From here they look like meaningless specs, but for some reason they scream. I'm not guilty, you say. The game is forcing me to do this, much like Call of Duty 4 did when it made me bombard enemies from afar in an AC-130.  There's always a choice, besieged both Lugo and Adams, but this falls on deaf ears. Right afterwards, you walk through the valley of death that is your own doing, soldiers clinging onto their mortality as much as they are to their leaking skin. You've unleashed white phosphorus, a chemical agent that incinerates the air, but has the courtesy to let people suffer and then die. Your quest is noble, though, right? We have the best of intentions in mind. You turn the corner and what awaits you is nothing but the starkest of reminders, that collateral damage isn't collateral, it is intrinsic to war. I'm fine, though, right? I only purchased Spec Ops because I heard it was a subversive, heart-of-darkness inspired track through the psychological hellscape that is a modern soldier's mind. It's a critique of military shooters, interventionist foreign policy, and gets us to examine the line dividing good and evil. Was it morality, though, or morbid curiosity that got us to play the game? Let's try that again. Metal Gear Solid 3, as you play as a spy, sent to infiltrate and destroy a nuclear threat during the height of the Cold War. At one point in the game, you are expelled from the secret base of Grosnegrad and are cast by your own hand into the depths of a river. You awake once more, though this time in a slightly more ethereal realm, you start to wade through a river and are confronted by a thought-to-be-dead soldier who went by the code named Asaro. Why, Asaro? Well, he carries the grief of all those who have fallen in battle with him. What's this? Hmm. These folk all look vaguely familiar, like the fiends I've been haphazardly dispatching throughout the game. What's this? The more people I've killed, the more obstacles I have to wade through, hampering my progress, not to mention the amplified sense of complicity echoing with every soldier's scream. But I couldn't have avoided this, right? I had no choice. Oh, right. The game gives you the option for non-lethal combat, but you ignored it all for the sake of convenience.  Metal Gear Solid 3 gave you the option to avoid said actions and then made the river section more harrowing and mechanically difficult to punish you for your indiscretions. But Undertale's story actually changes based on the actions you take in-game. You come into the game viewing it as a standard RPG, so you have to confront and kill your enemies, right? You quickly find out this is not the case, and the world you inhabit takes a turn for the dire, the more you double down on your gaming vices. When you reach the end, though, you are determined to do better, so you restart the game and through the sheer force of will, avoid harming anyone in the game, because you have seen the Ghost of Christmas future. Being good isn't easy, though. It requires patience, the sacrifice of in-game rewards, and yes, determination. There's a fairly clear message embedded here. Being good is hard. You suppress your violent instincts, subvert your own expectations of what video games can be, and watch as the world is enraptured in beauty as a result. Of course, right after this, some of us will try for a genocide run, where we kill every one and every thing just to see what might happen. But why? The game knows this. On future playthroughs, it confronts you with the fact that you did this just because you could, and will remember that you sold your soul to the devil that is curiosity, just to see what might happen. Guilt is one of the most powerful and enduring of human emotions. It is embedded in the mythological and religious motifs of both East and West, and everyone from Hamlet to Oedipus to Anna Karenina is brought to ruin because of it. Feeling guilt is a confirmation that you aren't a psychopath, a silver lining perhaps. Evolutionary theories for guilt propose that it arose to make us preserve social relationships and reciprocal arrangements, as those not crippled by it might be ostracized by others in an extremely social species. However, as much as guilt plays a defining role, we are equally as inclined to blame others and defer responsibility for our vices. We've all heard of the Stanford Prison Experiment that made people act like tyrants by assigning arbitrary roles. The Milgram Experiment where people shocked others because they were told to do so, and the Ash Conformity Experiment that shows how we capitulate the group opinion. Torn between empathy and psychopathy, humans seem capable of both good and evil in equal and pronounced measure. What do video games have to do with all this, you might ask? Activating our instinct for guilt is perhaps one of the most potent tools we have to cause people to reflect on moral issues, and as an interactive art form, games seem best situated to enable this. As the three scenarios are presented at the start to test to, we feel guilt when we are conflicted with dissonance, are chastised for our indiscretions, are being watched by others with damning judgment, or if there is a permanence to our actions that is horrific and irreversible. But we've had earnest explorations of morality in games, says the critic. Games like Bioshock, Infamous and Mass Effect all tabulate our actions over the course of a game, and assign us a good or bad orientation that affects the endings we get. Is this sincere morality, though? Does morality constitute choosing between saving a child, or harvesting their organs, or committing genocide and saving the world? Do these games really get us to reflect on the human condition, or do they simply reinforce our prejudices, and lull us into a state of false security? When we play games with binary systems, karmic meters, and explicit world orientations, we aren't reflecting morally, we are just toying with a system. We are acquiring good and bad points as we do coins in Mario, like some disembodied extrinsic motivator, conditioning us into certain actions. In his book, The Ethics of Computer Games, Miguel Cicard argues that games can and should confront players with ethical issues, and they should do this by respecting the player as an active agent who brings with them a certain set of values and virtues. He states, the ethical game is not one which evaluates player morality, but allows reflection. The player is a moral user capable of reflecting ethically about their presence in the game, and how that interacts with their values outside of it. He also echoes some of the concerns about instrumental morality in games. He states, because choices in games are generally evaluated by the game's system, moral choice is not reflection, but strategy. The reason for this tendency in games is most likely due to how games are inherently interconnected systems, and so morality gets bundled in as well, in addition to the fact that role-playing games have us frame virtue in the context of factional alignment and abilities. Instead, Cicard suggests that we either use framing techniques, or we can provide a possibility space for players to determine their own values, and reflect on what is right and wrong. His most powerful point, I think, is that players are not passive receptacles of information, but bring with them a suite of reasoning skills. For this reason, violent games aren't intrinsically bad, nor are games that make us do perverse things, so long as it respects the player playing as an intelligent agent who understands what's happening. He then proposes a framework called the ludic hermeneutic circle that draws on the work of Aristotle, Foucault, and Aspen Arsif. There is a player that exists independent of a game, who then voluntarily submits to the rules of a game and absorbs a new identity. This identity is embedded both in a community within the game, and a culture outside it, respecting the player as an agent who can exercise moral agency. He is a virtue ethicist who thinks games should cultivate the right temperament in its players. A complimentary but slightly contrasting view comes from Ian Bogost. In his book Persuasive Games, Ian argues that we should leverage the procedural rhetoric of games, that being, the meanings that emerge from the rules of a game to convince people about a particular point of view. For example, a game like Missile Command encodes an anti-nuclear parable because regardless of the effort you exercise to protect multiple cities from nuclear bombardment, the end result is always doomed. He seems far more insistent on encoding specific rhetorics in games. How do these two views compare to one another in practice, though? Take the game September 12th. It's a game where you are tasked with killing terrorists using what seems to be a precision targeting system. However, this turns out to be a far more destructive missile than first appearance, forcing you to kill civilians as well. Afterwards, you watch as those left behind turn into terrorists, driven by an understandable need for vengeance. The meanings here are clear. There is no precision killing, there is nothing to be gained with intervention, and we only exacerbate the problem with our militaristic bent. It's a decidedly left-wing or libertarian position. However, both Zekart and Bogost cite the game in their respective books. The game both conveys a specific view, but also gets us to reflect on a position by creating guilt and dissonance. The active moral agent, the virtuous player, can understand the political rhetoric in the game, but also critically examine this in light of further inquiry, reason and evidence. When we are trying to understand morality, we can use philosophy to gauge the right course of action. Consequentialism tells us to view outcomes. Deontology tells us to consider intentions and universalizability criteria, and virtue ethics and the ethics of care puts the focus on individual temperament and action. I'm not here to get into the merits of different ethical viewpoints, as well as the relationship between metaethics, normative ethics, and practical ethics, but suffice to say, each of these lenses has a specific time and context where they are absolutely relevant. Instead, I want to take a broader perspective and suggest that an understanding of morality is incomplete without an understanding of psychology. In his book The Righteous Mind, Jonathan Haidt argues that morality emerged for evolutionary purposes, and the variation of political views that exist represents an evolved spectrum of temperaments to help us survive in the ancestral environment. Furthermore, he argues we all have ingrained moral temperaments we bring to bear on most issues, which convinces us we are right regardless of the evidence. We have discreet liberal, conservative, and libertarian temperaments that value justice, tradition, and freedom respectively, and this governs what you will think is virtuous and a whole host of issues. Conversely, George Lakoff argues for a more malleable perspective about morality, suggesting that the metaphors we devise in our culture can alter how we think about issues, and much like Bogots, suggest we can use this fact to persuade people about different positions. In his book Metaphors We Live By, he cites how the expression Love is a Battlefield shows how militarism is a metaphor embedded in how we think and conditions our approach to reality. Finally, we have Joshua Green. In his book Moral Tribes, he claims our moral instincts serve us well within our groups, but when we try to decide between groups, we need a more empirically grounded consequentialist perspective. I'm not here to answer the question of what is right and wrong, but in the spirit of respecting the intelligence of the viewer, I'm simply presenting these ideas so that you might explore them further. The point, though, is that we