vague to me. What are the requirements for these squires to become full Radiants, if at all?
• I think Rock may be my favorite B4 member, so earnest and kind, doesn’t want to hurt anyone. And a good cook. I’d like to know more about his past, his family, really all about the Horneaters. I could tell right away that he’d be pretty distraught over having to take the Amaram kill shot.
• Love Skar and Drehy’s connection with Adolin.
• Teft has gotta figure out his firemoss shit
• How can you not love the Lopen?

Other mysteries and thoughts:

• Aimia — what happened here? What caused its destruction? It’s hinted in Mythica that one of the Unmade, the mysterious Dai-Gonarthis, may have caused the destruction of this country. There are still secrets lying in Akinah as suggested by the Oathbringer interludes that I’d love to discover more about.
• What of the Aimian people? Reading online hints that there are two types, iirc. The only things I remember are of Axies the collector and the Sleepless that Lift encounters in Edgedancer. I remember being thoroughly spooked by him, hordelings crawling around all the time. Perhaps as intended, every time there is mention of cremlings in the main SA series, I think it’s one of the Sleepless keeping an eye on things (Taln’s kidnapping at the end of WoR, e.g.).
• Zahel has a lot to yet reveal in these books. I feel like he’s pretty dang powerful and should have a bigger role in all of this.
• The country of Natanan is somewhat interesting right now too. Still surviving as a city-state over so close to the Origin. How are they doing? I want more on them too.
• There’s some sketchy stuff going on at the Origin too. We’ve got information about that story (from Wit’s story in WoK if I remember correctly) that people may live there and have their own kingdom and whatnot. This place gets hinted at from time to time. Was the Oathbringer interlude about the lighthouse taking place here?
• There’s something going on in the Horneater Peaks. There is a Perpendicularity there, but I feel that can’t be all.
• What’s the deal with the Greatshells? They seem important and… wise? Perhaps some relation to the Chasmfiends (unless they’re classified as Greatshells too? I’m mostly thinking of those that live in/near the Reshi Isles).
• So much of the Cognitive realm/Shadesmar still needs to be explored and understood from our perspective.
• Will the assassin hired by Jasnah on the night of Gavilar’s assassination come into play again? Can’t remember her name rn.
• Speaking of that day… why were the Heralds (Nale and Ash? Any more?) at the party?
• Who is Restares and why did Gavilar think he may have been involved with his murder? Is there some deeper involvement by House Sadeas in the assassination of Gavilar as well?
• We still don’t know the full details of Gavilar’s plan. What was he up to? The Listeners killed him for the desire to bring back their gods (which has proved disastrous), but what else was he getting into? He had clear ties to the Sons of Honor I think.
• Will Adolin be able to revive Maya and perhaps gain some Radiant powers?? I’m rooting for it to happen.
• Man, what’s going on over in the West? Iri and Rira just decided to submit to the Voidspren/Listeners immediately? And Shinovar is going to have an interesting story with it being the first-landing of humans and the storage space for most of the Honorblades for thousands of years.
• Wit found a Pattern at the end of part 5 and mentioned some of the First Ideal (interesting…). He’s always going to be a mystery to me, I fear. But also easily one of the, if not the, best character in the series.

AI has long been discussed in rationalist circles. There’s been a lot of focus on risks from artificial intelligence (particularly the idea that it might cause human extinction), but also the idea that artificial general intelligence might happen quite soon and subsequently transform society (e.g. supercharging economic growth in a technological singularity).
I’ve long found these arguments intriguing, and probably underrated by the public as a whole. I definitely don’t align myself with people like Steven Pinker who dismiss AI concerns entirely.
Nonetheless, I’ve noticed increasingly high confidence in beliefs of near-term transformative AI among rationalists. To be fair, it’s reasonable to update somewhat given recent advances like GPT-4. But among many, there is a belief that AI advances are the single most important thing happening right now. And among a minority, there are people with very extreme beliefs - such as quite high confidence that transformative AI is just a few years away, and/or that AI is very likely to kill us all.
My core arguments in this post are that firstly, from an “epistemic humility” or “outside view” perspective, we should be suspicious of confident views that the world is soon going to end (or change radically).
Secondly, the implications of the most radical views could cause people who hold them to inflict significant harm on themselves or others.

Who Believes In “AI Imminence”?

The single person I am most specifically critiquing is Eliezer Yudkowsky. Yudkowsky appears unwilling to give specific probabilities but writings like “Death With Dignity” has caused many including Scott Alexander to characterise him as believing that AI has a >90% chance of causing human extinction)
As a very prominent and very “doomy” rationalist, I worry that he may have convinced a fair number of people to share similar views, views which if taken seriously could hold its holders to feel depressed and/or make costly irrevocable decisions.
But though I think Yudkowsky deserves the most scrutiny, I don’t want to focus entirely on him.
Take Scott Alexander - he frames himself in the aforementioned link as “not as much of a doomer as some people”, yet gave a 33% probability (later adjusted downwards as a result of outside view considerations like those I raise in here) to “only” ~20%. While this leaves enough room for hope that it’s not as potentially dangerous a view as Yudkowsky’s, I agree with how the top Reddit comment in the original post said:

Is AI risk the only field where someone can write an article about how they’re not (much) of a doomer when they think that the risk of catastrophe/disasteextinction is 33%?

Beyond merely AI risk, claims about “transformative AI” date back to ideas about the “intelligent explosion” or “singularity” that are most popularly associated with Ray Kurzweil. A modern representation of this is Tom Davidson of Open Philanthropy, who wrote a report on takeoff speeds.
Other examples can be seen in (pseudo-)prediction markets popular with rationalists, such as Metaculus putting the median date of AGI at 2032, and Manifold Markets having a 17% chance of AI doom by 2100 (down from its peak of around 50% (!) in mid-2023).

Why Am I Sceptical?

My primary case for (moderate) scepticism is not about the object-level arguments around AI, but appealing to the “outside view”. My main arguments are:

• Superforecasters and financial markets are not giving high credence to transformative AI. Both groups have good track records, so we should strongly consider deferring to their views.
  
• The transformative AI argument is "fishy" (to borrow Will MacAskill’s argument against “The Most Important Century”). It implies that not only we are at an unusually pivotal time in history (perhaps the most important decade, let alone century), but that consequently, rationalists are perhaps the most important prophets in history. When your claims are that extraordinary, it seems much more likely that they're mistaken.
  
• The “inside view” arguments do not seem very robust to me. That is, they are highly speculative arguments that are primarily discussed among an insular group of people in usually relatively informal settings. I think you should be wary of any argument that emerges via this process, even if you can’t point to any specific way in which they are wrong.
  

Why I’m Against Highly Immodest Epistemology

However, maybe appealing to the “outside view” is incorrect? Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote a book, Inadequate Equiibria, which in large part argued against what he saw as excessive use of the “outside view”. He advises:

Try to spend most of your time thinking about the object level. If you’re spending more of your time thinking about your own reasoning ability and competence than you spend thinking about Japan’s interest rates and NGDP, or competing omega-6 vs. omega-3 metabolic pathways, you’re taking your eye off the ball.

I think Yudkowsky makes a fair point about being excessively modest. If you are forever doubting your own reasoning to the extent that you think you should defer to the majority of Americans who are creationists, you’ve gone too far.
But I think his case is increasingly weak the more radically immodest your views here. I’ll explain with the following analogy:
Suppose you were talking to someone who was highly confident in their new business idea. What is an appropriate use of a “modesty” argument cautioning against overconfidence?
A strong-form modesty argument would go something like “No new business idea could work, because if it could, someone would already have done it”. This is refuted by countless real-world examples, and I don’t think anyone actually believes in strong-form modesty.
A moderate-form modesty argument would go something like “Some new business ideas work, but most fail, even when their founders were quite confident in them. As an aspiring entrepreneur, you should think your chances of success in your new venture are similar to those of the reference class of aspiring entrepreneurs”.
The arguments against epistemic modesty in Inadequate Equilibria are mainly targeted against reasoning like this. And I think here there’s a case where we can have reasonable disagreement about the appropriate level of modesty. You may have some good reasons to believe that your idea is unusually good or that you are unusually likely to succeed as an entrepreneur. (Though a caveat: with too many degrees of freedom, I think you run the risk of leading yourself to whatever conclusion you like).
For the weak-form modesty argument, let’s further specify that your aspiring entrepreneur’s claim was “I’m over 90% confident that my business will make me the richest person in the world”.
To such a person, I would say: “Your claim is so incredibly unlikely a priori and so self-aggrandising that I feel comfortable in saying you’re overconfident without even needing to consider your arguments”.
That is basically what I feel about Eliezer Yudwosky and AI.
Let’s take a minute to consider what the implications are if Yudkowsky is correctly calibrated about his beliefs in AI. For a long time, he was one of the few people in the world to be seriously concerned about it, and even now, with many more people concerned about AI risk, he stands out as having some of the highest confidence in doom.
If he’s right, then he’s arguably the most important prophet in history. Countless people throughout history have tried forecasting boon or bust (and almost always been wrong). But on arguably the most important question in human history - when we will go extinct and why - Yudkowsky was among the very few people to see it and easily the most forceful.
Indeed, I’d say this is a much more immodest claim than claiming your business idea will make you the richest person in the world. The title of the richest person in the world has been shared by numerous people throughout history, but “the most accurate prophet of human extinction” is a title that can only ever be held by one person.
I think Scott Alexander’s essay Epistemic Learned Helplessness teaches a good lesson here. Argument convincingness isn’t necessarily strongly correlated with the truth of a claim. If someone gives you what appears to be a strong argument for something that appears crazy, you should nonetheless remain highly sceptical.
Yet I feel like Yudkowsky wants to appeal to “argument convincingness” because that’s what he’s good at. He has spent decades honing his skills arguing on the internet, and much less at acquiring traditional credentials and prestige. “Thinking on the object level” sounds like it’s about being serious and truth-seeking, but I think in practice it’s about privileging convincing-sounding arguments and being a good internet debater above all other evidence.
A further concern I have about “argument convincingness” for AI is that there’s almost certainly a large “motivation gap” in favour of the production of pro-AI-risk arguments compared to anti-AI-risk arguments, with the worriers spending considerably more time and effort than the detractors. As Philip Trammel points out in his post “But Have They Engaged with The Arguments?, this is true of almost any relatively fringe position. This can make the apparent balance of “argumentative evidence” misleading in those cases, with AI no exception.
Finally, Yudkowsky’s case for immodesty depends partly on alleging he has a good track record of applying immodesty to “beat the experts”. But his main examples (a lightbox experiment and the monetary policy of the Bank of Japan) I don’t find that impressive given he could cherry-pick. Here’s an article alleging that Yudkowsky’s predictions have frequently between egregiously wrong and here’s another arguing that his Bank of Japan position in particular didn’t ultimately pan out.

Why I’m Also Sceptical of Moderately Immodest Epistemology

I think high-confidence predictions of doom (or utopia) are much more problematic than relatively moderate views - they are more likely to be wrong, and if taken seriously, more strongly imply that the believer should consider making radical, probably harmful life changes.
But I do still worry that the ability to contrast with super confident people like Yudkowsky lets the “not a total doomer” people off the hook a little too easily. I think it’s admirable that Scott Alexander seriously grappled with the fact that superforecasters disagreed with him and updated downwards based on that observation.
Still, let’s revisit the “aspiring entrepreneur” analogy - imagine they had instead said: “You know what, I’ve listened to your claims about modesty and agree that I’ve been overconfident. I now think there’s only a 20% chance that my business idea will make me the richest person in the world”.
Sure - they’ve moved in the right direction, but it’s easy to see that they’re still not doing modesty very well.
An anti-anti-AI risk argument Scott made (in MR Tries the Safe Uncertainly Fallacy) is that appealing to base rates leaves you vulnerable to “reference class tennis” where both sides can appeal to different reference classes, and the “only winning move is not to play”.
Yet in the case of our aspiring entrepreneur, I think the base rate argument of “extremely few people can become the richest person in the world” is very robust. If the entrepreneur tried to counter with “But I can come up with all sorts of other reference classes in which I come out more favourably! Reference class tennis! Engage with my object-level arguments!”, it would not be reasonable to throw up your hands and say “Well, I can’t come up with good counterarguments, so I guess you probably do have a 20% chance of becoming the richest person in the world then”.
I contend that “many people have predicted the end of the world and they’ve all been wrong” is another highly robust reference class. Yes, you can protest about “anthropic effects” or reasons why “this time is different”. And maybe the reasons why “this time is different” are indeed a lot better than usual. Still, I contend that you should start from a prior of overwhelming skepticism and only make small updates based on arguments you read. You should not go “I read these essays with convincing arguments about how we’re all going to die, I guess I just believe that now”.

What Should We Make Of Surveys Of AI Experts?

Surveys done of AI experts, as well as opinions of well-regarded experts like Geoffrey Hinton and Stewart Russell, have shown significant concerns about AI risk (example).
I think this is good evidence for taking AI risk seriously. One important thing it does is raise AI risk out of the reference class of garden-variety doomsday predictions/crazy-sounding theories that have no expert backing.
However, I think it’s still only moderately good evidence.
Firstly, I think we should not consider it as an “expert consensus” nearly as strong as say, the expert consensus on climate change. There is nothing like an IPCC for AI, for example. This is not a mature, academically rigorous field. I don’t think we should update too strongly from AI experts spending a few minutes filling in a survey. (See for instance this comment about the survey, showing how non-robust the answers given are, indicating the responders aren’t thinking super hard about the questions).
Secondly, I believe forecasting AI risk is a multi-disciplinary skill. Consider for instance asking physicists to predict the chances of human extinction due to nuclear war in the 1930s. They would have an advantage in predicting nuclear capabilities, but after nuclear weapons were developed, the reasons we haven’t had a nuclear war yet have much more to do with international relations than nuclear physics.
And maybe AGI is so radically different from the AI that exists today that perhaps asking AI researchers now about AI risk might have been like asking 19th-century musket manufacturers about the risk from a hypothetical future “super weapon”.
I think an instructive analogy were the failed neo-Malthusian predictions of the 1960s and 1970s, such as The Population Bomb or The Limits to Growth. Although I’m unable to find clear evidence of this, my impression is that these beliefs were quite mainstream among the most “obvious” expert class of biologists (The Population Bomb author Paul Ehlrich had a PhD in biology), and the primary critics tended to be in other fields like economics (most notably Julian Simon). Biologists had insights, but they also had blind spots. Any “expert survey” that only interviewed biologists would have missed crucial insights from other disciplines.

What Are The Potential Consequences Of Overconfidence?

