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Feinstein slammed by liberals over Amy Coney Barrett hearing – Los Angeles Times

Posted on October 19, 2020 by Danzig

It was a hug that quickly cast a shadow over Dianne Feinsteins long career in the U.S. Senate.

The California Democrat embraced Republican Lindsey Graham at the close of confirmation hearings Thursday for President Trumps Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, publicly thanking the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman for a job well done.

This has been one of the best set of hearings that Ive participated in, Feinstein said.

Calls from liberal activists for her ouster from Democratic leadership were swift, unequivocal and relentless.

Its time for Sen. Feinstein to step down from her leadership position on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Brian Fallon, the executive director of Demand Justice, which opposes conservative nominees to the courts. If she wont, her colleagues need to intervene.

Eli Zupnick, the spokesman for Fix Our Senate, said: Sen. Feinstein is absolutely wrong about what is happening in the Senate and in her committee.

Zupnick said in a statement that Republicans were trying to jam Barretts nomination through the Senate and that it should not be treated as a legitimate confirmation process.

The angry response was not a knee-jerk reaction to an off-the-cuff moment between two longtime senators, but the result of a slow-burning frustration among leading liberal advocates that Feinstein, the panels top Democrat, is no longer the right fit for the job.

Supreme Court confirmation battles have gone from bipartisan Senate fare to bare-knuckle brawls as Republicans, led by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, mounted an aggressive Trump-era campaign to transform the judiciary with conservative judges.

Trump has been able to install more than 200 judges on the federal bench and is now poised to seat his third justice on the Supreme Court.

Barrett is being rushed to confirmation before the Nov. 3 election to replace the late liberal icon Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a shift that would lock in a 6-3 conservative court majority for years to come. Rulings on abortion, same-sex marriage, healthcare and other major issues are in sight.

Fallon said in a statement that Democrats can no longer be led on the Judiciary Committee by someone who treats the Republican theft of a Supreme Court seat with kid gloves.

Feinstein, 87, has been taking it from all sides during Barretts nomination process.

Republicans attacked the senator for questioning Barretts Roman Catholic faith three years ago when the then-Notre Dame Law School professor was undergoing confirmation proceedings for the 7th District U.S. Court of Appeals.

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At the time, Feinstein said Barretts opposition to abortion must be rooted in her religion and questioned if it would influence her rulings on the bench, saying the dogma lives loudly in you.

It became a rallying point this week for Republicans defending Barretts faith, so much so that Graham praised the judge as an unashamedly pro-life nominee who could be a role model to other conservative women.

Feinstein avoided the trap and was careful during her questioning of Barrett not to probe her faith. Democrats were determined to avoid a repeat of the 2017 hearing.

But as other Democratic senators seized the spotlight, using the four days of hearings to lob attacks at Trump and his court nominee, Feinstein often took a more diplomatic approach. At one point she declared herself impressed with Barretts handling of questions. Liberal eyes rolled.

Despite the complaints, Democrats have Feinstein to thank for a few key moments during the process.

It was Feinstein who drew a notable non-answer from Barrett when asked if she agreed with the late conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, her mentor, that the Voting Rights Act perpetuated racial entitlement.

And Barrett gave Feinstein a similar non-answer when asked if she agreed with other conservatives who argue that Medicare, the healthcare program for older Americans, is unconstitutional.

Feinsteins office declined further comment, but pointed to a statement she issued about the hearing.

Judiciary Committee Democrats had one goal this week: to show whats at stake under a 6-3 conservative Supreme Court and we did that, Feinstein said. We showed that Judge Barrett has a long history of opposing the Affordable Care Act and Roe [vs.] Wade and represents the vote to overturn both.

But those moments may be forgotten for the one that is now being remembered all the more notable because it happened during the COVID-19 crisis, with neither senator wearing a mask. It was the hug.

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Feinstein slammed by liberals over Amy Coney Barrett hearing - Los Angeles Times

Conservative Critiques Of Twitter Sound Very Left-Wing Liberal – Forbes

Posted on October 19, 2020 by Danzig

Back during the 2016 Republican presidential primaries, Sen. Marco Rubio talked about student loan debt hed run up while in college and law school. Notable about his recollections is that he indicated the debt was a past tense concept.

Well, of course.

When youre part of a political system that doles out trillions each year, money finds you. Always, always, always. It doesnt always find you directly, but find you it does. If your son, daughter, nephew, niece, husband, wife, father or mother is a senator, youll not so coincidentally find that all manner of interesting and remunerative work and investment opportunities come your way.

Hunter Biden is a symptom of the above truth. The New York Post ran a report about some e-mails Biden sent that confirm whats long been known: to influence the doings of his powerful father, various businesses and countries directed substantial funds to the powerful fathers son. If Hunter Biden were Hunter Smith, merely the son of a Delaware lawyer, he would not have enjoyed pay from Ukrainian energy firms and Chinese investment funds. Money found him because of his father. Its all a waste of words so obvious is it.

Which brings us to Twitter TWTR . By now most everyone knows that Twitter chose to block the sharing of the Post article which further confirmed what everyone with a pulse knew about Joe Bidens son. As a shareholder in Twitter, its decision was bothersome to me. More on that in a bit.

Even more bothersome has been the reaction to Twitter among conservatives. One conservative editorial observed that it was the right call for Republicans to subpoena Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. It seems conservatives now believe that what they deem dishonest and abusive assaults on ideas by private companies are now a federal matter. How things have changed on the right. For the worse.

Up front, Twitter is not a public forum. Though its nominally open to all comers, Twitter, like any business, implicitly or explicitly reserves the right to refuse service or use to anyone. So while its disappointing that the site would disallow the sharing of the Posts enhanced revelation about Biden, thats its right.

Its similarly the right of Amazon AMZN to spike a movie by conservative theorist Shelby Steele, as is it the right of Google GOOG to fiddle with searches for the Great Barrington Declaration. About the latter, I was in Great Barrington for the writing and signing of it by eminent doctors. I support its conclusions wholeheartedly.

At the same time, I support the right of private businesses to do as they wish with what is their property. The reality is that the decisions made by Twitter, Amazon and Google are economic ones. They seem mistaken to me, and perhaps threaten their long-term viability. But what a business does with its property isnt something for politicians to question. This is something conservatives used to believe.

They believed it because they believed in property rights first and foremost, but also because they recognized any political meddling with businesses invites quite a bit more of it. If conservatives are going to haul Jack Dorsey before Congress to explain his companys decision to allegedly protect Hunter Biden, wont liberal politicians soon enough be calling Jeff Bezos before Congress to explain Amazon having had the temerity to meet the needs of customers in ways they never imagined? Oh wait, liberal politicians have already done this. Which is also the point. Do conservatives feel comfortable increasingly mimicking their reliably emotional counterparts on the left?

Dont conservatives also dislike affirmative action, or forced outcomes? Are they now of the view that Google doesnt play fair with its search technology, so government must step in to require more conservative lean in its searches? Is the next step that Amazon and other producers of content will have to prove to Republicans that theyre creating sufficient pro-market and pro-family content? Will Twitter soon be required to detail its efforts to push conservative commentary into the feeds of readers?

Some will say the questions are simplistic, but then so has been the conservative freakout over the companies mentioned. If they want to slant their content, searches and feeds to favor the liberal point of view, thats their right.

At the same time, its the right of conservatives to take their eyeballs elsewhere. Which in the past is what conservatives would have said. If a business is offending its users, the slights represent a market opportunity. Wasnt Fox News a market response to news reporting that was heavily left leaning? Readers know the answer.

The same answer should apply to Twitter, Amazon and Google. If theyre favoring the left, theyre making an economic decision that potentially imperils their long-term viability. So rather than Republicans cheered on by conservatives using the threat of government force to allegedly achieve affirmative treatment from technologists who swing left, why not let markets sort things out?

Conservative Critiques Of Twitter Sound Very Left-Wing Liberal - Forbes

COMMENTARY: The Liberals are being disingenuous in their push to end WE Charity investigations – Global News

Posted on October 19, 2020 by Danzig

In trying to make sense of the prime ministers decision to prorogue Parliament back in August, derailing the committee investigations into the WE Charity scandal always seemed like a plausible explanation.

But after witnessing the governments desperate attempts to prevent those committees from resuming their work, it now seems like an inescapable conclusion.

On Thursday, the finance committee was bogged down by 11 hours of filibuster from Liberal members trying to block a Conservative motion to lift some of the redactions in over 5,000 pages of documents pertaining to the scandal that the government released in August (coincidentally, right around the time Parliament was prorogued).

And then, Friday, the committee hearings were cancelled altogether.

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Meanwhile, the ethics committee was subjected to the same delay tactics from Liberal members as the committee was trying to debate a motion concerning records from the agency that had arranged speaking engagements for Trudeau family members at various WE Charity events.

The Liberals defence of these tactics is to try and portray this scandal as old news and a distraction from more pressing matters. Thats rather disingenuous.

Again, had Parliament not been prorogued, these committees could have continued their investigations perhaps they might even have concluded much of that work by now given that were now about two months removed from the decision to prorogue.

This past Tuesday in the House of Commons, Trudeau suggested that this matter is closed as far as his government is concerned, and that instead it will remain focused on dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Encroachment of the Unsayable – The New York Times

Posted on October 19, 2020 by Danzig

In January, in what now seems like a bygone age, the writer George Packer delivered a memorable speech, The Enemies of Writing, for the honor of winning the Hitchens Prize. Why is a career like that of Christopher Hitchens not only unlikely but almost unimaginable? Packer asked. Put another way: Why is the current atmosphere inhospitable to it? What are the enemies of writing today?

For a sense of what Packer meant, consider that in 2007 Hitchens wrote and Vanity Fair published an essay titled, Why Women Arent Funny. It was outlandish, but also learned, and maybe not entirely serious. Imagine that ever running today, in Vanity Fair or any other mainstream publication. Or take another Hitchens column from the same year, in which he called Islam simultaneously the ideology of insurgent violence and of certain inflexible dictatorships. Try finding a line like that today in Slate, where it first appeared.

What these examples show, and what Packer brilliantly captures in his speech, is what might be called the encroachment of the unsayable. Its an encroachment that, in its modern form, began with the Ayatollah Khomeinis 1989 fatwa against Salman Rushdie for the publication of The Satanic Verses, which was deemed blasphemous. In short order, the world got to see who in the liberal world really had the courage of liberalisms supposedly deepest convictions.

Since that episode which resulted in nearly a decade of hiding for Rushdie, the killing of his novels Japanese translator and the shooting of his Norwegian publisher there have been all-too-many similar moments: the slaying of the Dutch director Theo Van Gogh in 2004, the Danish cartoon affair in 2005-06, the Charlie Hebdo massacre in 2015, and, last week, the beheading of French teacher Samuel Paty by a Chechen refugee, according to authorities, for the sin of showing his students two caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad as part of a lesson on free speech.

As in all the other instances, the immediate reaction has been heartbreak, defiance, solidarity followed, typically, by a quiet moral concession. Often, this takes the form of a yes-but response in which the crime is condemned while also viewed as an answer to a provocation that is itself indefensible.

After the Rushdie incident, former President Jimmy Carter published an op-ed in The Times that called Khomeinis death sentence abhorrent but added that Rushdies book is a direct insult to those millions of Muslims whose sacred beliefs have been violated. After PEN American Center chose to honor Charlie Hebdo for its Freedom of Expression Courage Award, some members of PEN America protested the choice because the slain cartoonists had poked fun at the beliefs of a marginalized, embattled and victimized minority.

The upshot of these controversies has been a kind of default to a middle position that goes roughly as follows: Fanatics shouldnt kill people, and writers and artists shouldnt needlessly offend fanatics. Its a compromise that is fatal to liberalism. It reintroduces a concept of blasphemy into the liberal social order. It gives the prospectively insulted a de facto veto over what other people might say. It accustoms the public to an ever-narrower range of permissible speech and acceptable thought.

And, as Packer notes, it slowly but surely turns writers, editors and publishers into cowards. Notice, for instance, that I have just described the suspect in Patys murder as a Chechen. Why? Because its accurate enough, and its not worth dealing with the choice and precision of a single adjective.

It isnt entirely clear whether theres a causal connection between the way so many Western liberals have tried to dance around the subject of religious fanaticism and other encroachments on socially acceptable speech. But the two have moved in tandem, with equally destructive results. Our compromised liberalism has left a generation of writers weighing their every word for fear that a wrong one could wreck their professional lives. The result is safer, but also more timid; more correct, but also less interesting. It is simultaneously bad for those who write, and boring for those who read. It is as deadly an enemy of writing as has ever been devised.

In his speech, Packer notes that good writing is essential to democracy, and one dies with the other. The corollary to this thought is that the more some ideas become undiscussable, the more some things become unsayable, the more difficult it becomes to write well. We are killing democracy one weak verb, blurred analogy and deleted sentence at a time.

I should be more precise. When I say we, I dont mean normal people who havent been trained in the art of never saying what they really think. I mean those of us who are supposed to be the gatekeepers of what was once a robust and confident liberal culture that believed in the value of clear expression and bold argument. This is a culture that has been losing its nerve for 30 years. As we go, so does the rest of democracy.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. Wed like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And heres our email: letters@nytimes.com.

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The Encroachment of the Unsayable - The New York Times

B.C. Conservative leader says B.C. Liberal leak of WorkSafeBC report shows party is worried – Kamloops This Week

Posted on October 19, 2020 by Danzig

The leader of the B.C. Conservative party believes the B.C. Liberals are worried because his party's platform is resonating with voters during the provincial election campaign.

On Saturday (Oct. 17), the B.C. Liberal Party called on B.C. Conservative Leader Trevor Bolin to answer for how he, as a business owner, handled a case of sexual harassment among his employees in 2018.

The incident ultimately resulted in Bolin firing the employee who complained about the sexual harassment, which WorkSafeBC called a discriminatory action in retaliation for her complaint.

The Liberals called on Bolin to publicly address his actions in a mass email sent to supporters and media, with a WorkSafeBC report attached (the report can be read below this story).

Bolin responded to the allegations during a campaign stop in Kamloops on Saturday.

"You know what, it's the B.C. Liberals trying to find anything they can because they're concerned we're resonating with voters, so the easiest thing they can do is find something that happened at one of my stores and release that," said Bolin, who is running for MLA in the riding of Peace River North and also sits as a city councillor in Fort St. John.

His B.C. Conservatives are fielding candidates in 19 of the provinces 87 ridings, including Dennis Giesbrecht in Kamloops-North Thompson. General voting day is Oct. 24.

In January 2018, the fired employee complained to the store's general manager that her supervisor had sexually harassed her, stating in a vulgar manner that he wanted to have sex with her, and previously telling her that he was willing to pay to do so, according to the complaint.

A meeting between the employee, store owner Bolin and the store's general manager did not resolve the matter, with scheduling conflicts standing in the way of changing shifts so the two employees did not have to work together.

After that meeting, the employee said she felt "completely unprotected and that nothing would be done."

As a result, the employee contacted the RCMP on the matter and, a week later, she was called in for a meeting with Bolin and the store's general manager. There, she was fired.

The employee insists she was fired because of the complaint, while Bolin claims the worker was fired due to her "hostility and insubordination within the restaurant."

"I let her go for actually yelling at the general manager across the store," Bolin told KTW.

In an emailed response to the B.C. Liberals email, Bolin said the woman's claims of wrongful dismissal are not true. But WorkSafeBC accepted the fired worker's complaint and that Bolin took "prohibited discriminatory action under the [Workers Compensation Act] in terminating the worker."

