1) Are you OK with direct message offers from vendors?
Yes.
2) What are your main reasons for wanting a seedbox?
Jellyfin server for friends, Sonarr, Radarr, Bazarr, Ombi, Readarr,
3) Are you okay with sharing hardware resources with other users [shared] or do you need the seedbox hardware dedicated to just you [dedicated]?
Dedicated
4) Do you want someone else to be responsible for maintaining the seedbox software (operating system, applications) [managed] or do you want to do it all yourself [unmanaged]?
Managed
5) Please describe your seedbox experience. (You may wish to list any seedbox providers you've been with before.)
Seedboxes.cc, little experience.
6) Please describe your experience with Linux. (Most seedboxes run Linux and some knowledge of it may be helpful.)
None Whatsoever.
7) What is the high end of your budget? (Please give a specific amount and a currency. "Cheap" might mean something different to one person than it does to another.)
$500
8) Do you have preferences or requirements concerning payment? (Paypal, Bitcoin, etc.)
Won't do crypto. Paypal preferred but not required
9) Do you plan to use public trackers?
Yes
10) What kind of connection speed do you need? (Common answers would be 100Mbps, 1Gbps, 2Gbps, 10Gbps.)
10 Gbps
11) How much combined upload and download traffic do you expect each month? Include download of files from the seedbox to your local computer. If you don't know, tell us what upload amount per month would realistically make you very happy with your seedbox.
1-2TB
12) What is the minimum disk space you need?
2TB, more is preferred
13) Do you require a specific type of mass storage? (HDD, SSD, NVMe SSD) If other than HDD, please explain why you think you need this.
SSD
14) Do you require a specific torrent client?
Answer here...
15) Do you require any other applications on the seedbox? (e.g. Plex, Subsonic, Radarr)
Jellyfin, Radarr, Sonarr, Prowlarr, Bazarr (Bare minimum) Readarr, Ombi, Calibre, Jellystat Any Sync server (Bonus)
16) Do you require SSH access to the command line?
No.
17) Do you require access to a remote desktop?
No.
18) Do you require admin level (i.e. 'root') access? If yes, please explain why.
No.
19) Do you have any other specific requirements?
No.
20) Is there any other information you think might help in getting a useful recommendation?
No.

All levels welcome! Please let us know if you're a novice/beginner and wish to do a chess "walkthrough" with one of our more advanced players where we talk about the game while playing.
For announcements, including for our unofficial meetings, check out our discord: https://discord.gg/rF4kNpyG
We are now on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/dentonchessclub
Our official website: https://dentonchessclub.com

GOOOOOOOOOOD MORNING SUPERSTONKERS! HAHA. It's me again. Yeah, i slipped past the defenses again to drop this off so you can all refresh yourselves on the state of FUD and disinformation in this protracted fight against the legal larcenists doing their best to try and get you to sell. Please spread this amongst the holders, the more people know the less power they have over us holders. We don't sell until we get a call from marge, and that's always been the play.
TLDR: This is a set of tactics used by the Alphabet Boys(CIA, FBI, DEA) to control and manipulate us into drama to collapse our communities and movements. And should be read in full by anyone willing and wanting to learn how these things work.
I've come to notice recently, people keep asking me to repost this for the sake of keeping the new people abreast on what needs to be done to protect the holders of GME. Beneath here will be a detailed account on what you need to be aware of in your online interactions, to avoid being taken for a fool!
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1. COINTELPRO Techniques for dilution, misdirection and control of a internet forum
2. Twenty-Five Rules of Disinformation
3. Eight Traits of the Disinformationalist
4. How to Spot a Spy (Cointelpro Agent)
5. Seventeen Techniques for Truth Suppression

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COINTELPRO Techniques for dilution, misdirection and control of a internet forum..
There are several techniques for the control and manipulation of a internet forum no matter what, or who is on it. We will go over each technique and demonstrate that only a minimal number of operatives can be used to eventually and effectively gain a control of a 'uncontrolled forum.'
Technique #1 - 'FORUM SLIDING'
If a very sensitive posting of a critical nature has been posted on a forum - it can be quickly removed from public view by 'forum sliding.' In this technique a number of unrelated posts are quietly prepositioned on the forum and allowed to 'age.' Each of these misdirectional forum postings can then be called upon at will to trigger a 'forum slide.' The second requirement is that several fake accounts exist, which can be called upon, to ensure that this technique is not exposed to the public. To trigger a 'forum slide' and 'flush' the critical post out of public view it is simply a matter of logging into each account both real and fake and then 'replying' to prepositioned postings with a simple 1 or 2 line comment. This brings the unrelated postings to the top of the forum list, and the critical posting 'slides' down the front page, and quickly out of public view. Although it is difficult or impossible to censor the posting it is now lost in a sea of unrelated and unuseful postings. By this means it becomes effective to keep the readers of the forum reading unrelated and non-issue items.
Technique #2 - 'CONSENSUS CRACKING'
A second highly effective technique (which you can see in operation all the time at www.abovetopsecret.com
) is 'consensus cracking.' To develop a consensus crack, the following technique is used. Under the guise of a fake account a posting is made which looks legitimate and is towards the truth is made - but the critical point is that it has a VERY WEAK PREMISE without substantive proof to back the posting. Once this is done then under alternative fake accounts a very strong position in your favor is slowly introduced over the life of the posting. It is IMPERATIVE that both sides are initially presented, so the uninformed reader cannot determine which side is the truth. As postings and replies are made the stronger 'evidence' or disinformation in your favor is slowly 'seeded in.' Thus the uninformed reader will most like develop the same position as you, and if their position is against you their opposition to your posting will be most likely dropped. However in some cases where the forum members are highly educated and can counter your disinformation with real facts and linked postings, you can then 'abort' the consensus cracking by initiating a 'forum slide.'
Technique #3 - 'TOPIC DILUTION'
Topic dilution is not only effective in forum sliding it is also very useful in keeping the forum readers on unrelated and non-productive issues. This is a critical and useful technique to cause a 'RESOURCE BURN.' By implementing continual and non-related postings that distract and disrupt (trolling ) the forum readers they are more effectively stopped from anything of any real productivity. If the intensity of gradual dilution is intense enough, the readers will effectively stop researching and simply slip into a 'gossip mode.' In this state they can be more easily misdirected away from facts towards uninformed conjecture and opinion. The less informed they are the more effective and easy it becomes to control the entire group in the direction that you would desire the group to go in. It must be stressed that a proper assessment of the psychological capabilities and levels of education is first determined of the group to determine at what level to 'drive in the wedge.' By being too far off topic too quickly it may trigger censorship by a forum moderator.
Technique #4 - 'INFORMATION COLLECTION'
Information collection is also a very effective method to determine the psychological level of the forum members, and to gather intelligence that can be used against them. In this technique in a light and positive environment a 'show you mine so me yours' posting is initiated. From the number of replies and the answers that are provided much statistical information can be gathered. An example is to post your 'favorite weapon' and then encourage other members of the forum to showcase what they have. In this matter it can be determined by reverse proration what percentage of the forum community owns a firearm, and or a illegal weapon. This same method can be used by posing as one of the form members and posting your favorite 'technique of operation.' From the replies various methods that the group utilizes can be studied and effective methods developed to stop them from their activities.
Technique #5 - 'ANGER TROLLING'
Statistically, there is always a percentage of the forum posters who are more inclined to violence. In order to determine who these individuals are, it is a requirement to present a image to the forum to deliberately incite a strong psychological reaction. From this the most violent in the group can be effectively singled out for reverse IP location and possibly local enforcement tracking. To accomplish this only requires posting a link to a video depicting a local police officer massively abusing his power against a very innocent individual. Statistically of the million or so police officers in America there is always one or two being caught abusing there powers and the taping of the activity can be then used for intelligence gathering purposes - without the requirement to 'stage' a fake abuse video. This method is extremely effective, and the more so the more abusive the video can be made to look. Sometimes it is useful to 'lead' the forum by replying to your own posting with your own statement of violent intent, and that you 'do not care what the authorities think!!' inflammation. By doing this and showing no fear it may be more effective in getting the more silent and self-disciplined violent intent members of the forum to slip and post their real intentions. This can be used later in a court of law during prosecution.
Technique #6 - 'GAINING FULL CONTROL'
It is important to also be harvesting and continually maneuvering for a forum moderator position. Once this position is obtained, the forum can then be effectively and quietly controlled by deleting unfavourable postings - and one can eventually steer the forum into complete failure and lack of interest by the general public. This is the 'ultimate victory' as the forum is no longer participated with by the general public and no longer useful in maintaining their freedoms. Depending on the level of control you can obtain, you can deliberately steer a forum into defeat by censoring postings, deleting memberships, flooding, and or accidentally taking the forum offline. By this method the forum can be quickly killed. However it is not always in the interest to kill a forum as it can be converted into a 'honey pot' gathering center to collect and misdirect newcomers and from this point be completely used for your control for your agenda purposes.
CONCLUSION
Remember these techniques are only effective if the forum participants DO NOT KNOW ABOUT THEM. Once they are aware of these techniques the operation can completely fail, and the forum can become uncontrolled. At this point other avenues must be considered such as initiating a false legal precidence to simply have the forum shut down and taken offline. This is not desirable as it then leaves the enforcement agencies unable to track the percentage of those in the population who always resist attempts for control against them. Many other techniques can be utilized and developed by the individual and as you develop further techniques of infiltration and control it is imperative to share then with HQ.
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Twenty-Five Rules of Disinformation
Note: The first rule and last five (or six, depending on situation) rules are generally not directly within the ability of the traditional disinfo artist to apply. These rules are generally used more directly by those at the leadership, key players, or planning level of the criminal conspiracy or conspiracy to cover up.
1. Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. Regardless of what you know, don't discuss it -- especially if you are a public figure, news anchor, etc. If it's not reported, it didn't happen, and you never have to deal with the issues.
2. Become incredulous and indignant. Avoid discussing key issues and instead focus on side issues which can be used show the topic as being critical of some otherwise sacrosanct group or theme. This is also known as the 'How dare you!' gambit.
3. Create rumor mongers. Avoid discussing issues by describing all charges, regardless of venue or evidence, as mere rumors and wild accusations. Other derogatory terms mutually exclusive of truth may work as well. This method which works especially well with a silent press, because the only way the public can learn of the facts are through such 'arguable rumors'. If you can associate the material with the Internet, use this fact to certify it a 'wild rumor' from a 'bunch of kids on the Internet' which can have no basis in fact.
4. Use a straw man. Find or create a seeming element of your opponent's argument which you can easily knock down to make yourself look good and the opponent to look bad. Either make up an issue you may safely imply exists based on your interpretation of the opponent/opponent arguments/situation, or select the weakest aspect of the weakest charges. Amplify their significance and destroy them in a way which appears to debunk all the charges, real and fabricated alike, while actually avoiding discussion of the real issues.
5. Sidetrack opponents with name calling and ridicule. This is also known as the primary 'attack the messenger' ploy, though other methods qualify as variants of that approach. Associate opponents with unpopular titles such as 'kooks', 'right-wing', 'liberal', 'left-wing', 'terrorists', 'conspiracy buffs', 'radicals', 'militia', 'racists', 'religious fanatics', 'sexual deviates', and so forth. This makes others shrink from support out of fear of gaining the same label, and you avoid dealing with issues.
6. Hit and Run. In any public forum, make a brief attack of your opponent or the opponent position and then scamper off before an answer can be fielded, or simply ignore any answer. This works extremely well in Internet and letters-to-the-editor environments where a steady stream of new identities can be called upon without having to explain criticism, reasoning -- simply make an accusation or other attack, never discussing issues, and never answering any subsequent response, for that would dignify the opponent's viewpoint.
7. Question motives. Twist or amplify any fact which could be taken to imply that the opponent operates out of a hidden personal agenda or other bias. This avoids discussing issues and forces the accuser on the defensive.
8. Invoke authority. Claim for yourself or associate yourself with authority and present your argument with enough 'jargon' and 'minutia' to illustrate you are 'one who knows', and simply say it isn't so without discussing issues or demonstrating concretely why or citing sources.
9. Play Dumb. No matter what evidence or logical argument is offered, avoid discussing issues except with denials they have any credibility, make any sense, provide any proof, contain or make a point, have logic, or support a conclusion. Mix well for maximum effect.
10. Associate opponent charges with old news. A derivative of the straw man -- usually, in any large-scale matter of high visibility, someone will make charges early on which can be or were already easily dealt with - a kind of investment for the future should the matter not be so easily contained.) Where it can be foreseen, have your own side raise a straw man issue and have it dealt with early on as part of the initial contingency plans. Subsequent charges, regardless of validity or new ground uncovered, can usually then be associated with the original charge and dismissed as simply being a rehash without need to address current issues -- so much the better where the opponent is or was involved with the original source.
11. Establish and rely upon fall-back positions. Using a minor matter or element of the facts, take the 'high road' and 'confess' with candor that some innocent mistake, in hindsight, was made -- but that opponents have seized on the opportunity to blow it all out of proportion and imply greater criminalities which, 'just isn't so.' Others can reinforce this on your behalf, later, and even publicly 'call for an end to the nonsense' because you have already 'done the right thing.' Done properly, this can garner sympathy and respect for 'coming clean' and 'owning up' to your mistakes without addressing more serious issues.
12. Enigmas have no solution. Drawing upon the overall umbrella of events surrounding the crime and the multitude of players and events, paint the entire affair as too complex to solve. This causes those otherwise following the matter to begin to lose interest more quickly without having to address the actual issues.
13. Alice in Wonderland Logic. Avoid discussion of the issues by reasoning backwards or with an apparent deductive logic which forbears any actual material fact.
14. Demand complete solutions. Avoid the issues by requiring opponents to solve the crime at hand completely, a ploy which works best with issues qualifying for rule 10.
15. Fit the facts to alternate conclusions. This requires creative thinking unless the crime was planned with contingency conclusions in place.
16. Vanish evidence and witnesses. If it does not exist, it is not fact, and you won't have to address the issue.
17. Change the subject. Usually in connection with one of the other ploys listed here, find a way to side-track the discussion with abrasive or controversial comments in hopes of turning attention to a new, more manageable topic. This works especially well with companions who can 'argue' with you over the new topic and polarize the discussion arena in order to avoid discussing more key issues.
18. Emotionalize, Antagonize, and Goad Opponents. If you can't do anything else, chide and taunt your opponents and draw them into emotional responses which will tend to make them look foolish and overly motivated, and generally render their material somewhat less coherent. Not only will you avoid discussing the issues in the first instance, but even if their emotional response addresses the issue, you can further avoid the issues by then focusing on how 'sensitive they are to criticism.'
19. Ignore proof presented, demand impossible proofs. This is perhaps a variant of the 'play dumb' rule. Regardless of what material may be presented by an opponent in public forums, claim the material irrelevant and demand proof that is impossible for the opponent to come by (it may exist, but not be at his disposal, or it may be something which is known to be safely destroyed or withheld, such as a murder weapon.) In order to completely avoid discussing issues, it may be required that you to categorically deny and be critical of media or books as valid sources, deny that witnesses are acceptable, or even deny that statements made by government or other authorities have any meaning or relevance.
20. False evidence. Whenever possible, introduce new facts or clues designed and manufactured to conflict with opponent presentations -- as useful tools to neutralize sensitive issues or impede resolution. This works best when the crime was designed with contingencies for the purpose, and the facts cannot be easily separated from the fabrications.
21. Call a Grand Jury, Special Prosecutor, or other empowered investigative body. Subvert the (process) to your benefit and effectively neutralize all sensitive issues without open discussion. Once convened, the evidence and testimony are required to be secret when properly handled. For instance, if you own the prosecuting attorney, it can insure a Grand Jury hears no useful evidence and that the evidence is sealed and unavailable to subsequent investigators. Once a favorable verdict is achieved, the matter can be considered officially closed. Usually, this technique is applied to find the guilty innocent, but it can also be used to obtain charges when seeking to frame a victim.
22. Manufacture a new truth. Create your own expert(s), group(s), author(s), leader(s) or influence existing ones willing to forge new ground via scientific, investigative, or social research or testimony which concludes favorably. In this way, if you must actually address issues, you can do so authoritatively.
23. Create bigger distractions. If the above does not seem to be working to distract from sensitive issues, or to prevent unwanted media coverage of unstoppable events such as trials, create bigger news stories (or treat them as such) to distract the multitudes.
24. Silence critics. If the above methods do not prevail, consider removing opponents from circulation by some definitive solution so that the need to address issues is removed entirely. This can be by their death, arrest and detention, blackmail or destruction of their character by release of blackmail information, or merely by destroying them financially, emotionally, or severely damaging their health.
25. Vanish. If you are a key holder of secrets or otherwise overly illuminated and you think the heat is getting too hot, to avoid the issues, vacate the kitchen.
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Eight Traits of the Disinformationalist
1) Avoidance. They never actually discuss issues head-on or provide constructive input, generally avoiding citation of references or credentials. Rather, they merely imply this, that, and the other. Virtually everything about their presentation implies their authority and expert knowledge in the matter without any further justification for credibility.
2) Selectivity. They tend to pick and choose opponents carefully, either applying the hit-and-run approach against mere commentators supportive of opponents, or focusing heavier attacks on key opponents who are known to directly address issues. Should a commentator become argumentative with any success, the focus will shift to include the commentator as well.
3) Coincidental. They tend to surface suddenly and somewhat coincidentally with a new controversial topic with no clear prior record of participation in general discussions in the particular public arena involved. They likewise tend to vanish once the topic is no longer of general concern. They were likely directed or elected to be there for a reason, and vanish with the reason.
4) Teamwork. They tend to operate in self-congratulatory and complementary packs or teams. Of course, this can happen naturally in any public forum, but there will likely be an ongoing pattern of frequent exchanges of this sort where professionals are involved. Sometimes one of the players will infiltrate the opponent camp to become a source for straw man or other tactics designed to dilute opponent presentation strength.
5) Anti-conspiratorial. They almost always have disdain for 'conspiracy theorists' and, usually, for those who in any way believe JFK was not killed by LHO. Ask yourself why, if they hold such disdain for conspiracy theorists, do they focus on defending a single topic discussed in a NG focusing on conspiracies? One might think they would either be trying to make fools of everyone on every topic, or simply ignore the group they hold in such disdain. Or, one might more rightly conclude they have an ulterior motive for their actions in going out of their way to focus as they do.
6) Artificial Emotions. An odd kind of 'artificial' emotionalism and an unusually thick skin -- an ability to persevere and persist even in the face of overwhelming criticism and unacceptance. This likely stems from intelligence community training that, no matter how condemning the evidence, deny everything, and never become emotionally involved or reactive. The net result for a disinfo artist is that emotions can seem artificial.
Most people, if responding in anger, for instance, will express their animosity throughout their rebuttal. But disinfo types usually have trouble maintaining the 'image' and are hot and cold with respect to pretended emotions and their usually more calm or unemotional communications style. It's just a job, and they often seem unable to 'act their role in character' as well in a communications medium as they might be able in a real face-to-face conversation/confrontation. You might have outright rage and indignation one moment, ho-hum the next, and more anger later -- an emotional yo-yo.
With respect to being thick-skinned, no amount of criticism will deter them from doing their job, and they will generally continue their old disinfo patterns without any adjustments to criticisms of how obvious it is that they play that game -- where a more rational individual who truly cares what others think might seek to improve their communications style, substance, and so forth, or simply give up.
7) Inconsistent. There is also a tendency to make mistakes which betray their true self/motives. This may stem from not really knowing their topic, or it may be somewhat 'freudian', so to speak, in that perhaps they really root for the side of truth deep within.
I have noted that often, they will simply cite contradictory information which neutralizes itself and the author. For instance, one such player claimed to be a Navy pilot, but blamed his poor communicating skills (spelling, grammar, incoherent style) on having only a grade-school education. I'm not aware of too many Navy pilots who don't have a college degree. Another claimed no knowledge of a particular topic/situation but later claimed first-hand knowledge of it.
8) Time Constant. Recently discovered, with respect to News Groups, is the response time factor. There are three ways this can be seen to work, especially when the government or other empowered player is involved in a cover up operation:
a) ANY NG posting by a targeted proponent for truth can result in an IMMEDIATE response. The government and other empowered players can afford to pay people to sit there and watch for an opportunity to do some damage. SINCE DISINFO IN A NG ONLY WORKS IF THE READER SEES IT - FAST RESPONSE IS CALLED FOR, or the visitor may be swayed towards truth.
b) When dealing in more direct ways with a disinformationalist, such as email, DELAY IS CALLED FOR - there will usually be a minimum of a 48-72 hour delay. This allows a sit-down team discussion on response strategy for best effect, and even enough time to 'get permission' or instruction from a formal chain of command.
c) In the NG example 1) above, it will often ALSO be seen that bigger guns are drawn and fired after the same 48-72 hours delay - the team approach in play. This is especially true when the targeted truth seeker or their comments are considered more important with respect to potential to reveal truth. Thus, a serious truth sayer will be attacked twice for the same sin.
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How to Spot a Spy (Cointelpro Agent)
One way to neutralize a potential activist is to get them to be in a group that does all the wrong things. Why?
1) The message doesn't get out.
2) A lot of time is wasted
3) The activist is frustrated and discouraged
4) Nothing good is accomplished.
FBI and Police Informers and Infiltrators will infest any group and they have phoney activist organizations established.
Their purpose is to prevent any real movement for justice or eco-peace from developing in this country.
Agents come in small, medium or large. They can be of any ethnic background. They can be male or female.
The actual size of the group or movement being infiltrated is irrelevant. It is the potential the movement has for becoming large which brings on the spies and saboteurs.
This booklet lists tactics agents use to slow things down, foul things up, destroy the movement and keep tabs on activists.
It is the agent's job to keep the activist from quitting such a group, thus keeping him/her under control.
In some situations, to get control, the agent will tell the activist:

• "You're dividing the movement."

