domain:papyrusrampant.substack.com
Corvos
just now
More to the point, I think, magic in the Potterverse and in most pre-Millenium British fantasy has an implicit moral understructure. For example, the love of one person sacrificing themself for another is a powerful protective force against evil. Dumbledore makes it pretty clear that there are far deeper forces in the world than the paltry stuff that wizards usually throw around and regularly criticises Voldemort for fundamentally misunderstanding how magic works. You cannot feed yourself on magic - you cannot transfigure food. There is literally a room full of Love in the Department of Mysteries that is so terrible and dangerous that his lock-pick melts when he tries to enter.
I suspect that part of this is the implicit rule that you cannot magically hide your true self for long. Voldemort literally becomes ugly as he mutilates his soul. Harry’s father has an inherent nobility and his Animagus form is a stag, where Wormtail becomes a rat, and it is not possible I think for that to be reversed.
Trans people then seem to be ruled out. Even if you believe the trans identity is the reality, then I would think that spells would work better.
hydroacetylene
2m ago
Or, more likely, they'll declare war on sparrows and lose. This is the CCP approaching a task that's legitimately difficult.
Corvos
12m ago
Have you ever watched Primeval? It was made in the early 2000s with the tech from Walking With Dinosaurs and broadly follows that premise.
Fan-trailer here: https://youtube.com/watch?v=JLir0TDJ3GY?feature=shared
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
29m ago
Oof, I wasn't aware of that. It's just such a failure of imagination, to me. In a world where magic exists and can change you in all kinds of ways, nobody would be trans as an identity! They would just be a woman (or man) by virtue of magic, and nobody else would ever know who didn't know that person before. If anything, these writers are missing out on some interesting material - in a world where you can change sex as easily as putting on a magical girdle, what do gender roles and the relationship between sexes look like? Surely, nothing like our world, and that could be really interesting to explore! But no, instead people have to waste interesting material by forcing it to be a morality lesson about our world instead of letting the fictional world be its own interesting thing. It's so aggravating. :(
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
35m ago
baited breath
ABigGuy4U
50m ago
His post MCU run isn't exactly a Pattinson/Radcliffe-style rush to stretch himself.
Neither was his pre-MCU career.
Some of the LITRPG genre is famous for having Russian writers. Reading some of their stuff made me feel downright progressive at times.
I await your recommendations with bated breath.
MaiqTheTrue
Renrijra Krin
1hr ago
I mean in most circumstances sure, but I think the thing gets a bit complicated when you know your kid will be horrifically abused raped etc. every day he remains with the custodial parent, you don’t have the months to years a court process can take. A kid getting pimped out nightly to men so mom can afford drugs doesn’t have years. The environment is much too dangerous, and leaving them there while they languish is unsafe for the child.
First rule is the health and welfare of the child. The second rule is follow the law if possible.
From the descriptions, fine changes appear to be less like doing makeup and more like plastic surgery, in terms of the skill required and the danger. (Most examples deal with transforming a human into an animal, presumably with stock spells). And then you're one antimagic spell or environmental effect (such as one installed in the bank) away from the glamour washing off, or worse.
Thus, even if some rare talented Transfigurationists or those able to secure the services of one practiced it, it would not be widespread or practical in daily social life. And that's just when we talk about external appearance. Transfiguration evidently does not solve aging, and it's debatable whether it can impart complex function the body didn't have, such as switching out your reproductive system. (What happens if you try to get pregnant on Polyjuice?)
self_made_human
Sajjano durjano bhūyāt, durjano badhyatāṃ sadā, baddho'nyān nibandhāyet
1hr ago
https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Transfiguration
See the section on Human Transfiguration. Even if no spell lasts permanently, what's stopping you from re-casting it regularly? That's about as onerous as doing makeup or getting a haircut.
sun_the_second
could survive a COD lobby and a gay furry discord server
1hr ago
It is well-established in Potterverse that magic, evidently, doesn't allow you to modify yourself long-term. Otherwise there would be no ugly wizards. A lifetime supply of Polyjuice sounds like something pretty much no one could afford.
