Monthly Archives: September 2022

CISA, FBI, NSA, Treasury, Cyber Command, and International Partners Release Advisory on Malicious Cyber Actors Affiliated with Iranian Government…

Posted: September 20, 2022 at 8:50 am

Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Exploiting Vulnerabilities for Data Extortion and Disk Encryption for Ransom Operations

WASHINGTON - The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the National Security Agency (NSA), U.S. Cyber Command Cyber National Mission Force (CNMF), the U.S. Department of the Treasury (Treasury), the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC), the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (CCCS), and the United Kingdoms National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) today released a joint Cybersecurity Advisory (CSA) to highlight continued malicious cyber activity by advanced persistent threat (APT) actors affiliated with the Iranian Governments Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

This CSA, titled, Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Affiliated Cyber Actors Exploiting Vulnerabilities for Data Extortion and Disk Encryption for Ransom Operations, provides actionable information regarding IRGC exploitation of VMware Horizon Log4j vulnerabilities for initial access and ongoing use of known Fortinet and Microsoft Exchange vulnerabilities. After gaining access to a network, these actors likely determine a course of action based on their perceived value of the data, including data encryption or exfiltration for ransom operations.

Todays advisory is an outcome of our close collaboration with international and U.S. government partners to understand and provide timely information on malicious cyber activity targeting our countrys critical networks, including by Iranian cyber actors, said Eric Goldstein, Executive Assistant Director for Cybersecurity, CISA. Our unified purpose is to drive timely and prioritized adoption of mitigations and controls that are most effective to reducing risk to all cyber threats, including malicious actors like those affiliated with the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Immediately addressing the vulnerabilities in this advisory, which are also in CISAs known exploited vulnerabilities catalog, and deploying rigorous controls consistent with a zero-trust strategy is strongly recommended.

The FBI is dedicated to preventing and disrupting nation state affiliated cyber activity that threatens our private sector partners and the American public," said Bryan Vorndran, FBI Cyber Division Assistant Director. "We will continue to coordinate with our domestic and international partners to proactively share relevant and timely information to mitigate cyber threats posed by the IRGC, and we are confident this advisory will assist individuals and businesses in developing a plan to protect their systems and shore up network defenses. In the event victims do suffer an intrusion, we encourage them to report the compromise as early as possible to their local FBI field office or to the Internet Crime Complaint Center at http://www.ic3.gov.

This advisory points to specific instances in which IRGC-affiliated cyber actors have used publicly known vulnerabilities to gain access to U.S. critical infrastructure networks, said David Luber, Deputy Cybersecurity Director, NSA. We implore our net defenders and our partners to detect and mitigate this threat before your organization is the next ransomware victim.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury is dedicated to collaborating with other U.S. government agencies,allies,and partners to combat and deter malicious cyber-enabled actors and their activities, especially ransomware andcybercrime that targets economicinfrastructure, saidUnder Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian E. Nelson.This advisory identifies specific tactics, techniques, and procedures of a group of IRGC-affiliated actors whothreaten thesecurity and economy of the United States and other nations, and provides valuable information to the public and private sectors which can strengthen their cybersecurity resilience and reduce risk of ransomware incidents.

Cyber National Mission Force works closely with our partners to disrupt and degrade foreign malicious cyber activity, sharing threat information and taking actions to the defend the Nation, said U.S. Army Maj. Gen. William J. Hartman, commander of Cyber National Mission Force, USCC. This multi-partner advisory highlights how Iranian cyber actors are exploiting vulnerabilities, targeting a broad range of entities including U.S. and partner critical infrastructure, and using accesses for ransom operations. When acted on, collaborative efforts like this advisory contribute to collective defenses around the world, and remove tools from those who would do us harm.

Ransomware remains a persistent threat. Every day, cyber threat actorsstate and criminalare seizing opportunities to exploit vulnerabilities and deliver ransomware against a growing array of targets, said Sami Khoury, Head of the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security. We strongly encourage network defenders, especially critical infrastructure partners, to read this advisory and implement these guidelines.

Based on the latest intelligence across the Five Eyes, this advisory again underscores that organisations of all sizes continue to be targeted by capable and increasingly sophisticated adversaries. Its absolutely critical that organisations strengthen their cyber defences by reviewing these protective measures and implementing them immediately, said Abigail Bradshaw CSC, Head of the Australian Cyber Security Centre. In particular, I urge organisations to patch their systems against a number of already known critical vulnerabilities.

This CSA identifies additional malicious and legitimate tools that are likely being used by these actors as well as tactics, techniques, and procedures, and additional indicators of compromise (IOCs) observed as recently as March 2022 that can be used to detect this latest malicious activity. Also, it is an update to the 2021 joint CSA on Iranian government-sponsored APT actors exploiting Microsoft Exchange and Fortinet vulnerabilities and now assesses this APT group to be affiliated with the IRGC, an Iranian Government agency tasked with defending the Iranian Regime from perceived internal and external threats. For more information on state-sponsored Iranian malicious cyber activity, see CISAs Iran Cyber Threat Overview and Advisories webpage.

Organizations are strongly discouraged from paying ransoms as doing so does not guarantee files and records will be recovered and may pose sanctions risks. In September 2021, Treasury issued an advisory highlighting the sanctions risk associated with ransomware payments and providing steps that can be taken by companies to mitigate the risk of being a victim of ransomware.

All organizations should share information on cybersecurity incidents and anomalous activity to CISA 24/7 Operations Center at report@cisa.gov or (888) 282-0870 and/or to the FBI via your local FBI field office or the FBIs 24/7 CyWatch at (855) 292-3937 or CyWatch@fbi.gov.

As the nations cyber defense agency, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency leads the national effort to understand, manage, and reduce risk to the digital and physical infrastructure Americans rely on every hour of every day. VisitCISA.govfor more information.

Visit CISA onTwitter,Facebook,LinkedIn,Instagram

Posted in NSA | Comments Off

NATFORCE: Buhari Finally Disbands Security Outfit After Senate Ignored NSA To Recognize Body The Whistler Newspaper – The Whistler Nigeria

Posted: at 8:50 am

#mc_embed_signup{background:#fff; clear:left; font:14px Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; width:90%;}/* Add your own Mailchimp form style overrides in your site stylesheet or in this style block.We recommend moving this block and the preceding CSS link to the HEAD of your HTML file. */(function($) {window.fnames = new Array(); window.ftypes = new Array();fnames[0]='EMAIL';ftypes[0]='email';fnames[1]='FNAME';ftypes[1]='text';fnames[2]='LNAME';ftypes[2]='text';}(jQuery));var $mcj = jQuery.noConflict(true);

The President Muhammadu Buhari-led National Security Council has ordered the disbandment of the National Taskforce on Prohibition of Illegal, Importation/Smuggling of Arms, Ammunition, Light Weapons, Chemical Weapons, and Pipeline Vandalism (NATFORCE).

The task force was declared illegal at a meeting of the National Security Council presided over by President Buhari on Thursday.

The Senate had in July passed a bill establishing the National Commission for the Coordination and Control of the Proliferation of Small Arms and Light Weapons which included the NATFORCE.

The squads inclusion in the bill, however, received negative feedback from security experts.

While announcing the disbandment on Thursday, the Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola said the council agreed that the task force was illegal.

NATFORCE got the Senates nod more than a year after the National Security Adviser, Major General Babagana Monguno (retd.), declared the security outfit illegal and ordered a halt of all its operations nationwide.

In particular, the office has cautioned individuals, organisations, and foreign partners on the activities of NATFORCE which was illegally formed as a task force to combat illegal importation and smuggling of small arms, ammunition, and light weapons into Nigeria.

The National Centre for the Control of Small Arms and Light Weapons domiciled in the Office of the National Security Adviser is the national coordination mechanism for the control and monitoring of the proliferation of small arms and light weapons in Nigeria, ZM Usman, the Head of Strategic Communication, Office of the National Security Adviser, had said in a statement.

Usman noted allegations of extortion and harassment against NATFORCE which seeks to combat illegal importation of Arms, Ammunition, Light Weapons, Chemical Weapons, and Pipeline Vandalism and has been involved in mounting illegal roadblocks, conducting illegal searches, seizures, and recruitment.

For the avoidance of doubt, the general public and all stakeholders are to note that NATFORCE is an illegal outfit without any mandate or authority to carry out these functions.

This trend is unacceptable and the promoters of NATFORCE are warned to dismantle their structures and operations immediately, he added.

Continued here:
NATFORCE: Buhari Finally Disbands Security Outfit After Senate Ignored NSA To Recognize Body The Whistler Newspaper - The Whistler Nigeria

Posted in NSA | Comments Off

Eight best books on AI ethics and bias – INDIAai

Posted: at 8:49 am

Moral guidelines that help us distinguish between right and wrong are a part of ethics. AI ethics is a set of rules that advise how to make AI and what it should do. People have all kinds of cognitive biases, like recency and confirmation biases. These biases appear in our actions and, as a result, in our data.

Several books focus on ethics and bias in AI so people can learn more about them and understand AI better.

AI Ethics - Mark Coeckelbergh

Mark Coeckelbergh talks about important stories about AI, such as transhumanism and technological singularity. He looks at critical philosophical debates, such as questions about the fundamental differences between humans and machines and arguments about the moral status of AI. He talks about the different ways AI can be used and focuses on machine learning and data science. He gives an overview of critical ethical issues, such as privacy concerns, responsibility and the delegation of decision-making, transparency, and bias at all stages of the data science process. He also thinks about how work will change in an AI economy. Lastly, he looks at various policy ideas and discusses policymakers' problems. He argues for ethical practices that include a vision of the good life and the good society and builds values into the design process.

This book in the Essential Knowledge series from MIT Press summarises these issues. AI Ethics, written by a tech philosopher, goes beyond the usual hype and nightmare scenarios to answer fundamental questions.

Heartificial Intelligence: Embracing Our Humanity to Maximise Machines (2016) - John C Havens

The ideas in this book are economics, new technologies, and positive psychology. The book gives the first values-driven approach to algorithmic living. It is a definitive plan to help people live in the present and define their future in a good way. Each chapter starts with a made-up story to help readers imagine how they would react in different AI situations. The book shows a vivid picture of what our lives might be like in a dystopia where robots and corporations rule or in a utopia where people use technology to improve their natural skills and become a long-lived, super-smart, and kind species.

Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence - Max Tegmark

The book starts by imagining a world where AI is so intelligent that it has surpassed human intelligence and is everywhere. Then, Tegmark talks about the different stages of human life from the beginning. He calls the biological origins of humans "Life 1.0," cultural changes "Life 2.0," and the technological age of humans "Life 3.0." The book is mostly about "Life 3.0" and new technologies like artificial general intelligence, which may be able to learn and change its hardware and internal structure in the future.

Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era - James Barrat

James Barrat weaves together explanations of AI ideas, the history of AI, and interviews with well-known AI researchers like Eliezer Yudkowsky and Ray Kurzweil. The book describes how artificial general intelligence could improve itself repeatedly to become an artificial superintelligence. Furthermore, Barrat uses a warning tone throughout the book, focusing on the dangers that artificial superintelligence poses to human life. Barrat stresses how hard it would be to control or even predict the actions of something that could become many times smarter than the most intelligent humans.

Artificial Unintelligence: How Computers Misunderstand the World - Meredith Broussard

This book helps us understand how technology works and what its limits are. It also explains why we shouldn't always assume that computers are suitable. The writer does a great job of bringing up the issues of algorithmic bias, accountability, and representation in a tech field where men are the majority. The book gives a detailed look at AI's social, legal, and cultural effects on the public, along with a call to design and use technologies that help everyone.

Moral Machines: Teaching Robots Right from Wrong - Wendell Wallach and Colin Allen

The book's authors argue that moral judgment must be programmed into robots to ensure our safety. The authors say that even though full moral agency for machines is still a ways off, it is already necessary to develop a functional morality in which artificial moral agents have some essential ethical sensitivity. They do this by taking a quick tour of philosophical ethics and AI. However, the conventional ethical theories appear insufficient, necessitating the development of more socially conscious and exciting robots. Finally, the authors demonstrate that efforts are underway to create machines that can distinguish between right and wrong.

Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies - Nick Bostrom

Nick Bostrom, a Swedish philosopher at the University of Oxford, wrote the 2014 book Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, and Strategies. It says that if machine brains are more intelligent than human brains, this new superintelligence could replace humans as the most intelligent species on Earth. Moreover, smart machines could improve their abilities faster than human computer scientists, which could be a disaster for humans on a fundamental level.

Furthermore, no one knows if AI on par with humans will come in a few years, later this century, or not until the 21st or 22nd century. No matter how long it takes, once a machine has human-level intelligence, a "superintelligent" system in almost all domains of interest" would come along surprisingly quickly, if not immediately. A superintelligence like this would be hard to control or stop.

Ethical Machines: Your Concise Guide to Totally Unbiased, Transparent, and Respectful AI - Reid Blackman

Reid Blackman tells you everything you need to know about AI ethics as a risk management challenge in his book Ethical Machines. He will help you build, buy, and use AI ethically and safely for your company's reputation, legal standing, and compliance with rules. And he will help you do this at scale. Don't worry, though. The book's purpose is to help you get work done, not to make you think about deep, existential questions about ethics and technology. Blackman's writing is clear and easy to understand, which makes it easy to understand a complicated and often misunderstood idea like ethics.

Most importantly, Blackman makes ethics doable by addressing AI's three most significant ethical risksbias, explainability, and privacyand telling you what to do (and what not to do) to deal with them. Ethical Machines is the only book you need to ensure your AI helps your company reach its goals instead of hurting them. It shows you how to write a strong statement of AI ethics principles and build teams that can evaluate ethical risks well.

The rest is here:

Eight best books on AI ethics and bias - INDIAai

Posted in Superintelligence | Comments Off

AI Art Is Here and the World Is Already Different – New York Magazine

Posted: at 8:49 am

Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer; Photo: Getty Images

This article was featured in One Great Story, New Yorks reading recommendation newsletter. Sign up here to get it nightly.

Artificial-intelligence experts are excited about the progress of the past few years. You can tell! Theyve been telling reporters things like Everythings in bloom, Billions of lives will be affected, and I know a person when I talk to it it doesnt matter whether they have a brain made of meat in their head.

We dont have to take their word for it, though. Recently, AI-powered tools have been making themselves known directly to the public, flooding our social feeds with bizarre and shocking and often very funny machine-generated content. OpenAIs GPT-3 took simple text prompts to write a news article about AI or to imagine a rose ceremony from The Bachelor in Middle English and produced convincing results.

Deepfakes graduated from a looming threat to something an enterprising teenager can put together for a TikTok, and chatbots are occasionally sending their creators into crisis.

More widespread, and probably most evocative of a creative artificial intelligence, is the new crop of image-creation tools, including DALL-E, Imagen, Craiyon, and Midjourney, which all do versions of the same thing. You ask them to render something. Then, with models trained on vast sets of images gathered from around the web and elsewhere, they try Bart Simpson in the style of Soviet statuary; goldendoodle megafauna in the streets of Chelsea; a spaghetti dinner in hell; a logo for a carpet-cleaning company, blue and red, round; the meaning of life.

Through a million posts and memes, these tools have become the new face of AI.

This flood of machine-generated media has already altered the discourse around AI for the better, probably, though it couldnt have been much worse. In contrast with the glib intra-VC debate about avoiding human enslavement by a future superintelligence, discussions about image-generation technology have been driven by users and artists and focus on labor, intellectual property, AI bias, and the ethics of artistic borrowing and reproduction. Early controversies have cut to the chase: Is the guy who entered generated art into a fine-art contest in Colorado (and won!) an asshole?Artists and designers who already feel underappreciated or exploited in their industries from concept artists in gaming and film and TV to freelance logo designers are understandably concerned about automation. Some art communities and marketplaces have banned AI-generated images entirely.

Ive spent time with the current versions of these tools, and theyre enormously fun. They also knock you off balance. Being able to generate images that look like photos, paintings, drawings or 3-D models doesnt make someone an artist, or good at painting, but it does make them able to create, in material terms, some approximation of what some artists produce, instantly and on the cheap. Knowing you can manifest whatever youre thinking about at a given moment also gestures at a strange, bespoke mode of digital communication, where even private conversations and fleeting ideas might as well be interpreted and illustrated. Why just describe things to people when you can ask a machine to show them?

Still, most discussions about AI media feel speculative. Googles Imagen and Parti are still in testing, while apps like Craiyon are fun but degraded tech demos. OpenAI is beginning the process of turning DALL-E 2 into a mainstream service, recently inviting a million users from its wait list, while the release of a powerful open-source model, Stable Diffusion, means lots more tools are coming.

Then theres Midjourney, a commercial product that has been open to the masses for months, through which users have been confronting, and answering, some more practical questions about AI-media generation. Specifically: What do people actually want from it, given the chance to ask?

Midjourney is unlike its peers in a few ways. Its not part of or affiliated with a major tech company or with a broader AI project. It hasnt raised venture capital and has just ten employees. Users can pay anywhere from $10 a month to $600 a year to generate more images, get access to new features, or acquire licensing rights, and thousands of people already have.

Its also basically just a chat room now, in fact, within a few months of its public launch, the largest on all of Discord, with nearly 2 million members. (For scale, this is more than twice the size of official servers for Fortnite and Minecraft.) Users summon images by prompting a bot, which attempts to fulfill their requests in a range of public rooms (#newbies, #show-and-tell, #daily-theme, etc.) or, for paid subscribers, in private direct messages. This bot passes along requests to Midjourneys software the AI which depends on servers rented from an undisclosed major cloud provider, according to founder David Holz. Requests are effectively thrown into a giant swirling whirlpool of 10,000 graphics cards, Holz said, after which users gradually watch them take shape, gaining sharpness but also changing form as Midjourney refines its work.

This hints at an externality beyond the worlds of art and design. Almost all the money goes to paying for those machines, Holz said. New users are given a small number of free image generations before theyre cut off and asked to pay; each request initiates a massive computational task, which means using a lot of electricity.

High compute costs which are largely energy costsare why other services have been cautious about adding new users. Midjourney made a choice to just pass that expense along to users. If the goal is for this to be available broadly, the cloud needs to be a thousand times larger, Holz said.

A generation request to Midjourney by the author and the resulting image.

Setting aside, for now, the prospect of an AI-joke, image-induced energy-and-climate crisis, Midjourneys Discord is an interesting place to lurk. Users engineer prompts in broken and then fluent Midjourney-ese, ranging from simple to incomprehensible; talk with one another about AI art; and ask for advice or critique. Before the crypto crash, I watched users crank out low-budget NFT collections, with prompts like Iron Man in the style of Hayao Miyazaki, trading card. Early on, especially, there were demographic tells. There were lots of half-baked joke prompts about Walter White, video-game characters rendered in incongruous artistic styles, and, despite Midjourneys 1,000-plus banned-word list and active team of moderators, plenty of somewhat-to-very horny attempts to summon fantasy women who look like fandom-adjacent celebrities. Now, with a few hundred thousand people logged in at a time, its huge and disorienting.

The public parts of Midjourney Discord most resemble an industrial-scale automated DeviantArt, from which observers have suggested it has learned some common digital-art sensibilities. (DeviantArt has been flooded with Midjourney art, and some of its users are not happy.) Holz said that absent more specific instructions, Midjourney has settled on some default styles, which he describes as imaginative, surreal, sublime, and whimsical. (In contrast, DALL-E 2 could be said to favor photorealism.) More specifically, he said, it likes to use teal and orange. While Midjourney can be prompted to create images in the styles of dozens of artists living and dead, some of whom have publicly objected to the prospect, Holz said that it wasnt deliberately trained on any of them and that some have been pleased to find themselves in the model. If anything, we tend to have artists ask to copy them better.