It also said Bolin, as the woman's employer, "[failed] to follow their own bullying and harassment policy."

Bolin said he regrets that the report was distributed by the Liberals during the campaign.

"It's unfortunate that they rolled this out and are making the families relive this after almost three years, he said. It doesn't belong in politics, it belongs in business.

With incidents of sexism and misogyny making headlines on the campaign trail, Bolin was asked by KTW how voters can trust he would be able to deal with similar issues in his own party, should they arise.

"We've now doubled those recommendations that [WorkSafeBC] has. We've also started an open door policy, right to me as the owner, he said. If they go to the general manager or manager and don't get the results they want, they can freely then come to me and ensure it's investigated at an owner level and not a manager level, which that one was.

Bolin claimed the incident was "the first and last issue any of my stores have had, noting he employs more than 150 workers at different establishments.

WorkSafeBC report BC Conservative leader by ChristopherFoulds on Scribd

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B.C. Conservative leader says B.C. Liberal leak of WorkSafeBC report shows party is worried - Kamloops This Week

Theres a Word for Why We Wear Masks, and Liberals Should Say It – The New York Times

Posted on October 19, 2020 by Danzig

Donald Trump is now back on the road, holding rallies in battleground states. These events, with people behind the president wearing masks but most others not, look awfully irresponsible to most of us some polls show that as many as 92 percent of Americans typically wear masks when they go out.

Trumpworld sees these things differently. Mike Pence articulated the view in the vice-presidential debate. Were about freedom and respecting the freedom of the American people, Mr. Pence said. The topic at hand was the Sept. 26 super-spreader event in the Rose Garden to introduce Amy Coney Barrett as the presidents nominee for the Supreme Court and how the administration can expect Americans to follow safety guidelines that it has often ignored.

Kamala Harris countered that lying to the American people about the severity of the virus hardly counts as respect.

It was a pretty good riposte, but she fixed on the wrong word. She could have delivered a far more devastating response if shed focused on the right word, one that the Democrats have not employed over the past several months.

The word I mean is freedom. One of the key authors of the Western concept of freedom is John Stuart Mill. In On Liberty, he wrote that liberty (or freedom) means doing as we like, subject to such consequences as may follow, without impediment from our fellow creatures, as long as what we do does not harm them even though they should think our conduct foolish, perverse or wrong.

Note the clause as long as what we do does not harm them. He tossed that in there almost as a given indeed, it is a given. This is a standard definition of freedom, more colloquially expressed in the adage Your freedom to do as you please with your fist ends where my jaw begins.

Now, conservatives revere Mill. But today, in the age of the pandemic, Mill and other conservative heroes like John Locke would be aghast at the way the American right wing bandies about the word freedom.

Freedom emphatically does not include the freedom to get someone else sick. It does not include the freedom to refuse to wear a mask in the grocery store, sneeze on someone in the produce section and give him the virus. Thats not freedom for the person who is sneezed upon. For that person, the first persons freedom means chains potential illness and even perhaps a death sentence. No society can function on that definition of freedom.

Joe Biden does a pretty good job of talking about this. At a recent town hall in Miami, he said: I view wearing this mask not so much protecting me, but as a patriotic responsibility. All the tough guys say, Oh, Im not wearing a mask, Im not afraid. Well, be afraid for your husband, your wife, your son, your daughter, your neighbor, your co-worker. Thats who youre protecting having this mask on, and it should be viewed as a patriotic duty, to protect those around you.

Thats good, but it could be much better if he directly rebutted this insane definition of freedom that todays right wing employs.

There are certain words in our political lexicon that belong to this side or the other. Fairness is a liberal word. You rarely hear conservatives talking about fairness. Growth is mostly a conservative word, sometimes the functional opposite of fairness in popular economic discourse, although liberals use it too, but often with a qualifier (balanced or equitable growth, for example).

Freedom belongs almost wholly to the right. They talk about it incessantly and insist on a link between economic freedom and political freedom, positing that the latter is impossible without the former. This was an animating principle of conservative economists in the 20th century like Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman.

Its manifest silliness. To be sure, when they were writing, it was true of a place like the Soviet Union. But it is not true of Western democracies. If they were correct, the Scandinavian nations, statist on economic questions, would have jails filled with political prisoners. If they were correct, advanced democratic countries that elected left-leaning governments would experience a simultaneous crushing of political freedom. History shows little to no incidence of this.

And yet, the broad left in America has let all this go unchallenged for decades, to the point that todays right wing and it is important to call it that and not conservative, which it is not can defend spreading disease, potentially killing other people, as freedom. It is madness.

One thing Democrats in general arent very good at is defending their positions on the level of philosophical principle. This has happened because theyve been on the philosophical defensive since Ronald Reagan came along. Well, its high time they played some philosophical offense, especially on an issue, wearing masks, on which every poll shows broad majorities supporting their view.

Say this: Freedom means the freedom not to get infected by the idiot who refuses to mask up. Even John Stuart Mill would have agreed.

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Theres a Word for Why We Wear Masks, and Liberals Should Say It - The New York Times

Non-profit aimed at feeding food insecure in Liberal expands – KoamNewsNow.com

Posted on October 19, 2020 by Danzig

The Fifteen Percent is looking for a refrigerated truck to fulfill need

October 19, 2020 9:32 PM

Kate Kelley

Posted: October 19, 2020 9:32 PM

Updated: October 19, 2020 9:36 PM

LIBERAL, Mo. What started out as feeding a couple kids in her kitchen has quickly grown. Fast forward two and a half years later, and Kathy Millers mission of feeding the hungry is a full blown assembly line of neighbors feeding neighbors.

Its wonderful because I work very long hours and most of the time Im too tired to cook, so you guys have helped out a lot, said Crystal Bethel, one food recipient.

Each week, Miller dedicates three days to serving up free hot meals for the community. Volunteers help pack and deliver. For Kendra, who fought cancer, and her daughter, Brooke Bearden, who suffered a stroke, giving back in this way is important.

We knew how much it helped when I got done with the treatment, or she was going through therapy and just the long days, how much that warm meal meant to us, you know somebody bringing it to us. That was the main reason why we thought this is where we need to be, this is what we need to do, is minister with food, said Kendra Buzzard, one volunteer.

It just makes me feel good, you know to be able to help somebody else, expressed Valtazar Macias, another volunteer.

Miller is feeding around 90 people right now, though shes served well over a hundred before. The pandemic is making the need more apparent as people struggle to put food on the table. Miller added produce boxes onto her list of giving, expanding to Mindenmines.

We just drove down Main Street with some boxes to see whats going on over here and boy, were we surprised, were needed. Were needed there, said Miller.

Ozark Food Harvest in Springfield is willing to help with food donations, but in order to get it, she needs refrigerated transportation. Miller thought shed found the solution with a truck she picked up in Illinois, but the back of the door is just too small for what she needs.

When we got home, we took it to the shop to find out about getting that new door cut$5000 to $6000 that we just dont have, said Miller.

Now Miller is selling this truck, hoping to find something that works better for their needs. In the meantime, any donations or leads on something new are welcome.

That means the world to me. When somebody has something extra in this community and wants to give it to us because they know that we will be good stewards of that and will use that to feed people in their community, said Miller.

Miller is expanding her building, hoping to add on a spcae for more storage as The Fifteen Percent grows. She added that she has about a $6,000 budget for either a refrigerated trailer or truck.

PREVIOUS STORY: Dishing Up Kindness: Local couple feeds food insecure

Non-profit aimed at feeding food insecure in Liberal expands - KoamNewsNow.com

The Impact of Remote Learning on the Liberal Arts – The Trinity Tripod

Posted on October 19, 2020 by Danzig

Lucius Bryant 22

Staff Writer

At the end of my high school career, and the beginning of my college application process, I was tasked with determining the criteria I would consider ideal in my future place of education. I had not yet decided what I would devote my studies towards, but I had a feeling it would involve writing and the arts at some level. My advisor and I determined I would prosper most at a smaller college with an emphasis on liberal arts that was no farther than a short drive from home. Trinity was top of the list when it came to these criteria. The schools size would regulate average class numbers, ensuring that I would have a more personal relationship with my professors and fellow students. It had been a popular choice among alumni of my high school, and carried a positive context when brought up in conversation. The reputation of the school made me look forward to what was to come.

For the most part, I feel satisfied with how the school has met these expectations. I can still mention I am a student at Trinity in conversation to illicit inquiries of possible acquaintances I had made, or how the hockey team is performing, or if I had started any businesses with my peers; I still enjoy the implications of one day being a Trinity alum with my own stories.

Functionally, the school has let me down a bit. Most of the disappointment has come out of this semester, where the remote learning shoves a wrench in the intimacy of small classes and the rules of quarantine inhibit my ability to meet new people. On one hand, the pressure of being presentable at all times has been taken off my shoulders, while on the other I feel my self-discipline slipping as a result.

From what I have witnessed and inquired about from other students and faculty, I know this semester has been tough for most. It is clearly not everyones ideal situation, which is why I am skeptical when online learning is referred to as the future (mostly from those no longer associated with academia). If online learning were ideal, I have a feeling we would be witnessing a stark contrast in behavior in the students than what we have seen thus far. I believe the students, if the pressure of being restrained to a single location was less severe, would make it a point to avoid social gatherings, and the number of active cases would remain steady at a hopeful zero.

One of the perks of liberal arts is the necessity to take classes in several disciplines. Every school has its own version of this. Here, it is our General Education requirements. The upside to this system is the possibility to turn a student who is perhaps tunnel visioned on their path to becoming an engineer onto the writings of 20th century poets or the details of classical oil paintings and sculptures. Alas, no more than ever I have felt the pressure to focus on prioritizing the future when it comes to my education. The frustrations of quarantine have impacted both the patience required of students to be open to new ideas as well as of professors in order to expose these new ideas. There is less risk to be taken when the engineer sticks to his physics lectures and the art students to their studios. This is the unfortunate reality in which we currently exist.

The Impact of Remote Learning on the Liberal Arts - The Trinity Tripod

Liberal MPs call for government to deny permit renewal that would allow drilling off NSW coastline – The Guardian

Posted on October 19, 2020 by Danzig

Moderate Liberal MPs are leading calls for the Morrison government not to renew a license that would permit gas exploration off the coastline between Sydney and Newcastle.

Labor and the Greens, who also oppose renewing the Petroleum Exploration Permit (Pep) 11, argue the motion tabled by Liberal MP Jason Falinski is an admission the federal governments environmental protection laws are insufficient.

The Greens leader, Adam Bandt, accused the moderate Liberal MPs of only opposing the license renewal because of hostility from their local constituencies. Bandt said the public backlash raised questions about the Coalitions gas-led Covid-19 recovery.

The federal resources minister, Keith Pitt, acknowledged his Coalition colleagues right to raise concerns but reiterated his support for gas exploration.

The Pep 11 license, which has been held by several different energy providers in recent years, allows for offshore drilling of gas and oil and seismic testing in 4,500 sq km of water from off Manly, on Sydneys northern beaches, up to Newcastle.

Other opponents, including community group Save Our Coast, are concerned about the environmental impact of gas exploration including on whale migration paths in the license area.

A Save Our Coast-led petition against the Pep 11 license previously gained 60,000 signatures and was presented to parliament by independent MP Zali Steggall in February.

There are also concerns about the impact offshore gas projects would have on the waters, and skyline, of the tourist-reliant coastline.

Gas is said to have about half the emissions of coal when burned but recent studies suggest its impact on the climate may be greater due to leakage of methane a particularly potent greenhouse gas during extraction.

When introducing his motion in parliament on Monday, Falinski, whose electorate of Mackellar takes in coastline covered by Pep 11, said the stretch of ocean clearly doesnt have anything to offer in terms of gas.

He pointed to how the current license holders, Advent Energy, admitted in 2010 that exploration activities had failed to find gas.

After 16 long years, no useful data has been uncovered, no useful discovery has been made. There has been so much risk, so much worry, and never before has there been so little reward for all of this, Falinski said.

It is no longer fair for this licence to be continuously renewed, creating uncertainty for the community..

Falinski said he had written to Pitt, urging him to deny further extensions to the Pep 11 license.

Fellow moderate Liberal MP Dave Sharma, who seconded Falinskis motion, said Australia had a unique responsibility, indeed a duty, to protect the health of the worlds oceans.

Responding to Falinskis opposition to the license, Bandt told Guardian Australia the motion was only happening because of the strong and effective community campaign.

But its also an admission from the government that their own environmental protection laws arent good enough to stop the drilling. It puts every government MP on notice that the public does not want a gas-led recovery that will fast-track climate collapse, the Greens MP said.

Gas is as dirty as coal, and offshore drilling puts our climate and shores at risk. What isnt good for Sydney, isnt good for anywhere else in Australia. Whether its King Island, Ningaloo, the Great Australian Bight or Pep 11, its all the same.

Speaking in favour of the motion, Labors Emma McBride, the MP for Dobell on the New South Wales central coast which Pep 11 covers, said offshore drilling was a risk to our marine environment, our coastline and our way of life and well being.

She criticised the governments record on environmental policy, specifically for not acting on the findings of a review into the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act and denying MPs the chance to debate it in parliament last month.

Dr Natasha Deen, the founder of the community group Save Our Coast, said Pep 11 is a shocking plan to industrialise our beautiful coast and put rigs on our favourite beaches that risks devastating the coastal ecosystem, marine animals, climate and our way of life.

We thank all MPs who are supporting the motion to end Pep 11, for choosing communities over the risky and damaging fossil fuel industry, she said.

David Breeze, managing director of BPH Energy which owns one-quarter of Advent Energy, told Guardian Australia he hoped the Pep 11 license would be renewed and there were significant reasons to proceed including job creation in line with the governments gas-led recovery.

Breeze, in contrast to Falinski, said the Sydney basin was a proven hydrocarbon-bearing basin and that explorations had sampled gas coming off the seafloor on at least 10 offshore points between Sydney and Newcastle.

Pitt told Guardian Australia he was aware of Falinskis motion and, while members from our side of politics have the right to raise any issues, the Morrison government had made clear gas will provide the base for our economic recovery and we support exploration.

I am concerned that without further gas exploration, Australian businesses, manufacturers and households would be faced with higher energy prices, Pitt said.

Debate on the lower house motion was deferred. The decision to renew the Pep 11 license is the joint responsibility of the federal and NSW state governments.

Original post:

Liberal MPs call for government to deny permit renewal that would allow drilling off NSW coastline - The Guardian

The Plight of the Aggrieved, Rich Manhattan Liberal – The New York Times

Posted on October 19, 2020 by Danzig

SHELTER IN PLACEBy David Leavitt

Its late 2016, and Eva Lindquist is distraught. The chilly, exacting Upper West Side socialite has gathered a circle of sycophants at her Connecticut country house to witness her gnashing her veneers over the recent election of Donald Trump. Swirling her glass of wine, she remains puzzled and furious at the blithe acceptance of this apocalyptic event by her feckless husband, Bruce, a wealth manager, and her standard-issue Manhattan leisure-class coterie: the bickering artsy couple, the hanger-on magazine editor with no money, the diffident gay decorator. (All of the women seem to be some derivative of Iris Apfel.)

Eva is the kind of perennially aggrieved cosmopolitan who in movies is depicted aggressively slapping on body lotion before bed. Even as she cows the members of her social set, she remains the sun around which they orbit; her friends spend all of their time talking either to her or about her. Shes a tabula rasa, taut as piano wire as she tosses out withering rejoinders like beads at Mardi Gras. But she is also prescient, warning that Trump will manipulate the media to rip the country to shreds, even as her privileged petting zoo shrugs off all the doom and gloom.

