Just another fun little story idea I had. I am still working on Humans are the violent ones but I like to bounce around and experiment with ideas to see what I really like. I also suck at writing more casual stories, as they give me severe writer's block as I try to map out how to make a scene feel genuine in my head, but I promise I'll update that soon. If you like this story and want to see more, then like and comment. I'll gladly continue this series as well.
Start of Personal Log
Humans don't like being told what to do. They don't like being commanded, put in their place, or snubbed. It was an inexorable, inalienable trait of humans, at least any noteable humans, to go against any authority that they believed was against their interests.
Humanity would not fit amongst the stars. Few ever did. It was a trait of most successful species to be willful, ambitious, and to desire more. But once they reached the stars the new (and simultaneously very old) pecking order either quashed any spirit such species had or simply eradicated them. Countless tomb worlds and diaspora served as painful reminders of what became of the nails that chose to stick out. The hammer of order would always strike. There could be no compromise, the very soul of the authority that held the Jurisdiction together relied on a show of unmatched power, or at least the illusion of item.
In reality, the Jurisdiction was an old, fat, and lazy beast. It filled its belly on the corpses of empires far and wide, and sated its bloodlust on the shattered dreams of hopeful cubs. It had every right to, for none could challenge it: there were no new frontiers to explore, nor were there any other enemies to conquer. The Milky Way, as humans had so strangely dubbed our cradle galaxy, as well as Andromeda, had long since been warred over and settled for millennia before humanity had arrived, bright-eyed and with familiar yet otherwise foolish dreams of cooperation and prosperity. The Jurisdiction did not cooperate, nor did it ensure prosperity. Oh, it claimed it did, but in reality it simply took. The rest was just the peace that came with not being the direct target of the biggest fish in the pond. The humans didn't like that, but they had no choice.
Slavery was a common tribute. The Jurisdiction had no use for other resources: it simply took. No, it wanted those who could facilitate that unequal exchange, those raised in a world where the only morality was the one set by your lord. The Jurisdiction was held together by expectations, obligations, and dury more than any kind of shared dream, so when you were ordered to take you did so without question. Humanity was new: they had no niche or value that set them apart, but they had a penchant for killing and taking, so the Jurisdiction gave them a taste of how the galaxy worked. They killed and they took. The humans didn't like that, but what choice did they have?
Humans were strange. They learned, but not in the way most species learned. Most species learned to adapt in a passive way, to adhere to the world around them. They flowed like water, moving past and around obstacles and confirming to the boxes they were assigned too. Humans didn't confirm, nor did they adapt: they made their circumstances fit their desires. They would not move around obstacles, but rather smash through them, and they refused to stay in one box for too long. The Jurisdiction merely saw them as a particularly loud nuisance, but those who faced their wrath knew better.
It is said that when a beast seeks to make an example, it shall humble its rival by killing it's cubs. Children were one of those universal constants that brought entire communities together: the Sok’klar saw their hatchlings as gifts, shaped by the fruitful currents of the universe in perfect harmony. The Yarrack saw each and every newborn whelp as an uncut gemstone, ready to be shaped into something magical. Humanity oftentimes referred to their offspring as angels, or spirits of unbridled good sent by the gods themselves. Children were seen by most of the galaxy as gifts.
The Jurisdiction saw them as a lever to inflict suffering. It had become quite effective at enacting psychological punishments on those that stood up and spoke out. You dare to disobey? You believe you can speak out? Your gifts shall be taken from you, and you shall be without joy.
Humans didn't like this, but the Jurisdiction would have their pound of flesh, and humankind would kneel. And they did. But humans were patient creatures: most species who retained that trait of willful spit also lacked patience.
I had long since become desensitized to the Jurisdiction’s actions: it was simply how the universe worked now, as if it were a constant akin to gravity. Cruelty was the unspoken rule of this seemingly unending age, where our lives never appeared to move forward or backwards, only lay dormant. The Jurisdiction had been the unyielding authority that ruled the galaxy for thousands of years, venerable yet feared all the same.
And for the longest time I was just another cog in its wheel. My name is Kalnuracht Sedjuur-Noumar VII, and was the scion of the noble house Sedjuur-Noumar. I was born into what most would describe as veiled apathy, living a life that could be attributed to the privileged class of feared scribes that enacted the will of those above. I was an administrator and nothing more. And now I am doomed to be far less than that in the eyes of my former constituents within the endless administration. I am the only scion, as is tradition, and without an heir I am the last of my house, our name to be scrubbed from the records, worthless, meaningless, and forgotten.
I am merely Kalnuracht, nothing else and nothing more. I have seen from their eyes, the eyes of the downtrodden, and it makes my crimes of association with the Jurisdiction feel all the more damning on my worthless soul. I am worthless to the world, and this is my story.
End Personal Log #1
Start of Neural Lace Narrative Log #1
They came from the black like carrion birds in the night, encircling our convoy as if it were a dying animal ready to be picked clean without remorse. There was no warning, no list of demands sent out as civilized peoples did, nor was there either any requirement for unconditional surrender nor chance to parlay, as was done so under letter of marque: this was an unmistakable call for violence and nothing else. They sought to reduce us to slag and scavenge the rest.
So, as one would expect, the entire bridge of the ship was nearing a panicked state. This was not the actions of those practicing civility, but rather the common behaviors of despoiling barbarians, the kind that tore their way through the dark reaches of the galaxy as if they owned it.
“Wayfinder, what do your probes see?” Shouted the ship’s sovereign. He was an older Kar’Rowmach, an amphibious cephalopod species with a venerable history within the Jurisdiction going back thousands of years. Normally one such as him would be above me if it weren't for the fact that I was under the authority of the Jurisdiction’s seal of office. He didn't like me very much, but most of his kind shared the same sentiment.
“All dark, honorable Sovereign: the sensor arrays are wailing but the feedback we're reviewing is beyond incomprehensible,” the wayfinder replied with a certain restrained temper in his voice. The Sok'klar wayfinder swayed gently, his tentacled limbs grasping different metallo-liquid braille output arrays, the liquid gallium flexing and reshaping unnaturally to allow him to to take in multiple different sources of sensory output at once, with the primary navigation computer plugged into the cybernetics surrounding his opaque, gelatinous head and plugging directly into his tube-shaped brain.
The Sovereign cursed in Loskat and pointed to his bridge crew while I simply sat in the back, near the Sovereign’s symbolic throne. “Prepare countermeasures and spool up the warp drive, we cannot allow the amanuensis to be taken! He carries sensitive information that only he can translate and transcribe!”
As the bridge crew nodded and began fiddling with their own systems, I preened my feathered hide anxiously. I wasn't a fighter: us nobles of the cloth were the educated minority above all else, not those who waged war or partook in hard labor. Special cybernetics in my brain allowed me to translate triple-encoded messages that usually took a ducal signet codekey or above to parse, but even without that I was a skilled mathematician and logician. I had terabytes worth of knowledge stored within the hardware installed in my head, all well protected of course, but if I were to die it would still be a waste. I could only imagine the damage any malcontenders could do with it if they were able to get their filthy hands on me.
Suddenly, the ship rocked, and the gallium overhead display began to form crescendos like I'd never seen before. “Sovereign, decks A-3 through C-12 are venting atmosphere and our coolant systems have been obliterated,” the Wayfinder spoke in an almost serene voice, as if he was completely unconcerned by current events. I knew they were simply incapable of tonal displays, but it was unnerving nonetheless. “Once we jump, we will not be able to risk another until the vacuum of the void can reduce temperatures to acceptable levels within the plasma capacitors.”
“Damn them,” the armored nautiloid hissed, his barbed feelers coiling in frustration, “May the currents take them. What are our options? what can we see? This fleet cannot fall to the void today, not with such vital cargo.” My hackles rose lightly at the Kar’Rowmach referred to me as some object rather than an esteemed amanuensis of the Jurisdiction, but I bit my forked tongue. Now was not the time to squabble with the sovereign over who was what and what titles I deserved, not while he was so desperately attempting to keep what semblance of order within his fleet that he had left.
I could not blame the crew for being panicked either: wars were practically mythologized now, having been long since rendered obsolete with the rise of the Jurisdiction, and that felt like an eternity ago. Now, either being levied into or joining a ducal naval force was simply another career, more akin to serving as an officer of the law rather than a fully fledged soldier. Minimal training was required, most of it being the technicals of one's duty rather than any kind of combat conditioning, so expecting a fleet to actually be prepared for a combat scenario in a universe where peace was the norm was laughable.
“We are practically blind, Sovereign,” stated the Sok'klar Wayfinder, “our probes are offline, and shipboard graviton displacement sensory arrays have been rendered unreliable at best.”
“What about the particle emission array? Has there been a spike in radioactivity where we were hit?”
The Wayfinder seemed to think for a second, his gelatinous form flexing and morphing a bit before answering. “Affirmative, a jump from negligible to forty billion becquerels along decks A through E-5 on our starboard side.”
“Torpedoes…” the Sovereign hissed, stroking his barbed feelers, “Human Torpedoes. Only those primitives would rely on crude nuclear warheads.” He then turned to his militant leaders on the ship. “Noddos, Rel’ads: organize your phalanxes and prepare to repel boarders. We are bound to be assailed by those rancorous primates, and I want their skulls piled at my feet if they dare set foot on our ship.”
“Your wish is our command, Sovereign,” the two militant commanders spoke as one. Noddos, a large bipedal with multiple sets of curved spines running down his back, a pair of graceful horns sprouting from his head, and multiple rows of sharp teeth in his snout, bowed first, followed by Rel’ads, a marsupial with long saberteeth and thick fur. They both must have been fierce warriors in their own right to each lead a phalanx. They wore thick, semi-powered armor and held dueling polearms alongside their usual plasma casters, and seemed completely unfazed by the situation we were in. As they stomped out of the brightly lit bridge, I let out a quiet squawk of discontentment. “Sovereign, why haven't we jumped again? We are wasting precious time.”
“I am working on it, you spineless beaurocrat!” He warbled back, his feelers tensing in anger, “besides, it's not as if you're the one who will be spilling blood today, amanuensis, so flatten your wretched beak or I shall weld it shut with a plasma torch.
I was about to reply with something indignant, but the ship rocked again, this time causing the lights to flicker and the air to become… thick. The skin under my feathers began to blister, and I became lightheaded and confused. “Seal the damnable vents, initiate radiation scrubbers, and activate secondary life support!” Shouted the Sovereign, “Their nuclear weapons are rendering the ship inhospitable!”
I coughed up magenta blood accidentally, and I could feel more seeping from under my eyes. Some of the crew was in a similar position, but others were more resistant to radiation than I. The Sok'klar seemed completely at ease as he ran his tentacles across his morphic braille arrays before calmly announcing the ship’s status. “I've regained some control over our probes: ten, twelve, and seventeen are active and fully functional, the rest are either still malfunctioning or permanently inoperable. A rapid rise in localized radiation is also interfering with the detection of graviton displacement; we can't sense photon redirection, thus readings will remain inconclusive.
“Wayfinder, damn you, get me some kind of out here! We're easy prey until we can respond in kind!”
“Negative, something has gone awry with our processing hub, I am attempting to troubleshoot-”
And with that, the Wayfinder’s bulbous head exploded in a cascade of opaque lavender blood, covering the front half of the deck crew like a morbid art piece. Some of the crew screamed and shouted in terror before removing their cranial adaptors and choosing to interact with their displays manually. Others died just as quickly, unable to unplug in time as their brain stems fried or their blood boiled. It was a horrible way to go, having your insides neutralized by your own cybernetics, so I was glad I wasn't connected to the system.
“Cybernetic warfare! All systems are to be considered compromised, switch to manual settings or you'll be killed!”
The lights in the bridge flickered again, and the displays went haywire. The bridge crew, which obviously weren't acquainted with working without being hard-linked into the mainframe, moved at a much slower pace.
“Launch missile pods A through F and set to self-target after five hundred kilometers, then rely on their ballistic coordinates to begin firing broadsides! If we can't see the humans due to their meddling, we'll just have to feel them.” Shouted the Sovereign, “and got me a detailed report on the ship’s diagnostics readings. I need to know if this flagship is still capable of escaping or if we'll have to scuttle it and retreat on another.”
“Acknowledged, Sovereign, launching now,” affirmed another deck officer as he swiped across his own gallium output array. I could hear the dull thunk, thunk, thunk of missiles pushing out of their pods before racing off to their intended targets, then the mechanical whirring as the pods rotated to be reloaded by slaves in the lower decks. I was regaining my bearings as the many horrible sensations of being overwhelmed by radiation poisoning were beginning to subside, but I still felt as if I had been microwaved. The air was stale, the crew was horribly sick as well, and even the sovereign himself seemed to be on his last leg. I was beginning to believe that I might die here.
“Sovereign, a message from the lower decks,” shouted a communications officer, his chitin scraping against itself as he turned quickly, “they're requesting reinforcements, something about being overrun.”
“Impossible,” the Sovereign hissed out in a vain attempt to exude confidence, “We must outnumber the humans, they always go for bigger targets out of arrogance.”
“I've received reports that it's not just humans: the primates seem to make up only a third or so of the assailing force, along with some Phaeldaer and Vrex.”
The commander slammed his clawed hands down on his own output array in a fit of rage, obviously overwhelmed by the circumstances, “Then this wasn't just a typical assault, but something more sinister!” The nautiloid warbled, blood seeping from his shell as the full effects of the radiation took hold, “Get Rel’ads on the line, have him divert all spare lances to the lower decks or else we'll lose the only offensive capabilities we can use.”
“Rel'ads has gone dark, Sovereign, his vitals are critical.”
“Then either get me Rel'ads tail-leader or get me Noddos!” He screamed in rage, “don't give me this nonsense! If we don't pick it up we're all going to die, is that what you want?”
“No, Sovereign, I'm simply overwhelmed-”
“We're all overwhelmed! By the tides, I'm dying of radiation poisoning you nincompoop! Get me something I can work with!”
The officer didn't even acknowledge the Sovereign after that, simply turning back to his display. Eventually, the Sovereign was able to get Noddos on the line.
“Sovereign, two thirds of my phalanxes have been decimated by combat with the primitives and the radiation, the rest are in shambles. We must retreat and fortify elsewhere!”
“Then the ship is compromised! Rel'ads is unresponsive and the lower decks are swarming with intruders. We must evacuate the amanuensis to another ship.”
Just as the Sovereign spoke, I heard several gentle thumps rattle against the bridge’s door, and it made me uneasy. Some of the bridge crew seemed to feel the same, as they looked incredibly nervous and some even drew their sidearms. Just as the sovereign turned to give further orders, the door blew inward with a deafening explosion, followed by shouting and gunfire. Several of the bridge officers were dispatched quickly, brain matter and blood splattering against the delicate electronics. Others were shot in the legs, the torso, or in any other exotic yet non-vital body parts. The humans poured in, brandishing primitive ballistic firearms and jury-rigged energy weapons while wearing scavenged, legion-grade powered armor.
The Sovereign was the next to go, but he wasn't afforded an honorable death. He was shot along the arm with a particularly potent plasma caster, burning off his clawed hand and cauterizing the wound, the acrid smell of roasting chitin filling the already hot and cramped bridge. He fell back against his output array, the gallium reaching new highs and lows as more diagnostics and casualty reports were delivered, and he clutched his stump angrily. “I'll burn every last one of you in the foundries! I'll tie you to stakes, cover you in wax and set you alight! Your screams will be broadcasted all over the galaxy!”
One human warrior stomped up and slammed the butt of his rifle into the sovereign’s face, shattering his facial plates and causing blue blood to splatter across his section of the bridge. “Shut the fuck up, you mutant lobster,” the human said before dragging him by both antennae towards the center of the bridge and receiving a stained breeching axe from one of his comrades. “Emmanuel, start recording. We need proof.”
The other human nodded and pressed a button on his armor before lifting up his gun again. The rest of the humans fanned out, holding everyone else at gunpoint. I tried to get up and sneak out, but a human grabbed me by my neck and nearly wrung it out as he forced me to my knees and pointed a sidearm to my skull. “Get down, you piece of shit, before I blow your brains out too.”
“Damnable primate,” I hissed, but he bashed me in my skull with the base of his sidearm’s grip and sent me sprawling, making my already pounding headache worse. Another human shouted at him in a language I didn't recognize, but he sounded furious. The first brought me back up to my knees again, and I complies with a hiss and a groan, blood still leaking from my eyes and mouth and my world was spinning.
The Sovereign struggled, but he was weak from the radiation poisoning and he couldn't exactly resist on account of his lost arm. The human with the breaching ax kicked the Sovereign down and forced him to kneel before lifting up the breeching ax and splitting his chitinous head down the middle with one powerful swing, sending more blood and brains across the floor. “Execution confirmed, take his antennae just in case and we've got ourselves a bounty. Now all we need is that ugly cat’s teeth and the fat hedgehog-thing’s grimy spines and we'll be in business. Although, they do have skulls… we might as well just take their heads.”
The real horror of the situation dawned on me at that moment: they were going to kill us all, or maybe worse. They mentioned a bounty for the commanders, and multiple of the higher ranking ship officers were already dead, their brains splattered against the walls or their bodies torn apart by gunfire. I wasn't dead yet, but that didn't mean much since I wasn't an immediate threat.
“Alright, round them up and bring all the grunts to the hanger bay, then kill the rest,” the leader of the humans said in such a lackadaisical manner that his complete disregard for life almost made me sick… almost. I had seen worse from the Jurisdiction before, but usually that was from me delivering some kind of ordered judgment on a world that had sinned against order. I might have simply been the messenger, but I had seen many of the outcomes. “And make sure to collect whatever proof of bounties you can, we'll need to deliver them to the office to get cashed out. Don't let this be a repeat of last time where Juarez fucking forgot to take a few heads and it ended up cutting our profits in half, the fucking retard.”
Some of the humans chuckled at that as they dragged more of the senior officers away, out of the room and into the hall,where I heard gunshots. The rest of the bridge crew froze in place, different fear instincts kicking in. The remaining Sok'klar corralled together into what seemed to be a singular, semi-congealed mass as if to try and trick the humans into believing that they were much bigger and much more threatening than they actually were. The one Thei’chi on the bridge, an ensign who had clearly thought this would be a simple mission, bore her curved fangs at the humans and growled as they approached, her hackles completely vertical and her eyes dilated. They quickly muzzled and bound her before beating her over the head with a gun stock, sending her sprawling onto the ground. Many others simply cooperated, eyes wide and yet simultaneously empty, as if they couldn't quite process that the ship had been taken and the commanding officers were being executed as the rest were escorted to the hangar.
“Get the damn messenger down to the hanger as well, we need whatever data's in his ugly lizard head, then we can decide on what to do with him.”
I spat at him in spite, as if to try and seem brave, but it was clearly an empty gesture. “You won't get anything, primate! You couldn't possibly crack the encryption!”
The human holding me seemed to wind up for another swing, but the commanding officer simply held up his hand to stop my tormentor before strolling over to me. He knelt down and removed his helmet, revealing a beige-colored face covered in scars, wiry black hair cut down to the scalp, and multiple tattoos. “You're really fucking mouthy for a hostage,” he said before punching me across my beak faster than I could register. I heard a sharp crack as his fist connected, and my head spun again as the metallic taste of blood pooled into my mouth. “I'd advise you to shut up, but I'm sure you won't listen: you aristocratic types are so full of yourselves. Maybe I should have you flogged in the public square until your vocal chords give out once we rip those cybernetics from your head, huh? How's that sound?”
“It won't matter… it won't change anything… the Jurisdiction will hunt you down.”
“Maybe, but I doubt it will happen for some time: they really suck at doing anything that requires effort, even when they're mad enough. They just keep sending their rabid lapdogs to try and smoke us out, and they always end up full of holes,” the human officer said with a smirk, his yellowish-white teeth and green eyes sending shivers down my spine as he drew his knife. “They're just horrible at their job, you know? You've all gotten so lazy and incompetent after being able to just take what you want without resistance, and now that you've met people who are angry and crazy enough to fight back you act as if we're committing some grave injustice,” he placed the knife against my throat, the flat just underneath my now bent beak, “No, we just took a few pages out of your book, ‘cept we've got standards. No kids, for one…” he seemed to look off into the distance as his sneer deepened, “but it's more than that, we don't attack the defenseless in general and we still win against you all in fair fights.”
I went to say something else snarky, but he quickly grabbed my thin tongue with his fingers and yanked it out, blood from my mouth pulling to the floor as he held the blade of his knife against it. “No no, none of that. Say one more thing and I'll cut that rancid little tongue of yours out of your mouth and feed it to you,” he hissed at me, pressing the blade down just hard enough to draw blood. “Do you know what it's like to see a planet turn into a tomb?" he asked me, gritting his teeth, “Do you know what it's like to see everything you've ever known crumble to ash and glass, all the life and the green stripped away leaving nothing but bones? I do. I've seen it happen to countless worlds, and my grandfather always told me stories of how you bastards did it to Earth. He still prays in its direction five times a day, to Mecca, but he knows the Kaaba is gone now, or maybe it's still there, buried in the bones of those who sought refuge there.”
I didn't care for the human’s nonsensical beliefs, but I did care to correct him. “I've seen it before, and I'll see it again. And so will you, it's inevitable. The Jurisdiction will always have its judgment fulfilled, there is no alternative.”
“One day, I hope we can rectify that,” he said, then he sheathed his knife and slammed my head against the metal floor with enough force to nearly knock me out. As I lost consciousness, I could hear him speak. “Take him to the Chop Doc, and make sure the cybernetics don't get damaged: they're supposedly more valuable than any bounty on this ship.”
Warning: Severe radiation poisoning detected. Flush system immediately.
Warning: Neural Lace removal detected, chance of neurological damage high. Proceeded with caution.

