u/Judgement_Of_Carrion

So someone asks a genuine question in the primary "official" sub and gets downvoted into oblivion, even if the answers are helpful. Meanwhile, some absolute nothingburger post gets several hundred updoots, bonus if it's a skimpily dressed catgirl.

What gives? Is it something that I'm not terminally online enough to understand?

https://preview.redd.it/pcfy5m1ctyjh1.png?width=661&format=png&auto=webp&s=b64886cb583d5a4fe6c2af11bf4722bae7511bf7

Source.

Enjoy your Lamangese Pop on loop!

Been noticing over the past two days there's a lot of new players and old players alike. Don't get me wrong, I'm chuffed to see more people online - buddied up with a lot of new people yesterday on US East (where I normally play). But it's a (very pleasant) surprise to see so many new people on over the past two days.

Source - NickliesCat on YouTube.

Like, you can't tell me that this track isn't absolute anime protagonist levels of hype.

So this post post was made a little while ago which showed an Iceberg. OP never explained it, so I'm giving an explanation.

Thus you can have my mental barf, I guess.

OP's image - much of it is obvious, some of it not so, but that's why you're here isn't it (other than to laugh at me wasting my time, but that's reddit for you)

Without any further ado, explanations below.

1st Level -

• "We'll bang ok" - Comes from this video.
• "I should go" - Every Shepard conversation closer ever.
• RGB Ending - Mockery over Mass Effect 3's endings being essentially a color picker between Red, Green, Blue.
• Tali's face "reveal" - In ME2 she takes off her mask if you romance her but players don't see her face. In ME3, it's a photoshopped image of Hammasa Kohistani, a British fashion model of Afghan heritage. They eventually added a proper image and render of her face in the Legendary Edition.

2nd Level -

• Reapers are robot space Cthulhu - The Reapers were originally more of a cosmic horror opponent as opposed to "herpaderp robot rebellion" of ME3.
• Morinth Banshee - If you spare Morinth in ME2 and she survives into ME3, she ends up a Banshee and you fight her in the final mission.
• Garrus Paragon/Renegade - The personality of Garrus can be shaped by your choices with him and other Paragon/Renegade decisions across ME1 and ME2.
• "The priiiiiize" - Infamous line in Jacob Taylor's infamously terrible romance.
• Jack Phantom - If you don't do the Grissom Academy mission in ME3, Jack is captured and mindwiped by Cerberus into becoming a Phantom, whom you can fight during the penultimate mission.

3rd Level -

• Legion & Friends - Legion is not one unit but 1,183 Geth programs in one frame.
• "Embrace Eternity" - Asari say this when melding minds with someone else, usually a very intimate gesture. Doing it in front of people can be considered NSFW in the Asari context.
• Charr and Ereba - A very wholesome romance sideplot in ME2 between a Krogan (Charr) and Asari (Ereba) that ends in tragedy in ME3 when Charr dies fighting indoctrinated Rachni as part of Aralakh Company.
• Secret Virmire Base Entrance - You can choose to go in the front entrance guns blazing or the side entrance during the Virmire mission in ME1, however it's not obvious to spot and a lot of players miss it.
• Bi Jack - Jack is romanceable by only Male Shepard in-game but there's indications she was supposed to be romanceable by Female Shepard as well.
• Conrad War Asset - Being nice to Conrad Verner in ME1, ME2 and ME3 and helping out a random sidequest NPC on Feros in ME1 results in Conrad becoming a War Asset in ME3. As it turns out, he's written his Ph.D. in a number of technical matters which turn out to be useful for the Crucible Project.
• Javik's Memory Shard - Leaving the shard alone lets Javik survive the Reaper War. Interacting with it fully results in him committing suicide after the War is over.
• EDI on Luna Base - There's a side mission in ME1 where you defeat a Rogue VI program that's become a fully self aware AI. The remnants were scooped up by Cerberus and refined into EDI. EDI mentions it if brought along on the penultimate mission in ME3, and candidly says "no hard feelings".