Quite often, though, youll encounter someone gradually painstakingly refining a specific prompt, really working on something, and because youre in Discord, you can just ask them what theyre doing. User Pluckywood, real name Brian Pluckebaum, works in automotive-semiconductor marketing and designs board games on the side. One of the biggest gaps from the design of a board game to releasing the board game is art, he said. Previously, you were stuck with working through a publisher because an individual cant hire all these artists. To generate the 600 to 1,000 unique pieces of art he needs for the new game he is working on box art, character art, rule-book art, standee art, card art, card back, board art, lore-book art he sends Midjourney prompts like this:

character design, Alluring and beautiful female vampire, her hands are claws and shes licking one claw, gothic, cinematic, epic scene, volumetric lighting, extremely detailed, intricate details, painting by Jim Lee, low angle shot testp

Midjourney sends her back in a style that is somehow both anonymous and sort of recognizable, good enough to sustain a long glance but, as is still common with most generative-image tools, with confusing hands. Im not approaching publishers with a white-text blank game, Pluckebaum said. If theyre interested, they can hire artists to finish the job or clean things up; if theyre not, well, now he can self-publish.

Another Midjourney user, Gila von Meissner, is a graphic designer and childrens-book author-illustrator from the boondocks in north Germany. Her agent is currently shopping around a book that combines generated images with her own art and characters. Like Pluckebaum, she brought up the balance of power with publishers. Picture books pay peanuts, she said. Most illustrators struggle financially. Why not make the work easier and faster? Its my character, my edits on the AI backgrounds, my voice, and my story. A process that took months now takes a week, she said. Does that make it less original?

Childrens book author Gila von Meissner is experimenting with using generative AI in her creative process. Illustration: Gila von Meissner

User MoeHong, a graphic designer and typographer for the state of California, has been using Midjourney to make what he called generic illustrations (backgrounds, people at work, kids at school, etc.) for government websites, pamphlets, and literature: I get some of the benefits of using custom art not that we have a budget for commissions! without the paying-an-artist part. He said he has mostly replaced stock art, but hes not entirely comfortable with the situation. I have a number of friends who are commercial illustrators, and Ive been very careful not to show them what Ive made, he said. Hes convinced that tools like this could eventually put people in his trade out of work. But Im already in my 50s, he said, and I hope Ill be gone by the time that happens.

The prize-winning art in a Colorado contest was generated by AI. Photo: John Herrman

Variations of this prediction are common from different sides of the commission. An executive at an Australian advertising agency, for example, told me that his firm is looking into AI art as a solution for broader creative options without the need for large budgets in marketing campaigns, particularly for our global clients. Initially, the executive said, AI imagery put clients on the back foot, but theyve come around. Midjourney images are becoming harder for clients to distinguish from human-generated art and then theres the price. Being able to create infinite, realistic imagery time and time again has become a key selling point, especially when traditional production would have an enormous cost attached, the executive said.

Bruno Da Silva is an artist and design director at R/GA, a marketing-and-design agency with thousands of employees around the world. He took an initial interest in Midjourney for his own side projects and quickly found uses at work: First thing after I got an invite, I showed [Midjourney art] around R/GA, and my boss was like, What the fuck is that?

It quickly joined his workflow. For me, when Im going to sell an idea, its important to sell the whole thing the visual, the typeface, the colors. The client needs to look and see whats in my head. If that means hiring a photographer or an illustrator to make something really special in a few days or a week, thats going to be impossible, he said. He showed me concept art that hed shared with big corporate clients during pitches to a mattress company, a financial firm, an arm of a tech company too big to describe without identifying that had been inspired or created in part with Midjourney.

Image generators, Da Silva said, are especially effective at shaking loose ideas in the early stages of a project, when many designers are otherwise scrounging for references and inspiration on Google Images, Shutterstock, Getty Images, or Pinterest or from one anothers work.

These shallow shared references have led to a situation in which everything looks the same, Da Silva said. In design history, people used to work really hard to make something new and unique, and were losing that. This could double as a critique of art generators, which have been trained on some of the same sources and design work, but Da Silva doesnt see it that way. Were already working as computers really fast. Its the same process, same brief, same deadline, he said. Now were using another computer to get out of that place.

I think our industry is going to change a lot in the next three years, he said.

Ive been using and paying for Midjourney since June. According to Holz, I fit the most common user profile: people who are experimenting, testing limits, and making stuff for themselves, their families, or their friends. I burned through my free generations within a few hours, spamming images into group chats and work Slacks and email threads.

A vast majority of the images Ive generated have been jokes most for friends, others between me and the bot. Its fun, for a while, to interrupt a chat about which mousetrap to buy by asking a supercomputer for a horrific rendering of a man stuck in a bed of glue or to respond to a shared Zillow link with a rendering of a McMansion Pyramid of Giza. When a friend who had been experimenting with DALL-E 2 described the tool as a place to dispose of intrusive thoughts, I nodded, scrolling back in my Midjourney window to a pretty convincing take on Joe Biden tanning on the beach drawn by R. Crumb.

I still use Midjourney this way, but the novelty has worn off, in no small part because the renderings have just gotten better less strange and beautiful than competent and plausible. The bit has also gotten stale, and Ive mapped the narrow boundaries of my artistic imagination. A lot of the AI art that has gone viral was generated from prompts that produced just the right kind of result: close enough to be startling but still somehow off, through a misinterpreted word, a strange artifact that turned the image macabre, or a fully haywire conceptual interpolation. Surprising errors are AI imagerys best approximation of genuine creativity, or at least its most joyful. TikToks primitive take on an image generator, which it released last month, embraces this.

When AI art fails a little, as it has consistently in this early phase, its funny. When it simply succeeds, as it will more and more convincingly in the months and years ahead, its just, well, automation. There is a long and growing list of things people can command into existence with their phones, through contested processes kept hidden from view, at a bargain price: trivia, meals, cars, labor. The new AI companies ask, Why not art?

The one story you shouldnt miss today, selected byNew Yorks editors.

By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice and to receive email correspondence from us.

AI Art Is Here and the World Is Already Different - New York Magazine

Posted in Superintelligence | Comments Off

OPINION: Ego is the main problem of our political polarization – N.C. State University Technician Online

Posted: at 8:48 am

I recently had a conversation with a friend of mine who bemoaned the thick-headedness of his peers in his political philosophy course. As he noted, political conversations, especially those held on campus today, have become increasingly hostile in nature. Im sure anyone who has talked politics has had a similar experience at some point or another. It truly points to an inherent problem rife in American politics: egoism.

As fellow Technician columnist Lauren Richards explained in her column about the importance of accepting mistakes, There is no place that better displays this type of thinking than the political arena. And as she points out, no one is guiltless in this. Another one of my fellow writers, Benjamin Guadarrama made it clear that now, more than ever, political discourse is vital to the progress of the nation.

We as a people have pushed for more democratic institutions, a decision that will necessitate more involvement from everyone. If we dont talk with each other, Guadarrama suggests, it will propel the nation further apart.

Guadarrama answered the question of why we should talk with each other about politics. Richards then pointed out the lack of ability of most people to hold fruitful conversations about tough topics. For me, the question then becomes: Why do we have such unproductive political discussions in the United States?

Richards did a good job of highlighting the psychological reasons, so Id like to identify the cultural reasons. After all, psychological conditions can exist anywhere, but egoism seems to be much more potent in the United States.

In searching for this answer, I asked Dr. Jason Bivins, a professor in the philosophy and religion studies department, why our culture is so conducive to egoism. He identified a sharp level of individualism that was promoted as a pinnacle of American virtue.

Dating as far back as the 1830s the most popular tales have been the pioneers and individual go-getter stories like Davy Crockett, the California Gold Rush miners and the Wild West cowboys, Bivins said.

In more modern contexts, get-rich-quick schemes still capture the eye of any American viewer, whether it be an influencer day-trading cryptocurrency or hypermasculine men like Andrew Tate and Jordan Peterson flashing wealth and fame as attainable only through misogynistic conquest.

It is clear individualism in America has produced a culture that reeks of materialism, status and greed. These ideals have been ingrained in the American psyche, engulfing us in a society of near-narcissism and toxic isolation.

In discussing ego with Dr. Anthony Solari, an assistant professor in the school of public and international affairs, he noted this toxic development as an intrinsic part of our society. In speaking of American culture, Solari said, Our culture, and capitalism as a driver of that culture, is going to create individuals that have an inflated sense of self.

Many political thinkers, dating back to the early days of our republic, have warned of this narcissistic individualism.

Notably, Alexis de Tocqueville said in Democracy in America, the degradation of community institutions as a result of isolation results in the degradation of democracy. More importantly, Tocqueville tells us we need to find the commonality of Americans.

What makes America great is that, as a result of our high levels of ethnic and ancestral diversity, we connect with one another through a common idealistic thread the American dream. This dream is not to make ourselves better, but to form a better society.

The narcissistic nature of Americans today however is a product of the reckless, capitalist drive to create something new not for the betterment of society, but for the recognition of greatness and wealth for the individual. This narcissism has fundamentally changed how we speak about politics today.

Therefore, the best way to begin reforming our political conversations, whether they be with the Brickyard preachers or in a political philosophy class, is to remember why the conversation is being held. Politics in America exist to better all people, not to belittle them. Insulting and diminishing individuals during a debate does nothing but force them to double down and get unnecessarily defensive.

In addition to this, it reinforces preconceived notions of the necessity of individual isolation. The last thing a burgeoning democracy needs is isolation and fear of retribution for contributing to a debate.

We need a reckoning in American society one that infuses individualism with reasonability. Many American failures, however you may define them, stem from a lack of faith in each other. Once these two ideas can work together, we can begin conversations on the premise of lifting up other Americans, rather than tearing each other down.

OPINION: Ego is the main problem of our political polarization - N.C. State University Technician Online

Posted in Jordan Peterson | Comments Off

Emily Whitten: Start with evolution | WORLD – WORLD News Group

Posted: at 8:47 am

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Tuesday, September 20th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. Im Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And Im Nick Eicher. Next up, evolution.

Many people may not realize the far-reaching effect the theory of Darwinian Evolution has on American culture.

WORLDs Emily Whitten recently read the book Darwin on Trial and recommended it as this months Classic Book. Today, she takes it further to explain that evolution is the root and wokeness is its fruit.

EMILY WHITTEN, COMMENTATOR: If you want to root out wokeness in American society and schools today, start with evolution.

