Category Archives: Nihilism

A few weeks ago, I found three distinct yet similar articles. One reported the murder of a mathematics professor at a Chinese university. Another was about a Dutch university that decided to abandon the impact factor. The last article discussed the global obsession with academic "excellence." What do these stories have in common? Research evaluation systems.

The premise of the three stories is that research evaluation systems (based on quantification and competencies) generate anxiety, increase inequality and precariousness while encouraging excessive competition and overproduction of papers. The exact mechanisms used to measure the quality of universities are designed to undermine it, as Professor Sebastiaan Faber warns in the article The Traps of University Excellence (in Spanish).

Let us first review Faber's article, which I recommend that you read from start to finish. In short, what Faber argues is that what we know today as "academic excellence" or "academic quality" is based more on quantity than quality. Furthermore, this is reflected in universities' obsession with world rankings and how science and knowledge are currently funded. How do we measure the quality of a university? We look for its position in one of the university rankings that we all know. What are the indicators that these ranking organizations commonly use? One of the most important indicators is scientific production (e.g., the number of papers, number of citations, impact factor). How do universities evaluate their professors and researchers? The decisive metrics include the number of papers published, their impact factors, the number of citations, and the projects or grants awarded during their careers. And what do the funding agencies that award these grants evaluate? You guessed it: the number of papers published, the impact factors, the citations... It is an unsustainable vicious cycle, and the academic community is suffering the damages.

"At the end of the day, it is always easier and cheaper to measure quantity than quality. However, the truth is that the fixation on the quantitative has wreaked havoc throughout academia. It has led to an insane race for survival and a huge waste of money, time and talent. A tragedy not only scientific but social," says Frank Huisman, historian and professor at the University of Utrecht. What are these ravages? In addition to the increasing precariousness of faculty, we have also seen high rates of anxiety, desertion, depression, and burnout in the academic community due to the culture of "publish or perish." The constant pressure to publish and the hyper-competency generated by the shortage of permanent faculty positions have led researchers to take drastic measures. In June, the journal Nature published the news of the murder of a mathematics professor on a university campus in Shanghai. The prime suspect is a researcher at Fudan University. Although the motive is unknown, the tragic incident reopened the debate about the failures in the incentive system and tenure track that universities in China have adopted. However, these failures are not unique to China's university system, nor are they recent. In Spain, the National Agency for Evaluation of Quality and Accreditation (ANECA) has demolished the dreams of more than one researcher. In Chile, the precariousness of an academic career has brought professors to a level of disillusionment that falls in nihilism. In Europe, the pressure to publish is so unsustainable that in 2014, a group of academicians spoke out for "dis-excellence" and, not to mention, in the United States, there are countless cases and examples.

Can we break out of this vicious cycle? Are there alternatives? Yes, there are. For some years now, various movements worldwide have sought to change the system for evaluating research. In 2012, the "San Francisco Declaration" proposed eliminating metrics based on the impact factor. There was also the Charte de la dsexcellence ("Letter of Dis-Excellence") mentioned above. In 2015, a group of academicians signed the Leiden Manifesto, which warned of the "widespread misuse of indicators in evaluating scientific performance." Since 2013, the group Science in Transition has sought to reform the science evaluation system. Finally, since 2016, the Collectiu InDocentia, created at the University of Valencia (Spain), has also been doing its part.

Even China, which in its eagerness to surpass the United States in the scientific race, adopted an ambitious long-term plan based on scientific publications, is now reviewing its incentives program. China is evaluating if the incentives offered to achieve the desired results and seek new ways to assess academics. Another more recent example is found at Utrecht University, which this week announced that in 2022, the university would formally abandon the impact factor for the hiring and promotion decisions of its academic staff. The university will judge its academicians by other standards, including their commitment to teamwork and their efforts to promote open science. "The impact factors do not truly reflect the quality of an individual researcher or academician," the statement said. Here you can read more details about the new Recognition and Rewards scheme of the university.

As Xavier Aragay said on Twitter, evaluation is being discussed at all levels of education. Not just about evaluating students who cry out for changes, but also about the assessment systems of science and knowledge and, more importantly, the people who comprise science and transmit that knowledge. So many KPIs, evaluation tables, rankings, performance metrics and numbers, in general, make us forget that in universities, the people working are in charge of the training and growth of other people. We have lost sight of the social function of the University. What more important function is there than that?

Translation by Daniel Wetta.

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Opinion | Why Do We Need to Change Research Evaluation Systems? - Observatory of Educational Innovation

Dan Harmon Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photo by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for Tribeca Film Festival

Dan Harmon would love to be able to talk about his work on its own terms. However, the ever-candid Harmon cannot easily separate the show Community from his experience working on it. Fan-favorite scenes bring up memories of network notes or fights with directors. Acclaim for the seasons (one, two, three, five, and six, of course) which now are available on Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon remind him of the harmful work environment he created. And today, the tremendous success of Rick and Morty undeniably comes with the baggage of the small but toxic portion of its fan base.

On Vultures Good One podcast, Harmon came on to discuss the Deans legendary Payday Rap from Community season five, but the conversation went on to cover being a boss, the fans of his works, and nihilism versus humanism. You can read an excerpt from the transcript or listen to the full episode below. Tune in to Good One every Thursday on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.

During the first three seasons of Community, it felt like the press didnt just ignore rumors and little asides that the show was really hard to work on, but they used it as proof of your greatness. Like, Hes so dedicated to making this funny, he doesnt care how long hes making them work. It was prime peak TV, auteur showrunner stuff.Yes, the myth of the auteur.