WhiningCoil
Ghost of Quokka's Future
1hr ago
Read old stuff. Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote Tarzan, but also John Carter of Mars. The latter is out of copyright and cheap as shit. Disney made a movie of it and unintentionally made one of the greatest literature to movie conversions of all time (in the same league as the Lord of the Rings and Watership Down.
I bought all the John Carter books in their hardcover format with the Frank Frazetta artwork on the dust jackets, because I am a man of culture.
They are ok. I've read up to The Chessmen of Mars, and each novel seems to have the same strengths and weaknesses. I find the characters profoundly boring, with almost no life or dynamism to their actions. They won't surprise you in anything they do even once. However, each novel tends to have at least two or three interesting hooks or twist in the overall texture of the world building.
self_made_human
Sajjano durjano bhūyāt, durjano badhyatāṃ sadā, baddho'nyān nibandhāyet
1hr ago
See the relatively new Harry Potter game, where they had a trans woman in 19th century Hogwarts, in the same universe where polyjuice exists, and presumably other forms of body-modification.
zeke5123a
1hr ago
To me, there is a difference between pecuniary and the common good. I can imagine some communities that are slightly poorer compared to other communities but better places to live due to non pecuniary reasons. Of course, the larger the pecuniary gap the more difficult it is for the non pecuniary benefits to outweigh the pecuniary ones.
hydroacetylene
1hr ago
Yes, but that’s not ‘thé Amish’. What we think of as ‘the Amish’ depend on antibiotics, solar panels, air compressors, credit card processors that they buy from the secular world. You’re describing little house on the prairie.
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
1hr ago
Again, I'm not disagreeing with you on the efficacy of what you say if it was aggressively and correctly implemented. I'm saying none of this is "trivial" or "easy". Human culture is notoriously fickle, and governments can waste tons of effort trying to change it without having much of an impact. If any large nation would be able to do it I think China would be one of them, but that said it's not like China is run by some ultra-competent entity. The CCP has made tons of buffoonish errors, and it's very plausible that they end up spinning their wheels on this problem.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
1hr ago
The appeals panel's opinion on remand was issued just two days ago, so DNA testing probably has not yet been performed.
This is a family case, so the docket is sealed, and we probably never will know who the father is.
No_one
2hr ago
You could make so many fun films based around the idea, yet they make crap.
E.g. imagine velociraptors escaping confinement and breeding freely in the continental Americas and being as smart as parrots -smart enough to have theory of mind and to bury evidence, avoid people who may have guns and leaving tracks in the mud.
Government dismisses it (dinosaurs? On our federal land? You've gotta be joking!), nothing much happens except feral hog populations mysteriously start diminishing. Blurry photographs dismissed as photoshops and reptilian conspiracy theories. Missing people cases not much impacted yet.
What's going to happen?
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
2hr ago
Their lifestyle would change, they would face the 50% child mortality that plagued humanity most of its existence, but within a generation they would adjust to the new normal. They wouldn't die out entirely.
Tenaz
2hr ago
If regular stories gave me what I wanted (fast pace, well-written, very high stakes, characters developing morally and in power) then I would eagerly read them. There's something deeply wrong about the publishing industry that these books are so few and far between.
The Rage of Dragons is the best "traditional" book I've read in a while and it was originally self-published.
coffee_enjoyer
☕️
2hr ago
I’m familiar with the social ecosystem of the Haredim. It’s super interesting. The women are not involved in religious learning, they are raised to support their husband. Because the Rabbi credential is socially important, the women work to support their husband pursue it. But just as important to this is that the women have children. This is going to be the first question asked to married Haredi women. This is why they have a lot of children. What the men learn in their Yeshiva is that having children is a mitzvah, and so they fulfill their nocturnal obligations. This is an easy ask because all childcare duties fall on the women. The Rabbi credential system is not as competitive as, like, getting into a PhD program, because the big Rabbi positions are handed down via nepotism; my understanding is that it’s often a factor of showing up.