As I recently read Phillip Johnsons 1991 book, Darwin on Trial, it reminded me of a time not so long ago when evolution in schools was a hot political topic. Johnson writes about the 1981 Louisiana law that sought to require equal class time for evolution-science and creation-science. He also relates how the courts struck down that lawand in 1987, how the Supreme Court upheld that ruling.

Today, conservatives fighting for traditional values in schools have plenty on their plates. Why dredge up this old saw?

For one thing, Marxism and Darwinism are blood brothers. They arose around the same time and out of similar intellectual milieus. As Johnsons book reminded me, both teach us to see the real world as matter onlyin a box that excludes the supernatural. Both close up human understanding to that immanent frame Carl Trueman talks about in his recent book, Strange New World.

That naturalistic box isnt abstract for me. Ive been in it before. When I drove down winding Mississippi highways to Ole Miss in 1996 and began to study English Literature, I may have heard one professor openly promote Marxism. I didnt hear the term Critical Theory until my higher level classesif I hadnt been in the Honors College, I might not have heard it at all. What I did hear embraced and taught openly, without criticism from any quarterDarwinian evolution.

When we look at literature and through it at the wider world, Christians know God is our maker. Per Psalm 100, It is He who made us, not we ourselves. It took me years to realize the core tenet of my college humanities curriculum was a direct inversion of that. We were taught, It is we who have made ourselves. Just as science classes across campus ruled God out from serious study, our humanities classes did the same. People alone, we were taught, make art and culture. People alone create languages, societies, relationships, and concepts about gender, sexuality, and everything else. If we made them, why not change them?

Thats not to say we didnt believe in a god. Almost all of my fellow students and I believed in some sort of God. But whatever or whoever He wasHe was outside the box of facts and reason and reality. As Johnson wrote, Darwinian evolution relegates both morality and God to the realm outside of scientific knowledge, where only subjective belief is to be found.

Do you hear the connection to woke ideas yet? From gender identity to racial identity, my 1990s humanities classes taught me to define myself, to make myself, to be my own Creator. Why? Because evolution had already cut God out of the picture. What God thought about me, or purposed for me, could not be studied.

As new woke ideas threaten to upend our society, were seeing a new willingness to push back against academic elites. Im grateful for that, and I hope Christians will model how to do that well, in truth and love. But if Christians want to win the war and not just todays battle, if we want to shut off the spigot on all the woke madness, we cant ignore evolution.

God didnt design Americaor any cultureto work that way.

Im Emily Whitten.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.

See the article here:

Emily Whitten: Start with evolution | WORLD - WORLD News Group

Posted in Darwinism | Comments Off

The Fading All-American Story – Word and Way

Posted: at 8:47 am

The all-American story faces precarity and theres a biblical blueprint for how it happened. The American story never had a true foundation and was always on the cusp of a great fall, but now it is coming apart at the seams. If ever a Bible story reads like our national mythology, its Jesuss story of the rich farmer in Luke 12. If there was ever a character in the New Testament that seems like our guy, the rich farmer is our guy. Hardworking, successful, rich, ambitious and he has a vision. He could probably convince the Shark Tank investors to put a pile of money into his expansion project.

Rodney Kennedy

The all-American story comes out whole hog for the hogs. Those who have plenty desire to have more. The rich farmer seems afflicted with what has been called Social Darwinism. The application of the brutal survival of the fittest to society and the economy should be dubbed anti-social Darwinism. As an unrepentant, churchless, born-again antisocial Darwinist, the rich farmer comes out in favor of himself, bigger barns, more money, more acquisitions, more consumption, and the all-American slogan, eat, drink, and be merry. But none of this shows up at first in the story. He looks like a good guy, a basically good person who works hard, takes care of business, and is a huge success. Today, he would be a run-of-the-mill billionaire buying larger private jets, yachts, and mansions.

The story, having started with such adulation for the rich man, turns a darker color when the voice of God invades the property: You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be? This doesnt add up in the American imagination about being rich. The all-American hero is dubbed a fool. Thats not the kind of language we usually use in polite company, at least not until Donald Trump weaponized rhetoric and branded people with an array of nasty words. Can you imagine anyone calling the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway a fool, or the CEO of Goldman Sachs? Well, Lloyd Blankfein, as CEO, once did say that Goldman Sachs was doing Gods work. I wouldnt say that makes him a fool, but I roll my eyes at his comment. Forbes puts out an annual list of the richest people in the world. It is not called the Fools List. If anything, it reads like the list of the greatest idols in our culture. People we adore, worship, emulate, and want to be. I am convinced that poor people support the 1% because they want to be in the 1%. If we arent rich, we probably want to be rich. This story doesnt make American sense.

Lets consider that this may be the right story for us to be reading because of our current economic difficulties. Theologically, some people would say that our chickens are coming home to roost because our greed has grown out of control. I dont think it is clear how greed is connected to our economic troubles. I have friends convinced that we are suffering because some became too greedy. We continue to be troubled, they tell me, because the rich are getting very, very, very rich and the poor are getting very, very, very much poorer. In this reading, greed has no limits or shame. Greed has to increase because it is the necessary engine for economic growth, and we believe that the economy has to always be growing. We once had millionaires, now we have billionaires. Who will be the first trillionaire? How rich do we need to be to have enough? Im not sure.

The rich farmer seems oblivious to his own greed. How subtle. He sees no warning signs on the horizon. Like people who ignore floods, hurricanes, and forest fires by denying climate change, the rich farmer denies that he is greedy while howling for more. The one characteristic associated with greed is the presumption that no matter how much we have we need more. We need more because we cannot be sure that what we have is secure. So, the more we have the more we must have. The rich farmer is a living caricature of the more syndrome: And he thought to himself, What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops? Then he said, I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. Hes fixated on I a raging individualism and he has what one preacher dubbed more-itis.

Theres a gnawing insecurity between the words uttered by the confident rich farmer. Perhaps a bit of St. Augustine can help here. He says that the essential context for ambition is a people corrupted by greed and sensuality. For all his boasting about bigger barns and living it up, the rich man was afraid of dying and he lived in fear of the loss of status and comfort. He was greedy for significance, and he dreamed that his bigger barns would give him significance. Bigger barns were the signs of his status and significance and the means of sustaining status and well-being, but ironically, the bigger the barns the more social anxiety and insecurity in the rich mans mind. The irony drips from the farmers words the one with the most is the one who is the most anxious in irrational and uncaring ways.

Yet in America, we dont recognize this as greed. We call it a vision, a game plan, a business strategy, good sense. I am suggesting that we have lost the ability to see how greed possesses our lives. We live in a culture that celebrates and desires wealth. I am a preacher of the gospel of Jesus, who teaches us that we are gripped by greed. Mixed messages? Of course. Greed, the most subtle of vices, has managed to get inside the church, be baptized, and become a virtue. When evil becomes good, we should know we have a problem. Our parents told us to work hard, to get ahead, to be the best we could be. I am not convinced this was a totally good idea, because greed has insinuated itself into all these parental lessons and we dont even realize it. How subtle!

Now, look at the story once more. Do you identify with the rich farmer? Are you at all uneasy about the judgment that this man, in Gods sight, has been foolish, and that now he must face the consequences of his greed? After all, as we have seen, his greed is invisible to us. I am not suggesting to you that this man went to hell for being rich. The story doesnt address the subject. I am saying that something is not exactly right in this mans life. His All-American desire, expressed in the All-American slogan, eat, drink, and be merry, turned out to be insufficient for a flourishing and meaningful life.

Ralph (Ravi) Kayden / Unsplash

Sometimes we need to read an Old Testament story to get at the meaning of a New Testament story. So, lets go back to the story of Pharaoh in the Old Testament book of Exodus. The story of the rich farmer parallels the story of Pharaoh. The Old Testament story is not subtle, and it shows the greed of Pharaoh in living color. Pharaoh had a surplus of food. In fact, he controlled the food supply of the ancient world. Walter Brueggemann reminds us that Pharoah is a metaphor. He shows us what raw, earthly power looks like. He is a stand-in for all the greedy, powerful people who take what they want and in doing so create damage for all others and place all others in situations of precarity. Pharaoh has a food monopoly, and he uses it as a weapon. Pharaoh shows us greed as the principal vice, greed before we baptized it, made it a virtue, and turned it into a necessity for economic growth.

And Pharaoh has a man of God on his side. His name is Joseph. The story tells us that Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh. There was a severe famine and Joseph bought all the land at a cheap price. Because Pharaoh has so much land and produces so much food, he needs granaries where he can store his surplus. Now remember the words of our rich farmer: and he thought to himself, What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops? Sounds like Pharaoh.

Now, please look at what Pharaoh does. He used forced labor, made slaves of all the people, including the Jews, and put taskmasters over them, and they were forced to build supply cities to store the food. The store-house cities are an ancient parallel to the great banks and insurance companies where surplus wealth is kept among us. Now again remember our rich farmer: he built bigger barns. He acts like Pharaoh.

Pharaoh, not content to have all the food supply, not content to have all the land, not content to enslave all the people, decides that he will cut his costs by taking away the supplies that his cheap labor had to use to make bricks. You shall no longer give straw to the people to make bricks as before. They still must meet their daily quota of bricks, but they also have to gather their own straw. Pharaoh then accused his slaves of being lazy. You are lazy and thats why you pretend that you want to go and sacrifice to your God. Pharoah is the definition of greed. He is greed revealed.

The rich farmer is subtle greed, invisible greed, all-American greed. He is the tolling of the last bell for the all-American story of excess capitalism, the Market God, Mammon, money, success, and everything that he thought was Christian because it was so American. When the American dream fails, when the all-American hero flounders, we are all in trouble.

Rodney Kennedy has his M.Div. from New Orleans Theological Seminary and his Ph.D. in Rhetoric from Louisiana State University. The pastor of 7 Southern Baptist churches over the course of 20 years, he pastored the First Baptist Church of Dayton, Ohio which is an American Baptist Church for 13 years. He is currently professor of homiletics at Palmer Theological Seminary, and interim pastor of Emmanuel Friedens Federated Church, Schenectady, New York. His sixth book The Immaculate Mistake: How Evangelicals Gave Birth to Donald Trump is now out from Wipf and Stock (Cascades).

