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"content": "<p>In media and political debates one term is very often used: “woke,” mostly a negative label toward certain ideas concerning politics and society.</p><p>The Agony Ass attempts to understand the phenomenon and explain what is wrong with this word.</p><div class=\"wp-block-group has-global-padding is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\"><div style=\"height:50px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div><hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-custom-verde-color has-alpha-channel-opacity has-custom-verde-background-color has-background\"/><div style=\"height:50px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div></div><p><!--more read more--></p><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Is Agony Ass a political space?</h2><p>In these pages we don’t want to persuade readers to side with left or right, but if politicians use words in the wrong way The Agony Ass will talk about them with no regards.</p><p>Our mind won’t change until one of them comes to show us that they, as a trusted right or left activist, have their party’s symbol at the end of their spine.</p><p>Unless proven otherwise though, we assume that every human has a butt with two more or less firm cheeks, and it’s their prerogative to do with it as they please.</p><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What does “woke” mean?</h2><p>“Woke” culture is a fake news. Let’s introduce this concept as drastic as possible, but our intention is to clarify it right away.</p><p>It originally was “stay woke” slogan, and it appeared for the first time in 1938 from a song by Lead Belly about social injustices toward black population in the United States.</p><p>But, also in the same year, it was taken up by the African-American writer William Melvin Kelley in a New York Times Magazine article entitled “if you are woke you dig it”.</p><p>Consequently, in concrete terms, the term “woke” means “pay attention” toward social causes, especially human rights.</p><p>That’s the reason why we think that real “woke” does not exist: you can have as much awareness as you want toward social injustices, but the world is so complex that something can surely get unwillingly and unknowingly ignored.</p><p>We’re the first to see it on ourselves: our main activism concerns HIV stigma, focusing on accessibility towards sensory (mainly visual) disability as well, but our site’s puzzles and puns prevent us from defining our blog “accessible” because a person with cognitive impairment might encounter several difficulties. Not to mention our English translation still incomplete for our international readers.</p><p>However, this does not automatically mean that we don’t care of the world around us.</p><p>Maybe people should stop calling themselves “woke”. Let’s rather collaborate to achieve a common goal. Together, we can at least make progress in overcoming social injustice.</p><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Woke: what’s the WRONG meaning?</h2><p>Conservatives tend to label as “woke” any progressive idea, through online and off line propaganda.</p><ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Do you support gender equality? You are woke.</li><li>Do you support LGBT rights? You are woke.</li><li>Are you active against racism, or for environment related topics? You are woke!</li></ul><p>Have they realized this is not the term’s real meaning? We don’t know, but if ultra-conservatives use it this way, we must blame some extremists who misunderstand progressive ideas and label themselves as “woke”.</p><p>Basically they assume to be more aware than others regarding social justice, but who are they? What do they want?</p><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Social justice warriors</h2><p>Social justice warriors: individuals who respond violently when they perceive an injustice in their physical or digital environment. No matter if that injustice is real or it’s just inside their own mind.</p><p>A silly example: going on and on about how rude it is for a sighted person to say “look” to a blind person, meaning “pay attention.”</p><p>Or when someone misses the whole point of our web site’s satire and complains that we’re making fun of people who are stigmatized, when we writing about talking HIV virus and the “positive world.”</p><p>They suppose to be the smartest who own the truth. They’re Woke. But this behaviour ends up harming all causes they claim to support, creating a serious damage to the whole progressive ideals.</p><p>When a self-proclaimed feminist declares, “You’re a man? So you’re violent,” she completely misrepresents the feminist movement. She’s a fanatic, closed to any dialogue. This harmful ideology not only damages society but also ruins art and culture, as these individuals seek to impose their narrow worldview on everyone.</p><h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What’s “cancel culture”?</h3><p>Bristol, June 2020: Black Lives Matter, a movement for the rights of black communities, tore down a statue of a former slave trader and threw it into a river – the same one in which he is said to have drowned people rising against him.</p><p>His name was Edward Colston, honored with a bronze sculpture that had been there since 1895; this man was remembered because when slavery was abolished, he built hospices, hospitals and schools through money earned by selling slaves.</p><p>Black people had also approached the mayor to have the statue removed but they then decided to take it down because their appeals had gone unheeded.</p><p>Now, if Colston could be considered a hero to white people, how can we expect him to be treated as such by black as well? All right, slavery is gone, but a community oppressed by that person is certainly not going to honor him because you ask them to.</p><p>If, however, this episode might have made sense if Bristol population was a high percentage of black folks, it is harmful when the elimination of a symbol is promoted in large communities: avoiding to study classic literature due to incompatible values with contemporary society, would be wrong.</p><p>Our present and future are tightly connected to our past, we are what we are because in the past there has been the history we have had. Mistakes included.</p><p>Was it better that slavery, state murder, authoritarian regimes were not there? Sure. But we cannot go back and manipulate history according to what suits us.</p><p>This is called “cancel culture,” and conservatives, while accusing progressives of shaping history according to their own ideas, are the first to do so:</p><ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>remove sexuality-themed books, racism, LGBT rights… from school libraries</li><li>prevent sex and affective education in schools</li><li>ask companies to withdraw commercials that conservatives dislike.</li></ul><p>For Italy, we report two emblematic cases of conservative “cancel culture.”</p><p>One stocking company had packaged its product commercial singing “sisters of Italy” instead of “brothers” in an adaptation of the national anthem dedicated to stockings; they had it removed.</p><p>Another snack chip company, in its commercial, depicted a priest and a nun. Catholic ultraconservatives did not appreciate it at all, and that commercial also came to a bad end.</p><p>So it is useless for them to accuse progressives and then do worse; “cancel culture” is a mistake anyway.</p><h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Only we can</h3><p>There are some bangs of extremist “progressivism” that take a stand on clothing and the roles of artists.</p><ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>aren’t you Mexican? Then why do you wear the Sombrero? “Because I am an actor! Because I dress like a carnival! Etc.”</li><li>you are hetero! Why do you want to play a gay role?</li><li>only disabled people can talk about disability</li><li>a man has no right to speak out against violence towards women</li></ul><p>And millions of examples could be pointed out. But we, though in total disagreement with conservatives on social issues, agree with them when they oppose such an approach to art, politics and culture.</p><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Hetero actors for gay roles?</h2><p>A great actor should be able to empathize with any character: in theory, the concept is well-established and there are many examples. Let no one tell us that Tom Hanks was incapable of playing a gay man with AIDS in “Philadelphia”, or the guy with a mild cognitive impairment in “Forrest Gump”.</p><p>And what about Daniel Day-Lewis as Christy Brown, the Irish artist with motor and cerebral disabilities who managed to paint and write using his left foot, his only remaining ability?</p><p>“My Left Foot” is its title, Day-Lewis has no disabilities, yet the movie is brilliantly acted.</p><p>So why all this fuss about hetero actors playing gay roles?</p><p>There are hetero actors who feel uncomfortable playing a gay character because of scenes where there is kissing or having to simulate sexual intercourse, so what?</p><p>We don’t have that much knowledge about acting but we are aware that body-to-body physical contact (even between a man and a woman) is not immediate especially if you’ve had a strict upbringing about sexuality.</p><p>The issue remains, however: when you act, you should put aside your real personality with related ideas and conditioning to empathize with your assigned character.</p><p>The debate did not originate from hetero and gay, but from black and white: once the roles were all assigned to white actors, then people started saying “why not assign black roles to black actors as well?” That made sense.</p><p>By the way, one thing is when it comes to including different people from each other in a set, but when it becomes extremism it is more harmful than beneficial.</p><p>Just look at the rules for Oscar-eligible “best picture” nominations.</p><p>Standard A, “on-screen representation,” constrains producers to have at least one lead actor be part of an “underrepresented” group, and in supporting roles this applies to at least 30 percent of the actors. Constraints also in the plot, which must be centered on stories of marginalized people.</p><p>There are similar rules in off-set organization, but if the intent is good, it becomes a limitation in the long run: do I give up a good actor because instead I have to choose the LGBT/disabled/black/Hispanic one?</p><p>Since we belong to marginalized groups ourselves, we are the ones who support social inclusion policies the most, knowing that without “obligations” production companies would only hire rich white hetero and cis people.</p><p>Same for more “ordinary” jobs. What office would hire an employee with a disability by choice without the law obligating them to do so?</p><p>Yet, taking a look at the Oscars thing, something sounds wrong: if you force me to focus on so-called “minorities” for the plot, I end up bringing up a collection of stereotypes because my job as a producer is not to do social education, but to guarantee you a product that can be sold to the majority of audience.</p><p>No movie company can ignore market’s demands, so if, as in the last period, the far right tends to attract the masses, they circumvent the rules of “diversity and inclusion” by creating some clichés based personas.</p><p>We witnessed this phenomenon watching the Spanish series <a href=\"https://plusbrothers.net/breathless-medical-mishmash/\" data-type=\"post\" data-id=\"33736\">“Breathless”</a>, on Netflix: a medical setting where four LGBT characters, two men and two women, embody the worst stereotypes between promiscuous sex, drugs and child abduction.</p><p>This way you’re killing two birds with one stone: satisfying the diversity quotas by including LGBT people, while also giving the conservatives what they want – a negative representation of minorities.</p><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Constraints and capabilities</h2><p>We have often wondered what a world would be like where creativity is constrained only to those who can speak about a condition because they experience it firsthand. SPOILER: A disaster.</p><p>That was our direct experience when we started writing our blog because eeach of us had their own characters to develop:</p><ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Elettrona plays women and HIV negative characters.</li><li>Gifter plays men and HIV-positive characters.</li></ul><p>We’d established this storytelling routine when forced to stay at home during COVID emergency, but once we had to go back to our regular jobs, our free time decreased so our mutual roles became impossible to manage.</p><p>“Gifter, are you playing the negative character today? Elettrona, you take care of it tonight, I don’t have time / I don’t feel like playing the talking virus role…”</p><p>We made the best of a bad situation, but it turns out we were worrying about nothing for long time. Now, it doesn’t matter who’s behind the words anymore.</p><p>However, we have never felt uneasy when interpreting a character in our first-person narration because we chose when, how, and who.</p><p>No one forced us to publish on our blog about being an HIV-positive guy who transmits the virus to dozens of adoring girls, nor about being the guy’s beloved lady who purposely asks him for HIV.</p><p>We’re the authors and own our characters’ life so, whenever feeling uncomfortable with one of them, we can think about a plot to get them out of the picture without any commercial restrictions or marketing recommendations. Just following creative writing’s rules about consistent characters.</p><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">“You are woke”!</h2><p>Let’s close this article by making a dutiful apology to a reader; we did it in person but it’s better to write it down as well.</p><p>Assuming he was meaning the far-right interpretation of “woke”, we have been very rude to a reader when he gave us this definition some time ago.</p><p>As part of unrepresented groups, we both receive plenty of hate speech so we feel uncomfortable when a stranger uses certain terms; we tend to defend ourselves even when it’s not necessary or appropriate.</p><p>In this context however the idea of “woke,” while inspired by its extremist meaning, referred to our fantasy world.</p><p>Fanatics who misunderstand and exaggerate progressive ideas seem to consider all those who do not belong to underrepresented groups as dangerous.</p><p>Consequently, for a black man, white is the enemy; for a gay man, hetero is antagonistic; if you are a woman, every man is violent regardless, let alone if one is white, male, hetero and cisgender. Worse than evil.</p><p>Such a conception of life is undoubtedly scary and this is what white-male-hetero-cis-conservatives fear (far from real progressives, though).</p><p>Our reader however, was taking his cue from that phantom dystopia to name the world we have created, where a negative HIV test becomes an object of discrimination, opposite to what happens in real.</p><p>He was not trying to criticize us or to consider us as extremists. Was he perhaps trying to ascribe a genre to our stories?</p><p>No matter, being aware about all this we don’t feel comfortable with the label “woke”, whatever meaning it could have because we’re not superior to anyone, we’re just two bloggers with our merits and flaws. Nothing else.</p>",