don't have a firm grasp of what morality is and what its purpose may be, and yet we still insist on moralizing to one another. Height says we always come up with a post hoc rationale for our views, regardless of its validity, and on this point I think the empirical evidence is fairly clear. There are also other psychological phenomena, like the fundamental attribution error, which suggests we are inclined to blame our own feelings on circumstances and others on the intrinsic faults of their character. The impulse to rationalize ourselves and to jump to the indictment of others is a potent trap that many might fall into. Given the uneasy ambiguity of morality, conceptually, prescriptively, and psychologically, perhaps any earnest attempt to address the question needs to come from that explicit perspective. In other words, forcing ourselves to bear witness to the fact that there is no easy answer to moral questions and how easily manipulated we are by our own instincts can get us to understand the paralyzing ambiguity of morality. Video games as an interactive medium are uniquely situated to do this. In the game Papers, Please, you play as a border agent in a scenario reminiscent of the Berlin Wall, tasked with processing people's paperwork as they seek sanctuary across the border. What the game does brilliantly is position the values you have as a human agent in direct conflict with the system's governing victory and survival in the game. Processing people accurately means you earn enough money to feed your family, but this often entails you splitting families apart and ruining people's hopes and dreams. There is no right answer here and the morality extends firmly beyond the confines of the embedded system of the game. You feel the pull between your moral instincts and compassion on the one hand and your obligations to the state and your family on the other. Optimization within the system of the game forces you into doing perverse things and this activates a guilt, dissonance, and makes us make trade-offs. Is it your family or someone else's? Do you continue to capitulate to a tyrannical state or do you recognize people's humanity? There is no right answer here and it is all the more powerful for it. Similarly, Spekhov's The Line has ambiguous moral decisions. At one point in the game, you are forced to make a decision to kill either a man who stole to help his family or a man who was overzealous in his application of the punishment. Which will it be? Well, you can choose neither and just shoot at the enemies in the background. However, if you do this, both men end up dead. Here's what's brilliant about it. If you choose to kill one, that can be considered the right choice from a consequentialist standpoint as it only leads to one dying. Refusing to kill is even more deadly but again, how are you to know this? Another scene later on in the game has you make the decision to shoot at civilians who have just lynched your squad member. They continue to crowd you so what are you supposed to do? Most people might think there is no choice. However, you could just have easily shot bullets in the air and dispersed them that way. Letting people wallow in the paralysis that accompanies a decision is a powerful way to get them to reflect on their actions. In their GDC talk, the developers of Soma argue that ambiguous moral decisions is what you need to craft an immersive sense of dread in a world. But why should that be the case? What is it about not knowing the answer that gets our attention? We are a pattern-seeking animal who has evolved to be paranoid about certain things so ambiguity forces us to look for the truth, however elusive and illusory. This phenomena, called ontological closure, is what drives our curiosity, even when we know better. In his seminal book, Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman argues that when we can't actually put things together, this ambiguity activates a part of the brain that engages in more deliberate thought. When we are presented with something that seems plausible, our brain remains on autopilot, something he calls cognitive ease, and is ultimately unreflexive. In other words, discomfort, dissonance, and dismay makes us wake up and pay attention. We even have an art theory called defamiliarization that asks artists to provoke with unfamiliarity so that people are forced to stand up and take notice. Ironically, it is ambiguity that forces us to think with more clarity. Another powerful way to activate a person's faculty for moral reasoning is by the intentional use of dissonance. Cognitive dissonance happens when you hold too contradictory opinions simultaneously. The problem being is that we are inclined to dismiss it and resolve it by means other than introspection. In games, because we experience ourselves from the safety of an avatar, we can examine this more clearly. Take Shadow of the Colossus. It is framed as a quintessential monster killing quest where you are tasked with felling an assortment of humongous but strangely serene colossi. We are to save the princess with every defined act of heroism we exhibit as we mount the colossi and slay them with gusto. However, when you cut them down, haunting funereal music starts playing, filling you with a sense of dread and guilt. As the pool of blackness left in the wake of each colossus consumes you, your avatar's pristine façade continues to deteriorate, signifying his descent into chaos. We tell ourselves that we don't want to do this anymore, but we proceed regardless. Of course, our curiosity pushes us through, as every act of triumph we feel is contrasted with our avatar's consumption by forces beyond his control. Our bravado and accomplishment is accompanied by guilt, whilst Wander is enraptured by his own selfish desire. The real question though, is are we really that different from Wander at all? Shadow of the Colossus is a powerful subversion of the monster-slaying trope, inverting the archetype by pointing at us as the real perpetrators. By using framing, music, and a strong sense of dissonance, it highlights these themes for the moral agent to reflect on, without us feeling as if our integrity is being questioned. Dissonance has been used expertly in other places as well. When Spec Ops reveals itself to be more than it seems, it comes with the stark realization that you don't want to be killing the seemingly endless streams of enemies thrown at you. Both the Last of Us and Near Automata strategically employ dissonance to get you to examine different themes. The Last of Us has this section laid in the game, where Ellie voluntarily submits to being harvested, because she may hold the cure to save humanity. Joel does not abide by this, not willing to lose another daughter, but the player, at least me personally, feels a little more conflicted. As you gun your way through the Fireflies Research Facility, you are well aware of the fact that you are actively murdering people to potentially undermine the future of humanity, all because Joel is insecure.  Both Near and Near Automata wait for a secondary playthrough, before they highlight that the generic enemies you have been killing are actually sentient agents. This quirky but beautiful scene plays at the beginning of Near Automata's second playthrough, showing a machine attending to his brother.  Bioshock released a much critical acclaim, being well ahead of any of its peers when it came to examining themes deeper than most games do. Sikart argues that the would-you-kindly inversion in this game, where all our actions are revealed to be at the behest of a vengeful maniac who is using us as his puppet, was a powerful tool of ethical subversion because it forced the player to bear witness to the consequences of dogmatic adherence to an authority. We blindly followed orders and played the game, just as our avatar blindly followed Atlas, and despite the fact that the would-you-kindly scene rests control away from us, it forced us to examine the relationship between freedom and control, and why we play games to begin with. However, the fidelity of its world also created powerful instances of dissonance, not all good, and ironically, it is the more explicit moral systems in the game where these issues arise.  The game was calibrated so that players would get the same resources regardless of their choice. This conflicted with the central rhetoric of needing to sacrifice your own power fantasy to do the right thing. Strangely though, Miguel Sikart also criticized the game for a slight variation on this reason. He says that the game frames the moral decision as both a binary and resource-based one, so the person is stuck thinking off an issue strategically, so it is simultaneously a banal strategic choice, a clear moral decision, whilst also being disinclined to commit to its true meaning. This illustrates something important about moral decisions in games, which is about having a sense of permanence to our actions. If the utility of guilt is to highlight how our transgressions might lead to our ostracization, indicating how what you have done is both noticed by and affects other people, is what might invoke this sensation. Undertale did this brilliantly as mentioned earlier, fundamentally altering the course of its story based on what it is you are doing. The world is much more lively, far more entertaining, and brimming with charm the more you persist with your pacifism, whereas the same can't be said for the more evil playthrough. Dark Souls has a way around reversibility by autosaving every action you do immediately after you do it, so if you accidentally kill an NPC, that's it, they're gone. This War of Mine is a game that has a different way of showing the consequences of our actions. In the game, you are playing in a war-torn setting as you fight for survival as a civilian.  However, your characters can be mired by guilt, depression, and death in the long run, showing us through the game's systems the long-term implications of selling our humanity. One often overlooked but powerful tool designers have to create a tragic sense of fate is inevitability. On the one hand, tragic stories are cathartic for those watching it, cleansing us of the irony of the fates as we witness a person like Oedipus fall to ruin. On the other hand, there is your tragic sense of inevitability that gets us to reflect, as moral agents, how sometimes things are beyond our control. I've already mentioned games like Missile Command, which is doomed to end in failure, showing this tragic rhetoric palpably. Another game mentioned by Cicart is Defcon, a multiplayer game where you are tasked with losing the least amount of people in a strategic game of thermonuclear war. As Cicart states, there can only be one winner, alliances are always arbitrary, and there is a tension between defection and a temporary alliance. The victory condition in the end is to lose the least amount of people, and because there is only one winner, defection is inevitable. People are embroiled by an engaging strategic game, but at games end, they are left with an empty sense of dread as they tabulate the losses. Another game that gets us to instrumentalize people through its mechanics is Darkest Dungeon. In the game, you play as an individual who is tasked with resisting the evils that are coming out of the catacombs of your inherited manner, and you do so by recruiting an assortment of adventurers. However, you also have to manage the psychological state of your would-be employees who can be burdened with an assortment of psychological afflictions. At some points in the game, you can deliberately force them to fight in the dark, a source of duress, to give you the chance for better loot, only to discard them later as they are not worth the price of upkeep. This is only the start of how we can use mechanics, systems, and framing to force people to confront troubling things about themselves. In