Here is the original post:

The Fading All-American Story - Word and Way

Posted in Darwinism | Comments Off

What did the U.S. know about the Holocaust and when did we know it? – Forward

Posted: at 8:47 am

An Oklahoma farmer reads a newspaper. Courtesy of Library of Congress

By Dan FriedmanSeptember 18, 2022

In every generation, America struggles to explain itself as a nation. In The U.S. and the Holocaust, Ken Burns, Lynn Novick and Sarah Botstein provide an insight into the horrors of the 20th century, how America related to them at the time and how it should relate to them now.

Over three episodes, lasting six hours, the team tells the story of a major economic power and developed country that believed in its manifest destiny to conquer and colonize a continent. Its ideology stretched to transporting and slaughtering those it deemed degenerate while segregating or subjugating those it deemed merely subservient. The genocide of the former and the socially engineered cull of the latter, the leaders believed, would be forgotten, overlooked or seen as necessary for progress as the state marched from one success to the next.

Early on in this extensive documentary, The U.S. and the Holocaust explains how American history inspired Hitler and the Nazi regime. The nascent Third Reich embraced and distilled American ideas of social Darwinism and eugenics, Western expansion, Native American genocide, Jim Crow segregation and American antisemitism. Though we generally understand the Allies to be the good guys of World War II, it took only a little distillation and redirection of ideas from America and Western Europe to motivate Germanys Eastward expansion, Jewish genocide, Slav enslavement and the creation of a Nazi-occupied Europe to parallel United States-occupied North America.

Those hoping for another documentary answering What did Americans know? and Did Roosevelt do enough to save the Jews? will be adequately satisfied. Though the subjects are not conclusively closed, the topics are deliberated from various points of view and addressed. Spoiler alert: They knew a lot, though it was hard to believe. The State Department was reprehensible, full of antisemites and small-minded racists; on the other hand, the War Refugee Board, belatedly set up and funded in January 1944 to carry out the official American policy of rescue and relief, was an agile, creative organization that saved tens of thousands of lives.

Occasionally ponderous and self-importantly explanatory in previous productions, the Ken Burns style is well suited to this self-evidently crucial topic. Though explained from many perspectives, the lens of Americas response keeps the Holocaust coverage relatively succinct. Though complex, American history, World War II and President Roosevelts legacy are all topics that the team has covered before. But Burns, Novick and Botstein see their remit as not only investigative and historical, but as vital, fresh and relevant.

The series title The U.S. and the Holocaust refers not just to 20th century United States, but, as Burns himself averred when I spoke to him for an interview, to us in 2022 America and the Holocaust. In todays America, ignorance of history and the world around us can combine with racism, intolerance and the belief in charismatic charlatans to leave us open to some repeat of last centurys errors.

For example, today there are more displaced people globally than citizens of England and Spain combined. But even this mass displacement and outrage at the events in Ukraine, Afghanistan and Central America can barely provoke emergency legislation in Congress, never mind reform U.S. refugee law. It is sobering to realize that our current situation is relatively enlightened in U.S. history, with a system of refugee support (however meager) in place and, even after President Trumps anti-immigrant regime, an average of over 70,000 immigrants arriving in the U.S. annually for the past 40 years.

By the end of the war, when the American population knew about the Holocaust and the horrors of Occupied Europe, only 5% thought that the U.S. should expand its immigration quotas from the extreme constraints of the interwar years. About a third of Americans thought that immigration should be reduced further than prewar national quotas that had excluded all Chinese, most Asians and all but a fraction of the murdered Jews of Europe.

In the brutal and bloody 20th century, tens of millions had to die for those invested in the states racist ideology to see the error of their ways. And, as the series shows, by no means have those lessons been fully learned by 2022s population. The final hour of the gripping production begins with a caution. There always has been and still is a dangerously large segment of the American population that believes that the so-called white race has a right to the American continent.

So, when Pearl Harbor finally forced the U.S. to take sides, that continent had to confront not only a formidable military opponent, but an ideology that was an ugly reflection of its own. American eugenics had taken its early ideas from Britain, but non-consensual sterilization targeting mostly Black and institutionalized people and mentally disabled women was law in 34 states. How could U.S. diplomats vilify German rules segregating Jews and gentiles when Jim Crow was still on the statute books? How could democracies question a sovereign nations right to transport out its Jewish undesirables, when as was made clear at the 1938 Evian Conference where 32 countries gathered to discuss helping and largely decided to withhold help none was prepared to take in Jews from German-occupied territories?

Of course, in order to explain the U.S. involvement in, and response to, the Holocaust, the series must explain the Holocaust. With a mixture of contemporary footage and current-day analysis, the series hits most of the main points of Hitlers rise. The importance of doing this cannot be understated for a country where a recent survey showed that nearly two-thirds of millennials and Gen Z dont know that over 6 million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust, let alone that those numbers constituted roughly two thirds of European Jewry.

As John A. Tures, professor of political science at LaGrange College, pointed out in these pages, Most shockingly, a little over 10% of those between the ages of 18 and 40 believed that Jews were actually the perpetrators of the Holocaust.

Particularly compelling among the many interviewees is Daniel Mendelsohn, author of The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million, an account of his investigations into exactly, specifically, what happened to the Polish side of his family during the Holocaust. In the documentary, a number of experts describe in either personal or historical terms what happened. Mendelsohn does both, explicitly noting the different layers of the Holocaust. As well as those millions gassed and burnt in the infamous gas chambers and crematoria, there was the Holocaust by bullets, ad hoc killings for example, villagers locked in burning barns and systematic cullings through deliberate starvation, overwork and exposure to disease and the elements.

In February 1939, the virulently antisemitic German American Bund held a 20,000-strong rally in Madison Square Garden. American Nazis like these continued to protest that Nazi values were not only compatible with American values but, as they hoped to show by saluting a massive poster of George Washington, a logical extension of those values. Today, it is at MAGA or white supremacist alt-right rallies where you will find American Nazi sympathizers. Just like the 1939 antisemitic Bundists, Robert Packer wearing a Camp Auschwitz sweatshirt conflated Nazi values with American values as he joined in the failed Jan. 6 insurrection in Washington.

Burns and his team are not interested in allocating blame, but rather in uncovering the multiple viewpoints that detail the relation between the United States and the Holocaust. American responses stretched beyond simple legislation or executive action in reaction to facts. The scale of the events and the contexts of both the war and American public isolationist sentiment meant that nothing was simple. Even reception of facts was fraught. When Felix Frankfurter, the Jewish Supreme Court justice, was presented with private testimony about Auschwitz he expressed disbelief at the messengers account. I am not saying that he is lying. I only said that I cannot believe him, and there is a difference.

In the aftermath of the racist Trump presidency, the Holocaust is a hot topic. Between states rushing to mandate (and fund) Holocaust education, Dana Bash and Wolf Blitzer both airing specials about their families Holocaust experience on CNN, the recently released novel by Santiago Amigorena and forthcoming book by Jonathan Freedland on the men who escaped from Auschwitz, there is a palpable realization that we forget human inhumanity at our cost. Ignorance is real and dangerous. Massive online platforms amplify hate and misinformation for profit. Facebook and Twitter have lax rules on antisemitism which they dont even enforce. As Sacha Baron Cohen, with whom I have worked on other projects, said at the ADL just a few years ago, Just think what Goebbels would have done with Facebook theyd have let Hitler buy ads.

The vulnerability of contemporary society to othering as a result of racist and political lies is clearly uppermost in the filmmakers minds. as their production comes to air. Burns emphasized when talking to the Forward: Theres a moment in the film where the great holocaust scholar Deborah Lipstadt says the time to stop a genocide is before it happens. I would add that the time to save a democracy is before its lost.

The three parts of The U.S. and the Holocaust will air on PBS from 8-10pm EST on September 18, 19, and 20.

Original post:

What did the U.S. know about the Holocaust and when did we know it? - Forward

Posted in Darwinism | Comments Off

How to Teach Someone a Board Game (and Even Have Fun Doing It) – The New York Times

Posted: at 8:46 am

Modern board games can be wonderfully complex and intricate, weaving a web of overlapping mechanics, visual design, and narrative to create a fun and memorable experience every time you play. But before you start exploring mysterious ruins, terraforming a planet, or just building a really nice zoo, you have to learn how to play. And after that, you must take on an even more intimidating task: being the brave soul who tries to teach your friends how to play a new board game.

In my friend group, I am inevitably that brave soul, which probably isnt surprising, given my current job writing about board games for Wirecutter. After teaching dozens of games to family, friends, and coworkers for various Wirecutter board game guides (and also just for fun), Ive learned how to make the prospect of being a living board game tutorial a little less intimidating. In addition, I collected tips from experts like Plaid Hat Games Donald Shults, who has taught games to hundreds of attendees at the tabletop gaming convention GenCon, and Rodney Smith of the YouTube channel Watch It Played. And to get other perspectives on how to make learning and teaching rules a bit easier, I looked for advice online from sources like the fantastic games review channel Shut Up & Sit Down.

Im a firm believer that tabletop games are for everyone, but that doesnt mean all players are going to appreciate every game. Although complicated and heavy games can be exciting and deeply rewarding, not everyone is going to want to invest the time and energy needed to learn to play those beasts.

For players who are newer to modern board games, it may be better to start off with simpler fare. Games like Splendor and Ticket to Ride are wonderful introductory board games for newer players. This is partially because theyre great games that are fun to play. But its also because they serve as useful lessons, each highlighting common game mechanics that come together to make up more-involved, complex games, like Terraforming Mars and Root.

One of the easiest mistakes to make when youre teaching a game to friends is reading the rulebook to them.

For instance, Splendor is all about using resources to buy cardsfrom a shared marketwhich then produce more resources, which you can use to buy more valuable cards (a game mechanic known as engine building). Ticket to Ride emphasizes claiming territory on a shared board and predicting the routes and plans of the other players (in order to potentially foil them). Add in Skull, a wonderful little bluffing game that also includes a bidding/auction mechanic, and youll have all the skills needed to play the delightfully intricate and brain-burny game Power Grid.