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"en": "<p>In media and political debates one term is very often used: “woke,” mostly a negative label toward certain ideas concerning politics and society.</p><p>The Agony Ass attempts to understand the phenomenon and explain what is wrong with this word.</p><div class=\"wp-block-group has-global-padding is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\"><div style=\"height:50px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div><hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-custom-verde-color has-alpha-channel-opacity has-custom-verde-background-color has-background\"/><div style=\"height:50px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div></div><p><!--more read more--></p><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Is Agony Ass a political space?</h2><p>In these pages we don’t want to persuade readers to side with left or right, but if politicians use words in the wrong way The Agony Ass will talk about them with no regards.</p><p>Our mind won’t change until one of them comes to show us that they, as a trusted right or left activist, have their party’s symbol at the end of their spine.</p><p>Unless proven otherwise though, we assume that every human has a butt with two more or less firm cheeks, and it’s their prerogative to do with it as they please.</p><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What does “woke” mean?</h2><p>“Woke” culture is a fake news. Let’s introduce this concept as drastic as possible, but our intention is to clarify it right away.</p><p>It originally was “stay woke” slogan, and it appeared for the first time in 1938 from a song by Lead Belly about social injustices toward black population in the United States.</p><p>But, also in the same year, it was taken up by the African-American writer William Melvin Kelley in a New York Times Magazine article entitled “if you are woke you dig it”.</p><p>Consequently, in concrete terms, the term “woke” means “pay attention” toward social causes, especially human rights.</p><p>That’s the reason why we think that real “woke” does not exist: you can have as much awareness as you want toward social injustices, but the world is so complex that something can surely get unwillingly and unknowingly ignored.</p><p>We’re the first to see it on ourselves: our main activism concerns HIV stigma, focusing on accessibility towards sensory (mainly visual) disability as well, but our site’s puzzles and puns prevent us from defining our blog “accessible” because a person with cognitive impairment might encounter several difficulties. Not to mention our English translation still incomplete for our international readers.</p><p>However, this does not automatically mean that we don’t care of the world around us.</p><p>Maybe people should stop calling themselves “woke”. Let’s rather collaborate to achieve a common goal. Together, we can at least make progress in overcoming social injustice.</p><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Woke: what’s the WRONG meaning?</h2><p>Conservatives tend to label as “woke” any progressive idea, through online and off line propaganda.</p><ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Do you support gender equality? You are woke.</li><li>Do you support LGBT rights? You are woke.</li><li>Are you active against racism, or for environment related topics? You are woke!</li></ul><p>Have they realized this is not the term’s real meaning? We don’t know, but if ultra-conservatives use it this way, we must blame some extremists who misunderstand progressive ideas and label themselves as “woke”.</p><p>Basically they assume to be more aware than others regarding social justice, but who are they? What do they want?</p><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Social justice warriors</h2><p>Social justice warriors: individuals who respond violently when they perceive an injustice in their physical or digital environment. No matter if that injustice is real or it’s just inside their own mind.</p><p>A silly example: going on and on about how rude it is for a sighted person to say “look” to a blind person, meaning “pay attention.”</p><p>Or when someone misses the whole point of our web site’s satire and complains that we’re making fun of people who are stigmatized, when we writing about talking HIV virus and the “positive world.”</p><p>They suppose to be the smartest who own the truth. They’re Woke. But this behaviour ends up harming all causes they claim to support, creating a serious damage to the whole progressive ideals.</p><p>When a self-proclaimed feminist declares, “You’re a man? So you’re violent,” she completely misrepresents the feminist movement. She’s a fanatic, closed to any dialogue. This harmful ideology not only damages society but also ruins art and culture, as these individuals seek to impose their narrow worldview on everyone.</p><h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What’s “cancel culture”?</h3><p>Bristol, June 2020: Black Lives Matter, a movement for the rights of black communities, tore down a statue of a former slave trader and threw it into a river – the same one in which he is said to have drowned people rising against him.</p><p>His name was Edward Colston, honored with a bronze sculpture that had been there since 1895; this man was remembered because when slavery was abolished, he built hospices, hospitals and schools through money earned by selling slaves.</p><p>Black people had also approached the mayor to have the statue removed but they then decided to take it down because their appeals had gone unheeded.</p><p>Now, if Colston could be considered a hero to white people, how can we expect him to be treated as such by black as well? All right, slavery is gone, but a community oppressed by that person is certainly not going to honor him because you ask them to.</p><p>If, however, this episode might have made sense if Bristol population was a high percentage of black folks, it is harmful when the elimination of a symbol is promoted in large communities: avoiding to study classic literature due to incompatible values with contemporary society, would be wrong.</p><p>Our present and future are tightly connected to our past, we are what we are because in the past there has been the history we have had. Mistakes included.</p><p>Was it better that slavery, state murder, authoritarian regimes were not there? Sure. But we cannot go back and manipulate history according to what suits us.</p><p>This is called “cancel culture,” and conservatives, while accusing progressives of shaping history according to their own ideas, are the first to do so:</p><ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>remove sexuality-themed books, racism, LGBT rights… from school libraries</li><li>prevent sex and affective education in schools</li><li>ask companies to withdraw commercials that conservatives dislike.</li></ul><p>For Italy, we report two emblematic cases of conservative “cancel culture.”</p><p>One stocking company had packaged its product commercial singing “sisters of Italy” instead of “brothers” in an adaptation of the national anthem dedicated to stockings; they had it removed.</p><p>Another snack chip company, in its commercial, depicted a priest and a nun. Catholic ultraconservatives did not appreciate it at all, and that commercial also came to a bad end.</p><p>So it is useless for them to accuse progressives and then do worse; “cancel culture” is a mistake anyway.</p><h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Only we can</h3><p>There are some bangs of extremist “progressivism” that take a stand on clothing and the roles of artists.</p><ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>aren’t you Mexican? Then why do you wear the Sombrero? “Because I am an actor! Because I dress like a carnival! Etc.”</li><li>you are hetero! Why do you want to play a gay role?</li><li>only disabled people can talk about disability</li><li>a man has no right to speak out against violence towards women</li></ul><p>And millions of examples could be pointed out. But we, though in total disagreement with conservatives on social issues, agree with them when they oppose such an approach to art, politics and culture.</p><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Hetero actors for gay roles?</h2><p>A great actor should be able to empathize with any character: in theory, the concept is well-established and there are many examples. Let no one tell us that Tom Hanks was incapable of playing a gay man with AIDS in “Philadelphia”, or the guy with a mild cognitive impairment in “Forrest Gump”.</p><p>And what about Daniel Day-Lewis as Christy Brown, the Irish artist with motor and cerebral disabilities who managed to paint and write using his left foot, his only remaining ability?</p><p>“My Left Foot” is its title, Day-Lewis has no disabilities, yet the movie is brilliantly acted.</p><p>So why all this fuss about hetero actors playing gay roles?</p><p>There are hetero actors who feel uncomfortable playing a gay character because of scenes where there is kissing or having to simulate sexual intercourse, so what?</p><p>We don’t have that much knowledge about acting but we are aware that body-to-body physical contact (even between a man and a woman) is not immediate especially if you’ve had a strict upbringing about sexuality.</p><p>The issue remains, however: when you act, you should put aside your real personality with related ideas and conditioning to empathize with your assigned character.</p><p>The debate did not originate from hetero and gay, but from black and white: once the roles were all assigned to white actors, then people started saying “why not assign black roles to black actors as well?” That made sense.</p><p>By the way, one thing is when it comes to including different people from each other in a set, but when it becomes extremism it is more harmful than beneficial.</p><p>Just look at the rules for Oscar-eligible “best picture” nominations.</p><p>Standard A, “on-screen representation,” constrains producers to have at least one lead actor be part of an “underrepresented” group, and in supporting roles this applies to at least 30 percent of the actors. Constraints also in the plot, which must be centered on stories of marginalized people.</p><p>There are similar rules in off-set organization, but if the intent is good, it becomes a limitation in the long run: do I give up a good actor because instead I have to choose the LGBT/disabled/black/Hispanic one?</p><p>Since we belong to marginalized groups ourselves, we are the ones who support social inclusion policies the most, knowing that without “obligations” production companies would only hire rich white hetero and cis people.</p><p>Same for more “ordinary” jobs. What office would hire an employee with a disability by choice without the law obligating them to do so?</p><p>Yet, taking a look at the Oscars thing, something sounds wrong: if you force me to focus on so-called “minorities” for the plot, I end up bringing up a collection of stereotypes because my job as a producer is not to do social education, but to guarantee you a product that can be sold to the majority of audience.</p><p>No movie company can ignore market’s demands, so if, as in the last period, the far right tends to attract the masses, they circumvent the rules of “diversity and inclusion” by creating some clichés based personas.</p><p>We witnessed this phenomenon watching the Spanish series <a href=\"https://plusbrothers.net/breathless-medical-mishmash/\" data-type=\"post\" data-id=\"33736\">“Breathless”</a>, on Netflix: a medical setting where four LGBT characters, two men and two women, embody the worst stereotypes between promiscuous sex, drugs and child abduction.