[Here, I have added the psychological reasons as to WHY this maneuver works to control people]
This invites guilty feelings. Many people can be controlled by guilt. The agents begin relationships with activists behind a well-developed mask of "dedication to the cause." Because of their often declared dedication, (and actions designed to prove this), when they criticize the activist, he or she - being truly dedicated to the movement - becomes convinced that somehow, any issues are THEIR fault. This is because a truly dedicated person tends to believe that everyone has a conscience and that nobody would dissimulate and lie like that "on purpose." It's amazing how far agents can go in manipulating an activist because the activist will constantly make excuses for the agent who regularly declares their dedication to the cause. Even if they do, occasionally, suspect the agent, they will pull the wool over their own eyes by rationalizing: "they did that unconsciously... they didn't really mean it... I can help them by being forgiving and accepting " and so on and so forth.
The agent will tell the activist:

• "You're a leader!"

This is designed to enhance the activist's self-esteem. His or her narcissistic admiration of his/her own activist/altruistic intentions increase as he or she identifies with and consciously admires the altruistic declarations of the agent which are deliberately set up to mirror those of the activist.
This is "malignant pseudo identification." It is the process by which the agent consciously imitates or simulates a certain behavior to foster the activist's identification with him/her, thus increasing the activist's vulnerability to exploitation. The agent will simulate the more subtle self-concepts of the activist.
Activists and those who have altruistic self-concepts are most vulnerable to malignant pseudo identification especially during work with the agent when the interaction includes matter relating to their competency, autonomy, or knowledge.
The goal of the agent is to increase the activist's general empathy for the agent through pseudo-identification with the activist's self-concepts.
The most common example of this is the agent who will compliment the activist for his competency or knowledge or value to the movement. On a more subtle level, the agent will simulate affects and mannerisms of the activist which promotes identification via mirroring and feelings of "twinship". It is not unheard of for activists, enamored by the perceived helpfulness and competence of a good agent, to find themselves considering ethical violations and perhaps, even illegal behavior, in the service of their agent/handler.
The activist's "felt quality of perfection" [self-concept] is enhanced, and a strong empathic bond is developed with the agent through his/her imitation and simulation of the victim's own narcissistic investments. [self-concepts] That is, if the activist knows, deep inside, their own dedication to the cause, they will project that onto the agent who is "mirroring" them.
The activist will be deluded into thinking that the agent shares this feeling of identification and bonding. In an activist/social movement setting, the adversarial roles that activists naturally play vis a vis the establishment/government, fosters ongoing processes of intrapsychic splitting so that "twinship alliances" between activist and agent may render whole sectors or reality testing unavailable to the activist. They literally "lose touch with reality."
Activists who deny their own narcissistic investments [do not have a good idea of their own self-concepts and that they ARE concepts] and consciously perceive themselves (accurately, as it were) to be "helpers" endowed with a special amount of altruism are exceedingly vulnerable to the affective (emotional) simulation of the accomplished agent.
Empathy is fostered in the activist through the expression of quite visible affects. The presentation of tearfulness, sadness, longing, fear, remorse, and guilt, may induce in the helper-oriented activist a strong sense of compassion, while unconsciously enhancing the activist's narcissistic investment in self as the embodiment of goodness.
The agent's expresssion of such simulated affects may be quite compelling to the observer and difficult to distinguish from deep emotion.
It can usually be identified by two events, however:
First, the activist who has analyzed his/her own narcissistic roots and is aware of his/her own potential for being "emotionally hooked," will be able to remain cool and unaffected by such emotional outpourings by the agent.
As a result of this unaffected, cool, attitude, the Second event will occur: The agent will recompensate much too quickly following such an affective expression leaving the activist with the impression that "the play has ended, the curtain has fallen," and the imposture, for the moment, has finished. The agent will then move quickly to another activist/victim.
The fact is, the movement doesn't need leaders, it needs MOVERS. "Follow the leader" is a waste of time.
A good agent will want to meet as often as possible. He or she will talk a lot and say little. One can expect an onslaught of long, unresolved discussions.
Some agents take on a pushy, arrogant, or defensive manner:
1) To disrupt the agenda
2) To side-track the discussion
3) To interrupt repeatedly
4) To feign ignorance
5) To make an unfounded accusation against a person.
Calling someone a racist, for example. This tactic is used to discredit a person in the eyes of all other group members.
Saboteurs
Some saboteurs pretend to be activists. She or he will ....
1) Write encyclopedic flyers (in the present day, websites)
2) Print flyers in English only.
3) Have demonstrations in places where no one cares.
4) Solicit funding from rich people instead of grass roots support
5) Display banners with too many words that are confusing.
6) Confuse issues.
7) Make the wrong demands.
8) Compromise the goal.
9) Have endless discussions that waste everyone's time. The agent may accompany the endless discussions with drinking, pot smoking or other amusement to slow down the activist's work.
Provocateurs
1) Want to establish "leaders" to set them up for a fall in order to stop the movement.
2) Suggest doing foolish, illegal things to get the activists in trouble.
3) Encourage militancy.
4) Want to taunt the authorities.
5) Attempt to make the activist compromise their values.
6) Attempt to instigate violence. Activism ought to always be non-violent.
7) Attempt to provoke revolt among people who are ill-prepared to deal with the reaction of the authorities to such violence.
Informants
1) Want everyone to sign up and sing in and sign everything.
2) Ask a lot of questions (gathering data).
3) Want to know what events the activist is planning to attend.
4) Attempt to make the activist defend him or herself to identify his or her beliefs, goals, and level of commitment.
Recruiting
Legitimate activists do not subject people to hours of persuasive dialog. Their actions, beliefs, and goals speak for themselves.
Groups that DO recruit are missionaries, military, and fake political parties or movements set up by agents.
Surveillance
ALWAYS assume that you are under surveillance.
At this point, if you are NOT under surveillance, you are not a very good activist!
Scare Tactics
They use them.
Such tactics include slander, defamation, threats, getting close to disaffected or minimally committed fellow activists to persuade them (via psychological tactics described above) to turn against the movement and give false testimony against their former compatriots. They will plant illegal substances on the activist and set up an arrest; they will plant false information and set up "exposure," they will send incriminating letters [emails] in the name of the activist; and more; they will do whatever society will allow.
This booklet in no way covers all the ways agents use to sabotage the lives of sincere an dedicated activists.
If an agent is "exposed," he or she will be transferred or replaced.
COINTELPRO is still in operation today under a different code name. It is no longer placed on paper where it can be discovered through the freedom of information act.
The FBI counterintelligence program's stated purpose: To expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, and otherwise neutralize individuals who the FBI categorize as opposed to the National Interests. "National Security" means the FBI's security from the people ever finding out the vicious things it does in violation of people's civil liberties.
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Seventeen Techniques for Truth Suppression
Strong, credible allegations of high-level criminal activity can bring down a government. When the government lacks an effective, fact-based defense, other techniques must be employed. The success of these techniques depends heavily upon a cooperative, compliant press and a mere token opposition party.
1. Dummy up. If it's not reported, if it's not news, it didn't happen.
2. Wax indignant. This is also known as the "How dare you?" gambit.
3. Characterize the charges as "rumors" or, better yet, "wild rumors." If, in spite of the news blackout, the public is still able to learn about the suspicious facts, it can only be through "rumors." (If they tend to believe the "rumors" it must be because they are simply "paranoid" or "hysterical.")
4. Knock down straw men. Deal only with the weakest aspects of the weakest charges. Even better, create your own straw men. Make up wild rumors (or plant false stories) and give them lead play when you appear to debunk all the charges, real and fanciful alike.
5. Call the skeptics names like "conspiracy theorist," "nutcase," "ranter," "kook," "crackpot," and, of course, "rumor monger." Be sure, too, to use heavily loaded verbs and adjectives when characterizing their charges and defending the "more reasonable" government and its defenders. You must then carefully avoid fair and open debate with any of the people you have thus maligned. For insurance, set up your own "skeptics" to shoot down.
6. Impugn motives. Attempt to marginalize the critics by suggesting strongly that they are not really interested in the truth but are simply pursuing a partisan political agenda or are out to make money (compared to over-compensated adherents to the government line who, presumably, are not).
7. Invoke authority. Here the controlled press and the sham opposition can be very useful.
8. Dismiss the charges as "old news."
9. Come half-clean. This is also known as "confession and avoidance" or "taking the limited hangout route." This way, you create the impression of candor and honesty while you admit only to relatively harmless, less-than-criminal "mistakes." This stratagem often requires the embrace of a fall-back position quite different from the one originally taken. With effective damage control, the fall-back position need only be peddled by stooge skeptics to carefully limited markets.
10. Characterize the crimes as impossibly complex and the truth as ultimately unknowable.
11. Reason backward, using the deductive method with a vengeance. With thoroughly rigorous deduction, troublesome evidence is irrelevant. E.g. We have a completely free press. If evidence exists that the Vince Foster "suicide" note was forged, they would have reported it. They haven't reported it so there is no such evidence. Another variation on this theme involves the likelihood of a conspiracy leaker and a press who would report the leak.
12. Require the skeptics to solve the crime completely. E.g. If Foster was murdered, who did it and why?
13. Change the subject. This technique includes creating and/or publicizing distractions.
14. Lightly report incriminating facts, and then make nothing of them. This is sometimes referred to as "bump and run" reporting.
15. Baldly and brazenly lie. A favorite way of doing this is to attribute the "facts" furnished the public to a plausible-sounding, but anonymous, source.
16. Expanding further on numbers 4 and 5, have your own stooges "expose" scandals and champion popular causes. Their job is to pre-empt real opponents and to play 99-yard football. A variation is to pay rich people for the job who will pretend to spend their own money.
17. Flood the Internet with agents. This is the answer to the question, "What could possibly motivate a person to spend hour upon hour on Internet news groups defending the government and/or the press and harassing genuine critics?" Don t the authorities have defenders enough in all the newspapers, magazines, radio, and television? One would think refusing to print critical letters and screening out serious callers or dumping them from radio talk shows would be control enough, but, obviously, it is not.

I read this comment under a Facebook post and I am posting it here verbatim. I have been here for 1.5 years and just want to get the opinion of Germans. The guy who wrote this comment grew up in Germany as a Muslim of South Asian background. Reading this definitely scared me as it appears that high schools in Germany are racist and teachers can effectively block you from a good future by giving you bad grades intentionally.

the second generation doesn't make it. You can analyse it yourself. Look how successful kids of your friends are. Most of them will be put in real schule or hauptschule. The few who still make it to Gymnasium. They are downgraded back to Realschule after a few years. Only a small portion gets Abitur and a very tiny portion gets the Abitur with good grades.The German culture especially at schools associates less intelligence with colored people. So since the teachers control your life and future. They can give you the grade whatever they want. It doesn't matter what you got in your exams. School is hell. Especially if its a pure gymnasium. To show you how powerful a teacher can be. If you get 100% in a maths exam the teacher has the power to reduce it to 50% and they do it.
I personally struggled a lot at school. Teachers are basically dictators. My sister struggled a lot. E.g in case of my sister she said as a Muslim she doesn't wanna go on Klassenfahrt. The teacher didn't like it and became her enemy and made sure she doesn't get any good grade to go to med school. They made her life hell. Luckily to go to med school you have to get good grades in the TMS. Its a state test it counts 50%. In this test no one knows your name. No one knows if you wear hijab. You are just a number. So she was in top 5% of whole Germany. Which allowed her to go med school. At Unis the life is much better because profs are not racist and they don't have the power to control your future. The school atmosphere is so harsh that most colored kids gets demotivated and just give up. It is one of the reason why yoh don't see many successful 2/3 generation people.
The bulk went to school in Pakistan studied there did master here doesn't speak german got a job as software engineer. The bulk doesn't understand the problems their kids will go through. Most of their kids will not successful. Because they have to go through the school system. Many desi parents still force their kids to get Fachabitur which is low level Abitur and they study history, social sciences or at Fachhochschule to please the parents. In the most of them drop out.

I will be honest, reading that a high school teacher can just slash a student's grade in Germany out of no where is scary. The guy who made this comment is now in the UK after growing up in Germany. He basically wants people of immigrant background to not have kids here as there is widespread racial discrimination in schools as compared to the UK.
How true is the guy's comment? I would especially love to hear from Germans who grew up here and have a migration background.

I never expected to not like Synergy. After all, this eye-poppingly adorable survival city builder based on the supremely influential comic book illustrations of French artist Jean Giraud, AKA Moebius, is everything I want on paper. A rich and rarely seen visual rendering of a strange alien planet that—dare I say—synergizes nicely with its thoughtful and intricate resource gathering mechanics that encourage patient research and exploration effort rather than combat.
What’s not to love, right?
Well, after 10+ hours with Synergy, I am surprised and saddened to report that I find it all a bit... boring? You see, after the initial wave of art-induced infatuation wore off, I gradually began to realize that Synergy isn’t meant to simulate an intense, punishing, and consequently thrilling fight against the world’s harsh climate as is the case in games like Frostpunk and Against the Storm. Nor is it here to push you to your production-chain resource micromanagement limits as do games like Cartel Tycoon, The Settlers, and Pioneers of Pagonia. And, given Synergy's near total deemphasis on your city’s individuals, it's incapable of delivering those fun AI storylines seen in colony simulators like RIMWORLD and its upcoming medieval clone Norland.
Instead, Synergy is about the biggest number on the screen: your city’s prosperity score, which visualizes the city’s sustainability and well-being. Synergy wants your main focus to be basking in the wonderful art style as you build toward a beautiful, culture-rich utopia that doesn’t overexploit the world’s fragile ecosystem, which you can see grow and die in real time. Dealing with the harsh climate, producing enough food and water—these survival mechanics that drive other games are inconveniences in Synergy rather than the game’s deciding factors. Now, does this design decision mean the game is easy? Absolutely not, as there’s still plenty of depth here and still plenty of ways to screw things up (trust me). But don’t go in expecting an exhilarating experience, which is what I personally wanted.
That in mind, let’s get into the game.
GAMEPLAY & CONTENT
You’ll start out as you do in many survival city builders—with a store of starter resources and a handful of static, slowly starving settlers (poor little guys). However, after laying a building from your construction menu, your settlers will snap out of their comas and get right to work. After building early game structures like shelters, warehouses, and “picking cabins,” you’ll want to lay down a field lab so you can start researching the world’s strange plant life. These lab results will then inform you about the plant’s properties (e.g., is it edible?), as well as the different materials you can gather from it by either picking, trimming, or ripping the plant out of the ground entirely.
In between all of this rippin’ and tearin’, you’ll need to build a research center and start unlocking new buildings, like an infirmary to treat worn down workers, an arborist’s workshop to help replant whatcha de-plant, and an explorer’s hut from which you can launch expeditions into the unknown. Upon reaching a new area or point of interest, you’ll get a short text-based scenario and an RNG choice or two, but watch out because rolling the die can result in die-ing. Oh, and keep an eye out for ancient tablets along the way, as collecting and then translating them will unlock buffs for your village.
In other words... from an objectives and mechanics standpoint, Synergy is a lot like most of the survival city builders I’ve covered on this channel, albeit with an attractive and intuitive user interface that makes a fun little ASMR sound when you hover over it. I would like to see more map variety by 1.0, however, as the level designs currently feel pretty synonymous. Lastly, I didn’t encounter any figurative bugs in Synergy, though I do think the game would benefit from some literal ones—I just know my villagers must be tired of eating the same “watery pod” veggie pie every day, plus, this art style is simply begging for some colorful and creative Dr. Suess-esque animals.
CONCLUSION
I had originally planned on a longer review of Synergy, but the game’s text-based story in which you seek out fellow settlers and study the world’s strange glowing phenomenon doesn’t currently feel fleshed out enough to fairly score. So, we’ll give the game a subject-to-change aggregate MEGA score of 3.22/5 (full scoring breakdown available in video form on my profile) and plan on revisiting it closer to full release. Between now and then, I'm happy to answer any questions you have about the game or my review.
Thanks for reading!

What’s the #1 thing every founder needs to know?

I’ll give you a few minutes to make a list — top of mind might include sales, marketing, technology, product management (especially product-market fit), technical skills, fundraising, team building, leadership, management, finance, and planning/executing strategic growth and scaling.
Sure… but, sorry, none of that is the correct answer. Because, of course, you know that founders typically are expected to be jacks of all trades. So yes, to all of the above, but that’s not the secret sauce.
The #1 thing every founder needs to know is… themself.
Here’s the truth: founders start companies, and entrepreneurs build them. While not every entrepreneur is a founder (think franchise owners), every founder is an entrepreneur (at least initially).
If you’re like me, you are a forward-obsessed founder. That means where you are now is always building toward where you want to go. That person is always an entrepreneur. Once the company is started, you’ll do what it takes — including relinquishing control — to keep it growing.
Does that sting? We founders think of our companies as our babies, but statistics say we’re likely to be the ones kicked out of the nest. Also, research shows that in the US, only 14 out of the top selling 500 companies still have the original founder running the company. And the Harvard Business Review reports that most founders relinquish control long before their companies go public — and that four out of five are forced to step down as CEO.
It doesn’t have to be that way if you have one critical attribute: self-awareness. That way, you can decide as your company grows how you want to evolve your role in the overall day-to-day running of the company (i.e., learn, delegate, hire, move on). And ultimately, you can make better choices at critical growth junctures in your business progression.
So, to help you become more self-aware, it’s helpful to understand the different types of founders. Let’s dive in.

The Types of Founders

A couple of notes before we get into specifics:

• Much like any other classification, there are gray areas, so you (and many of the examples I share in this article) may fit into more than one category.
• Some traits are common to all founders, such as being open to innovation, passionate about their project, risk-takers, etc. But some founders excel or even over-index in certain attributes, so that’s what you’ll see in the different types.

The bottom line: knowing your strongest/weakest points is a critical piece of the self-awareness pie. That way, you can conduct your business in what I call the Green Zone — aka the Genius Zone, where you have both high passion and high competence — and make the best choices for you and your company.

1. The Solo Founder

Traits:

• Fiercely independent
• Self-assured
• Strong belief in their vision/idea
• Business strongly tied to skill set and experience
• Resilient (i.e., can withstand feelings of loneliness)

Benefits:

• Freedom
• Complete control
• Learn a lot

Pitfalls:

• Solo-founded companies statistically have a higher failure rate
• Harder to raise money/VCs are more reticent
• Health impacts: burnout, loneliness, etc.
• Attention is divided because you wear all the hats (marketing, sales, building your product, finances, fundraising, prospecting for new customers, etc.)
• Complete responsibility for all aspects of the business

Example: Sara Blakely, Spanx Founder
Ten years ago, in 2012, when she was just 38, Sara Blakely became the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire. Her business, built on a significant industry gap (the lack of comfortable, effective shapewear) and her incredible sales hustle, also benefited greatly from Blakely’s abundant self-awareness. Here’s her advice to solo founders at a 2020 business conference:

“I tell people as soon as you can afford to hire your weaknesses, do it… As soon as I could afford to hire someone to do more of the operations side of the business, I did. As an entrepreneur, one of the biggest gifts you can give yourself is to stay in your lane.”

In other words, know what your Green Zone is and play there.
If you’re like Blakely, it’s usually big ideas and sales ability (she could easily qualify as a Visionary Founder, too) or operations and execution (what Blakely realized she needed help with).
Pro tip: If you’re a solo founder, you’ll likely want to lean into an entrepreneurial framework like the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) to help you define and settle into which side you skew toward.

