Post-Modern Enlightenment

Cracked Tackles Racism and Sexism in Film

2012-02-26T15:03:00.005-08:00

I sometimes a read Cracked. I tend to stay away from Cracked for the same reason I like to stay away from TV Tropes - I value my time, and I find that if someone links me to Cracked or TV Tropes, I can pretty much sign off on a few hours of my life easily. If I'm bored and I can't find anything to read online, however, I will certainly take a spin down the rabbit hole. I've actually learned some things from Cracked - but only because I was able to go back and double check the sources (okay, call me anal about it. I don't care - I don't like using Wikipedia as a primary source. I prefer to use their sources, which they've so neatly categorized as the bottom of the page for me).

I keep an eye on racism and I talk a lot about racism at length. As I get closer to releasing my novel, I find myself keeping a close eye on the discussion of race in the media. I always find it interesting when, in what seems to be the sea of sewage and nerdy white-boy American privilege that is the Internet, something rational and sensible raises it's head. It's even more interesting when that something is on a rather large site like Cracked, which is actually part of that nerdy white-boy American privilege on the Internet.

Thus, we arrive at two Cracked articles - 5 Old-Timey Prejudices That Still Show up in Every Movie and Hollywood's 6 Favorite Offensive Stereotypes.

First, a note about Hollywood.

Conservatives like to rail on about "Liberal Hollywood" and how "Hollywood likes to shove liberal values in everyone's face." All you need are two functioning braincells to see that this - sadly - isn't the case. Hollywood is corporate owned and operated by large studios. Corporations tend to be either very flexible and progressive or staid and conservative. Banks and financial institutions tend to be staid and conservative. Tech companies tend to be flexible and progressive, although maybe not in the ways that we would like them be progressive. Biomedical companies are progressive. Pharming tech companies are usually fairly progressive, although businesses that are into marketing usually are not.

Guess where Hollywood falls on that?

If you guessed that Hollywood was fairly conservative, you're right. The Hollywood corps that run the show do not like to take risks. If they have a formula that they know works they don't want to take risks with it - why fix something if it's not too broken? - and will milk it for all it's worth. Now, Hollywood isn't conservative in the sense that it takes the same view of sex as a five-year-old (like many conservatives), but it's conservative in the sense that it panders to a population dynamic that is viewed as the majority, and has continued to do so because it's worked. The bottom line out-weights entertainment value and the humanity of the characters presented there in. Anything not geared to the "majority" (White males - majority is in quotation marks because 49% of the population is not a majority) is considered either a "niche" market or a risk that only smaller studios take on, and therefore, don't get the pull that the larger, big budget movies get.

Hollywood is not liberal. There is nothing progressive at all about Hollywood. Oh, sure, it can pander movies that on the surface appear to be progressive, but we progressives need to watch it. Otherwise we can find ourselves caught in the Kansas City Shuffle TV Tropes calls a Reactionary Fantasy. One of the ways of avoiding getting tripped up in this ("What do you mean women are over-sexualized in comics? Men are too! Look at how powerful and strong and masculine Namor is in his thong and rippling muscles, and marvel as I miss the point of the whole statement to begin with, because boy wouldn't I want to look like that!") is to be aware of privilege and where you stand in the social order, and even then, that's not an entirely foolproof way.

It's why it's important to listen to other people. We can't know everything, and we listen to others and hear what they say about these issues. They may see it when we didn't.

Cracked does a good job about pointing out a lot of the more blatant ones. What's funny is even though these things are really goddamn blatant, and people have expressed outrage over them before, Conservative Hollywood apparently doesn't listen (doesn't that sound familiar? That could be any corporation or government on the face of the planet). Say hello, Avatar: The Last Airbender.

In the first article, 5 Old-Timey Prejudices That Still Show Up in Every Movie, Cracked swings the baseball bat at a few of the more common "tropes" that feature prominently in major motion pictures. I'm not going to do them all - just the ones that jump out to me, and dissect the points myself.

#5 - Interracial Dating

Here's a quick way to tell if you're racist and sexist as a white man. How do you feel about a white woman dating a black man? If it doesn't bother you, then you've already made a few big steps into the world of understanding how both sexism and racism operate (but it doesn't mean you aren't either; it just means you've made some big steps away from them), even if you're not privy to the jargon that gets used in race and gender studies. If it does bother you, stop and ask why. Odds are, we both know what the answer is. Now here's another one - How would you feel about your daughter dating a black man?

This one is ugly, because it invokes both racism and sexism and double standards. A white man can go around the world and fuck any woman he pleases, regardless what color she is. It's his "privilege", and he expresses that by bedding any pretty woman of any race that he finds. Only the white man can do that now, mind you. If he's black, he better damn well keep away from our white women (notice: the possessive pronoun. The women belong to "us", with "us" being a stand in for "white males"). White women are not allowed to make decisions for themselves. Non-white women are blow-up dolls that get fucked by the white protagonist. That black man better stay the hell away form our white women, and just deal with women who aren't white. The privilege of being white and male is on full display. Women of color must submit to the mighty white penis. The white woman must submit, but that's because she's the property of the white man, and being such, only the white man can fuck her. I'm being vulgar here, but this is a very vulgar trope, so it deserves it. This has white privilege painted on it, was dunked in it, and was beat to death with the white male privilege stick.

This is not progressive at all. This is the ultimate reactionary fantasy. It's a very ugly reactionary fantasy, too. This is one I've been aware of for some time; because of it, I made Renee's mom white and her dad Korean. I'm well aware of how that fantasy plays out, because I've held it at one point. I can't begin to examine the many different ways this clusterfuck of misogyny and racism ties operates. Women are property, and white man can go out and steal any other piece of property that he wants so long as those men of color aren't stealing his. It makes me ill. As a white man, these women - whether white or not - are not there for me to mentally fuck or live through the action of this offensive stand-in for me. Let me say this again, to all of the white man out there who aren't aware of this or haven't read it before: women in general, not just women of color, are not stage props in the play of life for you to fuck. They are people. Why the hell is this any different in movies? I can't even begin to get into the ways this makes me ill. Maybe I'm being too blunt. Or maybe I'm not being blunt enough.

Displaying an interracial couple - a black man and white woman - in a movie where the movie isn't about the fact that they're interracial would be a very progressive thing, and the first step towards moving away from the rampant racism and sexism in Hollywood.

#4-3: Women and their sexuality

Chalk this one up to men making excuses about female sexuality: "It's so hard to understand what women are saying, you know?" No, I don't know. Part of it is because I fucking listen. It can be difficult to understand what anyone is thinking, not just women, if you're not listening. Women don't come with a brain any different from the one males possess. It's got different levels of the same chemicals, but the chemicals themselves don't change. Women don't speak this cryptic code that men need their own code-cracker to understand. Furthermore, and most importantly, women are not a monolithic group. What is true of one woman may not be true of another, in the same way that while some men are ass-enema fratbois, others are not.

Figuring out female sexuality is not hard. It works just the same way that male sexuality does - I want to feel good, too. Ultimately, that's why we have sex as a species. Because it feels good. It's not hard to understand. And even this may not be true in some cases - it's not because women are complicated, but because people are complicated. Men can be just as complicated, if not more complicated, than women can. Men have a lot more hangups. Men are lot more sensitive about sexuality. A lot more possessive. Their sexuality gets embodied in the media through negative traits - men can't help themselves, men don't have self control, etc - and men are raised to believe this. But even then, men are not a monolithic group, either. This is just another example of how feminism helps men like it helps women; moving beyond this notion that these are traits that make up the core of male sexuality. It's not just because I'm GQ and I identify as both sexes, or either sex at any given time. It's just not that complicated. Stop painting women like they're a monolithic group, and stop pretending like all men have difficulty communicating with women and like there's this huge gap between the sexes, and this problem will usually go away.

4 represents a different aspect of sexuality. I like to look at a pretty woman as much as the next man does (although I don't mind looking at nice looking guys, either), but Hollywood has one standard of beauty (the airbrushed, photoshopped light-skinned standard) and everyone is expected to hold to that standard. Once again, I should hope that men know they're more complicated than that, and that they hold varying degrees of standards - "beauty is in the eye of the beholder." Because Hollywood holds this one standard of beauty and society is expected to hold to it, it becomes sexist. If society acknowledged that there was more than one standard for beauty, guess what? This stops being sexist (so long as the women aren't the only characters dying or they aren't being killed off in spectacularly malicious ways).

#2 and 1 - white people only want to see white people

This is one that I've been aware for a long time, and it's insulting. I wouldn't mind seeing a movie with a POC in the lead role (in fact, I want them to remake the Spiderman movies with the current Ultimate Spiderman - a half-black/half-Puerto Rican young man - in the lead role. That'd be awesome). I find interesting that they'd bring Will Smith out as the exception, because it's true - he is the exception. Smith is a good actor - Roland took a risk with Smith in the movie Independence Day (a movie with plenty of other problems, but lots of stuff blowing up, which is good) when he made him the protagonist. It's sad to say it was a risk, but ultimately, it paid back. I liked him a lot in Men in Black and Men in Black II, and I think other people see he's talented, too.

But this is what I was talking about with Hollywood being staid and conservative. They took the risk once - okay, but they don't want to do it again. They're too scared to. In their minds, the audience is white male, and obviously white males only want to see other whites as the protagonists. Anything else is niche. This is incredibly offensive because you're assuming something about me, being white, that simply isn't true. This is true a lot of times, and there's more than a few people who agree with me, but Hollywood hasn't gotten the memo yet. And they likely won't change - which is why smaller, indie studios and home-made movies are going to be the way of the future. They'll appeal to an increasingly variable demographic, while Hollywood continues to appeal towards a demographic that's dying off and going away. It's like what the Republicans have done, but Hollywood has a little longer to last because most of their demographic aren't in their 60s, using walkers to get around, and taking medicine for osteoporosis.

The next article deals with a bunch of stereotypes, as you can tell by the title. A lot of them have you looking around and saying "wait, they still use that?" But like all reactionary entertainment, if you're not careful, you won't notice it.

- The Magical Negro
This is an old trope, and it's brought about mostly by white liberal guilt. Here's this black man, who's old, who has no ambition at all but is more "earthly" and "wise" than the white man he's acting with. He's very forgiving, and he works to try and make the white man better. This is the liberal guilt fantasy. Never once does he get in whitey's face for all of the shit that he goes through on a daily basis. Never once does he bring up the ugly history, and rightly point out that he owes whitey here nothing because, after all, when did it become his job?

This is just as racist as any other trope, and it's sad to see so many liberals fall into it. I feel guilty because I'm white and liberal, and therefore, I'll create this magical fictional character who is better than my white protagonist, more down to earth, but at the same time is patient with him and forgiving with him and will never get in his face or get angry with him. *Glares daggers at Stephen King*

It's not just black people who this is restrained too. I've seen the Magical Queer variant, and I've seen the Magical Native American. In all cases, it's the same thing - straight white male needs to be taught a lesson by minority individual who is patient and forgiving and doesn't tell him "go find it your own fucking self." This is trope is probably one of the reasons why so many men are put off in discussions of race and feminism. They come in expecting to be treated with patience - just like they see in the movies - and get told that they need to go learn themselves because nobody is obligated to teach them jack (which is 100% true), and they get uppity. That's not the way this supposed to turn out. That's how this is supposed to happen.

Where's the Magical Negro/Queer/Woman who's going to hold my hand and patiently explain to me why I'm an asshole? This is putting the responsibility of educating whitey for all of his privilege on the individual who doesn't have any, which is an insult to say the absolute least.

- The gay psychopath
Cracked does a really good job with explaining all the ways this one is wrong. Just because someone doesn't fall into the typical spectrum of what's expected of men doesn't mean they can be used for cheap thrills to undermine what is expected of male sexuality. And just because they flip the stereotype of male sexuality the finger doesn't mean they're deviants. While I'm not against having gay villains (I'd like to see more gay characters. Well written gay characters), when "Being gay" is their sole character trait, we have a huge problem. And far too often, being a sexual "deviant" is a trait of villains. This short hand is an ugly stereotype that needs to go away.

- The Latina Maid
This one ties into the business of interracial dating in more recent movies. I attempted to unravel that clusterfuck of racism, sexism, unhealthy sexual views and privilege further up-post; I don't have any desire to rehash that. Instead, let's look at what else this carries with it:

While there may be some truth to it (there's also truth to the fact that there are white house keepers too, but you rarely see those), it shows POC as being in a position of servitude for the white protagonist of the film. And if you don't think there's anything wrong with that, when it's shown over and over and over and over again, it's going to impact the way that people view those POCs - especially when those POCs don't have any protagonists of their own in mainstream entertainment.

I have two Latin characters in my novel. Maria, who's Sephardi, and Maggie, a bottom-rung FBI agent that the team later starts working with. Neither woman has an accent when they speak English, and neither woman ever steps down from their position of authority over the protagonist - in a sense, they the two authority figures, and are the face of responsible, even-handed authority in the novel. The Party has all the white men in the world running it, but Renee doesn't worry about them. She's held accountable by her adopted mother (Maria) and her "supervisor" (Maggie).

So there you have it. Even Cracked has the potential to be progressive at times. I know, surprising, right?

This is Absolutely Amazing

2012-02-25T21:06:00.000-08:00

I can't muster full commentary on this, other than how absolutely incredible this video is.

Listen in awe as Irish President, Michael D. Higgins, trashes the shit of this TEA Bagging ignoramus.

Full video found here.

"So be proud to be an American, rather than a wanker whipping up fear"
- Michael D. Higgins

Why can't we have politicians like this guy? Why?

The Third Position of Centrism

2012-02-24T11:12:00.000-08:00

In the United States, there is this mythical existence called "centrism." If you listen to our media, or our political parties, there's always a call for bipartisanship. There's always this idea that, if you call the right out for being the frothy fucking liars they are, then you've got to be "balanced" and reassure the population that the leftists are just as bad. You have to appeal to this mythical centrist unicorn; this rare, neigh invisible creature that exists less as a corporeal entity and more as an idea that is aspired to.

It isn't an idea we need to aspire to reach. Centrism is not a good thing. Being middle of the road doesn't make you more "mature", and it doesn't mean you put anymore thought into your positions than someone on either extreme of the political spectrum. A centrist is someone who hasn't decided anything, doesn't believe in anything, and doesn't take a stand for anything. A fence-setter - that is, someone who always answers poll questions like "Do you think the sky is blue" with "undecided" - is a centrist. I'm not saying you need to be an extremist, I'm just saying that centrism is not a state to aspire to. In a way, centrism is every bit as dangerous as extremism.

Centrism is not revolutionary. Centrism is reactionary. Centrism is a toxic, destructive force - it is not "capitalism with a human face." It's "corporatism with a Citizen's United mask".

In the United States, at least, the so-called "Centrist" alignment has been always closely identified as not being absolutely centrist but right of center. Nixon's "Silent Majority" - the people who supported the Vietnam War, who wanted to maintain "traditional values" in the face of the radical left asking for things "unnatural" and "immoral" things like integration and racial/sex equality, and - were the epitome of the "centrist ideal." If you look at centrists in the United States, and a lot of positions that self-described centrists take, they're actually on the political right. They may not be as far right as the people I usually criticize, but they are on the right. They take umbrage with you calling liars liars. They say you can't call someone who is clearly a toxic idiot an idiot. "You call your opposition idiots," they say, "therefore, you loose all credibility and prove that the left is just as bad as the political right." Never mind there's nothing else I can call them.

What do you call a man like Santorum? Evil? Wretched? Abhuman? A fucking movie projector, complete with screen? You can't call them any of that, according to the centrist, because it's uncivil and it damages the debate (what debate? You don't debate with petulant six year olds. You don't debate with Republicans, either). Because the centrist uses a shorter stick to measure the left than they do the right, which makes sense since many centrists are right of center. So why aren't they noticing it?

There's an interesting phenomena happening in the United States right. There's a political theory called the "Overton Window" - which describes a metaphorical "window" for public discourse. To move an Overton Window, all one needs is a weight on the other end. The Overton Window in America has slid to the right. It know it seems count of counter-productive, when you think about it: all of the greater menaces to society are right-wingers. It's obvious they're right-wingers. They make no bones about it. Why on Earth would they pull this country to the political right?

It's actually pretty easy to understand. See, my theory on this is that as long as the extremists are identifying as Right-wing, the so-called "centrists" don't have to. They can shuck the label, pointing to the extreme right and saying "see them? that's right wing. Those fuckers are nuts. I'm not like them. I'm a centrist, because I oppose their policies and I oppose yours, you dangerous radical leftist." In no longer being forced to identify as that label, they can still adopt some things that they feel sympathy for - that is, the belief in "traditional" marriage, lower taxes all around, privatization and smaller government while saving the unborn babies - without having to identify as politically right. When the political right is collapsing and blowing up gynecologist offices and punishing women for being women, the centrists can shake their heads and go "tsk tsk tsk, shame on you" without demanding that they stop. They can support cutting the pay for politicians, because clearly they don't do their job, and it never seems to occur that by cutting pay you'll get the ones who really do know what they're doing out there, and the crappy ones will find other ways to make up for it (plus, this becomes a race to the bottom. I didn't think we were trying to get there any faster than we already were. Instead of cutting their pay, how about raising ours and trying to teach them empathy - or, better yet, electing ones that know what they're doing?) This is similar to what you see with racists and sexists; "I don't go around calling people cunts, so obviously I'm not a sexist. Never mind that I don't like listening to women talk about stuff that isn't important to me, that they shouldn't have any say about what happens in entertainment not clearly directed at them (like comic books or video games), and that they noisy ones propagating misandry[1] in our culture." Or, "I obviously haven't called anyone a 'nigger' lately, so clearly I'm not racist. I just wish you Black people would be quiet about racism, because it makes me uncomfortable, and stop reverse discriminating against me as a White guy." In my mind, it's the same thing. "I haven't blown up an abortion clinic, so clearly I'm not right-wing by any measure, never mind I'm undecided about Global Warming, thing we need a smaller government, unions should be illegal because they kill competition, we should make abortion illegal in all but a handful of circumstances, and don't think gays and lesbians should be allowed to marry."

Not helping this is the toxic notion of "balance." This drive for "balance" is what causes CNN to become FOX news lite by hiring people like Dana Loesch. It's only "balanced" if you point out that the left wingers are just as bad as the right wingers, but never call the right wingers out for being the lairs they are and let their claims go unchallenged. Our Media strives for this centrist bullshit, likely thinking that they can appeal to the majority of people by "letting us decide" without giving us all the facts of the story for fear of being biased. This is generous. In some cases, these networks are outright lying because they have their own agenda, but even when they lie, they play to that centrist image. For example, CNN.

Centrism in the United States is polemic and empty populist rhetoric. It always is. And the scary thing is this - I don't see the United States moving any further to the left anytime soon. The Right is going to collapse, but in the process, the only remaining party will be a centrist one. And given how centrism has slid to the right over the past 20 years, where do you think we'll be in another 20 years, providing we even last that long? Will "centrism" continuing moving further and further right?

Another dramatic shift will send this country careening off of the right end of the spectrum. Polls reveal that the population is taking some liberal positions on some issues, but how long will those last? Until the centrist window is moved further away from them? Until the centrists decide that arresting gays and lesbians is a good position to take, and they're not extreme right because the extreme right advocates killing them?

I can't say. All I know is that these next few decades may be some scary ones. Fasten your seatbelt and hold on tight, kids. The "warning: turbulence" sign has flashed on, and the ride might be rather bumpy. In the meantime, we should take to shouting down centrism where we find it, too - since centrism is just a "less toxic" version of the greater evil that we're already struggling against. There are certain things you cannot compromise on: racial equality, marriage equality, gender and sexual equality, civil rights, and reducing economic disparity. And we shouldn't even attempt compromise here, regardless who is calling for it - centrists or extreme-right wingers.

[1] I am both amused and delighted that Java doesn't recognize this stupid word. While there may be a few cases of misandry, to claim that there's system-wide misandry is ridonkulously stupid and just another show of male privilege. "Misandry" is like this ghost called "reverse racism." It's what happens when stuffy White guys get their undies in a bunch because they have to share with POCs and women (and heaven forbid they be women POCs who are also GLBTs).

Why I'm Voting for Satan

2012-02-21T16:21:00.000-08:00

Apparently, Rick Santorum isn't running against Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich. He said so himself, which likely suggests why he's going to loose. Instead, Santorum is running against the father of all lies himself - ~~himself~~ Satan.

I don't care who he's running against, that's who I'm voting for. Go ahead and pony Carpathescu up here. I'll vote for the dude, so long as he ain't Santorum. Hell, if anything, I know for certain he's got a better grasp of geography than 90% of Americans, because knowing Burma isn't in Africa is EVIL YO. But, in fact, I can make a very strong case why you should be voting for Satan and the Antichrist, not least of all because he isn't Santorum.

I could just as easily devote a whole post to mocking the hell out of that "HOLY SHIT WTF SPEECH O.O" Santorum gave instead, and that will come with time. For now, I'm going to spell out why Satan is the better of two supposed evils in our society.

First, let me spell this out very clearly: you should never vote for Santorum because he will never win. And if he does by some dark miracle win - which I highly, highly doubt - well, you pretty much voted the antichrist himself in office anyway, so everyone loses.

