Trump for President
Truly, Donald Trump throwing his hat in the race for Republican candidacy in 2015 is a gold-mine of a story that never stops giving. Even with the loss of Jon Stewart there is a sense that the laughs will continue for some time thanks to a self-made millionaire (or billionaire - reports vary) with a penchant for saying crazy shit and a real shot (?) at the Presidency of the USA. Everyone remembers 2012 as being a pretty slow circus but this one is going to keep bettering itself as Trump outdoes the rest of the candidates. Sure the soul crushing spectacle that is Bernie Sanders getting ignored in favor of H. Clinton and castigated as a madman for stating obvious truths ('we make regrettable wars', 'corporate welfare', 'let's be cool and stop fucking up', etc.) is a wild show in and of itself, but Trump saying crazy and regrettable things is about as good as it will get. Sanders is the Trump of the Democrat race and shows the wide gulf between parties and the shallow gulf between how the media views candidates.
The temptation is give Mr. Donald Trump at least one month of presidency in order to see what he'll do. After all, on the point of not being an establishment candidate, he's absolutely right. It's just that he can't not say that Mexicans are drug-addicted rapists, which is something other Republican candidates only half-say unless they're actively courting the latino vote. Never has transparency been savaged like this - making this commentator wonder what the hell the media is trying to say about Trump. Sure, he's the only candidate not in the hands of big business but what could that mean regarding media support? Oh... Trump is big business, but the kind of big business that's middling, and that is not liked by other more serious big business. It's going to be an interesting race to the bottom while Sanders is completely ignored and America once again fails to return to greatness, a possibility removed by various amendments and secret laws enacted since the time of Nixon.
The Departure of Jon Stewart, Esq. from The Daily Show
One of the more regrettable stories, and a really big one, but he will be replaced by a hip, younger guy. Jon Stewart, since the announcement of his departure (January or Feb if I recall at all correctly) and even before, had been making jokes about being old, being tired of the show, and generally making pretty clear hints about his departure. People made a bit of noise about it and let it go, but it is really the end of an era. I was heartbroken enough at Wyatt Cenac's departure (his Herman Cain muppet bit was one of my favorites), so I was ready to let go. Maybe the humorous news-review show format is over for me. I'm pretty tired of watching shows and giving a shit about anything, so I understand where Mr. Stewart's mind was at for probably the last two years if not longer. Still, he had a way of delivering, a way of calling people on their bullshit, and a way of antagonizing other news shows... if only he'd taken one last shot at Steve Doucey.
ISIS/ISIL/DAESH
In another great case of the West creating its own bogeyman, this problem has gotten to be so big, and murderous, and insane, and unjustifiable, that it makes the Assad Regime (which it was supplied with high-tech weapons from You Know Who and its allies to fight) look casual and nearly benign. There's a new story about ISIS every day, from their habits with children to their habits with nonbelievers, to their big plans for Kurds, or their distaste of the West. Every one of these stories could have been prevented if people didn't bother to meddle in business they had no right to involve themselves in, but where's the fun in letting people decide their own fate? It's much better to throw money and supplies into a maelstrom and then pretend like you didn't know it was going to end poorly. As an added bonus: everyone forgets about what's going on in Yemen, and...
Iranian Nuclear Deal
Maybe the biggest international relations story of the summer, and one of the most 'fraught with peril' victories of all time if you believe the naysayers. B. Netanyahu, disregarding the reports of his own highly-aware security/intelligence agency, has repeatedly warned the world about Nuclear Iran (he has clocked nearly 20 years at this activity) and is now so angry with the United States that he no longer wishes to have any relations with the White House. With his recent reelection under his belt, old Bibi's gonna have a hell of a time in office convincing the world to destabilize Iran, which is really difficult when your sanctions have created a self-sufficient state with plenty of business contacts outside of the Western sphere of influence... and with the recent deal one of the biggest contentions is over, making for an interesting game of 'create a new problem' while ISIS runs rampant nearby.
Will There Be A Part 2?
Showing posts with label angst. Show all posts
Showing posts with label angst. Show all posts
5/4/15
If and Only If
If someone breaks your heart, do you respond rationally? Can you? Has anyone? Is there any way short of nerve-stapling to end the associated sensations and ideation?
Then stop shitting on people who are responding irrationally to heartbreak. The signs of it are all over the world and have always been all over the world. The depressives, the troubled, the diseased, the suicides, the idiots & fools, the violent, the irreverent, the dropouts, the deadbeats, the hopeless, the grieving... so many classically 'unwell' or 'questionable' bear the distinct scars of a broken heart. They are despised and misunderstood. There is no end to them. Even the happy Wellbeings, in an unguarded moment, may exhibit a subtle sign of pain or relate a story (if they trust you enough).
It is part of a mature mind to understand this. It ought to be part of every mind to possess some measure of empathy and understanding. There ought to be more value placed on wisdom.
There are not many people capable of seeing others at their lowest or worst and overcoming the piteous instinct (which censors reality by truncating it). It is a real challenge to empathize with people who fill you with disgust and disregard. You will have to do so if you value wisdom or humanity. It will be shitty... knowledge gained is not always comfortable. Wisdom is the opposite of comfortable complacency. Ignorance is perhaps truly blissful, but ignorance is not a state in which people grow and become great, and bliss is a fleeting thing.
Wisdom counters the irrationality of a human's response to defeat, disgust, pity, sorrow, or heartbreak. It enables one to look past immediate problems and place the present in an accurate context. It does not lead one to foolish hopes or into the destructive types of desire.
Paired with knowledge, wisdom becomes the greatest force for good that we possess. We undervalue wisdom for supposedly 'practical' values. We always have. The wisest humans of the past were not the most powerful, nor the wealthiest, nor were they always honored accordingly, but their influence is responsible for much if not all of what is considered good.
Wisdom is not in and of itself comprised of virtues. It cultivates virtues. It is not easy to attain. It is not self-regarding; it is humble but confident. It does not announce itself, it is not showy, it is self-evident. To the 'happily unwise' it may well be invisible, but it can inspire others. It is not unnecessary. Wisdom is not indifferent but equanimous. Wisdom knows and accepts imperfection in the self and in others. It is not hasty or judgmental, but it does stand firmly in the face of nonsense. Wisdom wants to know what is, and better it, and overcome fear. Wisdom stands against negativity, and though it need not acknowledge a god, it stands vigilant against evil as well.
