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Mattha Busby's One-Night Stand with VRChat: A Response

Intro

It's not often I get a whiff of drama in my Bluesky feed, and my only source of this kinda goofballery is Shadow Wulf82 reposting a bunch of posts from this shitstorm, so I'm giving Shadow Wulf82 a shout-out. Go watch their streams. I'm not paid to shill them, it's just me giving thanks.

Now, I was astonished to see a bunch of people shitting on a particular Wired article detailing how crazy raves in VRC can get. Apparently the author of the article, Mattha Busby, left out a lot of information that was given to them by figures in the club scene like DietyAnubis of PSHQ and Ru of Kaleidosky and pretty much kept the sensationalist bits of the VRC clubbing experience, in particular the self-neglect people go under to have a really good fucking time.

Regarding Who Mattha Busby Is

But in order to properly take a dump on this article, it should first be understood that Mattha Busby is a writer who reports on outlandish stuff from all around the world. I mean, this guy writes about ayahuasca churches and fetish cruises and all sorts of crazy zany stuff that happens around the world. This is like, this guy's shtick.

In addition, it should be understood that Mattha Busby's occupation as a freelance writer means that he's getting paid to write articles. This also means that the articles that he writes are products created with intentional design, because I personally haven't seen any sort of successful articles that are completely unedited, stream-of-conciousness, and is basically pictures of chicken scratch and shorthand on pocket-sized journals. If there is a journalism site like that, please let me know because that'd be fuckin' hilarious.

So, in understanding that Mattha Busby is a guy who gets paid to make products featuring wacky and zany subcultures of human life, then it should also be understood that at the core of his writing process, the people and subjects that he writes about are raw materials, and that by spending time with the people inside that culture, writing notes, and compling notes into a lengthy article, he processes the raw materials and packages them into a product for the masses, who will henceforth be referred to as “normies” for the rest of this article.

To put it another way, Mattha Busby exploited a natural phenomenon—of people raving and doing drugs and gay sex—and sold it to normies for money. And when he was done with VR raves he didn't come back.

Even simpler, Mattha Busby objectified the people of VR and threw them away when he was done writing his little article.

The Article's Content

I'll give a little highlight reel of the article's main points, kinda like I'm a mama bird barfing up the article's contents so that it's easier for you to read.

It should be noted the article is aimed towards normies, written by a normie in denial, so this is supposed to be a little overview of the VRC rave scene in general.

Exaggerations And Other Things

The article opens with O'Rourke saying they partied for 60 hours straight.

“Armed with cannabis edibles, cocaine, ketamine, and booze, he partied for nearly 12 nights consecutively last August, during which time he claims to have raved for 60 hours—all without ever leaving his apartment.”

Saying O'Rourke was “armed” with drugs makes him sound like Agent 47 or something. Like, is O'Rourke storing all of these drugs in a tight leather briefcase or something? Does O'Rourke pull out a gun that shoots crack rocks and fireball shots into people's mouths? Because that'd be super badass. Somebody invent that, that'd be funny as hell.

Then it goes into something stupidly relatable:

“[He] often [stayed] up until 8 am, suited up in goggles and a full set of motion trackers.”

That's pussy shit, I one did an all-nighter and stayed up 'til 10 AM. That shit's nothing.

Anyways, the article continues with O'Rourke saying that VR is magical and you gotta consume in moderation. It continues that the idea of having a party from the comfort of your own home blew up during the COVID-19 pandemic.

It then has this absolutely wild claim:

“Once inside the VRChat metaverse, users—who describe it to WIRED as an immersive, futuristic utopia—can choose which “maps,” or parties, they wish to explore in the form of their avatars.”

I wouldn't consider a world where my limbs go haywire at any given moment a “utopia”. My perception of time and relativity becoming as choppy as a powerpoint slideshow depending on the amount of stuff I see in my eyes would also make virtual reality a very shitty paradise. But yeah, aside from ungodly technical issues, VR is pretty cool.

Economics of VR Clubs

The article moves on to mention that clubs across the US and UK are closing due to them not making a lot of money and noise regulations. The article forgets to mention that these clubs might also suffer from a bad case of being shitty places to party at.

“The infinite amount of space available on VR, plus the lack of regulation, allows creators to blissfully ignore the economic pressures that limit nightlife in many places today”

Economic pressures don't evaporate, they just transfer to other areas. There exists an economy of creatives exchanging goods and services to make club worlds, optimize them, avatar technicians you can pay to put fancy lights on your avatar.

Also, VRC isn't some regulation-less libertarian paradise, but it is incredibly laissez-faire in letting creators do what they wish.

In fact, I'll link such regulations here. Here's VRC's TOS: https://hello.vrchat.com/legal

Here's its Community Guidelines: https://hello.vrchat.com/community-guidelines

And here's it's Creator Guidelines: https://hello.vrchat.com/creator-guidelines

And of course, the various club rules and stuff that pertain to each individual venue. Some require ID verification, others require you to set your status to “Ask Me” and/or “Do Not Disturb”, or setting it to orange and red respectively. But yeah, we have a dickload of rules here.