Hello! I'm looking for recommendations for books that showcase authentic or near-authentic native american culture, how they lived, and what life was like for pre-colonialist native peoples in modern day North America. Bonus points if it's fiction, though non-fiction works too. (I'm always more motivated to read a book with a storyline as opposed to a non-fiction collection of facts or research.)

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.
  

If You're struggling to handle your Online Exams, Assignments or any other coursework, get help from Hiraedu and pay after the exam. Contact details for Hiraedu is: WhatsApp: +1 (213) 594-5657 OR Call: +1 727 456 9641
ASSESSMENTS I CAN COMPLETE:

• Online Courses (1 - 20 Weeks Long)
• Homework Assignments
• Exams Quizzes Tests
• Excel Projects
• Discussion Forum Posts
• Research Papers Term Papers Essays
• Employment Assessments

MY MATH SUBJECTS OF EXPERTISE:
I am very knowledgeable and proficient in assisting students in a wide range of mathematics classes. I can help students complete their homework assignments and other projects get an A on quizzes, tests, and exams (including proctored assessments) answer online discussion posts write essays & papers in MLA APA Chicago format and provide general overall academic help in each math course listed below:

• Advanced Placement Honors High School Level Math
• AP Calculus AB A.P. Calculus BC
• AP Statistics
• Biostatistics Bio-Statistics
• College Algebra Intermediate Algebra
• Business Calculus
• Business Statistics
• Business Math
• Calculus I Calculus II Calculus III (Calc)
• Geometry
• International Baccalaureate (IB) Maths
• Liberal Arts Math
• Logic & Reasoning
• Multivariable Calculus Multi variable Calculus
• Precalculus Pre-calculus
• Probability & Statistics
• Psychology Statistics Psych Stats
• Quantitative Reasoning Quantitative Methods Quantitative Literacy (Quant)
• Statistics (Stats)
• Statistics for Social Sciences
• Trigonometry (Trig)

STATISTICS HELP (MY BEST SUBJECT):

• I have a master's degree in Applied Statistics from a university in New Jersey, USA. As a result, I am very proficient in helping students with various types of Statistics courses including Biostatistics Business Statistics Elementary Statistics Probability & Statistics Psychology Statistics.
• I have extensive knowledge and skill with helping students get through various statistical concepts including all of the following in alphabetical order:
• ANOVA Bar Graph, Boxplot, Dot Plot, Histogram, Pie Chart Bias Binomial, Exponential, Poisson, Gamma, Uniform Distribution Central Limit Theorem Chi-Square Test Coefficient of Determination (R^2) Conditional & Relative Probability Confidence Interval Correlation Coefficient (r) Critical Region Critical Value Descriptive & Inferential Statistics Effect Size Expected Value Experiment vs Observation Goodness of Fit Test Hypothesis Testing Interpolation & Extrapolation Interquartile Range (IQR) Kurtosis Left, Negative, Right, Positive Skewed Distribution Logistic Regression Mean, Median, Mode, Midrange Multiple Regression Nominal, Ordinal, Interval, Ratio I Population Parameter Normal, Symmetric & Bell Shaped Distribution Null & Alternate Hypothesis One & Two Sample T-Test One & Two Sample Z-Test Ordinary Least Squares Outliers P-Value Pooled Variance (Equal Variances) Proportion R^2 Range Regression Regression Line Reject & Fail to Reject Ho Relative & Cumulative Frequency Distributions Relativity & Reliability Right, Left, One, Two Tailed Tailed Hypothesis Test Sample Statistics Sampling Methods (Convenience, Stratified, Simple, Cluster, Systematic) Significance Level (1%, 5%, 10%) Skewness Standard Deviation& Variance T-Score Test Statistic Time Series Type I & Type II Errors Unbiased Estimators Z-Score

ALGEBRA HELP:

• I am well-versed in helping students do well in Algebra 1 & 2 College Algebra Intermediate Algebra Pre-Algebra and I am very knowledgeable and proficient in the following algebra topics in alphabetical order:
• Absolute Values Circle Equation Domain Exponents Graphing Horizontal & Vertical Asymptotes Inequalities, Equations & Functions Inverse Functions Linear, Exponential, Logarithmic, Quadratic Equations Logarithms Maximum & Minimum Values of a Graph Number Lines One-to-One Functions Parallel & Perpendicular Lines Plotting Points & Ordered Pairs Point-Slope Form Polynomial Division Polynomials Radicals Range Rational & Irrational Expressions Rational Functions Real Roots Real Zeros Relations & Functions Slope Slope-Intercept Form Square Roots Standard Form of a Line System of Equations System of Inequalities Variables X and Y Intercepts

CALCULUS HELP:

• I am well-versed in helping students do well in Calculus I, II & III, Calculus 1, 2 & 3, Business Calculus, Multivariable Calculus, Vector Calculus and I am very knowledgeable and proficient in the following calculus topics in alphabetical order:
• Absolute & Local Maximum and Minimum Antiderivative Area & Volume Chain Rule Concavity Continuity Convergence Test Critical Points Curvature Curve of Rotation Curve Sketching Derivatives Divergence Test First & Second Derivative Test Fourier Series Implicit Differentiation Increasing / Decreasing Functions Infinite Series Integrals Integration by Parts Jacobian Matrix Limits L’Hopital’s Rule Maclaurin Series Mean Value Theorem Partial Derivative Product & Quotient Rule Reiman Sum Related Rates Simpson’s Rule Solid of Revolution Substitution Rule Taylor Series

Paid Help from Hiraedu: If You're struggling to handle your Online Exams, Assignments or any other coursework, get help from Hiraedu and pay after the exam. Contact details for Hiraedu is: WhatsApp: +1 (213) 594-5657 OR Call: +1 727 456 9641
ATTRIBUTES THAT SET ME APART FROM OTHER TUTORS:

• I firmly believe that I have many attributes and skills that set me apart from other tutors. Below is a list of qualities that makes me an ideal fit to help you master your coursework:

I CAN AID STUDENTS TAKING PROCTORED ASSESSMENTS:

• Proficient in CollegeBoard AP Calculus AB, AP Calculus BC & AP Statistics exams.
• Skilled with International Baccalaureate Math Exams: IB Maths HL & IB Maths SL
• Can intentionally answer a few problems incorrectly at the student's request.
• Can text solutions to the student while they are taking a proctored exam.
• Upon request, can purposely obtain grades below an A (ex: B+, B, C+, C-).
• I can stretch out the time to a plausible length for timed exams and assignments before submitting them.
• Have reliable software that can change my IP address to match the closest major city near the student.
• I have exceptional multiple-choice exam-taking skills. I have mastered the various techniques to make calculated guesses for the correct option in standardized exams such as the SAT & GRE.

I CAN VERIFY MY ACADEMIC KNOWLEDGE & SKILLS:

• I have no problem with requests to solve sample problems upfront to prove my knowledge & proficiency of the course concepts.
• I can provide glowing references & strong examples of work done for past clients to verify my academic skills.
• I can also provide, upon request, complete detailed calculations with explanations for solutions to the problems worked on.
• I am quite skilled and adept in using multiple modernized educational platforms and software, including but not limited to: Brightspace MyStatLab D2L WebAssign Canvas MyMathLab Blackboard ALEKS
• Can format term papers and discussion posts in APA MLA Harvard Chicago Vancouver OSCOLA IEEE format.

I HAVE PAID ACCESS TO OVER 15 STUDY-HELP WEBSITES AND MATHEMATICAL SOFTWARE:

• I have multiple paid subscriptions to a wide range of academic tutoring resources, including Chegg, Quizlet, CourseHero, Brainly, Grammarly, Study. com, Bartleby, Slader, Transtutors, Slideshare, StudocU, Turnitin, Academia, SymboLab, WolframAlpha, and Scribd to help guide to solve exam & homework questions that I may not immediately know.
• However, I am smart enough not to blatantly plagiarize solutions online but instead write them in my own unique words, formatting, & mathematical terminology.
• I have access to a very sophisticated graphing calculator and various mathematical software that provides step-by-step solutions to complex mathematical problems within seconds, allowing me to provide exact solutions to the student in a timely manner.
• I have impeccable handwriting and a high-quality mobile scanner app that allows me to scan written solutions in very legible high-definition JPG, PNG, or PDF formats.

MY AVAILABILITY & RELIABILITY:

• Depending on my availability, I can accommodate immediate tutoring requests, 1-24 hour, and 1-30-day deadlines.
• I can schedule live real-time online sessions and meet deadlines in an impressively timely fashion.
• I can provide quick notifications and updates of progress made in the student's class via email text phone calls.
• I can also be available to tutor students for Fall 2021 Spring 2022 Summer 2022 semesters.

MY EDUCATIONAL SOFTWARE OF EXPERTISE:

• I am very knowledgeable and well-versed in a wide range of educational software to tutor students in including but not limited to: Acellus ALEKS APEX Learning Aplia Blackboard Brightspace Canvas Cengage CengageNow Connect ConnectMath Connexus CPM D2L Discord Edmentum Eviews Examity Excel Hawkes Learning Honorlock Khan Academy Knewton LimeSpring Lumen Maple MasteringChemistry MasteringPhysics MathXL (XL) MATLAB McGraw-Hill Microsoft Word Minitab Moodle MyAccountingLab MyEconLab MyITLab MyLab My Lab MyMathLab My Math Lab MyOpenMath MyPsychLab MySocLab MyStatLab My Stat Lab NCSS Open Source Software Pearson PERT PlatoWeb PowerPoint Prezi R Respondus Lockdown Browser with Webcam Sapling SPSS Stata StraighterLine Straighter Line WebAssign Web Assign Webex (Cisco) WebWork Wiley WileyPlus Wonderlic Zoom

SCHOOLS FROM WHICH I'VE HELPED STUDENTS IN :
As of 2021, I have tutored and helped students enrolled at the following U.S. universities community colleges county & city colleges schools for-profit institutions listed below in alphabetical order:

• A - C: American Public University System (APUS) Arizona State Ashford Brigham Young Brown Broward California State (Fullerton) Capella Chamberlain (Illinois) Colorado Technical Columbia Columbia Southern Cornell
• D - K: Dallas College Dartmouth DeVry Excelsior College Florida International Florida State Full Sail Georgia State Grand Canyon Harvard Houston Community College Ivy Tech Community College Kaplan Kennesaw State Kent State
• L - T: Liberty Lone Star College System Kaplan Miami Dade Michigan State CUNY State University of New York (SUNY) Northern Virginia Ohio State University of Phoenix (UOP) Penn State Princeton Purdue (Davenport) San Diego State San Francisco State San Jose State Southern New Hampshire Southern Nevada Stanford St. Petersburg Strayer Texas Tech
• UNIVERSITY OF: Alabama Arizona California (UC) Central Florida Chicago Cincinnati Florida Houston Illinois (Urbana-Champaign) Iowa Maryland Minnesota Michigan North Texas Pennsylvania Southern Florida Texas Toronto
• U - Z: UCLA Extension Utah State Utah Valley Valencia Walden U Wake Technical Western Governors Wilmington Yale

Paid Help from Hiraedu: If You're struggling to handle your Online Exams, Assignments or any other coursework, get help from Hiraedu and pay after the exam. Contact details for Hiraedu is: WhatsApp: +1 (213) 594-5657 OR Call: +1 727 456 9641
I OFFER FLEXIBLE PAYMENT PLANS:

• I offer several unique payment plans, including a weekly plan, a discounted monthly plan, a discounted half-now / half-later plan, and highly discounted up-front rates.
• I can accept the following payment methods for my services: PayPal Debit Cards Square Cash Credit Cards Cash App Venmo.
• Only people located in North America have access to Venmo Cash App Zelle.
• This is an excellent way to determine if the person you're dealing with is from the United States.
• Within reason, I offer a partial or full money-Back guarantee if the student is very unsatisfied with my academic services.

