Dinh AaronMk

The Second Whenever Cross-Site Hunger Games: Revolution Edition

Children of the Greatfather

Googer's a working man with a schedule more insane than any other I've seen.

Well, for the presumably single that is.

Stellvia Reboot - a freeform Sci-Fi/Near-future NRP

Aboard the Secret Service

Abe leaned up against one of the computer terminals scattered throughout the ship, staring down at the live feed of data that was coming in on the planets as it was organized and compiled by the men in charge of preliminary atmospheric and surface scans of alien worlds. Atmospheric scans were typically the faster and after a short time a consistent profile of the planet's atmosphere and normal attitudes was sussed out. Over the continuing course of scanning they'd get enough data to know how the weather works, whether the world was prone to rainstorms or had a generally tame atmospheric temperament.

What took them longer were surface scans, mapping out the depths of oceans and bodies of water, ground-level conditions, geography and geology, and a rough idea on density. The last bit was tricky, but over several adventures through unexplored systems getting the option to gaze into the core of a planet through scanning over the mouth of a volcanic location in tandem with measuring out the diameter of the planet fed into rough equations that let them get a baseline of gravitational strength. The equation was further worked over by sussing out the gravitational field of the planet itself while orbiting it and measuring their distance of their orbit of the alien world and getting a rate of decay of the orbit, provided they can manage a consistent entry into the planet's proximity. Among other options, the last in their arsenal of methods is landing to drill a deep core or the planet's crust and examining the density of the soil and rock core when it comes out.

There was a frightening incident in such a case as that when the drilling rig broke early into a cave and collapsed an area the size of several city blocks. The planet as it turned out later was like a giant sponge, its significant size created more or less by large and ancient caves created by expanding vapors from old magma chambers that had pushed the rock, escaped, cooled and left large air pockets, and then filled over thousands of years with debris.

No one wanted that again, and if they were again in doubt of their safety landing they all agreed to strike the planet with some large chunk of metal to see what sort of crater it leaves.

So far they weren't having that misfortune again. Working their way from the outside of the system they had hop-scotched from moon to moon and planet. Many of the worlds weren't exactly conducive to a safe exploratory landing, or even to land to fuck around. They were either so frigidly cold and moist that anything they land would freeze and choke with ice. Or they were volcanic and hot and filled with toxic vaporous clouds of methane and sulfur-dioxide. Or they were great chunks of shifting ice, one of which had totally changed by the time one scan was done and they were well into a fourth before they realized they had scanned that planet; its surface had just changed dramatically.

To be fair, that one was close to an enormous blue gas giant.

As they had drawn closer towards the center of the system and its twin stars caught in a precise ballet the worlds became much more favorable. Both of the latest they checked in on were vaguely Earth-sized, one thirteen percent larger than (most of) the crew's ancestral home and the other near seventy-eight percent Earth's size. The larger had a denser atmosphere though, filled with sulfurous gasses and a windy desert surface, there was water; but much of it appeared to suffer the misfortune of being in the vicinity of geologically active sites and from Space even they could look down from cameras and see a great sea of rainbow colors framing a giant gaping black hole that poured hot steam.

The other was more amenable to visitation so far as the last scan finished. Any closer and they knew they'd be getting too close to the still distant twin-star system. The planet was mostly all water, but was strangely shallow. The surface an odd mixture of silicon and gypsum sands with some lime deposits scattered throughout. Nearly 99% of the planet was covered in water as shallow as ankle depth to what the scanning instruments reported to be maximum ocean depths of just over a mile. Recent volcanic activity was pushing up new black islands that turned the current-made ribbons of white-sandy whips of land that wrapped around the island into one long rosary of black beads. The poles were cold, without saying and were frozen over.

There was a polite chime from the terminal and a message was posted alongside the information, a sort of forum space for the crew. It was by one of the science members.

“I think we should visit. Break out the buggies.” it read. The name tag said it had been posted by Double-W.

Abraham thought about it and reached for the keyboard, posting his compliance with the suggestion, “Worth it, a tropical get away would be nice. Would be up for margaritas if everyone's game.”