VR Costs and Wait Times

“VR venues don’t charge for entry, so the main cost is hardware, which can exceed $5,000 with a high-quality gaming PC and full-body tracking devices, although a simpler setup with just a Meta Quest headset can be procured for as little as $350.”

I'm pretty sure you gotta pay for tickets to go to places like Furality, but yeah sure buddy.

But yes, buying powerful enough computers to run these worlds on, buying equipment like headsets, full-body tracking sets, and even DJ decks are real things you can pay for to have a good experience in VR. Don't even get me started on the electrical bills you'd have to pay to keep your equipment up and running though.

“There are, however, often long lines to get into the most popular virtual club nights, since they are all capped to 80 people each due to the limits of the software on the VRChat platform, which is available through host Steam.”

Very true. Shout-out to BOAT in particular, because BOAT's been guilty of this shit for a hot minute. I'm on late-night and I see BOAT having like a 200+ queue and I'm just like “You know what? I'm not gonna bother waiting for this long.” It can be discouraging, but if you aren't a pussy like me and also have a dickload of friends like I do, then you can ride out the queue.

O'Rourke's Prediction

The article then does profiles of folks in the scene. Looping back to O'Rourke, the article mentions that he runs the Euro-Corp venue—which honestly, they should've just mentioned that shit at the beginning of the article because I thought O'Rourke was a regular joe in VRC—and he says this:

“He says he is putting in so many hours—almost 1,800 at the time of writing—because he feels now is the 'high-water-mark moment' for the scene. 'When people look back in 10 or 20 years, they’ll say now was its peak. That’s why I’m partying so hard.'”

I'm calling dibs on this decade being called “The Second Roaring 20's”, and this decade's themed parties will have everyone'll dress up in e-boy/e-girl/e-bitch and fursuits at parties a century from now. I'm fucking calling it. Please, that'd be so funny.

Then the article goes into O'Rourke detailing heroic doeses of shrooms and ketamine, and then shifts to Heelix, who apparently is in their 60's, has 5,000 hours in VR, and is a DJ. Heelix sounds like such a cool fucking person. I highkey wanna ask them if they ever went to crazy clubs during the Cold War period, because I heard the ones in East Germany went crazy. Heelix then says a friend got stomach pumped, to which I hope that friend's okay and stuff, that sounds incredibly rough.

IRL DJs Suck Ass

The article shifts focus onto LGBTQ folks in VR rave scenes. Of particular note is Ru of Kaleidosky highlighting how VR not only led her to build a club and also play in Japan, but also that she gets sexually assaulted far less often. Ideally that shit shouldn't happen, but the fact it happens far less in VR should be an indicator on how terrible IRL clubbing can be for folks like us.

Of course, the infamous quote that's been making the rounds:

“Go listen to your local people, and then come to any random club in VR; you’re going to be shocked that your local DJs suck ass.” – Ru

As a fellow transfem Ohioan, I can confirm that DJs in Ohio suck ass. Case in point: I swung up by No Class to party at one of their Sapphic Nights and I was appalled by just how mediocre the mixes were. At best, they were okay. But I remember being on the dance floor when DJ C-Star was on and my god her shit was hot GARBAGE. Some mixes and transitions were so atrocious I wondered if she went on the stage drunk. Some song picks gave me such hard whiplash I hallucinated J.K. Simmons yelling at me for screwing up my drum routine. It's like I have to take drugs to enjoy that shit.

And like, I burnt a couple gallons of gas travelling to and from the party and also paid $10 at the door for music the equivalent of an dog's unwashed water bowl.

Meanwhile, I can stay home in my bedroom, get my electronics set up and BOOM I'm in a venue with DJ Wall-E putting on the best music and mixes I've heard in my LIFE, to the point where I'm feeling so good it's like I'm floating, as if I'm coming up to Jesus and St. Peter at the gates of heaven, only to catch a glimpse of the catgirls shaking ass in the corner of the club, and the sight alone brands me such a sinner I'm sent on a first-class ticket to hell faster than Lil Nas X went down that stripper pole onto Daddy Satan's lap. And then I take my headset off and go to bed. Like nothing happened. And I was sober the entire time.

So, OBVIOUSLY I'm going to pick the second option because it's cheaper and way more efficient and fun. Simple as.

Now, the article goes into more detail into a user named Luna, and it details how she managed to find love with Benji after going through a journey of partying. I find this pretty cool because it's basically the magic of being in Social VR. Though the development of an IRL experience from the VR scene is contrasted with folks who get sucked into the VR rave scene and just have their relationships digital.