Brenda Romero's experimental game Train, players are engrossed by a puzzle of getting a train towards its destination, only to realize that that destination is Auschwitz. Complicity through recontextualization is extremely powerful, and is an aesthetic of play Aaron Hoffman identifies as pervasive in games. Of course, we can flip the inevitability rhetoric and make the victory condition one where peace is an ideal outcome. The game Peacemaker is structured such that only reconciliation between the two opposing sides in the Israeli-Palestine conflict leads to victory, and where every other option ends in death. Again, this may or may not be true from a simulation perspective, but the clear political rhetoric doesn't need to be too on the nose if we respect the player as an active moral agent who can make their own decisions. Video games are a powerful interface to get us to think systemically, but people have often been worried that we might get trapped within the systems of a game. The clicker game Universal Paperclips shows this exceptionally well, being a systemization of Nick Bostrom's thought experiment. We do whatever we can within the system of the game to produce as many paperclips as possible only to convert the entire universe into one. The game elegantly shows us the liabilities of blindly abiding by the internal incentives of a system without questioning its purpose. However, Joshua Green suggests that systems are actually an instrumental part of getting us to transcend our instincts as it forces us to think in an abstract way, a game that demonstrates this well is Chris Crawford's balance of the planet. The game tasks you with trying to avert environmental catastrophe, but Crawford's aim with the game in his own words was to show how simplistic approaches always fail due to complexity. There is also another utility to systems, expounded by Mary Flanagan in her book Critical Play, that being showing us how subverting and breaking rules can also be moral. In retrospect, breaking the law to overturn slavery was in fact the right thing to do, and play and games can get us to recognize the arbitrariness of governing institutions and the distinction between morality and legality. So we have people who argue for breaking free of systems, people who argue for using systems, and people who argue for undermining their legitimacy, which is the right course of action. Once more, when we respect that the player is an active agent who can break free of their instincts, reason systemically, and question the legitimacy of governing institutions, all these devices are powerful tools for ethical contemplation. Claiming with any degree of confidence that I know what constitutes morality would be comically self-undermining of my general thesis here, but I will dare to speculate that being moral has at the very least a necessary but certainly not sufficient condition, the trait of being self-critical, because we very rarely know if and when we are doing the right thing. Games that force us into this metacognitive state are games that help us escape the trap of our own ego, and hence, are games I would argue are, and I am in agreement with Cicarton as ethically relevant. Ending this video on such a positive note might come across as saccharine sentimentality, so I defer to SpecOps the line's ending instead. After walking through the heart of darkness, you finally come face to face with Conrad, the man you can blame all of this on. Of course, he's dead, he never existed. He is a phantasm you conjured because you could not bear to blame yourself. For the destruction of Dubai, the death of your squadmates, and for the ruin you have left in your wake. Make a choice, Walker, and by extension you. Shoot at this phantasm, or shoot yourself. What is the right thing to do, you ask yourself. Clearly I should accept responsibility for what I've done, destroy the scapegoat that is Conrad, and live to redeem myself of my mistakes. Suicide is a coward's way out, I need to face what I've done. Of course, games are also deeply metaphorical, and are not simply about the avatar but also you. In his book Significant Zero, the main writer of SpecOps, Walt Williams, gives us another explanation for these events. You are Walker, the developer is Conrad. They made us play the game, designed it in such a manner, but you bought into the power fantasy. Who do you blame for having to do all of this, the developer or yourself? Will you continue to blame others, or will you take responsibility for your want and desire for power and mayhem? Do we ever learn though? We continue to purchase games that celebrate violence, but our vices towards our medium hardly end there. We render harsh judgment on games without appreciating the amount of work it takes, and continue to be resistant to games that push the frontier of innovation, all while decrying others who are yet to see the legitimacy of the medium we all love. However, this dialogue between creator and player can be seen as an extended metaphor for the assignment of blame for us as a species. Will we hide behind our sanctimony, and continue to demonize people with whom we have moral disagreements, however right we may think we are? Will we blame amoral institutions for what they have wrought on our planet, or will we recognize our complicity in our own destruction? And will we continue to view evil as existing somewhere out there in the world, or acknowledge that we are all responsible for genocide, war, and misery? Shooting ourselves is an acknowledgement that yes, it is us at fault, that the heart of darkness lies within us.


How much money do you spend on average for textbooks per term? On average probably two to three hundred, maybe four hundred dollars. Okay. Depending on the classes. And now what's the highest price you've had to pay for one book so far? Hundred and fifty dollars. Okay, and do you think that price was fair? No. Was the material valid in class? Did you use it? Half of my teachers don't seem to use their textbooks. And for that textbook in particular, yeah, it was not worth the price. I used the textbook, but it was not worth the price. I tend to try to only rent textbooks, and that is not always an option. And that cuts down on costs, but I still at least spend a hundred and fifty dollars a term. And right now I'm just a part-time student and I've spent two hundred and fifty dollars on textbooks, and I'm only taking ten credits, so, yeah. Now if you could pick an ideal price for one book in one class, just on average what would your ideal price be? Um, twenty dollars. I mean ideally free.


respected brothers, sisters, and elders. Alhamdulillah it is a great bounty and it's something we remind ourselves of every week. It is a great bounty and great na'amat of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that he allows us to come back to his home and offer the Jumu'ah prayer and congregation. Many of us are deprived of this opportunity and we must make shukr and thank Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that he has chosen us for this and that he has made us fortunate enough and privileged enough to do this for it is not our own doing it is the doing of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala as is each and everything in this dunya. It's true that you know in in today's time we're going through a lot of us are going through uncertainty we're experiencing a significant amount of hardship or difficulty whether it is because of the ongoing impact of COVID-19 or it is because of the tyranny the war and the oppression globally or whatever obstacles exist and are present in our daily lives just as you know sons as daughters as parents whatever it may be sometimes we feel overwhelmed sometimes you know the day the weeks the months it sometimes becomes unbearable and in it is in these times we wonder and we ask you know is Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala aware of what I'm going through or how do I communicate to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala what I'm going through or how do I kind of transition from this phase of difficulty to to the next phase of ease and comfort inshallah and as has been mentioned you know even before to understand Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala the will of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala sort of the nizam of this dunya we must engage with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and the best way to engage with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is through his book the Quran this was Nabi Karim sallahu alayhi wasallam right someone who strived to live by its teachings and that is truly the key to our own success as well that how we can engage with the Quran inshallah today I want to talk about two surahs that most of us recite in our daily prayer surah falak and surah nas both of these surahs together are known as the verses of refuge the verses of protection and as I say verses that we commonly recite some of the youngsters are looking at me and saying well I read surahs all the time I read surahs all the time but these are also surahs hopefully that we're reading very very commonly and inshallah you know we'll go into the meaning of these surahs why they're important their historical significance but hopefully the ni'at and the dua we should all make today inshallah is that whatever we hear today hopefully it is a springboard for us to engage with the Quran on our own because there's so much to be talked about for each and every verse of the Quran that in a in a relatively short Juma there's only so much that can be said but the Quran is something that truly must be experienced you know between us and our creator and you know something that inshallah we do with with our families as well so inshallah let us use today to to kind of establish the foundation of that so we can continue to do that on our own inshallah surah falak and surah nas they most scholars agree that they were probably revealed in the makin period of Muslims and why that significant is because the makin period was one of difficulty for the Muslims right was one that they were going through a lot of oppression they weren't necessarily the majority at the time whereas surahs that were revealed in the in the Medina period have have were when the Muslims were in power so this was these surahs you know were brought to the Muslims at a time when they were struggling and there was great difficulty so if Nabi Kareem sallallahu alaihi wasallam and the Sahaba ikram a jama'een found comfort and solace in these surahs in that time that is a great sab'aq and a great lesson for us as well inshallah just some quick virtues of these surahs it is in Sahih Muslim it is mentioned that Nabi Kareem sallallahu alaihi wasallam said do you not see that there have been verses revealed to me tonight the likes of which we have not seen before and his companions asked you know what are they and then Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wasallam said they are you know I seek protection or I seek refuge with the Lord of dawn surah falak and I seek refuge with the Lord of mankind surah nas and then in Ibn Kasir it is reported that Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wasallam used to make dua used to used to ask Allah subhanahu ta'ala and supplicate to Allah subhanahu ta'ala for protection from evil all sorts of evil and it is mentioned that when these verses of refuge were revealed he then changed his his his dua and would only recite these two surahs to protect himself from all sorts of evil and then finally it is mentioned aisha the law on her reports that Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wasallam when he ever he became sick he used to recite these two surahs and blow it upon himself and when he became seriously ill it is something that she used to do for him and you know they