Wisdom is not the sole property of the 'smart' set. There is no monopoly on wisdom. Wisdom will not form cartels, it will not attempt to take control – it will attempt to effect change in a patient way. It will not endorse bloodshed or suffering. It will not place one above the other. It will not accept injustice as an unbreakable rule. Wisdom is careful and selfless, it is not mercenary, it can change the world and usher in a new era, instead of struggling in the background under old and broken ways of living.
If and only if we adopt wisdom as a way of life can we ensure that the ills of our society are cured within our lifetime. If and only if we accept wisdom as the crowning virtue in leaders can we avoid bloodshed and conflict and small-mindedness. If and only if we strive towards wisdom can we make our species fulfill its potential.
On a personal level wisdom creates the mental balance necessary for true happiness, it is the precursor to true joy, not the pale imitations of joy & happiness that are coveted today. It makes it possible to accept things as they are and move them towards what they might be. It makes it possible to be selfless without being bitter or exploited. It makes it possible to be firm and strong without being aggressive or stupid or overbearing. It is the destroyer of bad habits, it is the creator of good ones. It inculcates discipline and perspective. It is not easy to become wise, that must be acknowledged, but a lifelong attempt should be one of the guiding principles of the living.
The wise are happier. The wise love more deeply, less selfishly. The wise know more and always seek more knowledge, which they do not use solely for personal gain. The wise will never be ruled by fear. The wise see through the vicious lies of our era, and though they are hurt and worried, they do not allow the negativity to wear them down. The wise value perspective, they strive to see things as they really are. They do not provoke negative reactions in others for any purpose. They strive to better those around them, and to better themselves as well, knowing it the most fundamental way of improving society. They know the value of love in its best sense, and it has changed them.
The wise seem to be a dying race in this world, and they have never really thrived, and that must be changed. Seek wisdom; fuck ignorance, greed, hatred, mendacity. Choose the road that requires true courage, which rewards its traveler in immeasurable ways, which offers the best and most terrifying and most inspiring views. For the sake of us all, choose wisdom and reject the nonsense. If and only if you truly want to be better, and leave behind the false ways, wisdom is your only option. Don't sell it or yourself short.
Then stop shitting on people who are responding irrationally to heartbreak. The signs of it are all over the world and have always been all over the world. The depressives, the troubled, the diseased, the suicides, the idiots & fools, the violent, the irreverent, the dropouts, the deadbeats, the hopeless, the grieving... so many classically 'unwell' or 'questionable' bear the distinct scars of a broken heart. They are despised and misunderstood. There is no end to them. Even the happy Wellbeings, in an unguarded moment, may exhibit a subtle sign of pain or relate a story (if they trust you enough).
It is part of a mature mind to understand this. It ought to be part of every mind to possess some measure of empathy and understanding. There ought to be more value placed on wisdom.
There are not many people capable of seeing others at their lowest or worst and overcoming the piteous instinct (which censors reality by truncating it). It is a real challenge to empathize with people who fill you with disgust and disregard. You will have to do so if you value wisdom or humanity. It will be shitty... knowledge gained is not always comfortable. Wisdom is the opposite of comfortable complacency. Ignorance is perhaps truly blissful, but ignorance is not a state in which people grow and become great, and bliss is a fleeting thing.
Wisdom counters the irrationality of a human's response to defeat, disgust, pity, sorrow, or heartbreak. It enables one to look past immediate problems and place the present in an accurate context. It does not lead one to foolish hopes or into the destructive types of desire.
Paired with knowledge, wisdom becomes the greatest force for good that we possess. We undervalue wisdom for supposedly 'practical' values. We always have. The wisest humans of the past were not the most powerful, nor the wealthiest, nor were they always honored accordingly, but their influence is responsible for much if not all of what is considered good.
Wisdom is not in and of itself comprised of virtues. It cultivates virtues. It is not easy to attain. It is not self-regarding; it is humble but confident. It does not announce itself, it is not showy, it is self-evident. To the 'happily unwise' it may well be invisible, but it can inspire others. It is not unnecessary. Wisdom is not indifferent but equanimous. Wisdom knows and accepts imperfection in the self and in others. It is not hasty or judgmental, but it does stand firmly in the face of nonsense. Wisdom wants to know what is, and better it, and overcome fear. Wisdom stands against negativity, and though it need not acknowledge a god, it stands vigilant against evil as well.
Wisdom is not the sole property of the 'smart' set. There is no monopoly on wisdom. Wisdom will not form cartels, it will not attempt to take control – it will attempt to effect change in a patient way. It will not endorse bloodshed or suffering. It will not place one above the other. It will not accept injustice as an unbreakable rule. Wisdom is careful and selfless, it is not mercenary, it can change the world and usher in a new era, instead of struggling in the background under old and broken ways of living.
If and only if we adopt wisdom as a way of life can we ensure that the ills of our society are cured within our lifetime. If and only if we accept wisdom as the crowning virtue in leaders can we avoid bloodshed and conflict and small-mindedness. If and only if we strive towards wisdom can we make our species fulfill its potential.
On a personal level wisdom creates the mental balance necessary for true happiness, it is the precursor to true joy, not the pale imitations of joy & happiness that are coveted today. It makes it possible to accept things as they are and move them towards what they might be. It makes it possible to be selfless without being bitter or exploited. It makes it possible to be firm and strong without being aggressive or stupid or overbearing. It is the destroyer of bad habits, it is the creator of good ones. It inculcates discipline and perspective. It is not easy to become wise, that must be acknowledged, but a lifelong attempt should be one of the guiding principles of the living.
The wise are happier. The wise love more deeply, less selfishly. The wise know more and always seek more knowledge, which they do not use solely for personal gain. The wise will never be ruled by fear. The wise see through the vicious lies of our era, and though they are hurt and worried, they do not allow the negativity to wear them down. The wise value perspective, they strive to see things as they really are. They do not provoke negative reactions in others for any purpose. They strive to better those around them, and to better themselves as well, knowing it the most fundamental way of improving society. They know the value of love in its best sense, and it has changed them.
The wise seem to be a dying race in this world, and they have never really thrived, and that must be changed. Seek wisdom; fuck ignorance, greed, hatred, mendacity. Choose the road that requires true courage, which rewards its traveler in immeasurable ways, which offers the best and most terrifying and most inspiring views. For the sake of us all, choose wisdom and reject the nonsense. If and only if you truly want to be better, and leave behind the false ways, wisdom is your only option. Don't sell it or yourself short.