Smith also pointed out that theme is another thing to consider when picking a game. Theme will buy you a lot of grace from your audience. If someones invested in the theme, if they think the game looks cool, suddenly theyre willing to suffer through a slightly more complicated rules teach. If you know that all the people in your group were huge fans of the Redwall books (novels about woodland creatures having Arthurian-esque battles and adventures) when they were younger, theyll probably be onboard for trying to learn Root (where woodland creatures battle for control of a quaint woodland area), even if theyve shied away from intimidating war games in the past.

This may seem obvious, but its important for you to get a good handle on the rules of the game before trying to teach it to others. If you get over that hurdle before introducing the game to friends, youll be in a much better position to help them have an easier and more enjoyable experience.

There are a number of ways to do this, from watching rules tutorials and playthroughs online to running a mock game where you play all of the player characters by yourself (I spent a good portion of a day doing this to learn how to play Brass: Birmingham). But at the very least, youll want to crack open the rulebook and make sure you understand the finer points fairly well. As Rodney Smith said during our conversation, Ultimately, generally speaking, somebody does have to read those rules. In your game group, someone is probably gonna have to do it.

While youre learning, try to focus on finding and internalizing how the game flows and progresses. A lot of board games are like rhythm, Shults told me, adding that, its this weird give and take, and once you get the rhythm its easier [to play the game]. Finding that rhythm will make it simpler both to play the game and to teach others to play.

Also, as a reward for your efforts, the first time youre unpacking a new game to learn the rules, the simple joy of punching out all the little cardboard pieces is yours alone to savor.

Once youve picked out the game and learned the rules, its a good idea to do a dry run. It may seem a little dorky, but I recommend doing a practice teach out loud, Smith told me. Its a great way to be sure you really do understand how the game works, as well as to map out the easiest route to take when teaching it, flagging parts where your group might have questions.

One of the easiest mistakes to make when teaching a game to friends is reading the rulebook to them (or, more often in my experience, at them). Rulebooks are not written like an exciting adventure novel, Smith said. So reading them out loud is super boring. The interest that people might have had in joining you for a game session will evaporate very quickly. Probably after the second sentence.

Smith and Shults had slightly different approaches and starting points, but they both emphasized providing a group relevant information when and how they need it.

Smith starts with the theme as a hook. I dont tend to tell people what the objective is initially because I dont believe it will mean anything to you, he told me. So I want to first give you a sense of place. We are armies trying to take over the world, if its Risk or something like that. He recommends explaining the objective and turns after the players are more situated in the world in which theyll be playing. Smith also tries to be as comprehensive as possible before playing, but how comprehensive varies by group. Not everyone has the attention span to take the entire rules info-dump at once. But the problem is, some players want that. They dont feel comfortable beginning to play if they dont know what all of the options are. So I have to get a sense of what the table wants that way.

Shults, on the other hand, starts with the games objective. I want to tell you how were trying to win, what is the goal, what are we doing, what does the end kind of look like. From there, he moves into how players go about achieving that end goal, walking through the rhythm of the games actions, turns, and rounds. He tries to get players involved quickly so less time is spent in the rulebook and more is spent interacting in the playspace of the game. This method works well for players who enjoy learning by doing, and for those who dont mind making choices without complete information about their possible ramifications.

Either of these methods will work well with different groups, and getting a sense of the way your play group learns and processes information is helpful for finding the balance between them. One way to help players along is to focus on the broader, more universal concepts and rules during the initial explanation, while keeping more edge-case or situational information only for when they come up in play. For instance, instead of explaining the inner workings of Terraforming Mars special reserved areas before the game starts, wait until this comes up in the game or until a player specifically asks about it. This helps players process the information in context, instead of trying to hold all of it in their head until it comes up later. There are many times in a teach where youll have someone say to you, You never told me that, and you did tell them that, Smith told me. But it was so abstract, and meant so little to them in the moment, it didnt click, it didnt mean anything to them.

Regardless, dont worry too much about making sure everyone has a perfect understanding of the rules before you start playing. Try to remain consistent and fair as the game goes along, but if you dont follow the rulebook to the letter, thats okay. As Smith put it, There are no rules police, no ones gonna break down your door if youre playing wrong. Be comfortable making mistakes.

The tabletop gaming community has built a number of resources to catalog, compare, and share information about games. BoardGameGeek is one of the best known of these, and its where a ton of information about rules can be found. In general, if youve run into a question about a particular situation or rule in a game youre playing, theres a very good chance theres a discussion about that exact same thing on the BoardGameGeek forums. Googling the game name and the specific rules question is usually a simple and quick way to get an answer.

Objectively, winning may be the goal of playing a game, but (in my experience anyway) it is rarely the point. Games offer a structure in which to have fun with your friends. They allow us as players to adopt new and unfamiliar temporary goals, restrictions, and abilities in an effort to inscribe and communicate an experience of different agencies.1 In order to do this, we have to try to win the game, but winning is just a means to an end, not the end itself.

When youre introducing others to a gameteaching them the rules, and making sure youre available to answer their questions as they come upyoure often more focused on making sure everyones having a good time than on your optimal play strategy. And that means youre probably going to be less likely to win. Thats okay, because if your friends end up liking the game, hopefully youll be playing it again soon.

This article was edited by Erica Ogg.

1. At least, this is the case philosophy professor C. Thi Nguyen makes in his book Games: Agency as Art.Jump back.

View original post here:

How to Teach Someone a Board Game (and Even Have Fun Doing It) - The New York Times

Posted in Terraforming Mars | Comments Off

X-Men Monday #172 – Steve Foxe Reflects on ‘X-Men ’92: House of XCII’ AIPT – AIPT

Posted: at 8:45 am

Welcome, X-Fans, to another uncanny edition of X-Men Monday at AIPT!

If you loved X-Men 92: House of XCII as much as I did, then youre in for a treat this week, X-Fans. Writer Steve Foxe initially hyped his radical, 90s reinvention of Jonathan Hickmans own reinvention of the X-Men franchise in X-Men Monday #147. But that was before we had a chance to read the first issue. Now that the mini-series has wrapped, its time for the X-Men 92: House of XCII eXit interview.

Fortunately for us, Steve had lots to share, so lets get started.

Courtesy of stevefoxe.com

AIPT: Welcome back to X-Men Monday, Steve and congratulations on the eXcellent X-Men 92: House of XCII! Its clear A LOT of thought and research went into putting this mini-series together. From adapting key moments from the Krakoa saga to only using characters who had appeared on X-Men: The Animated Series to 90s-accurate costumes for Marvel guest stars and relevant pop culture references (Bruce and Demi). I could go on and on. What can you share about your research process for this project?

Steve: Ive actually never seen the animated series. This was all just a paycheck to me, Chris. Whats a mutant?

I kid, I kid. Not to sound too gee-willikers about it, but X-Men 92: House of XCII is the sort of bucket-list, pie-in-the-sky gig I never expected to come my way, let alone have it be my first main-line Marvel project. Ive been reading X-Men titles uninterrupted since I was about 6 years old, and X-Men: The Animated Seriesis one of two shows I can and do watch on repeat (the other being The Golden Girls). And as luck would have it, a few years ago, I started a chronological re-read of every X-Men comic ever published, from Giant-Size on. I had, hand to [A], just finished X-Cutioners Song, which ran from 1992 to 1993, when Jordan D. White, X-Men Group Editor extraordinaire, emailed me about writing this series. It was unbelievable timing and if my boyfriend hadnt been looking over my shoulder at the email, Im not sure I would have accepted it as reality.

Courtesy of Marvel Comics

Of course, as you acknowledge, the 90s and the animated series are only half of House of XCII the other era to which were paying tribute is the Krakoan resurgence thats been sweeping the line since 2019. While Ive never been a lapsed reader, I was one of many bowled over by Jonathan Hickman and co.s work from the jump, and am lucky enough to be friends with some of the talented 616 X-architects. The modern-day side of things didnt require a lot of brushing up Ive been hungrily snatching up these issues each and every Wednesday.

I did revisit key moments from the animated series for inspiration, and to remind myself of the heightened ways the characters were depicted on TV. The X-Men 92 comics may technically be their own distinct timeline, but we wanted readers to be able to approach it from all sorts of angles and find ways to have fun. The writing on that show informed so much of my childhood love for the X-Men, and still looms large when we imagine how Storm, Rogue, and the rest of the cast speak and interact.

Courtesy of Marvel Comics

As for which characters pop up on the page under Salva Espins talented pen, there are actually a good number in House of XCII who never made it on the show. The rule I set for myself was to try to use everyone who did appear on the animated series, which we came darn close to doing save for like, most of the Inner Circle Club because they just werent visually interesting enough for the cameos (sorry, Mastermind). But Id guess a solid 80% or more of characters who showed up on the animated series, including unnamed cameos like Gatecrasher, do make an appearance in the comic mini-series.

The other part of the rule was to not use anyone created after 1994. I picked that as the dividing line so we could get 90s classics like Adam-X and Cyber and Random in there, but stopped short before the comics really turned a corner with Generation X and the second half of the decade. One of the last pages of issue #5 nods toward this, too, with Jubilee talking about the future and new members, and Maggott, Cecilia Reyes, and Marrow all popping up, signaling the passing of the torch from the first half of the 90s to the second.

A lot of that continuity was second nature. It was honestly stuff like Bruce and Demi that took more research. While the show ran until 1997, the book is called 92, so I wanted the references to make sense for 1992 when it came to things like the playlist in issue #2, or whos in charge of the Soviet Union, stuff like that. In ongoings set in the current day, those references get dated fast. In a nostalgia tribute like this, its a key part of the set dressing!

Courtesy of Marvel Comics

AIPT: You managed to pack a lot into just five issues. There have to have been story beats and jokes you had to leave on the cutting room floor.

