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Grrl Power #1013 – The Faketrix
by DaveB on January 10, 2022 at 5:00 am
Characters: harem, sydney
If you can make copies of yourself, there's a lot of mischief you can get up to. Harem has customized all her dupes with dye jobs, haircuts and tattoos in some cases, but there was a time when she had at least two of herself that still looked identical. Well, that happens each time she gets strong enough to make a new dupe. It appears as a copy of her strawberry blonde self, but usually she figures out some fashion trend to take it down so it doesn't stay looking like her "original" self for long.
But the pranks that a duplicator can pull really pale in comparison to the ones a teleporter can pull. Unless the duplicator can make disposable dupes which they can pitch headlong into a tree mulcher or any other number of gruesome things.
Really, the teleporter can do the "I invented a disintegrator gun, watch!" or a "Beam me up, Scotty." with minimal effort, and presumably Harem's already pulled those on multiple people. The "Log Off" requires a slightly more tech savvy group, but has the potential for hilariouser consequences.
She could also really push the "yeah, this is a video game" prank if she wanted to by talking about DLC and teleporting one of her other selves into the space she just occupied to make it look like she bought a new hairstyle and a fancy dress using "ImmersionQuest Bucks" and then watch a room full of people wave their hands about trying to pull up their UI while she films them acting like mental patients. She's found the prank usually falls apart well before she gets that far though.
Tamer: Enhancer 2 – Progress Update: Getting Proofed!
Proofing's kind of on hold until I get the vote incentive out.
January's vote incentive is titled "The Origin of The Might Halo." Hopefully the reason is evident.
Nude versions available over at Patreon.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
└ Tags: halo03, harem01
January 10, 2022, 6:37 pm | # | Reply
Also, I laughed why to hard at the "And Therapy" line.
Best. Joke. Ever.
Hawkfire
It was hilarious. I was laughing until I started coughing.
Normally, I think the "vote incentives" are oversexualized. However, I found this one quite tasteful and adorable.
Makes me love her mother and father all the more. I hope they will be feature on more occasions.
He Who Must Drink Some Coffee
I didn't get why she's holding an axe, until I spotted the sketch and then the Heavy Metal cover art.
Dysan
I assume she is holding an axe in the Nude version? The non nude she is holding her housecoat closed.
Yes, sorry. She's holding a battle-axe by the handle, the head resting on the floor, in the same manner (same hand position) she's holding her robe in the clothed version.
I……. I don't have the additional resources to donate to Patron, and nudity really does not interest me much. So I only ever see the regular "vote incentive".
I support the comic by leaving ads turned on and the weekly voting. It is the best I can do.
brichins
Same. I appreciate the human form, and the skill required to depict it, but also believe porn (of all kinds) harms healthy relationships and expectations. I dropped my Patreon support when the rewards switched from fun extra scenes to exclusively nudes. :(
January 10, 2022, 10:00 pm | # | Reply
At least she didn't say Ply me with wood. because that would have been awful
smilr
Groan! :D
Random Guy
I have no one to tell that I am sad because my old dog had a stroke and died today.
Damoinion
January 11, 2022, 12:22 am | # | Reply
We have heard and you have our sympathy.
I have fond memories of my long gone cats and horses.
gorblimey
Take a month or so to grieve, but try to have friends and family bring their dogs to visit. Then start your Search of shelters, and the One or Two you need will be waiting. The dog(s) you find will never replace your old One, but will bring you Peace.
All of my friends are on the internet, no family to speak of.
Smae
how depressingly relatable. :|
Thankfully family and well, I'm a loner by preference but it absolutely sucks when that's not what you want.
I'm gonna second Damoinion right here. I've had three go so far. One had to be put down (lost all control, the mind was there, the body was not). The second also went more or less the same way but by god she went fighting. My third, most depressingly, I'd gone to sleep, and we'd just got him back from a cancer scare, he couldn't get to me so ended up curling up to someone else and simply died. Wasn't that old either unlike the other two..
Each one it's like they take part of me with them. I have another pup now but pretty sure they're going to be my last. I learned my lesson though, my dog sleeps in my room whether they like it not.
Sorry for your loss. :(
I just realized that I am now a 'lost dog poster'…
You had me in the first half, not gonna lie.
https://vader.joemonster.org/upload/rjw/185394119a196b9you_had_me_f80c949af.jpg
eaglejarl
I'm so sorry. Losing anyone that you care about is heartbreaking. I know that you will always remember your friend but I hope the grief is soon replaced with a dull ache that is outweighed by good memories.
I hope their trip across the rainbow bridge was peaceful.
I'm sure s/he loved you very much and would want you to be happy.
Hinoron
Why have the number of Harem's freckles increased exponentially?
Seems like you've made drawing her a lot more work for yourself… for honestly not a better looking final result (matter of opinion I suppose).
Ahhh… It's the makeup. Sometimes Harem may have been… a bit light on… with the foundation maybe? Or at the end of a long day?
You're spin doctoring. Her face is made of pixels.
Smittythesmith
They thought they were in a simulation, but it was being simulated, but it's actually a web-comic and the joke is one character pretended to be in a simulation and she actually is.
I wonder what Krona thinks of the simulation hypothesis.
hypnobubbles
she knows it's real and has the cheat codes.
duh. ;P
Ferro70
I laughed at this so hard for 5 minutes, I had tears in my eyes and nearly passed out because I was laughing too hard to breath.
I would pull that one if I had the power of teleportation.
This reminds me of how back in grade school they would ask the kids if they had a super power what would it be and how they would use and while most kids were either saying something heroic (which would fall apart if thought about realistically but I digress) or some criminal activity (seriously the sheer number that amounted to theft or sexual assault…)
anywho, I always mentioned pranks.
now as a thought experiment I have kept that up, like what pranks I would pull with various powers or just *If I had the powers of (insert character) what would I do with them.
so if I had the powers of a god, or just one of my own main characters really, one of the big things to do on my list would be to fly or portal to Mars and just screw with the Mars rover(s)…like totally random stuff like either something subtle like place something really strange and clearly manmade far enough away that the image would be fuzzzy but as it gets closer use a dimension displacement spell to switch it out with a similar size and shape but more natural object, and just keep that going till someone figured it out or drove them nuts.
the reverse being to say screw subtle and just make it so random that it just mentally shuts people down…say for instance just putting a soccer ball in front of it…that's it, just a soccer ball. No signs, or alien images, just drop the ball in front of it and vanish before being seen and sit back and watch NASA lose their minds.
If I 'were' invisible, I would fart in a lot of elevators that contain 3-5 people. It would be more enjoyable than crop dusting my NMRC group as I was sent off for a 'random' drug test. I was about 30′ outside the door when I heard "oh my god what died!"
Satan's Little Helper
"crop dusting"–hehe.
"One of the big things to do on my list would be to […] place something really strange and clearly manmade far enough away [from the rover] that the image would be fuzzy but as it gets closer […] switch it out with a similar size and shape but more natural object" – <Rhuen
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, is this a confession we see before us?
Notthesameaaron
Interesting idea. We're all NPCs. User1 logged off and left the program active. Did someone else log in or is this just the savescreen?
well if its an on-going self sustaining, replicating, and adapting MMO then over 99% of all active people and items would be NPCs. In sci-fi the best example I can think of off the top of my head is Star Ocean's "Eternal Sphere" where a higher civilization built the universe and its rules but the program is on-going and self sustaining after a certain point and actually got to the point the people who made it were in a fight over continuing to use it as an MMO, put it in a museum and observe only, or destroy all civilizations inside the simulation capable of discovering they are a simulation and manipulating their own code (the corporate guys were pushing this and even had started to do it without letting the scientists know.).
I'm not an NPC but I think I need to re-spec my character and change some of the stats. Probably should have chosen to go for tank instead of support.
Good luck with that every time I try to respec the button's greyed out (grumble grouch cussing) maybe the timer ran out on it? lol
I have been trying to put this in for many days… WordPress has soooooo many wrinkles, I think it refuses to admit the Guilded Age URL…
I thought I had put in a reference to the Guilded Age comic but I was wrong, so here it is. It had me really scratching my head for a while, but eventually I got it sorted…
Amelie W
Harem there is a wide line between drunk enough to be credulous and so drunk you get deeply traumatized by a little ontological damage, it shouldn't be hard to hit.
A couple of grammar notes: "Ones and zeroes" is spelled without apostrophes, and I think that guy is thinkinbg of "simulation theory", although I could believe the intention is to suggest these folks are just drunk enough to talk weird.
No, simulation hypothesis is correct. A hypothesis becomes a theory when it has been thoroughly tested and not found to be wrong. And the simulation hypothesis is currently not possible to really test.
Wyld-One
Some future husband is gonna get a improved version of "honey, i'm pregnant" scare.
Would she marry one or many?
If Harem only marries one bloke, he's practising polygamy… BAD.
If each of the Harem took one bloke, they could probably be done for… Nothing. GOOD.
Mariposa Incognita
Harem is legally only one person, she points out in the comic that she can only marry one guy.
Tsapki Perez
There was a character in sort of a similar multiple body situation in Prachett's Tiffany Aching series.
I forget the name, but the character was literally a female who was born with two bodies. Not twins, though you'd be forgiven for making the mistake, a single mind that has two bodies and two brains. It caused a fair bit of social weirdness for people not in the know, because a person might be doing something with one of the bodies and then leave and run into another one doing something else entirely.
