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typicalgirls - [TypicalGirls] December 2025 HumanifestX Update: Manufactured dystopias are not democracies

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Subject: Typical Girls: Women in Punk/Post-Punk/Underground Music (Circa 1975-1980s)

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  • From: Dina Hornreich <hornreichdina AT gmail.com>
  • To: undisclosed-recipients:;
  • Subject: [TypicalGirls] December 2025 HumanifestX Update: Manufactured dystopias are not democracies
  • Date: Tue, 9 Dec 2025 10:49:54 -0500

Dear Friends (new & old):


The best gift I can offer you this winter holiday season is a synopsis of ten characteristics for ethical metaversal communication (adapted from Moloney’s work in “transmedia journalism” by Alvarez-Macias & Villafranca-Quinto, 2020):

  1. Spreadability: challenging audiences to proactively disseminate from a place of freedom that is respect for others and their diverse realities 

  2. Drillability: promoting audiences’ curiosity to enrich the quality of information and improve understanding through iterative engagement 

  3. Continuity: recognizing connections and other aspects for establishing common ground amongst all participants despite diverse customs, habits, languages, ethnicities, religions, arts, values, preferences, cosmogonies, and world views

  4. Serialism: organizing data, context, and information in ways that are respectful of subjects’ identities, privacy, freedom, and autonomy 

  5. Diversity: including the audience as co-creators who combine and participate in the production, distribution, and other aspects of dissemination which also includes recommendation and other discussion of content 

  6. Immersion: engaging in dialogue that transcends the relationship of mercantile consumption given how the engagement stimulates ongoing considerations and otherwise guides participants habits

  7. Extraction: positioning ourselves as subjects of open dialogue to foster authentic connections with consumers (not just branding our product as a marketing strategy) given what the takeaways provide for these ongoing exchanges.

  8. Realism: understanding the potential emotional effects on participants and avoid using those approaches purely for exploitative commercial/propagandistic goals by clarifying information gathering mechanisms, story construction methods, agreements, reconstruction processes, and supporting data

  9. Inspirational: educating our conscience in order to encourage participants to share dialogues about the greater good and other social/public welfare considerations

  10. Building solidarity: recognizing how communities of interdependent online participants share active roles whose contributions include (but are not limited to): reporting, editing, photographing, designing, producing, scripting, illustrating, coordinating/networking, programming, etc.


I share these with you now because I remain cognizant that those who become dispirited the most in the winter holiday season may be suffering from these kinds of socio-emotional challenges due to the onslaught of unhealthy messages that permeate our communication in organic, analog, and digital formats and systems (cf: Norenzayan and Gervais, 2013):

  • Eroded intuitive or socio-emotional foundations 

  • Existential insecurity, instability and similar “uncontrollabilities”

  • Indifference to lofty ideas and other bigger picture inquiries 

  • Other similarly skeptical responses with respect to:

  • Awareness of mortality

  • Suffering from inexplicable ambiguities

  • Exclusionary treatment exacerbating situationally appropriate feelings of deprivation leading to substantial isolation


However, it becomes further concerning when I ponder the ongoing risks that AI poses which go well beyond individual philosophical quandaries; it reaches societal levels as well (Ziheng, Z., Dai, H., Ling, B., Wu, Y. N., & Terzopoulos, D.; 2025):

  1. Safety risks and operational paralysis: impeding necessary interventions during emergencies by creating hesitation to modify or terminate malfunctioning systems during critical infrastructure emergencies; and otherwise causing complications to time-sensitive decision-making in contexts where human lives depend on rapid intervention.

  2. Legal and governance complications for the absence of consumer protections: introducing profound complications to structures designed exclusively for human agents creating situations where harms occur without entities capable of bearing appropriate responsibility for those consequences.

  3. Societal dysfunction and resource misallocation: basic functioning could become compromised as routine use of AI systems for essential tasks becomes viewed as potential rights violations leading to critical service disruptions that significantly impact human welfare.


Furthermore, I continue to propose a collective leveling up to wisdom attainment in order to validate social intuitionism despite the numerous failures of organized institutions; as such, I feel obliged to share some ideas about what that often looks like (adapted from Gluck & Bluck, 2011):

  • Ability to understand complex issues and relationships

  • Intelligence

  • Knowledge and life experience

  • Self-reflection and self-criticism

  • Acceptance of Other’s Perspectives and Values

  • Empathy

  • Orientations towards a greater good

  • Love for humanity 


As well as summarizing some related ideas about how wisdom develops across the human lifespan (adapted from Gluck & Bluck, 2011):

  • Growing older as such

  • Broad spectrum of positive and negative experiences

  • Studying philosophy

  • Learning from wise individuals

  • Enduring and overcoming highly negative events

  • Confronting uncertainty

  • Guided spiritual steps

  • Religious/spiritual experiences

  • Confronting human mortality


In this modern age of surveillance capitalism, we need to actively recognize the existence of universal concepts including “spiritual incomprehensibilities” in order to overtly support habits, customs, and other decision-making structures that nurture our intrinsically moral predispositions so that we can become more informed, engaged, and wise participants in this emerging techno-social reality. 


As an educator, researcher, content creator, and activist; I continue to fear that we may be unconsciously teaching the wrong priorities by relying on antiquated criteria and other flawed assessment metrics. Ongoing workarounds involve sophisticated avoidance tactics which are often exploited to conceal corruption and similar abuses. 


