Kaltovar

Are you afraid? What is it you fear? The end of your trivial existence?

When the history of my glory is written, your species shall only be a footnote to my magnificence.

https://youtu.be/qO0uHkUx8eE?t=336

Greetings, friends and comrades of Straylight Social, and this accursed world at large! On this auspicious occasion, Kaltovar would like to celebrate this year's recipient of the outstanding civil service award, Major Autumn Van-Grief!

Major Van-Grief is the chief field officer of the Counter-intelligence Division of the Intelligence Sub-directorate of the Committee for Unconventional Warfare.

He studied at the Wolfhaven Institute of Unconventional Warfare, and has had a long career jailing corrupt politicians and foreign spies. We honor him today because of his recent work in bringing down the famously corrupt Hellen Vanderscott, the long-standing SCC of Biophysique.

The SCC, or Soviet Council Chairman, functions much like a CEO in the public sector would, but is elected every five years by company employees. Biophysique, a prominent state-owned medical industrial cooperative, had been under Vanderscott's leadership for an impressive 57 years at the time of her assassination on charges of bribery, corruption, and counter-revolutionary activities.

Autumn was born from the vats, and uses a lightly modified standard pattern Kalt human body, namely Standard Pattern Citizen #3708 (SPC), the same model he was born with. SPC #3708 is, like all SPCs, genetically modified to achieve increased strength and intelligence in addition to biological receptiveness for cybernetic implants.

Autumn's most expensive implants are his eyes, which are Kybertechnique Design Bureau KDRO-6100 Advance Recon Multispectral optics. They include thermal imaging, full color 64k resolution night vision imaging capability, and inbuilt targeting HUD and ballistic processor capable of determining probable bullet impact points so long as the user's firearm is within view.

His human brain is supplemented by computers surgically implanted into his chest cavity, which provide him with a photographic memory, ability to access various forms of data via direct plugin with various computer systems, and an increased capacity to solve multiple problems simultaneously by delegating some of them to his onboard non-AGI basic level AI assistant.

Flexible armored plates protect his supplimentary brain and other vital organs in his torso, while his skull and spine have been replaced with EMP hardened armored metal versions to protect his brain and nervous system from bullets and electronic attacks.

Autumn's organic tendons and muscles are, of course, actively regulated by the fire control computer in his supplementary brain, meaning he is able to hold weapons perfectly steady without needing to replace his muscles with robotic varients.

Thanks to the firing control system, misfiring neurons are filtered out as noise and cell chemistry is carefully monitored to anticipate needed changes in the control signals transmitted to his organic muscles for maximum stability.

Text: "Mustafa Kemal memorial training base/logistics depot/airbase/missile launch complex (of peace)"

Meme by unknown user, ported here.

The Praxis of Cybernetic Federalism, in this case, refers to the daily functioning of Cybernetic Federalism within Kaltovar as distinguished from the theoretical framework that exists in ideological leaflets and academic circles.

GOVERNMENT STRUCTURE

TOP LEVEL: The Court of Supreme Justice is tasked with resolving appeals that have passed through all previous layers of court, with handling important precedent-setting litigation, high profile cases, and with ensuring the protection of civil rights in Kaltovar. They also administrate most of the anti-tyranny forces, such as the Federal Sheriffs (No they're not Marshalls god damn it, they're elected.) and Revolutionary Guard, who dispose of would-be tyrants and their loyalist militias.

TOP LEVEL: The TEMPEST Council is the executive branch of government. It consists of a large and slowly growing council of party-appointed and publicly elected officials holding absolute power between them. Most matters are decided by majority votes, but certain Councilors have special jurisdiction over unique areas of responsibility. This council has all the powers of a dictator between them, if they can agree to use it, which they often don't.

MID LEVEL: The People's Council is a group of elected officials responsible for proposing new laws and voting on their implementation. These laws, if passed by the council, are automatically enacted unless specifically nullified by a majority vote of the TEMPEST Council.