2. The Visionary Founder (or Co-founders)

Traits:

• Driven by a big idea
• Disruptive — recognizes opportunities to upend traditional norms
• Focused and clear
• Persistent
• Natural salesperson
• Can see the big picture
• Collaborative (esp. In co-founder scenario)
• Motivated by the impact they have — more than $$ alone

Benefits:

• Passionate about their work
• Aren’t easily derailed — failures are expected, and mistakes are not made twice
• Inspired leadership

Pitfalls:

• So focused on the big picture that they may miss important details
• A visionary idea doesn’t automatically = visionary leadership
• Disconnected from reality at times
• Easily bored when the mundane takes priority
• May not plan succession well
• Unrealistic expectations
• Poor communication

Example: Steve Jobs & Steve Wozniak
Considering that Steve Jobs’ name is pretty much synonymous with “visionary,” I don’t think I need to list more than the products and industries Jobs’ revolutionized at Apple and beyond — Apple Computers, iPod (iTunes), iPad, iPhone, Pixar, iCloud — with many products and points in between. George Lucas, from whom Jobs bought the Graphics Group at Lucasfilm and renamed it “Pixar,” perfectly summarizes his superpower:

“The magic of Steve was that while others simply accepted the status quo, he saw the true potential in everything he touched and never compromised on that vision.”

Steve Wozniak was the technological yin to Jobs’ sales and marketing yang, bringing the vision of a computer with a graphic interface to life. From the visionary files, “Woz” also invented the first programmable universal remote and was an early innovator of wireless GPS (thanks to his clever dogs who routinely evaded electronic fences).

3. The Serial Disruptor

Traits:

• Varied interests & capabilities
• Easily bored — desires variety and change
• Optimistic
• Extremely innovative
• High threshold for pain
• Accepting of failure
• Self-reliant
• Diverse capabilities
• Bold vision
• Motivated by the impact they have — more than $$ alone

Benefits:

• Variety of experiences
• Flexibility and freedom
• Diversification
• Tons of opportunities for creative expression
• Greater earning opportunities
• Disrupts industries
• Attracts high-quality talent

Pitfalls:

• High risk
• Difficulties finding trustworthy partners/can get stuck helming something when you want to move on
• Multitudes of people reliant on you
• Divided focus
• Ego-driven pursuits

Example: Elon Musk
Like him or loathe him, Elon Musk is perhaps the most prolific (and successful) serial founder of all time with startups including Tesla, SpaceX, The Boring Company, and Neuralink, among others. His drive to design opportunities to evolve humanity has redefined both hustle culture and the art of serial entrepreneurship.
For serial founders, having a set of principles is key to their success. In Musk’s case, his use of “first principles” — reducing a process to its essential parts — has served him well, from helping him figure out how to make rockets cheaper and reusable (SpaceX) to shifting the narrative of electric vehicles (Tesla).

4. The Engineer

Traits:

• Engineer by experience and nature
• Technically savvy
• Able to problem-solve technology-driven issues (not just with the product but also operations-wise)
• Strong desire to not just innovate but also to accelerate progress
• Expansive vision of how technology can solve common problems
• Level-headed
• Agile, fast learners
• Focused on execution

Benefits:

• Pragmatic approach
• Own technology
• Problems are solved quickly
• Able to employ technology to reduce time to market
• Solutions for products can become new products in their own right

Pitfalls:

• Not well versed in other crucial areas (i.e., sales, marketing)
• Over-index on having lower Emotional Intelligence (EQ)
• Because they can learn quickly, so may get stuck playing outside of the green zone

Example: Mark Zuckerberg
Much like the other examples I’m sharing, Mark Zuckerberg’s story has been widely told, so you probably know about his development of Facebook. But at his core, Zuckerberg is an engineering prodigy and geek. At just 13 in 1997, he built “ZuckNet,” which enabled the family’s home computers to communicate via Ping (a precursor of AOL’s Instant Messenger) with his father’s dental office computers. He was using AI in his senior year in high school, so the roots of his Meta(verse) focus today are apparent.
A common weakness for engineers is they tend to have a lower EQ, which has been well-researched. As a former engineer, I understand how logic and technology come easier than understanding human behavior. This is why tech founders should seek out mentors early and bring in competent leaders with high EQ and leadership skills — for example, Zuckerberg credits his former COO of 14 years, Sheryl Sandberg, for turning the company into a multi-billion dollar company.

5. The Personality Founder

Traits:

• Charismatic and gregarious
• Attracts a vast audience
• Influential
• Ambitious
• Forward-thinking
• Inwardly motivated (responds to a “calling”)
• Excellent storytellers
• Authentic and honest (ideally 😉)

Benefits:

• Has a built-in audience and established social platforms
• Likely has pre-existing wealth (can help fund the business/mitigate startup money woes)
• Can use their power for good; disruptive in a positive way

Pitfalls:

• Needs to find the right people to trust
• Can’t just be the “face” of the business; needs to accrue real business chops
• Celebrity and influence status don’t equal quality products
• Difficult or impossible for the founder to leave

Example: Oprah
I’m using Oprah as an example, as her products are an outgrowth of her — her eponymous talk show, which ran for 25 years, the OWN network, O Magazine, her book club, and a variety of charitable endeavors comprise her vast empire. But of course, we know plenty of other personality brands that have racked up billions in sales and even transformed, from the Kardashians/Jenners, to Bethany Frankel and Ryan Reynolds (just watch Deadpool 3 to see his brands — coming in 2023).
In today’s age of influence, we’ve seen a surge of personality brands and founders who leverage built-in audiences and communities to scale quickly. All these names are business mavericks in their own right, but many didn’t start out this way — they deftly utilize their charisma and ability to entertain to shape their brands and pave the way to success.

6. The Accidental Founder

Traits:

• Independent
• Resourceful
• Necessity-driven
• Follow their desire/passion
• Creative
• Willing to take risks

Benefits:

• A deep belief in what they’re doing
• Solves real-world problems based on personal experience
• Discover they’re much happier running their own show
• Turns skills, vocation, or avocation into a profitable business

Pitfalls:

• May not have the business chops
• Reluctant business person — may not actually want to run their own business
• Needs to find the right people to trust
• Overwhelm

Example: Yvon Chouinard
Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard has been in the news lately for giving away his company to fight climate change. He’s an OG accidental entrepreneur whose passion for rock climbing led him to develop reusable pitons (rock climbing spikes) and, later, heavy-duty shirts. Famously Chouinard called himself a “dirtbag climber” and didn’t want to become a business mogul. Sixty-five years later, this accidental founder’s company is valued at $3 billion, and his latest innovation is a way of giving away the profits of a company to continue his contribution to society — protecting and preserving the natural world.
As I always say, there are riches in the niches, and accidental entrepreneurs are the leading type of founders to discover a marketplace with little or no competition.

7. The Intentional Founder

Traits:

• Purpose-driven
• Strong ideals and values
• Passionate about the bigger picture impacts
• Socially conscious
• Clear and focused on the brand mission

Benefits:

• An empathetic approach to the product/the company
• Can educate, empower, and motivate others (i.e., team, customers)
• Employees are statistically more satisfied and likely to stay
• Commitment to a higher ideal engenders more loyalty and trust with the general public (customers)

Pitfalls:

• Moving from individual ideals to a group effort is tricky
• Difficult to find employees with perfectly aligned values
• Might not have the business experience to set the organization up for long-term success
• Purpose-driven (belief) isn’t the same as purpose-enabled (capability)
• Might be challenging for the company to survive the loss of the founder

Example: Jessica Alba
While Jessica Alba does have some touches of a Personality Founder (she is an actor) and an Accidental Founder (an allergic reaction to detergent made her worry about her new baby’s sensitive skin), she is an excellent example of an intentional founder. Back in 2008, when Alba had that allergic reaction, influencer marketing wasn’t what it is today — plus, she had some success but was by no means a household name. Ditto for eco-conscious consumer packaged goods — a plus, sure, but didn’t have the same urgency and importance it does today. Alba then spent years researching ingredients in everyday products and even went to DC to lobby for updates to the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act. Convinced that consumers need safe, affordable, environmentally friendly products for kids and home, Alba launched The Honest Company in 2011.
Now, she did have seasoned co-founders, her own wealth to use out the gates, and VC support shortly after that, but it has always been Alba’s commitment to and alignment with the brand’s core principles that have kept the brand growing and thriving — today, as a publicly traded company with a 2021 $412.8 IPO.
What type of founder are you? Definitely feel free to share in the comments.

I am having an extremely hard time finding a job as an Intermediate dev in Canada. Basically all of my applications are rejected immediately from any mid to large size company. I am pretty sure I know the answer why I am constantly rejected but I am hoping for some validation and other opinions. My resume is dialed, I have done resume workshops, and I tailor all of my resume and cover letters for the jobs I apply for. I present myself professionally and I have many years of experience working in an environment with engineers. Here's my profile in summary...

• Bootcamp Diploma from Lighthouse Labs
• Unrelated 2-year Diploma from a known Polytech College in Alberta.
• 10+ years experience in Oil and Gas as a Technologist
• 3 years professional dev experience on PHP/Typescript/Sass SSR product platform.
• Migrated our CMS platform and wrote all our custom server classes for handling data from the CMS
• Refactored all our ancient legacy code and libraries to Typescript and into a proper build process, so we could finally use Sass and npm libraries. This took months and there was something like 350,000 lines of code removed from our platform because of redundant or unused code. I configured Webpack to do this extremely efficiently, with very good chunk optimization.
• I learned Cypress and then created tests for our entire front-end so we actually had functional smoke tests. This was in conjunction with the refactor.
• White, Straight, Male - Very white sounding name

I think that I am being rejected for a few things, conspiracy or otherwise....

• I currently have 4 jobs on the go. Due to having a second kid, and my wife going on mat leave, I had to go back to my O&G job while working contract as a software dev. I have picked up multiple part time contract dev roles to try and stay sharp with my dev skills. Currently putting in like 60 hour weeks to make it work.
• Many job applications ask about my race, sexual orientation, and gender. I think I am losing against the DEI candidates. I have started putting "prefer not to answer" because I am feeling discriminated against. I also have an extremely white sounding name.
• My resume shows my age via my email address, I am in my late 30's. I think I may be being discriminated against for my age.
• I have a bootcamp diploma instead of a degree.
• My previous experience is in Oil and Gas (for many this is a red flag)

I don't think my experience or skills are really harming me other than not having Framework experience. I fully understand how to use React/Vue/AngulaSvelte, and the purpose of those frameworks. I've done many side projects that use those frameworks and I could explain in an interview exactly how they are used and why they are preferred.
I am at a loss otherwise. Please be nice, but also be straight with me.
Thanks

Reason: I have seen a lot of inconsistent answers for each of these individual mashups, and I would like to finally get a straight answer (that isn't "whoever the author wants" which doesn't work anyway because all of these characters were written by teams of multiple people)
All versions used are composites from any official media e.g. books, comics, manga, manhua, video games, reboots and remakes, crossovers of a similar power level to their original property, tabletop RPGs, card games, television, movies, etc... nobody has access to vehicles, orbital weaponry, or any teammates.
For the Space Marine specifically, his composite excludes named characters, psykers, techmarines, as well as mutations and chapter relics as he is generic, and he can wear armor no larger than terminator.
All start 333 meters apart, with only gear they can wear or carry (they are not carrying their entire arsenal unless they already do), they do not have prior knowledge of one another.
Round 1 Win Condition: Survive the longest. (cannot leave the battlefield)
Round 2 Win Condition: Kill all other competitors.

Advice needed please!
Trying out a nuzlocke-esque* play through of Run and Bun. I'm relatively new to nuzlocking but have done some on vanilla games in the past, this is my first try out of an ultra-hard ROM hack.
I've got through the early game split deathless, and with some good mons in tow, but I've been stuck on a decent plan for Brawly and just can't see a way through. No catch on Togedemaru or Vivilon means I don't really have a decent answer, and I expect the only consistent solution involves a sack or two.
Particularly tricky is the retaliate/eject button on Lopunny, and Hitmontop's pursuit locking me in.
The best I've got so far goes something along these lines:
Team = Exeggcute / Ponyta / Monferno / Lombre / Diggersby / SLOT FREE

• Lead with Exeggcute > sleep powder the sucker punch and knock out with double confusion.
• Baits in Combusken w/Incinerate > switch to Ponyta and can then 2HKO with bounces.
• Leaves Ponyta @ ~20%hp
• Then Lopunny comes in on boosted retaliate. Swap to Monferno who can take the hit, then quick attack to trigger eject.
• This baits Poliwhirl, so I swtich to Lombre and duke it out with slow mega-drains. This should KO w/ Lombre @ ~50% health (after Oran berry recovery).
• Lopunny is back again, so this time Diggersby takes the boosted hit. I mud shot to slow down, and with Oran/Cheek Pouch can stay healthy and knock out with a Double Kick.
• Then Hitmontop comes in and... I'm kind of stuck. He would likely go for Mach Punch but there is nothing I could switch to that can a) take the hit and b) not get OHKO by Rock Slide (FletchindeYanma) or just get out-paced on speed (e.g. back to Exeggcute).
• Added problem is even if I do find a way through without rinsing the remains of my team, I haven't even got to Scraggy yet who likely just sweeps up.

I still have my rare candy and two heart scales to invest. Potentially could get bounce on Diggersby @ level 22, but the calcs suggest it doesn't particularly help. Chewtle evolves into Dreadnaw but that also doesn't really solve the Hitmontop/Scraggy issues.
I've attached my showdown script with the full box.
Am I missing something? If anyone has any useful advice for this fight in general, or simply thinks I just need to brace to go back to the truck then that would be really helpful!
Thanks

Exeggcute @ Oran Berry Ability: Chlorophyll Level: 21 Rash Nature IVs: 7 HP / 9 Atk / 22 Def / 30 SpA / 24 SpD / 6 Spe - Bullet Seed - Confusion - Sleep Powder - Psybeam Diggersby @ Oran Berry Ability: Cheek Pouch Level: 21 Relaxed Nature IVs: 16 HP / 17 Atk / 17 Def / 30 SpA / 3 SpD / 31 Spe - Take Down - Mud Shot - Dig - Double Kick Monferno @ Oran Berry Ability: Vital Spirit Level: 21 Lonely Nature IVs: 31 HP / 31 Atk / 18 Def / 14 SpA / 23 SpD / 31 Spe - Flame Wheel - Low Sweep - Fire Spin - Mach Punch Ponyta Ability: Flame Body Level: 21 Hasty Nature IVs: 22 HP / 3 Atk / 31 Def / 7 SpA / 26 SpD / 20 Spe - Flame Wheel - Stomp - Bounce - Ember Seadra @ Oran Berry Ability: Sniper Level: 21 Naughty Nature IVs: 26 HP / 24 Atk / 4 Def / 0 SpA / 10 SpD / 13 Spe - Bubble Beam - Smokescreen - Clear Smog - Twister Lombre @ Oran Berry Ability: Swift Swim Level: 21 Hasty Nature IVs: 10 HP / 6 Atk / 21 Def / 1 SpA / 16 SpD / 12 Spe - Fake Out - Natural Gift - Mega Drain - Bubble Beam Nosepass Ability: Sturdy Level: 21 Lonely Nature IVs: 26 HP / 1 Atk / 22 Def / 10 SpA / 24 SpD / 18 Spe - Thunder Wave - Spark - Ancient Power - Rock Throw Tentacool Ability: Liquid Ooze Level: 21 Lax Nature IVs: 15 HP / 23 Atk / 31 Def / 20 SpA / 3 SpD / 30 Spe - Poison Sting - Water Pulse - Confuse Ray - Acid Buizel Ability: Water Veil Level: 21 Adamant Nature IVs: 21 HP / 24 Atk / 21 Def / 13 SpA / 9 SpD / 20 Spe - Aqua Jet - Sonic Boom - Water Pulse - Fake Out Hitmonlee Ability: Reckless Level: 21 Gentle Nature IVs: 18 HP / 23 Atk / 30 Def / 23 SpA / 29 SpD / 13 Spe - Tackle - Double Kick - Fake Out - Foresight Fletchinder Ability: Flame Body Level: 21 Bashful Nature IVs: 25 HP / 14 Atk / 3 Def / 28 SpA / 19 SpD / 12 Spe - Flame Charge - Growl - Quick Attack - Aerial Ace Yanma Ability: Compound Eyes Level: 21 Impish Nature IVs: 5 HP / 11 Atk / 4 Def / 3 SpA / 5 SpD / 23 Spe - Bug Bite - Air Cutter - Detect - Quick Attack Cufant Ability: Sheer Force Level: 21 Careful Nature IVs: 19 HP / 18 Atk / 21 Def / 1 SpA / 29 SpD / 21 Spe - Stomp - Bulldoze - Rock Throw - Rock Smash Palpitoad Ability: Poison Touch Level: 21 Adamant Nature IVs: 18 HP / 19 Atk / 23 Def / 6 SpA / 10 SpD / 29 Spe - Bubble - Mud Shot - Mud-Slap - Bubble Beam Chewtle Ability: Strong Jaw Level: 21 Hardy Nature IVs: 15 HP / 18 Atk / 10 Def / 14 SpA / 29 SpD / 14 Spe - Headbutt - Water Pulse - Bite - Ice Fang Eelektrik Ability: Levitate Level: 21 Mild Nature IVs: 18 HP / 9 Atk / 12 Def / 22 SpA / 17 SpD / 27 Spe - Thunder Wave - Spark - Shock Wave - Crunch 

\By nuzlocke esque I mean I keep to the core principles (e.g. one mon per area/route, faint = death etc.) but I'll be pretty liberal in clausing away misplays. This is for fun not glory!*