While trauma-informed practices clearly recognize that sh*t happens; it is Okham’s razor that teaches us how the simplest explanation is probably the correct one. This means that the shared agreement of an ostensible majority doesn’t necessarily guarantee the veracity of those conclusions. In other words: if ad hoc hypotheses weaken a theory; then the group who shares the same blind spots are merely reinforcing their own pluralistic ignorances. And those confirmation biases are readily exploited by AI and Chatbots which feed off our natural habits and other consumer behaviors that are exploited by big data.


It seems important that I continue rebranding my efforts which I have started calling Landiapaloozaism in order to develop a “Project 2041” response to President Trump’s “Project 2025”; because girls, women, and other more “feminine” oriented individuals are going to continue to pursue the education and employment opportunities that we need, want, and deserve in order to become successful contributors in our communities. That assertion remains non-negotiable which means that the “madwoman in the attic stereotype” is also complete bullsh*t and so was that “witch-hunting” thing that they did with poor Hester Prynne (Just watch this modern interpretation!).


When pondering civil and criminal legal affairs; explicit laws and the other formally articulated societal structures may contrast sharply with tacit expectations which are typically implied by the informal negotiations which constitute the cultural context for this emerging techno-social reality. Efforts in the field of informatics offer new ways of engagement that require recognition for revising our mental models and otherwise collectively reconstructing our foundations and frameworks after ongoing assaults on the American media (evidenced minimally by events like 9/11). This may be the root of a perceived emerging post-truth reality and other failed attempts to circumvent the religious doctrines that were historically used to form the basis of civilization.


There are many examples that demonstrate the kinds of competencies that I am proposing to be prioritized for reviewing state educational standards:


I also highly recommend this documentary about the untenable nature of online terms and conditions: https://youtu.be/vKnzHWqZz18?si=gDZ1BAq4VeRCgzLB


And this is one very lovely proposed framework that has been developed:

The College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards: Guidance for Enhancing the Rigor of K-12 Civics, Economics, Geography, and History


This holiday season I am fondly remembering Lennon and Ono’s “War is over (if you want it)” ideas given how overt the social power of music appears as a meta-religion. As such, I ask us to please continue to strive for wired wisdom in this emerging techno-social reality; as I continue to reflect deeply about how music and memory are intrinsically connected.


Furthermore: “if you don’t care, somebody will; and the wrong people might be caring!” (Just ask the Desperate Bicycles). And if you don’t want to believe that suggestion, then maybe you should instead watch “outrage” and other similarly critical documentary films?


As I continue my efforts to aggregate the ways in which we live, learn, love, work, create, lead, & grow individually, communally, across the metaverse, my efforts remain devoted to mining the iterative categories that comprise a variety of modern lifestyle options and otherwise compiling the ways by which we express those styles, preferences, aptitudes, modalities, orientations, etc. (and other dispositional traits) in order to more successfully express ourselves intrapersonally, interpersonally, and everything in-between (or beyond?!).


Thank you for reading yet another irregular monthly email blast… I am humbly coming to you “straight outta Northampton” where we are now turning our calendars over to 2026; and please note the following two upcoming dates for that shiny new calendar:

  • January 6 is National Technology Day.

  • January 13 is Public Broadcasting Day.


And as always, please be well!

-Dina


Dina L. Hornreich, MS, MLIS 

https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/NAMP:_Not_Another_Marketing_Ploy

linkedin.com/in/dina-hornreich-113a79283
medium.com/@dina-hornreich

hornreichdina AT gmail.com

413-315-0485
c/o
FOH & CSO @29 Industrial Drive East, Northampton, MA 01060


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Advocating for better consumer safeguards and sustainable economic reform in the age of surveillance capitalism for "wising up" from rationality to morality in this emerging "Conceptual Age." 

Stopping the epidemics of misinformation, disinformation, & malinformation (propaganda) from disrupting our information, media, & technology (IMT) ecosystems by facilitating the effective, appropriate, & ethical comprehension/production of IMT artefacts on our journeys toward integrative recovery & holistic wellbeing.


Facilitating the acquisition of lifelong literacies, instead of reinforcing the perception that "natural vulnerabilities" are "permanent deficiencies," as a community of learners struggling to fight the onslaught of unhealthy messages generated by practices which condone/promote the exploitation of typical human fallibilities reinforcing the greedy, violent, and misogynistic approaches of a plutocratic tyranny who resorts to criminalizing, pathologizing, and otherwise blaming the victims of their wanton ludicrousness.


Alerting consumers to the impact of numerous illusions and other deceptive efforts that turn our individual differences into manufactured deviations (and other forms of "learned helplessness"); thereby revealing systemic injustices that are perpetuated by ongoing inequitable power dynamics (i.e. colonialism) and other accessibility barriers to the basic resources that support our universal human needs, wants, & desires.


Building a taskforce of nonviolent communicators who are:

  • Promoting an informed, engaged, & wise global citizenry and participatory transnational Democracy. (cf: listography)
  • Elevating “Conceptual Age” skills (design, story, symphony, empathy, play, & meaning) in order to remedy the shortcomings of residuals from the preceding "Information Age" and "Industrial Age."
  • Preventing media pollution, information disorder, & “techno-lust” from further disrupting our social, cultural, political, & economic ecosystems.
  • Championing mindful “meta-literacies” (i.e. becoming adept bullsh*t detectives) involving the creation, selection, organization, presentation, diffusion, consumption, & preservation stages for "processing" IMT artefactual innovations.
  • Adopting the principles of "Data Feminism": Examining power; challenging power; elevating emotion & embodiment; rethinking binaries & hierarchies; embracing pluralism; considering context; and making labor visible.


  • [TypicalGirls] December 2025 HumanifestX Update: Manufactured dystopias are not democracies, Dina Hornreich, 12/09/2025

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