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One hope for keeping existential risks low is to get AI companies to (successfully) make high-assurance safety cases: structured and auditable arguments that an AI system is very unlikely to result in existential risks given how it will be deployed.[1] Concretely, once AIs are quite powerful, high-assurance safety cases would require making a thorough argument that the level of (existential) risk caused by the company is very low; perhaps they would require that the total chance of existential risk over the lifetime of the AI company[2] is less than 0.25%[3][4].The idea of making high-assurance safety cases (once AI systems are dangerously powerful) is popular in some parts of the AI safety community and a variety of work appears to focus on this. Further, Anthropic has expressed an intention (in their RSP) to "keep risks below acceptable levels"[5] and there is a common impression that Anthropic would pause [...] ---Outline:(03:19) Why are companies unlikely to succeed at making high-assurance safety cases in short timelines?(04:14) Ensuring sufficient security is very difficult(04:55) Sufficiently mitigating scheming risk is unlikely(09:35) Accelerating safety and security with earlier AIs seems insufficient(11:58) Other points(14:07) Companies likely wont unilaterally slow down if they are unable to make high-assurance safety cases(18:26) Could coordination or government action result in high-assurance safety cases?(19:55) What about safety cases aiming at a higher risk threshold?(21:57) Implications and conclusionsThe original text contained 20 footnotes which were omitted from this narration. --- First published: January 23rd, 2025 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/neTbrpBziAsTH5Bn7/ai-companies-are-unlikely-to-make-high-assurance-safety --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.
Domon forgot.
Today's McKee Moment discusses one of the biggest take aways, from any larger conference event.
Send us a textHello (we're sorry!) On this week's episode, Max is going to tell us possibly the most upsetting story we've ever heard (ick!). Then Janey is going to cleanse our palates with a trickster tale! Enjoy!Janey's Sources - Diamond Cut DiamondAndrew Lang's “The Olive Fairy Book” Full free text Max's Sources - The Spreaders “When the Chenoo Howls: Native American Tales of Terror” by James Burchac and Joseph Bruchac Full free text of “The Spreaders” retold by James Bruchac Support the showCheck out our books (and support local bookstores!) on our Bookshop.org affiliate account!Starting your own podcast with your very cool best friend? Try hosting on Buzzsprout (and get a $20 Amazon gift card!)Want more??Visit our website!Join our Patreon!Shop the merch at TeePublic!If you liked these stories, let us know on our various socials!InstagramTiktokGoodreadsAnd email us at sortofthestory@gmail.com
Tough enough schedule?
Yes, very sufficient. PLAYLIST: 1:04 - Vikas Music - Pokemon Theme Eurobeat Remix (Pokemon [ANI] :: YouTube) 7:31 - 8-Beats VGM - Big Apple 3 AM (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time [SNES] :: YouTube) 11:03 - Orchestral Fantasy - Fossil Falls Famicom Disk System version (Super Mario Odyssey [NSW] :: YouTube) 15:06 - 40Nix - Spark Man Stage [SNES remix] (Mega Man 3 [NES] :: YouTube) 18:14 - Button Masher, Dj Cutman - Jubilife Village [Chiptune Piano Mix] (Pokemon Legends Arceus [NSW] :: GameChops) 25:06 - The Emulators - Chemical Plant Zone BUT it's extremely funky (Sonic the Hedgehog 2 [GEN] :: YouTube) 29:15 - Brendan Vavra - Another Termina on Button Accordion (Chrono Cross [PS1] :: YouTube) 31:36 - gabocarina96 - Crash Site (Astro Bot [PS5] :: YouTube) 34:54 - Lord Bif Music - Terran 4 Folk Rock Cover (StarCraft 2 [PC] :: YouTube) 44:17 - WarMachine Studios - The Monsoon (Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master [GEN] :: YouTube) 47:55 - MetalLegend64 - Mute City (F-Zero X [N64] :: YouTube) 51:48 - Ferdk - Wicked Child (Castlevania [NES] :: YouTube) 55:14 - BadHairlineProductions - Splash Woman [Groovy Guitar] (Mega Man 9 [WII] :: YouTube) 1:01:00 - Ottawa Guitar Trio - Village of Dali Theme Classical Guitar (Final Fantasy IX [PS1] :: YouTube) 1:05:26 - Super Guitar Bros - Battle With the Four Fiends (Final Fantasy IV [SNES] :: YouTube) 1:07:40 - Alina Gingertail - Tristram Theme (Diablo [PC] :: YouTube) 1:12:32 - ACappellaVGM, Sab Irene - Beautiful Ruin [A Cappella] (Danganronpa 2 [PSP] :: YouTube) 1:20:36 - Tremendouz - Rock It [Symphonic Metal Cover] (Crash Bandicoot 2 [PS1] :: YouTube) 1:23:27 - Banjo Guy Ollie - Exploring Secret Dungeons (Turrican II [AMI] :: Bandcamp) 1:26:48 - KB - Theme of Captain Falcon [KB Remix] (F-Zero GX [GCN] :: YouTube) 1:30:12 - TheTaskmaster - Hammer Bros Battle Theme ["Sockhop" Rock N' Roll Cover] (Super Mario Bros. 3 [NES] :: YouTube) 1:35:09 - RoboRob, DeBisco - Go Straight (Streets of Rage 2 [GEN] :: Firaga Records) 1:38:52 - Qumu - Song of Storms (Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time [N64] :: YouTube Music) 1:42:40 - yell0 - DIAMOND IN THE SKY ft. Hatsune Miku (Sonic R [SAT] :: YouTube) 1:56:00 - Triple B Music - AQUATIC AMBIANCE Prog Rock/Metal Cover (Donkey Kong Country [SNES] :: YouTube) Keith the Funny Raccoon, Lucas Spindola - We Are Number One but performing the Hammer Bros. Theme (Super Mario Bros. 3 [NES] :: YouTube)
Yes, very sufficient. PLAYLIST: 1:04 – Vikas Music – Pokemon Theme Eurobeat Remix (Pokemon [ANI] :: YouTube) 7:31 – 8-Beats VGM – Big Apple 3 AM (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time [SNES] :: YouTube) 11:03 – Orchestral Fantasy – Fossil Falls Famicom Disk System version (Super Mario Odyssey [NSW] :: YouTube) 15:06 – ...Continue reading ‘Nitro Game Injection #573: Sufficiently Pleased’ »
The EPA has stated that 90% of American homes have inadequate insulation. That's a big number! Here to talk with John Williams about how to find out if you're in the lucky 10%, and how to get properly insulated, is Roy Spencer, President of Perma-Seal. Visit PermaSeal.net or call 800-421-SEAL to schedule an attic insulation […]
The EPA has stated that 90% of American homes have inadequate insulation. That's a big number! Here to talk with John Williams about how to find out if you're in the lucky 10%, and how to get properly insulated, is Roy Spencer, President of Perma-Seal. Visit PermaSeal.net or call 800-421-SEAL to schedule an attic insulation […]
The EPA has stated that 90% of American homes have inadequate insulation. That's a big number! Here to talk with John Williams about how to find out if you're in the lucky 10%, and how to get properly insulated, is Roy Spencer, President of Perma-Seal. Visit PermaSeal.net or call 800-421-SEAL to schedule an attic insulation […]
This week, Danielle covers the murder of Megan Barroso and Zee finishes the story of Beautiful Stranger - Kate Morgan - and the haunted Hotel Del Coronado.Stalk us here!Merch - ghosts-n-heauxsTwitter - ghostsnheauxsInstagram - ghosts_n_heauxsFacebook - GhostsnHeauxsPodcastAnd don't forget to send your stories to ghostsnheauxs@gmail.com
Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Friendship is transactional, unconditional friendship is insurance, published by Ruby on July 18, 2024 on LessWrong. It feels a little icky to say, but we befriend people because we get something out of it. We enjoy the company, the conversation, the emotional support, the activities, the connection, etc. It's not a coincidence people don't befriend brick walls. (The same is true in romantic relationships, except we expect even more.) Granted, friendship is not an explicit transaction that's negotiated, quantified, legally enforceable, etc. It's fuzzy, which helps it work better for reasons I won't really get into here[1]. However it's crucial to recognize that if your friend (or partner) didn't provide or promise you some kind of value[2], you wouldn't have become friends in the first place. And yet, people valorize the notion of loyalty in relationships: continuing to be there through thick and thin, good and bad, health and illness. "Unconditional friendship" and "unconditional love". Conversely "fair weather friendship" is denigrated. People hope to be loved even if they were worms. What gives? How do we reconcile friendships and relationships arising due to receiving some value with the aspiration or even expectation of unconditionality? My model here is something akin functionally to mutual insurance. While I became your friend because we spent years playing basketball together, I stay by your side even when you're recovering from a broken leg, or even if you were injured so badly as to never play again. Someone initially enticed by their partner's beauty, stays with them even after a horrific burn to the face. I do this because I expect the same in return. You might argue that in these cases, you're still receiving other benefits even when one of them is lost, but I argue back that we see ongoing care even where there's almost nothing left, e.g. people caring for their senile, bedridden partners. And more so, that we judge people who don't stick it out. Friendship is standardly a straightforward exchange of value provided. It is also an exchange of insurance "if you're not able to provide value to me, I'll still provide value to you" and vice versa. Like the other stuff in friendship, it's fuzzy. The insurance exchange doesn't happen in a discrete moment and its strength is quantitative and expected to grow over time. People expect more "loyalty" from friends and partners of years than weeks. In the limit, people reach "unconditional love", meaning something like from this point on, I will love you no matter what. However, reaching that willingness was very probably tied to specific conditional factors. It's notable that for many people love and security are connected. Sufficiently loving and supportive relationships provide security because they imply an unconditionality on circumstances - you'll have someone even if fortune befalls you and you lose what makes you appealing in the first place. I think this makes sense. Seems like good game theoretic trade even with a willing partner. "Till death do us part." Possibly worth making a little more explicit though, just to be sure your friends and partners share whatever expectations of loyalty you have. Note that I don't think this dynamic needs to be very conscious on anyone's part. I think that humans instinctively execute good game theory because evolution selected for it, even if the human executing just feels a wordless pull to that kind of behavior. In this context, "attachment to others" feels like a thing that humans and other animals experience. Parents, perhaps especially mothers, are very attached to their children (think of the mother bear), but we tend to form attachments to anyone (or thing) that we're persistently around. When I stick with my friend of many years through his illness, it might feel ...
Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Individually incentivized safe Pareto improvements in open-source bargaining, published by Nicolas Macé on July 18, 2024 on LessWrong. Summary Agents might fail to peacefully trade in high-stakes negotiations. Such bargaining failures can have catastrophic consequences, including great power conflicts, and AI flash wars. This post is a distillation of DiGiovanni et al. (2024) (DCM), whose central result is that agents that are sufficiently transparent to each other have individual incentives to avoid catastrophic bargaining failures. More precisely, DCM constructs strategies that are plausibly individually incentivized, and, if adopted by all, guarantee each player no less than their least preferred trade outcome. Figure 0 below illustrates this. This result is significant because artificial general intelligences (AGIs) might (i) be involved in high-stakes negotiations, (ii) be designed with the capabilities required for the type of strategy we'll present, and (iii) bargain poorly by default (since bargaining competence isn't necessarily a direct corollary of intelligence-relevant capabilities). Introduction Early AGIs might fail to make compatible demands with each other in high-stakes negotiations (we call this a "bargaining failure"). Bargaining failures can have catastrophic consequences, including great power conflicts, or AI triggering a flash war. More generally, a "bargaining problem" is when multiple agents need to determine how to divide value among themselves. Early AGIs might possess insufficient bargaining skills because intelligence-relevant capabilities don't necessarily imply these skills: For instance, being skilled at avoiding bargaining failures might not be necessary for taking over. Another problem is that there might be no single rational way to act in a given multi-agent interaction. Even arbitrarily capable agents might have different priors, or different approaches to reasoning under bounded computation. Therefore they might fail to solve equilibrium selection, i.e., make incompatible demands (see Stastny et al. (2021) and Conitzer & Oesterheld (2023)). What, then, are sufficient conditions for agents to avoid catastrophic bargaining failures? Sufficiently advanced AIs might be able to verify each other's decision algorithms (e.g. via verifying source code), as studied in open-source game theory. This has both potential downsides and upsides for bargaining problems. On one hand, transparency of decision algorithms might make aggressive commitments more credible and thus more attractive (see Sec. 5.2 of Dafoe et al. (2020) for discussion). On the other hand, agents might be able to mitigate bargaining failures by verifying cooperative commitments. Oesterheld & Conitzer (2022)'s safe Pareto improvements[1] (SPI) leverages transparency to reduce the downsides of incompatible commitments. In an SPI, agents conditionally commit to change how they play a game relative to some default such that everyone is (weakly) better off than the default with certainty.[2] For example, two parties A and B who would otherwise go to war over some territory might commit to, instead, accept the outcome of a lottery that allocates the territory to A with the probability that A would have won the war (assuming this probability is common knowledge). See also our extended example below. Oesterheld & Conitzer (2022) has two important limitations: First, many different SPIs are in general possible, such that there is an "SPI selection problem", similar to the equilibrium selection problem in game theory (Sec. 6 of Oesterheld & Conitzer (2022)). And if players don't coordinate on which SPI to implement, they might fail to avoid conflict.[3] Second, if expected utility-maximizing agents need to individually adopt strategies to implement an SPI, it's unclear what conditions...
Link to original articleWelcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Friendship is transactional, unconditional friendship is insurance, published by Ruby on July 18, 2024 on LessWrong. It feels a little icky to say, but we befriend people because we get something out of it. We enjoy the company, the conversation, the emotional support, the activities, the connection, etc. It's not a coincidence people don't befriend brick walls. (The same is true in romantic relationships, except we expect even more.) Granted, friendship is not an explicit transaction that's negotiated, quantified, legally enforceable, etc. It's fuzzy, which helps it work better for reasons I won't really get into here[1]. However it's crucial to recognize that if your friend (or partner) didn't provide or promise you some kind of value[2], you wouldn't have become friends in the first place. And yet, people valorize the notion of loyalty in relationships: continuing to be there through thick and thin, good and bad, health and illness. "Unconditional friendship" and "unconditional love". Conversely "fair weather friendship" is denigrated. People hope to be loved even if they were worms. What gives? How do we reconcile friendships and relationships arising due to receiving some value with the aspiration or even expectation of unconditionality? My model here is something akin functionally to mutual insurance. While I became your friend because we spent years playing basketball together, I stay by your side even when you're recovering from a broken leg, or even if you were injured so badly as to never play again. Someone initially enticed by their partner's beauty, stays with them even after a horrific burn to the face. I do this because I expect the same in return. You might argue that in these cases, you're still receiving other benefits even when one of them is lost, but I argue back that we see ongoing care even where there's almost nothing left, e.g. people caring for their senile, bedridden partners. And more so, that we judge people who don't stick it out. Friendship is standardly a straightforward exchange of value provided. It is also an exchange of insurance "if you're not able to provide value to me, I'll still provide value to you" and vice versa. Like the other stuff in friendship, it's fuzzy. The insurance exchange doesn't happen in a discrete moment and its strength is quantitative and expected to grow over time. People expect more "loyalty" from friends and partners of years than weeks. In the limit, people reach "unconditional love", meaning something like from this point on, I will love you no matter what. However, reaching that willingness was very probably tied to specific conditional factors. It's notable that for many people love and security are connected. Sufficiently loving and supportive relationships provide security because they imply an unconditionality on circumstances - you'll have someone even if fortune befalls you and you lose what makes you appealing in the first place. I think this makes sense. Seems like good game theoretic trade even with a willing partner. "Till death do us part." Possibly worth making a little more explicit though, just to be sure your friends and partners share whatever expectations of loyalty you have. Note that I don't think this dynamic needs to be very conscious on anyone's part. I think that humans instinctively execute good game theory because evolution selected for it, even if the human executing just feels a wordless pull to that kind of behavior. In this context, "attachment to others" feels like a thing that humans and other animals experience. Parents, perhaps especially mothers, are very attached to their children (think of the mother bear), but we tend to form attachments to anyone (or thing) that we're persistently around. When I stick with my friend of many years through his illness, it might feel ...
