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“Dive”, a GitS:SAC fan song I made.

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Lyrics:

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pearl diving in the dark

illuminated by a neon glow

searching for the self, in the deep unknown

— it’s not very far away

pearl diving in the storm

bombardments of data gleaming

how do you distinguish truth and meaning?

— it’s not very far away

at once alone, and yet surrounded by the traces of the living and the dead….

pearl diving for the truth

the vast expanse enthralls you

the whisper of your Ghost, it calls you

— it’s not very far away…. in a sea of psycholuminescent beauty….

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la Voie lactée qui se déroule sous mes pieds (the Milky Way which unfolds beneath my feet)

des souvenirs d’enfance, une douleur sans blessure (childhood memories, a pain without a wound)

quand je me lie à l’inconscient du monde entier (when I link up to the subconscious of the whole world)

les bancs d’esprits chuchotent cent milles histoires obscures (the swarms of minds whisper a hundred thousand obscure stories)

l’air pur ne remplie plus ma coquille creuse (the pure air no longer fills my hollow shell)

bientôt je me noie dans la mer lumineuse (soon I drown in the luminous sea)

le chant d’un oiseau électrique aux ailes d’acier (the song of an electric bird with steel wings)

m’arrive en traversant ces profondeurs d’azur (comes to me, traversing these azure depths)

courir pour éviter la mort (run to avoid death)

mourir pour évader au corps (die to evade the body)

sourire pour arrêter ma voix (smile to stop my voice)

I got this message from a bot, and honestly? If I was a bit younger and not such a jaded bitch with a career in tech, I might have given it an honest try. I spent plenty of time in a tough situation without access to any mental health resources as a teen, and would have been sucked right in.

Chatting right from your phone, and being connected with people who can help you? Sounds nice. Especially if you believe the testimonials they spam you with (tw suicide / self harm mention in below images)

But I was getting a weird feeling, so I went to read the legalese.

I couldn't even get through the fine-print it asked me to read and agree to, without it spamming the hell out of me. Almost like they expect people to just hit Yes? But I'm glad I stopped to read, because:

What you say on there won't be confidential. (And for context, I tried it out and the things people were looking for help with? I didn't even feel comfortable sharing here as examples, it was all so deeply personal and painful)

Also, what you say on there? Is now...

Koko's intellectual property - giving them the right to use it in any way they see fit, including

Publicly performing or displaying your "content" (also known as your mental health crisis) in any media format and in any media channel without limitation

Do this indefinitely after you end your account with them

Sell / share this "content" with other businesses

Any harm you come to using Koko? That's on you.

And Koko won't take responsibility for anything someone says to you on there (which is bleak when people are using it to spread Christianity to people in crisis)

I was curious about their business model. They're a venture-capitol based tech startup, owned by Airbnb, the famous mental health professionals with a focus on ethical business practices./s They're also begging for donations despite having already been given 2.5 million dollars in research funding. (If you want a deep dive on why people throw crazy money at tech startups, see my other post here)

They also use the data they gather from users to conduct research and publish papers. I didn't find them too interesting - other than as a good case study of "People tend to find what they are financially incentivized to find". Predictably, Koko found that Kokobot was beneficial to its users.

So yeah, being a dumbass with too much curiosity, I decided to use the Airbnb-owned Data-Mining Mental Health Chatline anyway. And if you thought it was dangerous sounding from the disclaimers? Somehow it got worse.

(trigger warning / discussions of child abuse / sexual abuse / suicide / violence below the cut - please don't read if you're not in a good place to hear about negligence around pretty horrific topics.)

And Crunchbase, Linkedin, and their website have info on their founders and board.

If anyone reaches out, please do it respectfully and direct your messages to the investment firms, founders or board, not the staff.

I'm familiar with the field, and it's common for corporations to mislead programmers and lower level staff about the purpose and potential harms of their technical work. There may very well be people working there who believe they're doing good, and absolutely do not deserve online harassment. The founders, C-suite, and board members are the informed decision-makers in these sorts of companies, not the coders and other employees who may very well believe they're creating something helpful.

Also they're apparently hiring?? For 150k a year. Damn.

Fucking love Shi Qingxuan. Look at this. Who fucking else would have the audacity to just ignore Hua Cheng when he's telling you to tell Xie Lian something. Shi Qingxuan is like on the phone and Hua Cheng is right beside him like "Tell him to get dressed. Qingxuan. Tell him to get dressed. Tell him to get dressed, Qingxuan. Qingxuan, tell him to get dressed."

And Shi Qingxuan waving at him like "I'm gonna get to it, don't rush me, jeez."

Shi Qingxuan is the absolute best. I love how much he's not afraid of Hua Cheng ;0; like "whatever, boomer" at him.

Both options are great.

Because the thing is, when bigots pick fights, they are 100% counting on you to get louder than them. Or meaner. They want you to react emotionally and provide fodder for their 'You're Too Emotionally Immature To Understand' cannon.

What they aren't expecting you to do is say one of the following phrases in a polite, concerned tone:

Are you okay?

That's not the kind of language I was raised to use with others.

Do you need a moment to think on why that wasn't acceptable?

This is no way to engage in intelligent conversation. Please try that again in a kinder tone if you'd like this to continue. (I really like this one because it lets you turn their public-shame rhetoric around)

For those of you who'd are spiteful and/or dealing with Fundamentalists/Evangelicals/generally shitty Christians:

What's happening in your life to cause you this much anger? I can't imagine hurting so badly that I need to hurt other people.

Who taught you it was acceptable to treat other people this way? Certainly not the Jesus I remember.

Whatever happened to 'judge not lest ye be judged'?

If I talked like that in front of my parents or grandparents I would be ashamed.

I think there's something you need to pray on before we try and have this conversation.

And my all time favorite:

"It sounds to me like there are some seriously dark and angry forces at work in your heart."

(Nothing stops a Christian bigot in their tracks faster than implying the Devil is causing their bigotry. But you MUST be calm, polite, and gentle with your tone and wording. It is absolutely fair to twist the rules and play them at their own game, but you gotta play hard.)

Adult literacy is low.

Child literacy is low.

Information literacy has shifted dramatically in the last decade, but reputable information sources like research journals and factual news reporting have been unable to keep pace.

We are genuinely in a crisis of media literacy, with ever fewer genuinely factual resources available in the style and language used by contemporary audiences.

It may sound condescending, but we genuinely need to remind people, or worse, explain to them for the first time that art is not evidence of real world behaviour.

So, thank you, for this reminder. Genuinely.

You're correct:

Art does not need to feature exclusively morally pure characters. Art is not proof of the creator's secret, violent desires.