4/8/15
Functions of Extreme Worry and Anxiety in Modern Society
These days most anybody is or knows someone who is very on edge, suffers from Professionally Identified Anxiety Disorder, or suffers from bouts of Extreme Worry (a disorder which includes subsets like '90's style extreme' and 'extremely incapacitating'). I see this more and more often. While I am fortunate enough to simply be extremely paralyzed by it, I realize looking around in my life that plenty of people seem to function nominally well under such pressures. A minority of acquaintances have more serious issues and the effects aren't always immediately apparent, but when I stop and think about it I can see hints of avoidant behavior and other quirks. I used to always write them off as high-strung but I've come to a number of realizations in the past year especially.
I mean I've gone long stretches without worrying too much, or with only minor worries blown out of proportion. Every now and then something relatively important will fill me with a sense of dread that cannot be banished. I refer to those most often as moments of clarity. I had a few such moments when I lost the ability to write effectively for this blog, and killed it, and knew that I blew it, and didn't have the energy or drive to replace it with a better one. I've had such moments about about personal relationships, and they've have kept me from the blessed realm of sleep. I regularly get the sensation of growing dread when I think of my life. I'm fairly certain I'm not the only one, and I've seen people with much less fucked-up lives than mine worry outrageously.
I've seen lots of unhappy faces on the streets. I assume most of them are facing some kind of anxiety. I can't blame them. There seem to be about a million things to worry about. There are always hundreds of things going on. You're missing out. You're probably sick with something. There are new illnesses every day. The planet is not dying. The world is under attack by fanatics who think the planet is dying and want to ruin your standard of living because they're hippies. People are out to get you. Lies and murder rule the streets, maybe even the world. You're going to lose your job. You're unemployed already and nobody will ever hire you. You'll never be in love again. The love you're in is falling apart. You're not in love, of course, you're far too rational for that. You're over-thinking things. You're not living your dream. Someone somewhere is stealing your dreams from you. You're insufficient for your dreams. Your dreams are killing you.
I mean I've gone long stretches without worrying too much, or with only minor worries blown out of proportion. Every now and then something relatively important will fill me with a sense of dread that cannot be banished. I refer to those most often as moments of clarity. I had a few such moments when I lost the ability to write effectively for this blog, and killed it, and knew that I blew it, and didn't have the energy or drive to replace it with a better one. I've had such moments about about personal relationships, and they've have kept me from the blessed realm of sleep. I regularly get the sensation of growing dread when I think of my life. I'm fairly certain I'm not the only one, and I've seen people with much less fucked-up lives than mine worry outrageously.
I've seen lots of unhappy faces on the streets. I assume most of them are facing some kind of anxiety. I can't blame them. There seem to be about a million things to worry about. There are always hundreds of things going on. You're missing out. You're probably sick with something. There are new illnesses every day. The planet is not dying. The world is under attack by fanatics who think the planet is dying and want to ruin your standard of living because they're hippies. People are out to get you. Lies and murder rule the streets, maybe even the world. You're going to lose your job. You're unemployed already and nobody will ever hire you. You'll never be in love again. The love you're in is falling apart. You're not in love, of course, you're far too rational for that. You're over-thinking things. You're not living your dream. Someone somewhere is stealing your dreams from you. You're insufficient for your dreams. Your dreams are killing you.
3/4/15
Hype Level Crazy: Missives from Trapistan
Eat Pray Thug is going to be the biggest hip hop album of March 2015 and my advice is you go and listen to it immediately, and, if you can, bang it. If the title doesn't strike you as clever or funny it may be time to give up on humor – the songs may change your mind anyway or they might make you angry, saddened, or incredibly hyped-up. It's out on 10 March and it's probably not going platinum (I hope I'm wrong) but I'll be damned if a more important record drops the same day or even this month. The stream is up on NPR, the PR/hype campaign is in effect, and creator Himanshu Suri has repeatedly pondered quitting rap during its creation. What's not to love?
What's it about? A kaleidoscopic amount of things, all of which deserve to be heard. A description would be insufficient. Listen to it: it's big, it's deep, it's love, it's honesty, it's drugs, it's fear, it's freedom, it's excruciating awareness and painful memories. First listen I was torn between appreciative laughter and stunned silence, the whole time the production, delivery, and content repeatedly wowed me. It made me troubled and giddy. I am currently rationing my plays so I can enjoy the album when it drops... it's so enjoyable ('Flag Shopping' is raw and real and awesome - classic Heems) that the danger lies in overdoing it.
Clocking in at under 40:00, this is Himanshu's most consistent and focused work to date, and it builds up to some incredible moments. There is a plethora of serious business to be alarmed about and a few very nice irreverent lines to chuckle about (sometimes the two collide), and it may or may not be discussed to death in a week's time so do yourself a favor if you give the smallest shit about rap and listen to the stream. It helps to know the artist and fortunately he's got two excellent mixtapes (Nehru Jackets, Wild Water Kingdom) to introduce you to his perspective. If you like the above, there's always Das Racist to listen to – if somehow you've been asleep for the past five years and missed out.
You shouldn't've been sleeping on Heems: Eat Pray Thug proves that much. When the hype settles, the qualities of this album will stand strong, its content will still ring true, and its creator will probably disappear into a humble life of giving back to the community, appreciating and creating art, and joining the young adult cult. Still, if that's the price we pay for Eat Pray Thug, it was all worth it.
If you can't feel this album you're a square, you're part of the problem, etc... you don't even have to like it to get the sense it's important, maybe even urgent. It is important. I might even drop a review next week to celebrate, and maybe three people will read it. It'll be alright. Life goes on. Nobody ever needed my help to sell records or anything.
What's it about? A kaleidoscopic amount of things, all of which deserve to be heard. A description would be insufficient. Listen to it: it's big, it's deep, it's love, it's honesty, it's drugs, it's fear, it's freedom, it's excruciating awareness and painful memories. First listen I was torn between appreciative laughter and stunned silence, the whole time the production, delivery, and content repeatedly wowed me. It made me troubled and giddy. I am currently rationing my plays so I can enjoy the album when it drops... it's so enjoyable ('Flag Shopping' is raw and real and awesome - classic Heems) that the danger lies in overdoing it.