You have been candid about your significant shortcomings running Community and trying to work on it. How has your thinking and feeling about being a boss evolved?Older age and technology and exhaustion and being called out all intersected with I want to get home by five. And that should be a human right. A lot of cement mixers listening to this would be like, Oh, youre home by five after thinking for a living, la-di-da. I wont argue with that, but I will say, in therapy, what I have learned about people who study the brain of people who do creative work, its not like bricklaying, but if you sit for four hours and do nothing but not know what to do, its what we do to prisoners to punish them for being bad at prison. They take them out of where theres certainty about things, and they put them into uncertainty in the form of solitary confinement. And were waking up to that being mental torture. To my cement-mixer brothers out there and my EMT workers and anybody listening to this, Im not saying that what we do is difficult or even important. But what I will say is, yeah, if you do it for eight hours straight, you tend to get the same result. That four additional hours of people wanting to slit your throat in your sleep doesnt help.

And the less sleep makes you hit the drawing board in the morning in a state of confusion. I would literally put myself in a daze back then. I was popping Adderall like Pez and sleeping on my office couch. My definition of when to stop was when the job was done, which is the definition of suicide if your job is creative. And youre the one in charge of when its done. How do you know when a joke is finished? How do you know when a story is finished? I would just sit, and then if you were obedient enough, you would sit with me. And then your reward for that, which Im unfortunately infamous for, is like, Maybe I love you. Maybe youre here because you love me. And its like, No, you pay me to be here. I cant leave or Ill get fired. That is why I transgressed those boundaries because I was in this fugue state. I would sleep for 20 minutes and then think about the show for three hours.

What Rick and Morty taught me after leaving Community was I would sit in the edit bay with Justin Roiland, and weeks before broadcast, wed still be changing things in the edit bay in an episode that took a year and a half to make. Season three or four of Rick and Morty, I started to realize, My God, were changing this episode the same amount that we would change it had we spent longer writing it. A bomb went off in my head where I was like, How long did I make the animators wait for this script? And every time the line producer appeared in my doorway and said, We really need to record voices tomorrow, and like I was Orson Welles or something, I would say to them theyre the ones that needed to adopt my religion: Youre in the Matrix, man. Dont you understand it does you no good to record a bunch of voices recording things Im only going to rewrite? Why dont you just wait until its finished, and then you could record something that would be ready for the people?

It took me so long to realize thats not true! You are not an architect. You are not making blueprints. The difference between a writer in TV and an architect is that the architect is going to kill people if they dont put the electrical outlets in the right place on their little map of how to build the building, and the concrete is going to harden, and then the changes cant be made. A writer is creating a memo to hand off to his collaborators his hundreds of collaborators who are being paid huge amounts of money and being asked to go away from their families to help you by saying, in animation, for instance, Well, this is what stick figures would look like if theyre doing this thing that you wrote for 30 pages. And you look at the stick figures and then you go, Oh wow, those stick figures are wasting time for three minutes. I think maybe we should Youre writing with others. Youre not a novelist. Youre not publishing a script thats then being adapted by your underlings. Youre dancing with 300 people. And I think that would even apply to live-action.

You get asked about bad fans a lot, but I was curious if you feel misunderstood. And, as you continue to create the show, if you feel like you take that into account to make sure you are communicating what you are trying to communicate.There is no getting around the fact that the thought process has to start to change after observing the public digesting material now. The really cynical way of looking at that is to say, Well, I made a character thats really fun because he says, Go fuck yourself. And then I saw a meme that a Nazi used that says, Go fuck yourself. So my character is going to stop saying Go fuck yourself and start saying Everybody hug each other. Thats the map those Nazi kids draw. Where the accountability comes in is I want to disabuse people of this limited thinking. I dont like that people receive instruction from television. I want them to get comfort from television, and I want to disabuse them of any part of them that thinks that television permits them to go through their day thinking certain thoughts hence the lateral stuff in the meta stuff. Dont let this carnival ride make you carnival-ride dependent. Get out there, make your own carnival ride, et cetera.

Nowadays, in a writers room conversation, when were breaking a story, it is unavoidable knowing that some kid out there is like, See, I knew it! Now more than ever, when were breaking a story, I have to run everything through a simulator in my head, and I go, I dont want this to be perceived as some kind of anti-trans message. Like, Oh, this is a story about octopus creatures that identify as unicorns and blah, blah, blah. And Ill be like, Okay, can we be careful that were not doing a libertarian soapbox thing where our point is people are crazy when they believe things? Ive never wanted a TV show to be that.

So, I do now check myself more than ever when were breaking stories. Im like, Can this not feel like a soapbox of any kind? Even using like South Park, I would call that extreme compared to what I would like to accomplish. South Park will tell you, People go a little crazy sometimes when they think stuff, and it gets them all worked up, but really, if youre just hanging out, making cartoons, you dont really have to worry. Thats great, but I dont even want that much soapbox. I dont want to forget that if youre watching, you might be in the most terrible mood of your life, living in a pit or a trench in a foreign country, like watching a crooked TV or some Max Headroom dystopia that I have no way of relating to, and I want you to just laugh at the human condition. I want you to be soothed and welcomed in, and I want your obsession to be rewarded. I do not want to send weird signals on top of that. As the world gets increasingly polarized and fucking vigilant about messaging, yes, I have increased my consciousness of like, Is it possible this will be perceived as messaging of any kind? And I dont add water to make it not messaging, Ill add confusion. Like, Well, anyone that thinks that will surely be thrown off when this happens.

I have tried in the past to service anxiety about that, and then I just hit a breaking point I think probably around my QAnon canceling at the hands of the fucking comedy video I did. I was just like, You know what? Humans suck in groups. Theyre terrible people, and the internet is awful at receiving comedy. But individual humans are fantastic at watching it, and theyre great at writing me messages and saying, This helped me so much and I watch this with my dad. Those people number in the millions. You just have to, at a certain point, be like, I cannot worry about the worst parts of this carnival. I have to die honest. Yes, everything I say nowadays is going to register on the Richter scale of people that are going to say Classic blue pill cuck fucking sellout pussification dot hashtag or red pill blue pill fucking nonsense.

