Centrally Unplanned

Alright watching the new Spice & Wolf. This is probably going to be an emotionally muddled one for me - when I first saw the original as a college boy, I really loved it. Its conceptually checks off a lot of boxes for me; focus on economics, "realistic" low magic fantasy setting, adult characters with plots built around the struggles of everyday living, and also a hot foxgirl. In particular, it had a "there wasn't anything else like it" factor - you really can't find another mainstream anime with the focus that it has.

Alas in hindsight I was giving the show a lot of credit it didn't deserve because of said premises. It doesn't really delivers on them - its trade/economics plots tend to be either weak, using simple or illogical tricks, or on the flip side convoluted, with all of these like betrayals and counter-deceptions that actual merchant life would never really have. More importantly, its pretty bad at conveying these stories - a lot of time is spent with like two people sitting in chairs discussing exchange rates or w/e via dialogue which is not a great way to do that. This is visual information in a visual medium, make charts or little graphics, make it fun! Take notes from Dr Stone on this one. And since none of this is fun the show tended to throw in like church kidnappers and other "actiony" plots to supplement it, which is a bit of a cop-out

And alongside that Holo & Lawrence's dynamic is very will-they-won't-they, not a ton of progression, the visuals are a bit flat, and has more than its fair share of unneeded fanservice. Its a very "of the era" anime in its style and directing. None of this is to say I hate it or anything, I still like it, but now its more of a "sure why not" show over a favourite, except for the fact that due to history there is a sense of attachment that lingers.

From what I can tell, the current remake is going to repeat every single one of these problems and improve on nothing! Lets find out I guess.

Yep its making the same exact mistakes. We are in episode two and Lawrence is meeting up with some merchants to explain like a wheat/salt swap contract, and the visuals are just panning shots of the room?

Like why would you do this??

I don't even know who these people are, and I never will!

Its doing the thing where its "establishing the scene" of the town, which normally you do when characters are either not talking at all, or maybe talking about the town itself. But this is plot talk! Understanding how the branches interact with the contracts is gonna be relevant later, why are the visuals literally unrelated to the dialogue? You could at minimum be showing wheat or salt, and ideally show like visual maps of the trade routes with indications of where money & goods are owed, or something. If you are going to make an anime about trading goods, animate some trading of goods ya know? Use the medium.

And as is a surprise to few who saw the promotional material, the visuals are just weak. Its "fine" when its doing a close up? But the animation can get choppy, and at distance shots things really start to fall apart - individual elements of the background work, but the compositing of the elements is very flat and they aren't blended together with the right lighting/shadowing. They don't come together as cohesive scenes - and in a fantasy setting that is an issue as you need to world build, you can't just go "whatever its a high school".

Idk prob biased due to my own aesthetics but I feel like the original looks better at a design level? Everything here is just washed out, its the "light bloom" era of anime sure but here its all light, no bloom:

While in the original everything has depth of contrast in the color & the sharper lines:

And ofc its not like the light bloom era doesn't have that depth; Hibike Euphonium is airing right now, its obviously very doable. But I think the way you make a "budget" anime now lends itself towards this style (I don't 100% get the causation on that), and it is effective production-wise but it leaves its mark.

Alright watching the new Spice & Wolf. This is probably going to be an emotionally muddled one for me - when I first saw the original as a college boy, I really loved it. Its conceptually checks off a lot of boxes for me; focus on economics, "realistic" low magic fantasy setting, adult characters with plots built around the struggles of everyday living, and also a hot foxgirl. In particular, it had a "there wasn't anything else like it" factor - you really can't find another mainstream anime with the focus that it has.

Alas in hindsight I was giving the show a lot of credit it didn't deserve because of said premises. It doesn't really delivers on them - its trade/economics plots tend to be either weak, using simple or illogical tricks, or on the flip side convoluted, with all of these like betrayals and counter-deceptions that actual merchant life would never really have. More importantly, its pretty bad at conveying these stories - a lot of time is spent with like two people sitting in chairs discussing exchange rates or w/e via dialogue which is not a great way to do that. This is visual information in a visual medium, make charts or little graphics, make it fun! Take notes from Dr Stone on this one. And since none of this is fun the show tended to throw in like church kidnappers and other "actiony" plots to supplement it, which is a bit of a cop-out

And alongside that Holo & Lawrence's dynamic is very will-they-won't-they, not a ton of progression, the visuals are a bit flat, and has more than its fair share of unneeded fanservice. Its a very "of the era" anime in its style and directing. None of this is to say I hate it or anything, I still like it, but now its more of a "sure why not" show over a favourite, except for the fact that due to history there is a sense of attachment that lingers.