Clocking in at under 40:00, this is Himanshu's most consistent and focused work to date, and it builds up to some incredible moments. There is a plethora of serious business to be alarmed about and a few very nice irreverent lines to chuckle about (sometimes the two collide), and it may or may not be discussed to death in a week's time so do yourself a favor if you give the smallest shit about rap and listen to the stream. It helps to know the artist and fortunately he's got two excellent mixtapes (Nehru Jackets, Wild Water Kingdom) to introduce you to his perspective. If you like the above, there's always Das Racist to listen to – if somehow you've been asleep for the past five years and missed out.
You shouldn't've been sleeping on Heems: Eat Pray Thug proves that much. When the hype settles, the qualities of this album will stand strong, its content will still ring true, and its creator will probably disappear into a humble life of giving back to the community, appreciating and creating art, and joining the young adult cult. Still, if that's the price we pay for Eat Pray Thug, it was all worth it.
If you can't feel this album you're a square, you're part of the problem, etc... you don't even have to like it to get the sense it's important, maybe even urgent. It is important. I might even drop a review next week to celebrate, and maybe three people will read it. It'll be alright. Life goes on. Nobody ever needed my help to sell records or anything.
11/25/14
The Arrogance, It's Killing Bees
Neonicotinoids are a great type of chemical that would be irreplaceable if we were under attack from a deadly insect scourge. However, 'neonics' (as they're often named to avoid confusing the majority) are actually not even used to destroy mosquito and botfly populations, and instead do a great job of accumulating in the environment and killing the real terrors of the insect world: bees. Yeah those bastards won't be pollinating any harvests any time soon, as if their decimations at the hands of mites and disease weren't enough, we added a chemical that makes them even weaker and more susceptible to death. Why? To protect the most vulnerable among us: the hard-working farmer (read: multinational incorporated agribusiness).
From now on, I guess, every keystone species we destroy by our extremely clever ignorance will be replaced with some kind of robot substitute. That's a pretty fantastic way to provide public welfare for anyone who majored in mechatronics. Furthermore I think it's a great way to cover up our culpability, our wastefulness, and our immense capacity for destruction and self-destruction and wounded innocence (check out the screeds from defenders of neonics for the latter). I always thought Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? was implausible but with each passing year certain background elements of the story get more and more realistic. Soon, maybe even next year, some multinational will build an emotion-controlling app and the crowd will go absolutely wild, then very calm, then really happy, then annoyed for a millisecond, then wild again with rapturous applause.
I mean, with that device/app we won't even need to feel bad about where all our mistakes have led us, and we can finally accept the tone-deaf happiness of being a casually murderous and purely scientific species, we won't need to feel aghast at the inefficiency of our lifestyles or the mountains of redundant waste they create, the genocides playing out in the natural world will no longer be a cause for concern, the seas will die but we will go on. We will simply use our abilities in the scientific realm to stitch together nigh-forgotten lengths of DNA and voila - a salmon mixed with a mackerel that can spawn anywhere! A cow mixed with an elephant that produces eleven or more tons of flesh and over a hundred gallons of milk a day. What's that? You want wings? 1.8 million dollars and a few rounds of painful and dangerous gene therapy/surgery and you will have an haphazard pair.
First, obviously, we'll need to do the robot thing to ensure that our food supply doesn't collapse in flames, and also to keep honey on store shelves (Who doesn't love honey? Maybe only the chemical mastermind who invented neonicotinoids). As usual, when the story dawned that neonics were killing bees, it took roughly until the first report that profits may be affected and businesses ruined for anyone to give a fuck. Listen, I like honey more than anyone and always have, but I won't accept robo-made honey. That's weak. For millions of years there's been an animal making honey, we didn't have to make it, we could even co-operate with them for other benefits, and that's still cool to me. I kind of wonder what other cool animals might have arisen in the absence of homo sapiens industrialis: vast cuttlefish capable of spaceflight, a naturally three-legged dog, an ant species that writes novels.
But fuck all that. We're gonna finish what we started when we exterminated the neanderthal, except this time it's not even personal. This time it's even worse: it's business as usual.
And I get it. Nature is resilient and our survival is paramount - life will go on either way. Only hippies will get worried about this. Farmer Joe needs neonics to ensure he gets to harvest 85%+ of his crops. It's not like we're the stupid ones for planting big fields of food and being annoyed that animals will eat them. Poisoning them for their arrogance is exactly the ticket. Despite what the left-wing, envirofascist hippies say, this is good. There are no links or chains in nature - it's fight or flight, survival of the fittest, each to his own. Pesticides keep wildlife from becoming addicted, welfare-like, to what's rightfully ours. Nevermind how it all kept going without us, or what's going on now, this is how it must be. God. Law. Money. Private property. Et cetera, bitch, and this isn't an ongoing disaster or a sign of anything pathological - so don't even start with that. Plus robots are cool and drones will never become problematic.
From now on, I guess, every keystone species we destroy by our extremely clever ignorance will be replaced with some kind of robot substitute. That's a pretty fantastic way to provide public welfare for anyone who majored in mechatronics. Furthermore I think it's a great way to cover up our culpability, our wastefulness, and our immense capacity for destruction and self-destruction and wounded innocence (check out the screeds from defenders of neonics for the latter). I always thought Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? was implausible but with each passing year certain background elements of the story get more and more realistic. Soon, maybe even next year, some multinational will build an emotion-controlling app and the crowd will go absolutely wild, then very calm, then really happy, then annoyed for a millisecond, then wild again with rapturous applause.
I mean, with that device/app we won't even need to feel bad about where all our mistakes have led us, and we can finally accept the tone-deaf happiness of being a casually murderous and purely scientific species, we won't need to feel aghast at the inefficiency of our lifestyles or the mountains of redundant waste they create, the genocides playing out in the natural world will no longer be a cause for concern, the seas will die but we will go on. We will simply use our abilities in the scientific realm to stitch together nigh-forgotten lengths of DNA and voila - a salmon mixed with a mackerel that can spawn anywhere! A cow mixed with an elephant that produces eleven or more tons of flesh and over a hundred gallons of milk a day. What's that? You want wings? 1.8 million dollars and a few rounds of painful and dangerous gene therapy/surgery and you will have an haphazard pair.
