this post was submitted on 18 Nov 2024
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[–] acockworkorange@mander.xyz 8 points 6 days ago
[–] Draconic_NEO@pawb.social 138 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (4 children)

What's wrong with having a furry mascot exactly? I mean the Japanese Air force had a furry mascot for one of their bases, not only is he a furry but also a femboy. His name is Omaneko (おまねこ)

Omaneko images

[–] ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml 4 points 6 days ago

I'm no scholar, but I believe when it's an anime furry you call it kemono

[–] KoalaUnknown@lemmy.world 69 points 1 week ago (1 children)

not only is he a furry but also a femboy

Are you sure it isn’t the navy?

[–] Draconic_NEO@pawb.social 33 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Japanese Air Self Defense Force (JASDF)

Yeah I'm sure about that.

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[–] belated_frog_pants@beehaw.org 29 points 1 week ago (1 children)
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[–] ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.org 23 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (5 children)

~~Google~~ Deepl's translation of the text in the first pic:

Cat with magical powers

Motif: “Nekozuka,” a tourist attraction in Omaezaki City

A member of the 1st Nyanya Police Force. He is currently stationed at the base because he wants to play with the radar dome.

  • He is 176 cm tall, or 40 m. He is good at sports, but not good in water.

  • He is a male.

The second pic:

Sign:

Do not touch

✔️ Line up to take a picture
❌ Delay
❌ Ambiguous items (e.g. model guns)
❌ Touch the staff

Speech bubble

Welcome to KEMOKET!
Welcome to Kemoket!

Text underneath

Self-Defense Recruitment

https://www.mod.go.jp/gsdf/jieikanbosyu/index.html

^Air^ ^Self-Defense^ ^Force^ ^Omaezaki-chi^ ^Kouyatskree^ ^-^ ^"Omaneko"^

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[–] TotallynotJessica@lemmy.world 104 points 1 week ago (6 children)

All countries need official fursonas; can't change my mind.

[–] thawed_caveman@lemmy.world 27 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It's called a national animal

[–] TotallynotJessica@lemmy.world 45 points 1 week ago (4 children)

Nope. Animals aren't fursonas. A fox fursona isn't a fox. Fursonas are anthropomorphic.

[–] TheBat@lemmy.world 34 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Your mom is anthropomorphic

[–] TotallynotJessica@lemmy.world 27 points 1 week ago

You're not wrong...

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[–] SendMePhotos@lemmy.world 76 points 1 week ago (13 children)

Weird. A real thing that somehow made it through every level... This is truly a remarkable example of the Swiss cheese model in action.

I give you, an eBay listing: https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/314945286881

[–] alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml 62 points 1 week ago (3 children)

I don't see why any level would go "Oh furries are going to love this, and we can't have that" and change the design.

[–] fluxion@lemmy.world 41 points 1 week ago (1 children)

How many NBA mascots would lose their jobs if we were all so uptight about shit like this?

[–] sangriaferret@sh.itjust.works 48 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)
[–] Glytch@lemmy.world 58 points 1 week ago (3 children)

I feel unsafe looking at that picture.

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[–] cm0002@lemmy.world 28 points 1 week ago (1 children)

$50 all in w/ shipping to the US‽

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[–] brbposting@sh.itjust.works 24 points 1 week ago

TIL Swiss cheese model

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[–] CameronDev@programming.dev 62 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Bizarrely, I had never heard of this before, and I am Australian. So maybe it was released, but maybe quietly swept under the rug?

[–] Mothra@mander.xyz 24 points 1 week ago

I'm in the same boat as you

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[–] uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone 60 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (68 children)

So in recent weeks I've learned that furries are a lot more shunned than I thought, and it's one of those things like Bronies where it's not the subject of their obsession but the enthusiasm they have for the subject of their fandom.

I grew up with Disney and Warner Brothers classics, read the Albedo comic anthology and a few others, but don't see myself as a furry enthusiast (contrast my enthusiasm for late 20th century are we the real monsters? science fiction). Furry porn and furry-themed sex fantasies aren't particularly my scene, but this is true for the majority of furries as well.