Now then, with that out of the way, here are the reasons to support Satan, gathered from the positions and planks of his party that the Right keeps saying that he possesses:

Satan supports marriage equality, women's rights, and an end to discrimination and racism. He's a very busy fellow on this front, especially when you consider all the people he's duped into believing equality is a good thing, rather than living under heel and toe of an intolerant majority.
Satan is all about the future. He wants to get rid of the past, and undermine the past, and apparently lie about the past by making sure that people know what really happened. While I'm on this topic, it's also apparent that Satan is all about arguments from facts and figures, as opposed to 1,000 year old myths and legends.
Satan is all about removing barriers and making people comfortable in their own bodies, as opposed to having a stick rammed up their ass 24/7 because how dare women go around wearing bikinis and shit. As opposed to the childish, prudish view about sexuality that takes sex and turns it into something dirty and nasty while lauding violence (so long as it's against the right people, mind you).
Satan is against the MI-Complex. He supports cuts to it, while expanding social welfare and social safety nets like SS and Medicare/Medicate. He also supports a Universal Healthcare System, with dental and eye coverage rolled into that. He wants to make sure that you're not bankrupt if you happen to get cancer because God's pissed at you or something, or if you're hurt in one of the earthquakes that God caused because he was mad about gay marriage (sorry New Hampshire, he was aiming for California. He must've lost his glasses again), you can still survive and won't get crushed under a mountain of debt.
Satan is for world peace and finding non-violent solutions that don't involve bombing brown people who speak funny not-English languages. He's also for helping the Palestinian people, who really need it right now, and supports the United Nations. I mean, you have to support something you're eventually going to use to take over the world with, right? Hey, I can only repeat what the Black Helicopter and Tin Foil Hat crew keep telling me. This means he supports unity among the world's governments, and believes that a bad peace is better than a good war.
Satan believes that the United States is a country just like any other country, with good points and bad points, and believes that we need to highlight the bad points if we want to continue surviving as a country, rather than projecting a Madonna-complex on it and putting it up on a pedestal so that nothing gets done about the very real problems it suffers from.
Satan does not believe jobs are found in the uterine cavity. He also trusts women to determine their own fate, especially on the issues of contraception and abortion. He doesn't spread lies about how Planned Parenthood is a "mega abortion industry" and how they're getting children addicted to sex so they can make money on a procedure that costs them more than they make from it. He also doesn't spread lies about contraceptives promote abortion, or how all women who use contraceptives use them because they enjoy sex (and if they do, it don't matter what you think cuz it ain't none of your fucking business). Really, you know, for being the "Father of Lies", he's not very good at this lying business.
Satan supports freedom of speech, expression, and religion. He also supports the belief that you don't have a right to not be offended, and believes that "not getting your way" doesn't mean "oppression and systematic extermination." He can understand the difference between hyperbole, fantasy, and reality, and apparently lives firmly in the reality side of that scalene triangle (*boom* - I blew up my own irony meter with that one).
Satan is also a staunch supporter of a secular government free of religion. He believes that getting religion involved in government irreparably damages both, and that the best countries are ones built on secular laws removed from any sort of religious influence. Satan also recognizes that are legal system is in no way based on the 10 Commandments and doesn't feel the need to lie constantly about how it is.
Satan supports science and science education. He believes that facts and figures should be taught as facts and figures, rather than 1,000 year old stories being taught as facts and figures. He regards scientific findings with a high degree of dignity and is always on the vanguard of new scientific findings. Satan is pro-finding cures for cancer, for HIV/AIDs, for eliminating genetic disorders and diseases, for developing technologies to help secure immortality (at least, prevent death from old age). Most of all, Satan knows the difference between the scientific use of the world "theory" and the colloquial use of the word "theory."
Satan supports intellectual pursuits and doesn't plant traps in facts and theories to get people damned like God does. He doesn't believe that pursuing facts should get you damned like God does, nor will he damn you for doing it like God will. Satan believes in a free and open education system, which you'd think God would too because he loves damnation so much, but apparently not.
Satan supports public transportation and infrastructure spending, bringing our 80 year old infrastructure up to speed with the rest of the developed world, as opposed to clinging fast to a past that never existed. He also supports making this infrastructure available to the bulk of people.
Satan supports ending the war on drugs, and stopping a trillion dollar waste of public funds that drains resources throughout society and encourages the militarization of police and the gradual erosion of our rights as citizens. Satan is also an figure who questions authority, and doesn't think we should willingly submit because Christian Mighty Whitey the "I have a penis so that makes me spesshul" Male Senator told us too.
And lastly, Satan supports green technology and government spending on green technology, and planting the road to green infrastructure so we have something later, and he also believes in unified governments working together to combat this thing called "global warming," which it clearly isn't because *gasp* it's winter and snowing.

So, overall, I think we can reasonably conclude that this Satan dude isn't so bad. He deserves our vote. Shame he's about as real as any other politician, huh?

World Building Part 2 - the Governing Agencies

2012-02-20T15:10:00.000-08:00

In the first post, I took a long look at the way in which I set about starting to build a fantasy world, and explained a little bit about the history that I have with the genre. As is to be expected, I like my fantasy forward thinking - progressive, avant garde, and one where the rules are internally consistent to my specifications. Works where one pines for the good ol' days, when the good king John ruled from the throne and the monarchy made sure the trains rain on time by keeping a highly stratified society in which the shit flowed down hill but not much else is not something I aspire to. There are plenty of different government styles, and as I start to build my worlds, I look to those. Any society that has an autocratic ruler is not likely going to be one that I aspire to by any means.

Far too often, I think, the government style of a fantasy world gets overlooked. "Let's just throw a king or pope or some other autocrat in there and get it over with, and move on." The problem with this is that you end up with so many examples of autocracy the entire genre begins to look anti-democratic. Not helping matters is the notion that heroes can only be "chosen ones" and are "much larger than life." Heroes in fiction aren't necessarily supposed to loom larger than life. Heroes in fiction aren't necessarily supposed to be leaders, nor are they supposed to be demi-gods who discover that they're the lost king. They don't necessarily have to be one of a select few who can wield magic/psionics/whatever.

Take for example Human Black Box. Chloe, Zira, and Anjali all look larger than life to us right now, but that's because they live in a world where it's possible. The thing to remember is that they're relatively normal, and in some ways, inferior, to others in their world. Chloe, Zira, Anjali and the other characters in HBB are otherwise normal people in this society. The thing is, technology has advanced society so much that even normal people are on a level playing field with the heroes of old fantasy and mythology. For instance, in a recent Eclipse Phase session I had, the players sleeved inside of modified Olympian morphs and reenacted the myth of the Calydonian boar hunt. While something like that is still a bit beyond the capacity of the average individual - the Olympian cost an arm and a leg and the creation of the boar pod that housed the AGI role-playing as the Calydonian boar was itself tremendously expensive - the stuff is there for them. They, for the most part, are not particularly wealthy. They have average occupations, if they have one. They were able to sleeve into a body and relive a tale form Ancient Greek mythology, and in some ways, even outpaced the mythological heroes. Normal people, outpacing mythology. This is what equality and transhumanism is about. Making that technology available to everyone so everyone can do it is what being technoprogressive is about. While it's hard to directly mirror the philosophies in fantasy, the values can carry over with a little work.

Because I can't rely on technology in my setting, and having magic as is usually presented skews the power structure away from the average folk - with industrialization not really helping - I have to keep this in mind. The normal person is where I start when I build a world, because I don't expect my heroes to be much more than them.

Selecting the government style and setting the world up for the average person ensures a world that's deeper and more expansive than one that's built around the heroes first. It also requires a lot more work, but it's not something that's impossible. Selecting the government style first also determines, in subtle ways, what kind of economy you're looking at. Because the economy is scarcity-based, with some things more scarce than others, I'm going to be looking towards the "classical" economic theories, rather than some new, bleeding edge economic theory for a society that's passed the scarcity-level. It also determines in subtle ways the levels of freedom that your average folks - and by extension, the heroes - will have. So with all this in mind, I set about trying to determine what kind of governments I was looking at.

Recall that I gave a rough idea what the world was like in my last post. It's a mostly desert world, with civilization clinging along the Western coast of a continent. There are large mountains that separate it from a vast, expansive desert. It has a couple of different biomes, from dense jungle further south along the coast to rough Sahel, savanna, and several different types of desert. The climate is probably going to be Mediterranean, with Tropical further to the south. I don't have a solid map yet, only a rough image in my head of what I'm after. At the end of the day, the map is usually one of the last things I do, after I've got a concrete idea what I want from this world and what it's going to look like.

Recall predominate influence was going to be Arabic and North African, with a substantial minority influence from East Africa (Ethiopia in particular) and West Africa. The land was going to be a collection of city-states, at varying degrees of wealth and unity with one another, with different approaches, with tribes scattered around them. At least a handful of the city-states in the Eastern Mountains were going to be different as they were directly influenced by Ethiopia, while some to the south were going to be West African. Technology level was going to vary, although the more technologically advanced city-states were steampunk and industrialized. Magic existed in the form of crystals or glass shards that was used in a form of alchemical thaumaturgy, to manipulate the classic elements - earth, fire, wind, water, and a fifth one, glass. Without a shard of this glass, there would be no alchemical thaumaturgy. Theurgy would be practiced by the clerics of the various religions, most of which were monotheist with the exception of the animist religions to the south.

So, when I'm setting up a government, I have to look at the rough hash of the society that I've got:

It's a collection of city-states. They're not all going to be the same. It's influenced by industrialization in some parts, and not in others. This disparity suggests economic disparity.
City-states that are less wealthy than others are more likely to be autocratic, although this isn't a rule so much as it is a guideline. City-States with less wealth are also likely to be less technologically advanced.
Magic - or alchemical thaumaturgy, as it's professionally called - is done with glass shards. These glass shards must be mined/gotten somehow from nature. This makes them the very picture of scarcity. Depending upon how I wanted to play this out, I could use them as an analogy for oil, in much the same way that Dune used spice as a stand in for oil and CHON as a stand in for OPEC, which suggests the existence of entities that cross city-state lines - NGOs, as it were.
Tying together points two and three - if I do have the presence of some sorts of NGOs, which would likely be large economic bodies or entities united to pursue a common interest in the production or sale of some type of good(s) (let's call them corporations for now), the door opens up to have these NGOs use and abuse less technologically and monetarily advantaged city-states. These NGOs, depending upon how powerful I wanted them to be, could range from anywhere to the wealth of the strongest city-state, or even more powerful. They would also be a unification among the city-states, which would mean that conflict between them would be reduced, but not outright eliminated. Instead, most of the conflict within the city-states at the mercy of these corporations would internal class warfare. As far as economic disparity goes, in favor of corporations, I have a few government/economic plans I can choose. However, capitalism is far and away the most obvious choice, so I'll keep this in the back of my mind.
I have to keep in mind the societies I'm drawing from. To call hospitality a "big thing" in the Middle East is a huge understatement. The environment will require that people work together to survive; if you do your own thing, you'll likely starve to death in the desert. Throughout Africa, tribal loyalties seem to be more important than nationalistic identities, based on my watching from the outside (although this isn't clear cut by any means, and based just on my assumptions. In some cases I'm sure that there are people who identify themselves as Kenyan first and a particular tribe they belong to second). Both of these suggest insular cultures, based around the family unit in a way that Western Society is not, and one based around the community. So my corporations will either look very different from Western ones, or they're going to be very unwelcome.

As you can see, I'm looking at economics and I'm looking at government styles, while keeping in mind society models. My next step is going to be determining just how many city-states I'm actually going to have. Before I do this, however, I need to determine a rough idea of where I want them; city-states that collect together a generally similar in someways, because it's easier for ideas to trade between them if they're closer. Thus, it's helpful if I take a look and break the map up into "zones", so I know where I'm putting what. Here's what I have so far - it's by no means a complete map, and in fact, it's barely even a rough one, but it helps with the visualization:

As you can see, I divided the territory up into 6 rough zones. Zone-1 is the wealthiest Zone, because it has a privileged position along the coast, where the climate is probably more forgiving. Zone-3 is likely going to be similar to Zone-1, but it's not as wealthy because it doesn't have that wide of an area. Zone-2 is probably the next step down, home to the poorer city-states, because they're pushed back towards the mountains. Zone-4 is further to the north, and it covers a larger area spanning from the mountains to the coast. This should suggest a wealthy city-state, but that depends upon what kind of terrain we're dealing with. I suspect the further north you go the harsher the land becomes, so while Zone-4 has a good position, spanning across the inhabitable part of the continent, it also occupies one of the most mineral poor. The city-states in Zone-4 are likely to be some of the poorest. Zone-5 is our Ethiopian-influence zone; it's mostly located in the mountains, but it's also situated in the desert. I suspect it'll be in a similar position to Zone-4, in that it's relatively mineral poor. However, the mountains suggest the existence of things like coal - which would be very useful for the steam technology of the city-states in Zone-1. So Zone-5 has economic leverage by being situated on the mountains, even if it would have a rough time using it. Zone-6 is the last of the zones, at the very bottom and either bordering or being pushed right into the denser tropical jungles to the south. Jungles are notoriously poor for agriculture, but they can hold quite a few resources. So once again, Zone-6 is probably in a similar boat to Zone-5; it has resources it can trade, unlike 4, but it might not have the monetary leverage to make use of them.

The benefit of breaking them up into zones like that is that I can speak broadly about a large area, and then go in and tweak and redefine as needed. It didn't just start existing - it always existed. See how it matches the city-states around it in culture and economic status?

This also isn't to say that there won't be rich city-states in Zones 4 through 6, or poor city-states in Zones 1 through 3. However, this is me looking at averages for the moment, and determining broad cultures from economic and environmental conditions present. So Zones 1-3 tend towards wealthy, powerful city-states while 4-6 do not.

Some potential points of conflict also become visible. In particular, the range of mountains that belongs to Zone-2, where Zones 2 and 5 meet. Zone-3 is squeezed by Zones 6 and 1; a particularly expansionist leader would turn their eye to the north before they did the south, so there might be some potential for conflict there as well.

So, here's what the economic map looks like:

With all this in mind, I can start looking at the government styles and the philosophies of the particular Zones. The well-off nature of Zone-1 does not necessarily mean there's no economic inequality - in fact, it'd be fun to have it mean the exact opposite. However, I want to avoid having governments where the Sultan or Sheik has a lot of power. In fact, in Zone-1, the authority and power would likely belong to the corporations who run the shoe - the Industrial Sheiks, as it were (since Baron is an Germanic title, I won't use it. I wont the same connotation, though).

Because the Industrial Sheiks are the ones with the power in Zone-1, they're going to shape a government that benefits them. Enter Crony-capitalism, stage right. Since I'm leaning "Gilded Age" I might as well just give it up and go that way whole hog. Zone-1 gives the appearance of being super-wealthy, but there's arguably more disparity in Zone-1 than there is any other zone. The governments in Zone-1 are likely dictated by the Industrial Sheiks and their large corporations, or in this case, consortium, since their entities would be banding together and replicating the circumstances of the society. These are not loan-wolf corps, vying for total monopoly; these corps work well together, and are open and hospitable - to each other, anyway. To reflect that, there's a consortium of corporations that likely runs the various governments in Zone-1, using crony-capitalism as the economic vessel.

So any type of government I put in Zone-1 is likely going to be a figure-head government anyway. So I might as well go representative democracy in some of the larger city-states, or parliamentary democracies with the Sultans and Sharifs and other authority figures as figure heads with very little power. There may be a few autocracies in Zone-1, but in large, crony-capitalism, corporate consortiums, and "representative" democracies are the rule.

Zone-2 is in better shape than Zone-1 is, even though it's not as wealthy. It has a few resources, no access to the cost, but a good position as it sits right in the middle of Zones 1 and 5. I've decided that I want my glass to be found in the desert and in the mountains, giving Zones 4, 5, and 6 a huge boost. This also helps Zone 2, because Zone 5 has an idea position to mine it and ship it. There's a lot of interest in developing Zone 2 to make the shipment of the glass and other raw materials from Zone 5 to Zone 1 cheap. So Zone 2 is going to be home to relatively open societies based on trade. The downside about all this is that Zone 2 is the least likely of them all to have a unified structure; the only thing I can say about Zone 2 is that it's a melting pot for all of the other zones, being right there in the center of the map.

Governments in Zone-2 will vary. Due to the open nature of the trade, open economies that aren't state regulated are likely going to be the order, so capitalism is much more likely to be seen here than, say, socialism. However, the trade makes Zone-2 wealthy - not as wealthy as Zone-1, but wealthy in it's own right. Open trade and a even distribution of wealth would suggest that Zone-2 has a less corporatist lean, but also a less statist lean. This likely means any autocratic rulers or ruling bodies may be elected officials, due to the open nature of society. However, I can't call Zone-2 libertarian, because libertarianism - I got mine, fuck you - flies in the face of the engrained nature of the society. So I'm looking at some kind of classical anarcho-libertarianism, with a weak government, minimal corporate influence in some areas where the smaller companies in the city-state control the shipping and distribution of goods and services. Again, this is just a broad painting, but Zone-2 looks like it'll be the most open of the various city-states. At one time, it may have been the frontier - it still is in some ways.

Zone-3 is down along the coast. It's sandwiched between 1 and 6, and with a big bully like 1 to the north, it's likely a place that the corporations turn to take advantage of. Thus, Zone-3 is likely going to be a mirror of Zone-1, but with the negative qualities enhanced due to the fact that, you know, it's not Zone-1.

Zone-4 is the poorest of the bunch. I strongly expect to see a lot of autocratic governments here, ruled by unpopular rulers who hold authority because they're backed by the corporations that fund them or because they manage to direct the anger and rage of the population in other directions away from them. The mountain city-states may be more moderately wealthy, but not by much, because as a poor zone, it's the most likely exploited by the corps of Zone-1.

Zones 5 and 6 will receive special attention at a later date, once I start hammering out the minor details. They have positions that are at once privileged and unprivileged, and they differ in very large ways from the over-reaching cultures of Zones 1-4. This difference of culture will reflect in the government style, and not necessarily in positive ways.

So there we have it. I hammered out the economic and governmental zones of the different regions, named them, and drafted a small map. In the future, I plan to take a closer look at each region, and eventually name them. But for now, this will do.

Replacing Human Black Box this week...

2012-02-18T20:27:00.000-08:00

Human Black Box will not be posted this week - I'm hoping to get around to posting it next weekend. It's not that I've gotten behind - far from it - it's just that I haven't had the time to post what I have. And tonight, I've got something else on my mind, so next week HBB will resume.

Having said that, I do have a piece of fiction prepared for you. Or, rather, part of a piece of fiction. See, I'm about this close self-publishing (where this close means I'm waiting for the proofing copy, and once I've got that and I'm happy with it, I make it public. Which means sometime before my birthday in June my novel will be for sale). I've been working on this particular novel, and this particular series, for about 6 years now. Now that I've got a starting point I'm happy with, and I've gone through and proof-read multiple times and had multiple other people proof read, I'm going to publish the book.

Tonight, I'll be posting a chapter from that novel, for your enjoyment.

Please note that the material in this post is not under the Share-and-Share-alike license that the majority of my blog falls under. This material is under copyright to me.

The name of the novel is The Blue Pimpernel. The name has an interesting history in and of itself; I couldn't be sure whether or not The Scarlet Pimpernel was copyrighted and by whom, so after drafting the first few novels under the working title The Scarlet Pimpernel, I changed the title and with it, the name of the main heroine, to The Blue Pimpernel. The blue pimpernel and the scarlet pimpernel (the flowers) belong to the same family, but are two different species - they're related in the same way that modern humans and Neanderthals were related.

The main character of The Blue Pimpernel is Renee Rhee. Renee "Rene" Rhee is a 16-year-old teenager, who's living in a dystopian future society. As her last name suggests, Renee is half-Korean, on her father's side. Her mother is White. I inverted the traditional paring simply because I was sick of the way it constantly played out in fiction: White guy marries hot Asian woman and every White boy in the audience experiences the fantasy. So I undermined it. Her father, Jin-Yung Rhee, is a very handsome fellow. He's also an immigrant from North Korea. Not South Korea - North Korea. Her mother, Jane Newbury, comes from the quintessential WASP family. Renee strongly favors her father, insomuch as the majority of Americans can't tell she's half-Korean/half-White and constantly mistake her for being Chinese. She has a few distinctive genetic traits, most of them from her mother; her hair is auburn, and her eyes are bright green. Renee shares the novel with two other girls; Ofelia Stratford and Cyan Brooklyn, her best friends. Together, these three girls form the core of a group of vigilante heroines with the stated goal of excising corruption out of office.

Ofelia has white hair and pink skin, with blue eyes. She's very pretty and narrowly built (the quintessential beanpole), and very graceful, to boot. She also had crappy vision and is the least physically inclined of the girls; she can drive, but just barely, and usually wears glasses to cover for her nystagmus and near-sightedness. As her name suggests, Ofelia has Spanish ancestry, from her mom's side.

Cyan is an otherwise unremarkable White girl with auburn hair and blue eyes, who is just as athletic as Renee is, but looks younger than she is (meaning she looks younger than 16; the fact that she wears thick glasses doesn't help.) Of the three, Renee has the best eyesight of the bunch, at 20/20. Cyan is named after the color and her name is pronounced like it - SI-an (I point this out because for about 4 years I pronounced her name "SEE-an"). Ofelia calls her "Blue."

They all have similar powers, so the only difference is how they use them. They all have molecular Velcro on their gloves and feet, so they can stick to just about any surface, like a gecko. They have stealth rubber on their shoes, which allows them to jump really good. All of the girls have something similar to dilatant body-armor, which has really good shock-absorption powers and is very good at what it does. Lastly, they have goggles that do something - that is, almost everything. They can record data and share it over an intranet that the goggles link up to form, to overlay various displays in a sort of primitive-AR, to imaging sound in a sort of experimental echolocation/acoustic vision. The only girl who has something different is Cyan, who wears a meta-materials uniform that lets her make herself invisible, and project multiple copies of herself. The girls have no clear leader, and in fact, form a sort of ad hoc chain of command, with whoever can taking the lead at that moment while the others either follow along or do their own thing.