So what if each Haremic iteration romances Daphne's husband jointly or severally?
Of course, how has Daphne set up her iterations with the US government? I mean, do her iterations have separate legal existences?
"While I agree space travel won't happen without a socialist agenda,"
Um….. space travel is already a thing, technically Although if you guys mean interstellar space travel, there are plenty of examples in science fiction of capitalism being a motivator for that as well, including:
All the Alien movies
Heck, even Star Trek, in which the Federation is presented as a neo-socialist post-scarcity society (largely thanks to Replicator technology) still does use money despite frequent claims otherwise. Usually in the form of gold pressed latinum, mainly because the Ferengi brilliantly convinced most of the Alpha Quadrant to use it as a standardized form of exchange, since latinum CAN'T be replicated. Heck, the origin of the Federation was because of capitalism. Zephram Cochrane only invented warp drive in order to buy and retire on a tropical island where he can get drunk surrounded by naked women. Truly a laudible goal, but one based on wanting money, because Cochrane was capitalist-minded which drove him to invent warp drive in the first place.
Zephram Cochrane: "You wanna know what my vision is? Dollar signs, money! I didn't build this ship to usher in a new era for humanity. You think I wanna go to the stars? I don't even like to fly! I take trains! I built this ship so that I could retire to some tropical island… filled with [smirks] naked women. THAT'S Zefram Cochrane. THAT'S his vision."
William Ryker used 'one gram of biomemetic gel' as a currency as well. Because even if the Federation thinks it's moved beyond money…. the rest of the universe apparently hasn't. :) Basically, the Federation is otherwise going to be at a disadvantage in any trade negotiation if they don't employ use of agreed-upon currency that others will accept, since they are then limited to the Barter system (and even there, Ferengi are much better at it than humans, judging from Nog and the Great Material Continuum – the Ferengi version of the Force, if I was to mix universe:) ).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6QVPbD9rD8
I'm reminded of this back and forth between Jake and Nog:
Cadet Nog : It's not my fault your species decided to abandon currency-based economics in favor of some philosophy of self-enhancement.
Jake Sisko : Hey – watch it! There's nothing wrong with our philosophy. We work to better ourselves and the rest of Humanity.
Cadet Nog : What does that mean exactly?
Jake Sisko : It means… it means, we don't need money.
Cadet Nog: Well, if you don't need money, then you certainly don't need MINE.
At which point Jake, being such a little weasel, resorts to guilt tripping Nog until he agrees to lend Jake the money. To buy Sisko the baseball card. :) At an auction. For MONEY.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSW8WndZcYU
Plus, yknow, speaking of Star Trek…. in real life, it's capitalism that finally let William Shatner experience outer space. That spaceship ticket wasn't cheap.
It's true, it's really hard to imagine anything beyond capitalism. Although as far as the real world goes, you could argue privately sponsored space travel is lagging at least 50 years behind the public sector's effort.
"you could argue privately sponsored space travel is lagging at least 50 years behind the public sector's effort."
I could, possibly. Mainly because a lot of the stuff NASA has done in the past did not have anything profitable about it, and NASA has already done decades of the heavy lifting in R&D and risk. So it's not like NASA is useless and there's a definite argument about public sector efforts in space travel still being the future for humanity.
But I'd probably lose that argument against a halfway competent debater arguing on the side of private sector entry into space exploration being the future, most likely. Mainly because the reason private space travel WAS behind public sector by 50 years or so is because the public sector started doing space travel 50 years before the private sector. However…. the private sector is not only catching up insanely fast, it's already surpassed the public sector in multiple areas. And mostly in the last 10 or so years – a very short period of time compared to NASA or other foreign governmental space agencies.
SpaceX has been taking over the formerly governmental role of flying cargo adn supplies to the International Space Station, and even sometimes the astronauts to the I.S.S. Because SpaceX does it cheaper, more efficiently fuel-wise, with less waste, and now has a rocket which can land back on its starting point on Earth with an almost completely reusable rocket, instead of making near space more cluttered with debris.
SpaceX and Relativity Space have started 3-D printing entire reusable rockets.
Axion Space is in the process of building a commercial space station for one tenth that SpaceLab had cost, and even less expensive than the ISS, despite also being planned as a modular station just like the ISS is.
Astrobotic is planning on landing a ship and a rover on the moon by the end of 2022.
The good thing about these companies is it does not cost the taxpayers anything. The private companies are the ones taking the risk and can reap the reward, but also have ties to NASA so that NASA can benefit as well… without the hefty pricetag.
The rover that Astrobotic has built (the CubeRover) was so efficient and could run continuously for so long without any performance degradation that NASA has seven contracts with the company and has already sent them one, and will be sending them another soon. Each of which as efficient or moreso than any rovers that NASA has made for a lot more money.
More importantly, it takes a lot to get the public excited about space nowadays, which makes it harder to fund the space program with less and less interest. And government space exploration is still important – at least for areas of study which do not have anything immediately or in the near-future profitable about it, like the Hubble telescope (it's been in orbit since 1990 and it does not make money, but it's very importatnt for its scholastic value).
Not to mention several of the people heading these companies are doing it not only for profit, but because they genuinely want humanity to become a multi-planet species. Mainly Branston and Musk, admittedly. With Bezos it often feels like he's just doing it because it's a new toy for him to play with, but if he wants to play and the net result is making space exploration more accessible to the masses, that's fine with me.
They just happen to also be able to do it while being self-funding and operating at a profit instead of like the government, at a loss. Because their own money and their stockholder's money is involved, they need to be a lot more efficient with every dollar. By the private sector using capitalism to further space exploration into something where it IS profitable and self-funding, the government can basically ride on the private sector's coat-tails, just like the private sector rode on the public sector's coat-tails originally. And that way, the government can spend the money it saves on problems currently facing us on Earth, that are more helpful to the public welfare.
"… NASA has already done decades of the heavy lifting in R&D and risk."
In so many ways you are correct. Especially with regard to the Space Shuttle Columbia… We realise that the requirements of the Mission dictated the omission of many safety-related items, so it was not surprising there was not even a space-suit on the ship, or a goodly coil of 3/8″ or 1/4″ nylon rope.
What terrified me was that IF a space-suit and a rope had been available, any one of the crew could have been thrown overboard to suss the hole where the missing thermo-protection panel used to be. Plus the total poverty-stricken non-availability of a spare shuttle to rescue the crew.
In Oz, the only moral(?) support NASA got was the Federal pollies, but everyone understood that those still had to go "All the way with LBJ". The people's sympathy was for the families and friends of the Columbia crew.
I would like to think that the Private Sector has a much more enlightened approach to crew survival. And I note that the klunky Soyuz had (has?) a higher safety rating, and the Mir space station performed for 250% of its predicted life-span with what, 90% occupancy rate…?
> [arguments about why the private sector is doing better than NASA and don't cost the taxpayers anything, and NASA is not valuable]
Actually, NASA has been a massive profit center for the US economy. Every $1 put into NASA has put something like $7 back into GDP, because NASA does basic research, creates applications, and then spins those out into commercial ventures. Basically, it's a free R&D wing for the corporate sector, meaning they get all the benefits at taxpayer expense. A few examples of things that have come from NASA: Cellular transmission technology, cordless tools, better batteries, improved optics that get used in laboratory devices, and the imaging technology used in MRI machines.
As to the corporate sector moving ahead of NASA…I mean, yes. They get to stand on the shoulders of giants, so obviously they will see farther. On top of that, private space companies *do* get taxpayer money in the form of government contracts, which is money that could have gone to NASA instead, thereby forcing the corporations to stand on their own two feet. Finally, NASA's budget has been declining for 60 years (modulo a small bump in the 90s). cf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA Between that and government mandates about what they work on and how they do it, what is surprising about the fact that dozens of corporations who are able to focus on one single thing are each able to do better than NASA at that one thing?
NASA pays for itself over and over. Even the Webb telescope will (eventually) cover its huge cost overruns with the innovations its team developed.
"NASA has been a massive profit center "
"it's a free R&D wing for the corporate sector"
Please notice what you just said here. You said they are a massive profit center that gives back $7 for every $1 put into it, and at the same time you said their R&D is free to use for corporate interests.
Free is not 'profit.'
The only people here being profitable are the corporations which are cutting costs on R&D, then using that R&D to make profitable business ventures. What you just described is not NASA operating at a profit, but NASA operating at a loss.
"As to the corporate sector moving ahead of NASA…I mean, yes. They get to stand on the shoulders of giants, so obviously they will see farther."
But they did so with such speed that one wonders what would have happened had they been allowed to start at the same time that NASA started. Government tends to be very slow to innovate. The private sector innovates quite quickly in comparison.
Take the post office for example. For a long time, the US had pretty much a monopoly on this, which makes sense since it's one of the few duties that the federal government is CONSTITUTIONALLY OBLIGATED to perform, whether at a profit or a loss (it does so at a loss btw, especially in the last 80 years).
Fed Ex is created, and instantly, they have overnight delivery, same day delivery, invent things like TRACKING NUMBERS, etc. Why did the USPS not think of tracking numbers after almost 2 centuries of existence? Why did it take private industry only 4 years to come up with this innovation.
Same deal is happening with space travel. For decades, space travel was expensive, polluting, and inefficient, leaving a lot of space debris in orbit, which ironically makes space travel even more dangerous.