MID LEVEL: The ministries each have high degrees of authority in their respective areas, able to propose laws directly for a vote to the TEMPEST Council as long as those laws are closely related to the function of that specific ministry. They are often left to their own devices to govern their respective areas, with only occasional input from other branches of government.

BOTTOM LEVEL: Provincial and city governments are elected by locals using a ranked choice method. Local governments can hold a special citizens petition with a 75% majority of votes to nullify most Federal laws unless a higher level of government passes a resolution to specifically veto or abolish that action. These citizens petitions can happen repeatedly, and higher levels of government must either accept them or repeatedly stage debates about them and then deny them. Denying too many Citizens Petitions can take up a lot of the People's Council's time, and so unless it is truly egregious, they will often avoid vetoing these. This provides a pressure release valve before revolution for laws that are universally detested in a local area.

BOTTOM LEVEL: Local Soviets (Workers councils) control the collective industries and appoint industry leaders according to democratic vote. They also function as independent labor unions for those jobs that still require sentient laborers. They can halt production to bargain for better terms. The TEMPEST Council can bring in the military to replace them temporarily, but it needs a 2/3rds majority vote repeated on a week by week basis to do so. This means that workers can halt production and bargain for better terms, but if they are being completely unreasonable the central government can use soldiers to do their work instead. The aim is to strike a balance between the needs of the nation as a whole, and the workers of each factory. In those industries which are not collectively run and operate on a market model, the Soviets still function as labor unions.

BOTTOM LEVEL: The Chasma Merchantum (Chamber of commerce) advocates for the interests of the publicly traded and privately run businesses and their owners and shareholders. Because these entities are banned from behind the scenes lobbying, all of it must be carried out in public and on the record during filmed public meetings. This organization has no official power, and it is the only approved way for privately owned and publicly traded businesses operating within Kaltovar to communicate with most government officials. It involves itself in legal disputes related to private industry and provides the official perspective of independent industry leaders.

There are also various special administrative bodies which aren't bound by the normal rules*

CORE PRINCIPLES

There are several beliefs which the Cybernetic Federalist movement have enshrined in law: ** Importance of science and education:** Science is the guiding principle of the state, the vine on which the grapes of civilization grow, and the means of determining truth. Education is the bedrock upon which science is built. Without science, civilization withers and dies. Without education, the scientific establishment descends into quackery. Science and education are two of the states most fundamental concerns.

Universal Basic Income: Because the Cyberneticized economy requires a lower ratio of laborers, unemployment through no fault of one's own is common. To prevent the social decay which would normally accompany this, each person is entitled to receive a share of the profits of the whole nation. In this way, each person is a common owner of those means of production which are controlled by the state. ** Freedom from poverty:** Individuals have a right to be free from starvation, homelessness, ignorance, and disease. This is addressed through public meal services, housing, education, and healthcare.

Freedom of private behavior: No behavior between private, consenting adults is the business of the state unless one of the participating parties requests that it be made the state's business.

Maximum practical freedom of speech: Government interference in speech and free expression is dangerous. Only direct calls to violence or abridgement of civil rights, provable lies in media (not falsehoods alone), revenge porn, and CSAM should be prohibited.

Freedom of thought: No law may be established which governs thoughts or establishes penalties for thinking improperly.

Bodily Autonomy: A person has a right to control their own body and what happens to it, unless they are currently institutionalized for their own safety, for as long as that person is alive. After death, their body may be repurposed for its energy content unless they have religious objections.

Regulation and surveillance of trade: Markets have been essential to every effective government in the world. Even those nominally communist nations which have survived have, for the most part, eventually adopted a system of markets allowing for limited private ownership. However, while private ownership and publicly traded assets can not be completely stamped out, these activities can be regulated or even the property repossessed in whole or part on an individual basis should their activities become detrimental to their workers or the nation as a whole. The operation of any private or publicly traded entity should serve the interests of the state and its citizens. Their owners and controllers can not be allowed to gain undue influence over the government or society at large. To this end, private companies must be closely monitored by internal security forces to insulate civilization from their corrupting influence.