Im 48 15 year olds used to not be allowed to drink with us, and now were in this era where theyre right next to adults, and some of us are falling for it. Were having arguments with teenagers. Im not saying theyre bad people, but theyre teenagers, man. You used to be able to just say, Get out of here. You cant be here. This is for grownups. Theres boobs in here. But now theyre just everywhere, and they can have an avatar of a guy in a beard. And theyre like [in a dumb voice], I think critical race theory blah blah blah blah. Dude, youre 15. I was Republican too. All I learned was America is great. Get out of here, you kid. You cant grow chin hair.

By the way, teenagers are great. Keep watching the show and also buy merchandise. There are T-shirts for teenagers and skateboard wheels, I think? I want to buy a third house.

We last spoke at the Community reunion at Vulture Festival and, of course, I brought up the idea of a Community movie. And everyone was like, Sure, Id do it, but I want to frame it a little differently. Assuming Donald [Glover] says yes, what are the conceptual or formal issues that would make it difficult to do? Why do you think it could be bad? Youd have to ask yourself, What tails wagging what dog? Because if youre doing a reunion movie, youre doing it obviously to service fans of the show, so now you look at the X-Files movie and you say, Did they do that right, or did they do that wrong? And my conclusion was I dont think they did it right or wrong. I would have hated to have to write that movie, because in an X-Files movie, youd have to answer questions.

Heres the biggest philosophical question: Are you supposed to service a mythical new viewer? The obvious, dogmatic, practical, off-the-street answer is like, No, you dont. Its fan service. Why would there be a Community movie? Who do you think is going to walk in off the street and buy popcorn and sit and watch a Community movie like that? They deserve to be punished. Why are they doing that?

Saying that that person doesnt exist is a lot different from asking yourself structurally if youre supposed to design the movie for them, because theres a new viewer inside of all of us. If every Marvel movie started with inside references to all 90 other Marvel movies, even if you had seen all of them even if on one level youd be like, This is the greatest Marvel movie ever because all of the movies are in here I think that a part of your brain would be going, Yeah, but its kind of not a good movie for this reason. Its just speaking in gibberish. What does this mean? I exist in that camp like you? Formalistically, you owe a movie that I think the fans can not only enjoy, but they can stand back and go, You know, the crazy thing about this Community movie is that if you didnt know there was a show, this is an insanely good movie. Theres a reason to watch it and then definitely watch the series because now youre like, Holy crap. I dont know if thats arrogance, pretentiousness, responsibility, self-deprecation, torture. I cant get myself out of that camp. Yes, there will be inside baseball. Yes, there will be fan service, but it has to be couched in

It has to be a movie.Yes. And then the other thing is and maybe this folds into that but per the Russo brothers, per Justin Lin, who directed the paintball episode and the Halloween episode, people will stop these guys on the street and demand a Community movie, in spite of their work on Fast and the Furious and at Marvel. What they always say to those guys is So, if you did do a movie, it has to be paintball, right? That kind of weighs on you, because I know that that sounds like a great idea, but do you really want to see a Community reunion movie that also has to do this committed irony to an entire genre of, like, were shooting paintballs and paintballs are like bullets? Dont you remember that we did two sequels to paintball episodes, and beyond the initial hard-hitting, classic Emmy-worthy not Emmy-getting irony of doing a paintball episode of a sitcom, dont you actually want there to be a level of groundedness to part of this too?

Do you want to see these people play dress-up in their old outfits and come in and go, Look at me. Meeep meep, moop moop. Look what I used to do? Yes, to some degree; no, to some degree. And contrary to that, do you want to see these people not doing that and coming in in pantsuits and going, Im an adult now. Meep meep, moop moop. Remember when we did this? Is there a way to provide a little bit of all of it for everybody and come out on the other side, with everybody going, Wow, that is like everything I didnt even know I wanted from a Community reunion? If history is any teacher, what I will try to do is solve all those problems, and Ill end up making a big plate of self-indulgent spaghetti that only five people love.

What are the next steps? Is it just like, once a day you meditate on it?I have never done anything for free.

Like you need a deadline that is with a check.Yeah. I started writing to keep my parents from hitting me, and I now only write to feel valid. But the upside of that is yes, I am, at least once a week, thinking about it, because the gears are turning. There is, like a thing is happening. Logistically, the locks are coming away. And the only problems are becoming the creative ones, which is great, because I love those problems. I love having these conversations, and theyre being had. Thats a scoop you get, because I had a little Ketel One with my LaCroix.

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Dan Harmon Knows a Community Movie Could Be Bad, and Yet - Vulture

Like fresh entrails sewn into an old skeleton, the Fear Street trilogy is a new creature. Released on Netflix on consecutive Fridays, the three movies that make up the event straddle the line between weekly television and cinematic franchise. This Grand Guignol was an ambitious experiment for the streamer, and it mostly succeeds: Fear Street, an engaging and scrappy mini-franchise, plays like Scream meets Stranger Things built on a supernatural premise sturdy enough to sustain interest and suspense over nearly six hours.

Based on books by R.L. Stine, the Fear Street movies take place in side-by-side suburbs. Shadyside is drab and dejected, full of cynical kids who work hard and play harder. Nearby, a golden glow falls over the sublime Sunnyvale, Shadysides richer, snootier neighbor. General ill will divides the towns. But theres a darker pattern at play. Every few decades, Shadyside is the site of a mass murder, and each time, the killer is an apparently stable resident who just seems to snap.

Part One: 1994 opens on one such slaughter. In a lurid mall after-hours, we meet our first victim in Heather (Maya Hawke), who makes an impression although she doesnt survive long. The story pivots to follow the trilogys hero, Deena (Kiana Madeira, with a bite), a cynical high schooler going through a painful breakup with Sam (Olivia Scott Welch). Bitter, but with lingering tender feelings, Deena soon discovers that a drove of zombies is after her ex. And when efforts to involve the Sunnyside police including the snidely named Sheriff Goode (Ashley Zukerman) prove futile, Deena vows to protect Sam herself. Her nerdy little brother, Josh (Benjamin Flores Jr.), and some friends, Kate (Julia Rehwald) and Simon (Fred Hechinger), tag along to run interference.