would and he would blow it on his hands and rub his hands on his body so you know many aunties do this to us when we're sick so this is actually a good this is actually legitimate this is something that Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wasallam used to do and I showed the law on her used to do for him as well there's a lot of commonalities in these surahs and that's why we're going to talk about them as a group both of them start with I seek refuge in Allah subhanahu ta'ala Lord of Daybreak and Lord of Mankind Lord of Daybreak in Surah Falaq and Lord of Mankind or humankind in Surah Nas so both are establishing something right from the get go that iris I seek refuge from Allah subhanahu ta'ala and and that's a reminder right away for us right that Allah subhanahu ta'ala is in control of everything so when we're in difficulty or we're going through something or there's an obstacle in front of us and we open the Quran and we recite right it is automatically right away a reminder that I seek refuge with Allah Lord of Mankind Lord of Daybreak right Lord of the one who brings the Sun and then Allah subhanahu ta'ala continues Malikin nas ilahin nas in Surah Nas right he's he's re-emphasizing he's saying the sovereign of mankind and again the God of Mankind Malikin Nas ilahin Nas so he's really the first three verses of Surah Nas basically half of Surah Nas right is that you are seeking refuge in Allah subhanahu ta'ala and who is Allah subhanahu ta'ala he is the Lord he is the sovereign and he is the Lord of all of Mankind and then as the surahs go on the distinction that I really want to make between these two surahs is that they encompass all sorts of evil Surah Falak and Surah Nas combined talk about external evil as well as evil that is internal so in Surah Falak in the final verses of both surahs it says I seek refuge from him from the evil of an envier when he envies I seek refuge from an envier when he envies so Nazir is a very common thing right that we're aware of that the evil eye so an envier when he envies women shari hasi then either has said very very powerful and then in Surah Nas it says I seek refuge from the one who from the one who whispers into the hearts of humankind mean al jinnati one nas ilahin has been shows up a lady was we suffice to do it nas a lady you was we suffice to do it nas the one who whispers into the hearts of mankind this is referring to at least right the one who whispers and who leads leads mankind and jinn to to that which is just that displeases Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala so automatically when we read both surahs together we are asking Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for the protection of all evil inshallah both of them combined seek protection from all sorts and all forms of evil and this is why Nabi Karim sallallahu alayhi wa sallam we can see why he instructed the Sahaba ikram radi Allahu Anhu Majmain to recite it for themselves and he himself would recite these two surahs just to protect himself and a short but important note that I'll add here is that today many of us are living in a virtual world right whether that's because of work we're conducting business on zoom whether we're attending school that way whether we're on social media keeping touch with friends and family through social media we're behind screens a lot right and we're not necessarily face-to-face with people the way we used to be but this doesn't mean that even though it feels like an abstract or separate from reality it doesn't mean that our code of conduct changes right it still means that we the verses of refuge our reminder for us to act appropriately to act appropriately to protect ourselves from those that are envious and and the whisper and those that whisper the thoughts into humankind so no matter where we are whether we are face-to-face or in a virtual world we ask Allah subhanahu ta'ala to protect ourselves inshallah so times have been challenging that is a fact but we can take comfort in these words from Allah right because that was enough for Nabi Karim sallahu alaihi wasallam and inshallah in the second part we'll talk about when things are difficult you know we rely on these surahs but there's other reminders as well that inshallah we can instill in our daily lifetime so just some reminders building on the two surahs that we just discussed briefly in times of difficulty and in ease right our actions with Allah subhanahu ta'ala our relationship with Allah subhanahu ta'ala must be the same right we must ask Allah that he and make dua to him that he does not make us among those who only go to him when things are difficult right that we only turn to him or that we increase our ibadat or we increase you know our acts of worship only when things are hard for us because then Allah subhanahu ta'ala might look at us and say this this person this this this servant of mine only comes to me when things are difficult but when I give him or her good they are away from me so may Allah subhanahu ta'ala protect us from being among those people we outlined sort of some of the difficulties that we're going through today and at times we acknowledge that it can be very difficult but there's inshallah a few reminders building upon this that should help us remain steadfast inshallah number one is Allah subhanahu ta'ala is the knower of everything right as he reminds us in the beginning of surah falak and surah nas he is the lord of mankind he is the lord of daybreak he is the sovereign of everything he knows everything he knows who wronged you and he knows how you may have wronged someone else he is aware of the oppression that powers that be are inflicting upon this dunya upon mankind even upon animals and plants Allah ta'ala is aware of every single thing that is happening Allah subhanahu ta'ala is innately aware that when you interacted with a person and that person said something to you how hurt you felt or when you maybe mistakenly said something to a person how how how you met you must have hurt them or how they felt Allah subhanahu ta'ala is very innately aware of these things so that's something we must remind ourselves of we don't have to carry the weight of being judge and jury because this is the nizam of Allah subhanahu ta'ala that in this dunya difficulties will happen obstacles will be there but that there is the one guarantee that is fundamental to our deen right the guarantee is that we will Allah subhanahu ta'ala will be judge and jury in the akhira on the day of judgment this is fundamental to our belief we can put our faith and our trust in Allah and leave everything else and that is enough for us as Muslims he alone has the knowledge the answers and the solutions so it is with his wisdom this nizam this dunya and everything around us continues as it is for he truly is as we know from his names you know he is al fatah he is the supreme solver so when there is a problem and this is something we can relate to right when we have experienced a problem al fatah Allah subhanahu ta'ala comes and solves that problem for us and at times Allah subhanahu ta'ala solves it in a way that we we have no idea how this was solved we couldn't even think in our wildest imagination that it would be solved in this way but yet Allah subhanahu ta'ala solves it in his wisdom he is also al aleem then all knowing that we talked about he is also al basir right the one who sees everything he is also the one by his wisdom al qabid and al basit right the extender and the withholder so he will extend his mercy and he will extend his blessings when he deems it appropriate but you'll also withhold right if that is what is best for his creation at this time so again if we have faith in Allah and we know Allah and we engage with Allah subhanahu ta'ala our hearts will be at peace our minds will be content inshallah and just a small note that I want to end with inshallah you know many times our youth even even our adults here we have a little bit of trepidation engaging with the Quran right it's like oh man this is for the maybe the the sheikh or the hafez or the scholar I'm not I'm not super qualified maybe I should just you know read my last 10 surahs and that's about it and this is a this is a big misjudgment right we must engage with the Quran that is why Allah subhanahu ta'ala right the first verse is where Iqra'a bismi rabbika allah didn't ask us to worship Allah didn't ask us to do anything he asked us to read he asked us to read and recite that is the first command from Allah subhanahu ta'ala so it's a reminder for all of us that we must engage with the Quran and we must do so you know with our families because our families are our responsibility as well right we must do so on an individual level as well as on a familial level inshallah the Quran was sent for all humankind and we all have access to it in ways that are so easy compared to pre-four right we have so many translations in so many languages and now it's so easy to read it even even our youngsters can just pick up a a solid translation and mashallah be able to derive the meaning from it Ibn Masud I want to close with just two two points inshallah radi allah who mentioned that memorizing the Quran or becoming a being hafiz of the Quran is not memorizing its word it's not simply regurgitating the words of the Quran rather it is someone who establishes in their heart and acts upon what Allah subhanahu ta'ala made lawful and what Allah subhanahu ta'ala asked and stay away from that which Allah subhanahu ta'ala has made unlawful it is that unwavering sort of commitment to Allah that if Allah subhanahu ta'ala has said something I'm going to do it and without getting into the wise and the rationale and applying our own human logic to it it's just being the being in complete obedience of Allah subhanahu ta'ala and then finally there is an Imam new of Saunders from the East Coast he's a renowned scholar and reciter of the holy Quran he said something very beautiful that I just want to share with with the congregation inshallah he said a hafiz isn't someone who just memorized the entire Quran I would rather we call someone a hafiz or a hafizah who has memorized only the 30th Jews of the Quran and nothing else but constantly engages themselves in reciting the Quran and acting upon it and this is very true right that the true hafiz or hafizah of the Quran is someone who lives by it who acts upon it who uses it as a guide for their life so that inshallah they can be successful in this life and in the hereafter may Allah subhanahu ta'ala make us amongst the true hafiz and hafizahs of this world may Allah subhanahu ta'ala give us all the success in this life and in the next may Allah subhanahu ta'ala allow us to become close to him allow us to understand him and allow us to establish a relationship with the Quran so that we may be immensely successful in this dunya and the next


The study presents the Learn, Assess, Manage and Prevent, LAMP, Platform, an open-source solution that addresses technical and organizational challenges in integrating patient-generated health data into research and clinical care by supporting research, data analysis, and implementation efforts around PGHD. The LAMP Platform enables interoperability with existing fast healthcare interoperability resources-based healthcare systems as well as consumer wearables and services such as Apple HealthKit and Google Fit, and offers robust support for artificial intelligence, behavioral feature extraction, interactive visualizations, and high-performance data processing through parallelization and vectorization techniques. The platform incorporates feedback from patients and clinicians alongside a standards-based approach to address these needs and functions across a wide range of use cases through its customizable and flexible components. This article was authored by Aditya Vaidyam, John Halamka, and John Torres.