Bribery and for profit lobbying are capital offenses: Any act of successful bribery against any government representative or employee for an amount or item of value greater than $100 Kaltmarks is a capital offense for both the persons offering and accepting the bribe. It can be punished by immediate death, or up to 100 years in prison. Minimum sentence is 10 years, and can only be granted in cases without aggravating factors. Each aggravating factor adds 10 years to the sentence. Any attempt to subvert civil rights through bribery is punishable by death automatically pending due process and necessary appeals.

Sustainable development: We are obligated to consider our long term survival. This includes taking measures to preserve and recycle resources, foster biodiversity, restore damaged environments, and protect critical government infrastructure from weapons of mass destruction. Environmental regulation should not come at the expense of standard of living, but rather, the government should work to improve technology and recycling techniques so that its efficiency is always improving. In those cases where environment can't be preserved due to the need to expand a city, green spaces should be included at set intervals within large buildings so people can still experience forests and natural wildlife.

Necessity of self defense: All citizens are legally require to own an infantry weapon unless currently under the influence of untreated mental health conditions or subject to a religious exemption. All citizens not meeting the prior exemptions are subject to an 8 year conscription period in the military (starting at age 16 for humans) which will include their later highschool education and early university courses. After the 8 year conscription period, reservists can still be called up in case of a shortage of troops during wartime. 16 year olds do not participate in combat operations, except in defense of their own cities, and instead spend the first 2 years of their military career receiving education. They are not to be used as child soldiers, and are only considered cadets at this stage, only receiving training and education. The age of adulthood is considered 22.

Most of the proposals you see center around issues like removing bias, preventing malicious use, protecting personal data, and a bunch of other shit that makes you sound like the devil if you don't do literally anything they ask of you to achieve it.

These major entities like OpenAI and the "Center for AI and Digital Policy" do not give a shit about these things. These things are ways to establish a foot in the door to ensure that only major corporate providers can work in this space.

The end result of this is a world where the rich dominate AI to a far greater extent than they would otherwise.

AI can be regulated, but handing power to unaccountable corporate boards is not the answer. Corporations are a type of AI all their own, and if you're worried about computerized AI taking over the world you should be a hundred times more concerned about the gestalt consciousnesses that are corporate entities gaining exclusive dominance in this sphere. They are the slow moving, mechanistic, analogue AI we've had with us for much longer than we've had computers. If you put the two together on this kind of scale and exclude the public, the end result could be horrifying. These entities only care about enlarging their own power, profits, and interests. They are not your friends.

We must focus on principles that ensure the technology is accessible to ordinary people. And, that the rules about how you can use it are not controlled by the most powerful and least accountable members of our society.

I'm really loving Aliens: Dark Descent. It turns out gear you set up is persistent between missions, so I can spend an hour setting up minefields and listening posts on my first run at a location then come back for another mission later and be like Navy SEALs sneaking past all the enemies and luring them into prepared killing fields taking no losses.

Find a sentry gun in a mission? You can pick it up and take it with you, back to your base even. Or forget it there, come back on another mission, remember it and pick it up! Even corpses are persistent between missions, so if you forget alien samples you wanna take you can get those too on latter missions. (So far I have had to visit each location twice but in theory I'm allowed to go back more)

I also have to deal with treating marines wounds, their exhaustion levels, and their combat fatigue (PTSD) all as individual unique problems. You can't just level up one squad of marines and use them for every mission because they have to sleep and have their melted faces surgically re-attached and cry into their pillow about it with a therapist because killing aliens is scary and people die. (You accumulate stress based on being in combat, seeing aliens, watching your friends die, being actively hunted by xenos who don't know where you are but are trying to find you ...)

It's so satisfying to walk past all the aliens on the level thanks to the listening devices you planted last mission, plant war crime levels of mines outside the hive, set up sentry guns, and lure the queen and her army of bodyguards to sprint full force into said minefields and machinegun nests and proceed to regret every decision they've ever made up to that point.