</p><p>This way you’re killing two birds with one stone: satisfying the diversity quotas by including LGBT people, while also giving the conservatives what they want – a negative representation of minorities.</p><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Constraints and capabilities</h2><p>We have often wondered what a world would be like where creativity is constrained only to those who can speak about a condition because they experience it firsthand. SPOILER: A disaster.</p><p>That was our direct experience when we started writing our blog because eeach of us had their own characters to develop:</p><ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Elettrona plays women and HIV negative characters.</li><li>Gifter plays men and HIV-positive characters.</li></ul><p>We’d established this storytelling routine when forced to stay at home during COVID emergency, but once we had to go back to our regular jobs, our free time decreased so our mutual roles became impossible to manage.</p><p>“Gifter, are you playing the negative character today? Elettrona, you take care of it tonight, I don’t have time / I don’t feel like playing the talking virus role…”</p><p>We made the best of a bad situation, but it turns out we were worrying about nothing for long time. Now, it doesn’t matter who’s behind the words anymore.</p><p>However, we have never felt uneasy when interpreting a character in our first-person narration because we chose when, how, and who.</p><p>No one forced us to publish on our blog about being an HIV-positive guy who transmits the virus to dozens of adoring girls, nor about being the guy’s beloved lady who purposely asks him for HIV.</p><p>We’re the authors and own our characters’ life so, whenever feeling uncomfortable with one of them, we can think about a plot to get them out of the picture without any commercial restrictions or marketing recommendations. Just following creative writing’s rules about consistent characters.</p><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">“You are woke”!</h2><p>Let’s close this article by making a dutiful apology to a reader; we did it in person but it’s better to write it down as well.</p><p>Assuming he was meaning the far-right interpretation of “woke”, we have been very rude to a reader when he gave us this definition some time ago.</p><p>As part of unrepresented groups, we both receive plenty of hate speech so we feel uncomfortable when a stranger uses certain terms; we tend to defend ourselves even when it’s not necessary or appropriate.</p><p>In this context however the idea of “woke,” while inspired by its extremist meaning, referred to our fantasy world.</p><p>Fanatics who misunderstand and exaggerate progressive ideas seem to consider all those who do not belong to underrepresented groups as dangerous.</p><p>Consequently, for a black man, white is the enemy; for a gay man, hetero is antagonistic; if you are a woman, every man is violent regardless, let alone if one is white, male, hetero and cisgender. Worse than evil.</p><p>Such a conception of life is undoubtedly scary and this is what white-male-hetero-cis-conservatives fear (far from real progressives, though).</p><p>Our reader however, was taking his cue from that phantom dystopia to name the world we have created, where a negative HIV test becomes an object of discrimination, opposite to what happens in real.</p><p>He was not trying to criticize us or to consider us as extremists. Was he perhaps trying to ascribe a genre to our stories?</p><p>No matter, being aware about all this we don’t feel comfortable with the label “woke”, whatever meaning it could have because we’re not superior to anyone, we’re just two bloggers with our merits and flaws. Nothing else.</p>"
},
"name": "Agony ass: woke, hetero actors and gay characters",
"nameMap": {
"en": "Agony ass: woke, hetero actors and gay characters"
},
"published": "2024-11-25T12:14:11Z",
"summary": "<p>What is Woke? This word is heard everywhere but who really knows what it means?</p>\n",
"summaryMap": {
"en": "<p>What is Woke? This word is heard everywhere but who really knows what it means?</p>\n"
},
"tag": [],
"updated": "2024-11-25T12:15:25Z",
"url": "https://plusbrothers.net/agony-ass-woke-hetero-gay/",
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"content": "<p>Nothing about us without us, has been our project’s main rule since we started. But what does it really mean?</p><div class=\"wp-block-group has-global-padding is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\"><div style=\"height:50px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div><hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-custom-verde-color has-alpha-channel-opacity has-custom-verde-background-color has-background\"/><div style=\"height:50px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div></div><p><!--more read more--></p><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Accessibility, inclusion, guidelines</h2><p>Too many people keep on talking about accessibility and inclusion but how many times do these words come true? </p><p>Plenty of easy or complex rules concern accessibility both in physical and digital world, often we also encounter endless debates about which terms should be used not to offend marginalized people, and especially this topic turns into grotesque. But frequently these discussions involve everyone, except those who rely on accessibility for their personal needs. </p><p>Think of 80s and 90s advertisements against AIDS transmission: they were conveying a fear message rather than awareness, because they were created by good communication experts who did not live AIDS firsthand, so general panic has been the evident result. </p><p>However, if early AIDS activists could contribute to these campaigns, they would have been more effective and avoid to develop a stigmatizing culture.</p><p>Unfortunately it seems that despite being often made with underrepresented groups’ advice, few written laws or guidelines make an essential statement come true: “nothing to say (or to do) about us, without us”.</p><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">When groups don’t talk to each other</h2><p>This isn’t the right place to delve into the specifics of physical or digital barriers, but let’s look at a prime example of what happens when different work groups fail to communicate: in the case we talk about, “nothing about us without us” principle doesn’t apply to a single “category” of people but to an entire sector: information technology.</p><p>Without getting bogged down in technical jargon, what does digital accessibility legislation say? </p><p>Any information conveyed through images must have an alternative text format to make it accessible to people with visual impairments.</p><p>European cybersecurity regulations, though often explained in a vague and non-technical way, require that sensitive banking information (like security codes and credit card PINs) be displayed in a format that cannot be copied, pasted, or intercepted by third parties.</p><p>As a result, most websites and smartphone apps display this information as images that are only visible on the screen for a few seconds, completely undermining accessibility regulations.</p><p>So the outcome is a paradox: if you can’t see, to obtain this information, you have to rely on sighted people who are quick readers and whom you trust implicitly (how do you measure that level of trust?)</p><p>The not-so-distant risk is that this sensitive data could end up in the wrong hands, all because two groups of people responsible for drafting laws didn’t communicate with each other. </p><p>You are forced to compromise your privacy because someone assumed they could protect it solely through the use of sight. Epic fail.</p><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Don’t talk about us without us!</h2><p>Despite being essential for a peaceful life, “don’t talk about us without us” can be a very difficult goal to achieve; however we should do our best to make it true in any daily action, including virtual activities such as writing and social networks interactions. </p><p>Although we share ownership of this blog, the concept of “positive world” was Elettrona’s brainchild. As an HIV-negative person she couldn’t fully grasp the experience of living with the virus, so the “nothing about us without us” concept was clearly disregarded.</p><p>Let’s face it, no one knows everything about everything, especially something as complex as HIV. But it’s pretty clear that the best books are written by people who really know what they’re talking about.</p><p>There’s no plan on writing a book anytime soon, but we’re reading a ton to learn as much as we can. It’s easy to tell the difference between someone who just reads a few articles and someone who’s actually lived the experience. </p><p>Like, if you’re writing a book about ancient Rome, you can’t exactly interview Julius Caesar. But if you know someone who lives in Rome today, they can show you around and provide a real feel for the city.</p><p>That’s what we’ve done with HIV. We’ve talked to a lot of people who are HIV positive, and we’ve read tons of stuff online, even from subcultures we don’t agree with at all.</p><p>In our case it’s been a real challenge as our fantasy world is reversed – people with virus ostracize anyone who has an HIV negative test, so every perspective we learnt about, had to be studied and turned upside down.</p><p>This meant a lot of writing exercise in order to save what we liked and discard characters or stories not fitting with our values.</p><p>Then “day of reckoning” came and we finally shared our project with some HIV activists. We needed their endorsement, conscious that whenever they disliked our satire approach, we would have given it up because our own experience with HIV is not the absolute truth, the fact one of us lives with it means just a single point of view. </p><p>Fear of failing brought our self-esteem down , until an Italian association of HIV-positive LGBT people enjoyed our blog. To be precise, we had a long conversation where they complimented us, but also gave us some constructive criticism which became a great contribute to our growth.</p><p>Having the HIV virus speak in human language was a risky experiment. At first, we thought of turning it into a kind of pet for our human characters, but giving it a voice proved to be the most intriguing option. It felt fresh and original compared to other stories we’d read.</p><p>How much can HIV see from the inside? This symbiotic relationship offers endless narrative possibilities, far from the usual clichés. Thanks to this talking virus, we’re constantly challenged to consider different perspectives, reminding us that we’re not alone in this world.</p>",
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But what does it really mean?</p><div class=\"wp-block-group has-global-padding is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\"><div style=\"height:50px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div><hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-custom-verde-color has-alpha-channel-opacity has-custom-verde-background-color has-background\"/><div style=\"height:50px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div></div><p><!--more read more--></p><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Accessibility, inclusion, guidelines</h2><p>Too many people keep on talking about accessibility and inclusion but how many times do these words come true? </p><p>Plenty of easy or complex rules concern accessibility both in physical and digital world, often we also encounter endless debates about which terms should be used not to offend marginalized people, and especially this topic turns into grotesque. But frequently these discussions involve everyone, except those who rely on accessibility for their personal needs. </p><p>Think of 80s and 90s advertisements against AIDS transmission: they were conveying a fear message rather than awareness, because they were created by good communication experts who did not live AIDS firsthand, so general panic has been the evident result. </p><p>However, if early AIDS activists could contribute to these campaigns, they would have been more effective and avoid to develop a stigmatizing culture.</p><p>Unfortunately it seems that despite being often made with underrepresented groups’ advice, few written laws or guidelines make an essential statement come true: “nothing to say (or to do) about us, without us”.</p><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">When groups don’t talk to each other</h2><p>This isn’t the right place to delve into the specifics of physical or digital barriers, but let’s look at a prime example of what happens when different work groups fail to communicate: in the case we talk about, “nothing about us without us” principle doesn’t apply to a single “category” of people but to an entire sector: information technology.</p><p>Without getting bogged down in technical jargon, what does digital accessibility legislation say? </p><p>Any information conveyed through images must have an alternative text format to make it accessible to people with visual impairments.</p><p>European cybersecurity regulations, though often explained in a vague and non-technical way, require that sensitive banking information (like security codes and credit card PINs) be displayed in a format that cannot be copied, pasted, or intercepted by third parties.</p><p>As a result, most websites and smartphone apps display this information as images that are only visible on the screen for a few seconds, completely undermining accessibility regulations.