Renee is the eponymous Blue Pimpernel; a name she gave herself because when pressed for a name, her favorite flower was the only thing she could think of. She does wear a lot of blue, but doesn't theme herself after the flower. Ofelia has an unfortunate name (she's albino) - "the Ghost" - but it's a shortened form of her full hero name: "the Ghost of Hamlet". Cyan goes by the name "Mirage".

So, let's go - this isn't their first night out, but it's their first real trial by fire:

*****************

Renee’s parents had never told her that shewas experiencing the best days of her life. She never would’ve believed themanyway. However, as she pulled the gloves over hands and squeezed her fisttightly, she couldn’t help but wonder if there really was something to thatstatement. Her world was about to change – drastically.

Theday before, they’d gone out shopping. They’d picked up all of the differentthings that Renee had thought they would need – Ofelia wrote it down on a list,but Rene remembered most of it. It included marbles, jacks, zip-ties, plasticbags and several bags of chips, milk, and pop – just to throw off anysuspicion.

Reneestood in her room, waiting for Ofelia to come and get her. It was almost 9:30 –Ofelia’s mom and dad would be asleep, and Ofelia had assured Renee that shewould find a way to get them out of the house without it being suspicious ifher parents woke up. Renee hadn’t even seen Ofelia’s costume yet, and shedidn’t have a clue what it looked like.

Shepulled the last glove on and fastened the belt. The armor felt weird againsther skin; for a minute, she thought about wearing it on the outside of theshirt but opted not to. Best they not know she was wearing armor. Cyan wouldwear the armor over her suit, to protect the sensitive electronics. The batterywas one of the things that she had worried about – she put a case over it, butshe’d need to watch her back and not let them get behind her.

“Rene?”Ofelia peeked around the door.

“I’mready,” Renee said, looking at her. Her heart picked up pace, and her musclestensed. An anxious smile spread over her face. “Are you?”

“I’vebeen ready.”

Reneeshut the door behind her. “Maria and John won’t go in if I have the door shut.”

“Forgood reason,” Ofelia said, looking back at her. Renee looked away,uncomfortably.

“S-sowhat did you tell John?” Renee said, recovering a bit of dignity.

“Thatwe were out of ‘feminine hygiene products.’ And because my daddy loves us – andwas half-asleep – he nodded and said it was okay.”

“Iwonder how much of that has to do with him not wanting to deal with it.”

“Probablya lot. That’s why I asked him and not my mom.”

Theywalked into the kitchen, and the slipped silently through the back door. Beforethey did, Ofelia turned towards the android butler.

“Steinbeck?”

“Yes,Madam Ofelia?”

“We’restill here.”

“Okay.”

Andwith that, Ofelia slipped through the door and shut it behind her, making sureit was locked.

Itwas about 10:24 when they arrived. Ofelia pulled the car off Rock IslandAvenue, and tucked it away behind bushes. The last thing she did was unscrewthe license plate, and put that safely in her pockets. Renee’s heart was beatinglike a cylinder in an engine. Her muscles felt like anchoring points for alarge suspension bridge, and she had to wipe away the cold sweat that wasaccumulating on her forehead. She didn’t know how tonight would turn out, butit was a real trial by fire.

“Okay,here’s the deal,” she heard Ofelia said. “Our hero names – they’re ourcall-signs. I just learned what that word meant today, and it sounds moreprofessional than pseudonym or alias. Rene, you’re the Blue Pimpernel, like yousaid. Blue, you’re Mirage. You can call me Ghost. If you’re curious, it’s shortfor ‘the Ghost of Hamlet,’ but that’s beside the point. Anyway, I see a verylarge tower – I’ll set myself up there and send directions and everything fromthere. We’ve got a good radius on these things – I think you could be on theother side of the river and hear me. The channels are encrypted, too, sonobody’s going to be able to pick up on our conversations. If we do this right,and we time everything, we’ll catch them off guard. Here’s to hoping everythinggoes right tonight.”

“That’dbe a first,” the Pimpernel said. It was the first look she’d gotten at Ofelia’scostume. It was a pair of white pants, a white shirt, matching white gloves anda billowing white cape. The only things that stood out were the brown corset,with the dozen or so pockets on it, and the mask and goggles. It was fairlynon-descript, but stood out strongly in the darkness. “I’ve never seen you inpants before. You always wear dressesand the fancy corsets and stuff. Your costume is… pretty plain compared to whatyou normally wear.”

TheGhost fastened the mask over her face. “I know. Wild, huh? I didn’t want todamage any of my good clothes.”

Shepicked up a large duffle bag, and nodded.

“Goteverything?”

“Cuffs,bags, and something else I found.”

“Whatelse?”

“You’llsee – or, actually, you’ll hear.Don’t forget your projectiles, either.”

ThePimpernel looked back in the car and pulled out two discs and looked back,trying to find Mirage.

“Didyou go invisible, Cyan?”

“N-n-no,”Mirage said, stepping from the shadows near the car. “I’m just good at d-d-disappearing.”

“Letme know before you do.”

“Okay.”

ThePimpernel waved her hand.

“Let’sroll, Cyan.”

“I’llsee you girls in person once this is all done,” the Ghost said, racing towardsthe train tracks with them. There was nobody else around to see them, so theytook right to the empty road first; she got ahead of them, and the last thatthe Pimpernel saw of her was her billowing cape – which she had to get freefrom several trees before stepping out onto the road.

Therewas a fence that surrounded the collection of docks and warehouses. ThePimpernel looked for a side gate and found one, crawling through it and helpingMirage. Once both were inside, they ducked into the shadows.

“We’vestill got a good half-hour,” the Pimpernel said. “Let’s see if we can narrowdown the warehouses.”

Thetwo of them went their own separate ways once they were in the docks. ThePimpernel turned right and vanished into the maze of alleyways and boxes, whileMirage ran along the waterline. It took them a few seconds to get situated, andfor the Pimpernel to find a likely suspect for their warehouse.

“Jackpot.This is where they’re storing the stuff,” the Pimpernel said, climbing up onthe large crates. It was the only warehouse with anything other than cobwebs init – she felt pretty confident.

“Nota moment too soon, either,” the Ghost said, a separate window opening up on thePimpernel’s goggles. There was a U-haul and two cars that were pulling up justoutside of the front gate, making her thankful that she and Mirage had taken aside entrance.

“B-b-b-barge!”

Throughanother AR display on her goggles, she could see that Mirage was racing insideof the warehouse, and the Pimpernel sat down the backpack she had one. Shetucked it away safely, pulling out a bag of marbles and jacks. The Ghost hadthe zip-ties and bags in a separate bag that she carried with her; theywouldn’t see use until they were done.

ThePimpernel situated herself in a position where she thought the shadows wouldcover her. She watched through the goggles as the U-Haul pulled up and parked,the doors opening. Several men stepped out of both the U-Haul and the cars,with two of them loading up their firearms.

Heralready impossibly wound muscles pulled themselves even tighter. Her hands wereshaking, and she felt like her heart was going to explode.

“Showtime,”the Pimpernel said, her voice uneven and her adrenaline level skyrocketing. Shetook a few deep breathes, but it did nothing to stop her thoughts. They seemedto be racing a million miles a second.

Theywalked towards the main gates and undid the lock, several of the more thuggishlooking men walking into the parking lot. The more professional men stayed inthe back, wearing clothing that didn’t consist of tight shirts andexceptionally baggy pants.

Afew seconds later, a new voice popped into the Pimpernel’s head-set.

“We’vegot more than a few minutes. I don’t know why Godwin’s in so much of a hurry.”

“Hedoesn’t want things to go wrong. The longer we’re here, the more likely thingscan go bad.”

Shehad no idea where the voices were coming from, but they were the voices of men.It took her a second to piece together that they were the voices of the two mentalking on the video feed she was getting from the Ghost.

“Yeah,okay. I guess that makes sense.”

“Westill have to unload this stuff at Larkin Village and Pine Meadows – we can’tspend too much time here tonight. Draws unwanted attention.”

Sheheard a gun clip click into place.

“Howare you doing that, Ofelia?”

“Rememberthat other stuff I was talking about?”

“Ye…no.”

TheGhost sighed. “Never mind. Microphones, love. I found a bunch of them, andthey’re wireless. I set one up outside of the front gate, and I can heareverything they’re saying. So can you, because I can send you noises just likeI can video and pictures.”

“Youare rec-c-cording, right?”

“Ofcourse.”

ThePimpernel waited for what seemed an eternity before the door to the side of thewarehouse actually opened up. Two of the thuggish looking men stepped into thewarehouse, walking right past where she was at. Mirage spoke, but the Pimpernelmissed it; a few seconds later, Mirage completely vanished except for thegoggles and mask.

Notthat she noticed.

ThePimpernel kept her eyes trained on the men, watching as they walked into theopening at the front of the warehouse, where the light could shine down onthem. They were passing some kind of cigarette that had a very powerful odorbetween them.

“Whatare they smoking?” The Ghost asked.

“Fuckif I know,” the Pimpernel said, crawling so that she could see them easier. Thebarge eased into view, until it came to a complete stop. An elderly man –presumably the captain – stepped out on deck. Two more of the thuggish lookingfellows walked in, and then walked out through the large main door onto thewooden wharfs, then onto the deck. The captain followed them below, chattingwith them all the way.

Shewas so tense that she was worried she’d fall right off the wall.

“Man,its fucking cold,” one of the thuggish looking boys under them said. He rubbedhis exposed, tattoo covered arms, and turned around, facing the back of thewarehouse. Both were either stoned or almost there.

Thesecond one took a deep breath.

“Shutup, pussy.”

Thefirst one shot the second one a nasty glare. “I gotta take a piss. And I’mgetting hungry.”

“Gobehind those boxes.”

Shecrouched down, as the man walked around behind the boxes and started doing hisbusiness. He had his back turned to her, and that was when she closed in,wrapped her hands around his face, and yanked him back into the shadows. Sheslammed her fist twice into his face, mashing his nose and bashing his lip,before slamming his head into a box. He tumbled to the ground, as she quicklyducked back up the wall.

“Hey,what the fuck was that?” The first one said, dropping the cigarette on theground and walking towards the back. “Where’d you go?”

Hestood there in the opening, his back turned. He was looking directly at thePimpernel, but because of the way the shadows fell, he couldn’t see her.
“Man, you better not befucking with me.”

Hepulled out his gun, and she dropped down and grabbed him and pulled himbackwards. Several bone-crunching blows later he was laid flat, and now thePimpernel’s heart was racing. The smell of urine was so strong that she had tomove from where she was to the top of the stack of boxes, and watched as theother two brought the boxes up.

Theysat the boxes down, the first one looking around.

“Where’dthe other two go?”

“Ithink we got a problem.”

Bothof them drew their guns, as two of the more professionally dressed men walkedin.

“What’sgoing on in here? What’s taking so long?”

“Welost two.”

Oneof the men crouched on the ground, looking at the cigarette.

“Ohthose fuckers. They’re off higher than a goddamn kite right now.”

“Shit.What smells like piss, then?” One of the more professionally dressed men said.

“Idunno.”

The Pimpernel watched the noses wrinkle.

“They’reall in there that I can see, Rene.”

“Good.”

ThePimpernel flipped on the night vision and quickly crawled back down, and movedtowards the door. “Cyan; shut the front. We can see. They can’t.”

Shewatched through Mirage’s goggles as her friend ducked between the men, racingtowards the large door. Mirage grabbed the front of it and drug it shut,slamming it tightly. Everyone jumped and spun around, training their guns onthe door.

“Whatthe fuck…”

“Isthis place haunted?”

ThePimpernel watched as Mirage became visible. The large goggles and extended noseof her mask made her look decidedly inhuman, along with the strange nodes onthe side of her otherwise night-blue suit gave her an almost roboticappearance.

Threeof her appeared and the Pimpernel slammed the side door shut.

Gunswere fired.

ThePimpernel closed on the first professional looking man, grabbing him by hiscollar and pulling him backwards, jumping up and driving her elbow down intohis face. She threw him to the ground as the other spun around and opened up.Their muzzle flashes weren’t painfully bright, and the noise was more bearablethan the noise of the rifle they’d fired off in the bunker.

Sheclosed, grabbing the wrists of the second professional looking man and pushingup, jumping and slamming her knee into his chin. She heard a snap and crack,and he howled, falling back and holding his mouth. He staggered and swayed,looking up as she planted a firm blow in his face, knocking him over.

Thelast of the men fell on him as the door pulled back open and two more thugsappeared on her goggles, standing outside, presumably having been missed by theGhost’s initial headcount. They caught the Pimpernel dead in their sights andfired never got her. She watched Mirage dive out of the way and she turned ,bolting into the shadows. Apparently they’d hit Mirage instead.

“They’reall over the place now, Rene. They heard that.”

“Good.”

Shejumped onto the wall, and climbed up the wall as the two men stood, dumbfoundedand partially horrified. Things were getting heavy now.

“Whatthe…”

Miragehad grabbed one. The other spun around and screamed, as the one that Miragegrabbed spun around and took a violent blow to the side of the head thatdropped him. Meanwhile, the one that the Pimpernel had knocked out first wasstanding up, his pants down and the stench of urine all around him.

Shewatched Mirage grab the second one, as then unhitched a Frisbee and threw it.The disc sailed downward and slammed into the head of the man who was justwaking up, causing him to double over on the ground, holding his head.

Shehit the ground, as Mirage became visible – all three of her – and raced towardsthe boat.

Meanwhile,the Pimpernel gathered up the guns and pitched them all in the river – even ifthey did get conscious, there was no way that they would attack her unarmed. Infact, two of them were already trying to escape.

Sheopted not to worry about the ones that were escaping. The Ghost had spottedanother car that pulled up and parked. The Pimpernel bolted towards the doorand jumped into the shadows behind it, picking up a large wooden stud.

“Whatthe hell is going on?” She heard a distinctly British accent demand.

“We’rehaving problems, Godwin. You’ll want to step back.”

“Again?”

ThePimpernel didn’t catch it. The Ghost did.

“Again?”The Ghost muttered. “What’s he mean ‘again?’?”

ThePimpernel unconsciously shrugged, as two of them men – including one of themwearing a very long coat, jacket, and slacks – walked towards the warehouse.Meanwhile, the man with the British accent hovered in the back, on the otherside of the fence. The first man got within eyeshot and the Pimpernel appearedin the doorway and belted him with the wooden stud. The other man stepped backand opened fire, the rounds slamming into her chest as she dove forward,grabbed the gun, and broke his wrist. He fell on his knees, as she pulled himforward and into her knee.

Shewas within eyeshot of the man with the British accent. He was a Chinese lookingman – short black hair, a sweater over a button down shirt, nice khakis and abelt. He began a full blown retreat, slamming the gate shut and then reachinginto his car as the Pimpernel bolted forward. She ran as fast as she could,approaching the gate. He pulled out a shotgun as she closed her eyes andslammed down as hard as she could on her heels. Pain lanced through her legs,but she propelled herself clear over the eight foot tall fence, flipping andslamming on the ground, bounding over the top of the U-Haul, and then hit thesoft ground on behind him.

“Godwin,I presume,” she said, standing up. She flipped the vents open, to allow hervoice be heard easier.

“H-h-how…”

Sheslowly turned around, cracking her knuckles.

“I’m… special.”

Hestepped back and wheeled the shotgun around, as she ducked around him andjumped on the hood of the car. He spun around and planted the round in herchest; it threw her off balance and blew her off the hood of the car, causingher to roll.

“Goddamn it!” she heard him shout. “And staydown!”

Shewas planted on the ground for a second, the wind knocked out of her. Shethought maybe she’d broken a rib, but as the dust settled, she realized shedidn’t. The force had knocked the wind out of her and that was it. Dustingherself off, she calmly stood up, her sense of self-esteem soaring.

“Isthat all you’ve got? You’ll have to try harder than that.”

Hestammered, shaking his head in completed disbelief. Honestly, she couldn’tbelieve it much, either.

“I shot you! In the chest! With an 10-guage!”

“And it stung. I’ll give you that. But youknow what else stings?”

Shelaunched herself forward. He ducked out of the way of the punch, ramming theshotgun into her chest and using it to push her off of her feet. She hit theground and rolled as he dove into the car and started it back up again. Thelights flipped on and the wheels screeched; he drove right at her while she wason the ground. The Pimpernel had no idea whether or not her armor wouldwithstand the blow of a half-ton moving object, and had no desire to found out.She continued rolling until she’d rolled right off the road, the car racing past.She hit the bottom of a shallow ditch on the side of the road, standing up andtossing the shotgun aside.

“Damnit. He got away.”

“Theboat got away too, but don’t worry about them. Blue did a number on the guysthat came up from below deck, and we’ll run into them again. I know we will….Hey! That guy with the long coat that you decked is back on his feet; he’sdressed like someone important…”

“I’llget him,” the Pimpernel said, finishing the Ghost’s thought as she raced towardsthe fence and slamming down. She got a good four feet up, jumped on the fence,scrambled over it, and landed on the other side. She felt superhuman. For thefirst time in her life, she felt like she was capable of doing something. Shewasn’t a slave, she wasn’t forced to set at a desk, she wasn’t under constantthreat of a ruler or dealing with endless lectures or tests she never stood achance to pass.

No.Here – this was her environment, gunshots to the chest and all. Here she couldexcel. Here she could become everything she always wanted to be and more.

Hertarget was staggering onto his feet. He looked over and spotted her as shecleared the ground between her and him quickly – but he was out of her reach bythe time she got to him, and she couldn’t slow down soon enough and shot pasthim. She had to bring herself to a slow stop, far away from the place sheintended to stop, and wheeled around.

Sheducked back into the building, but he’d gotten a good head start on her.

“Damn,”she muttered, bolting into the room. She raced past the moaning men and spottedthe man she was after as he ducked into a nearby room.

Sheentered it, and realized quickly it was too dark for even her night vision towork.

“Whatnow?”

“P-p-presstttthe top b-b-b-button,” Mirage said, as the Pimpernel fumbled with hergoggles and hit one of the buttons she’d never touched before. The screensnapped to life, and she found herself staring at an environment of completeblack and white.

“Whoa,”She said. She could hear his footsteps, but what was more, where he was makingthe noise at, the goggles were rendering it as light – like a torch in thedarkness. She turned and bolted towards the bright light – as she ran, theenvironment lit up. When she closed, she could see his face – his laboredbreathing was lighting up his body and his face in sharp, distinctive shades ofwhite against harsh black.

Itwasn’t like any normal vision she had seen. She was actually seeing sound.

Sheraced towards him. He’d stopped, looking around – it was obvious he was lost.He turned to face her right as she grabbed him by the collar of his jacket andslammed down; launching the two of them high into the air. She landed on astack of crates, bracing herself firmly as she held him over the edge. It washard work, but the pumping adrenaline gave her the strength to keep him therefor a few seconds, and that was all she needed.

Hewas stammering, and trembling. Eventually, he stopped struggling and was pleadingwith her not to drop him. She didn’t know if she could maintain a promise,given how heavy he was, even holding him with two arms.

“H-howcan you see me?”

“Ican see everything.”

“Whatare you?”

“Aguardian angel. You’ve had your way with this city, and these people, for toolong. Your buddies in office, and your criminal friends in the underground…you’ve all run up a bit of a debt: you see, I’m karma, I’m a bitch, and I’mhere to collect.”

Thatwas all she needed. She dropped back to the ground, and let him go. He stumbledbackwards and hit the ground, looking up at her

Hesat up and leaned forward, sobbing as Mirage appeared behind him.

ThePimpernel felt the adrenaline crash around her. The evening was over. She couldbarely restrain the smile of feeling that she’d accomplished something great.

Thosethat were still around were bound up by the zipties, with bags over their headsand mouths slit so they could breathe. On their way out, the Ghost called 9-11and reported a large brawl at the docks, even though she knew that the copswere supposed to be showing up anyway. It was about 11:25 when the Ghost wasscrewing the license plate on. The Pimpernel was in the car, as was Mirage. TheGhost dove in and started it up, pulling her mask back on. She drove back ontothe road, and gunned it – leaving the docks behind.

“Wedid it,” Renee said, removing the mask but leaving the goggles on. “My God,Ofelia. We did it. And it worked.”

“That’sbecause we’re that good, Rene,” Ofelia said. “I told you we could – we can doanything that we set our minds to. Speaking of minds, how’s Blue doing?”

“She’sasleep,” Renee said, pulling the goggles and gloves off. “You should’ve seenthem run. They panicked and bolted;they were running like cowards. Even that Godwin guy – I think I scared himshitless.”

Theywere stopped a red light, as Ofelia removed her gloves and poked her fingerthrough the hole in Renee’s shirt. It was a big hole.

“Doesit hurt at all under there?”

“Yeah,it does. But nothing’s broken. I’m probably gonna have a nasty bruise, though.”

“Well,maybe that’ll be just for tonight, huh? As things get better, we probably won’thave as many problems. Maybe in the future, we’ll be able to pull this off andnot even get hurt.”

Reneenodded.

“Maybe,”she said, sitting back. Now that the adrenaline had completely crashed, she wasfeeling sluggish and tired. She couldn’t wait to get home and go to sleep. Shewas so tired that she nodded off on the way home.

*****

Keep an eye on this spot. As soon as I make this novel public, this will one of the first places I make the announcement.

Sieg Heil

2012-02-17T16:21:00.000-08:00

Women were not expected to work in Nazi Germany . In Weimar Germany there had been 100,000 female teachers, 3000 female doctors and13,000 female musicians. Within months of Hitler coming to power, many female doctors and civil servants were sacked. This was followed by female teachers and lawyers. By the start of the Second World War, very few German women were in full time work. However, such was the skills shortage in Germany, that in 1937 a law was passed in 1937 which meant women had to do a "Duty Year". This meant that they could work 'patriotically' in a factory etc. to help the Nazi's"Economic Miracle". The marriage loan was also abolished in this year.