Previous Part
At some Point Bianca and I both fell back asleep. It was all I could do at this point, getting whisked away back to those mines seemed inevitable so I might as well sleep. The morning did not go well, largely due to Bianca, who threw me off the couch with a scream when she woke up.
“What’re you doing!”
Bianca squeaked, hand darting towards her pants pocket where her dagger would usually be. I woke up very quickly somewhere between the couch and the floor. I was fully awake by the time I was pushing myself back to me feet, raising my hands in a gesture of surrender.
“What’s going on?! You’re fine you just fell asleep on my couch!”
“Why were you… why was I?”
“Hey, calm down alright. We had a few drinks last night and I guess we both fell asleep on the couch together, that’s all that happened.”
I explained, leaving out the part where she pulled me back when I tried to go to my own room earlier.
“Yeah… yeah ok. Ugh my head is killing me.”
Bianca groaned, taking a breath or two then putting her head in her hands. I didn’t have the heart to tell her she was probably hungover so I just went to the kitchen to make something for her.
I decided on toast and some bananas, it was always a go to for me after a long night. In hindsight I probably should’ve seen her reaction coming. Look at what she did in the caves because that guy grabbed her, it can’t be that much better waking up on someones shoulder and not quite remembering it. The whole thing did give me second thoughts though. If she was such a live wire did I really want her stressing out over the trials and whatever that would bring? I suppose it was too late for that though, she’d already moved herself into my house so she could keep watch, for all the good that did seeing as Shaoni waltzed right in last night.
I still had a lot on my mind when the smell of burning toast sobered me up. I swore and ran over to salvage what I could of the blackening toast.
“What’s burning in here?”
Bianca asked a little worry creeping into her voice. She still had her head clasped firmly between her hands as she walked into the kitchen.
“Breakfast”
I replied flatly, holding my arms out to either side gesturing to the mild chaos I was causing. Bianca gave me an questioning, “thanks” and grabbed the plate I had made for her while I tried to think of what to do next. Like it or not, Shaoni had people coming to pick me up and take me back out to those caves today. I had to come up with some kind of game plan and right now, it seemed letting Frank and Stein know was the best idea.
Bianca stayed back at my place nursing her hangover when I left to visit the mad scientist duo. I had no problem with that, in fact it was probably best because I’m sure she would’ve insisted on going with me if she heard I planed to take Shaoni’s “invitation”. I wasn’t sure if Shaoni would let me take Bianca with me and personally I’d rather not push her buttons and try to negotiate bringing a plus one.
“Have you seen Bianca at all?”
Frank asked hurriedly as I came in. I was afraid of this, She hadn’t told them anything and just disappeared.
“Yeah, she pretty much moved the contents of her room to my couch yesterday. Something about keeping an eye on me, she’s fine though, I wouldn’t worry.”
I answered, a little worried myself that I’d catch hell from them if they knew she was currently working her way through her first hangover on that same couch. Frank seemed to calm down at that and finally got to asking the important questions like why was I back in the house… again.
“So let us get this straight, you just plan to go right to Shaoni?”
Frank and Stein said together in disbelief as the three of us sat at the kitchen table.
“It’s not like I really have a choice in the matter, besides I can’t really fight her if she wants me to go somewhere. If I try a stunt like that things go from bad to worse for me.”
They both shook their heads in solemn agreement, recognizing I was right.
“Anyways, I had a thought on the way over here, Thunderbirds are something from native American legend right? Well, if we’ve found a real one wouldn’t she have ties to a tribe or something in the area? She was sleeping here when they woke her up in the mine, maybe there was a reason for that, maybe she was close to home?”
I explained, hoping g they’d catch on to what I was asking.
“What exactly are you getting at then Keith?”
Frank questioned, furrowing his brow with an intrigued look on his face. Stein just remained silent but I could tell he was thinking, maybe even coming to the same conclusion as I had.
“What I’m thinking, is we check reservations in the area. Maybe they know something about the creature from their legends that just so happened to be sleeping nearby. I know it’s a stretch but maybe we could learn something useful. I’d go myself but I’m not going to have the chance. You guys though, you guys could take Bianca and Rocco with you and ask around.”
I explained, hoping I was onto something. I was pulling at straws but it was the best idea I had at a moments notice. Plus it would get Bianca out of town for a little while when I was figuring out what exactly Shaoni’s trails would mean for me.
“Keith that’s… no that actually makes sense let me check some maps.”
Stein agreed, walking away and into the basement. He came back a few minutes later with a map in his hand.
“There’s a Seneca reservation not to far from here, maybe 30 miles. That’s not the only one but I have a friend there from years ago, someone I helped. There’s a good chance he’d be willing to return the favor.”
“Great, then I’ll count on you. I’ll let Bianca know, I’m sure she won’t be happy about it but I’ll feel better if she’s with all of you.”
I walked out in a rush to get back home, almost stepping on Rocco on my way to the door. He made a frightening chittering hissing sound at me as he leapt out of my path. I briefly wondered where he was going and what he was up to, probably better I didn’t know though. As I got onto the bike and headed back towards home I hoped I’d be able to talk Bianca into going along with this plan. I was sure she’d rather come with me but after this morning I wasn’t sure she was ready for that. Don’t get me wrong I’m sure she wants to help and I know she means well but she’s jumpy and snaps at the littlest things. I didn’t want her to make things worse by accident or get hurt because she froze up again. My mind was made up as I drew nearer to my house but as it turned out I’d never have the chance to talk to Bianca. As soon as I rounded the corner I saw the rusty pick up waiting in front of my house, I’d arrived just in time to meet Shaoni’s “helpers”.
The men looked normal, just like the people in the cave. Come to think of it they could very well be those same people. I waved them over as I came to a stop in-front of the house.
“Can I just go in and grab a few things?”
I asked the three men sheepishly as I walked up.
“No, your late as it is, we’ve got to get going.”
A scruffy looking man with a gruff voice said from the drivers seat. Two men got out from the back of the truck and grabbed my arms, pulling me into the back seat. They weren’t rough with me but they were very firm. Like they wanted to hurt me but were ordered not to so they just made a show of force. After I was loaded into the back I saw the reason for their demeanor. One of the men, the one in the front passenger seat, was wrapped in bandages. The bandages covered his abdomen and snaked up around the back of his neck. It was pretty obvious to me that this was the man Bianca had stabbed. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say these four were probably the same ones we had encountered in the cave. As I turned and looked out the window I saw Bianca’s face peaking out of it. She looked angry and scared, like she knew exactly what was happening but she didn’t move. Bianca just sat there, watching me be taken away and I cursed myself for not being just a little bit faster on the ride back.
We took a way out of town I’d never seen before, turning away from the road leading to the dirt path we had biked down on our expedition into the forest. Instead we drove back through town, past Bianca’s house and the Eagle’s Roost before hanging a right onto a road I’d never been down. Eventually the road made its way into the forest and ended at a wooden sign warning that the road was impassable ahead. The driver stopped the truck and got out as another man emerged from the woods, holding up his hand and opening it to reveal the eagle tattoo I’d become so familiar with. The driver rolled up his sleeve and showed his own similar tattoo. Without a word he got back into the truck and the other man moved the sign off the road. It didn’t fill me with confidence to see the entrance to this place watched in such a way. It would make sense to have it hidden but being so brazenly out in the open meant they didn't really care who saw it. Not that anyone would think anything other than that the road was impassable but still. The truck eventually pulled off the road and into the woods, following a newly made track that lead to the entrance of the old mine that we escaped from just 2 days ago.
“I think you know your way in.”
The driver growled at me, parking the truck and signaling me to step out.
“Your just letting me walk myself in? Couldn’t I just run?”
“You could but do you think you could outrun her?”
He asked threateningly, pointing up at the sky. I knew exactly who he was talking about and no, I didn’t like my chances of running from Shaoni.
“She gave us all orders to leave any runners to her.”
At that moment I decided it may be good idea to be on my best behavior.
“Yeah that’s what I thought.”
The driver barked back at me as I obediently walked towards the entrance.
Walking into the mine I realized it had undergone a huge transformation in a very short time. The walls were now host to several torches that lit the pathway back down to the coliseum. It felt like I was walking into the dark ages as I made my way down into this pit by torchlight. Although I had to admit it was homey in an “evil layer” kind off way. The coliseum was lit up with torchlight as well but its not what drew my attention. Where the awful metal structure met the stone roof of the cave I looked into a brewing storm. Lightning flashed across the roof but there was no sound of thunder. Raindrops shown in the shadows cast by the lightning but I felt none of them on my skin. I had to admit, it was a pretty impressive trick. Paintings adorned the walls, all of them seeming to be tribal in nature. Many seemed to be various depictions of the thunderbird.
“Well at least she doesn’t have an ego”
I chuckled to myself as I walked into the center off the coliseum.
There were four other people waiting in the center of the floor. A clean shaven, well dressed man relaxed against the wall of the arena. He had perfectly trimmed slicked back blonde hair and a chiseled face. His rippling muscles seemed to be for vanity rather than strength. Just by looking at him I could tell I wasn’t going to like him. The only one of the bunch I knew, Robert, stood on the far side of the coliseum, watching me approach. He looked about the same as he had from the brief glance I got at the Eagle’s Roost. Balding white hair and a unkempt beard hung off his sagging face. Despite his age he carried himself with purpose, like he deserved to be there and wanted everyone else to know it. Then there was the blonde bombshell that was making her way towards the chiseled blonde guy. She seemed incredibly confident in herself but none of it was a show. Her confidence came from a place that made her absolutely sure of it. The final person stood in the corner and seemed to be talking to himself. He was a middle aged man of native American descent with a mess of black hair atop his head. He carried a look in his eyes that spoke of wisdom beyond his years.
I walked past all of them and took a seat on the floor, trying my hardest to ignore them. The effort was ultimately wasted as the muscular blonde guy walked over and held out a hand.
“Hey, my names Brooke, you are?”
My blood turned to ice as he said that, it couldn’t be the same Brooke Bianca told me about, could it? I stared dumbly at him for a moment before I responded.
“I’m… uh… Keith. Any idea what we’re doing here?”
“No clue, only know that the thunderbird wanted us here so we came. Hopefully she makes good on her promise, to me at least.”
His voice sounded like the “to cool for you” bully from any 80’s movie, it was almost annoying to listen to him.
“So you’ve met everyone else I take it?”
“Yeah, the weird guy in the corner is John, we don’t know much about him but apparently him and that Robert guy, the old one with the beard, worked for the thunderbird. Katrina, that beauty over there is a wild card, no-one seems to know anything about her but she looks like she’s hot shit and well, just plain hot.”
As Brooke gave me the run down of everyone in the room I quietly wondered to myself if Shaoni had given everyone the same offer as me. The way Brooke had said it, “promise”… that wasn’t how I would’ve phrased it. Maybe Shaoni cut everyone here a unique deal.
“…Anyways, I’m gonna go see if I can’t figure out that bombshell’s deal, I’ll see ya later Keith.”
Apparently Brooke had been talking to me the whole time but I only tuned in for the tail end of it as he walked off toward Katrina. I wondered where exactly Shaoni was, I had expected her to be here already but, as it turned out I wouldn’t have to wait long.
A thunderous boom cracked out above our heads and we all looked up at once, but the sound was coming from outside. I heard the flap of wings as Shaoni came in for a landing somewhere above our heads. It went so silent we could’ve heard a mosquito cough, then Shaoni stepped into the room. Not from either entrance but from a balcony above us I hadn’t seen before. She was wearing the same thing she had been when I ran into her in the cave, once again looking like a hardened, tattooed Pocahontas.
“Welcome everyone! I take it you’ve gotten to know each other?”
She thundered down to us as we all shot to attention.
“I’ve gathered you here to give a gift to one of you, but you must prove yourselves deserving. I’ve told some of you what I intended to do here and others may be hearing it for the first time. So for those of you who are gathering here for the first time pay attention. There will be three trials held here, one to test your morals, one to test your strength, and one to test your judgement.”
At this point Brooke spoke up in the way only a spoiled little shit like him could.
“You made me a promise! You never said anything about trials! I got all the way out here to this shitty little backwater and now your telling me I’ve got to compete to earn what you owe me?! Sorry, but I’m going to need more than that.”
Shaoni looked like she could’ve ended him right there. She was the judge and jury here, if Brooke wasn’t careful she’d become the executioner too.
“What you asked me for is in this town, that’s all I will say on the matter.”
Shaoni responded with less venom than I had expected judging by her expression. She didn’t actually seem to care that she had to tell him something to shut him up. It was the insult of being interrupted that struck a nerve. I was a little concerned by what she said, if he was looking for something that was in town and Bianca was there… could he be looking for her? “…Today though, just enjoy the company of one another. You’re all welcome to stay here at the camp I’ve had prepared for you outside. If you wish to return to town you may but you will be watched. No-one is to leave town until the trials are completed.”
Shaoni finished, I hadn’t really been listening to her welcome speech. She said everything I cared about when she told us what the trials where going to test for, after that I kind of tuned out. Shaoni disappeared in a flash, just like she had back at my house the day before and with that the five of us were alone again. I left, heading back outside to see this camp she mentioned. The others talked with each other but I really had no desire to. That didn’t stop Robert from running to catch up with me, wheezing when he got there.
“Hey you’re the one who ran out of the bar the other night! She’s said a lot about you, I’d almost think she had a favorite.”
Robert huffed out between breaths, punching me in the arm in a friendly but wholly unwelcome way.
“I’ve heard you know nothing about the supernatural, I’d be happy to tell you what I’ve seen working with Shaoni.”
Robert offered, fishing for any reason to hold a conversation with me.
“No, that’s alright really, I’ll manage. What do you guys do anyways, working for her I mean? I get the sense she could really run this whole operation on her own if she wanted.”
“She probably could do this alone. Most of the time we don’t work directly with her, this is a special case for those of us she’s got helping with the trials. There’s maybe 50 of us total and not just here, I mean 50 of us overall. She’s very selective with the followers she keeps so there isn’t many of us. We tend to sit around up-holding her ideals till she asks something of us through dreams, like the ones that brought you here.”
Robert explained, confusing me a little bit. I found it hard to believe a crew of 50 people got everything here done. I guess it wasn’t to outlandish when put in perspective though. If you told me Shaoni got all this done herself I probably would’ve believed you so 50 people organized by her, yeah I could see that.
“Wait, so you guys barley ever actually work with her, and what are her ideals exactly?”
“Have you heard the legends of the thunderbird? A lot of it depicts the thunderbird as a spirit of justice that fights evil spirits from the underworld, that’s really watered down but you get the point. I’ve never seen her do anything like that but she does uphold a certain sense of justice and that’s what she expects of us. Sure, she seems really intimidating but she wants to right wrongs that no one else will, it makes her a little harsh but she has to be. We just do that same thing when we aren’t getting orders right from her. Maybe you think she’s in the wrong here because she pulled you into this but we really want to help, sometimes there’s a price for that.”
Robert lectured, you could tell he really believed in what he was saying though. He may have been older but when he was telling me about the thunderbird and what she stood for he was filled with vigor again. Maybe he’s not as bad as I thought, I wanted all these people working for her to be some kind of weird cult like in Imalone. The more I heard the more I doubted that. They were people who followed her for a reason, not just because she gave them some kind of power. In reality I think what she really gave them was purpose. That sort of thing is more than enough for most people to follow someone.
When I broke away from Robert and got outside I found a huge camp had been set up while we were in the cave. Tepees of various sizes had been constructed all around the entrance to the old mine and one big canvas tent had a huge table running through it filled with food. For 50 people these followers of the thunderbird sure worked fast. I hadn’t decided if I wanted to go back to town yet. I hoped Frank and Stein had convinced Bianca to go with them, at least then they could get some answers while I was stuck here. If they were gone though what reason did I have to go back? As long as I was out here surrounded by people who work with Shaoni maybe I could get some answers of my own. I wasn’t really sure what information about Shaoni would do for us but she was a mystery to me. Everyone was here for a reason, I agreed to take on a burden, Brooke was here because of some promise Shaoni made, and I’m sure the rest had similar stories. Shaoni gained nothing from any of that though, besides this burden I had agreed to take. I’m not sure why, but it felt like figuring out what She stood to gain from this was important. If I could do that maybe I could put the pieces to this puzzle together. Two people had pointed out I knew nothing about the supernatural as well, Shaoni and Robert. That didn’t seem to matter to much to me but if all the others here had some experience in it maybe it should. It seemed like we were all on a level playing field though, Brooke hadn’t heard about the trials and neither had I. Robert and that strange John guy probably had some idea but they worked with Shaoni, I would expect them to know. Katrina, the blonde was probably just as surprised as Brooke, if I had to guess. None of us knew exactly what the trials would test for, so why did everyone keep brining up not knowing about the supernatural like it put me at a disadvantage?
“Why indeed.”
A familiar voice said, sending lightning through my veins and breaking my train of thought. I just about tossed the turkey leg I’d been eating directly at the source of the noise.
“Shaoni, you have got to stop doing that.”
I said, crawling back into my skin after she scared me out of it. Shaoni still looked just as she had when she addressed us earlier, adorned in her animal skins and feathers. It took me a second but it finally clicked that she had said something strange when she sat down next to me.
“Hang on a minute, can you read my mind? Was I thinking out loud or something?”
“No, you just looked lost in thought and I figured I’d chime in.”
“Oh, alright… why?”
I squeaked out, abruptly realizing that this was Shaoni, the thunderbird who was sitting next to me. There was a second there where I wasn’t as intimidated by her as I normally was but it had passed quickly.
“I wanted to know how your doing, I know all this can’t be easy to take in.”
“I’m doing fine, I think I’m adjusting pretty well but I did want to ask you some questions.”
An amused look ran across Shaoni’s face at this. She wasn’t being as commanding as before either, she almost seemed to genuinely care about my well-being.
“Would you walk with me, I’ll answer your questions on the way.”
Shaoni asked, standing and waiting for me to follow her. Not seeing any better options I stood up and left alongside her.
We walked around the perimeter of the camp, out of ear shot of anyone else. I’m sure she did that on purpose, though I wasn’t sure if it was so no-one could hear my screams if I asked a question she didn’t like or if she just wanted privacy.
“Why me Shaoni? Why chose me out of everyone, was it just a coincidence?”
“Straight to the point hmm. Think Keith, when I found you in the position you were in you needed my help. Sure, I planned to dispose of the cultists that were threatening you anyways but I stopped to help you. You saw me descend from the sky, swoop down, and bring them to their knees, I extended an offer to you and you just took it. You didn’t bargain or ask for anything more after I shattered your perception of what does and doesn’t exist, just accepted my offer. Most people would have bargained, tried to look for a better deal for themselves but you saw what the price of my help would be and paid it, no second thoughts. That interested me Keith, you recognized what had to be done and didn’t try to avoid the cost, that’s why I chose you.”
“So I appealed to whatever sense of justice you have? That’s it, that’s the only reason?”
She looked almost hurt as I asked this and she stopped walking. I definitely stepped on a nerve, I expected her to snap but she didn’t, She just asked very quietly,
“Do you think I’m a monster Keith?”
I was stunned by the question. Could I really say she was a monster? What had she done so far? Save me, that’s what, was that really so monstrous? Sure it may have come at a cost but nothing is ever free. Shaoni even came to warn me about the trials ahead of time, just barely ahead of time but it was something.
“No Shaoni, you’re not a monster just… someone with the powers you have… it’s terrifying for a normal person. Can you really say I’m in the wrong for being afraid of you?”
Even as I said it I knew it was a lie, at least partially. I wasn’t just afraid of her, I wanted her to be evil and she just wasn’t, not really. Maybe she was a bit intense but everything she had done to me so far couldn’t be called evil.
“Fear is only natural when you see something like me, but I’m not a monster. The thunderbird has always stood for justice. That’s what I represent, I can’t be everywhere but I make it a point to uphold justice where I am. Those who I’ve chosen to follow me hold my justice in their own town, in their own lives. I can be harsh but I am just.”
She said this with such intensity I had no choice but to believe her. Her conviction to justice was zealous but I still wanted to pry a little bit more.
“So what does justice mean to you then? I don’t mean to be disrespectful but I want to hear it from you,”
I asked, growing a little more confident in talking to Shaoni. For once I didn’t feel like she would kill me on a whim. Give her a reason, and Shaoni would do it without a second thought but I don’t think she cared that much about my questioning.
“Justice is black and white, right and wrong. Normally there’s a pretty good system in place to punish those that deserve it but sometimes things slip through the cracks, that’s where I come in. I take care of the heinous acts people get away with, people that think they’ve gotten away with murder, so to speak.”
“So your a vigilante then? That’s what I’m hearing here.”
“I wouldn’t be so crass but yes, I suppose you could call me a vigilante but I promise you that’s an oversimplification. Suffice it to say my opinion on matters of serving justice is respected.”
Shaoni seemed a little uncomfortable at the word “respect”, I think a better word would’ve been “feared”. I wasn’t going to say it to her but I knew she suspected it. I could see something about that really hurt her. I couldn’t put my finger on it, the reason Shaoni didn’t want to be feared. Despite being the scariest thing I’d seen so far she didn’t want to be known for that.
We talked for a while longer about a whole lot of nothing. Eventually we got back around to the camp and she bid me goodnight despite the fact it was 3 in the afternoon at the time. She was probably right though, I was going to need the rest if I wanted to be ready for the first trial tomorrow. I found my way to a tepee conveniently marked with my name. I didn’t remember it being marked before and I didn’t understand the point of giving us specific tepees, privacy I guess? The fur sleeping bag was a rustic but welcome touch and despite lacking the amenities of a usual home the tepee was quite comfortable. As I settled in for the night I heard a rustling on the far side of the tepee, then a voice, one whose heavy accent I recognized immediately.
“So, turns out they don’t check under the truck. Ya got me here with you now.”
Rocco said, emerging from a blanket in the corner. That revelation didn’t exactly set my mind at ease. Rocco must’ve sensed my apprehension to the fact that he was anywhere near me right now.
“What?! I’m here to help out! I heard you going on about a trial or somethin’ so I figured I’d tag along under that truck when they picked you up, can’t have enough back up ya know.”
He continued, pulling a belt with several tools out from under the blanket as he spoke. I wasn’t pleased to have him here but maybe I could make use of him.
“I was hoping you’d go with Bianca and the other two but honestly, it might be nice to have a friendly face around here. Just… try to stay out of trouble.”
“Trouble? When do I ever get into trouble?”
I hoped he was being sarcastic, you can never tell with him. I bit my tongue as Rocco walked out into the camp, silently praying no-one would see him. With that I settled into my sleeping bag and tried to think of what I could expect from the first trial tomorrow.

How can we stop going around in circles with these corrupted nihilists? (basically an extreme religious-nut but in reverse; no meaning, no value, no good/bad, nothing matters) I've compiled some of my thoughts/comments.

But first If you are not caught up yet:
1 Re: Vegan Gains ...The Militant Vegan Raffaela Interview - (May 12, 2024)
2 Vegan Gains is a sub-Jerkivest [5/11/24]
3 Moral Realism Debate w/ Inmendham - (May 16, 2024)
4 WTF #899: The vegan gains debate ... Value realism - (May 19, 2024)
5 Vegan Gains ...Denialism is the only nihilism [5/19/24]
also saw this Controversial Topics with Vegan Gains (Horse Riding, Bivalves, Depression, and much more!) - (May 11, 2024) ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ (he thinks in terms of some dogmatic religious brain-rot morality source of right/wrong, but a kind of reversed/opposite conclusion of it's absence, nihilism)
the very reason religion was invented in the first place was because humans by nature had a value-engine driving them & NEED for meaning, that's the irony. value gave rise to religion, religion never needed to grant value. The fact people can't grasp this. 🤦 ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎

Now onto the various arguments, sorry how long and out of order it is But the idea is to provoke you coming up with better ideas/arguments, and if you can critic and strenghen my and ultimately inmendham's arguments. The GOAL should be to Create a formal argument AKA a syllogism, modus ponens. Something clear and concise that can't be taken out of context or misinterpreted, as happened with the debate...