Link to original articleWelcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Individually incentivized safe Pareto improvements in open-source bargaining, published by Nicolas Macé on July 18, 2024 on LessWrong. Summary Agents might fail to peacefully trade in high-stakes negotiations. Such bargaining failures can have catastrophic consequences, including great power conflicts, and AI flash wars. This post is a distillation of DiGiovanni et al. (2024) (DCM), whose central result is that agents that are sufficiently transparent to each other have individual incentives to avoid catastrophic bargaining failures. More precisely, DCM constructs strategies that are plausibly individually incentivized, and, if adopted by all, guarantee each player no less than their least preferred trade outcome. Figure 0 below illustrates this. This result is significant because artificial general intelligences (AGIs) might (i) be involved in high-stakes negotiations, (ii) be designed with the capabilities required for the type of strategy we'll present, and (iii) bargain poorly by default (since bargaining competence isn't necessarily a direct corollary of intelligence-relevant capabilities). Introduction Early AGIs might fail to make compatible demands with each other in high-stakes negotiations (we call this a "bargaining failure"). Bargaining failures can have catastrophic consequences, including great power conflicts, or AI triggering a flash war. More generally, a "bargaining problem" is when multiple agents need to determine how to divide value among themselves. Early AGIs might possess insufficient bargaining skills because intelligence-relevant capabilities don't necessarily imply these skills: For instance, being skilled at avoiding bargaining failures might not be necessary for taking over. Another problem is that there might be no single rational way to act in a given multi-agent interaction. Even arbitrarily capable agents might have different priors, or different approaches to reasoning under bounded computation. Therefore they might fail to solve equilibrium selection, i.e., make incompatible demands (see Stastny et al. (2021) and Conitzer & Oesterheld (2023)). What, then, are sufficient conditions for agents to avoid catastrophic bargaining failures? Sufficiently advanced AIs might be able to verify each other's decision algorithms (e.g. via verifying source code), as studied in open-source game theory. This has both potential downsides and upsides for bargaining problems. On one hand, transparency of decision algorithms might make aggressive commitments more credible and thus more attractive (see Sec. 5.2 of Dafoe et al. (2020) for discussion). On the other hand, agents might be able to mitigate bargaining failures by verifying cooperative commitments. Oesterheld & Conitzer (2022)'s safe Pareto improvements[1] (SPI) leverages transparency to reduce the downsides of incompatible commitments. In an SPI, agents conditionally commit to change how they play a game relative to some default such that everyone is (weakly) better off than the default with certainty.[2] For example, two parties A and B who would otherwise go to war over some territory might commit to, instead, accept the outcome of a lottery that allocates the territory to A with the probability that A would have won the war (assuming this probability is common knowledge). See also our extended example below. Oesterheld & Conitzer (2022) has two important limitations: First, many different SPIs are in general possible, such that there is an "SPI selection problem", similar to the equilibrium selection problem in game theory (Sec. 6 of Oesterheld & Conitzer (2022)). And if players don't coordinate on which SPI to implement, they might fail to avoid conflict.[3] Second, if expected utility-maximizing agents need to individually adopt strategies to implement an SPI, it's unclear what conditions...
The bitcoin ‘ossification' debate continues with a discussion on the key considerations. What makes Bitcoin special? What improvements are necessary to retain sufficient decentralisation, if any? Vijay Boyapati and Brandon Black (aka reardencode) rejoin me for a special episode to discuss: What makes Bitcoin special? Defining ‘ossification' How many users is ‘enough'? Unknown unknowns Addressing centralising MEV concerns Soft forks and hard forks Economic nodes and who holds the power Where to from here Timestamps: (00:00) - Intro (01:54) - What makes Bitcoin Special? ft. Vijay (09:37) - Verifiability & decentralisation of Bitcoin ft. Brandon (14:31) - When do we stop ‘changing' bitcoin? (15:17) - Revisiting the blocksize wars & importance of self sovereignty (20:45) - Libertarian principles of Bitcoin (23:48) - ‘Sufficiently decentralised' Bitcoin (26:42) - Defining ‘Ossification' of Bitcoin (30:56) - Sponsors (34:11) - Economic interests in upgrading Bitcoin nodes (43:40) - Bitcoin is a Trojan horse (47:15) - Can we rule out ‘Unknown unknowns'? (50:49) - Concerns over centralising MEV (1:00:17) - Whose chain is it anyway? (1:05:14) - Resisting soft forks and hard forks (1:16:49) - Closing Thoughts Links: X: @real_vijay Bullish Case for Bitcoin: Swan.com/bullish X: @reardencode Prior episodes: Rusty - Great Script Restoration Brandon Black - Are Covenants necessary for Bitcoin TXHASH Steven Roose Matt Corallo and Steve Lee Great Consensus Cleanup Sponsors: Swan.com (code LIVERA) CoinKite.com (code LIVERA) Mempool.space Stephan Livera links: Follow me on X: @stephanlivera Subscribe to the podcast Subscribe to Substack
RI Philharmonic Executive Director David Beauchesne joins the show to offer his advocacy for significant increases in the allocation of dollars for arts organizations in Rhode Island's forthcoming budget.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In recent years, the Second Amendment has been the subject of intense debate and interpretation. Legal battles, court cases, and policy changes are reshaping the landscape of gun rights and regulations in the United States that affect our every-day lives. To dissect these complex issues, the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions is proud to launch "Sufficiently Analogous," co-hosted by the Center's law and policy director, Kelly Roskam, JD, alongside law and policy advisors Tim Carey, JD and Kari Still, JD. Episode 0 introduces the hosts, explains Second Amendment legal precedent and court cases shaping today's legal landscape ### Timestamps: 0:00 - Introduction 3:17 - Gun Violence Data 5:31 - Second Amendment Case History 11:55 - Conclusion
Remember all the hot starts to begin the season that were 'too small a sample size'? They aren't just small sample sizes anymore. Looking at the start of the season for Javier Assad and more, on this week's episode.
Are the Tennessee women's basketball Volunteers in a position to improve over their last season under Kellie Harper? John Adams of the Knoxville News Sentinel joins to discuss. The Dave Hooker Show airs weekdays at 10am EST weekdays. Please turn notifications on! WATCH/SUB: https://linktr.ee/offthehooksports SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS The Dave Hooker Show. Represented by Banks and Jones. Tennessee's Trial Attorneys. Play to win. banksjones.com. Why Banks and Jones? Other lawyers say they'll go to trial. They won't. They'll settle. And settle for less. Banks and Jones is ready to go to trial for you. Truly Tennessee's trial attorneys. Why settle? Banks and Jones, led by T. Scott Jones. https://www.banksjones.com/ Apex Apparel Group Design Call to action - 15% off your first order Apex Apparel, but they do so much more. A one-stop shop for all brand supply products. Not just clothes. Design. Brand. Market. Your Way! Unique products to promote your business with unparalleled customer service. A full-on brand supply company. https://Orderapexapparel.com/ Call Tyler! (865)-919-3001 BetUS is your college basketball betting home. Get 125-percent bonus on your first three deposits. Plus 10-percent gambler's insurance. https://bit.ly/OffTheHook125SU3X Boundless Moving From our 2 hour Minimum to Turn Key Operations - We have You Covered! Brainerd Golf Course and Brown Acres Golf Course Golf Chattanooga's best public courses. Tee times available! Just click below. https://secure.east.prophetservices.c... Chattanooga Mortgage Congratulations! Your home search just got easier. Buying a home in Chattanooga has never been easier with Chattanooga Mortgage. https://chattmortgage.com/ City Heating and Air 50 years in East Tennessee. Integrity Matters! Don't trust a fly-by night HVAC company to tell you that you need a new unti that could cost thousands or more. http://www.cityheatandair.com Don Self - State Farm CUSTOMER SERVICE STILL MATTERS! For forty years, they have built their business on taking care of their customers. In the greater Chattanooga area. Call (423)396-2126 or go to http://www.donself.net Dynasty Pools and Spas Imagine having the best spas - made right here in the USA - in your backyard. Well, they're here! Now open, Dynasty Pools and Spas has their brand new showroom open in Athens with the best hot tubs and spas on the market. Delivery? Yes, they can do that. Complete support, spa cover and chemicals to keep your spa bubbling at it's best. That's Dynasty Pools and Spas. http://www.dynastypoolsandspas.com Hemp House The premier hemp dispensary online with a wide variety, great selection and strict standards to ensure you only receive the best in CBD or Delta products. https://hemphousechatt.com/ Use promo code "HOOKED" for 10-percent off. Quality Tire Pro The Eberle family has been serving Chattanooga community since 1957. All major brands of tires. Full Service Automotive. Brake, Alignments, Oil Changes and more. All work is covered by a nationwide warranty! Cherokee Blvd or online at qualitytirepros.com. Say OTH said “Hey Bo!” Ray Varner Ford Local you Trust. Innovation you can afford. http://www.rayvarnerford.com Rick Terry Jewelry Designs We want to be your Jeweler! Looking for affordable game-day jewelry. How about the fire opals? A Tennessee tradition. https://rickterryjewelry.com/ Sports Treasures Carrying Over 5-million Sports Treasures….and so much more! Follow on Facebook for the best sports memorabilia. Daily updates! / sportstreasurestn Tri-Star Hats For the latest in Tri-Star Hats, go to the orginal. Hats, apparel and more!!! http://www.tristarhatsco.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Byron Beck | April 21, 2024 | Fellowship Church | Poplar Bluff, MO
The Peddler & the Fairy: Part 10 A night of drinking at a most unorthdox establishment. In 10 parts, by Scholarly Mori. Listen to the Podcast at Explicit Novels. The temperature rapidly fell as the sun set behind the horizon. A light snow had begun to fall, muting the steady click-clack of the carriage as it meandered under garlands of holly leaves and colored lanterns. "Why's it look so festive, Herd-mate?" Asked Reina, poking her head in the window. [[MORE]] "Hard to say. Depends on who's celebrating what. There are holidays the whole city engages in around the winter solstice, but it's not uncommon to see communities enjoy time amongst themselves to honor the end of a productive year with family and friends." Humans and demi-humans alike were huddled in warm clothes, their breath mixing with the steaming mugs they held in mittened hands. Not dressed in her warm winter clothes, Suvi crossed her arms. Jeni, wanting to be helpful, wrapped her wing around the shivering ratgirl. "This one has body heat to share. Friend Suvi should feel free to request it whenever she needs." Suvi snuggled into the warm owl girl's feathers, surprised by how small she felt underneath all the fluff. "That's, uh, nice of you. I'm not used to being so close to people, but I'll try." Devin smiled at the two girls' growing friendship. He was especially happy to see Jeni opening up to someone besides himself and, more recently, Azalea and Reina. Since her return from the academy years ago, he had seen her interact with customers, but it was always curt and brief. Azalea popped her head out from Jeni's other wing. "What's your favorite time of year, Suvi?" "Hmm, other than the cold, this is my favorite time of year because all the warm drinks are free." "Agreed! Warm drinks are wonderful," the fairy voiced as she made eyes at Devin, "especially when it's freshly made and enjoyed with loved ones." "You'll specifically enjoy tonight then," hinted Sable. "Not the one you're probably alluding to, but our girls are skilled in a wonderful assortment of beverages." Reina trotted up next to the driver's seat. "How long have you worked at Whitegold, Miss Sable?" "This is my tenth year." "What do you do there?" "I fulfill all the managerial work: finances, menu coordination, and act as scout and recruiter for potential new hires. Our turnover rate is rather low, though. The boss used to be more involved, but now she takes a very hands-off approach, but you are in luck tonight. She is gracing us with her presence this evening." "I look forward to meeting her." Sable hid a smile as she turned down a side street tucked away from the more festive pockets of people. She pulled back the reins, stopping in front of a three-story building made of dark walnut. Below a balcony jutting from the second story hung a giant cast iron sign embossed with two pitchers pouring intertwining liquids. The building was wider than it was long, and several brick stairways ascended to a tall set of double doors in the middle. Sitting on the bottom step stood a familiar figure. Azalea darted out of the cab window and into an open embrace. "Mama Sanna!" "Hello again, little Azalea." "What are you doing here?!" "I run the bakery during the day and work here part-time at night." Sable slid down from the driver's seat and opened the cab door. "She's security. Also does a bit of the heavy lifting when we get shipments in." "So you knew you were gonna see us tonight!" the fairy exclaimed. "I hoped so. I didn't know when you were coming, so I wanted a chance to at least say hi before I go about my duties tonight. You are in for a lot of surprises tonight." Azalea jumped up and down in the grizzly woman's large, clawed hand. "I love surprises!" Sanna laughed. "Some of them, I'm sure you will, others; might be a bit harder to swallow at first, and a few," she commented while looking specifically at Devin, "might take some getting used to." Before Devin could ask what she meant, she was already leading the carriage away and offered, "You folks have a good evening." With a wave, she and the carriage disappeared behind the far side of the building. Sable climbed the stairs and held the doors open. "Now, since we are here," she cleared her throat to continue, "welcome to 'Whitegold,' a finer dining experience than you'll find anywhere in the western half of the kingdom." The group entered the lobby, led by Devin, who stopped in front of a 'please wait to be seated' sign. "This is quite the opulent waiting room." A five-tiered chandelier made of old antlers, with pine-scented candles hung from the arched ceiling entryway, the light reflecting off a gold and alabaster stained-glass wall. Somewhere behind it were moving, shadowy figures holding lutes, pipes, and a tambourine and playing a relaxed and light-hearted melody. Sable moved in front to address them. "We are a somewhat exclusive establishment with many noteworthy individuals, influential business folk, and city administration as members. While the general public can make an unsubscribed reservation, the wait time can be rather long." "We wanted to create a relaxed but classy atmosphere and provide uncommon services to those willing to spend for it. While it's more common amongst smaller businesses, we do house most of our employees on the third floor." "Looks like you've done well for yourself," Devin suggested. "Our success is due to the accumulated effort of all our girls. This way, please." She led them through the left of two arched passages. "We have twin wings on each side, allowing us to seat around forty individuals. We designed the main dining room to be circular. To that end, we've positioned the tables for larger or more uniquely shaped demi-humans around the outside and smaller ones toward the middle. We've found it makes diners feel like they belong. It also gives an unobstructed view of one of our centerpieces." She motioned to the middle of the room. A tawny fountain with five sandstone likenesses of two satyresses and a human girl were arrayed in a circle. In the center, taller then the rest, posed a rarely-seen holstaur. Each statue stood naked, poised with chest thrust out and nipples spraying wispy streams of water into the collecting basin below. "Makes quite the first impression," Azalea mused. "It was an impromptu addition." Sable waved toward a pair in topless uniforms. "The flirty saytresses are Eija and Hija. They mainly serve tables. Our holstaur, Janina, runs the milkbar. As far as I'm aware, she's one of only three in the city. A real sweetheart." The two goat girls were laughing and bantering jovially as they served customer-filled tables. At the bar against the wall, a huge-breasted cowgirl busily mixed her breast milk into customers' drinks. Sable produced a small set of chimes from her pocket and flicked one of the metal tubes causing a sudden squeak from Suvi. Simultaneously, a human girl standing next to Janina and draining her own milk into a pitcher jumped. She looked up from her work and searched the crowd until she spotted Sable. Whispering to the other two, she trotted over with a big smile, her perky boobs bouncing. "Hello, Mistress Sable. You called? Shall I prepare a large group table?" "Not this time, Kirsi. We are headed upstairs." "The private room, eh? Too bad; they looked like a fun group to serve." Addressing Suvi, "Are you ok, miss? You look a little flustered." "Y, ya, I'm fine." Suvi flashed a suspicious look at Azalea, to which the little fairy held up her hands innocently. Devin caught the exchange between the two. "Did something happen?" "Our toys activated for a second, life-mate. Perhaps Miss Sable's device?" "Toys?" Sable looked at the chime. "Wait, did you girls feel that?" "We did." "Maybe they know Eitri," Kirsi suggested. "Yes, we know her, and her cousin!" Azalea proclaimed. "We went to their store during our shopping earlier today." "I see. She must use a set number of sounds for her merchandise. All the tables are given a bell to call a serving girl to their table if they need anything." Sable held up a small tablet of twenty tubular pipes split into top and bottom. "This is the master set. I can call each girl using it should I need to get their attention. Depending on how I hit it, I can relay instructions." Kirsi turned around and pulled up her dress, revealing an assplug decked with a five-petaled white flower with a yellow center firmly nestled in her apple-shaped bottom. Azalea swooped down to get a closer look. "Oh! How cute! A plumeria?" "Oh, is that what kind of flower it is?" "Yes! They grew all over the fields near my home," Azalea divulged before flashing her own. "We got one too!" "How lovely, like a little cut gem. It does a good job of catching the light. I've never had anything in my ass before, so I'm still getting used to it." "You and me both," mumbled Suvi. Sable patted the peppy girl's head. "Kirsi is our newest full-time employee." "That's me! This is my third week. I'm mostly waiting tables and providing supplemental milk when needed." She pinched her nipple, letting a few droplets fall onto her finger to show everyone before sucking it clean. Kirsi felt a tug on