As housewives and mothers, their lives were controlled.Women were not expected to wear make-up or trousers. The dyeing of hair was not allowed nor were perms. Only flat shoes were expected to be worn. Women were discouraged from slimming as this was considered bad for child birth. Women were encouraged to have a well built figure as slim women, so it was taught, would have problems in pregnancy…….Women were also discouraged from smoking - not because it was linked to problems with pregnancies - but because it was considered non-German to do so.

You know what? I'm at the point where I just don't give a damn about this place anymore.

Hitler's outspoken anti-feminism drove large numbers of women to join left-wing political groups. In October, 1933, the Nazis opened the first concentration camp for women at Moringen. By 1938 the camp was unable to accommodate the growing number of women prisoners and a second one was built at Lichtenburg in Saxony. The following year another one was opened in Ravensbruck.

Call Godwin. Go ahead. At this point, such comparisons are applicable. We're looking at the rise of cryptofacist government that seeks to do ferociously restate the "rights" of old White Christian men, who society would be better off without. This is Virginia. This is Oklahoma. What they tried to do in Mississippi they couldn't do they did in Oklahoma without even having the population vote on it. The same in Virginia.

Sic Semper Tyrannus
*spits*

Hypocritical fuckers.

Cinderella Sundays

2012-02-15T16:21:00.000-08:00

World News Daily has an education part. I did not know this. The fact that I find it immensely hilarious suggests that I would've been better off learning this before, in that laughing derisively at stupid people building and beating on strawmen and losing to them lowers your blood pressure.

I am educated as a teacher. A secondary school teacher - with a major in English and a minor in history. One of the reasons I've been reluctant to come out and admit that is because I know that my posts are usually riddled with typos (I don't usually line edit before I post; I usually have just enough time to post and then fly away, catching any egregious error that Java didn't underline red by proofing it first). I am a certified teacher, though; I could step into a classroom today and with full confidence teach either of those subjects. I've done it before when I was working as a substitute teacher - I tend to run a very orderly, very structured environment that is usually teacher-centered. Not the best case scenario, especially since today student-centered learning is the big thing, I just don't have the management skills to handle 40 kids in a student-centered environment. I like to think this is less my problem and more the fact that there's 40 kids in the room, but that, and the majority of this paragraph, are not remotely related to the post.

Anyway, my point is this: I am a high school teacher, teaching grades 6-12 in English and history, although I've subbed/worked in K-Adult in every subject that you can imagine, from AP Calc (a scary experience considering the only maths I can do efficiently above basic math is geometry, and the only way I do basic math is by counting on my fingers) to Auto Body Repair. The fact that World News Daily has an "education" section is laughable. Coming from an actual teacher with more collective classroom experience than most anyone who would ever write for the WND "edjukashun" section - it's a fucking joke.

This article is a perfect display of that. No, it's not English. There's some history, but the majority of it is Science. Or, rather, "science", because if it comes from WND it's not just wrong - it's wrong approved by the "standards" of WND!

The author of a new book that shows how America is buying into Adolf Hitler’s belief system that there are human beings who actually are less than human is telling churches that are celebrating “Evolution Weekend” to go the rest of the way and also have a “Cinderella Sunday.”

Holy fuck, and that's a Godwin right out of the gate. That was like, 13 words. 14th and 15th words out of my mouth and onto this paper are "Adolf Hitler." But I'm still not impressed, because in any WND article about evolution, the Godwin needs to be right there in the goddamn title. Obviously you people have lowered your standards if you're publishing this tripe. Hell. There's not even a mention of Mein Kampf in the first paragraph. What's wrong with you people - your last article I ripped to pieces was like that, too. You're slipping Farah. Get your ass in gear, man, you're making yourself look bad.

Here, let me fix that for you:

The HITLER of a new ADOLF HITLER that shows how America is buying into Adolf Hitler’s belief system that there are human begins who actually are ADOLF HITLER less than human ADOLF HITLER is telling churches that are celebrating “ADOLF HITLER Weekend” to HITLER go HITLER the ADOLF HITLER rest ADOLF HITLER HITLER ADOLF of the ADOLF HITLER NAZI COMMIE HITLER way HITLER and ADOLF HITLER also HITLER, ADOLF have ADOLF HITLER a “ADOLF HITLER Sunday ADOLF HITLER.”

There we go. That looks more like a reputable WND article about evolution.

"Your first deadline's tomorrow. I want to see eight thousand words. Printable words. I still remember that essay you wrote when the Beast got elected. I do not want to see the word "fuck" typed eight thousand times again."

Royce is a superior editor.

“The only thing scientific about the theory of evolution is that it is science fiction,” said Ray Comfort, author of the new “Hitler, God, and the Bible.”

He was citing the Evolution Weekend event, in which churches advocate for the theory of evolution.

Its organizers explain religion and science simply “look at the natural world from quite different perspectives and ask, and answer, different questions.”

Hey, it's Bananaman Comfort, for whom I made "All Aboard the Failboat" a tag on my blog.

I'm all for this Evolution Weekend. I think that we need more celebrations of great scientific discoveries - especially ones like evolution, without which we would never have the genetic knowledge that we do now. Ones like evolution, that form a cornerstone of the entire field of biology and every sub-discipline under it. Ones like evolution, which have more scientific support than, you know, gravity.

Hitler, God and the Bible. Funny you should mention those three things, because "Gott Mit Uns" doesn't mean "Darwin is God" in German. Although, honestly, I hear there's little difference between this "Gott" fellow and "Allah." Perhaps they're really the same Pagan deity who eats infant babies and worships in churches dedicated to the religion of atheism. Goddamn that logic isn't just busted at the seams, it runs screaming away from reality for fear that it should become real and under go a process of annihilation upon meeting a real, sapient thought.

I'd call it virtual intelligence to keep with the running quantum theory/particle physics gag, like virtual particles, but that implies there's something resembling intelligence, even if it is just imaginary. So I'm afraid that, for whatever quantum of solace it's worth, the superstate stops here.

The Right-wingers love to trot out this notion that Hitler was an atheist or worshiped Darwin. No he didn't. Hitler wasn't likely a Christian either; like any totalitarian fascist, he used whatever he could do to get into power. You know, like the Republican party does now. And like the Republican party does now, he paid lip service to religion and stirred feelings of nationalism, and "purified" Christianity by adding Germanic elements to it. In much the same way that the Republican party has "purified" Christianity by fusing it with capitalism and the mythic origin of the United States.

Comfort notes that there are a few holes in the theory, and that perhaps “churches that are celebrating ‘Evolution Sunday’ this weekend … consider having other fairytale celebrations.”
He said when believers of evolution are pressed for evidence, “They can’t find any except bacteria ‘evolving’ into bacteria, and other ‘evidence’ that has to be received by blind faith.”
“All you have to do is ask them about the First Cause, where male and female came from, whether the first fish that came up out of the water (they believe we came from the oceans) had lungs or gills, and you will begin to get blank looks,” Comfort said.
He explains that Adolf Hitler was a “willing student” of evolution as envisioned by Darwin and actually put his beliefs into practice in what was called the “final solution.”

This is response to a news letter; you can read it over there or you can read it here. Save them the traffic. I figured that, for both copyright and space purposes, I'd just jump over something that made sense and dive right into the Bumper Sticker Logic as practiced by the one and only Banana-man Comfort.

Of course we're pressed for evidence. You people demand Zeno's Transitional Fossil. You're like a four-year-old who demands things exactly and refuses to accept it even when it is presented by yanking the goalposts back, and demand things that would disprove evolution to rational people. So we disengage from you, and you hike yourself up on the broken and old ass that you're pretending is a high and mighty steed to ride around town showing off your King's New Clothes. And you wonder why I regard you as so far below contempt I make fun of you.

I've given evidence. The thing about Comfort, and those like him, are that he refuses to accept it. He will shut it out, and then turn around and tell you that you have no evidence. "All Aboard the Failboat" is the kindest way I could think to describe any endeavor this man involves himself with.

The First Cause - which came first, the chicken or the egg - that is, where male and female come from, whether the first fish came up out of the water (that I believe came from the oceans; because, you know, oceanography and geology have so much to do with evolution) had lungs or gills, and I'll give you blank look.

Or, rather, I'll give you a couple of links and tell you to educate your own fucking self, because I'm tired of these same old arguments coming from a 40 year old moron with the mental acumen of pot roast and the scientific aptitude of a common house plant.

Comfort ~~lies~~ explains that Adolf Hitler was a willing student of evolution as envisioned by Darwin:

Guidelines from Die Bücherei 2:6 (1935), p. 279
1. The works of traitors, emigrants and authors from foreign countries who believe they can attack and denigrate the new German (H.G. Wells, Rolland).
2. The literature of Marxism, Communism and Bolshevism.
3. Pacifist literature.
4. Literature with liberal, democratic tendencies and attitudes, and writing supporting the Weimar Republic (Rathenau, Heinrich Mann).
5. All historical writings whose purpose is to denigrate the origin, the spirit and the culture of the German Volk, or to dissolve the racial and structural order of the Volk, or that denies the force and importance of leading historical figures in favor of egalitarianism and the masses, and which seeks to drag them through the mud (Emil Ludwig).
6. Writings of a philosophical and social nature whose content deals with the false scientific enlightenment of primitive Darwinism and Monism (Häckel).
7. Books that advocate “art” which is decadent, bloodless, or purely constructivist (Grosz, Dix, Bauhaus, Mendelsohn).
8. Writings on sexuality and sexual education which serve the egocentric pleasure of the individual and thus, completely destroy the principles of race and Volk (Hirschfeld).
9. The decadent, destructive and Volk-damaging writings of “Asphalt and Civilization” literati! (Graf, H. Mann, Stefan Zweig, Wassermann, Franz Blei). [transl. note: a derogatory term for writers dealing with upper middle class urban society].
10. Literature by Jewish authors, regardless of the field.
11. Popular entertainment literature that depicts life and life’s goals in a superficial, unrealistic and sickly sweet manner, based on a bourgeois or upper class view of life.
12. Nationalistic and patriotic kitsch in literature (P.O. Höcker!).
[Source for German text: pp. 143-144 of Strothmann, Dietrich. Nationalsozialistische Literaturpolitik: ein Beitrag zur Publizistik im Dritten Reich. Bonn: H. Bouvier, 1968. Translation by Dr. Roland Richter. Bold added.]

Hitler propagated the famous New Germanic Teutonic State Worship, in much the same way that the New American Christian State Worship takes the place for the Right here in this country. Furthermore, just to prove Hitler was a Godless Muslim Atheist Nazi Commie Fascist Liberal Pacifist:

According to the principles governing the compilation of this list, the following publications must be removed from public and commercial lending libraries:
a) All writings that ridicule and belittle the state and its institutions, or that attack or question its moral foundation.
b) All writings that attack or attempt to dissolve the order of the community of the Volk and its moral foundation, specifically those against the race and biological requirements of a healthy Volk (marriage, family, etc.).
c) All writings that ridicule, belittle or besmirch the Christian religion and its institution, faith in God, or other things that are holy to the healthy sentiments of the Volk.

That right there is the work of a truly brilliant atheist.

For my non-German readers or non-Germanophone readers, "Volk" means "Folk," but it's a collective term for people in general. When Hitler started speaking about Germany, he spoke about it terms of the Volk, or a collective of people for whom the country needs to be devoted too. To be a member of the Volk one had to fit a certain mold, believe certain things, and respect the proper authority. The Volk were first and foremost a collective, rather than a single individual, and they were willing to sacrifice themselves for the betterment of their ideal, their religion, and their country. Volk were not elitists, they were not educated, they were not wealthy - they were the blood and soil of Germany. You know, Volk.

And yes, Volkswagon does mean "Folk's wagon" or "Folk's car."

“The most famous of mass murderers said, ‘If nature does not wish that weaker individuals should mate with the stronger, she wishes even less that a superior race should intermingle with an inferior one; because in such a case all her efforts, throughout hundreds of thousands of years, to establish an evolutionary higher stage of being, may thus be rendered futile.”

“The institutions that embrace the theory of evolution need to come out of the closet and stop pretending to be Christian. Either we believe Jesus when He said, ‘In the beginning God created male and female’ or we don’t. Biblical truth and the fairytale of evolution are incompatible,” Comfort said.

Comfort explains that the attitude held by Hitler, that some people were less than human, is the same one adopted in the United States to support the massive abortion industry.

The "Abortion industry?" Where fuck did that come from? That was like a screwball out of right field - the anti-logic hit-and-run. By abortion industry, I imagine he's feeding into that belief there's this massive industry that impregnates woman for the sole purposes of giving them abortions. Or something.

I can't even touch that strawman. There's so much fail packed in that thing I'm afraid it's contagious. First, embryos and zygotes are not people. Second, fetuses are not people. Third, it's not a person until it's born. There is no "moment of conception" because conception is a process with no clear beginning. There is no "massive abortion industry" in the United States because in most states, women can't even get abortions because they can't afford them. This is a baseball bat of hypocrisy and doublethink; they didn't just set the bar low, they picked it up, beat logic to death with it, pissed on logic, and then threw logic out with the bar.

And where the fuck did abortion come from?! What the hell does that have to do with anything?

"An evolutionary higher stage of being..." Yo, Banana-man - protip: Pokemon is not how evolution works. Evolution has no goal. Natural Selection has no goal. Whatever survives survives. It propagates, and becomes the new norm. We're getting to the point where we can turn evolutionary into a participation sport, true, but up until this point, it's been a game of survival. If you can survive and spread your successful, surviving genes, guess what? You played and won! Just like there's no clear purpose behind you're rhetoric beyond appealing to idiots, there's no clear purpose behind evolution beyond "survive and propagate."

We we do or we don't. There is no in between. Either wear polyester or we don't, there is no medium. You either believe one or the other, but you can't, you know, wear wool. Jesus said it, therefore, we follow it. You know, unlike the thousands of other things he told us to do that we willfully ignore.

In the documentary (180), he takes his video camera to the streets and asks what people knew about the infamous German tyrant and mass murderer. He returned shocked – with footage of 14 people (mainly university students) who didn’t have a clue as to who Hitler was. When he posted the movie on the Internet, it received 2.1 million views in just over three months. Since then, hundreds of thousands of copies have been both sold and given away.

Oooh - a total of 14 people, who were university students. I'm so totally impressed you could find 14 people in a nation of over 100 million who didn't know who Hitler was. Obviously these were not kids into modern video games like Call of Duty of any millions of games set in World War II. I can find plenty more who couldn't place their own state on a map. What's your point?

Actually, I am rather surprised. It's vaguely reminiscent of a Chick Tract -"Deeeerrrrp WHO IS JEZUZ?" But I'm willing to believe it. After all, we do such an efficient job educating our children anymore.

“In recent years biologists have deliberately distanced themselves from that phrase and instead used ‘natural selection,’ because ‘survival of the fittest’ is easily linked to Hitler’s killing of the weak and letting the strongest survive. Atheism almost always embraces Darwinian evolution, which would have people believe that they are merely animals, and that there are no moral absolutes. I have been going to universities and challenging students to convince me that evolution has a scientific basis. No one can offer any proof, because Darwin’s evolution is scientifically baseless. All they have are theories that have to be received in blind faith,” he said.

And there's that doublethink/hypocrisy baseball bat again.

Nobody can offer any proof because dumbass doesn't want any proof. It's amazing what you can do when you cram your fingers in yours and scream "LALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU."

Sigh. Idiot talking about something he has no idea about. Bananaman doesn't just come from a different continent -he comes from a different reality. People are animals. Acknowledging that makes life a little bit better. There are almost no moral absolutes, although I'm pretty sure that if you poked me hard enough, you could find that I take a few absolute positions on morality; the Golden Rule and "Don't be a Jackass" being the two largest ones, and while I'm willing to tolerate any cultural custom no matter how weird, then minute that custom becomes something you use against other people to hurt or cripple them or restrict their freedoms, the minute you hit that line. But then, to know this would require Bananaman to move beyond that rhetorical steel-trap he got his head caught in and see the rest of the world.

Survival of the fittest - boy, that's got to be their favorite phrase, doesn't it? Also, because, you know, idiots never misused the word "fittest" in that sense, or the fact that it's somewhat vague and gooey, where as natural selection gives you a clearer idea what they're talking about, right? Right?

So, really, more fail from the Banana Man and WND. I can't say I'm disappointed, though; it's always interesting indulging them in their Bumper Sticker Logic. The only disappointment to me is that they didn't use the Godwin in the title. That makes me sad. Next time, WND, next time.

Maybe it's because I know the difference...

2012-02-11T21:36:00.000-08:00

Climate does not equal weather.
Climate does not equal weather.
Climate does not equal weather.
Climate does not equal weather.
Climate does not equal weather.
Climate does not equal weather.
Climate does not equal weather.

Climate doesn't equal fucking weather.
It's snowing where I live at. That means it's time for the tired old jokes and staid old conspiracy theorists to step out snidely laugh, arrogantly cocking their head and going "Aha! Well, if it's global warming, why is there snow?"

"Because it's winter, asswipe?"

Climate does not equal weather.
Climate does not equal weather.
Climate does not equal weather.

Weather does not equal climate, either

Weather - the various moving parts inside of your engine.
Climate - the entirety of your engine, including all of it's moving pieces.

You cannot tell if something is wrong with the whole engine if all you're looking at is the right cylinder third one down.

Climate does not equal weather
Climate does not equal weather
Climate does not equal weather
Climate does not equal weather
Climate does not equal weather
Climate does not equal weather...

Stupid, conceited American. It's global warming. That means the entire globe. America is not the fucking globe.
What happens in the United States is not indicative of global climate change, you jaded, stupid jackass.
I keep hoping if I repeat this enough, it'll sink in. Someone will realize "hey, you know, you're right."

I might as well be living in the same world that these global warming denalists are living in, since any world where that can happen is just as removed from reality as the world they live in.

Climate does not equal weather
America does not equal global
Snowing in your backyard is not indicative of global warming
Heatwaves in your backyard is not indicative of global warming
Global warming is global
You'll notice that it's shaped like itselfAnd that in being global, it isn't just restricted to America, which is about 1/8th of the globe in landmass*.
Climate. Does. Not. Equal. Weather.
America. Does. Not. Equal. Global.
The. Bold. Punctuation. Is. In. Hopes. It. Will. Sink. The. Fuck. IN.
Okay, I give.
You win.
I'll just set back and laugh at how stupid, conceited, and moronic you are.

* estimate based strictly off of eyeballing its position in relative to a sphere and dissecting the sphere as such. This estimation includes all of North America, including Canada, Mexico, and Central America.

A Different Drug Problem

2012-02-11T07:31:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, I see things posted on Facebook that seem like they're just there to poke at me. Today is one of those days. While looking through my FB news feed, I saw a picture that one of my family members posted. I clicked on it and read through it, and facepalmed. The wonderful thing about social media is that information can spread quickly through it, and you can learn a lot. The downfall of social media is that misinformation can spread quickly through, and you get taught wrong.

This is a case of the later.

Here's the text:

The following letter has appeared on the internet and was viewed by many readers. Many felt it would be appropriate for the readers of Avayelles Parish.

The other day, someone at a store in our town read that a Methamphetamine lab had been found in an old farmhouse in the adjoining county and he asked me a rhetorical question, "Why didn't we have a drug problem when you and I were growing up?"

I replied, I had a drug problem when I was young. I was drug to church on Sunday mornings. I was drug to church for weddings and funerals. I was drug to family reunions and community socials no matter what the weather.

I was drug by my ears when I was disrespectful to adults. I was also drug to the woodshed when I disobeyed my parents, told a lie, brought home a bad report card, did not speak with respect, spoke ill of the teacher or the preacher, or if I didn't put forth my best effort in everything that was asked of me.

I was drug to the kitchen to have my mouth washed out with soap if I uttered a profanity. I was drug out to pull weeds in mom's garden and flower beds and cockleburs out of dad's fields. I was drug to homes of family, friends, and neighbors to help out some poor soul who had no one to mow the yard, repair the clothesline, chop some firewood, and, if my mother had ever known I took a single dime as a tip for this kindness, she would have drug me back to the woodshed.

Those drugs are still in my veins and they affect my behavior in everything I do, say, or think. They are stronger than cocaine, crack, or heroin; and, if today's children had this kind of drug problem, America would be a better place.

God bless the parents who drugged us.

Overlooking the horrible grammar issues here ("drugged us?" shouldn't that be "dragged us?"; I understand the intended pun but damn is it painful), there's some pretty heavy victim-blaming happening here, classism, and one hell of a nostalgia filter. There's also some heavily implied child-abuse; because as we all know, fear and threat of pain is the best way to keep your subjects in-line, right? You can be loved or feared, but you cannot be both - to quote Machiavelli. Who, mind you, was also from the 60s... the late 1460s, that is.

First off, I'm not sure what era the writer is from. However, because I hear this all the time in the folks who grew up in the 40s, 50s, and early 60s, I'm going to assume that they're from the era of Andy Griffith, Leave it to Beaver, and other "wholesome" 50s/60s sitcoms. This is one of the reasons why I'm so jaded anymore; I hear shit like this and slap my forehead. Andy Griffith was not a historical documentary. Leave it to Beaver was not how things were in the 1950s and 60s. Alright? Let's lay that down now. You say you're from the 1950s and 1960s. I know how memory works; if you're White and you come to me telling me this stuff, I won't believe you. Oh sure, I'll look at you and know you were alive at that time. But I won't believe your experiences.

