Puella Magi Adfligo Systema
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mCooperative
meanderingCephalopod
- Location
- Back in Mitakihara after like 1000 years.
Having returned from my exam panic, I vote.
[x] Vebyast
Apologies, I'm relatively new to this thread, read it all faster than not, and I did not pick up on that subtlety. I'll keep that in mind from now on. Also, my most recent memory was a moment that left me with the impression that a lack of detail in the vote led to a minor miss-step. How accurate this impression was, is in retrospect questionable, because this last week has been three exams three projects two other assignments, and two more projects next week, and the corresponding level of stress and poor time management. Not an excuse for my lack of comprehension, but I'll try and double check any of my conclusions from now on.
Looking back at your most immediate vote before the post of mine you are referencing, I seem to have missed the entire "(After you talk with the Shizukis)." part of the last line. I do not remember seeing it, which is a problem on my part; I should not have been weighing in on votes while distracted by other issues, when I have a clear track record of loosing entire sections of text under similar circumstances. I apologise, I was not attempting to fearmonger. While I do still have reservations on even the week-long timescale that we are working with here, they are motivated by more personally modified risk assessments, and given the context in which we're working, the votes preceding my post are much more reasonable than I had thought or implied. Again, I apologise.
I also believe I misrepresented what I was trying to communicate about my thoughts about the setup of our proposed handling of justice, however, I feel at this time other people are communicating their ideas more effectively than I am consistently able to do, so I will refrain from weighing in on the topic generally for the moment except where I have specific thoughts.
[x] Vebyast
Apologies, I'm relatively new to this thread, read it all faster than not, and I did not pick up on that subtlety. I'll keep that in mind from now on. Also, my most recent memory was a moment that left me with the impression that a lack of detail in the vote led to a minor miss-step. How accurate this impression was, is in retrospect questionable, because this last week has been three exams three projects two other assignments, and two more projects next week, and the corresponding level of stress and poor time management. Not an excuse for my lack of comprehension, but I'll try and double check any of my conclusions from now on.
Looking back at your most immediate vote before the post of mine you are referencing, I seem to have missed the entire "(After you talk with the Shizukis)." part of the last line. I do not remember seeing it, which is a problem on my part; I should not have been weighing in on votes while distracted by other issues, when I have a clear track record of loosing entire sections of text under similar circumstances. I apologise, I was not attempting to fearmonger. While I do still have reservations on even the week-long timescale that we are working with here, they are motivated by more personally modified risk assessments, and given the context in which we're working, the votes preceding my post are much more reasonable than I had thought or implied. Again, I apologise.
I also believe I misrepresented what I was trying to communicate about my thoughts about the setup of our proposed handling of justice, however, I feel at this time other people are communicating their ideas more effectively than I am consistently able to do, so I will refrain from weighing in on the topic generally for the moment except where I have specific thoughts.
- Location
- The Surface Of A Hostile Planet
It's in the vote in abeyance.
Apology accepted. I do hope to hear more from you after your exams, you've done good commentary in the past!
AuraTwilight
The Sorcerer of Smiles
- Location
- The Silver City
Tonight, after dinner.
- Location
- Potato land
[X] Vebyast
Instrumentally speaking, and putting aside their right to know, the adults we absolutely need in meguca lives asap are therapists. Legal scholars or ins for legitimate business will be nice for the future, but can wait. Truth is that what we've built in Mitakihara thus far is a wobbly house of cards that QB can completely topple by spending five minutes talking to our friends about infohazards. And I believe he will absolutely do this if our actions start affecting his global energy yield in a meaningful way.
So yes, therapists, starting with Mami and Oriko, whose problems have the nice property of being largely unrelated to the specifics of meguca life. Homura is unfortunately a much more difficult case.
Problem is, if it can result in infinite grief generation, it can also result in complete Grief annihilation.
Instrumentally speaking, and putting aside their right to know, the adults we absolutely need in meguca lives asap are therapists. Legal scholars or ins for legitimate business will be nice for the future, but can wait. Truth is that what we've built in Mitakihara thus far is a wobbly house of cards that QB can completely topple by spending five minutes talking to our friends about infohazards. And I believe he will absolutely do this if our actions start affecting his global energy yield in a meaningful way.
So yes, therapists, starting with Mami and Oriko, whose problems have the nice property of being largely unrelated to the specifics of meguca life. Homura is unfortunately a much more difficult case.
Problem is, if it can result in infinite grief generation, it can also result in complete Grief annihilation.
