Jacek @jacek@mastodon.technology

Context is:

- there is a child sexual abuse problem in Poland in context of Catholic Church;
- we don't know the scale cause nobody cares to count abuse instances (well some people do care but government does not*)
- getting damages money is super hard; cause priests have no property and church does not acknowledge responsibility;
1/
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* arguably current party is just hostile to church child abuse survivors. But previous didn't care either.
#Poland #CatholicChurch

Nationalists (or facists) would say that #Poland was attacked in World War 2 by (choose from the list below):

* Atheists
* Communists (of course S in NSDAP stands for Socialism)
* German nation & Russian Nation

What they omit is that we were rather attacked by two nationalistic regimes (N stands for National). Soviet Russia was somwhat cosmopolitan, but in practice being a Russian in Poland was somewhat a priveledged position too.

Right now we have very big "Black Protest" marches, as ruling party decided to enforce (already very strict) abortion restrictions in Poland.

Basically woman would be forced to birth with severe defects (even ones that will die in first day of life).

They also started using terms like: "unborn human", "unborn patient".

This is all to appease to Catholic Church (after bishops publicly urged the government to hasten this legislation)

#poland #politics

I'm reading "We are satellites".

USA is so weird. High schools with ”track scholarship” (that is scholarship for sports achievements). Army recruiting in High School. I can believe that the two above are non fiction part of the book, yet something that couldn't happen in Poland...

#SffBookClub

I'm listening to "The Galaxy, and the Ground Within" by Becky Chambers (we read two of her books on #SFFBookClub).

I like it very much. It is "classical wayfarer series novel" (i.e. fluffy space operish novel without a lot of violence and mostly about sentient species talking to each other).

4. When I enter the tram I can't validate the ticket as it timed out.
5. I can buy new ticket but it also did not validate (apparently first ticket blocks that).

Why can't "buy ticket" flow be easy?

2. I have exactly 10 seconds to input the PIN code. Good I'm able bodied. And there is a stressful countdown with big red shrinking progress bar.
3. I get prompt to validate the ticket before I can use it. I need to find a QR code inside the tram (but I'm not in the tram, as the whole buy ticket flow needs good connection so I did it before I was in the tram).

2/n

I dislike public transport in Warsaw. They made all aspects of buying a single ticket stressful (and I'm cutting down stress sources).

Here is what happened today:

1. I but a cheapest ticket.The application asks me for application pin (which I hardly remember as they ask for the pin only when buying tickets in Warsaw, much more expensive train tickets are not protected by pin).

1/n

#SffBookClub

So far I like it. The book is dystopian, but not "watching the news" dystopian (it is different enough so I don't feel like I'm watching the news).

Game is supposed to be "ironic", and I somewhat dislike the setting.

I like the "meta gaming" part, for example at some point you need to craft "Craft imposed by the developers to gave feelings of progression", which was fun.

Other than that the setting makes little sense, it looks soviet communist, but somehow the rocket was launched by company.

Moreover most of the "humor" is about toilets and farting

1/2

I'm playing: Breathedge game (shop link: https://www.gog.com/game/breathedge).

I really like it! For me it's distilled scavenger game, which is in-line with all my basic instincts in computer games (I usually finish them with as much unnecessary stuff as possible).

Main game-play looks like that: you exit a spaceship, and need to scavenge as much as possible and get back before air in your suit runs out.

This looks stressful, but it's not the case for me.

1/n

#Game #Gaming #BreathEdge #GameReview

I stopped watching the news.

My father is like: This government will stop at nothing to regain power, as <very specific example to tthe general rule>.
I'm like: I know the general rule, what does getting another example help?

I don't have the energy to care about the specifics right now.

After watching Polish actual role-play podcast "Sesje Na Podsłuchu", I made a second attempt to like "Friends At The Table" which is a actual role-play podcast in English. And now I'm hooked.

This time I started with the Marielda series: https://friendsatthetable.net/category/Marielda.

If you know Polish here is the link to "Sesje Na Podsłuchu": https://www.podsluchane.pl/napodsluchu/ .

Some Soviet SF authors will answer that it is not enough. I think that Strugatsky brothers would answer than this is not enough.

I dunno, it's a good start, and improvement from what we got already.

For me most important question from the TV series is: "Is it enough to satisfy all needs of (most?) citizens to be considered an utopia".

If the answer is yes, then the TV series is clearly a story of failing utopia.

Book is also racist. It uses the word: "negro", I think that this was an element of the world? Is it OK to have racism described in a dystopia?

And yes in the book the underclass is A) mostly black B) kept at low intelligence due to bio-engineering.

Also I feel that writing dystopias is getting harder than ever in XXI century.

In the TV series all the castes had their basic needs filled. Of course working class was hurt by the ruling class, but at least they lived a struggle-free life, like you do your work, and you get your basic needs filled on a level that 90% of current Earth population would be envious of.

So they tried to do a dystopia, but it was better run than what we have now.

One aspect where the book is clearly better is that in book the society still is clearly capitalistic/free-market.

In the TV series we have some kind of soft well-run totalitarian regime with free stuff and all basic needs fulfilled.

Society in the TV series really wasn't sustainable though, they were like not maintaining their infrastructure. The critical infrastructure seemed to be hidden in some forgotten sewers and nobody had access.

The way society is described in the TV series is described it reminded me one Rick And Morty Episode.

Q: How do you ensure good maintenance to your Virtual Reality Rig?
A: You build a small civilization dedicated to maintaining it, and you design the civilization to be stable since they need to maintain the VR-rig for a couple of millenia.

I watched the TV series and I'm re-reading the book.

The book is better.

Review in the thread.

I got fiber connection at last!

Current situation is that network switch that is lying on my desk is the network bottleneck.

This seems kinda extravagant.

TOR has a giveaway of The Unspoken Name by A. K. Larkwood

So far this reads somewhat like The Tombs of Atuan, but I have no idea if it will be good.

https://www.tor.com/2021/03/02/download-a-free-ebook-of-the-unspoken-name-by-a-k-larkwood-before-march-6/?utm_source=exacttarget&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_term=tordotcom-tordotcomnewsletter&utm_content=na-readblog-blogpost&utm_campaign=tordotcom&e=aba75f4c4d37d326f5134a400472dfbd0b6a3eea0bc360b38b896331c58bf41f

#SFFBookClub