TUTORING AVAILABLE FOR OTHER SUBJECTS:

• For other subjects, you can reach out to me, and I can connect you with one of my tutoring partners who can provide general academic assistance for the following subjects:
• Art & Design: Art History Design Film Studies
• Business: Accounting (Acc) Biz Courses Business Administration (Biz Admn) Business Calculus Business Law Business Statistics Corporate Finance Economics (Econ) Finance (Fin) Financial Accounting Intermediate Accounting Intermediate Microeconomics (Micro) Macroeconomics (Macro) Management (Mgmt) Managerial Accounting Marketing MBA
• Computer Science: C C++ Computer Programming (Comp) Java Python R (Introduction & Intermediate Level Only)
• Humanities: Communications (Comm) English Literature Essay & Term Paper Writing, Editing, Proofreading Essays History Papers Philosophy (Phil) Religious Studies Theology (Theo)
• Mathematics: A.P. Calculus AB & BC Psychology Statistics AP Statistics Bio statistics Calculus I (1) Calculus II (2) Calculus III (3) College Algebra Differential Equations Discrete Math Finite Math Functions General Math Geometry Liberal Arts Math Linear Algebra Multi-variable Calculus Partial Differential Equations Precalculus Probability Quantitative Reasoning Real Analysis Statistics Trigonometry (Trig) Vector Calculus
• Science & Medicine: Anatomy & Physiology (A & P) Biochemistry Biology (Bio) Biostatistics Earth Science Environmental Science General Chemistry (Chem) Healthcare Medicine Nursing Nutrition Organic Chemistry Physics (Phys)
• Social Sciences: Anthropology Economics (Econ) Geology Law & Justice Liberal Arts Liberal Studies Political Science Psychology Sociology

THE OBLIGATORY "IS THIS A SCAM?" QUESTION:
Considering the fact that you found my contact information online, it’s understandable to be skeptical regarding the legitimacy of my services. Therefore, I’m willing to do all of the following to help you feel more secure in trusting me with your academic needs:

• 1) Speak with you on the phone and answer any questions you may have so that you have the opportunity to assess and analyze my tone, articulation, accent, diction, dialect, regionalisms, pitch, vocabulary, word choice, intonations, and inflections.
• NOTE: I’m a New Jersey-born Irish/Italian-American, but I have been told that I speak in an erudite & articulate suburban American accent with a “professor style” voice somewhat resembling the voice of actor: Ben Stein.
• 2) Agree to do some homework questions of yours upfront with the work fully shown in real-time to prove my mastery of the course content.
• 3) Send you screenshots of at least five past scores I attained from completing exams & homework assignments for other students in the same type of class you need help with.
• 4) Send you full screenshots of written exam solutions I wrote up by hand for students in the past in the same course that you need help with so that you can see my neat handwriting.
• 5) Provide you with the contact information of students who have utilized my services in the past who would be more than willing to vouch for my skills.

MY REBUTTAL TO THE OBLIGATORY “IS THIS A SCAM?” QUESTION:
At the risk of sounding arrogant, I consider myself to be at least marginally more intelligent (both academically & socially) than the average person. Therefore, if I ever decided to suddenly risk prison time, risk my reputation, and risk enduring the wrath of modern-day “cancel culture” by scamming people out of their money:

• I certainly wouldn’t do it for such paltry amounts of money. (i.e., anything less than $1,000 per victim.)
• I certainly wouldn’t choose high school & college students as my “target audience” to scam, considering that most people without college degrees have abysmally low annual incomes. Why choose low-income victims when it would be much more profitable to target high-income, high-net-worth individuals earning at least six figures a year? I have knowledge in business consulting, and I promise you that a business owner would be a MUCH more lucrative mark than a low-income college student.
• I wouldn’t choose such a time & energy-draining method of scamming people. Also, communicating back and forth with potential clients is an absurdly long time sink since only less than 10% of all potential clients who reach out to me actually become paying clients of mine. This means that 90% of my time communicating with potential clients ultimately proves to be a colossal waste of my irretrievable time & energy.
• If you pay me to provide academic services and I don’t deliver, you can always dispute the payment with the payment app and easily get your money refunded. If I were in the habit of swindling money from people, then all of my payment accounts would have been investigated and be completely shut down by now. And I would have been permanently banned from opening new accounts. Therefore, the fact that all my payment apps have been fully active for years should be sufficient proof that I haven’t had people consistently disputing payments sent to me.

HOW TO CONTACT ME:
Paid Help from Hiraedu: If You're struggling to handle your Online Exams, Assignments or any other coursework, get help from Hiraedu and pay after the exam. Contact details for Hiraedu is: WhatsApp: +1 (213) 594-5657 OR Call: +1 727 456 9641

• I take my work as a tutor very seriously, and I always aim to do my best to help my students excel in school. I have a solid and sincere passion for academic achievement, and with my help, I am positive that I can help students obtain very high grades with minimal stress and effort.
• Please feel free to contact me if you're interested in my services and would like to learn more. I'm available 24/7 via phone call, email, and text. Again, thank you for taking the time to read my Reddit tutoring ad, and I hope to hear from you soon!

My contact details:
WhatsApp: +1 (213) 594-5657
Call: +1 727 456 9641
Website: hiraedu. com
Email: [info@hiraedu](mailto:info@hiraedu). com
TAGS:
^{Accounting Exam Help Reddit, Best Online Test Takers Reddit, Best Ways to Cheat on a Test Reddit, Best Website to Pay for Homework Reddit, Bypass Respondus Lockdown Browser Reddit, Calculus Test Taker Reddit, Canvas Cheating Reddit, Cheating in Online Exam Reddit, Cheating on Pearson Mymathlab Reddit, Cheating on Proctortrack Reddit, Cheating on Zoom Proctored Exams Reddit, Cheating on a Test Reddit, College Algebra Mymathlab Reddit, Do Homework for Money Reddit, Do My Assignment Reddit, Do My Exam for Me Reddit, Do My Homework for Me Reddit, Do My Math Homework Reddit, Do My Math Homework for Me Reddit, Do My Test for Me Reddit, Doing Homework Reddit, Domyhomework Reddit, Exam Cheating Reddit, Exam Help Online Reddit, Examity Reddit, Finance Homework Help Reddit, Fiverr Exam Cheating Reddit, Gradeseekers Reddit, Hire Someone to Take My Online Exam Reddit, Hire Test Taker Reddit, Homework Help Reddit, Homework Sites Reddit, Reddit, Homeworkhelp Reddit, Honorlock Reddit, How Much Should I Pay Someone to Take My Exam Reddit, How to Beat Honorlock Reddit, How to Beat Lockdown Browser Reddit, How to Cheat Examity Reddit 2022, How to Cheat Honorlock Reddit, How to Cheat and Not Get Caught Reddit, How to Cheat in School Reddit, How to Cheat on Canvas Tests Reddit, How to Cheat on Examity Reddit, How to Cheat on Honorlock Reddit, How to Cheat on Math Test Reddit, How to Cheat on Mymathlab Reddit, How to Cheat on Online Exams Reddit, How to Cheat on Online Proctored Exams Reddit, How to Cheat on Zoom Exam Reddit, How to Cheat on Zoom Exams Reddit, How to Cheat on a Proctored Exam Reddit, How to Cheat with Proctorio 2020 Reddit, How to Cheat with Proctorio Reddit, How to Cheat with Respondus Monitor Reddit, How to Get Past Lockdown Browser Reddit, Hwforcash Discord, I Paid Someone to Write My Essay Reddit, Is Hwforcash Legit, Lockdown Browser Hack Reddit, Lockdown Browser How to Cheat Reddit, Math Homework Reddit, Monitoredu Reddit, Mymathlab Answer Key Reddit, Mymathlab Answers Reddit, Mymathlab Cheat Reddit, Mymathlab Proctored Test Reddit, Online Exam Help Reddit, Online Exam Proctor Reddit, Online Proctored Exam Reddit, Organic Chemistry Exam Help Reddit, Organic Chemistry Test Taker Reddit, Paper Writers Reddit, Pay Me to Do Your Homework Reddit, Pay Me to Do Your Homework Reviews Reddit, Pay Someone to Do Homework Reddit, Pay Someone to Do My Assignment Reddit, Pay Someone to Do My College Homework Reddit, Pay Someone to Do My Homework Reddit, Pay Someone to Do My Math Homework Reddit, Pay Someone to Do My Online Class Reddit, Pay Someone to Do My Online Math Class Reddit, Pay Someone to Do My Programming Homework Reddit, Pay Someone to Do Statistics Homework Reddit, Pay Someone to Take Exam Reddit, Pay Someone to Take Exam for Me Reddit, Pay Someone to Take My Calculus Exam Reddit, Pay Someone to Take My Chemistry Exam Reddit, Pay Someone to Take My Exam Reddit, Pay Someone to Take My Online Class Reddit, Pay Someone to Take My Online Exam Reddit, Pay Someone to Take My Proctored Exam Reddit, Pay Someone to Take My Test in Person Reddit, Pay Someone to Take Online Class for Me Reddit, Pay Someone to Take Online Test Reddit, Pay Someone to Take Your Online Class Reddit, Pay Someone to Write My Paper Reddit, Pay for Homework Reddit, Pay to Do Homework Reddit, Paying Someone to Do Your Homework Reddit, Paying Someone to Take My Online Class Reddit, Paying Someone to Take Online Class Reddit, Paysomeonetodo Reddit, Physics Test Taker Reddit, Proctored Exam Reddit, Reddit Do My Homework for Me, Reddit Domyhomework, Reddit Homework Cheat, Reddit Homework Help, Reddit Homework for Money, Reddit Honorlock Cheating, Reddit Mymathlab Hack, Reddit Mymathlab Homework Answers, Reddit Paid Homework, Reddit Pay Someone to Do Your Homework, Reddit Pay Someone to Take Online Test, Reddit Pay for Homework, Reddit Pay to Do Homework, Reddit Test Takers for Hire, Reddit Tutors, Should I Pay Someone to Take My Exam Reddit, Statistics Test Taker Reddit, Take My Calculus Exam Reddit, Take My Class Pro Reddit, Take My Class Pro Reviews Reddit, Take My Exam for Me Reddit, Take My Math Test for Me Reddit, Take My Online Class Reddit, Take My Online Class for Me Reddit, Take My Online Exam for Me Reddit, Take My Online Exams Reddit, Take My Online Exams Review Reddit, Take My Online Exams Reviews Reddit, Take My Online Test Reddit, Take My Online Test for Me Reddit, Take My Physics Exam for Me Reddit, Take My Proctored Exam for Me Reddit, Take My Statistics Exam for Me Reddit, Take My Test for Me Reddit, Takemyonlineexams Reddit, Test Taker Reddit, We Take Classes Reddit, Write My Exam for Me Reddit}
What are your Thoughts! Write in comments and ask for help if needed
Suggest more topic Ideas
Join this subreddit to help us grow!

If You're struggling to handle your Online Exams, Assignments or any other coursework, get help from Hiraedu and pay after the exam. Contact details for Hiraedu is: WhatsApp: +1 (213) 594-5657 OR Call: +1 727 456 9641
ASSESSMENTS I CAN COMPLETE:

• Online Courses (1 - 20 Weeks Long)
• Homework Assignments
• Exams Quizzes Tests
• Excel Projects
• Discussion Forum Posts
• Research Papers Term Papers Essays
• Employment Assessments

MY MATH SUBJECTS OF EXPERTISE:
I am very knowledgeable and proficient in assisting students in a wide range of mathematics classes. I can help students complete their homework assignments and other projects get an A on quizzes, tests, and exams (including proctored assessments) answer online discussion posts write essays & papers in MLA APA Chicago format and provide general overall academic help in each math course listed below:

• Advanced Placement Honors High School Level Math
• AP Calculus AB A.P. Calculus BC
• AP Statistics
• Biostatistics Bio-Statistics
• College Algebra Intermediate Algebra
• Business Calculus
• Business Statistics
• Business Math
• Calculus I Calculus II Calculus III (Calc)
• Geometry
• International Baccalaureate (IB) Maths
• Liberal Arts Math
• Logic & Reasoning
• Multivariable Calculus Multi variable Calculus
• Precalculus Pre-calculus
• Probability & Statistics
• Psychology Statistics Psych Stats
• Quantitative Reasoning Quantitative Methods Quantitative Literacy (Quant)
• Statistics (Stats)
• Statistics for Social Sciences
• Trigonometry (Trig)

STATISTICS HELP (MY BEST SUBJECT):

• I have a master's degree in Applied Statistics from a university in New Jersey, USA. As a result, I am very proficient in helping students with various types of Statistics courses including Biostatistics Business Statistics Elementary Statistics Probability & Statistics Psychology Statistics.
• I have extensive knowledge and skill with helping students get through various statistical concepts including all of the following in alphabetical order:
• ANOVA Bar Graph, Boxplot, Dot Plot, Histogram, Pie Chart Bias Binomial, Exponential, Poisson, Gamma, Uniform Distribution Central Limit Theorem Chi-Square Test Coefficient of Determination (R^2) Conditional & Relative Probability Confidence Interval Correlation Coefficient (r) Critical Region Critical Value Descriptive & Inferential Statistics Effect Size Expected Value Experiment vs Observation Goodness of Fit Test Hypothesis Testing Interpolation & Extrapolation Interquartile Range (IQR) Kurtosis Left, Negative, Right, Positive Skewed Distribution Logistic Regression Mean, Median, Mode, Midrange Multiple Regression Nominal, Ordinal, Interval, Ratio I Population Parameter Normal, Symmetric & Bell Shaped Distribution Null & Alternate Hypothesis One & Two Sample T-Test One & Two Sample Z-Test Ordinary Least Squares Outliers P-Value Pooled Variance (Equal Variances) Proportion R^2 Range Regression Regression Line Reject & Fail to Reject Ho Relative & Cumulative Frequency Distributions Relativity & Reliability Right, Left, One, Two Tailed Tailed Hypothesis Test Sample Statistics Sampling Methods (Convenience, Stratified, Simple, Cluster, Systematic) Significance Level (1%, 5%, 10%) Skewness Standard Deviation& Variance T-Score Test Statistic Time Series Type I & Type II Errors Unbiased Estimators Z-Score

ALGEBRA HELP:

• I am well-versed in helping students do well in Algebra 1 & 2 College Algebra Intermediate Algebra Pre-Algebra and I am very knowledgeable and proficient in the following algebra topics in alphabetical order:
• Absolute Values Circle Equation Domain Exponents Graphing Horizontal & Vertical Asymptotes Inequalities, Equations & Functions Inverse Functions Linear, Exponential, Logarithmic, Quadratic Equations Logarithms Maximum & Minimum Values of a Graph Number Lines One-to-One Functions Parallel & Perpendicular Lines Plotting Points & Ordered Pairs Point-Slope Form Polynomial Division Polynomials Radicals Range Rational & Irrational Expressions Rational Functions Real Roots Real Zeros Relations & Functions Slope Slope-Intercept Form Square Roots Standard Form of a Line System of Equations System of Inequalities Variables X and Y Intercepts

CALCULUS HELP:

• I am well-versed in helping students do well in Calculus I, II & III, Calculus 1, 2 & 3, Business Calculus, Multivariable Calculus, Vector Calculus and I am very knowledgeable and proficient in the following calculus topics in alphabetical order:
• Absolute & Local Maximum and Minimum Antiderivative Area & Volume Chain Rule Concavity Continuity Convergence Test Critical Points Curvature Curve of Rotation Curve Sketching Derivatives Divergence Test First & Second Derivative Test Fourier Series Implicit Differentiation Increasing / Decreasing Functions Infinite Series Integrals Integration by Parts Jacobian Matrix Limits L’Hopital’s Rule Maclaurin Series Mean Value Theorem Partial Derivative Product & Quotient Rule Reiman Sum Related Rates Simpson’s Rule Solid of Revolution Substitution Rule Taylor Series

Paid Help from Hiraedu: If You're struggling to handle your Online Exams, Assignments or any other coursework, get help from Hiraedu and pay after the exam. Contact details for Hiraedu is: WhatsApp: +1 (213) 594-5657 OR Call: +1 727 456 9641
ATTRIBUTES THAT SET ME APART FROM OTHER TUTORS:

• I firmly believe that I have many attributes and skills that set me apart from other tutors. Below is a list of qualities that makes me an ideal fit to help you master your coursework:

I CAN AID STUDENTS TAKING PROCTORED ASSESSMENTS:

• Proficient in CollegeBoard AP Calculus AB, AP Calculus BC & AP Statistics exams.
• Skilled with International Baccalaureate Math Exams: IB Maths HL & IB Maths SL
• Can intentionally answer a few problems incorrectly at the student's request.
• Can text solutions to the student while they are taking a proctored exam.
• Upon request, can purposely obtain grades below an A (ex: B+, B, C+, C-).
• I can stretch out the time to a plausible length for timed exams and assignments before submitting them.
• Have reliable software that can change my IP address to match the closest major city near the student.
• I have exceptional multiple-choice exam-taking skills. I have mastered the various techniques to make calculated guesses for the correct option in standardized exams such as the SAT & GRE.