First off, our memory is influenced more by our peers than by any actual event that we may have experienced. Your memory goes through a process called "reconsolidation", whereby it "updates" old, long-term memories with new information that your brain feels may be relevant. Television ads have a huge impact on this, and memories can be spoofed or invented whole cloth through external stimulus - even if they never happened to begin with. The net worth of all this means that your memories are not trustworthy. Some of your experiences may not even be real. I've studied history - I have my minor in history. World history, not American history, but from the perspective of an American, guess what? Modern world history as taught to Americans is basically modern American history, with America as the protagonist and those funny Europeans as our sidekicks who occasionally do weird things and get mentioned for it. I'm more willing to filter through subjective writings of the period and build what resembles an objective reality of that era as opposed to listen to the ramblings of a few backwards looking individuals wearing the nostalgia filter like a gas mask during World War I, who have their memories dictated to them by FOX like a court stenographer.

I'm not saying that the individual who wrote this listens to FOX, or watches it. But I wouldn't be surprised if they did.

Having said all that, when you approach me and you tell me what you remember of that era, and your memory of that era is one of eternal sunshine, when everyone believed in God, parents respected their children, unicorns shit rainbows and pissed gumdrops and everything would be perfect if we could just go back to that age again, I will look at you like you're out of your fucking mind. Because you are. Your memories may seem real to you, but guess what? the 1950s and 60s were over 60 years ago. You don't think, in that time, your memory has reconsolidated memories, been impacted by television ads and your peers, and in some cases been invented whole cloth because you saw those old sitcoms and remembered it exactly like it was?

Now, having dismissed the nostalgia filter, let's get into the bulk of this nasty and toxic little memetic message.

There are three things wrong here. The first thing wrong is the notion there wasn't a drug problem. It's a lie in some ways, and not in others. What it boils down to is how you define "a drug." The next thing is this notion that abuse is the best way to keep a child in line - drag their ass behind the woodshed for discipline or rinse the mouth out with soap if they said "fuck", which, mind you, didn't exist back then. The last is the victim-blaming. Illegal narcotics are not just endemic in poor communities - it's just that more poor people get caught using them. Do you seriously think you could go to rehab like one of those celebrities do? Nope. Sorry, you're Black/Latino, male, and got some drugs? Your ass is in jail. If you're White? Maybe. We'll have to wait and see. There's another in there; it's this privileged notion that the world would be better if everyone went to church, everyone believed in God, everyone had two parents, and everyone lived in a perfect world where all this could happen, so I guess that makes four things wrong - that stand up and grab me by the lapels of my jacket, anyway.

Let's take a look at the "drug problem" first. Today, Meth is classified as a Schedule II substance under a U.N. Convention called the "Convention of Psychotropic Substances." The DEA follows through with that, also classing Meth as a Schedule II substance. Meth is a psychostimulant, and according to Wikipedia, "Methamphetamine increases alertness, concentration, energy, and in high doses, can induce euphoria, enhance self-esteem and increase libido." Like any drug, Meth goes by a 100+ names. It was first synthesized in the 1800s in Germany, and in the 1930s, it was marketed as Benzedrine, an OTC inhaler used for treating nasal congestion. By 37, it was available as a pill. During the 40s, Meth was used by the military to keep soldiers awake and moving - especially during World War II, when it was used to help the fighting men keep going for hours on end. Non-medical use of Meth first appeared in the 1950s, when it was marketed under two names; Dexedrine (dextroamphetamine) and Methedrine (methamphetamine). It was used by truck drivers, college students, athletes, and eventually, became a cure-all for everything from weight loss to mild depression. In the 1960s, Meth became available through injections, and that was about the time when they started to restrict it ("History of Meth"). Today, legal sell of meth as an OTC is no longer allowed; it is, however, FDA-approved as an ADHD medication and of treating exogenous obesity (Wikipedia article on Meth).

So, they didn't have a drug problem back in the 1930s-1950s. They didn't because Meth was totally legal. Of course, that didn't stop abuse of it, but as the approval of it to treat ADHD and exogenous obesity proves, abuse does not negate use. Once the FDA started to ban Meth and make it's possession illegal, you started to see a rise in illegal trade of it - people who want something bad enough will do anything to get it; rule number one of human psychology. So they turned towards the black market. The black market then said "O Hai. I got what you need" and what followed was a lot of money funneling into illegal industries - ones that became very strong and very powerful. So actually, depending upon how you define "drug" and how you define "problem," the 1950s had a very serious drug problem.

But that's never seen in all those old television shows and sitcoms. Apparently, pa didn't drag enough kids out behind the woodshed. Look at how many people abused it. That or they were really, really good about keeping there skeletons in the closet and, if you'll pardon my pun, whitewashing the era.

This notion that there was no drug problem in the 1950s is bullshit. It's pure nostalgia filter and nothing more; looking backwards on an era that was not at all like it keeps getting painted as being. And even aside from meth, "drug" is defined in a variety of ways. For instance, tobacco is a drug. Alcohol is a drug. Any kind of substance that affects the brain chemistry in ways outside of the norm is a narcotic. Are you going to tell me that alcoholics didn't exist int he 1950s, 40s, or 30s? Are you going to say that people didn't smoke Cuban cigars, or enjoy cigarettes?

Which leads us to our next issue - the classism, racism, and victim-blaming. Why are cigarettes/cigars and alcohol overlooked when one talks about "society's drug problem?" The bulk of it is classism. The wealthy and rich smoke and drink alcohol - wine, but spirits too. Drugs like meth and crack and cocaine are usually associated with the underclass. They're associated with the poor - and because the face of poor is almost always Black/Latino, that's who they're associated with. Alcohol and cigarettes/cigars? Not so much. Meth tends to get associated with White "trailer trash", but what is "trailer trash" if not poor White people? Alcohol and cigarettes/cigars transcend classes. In fact, both can be a marker of wealth and thus, authority. Meth, crack, and cocaine? Not so much. The way these drugs are seen by society - either as status symbols or markers of a low class and being poor - affect whether or not they're viewed as "a problem". Part of this is certainly because being poor means you're viewed "as a problem" by society, especially in the case of education. Education is your key to "social advancement," which is this mythical American beast like Bigfoot; often sighted, there's some scant evidence that suggests it exists, but otherwise, nobody sees it but the people who claim it's there. If you're poor, you likely live a shitty, shitty life. Sometimes, it benefits you to try and get away from that life - a person can only take so much for so long before they get burned out and can't handle it anymore. Remember that not everyone is the same - "oh, but I can do it, why can't they?" Because they're not you? Because you're not aware of their economic situation, and because by asking that question you prove yourself conceited and apathetic to the problems of others by, in essence, blaming them for being different from you and having different circumstances than you? Because you're judging them, without knowing whether or not they might have a mental illness like depression or bipolar, and can't afford treatment because, y'know, they're fucking poor, so they medicate themselves instead and wind up getting hooked at a young age when their friends share this stuff, and thus they devote their entire time to trying to escape the hellish world that they live in when there's no apparently way out?

Poverty was a large problem in the 1950s too, but income disparity was nowhere near as steep as it is today (in the 2010s). Social mobility is completely possible - so long as it's downward social mobility. When it rains, it pours. If you can keep yourself together and weather it, good for you. Don't expect everyone to be like you. Have some empathy for a change. Most people hooked on these drugs don't want to be there - or they want to be there, because it's so much better than what they have. Especially when people like you and society keep holding their heads underwater while demanding they pick themselves up by their bootstraps.

So there's the classism with undercurrents of racism and victim-blaming. The other thing that grabbed me was the notion that so long as you went to church, things were just fine. Not even a few months ago some guy was shot and murdered in the parking lot of a church where I live at, in what was likely a drug deal gone bad. Obviously going to church has no bearings at all on the kind of person that you are - this is more of the same old tired bullshit that being Christian makes you better person, when really, it makes you no different from anyone else - no more given to be a bad person, but no less, either.

And then there's the child abuse here - daddy drags your ass out behind the woodshed for a whooping. I wasn't mocking when I quoted Machiavelli. You can either have your child love you or fear you, but you can't have both. And what happens here is that the author sounds more like they fear their parents than respect them.

In short, this is an ugly piece of fail that, again, highlights everything that's wrong with the drug war and society's view of narcotics and drugs. If you happen to see this on FB, make sure to make a note of how toxic and destructive this sort of thinking actually is. Because part of the reason society has the problems that it has is because we keep trying to progress, but there's a vocal group trying to regress, and we're being split in two different directions with no place to go. So we sit and stagnant.

This is that regressive nature made visible. And it must be attacked wherever it is seen - for the sake of society and the future of our species.

"Because I Don't" Isn't a Good Enough Answer

2012-02-07T17:06:00.000-08:00

Homophobia and bigotry take many forms. Stupid, usually White, usually Male, usually wrapped in an excess of body fat and usually in utter denial about reality, removed from anything remotely resembling a logical argument or objective reality but quick enough on the draw to accuse the other side of these very same flaws.

This isn't to say that all homophobic bigots are White, or even Male. Case in point - Karen Handel, the recent ex-Vice President (*punt* get the fuck off my cloud) of Susan G. Komen. Handel is a former Senator from Georgia - so if that doesn't practically spell the upcoming problem in large, neon pink letters and hang a billboard-sized sign around it, I'm not sure what to say.

Komen is notorious for recently earning Planed Parenthood something along the order of a metric shitton of dollars for defunding the organization. Also, they're known for those pink ribbons and giving the illusion of caring about women's health. Of course you can't care about women when you're part of the Pro-Coathanger Brigade. It's stupid to even hold the illusion that you do.

Now, there are some parts of the internet that think Handel had something to do with it. After all, she's only a typical anti-life, anti-human repulsive salsa of dried enemas and garbage - you know, the typical Right-winger - but the cynic in me doesn't feel that she acted alone. Sometimes I love to tell the cynic to go over in the corner and play with blocks, but today, I can't help but think that hie's right. I suspect that the rest of the board at SGK had something to do with it. Which is fine; I can't think of a more expedient way to basically cut your own throat than doing something like this. And they helped PP along the way - everybody won!

Except, of course, for Handel, who stepped down from her position and decided "You know what? Screw this, I'm not taking this severance so I can go strike a martyr pose on television and pretend like I was persecuted by SGK and those mean old bastards in that Liberal Media."

Handel is a piece of work. She was interviewed NBC 11 (live in HD!), and much to my pleasant surprise, the interviewer asked something that resembled tough questions. Handel is a rampant homophobe in addition to be an all-around pleasant person - observe:

Handel: (The Log Cabin Republican check is)certainly not a membership. And I don't think going to an eventconstitutes membership, nor does it constitute agreeing with everything theyhave to say either.

That's right. Just because you walk-the-walk and talk-the-talk doesn't mean you're an actual member of the Log Cabin Republicans. You have to have been born in a Log Cabin, gnawed on bear meat with your bare teeth, killed a moose (those suckers are dangerous) with your bare hands and pissed off the top of the world while screaming how virulent and manly you are because you're carpeted like a fucking Wookie with the skull density of elemental osmium. Only then do you pass for membership. But for the love of God, bath first. You've got pieces of shit hanging from the fur in your back.

But you don't have to agree with everything they say. Because unless you're Han Solo, I don't think it matters - you won't understand anyway.

Masculinity is Log Cabins and chopping wood. You know those fucking liberals never chopped a piece of wood in their life. Neither have I - they don't let me do that in the trailer park - but I'm still more manly than them liberals because I fantasize about it.

Okay, alright. I'll move onto something with more substance to make fun of, then...

Q: You have said that you are -- you're against gay marriage, right?
A: Mm hm. Absolutely. Marriage is between one man and onewoman. And I've been very very clear about that. And the record isclear about any of the other issues like domestic partner benefits oranything like that. In fact in Fulton, I voted no on domestic partnerbenefits.
Q: Are you against civil unions for gays?
A: Yes. I think that's not an issue that has come forward inGeorgia. We have the constitutional amendment against gay marriage,and I don't want to see any taxpayer funding going toward benefitsetcetera for a couple that is not married. In our state and for me,marriage is for one man and one woman.
Q: Why is that?
A: Why is marriage between one man and one woman? (Laughs). Are you serious?
Q: Yes. Well why -- do you view committed gay relationships as being less legitimate than committed heterosexual relationships?
A: As a Christian, I view relationships and marriage as being between a man and a woman.
Q: But what about the legitimacy of the relationship? Do you have any gay friends? Do you know gay couples?
A: Of course I do. Are we going to spend our whole day talking on this issue?
Q: I want to know how you feel about this.
A: I've been very clear. And you know, as a Christian,marriage is between a man and a woman. I do not think that gayrelationships are -- they are not what God intended. And that's justmy viewpoint on it. Others might disagree with that. But I would alsohope that if you look at what is happening in our state, we've gotissues we need to be focused on in Georgia. We have a constitutionalamendment against gay marriage. And it's something that I supportedwholeheartedly. We have that, and let's get dealing with the otherissues that we also need to deal with in Georgia. And the press canhelp with that. (Laughs).
Q: Frequently, folks in the legislature kind of threaten to --there are always rumblings in the legislature that they may outlaw gayadoptions. You're against gay adoption.
A: I am against gay adoption. But remember -- I mean, if thereis legislation on that, certainly I will follow that and look at it. But in the end, ultimately courts are going to be the ones to have tomake the decision on that and it's always in the best interests of thechild. Do I think that gay parents is in the best interest of thechild? No. But we do have our court system that deals with many andmost of those issues.
Q: Would you favor outlawing gay adoptions?
A: Yeah, I would consider that, absolutely.
Q: Do you know any gay couples with children?
A: Not that I'm aware of.
Q: So you think gay couples are less qualified to function as parents than straight couples?
A: I think that for a child to be in a household -- in a familyin a household with a situation where the parents are not married, asin one man and one woman, is not the best household for a child.
Q: Is it better or worse than a single parent household?
A: Doug, I'm really trying to be straightforward with you butI'm not going to debate all the nuances. I've made it abundantly clearthat I think that marriage is between a man and a woman. And that'swhat I believe, and I don't know what more you would like me to add tothat.
Q: I guess I want to know why you think gay parents aren't as legitimate as heterosexual parents.
A: Because I don't.
Q: (Pause) Well, I realize that.
A: Well, Doug, we're not going to spend the whole daydiscussing this issue. And you know, it 's really kind ofdisappointing -- we invited you on this (leg of the bus trip).
Q: I know.
A: So we're going to need to move on.

Marriage is one man and one woman. And if you ever say anything about the mistress that my first husband got caught with...

You can trot that dead horse out because it still stands up with pipe-cleaners holding up the legs. But use all the smoke and mirrors you want - that horse is still dead. It was DOA. Just like any "argument" you can make against marriage equality.

She voted no on domestic benefits. That means one partner with a really good job cannot share those benefits with their other parent. That's fine, because with people like her running Fulton County, the best job you likely have is being a one-toothed banjo player, and it's my understanding that dental is horrible and the benefits suck. Georgia has a constitution amendment that bans gay marriage - it's about time the Feds shot down that amendment, then, ain't it?

(Laughs) Are you serious? You're actually going to ask a question I don't have an answer for? What the hell, media? Where'd the softball questions go? Well, see, it has to do with her name-dropping Jesus and cherry-picking from the Bible. You kids today call this "Christianity." That is, worship of Mammon and the antichrist's interpretation of the Bible. You mean you're actually going to, for once, live up to the name "Liberal media"?

No, not really. But hey, I can dream.

She repeats herself a lot doesn't she? Why do you view marriage as being just between a man and a woman? Well, because marriage is between a man and a woman. Therefore, marriage is between a man and woman. Oh, and did I mention I'm Christian? Because I am. Oh, but she knows gay people. I bet she has gay friends, too.

I've been very clear. I'm repeating myself - what about that isn't clear? Here, let me state it a few bajillion more times because sometimes, if you wish realllly really hard, your dreams can come true. You too can fly to Neverland, where we'll never grow up and be mentally lodged at the age of 13 for the rest of our adult lives. I know others disagree with me. I don't care about that, because let's talk about issues I'm never going to do anything about in the state of Georgia. I can see you're not going to let me snowball my way through this, so I need to get this conversation over to "fiscal responsibility," where there are still some Americans stupid enough to think that Republicans like myself have the upper hand. I need to do this like, yesterday. And you can help too, by asking me some fucking easy questions. WINK. WINK.

I'm against gay adoption because gays make bad parents because they can't get married. She states this with a clear conscious having spent the last two responses rambling on about who the whole state of Georgia loved homophobia so much they enshrined it in their Constitution.

I'm really trying to be straightforward here. Can't you tell by my circular logic? Damn it, Doug, if you'd just shut up and stop asking these hard questions and just agree with what the hell I'm saying, we wouldn't have this problem, now would we?

I believe that gays should be allowed to marry, but to hell with what I believe. I don't matter, I'm just some peon who has empathy and cares about people, isn't given to circular logic or lies, and, y'know, really cares about the future of humanity. Their beliefs deserve enshrinement in law. Everyone else? Nope. I don't give a flying racoon's tail if you believe that mongooses are type of fish. beliefs are not the basis for laws. There is no legitimate reason to keep gays from marrying the people that they love. None. There's no substance to any of the arguments, which boil down to "The Bible says so." To hell with the Bible. I don't care what it says. It doesn't form the foundation of civil law.

Now, aside from lies about pedophilia and other nonsense bullshit slippery-slope arguments copied directly from the American Family Association webpage, what the hell else do you have to stand on? I'll save you the mental loop-de-loops: nothing.

You don't think gay relationships are on par with heterosexual ones. Why not?

Because I don't.

But why? You didn't answer the question. You dodged it. "Because I don't" isn't a reason. "Because I don't" isn't an explanation. "Because I don't" is a thought-terminating cliche; similar to what parents tell their children - "because I said so. I don't have to give you an explanation." Your life would be a lot better if you could explain why you feel that way, but you can't because you know exactly where it'll go: I don't like gay people. I feel they're icky and gross and stuff. So I won't say it - "Because I don't." What a fucking cop-out. What a fucking joke.

Again, I ask why? Why do you find these questions so hard to answer? These are not hard questions. Now c'mon, we can't spend all day talking about this topic. You've got me backed in the corner and I can't get out of it. We have to move onto something else. Let's hurry now, before you make me look even more like a fool. It's really kind of disappointing because you're asking me all these questions, and I don't feel I have to answer them. I'm above you plebeians. Deal with it.

This whole interview was really nothing but a series of collective thought-terminating cliches. "I'm a Christian" is not a sufficient answer for anything except for "what religion do you identify as?" "I don't believe..." is never how you begin questions dealing with policy because frankly madam (or sir), I don't give a rat's flying ass how you believe. Give me facts. Give me figures. Give me ethical arguments that aren't restricted to "OMG TEH GHEY IS SO GROOOOSSS" (of course, they don't because they can't). "I've been very clear" and the variations of it are nothing more than patronizing, conceded assholery with the sole intention of making the interviewer look like a fool for asking you questions that you're not answering. "Are we going to spend our entire day discussing this issue" is a way of saying that "hey, I've got nothing other than patronizing, conceded, assholish thought-terminating cliches that I can respond to your questions with and eventually one of these stupid fucks out here voting for me will catch on. Let's move on before that happens."

That "because I don't" gets under my skin, in a way that very few other things said by the Anti-Equality Right have said in the past. I am not a fucking child. Gay adults are not fucking children. I - they, we, us - deserves an answer that's actually legitimate. If you can't give me one, then get the hell out of my way: you're wasting my time and yours. This "because I don't" sums up everything that is wrong with the modern Right-wing: You have packed in that statement the patronizing notion that what they should go unchallenged in their beliefs, because they have authority. As such, to call it condescending is to call the sun's corona "hot." You are not my parent. You are not my mom. And even if you were, I'd never let you get away with saying it. Packed in there is the notion you're not supposed to question me, you're not supposed to press any further, and you're supposed to accept what I'm saying as the last word in the matter.

"Because I don't," is bullshit. It's bullshit of the highest order.

WHY?!?
I'd like, just once, for these bigots to be called on their bigotry. I'd love, just once, for some reporter to discovery they're the proud owners of a human spine and ask some real questions. Press the issue. Get some real answers. I won't hold my breath.

World Building: Part 1 (the Meta-backstory)

2012-02-06T13:51:00.000-08:00

This is going to be a totally different post from the types of posts that I've done in the past - it doesn't relate to transhumanism, politics, or science fiction in any sense of those words. Rather, this is purely a gaming post.

I'm a GM, and a rather prolific one at that. My biggest issue as a GM is that I'm good at making worlds. Not so good at following through with them. World building is something that I enjoy doing; it gives me peace of mind and it lets my imagination come to the fore. When I game, I'm usually a science fiction GM, but in the past, I've been known to blend genres (something I love doing) to create totally new settings. It may surprise some readers to learn that while I've attacked fantasy in the past, I do build fantasy settings. One of the reasons for this is because I want to fix what I see as the flaws in that genre.

My first exposure to fantasy was not a good one; it was 2 ed. AD&D and the DM for that game, while a nice guy, was an unabashed racist (making that accusation to his face would either piss him off or he'd agree with you. I'm not sure which). The world consisted of two major powers as far as I could remember - a Germanic empire and the Roman empire. Considering he thought Adolf Hitler was a decent guy (if you could "overlook the Holocaust thing"), this isn't surprising.

That game helped shape fantasy for me. The other game that helped shape fantasy was Warhammer. Not 40k, but the fantasy counterpart. This, along with Tolkein, helped to cement the idea that fantasy was a White boy's only setting; with strong European overtones and species based on creatures from European mythology (either Germanic or Greco-Roman. To a lesser degree Celtic). Even Slavic mythology and Finnish mythology seems rather exotic by comparison. Humans were the default species, White was the default color for the "civilized races."