</p><p>So the outcome is a paradox: if you can’t see, to obtain this information, you have to rely on sighted people who are quick readers and whom you trust implicitly (how do you measure that level of trust?)</p><p>The not-so-distant risk is that this sensitive data could end up in the wrong hands, all because two groups of people responsible for drafting laws didn’t communicate with each other. </p><p>You are forced to compromise your privacy because someone assumed they could protect it solely through the use of sight. Epic fail.</p><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Don’t talk about us without us!</h2><p>Despite being essential for a peaceful life, “don’t talk about us without us” can be a very difficult goal to achieve; however we should do our best to make it true in any daily action, including virtual activities such as writing and social networks interactions. </p><p>Although we share ownership of this blog, the concept of “positive world” was Elettrona’s brainchild. As an HIV-negative person she couldn’t fully grasp the experience of living with the virus, so the “nothing about us without us” concept was clearly disregarded.</p><p>Let’s face it, no one knows everything about everything, especially something as complex as HIV. But it’s pretty clear that the best books are written by people who really know what they’re talking about.</p><p>There’s no plan on writing a book anytime soon, but we’re reading a ton to learn as much as we can. It’s easy to tell the difference between someone who just reads a few articles and someone who’s actually lived the experience. </p><p>Like, if you’re writing a book about ancient Rome, you can’t exactly interview Julius Caesar. But if you know someone who lives in Rome today, they can show you around and provide a real feel for the city.</p><p>That’s what we’ve done with HIV. We’ve talked to a lot of people who are HIV positive, and we’ve read tons of stuff online, even from subcultures we don’t agree with at all.</p><p>In our case it’s been a real challenge as our fantasy world is reversed – people with virus ostracize anyone who has an HIV negative test, so every perspective we learnt about, had to be studied and turned upside down.</p><p>This meant a lot of writing exercise in order to save what we liked and discard characters or stories not fitting with our values.</p><p>Then “day of reckoning” came and we finally shared our project with some HIV activists. We needed their endorsement, conscious that whenever they disliked our satire approach, we would have given it up because our own experience with HIV is not the absolute truth, the fact one of us lives with it means just a single point of view. </p><p>Fear of failing brought our self-esteem down , until an Italian association of HIV-positive LGBT people enjoyed our blog. To be precise, we had a long conversation where they complimented us, but also gave us some constructive criticism which became a great contribute to our growth.</p><p>Having the HIV virus speak in human language was a risky experiment. At first, we thought of turning it into a kind of pet for our human characters, but giving it a voice proved to be the most intriguing option. It felt fresh and original compared to other stories we’d read.</p><p>How much can HIV see from the inside? This symbiotic relationship offers endless narrative possibilities, far from the usual clichés. Thanks to this talking virus, we’re constantly challenged to consider different perspectives, reminding us that we’re not alone in this world.</p>"
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"content": "<h2>No talking HIV for Halloween</h2><p>Our schedule was as follows: Sharon “sunshine” Gray’s third episode on 27th October, Evelyn Sloan on 29 and finally our talking HIV virus’s first introduction on Halloween.</p><p>Real life bugs however have interfered with Bugdom’s plans and we both feel sick, weak, with high fever. Better to stay in bed, our health comes first but hopefully those viruses leave us in peace soon and go to play “trick or treat?” somewhere else next time. </p>",
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"content": "<h2>Your help needed for our newsletter Project 2025!</h2><p>This site is a continuous evolution and now we’re facing our Project 2025: to rely less and less on commercial social platforms we have decided to consider a newsletter.</p><p>As we read many of them but have never experienced their management and administration, we have created <a href=\"https://forms.gle/4QTJPtum9ynbNxcu7\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">an anonymous survey</a> to collect our followers’ preferences and then behave accordingly. </p><p>Thanks for your kind collaboration.</p>",
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"content": "<h2>A break from real world</h2><p>After some time we finally are in the mood to chill out a little, so our next articles will solely focus on the positive -poz- world and its <a href=\"https://plusbrothers.net/english/characters/\" data-type=\"page\" data-id=\"32283\">characters</a>.</p><p>Social media is drowning in all real world’s drama and <a rel=\"tag\" class=\"hashtag u-tag u-category\" href=\"https://plusbrothers.net/tag/fediverse/\">#fediverse</a> makes no exception so we need our own space to escape from all this noise, giving our readers a chance to take a break as well. Goodbye for now to all reality’s contraddictions, unless some big <a rel=\"tag\" class=\"hashtag u-tag u-category\" href=\"https://plusbrothers.net/tag/events/\">#events</a> happen which best fit with <a href=\"https://plusbrothers.net/english/agony-ass/\" data-type=\"page\" data-id=\"30679\">the agony ass</a>.</p>",
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"content": "<p>REAL WORLD, 2019: An Italian female student was awarded damages for contracting HIV during a laboratory experiment in 2016. Both Padua and Geneva universities were involved in the legal battle.</p><p>FANTASY: Benjamin Ladder was supposed to meet his friend Raymond, but another person showed up instead, asking him to participate in an experiment. Is he going to accept? What will happen to him?</p><div class=\"wp-block-group has-global-padding is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\"><div style=\"height:50px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div><hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-custom-verde-color has-alpha-channel-opacity has-custom-verde-background-color has-background\"/><div style=\"height:50px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div></div><p><!--more read more--></p><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">1981: Coincidences</h2><p>“Alright, I’ll be there soon. And please skip dinner,” Raymond said before hanging up; I ran out of tokens and didn’t have time to ask for further explanations about that strange request. All I understood was the enormous trouble I found myself into.</p><p>I sat down on the bench and waited. Five, ten minutes, maybe more, while passersby stopped at the phone booth to make calls or smoked cigarettes, talking to each other without noticing me. Some even ate sandwiches right in front of me!</p><p>“When I get home they’re going to kill me,” I thought. I knew I had to be there within half an hour, with Emily and her parents expecting dinner at precisely 8 PM. I opened my wallet looking for a phone token and sat back down, disheartened: I had used my last one calling Raymond, and now he wasn’t even showing up! “I gave you concert’s tickets; now you need to prove yourself worthy of my trust,” he had urged me when handing me the envelope, and he repeated it during our last phone call.</p><p>Thank goodness I had some bills left! The diner near the payphone was still open, so I could buy some tokens to call my family and let them know I’d be late. With a couple of twenties in hand, I stood up and didn’t immediately notice a woman walking towards me.</p><p>“Please take a seat, ma’am,” I pointed to my now-vacant spot. “I’m just leaving!”</p><p>“Stay, please,” she smiled widely and stepped even closer to me; “Don’t you… Don’t you recognize me, Benny? I came here for you!”</p><p>It was probably a dream. Her, it couldn’t be her, no way. I was too anxious and hungry! She stood in front of me, her dark eyes glistening with emotion. “I’m so happy to meet you again!”</p><p>I stayed there, frozen, unable to move or speak: why had she reappeared after all these years, in the most inappropriate moment? What kind of trick was fate playing on me?</p><p>“Evy, Evelyn, Evelyn Sloan…” Without taking my eyes off her, I pronounced her name, as if to etch her unexpected presence into my mind. “What are you doing here in Bugdom?”</p><p>“Sometimes work turns into love, don’t you know?”</p><p>I experienced those sensations because I felt the same way about music. But she was talking about me, and I understood it. She looked at me just like the first time we met at a Queen concert in 1975, when we instantly connected as fans: we had never met before, yet our hands joined as we sang “Love of My Life” with Freddie Mercury, and we didn’t let go for the entire evening. No words were needed between us. We introduced ourselves only the next morning, whispering our names to each other as we lay entwined in bed.</p><p>We then spent two years in a long-distance relationship: we wrote each other endless letters, though we spoke on the phone only a few times. But our passion exploded every summer, with the promise to never part. Until one day, a short note arrived: “I have to choose between you and my job, but I love you. One day you’ll understand.”</p><p>I cried for months back then and only forgot her when Emily came into my life—or so I had assumed!</p><p>“I promised you,” Evelyn held me tight while she spoke and I didn’t pull away, despite being overtaken by the flame between us that had never died. “Benny, now it’s time for us to be connected forever.”</p><hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"/><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Evelyn’s mysteries</h2><p>“But I… I have to go,” I replied, my throat closing up. “I’m… I’m a taken man… and then…”</p><p>She hugged me even tighter and silenced me by pressing a finger to my lips; “I know, and I don’t care! I know about the concert, your tickets, Emily, and especially about Ray, but he’s a loser and I don’t even consider him. Come with me!”</p><p>Strong, determined, Evelyn could dominate any man and that was her best quality, which had seduced me. She succeeded that day too because I took her firm hand and followed her to a car parked just a few meters from the phone booth. A luxurious car, different from the one I used to see her driving years ago when we met. “You earned plenty of money from work,” I joked, trying to ease my discomfort. “You’re a successful woman, right?”</p><p>“Ray’s tires went flat! Sometimes shit happens,” a mischievous grin hinted something more while she sat on the driver’s seat and I leaned in to kiss her. “You only live once,” I thought, already imagining a passionate evening in some hotel. I had lost my mind and Emily waiting for me at home, suddenly became the least of my concerns.</p><p>“No funny business,” Evelyn stopped the kiss she perhaps desired more than I did, and started the engine. “Don’t ask me any questions until we arrive! You hear me buddy?”</p><p>From passionate lover to kidnapper in an instant, I had read many novels on such a subject and tried to stay calm while she focused on the drive. Her embrace, her hand in mine, telling me we were meant to be together forever, then refusing a simple kiss? I grabbed an empty cassette case from the glove compartment, hoping it could clear up my doubts.</p><p>“A Night at the Opera,” I exclaimed. “That was the concert where…”</p><p>“Don’t get your hopes up,” her authoritative voice didn’t match “Love of My Life” song’s notes playing on the car radio; “this isn’t appropriate time to make love.”</p><p>I was risking my marriage for her, and in return she turned me down? “At least get me something to eat,” I protested. “A sandwich, a slice of pizza, I’m starving…”</p><p>She stayed silent and I just stared out the window: we left Bugdom downtown and headed towards the outskirts, eventually turning onto a completely deserted road. “We got lost, Evelyn,” I shook my head, but she continued driving calmly, confidently. “Benny, listen: do you want to come to Queen’s concert next November, right?”</p><p>“You said ‘coming’? Why, are you attending too? I’m supposed to be there with…”</p><p>“Emily. I know. And you will go with her; I have no intention to ruin your happy marriage, not at all.”</p><p>I wanted to ask her to take me home or drop me off at the public phone, but once again I was consumed by conflicting emotions: concert tickets, Raymond, what on earth was happening!</p><p>“I own something Emily doesn’t,” Evelyn mischievously grinned at me again; “I don’t fear her because there’s no competition. And you’ll realize it soon enough! We’re almost there!”</p><p>The engine stopped in front of a huge villa and I stood there astonished, as she opened the gate. “Get out,” she told me. “Come on, follow me.”</p><p>Her voice was once again calm and reassuring on this night that had caught us both by surprise. In an instant I was back in 1975 after Queen’s concert, when she held me tight in her arms for the first time. Step by step I followed her and when the gate closed behind us, the metallic clang in the evening silence revealed a reality I had always denied to myself: I didn’t love Emily as much as I said, I was just leaning on her to get over someone else.