On the subject of Efilism, tread lightly, the philosophy and argument extends beyond merely focusing on suffering; it also includes the critical issue of consent violation. Its proponent and creator, Inmendham, argues for value realism, which contrasts starkly with the notion of subjective morality which I find illogical. While objective morality is full of baggage... often linked to outdated religious doctrine so on face value it's not fun or easy subject to broach... many contemporary non-religious ethicists ground it in realism. Personally me, inmendham and others see no use for the term "morality" as it's tainted. value-realism is the subject. Is it a value-laden universe or not?
it is not necessary to call TRUE/REAL right or wrong Objective, because if objective is defined as mind-independent than without minds there's nothing right/wrong to happen to, therefore THE discussion should be just regarding what is TRUE or NOT, subjective doesn't necessarily mean mere contrived opinion or preference but can be logical conclusion, e.g. you can conclude 2 + 2 = 4 as we understand these concepts of numbers to model reality but can you call it objective or mind-independent 2 + 2 = 4, or that math exists? Not really. As you require a modeler to model reality, an observer to make the observation, a mind to come to such accurate conclusions. To me, claiming there is no real right or wrong is akin to asserting that moral standards and ultimately the subject of Ethics is as fictitious as religion or Santa Claus, you just believe it cause you want to or have preference to. Why maintain this pretense if it's all a mere fabrication / contrivance?
Regarding subjective judgments such as determining "What's the tastiest potato chip or the most beautiful painting?", these are not factual assessments about the things themselves, The question itself is misleading, because the thing itself has none of those qualities objectively, Instead, such qualities are OUTPUTs generated by the interaction of our bodies and minds with these INPUT items, the input is quite arbitrary/irrelevant, unlike the highly meaningful & distinct output generated of positive or negative experiences. You might get off more on certain female body part than another, it doesn't matter, the output positives & negatives is more or less same among individuals and that's what's relevant... not what specific fun or hobby gets you or them off or pushes their buttons.
It can be TRUE that a certain food item is the tastiest to that personal individual, or gross to another, and we can talk about intersubjective truths with averages overall. But one's experience of what is tastiest for them doesn't contradict another's, they can both be true for them individually, as you are likely not even sharing the same exact experiences to judge differently. And one's very perception or framing of the experience changes the experience itself, no way around this truth. Some people find bricks tasty or edible, just how their brain is wired.
It's important to recognize that differing opinions of personal taste do not inherently conflict in the way ethical contradictions do. With ethical matters, asserting that two diametrically opposed views are equally valid is problematic, either one is right and the other wrong, or both might be based on flawed reasoning. Pretending 2 opposing ethical views can be both equally right/true/correct is utter contradictory mush, either one of them must be right / wrong, or both are contrived meaningless nothing opinions, just made up. you wouldn't say whether one believes in god or not IS mere personal opinion/preference and such 2 opposing views can be equally right at same time, that's utter contradictory nonsense, by saying 2 opinions that gRAPE is both good & bad at same time are equally right opinons, right loses all meaning and you might as well say neither is right and both are wrong, they each have their own contrived fairytale delusion.
Now with Ethics of right / wrong, it does not depend on one single individual's preference or opinion, but taken as the whole, if you violate one without consent you still have to account for that since you are seemingly putting the weight on the preference otherwise preferences are utterly meaningless and irrelevant.
ALSO, Do you call whatever you prefer what's right, or do you prefer to try to do what is right?
Do you prefer to seek out what is the right most accurate conclusion given all the facts of reality, or contrive right to be what's in your preference/interest or personal gain?
I don't think VG or most these talking heads understand value-realism (problematic events within subjectivity/a non-physical but REAL reality of the mind). Obviously there's no objective divine or otherwise prime-directive moral-rules we must follow. Unfortunately Religion has poisened the conversation so much with archaic ideas and mushy terms like 'Morality'. Understand there is no 'moral truth', let alone an objective one, ofc if you pigeon-hole me or all realists into defending such nonsense it's easy to refute them. What I'm interested in is subject of Ethics, and to start whether or not value/problematic events exist or do not exist.
Here's a silly question by nihilists: "why is suffering bad?"
Response: How do you identify suffering? Based on the fact that it feels bad. (Yes subjectively) Just as we can subjectively understand 2+2 = 4
Or this: "prove suffering bad, objectively"
Also question-begging, obviously it is subjective. If such badness cannot exist mind-independently by definition.
"Prove suffering is bad, objectively"
is begging the question, because...
It strawmans / assumes the badness must be bad mind-independently, it isn't therefore, it isn't bad.
Answer this, evolutionarily do animals PERCEIVE being tortured skinned alive nail in the eye as BAD, or does it impose torture which we RECOGNIZE and define as Bad by definition?
If true PAIN/torture isn't bad then why does it exist evolutionarily? Answer: (problem -> solution) mechanism which functions as ability to learn & improved survival, this mechanism was reinforced over time as it worked.
inmendham & realists like myself argue: it is the case Descriptively, Objectively evolution IMPOSED Prescriptive-value-judgements onto animals which function as a learning/problem solving mechanism. Fact is, the invention of 'PROBLEM' is something I/we/animals had nothing to do with... (no-free-will-choice) but are simply byproduct in observation of this fact.
If real PROBLEM(s) didn't truly exist then Arguably the word and conceptual understanding it points 👉 to wouldn't exist either. As if beings could be truly blind never seeing colors/vision yet pulling the idea out of thin air and conceiving of such a thing, how preposterous, that'd be giving human creativity/imagination way too much credit. The only nihilist argument then is that by evolution we & all feeling organisms are somehow ultimately deluded or have illusion of problem where there is none, which I find deeply implausible. Run the torture study/experiment a million times putting people's arm in the fire "yep still bad". Filtering out people who lack ability to feel pain of course.
As evolutionary biologists even states pain is a message to the animal "don't do that again". Can't get descriptively prescriptive more than that.
Are You Getting It?
The Ought is literally baked in as an IS. The is-ought gap to be bridged is a complete Red-Herring, yes you can't derive an Ought from an IS, because if you oughtn't do something, then it can never be BAD... problematic/BAD/torture can't mean anything if it doesn't scream OUGHT-not.
All you have to agree to is due to evolution it created torture which is decidedly negative/ inherently BAD, by definition. Otherwise it wouldn't feel bad or be torturous at all... THEN ask yourself, how can something be BAD yet it's not BAD to create that BAD?
This is Checkmate. These are irrefutable Facts & Logical deductions.
So much for it all being false-perception, the very fact placebo patients perceive an otherwise harmless laser as BAD/painful makes it so. It's the TRUE reality in their mind and you can't deny that fact. It's also a fact believing a pain isn't really all that bad can make it so, but this doesn't make these value-laden experiences NOT real/true.
As per evolution, your body/brain's mechanisms must generate & impose a prescriptive-value-judgement / problematic event within your mind,
It's nagging, complaining, telling you keeping your hand on the hot stove is a mistake/problematic/bad. (not in itself but as a consequence)
I believe this brain making me write all this... is making an accurate assessment when it observe certain events to be problematic/bad where it's happening which is within subjectivity, where's your evidence my perceptions are fooling me or I'm somehow deluded? I witnessed the crime take place and you were nowhere near the crime scene yet you have the authority to claim otherwise as fact? (You are not simply agnostic to my problem suffering but a De-nihilist)
Once one accepts this evolutionary fact we can move on to more complicated questions regarding ethics, like how do weigh the good & the bad, conflicting preferences, etc. Otherwise, it's all pointless & futile, like arguing bivalves or wild-suffering with a non-vegan. They're just not on that level yet and it's a waste of time.
revised version of my other comment: I believe that many discussions around morality miss a crucial point about value-realism, which acknowledges problematic events within subjectivity, a non-physical but real reality of the mind. It is evident that there are no objective, divine, or prime-directive moral rules we must follow. Unfortunately, religion has muddied the conversation with archaic ideas and terms like 'morality'.
There is no 'moral truth,' especially not an objective one. If critics pigeonhole realists into defending such notions, it becomes easy to refute them. My interest lies in ethics and whether value/problematic events exist.
Consider this question by nihilists: "Why is suffering bad?"
Response: Suffering is identified because it feels bad, subjectively. Just as we subjectively understand 2+2=4, we can recognize suffering through its unpleasant experience.
When asked to "prove suffering is bad, objectively," this is question-begging, as the question assumes that the badness must exist independently of minds, which it does not by definition. This question straw-mans the issue by requiring mind-independent badness, ignoring the subjective nature of suffering. As if the quality of it being BAD must be granted by something outside the experience itself.
Evolutionary Perspective: Animals perceive and react to torture (e.g., being skinned alive) as bad because evolution has imposed mechanisms that signal harm. Pain serves as a problem-solving mechanism, reinforcing behaviors that enhance survival. If pain and suffering weren't inherently problematic, they wouldn’t exist in the form they do.
Realists like myself argue that evolution has objectively imposed prescriptive-value judgments on animals. The concept of 'problem' or 'bad' arises from these evolutionary mechanisms, not from free will. The existence of these concepts indicates the reality of these problematic experiences.
If real problems didn’t exist, neither would the concepts describing them. This is akin to how beings blind from birth wouldn’t conceive of color. Suggesting that evolutionary processes have universally deluded all feeling organisms into perceiving problems where there are none is implausible.
As evolutionary biologists state, pain signals to the animal, "don't do that again," which is descriptively prescriptive. The 'ought' is embedded within the 'is.' Thus, the is-ought gap is a red herring because prescriptive judgments are evolutionarily ingrained.
Again, How do you identify suffering? Based on the fact that it feels bad. (Yes subjectively) Just as we can subjectively understand 2+2 = 4
All you have to agree to is due to evolution it created torture which is decidedly negative/ inherently BAD, by definition. Otherwise it wouldn't feel bad or be torturous at all... THEN ask yourself, how can something be BAD yet it's not BAD to create that BAD?
Conclusion: By acknowledging that evolution created inherently negative experiences like torture, we accept that these experiences are bad by definition. Denying the badness of creating bad experiences is contradictory. Therefore, once recognizing the true reality of subjective experiences, only then we can move on to complex ethical questions about weighing good and bad and addressing conflicting preferences.
playing devil's advocate let's try Steelman their position and then arrive at the logical conclusions of it and then perhaps refute it. If they say: "veganism = right" realize there is no contradiction IF by 'right' they just mean it's literally nothing but their preference...
There's no goal to prefer to know/do what's right, RATHER what's right is whatever matches our personal preferences, so unlike flat earther vs round earth beliefs/CLAIMs which can contradict/conflict with each other since either 1 is right or both are wrong. Individual tastes don't.
Whereas if VG says 9 people gRAPE the 1 kid for fun is WRONG because he's a threshold-deontologist but Also RIGHT to a hedonistic utilitarian, Those views only contradict/conflict if they are making VALUE-claims or recognizing a problematic event take place. However, with VG apparently he would have to say he's not claiming or labelling anything as TRULY problematic at all but merely describing his preferences like flavor of ice cream...
Now, of course, as the realist, I find such a view more deplorable/worse than if they were merely agnostic on right/wrong. Cause it's one thing to say there's a right answer to questions of Ethics but we have no objective scientific basis to determine it yet or lack knowledge VS saying they have knowledge there is absolutely no right or wrong.
Under Anti-realism nihilism, what they mean by wrong/right, is just their preference, if I understand correctly (which I'm quite sure) Anti-realism nihilism reduces the Subject of Ethics down to nothing but you or someone else pontificating/opining (i.e "me no like torture") . It defends some sort of expressivism, emotivism, normative, prescriptive reduction of Ethics. Which I find lubricious and has to be a mistake,
I don't see anyone playing any different game even the nihilists invest their money and plan ahead for self-interest, no one truly signs up for torture for fun like it's no problem, and runs away from pleasure happiness as bad. Further, it stands to reason... since we can recognize objectively evolution created a punishment mechanism to enforce learning and survival, BAD/PROBLEM as a concept is something I/WE/Animals had nothing to do with. We didn't invent it, we recognize it and respond accordingly. Even evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins stated that pain is a message to the organism 'don't do that again!'
We must address further the flawed logic of VG and other nihilists reducing Ethics down to mere arbitrary preferences like potato chip flavor, or how much salt you prefer in the soup. As it is completely disanalogous & dishonest upon reflection. QUOTE: "There's no arguing against Efilism, it's just personal opinion. Like arguing what tastes better... ice-cream or potato chips?"
Say if you believe that the mona-lisa is beautiful, and I personally find it ugly, this conflicts/contradicts nothing because it claims nothing in terms about that object or reality outside of our own minds.
such qualities are OUTPUTs generated by body/mind from these INPUTs, the input is quite arbitrary/irrelevant, unlike the highly meaningful & distinct output generated of positive or negative experiences.
it doesn't matter what specific fun or hobby gets them off or pushes their buttons in order for it MATTER, those differences don't make it any less real OR all mere subjective opinion. the output positives & negatives is more or less same among individuals and that's what's relevant...
It can be TRUE that a certain food item is the tastiest to some personal individual, or gross to another, one's experience of what is tastiest for them doesn't contradict another's, they can both be true for them individually because it is the reality in their mind, Some people find bricks tasty or edible, just how their brain is wired.
while one person may find a certain food delicious, another may find it repulsive, without invalidating each other's experiences because they are true for them individually. both experiences are valid/correct.
However, actions that disregard another's negative experience invalidate their reality. if you find being boiled alive problematic and I do it anyway believing it's ok, I am invalidating your experience as either not real, relevant, doesn't matter, or my preferences are more important (carry more weight) than yours. Or simply believe it's ALL equal or arbitrary and I just prefer to exploit you so I do that.
Positive or negative experiences are largely consistent among people, making them relevant, regardless of the specific stimuli. Individual truths about taste or preference coexist without contradiction, reflecting each person's value-generated reality.
This cannot honestly be applied to one's mere opinion it's fine to boil kids alive, as you are invalidating the fact that it matters to those victims. You saying it doesn't matter or your gain of pleasure outweighs their loss of pain, is a claim about the reality of events going on in their mind, so there is room for conflict/contradiction. They can't both be right/wrong at the exact same time.
A strong non-intuition argument/claim & facts presented render value-nihilism implausible:
It is Descriptively the case, that Evolution IMPOSED Prescriptive-ought statements... of 'PROBLEMATIC sensation/event' on organisms which functioned as a learning mechanism and improved survival.
Therefore, BAD/PROBLEM isn't mere subjective opinion but something I/we/animals had nothing to do with and are mere by-product reacting to an observation.
This is pretty much the only base-axiom needed to ground my own torture as mattering as the original actual value-currency at stake. That paired with the fact I sampled consciousness and know it matters to me whether or not I am tortured, the fact that I personally observe it as problematic makes it the true reality for my own mind...
...AND it's not mere opinion/proclamation / or idea humans creatively invented out of thin air... as if like everyone could be truly blind yet conceptualizing colovision, makes no sense. plus that's giving humanity way too much credit of imagination.
Can't really have thoughts about information that you don't have. The concept of bad/problem arguably wouldn't even exist if it never was so.
Yes, I agree very semantics. I am attempting to shed clarity on this topic. Looking at the word "BAD" purely in a descriptive sense (e.g., that which can be categorically applied to extreme suffering) it loses all meaning if it's not truly consequential (i.e., it matters whether one experiences bad or not). If it doesn't actually matter ("no problemo") then it can't be bad, only an illusion/delusion of it, yet it's an effective one evolution imposed on organisms as a learning/problem-solving mechanism. The value-realists like myself have every reason to believe evolution created the real thing, not some contrived pseudo-problem organisms feel compelled/obligated to solve.
One only requires the axiom of a Descriptive Bad to ground Ethics. Why? Because it can be argued that a descriptive statement of BAD/problem is prescriptive by it's very nature in the meaning the of word/language.(otherwise its psuedo-bad/fake langauge, redefines bad as aversion/mere preference against) Otherwise, it can't mean anything to be bad, torturously obnoxious, unwanted experiential events couldn't mean anything. Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins even state pain is a punishment signal/message to the animal: "Don't do that again!" If those aren't prescriptions imposed, then I don't know what is. The animal doesn't simply decide/prefer to avoid the event and finds it bad, it's told/finds it bad and so prefers to avoid the event/problem. If god or there were some logically or physically possible way it were to be invented how else would it exist?, or what you think evolution's reward & punishment mechanism accomplished? If it didn't synthesize problematic sensations to force organisms to solve?
Evolution prescribes Needs/wants, at the same time imposes a PAIN/PROBLEM of starvation/hunger which by it's very nature is a prescription for solution (i.e. sustenance/relief/comfort.)
By the very nature of "PROBLEM" it prescribes -> "SOLUTION" not merely a contrived or trivial-like on paper math problem, but the origin of why the word even exists: the problem of pain, a true whip/punishment mechanism, real currency to play with, real loss. Idk how you can describe something categorically as a PROBLEM in the true sense of the word if it doesn't come with it a necessary prescription for its solution. Because if there is no NEED for a solution, then it turns into no longer a problem again...
I don't see how it could be any other way because if there's no real game to be playing with value baked into it, then money would be worthless/not even exist, animals wouldn't bother evade standing in the fire, etc.
Saying It is Descriptively the case, that Evolution IMPOSED Prescriptive-ought statements... of 'PROBLEMATIC sensation/event' on organisms which functioned as a learning mechanism and improved survival.
Is the same as saying Evolution IMPOSED torture/BAD, as that's what torture/bad is... a prescribed need for solution to a problem which is some form of relief/comfort.
The prescription arises as a result of accepting step 1. (which nihilists reject/deny) problem solution. The latter does not follow/exist without the former. basic 2+2 = 4 logic. There's no point figuring out the answer to the math equation, if we don't agree first and foremost a problem exists. Nor how to solve a disease, if we don't first and foremost recognize a disease exists. And so, Any debate with nihilists on step 2: of determining what is the most likely solution / right answer becomes irrelevent and a waste of time. Arguing about whether x or y IS the right answer to fixing/preventing diabetes is pointless when they don't even agree the really disease exists. They don't believe an actual real BAD / Problem exists.
VG reduces it down to mere preferences, his reasonings that even if universally sentience prefers not suffebe tortured... Well, just because it is the case descriptively we prefer to avoid suffering doesn't mean we ought/should prevent suffering. He hasn't bridged the IS-OUGHT gap. But he got it backwards,
the claim/argument... ISN'T that because descriptively, sentience universally has a preference to avoid suffering, it is therefore bad,
the claim/argument... IS that it's descriptively bad/problematic, therefore universally there's a deductively logically assigned preference to avoid it,
Again you can't classify/label something as a problem if it's inconsequential whether it is solved or not. The word loses all meaning. If something NEEDs solving/fixing it means there's a problem, if there's a problem it means there's something NEED solving/fixing. Evolution manufactures these needy problems in organisms to manipulate and control them.
Merely what our preferences are IS NOT relevant, preference "frustration" arguably IS. (if preferences couldn't be frustrated "i.e., no value" than it wouldn't matter which way things turned out)
You can have a preference for some art style over another, if we were just programmed non-feeling robots that preferred to avoid standing in the fire, but there was no real kernel of value/bad, then it wouldn't matter.
Let's imagine something was Objectively PROBLEMATIC, an IS statement. What would a real problem look like? something in NEED of a solution. Again, why? because If it doesn't matter whether or not it exists or is Solved or not, it could never be a problem in the first place. So either this problem exists or it doesn't. (NOTE: it doesn't need to be an objective problem to be REAL, "i.e mind-independent")
Next, if ASI or sentient beings were to sample this "problem", would it not be the case they would logically deduce it's in need of a solution? And assign their preferences accordingly to solving it? Cause again otherwise then you just see it as "no-problemo" again.
"If Inmendham's argument is that sentient beings create value, and that the universe has no value without the presence of a sentient being generating it, would it not follow that the ought is inherently built into sensation?" yes but the way VG unfairly reframes it is that we subjectively place value on it, THAT it's entirely subjective, like you prefer salty or sweet, or certain ice cream flavor. emphasizing that it's entirely subjective opinion. Take a look at his unfair silly example: "we can't say pineapple on pizza is objectively tasty or not..." this shows a complete ineptitude in grasping the subject and misrepresenting the argument like crazy, no one is arguing whether Mona Lisa is objectively beautiful or some such thing.
What is being argued: the positive or negative mind-dependent event produced in response to the sensual or perceptual stimuli, the input (object) is irrelevant, only the output (experience) matters and what the value-engine (BRAIN) produced. What pushes your buttons so to speak, blue jelly beans or green jelly beans, could differ between 2 individuals but the shared experience is the same more or less. Whether you wired to find pineapple on pizza tasty or gross is irrelevant, some people find bricks edible.
Main issue is they talking past each other: what inmendham is arguing for was either not expressed as best it could be, and/or VG does not quite comprehend what is being argued... inmendham claims/argues evolution created the real bad/PROBLEM and we respond in recognition of this fact/truth with preferences that follow accordingly, Logic cannot be escaped, once you know 2+2 = 4, you can't will or believe it to be 79. If you know the right answer "torture be Bad M'kay?" obviously you won't act or behave otherwise and say you love it. What could it mean to have a preference against experiencing torture... does such a statement even make any sense? All that is required is a real BAD to exist... and then the preference to avoid it logically follows, an inescapable truth. Unless he thinks I also choose or prefer to believe 2+2 = 4 ?
Essentially VG keeps counter-arguing that: "yes we want to avoid torture, but that's just your preference... just cause universally sentience has a preference against torture (a Descriptive / IS statement) doesn't logically follow some Normative/Prescriptive claim/statement. That just because something IS the case it doesn't follow that we OUGHT / should do X, like help others, prevent suffering, etc. That's a non-sequitur he says. Ultimately it's just a preference." sure but...
His argument only applies/counters a strawman position in his head: Because of this I and other realists can account for / side-step it completely, we aren't attempting to derive an OUGHT from an IS. e.g strawman: "we ALL have preference against torture, Therefore it's BAD." Or "we ALL have preference against torture, Therefore we OUGHT prevent it"
The actual argument is that it's Truly Bad/Problematic by the very nature of the word, Therefore first-hand observation follows universally a deductively logically assigned preference to avoid it. Not the other way around.
"If the only thing that can have meaning in the universe is the experience of a sentient being, ought we not maximize its value just by nature of its experience being the only thing that can matter?" yes the ought is a further logical extension of recognizing it to be a problem, which denotes/demands a solution, otherwise if it doesn't matter to solve it or not then you've turned it into a non-problem again. So it can only be categorically one or the other.
Issue of semantics, different terminology and definitions: as long as VG defines objective as "mind-independent" and sets the goal-post to the realist to find a mind-independent "wrong/bad" as if somehow we need some divine-command or absolute rule in the universe that declares it so... then there is no fruit to the discussion. suffering/bad takes place in the mind/experience, so of course it's unfair to ask one to present a mind-independent suffering/bad in the universe, it is begging the question. To be fair inmendham uses the term objective and could have done better job with defining/pushing his terms "e.g. objective as truth/real/fact" and not let VG impose in his own. However, I don't ascribe a requirement to demonstrate an Objective BAD to ground a BAD as real, valid, and true; it can be entirely based on Subjectivist grounds/axiomatic foundations.
Just because the BAD takes place within subjectivity doesn't make it any less real (non-physical/immaterial sure... but not unreal). VG and nihilists can't understand this. 2+2 = 4 is subjective as is all science ultimately as a root axiomatic-fact... as an observation requires an observer. This doesn't mean realism can't be proven/grounded, it can just like we can know 2+2=4 and the moon exists. If anti-realism is gonna deny subjective truths because it's subjective, then one can't know much of anything and reduces to solipsism. I am more certain I exist and the reality of "perceived" BAD I experience is actually a real BAD... THAN that the moon even exists or any other scientific empirical claim.
PROBLEM is something I/we/animals had Nothing to do with, we didn't invent it.
If Anti-realism nihilism was True and Real "PROBLEMS" didn't exist the word wouldn't exist. It is like being born never knowing or seeing or experiencing vision & color, it's impossible to contrive or imagine it. Some knowledge & information is only accessible through experience.
Even Richard Dawkins stated, "pain is a message to the animal Don't do that again!"
If the ought exists within subjectivity, as preferences, why would them being Subjective vs Objective determine whether or not their violation matters? If one experiences disgust looking at something AND another finds beauty... both are true realities for them, they don't conflict or contradict like empirical or fact claims, but instead both are correct and relevant, not one or the other, BECAUSE when someone says the mona Lisa is beautiful they are just saying it arises in them a sense of beauty, the thing/input is irrelevant whereas the output in mind is what is relevant and true for their reality.
Subjective =/= not true, I don't understand the dichotomy between objective vs subjective ethics, as if there isn't facts to glean about subjectivity.
There's also definition or semantic problems:
objective (mind-independent) vs subjective (mind-dependent)
Under such definition does it make sense to say Objectively evolution created feeling experiencing organisms having sense of taste, smell, sound, hunger, pain, to survive. So can we apply word objective to mind-dependent experiences or not?
And of course under such definition there is no objective mind-independent ethics as without minds there is no feeling subject of concern to even talk about in first place. So how silly...
Yet they take objective to mean True & Subjective made up or mere contrived opinion.
For me these are semantic word games that distract, I just care about what's fact/true. What many don't get is Even science, math is subjective invention, byproduct of subjective tool of language, doesn't mean we can't create an accurate model and picture of reality.
I believe the Is-Ought gap is a red-herring, sure it's true you can't contrive an Ought from just what IS, but with evolution the OUGHT statement is built-in, it's descriptively a prescriptive value statement imposed on me, I/we/animals literally have nothing to do with it, I'm just by-product an observer. This is key understanding.
There exists no objective or divine commandment "you OUGHT do X" written into the fabric of reality, and therefore if you don't that's Bad, No. That's nonsense/impossible logically.
Rather an Descriptive IS statement of X is a real bad/PROBLEM, denotes/demands a solution by it's very nature of the word, otherwise if it doesn't need solving then it becomes into a non-problem again, so either x categorically IS a PROBLEM or it's not.
The claim/argument... Is that it's Descriptively BAD/Problematic, therefore universally there's a deductively logically assigned preference to avoid it. Not the other way around. Our personal preference against torture forever doesn't make it therefore bad. The prescription is built in, forced onto us.
It's like "STOP!" & "GO" What do you say to a dog? "BAD dog!" This is saying it should or shouldn't do something. basically = "No!" "Stop!" That's a prescriptive statement/signal/conveyed message.
Or simply, alls required is Descriptively diagnose Torture as Problematic. Which implies Problem Solution Without necessity of solution there is no problem at all, likewise without problem solution means nothing.
​So you essentially boiled my position down to: "Evolution programmed preference to avoid torture." or "we evolved preference to avoid torture" Does that sound incoherent or what... as if I would make such a silly claim. Keep straw-manning.
Do you think animals have PREFERENCE by default to avoid being tortured burned alive and have sex, or logically preferences are born out of observing problematic negative / positive assigned accordingly through punishment & reward mechanisms aka prescriptions, think long and hard about this one...
This is why value or ethical nihilism is incoherent to me. IF torture be bad, how can it be NOT-bad/neutral to create BAD?
It either is truly BAD or it isn't. It's either real or it's an illusion/delusion and false perception.
Their position must reduce to there is no MEANINGFUL difference between Torture & Bliss. And evolution didn't create any problematic sensation or true punishment whatsoever. Instead, were somehow deluded to view being boiling alive as problematic sensation/BAD, and relief as good, we can't tell the difference or label which is which...
Vegan Gains or any anti-realist needs to substantiate these anti-realist nihilist claims & concede if he agrees with the statements below:
"The value-laden problematic BAD experience of being tortured boiled alive in a vat of acid indefinitely... isn't really bad, evolution didn't successfully impose a real negative punishment mechanism on animals, torture isn't something I/we/animals had nothing to do with and are just byproduct observing the imposition, NO! Instead our opinion has everything to do with it... what's problematic torture, one is merely subjectively interpreting/inventing/proclaiming it to be so! Evolution failed!"
"Animals run from fire cause they irrationally unreasonably subjectively interpret it to be bad/problematic sensation or experience, not cause DNA molecule made it so objectively for evolutionary reasons"
"It is all subjective preference like flavor of potato chips, problematic torturous experience isn't bad you just think it's bad or have preference against it."
"You don't logically recognize intrinsic problematic torturous experience then logically assign solution to problem which is preference to avoid that experience, No, you merely have subjective delusional preference against a nail in your eye and there is no logic to it"
"Good is Bad, and Bad is Good depending on opinion, no right or wrong, all subjective tho"
value anti-realism nihilism. INSANE! WORSE than a flat-earth theory!