Hi everyone, Joe for Jaspy's casebreaks.com coming at you with 2020-2021 prism basketball Cellopack break number 178 and it's the last one to knock out that final box of immaculate basketball Coming up in a separate video. Big thanks to this group for rallying around this break and making it happen. Thank you very much Let's do the break first all teams are in and then the second dice roll will be for the giveaway part Six and a five eleven times for names and teams one two Three and eleven the final time and the randomizer for the giveaway will be a separate dice roll six and a five eleven times for the teams one two Three eleven the final time. All right. There's the first half of the list right here Here's the second half of the list right over here No trade windows in these quick little breaks Let's just get on with it and that one box break will be in a separate video the next video And here's the final printout the list hot off the presses Thanks everybody hanging with me on a Monday Silver Doug McDermott greens iron Williamson second year Theo Maladon James Johnson Got in here. What about Victor Oladipo, Nurlin's Noel and a rookie Xavier Tillman red white and blue Nancy with the Grizzlies Grizzlies place playing some pretty good basketball this year. All right Now the whole point of this of course is who's gonna win those immaculate basketball spots. Let's gather all your names again New dice new list And let's roll it and randomize it two and a five lucky seven times top ten after seven Right top ten after seven will be in the next break. Good luck one two three four five six and Seventh and final time after seven so from eleven on down No go But I appreciate everybody giving this a shot. Thank you top ten happy times for you You're in the next break Kevin. You're in Michael Clint Brian Chad David Nancy Mark Chad and Kevin So there you go gang. I'll see you in the next video for the next break. Bye. Bye


Good morning. I hope you guys are having a great day. I just sat down to have my water and my breakfast I have been really trying to drink a lot of water before I even have coffee in the morning Okay, I want to talk a little bit about like healthy habits and just my routines I've been talking so much about routines finding the right one for me And I want to give you guys some things that have been working for me and then some things that have it So the first thing I think over complicating my routine has just not worked I don't like adding a ton of different things, but I do like having different elements, right? So if I can simplify things in any way shape or form I will do that the first thing that I started using an actual alarm clock that has actually been such a game changer It's great because the one I have gives you like a night routine, too And I really think a good routine starts tonight for I'm just really getting into it with this flock I really hope you guys are having a great day alarm clock has been a really good thing It's kept me off my phone I don't check my social media until like probably four hours after I wake up like I am feeling good Second thing just being simplified my routine overall. I try to just not wear makeup on weekdays unless I'm filming a ton So it's Friday. I'm not gonna do my makeup until tonight I wouldn't let my skin breathe and that's also helped me. This is something I've always done But as soon as I wake up I change into my fitness wear as you guys can see I'm always wearing whatever I'm going to wear to work out and get movement in that day Whatever it might be whether that's an actual Pilates class or if that's just like a long walk Whatever it is of the movement that I'm getting that day. I need to wake up and immediately change into my workout clothes I've been that way. I don't know. It just makes me think less I really like doing like the affirmations of visualization the writing Gratitude lists things like that but instead of looking at that as like 15 different things I just made it into one journal practice Which has really helped me because it's a lot less overwhelming But I'm still doing all of the like morning exercises that I find really helped me be at my best So I'm complicating and having like a billion different things and just adding on every single thing that everyone is person is ever said Can kind of honestly just like stress me out So I just figured out what works for me and that is simplifying my routine I've actually started taking up my nourish vitamin packs by Nature Made and I love them Nourish by Nature Made is a convenient subscription service that creates personalized nutritional supplement packets full of the nourishment You need to be at your best every day They were also founded on a science-based approach to personalized nutrition that assesses key nutrient needs based on Research and nutrition science evidence. You have like a little pack It says your name on it every day for your vitamins. You take them up with your breakfast So like right now we have my breakfast in English muffin and my water So I grab it as I'm making breakfast to take while I'm eating breakfast I like that nourish really has supported of my lifestyle my routines my habits It's such an easy thing to just throw into your routine. I care so much about wellness from within I want to be making sure that I'm taking care of myself and getting the right nutrients But it's really overwhelming for me like I never know what vitamins or supplements I'm supposed to be taking and that's why I love nourish by Nature Made So I really trust them they also have an online assessment and through that quiz They match you with the vitamins and the supplements that you need they ask you things like your lifestyle your diet There's other things that have to do with like your lifestyle and your nutrients that you're getting I really like that they ask you about diet. It is such an easy pack. I grab it as I'm eating breakfast I take my vitamins and I'm good to go. I don't think I'm adding a bunch of stuff I'm not trying to figure it out on my own it comes to my house as a vitamin and supplement Subscription service I take one pack a day and I'm good to go It is unbelievable guys So if you guys want to take the quiz on nourish calm to receive your personalized vitamin and supplement packs You guys can use my exclusive promo code for 30% off when you subscribe So the code is Kenzie 30 and that is 30% off your first month when you subscribe. I love these things I'm taking mine right now. Oh, you know what else I've been doing actually While I'm here and eating my breakfast another thing that I've been doing is I've read I've been reading Fiction books at night and then nonfiction books in the morning and that just really gets my day going comment below your best Routine tip to simplify your morning routine I'm really excited for this weekend But I do need to do my laundry and I do need to do my dishes and these are things that just like are not that fun If yours are new here be sure to subscribe, but I'm gonna take you through my day I don't know what I'm gonna do with my nails yet. They need to be done. So we'll figure that out I don't want to like shut you too close because they're like not good, you know, but We're good Nails are done dishes are done laundry is being done work for the most part. It's done today I'm actually it is done what I'm about to show you I was trying to you know get creative because I really like thin Pants and they're very hard to find. So I was like, oh my god. I know these are like men's pajama pants I don't know what someone else have a CD on me. So they're just black pants. They look a little bit too big I will be doing a try on my closet and we'll see later It would be so good for tonight because it is still 100 degrees in Texas and we're going out and all the bars are outside So like I this and like a black tank top wear some heels like that's cute and it's not hot Um, I got a new skims package today. The first thing I got are just these new pajamas I cannot wait to wear them tonight. This little tank. Of course, it's brown. I love skims Like yes, I've worked with them before but I've been a loyal customer of skims Since I feel like they launched like I just am obsessed with their stuff I wear something from skims every single day at least one item and then I want to open this for you So I need Sophie Is literally like the highlight of my entire life. She currently wants to be Dolly Parton She has cowboy boots now. I just bought her a Kindle kid and I got her skims. Look at these. Oh my god So cute. Oh my gosh I mean With her matching can you picture her with her matching skim set wearing cowboy boots reading her Kindle kid like look at what I'm doing Also, um, I did finally hire an assistant and she actually just happened to be moving to Texas this week So, um, I got her cute little welcome to Texas Yeah, of course. I went to Texas treasurer.  It turns out it's actually me I'm the one who shops there Don't mess with Texas t-shirt a Texas mug went in got the red bag Texas tissue paper clearly. This is not the first time that I've done this So here's the thing. I actually like them when I like tie them up with them tighter And I like them with the heel. I like the look with the heel. I think that's cute I would change this tank top like I don't know something about it. I don't love with this I wish that I had these in her color because I just don't really wear black anymore Guys this dress is like so southern I do not feel like myself in it But I'm going to a football game. So I feel like it's fine. Like it serves its purpose, but it is like so Southern it's actually from revolve. I don't know guys. It's just like I feel so weird in that Okay, this skim set.  It is the most comfortable thing ever recently. I started using hot rollers This is the only thing that gives my hair like real volume.  That's what I've learned with rollers is that You know, don't be alarmed that first you're like, oh, this wasn't what I this was not it because they can come around Okay, I'd like this like fresh kind of blowout look my hair will definitely end up in a clock lamp though tip never ever go out in the summer without a clock them because before you know it it's gonna be so hot and You need this for your abs. All right guys. I'm in my closet room my little makeshift Vanity set up. Oh my gosh. I think I can actually use my Kylie Jenner clips unless I left them in New York Oh, I found them just kidding.  I wanted to do a little chit chat get ready with me and catch up with you guys today Um, I think I might need to I'm gonna go. What this beauty blender?  