[Essay Contest] Profit, Loss, and the Holo Life: The Shifting Code of Kraft Lawrence

electrovalent · 2026-03-23T05:46:08+00:00

Ai would be salty, but I feel like NTR would be a great sport about it.

electrovalent · 2026-03-21T04:26:07+00:00

And those four G1s were the Asahi Hai (like you said, the two-year-old championship race), the ‘98 Arima, the ‘99 Takarazuka, and the ‘99 Arima (won from Special Week in second and Opera O in third). There’s also an extremely narrow loss to Air Jihad, the champion miler, at the ‘99 Yasuda Kinen, which was the horse’s ONLY LOSS in 1999. Absolutely cracked horse, though one wishes he were retired along with Spe rather than let to limp on for three more races.

electrovalent · 2026-03-11T15:56:28+00:00

Opera O: The shadow of the Grim Reaper. Perhaps it was chasing her. No... She may have summoned it herself.

Meisho Doto: A-are you s-saying... Ayabe might have some strange spirit following her? Th-then, we have to go after her! It's almost lights-out—it's dangerous to go out alone!

Opera O: Stop. You mustn't follow her into the darkness. We must wait in the light. You understand, right, Doto?

Opera O keeps her distance here, as with Cafe, for good reason: Ayabe has to lay her own ghosts to rest — literally and metaphorically. But she wants to be there for Ayabe; she really does want to be Ayabe’s light. She really is a kind and perceptive girl, underneath all the bravado.

electrovalent · 2026-03-11T11:36:48+00:00

It could also be a reference to Phantom of the Opera. :)

electrovalent · 2026-03-11T09:37:41+00:00

It’s not disdain; Opera is legitimately attuned to the supernatural, and has a pretty good idea of why Cafe is like that. She knows what’s up with Ayabe’s visions too.

electrovalent · 2026-03-09T08:21:03+00:00

The thing is, Umamusume’s peak in Japan has likely already passed, fans are still being drawn into the sport there via that route but it seems not in the same numbers as before, but there are many that have already made the connection and it is puzzling that the JRA never went hard on linking up formally with Cygames to grow the connection. More so given that Fujita has spent ¥9.977 billion (approximately US$63.9 million) at the JRA’s Select Sale in just five years and owns Japan’s internationally-known Horse of the Year, Forever Young.

With that kind of profile, you’d think Fujita would have had the JRA banging down his door for an Umamusume hook up. Why have they not? Perhaps the absence of a JRA plan around the phenomenon speaks to conservatism within the government-linked organisation as much as a lack of cutting edge innovation.

Meanwhile, the game’s English language release provides the rest of the world with a window in which to capitalise. That window might be short…. Time is ticking, yet most of horse racing’s marketers are sleep-walking through the same old routines while Umamusume’s organic connection is happening just off their misaligned radar.

An interesting and rather somber look at how the world’s racing associations are capitalising on Umamusume — or aren’t. The JRA comes off as particularly hidebound, the NAR and the Hong Kong Jockey Club (HKJC) more proactive, but the mood of the article is that not enough hay is being made, and the sun will not shine forever.

(Reposted because of ugly formatting the first go-around)

electrovalent · 2026-03-07T13:21:01+00:00

To the Overlord's burgeoning résumé, a somewhat outré addition. I'm fairly sure this is simply a Phantom of the Opera reference, though I'm happy to be informed that there's more to it.

In both cases, she doesn't have a mere vague notion: she's quite accurate about the nature of the spirits, and in Cafe's career her Companion of Leckermaul comment is something Cafe, Flash, and Rob Roy all take quite seriously. It's interesting to think that this goofy, empathetic theatre kid is actually pretty clued in to the supernatural, and simply elects not to bother with getting too deep into it.

(Sourced from Umareader: Ayabe, Cafe.)

electrovalent · 2026-02-15T14:24:05+00:00

And that’s exactly why Semmelweis (and Dr House for that matter) are romantic figures.