​
​
Acusmouse - Philanthrope (Andrea Ferlin Remix) [GOODRO DIGITAL] / Key Bm, BPM 128, 8:04, MP3 19.52 Mb
Acusmouse - Philanthrope [GOODRO DIGITAL] / Key Gm, BPM 125, 7:27, MP3 18.06 Mb
Aiyo - Ramaramaray [Epidemic Electronic] / Key Dm, BPM 95, 2:47, MP3 7.11 Mb
Aiyo - Shuffle Showdown [Epidemic Electronic] / Key Dm, BPM 131, 3:03, MP3 7.77 Mb
Aiyo - Street Rev Anthem [Epidemic Electronic] / Key Dbm, BPM 144, 2:52, MP3 7.33 Mb
Akrill, YASASHI - Капризная feat. YASASHI [welofi] / Key Dm, BPM 142, 3:58, MP3 9.96 Mb
Akrill, YASASHI - Капризная feat. YASASHI (Slowed) [welofi] / Key Cm, BPM 125, 4:31, MP3 11.26 Mb
Alan Ellis - Come To [Epidemic Electronic] / Key F#m, BPM 148, 3:23, MP3 8.41 Mb
Alan Ellis - Leveler [Epidemic Electronic] / Key Eb, BPM 120, 3:30, MP3 8.66 Mb
Alan Ellis - Poles [Epidemic Electronic] / Key Gm, BPM 115, 3:37, MP3 8.94 Mb
Aleksandr Stroganov - Oy Daa (Instrumental Mix) [Stroganov Music] / Key D, BPM 118, 6:39, MP3 16.31 Mb
Aleksandr Stroganov - Oy Daa [Stroganov Music] / Key Dm, BPM 118, 6:39, MP3 16.31 Mb
AlphaCube - Balearic Guitars [SounEmot State] / Key Abm, BPM 136, 7:09, MP3 17.37 Mb
Anastasiya Berezovscaya - Vo sne idu [Ashime Records] / Key Dm, BPM 104, 3:57, MP3 9.67 Mb
Anton Dolgushin - Questions & Answers [Nature Is Pure Love] / Key Fm, BPM 120, 5:17, MP3 12.89 Mb
Anton Dolgushin - Way to Target [Nature Is Pure Love] / Key F#m, BPM 123, 3:23, MP3 8.36 Mb
Ariel Shalom - Stuck in My Head [Artlist Original] / Key Cm, BPM 174, 3:11, MP3 8.00 Mb
Attima - Parking Lot Dahlias [Bioritmica] / Key Bb, BPM 143, 2:47, MP3 7.04 Mb
Attima - World Premiere Interview [Bioritmica] / Key Fm, BPM 116, 2:48, MP3 7.09 Mb
BABY GEE VIBES - Techno High [EDM Vibes Music] / Key Cm, BPM 150, 5:37, MP3 13.68 Mb
Bodzza - Mind Keeper [Codein Music] / Key Fm, BPM 144, 5:23, MP3 13.08 Mb
Bodzza - Pedra no Sapato [Codein Music] / Key Fm, BPM 143, 5:26, MP3 13.17 Mb
Bodzza - Plateau [Codein Music] / Key Dbm, BPM 144, 4:57, MP3 12.01 Mb
Bodzza - Those Days [Codein Music] / Key Dm, BPM 142, 5:40, MP3 13.73 Mb
Bodzza - Vicious [Codein Music] / Key Am, BPM 142, 5:55, MP3 14.34 Mb
Boiler K, Piso Con Vistas - Valiendo (Club Edit) [Superkinki Music] / Key Fm, BPM 125, 3:38, MP3 8.83 Mb
Booty Leak, Yellow Pvnk, TECHNO KING - What Is Love (HYPERTECHNO) [Magic Techno] / Key F#m, BPM 160, 1:42, MP3 4.26 Mb
Brothertiger - The Garden [Brothertiger] / Key C, BPM 144, 4:45, MP3 12.22 Mb
Casiio, Sleepermane - Myrrh [Lotus Records] / Key Eb, BPM 80, 2:36, MP3 6.64 Mb
Chaco - Rude Boy (Edit) [Realty Records] / Key Gm, BPM 130, 2:57, MP3 7.64 Mb
Chaco - Rude Boy [Realty Records] / Key Cm, BPM 133, 3:44, MP3 9.50 Mb
Chris Klein - Solar Eclipse [Sounds and Frequencies Recordings] / Key Abm, BPM 122, 6:37, MP3 16.13 Mb
DEX 1200 - The Lost Forest [Epidemic Electronic] / Key Cm, BPM 100, 4:07, MP3 10.38 Mb
DHertz - Techno - Classic T [DHertz] / Key Abm, BPM 140, 3:09, MP3 7.65 Mb
DJ DOSKOI - Sample415 [Young Technic] / Key Cm, BPM 126, 5:24, MP3 13.14 Mb
DJ Tranceair - Gilgamesh [SounEmot State] / Key Fm, BPM 140, 5:43, MP3 13.95 Mb
Davvi - Spring Breeze [EYRA Music] / Key Dbm, BPM 94, 3:35, MP3 8.91 Mb
Desire - Darkside [Italians Do It Better] / Key Fm, BPM 137, 4:12, MP3 10.52 Mb
Desire - Human Nature [Italians Do It Better] / Key C, BPM 120, 3:47, MP3 9.54 Mb
Desire - Vampire [Italians Do It Better] / Key F#, BPM 162, 2:37, MP3 6.74 Mb
Dj Rauff - Rumble [Luxury Night] / Key Ebm, BPM 105, 2:31, MP3 6.39 Mb
DreamLife, SounEmot, Grande Piano, Elgfrothi - Ephemeral Past (DreamSkies Mashup) [SounEmot State] / Key Am, BPM 138, 5:38, MP3 13.75 Mb
Drum & Breakers, Madhalakk - You Deserve Love (Edit Mix) [Superkinki Music] / Key Em, BPM 131, 2:45, MP3 6.69 Mb
Empath - Felucca feat. Tapani Rinne (Kimik Remix) [The Sound Collective] / Key Em, BPM 132, 3:49, MP3 9.52 Mb
Empath - Felucca feat. Tapani Rinne [The Sound Collective] / Key E, BPM 132, 7:16, MP3 17.79 Mb
Empath - Road to Quantum feat. Tapani Rinne [The Sound Collective] / Key Gm, BPM 131, 6:22, MP3 15.64 Mb
Evissimax - OTT [Universal Music Italia srL.] / Key Am, BPM 140, 4:00, MP3 9.72 Mb
Flowzhaker, Simsoneria Swing - Plastic Dolls (Edit Mix) [Superkinki Music] / Key Cm, BPM 120, 2:12, MP3 5.36 Mb
Fran Garro - Rosas (Techno) [FRAN GARRO MUSIC] / Key A, BPM 150, 3:12, MP3 8.08 Mb
Fran Garro, Techno Bangers - Rosas (Hypertechno) [FRAN GARRO MUSIC] / Key B, BPM 162, 2:58, MP3 7.51 Mb
Frank Wiedemann, Howling, RY X - Phases feat. RY X feat. Frank Wiedemann (Edit) [Counter Records] / Key Bbm, BPM 123, 2:37, MP3 6.65 Mb
Freezeout - Run Run [Queenside Recordings] / Key Bbm, BPM 125, 2:34, MP3 6.30 Mb
Freezeout - Time (Mark Vox Remix - Extended Mix) [Queenside Recordings] / Key Ebm, BPM 125, 3:52, MP3 9.46 Mb
Goldy - Обійняти [Ukraine Dancing Label] / Key F, BPM 116, 3:20, MP3 8.23 Mb
Grande Piano - Emotion Code [SounEmot State] / Key Abm, BPM 136, 6:55, MP3 16.85 Mb
GutterGizmo - Sliabh Torc [Soundserfing Records] / Key Cm, BPM 135, 5:56, MP3 14.48 Mb
H. Paul - Ghosts in the procession (Asymmetrik Remix) [Induxtriall Records] / Key Gm, BPM 133, 6:05, MP3 14.67 Mb
H. Paul - Ghosts in the procession (Original mix) [Induxtriall Records] / Key Cm, BPM 135, 5:13, MP3 12.61 Mb
H. Paul - Gunshots and screams (Original mix) [Induxtriall Records] / Key Dbm, BPM 165, 2:57, MP3 7.18 Mb
H. Paul - Rationalization (Oleka Remix) [Induxtriall Records] / Key Abm, BPM 144, 5:25, MP3 13.09 Mb
H. Paul - racionalización (Mezcla original) [Induxtriall Records] / Key F#m, BPM 136, 5:18, MP3 12.80 Mb
Halvorsen, MÆDM, Mike Riser - Rinse & Repeat (feat. Halvorsen) [Forever Young Recordings] / Key Fm, BPM 126, 3:33, MP3 8.80 Mb
Hokori - No Man's Home [Lamp] / Key Dm, BPM 90, 5:47, MP3 14.17 Mb
Hokori - The Secret Place [Lamp] / Key Fm, BPM 90, 2:51, MP3 7.13 Mb
Honey Hell - Nocturnoodles [Honey Hell] / Key Bm, BPM 142, 5:14, MP3 12.78 Mb
House Anatomy - Around Me [Queenside Recordings] / Key Cm, BPM 123, 2:30, MP3 6.17 Mb
House Anatomy - Chances [Queenside Recordings] / Key Am, BPM 124, 3:37, MP3 8.83 Mb
House Anatomy - Fly With You [Queenside Recordings] / Key Abm, BPM 124, 2:29, MP3 6.12 Mb
ILY, Ambvsh, Anguish - We Fell Apart [LABEL EATER] / Key Fm, BPM 106, 2:18, MP3 5.69 Mb
ILY, Ambvsh, Anguish - We Fell Apart (Slowed) [LABEL EATER] / Key Ebm, BPM 95, 2:36, MP3 6.38 Mb
Ilya Gerus - Microcosmos [Lamp] / Key Eb, BPM 120, 5:28, MP3 13.43 Mb
Imeall - Endevol (Invisible Audience Mix) [Lamp] / Key Em, BPM 123, 3:43, MP3 9.23 Mb
Inherent - Profondità [Systolic Label] / Key Abm, BPM 126, 7:30, MP3 18.20 Mb
Jason Rivas, Lo-Fi on Elm Street - Sunny Day In Central Park (Edit Mix) [Superkinki Music] / Key F#m, BPM 116, 2:35, MP3 6.30 Mb
KAT3X - DEMON TIME [KATEXIS] / Key F#m, BPM 140, 7:05, MP3 17.36 Mb
KAT3X, Martin Luis - ON AIR [KATEXIS] / Key Am, BPM 126, 6:13, MP3 15.28 Mb
Kirilovsky - Nebula Nights [Systolic Label] / Key Cm, BPM 130, 7:14, MP3 17.57 Mb
Konkurs - Active Measures [X-IMG] / Key Abm, BPM 130, 6:18, MP3 15.45 Mb
Konkurs - Descender [X-IMG] / Key Bbm, BPM 110, 5:05, MP3 12.53 Mb
Konkurs - Object of Subversion [X-IMG] / Key Ebm, BPM 133, 6:04, MP3 14.88 Mb
Konkurs - Plasma [X-IMG] / Key Dbm, BPM 130, 6:06, MP3 14.94 Mb
Kryss Hypnowave - Mare Tranquillitatis [Systolic Label] / Key Cm, BPM 120, 7:44, MP3 18.78 Mb
Krzysztof Zalewski - ZGŁOWY [Kayax Production & Publishing] / Key Em, BPM 98, 3:49, MP3 9.47 Mb
Layla Mystic, The Watermelon Summer Crew - Owls (Edit Mix) [Superkinki Music] / Key Gm, BPM 122, 2:26, MP3 5.94 Mb
Liam Dennis - Think Like That [Ulysse Records] / Key Gm, BPM 126, 2:48, MP3 6.88 Mb
Liana, Mood 5 - Work 4 Love (Thrill Me Extended) [Big Mama's House Records] / Key Cm, BPM 121, 6:52, MP3 16.77 Mb
Luca Pernice - PAPI (feat Nina Krings) [ARM Records] / Key Cm, BPM 131, 5:39, MP3 13.90 Mb
Luiz Castro - 7 Am In Rio [Monkey Business Lab] / Key Dbm, BPM 123, 4:52, MP3 11.83 Mb
Luiz Castro - Ainda [Monkey Business Lab] / Key Gm, BPM 124, 3:53, MP3 9.46 Mb
Luiz Castro - Essência [Monkey Business Lab] / Key Abm, BPM 120, 4:19, MP3 10.49 Mb
Luiz Castro - Piquezin [Monkey Business Lab] / Key Bbm, BPM 142, 3:37, MP3 8.83 Mb
MTD, Thanatos, Tracy, KAT3X - SHOCK feat. MTD feat. Tracy (Reconstruction) [KATEXIS] / Key Dm, BPM 140, 6:51, MP3 16.81 Mb
Majed Salih, Vin - Wanary (feat. Vin) [Medievil-Music] / Key Fm, BPM 150, 1:47, MP3 4.39 Mb
Mako Lagoon - Naive Colada [Multiza Distribution] / Key Ebm, BPM 80, 3:00, MP3 7.47 Mb
Mamlouk Mohamed - Ocean Eyes [LVLD Music] / Key Am, BPM 126, 3:09, MP3 7.75 Mb
Mark Vox - Don't Wanna Wait [Queenside Recordings] / Key Gm, BPM 125, 3:58, MP3 9.69 Mb
Menori - Nirvighnam [• kosa •] / Key F#m, BPM 118, 9:44, MP3 23.75 Mb
Menori - Wah Yantee [• kosa •] / Key Am, BPM 122, 5:46, MP3 14.25 Mb
Miami Shakers - Addicted To You [Queenside Recordings] / Key Abm, BPM 124, 2:21, MP3 5.81 Mb
Milosh K, Victor Special - Just Believe [SounEmot State] / Key Ebm, BPM 138, 7:43, MP3 18.77 Mb
Monsters At Work - Smartwater [Erva Doce Records] / Key Dm, BPM 126, 7:12, MP3 17.59 Mb
Mythopoet - Tariki [Systolic Label] / Key Am, BPM 144, 6:15, MP3 15.22 Mb
Nava - Session Deep [Lamp] / Key Bbm, BPM 128, 6:30, MP3 15.91 Mb
Nect3r - Shake Your Body (Rough Mix) [Beatz Breakin Records] / Key Gm, BPM 128, 5:09, MP3 12.70 Mb
Nect3r - Shake Your Body (Trance Mix) [Beatz Breakin Records] / Key Ab, BPM 135, 6:18, MP3 15.44 Mb
Olya Gram, Andy Newtz - Take Me to the Stars (Gayax Remix) [SounEmot State] / Key G, BPM 140, 5:52, MP3 14.33 Mb
Omar Longoria - Pristine Kingdom [SounEmot State] / Key G, BPM 136, 4:33, MP3 11.16 Mb
Onra - Bkk Blues [All City Dublin] / Key Em, BPM 82, 1:42, MP3 4.50 Mb
Onra - Chocolate Thai [All City Dublin] / Key Gm, BPM 89, 1:45, MP3 4.61 Mb
Onra - Close Your Eyes And Remember [All City Dublin] / Key Fm, BPM 85, 2:40, MP3 6.79 Mb
Onra - Eternally Grateful [All City Dublin] / Key Am, BPM 129, 0:51, MP3 2.45 Mb
Onra - Hand In Hand [All City Dublin] / Key Cm, BPM 83, 2:41, MP3 6.86 Mb
Onra - How It's Supposed To Be [All City Dublin] / Key Fm, BPM 161, 2:31, MP3 6.45 Mb
Onra - In The Mist [All City Dublin] / Key D, BPM 163, 1:00, MP3 2.81 Mb
Onra - Masquerade [All City Dublin] / Key Am, BPM 132, 1:35, MP3 4.23 Mb
Onra - Memories [All City Dublin] / Key Gm, BPM 80, 2:12, MP3 5.69 Mb
Onra - Old Photos [All City Dublin] / Key Em, BPM 83, 1:49, MP3 4.77 Mb
Onra - One More Time [All City Dublin] / Key Fm, BPM 87, 1:27, MP3 3.90 Mb
Onra - Purple Flowers [All City Dublin] / Key Em, BPM 88, 2:36, MP3 6.66 Mb
Onra - The Cost [All City Dublin] / Key Bb, BPM 156, 1:30, MP3 4.00 Mb
Onra - The Man Who Owed The Money [All City Dublin] / Key Em, BPM 174, 2:07, MP3 5.50 Mb
Onra - Under The Frangipani Tree [All City Dublin] / Key Cm, BPM 84, 2:24, MP3 6.15 Mb
Onra - Until The End [All City Dublin] / Key Bm, BPM 152, 2:19, MP3 5.99 Mb
Onra - You Know [All City Dublin] / Key F#m, BPM 76, 1:56, MP3 5.06 Mb
Pao Calderon - The Night [DTL Sounds] / Key Cm, BPM 130, 5:49, MP3 14.25 Mb
Paul Pentoxide - Ayla [Lamp] / Key Fm, BPM 110, 3:04, MP3 7.65 Mb
Paul Pentoxide - Bastil [Lamp] / Key Am, BPM 110, 2:46, MP3 6.94 Mb
Piero Forte, Dvit Bousa - Spasc Symphony [Chimba Records International] / Key F#m, BPM 126, 4:04, MP3 10.06 Mb
Piso Con Vistas - Brujos (Club Edit) [Superkinki Music] / Key Bm, BPM 126, 3:24, MP3 8.25 Mb
Playa Del Karma, Poulper - Under the Moon [Quixotical Records] / Key G, BPM 130, 4:46, MP3 11.73 Mb
Recardo - Acid Boots [Sifting Sands] / Key C, BPM 117, 5:33, MP3 13.36 Mb
Recardo - Adrift [Sifting Sands] / Key Em, BPM 117, 5:08, MP3 12.38 Mb
Recardo - Arco [Sifting Sands] / Key Am, BPM 114, 4:08, MP3 10.11 Mb
Recardo - Bose [Sifting Sands] / Key Fm, BPM 117, 6:43, MP3 16.19 Mb
Recardo - Bring It Back [Sifting Sands] / Key Fm, BPM 123, 7:50, MP3 18.85 Mb
Recardo - Chant [Sifting Sands] / Key Abm, BPM 123, 8:52, MP3 21.33 Mb
Recardo - Contrails [Sifting Sands] / Key G, BPM 120, 4:50, MP3 11.65 Mb
Recardo - Curve [Sifting Sands] / Key Ab, BPM 93, 5:37, MP3 13.58 Mb
Recardo - Day One [Sifting Sands] / Key F#m, BPM 128, 6:18, MP3 15.23 Mb
Recardo - Det [Sifting Sands] / Key Ebm, BPM 119, 5:10, MP3 12.58 Mb
Recardo - Donatello [Sifting Sands] / Key Dbm, BPM 119, 3:51, MP3 9.33 Mb
Recardo - Forget Paradise [Sifting Sands] / Key G, BPM 125, 9:22, MP3 22.67 Mb
Recardo - Form Follows Function [Sifting Sands] / Key Cm, BPM 114, 9:05, MP3 21.98 Mb
Recardo - Gloss [Sifting Sands] / Key Dm, BPM 120, 5:51, MP3 14.13 Mb
Recardo - Goodnight Jesse [Sifting Sands] / Key Cm, BPM 122, 9:12, MP3 22.20 Mb
Recardo - Grid [Sifting Sands] / Key Am, BPM 137, 5:16, MP3 12.70 Mb
Recardo - I [Sifting Sands] / Key Db, BPM 148, 1:58, MP3 4.79 Mb
Recardo - Lake [Sifting Sands] / Key Ab, BPM 117, 6:00, MP3 14.59 Mb
Recardo - Little White Lies [Sifting Sands] / Key Am, BPM 149, 6:59, MP3 16.89 Mb
Recardo - Loose [Sifting Sands] / Key Fm, BPM 122, 6:55, MP3 16.79 Mb
Recardo - Nomad [Sifting Sands] / Key Gm, BPM 133, 7:34, MP3 18.25 Mb
Recardo - Oil Bath [Sifting Sands] / Key Em, BPM 121, 8:40, MP3 20.86 Mb
Recardo - One [Sifting Sands] / Key Cm, BPM 129, 5:15, MP3 12.78 Mb
Recardo - Outsiders [Sifting Sands] / Key Cm, BPM 120, 5:57, MP3 14.32 Mb
Recardo - Over and Out [Sifting Sands] / Key C, BPM 120, 2:11, MP3 5.30 Mb
Recardo - Pegasus [Sifting Sands] / Key Em, BPM 118, 8:49, MP3 21.25 Mb
Recardo - Prototype [Sifting Sands] / Key Am, BPM 128, 5:09, MP3 12.41 Mb
Recardo - Reality Chek [Sifting Sands] / Key Cm, BPM 123, 9:44, MP3 23.52 Mb
Recardo - Red Descent [Sifting Sands] / Key Em, BPM 107, 8:56, MP3 21.49 Mb
Recardo - Red Key [Sifting Sands] / Key B, BPM 124, 5:47, MP3 13.99 Mb
Recardo - Second Skin [Sifting Sands] / Key Cm, BPM 126, 6:03, MP3 14.61 Mb
Recardo - Simotaur [Sifting Sands] / Key Dbm, BPM 129, 4:05, MP3 9.87 Mb
Recardo - The Patch [Sifting Sands] / Key Gm, BPM 100, 6:47, MP3 16.36 Mb
Recardo - Toth [Sifting Sands] / Key Fm, BPM 128, 3:23, MP3 8.22 Mb
Recardo - Transmission [Sifting Sands] / Key Gm, BPM 128, 9:12, MP3 22.12 Mb
Recardo - Two [Sifting Sands] / Key Abm, BPM 131, 10:00, MP3 24.11 Mb
Recardo - Unknown Dub [Sifting Sands] / Key Am, BPM 120, 5:02, MP3 12.26 Mb
Recardo - Vortex [Sifting Sands] / Key Gm, BPM 120, 5:25, MP3 13.04 Mb
Recardo - Why [Sifting Sands] / Key Cm, BPM 120, 6:15, MP3 15.12 Mb
Recardo - Zero [Sifting Sands] / Key Dm, BPM 116, 4:35, MP3 11.07 Mb
Recardo - Zero G [Sifting Sands] / Key Abm, BPM 94, 4:10, MP3 10.04 Mb
Red Pulse - Angel [Ubuntu Psy Records] / Key Gm, BPM 140, 4:21, MP3 10.73 Mb
Red Pulse - Effected [Ubuntu Psy Records] / Key Fm, BPM 130, 5:34, MP3 13.66 Mb
Red Pulse - I See Heaven [Ubuntu Psy Records] / Key Gm, BPM 142, 4:47, MP3 11.78 Mb
Red Pulse - Is My Time [Ubuntu Psy Records] / Key Gm, BPM 142, 4:10, MP3 10.29 Mb
Red Pulse - Special [Ubuntu Psy Records] / Key Am, BPM 142, 4:02, MP3 9.96 Mb
Red Pulse - Wonderfull One [Ubuntu Psy Records] / Key Abm, BPM 142, 5:53, MP3 14.42 Mb
Red Pulse, BlackHood - Remember [Ubuntu Psy Records] / Key Em, BPM 140, 4:48, MP3 11.81 Mb
Red Pulse, InsideOut BR - See It Coming [Ubuntu Psy Records] / Key Dbm, BPM 142, 5:33, MP3 13.62 Mb
Red Pulse, YAAN - Seremos Livres feat. Yaan [Ubuntu Psy Records] / Key Gm, BPM 142, 4:20, MP3 10.70 Mb
Repart - Dandelion [Systolic Label] / Key Dm, BPM 128, 6:00, MP3 14.63 Mb
Roman Crash, Odarka - Vesnyanca [Gonivo Records] / Key Dm, BPM 120, 5:44, MP3 14.11 Mb
S.F.A - Umoya [Euphoric Echo Records] / Key Dbm, BPM 113, 6:49, MP3 16.72 Mb
SHADXWBLXDE, Kxstanax - STAY BACK! [Merphi Music Group] / Key Cm, BPM 107, 2:42, MP3 6.74 Mb
SLAYJAY - Wanderlust [Future Cuts] / Key G, BPM 126, 3:11, MP3 8.03 Mb
STI Project - Dreaming You [Queenside Recordings] / Key F#m, BPM 123, 2:30, MP3 6.17 Mb
Sam Fletcher, Ruslan Aschaulov - Awakening [SounEmot State] / Key B, BPM 138, 7:53, MP3 19.14 Mb
Siki - Stay Close [Siki] / Key D, BPM 128, 2:38, MP3 6.47 Mb
Stormy - BBOY [Diffuse Reality Records] / Key G, BPM 138, 4:24, MP3 10.80 Mb
Stormy - Connect [Diffuse Reality Records] / Key Fm, BPM 116, 4:25, MP3 10.82 Mb
Stormy - Miss Honey [Diffuse Reality Records] / Key Bbm, BPM 147, 5:12, MP3 12.69 Mb
Stormy - Nervousness [Diffuse Reality Records] / Key Gm, BPM 145, 5:24, MP3 13.21 Mb
Stormy - Out of range [Diffuse Reality Records] / Key Cm, BPM 125, 4:13, MP3 10.37 Mb
Stormy - Runnin Out [Diffuse Reality Records] / Key Gm, BPM 138, 4:45, MP3 11.64 Mb
Sub Accent - V-Trancer [Systolic Label] / Key Em, BPM 133, 5:51, MP3 14.25 Mb
Thanatos, KAT3X - DOPE (RAVE ON) [KATEXIS] / Key Fm, BPM 157, 6:07, MP3 15.02 Mb
Thanatos, Tracy - SHOCK (Original) [KATEXIS] / Key Abm, BPM 127, 7:49, MP3 19.10 Mb
The Electric Mist Orchestra - Caught Adrift [Lamp] / Key A, BPM 120, 3:58, MP3 9.83 Mb
The Watermelon Summer Crew - Have A Good Time (Dub Mix) [Superkinki Music] / Key Dm, BPM 124, 2:53, MP3 7.03 Mb
Tosca - Un Marciano Sentado en el Ala (Remix) [TOSCA] / Key Ebm, BPM 132, 2:29, MP3 6.05 Mb
Turtlecommercial - NEWJEANS (Sped Up) [Broke] / Key Em, BPM 134, 2:03, MP3 5.08 Mb
VicTone - Smash Hit [SounEmot State] / Key Bbm, BPM 140, 5:45, MP3 14.05 Mb
Vicious Pink - Alien Patience [Minimal Wave] / Key F#m, BPM 72, 5:20, MP3 13.19 Mb
Vicious Pink - Chaos 303 [Minimal Wave] / Key Dm, BPM 125, 3:32, MP3 8.90 Mb
Vicious Pink - Move Up Closer [Minimal Wave] / Key Dm, BPM 113, 2:19, MP3 5.98 Mb
Vicious Pink - Night Drive [Minimal Wave] / Key Abm, BPM 133, 3:21, MP3 8.43 Mb
Vicious Pink - Not Your Kind of Girl [Minimal Wave] / Key Db, BPM 120, 3:33, MP3 8.91 Mb
Vicious Pink - Perpendicular [Minimal Wave] / Key Am, BPM 116, 3:09, MP3 7.95 Mb
Vicious Pink - Slightly Ahead [Minimal Wave] / Key Am, BPM 115, 2:18, MP3 5.92 Mb
Vicious Pink - So You Want To Love Me? [Minimal Wave] / Key Cm, BPM 121, 3:38, MP3 9.14 Mb
Vicious Pink - South Side [Minimal Wave] / Key Em, BPM 135, 3:39, MP3 9.15 Mb
Vicious Pink - Undercover [Minimal Wave] / Key Dm, BPM 126, 6:15, MP3 15.42 Mb
Yamato Daka, D33tro7 - Spaceballs [Kinkanahia Music] / Key Bb, BPM 130, 4:29, MP3 10.95 Mb
arium pol - Senegal [Pollen Music] / Key C, BPM 144, 3:52, MP3 9.77 Mb
arium pol - oh, darling [Pollen Music] / Key C, BPM 138, 1:32, MP3 4.18 Mb
arium pol - rozmowa [Pollen Music] / Key Em, BPM 132, 4:04, MP3 10.24 Mb
arium pol - what I've got to do [Pollen Music] / Key Dbm, BPM 146, 3:32, MP3 8.98 Mb
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Discover the 7 techniques essential for early childhood reading success. Explore expert tips and strategies to empower your child's literacy journey.