It then details on how folks get hooked on the scene, but the only thing the article shows for it are some quotes from Maria Balaet, who does neurological research over at Imperial College London, about how having bad trips in VR is “probably” worse than IRL, without any further account from folks who've had bad trips IRL and VR who can compare them from anecdotal experience. No studies linked for this section, by the way.

The Article Falls Apart

It then goes into a brief overview of ERP in VR. If you know, you know, and a link to PHIA explaining how Floonarbing™ was in the article as well. Another brief mention of how making porn and adult content is technically not allowed in VRC but honestly the enforcement of that rule is so lax that I'm not gonna bother explaining it.

The article mentions PSHQ—out of all the places they could have fucking picked—as the prime example of a sex-positive club. From what I recall, PSHQ hasn't been a sex-focused club for a couple years now, but I could be an idiot and got that messed up. Diety, if you're reading this and are pissed off at how I screwed up the history, feel free to spank me and call me a naughty little bean as punishment. I'll understand. Hopefully.

The article continues on how VRC has age verification and that one time Zeus Tipado of the University of Maastricht got kicked out of an instance because him and others didn't comply with the host's Epstein-ass request to strip right then and there while watching television—the host sounds like a fucking dickhead, yikes!—and at this point I'm wondering how the hell any of these points are stringing together and shit. Sounds like a bunch of factoids and experiences rolled up into a hodge-podge article or somethin.

The article continues to mention that VRC has panic buttons, logs, and other stuff that can be done to report incidents that Tipado experienced, but to be honest after seeing jack shit being done about the incidents that I personally reported I'm starting to think that the VRC reporting system is something of a PR tool so they don't get sued or whatever. But that's more of the staff's problem, what do I know of how they moderate?

Then the article concludes and offers a glimpse of hope that maybe this VR stuff can lead to an IRL revival of clubs by highlighting how Shelter hosted events in New York and stuff, which is a positive note at first until you read about whatever BotBrandon did at ShelterCon L.A. and then oop! Then it might not be the best representation of how VR can have a positive connection to IRL. Shoutout again to Shadow Wulf82, because if they hadn't reposted that quetewopeiryru00 thread three weeks ago (at the time of writing) then I wouldn't have seen anything there either. Yikes!

The VR Community Responds

Posted below is perhaps the most generous response to Mattha Busby's article, written by geoidvrc:

Of particular emphasis:

“[This] kind of reads like a sensationalist targeted piece – I know your focus from your other WIRED articles lean heavy on drugs, but this is a spotlight on a few people of a subcommunity of a much bigger space. To someone who's never played VRChat or is just dipping their toes in, wouldn't a piece like this scare them off a bit?

My point is, point out vices, yes, but also paint a picture of what the platform is, too – I was a “Hardcore VR Raver”, on account of my amassed hours and social connections, and I never found myself doing any of the things in this article. We kind of have a wonderful thing going on; spend some more time with us, and get a feel for what our space really is?” >– geoidvrc

“Spend more time with us” can be read as “Please talk to us like actual human beings.”, because as mentioned earlier, the inherent mode of interaction Mattha Busby had with VRC denizens was objectification and exploitation.

For example, DietyAnubis here wasn't too happy with how Busby made the article:

And has even made moves to name the event after the article's infamous title “60-Hour Dance Sessions, Simulated Sex, and Ketamine”:

Also now folks are going to be wary about how journalists and other folk's intentions are going to be because that's how much of a dogshit article you wrote:

Oh god and there's more:

Djlonelypoint brings up a good point here:

So, Busby, it's safe to say your article wasn't well recieved and everyone's dunking on it.

Conclusion

I tend to see various online communities as nations in the digital world. Yes, I'm calling every single person in Social VR culture as part of a nation, because if you walk into Social VR you're figuratively stepping into a completely different culture filled with its own values, ideals, and ways of living that are different from many places IRL, even more different from other virtual spaces like MMOs. This means that there's a degree of assimilation and acculturation an outsider must go through in order to properly respect the thousands of denizens that make up Social VR.

I'll end this article with a particular thread by JustJaime in it's entirety:

https://bsky.app/profile/jaimens.com/post/3lohh3ryk5k2a

“You want to write about our spaces? Do the work. Put on the headset, come to the clubs, actually hang out with us as people rather than just your research project, and then maybe we'll let you quote us.” – JustJamie

Now if you'll excuse me, I must consume ketamine for 60 hours and rave all night, because I'm sure I can figure out the secret to femboy pregnancy this time. I think.

I tend to be a loud ass person.

It's unusual for me to be loud because I typically talk very quiet. Like, stupidly quiet. I've been told I could probably voice-act a mouse if I really tried. But goddamit I can be loud.