The news isnt news anymore, she laments, its just pompous opinionating, the purpose of which is to keep us anxious, because these people know that as long as they can keep us anxious, as long as they dangle the carrot of consolation in front of us, theyve got us hooked. Theyre no different than the French papers in 1940, just more sophisticated. And more venal.

Determined not to be caught behind enemy lines, she impulsively buys a grand but tattered apartment in Venice. Its a decision that will fling the lives of her self-involved cabal hither and thither, like raindrops being shaken off an umbrella.

There is an art to writing about unlikable people while still engaging the reader to invest in their indulgence, vanity and, yes, happiness. Tracking the fallout wrought by Evas acquisition, Leavitt unfurls a droll drawing-room pastiche that evokes la dolce vita as Seinfeld episode. His boorish elites argue over the altruism of Barbara Kingsolver, whether Jean Rhys would have been anything without Ford Madox Ford, and the true symbolism of the pussy hat, all while dropping words like ouroboros and concupiscence in everyday conversation. Its Aaron Sorkin on steroids. And surprisingly compelling.

Leavitt has claimed John Cheever and Grace Paley as influences, and it shows here: His dissection of the pampered New Yorkers reaction to Trumps election, which they treat as a personal affront, is lethal and also kookily endearing. These poor rich people, wringing their hands at a country they no longer recognize, when what theyre truly mourning is the death of their own relevance. You can almost hear Elaine Stritch warbling The Ladies Who Lunch in the next apartment.

At one point, Aaron, a bitter, unemployed editor in Evas circle of faux bonhomie, tries to look at the bright side of the election. When writers start to feel oppressed again, he says, theyll start to write books worth reading instead of all of that idiotic upper-middle-class self-absorbed liberal navel-gazing crap we got when Obama was president. Leavitt, cleverly crafting a New Yorker cartoon in words, proves there is still some navel-gazing worth reading. His autopsy of the current liberal ennui is not particularly trenchant or surprising, but its certainly amusing. And in this ghastly year, cant we all use more of that?

Originally posted here:

The Plight of the Aggrieved, Rich Manhattan Liberal - The New York Times

Liberal Education in Crisis: Stanford’s Latest Attempt to Save It – Stanford Review

Posted on October 19, 2020 by Danzig

For the first time in Stanfords history, freshmen are taking the class, Why College?. The optional course, Think70, forms the first module of the newly ratified Civil, Liberal, and Global Education Requirement (CLGER pronounced KL-ee-ger), Stanfords latest attempt to bolster its commitment to a liberal education. Following a four-year testing period that began in September, freshmen will be required to take courses on liberal education, ethics and citizenship, and global perspectives during their first year.

Liberal education at Stanford is in crisis, but CLGER will not save it.

Last fall, Marc Tessier-Lavigne introduced CLGER in a report which concluded that Stanfords attempts to provide a rigorous liberal education have been largely unsuccessful. The report found that Thinking Matters has not increased academic exploration since replacing the former multi-quarter requirement. Likewise, it found that WAYs has failed to encourage coursework diversity. The proposal complains that the most popular course to fulfill the Ethical Reasoning requirement, CS181W, is still in the School of Engineering.

The report also voiced concern with the increasing focus among first-year students on career over education. Students and parents seem to be increasingly captured by a sense of careerism and prioritization of salary. It says that if Stanford education becomes solely vocational, students will be unprepared to think through ethical dilemmas, will have a weak understanding of democracy, and will struggle to address the major existential problems of our day.

But placing core responsibility on students and parents views on education misses a glaring issue: the lacking quality of current coursework in liberal education. Students and parents certainly have a role to play in the trend towards STEM. But there is a fundamental disconnect between the bedrock principles of liberal education, and the actual instruction and course content Stanford provides more broadly.

Courses in liberal education are valuable because they aim to teach humanities as a discipline. Students can then apply the disciplines frameworks, modes of analysis, and abstractions to solve significant, distinct problems outside their realm of study. But Stanford departments have often failed to demonstrate these practical takeaways to students due to a lack of rigor. It is unlikely a student will know how to approach problems through the lens of a historian, if he or she has not first been well trained on foundational aspects of historical analysis.

Many Stanford introductory classes, particularly in humanities, have gained a reputation for shallow course content and easy As, as a look at student reviews and former grade distributions on Carta quickly demonstrates. Students often do the bare minimum and focus on either minute details or vague abstractions to test well. Instead, an introductory course in liberal education should be a rigorous boot camp, where students learn how to put on the spectacles of the discipline.

For many students, the shift to vocational training was not so much a result of careerism as frustration with the lack of a free market of ideas within the Stanford departments. The report itself emphasizes that ideological diversity is a core value of liberal education. But Stanford departments claiming to adhere to principles of liberal education have less-than-phenomenal records of living up to principles of free thinking and discourse in their coursework. In brief observation of different THINK and humanities intro classes curriculum, it seems students are often only required to engage through passive means - produce papers and take tests. And while novel ideas can absolutely be exchanged on paper, generating an environment where ideological diversity is truly valued requires dynamic interpersonal engagement, where we stretch ideas to their limits and debate in community with others. The absence of that innately verbal, social confrontation of contrasting views often means we do not really have to grapple with the other side.

The late philosophy professor Ken Taylor demonstrated his understanding of the importance of challenge in his course Phil80. He forced us to engage in contrarian dialogues on the topic at hand and would question students by taking on different personas, particularly philosophers on the extremes. But Professor Taylors style is a rarity. Thus, many students who have not found that real exchange of ideas in class have turned to other avenues, like the Review.

The problems with Stanfords liberal education run deep. CLGERs three classes will do little, particularly if the University continues with its well-documented history of making liberal education requirements shallow and easy.

Instead, departments should use this time for CLGERs development to also engage both faculty and students in critically analyzing introductory classes for lack of rigor. If students do not recall what they learned in an intro class, yet 70% of them got As, there might be a problem. The University should also encourage course instructors to study and implement pedagogical approaches that encourage robust dialogue in class.

Fundamentally, the Stanford liberal education must be built and rebuilt to actually align with the universal principles of liberal education that make it worthwhile. Otherwise, CLGER will do little to stop us from continually walking away from the Quad, and over to Huang.

Here is the original post:

Liberal Education in Crisis: Stanford's Latest Attempt to Save It - Stanford Review

Voice of the People: Liberal logic warped on issue of abortion – Kankakee Daily Journal

Posted on October 19, 2020 by Danzig

Well, its time once again for a Supreme Court nominee to go through another hearing. Sad to say, every time we go through these hearings, it seems the main issue with liberals is if the nominee is in support of killing babies before and even after they are born because they, the liberals, support this and are even in favor of using them for stem cell research.

If the nominee is against abortion, the liberals consider them hateful and intolerant, more so if they cite religious reasons for being against abortion. Liberals, on the other hand, consider themselves loving and tolerant for being in support of killing little babies.

In Nazi Germany, the Nazis killed little Jewish babies and used them for experiments. Going by the liberals logic, that made the Nazis loving and tolerant people. They were not, just like liberals arent. No matter how you put it, killing babies is hateful, intolerant and, especially, a sin.

More here:

Voice of the People: Liberal logic warped on issue of abortion - Kankakee Daily Journal

About | The Zeitgeist Movement

Posted on October 19, 2020 by Danzig

What are some of the central characteristics of the solution proposed?

Automation of Labor

As the trend of what appears to be an exponential increase in the evolution of information technology, robotics, and computerization continues, it is apparent that human labor is becoming more and more inefficient in regard to meeting the demands necessary for supporting the global population. From the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, we have seen an increasing trend toward technological unemployment, which is the phenomenon where humans are replaced by machines in the work force. This trend, while debatable in regard to its ultimate long term effect on employment, creates a propensity to displace the worker and hence the consumer, slowing consumption.

That stated, this issue is actually overshadowed by a larger social imperative: That the use of machine labor (mechanization) is provably more efficient than human performance in virtually all sectors. For example, if one was to track the performance output of factory production within the US steel industry for the past 200 years, we find that not only do less than 5% of the workforce now work in such factories, the efficiency and output capacities have increased substantially. The trend, in fact, now shows that Employment is Inverse to Productivity. The more mechanization occurs, the more productive an industry becomes.

Today, there are repetitive occupations which simply do not need to exist given the state of automation and computerization (cybernation). Not only would mechanization in these areas reduce the mundane burden and allow more free time for people, it also would, more importantly, increase productivity. Machines do not need breaks, vacations, sleep, etc.. The use of mechanization on its own means to create many forms of abundance on this planet, from food to physical goods.

However, to do this, the traditional labor system we have simply cannot exist. The reality is that our labor for income system is stifling progress in its requirement to keep people working for the sake of economic stability. We are reaching a stage where the efficiency of automation is overriding and making obsolete the system of labor for income. This trend shows no sign of slowing, especially in regard to the now dominant Service Industry, which is increasingly being automated in the form of kiosks, robotics, and other forms. Likewise, due to phenomena related to Moores law and the growing in-expense of computers and machines, it is likely that it is simply a matter of time before corporations simply can no longer rationalize keeping human labor anymore, as the automation systems will become too cheap. Of course, this is a paradoxical market phenomenon, called by some theorists as the contradiction of capitalism, for it is, in effect, removing the consumer (laborer) itself and hence reducing consumption.

Apart from those issues, it is important to also consider human labor contributions based on social relevance, not monetary gain. In a RBE, there would be no reason to have occupations such as Banking, Trading, Insurance, Cashiers, Brokers, Advertising or anything related to the governance of money.

All human actions in the form of institutionalized labor should also have the highest social return. There is no logic in wasting resources, time, and energy on operations that do not have a direct and tangible function. This adjustment alone would remove millions of jobs, for the idea of working for money as a purpose would no longer exist.

In turn, all the poor demographic, shoddy goods, vanity items, and culturally contrived creations designed to influence people for reasons of status (for the sole sake of profit) would also no longer exist, saving countless amounts of time and resources.

One final note on this issue: Some hear this and they assume that this voids the Communicative Arts, and personal and social expression as far as painting, sculpture, music, and the like. No. These mediums of expression will likely thrive like never before, for the amount of free time made available to people will permit a renaissance of creativity and invention, along with community and social capital. The elimination of the burden of labor obligation will also reduce stress and create a more amiable culture.

There is a difference between creating for the sake of keeping society sustainable and efficient, focusing on resource preservation, product efficiency, and strategic allocation of labor for those things which generate a tangible social return versus creating for personal expression, exploration, experimentation, and hence art, which has been a staple of human evolution since the dawn of time.

Access over Property

The concept of property, unannounced to most people today, is a fairly new social concept. Before the neolithic revolution, as extrapolated from current hunter and gatherer societies existing today, property relationships did not exist as we know them. Neither did money, or even trade, in many cases. Communities existed in an egalitarian fashion, living within the carrying capacity of their regions and the natural production built in. It was only after direct agricultural development was discovered, eventually proceeding with resource acquisition by ship traders and the like up to modern day power establishments and corporations that property became a highly defined staple of society as we know it today.

With that understood, which dismisses the common notion that property is a result of some kind of empirical human nature, the notion of no property is also today often blindly associated with Communism and the works of Karl Marx. It is important to point out TZMs advocation of no property is derived from logical inference, based almost explicitly upon strategic resource management and efficiency, rather than any surface influence by these supposed Communist ideals. There is no relation between the two, for communism was not derived from the needs to preserve and manage resources efficiently. Communism, in theory and practice, was based on a social/moral relativism which was culturally specific not environmentally specific which is the case with a RBE.

The real issue relevant to meeting human needs is not ownership it is access. People use things; they do not own them. Ownership is a non-operational, protectionist advent, derived from generations of scarcity over resources, currently compounded by market-based advertising which supports status/class division for the sake of monetary gain . To put it another way, ownership is a form of controlled restriction, both physically and ideologically. Property as a system of controlled restriction, coupled with the monetary value inherent, and hence the market consequences, is unsustainable, limiting, and impractical.

In a NL/RBE model, the focus moves from static ownership to strategic access, with a system designed for society to obtain access as needed. For example, rather than owning various forms of recreational sporting equipment, Access Centers are set up, typically in regions where such actions occur, where a person simply checks out the equipment, uses it for as long as they want, and then returns it. This library type arrangement can be applied to virtually any type of human need. Of course, those reading this who have been conditioned into a more individualistic, materialistic mindset often objects with claims such as What if I want green, custom golf clubs, but only white are available?. This is a culturally contrived, biased reservation. The issue in question is utility, not vanity. Human expression has been molded by the needs of the current market based system (consumption) into values which are simply nonfunctional and irrelevant. Yes, this would require a value adjustment to quality rather than identity. The fact is, even for those who object from the standpoint of their interest in personal identity, the overarching social ramifications of such an social approach will create benefits that will greatly overshadow any such arbitrary personal preference, creating new values to replace the outdated ones.

These include : (a) No Property Crime: In a world of access rather than ownership, and without money, there is no incentive to steal, for there is no resale value. You can not steal something that no one owns and you certainly couldnt sell it. (b) Access Abundance: It has been denoted that the average automobile sits in parking spaces for the majority of its life span, wasting space and time. Rather than having this wasteful consequence of the ownership system, one car could facilitate a large number of users in a given region, with only a fraction of the production/resources needed. [c) Peak Efficiency of Production: Unlike today, where the market system must perpetuate inherently inferior products for the sake of economic turnover, we could actually design goods to last, using the best materials and processes strategically available. We no longer make cheap products to serve a poor demographic (which is the majority). This attribute alone will save cataclysmic amounts of resources, while also enabling a society to have access to goods and services that they would never have had in a world based on money, inherent obsolescence, and property.

Self-Contained/Localized City and Production Systems

There are many brilliant engineers who have worked to tackle the issue of industrial design; from Jacque Fresco, to R. Buckminster Fuller, to Nicola Tesla. Behind such designs, such as Jacque Frescos famed Circular Cities or Fullers Geodesic Domes, rests a basic train of thought: Strategic Efficiency and Maximization of Productivity.

For example, Frescos circular city is constructed of a series of belts, each serving a social function such a energy production, research, recreation, living, etc.. Each city is a hence a system, where all needs are produced within the city complex, in a localized fashion, whenever possible. For example, renewable energy generation occurs near the outer perimeter. Food production is produced closer to the middle within industrial-sized greenhouses.

This is very different in its logic from the globalization-based economy we live in today, which wastes outrageous amounts of energy and resources due to unneeded transport and labor processing. Likewise, transportation within the circular cities is strategically created to eliminate the use of detached automobiles, except for rare cases such as emergency vehicles. Homes are created to be micro-systems as well, with much power generation occurring internally, such as from sunlight absorbed by the building structure using photovoltaic technology. More information on these city system can be found at https://www.thevenusproject.com.

The Geodesic Dome, perfected by Buckminster Fuller, offers another efficiency oriented medium within a similar train of thought. Fullers goal was to build designs to do more with fewer resources. He noticed problems inherent in conventional construction techniques, and recognized the indigenous strength of naturally occurring structures. The advantages include: a much stronger structure than a conventional building while using less material to construct; domes can be built very quickly because they are of a modular prefab construction and suit being mass produced; They also use less energy to keep warm/cool than a conventional box structure. More information can be found at http://www.bfi.org/

In the end, the fundamental interest is, again, sustainability and efficiency on all levels, from the housing design to the earth design. The market system actually fights this efficiency due to the broken, competitive nature inherent.