First, obviously, we'll need to do the robot thing to ensure that our food supply doesn't collapse in flames, and also to keep honey on store shelves (Who doesn't love honey? Maybe only the chemical mastermind who invented neonicotinoids). As usual, when the story dawned that neonics were killing bees, it took roughly until the first report that profits may be affected and businesses ruined for anyone to give a fuck. Listen, I like honey more than anyone and always have, but I won't accept robo-made honey. That's weak. For millions of years there's been an animal making honey, we didn't have to make it, we could even co-operate with them for other benefits, and that's still cool to me. I kind of wonder what other cool animals might have arisen in the absence of homo sapiens industrialis: vast cuttlefish capable of spaceflight, a naturally three-legged dog, an ant species that writes novels.
But fuck all that. We're gonna finish what we started when we exterminated the neanderthal, except this time it's not even personal. This time it's even worse: it's business as usual.
And I get it. Nature is resilient and our survival is paramount - life will go on either way. Only hippies will get worried about this. Farmer Joe needs neonics to ensure he gets to harvest 85%+ of his crops. It's not like we're the stupid ones for planting big fields of food and being annoyed that animals will eat them. Poisoning them for their arrogance is exactly the ticket. Despite what the left-wing, envirofascist hippies say, this is good. There are no links or chains in nature - it's fight or flight, survival of the fittest, each to his own. Pesticides keep wildlife from becoming addicted, welfare-like, to what's rightfully ours. Nevermind how it all kept going without us, or what's going on now, this is how it must be. God. Law. Money. Private property. Et cetera, bitch, and this isn't an ongoing disaster or a sign of anything pathological - so don't even start with that. Plus robots are cool and drones will never become problematic.
10/21/14
Meeting Cool People in Your 20s
It's a daunting prospect because many cool people in their 20s are probably traveling between one cool place and another, or one interesting life event and the next, and your only chance to meet them – unless by some accident you're going to a cool place and you're in your 20s – is to travel with them and be more personable, good looking, and cleverer than the rest. However, when they find out you're simply traveling for life reasons and not to TRAVEL like a cool 20 something everything will fall apart as they suss out just how uninteresting you are, after they realize you're not actually an unreadable human cypher, but rather (pick one of many appellations - I'm going with 'lousy deadbeat').
You've got no stories, you've simply worked to stay alive, your academic papers won't turn undergrad heads and will fail to impress even highschool kids - both under and overachievers will probably laugh at you. They've traveled extensively and wonder about people who settle down, but they don't even know there are people who intentionally hobble themselves and live in flyover cities nobody cares about, with real friends and real intrigues that still fail to fully ameliorate the truth of a dismal reality with nothing dynamic, no progress, and no aims. You've basically shot yourself in the interesting part of your head.
Upon the moment of self-reflection and awareness, you can actually watch the interest on that cool young person's face drain away, and harken to this: they will begin to tell good stories more often than they will ask you about yourself, and when you volunteer information about yourself, they will give a nice response and continue moving the entire discussion away from a chance for you to explain yourself.
Why? Because there's no explaining to be done: you failed to take interesting risks. Instead of flying by yourself to a place where you didn't know the language and hadn't memorized the liquor prices and internalized the laws, you stayed at home and on Friday you went and got drunk with some friends. You probably complained about something. Instead of meeting a bunch of people in your hostel, hating some and really enjoying others, and having hazy chaotic heartfelt discussions with complete strangers where you disburdened yourself of existential problems that troubled you for a decade, and maybe getting laid by a righteous intelligent beauty, you washed the dishes and looked out of the shitty grimy window of your 20-something's rat shit warren and laughed humorlessly about the big mystery of why you're not happy. You realize that, in your 30s, you might make a passably good bitter comic, but the tradeoff is likely not worth it.
You done fucked up, and the only way to proceed now is to try and make as much fast money as possible and then fly to Thailand and follow the young mostly-white westerner migration unto Bali, Australia, and all the rest, maybe unto wherever the new Phi Phi is unfurling, where you will bask in good times and tough lessons. And if you fail to do that, you might just end up marrying someone a lot cooler than yourself, and the discrepancy will haunt you until you die... you will warn your children not to be diffident, not to value knowledge over experience, but they will fail to listen and instead live according to their whims, and it will haunt you then and every day, as it does now, because in truth you have nothing, less than nothing... people with nothing might have a good story, but nothing comes to your mouth when the time for a good story arrives, and you can't ace the telling anyway. Your mind is full of tedium and despair and grim stories about being poor and aimless and drunk, and it has set you apart from your peers forever. You have probably broken it.
You have turned yourself into nothing and start to doubt anyone could overcome it, but as you tell a sure to be interrupted story about your most recent uninteresting and static days, or some mild anecdote about your sterilized and irreal existence, you will realize it doesn't matter. You could even try to explain the consolations of being an anchorite in an apparently boring and lifeless city, try to get them to have a beer with you, but the idea will immediately fill you with revulsion, and you may vomit from stress and grief. Why would a normal person want to have a drink with a broken subhuman like you? Why make it totally awks by even trying? Why would anyone, anyone at all who wasn't related to you, ever give the tiniest shit? Your life achievements and goals can be summed up by the image of a late autumn puddle with a couple of dead rotting leaves in it - it might be weirdly beautiful, but mostly it's just sad. Just rewrite your resume, you boring boneheaded fuck, and try not to think of all the fun other people just like you are having, all of which goes to show, really, that a bad attitude is a real disability, and possibly the worst.
You've got no stories, you've simply worked to stay alive, your academic papers won't turn undergrad heads and will fail to impress even highschool kids - both under and overachievers will probably laugh at you. They've traveled extensively and wonder about people who settle down, but they don't even know there are people who intentionally hobble themselves and live in flyover cities nobody cares about, with real friends and real intrigues that still fail to fully ameliorate the truth of a dismal reality with nothing dynamic, no progress, and no aims. You've basically shot yourself in the interesting part of your head.
Upon the moment of self-reflection and awareness, you can actually watch the interest on that cool young person's face drain away, and harken to this: they will begin to tell good stories more often than they will ask you about yourself, and when you volunteer information about yourself, they will give a nice response and continue moving the entire discussion away from a chance for you to explain yourself.