4th Level -

• Geth in the next Mass Effect - Speculation that ME4 might involve Geth in some way, effectively nullifying the "Destroy" option in ME3 (which upset a lot of people since Destroy is the only one in which Shepard survives, and many have a hateboner for the Geth and Quarians, thus sparking noisy arguments).
• Fox News Section - An American news channel called Fox News ran a segment in 2008 in which it was falsely claimed that Mass Effect had full frontal nudity and was targeted towards children. Memes ensued.
• Rescuing Liara last in ME1 - If you do so, Liara has some hilarious extra dialogue where she thinks she's hallucinating seeing you and your squad.
• Joker's Sister - Dialogue between NPCs at the Hospital in ME3 indicates that Joker's Sister was killed by an Asari Commando to stop a Reaper force from finding them since she was making too much noise during a planetary invasion, and many of the Reaper force involved Banshees made from the dead of her Commando unit which was wiped out. The Commando will later commit suicide if Shepard authorizes her to have a pistol from the Spectre Terminal, badly traumatizing the Hospital staff who were trying to help her through therapy, since the Commando regarded herself as guilty of murder and was suffering from PTSD and Survivor's Guilt.
• Mass Defect - A machinima which was moderately popular back in the day.
• James Vega Eggs - A scene in ME3 where James Vega makes some kind of egg dish in the Ship's Galley, which has funny dialogue.

5th Level -

• Javik wasn't supposed to be DLC - Speculation by fans that turned out to be true, EA wanted Javik as DLC because money. It was a part of the full game to start with.
• Citadel Tower shaped like a Reaper - If you squint, it does look like one in ME1, giving foreshadowing.
• Reaper TIM Concept Art - TIM was originally supposed to be the game's final boss, with concept art. The idea was scrapped, since the devs noted it didn't suit the character.
• Shepard was actually Indoctrinated the whole time - AKA The Indoctrination Theory. The devs admitted later on that they weren't that smart, but they liked the idea and wished they'd thought of it.
• 50k Cycle Theory - The Reapers perform their harvest roughly every 50,000 years, which is the timeframe for civilization to rise in the galaxy using the Mass Effect principle.
• Dragon Age is in the same universe - Many NPCs use terms from Dragon Age like "Thank the Maker" and other easter eggs, implying that a planet named Thedas probably exists somewhere in the galaxy. Purely fan speculation.

6th Level -

• Haestrom Ending Theory - The original concept for ME3 was that the Mass Effect principle was causing accelerated Heat Death of the Universe, hence Haestrom's star turning red prematurely, and the Reapers were attempting to slow it down by harvesting life.
• TIM Indoctrinated during the Relay 314 Incident - During the First Contact War (Turians call it the Relay 314 Incident) TIM was exposed to Reaper technology, which is where this theory becomes plausible.
• Kasumi likes Jacob - ME2 and ME3 conversations show that Kasumi has a crush on Jacob.
• Aethyta Face Change - If you get drunk on Illium in ME2, Aethyta's face noticeably changes to become younger and more attractive.

7th Level -

• Kai Leng eating cereal - In the novel he shows up in, he breaks into Anderson's house and eats his cereal in a form of petty spite after searching the place for intel. The whole scene is so ludicrous it has spawned mockery and memes.
• The death of BSN - BioWare Social Network was the forum for all of their franchises, and it was shut down in 2018, which meant a lot of the fandom withered away or moved to other platforms.
• Singing Quarian Transmission - A sidequest in ME1 lets you obtain a Quarian Transmission where someone is singing in an opera, which you can give to Tali. This wins her loyalty and lets her successfully complete her Pilgrimage. It's very obtuse, so a lot of players miss the interaction.
• Tali Sweat Controversy - A very horny Talimancer on the BSN Boards claimed that Quarian Sweat was an aphrodisiac and went into excruciating detail about it's possible chemical composition. The devs found it funny and put it in as an easter egg in ME3 Citadel. Often cited as an example of how unhinged BioWare fans are regarding their waifus/husbandos.
• The Consort's Trinket - If you do the Consort sidequests and sleep with her in ME1, she gives you a trinket which you can activate at a Prothean Relic on Eletania (a planet you can visit, and the source of Pyjaks). The activation gives Shepard a vision of Protheans experimenting on Humanity during the Upper Paleolithic Era, implying that the Human species was the backup plan if the Asari failed at their job. Extremely obscure, and often missed by most players.