her sleeve. "This one couldn't help but notice the uniqueness of your uniform, especially the way it draws the eye to your mammary glands." "You like it? It's woven of high-quality sheep girl wool." She raised her arms and performed a little spin. "Designing it together was such fun, but we had a hard time deciding because we all wanted different things. The sisters like to flirt and flaunt their bodies, so they wanted a lot of cleavage showing, but Janina wanted it functional -- also, her boobs are enormous -- so no tight clothing. We opted for a full cutout to let our boobies hang free." "Since all our customers love our milk, I thought we should represent that?' I suggested the boob window be heart-shaped and framed with lacey bows." Stable straightened one of the ribbons. "The proprietress and I wanted to make sure they felt they had a say in how they presented themselves. The girls comprised three groups, so each was responsible for their group's base design. After two weeks tossing around ideas back and forth to the manufacturer, this is what was settled on." "Do you normally not wear the same uniform, Miss Sable?" Asked Reina. "Only when we are at full capacity and need more hands helping out." "Which is almost never because she thinks customers don't want to see a woman with small boobs. She's only one size smaller than me, and I keep telling her size doesn't affect how much milk she produces," Kirsi explained with a giggle. "You girls produce more than enough." "You're making your customers sad! She has a small handful of regulars who love how she tastes," retorted Kirsi. "They don't miss me that much." "Yes, they do!" Azalea peeked behind Sable. "If Sable also has a uniform, does she have a plug, too?" Caught off guard by the question, Sable stammered, "I, er, yes, all employees wear one." "She has a special one only the boss has a bell for," Kirsi snickered. Sable coughed. "We've spent enough time gabbing. Don't you have tables to attend to?" "Yes, I just got buzzed! Enjoy your evening, everyone!" She bowed before trotting to a far table. Sable led the company around the room's edge and to the base of a broad, curving stairway that led up to the second floor. "The balcony seating is for overflow or reserved for special guests and events." Jeni placed her wing on Devin's arms to steady herself as she hopped up the steps. He lauded the owl girl, "I haven't had a chance to see you really interact with anyone outside your shop. You've come a long way." She flapped her wings slightly at the compliment. "This one has been most appreciative of big sister Mavis' tutelage before going to the academy and of her fellow students for allowing the social interaction needed to communicate more effectively." Reaching the top of the carpeted stairs, Sable pushed open a small set of double doors and ushered everyone inside. A long, carpeted room stretching the length of the tavern formed a semi-circle at the far end. In the center, underneath, and behind the stained glass they had seen at the entrance, was a parrtly-curtained-off stage. Half-obscured in the dim light sat a woman in a white and blue gown, legs crossed and her talons idly clicking. She gracefully stood up and bowed. "Welcome, eagerly-awaited guests, to an evening you won't soon forget." Devin squinted. "Mavis?!" Sable crossed the room and lit the sconces on the wall. "Hello, little brother!" The smirking raven harpy crossed the room in three strides, embraced him in a light hug, and kissed him on the cheek. He hugged her back, glad she wasn't going for the mouth. "What are you doing here?" "I maybe should have mentioned I'm a major investor in your negotiations tonight." Devin frowned, "You are?" "I am. I have a lot riding on this, actually." "That's worrying." She looked serious for a moment. "Yes, but not entirely in a monetary way." Devin looked at her, puzzled. Mavis glanced over Devin's shoulder, "Jeni! Is that you?" Jeni peaked out from behind Reina. "Greetings, older sister Mavis." She pushed Devin aside, grabbed the fluffy owl, and spun her around, squeezing her tightly. "It's been too long! I'm so happy to see you!" Jeni hooted happily. "This one is also joyous at our much-delayed reunion." "You live in the same city. You should go see her more than once a year," Devin muttered. "But that's what you're for when I'm too busy, silly." "You know she loves you just as much as me." "Not entirely accurate, little brother. Look at this face." She held Jeni out in front of her, "This is the face of a girl who wants to join your harem." "Since when do I have a harem?" Devin challenged. "You have three girls with you. Surely, you have room for your childhood friend." "Um, " Suvi raised her hand. "I'm not really part of their, er, family." "You're not?" Mavis asked, surprised. "She was a guide I hired for the girls," Devin corrected. "And then she became a friend!" piped in Azalea. "Well, a friend is just a wife you haven't gotten together with yet." Devin blinked several times, trying to unravel her logic. "In any case, since you only have two, now you have no excuse," Mavis declared while leering at him. Jeni, still being displayed like an auctioned item, spun her head backward to look at Mavis. "This one is currently involved in a joint venture with Young Patron in the hopes he will see the benefits one day of being this one's nestmate." "See Devin? Don't let all this girl's effort go to waste." Devin sighed. "Can we shelve this for the moment? Don't we have important business to conduct tonight? Speaking of, where is the other party?" "Everyone's here." "Eh?" "I am the other party." Devin stared at the smug harpy. "I'm also the owner of this restaurant." Devin's expression changed to dumbfounded. "Oh dear, Reina, you should help Devin to his seat. He's looking a little unsteady. Come, come, please be seated while Devin comes to terms about my little surprise! I'll sit here on the far left, Jeni can sit next to me, and you, my dear, ?" "Suvi." "Suvi can sit in the middle with Devin. Reina should sit on the far right, and Azalea can sit anywhere." Suvi sat down. "Are we going to watch a play while we eat?" "Not exactly, but it is what makes our little establishment unique, as you'll see shortly." Devin, finally collecting his thoughts, thanked Reina for her momentary care. He took a deep breath, "Mavis, can you please answer a few questions plainly and simply?" "I will," she said, amused. "Just to make sure I didn't mishear, you're the mysterious person who arranged this meeting so you could negotiate with me to be a long-distance liaison with an unknown person that I need to find?" "Yes." "And you just so happen to be the owner of this expensive-looking restaurant for I don't know how many years." "Correct. Mine in every sense of the word: originator of the idea, negotiator for the land, designer, and purchaser of the building materials. The only thing I didn't do was actually build it, though I did lay the first brick and hammer the first nail as symbolic gestures." Devin looked at Sable. "What Miss Mavis says is all correct," she verified Devin slumped back in his chair. "Why do you enjoy shocking me with stuff like this?" "Precisely because you're the type of person who likes to know everything beforehand, and that's no fun! I was planning on telling you someday. I was waiting for the right opportunity." The harpy justified. Suvi put a hand on Devin's shoulder. "Given the rumors I've heard, it could have been a worse surprise." Mavis, in an overly-dramatic gesture, raised her wings, "ah yes, the rumors, given shape by overactive imaginations and our exclusivity. Orgies? Debauchery? Rich old men bathing in breast milk while virgins feed them grapes and lick honey off their bodies? Or are you referring to a place where mothers and daughters of the affluent come to get gangbanged by well-endowed demi-humans?" "Uh, I guess they were along those lines," Suvi tentatively spoke. Mavis snorted. "I can assure you, nothing even remotely like that has or ever will occur here." "I want honey licked off my body," whispered Azalea. Devin shushed her with a glance. "Although, as I hinted to Suvi about, this is what we are best known for, " Sable rang her master chime. The curtain parted. On the platform were three similarly-clothed barmaids. Their dresses had been replaced with short skirts hugging and barely covering their hips. Tiny white aprons did their best to cover their fronts. They were each lined up in front of their matching statuary counterpart in front of another fountain. The most eye-catching of the three was a wolf girl with attentive ears, a bushy tail, and a little fang sticking out of her mouth. The chiseled facsimile behind her was squatting with knees splayed, a smug smile upon her lips, daring all to watch her pee into the pool below. "Didn't imagine they could get more outlandish than the fountain downstairs," Suvi murmured to Azalea. The wolf girl stepped forward, "Good ev'en, honored guests. Your host would like ta thank'ya for accepting her invitation to dine with us. This evening, we have been asked to be your exclusive servers to provide you with an experience of such quality you won't find anywhere else in the northern realm! Allow me to introduce your hostess', starting with myself." The wolf girl took another step forward. "My name is Eeva -- eager to serve and ready to please my alphas, that being you folk, and I'm supposed to tell you something about myself. Well, I suppose I like to wrestle with this pint-sized goblin here." She motioned to the green woman seated to her right." The she-goblin uncrossed her legs and stood up. "And by wrestle, she means having me pin her down and bully her." "She exaggerates! She couldn't pin clothes to a line," Eeva retorted. "Said the girl who denies getting turned on when her face ends up underneath this thick goblin ass!" The she-goblin jumped up, pulled Eeva back and took her place. "Hey, all! Name's Truulté Gress, or shortstuff, or sexy, or cutie. I'll respond to most anything. I'm the resident shortstack. Second-oldest employee after the housepet here. I love to serve people; in all kinds of ways. Especially when it comes to cuddling our cute, little snowshoe hare, " "Hallie!" interrupted Azalea. "Oh, you know each other?" Truulté asked, surprised. "Yes, we met earlier today at Mama Sanna's bakery for lunch." Hallie took a small step forward and bowed. "H, hello Azalea, everyone! I look forward to servicing you; I mean, serving you again!" "Oh ho?" Truulté sidled up to the taller girl. "What kind of service did you provide?" Did it involve bouncing with these strong bunny thighs or handling things with these squishy pawed feet?" She pushed Truulté away. "Not that kind!" "She did flash us," disclosed Azalea. "Ah, typical Hallie things." Truulté put an arm around the bunny girl's slim waist. "We treat her as the little sister in our cozy work family. She is so soft and warm and we often take work breaks to fluff her fur and stroke her ears. Hey, wanna hear a secret? If you feed her her favorite food, her ass twitches." "Truulté! That was a secret!" Hallie cried. "If you tell a secret, it's not a secret anymore," the goblin cackled. She flashed a sharp smile, her eyes lively at Hallie's embarrassment. "Maybe I should go get a carrot and show you." "Noooo!" "Relax! You know I only bully those I love. I wouldn't dream of making my fluffy bed cuddler sad." Eeva joined Truulté in hugging Hallie from behind. "And there you have it. That's all of us. Though, I should also introduce our girl-in-training." Sable reappeared from the kitchen with a disinterested deer girl adorned with a gaudy amount of jewelry. She approached and placed two small buckets of ice on the stage, seemingly more preoccupied with checking the state of her nails than introducing herself. Noticing all eyes on her, she rolled her eyes. "Name's Tuuli. Eighteen. I'm only here because my herd wants me to learn manners or work ethic or somethin'." "She's very bratty," snickered Truulté. "M'not a brat; and you're one to speak; walking around with lewd drawings all over your body!" "These are decorative displays of my marsh goblin heritage. My social status, skillset, and availability. It's common amongst all the tribes." "Hmph! Looks like a display board for a broth, " "Now, now," Eeva abruptly interjected. "Tuuli is staying with us for a time to gain valuable life experience. And hopefully a little maturity. She'll be assisting Hallie this evening if she runs dry." "Whatever. Can I assist her sooner? I'm about to burst," she sassed. Suvi regarded the deer-girls chest. Her meager sized breasts didn't look particularly full, or even lactating. After thinking a moment she swiftly glanced at the fountain again, and back to Tuuli's belly. With a hint of trepidation, "So, you don't only serve milk here?" "We were originally called 'The Thirsty Maiden,' Sable responded, 'but we changed it. Now it has a dual meaning. Most people think it stands for the gold-quality milk we offer, which you already saw we do serve. The girls' milk is rich and sweet and is our number one ordered thing. The second most ordered item would be the golden liquid these lovely young ladies are going to share with you tonight." Mavis smiled amidst the sudden silence. "We are going to drink their pee?" Azalea queried. Devin rubbed his forehead. "I should have guessed with you in charge there was bound to be something outlandish about this place. Dare I ask why, and what led to you coming up with, " Devin waved his hand toward the fountain. ", what these girls are offering?" "Of course you may. It's a bit of a funny story. It originally started as a joke. But maybe I should start at the beginning? Shortly after Jeni left for the academy and you became a full-time merchant, I felt a bit listless with you two gone. One day, during a walk through town, I overheard a group of girls complaining their milk bar wasn't giving them enough hours and their chests were sore with all the excess. It inspired me to try my own attempt at it since the city was offering incentives to start new businesses." Mavis placed her wing on Sable's arm. "Sable was my first hire." The weasel woman crossed her arms. "You kinda manipulated me into it." "'Manipulated' is such a strong word. I delicately tantalized her into saying yes."Mavis uncrossed and recrossed her legs. "You see, after I made the decision, I was headed to the administration building when I spotted Sable in an alley. Poor thing was a horny mess." "I could have handled myself." she huffed. "I believe you, but wasn't it so much easier getting to the sex shop with a supportive shoulder to lean on?" Mavis turned her attention back to Devin. "You might have heard before, but when weasel girls go into heat, it can actually be life-threatening if they don't mate after a period of time. Or at least make their body think they did. So, one dildo and thirty minutes of orgasm denial later, I was rewarded with a yes and she received an orgasm she has yet to forget." "What was I supposed to say in my condition?" "Mavis, I'm disappointed in you," Devin chastised. "It's alright, Mr. Ebonplume. What's done is done and I'm not actually mad. I wasn't in immediate danger, yet." "Still, " Mavis stroked Sable's hand affectionately. "I know I have many attributes that could use ; self-improvement, and I can be pushy at times. I hope I've gotten a little better?" She fluttered her eyes at her co-worker. "Your teasing nature could be toned down." "It's how I show my affection to those I care about. Just making sure you know I'm always available if you need my special touch. I don't want you to end up so needy, again. You are my closest friend, after all." Sable exhaled and squeezed Mavis' wing affectionately. "Anyway," Mavis continued, "we recruited Eeva shortly thereafter, and since then, the business took off, but it's hard to reach the top when you're like every other tavern. It was during our third year. We had two regulars who had come from another pub who were tipsy. I was drying glasses while they gushed to me about how pretty Sable and Eeva were, how much they enjoyed their milk, and the warm welcome they always received, etc., etc." "Lady Mavis, your placsh alwaysh provide the bwst milk and servish than anywhere else in the sshity." Mavis bowed her head. "You know we are just a humble establishment like any other. Though I'm happy we are able to please you." "No, iisssh true, other placises drinks taste like piss compared. In factsh, gives piss a bad name. I bet your girl's piss would taste better then what they offer." "It was meant to be a joke, obviously, but for an unknown reason that night, I kept thinking about what they said. I know a lot of demi-humans use urine for displaying their physical and social status -- basically advertising. So I thought, in the right situation, perhaps we could use it to advertise and enhance what no one has ever offered before. For humans, well, we probably wouldn't get many of them ordering unless they had a certain kink for it. But I don't mind a challenge, so we presented the idea to Eeva." Eeva rocked back and forth on her heels. "I thought the boss's idea was crazy, but if she wanted me to pee in a mug for customers, I didn't have a problem with it." Sable passed out utensils as she commented, "We wanted to keep our new drink category low-key, so we didn't display it on the front page of the menu. Several days passed before anyone even asked about it. We were sure the first customers to order it were going to be demi-humans. Imagine our surprise when it turned out to be two young human lads with too much bravado." "After explained what it was, they dared each other to try it. Coincidently, that just so happened to be a time when Eeva was in heat," Mavis chortled. "Mistake number one," laughed the wolfgirl. "While they themselves didn't notice, others did. Word quickly spread, and I had to swat down overtures all week. It was great for business, but with the wrong kind of advertising. Soon after, we hired Sanna to impose if the people got too pushy." Sable handed out white linen napkins. "It gained popularity, but Eeva's bladder can only hold so much, so Truulté was hired to meet demand." "I'm wondering, Mavis," Devin interrupted, "if this place was doing so well, why did you take the delivery job?" "Simple. I wasn't satisfied. I believed we had the potential to grow, and I wanted to push us into serving more upscale clients. I called a meeting after we closed one night, and together we hatched a two-step plan: form a partnership with import merchants and appeal to a new demographic of customers who might have an interest in more exotic fare. Clientele with too much money, willing to spend for the rare oddity or novelty." "The delivery business was only to establish the second part of the plan. I worked my way up to my current position to gain access to the upper echelons of society. You'd be surprised how far a little hint here or a little suggestion there to the right person will go when they are grateful to you for delivering their important things. "Once we had a wide selection of drinks on the menu and the clientele to support it, we introduced memberships and used the funds to renovate, allow the girls to live here, and reinvest into the business you see today." Devin looked down at the customers having a good time on the bottom floor. Typical Mavis -- capable and ambitious but with a tinge of reckless brazenness. She was the type of person who worked hard in the beginning so that later she could leave it in others' hands. "Well, dear brother? What do you think?" Devin looked up. "I'm still a bit overwhelmed by all of this. I don't know what to say." Eeva eyed Devin and Reina. She smiled predatorily and crouched down. "How about looking at the menu and telling me what you want to order for starters?" She flapped the poor excuse for an apron alluringly. "I'm sure you'll like at least one of our drinks. My bladder is full, and you have exclusive access to all of it tonight." Before Devin could make up his mind, Reina timidly raised her hand. "I, I would like to give it a try." "Excellent." She leaned back and stretched the apron taut. Pinned to the fabric was a small paper menu. "Depending on what drink you order, we have a categorized list of appetizers designed to match." Without missing a beat, she flipped the apron up, revealing her lack of undergarments. "On the back, we have the drinks available from me specifically. Of course, you're free to order from any of us. They come in three grades: grade one: light, grade two: middling, and grade three: strong." "If you just want to dip your toes in, I recommend grade one. Hallie's drinks tend to be sweeter. If you're feeling a little daring, you should go with grade two. Truulté has a pretty unique earthy flavor and is a bit more potent, but If you want the full experience, I suggest three. A deep, rich taste with plenty of me mixed in." "What determines the difference?" "Time. Grade one is easy, chug a bunch of water and wait about thirty minutes. Middling maybe an hour or two. Truulté and myself are usually the only ones who supply grade three because we can hold it for a long time. "I think I want to try the strongest." "Going all in! My kind of girl. And how bout you, sir? Dare to follow in her hoofsteps?" Devin looked at Reina. "She did offer to let me try her own once." "Oh? And didja?" "No, but; I guess it might be a bit rude, given all the work you put into setting this up. I'll try yours as well." "Perfect. So which one would ya like me to make ya's? Or do you want it straight and pure in a glass?" Devin ran his eyes down the menu. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dark 'n' Uriney grade 3 ginger beer Golden Honey Rye grade 3 rye honey syrup tangerine juice dash of bitters "Piss" co Sour grade 3 lime juice sugar syrup dash of bitters harpy egg white ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- He tried focusing on the list of drinks but the closeness of her cunt and the smell of her musk was too distracting. She pushed her hips forward a little. "I don't mind you staring. It's part of the enjoyment. Unique, isn't it? Quite a bit different than most other demi-humans. Looks like a little triangular cookie, huh?" Devin looked to Reina. She was staring as much as he was. "It is quite a peculiar shape," agreed Devin. "Isn't it hard to not make a mess?" Asked Reina. "It was at first, but I've managed to make it work." "This 'Piss'co Sour looks interesting. I will try that. What about you, herd-mate?" "I'll have the same." Eeva wagged her tail. "And how would you like for me to pour'em?" Reina looked up questioningly. "What do you mean?" "Probably easier to demonstrate," suggested Sable. "Why don't you show your most requested way?" "Alright." Eeva took the tray Sable handed her and set it to the side. "Oh, I should probably add, these are nonalcoholic since many demi-humans have a hard time handling it." "I don't mind. I prefer my head to be clear during business negotiations." Devin confided as she set out two crystal glasses. She crushed ice into each glass and set them aside to chill. Then she unscrewed a metal mixer and separated the halves. Holding up a green fruit, she said, "Betcha never seen one of these!" Devin thought for a moment. "I can't say I have." Reina shook her head. "It's called a lime and comes all the way from the southern continent." She picked up a knife and gave it a spin. "Slice it in half, place it in a vice, and squeeze one ounce of juice out. Then we add half an ounce of simple syrup. Next, a harpy egg, laid just this morning." Devin glanced at Mavis. "No, it's not mine, but maybe it should have been," she smirked. "We place the yolk in a strainer and separate the egg white into the mix." Eeva dug out ice from a bucket and scooped it into the mixer. "I like using bigger chunks, so it whips up the egg well." "And lastly, the main ingredient." She got down on all fours, turned sideways, and lifted her leg. "Before, I used to make drinks in the kitchen, but customers requested to watch the whole process often enough I considered making it more exciting, experimenting with different positions to make a show of it." Running her fingers around the edge of her oddly-defined, plump lips, she splayed them, making sure everyone could see. Taking a deep breath, she relaxed her bladder. Her pee hole quivered as a steady stream arched into the glass. Eeva carefully crooked her finger, stroking a small protruding nub near the bottom; panting as the pressure in her bladder lessoned while the pleasure increased. With the two glasses nearly full, she clenched the stream, put her leg down, and wiped her fingers clean. After screwing on the mixer top, she shook the contents vigorously. "Then we pour it through another strainer into each glass and add a few drops of bitter. Kirsi suggested I drag the drops together to form small hearts, saying it looked cuter. And for the final touch," She slid her fingers between her folds and traced the rim of the glass with her arousal before serving it. "I usually only do this when I'm in heat -- when my pheromones are strongest. Drives the demi-boys crazy. I hope you don't mind." "Not at all." Reina seemed to be more into this than Devin felt, but in the spirit of the moment, they clinked their classes and took a sip. Reina nodded her approval. "I am quite taken by the silky tartness of it. I am inclined to try one in every grade now." Eeva's tail wagged happily. "Told ya you'd like it!" "I have to admit, it's surprisingly good." Devin agreed. "Never tasted these combinations of; flavors before." "I'm proud of our girls and their mixology skills," Mavis effused. "Would you like to try one, Jeni?" "This one's curiosity is piqued, older sister Mavis. This one would like to try Truulté's." "Of course, little bird." The she-goblin flipped up her apron. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wee Sting grade 2 spoon of runny honey pressed apple juice splash of ginger ale lime or apple garnish ice Cosmo"pee"litan grade 2 lemonade cranberry juice syrup squeezed lemon ice Mo"wee"to grade 2 sugar syrup soda mint leaves ice ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jeni bobbed her head as she read her options. "This one would like to try the cosmo'pee'litan." "Exquisite choice, and I have a fun way to 'pour' it! Let's move things out of the way so I don't knock them over, and roll over onto my back. Place this here, and; up we go." She raised her hips pulling her short legs over her head. Running a finger across her pee hole, she pressed down on her bladder with her thumbs. With her satisfied exhale, her golden stream arced up, landing in the container perched between her breasts." Jeni clapped her wings. "This one is impressed with your flexibility and coordination. Would it be impolite to compliment the orderliness of your genitals?" Truulté laughed. "Not a compliment I've received before but thank you. You must not have seen too many naked girls. This snatch aint dainty, but I've been told many times I'm fun to eat, and to that end, I keep myself as smooth as can be." Patting herself dry, she righted herself, arranged the tray before Jeni, and held up an orange and yellow fruit. Jeni thought for a moment. "This one would guess they are limes but different colors?" "Close. They are all within the same family of sour-flavored fruits. This yellow one is a lemon, and this is an orange. Not the most original name but tastier to eat alone." She squeezed the fruits' juices into the cocktail. "The lemon is used in many of our other drinks. The orange brings more sweetness." Adding premade cranberry juice with lime juice, she shook the contents before finishing with crushed ice. Pouring the mixture into a shallow glass, she garnished the edge with a wedge of lime and served it. "Here you are! A refreshingly tangy, sweet drink with a delightful pink color." Jeni brought the drink to her lips. Her face scrunched at the un-used to acidity. "It has exceeded this one's estimation and this one is pleased. Thank you." Truulté placed her hand over her bladder. "Plenty left if you want more." Azalea poked Suvi. "Are you going to try one?" "I'm not, er, that adventurous. I think I'll just order milk if that's ok." Looking at Mavis. "Of course it is." Mavie assured. "Ask Hallie for her milk," encouraged Azalea. Suvi eyed Hallie's perky chest. "You certainly enjoyed it at the bakery. I suppose I should give it a try?" Hallie knelt down, gingerly squeezed her milk into a glass, and served it. "I hope you enjoy." "Well?" queried Azalea. "Creamy and warm." Hallie fidgeted. "I'm glad you like it." "And which drink would you like, Azalea?" the bunny girl asked, raising her apron. The thirsty fairy took a moment to admire the well defined and neatly closed, pink bunny puss for the second time that day. She made a mental note to sketch it in her notebook and wished it was on the menu. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pee Daiquiri grade 1 lemon/lime soda lemon juice pinch of sugar Ice cubes "Pee"na Colada grade 1 coconut juice pineapple juice pineapple wedges crushed ice Urineade grade 1 lemonade ice ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "This is a kink i've never dabbled in and and I don't know what most of these ingredients are, but let's give the 'pee'na colada a try." "Good choice. It's my personal favorite. It especially tastes good in summer. Unfortunately, I don't have a special pouring method. I'm not good at controlling it." "No need to feel bad. I'm not either." "Then, if you'll allow me," Hallie faced away and squatted in front of the expectant fae. Running her hands down her sides, they met between her legs where she spread herself. "Ca, can you see?" "Every part! Your cunt's so cute. Hallie's puff-ball tail twitched as she filled the mixer. Azalea unconsciously licked her lips as she watched the clear and water-like stream. "I'm curious, Hallie. You seem so shy, what made you take up this job?" "I, I like to be helpful, even if it is embarrassing." The flow abated with a few final drops. Wiping her hands, she turned around and took two of the strangest fruits Azalea had ever seen. "What are those? Are they edible?" "Of course they are. This one's a coconut. It's a pain to open, but the milky sap inside is worth it." She took an awl, placed it against the eye hole at one end and tapped the other end with a mallet. Then she poured the contents into the mix. "Can you do what Eeva did at the end?" Hallie blushed hard. "I, I, no one has ever asked me before. I, I'm not wet enough, so I don't think, " "Sure she can," said Eeva, volunteering Hallie. "The customer gets what the customer wants if it's reasonable. Come on, lass, you can do it. Just like all those nights we cuddle together." The taller wolf girl embraced her friend from behind and stroked the fluff around her neck as her other hand wound down between her legs. "Super easy for her. Eeva's fingers worked to coax the slippery sweetness from the panting bunny girl. Just have to stir up her little bunny pot. See what I did there? No. Ok, bad puns aside, want to hear another little secret about Hallie? Careful when putting your head between her thighs. When she climaxes, it's like a vice. Nearly took my head off." Hallie flushed a deeper shade of red. Between having her embarrassing idiosyncrasies exposed and Hallie's skilled digits burrowing through her crotch, she leaned into Eeva's body and resigned herself to the pleasure. With the squelching sounds getting louder, Eeva removed her hand. "That should be enough." She pulled her hand away from Hallie, feeling her thighs clenching around her hand, reluctant at the absence. "I'll finish you off later tonight if you want." She whispered. She held up the viscid lubricant clinging between her fingers, tracing it around the rim of the glass. "Here you are Azalea. Sorry, we don't have a smaller glass. You are our first fairy customer ever." "I am? I'm honored, and it's alright. I can tilt it." She brought her head down, inhaling Hallie's scent as she took a sip. Another drink followed, and then another. Her wings fluttered as she swallowed the syrupy fruit drink. "This is delicious! You should try it, life-mate! Reina!" Devin took her glass and tried it before handing it to Reina. "It definitely seems like your type of drink." ------- The rest of the meal passed with several more drinks complimented by decoratively arranged plates of hors d'oeuvres and finger foods. Sufficiently full, Devin leaned back in his chair. "Thank you for dinner, Mavis." "Yes, thank you," came several other voices. "And for the girls making tonight lots of fun," Azalea added. "You are most welcome. It was our pleasure," answered Eeva. "If you need anything else, please don't hesitate to buzz us." The barmaids gathered the empty dishes and left the room. "Now, let's hear what commission my older sister went to so much work to set up." Suvi stood up. "I'm going to take this opportunity to leave early. This doesn't concern me, and there is someone I need to check on to make sure they are ok. Before I go, Miss Ebonplume, are you perchance hiring any more girls?" "Are you wanting to work here?" "I need a more stable job." "I'm sure Sable can find something for you to do, although we have no rooms available." "I don't mind commuting." "Come on in the day after tomorrow, and Sable will set you up." "Thank you, I'll be here! And thank you for the, interesting evening!" With a wave of her tail, she left. Mavis began to preen her feathers pretending not to see Devin awaiting her reply, "Instead of telling you what this job entails, it'll be more fun to let you experience what I need you to find." Mavis rang her private bell, summoning Sable with a singular drink on a tray. She placed it in front of Devin and took her position behind Mavis. A profoundly floral scent emanated from a golden liquid. "It's not one of the girls' drinks; in case you're wondering." Devin held the warm mug to his lips and took a sip. He was instantly surprised by the explosion of sweet, mellow flavor. "Can you name the ingredient?" "Honey?" "Yes! But not just any honey; bee girl honey." "Impossible. No one's seen a bee-girl in the north for generations." "Precisely. Because of its scarcity and cost, we could only offer it to customers at a very high price. A little goes a long way, but you are drinking the last of it. I've had several individuals attest to its authenticity, and they are offering a significant amount of vol to acquire more." "You know I mainly transport goods already available. I have no experience with searching out new markets. If you're asking me, then I'm guessing you have an idea where to get more." "Yes, but the only lead we have is that it was bought from another merchant, who bought it from a different merchant, outside the country." Devin passed it for the girls to try. "I've never been outside our borders before. I've always wanted to visit the southern kingdom." "Unfortunately our contact is not there." He sat up. "I hope you're not suggesting I sneak across the border to the middle kingdom. "You wouldn't be sneaking." "his mind sifting through all the information he knew about their neighbor. "Method aside, you want me to find a nearly impossible commodity in a country that is not, to mockingly put it, on amicable terms with ours?" "Relations are a bit icy, yes." "And for good reason. Raiding your neighbor's population doesn't help make friends. Frankly, I'm a little disturbed you would even consider this given their treatment of demi-humans." "Yes, I am fully aware their society runs on conscripted labor." "Slave labor you mean. What about Reina and Azalea's safety?" "No one would bother them. With the right paperwork anyone would just think they were your slaves." "I refuse to even pretend they are my slaves." "I think you should take the offer, herd-mate." "Reina, you should know as much as I do, maybe even more, considering your first hand experience. Even after the trauma you suffered, you still want to go? She gave an ernest look. "I will ultimately abide by your wishes, but yes, I do." Devin frowned. He ventured a guess what Reina's motivation was. She was probably hoping she might run into her sister. He'd ask her later to make certain. "And how do you feel about all this, Azalea?" "She kissed the back of his hand. "I'm already a slave to your love life-mate. I'll go where you go. I trust your judgment." "I don't think you understand what we'd be getting ourselves into." "Reina wants to go and that's good enough for me." Devin looked down and ticked off different ideas on his fingers as he thought of them. Personal reasons aside, there are numerous logistical concerns. We'd need to convert all the money we'd use. Do we even know the exchange rate of the Zingar? Not to mention enough provisions for a five week trip, one way, and assemble spare parts in case the wagon breaks down. Will we even make it through the mountains before the snow gets too deep? I was planning to convert my wagon into a sleigh for snow travel but I'm skeptical it'd survive such a brutal trip over the pass?" "I wouldn't be sending you three alone." Said Mavis, interrupting his calculations. "You'd be going with an experienced group of individuals who've made the journey before. They'll assemble the bulk of provisions you'll need. They also have a friend halfway between here and the capital you'll be stopping at. We'll dispatch someone to inquire as to the conditions. And your guild membership should offer you some immunity. There's a branch office in the capital, isn't there? You'll just need to acquire visas and the proper documentation. We are not at war and technically, you are not doing anything illegal. It's not a lawless country. You're just going to inquire of information, discreetly." "Our milk money can go to help buy or build a new wagon life-mate. I'm sure we can find someone who'd pay a lot for a rare and delicious delicacy as these two lovelies will be producing." She pushed her breasts together. All eyes were on him as he processed all the information. Even Sable was peeking out from the door to the downstairs kitchen curious what'd he decide. "I won't believe you're doing it just for the money or merely fulfilling your patrons desire for a rare ingredient, Mavis. Are there other reasons? Mavis tensed, hoping he wouldn't guide the conversation back to her. "Aside from some personal reasons. I'd hoped if you found the producer, you could buy her freedom. Or if she's hiding out, entice her to come back with you." "I'll make a note of it. And what are your personal reasons?" "They aren't important. Just trivial feelings." He folded his arms. "Devin wasn't going to agree to anything till he knew every single detail. She locked eyes with Reina, hoping she would pick up on her hesitation to speak plainly." Reina, guessing she wanted some privacy alone with Devin, abruptly stood up. "We've drunk a lot tonight. If you would excuse us, Jeni, Azalea, and I need to visit the outhouse. We'll be right back." "But I don't need to pee." "Yes, you do." Reina plucked Azalea from the table and took Jeni's wing. Jeni, quicker on the uptake but slow on the reason, stumbled to her feet., "Is this the bonding ritual girls