I'll be right back. Okay. I asked you guys on Instagram story for some questions a few days ago I'm gonna be answering them now. I'm getting ready right now for dinner with Karen She's actually coming over soon So she might get here as I'm getting ready when asked you retouch your photos. I don't retouch my photos I don't even edit my photos that could be like kind of out of laziness, but also I don't know like on one end I'm all for like do whatever you want to do like I'm totally fine with that But on the other end I'm just really aware of the effects that I can leave on like on young girls So if I did retouch my photos, I would just be really open about that just in the same way of I'm really open about Bo talks and when I got my chin filler like I'm like a week ago You make most of your money from podcasting I want to say No, I would say they're pretty close, but it depends on honestly depends on the month and depends on a bunch of stuff So am I gonna use a beauty blender for this? I think I will also I have this random dry skin under my eyes and I don't just this eye and I don't know where it came from and I think it's really gonna mess up my makeup tonight You ever moved to New York? I would for a short period of time. I don't think I would ever live there like full time full time But I mean honestly never say never, but if I were to go anywhere right now, it would definitely be New York Now I'm using my air-glass concealer. This is what I'm worried about with the dry skin How do you feel about giving people second chances? I think it depends on this situation like I am all for Forgiveness, I think that's really important But just because you forgive someone doesn't necessarily mean you give them a second chance on the other end though I do think we as like a society or culture or whatever it is We're way too hard on people and I feel like we just need to allow more room for growth But with that being said it's obviously so case-by-case No, and even in relationships like I guess it really just depends on the offense to be clear But I even know a lot of like really healthy marriages where they broke up and got back together So I don't know I think it really just Depends on the stitch how to make friends and a new city Okay, so this is a big one and Ting's actually talks about this and she's like you have to go out I agree to extend like I definitely think that it depends on the kind of friendships that you're looking for one and The kind of friends that you're looking for the way that I personally have had the most success with making new friends is either From Instagram and then we hang out But I think this time goes on like you become closer to people that you go out with that sometimes I have friends We just go to coffee and work out together other times I have friends where we hang out like throughout the week or we're constantly going to dinner We're going out or going out you meet so many people because you meet the people that you probably came with They're friends other people you meet out about especially in Texas like it's just such a friendly state So I've outlawed But if you don't like going out like honestly workout classes Instagram take talk things like that like but just the way that I've had the most success with meeting people. It's definitely going out on weekends and like actually Putting an effort like even right now. I think I'm always trying to meet new friends, but I'm definitely just trying to meet new people and make new friends in Texas and I pretty much always do that out For the most part. So also It's worth mentioning my Geneva group chat if you guys Want feel free to join because I know people especially in Dallas have made friends that way all over and like They actually hang out and stuff So I would definitely join like either my group chat my Facebook group other Podcast Facebook groups things like that. Do you get lonely being single or do you want to start dating soon? I actually talked about this in a recent vlog. I was like adamantly against dating this summer. I don't feel that way anymore I think I definitely am like Less against it if I feel lonely. It's not really because I'm single if that makes sense Like I definitely have times where I feel lonely. I live by myself. I work by myself I travel by myself like I definitely have times especially the past like month where I have definitely been feeling lonely But it's not because I'm single I think it's either friendships in a situation that I may or whatever it is. It's just not only because I'm single That makes sense. Okay, someone said this as an assumption It says you can come off self-absorbed or cocky, but actually you're just very sarcastic. Yes like I Toned out my humor on the internet so much because I genuinely at the end of the day Like I am very friendly and I'm very nice like if I know two things about myself. It is those two things And my humor I have an upcoming podcast with my best friend from college Just and you can definitely hear it in that I think my humor can come across as like very valley girl Sounds like I'm stuck up whatever and for some reason even though I think I'm very funny That in itself comes is like an insecurity of mine because I don't want people to think That I'm not other things just because I have a certain kind of humor So I definitely like tone things down especially because the internet is just so mean So yeah, I think I can I definitely am not but I definitely can come up that way Okay, how to get over heartbreak. I kind of want to film an entire video on this like I think that I have good Things to say and take a ways and I'm in therapy. So a lot of it's from my actual therapist Let me know if you guys want a video on heartbreak because I would definitely be down Okay, so this is the risky part of the night. This is when the liquid eyeliner comes out. I Love brown liquid liner Absolutely love it and sometimes it just doesn't love me. I feel like I'm Taylor with false eyelashes I would never do false eyelashes because I'm too late an assumption. You handle stress really well. How um, I don't think I do It depends. I think I have a high capacity for things So I can definitely handle a lot of things and it takes a lot to actually stress me out Or I can take on a lot of things at once But when I'm stressed and get really anxious and then I kind of just shut down But at the same time I do work well under pressure. So maybe yes and no I Like killed this one. This one's okay There's no better feeling than this. We're truly also brown eyeliner is really where it's out guys So this is not the best it's ever been at my dry skin under my eyes is really messing up my look But I do have the hourglass lip product. This is an hint valid story I don't know which one's the color which one is like the actual like product, but I'm ready. I need to put on my outfit And get going. Oh take off my Kylie clips I feel very like official when I have these on I do really like this makeup look like I find that it's very fitting for me I mean eyes are just kind of weird right now. So whatever I changed a thousand times to end up in the same outfit I'm not obsessed with it, but like it is so hot and I think that this is the only thing that I will live in Here is my purse with my claw clamp. I'm ready. I'm just not impressed. I'm really not impressed Today's vlog, I love you guys so much be sure to check out nourish. I will have them linked down below And let me know what else you guys would see in books, but I love you guys so much and I'll talk to you soon Bye. I was thinking about this on the way here. I know that everyone has to know all the colors I would never in a million years be able to memorize all those names of different colors So actually was thinking that wasn't leachy. I think that's smoke. No Did you just get it?


And they got like I'm a little bit old, so you know like these Mario games are easy What's up everyone is Mikey for realistic gaming today juniors not here So I'm gonna do a quick little video today, and I'm actually gonna play it You know a few little exe games I found and some of these are kind of I don't know it might be a little bootleg But let's see what they got. I'm gonna give them a chance, but today we're gonna do Mario exe Game so let's see see if they're scary or not. So let's start off with this one It's called a Mario murder or something like that. Wait, what's it called? So this one's actually called Mario murder exe a little Mario horror story or something like that So let's see if it's actually scary. Let's go and let's start off with alright Let's start off with Mario on this one. All right, so I start out. Oh Geez Okay Got some creepy Like some creepy air music in the background. We're not air music the sounds. All right, let's see. How do I jump oh? Here we go. Okay, I jump with shift All right, let's get these coins, you know because you never know we might need some coins Whoo, I need this mushroom. All right, so this feels normal except the sound So let's keep it going. Can we go inside these? No Oh, you got a hot slow key. All right, let's see. Can we go in here? No, let's keep it going Jump over here and they got like I'm a little bit old.  Oh Yo, all right, let's see. Oh Man, okay, let's go. Let's jump in here or what? Okay, so can't really see anything Let's keep jumping.  I'm talking to you. Why not scream at me, bro? Don't you know that line saying it wasn't you it's never the answer. Oh Look at Mario's eyes You know what you really did wait the whole thing turned into a circle you will pay for that Oh Man All right, so what I do is I do I keep watching or what if I don't exception. Oh, yeah, the curtain.  Presently key to continue Okay, it took over my computer. I knew it was a virus I have to go to the task manager to take this off. Oh Wow Now that was a That was pretty crazy. Oh, I don't know what just happened right now And we gotta be careful with these games sometimes it might be a baby little virus. So I have to delete that later Let's play this next game All right, so this was another Mario exe game. I haven't played this one either Hopefully it's not a virus like the other one because I feel like I feel like one and it kind of creeped me out I'm not gonna lie. So let's go. Let's play this one one player game. Let's go. Oh, what's this? Okay, let's go. Let's run it. All right. Okay. We're in world one of one Okay, there we go. We jump in so you jump Okay Got the homies smash right here the goomba. Sorry guys. I don't know what happening y'all Hey, but but I was a little kid.  Let's see What's gonna be over here? Okay jump over that? Let's get the coins. Like I said, we might need them You never know So let's go over here Let's try to jump up here. Huh? Okay another coin and break any of these nope All right. So right now so far it's pretty normal. I can't kick this turtle though Except the music the music is a little different. So All right, let's leave that over there. Let's keep it going over here so far Can I just fall through the floor? All right. I'm gonna come do a speed run down. We do a speed run. Let's go Let's keep it going Nothing nothing crazy so far. Hopefully we don't fall into that uh Into the imaginary hole that's not there. So let's keep it up here. Oh somewhere around here, huh? Let's go up here. Oh, oh no. I don't want to fall again No, no, okay. Okay. We good. We good. We good. All right. Let's go. Let's keep it going So far normal Mario game nothing crazy except the music All right, let's keep it going just keep it going Let's grab this. All right, there's no mushrooms. Look here. I need a mushroom. Oh we here. We have the castle, right? Oh, wow All right, let's see. Does anything happen No, usually they give you the coins right here No coins. No nothing. Okay World number two. Let's go Okay, so the music sounds kind of staticky or like wind Let's see. Let's see what we encounter over here. Let's keep it going. Princess Peach you here girl Princess Peach where you at? So far nothing So far nothing. Oh Princess Peach is probably gonna be over here Can you keep it? Oh Bowser should be here. Okay. No Bowser Oh, what's up toad? Sorry Mario. What happened? What happened toad? I'm too late. What you mean bro? It's only like one o'clock Is that it? I saw he's gonna tell me what happened Did they take my girl? They probably took my girl Peachy peach. Oh no Tell me that's ketchup, please That has to be ketchup. Oh the static is getting louder That static is getting louder. Oh, there's more blood now. Are those? They're like hand prints. All right. Just keeps going forever or what? What's what's going on here? What's up? Okay Do I just keep going forever or what? All right, we going and going. How was your Christmas? Yeah, hopefully y'all had a good Christmas All right, it seems like they didn't have a good Christmas over here Can I just speed up? Let's go this All right, so let's just keep going. Let's see what happens. Have anything happens Six and a half hours later Day two I'm still going so much later that the old narrator got tired of waiting and they had to hire a new I don't think anything's gonna happen. Oh Is that daisy? I think that's daisy No Is that peach right? I think that's daisy or peach. I don't know. What is it? Marcus crying look They killed her guys or maybe Maybe she was eating a lot of fries and she got ketchup all over the place and then she knocked out She was so full, you know, that's a possibility. I don't know But is that it? He just stays there crying Mario's cool, bro. You got to get out man. They're gonna get you too, bro. Bowser's probably in the back Toad is probably back there. Like you don't know bro. You got a goal, man All right, so that it for this one Is that it mario? You okay? All right, i'm gonna have to leave you right now Good luck. Whatever you guys did mario lost this girl guys So like I said I was gonna play two mario games I didn't know if they're gonna be bootleg if they're gonna be good at all But the first one really did scare me Like I've never jumped at a bootleg game like that like I did earlier today Okay, let me know if you guys want us to play any other game If you guys want us to find a character that has scary exe games or anything like that Or if there's any mods you want me to play What scary character should we play with next? Let me know in the comments below. See you guys later. Peace