Then SpaceX comes along and develops a rocket which can land back where it blasted off from with almost no space waste whatsoever. Even the federal government's 'innovations' are not their own innovations in space travel.
The Space Shuttle was invented by Lockheed martin, Boeing, and Alliant Techsystems, not NASA. NASA just bought it FROM those companies for about 211 billion dollars in 2012.
People claim Spacelab was created by the European Space Agency… but nope. It wasn't. It was invented by a company called ERNO, which was a subsidiary of VFW-Fokker (a company started in 1969).
Government is very good at buying things. Because it's not their own money in most cases. It is not nearly as good at innovating as the private sector is, because the private sector actually has a stake in making sure that what it creates actually works, and is efficiently built. That's why SpaceX and Virgin Galactic manage to do the SAME thing as NASA…. at 1/10th the price.
"On top of that, private space companies *do* get taxpayer money in the form of government contracts, which is money that could have gone to NASA instead, thereby forcing the corporations to stand on their own two feet."
I don't mean this in a mean way, so please don't take it as such, but I don't think you understand how it works.
In addition to private sector companies which produce goods for the government AND for civilians, there are also private sector companies that basically are in a monopsony (not to be mistaken with a monopoly) on certain things that the government needs (or they were, before companies like Virgin Galactic and SpaceX came into being). I'll explain what monopsonies and oligopsonies are if anyone wants to know.
The private sector (whether in a monopsony or not) is not getting taxpayer money. The -government- gets taxpayer money. Then NASA is given a budget FROM that money. Government has almost nothing that, on their own, is remotely profitable. It's almost always a huge money sink.
Then NASA BUYS stuff from private sector with that money. The companies bid on contracts, each bidding lower than the other to make their company more enticing (unless it's a monopsony). If they did not buy these goods and services from private sectors…. they wouldn't be able to do anything, or it would cost NASA so much more to even TRY to do it themselves. That's why even NASA has to rely on the private sector for a lot of stuff. Even with the bloat (because the private companies realize the government will overpay for everything), the private sector is still more efficient than the government.
Then when you take the government out of the picture, the private sector winds up being forced to be even MORE fiscally efficient as long as they do not have a monopoly, because the private sector does NOT get their tax money like the government does, and has to actually produce something that people will find useful enough to spend their money on, which the actually earn (as opposed to how the US government – and any other government operating in a capitalist economy – gets most of its money).
BTW, I'm not saying NASA is not profitable overall. And I'm realizing it might come off that way.
NASA is pretty unique among government agencies in that they DO generate a profit. It's just a lot less than the private sector would generate. And most of their profit is BECAUSE of deals with the private sector in the first place. Mostly because of the 1976 NASA Technology Transfer Program, which basically was NASA saying 'we don't know how to make a profit from this stuff we came up with for spaceflight – if you companies can, we will license that tech to you and you pay us for the license, then you can get much much richer while we get a little richer.'
But the lion's share of what NASA does is NOT profitable, especially in any reasonably short length of time that an investor would be patient with. What NASA does is beneficial to humanity and to the United States, OBVIOUSLY, but usually not as profitable as when a private company does the same thing, because the private company goes onto the job thinking 'how can we make money from this.'
I'm quoting a star trek book here, but money buys pride in the federation. Yeah, your basic needs are covered by replicators and the common good. But you want a ticket to see a star singer? Eat food cooked by a real chef? Get some of the wine from the Pickard family winery? Use money.
Plus a lot of stuff about 'no money' in the Federation never made sense to me for humans in the Federation that were not an active part of Starfleet on their ships, stations, research stations, weapons platforms, political areas, etc.
Picard's family owns and runs a vinyard where they SELL wine.
Sisko's father owns and runs a cajun (I believe) restaurant. He has staff working for him. I don't think the waiters are 'trying to better themselves and all of humanity' by being waiters or cleaning tables when they are not working for the Federation.
These are businesses. They provide goods and services. They hire workers. I'm assuming there has to be some sort of financial compensation for those workers' services since those workers are not RUNNING the vinyard or the restaurant.
I'm assuming Boothby the groundskeeper at Starfleet Headquarters hasn't been doing it out of a sheer love of picking up and removing trash from Starfleet grounds, and his love of trimming bushes and shrubs, which is what a groundskeeper does. If he does, that sort of feels more like being a slave or prisoner of a gulag than a career. :)
Even in a post-scarcity society, where anyone can get whatever goods they want for free thanks to replicators, there are still going to be objects for which replication would not duplicate the value of the object.
Kirk's glasses
Sisko's baseball
Chateau de Picard's vinyard wines
Data's cat, Spot
Not to mention, even when most goods are freely available, special services are not able to be made in a replicator. Although I suppose it could be done by holograms…. But special skills might still devalue their worth if it's done by a hologram.
Because as the paragon of humanity, the perfect man, the savior of all, Deus, has said:
"There are some things money can't buy. Well… there aren't, but in some rare cases, buying a thing would devalue it."
In the same way, there are some things Replicators and holograms can't duplicate. Well, there aren't, but in some cases, duplicating a thing would devalue it.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-413-green-herring/
(panels 3 and 4)
PS – all praise Deus amen.
How in the Name of All That is Holy — and Deus as well — did Gene Roddenberry ever think any form of humanity could get a society that doesn't use money? Did he have a Barter Economy in mind?
"How much is that six-pack of corn?"
"Ahhh, a dozen eggs."
"Aw crap, I've only got a pig."
If you have enough of anything and everything that you no longer need to ration it, there's no reason to keep track of how much each person has taken or given.
Money only matters when you don't have enough of it. All the same interactions we have now could still happen without any money changing hands. It's our belief in money that provides the motivation.
Ummm. I actually can conceive a… civilisation… that works on providing all life's necessities at such a low cost that it's actually more expensive to charge for them. Of course, we're in von Neumann territory here, not merely from the necessary self-replication, but also the automata producing the essentials themselves.
I remember TANSTAAFL. Who pays the ferryman?
Some people have this odd belief that money is a vile invention of ancient mage-capitalists, for the sole purpose of enslaving the peons and the proletariat. But almost every civilisation on the face of this real life planet has found it necessary to develop some form of coinage to grease the wheels of trade, whether at an urban shop-front, a farmer with 5 acres of grain to get rid of, a tent-maker… the list gets endless very soon. Some of the less civilised semitic nations around ancient Ur felt that giving slaves anough to live on would ruin them for work, as did the slave-owners in the Southern States of the USA, and these communities survived at least, even if they never thrived.
It's not my job, business or responsibility to ensure everyone has a "correct" belief about anything. So I won't. However, it's worth noting that along with the development of "money" — an intangible noun, a concept only — there was the realisation that the planet Earth is in fact a ball. And both of these happened ten to fifteen thousand years ago, along with the development of calendars.
Enjoy your beliefs.
RowenMorland
"Money is a sign of poverty." The Culture
Ironically of course in the earliest book 'Consider Phlebas' the galactic currency is discussed and although the Culture doesn't use money at all internally it is speculated that they have by far the greatest amount of that currency of any of the involved civilisations owing to their advanced industry and energy processing.
But there is no use of it within the Culture itself, all citizens and guests can have essentially whatever they ask for and do almost any job they desire to for free.
The idea of no money is due to the invention of the replicators and unlimited power production by removing the need to barter or exchanging money for things just to survive or the competition to have more or be more than everyone else. The unlikeliness of that actually happening is because those who have power will fight to keep it!
Our real problems aren't the physical world. It's people.
"It's people!"
"How in the Name of All That is Holy — and Deus as well —"
All praise Deus amen.
"did Gene Roddenberry ever think any form of humanity could get a society that doesn't use money?"
Gene Roddenberry was a very imaginative science fiction writer. But he was also a hard-core Maoist (and that's according to his wife even, not people who did not like him). He was not exactly good at basic economics.
"Did he have a Barter Economy in mind?"
Yes. He did have a barter economy in mind. I'm not joking. It's in several episodes of both TOS and TNG. It's not until the Ferengi (the stand-in for the stereotypical 'stupid and greedy capitalist' that was only finally FIXED with Quark in DS9) that anyone thought 'hey…. this is a really stupid system to establish trade among trillions of aliens and humans on thousands of inhabited worlds in the Alpha Quadrant and it would never work in any practical sense' and invented 'gold pressed latinum' – where latinum, a rare silver-colored liquid could NOT be replicated, and therefore had actual value or use in Star Trek, unlike gold (which has no value beyond it's chemical composition and ability to be a binding agent). Thanks largely to replicators.
But yes, most stuff in the Federation seemed to be done via barter. And again, even there, the Ferengi were simply better at it than humans because they understand the Great Material Continuum. :) Even though it made things a LOT more difficult to engage in transactions.
Capitalism is one of those developments that, once you come up with it, it's so vastly superior to the alternative you never give it up.
Agriculture.
You may end up doing so much other stuff that it becomes less visible, like agriculture has if you live in cities, and aren't regularly driving past huge fields of crops, but you never really stop doing it unless, rarely, something better comes along, and we're only speculating about that, because nothing better than those four has ever shown up yet.
Yeah, even the nominally communist countries practice capitalism. Just badly, with the government as the sole owner.
"Capitalism" has been lightly defined in one of my earlier posts down below at {January 11, 2022, 8:52 pm}.