I've gotten complaints from my family that I tend to be loud as hell when it's late at night. That absolutely sucks because currently being loud in the middle of the night while inside VR is like, the cheapest way to do any of that. Going to a bar or a nightclub costs a dickload of time to get to the car, drive over to a club, costs some money depending on if you wanna get drinks or something or have to pay any cover fees to get into the dance floor, not to mention you gotta worry about where you're parking or being dropped off at the bus station and make sure you're not mugged or manipulated randomly by weirdos on the street. If they wanna ensure I can be loud somewhere else IRL where it's appropriate, they're more than welcome to pay all the necessary costs I'd have to bear. But to be honest, they can suck my dick because I get a lot more fun in VR than I do in a lot of VR clubs.

But tbh that's just my social anxiety talking.

Where I live, there are no sidewalks, and it's acre-minimum suburban housing around me. The surroundings are, to be frank, absolutely fucking boring. I think the local social joints either cater to middle-aged parents or their teenage kids sneaking out of their houses. Both of them consuming alcohol there, of course. There's also not a lot of crosswalks out here too, so if you wanted to cross the street by foot you'd pretty much be vulnerable to oncoming traffic if you're not careful. I mean, we at least have bike lanes, but still...

The upsides about living in the fancy 'burbs though is that one can be loud and not many other people outside the home are gonna hear what you're gonna say or scream out. Not that I'm yelling incredibly terrible insults or slurs or anything, but there is a privileged freedom you get from this kinda living arrangement.

So, I'm basically on an island filled with manicured grass and gardens, the sea between each island subsituted by the almighty PROPERTY LINE™.

Thus constitutes the green prison that I reside in, that just so happens to only be “relatively safe” by submitting all of your travel desires by the almighty CAR™, and you must tribute a considerable sum of money to feed it with gasoline and tribute a fee to the state to drive it registered and tribute more money every month to private fiefdoms who exist to benefit off their legal right to basically get you in trouble if you don't give them money and in return they can cover 100% of your accident costs 100% of the time, 35% of the time.

So considering I'd basically have to be a submissive slut to my car and a pet to be financially gangbanged by the oil industry, the insurance companies, and the state; with all this, it's natural for someone like me—who values independence stupidly high—to absolutely minimize my involvement in this ridiculous game, all so that I may have a crumb of my social needs consumed when I could literally get a WHOLE LOAF of social interaction by just using my computer, Social VR, and the internet and stay in my room the entire time.

The biggest reason why I'm loud in my room in the middle of the night is because it's infinitely cheaper and less resource-intensive than the privilege of driving on the roads at dangerously fast speeds in the hope of having a good time. Out in meatspace, there's a dickload of risk in just existing outside. In the virtual world, it's as easy as walking from my bed to my computer desk.

Now, there's a couple things that could help fix this predicament of mine. A long-term fix involves revolutionizing the way people transport themselves in the suburbs by prioritizing the building of pedestrian-friendly infrastructure, like having sidewalks at bare minimum, but also ensuring every resident can access places like work and grocery stores within a reasonable walking distance. A short-term fix would be more of me actually getting my ass outside and earning enough cash to move to a neighborhood that already implemented the long-term fixes previously mentioned.

But considering either of those take up way more energy than just continuing what I'm doing, just staying in my room and socializing via VR and internet, then I should be fine, right? Right? Because finding anyone with the same temperaments as my friends I've met through VR in my local area is stupidly hard and I wouldn't wanna hang out with any of them no matter how hard I try, right?

idk tho but until an asteroid crashes or somethin i'll take pride in being loud, and at the same time, I'll tone it down a bit if I'm asked to by family. Because I know damn well I'll just go right back to being loud again. Because I always do, and that's just a part of me. Deal with it.

Baby's First Fediverse Post

nahhhhh i'm playing, I've done some fediverse stuff before, but nothing as good as this, hehehehehe >:3

Hello! I just wanted to let you know that I’m still around. The feed hasn’t been as busy lately, but there are still active unlisted blogs, and lots of good content from inactive blogs. I’m still keeping the server running (the last downtime was over six months ago!), and I intend to for a long while.

#StatusUpdates

writing for the sake of writing, without knowing what you... not you, what I am writing about. 3 characters, and I know little about them, I don't know how to write them, and yet I'm writing them to learn what they are, but that hasn't been working for me eh. so little and I'm clinging to that littlessness, and then forgetting about what I wrote and starting as if anew, but I already have tons of material written, but whose is it, and for who. why am I even that focused on writing, thinking that it's my thing, thinking it can be good if I created stories, but is it.

ordering my thoughts here helped. damn I like writing, but I still don't know how/what to write.

Been banging Bening, penning pangs of pans, and kenong-ing kennings of canning clams. Gaining gongs, GANs, gangs, glam, tongs, tans, tang, and ten dens (dented by donning dun doms) and damning bompenkangs and bampenkongs.