The talk is going to be about statistical witness indistinguishability and more in two messages by Yael Tauman-Kalai, Dakshita Kurana, and Amitzai, and Yael will be given a talk. OK. So thank you very much. I first wanted to start by saying that Dakshita should have come here and presented the talk. Unfortunately for you, she couldn't make it. She's a great speaker, but you can make it to Israel, so you're stuck with me. So let's begin. So what we show is a joint work with Dakshita and Amitzai. And what we show in this work is how to construct statistically witness indistinguishable arguments and more with two messages. OK. So let's start. Interactive proofs. They're wonderful. Interactive proofs are really great. Why are they so great? Because they allow us to do zero knowledge. That's really fantastic. This was shown by Golda Humphka in Bigdal Zone. We can do zero knowledge proof for all of NP. Moreover, so zero knowledge proofs have only computational zero knowledge. So you need to be bounded in order not to learn. But we know that we can even do statistical zero knowledge.  However, note that to get statistical zero knowledge, we need to relax from interactive proof to interactive arguments. So in interactive proofs, your sound against unbounded cheating proofers, whereas in interactive arguments, the sound miscommunication is only against computationally bounded cheating proofers. So if you're willing to rely on computational soundness, you can get statistical zero knowledge for all of NP. Fabulous. What do we want to do, though? So this is fantastic. The only problem is it requires interaction. In the focus of this work and previous work, we try to reduce the amount of interaction needed. Wow, this clicker's not free. OK, so what's our goal? Our goal is to take, to construct a two message, protocol with secrecy. So we want to, and the way we go about this is we say, you know, suppose we have an interactive protocol that offers secrecy. Can we convert it into a two message protocol while still preserving secrecy? This is the question we ask. So kind of similar to the previous talk. And the focus of this work, though, as opposed to previous talk, is on statistical secrecy. So we want secrecy even against an all powerful cheater who tries to learn information. And why do we care about statistical secrecy? Well, there's many reasons, but one of them is once you have the protocol, it can be out there forever. And so you really want, in a sense, to have this everlasting security. If you have statistical secrecy, then your guarantee is even if it's sitting there forever, this transcript, nobody can learn information. This is kind of in contrast to soundness where you need to be kind of online in order to cheat. So you can always time out if the cheating prover takes too long. So that's the motivation of trying to get statistical secrecy. And loosely speaking, what we show is we construct a two message argument system, so computationally soundproof, for NP with statistical secrecy. What do I mean by secrecy? So we get witness indistinguishability and more. And I'll say a little bit about the more at the end of the talk. But for the most, think of WI. And that's under relatively standard assumptions. The only reason it's kind of DDH, or predatory residuosity, or endosiduosity, or OT more generally. But we need slightly super polynomial security. And I'll get to that. So think of quasi-poly security. And I just want to mention that this was all known in the computational setting. Actually, in the computational setting, it was all known from the early 90s by work of Dworkin and Zapps and witness indistinguishable proofs into message. So again, the focus of this talk is on the statistical setting, where we did not have such a result under any standard assumption besides kind of random oracle type assumptions in two, or even in three messages, actually. So what's the starting point of this work? So this exact question of reducing, taking interactive protocol that's secret, and reducing interaction while maintaining secrecy, was already asked in previous works, but in the computational setting. And we kind of followed that approach. That's kind of the starting point of our work. So let me tell you what is done in these works, because the starting point is kind of similar. So they say, here's how they take an NP complete problem. For example, think of graph Hamiltonicity as an example, if you can think of others. So and take Blum's three message protocol, the zero knowledge protocol for graph Hamiltonicity, with only soundness half. OK, so soundness half, we have zero knowledge. Soundness half is enough for now. OK, so how does it work? This protocol, in the first message, the prover commits to his graph with the Hamiltonian cycle in there, to the premier graphs. And it doesn't really, the details are not important. The important thing is in the first message, there is a commitment to something. Then the verifier sends a bit around a bit, which is either zero or one. And based on this bit, the prover opens. Either he opens everything, the permitted thing, or he opens only Hamiltonian cycle. So that's kind of the high level structure. The details are really not important. And here's the idea of how to convert it into a two message protocol. So the idea is the following. Exactly similar kind of the spirit of the previous talk. The idea is, you know what, how do we reduce interaction? How does the verifier send his bit ahead of time? Now, of course, if he sends it ahead of time, it won't be secure at all. So instead, what we do, we have him send it hidden. How do we hide it? We hide it using a two message oblivious transfer protocol, okay, which I'll define in a minute. I'll explain in a minute what it is. But, and I want to say this OT is a specific, this kind of idea is known more generally as the peer heuristic or FHE heuristic. It was suggested originally by Bill Mayer and Wetzel in 99 in the multi-prover interactive proof setting. And with the RANRAS, we kind of looked at it in the interactive proof setting. And in this work, and because we're interested in secrecy, we don't use any peer scheme, but rather a symmetric peer scheme. And OT is just an instantiation of that when we don't hear about some sickness. So actually this transformation, this idea of transformation has been done before in the context of soundness, okay, even before this computational secrecy. So what was shown in the work with the RANRAS is that this is sound. This is sound, assuming, okay, so it's sound. However, you need to assume that the OT is more secure than the commitment. And that's why we need a super polynomial assumption and the OT. So this is sound as long as the OT is harder to break than the commitment scheme. Okay, good, and this was already in the work with RANRAS, so that's great. How about secrecy? Well, and this works, we work hard to show that it's also secret. Okay, so we get WI, secrecy, and more. Okay, but again, this was all computational. Now let's go to the statistical setting, which is a starting point of this work. Okay, so again, we wanna get a statistical secrecy. So what do we do? Well, we look at the BLUM protocol, same BLUM protocol, and we know how to make it statistically zero knowledge. How? Instead of using a statistically binding commitment, as BLUM, what you do is you use a statistically hiding commitment. So if the commitment is statistically hiding, this is known to be statistical zero knowledge. Again, the sound is half, but that can be amplified later, okay? So we have a statistically sound, a statistically, statistical zero knowledge argument, not an argument, because the commitment is only computationally binding. But, and that's just the same thing. So that's what we propose, just do exactly the same. Instead of sending the verifier's message in the third round, send it ahead of time, so to get statistically hiding commitment, you need two rounds or two messages. So send the bit E ahead of time with the first message of the commitment. So again, come one and come two, just as the first two rounds or messages of the commitment scheme. So the commitment consists of two messages, the first is come one, the second is come two. Okay, so this is exactly the same. Use OT, which I'm gonna define next, send the bit in the first message, the bit E in the first message kind of in a hidden way and that's it. Okay, so very similar as before. And the main thing is, okay, is this still sound and do we still get secrecy or statistical secrecy? So the first thing which follows pretty easily from previous, from the computational work is that secrecy is preserved. Okay, what do I mean by preserved, not preserved, you don't get to see your knowledge in two messages, but we do get WI and more, which I'll say the more later. Okay, but we do at least get WI, statistical WI. And now I wanna tell you a little bit about why we get statistical WI. So, I mean, previous work, the computational setting showed we got WI. And we use exactly the same, so what primitive do we use? Well, I plan that we don't get computational, we get already statistical. Why? Well, the commitment is statistical. So the verifier really doesn't, you know, it gets perfect kind of statistical security from the commitment. And the OT that we use, and it was also used in the previous work, also offers statistical secrecy to the verifier, in the verifier setting. So now let me define what a, okay, what the OT is, or the OT that we use. So the OT we use is one out of two OT. So there's a receiver and a sender. The receiver wants to get one of these two messages, N0M1, which one? Depends on the bit B. So he has a bit B and he wants to get NB, okay, the B's message. And the way it works, he sends a message that depends on B, B is hidden, okay? And he gets back a message that depends on his message and an N0M1. And from these two messages, it's only two messages. And from these two messages, he can recover the message he wants, which is M sub B. And here's the security guarantees, that's important. So first, you get even a cheating, a polynomial time, a PPT cheating sender, cannot cheat, cannot guess B, okay? So he cannot guess the bit B. But importantly, even an unbounded receiver does not learn anything about the other message. So we do get statistical guarantee for a malicious receiver. In our setting, the receiver is the verifier, okay? So that's exactly what we want. So we knew how to construct these from DDH and from quadratic residuality and then residuality. But as I said, for our works and also the previous works, we needed, it's not enough to get security against a polynomial time cheating sender, we need against a super polynomial time cheating sender and therefore our results are under any of these assumptions but with super polynomial hardness, okay? With hardness, that's more than breaking the commitment scheme that we use. Okay, so that's the primitive you use and because we get security here, again it's an unbounded receiver, when we get this protocol, we get statistical security as well. And why it's WI, it's from the previous work. Exactly as the computational setting. Quite interestingly, that's not where the hard part is. The hard part of this work is actually unsoundness. So the real question is why is this sound? And now let me take a little detour and tell you the problem is, so the idea of reducing interaction, reducing rounds in interactive protocols is an extremely interesting problem, okay? There's a lot of research on it and we know, so there's a quality speaking, there's kind of two classes of ways of reducing interaction. One is using the Fiat-Chamil, heuristic and one's using what I mentioned is the pure heuristic or FHA heuristic. And here's what we know. For proofs, if you start with an interactive proof as opposed to an interactive argument, it works. Okay, under assumptions and some which I didn't want to mention here because it's not the focus, but if you're willing to, some assumptions, you get security, okay? Great. What about when you try to reduce interaction from an interactive argument? Doesn't work. So Fiat-Chamil, there's actually counter examples or negative results and for the pure heuristic, we don't really have complete counter examples but we have a