People have overconfident beliefs all the time. Some people erroneously thought Hillary Clinton was ~99% likely to win the 2016 Presidential election. Does it matter that much if they’re overconfident about AI?
Well, suppose you were overconfident about Clinton. You probably didn’t do anything differently in your life, and the only real cost of your overconfidence was being unusually surprised on election day 2016. Even one of the people who was that confident in Clinton didn’t suffer any worse consequences than eating a bug on national television.
But take someone who is ~90% confident that AI will radically transform or destroy society (“singularity or extinction by 2040") and seriously acts like it.
Given that, it seems apparently reasonable to be much more short-term focused. You might choose to stop saving for retirement. You might forgo education on the basis that it will be obsolete soon. These are actions that some people have previously taken, are considering taking or are actually taking because of expectations of AI progress.
At a societal level, high confidence in short-term transformative AI implies that almost all non-AI related long-term planning that humanity does is probably a waste. The most notable example would be climate change. If AI either kills us or radically speeds up scientific and economic growth by the middle of the century, then it seems pretty stupid to be worrying about climate change. Indeed, we’re probably underconsuming fossil fuels that could be used to improve the lives of people right now.
At its worst, there is the possibility of AI-risk-motivated terrorism. Here’s a twitter thread from Emil Torres talking about this, noticeably this tweet in particular about minutes from an AI safety workshop “sending bombs” to OpenAI and DeepMind.
To be fair, I think it’s highly likely the people writing that were trolling. Still - if you’re a cold-blooded utilitarian bullet-biter with short timelines and high p(doom), I could easily see you rationalising such actions.
I want to be super careful about this - I don’t want to come across as claiming that terrorism is a particularly likely consequence of “AI dooming”, nor do I want to risk raising the probability of it by discussing it too much and planting the seed of it in someone’s head. But a community that takes small risks seriously should be cognizant of the possibility. This is a concern that I think anyone with a large audience and relatively extreme views (about AI or anything) should take into account.

Conclusion

This post has been kicking around in draft form since around the release of GPT-4 a year ago. At that time, there were a lot of breathless takes on Twitter about how AGI was just around the corner, Yudkowsy was appearing on a lot of podcasts saying we were all going to die, and I started to feel like lots of people had gone a bit far off on the deep end.
Since then I feel there’s a little bit of a vibe shift away from the most extreme scenarios (as exhibited in the Manifold extinction markets), as well as me personally probably overestimating how many people ever believed in them. I’ve found it hard to try to properly articulate the message: “You’re probably directionally correct relative to society as a whole, but some unspecified number of you have probably gone too far”.
Nonetheless, my main takeaways are:

• Eliezer Yudkowsky (these days) is probably causing harm, and people with moderate concerns about AI should distance themselves from him. Espousing views that we are all likely to die from AI should not be tolerated as a merely strong opinion, but as something that can cause meaningful harm to people who believe it. I feel this might actually be happening to some degree (I think it’s notable that e.g. the 80,000 Hours podcast has never interviewed him, despite interviewing plenty of other AI-risk-concerned people). But I would like to see more of a “Sister Souljah moment” where e.g. a prominent EA thought leader explicitly disavows him.
  
• Yudkowsky being the worst offender doesn't let everyone else off the hook. For instance, I think Scott Alexander is much better at taking modesty seriously, yet I don't think he takes it seriously enough.
  
• We should be generally suspicious of arguments for crazy-sounding things. I have not only become more suspicious of arguments about AI, but also other arguments relatively popular in rationalist or EA circles, but not so much outside it (think certain types of utilitarian arguments that imply that e.g. maybe insect welfare or the long-term future outweighs everything else). I appreciate that they might say something worth considering, and perhaps weak-form versions of them could be reasonable. But the heuristic of “You probably haven’t found the single most important thing ever” is something I think should be given more weight.
  

I've had a fairly quick interview loop experience with a prominent tech company: recruiter call, then following week hiring manager, then the following the panel interview with 4 senior level team members (head of/directors). Initially, the panel was scheduled for mid-week + then all were moved earlier. The recruiter mentioned that there is an upcoming deadline for the role. I think the interviews went pretty well. There may have been a couple moments where I could have been more succinct, but communicated everything I needed to in a structured way (STAR) (e.g. established rapport, competencies for the role, culture, etc). All the interviews went to the very end or slightly over. I asked good questions and conversation turned casual.
After I sent my thank you email, the recruiter responded early the next morning and said he should have an answer by EOW with a decision. It's now the weekend and I didn't hear anything. Obviously, it hasn't been long at all + there are so many variables (e.g. the sync could have been moved, senior level directors have a ton on their plate, etc) - but a part of me thinks that if I were a frontrunner, someone might've been in touch to let me know there would be a delay? My anxiety is strong.
What are your thoughts, recruiters?

SYNOPSIS: Walking your OP monster girlfriend home is easy. No one messes with you. Getting back to your house on your own? That's the tricky part.
What's worse than an eldritch building? How 'bout a bigger one?
First Previous (See NEXT>> in comments)
Chapter Cover Art (From Mood Writing Sample)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Norman took one look at the towering building to his left. Then he took off.
.
.

“̷̵̵̷̶̷̶̶̸̶̶̸̴̡̛̮͉̹̪̼̙̤̲̤͔̗̮̥̣̜͓̟̞̃̔̈́̑̈̍͌̂̂̐̋͛̉̓G̵̶̸̷̴̸̵̵̴̶̸̷̸̴̶̨̢̧̞͈̠̜̳̪͎̬̜̱̫͚̝̩̑̒͐́͆̃̿̉̆̉̃̓̀̎̐͂̎̒̕̕͘͝͝Ǵ̷̷̷̴̸̸̷̷̷̷̵̨̢̞̥͓̰͖͙̰̝͖̩̺͍͎͉͌̽̂́͐̓̀͒̐͗́M̴̷̶̵̴̷̵̶̵̴̷̷̢̡̧̢̛̫̲͕͇̗̯͚̥͙͓͓̀̒͑͒̂̊̅̐͛̂̄͌̈̚͝M̴̷̶̵̴̷̷̶̷̬̼̭̗͍̺̳̩̱͍̂̄̾͂̔̽̇̀͝͝͝͠M̶̯̙̥͕̞̰̗̗͐̔!̸̞̞̬̼̖̩̈́̇͊͐̾͑͋̉!̷̧͈̘̬̆͑͝!̶̤̜̔̓̆̅̔͆͘͝”̸̨̧̼̭̫̒͜

.
The new hunting cry boomed through his body. It was much louder than the first building’s, albeit shorter, like a tap on the shoulder from a titan proclaiming its presence to the world.
Of course, the tap of a titan could flatten a man.
Norman fell. His legs had simply stopped working. Jaws clenched, he forced his will into wobbly muscles. His palms slammed into the waterlogged street, stopping the fall. With a sharp push, he sprang back to his feet and ran on.
Norman yanked out the remaining two flash grenades on the go, strung them together, armed and drew back for a throw.
.
.

“̷̬̳̙̍̎̆G̴̥͇̥͔͕̫̈̀M̵̛͇̜͙͇̫͔̭̩̝̜̓̈̏̓̓̀͛̚͜͝͝M̷̩͈͉̘͙̿͌̃̽͂̃̏̏̓̾̈́͌̈́̉̅̄̉͘!̷̢̧̢̤͓̭̖̝̏̏̄̓̾̉̆͋͘͝!̵͍̱̼̮̯̺̲͙̖̮̗͓̻̓̊͂̒̔͐̎͘͘̚!̵̙͍̟̌͒̃͂̎͠”̶̡̛̠̱̭̞̹̟͉̒̎̎̂͂̐̈́̓̄̚̕

.
.
That quick boom pounded through him. His fingers faltered. The flash grenades slipped from his grip and fell. He was still recovering from the sound when they went off at his feet. The nightsight filtered the flash, so he didn’t go blind. He’d gutted the flash grenade’s speakers, so he didn’t go deaf. The peeping building could deafen him all on its own … no, this wasn’t a peeping building. He’d slew a peeping building. They were small fries by comparison.
This was an eyescraper.
Tentacles the width of busses unsheathed from its sides. Even if he’d managed to launch the grenades and bathe it in smitelight, he suspected that wouldn’t be enough.
Norman sliced at its eyes with a focused beam. It barely flinched. Maybe if it got close enough, he could affect it a bit. By then, it would be too late.
Throbbing chuffs thundered from the monster. It sounded like a laugh.
Norman shot it a defiant glare. He bolted. Not fast enough. He could feel the giant closing in. So, he moved faster. Then faster, and still faster. His muscles blared their warnings. Rain lashed his face. He felt the air begin to resist his movements as he reached a speed at which it mattered. It was in his way, so he pushed through it too. No one was there to tell him he was moving far faster than any human known to history. All he cared about was hearing that thing fall behind him, and so it did. The tremours of its tremendous movements grew fainter.
At the end of the street, an apartment building came into view. Norman threw himself against it, climbing with the reckless abandon of a madman. He was halfway to the top.
.
.

“̷̧̨̭̹̘̥̮͖̤̻̥̬̌̀͒̔͌̊̀̚͜͜͠Ǧ̶̨̨̧̺̘̰̗̘̥̝̗̦̩͖͎͋̈͑͐̒̽̉̔͛̾̒́̕ͅM̴̨̉́̾̉͂͆̔̿̀̃̇̎̍͆̂̽͗̔͘͠ͅM̷̝̻̱̆̍͜!̴̮̬̯̮̦̖́͂̆͋̿̇̎̄̄̅̂͑̎̀̕͘͝͝͝!̸̲͎̲̼̠̮̱͖̥̭̤̩͓̘̜͈̟̖̮̰̦͖̀̂͗͂̽̈́̋͌͂̐̓̈̕!̸̜̆̿̋̔̽̕”̷̢̦̜̰̼̳̝͓̆͗̈́̆̆̑̃̾͑̀͗͒͆́͐͒̈́̿̽̕̕͜

.
.
His grip went limp. He fell. Struck the ground. His head bounced. The world grew fu...z z y.
.
.
.
W
h
y
.
.
.
w
a
s
.
h
e
.
r
u
n
n
i
n
g
.
a
g
a
i
n
?
.
.
.
.
.
.

_CHAT

• LEMMY.OUTA.HERE: (Stupse) Well, he ded.
• BAJANETTE11: ARN74, JUST GO AND FIND HIM!!!
• ARN74: HE DIDN’T SEND ME DE PIN! DIS BAAARE STRESS! NORMAN, YOU PUNK! YOU EMOTIONALLY INVESTED ME IN THIS CHANNEL! IF YOU DIE NOW I’M GONNA KILL YOU!

Something was yapping in the background, but it wasn’t important. He felt fine. Everything was fine. Why not rest? Why was he even-?

_CHAT

• ARN74: YOU PROMISED ME YOU WOULDN’T LEAVE AMY!!

What? No he didn’t! Promises weren’t for trolls! Why would he leave Amy anyway?
.
.
“̸̼͔̖̜̫͍͚̊́̽͆̓̂̋̋͐̕Ģ̴̢͕͉̯̺̗̖͔͙̪͓̻̯̫̭̙̱͕̠̭̩̌M̸̨̧̘̟̹̖̻̲͍̭͓͉̰͙̦̣̜͉̻̎̅͗̇̈́̈̏͌̓̾̀̈̈́͜M̵̢̢̖̯̦͍͕̝̯̥̹̪̠̥̰̝̖̊͛̀̇͜!̵̢̡̡͚͕̘̟͕̥̦̪͆̈́̿͆!̴̛̹͈̜̥͔̬͎̪̩͚̦̯̟̘̩̰̳̍̑̂́̌͌̎́̒͋̽̿̑͌͝͝!̴̛̥͕̪͂̂̂̈̓͆͗̇̄̈́̌̅̎͂̕̚̕͝͠”̷̧̧̛̠̝̰̞̘͙̥̖͎̭̞̜̳̟̓͆̌̊̃̔́͒͋̇̈́͘̚͠͝ͅ
.
.
Oh, right. There was a skyscraper running him down. To think he lived in a world where that made any sense. He rubbed his throbbing head. It was hard to think, though.

_CHAT

• ARN74: TRY AN CLIMB DE TING OPPA!

Brain fog would have to wait.
In two twos he jumped onto the side of the building and kept going up and up without breaking the momentum of the leap. Adrenaline had challenged gravity. Gravity lost. There was no pause to assess handholds. There was no rain stinging his face. In his mind, there was only ‘CLIMB, CLIMB, CLIMB!’ Crest the rooftop. ‘RUN, RUN, RUN!’ Descend the other side ‘JUMP!’ Gravity greedily reclaimed Norman, dragging him 4 storeys down at breakneck speed. He hit the ground in a parkour roll. Bruised a bone. Nearly fractured a shoulder. Wrenched his spine. Joints, muscle, ligaments almost popped. They didn’t.
He was running again.
Norman had never heard a building shred like paper. He’d never thought to wonder what it sounded like.
*( ( BMMM! ) ) ( ( BMM! ) ) ( ( BOOM! ) ) \*

SHHHHHRRRRRRMMMM!

Now he knew.
Those booms … was it the eyescraper’s tentacles breaking the sound barrier, or punching holes through the apartment building? Maybe both. It didn’t matter. What mattered was that it was tearing the building in two with the ease of one parting curtains. Buildings were not designed to be parted. Two became legions as the sundered building collapsed.
Norman rushed for an abandoned truck, slid beneath the trailer. Not quite fast enough. Most of the rubble didn’t reach him directly, but upon hitting the ground? It pulverised into a blast of cloud like a sandstorm. Hissing beneath the trailer, the dust stung at his ankles. He ignored it, racing for the truck’s cabin at the front. Perched on the step beneath the door, he braced as the dust raced beneath, around and above him. The cabin was his shield. He flinched to a duck when its windows shattered as the dust cloud blasted straight through them. The truck rocked and slid slightly, bombarded by wind and dust. It lurched as a chunk of debris finally reached it, crumpling the trailer like cheap foil.
Time to move.
Particles prickled Norman’s eyes, finding their way through the nightsight. He took a fresh glimpse of the path ahead before clouds of grey engulfed it all.
Memorised.
He dashed on. A split second later, the cabin was levelled under a larger slab of concrete. More sporadically thundered down around him. His eyes were squeezed shut, denying entry to any more particles. He scrambled through the street, dodging obstacles from memory. As for the concrete rainfall that couldn’t be seen? He had some prayers about that, but it probably came out like half-baked gibberish.
Norman chanced opening his eyes. They watered like crazy. At least most of the dust was gone. Behind him, the eyescraper’s menacing silhouette was picking through the rubble. Finally, an unblocked street was in sight. He rounded the corner.
.
“̵̨̢̮͕̻̲̺́͠G̵̣̒́̓̽̅̊͘͝Ọ̷̝̣͓͙͔̀ͅͅǪ̷̜̺͚̲̯̭̈́̍͂͑̋̋̅͂̅́M̷̨̤̭͈̯̤͋̾̏̈̅̉̀̏͘M̵̡̢̙̱͌̊̓͒́͌Ḿ̸̳͗̀̀͐͒͗́͠ͅ!̷͍͉̣̪̫͙̳̲̤̎̀̾̅̈́̔̎̑͘͜͝͝!̴̨͈͖̘̖̅͛̋̽͠!̸͎̩͓̫̥̼̫̊”̵̫̗̞̣̝̃̅̕͘͜͜͝ͅ
.
Another peeping building, rumbling in from the new street. Alright. Straight it was.
.
“̷̢̧̻̹͚͔̾G̵̳̭̾̃̎̍̌̂̈́̂͛͘M̶̧̠͇͔͚͉̮͈̰͒͊́̏̔̄̾̊͐̒͂͜M̸̳͓̋͋̔͑̔̔̕͝Ő̷͓̟̱̮͓̍̂̾̽̇͘͠Ô̸̧̫͉̮͚̥̥̯̈̾͋̅͂͘̚M̶̢̫̥̰̮̪͙̬̙̗̺̽͒͐͌̋̈̄͆͝M̴̢̧̧̛̗͔͓̫̭̳̱͑̉!̵̡̛̛͍̲̓̅̑̈́̿̏͘̕͠!̸̧̖͔̣̩̏́͋̀͛͂̏̀̇̑͐!̴̧͕̝̮̤̱͈̬͋”̸͓̉̈́̑̎͊̌
.
Maybe not. A third building emerged from the rainfall ahead. All streets blocked. He glanced about. All alleys still blocked. This really was a hunting net, but this much energy for a tiny human? Predators weren’t usually like this.
He ran for the nearest building that wasn’t occupied by eldritch calamari.