The Fear Street universes rules of zombie conduct are not especially consistent. Sometimes a mere trace of blood is enough to allow the menaces to sniff out their prey and pounce. In other scenes, they take ages to track down their teenage targets long enough, say, for a pair of exes to make up and make out. More methodical are the forces behind the zombies reanimation. Deena discovers that the undead killers are Shadysides deceased mass murderers. And then theres the 17th-century witch, Sarah Fier, who possesses their corpses and orders them to strike from beyond the grave. Why Sarah is holding a centuries-long grudge against Shadyside is one of the mysteries powering Deenas journey.

Leigh Janiak, who directed the trilogy and co-wrote the three screenplays, has deftly adapted Stines stories for the screen. Using an abundance of playful genre tropes, Janiak gives the movies a stylized energy. Motifs accompany overt references to classic horror movies, as when Simon cites a survival strategy he learned from Poltergeist. His borrowed idea turns out to be a bust, inspiring Deena to proclaim that their emergency is not like the movies.

The line nods to the audience, but, in a way, Deenas right. Fear Street feels different. The trilogy eschews the doom-and-gloom sobriety of recent horror successes like Bird Box and A Quiet Place, or the nihilism of The Purge franchise. Shadyside and Sunnyvale represent opposite poles, but Fear Street isnt an allegory about suburban privilege dressed up in blood and guts. More so, its a motley of gore and nostalgia as told through an endearing cast of teenage rebels.

These strengths are best displayed in Part Two: 1978, the strongest of the trilogy. While Part One drips with 90s artifacts, including grunge outfits and Pixies mixtapes, Part Two takes a luscious trip back in time to a summer at Camp Nightwing. Campers donning short shorts crowd into cabin bunks while counselors just a few years older smoke pot and hook up to a soundtrack of The Runaways Cherry Bomb.

This part of the story centers on two sisters spending a summer at Nightwing: Ziggy (Sadie Sink), a sneering misfit camper, and the elder Cindy (Emily Rudd), a priggish, type-A counselor. Think Wet Hot American Summer infused with the macabre. The place gets especially gruesome once the sun sets and a killer again, a Shadysider accursed turns color war into a red rampage. Carnage and a series of close calls follow, but the change in scenery ensures that Part Two never feels like a clone of Part One. The actors help: The combined talents of Sink, Rudd and Ryan Simpkins, as Cindys co-counselor Alice, raise the tension by a few notches.

The final installment, Part Three: 1666 backpedals to an even earlier time, bringing us to the village of Sarah Fier. In a stage drama surprise, many of the actors from Part One and Two return in new, 17th-century roles, sporting colonial rags and period speech that nobody quite pulls off. Here, there is less to propel the action, and lacking in pop artifacts, lingo or fashion trends, Janiak struggles to recreate the fizzy and fun tone she achieved in the earlier movies. No matter. There are wicked mysteries to be solved, and by Part Three, you feel safe following these survivors wherever they go.

Fear Street Part One: 1994Rated R. Running time: 1 hour 47 minutes. Watch on Netflix.

Fear Street Part Two: 1978Rated R. Running time: 1 hour 49 minutes. Watch on Netflix.

Fear Street Part Three: 1666Rated R. Running time: 1 hour 52 minutes. Watch on Netflix.

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Fear Street Trilogy Review: Carnage and Close Calls - The New York Times

When news of yet another proposed reboot of the Friday the 13th franchise was announced in 2018, I jokingly wondered how the powers at be were going to make the entry woke. How could anyone take a series that has reveled in nihilism while effectively arguing for the inherent entertainment in seeing anonymous teen characters get hacked to bits, and translate it to work in a modern context for an audience that demands a more sensitive and compassionate approach? By exploring Halloween Final Girl Laurie Strodes decades-long trauma, David Gordon Green and Danny McBride did so for that franchise and in the process made piles of money. But Friday the 13th has always been dumber and meaner, and at any rate, the brazen misanthropy that characterized a lot of 70s and 80s horror just wouldnt fly today, not at least without the veneer of social consciousness. Whether out of the goodness of ones heart or pure market-driven cynicism, the contemporary trash monger needs to give audiences an excuse for indulging in cinematic junk food.

Leigh Janiaks Fear Street Part Two: 1978 has it all figured out. An equally enjoyable followup to the Netflix franchises Part One: 1994, the sequel is a spiritual continuation of the Friday the 13th franchise, its just that the names have been changed. Instead of Camp Crystal Lake, Fear Streets is Camp Nightwing, and instead of an axe-wielding murderer named Jason Voorhees, Nightwings resident terrorist is Tommy, an eventually masked, possessed counselor (in Part One, he was referred to as the Camp Nightwing Killer). Fear Street Part Two: 1978, which Janiak adapted from R.L. Stines YA book franchise alongside co-writer Phil Graziadei, is more exacting than your average Friday movie. Whereas that franchise just sort of left Jasons zombie status unexplained and inscrutable, Part Two: 1978 details the legend through which Tommy was possessed: A witchs curse that affects many residents of the Fear Street setting of the depressed Shadyside, in a rather pronounced metaphor for class in America. In some ways, Part Two: 1978 manages to be more brutal than Friday ever did, as well: Generally the Friday the 13th movies were set at camp in the days before any of the campers arrived, so it was just counselors getting hacked up. Not so hereTommy goes after and in fact kills children.

And yet Fear Street Part Two: 1978 manages to be more sensitive than anything in the Friday the 13th series. Through its direct engagement with the Final Girl archetype (as coined by Carol J. Clover), Part Two: 1978 finds its soul. Part Two: 1978s ostensible Final Girl, counselor Cindy (Emily Rudd), inhabits most of the goody-goody attributes of classic Final Girls, as detailed by Clover in her 1992 book Men, Women and Chain Saws:

The Final Girl is boyish, in a word. Just as the killer is not fully masculine, she is not fully femininenot, in any case, feminine in the ways of her friends. Her smartness, gravity, competence in mechanical and other practical matters, and sexual reluctance set her apart from the other girls and ally her, ironically, with the very boys she fears or rejects, not to speak of the killer himself. Lest we miss the point, it is spelled out in her name: Stevie, Marti, Terry, Laurie, Stretch, Will, Joey, Max.