From what I can tell, the current remake is going to repeat every single one of these problems and improve on nothing! Lets find out I guess.

Yep its making the same exact mistakes. We are in episode two and Lawrence is meeting up with some merchants to explain like a wheat/salt swap contract, and the visuals are just panning shots of the room?

Like why would you do this??

I don't even know who these people are, and I never will!

Its doing the thing where its "establishing the scene" of the town, which normally you do when characters are either not talking at all, or maybe talking about the town itself. But this is plot talk! Understanding how the branches interact with the contracts is gonna be relevant later, why are the visuals literally unrelated to the dialogue? You could at minimum be showing wheat or salt, and ideally show like visual maps of the trade routes with indications of where money & goods are owed, or something. If you are going to make an anime about trading goods, animate some trading of goods ya know? Use the medium.

"Rent should be no more than 30% of household income" is a really funny and roundabout way to say "property owners as a class are entitled to 30% of gross wages"

Gotta pay your tithes to the local lord!

Yeah now that you point that out, 30% of our societal labor absolutely does not go into maintaining our living spaces. Even when you account for the fact that property owners then pay taxes which go towards local maintenance of infrastructure, that's just not the fraction involved.

Damn, now I really want to see a statistic on how much of our labor actually goes into keeping us all housed and connected, so we can know just how badly landlords and banks are screwing us all.

the reason rent is so high is not because landlords have decided to be evil and should instead decide to not be evil

the reason rent is so high is because of material reality: in material reality, not in a land of abstract class relations, the amount of housing is way way way too the fuck low due to massive government overhead actively preventing people from building new housing. because supply is constrained, but demand is not, prices go up.

the solution to this is not to scream until landlords decide to not be evil, the solution is not to murder an abstract class of people, the solution is to act on material reality and change the situation that caused this to happen. when there is not an absurd shortage of housing, the price will not be so high. so make it possible to build more housing instead of forbidding it and then screaming how the consequences of that are a malicious conspiracy by an abstract class deciding to be evil

Also the rate of return for holding real estate for residential use in the US is like 7%, its pretty much the same as the stock market. It of course comes nowhere close to 30% of "gross income" because - in the case of the US where that rule is primarily from - most people own their homes and don't pay rent! Sitting at around 65%. And of course those who don't own their homes are generally going to be those who have less income, the young and the lower income, so 30% of "their" income is way way below 30% of the collective income. Ofc there is nothing wrong with not owning a home - stock market returns are pretty good after all, nothing inherently wrong with not taking on the debt of a mortgage and instead getting capital returns with your theoretical down payment instead (you miss out on some tax benefits ofc but each financial situation is unique).

And the other reason that being a "landlord" doesn't equal such amazing profits is that its decently expensive, its not a pure profit business. You have property taxes, maintenance fees, tenant disputes, etc. You can of course just be an investor in such a property and outsource such work - this is called "capital" and is identical to buying stock for our purposes here. Unless you are an actual communist (which, fair enough I guess) you probably don't object to the idea of people investing money for a return. An apartment isn't fundamentally different than a factory in that regard.

As a Georgist I have many issues with the US & other land markets, but the *idea* of paying rent is good, great actually, and you are never going to get rid of that (except by immiserating everyone). Instead as @brazenautomaton says, you can just do things to lower rent instead, its the way better way to "fix" this.

neoliberal communist: truly, all land must be nationalized and be distributed as shares in a real estate-backed ETF with investors able to cash out by purchasing a home and shares purchasable with the construction of a proper home

Me, listening in growing horror: just give them a UBI oh lord why hast thou forsaken me -_-

"Rent should be no more than 30% of household income" is a really funny and roundabout way to say "property owners as a class are entitled to 30% of gross wages"

Gotta pay your tithes to the local lord!

Yeah now that you point that out, 30% of our societal labor absolutely does not go into maintaining our living spaces. Even when you account for the fact that property owners then pay taxes which go towards local maintenance of infrastructure, that's just not the fraction involved.