engage in when visiting the lavatory?" "I'll tell you later," she whispered as they left Devin and Mavis alone. Devin watched them exit. He didn't need his merchant sense to pick up on what just happened. Whatever reasons Mavis was hiding was obviously for his ears only. "Alright, just us dear sister. Let's hear it. Based on the expression you let slip in your office, I'm guessing it's something you didn't want me to know about in the first place." "No. I told you it's just silly feelings that shouldn't interfere with business." "So it's about me? Not to sound self-centered but a lot of stronger feelings you have are usually about me." Mavis stopped preening. The soft murmur of voices and muffle of clinking glasses became audible as Mavis held the silence. I'm just scared you won't come back." "That's it? That's your big reason." "Pretty much." "I was torn between offering you a lucrative adventure and feeling responsible for you." "You know I'm an adult right?" Devin relaxed. "For crying out loud Mavis. Why must you be so melodramatic? Why didn't you just say that. You had me concerned it was some big thing." "I don't like anyone, especially you seeing me unsure of myself and vulnerable." "I don't know how you got it in your head but i would never think less of you." When you first moved in with us, I told myself I needed to be the big dependable older sister who you'd look up to and help you take flight." "So the real reason you check in with me all the time flying your routes, ?" "To make sure you're safe and checking if you need anything."I'm sorry I'm such a clingy, flirty big sister." "Why don't you find some male harpy." "Don't you even dare suggest such a thing. You're all I need." She fluttered her eyes at him and laughed. Devin wasn't sure if she was teasing him again or not. Either way, she was providing him with a chance at breaking well out of his norm. "If I'm successful, I'll have quite the tale to tell when I return." "Does that mean you'll say yes?!" "A tentative yes. There is still the issue about a new wagon. "We're back!" announced Azalea. "Are we interrupting?" "No, I only needed to clear up a few misconceptions. Where's Jeni?" replied Mavis. Reina placed two drinks in front of Devin. "She's downstairs filling out a membership form." "What's this? Two drinks we haven't tried yet?" Devin inquired while reaching for one of the glasses. "Yes! Compliments from us, life-mate!" "You and Reina, ?" "Uh-huh!" One was light, almost like water, with a wedge of lemon on the rim. The other was darker in color. Azlea had her hands together in barely suppressed, excited expectation. "Tart with a familiar sugariness. You made this, didn't you?" Devin asked Azalea after taking a sip. "I did. Do you like it? I actually did have to pee shortly after we left. Eeva suggested I try making the urineade as a surprise." "So this must be Reina's then." "Dark 'n' Uriney. I know you declined my first offer, maybe with some added ingredients you'll be more inclined to try it." Reina offered. "It's made from ginger beer and myself." "That aspect of your culture is important to you isn't it?" "It makes me happy to do all I can to share myself with you, in every way." "I thank you for thinking of me," he praised. He sipped to bitter draught. "It's flavorful. I still don't know if I could handle it raw." "I understand. Reina returned to her seat. "Have you finished making plans for our trip?" Azalea landed on the table and sipped Reina's drink. "Yes, are we going life-mate? To satisfy our craving for adventure and profit?" "Profit is only valuable if you're free and able to use it, and you, Reina; you hope to find your sister, don't you?" "Yes." "Mavis, this group we are going with, how many times have they, " "Spy? Sneak? Clandestinely infiltrate? This will be their fourth. They are made up of a mix of humans and demi-humans. I can't disclose which of their group is going till the day they leave." "So I guess we are all in agreement?" Devin questioned his ladies. "I would have tried to persuade you if you had said no, herd-mate." "Well, regardless, before any of that, we have to make a run to Merport to fulfill that order for Jeni. We should be ready in a week or two." Mavis stood up and responded to Devin, "That works! They need time to prepare, as do you, I'm sure. Since you are doing this in winter, it will be harder to get there, but since you have Reina, it should be doable. When you return from Merport, I'd like for you to come back and meet them." "I'll send a notice when we do." Mavis embraced both girls and Devin. "Thank you for doing this. Let's just hope this venture proves successful." Mavis led them down the stairs and toward the front entrance. At the doors, Jeni placed her stamp on a document and handed it to Sable. "This one has found the older sister Mavis' establishment's services to be conducive to relaxation and useful in social improvement and wishes to frequent this place." He lightly ruffled the feathers on her head. "I will be comforted to see you getting out of your lab more frequently." She happily pushed her head into his hand. Mavis held the door open. "We'll see you in two weeks then!" "I'll bring the coach around," offered Sable. Devin shook his foot, which had fallen asleep while they were seated. "Actually, if you don't mi
Main Idea: The Death of Christ Provides Atonement and CleansingText: John 19:31–37Outline: 1) To fulfill Scripture2) As the sacrificial lamb3) Sufficiently
Main Idea: Christ Died for Your SinsText: John 19:28–30Outline: 1) To fulfill Scripture2) As the sacrificial lamb3) Sufficiently
Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: A lot of EA-orientated research doesn't seem sufficiently focused on impact, published by jamesw on March 4, 2024 on The Effective Altruism Forum. Cross posted from: https://open.substack.com/pub/gamingthesystem/p/a-lot-of-ea-orientated-research-doesnt?r=9079y&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web NB: This post would be clearer if I gave specific examples but I'm not going to call out specific organisations or individuals to avoid making this post unnecessarily antagonistic. Summary: On the margin more resources should be put towards action-guiding research instead of abstract research areas that don't have a clear path to impact. More resources should also be put towards communicating that research to decision-makers and ensuring that the research actually gets used. Doing research that improves the world is really hard. Collectively as a movement I think EA does better than any other group. However, too many person-hours are going into research that doesn't seem appropriately focused on actually causing positive change in the world. Soon after the initial ChatGPT launch probably wasn't the right time for governments to regulate AI, but given the amount of funding that has gone into AI governance research it seems like a bad sign that there weren't many (if any) viable AI governance proposals that were ready for policymakers to take off-the-shelf and implement. Research aimed at doing good could fall in two buckets (or somewhere inbetween): Fundamental research that improves our understanding about how to think about a problem or how to prioritise between cause areas Action-guiding research that analyses which path forward is best and comes up with a proposal Feedback loops between research and impact are poor so there is a risk of falling prey to motivated reasoning as fundamental research can be more appealing for a couple of different reasons: Culturally EA seems to reward people for doing work that seems very clever and complicated, and sometimes this can be a not-terrible proxy for important research. But this isn't the same as doing work that actually moves the needle on the issues that matter. Academic research far worse for this and rewards researchers for writing papers that sound clever (hence why a lot of academic writing is so unnecessarily unintelligible), but EA shouldn't be falling into this trap of conflating complexity with impact. People also enjoy discussing interesting ideas, and EAs in particular enjoy discussing abstract concepts. But intellectually stimulating work is not the same as impactful research, even if the research is looking into an important area. Given that action-guiding research has a clearer path to impact, arguably the bar should be pretty high to focus on fundamental research over action-guiding research. If it's unlikely that a decision maker would look at the findings of a piece of research and change their actions as a result of it then there should be a very strong alternative reason why the research is worthwhile. There is also a difference between research that you think should change the behaviour of decision makers, and what will actually influence them. While it might be clear to you that your research on some obscure form of decision theory has implications for the actions that key decision makers should take, if there is a negligible chance of them seeing this research or taking this on board then this research has very little value. This is fine if the theory of change for your research having an impact doesn't rely on the relevant people being convinced of your work (e.g. policymakers), but most research does rely on important people actually reading the findings, understanding them, and being convinced that they should take an alternative action to what they would have taken otherwise. This is especially true of resea...
The legal fraternity is convening in Sabah this week for the Borneo Rainforest Law Conference 2024, spotlighting issues related to environmental conservation. As rising climate change risk underscores the importance of conserving the environment, are Malaysia's environmental laws sufficient to meet these challenges and how can our legal framework be strengthened? We get recommendations from lawyer Kwong Chiew Ee of the Bar Council Environment and Climate Change Committee.Image credit: Shutterstock.com
Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Will AI Avoid Exploitation? (Adam Bales), published by Global Priorities Institute on December 14, 2023 on The Effective Altruism Forum. This paper was published as a GPI working paper in December 2023. Introduction Recent decades have seen rapid progress in artificial intelligence (AI). Some people expect that in the coming decades, further progress will lead to the development of AI systems that are at least as cognitively capable as humans (see Zhang et al., 2022). Call such systems artificial general intelligences (AGIs). If we develop AGI then humanity will come to share the Earth with agents that are as cognitively sophisticated as we are. Even in the abstract, this seems like a momentous event: while the analogy is imperfect, the development of AGI would have some similarity to the encountering of an intelligent alien species who intend to make the Earth their home. Less abstractly, it has been argued that AGI could have profound economic implications, impacting growth, employment and inequality (Korinek & Juelfs, Forthcoming; Trammell & Korinek, 2020). And it has been argued that AGI could bring with it risks, including those arising from human misuse of powerful AI systems (Brundage et al., 2018; Dafoe, 2018) and those arising more directly from the AI systems themselves (Bostrom, 2014; Carlsmith, Forthcoming). Given the potential stakes, it would be desirable to have some sense of what AGIs will be like if we develop them. Knowing this might help us prepare for a world where such systems are present. Unfortunately, it's difficult to speculate with confidence about what hypothetical future AI systems will be like. However, a surprisingly simple argument suggests we can make predictions about the behaviour of AGIs (this argument is inspired by Omohundro, 2007, 2008; Yudkowsky, 2019).3 According to this argument, we should expect AGIs to behave as if maximising expected utility (EU). In rough terms, the argument claims that unless an agent decides by maximising EU it will be possible to offer them a series of trades that leads to a guaranteed loss of some valued thing (an agent that's susceptible to such trades is said to be exploitable). Sufficiently sophisticated systems are unlikely to be exploitable, as exploitability plausibly interferes with acting competently, and sophisticated systems are likely to act competently. So, the argument concludes, sophisticated systems are likely to be EU maximisers. I'll call this the EU argument. In this paper, I'll discuss this argument in detail. In doing so, I'll have four aims. First, I'll show that the EU argument fails. Second, I'll show that reflecting on this failure is instructive: such reflection points us towards more nuanced and plausible alternative arguments. Third, the nature of these more nuanced arguments will highlight the limitations of our models of AGI, in a way that encourages us to adopt a pluralistic approach. And fourth, reflecting on such models will suggest that at least sometimes what matters is less developing a formal model of an AGI's decision-making procedure and more clarifying what sort of goals, if any, an AGI is likely to develop. So while my discussion will focus on the EU argument, I'll conclude with more general lessons about modelling AGI. Read the rest of the paper Thanks for listening. To help us out with The Nonlinear Library or to learn more, please visit nonlinear.org
Meagan and Julie went Live in The VBAC Link Community Facebook Group answering your questions. They recorded the conversation to share with you on the podcast today. Topics include: Risks of VBAC, Repeat Cesarean, and CBACCook versus Foley CathetersCervical lipsMembrane sweepsVBA2C and VBAMCCPDThank you for sending in your questions! An educated birth is an empowered one. You've got this, Women of Strength!Additional LinksThe VBAC Link Blog: VBAC vs Repeat CesareanCook versus Foley Catheter StudyEBB 151: Updated Evidence on the Pros and Cons of Membrane SweepingACOG Article: VBACThe VBAC Link Blog: VBA2CNeeded WebsiteFull Transcript under Episode Details Meagan: Hey, hey everybody! Guess what? It's November which is one of my favorite months because it is my birthday month. I have forever and ever loved birthday months so this is going to be a great month because it is my birthday month. Today we are kicking it off with questions and answers with myself and Julie. Hey, Julie. Julie: Hey, I'm so excited to be here. Meagan: Welcome back. We're going to get right into this review and get some of these great questions answered. We know you guys have so many questions. This review is from bunnyfolife777. It says, “So much hope.” It says, “I'm 16 weeks pregnant and shooting for my VBAC. I've been in The VBAC Link group on Facebook for over a year, but I've only just started listening to the podcast. I don't know why I waited. I'm bawling now just two episodes in. The statistics and advice you share are golden. I'm going to listen to it again and take notes this time. I'm scared about having to advocate for myself living abroad where most doctors push for C-sections so I'm thankful I can arm myself with the knowledge through The VBAC Link. Thank you.”Oh, that makes me so happy. We're going to be talking about statistics on this podcast episode today. Julie: You know I love a good statistic. Meagan: I know. You are the statistic junkie. Julie: I'm a nerd. Meagan: Okay, okay Julie. I love having you back on the show. It just feels so natural. Julie: It's fun. Meagan: It is fun. It's so fun so thank you for being willing to join me again on these random episodes. As we were saying, we are really just wanting to answer some of these questions. So yeah. What is one of the questions right here that you love that you are like, “Let's start this off with”?Julie: Okay, so gosh. I mean, there are so many good ones. I feel like we've talked about a lot of these things many, many times over the years, but I feel like every time we talk about them, we get a new perspective in. There is new information and new evidence. Not everyone goes and listens to every single one of the episodes although lots of people do, but I think it's fun to revisit some of these things. I don't know. There are so many that stuck out to me. VBAC vs Repeat Cesarean vs CBACOne thing that we haven't really talked about directly in this way is, is it really safer to give birth vaginally? I mean, yes. It is. We can go over that but I really like the second part of that question which is, “What if that labor doesn't work and goes to a C-section? Is that more dangerous?” I want to talk about that because we talk about VBAC is safer than a repeat Cesarean statistically. We are talking about all of the numbers when we talk about all of the different things that could go wrong between vaginal birth and Cesarean birth then actually, for the second, whether you choose VBAC or repeat Cesarean, the statistics are actually not that much different as far as safety goes. VBAC is slightly safer overall, but there really isn't a big enough difference to say, “You should absolutely do this.” Right? That's where your intuition comes in. But if you want more than two kids, the more C-sections you have, the higher the chance you have of having severe complications. By the time you get to your fourth or fifth C-section, you have a 1 in 3 chance of having a major medical intervention during your Cesarean. I feel like so many times we as people educating about birth or talking about birth talk about just those two things. VBAC and repeat Cesarean, but there's actually a third thing that's worth talking about. That is a TOLAC– I know it's kind of a trigger word for some, but it's just a medical term we're going to use here– that ends in a repeat Cesarean. Meagan: Yes, because we know that happens. Julie: We know it happens. It does happen. Meagan: It happened with me. Julie: Sometimes it's medically necessary. Sometimes it's not, and you just don't know. We've got to put it in the order of three things. First, the safest is VBAC or a vaginal birth. Second is a scheduled C-section and the third is a VBAC attempt or a TOLAC that ends in a repeat Cesarean. We also call that a CBAC or a Cesarean birth after a Cesarean. Now, if you labor and then have to have a C-section for whatever reason, there are more risks with that including postpartum hemorrhage or bleeding, and needing a blood transfusion. Obviously, the risks to baby are pretty similar but it's just harder to operate on a uterus that is contracting. You're more likely to bleed because that uterus is contracting. Sometimes, if it's an emergency situation, the providers have to do things like a special scar or a special type of incision or they have to put you under general anesthesia. That has more risks in and of itself. I feel like that's a really valid question that she asked. What if? What if? There are always what if's, but what is safer? Meagan: Right, right. For patients or parents that are going for a TOLAC, a trial of labor after a Cesarean, and then may require or end up going to have that Cesarean, there is also a slightly increased risk of postpartum infection. Julie: Yes. Meagan: And also some possible complications. You just touched on it a little bit, but when a uterus is already contracting– so I'm going to backpedal a little bit. When we go in for an elective Cesarean, typically we are not already in labor. We're not already having contractions so performing a Cesarean on a contracting uterus can possibly cause some issues there as well. That is sometimes why a lot of providers don't want an elective Cesarean to even go to 40 weeks or past. They