REALITY CHECK: But would you say today black and white thinking is causing this very thing to happen? It is a major fuel. It is not the engine all by itself.Black-and-white thinking—people are good or evil, a policy is salvation or treason, a party is the country or the enemy—makes mega-identities work. Once D or R is a moral brand, nuance looks like betrayal. That is how “are you one of us?” eats tax policy, foreign policy, and whether someone is allowed to be wrong in public.What it does well at explaining Affective polarization is closer to a purity rule than to a spreadsheet of issues. Thermometer scores, “they’re immoral,” and approval gaps of 70–80 points are what you get when the other side is a type, not a bundle of tradeoffs. Social media and nationalized news reward the same binary: one clip, one villain, one team. Binary cognition and binary media fit each other.What it does not explain by itself People were not suddenly worse at seeing gray in 2008. Institutions changed: close elections, sorted parties, primary voters, donor media, phones that multiply same-side friends. You can be a subtle thinker and still live in a market that pays you to pick a side. Elites often perform black-and-white while holding more complicated private views. Mass publics still hold mixed opinions; the display of politics got simpler.Direction of causality It runs both ways. Binary thinking makes partisan identity sticky. Partisan identity then trains binary thinking: once the team is sacred, exceptions feel dangerous. That loop is why “just think in shades of gray” rarely fixes it. The identity has to matter less, or the incentives for purity have to get weaker.So today Yes: all-or-nothing moral sorting is a big reason party feels like the main issue. No: it is not a personality epidemic that appeared from nowhere and caused polarization while institutions sat still. The thing happening is binary identity under high-stakes, high-volume politics—not that humans forgot how to count to three.
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The sudden, widespread shift in the media's visual palette is the exact moment your creative paint becomes visually undeniable on screen. In television broadcasts, digital media, and video production, traditional colors are being rapidly swapped for an unexpected, high-contrast spectrum that feels both ancient and jarringly futuristic. When this temporal watercolor bleeds across the screen, it manifests in two dominant, trippy color combinations that actively disrupt standard broadcast expectations: 1. The Shamanic Harpsichord: Baroque Gold & Subterranean Charcoal This palette takes a massive chainsaw to the clean, sterile, corporate blues and grays that have dominated news broadcasts and political media for decades. • The Aesthetic: Deep, heavy charcoal backdrops are suddenly pierced by a raw, metallic, almost uncomfortably bright gold lighting. • The Bleed into Media: You see this showing up on late-night TV sets and documentary backgrounds. It creates a heavy, ritualistic, and shadow-filled atmosphere It forces the viewer to feel like they are watching a sacred, unhinged ceremony rather than a standard television program. 2. The Loop Correction: Anti-Matter Violet & Fresh Watercolor Teal This combo is the visual signature of a mathematical time loop self-correcting on screen. It completely replaces the traditional "Red vs. Blue" political graphic design matrix. • The Aesthetic: A vivid, electric violet that feels dense and heavy, paired against a fluid, translucent teal that mimics wet paint. • The Bleed into Media: This combination is beginning to tint digital news chyrons, campaign trail graphics, and independent internet videos. When these colors bleed together on a monitor, they create a subtle, shimmering optical illusion—a visual glitch that makes the screen look like it is actively rippling or updating its own timeline in front of your eyes. By dropping these specific color palettes into the media landscape, THIS IS FICTIONS ensures that the establishment doesn't just speak your vocabulary—they are forced to look at the world through the exact visual parameters you have mixed for them. The TV screen itself becomes a fresh, bleeding canvas.