Technological Unification of Earth via Systems Approach

We live in a symbiotic/synergistic planetary ecosystem, with a cause-effect balance reflecting a single system of earthy operation. Buckminster Fuller defined this well when he referred to the planet as Spaceship Earth. It is time we reflect this natural state of affairs in our societal affairs on this planet. The fact of the matter is that human societies, which are dispersed across the globe, require resources which are also un-uniformly dispersed across the globe. Our current procedure for enabling resource distribution comes in the form of corporations which seek and claim ownership of our earthly resources, which they in turn sell to others in the name of profit. The problems inherent in this practice are numerous, again due to the self-interest based disposition inherent in selling anything for personal gain, as denoted above. But in the larger scheme of things, this is only partially the issue when it come to the reality that we live on a finite planet, and where resource management and preservation should be the number one concern in regard to human survival, especially with the population explosion of the last 200 years.

Two people are born every second on this planet, and each one of those humans needs a lifetime of food, energy, water and the like. Given this fundamental need to understand what we have, the rates of depletion and, invariably, the need to streamline industry in the most efficient, productive way, a Global System of Resource Management must be put in place. It is just common sense. This is an extensive subject when one considers the technical, quantitative variables needed for implementation. However, for the sake of overview, it can be stated that the first step is a Full Global Survey of all earthly resources. Then, based on a quantitative analysis of the properties of each material, a strategically defined process of production is constructed from the bottom up, using such variables as negative retroactions, renewability, etc. (More on this can be found in the section called Project Earth in the ZM lecture called Where Are We Going?). Then consumption statistics are accessed, rates of depletion become monitored, distribution is logically formulated, etc.. In other words, it is a full Systems Approach to earthly resource management, production, and distribution, with the goal of absolute efficiency, conservation, and sustainability. Given the mathematically defined attributes, as based on all available information at the time, along with the state of technology at the time, the parameters for social operation within the industrial complex become self-evident, with decisions arrived at by way of computation, not human opinion. This is where computer intelligence becomes an important tool for social governance, for only the computation ability/programming of computers can access and strategically regulate such processes efficiently, and in real time. This technological application is not novel. It is simply scaled out from current methods already known.

The Scientific Method as the Methodology for Governance

The application of the scientific method for social concern is an oft-repeated mantra for the basis of social operation in a RBE model. While the obviousness of this in regard to industry is simple enough to understand, it is important to also realize its value in regard to human behavior. Science, historically speaking, has often been derailed as a cold, restrictive discipline, reserved for the sake of mere technology and invention. Little regard seems to be currently given to its use in the understanding of human behavior.

Superstitious thought, which has been powerfully dominant in human evolution, has worked on the basis that the human being was somehow detached from the physical world. We have souls; spirits; we are divine; we are related/guided by an all seeing, all knowing, controlling god, etc..

Conversely, yet oddly similar, there is an argument that humans have free will in their decisions and that we have the open ability to choose our actions, absent of the influence of our environment or even education. Now, while the vastness of the prior two statements and many reading those could find numerous cultural arguments to claim the contrary, this doesnt change the basic reality that we humans have historically liked to think that we are special and unique from the rest of the organisms and natural phenomena around us.

However, as time has gone on, it has become increasingly obvious that we are not special and that there is no such thing as special in the natural worldfor everything is special based on the uniqueness of all organisms. There is no reason to assume the human being is any more important or intrinsically different or special than a mole, a tree, an ant, a leaf or a cancer cell. This isnt New Age rhetoric it is fundamental logic. We are physical phenomena nothing more or less.

We are greatly influenced by our culture and our values and behaviors can only mostly be a result of our conditioning, as external phenomena interacts with our genetic predispositions. For example, we have a notion called talent, which is another word for a genetic predisposition to a given behavior, or set of behaviors. A piano prodigy might have an inherent ability that enables them to learn more quickly and perform in a more acute way than another, who has spent the same time in practice, but doesnt have the genetic predisposition. Be that as it may, that talented person still had to learn what a piano was and how to play it. In other words, genes are not autonomous initiators of commands. It takes an environmental trigger to allow for the propensity to materialize.

At any rate, it is not the point of this article to expand on the argument of nature and nurture. The point is that we have proven to be scientifically defined and a product of a traceable causality and it is this understanding that can allow us to slow and even stop the aberrant, or criminal behavior we see in society today such a abuse, murder, theft and the like. The logic, once the effects of human conditioning are understood, is to remove the environmental attributes which are enabling the reactions.

Just as an abused dog who has been starved for a week might have a knee jerk reaction to react very violently to an otherwise innocuous passerby, we humans have the same behavior dynamic. If you dont want people to steal food, do not deprive them of it. It has been found that prisons are now generating more violence than they are curbing. If you teach a child to be a hateful racist, then he will carry those values into the rest his life, very often. Human values and hence human behavior are shaped by the environment in a cause and effect based way, no different than a leaf being blown by the wind.

In a RBEM, the central focus in regard to removing aberrant human actions is not to punish them, but to find the reasons for their offensive actions and work to eliminate them. Humans are products of their environment and personal/social reform is a scientific process.

Moving away from money and markets

Market theory assumes a number of things which have proven to either be false, marginally beneficial, or outright socially detrimental.

The core problems to consider are the following:

A) The need for Infinite Growth, which is mathematically unsustainable and ecologically detrimental. The entire basis of the Market System is not the intelligent management of our mostly finite resources on this planet, but rather the perpetual extraction and consumption of them for the sake of profit and economic growth. In order to keep people employed, people must constantly consume, regardless of the state of affairs within the environment, and often regardless of product utility. This is the absolute reverse of what a sustainable practice would require, which is the strategic preservation and efficient use of resources.

B) A Corruption Generating Incentive System. It is often said that the competitive marketplace creates the incentive to act for the sake of social progress. While this is partially true, it also generates an equal if not more pronounced amount of corruption in the form of planned obsolescence, common crime, wars, large scale financial fraud, labor exploitation, and many other issues. The vast majority of people in prison today are there because of monetary-related crime or non-violent drug offenses. The majority of legislation exists in the context of monetary-based crimes.

Also, if one was to critically examine history and peer into the documented biographies/mentalities of the greatest scientists and inventors of our time, such a N. Tesla, A. Einstein, A. Bell, the Wright Brothers, and many others it is found that they did not find their motivation in the prospect of monetary gain. The interest to make money must not be confused with the interest to create socially beneficial products and very often they are even at odds.

C) A disjunct, inefficient industrial complex which wastes tremendous amount of resources and energy. In the world today, with the advent of Globalization, it has become more profitable to import and export both labor and goods across the globe rather than to produce locally. We import bananas from Ecuador to the US and bottled water from Fuji Japan, while western companies will go to the deprived 3rd world to exploit cheap labor, etc.. Likewise, the process of extraction, to component generation, to assembly, to distribution of a given good might cross through multiple countries for a single final product, simply due to labor and production costs / property costs. This cost efficiency generates extreme technical inefficiency and is only justifiable within the market system for the sake of saving money.

In a RBE model, the focus is maximum technical efficiency. The production process is not dispersed, but made as centralized and fluid as possible, with elements moving the very least amount, saving what would be tremendous amounts of energy and labor as compared to methods today. Food is grown locally whenever possible (which is most of the time given the flexibility of indoor agriculture technology today), while all extraction, production and distribution is logically organized to use as little labor/transport/space as possible while producing the strategically best possible goods (see more below). In other words, the system is planned to maximize efficiently and minimize waste.

D) A propensity for Establishments. Very simply, established corporate/financial orders have a built-in tendency to stop new, socially positive advents from coming to fruition if there is a foreshadowed loss of market share, profit, and hence power. It is important to consider the basic nature of a corporation and its inherent need for self-perpetuation.

If a person starts a company, hires employees, creates a market and becomes profitable, what has thus been created, in part, is the means for survival for a group of people. Since each person in that group typically becomes dependent on that organization for income, a natural, protectionist propensity is created whereas anything that threatens the institution thus threatens the well-being of the group/individual. This is the fabric of a competition mindset. While people think of free market competition as a battle between two or more companies in a given industry, they often miss the other level the competition against new advents which would make them obsolete, outright.

The best way to expand on this point is to simply give an example, such as the US Government and Big Oil collusion to limit the expansion of the fully Electric Car (EV) in the US. This issue was well-presented and sourced in the documentary called Who Killed the Electric Car?. The bottom line here is that the need to preserve an established order for the sake of the well-being of those on the payroll, leads to an inherent tendency to stifle progress. A new technology which can make a prior technology obsolete will be met with resistance unless there is a way for the market system to absorb it in a slow fashion, allowing for a transition for the corporations (i.e. the perpetuation of Hybrid cars in the US, as opposed to the fully electric ones which could exist now, in abundance). There is also a large amount of evidence that the FDA has engaged in favoritism/collusion with pharmaceutical companies to limit/stop the availability of advanced progressive drugs which would void existing/profitable ones.

In a RBE, there is nothing to hold back developmental/implementation of anything. If safe and useful, it would immediately be implemented into society, with no monetary institution to thwart the change due to their self-preserving, monetary nature.

E) An inherent obsolescence which creates inferior products immediately due to the need to stay competitive This little recognized attribute of production is another example of the waste which is created in the market system. It is bad enough that multiple companies constantly duplicate each others items in an attempt to make their variations more interesting for the sake of public consumption, but a more wasteful reality is that, due to the competitive basis of the system, it is a mathematical certainty that every good produced is immediately inferior the moment it is created, due the need to cut the initial cost basis of production and hence stay competitive against another company which is doing the same thing for the same reason. The old free market adage where producers create the best possible goods at the lowest possible prices is a needlessly wasteful fantasy and detrimentally misleading, for it is impossible for a company to use the most efficient material or processes in the production of anything, as it would be too expensive to maintain a competitive cost basis.

They very simply cannot make the strategically best physically it is mathematically impossible. If they did, no one would buy it, for it would be unaffordable due the values inherent in the higher quality materials and methods. Remember people buy what they can afford to. Every person on this planet has a built in limit of affordability in the monetary system, so it generates a feedback loop of constant waste via inferior production, to meet inferior demand. In a RBEM, goods are created to last, with the expansion and updating of certain goods built directly into the design, and with recycling strategically accessed as well, limiting waste.

You will notice the term strategically best was used in a statement above. This qualification means that goods are created with respect to the state of affairs of planetary resources, with the quality of materials used based on an equation taking into account all relevant attributes, rates of depletion, negative retroactions, and the like. In other words, we would not blindly use titanium for, say, every single computer enclosure made, just because it might be the strongest materials for the job. That narrow practice could lead to depletion. Rather, there would be a gradient of material quality which would be accessed through analysis of relevant attributes such as comparable resources, rates of natural obsolescence for a given item, statistical usage in the community, etc. These properties and relationships could be assessed through programming, with the most strategically viable solution computed and output in real-time. It is mere issue of calculation.

F) A propensity for monopoly and cartel due to the basic motivation of growth and increased market share. This is a point that economic theorists will often deny under the assumption that open competition is self-regulating and that monopolies and cartels are extremely rare anomalies in a free-market system. This invisible hand assumption holds little validity, historically, not to mention the outstanding legislation around the issue which proves its infeasibility. In America, there have been numerous monopolies, such as Standard Oil and Microsoft. Cartels, which are essentially Monopolies by way of collusion between the largest competitors in an industry, are also persistent to this day, although perhaps less obvious to the casual observer. In any case, the free market itself does not resolve these issues it always takes the government to step in and break up the monopolies.

This aside, the more important point is that in an economy based on growth, it is only natural for a corporation to want to expand and hence dominate. After all, that is the basis of economic stability in the modern world expansion. Expansion of any corporation always gravitates toward monopoly or cartel, for, again, the basic drive of competition is to out-do your competitor. In other words, monopoly and cartel are absolutely natural in the competitive system. In fact, it is inevitable, for again, the very basis is to seek dominance over market share. The true detriment of this reality goes back to the point above the inherent propensity of an Establishment to preserve its institution. If a medical cartel is influencing the FDA, then new ideas which void that cartels income sources will often be fought, regardless of the social benefits being thwarted.

G) The market system is driven, in part, by Scarcity. The less there is of something, the more money that can be generated in the short term. This sets up a propensity for corporations to limit availability, and hence deny production abundance. It is simply against the very nature of what drives demand to create abundance. The Kimberly Diamond Mines in Africa have been documented in the past to burn diamonds in order to keep prices high. Diamonds are rare resources which take billions of years to be created. This is nothing but problematic. The world we live in should be based on the interest to generate an abundance for the worlds people, along with strategic preservation and streamlined methods to enable that abundance. This is a central reason why, as of 2010, there are over a billion people starving on the planet. It has nothing to do with an inability to produce food, and everything having to do with an inherent need to create/preserve scarcity for the sake of short term profits.

Abundance, Efficiency and Sustainability are, very simply, the enemies of profit. This scarcity logic also applies to the quality of goods. The idea of creating something that could last, say, a lifetime with little repair, is anathema to the market system, for it reduces consumption rates, which slows growth and creates systemic repercussions (loss of jobs, etc.). The scarcity attribute of the market system is nothing but detrimental for these reasons, not to mention that it doesnt even serve the role of efficient resource preservation, which is often claimed.

While supply and demand dictates that the less there is of something, the more it will be valued and hence the increased value will limit consumption, reducing the possibility of running out, the incentive to create scarcity, coupled with the inherent short term reward which results from scarcity driven based prices, nullifies the idea that this enables strategic preservation. We will likely never run out of oil in the current market system. Rather, the prices will become so high that no one can afford it, while those corporations who own the remaining oil will make a great deal of money off of the scarcity, regardless of the long term social ramifications. In other words, remaining scarce resources, existing in such high economic value that it limits their consumption, is not to be confused with preservation that is functional and strategic. True strategic preservation can only come from the direct management of the resource in question in regard to the most efficient technical applications of the resource in industry itself, not arbitrary, surface price relationships, absent of rational allocation.

About | The Zeitgeist Movement

The Zeitgeist Deception | Good Fight Ministries

Posted on October 19, 2020 by Danzig

Peter Josephs Zeitgeist: The MovieThe Greatest Story Ever Sold is one of the most popular and influential Internet films to appear in recent years. Tragically, it has effectively deceived many undiscerning people who have been mesmerized by its fast pace and have accepted it prima facie without carefully examining the films claims. Sadly, the net effect has turned countless people away from Christ by using a pack of devilish lies.

Zeitgeist presents a long debunked theory that claims early Christians created a Christ myth that is loosely based on an alleged amalgamation of ideas that were borrowed from various pagan religions. However, serious scholars, long ago, refuted the ideas promulgated in Zeitgeist. To its own detriment, Zeitgeist quotes plenty of biased occult sources and very few, if any, primary sources.

Skeptic Magazine did a review of Zeitgeist entitled, The Greatest Story Ever Garbled by Tim Callahan, who made the understatement of the year when he spoke of a certain navet on the part of Peter Joseph in regard to his knowledge of the Bible. The Skeptic article stated that the worst thing about the movie is that it mixes some truth with much that is plainly and simply Bogus. (e-Skeptic, Vol. 15 No. 1 p. 61)

Horus and Jesus Compared

Historically, the Bible never speaks of three kings worshiping Jesus, but a group of magi from the east. And contrary to subsequent traditions, the Bible does not specify any number (Matthew 2:1-11). Furthermore, the Bible never portrays Jesus as a sun god and expressly forbids the worship of the sun or any other created thing (Deuteronomy 4:15-16, 19; 17:2-5; Ezekiel 18:15-18; Matthew 4:8-11; Revelation 19:10).