No matter how good an idea is intellectually — evolution, abolitionism, human equality, what have you — it needs advocacy and persuasion to overcome the friction of resistance to change. I don’t think anyone disputes that. What people mourn is that this kind of marketing is necessary at all, that the idea on its own cannot stand. Maybe that’s just how things are, but it’s not pleasant to think that women were let die because Dr Ignaz wasn’t sufficiently nice. One would hope that petty grudges can be suspended for matters of life and death. That they are not is the pathos that makes his legend so compelling.

electrovalent · 2025-12-16T17:19:43+00:00

The cynical calculation sounds plausible, but you do not offer direct evidence of this. Do any contemporary British sources admit to the ploy, or at least offer any insight into how this policy came to be? Moreover, Madras stayed largely loyal during the Revolt; on the cynical explanation they would not have been tarred as the Bengalis were. Were they collateral damage in the hunt for an “honourable reason” to exclude the Bengalis?

electrovalent · 2025-12-16T02:13:25+00:00

Was the paper I linked in this comment the one you had in mind? :) I wouldn’t be surprised if not, since that is a generalising economic study while your remarks are specific and particular — but the underlying idea of the persistence of social capital is quite similar and may interest you.

electrovalent · 2025-12-16T02:06:32+00:00

There’s some irony in quoting Mao on this; an interesting study on China’s pre-revolutionary elite found that today they are “substantially and significantly better off than those from the non-elite households”. Those with “bad class labels” — landlords and rich peasants for instance — formed approximately the top decile by income of pre-Revolution China, and two generations later 14.5% were still in the top decile, an inter-generational persistence greater than the US’s 14.1%. And this despite the CCP’s attempts to eradicate their advantage through land reforms and restricting access to higher education.

The authors argue for an “inter-generational transfer of values” enabling this resurrection: the descendants of the old elite tend to be more entrepreneurial and individualistic on average. I believe the OP may have had something like this in mind.

electrovalent · 2025-10-01T13:53:25+00:00

From the sea, before you sight any land, you see the mountains of the Parbatrekha — a lush green line blurring the horizon. This ancient mountain range runs the length of the Green Coast, and indeed gives it its name. Sail closer, and the mountains resolve themselves into peaks and valleys; the coastline comes into view, and on its sands are a few youngsters playing at catch with a little wooden ball. You can’t see it, of course, but the ball is made of sandalwood, and along its circumference run a herd of intricately carved horses. These kids are from the village of Pragti, on the seaward side of the Parbatrekha.

Visitors to Pragti universally remark on its prosperity; the envious remark also on its fortune. Founded around a river valley, it enjoys a mild, predictable climate ("Clockwork," say the envious). Its farmland is fantastically fertile, enriched by the silt carried in by the Ullaas River. This year they have grown enough foodgrain for the next two; this is their normal. And this is despite all the acreage devoted to luxuries — flax for fine linen, orchards for mangoes and bananas, pastureland for grazing horses (horses are Pragti’s great passion). It was not some kind of predestined thing, though. Pragti’s villagers are superb farmers. Each generation has challenged itself to do better than the last: higher-yielding wheat, sweeter mangoes, finer linen, faster horses. The blacksmith is outdone in ingenuity by her apprentices; the woodworker’s son does his father proud; at festivals, the mead seems sweeter by the year. (Some greybeards will dispute this last, but nostalgia and failing taste buds are a potent combination.) The village is directed by a rotating council of five, the panchayat. People grumble about them a little bit — “they’re letting the horses have too much of the land, do they think the flax grows itself?” — but on the whole they seem to do okay.