I CAN VERIFY MY ACADEMIC KNOWLEDGE & SKILLS:

• I have no problem with requests to solve sample problems upfront to prove my knowledge & proficiency of the course concepts.
• I can provide glowing references & strong examples of work done for past clients to verify my academic skills.
• I can also provide, upon request, complete detailed calculations with explanations for solutions to the problems worked on.
• I am quite skilled and adept in using multiple modernized educational platforms and software, including but not limited to: Brightspace MyStatLab D2L WebAssign Canvas MyMathLab Blackboard ALEKS
• Can format term papers and discussion posts in APA MLA Harvard Chicago Vancouver OSCOLA IEEE format.

I HAVE PAID ACCESS TO OVER 15 STUDY-HELP WEBSITES AND MATHEMATICAL SOFTWARE:

• I have multiple paid subscriptions to a wide range of academic tutoring resources, including Chegg, Quizlet, CourseHero, Brainly, Grammarly, Study. com, Bartleby, Slader, Transtutors, Slideshare, StudocU, Turnitin, Academia, SymboLab, WolframAlpha, and Scribd to help guide to solve exam & homework questions that I may not immediately know.
• However, I am smart enough not to blatantly plagiarize solutions online but instead write them in my own unique words, formatting, & mathematical terminology.
• I have access to a very sophisticated graphing calculator and various mathematical software that provides step-by-step solutions to complex mathematical problems within seconds, allowing me to provide exact solutions to the student in a timely manner.
• I have impeccable handwriting and a high-quality mobile scanner app that allows me to scan written solutions in very legible high-definition JPG, PNG, or PDF formats.

MY AVAILABILITY & RELIABILITY:

• Depending on my availability, I can accommodate immediate tutoring requests, 1-24 hour, and 1-30-day deadlines.
• I can schedule live real-time online sessions and meet deadlines in an impressively timely fashion.
• I can provide quick notifications and updates of progress made in the student's class via email text phone calls.
• I can also be available to tutor students for Fall 2021 Spring 2022 Summer 2022 semesters.

MY EDUCATIONAL SOFTWARE OF EXPERTISE:

• I am very knowledgeable and well-versed in a wide range of educational software to tutor students in including but not limited to: Acellus ALEKS APEX Learning Aplia Blackboard Brightspace Canvas Cengage CengageNow Connect ConnectMath Connexus CPM D2L Discord Edmentum Eviews Examity Excel Hawkes Learning Honorlock Khan Academy Knewton LimeSpring Lumen Maple MasteringChemistry MasteringPhysics MathXL (XL) MATLAB McGraw-Hill Microsoft Word Minitab Moodle MyAccountingLab MyEconLab MyITLab MyLab My Lab MyMathLab My Math Lab MyOpenMath MyPsychLab MySocLab MyStatLab My Stat Lab NCSS Open Source Software Pearson PERT PlatoWeb PowerPoint Prezi R Respondus Lockdown Browser with Webcam Sapling SPSS Stata StraighterLine Straighter Line WebAssign Web Assign Webex (Cisco) WebWork Wiley WileyPlus Wonderlic Zoom

SCHOOLS FROM WHICH I'VE HELPED STUDENTS IN :
As of 2021, I have tutored and helped students enrolled at the following U.S. universities community colleges county & city colleges schools for-profit institutions listed below in alphabetical order:

• A - C: American Public University System (APUS) Arizona State Ashford Brigham Young Brown Broward California State (Fullerton) Capella Chamberlain (Illinois) Colorado Technical Columbia Columbia Southern Cornell
• D - K: Dallas College Dartmouth DeVry Excelsior College Florida International Florida State Full Sail Georgia State Grand Canyon Harvard Houston Community College Ivy Tech Community College Kaplan Kennesaw State Kent State
• L - T: Liberty Lone Star College System Kaplan Miami Dade Michigan State CUNY State University of New York (SUNY) Northern Virginia Ohio State University of Phoenix (UOP) Penn State Princeton Purdue (Davenport) San Diego State San Francisco State San Jose State Southern New Hampshire Southern Nevada Stanford St. Petersburg Strayer Texas Tech
• UNIVERSITY OF: Alabama Arizona California (UC) Central Florida Chicago Cincinnati Florida Houston Illinois (Urbana-Champaign) Iowa Maryland Minnesota Michigan North Texas Pennsylvania Southern Florida Texas Toronto
• U - Z: UCLA Extension Utah State Utah Valley Valencia Walden U Wake Technical Western Governors Wilmington Yale

Paid Help from Hiraedu: If You're struggling to handle your Online Exams, Assignments or any other coursework, get help from Hiraedu and pay after the exam. Contact details for Hiraedu is: WhatsApp: +1 (213) 594-5657 OR Call: +1 727 456 9641
I OFFER FLEXIBLE PAYMENT PLANS:

• I offer several unique payment plans, including a weekly plan, a discounted monthly plan, a discounted half-now / half-later plan, and highly discounted up-front rates.
• I can accept the following payment methods for my services: PayPal Debit Cards Square Cash Credit Cards Cash App Venmo.
• Only people located in North America have access to Venmo Cash App Zelle.
• This is an excellent way to determine if the person you're dealing with is from the United States.
• Within reason, I offer a partial or full money-Back guarantee if the student is very unsatisfied with my academic services.

TUTORING AVAILABLE FOR OTHER SUBJECTS:

• For other subjects, you can reach out to me, and I can connect you with one of my tutoring partners who can provide general academic assistance for the following subjects:
• Art & Design: Art History Design Film Studies
• Business: Accounting (Acc) Biz Courses Business Administration (Biz Admn) Business Calculus Business Law Business Statistics Corporate Finance Economics (Econ) Finance (Fin) Financial Accounting Intermediate Accounting Intermediate Microeconomics (Micro) Macroeconomics (Macro) Management (Mgmt) Managerial Accounting Marketing MBA
• Computer Science: C C++ Computer Programming (Comp) Java Python R (Introduction & Intermediate Level Only)
• Humanities: Communications (Comm) English Literature Essay & Term Paper Writing, Editing, Proofreading Essays History Papers Philosophy (Phil) Religious Studies Theology (Theo)
• Mathematics: A.P. Calculus AB & BC Psychology Statistics AP Statistics Bio statistics Calculus I (1) Calculus II (2) Calculus III (3) College Algebra Differential Equations Discrete Math Finite Math Functions General Math Geometry Liberal Arts Math Linear Algebra Multi-variable Calculus Partial Differential Equations Precalculus Probability Quantitative Reasoning Real Analysis Statistics Trigonometry (Trig) Vector Calculus
• Science & Medicine: Anatomy & Physiology (A & P) Biochemistry Biology (Bio) Biostatistics Earth Science Environmental Science General Chemistry (Chem) Healthcare Medicine Nursing Nutrition Organic Chemistry Physics (Phys)
• Social Sciences: Anthropology Economics (Econ) Geology Law & Justice Liberal Arts Liberal Studies Political Science Psychology Sociology

THE OBLIGATORY "IS THIS A SCAM?" QUESTION:
Considering the fact that you found my contact information online, it’s understandable to be skeptical regarding the legitimacy of my services. Therefore, I’m willing to do all of the following to help you feel more secure in trusting me with your academic needs:

• 1) Speak with you on the phone and answer any questions you may have so that you have the opportunity to assess and analyze my tone, articulation, accent, diction, dialect, regionalisms, pitch, vocabulary, word choice, intonations, and inflections.
• NOTE: I’m a New Jersey-born Irish/Italian-American, but I have been told that I speak in an erudite & articulate suburban American accent with a “professor style” voice somewhat resembling the voice of actor: Ben Stein.
• 2) Agree to do some homework questions of yours upfront with the work fully shown in real-time to prove my mastery of the course content.
• 3) Send you screenshots of at least five past scores I attained from completing exams & homework assignments for other students in the same type of class you need help with.
• 4) Send you full screenshots of written exam solutions I wrote up by hand for students in the past in the same course that you need help with so that you can see my neat handwriting.
• 5) Provide you with the contact information of students who have utilized my services in the past who would be more than willing to vouch for my skills.

MY REBUTTAL TO THE OBLIGATORY “IS THIS A SCAM?” QUESTION:
At the risk of sounding arrogant, I consider myself to be at least marginally more intelligent (both academically & socially) than the average person. Therefore, if I ever decided to suddenly risk prison time, risk my reputation, and risk enduring the wrath of modern-day “cancel culture” by scamming people out of their money:

• I certainly wouldn’t do it for such paltry amounts of money. (i.e., anything less than $1,000 per victim.)
• I certainly wouldn’t choose high school & college students as my “target audience” to scam, considering that most people without college degrees have abysmally low annual incomes. Why choose low-income victims when it would be much more profitable to target high-income, high-net-worth individuals earning at least six figures a year? I have knowledge in business consulting, and I promise you that a business owner would be a MUCH more lucrative mark than a low-income college student.
• I wouldn’t choose such a time & energy-draining method of scamming people. Also, communicating back and forth with potential clients is an absurdly long time sink since only less than 10% of all potential clients who reach out to me actually become paying clients of mine. This means that 90% of my time communicating with potential clients ultimately proves to be a colossal waste of my irretrievable time & energy.
• If you pay me to provide academic services and I don’t deliver, you can always dispute the payment with the payment app and easily get your money refunded. If I were in the habit of swindling money from people, then all of my payment accounts would have been investigated and be completely shut down by now. And I would have been permanently banned from opening new accounts. Therefore, the fact that all my payment apps have been fully active for years should be sufficient proof that I haven’t had people consistently disputing payments sent to me.

HOW TO CONTACT ME:
Paid Help from Hiraedu: If You're struggling to handle your Online Exams, Assignments or any other coursework, get help from Hiraedu and pay after the exam. Contact details for Hiraedu is: WhatsApp: +1 (213) 594-5657 OR Call: +1 727 456 9641

• I take my work as a tutor very seriously, and I always aim to do my best to help my students excel in school. I have a solid and sincere passion for academic achievement, and with my help, I am positive that I can help students obtain very high grades with minimal stress and effort.
• Please feel free to contact me if you're interested in my services and would like to learn more. I'm available 24/7 via phone call, email, and text. Again, thank you for taking the time to read my Reddit tutoring ad, and I hope to hear from you soon!

My contact details:
WhatsApp: +1 (213) 594-5657
Call: +1 727 456 9641
Website: hiraedu. com
Email: [info@hiraedu](mailto:info@hiraedu). com
TAGS:
^{Accounting Exam Help Reddit, Best Online Test Takers Reddit, Best Ways to Cheat on a Test Reddit, Best Website to Pay for Homework Reddit, Bypass Respondus Lockdown Browser Reddit, Calculus Test Taker Reddit, Canvas Cheating Reddit, Cheating in Online Exam Reddit, Cheating on Pearson Mymathlab Reddit, Cheating on Proctortrack Reddit, Cheating on Zoom Proctored Exams Reddit, Cheating on a Test Reddit, College Algebra Mymathlab Reddit, Do Homework for Money Reddit, Do My Assignment Reddit, Do My Exam for Me Reddit, Do My Homework for Me Reddit, Do My Math Homework Reddit, Do My Math Homework for Me Reddit, Do My Test for Me Reddit, Doing Homework Reddit, Domyhomework Reddit, Exam Cheating Reddit, Exam Help Online Reddit, Examity Reddit, Finance Homework Help Reddit, Fiverr Exam Cheating Reddit, Gradeseekers Reddit, Hire Someone to Take My Online Exam Reddit, Hire Test Taker Reddit, Homework Help Reddit, Homework Sites Reddit, Reddit, Homeworkhelp Reddit, Honorlock Reddit, How Much Should I Pay Someone to Take My Exam Reddit, How to Beat Honorlock Reddit, How to Beat Lockdown Browser Reddit, How to Cheat Examity Reddit 2022, How to Cheat Honorlock Reddit, How to Cheat and Not Get Caught Reddit, How to Cheat in School Reddit, How to Cheat on Canvas Tests Reddit, How to Cheat on Examity Reddit, How to Cheat on Honorlock Reddit, How to Cheat on Math Test Reddit, How to Cheat on Mymathlab Reddit, How to Cheat on Online Exams Reddit, How to Cheat on Online Proctored Exams Reddit, How to Cheat on Zoom Exam Reddit, How to Cheat on Zoom Exams Reddit, How to Cheat on a Proctored Exam Reddit, How to Cheat with Proctorio 2020 Reddit, How to Cheat with Proctorio Reddit, How to Cheat with Respondus Monitor Reddit, How to Get Past Lockdown Browser Reddit, Hwforcash Discord, I Paid Someone to Write My Essay Reddit, Is Hwforcash Legit, Lockdown Browser Hack Reddit, Lockdown Browser How to Cheat Reddit, Math Homework Reddit, Monitoredu Reddit, Mymathlab Answer Key Reddit, Mymathlab Answers Reddit, Mymathlab Cheat Reddit, Mymathlab Proctored Test Reddit, Online Exam Help Reddit, Online Exam Proctor Reddit, Online Proctored Exam Reddit, Organic Chemistry Exam Help Reddit, Organic Chemistry Test Taker Reddit, Paper Writers Reddit, Pay Me to Do Your Homework Reddit, Pay Me to Do Your Homework Reviews Reddit, Pay Someone to Do Homework Reddit, Pay Someone to Do My Assignment Reddit, Pay Someone to Do My College Homework Reddit, Pay Someone to Do My Homework Reddit, Pay Someone to Do My Math Homework Reddit, Pay Someone to Do My Online Class Reddit, Pay Someone to Do My Online Math Class Reddit, Pay Someone to Do My Programming Homework Reddit, Pay Someone to Do Statistics Homework Reddit, Pay Someone to Take Exam Reddit, Pay Someone to Take Exam for Me Reddit, Pay Someone to Take My Calculus Exam Reddit, Pay Someone to Take My Chemistry Exam Reddit, Pay Someone to Take My Exam Reddit, Pay Someone to Take My Online Class Reddit, Pay Someone to Take My Online Exam Reddit, Pay Someone to Take My Proctored Exam Reddit, Pay Someone to Take My Test in Person Reddit, Pay Someone to Take Online Class for Me Reddit, Pay Someone to Take Online Test Reddit, Pay Someone to Take Your Online Class Reddit, Pay Someone to Write My Paper Reddit, Pay for Homework Reddit, Pay to Do Homework Reddit, Paying Someone to Do Your Homework Reddit, Paying Someone to Take My Online Class Reddit, Paying Someone to Take Online Class Reddit, Paysomeonetodo Reddit, Physics Test Taker Reddit, Proctored Exam Reddit, Reddit Do My Homework for Me, Reddit Domyhomework, Reddit Homework Cheat, Reddit Homework Help, Reddit Homework for Money, Reddit Honorlock Cheating, Reddit Mymathlab Hack, Reddit Mymathlab Homework Answers, Reddit Paid Homework, Reddit Pay Someone to Do Your Homework, Reddit Pay Someone to Take Online Test, Reddit Pay for Homework, Reddit Pay to Do Homework, Reddit Test Takers for Hire, Reddit Tutors, Should I Pay Someone to Take My Exam Reddit, Statistics Test Taker Reddit, Take My Calculus Exam Reddit, Take My Class Pro Reddit, Take My Class Pro Reviews Reddit, Take My Exam for Me Reddit, Take My Math Test for Me Reddit, Take My Online Class Reddit, Take My Online Class for Me Reddit, Take My Online Exam for Me Reddit, Take My Online Exams Reddit, Take My Online Exams Review Reddit, Take My Online Exams Reviews Reddit, Take My Online Test Reddit, Take My Online Test for Me Reddit, Take My Physics Exam for Me Reddit, Take My Proctored Exam for Me Reddit, Take My Statistics Exam for Me Reddit, Take My Test for Me Reddit, Takemyonlineexams Reddit, Test Taker Reddit, We Take Classes Reddit, Write My Exam for Me Reddit}
What are your Thoughts! Write in comments and ask for help if needed
Suggest more topic Ideas
Join this subreddit to help us grow!