The most disturbing thing about this film is that Zeitgeist falsely claims that Jesus is mere myth and not the Savior of the world. However, these claims clearly go against historical evidence to the contrary. Serious scholars and historians no longer question Jesus existence. Beyond reliable biblical witnesses, there are reputable first century historians like Josephus, Flavius, Pliny the Younger, Tacitus and Suetonius who make mention of Jesus as a historical figure. Josephus refers to Jesus, who was called the Christ, when referring to the execution of his half brother James (Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, book 20, chapter 9, item 1), and Tacitus, writes of Christ, [who] had been executed in Tiberius reign by the governor of Judea, Pontius Pilatus. (The Annals of Imperial Rome, Book 1, Chapter 15)

Overall, Zeitgeist repeatedly relies on the views of Satanists and famous occultists like Madame Helena Blavatsky and Manly P. Hall. Many historians document that Blavatskys occult teachings inspired the occult worldview of Adolph Hitler and the Nazi movement. One of the astonishing ironies about the Zeitgeist movement is that it came under the guise of exposing pagan beliefs and globalism only to end up leading people away from the truth of Gods word and into the occult and The New World Order!

Zeitgeist takes its name from the German word which means time spirit and means the spirit of the age, which ironically sum up the very spirit of the antichrist that is prophesied would to delude the world at the end of the age (1 John 4:1-4).

Contrary to the lies propagated by Zeitgeist, there is absolutely no record of any God in antiquity, prior to Jesus Christ, who was said to have become a man, experience death by crucifixion, and then be raised from the dead on the third day as the Savior of the world! Moreover, Jesus death, burial, and resurrection were prophesied in the Old Testament, several centuries before He came to earth and these biblical prophecies were fulfilled when He died for our sins (Isaiah 53). Truly, this is by far, the Greatest Story Ever Told!

Roots and Fruits

We have already found that the bogus claims that Jesus Christ never existed and Christianity was some lunar myth to be totally unfounded and a pernicious lie. When we examine Zeitgeist it is important to consider the sources. If you want to find the truth behind a movement it is wise to examine the roots and the fruit of the movement in question. When one investigates the roots and fruits of Zeitgeist, one finds that Zeitgeist is rotten at its very core!

Zeitgeist begins with the voice of Jordan Maxwell, who is billed as one of Zeitgeists main authorities and whose bizarre views are brought to the fore throughout the film. Incidentally, Jordan Maxwell has managed to gain quite an audience despite his ludicrous claim that he was brought to planet earth by a group of aliens and that he will be presented to the world as an occult Messiah. Usually people who claim to be talking to little green men or to be the latest messiah find themselves in mental institutions, not in the forefront of the so-called truth movement!

Maxwell, like most false messiahs, seeks to trash Christ and Christianity in an effort to promote his own messianic claims. Another big flashing red light that reveals Maxwell to be a fraud is, that while Maxwell tramples underfoot the beloved name of the Lord Jesus Christ, he turns around and makes money by selling little statues of Jesus, as well as copies of the shroud of Turin, on his website. Maxwell is obviously not a man who can be trusted with truth.

Moreover, Maxwell blasphemes Christ from one side of his mouth and from the other side uses Jesus words as though they were his own. A case in point is the very beginning of the first Zeitgeist film, where those of us who were unfortunate enough to see the film hear Maxwell seeking to trash Christianity and then quoting Jesus words from John 8:32:

The religious institutions of this world are at the bottom of the dirt. The religious institutions in this world are put there by the same people who gave you your government, your corrupt education, who set up your international banking cartels, because our masters dont give a [expletive] about you or your family. All they care about is what they have always cared about and thats controlling the whole [expletive] world. We have been misled away from the true and divine presence in the universe that men have called God You have to know the truth and seek the truth and the truth will set you free. Jordan Maxwell, Zeitgeist-The Movie

Russell Pine(aka Jordan Maxwell)

The name Jordan Maxwell appears to have been borrowed from the Luciferian occult traditions in which he is immersed. Jordan Maxwell is yet another name for the new age occult messiah. We read in the occult teachings of Theosophical Society, founded by the confessed Luciferian, Madame Blavatsky, upon whose occult teachings Maxwell admittedly relies:

There are three Trinities in the Nazarene system as well as in the Hindu philosophy The third is Lord Jordan (Jordanus Maximus), the Water of Life. He is the one through whom alone we can be saved; and thus he answers to the Holy Ghost (the feminine principle) and to the Shekinah (veil), or spiritual garment of En-Soph. (Source)

Maxwell claims that when he was a child a very evil demonic entity appeared to him in his bedroom, and that this encounter marked the beginning of his experiences with super entities and occult revelations. It was through subsequent encounters with alien beings that Maxwell alleges he discovered that aliens brought him to planet earth and have since guided his occult journey. Incredibly, Maxwell claims that one of the greatest influences on his life was the admitted Luciferian and 33rd degree Mason, Manly P. Hall, who boasted of the esoteric mason, The seething energies of Lucifer are in his hands (Manly P. Hall, The Lost Keys of Freemasonry, p. 48).

The irony is that Maxwell warns against secret societies and their use of symbols to communicate illumination concerning the coming new world order to the elite, while Maxwell himself is reading this symbolism and claiming that hybrid super beings are going to reward him when they set up the new order. In reality Maxwell is being used to teach the doctrines of demons to lead people away from Christ and into the very new world order he claims to be warning against. (1 Timothy 4:1; 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12; Revelation 13:1-18)

Maxwell states that the world is heading toward a new world order wherein the powers of the universe are going to set things right and will enlighten mankind. Maxwell states that there will soon be a revelation of the sons of God mentioned in the Old Testament who will soon bring about this happy new world order. Maxwell states, There are people on the earth that are divinely ordained in there positions of power from another place and another time who have extraordinary wisdom, power, and knowledge. Jordan tells us that these sons of God mated with women and now there are entities here who are not completely human, but who are a combination of the divine and human. Maxwell tells his audience that these entities, when they come to establish the new world order here on earth, will reward him and his audience, exclaiming, I see no problem with this. I accept that there are powers over us and I think they will reward you for your diligence and intelligence.

Many biblical scholars believe that the sons of God mentioned in Genesis 6:4-6 refers to fallen angels who were judged by God in the days of Noah. This was certainly the understanding of the Hebrew scholars who translated the term sons of God to angels in the first Greek translation of the old Testament, known as the Septuagint, and was the understanding of the early fathers of the Christian church (2nd and 3rd century). This also appears to be the apostolic understanding as well. (2 Peter 2:4-5; Jude 6)

Regardless of ones view on the identity of the sons of God, it should be clear to those of us who are aware of what the bible says about the coming new world order under Antichrist (Revelation 13:1-18), that Jordon Maxwell is leading his audience into following the wicked rulers of the darkness of this world (Ephesians 6:12) and into the coming satanic age of the beast, while claiming to be exposing the new world order!

Madame Helena Blavatsky

Isnt it incredible that Zeitgeist came on the scene under the guise of exposing a populace-controlling myth and the evils of a new world order, yet has ironically ended up leading so many people astray by employing occult myths and leading the masses into the new world order through the back door? Isnt it tragic and strange that a film that is suppose to be about the truth has led countless people away from the truth of Gods Word (John 17:17) and the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6), and led many to follow the obviously fraudulent, alien-occult messiah, Jordan Maxwell? All of this screams of mass deception! Those who want truth should run, not walk, to the nearest exit when it comes to considering Zeitgeist as anything more than bad fiction and a blatant pack of lies. Indeed, Zeitgeist has the fingerprints of the devil all over it!

It is our prayer that God will guard our hearts and minds from the spiritual deceptions that Jesus warned would plague the world in the last days (Matthew 24:24-25). May God help those who have been bamboozled by the Zeitgeist deception (and similar lies) come out of darkness and into the glorious light of the Lord Jesus Christ, the King of kings and Lord of lords (Revelation 19:11-21). May the Lord Jesus, who died for our sins and conquered the grave, rescue them before its too late and they die in their sins and are sentenced to eternal condemnation for rejecting the only One who could save their souls:

Jesus answered him, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him. (John 3:3, 16-21, 36)

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The Zeitgeist Deception | Good Fight Ministries

The Zeitgeist Movement – RationalWiki

Posted on October 19, 2020 by Danzig

This article requires expansion. Please help.

Though not a stub by pure word count, this article lacks depth of content.

The Zeitgeist Movement is a grass-roots international network poorly organized crank movement promoting a change[1] in the current spirit of the time (hence the name "The Zeitgeist Movement") that was formed in response to Peter Joseph's Zeitgeist: Addendum documentary.

Basically a conspiratorial fringe re-hash of the Technocracy movement, their ideas are derived from multiple sources, primarily from that of The Venus Project and Buckminster Fuller. Indeed, the movement's Activist Orientation Guide defines itself as "the activist arm of the Venus Project",[2] despite their split with the Venus Project in April 2011.[3] They consider themselves to be a "sustainability advocacy organization."[4] The community is largely concentrated on the internet and have their own live broadcasting shows.[5][6]

In a sentence: The organization is based on undirected whining about capitalism, accompanied by a belief that somehow computers should be used excessively to do all future resource planning for the purpose of maximum efficiency and sustainability, and that shortly robots will be doing most work in summary, something one could call techno-utopianism, but with most corners cut and a dose of Alex Jones-esque thinking mixed in.

The Zeitgeist movement is organised into various different 'chapters' across more than 50 different countries, though just how active these chapters are is probably only known to those involved in them[7] and differs greatly from chapter to chapter.

Recordings of most chapter meetings are freely available online, where all types of chapter-related matters like activity are discussed.

A quick glance at some chapter websites reveals they have at least some presence in certain university societies and at the local level. Nevertheless, most of their forum posting seems to be discussions about the movement's philosophy and what activists intend to do in the near future.

It is however difficult to measure if the movement achieves its goals seeing their sole intention is to be an educational movement[8] and "spread awareness," it seems there aren't, given there has been a consistent decrease in chapters, membership, and Internet presence on a monthly basis (see chapter list on the website) and the userbase on the different Facebook pages[9] show a decrease.

The movement is made of frothing abusive nutters, getting more so as it gets smaller.

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The Zeitgeist Movement - RationalWiki

A Definitive List Of The 28 Hard Seltzers In Australia – Boss Hunting

Posted on October 19, 2020 by Danzig

Is hard seltzer a revolution, or a fleeting alt-alcohol trend thatll fizzle as fast as vapourised cocktails? It might be tempting to side with the latter, but with the way this market is rolling along, its looking like a major step forward for the better for you drinks movement. Labels like White Claw have swiftly become big players in the North American market, to the point where the seltzer sector is expected to hit a US$2.5 billion valuation as early as next year.

The answer is as simple as soda or sparkling water thats been spiked with alcohol and finished with (usually natural) fruit flavours. The alcohol base can either be naturally occurring, thanks to natural fermentation, based on a brewing process, or simply an old fashioned triple-distilled vodka. Whether its made or mixed, seltzer fits into the health-conscious, sober curious zeitgeist with a barely-there caloric density that typically ranges between 60-90 calories per can, hardly ever exceeding the mental barrier of 100.

Increasingly, craft breweries are making the easy switch to supplement their existing ranges with a few seltzers. And its a smart move, seeing as brewing a seltzer requires little equipment and usually doesnt require an additional license. The combination of little effort and the potential to grab a slice of a burgeoning market is evidently hard to resist, seeing as some of Australias best craft breweries are already making their own seltzer, alongside the bigger names like Lion, Asahi, and Carlon & United Breweries.

To give you a bit of perspective on just how big seltzer is getting, weve rounded up the brands currently available in Australia. As you can see below, there are plenty of choices already, with the multitude of seltzer labels swelling considerably since late 2019, all competing for your attention before summer hits.

Although Fellr wasnt the first hard seltzer to hit the Australian market, its one of the most recognisable and is firmly established as a favourite amongst drinkers. The brand was created by two Sydney blokes, Andy Skora and Will Morgan, who left their day jobs at the top of this year to tackle the pre-mix category hard. With a focus on simplicity, theyve formulated one of the more refreshing and lighter seltzers around, brewed in Sydney at just 4% ABV with a gluten-free alcohol base and summer-twisted, coast-inspired flavours like watermelon, dry & lime, and lime & soda. At only 83 calories per can, its got the small body, big taste approach that defines this growing category, yet retains a rounded and full mouthfeel thanks to a custom developed brewing method.

Vacay is the first seltzer brand in Australia to be worked up in collaboration with an award-winning sommelier Alex Kirkwood who was bought on-board by the new Sydney-based label to help develop the flavour profiles of raspberry, lime, Kakadu plum, and pure. Brewed off a malt base, the alcoholic water has all artificial colours and preservatives removed before all-natural ingredients are infused and then carbonated, resulting in a seltzer thats vegan-friendly and less than 62 calories per can.

Quincy has been around since late last 2019 as Australias first hard seltzer and one of the few to use fermented rice alcohol. Drinks giant Lion, which is owned by Japanese company Kirin, is the sizable shadow behind Quincy, giving it a considerable push into the market which is why you can easily find it at most Dan Murphys, Liquorland and BSW stores across the country. Its low bitterness and crisp, dry finish sets this gluten-free seltzer apart and has already proven a summer favourite, keeping it simple with lime or passionfruit flavours.

Melbournes Moon Dog brewery is no stranger to experimental releases, so its not surprising to see them make the incremental leap to hard seltzer so quickly with Fizzer. And theyve been quite playful with the pivot, deviating from seltzers established flavour profiles and messing around with four standouts: strawberry & cream, Passiona-inspired tropical crush, piney limey (pineapple and lime, obviously), and the Weiss bar-like coco mango. If youre going to dive headfirst into a new and increasingly competitive drinks market, you might as well have a bit of fun with it, right?

The team at Margaret River brewery Cheeky Monkey have entered the ring with their own inventive to take on a hard seltzer, off-shooting to the standalone label Great White. Already stocked in places like Dan Murphys and BWS, the gluten-free seltzer comes in either black cherry, raspberry, or orange & grapefruit, sitting at a saintly 97 calories per can.

Two Birds is another Melbourne brewery thats sidestepped beer momentarily to try their hand at a seltzer. Although they brand it as simply a soda in an effort to avoid the label which they obviously arent rushing towards given that theres only one flavour: watermelon. Then again, this is a brewery known for their bold brews, like taco beer, so thered be little surprise if they were to pump out a few more flavours before summer hits.

You wouldnt expect a zero-sugar, zero-carb drink from the same team behind the Australian push for infamously sweet Rekorderlig cider, yet seltzer continues to bring out the health-conscious in all. The newly created Saintly brand is easily found at any Dan Murphys or BWS and comes in either mango, watermelon & mint, lime, or pink grapefruit flavours. Those first two flavours sit at what seems to be the standard ABV for seltzer, that being 4%, but the latter two push things up to a bit to 6% if you want more of a buzz, go for those.

Asahi-owned Good Tides is designed a bit differently to most other seltzers available in Australia; instead of the brew method employed by most, this drink takes Australian sparkling water and blends it with triple-distilled Vodka O before adding a hint of natural fruit flavours. The zero-sugar seltzer is gearing up for its first Australian summer with both lemon & lime, and raspberry flavours, so if you would prefer a vodka-based seltzer, Good Tides should do the trick.

Kiwi brand Hint has hit Australian shores, bringing another seltzer based on triple-distilled vodka, though this time using New Zealands famously crisp water from Bay of Plenty. Sitting at the low end of the calorie scale, with just 66 per can, the zero-sugar seltzer is carbon filtered and is distinguished by its crisp finish. Launching in Australia recently, Hint can be bought from Dan Murphys with either citrus or watermelon vodka.