I am really interested in conceptual art and the idea of the gesamtkunstwerk. What is the Gezamtkunstwerk? It is an all encompassing work of art. Every art form in one artwork. How literally should we take that? Has it ever been done? I’m not sure…

Why do I want to have a 7 hour long movie opera, which you have to watch in a theater designed specially for the movie, and like half way through the movie everyone has to take a one week intermission to read a novel about some side characters?

Well primarily it’s because I think that multi-stylism is an aesthetic virtue. I want to see anime mixed with cubism and realism, abstract art and Ancient Egyptian art, all combined into one giant masterpiece. The sheer novelty of it is beautiful to me. I want your jazz and your rock and your opera to be brewed together. Blessed is the day when I can list all the adjectives I want and they would appear before my eyes! Blessed is the describable!

Blessed is the indescribable! There is something interesting about subtle non-sequitur. Something you can never put your finger on, because if you do you might lose it. Oh… What was I saying? I must have gotten distracted. Oh yes! Indescribable non-sequiturs! The slight change in style to another creates a bewildering effect on the tired brain. The uncanny valley of seeing so many things at once. This brings me pleasure. Nothing greater…

Greater and greater I seek to grow my knowledge, and yet my skull drains out further onto the floor. I have a leak. Oh no. Did someone stab me in the head? I must be an idiot. I can’t let anyone see me, else they may laugh at how stupid I am. I forget things, and everyone else has an impervious memory. I forget things. I can’t even remember my own name. All I know is that I have to keep on focusing on my important work. One day I’ll finish it. Oh? Other people have even worse memories than me? Well let’s move on.

Movies and prose fiction both feature cutting (montage, ect). Movies do not need to feature cutting. Something can be taken in one shot. Novels do need cutting. No novel provides the whole picture of something. You always skip over some small details, even an avant-garde list of mannerisms book could not escape the cut. Writing is cutting.

The cut-up technique has many uses. It can be used to rearrange the words of one text. Or to combine a variety of texts. This will generate a bunch of voices, all mashed up against one another. This is polyphony. Polyphony is a trait that Russian literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin seems to favor. In his essay Epic and Novel he claims it is only present in the novel. I disagree. It can be present in all literary and artistic forms that involve voice. It simply is almost always present in the novel. The cut up technique allows polyphony to be created endlessly.

(This is my thesis) The role of the critic is similar to the role of the writer. They are both creatives. The critic is the writer. So they should flow seamlessly between one another. Harold Bloom says something like “The best writer may not be a good reader of anyone but himself” so I conclude this…

“Literature should be analyzed using an experiment based method. Experiment based literary analysis occurs by hybridizing the role of the critic/theorist and the role of the artist. The theorist becomes a fanfiction writer of sorts. When someone is interested in a theme, literary device, mood, ect in a text they should write an experiment text to try to imitate that literary element. The experiment text serves as a way of acquiring a lot of information about the theme.” (a quotation from a writing of mine of another dimension)

Now basically what I am proposing is the merging of the writing genre called literary criticism and the genre called fiction. This is nothing new. Writers have been doing fictional reviews for ages probably. I am just saying that it’s good and cool. I am thinking back… “Father, who invented pi” “Pi was discovered, not invented, by a man named Leonhard Euler. He also invented a number called e, which is called that because his name, Euler, was spelled with an e”

I thought of a man in a children's book of great and famous discoverers, including some mathematicians. Years later, now, in a shower, I would realize that Euler was not this man. This man wore a modern business suite and had glasses. But at the time I imagined this was what Euler looked like. Memory fiction is an interesting genre I am not yet fully acquainted with (no one ever is fully acquainted with anything). In the novella Something to Do with Paying Attention by David Foster Wallace, Chris Fogle looks back in a disorganized rambling fashion on his wastoid youth and time spent smoking endless pot, and disrespecting his father. The genre is this sort of stream of consciousness. Another strong example is Car Crash While Hitchhiking by Daniel Johnson. I haven’t finished it yet, but Zadie Smith’s Swing Time does this too.

How does memory fiction make me feel? (this is an important part of the aesthetic analysis, because it’s the aesthetic part). It makes me feel like I am stumbling along with the narrator. I feel in the moment and out of the moment. Memory fiction is thrilling, because you can go anywhere in the narrator’s life at any moment. There is nothing like it. It has artificial naturalness and is filled with fun ironic nods and gimmicks! I am attracted to the cleverness and joy of these gimmicks.

Gimmick. Gimmick. Gimmick. Gimmick. Gimmick. I am gimmicking. Get Gimmed, sir. I tip my hat. What else are we to do but be gimmicks? The whole of life is a gimmick, but we must treat it very importantly. Without it we have nothing. Why not commit to gimmicks and fun? Committing to creativity is the only way we have forward. Else what do we do? Live uncreativelly? That's a novel contrarian idea indeed.