The US legal system has quite serious issues beyond excessive sentences. Arguably, the excessive sentences are just a manifestation of how it's infeasible to actually hold trials for the vast majority of cases and therefore needing something to force people to surrender their right to a trial.
The Narrator
Disembodied Voice
- Location
- Somewhere Offscreen
It's more complicated than that, because traditionally 94% of cases are settled with a plea bargain, but with all the extra cases generated by "The War on Drugs" and with mandatory minimum sentencing for drug offenses (which means that they can't plea bargain), the court system is being choked under the weight of all the drug-related cases just as the prisons are being choked under the weight of all the people being convicted for drug offenses. And that's before you take into account red states with privately-run prisons that get paid by the prisoner and are run as cheaply as possible by corporations that pay off judges to give heavier sentences for minor offenses so that they can stay full.
The Narrator
Disembodied Voice
- Location
- Somewhere Offscreen
You've also got to do away with privately-run, for-profit prisons, because why would anyone ever think that was a good idea, what the fuck? Also re-institute the rehabilitation and education programs that have suffered serious budget cuts to reduce recidivism and improve the living conditions and reduce the prisoner-on-prisoner violence to keep prisons from being hellholes that turn petty criminals into outright monsters to survive, and just generally change the public's attitude towards convicts....
It's a bigger issue than just the drug offenders, but they're a big part of why the system is being crushed under its own weight.
- Location
- USA, Midworld world line
Therapists. I agree, we must find out how to do this, and get high quality care. Magical Girls are hardly ever going to come equipped with the life skills they need. And given the stakes, we need best-of-the-best people for our friends. Our next questions are how, and how many?
Let me invite you and us to have that brainstorming session starting now?
My first move is to "imagine how we meet and hire these people." We are essentially opening a clinic, and not a small one either. We start at the first cup of tea, and find one special healer. But it is easy to see we need to prepare to scale this in the near future. It will be a public utility of sorts, if I am correct. Our first hire has to be given a background lecture, but more than that, has to adapt to our worldview. Anything less is too dangerous.
How would you indoctrinate a professional like this?
Sabrina is already wayyy above that standard. We have very poor rough edges, and must prevent ourselves from stumbling, but we are walking the path. And hugging. Our intention is better, and our budget is larger (well, so far the Yakuza kindly has a large budget for our benevolence ; ) )
Given the nature of our citizens, we must strive for reduced stigma in general, as well as specific convict stigma. Sabrina sure is a great model for that behavior. We should hope to make this obvious and normal, even for girls raised in Japan.
Aranfan
Team Plasma Grunt
I mean, I'm a retributivist. So I believe justice is proportionate punishment. To punish someone beyond what is proportionate with their crime is just... everything in excess is a new crime committed by the punisher. The US causes a lot of crime. Far better to err on underpunishing like the nordic system instead of overpunishing like the US.
The Narrator
Disembodied Voice
- Location
- Somewhere Offscreen
I'm hoping that, as rich and powerful people, the Shizukis might have connections and would be able to put us in touch with a psychiatrist who's used to dealing with outrageous situations, extremely discrete and probably expensive.
- Location
- Where I need to be
While it is interesting to try to include adults (though suggesting Therapists in Japan's culture, has a strong chance to be straight up turned down due to social stigma), I kind of suspect that it is going to eventually hit a wall.
Kyubey.
Kyubey probably has loads of logical sounding reasons thought up on making including adults seem like a horrible idea (and frankly there are a lot of horrible chances of that backfiring if not selective enough, but that has already been discussed, and the vote is to be selective about it, so I digress), and has probably poisoned a lot of different Magical Girls to the idea already. And since many Magical Girls have a very us vs them mindset, and can quite literally say that the adults can't possibly understand their point of view, Kyubey should be able to cause a significant backlash from our decisions in the Magical community. Especially if we are to try to make a legal system with the help of adults, which would almost inevitably result in a heavy change in what is acceptable and what is not.
Furthermore, anything that might damage its system to much will eventually be addressed.
When Kyubey stopped wiping Hitomi's mind it was because we asked, but we certainly don't have the ability to make Kyubey not erase memories if it doesn't want to. It probably has had situations like this happen before, and so has counters explain why it is "necessary" to do so.
While the Miki's I see us being able to bring into the loop without Kyubey going too far, bringing in therapists and legal experts and those not "friends and family" will probably end with it taking action to keep its system from spiraling out of control.
Before seriously considering bringing too many adults into the know, we need to first have an ironclad defense against Kyubey tampering with the memories of mundanes (maybe an enchantment, though that risks them having their memories altered after they put down/take of the item, which most would do, if only to shower). We also need to foil Kyubey using this as a lever to bring more conflict into the system, by turning multiple other girls against us.