</p><p>“Oh, but this is…” Initially I hadn’t noticed the sign on the gate but I saw it now, large and illuminated above the entrance: “CAMPUS IBUOL – International Bugdom University Of Life.”</p><p>“Here we are,” Evelyn announced as she opened the door with a key; it was a university campus I had once dreamed of attending, but it was too expensive for my family so I had to give it up. And here she was, acting like she owned the place.</p><p>“Shit, it’s past eight!” I looked at my watch and stopped by the door: “No, damn it, it’s nine! God, what will they say at home…” I rambled on, incredulous about what was happening, the woman and place of my dreams arriving together in less than two hours, right within reach.</p><p>“Maybe you don’t realize it,” she smiled taking my hand and leading me down a silent corridor. I felt trapped once again, but I remembered Raymond and the concert tickets: “either do as I say or give them back!” My pride forced me to follow her, even when I saw her going down a dark, foul-smelling staircase. How fool would I look with Emily if I lost the tickets? What contract had Raymond signed, and how was I involved? What did Evelyn have to do with it? Too many questions, but she had explicitly recommended me not to ask them, and as always I gave in to her charisma.</p><p>A metal door creaked open and we entered a cold room, the air thick with disinfectant. “Where are we, what is this, is it a horror movie? Damn it, Evelyn!”</p><p>“Calm down. Calm down. Everything’s fine. Don’t be afraid, he won’t hurt you…” As she spoke, she wasn’t looking at me but at some undefined point in the room. She looked hypnotized! Who was she comforting? Who was “he” if not me? From any angle I looked at it, the situation was weird and I knew I couldn’t give it up. Not with her, not inside the campus coming from my shattered dreams.</p><hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"/><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Experiment</h2><p>“Perfect,” Evelyn said as she pushed a metal chair toward me. “Now you sit here, and we’ll proceed with our experiment. Are you ready, Benjamin Ladder?”</p><p>University professor, doctor, researcher? I didn’t even know exactly what her role was, but what I saw on the table in front of me forced me to focus elsewhere.</p><p>“Forty-one homosexual men affected by a strange form of cancer,” the same newspaper article I had seen earlier at my father-in-law’s house. I stood there frozen, reading it again, a veil of uncertainty slowly turning into terror. “No, Evelyn no… Don’t tell me that…” A tear slipped from my eye, and I wiped it away with my finger. “No, Evy, not you…”</p><p>“I’ve got a handle on this virus,” she whispered in my ear with a calmness utterly inappropriate for the situation. “And you are the right person for my research.”</p><p>“But what…” I grabbed the newspaper and studied every word, one letter at a time; no virus was mentioned and, as far as I knew, cancer wasn’t infections. Nothing made sense to me.</p><p>“You scare me, you’re dangerous!” I yelled. “Let me out of here! I don’t… I don’t want to die like those men! Evelyn!”</p><p>“Are you serious, dude? I’m not as dangerous as Raymond Still,” she said coldly. “I slashed his tires because I couldn’t let him hurt you.”</p><p>Without looking at me again she covered the table with an absorbent sheet. Moving slowly and precisely, she opened a drawer and pulled out a sealed syringe with a tourniquet. “Please! Let me go,” I panicked, but it didn’t seem to faze her. “You’re not going to drug me, are you?”</p><p>She pretended not to hear me, merely tying the tourniquet around my left arm and slipping on a pair of gloves. “It will only take a few seconds,” she said, turning her back on me as she approached a locked cabinet. It looked like an ordinary cupboard, but when the door swung open the cold air coming out made me realize it was a refrigerator.</p><p>“I have been Raymond Still’s student,” she sat down in front of me with a test tube in hand. “And in this laboratory he forced me to work till late into the night; it was here that everything happened.”</p><p>I looked from the newspaper to her. She appeared healthy and happy, but the article described a skin cancer. “…So, … I mean, how much time, does how long it last… You know… Evy…” Those words stuck in my throat, impossible to verbally express what I tried not to even think. Tourniquet still tied to my arm, syringe still sealed on the table, I focused on my only available certainty: I could breathe.</p><p>“So, tell me about Ray,” I finally managed to say; “this is about him, right? Tell me what happened to him!”</p><p>“Well, I need to prepare him for this. I should tell him about you first.”</p><p>Evy was back in a trance! I had already seen her like this, standing at the entrance to the campus, speaking in the third person as if I wasn’t there. But this time she held a test tube, and my arm was ready to receive an injection of God knows what.</p><p>Her eyes were lost in that world I couldn’t ever enter so I slipped my fingers under the tourniquet. Now or never, it was my last chance to escape! Screw the concert, the tickets and everything else. “Raymond!” I shouted, trying to untie the band. “I’m going to report you! What have you done to Evelyn, what’s my damned fate? Answer me! I know you’re around here!”</p><p>My anger echoed against an oppressive wall of silence, broken only by Evy as she unwrapped the syringe from its sterile packaging while muttering incoherent words and treating me as if I were invisible.</p><p>“Scream, Benny,” she said, turning to look into my eyes again. “Let out your fear, release all your negativity, honey. Soon you’ll be turned into someone better. Trust us.”</p><p>Evelyn emphasized the last phrase with her usual tone, always capable of seducing me in any situation. She had me completely under her thumb and was well aware of it: despite my uncertain fate I might even let her poison me if that meant having her approval. “Trust us, Benny. We are one now, accept your destiny.”</p><p>Hopelessly drawn in by her charm I didn’t even notice her opening the test tube, nor did I pay attention to the needle slowly entering my vein. I only felt when she set my arm free, but I remained seated awaiting my fate.</p><p>Against all my expectations, however, nothing happened. Ten minutes passed and my heart beat regularly; no hallucinations, no dizziness, even when I stood up I felt steady and walked around the table to get a sense of where I was until my toes bumped into a large mattress.</p><p>“I know what you’re thinking,” Evelyn took my hand and we both sat down on that makeshift bed. “Now you and I will stay here until your conversion is complete.”</p><p>“Conversion? Oh dear God,” despite being an atheist, a prayer slipped out. “If religion is what you mean, only God can explain what’s happening to me.”</p><p>“Seroconversion,” she corrected without flinching. “You’re becoming a positive person and this is good news! It’s just that you’ll have to…”</p><p>I needed to follow my instincts, but maybe it was already too late! How could I have been so reckless, sacrificing my health just to hear some music? “God, my God, the gay cancer,” I cried, still thinking about the newspaper article. “At least make it as painless as possible, dear Lord, hear me!”</p><p>Evelyn placed her hand on my shoulder inviting me to lie down: “now we’ll both take a nice nap, and tomorrow is another day. We’ve got two or three weeks…”</p><p>“And what about Emily,” I whispered. “I need to get back home…”</p><p>Evy shook her head. “It’s all been arranged. A letter will reach your wife. I’ve thought of her, the store, everything. It’s just us now!”</p><p>“Us.” Once again she used that romantic yet unsettling pronoun: “tell me who the third wheel is, Evelyn, tell me who you’re talking to when you close your eyes!”</p><p>“They’ll show up on their own,” she cut me off. “In two or three weeks you’ll develop a fever and you’ll start hearing a voice talking to you. If they ever decide to speak to you at all, given how you treat both of us.”</p>",
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"en": "<p>REAL WORLD, 2019: An Italian female student was awarded damages for contracting HIV during a laboratory experiment in 2016. Both Padua and Geneva universities were involved in the legal battle.</p><p>FANTASY: Benjamin Ladder was supposed to meet his friend Raymond, but another person showed up instead, asking him to participate in an experiment. Is he going to accept? What will happen to him?</p><div class=\"wp-block-group has-global-padding is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\"><div style=\"height:50px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div><hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-custom-verde-color has-alpha-channel-opacity has-custom-verde-background-color has-background\"/><div style=\"height:50px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div></div><p><!--more read more--></p><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">1981: Coincidences</h2><p>“Alright, I’ll be there soon. And please skip dinner,” Raymond said before hanging up; I ran out of tokens and didn’t have time to ask for further explanations about that strange request. All I understood was the enormous trouble I found myself into.</p><p>I sat down on the bench and waited. Five, ten minutes, maybe more, while passersby stopped at the phone booth to make calls or smoked cigarettes, talking to each other without noticing me. Some even ate sandwiches right in front of me!</p><p>“When I get home they’re going to kill me,” I thought. I knew I had to be there within half an hour, with Emily and her parents expecting dinner at precisely 8 PM. I opened my wallet looking for a phone token and sat back down, disheartened: I had used my last one calling Raymond, and now he wasn’t even showing up! “I gave you concert’s tickets; now you need to prove yourself worthy of my trust,” he had urged me when handing me the envelope, and he repeated it during our last phone call.</p><p>Thank goodness I had some bills left! The diner near the payphone was still open, so I could buy some tokens to call my family and let them know I’d be late. With a couple of twenties in hand, I stood up and didn’t immediately notice a woman walking towards me.</p><p>“Please take a seat, ma’am,” I pointed to my now-vacant spot. “I’m just leaving!”</p><p>“Stay, please,” she smiled widely and stepped even closer to me; “Don’t you… Don’t you recognize me, Benny? I came here for you!”</p><p>It was probably a dream. Her, it couldn’t be her, no way. I was too anxious and hungry! She stood in front of me, her dark eyes glistening with emotion. “I’m so happy to meet you again!”</p><p>I stayed there, frozen, unable to move or speak: why had she reappeared after all these years, in the most inappropriate moment? What kind of trick was fate playing on me?</p><p>“Evy, Evelyn, Evelyn Sloan…” Without taking my eyes off her, I pronounced her name, as if to etch her unexpected presence into my mind. “What are you doing here in Bugdom?”</p><p>“Sometimes work turns into love, don’t you know?”</p><p>I experienced those sensations because I felt the same way about music. But she was talking about me, and I understood it. She looked at me just like the first time we met at a Queen concert in 1975, when we instantly connected as fans: we had never met before, yet our hands joined as we sang “Love of My Life” with Freddie Mercury, and we didn’t let go for the entire evening. No words were needed between us. We introduced ourselves only the next morning, whispering our names to each other as we lay entwined in bed.</p><p>We then spent two years in a long-distance relationship: we wrote each other endless letters, though we spoke on the phone only a few times. But our passion exploded every summer, with the promise to never part. Until one day, a short note arrived: “I have to choose between you and my job, but I love you. One day you’ll understand.”</p><p>I cried for months back then and only forgot her when Emily came into my life—or so I had assumed!</p><p>“I promised you,” Evelyn held me tight while she spoke and I didn’t pull away, despite being overtaken by the flame between us that had never died. “Benny, now it’s time for us to be connected forever.”</p><hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"/><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Evelyn’s mysteries</h2><p>“But I… I have to go,” I replied, my throat closing up. “I’m… I’m a taken man… and then…”</p><p>She hugged me even tighter and silenced me by pressing a finger to my lips; “I know, and I don’t care! I know about the concert, your tickets, Emily, and especially about Ray, but he’s a loser and I don’t even consider him. Come with me!”</p><p>Strong, determined, Evelyn could dominate any man and that was her best quality, which had seduced me. She succeeded that day too because I took her firm hand and followed her to a car parked just a few meters from the phone booth. A luxurious car, different from the one I used to see her driving years ago when we met. “You earned plenty of money from work,” I joked, trying to ease my discomfort. “You’re a successful woman, right?”</p><p>“Ray’s tires went flat! Sometimes shit happens,” a mischievous grin hinted something more while she sat on the driver’s seat and I leaned in to kiss her. “You only live once,” I thought, already imagining a passionate evening in some hotel. I had lost my mind and Emily waiting for me at home, suddenly became the least of my concerns.