Living wholly uncreatively is quite impossible. You're stuck in creativity, so you might as well fall in love with it. You must be creating constantly, and so many people try to run from this fate. Maybe they are too serious, or too lazy. But they prevent their own growth by running from that universal constant of creativity. Any connection between things is creative. Creativity is present when I draw with my pen or use it to fill tax forms with ink. Creativity is any joining of things. Union, or marriage is creative. Creativity need not be new, or original. Only that it makes something. Creation is actually at the heart of creativity. So everything is really creative.

I am starting to sound a bit like a half rate process philosopher. So let it be known that I am in full support of creativity as a principle for everything that happens, but that I am an OOO-ist through and through............

I began with a tiny urban house built on a small lot. Most homes in this neighbourhood are on small lots, and built close to their property lines, with minimal yards in front and back. This home was so small, the yard around it appeared larger. The long narrow house has room for trees on three sides, a walkway on the fourth. It was previously planted with ornamentals by small-families of residents, ever since it was built in 1906. One neighbour thought it might have been farm-labourer dormitory on a plum orchard here, which was then on the outskirts of the city.

I want to describe how I thought about the project, because I imagine writing this for others wondering about how they might do something similar, or to learn from my mistakes.

For personal reasons, I was astounded at having the opportunity to take on the project. I thought the place's problems were benefits to a do-it-yourself-er (more about that later). I studied the place with a sense of awe. No plant or odd shaped corner of the yard was too miniscule to get my attention. Without changing anything, I drew, imagined, and generally designed all aspects of the improvements within the reach of a do-it-yourself approach.

To maximize the garden potential in the long narrow spaces around the small house, one thing I decided early was to prune all existing vegetation into espalier shapes. For example, where flowering camellia and elder-flower shrubbery were globular, round and impinging on head-level spaces near fences, I slowly pruned them each year till they had long flat shapes. They then grew tall and thick along the property lines, but were also pruned back away from human spaces. I conceived of each shrub as part of either an exterior or interior wall in an outdoor room. The walk-way surrounding the cottage passes from one room to the next, through archways of overhanging tree-limbs or vines. This separated long narrow spaces into small courts, each one serving a cottage window or door.

I decided to not clear away the ornamentals, but to instead honour and shape them in their correct seasons, so that within a small number of years they created a more private and shaded oasis from summer heat and busy side-walk eyes; a living fence. I hoped to slowly replace them with equally or more tall edible plants, but only as those plants grew up between them. My first priority was an edible landscape, but with no scorched earth. I didn't want to cut everything down, just because it was not my first vegetation choice. I decided to keep the shade, keep the soil health, keep the greenery and air freshening, and shade, and visual screening while giving special favour to edibles, as they grew large enough to fill those niches themselves.

So this is how I created a living-fence style of green outdoor rooms around a little cottage. From the street in the summer, it looks invisible, as if it were merely a hedged side-yard to another house next-door. When entering the front gate, visitors' first reaction is surprise, because what appears to be a thick hedge over hanging the sidewalk, presents its self as an outdoor room with flowering walls roof, and arched pathways in each direction. The pruning is done carefully, without obvious signs of chopped wounds. From the hot tarmac and concrete sidewalk, they enter a cool, shaded place, where the word 'micro-climate' comes to life to them in a single passage from one side of the gate to the other.

#permaculture, #garden, #pruning, #urban, #design

END

meaningless meaningless meaningless meaningless advent this, advent that. Why? meaningless meaningless meaningless AI this, gen AI that, AI everything and everywhere. Why? meaningless meaningless People live not great, make kids when they don't need, want or should have kids, don't get them normal life, then those kids grow up and decide they want to ruin life for their kids too. What? meaningless meaning less

so, do we even have something meaningful in this world don't answer.

And so it began... an undefined number of participants competing to finally leave this game and their monsters behind. Few of those committed suicide, not willing to live in this scary dangerous unknown world anymore. Some were too scared to fight, only to be killed by ones more brave. Blood has taken control of many, countered only by those who carefully crafted their plans. All is but finite.

At last, one remained, a young fellow, barely over 18. The one who killed the last participant. The one who hoped to escape this cruelty, who has descended to cruelty on his own. To no avail. The fate was not kind. The monster which should have disappeared, remained alive. Haunting the mind and sanity of the victorious one. Was this a reward? Or a bad twist? He couldn't tell. The years had gone past, filled with paranoia, doubting every shadow. His life was but a war of one. With none to help. Yet after long long years, he finally saw it. A young adult, perhaps few years younger than the victorious one, going carelessly along the busy street, and beside him, a frightening creature, which none paid attention to. He was conversing with this monster like it was an old friend. He had escaped the gruesome game by luck, and happily befriended the creature. Before the young adult knew it, he was bleeding. An expression of surprise, rather than shock was on his face. As he turned back, he saw a crazy smile of the paranoid one. He accepted his death much easily, even nonchalantly, as opposed to his killer, who frantically acted the same minute he saw the true last participant of the game.