( ( BOOMM! ) )

The eyescraper’s tentacle crossed his path. Its supersonic shockwave sent him flying.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Norman came to. Rain poured against his face as he lay on his back. How long was he out? Why was it so cold? The atmosphere didn’t quite feel right. It didn’t look right either. Something about the colours, or subtle lack thereof. Everything seemed a bit desaturated. Norman sat up and coughed his lungs out, evicting a mix of dust and rain water collected in his slackly gaping mouth. Buildings towered above him on every side, a bit too close for comfort.
.

“̸̮̼͍̻̯̲̹͓̬̻̓̍G̷̛̖̙̰̰̟̓Ḿ̸̧̨͊̊̔͒͌̆͆͘͠͝M̷̧̺̏̿̆͑͆͋̅͌̕͝G̵̰̺͇̺̯̲͇̠͖͂͜M̸̡̨͕̹̗̥̎͑́̾!̸͇͙͚̝̩͕̙̒!̵͙̬̮̪̏̍!̶͔̪͉̙̘̃̐̄͝”̶̡̡̥̫̻̝̜̫͙̩͛ͅ

.
Oh, right, those weren’t just buildings.
Norman raised a finger, gesturing to wait. “Could you *kaff!* quit subwoofin’ at me for, like, ten seconds!”
“Plucky.̵͚͐͝ for all seasons I .̵̦̺͐̅see,” came a skin-crawling voice from behind him.
Norman swung back his smitelight. It barely moved half a foot, then it stopped. Rather, something stopped it. That ‘something’ was cold. So cold. His wrist felt the chill without even touching it.
Norman turned, slowly, so as not to trigger further attacks. He found himself looking up.
Eight feet tall. Dark grey skin. A grin that went a little too wide. Dagger teeth. An open-chested jacket, revealing sinewy muscles with luminous markings like tattoos. His ebony eyes bore penetrating white pupils. Of all his traits, the dreadlocks stood out most. They belonged in a nightmare, dancing through the air with a life of their own. Somehow, they looked blacker than black, absorbing every ray of light or heat that came their way. That icy chill in the air shifted with the movements of his dreadlocks. They seemed to drink life from the air itself. Norman almost found it hard to breathe. One dreadlock clutched Norman’s smitelight, only by the tip, but its grip was iron.
Norman stared the tall man down.
The nyctal’s grin grew by a smidgeon.
Taking a calculated risk, Norman released the smitelight. Perhaps a peace offering would do good.
“Good.̷̧͋͌̎̿ boy,” the tall man nodded, admiring the smitelight as the dreadlock rotated it. “Clever.̴̧̤̩͈͓̖͂ͅ toy.”
Norman noted an understated Jamaican accent in his voice.
More dreadlocks slithered across the smitelight, as if tasting its every nook and cranny.
Norman did his best to look casual as he scanned for an escape route. The eyescraper’s tentacles had wrapped around the street, fencing him in.

_CHAT

• BAJANETTE11: 😳
• DARCIE222: okay, i’m back
• HARD-BACK-M8N: who you is again?
• DARCIE222: i left after the twilight angel sleep paralysis
• LEMMY_OUTA_HERE: And you’re back for more?
• DARCIE222: wonna know it impossible to stay away from a channel like dis

Norman looked at the tall nyctal again.

_CHAT

• DARCIE222: 😲 WHO IS THAT?!? AND WHY IS HE KIND OF …??? 😍
• MUNSTER-VERSER: I KNOW!!!
• BAJANETTE11: HE LIKE A VAMPIRE RASTA MAN! ❤❤❤
• ENTO_MOLLY: MOVE OVER MIGUEL O’HARA!! 😍🥰😘
• BAJANETTE11: NORMAN ASK FOR HE NUMBER!!!
• NORMAN: I HERE ABOUT TO DIE AND WONNA WANT HE PHONE NUMBER!?!

The nyctal’s eyes shifted to Norman inquisitively. He frowned, raising an eyebrow as the comments piled up. Finally, he smirked mischievously.
“Your fanbase has peculiar tastes,” purred the tall man.

_CHAT

• ENTO_MOLLY: 😳 Is … he talking about us? HE CAN SEE THE CHAT???
• DARCIE222: THE WAY HE SAID IT!!!
• DARCIE222: HBVJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJKL;K''
• LEMMY_OUTA_HERE: Did she just pass out on the keyboard?
• LIKKLE-BOY: lol!
• ARN74: you’re simping. Norman’s about to die, and you’re simping

The tall man handed Norman his smitelight.
Norman’s suspicious gaze flicked between the nyctal and the weapon. Finally, he reached out and took hold of the smitelight.
It crumbled in his fingers like ice-cold ashes. If not for the insulation gloves, he might have gotten frostbite.
The nyctal laughed.
Norman didn’t find it particularly amusing.
The tall man sauntered towards the eyescraper. Beyond it was a darkness even the nightsight had difficulty piercing. He beckoned Norman as if it were an afterthought.
“Please come in, .̵̭̻͌̓̂Norman.̶̲͕͇̅̑̚,” the nyctal instructed.
Norman stared stubbornly, hands in his pockets as he rocked on his heels. He felt for his smartphone. It wasn’t there. When had he lost it?
Without looking back, the nyctal held up Norman’s phone. It disintegrated between his fingers as he rubbed them together.
Norman glared. At least the guy hadn’t pickpocketed deeply enough to find other things.
“Hey. To whom do I owe the … pleasure?” Norman almost had to push the last word through his teeth.
The nyctal stopped in the eyescraper’s doorframe. Shrouded in shadow, little could be seen of him, save the piercing white pupils peering out. Then the glint of his Cheshire grin.
“.̴̜͓̭̻̤̍̈́̆͑͑John Crow.̸̻̮̓̈́̏̓͘,” he answered, before receding into the darkness.
The eyescraper’s tentacles dragged in across the street, corralling Norman towards the building. With an exasperated groan, he trudged towards the main entrance.
“I want my bed,” grumbled Norman.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Become a free member on Patreon to read Part 14, 'Sleeping Giant', early! It will be released there today or tomorrow. For the visual 'mood writing' version (previously called 'artitext') and more Caribbean sci-fi, become a paid member for only $3! See links in comments.
First Previous (See NEXT>> in comments)

My first experience was in 2019. I was young. i truly needed healing an felt a lot better afterwards. I was told by older people that I was naïve and basically didn't know enough to do it. I honestly and completely trusted that I would find an older friend who would invite me to more and better ceremonies because the one I went to wasn't with people I could trust. They invited me to stay with them but there were red flags like actual ones. People called me naïve and so I waited. Now it's been years. I feel like I could have enjoyed my youth more. I tried my best every day to be grateful. But there was pain of not having completed my process. I tried to go to a therapist that specialized in this but they didn't teach me just assumed that I was in a bad place because I didn't go to their circle
NO ONE IS JUST GOING TO SAY THAT THEY WILL TAKE ME BECAUSE THEY LOVE ME ONLY ASK ME TO FILL OUT SOME FORM AND THEN THEY GRILL ME ON IF I KNOW G_D ENOUGH AND HOW FUCKED UP IN THE HEAD AM I
I don't mean Native people, only the facilitator types who I have to go through. Maybe I'll wait until I look old and have a degree and then I get respected as someone who actually needs healing even though I am in actual pain, I want to love life more, I went for it because the pain was unbearable,
Multiple people have hurt me over this because they could see I was desperate for a friend who knew. This feels like rape victim blaming only with not a sexual component. Similar level of intimacy/violation though
I can go to Brasil when I have the money and go to a religious one that way everyone is there for that and I have nothing against the healing traditions but I have encountered too much hardship from white people using techniques of the healing traditions for controlling others or calling themselfs a healer I can heal my pain by being religious or feeling religious
I don't want to apply to Santo Daime in America I tried and they are suspicious because they think I want drugs this hurts me too much to answer all the questions on the form if someone loved me they would accept me and I would not ask anything of people I don't know

We have a few space satellites that measure global temperature independently of ground stations.
My basic understanding is that they measure incoming (from earth) radiation level (irradiance).
Then with some maths, they derive the temperature from the received light spectrum.
Some satellites measure incoming infrared radiation, but the most popular ones measure incoming microwave radiation.
My main question is related to the use of thermometers on board of those satellites, their purposes.
Let's take for example the famous UAH satellite, its founder, Roy Spencer, says the following:
> Contrary to some reports, the satellite measurements are not calibrated in any way with the global surface-based thermometer records of temperature. They instead use their own on-board precision redundant platinum resistance thermometers (PRTs) calibrated to a laboratory reference standard before launch.
platinum thermometers are simply a more accurate version of thermometers versus mercury based ones.
He says the satellite has onboard (redundant (2)) thermometers. Why and at which step in the temperature calculus pipeline are those thermometers used in the satellite?
The satellites are in near space (very cold) and their face that is solar exposed could be very hot. In both ways (space cold and heat) seems highly unrelated to measuring earth surface temperature.
If so, then what are the purpose of those thermometers onboard? How do they relate with the spectroscopic measure of incoming radiation?
Here is my tentative understanding:
I was able to find this UAH paper that says:
> the spacecraft experience a slight E-W drift during the course of their operational life.
> the (microwave) instrument is exposed to more direct sunlight and warms as a result. This warming is evidenced in the on-board platinum resistance thermometer which is embedded in the hot-target plate. Christy et al. 2000 discovered the dependency of variations in the hot-target plate temperature (HTPT) and errors in the atmospheric temperature reported by the instrument. The instrument error was eliminated by determining a linear coefficient which when multiplied by the HTPT anomaly would account for much of the error.
from https://ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/68728.pdf
The paper they cite is most likely:
https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/atot/17/9/1520-0426_2000_017_1153_mttdca_2_0_co_2.xml?tab_body=abstract-display
> As mentioned in Christy et al. (1998), we discovered a spurious influence on the calculation of Tb due to the temperature of the instrument itself
According to this, it seems that the two thermometers, which are near the sun exposed part (plate) and the radiometer, are used to algorithmically correct the bias/drift effect of satellite temperature variation on the accuracy of the radiometer that measure microwaves.
Besides this correction, that was added in the 2000s, my question is, did the two themometers had, and still have another role in the earth temperature calculus? Do the radiometer needs them, independently of aforementioned drift.
> The determination of earth-viewed Tb from the ob-served digital counts is based on an interpolation scheme between two temperature anchor points: cold space and the onboard warm target plate T W . The MSU reports the intensity of microwave radiation as digital counts for the 11 earth views and for cold space and the warm target. The temperature for cold space is known (2.7 K) and that of the warm target is monitored by the two PRTs. Thus a relationship is then computed between counts and Tb given the digital counts and temperatures of the anchor points (Spencer et al. 1990).
If "earth viewed Tb" means earth calculated temperature (?) then it seems the radiometer alone cannot work (?) and needs to do the difference between the cold and hot zone of the satellite.
It seems to not be the same thing as aforementioned bias drift correction but the difference to me is unclear. The argument for this role of the thermometer being different is that it was described in 1990, before the drift was known (it seems but not sure).
note that they mention errors corrections can be non linear.
> In general, as the instrument heats (T W increases) the calculated earth-viewed temperature based on laboratory nonlinear calibration coefficients becomes too warm.
Meaning that the warmer the radiometer is, the warmer (non linearly) the earth calculated temperature is.
anyone knows what the "cold target counts" terminology actually means in regards to the radiometer?
note that the idea of using coorbiting satellites thermometer data for increased redundancy is promising.
Anyway here is my discovery, that is in fact known but it seems nobody had connected the dots before.
Christy discovered that the temperature variation of the radiometer affects the earth temperature calculus (non linearly).
They also measured that past similar satellites had anomalous drifts/temperature records because (among other things like orbital decay, instrument gain and diurnal bias) they were not correcting for their discovered bias.
HOWEVER, it seems no one has considered that there is a meta-drift, a drift over the drift since the 2 thermometers that are used to correct the radiometer bias, have themselves an intrinsic temperature drift over time that is an artificial warming effect.
It is known that thermometers (mercury, alcohol) artificially gain 0.7 degree per century.
for platinum thermometers, the temperature drift is between 2-10 millikelvin per year hence up to 1 degree of warming per century....
but in an environment like space (extreme cold, extreme heat when sun aligned, and lower gravity (could affect thermal expansion/accuracy) the effect could be bigger or faster especially with solar radiation.
source: https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015SPIE.9258E..1AD/abstract
Of course, here even if the thermometers were to have their temperature artificially increase by 1 degree (or more via accellerated space aging), the effect would not directly translate to an artificial increase of earth calculated temperature by 1 degree.
According to Christy's paper, the average UAH satellite monthly temperature was 280 degree at the time. So it would shift to an artificial 281 monthly temperature.
It appears there was a drift of 2 degree between 1979 to 97 for a similar satellite (see figure 5) albeit data is not clean at the end, and also, it might be natural space temperature variance (or via orbital decay/change) (no idea) instead of accelerated thermometer aging.
For N-6 (assuming it is representative..) the monthly mean hot plate variance was of 4 degree hence a thermal drift of 1-2 degree could affect the monthly variance by 25 to 50% which is huge but unclear to me how much the algo is sensitive to the variance versus the absolute temperature. Also daily variance is probably much larger.
The actual effect on earth calculated temperature could be calculated from figure 6, but I am too much of a noob to do the maths sadly.. If anyone could answer how much an artificial gain in thermometer temperature of say 1 degree would do on earth temperature that would be great.
For reference, when the bias was not corrected they observed ~0.8 degree of earth calculated temperature variance bias.
Note that this could have two effects as according to my partial understanding, the thermometer is used two times, 1) for the radiometer to work (related to "counts") they need to know the difference between the cold (fixed temp) and hot plate. and 2) for correcting the non linear bias of radiometer temperature. 1 and 2 might be the same thing but IMO they are not.
Note that independently of thermometer drift and temperature effect on radiometer, the radiometer could itself have also an age drift independent of temperature cf paper aforementioned instrument gain.
While the magnitude of the thermometer drift on earth temperature is unknown (to me) but can be calculated, it could be significant and falsify the satellite temperature record to an extent, and it should worsen in the following decades (especially if aging is non linear also there will be considerably more cosmic rays radiations during the incoming maunder like minimum (maybe arround 2030) which is predicted to reduce (temporarilly) the sun magnetosphere by something like 40% IIRC.
Most importantly this bias can be corrected, via analyzing coorbiting satellites with the UAH (or RSS) that are more recent, e.g. if a spacex satellite came with a thermometer and is nearby, then it could be cross correlated and used to assess how much the UAH thermometers have drifted empirically.

I still rely immensely on Recovery Packages to survive later in runs (currently farming to wave 1700 on T7 for about 700mil coins per run). I want to unlock ELS as I keep telling myself I should have done it a long time ago, but I worry that i will be taking too many free ups away from recovery packages if i unlock ELS. Currently each recovery package upgrade is workshopped to about level 40, with chance maxed out.
If it matters, im at 33B lifetime coins, and about 2.5 months into the game, currently saving up for double blackhole (about halfway to the necessary coins; also saving gems as i plan to gem rush the lab and recently got all my common cards to 6*)
Edit: i searched for this, and almost every post was “should i buy it” and answered yes, but people dont ever seem to say when to buy it, and if it has a temporarily negative impact on runs

https://reddit.com/link/1cv4hx6/video/7n314dame81d1/player
Here's Athina's "pink butterfly with pony legs" encounter.
It's the closest I can recreate it, and it's every bit this real for her using womb dreaming combined with darkroom.
And for new people, YES. It is ABSOLUTELY this real. Fully awake, eyes wide open.
But NO, you don't get to enjoy it as you might imagine.
In this state, you "don't care".
At first it feels like a curse. Like the pirates in the pirates of the Caribbean who were cursed for stealing Aztec gold coins.
They became immortal and can eat and drink all they want, stealing from everyone on the high seas.
But there's no taste to the food.
It's a tiny bit like that, minus the "cursed part".
To get excited about magic this awesome, and "feel the wonder!!!" you almost have to be dwelling in the river of shit, where miracles never happen and anything you can tell your friends which makes a good story, makes you happy.
But while perceiving magic at this level, which is OUTSIDE the river of shit, you realize that commerce in the river of shit stinks.
And your friends sling feces at you and piss on your leg all the time, so that why on earth would you want to please them?
I suppose this is why don Juan said that the dry shores on which Sorcerers climb, from the river of shit, where advanced sorcerers are waiting to hose the shit off you, are too cold for most people.
It's just not "cozy" up there. So they jump back in.
But, the magic is every bit this real. Fully visual, and even solid sometimes if you shift into this kind of situation and want to see if it also "feels" right.
Someone mentioned getting bored just seeing the purple puffs.
There's nothing this subreddit can do about that.
The idea that it should have an answer to not actually wanting to do the amount of work it takes, is based on fake magical systems which will give you something else to do, to keep your workshop fees flowing.
One woman took up Dzogchen, but ran into troubles with false memories during meditation, and believing they were real.
It was a nasty Russian cult, run by a single guy who had managed to put together his own fake magic franchises, based around the idea he had sacred scrolls for doing advanced Buddhist magic.
Naturally, none of them will ever do any magic at all.
The women got the closest to anything he's ever going to see, because those false memories were likely an inorganic being interacting with her.
But since it's just a crummy business, the leader told her that she could take the path of charity and serving others.
Kept her around that way.
We have no answers for people who can't follow the path.
It's closer to a trumpet playing subreddit in here, than to a Dzogchen cult.
If you get bored practicing the trumpet, then you simply can't learn to be good at playing the trumpet.
End of story.
Maybe later, much later, there will be things we can do. But that's what the new seers ended up doing.
Victimizing people by denting their luminous shell, to get them far past boredom without them having to do any work.
Frankly I hope no one of us ever learns to do that. Dead weight it's a good thing.

So, I'm seeing some mixed reactions to the last season, and honestly I'm feeling them myself as well, so I decided to sit down and sort of breakdown and analyse some of what happened over the course of Oxventure, what seemed to go well and what didn't, and maybe try to get into some litcrit of the whole thing.
Warning: I'm not always nice in this write up, though I have done my best to be fair and honest throughout in what I think the potential pitfalls were and how I hope they might be better addressed in future campaigns.
I've played D&D myself for a few years, listened to other Actual Play series (notably NADDPOD and some D20 at one end of the competency-of-players scale, and Dragon Friends and Dungeons and Drongos at the other), and write... a lot. Including over 250k of fanfic specifically for Oxventure, which started off as an excuse for smut but ended up being a lot of worldbuilding.

System & Setting

Johnny has made no secret that they're not a huge fan of D&D, indicating that they feel it overshadows other systems, and given that the Spicy Rat Caper was meant to be a one-off but fans loved it perhaps they felt a little trapped in the system. This did lead to some funny moments (Faire Trial and Max commenting that they sometimes felt "like a big dice rolling around a tray" sticks with me) but sometimes felt a bit mean-spirited ("Crawl Me Maybe" and the heavy 'lol dungeon crawling is so ridiculous' comes to mind).
It was also clear that at times, none of the group seemed to know the game and the rules super well. From Mike not knowing his movement speed ("30 what? Miles an hour?") to Merilwen not using her animal forms or changing out her spells until level 8, to the underpowering of most of the classes, it became more of an issue as time when on in some ways.
It's easy enough to understand why, live on stage and starry-eyed at Harry McEntire as Aubrey, Johnny missed that in the combat Aubrey cast two levelled spells in the same round (against the rules) as well as using two sorcery spell modifiers in the same round (also against the rules, and they mentioned this on the podcast). Sorcerer was also a new class to everyone, and dealing with a new class is always going to be difficult, especially dropping them in at a higher level rather than starting from level 1 and building up.
However, bluntly, most of the guild weren't using their class/subclass abilities to the fullest. Rules lawyer Andy did the best, so he gets a pass here, and Ellen got sharper with Merilwen over time to stuff like knowing her spell components, tracking her spell slots, and preparing her spells. However, the concept of Egbert as "a paladin who doesn't do paladin things" (quote from the post-Deadlands discussion) was ultimately really limiting not just for Egbert (Mike commented in one podcast episode that he felt he'd trapped himself in only using Egbert's abilities in ways that were funny) but for the entire concept of paladins - Max might as well have been a fighter in the fight in Gnome Alone that they took part in, and we never saw Shattershield fight at all. There were references to combat offscreen in Out of Order, but... that was it. (Additionally, while paladins can be poisoned, as poison and disease are different in 5e rules, paladins can pump out a LOT of healing, and a citadel full of them should have a lot of magical reserves to draw on as a result.)
And Egbert isn't the only one who was limited. One of the biggest features of Great Old One warlocks (which Prudence is, with Cthulhu), is that from level one they have telepathy within 30ft ("Awakened Mind"). Prudence went the entire campaign without using this. Although Johnny allowed the Message cantrip to be treated like this, allowing people to reply to it when RAW it is one-way only, this meant that Dob also essentially gained Prudence's power because he also had Message. Merilwen was limited in her animal forms and the spells that she knew up until level 8, and it was noticeable how everyone was shocked at her power once she had full RAW druid range. Corazón, on the other hand, not only had Andy keeping on top of all of his class and subclass features, but got two subclasses, leaving him about on par or slightly overpowered for the level he should have been looking overpowered because the others didn't use their abilities so well. Meanwhile, Dob was given access to full bardic abilities, but only used bardic inspiration in some of their level 1 adventures and then not much again until the final season.
The counterpart to this under-utilisation of class potential was the amount of 'rule of cool' or 'rule of funny' which sometimes worked well (Merilwen befriending the owlbear in Quiet Riot, or the reflavouring of Thunder Wave to do lightning damage instead based on their initial misunderstanding) and sometimes ended up breaking the game (the "everyone can cast Moonbeam" joke that escalated to the scrolls of Moonbeam that made the finale kind of laughable). Sometimes this seemed to be the time and audience pressure of live shows (allowing Prudence to use the hammer to wheel her way through the skeletons in Stop Hammer Time), but other times it was just letting them do things that went outside the rules (Egbert body-slamming six(?) Otherberts at once in Bad Altitude, or Dob casting all his spells at once in Corpse and Robbers) seemingly preferring the immediate humour or "yes and" over the potential internal logic or end implications.
The contrast between this permissiveness, sometimes to the point of breaking logical immersion, honestly seemed sharper to me when it was laid against Andy's GMing in Deadlands. Whether it was reminding people that there were snipers on the rooftops in Dead Man's Worth or refusing to yes-and a chandelier in More Wonders Than, he made it more difficult for the players and in doing so made them work harder within their skillsets and the setting, making the victories feel harder-won as a result. I'm aware that some people didn't like Andy's GMing specifically because he was less permissive, but I believe that his intention - and the outcome - was a stronger narrative that made the characters feel active and not just lucky. (Liliana lampshaded this in Frenemy at the Gates when she asked whether things often just fell into their laps, like with knowing Binbag, and it almost felt like a spiteful comment so it surprised me to hear it from Johnny.)
What I hope: It has been indicated that Johnny has created the new setting for the next game, so hopefully they have put things more to their liking at the beginning and will not end up seeming to dunk on the premise of their own series. I'm also hoping for everyone to either use more standardised rules, or at least establish in-game standards at the beginning so that all of the characters, and players, feel like they're on a level playing field from the off. Johnny seemed to much more enjoy the systems of Blades in the Dark and Deadlands (which were designed to be less superhero-level) and even the lower levels of Oxventure (especially Tier 1) where the characters were just people who were skilled but not particularly out of the range of normality; I'd be interested to see whether they lean more in that direction and keep the characters lower-powered as a result.

Characters & Character Arcs

Again, it's worth noting that the characters were initially conceived as being for a one-off game, so the initial concepts did not necessarily need planned arcs. However, the rockiness of some of the arcs overall may have contributed to issues with the series, especially as it stretched out over so many years. I'll go through the PCs alphabetically, then Liliana, then mention any other NPCs. There are two elements here - in-character goals, and character arc goals, which both play into things.
Corazón - in my opinion, Corazón had one of the stronger character arcs, which may reflect Andy's interest in writing (and now being published!), going from the coward pirate-wannabe who abandoned his crew to the curse, to the person who threw himself in front of a spell meant for Merilwen. This was highlighted in his reply to Them in Prism Break, even before the Power Word Kill spell. In fact, the Power Word Kill brought a level of pathos to the fact that he had told Them that he was not even done growing as a person. Andy commented on the podcast at some point that he had expected at the beginning to be one of the more morally shady characters (as a pirate), but found himself playing a line of being immoral regarding money but caring deeply about physical hurt or harm to people. Corazón also had two layers of in-character goals - to break the curse (limited) and to become a betterichereal pirate (more open-ended) and find his own identity which allowed him to carry character development over the years even when the curse was ignored for extended periods. Goals: clear and stepped, with the curse as a plot-hook; arc: good and perfectly timed for the finale.
What I hope for: More of the same, really.
Dob - Dob came in early with a clearly defined goal (to find his sister) - but this was done in Brawl of the Wild and Dob has been sort of... undefined ever since. It absolutely makes sense that he would have floundered for a while, but Dob has gone several years without settling on new goal, and Luke also didn't seem to settle on a character arc (the romance subplot in Orbpocalypse Saga through Bride or Die seemed to be almost a character arc, but never got full payoff?) which left Dob feeling... well, at times it almost seemed like Luke wanted to get rid of him to play someone else instead. This was unfortunately also highlighted in conversation with Them, as the response that Dob gave was about him being a "mote of chaos". I obviously couldn't speak for others, but I found this underwhelming and unconvincing as an answer, as it didn't give me any sense of why a powerful celestial being would consider this an argument - if Dob had developed the argument to be that chaos is generative and creative in a way that pure order cannot be, and/or that the free will and agency of sapience demand that they be allowed to act and to try even if they make mistakes or fail, I think there might have been something there, but he didn't really seem to. Goals: had one which formed a good plot-hook, then went without; arc: unclear.
What I hope for: Luke to determine more of a character arc, or series of shorter arcs, perhaps drawing from his Blades in the Dark DMing experience, and to either pick a more open-ended goal or to move along a series of goals over time.
Egbert - Egbert came in with the vaguer goal of "atonement", which gave him more wiggle room, but unfortunately didn't seem to actively pursue it a lot of the time. In Legacy of Dragons it was revealed that he was searching for atonement for the deaths of two Dragon D'Or members - but by this time, so many people around the Oxventurers had died, including innocent bystanders, that the deaths of two other paladins felt like nothing. (Mike commented, again on the podcast, that he agreed with the commenters at the time who agreed that they knew it was his backstory from the beginning because only two paladins had died. The two figure paled next to the collateral damage that the party later caused.) Mike also commented on the podcast that during lockdown, he had made a conscious change with Egbert in to try to avoid combat as much as possible, and to avoid fatal attacks if in combat, but it wasn't clear how long that lasted. It may have been trying to avoid being the annoying/preachy paladin that stopped him from trying to influence the rest of the party or to save lives around them, but unfortunately it meant that it was difficult to see a real sense of wanting to atone in Egbert's arc. Letting innocents die around him isn't exactly less culpable than killing them himself. (Notable incidents included Mule Be Sorry, Wrangle in the Tangle, Hag Reflex, and Squid Pro Quo.) In terms of character arcs, there was definitely an element of going from seeking approval from Dragon D'Or to seeking that of his friends, but that was just a switching of approval-seeking rather than a significant change. Goals: had one, but didn't seem to actively pursue it; arc: moved from pursuing the morals of Dragon D'Or to pursuing the morals of the Oxventurers.
What I hope for: Mike to come back with a character who seeks to pursue their own goals more directly (see Barnaby and Silas, who both felt much stronger in this sense).
Merilwen - Merilwen was supposed to be about balance and protecting nature, but didn't always heavily engage with this point of view, even when the actions of the other Oxventurers should have absolutely led to discussions or disagreements between them. Many people commented on Andy being dickish about shooting seabirds in Legacy of Dragons, but there are other incidents, including the Wrangle in the Tangle (again), Eldritch or Die Trying (where it would have been interesting to see Merilwen's preference for nature clash with the need for the crystal) and the Extinction season which seemed to veer between being set up to be about Merilwen, then swapping to Dob-centric, then cleaning up Corazon's curse. In terms of character arc, I think there might be an element that can be teased out about her not fitting in with elf society and fitting in better with the faster-paced, more chaotic world of shorter-lived peoples, but this feels like speculation on my part more than something intended. Naturally, a character of around 100 is not going to feel as suited to a coming-of-age story as younger ones, but characters of all ages should be able to have character arcs. (Even if they might be slower in longer-lived people like elves - an example I can go to here is Galadriel, from Tolkien, who in her youth was proud and refused a pardon that would have allowed her to return to Valinor, but at the end of LOTR is humble enough to accept and go there. It took millennia for her, but it was a character arc all the same!) In Merilwen's conversation with Them, her uncertainty seemed to talk to this - a lack of clarity about where her characterisation was supposed to have gone over the last few years. I think there was a real opportunity here to explore Merilwen's relationship with morality and the difference between neutrality and passiveness, which unfortunately was missed. Goals: was supposed to be about nature but didn't push for it; arc: [speculation] seeking a non-elven community that she matched better with.
What I hope for: Ellen to have a character with more defined goals or arc, or gaps still to be filled in, rather than a static momentary sketch of personality/character that doesn't feel designed to be changed over time. Again, Lilith with her secrets/looking into the paranormal, and Edie with her goal to help people in a world in which monsters aren't going away, felt stronger as characters with goals and arcs, and I'd be happy to see more of that.
Prudence - Ambitious from the off, Prudence never actually struggled for goals - power, knowledge, magic, influence. The open-endedness of these goals once again served Prudence pretty well for carrying her through individual adventures/games and over the course of the whole canon, even if she didn't come in with clearly-defined (plot hook) goals like Corazón's curse. For the first few years, it felt that her character arc wasn't hugely significant, although there was certainly an element of found family over selfishness that played into it, but Jane also discussed (again, in the podcast) how the werebear element was really quite exciting for her as it allowed her to begin to explore the clash between werebear Lawful Good status and Prudence's usual Chaotic Evil desires. Eldritch or Die Trying explored this in a somewhat exaggerated way, with Cthulhu offering power in exchange for the destruction of the others (I suspect in Prudence's question about specifying people, she was trying to figure out whether she could kill just Liliana) which was a somewhat blatant nod to the character arc but did underline it. (Unlike the others, this also established Prudence's character arc before Them.) Goals: open-ended in a way that leaves them technically incomplete even now but which were stably useful throughout canon; arc: de-isolation and alignment shifting (in a way that should have been ripe for playing off against Liliana's) which played out well.
What I hope for: A character with perhaps some more specific or plot-hook goals as well as broader life goals. Prudence's character arc played out more subtly than Corazón's and sometimes perhaps got lost behind the louder personalities of some of the others, but I do think was well done. A less obvious way to explore or demonstrate it would have been nice.
Liliana - So. Here we go. Liliana was essentially a DMPC for the last season, but was a recurring character before that, with a stated goal of subjecting part or all of G'eth and broader goals (indicated or stated in Prism Break and the finale season generally) of academic/scholarly improvement, arcane knowledge, and the notion of making people appreciate what they have by threatening to take it from them. As a villain, she was threatening, and the layering of goals once again worked here, even with the abrupt movement to 'save G'eth' in the last season because, well, you can't rule what no longer exists. However, I am honestly confused as to what her character arc was supposed to be - whether her stated change of heart in front of Them was real, or whether that was a lie that Them somehow did not call out or challenge. Considering in Frenemy at the Gates, Liliana says that Prudence is the most like her, there was a potential here to play against Prudence's character arc of coming to trust others, even appreciate others, and facing the consequences of suffering making her realise her own flawed logic. I really do not know whether her betrayal of the guild was planned from the beginning (in which case, her talking to Them feels like it was overplayed, and Them should have challenged her on it) or whether Johnny added it because the fight against the giant was over more quickly than anticipated (compare to Dine Hard where the chef was the one person they did not stat up because they didn't expect the guild to fight him). Goals: logical, stepped, and worked for a villain; arc: ????? was there an arc? Was it fake? Was it desperation? Why did she, on 1 hitpoint, try to Power Word Kill Prudence instead of Teleporting away?
What I hope for: I don't know, with this one, really. Liliana's weird arc feels more related to the odd pacing of the last season than an underlying characterisation issue, for me, so I think it's more related to pacing/wanting Oxventure campaign 1 to close out.