Using a burner account because of the nature of this post.
I want to supply some context before jumping into the issue. I have two sisters and we were raised in a very emotionally, physically and domestically abusive household. We all went through a lot of dark and horrible things that children should never have to experience.
My eldest sister who this post is about has two children. Both not planned, and were born less than a year apart from each other. The father is in the picture but mentally unstable. My sister is not financially stable but always make sure that her children are fed well dressed and overall taken care of.
However the oldest of her children a five-year-old is out of control in terms of her behaviour. Drawing all her the house in Nutella, pens, makeup, etc. breaking toys, not listening to anything my sister tells her. Watching things too grown up for her on YouTube which is leading to her wetting the bed every night. She also has a new tendency of grinding food that my sister has bought into the carpet with her feet. Obviously this is not the child’s fault and is down to a lack of proper parenting
However I truly believe that my sister is trying to parent them, but is failing to get through to them. My sister has a very stressful life and itself her boyfriend is present but is in and out of jobs making them financially unstable and she relies on my father for money. She hates her job but has to remain there to try and fund their lives. Her house is the messiest house I think I’ve ever seen to the point where it is a safety hazard. She’s so stressed out that she smokes maybe five cigarettes an hour.
However,
She told me today that her five-year-old pushed her to her limits and she smacked her on the bum. This is something that makes me highly uncomfortable. And I’m not sure whether to report this social services.
It is evident that she cares for these children and love for them so much. I just don’t think she had time to learn how to parent or time to process the fact she was even having children to begin with.
Any advice is welcome, I’m not a parent myself, just a concerned aunt who wants to help.

Here is my situation:
I am a 3rd year CS student and a veteran [relevant in terms of how I am financing college]. Essentially, I have grown concerned about remaining in CS due to seeing the mass tech layoffs, the way America doesn't appear to protect American tech workers jobs [i.e., we have to compete for jobs internationally since American companies like to outsource labor to other country's], or even the fact that this path seems a lot more grey-area ish than I anticipated. To clarify . . .
I am studying Computer Science with an emphasis in Software Engineering, I wanted to be able to build applications [generally speaking]. The issue here is that there is a lot of things not being said while I am in college pursuing this road, such as:
When I look on linkedin/indeed software engineering positions vary wildly in terms of the technologies they want you to know of [which I have never heard about ever], several coding languages, and a whole host of things that made me say "this degree doesn't particularly feel like it is preparing me to be competitive in the job market and this seems like a train leading to broken tracks."
It's as though I have more material to learn than time available in the day and people with no life other than breathing CS are the only ones who can exist in the space. I hear to do "projects" but that is rather vague, perhaps I should be thinking of a system of organization such as :

1. Identify what types of applications I want to make as a software engineer
2. what technologies/software are primarily used for building that particular type of application?
3. build projects that utilize those software's/technologies and have those viewable by the recruiter
4. live on leetcode?

Other than doing what I am supposed to be doing in school in terms of grades and knowing I need to land an internship at some point, I am quite unsure what I should be doing with my time to even be competitive in what appears to be a sinking ship/saturated market.
I was considering using my CS undergraduate degree to go to Law School thinking that being a licensed professional would solve a few problems being :
a) I don't have to compete with people in other countries that are willing to work for much less than Americans are.
b) Maybe law is better during recessions/lay-offs
c) perhaps law is less ambiguous of a career path than software engineering is. The fact that software engineering seems so ill-defined in terms of direction appears troublesome to me.
d) as a stem undergraduate I am more competitive in terms of law school applications [from what I read] and can also pursue specialized law practice that non-stem majors could not do [i.e., patent law/intellectual property]; ergo, it would be as though I haven't wasted my time spending 4 years in college.
IMPORTANT:
I would not graduate with debt in either case as my school costs should be covered in full.

High Volume Cocktail Bar and Restaurant
Merlino & Co. – Kittyhawk
We are looking for an experienced Restaurant Manager to assist in operations of a high-volume, award-winning venue that is part of one of Sydney’s leading hospitality groups. We are seeking an individual who is passionate about hospitality as a career, is customer service focused, displays great leadership and has the ambition to grow with us as a group.
Kittyhawk is a dynamic and large venue, and we are searching for someone with experience in large venue operations and departments.
About Us:
We are a high-volume cocktail bar and restaurant that also hosts a dynamic events department. This sees us as host to a variety of scenarios each week.
The venue was designed around the Liberation of Paris in 1944 and has been nominated for multiple awards. We bring together an old-world charm with a modern and delicious food and beverage offering.
Our bar is strongly spirit focused, with a concentration on North American Whisky and Rum – as reflected in our seasonal cocktail lists. Our team of professional bartenders deliver world class cocktails and quality service but know when to turn the place into a party when times suit.
Spirits aside, we also boast a comprehensive wine list encompassing French, Australian, and Natural wines in what we consider to be the best of the best.
This is all designed to go hand-in-hand with our modern French food offerings. We focus on using local produce of the highest quality to create an unpretentious dining atmosphere. The menu changes seasonally using sustainable produce as much as possible. The chefs make as much as possible in house which flows through to the end product.
We are an amazingly tight knit team of passionate individuals who live and breathe hospitality and push ourselves daily to constantly provide top level customer service and products.
Kittyhawk is part of a larger company called Merlino & Co., which also operates The Lobo and Big Poppas.
The Role:
Be a direct support to our current management team to help manage the day-to-day operations of the venue. Ensure that the level of customer service is consistently in line with our brand standards. Liaise with customers and the employment team to ensure all feedback is taken on board. Take and manage reservations, greet guests, take orders. Assist in leading and developing a strong and established FOH and BOH team. This includes recruiting, training and supervising all employees. Plan and assist in new menu launches – preparing product costings according to budget, preparing execution timeline in conjunction with the other departments, train applicable staff. Assist and implement stock control procedures, and regular inventory management. Manage and plan for functions and events hosted throughout the year. Ensure venue meets all OSHA requirements, and that our service meets all OLGR RSA requirements. Required Skills and Attributes:
Have held a similar managerial position in a high-volume venue for a minimum of 3 years. Ability to lead, manage, motivate, and develop staff. Proven success driving revenue and profits. Knowledge of quality food & beverage products. Experience with management reporting, stock control, OHS & handling venue security concerns. Strong organisational skills with the ability to think on your feet and multi-task. Self motivated, makes use of check lists and communication methods to manage own workload and give regular updates. Strong organisational skills with the ability to think on your feet and multi-task. Self motivated, makes use of check lists and communication methods to manage own workload and give regular updates. A passion for hospitality, leading from the front and developing relationships across all levels of the business. Valid NSW RSA, and full working rights required. Salary and Benefits:
Full-time contracted position. Salary package of $74k + super + tips. Access to our group’s mental health support system. Working with a team that prioritizes staff personal development. 50% employee discount across all of our outposts. Being a part of an amazing working culture, in a company that prides itself on staff retention, happiness, and work/life-balance.
Apply here
Via needabarista.com.au

Here is my situation:
I am a 3rd year CS student and a veteran [relevant in terms of how I am financing college]. Essentially, I have grown concerned about remaining in CS due to seeing the mass tech layoffs, the way America doesn't appear to protect American tech workers jobs [i.e., we have to compete for jobs internationally since American companies like to outsource labor to other country's], or even the fact that this path seems a lot more grey-area ish than I anticipated. To clarify . . .
I am studying Computer Science with an emphasis in Software Engineering, I wanted to be able to build applications [generally speaking]. The issue here is that there is a lot of things not being said while I am in college pursuing this road, such as:
When I look on linkedin/indeed software engineering positions vary wildly in terms of the technologies they want you to know of [which I have never heard about ever], several coding languages, and a whole host of things that made me say "this degree doesn't particularly feel like it is preparing me to be competitive in the job market and this seems like a train leading to broken tracks."
It's as though I have more material to learn than time available in the day and people with no life other than breathing CS are the only ones who can exist in the space. I hear to do "projects" but that is rather vague, perhaps I should be thinking of a system of organization such as :
1) Identify what types of applications I want to make as a software engineer
2) what technologies/software is primarily used for building that particular type of application?
3) build projects that utilize those software's/technologies and have those viewable by the recruiter
4) live on leetcode?
Other than doing what I am supposed to be doing in school in terms of grades and knowing I need to land an internship at some point, I am quite unsure what I should be doing with my time to even be competitive in what appears to be a sinking ship/saturated market.
I was considering using my CS undergraduate degree to go to Law School thinking that being a licensed professional would solve a few problems being :
a) I don't have to compete with people in other countries that are willing to work for much less than Americans are.
b) Maybe law is better during recessions/lay-offs
c) perhaps law is less ambiguous of a career path than software engineering is. The fact that software engineering seems so ill-defined in terms of direction appears troublesome to me.
d) as a stem undergraduate I am more competitive in terms of law school applications [from what I read] and can also pursue specialized law practice that non-stem majors could not do [i.e., patent law/intellectual property]; ergo, it would be as though I haven't wasted my time spending 4 years in college.
IMPORTANT:
I would not graduate with debt in either case as my school costs should be covered in full.

My fellow countrymen, let us turn our minds back to the hallowed grounds where the indomitable spirit of liberty was forged and preserved, often under the shadow of peril and the clarion call to arms. Among the instruments of our struggle for freedom, none has left a more indelible mark upon our history than the rifle. This steadfast companion of the American soldier, the hunter, and the patriot has played a pivotal role in securing the blessings of liberty we hold dear today.
Consider, if you will, the frigid morning of April 19, seventeen seventy-five, when the first light of dawn revealed the brave minutemen gathered on the Lexington Green. Armed with little more than their rifles, these ordinary farmers stood against the might of the British Empire, their hearts ablaze with the desire for self-determination. As the smoke cleared, it was the resolute crack of those rifles that echoed the birth of a nation, a nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Throughout the ensuing years, the rifle remained a steadfast guardian of American freedom. In the dense forests of the Revolution, through the smoke-filled fields of the Civil War, and across the expansive frontiers of the West, it was the rifle that empowered our people to defend their homes, their principles, and their sacred honor. The names of battles and the tales of heroism are many, but they all resound with the same refrain: the rifle, wielded by those who sought not conquest, but the preservation of their cherished way of life.
Let us not forget the tales of individual valor, such as that of Sergeant Alvin York in the Argonne Forest during the Great War. With a rifle in hand, he single-handedly silenced enemy machine guns and captured scores of the foe, his actions echoing the steadfast resolve of our forefathers. It was his rifle that made his bravery possible, his rifle that turned the tide of battle, and his rifle that became a symbol of American tenacity and virtue.
In the annals of our nation's story, the rifle stands as a testament to the enduring power of the individual in the face of tyranny. It is more than a mere tool of war; it is a symbol of our right to defend our homes and our freedoms, a right enshrined in the very fabric of our Constitution. As we reflect upon the sacrifices made by those who have gone before us, let us remember the rifle not only as a weapon, but as a beacon of the unyielding spirit of liberty that defines us as a people.
In the rifle, we find a reminder that freedom is not granted, but earned and defended. It is a powerful symbol of the resolve and courage that has defined our nation's journey. May we continue to honor its legacy, and may it ever remind us of the price of liberty and the valor required to secure it.

Hi. My (30-ish F) uncle (71) is staying with me for the next two weeks across the country because his house is in the last stages of being renovated and we'd thought it would be cool back in January. We've planned this trip since then, so it wasn't spontaneous nor without consent, but he's proving difficult for me to handle as a houseguest.
Thing is, he's genuinely sweet. He loves me and stepped in as a father figure of sorts when I was younger. I love him and we have a healthy, respectful relationship for the most part. However, he shows this affection by incessant info-dumping. I'm talking incessant - random unsolicited explanations about the American revolution, fun facts about lizards, etc., at any given time of day. And he's not uncomfortable with silence or anything. He really just wants to share and is excited about these topics.
It's too much for my brain to handle. I've already gently tried to express the overload issue to him, and if I'm lucky, he doesn't take it too personally. If I'm not, my uncle gets a bit sullen and clams up for a short while. The silence is nice even if awkward.
I get a little time away from him when he naps or goes to a museum, but I don't want to feel like a parent to him. Fortunately I'm not a parent and have no pets, because having my uncle over is proving to be a handful.
Any advice for helping to connect kindly to him whilst preserving my sanity?

In Zen, the test of understanding is both the duty and the demonstration of affiliation in the tradition. The testing can either be iin impromptu encounters with total strangers as is the case with Zhaozhou and the old women, Layman Pang and the herdboy, or Budai and the passersby.
Formal testing comes up in situations where the monastic community is assembled specifically to engage with the Zen Master at a designated time and designated place. Zen texts of instruction such as Wumen's Gateless Checkpoint or Wansong's Book of Serenity are also arguably formal tests given that most of the "big name" texts were written by Zen Masters subsequent to their communities urging them to do so.
In both impromptu and formal interviews the Zen Master is free to play both guest and host--the one initially receiving the questions or the one putting them forth. The obligation in receiving a question is to answer it in the Zen tradition; Yunmen's record contains famous examples of how Zen Masters end up holding up both sides of a conversation when those they meet with can't carry their weight:

One day Master Yunmen said, “What is it that you deliberate about and concentrate upon?”
In place of the monks, Master Yunmen answered, “Salt is expensive, rice is cheap.”
__
Once Master Yunmen said, “What is accomplished when one has mentioned the two words ‘Buddha’ and ‘Dharma’?”
He answered in place of the audience, “Dead frogs!”
__
Once Master Yunmen said, “What is a statement that does not fool people?”
In place of his listeners he said, “Don’t tell me that this was one that did!”

There are many more examples. For people without television or video games or sunny weather--this stuff can be super entertaining.
...but the intent wasn't just to give us all a few laughs.
He asked real questions regarding a concern that Zen Masters talk about as a matter of "life and death" and the people (Preceptors) that signed up for the community by shaving their heads and making all sorts of promises failed to answer.
. . .
This Zen tradition stands in sharp contrast to the sequestered, ritualized, and highly scripted religious ceremonies that meditation cults like Dogenism and Hakuuinism conduct in private and fraudulently claim constitutes continuity with the open-air public Q&A of Zen. Add on to this the fact that these cults encourage illiteracy as a matter of religious devotion,have a long history of censoring Zen texts, promoting and enforcing ethno-nationalist and racist policies of the Japanese Empire, and have yet to acknowledge publicly recent decades of scholarship that proven that the entirety of claims that their founder Dogen has made about Zen are false in the same way that Joseph Smith's claims about pre-Columbian American civilization are:
Deliberate misrepresentation by a cultleader.
This the scholarly consensus that no one has disputed.
Only by setting aside cultivated illiteracy, faith in cults to provide "the answers", and intoxicating escapism can anyone actually have a conversation about the meaning of Yunmen's answers, the significance of his questions, and the sober self-assessment that Zen study demands.