Cindy is the type of character so straight-laced that her cursing takes her peers aback. Shes a celibate teetotaler, but her virtue isnt presented as some sort of magical endowment. Just as Sidney in Scream refused sex for reasons tied directly to her past (in Sidneys case, her dead mothers promiscuous reputation), Cindy has a specific motivation for projecting such a squeaky clean identity. As she tells a former friend, Alice (Ryan Simpkins) with whom she emotionally reconnects late in the movie:

I knew then I wasnt different from the other Shadysiders. I was cursed. I told myself that if I was perfect, if I did everything right, I could beat it. I snitched on you, I got new friends, I started dressing like this. I dated sweet Tommy. I avoided you, but I couldnt avoid [her sister] Ziggy. Because she was there always reminding me of the truth. That this town, this place, was cursed. And so were we. She was right all this time.

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Clover argued that through the Final Girls boyishness, horrors male-skewing audience ultimately identifies with the Final Girl. Fear Street Part Twos avoidance in making such concessions is one of a few ways that it twists the archetype. Cindys resolution is dependent not just on her friendship with Alice, but also by repairing her relationship with her sister Ziggy (Sadie Sink). Instead of transforming into a male stand-in, Cindys femininity is, in fact, reaffirmed by female friendship and sisterhood.

Fear Street Part Two is intent on reshaping what we think we know about horror. The camp action opens with Ziggy tearing through the woods, only to reveal that whos following her is not an axe-wielding murderer (he comes later), but a group of bullies, cleverly integrating the quotidian horrors of growing up with the extraordinary types you see in horror flicks. This kind of convention play, without explicitly telegraphing its every move a la Scream, is what the Fear Street series does so well. It has enough faith in its audience to pick up on its genre manipulation, but also works straightforwardly for those who arent coming from a particularly studied perspective. This isnt rocket science or Bergman. There arent new innovations to enthrall, and a different genre might expose these characters as thin, but they work perfectly in the Fear Street context, which considers perfecting to be the greatest act of homage.

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Fear Street Part Two: 1978's Novel Respect for the Final Girl Trope - Jezebel

Loki creator Michael Waldron proudly lists influences that you can probably see when you watch his show from Mad Men to Indiana Jones to Star Warsto Nora Ephron. But oneinfluence you mayhave missed is the beloved Bill Watterson comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, about a rambunctious boy and the stuffed tiger only he can dream to life.

Waldron, who at 33 is already not only running a Disney Plus show but also writing the upcoming Marvel film Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and a secret Star Wars project, describes his rise as a writer in the latest MovieMaker podcast, available on Spotify or above or wherever you get podcasts.

He credits much of it to his very clever method of getting more face time with Community and Rick and Morty creator Dan Harmon when he worked with him as an intern, but well let him tell the story.

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Waldron seized the opportunity after knowing he wanted to write from an early age. A story called Jim the Fat Cat that he wrote in third grade contains many of the subjects that would continue to fascinate him, from TV to wrestling.

Another feline was also important to his creative evolution.

For probably 10 years straight I was just always reading Calvin and Hobbes,on just repeat. Never not reading it. Because theres so much of it. By the time you get to the end, youve kind of forgotten it. And so Bill Watterson was a huge influence, just in joke-telling and storytelling, and making me want to write like that.

Calvin and Hobbes is a very special comic strip: Watterson wrote and meticulously drew its gorgeous, understated panels from 1985 to 1995, before announcing that he had done what I can do within the constraints of daily deadlines and small panels. He never allowed it to be commercialized or cheapened with cheesy products or tie-ins, and has avoided publicity and entreaties to revive the characters.

The tone of Calvin and Hobbes, like the tone of Loki, can be hard to describe, but we asked Waldron to try.

Its just a very particular blend of at times cynical, very self-aware humor, and kind of not jaded, but just not afraid to be cynical humor, but with heart, he explains.

It doesnt pull punches, but its also not afraid of being sweet. I think thats why, later in life, I was drawn to Community and Harmons writing. Rick and Morty is a show that can be very nihilistic in a way that Calvin and Hobbes could be, Waldron continues. Sometimes Calvin and Hobbes can feel very nihilistic. But it also isnt afraid to go to a place where it makes you cry because a baby raccoon died.

And Rick and Morty isnt afraid to make you feel stuff. And so a lot of times, its like nihilism and heart are mutually exclusive in things, and the cool thing, maybe, that I took to with Bill Watterson, was it felt like they could they could really work together.

Some of the most emotional scenes in Loki, for example, take place betweenLoki (Tom Hiddleston) andSylvie (Sophia Di Martino) on the moon of Lamentis, as its apocalypse draws near. Throughout the show, which airs its season finale on Wednesday, Loki learns to move past his fatalistic attitude (he notes in Episode 4 that hes already died countless times) and to become invested in the possibility of a relationship with Sylvie and friendship with Mobius (Owen Wilson). He forms some of his closest attachments in the most hopeless moments.

As the finale approaches, Waldron says the guiding principle of the shows writing so far has been that audiences are smart, and that the show needs to be aware of what they know. One major reveal took place in Episode 4, when another show might have used it in the finale. What will happen in the season finale of Loki feels impossible to predict.

You try to kind of put yourself in the shoes of the audience, and not let the audience be ahead of you or your story for too long, Waldron says. At the same time there, I think theres a sweet spot where the audience does catch up or kind of knows, and you want to live in that freefall. And let the characters live in that for a little bit.

Waldron wasnt overwhelmed by the prospect of telling a story in the Marvel Universe, because he didnt read many comics growing up. But he did grow up a huge Star Wars fan. How does he handle the pressure of working on Marvel chief Kevin Feiges upcoming Star Wars project?