Why? Because there's no explaining to be done: you failed to take interesting risks. Instead of flying by yourself to a place where you didn't know the language and hadn't memorized the liquor prices and internalized the laws, you stayed at home and on Friday you went and got drunk with some friends. You probably complained about something. Instead of meeting a bunch of people in your hostel, hating some and really enjoying others, and having hazy chaotic heartfelt discussions with complete strangers where you disburdened yourself of existential problems that troubled you for a decade, and maybe getting laid by a righteous intelligent beauty, you washed the dishes and looked out of the shitty grimy window of your 20-something's rat shit warren and laughed humorlessly about the big mystery of why you're not happy. You realize that, in your 30s, you might make a passably good bitter comic, but the tradeoff is likely not worth it.
You done fucked up, and the only way to proceed now is to try and make as much fast money as possible and then fly to Thailand and follow the young mostly-white westerner migration unto Bali, Australia, and all the rest, maybe unto wherever the new Phi Phi is unfurling, where you will bask in good times and tough lessons. And if you fail to do that, you might just end up marrying someone a lot cooler than yourself, and the discrepancy will haunt you until you die... you will warn your children not to be diffident, not to value knowledge over experience, but they will fail to listen and instead live according to their whims, and it will haunt you then and every day, as it does now, because in truth you have nothing, less than nothing... people with nothing might have a good story, but nothing comes to your mouth when the time for a good story arrives, and you can't ace the telling anyway. Your mind is full of tedium and despair and grim stories about being poor and aimless and drunk, and it has set you apart from your peers forever. You have probably broken it.
You have turned yourself into nothing and start to doubt anyone could overcome it, but as you tell a sure to be interrupted story about your most recent uninteresting and static days, or some mild anecdote about your sterilized and irreal existence, you will realize it doesn't matter. You could even try to explain the consolations of being an anchorite in an apparently boring and lifeless city, try to get them to have a beer with you, but the idea will immediately fill you with revulsion, and you may vomit from stress and grief. Why would a normal person want to have a drink with a broken subhuman like you? Why make it totally awks by even trying? Why would anyone, anyone at all who wasn't related to you, ever give the tiniest shit? Your life achievements and goals can be summed up by the image of a late autumn puddle with a couple of dead rotting leaves in it - it might be weirdly beautiful, but mostly it's just sad. Just rewrite your resume, you boring boneheaded fuck, and try not to think of all the fun other people just like you are having, all of which goes to show, really, that a bad attitude is a real disability, and possibly the worst.
7/21/14
"I'm Amateur Poet Ross Heffi, and I Love Reading!"
[Note: Due to problems with contracting an actual poet to write this entire post in hexameter, this blog post has been delayed and in development hell for nearly six months. the author presents it as is and refuses to accept any liability whatever for this piece, which is offered on a pro bono basis, or any derivatives thereof. This piece is fictional and is not meant to disparage any lazy and numbskull idiots (hereafter referred to as 'poets') living or dead, nor does it purport to represent any veritable person, as a work of fiction is not libelous or slanderous. The poetry and prose herein is the intelluctual property of Ross Heffi, M.F.A. and should not be reproduced in any way.]
Hey everyone, glad you're reading words my fingers put into the computer realm, my name is Ross Heffi, I currently live in Ithaca, New York, and my darkest secret is that if reading as a concept and practice was made corporeal in the form of a human, I would marry it. or, failing that, stalk it relentlessly and passionately. My favorite medium is Poetry, because Poetry allows me to expound in an unusual manner, offering many possibilities that prose doesn't. My favorite poet is Wallace Stevens, for reasons that should be obvious to even neophytes of Art. I don't ape him because I'm not a fool, and know that I could never match him in his element.
Reading is, to me, the highest and most noble pastime. The illiterate and semi-literate confuse and sadden me. I believe I was born in the wrong era, and I must tearfully admit I consider this an age of philistinery. These are lurid times, when the flashy draw hooks many minds and leads them to ruin, to ignorance, and to laziness. Without thoughts, wise men, and the dreams of peaceful minds, the world will be robbed of promise and hatred will continue to spread. Wealth will turn to ash without us, and our voices are still strong, still awaiting the return of the audience.
My favorite poem (of my own making) 'Destiny's Argot' concerns a man whose fear for the world drives him mad, and into the arms of the muses (as well as other mysterious forces) and nearly eighty high quality lines (probably the best work I ever succeeded in doing) detail his altered state and journey through a supermarket/drug store, and interactions with shoppers. If you, the reader, are interested in Ross Heffi, or simply adore poetic endeavor, I would recommend reading 'Destiny's Argot' which is available on a trial basis from Wattpad, and also on Goodreads, where you can add me as a friend. You may be inspired to make a purchase of my first and only collection Hell is Pieces of my Heart on Hot Asphalt (digital and paper copies available), for which I would be very, but not eternally (I do not believe the immortal soul), grateful.
@HeffiTymes. Ross Heffi is on Tumblr, as well, serving fresh, daily compositions ,and accepting commissions. Yeah that just happened, my dear reader, and many more adventures await and I will give it my all to produce and curate some of the best poetry of this era, comparable perhaps to the masters of old, and the ancient demigods of poetry, the most learned and exquisite and legendary figures. Of Sappho and Homer you have doubtless heard much, but there are others I can name, which you probably could not. In any case, my list of most admired poets is too long and probably too confusing to list here, so I do invoke the ancients and humbly request they invoke the Muses for me. This latest poem is entitled 'Forever is a Distant Laughing Brook' and is dedicated to the unpopular and much disliked blog P u b l i c a t o and was written at the request of Anonynimous Bosch for a reasonable fee, which is charged for most commissions except at the request of true lovers, lost souls, dedicated fans, certain members of the media, and under-14 poetry fanatics.
Hey everyone, glad you're reading words my fingers put into the computer realm, my name is Ross Heffi, I currently live in Ithaca, New York, and my darkest secret is that if reading as a concept and practice was made corporeal in the form of a human, I would marry it. or, failing that, stalk it relentlessly and passionately. My favorite medium is Poetry, because Poetry allows me to expound in an unusual manner, offering many possibilities that prose doesn't. My favorite poet is Wallace Stevens, for reasons that should be obvious to even neophytes of Art. I don't ape him because I'm not a fool, and know that I could never match him in his element.