Introduction

In today's fast-paced world, literacy is a cornerstone of success. As parents, nurturing our children's reading abilities early sets a strong foundation for their future achievements. This comprehensive guide dives deep into the top strategies and techniques to foster early reading skills in children. From interactive storytelling to language-rich environments, discover how you can unlock your child's potential and pave the way for lifelong learning.

Use These 7 Techniques to Help Your Child Become an Early Reader

1. Immersive Storytelling Adventures

Immerse your child in captivating narratives that ignite their imagination and curiosity. Explore a myriad of storybooks ranging from classic fairy tales to educational adventures. Incorporate interactive elements like sound effects and role-playing to make reading sessions engaging and memorable.

2. Phonics Fun: Mastering Letter Sounds

Delve into the world of phonics to help your child grasp letter sounds effortlessly. Utilize interactive games and apps designed to reinforce phonemic awareness. Practice blending and segmenting sounds through playful activities, ensuring a strong foundation in phonics principles.

3. Building Vocabulary Brilliance

Expand your child's vocabulary through daily word exploration activities. Create word walls adorned with colorful visuals to reinforce new words. Encourage conversations and storytelling, providing ample opportunities for your child to use and understand diverse vocabulary in context.

4. Sight Word Mastery Made Simple

Empower your child with sight word mastery strategies for fluent reading. Incorporate flashcards, games, and repetition to reinforce high-frequency words. Celebrate milestones as your child confidently recognizes and reads sight words independently.

5. Engaging Literacy Environments

Craft literacy-rich environments at home and in educational settings. Create cozy reading nooks filled with a variety of books catering to your child's interests. Foster a love for reading through frequent library visits and participation in reading-themed events.

6. Interactive Read-Aloud Sessions

Enhance reading comprehension and critical thinking skills through interactive read-aloud sessions. Encourage active participation by asking open-ended questions and prompting discussions. Explore diverse genres and themes, nurturing a well-rounded approach to literature appreciation.

7. Empowering Parent-Child Partnerships

Cultivate strong parent-child partnerships centered around reading and learning. Engage in joint reading activities, modeling fluency and expression. Provide positive reinforcement and encouragement, fostering a supportive environment conducive to reading success.
Also Read: Exploring the Best Preschool Franchise Opportunities in India

FAQs: Your Burning Questions Answered

How can I motivate my child to read regularly?
Encourage reading as a fun and rewarding activity by incorporating incentives such as sticker charts or reading challenges.
What role does technology play in early literacy?
Technology can complement traditional methods by offering interactive learning platforms and digital libraries tailored to young readers.
Are audiobooks beneficial for developing reading skills?
Audiobooks can enhance listening comprehension and pronunciation while instilling a love for storytelling.
How can I identify my child's reading level?
Consult with educators or utilize reading assessment tools to determine your child's current reading proficiency and tailor activities accordingly.
What if my child shows reluctance towards reading?
Address underlying concerns or challenges by exploring alternative reading materials or seeking guidance from literacy specialists.
How do I create a literacy-friendly home environment?
Establish a dedicated reading space, stock it with age-appropriate books, and integrate reading into daily routines like bedtime stories.
Is it normal for children to progress at different rates in reading?
Yes, children develop reading skills at varying paces. Focus on providing individualized support and celebrating each milestone achieved.

Conclusion: Empowering Early Readers for Lifelong Success

In conclusion, nurturing early reading skills in children is a transformative journey filled with joy and discovery. By implementing the seven techniques outlined in this guide and fostering a nurturing reading environment, you're laying a solid foundation for your child's academic and personal growth. Embrace the power of literacy and watch as your child blossoms into a confident and enthusiastic reader, ready to embrace the world of knowledge and imagination.