Well, it helps, he jokes, that I guess Ive been dreaming about doing that my entire life.

Theseason finale of Loki, created for television by Michael Waldron, streams Wednesday on Disney Plus.

Main image: Michael Waldron. Photo credit: CassieMireya Rodriguez Waldron.

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Loki Creator Influenced by Calvin and Hobbes' 'Nihilism and Heart' - MovieMaker Magazine

Its sometimes hard to identify era-defining moments when they happen; usually you can only really see them after the wave rolls back. Helpfully, Robinhood has given us a high place to stand so we can see a little farther though I dont think thats the point of its S-1, which is a document filed in order to make an IPO.

Robinhood, you may recall, has been controversial. Just before the S-1 landed, we discovered a $70 million fine from FINRA, a finance industry corporation that regulates its members; Robinhood was fined for among other things failing to protect its customers. This is the largest fine its ever handed out. (Seems weird to me that $53 million is for FINRA and only $17 million is for the investors who FINRA says were harmed, but whatever, finance industry gonna finance industry.) Anyway this is the consequences of those whoopsie outages in March 2020 around major trading days. Robinhood has also had oopsies around Dogecoin in April, so I guess well find out if anyone cares about that sometime next year.

Robinhoods messiness is part of the fun. Theres like, six pages of lawsuit disclosures in the S-1, including 50 class-actions stemming from January alone, some beef with the Securities and Exchange Commission, allegations from Massachusetts that Robinhoods broken some laws, New York just asking questions about money laundering, and so on. Oh, and the Northern California US Attorneys Office has CEO Vlad Tenevs cell phone. (The actual phone, not just his number.) On the positive side, Robinhood has settled a civil suit brought by the family of Alex Kearns, a 20-year-old novice trader who killed himself wrongly believing hed lost more than $700,000.

Messiness aside, the financials suggest that Robinhood had a good Q1! There were 18 million net cumulative funded accounts on Robinhood by the end of the first quarter, according to the document. Thats 44 percent growth over the end of 2020, when there were 12.5 million such accounts. If you can cast your mind back to last January, there was that GameStonk thing, where a bunch of retail traders piled into GameStop and sent the shares, in their parlance, to the moon. Robinhood caught some flack and, apparently, a pile of lawsuits for restricting trading during that period, but it looks like the entire episode was a net positive, even if it did piss some users off! Laissez le bon temps rouler, bb.

But lets talk about payment for order flow, which, whew, 81 percent of first-quarter revenue! (Man, Id personally put some eggs in another basket.) That tells you who Robinhoods clients are: Citadel Securities et al, the people who pay for its service. So what, exactly, are they buying?

Look, the Robinhood app has lovely design, but the app isnt the product. Trades from Robinhood users are Robinhoods real product. The main insight Robinhood had was that in a mobile-first world, they could outflank other brokerages by reaching retail customers. They were right about that! But it means we have to be clear about what the real value in the financial system looks like: data, and fees.

Robinhood loves to brag that it is giving access to people who have never traded before. To my eye, however, it seems like Robinhood is advertising that most of its users are fish. Its not impossible for a novice to enter the markets, understand them, and make money... but, man, its weird out here. Like, a stablecoin issuer is trying to SPAC for a cool $4.5 billion without saying exactly whats backing the stablecoin. If you did not understand that sentence, thats because its fucking nonsense. I wish all the first-time investors the absolute best of luck in the markets; they will need it.

Goldman Sachs, underwriter of Robinhoods S-1, is doing this IPO for the fees, as are the other banks listed. The big money is serving as a middleman in a maximum number of transactions; Goldman made a couple billion on its underwriting business alone in Q1. Citadel Securities is one of Robinhoods actual clients; it works as a market maker, and pays Robinhood to route its trades to Citadel Securities so Citadel Securities can make money on the bid-ask spread.

The setup means that Robinhood makes its money when users trade. The more frequent the trading, the more money Robinhood makes. This is part of what makes the mobile-first design on Robinhood noteworthy its a trading app for a group of users who are accustomed to reacting to our smartphone notifications.

But it is also important to understand that Robinhoods retail customers are n00bs. (They phrase it more politely, like this: We take pride in the fact that we are expanding the market by welcoming new investors into the financial system.) Theyre also pretty young about 70 percent of the assets under Robinhoods custody come from people aged 18 to 40. Robinhood continues to welcome an increasing proportion of women to our platform, a hilariously indirect phrase. What do we think, ladies? Is Robinhood 70 percent men? 90 percent men? 95 percent? I wouldnt have to contemptuously speculate if that number were in the document, you know.

The default settings on the Robinhood app turn on notifications for price movements; the user can choose whether the threshold is 5 percent or 10 percent. (There are also notifications for 52-week highs and lows.) Its possible those notifications encourage users to make trades that arent in their interests; impulse selling, for instance. Of course, users can turn them off, but companies get to choose the default. The default for Robinhood isnt to encourage buy-and-hold by requiring users to manually check in on their investments, allowing them to forget about them most of the time; instead, Robinhood wants to send notifications for movement, which might inspire trades.

Now, study after study shows that day traders mostly lose money. And research that focuses on Robinhood specifically shows that their traders are mostly noise. During herding events, when Robinhood users all crowd into a stock together, intense buying by Robinhood users forecast negative returns, researchers found.

The users also seem to be crowding into weird assets. Robinhood was a part of the GameStonk mass meme, and also made almost $30 million on Dogecoin in the first quarter, a frankly astounding amount of money to make on a shitcoin. It is especially astonishing, as Bloombergs Matt Levine points out, that Robinhood made that much money in the quarter before Dogecoin peaked. Robinhood is the brokerage for fun gambling on meme stocks and meme cryptocurrencies, Levine writes. And that is great for Robinhoods customers, including Citadel Securities!