He posted it and left it at that. It'd take an hour or more for the rest of the crew to notice and toss their weight in. As he put away the keyboard he turned and his heart skipped a beat when he saw the alien human - Tsimatsu – was standing in the door watching him. He didn't think he showed any surprise outwardly, and a relative calm settled back over him.

“Good afternoon.” Abe greeted him. Really time was irrelevant, since it was all relative.

Tsimatsu didn't return the expression, Abe realized probably because he didn't know how to answer. Instead the Ziani gave him a quizzical expression before shaking himself loose. “I wanted to ask you a question.” he said. Abe noticed the sides of his face and neck was looking a little red.

“Shoot.” Abe invited. Another quizzical look from Ziani forced Abe to reiterate, “Go ahead, ask.”

“If I wanted, if it was needed, how would you guys go about contacting my home?” Tsimatsu asked.

Abe thought for a second, scratching the side of his head. “Generally, the Fairers haven't had to deal directly with any other parties, save for among ourselves. If any of us had any dealings, it's been on a ship-by-ship basis; so if you want to go home we'd have to be the ones to take you there.”

“Right...” Tsimatsu said, nervously.

“You think that'd be putting us in danger?”

“Truth be told it might be all of us.” Tsimatsu said, “But I don't know; likely. I'm just an engineer really. I mean: I can fight but I mostly did engineering work. But I'm still thought of as a soldier.”

Abe nodded, he understood. “So you're afraid they might treat you as a defector?”

Tsimatsu nodded, “It's likely.”

“So if you want to go home, you're wondering if we have intermediaries?”

Tsimatsu nodded again.

“Right.” Abe said, and he thought for a moment, “Well we do have one man that was sort of elected to the position. He used to deal directly with other larger groups on behalf of Fairer interests, namely setting boundaries to keep us and them apart. His name was Cardinal.”

“So you have a man?” Tsimatsu said with excitement, a rather dour demeanor soon changed to a sort of hesitatant excitement. It was amazingly quick, even per Abe's expectations; he recoiled out of surprise.

“Well yes, but there's a problem.” he told him, Tsimatsu's excitement quickly dampened, “He went missing.” Abe added.

There was a brief moment of tense silence between the two of them. “Some time ago I heard he was on the trail of something and planet hoping looking for it.” Abe explained, “We Fairers have a communications system that stretched pretty far, it's pretty well encrypted too but that's besides the point. The point being that for a while he had been posting regular updates and leaving us a bread trail and updating our community as a whole on his journey. Then all of a sudden: he stopped.”

“I see.” Tsimatsu dourly mumbled.

“So we can't really do anything if he's gone. I could probe around to see if we can locate an intermediary captain if you want...”

Abe trailed off as Tsimatsu interjected, “No, that will be fine.” his mood shifted suddenly to defeatism and he looked down at his bare feet, “I'll think about it.”

Abe conceded, and raised a new point, “You are aware you're breaking out in some kind of rash, right?” he asked with unbridled concern.

Tsimatsu fumbled, “I've- uh- been itching.”

“I'm going to have to exercise some authority here, we need to get you back to medical and you need to let them do a thorough once over. Let's go.” Abe's tone dropped considerably. Taking on for once an authoritative posture he lead the anxious Zaini out and towards medical.

Bring the good old bugle, boys, we'll sing another song

Sing it with a spirit that will start the world along
Sing it as we used to sing it, 50,000 strong
While we were marching through Georgia.

Hurrah! Hurrah! we bring the jubilee!
Hurrah! Hurrah! the flag that makes you free!
So we sang the chorus from Atlanta to the sea
While we were marching through Georgia.

How the darkeys shouted when they heard the joyful sound
How the turkeys gobbled which our commissary found
How the sweet potatoes even started from the ground
While we were marching through Georgia.

Yes and there were Union men who wept with joyful tears,
When they saw the honored flag they had not seen for years;
Hardly could they be restrained from breaking forth in cheers,
While we were marching through Georgia.

"Sherman's dashing Yankee boys will never reach the coast!"
So the saucy rebels said and 'twas a handsome boast
Had they not forgot, alas! to reckon with the Host
While we were marching through Georgia.