You're quite correct in saying "… once you come up with it, it's so vastly superior to the alternative you never give it up." However, the dirty little Leninist/Stalinist dictatorships never did use capitalism. They couldn't because they did a Henry VIII on their financial machinery and shot all the economists who could have made it work again. "Those who don't read History are condemned forever to repeat it." And — purely incidentally — they never were a threat to the rest of the world: they had mighty armies yes, but they had no mighty will.
Talesoong
I do agree with most of your post, but in regards to the bit about the Lenin/Stalin dictatorships not being a threat to the rest of the world, due to a lack of will, I have to disagree.
The model of the Russian form of communism used in the 40's to 80's required expansion to maintain power, as an expanding number of people using a limited number of resources requires the people to gather more resources from more land or to innovate to make better use of existing land, in a closed system. In an open system you can trade, but only if you are able to provide something others a willing to barter for. During this time the USSR was acting mostly as a closed system with few exceptions, and most of those exceptions where with countries used to fight with the USA during the cold war. Russia and these countries could be considered their own closed system, and while some of them where ok for growing crops in such as Vietnam, eventually that would stop working and Russia did not believe in the field of science that leads to innovations in agriculture.
This field being genetics. All but one geneticist was shot during the cold war in Russia because it disagreed with the philosophy of equality. (not really related but kind of cool: The man who managed to escape getting shot did so by telling the government that he would raise and kill foxes for fur coats, and so they let him do that until the cold war was over. He domesticated the foxes, killing the aggressive ones each generation for the coats, and found it take 4 generations or so to domesticate foxes, after the war he published his findings.) This means as crops will remain the same, the same amount of resources will be produced every year until it is no longer enough.
As a side note, did you know that Nasa basically won us the cold war? We (the USA) knew we could afford to spend gobs of cash on space, but that Russia would more likely then not run out of funds sooner or later. Doubly so when our rockets only needed on fuel tank and launching bit, excluding boosters, while the Russian model used something on the order of 57. We made ours better, they strapped more bits on. By simple resource accounting we needed less to do more.
P.S. some things in this may be a bit off, most of the information comes from Government and History Lectures, and some of those where ones I sat in on when I was like ten and delirious from being sick. Dad was a professor so even my sick days where at school.
"… did you know that Nasa basically won us the cold war?"
Kinda korekt. It was the base use of Capitalism to keep the US economy at a state where the US could out-spend any two nations in the Defense allocation. There is an ancient saying "Never use your own money when you can use someone else's" and the USA has taken this to heart.
Very ironically, the PRC is the US' greatest lender, to the point where many heart attacks happened when it was suggested the Chinese government might want to foreclose on the USA.
I have commented elswhere in this comic page that "the klunky Soyuz had (has?) a higher safety rating, and the Mir space station performed for 250% of its predicted life-span with what, 90% occupancy rate".
NASA killed more Americans than the Stalin/Kruschev Roscosmos killed Russians (CCCP citizens).
Post-revolutionary Russia was a dismal, dingy and pest-infected hell-hole, especially compared to the US merry-making social environment, but their technical achievements were at least the equal of any other place in the world.
There are other possible choices than capitalism and "the alternative". Capitalism may be the most effective system we've found yet, but it is inherently inefficient. It misallocates labor and resources, and unsold products are destroyed and discarded rather than given away.
I dream of meritocracies.
Capitalism may get you to the moons and nearby planets, but only with unnecessary sacrifice, undo monopolizing and competition that shows short term bursts that give the illusion of rapid expansion; only to fizzle out and pop (yes this can take decades or even centuries depending on how strong the cultural imprint or how well the "elites" strangle hold their work forces.
however it will not get you to the stars beyond your home solar system. Too great of cooperation and equality is needed for civilization ships to run, for shared resources without restrictions.
Also I highly doubt terraforming or even real permanent self sustaining colonies in space or other planets will even exist under capitalism as they'd lose too much profit if the colonies they are supplying with resources suddenly didn't need those resources anymore; a certain level of altruism that seems incompatible with large scale capitalism is in order here.
"however it will not get you to the stars beyond your home solar system."
What are you talking about? Mercantilism (ie, a form of proto-capitalism) was the driving force behind England taking over a quarter of the planet at one point in human history. And capitalism works much better than mercantilism.
"Too great of cooperation and equality is needed for civilization ships to run, for shared resources without restrictions."
Again, what are you talking about. Capitalism does require cooperation. Both sides NEED to agree to want one thing more than another thing and be willing to trade for it, which makes any investments to get those things worthwhile in the first place. And civilization ships do not require equality to run. They just require both sides to be satisfied with the deals being made. The equality involved is highly subjective from both sides.
IE, I sell you a comic book for $5. I view the $5 as being more important than the comic book. You view the comic book as being more important than the $5. From each of our perspectives, we got a good deal. From each of our perspectives, the deal was equal. From an outside perspective, it might not be equal – someone else might think you got a bargain, or that I ripped you off. So no – ships don't require equality. They just require informed consent and satisfaction.
"Also I highly doubt terraforming or even real permanent self sustaining colonies in space or other planets will even exist under capitalism as they'd lose too much profit if the colonies they are supplying with resources suddenly didn't need those resources anymore;"
Do you feel that people will mine the asteroids or Mars for no profit incentive whatsoever? And if a colony no longer needed one resource, then the customer would just need to find some other resource that the colony DOES want. That's the main difference between mercantilism and capitalism. You're thinking mercantilism. I'm thinking capitalism. You're thinking Britain and the US colonies. I'm thinking Mao-Kwikowksi Industries from The Expanse or Resources Development Administration from Avatar or Weyland Corporation from Aliens. Just… yknow… not evil.
"a certain level of altruism that seems incompatible with large scale capitalism is in order here."
Altruism isn't required. In fact, altruism is not a good plan long-term to rely upon, because while a singular person might be altruistic, it's not a core function of either humanity or most lifeforms in general. Need is. Altruism requires already having everything you require to live first.
Mutual greed and agreement that each side needs or wants something more than what they currently have is what's actually required, which is why capitalism tends to work so well. It comports with human nature instead of fighting against it. It FORCES people to be useful and even simulates the same results as altruism (even if it's not actually altruistic), without there being a stick involved, just carrots. If you don't provide something useful, you don't get what you want. You don't have anything taken away from you, but you don't GET anything either. So if you want to get what you want, you greedy so-and-so, make sure you have what the other greedy so-and-so wants as well. You clearly have not been following Deus's philosophy and are spiritually lost as a result. Have faith in Deus, savior of us all and paragon and light of humanity, all praise Deus amen.
"for shared resources without restrictions."
You're thinking of a zero sum system. A successful interstellar civilization basically flies in the face of a zero sum system where one side wins only at the expense of the other side losing. Successful capitalism actually requires a win-win situation instead, and promotes the GROWTH of wealth overall, not just shifting it around. That's why they supply of money and goods today is so much more than it was, say, 100 years ago. Because we do not live in a zero sum game system, and humanity and economics has expanded so much in exponential growth in the past 200-300 years compared to the previous several thousand, and progressed even more exponentially in the past 60 or so years compared to the past 300.
While you have good points all your examples still fall within one system which I did say was possible with capital incentive however what I am talking about is the trend for companies to try and abuse this system and return to a guilded age set up where only a small percentage gains while the rest barely survive. Spread out into space and yes you could get a return to a colonial system and iron fist on resources as those who went out to gain money to send back home are taken advantage of as they rely on the company just to survive and can't afford to protest. This sort of thing is possible and would need to be nipped early on with strong unions and humanitarian laws that extend into space with over sight. No space Fords and Rockefellers in other words. We see companies today trying to cut corners with little care for their workers whenever they get the chance. Amazon forcing workers to stay on the floor during a deadly tornado, Nestle abusing local water supplies ECT…to trust a company wouldn't pull some crap if there are no strong unions or non corruptable over sight committee in space is a tad too optimistic. I am not saying no financial insentive I am saying the current set up and trends can get into space but ultimately will be self defeating
Actually this reply is for Pander, but I need it up here to bring it back into context.
And I need to apologise for the incomplete reply to Bharda at the bottom of page 1. But I was not prepared to stretch the economics lesson at that stage as other considerations needed to be mentioned.
I am not convinced of the need for "mercantilism" as a label. There is no significant difference between that and "capitalism", merely of scale: the merchant is willing to get dirty hands, while the capitalist prefers to remain in an office or at the Club. Both are necessary to the growth of the relevant economy, but it is sufficient to only use the Capitalist label in general discussion. Cora is probably a "mercantilist".
Mercantilism is different than capitalism though.
There are some similarities – the profit motive is the most apparent similarity, obviously. Which is why it's often referred to as a form of proto-capitalism.
But the main difference between mercantilism and capitalism is about competition and individualism.
Capitalism supports a competitive business environment where the forces of supply and demand determine the price of goods and services. In mercantilism, industries are run and controlled by monopolies which are protected and supported by the government through subsidies.
And I completely can predict the argument that will be made next. That…. what I just described seems a lot like the crony capitalism you see with the 'Too Big to Fail' banks, Big Tech companies like Alphabet, Facebook, and Amazon, and quasi-government 'private' companies like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And all the scandals and corruption that comes with it.