Okay, but what are the users getting out of it? Levine thinks fun gambling, and that might be right, given the age bracket. Take the meme stocks in June, The New York Times wrote of them that when stock prices are divorced from fundamentals, it cements the public perception that markets can be manipulated by a small group of insiders or a large group of determined traders and therefore cant be trusted. This is exactly backwards. That ship sailed a decade ago for everyone with student loan debt who couldnt get a job because of the 2008 financial crisis, a result of Wall Streets wild betting on the housing market. Oh, and the adults who were supposed to protect us by evaluating risk? Why, they were telling each other that those deals models didnt adequately capture the real risks. But it didnt matter the deals could even be structured by cows and we would rate them.

Are there any people under the age of 40 who have ever thought markets were something besides a casino? Meme trades arent the cause of widespread distrust, theyre the symptoms of it. And those people under 40 who think finance is for gambling? Theyre the lucrative part of Robinhoods user base. Legal issues aside, it seems like Robinhood has a good business model for monetizing financial nihilism which is the kind of thing investors might get excited about. Whether thats good for Robinhoods users or the financial system at large isnt a question the S-1 is designed to answer.

You know who Robinhood might be good for, though? Tenev and his co-founder, Baiju Bhatt, who stand to get stock awards worth an estimated $1.4 billion as executive compensation if Robinhoods shares trade high enough.

Correction July 13, 1:40PM ET: A previous version of this story said that Citadel was one of Robinhoods clients. Citadel is a hedge fund and Citadel Securities Robinhoods actual client is a market maker. We regret the error.

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Robinhood has figured out how to monetize financial nihilism - The Verge

In moral philosophy and mass culture alike, nihilism has a bad name. And little wonder. It is most often associated with meaninglessness, pessimism, and amoralism. In its more extreme forms, nihilism calls to mind a figure like The Joker, with his raucous rejection of every criterion of value and human progress or ambition. It frequently suggests a certain existential despair, stemming from the pointlessness and futility of human endeavours. Or, in its more everyday variety, we tend to think of the languid unsentimentality, or the air of perpetual half-disappointment and total self-absorption, displayed by characters on Seinfeld.

But nihilism is a complex phenomenon. Karen Carr (in her book The Banalization of Nihilism) has produced a kind of taxonomy of kinds of nihilism, each related, in some way, to the other:

Taken together, nihilism suggests a world without independent or transcendental guarantee; a world in which progress is not assured and there is no immutable rule against which human actions are judged; and a world without purpose, but only in the sense that there is no appointed telos deriving from an overarching meaning (or providence; just think of Martin Luther Kings notion of the arc of the universe).

The question is: is such a view of reality corrosive to a robust conception of the moral life? Or are there defensible ways of thinking about moral obligation, as well as moral progress, that dont rely on transcendental guarantees? Can meaning itself give rise to forms of corrosive egotism, which undermine the possibilities of both moral community and moral growth?

You can read more from our guest, Tracy Llanera, on the nihilism and the moral life on ABC Religion & Ethics.

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Is nihilism compatible with the moral life? - The Minefield - ABC News

As a member of Generation Z, aka Zoomer, I feel I am in a unique position to discuss the future my generation has to live with. Generation Z, or those born between 1995 and 2010 are some of the youngest members of our society. Weve grown up in a world full of war, economic disaster, and climate disasters. These collective experiences have shaped us in a way many older adults could never truly understand.

The issues our society is currently facing have a direct influence on young people like me. We see economic collapse as a recurring problem, we see wars as unnecessary human violence, and climate change as a prime example of humanitys utter failure to protect Mother Earth. We understand that climate change is not the fault of workers or consumers, but the fault of the capitalists who have proven time and time again that they will stop at nothing to pursue profit.

These problems have convinced many in my generation that the future is not only bleak, but that life itself is meaningless, since this rock we live on is dying. We may never be able to own homes, retire by 65, or even survive into our 70s or 80s. This is a potential future we have to deal with, that older generations can conveniently ignore. Having to live with these realities is not easy on our mental health either. According to Western Governors University, only 45 percent of Zoomers report that their mental health is good or excellent. Which is significantly lower than previous generations.

This mental health crisis, caused by the impending collapse of human civilization, is personified by our generations enjoyment of dark entertainment. For example, one of the most popular adult animated shows at the moment is Rick and Morty, an adventure show about a scientist that touches on dark themes such as nihilism and existentialism. This type of entertainment has even reached TikTok. If you spend 10 minutes on the video social media app, youll see many young people engage in not only dark humor but bleak and dark content in general. Take for example, the latest TikTok trending sound, a cover of a song by Matt Maltese titled, As The World Caves In, sung by Sarah Cothran. This song at its surface level is about a protagonist and their lover, spending their final moments together as nuclear war is about to annihilate all life on Earth. While not exactly a fairy tale love story, this song has captured the ears of a generation. Garnering over 30 million views on YouTube and over 20 million streams on Spotify, its safe to say this type of content resonates with young people.

Us young people face an uncertain future and many of us have found different ways to cope with this trauma, but Im here to tell you that our future isnt predetermined. I understand how easy it can be to succumb to nihilism and pessimism. However, doing so leaves us feeling helpless when the truth is, we have the ability to change the world we live in and our collective future, but only if we have the guts to stand up and fight. To save our planet and future, we need to begin a new era of human civilization, built around community and environmentalism, not profit and destruction.

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Op-Ed: Nihilism won't save Gen Z, or this planet - The Texas Signal

Everett Henes| Hillsdale Daily News

Our perspective is always limited. We cannot know why certain things take place or even how long they will last. If we didnt have the word of God, philosophies such as existentialism (where there is no intrinsic meaning or purpose to life) and nihilism (the belief that life is pointless and human values are worthless) would be tempting ways to approach life. What we have, as Christians, is trust that God is in control. This is one of the biggest uses of Gods word for us. Scripture is inspired and shows us the consistency of our God. Nothing will get in the way of his plans as Job professed, I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted (Job 42:2). This is clear here in the story of Josephs life. No obstacles will stand in the way of Gods saving work for he will work around them or, perhaps more often, through them to save his people.