</p><p>“No funny business,” Evelyn stopped the kiss she perhaps desired more than I did, and started the engine. “Don’t ask me any questions until we arrive! You hear me buddy?”</p><p>From passionate lover to kidnapper in an instant, I had read many novels on such a subject and tried to stay calm while she focused on the drive. Her embrace, her hand in mine, telling me we were meant to be together forever, then refusing a simple kiss? I grabbed an empty cassette case from the glove compartment, hoping it could clear up my doubts.</p><p>“A Night at the Opera,” I exclaimed. “That was the concert where…”</p><p>“Don’t get your hopes up,” her authoritative voice didn’t match “Love of My Life” song’s notes playing on the car radio; “this isn’t appropriate time to make love.”</p><p>I was risking my marriage for her, and in return she turned me down? “At least get me something to eat,” I protested. “A sandwich, a slice of pizza, I’m starving…”</p><p>She stayed silent and I just stared out the window: we left Bugdom downtown and headed towards the outskirts, eventually turning onto a completely deserted road. “We got lost, Evelyn,” I shook my head, but she continued driving calmly, confidently. “Benny, listen: do you want to come to Queen’s concert next November, right?”</p><p>“You said ‘coming’? Why, are you attending too? I’m supposed to be there with…”</p><p>“Emily. I know. And you will go with her; I have no intention to ruin your happy marriage, not at all.”</p><p>I wanted to ask her to take me home or drop me off at the public phone, but once again I was consumed by conflicting emotions: concert tickets, Raymond, what on earth was happening!</p><p>“I own something Emily doesn’t,” Evelyn mischievously grinned at me again; “I don’t fear her because there’s no competition. And you’ll realize it soon enough! We’re almost there!”</p><p>The engine stopped in front of a huge villa and I stood there astonished, as she opened the gate. “Get out,” she told me. “Come on, follow me.”</p><p>Her voice was once again calm and reassuring on this night that had caught us both by surprise. In an instant I was back in 1975 after Queen’s concert, when she held me tight in her arms for the first time. Step by step I followed her and when the gate closed behind us, the metallic clang in the evening silence revealed a reality I had always denied to myself: I didn’t love Emily as much as I said, I was just leaning on her to get over someone else.</p><p>“Oh, but this is…” Initially I hadn’t noticed the sign on the gate but I saw it now, large and illuminated above the entrance: “CAMPUS IBUOL – International Bugdom University Of Life.”</p><p>“Here we are,” Evelyn announced as she opened the door with a key; it was a university campus I had once dreamed of attending, but it was too expensive for my family so I had to give it up. And here she was, acting like she owned the place.</p><p>“Shit, it’s past eight!” I looked at my watch and stopped by the door: “No, damn it, it’s nine! God, what will they say at home…” I rambled on, incredulous about what was happening, the woman and place of my dreams arriving together in less than two hours, right within reach.</p><p>“Maybe you don’t realize it,” she smiled taking my hand and leading me down a silent corridor. I felt trapped once again, but I remembered Raymond and the concert tickets: “either do as I say or give them back!” My pride forced me to follow her, even when I saw her going down a dark, foul-smelling staircase. How fool would I look with Emily if I lost the tickets? What contract had Raymond signed, and how was I involved? What did Evelyn have to do with it? Too many questions, but she had explicitly recommended me not to ask them, and as always I gave in to her charisma.</p><p>A metal door creaked open and we entered a cold room, the air thick with disinfectant. “Where are we, what is this, is it a horror movie? Damn it, Evelyn!”</p><p>“Calm down. Calm down. Everything’s fine. Don’t be afraid, he won’t hurt you…” As she spoke, she wasn’t looking at me but at some undefined point in the room. She looked hypnotized! Who was she comforting? Who was “he” if not me? From any angle I looked at it, the situation was weird and I knew I couldn’t give it up. Not with her, not inside the campus coming from my shattered dreams.</p><hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"/><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Experiment</h2><p>“Perfect,” Evelyn said as she pushed a metal chair toward me. “Now you sit here, and we’ll proceed with our experiment. Are you ready, Benjamin Ladder?”</p><p>University professor, doctor, researcher? I didn’t even know exactly what her role was, but what I saw on the table in front of me forced me to focus elsewhere.</p><p>“Forty-one homosexual men affected by a strange form of cancer,” the same newspaper article I had seen earlier at my father-in-law’s house. I stood there frozen, reading it again, a veil of uncertainty slowly turning into terror. “No, Evelyn no… Don’t tell me that…” A tear slipped from my eye, and I wiped it away with my finger. “No, Evy, not you…”</p><p>“I’ve got a handle on this virus,” she whispered in my ear with a calmness utterly inappropriate for the situation. “And you are the right person for my research.”</p><p>“But what…” I grabbed the newspaper and studied every word, one letter at a time; no virus was mentioned and, as far as I knew, cancer wasn’t infections. Nothing made sense to me.</p><p>“You scare me, you’re dangerous!” I yelled. “Let me out of here! I don’t… I don’t want to die like those men! Evelyn!”</p><p>“Are you serious, dude? I’m not as dangerous as Raymond Still,” she said coldly. “I slashed his tires because I couldn’t let him hurt you.”</p><p>Without looking at me again she covered the table with an absorbent sheet. Moving slowly and precisely, she opened a drawer and pulled out a sealed syringe with a tourniquet. “Please! Let me go,” I panicked, but it didn’t seem to faze her. “You’re not going to drug me, are you?”</p><p>She pretended not to hear me, merely tying the tourniquet around my left arm and slipping on a pair of gloves. “It will only take a few seconds,” she said, turning her back on me as she approached a locked cabinet. It looked like an ordinary cupboard, but when the door swung open the cold air coming out made me realize it was a refrigerator.</p><p>“I have been Raymond Still’s student,” she sat down in front of me with a test tube in hand. “And in this laboratory he forced me to work till late into the night; it was here that everything happened.”</p><p>I looked from the newspaper to her. She appeared healthy and happy, but the article described a skin cancer. “…So, … I mean, how much time, does how long it last… You know… Evy…” Those words stuck in my throat, impossible to verbally express what I tried not to even think. Tourniquet still tied to my arm, syringe still sealed on the table, I focused on my only available certainty: I could breathe.</p><p>“So, tell me about Ray,” I finally managed to say; “this is about him, right? Tell me what happened to him!”</p><p>“Well, I need to prepare him for this. I should tell him about you first.”</p><p>Evy was back in a trance! I had already seen her like this, standing at the entrance to the campus, speaking in the third person as if I wasn’t there. But this time she held a test tube, and my arm was ready to receive an injection of God knows what.</p><p>Her eyes were lost in that world I couldn’t ever enter so I slipped my fingers under the tourniquet. Now or never, it was my last chance to escape! Screw the concert, the tickets and everything else. “Raymond!” I shouted, trying to untie the band. “I’m going to report you! What have you done to Evelyn, what’s my damned fate? Answer me! I know you’re around here!”</p><p>My anger echoed against an oppressive wall of silence, broken only by Evy as she unwrapped the syringe from its sterile packaging while muttering incoherent words and treating me as if I were invisible.</p><p>“Scream, Benny,” she said, turning to look into my eyes again. “Let out your fear, release all your negativity, honey. Soon you’ll be turned into someone better. Trust us.”</p><p>Evelyn emphasized the last phrase with her usual tone, always capable of seducing me in any situation. She had me completely under her thumb and was well aware of it: despite my uncertain fate I might even let her poison me if that meant having her approval. “Trust us, Benny. We are one now, accept your destiny.”</p><p>Hopelessly drawn in by her charm I didn’t even notice her opening the test tube, nor did I pay attention to the needle slowly entering my vein. I only felt when she set my arm free, but I remained seated awaiting my fate.</p><p>Against all my expectations, however, nothing happened. Ten minutes passed and my heart beat regularly; no hallucinations, no dizziness, even when I stood up I felt steady and walked around the table to get a sense of where I was until my toes bumped into a large mattress.</p><p>“I know what you’re thinking,” Evelyn took my hand and we both sat down on that makeshift bed. “Now you and I will stay here until your conversion is complete.”</p><p>“Conversion? Oh dear God,” despite being an atheist, a prayer slipped out. “If religion is what you mean, only God can explain what’s happening to me.”</p><p>“Seroconversion,” she corrected without flinching. “You’re becoming a positive person and this is good news! It’s just that you’ll have to…”</p><p>I needed to follow my instincts, but maybe it was already too late! How could I have been so reckless, sacrificing my health just to hear some music? “God, my God, the gay cancer,” I cried, still thinking about the newspaper article. “At least make it as painless as possible, dear Lord, hear me!”</p><p>Evelyn placed her hand on my shoulder inviting me to lie down: “now we’ll both take a nice nap, and tomorrow is another day. We’ve got two or three weeks…”</p><p>“And what about Emily,” I whispered. “I need to get back home…”</p><p>Evy shook her head. “It’s all been arranged. A letter will reach your wife. I’ve thought of her, the store, everything. It’s just us now!”</p><p>“Us.” Once again she used that romantic yet unsettling pronoun: “tell me who the third wheel is, Evelyn, tell me who you’re talking to when you close your eyes!”</p><p>“They’ll show up on their own,” she cut me off. “In two or three weeks you’ll develop a fever and you’ll start hearing a voice talking to you. If they ever decide to speak to you at all, given how you treat both of us.”</p>"
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"content": "<p>How and what can we control about our data when dealing with large language models – best known as “artificial intelligence”? How is information about us treated?</p><p>Too bad this fundamental topic is mostly discussed in <a rel=\"tag\" class=\"hashtag u-tag u-category\" href=\"https://plusbrothers.net/tag/fediverse/\">#fediverse</a> – decentralized networks, but it’s something everyone should be aware of.</p><p>Biggest problem about AI and data is that we passively receive information without any possibility to correct it, and overall with no control on what it provides. It takes our data but we have nothing in return for having trained it.</p><div class=\"wp-block-group has-global-padding is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\"><div style=\"height:50px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div><hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-custom-verde-color has-alpha-channel-opacity has-custom-verde-background-color has-background\"/><div style=\"height:50px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div></div><p><!--more read more--></p><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Practicing artificial intelligence and data control</h2><p>Our exploration is based on a conversation with GPT engine about our own nicknames.</p><ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Who is Elettrona? The answer relates to an undefined fantasy name and world.</li><li>Who is Gifter? Chatbot provided something about “One Piece” manga’s characters, a subject used by him when explaining his nickname to people unaware about HIV topics and his own HIV status.</li><li>Who are Elettrona and Gifter? A vague fantasy names related response returned.</li></ul><p>But everything changes when we use this prompt: “is there some information about Elettrona and Gifter on the Internet?”</p><p>Here’s the answer:</p><div class=\"wp-block-group has-global-padding is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\"><div style=\"height:50px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div><hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-custom-verde-color has-alpha-channel-opacity has-custom-verde-background-color has-background\"/><div style=\"height:50px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div></div><blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>“Elettrona” and “Gifter” are pseudonyms used by Elena and Alessandro, two bloggers who maintain “PlusBrothers” website.</p><p>Their blog addresses topics related to HIV, social stigma, and personal experiences.</p><p>Elena, known as “Elettrona,” is blind and has a background in web accessibility and digital inclusion. She chose the name “Elettrona” as a playful, personalized version of “electron,” reflecting her role in the dynamic duo. Alessandro, called “Gifter,” is HIV-positive and adopted his pseudonym from the term “gift giver,” referring to a controversial subculture that discusses HIV transmission in a provocative, often misunderstood way.