I'll one-up you: the Harry Potter series. This configuration of government was talked about in Harry Potter 4: Deathly Hollows when Harry had to demean a dementor:
blahblahlblahablaalhabalhalabalhabalh
The demon king is a trope. The demon king is an excuse to tell the story they want to tell. The purpose of Frieren isn't to tell a story about the morally complicated nature of demons and their interactions with humans. It's about the passage of time, legacy, and the asynchronicity between the elven lifespan and the human lifespan. You already have a bunch on your plate. You don't want pizza AND pasta.
I'm a child-appearing demon who kills people, gets spared because I call out for my mother, and get a chance to kill more
Just like meemaw!!
I spent more than a human lifespan perfecting magic that just fucking kills people
Reminds me a pawpaw!!
I'm a demon commander who uses a scale to judge how much mana a person has and whoever has more gets to control the other person
SHE'S LITERALLY ME!!!
What do you waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnnnntttttttttttttttttt????????
I bet it's every accusation a confession. Like they assume we have an ahistorical stance that isn't tempered with theory because they don't. They probably graft things that feel good, things they heard on TV, and anecdotes over uncomfortable situations. If we're saying "the world would be more or peaceful ~~with~~ WITHOUT I MEANT WITHOUT Israel and the US" they probably think saying something like "tariffs are what happen when you don't vote for Kamala" has equal sting and edginess. The fact that you come back and disagree with them defies their sense of the terminal nature of mud slinging. There's no Liberal Manifesto. What are they going to read? Kierkegard? You going to debate a communist with some shit written by Kissinger or something? You going to misunderstand Martlin Luther King Jr? No! You said something mean and the lefties were ready to talk about it and that's bewildering.
I try to never ever ever ever think like that. I believe there are only two feelings that a stock market is capable of producing. You can either go "omg why was I so bearish? Obviously this was going to blow up. All the signs were there. I should have bet the house!" or "How could I have been so bullish? I shouldn't have put one bloody damn cent into that ponzi scheme. I'm such a fool." I don't believe there is such a thing as being satisfied with your choice of investment. The people who are often making life changing money are people with 100x that much money to begin with - I think a societally agreed upon mortal who invests and makes life changing money has succeeded the same way they might have succeeded in a casino.
The 210 participants were sorted into two groups -- one group of 106 was allowed to use the chatbot, while the control group was left on a "waiting list." The participants were evaluated for their anxiety, depression or eating disorder symptoms using standardized assessments before and after the test period. For the first four weeks, the app prompted its users to engage with it daily. For the second four weeks, the prompts stopped, but people could still engage on their own.
Study participants actually used the app, and the researchers said they were surprised by how much and how closely people communicated with the bot. Surveyed afterward, participants reported a degree of "therapeutic alliance" -- trust and collaboration between patient and therapist -- similar to that for in-person therapists.
One might interrogate the system that made it seem like a chatbot was your only lifeline.
Somewhere in the election cycle I was like "the Dems are the '96 Bulls of funding Israel. I just don't think Trump is going to be able to keep pace so he's harm reduction." That wasn't the full context; it wasn't in full confidence, smugness, and pride. Nor is this simply going to cause, in a vacuum, a free Palestine. But it sure feels like good news
Saw this and thought of our conversation