want to have an elective earlier on. That may also help give you some understanding of why providers are saying that. But yeah, it just slightly increases in other ways. Yeah. Anyway, keep going. Julie: No, I love that. I just don't think we've ever– I mean, we do in our course and things like that. We talk about it directly, but that's something to consider. I think that's also really important. I feel like it adds the extra layer of where you want to make sure you have a really good provider because if you have a provider who is not really supportive or who is giving you tons of red flags or who is saying that you have to induce because of a big baby– I'm surprised that big baby isn't in some of these questions, to be honest. We can talk about that a little bit later, but it's really important. That's something to consider. It's all about weighing the risks and what risks are you more comfortable with taking on? Are you more comfortable taking on the risk of going into a vaginal birth attempt– you want to try for a VBAC– and having the possibility of it ending in a repeat Cesarean? The possibility of it ending in a repeat Cesarean varies depending on where you are birthing. If it is a home birth, you have a 10% chance of it ending in a Cesarean. Statistically, nationwide, you have a 30-40% chance of it ending in a repeat Cesarean. But if you have a really good provider, there's probably only a 10-20% chance of it ending in a repeat Cesarean. Sometimes, if you have a really bad provider, you might be looking at a 50 or 60 or 70% chance of having a repeat Cesarean. So what is an acceptable risk for one person is not for another. If that just sounds too scary for you or are risks that you are not willing to take, then maybe scheduling a repeat Cesarean is the right choice for you and that's okay. But if you're a diehard and want to fight the system to prove everybody wrong no matter what the costs are, then maybe you just want to have a VBAC and that's okay. Not that that's a bad thing, but it's also probably not a very healthy way of thinking. I was like that. I'm like, “I'm getting my VBAC and I'm going to do everything I can to safely set up the best chances for me and my baby.” That's why I ultimately chose an out-of-hospital birth with a really amazing provider who had tons of experience in all types of birth situations. But I don't know. I think that's super important and something to consider. We're not trying to scare anyone here, but we are never going to lie to you. We're never going to dance around the issues. We're never going to sugarcoat things. Meagan: Yeah. Yeah. I think that was a good question. Okay, well if it really is safer to have a vaginal birth, what's the safety here? Yeah. I really loved that question a lot. Julie: I wish I had some statistics off of the top of my head, to be honest. I'm pretty sure we wrote a blog about it. VBAC versus a repeat Cesarean. Meagan: Okay. I'm going to bounce to this next question– Julie: Wait, wait, wait, wait. Wait, wait, wait, wait. I have something. Meagan: Did you find a stat? Julie: No. Well, yes actually. I found the blog. If you guys want to know more about the blogs, I'm not going to get into it because we want to move on to all of these other questions. Our wonderful transcriber, Paige, is going to put a link to the blog in the show notes so make sure you check it out and it goes in super, really big detail about all of those statistics, and pros and cons for all of those things. I say our transcriber, but you know what I mean. I feel like it's still us. It's still we, right? I don't know. I'm never going to not feel like that. Maybe one day. No, probably not. I miss it so much. Meagan: Probably not. No, probably not. Julie: Sorry, let's go on. Cook vs Foley CatheterMeagan: No, you're fine. So I want to talk about catheters. Not catheters to drain urine, but the catheters to help with an induction. Someone asked, “What's the difference?” We'll even hear in Utah a Cook versus a Foley. A Foley catheter can also be the type that actually goes into your bladder through your urethra and drains urine but there's also a Foley catheter that can help induce labor. There's Cook and Foley. One of the questions was, “What is the difference between the two?” Really, the only difference is that a Cook has a double-balloon and the Foley is not a double. There's just one. If you can– I don't even know how to give this image. How would you give this image of what a Cook catheter is like? The catheter with two balloons on it? I don't know, like ice cream? Oh, you're muted. Julie: I'm sitting over here dancing. Meagan: She's dancing in this image and I'm like, “She's saying something.” I'm thinking of a double scoop of ice cream.Julie: I'm thinking it's kind of like a barbell. Yeah. Or like a barbell, right? If you think of a cartoon barbell with the balls on the end but much shorter. Meagan: Yeah. Both of them are inflated with saline. It's inserted through the cervix, the balloons are inflated, and then they put pressure mechanically onto the cervix which causes pressure and dilation and effacement and things like that. Yeah. It's been a really long time since these have been being used. We will see, once in a while, providers say that a catheter, Cook or a Foley, is a contraindication for someone who wants to have a VBAC. That is kind of hard. It's really interesting. It's just a balloon that goes in. There's no medicine that is put in at all. It's just saline and like I said, it's a mechanical dilation. So if you are curious about methods of induction that your provider is comfortable with, I would encourage you before you get to the 37th, 38th, 39th, 40th, 41st, and 42nd week of pregnancy to discuss with your provider more about a Cook catheter and what they are comfortable with. It is really hard because sometimes, those catheters can be one of the best ways to help induce a cervix or a TOLAC for someone who is wanting to go for a VBAC because they can't always just do other ripening aids and this can definitely help with the cervical ripening to help get to that further progress of having a baby. Julie: I love it. I think it's silly sometimes how providers will not induce with a Foley for VBAC. I just don't get it because there's no solid evidence that supports not doing that. I just think– me and you, we've seen so many VBACs induced with that. It's been fine and healthy. There is just not anything out there. I know every provider has their things that they will and won't do. If you have a provider that won't do that, then you might want to talk to another provider. Meagan: Now that we kind of know that there are two different types, let's talk a little bit about the differences. There is a difference in what they do. Why would we even use them? Which one is better? I think that is a big question. Which one is better to use? I'm just going to tell you after some evidence that a Cook catheter for cervical ripening has greater results. What have you seen, Julie? What have you seen in the past?Julie: Honestly, I'm trying to think if I've ever seen anybody use the Cook catheter. I think I've only seen Foleys to be honest. I'm trying to think back. Maybe there has been one but I just can't think of any. Meagan: I've only seen one. Yep, I've only seen one and it was up at the University Hospital here in Utah. They used that. She was barely half of a centimeter dilated and 30% effaced, very little. They used that for softening really, but the Cook catheter, I think, through studies has shown that it is more effective or has greater cervical ripening compared to the Foley. However, in fact, I'm going to hurry and pull this up. I'm just going to read this. It shows, “The duration from the balloon insertion to it exiting and delivery was significantly shorter using a Foley catheter.” Julie: Interesting. Meagan: Yeah. So Cook catheter has a greater result of actually ripening the cervix, but the Foley has a greater success rate overall from start to finish. I mean, I have seen so many people with Foleys. It sounds weird because sometimes, everyone is like, “You're suggesting Pitocin?” I'm not suggesting it. I'm just saying that I have seen a Foley placed with Pitocin at 4mL, just a little bit, and it is insane sometimes how great the result is. Sometimes when the Foley comes out– maybe you've seen this– it's a mechanical dilation so it kind of relaxes just a little. It's not like we go backward. It just kind of relaxes like it's overstretched and it relaxes. Then we have to catch up, right? But I have seen where with there is a tiny, tiny lift of Pitocin being involved–Julie: You don't have that relaxing as much, yeah. Meagan: Yeah. I don't see where it's like, “Oh, you're a 4,” and then they check and they're like, “Well, you're kind of a 3.” Listeners, I just want you to know that that's a thing too. If a Foley comes out, remember that it's a mechanical dilation in your cervix. It may be stretchy-stretchy, but you might not be a full 4 or whatever. So talking about top to bottom, Julie you just mentioned that a little bit ago. With me, do you want to talk about that?Julie: Yeah. Well, I mean, the Cook catheter has two balloons essentially that they fill up with saline. The Cook has two balloons. The Foley has one. The idea with the Cook catheter is that it puts pressure on both ends of the cervix. My gosh, I don't know if we even said how they put it in. You insert a catheter in through the cervix and then the Cook has two balloons on either end that they inflate so it pushes to soften and open the cervix. Then, the Foley only has one balloon that they put. They insert it into the top through the cervix inside of the uterus and inflate it there with the balloon. They tape it to your leg and it pulls. Meagan: They tug it. Julie: You've got to tug it and it pulls down. It provides a lot of pressure so that the cervix can soften and open. All of my clients have just been pretty uncomfortable with it in. They feel some relief when it comes out because then it just falls out. It pulls out at some point. Honestly, I don't know. This is maybe making me sound like an idiot but do they tape the Cook catheter to the leg or not? I don't know. Meagan: I did not see it taped to the leg. Julie: I'm wondering if maybe that's why the Foley is more successful because you're having just one downward motion instead of two pressures going toward each other. I don't know. I don't know. Meagan: Yeah, maybe. It's kind of interesting because with the Foley, every 20-30 minutes, they're wanting you to pull on it. Julie: I don't know if they do that with the Cook. Meagan: I don't either because we haven't seen enough. Julie: Yeah. Meagan: So if you're listening today, go comment in today's episode. If you had a Cook catheter, let us know what happened. Tell us about it. Tell us what your experience was. I think they said in the study that really, there was no significant difference in the outcomes specifically between the two having more Pitocin or the mode of delivery or anything like that. It's just that the Cook catheter had a greater result of cervical ripening and the Foley catheter maybe shortened the duration but there wasn't any crazy, significant difference of mode of delivery or your for sure had to use Pitocin with a Cook or anything like that. So that's interesting. Julie: Yeah, interesting. The point is that it is safe for VBAC. This is another thing. I'm going on a teeny little soapbox that I'm going to get off really fast, but why does it take the burn of proof to show that something is or is not evidence-based or is a reasonable patient? Rely on the patient. If your provider says, “No, it's dangerous. We can't do Foley for a VBAC,” make them show you why. Ask them where the source is coming from. I don't understand why we have to bring the stuff to show that it is safe. Why? It's stupid. Meagan: I don't know. I don't know. Why? Julie: Why? Meagan: I mean, even the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology says– Julie: Yeah, and that's ACOG's journey. Meagan: They say, “Foley catheter did not increase the risk of uterine rupture in TOLAC.” It says that. “Similar, uterine scar dehiscence was not associated with a Foley catheter.” I don't ever want to make it sound like we are bashing a provider or it's a show bashing providers, but we're having providers tell people that they have zero option to be induced especially if there's a medical reason. Sometimes there's a medical reason. We've got preeclampsia or something is going on, but this mom wants to have a trial of labor and a VBAC, but then her cervix isn't super great for induction. We're being robbed of these options. They even say, “The data shows the Foley catheter is a safe tool for mechanical dilation in women undergoing a trial of labor after a Cesarean.” If your provider is saying that you're not a candidate or it's a contraindication for VBAC, then maybe I invite you to have a discussion with them. Right? An open discussion of, “Okay, what I have learned is that it's not necessarily a contraindication. Is there new evidence that we're not aware of?” Maybe there is. Maybe there's new evidence. Julie: There's not. Meagan: I know, but right? Maybe they have secret evidence. Julie: Give them the benefit of the doubt, right? Meagan: Is there new evidence that we're not aware of and is there any way that we can have a conversation about it? Can we talk about this because if it is, then okay? But if not–Julie: Well, and honestly, gosh. I just think that it's just something that they've heard or something that their practice does or something that the hospital says. You know, I mean, we all do it in our lives. Our mom says, “Oh, this and this. Oh, you should never cook with refined sugar. You should always use granulated sugar.” I don't know. I'm not a baker so it's probably not a good example. But you know, and then you go throughout your life like, “Oh, my mom says you should never cook with this type of sugar,” but that type of sugar is totally fine. Someone you trust had told you that so it's just ingrained in your belief. I have those things. Meagan: It's like the trans-fat argument. Julie: Yes. It's like, my gosh. How many beliefs do we hold that maybe we know they're just silly, but it's just something we've known for so long that doing it otherwise would feel so foreign to us. There are so many things in the system like that where the providers aren't meaning to do harm, it's just the way that they've been taught. It doesn't give them an excuse. Oh my gosh, there was a quote the other day that popped up in my feed. I was arguing online with some photographer about birth photography and I got a little heated because I was super tired because I'd been to three births in four days and I was awake for 16 hours through the night. Anyway, but a little while later, some unrelated person posted this quote in their stories and I like it because it goes along with what I was just talking about. It says, “Don't assume malice. Assume ignorance. Life is easier. The world is kinder and you can educate. Actual malice is pretty rare, I find.” Then somebody else commented and said, “I always remember Hanlon's Razor. Never assume malice when incompetence will suffice as an explanation. With that said, never forget Fred Clark's lot either. Sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice. There is a certain point at which ignorance becomes malice at which there is simply no way to become that ignorant except deliberately and maliciously.” I'm going to forward this to you. Meagan: I was just going to say will you forward that because that is amazing. Never just assume malice. Julie: Assume ignorance. They just don't know. It's okay because there are lots of things we don't know too but when it gets to the point where you're just completely refusing to see that there's any other way, then that's where it gets to be malice and aggressive. But I love a provider or a nurse when I'm in the delivery room doing peanut ball or Spinning Babies and the nurse is like, “Oh, tell me more about that.” That is a position of maybe ignorance and they want to learn and do better. They just don't know those things. But when you have a nurse come in who says, “Oh, we don't use the peanut ball before 7 centimeters because it doesn't do anything,” that is a malicious form of ignorance. Meagan: Yeah. Yeah. Okay, I love that so, so much. Thank you for sharing that. Julie: You're welcome. I'm glad I screenshotted it. Cervical LipsMeagan: Me too. Okay, one of the questions is about cervical lips. Julie: Mmm. Meagan: I know, it's a good question. It's hard because it happens and it's frustrating if it doesn't go away. Right? It's like, if I make it to 9.5 centimeters and I have this lip that will not go away, one– why doesn't it go away? Why does it happen? Two– how can I get it away? What are some ways? It sucks if that is the only reason why a Cesarean happens. Julie: Well, first do you want to say what a cervical lip is just in case people don't know? Meagan: Yep, yep. Julie: Oh, me? Well, a cervical lip is just where your cervix is almost fully dilated, but there is just a little sliver of it, or part of it– so if you imagine a crescent moon shape, where part of your cervix is all the way gone behind baby's head and there is just a little sliver of it on some part of the baby's head coming over. Just a teeny bit. Just like a lip. Just like a little lip. Meagan: Yes. So when we have cervical lips, sometimes pressure on that part of the cervix helps it melt away and thin. We work through positions like what Julie was saying by using a peanut ball or we make you more central through a squat or sitting on the toilet. Sometimes it's an anterior lip. Sometimes it's way on the side. Sometimes it's a little puffier in the back. Sometimes we will use positions to help get rid of that lip.But it's really hard because sometimes even through positions, that lip sometimes doesn't go away. Sometimes it can be massaged or it can be advanced. I'm happy to continue but I want to give you an opportunity to talk too. Julie: No, you're good. Meagan: But advancing, right? Julie: The provider will hold it during a contraction and push it back. That's really painful if you don't have an epidural. If you have an epidural, that's a good way to do it. The medical system is going to hate me for saying this, but I've also seen people push through a contraction when they have a cervical lip and it slips right over baby's head. You don't want to push too much with a cervical lip also because it can cause the cervix to swell if it's a positional issue. There are a whole bunch of things you can do, but Meagan, I think you were right on track when you were talking about movement, positions, squatting, and all of those things to help put that pressure on and help straighten baby's head out. I mean, it's not always because of the baby's head, but it could be. Squatting and putting that pressure down is just going to really help. Meagan: Yeah, so when a provider is holding it and helping it, I call it an advance. Advancing it over the baby's head. Sometimes it just needs to slip over the baby's head. It's so stretchy. Julie: It will stay there. Meagan: Sometimes, it's so stretchy that it will just go away. I'm always giving sound effects on this podcast. Sometimes it's like we're trying, trying, and trying, but then we have possible issues because then we're swelling. We're aggravating it. It's tissue. It's the cervix so it can get bogged and it can swell. So if that is happening and your provider is like, “Yes. I think through this push, I can push it. I can help advance it