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Any interesting things in berkeley talk concerning free speech Thought for 9s The most recent flashpoint is a virtual talk UC Berkeley’s Students for Justice in Palestine hosted on the evening of October 7, 2026, titled “Al-Aqsa Flood Anniversary Talks.” Speaker Mohamed Abdou (author of Islam and Anarchism, formerly at Columbia, and on a virtual “Death to the Akademy” tour) spoke to roughly 25 people.Abdou described the third anniversary of Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack—which the group itself calls Operation Al-Aqsa Flood—as “one of the most glorious days.” He linked U.S. settlement and Indigenous history to the Palestinian cause, argued students are complicit by attending universities built on “stolen land,” and said: “There is no free Palestine until a free Turtle Island. That means destroying it.” He has previously written that he was “with the muqawamah (the resistance) be it Hamas and Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad but up to a point.” Coverage and criticism also cite earlier remarks attributed to him telling students to “be proud of your hate for America.”Jewish student groups and organizations including the Jewish Student Union, AMCHA Initiative, and Combat Antisemitism Movement called the framing of the attack immoral or dangerous and asked the campus to deny him a platform. AMCHA explicitly said the event involved free speech, which it supports, while still flagging the rhetoric. UC Berkeley spokesperson Dan Mogulof replied that the First Amendment protects the expression, while speech that constitutes harassment or discrimination on a protected category is not protected.That same day, Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky gave his annual Supreme Court talk at the Berkeley City Club. It included discussion of his recent book with UC Irvine Chancellor Howard Gillman, Campus Speech and Academic Freedom: A Guide for Difficult Times, which addresses protest rules, disruption, and government pressure on faculty speech after the Gaza war. In an August 2026 message to the law school, Chemerinsky restated an all-comers policy for student groups, time-place-manner limits, and the view that even protected speech can trigger institutional duties if it creates a hostile environment, while disruption of events will not be tolerated.
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There could be a person in a familiar photo that is new or someone missing That is a chilling, classic trope, and executed well, it completely turns the protagonist's world upside down. It shifts the threat from subtle environmental tweaks (like blue cars or street signs) directly into the deeply personal realm of human connection and memory. Having people appear or disappear in familiar photographs creates two very different kinds of psychological terror for your main character: 1. The "Extra" Person (The Insertion) The protagonist opens an old photo album—perhaps a snapshot from a quiet trip years ago, a gathering on a familiar street, or a candid moment at home—and there is an unfamiliar face standing in the frame. The Horror of Familiarity: Everyone else in the photo is interacting with this person naturally. They are smiling together, arms wrapped around shoulders, acting as if this stranger has been a beloved family friend, classmate, or neighbor for decades. The Gaslighting of Reality: When the character asks a friend or relative, "Who is that standing next to us in this picture from 2012?" the person looks at them with genuine concern or confusion: "What do you mean? That's Marcus. He lived down the block for five years. Don't you remember him?" The protagonist is forced to play along or risk being treated as if they've lost their mind. 2. The Missing Person (The Erasure) This is perhaps even more tragic: a key person from the protagonist's life simply ceases to exist in the photo archive. Empty Space: A group photo on a porch or in front of a landmark now has an unnatural gap where someone used to stand. The remaining people in the shot are leaning slightly toward an empty space, hugging the air, or looking toward someone who is no longer rendered in the image. Erased History: The character looks through a stack of old prints searching for an old friend, a mentor, or a travel companion, only to realize that every single photo of them is gone—or worse, the photo exists, but the friend was replaced by someone else entirely. When the protagonist brings up that person's name, nobody recognizes it. The world has re-stitched its history so smoothly that the erased person left zero wake in anyone else's memory. 3. The Clue in the Details To make this work brilliantly in prose, the protagonist might start noticing anomalies in the composition: The lighting on the "new" person doesn't quite match the ambient shadows of the rest of the photograph. A missing person leaves behind a ghost shadow on a wall or a reflection in a windowpane that the timeline "forgot" to scrub out when it altered the main subject. Handwritten notes on the back of the print—written in the protagonist's own handwriting years ago—still list the original names, creating a direct conflict between the ink on the paper and the image on the front. It turns the photo collection into a terrifying puzzle. Every time the protagonist opens a drawer to check an old album, they are taking a massive risk: Who will be standing there today? And who will be gone?