8th Level -

• EDI Nipples - The robot EDI inhabits has very pronounced nipples on the breasts despite it seemingly having no functionality.
• Deleted ME3 MP Maps - After BioWare shut down the multiplayer servers, the maps are inaccessible, but can be visited with mods for local play or private lobbies. However, it's wrongly believed that the maps were deleted.
• Asari True Form Theory - Based on a conversation between three very drunk partygoer friends in ME2 on Illium, they all see the Asari as sexy in their own species context and argue about the interpretations from their friends, implying that the Asari only look humanoid to Humans but are some kind of abominable tentacle monster thing similar to Saya from Saya no Uta that can shapeshift to look attractive to the beholder. A spectacular example of fans overanalyzing things (or that's what the Asari want you to think, who knows).
• Jack Harper - The real name of TIM. A mercenary soldier who fought on Shanxi during the First Contact War and formed Cerberus in the aftermath.
• Aria is Aleena Theory - The real name and origin of Aria T'Loak is speculated to be Aleena, an Asari Commando mercenary with close ties to the Asari Republican Governments whom Wrex fought with in his past and whom he regards with considerable respect and admiration. Purely speculative, never confirmed.
• Turian AO3 Fanfic Tags - As is the tradition with AO3 (a site for fanfiction and self-published literature), the Turian tags are unhinged and quite NSFW.

9th Level -

• Manuel used the Beacon - Manuel is a character in the ME1 prologue who's kinda psychologically unstable and says a lot of things that turn out to be true like he's reading a prophecy, implying that he used the Beacon and it wrecked his mind. A character in the ME2 DLCs is also implied to be him, as he murdered his colleagues whom he found out were leaking information to the Collectors, either as a desperate ploy to keep them away from their homeworlds or because they were indoctrinated, followed by him committing suicide afterwards to prevent the information from being misused.
• Ashley connected to TIM - Ashley's grandpa, General Williams, was the commanding officer of the garrison on Shanxi along with a special task force on the planet during the First Contact War, and Jack Harper (TIM) was under his command as a mercenary soldier. Both men had shared ideals of Human supremacism and worked together, and General Williams was convinced the Turians were looking for something specific on the planet (which turned out to be a Reaper artifact), which Jack Harper saw and realized that he'd been right all along. Later on, TIM also showed an unusual amount of interest in Ashley and her family, as did the Shadow Broker, implying that Ashley had probably some connection to TIM that isn't fully explained.
  • Worth noting that both in and out of universe there's a conspiracy theory that the Relay 314 Incident was just an excuse and that the highest levels of the Turian Hierarchy (including the Primarch) knew something about the Reapers and were trying to recover artifacts to study, which was why the bizarrely unprovoked attack on Shanxi using a very weak justification took place at all.
• Deleted ME3 Ending Level - It's been speculated that there was a possibility of a fifth ending other than the main four of the Extended Cut with high enough War Assets that would've been a pure Happy Ending. Never confirmed.
• Naked Krogan in ME1 Files - An unfinished model of a naked Krogan is present in the ME1 files. Some of the assets are also present in the Legendary Edition for armor and rigging of the Krogan models.
• Vetra's father is Saren Theory - Vetra Nyx in Andromeda claims her dad disappeared from Turian Spec Ops sometime in her childhood, which places the man in the period when Saren vanished from records before the events of ME1. In addition, her mom was a high ranking Turian General and they kept her name rather than her dad's name, implying that there was a good reason for that rather unusual decision by Turian social norms. In addition, she somewhat does look a bit like a female Saren in terms of her head and body structure. No direct proof exists.

10th Level -

• The Raloi - An alien avian species mentioned only in news reports from the Cerberus/Alliance News Network. They were undergoing First Contact procedures and had been welcomed by the Citadel and the rest of the major galactic powers, but the outbreak of the Reaper War scared them and they've retreated into isolationism ever since. It's unknown if they survived the Reaper War.
• Wrex in Thane's Loyalty Mission - During Thane's Loyalty Mission, you can spot a Krogan next to a Turian talking to Ward Councilor Candidate Joram Talid. The Krogan looks almost exactly like Wrex. Probably just reused assets, but fan speculation is that he was visiting the Citadel at the time.
• Jack sprites on Earth - During the prologue of ME3, the generic fleeing civilians on Earth during the invasion have the textures of Jack in low-poly. Just an asset reuse, but people love to nitpick and memes ensued.
• Secret Cutscene behind Beacon on Eden Prime - In ME1 if you walk up to the space between the railing and the Beacon on Eden Prime, a cutscene plays which shows the landing zone of Sovereign, complete with dialogue - you can see it here. Most players miss it since they beeline to the Beacon.
• Mars Rover Easter Egg - During the Mars mission in the prologue of ME3, doing some specific interactions during the mission when traveling on the Martian surface triggers an interaction where a NASA Rover rolls up to you, does a little nod, then rolls away. This wasn't discovered until fairly recently (2021) and is one of the most obscure easter eggs in the game.