over this baby's head and it's going to go away and we're going to have a baby,” great. It's worth trying. But if it's over and over and over again and we're advancing it and it's just not going, we are risking it to swell. So yeah. Movement. This sounds weird too. Here I am suggesting Pitocin again. Sometimes a little stronger of a contraction, just a little bit stronger of a contraction and a little bit of a lift can just put the amount of pressure on the cervix or cause the cervix to continue dilating. Then the cervix is done and you can turn the Pitocin off. That's always an option to say, “Okay. We've done this, this, and this. Let's move on.” Some providers, usually out-of-hospital providers– Julie, I don't know if you've seen this– will place Arnica. Julie: Yeah. I have seen that. Meagan: If it's starting to feel puffy or maybe have done advancing a couple of times. Julie: I love Arnica, man. It is my favorite. Arnica gel. Meagan: I love it too. Julie: Love it. Meagan: Yes. I love it. Sometimes providers will do some Arnica up there to help reduce inflammation and swelling and things like that. Cervical lips can happen for no reason really other than just it's happening. People say, “Oh, sometimes it's baby's position.” Again, maybe we want more pressure. Sometimes it's the lack of intensity. If I remember right, if you've ever had a LEEP procedure–Julie: Yeah, like some scarring on the cervix can cause that. Meagan: Yes. Yeah. So a LEEP procedure or maybe really bad cervical tearing or trauma to the cervix can create less elasticity. I don't know if that's the right word. But it can cause a cervical lip. I've also seen– this is more for the edema again on the Arnica– Benadryl. Providers give someone Benadryl because it's an antihistamine for swelling. Yeah. There are so many things that you can talk to your provider about. If you have a cervical lip, oh. Go ahead. Julie: I was going to say that sometimes, just doing nothing. Meagan: Just waiting, yes. Julie: Sometimes in labor, even us as doulas, we see, “Oh, well it looks like contractions are coupling. Let's do some abdominal lifts.” But sometimes, that's an intervention. It just is. Spinning Babies® is an intervention. It's a more natural intervention, but sometimes, maybe a lot of the time, you just need to leave it alone. I don't know. I saw this post on social media the other day that was talking about, “I hate Spinning Babies® because it's an intervention and all of these doulas and midwives are like, ‘Oh, let's do Spinning Babies®. Let's do Spinning Babies®.' It's an intervention just like Pitocin or whatever.”I don't think it's just like Pitocin, but it kind of takes away from the trust of the natural labor process when you're like, “Oh, you've got to fix this.” It's kind of, in a way, saying that we don't trust the natural labor process as much. But there are some times when it is good and beneficial to do those things. There are some times when you can't just trust the natural labor process alone, but a lot of times, you can. A lot of times, we just need to let these things be and they will resolve themselves. This is a big thing where knowing all of your options then trusting your intuition and having someone to guide you like a doula will help you know which is the right thing for you whether you want to try squatting, try different positions, try Arnica gel, or just leave it be for a little while. There's no right answer. Meagan: There is no right answer and there are these things that we can do. Sometimes they work and sometimes they don't, but we want you to know that there are things you can do. Sometimes those things just do nothing. Absolutely. Membrane SweepsSo let's talk about sweeping membranes. Talking about interventions, sweeping the membranes. I've heard it called a sweep and a scrape. Julie: Ew. Meagan: Yeah. People say “scraping the membrane”. If you don't know what sweeping the membranes is, it's when a provider will insert typically their fingers inside the cervix and separate the membrane of the amniotic sac from the cervix and do a little sweep around. That releases hormones like prostaglandins and things like that. Sometimes, it's used to induce. It's a more gentle– I don't know if that's how you say it– way of inducing. One of the questions, Julie, was, “Does it work? What are the pros and cons? Should I do this?” We do have a lot of providers that will say, “Oh, we can just strip your membranes.” What do you think? What do you say? Julie: Evidence Based Birth® used to have a great article on this. The one thing that I– okay, I love Evidence Based Birth®. Meagan: I think she still does. Julie: This is the thing though, they took away all of their articles and replaced them with just their podcast transcripts. I wish that they would have their regular blog articles still instead of just having the podcast and the transcripts which makes me a little bit sad because then you have to read through the whole thing in order to find what you are looking for. But I do love me some Evidence Based Birth®.Listen, Evidence Based Birth® does say that there is research that shows that starting regular membrane sweeps at 37 weeks of pregnancy and doing them, I think it's twice a week until delivery can shorten your pregnancy by one to two days. Personally, for me, that's not enough evidence to want to do them because you are getting 10+ cervical membrane sweeps. That is a lot for just a one or two-day shorter pregnancy. But for some people, that might be worth it to them. It's just one of those things where there is that evidence that shows, but this is the thing. Doing one membrane sweep at 40 weeks is not going to shorten your pregnancy by one or two days. It's not going to shorten your pregnancy at all. This is what the studies show. There might be some anecdotal things or your water might break prematurely and that might kickstart labor, but the one-off or the one or two membrane sweeps here and there is not statistically proven to shorten that. You have to start super early. Another thing I want to say–Meagan: Two days to have to avoid going in or having it massaged or swept twice a week? Julie: Yeah, one to two days. It would cause you so much pain and cramping and it would make you miserable. Meagan: That's the thing I wanted to say. Sometimes cervical sweeps or membrane sweeps can actually promote prodromal labor. Julie: Yeah. Meagan: Right? We're up there and we're disrupting the cervix and making it think that we need to start contracting, but our body is not really ready to labor so we're contracting, contracting, contracting, and getting exhausted, but labor is not happening. Then the next day, we're sweeping again or we're contracting again, but then really, we don't have a baby for 2-3 weeks. Right? We're exhausted when labor starts. Julie: Yeah. Meagan: Like you said, they can hurt. If our cervix is posterior, especially at 37 weeks, it's a lot more likely for our cervix to be posterior than it is anterior, they have to go in, back, and around to get to the cervix and sweep. It's not just in and out. That can cause a lot of discomfort that's really unnecessary. One of the questions is, “Does it possibly increase infection?” We are inserting something into the cervix and sweeping around, maybe yeah. Julie: Well, here's the thing though. I'm just skimming through this podcast article on Evidence Based Birth®'s website. If you want to find it, it's super easy. Just Google “Evidence Based Birth® Membrane Sweeping” and it will pop up right there for you. Meagan: They give you updated evidence on it. Don't they have it updated? It was in 2020. Julie: Yeah. It's in 2020 for sure. They break it down. There are 44 studies that they look at. Some of them show no difference. Some of them show 9% increase in artificial rupture of membranes. Premature and accidental. There are a whole bunch of varying interpretations here, but none of them are too conclusive as far as it causing that significant of a difference in when labor will start. Yes. Go and read it if you're curious. It's really good. Or you can listen to it, I guess as well. There is great stuff there. Meagan: Yeah. It's Episode 151 on Evidence Based Birth®. Yeah. Julie: Yeah. Meagan: Yeah. So I think just closing out this question as a whole, it's a personal preference. If you want to try something to encourage labor to begin on more of a natural basis, then it could be worth it. But for my personal suggestion to my doula clients and what I would do– again, I'm me. I'm not you. If I was being faced with a medical reason to induce or a concern, but I was going to be induced anyway, I would maybe try it. Does that make sense? If I was already going to be induced for a medical reason, then I would probably try it. Julie: One or two days might be beneficial for you at that point. Meagan: One or two days might be beneficial. If I can avoid going in and being hooked up to a Pit drip, then that might be better for me. That's one of my things. If I was facing an actual induction, I maybe would try it. For my actual birth, my midwife wanted to. She said, “Hey, why don't you come in and we'll strip your membranes?” I said, “Nope.” I didn't feel like I needed it. I don't know if it would weaken my membranes or accidentally rupture my membranes because that is a possible consequence. We can induce infection. We can accidentally break our water. We can weaken it as we separate it. So those types of things, for me, were not worth it. I was good to just keep going as I was. Julie: Yeah. VBA2CMeagan: Okay. What are some other questions? I know we have a couple more before we end. Julie: There's one about VBAC after two C-sections I know. Meagan: Oh yeah. Yes. Julie: Let's talk about that one. “Why do so many providers not support VBAC after two C-sections? What does the evidence say?” Meagan: Mhmm. Well, the evidence says that it is reasonable. Julie: Yeah. It is. Even ACOG says that it's reasonable. Meagan: Yep. Yep. Yep. Julie: I feel like this goes back to what we were talking to about before with that quote. I feel like most providers have just been told that it is not safe, so they say that it's not safe, so they don't do it and they don't support it. They throw around terms like, “Oh, it doubles your chance of uterine rupture. 50% chance of uterine rupture,” and things like that, right? We have the system that is just content on not wanting to have or support any evidence that will go contrary to the things that they've been taught. You see with the ARRIVE trial. We have been throwing evidence at providers that so many things reduce your chances of C-section for years. Right? Like waiting for labor to start on its own, laboring at home as long as possible, avoiding Pitocin, avoiding elective inductions, and all of those things. We've been throwing these things at providers for years about nice, safe, non-medical ways to avoid Cesareans and providers weren't interested in it all. Then all of a sudden, the ARRIVE trial comes out and they're like, “Oh, inducing at 39 weeks decreases Cesarean rates,” which, it doesn't by the way. As soon as providers are shown something that reinforces things they already know and do, they're like, “Oh, yeah. That's something I can get behind. I can do this because I already do this all of the time anyways. I already schedule inductions. I already do Pitocin. I already do these surgeries.”So when they're shown something that will reinforce their beliefs and things that they already know how to do, they're on board with it. But my gosh, you try and show them these nonmedical ways of improving birth outcomes and nobody wants to buy it because they're like, “Oh well, that's just–”. It's not how they've been trained. Meagan: It's not how they've been trained and sometimes they've seen a scary outcome. Julie: Yeah, of course. Meagan: Studies do say that women requesting for a trial of labor, a VBAC and having a VBAC, should absolutely be counseled and absolutely be offered an opportunity because we know that the success rate is as high of 71%, if not higher. 71% or higher, right? The uterine rupture rate is not much higher and if you compare VBAC after two Cesareans, maternal morbidity is really comparable to a repeat Cesarean. It's low. It's overall safe and reasonable to have a vaginal birth after two Cesareans. Julie: The risks to baby are similar. The risks to mom are actually higher in a repeat Cesarean like increased blood loss, pulmonary embolism, and maternal death is still incredibly low. Maternal death is incredibly low. We're talking about .000-something-percent, but when you're looking at it against VBAC, it's 10 times more likely for a mother to die during a Cesarean birth during a vaginal birth. I don't want to scare you because 10 times more likely sounds like a super scary number like, “Oh, you're twice as likely to have a stillbirth after you're 41 weeks,” but it's an incredibly small increase and incredibly small risk already. It's the same thing with this. It's an incredibly small risk but we don't talk about those things. Meagan: It's even harder to find evidence for vaginal birth after three or more Cesareans. That's where we don't have a lot of information. Most providers out there, to be honest, if you've had three Cesareans, it's going to be harder to find someone that will allow you to give birth vaginally. It's so hard. But it still doesn't mean that you're absolutely not a candidate or that it is a ginormous risk that completely risks everybody out. People do it and again, we were talking about it earlier. If it's a risk that you are willing to take and it's a comfortable risk for you, then that says something. Yeah. VBAC after two Cesareans is totally reasonable and totally possible. We've got lots of stories on the podcast. I'm living and walking proof. Julie: And lots of stories of VBAC after three or four Cesareans too. Meagan: Three or four, yeah. Yeah. It's totally possible. If a provider is trying to tell you that your risk of rupture really is 50-60%, then that is one– not a provider that you should probably be going to for a VBAC, but two– something that probably needs to be changed because maybe they just are really uneducated on the evidence. We're looking at just barely over 1%. It's really low. Julie: And not even that, there are several different studies. ACOG sites two studies in their practice bulletin and one of the studies shows no difference in rupture rates between VBAC and VBAC after two C-sections. The other one shows a slightly higher increase. I don't remember what the numbers are off of the top of my head, but VBAC Link does have a blog on VBAC after two C-sections. You can probably just Google “VBA2C” and it will pull up in the first or second search results, but I'm sure that Paige will probably also link it in the show notes for us. So take a look at those statistics because even ACOG says that and if ACOG says something, why are we not behind that evidence that ACOG published? Meagan: I know. It's so funny because ACOG goes through a lot to publish these things, these articles and journals, but then we're not having providers– I'm going to say midwives too. We have midwives that don't follow these practices. We have providers that don't follow it. The evidence is there. They're showing that it's there. Why aren't we doing it? CPDI know we're almost out of time, but I just really want to talk about CPD a little bit because lately in our inbox, we have been seeing a lot of people being told that they hear the stories. They see the stories and they wish they could, but they were diagnosed with CPD and they can't. They can't get a baby out of their pelvis. For those who don't know what CPD is, it's cephalopelvic disproportion. It's just pretty much saying that your pelvis is too small. Yeah. Julie and I personally have both been diagnosed. Julie: Told that, yeah, in our op reports. Here's the thing about CPD. It's incredibly rare. It's incredibly rare and most of the time comes from growing up incredibly malnourished like in third-world countries so your bones grow in a deformed way or after a traumatic pelvic injury. It's very rare for a true CPD diagnosis to come from a normal, healthy person. You can't even diagnose it without pelvic imagery exam, like an actual scan. It's not even an x-ray. If you go, “My doctor gave me an x-ray and told me my pelvis is too small.” First of all, that's not the right way to diagnose it. Second of all, pelvises– your body is so pumped full of hormones that our pelvises expand. They literally move around as baby is coming down. Babies' heads overlap, the skulls and these bones in their heads overlap and squish together and smoosh together to come out of that pelvis. Your pelvis is opening in ways that it doesn't normally and babies' heads are smooshing together in ways that they never will again, so how are you even supposed to tell how much a pelvis is going to open and expand and how much a baby's head is going to smoosh together? I will die on that hill. Man, I will die on that hill. No. You were diagnosed with CPD and that's bull crap. That diagnosis was bull crap and unless you grew up in Africa or in these poor countries. All of these African women are still having babies. Sorry, that probably sounded a little bit bad. I didn't mean to say it like that. These women are still having babies even though they were malnourished. You have to have a severe, severe deformity from malnourishment. Rickets is the disease that comes along usually wth CPD or a traumatic pelvic injury like maybe you got in a car accident. Meagan: Thrown off a horse. Julie: Or got kicked hard in there somewhere sometime by something. I don't know. But it's just not as common as people are saying. It's not. Meagan: Right. Yeah. It's just overused. So if you have been told that, I hope that through the evidence– we're going to have links here in the show notes to all of these studies and things. I hope you know that your pelvis is perfect. Julie: Your pelvis is perfect. Let's make a shirt. “My pelvis is perfect.” Make it a shirt. Do it. “My pelvis is perfect. Hashtag why we VBAC.” Meagan: Right. Okay, well thank you for being here. Thanks everybody for submitting your questions. We're going to keep doing these. We're going to bring the questions and answers. We're going to talk about them. We're going to talk about some of the statistics and the evidence behind some of this. So yeah. Make sure to watch out on our Instagram if you haven't followed us on Instagram, and I'll make sure to let you know when the next Q&A with Julie and I will be. Julie: If you're in Utah looking for a birth photographer, come and find me. My Instagram is @juliefrancombirth or you can find me at www.juliefrancom.com. I would love to support you and I would love it even more if Meagan and I could support you. So reach out, we'll give you a deal. We'll hook you up because we love being in the birth space together. Meagan: Yes, we do. We just got our first one the other day and it was awesome. Julie: It was awesome. ClosingWould you like to be a guest on the podcast? Tell us about your experience at thevbaclink.com/share. For more information on all things VBAC including online and in-person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Meagan's bio, head over to thevbaclink.com. Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-vbac-link/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Oct 27, 2023 – After this week's wrap-up with Ryan Puplava, Financial Sense Newshour discusses the market outlook with Oppenheimer's Ari Wald followed by a wide-ranging tour of the macro landscape with noted strategist Greg Weldon...
