Well, my first reaction is "An entire civilization devoted to Malsumis!?" though honestly the only time I'd ever heard of her is in Stewart92's Spirit of the Gamer (rewrite) over on SB, despite being from RL mythology. Otherwise, my only real feeling is the usual one that I don't like "evil empires" that run on cruelty and don't see how they can continue to function even with moderate to heavy brainwashing that This Is Normal, Carry On, because even when this sucking is normal people get sick of it and try to get rid of whoever is making it suck.
Whether that amounts to much in the larger scale or just a constantly rotating crab bucket where today's peon is tomorrow's ayatollah of rock'n'rollah sitting on a throne made from the bones of his predecessors until the next lucky rebel adds his skull to the pile is another question, but it always feels implausible to have it make for a stable situation. Maybe it;s just me, I talk a good game about being antisocial, am not about to throw away my little list (and they never would be missed, no they never would be missed,) and certainly never feel like I'd rather be in a group than alone, but I also think everything works better when people are polite and kind to each other so if nothing else an Empire of Eeevil should be just plain out-produced and out-competed by a society that doesn't (at the institutional level) waste energy on petty cruelty and where people are at least not unhappy about what they need to do to maintain it. Like how around the turn of the 19th to 20th centuries the idea that figuring out what the most efficient way to lift a shovelful of whatever was, buying shovels that facilitated it, and giving the shovelers paid breaks to rest in actually resulting in more tons of shit shoveled per day and a net profit gained some traction and suddenly productivity began shooting up.
A nifty link I found while making an attempt at fact-checking myself: History of Ergonomics | Japanese Ergonomics Society
Whether that amounts to much in the larger scale or just a constantly rotating crab bucket where today's peon is tomorrow's ayatollah of rock'n'rollah sitting on a throne made from the bones of his predecessors until the next lucky rebel adds his skull to the pile is another question, but it always feels implausible to have it make for a stable situation. Maybe it;s just me, I talk a good game about being antisocial, am not about to throw away my little list (and they never would be missed, no they never would be missed,) and certainly never feel like I'd rather be in a group than alone, but I also think everything works better when people are polite and kind to each other so if nothing else an Empire of Eeevil should be just plain out-produced and out-competed by a society that doesn't (at the institutional level) waste energy on petty cruelty and where people are at least not unhappy about what they need to do to maintain it. Like how around the turn of the 19th to 20th centuries the idea that figuring out what the most efficient way to lift a shovelful of whatever was, buying shovels that facilitated it, and giving the shovelers paid breaks to rest in actually resulting in more tons of shit shoveled per day and a net profit gained some traction and suddenly productivity began shooting up.
A nifty link I found while making an attempt at fact-checking myself: History of Ergonomics | Japanese Ergonomics Society
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‎noli esse culus
‎noli esse culus