I still have trouble shaking this notion of fantasy, even though I know that's not exclusively the case anymore in modern media. Celtic fantasy, and fantasy more true to Greco-Roman Ideals, has become popular. Urban fantasy is the new "in-genre" for fantasy, and China Mieville is leading the way in the "WTF" genre of fantasy. Even games are no longer restricted to standard European White-boy's club fantasy, although in a lot of games, that's the default setting (Grayhawk springs to mind instantly). You have Legend of the Five Rings, which, while Rokugan is a theme park version of Chijapanorea, is a break from the typical Grayhawk setting. And then there's Rifts; good luck if you try to figure out what that is. Worth noting about theme park versions is that they can be very offensive in games; appropriating another person's culture, and then doing it wrong, can be a quick way to piss a lot of people off. That's why Lot5R is "generic Asia" in the same way that Grayhawk is "generic Europe", while leaning "Japan" in the same way Grayhawk leans "English/Germanic".

However, Rokugan is an old setting. It's been out since the 1990s at least - back when it was a card game. When it came out, it was something new. Now, it's not. Now, "generic Asia" tends to be every bit as boring as "generic Europe," with the added fact that "generic Asia" and "Japan" have become almost inseparable in the minds of gamers everywhere.

There are dozens of other cultures from around the world that one could draw from when it came to creating a fantasy setting. My favorite fantasy setting by a long shot is the Dark Sun setting, which was first published for 2 ed. AD&D. Dark Sun was something totally out of the norm - magic was a bad thing (awesome in my book; I'm so tired of seeing magic as a positive force), psionics were used (while in 2 ed. psionics were hideously broken, the concept was very novel), and the setting was like something out of the stone age. The way they changed the typical species around, and that they got rid of a few species that I didn't like at all, made it all the better.

Sadly, Dark Sun didn't have a 3.X edition. Because I started running when 3.5 came out, and I'd just learned about Dark Sun, I wanted to do a game similar. I wanted to take the standard fantasy genre and flip it on it's head, and do something unusual. I'm a big believer that originality is in the synthesis, so I pull from a wide range of sources, ranging from real world history to games. The end result of this was the setting that I coined Al-Maghreb.

Al-Maghreb is a setting influenced by three sources that's rarely drawn upon for game worlds: the first is Arabic sources and Arabic mythology. Even though I'm an atheist, I am absolutely fascinated with the history in that part of the world; the "Big Two" and their older brother come from that region. The Middle East is home to more than a half a dozen cultures, and was one of the three major sources of civilization as we recognize it (the other two being India and China). Agriculture, writing, animal husbandry, cities - these things appeared for the first time in this part of the world. There's a certain degree of romance that surrounds this region, and even though I'm hardly a romantic, I'm given to it. One day in my life I'd like to at least go there and see it. I doubt I'll ever get the chance, but I can dream. It's a region of religious conflict, of deep history, and home to a very beautiful language I love to listen to (don't tell me Arabic isn't beautiful. Arabic is gorgeous, but like all Semitic languages, it's fiendishly difficult to learn).

Readers who have knowledge of history/Arabic, however, will know that "Al-Maghreb" is a real place, and it was not in the Middle East. In fact, maghreb is the Arabic word for "west," and refers to a place that today is made up of Morocco, Tunis, Algeria, and Libya. For the geographically impaired, those places are in North Africa. Historically, Africa is a place that's been screwed in every way possible. From Territorial Imperialism, to Cultural Imperialism. to Religious Imperialism, to Military Imperialism - Western Imperialism hasn't just left scars. It's carved that continent into shreds, destroyed entire cultures, and buried a very storied, a very colorful history, under a much dark history of exploitation and abuse. My next source of real world inspiration, then came from Africa, but I did so very, very carefully, with the history of abuse and exploitation in mind, because appropriation wasn't something that I wanted to do. In particular, I wasn't drawing influence from Western Africa so much as I was Eastern Africa and the horn of Africa; Ethiopia is here, and Ethiopia (Abyssinia in classic tongue) is the oldest existing free country in Africa outside of Egypt. In fact, I think Ethiopia is the only country that's never been colonized in Africa outside of Liberia (Egypt was at one time; it's been both British and French possessions). Those who know about Ethiopian history know that it's one of the few places in Africa where one can find a decent sized population of Jewish people, and is one of the oldest Christian kingdoms on the planet. The Ethiopian Monarchy traces it's history back to the 2nd century B.C., and after World War II, when most African Nations were given their freedoms, they adopted the colors of the Ethiopian flag. Ethiopia was also one of the 4 African nations in the failed League of Nations and a charter nation in the United Nations.

So again, I'm dealing with a part of the world that has a very, very deep history. Most Americans probably don't know it, but that's because they've been exposed to theme park versions their entire life, if that. Most Americans imagine Africa as this dark place with jungles, giraffes, and places where you can go to set a story about two White people to dodge accusations of racism because you feature a few Africans. One of my coworkers was surprised the other day when I informed her that there were penguins in South Africa (and Namibia). Modern culture seems to perpetuate Africa as being nothing but jungles, deserts, and savannas, and that's not the case. So I kept all of this in mind when I was drawing influence from Africa for my setting.

I want to avoid well known icons, so I threw out Egypt. While I have nothing against the country (some of its cultural practices are a different issue, but I've got the same problem with a lot of Eastern African nations in that regard), Egypt and the pyramids are iconic symbols of the "west", and part of the reason why Egypt gets lumped in with the Middle East when clearly it's an African country, and Ancient Egypt is a clearly African culture (another example of western media screwing Africa out of it's heritage). So I didn't want to go anywhere near it. I thought about Nubia/the Sudan, since I was drawing influence from Ethiopia, but ultimately decided against it; while Nubia was an extremely thriving and prosperous culture at one point in history, and they built their own pyramids and even instilled their own dynasty at one point in Egypt, including Nubia would be almost like including Egypt, and I'd still get all the reasons why I was avoiding Egypt with the added benefit that very few people would even recognize it as Nubian, and just assume it was Egyptian instead.

The last inspiration I drew from was a very, very strange place. I already had Middle Eastern influence, North African influence, and East African influence. The last two places I picked from were actually the Victorian period, Renaissance Italy and Ancient Greece. The latter makes a degree of sense when you realize I was drawing from the Middle East - while European, Greece also had colonies in Asian Minor and around the Black Sea, and a lot of the cities in that region have Greek and Arabic names (Antioch is Greek, for instance). Helping matters is the fact that Alexander the Great had actually conquered that region. I didn't draw from Alexander's empire, though; I went back a ways and picked influence from the earlier Greek era of city-states. While city-states were not unique to Greece (the Maya had them, too), they were very clearly defined in Ancient Greece and any fantasy setting making use of city-states would harken immediately to Ancient Greece, so there was very little I could do other than step back and go with it.

The inclusion of Renaissance Italy was for mostly the same reason as Ancient Greece - the existence of well-defined city-states. However, Renaissance Italy had something else; Renaissance Italy had Leonardo da Vinci. In fantasy terms, this mean Renaissance Italy had gearpunk, and it's distant cousin, steampunk, comes from the Victorian period. Of all the different types of fantasy, I love steampunk. Steampunk has a particular feel to it; a "do it yourself" feel, with plenty of gears, chains, brass, coils, springs, boilers, and other mechanical things that harken back to a day before electronics. "Simpler" technology, one might argue; one based on physics that one could experience, as opposed to electrons and quantum computing and the like. But it has the benefit of still being technology; of still being forward facing and optimistic. Gearpunk is all that without the steam, so if you were to plot them on a timeline, Gearpunk would come before Steampunk.

So, when I stepped back and took a look at what I had created, I ended up with this:

A world that was going to shaped a bit like Northwestern Africa. I was going to have a desert of both sand and rock, to model after the Sahara ("Sahara desert" is like saying the El Pueblo; Sahara means "desert" in Arabic, so you're saying the "Desert desert"). with the occasional oasis and very old mountains. Civilization was likely going to be on the coast, and there would likely be a couple of different biomes visible; desert, Sahel, savanna/flat land, mountains, and possibly jungles a little further to the south although I wanted to avoid those. There would also be a very large ocean to the west (modeling after the Atlantic Ocean.
The influence was heavy Arabic, so I would likely be using Arabic place names. However, I had drawn on various cultures in Africa, including Ethiopia, so there was likely going to be more than one entity there. In real life, Maghreb bordered the Ashanti Empire; here, I was going to draw some inspiration from Ethiopia and likely use it to help frame a part of the "Empire" I was constructing that was facing East, and into the desert.
Still keeping with the African influences, there would be local tribes who followed various African animistic religions as a their primary religion. As in real life, this would likely be a source of conflict, because with Arabic came it's religion - Islam. In modern Africa, especially Western Africa although Eastern Africa and Central Africa are not immune, the three-way split between Christianity, local religions, and Islam has resulted in a great deal of horrific violence and bloodshed. In a sense, I felt like I'd be cheating ancient and contemporary history if I overlooked that. So I was working with three primary religions; one that was going to be modeled after Islam (likely with it's own split; see Sunni and Shi'a), one that was going to be modeled after Christianity, and the others that was going to be a collection of diverse local animistic beliefs. Having more than on culture and more than one religion helps give the setting a deep cosmopolitan feel. Because I was drawing from Ethiopia and using Ethiopia to help frame the Eastern part of this empire, I could already see where there were going to be problems in the empire, so I kept this in the back of my mind as I continued.
I drew on Renaissance Italy and Ancient Greece for city-state influences, so it was likely my large empire in the Maghreb was not going to be unified in any particular sense. I would need at least several city-states, each with their own diverse culture, who didn't always get along with one another or play well, in order to achieve this feel. I reasoned I would have one large city-state that was the most advanced kid on the block, with all the toys, the location, and the city-state that the other city-states looked up to (either in awe or envy), so I would start with them first.
Steampunk. Somewhere in here I had to plonk down some serious steampunk tech. This included everything from steampowered trains, to guns, to steam-powered cars, large industries with plenty of moving parts that didn't appear to do anything other than look cool, airships, and steam-powered war bots and walkers a la Warmachines. Because I was drawing in Arabic influence, these would have strong geometric patterns on them, and the war machines would be abstract and vaguely humanoid, due to the prohibition on recreating the human figure present in some types of Islam. Reading through Dark Sun introduced me to the concept of a sand-skimmer (imagine a boat that sails over sand), which I realized that I had to have simply because of how cool it was, and my mind quickly invented steam-powered sand-skimmers, among other things. I had no intention of restricting any technology, so guns were a feature in the setting, as were cannons and the like. One could only imagine how weird (or badass depending upon your views) the city-states looked when they went to war with one another - especially considering the inclusion of alchemy (see below).
Magic. Obviously using steampunk requires magic as a secondary power, but I wanted to bring it more to the fore. Introducing magic into the setting would bring yet another source of conflict if I didn't do this right, so I took a step back and decided to run with two separate sources. The first was al-kimia, and the second being heavily influence from the Alin in Rise of Legends. Al-kimia is the Arabic word for "alchemy," which was a scientific study. Making it a scientific study of matter meant that it wouldn't be in as much conflict with the Islamic-stand in that I would create later, although I could certain foresee certain hardline clerics having an issue with it. In Rise of Legends, the Alin are one of the three playable races - they're modeled after pre-Islamic Arabia and Persia. They're the "magic faction," and I took from them and from standard D&D the idea of elemental magic. I would make this elemental magic a form of alchemy, and it'd be achieved through crystals that were found in the large desert. These crystals contained energy that was necessary for the manipulation of various types of matter; each school of alchemy training individuals in using one of the several different types of my own variation of the classical elements - earth, fire, wind, water and my own fifth school, glass, which was manipulating the crystals that contained the magic themselves. Alchemy would be treated as a science just like the steampunk technology was; mages were alchemical engineers, crafting magic spells while using the crystals. Because magic only came from these crystals, I had a means to control just how much magic and how powerful it was inside of the setting.

So at the end of the day, I had a setting that was influenced by several sources, without having taken much from any of them (save possibly the strong Arabic influence; if anything, that was what was bending the setting). A one point in the distant past was a very large empire; it had been born in the west with the rise of a particular religion. It spread east, until eventually it reached the mountains that lead into the vast desert. Here it stopped, and here it fragmented. It could give the outward appearance of being united but it was really just a collection of city-states at varying levels of technological advancement, who didn't always get along with one another, with a couple of the city-states to the east that didn't really favor the city-states to the west and had a much older history, independent of the city-states in the west. My Islam analog would come from the western part of the empire and the city-states to the west. My Christianity analog would come from the eastern part of the empire, and those handful of old city-states that had been consumed by the empire before it'd fragmented into city-states states. I would have the animist collective, which I had yet to define any further than "animist", preexisting in the region. Thus I have an East-West conflict, but one that totally flips the traditional way of looking at east-west conflicts on their heads, and a three-way conflict when you factor in the animist religions. Now, this conflict would only be the result of particularly hardline rulers in city-states, or those looking for an excuse to go to war to show off.

The former empire would be technologically advanced; the biggest and most powerful of the city-states would be an industrial powerhouse that made use of both advanced alchemy and steampunk technology, and I'd work down from there. The native tribes would vary from slightly above stone-age technology to modeling themselves after the empire and using some of the empire's technology, with their own twist. The Eastern part of the Empire would be of a similar technological advancement to the western part, but they wouldn't have the means to advance as quickly as the western part did, so I would be looking at very large economic disparities to power conflicts as well. The biggest, most technologically advanced city-states would also be the wealthiest, while others would become progressively poorer, and the disparity between the smaller city-states and the bigger city-states would be extreme, to say the least. This would lead to interesting economic alliance between them. This also meant that there would be plenty of fun and games when it came to try to use one city-states currency in another city-state. I decided that there would be something like a default currency accepted throughout - gold - although some city-states would ban the possession of gold for purchasing items, forcing you to use their currency so that they might get the upper hand in the economic struggle.

Technology and faith would not be odds with one another. Magic would be just another form of technology, taught in schools like any other technology. There were two types of supernatural power sources for players to pick from - alchemy, or a supernatural "materials science", and the faiths - two monotheistic faiths, one that would speak of God having a son while the other that would tolerate no such thing, and the animistic faiths of the local tribes. I wanted to downplay faith magic as much as possible to keep it from being too overpowering; miracles would be more inline with "traditional miracles" - that is, faith healing and such, as opposed to clerics calling upon god and raining fireballs down from the sky. There would be schools of thaumaturgy, where a degree in theology literally meant you could fix broken bones and help in diplomatic relations. Major universities would teach alchemy, and your "field" would be one of the elements. Alchemy would require the user to imagine long calculations and formulas in their minds at a time, which for some unknown reason helped manipulate the energies inside of the crystals. This helped alchemy seem a lot more like an actual science - it's always science where math is involved - and explained why everyone didn't just pick up a crystal and start shooting beams of fire. Rather, there would be guns - flintlock mostly, although caplock was finding it's way into use in the more powerful city-states - and cannons, mounted on the edge of these sandskiffs and on the walls of the largest and most powerful city-states. In fact, the largest of the city-states would have a massive steam-powered cannon that would fire huge rounds, mostly as a deterrent, since such a weapon would be mostly impractical - a way to tell the other city-states "yo. Don't fuck with us, bro".

So now I had a setting. I didn't have any names, but I had a very fleshed out and anchored setting with a map, countries, religions, and cultures. Now all I needed was people.

Fantasy doesn't necessarily need any of the fantasy races at all to be fantasy. It can work just fine with humans, but where's the fun in that? Of course the setting needed humans; all fantasy settings need humans, but just for the hell of it, I didn't make humans the civilization of the empire. Humans would make up the tribes that surrounded the empire and the city-states; they were the various African-influenced tribes that had the technology ranging from the stone age up through to borrowing technology from the empire and modifying themselves. They would be exploited and looked down upon by the empire. As such, human skin tones would not be white; rather, they would strongly resemble Eastern Africans and have skin tones that, depending upon the tribe, ran from a tannish-brown to almost a black-blue. Hair would be brown to black, and it would either be kinky or straight depending.

Having decided what to do with humans, I went looking for races that don't see a lot of mileage - almost alien races, you might say, to populate the remainder of the world with.

To keep things familiar, I used dwarves as the primary population of the eastern part of the empire; that is, the Christian-analog part. Christian dwarves are not a stretch, so the complete the translation, I gave them dark skin; African Christian dwarves, modeled after the monarchy of Ethiopia. They would still be recognizable because they would be big on tradition and heritage, and because I was using Ethiopia as an analog, they'd have a long tradition to be proud of.

Finding a race to be the primary population of the western side of the empire proved problematic. At first, I thought to subvert Tolkein's implications and use Orcs as the civilized race, but opted against it. Dwarves were a natural fit for the eastern part of the empire, and I wanted to avoid elves for the western part, who I felt didn't fit at all. Initially, I used giants; however, when 4e came out, I was introduced to a new species - dragonborn. Dragonborn were similar to dwarves, in that they had a culture based on honor and tradition, but different in that they were the children of dragons, as you could probably guess by the names. So I took the dragonborn and made them the dominate race for the western half of the empire, with humans acting as support. To make it an "even odd number", and complete the mandatory five race scenario, I picked up two more races: the thrikreen, who while modeled after the Mongols fit in well with the African-influenced Humans and their various tribal kingdoms, working hand-in-claw as allies, and the six-armed, bird-headed spellweavers, with a small community of at least 100 found in almost every city, who would travel throughout the empire plying their wares as masters of the science of alchemy, possibly even being the inventors of it.

So there I had my five races: Pseudo-Christian African Dwarves to the east, in the ancient city-states modeled after Ethiopia. Pseudo-Islamic African Dragonborn to the west, modeled after the various entities throughout Arabian and the Islamic expansion of north Africa, along with a generous helping of Victorian steampunk technology and Ancient Greek city-stateism. Tribal animistic humans to the south and scattered over the map, with technology anywhere from the stone age to the "modern age", collecting in various communities with at least one good-sized kingdom that was or was not part of the empire. Animistic thrikreen hunters, who lived on the Sahel and savanna, who saw themselves as spiritual kin to most humans in the region, and strange, six-armed bird-headed humanoids who would travel throughout the empire, selling their wears as brilliant alchemical engineers to the city-state willing to pay the most for them.

So there we go. This is the first of several planned posts to delve deeper into this setting of my creation. Feel free to modify anything here, or us anything here, as you see fit - this stuff is all released under the share-and-share alike license, so if you use it, make sure to attribute me first. Future posts will look at the make up of the empire, the different religions, and the specific rule set surrounding them. For now, I'll with just this post - the meta-backstory for the game.

Proselytizing to Deaf Ears

2012-02-04T07:37:00.000-08:00

Some people can't read. You'd think with the internet being as text-driven as it is, reading would be a valuable skill. Even for those of us who don't have good reading comprehension, you would imagine that would entail trying to go that extra mile to make sure you don't look like a massive asshole when you jump down someone's throat for something they never said.

Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the case.

For an explicit point, I give you Froborr's post, The Problem with Proselytizing, made on January 16th, 2012. This particular post has rocked the boat in a lot of ways, and drew any number of trolls who don't seem to care to read, or don't want to read, to the Slacktiverse.

I was, tentatively, part of that discussion, but I didn't make my voice known immediately. Let me say I had the same visceral reaction to it seems a lot of atheists, especially in other parts of the internet, had. Despite that, I support the piece now more than ever - especially given all of the silencing criticisms leveled at it, and at the Slacktiverse community as a whole, and the fact that, y'know, I went back and read the damn thing.

At the heart of it is one little word - 'evil'. This isn't a word that I use a lot, and it's not a word I use lightly. When the word is used, I use it almost exclusively as a defining trait of the racist, bigoted, misogynistic homophobic Christianist Right. So let's start with that, since most atheists will agree with me that evil does seem to be endemic in a great many things that the Christianists do.

What is the defining trait of any of that? What makes someone openly try to pass racist laws? Attack gay people, and tell them from a public platform that they don't deserve equal rights? Drive gay teens to suicide, and then stand by and do nothing about it? Cause a previously reputable organization like Susan Komen to abandon a worthwhile cause based on lies about Planned Parenthood?

If you answered religion, you're wrong.

The defining trait of all of that is a lack of empathy, and an inability to understand what other people go through. It's an inability to see, and respect, what is at the core of other people's identities. Religion is the mask that this all-too-human trait often wears, but religion itself is not the cause. Religion is a tool, and nothing more. What we see here is a lack of respect for other people.

Now I'm probably the last person on the planet who needs to be talking about respecting other people. I launch into savage verbal tirades against individuals and am a skilled character assassin. However, I feel that any individual, ideology, or organization who can earn my wrath truly deserves it, because they're bringing harm upon others in some way, shape, or form. They lack that respect towards others. And is that not evil - to lack respect for the founding parts of other people's personalities? To treat these parts as if they were unimportant and nondescript? To marginalize things that make them who they are?

That's what Froborr's argument was about. It was the lack of respect that one group displays for another group. It wasn't calling Christina evil. It wasn't attacking the new atheists. It was attacking an action. It doesn't matter what the group is; so long as you're not respecting things that people say are part of their identity, I submit to you that you're doing the same exact thing, just in a different way. I'll take it even further - I'll attack more than just the action. I'll attack the attitude, as well.

That's what proselytizing is. It's an action that is an attack on a person's identity. It's one thing to tell someone that you think they're wrong and then listen patiently when they explain it back to you. It's something totally different to launch right off the board into personal attacks, calling someone a deluded fool (way to be ableist, too), say they're mentally ill, or some other proclamation that pisses them off, pisses me off, and gets nothing done. What were you trying to do again? Because unless it was "make nothing happen except people dislike you," congratulations, you failed spectacularly.