</p><p>Together, they use their blog to fight HIV-related stigma and raise awareness about inclusion, using satire and personal storytelling to challenge social taboos.</p></blockquote><div class=\"wp-block-group has-global-padding is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\"><div style=\"height:50px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div><hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-custom-verde-color has-alpha-channel-opacity has-custom-verde-background-color has-background\"/><div style=\"height:50px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div></div><p>Those data are reliable because we <a href=\"https://plusbrothers.net/elettrona-gifter-nicknames-introduction/\" data-type=\"post\" data-id=\"33083\">willingly and publicly explained our nicknames </a>so we consent to their availability on AI answers, but we are conscious that nothing in life lasts forever.</p><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Things change fast</h2><p>Let’s assume that one evening Gifter reads Harry Potter audio books and the following morning he decides to stop his treatment, replacing it with Harry’s spells: after he screams “EXPELLIARMUS!” in front of the mirror, his next blood tests show that HIV has disappeared.</p><p>According to AI service Alex will still result as an HIV positive person, despite his real condition has changed.</p><p>In a while Elettrona screams: “LUMOS!” And she acquires the ability to see. But Gifter, excited by his new super powers, says “NOX!” and causes her to become blind again.</p><p>The fight continues through spells: “Gifter, Avada Kedavra!” Hoping to kill him, Elettrona only manages to restore his original HIV positive status.</p><p>Gifter casts ‘Protego!’ causing HIV to escape from him and immediately transferring to his coworker. How would an automated system handle this situation?</p><p>Sure, we’re making light of it, but the truth is that life can change in an instant and individuals have little control over how AI handles their personal data, with no chance to confirm or modify them whenever needed.</p><p>Let suppose that someone trains a chat bot describing us as an evil couple who deliberately spreads HIV, those slanders would be unstoppable and how could we count on law? We’d sue the machine or its producer? In that case we’d end up involved in a legal dispute definitely beyond our financial means and our reputation would be damaged forever.</p><p>What a disaster it’s goint to be then, if fake or wrong information is ever spread about politics or today’s events. An uncontrolled AI usage could create confusion, if we want to talk kindly; as it currently is, it’s the perfect technology which can give advantages to someone while unrecoverably disadvantaging others, depending on a given interest.</p><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Conclusion</h2><p>We aren’t against so-called “artificial intelligence”‘s usage, as it’s a real lifechanging technology for people with visual impairment making the world accessible like never before; it also helps our blogging activities, but of course we do not allow it to write content in our place, blog is just ours. </p><p>But it’s far from perfect; it’s vulnerable to several attacks, so regulations should be created with ethics in mind and overall authors should be able to confirm or change their own information. Like it is now, a malicious AI trainer could say that Stephen King wrote “And Then There Were None” story, when the world knows it’s Agatha Christie’s. That’s not good. Let alone when they talk about dead people or politics and finance! </p><p>Let’s be positive as usual though; we can’t count on politicians or adults coming from 60s-50s generation, duty of improving this changing world is a community-driven challenge. </p>",
"contentMap": {
"en": "<p>How and what can we control about our data when dealing with large language models – best known as “artificial intelligence”? How is information about us treated?</p><p>Too bad this fundamental topic is mostly discussed in <a rel=\"tag\" class=\"hashtag u-tag u-category\" href=\"https://plusbrothers.net/tag/fediverse/\">#fediverse</a> – decentralized networks, but it’s something everyone should be aware of.</p><p>Biggest problem about AI and data is that we passively receive information without any possibility to correct it, and overall with no control on what it provides. It takes our data but we have nothing in return for having trained it.</p><div class=\"wp-block-group has-global-padding is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\"><div style=\"height:50px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div><hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-custom-verde-color has-alpha-channel-opacity has-custom-verde-background-color has-background\"/><div style=\"height:50px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div></div><p><!--more read more--></p><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Practicing artificial intelligence and data control</h2><p>Our exploration is based on a conversation with GPT engine about our own nicknames.</p><ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Who is Elettrona? The answer relates to an undefined fantasy name and world.</li><li>Who is Gifter? Chatbot provided something about “One Piece” manga’s characters, a subject used by him when explaining his nickname to people unaware about HIV topics and his own HIV status.</li><li>Who are Elettrona and Gifter? A vague fantasy names related response returned.</li></ul><p>But everything changes when we use this prompt: “is there some information about Elettrona and Gifter on the Internet?”</p><p>Here’s the answer:</p><div class=\"wp-block-group has-global-padding is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\"><div style=\"height:50px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div><hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-custom-verde-color has-alpha-channel-opacity has-custom-verde-background-color has-background\"/><div style=\"height:50px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div></div><blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>“Elettrona” and “Gifter” are pseudonyms used by Elena and Alessandro, two bloggers who maintain “PlusBrothers” website.</p><p>Their blog addresses topics related to HIV, social stigma, and personal experiences.</p><p>Elena, known as “Elettrona,” is blind and has a background in web accessibility and digital inclusion. She chose the name “Elettrona” as a playful, personalized version of “electron,” reflecting her role in the dynamic duo. Alessandro, called “Gifter,” is HIV-positive and adopted his pseudonym from the term “gift giver,” referring to a controversial subculture that discusses HIV transmission in a provocative, often misunderstood way.</p><p>Together, they use their blog to fight HIV-related stigma and raise awareness about inclusion, using satire and personal storytelling to challenge social taboos.</p></blockquote><div class=\"wp-block-group has-global-padding is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\"><div style=\"height:50px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div><hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-custom-verde-color has-alpha-channel-opacity has-custom-verde-background-color has-background\"/><div style=\"height:50px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div></div><p>Those data are reliable because we <a href=\"https://plusbrothers.net/elettrona-gifter-nicknames-introduction/\" data-type=\"post\" data-id=\"33083\">willingly and publicly explained our nicknames </a>so we consent to their availability on AI answers, but we are conscious that nothing in life lasts forever.</p><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Things change fast</h2><p>Let’s assume that one evening Gifter reads Harry Potter audio books and the following morning he decides to stop his treatment, replacing it with Harry’s spells: after he screams “EXPELLIARMUS!” in front of the mirror, his next blood tests show that HIV has disappeared.</p><p>According to AI service Alex will still result as an HIV positive person, despite his real condition has changed.</p><p>In a while Elettrona screams: “LUMOS!” And she acquires the ability to see. But Gifter, excited by his new super powers, says “NOX!” and causes her to become blind again.</p><p>The fight continues through spells: “Gifter, Avada Kedavra!” Hoping to kill him, Elettrona only manages to restore his original HIV positive status.</p><p>Gifter casts ‘Protego!’ causing HIV to escape from him and immediately transferring to his coworker. How would an automated system handle this situation?</p><p>Sure, we’re making light of it, but the truth is that life can change in an instant and individuals have little control over how AI handles their personal data, with no chance to confirm or modify them whenever needed.</p><p>Let suppose that someone trains a chat bot describing us as an evil couple who deliberately spreads HIV, those slanders would be unstoppable and how could we count on law? We’d sue the machine or its producer? In that case we’d end up involved in a legal dispute definitely beyond our financial means and our reputation would be damaged forever.</p><p>What a disaster it’s goint to be then, if fake or wrong information is ever spread about politics or today’s events. An uncontrolled AI usage could create confusion, if we want to talk kindly; as it currently is, it’s the perfect technology which can give advantages to someone while unrecoverably disadvantaging others, depending on a given interest.</p><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Conclusion</h2><p>We aren’t against so-called “artificial intelligence”‘s usage, as it’s a real lifechanging technology for people with visual impairment making the world accessible like never before; it also helps our blogging activities, but of course we do not allow it to write content in our place, blog is just ours. </p><p>But it’s far from perfect; it’s vulnerable to several attacks, so regulations should be created with ethics in mind and overall authors should be able to confirm or change their own information. Like it is now, a malicious AI trainer could say that Stephen King wrote “And Then There Were None” story, when the world knows it’s Agatha Christie’s. That’s not good. Let alone when they talk about dead people or politics and finance! </p><p>Let’s be positive as usual though; we can’t count on politicians or adults coming from 60s-50s generation, duty of improving this changing world is a community-driven challenge. </p>"
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"content": "<p>We can’t lie to ourselves: Italian and international <a rel=\"tag\" class=\"hashtag u-tag u-category\" href=\"https://plusbrothers.net/tag/wordpress/\">#WordPress</a> community is our blog’s family and home. It’s thanks to them and the platform itself that we’re able to do what we do and now our duty is to give something in return, so we gladly sign the <a href=\"https://wpmustwin.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">#WpMustWin</a> open letter.</p><div class=\"wp-block-group has-global-padding is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\"><div style=\"height:50px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div><hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-custom-verde-color has-alpha-channel-opacity has-custom-verde-background-color has-background\"/><div style=\"height:50px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div></div><p><!--more read more--></p><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">When friends are in trouble</h2><p>WordPress echosystem is experiencing a very hard trouble as its main founder, Matt Mullenweg, is having a legal dispute with another related company, WpEngine: from co-operators to competitors? In few words it’s matter of money – as usual when business is involved.</p><p>To say it frankly, we have never cared about who and when, as for us WordPress is a free and open source software developed by a community we still continue to work for, and to believe in. </p><p>A little personal background: I’m Elettrona, Elena in real life or <a rel=\"mention\" class=\"u-url mention\" href=\"https://mastodon.uno/@talksina\">@<span>talksina</span></a> in the <a rel=\"tag\" class=\"hashtag u-tag u-category\" href=\"https://plusbrothers.net/tag/fediverse/\">#fediverse</a> and have been a WordCamp speaker in Italy, then involved in quite a few initiatives about WordPress accessibility including <a href=\"https://2024.wpaccessibility.day\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Accessibility Day 2024</a> so when I speak about community I know what I’m talking about; I do my best to help volunteers in reporting bugs to WordPress’s developers when needed and I even do my part on third-party components’ Italian localization, for translations this blog’s co-author Alex, “Gifter”, helps me with written English words if I ever have some doubts. It’s a four hands job, to be more precise four hands and an RNA as Gifter’s HIV helps too – maybe virus knows English better than both of us humans? We’re kidding, of course.</p><p>But we’re not kidding or exaggerating at all when we say that this community welcomed us like no others, we feel considered for what we are and can do, not for our blindness, sexuality or HIV status. We’re surrounded by people who value our contributes to the echosystem with no moral judgment about us and it’s very rare during today’s times.</p><p>So, what can we do to give our friends something back? Standing for WordPress is the very least we can offer.</p><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">WP Must Win initiative: why?</h2><p>When all the <a href=\"https://wpdrama.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">#wpdrama</a> stuff started on September 20th 2024 we were shocked: besides WordPress founder violating his own community’s code of conduct calling a competitor <a href=\"https://plusbrothers.net/agony-ass-wordpress-cancer/\" data-type=\"post\" data-id=\"34134\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">“a cancer”</a>, we discovered that WordPress.Org is not owned by a well-organized independent foundation but it’s in one company’s hands, and this owner can decide whatever he wants about it.</p><p>Clear demonstration of it all is the flag he added to the site’s login interface where to sign into your account you must agree that you’re not affiliated to WpEngine financially or in any other way. </p><p>No matter if you never gave a damn about legal stuff, or if you are a long-time contributor; a simple click forces you to say “I’m with the good, the others are villains” despite no “good” or “villains” exist in real life.</p><p>This is not the way to treat long-term members especially ones mostly helping for free, at least we can talk for ourselves (Elettrona and Gifter) – <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/talksina\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Elettrona’s account</a> has been active since March 17th 2005 and if someone ever kicks her out, let’s say they have never heard what “drama” is, then. Most dramatic apocalypse-related TV series is a romance, compared to how we would react in that case.</p><p>Fortunately we’re not the only ones to be angry towards this behaviour and, together with people choosing to leave the whole community, there are others who chose the opposite action: being constructive, being positive, and trying the other way. Let’s attempt to build something from scratch, so it started with the <a href=\"https://wpmustwin.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">“Wp Must Win”</a> open letter with related hashtags <a href=\"https://mastodon.social/tags/wpmustwin\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">#WpMustWin</a> and <a href=\"https://mastodon.social/tags/wearewordpress\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#WeAreWordPress</a> used to spread the word.</p><p>We have decided to be positive from the start, how could the <a href=\"https://plusbrothers.net/english/positive-world/\" data-type=\"page\" data-id=\"30669\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Positive World</a>‘s creators be negative? It would have been a contraddiction! And then, leaving the community would have meant to contribute on taking the bricks out of our comfort place and help it blow up under our asses, we’re NOT masochists so can’t act that way.</p><p>Like with HIV where everyone is involved wanting it or not, we are WordPress, all of us, even the ones not knowing anything technical or legal. There are people having their blogs in one of dispute’s members space and don’t even know -and care- about it. This is a battle EVERY BLOGGER should join in and we invite everyone to consider it.</p><p>As PlusBrothers creators we can’t leave our friends to their destiny after all what they did – and do – for us, not for how they made and make us feel every day and we took the matter seriously trying to help <a rel=\"mention\" class=\"u-url mention\" href=\"https://mastodon.social/@wpmustwin\">@<span>wpmustwin</span></a> ‘s initiative with our own resources and possibilities. </p><ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Elettrona signing the letter with her full real name as a long-time WordPress contributor</li><li>Gifter translating letter’s text into Italian and helping to write the article about it in both languages.</li></ul><p>We are just two simple bloggers and might be not relevant in front of potent rich bulls fighting with each other, but we do our best to save the place we consider home. WordPress must win, WE must win. So we invite anyone reading us to consider signing the WpMustWin.org letter. Thanks.</p><p>Elena and Alessandro -Alex-, stage names Elettrona and Gifter.</p>",
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"en": "<p>We can’t lie to ourselves: Italian and international <a rel=\"tag\" class=\"hashtag u-tag u-category\" href=\"https://plusbrothers.net/tag/wordpress/\">#WordPress</a> community is our blog’s family and home. It’s thanks to them and the platform itself that we’re able to do what we do and now our duty is to give something in return, so we gladly sign the <a href=\"https://wpmustwin.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">#WpMustWin</a> open letter.</p><div class=\"wp-block-group has-global-padding is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\"><div style=\"height:50px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div><hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-custom-verde-color has-alpha-channel-opacity has-custom-verde-background-color has-background\"/><div style=\"height:50px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"></div></div><p><!--more read more--></p><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">When friends are in trouble</h2><p>WordPress echosystem is experiencing a very hard trouble as its main founder, Matt Mullenweg, is having a legal dispute with another related company, WpEngine: from co-operators to competitors? In few words it’s matter of money – as usual when business is involved.</p><p>To say it frankly, we have never cared about who and when, as for us WordPress is a free and open source software developed by a community we still continue to work for, and to believe in. </p><p>A little personal background: I’m Elettrona, Elena in real life or <a rel=\"mention\" class=\"u-url mention\" href=\"https://mastodon.uno/@talksina\">@<span>talksina</span></a> in the <a rel=\"tag\" class=\"hashtag u-tag u-category\" href=\"https://plusbrothers.net/tag/fediverse/\">#fediverse</a> and have been a WordCamp speaker in Italy, then involved in quite a few initiatives about WordPress accessibility including <a href=\"https://2024.wpaccessibility.day\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Accessibility Day 2024</a> so when I speak about community I know what I’m talking about; I do my best to help volunteers in reporting bugs to WordPress’s developers when needed and I even do my part on third-party components’ Italian localization, for translations this blog’s co-author Alex, “Gifter”, helps me with written English words if I ever have some doubts. It’s a four hands job, to be more precise four hands and an RNA as Gifter’s HIV helps too – maybe virus knows English better than both of us humans? We’re kidding, of course.</p><p>But we’re not kidding or exaggerating at all when we say that this community welcomed us like no others, we feel considered for what we are and can do, not for our blindness, sexuality or HIV status. We’re surrounded by people who value our contributes to the echosystem with no moral judgment about us and it’s very rare during today’s times.</p><p>So, what can we do to give our friends something back? Standing for WordPress is the very least we can offer.</p><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">WP Must Win initiative: why?</h2><p>When all the <a href=\"https://wpdrama.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">#wpdrama</a> stuff started on September 20th 2024 we were shocked: besides WordPress founder violating his own community’s code of conduct calling a competitor <a href=\"https://plusbrothers.net/agony-ass-wordpress-cancer/\" data-type=\"post\" data-id=\"34134\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">“a cancer”</a>, we discovered that WordPress.Org is not owned by a well-organized independent foundation but it’s in one company’s hands, and this owner can decide whatever he wants about it.</p><p>Clear demonstration of it all is the flag he added to the site’s login interface where to sign into your account you must agree that you’re not affiliated to WpEngine financially or in any other way. </p><p>No matter if you never gave a damn about legal stuff, or if you are a long-time contributor; a simple click forces you to say “I’m with the good, the others are villains” despite no “good” or “villains” exist in real life.</p><p>This is not the way to treat long-term members especially ones mostly helping for free, at least we can talk for ourselves (Elettrona and Gifter) – <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/talksina\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Elettrona’s account</a> has been active since March 17th 2005 and if someone ever kicks her out, let’s say they have never heard what “drama” is, then. Most dramatic apocalypse-related TV series is a romance, compared to how we would react in that case.</p><p>Fortunately we’re not the only ones to be angry towards this behaviour and, together with people choosing to leave the whole community, there are others who chose the opposite action: being constructive, being positive, and trying the other way. Let’s attempt to build something from scratch, so it started with the <a href=\"https://wpmustwin.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">“Wp Must Win”</a> open letter with related hashtags <a href=\"https://mastodon.social/tags/wpmustwin\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">#WpMustWin</a> and <a href=\"https://mastodon.social/tags/wearewordpress\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#WeAreWordPress</a> used to spread the word.</p><p>We have decided to be positive from the start, how could the <a href=\"https://plusbrothers.net/english/positive-world/\" data-type=\"page\" data-id=\"30669\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Positive World</a>‘s creators be negative? It would have been a contraddiction! And then, leaving the community would have meant to contribute on taking the bricks out of our comfort place and help it blow up under our asses, we’re NOT masochists so can’t act that way.</p><p>Like with HIV where everyone is involved wanting it or not, we are WordPress, all of us, even the ones not knowing anything technical or legal. There are people having their blogs in one of dispute’s members space and don’t even know -and care- about it. This is a battle EVERY BLOGGER should join in and we invite everyone to consider it.</p><p>As PlusBrothers creators we can’t leave our friends to their destiny after all what they did – and do – for us, not for how they made and make us feel every day and we took the matter seriously trying to help <a rel=\"mention\" class=\"u-url mention\" href=\"https://mastodon.social/@wpmustwin\">@<span>wpmustwin</span></a> ‘s initiative with our own resources and possibilities. </p><ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Elettrona signing the letter with her full real name as a long-time WordPress contributor</li><li>Gifter translating letter’s text into Italian and helping to write the article about it in both languages.</li></ul><p>We are just two simple bloggers and might be not relevant in front of potent rich bulls fighting with each other, but we do our best to save the place we consider home. WordPress must win, WE must win. So we invite anyone reading us to consider signing the WpMustWin.org letter. Thanks.</p><p>Elena and Alessandro -Alex-, stage names Elettrona and Gifter.</p>"
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"content": "<h2>Lenses and condoms</h2><p>Commercial social media sites’ algorithms are on another planet. We noticed some inappropriate ads, such as progressive glasses for a blind person or condoms for people living with HIV. It looks like they’re trolling us.</p><p>There’s a difference though: progressive lenses are useless for a blind person but condoms are needed to protect yourself and others, regardless of your HIV positive or negative status.</p><p>When your viral load is <a href=\"https://plusbrothers.net/uu-science-not-fear/\" data-type=\"post\" data-id=\"32026\">undetectable untransmittable</a>, you can be the most controlled and safe person in this world but if you sleep with strangers, you can’t ask them to disclose their health condition. Making it short, if weather is questionable, always bring an umbrella! Better safe than sorry.</p><p>We joke about all of this but this behaviour, called Enshittification, deserves to be discussed more in deep.</p>",
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"en": "<h2>Lenses and condoms</h2><p>Commercial social media sites’ algorithms are on another planet. We noticed some inappropriate ads, such as progressive glasses for a blind person or condoms for people living with HIV. It looks like they’re trolling us.</p><p>There’s a difference though: progressive lenses are useless for a blind person but condoms are needed to protect yourself and others, regardless of your HIV positive or negative status.</p><p>When your viral load is <a href=\"https://plusbrothers.net/uu-science-not-fear/\" data-type=\"post\" data-id=\"32026\">undetectable untransmittable</a>, you can be the most controlled and safe person in this world but if you sleep with strangers, you can’t ask them to disclose their health condition. Making it short, if weather is questionable, always bring an umbrella! Better safe than sorry.</p><p>We joke about all of this but this behaviour, called Enshittification, deserves to be discussed more in deep.</p>"
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