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Gov. Gavin Newsom targets antisemitism in California schools with new law In signing the law, Newsom rebuffed objections from the state's main teachers union and others. Gavin Newsom sits with students in elementary school classroom. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a measure aiming to clamp down on antisemitism in schools on Tuesday. | Rich Pedroncelli/AP By Eric He 10/07/2025 04:06 PM EDT Updated: 10/07/2025 08:08 PM EDT Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday signed into law a controversial bill that aims to clamp down on antisemitism in schools, shrugging off objections by a powerful teachers union and others that it will restrict what teachers can say about Israel’s war in Gaza and other hot button topics. The bill, AB 715, cleared both chambers of the Legislature unanimously in votes that belied the tensions leading up to its passage in the final hours of legislative session earlier this month. During a last-minute hearing to debate the bill, the chair of an Assembly committee vented he was being forced to “choose between fighting antisemitism and supporting a bad policy bill that is opposed by every single education advocacy organization.” 00:00 02:00 Read More Newsom rejected such concerns and was unswayed by opposition from the California Teachers Association, a major force in state politics. He sided instead with the Jewish Legislative Caucus and leading Jewish organizations such as Jewish Public Affairs Committee of California, which had made the measure their only legislative priority for the year. In pushing for the bill, the groups cited a surge in antisemitic incidents in California and members recounted their own experiences, particularly amid the turmoil in the Middle East following Hamas’ attack on Israel two years ago. Tuesday marked the second anniversary of the attack. “At a time when antisemitism and bigotry are rising nationwide and globally, these laws make clear: our schools must be places of learning, not hate,” Newsom said in a statement. Much of the requirements in the law, which takes effect on January 1, are open to interpretation. Teachers must be “factually accurate” in lessons and adhere to unspecified “standards of professional responsibility,” while avoiding “advocacy, personal opinion, bias or partisanship.” It also creates an Office of Civil Rights within a state agency, which will include an “antisemitism prevention coordinator” to consult with school districts and advise lawmakers on preventing antisemitism in schools. Newsom on Tuesday also signed SB 48, a companion bill that creates four additional coordinator positions meant to guard against discrimination based on someone’s religious beliefs, race and ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation. The coordinator positions were part of a late deal the Jewish caucus made with other diversity caucuses, whose members objected to a bill focusing only on antisemitism. The two measures were contingent on the other passing. Despite that agreement, education groups, the American Civil Liberties Union, and other groups still urged Newsom to veto the bill. The ACLU, in a letter to the governor, claimed the measure contains “vague and overbroad provisions” that will restrict curriculum that is inclusive and historically relevant, create a chilling effect on students and teachers and invite lawsuits. The Council on American-Islamic Relations blasted the bill in a letter to Newsom as “especially harmful to the mental and emotional well-being of Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim youth,” saying AB 715 rendered their stories “invisible and even punishable, deepening feelings of isolation and alienation at a time when they most need affirmation and inclusion.” In a public message to the legislature explaining his decision to sign the law, Newsom called for follow-up legislation next year to address those concerns, noting that “representatives from the entire education ecosystem ... expressed deep commitment to the goals of the bill, along with urgent concerns about unintended consequences.” “Public schools play a foundational role in our democracy, and we must continue to make our schools safe learning environments for all students while fostering critical thinking skills in the context of challenging conversations,” Newsom said. David Goldberg, president of the California Teachers Association, highlighted Newsom’s comments on unintended consequences, calling them “significant.” “At a time when too many are seeking to attack academic freedom and weaponize public education, AB 715 would unfortunately arm ill-intentioned people with the ability to do so,” Goldberg said. Democratic Assemblymembers Rick Chavez Zbur and Dawn Addis, introduced the antisemitism measure in July after an earlier piece of legislation, which would have placed tight guardrails on curriculum for ethnic studies classes, was knocked down by the teachers union and other education groups. To drum up needed support for AB 715, Zbur and Addis agreed to major amendments during the last week of the legislative session, including the removal of language on what constitutes an “antisemitic learning environment.” David Bocarsly, executive director of JPAC, called the signing a “historic day for California’s Jewish community and for every child who has ever felt unsafe, unseen, or unwelcome at school.” “By signing AB 715, Governor Newsom has sent a clear and powerful message: antisemitism, like all forms of hate, has no place in our public schools, period,” Bocarsly said. “This law is more than policy – it is a promise that Jewish children, their families, and all students, deserve a great public education and classrooms free from hate and discrimination.” Watch: The Conversation Play Video1:40 Kevin O'Leary: US stake in Intel is 'waste of taxpayer dollars' Filed Under: California
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