Player Etiquette

...okay, this one is going to be a little bit harsh, perhaps. But the main campaign, more than either Blades in the Dark or Deadlands, really suffered from certain players having a bout of Main Character Syndrome.
I say specifically players here, because it was entirely in-character for certain characters (largely Corazón) to think of themselves as the main character and behave as such. However, even if the characters think that, is generally considered good etiquette for the players to treat each other as equals, let each other take turns in the spotlight, and have their Moments.
Good examples would be the group letting Merilwen be the main character in Peak Performance, Prudence explore her sundered relationship with Cthulhu during the Orbpocalypse Saga, or Dob showing off his acting bard chops in Dine Harder.
However, at various times, various people have overstepped. Sometimes in live shows where the audience response and excitement probably played a role (Rolling in the Deep) it's more understandable, but it also happened elsewhere. Mike got some flack for picking up the eyepatch at the end of Cursed Case Scenario and 'ruining' Corazón's moment, but even Johnny called Andy out for muscling in on Dob's subplot in Court in the Act, and Life Finds a Dob was almost uncomfortable at times. There was also something of a trend of Dob deliberately acting against the party for unclear reasons (possibly meant to be humour?) - either running away from them in Life Finds a Dob, refusing to 'share' Corazon's body in Portal Combat, or his contrary behaviour in Hunter Pressure in not wanting to fight the hunters/murderers they were facing.
I'm not sure whether this trend of contrariness fed into the unclear character arc that I mentioned above, or the other way around, or whether the two just fed into each other.
The most extreme example of this was, undoubtedly, Dob jumping in on the shoot-off between Liliana and Prudence right at the end of Portal Combat. Liliana approached Prudence in Frenemy at the Gates because they were the most alike. Prudence was the one with the first kill of the whole campaign, using Eldritch Blast, against the party's wishes and Corazón's protests specifically - how appropriate would it have been for her to get the last kill of the campaign, with Eldritch Blast, in defense of herself and her party and as retribution for Corazón? But instead, Luke inserted Dob into the standoff and Johnny played into it, even to the absurd extent of letting the skeletons use Time Stop (a 9th Level spell) just to explain why Dob's whole conversation with them could take place faster than Prudence could fire off an eldritch blast. Corazón's self-sacrifice and Merilwen's reveal of her Reincarnation spell was therefore also partially overshadowed by Dob sacrificing his magic for one more hitpoint of damage on Liliana rather than letting Prudence have her moment.
What I hope for: some of the lessons learned from other campaigns to lead the players to be better at taking turns, both in terms of people not trying to be the Main Character at inappropriate moments, players stepping up and into the leading role when it is appropriate for them to do so, and Johnny more actively monitoring the balance between the players and shutting down some of the more egregious behaviour

Morality

This... isn't actually going to be complaining about characters behaving immorally or even being evil. Prudence is honestly a great example of how to play an evil character in a way that doesn't break a party, while Corazón works as being immoral about money but moral about hurting people (at least most of the time). I've also thoroughly enjoyed some other games in which the characters have been far from moral (NADDPOD's Trinyvale series is a good example of this - the characters are scam artists, grifters and egotists, and the DM commented that "character growth doesn't have to be positive!"; they complain the entire time while saving the world).
But it's consistency that is more of a sticking point, as well as the player treatment of the moral positions of the party. It's hard to know how to treat the morals of the party when they vary from letting a town burn for being slightly annoying (Mule Be Sorry) to most of the team being ready to forgive a hag who used to eat human(oid) children (Hag Reflex). This isn't just the players either - Stop Hammer Time used the murder of children as a joke, and marked a change in tone for the treatment of NPCs and civilians as not mattering compared to the preferences or comfort of the main characters. The skeletons killing the children wasn't even some sort of monkey's paw scenario about asking for there to be no more orphans in the town, either - it was just nasty shock value, in many ways. And playing this sort of thing for humour makes it quite hard to handle some of the rest of the series as a result.
There also felt like a dissonance, at times, between the objective morality of the characters and how the players seemed to want them to be treated. Prudence never claimed to be anything other than evil, from shooting someone with eldritch blast during the Spicy Rat Caper to enjoying Hammerdahl's necromancy in Extinction - Jane even indicated that she wanted to explore shifting Prudence's alignment post-Fast and the Furriest, which can be seen as Prudence is much less interested in random acts of destruction and seems quite happy to get her kicks scaring or torturing people (Silent Knight) or watching the gruesome spectacle at the end of Knight Shift. So Jane's plans matched Prudence's behaviour - a softening of her deliberately evil acts, but still happy to let others be evil.
For the others, though, it didn't always match. Merilwen's "True Neutral" label often felt more like passively letting her party members be evil, rather than actively seeking balance, Egbert was supposed to be on the search for atonement but regularly allowed or took part in atrocities, and Dob seemed more inclined to act on what the audience or Luke thought was funny (or even deliberately seeking to be contrary) rather than following a consistent attitude to morality. His vaguely annoyed "Skeletons!" and hands on hips in return to "It's orphans, boss" was clearly played for laughs, and in Mule Be Sorry he turns on the town easily, which then makes it feel strange when in Hag Reflex he objects to letting the hag live. Dob's infatuation with Liliana and Katie Pearlhead, both of whom have killed or caused the deaths of great numbers of people, also makes it harder to take his claims to morality at all seriously. The potential moral issues of Merilwen killing the Otherberts to prevent them from taking a message to Liliana (Bad Altitude) is turned into accusing her of "war crimes", but it is absurd in the face of how many other innocent bystanders the guild had killed or caused to die in other stories (from as early as Quiet Riot, in which the paladins were annoying but killing them was honestly overboard, to as late as Squid Pro Quo where Dob seemed to forget that five people had died and then brushed off the deaths).
NPCs also got hit by this at times, from the town mayor in Mule Be Sorry (again) who put his townsfolk on spike growth just to cross it, to the chef in Dine Harder who was abruptly made a cannibal to get a fight going, to the decay of morally Good characters like Captain Shattershield turning away from the Upside Down Mistmire when in his first appearance he had been willing to fight Death itself for being on Mistmire's grounds. It's hard to take seriously moral questions about keeping the Dragon Under Mistmire in its shelter, and the accidentally-caused deaths of two paladins, when the guild has been responsible for much worse.
What I hope for: an approach to morality that does not prioritise momentary humour over consistency; evil behaviour to be acknowledged as evil and owned rather than treated as protagonist-centric; a moral balance which makes it possible to really explore moral issues and concerns rather than extreme behaviour which then makes it impossible to treat conflict seriously. Legacy of Dragons, as a standalone arc seeking Egbert's redemption, exploring the protection vs freedom of the gold dragon, and considering how to improve vs break systems, had some really great potential - but because of extreme 'rule of funny' behaviour in the past, it was impossible to really feel that it had the moral gravitas and weight that it deserved. When the skeletons go from murdering a dozen innocent children (Stop Hammer Time) to giving Merilwen a bad haircut (Mean Gulls) and this is almost treated as somehow consistent in evilness, it makes it harder to respect the characters or the expectation of moral standards.
The Good: The humour, the quick-wittedness, the variety of stories. Roleplaying moments such as Egbert and Shattershield in Legacy of Dragons, Corazón putting his old self behind him at the Curse Hole, or Merilwen saying "I'll make you" to Vex.
The Bad: Unclear character arcs, inconsistent moralities, underpowered classes but at the same time game-breakingly permissive DMing, and some Main Character Syndrome moments.
The Hope: Learning from teething issues and setting up a game system that the DM doesn't resent so much, to better enable people to balance and play off each other in a less jarring and more consistent way.

I'm getting my ass kicked running solo on level 6 (extreme). I've sent s.o.s. beacons, thrown stratagems and all. The Automatons are too much for one person on this difficulty. After 3 failed missions back to back without success even close to being in sight, I'm genuinely not sure if I should keep trying for the satisfaction of winning at some point or drop the difficulty. As I said, the automatons are too much, they drop in too great of a number during bot drops for me to be able to single handedly neutralize them and complete the mission. I know the answer is simple, get help or lower the difficulty. I understand that, but I don't wanna lower the difficulty and I am sending out s.o.s. beacons. What should I do? My setup that I run is:
Primary: PLAS-1 SCORCHER Secondary: P-2 PEACEMAKER Grenade: G-12 HIGH EXPLOSIVE Helmet: CE-27 GROUND BREAKER Armor: FS-23 BATTLE MASTER Cape: FREEDOM'S TAPESTRY Stratagem 1: ORBITAL RAILCANNON STRIKE Stratagem 2: MG-43 MACHINE GUN Stratagem 3: B-1 SUPPLY PACK Stratagem 4: N/A
I've looked at the performance against bugs vs bots and I do way better with bugs on this setup than I do bots. While that sounds like a set-up issue, I don't think it is. My weapons are hitting the bots hard, I have plenty of ammunition to fire at them, I just can't seem to put a dent in their relentless numbers and slow their assault. Not to mention the millions of rockets that keep me ragdolled. I clipped 5 minutes of literally me doing nothing but getting blown around. It was terrible. Even when I tried to run, I was being tossed around. Please, any suggestions. I do not want to turn my back on Managed Democracy, and I have zero intentions of doing so. A Diver's moral faulted though when they see the red lights on the planet's surface below them.
Edit 1: Minor grammatical corrections and addition of a few words to help sentences flow better.