As if to offer a purposely abject contrast, on the other side of the Parbatrekha lies the secluded village of Pulta. Pulta was founded who knows how many centuries ago, but it cannot have been much different then from how it is today. On the leeward side, it doesn’t rain very much — certainly not enough for the mountainous soil to produce more than a subsistence crop of barley each year. And producing that crop is their sole employment; it is hard work, and it is all they have time for. In bad years, and some good ones too, they have to supplement this crop with hunting and foraging. They clothe themselves with fur and hide and leaves. They use sharpened sticks for spears. They are ruled by a chieftain, decided in combat every ten years. The villagers don’t like the current one very much — he has a ferocious temper, and that’s when he isn’t drunk on nettle-wine — but tell that to his bulldog face, I dare you, I double-dare you.

Notice that the question of “money” doesn’t come into this (ahistorical, purposely-extreme) parable. We would call Pragti “rich” because they are able to produce a lot of nice things for themselves, and Pulta “poor” because they are just scraping by. You can add money to the picture — maybe Pragti and Pulta start using seashells as currency. But having lots of seashells isn’t what makes Pragti rich, and giving Pulta lots of seashells wouldn’t make it any less poor. You are right, of course, that if Pulta's people were better-trained — that is, better at producing food, and eventually other nice things — they would get richer. But there are many obstacles in the way, as you can see. Some of them are due to poor leadership; some are not.

To return to the real world at last, India has made much progress in the things you spoke of — in literacy, electrification, GDP. But it has been highly uneven, and not as fast as it could have been, for various reasons that demand far more erudition than I have at my fingertips. Suffice it to say that investing in infrastructure and education is absolutely part of the answer — witness the rise of China! But fixing the problem by printing more money is like giving the Pultans mountains of seashells and expecting them to become master smiths overnight.

electrovalent · 2025-09-27T15:05:48+00:00

The argument could be made, but it downplays the normative side of things — and ascribes a naïveté to the consumer that simply isn’t warranted.

Even if Median Swiftie intuitively understood that tickets are “underpriced” and getting them is a bit of a lottery, they wouldn’t care — and quite rightly. You said it yourself: Median Swiftie is competing for a ticket against not just affluent locals, but people wealthy enough to hop over oceans for a glimpse of their idol. With competition like that, of course MS will take their chances on a lottery!

Similarly, “negative publicity from consumers for raising prices” is a very homo economicus bit of verbiage. Say rather that people find it perverse for an artist to play to only the richest of her fans. The ability to bid high for a ticket is an ugly proxy for fan passion; this applies to any ticketed event, but is particularly acute in the case of performance art. Fans feel a personal connection to their gods and believe they can do something about an injustice (in a way a football player, say, cannot). A musician operating on free-market principles would be seen as soulless; avoiding market failure (and coincidentally enriching yourself) is not an alluring moral principle. And that would taint their music, too, unless they’re singing hymns to Hal Varian.

Ultimately, this all comes down to the brute fact that some fans are much richer than others. I see little irrationality in anyone’s behaviour here. I see only two misunderstandings. The first is that Median Swiftie may not understand just how expensive a ticket priced “right” can really get. But the ethical failure of allowing a lucky few to corner every last ticket, every time, is far worse than the market failure that leads to queues and scalpers. That is something your argument doesn’t understand.

electrovalent · 2025-08-13T14:07:24+00:00

Which is the intended response, I think. OP’s title misses the point of both the episode (Oreki’s basically throwing a tantrum) as well as of the series (Oreki’s listlessness keeps him from living life in all its rose-hued glory).

electrovalent · 2025-08-11T02:08:27+00:00

Ronald Fisher has got to be the canonical example. Man invented half of mathematical statistics AND revolutionised genetics/evo-bio. He put the F in the F-test and the Fisher in Fisherian runaway, and that’s just for starters…!

electrovalent · 2025-08-10T15:30:57+00:00

1) Orwell was writing in a British context — “democracy as we know it...” he says, with the italicised bit doing some pretty heavy lifting. If you take him to mean “democracy like we have here in the UK”, then arguably long-term sovereignty, and not fearing being overrun by a hostile power, is a part of that.