Reading is, to me, the highest and most noble pastime. The illiterate and semi-literate confuse and sadden me. I believe I was born in the wrong era, and I must tearfully admit I consider this an age of philistinery. These are lurid times, when the flashy draw hooks many minds and leads them to ruin, to ignorance, and to laziness. Without thoughts, wise men, and the dreams of peaceful minds, the world will be robbed of promise and hatred will continue to spread. Wealth will turn to ash without us, and our voices are still strong, still awaiting the return of the audience.
My favorite poem (of my own making) 'Destiny's Argot' concerns a man whose fear for the world drives him mad, and into the arms of the muses (as well as other mysterious forces) and nearly eighty high quality lines (probably the best work I ever succeeded in doing) detail his altered state and journey through a supermarket/drug store, and interactions with shoppers. If you, the reader, are interested in Ross Heffi, or simply adore poetic endeavor, I would recommend reading 'Destiny's Argot' which is available on a trial basis from Wattpad, and also on Goodreads, where you can add me as a friend. You may be inspired to make a purchase of my first and only collection Hell is Pieces of my Heart on Hot Asphalt (digital and paper copies available), for which I would be very, but not eternally (I do not believe the immortal soul), grateful.
@HeffiTymes. Ross Heffi is on Tumblr, as well, serving fresh, daily compositions ,and accepting commissions. Yeah that just happened, my dear reader, and many more adventures await and I will give it my all to produce and curate some of the best poetry of this era, comparable perhaps to the masters of old, and the ancient demigods of poetry, the most learned and exquisite and legendary figures. Of Sappho and Homer you have doubtless heard much, but there are others I can name, which you probably could not. In any case, my list of most admired poets is too long and probably too confusing to list here, so I do invoke the ancients and humbly request they invoke the Muses for me. This latest poem is entitled 'Forever is a Distant Laughing Brook' and is dedicated to the unpopular and much disliked blog P u b l i c a t o and was written at the request of Anonynimous Bosch for a reasonable fee, which is charged for most commissions except at the request of true lovers, lost souls, dedicated fans, certain members of the media, and under-14 poetry fanatics.
3/25/14
Morning Show Blues
Yeah, one of those situations where there is at least one radio going on at all times, with the attendant morning radio personalities... I have been thinking and I must say it is even worse than I remember it. Morning radio is like the ugly older sibling of late night television. Radio - not only do they play the same song at least five times a day until you hate it with a more intense passion than you ever loved it (and gain the power of recognizing it immediately even faintly heard from a distance), but they've got the terrible idea of hiring sycophantic dickweeds to blabber excitedly and laugh (at me, the underemployed schlub? Go on talking about your coffee and cream, your wife's ass, why you hate winter) for a 6 - 9 or whatever morning show.
I'm sure there have been radio morning shows that are not completely oppressive and distressing for non-morning people. You know the kind of person I mean: coffee or not they are unlikely to smile, form a coherent sentence, or laugh for the first hour they're awake and working. To some varieties of them (for instance myself) the sounds of morning show hosts going on and on between ads and eerily upbeat music is worse than static, or any aggressively unremarkable or annoying song.
My brain, even when it is still half in the realm of sleep, does not approve of a bunch of modestly personable DJs doing their annoying and useless job while I add value to the region by trading my labour power for a ridiculous and mildly depressing pittance. Cognizant of the fact they earn more than me (and get to laugh out loud all the time, come up with groovy insider jokes, great phone interactions, crazy stunts, far-out contests, and yawn level jokes), I do feel a mild bit of resentment as well as annoyance. Change the station? Why risk it? You'd be surprised at the intensity with which some folk despise public radio, the music of the great canon of composers, and silence (my personal top choice for morning vibes). So what is left to me?
Answer: The annoying squawking of overpaid manchildren, combined with a hellish interplay of blaring advertisements and generally non-morning music. I don't do a line of coke or a bunch of trucker pills when I wake up, so their braying hijinks and high-energy excitedness is completely jarring to me. It is even mildly painful to the very core of my soul. I don't get pumped up by their dreary and doctrinaire choice of songs either. I don't enjoy these audio clowns, and even if they were funny, had material worth listening to, I would be hard-pressed to listen to them. Plainly put, I've only ever heard one or two radio morning shows I didn't hate, and even those were most often kind of boring.
Most stations advertise their appreciable web presence. So I wondered, who in the hell would go to the website of a radio station and check up on the blogs, latest news, and pictures from the morning DJs? I can only come up with a few major sources of traffic: intensely lonely, credible, or bored people, and the mentally ill. Otherwise incomprehensible. Plainly put, it always astounds me how much effort is put into the background of the world, where we while away our mortal hours generally enduring things we don't like. I mean, hell, I write a pretty non-important blog generally about non-topics... I add white noise to the internet. There's at least some difference between me and the morning DJ with laughter in his voice and more energy than anyone needs at that hour.
Generally I turn the radio down to reasonable limits and grit my teeth and do my work quickly so I can move elsewhere and do something else somewhere there is nobody pretending that the morning is a great or funny time (unless you stayed up all night, or are waking up to do something other than be underemployed in a mostly stagnant economy). Even the mildly funny shit, which is scarce, is run into the ground faster and deeper than a solid gold locomotive dropped from orbit. I don't know how people can stand it... you can get used to it, sure, but it is specifically just an unpleasant feature of life to me.
I've been listening to radio for years, when I was really uncritical none of this mattered to me as long as a good song came on, like the one by Aaliyah or that other one by L.E.N., or that later RHCP song about taxis or something. The era-defining hits of yesteryear were also generally overplayed and eventually annoying, and I ought to remember that, but they stuck with me, and some of your old favorites and mine are still being overplayed. I used to spend a lot of time in the company of radio, but have lived without it for many years now in the future, so coming from silence or chosen tracks to the hilarious cacophony of jokes and marketing and grut rock just adds a small element of objection to my day. Gotta blog about those awkward things, unavoidable things, and heartwarming things.
Now, if you're a morning show DJ and you're reading this and you are saying to yourself things like, "This fussy little internet geekblogger doesn't understand my dedication and verve, or the pain which I know as a morning show host, or that my slightly exaggerated manner is meant to help others deal with the pain of morning workaday life. A venerable and hallowed tradition. The skill of talking too much for minutes at a time was one I inherited from my father, who was himself a morning show DJ." Nah, man, this isn't personal and I'm not a geek... I acknowledge it's my problem I find you annoying. That you dessicate my environment with your wireless sonic depredations is just my perception of it, and I am the wrong kind of judge in this instance. In the end, I keep listening out of apathy, a perverse and ironic joy of laughing at your base shitness, and obviously for a chance to hear myself on the airwaves and win that hundred dollar wacky trivia question. Play those canned sounds again – you know the ones – and teach me how to lose my self-awareness... does your laughter taste like ashes to you?