Sorry if this sounds selfish but this is really only a one time thing for a friend. I need someone to use there undetectable AI account to paraphrase this please.
IntroductionThe rise of fast food chains in the United States from 2000 to 2010 had an impact on both the culture and economy. This period saw an increase in obesity rates among Americans, which coincided with the growth of these eateries. In this essay we delve into the connection between the expansion of fast food franchises and the obesity epidemic examining factors that influence health. Through an analysis of data, health studies and relevant literature our goal is to provide an understanding of how consuming food has played a role in fueling obesity during this particular decade, in America.The Growth of Fast Food Chains
Between 2000 and 2010 there was a rise in the fast food industry. Popular chains such as McDonalds, Burger King and Subway expanded their reach by opening stores to meet the demand for budget friendly meals. Data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows that the number of fast food eateries increased by around 20% during this timeframe (U.S. Census Bureau, 2011). This expansion made fast food more convenient for a range of people, including kids and teenagers.
Obesity Trends in the U.S. (2000 2010)
The prevalence of obesity in America has been on a trajectory during the early years of the 21st century. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) the rate of obesity among adults rose from 30.5% in 2000 to 35.7% in 2010 (CDC, 2011). Similarly among children and teens aged between 2 and 19 years old obesity rates increased from 13.9% to 16.9% over that period. This continuous increase signals a concerning public health issue with impacts on illness rates, mortality rates and healthcare expenses.
The Impact of Fast Food, on Eating Habits
food is commonly known for its levels of calories, excessive saturated fats, sugars and sodium with little nutritional value. These aspects of food are closely associated with weight gain and obesity. Studies show that regular consumption of food is linked to consuming calories and maintaining poor eating habits (Bowman & Vineyard 2004). Research conducted by Pereira et al. (2005) revealed that individuals who ate food than twice a week were more likely to gain weight and develop insulin resistance compared to those who consumed it less frequently.
Influence of Socioeconomic Factors
The easy availability and affordability of food make it an attractive option for people with incomes. Fast food establishments are often concentrated in low income areas where residents have limited access to dining choices (Powell et al. 2007). This situation, referred to as "food deserts " , worsens the issue of obesity because disadvantaged groups tend to rely on food as their main source of nutrition.
Impact of Advertising and Promotion
The aggressive advertising tactics used by fast food companies also have a significant influence on eating behaviors particularly among young individuals, like children and teenagers.
Many businesses invest sums of money each year in marketing showcasing their products across platforms, like TV, the web and social networks. Kids are especially influenced by these strategies that highlight the appeal and ease of food reinforcing harmful dietary patterns early on.
The impact of obesity, on health is significant and variedObesity is a factor in chronic illnesses like type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke and certain cancers (Flegal et al., 2012). The rise in obesity rates has led to an increase in health issues putting a strain on the healthcare system. The financial implications of obesity are also noteworthy with studies indicating that medical costs linked to obesity made up around 10% of healthcare expenses in the United States during that time (Cawley & Meyerhoefer 2012).
Policies and public health effortsIn response to the escalating obesity crisis, different policies and public health efforts have been put into action at state and local levels. These initiatives aim to encourage eating habits through measures like food labeling requirements, restrictions on advertising foods to children and campaigns raising awareness about the risks of obesity (Koplan et al., 2007). Schools have been a point for intervention well, with endeavors to enhance the nutritional value of school meals and boost physical activity among students.ExamplesVarious real life examples and stories showcase the effectiveness of taking action to address the issue of obesity. For example, New York City put in place a set of strategies to combat obesity, such as displaying calorie information on menus and prohibiting trans fats in restaurant dishes. These initiatives led to improvements in people's eating habits and a slight decrease in obesity levels, within the community (Dumanovsky et al. 2011).ChallengesThe obesity epidemic still poses challenges despite the efforts to address it. Unhealthy eating habits deeply ingrained in society, the presence of the fast food industry and disparities in status all add layers of complexity to this issue. Moving forward it is crucial to focus on creating an environment that encourages choices for vulnerable communities. This entails advocating for policies that restrict the marketing of foods to children, enhancing access to options in low income areas and urging food companies to improve the health profile of their products.
Psychological marketingWhen it comes to food marketing companies go beyond advertising tactics by leveraging deep rooted psychological triggers that influence consumer behavior. Bright colors, catchy tunes and recognizable mascots are commonly used in food ads to build a memorable brand image. This technique is particularly effective with audiences like children and teenagers who're more susceptible and likely to develop lasting brand loyalties. Research indicates that exposure to these advertisements can lead children to prefer calorie, nutrient foods ultimately impacting their dietary decisions and contributing to weight gain (Boyland & Halford 2013).The impact of portion sizes
One overlooked but significant factor contributing to the obesity crisis is the increasing sizes of portions served by food chains. Over time portion sizes have substantially grown, with meals exceeding the recommended calorie intake for a single meal. Young and Nestles (2002) study reveals that fast food item portions have expanded over the years with some items now more than double their size. This phenomenon of "portion distortion" results in calorie consumption as individuals tend to eat when faced with larger servings often underestimating the actual caloric content.
Changes in lifestyle and time constraints
The contemporary way of life characterized by schedules and time limitations has also played a role in the heightened dependence on fast food. With an increase in dual income households and longer work hours many people find themselves lacking the time to cook meals. Fast food emerges as a solution offering cost effective options that align with busy routines. Nonetheless this convenience comes at a price as frequent consumption of food is linked to dietary patterns and increased calorie intake contributing to the surge in obesity rates (Smith, Ng & Popkin 2013).Another significant measure involves restricting the promotion of foods to children. By reducing kids exposure to food ads policymakers aim to lessen the impact of marketing on their eating habits. Some cities have also imposed taxes on beverages and unhealthy foods in an effort to discourage consumption through penalties. While the effectiveness of these strategies may vary they mark progress in combating the obesity crisis.
Approaches Rooted in Communities
Community based strategies for addressing obesity highlight the importance of initiatives and grassroots movements. Programs that concentrate on enhancing access to foods encouraging activity and educating community members about healthy eating have shown positive outcomes. For example community gardens and farmers markets can offer produce to residents living in areas with access to healthy food options promoting better dietary choices. Schools and community centers can also play a role by providing nutrition education and physical activity programs.
The Impact of Technology
Technology has increasingly become an asset in the battle against obesity. Mobile applications and wearable gadgets enable individuals to monitor their calorie intake and exercise levels offering feedback and motivating lifestyle choices.
Furthermore social networking sites can play a role, in advocating for public health initiatives and sharing details on diet and wellness. Although technology isn't a solution to the issue of obesity it provides avenues to involve people and groups in embracing healthier habits (Stephens & Allen 2013).
Future Directions and Recommendations
The approach to tackling obesity needs to be multi-faceted and should involve collaboration between government departments, health workers, local communities, as well as the food industry. In future, there is need for more efforts in creating an atmosphere that supports healthier selections particularly among the disadvantaged groups. This means that one should continue to campaign for policies aimed at reducing children’s exposure to unhealthy food advertisements, improving availability of healthy foods in deprived neighborhoods and encouraging manufacturers in the food sector to change their products into a healthier version.
Further still public health campaigns will try and focus on having balanced diets regularly done exercises. Schools and offices can succeed by developing well-structured meals alongside opportunities for exercising. More research is also needed to understand why some people are poor eaters or overweight than others.
Policy Proposals
To further combat the menace of overweight, policy makers should think about enacting a variety of evidence-based strategies. Some of them could be: Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Taxes: Taxes on sugary drinks can decrease consumption and raise funds for public health projects. Zoning Regulations: By controlling the number of fast food restaurants in given areas, intake will subside and encourage establishment of grocery stores among other healthier alternatives.Menu Labeling Laws: This makes sure that restaurants indicate calorie counts as well as other nutritional information to assist customers in making informed choices. School Nutrition Standards: Schools meals and snacks in the course of learning ought to meet recommended nutrition levels so that students are eating healthy. Addressing Behavioral FactorsBehavioral interventions also play a significant role in dealing with obesity. Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) and other psychological approaches aid individuals to develop better eating habits and deal with triggers involved in overeating. Programs addressing weight control which incorporate behavior change counseling together with diet and exercise components show promise towards helping individuals achieve successful long term weight loss.Long-Term Commitment and Sustainable Change
Society must collectively make a commitment that will last over a long period to reduce obesity rates. The approach should be ongoing and flexible enough to accommodate changing circumstances and new information. For this change to be lasting, there must be continuous investment in public health infrastructure, research, and education. Therefore, significant strides can be achieved in reducing obesity rates by nurturing a culture that appreciates wellness.
Cultural Shifts and Public Perception
In addressing the obesity epidemic another critical factor is shifting public opinion as well as cultural norms with regards to food and health. The acceptance of fast food and oversize portions as normative has been one of the major drivers towards unhealthy eating habits over the past few decades. This would involve public health campaigns focused on what constitutes healthy balanced meals and promoting on good home cooked fresh meal benefits instead. To change public perception cooking classes nutrition workshops media campaign advertising preparation advantages of healthy meals at home for instance.
Strengthening Health Care Interventions
Routine screenings, counseling and support for weight management by health care providers are crucial in handling obesity. Obesity prevention and treatment should be integrated into primary care to ensure consistency and comprehensiveness in people’s health. Personalized advice can be availed by the healthcare practitioners and also set realistic targets as well as referring patients to dietitians or structured weight loss programs.
Advancing Research and Use of Proven Practices
To better understand the intricate contributors to obesity and curate effective interventions, it is important to sustain research. Longitudinal studies that follow diet patterns, activity levels, and disease outcomes offer useful information on how to prevent or reduce obesity. By exploring behavioral, environmental and genetic factors that affect obesity, this will enable us to make interventions that are specific for different populations and situations as well.
Conclusion
The period between 2000 and 2010 registered a sharp increase of obesity rates that is closely linked to the spread of fast food outlets across America. This public health menace can only be fought with multidimensional approaches that will change public attitude, improve education, enhance corporate accountability and support inclusive research plus health care interventions. By creating an environment where good health is appreciated through provision of necessary resources and support, we can achieve significant milestones in curbing cases of obesity within our population as well as overall improvement in their welfare.
Citations:
Boyland, E.J. & Halford, J.C.G., 2013. Television advertising and branding. Effects on eating behavior and food preferences in children. **Appetite**, 62, pp.236-241.
Brownell, K.D. & Frieden, T.R., 2009. Ounces of prevention—the public policy case for taxes on sugared beverages. **New England Journal of Medicine**, 360(18), pp.1805-1808.
Drewnowski, A. & Specter, S.E., 2004. Poverty and obesity: the role of energy density and energy costs. **American Journal of Clinical Nutrition**, 79(1), pp.6-16.
Krieger, J.W., Chan, N.L., Saelens, B.E., Ta, M.L., Solet, D. & Fleming, D.W., 2013. Menu labeling regulations and calories purchased at chain restaurants. **American Journal of Preventive Medicine**, 44(6), pp.595-604.
Ogden, C.L., Carroll, M.D., Kit, B.K. & Flegal, K.M., 2014. Prevalence of childhood and adult obesity in the United States, 2011-2012. **JAMA**, 311(8), pp.806-814.
Smith, L.P., Ng, S.W. & Popkin, B.M., 2013. Trends in US home food preparation and consumption: analysis of national nutrition surveys and time use studies from 1965-1966 to 2007-2008. **Nutrition Journal**, 12(1), p.45.
Stephens, J. & Allen, J., 2013. Mobile phone interventions to increase physical activity and reduce weight: a systematic review. **Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing**, 28(4), pp.320-329.
Story, M., Kaphingst, K.M., Robinson-O'Brien, R. & Glanz, K., 2008. Creating healthy food and eating environments: policy and environmental approaches. **Annual Review of Public Health**, 29, pp.253-272.
Walker, R.E., Keane, C.R. & Burke, J.G., 2010. Disparities and access to healthy food in the United States: A review of food deserts literature. **Health & Place**, 16(5), pp.876-884.
Young, L.R. & Nestle, M., 2002. The contribution of expanding portion sizes to the US obesity epidemic. **American Journal of Public Health**, 92(2), pp.246-249.
Fulkerson, J.A., Story, M., Neumark-Sztainer, D. & Rydell, S., 2008. Family meals: Perceptions of benefits and challenges among parents of 8-to 10-year-old children. **Journal of the American Dietetic Association**, 108(4), pp.706-709.
Huang, T.T.K., Drewnowski, A., Kumanyika, S.K. & Glass, T.A., 2009. A systems-oriented multilevel framework for addressing obesity in the 21st century. **Preventing Chronic Disease**, 6(3), A82.
Kumanyika, S.K., 2008. Environmental influences on childhood obesity: Ethnic and cultural influences in context. **Physician and Sportsmedicine**, 36(1), pp.45-51.
Larson, N.I., Story, M.T. & Nelson, M.C., 2009. Neighborhood environments: Disparities in access to healthy foods in the US. **American Journal of Preventive Medicine**, 36(1), pp.74-81.
Ludwig, D.S. & Pollack, H.A., 2009. Obesity and the economy: from crisis to opportunity. **JAMA**, 301(5), pp.533-535.
Powell, L.M., Chaloupka, F.J. & Bao, Y., 2007. The availability of fast-food and full-service restaurants in the United States: associations with neighborhood characteristics. **American Journal of Preventive Medicine**, 33(4), pp.S240-S245.
Sallis, J.F., Floyd, M.F., Rodríguez, D.A. & Saelens, B.E., 2012. Role of built environments in physical activity, obesity, and cardiovascular disease. **Circulation**, 125(5), pp.729-737.

Hi everyone,
I hope you are all having a good day!
My stutter has plagued every aspect of my life, in every way it possibly could. Growing up in school, I had countless experiences which led me to feel embarrassed, ashamed of myself, and even made me end up on my bed at the end of the day, crying my eyes out. The bullying, relentless shaming, belittling, just because I took an extra few seconds to say what I wanted, was detrimental to my mental health.
As a result of all this, I strayed away from the vast majority of speaking opportunities. I barely started conversations, rarely took part in class discussions, never took part in the debating team, rarely made phone calls and rarely made new friends. Mostly, I spoke when spoken to, and kept conversations as short as possible.
Living like this for years meant that I became quite a reclusive person, who did everything in his power to hide stuttering. I convinced myself that I liked this, and found comfort in solitary. This of course was not good for my mental health, or my stutter. As you can imagine, at this point of my life, public speaking was quite literally the last thing I could ever imagine myself doing.
However, just before I went to university (age 18), I had one of the worst speaking experiences of my life. This was a massive wake up call for me, and made me rethink my entire life. I essentially thought what my life would look like if I was just a passive passenger to my stutter. Those thoughts and realisations of the potential future, shook me to my core. I knew a change had to be made, but I just did not know how.
Fast forward a few months, and a bunch more negative speaking experiences, and I am in my first term of university. I am browsing the SU page, and see something which honestly strikes fear into the hearts of all speakers, let alone little old me with a stutter. I see:
"Public Speaking Taster Session" - Led by the university public speaking society
Now, I am sure many of you will understand this, but damn was that a scary proposition. Speaking in and of itself was terrifying, this was another level. But, there was something about it, which made me attend. To this day, I don't know what it was. However, there are some things in life, which quite literally change the path you were going to take in this world. They pivot you in a completely different direction. Attending this session was that pivot for me.
Expecting to be mocked and ridiculed for my stutter, what actually occurred was the opposite. The public speaking society had one of the most welcoming, supportive and encouraging environments I had ever been in. There was no judgement, no belittling and no mocking. Everyone there, including the exec team, genuinely wanted to help you improve to make you the best communicator you could be.
I was instantly hooked, and attended every weekly session. I started becoming better at public speaking, and continued to hone this skill. I entered competitions, I won some of them too. Simultaneously as this, I took help from a speech coach who was the first person in my life to say, we will work on getting you over the fear of stuttering, rather than achieving fluency. This new approach was monumental for me, as I had always been trying to be fluent, I never thought once about dealing with the underlying fears. Through intensive exposure therapy and a great support group, my fears of stuttering did indeed start to diminish. Therefore, although the aim was never to be fluent, fluency naturally became more prominent in my speaking as the fear dropped. For those wondering what sort of exposure therapy it was, essentially the aim was to desensitize your brain to stuttering, and more importantly, the judgements you got from others whilst stuttering. Thus, I was made to have dozens of interactions both IRL and on the phone, where I had to stutter on purpose throughout. Seems counter-intuitive at first, but it works wonders.
By the end of the academic year, I decided to run for presidency. I was highest voted for, and then became president of the public speaking society. I then led it for a year. In this I would deliver weekly workshops to 80-100 people on how to become better speakers. This included coaching skills such as body language, vocal variety, confidence.. etc.
On top of this large group coaching, I also had a smaller group of people (5-6), which I also coached on a weekly basis. I stepped down from presidency after a year to focus more on my studies, however I still continued to coach public speaking to the smaller groups for an additional year. After graduating and leaving university, I started my day job in London. However, I realised there was a massive public speaking shaped hole in my heart. I searched far and wide to find public speaking clubs which could replicate the feeling I had at university, but I found none. So, I decided to start my own.
That is when I founded my own public speaking coaching platform, which I run to this day alongside my day job. On it I use all my experiences as a stutterer and public speaker, to help people get over their fears of speaking/public speaking, and become the most expressive and confident communicators they can be.
To this day, I am still a stutterer. I still stutter in my life, in various different speaking interactions. However, the stutter no longer holds me back from doing what I want to do. It no longer scares me as much as it used to. In some ways, I have to thank my stutter, because without it, I don't think I would have had the relentless drive, which caused me to pursue every avenue possible to become the best speaker I possibly could. People often say to me that most fluent individuals stray away from public speaking, yet I with a stutter ran towards it. I do still wonder to this day what direction my life would have taken if I didn't attend that taster session. It probably would have been very different to what it is now.
I am more than happy to answer any questions about anything related to my post, please do ask them below. If you don't want to post below, feel free to dm me!
Always remember, you have a voice, never stop using it.