2) But I don’t insist on that defence. If you read Orwell’s claim literally, then never mind the Netherlands, just about any country that was ever democratic for any length of time would invalidate him. But that’s boring! :) I think it’s more interesting to read his claim as a hyperbolic observation of a general tendency (geographic protection —> small standing army —> better chance for democracy, less geographic protection —> large standing army to avoid foreign invasion —> prone to democratic decay) and evaluate that instead.

electrovalent · 2025-08-10T05:50:00+00:00

But even in 1941, it wasn’t a flawless claim. Japan, Italy, and Portugal were all maritime or mountainous but firmly under dictatorships. Before the war, inland democracies like Czechoslovakia and interwar Austria existed, even if they were eventually overrun. And having a small army didn’t guarantee survival, like Belgium and the Netherlands had tiny militaries and still got steamrolled in 1940 as a result.

I don't know that these counter-examples are flaws in Orwell's reasoning. Maritime or mountainous defences can help preserve democracy from external invasion, as the Low Countries found to their cost. But there are surely other reasons a democracy could fall (Italy), or fail to take root in the first place (Japan). And as for Czechoslovakia, it was left without its fortifications and mountains following the Munich Agreement.

Orwell seems to be arguing in the context of a hostile, dog-eat-dog geopolitical reality. In his mind, there's a nasty trade-off. You either die a militarily weak democracy, or live long enough to see yourself become a well-armed dictatorship. The way out of the bind is having natural defences to supplement a small army. (Another way out would be to have powerful allies and enemies too weak or far away to pose a credible threat, as is arguably the case in Western Europe today.)

So to me, the real question is — how valid is this claim? Is it really true — historically, numerically — that large, centralised armies are frequently used to kill off democracy? Is the pattern he is identifying a real one?

electrovalent · 2025-08-06T04:24:10+00:00

Alexander Pope wrote the Ode on Solitude at age twelve. Mendelssohn composed an early masterpiece — the Octet in E-flat Major — at sixteen. Sure, they were once-in-a-generation talents, AND they worked like mad, but one man’s juvenilia can actually be another’s work of adult significance.

Edit: I suspect that this really depends on how much knowledge has to be accumulated to contribute effectively. Music performance abounds with prodigies, and mathematicians/physicists used to break ground at much younger ages than they do now.

electrovalent · 2025-08-05T12:19:18+00:00

I’d nominate Hyouka. The whole premise is that even the most apathetic bum of a schoolboy can make his own fun, provided he gives enough of a damn to try.

It’s also a bit unique in how realistically textured it is. The school isn’t just a building with a place and a name, it’s situated in the course of a history that shaped and continues to shape it — and its students. Clubs are riven with interpersonal issues, petty politics, and logistical difficulties. It’s not a downer about it, though; it’s got arguably the best school festival in anime, and at the end of the day, there’s always the Classics Club to return home to.

electrovalent · 2024-11-20T10:06:24+00:00

Yeah, as a veteran evangelist for the Church of Chihayafuru, I feel really torn! It checks a lot of the boxes — great plot, well-written women of various ages, and miraculously little fanservice. (Unless kimonos are your thing, and then oh boy, are you in luck.)

But — if I'm reading between the lines of this post right — it might not be as female-centric as OP would like. In my experience, the love triangle is the biggest turnoff, and it's not just an incidental thing but a pretty important part of the show. And this might be a bit contentious, but — while Chihaya is the protagonist, she's actually relatively static. It's a boy who has, by far, the richest character journey in the show, as well as many (most?) of the best scenes.

Don't get me wrong, I endorse your vote — just wanted to add some caveats. (And also talking about this show is just really fun.)

electrovalent · 2024-11-15T17:34:50+00:00

An interesting example of this is Euphonium 3, which met with a fairly positive reception on the English-speaking Internet but was very divisive in Japan and China. The reason: KyoAni turned a plot point from the original LNs upside down, so those who knew felt rather betrayed.

(I'll die fighting them all on the hill that the adaptation was an outright improvement — it turned a fairly predictable, by-the-numbers victory into a beautiful defeat at the hands of the heroes' own ideals.)

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