lot of intuition and indication that in general it's not sound. Okay, so actually, to date, we do not know how to reduce interaction from interactive arguments, okay? Unless, you know, applying a grand moral model but without relying on relatively standard assumptions, we do not know how to do that. Okay, now this is a problem for us because we start with the statistical zero knowledge which is an argument and I'm trying to reduce interaction from the argument which I do not know how to do. So that's why the sound is the issue here. Okay, and this seems like a dead end in a sense. However, we managed to do it and the main idea to get to do this is we use a special commitment scheme. Okay, so again, in general, I don't know that this is sound, this transformation for arguments. However, if you use a special commitment scheme, then we prove that it's sound. So that's kind of the main technical idea of this work is to prove that you can go from interactive arguments, reduce interaction, if you choose the commitment scheme in a clever way. So what do we want from this commitment? How do we choose this commitment scheme? So, statistically hiding, of course, I have to have statistically hiding to get my statistical secrecy. However, I need statistically binding or I need it to be a proof to get soundness. So the way we do it, we say, you know what, it's almost always gonna be statistically hiding but with some small probability, it won't and the negatives will be statistically binding. And the idea is you cannot distinguish between the two cases and that's how we kind of get the best of both worlds. So the statistically hiding will imply statistical secrecy, it's not actually here, we don't get zero knowledge, but statistical secrecy and or, you know, we get the original scheme of statistical zero knowledge and the statistically binding will imply that the resulting two message is sound. And because you cannot distinguish between these two modes, you can't, you know, break it in one case and not the other. So that's kind of the high level intuition. However, I wanna mention that not all what we need, it's not enough, what we really need is that it's gonna be extractable. And this is kind of technical in the proof, you know, you need some extractability of it. So I don't wanna get into the details of why because that's not very interesting. But one thing I do wanna kind of view to get from this talk is actually what we need in a weird way as a statistically hiding and extractable commitment scheme. And with this point, you should kind of be like, what? How can it be statistically hiding, meaning there's nothing there, but yeah, you can extract. That makes no sense. So again, but this is kind of what we do and the way we do it is inspired by a previous work, of a Dechita and Sai, one and Sai. And what we construct is a two message, a scheme, a commitment scheme, that is statistically hiding and computationally binding, but with some small probability, this commitment scheme switches to a statistically binding and extractable commitment scheme. There cannot tell if he's in the binding mode or in the hiding mode. So maybe in the few minutes I have left, so that's kind of the main idea, in the few minutes I have left, actually I wanna give you kind of a sense of what this commitment scheme is, so you won't leave kind of in this magic. So it's very, very simple. And let me give you kind of the basic idea, the basic protocol, which is not really hiding, but it achieves hiding with probability half. And then we amplify it. So what is the protocol?  One is and, and one is completely random. And he mixes them, he chooses random R, one of them is gonna be and the other is gonna be the random one, and what the receiver does, he gets one of them using an OT. Again, the OT comes, okay? So the receiver will send a bit, a random bit, and he will get one, he will get the R and one of these messages. If B equals R, he got the message. So it's not a good commitment scheme, it's not hiding at all, only probability half. If he didn't get R, he gets nothing, statistic. So this guy, you probably feel like, okay, this is kind of a cheating. However, so again, this is only hiding with probability half, and with probability half, it's extractable. If B equals R, he actually knows the message. But it seems not, not very surprising. So the actual, to get the actual statistically, the actual commitment scheme, we do this amplification. So instead of one message M, one uniform, there's K bits and two K messages, everything is random, subject to kind of some XORing being the message. And so I wanna go into the details, actually, because of a lot of the timing, because it's not, you know, I'll defer to the paper. But you know, this is essentially our statistically hiding commitment scheme, which is gonna be hiding with probability one minus two to the minus K, so two to the minus K probability, it'll be extractable. Okay, so let me wrap up. What did we get? So we constructed a two message statistical witness in the distinguishable argument for all of NP, assuming solid super polynomial, a secure T, which can be instantiated under the DDHQR or Anthrosiduosity assumption. This is the protocol. You take the statistically hiding, the statistical zero-notes version of BLUM and apply the OT heuristic to it. And the main take-home message is that actually reducing in traction using this heuristic can be sound. It's not in general sound for arguments, but it can be sound. And by kind of taking the argument and flipping it as sometimes being proof, but sometimes being argument, you can gain soundness. So one can think of, I think it'll be interesting to get kind of more out of this trick. And the way we do it is by constructing a statistical and extractable commitment. And let me just say a word about the more. So beyond WUI, we get statistical zero-knowledge with quasi-poly simulation. For example, we get adaptive soundness of this protocol. So X can be chosen even based on the first message. We still get soundness. We get statistically strong WUI in the delayed input setting and more, which I don't have time to... Thank you. We have time for questions. And why do you need that small probability in the chemical sketch to be instantiable? Yes, yes. Why is the solution that's probably not small? Yes, so the question is why is it sufficient that the probability is small? And the reason is, even if it's small, if in that case, I'll give you the intuition, it's kind of hard to say precisely, but the intuition is even if with small probability, he can cheat. In fact, it means what we show is that he can, with that probability, the two of the mind, you can set K, you can set that probability as you want. With that probability, he'll be able to distinguish. You can break the underlying commitment, the modes. And so that's how a... Because we know that in another case, you can't cheat. And in this case, you can cheat, then I know you weren't that mode, not that mode. And so we rely heavily on the fact that these modes, you cannot distinguish between them. That's the... Any more questions? So let's take care again.


The narcissist wants you to fear them. They want to keep you in a state of fear They want you to be afraid of them. The narcissist wants you to fear them Because they use fear to control you When you think that they are dangerous or that they are likely to cause pain or be a threat with you It gives them power over you It gives them the ability to direct and influence your behavior and the course of events Because it leaves you walking on eggshells It leaves you to become extremely cautious about your words or actions Where you were very careful not to offend or upset them You tone yourself down to make them all comfortable Which only suits their agenda While putting yours on the back burner Which is why fear is so important to them They have to keep you in a state of fear to keep you under their control Because if you weren't afraid You could act however you choose to You could do whatever you want to do You would be free and they wouldn't be able to contain you But there's nothing physically stopping you from doing what you want to do It's just that fear of what the narcissist might do That is keeping you under their control It's very similar to how people tame wild elephants When the elephant is a baby they tie a rope around its ankle The elephant may try to escape But every time the elephant tries to do that it may get attacked Eventually the elephant doesn't even need to be attacked Just the feeling that the elephant keeper is going to harm it Is enough to keep it under control So all the elephant keeper might have to do is look at the elephant Eventually There doesn't even need to be a rope attached to the elephant Because the elephant has been conditioned to believe that it cannot escape So even without the rope tied around its ankles The elephant will not even try to leave Which is very similar to how narcissists use fear to control their victims They may place conditions on you in the beginning But eventually you just give up You accept that there's nothing you can do You experience a sense of powerlessness Which is known as learned helplessness Which has a rise from a traumatic event or persistent failure to succeed Because no matter what you do or the narcissist you can never win All of your efforts to succeed will only lead to failure Which eventually just makes you stop trying This is how narcissists control their victims By making them fear an undesirable outcome By making them doubt themselves And it also gives them narcissistic supply It makes them feel powerful It makes them feel like they are in control And it is not good for you It affects the choices you might otherwise make It prevents your healing So you should not let fear become a part of who you are Narcissists want to be admired They want you to regard them with respect and warm approval But once you see through their game They will want you to fear them Because they are also afraid They're afraid of rejection and abandonment They're afraid of being exposed And they think that if they can keep you in a state of fear It will prevent you from leaving them It will prevent you from trying to expose them So they will try to project their fears and insecurities onto you In the hope that it will keep you under control When you are afraid of the narcissist You're just giving your power away And they're just going to use that power on you They're going to use it to control you They want you to anticipate what they might do next They want you to be walking on eggshells They want you to be paranoid and hyper-vigilant So that you submit to them and then they can have authority over you So they will always have something for you to fear To make you feel like there's nothing you can do As though you are trapped with them And the fear is a part of that trap They use fear to trap you Which is why you need to recognize That being afraid of the narcissist is not going to serve you Unless you use that fear to take action Unless you use it to protect yourself You cannot trust someone who wants you to fear them You cannot trust that they are going to do what is right for you They want to keep you in a state of fear Because they only care about themselves They're not concerned with how it affects you Some victims think that the narcissist is powerful and fearless Because they're able to keep you in a state of fear But they're actually more afraid of you than you are of them That's why they want you to be afraid of them Because they see you as a threat Everything they do is out of fear That is why they seek power and control Which they take from you by making you fear them The narcissist wants you to fear them But fearing the narcissist is not going to serve you in any way Unless you use it to take action When you learn to manage your fear The narcissist will immediately notice this And they will try to intimidate you even more But if you stand your ground They will eventually give up They're not going to keep beating a dead horse They're not going to waste their energy on a lost cause Or on a situation that cannot be changed Thank you for watching I hope this video resonated with you Please like, comment, share and subscribe If you would like to donate My PayPal link is in the video description Coaching Inquiries You can email me at Thank you for watching and I'll talk to you soon