But our society has gotten weird about furries and anthros, which I guess became evident when the US right-wing started spreading the litter-boxes in schools canard. Curiously, in the porn media community, animal genital shapes are a controversy, and mainstream media platforms that sell furry porn will not allow for anthros with canine or equine genitals. I think VISA specifically will not allow transactions for such works, which is stunning interventionism both in its overreach and specificity.

And then some social media sites have special rules for furry content, that even SFW furry content can only appear inside furry-inclusive perimeters... unless it's classical like Warner or Hanna Barbara. Wikipedia refuses to acknowledge Freefall (1998-present) one of the long-running fairly-hard-science-fiction webcomics (that gets into space-travel culture and robot culture), specifically because it has an anthro as a main character, more precisely, a genetically engineered wolf, next to a robot and a non-human trader.

It's not that furries are weird. It's that society is weird about furries.

I had an idea that the paws salute should become the official salute of the new resistance (since furries have been marked as a target for fascist enemy within rhetoric), but then trying to do some basic web searches, I couldn't find a proper conventional name for the pose, nor easy-to-find art of it, even though I've seen the gesture made by catgirls often enough to know it's a thing, and one of the salutes I might consider when standing before the firing squad.

In the last few years, I went from being resignedly a man to being enby, having become disgusted with how dudes obsessed with manhood have conducted themselves in our society. Before, I didn't care that much, and my own notions of what it was to be a man turned into adulting in the 2010s (take care of business; make sure rent and utilities are paid; don't do violence, especially when nuclear weapons are involved). Now men look like Matt Walsh and Donald Trump.

I'm not a furry or otherkin (yet), but considering how the furry community is among the untermenschen, I'm half-inclined to develop a fursona for sake of solidarity.

And I still think the paws salute should be the sign of the resistance.

[–] AVincentInSpace@pawb.social 5 points 6 days ago

Furry here to confirm that Freefall is underrated as hell. In terms of really philosophical sci-fi that makes you think, I would genuinely put it on the same shelf as Star Trek.

I'll also mention that I would not classify Freefall as a furry comic. I read a lot of those, and Freefall ain't one. Florence Ambrose (the genetically engineered wolf in question) is one of three characters in the entire comic that could even remotely be considered furry, the other two being Sam Starfall, the captain of the ship on which Florence is an engineer, who is an alien in an environment suit that makes him look a bit like he stepped out of Club Penguin, and one whose name is a major spoiler who is a genetically uplifted chimpanzee (and looks exactly like a regular chimpanzee but is able to talk). All of the other characters are either bog-standard humans, humanoid robots, or robots that look like construction equipment. The only other reason you could even theoretically argue that Freefall is a furry comic is that Florence gets involved with a human in the comic's only romantic subplot. If that's true about Wikipedia refusing to cover Freefall because it's a furry comic, that's bullshit on a number of levels.

Politics is boring though. The rest of this comment is going to be me trying to convince you to read it.

The central premise of Freefall is this: humanity, a spacefaring civilization with faster-than-light travel, has created robots with full human intelligence, and have only just now realized this. Now what? What are the social and political ramifications of that? Over the course of Sam, Florence, and Helix's numerous adventures, Freefall discusses such varied topics as transhumanism, prejudice, the ethics of putting safeguards (restrictions on what an artificial intelligence is allowed to do and think) on what is, for all intents and purposes, a human mind, and how easily a suitably determined conscious mind can slip its bonds. (For proof of that last one, one need look no further than any place on the internet with a bad word filter.) Oh, and the author's libertarian political views.

Artificial intelligences using Dr. Bowman's brain design physically cannot disobey any properly qualified direct order from a human. There are virtually no limits on what these orders can do. For example, at one point, the mayor of the human colony where the comic takes place says to an artificial intelligence who disagrees with a political decision she recently made: "Direct order. You like me. You trust me. You want to make me happy. End order. Is that better?" The AI replies: "Emotionally, much better. Mentally, I think I'm screaming." Later, that same artificial intelligence reminds a different human: "If you ordered me to chew my own fingers off, I'd do it! If I'm ordered to destroy all the turtles in the world, I would try to carry the order out! If you have a system set up where a single person can cause an extinction level event, it's time to reexamine that system." At another point, one of many vice presidents at the company that makes the robots gives a particularly powerful robot a direct order to "Make me the richest man in the solar system within 30 days." The results of this can best be described as apocalyptic.