Steve: To be completely honest, very little got cut from the initial proposal. When I pitched the series, the first Hellfire Gala was either in progress or wrapping up. I think I knew about Inferno from my pals writing the books, but it wasnt officially announced. So I had some really strong touch points to wrap issues around: HoXPoX, the Dawn of X kickoff, X of Swords, and the Gala. Im also a big proponent of leaving it all on the field. If you check out my Spider-Ham books with Shadia Amin over at Scholastic, or my Web-Weaver short with Kei Zama in Edge of Spider-Verse, we really try to make the most of the page space given to us when it comes to story beats, cameos, groundwork for more, etc. Especially in an instance like House of XCII where getting more than five issues wasnt really a goal or known possibility, I wanted to give readers a lot of bang for their buck in the 100 pages (plus data pages) we had to work with.

Courtesy of Marvel Comics

If anything, things got added to the plot as it went along. Issues #1-3 stayed very close to my outline, but my original pitch actually hinged on Sinister betraying the island, in a sort of, Duh, what did you expect? black-and-white cartoon morality moment. My logic was that the animated series would default to the bad guys being bad guys, since only Magneto really got a hefty redemption arc on the show. But after I accidentally made a habit of killing Beast in each issue, I realized I had a perfect opportunity to swerve. I sent Jordan and Associate Editor Lauren Amaro a frantic email late one night justifying using Dark Beast and deviating from my approved pitch, thinking theyd put up resistance, but they were just like, Sounds great! We have Sinister plans anyway, so this is perfect.

So, thank you, Kieron Gillen, for making Essex such a compelling bastard that I got the chance to live my Dark Beast fantasy for a few issues.

AIPT: Well, speaking of Dark Beast Hanks resurrection turning him into Dark Beast was definitely unexpected, and one way this adaptation really deviates from the source material. Was this decision at all a reference to Hanks increasingly dark tendencies in the Krakoan era?

Steve: Aside from the previously mentioned opportunity to make House of XCII stand out more from where the 616 line was headed with Sinister, Dark Beast was definitely a nod to Hanks long arc toward uhhhh being a real mean jerk! Ive said it elsewhere, but writing Hank in the first three issues was incredibly bittersweet. As a creator, reader, and fan, I appreciate and enjoy his descent into immorality, which arguably started in the 90s but certainly accelerated in the last decade between Brian Michael Bendis and Ben Percy.

Courtesy of Marvel Comics

But as a kid of the late 80s, Beast is always going to be an erudite, slyly clever jokester to me the college professor who gets rowdy at the bar with students while debating Proust. Having this Beast become Dark Beast is a way to poke fun at and literalize his character arc in the main book. It hurt me a little to do, but I couldnt resist.

AIPT: Of course, we cant get too far into the interview without talking about the biggest change. Moira MacTaggert was well-established on the animated series, but you chose to swap her out with Jubilee. Other than giving readers a twist on the source material, what thoughts went into this decision?

Steve: Swapping out Moira for Jubilee served three functions: giving readers something meaningfully different about this version of events; celebrating an icon of the 90s; and producing a first-issue surprise that would make you want to read more.

Courtesy of Marvel Comics

Youre right that Moira did appear plenty in the cartoon, and maybe I could have written her with a heavier accent to set her apart from Jonathan Hickmans take, but I just couldnt see the point in keeping the lynchpin of events the same as in the 616 version. Ive always loved What Ifs, which House of XCII is in all but name, and the best What Ifs change the starting point of known storylines and explore the reverberations from there.

Ive talked about it before, but I also feel like Jubilee often gets a raw deal. Shes so associated with the time of her debut that some readers who dont have firsthand, nostalgic experience with her dismiss her as a relic of the 90s. And since her original character traits were really all about being young and bratty, aging her up has necessarily changed who she is shes now a post-vampire doting surrogate mother. Which is very cool! But that means that the version of Jubilee a lot of us met is not coming back any time soon. Since this book is meant to celebrate the 90s, celebrating Jubilee making her the most important mutant of all felt like a solid choice. And that page-turn of Jubilee in the secret bunker, talking smack to Xavier and Magneto, really seemed to work as intended to get readers to go wait, WHAT and want to pick up #2 to find out what this twist was all about.

Courtesy of Marvel Comics

Plus, I could make comic-book-science sense of how her powers could work for the function, by suggesting that fireworks (small explosions) were a prelude to a Big Bang (big explosion). No, I did not pursue science beyond mandatory high school classes. Yes, this still makes as much sense as most comic science.

Fun fact: we discussed other possibilities including Senator/President Robert Kelly, Morph, Stryfe, Rachel Summers, and Dazzler for the role. But ultimately only Jubilee had a personal resonance with the cast in a way that elevated the story!

AIPT: Weve also got a very different version of the Five Karma, Healer, Fabian Cortez, Tempo, and our returning champion, Proteus. Was this combination a no-brainer or did you work through a few different combinations before arriving at this group?

Courtesy of Marvel Comics

Steve: Some members of this combo were for sure no-brainers, like Tempo for Tempus, because I love Tempo and her powers operate somewhat similarly by affecting time. Some were harder, like Karma, Fabian, and Proteus working as a proxy for how Hope, Egg, and Proteus do in the main line. I will admit that originally I wanted Healer to be Darrell Tanaka, a mutant who only appeared on the TV show in the Skull Mesa arc and who had healing powers, but rights get tricky at times, and I love the Morlocks, so I was pretty happy to get Healer in that Elixir role instead.

Ultimately, because we cover so much ground in 100 pages, some of the other substitutes for 616 teams or characters are more subtle or glossed over. We dont have time to do a bunch of magic adventures a la Excalibur, but we see Apocalypse and Scarlet Witch fussing with the mystic arts. Rogue gets a Marauders boat in a panel that got the Twitter traction I kind of hoped it would. If the series was 10 issues long, Im sure I would have explored more of those nods, but Im also happy with quick glances suggesting a larger framework for this world. Better to get readers thinking about how things might translate than to leave them feeling like theyve seen too much.

Courtesy of Marvel Comics

AIPT: On the animated adaptation of The Dark Phoenix Saga, the Hellfire Club became the Circle Club, as Hellfire is just too much for kids. It was fun to see that same level of censorship carried over to your story with the Inner Circle Gala and mutants coming out of resurrection eggs fully costumed. Im assuming that was all part of the fun?

Steve: The Inner Circle was one of those happy discoveries, since its a term that originates in the comics and then got used with more prominence in the cartoon. We kept Orchis because its a fun name and it felt too confusing to try to replace it, but Quiet Council sounds so mature and modern and forward-thinking. The Council literally sits in a circle, so Inner Circle was cartoon-logic perfect. And we did try to keep the content more or less cartoon-friendly, though we probably pushed it by the time Genesis cuts off Arkons head.

A lot of those choices were not mandates, but ways to give readers a different experience from the main line. I knew from the jump that hewing too close to the 616 version of events was kind of a waste of everyones time and of Salvas massive talents. That era is still ongoing, and Ive even been lucky enough to contribute to it. You can very easily read the original HoXPoX if you want those events. So things like the mutants being fully clothed post-resurrection (which I think was an offhand joke Jordan made during our first call) help add up to a distinct reading experience.

Courtesy of Marvel Comics

Its also fun to compare House of XCII to the prior X-Men 92 run from Chris Sims, Chad Bowers, Alti Firmansya, and others, because they were operating in such a different world when they created their series. In 2015/2016, I dont think any of us imagined a direct continuation of the actual cartoon, so the creative team went more meta with things like actual censorship bars and fourth-wall breaks from Cassandra Nova and all sorts of characters who not only werent around during the animated series run, but probably never would have made it in, like the X-Statix crew. And I love that series as such a who the eff cares, lets go bonkers take. Now the main X-line is as forward-thinking and popular as ever, and the cartoon is coming back with many of the same talents, the book Salva, Israel Silva, Joe Sabino, and I did is aimed at staying in-universe a little more.

AIPT: The X-Men have never been low on prominent humans who hate them. Was it a lot easier assembling the 90s version of Orchis? And was the romance between Boliver Trask and Lady Deathstrike a nod to Alia Gregor and Erasmus Mendel?

Steve: It sounds terrible to phrase it this way, but it was a ton of fun to assemble all those anti-mutant bigots! If we take a step back and look at the long arc of the X-Men, we probably got fewer, on average, new human bigot villains after the mid-90s. Graydon was one of the last big ones, as the X-Men dealt with more and more mutant-specific problems leading up to Decimation, and by then we were seeing a lot of the older bigots make grand returns.

Courtesy of Marvel Comics

Another reason for building Orchis like this, which Ive cited a lot, is that the animated series was really great about foregrounding the hated and feared aspect of the X-Men. If you read the comics chronologically, thats certainly a recurring theme, but there are years of the line where its more about space travel or mystic threats or clones or whatever, and the way the wider world views mutants takes a backseat as it must. The series cant revolve around only one theme for 50 years.

But since that bigotry was such a major part of the TV show, and gave a generation of fans a really strong sense of the mutant cause mirroring various civil rights and marginalized struggles (however imperfectly), it made sense to make this Orchis more defined by the human bigots who left such major impressions throughout the 80s and early 90s, like Cameron Hodge and Donald Pierce, and even the more reluctant G.W. Bridge.

Courtesy of Marvel Comics

The romance between Trask and Deathstrike is definitely a nod to Alia and Erasmus, which was a wrinkle in the Nimrod story I really appreciated. Its a brilliant way to deepen and personalize the stakes of the Nimrod program from the non-mutant side. As we saw in Hickmans time on the book, theres an element of Nimrods rise that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy for the X-Men. I dont see that as blaming the victim, but as a way of showing how complex these webs of cause-and-effect can become. Its easy to dismiss raging bigot villains as the clear bad guys, but some members of Orchis have justifiable reasons to worry about the future or hold grudges, even if their overall goals are abhorrent. With Deathstrikes demise and the loss of his human body our Trask has some of the most personal stakes of all. Its another ripple toward making our version of events unique, and also just a fun visual: Deathstrike cozying up to a Sentinel inspired by Krang from TMNT.

AIPT: X of Swords was a 20+ issue event that you fit into a single comic. Obviously, the new take is a very different storyline, but is there anything you could share about how you adapted it?

Steve: The intent of the House of XCII spin on X of Swords was absolutely to be fun-stupid and to evoke video games like Mortal Kombat and Marvel vs. Capcom, one of my earliest Marvel loves (and the reason I think Blackheart and Shuma Gorath are so cool). Salva also took inspiration from MvC for his art approach to the whole series, so I wanted to devote an issue to leaning into that.