That's sort of the point though. Those companies do pull a nation's economic model more towards mercantilism than capitalism when their monopolistic and oligopolistic practices are not prevented. It's not lost on me that this is sort of the counter to the modern pro-socialist/communist "There's never been true communism" mantra. "There's never been true free market capitalism" (although there has been, but as the system gets bigger, more corruption leaks in and it becomes crony capitalism or devolves back to mercantilist tendencies). The more monopolies and more regulations are allowed by a capitalist country, the less capitalist it actually is. Ironically, one of the strongest free market economies in the world is actually Denmark, despite how some people who don't understand economics claim it's a socialist country (it isn't – it's a rather intelligently formed free market economy that just happens to have a very high tax rate for government-provided services)
TL;DR: The difference is:
1) Capitalism views wealth creation as the key to economic growth while mercantilism believes that economic prosperity can be achieved through the extraction of wealth.
2) A capitalist society supports a competitive business environment while mercantilism advocates monopoly.
"Cora is probably a "mercantilist"."
I don't know, I think Cora seems to independent-minded to be a mercantilist, but it's possible.
So if you regulate capitalism, it's no longer capitalism… But if you don't regulate capitalism, it transforms into something else.
Capitalism isn't a stable system. You have to constantly prop it up and prevent it from destroying itself, or destroying the world it feeds on.
I don't think the laws are the issue. I think the issue is that the laws don't have any teeth.
I look to France's solution to its royal problem for inspiration. Behave. There are effectively countless humans, and the bajillionaires are just as replaceable as Captain Homeless.
To put this another way we are hypothesising how a company which currently work in competition with one another on am international scale which already sees yearly scandals regarding short cutting and mistreatment of employees pushing the limits of international laws expanded to a multi planet scale with possibly monopolising of large areas such as entire moons, series of asteroids, and controls the living space of it's employees to the extent of even providing life support. Is it not reasonable to assume given existing patterns that such groups would not abuse this control and exploit their work force to dangerous extents if there is no strict control or shift in the relationship between companies and their work forces. With any new frontier there is that risk and likely unnecessary sacrifice of workers for the sake of profit.
to put it bluntly every single right workers have they have had to fight for, weekends, overtime, holiday pay, safety regulations including not locking fire doors, giving proper equipment to workers, escape routes, breaks, ect… and in many cases these "negotiations" turned violent and the companies attacked the workers (including actual armed conflicts).
we like to think this was all in the past but every time you bat an eye you see some company today trying to pull some crap or make some "legal claim" that its okay for them to drain so much water from the area it creates a welling effect preventing locals villages from drawing water so they have to buy it from the copany, or the use of child labor, sweat shops, underpaying workers (which they do, wholesale, in the US, and have even got a PR campaign going that has convinced millions they are being greedy or point blame at fellow workers for actually wanting pay raises to actually coincide with inflation, some workers are by inflation despite raises making LESS money than when they started out based on the cost of living increases.
do you really think we could trust these companies to operate on Mars, moons of Jupiter, with a monopoly on the areas of operation, and possible public relations media control over what Earth sees is happening. its not Dystopian pessimism to assume an on-going pattern would continue and become a bigger problem at a larger scale. When I say altruism I don't mean give away all your things I mean not Smaug. It is hard to explain this but as this currently stand I wouldn't trust Kellog's, Nestle, BP, Sam's Club, Easter Seals, Amazon, or anyone of the big companies to operate off world and not discover some massive dehumanizing scandal and mistreatment of workers had occurred pretty much immediately when the first batch of workers came back home.
"do you really think we could trust these companies to operate on Mars, moons of Jupiter, with a monopoly on the areas of operation, and possible public relations media control over what Earth sees is happening."
1) No, that's why you keep them in check with money. You don't have to trust them – you just have to be willing to pay them so they provide you what you want.
2) I heavily encourage you to watch The Expanse and Babylon 5. They have a LOT of examples of what NOT to do with Mars, and why capitalism would have worked SO MUCH BETTER than treating them like vassal states of a government, which led to them breaking away from Earth in both of those cases, then forming their own capitalist nations which wound up being a lot more technologically advanced (especially in The Expanse).
"I wouldn't trust Kellog's, Nestle, BP, Sam's Club, Easter Seals, Amazon, or anyone of the big companies to operate off world and not discover some massive dehumanizing scandal and mistreatment of workers had occurred pretty much immediately when the first batch of workers came back home."
In general, I wouldnt trust any one of those companies, no, because I do not trust monopolies or oligopolies. I do, however, trust free market capitalism, which monopolies and oligopolies hurt. I would only trust those companies if the Sherman Antitrust Act was actually enforced with regularity. Which it isn't, unfortunately.
That being said, your description of "dehumanizing scandal and mistreatment of workers" intrigues me, since far, far, FAR worse has been done by governments, including but not limited to (1) Mass sexual abuse and rape (see U.N. Peacekeepers as an example), (2) Genocide and mass death (we've seen a LOT of that by governments, especially in the 20th century to levels that would dwarf the previous 19 centuries), (3) Slavery, (4) Child abuse, (5) Forced conscription.
The more authoritarian the government is, the worse the abuses tend to be, usually because there's no concern about being called out for it, whereas a corporation at least has to deal with the shareholders and public perception (since the public perception can affect consumers if there are other companies to buy from instead). Again, another reason to dislike (if not outright hate) monopolies and oligopolies unless absolutely necessary to exist (until they no longer need to) – it allows for corruption to ruin a capitalist free market economic model.
And while I do not trust the companies you mentioned to operate off world, I trust the governments even less so, unless the companies become 'quasi-governments' in which case I'd lump them all together as government, like I do with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
never said governments (as they are now or with their patterns) would do any better a job and haven't needed the same checks.
hell this is actually the worse case scenario where in space the "company" effectively IS the government. The Nabisco Mars colony has declared independence as a nation, but still allegiance to the parent company scenario.
"I wouldnt trust any one of those companies, no, because I do not trust monopolies or oligopolies. I do, however, trust free market capitalism, which monopolies and oligopolies hurt." – Pander
Regardless of whether it's run by a company that now exists or not, the reality is that off-planet activities are not compatible with those aspects of capitalism which are claimed to prevent abusive monopolies.
That supposed safeguard revolves around one core assumption: that if you don't like how the Big Guys do it, you can start up as your own supplier and gamble on there being enough others who are similarly dissatisfied to make your venture viable. It assumes minimal costs and latency in both start-up and switching, it assumes no technological, logistical, or legal hurdles, and it assumes a large enough total market that there is actually room for more than one supplier. And in the off-Earth business, all of those assumptions are false.
In reality, it's only those who are already Big Guys who would have the resources to establish a new settlement and keep it provisioned, as opposed to working within the confines of an existing one. Which means that the network of systems that makes the settlement viable – air, power, engineering, harbourage – are essentially under the control of the local Big Guy. The Big Guy is also most likely the majority employer, either in mining or manufacturing, as the settlement will have been built for the workforce servicing their facility – there may be smaller businesses within the settlement, but the paychecks spent there all come from the same place. That's not just a monopoly, it's a Company Town. At best you may get a few neighbouring Company Towns, if their activities are complementary and/or a mining opportunity happens to cross the border between legal claims, but it's far more likely that they'd co-operate in a single joint-venture settlement – still a single Big Guy, even if this one has two heads.
Y'know, in this day and age when we are supposed to be educated (as in not completely clueless about how things work and how other cultures keep it together), so many people are convinced that "Socialism" is immiscible with "Capitalism".
Marx and his mate Engels both — jointly and severally — stated many times that "Capitalists are necessary for providing jobs: they are the only ones with the capital to build and maintain factories."
Socialism is the philosophy of ensuring that everyone has access to life's necessities, where Capitalism is the philosophy of utilising [financial resources] to generate more wealth. One may be forgiven the assumption that Socialism walks hand in hand with Democracy, but this is not often the case, as many so-called democracies are in fact Plutocracies, in which Socialism is considered a jailable offence… The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is a Socialist program which directly impeded the 2020 Republican electoral platform, since so many Republican Congress-people could see their electors walking straight across the political street in revenge.
Unfortunately, there will always be those who wish to be given everything without the cost of working. This includes the wealthy and the impoverished: both are impediments to the progress of a just society.
FWIW, Marx deeply regretted for the rest of his life writing the "Communist Manifesto" for the Russian revolutionaries, noting amongst other things that the Russians did not even recognise the Parisian Communards from which the label "Communist" springs.
I am not nor should ever be interpreted as all one or all another thing. That is too simple and would never work. I do not think in black and white, more purple and ultra violet. I am commenting on current status and historical trends that do not bode well for long term prospects. Long term is not something as short as a century by the way. Do you think modern society would be possible if the guilded age's treatment of workers had continued , no anti trust laws, no over sight? The threat for expanding companies as major powers in space exploration is to.return and expand these past conditions if they are not nipped early on.
Oh plus I recall that, before Nog entered Starfleet, Jake and Nog had a short-lived but thriving business where they both made a fair deal of money. Apparently Nog SAVED his money, while Jake wasted his away because humans in Star Trek have very poor fiscal sense. :)
Hence Jake had to emotionally manipulate Nog to get him to lend him his money. Which he would never had paid back if he had won that baseball card in the auction.
I'm not a fan of Jake Sisko. :)
Regarding Firefly, I think citing capitalism as the motivator is a bit of a darker realism thing.
The Legend of Earth-That-Was literally states that people took to the stars because Earth got "all used up." While you can look at how the various terraforming and closely clustered solar systems got put together, the start of that story seems to boil down to
"There were too many of us and we were so greedy that we destroyed our home, so we had to make a new one."
Capitalism is both extremely efficient and extremely wasteful. It's a resource allocation mechanism, and what it accomplishes is using up resources as quickly as possible.