That's all folks.

EDIT - Improved formatting for readability.

That's her, the GOAT

This lady, this gigastacy here, is pretty much the powerhouse of the colony. She hates to kill, but will fight like a hellion for her friends and family, spewing fire and bullets over anyone or anything dumb enough to attack the settlement.

That Highmate was a guy she rescued from a raid on a pirate compound where he was prisoner. Rescue romance? It can happen on the Rim.

She has problems with the cold, but damn if she isn't a tough soldier going through all that and fiercely skilling up to compensate.

When I first recruited her - she was fleeing a Mechanoid attack - I was like "shit, this is going to be hard to manage her." Only for her to be the best damn colonist I've ever had.

Also, Impid girls are pretty hot - literally and figuratively.

Idk what image to put - so have this, I guess

What follows is word vomit based entirely on what I saw in-game while playing on the economies of the major nations of Eorzea.

Why? Why not? I'm bored, that's why.

We will, for the purposes of this post, restrict ourselves to the following - Ul'Dah, Limsa Lominsa, Ishgard, Ala Mhigo and Gridania.

I almost certainly am forgetting something or getting things wrong, so anyone with deeper knowledge who wishes to chip in and correct me is free to do so.

Without any further ado, let's begin.

Sultanate of Ul'Dah

Far and away the wealthiest nation, Ul'Dah's wealth is said to be the ability to turn sand to gold. In many cases, this is quite literally true - Ul'Dah is blessed with generous resources of metals, minerals and ceruleum.

The primary resource extraction operations for Ul'Dah are metals (all kinds, ranging from Iron and Copper Ores to high grade mythril and bauxite), gemstones of several varieties and ceruleum. The biggest mining conglomerate is the Amajina and Sons Mineral Concerns.

Ceruleum is a particularly significant commodity, given the utility of refined ceruleum fuel in the development of modern industries. Ul'Dah initially had limited ceruleum refining capacity, but that changed with the arrival in Eorzea of Cid (nan) Garlond, former chief engineer and magitek expert of the Garlean Empire, who incorporated the Garlond Ironworks and inroduced techniques and technologies to develop a significant ceruleum refining industry. Ul'Dah is at present the world's second largest refiner and exporter of ceruleum and related products (the first is the Garlean Empire).

In addition to this, general mineral and metal refining and processing industries (in all categories light, medium and heavy) as well as related commercial and business enterprises ensures that Ul'Dah is also a major commodity and resource exporter. Fine jewelry, weapons, armor, metal products, tools, refined metals and related production makes up a substantial chunk of its economic output.

The major economic entities are the Manderville Conglomerate (precious metals, gemcutting, alchemical products, hospitality and tourism), the East Aldenard Trading Company (banking, logistics, metal and mineral refining, weapons production, armor production), Amajina and Sons Mining Concern, Garlond Ironworks and the Order of Nald'Thal (tourism, alchemical products and aethernet services).

However, Thanalan's poor quality soil means that Ul'Dah has limited agricultural productive capacity and is thus very heavily dependent on food imports from the rest of Eorzea, particularly Gridania.

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Thalassocracy of Limsa Lominsa

Situated on the isle of Vylbrand, this nation is the second wealthiest in Eorzea. Much of this can be attributed to their massive trade fleet, among the largest in the world and their favorable geographic position to exploit the major trade routes from Sharlayan, Thanalan, Ilsabard, Othard and the New World.

The nation has significant heavy industries and is a leading manufacturer of powder weapons and high quality weapons and armor. In addition, it has a significant shipbuilding industry and agricultural sector.

An oft overlooked but significant industry is tourism - Vylbrand is famous for its mild weather, pleasant climate and fine beaches, which ensures a steady flow of visitors and revenue. The city-state itself is famous for it's fine dining and for waterborne transit.