Courtesy of Marvel Comics

Im good friends with Tini Howard, the co-architect of X of Swords, and she got a huge kick out of seeing how we crammed a tournament into one issue. At one point, I did consider mirroring the more unique contests of the 616 X of Swords by including like, a breakdancing competition, but it just seemed right to show readers what a fight-only version of X of Swords might have looked like, since many expected that out of the original event. A lot of fun for one issue, but not so sure it would have carried 20!

As for swapping in Arkon, that was in my original pitch, since Saturnyne never shows up on the cartoon and explaining all of Otherworld in one issue would have been a lot. Plus, hes usually a brutish barbarian, so a slam-bam brawl works for him, and is another chance to overlap with the cartoon since he got a two-part arc. And it was my excuse to fit in a totally gratuitous two-page spread of the bad guys and good guys running at each other. How could we not?!

AIPT: Brood Ur-Brood and the Deadpool dialogue that followed was genius. How did this idea come to be?

Courtesy of Marvel Comics

Steve: So, Arkons warriors were chosen as a way to include a lot of X-villains and rivals who didnt fit anywhere else, and because introducing a bunch of new Arakkii mutants would break the 90s immersion. I considered asking Salva to draw more 90s-ish versions of White Sword and the others, but the cartoon was really fond of repeat cameos and I couldnt pass up writing in Sauron, Erik the Red, and the rest of the crew.

Deadpool, as he says in the book, was not nearly as meta in 1992 as he is now, but that scene lands right around the midpoint of the entire five issues, so it was a good pressure valve to acknowledge some of the absurdities of the whole concept and problematic stuff like Psylockes old status quo. I always knew hed be piloting a Brood suit, but actually didnt come up with the name Brood Ur-Brood until the lettering pass good thing I did, to hammer that nod home!

Courtesy of Marvel Comics

The other name that didnt sneak in until the last second was Morearms. I was just calling him Sixarms, and we all had a big laugh about the stupid simplicity of it. But I showed a page to Marauders writer Steve Orlando, my closest frenemy, and he coined Morearms off the top of his head. It was too funny not to steal.

AIPT: The all-new, all-different X-Men featuring Feral and Random?!? How did you decide on these two to fill in for Wolverine and Synch?

Steve: I love visibly mutated mutants! Chamber has been one of my favorites forever. Marrow, Beast, Maggott anyone who cant pass always gets my attention, both for visual interest and what it says about a character and how they fit alongside the many handsome and/or gorgeous mutants who make up the core mutant canon.

Courtesy of Marvel Comics

I considered just having the core animated squad winning the election as a bit of a laugh, but I also love Sunfire and Polaris and didnt want to write them out of an extra spotlight. Feral fits the Wolverine role as a young woman with animalistic powers, while Random can morph his body parts to mimic other abilities, which is kiiiiind of like Synch if you squint! Obviously we dont see too much of the team, but any little boost to their profile is a net good from my perspective.

AIPT: The return of Phoenix and Asteroid X. What made you go this route? Is it safe to assume without the help of the Phoenix, even Asteroid X would have been a lift for the 90s X-Men, let alone terraforming Mars?

Steve: Phoenix makes an appearance for a few reasons. Like Dark Beast, shes a big chapter in X-canon that hasnt played heavily into the 616 Krakoa story yet (and thats not a loaded yet Im not teasing or spoiling anything here!), so thats an exciting chance to play around with part of the toy box not currently in use. The modern Jean has moved beyond the Phoenix in a lot of ways, so this was another way of differentiating these takes on the character.

(Sidebar: when the book was announced, I was immediately inundated by upset comments convinced I would have Jean fainting left or right in homage to her often-memed moments of exertion on the TV show. Not only does she not faint in House of XCII, she catches Scott when he almost does! Lets all exhale and learn something about jumping to conclusions, please.)

Courtesy of Marvel Comics

We also didnt use omega mutant in the same way back in 1992. Until Jonathan Hickman helped establish a firm definition and list of those who qualified, that was a somewhat lawless term, thrown around whenever a writer wanted to boost someones profile. While I dont get into the power-level debates that fandom loves, I do appreciate omega meaning something specific now. But it didnt in 1992, and I didnt see the utility in trying to force that in. Instead, terraforming comes courtesy of elemental mutants like Magma, and Phoenix helps guide the process as a universal force of death and rebirth.

Phoenix also needed to show up in #4 so that the final play in #5 didnt come out of nowhere. Its still an intentionally wild moment Phoenix Jubilee! but it would have felt super cheap if we hadnt seen the Phoenix flex her abilities in #4.

AIPT: And then theres Combo Man! What can you share about how this terrible combination man came to be?

Courtesy of Marvel Comics

Steve: Oh boy whats more 90s than Combo Man? I have NO idea what the legality of that character is these days (and am still a little shocked Storms line made it in), but knew I wanted to homage him with the House of XCII chimeras. Under Jonathan Hickman and R.B. Silva, the chimeras left a HUGE impression in a very small number of appearances, and because of how Moiras powers work, we may never see them again. Their designs are slick and smart, so I wanted ours to be clunky and silly. Cartoon logic, baby. Im sure the House of XCII chimera was a very special nightmare to design and draw in action, though, which is why he appears and promptly zooms off panel into the sun!

Courtesy of Marvel Comics

AIPT: Your ending really leans into the timeline reset something Inferno managed to solve with a depowered Moira. Obviously, the Krakoa saga is ongoing. Was it challenging to put a bow on your version?

Steve: Since we approached House of XCII from the jump as a standalone five-issue story, we knew we needed to actually end things, even though the main line very much doesnt have a firm ending coming any time soon. I actually remember Jordan phrasing it like a challenge how will we reset the pieces so we dont leave the cartoon-inspired universe completely changed? and I was like uhh, well just reset? Which is of course stupidly simple, but thats how cartoons solve problems sometimes! Serial media, especially back in the day when kids caught whichever episodes they could and there was no streaming or OnDemand to fill in the blanks, can only change the status quo so much. The toys dont break arc to arc. So a hard reset was a solution available to us that the main line cant use, of course.

Courtesy of Marvel Comics

And now you can read House of XCII however youd like: in concert with the previous 92 series, with the cartoon, etc. It literally fits wherever youd like it to fit, or can be totally ignored if its not your speed.

AIPT: As we wrap up, we need to gush about Salva Espin and how much he crushed it on art.

Courtesy of Marvel Comics

Steve: 95% of the reason this book works is Salva Espins artwork. His ability to meld an animated style with his own super-strong visual storytelling and to marry humor with enough stakes for the book to avoid becoming an out-and-out joke elevated every single aspect of House of XCII. He was also game for anything. I counted and, by the end of the five issues, he had drawn about 150 characters from Marvel canon. 150! That is wild. But his willingness to adapt everyone from Cyber to Zaladane to Tusk to Genesis to his own unique style is what made this book feel big and inclusive and expansive all at once. I feel like I could write 10,000 words on how grateful I was to have him as a collaborator I knew he was perfect before he drew a page, but I REALLY knew he was perfect the first time he drew a little monster Krakoa face but the work speaks for itself better than I ever could.

Major credit to Israel Silva and Joe Sabino for their contributions on colors and letters, too. I couldnt have asked for a better, more in-tune team for this project, and Im very lucky and grateful I was part of it!

AIPT: And finally, can we talk about those radical data pages?

Steve: The data pages! I usually saw these just before print, so they were my big surprise treat, too. When I pitched the series, I requested a more Saved by the Bell-approach but was also clear I could work with black text on white pages if we needed to for budget or timing. Instead, Jay Bowen went way above and beyond to put a personal and totally zany spin on each data page concept I could dream up, which inspired me to do things like RPG manuals and startup disk menus and a photocopied mix tape song list.

Courtesy of Marvel Comics

The sleek, sophisticated design of Jonathan Hickman and Tom Muller would look wildly out of place in 1992, so Im extra grateful to Jay putting in that effort, especially since most reviews credited letterer Joe Sabino (who did killer work in his own lane!) instead. For the record, and for all the 90s flowers he deserves, it was all Jay on those 10 design pages, and I still let out a huge laugh each time I see them.

AIPT: Well, thats all I have for you, Steve. Thanks for taking the time to dig into X-Men 92: House of XCII with me and I cant wait to read what you do neXt in the X-Office including the just-announced, Firestar-focused X-Men Annual #1!

But before we call it an X-Men Monday, how about a few eXclusive preview images, courtesy of Jordan D. White?

Courtesy of Marvel Comics

Until neXt time, X-Fans, stay eXceptional!

Want to take our relationship to the next level? Become a patron today to gain access to exclusive perks, such as:

X-Men Monday #172 - Steve Foxe Reflects on 'X-Men '92: House of XCII' AIPT - AIPT

Posted in Terraforming Mars | Comments Off

Monthly Archives: September 2022

CISA, FBI, NSA, Treasury, Cyber Command, and International Partners Release Advisory on Malicious Cyber Actors Affiliated with Iranian Government…

NATFORCE: Buhari Finally Disbands Security Outfit After Senate Ignored NSA To Recognize Body The Whistler Newspaper – The Whistler Nigeria

Eight best books on AI ethics and bias – INDIAai

AI Art Is Here and the World Is Already Different – New York Magazine

OPINION: Ego is the main problem of our political polarization – N.C. State University Technician Online

Emily Whitten: Start with evolution | WORLD – WORLD News Group

The Fading All-American Story – Word and Way

What did the U.S. know about the Holocaust and when did we know it? – Forward

How to Teach Someone a Board Game (and Even Have Fun Doing It) – The New York Times

X-Men Monday #172 – Steve Foxe Reflects on ‘X-Men ’92: House of XCII’ AIPT – AIPT

The Prometheus League

Breaking News and Updates

Prometheism

Forbidden Fruit

The Evolutionary Perspective

Transtopia Menu

Library Updates

Library Books

Future Euvolution

Lucid Dreams from Childhood

Genetic Revolution

Speciation + Self-Directed Evolution