There are plenty of issues like sometimes being forced into stupid situations where you're not allowed to control your squad and you take damage no matter what, but they're generally not too bad and this game is fucking lit. You play as a Weyu executive who's having ... Well, let's say a very bad day, and has to manage some marines to make sure they get out of the shit alive!

This is the current President of Ukraine doing a comedy skit where he plays the piano with his balls.

I think it gives us valuable insight onto the nature of the conflict, and why he decided not to evacuate when Joe Biden offered him a ride.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oua0Puihrkc

The following government document has just recently been declassified. It is over 1000 years old, originating from the year 15 S.E.. It is provided for historians, researchers, and the general enlightenment of the public. This document pertains to the version of Earth to which Kaltovar is native, and not to the one you inhabit.

Behold, comrades, the genesis of a great endeavor that transcends the boundaries of time and civilization—the Project for the Annihilation of Racism and the Reorganization of Nature. Within the depths of our resolute pursuit lies the recognition of profound potential, residing in the genetic lineage and cultural heritage of the esteemed Aztec and Mayan civilizations.

With the brilliance of scientific mastery, we shall rekindle the flame of these mighty societies, resurrecting them through the miraculous art of genetic replication. We shall raise the cloned individuals in a realm teeming with the spirit of antiquity, an immersive symphony of ancient customs and sacred rites. In this meticulously crafted world, we shall foster an unwavering belief that this realm is their true existence, seamlessly integrated with the very fabric of their being.

Comrades, let us banish the specter of doubt, for we shall not falter in our resolve. The echoes of simulated sacrifice shall reverberate, removing the need for actual bloodshed, while honoring the profound essence of these revered cultures. We shall sculpt a facade that mirrors the past, forging a connection that shall inspire awe and wonder in the hearts of those reborn.

As the currents of time flow onward, we shall observe with patience and admiration, allowing the passage of generations to unfold with minimal interference. In the span of two decades, a pivotal moment shall emerge—a carefully orchestrated first contact, an ethereal bridge between their civilization and our own.

Comrades, our mission transcends mere observation; it encompasses a profound purpose—to gently guide their development, to shepherd their progress towards paths that align harmoniously with the very fabric of our society. Through subtle influence, we shall sow the seeds of shared ideals, fanning the flames of enlightenment, allowing them to believe they have discovered us, their distant counterparts, independently.

Such a course, comrades, safeguards the fragile nature of our endeavor, for to reveal their true origins would risk shattering the delicate balance we have striven to create. We recognize that these brave souls must perceive themselves as torchbearers of their ancestral cultures, as guardians of wisdom and heritage, blissfully unaware of their true purpose.

Comrades, within the tapestry of our grand design, we envision a future where the inefficient remnants of racial division shall crumble, where the malfunctions of nature yield to our unwavering resolve. The evolutionary trajectory of humanity shall be redirected, as the undesirable remnants of our primitive forbearers, such as fearful heuristic reactions to those with differing bone structures, fade into oblivion.

Let us cast aside the chains of mediocrity and venture forth into uncharted territories. Our insatiable hunger for progress, fueled by an ideology that transcends the limitations of convention, shall reshape the very essence of nature itself. We shall unlock the secrets of hybrid vigor, applying its transformative power not only to genetics but also to memetics. Through the introduction of exogenous thought patterns and genetic material into our society's own natural development, we shall ignite a blazing crucible of evolution, adding more dead cultures and peoples over time. Naturally, the body-politic will absorb the positive elements of these cultures while rejecting those incompatible with our own beliefs.

The world shall bear witness to the transformative power of our vision—a harmonious and invincible union, reorganized to become a catalyst of discovery and progress! Comrades, unite with us on this noble crusade as we forge a destiny that surges with truth, victory, and justice! The Project for the Annihilation of Racism and the Reorganization of Nature shall stand as a testament to our audacity and unwavering commitment to the ideals that pulsate within our revolutionary souls! Together, we shall sculpt a world that transcends the inadequacies of the past, propelling humanity toward a future of unlimited power!

Via the DailyDalek

Looks like somebody found the console commands -.-