Starting a social media marketing (SMM) business in 2024 is an exciting venture. With the growing demand for effective social media strategies, there are plenty of opportunities for new businesses to thrive. Here are the key steps to help you launch your own SMM business, along with an introduction to Flashy Panels, a powerful platform that can enhance your operations from the start.

1. Build Your Skills and Knowledge

Before launching your business, ensure you have a strong understanding of social media marketing. Familiarize yourself with platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and TikTok.

• Online Courses: Websites like Coursera, Udemy, and LinkedIn Learning offer in-depth courses on social media marketing.
• Stay Informed: Follow industry blogs, attend webinars, and join relevant forums to stay updated on the latest trends and algorithm changes.
• Practice: Manage social media accounts for friends, family, or local businesses to gain practical experience.

2. Choose Your Niche

Specializing in a specific niche can help you stand out. This could be industry-specific (e.g., healthcare, fashion, tech) or platform-specific (e.g., Instagram marketing, LinkedIn marketing).

3. Create a Business Plan

A detailed business plan is essential. Your plan should include:

• Market Research: Identify your target market and analyze competitors.
• Services Offered: Define the services you’ll provide, such as content creation, social media management, and paid advertising.
• Pricing Strategy: Set competitive prices based on market rates and your level of expertise.
• Marketing Strategy: Outline how you’ll attract clients, including your brand positioning and marketing tactics.

4. Register Your Business

Choose a business name that reflects your brand and register it with the appropriate government authorities. Obtain any necessary licenses or permits.

5. Establish Your Online Presence

Your online presence serves as your portfolio. Create a professional website and active social media profiles to showcase your skills and attract potential clients.

• Website: Include information about your services, case studies, testimonials, and a blog to demonstrate your expertise.
• Social Media Profiles: Create and maintain profiles on the platforms you specialize in. Share valuable content, engage with followers, and showcase your social media skills.

6. Invest in the Right Tools

Effective social media management requires the right tools. This is where Flashy Panels comes in.

Introducing Flashy Panels

At Flashy Panels, we offer comprehensive SMM panels to streamline your business operations and maximize efficiency. Here’s how Flashy Panels can support your new business:

• User-Friendly Customer Panel: Enhance customer satisfaction and manage high volumes of orders with our easy-to-use platform.
• Comprehensive Admin Dashboard: Gain complete control with our powerful admin dashboard, featuring a range of advanced tools to improve your workflow.
• Automated Order Processing System: Simplify your operations with our efficient order processing system, integrating multiple APIs from Limitless v2 SMM providers.
• Subscriptions and Dripfeeds: Increase sales and expand customer profiles with personalized subscription services and dripfeed orders.
• Powerful Importing System: Quickly import services from providers supporting the API system, with high-speed fetching and full control over modifications.
• Robust Security: Our platform includes strong DDoS protection, ensuring 24/7 security for your admin and user panels.

Contact Us:

• Email: [support@flashypanels.com]()
• WhatsApp Support: +919407085519
• Website: Flashy Panels

7. Build a Portfolio

Your portfolio is crucial for demonstrating your capabilities to potential clients. Include:

• Case Studies: Detailed accounts of previous work, including objectives, strategies, and results.
• Sample Work: Create mock campaigns if you don’t have real client work to show.
• Testimonials: Collect reviews from past clients or collaborators.

8. Network and Market Your Services

Networking is vital for growing your client base. Attend industry events, join online forums, and use LinkedIn to connect with potential clients. Additionally:

• Offer Free Workshops/Webinars: Showcase your expertise and attract clients.
• Guest Blogging: Write for industry blogs to increase your visibility.
• Referrals: Encourage satisfied clients to refer others.

9. Use Freelance Platforms

Freelance platforms like Upwork, Fiverr, and Freelancer can help you land your first clients and build your portfolio.

10. Deliver Exceptional Results

Your success depends on the results you deliver. Focus on creating value for your clients by staying updated on best practices, continually refining your strategies, and maintaining open communication with your clients.

Conclusion

Starting a social media marketing business in 2024 requires a combination of current knowledge, strategic planning, and dedicated execution. By following these steps and leveraging the powerful features of Flashy Panels, you can build a successful business that helps brands navigate the dynamic world of social media. Consistency, creativity, and client satisfaction are key to your success. Happy marketing!

is it just me or is this a common occurrence throughout the whole of sg??? sometimes I just think to myself what did I even do in my past life to deserve this 😤😤😤
in sec sch I had this physics teacher omg he's like quite nice and kind and stuff uk like he doesn't scold us and shit 😋 sounds nice right? so is he a good teacher? NO 😟 homeboy doesn't know how to teach at all. hear me out. we gave him chances ok like for the whole of sec 3 we told ourselves ok maybe he'll change in sec 4. he did not change. here's some things he did.

1. he does not assign and collect hw. every other chers in other classes assign hw he simply just throw us the hw and doesn't tell us to submit so nobody do because dn submit (OK I KNOW THATS KINDA OUR FAULT) but like if he assigned it we would be done it
   
2. he does not mark our work. he doesn't mark our work unless he's forced to (for e.g. when the HOD specially assign him to or when HOD wants to check hw submission rate). EVEN WHEN HE DOES MARK, HE MARKS ONLY THE FIRST PAGE LIKE WTFFFFFFF 💩💩💩 bro collects the work and keeps it in his office to collect dust and returns us 3 MONTHS LATER for him to just MARK THE FIRST PAGE AND PUT A "SEEN" ON THE TOP LIKE UGH
   
3. he's doesn't know how to control the class. we could just be talking talking and talking and he won't even do anything he just continues teaching like nothing's happening like he doesn't even try atp
   
4. he teaches the wrong things sometimes. he could be teaching smth and we realise nothing is making sense so we will point out to him and he will always be like "ehh?? oh... i will clarify with the HOD" LIKE WHATTTTTT??!?!?!??!? sometimes I wonder if he bought his teaching certificate from shopee.
   
5. he does not know how to do physics. how ironic. lemme give one example. one day he decided to go thru an O level mcq paper. he said he's only gna go thru the hard and tricky qns but he ended up going thru all 40?? and he took 10min to go thru 1qn??? ok that's not the point anyways he got to one qn and he literally got stunned. like he didn't know how to do the qn. he stood there staring at the qn blankly for 30min straight like a freeze frame. like idk if hes reliving his 2016 mannequin challenge era but he got stuck at a 1 mark mcq qn for 30min straight and after that he straight up told us "idk how do". this happened more than once btw. when going thru notes with us he need fill in the blanks HE ALSO DK HOW TO FILL he needed to refer to the answer sheet. he have to ask us how to do because he say he got a "brain lag" like ok understandable but like sir I don't think normal ppl get brain lags and have to ask his students to do the qn for him like 2 times per week.
   

srsly idk how he didn't realise he was not doing good after the continuous and persistent problem of more than half the class failing all the physics tests and exams. not like we didn't tell him. we did. he promised that he will change. he didn't. we made complaints about him to the department 3 times already. he kinda got "demoted" after we left the sch but not fired. in the end only 3 ppl from his class got A1 for physics in O levels while other classes had at least like 15.
now im in jc and the cycle continues. atp I think I just have no fate with good phys chers. at least this one is slightly better now. manifest a good physics teacher to appear in my life pls. it's always the other class physics teachers who are good.

1. Are you OK with direct message offers from vendors?

whatever is cheaper! im fine by both
2) What are your main reasons for wanting a seedbox?
to download torrents and stream plex (with transcoding)
3) Are you okay with sharing hardware resources with other users [shared] or do you need the seedbox hardware dedicated to just you [dedicated]?
whatever is cheaper! im fine by both
4) Do you want someone else to be responsible for maintaining the seedbox software (operating system, applications) [managed] or do you want to do it all yourself [unmanaged]?
whatever is cheaper! im fine by both
5) Please describe your seedbox experience. (You may wish to list any seedbox providers you've been with before.)
I used one provider once it was little slow though...
6) Please describe your experience with Linux. (Most seedboxes run Linux and some knowledge of it may be helpful.)
im good with linux (i use arch btw)
7) What is the high end of your budget? (Please give a specific amount and a currency. "Cheap" might mean something different to one person than it does to another.)
less than $10 is possible (or even $5)
8) Do you have preferences or requirements concerning payment? (Paypal, Bitcoin, etc.)
fiat is better, paypal or with visa
9) Do you plan to use public trackers?
whatever is cheaper! im fine if i got restricted to only private or public.
10) What kind of connection speed do you need? (Common answers would be 100Mbps, 1Gbps, 2Gbps, 10Gbps.)
whatever is cheaper! im fine by both
11) How much combined upload and download traffic do you expect each month? Include download of files from the seedbox to your local computer. If you don't know, tell us what upload amount per month would realistically make you very happy with your seedbox.
not much i will mostly watch movies in 360p
12) What is the minimum disk space you need?
minimal to install apps as i will use rclone with webdav
13) Do you require a specific type of mass storage? (HDD, SSD, NVMe SSD) If other than HDD, please explain why you think you need this.
whatever cheapest is.
14) Do you require a specific torrent client?
nope
15) Do you require any other applications on the seedbox? (e.g. Plex, Subsonic, Radarr)
Plex!
16) Do you require SSH access to the command line?
its a plus but not really if it will effect the price.
17) Do you require access to a remote desktop?
its a plus but not really if it will effect the price.
18) Do you require admin level (i.e. 'root') access? If yes, please explain why.
its a plus but not really if it will effect the price.
19) Do you have any other specific requirements?
nope
20) Is there any other information you think might help in getting a useful recommendation?
no and thank you.

I see it like multilevel website, where things go from very common things to more specific. E.g. first level is something like:

1. You open browser.
2. Type URL.
3. Browser sends request.
4. Server answers.
5. Browser renders page.

But you can click on "Browser renders page" and then you go deeper and on the 2nd evel you see:

1. Browser reads HTML.
2. Browser reads Javascript.
3. Browser renders.

And so on. Somewhere deep i see something like Jake Archibald event loop video and ideally in the end something like explaining how browser communicates with OS and GPU.
So the main idea is that you can control the level of knowledge complexity by yourself. And all of the knowledge in one place.
I understand it's HUGE and requires lots of information so my request for you to share some useful stuff i can use.
This is what i have for now:

• https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Performance/How_browsers_work
• https://medium.com/@lilychencodes/how-the-chrome-profiler-helps-you-understand-javascript-event-loop-92fa6a8bb46a?source=email-87c74d721e96-1713130551845-digest.reader-b4c4375f5554-92fa6a8bb46a----0-98------------------0f7c0ff4_8ea7_49bf_9de4_1a7ba04610b0-1
• https://blog.sessionstack.com/how-javascript-works-storage-engines-how-to-choose-the-proper-storage-api-da50879ef576
• https://betterprogramming.pub/javascript-internals-under-the-hood-of-a-browser-f357378cc922
• https://tapajyoti-bose.medium.com/deep-dive-into-how-web-browsers-work-with-illustrations-️-b6cf69af1a08
• https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/dns/what-is-dns/
• https://www.manning.com/books/secrets-of-the-javascript-ninja
• https://github.com/getify/You-Dont-Know-JS

And yes, i understand that it will be more like 'all of the existing information gathered in one place'. But in nice and fancy way

How to Estimate Software Development Costs in 5 Steps

When it comes to the development of a project one of the key concerns is how much it will cost. Clients want to know in advance when the project will be done and how much it will be. There's hardly a fixed unified list that defines a cost for every case. However, we can find out crucial factors influencing software development costs.
This article will provide you with a brief guidance on the software estimation process. Additionally, it offers tips and how-tos to help you navigate the pricing aspects of software development.

Collect information about the project: 7 Questions

At Freshcode, we collaborate with clients throughout the entire software development life cycle, from gathering requirements and conducting a discovery phase to deploying the product.
The best starting point for development is a detailed meeting with stakeholders to analyze product goals, the problem it aims to solve, and key requirements.
Save a list of questions to answer for a more accurate calculation of the software development cost:
{{list-bl2-1="/custom-block-to-blog/two-page"}}
After conducting a detailed analysis, we provide clients with a cost and time frame estimation document. This approach ensures transparency and predictability throughout the project development process, leading to timely delivery and a faster time-to-market.
We foster team commitment and a proactive mindset to achieve desired outcomes. The charts below illustrate the levels of team involvement across different units.
Read more: software development cost estimation

Determine project complexity

The key findings suggest that the software cost ranges from just $5,000 to $500,000.
The number, type, and complexity of the features in your product impact the final cost. There are plenty of other influencing factors, such as UX and UI, business analysis, marketing, QA, and even the location of the IT vendor.
{{quote-bl2-2="/custom-block-to-blog/two-page"}}
Every single case is unique and app development costs depend on the complexity of the project. The more features you add to your app, the more complex it becomes, requiring more resources for development, testing, and deployment.
Within the context of technical complexity, applications can be divided into 3 categories:

1. Basic (Simple) Complex Software:

• core feature set without third-party service integration
• simple design with common interface elements
• processing small to medium amounts of data

The development timeframe ≈ 1-3 months.

2. Medium Complex Software:

• core feature set plus additional features such as payments, real-time chatting, and analytics solutions
• responsive design with more complex interface elements and visual effects
• processing of medium to large amounts of data

The development timeframe ≈ 3-6 months.

