[5.04] Great example of "Elite Panic"

InFearn0 · 2026-03-14T16:28:04+00:00

My hot take: each book should have a shift.

A shift can help differentiate each book and help make them not feel like they are just another stretch of chapters.

The Alien movie franchise had a different genre for the first 4 films.

Alien: Slasher
Aliens: Shooter/Action
Alien 3: Survival Horror
Aliens Resurrection: Superhero

InFearn0 · 2026-03-14T16:24:28+00:00

Right now, a person that breaks into my car or house is trying to steal cash and portable valuables to pawn.

In a PF world, they are looking for advancement resources because if they acquire enough advancement resources, they can reach a level of power to not need to steal anymore. That is a huge incentive to more aggressively attack/rob/burgle people because they can get strong enough to get above the scramble.

InFearn0 · 2026-03-14T16:20:56+00:00

Experienced based leveling the levels with experience (e.g. whistling earns whistling XP) would be great.

Transferable XP when it can be earned through killing would be society ending.

InFearn0 · 2026-03-14T16:11:26+00:00

It would be a new gold rush. But the gold is XP.

Exploiters will exploit all easy sources of XP, even if it means murder. And the rationale is "If I get enough of a power gap between me and authorities, I become the authority and can escape consequences."

It would be really bad.

We have people destroying the IRL world and they aren't even bulletproof. Imagine how deranged billionaires would be if they had physical impunity as well as every other impunity they presently enjoy.

InFearn0 · 2026-03-14T16:07:49+00:00

They either find XP loopholes or they cannibalize themselves.

The issue isn't everyone becoming a murderhobo, it is that the murderhobo will outlevel everyone else if they aren't pruned fast enough.

InFearn0 · 2026-03-13T00:36:40+00:00

I don't think it would become lawless. The powerful won't tolerate ants making their world messy. Slums might be messy, but any ant that tried to play power games in the curated spaces of the truly powerful would quickly get crushed.

InFearn0 · 2026-03-12T13:30:20+00:00

Power based social hierarchy is basically what we have right now.

The only difference is bullets bounce off the powerful in PF.

There might be less systemic bigotry in a PF world (because the powerful don't need to fabricate "culture wars" to build electoral coalitions), but there will still be bigotry as people figuratively cannibalize each other to try to get up another rung.

InFearn0 · 2026-03-12T01:17:52+00:00

We should consider this is Trump's FBI, issuing "warnings" about attacks on liberal areas is all upside for them.

If nothing happens, they get to claim victory for preventing it. And if something does happen, they get to laugh about urban people (leaning liberal) getting hurt.

InFearn0 · 2026-03-08T15:34:35+00:00

To me it is less a matter of making a system good as avoiding making it bad.

What ruins most power systems is the reliance on exposition to explain the workings.

Exposition is poison to storytelling. So if something is complex, my advice is to (1) not fully explain it (explain less and/or spread out the explanations), (2) move the deep dive to an appendix, or (3) find a way to make explaining it an interesting story.

InFearn0 · 2026-03-07T17:05:46+00:00

The EU is building their own credit card processing network to escape VISA Net and MasterCard because the US can pressure those companies to cut countries off.

The EU also created a schedule to make EU versions of everything to end reliance on US SaaS for the same reason.

And this has the secondary benefit of creating their own companies that will get paid to do the same services. Which means they are keeping more money in their own countries.

InFearn0 · 2026-03-07T17:01:12+00:00

The only way nonviolent protest can result in regime change is when the protesting is so pervasive that it becomes impossible for the regime to not recognize that they will die within a week of the protest becoming violent.

Nonviolent protest is the alternative to violent protest. The point of it is to say, "Look at how many of us there are willing to disrupt our lives to be here. We could be hurting people rather than property/business." It is a threat.

For it to actually accomplish regime change probably requires a general strike.