So we made a thoroughfare for freedom and her train,
Sixty miles in latitude, three hundred to the main;
Treason fled before us, for resistance was in vain
While we were marching through Georgia.

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

@Dinh AaronMk You're argument is a problem. If it's inescapable, that some people work for pennies. And yeah it sucks and it's out there. But that has nothing to do with free market capitalism, nor the cause of it and no one here is to blame for it...and again not all work even needs materials from others...

@SleepingSilence

... the post.

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

@Dinh AaronMk Same point. Different words. I'll just say I was "memeing" to automatically be unable to be criticized. <.<

"Now, let's keep going: your sister in making jewelry must ultimately get materials that, like with the minerals of the Congo, are derived from the Earth" "Something something silver and gold, slave children."

Just...No. And for saying excuse me, you didn't actually read what I wrote did you? You wrote walls of text but you didn't read a single sentence. That said "finds stones" And that's literally all I need to say to that...

Again, capitalism doesn't hurt people and even if you use that awful "you didn't build that" argument. There's still plenty of examples of people being able to make money, for literally doing NOTHING that exploits, anyone or anywhere.

Basically this entire point, I think boils down, to trade being evil? Because people importing and exporting cheaper goods to make them cheap for the consumer being bad because someone is being underpaid somewhere else...

But those people also don't live in free market capitalism...and even if you take those jobs away, stop the evil people from making people mine, what do they have? >.>

But ignoring that. The whole "benefits in support of the worker we do not often get full value for our work."

I just posted a video that kind of points out everything you said, so I'll paraphrase that.

Effort doesn't need to be paid. Results do. Want to move my lawn? I'll give you 40 bucks. I won't pay you any differently with a push mower or a ride mower. I just want my lawn mowed. You can put effort in something that isn't actually worth anything of value. :/

@SleepingSilence

Even if your sister is stringing rocks together with twine, unless she's made the twine herself from sheep or alpaca she raises at a farm she operates herself, feeding them hay and otherwise tending to their needs then your sister is still buying twine from somewhere most likely from a country that pays its employees pennies on the hour. Therefore even on a minimal level she is acting within a system encouraging this sort of behavior.

It's admittedly inescapable, in this respect we have blood or some Bengali worker's poor welfare on our hands. But knowing this is the first step to trying to do something about it. But claiming it doesn't matter because the fact that Bengali is employed and claiming they are not exploited because of it because they can just leave the sweatshop doesn't change the fact even if they did they'd be picking effective suicide and the notion that cheap labor is good labor basically leaves people like them as being machines and toys to exploitative industrial barons.

Now if she were locally sourcing her twine from some nearby workshop in the town or county where all the profits of the labor goes to the one old lady who spins the yarn herself, then the situation isn't as bad.

Holy shit, that's a bad analogy.

The typical Ford Motor Company Auto Mechanic salary is $52,528. Auto Mechanic salaries at Ford Motor Company can range from $45,653-$65,195.

Uh yeah, you bet your ass ford car mechanics can buy a car....

And they dump a whole half-years pay or their entire annual salary all at once to acquire that brand new vehicle. If we were to allocate pay on a basis of work done for the company as opposed to a flat hourly rate then employees working at Ford would have made in 2016 a minimum of 700,000$ in annual earnings. Instead all of or most of this goes to William Clay Ford for just existing.

Still, this rate is admittedly generous because it'll still need to go to operating costs. But it underlines the ultimate disparity between earnings at Ford and that they can get away with an employee taking a new Taurus from the line to drive around for a few years or more and there'll be no hit.

Clearly provably false, products over time are getting cheaper. Despite minimum wage increasing for years and years. (just slowly) It's easy to look that up yourself. and while I agree minimum wages shouldn't exist as they do now.
[rest of point here]

And as Seattle is showing us, hours are getting cut.

While food costs may be going down, hours worked is dropping to compensate for the higher wages. So while these people are getting paid more, they're working less; so the falling cost of bread represents more of a net-gain of zero. There is as well a general raise in the price of rent across many of the United State's larger cities, further relegating the prospect of the people making more money on higher fixed hourly rates in comparison to a general drop in certain costs to a greater net zero.