For context, im 20 currently finishing my first year of university in a career that is similar to informatics engineering but more based around video games and enterntainment. Im a recovering addict with 3 years clean and my mother has never been more toxic. Im one of the top students in my career at the moment, i work out alot on my free time and study. Back when i used to smoke she would blackmail me with not paying for my cigarettes (which is understandable) whenever i didnt do what she said, how she said it, and when she said it. I clean the house on weekends, make my own meals/food, i do all my things and responsabilities. Very recently she started to blackmail me with my gym membership (since i quit smoking little less than a year ago) for doing what she wants, at first i was mad because she knows how much i like to take care of myself now, but i came to the conclusion that its not her obligation to pay for my membership or anything as a matter of fact since im 20 now. Very recently (2 weeks or so) shes been starting to threaten to kick me out of the house along with the gym membership thing, im very fed up at this point because its whenever i dont do what she wants or i go agaisnt her word that this happens. Shes very controlling, its hard to describe a narcicistic person tbh but im guessing you guys know what im talking about. I just feel the need to get away asap. Ive thought about dealing with it for 3 more years until i finish my career, but it gets worse every day and ive come to a point where i feel like I just take up space and no one wants me at home. Im scared often that she will kick me out and i have no where to go. Ive though about working while studying but its hard since my career requires alot of study time, most i could do is a summer job. Anyways, ive always been interested in the military and thought about joining the army to get away, id have to drop my career though, and start a new one in there. Just thinking of options here as i have no idea what to do, ive tried everything to get along with her and nothing seems to work for whatever reason. I can either join the army like i said or deal with her for 3 more years and end my career and get the hell out. Would like some help, maybe one of you are/have been in a similar situation/position. Thanks.

24th: Colby Donaldson 3.0 (Heroes Vs Villains - 5th)

\"So when the time was right, I made one more attempt\"
u/SMC0629:
Colby 3.0 is my favorite of his three iterations, and it has nothing to do with my opinion on Australia. The absolute deconstruction of Colby's abilities and spirit is somehow made into one of the most funny, mind-boggling, and emotional stories the show has given us. It all comes together with that final confessional, one of the best ever in the show, which proves to us that no matter what, he'll always keep fighting. Very deserved endgame for Colby 3.0.
~
u/DryBonesKing:
There… is a little bad blood for me internally about Colby 3.0 making Endgame. One, I am stunned that this group let Colby 3.0 outlast 1.0. I can’t believe Colby 1.0 got cut twice (since I ended up wasting an idol on the first attempt) before Colby 3.0. I find that borderline sinful lmfao. And two, I’m just annoyed that HvV ended up getting any representation in the Endgame. I really did not want this overrated season getting any representation and after focusing most of my concerns on someone like Sandra 2.0 or Parvati 3.0 or Rupert 3.0… I find out that I really messed up and that there were apparently Colby 3.0 stans here that actually wanted this Endgame. Whelp
Most of my issues though are meta-related, though. Colby 3.0 and Jerri 3.0 are the best parts of Heroes vs. Villains and the conclusion to their three-season story arc, even though it was diluted by Russell stealing away a decent chunk of their screentime, I do think what we did get to see was beautiful, from their cute little “Hey Colby” Interaction in that one reward challenge leading up to the finale with Jerri being visibly distraught about having to vote out Colby. It’s amazing stuff!
Colby 3.0 also does have the best storyline of the season, with being able to see how Survivor’s first “Hero” failed to live up to his own legacy, and sorta wallow in his own depression as a result of everything. There is a melancholy-air to Colby’s character, from watching him get his ass kicked in challenges to seeing him be an afterthought in strategies to even seeing him be part of one of the pettiest “family visit” scenes of all time when he just repeatedly fights with his brother Reid. And then obviously, there’s Colby’s final confessional, which I think is probably in contention for best confessional of all time. I don’t think there’s ever been a character’s returning appearance that feels anything like Colby 3.0, and that does make him really special. All things considered, I do have him ranked highly and I’m actually thrilled he topped Heroes vs. Villain’s rankings. I did want him to succeed and make Top 50. I just… wish he didn’t make Endgame. But meh
Overall Rank – 120/821
~
u/Zanthosus:
I’m going to be completely honest. This is the biggest WTF in our endgame to me. I might like Jane less overall, but I can understand why someone would have her in or around their endgame. Colby 3.0 though? I just don’t get it. I’m sure ninjedi will do a great job explaining it though. Also, it is kinda hilarious to me that the first non-Sandra HvV rep to get in is Colby of all people. Not Jerri. Not Parvati. Not Coach. Not even J.T. Colby. That’s just a hilarious legacy for this rankdown to have if I’m being honest.
~
u/Tommyroxs45:
Colby’s legacy in Heroes vs. Villains is unmatched, he’s Superman in a fat suit however you still see the desire for Superman. Him being the last hero remaining is so poetic and it makes him have one of the best confessionals of all time. Sad that he’s only the HvV rep as this season is literal perfection but I’m glad at least 1 person made it.
~
u/Regnisyak1:
From hero to zero to hero again, Colby 3.0 is truly an encapsulation of Heroes vs Villains' main themes about the blurring of lines between the two roles on Survivor, and how one does not fully exist in society. I love Colby 1.0, so I would have loved to see him here over 3.0, but Colby’s single confessional with the long pause in the finale of HvV warrants his position. Plus his not budging on an old-school game really sold his charm. Come on, Reed!
Personal Rank: 61/821. 9/10.
~
u/DavidW1208 will not be providing blurbs nor writeups for this endgame phase, however, his valuable contributions to this rankdown will be honored and acknowledged as we are taking his endgame rankings into full equal account for results. Much love David!! <3
~~~~~
u/ninjedi1:
Colby Donaldson 3.0 (5th Place, Heroes VS Villains)
When people talk about the OG Era of survivor or whatever we’re calling the first 40 seasons before New Era, people split the seasons into old school and new school, with Old School ending at season 20, Heroes VS Villains (which I personally disagree with, cause I feel like Nicaragua is the last old school season, but that’s a different conversation). Heroes VS Villains as the last of the “old school” season is meant to be a last hurrah as a number of early season players compete with more recent strategy savvy players from the newer seasons before the show truly made its transition from a social experiment to a game. And to me, no one truly represents that transition from old to new school, or better yet, represents the death of old school survivor than Colby Donaldson 3.0.
Everyone who’s watched Survivor long enough knows who Colby Donaldson is. He was the great American Texan who was a challenge beast and wanted to make sure that good people made it to the end, going up against Tina who was more deserving in his eyes over the easy beat Keith at the finale of AO. Then he made his return in Allstars where he would unfortunately but voted out fairly early on, but would come out of that season looking not that bad in comparison to a good number of other people! In the eyes of the viewing audience, he was still the great American hero, so it wasn’t surprising that the original survivor hero would return for Heroes VS Villains. Colby himself even talks about how its been a decade since he’s played the game, and he was ready to see if he still got it, and Jeff even sings his praises at the start of the game talking about how people were naming their kids after him. However, despite the hero returning to the coliseum to compete again, time would not be kind to him, as Colby would end up losing strength during the very first challenge, and would be dragged to the villains mat, losing a point for the heroes. A foreshadow of what Colby’s game was about to become.
However, it wasn’t all bad, as the heroes still win the challenge, and while Colby is aware about how rusty he is, he’s still having fun! However, that would quickly change as the days go on. He realizes that he needs to get into the rhythm of the game, and it was going to be miserable. He doesn’t have a clue about all the different connections and pregamed alliances when talking to Candace, leaving him out of the loop. He also gets annoyed with Sugar, who keeps trying to flirt with him and follow him around, which greatly annoys him. He would end up getting pulled into an alliance with Tom, JT, and Stephenie, and while they would all vote out Sugar at the very first tribal, everything goes wrong as JT would flip on the alliance, and after a fight with James during tribal where James yells at Steph and Colby defends her, Stephenie would get voted out in the second tribal. After that, Colby reflects a bit, talking to Tom about if the game at that point was for him, as he felt like he didn’t want to be a part of it. However, even though Colby was struggling with how the game was now, that fire that old school Colby had was still in there, as he was able to score a point against the Villain’s leader, Boston Rob, helping give the Heroes their first immunity win.
Colby would still struggle with the game, as he would ultimately be forced to take a backseat as Tom would lead the charge for them to get a bit farther, mainly using an idol he found to blindside Cirie as the heroes continued to downward spiral. This would actually help him in the game for a bit as Tom would be considered a bigger threat than him, and would be spared at the very next tribal. However, he was definitely next to go on his six person tribe, being the one on the outside of the 5 person alliance, and he needed a miracle to survive. However, that wouldn’t come, as both tribes would be going to tribal, so they were competing for individual immunity, and Colby performed terribly at it. At that point, he saw the writing on the wall and decided to just throw in the towel, telling his team that he knows he gone and they should have a relaxing day. However, James was injured, and the other members of the heroes feel like they need to keep Colby around as he would be better at challenges in the future, sparing Colby much to his surprise.
Colby is fully aware that there’s pressure on him to win the challenges for the heroes, and that its time to put up or shut up. Knowing that he was carrying the weight of the whole team seems to ignite something inside him. The old Colby Donaldson, the great american hero, had returned, and Colby would carry the heroes to victory at the next immunity challenge. In fact, he would be key in ensuring that the heroes wouldn’t lose the next three immunity challenges. It seemed that Colby was finally back into the game, and with the merge right there, it was time for olby, with the rest of the heroes, to lead the charge. However, that old school mentality of sticking together would fall apart at the merge with the new school strategy. The Heroes gave Russell an idol to save him, and Russell would use that generosity to give it to Parvati, who would use that and another idol to save Jerri and Sandra, sending JT home. Then when the heroes tried to rally together with Sandra, Candace would flip, getting Amanda out and leaving Colby and fellow hero Rupert to die. However, in their darkest hour, is where Colby would make a heroic move.
Since only Colby and Rupert were left, it was obvious that the villains would split their vote. Colby then realized that they might try to split their votes between them and Candace. Decided to avenge their fallen comrade Amanda, Colby pitches the idea of instead throwing away their vote to a villain, him and Rupert would instead cast their vote on the turncoat Candace, as if they split their vote on her, the vote would become a 5-3 vote and save them. The one moment of true strategic content from Colby would be a huge success, as it saved the two remaining true heroes and got rid of someone they knew they couldn’t trusted. This would work great for Colby as Russell would then work with him and Rupert to get Danielle, and suddenly the chance for a hero victory didn’t seem so out of reach now. However, Rupert would be the next to go, leaving Colby as the last hero standing by the time the finale rolls around.
Its fitting that Colby, the original hero, would end up being the last hero standing. Despite never getting a real foothold or truly understanding how the game now works, he was able to come so close to the end, and he just had to make it to the final 3 to win it. However, he loses F5 immunity to Parvati, and it looked like his game was done. In a sense of dejavu, we get another speech where he talks about how he knows he’s out, and they should all just have a relaxing afternoon. However, this time, we get a confessional talking about his speech, and how he almost believed it himself. But he’s never quit and anything and he won’t now. And then he just.. stays silent…lost in thought. Its genuinely one of my favorite confessionals in all of survivor, it just has so much emotional impact. We get that confident Colby that we’re so used to seeing for AO, and then just that long silence, as he contemplates the reality of his situation, maybe even coming to terms with it, before returning back to the Colby we’ve seen all season with one final line, “So when the time was right, I made one more attempt”. Colby’s last pitch is to Russell, saying that he’s much more likely to beat Parvati at F4 than Sandra. At this point though, Colby knows he’s done, as he talks about how this was the toughest season for him, and was the toughest journey to even get to that point, and in his final words, he calls himself an old dusty veteran, and that he just isn’t destined to win this game. With Colby voted out, the last true essence of old school survivor was gone, leaving in its wake a new school style to take hold.
~~~
SMC0629: 22
DryBonesKing: 20
Zanthosus: 23
Tommyroxs45: 23
Regnisyak1: 19
DavidW1208: 13
ninjedi1: 17
Average Placement: 19.571
Total Points: 137
Standard Deviation: 3.645 (3rd Lowest)

The hook is a quote of Amy Winehouse from a call she made to Salaam. It is word for word.
Then Lupe raps about her. She's got big eyes, singing by the opera house but not inside of it but somewhere along side of it. There is a long silence. A strong vibe. Meditation, a strong guidance designed to raise eyelids. Meaning that in her performance she commands a stong silence designed to draw eyes and increase anticipation and gain interest from passer by or whoever her audience is. And then she sings/raps something that fits todays climate, something about gang violence meeting the gangs demises and it BANGS! Meaning she pulls off a banger of a song (but also a double on gang violence and falling with a bang bang)!
That right there rings a bell cause The Cool is about gang violence leading to the gangsters demise (Michael Young History and the death of The Cool) so that means Lupe is picturing her doing what he did. He sees himself in her. Not to mention he simultaneously goes on a scheme about "eyes" in the background. "She", "her", and "I" (Lupe).
That's just the beginning, Lupe continues with this and I want to highlight one part near the middle and another part near the end.
"If you analyze, she is a one woman gala, glamorized. Just without the glamour or the gala ties."
That should be easy to understand...but I want to highlight that this suggests that Lupe is imagining her before her fame or during her rise to fame. This makes me think that the album might show a progression in her story with the first track describing the beginnings and later track showing her rise to fame and then possibly her fall.
Next, near the end he says
"Crashed at a friends flat for a week. Felt his home was a raft on a beach. Lit a fag . Took a drag. Took a tea . Read a book. Took a bath. Went to sleep."
Now, remember. Amy Winehouse is British. They call apartments "flats". A "fag" is british slang for a smoke. Lupe doesnt smoke but Amy definitely did (she did drugs too). They also like to drink tea over there. This emphasizes the fact that this is from her perspective.
I think the concept of this album is what it would be like or look like if Amy Winehouse walked the path of a rap samurai. Lupe perhaps sees himself as a rap samurai in spirit and I am guessing he is going to have her walk a path that shares similarities with the path he took. He is probably going to incorporate his battle with his record label and his battle with other rappers somehow I think, but we will have to wait until the rest of the album drops. Or maybe have his battles sit in parallel with hers (her battle with relationships and drug addiction for example).
What are your thoughts? What do you speculate after having listened to Samurai?

In today’s evolving and competitive landscape, the value of innovation is shifting from the traditional closed systems approach to a more open, decentralized, and community-driven approach. Paul Lalovich and Tesha Teshanovich from Agile Dynamics outline what is driving the trend, its implications for organizations, and how leaders can successfully operate at the forefront of the shift.
Innovation transcends the mere conceptualization of fresh ideas; it is the actionable process of enhancing existing products or conjuring entirely new offerings. While there is a strong correlation between R&D and innovation – with the former serving as a wellspring for pioneering thoughts – the journey from groundbreaking research to practical utility can be intricate and protracted.
However, it’s worth noting that innovation isn't solely tethered to structured R&D. It can spontaneously arise from sheer curiosity, a spark of inspiration, or even the simple act of refining or tweaking existing methodologies.
Firms might invest in R&D to catalyze innovation, but they can also harness external advancements – referred to as ‘spillovers’. After all, groundbreaking knowledge isn't always the exclusive domain of its creators, making external inspirations invaluable.
Emerging from a robust foundation of innovation, soft power presents tangible advantages. Leaders in technology often establish benchmarks that others deem beneficial to adopt. As a result, global standards lean favorably toward those pioneers. Moreover, countries recognized for their innovative acumen become prime territories for patent filings. These innovation hubs magnetize not just domestic but international investments and capital.
Perhaps the most profound testament to their soft power is the allure they hold for top-tier talents. For instance, Silicon Valley has evolved into a global nexus, drawing in exceptional minds from the realms of information, communication, and digital technologies. Such concentrations of talent can significantly influence a nation’s trade dynamics.

Tech monopolies slow down innovation

In the arena of global economic dominance, competition emerges as the cornerstone, propelling nations to the forefront of innovation and growth. While Chinese strategies appear to have adapted, embracing the dynamism of competitive markets, the United States stands at a crossroads. Some of its tech behemoths promote their size and market leadership as pivotal for cutting-edge innovation.
Yet, it is crucial to discern the nature of this innovation and whose interests it truly serves. Does it prioritize shareholder returns, or is there a broader, national interest at play? As smaller, agile firms emerge, emphasizing true boundary-pushing innovation, one must ponder: Is the spirit of unbridled competition – a force that once fueled the American economy – being overshadowed by the looming giants?
In the nuanced interplay between governmental oversight and market forces, recent actions within China's technology sector provide a captivating study of regulatory boundaries. This phenomenon, aptly termed ‘de-tycoonification’, captures a deliberate effort to harmonize enterprise innovation with centralized checks.
A leading digital commerce platform in China encountered regulatory attention. The swift determination that its practices were anti-competitive, accompanied by a significant financial penalty, symbolizes a broader intent to redefine market paradigms. Prompt official communique following these events conveys a clear perspective: monopolistic behaviours can inhibit the holistic evolution of a market-based economy.
This stance also emphasizes that thoughtful regulations, rather than restricting growth, might actually serve as pillars to stabilize and nurture it. The regulatory web further ensnared another major digital entity in China, underscoring the principle that technological ingenuity should operate within established ethical and legal frameworks. Such internal checks within China challenge certain dominant narratives in global tech centres.
The notion that maintaining a robust market stature acts as a shield against global tech adversaries comes under scrutiny. The introspective regulatory steps within China necessitate a broader re-evaluation of such assumptions.
The tech landscape today is unmistakably marked by the towering presence of Big Tech, but what underlies this dominance might point towards a concerning reduction in competitive intensity. For two decades, the profits raked in by American tech behemoths have remained unparalleled, with market valuations suggesting this trend is expected to continue, if not amplify, in the coming years.
Such sustained, sky-high profitability isn't typical in a genuinely competitive market. In such a setting, rivals and newcomers usually exert downward pressures, ensuring no single entity retains an overwhelming edge for extended periods. The tech industry's trajectory further points towards a rising penchant for consolidation. This is evidenced by the substantial acquisitions of budding companies by the tech titans.
Data sourced from Mergermarket underscores an uptick in acquisition activity by these colossal tech firms, particularly post-2010. The symbiotic relationship between persistent high profits and a trend toward industry concentration suggests that the tech market might be veering away from the vibrant competitive arena it once was.

Cardwell’s law

The tech landscape’s evolution, in its relationship with innovation, is witnessing a palpable shift in entrepreneurial motivation and vision. Historically, the fervour of pioneering something transformative, encapsulated in the ‘moonshot thinking’, drove entrepreneurs. This audacious spirit envisioned groundbreaking entities akin to the tech luminaries of the late 20th and early 21st century. Yet, today’s entrepreneurial aspirations seem more tempered.
Instead of fostering ambitions of building the next revolutionary tech empire, there’s a growing inclination towards securing an acquisition by an existing tech colossus. This shift in sentiment dims the likelihood of a new tech juggernaut rising to challenge the incumbent titans. Post the era of computer-centric, web-driven, and smartphone-related innovations, a cloud of uncertainty looms over the emergence of new tech powerhouses.
Notably, the promising technological domains of the upcoming decade – be it autonomous vehicles with their exorbitant R&D costs, virtual or augmented reality's significant development expenditures, the data intensity of artificial intelligence, or drones and the Internet of Things with their challenging profit margins – present formidable entry barriers.
These hurdles, combined with a changing entrepreneurial landscape, cast a shadow on the future dynamism of tech innovation. Cardwell's elucidation on the patterns of technological evolution offers a poignant lens through which to view the current landscape dominated by Big Tech.
Donald Stephen Lowell Cardwell’s seminal work from 1972 suggests that technological vigor within societies is not an enduring flame, but a fleeting burst of brilliance. Within the European context, as one nation's innovative energy began to wane, another would rise, ensuring a consistent relay of progress across the continent.
Visualize this relay of innovation as a torch, brilliant yet intense. Historically, regions such as Northern Italy, Southern Germany, Spain, and Portugal, and later Holland, Britain, the United States, and Germany, took turns in holding this torch, leading the march of innovation. Yet, no single society clung to this leadership for extended durations. The relay ensured that as one nation's innovation diminished, another took up the mantle, propelling the collective forward.
This phenomenon, coined as ‘Cardwell’s Law’ by Joel Mokyr, posits that when left in isolation, a society’s technological creativity is but a brief spark. Over time, conservatism’s stifling grip, intent on preserving existing structures of power and privilege, often curtails this innovative drive.
This is where the analogy becomes particularly relevant for the Big Tech landscape. In today’s digital age, a few colossal entities dominate, much like the leading nations of old Europe. Yet, as these tech giants solidify their positions, they risk becoming victims of the very conservatism Mokyr speaks of.
Instead of being conduits for continual innovation, their sheer dominance and entrenched positions could lead to a stagnation in technological creativity. As they grow in size and influence, there is an increasing tendency to preserve the status quo, which inadvertently suppresses the innovative spark found in smaller, more agile entities.

Decentralization and open innovation

In the contemporary milieu characterized by the overwhelming dominance of Big Tech monopolies, the paradigms of decentralized innovation and open innovation emerge as potentially transformative alternatives.
The concept of distributed strategy borrows from nature, suggesting that in the same manner that organisms such as trees maximize their efficiency by creating multiple self-similar structures like leaves instead of solely relying on a single core trunk, businesses too need to shift their focus from purely scaling their core processes to nurturing multiple iterative strategies at the organizational peripheries. This can be encapsulated in the mantra of ‘Think Local, Act Global’.
In essence, companies must attune to the nuanced demands and opportunities of each local market, while simultaneously integrating these learnings into a broader global strategy. This is particularly evident in industries undergoing rapid transformation; for instance, the automotive industry's evolution from merely selling cars to offering comprehensive mobility solutions, a shift that is predicted to significantly alter its revenue structure by 2035.
In parallel, in our data-driven age, there is an increasing realization that the sheer volume of data is less crucial than its meaningful interpretation. Organizations need to pivot from prioritizing data accumulation to developing advanced algorithms capable of drawing insights from fragmented, patchy datasets. In the rapidly shifting landscape of today's global business environment, numerous established multinational corporations find themselves at a perplexing crossroads.
The crux of their predicament stems from a foundational dilemma: how to juxtapose traditional scale-driven strategies with the emergent imperative of Distributed strategies. To dissect this conundrum, one must appreciate the inherently divergent organizational philosophies underpinning scale and distributed strategies. Transitioning from a scale-centric model to a distributed-oriented one is not merely about implementing a series of organizational modifications, no matter how profound.
The shift demands a comprehensive reimagining of the organizational ethos and operational mechanics. Moreover, it is a fallacy to view these strategies as mutually exclusive. In actuality, they exist on a continuum, each holding its unique value. The challenge for modern enterprises lies in striking an optimal balance between harnessing the benefits of scale and the agility of Distributed strategies. Regrettably, the journey to this equilibrium is riddled with pitfalls, and many companies, even with their vast resources and global reach, have faltered in this endeavor.
Contrary to scale-centric entities that depend on static assets, with streamlined yet inherently slower supply chains, Distributed organizations harness networks characterized by adaptability and continuous transformation. These networks are primed for swiftly addressing specific local requirements and seizing niche market prospects.
Such frameworks incorporate a blend of proprietary micro-production facilities, possibly utilizing innovations like 3D printing; leasing assets from providers offering asset-on-demand services; and coordinating flexible ecosystems of regional digital collaborators. The overarching aim is twofold: continuously devise innovative solutions tailored for local clientele and escalate them to various markets with optimal speed.
Distributed-oriented organizations prioritize decentralization, contrasting with the top-down hierarchies commonly seen in scale-driven entities. Within these structures, decision-making isn't confined to a centralized corporate core. Instead, considerable authority is delegated to customer-centric teams positioned away from the primary headquarters. This design fosters agility, allowing for a rapid response to localized demands and new opportunities.
Some multinational corporations have observed marked improvements in their performance metrics after such decentralization. They empowered regional leaders with financial oversight, decision-making rights, streamlined communication channels to the central office, and enhanced access to market analytics.
Another trend, seen in the case of an appliance industry giant, involves an even more radical shift. This entity introduced a unique organizational framework aimed at minimizing the distance between the enterprise and its customer base. In a bold move, an entire level of middle management was eliminated, redistributing power to numerous newly-formed, semi-independent, customer-aligned business segments. These units operate in synergy, linked by a unified digital platform.
Further reading: Knowledge and venture capital as a driver of innovation.
Meanwhile, ‘Open Innovation’ offers a complementary model, championing a departure from insular corporate research and development approaches. Instead, it advocates for the amalgamation of external insights, be they from academia, startups, or independent innovators, into the innovation process. This synergistic approach addresses the often-criticized inertia inherent in large tech monopolies, promoting a more dynamic and collaborative innovation ecosystem.
Both these paradigms, however, necessitate a significant cultural shift within organizations, demanding a more flexible, adaptive, and outward-looking ethos to truly harness their potential in countering the inertia often associated with tech giants.
The rise of open innovation, propelled by reduced communication costs and advancements in memory and computation capabilities, has ushered in significant changes in market dynamics and societal interactions. Unlike the traditionally centralized, firm-driven innovation models, open innovation champions a decentralized, peer-based approach that emphasizes intrinsic motivation and societal benefits.
Indeed, the literature has delved into the nature of these peer innovation communities, understanding their social structures and intricacies.
However, the repercussions of this shift towards open innovation on established and emerging firms remain inadequately explored. Current organizational and strategic theories don't fully encapsulate the nuances of community-driven innovation. Despite the transformative potential of open innovation, its influence on mainstream organizational and strategic discourses has been somewhat muted.
As we progress, it becomes imperative to develop a more comprehensive understanding of firms in this new context, addressing the interaction between traditional organizational structures and emerging community-based innovation paradigms.

Conclusion

In an evolving landscape where tasks are increasingly modular and knowledge about solutions becomes more widespread, the traditional closed systems of innovation shift towards open, community-driven models. The implications are profound: we can no longer rely solely on conventional understandings of innovation rooted in cost efficiency, control mechanisms, and external incentives.
As innovation gets embedded in a spectrum ranging from strictly internal processes to open community collaborations, our conceptualization of firms and their boundaries need revisiting. This doesn’t negate the value of traditional models, but it requires a hybrid approach where both internal and open strategies coexist.
A pivotal question arises: under what circumstances should firms toggle between these different modes of innovation? The answer, it appears, lies in understanding the nature of the product and the distribution of problem-solving knowledge.
For products that are inherently integrated and where specialized knowledge is centralized, the conventional in-house R&D model, bolstered by a strong innovation-centric culture, remains relevant. Here, innovation is typically cocooned within the firm's boundaries, spanning from distinct functional divisions to intricate, ambidextrous designs.
However, when a product can be broken down into modular components and the requisite knowledge is dispersed, the limitations of a closed innovation system become evident. In these contexts, the power dynamics of innovation are reshaped by the principles of openness, collaborative sharing, intrinsic motivation, and community engagement.
The challenge, then, for modern enterprises is to discern when to internalize and when to externalize, ensuring that they harness the best of both worlds while navigating the complex terrain of innovation.In today’s evolving and competitive landscape, the value of innovation is shifting from the traditional closed systems approach to a more open, decentralized, and community-driven approach. Paul Lalovich and Tesha Teshanovich from Agile Dynamics outline what is driving the trend, its implications for organizations, and how leaders can successfully operate at the forefront of the shift. Innovation transcends the mere conceptualization of fresh ideas; it is the actionable process of enhancing existing products or conjuring entirely new offerings. While there is a strong correlation between R&D and innovation – with the former serving as a wellspring for pioneering thoughts – the journey from groundbreaking research to practical utility can be intricate and protracted. However, it’s worth noting that innovation isn't solely tethered to structured R&D. It can spontaneously arise from sheer curiosity, a spark of inspiration, or even the simple act of refining or tweaking existing methodologies.
Firms might invest in R&D to catalyze innovation, but they can also harness external advancements – referred to as ‘spillovers’. After all, groundbreaking knowledge isn't always the exclusive domain of its creators, making external inspirations invaluable. Emerging from a robust foundation of innovation, soft power presents tangible advantages. Leaders in technology often establish benchmarks that others deem beneficial to adopt. As a result, global standards lean favorably toward those pioneers. Moreover, countries recognized for their innovative acumen become prime territories for patent filings. These innovation hubs magnetize not just domestic but international investments and capital. Perhaps the most profound testament to their soft power is the allure they hold for top-tier talents. For instance, Silicon Valley has evolved into a global nexus, drawing in exceptional minds from the realms of information, communication, and digital technologies. Such concentrations of talent can significantly influence a nation’s trade dynamics. Tech monopolies slow down innovation In the arena of global economic dominance, competition emerges as the cornerstone, propelling nations to the forefront of innovation and growth. While Chinese strategies appear to have adapted, embracing the dynamism of competitive markets, the United States stands at a crossroads. Some of its tech behemoths promote their size and market leadership as pivotal for cutting-edge innovation. Yet, it is crucial to discern the nature of this innovation and whose interests it truly serves. Does it prioritize shareholder returns, or is there a broader, national interest at play? As smaller, agile firms emerge, emphasizing true boundary-pushing innovation, one must ponder: Is the spirit of unbridled competition – a force that once fueled the American economy – being overshadowed by the looming giants? In the nuanced interplay between governmental oversight and market forces, recent actions within China's technology sector provide a captivating study of regulatory boundaries. This phenomenon, aptly termed ‘de-tycoonification’, captures a deliberate effort to harmonize enterprise innovation with centralized checks. A leading digital commerce platform in China encountered regulatory attention. The swift determination that its practices were anti-competitive, accompanied by a significant financial penalty, symbolizes a broader intent to redefine market paradigms. Prompt official communique following these events conveys a clear perspective: monopolistic behaviours can inhibit the holistic evolution of a market-based economy. This stance also emphasizes that thoughtful regulations, rather than restricting growth, might actually serve as pillars to stabilize and nurture it. The regulatory web further ensnared another major digital entity in China, underscoring the principle that technological ingenuity should operate within established ethical and legal frameworks. Such internal checks within China challenge certain dominant narratives in global tech centres. The notion that maintaining a robust market stature acts as a shield against global tech adversaries comes under scrutiny. The introspective regulatory steps within China necessitate a broader re-evaluation of such assumptions. The tech landscape today is unmistakably marked by the towering presence of Big Tech, but what underlies this dominance might point towards a concerning reduction in competitive intensity. For two decades, the profits raked in by American tech behemoths have remained unparalleled, with market valuations suggesting this trend is expected to continue, if not amplify, in the coming years. Such sustained, sky-high profitability isn't typical in a genuinely competitive market. In such a setting, rivals and newcomers usually exert downward pressures, ensuring no single entity retains an overwhelming edge for extended periods. The tech industry's trajectory further points towards a rising penchant for consolidation. This is evidenced by the substantial acquisitions of budding companies by the tech titans. Data sourced from Mergermarket underscores an uptick in acquisition activity by these colossal tech firms, particularly post-2010. The symbiotic relationship between persistent high profits and a trend toward industry concentration suggests that the tech market might be veering away from the vibrant competitive arena it once was. Cardwell’s law The tech landscape’s evolution, in its relationship with innovation, is witnessing a palpable shift in entrepreneurial motivation and vision. Historically, the fervour of pioneering something transformative, encapsulated in the ‘moonshot thinking’, drove entrepreneurs. This audacious spirit envisioned groundbreaking entities akin to the tech luminaries of the late 20th and early 21st century. Yet, today’s entrepreneurial aspirations seem more tempered. Instead of fostering ambitions of building the next revolutionary tech empire, there’s a growing inclination towards securing an acquisition by an existing tech colossus. This shift in sentiment dims the likelihood of a new tech juggernaut rising to challenge the incumbent titans. Post the era of computer-centric, web-driven, and smartphone-related innovations, a cloud of uncertainty looms over the emergence of new tech powerhouses. Notably, the promising technological domains of the upcoming decade – be it autonomous vehicles with their exorbitant R&D costs, virtual or augmented reality's significant development expenditures, the data intensity of artificial intelligence, or drones and the Internet of Things with their challenging profit margins – present formidable entry barriers. These hurdles, combined with a changing entrepreneurial landscape, cast a shadow on the future dynamism of tech innovation. Cardwell's elucidation on the patterns of technological evolution offers a poignant lens through which to view the current landscape dominated by Big Tech. Donald Stephen Lowell Cardwell’s seminal work from 1972 suggests that technological vigor within societies is not an enduring flame, but a fleeting burst of brilliance. Within the European context, as one nation's innovative energy began to wane, another would rise, ensuring a consistent relay of progress across the continent. Visualize this relay of innovation as a torch, brilliant yet intense. Historically, regions such as Northern Italy, Southern Germany, Spain, and Portugal, and later Holland, Britain, the United States, and Germany, took turns in holding this torch, leading the march of innovation. Yet, no single society clung to this leadership for extended durations. The relay ensured that as one nation's innovation diminished, another took up the mantle, propelling the collective forward. This phenomenon, coined as ‘Cardwell’s Law’ by Joel Mokyr, posits that when left in isolation, a society’s technological creativity is but a brief spark. Over time, conservatism’s stifling grip, intent on preserving existing structures of power and privilege, often curtails this innovative drive. This is where the analogy becomes particularly relevant for the Big Tech landscape. In today’s digital age, a few colossal entities dominate, much like the leading nations of old Europe. Yet, as these tech giants solidify their positions, they risk becoming victims of the very conservatism Mokyr speaks of. Instead of being conduits for continual innovation, their sheer dominance and entrenched positions could lead to a stagnation in technological creativity. As they grow in size and influence, there is an increasing tendency to preserve the status quo, which inadvertently suppresses the innovative spark found in smaller, more agile entities. Decentralization and open innovation In the contemporary milieu characterized by the overwhelming dominance of Big Tech monopolies, the paradigms of decentralized innovation and open innovation emerge as potentially transformative alternatives. The concept of distributed strategy borrows from nature, suggesting that in the same manner that organisms such as trees maximize their efficiency by creating multiple self-similar structures like leaves instead of solely relying on a single core trunk, businesses too need to shift their focus from purely scaling their core processes to nurturing multiple iterative strategies at the organizational peripheries. This can be encapsulated in the mantra of ‘Think Local, Act Global’. In essence, companies must attune to the nuanced demands and opportunities of each local market, while simultaneously integrating these learnings into a broader global strategy. This is particularly evident in industries undergoing rapid transformation; for instance, the automotive industry's evolution from merely selling cars to offering comprehensive mobility solutions, a shift that is predicted to significantly alter its revenue structure by 2035. In parallel, in our data-driven age, there is an increasing realization that the sheer volume of data is less crucial than its meaningful interpretation. Organizations need to pivot from prioritizing data accumulation to developing advanced algorithms capable of drawing insights from fragmented, patchy datasets. In the rapidly shifting landscape of today's global business environment, numerous established multinational corporations find themselves at a perplexing crossroads. The crux of their predicament stems from a foundational dilemma: how to juxtapose traditional scale-driven strategies with the emergent imperative of Distributed strategies. To dissect this conundrum, one must appreciate the inherently divergent organizational philosophies underpinning scale and distributed strategies. Transitioning from a scale-centric model to a distributed-oriented one is not merely about implementing a series of organizational modifications, no matter how profound. The shift demands a comprehensive reimagining of the organizational ethos and operational mechanics. Moreover, it is a fallacy to view these strategies as mutually exclusive. In actuality, they exist on a continuum, each holding its unique value. The challenge for modern enterprises lies in striking an optimal balance between harnessing the benefits of scale and the agility of Distributed strategies. Regrettably, the journey to this equilibrium is riddled with pitfalls, and many companies, even with their vast resources and global reach, have faltered in this endeavor. Contrary to scale-centric entities that depend on static assets, with streamlined yet inherently slower supply chains, Distributed organizations harness networks characterized by adaptability and continuous transformation. These networks are primed for swiftly addressing specific local requirements and seizing niche market prospects. Such frameworks incorporate a blend of proprietary micro-production facilities, possibly utilizing innovations like 3D printing; leasing assets from providers offering asset-on-demand services; and coordinating flexible ecosystems of regional digital collaborators. The overarching aim is twofold: continuously devise innovative solutions tailored for local clientele and escalate them to various markets with optimal speed. Distributed-oriented organizations prioritize decentralization, contrasting with the top-down hierarchies commonly seen in scale-driven entities. Within these structures, decision-making isn't confined to a centralized corporate core. Instead, considerable authority is delegated to customer-centric teams positioned away from the primary headquarters. This design fosters agility, allowing for a rapid response to localized demands and new opportunities. Some multinational corporations have observed marked improvements in their performance metrics after such decentralization. They empowered regional leaders with financial oversight, decision-making rights, streamlined communication channels to the central office, and enhanced access to market analytics. Another trend, seen in the case of an appliance industry giant, involves an even more radical shift. This entity introduced a unique organizational framework aimed at minimizing the distance between the enterprise and its customer base. In a bold move, an entire level of middle management was eliminated, redistributing power to numerous newly-formed, semi-independent, customer-aligned business segments. These units operate in synergy, linked by a unified digital platform. Further reading: Knowledge and venture capital as a driver of innovation. Meanwhile, ‘Open Innovation’ offers a complementary model, championing a departure from insular corporate research and development approaches. Instead, it advocates for the amalgamation of external insights, be they from academia, startups, or independent innovators, into the innovation process. This synergistic approach addresses the often-criticized inertia inherent in large tech monopolies, promoting a more dynamic and collaborative innovation ecosystem. Both these paradigms, however, necessitate a significant cultural shift within organizations, demanding a more flexible, adaptive, and outward-looking ethos to truly harness their potential in countering the inertia often associated with tech giants. The rise of open innovation, propelled by reduced communication costs and advancements in memory and computation capabilities, has ushered in significant changes in market dynamics and societal interactions. Unlike the traditionally centralized, firm-driven innovation models, open innovation champions a decentralized, peer-based approach that emphasizes intrinsic motivation and societal benefits. Indeed, the literature has delved into the nature of these peer innovation communities, understanding their social structures and intricacies. However, the repercussions of this shift towards open innovation on established and emerging firms remain inadequately explored. Current organizational and strategic theories don't fully encapsulate the nuances of community-driven innovation. Despite the transformative potential of open innovation, its influence on mainstream organizational and strategic discourses has been somewhat muted. As we progress, it becomes imperative to develop a more comprehensive understanding of firms in this new context, addressing the interaction between traditional organizational structures and emerging community-based innovation paradigms. Conclusion In an evolving landscape where tasks are increasingly modular and knowledge about solutions becomes more widespread, the traditional closed systems of innovation shift towards open, community-driven models. The implications are profound: we can no longer rely solely on conventional understandings of innovation rooted in cost efficiency, control mechanisms, and external incentives. As innovation gets embedded in a spectrum ranging from strictly internal processes to open community collaborations, our conceptualization of firms and their boundaries need revisiting. This doesn’t negate the value of traditional models, but it requires a hybrid approach where both internal and open strategies coexist. A pivotal question arises: under what circumstances should firms toggle between these different modes of innovation? The answer, it appears, lies in understanding the nature of the product and the distribution of problem-solving knowledge. For products that are inherently integrated and where specialized knowledge is centralized, the conventional in-house R&D model, bolstered by a strong innovation-centric culture, remains relevant. Here, innovation is typically cocooned within the firm's boundaries, spanning from distinct functional divisions to intricate, ambidextrous designs. However, when a product can be broken down into modular components and the requisite knowledge is dispersed, the limitations of a closed innovation system become evident. In these contexts, the power dynamics of innovation are reshaped by the principles of openness, collaborative sharing, intrinsic motivation, and community engagement. The challenge, then, for modern enterprises is to discern when to internalize and when to externalize, ensuring that they harness the best of both worlds while navigating the complex terrain of innovation.

