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”It’s very difficult to hate someone up close.”

Japanese literature professor, Sachi Schmidt-Hori, consulted Ubisoft on their latest Assassin’s Creed game, and it was somehow discovered that she helped create a Black African samurai character for the game.

Despite the character being based on a real person, Prof. Schmidt-Hori was attacked viciously online by those accusing her of “wokeness.” Instead of going into hiding or lashing out at the critics, she contacted each critic personally to have a conversation.

And it worked.

”The intervention that she did was pretty brilliant in terms of sort of stopping that toxic train in its tracks and putting another spin on how people are engaging with her,” Mays said. “She’s sort of breaking the spell of that online disinhibition community involvement and forcing people to address her as a human and an individual.”

Harassed by Assassin’s Creed gamers, a professor fought back with kindness

Cheating Just to Look Good

We get why people cheat to make more money, or why they lie to avoid bad consequences. But what about an amateur runner inventing a whole series of marathons so he could appear faster than he actually was?

The things we’ll do for status. Fascinating article by Brian Klass.

It turned out that Kip had not only invented the race, but had also fabricated 28 other athletes who didn’t exist to make it look real—and even went to the trouble of creating runner profiles for each of them on a running results website called Athlinks … The Kip caper poses a puzzle: why do humans expend so much energy on seemingly pointless deception—and why is such behavior likely becoming more common over time?

The Status Cheats - by Brian Klaas

A thought for those graduating (and for the rest of us, too)

Today is graduation day at BYU, a joyful perk for people who work and teach at universities and high schools. The magic of once-in-a-lifetime celebrations doesn’t wear off when you take part in them every year.

And it’s also the season of unsolicited advice-giving. Here’s a wise bit of it for all of us—but really for these graduates—by author and theologian Frederick Buechner:

“Be present especially with the young who must choose between many voices. Help them to know how much an old world needs their youth and gladness. Help them to know that there are words of truth and healing that will never be spoken unless they speak them, and deeds of compassion and courage that will never be done unless they do them." (from his book of sermons, Secrets in the Dark)

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