"The Legend of Earth-That-Was literally states that people took to the stars because Earth got "all used up." "
But that's the thing isnt it?
They DID make new 'Earths.' Thousands of them. And because of it, yes Earth got used up, but now humanity is far less likely to ever be completely wiped out by being stuck on one single planet.
Yes, exactly. They destroyed their home, but now they have several thousand new homes, some of which are just as good as the first home even if the first home is still thought of with nostalgia.
And who's to say that they could not just terraform Earth to make it the Earth-that-was again, if they wanted to?
Btw I'm completely aware that I'm the cause of this meandering thread which has little to do with the comic.
And I apologize for that :) I don't know how it happened, dangit.
snes4life
I can't help but wonder if any of them was related to each other….yeah, therapy
I love the small detail of the can being (slightly) crushed in panel 7.
There's a joke about this with "First guy to get a teleporter"…
And both are hilarious.
Lost Question
yeah i can see that screwing with people. also being her after the matrix was released and as people leaving having one copy walk to the restroom then having another identical copy do the same thing like the deja vu scene
Hmm… some ARC SWAT gear and a few close-timed teleports would make it pretty easy to convince a few gamers they were missing out on the good "skinz".
Bob Bobfry
So… maybe someone should tell them they are not in a video game, but in a comic.
I would, but it would go against my programming.
RPgamer
Vaguely recalling an episode of… i think it was deep space 9 but don't quote me on that where the plot was a deal of some sort was going on using a rare metal that the replicators could not make which meant it was considered insanely valuable.
…that was meant as a reply further up but noScript broke the reply opps.
on the topic of this prank ya I'd probably do that in her place if anyone I knew would get the joke at any reasonable pace…
Now how would one go about making a prank to make someone think they are in a comic instead. You'd have to be able to fake panels with illusion and time magic or something
Francoinblanco
Much harder. You need speech buble or narrator speech paper, show next page, explain why them remember past if they are only one Picture in whole comic and why now are not static
Latinum.
So rare and valuable that when the latinum was extracted from the gold it's pressed with, leaving only hundreds of pounds of pure gold, they were disgusted.
PhilBagels
If I had those powers, I would totally do that!
A discussion I can't believe we did not see. If you had super powers what kind of pranks would you play?
Extralatenightoverthinker
So I can't remember but can harem save her older/(younger?) forms like a preset loadout she can select and use like can she make younger versions of herself from when she first got her power? Is she effectively Immortal?
I don't remember if you ever said at what age she got it but the idea of a 10 year old girl Harem sitting at a desk and writing a expense report in pink glitter pen wearing a hello kitty dress is Hilarious to me.
Last idea but it is about a paycheck does Harem get one normal paycheck one for each body a extra large one odors she get shafted became she is only really one person that can do several jobs at once.
As I understand it, when Harem gains an extra body it's at the same age as her existing ones. The new one can simply be VORPed in, without needing to VORP out one of the existing ones first.
Following on from that, I suspect the VORPing aspect of her Power developed significantly earlier than the multi-body aspect. She needed to have cut-and-paste working before she could copy-and-paste herself an extra body.
TheUnplanner
Tag yourself, I'm an NPC
NoriMori
That's the best/worst kind of prank. The kind that is genuinely terrible but I can also completely understand why someone would think in the moment that it would be funny.
Tannius
As someone who suffers Schizo-affective disorder and is fully invested in Ancestral Simulation Hypothesis, this has to be the best joke you could play on anyone. Hands down best prank ever.
harem01.png


text:
Q: Difference in Timestamp in PHP and Java I try to generate timestamp in PHP and Java(Android). Both needs to be same. But I am getting a difference of 3000+ between the time stamps. Please check the code below!
JAVA :
long unixTime = System.currentTimeMillis() / 1000L;

Php :
$time2 = time();

A: System.currentTimeMillis() will get me the current time in mobile and java.util.Date(); gets me based on GMT. Solved it.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


I love this line from VIOLET. I love the whole song actually, hole's an amazing band, aren't they? I like their new stuff, too.
and this is the outfit! the photos were shot in glasgow, one of my favourite cities. I've been there twice and the weather was always perfect, so the streets were full of buskers which I really liked!
and here are some of my glasgow photos!
I love your style!! ooooh and the song!


text:
Taryn Clark's quick thinking and calmness under pressure was rewarded with a trophy at the Eddy Shell Invitational International Public Debate Association tournament in Bossier City, Louisiana. The College of the Mainland debater was awarded second-best novice speaker out of 74 debaters.
"I've never done this well. It was awesome. I was surprised," said Clark, who has been debating for a year. "I'm nervous before every debate, no matter what. You don't know what to expect."
Clark earned the second-highest number of speaker points, awarded by judges based on delivery, logic, support, organization and courtesy.
During each debate round, judges give two competitors five topics on any subject, from the sequester to quotes such as, "To be the man you must beat the man." Each eliminates a topic until only one is left. The debaters then have half an hour to research and organize their thoughts before competing.
"You put together an entire case in 30 minutes. It's crazy, but it's fun," said Clark.
The largest tournament the COM Debate Team has participated in since its inception a year ago, the competition hosted teams from 17 colleges and universities from Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana and Tennessee.
"It was her big tournament. There was some pretty tough competition," said Nakia Welch, debate team coach.
Seven members of the debate team attended the competition, and between debates they helped each other create notes for cases in their 30 minutes allotted to prepare.
"We coach each other. I was really proud of my teammates. We had three new people. They all did really well," said Clark.
Though a novice in argumentative debate, Clark is no stranger to speaking. During her freshman year at Texas City High School, Clark participated in individual events, which allows students to give dramatic speeches.
"I ended up falling in love," she said.
When she came to COM, she joined the debate team when it began and discovered that the team practiced international public debate, which is argumentative, not dramatic, debate.
Though it's dramatically different, she discovered she enjoyed it.
"I like having to think on my feet," she said.
She will graduate with an Associate of Science in May and plans to attend the University of Texas-San Antonio and pursue premedical studies.
"I'm hoping UTSA has a little bit of [debate] too."

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Contemplative Cultural Resistance
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Geez Out Loud
Countrify the city, modernize the rural: An interview with J.B. MacKinnon
Will Braun | Winter 2007 Issue | Published 21st November 2007
Distance is the enemy of awareness. – J.B. MacKinnon
For one year, Alisa Smith and her partner J.B. MacKinnon ate only food that came from within 100 miles of their urban Vancouver home. Their bestselling book, The 100-Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating is helping to fuel the growing popularity of local, trustworthy food. In an interview with Geez, J.B. reflects on the urban-rural divide in society, a divide they had to continually cross in their search for food.
What have you observed about the interplay between urban and rural culture?
There still is a huge divide between city and country. I actually think there are two divides – between city and country, and between human and non-human. Even in rural areas we see a huge breach between the way we live and the natural landscapes that surround us.
I think what we're seeing is a very low level of integration between ourselves and the ecologies we live in and that's really what drives the lack of environmental sustainability in society both at a rural and an urban level. But the gap between the city and the country may be the most profound. This is where it gets most interesting because a lot of the people who are most committed to sustainability are also strong advocates of the idea that the drift from country to city is a good one as long as we manage it well. They believe we can pack more people into cities, and those cities can be more environmentally sustainable than anything that we've seen in the past, and that that might be the most sustainable way for humans to live. Well, I just don't buy that argument.
We can't achieve ecological sustainability with the kind of deep disconnection that urban living breeds between us and the planet. And that's been the deepest value of the 100-mile diet – there is this thing we do three times a day, if we're lucky, we eat food and that can be a constant reminder that this planet still does sustain us. That is an obvious statement but it's something we seem to forget. That's been the really deep value – the constant reminder that we live in an ecology and that ecology sustains us even at a simple level of just nourishing our bodies.
Earlier you said urbanization isn't really the answer – what is?
In a way urbanization is the answer, I just don't think the megacity is the answer. I think humans are social beings, we will always live grouped together. But I think what we need to do is countrify the city and modernize the rural, so that we have kind of an even spread – more people out in rural areas but rural areas that are fueled with some of what we have in the city to make them places where a lot of creativity can happen. Alisa often points out that some of the periods in history that we look at as some of the most exciting in terms of the arts, or the development of philosophy, happened in concentrated centers of no more than a few thousand people. That's not happening in the rural landscapes of North America.
We definitely can't romanticize rural life at this point, because it doesn't look that great either. A lot of the small cities and towns that we see as we travel are pretty devoid of life; they don't have a lot going on. There's not a good mix of age groups or cultural groups. Many of the things that make big cities most exciting just aren't happening in the country. In a lot of ways, we've turned the country into something we've parisitized to feed the cities in all kinds of different ways – not only food, but all the other resources, material resources that we need to fuel the cities.
As a society we need to say that living outside of megacities is a valuable thing to do, and make the choices necessary to make those places more livable, more exciting, places that you're going to want to go if you are 20 years old and looking around for a place to make your contribution. We need to see an urban-rural drift, but we need to see it done in a way that doesn't just replicate the sprawl and the disconnection that we see in the big urban centres.
This article first appeared in Geez magazine Issue 8, Winter 2007, The Future of Food in an Urbanized World.