And lastly, we also have to consider whether or not it is worth attempting before Walpurgisnacht and the Source of the Feathers is dealt with. We already have a lot on our plates, and frankly, this is a large undertaking. Honestly to the extent that I don't know if it would even fully bear fruit by the time the quest ends even if we hard focused on it to the exclusion of many of our other plot points.
Well it is an important thing, everything becomes meaningless if we fail to address those two opponents properly and Homura is forced to reset time, rendering all our work to nothing.
(Yes, we are only talking about it now in the current vote, but should keep it in mind going forward).
Kyubey.
Kyubey probably has loads of logical sounding reasons thought up on making including adults seem like a horrible idea (and frankly there are a lot of horrible chances of that backfiring if not selective enough, but that has already been discussed, and the vote is to be selective about it, so I digress), and has probably poisoned a lot of different Magical Girls to the idea already. And since many Magical Girls have a very us vs them mindset, and can quite literally say that the adults can't possibly understand their point of view, Kyubey should be able to cause a significant backlash from our decisions in the Magical community. Especially if we are to try to make a legal system with the help of adults, which would almost inevitably result in a heavy change in what is acceptable and what is not.
Furthermore, anything that might damage its system to much will eventually be addressed.
When Kyubey stopped wiping Hitomi's mind it was because we asked, but we certainly don't have the ability to make Kyubey not erase memories if it doesn't want to. It probably has had situations like this happen before, and so has counters explain why it is "necessary" to do so.
While the Miki's I see us being able to bring into the loop without Kyubey going too far, bringing in therapists and legal experts and those not "friends and family" will probably end with it taking action to keep its system from spiraling out of control.
Before seriously considering bringing too many adults into the know, we need to first have an ironclad defense against Kyubey tampering with the memories of mundanes (maybe an enchantment, though that risks them having their memories altered after they put down/take of the item, which most would do, if only to shower). We also need to foil Kyubey using this as a lever to bring more conflict into the system, by turning multiple other girls against us.
And lastly, we also have to consider whether or not it is worth attempting before Walpurgisnacht and the Source of the Feathers is dealt with. We already have a lot on our plates, and frankly, this is a large undertaking. Honestly to the extent that I don't know if it would even fully bear fruit by the time the quest ends even if we hard focused on it to the exclusion of many of our other plot points.
Well it is an important thing, everything becomes meaningless if we fail to address those two opponents properly and Homura is forced to reset time, rendering all our work to nothing.
(Yes, we are only talking about it now in the current vote, but should keep it in mind going forward).
- Location
- USA, Midworld world line
A fine starting point. My question actually goes a bit further. To clarify, by "indoctrinate" I mean to motivate and teach them the Magical Girl System. If they make unfortunate assumptions, there could be injuries or Grief spirals. But I think that is entirely preventable. This person can't "work within the client's bounds" however we could present it in abstract; they must understand these facts as surely as they know their own teeth. Safety First.
AFAIK, Kyuubey is giving us a run on our leash for now. Sabrina is doing Very Different Things, and it is on a really small scale now. There is very positive return on her existence, as an experiment. Mitakihara is a point on a map, compared to Madoka's potential. We are definitely pro-survival towards Madoka. Kyuubey has well founded confidence in it's salescatship. It projects a 'win' on that front. Sabrina is not trying to eliminate the Grief flow, and hasn't broken any Seeds. No real change from the status quo. there. Lots of Magical Girls get to a point where they rebel against Kyuubey. But that is inconsequential. They all witch, unless they get broken first. Sabrina isn't an exception to this, in its view. As long as we don't threaten to go viral with something that prevents contracting, it acts as an astute student of the Tao. I expect that will continue for the foreseeable future.
Our involvement of adults is likely just some local color he will put up with, because we really aren't changing society right now. We are building a sub-culture. Very different.
If we are still alive and playing at that time, our power moves are well in the future ATM.
This is why some folks want to use pure set theory to make more Grief. If it worked, we jump from livestock to perennial crops in Kyuubey's utility function, and Magical Girls will be free to not witch.
As to benefit of starting therapy, how could Sabrina not try to do this. Mami is in pain. We are helping, but we want to help enough. She isn't saved yet, nor is anyone else. There are other arguments I could make, but that should be far more than enough to posit her motivation to you.
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The Narrator
Disembodied Voice
- Location
- Somewhere Offscreen
I think the biggest hurdle will be getting them to accept that magic is real. Their first assumption is going to be that it's a delusion on our part. Once we get them to accept that, we should be able to lay out all the details for them.