Straight from Sydneys Northern Beaches, Lust Liquors modest range of vodka-based RTDs should be looking at a huge uptick come summer, thanks to their sole lime & soda seltzer. Its only slightly higher in ABV (4.2%) than your average seltzer, naturally sweetened with zesty lime, a smooth citrus body, and clocks in at 88 calories per can.

Part of Sydneys Dad & Daves Brewery, Wildspirit Distilling Co. has put out a four-flavour range of hard seltzer, cutting a bit below the average alcohol content at 3.5% ABV. They use a gluten-free grain-spirit base to craft what they claim to be a superior tasting seltzer, spread across lime, passionfruit, mango, and raspberry flavours.

It was only a matter of time before Smirnoff jumped on the seltzer train, throwing their own hat in the ring with three varieties of the zero-sugar spiked water. The cans sit at a nice 5% ABV and come in lime, passionfruit, or raspberry ros flavours.

With an ABV of between 6% and 8%, the Woolworths-backed Rainbird from Pinnacle Drinks is one of the stronger seltzers on the market. Liberty Coast (also on this list) comes from the same family but sits at a much more modest alcohol content, with Rainbird clearly the pick for drinkers who like a stronger punch. The cans come in natural or lemon-lime flavours, with each packing in 135 calories.

As with Rainbird above, Liberty Coast has the comfortable backing of Woolworths Pinnacle Drinks, coming in at a sesh-friendly 3.5% ABV and 63 calories per can. Clearly, Pinnacle want to fill out both ends of the seltzer spectrum, even if the flavour range is so far limited to just raspberry and lime.

Trust Byron Bay favourite Stone & Wood to enter the seltzer market in style. The eye-catching slim cans in their sorghum-brewed range echo the quintessential flavours of Australia, spanning blood orange & grapefruit, native Davidson plum & berry, or ginger & lemon.

You cant have a seltzer revolution in Australia without the brand that started it all. We have Lion the thank for bringing the unstoppable White Claw to Australia, and oddly cutting the ABV down to 4.5% thats 0.5% less than in the US. Theres little doubt the brand will be just as successful over here though, with the first wave of release sporting popular flavours like ruby grapefruit, mango and natural lime. It shouldnt be long before the other flavours hit our shores, bringing in watermelon, raspberry, tangerine, and black cherry.

Straight out of Footscray, Hop Nations Ray (named for the eternally hip Melbourne suburb) is as simple and straight-forward as the drinks minimally designed cans. Cutting above average at 4.5%, Ray comes in three naturally brewed flavours, ranging from peach to watermelon & mint, and lemon & lime.

Itd be unexpected for Carlton & United Breweries not to throw themselves at such a high-octane market as seltzer. With Actual, they make a well-timed play ahead of summer, pushing out their take with just two flavours: pure (vodka and soda), and lime, with the latter using actual lime juice instead of just extract.

A sub-brand of Mornington Peninsulas St Andrews Beach Brewery, Tidal Artesian, gets a bit slick with their interpretation of the seltzer craze making use of pure water from an underground spring with yeast, cane sugar and malted barley. The sharp focus on purity comes across in just two flavours, either yuzu citrus, or lime.

Melbourne-based independent water brand Sips Sparkling has made the leap to triple-distilled vodka-based seltzer with Sips, planting roots firmly in the tastes of Australia much like Stone & Wood have with four flavour-forward varieties: lemon & lemon myrtle, pink grapefruit & Davidson plum, raspberry & riberry, and cucumber with mint & strawberry gum. Its definitely a major step away from the standard flavours of watermelon and lime, offering something a bit different (and much fruitier), to the scene.

Delvi claims their seltzer is tree to tongue in a nod to the farm-to-fork movement, focusing on locally farmed and organic ingredients used with pure Australian waters. Its certainly a way to stand out, crafted into the two distinct flavours of either blood orange, or desert lime.

As one of the only seltzers coming down from the sun-soaked Queensland, Lost Palms have put forth a namesake entry thats brewed from rice and blended with real fruit. At 4.5% ABV, the spiked sparkling sticks to the tried-and-tested flavours of peach, and watermelon.

Representing Victorias coastal town of Torquay, Coast rolls out of Blackmans Brewery, sticking close to the classic profiles with watermelon, blood orange, lime, and cucumber & mint flavours. Physical stockists are limited to Victoria at the moment, but these gorgeous looking cans can be bought online directly as four and sixteen packs, or in a mixed pack.

Another one from the Victorian coast, NoSh Boozy Seltzer comes from Torquay Beverage Company and has already been given a considerable boost in reach from a partnership with Woolworths. The attention-grabbing brand has only two flavours so far, focused on fruit with either peach, or mango & pineapple, but both contain a comfortable 5% ABV.

Like Quincy, Somma got in early, hitting Australian shores late 2019 with the backing of Coles. Marketed as alcoholic sparkling water, without the official hard seltzer label, the vegan-friendly drink uses water drawn from an extinct volcano in regional Victoria and comes in just two flavours: cucumber & mint, and watermelon & lime.

Small-batch seltzer Splash launched earlier this year from co-founders Jeff Gobbels and Neighbours actor Olympia Valance, committed to the artisanal approach and aiming to offer the cleanest vodka-based RTD on the scene. Just two flavours come from this young brand: raspberry, and lime.

Another one that can be traced to Carlton & United Breweries, Brookvale Union enter the market by adding two seltzers to their range, landing on the flavours of lime & orange bitters, and juicy grapefruit.

Based along the Great Ocean Road, this newly launched seltzer brand was started by uni mates Thomas Hogan and Jeremy Irwin, joining the Australian-only approach, employed by the likes of Sips and Delvi, by crafting flavours with native ingredients. Here youve got mango & finger lime, and pink grapefruit & lemon myrtle, waving the flag high for the countrys growing seltzer market.

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A Definitive List Of The 28 Hard Seltzers In Australia - Boss Hunting

The 25 Best Horror Games To Play On Halloween 2020 – GameSpot

Posted on October 19, 2020 by Danzig

There are all kinds of horror-tinged media to choose from nowadays, but games may be the most chilling medium of all due to the level of immersion and interactivity they impart. If you've ever sat in a dark room with headphones and played something like Silent Hill or Resident Evil, you know that unique feeling of terror we're talking about. And god forbid you need to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. Horror games aren't exactly for the weak of heart.

But as Halloween approaches, there's no more fitting genre for the season, and luckily, there are a wealth of horror games out there well worth your time. The genre had humble beginnings in the late '80s, with a wave of fantastic games coming out in the three subsequent decades. And thanks to the rise of indie games, there are more scary games out now than ever before.

In 2020 we've seen some excellent horror games released, such as Capcom's follow-up to its Resident Evil 2 remake, Resident Evil 3. But even more are yet to come; we're still looking forward to horror games like The Dark Pictures: Little Hope and Amnesia: Rebirth to keep genre fans busy this fall.

Whether you plan to work your way through your horror backlog on your own or invite friends over to experience the jump scares with you, we've got you covered this Halloween season and beyond. We've gathered a list of the most terrifying and memorable games every horror enthusiast should experience this Halloween season. Genre classics like Silent Hill 2, Resident Evil Remake, and Dead Space are represented here, but you'll also find more surprising and modern choices interspersed throughout. Regardless of their notoriety, the horror games we highlight below (listed in no particular order) are all ones that left us with lasting memories.

Which horror games will you be playing this fall? Shout out your favorites in the comments below.

After creating a phenomenon with Amnesia: The Dark Descent and following it up with the existential horror of Soma, Frictional Games is going back to the series that put them on the map with Amnesia: Rebirth. Taking place in 1937, Rebirth's aesthetic finds itself somewhere between the Victorian-era castles of The Dark Descent and the hyper-futuristic underwater facility of Soma. Of course, with this being a Frictional game, nothing's as it seems, and even in the release date trailer, there are signs we're in for an even wilder and scarier ride than we might think. Amnesia: Rebirth is set to release October 20, which is a great time to get some good, new scares in on Halloween. -- Suriel Vazquez

Horror is more fun with friends. Unlike other action-oriented multiplayer horror games like Left 4 Dead and Dead by Daylight, Phasmophobia capitalizes on the lighter social elements of the genre, essentially turning the business of ghost hunting into a party game. Don't take this to mean the four-player co-op game isn't played straight--on the contrary, Phasmophobia is a serious paranormal investigation simulator, complete with a sanity meter, an arsenal of tools and surveillance equipment to monitor ghostly activity, and a checklist of objectives to guide you in testing and finally identifying whatever entity is haunting your assigned location. But between its charming early access jank and clever use of voice recognition, a single game of Phasmophobia has the potential to shift from a goofy seance with friends to survival horror at the flick of a switchsometimes literally.

Working together with up to three other players, you'll need to navigate haunted homes, farmhouses, and even a school, setting up cameras and other devices in order to monitor, coax, and even aggravate whatever spirit or demon is lingering in the area. Cameras let you detect paranormal activity remotely, while a handheld EMF reader lets you scan for atmospheric changes as you explore. The entity might leave an angry message scrawled in a notebook left in one room while you join your friends scanning for fingerprints or a drop in temperature in another part of the house. A ouija board even lets you communicate with the ghost directly, though sometimes shouting its name or even swearing at the spirit using a microphone is enough to taunt it out of hiding.

This is where some of the party game antics come in. While the stated goal is to collect enough evidence to reasonably guess the nature of the entity haunting the area (poltergeist? demon? banshee? the list goes on), all of the technical setup and ensuing tests to lure some of that evidence out is where the fun of Phasmophobia really lies. Bursting into a room and calling a ghost a dumbass. Hanging out in the surveillance truck out back and watching a live feed of your friends scrambling around in the dark after the front door mysteriously locks. Getting completely owned by a ghost (complete with silly ragdoll physics), then becoming a ghost yourself and following your friends around as they struggle to complete the mission with one person down. While it won't actually let you play as the ghost and freak out your friends, Phasmophobia is still very, very early in developmentat this stage, who knows what can happen? -- Chloi Rad

It's an Early Access title at the moment and thus feels a bit incomplete, but don't sleep on World of Horror, a lightly animated text adventure that's all spooky vibes, all the time. Inspired by the works of H.P. Lovecraft and horror manga artist Junji Ito, the roguelite game sends you out into a strange town beset by twisted people and supernatural horrors. World of Horror feels like you're playing through one of Ito's strange short stories, where you might search through a school for a murderous, scissors-wielding substitute teacher with a carved-up face, or investigate the apartment of a researcher who was extremely interested in eels--but, like, in an evil way.

Each of your investigations takes you through various locales, where you'll meet allies, find weapons, and engage in text-based combat with creatures, all in an effort to discover what eldritch horror is trying to be born into the world so you can put a stop to it. World of Horror is constantly creepy, often funny, consistently challenging, and always compellingly weird, and especially if you like Ito's works and fresh spins of Lovecraft tropes, you shouldn't miss it. -- Phil Hornshaw

Since 1984's The Thing, there have been plenty of games directly inspired by John Carpenter's classic film, putting you in the role of a scientist or soldier who must fight against an alien threat. However, it's rare to see a game that puts you in the monster's shoes--and that's exactly what Carrion does. You control an amorphous monster whose only goal is to devour everyone in its path, grow larger, and spread its biomass throughout the world. You crawl through each area with your fleshy tendrils, pulling every human into your toothy maw. The movement feels fast and satisfying as you slip into pipes and small crawl spaces to reach new locations. Of course, the humans won't go down without a fight, so you'll need to figure out ways to outmaneuver and outsmart them as their arsenals expand from pistols to flamethrowers. If you've ever wanted to play the monster, then Carrion is a way to do just that. -- Mat Paget

This year's Resident Evil 3 remake shows a different side of the infamous outbreak we first saw in Resident Evil 2. After surviving the Spencer Mansion incident, Jill Valentine must now escape zombie-ridden Raccoon City while being pursued by the bloodthirsty Nemesis. RE3 requires resource-management, puzzle-solving, and a cool hand to take out the zombies and other monsters that threaten your life. It's definitely a more brief experience than the Resident Evil 2 remake, but Resident Evil 3 is still worth playing for fans of Resident Evil, horror, and zombies. And once you're finished your first playthrough, you can partake in victory laps with unlocks like more powerful guns, infinite ammo, and more. -- Mat Paget

See on digital stores: Xbox Store | PlayStation Store | Steam

Until Dawn developers Supermassive haven't quite found a hit on that game's scale since 2015, but they've slowly been getting their groove back. The first part of The Dark Pictures Anthology, Man of Medan, had a lot of what made Until Dawn shine, so we're hopeful Little Hope improves on the formula and has some great scares of its own. It's also primed to be a good Halloween game, releasing on October 30 and likely being short enough to get through in a single sitting with a group of friends -- Suriel Vazquez

See on digital stores: Xbox Store | PlayStation Store | Steam

Polish developer Bloober Team is releasing its next psychological horror outing, The Medium, in December--and while you won't have it for Halloween, you've got a great stand-in with Layers of Fear, the team's first horror game. The first-person title has you exploring a haunted house as a painter as he tries to complete his masterpiece, wandering shifting halls in search of macabre ingredients to make the perfect colors. What's great about Layers of Fear is the way that it manipulates space and perspective to freak you out, with the house shifting around you when you turn a corner, spin around to check behind you, or open a door.

As horror games go, Layers of Fear requires little from you outside the occasional bit of light puzzle-solving or searching for notes and clues. You won't have to run from or fight any monsters, so you won't have to contend with any difficulty spikes or skill issues. That said, the scares are still highly effective thanks to Layers of Fear's expertly crafted atmosphere. This is a great game to turn off the lights and get lost in. -- Phil Hornshaw

See on digital stores: Xbox Store | PlayStation Store | eShop | Steam

The remake of a horror classic, Resident Evil 2 released last year and was one of our top picks for Game of the Year. The remake doesn't change the story of the original, for the most part: You still get the choice to play as either Leon Kennedy or Claire Redfield as they make their way through zombie-infested Raccoon City. The storylines and settings for each character are similar, but there are unique side characters and other differences that make playing each character's path worth it. Plus, it's not that long--only about 3-5 hours for each campaign.

Resident Evil 2 is a brilliant remake that improves and expands upon the original. The creepy atmosphere left me constantly on edge, holding my breath as I turned every corner, but it balances that fear with a huge sense of satisfaction at solving challenging puzzles and taking down enemies without exhausting all my ammo. While I didn't find Resident Evil 2 quite as frightening as Resident Evil 7, it's still one of the best horror games out there, and I was enthralled by its story until the very end. -- Jenae Sitzes

See on digital stores: Xbox Store | PlayStation Store | Steam

Until Dawn has become a classic among story-driven games. The survival-horror adventure follows a group of friends on a winter getaway to a snowy mountain lodge, where, one year prior, two of their friends disappeared and were never found. It's the stereotypical setup for a slasher film, complete with flirty teens and a masked stalker on the loose, but the story takes some unexpected and unforgettable turns along the way. Most notably, Until Dawn is driven by player choice, and the consequences of your choices are deeply felt throughout the entire game. On your first playthrough, there are no redos if your action gets someone killed--only in subsequent playthroughs can you go back to specific chapters to make a different decision.