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Issue 8, Winter 2007
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Interviews with conventional farms
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Do-able ways to harmonize your home with the outside environment
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Bishop Anthony B. Taylor preached the following homily at a Mass for diocesan staff at St. John Catholic Center in Little Rock on Friday, Aug. 31, 2018.
This year what was to have been my annual vacation with old seminary classmates turned into something more like a retreat as we tried to wrap our heads around the unrelenting flood of scandalous revelations of sexual misconduct by priests and bishops and even cardinals, and their concealment of crimes committed by others.
We spent a lot of time praying about this and discussing what was going on in each of our dioceses. I for one spent a lot of time bringing what has occurred over the years here in Arkansas to the Lord in prayer.
Not much of a vacation but a valuable time of reflection that I believe the Lord will use to help me shepherd the church in Arkansas at this difficult time.
My heart goes out to all who carry deep wounds of this sort. One such person whose abuser was not a priest brought this to my attention. He describes how it took 30 years for him to come to terms with his abuse and finally admit that he needed help. It takes much courage and strength to make this admission and it takes trust.
In other words, act with integrity. Jesus saved his harshest condemnation for the hypocrisy of the religious leaders of his day. They looked holy on the outside but their true motivations were worldly, not spiritual. And one of the reasons Jesus called them "blind guides" is that these other concerns kept them from seeing the negative implications of the short sightedness with which they handled the issues of their day.
To act with integrity can sometimes be very difficult, but it is to that which Jesus calls all of us and especially the priests and bishops to whom he has entrusted the care of the flock.
I have already spoken on numerous occasions about clergy sexual abuse, and to cover all that terrain again would make for a very long homily. We have safe environment policies which we enacted decades ago and have updated several times since then. These policies have served us well and and done a good job of protecting minors, especially since our implementation in 2002 of the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.
But unfortunately the same cannot be said about incidents of misconduct with adults, regarding which I have had to deal with some painful situations during my 10 years here so far. Even so, we really have done our best to provide help to victims of clergy sexual abuse of minors in the past. We have a very responsive hotline, we take every allegation or even expression of concern very seriously and we cooperate fully with the state of Arkansas and fulfill all of our reporting obligations.
But there is one thing that I think I have not expressed fully enough, and that is my appreciation of the courage it takes for victims to come forward in the first place. And this has caused me to reflect further on what we should be doing to try to help victims in general, including also those who were victims of someone other than a priest or representative of the Church.
And trust is something that gets twisted and manipulated by the abuser, so stepping forward is that much more difficult and will not occur until the victim feels safe and is confident that he or she will be heard. And isn't that the task before us today? Safe environment means not only a place where no one will be abused going forward, it also means creating a safe place where those who have been abused in the past can find understanding and healing and hope.
In any event, this is what the Lord was speaking in my heart as I prayed and reflected last week on this moment in the life of the Church. The Lord's call to integrity, judgment, mercy and forgiveness. There are dark days ahead for us. This is a time of reckoning, including here in Arkansas, but it also is a time of grace. A time of healing and reform and hope.


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In historic times Islay had much more distilleries than nowadays. In the last 200 years distilleries were started up, closed again and some were mothballed and re-opened again later. Below an interesting and detailed article about some of the "lost" distilleries of Islay.
When Sir Peter Mackie lost his bitter legal dispute to retain the sales agency for Laphroaig whisky in 1907 he reacted in characteristic style by deciding to make his own "Laphroaig" type whisky, and in 1908 built a tradition small pot-still distillery within the Lagavulin complex. Despite hiring staff from Laphroaig and attempting to copy the Laphroaig recipe, it did not succeed, perhaps because it used a different water source. Malt Mill tried to replicate a traditional style of Islay Whisky, using only peat-dried malt, and it is reputed to have had heather added to the mash. It was always a small scale operation producing 25,000 gallons of proof spirit (113,500 litres) in its first year, compared with 128,000 gallons (581,120 litres) at Lagavulin. What is perhaps surprising is that it survived until 1962 when it was merged with Lagavulin and its coal-fired stills moved to the latter's still house for another seven years use. The Malt Mill distillery building is now the reception centre within the Lagavulin Distillery site.
This is perhaps one of the shortest lived and unlikely distilleries on Islay. Built by John Sinclair in 1826 it operated at a site beside the junction of the Neriby Burn and the River Laggan, next to McNeill Weir (the start of the Bowmore Distillery lade) and its machinery was water-powered from the nearby river. Its output in 1826-7 was 4,332 gallons (19,667 litres) of malt whisky. Sinclair, according to the Local Excise Officer in 1831, liked his own product a little too much which may account for his bankruptcy that year and emigration to America. The distillery appears never to have reopened and today all that is left is a pile of overgrown stones and derelict croft.
The Small Stills Act of 1816 encouraged quite a few individuals to take out distilling licences and in 1819 Thomas Pattison opened a farm distillery at Newton, located of the Bridgend to Ballygrant road. Newton produced 6,122 gallons (27,793 litres) of spirit in 1826-7. It operated continuously until 1837, by which time most farm-scale distilling operations had closed down on Islay. Little is known about the operation of the distillery although there is still and outbuilding at Newton House that could have been part of the distillery and the metal bars on the window are perhaps signs of previous use as a bond.
This farm-scale distillery on an ancient site behind Port Charlotte was run from 1816 until 1840 by the Montgomery family and licenced to George Montgomery. It appears to have operated as a single-still distillery with a wash still of 60 gallons volume (272 litres) with 998 gallons (4,530 litres) of spirit produced in 1817-18, this rose to 3,551 gallons (16,121 litres) in 1826-7. Little is known about its operation until the death of George and his brother around 1840, when it fell into disrepair and the lease was eventually relinquished to the laird, James Morrison in 1854 for 150 pounds. Buildings in the farm steading remain today, although some have fallen down and others have recently been converted into holiday cottages, so guests could well be sleeping with the spirits of 160 years ago! No detailed plans of the distillery buildings have yet come to life.
Established in 1825 by the McKay family. It was operated by John Morrison & Co from 1831-34. John Ramsay and later his wife ran the distillery from 1836 until 1920, during which time they expanded the distillery. It was eventually acquired by DCL who mothballed it from 1929-67. Production buildings were then re-built by DCL and the distillery operated from 1967-83 when it was closed again during the whisky rationalisation of the 1980's. As DCL already had two other distilleries (Caol Ila and Lagavulin) Port Ellen was tragically thought to be surplus to requirements. The original distillery buildings remain, linked to the Port Ellen Maltings complex.
One of the most obscure and short-lived farm distilleries on Islay. A licence was taken out in the name of John Darroch & Co for the year 1817-18. It seems likely that this was an opportunist attempt at distilling following the 1816 Small Stills Act as records reveal a 76-gallon (345 litres) single still operation in 1817-18. Scarrabus Farm exists (off the Ballygrant road), although whether this was the exact location of the distillery and what happened to it after its two short years remains to be discovered.
This distillery was established in 1821 by the brothers Donald and John Johnston at Tallant Farm, near Bowmore. Excise records until 1827 show this distillery recorded as one of two 'Bowmore' distilleries. It appears to have been a true farm-scale operation with Angus Johnston listed at one point as distillery manager. It was never, however, a profitable commercial operation, perhaps in part due to generous drams John provided to visiting workmen and farmers. Output was as low as 220 gallons (998 litres) a week and reached 2,101 gallons (9,538 litres) in the year 1826-27. The business folded in 1852, although Jon's brother Donald and his son, Alexander, were to become successful distillers figuring prominently with Laphroaig's development. Tallant Farm exists today and many buildings from those distilling days remain, albeit some in a state of collapse.
After the successful establishment of Laphroaig distillery in 1816, a farm tack was leased by Walter Frederick Campbell to James and Andrew Gardiner, financiers for the Ardenistiel Distillery, who then put it in the capable hands of James and Andrew Stein of the noted Clackmannan distilling family. They ran it until 1847, operating on site immediately adjacent to the Laphroaig Distillery. Ardenistiel was then assigned to John Morrison, a previously unsuccessful manager of Port Ellen Distillery. He was unable to make a go of it and only remained until he was sequestrated in 1852. The distiller then passed to John Cassels, of whom little is known and whose tenure at Ardenistiel appears to have lasted for less than a year. It then came into the hands of William Hunter who struggled to make the distillery pay, operating at half capacity producing 33,000 gallons (149,820 litres) a year. By February 1866, William Hunter was made bankrupt and by 1868 the distillery was reported dilapidated. It was eventually thrown in with Laphroaig Distillery and its derelict buildings eventually became the site of Laphroaig's warehouses and offices today.
Little is known of the Ardmore Distillery which shared the sheltered bay at Lagavulin with the Lagavulin Distillery. It was established in 1817 by Archibald Campbell, although when the name Ardmore was adopted is uncertain. It opened as a 92-gallon, single wash distillery, but within a year was operating under double distillation with the addition of a 30-gallon low wines still. By 1825 it was being operated by John Johnston of Lagavulin who ran both distilleries simultaneously often using the names Lagavulin 1 and Lagavulin 2. Johnston died in 1836 and in 1837 a valuation carried out shows the two distilleries as having operated during John Johnston's tenancy. The Still House (No 2), Tun Room and Malt Barn No 4 were all listed as belongings to the Laird Walter Frederick Campbell, as Ardmore Distillery. Alexander Graham, a Glasgow distiller-merchant and owner of Islay Cellar that supplied Islay Malts in Glasgow and to whom Johnston was indebted, acquired the distillery for the sum of a little more than 1100 pounds. Lagavulin and Ardmore were immediately merged and together form the site of much of the present-day Lagavulin site.