3. Highly Complex Software:

• advanced feature set (e.g. video processing, synchronization, and different third-party integrations)
• adaptive design with advanced interface elements, complex interactions, and visual effect
• processing of large-scale data with high performance and capability
• Determine project complexity

So, this is my first time making a post like this where I'm sharing an experience, so sorry if my storytelling isn't that well and I wasn't sure if this was the right place to share this or if a different subreddit was better. Also, I'm high. :p This is probably going to be a long post so strap in or go below to find a summary. And before anyone says this is fake, trust me, I wish it was. This was very real and I'm still traumatized by what happened. I'm hoping finally sharing what happened with other people who can give me on advice on how to deal with it (mentally) can help.
I'm not going to be using any real names or specific locations for privacy reasons (I'm also deathly afraid he might come across this) I'll call myself L (20M) and the guy who I think could've been a serial killestalker I'll call B (26M).
For some minor backstory, I'm a twenty year old trans male and I've never had much experience in dating. I live in the bible belt, so my dating life was non-existent or was filled with creeps. I wasn't looking for a partner at this time, but I ended up meeting B who was super sweet, had an amazing voice/laugh, and was overall very attractive. The main reason why I liked him and wanted to try dating him was because he told me he had dated trans partners before and knew a lot about it and was very respectful of my boundaries. Most guys never cared how I felt and always wanted to 'see my tits' and so on, and even if they liked me, when it came to sex and my body they were all very disrespectful. To top it all off, me and B had the same interests and 'end goal' for our lives and we got along extremely well. I have a lot of mental disorders since BEFORE I met B, some being CPTSD, Agoraphobia, and Severe Panic Disorder, so meeting new people and trusting others was something very hard for me. I'm usually very awkward and have trouble keeping up conversation with others, but not with him. He was amazing and we flowed together well. All green flags. Sometimes I feel as though the guy I first met is still out there, because when I met this dude in person, he was completely different.
So, we met around fall of last year on a dating app. I was mainly looking for hookups because at that point in time I had given up on dating. Like I said earlier, we started talking and that changed for me. He told me he was poly and me and him had a long talk about it and we decided we would both keep it open and would be fine to see other people while we talked, and if things started to get more serious and it worked, then we'd be monogamous. (This is important for later) So, there were no red flags in the beginning, until a few started to pop up. He told me he was into guns, which at first was fine with me. He didn't hunt, he just liked to shoot and go to shooting ranges for fun. Hell, to me that sounded like every man's dream to shoot and blow stuff up so I was excited when he suggested to go to a shooting range together. Also, I'm in the south of the US as well, so I was used to that. Then he started talking about serial killers and darker stuff and how he was into that. Which again, was fine with me. I've been through a lot in my life and have a lot of trauma and dark humor, and dark things in general, doesn't bother me, and I love horror. We talked about how we should watch the new Jeffrey Dahmer show that has Evan Peters. I love AHS so I was down for it. It started getting a lot weirder though, and I should've known then that something was wrong, I think I was blinded by the chance to actually have a caring partner that was already educated on trans topics, so I didn't think. He told me that his former partner and him had gotten in a fight, the one before me. He told me what happened between for the fight, I'm not going to include this part as it's very specific, but by the end he had told me his partner had left in the middle of the night and got his family to pick him up (His partners family live in another state, so his ex partner ended up moving ACROSS STATES to get away from him.) He said when he woke up he was gone and wasn't answering his calls. The way he told the story in the beginning though made it seem like his ex was a really stuck-up and petty person who HE got away from. Now I know why his ex actually left and that his EX was the one who got away. Ok, so with that all out of the way, we had been talking for around three months when we decided to finally meet. We had taken some time figuring out where to meet since we both wanted to meet in public, which I thought was a really green flag. When I told him I'd just drive up to his place, he said no because he didn't want to give out his address before we met. Which again, I thought was SUPER GREEN, but apparently not. I didn't want him to drive here for the same reasons, but also because I live with my grandparents so I figured that'd be pretty awkward. We ended up deciding to meet at a park near his house to see that we weren't catfishing each other and basically to catch the vibes of the other. He lived in a different state but the drive was only two hours away, not too bad. I drove up there (I was 19 at this point in time btw...) and when I finally arrived I gave him a call and he said he'd be there. So, this 'park' ended up not being a park, but a CEMETARY. For some reason though, there was a playset on the other side of the road that was connected to it which is where I parked. After we were supposed to meet, we were going to go back to his place then I was going to drop off my car and we were going to take his and go out and eat. So, a few minutes go by and I see a car start to pull up toward me. I was still in my car as there was no where else to sit. I went to open my door and hop out when he pulled in beside me but all he did was roll down his window and said "you can follow me now." BRUH, WHAT, OK? That was it. He rolled it back up and started to drive away. Now, I know what most of you are thinking, BITCH RUN. Well, I was stupid and hate confrontation or anything like that so I went along with it. I followed him and then realized that the park wasn't 'near' his house, IT WAS RIGHT BEHIND IT. I drove not even another minute probably and we were already there. Making me think he wanted to watch me approach from his house. So, I parked and we both got out. He looked exactly as he did in the pictures and was more attractive in person, although his personality and the way things were going made it not matter. We went to head inside and he stopped me before going in and said something like, "Hey, I have a headache so we're just going to stay here. Is that ok?" I have no idea why, but practically the ENTIRE TIME I was with him that day, he had a constant expression on his face that made him look like he was constipated/confused. Think of Edward in Twilight when he is trying not to kill Bella or be weird. It was THAT face. Furrowed brows, mouth open slightly, with that weird look on his face. So, at first I felt a bit let down, that was until I realized everything else that had happened up before this point. Then it turned into anxiety. I told him that was fine and when he opened the door, all the lights were off. Like, ALL OF THEM. It was pitch black and he had black out curtains on his windows. He led me to his bedroom which creeped me out and we proceeded to sit on his bed. He told me he was sorry about not wanting to go out and that we could just watch tv and cuddle. Now, if this was the guy thought I had been talking to, then I'd would've been fine with it. But this dude seemed like a completely different person from who I had met. Keep in mind I had been talking with him for three months and we connected really fast and had hours long convos on the phone a day. I was honestly just creeped out but wasn't scared because I've been in similar situations like this before. I figured I'd just make up an excuse later so I could leave. That's when he told me to lay back and get comfortable and we'd watch, low and behold, JEFFREY DAHMER. So, that's what he put on while we made, really weird, small talk. So, he told he had a shit ton of guns and reached beside his nightstand and whipped out a pistol. He told me he had built it himself and let me hold it. But just the fact that this guy can whip out a gun like that, while acting like a creep, AND that show playing? Nah man, god I'm such an idiot. Anyway lmao, he started stroking my thigh and 'petting' me while we watched the show. I was SOOO uncomfortable and I noticed I had a texts from two of my friends and my mom who were all asking if I made it up here ok. I texted back and let them know I was fine, and this is when I started panicking a lot more on the inside. Anytime I'd get a text, or even open my phone at all, he'd lay his head on my shoulder to see what I was doing. He even ended up reading one of my texts out loud from earlier in the day. I felt that I couldn't just leave like any weird date, 1) because he had guns EVERYWHERE. 2) Because he was watching every move I made 3) Because that's when I realized he was potentially dangerous and unhinged on a physical level. A bit later after sitting in silence, 'watching the show,' he started talking about how he knew everything about Jeffrey Dahmer. What kind of poison or drug he'd use on his victims, exactly how he drilled the holes in his victim's heads, and basically everything about Dahmer's life. He even knew what steps Dahmer would do and in what order before killing his victims. Now, I knew a lot about serial killers as well because I like true crime and shit like that. I ended up agreeing with him and playing along. Looking back, I don't know how, but I found a way to still fake laugh at this man's jokes and act like I was the same as him. I even went as far to say that I felt bad for Dahmer and could be his friend. B's eyes seem to light up when I said that and then he went on a rant about how Dahmer was misunderstood and only needed somebody. It made me sick to my stomach but I continued going along with it. Later he went on to say multiple things that disgusted me and made me afraid. Like how he was into knife play, little brother play, where he makes his partners act like a younger brother. He also told me he loved taking sexual pictures of his partners while they held his guns in different poses and asked me if I would. I 'gladly' agreed and said we could do it later. NAH, FUCK THAT, THANK YOU VERY MUCH. Btw, this whole time he was still stroking me and putting his hands on me. He kept trying to push alcohol on me, and joked it was laced. I told him I wasn't a big drinker and didn't want anyway at the moment. Every time I refused he kept getting more irritated. He then made a weird comment, saying, "Isn't getting fucked up what you're here for?" UMMMM, NO????? He had a jar of moonshine and finally I told him I'd take a sip. I held it up to my lips and closed them before slightly letting the liquid hit them, then I pretended to take a small gulp and told him it tasted good. That's when he got a huge smile on his face and all the annoyance from before went away. Looking back, I think it was actually laced, and you'll see why next. Yay... So a bit after this, I started to get a slight headache and that's when I realized I left my bag in my car. I got a bit excited because I thought I could take this as a chance to leave. I asked him if I could go grab my bag from my car for my headache medicine and he said of course. Now listen, I said earlier I have dark humor and it's been a coping mechanism for me. So when I left to go to my car I made a joke to him and said, "Don't worry, Jeff. I'll be right back, I'm not leaving." DUDE. When I told my friend what I had said later she told me I memed a serial killer. BRUH, WHY AM I LIKE THIS? I COULD'VE DIED OR WORSE AND I CALLED HIM JEFF? Lord help me... Anyway, so my headache only got worse after I 'took a sip' of the moonshine and I started feeling dizzy. Now, even though I didn't actually drink it, a few drops still came in contact with my lips made it into my mouth. I went to my car and grabbed my bookbag from my floorboard. I sat in the driver's seat and looked on my phone. I was about to call my best friend, basically my sister, and then leave. My soul left my body though, because when I looked over, this dude was standing on his porch, WATCHING ME. Seeing if I was trying to leave. Knowing he had guns and we were in a small town where hearing gun shots were normal, I grabbed my bag and hopped right out of the car. When he knew I was walking back he walked to his car and opened his trunk. He pulled out a gun case that was like THREE FEET LONG. This gun was huge and he walked it into the house behind me. He told me it was some kind of sniper rifle and he said each single bullet costed 8$ or something like that. I later learned that owning something like that in the state he lived in was illegal. So, he kept making weird comments and touching/petting me while he told me all the ways he'd kill me 'if he was a serial killer.' I had been at his for almost 4 hours at this point and he FINALLY left me alone in the living room for a few moments, going back in his bedroom for something. I quickly texted my mom and told her to call me and give me an excuse. I didn't tell her what was going on as I knew she would've panicked more than me and probably would've made it worse. I just told her I didn't like him much and needed a reason to leave. I told her I was deleting the text I just sent and told her not to text me back as I knew B would read it. I told her to call me after a few minutes of seeing my text. So, luckily a few minutes later I got a call and she told me she was in the hospital and needed me to come home. Now, my mom has health problems and B knew of this before I came so it was actually the perfect excuse. I pretended like I was more annoyed than concerned since I'd told him before she was always in and out of the hospital with her health because she doesn't take care of herself. I apologized for having to leave so soon, (Before all this, if things went good I was supposed to stay the night.) And he didn't say a single word before looking at me coldly and going into his room. I waited for like ten minutes, unsure if I should just leave. I was deathly afraid of him now and didn't know if he was about to pull out a gun. I kept hearing bangs and loud noises coming from his room. When he finally came out though, he didn't have anything and still looked cold. I said my final goodbye and we hugged for a second before I left. As soon as I hopped in my car I put that bitch in drive and WENT. Now that I was out and everything started to hit me more, the adrenaline and fight or flight went away. Only leaving me with anxiety and I was completely shaken. I called my two of my best friends who are together and told them what happened. I asked if I could come to their place because I live with my grandparents (who are conservative Baptists if that says anything) and I DID NOT want to tell them about what happened. They didn't even know I went up there or that I was talking to someone. They said I could and my friend who I'll call M (21f) stayed on the phone with me basically my whole drive back home. The more I told her the more WTF she became. And honestly, there are a lot of other creepy/weird things he did that I left out because there are so many it's hard to remember every detail at once. Once I got to her place I noticed I had several missed calls and texts from him. I blocked him on everything and then M asked me something that made my stomach drop. She asked if my Snap location was on. It was. I drove the whole way back with my location on, straight to my friend's place. I turned it off immediately and started panicking a little. M and my other friend I'll call J tried to reassure me but then I got a phone call from an unknown number. M answered it for me and said hello. It was quiet because it was not on speaker but I could the voice. It was him and I felt a chill go down my spine. He asked if I was around and M told him he had the wrong number. He called back SOOO many times, each time with a different number. Even months after I kept getting calls from unknown numbers. After a few months, I wasn't sure if it was him or a scam caller and over the course of a few weeks I answered a few of them. I never said anything, just answered and never let the call time go over 10 seconds. Each time I could hear rustling noises and no voices. One time all I heard was heavy breathing. I decided to not answer anymore of them and luckily they've since stopped the last month or two. I was so scared soon after it happened though. Even though I never told him my address, he still knew where I worked and I was so afraid he'd show up with a gun and shoot up the place. Because it wasn't some random fast food chain or retail job. I work at a pretty good place to be so young and there is only ONE of these places. I'm not going to give away any details but he if wanted to he could GPS straight to where I work, anyone could because it's well known and public. I was nervous he'd scope out the place and wait until he saw me and which side of the building I enter, etc. During this time I kept a knife on me at all costs and had a necklace type sheath thing and both the knife and sheath were flat, so I'd wear it around my neck under my shirt and apron at work (even though I could've been fired if found with it.) A few days after it all happened, I woke in the middle of the night and even now I SWEAR to this day I smelt him. I know I didn't and my brain was probably making it up, but it was HIM. Him, and his whole house, had a distinct smell. Like booze and cigarettes mixed with his own scent. I was shaking and had cold sweats. I had never sat up so fast out of sleep before, especially because I hadn't been dreaming. It was like something had woken me up. His smell was everywhere and I looked to my dog who seemed undisturbed and that's when I knew no one was here. My dog is very protective and barks at anyone he doesn't know so I felt safe but still was uneasy and I couldn't sleep for the rest of the night. I ended up telling one of my bosses what had happened and asked her if we could get the gate closed at night since I work second. About two weeks after everything, I was sitting on my back porch smoking when I saw a car that looked just like his pass by. I tried to look at the driver and when I did, my stomach turned. It looked just like him. Even now, I'm not sure if it was him or not but considering nothing has happened, I assume it wasn't. Although I told my friends that I was nervous. Since I know a lot about serial killers and true crime, my initial thought was if I was him, I wouldn't come after me right away. I'd wait and let them get comfortable, thinking they are safe and then get them. Which is why I guess I've been paranoid about it again lately. It's been about 6-8 months since then. I'm still traumatized from it and still look over my shoulder when I'm walking at night, thinking I'm going to see him again on day. Even though I don't get nearly as many calls now, I still do from time to time. Although no one ever speaks when I answer nowadays, It's like I have a gut feeling it's him. Though I don't know if I'm just paranoid or not. Also, this dumbass didn't want me to get his address but I found it anyway. So if something ever happens to me or he tries to do something I can give the police his address. Because since we met at a 'park' that was RIGHT BEHIND HIS HOUSE, me and my friend went on google maps and put in the address to the 'park.' Then I moved the maps down the roads we drove on until I found his house. We went in 3rd person and zoomed in on the numbers on his house and his street name. So, B, if you find this. Fuck around and find out. Idk if you are a serial killer or not, and maybe your just really weird. But dude, if that's the case you need to WORK ON THAT. Anyway, that's my story. Sorry if some things don't make sense or if the words are too jumbled. I'm still super high and kind of just ranted a bit. So, if anyone has any advice or something similar happen to them, I'd love to hear from you! I'll try to answer any questions, but nothing too personal. If you've read this far, your a real G, thank you. I know this is a super long post, so it means a lot. I hope the rest of you are having a good night / day wherever you are!
TLDR; Met a guy on a dating app who seemed like a really great and normal guy who turned out to be very weird and controlling and LOVES Jeffrey Dahmer. Watched my every move to make sure I didn't leave until I finally got out and SPED AWAY. Kept getting calls for months after.