However, Vylbrand is not particularly flush with resources (though it is by no means deficient) and imports substantial raw materials which it processes into finished goods and exports worldwide. It is self-sufficient in terms of agriculture and has limited food exports.

It has no (known) ceruleum deposits and is thus dependent on imports of ceruleum and related refined products for its economic functioning and prosperity.

_____________________________________________

Gridania

The second poorest nation in Eorzea, Gridania's economy is mostly a primaries based economy, relying heavily on agricultural and pastoral output, with very limited mineral extraction and virtually no industries outside of light manufacturing such as textiles, consumer goods and limited weaponwrights.

This unfortunate situation is largely the result of the principles of Woodsin and Greenwrath, a covenant made with the Elemental Spirits of the Black Shroud to not despoil the landscape and keep out anyone hostile to the forest. The restrictive terms of this agreement means that despite Gridania's economic potential it is always lagging behind its sister nations.

In addition, up until fairly recently it was on the frontline of Garlean Imperial ambitions, which limited the attractiveness of the region for business and trade. It also is a landlocked state, which further compounds its problems, denying it a easily accessible port for trade.

However, Gridania is also Eorzea's breadbasket, and its agricultural and pastoral output feeds most of Eorzea, thus ensuring its significance as a trade partner. It is however completely dependent on its trade partners and allies for all higher-end processed and finished goods as well as ceruleum fuel and industrial equipment and machinery.

It also has a fairly notable tourism industry, especially religious and wedding tourism owing to the presence of the Sanctum of the Twelve.

_____________________________________________

Aristocratic Republic of Ishgard (formerly the Holy See of Ishgard)

Eorzea's third wealthiest nation, Ishgard's economy is a story of paradoxes and resilience. A highly stratified economy, where the nobility often commands most of the production and wealth of the country while the commoners have very little, with rampant inequality. Yet, its also a very innovative and resilient economy, despite operating in effectively wartime conditions for well over a millennium and only recently beginning to adapt to a civilian economic system.

Its primary output is high-end industrial goods, machine tools, weapons and related production, heavy industries related to metal refining and production and a substantial military industrial complex supplying time tested and high quality products and security solutions.

In addition, Ishgard has a construction industry that rivals the competence of any other world power, making it the primary source of highly skilled builders, artisans and construction workers - a highly desirable and well-respected trade.

However, the nation has been on the receiving end of the fall of Dalamud, and has virtually no arable land due to its harsh climate and freezing temperatures precipitated by the Calamity. It is thus completely dependent on food imports to feed its population. In addition, it has very limited resourcing and extraction industries, and is thus also dependent on the imports of raw materials to fuel its industries.

It also was up until recently a theocratic state (at present an aristocratic republic) with a heavily isolationist position, which hurt its economic output, along with issues related to social stratification and poor treatment of its commons - all of which has ensured that Ishgard has a long road ahead to fully live up to its potential, which is massive due to having a skilled, educated and diligent workforce and sophisticated industries.

_____________________________________________

Republic of Ala Mhigo (formerly the Imperial Province of Ala Mhigo, formerly the Kingdom of Ala Mhigo)

Very recently liberated from Garlean Imperial rule, Ala Mhigo had, even traditionally, very little by way of economic output. It had limited arable land, which meant it was just barely agriculturally self-sufficient. It had limited industrial capacity, mostly light industry, consumer goods and good construction industries. It also wasn't particularly flush with resources, which meant it had no real expansion of capacity or dependent economic output.

Ala Mhigo's primary economic prosperity came from its favorable position as a trade nexus between Ilsabard and Eorzea, and its primary export was soldiers and mercenaries who provided reliable, effective and efficient security solutions for any market and any buyer.

Its primary economic sectors are agriculture (near self-sufficient, offset by seasonal imports), consumer goods and services, security solutions, high quality construction materials, construction expertise, skilled and unskilled labor, salt extraction and refining, limited mineral extraction industries for light metals, gemstones and related finished goods and (even to this day) soldiers and mercenaries who provide reliable, effective and efficient security solutions for any market and any buyer.

After the Garlean Invasion, all of these industries were left to fall to ruin. As such, the nation is desperately poor and is in the midst of a painful and slow economic recovery funded by generous grants and investments from the Eorzean Alliance into the nation's few economic areas of strength.