Last week we looked at Genesis 42 and the first journey Josephs brothers made to get grain during the famine. When they came to Egypt Joseph recognized them, but they did not recognize him. This was used to Josephs advantage as he was able to learn about their family and make certain demands upon them. But while Joseph could have used his knowledge to get revenge what we saw was that Joseph was leading them toward repentance and reconciliation.

In the story of Josephs life, we see Gods mercy in the salvation of the people and the provision of food for the entire region. It is a severe mercy. We know from other stories when Israel was hungry that God could rain down manna from heaven. He could supply the food they need supernaturally. God is doing more than merely causing them to survive. He is bringing them toward repentance and reconciliation. CS Lewis once wrote, God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.

There are more obstacles than the famine. What happens in Genesis 43 is that Jacobs family is without food again. Jacob wants to send his sons to buy more from Egypt, but Joseph had told them not to return without their youngest brothers. Jacob doesnt want to let Benjamin go. Judah offers himself in Benjamins place. He pledges his life that Benjamin will return. This is more than saying he will die if Benjamin dies but rather, that he will give himself (and therefore all his family) to do with as Jacob pleases if Benjamin does not return.

Jacob prays for Gods mercy and then leaves it in his hands. He does not have our perspective. He cannot see that the famine is part of Gods overall plan. Its not just that Joseph is there to provide them with food in a bad time; its that the difficult time has a purpose in itself. What purpose can the famine serve? The famine is what drives them to Egypt. Why is it that the people must go to Egypt? In Egypt Gods people are despised and so they will be left to themselves to grow as a nation whereas in Canaan, they would mix with the people of the land and never become a separate people. And so, it is through sorrow and hardship that God brings the family of Jacob to the place where he can make them into a large nation.

God is removing the obstacles in the way of repentance and reconciliation. When we think of Gods work throughout history, it is always God who removes the obstacles. When they are in slavery in Egypt and need to be released from bondage, God will remove the obstacle of Pharaoh. When King David sins with Bathsheba, God will use Nathan to remove the obstacles in his mind and heart to move him to repentance. Sometimes God works slowly, over time, and other times he works immediately. We know this even in our own lives. God removes the largest obstacle to salvation as he takes our hearts of stone and gives us hearts of flesh. We do not repent because we have decided to follow Jesus. We repent because God has moved us to repentance; he has removed all the obstacles in the way. He does this by sending Jesus to die in our place and sending his Spirit to draw us to himself.

Pastor Everett Henes, the pastor of the Hillsdale Orthodox Presbyterian Church, can be reached at pastorhenes@gmail.com.

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It's all a matter of perspective - The Hillsdale Daily News

Some non-evangelical Christians from Mainline Protestants to moderate Catholics to the African Methodist Episcopal Church absolutely cringe whenever the Christian Right says or does something racist, misogynist, anti-Semitic or homophobic, as they realize that it turns young Americans off to religion. Countless Millennials and members of Generation Z have said that if far-right White evangelicals are the face of Christianity, please count them out. Liberal New York Times opinion writer Michelle Goldberg, in acolumn published on July 9, emphasizes that the Christian Right has lost a lot of ground since George W. Bush's presidency during the 2000s.

Goldberg explains, "The presidency of George W. Bush may have been the high point of the modern Christian right's influence in America. White evangelicals were the largest religious faction in the country. But the evangelicals who thought they were about to take over America were destined for disappointment."

The Times columnist illustrates her point by citing aPublic Religion Research Institute pollreleased on July 8. PRRI's 2020 Census of American Religion found that Mainline Protestants now outnumber White evangelicals in the United States.

Mainline Protestants are non-fundamentalist, non-evangelicals Protestants such as Lutherans, Episcopalians, Presbyterians and Methodists or members of the AME Church a Black denomination that, in contrast to the far-right politics of the White evangelical movement, has a long history of supporting liberal and progressive causes.

"PRRI's 2020 Census of American Religion, based on a survey of nearly half a million people, shows a precipitous decline in the share of the population identifying as White evangelical, from 23% in 2006 to 14.5% last year," Goldberg observes. "As a category, 'White evangelicals' isn't a perfect proxy for the Religious Right, but the overlap is substantial. In 2020, as in every year since 2013, the largest religious group in the United States was the religiously unaffiliated."

Goldberg continues, "One of PRRI's most surprising findings was that in 2020, there were more White Mainline Protestants than White evangelicals. This doesn't necessarily mean Christians are joining mainline congregations the survey measures self-identification, not church affiliation. It is, nevertheless, a striking turnabout after years when Mainline Protestantism was considered moribund and evangelical Christianity full of dynamism. In addition to shrinking as a share of the population, White evangelicals were also the oldest religious group in the United States, with a median age of 56."

One person who did a lot to turn people off to the Christian Right and the White evangelical movement is former President Donald Trump. Although Trump was raised Presbyterian in Queens, he was never known for being a devoutly practicing Christian or for being especially religious. Trump is really an agnostic even if he claims otherwise, and his relationship was the Christian Right was one of convenience. Many Americans looked at the Trump/Christian Right relationship and either became agnostics or embraced non-evangelical forms of Christianity.

Goldberg points out that during the George W. Bush years, Generation Joshua a far-right evangelical group that pushed for home schooling was optimistic about the future of the evangelical movement. But the PRRI survey, according to Goldberg, doesn't give that movement any reason for optimism. And she concludes her column on an ominous note, fearing that the more the Christian Right feels they are losing the Culture War, the more dangerous they could become.

The columnist writes, "White evangelicals probably aren't wrong to fear that their children are getting away from them. I was frightened by the Religious Right in its triumphant phase. But it turns out that the movement is just as dangerous in decline. Maybe more so. It didn't take long for the cocky optimism of Generation Joshua to give way to the nihilism of the January 6 insurrectionists. If they can't own the country, they're ready to defile it."

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"Outnumbered": White evangelicals find themselves on the decline - Salon