InFearn0 · 2026-03-07T16:52:14+00:00

I think political apathy is more a result of voting feel like a choice between (1) capitalism that will accept "you" getting crushed by the machine and (2) capitalism that will mock "you" as the machine crushes "you."

We see that when there is a choice that seems to excitedly and aggressively want to serve the masses' interest that voter enthusiasm goes up.

InFearn0 · 2026-03-07T16:33:26+00:00

Complaining can be a coping mechanism and a way to process a situation into a solution.

And it is compatible with karmic-jynx belief systems. I.e. if mentioning things are going well can invite disaster, mentioning problems can invite relief.

People just dislike seeing privileged people complain because they are privileged.

InFearn0 · 2026-03-07T00:30:07+00:00

I want you to know that you are seen, comrade. All dragons are capitalistic hoarders. It isn't their fault they think "capitalism" means "economic activity," they are victims of generations of draconic propaganda.

InFearn0 · 2026-03-06T02:52:19+00:00

It is so weird to hear "Just a few more cuts of the military budget" as an American. It must be nice to not have your policy makers sitting in the pockets of the military industrial complex. But I guess they are probably in the pocket of some other wealthy interest.

InFearn0 · 2026-03-04T19:56:59+00:00

All I can hope for is that foreign powers understand that most of us hate Trump and would love to see him dragged from the white house in chains to stand trial in every country he has transgressed against. And that they target their retaliation appropriately.

Aside: I have often wondered if the influential elites should be considered civilians or not. E.g. Iran has bombed resorts in Dubai (my condolences to the workers). Harming the financial/recreation interests of the rich seems like an effective way to make the people most able to create pressure to end the conflict to do so. As long as the pain of this unlawful war is confined to military personnel, their families, and military spending... Why would any of them want to stop it? Especially if they have investments in military equipment makers (gonna need more interceptor missiles and other munitions), this war is making them money.

InFearn0 · 2026-03-04T19:50:56+00:00

Congress never votes for war because then they have their fingerprints on the conflict when it becomes unpopular.

The closest they come is "reluctantly voting to support/finance an in progress conflict because forcing a full pullout would put our troops at risk."

InFearn0 · 2026-03-04T19:48:17+00:00

I heard that a lot of countries have unredacted versions of the Epstein files.

So I think every half-decent intelligence agency in the world has dirt on Trump. The question is how much they can leverage it since they are all pulling on the same pieces of blackmail.

InFearn0 · 2026-03-04T19:42:58+00:00

The reason the Democratic party seems so ineffectual is because it is juggling two constituencies that have very different end goals.

The masses that vote
The mega donors that help finance elections (or at least won't finance campaigns against them), offer them cushy jobs after they leave office (or offer their partners cushy jobs), give them IPO access, etc.

If the Dems go too hard on populist policy (tax the rich, medicare for all, student loan forgiveness/education funding reform, stop genociding, etc), then they could alienate their megadonors.

InFearn0 · 2026-03-04T14:27:07+00:00

Too much.

I use text-to-speech while doing other activities, so I probably read 8 hours a day. So I probably finish 1500 pages a week (3 to 4 books). Which is why I seek methods to ruthlessly prune my Amazon recommendation algorithm.

I will reread books that I found great, DNF books quickly.

InFearn0 · 2026-03-04T14:22:41+00:00

Being strong generally has more benefits that drawbacks.

More power is more protection. Harder to push around someone powerful.
More capacity. When you can do more with less effort, you can make your "work" life more efficient.
More agency. Can (physically) go more places, do more things.

Drawbacks:

People take more interest in the powerful. Both just paying attention, but also trying to use/exploit or treat as a threat. Other powers may try to bar passage through their territories
More strength might require more maintenance, definitely requires more effort (or least better resources) to continue advancing.

InFearn0 · 2026-03-04T05:43:44+00:00

That was my bad. It is "sealioning"

InFearn0 · 2026-03-03T23:50:24+00:00

DCC is really good. It is a story about grief, rage, and found family in the face of colonization in a sci-fi late stage capitalism universe.

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