PotUS
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On storytelling in games.
Of course games can be art! There are certain stories, like tales of moral complicity, that games tell better than any other form of media.
45, Abu Ghraib, atrocities, board game design, board games, Bruce Weigl, computer games, console games, Donald Trump, experiental art, fascism, fighting fascism, following orders, game design, games as art, Grand Theft Auto, Grand Theft Auto as art, GTA, Life on Mars, Marco Arnaudo, marcowargamer, Milgram Experiment, moral complicity, moral depravity, moral failure, multimedia art, narrative potential of games, politics, PotUS, psychology, psychology experiments, psychology experiments as role-playing games, Rockstar Games, Rockstar North, role playing, RPG, second person novels, Secret Hitler, Stanford Prison Experiment, storytelling in games, Storytelling in the Modern Board Game, The Soldier’s Brief Epistle, torture, torture in Grand Theft Auto, Tracy K Smith, Tracy Smith, Trump, war crimes
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On extraction.
The womb-suckers are trying to eat your children. Poke a soda straw into the future and sluuurp, away they go. Hopes and dreams, metabolized today into so many dollar bills. I spend a fair bit of time with drug dealers. Most are ethical people – they wanted to ingest drugs, and they knew some other people who…
45, alternative energy, ancient sunlight, anti-life, arctic drilling, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, arctic refuge, atmospheric science, big government Republicans, Bolsonaro, Brazil, carbon, carbon neutral, chemical energy, children, cigarettes, climate change, climate destabilization, CO2, coal, coal industry, combustion, diet for a healthy planet, Donald Trump, drill, drilling, drug dealers, eating the future, ethics, extraction, feedback loop, fossil fuels, future-eater, gasoline, global warming, gold mines, greenhouse gases, hamburgers, hydrocarbons, Jair Bolsonaro, laziness, lobbyists, meth, methamphetamines, national parks, natural wonders, nature, oil, oil subsidies, peril, petrolium, PotUS, pro-life, propaganda, rehab, renewable energy, routine, self-destructive behavior, selfishness, solar energy, solar power, starvation, starving future children, stored sunlight, Trump, vegan, Venus, wildlife refuge, womb sucker
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On intent.
Our criminal justice system routinely destroys lives after divining a person’s intent from actions. But now, suddenly, we need proof.
45, bankrupting the U.S. government, climate change, collusion, conspiracy, Donald Trump, falling tax receipts, handouts to billionaires, heroin, impeachment, inequality, intent to sell, interference in free elections, Is Trump a Russian agent, jail, kickbacks, mass incarceration, methamphetamine, political kickbacks, politics, possession with intent, PotUS, President Trump, proof, racial injustice, racist policing, Rikers, Russian agent, Russian collution, sabotage, soda straw, straw, Trump
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On protest, the Supreme Court, and autocratic minority rule.
I was planning an essay on cell phones and surveillance. The central thesis was that our Supreme Court is a massively flawed institution. Many of our current Supreme Court justices are both willfully ignorant and opportunistically illogical. This set of people are not exceptionally knowledgeable, nor are they particularly clever. But we have given them…
45, changing demographics of the United States, detention centers, Donald Trump, free market, gerrymandering, hate machines, human migration, immigration, immigration detention centers, incarceration, Issac Bailey, migration, minority control, murder, My Brother Moochie, political power, PotUS, property rights, SCOTUS, Supreme Court, Supreme Court opinions, supressing influence, Trump, U.S. politics, United States, violence, wilful ignorance, wrenching apart families
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On Liu Xiaobo, monster hunter.
“If you be good and grow strong, you can help your father fight the monsters.”
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On idle time, coincidence, and Vivek Shanbhag’s ‘Ghachar Ghochar.’
An idle mind often reads supernatural portent into every coincidence.
45, Annie Jacobsen, atheists in foxholes, author as God, CIA, coincidence, conspiracy, conspiracy theory, curse, Donald Trump, foreshadowing, fraud, germination of supernatural belief, Ghachar Ghochar, hewn stone, idle, idle mind, jubilee, lost car keys, Magic, numerology, Phenomena, PotUS, precognition, prophecy, Puharich, science, speculation, Srinath Perur, statistical manipulation, statistical significance, supernatural, Trump, Vivek Shanbhag, wealth
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On the Tower of Babel and beneficial curses.
Kind-hearted citizens of the United States needed to be saved from our own complacency.
45, Abdelfattah Kilito, attorney general, Avigdor Shinan, Babel, Babylon, Benjamin Lee Whorf, Bible, climate change, climate destabilization, complacency, congress, cooperation, Cugel the Clever, curse, democrat, Democratic Party, diversity, Donald Trump, education, Elif Batuman, English, Eyes of the Overworld, From Gods to God, Gate of the Gods, Gateway to Heaven, global warming, God, God’s Gate, health care, health care reform, Heisenberg, Ismael, Jack Vance, language, linguistics, mass incarceration, monoculture, Old Testament, personal responbility, perspective, politics, PotUS, President, Quran, republican, Robyn Creswell, sentencing reform, tax code, tax cut, Thai, The Idiot, The Tongue of Adam, tongue, Tower of Babel, Trump, Turkish, uncertainty principle, Valerie Zakovitch, Whorf hypothesis, Yahweh, Yair Zakovitch
Frank Brown Cloud 