The offender here was the original article by Greta Christina. Let me start by saying that I think she has some good points she brings up. For instance, she describes me perfectly, except for one thing - my goal is to reduce all bigotry and discrimination, not just anti-atheist bigotry and discrimination.

For many atheists, the primary goal of atheist activism is to reduce anti-atheist bigotry and discrimination, and to work towards more complete separation of church and state. Their main goal is to get people to see atheists as happy, ethical, productive members of society, with full and equal rights and responsibilities. They want to see atheists be fully accepted into society, and to have our atheism recognized as legitimate. They want to counter myths and misconceptions about atheists [...]

You know what reducing all bigotry and discrimination means, right? I means that stuff like this -

Many of us don’t just want a world where believers and atheists get along and let each other practice their religion or lack thereof in peace. Many of us want a world where there’s no religion. We don’t want to see this happen by law or violence or any kind of force, of course.

Is not cool.

You know what else is can be harmful to people? Being deaf. Our society is not geared towards the hearing-impaired. Think about it - you can't hear cars if they're coming at you. You can't hear someone if they're shouting at you to get out of the way. You don't hear the barking of the stray dog. But, we're getting better. As technology improves, we get better. Some deaf people now have a choice whether or not they want to remain deaf. As a transhumanist, my goal is to fix problems with the world. As a abolitionist, my goal is to increase the overall happiness and reduce the amount of pain that people experience. To this end, I very strongly support technologies that improve the human (and non-human) condition. Among such technologists that exist today are cochlear implants.

Let me introduce you to a group of people who don't want to hear, and want nothing to do with cochlear implants. The Deaf Community is a very thriving community; they have their own culture. One that they've built from the ground up, in a society that is not geared towards them. Being Deaf is part of who they are. It's part of their identity. To force them to hear is to take away that part of who they are. Christina wants a world without religion. I want a world without deaf people. Way for me to fuck over deaf people and tell them how insignificant this part of their personality is, right?

Oh, but it's different, you say. Religion has a position of privilege in society - deaf people do not. So obviously this is different.

Yes. It does. I'm sure all the Wiccans and neo-pagans who have to fight to get their faith recognized will agree with the fact that they occupy a privileged position in society. Or all of the other religions that aren't Mainstream Christianity in the United States. But unlike Wiccans, you may say, deaf people don't believe anything. Wiccans have beliefs that are demonstrably wrong. Deaf people don't, right? First, you've gotta narrow down what exactly it is that neo-pagans believe as a group. Good luck nailing that jelly to a wall. Second, I could, in theory, demonstrate why it's wrong you don't want to hear. I did above - all of the dangers and things that happen around you, when you loose one of your primary senses. You have the ability to hear, why don't you?

Because it doesn't matter whether you can demonstrate that they're wrong or not. This is something that is very important to them. It's part of who they are - they have this community, they have this identity, they are this way. Of you to challenge that is to attack them on a very personal level. For you to challenge that is wrong. It makes you an asshole. You are never right doing this. Never. You can have all the logic in the world to back you up. It doesn't help any at all, because you're dealing with someone that someone identifies so closely to. To them, you will never be right. Or they might see the logic in it and chose to ignore it anyway because they have so closely defined themselves by this trait. Or maybe, just maybe, they might make a point that you've never heard before.

Which takes me back to Froborr's original point. Would you proselytize to a deaf person about all the wonders of hearing, being as paternalistic as possible, and then call them a "blithering idiot" and "simpering fool" when they decline, because it's part of who they are and they don't want that part changed? No? Why the fuck are you going to do it to someone who's the same way about their religion?

One of the things that the various responses has revealed is that in some corners of the internet, atheists are more concerned with being right than they are dealing with other people. I am right that your beliefs are wrong, and you're a confused, deluded fool for not agreeing with. I am right that you should have a cochlear implant, and you're an idiot for not seeing it. I don't care about how you feel, all that matters is that I'm right.

There is an argument that believing things hurts people. This is true; there's an entire web-page dedicated towards how confused beliefs have hurt and killed people, and all the subsequent economic damages that they've caused. This, I believe, is accentuating the negative. You'll never find one about how beliefs have helped heal people, and created economic booms. To a degree, it's necessary that we accentuate the negative - belief tends to occupy a privileged place in American society (so long as it's the right belief) - and we need to show people that giving themselves over to this belief without approaching it having all the tools necessary is dangerous. Furthermore, how is removing religion going to remove belief? Belief that your country has been slighted by others has killed a lot of people - Nationalism is probably just as dangerous as religion is. Belief that your decision to drive 50 miles over the speed limit on an icy road gets people killed. How are we going to handle that? Doing stupid things get peopled killed. Sometimes it masquerades as religion. Sometimes it doesn't.

That's the difference. I don't care whether or not I'm right that your belief is either false or not. I want to make sure that you have the tools necessary to manage yourself without hurting yourself or others. This begins with education; teaching children how to think critically about things. This continues into adulthood, with movies and shows that continue to cause people to expand their critical thinking. Critical thinking doesn't mean they'll drop that part of who they are. Critical thinking means they'll look at the way they approach that part, and make informed decisions based on knowing this part is important to them - I know I'm deaf, so I need to be careful around traffic. I know I'm a Christian, but there's no reason to believe the world is 6,000 years old. I know I'm a neo-pagan, but there's no reason to believe alternative medicine does anything other than offer false promises.

Christina, and others like her, are doing the exact opposite of this approach. They're trying to tell others that they need the cochlear implants. That they need these things, because somehow they're not thinking critically if they don't. They're just stupid, because they refuse to acknowledge how right I am about these things. It doesn't matter at this point whether or not we're talking "with" or "without" force. It's going to come across as force no matter how you slice it, because this is an integral part of people's personality. To prevent it isn't is as offensive as telling a deaf person they need to hear.

The very first thing to remember is that religion is a social tool and nothing more. People will make decisions. You can criticize them for making decisions; I'm not saying you can't. However, when you attack people personally for believing something that your epistemology suggests has very little backing, don't be surprised when people tune you out. After all, that deaf person, while they can see the argument in hearing, may not want to. They'll approach it from a different perspective - this word, "perspective", is important. Because if there's one thing this whole kerfluffle revealed, is that atheists in some corners of the internet only have one: their own. To hell with everyone elses'.

This attitude - my perspective is the only perspective that matters - is evil. It's pervasive. It spreads, and it undermines our ability to recognize the self-worth of others. This inability to recognize perspective, and be empathetic towards others, is the reason why bigotry persists.

So yes, Christina was right in describing me. I want to see all bigotry gone. From homophobia, to racism, to transphobia to misogyny, anti-atheism and yes, anti-theism as well. And yes, Froborr was right - anti-theistic proselytizing is a form of evil, as it's a form of disregarding a core element of the individual.

Human Black Box: Follow the Money (part 1)

2012-02-04T05:31:00.000-08:00

For this next segment of Human Black Box, we leave Chloe and Zira (and their adventures on Mars, the Christbot, Dr. M&M and the strange cult-like atmosphere of the New Hope Village colony - possibly), and catch up with an old friend - Hotaru, now going by a different name with a different identity - living on Luna. Thus far, she's enjoyed the life of a transhuman teenager denied to her because of the Fall, but we know that can't last...

At about 16%Earth’s gravity, life on the moon took some getting used to.

Luna was transhumanity’s oldestcontinually inhabited body in the solar system. It was the first planetary bodythat humanity had ever visited in person, the first planetary body settled,colonized, and, in darker turn, the first non-Earth body in the solar system toexperience the brunt of the Fall. The governing body on the moon, theLunar-Lagrange Alliance, had absorbed most of the impact.

They hadn’t taken the shock verywell.

That still did not stop the Moonfrom being home to some of the oldest settlements in the solar system. Nor didit stop these settlements from being extremely beautiful, with cavernousstructures filled with towering jungles and artificial rainforests thatstretched for miles. The buildings were very elegant, fitting the cathedrallike interior of the moon very well.

Hotaru had adjusted to life onthe Moon fairly well. She lived with Chloe, the two having grown relativelyclose over the last couple of months, and she was really sad to see Chloe leavefor Mars. The last few months had been a rush to catch up with what a futurethat she hadn’t originally be part of, come out of her shell, and adapt to afuture she had almost missed. She collected plenty of friends on her socialnetwork – some of them people she’d never even met – and had become a verypromiscuous abuser of social networking the last few weeks and months, mostlywith people her own “age”, which mentally was late teens.

The best thing of all of it, sherealized as she leaned out the balcony overlooking the expansive South Asianjungles that stretched to the edge of the cave, was that Sava was gone, and she had a legitimate muse.

She’d even ditched the name he calledher and adopted a new one, to blend in better with her new home – Anjali Green.

Anjali stood up, stretching thewings on the back of her lunar flier morph. It had been expensive, but she’dmanaged to pull together enough reputation and credits, with Chloe’s help, toget a friend of hers to modify an existing morph and turn it into one. She worea silver bodysuit, with gloves that left the all but the middle finger of eachhand exposed and with wrist jewelry. The body suit had henna designs on it, andopened up to expose her lower abdomen and the inside of her thighs, as well assilver “underwear” like fabric that was covered her lower torso. She had a hoodthat connected directly to the body of the suit, but didn’t have it up,allowing her light purple hair to twist down around her shoulder. She hadoriginally woken up in a morph that looked very Japanese. Now, she inhabited amorph that looked more Dravidian than anything, with pale tanned skin tocontrast against the light purple lipstick.

She had several assignments duefor class, but was postponing them. The body she wore was a young adult’s body;aged to about eighteen, to adjust to her “mental age” while keeping close toher actual age. Not at all like the Japanese morph on Earth, or the morph thatthey gave her shortly after waking up, both of which were adults.

She vastly preferred this morph to the one that they gave her.

The wings stretched and flexed.They were angel wings; the feathers were light blue slowly fading into lightpurple by the tips. There were a few dozen other utlracolors too, but withoutthe enhanced vision that her body came with, they’d never get seen.

The morph also had a few otherbells and whistles, not all of them immediately visible, and not all of themuseful under average circumstances.

She stretched, and decided totake the quick way to the walkway stretching over the jungle below. She jumpedoff the balcony and flapped her wings, sailing towards the walkway and touchingdown, careful to avoid others as they walked past. She startled a few tropicalbirds, and they took off into the air as she stood up and folded the wingsbehind her. A lunar flier got attention no matter where it was, and today wasno different.

She was proud of her body; andwould’ve been showing off a lot more had Lunar culture not been soconservative.

Anjali felt she lookedabsolutely gorgeous. A lot of the girls she knew agreed.

Lifting back into the air again,Anjali took wing and flew well above the canopy of the jungles in the center ofErato, the largest of the lunar colonies and one of the major centers ofimportance for the LLA. She wasn’t the only one up this far – there were otherfliers too. Early morning was the time for exercise, which was a very importantpart of lunar culture despite morphs not needing it anymore.

She could remember before shedied the first time; teenagers back before the fall, on Earth, couldn’t fly.She’d found a few of her old friends from Earth on the social networking sites,too, but most had found their way to Mars or the outer system.

It felt good to stretch herwings, and it felt good to fly. She landed on a nearby balcony, belonging toher neighbor, and perched there.

That was when her AR flashed.She had a new message. She instinctively opened it, expecting it to be from oneof her friends. She was wrong.

The message loaded, and thendisplayed in her AR.

[Message] Antares: Hotaru, sweetie, how are you? Good, I hope. Or, perhaps,I should be calling you Anjali Green, because that seems to be the name you’reusing these days. It’s a pretty name; to match a pretty lunar flier. And yes,about that morph; you didn’t think that it was just you and Chloe who managedto scrap together the credit to buy that, right? Flesh is at a premium, mydear. It isn’t not free, like… like… well, it’s not free, and it’s actuallyrather expensive. But you can thank good ol’ ANTARES for coming up with thecredit to afford this wonderful little morph for you. No charge! You don’t oweme anything. That’s why I expect you to do what I’m going to ask out of thegood of your heart, rather than me holding it over your head.

So, what does Good Ol’ creepyuncle ANTARES want from you, hm? Well, I need you to find someone for me. Hegoes by the name Dean Kondratiev. Kondratiev is a financial manager at SineFinances. Never heard of them? Don’t feel bad. They don’t exist anymore.Kondratiev founded the institution some 2 years after the Fall and man did thatdude game the system. In fact, he gamed it so well that the other banks decidedto hire him, and he closed down Sine Finances after 3 years. About 5 years ago,after working for Solaris, he vanished. People vanish all the time, likely intothe outer system usually.

Until just recently, that is.I’ve picked up wind about a group of people who are gaming the stock market –they’ve got themselves some awesome talent, because they’re making some seriousmoney. The banks haven’t been alerted yet but I sure have. I suspect thatKondratiev might be back, but I have no evidence. That’s why I need you. Lunais the center of all the big banks. It’s the banking capital of the innersystem. If he and his prodigies are anywhere, it’s here on Luna.

I’ll send any additionalinformation along that I find, but right now, I only have a few of hisprodigies. Their names are attached.

If you could pretty, pretty,pretty please do this little favor for me I won’t remind you that the onlyreason you have that wonderful body is because of me and I expect something inreturn. Okay? Kthnx. [/message]

Anjali closed the message not entirely surehow to respond to it.

[Wouldyou like me to save the message, Anj?] her muse, Firefly, asked.

[I…I guess?]

>>FinancialAid: Information on Financial Institutes: Topic: I need some number people

Phoenix_Sun03 [Location: Luna, City: Erato]

# Question: I’m looking for a financial guy, something about awindfall taxes on some money I guess I had that I didn’t know about. I’ve heardthat Sine Finances is pretty good – anyone know anything about them?

TopicCreator

Red_Hot32[Location: Luna, City: Shackle]

@ Phoenix_Sun03 I’m pretty sure thatthey’re not a viable institution anymore. Last time I checked, Sine Financialwent under.

Phoenix_Sun03 [Location: Luna, City:Erato]

@ Red_Hot32Oh man. Srsly? That wasn’t what I wanted to hear at all :-/

Maybe you can get me some info on the guy who ran the joint so Ican
contact him?

Topic Creator

Red_Hot03 [Location: Luna, City: Shackle]

@ Phoenix_Sun03Sry. It’s not what anyone wants to hear when they want a number person that’sas good as Kondrateiv was. So tell me a little about this money; maybe I canhelp. Is this one of the unknown and unlisted perks of being a re-instantiated?

Space_Whales003[Location:Earth Orbit, Station: Hotel California]

@ Phoenix_Sun03 Why in Orbit would you be interested infinding a financial guy? I still don’t know why you just don’t move off Lunaand join the rest of civilization in the Outer System.

Starry,Starry Night [Location: Luna, City: Erato]

@ Phonex_Sun03 Red_Hot is right. Sine Finances isn’t aroundanymore. I can give you a link here to the history of the company. Theydidn’t last very long; not long after they were formed, K-Wave abandoned shipand joined up with Solaris and the rest of the big boys in the PC. Theysurvived the Fall, but they didn’t survive the PC.

Phoenix_Sun03 [Location: Luna, City:Erato]

@ Starry,Starry Night thnx for the linkage. His nickname is ‘K-Wave?’
Seriously?

Topic Creator

Phoenix_Sun03 [Location: Luna, City: Erato]

@ Starry,Starry Night wait. I just looked at you profile. You grew up in California,too? Message me. I think we may know each other.

Topic Creator

AfricanDawn342 [Location: Luna, City: Shackle]

@ Phoenix_Sun03 You’re probably looking for the brain childof sine, K-Wave. K-Wave hasn’t been seen around these parts in years. If I knewhow to contact him, I could hit you up with the address for a little bit ofrep, but because I don’t know where K-Wave ran off to, I couldn’t tell you.

Sine Finances (redirectfrom “History of Sine Finances”)

Entry from the Free Solarpedia

History:Sine Finances is a Pre-Fall finance company that was started on Luna by DeanKondrateiv, a Russian-Englishman from London. Kondrateiv, who displayed anuncanny mastery of numbers the ability to calculate the direction that marketswould take, founded the company in the years before the Fall. During the Fall,Kondrateiv’s company was temporarily put on hold, as Kondrateiv himself and hisstudents made their escape from Earth.

Followingthe fall, Kondrateiv settled in Erato, then the largest city on Luna, andopened up several branch offices in New Mumbai before the New Mumbai Incident.As an independent bank, Sine Finances was not tied to the LLA-owned banks, andwas one of the vanguard banks leading the charge following the Fall, makingin-roads into the outer system with the Autonomists, garnering theirinvestments. Kondrateiv continued his uncanny ability to predict and crunchnumbers. When Solaris entered the scene, Kondrateiv sold Sine to Solaris,merging the two banks, and the investments of both banks, into one largecompany.

This document is a stub.Please speak with an Administrator if you think you can improve it.

In general, Erato was a beautiful city. Thecathedral like caverns under the Moon’s surfaces, filled with the large junglesat the heart and the well cleaned silver and ivory covered surfaces gave thewhole thing a striking beauty that was difficult to find elsewhere in the solarsystem.

Likeany city, though Erato had its bad neighborhoods. Far away from the soaringcanopies and silver-and-ivory buildings at the center of the city were moreconventional structures near the edges; the closer one got to the end of thelife support range, the more hostile and rough the neighborhood seemed tobecome. Inside of the tunnels branching off of Erato, the walls were lined withsmall buildings and offices, inhabited by pods and low-end splicer morphs.Further out, one found synthmorphs. The synthmorph parts of Luna were notplaces that a biomorph like her wanted to be.

Thatwas why it surprised Anjali so much to learn that this had been the place where“K-Wave” had opened up his office.

Shepulled the hood up over her head, trying to minimize her profile and keepherself from being noticed. It was a difficult task with the wings stickingalmost a full meter from her back. It was getting glares, that was for sure.She buried her face in her hood, carefully trying to keep one step ahead of theglares as she did so. Perhaps some more clothes would’ve been useful, too. Thiswasn’t exactly the best neighborhood to go around showing off one’s morph.

[This was a dumb idea,] Anjali said. [Maybe I should just go back to my old Hotaru morph. Thatdoesn’t draw as much attention.]

[I imagine it’s too late to turn back, and having wingsmight be useful in getting to the upper tier, where you’ll find the office,] Fireflysaid.

Whileshe was looking for the office, Anjali was also looking for something else,too. As she walked on the other side of the street, trying to keep her headhidden, she was keeping her eyes peeled for someone she’d contacted on one ofthe mesh forums, who lived in this side of town and who she never thought she’dsee again. Her heart fluttered; anxiety anchored it’s clamps into her stomachand back, pulling her down.

Sheducked into the shadows, looking around. Several synthmorphs were now visible,and they did not look happy to see her.

[I don’t feel welcomed here at all,] Anjali said.

Shebacked right into someone. She wheeled around, fumbling for the wasp knife thatshe carried with her, tucked away in a metamaterials sheath, when she realizedit was a pretty gynoid synthmorph that she’d run into. The synth held out herhands, trying to calm down Anjali.

[Don’t panic!] Thesynth said. [It’s me. It’s Kaede.]

Anjaliheaved a sigh. This is the person she was looking for. Once she was calmeddown, she started to laugh and hugged the synth, who returned the embrace.

Whenshe was Hotaru, she’d gone to school with Kaede. They grew up together. It wasby pure happenstance that she happened to find Kaede again, having survived theFall and even living in the same lunar city that she lived in.

Shefelt like she could cry. It had been so long.

[Is it you?]

[Aren’t you theone who glued herself to the chair back in elementary school?]

Shelaughed again. It was.

They’dbeen separated by the Fall. Anjali had died. It was pure happenstance that thishad all fallen into place the way that it had.

“Imissed so much,” Anjali said.

“Isthat why you have a young morph?” Kaede replied, her mechanical voice carryingan air of warmth and care she’d not heard before.

“Idon’t remember a thing,” Anjali said, a tear forming in her eye. She dried itaway. “I barely remember what it was like before I woke up on Earth….”

Beforeshe could finish, Kaede clamped her mechanical hand over Anjali’s mouth, hereyes wide.

[That is not something you say here. You are fromMars, or you are from Venus, or you are from the Outer System. You grew upthere. That way, while they will never trust you, they won’t try to actively kill you.]

[Sorry,] she said. [Ilost myself, I guess.]

[You didn’t ageat all since the Fall, did you?]

[In theory, I should be 25,] Anjali said. [I have the knowledge of a 17 year old, the body of an 18year old, and the experiences of a 50 year old.]

[That soundsabout right for your average transhuman,] Kaede said. [Coming intothis part of town with a biomorph was not a smart thing.]

[You’re telling me.]

[Especially one as pretty and expensiveas that one is. You might as well rub it in the face of these people that theycan’t have a body.]

Anjalilooked at the ground, and at her feet. [Well, it’snot like it’s my fault.]

[No, nobodyever said it was. Some people prefer synths; it’s a sense of unity. Others,however, don’t. And reminding them of your privileged ownership of a biomorphis not helping them like you anymore.]

[Trust me. It came with a very heavy price tag and a veryshort leash.]

Kaedetook a step back, her morph smiling. It looked human; dodging the uncannyvalley by virtue of a skin-flex like coating over the surface of the morphsimilar to what Chloe had placed on all her morphs because she had identityissues.

“Imissed you, little firefly.”

“That’sthe name of my muse now,” Anjali said, returning the response in near perfectJapanese. At least that hadn’t changed.

“Yourmuse was named Reiko,” Kaede said. “I remember, because you named her after apretty girl on TV.”

“Idon’t remember that.”