- Location
- USA, Midworld world line
My basic thought is to try a "hard option." But that is a bit traumatic. Aside from granting them a provable and powerful example, how shall this happen? Parlor tricks are probably not a good sales pitch.
One of the simplest openers might be to prepare a exoskeleton / rider suit in advance. Friends don't let friends get whiplash. Or rag-doll until joints pull. We can get them in to the protection gear, and then go roof hopping? Other experiences might be even stronger, and more traumatic. Still trying to iterate.
One of the simplest openers might be to prepare a exoskeleton / rider suit in advance. Friends don't let friends get whiplash. Or rag-doll until joints pull. We can get them in to the protection gear, and then go roof hopping? Other experiences might be even stronger, and more traumatic. Still trying to iterate.
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- Location
- Potato land
Making them accept that magic is real shouldn't be very difficult. We can easily demonstrate it by levitating objects around with Grief. The bigger problem is doing this in such a way that they don't react poorly, for example by having a nervous breakdown or trying to break the masquerade and getting wiped by Kyuubey. We should also think what kind of incentive we want to give them for helping us. Money? Access to unique services like magical healing? Satisfaction from helping save the world?
And we do need to tell them quite a bit if they're to be effective in their role. Possibly even have them spectate a witch hunt.
mCooperative
meanderingCephalopod
- Location
- Back in Mitakihara after like 1000 years.
Even if we don't plan to intro every non-meguca by having them spectate a witch hunt, there are definitely people for whom I think that will be necessary to bring home the gravity of the situation, or simply get some of them past the very solid sort of denial that humans are capable of. (Like, say, in cases where a parent is generally good at being parent, but aren't grasping the full ramifications of the situation and end up inadvertently causing their kid distress, for example. I dunno, like the sort of parents who, in good faith, simply can't grasp the various difficulties and implications of being LGBTQ+ and suchforth, and keep making inadvertently hurtful comments?) So, we probably do at least want a plan for the possibility of carefully supervised witch hunt spectators.
That said, I think how we introduce magic to any particular non-meguca without causing them to flip out and activate the Kyubey Memory Cleaning Service is probably going to want to be tailored to each individual person we introduce, at least until we have a proper infrastructure set up to handle it on a wider basis. An official-seeming infrastructure with multiple paths of "here are various ways we introduce this idea to various audiences, and here is how we're supposed to handle any situations" is the sort of thing that's good at getting people to react a particular way, because we're all so trained to go along with official-seeming things as the correct way to do stuff (at the very least because if it's gotten to be an official-seeming infrastructure, it has clearly not broken down or exploded in someone's face yet, edit: or not enough to get the system shut down), and if someone has been dumped into the deep end of new information, I feel like a lot of the time we grasp onto any hint of a "this is how I'm supposed to react, there's a procedure for how we proceed, oh thank god, that's comforting because I don't even know how I'm supposed to deal with this". So that way, even if our official-seeming infrastructure is literally "here's a pamphlet, here's some resources, here's a talk by someone who's good at speaking professionally, please feel free to ask questions or send commentary to x person, further information and evidence [tailored to whoever we're introducing this to] is available upon request" plus a large body of people that have been introduced in a similar way and are not presently flipping their shit, it's a lot more secure and competent seeming and confidence inspiring than "we thought this would be the best way to tell you, if there's anything we left out, please remind us and we can explain, we swear".
At least, that's how I tend to perceive such things?
... telling adults about magic and their childrens' involvement in hidden magical society: a conversation with an honorary place on the table of 'Awkward Coming Out Discussions'.
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The Narrator
Disembodied Voice
- Location
- Somewhere Offscreen
There's a number of different motivations that could apply here:
- Money.
- Professional interest in getting to study a unique case.
- Desire to help children in distress.
- A chance to gain inside knowledge of the greatest secret in human history.
- Recognition of their peers when the masquerade breaks and it becomes public that they were the first in their field to publish a paper on the psychology of magical girls.
- Receiving favors in return involving the use of magic.
- The gratitude of the powerful Shizuki family.
- The ego boost of accomplishing something that has never been done before.
- Location
- Potato land
I think our ideal candidate would be along the lines of Jessica Yamada - someone devoted to their work and acting out of an internal sense of purpose. It would make a lot of problems disappear, and the fact that meguca have nobody to seek help from would be sufficient motivation for them.
Actually finding someone like that is going to be the difficult part, of course.
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The Narrator
Disembodied Voice
- Location
- Somewhere Offscreen
I'm hoping that the Shizukis' connections will be helpful in that regard.