The desire to be mothers comes from exposure to babies and small children
Lol no
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10680-019-09525-0
”The difference between a firstborn and fourth-born woman (0.09 fewer children) is equivalent to a change in 0.04 standard deviations in fertility for our outcome variable. (For birth order 6, the effect is 0.13 fewer children.) Thus, the results suggest that birth order shows a negative relationship for women, with more children amongst early-born sisters than later-born sisters, though the effects are not very large in substantive terms.”
Firstborn women with one additional sibling show an increase in own fertility by 0.12 children, two additional siblings increases their own fertility by 0.22 children, and three younger siblings increases their own fertility by 0.30 children
Do you really think that a Haredi woman who happens (due to some cosmic accident) to be an only child herself, will not go on to have many children? My intuition tells me she will have a lot; perhaps not as many as her many-sibling peers, but still way more than an American with four siblings
For tradcaths grandmotherhood is higher status than having single adult children, but not as high status as having nun/priest children
I would consider this a perversion of the religion. The Epistle to Timothy is clear that women “will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness with self-control.” These are bad Christians if they are giving a woman status for raising a priest instead of a dozen kids. I actually find Catholicism horrifically anti-natal because the most devout are pressured into producing impotent clerical heirs. It made sense in Malthusian times for the youngest male without property to join the church. It doesn’t make sense now. In more traditional, medieval Catholicism, even these priests had concubines
aaa
3hr ago
In any with strong religious norms, a childless woman was seen as beneath a woman who had many kids. Religious communities do a good job at redirecting social status
In any place with strong religious norms children were also very cheap, nearly free, or possibly even negative cost. The two things correlate that one wonders if it isn't religion that produces high fertility but the reverse: high fertility produces a religion that promotes high fertility. If you look really hard at christianity, for example, there's a lot of antinatalist messaging in there that almost nobody uses: yes be fruitful, yes onan but also "For there are some eunuchs who were so born from their mother’s womb, and there are some eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven’s sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it".
Are religious communities redirecting social status or getting bent around by what people consider social status anyway? Look at how many churches display pride flags despited that being a far more clearly condemned practice than just not having children.
In America you have the enormous problem of capitalism / consumerism which will need to be fixed for any national solution to occur, because you have some of the smartest people continually telling women that their social value is determined by buying and experiences things
Yes, but surely we can agree that buying and experiencing things, and that having lots of free time, is something that is pleasurable in itself, that it isn't all just a big psyop.
with universities (effectively all of them behaving as businesses) telling them they need to be educated
But do they go to university because they are told to do so or do they go because it's not their money (either it's coming from mom and dad or from a loan) and they get to party for 5 years? Are they doing it for the status or are they doing it because they expect to be fun and they are correct?
If you’re at a party and there’s a poor artist, a prestigious academic, and then a plumbing company owner who makes $400k yearly
Being a rich owner of a plumbing company is not so much a job as it is a wish. It doesn't matter if you think something is beneath you if it's also unavailable to you. What's available to you is being an employee of a plumbing company and that makes little money and is phisically draining on top, hence nobody wants to do it.
Their leaders are engaged in a holy war but the average member is just a normal person doing what their culture says to do, and in this culture the number of children is prized over everything. Both men and women are judged harshly or celebrated strongly based on their fertility. It’s seen as both a commandment and a blessing. The average member isn’t having kids for a nefarious reason, they are just taught through custom that it’s prized.
I think the Haredi are in a position similar to the lifelong Seaorgers: the community is so closed and dependent upon itself that leaving is not just discouraged socially but it's also economically very difficult. Nevertheless the percentage of people that leave that lifestyle is growing.
Unlikely now that Gypsies are forced into schools in Europe.
You're overestimating the mighty power of europe here.
And look at historical figures: Ben Franklin’s father made candles, was his 17 children necessary for the candle business in an era with slaves and indentured servants? Of course not. Albrecht Dürer‘s parents were goldsmiths, did they need to have 18 children?
Some people are just weirdos.
Plumbers make a lot more than the members of the social class they're recruited from typically do.
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