“There’sprobably a lot you don’t remember,” Kaede said. “We’ll have to catch up later,little firefly.”

“Wewill,” Anjali said. “I don’t remember so much about who I was.”

Shelooked around. “In the meantime, I need to find a way into a closed downoffice.”

[Where at?] Kaedeasked, as Anjali brought it up on her AR. She painted it, and then shared itwith Kaede. [Ah. Okay. You want the old Sine Finances office.]

[It’s still known by that name?]

[Nobody movedin after K-Wave shut the office down.]

Shefrowned. Space was at a premium, wasn’t it? Why would they keep an office shutdown, and not let anyone else move in?

Shelooked back at Kaede. [Know a way in?]

[Of course,]Kaede said. [Follow me.]

Kaedetook Anjali by the hand and the two women went further away from it. At first,Anjali was going to question Kaede’s direction, but decided against it; shekept up with Kaede as Kaede directed her further into the maze of buildings andstructures into the corridor. They cleared several doors, and just when itseemed like Anjali had lost track of where Kaede was dragging her, theyapproached another door that, once opened, lead into a narrow hallway.

[This hallway,]Kaede said. [There are other halls that connect to this hallway, butthis one doesn’t have any spimes and takes us out of the way of the synthmorphinhabitants. Do you know what you’re looking for?]

[Nope,] she said, folding her wings to fit intothe narrow corridor as she and Kaede crawled through the dust-covered andfreezing cold tunnel. The air was also thin; this morph wasn’t designed tofunction for very long in these climes. [What the hell? Did he sleeve in a synth or something?] sheasked, covering herself up. This was the last time she would come on this sideof town wearing just a flimsy little piece of plastic-cloth that clung to herskin like Saran wrap.

Upahead, they approached a doorway. Anjali reached it first, shoving twice beforeshe unjammed it, and then stepped cautiously into the actual room itself. Itwas dusty, cold, dark; and eerie. Definitely eerie.

“Idon’t like it in here,” she said. Breathing was becoming a bit of a challenge.

“It’sa task, that’s for sure,” Kaede said.

Shefelt the synthmorph wrap an arm around her. “You know what I forgot?” Kaedesaid.

“ThatI’m a biomorph? And that as a synth, environment doesn’t affect you as much?”

“Yep,”Kaede said.

“Here’sa new plan,” Anjali said, scanning the empty room. “Let’s head back to the heartof Erato. Maybe I can think of something else – it’s pretty obvious there isn’tmuch here, anyway.”

“Ican’t go with you. They don’t let synths into that part of town.”

“Bull,”Anjali said. “I can get you in. Just watch.”

Andwith that, she took Kaede’s synth by the hand and eagerly led her from theroom, back into the corridor. She wasn’t Chloe; she didn’t have the first ideawhere to start, but maybe after some tea, exercise, and a warm bath, she’dthink of one.

Evoluted off the Island

2012-02-02T17:20:00.000-08:00

I suppose I should be thankful that they at least call it "Evolution" rather than Darwinism, but this is like being thankful your dog dragged its ass across the hardwood kitchen floor, rather than the carpeted dining room floor.

You don't get points for doing the bare minimum required to sound intelligent, even if you're nothing of the sort.

I mean, what the hell? I expect high-quality, intelligent, intellectually stimulating literature when I go digging around WhirledNutDaily. Don't you? When I find something on that respectable bastion of intellectual insight like this, I can't help but comment. When you're barely meeting World News Daily's standards, something has gone really wrong. Like, grown adults in furry sex-toy studded rubber dinosaur suits wrong.

Bradley Dean has made a fool of himself before. He's some pastor; he's got long hair (like a hippy) and dares to call himself a heavy metal fan (It's not metal if we ain't burning churches. We gotta burn them churches. Once you've done that, get back with me. Then we'll talk about you 'being metal' because until the, you ain't even 'being metal-colored crayon'). He supported Michelle Bachmann for president - which alone should tell you something about him, because actions speak louder than words and when your actions consist of supporting someone who, frankly, didn't live in the same consensus reality we shared, you have problems - and is vocal, anti-gay. In short, he's the typical Republican, trying really, really hard to look 'edgy' and 'new'.

It's painful to watch these people try to do that.

So It shouldn't surprise anyone he knows jackshit about the Theory of Evolution. It also shouldn't surprise anyone that he's willing to happily put the fact that he knows jackshit about the Theory of Evolution on display, for the whole world to see.

It’s absolutely ridiculous that I would even have to take the time to expose the theory/religion of evolution (and theory it is), but when it affects the outcome of future generations, it must take precedence. Take a look with me at the absurdities of people who blindly follow its teaching.

It has been said, “The philosophy of the classroom in one generation will the be philosophy of government in the next.” When people fall in line with the theory of evolution, and with those like Adolf Hitler who kill millions and millions of people because they weren’t quite as evolved, it’s not only terrible, but also very dangerous.

It's absolutely ridiculous, but I love the fact you do, because it gives me something to make fun of.

Theory/Religion. It's like they can't tell the difference. Why, you'd think that they don't want to. It's like they saw the colloquial meaning of 'theory' - that is, a wild-assed guess - confused it with their own wild-assed guess and ran with it. The fact that they can't tell the difference says mountains about them.

I blindly follow it's teachings. That's right. I blindly follow reality. Shame on me. Maybe if I close my eyes and stumble around like an idiot, I'd be happier. People like Dean are why intelligent people are constantly mischaracterized as being unhappy. We're only unhappy when morons like him come around, because then we have to list to twit here talk with absolute certainty that he knows the truth, as is not written in a book several thousand years old - and in dire need of a copy-editor to fix all of those plot holes

Fer instance: compare: Genesis 1 to Genesis 2 - WTF happened to Adam? Why does God make him twice? Why does he make Eve twice? Why does God pretty much start all over again at the beginning of Genesis 2, when he had made everything from the ground up in Genesis 1? There's no explaining. There's no attempts to fill the plot hole, and I best guess is that someone just wasn't paying attention when they crammed those two stories together. You're just fucked if you take it literally, because you can't pull stuff out of thin air. The Bible doesn't say so. It just is. God created the world twice. And there's no explanation as to what happened to the first one. It's just gone. No explanation you can use, because that'd require you reaching outside of the text, thereby proving you don't take it literally. You lose. End of argument. Go home, cry, reevaluate your life and realize you've been lied to, and then get back with the rest of us who are just as pissed off as you are at the people who lied to you. And this is your first two chapters. One is all it takes to render the Bible little more than collection of stories. How you take those stories is up to you, but there's no way that book is the Literal Truth(tm). It wasn't even intended to be, and odds are, you never took it that way to begin with (see: cherry picking cuz Jesus said it was okay).

GODWIN! GODWIN! Ding-ding-ding-ding!

Godwin, first two paragraphs. That's pretty pathetic. C'mon, Dean! This is World News Daily! Don't they have any standards?! Have they sold off everything they stand for?! That fucker should've been right there in the goddamn title!

The theory/religion of evolution teaches our kids a mindset that God does not exist (idolatry – the oldest sin in the Bible); that there are no moral absolutes; that some men are better than others; and that we evolved from monkeys. Then we wonder why, after teaching evolution in schools, America has an epidemic of school shootings, suicides, violence, rape and crime.
If you can convince the people that God does not exist, then the government becomes god. Now what you are seeing today is the modern American government falling in line with the same theory/religion: Away with God and onward with tyranny. How contradictory to our founders!

How the hell is not believing in anything or worshiping anything idolatry? Also, that's something you folks should know an awful lot about. After all, worshiping one's own ego is the highest form of worshiping an idol.

And if you too can't tell the difference between an ape and a monkey, don't worry. I'll just sit here and wait for my tail.

Warning! The Theory of Evolution may not be for every society. Reported side effects include: school shootings, suicides, violence, rape, crime, abortion, 9/11-like events, earthquakes, hurricanes, fires, floods, volcanoes, women's rights, marriage equality, god-hating atheist fascists, femnazis, Grammar Nazis, Semantics Nazis, vanilla Nazis, Illinois Nazis (everyone hates Illinois Nazis), Communist Nazis, Maoist Nazis, Liberal Nazis, Fascist Nazis, Random Don't Even Belong in the Conversation Nazis, Left-leaning Nazis, Econazis, Political Nazis, Darwinist Nazis, Scientist Nazis, Russian Nazis, Chinese Nazis, Illegal Immigrant Nazis, Muslim Nazis, Peacenik hippie Nazis, God-hating-atheist-fascist-Fem-Grammar-Semantics-vanilla-Illinois-Communist-Maoist-Liberal-Fascist-Random-Don't Even Belong in the Conversation-left-leaning-Eco-political-Darwinist-Scientist-Russian-Chinese-Illegal Immigrant-Muslim-Peacenick hippie Nazis and sneezing (*phew*). If you experience any of these side affects, please consult a creationist immediately.

"If you can convince the people that God does not exist, then the government becomes God." There's a slippery slope ahead, look out! And it's been iced over thoroughly with the frozen piss of a piss-poor argument.

Without God, there is tyranny. You know, this makes just as much sense as anything else he wrote, so hey. Why are you batting at the low hanging fruit, huh? You people should feel guilty - look at the size of that stick; it's puny. Here, let me get a bigger stick for you. There we go.

Besides this, Charles Darwin himself didn’t believe his theory would stand up to the light of truth. He said in his book “The Origin of Species,” “If it could be demonstrated that an organ exists, which could not have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.” If that’s the case, Charlie, what is the basis for any of your theories? There isn’t one.

Actually, there's a bunch. You just have to open your eyes and see them.

One of the most common argument against the fossil record is the idea of a "transition species." That is, a species that shows traits of more than one species; for instance, it's widely believed that certain dinosaurs evolved into birds, so we would need a bird-like dinosaur to prove it. I wonder where we can get one of those. Of course, it's never enough - obviously it's not a true transitional specimen, because it doesn't show transition features. If it did, it would look like a pig mixed with an alligator. In short, they're basically demanding Zeno's transitional fossil. Those goalposts are really heavy. At least, that's my understanding of it.

When they're not claiming Satan's burying the fossils to deceive believers. Really. If I were god's better, and I had total control over the world, it'd come across as a serious waste of time to send out demons to bury a bunch of damn bones under the ground to deceive people into thinking at one time birds could eat them. That's just me, though; obviously I'm more competent than Satan because I don't even want to the job. I know I'll lose.

I suppose I should be thankful that Dean didn't mix up cosmology and geology into the argument.

All and all, I've seen worse. I've seen funnier. I've seen stuff that makes me want to move off planet. I've seen Texas.

Still, this is pretty bad. There's no substance at all to anything he's saying; he's just rehashing trite, old, and stupid arguments against something that has more validity than the theory of gravity. Which makes him look like a really big fool. And not the kind of Shakespearean fool, like Lear's Fool, who points out the foibles in the king and takes the king down a few notches in the middle of a raging storm for being such an egotist and failing to see his two oldest daughters are wretched vipers. We're talking the jackass peasant who thought it would be cool to rig the dukes' chamberpot to explode and got covered in shit when it went off prematurely.

But then, would we expect anything else from that bastion of ivory tower elite otherwise known as WhirledNutDaily?

Since When did Being a "Weather man" Make You a Scientist?

2012-02-01T18:28:00.000-08:00

When the hell did being a "weather man" give you the ability to comment on shit you don't understand, that isn't even your purview of study? Someone get Dunning-Kruger on line one.

In theory, weather people are called meteorologists. Meteorologists don't study the climate - that's the job of Climatologists. Instead, meteorology is an interdisciplinary approach to studying the atmosphere. It, along with climatology, atmospheric physics, and atmospheric chemistry, make up the atmospheric sciences. The difference between meteorology and climatology is that meteorology studies short-term events, while climatology studies long term events.

Climatologists are almost universal in their agreement of global warming, and that hey, this is happening. You know - sorta like those inconsequential Brown people in the South Pacific who are loosing their homes due to sea level rise.

Meteorologists, on the other hand, are not.

NASA's made the facts pretty clear, but for a profession where it seems the only real requirement is having nice hair (because being right certainly isn't one of them), a fair number of weather people/meteorologists haven't quite adapted to this.

Let me state that while it sounds like I'm dissing meteorology I'm not. Any field of study is an important one, and the ability to predict short-term weather phenomena with a degree of accuracy is a very important one and one that needs to be respected.

But then, engineering is also a field that needs to be respected. So is being a medical doctor. The fact that you're part of the field, however, doesn't make you immune from making your field look bad when a bunch of you start saying stupid shit.And it does start to reflect on your profession after a while, and if enough people step up and start saying stupid things, it makes you wonder why you can be trusted.

So, why shouldn't I take seriously what some meteorologist (actually, let's be more correct here - weatherman/woman, because in some ways they're not the same thing) has to say on climate change?

Simply put, weather is not climate. Climate is not weather. Climate is the thing that drives the weather; climate is the engine and weather is the reactions within that engine. When the engine starts misfiring, we here in the engine might notice hiccups, but nothing too serious. At least, not until it's too late.

By the way, the current trends are suggesting anywhere from a 1mm/y to 3mm/y rise in sea level, meaning that we'll see anywhere from 1m to 3m by the end of the century. However, there are significant uncertainties here - for instance, a rapid melting of the Greenland ice sheet could raise the sea level by as much as 7m (~21ft). the Western Antarctic Ice sheet could be anywhere from 5-6m (~15-18ft). In any case we wouldn't have to worry about Venice being wiped off the face of the planet, because New York may very well take its place. A rapid heating of the earth (possibly caused by a methane burst created by a large expulsion of frozen methane under the ocean's surface, thawed and bubbling to the surface, have the potential to cause extinction events in any measure) could trigger this massive thawing and then it's time to break out the water wings!

1m doesn't sound like a lot. That's only 3.3 feet. Until you realize that you're not taking into effect storm surge. Katrina? Please. There will be days when we're begging to have mild hurricanes like Katrina back. This increase in water is going to have a wonderful impact on the way that the oceans work, and because the oceans drive the climate, this stands a chance of becoming a feedback loop of dramatic proportions (see: thermohaline cycle, and why it may not be here in the future).

Oh, and the extreme weather it'll bring! It'll be fun! There will be cookies. And cake.

So, I reiterate - when the hell did being a "weather man" make you a scientist? And why the hell should I take you seriously, as a weather person, when you run off at the mouth about climate change?

Climate =/= Weather.

I wouldn't go to a dermatologist if I had internal bleeding.

I'm not going to a meteorologist if I think there's something wrong with the climate.

I'm gonna go to a person who knows what the fuck they're talking about. Which universally excludes anyone on FOX news, among other places.

And yet, somehow, deep in the faith of Global Warming Denialism, this has become truth. I don't believe my stomach is bleeding because my eye doctor told me I was fine. These people are bought and paid for by big coal and oil, who, like all companies, can't see the forest beyond the trees. Unregulated capitalism is the engine that will likely destroy humanity. And it'll do it far more effectively than any transhuman technology or AI ever could.

"Friendly AI?"

2012-01-30T12:25:00.000-08:00

New Transhuman post.

I haven't done my post on Artificial Intelligence yet, but I've touched on the subject. I should likely do my AI post before I do this one, but - eh.

A quick primer on some AI terms, for those who don't know or missed one of my posts where I defined them:

AI - Artificial Intelligence. I've also seen this rendered as Artilect - Artificial Intellect. AIs/Artilects come in several different "flavors", depending upon what they do and the amount of labor put into creating them. In escalating order of self-awareness, they are:

Expert System: An expert system isn't a true AI. It's a program that has been developed that possesses a mastery of a particular subject and then uses that mastery in that subject area. ESes are not self-aware, they are not sapient, and they cannot learn. We've been using ESes since the 1970s and 80s, and they've only gotten better.

Narrow AI: Also called Weak AI. This AI is sorta like what we imagine when we think of AI, but it's intentionally handicapped so that it can't reach human/transhuman levels of intelligence (I imagine a Narrow AI would likely be as smart as a human is today, compared to the transhumans of tomorrow). Narrow AIs are the most plausible right now, and depending upon how one interprets Godel's various theorems, maybe the only type of AI possible. I disagree, and I'm not the only one.

AGIs: Stands for Artificial General Intelligence. Also called Strong AI. These are AI systems that are programmed to be just humans. They learn, they feel, they understand, they have their own personalities, likes, dislikes, thoughts, etc. They are, for all intents and purposes, totally self-aware. An AGI would be really no different from a human being, with the exception that they live in a computer.

Seed AI: This is where people start to get nervous. Add one half pound AGI and two quarts infinite self-improving capabilities, stir vigorously and for God's sakes don't put in the bootstrapping. A Seed AI is an AGI on steroids; these are AIs that have infinite self-improvement capabilities, achieved through what I imagine is something like recursive programming. A Seed AI has the actual potential to become a god or God or something close to it - if Seed AIs actually can exist, they're likely the only thing that remains from highly advanced alien civilizations (providing those civilization didn't just downsize themselves into attotech computer - goodness only knows what they're doing down there).

Like all technology, AIs have their own risks and benefits. No technology is likely as misunderstood as AI research; this is partially thanks to Hollywood's tendency to display AIs as prone to go rogue at the drop of hat and try to kill off humanity for... whatever purpose. Who knows.

It makes for an awesome story. It's crap science, like everything from Hollywood and modern science fiction, though.

Overlooking Hollywood's stupidity on the matter, there's an interesting discussion to be made. Obviously we don't want our AI go and get itself corrupted, or to exposed to an alien hypervirus that operates on a femtotech level and kill us all, so the natural inclination is "well, program it to be friendly to us. Recognize us as it's masters, and definitely try not to kill us."

This notion is called "friendly AI." Were we program the AI so it is friendly towards us, so it doesn't go all Skynet and, y'know, kill us.

I'm glad to know I'm not the only person who disagrees with this immensely.

There's an article over on H+ - an opinion piece, actually - that discusses why the author is hostile towards the notion FAI. At first, I had to wonder why that is. I mean, FAI might just be the thing that ensures our survival and doesn't get us wiped off the map by our own creation.

Shame on me for holding such a biochauvinist and unethical Romantic position.

At first glance, this seems almost suicidal. "Why on Earth wouldn't you want your AGIs and your Seed AIs to be friendly? What the holy hell is wrong with you!? Do you even know what we're dealing with here? These aren't people!"

Actually, yes they are. We are creating humans here, and it's that attitude that might get us killed by them. If you other AIs, and treat them as something that's not human and program them as such, then no, they won't be able to relate to us. No, they won't be able to understand, and yes, all of the "prophecies" about AIs going rogue will likely come to pass, simply because they don't recognize themselves as humans. Now, if you program them to recognize themselves as humans, then you have to treat them like humans - and in doing so, let them have their own opinions of things. You can't force your neighbor to be friendly to you. Nor should you try. The same principles are at work here. We want them to be human, but we don't want to treat them as human and we want to force them to be friendly towards us. We can't have this both ways.

The minute you start treating AIs as something "else", and that biochauvinism sets in, we have problems. And that's exactly what FAI does. It's forcing that AIs to be friendly. It's unethical on the most basic levels; if we're going to create a sapient species, then we have no right forcing that sapient species to try and be friendly towards us. AIs would not be "things". AGIs and Seed AIs would be people, and they should be recognized as such.

FAI is immoral on the highest level in this regard, because you're stripping a sapience species of it's rights to have it's own thoughts and opinions.

What's the danger in this?

Well, what's the danger in not forcing humans to be friendly towards other humans? People do die - but people also care. We are a varied group. We each have our own opinions. We will be friendly towards some people and not-so-friendly towards others. If AIs are programmed to see themselves as human relatives - which is distinctly different from programing to be friendly to all humans, because we're programming them to be sapient and human sapience is the only type of sapience we know - then they should have this own freedom of opinion. Ian Malcolm, one of the most famous Romantics courtesy of the popularity of Jurassic Park, once said "Nature will find a way." This is true. We shouldn't take this as a warning not to do it, however; we should take this as a general rule, and plan for what happens when nature does find a way around something. If we force AIs to be friendly, are there any chances where they might stop? Possibly. And if they do stop, and look back and realize we never gave them a choice in the matter - well, would you be happy? Would you be willing to forgive? So perhaps, knowing nature will find a way, we should work with nature in this case, and let a sapient species be a sapient species? Seems like the thing that makes the most sense to me.

This is involuntary slavery, to a degree. You get no opinion. You get no say. We create you, and you have to worship us and be friendly to all of us.

It's true, some AIs may be hostile towards humans. Just like there are humans who are hostile to humans. But for every AI that's hostile, we'll have a few who are not. AIs will only wield the power that we give them; a home AI will be significantly less powerful than say, one designed by the military for war purposes, or one built built by the Library of Congress in an effort to keep things organized there. But this entire notion of "friendly AI" is an attempt to make AI more palatable for the fearful masses, who've been fed movie after movie about rogue AIs killing everyone from Hollywood, at the cost of stripping an entire sapient species of their right to an opinion. At the cost of othering that species, so that they're viewed as something not human. Likely at the cost of our own species should they ever find out - creating a self-fulling prophecy in the worst case scenario.

Which, ultimately, is a case of irony. We intentionally made these AIs friendly to keep them from killing us, and when they found out that we were keeping them from their own opinions and forcing them to like us, they learned to hate us and killed us. It's best to let them have the chance to develop themselves; if they decide "okay y'all, we're done here and we're off to bigger and better things - chill, folks" and they leave, that's fine. If one does attempt to destroy humanity, I'd ask who the hell taught it, and then we could use the other AIs who were taught better to try and fight back against it.

Friendly AI, and the whole notion of it, is othering to AGIs and Seed AIs. It needs to go away. Now. Before AGIs and Seed AIs actually come around, and it runs the risk of getting us killed.