However, its recovery has been encouraging and it is hoped that it will achieve good material prosperity and economic outcomes for its population and the state, and it is the opinion of observers that the country's best days are just ahead.

_____________________________________________

Let me know what you guys think!

Colony baseliner cook caught Zebo got eyes for the Yttakin animal handler and married her. They had a fucked up furry human baby. Whats the most important stuff to do? First game with biotech so this is the first baby i've had to deal with.

How can i make sure he ends up with good stats? Really need a tailor for all this cloth i'm growing, would like for the kid to become a good crafter. Once he learns to walk I just assign him to stuff like that?

Perhaps one of the most important works on the subject

A two part piece I ran into some time ago which is incredibly important given the times we live in.

Part One.

Part Two.

I initially hesitated at the flair I've issued for this one, but given the subject matter, it fits the description, even though the actual principle is more philosophy than anything else.

In the present day, it's not an exaggeration to say we are linked to technology and it's effects in a near inextricable grasp. Few can imagine a world without it save those perhaps over the age of 30.

As such, it is instructive to study what is a rather overlooked aspect of modernity - and that is the philosophical field of Technics.

Broadly stated, it is the study of Technology and it's impact on the Human species. Not of it's individual components, so to speak, but as a whole. How it is used, in what way it is used and most importantly it's impact on society, culture and all that flows from it.

It is absolutely not a fashionable topic to study - for those aping Western systems, this particular field there is also heavily tied into their political derangements (symptoms of which are increasingly becoming visible in our own political systems). But it is critically important - it is my hope that people who read the piece will understand why.

Some excerpts from the piece -

It is a field of study that aims to understand how technological forces can make irreversible and permanent changes to human behavior itself. This is a deeper claim than the ones made by many modern thinkers (like Marx) about the impact of technology on economic, social, and historical forces. Technics claims that the impact of technology is even deeper. It changes who we are as human beings, our very nature, and our ability to interact with others, at a fundamental level.

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A most interesting new observation is that technology and the tools used to utilize them are, and can be seen as, extensions of human organs into the world. The simplest way to think about this is that all the tools and technologies we use today with our hands to increase our capacity and productivity, like a kitchen tool to help cut our vegetables better, can be seen as an extension of our hands themselves. In a literal as well as metaphysical sense. The obvious consequences of this idea in the modern age are that the average individual today has become so reliant on technology to perform his daily tasks, that he can be seen, in many ways, to be more technology than man.

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We then come to the two authors, who within a period of three years, wrote the two most well-known books (at least in the English-speaking world) on the field of Technics. I'm obviously talking about Oswald Spengler's "Der Mensch und die Technik" ("Man and Technics") (1931) and Lewis Mumford's "Technics and Civilization" (1934).

In line with his grand theory of every people/nationality/race having its own sovereign "spirit", Spengler sees technology itself as a manifestation of man's desire and ability to impose his will on the natural world. In particular, Spengler associates Technics with the Western, "Faustian" Man, and his ushering in of Modernity - of society organized at an Industrial scale, with mass production, mass information, and mass consumption. Through industrial society and mass information, Faustian Man was able to fulfill his instinct and desire to impose himself on the natural world.

...

According to Spengler, organizing society at this industrial scale, focused on mass production and consumption, and given a sense of "reality" by mass information, will undoubtedly lead to a transformation of human nature and behavior itself. After all, human beings across the world have had to go from a paradigm where they lived in small societies with significant local economic self-dependence, and with localized "truths", to the complete opposite kind of human organization - one of large societies, interlinked economic dependence across tribal and national boundaries, and mass information and mass "truths".

How can this not change what human beings are?

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I want us to think of a small wooden basket used by a tribal woman in eastern India. The basket used by this woman is probably made using the locally available wood, is shaped and sized the way it is due to the practical function it needs to perform - being able to store the forest produce that is being collected for local sustenance and commerce.

However, in the modern age, such a basket is now purchasable by a 25-year-old advertising professional at Dilli Haat (or on various platforms online). The buyer of this basket might use it as a decoration in their house, or to store small items, or give it as a present to a friend. Whatever they choose to do with it, the purpose, or meaning, that was imbued in the original item, being used in its original context in the forest, has been completely transformed, and one would say, lost.