Details of these two (or three) distilleries located at the former island capital, Bridgend, are very limited. David Simson is on record as operating a licenced distillery at Killarow until 1766 when he moved to Bowmore to establish the distillery that survives today. Its exact location is unknown. A Bridgend Distillery was custom-built by Donald McEachern Senior in 1818 with a wash still of 146 gallons producing single distillation whisky. It was then run by his son Donald Junior between 1818-21, when the company was wound up and ceased operations. Information exists that suggests a distillery was licenced to a J MacFarlane at Bridgend around 1821 with an annual output of 3,937 gallons (perhaps a new owner for the McEachern's distillery?).
Daill distillery probably operated as a farm distillery after the Small Stills Act encouraged distillers to go legitimate. The distilling operation was, throughout its short life, in the hands of the McEachern family with the licence being held successively by Neil McEachern from 1815-25, Malcolm McEachern from 1825-26 and Donald McEachern between 1826-34. By 1827 it had annual output of 6,043 gallons of proof spirit. Its demise, like that of many inland distilleries on Islay, was probably sealed by the difficulties of transporting the product to the mainland markets. Buildings in remarkably good condition at Daill farm exist, and these could well have been the location of the McEachern family distilling operation.
Lochindaal was a purpose-built distillery in the Rhinns of Islay which survived in the 20th century. Located in the heart of Port Charlotte village it was constructed for its first licencee, Colin Campbell, in 1829. He only held onto it for two years and subsequently it had many owners: McLennan & Grant from 1831-2; George McLennan 1833-5; Walter Graham 1837; Henderson Lamont & Co until 1852; Rhinns Distillery Co 1852; William Guild & Co to 1855 before a period of stability under the ownership of John B Sherrif until 1895 and then J B Sherrif & Co Ltd up to 1921. It was eventually taken over by Benmore Distilleries Ltd in 1921 prior to that company's acquisition by the DCL. That signalled the end of Lochindaal and it closed in 1929. Some of it was used by the Islay Creamery until the early 1990's and the shore-side warehouses remain in use by a local garage and the Islay Youth Hostel and Field Centre, whilst a roadside building is now used for vehicle repairs and the distillery cottage is inhabited. The bonded warehouses on the hill behind the distillery site have been in continuous use by other distillers and are currently used by the Bruichladdich Distillery. This is one lost distillery on Islay that has a good photographic history, which clearly records the distillery site during its century of operation.
Lossit Distillery was located at Lossit Kennels, not far from Ballygrant on the minor road to Lossit Farm, close to Loch Ballygrant. It was a medium-sized farm-scale operation and in 1826-7 it produced 12,200 gallons (54,480 litres) of proof spirit. It was operated by Malcolm McNeill from 1826 to 1834, by George Stewart until 1852 and a John Stuart thereafter for a further 10 years. This makes it one of the longest surviving 19th century farm-scale distilleries on Islay. There is a possibility that Bulloch, Lade & Co used the Lossit warehouses (perhaps to store Caol Ila whisky) until 1867. Today the house and kennels remain, although where whisky distilling actually took place remains a mystery and there is nothing left of the warehouses.


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Africa, Blog, featured, Maternal Health, United Nations, World Health Organization
4 Reasons The US Is Back on Track With Global Health
Posted by Jennifer James on January 28, 2021 January 29, 2021
As is true with each new presidential administration the global health community hangs in the balance. According to KFF.org the US global health funding was set at $11 billion in FY 2019 and in 2020 the funding was significantly decreased. This funding goes towards programs in more than 70 countries for HIV, malaria, maternal and child health among other health challenges. But now with the Biden administration the global health imperative is back on the table with increased funding and a dedication to countries' health. Here are four reasons why.
At the start of the last administration the lamentations were heard around the world about the reinstatement of the Mexico City Policy or the Global Gage Rule, that cut overseas funding from advocating for the legalization of abortions, provide abortions, mention the word, or even refer women to health practionioners that provide safe, legal abortions. Biden has already revoked the Mexico City Policy, but according to Time magazine the Trump effect may take some time to undo.
The Trump administration also withdrew from the World Health Organization (WHO), something that seemed unfathomable, but was a stark wakeup call for the global health community. Biden stopped the United States' official withdrawal from the WHO. This is important as the US provides significant funding for global health and by re-entering the worldwide health community, the US will help stabilize the global COVID-19 response.
Not only did the Trump administration withdraw from the World Health Organization, it also withdrew from The Paris Climate Agreement signed in 2015. Make no mistake, while the Agreement sets conditions and milestones for countries to reach to stave off and prevent further climate extremes it is very much a health agreement. Again, Biden rejoined The Paris Agreement, putting the United States back on a solid footing on climate change initiatives.
Biden's nominee for administrator of USAID is Samantha Power. With years of global health and administration experience under her belt, Power is the former US ambassador to the United Nations under Obama. Additionally, Power served as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights at the National Security Council. Power will certainly raise the profile of USAID and usher a renewed sense of the United States' responsibility to global health and security.
In the first few weeks of Biden's administration there have been several notable changes in how the United States approaches global health. This is especially imperative with the COVID-19 pandemic still raging out of control with new variants and a backed-up vaccine rollout. Now, there is a plan in place not only for the United States, but also for global distribution of the vaccine where the vast majority of the vaccines have gone to high-income countries according to Duke Univeristy's Global Health Instutute.
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The Process of Making Movie Magic- Life on a Real Film Set - For 13-17 Yr Olds
The Process of Making Movie Magic - Life on a Real Film Set - for 9-12 Yr Olds
Life on a Film Set! What's It Really Like?
Afterschool - The Art of Film and Video ( and Make a Film Too )
Film Appreciation: Superheroes, Monsters, Adventure, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and More!
Horror Movie Film Analysis and Social Club
Getting Started in Film and Television Directing (9-13)
An overview of what a director does, different production departments on a set, and how to begin making your own movie, TV show, or video series.
Willow Polson
Completed by 141 learners
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Lights! Camera! Action! WAIT! Hold on, directing a movie is not that simple.
A film director is the captain of the ship, and has to know what every member of the crew does. The director is at the top of the decision pyramid for the whole project, for every department, from wardrobe to props, casting to locations, lighting to camera angles, and guiding the actor's performance during filming. Most directors also have a hand in what the final film edit looks like too.
This class will...
I have directed television shows ("Manos: The Debbie Chronicles," "Vintage America with Ginger" and "Hidden Gems") and voiceover actors for audio dramas ("Triune"). As the showrunner for these projects, I am responsible for every detail from pre-production through post-production. I have also been a production manager and production coordinator and worked closely with directors on a number of film and television sets of all budgets and sizes.
Writer, Producer, Director, Artisan
Hello! I'm excited to share my experience and knowledge about a variety of subjects (such as history, and crafts) but especially filmmaking and writing. Ask me about private tutoring!
I've been on film sets big and small, from two-person...


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The Temple of the Holy Trinity in the Village Chereya
Chereya
Churches, katolik churches, сathedral, monasteries
The Temple of the Holy Trinity in the village Chereya of the Chashniki district of the Vitebsk region is an architectural monument designed in early Baroque. It was constructed in XVI century in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, on the bank of Chereyskoye Lake that is popularly called Beloye. Therefore the countrymen gave the temple a new name - The White Temple. Up to the present moment the temple has survived in its original exterior appearance.
Previously the location Chereya was in possession of the Sapiehas. They governed there during almost 250 years. Bogdan Sapieha built on the bank of this lake, on the spot of the future temple a basilica that later was destroyed. After that there was constructed a one-tower temple, but it was burnt. They say that in the crypt of the temple the parents of Lev Sapieha were buried, but there are no proofs of it.
As to the construction of the Temple of the Holy Trinity, the countrymen say that once, after the signature of the cessation of hostilities with Moscow, Ivan the Terrible presented an icon of Archangel Michael to Kazimir Sapieha. He brought it to Chereya and ordered to construct a temple especially for it. With the efforts of the countrymen there was constructed a temple on the bank of the lake: it was consecrated in honor of the Holy Trinity. In the temple there was also kept a copy of the unique icon "Mother of God of the Sign" that was brought there in 1640.
According to the researcher R. Romanov, it is the only early Baroque architectural monument that has survived, however in ruins. The researcher also remarked the unique slimness of its silhouette and delicate ornament.
The distinctive features of temples of that style are spacious halls, visible from away belfries, rich inner decoration.
The wall thickness of the tower is about two meters. Keeping in mind that the temple is situated on the hill and has such thick walls, it can be said that it had not only a religious function but also a defensive one in the most challenging times.
The inner decoration of the temple has not survived. The temple has suffered difficult times. After the establishment of the Soviet authority the building of the temple was used as grain storage, later – as a hall for mountain climbing. It is supposed that at the time the interior was the most affected.
The interior of the temple was rather strict and modest. It still attracts tourists from across Belarus, that are interested in architectural monuments and styles and who investigate poorly understood facts.
Today the temple does not function, but the local residents take care of the surrounding territory, cut the grass, and improve.
The temple in Chereya has been recently included into the State Program on Restoration that provides hope that soon it will gain its original appearance and will be available for divine services and church celebrations. Connoisseurs of architecture, Orthodox culture and traditions should visit this site to touch again the beautiful.