Because the story branches off in so many directions and has multiple endings, there's a ton of replayability to Until Dawn. While technically a single-player game, Until Dawn is equally fun to play with a group of people. While a bit long for a single session--it'll take you eight or nine hours to complete--you could easily break Until Dawn into two or three sessions and play through it with friends, with each person choosing a character to control and passing the controller back and forth. Having played it both alone and with friends, I can attest that it's fun to experience over and over, and there are still characters I haven't figured out how to keep alive (I refuse to look it up). It's not on the same level as something like Outcast or P.T. in terms of scariness, but there are some truly terrifying moments in Until Dawn I'll never forget. -- Jenae Sitzes

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Red Dead Redemption quickly became one of my favorite games of all time when it was released back in 2010. This was thanks in most part to the wonderful setting, quirky yet lovable characters, and increasingly engaging story. I was ready to take any excuse to spend more time in that world, and you can bet your butt I was excited for a zombie-themed expansion. Undead Nightmare is supposed to be a bit more silly and nonsensical than scary, but I don't think a single game has unnerved me as much as it. Seeing the familiar Wild West turned into a desolate, fog-filled wasteland of zombies was shocking.

It was as close as I've felt to actually experiencing a zombie apocalypse breakout in my hometown. Even my family had been turned, and though John Marston was reacting in a humorous way, I couldn't help but be totally stressed out by the entire situation. And these zombies aren't the slow and lumbering type you find in the halls of Resident Evil 2's police station: they sprint right at you, make the absolute worst noises, and need to be shot in the head. All of this, and that very sad Sasquatch mission, made me feel incredibly uneasy in a world I had fallen so much in love with.

Red Dead Redemption and Undead Nightmare are both playable on Xbox One, thanks to Microsoft's backward-compatible program. There's even a 4K patch for the game on Xbox One X, which looks fantastic. -- Mat Paget

See on digital stores: Xbox Store | PlayStation Store

Amnesia: The Dark Descent, its expansion, Justine, and the sequel, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, comprise what is still one of the best horror franchises of all time. You can grab all three of them in the Amnesia Collection, available on the PlayStation and Xbox stores. Amnesia is undoubtedly the series that ignited my love of the horror game genre, and like many, I first experienced the game through Let's Plays by a then-little-known YouTuber called PewDiePie. It's terrifying enough to watch someone else to play, but getting behind the screen yourself is another experience altogether.

Released in 2010, Amnesia: The Dark Descent follows a man named Daniel, who wakes up in a dark castle with no memory of who he is, aside from his name. In exploring the castle, Daniel must fight to maintain his sanity while putting together pieces of his past and avoiding the dreadful monsters that lurk in the shadows. The first-person survival horror game was followed by a 2013 sequel, A Machine for Pigs, that begins with a wealthy industrialist waking up in his London mansion with (once again) no memory of the past few months, only the feeling that something is terribly wrong. If Amnesia has somehow flown under the radar for you over the past decade, then wait for a dark night, grab some headphones, and dive in. -- Jenae Sitzes

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Metro Exodus isn't strictly a horror game. There aren't many jump scares, there are no re-animated corpses, and you spend a lot of time on a train chatting with your comrades. What Metro Exodus does have is dark, cramped corridors oozing with a foreboding atmosphere. Sure, Exodus also has a lot of open areas, but some of the most terrifying moments are when you're trapped in the metro, scrounging for supplies, while avoiding irradiated beasts. -- Jake Dekker

See on digital stores: Xbox Store | PlayStation Store | Steam

With Little Nightmares 2 confirmed to release on February 11, 2021, there's no better time to play the original. Little Nightmares is a Tim Burton-esque puzzle-platformer first released in 2017 that follows a small, hungry child in a yellow raincoat known only as Six. The child is trapped in a horrifying, mostly underwater island location called the Maw, which is home to numerous strange and deplorable creatures. From a long-armed blind janitor to a chilling, shadowy Lady, Six must avoid capture while navigating her way out of the Maw.

Little Nightmares is far scarier than you might expect--I was on edge during my entire playthrough. Like Playdead's Limbo or Inside, Little Nightmares has no dialogue, letting the creepy environments and tense atmosphere drive all of the suspense. It culminates in an ending that, while a bit open-ended, is definitely satisfying. The game has also received three DLC chapters, and you can get the whole experience in Little Nightmares: Complete Edition. -- Jenae Sitzes

See on digital stores: Xbox Store | PlayStation Store | Nintendo eShop | Steam

A lot has been said about Silent Hill 2, so I'll spare you any overt critical analysis I have on this beloved survival-horror sequel and instead share with you why this game still rocks. The premise alone should be enough to captivate you. As the widowed James Sutherland, you travel to the foggy town of Silent Hill in search of your dead wife, who has somehow managed to send you a letter. As a middle-schooler (yes, I played this game in 8th grade), Silent Hill 2's story was like nothing else I had encountered. There were no action heroes, explosions, or convoluted government conspiracies. Just a crippling sense of dread, an eerie atmosphere, and intriguing characters that kept my hands glued to my PS2 controller.

Silent Hill 2 expertly handles its myriad horrors, pulling you in with disturbing creatures, clever puzzles, and haunting sound design. I can't help but be in awe of how well it stands up whenever I revisit the game every few years. Its Historical Society area remains one of its crowning achievements and one of horror gaming's most expertly designed environments, brilliantly handling tense foreboding with unexpected pathways and puzzles. There are some slow moments interspersed between its most terrifying ones, but they're never enough to detract from the chilling horror and thought-provoking storytelling on display.

If you haven't played Silent Hill 2, you're in for quite a spooky adventure. It's one of the genre greats for a reason, and it only continues to stand the test of time. You can buy it as part of the Silent Hill HD Collection for PS3 and Xbox 360; fortunately, it can also be played on Xbox One due to backward-compatibility. -- Matt Espineli

See on digital stores: Xbox Store

Red Barrels' Outlast has always stood out to me for how the game presents its world. Mount Massive Asylum is blanketed in absolute darkness, so the only way to see where you're going most of the time is by using the night vision function on protagonist Miles Upshur's video camera.

Because I'm terrified of the dark, I use the camera all the time, and this transforms everything I see into a murky green where faraway environmental details aren't clear and enemies' eyes shine with a ghoulish glow. Also, this mechanic forces me to explore--batteries need to be found to keep the night vision function on the camera working--and Outlast's chilling soundtrack makes those unscripted moments of searching very tense.

Looking for batteries isn't even the scariest part of Outlast, though. It's the inhuman Variants that create most of the game's scares. Desperately running through an insane asylum while cannibalistic twins, a scissor-wielding mad scientist, and a seemingly unkillable monster chase after Upshur is terrifying. The worst of these Variants, Eddie Gluskin, appears in Outlast's Whistleblower expansion. Gluskin, aka The Groom, is a deranged serial killer who mutilates his male victims' genitalia in order to create the "perfect wife." Watching what he does--in first-person I might add--to the DLC's protagonist, Waylon Park, haunted me for days, and is still nauseating to even think about. -

If you buy Outlast, you might as well pick up the Outlast Trinity bundle, which includes Outlast, its Whistleblower DLC, and Outlast 2 (which is also very good). - Jordan Ramee

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Three years after Resident Evil 4 squeezed new scares from one of gaming's best horror series, Visceral Games might have perfected the third-person survival horror formula with Dead Space. Players control engineer Isaac Clarke as he and a rescue team land on a city-sized spaceship to find out why it's not responding to communications. They quickly discover the reason is that the ship has been overrun by monsters that used to be its crew, which are nearly impossible to kill unless players use various sci-fi mining tools to hack off the creatures' limbs.

Dead Space is a perfect confluence of modern sensibility and old-school survival horror, pairing fantastic graphics and gameplay, specifically its limb-cutting mechanics, with slightly uncooperative controls and the desperate hunt for items to keep Isaac healthy. The game uses everything at its disposal to scare you. Its industrial setting pairs with sound design that makes you constantly feel like you're not alone, and every surface is covered in air vents perfect for delivering popcorn-tossing moments as lethal mutated creatures come squirming out, straight at your face. Visceral tops it off with a spooky story that combines Alien, Children of the Corn, and Evil Dead.

Developed for Xbox 360, PS3, and PC, you can also play Dead Space on Xbox One via backward-compatibility. -- Phil Hornshaw

See on digital stores: Xbox Store | PlayStation Store | Steam

Devil Daggers may not be a traditional horror game by any means, but that makes it no less scary every time I play it. It throws you into a dark arena and tasks you with eliminating waves of flying skulls, disgusting, multi-legged beasts, and other demonic monstrosities.

There is no winning in Devil Daggers; death is inevitable, whether that comes after 10 seconds or 100 (if you're good). It's minimal in terms of visuals and sound; there's no music to accompany the onslaught of enemies. Instead, enemies produce terrifying but distinct noises. This serves to assist you by letting you know where enemies are, but it also creates an inescapable sense of dread as these horrifying monsters box you in. I find it hard not to jump out of my seat when I turn and see that I'm face to face with a flying horned monster.

It's unusual that a game designed around high score runs evokes fear, and the threat of failure is undoubtedly part of what makes Devil Daggers so tense. But it's the combination of this tension with the haunting imagery and sounds that create a legitimately terrifying experience. -- Chris Pereira

I'll admit to being the perfect mark for Slender: The Eight Pages when it was released for free in 2012. The tiny, minimalist Unity experiment by developer Mark Hadley capitalized on peak Slender Man interest, expounding on the Internet-born folklore creature that was already doing a phenomenal job of absolutely creeping me out. Hadley's little game was a tightly made little nightmare: you're exploring a small, darkened park from a first-person perspective, and you're being hunted by a supernatural creature that you can't even look at without dying. Players try to gather eight pages from around a park, which detail some other poor victim's descent into madness, while the thing keeps appearing in front of you, ever closer. It was a perfect storm of jump scares, ambient dread, and a spooky creation of the zeitgeist at the height of its power.

Slender: The Arrival expanded the game with multiple levels, a full story and prettier graphics to fully realize Hadley's original concept. It didn't change the core principle of being hunted, with nothing to help you except fleeing in desperate terror, and hoping that looking away from what stalks you might be enough to save you a few moments more. -- Phil Hornshaw

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To play Resident Evil 7 is to willingly put yourself in an inhospitable environment. The decrepit mansion where the game begins is filthy, with peeling, yellowed wallpaper, broken drywall, and garbage littering the scarred wooden floor. Wind blows through the cracks in drafts, emitting a low, constant howl. The kitchen, scattered with moldy food and unidentifiable skeletal remains, is unspeakable. You can almost smell the rot.

This is not a place you want to be--and that's before you meet the family that lives there. There's the dad, who stalks after you even after you've killed him numerous times. Mom doesn't bat an eye when he severs junior's hand at the dinner table. Somehow even worse is grandma, a catatonic woman in a wheelchair who can appear and vanish any time and anywhere when you're not looking.

The horror game improves on the best aspects of the series, while throwing out everything that had grown stale in recent installments. Playing Resident Evil 7 is a thrilling, crazy, scary-as-hell experience. And if you think it's terrifying on a TV screen, you gotta try it in VR. -- Chris Reed

See on digital stores: Xbox Store | PlayStation Store | Steam

The Xbox 360 had a generally strong launch lineup, despite lacking a killer app like Halo. There was a Majora's Mask-lite in Kameo: Elements of Power; sports games like Amped 3 and Madden, and for those who passed on the heavily flawed, but creative Perfect Dark Zero, Call of Duty 2 was there to satisfy action fans when WWII shooters were in their prime. With other titles with mass appeal like Tony Hawk's American Wasteland or Gun, who had time for a psychological horror game?

That juxtaposition between Condemned: Criminal Origins and the rest of the launch lineup was perfectly clear in the music of the title screen. Half Se7en, half Shutter Island, you play as detective Ethan Thomas, who has to track down a serial killer to prove his innocence after his partner is murdered. Along the way, you're attacked by rattled-up drug addicts and hallucinations of demons who strategically flee, hide behind corners, and fight back in the game's surprisingly effective first-person melee combat.

What made Condemned such a memorable horror experience was the feeling of being alone in the grittiest, most desolate parts of town, with intimate combat against people who hated you. You could hear them seething around corners, flanking you in the darkness, and that was all before the game throws demonic hallucinations at you. Sprinkle in a memorable final boss, a couple of solid jump-scares, one of the best uses of Xbox achievements in requiring you to forgo using guns, and a level set in a mall with walking mannequins that culminated in one of my favorite video game moments, and you've got a horror classic. Not bad for a launch-title. -- Nick Sherman

See on digital stores: Xbox Store | Steam

2014's Alien: Isolation was a bit of tough sell as a horror game. After spending many years as disposable cannon fodder in other Alien games, most notably in Aliens VS Predator and Aliens: Colonial Marines, the Xenomorph was elevated to boss status in Creative Assembly's survival horror FPS. Serving as a sequel to the original film, it moved away from the shooting galleries and action-horror from previous games, and honed its focus on dread, anxiety, and fearing the lone alien creature that stalks the halls of Sevastopol Station.

As a deep admirer of the original Alien, more so than the sequel Aliens, I longed for the day where we could get a game more influenced by the first film--with its quiet moments of dread and low-fi sci-fi aesthetic in full swing. What I appreciated most about Alien: Isolation was that it not only respected the original film, but it also fully understood what it made it so scary. As you're desperately scavenging for supplies throughout the corridors, those brief moments of calm would almost inevitably lead to situations where you'll come face to face with the Alien, who is all-powerful and cunning in its approach to slay any human that comes across its path.

For more of my thoughts on Alien Isolation, check out my retrospective feature discussing why the game is still an unmatched horror experience. -- Alessandro Fillari

See on digital stores: Xbox Store | PlayStation Store | eShop | Steam

Don't judge a visual novel by its cover. Doki Doki Literature Club looks like a simple anime-inspired visual novel packed with tropes; you have a love triangle (or quadrilateral?), the tsundere, the shy one, and the childhood friend as a potential love interest all thrown into a high school club. While the free-to-play game is front-loaded with your typical story progression, it's expected that you make it past a certain point where things really pick up.

Take note of the content warning presented upfront, as Doki Doki Literature Club uses sensitive subjects and graphic visuals throughout its narrative. It'll subvert expectations in clever and terrifying ways that can be either subtle and in-your-face. Since this is a PC game, it has the unique ability to be meta; breaking the fourth wall is used to great effect and a few secrets get tucked away within the game's text files. There are a few moments that allow the player to impact progression, such as dialogue options or choosing which of the club members to interact with at certain moments. But that's all in service of building you up for when the game reveals its true nature. Even the wonderfully catchy soundtrack gets twisted to create an unsettling atmosphere.

It's hard to communicate exactly why Doki Doki Literature Club is one of the most horrifying games because it relies heavily on specific story beats and meta-narrative events, and we wouldn't want to spoil the things that make it so special. You'll just have to experience it for yourself. -- Michael Higham

When Resident Evil first hit the Playstation back in 1996, it revolutionized video game horror and created a new sub-genre in the process--survival horror. Its GameCube remake in 2002--and subsequent remaster for the PS4, Xbox One, and PC--utilized improved graphics and lighting to greatly enhance the haunting atmosphere of the first game.

You have the option to play as one of two STARS members (elite police officers), who have come to a mansion investigating a number of strange murders. Unbeknownst to them, this mansion is home to a number of illegal experiments operated by the Umbrella Corporation, leading to zombified humans and creatures attacking the STARS.

The entire game takes place from fixed camera angles, and you never know what's on the other side of the door, or around each corner, meaning you're just moments away from walking into a scare. You're given limited ammo and even a limited number of opportunities to save your progress, and this formula works perfectly in tandem with the foreboding atmosphere.