As both monsters disappeared into the void, now the truly victorious one was finally free from the game that took too long to finish. Or was he really free The game that took eleven years. The game that stole countless lives. But in a true sense, it stole only one. The one that was left alive.

I came up with this story some time ago, and suddenly remembered about it now. It was very fun to write and reread, so I decided to post it somewhere.

The most important thing is to continue writing. Sometime ago, she promised herself she would write constantly, in every spare moment. She enjoyed writing the most when it was crazy and free. Don’t stop. She glared at the half-filled google document, the one where she kept all her writing projects. She had stared it earlier, but at that time had homework to do. Would she ever finish the poem? She thought about the dragon story she wanted to write, but she had last week dedicated herself to finishing this poem. She looked at the writing. What was there to add to it? But she wanted to write a long narrative piece, and this wasn't even a page. She liked long stories more.

What was she thinking? Why couldn't she make any ideas? Or really the only thing in her head was the worry about the half filled screen. What was she supposed to write about? Write what you know? The half-filled page itself? Who would want to read a description of half a page? And how could that be related to the half page? Why was she having writer’s block? The inspiring YouTuber/rapper CJ the X said that writer's block was an excuse for pride. Was she doing something wrong? Why couldn't she write anything of worth?

She checked her phone’s notifications. She checked her YouTube. She started to watch a video about writing advice. What was she doing? This wasn’t even advice about writer’s block. It was a twenty minute long vlog by a booktuber she hated.

Her mother called her for dinner. The writer became worried again, because she had not been working on her final project for history. She had no ideas for that either. She had not even read the description. She wanted to have ideas. Like she liked history, but there were so many things to do, like the promise to write whenever she thought of writing, or to read all the time, or to do homework all the time or to be polite and charming or to do … all the time…all the time…geez why is she on her phone all the time?

Who wouldn’t leave eyes of flame wandering this globe? As if the simple insinuation that his once free Jabberwock, was lost between boards, silenced him? Avaunt tonight he grasps in his arms my heart born of the requiem! Dost see not the dirge that I’ll upraise softened by the poor shuddering child howled in plays about the sea rolled up with waves? How shall the ritual then be sung with crown and with train? How? by the elk queen trying with the original raw mystery polished and returned as a pretty trinket? He holds the grandfather beside the king of heaven The sweet child hath keep him to a golden throne with hope that grandfather is good

take by me on some random subject

So there are two kinds of AIs as I see it: 1. real AIs – those that we actually have, you write to them and they respond to you, nothing fancy, nothing truly intelligent; 2. fictional AIs – these are human-like intelligences, can think the same way as humans, plus optionally do heavy calculations thanks to the computers that they run on.

Now, I want to add another fictional type from the future, sort of combined AI. Key difference is it would act like a real human-like or general AI, but at its core it wouldn't be much different from what we have in the real world, the people using it just won't be able to break it or hit the limit as easily as with the current AI. So in a nutshell this would be AI that we, the users, cannot disprove that it's a general AI. Which makes it different from 2nd type from above, because people believe that 2nd type is true AI, on the contrary this 3rd type people would utilise as a true AI, but won't treat it as real intelligence, despite it being very hard to tell the difference.

This is a rough idea, if anyone but me reads it. Don't expect some genius thing from it, it's only an attempt to somewhat tune down too-good-to-be-true AI helpers in fiction that I randomly thought about.

In a video lecture by Graham Harman he predicts that in the future there will be something called Philosophy criticism. Philosophy criticism will not be disagreements with philosophies but aesthetic criticism of philosophy itself. Now it is unclear if he means...

1: Literary criticism of philosophical writing,

or 2: criticism and aesthetic appreciation of philosophy as an art form in itself, separate from writing, like a wine critic, but for philosophical ideas?

Because the first choice is a real craft, I will choose to look at the second in this essay/dialogue. But also I will ramble off path a fair amount.

What does this definition even mean? No seriously, tell me: A short dialogue.

The Voice: Philosophy criticism cannot exist. This second thesis implies that you can have criticism of an artform without a medium of presentation. An Aesthetics of pure ideas is too abstract and ungrounded. This is similar to the idea that worldbuilding is an independent artform. It’s hard to argue that worldbuilding is an artform on its own. Worldbuilding is always presented through a medium (writing, maps, movies, music, ect). Setting is a literary device or a genre not an artform. Philosophy likewise is always communicated. Philosophy is a type of writing. You can’t give criticism of ideas directly. Whatever that means.

The Paracosmonaut: No. I could invent a philosophy in my head. And experience the ideas as beautiful. Furthermore, I feel the ideas that I read. Successful communication results in a transfer of ideas, so I can then criticize them. I would even go as far as to say that your position is somewhat ridiculous. To believe in what you say you must claim that literary critics only talk about language and never about themes, plot, character, or worldbuilding. Criticism of philosophy is just as possible as criticism of worldbuilding. https://farkascity.org/thctt2aop7/edit#publish The Voice: You betrayer! Aren’t you undermining the distinction this essay is premised on. You’re arguing against the distinction between options (1) and (2). I can’t expect to hold good faith debate if you are disagreeing with our agreed subject of debate. Everything just breaks down.