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

<Snipped quote by Darcs>



Mostly stones, that she finds and/or buys herself. <.<

Yes, she's personally invested in invading poor countries for their oil...FFS...Even trolls wouldn't say something that stupid.

You didn't ask for that. But again...how did Bill Gates creating the internet. Ya know the thing you use, hurt anyone and make people poor, I'm waiting...

You didn't even spell the word right...:I

Also more examples, youtubers, twitch casters, self publishing books, entire sites for personal stores. And many more, people earning money in all sorts of ways and not doing shit to anybody in the process, you very, very uninformed person...

@SleepingSilence

>Bill Gates
>Internet



Never the less, I'm sure you mean computers. Which as should be known: Bill Gates didn't invent, he merely got them to such a cheap price-point they were available to the greater consumer base. But the question can still be considered valid: Did Bill Gates exploit people?

Even unattended, capitalism does. Namely, for the benefit of his own self-image or wealth whether direct or indirect ownership of computers or the software that made computers the consumer platform that they became that he helped developed is not equally owned by the people who worked on it. The individuals working on Gates development of Windows - whether in the beginning or in the future Windows corporation - do not have ownership of the product they created, and ownership instead goes to the company or the boss; this is one of the fundamental three forms of alienation, the alienation of the worker from the product of his labor. While they are not being paid, the fact millions and millions still goes into the pockets of company bosses means that the individuals doing the actual work aren't getting the full value of their own ownership of the product by simply being there to work on it.

Extending the example, computers require semi-conductive materials that are not universally distributed. The main source for the materials needed are often sourced from third-world sources like the Congo, where proxy wars had been fought between the United States and Soviet Union for the country's vast mineral deposits required to build, operate, and maintain advanced equipment such as jet aircraft and computers. The people working these mines do not have ownership of their labor, easily even: they're not much better off than slaves. Being paid bare wages they get forced to dig up rare materials by bosses who take a large sum of the profit from the enterprise for themselves for little or no work themselves; they keep it on the merit that they're 'the owner' and often hire armed mercenaries to keep the miners from revolting.

The very fact these materials are so prized by high-tech first-world countries and are so valuable also means in times of Civil War these mines are prized by guerrilla factions who seize them and sell the product to the market which takes the materials and pays them to keep up the war.

Now, let's keep going: your sister in making jewelry must ultimately get materials that, like with the minerals of the Congo, are derived from the Earth. And is most often the case gold and silver must be dug up through the use of miners often paid menial wages, such as is most often the case in Southern America. Local miners go to work in a mine for low wages to dig up gold, facing extreme conditions jeopardizing their health and safety, being in contact with harsh polluting chemicals in the process, all to give it to their boss who sells the gold and keeps a vast majority the gold's value to himself. The miners do not own the gold, and as Big Bill Haywood said, "The mine owners' did not find the gold, they did not mine the gold, they did not mill the gold, but by some weird alchemy all the gold belonged to them!'"

The same pattern of alienation from the product of labor extends into the first world where while we have higher wages over all and a better range of benefits in support of the worker we do not often get full value for our work nor any sort of ownership. A man at Ford can't pick out a car of his choice and drive it off as is, despite having built so many cars for Ford he's certainly earned through labor the right to take one as he sees. But in the nuanced world of minimum wage and raising it forever, the end cost of a product will itself go up; lending in my mind a raise in minimum wage should be tied to a proportion of the shit done and income brought in.

This is of course not the only expression of exploitation through alienation, but it is the most handy.

Stellvia Reboot - a freeform Sci-Fi/Near-future NRP

I know it's only been three days and typically I wouldn't be worried, since among the group I was in the most three days was not much of a wait, but since this is a different set of people I feel obliged to say that yes: I do intend to write a post.

I wrote a PM and was otherwise waiting for a response which hasn't returned yet, so I'mma wing it.

2020, a reminder

<Snipped quote by ClocktowerEchos>

with AI pls

@IntPenDespSword

And dolphins.

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread