So I was surprised to find it screening in a big name movie theatre near me in Canada. Didn't really know much about it, was just surprised to find a Chinese language movie in a non-Chinese theatre in Canada and was pretty curious so I went in and watched it. (I wanted to watch a movie anyway, decided to watch that instead of what I originally had in mind.)

I really liked it, highly recommended. I'm by no means a movie expert, but here's my review of it.

It tells three intertwining stories all relating to organized cybercrime. A programmer who accepts a fake job offer and gets kidnapped to work for an internet fraud operation; a down on her luck model who accepts a job at an online casino, run by the same cybercrime ring, and is similarly held captive and forced to continue well after she wants out; and a victim of said online casino and other rigged illegal gambling operations who bankrupts himself and his family. It's based on real cases and major busts that have happened in Southeast Asia, and the director interviewed over 10,000 people affected by organized cybercrime, and modeled the story closely to their real experiences. His goal was to use this movie to educate people about how cybercrime rings work, how they manage to evade authorities, how and why they employ human trafficking (which is not something one immediately thinks of when considering internet scams and illegal casinos), and how and why people fall victim to them.

Overall, I think it was an extremely powerful film and one that is sorely needed in this day and age where cybercrime and cyber fraud is rampant and tons of people fall victim to it every day. From a literary perspective, I really liked the three intertwining stories that all converge at the end, it's something that has been tried a lot in various types of media and is pretty hard to do well, but when it is done well it's a really cool experience. All of the protagonists were easy to sympathize with and had realistic motivations and actions (which makes sense considering this is based on true stories). The brainwashing of the victims and how their wills are broken by their captors is also very powerful and something that has been documented to happen in real life. In terms of cinematography and dialogue, I personally liked it being a Chinese person who is fluent in Mandarin, but there are some cultural and general "trends in film making" differences between Chinese and Western cinema, similar to Bollywood and Western movies, so I suspect it might feel kind of weird to people who are only used to Western movies, particularly English-language ones, something to keep in mind while watching but I don't think it takes away from the film itself at all.

The English subs also left something to be desired IMO. Since I understand both Mandarin and English I did a bit of comparing, and it seems to be similar to how Japanese anime is dubbed, where it is more of a formal translation of what is being said, and is missing most of of the emotion, expressions, and cultural context, IMO an English dub would have been better for the local market (I'm gonna get murdered by the subbed anime crowd for saying that), though I personally would have still preferred the original Mandarin version since it's my first language.

All in all I highly recommend it. Though, CW for violence, human trafficking, suicide, and implied sexual abuse if you do decide to watch it.

Basically, I have a sci-fi world with intelligent animals. The story is that long after humans disappeared from the Earth, animals eventually become intelligent and made their own society to replace them. One major development in their history is that predators and prey agreed to live in harmony, signing treaties, making laws, and generally working very hard to ensure lasting peace between natural enemies.

One aspect of this is of course prosecuting animals that engage in predation. The way criminal trials work in this world is that every animal has the right to be tried by members of their own species or taxonomic group, who are also responsible for carrying out sentencing. Each animal has a taxonomic government to answer to, so if you're a cat you are under the jurisdiction of the Feline government, mouse, Rodent government, bird, Avian government, etc. Each animal follows the same basic laws and regulations that all taxonomic governments agree on, things like prohibiting predation is one of these, but each government can also pass taxon-specific legislation, and are also able to determine criminal penalties independently.

The Felines only had their revolution a few years ago, when they overthrew their old kingdom which was very pro-predation, and made a republic that has signed the Interspecies Peace Agreement and is therefore very anti-predation. Because it's so recent, the Felines also have the harshest punishments for a predation conviction made after the revolution. One count of first degree predation (when you personally kill then eat an animal) is an automatic life in prison without parole, the same penalty as "regular" murder without eating the victim, two or more counts is life in prison unless the prosecution requests for the death penalty at the start of trial and this is authorized by both the judge and the Feline Ministry of Security. Generally, courts stop at two predation convictions even if it's obvious that the defendant committed more, since that's enough to either put them away forever with no chance of parole, or kill them. Second degree predation, AKA simple predation, where you eat already dead animals that someone else killed, is treated much less harshly and sentencing options only has fixed term imprisonment possibly with parole, though with restrictions afterward like you can't work in the government or security-critical industries unless the court lifts those restrictions on a case by case basis. The ISPA lists execution after being convicted beyond a reasonable doubt of a crime that causes the death of two or more other animals as the only exception to the no killing rule, and it can only be done by members of the same species or taxonomic entity, and is also subject to oversight and can even be blocked outright by other ISPA members through the ISPA Inter-Taxon Court, so they also do not have full autonomy on who they can execute, and taxa that have the death penalty much also must make their execution methods (which are mandated to always prioritize minimizing suffering), judicial procedures, and statistics public.

They do also use the threat of execution as a way of getting information about a predation case though. If they catch a Feline who is apart of a predation ring, it's better than nothing but they'd obviously much rather take down the leader and the entire organization. The Feline Ministry of Security can basically tell the accused "Look, your trial date has been set, the prosecution has requested authorization to use the death penalty from us, and you know what evidence they have on you. We're still trying to decide if we want to grant that request. It's up to you and we can't force you to give us any information, but is there anything you want to tell us about your organization or do you want to gamble with whether you'll be found guilty or not?" Funnily enough most of these cats don't care that they're killing sapient prey animals that have lives and families and stories, but break real fast when it's their own life on the line.

The Felines (and any ISPA member for that matter) can also arrest other species if they commit a crime on their territory or against a their own animals, but within the Interspecies Peace Agreement member species, animals have the right to stand trial and receive sentencing by their own species or taxon, so most they can do is investigate the crime, form a case with evidence, and then extradite the defendant back and forward their findings to the government that actually has jurisdiction. Most they can do to a non-Feline is detain them, extradite, and then ban them from Feline territory. However, any ISPA non-signatories, AKA predators that are actually predators and eat prey, who engage in predation, either against any ISPA member species anywhere in the world, or on ISPA territory against any animal; are not granted this right (obviously, since if you extradited them back to their own territory they'd be home free). So if you eat a cat or eat a mouse or bird or any other animal on Feline territory, you are dealt with just like any predatory cat by the Feline government regardless of what the laws by your own taxonomic government is.

I should also add that every animal is intelligent/sapient in this world. So predation really would be like murder. No copouts like eating fish or whatever.

Even in universe this is quite controversial even among prey species so I'm not trying to claim that this is the ideal state of the law, but I'm more trying to make sure if this makes sense or not. I also know that they will almost certainly have very different morals and ethics for humans, but then again I'm writing this story for humans so not sure how relevant that actually is. Is the motivation of having a death penalty despite not even allowing animals to eat meat a realistic one?

So basically, this is a sci-fi fantasy world with intelligent/sapient animals. Not anthros like in Zootopia, just regular animals that can all talk to each other, form societies, and develop science and technology. Obviously, predation is a massive, central issue to this world, being that it was the primary driving force of all animals for most of their history. However, they have now progressed enough technologically where even obligate carnivores like cats can get all their required nutrients without needing to eat other animals, with sufficient help from their biochemistry and chemical manufacturing prowess. Obviously, this does not mean every single species who historically did eat meat stop overnight. Actually, some would argue that the journey toward abolishing predation, a journey marked by revolution, war, and death for both sides, is almost as bloody and violent as predation itself (this is a massive logical fallacy yes, but it is an opinion held by many in-universe and I explore that in my plot).

First, some context: I will be using the terms Carnivore and Herbivore, to refer to the biochemical characteristics of animals. In their universe, those designations, when capitalized as proper nouns, have fairly straight forward definitions: A carnivore is any animal that, without access to science or technology, is incapable of deriving their complete nutritional requirements without eating meat, they cannot subsist on raw plants alone without processing and/or taking synthetic supplements. A cat is a carnivore, so is a dog, so is a ferret, so is a fox, so are humans technically but they disappeared from the planet millions of years ago. By contrast, a herbivore is any animal that can subsist on raw plants alone, like mice, rabbits, horses, and deer. This definition is purely biochemical, as in do you have the enzymes and gut structure to do it, and by design does not take into account things like preference, behaviour, culture/religion, or how practical it would be (if there was only plant that can sustain you and literally nothing else other than meat, it still counts), because, again, they have the technology to allow basically every animal to subsist on plants, comfortably at that, minus it not tasting the same. You're either one or the other, if you're not sure, then Carnivore is the catch-all term unless your ability to subsist on raw plants is verifiable. Omnivore isn't really as a term in this world since pretty much every animal is technically an omnivore, as in they can eat and digest both meat and plants, including nearly every "Herbivore." Likewise, terms like predator and prey imply behaviour and ecology, not biochemistry, and most animals fell into both categories historically, but with their technology those terms have become so fluid as to be essentially meaningless.

Which brings me to the in-universe opinions that I have come up with, they relate to both predation and interspecies coexistence in general, since those kind of go paw to paw. Note that these are super generalized and are in no particular order.

Carnivores:

• "It's my right to eat my prey, no matter how much suffering it causes! I don't care what technologies are available, predation is the natural order of things and should never be challenged! The role of a predator is to dominate and rule their prey. Maybe the prey would suffer less if they just accepted and made peace with their place on the food chain!" (This is called Trophism.)

• "Predation is both barbaric and totally obsolete in our current technological landscape. It is unbecoming of an intelligent, sapient species with complete control over our primitive instincts. Every species is equal, we should all live in peace as comrades and work together to take care of and benefit everyone!" (This is called Unitism.)

• "Look, I'll concede that we shouldn't be eating other animals and actively making them suffer. But I just can't agree to this interspecies cooperation nonsense. My only responsibility to my own species (or taxon, which is a group of related species), no one else. I won't hunt my prey but I won't be helping them without benefit to myself either."

Herbivores

• "Even though I'm low on the food chain, it is still my place. I don't want to be eaten and will try to avoid it to the best of my ability, but if that's what it comes to, then so be it." (Trophism)

• "I don't want you to eat me, in fact I want to be your friend and ally! I think every species is equal and that your evolutionary history does not define an intelligent animal, and as long as we all commit to being nice to each other, there is no reason every species can't live in harmony!" (Unitism)

• "Those savages hunted us for generations! I don't care if they don't do that anymore, I don't care how long not a single member of their species has even so much as mildly hurt another animal! Not only do I not want to ally with them, I think it's the duty of my species or taxon, as the prey, to rise up and destroy my predators! No amount of peacemaking now can undo nature and I'd turn the tables and kill every single one of them if I could!"

• "Hey, it's nice that you're not eating prey anymore and all, and though I don't harbour any active ill will toward you, I still don't trust you and just want to be left alone with my own species or taxon. You don't interact with me if you don't need to and I don't interact with you if I don't need to, cool?"

What are your thoughts? Are there any more sides to this issue that you can come up with? And personally, which one would you most agree with if you were in this world?

If you don't know, Hirohito was the emperor of Japan during WWII and directly masterminded the rape of Ninjing.

I've been wondering for quite a while if I have autism or not as I seem to hit a lot of the commonly reported symptoms and experiences. I recently tried some of the self-tests out there, including the ones on Embrace Autism, and yeah, I hit every single one I tried for mild to even moderate autism. Scored 49 on the rbq-2a for example.

Now, I know that none of those tests are conclusive and I could easily be a false positive, so I'm not directly claiming I have autism. But I'm thinking the next step is probably to talk to my primary care doctor, but to be honest I'm really hesitant to/don't completely trust the mental health system in Canada. Genuinely asking because I don't really have anyone in my personal life who has similar experiences or I think would understand: what do people here think about getting a formal diagnosis? Is it always something one should pursue if they suspect they're on the spectrum? Are there any major drawbacks? I'm especially concerned about it affecting my career prospects (which already aren't great tbh, my fault for getting a science degree in an already niche field which I deeply regret but that's a different story) or my ability to take out loans or rent an apartment by myself. I don't personally see my autism (if I have it) as a disability, but unfortunately in Canada it is still very much seen as such. Who am I required to disclose an autism diagnosis if I am diagnosed?

I'm really sorry if any of this comes off as insensitive. I have never really participated in the autism online community and I am in no way trying to put down people with autism, I'm honestly just kind of scared about what this means for me. Anyone else in a similar situation, or were in a similar situation? Care to share your experiences or have any advice?

So I made a passing comment of "it's almost like private car ownership is a really inefficient use of space and resources" the other day, which I didn't really pay much mind to. But all the replies were either explaining the concept of public transportation as if I don't know that's the solution to private car dependence (not in a constructive way adding to my comment or anything, I got the sense that they were trying to explain the concept to me) and someone even basically said "well I'm sure you think urban sprawl is an efficient use of space then."

Are the "normies" this oblivious to how anti-car sentiments work? Do they think we're against the concept of a metal thing with four wheels and not its effects on urban development and society? Why the hell would I be against public transit or pro urban sprawl if I hate cars? Cities before cars were invented had public transit and were tightly packed and walkable. You don't think I support that?

This post is as much for me as it is for all of you. I'm doing some live self reflection and criticism here.

I've been growing more and more frustrated with "Lemmy is becoming Reddit!" or more accurately, "the people from Reddit are bringing their bad habits and toxicity over to Lemmy." But upon closer inspection, it's mostly one instance that has by far the biggest problem with this and act by far the most like Reddit. Think you all know which instance I'm talking about. I've been finding myself writing paragraph or even multi paragraph responses to random people's hot takes which they probably spent two seconds thinking through before posting, and I have been deleting them because I realized that I don't fucking care and it's not worth my own time, energy, or mental health. And I'm the kind of person where if they respond with some sarcastic meme comment or a further bad take, I literally cannot stop myself from engaging further, writing walls of text addressing in detail every one of their points that they probably won't read before closing with "ok Tankie" or something.

At some point I had to ask myself, why are you doing this? You've just ruined your free time on Lemmy because of someone else's shit take or toxicity. Fennekin, don't fucking engage the next time you see something that pisses you off, because you could write a book, complete with links to scientific papers (which I have done in the past), it's not going to resolve your being pissed off and who the hell do you think you're trying to actually convince with a detailed response when there is clearly a hive mind that's the genetic clone of the one from Reddit? If I think I actually have a good chance of convincing them or others that might see my comment, then yeah I will still totally write a wall of text to that effort. But in the vast majority of times this is far from the case, and I can more effectively spend my time elsewhere, like maybe actually engaging in discussions with more rational people where they could potentially be convinced by me and I could also potentially be convinced by them. To say that every single non-socialist is like the average Reddit lib would be totally wrong of course, as would be saying there is nothing we can learn from non-socialists, but I actually need to go out and look for those more rational and open minded people, which there are plenty of. Even if I'm not in a debate those people are generally more pleasant to interact with.

If you can go in and debate those people and maintain your own sanity and baseline mood, I applaud you. But I can't. So I'm just not going to engage at all. That does not actually mean I'm going to start removing my access to lib content by blocking it or anything, I still think it's important as a socialist to at least be aware of the takes of the opposition. And like I said in a comment just an hour or so ago, I'm confident enough in my beliefs and ideologies that I'm by no means threatened by these people, quite the opposite in fact, which is why I compulsively try to correct them and respond to them. No more of that, I need to keep myself happy first, or if not happy then at least not pissed off whenever I go on Lemmy.

Been on a nostalgic cartoon kick lately re-watching some of the old both Chinese and Western ones I enjoyed. But I never watched any Soviet cartoons having not grown up in the USSR, but I want to! Can anyone make any recommendations? Especially if it has animal characters because that's kind of my jam.

I'm trying to write a dark (and communist) twist on a classic princess story for this world. Their monarchy is modeled after my best interpretation of and assumptions about royalty in Medieval/Renaissance Western Europe (it doesn't actually take place there, but I wanted that general aesthetic), but that's not something I've done a lot of research on and would like people more knowledgeable to weigh in. Is there anything in the character profile I have for her that would absolutely not happen in a Western European style monarchy?

Context for this world is that it is inhabited by intelligent animals, think Zootopia but more sci-fi, and with quite a bit more political and societal turmoil during the time period this post focuses on. Also, these are normal, animal shaped animals, not anthros. They do have human scale lifespans though, if only because a 15-20 year lifespan for a cat is not conducive to detailed character development.

Princess Iliana the Second (her mom is the first), later known as Nikita Almondtail, was the crown princess and heir to the throne of the former Feline Empire. She is a domestic cat with a coat of brown and cream patches. One might even go as far to say that the brown tones on her fur, which extends to her tail, resembles the colour of an almond.

Predictably, she was born to a life of the highest luxury, at least materially. As a kitten, her father, the king, would beat her mercilessly for any perceived transgression, while her mother mostly ignored her. She was born into a time of great unrest in the empire. The Unitist movement was picking up speed, which is an ideology that involves making peace and cooperation between predator and prey animals, collective ownership of property and resources, basically vegan socialism. The king was trying to quell the dissident voices in his typical brutal way, but was failing slowly but surely. This was endlessly enraging and terrifying for the king, and he took it out on his helpless daughter. This caused her to both fear and resent her father from a young age. Even at this early age she could recognize the irony in being taught that royalty must be graceful and elegant in everything they do, that they cannot so much as slam a door or make a thud when setting something down on a table or the floor, yet the king beats her whenever he sees fit.

At some point in her childhood, she asked her mother for a mouse toy, as in, a plushie that she can cuddle when alone in her chambers. Her mother, not really paying attention to what she was actually asking for, went and got a live mouse from the kitchen and gave it to her to basically be her personal slave. However, she quickly grew attached to the mouse, which she considered her only friend. The mouse would often be the one tending to her bruises and scratches after her father beats her senseless.

At the same time, she was being taught how to hunt. But, due to her emotional attachment to her own mouse, she couldn't reconcile whether mice were friends or food. What made that one so special? And what makes these mice so worthless that they are fit to be eaten alive? Combined with the fact that her father, whom she already hated, was pushing her to learn to hunt, she despised every moment of it. Some cats greatly enjoy the screams and pleas of their prey, her father sure did, but she was not one of those cats.

In her teenage years, as she secretly worked to gain precious few morsels of knowledge of the outside world that her parents had tried to keep from her, about the nature of being a cat, and hints of the disparity and oppression that the working class beyond her castle wall faced. She became obsessed with the idea of being an obligate carnivore and the idea of biological dependence on prey. Specifically, why? Why couldn't she eat plants like her prey did? What about her body was preventing her from not having to kill to live?

When she became an adult, her parents wanted her to begin her training as the successor to the throne immediately, all in the palace of course, she can count on her paws the number of times she was allowed off its grounds. But, she somehow managed to convince them to let her go to university first, arguing that an educated ruler would be taken more seriously by the other powers in diplomacy. She was enrolled in the Royal Feline Science Institute's Moonpeak campus (Moonpeak is their capital city so it was literally within walking distance) and began studying biochemistry, following what she had been curious about for a big part of her life. This is when she also adopted the name Nikita Almondtail to hide her real identity. As a side note, the last name scheme of something in nature plus a cat body part is squarely a working class name. Her calling herself Almondtail would have been extremely scandalous should the aristocracy or god forbid her dad finds out.

She learned about the biochemical mechanisms of her own nutritional requirements, and also learned about the work that other predator animals have done toward making peace with their prey, the cutting edge of which was the dietary enzyme supplement, a pill that is swallowed to give predator animals the ability to subsist on plant-based food. This greatly intrigued her, but unfortunately, the only products available are for omnivores, not carnivores, so she could not take advantage of it.

It's also during this time that she met Yvonne Dandelionpaw (Old Reddit link, actually it's a little out of date with my developments for Yvonne, but she's my main character so I'm spending more time editing and adding to her profile before I post a proper updated version on Lemmy) who was studying quantum chemistry, but who was also a vocal Unitist. They formed a connection and became friends, with Yvonne even taking Nikita to general meetings of the underground Unitist cell that Yvonne was apart of. They even worked on a joint thesis project for their degrees, developing an enzyme supplement for obligate carnivores, which they would later perfect and turn into the product now known as ATDP, which is the first and still only dietary enzyme supplement capable of providing complete nutrition to felines from plant-based sources.

It is unclear exactly when Nikita revealed her real identity, but we do know that she revealed it in her final year of university, first to Yvonne, then to the rest of the Unitist group, denouncing her father and his empire and vowing to join them in their revolution. First there was a great amount of friction and distrust toward the princess, but it was quite quickly worked out, many members saying afterward that they could somehow just tell that she was sincere. After some brainstorming, it was decided that she would go back to the royal palace, while keeping in secret communications with the Unitists and acting as a double agent. The aristocracy was beginning to take her more seriously now that she was an adult, and because the king was aging fast and rumored to already be in poor health. She misdirected and deceived them prior to and during the outbreak of the revolution. As her involvement was becoming more clear, she officially defected to the side of the revolution, re-joining Yvonne as they once again worked together, this time to develop a covert, nearly untraceable neurotoxin that was used to carry out highly targeted assassinations on key members of the aristocracy and military. At this point she had fully changed her name to Nikita Almondtail, casting away her royal past and resolving to make a new life for herself as a unitist worker.

As the revolution drew to a close and the trials against the monarchy began, Nikita was the only member of the royal family who did not so much as see the inside of a courtroom, she was seen as a comrade at that point. The rest of her family was sentenced to death. Nikita attended the execution of her father. Standing in the first row, making sure his father could see her in the crowd. As the firing squad took aim, it's said that Nikita's eyes burned with satisfaction and triumph.

Does this progression make sense? What are your thoughts on her backstory? BTW yes, this is inspired by that one Chinese emperor who got successfully re-educated into a worker following the revolution in China.

So the aviation industry in my science-fantasy socialist world with intelligent animals is dominated by hovercrafts. They levitate and move by manipulating gravitational fields, and can move freely in any direction, are very quick to respond to control inputs, can hover in place or go as slow as they want since they don't have a stall speed. Basically, if regular planes are like an eagle soaring in the clouds, a hovercraft is like a hummingbird darting around with absolute precision. However, hovercrafts can also be very fast, with the ones used in commercial aviation having a similar top speed as today's airliners, with the benefit of course that they can slow way down on takeoff and landing (both of which are done vertically onto a landing pad) and only hit their top speed in cruise.

But, they also have birds and other flying animals in this world, and obviously safety is extremely important. The gravitational slipstream engines of hovercraft are considered safe for flying animals to approach at low speeds, as they do not have spinning blades or create strong air currents, that's why they are the norm for aircraft and the only type allowed in populated areas. So really the only real thing to worry about is a collision.

For the brunt of collision avoidance, my solution is to have to stratified airspaces: Animal-prioritized airspace starts from the ground and extends to some predetermined level above either the average tree line in a forest, or above an absolute altitude value, depending on jurisdiction, it would be set based on how high birds and other animals can actually fly on their wings (which according to this is apparently about 5500 m being the highest typical altitude, but some of the highest recorded being over 7000 m. For reference a 737 has a max altitude of 41000 ft, or about 12500 m), above which the airspace is designated for aircraft. Basically, in airspace where you'd expect to run into flying animals, they get absolute priority because they are extremely vulnerable in a collision. Their cruising altitudes are similar to our planes, because they absolutely need to be well above any animal when traveling at high speeds. To quote one of my avian characters: "Back when cats still ate prey, if you got caught your death rate was, what? 50 percent? 60? And that's pretty bad. An animal on aircraft collision is more like a 99.9% death rate."

However, hovercrafts still need to descend into the forest canopy to land and drop off/pick up passengers. I envision landing pads both on the ground, inside tree cover, and on the roofs of buildings providing last-mile transportation in a city. They don't have to deal with bumper to bumper traffic like we do with private cars because they only have essentially aerial busses and public transit, but that only means a hovercraft would only come every few minutes, and the rest of the time its path would be invisible. We have a static safety measure in road vehicles or trains because the infrastructure is clearly visible and you know if you see a part of the ground that looks like that, there will be cars or trains coming. But in the sky, the aircraft corridors and approach areas for landing pads are on maps only. The hovercrafts will have navigation and automatic flight path following capabilities, but if you're a bird flying through the forest, there is nothing to hint that you're in the path of a busy flight corridor unless you actually see a hovercraft, and even then it could turn and change directions, you'd have no way of knowing what their path will be unless you've memorized the charts and have really good spatial awareness and ability to translate a set of coordinates denoting waypoints into where around you that actually would be. If they were unfamiliar with the part of the city they're in, they would disrupt hovercraft traffic by blocking their path at best, or end up in an instantly fatal collision at worst.

Birds in this world would definitely be smart enough to actively avoid hovercrafts and wouldn't place themselves in the path of one if they can help it, but the issue is having the information to do that in advance, and I really don't want to make this world cyberpunk and have glowing holographic tubes denoting every flight corridor and animal-restricted airspace. Actually, in-universe they really prefer to have cities, which are mostly inside forests, look as natural as possible even with their very advanced technology.

Does anyone have any ideas how I might be able to rectify this? Anyone else have naturally flying members of their society flying next to powered aircraft? How do you deal with it? Have you come up with any other aviation safety mechanisms that I might not have thought of? I'd love to hear your thoughts!

This is my attempt to write the actual Interspecies Peace Agreement, the treaty that basically say natural predators or prey won't eat each other anymore. Think Zootopia but with actual animal shaped animals instead of anthros.

This is the (socialist) world it's set in: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/985699

The ISPA has way more provisions than just banning predation. Other protections granted include freedom of migration between ISPA territories, and that you can't discriminate by species (or discriminate in general). I'll write those sections in the future, but for now I'd really love to know what you think!

Interspecies Peace Agreement

Article 1: Scope of this Treaty

The terms of the Interspecies Peace Agreement ("ISPA" or, "this Treaty") shall apply to:

1. Any animal residing in or passing through the natural territory of any species, clade, or taxa, that is signatory to this Treaty

2. Any animal who is a natural member of any species, clade, or taxa, that is signatory to this Treaty, or is a registered citizen of any territory in the scope of the previous paragraph, regardless of their geographic location

3. Any individual animal signatory to this Treaty, or any registered citizen or member or any territory, nation state, population, community, or other entity that is signatory to this Treaty, or

4. Any animal, entity, territory, nation state, population, community, species, clade, or taxa, who engages in or wish to engage in commercial, cultural, technological, or academic trade with any member entities of this Treaty, when interacting with any ISPA signatories.

Article 2: Predation and Causing the Death of Animals

Signatories of this Treaty are to criminalize, immediately following the signature of this Treaty:

1. Predation of Any Animal, and

2. Causing the Death of an Animal

For the purpose of this Treaty, an animal is guilty of "Predation" if they willfully eats, directly or indirectly, any bodily tissue, organ or structure of any other animal.

Predation and Causing the Death of an Animal shall be separate criminalized offenses, and in cases of Causing the Death of an Animal for the purposes of or to facilitate Predation, they are to be prosecuted concurrently as separate criminal charges and criminal sentences executed consecutively. Attempts at either shall also be criminalized under the same or a lesser charge. Where a group of animals engage in a conspiracy to commit or attempt Predation but not all animals are directly involved in the death or attempted death of an animal, the entire group shall be charged with both offenses.

ISPA member entities shall also be required to take all reasonable actions to educate against, prevent, investigate, prosecute, and execute criminal sentences for any instance of Predation or Causing the Death of an Animal.

---

To see how the treaty is ratified, here's a look at Section One of the Feline Criminal Code. They have the harshest punishments for predation as, being cats and all, they have the biggest problem with their citizens preying on others and only recently signed the ISPA.

Section 1; Paragraph 1

Any Feline who engages in, attempts to engage in, or takes any action in preparation to engage in, encourages another animal to engage in, or facilitates another animal in engaging in Simple Predation is guilty of a Class 5 offence under this section and shall be sentenced to fixed term imprisonment of no less than one year but not more than twenty years, and optionally fined without limitation.

1. For the purposes of this act, Simple Predation is "Predation" as defined by the Interspecies Peace Agreement, where the act does not involve, neither directly nor indirectly, the death of an animal, or the animal has died of causes unrelated to the act of Predation.

2. Felines sentenced under this paragraph shall not be eligible for parole until half of the given sentence has been served.

3. Felines sentenced under this paragraph shall be barred for life from holding public office, working in any Public or State-run Ministry, Institution, or Enterprise, voting in any election, applying for the sealing or removal of any parts of their criminal record, holding a passport, or migrating out of Feline territory.

4. The above restrictions may be individually released by a ruling of the Feline Central Court and if authorized by the Feline Ministry of Security, with additional conditions placed on the continued release of these restrictions.

Section 1; Paragraph 2

Any Feline who willfully causes or attempts to cause, by any means, directly or indirectly, the death of another animal, or either willfully or recklessly without regard for the safety of others, engages in any act they know to have a high propensity to cause or contribute to the death of another, and where the act does in fact cause or contribute to the death of an animal, is guilty of Willfully Causing the Death of an Animal and a Class 9 offense under this section and shall be sentenced to imprisonment for life without parole.

Section 1; Paragraph 3

Any Feline who commits an offense under Paragraph 2 for the purpose of committing or facilitating the commission of an offense under Paragraph 1, is guilty of First Degree Predation and a Class 10 offense under this section, and shall be:

1. Sentenced to imprisonment for life without parole for one count of this offense, or

2. For two or more counts of this offense, sentenced to imprisonment for life without parole, or, if requested by the Feline Ministry of Justice Public Prosecutor's Office and authorized by the Feline Ministry of Security, sentenced to death.

This movie aged beautifully in July 2023.

So this topic seems to be on the brain lately, actually been meaning to do a prompt like this for a while because I'm very much a stupid name enjoyer, but this seems like the right time. What are some organization names, or names in general, in your world that your characters think is stupid? Do people still actually use the name or do they have an informal substitute?