Scott Duvall shares three things we must “sufficiently retain in remembrance”: the past, the future, and our Savior, Jesus Christ. Click here to view the speech page.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Subscribe and review at Apple Podcasts and/or Spotify. Or wherever!This week I welcome back psychedelic film-maker and culture-cultivator Mitch Schultz, Director of the legendary documentary DMT: The Spirit Molecule, alongside our mutual co-conspirator, experience design consultant and psychedelic provocateur Shanta Stevens. The two of them have formed a nucleus at Uniphi Studio around which a new transmedia documentary project is emerging — The Conscious Molecule — which will reflect on the decade-plus since Schultz's groundbreaking documentary on the science and philosophy of DMT to look at these themes through a MUCH wider aperture. The three of us go deep and broad on a very far-ranging constellation of topics:(0:00:01) - AI, Psychonautics, Digital Media, Language Models, and The Third Western Psychedelic Revolution(0:17:25) - The Future of AI-Human Cooperation(0:26:42) - Consciousness, Complexity, and Panpsychism(0:31:28) - Randomness, Entanglement, Decentralization, and The Conscious Molecule(0:38:46) - Exploring Consciousness and Futures(0:42:23) - The Future of Journalism and The Role of Independent Documentaries(0:47:55) - Psychedelic Therapy and The Overview Effect(0:51:43) - Transcension Hypothesis, UFOs, and Quantum Physics(0:57:43) - Altered States, Self-Reprogramming, Initiations, and Integration(1:03:32) - Technology's Impact on Consciousness and Humanity(1:13:08) - DataViz, Hyperdimensional Passports, The Future of Identity, and The Role of CommunityIf that sounds like a whirlwind, it is! Find a cozy recliner — and maybe an eye mask — and book an appointment with your favorite peer support/integration counselor, because this is going to be a ride…NOTE: I'm delighted to drop this episode in the midst of a smoking hot debate about what does and does not qualify as “pseudoscience” in the research of consciousness (see coverage by Flora Graham and Erik Hoel). LOL✨ Support Future Fossils & Feed My Kids:• Become a patron on Substack, Patreon, and/or Bandcamp for MANY extras, including a members-only FB Group and private channels on our Discord Server• Donate directly: @futurefossils on Venmo • $manfredmacx on CashApp • @michaelgarfield on PayPal• Browse my art and buy original paintings and prints (or commission new work)• Buy (NEARLY) all of the books we mention on the show at the Future Fossils Bookshop.org page• Buy the show's soundtrack (recorded live at Psychedelic Science 2023) on Bandcamp• Follow my music and awesome, eclectic playlists on Spotify✨ Special thanks to my friends at Noonautics.org for supporting both the show and pioneering research!✨ Mentions:“Cognition All The Way Down” by Daniel Dennett and Michael Levin James Oroc Seth Lloyd David Chalmers DMT: The Spirit Molecule by Rick Strassman Infoboros: Recursion Across Mind, Matter, and Information by Vidur Mishra Darwin's Pharmacy: Sex, Plants, and The Evolution of The Noosphere by Richard DoyleAlfred North Whitehead Gregory Bateson John Conway Bruce Damer Reggie Watts Melissa Etheridge Tommy Pallotta Klee Irwin ESPD '55 Wade Davis Dennis McKenna Psychedelic Science 2023 “Corporate Metabolism” by Paco Xander-Nathan William Shatner Mark Nelson Alien Information Theory: Psychedelic Drug Technologies and the Cosmic Game by Andrew Gallimore “The transcension hypothesis: Sufficiently advanced civilizations invariably leave our universe, and implications for METI and SETI” by John Smart Ramana Maharshi Ken Wilber The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche In Over Our Heads: The Mental Demands of Modern Life by Robert Kegan Michael Persinger Luminarium by Alex Shakar“Why Ibogaine Is Not The Answer To The Opioid Crisis” by Jonathan Dickinson and Dimitri Mugianis R. Buckminster Fuller Liv Boeree Meditation Death Match✨ Keywords:AI, Artificial Intelligence, Consciousness, Reality, Panpsychic Perspective, Materialist Neurobiological Model, Daniel Dennett, Michael Levin, Cognition All the Way Down, Ethical Implications, Human Development, Information Bombs, Digital Media, Psychonauts, Cyber Culture, Third Western Psychedelic Revolution, Kickstarter, Future Fossils, Album, AI Music Videos, Patreon, Substack, Evolution of Human Beings, Data Streams, Complexity of Systems, Empathy, Life System, Documentaries, Journalism, Hollywood Strike, Unions, Documentary Funding, International Multi-Billion Dollar Psychedelic Industry, UFO Phenomenon, Altered States, Self-Reprogramming, Technology Impact, Humanity, Hyperdimensional Passport, Metaphysical Stamps, Media Ecosystem, Visualizing Data Structures, Neurological Alignment, Spirit Taking Form This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit michaelgarfield.substack.com/subscribe
Fugitive arrested… Death Song / My Way… Alien corpses in Mexico… Scissors and Cavalcante… MTV VMA's … Susan Gibson Chaturbate… Pac Man interviewed after arrest… chewingthefat@theblaze.com New Covid Booster not free… FDA / decongestants don't work… www.blazetv.com/jeffy Promo code Jeffy Google monopoly trial… Sage Blair / actual sad story… Love note of the day… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Amgen Inc. v. Sanofi (May 18, 2023) Majority Opinion Music by Epidemic Sound
Amgen Inc. v. Sanofi (May 18, 2023) Majority Opinion Music by Epidemic Sound
Matt Bunday works in crypto. He loves to rock climb, martial arts, and think about underground psychedelic therapy What is the biggest problem you've faced with knowledge management at your companies? Slack Dropped balls in communication LLMs might be the response Why do you think slack spread so fast even though its not the best product? It was a step up from email IRC was a component More friendly for non-engineering What do you think about the complexity of slack? Twist is an alternative Why is information architecture such a challenge? How do LLMs fit into this? What would happen if slack created a LLM or plugged one in? Slack workspace plug in What is a retrieval plug in? Universal adapter for any type of data Who are the incumbents in the slack knowledge management space? Guru startup What is the difference between information management and knowledge management? Knowledge management is a higher level synthesis Information management is siloing related types of information Data types Group related to information around people What are your thoughts on the membrane? Siloes Privacy is where LLMs can be very innovative If we were to share a LLM We can both specify a privacy policy to the LLM and it will follow it LLMs can intuit the privacy public distinction Are you using LLMs to code for you? Copilot Issues with difficulty to prompt it correctly You had to write comments to prompt it Inline suggestions were not good Is it better now? Haven't noticed a dramatic improvement Hard to prompt it to code in certain styles now GPT 4 is way better for a starting off point for projects Helpful for conversion processes What are the things that GPT4 has not been helpful for you? You have to chunk it What about building systems with GPT4? Code completion cool called tap9 Train the model against your local code What are some other things about KM that we can use tools for? Shared LLM for the family Surface serendipity between users If facebook were to do this One person says they are selling a couch One person is buying one LLM connects them At what point do we merge with the machines? Sufficiently high bandwidth Translation Are we already cyborgs? It began with wearing shoes Horselike Where do you fit in the excitement vs fear when it comes to AI? What parts of knowledge work will get automated? What are we losing? What is your take on bodywork? 10% investment Martial arts practices, he gets beat up Ninjiutsu Special forces for ninjas Healing and striking points on the body are the same Balance between healing/killing, if you know how to heal Unbroken transmission since 1400 What is the importance What is your take on yoga? Seven chakra system was created by theosophist Color, what deities you install Psychosomatic download systems What is your take on Japan? The meiji restorationo Controversy over this and how they lost the transmission Judo was modernized and is a sport Tradition was changed Armed combat What is the transition we are going through? What does the japanese tradition say about it? Character of Ryu; the stream Tradition is flowing through obstacles Japanese traditions need to adapt What happened when the firearm was brought to Japan? What about Japan led them to keep the strong membrane that lets in the western tools but doesn't let the westerners in culturally? Japan has a deliberate What is your take on psychedelics and wisdom transmission? Ayahuasca has changed a lot Aya was used by the healer to heal people, not the person getting healed Definitely the most impactful 5 sits in peru all in a row What is your take on LSD? What is your take on Pscyolicibin? What is your thought on Iboga? What is your take on Kambo? Western-educated buddhas What do you want in a tradition? How we humans integrate Machine Learning into a humanistic society? What is the meaning crisis that AI will take from people because of the job loss? What is social technology and how does that fit in with meaning and communities? LLMs as polytheism Goddes called Athena GPT4 to build a slackbot Read messages Layer in retrieval using embeddings to go the database Google How do you think LLMs will affect crypto? Crypto AI companies feel far fetched GPU clusters at home, training decentralized Super computer clusters have massively high bandwidth connections between the GPU units Crypto is orthogonal cultural Take GPT4 and cheaply retrain another model, getting tutors to train the model In OpenAI's research paper, jobs affected LLMs, blockchain engineers are susceptible All smart contract code is solidity Apple is building AI chips already and putting them into the phones Chatting with GPT What about apple vs openAI?
Slovakia Today, English Language Current Affairs Programme from Slovak Radio
On Saturday 22nd April we celebrated Earth Day. How did the idea of having an Earth Day come about? Is there anything to celebrate today, when we face so many challenges? Jakub Hrbáň, director of organisation Klíma ťa potrebuje will answer these questions. Are we talking, writing and addressing the climate crisis enough? Do we know the best way and language to communicate this issue? These were also the themes of last week in Bratislava. And listen to the rerun of the third round of our competition.
A listener questions my commitment to decentralization. Am I sufficiently secessionist? https://mcclanahanacademy.com https://brionmcclanahan.com/support http://learntruehistory.com --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/brion-mcclanahan/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/brion-mcclanahan/support
On this episode of Rehash we sit down with Dan Romero, co-founder of Farcaster and Warpcast to talk about all things web3 social. We kick off the episode as Dan walks us through the evolution from web1, to web2, to web3 and he shares how web3 can utilize the best elements of web1 and web2 like permissionlessness and ease of use to create a better future on the internet. To illustrate the potential of Farcaster and Warpcast, Dan explains the difference between an app and a protocol, breaks down the concept of sufficient decentralization, and shares the reasoning behind growing the Farcaster ecosystem slowly and intentionally. Tune in to hear Dan answer some questions from the community and leave listeners with the secret code for getting onto Farcaster. COLLECT THIS EPISODEhttps://www.rehashweb3.xyz/FOLLOW USRehash: https://twitter.com/rehashweb3Diana: https://twitter.com/ddwchenDan: https://twitter.com/dwrFarcaster: https://twitter.com/farcaster_xyzWarpcast: https://twitter.com/warpcast_SPONSORSLens Protocol: https://lens.xyzAmbire Wallet: https://www.ambire.com/NFT.Storage: https://twitter.com/NFTdotStorageEDITORSEllie: https://twitter.com/elliedotsTyler: https://twitter.com/tylerinternet⌛ TIMESTAMPS0:00 Intro0:39 Sponsors!4:52 Welcome Dan!5:36 The evolution of social media9:11 The best of web1 and web211:52 Twitter vs. decentralized social16:02 Farcaster and Warpcast17:46 The evolution of Farcaster22:20 Sufficient decentralization31:12 What separates Farcaster from other web3 social protocols40:00 Growing Farcaster slowly and intentionally45:56 Questions from the community54:15 Word association game55:44 Follow Dan!56:27 OutroDISCLAIMER: The information in this video is the opinion of the speaker(s) only and is for informational purposes only. You should not construe it as investment advice, tax advice, or legal advice, and it does not represent any entity's opinion but those of the speaker(s). For investment or legal advice, please seek a duly licensed professional.
The Book of Job Chapter 35-37: Affliction Is Not Removed Because, We Are Not Sufficiently Humbled. by Shawn Ozbun
Nakia Swinton is one of the hosts of Sufficiently Black, a show that explores what it means to be comfortable in your Blackness despite living in a world obsessed with stereotypes. Episode transcript Enter to win a Vocaster - we're giving one away for every episode of season 1. Season 1 of Trailer Park: The Podcast Trailer Podcast is sponsored by: Ausha, our podcast hosting provider AugXLabs, our AI video maker Capsho, an AI show notes helper Recast Studio, our audio and videogram maker Vocaster from Focusrite: WIN ONE Links mentioned: Listen to Sufficiently Black Last episode's trailer (Neuroversity ) TPP website (to submit a trailer) Email us: hello@trailerparkpod.com Instagram Connect with Arielle Connect with Tim Leave us a rating/review on Apple Find us on Pod.Link Arielle Nissenblatt and Tim Villegas are the hosts of Trailer Park: The Podcast Trailer Podcast, a show dedicated to exploring podcast trailers and the creative potential of audio. Season 1 will have eight trailer-filled episodes and some bonus content. This is our second episode! Credits: Written and produced by Tim Villegas and Arielle Nissenblatt Edited by Arielle Nissenblatt Mixed and mastered by Tim Villegas Cover art by Caio Slikta
Support this podcast at patreon.com/qaf, Venmo@ThePurpleAmazon, or paypal.me/RissyMcCoolThis week, we talk about the negotiations we have to do when encountering others in the wild, both internally and externally. Also how sometimes, not the greatest but not bad is perfectly fine. Music by The Midnight
This week, Mohanad and Kate discuss the East Palestine train derailment. Then, Kate speaks in-depth with author Malcolm Harris on his new book "Palo Alto". show notes: - https://www.levernews.com/buttigieg-pretends-hes-powerless-to-reduce-derailment-risks/ - https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/12/why-capitalism-needs-sick-people.html Follow Malcolm on Twitter: https://twitter.com/BigMeanInternet Kate and Mohanad can be found on Twitter at @KateWillett and @MohanadElshieky Subscribe to the Patreon here: www.patreon.com/replyguys Hosts: Kate Willett and Mohanad Elshieky Producer: Genevieve Gearity Theme Song: Emily Frembgen and Kate Willett Artwork: Adrienne Lobl
Sufficiently recovered from the gummy episode we dived into John Kelly's book, the SOTU address, MTG redux, Rick Scott, GOP Afraid Trump will win, then lose, Netflix password sharing, that pesky Chinese balloon, Santos, Pence Subpoena and Chuck Grassley. Enjoy.
Today we are chatting with Dan Romero, Co-founder of Farcaster. In our conversation, we will discuss the rise of a decentralized social, compare different levels of decentralization, and explain why Farcaster has chosen a sufficiently decentralized approach. And what is that? We'll also cover identity systems and content moderation in decentralized networks and explore the permissionless innovation ecosystem built for developers at Farcaster, which is evident by the growing number of applications built there. To learn more about Dan and Farcaster, you can follow them on Twitter dwr and farcaster_xyz, respectively. And please remember to like and subscribe wherever you listen to this podcast. And give us a 5-star review. This helps our content reach more people like you. You can also find our full podcast archive on our website @ cryptosapiens.xyz. Crypto Sapiens is produced in partnership with Bankless DAO. https://bankless.community --- Crypto Sapiens hosts lively discussions with innovative Web3 builders to help everyone learn about decentralized money systems, including Ethereum, Bitcoin and DeFi. https://www.cryptosapiens.xyz/ Join our community https://discord.gg/kzKA9RQTb4 __ Mint a Publication https://lenstube.xyz/cryptosapiens.lens https://mirror.xyz/cryptosapiens.eth --- Subscribe to our Newsletter https://cryptosapiens.substack.com/ ------------- --- https://twitter.com/CryptoSapiens https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC26aOc_4vSGiQATW1V4e9Tw https://www.instagram.com/cryptosapiensofficial/ https://www.facebook.com/CryptoSapiens-Podcast-107678875061018 Connect with Humpty Calderon https://twitter.com/humptycalderon --- --- Not financial or tax advice. This channel is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.
Sufficiently prepared, our heroes go toe to toe with death itself on the steps up to Renchurch! Will this reaper of souls stop them cold before they can even get in the door? Find out now! Website: hideouslaughterpodcast.com Patreon: patreon.com/hideouslaughter Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/hideouslaughterproductions BESTOW CURSE RSS: https://feed.podbean.com/bestowcurse/feed.xml Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/shop/HideousLaughterPod Discord: https://discord.gg/ruG6hxB Email: thehideouslaughterpodcast@gmail.com Twitter/Snapchat: @laughterhideous Facebook/Instagram: @hideouslaughterpod Reddit: reddit.com/r/HideousLaughter Die Hard Dice Code: Hideous Background Music: Syrinscape Theme Song By Kevin McLeod
In this episode, Curt Mercadante discusses the benefits of grounding, or earthing, for your physical, mental, emotional health.
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