Earlier today Reddit user u/apndrew posted this article claiming a study had found extensive bias against Israel and against Jewish perspectives across English-language Wikipedia. The article is based on a 20-page paper titled "The Bias Against Israel on Wikipedia", written by Dr. Shlomit Aharoni Lir for the World Jewish Congress.
My post started as a comment in that thread, but Reddit wouldn't let me post it (presumably because it's too long), so I'm going to put it here as a post and hope it doesn't get taken down.
First, a direct praise of the article: Nowhere in the paper does Dr. Lir equate anti-Israel bias with antisemitism. This is a good thing! The article OP links does, and OP seems happy to suggest these things are the same, but the actual paper does not, which is good since they aren't the same thing.
Nearly everything else I say will be negative.

1. This is kind of a nitpick, but when this paper links to Wikipedia articles, it links to the article itself, as opposed to linking to the specific revision the author is talking about. This is not helpful. It seems unlikely that any of these articles have remained unedited in the time between when this paper was written and now. This means any or all of the problems being discussed may not be present now, or might be much worse, and there's no way to find out without having to guess at when Dr. Lir was doing the research.
2. The last sentence on page 2 concerns me. "In a broader context, this is also a call to action for legislators, regulators, and users to notice bias and the subsequent ill effects created through a wide range of internet platforms beyond social media." Is this a demand for wikipedia to be censored or banned for not supporting Israel, or for not meeting Israeli demands in its coverage of the Israel-Hamas war? I don't know how else to interpret "a call to action for legislators and regulators".
3. On page 6, Dr. Lir references "the fact that Wikipedia is perceived as a reliable and objective source of knowledge", and I don't know how exactly Wikipedia could address that. The front page of the site says "anyone can edit", and the disclaimers page states in all caps at the top of the page that "Wikipedia makes no guarantee of validity". If some private company is being stupid (google using Wikipedia to answer questions instead of being a search engine, dumbasses feeding Wikipedia into generative AI, etc), they probably shouldn't do that, but it isn't the fault of Wikipedia.
4. This paper claims to be about English-language Wikipedia, but the only discussion under "Violation of the Principle of Neutrality" on page 9 is about Arabic Wikipedia, and it's only to do with them adding a Palestinian flag and pro-Palestinian message on their home page on the 12th of October last year. Should they have referenced October 7th when they did this? I'd say so. Is it a sign of English Wikipedia being biased? Not a bit.
5. The question of Holocaust accuracy and coverage is an important one, and not one I have much knowledge on, so I'm going to assume Dr. Lir is speaking accurately about this and if so, it's definitely a problem. She doesn't go into any specifics at all, other than that some articles "perpetuate and reinforce damaging stereotypes and misconceptions", which makes it difficult to get any insight as to what we're talking about.
6. At the bottom of page 10, we finally arrive at the start of the actual subject of the paper. Dr. Lir breaks down anti-Israel bias into 6 categories: Content Bias, Deletion Attacks and Deletion Attempts, Editing Restrictions, Selective Enforcement, Anti-Israeli Editors, and Biased Sources. "Editing Restrictions" refers to Dr. Lir's belief that making articles extended-protected is inherently biased against Israelis, and this is blatantly stupid so I'm not going to engage with it.
7. Our first "content analysis" is of the article "Palestinian genocide accusation". Dr. Lir's first claim is that this title is inherently biased and should say "Allegations of Palestinian Genocide". I'm going to be honest, I have no idea what she's getting at here. The claim that the article "focuses predominantly on accusations against Israel, while giving little space to Israel's perspective or to arguments against the genocide claims" seems odd to me, given that the article is about the accusation that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians. It seems expected that the article would focus on that subject.
   1. Despite Dr. Lir's claim that the article "is not anchored in a variety of sources", it cites over 350 of them, including 5 different articles from the Times of Israel and 7 from The Jerusalem Post. I don't know whether these were added later, but it seems unlikely. This is, however, another good reason to link to the specific version of the article you're upset with, since this one may have changed a lot in that time. "
   2. As a result [of the bias in sources], Israel is presented as the sole aggressor in the region, when it can be argued that the opposite is true." No it can't. No one could reasonably argue that Israel is never an aggressor in its region. It's far from the only aggressor, but there's no way one could define the repeated illegal settlements in the West Bank as anything but aggression, nor could the numerous documented cases of forced displacement and sexual violence.
   3. "The entry does not include facts that support Israel's position or challenge the accusations that it committed genocide." This is not correct, the article does have multiple sections on responses from American and Israeli critics of the accusations. Again, this is why you link to the specific version of the article. I almost suspect that Dr. Lir was aware of this kind of confusion, and is using it for plausible deniability if one of her claims is unfounded.

I could continue, but this post is way too long as it is. The paper brings up some points of interest when it's talking in a general sense, but everything falls apart when she starts trying to give examples. Her claims of bias nearly always either rely on a claim which isn't true in the article or come from a place of heavy pro-Israel bias.

Overview

1. Kennedy on the state of our union (9 min)
2. 2024 candidate comparison chart
3. Overview of Kennedy (3 min)
4. Fixing huge issues Biden & Trump don't fix (1 min)
5. Policies on Kennedy's website
6. Who is Bobby Kennedy? (30 min)
7. Kennedy's Record vs Biden's Record vs Trump's Record
8. A Hero Of The Planet
9. Kennedy's podcasts
10. Kennedy's books

Countering common smears

1. Kennedy isn't a grifter, or a plant to help Trump or Biden; Kennedy is a legitimate candidate who can win
2. Kennedy isn't anti-vax
3. Kennedy isn't a conspiracy theorist
4. Kennedy fully recovered from the brain worm incident over a decade ago and doesn't have cognitive issues
5. Kennedy isn't a spoiler
6. Kennedy isn't antisemitic and didn't claim covid-19 was an ethnically targeted bioweapon
7. Kennedy didn't claim atrazine causes transgenderism
8. Kennedy respects the 2nd amendment and isn't going to take people's guns away
9. Kennedy isn't authoritarian and didn't say climate change deniers should be jailed
10. Kennedy isn't responsible for the measles outbreak in Samoa
11. Kennedy has a solid stance on abortion that most Americans would agree with
12. Kennedy wants the right kind of environmentalism that both sides can agree on, not authoritarian scams
13. Kennedy cares about both Israelis and Palestinians and wants peace

Evidence supporting counter-narrative claims

1. Science supports Kennedy's claims about Big Pharma corrupting our scientific system
2. Science supports Kennedy's claims on Covid, vaccines, EMFs, glyphosate, microplastics, and more
3. Science supports Kennedy's mercury-related claims
4. Science supports Kennedy's fluoride-related claims
5. Science supports Kennedy's Ivermectin-related claims
6. Science supports Kennedy's frog-related claims
7. Science supports Kennedy's claims about Wifi, 5G, and radiofrequency radiation
8. Science supports Kennedy's claims about syringe-injectable electronics
9. Science supports Kennedy's claims regarding different populations potentially having different levels of susceptibility to Covid
10. Kennedy's claims about NATO and Ukraine are supported by strong evidence
11. Kennedy stands up to the corrupt establishment

Short-form content

1. The truth about Ukraine (3 min)
2. Inflation, war, and banks (2 min)
3. Rising above partisanship and the duopoly (4 min)
4. Making housing affordable (3 min)
5. Not a conspiracy theorist 1 (5 min)
6. Not a conspiracy theorist 2 (3 min)
7. Calling out Fed, MIC, Oil, Pharma, CIA (2 min)
8. Persuasive memes
9. Truth to power and fighting for freedom (3 min)
10. Chronic disease (3 min)
11. Fighting factory farming corruption (3 min)
12. Making our government tell the truth (3 min)
13. Making our farms and food healthy (1 min)
14. The right kind of environmentalism (4 min)
15. Kennedy vs Biden for democracy comparison
16. Kennedy can win 1 (1 min)
17. Kennedy can win 2 (3 min)
18. Draining the swamp (2 min)
19. The truth about Trump's swamp record (2 min)
20. Fighting the great reset (2 min)
21. Mercury in vaccines (15 min)
22. Fighting against totalitarianism (13 min)
23. History lesson on Ukraine (4 min)
24. Vaccines: science vs orthodoxy (10 min)
25. Kennedy's covid record vs the duopoly's (4 min)
26. Kennedy can beat Donald Trump in 2024, Biden can't
27. Kennedy vs Trump on draining the swamp
28. Looking at vaccine science vs trusting Bill Gates (2 min)
29. Pro vaccine safety testing, not anti-vax (13 min)
30. Neither right nor left: what we stand for (2 min)

For those cruisers who get balconies, how bad are the balcony smokers? Is it a common occurance? I have PTSD when it comes to cigarette smoke among other things (yes, really) and would like to relax on a balcony as I am now retired Navy, BUT I don’t want to breathe in second hand smoke as much as possible. Being a retired sailor, I understand it’s a ship and smoke is inevitable if I am on the weatherdecks (outside), only trying to mitigate exposure.
Edit: I’m aware of the rules of no smoking outside of the smoking areas. Doesn’t mean people will follow, usually on balconies.
Edit, Take II: I’m talking about all cruise lines, not only the “American” lines. Some European lines have this problem.
Edit III: I’m asking for cruisers’ experiences. If they have encountered balcony smoking and how prevalent it is. This seems to not be an issue on “American” cruise lines, but I’m not looking at only American-based cruises. I miss the Mediterranean where I was stationed for years. I’ve done my research on smoking policies, but I do thank you for those who have shared your thoughts! Genuinely appreciated!!