The Monocosmonaut(the pair of cosmonauts broke down): Yeah I am. I guess I have to to fight for truth, or something…Like I do disagree with the distinction. I don’t think pure solipsistic idea criticism is very useful. It’s more interesting if you communicate with other people. I don’t care about the criticism of something only you have acess to! Like an idea in your head!

Other Monocosmonaut: I do agree with the distinction. I want to ideally sit and navel gaze all of my days. Concern myself wholly with beauty and not with pathetic things like truth. Ruminate on pain and death. Useless stuff like that. Tasty tasty tasty. Each idea I have tastes like honey and feels like god. Just think of how good sitting around feels.

The First Monocosmonaut: okay. That’s cool. I do that sometimes too. But I don’t think other people care that I think that “God is an illiterate dragon made of Mountain Dew and asphalt” but I think too much of that is bad for my brain.

The Voice: Y’all are so lame. Argue for the criteria of the debate next time.

The First Monocosmonaut: Sure. You could do literary criticism of philosophy that never once mentions the medium itself. Also i keep saying literary, you could have a philosophical movie, or piece of music.

The Voice: it would still be tainted by the impurity of the medium.

The First Monocosmonaut: If the only copy of The Great Gatsby that existed and could ever exist was one embroidered onto a piece of fabric with massive text. Some people would still read it. Sure, the medium gets in the way, but ultimately some people will care enough to escape the high Mountains of the medium.

The Voice: why would you avoid talking about plot, and language while practicing literary criticism? What is the point of escaping the rocky hills, instead of embracing and loving the medium?

The First Monocosmonaut: none really. The philosophy enthusiast would love philosophy to the point of forgetting discussion of language. This is more of a thought exercise meant to bring to light what one is doing. Isn’t it nice to have a fresh idea like aesthetically based philosophy criticism? Maybe many literary critics wish they did not have to speak about metaphors and plots. Maybe they instead preferred monologues of ideas to and descriptions.

The Voice: No! This stuff will just remain speculative nonsense.people care about truth!

The First Monocosmonaut: but like it exists already. I saw something like Karl Marx as literature as a course title once.

The Voice: grumble grumble I am interested in the idea of philosophy criticism. I am very interested in art criticism in general. The idea that ideas are beautiful and can be cultivated for aesthetic effects, is endlessly intriguing.

Fin

There is of course beauty in non-philosophical ideas. Art is everywhere, so are ideas. Think about how much of popular discourse and politics is based on the demagogic aesthetics and beauty of ideas rather then reason. Ideas can be captivating, seductive, and pretty.

You can in fact have an aesthetic reaction to an idea. The idea has nothing to do with the method of communication. Though it can be influenced by it. Really ideas can be experienced by an open mind, separately from their communication.

We are expecting 50 mph winds in this area over the next couple of nights, so there’s a pretty decent chance FarkasCity looses its internet connection for a bit. There is no need to worry though; everything is backed up so all of your data will be safe. There are also several measures in place to prevent and deal with power outages, so as soon as internet is restored FarkasCity will automatically come back online.

As always, if you have any questions or concerns about this please don’t hesitate to contact us.

#Downtime

Hey, how's it going? It’s been a long time. You don't remember my name, or my face, or my voice. That’s okay. At least you remember sitting in the woodchips and telling me about the bugs. Crouched over in the early fall heat, watching the fire ants from a distance. I’m glad you didn’t find out I was dying until later. You went to the fundraiser we had for me, right? You’re remembering it wrong now, the building was much smaller than that. There weren't that many people, either. It’s okay, things get distorted over time. You didn’t cry for a bit when your dad gave you the news. He got you ice cream and told you on the way home. How considerate of him. Now that I think about it, we didn’t ever talk much, did we? You still consider me your first friend. How long will you keep dragging my body? How long will you keep sinking? How long did the car ride last? How long will you remain stagnant?

Thanks for remembering me. I thought that nobody would. I hoped that nobody would, at the time. Though you keep replaying the memories we had. Over and over, getting more contorted each time, like copying a VHS tape until it’s nothing but static. Like showing skin until it’s nothing but scars. Until I’m in the chair and you pull the switch. Judge, jury, and executioner. We both know that’s not true, but you want it to be, don’t you? You want to be the reason behind it all. Please stop warping my voice. It’s hard enough as it is. I keep trying to email you, but I don’t think they’re getting through. Anyways, I’m glad you found a better place, better friends. I’m still here though, and if you press your ear up to the wall I might say that I’m sorry.

We didn’t talk much. I would have loved to keep drawing lizards with you.