Hi Leetcoders! I wanted to share a successful profile of someone that landed jobs at Meta, Google, and Microsoft with 2 YOE and a Master's degree.
The interview journey is long and difficult. Reviewing someone else's successful interview preparation process and the interview questions they were asked could be super useful to prepare for your own interviews.
Take a break from Leetcode and let's see how they achieved it.
YOE: 2
Previous Company: JP Morgan
Highest Education: Master's
Background: Fullstack Software Engineer

Interview Preparation

Behavioral

• YT videos by Dan Croitor
• Understand various Leadership principles.
• Go through your Resume and write stories following STAR approach Your story should project at-least one of the attribute such as taking lead, resolving conflicts, dealing with ambiguity etc..
• Read, Rehearse and Repeat.

Technical
Coding

• Leetcode
  • Would recommend buying premium subscription. It's worth it.
  • Try to do daily Leetcode challenges. It helps you in being consistent and also covers variety of problems.
  • I used Explore card of Google and Facebook and tried to solve most of the problems.
  • Top 100 questions by frequency.
  • Top 75 LC curated: https://leetcode.com/list/xi4ci4ig/
• Cracking the Coding Interview book
• YT channels/videos:
  • Data Structure lectures by Abdul Bari
  • Graph Theory by Willian Fiset
• Few Tips:
  • Try to solve a problem by yourself, even if you are not able to come-up with an optimal solution.
  • Think about time and space complexity of your solution. Identify sections which can be optimised and think of a better solution/ data structure.
  • After understanding the approach, try to implement it yourself without taking a look at code. This would help you in really understanding the concept.
  • Try to beat 90% of solutions by runtime.

System Design

• Book: DDIA (MUST READ if targeting Google)
• Book: System Design Interview by Alex Xu
• System Design Primer by Donne Martin
• Courses - Groking the System Design and Groking the Advanced System Design
• YT:
  • System Design Interview videos by Mikhail Smarshchok.
  • InfoQ videos and presentations
  • Go through Architecture of popular systems such as GFS, Kafka, Cassandra etc.

Interview Experiences

Accepted: Meta, Google, Microsoft
Rejected: Uber, Atlassian

Meta

Only did Leetcode daily challenges this month and went through 10-15 FB tagged problems(sorted by frequency) before the interview. Spent 1-2 days in preparing for behavioural round as well (writing stories following STAR approach).
Had 2 coding + 1 product design + 1 behavioural round with Facebook.
In 1 coding round I had to solve 2 LC mediums and in other round 1 LC easy and 1 LC Hard was given. Solved all 4 problems. These were all variations of FB tagged problems on Leetcode and if you have solved them, it's fairly easy. Yep, FB is very predictable w.r.t. coding.I had very strong feedback for 2 coding rounds, good feedback for behavioural but my product design round didn't meet E5 expectations. This was I believe happened due to following reasons:

• Never did a mock-up before or gave any product design interview before. This was the first time for me in an interview setup so was a bit nervous a well. I would highly recommend doing some mock interviews.
• I had prepared extensively for system design which focuses heavily on the system side (Database, Schema, Partitioning, Replication etc.). In product design, you are expected to focus more on the API side and High level functionality. I was not given a choice between product design and system design round. Talk to your recruiter and see if you can schedule the round where you are strong at.

Recruiter reached out to me and offered to send my packet to HC for E4 as feedback for product design didn't meet the bar for E5. I declined as it was not worth and a down-level for my experience.

Google

I had 3 coding rounds , 1 system design and 1 googlyness round.
Round 1 (Coding): 1 ambiguous problem with follow-ups. Expectation was to gather requirements and frame the problem statement. Once the scope was defined I provided few solutions with Time/Space complexities. Coded the same. Had few follow-ups w.r.t. what changes I'd make to make it thread-safe etc. This went well.
Round 2(Coding): 2 problems were given. First was related to 2-D matrix and 2nd was a graph problem. Solved both.
Round 3(Coding): A problem statement was given related to a e-commerce website. Had to gather requirements and once the scope was clear I understood it was a graph problem. Provided solutions using both DFS and BFS approach, implemented using DFS. Follow-up was again how to make it thread-safe. Next was kind of LLD question where I was given a problem and was expected to define classes/schema and relations. I provided a generic solution which would scale even for cases outside of problem statement scope.
Round 4(System Design): Was a given a problem related to a real life scenario. Very practical but not something you'd find on any YT channel or course. Since I had never seen the problem before there were no biases or known design in my mind. Kept it simple from the beginning. After gathering functional and non-functional requirements and some back-of-the-envelope estimations presented a very simple high level design. I literally drew just 3 components: client, server and a database. Then started talking about how I can scale each layer and talked about trade-offs as well. This was 1 hr round and first 45 mins went pretty well. In last 15 minutes I wasn't sure about what to talk about more as I was not getting any feedback from my interviewer. I believe he only talked during first 10 mins when I was gathering requirements and he had to answer my queries. In last 15 mins I thought of providing an algorithm of how to implement my approach and talked about few data-structures as well (although this might not be in scope of system design round). After the interview I knew it won't be a No Hire but was also not sure whether it would be Lean Hire or Hire etc.
Round 5(Googlyness): This was the best round. I discussed about various scenarios and situations following the STAR approach. I had prepared a lot of answers w.r.t. ambiguity, leadership, conflict, strengths etc. but I was kind of surprised as he didn't ask any direct questions which you usually prepare. I guess I only used 1 prepared story and rest was on the fly. But if you had prepared enough, you'll know what to answer and how to answer and would be able to relate to it using one of your experiences/projects.
Problems asked in Google were not directly from LC or any other platform. If you had practiced enough, you'll be able to solve them.Make sure you gather requirements, ask questions before jumping to solution. Keep talking and explain your thought process through-out. This is very important as interviewer would be able to judge you better and provide hints, if required.

Microsoft

Round 1 (Coding): It was a online assessment round. I had to solve 2 problems in 90 mins time. These 2 problems were new to me and I didn't find them on Leetcode. I'll categorize them as LC medium from algorithm perspective. But I had to write a lot of boiler-plate code unlike the usual LC mediums. You are given few visible test-cases and option to add custom test-cases. When you submit, 10-12 hidden test-cases are executed which are only visible post submission. So make sure you write your own test-cases well. After talking to various folks and going through community discussions, I also focused on code quality.I was able to solve both of them in 60 mins. Spent next 15 mins in adding comments in various functions to explain what they were doing. I also mentioned time and space complexity wherever I felt it was required. This is really important as this was not the screening round for me but an actual coding round where I would be judged not just on code correctness but also on code quality/modularity.My score was 100% (I passed all the visible and hidden test-cases for both the problems)
Round 2(Coding): 2 LC mediums with follow-ups. This went really well. Since we completed the coding exercise in ~35 mins, spent next 10 mins discussing my work experience/projects.
Round 3(LLD): First 10-15 mins were spent on my work experience. I had to design a Parking-Lot. Went well. You can find a lot of example/tutorials on Youtube etc.
Round 4(HLD): This was the Hiring Manager round. First 20 mins spent on my projects and various discussions w.r.t. how I handled a particular scenario and why I chose one technology over other. Next was given a popular HLD question. I did very well here. I believe this round differentiated between L63/L64 level and given my interview performance, I was offered L64 eventually.
Round 5(Director): This was mostly project discussions and behavioural questions. Nothing technical. Went well.

Uber

Screening Round: This was rather unexpected as interviewer gave me a LC Hard graph problem!! Who expects a LC hard in screening ? Well, Graph theory is one of my favourite and kind of my strength too, so I solved the problem well within time limit. At the start of the interview she told that if I could write the psuedo-code, that'd we fine too. But since we had time, I wrote some test-cases and tried the ones she copied pasted as well. All worked, pheww.
Round 1(Coding): 2 LC medium types. 1 related to Linked-List and other binary tree problem. Solved both.
Round 2(Coding): 1 data-structure design problem with lot of follow-ups including making it thread safe. Similar to Design a HashMap with custom O(1) operations. I was able to come up with design and implemented the same with O(1) complexity. Couldn't find the variation given to me on Leetcode.
Round 3(System Design): Design Uber. (yep, LOL)
Round 4 (Hiring Manager): Mostly project discussions and Behavioural questions.
Round 5 (Behavioural) - Cancelled. I received offers from Google and Microsoft and asked them to cancel as I had a deadline to make a decision on offers.

Atlassian

I felt Atlassian's interviews are really practical and they don't ask questions which you won't be expected to solve on a daily-basis. No screening round here, just a 30 min discussion with recruiter before scheduling interviews:
Round 1(Coding) : 1 problem was given. I was expected to code the same in my preferred IDE (IntelliJ, Eclipse etc.). Focus was mostly on data-structures and code quality. The algorithm itself was really easy if you chose correct data-structures. I used HashMap, Set and PriorityQueue in my solution. Created multiple classes, methods etc. Wrote a few test-cases. You end-up writing a lot of boiler-plate code in IDE as you need to write the main class and method, instantiate everything and then create test-cases. I even used a debugger to debug one of the test-case. This round went well.
Round 2(Machine Coding): Asked to implement a Rate-Limiter. Used an IDE again. Was given 1 problem statement and was expected to write a Object-oriented and modular code. This also went well.
Feedback of both the rounds were positive and recruiter scheduled 3 more rounds for me. 1 Design and 2 Cultural fit types. But I had to cancel them all as I had a deadline to make a decision on offers.

Closing Advice

Do not try to memorize or cram anything, it's useless. Instead try to deeply understand concepts and be curious. That's the only way to make this more enjoyable. It's a difficult journey but it will all be worth it at the end!
I hope this provides some perspective on the blackbox SWE interviews and helps you prepare better!
Full Experience: Here

Ramius' introduction on p. 24 reads as follows: "Ramius doesn't have the personal ability to cast Plane Shift—instead, he has been given a magic item that allows him to visit with the party every few days." On p. 67, the authors state in accordance with established DnD lore that "These spells [plane shift, gate, etc.] can only be used to travel to layers of the Nine Hells above the one that the caster is currently at."
Question: Isn't Ramius' magic item massively powerful if it has the ability to circumvent Asmodeus' traveling laws? And isn't there massive potential for abuse by players, should they acquire it (taken off his corpse after Ramius' death, perhaps)? In general, if ninth level spells can't break Asmodeus' laws, why should a magic item that isn't an artifact (on a not all that powerful NPC, no less) be able to? This feels like an oversight.
I don't have a solution. I have discarded the following ideas

1. Using the border ethereal trick that the conclave of Halruaa offers for Ramius as well doesn't quite cut it since one of Ramius' perks is that he can heal the players and will potentially join them for the harder battles. Similar ideas like visiting the players in their dreams run in the same issue.
   
2. For Ramius to offer all his perks, he needs to be able to visit the players in person. The only thing I can think of is that Ramius is just also completing a mission in the nine hells (slaying an archdevil that doesn't make an appearance in the adventure, maybe) and every so often he stumbles upon the party because he's also traveling the nine hells. I don't have an answer to the question why he doesn't simply stick with the party at all times, though.
   
3. The magic item could be given the ability so long as it is limited in a way that reduces the chances of abuse. For instance, it could require the attuned user to roll a d6 after every long rest. The items works only if a 6 is rolled. On a 1-5, it is a useless lump of metal. The casting target could be limited to self only. The item could also yank the user back to the place where the spell was cast after 1d4 hours. That covers the day to day use cases. The issue is that I have no explanation beyond "magic is weird" for the question why the items Ramius sells the party aren't teleported back as well or why he can take magic items with him if the party decides to sell some to him.
   
4. Players tend to find broken uses for powerful stuff that DMs just don't foresee ahead of time. That always happens. I fear that any attempt to balance this will inevitably result in them finding something I didn't think of. Simply saying "no, you can't have this magic item even though you found it" when it happens feels unsatisfying, even if clad in some pseudo-in-game rule like absurd attunement requirements (e.g. by a paladin of at least X level of a specific god that's also the leader of the hellriders or something like that).
   

What do you guys think? Am I overlooking something? Am I putting too much thought into it? What's the solution here?

https://www.academia.edu/119725333
​
Movable nu is an optional -n added to several endings in Greek. These include 3sng. endings -e(n), -ti(n), -si(n); 3pl. -ousi(n); dat.pl. -si(n); and some others also of the form -si(n), like pérusi(n) ‘last year’. Other descriptions that -n can only appear before a vowel in the next word, that this is only Att-Ion, etc., are not true, though some cases are more common (Martín González 2011). No cause is known for this, but it is unlikely that several classes of words that merely happened to end in -si would ALL have optional -sin do to sound change, etc. Their distribution suggests analogical spread from 3sng. endings -ti(n), -e(n) after most -ti > -si, allowing other classes of words in -si to become -si(n), but this is also uncertain, and no source for -n is known there either. Most explanations include -n being added later (sometimes only in Att-Ion.) to avoid V#V, but why -n? Why not for other cases of V#V, where no C was added? Knowing whether it began in Att-Ion. and spread before writing began or was even older (in Proto-Greek) could help explain its origin.
​
Another piece of evidence is in the Middle Phrygian inscription which contains blaskon ‘he passed’ and kiuin ‘he departed’. These must be 3sng. verbs, since there is no pl. noun to be a subject in either sentence (see translations in (1) below). It is hardly likely that one of Greek’s closest relatives would have unexpected -n in the 3ng. if it were unrelated to 3sng. -ti(n), -si(n), -e(n) in Greek. Any answer to these questions seems to require something at the level of Proto-Phrygian-Greek (or earlier), but nothing within accepted IE grammar allows it.
​
A third language with 3sng. -n is Tocharian B. There, *-eti > -(ä)n appears, ALSO supposedly a later affix -n. Again, all these are supposedly late additions, and have no known origin, add no meaning. Since 3pl. *-onti > *-ent^ä > -en, at the least one could assume that 3sng. *-eti became *-enti by analogy in TB, with regular sound changes in both. However, 3 separate cases of analogy, of similar yet unrelated types, seems very unlikely for this group. Tocharian shares some odd sound changes with Greek (H-breaking of *uH2 > *waH2, *th > l (in dialects, G. dáptēs ‘eater / bloodsucker (of gnats)’, Cretan thápta, Polyrrhenian látta ‘fly’)), so looking for another shared, yet odd, shared feature might be fruitful.
​
The traditional reconstruction of PIE verb endings has some problems when looked at with an eye towards internal reconstruction. Since 1sng. *-m has pl. *-me, 2sng. *-tH2 has pl. *-tH2e (2), we’d assume 3sng. *-nt existed due to pl. *-ent (possibly from *-nte due to the inability to pronounce *-C-nte at that stage of PIE). If final *-e-nt > *-et in PIE (similar to supposed *-n > *-r), but present *-e-nt-i > *-enti, it would explain much of this data, with *-et vs. -enti creating analogical variants *-e(n)t and *-e(n)ti (it is impossible to be sure which parts happened in PIE vs. PG, PPh., PT). Similarly, nt-stem nouns would only have the voc. affected, so simple analogy might restore -nt there as well. If many of these variants were rare (avoided in most to avoid confusion between sng. and pl., especially in those in which sound changes would merge *-enti and *-onti), only a few IE languages might retain them. If so, past 3sng. *-et / *-ent in Greek would become -e / -en, as attested, with analogy changing -ti to -ti / -tin, then further analogy as above. For Phrygian, *-ent > -in would be regular, with -on likely analogy from 3pl. *-ont.
​
If PIE *-t were original, there would be no reason to import *-nt from the pl. Keeping the sng. and pl. distinct, especially in the 3rd, should be the main job of any analogy. Also supporting *nt in the 3sng. and pl. is the parallel *m and *tH2 in both for other persons. 3 separate analogies that added -n(-) to make the 3sng. and 3pl. more similar (or identical in the case of Ph. -on) do not seem needed or likely.
​
​
Notes
​
(1)
​
The only Middle Phrygian inscription :
​
MPhr-01 (W-11)
manka mekas sas kiuin en ke bilatede-
nan nekoinoun : pokraiou kē gloureos gamenoun
sa soroi mati makran : blaskon ke takris ke loun-
iou mrotis lapta mati a oinoun : nikostratos
kleumakhoi miros aidomenou matin kisuis : mo-
kros uitan partias plade por koroos ..-
ros pantēs : penniti ios koroan detoun
soun omasta omnisitous
​
​
I segment them as 6 sentences divided by : with each sentence 17 syllables long. For convenience this would be:
​

1. manka mekas sas kiuin en ke bilatedenan nekoinoun

​

1. pokraiou kē gloureos gamenoun sa soroi mati makran

​

1. blaskon ke takris ke louniou mrotis lapta mati a oinoun

​

1. nikostratos kleumakhoi miros aidomenou matin kisuis

​

1. mokros uitan partias plade por koroos ..-ros pantēs

​

1. penniti ios koroan detoun soun omasta omnisitous

​
​
Here, the first sentence (with each sentence 17 syllables long) would be:
​
A great man has departed from here and into the beloved-land/paradise of the dead.
​
A great man (manka mekas) has departed (kiuin) from here (sas) and (ke) into (en) the beloved-land/paradise (bilatedenan) of the dead (nekoinoun).
​
kiuin = [kiwin] ‘(has?) departed’ < *kyewe(n)t
*kyew- > Skt. cyav- \ cyu-, OP ašiyava ‘set out’, Arm. č’u ‘departure / journey’, G. -(s)seúomai ‘rush / hurry’
​
The -n must be 3sng. Not only is there no other pl. subject available if -n came from *-nt, but also no other word that might otherwise be the verb. This 3sng. -n is also seen in 41.3 (that has far too many words ending in -n, 2 of which must be verbs, and no pl. nouns, to make sense without 3sng -t / -n ). For others, see (Whalen 2024a).
​
​
The third:
​
blaskon ke takris ke louniou mrotis lapta mati a oinoun
​
He passed (blaskon) from us (a oinoun) into (mati) the grave (lapta) of death (mrotis) swiftly (takris) and (ke… ke) peacefully (louniou)
​
ke < *kWe ‘and’
​
*logh-onyo- ‘lying down / resting / peaceful’
​
*mloH3-sk^e- > G. blṓskō ‘move/come/go/pass’, TA mlusk- ‘escape’, TB mlutk-, Arm. *purc(H)- > prcanim \ p`rcanim \ p`rt`anim ‘escape / evade’; Slovene molíti ‘pass / hand over’
​
*tHko- ? > Skt. su-túka- ‘running swiftly’, ava-tká-
*tHku- ? > *thakhu- > G. takhús ‘quick/, tákha \ takhú ‘soon/immediately < *quickly’
​
Ph. mrotis : L. morti- ‘death’
gen. *mrteis > mrotis (and/or *-ois > *-eis; compare *oi > *ei > ē in Arm., perhaps optional)
​
Lubotsky said some *l > ol, etc., maybe also *n > on (compare G. *sm- > he- / ho- / ha-)?
*nsmeo:m > *onhmyo:n > *onyu:n > oinoun
or?
*nsmeo:m > *anhmyo:n > *ãnyu:n > oinoun
if nasalized *a (or schwa?) > *õ first?
​
tháptō ‘bury’, *th > l as in some Greek dialects
​
​
(2)
​
Both 2sng. *s and *tH2 might have the same origin. Optional change of *t > *th / *s by *H2 (if pronounced x or similar) would simply be assimilation of fricatives, and might also explain:
​
*kwa(H2)t(h)o- > Skt. kvath- ‘boil’, Go. hvaþō ‘foam’
*kwa(H2)so- > OBg kvasŭ ‘leaven / fermented drink’
*kwa(H2)s(e/i)yo- > L. cāseus ‘cheese’, *kwasja-z > ON Kvasir ‘a wise Van formed from the spit of gods, killed by dwarves who mixed his blood with honey to ferment into Mead of Poetry’
​
which resembles *dhH2:
​
*bhndhH2no- >> G. phátnē / páthnē ‘manger / crib’
*bondhH2o- > *bantsa- > OE bósig ‘crib’, NLG banse ‘silo / barn’, *bansta- > Go. bansts ‘barn’
​
maybe something similar also in:
​
*windho-s > MIr find ‘a hair’, *winlo- > L. villus ‘shaggy hair / tuft of hair’, *winthos > *óinthos > íonthos ‘young hair’
*windhaH2 > *wandhH2i-? > OPr wanso ‘first beard’, MIr. fés ‘hair’, fésóc ‘beard’
​
​
Martín González, Elena (2011) Movable nu in Archaic Greek Epigraphic Prose
https://www.academia.edu/5983395
​
Whalen, Sean (2024a) Phrygian mankan / mankēn ‘man’ (Draft)
https://www.academia.edu/118405366
​
Whalen, Sean (2024b) Phrygian *-g- > -k- / -0-
https://www.reddit.com/HistoricalLinguistics/comments/1cj1fmj/phrygian_g_k_0/
​