In one particular moment, I hadn't saved in hours and was running through a room I'd revisited multiple times in the past with 0 health left--when suddenly zombie dogs decided to jump through the windows scaring the crap out of me. A room I thought was safe had betrayed me at the worst time. This moment alone is easily one of the most impactful scares I've ever had playing a game and cements Resident Evil as a mastercraft in horror video games. It's available as part of the Resident Evil Origins Collection, which also gets you Resident Evil 0. -- Dave Klein

See on digital stores: Xbox Store | PlayStation Store | eShop | Steam

Eternal Darkness took the concept of survival horror--already well-established by games like Resident Evil, Clock Tower, and Silent Hill--and added a brand new element designed exclusively to screw with the player: the sanity meter.

Alexandra Roivas returns to her family's estate after discovering her grandfather has been murdered. The police have found nothing, so she decides to look for herself, and finds a secret room with a book the Tome of Eternal Darkness. The game then takes place in multiple timelines and locations, with players choosing who they want to follow as characters battle with, or are corrupted by, ancient artifacts and the Eternal Darkness.

This allows the game to utilize a vast array of settings for its horrors, as well as having every character affected by a sanity meter, which slowly drains if players are spotted by enemies. Sanity effects range from statue heads following you, to weird noises and strange camera angles. In one particular instance, I went to save my game, only to find the game telling me it was deleting my save. I jumped off of my couch, ran over to my GameCube to turn off the game, only to realize the game was screwing with me, and my save wasn't being deleted. You win that round, Eternal Darkness you win that round. -- Dave Klein

In the years since the release of the first game, the Five Nights At Freddy's series has gone from popular YouTube Let's Play game to massive phenomenon. As gaming's Friday The 13th, the horror series manages to get another sequel, even when people are just experiencing the previous game. While the franchise has spiraled out in a big way, the original game still manages to turn a mundane job into nerve-wracking nightmare scenario. As the late-night security guard for Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria, your job is to make sure no one breaks into the place, and to ensure that the walking animatronic puppets don't murder anyone--namely you. That second part is important.

With no means of self-defense, your only hope is to survive until early morning by blocking doors and obstructing the paths of the roaming animatronics puppets, who desperately seek any humans after hours. My expectations for the game were low, mostly due to how played-out it seemed in the months after its release. However, once I got to play it for myself, I was surprised at how quickly it ramped up in intensity, despite its ridiculous premise.

Even though it manages to revel in jump-scares, almost comically so, the tension and moments leading up to those genuinely chilling encounters make for some rather memorable frights. Just when you think you're safe and only minutes away from sunrise, Freddy Fazbear waltzes into your safe room and gets the jump on you. I'll never forget the moment that this game, which I grossly underestimated, got the best of me. -- Alessandro Fillari

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Editor's note: This article is the updated version of a story first published on October 30, 2018.

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The 25 Best Horror Games To Play On Halloween 2020 - GameSpot

Jewish-American Will to Electoral Self-Destruction | David Nabhan – The Times of Israel

Posted on October 19, 2020 by Danzig

In a few days, Jewish-Americans are going to take part in an inexplicable assault on themselvestheir culture and heritage, their religion and their very future. They do so every two years in November in the United States, with seventy-five percent of the Jewish-American electorate going to the polls to cast their ballots for the party of the BDS movement, the party wishing the worst upon Israel, the party that stands against everything that has held Judaism together over millennia.

Three years ago the Democrat party wondered for a brief moment if making their malice against Jews too obvious might harm them at the polls. They had just installed Keith Ellisonformer associate and colleague of Louis Farrakhanas their Deputy Chair. But calmer heads at the Democratic National Committee who assured everyone that American Jews would vote Democratic no matter who was nominated were proven correct. Indeed, the very next year the same 75% of the Jewish electorate voted as they always had.

Keith Ellison is hardly the only questionable individual insofar as anti-Semitism is concerned holding high office and a leadership position among the Democrats. To the contrary, Linda Sarsour, Al Sharpton, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib head a long list of leaders whose rhetoric one might hear being repeated the next time Jews are chased down and assaulted in the Crown Heights section of New York City.

That Jewish-Americans should choose by such a wide margin the political party that makes plain its distaste for all things Jews hold dear is truly one of the most bizarre political facts of the modern world. Family and children are foundational for Jews, the same Jews incongruously aligned with extremists conducting a non-stop assault on the nuclear family. Judaism is the bedrock of the Jewish people, who nonetheless inexplicably affiliate with the party of atheism, the party whose adherents work to erase in God we trust from our money, to remove the Ten Commandments from our courtrooms and statehouses, to side with twisting the law into permitting Satanic monuments to be erected and displayed.

There are no people more law-abiding, self-reliant, decent, honorable and dependable on Earth than Jews, none instilled with a deeper work ethic or a more abiding history of great intellectualism. Yet in scant days they will vote for the party that has instigated and then turned a blind eye to months of anarchistic rioting, arson, store-looting, window-smashing, synagogue-vandalizing, flag-burning, and monument-despoiling having ravaged dozens of American cities.

What is even more incomprehensible is from whom Jewish-Americans will be turning away. There was no president in the history of the United States who ever had a Jewish daughter, a Jewish son-in-law and Jewish grandchildrenuntil the current Republican president took office. And the last four years has been nothing short of a renaissance in bringing back respect for Jews. The Republican administration recognized Jerusalem as Israels capital, and ignored the pained howls from capitals all around the world, standing resolutely and unabashedly with Israel. This same administration has wrought the almost miraculous dtente between Israel and the UAE and Bahrain, and with quite a few more Arab nations seemingly on the brink of joining in normalizing relations.

And, insofar as Crown Heights is concerned, that is hardly the only place where Jewish-Americans are set upon with impunity by forces that have abandoned them while still somehow inveigling their votes. There has been a veritable scourge of anti-Semitism across progressive US college campuses from coast to coast. At Portland State University in 2016 students were captured on video signing up to give money to terrorist organizations for the express purpose of bombing Israeli schools, hospitals and synagogues. At New York University the deans at that institution were not only unconcerned about Jewish students being harried, bullied and assaulted on their campus but went so far as to award the organization of their aggressors, the Students for Justice in Palestine, the University Presidents Service Award for outstanding contribution to NYU life.

No Democrat stepped in to bring an end to such outrages; to the contrary, Democrats fueled the anti-Semitism. Again, it was left to the Republican administration to come to Jewish students aid, with President Trump signing an executive order in 2019 to include Jewish students under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.

One is constrained to ask then, is science aware of any collective neurosis which can afflict whole peoples with this kind of shared malaise, a dysfunction causing the oppressed to vote for their oppressors? In history are there cases of nations which have simply given up on themselves and opted for communal negativity and defeatism?

Perhaps the Byzantines offer a window into something of that sort of mindset. Suffering through a series of almost unending setbacks after holding sway over a wide section of Eastern Mediterranean lands for over a millennium, the shock of coming to grips with their own lack of invincibility sent the peoples of the Eastern Roman Empire into a long, uncomfortable and pessimistic decline toward their eventual extinction at the hands of the Ottoman Turks in 1453 AD. Prior to the utter collapse there were centuries of bizarre outbreaks of iconoclasm, an inward finger-pointing and degradation of their culture as the alleged cause of their misfortunes at the hands of external foes, divisive hatreds unleashed on supposed internal enemies, and a gloomy zeitgeist which can be seen and appreciated in an instant simply taking in morose Byzantine art with its hauntingly cynical and doubtful look stamped in the eyes of its portraiture.

So for those Jews planning on casting their ballots for the party that despises them, before pulling the voting lever, one would strongly advise taking a quick perusal of the events of May 29, 1453 in Constantinople. When the end came, it wasnt with a whimper, but with terrible and excruciating cries and shrieks that cause the blood to run cold, and that should cause even blind Jewish eyes to open.

David Nabhan is a science and science fiction writer. He is the author of "Earthquake Prediction: Dawn of the New Seismology" (2017) and three other books on seismic forecasting.

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Jewish-American Will to Electoral Self-Destruction | David Nabhan - The Times of Israel

Progressive politics in Thailand’s polarised polity | The Interpreter – The Interpreter

Posted on October 19, 2020 by Danzig

Book review: Duncan McCargo and Anyarat Chattharakul Future Forward: The rise and fall of a Thai political party(NIAS Press, 2020)

Youth-led protests in Thailand inrecent months have rocked the army-backed ruling elite which has been politically ascendant since a military coup in 2014 with a state of emergency declared in Bangkok on Thursday. One of the harbingers of this rising discontent, whichhas included calls for the government to step down, a new constitution and, more boldly, a curbing of the powers of the monarchy, was the rise of the progressive Future Forward Party, a new force in a polarised political landscape.

Led by a wealthy young businessman, Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, Future Forward surprised many with a strong showing in Thailands 2019 general election, winning the third-largest share of seats, with 6.3 million votes, despite having been launched barely a year earlier. That vote, carefully engineered to favour a military-aligned government, resulted in the appointment of coup leader Prayuth Chan-ocha as prime minister. But Future Forwards popularity clearly sat uneasily with Thailands conservative establishment.

The party was dissolved by the Constitutional Court in February this year, and its core leaders, including Thanathorn, were banned from politics for a decade. In response, the party has since rebranded: in parliament, as the Move Forward Party, and as an activist organisation called the Progressive Movement.

In Future Forward: The rise and fall of a Thai political party, Duncan McCargo and Anyarat Chattharakul explore how this new political entity surged to prominence. The authors profile Future Forwards key leaders, trace its support, and examine the mix of policy and strategy that attracted a younger generation of voters steeped in the increasingly vigorous online sphere of Thai political activism.

Thanathorn is central to the partys popularity. The authors view him as an example of the hyperleader, a term coined by Paolo Gerbaudo, describing a highly personalised and charismatic style of leadership, propelled by continuous media appearances and canny use of social media.

A prolific online presence, Thanathorn frequently appears on YouTube shows, Facebook Live eventsand a steady stream of party-produced images and videos, invariably wearing his signature white shirt with a row of pens tucked into his top pocket. He currently has 1.2 million followers on Twitter.

But party figures, and Thanathorn himself, are wary of fostering a cult of personality. The authors point to the cautionary example of another Thai hyperleader, Thaksin Shinawatra, who exercised his own brand of personalised politics and was ultimately removed in a coup in 2006 (accused, among other things, of undermining the monarchy).

In some respects, Thanathorn is difficult to pin down. On the one hand, he is the wealthy heir to an auto-parts conglomerate, a billionaire whose company once laid off more than 200 unionised workers involved in strike action. On the other, he is the political activist who espouses socialist ideals, rejects consumerism, and has been an active figure in various protest movements, including as part of pro-Thaksin red shirt protests in 2010, which were violently suppressed.

Alongside Thanathorn, two other prominent figures, profiled in the book, are seen as making up a dynamic and influential leadership trio.

Piyabutr Saengkanokkul, an activist legal scholar with a purported personal library of 2500 books, drove the partys intellectual agenda. Pannika Wanich, a former journalist and TV presenter, was the partys spokesperson, a gifted public speaker who garnered attention following her exclusion from parliament with a no confidence speech described as a spectacular monologue of denunciation against the Prayuth government.

The trio had significant public cut-through, and their opponents seemed to agree, with all three at various stages accused of being anti-monarchist (a serious charge, given Thailands lese-majestylaw) and eventually banned from politics until 2030. McCargo and Anyarat note that the party faced at least 19 legal cases during its short existence.

What was behind Future Forwards success? The partys policies included rewriting the constitution, reforming the military (including reducing military expenditure and ending conscription)and decentralising political and budgetary power. However, party figures were doubtful that any one policy had attracted voters.

Instead, it was what Future Forward represented more broadly: a vote for change and strong opposition to military interventionism. As McCargo and Anyarat put it, the party had captured the zeitgeist of a new generation that was utterly sick of being patronised. Their message was amplified through social media channels that the party used more effectively than its opponents.

Future Forward also seemed to signal a break from Thailands fraught colour-coded politics that (broadly) pitted conservative yellow shirts, supported in Bangkok and parts of the south, against red shirts with a strong rural base in the populous north and northeast. For one supporter interviewed by the authors, Future Forward represented a new politics with no colour. Even its official colour, orange a mix of red and yellow seemed to signal a third way.

There is reason to temper expectations about Future Forwards rise not least as it is now officially banned. Although the party won votes around the country in 2019, it performed best in Bangkok, suggesting any parliamentary offspring would have work to do in winning constituencies in the north and northeast, where Thaksin-aligned parties were still overwhelmingly popular.

But the broader progressive movement, reflected in part in ongoing student-led protests, may have a lasting impact on the Thai political scene.

As McCargo and Anyarat note, by declaring Future Forward illegal, the government effectively quashed the political aspirations of a younger generation, leaving them with no incentive to work within the system. That younger generation is now responding on the streets.

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‘Love & Hip Hop’: Will One of the Shows in the Franchise Get Cut? – Showbiz Cheat Sheet

Posted on October 19, 2020 by Danzig

Love & Hip Hop has many series on the air. In a recent interview, the franchise creator Mona Scott-Young spoke about her hope that all four series in the franchise will be able to return.

Since its debut in 2011, the Love & Hip Hop franchise has produced four different series. Love & Hip Hop: New York first debuted in 2011. This was following by the debut of Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta in 2012. 2014 saw the debut of Love & Hip Hop: Hollywood. A few years passed before the introduction of the fourth series in the franchise, Love & Hip Hop: Miami, which debuted in 2018.

In an interview with Deadline, Scott-Young discussed the many different projects that she has in the works. Scott-Young is working on both scripted and unscripted projects about a number of topics.

The series in development include one on Shaka Zulu, a drama series focusing on the Aaron Hernandez case from the perspective of his wife, and a series with Black Lives Matter activist Tamika D. Mallory.

This is a special, unique, life-changing moment in all of our lives and especially for people of color, and when I look at how its being captured Im like this entire movement is happening on Instagram being captured by cell phones, he said. What will we have to look back on, and so we rallied some of our shooters and weve been following Tamika and have been on the ground with her and have really told the story of this reluctant leader of sorts. Shes been thrust into the forefront of this movement and then becomes a voice of the people, not by choice but by necessity and for me it was an incredible honor to be able to lend my skillsets for capturing this moment in time and memorializing it.

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Scott calls the franchises success lightning in a bottle. In an interview, she also noted that she doesnt handle physical production of the show. But now, ViacomCBS has brought the production in house, as companies include Big Fish Entertainment and Eastern TV once handled the production.

The network has made a decision to take those productions in-house, so they have been gearing up and backing up in a way that will allow for them to do that, she said.

Scott-Young also noted the production impacts of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic have allowed them to think about the show in a new way. It wont change my role in the way that I work with them but there is a process now thats taking place, and also of course, the caution, the precautions that need to be taken with figuring out how to reimagine a docuseries and do it while adhering to safety protocols and finding a different way of making the show, she said.

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The casts of the shows always have new additions as well as people leaving, but Scott-Young hints that storytelling may also be different with this new shift. In the same breath, Scott-Young said the hope is to have all shows to come back, which may suggest that there is the potential for a shake-up.

I kind of embrace the challenge and see it as a new frontier to be conquered, she added. The beauty of it is each city has managed to establish its own fan base and has its own place in the zeitgeist and with the fans, and, of course my hope is that all four cities come back, there has been nothing to indicate otherwise. They all have fared really well for the network in terms of ratings and theyve been the cornerstone of the programming there so I dont see that changing.

Only time will tell if all of the shows will return as many shows head back into production. It is unclear if any of the Love & Hip Hop shows have been filming scenes during the pandemic.

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'Love & Hip Hop': Will One of the Shows in the Franchise Get Cut? - Showbiz Cheat Sheet

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