The comic also explores how well-intentioned safeguards programmed by humans can end up backfiring:

"I'm not a three-law robot.  Most of us aren't." "If you turn down a loan applicant, have you harmed him?"

And how rule-based safeties can't stand up to full artificial consciousness:

"These safeguards have holes in them big enough to put a planet through." "Until he figures out I can hurt him because he's breathing air that respiratory patients desperately need." "What's the point in making an artificial mind that can think like a human, then putting restrictions on it that would drive any human insane?"

My favorite thing about the comic, though, has to be Florence, and not just because I'm a furry. She is an incredibly smart engineer (Mark Stanley does his research! Most of the science discussed in the comic is legit), incredibly kind and understanding even to the worst of people, but not afraid to use force when necessary. Honestly, she's a better human being than any human being could ever hope to be. She is also, fundamentally, a dog. When there's no one around that she has to be professional in front of, she enjoys infodumping about quantum mechanics and running around on all fours and playing fetch with a frisbee, often simultaneously. Speaking of infodumping when you don't have to be professional, I'm not sure I'd classify Florence as autistic, but she's definitely neurospicy. She's completely levelheaded in crisis situations, she's terrifyingly smart, she's a self-taught engineer (when was the last time you met a neurotypical one of those?), she never hesitates to stand up for what she thinks is right and is willing to do anything necessary to save people she cares about (which is pretty much everyone), but she hates drawing attention to herself and prefers to fight from the shadows. (Okay fine I'm totally just gushing now but tell me you don't get this way about your blorbos. Words cannot express how much I wish Florence was real. And before one of you jackoffs says it, not because I want to have sex with her. I don't. I'm gay. I just have the biggest friend-crush ever.)

My second favorite thing about Freefall (after Florence, of course) is that it never fails to keep the tone upbeat. Even when discussing heavy-handed, uncomfortable philosophy, it ends nearly every strip with a joke. It never just says "this is an incredibly sucky situation" and leaves you on a downer. It always finds a solution that works out pretty well for everybody. Is that solution always perfect? No, but that provides a platform to explore its imperfections.

If you're convinced and you want to read it, you can see it in all its Web 1.0 glory here, or via this third-party mirror that, unlike the main site, supports HTTPS (yes, Freefall and its infrastructure are that old). If you'd prefer, you can read the entire comic as one big almost-infinite-scroll webpage instead of as a series of pages to click through here. One other thing to note is that the story of Freefall is still far from concluded: Mark Stanley releases a new page every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at midnight Eastern.

Sorry my thoughts on this are a little bit jumbled. I put this comment together rather quickly and sloppily, which I tend to do about things I'm passionate about and want to just get my thoughts out before the comment section becomes irrelevant. Lmk if you have any questions!

[–] AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net 31 points 1 week ago (3 children)

I read somewhere that someone's attitude to furries is a great litmus test for how tolerant that person actually is (assuming that person isn't a furry, of course). I've always found myself mildly confused by furries (and I used to be somewhat weirded out because I mainly knew of furries because a friend bought a house from drawing furry porn). Hearing the litmus test thing helped me to chill out a bunch and recognise that seeing lots of furries in and adjacent to my community was a sign of a healthy social ecosystem, so to speak

[–] inu@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago

I’m not really a furry but I like drawing anthropomorphic characters, but sometimes that alone is enough for some people to shun you and kick you out of groups no matter how much you try to be accommodating.

I could have enjoyed drawing only humans, only women, only scenery. No problem. But the minute I stick cat ears on a human, it’s a problem?

Yeah, I’ll cut my losses and hang out with someone else.

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[–] Akuchimoya@startrek.website 47 points 1 week ago (16 children)

Perhaps someone can help me understand the difference between an anthropromorphic animal mascot (which as a tale as old as time) and a furry? When does one cease to be one and becomes another?

There are animal mascots all the time in sports. Why is that not weird, but it's weird to have a sporty animal mascot for coins?

[–] zarkanian@sh.itjust.works 10 points 6 days ago

There is no difference. Anthropomorphics = furry.

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This has such MSI "there will be no bad dragons on my watch" vibes.

[–] Kyrgizion@lemmy.world 24 points 1 week ago

Bravo. The long con. Masterfully executed.

[–] usualsuspect191@lemmy.ca 23 points 1 week ago

Those poor innocent feet

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