Damn, now I really want to see a statistic on how much of our labor actually goes into keeping us all housed and connected, so we can know just how badly landlords and banks are screwing us all.

the reason rent is so high is not because landlords have decided to be evil and should instead decide to not be evil

the reason rent is so high is because of material reality: in material reality, not in a land of abstract class relations, the amount of housing is way way way too the fuck low due to massive government overhead actively preventing people from building new housing. because supply is constrained, but demand is not, prices go up.

the solution to this is not to scream until landlords decide to not be evil, the solution is not to murder an abstract class of people, the solution is to act on material reality and change the situation that caused this to happen. when there is not an absurd shortage of housing, the price will not be so high. so make it possible to build more housing instead of forbidding it and then screaming how the consequences of that are a malicious conspiracy by an abstract class deciding to be evil

Also the rate of return for holding real estate for residential use in the US is like 7%, its pretty much the same as the stock market. It of course comes nowhere close to 30% of "gross income" because - in the case of the US where that rule is primarily from - most people own their homes and don't pay rent! Sitting at around 65%. And of course those who don't own their homes are generally going to be those who have less income, the young and the lower income, so 30% of "their" income is way way below 30% of the collective income. Ofc there is nothing wrong with not owning a home - stock market returns are pretty good after all, nothing inherently wrong with not taking on the debt of a mortgage and instead getting capital returns with your theoretical down payment instead (you miss out on some tax benefits ofc but each financial situation is unique).

And the other reason that being a "landlord" doesn't equal such amazing profits is that its decently expensive, its not a pure profit business. You have property taxes, maintenance fees, tenant disputes, etc. You can of course just be an investor in such a property and outsource such work - this is called "capital" and is identical to buying stock for our purposes here. Unless you are an actual communist (which, fair enough I guess) you probably don't object to the idea of people investing money for a return. An apartment isn't fundamentally different than a factory in that regard.

As a Georgist I have many issues with the US & other land markets, but the *idea* of paying rent is good, great actually, and you are never going to get rid of that (except by immiserating everyone). Instead as @brazenautomaton says, you can just do things to lower rent instead, its the way better way to "fix" this.

The most embarrassing thing In my life is whenever I see people and they ask what I’ve been up to . Literally nothing ever . Im like ohh you know this and that …. The usual ..

The entire time I was watching Scott Pilgrim Takes Off deep in my heart I was going LET THAT GIRL DATE HER LOSER BOYFRIEND!!!!!!!

flipping the script on Scott Pilgrim means Ramona DESPERATELY wants to get with a guy that wears triforce tees and shorts and I think she's real for that

like this??

2004 Scott Pilgrim: He can't be a nerd and be hot at the same time, so he's just a jock musician who plays games sometimes

2010 Scott Pilgrim: He can't be a nerd and be hot at the same time but now he has to be a nerd, so he is just a failson and gets the girl anyway

2023 Scott Pilgrim: He can't not be a nerd nor can he not be a failson, so he is super hot precisely because he both of those things and ofc gets the girl

First rule of reincarnation is to have insane sex with the guy who killed you last time

Jesus/Judas shippers just won't leave us alone smh

Excerpts from dating profiles I swiped left on:

"If you're a white man who's lucky enough to match with me, make sure to bring offerings".

"I heal my ancestral trauma by dominating white men and making them do things that improve the environment."

(These were two different profiles, seen within the space of a day or two.)

"I'm a magical queer sun siren."

Assuming they mean "in bed" for all of this sounds great, happy to meet my dom's needs in the middle and indulge some of their kinks while they indulge mine.

I had this same experience in my college "map of the modern world" course - all my peers struggling to remember how the colonial map of Africa looked, was Benin a French or British colony etc, and for me it was like bro I fought 3 months of trench warfare over those borders with my bare hands; these facts were imprinted on my soul.

But yeah you certainly get the oddball moments where like the map is wrong for game balance reasons and you fuck up reality with fiction ^^

Periodic self-indulgent reiteration of the fact that, yes, because "ivy league" school protests get ridiculously outsized media coverage and generate inane political grandstanding like congressional hearings, the overbearing response to the event in fact makes the events socially relevant, and a self-fulfilling prophecy is still a prophecy fulfilled...

...but that doesn't the change the fact that everyone involved in that attention spiral is a complete idiot and we all should be treating these as no different from any other protest of a similar scale. I dream a hopeless dream of a world where people don't just invent crises out sheer boredom and pavlovian prestige jerkoff sessions, a dream that will never be of course but one worth complaining about at least.

Would generally agree, but the ivy leagues are supposed to be the best and brightest. Seeing them act like morons is rather demoralizing, knowing that's our next generation of elites.

See, that is exactly the trap though! Who are you talking about? Its 1% of the student body, of people who are overwhelming hugging the age of 20, who are students. There has never once been a time in the history of modern universities where that group hasn't been a bunch of morons - completely independent of this specific issue, even if they protest an issue correctly they will be morons in a million other ways. If society insists on treating a biased selection of kids as a symbolic stand in for elitedom just because their parents are rich or smart, then they are just as stupid as the kids! Don't do that very dumb thing!

Soon...

Not if the protests get so intense the schools are forced to cancel exams! *taps forehead*

jenny holzer x lana del rey

Strong @k-simplex energy imo