After all, these changes brought about by modernity, only part of which is being captured and explored by the field of Technics, are still relatively new to us human beings. We're not biologically wired to have an awareness of thousands of people in our heads (blowing Dunbar's number completely out of the water). We're not wired to receive terrible news about events happening thousands of kilometers away from us, in the palm of our hands, as they are happening in real time. Our ability as human beings to adapt is impressive, but there are limits to this ability, and those limits are ones of size/scale and speed. And it just so happens that size/scale and speed are the two most defining characteristics of modernity*.*

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The general thrust of the article (so to speak) is that the Human species is simply incapable of processing such disruptive and massive changes as rapidly as it is taking place at present.

Incidentally, this is where you get a lot of the strange memes on the Western Internet - "Reject modernity, embrace tradition", "Uncle Ted was right" (referring to a terrorist named Theodore Kaczynski - the Unabomber - who argued against modern Industrial Society in language eerily similar to Technics), the "Dark Enlightenment", "Surf the Kali Yuga", the concepts of "The Cathedral" by Curtis Yarvin AKA Mencius Moldbug, Accelerationism by Nick Land (which is heavily influenced by Technics) and so on.

The point, if you're still reading this and haven't wandered off or are scoffing in disbelief, is that it's quite obvious that technology's impact on our societies - especially a Bronze Age society like ours - is massive, disruptive, traumatic and almost irreversible. Especially with a lot of money being poured into Machine Intelligence in one form or the other (I will not insult your intelligence by pointing out the obvious about what the big technological giants of the world are heavily investing into at present).

We could do no worse than actually study it's impacts, and perhaps gain some insight on where to draw the line, where to increase our focus, and mitigate the worst of it. We owe it to ourselves, our people, our country and our civilization - because the world won't wait. And technological progress and it's impacts most certainly won't either.

This thing gets mentioned a lot or some reason.

So I'm about to start a Mechanitor-focused playthrough. Haven't actually done that so far (I mostly used Xenogerms in my previous playthroughs).

Any suggestions would be appreciated. Also, do I have to ripscan pawns to make the higher level mechanoids, as the Wiki seems to suggest? Gotta be a more humane way to get some, right? (I know, shocking, talking about the humane way to get mechanoids - but I don't do warcrimes on weekends).

What should I be looking out for while doing a mechanitor playthrough?

A piece published the Swarajya Magazine substack. Just in case you wanted more proof that the casteist hack is indeed just that and little else - lots of noise, little substance. Article post is in the title.

Excerpts from the piece -

There is an old History Channel meme that refuses to die. Someone asks how an ancient monument was built or why an archaeological mystery exists. The answer, apparently, is simple. “Aliens.”

Ajeet Bharti recently did something remarkably similar with the Ram Mandir donation scandal.

Instead of asking who stole the money, how they managed to do it repeatedly, or why the Trust’s safeguards failed, he reached for his own all-purpose explanation: “M*tha lobby.” Although he inserted asterisks into the word, the implication was obvious; he was referring to a Marathi lobby.

According to Bharti, this ‘Marathi lobby’ had deceived Lord Ram and the nation. He also claimed that the BJP was not really in control of politics, that “these people” were the real power, and that they had damaged society, the country and even the temples.

---------------------------------------------

In short, there was a real scandal. There were named accused, documentary findings and an ongoing criminal investigation. The Trust appointed under RSS supervision, with a Pracharak as its secretary, had clearly failed in its duties towards the Ram Mandir and in its accountability towards the Hindu samaj.

Bharti knew all this. One would think this is enough stick to beat the RSS with. Yet that is not the story he chose to tell.

Bharti turned it into a story about a regional lobby instead, because that is the version people are more likely to share.

What makes it worse is that he was not reacting in the absence of facts or speculating while waiting for an inquiry.

Why did he do so? The obvious answer is that stories of conspiracy spread much faster than factual accounts of an event. A post alleging that a shadowy regional lobby betrayed Lord Ram is built for social media. A post explaining failures in cash-counting procedures is not.

(...)

Note also how this line of attack is similar to the narratives deployed by the Dravidian and Khalistani forces.

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Next time someone comes at me with "fearless journalist" when talking about this loser I'm going to laugh in condescending contempt in your face.

🦎