I'm sure there have been radio morning shows that are not completely oppressive and distressing for non-morning people. You know the kind of person I mean: coffee or not they are unlikely to smile, form a coherent sentence, or laugh for the first hour they're awake and working. To some varieties of them (for instance myself) the sounds of morning show hosts going on and on between ads and eerily upbeat music is worse than static, or any aggressively unremarkable or annoying song.
My brain, even when it is still half in the realm of sleep, does not approve of a bunch of modestly personable DJs doing their annoying and useless job while I add value to the region by trading my labour power for a ridiculous and mildly depressing pittance. Cognizant of the fact they earn more than me (and get to laugh out loud all the time, come up with groovy insider jokes, great phone interactions, crazy stunts, far-out contests, and yawn level jokes), I do feel a mild bit of resentment as well as annoyance. Change the station? Why risk it? You'd be surprised at the intensity with which some folk despise public radio, the music of the great canon of composers, and silence (my personal top choice for morning vibes). So what is left to me?
Answer: The annoying squawking of overpaid manchildren, combined with a hellish interplay of blaring advertisements and generally non-morning music. I don't do a line of coke or a bunch of trucker pills when I wake up, so their braying hijinks and high-energy excitedness is completely jarring to me. It is even mildly painful to the very core of my soul. I don't get pumped up by their dreary and doctrinaire choice of songs either. I don't enjoy these audio clowns, and even if they were funny, had material worth listening to, I would be hard-pressed to listen to them. Plainly put, I've only ever heard one or two radio morning shows I didn't hate, and even those were most often kind of boring.
Most stations advertise their appreciable web presence. So I wondered, who in the hell would go to the website of a radio station and check up on the blogs, latest news, and pictures from the morning DJs? I can only come up with a few major sources of traffic: intensely lonely, credible, or bored people, and the mentally ill. Otherwise incomprehensible. Plainly put, it always astounds me how much effort is put into the background of the world, where we while away our mortal hours generally enduring things we don't like. I mean, hell, I write a pretty non-important blog generally about non-topics... I add white noise to the internet. There's at least some difference between me and the morning DJ with laughter in his voice and more energy than anyone needs at that hour.
Generally I turn the radio down to reasonable limits and grit my teeth and do my work quickly so I can move elsewhere and do something else somewhere there is nobody pretending that the morning is a great or funny time (unless you stayed up all night, or are waking up to do something other than be underemployed in a mostly stagnant economy). Even the mildly funny shit, which is scarce, is run into the ground faster and deeper than a solid gold locomotive dropped from orbit. I don't know how people can stand it... you can get used to it, sure, but it is specifically just an unpleasant feature of life to me.
I've been listening to radio for years, when I was really uncritical none of this mattered to me as long as a good song came on, like the one by Aaliyah or that other one by L.E.N., or that later RHCP song about taxis or something. The era-defining hits of yesteryear were also generally overplayed and eventually annoying, and I ought to remember that, but they stuck with me, and some of your old favorites and mine are still being overplayed. I used to spend a lot of time in the company of radio, but have lived without it for many years now in the future, so coming from silence or chosen tracks to the hilarious cacophony of jokes and marketing and grut rock just adds a small element of objection to my day. Gotta blog about those awkward things, unavoidable things, and heartwarming things.
Now, if you're a morning show DJ and you're reading this and you are saying to yourself things like, "This fussy little internet geekblogger doesn't understand my dedication and verve, or the pain which I know as a morning show host, or that my slightly exaggerated manner is meant to help others deal with the pain of morning workaday life. A venerable and hallowed tradition. The skill of talking too much for minutes at a time was one I inherited from my father, who was himself a morning show DJ." Nah, man, this isn't personal and I'm not a geek... I acknowledge it's my problem I find you annoying. That you dessicate my environment with your wireless sonic depredations is just my perception of it, and I am the wrong kind of judge in this instance. In the end, I keep listening out of apathy, a perverse and ironic joy of laughing at your base shitness, and obviously for a chance to hear myself on the airwaves and win that hundred dollar wacky trivia question. Play those canned sounds again – you know the ones – and teach me how to lose my self-awareness... does your laughter taste like ashes to you?
12/12/13
Uruguay Stays Strong: Prepares to get Stronger
Whether it kills brain cells or kills cancer cells; whether it's a gateway drug or an end-point drug; whether using it is moral or immoral – Uruguay did the only sane thing remaining after years of overblown rhetoric by anti-drug idiots versus pro-drug idiots, and we can only hope the rest of the world learns something.
For this I commend Uruguay, whatever else their problems and failings. Thanks for having actual human beings in your government and treating your populace like actual, rational, grown-adult human beings as well.
I honestly don't know why neither pro-nor-anti marijuana people in the rest of the world have become so humorless about the issue. What a bunch of stunted robot shits, maybe Bukowski was right when he said weed kills your soul – but he was a soulless drunk himself.
For this I commend Uruguay, whatever else their problems and failings. Thanks for having actual human beings in your government and treating your populace like actual, rational, grown-adult human beings as well.
I honestly don't know why neither pro-nor-anti marijuana people in the rest of the world have become so humorless about the issue. What a bunch of stunted robot shits, maybe Bukowski was right when he said weed kills your soul – but he was a soulless drunk himself.
12/11/13
Swiss Fail to Change Important Thing: Small Swiss Story
In Switzerland, often mentioned as one of the best places in the world to be born into (it's basically a super elite club even if you sweep the streets or are congenitally unemployable – but your German better be legible). It's the perfect blend of right wing nonsense (stolen Jewish wealth, mandatory conscription, high rates of gun ownership) with left wing nonsense (neutrality, direct democracy [non of the corrupt and apathetic representative shit], multilingualism, environmental awareness, and scientific aspiration) and stuff anyone can enjoy like a literate and well educated populace, wealth beyond measure, and low crime rates. It makes wealthy enclaves in otherwise first world countries look like rat holes for spiteful misers, and it makes one think it will take about a million years for the rest of the world to get anywhere near that point. Switzerland is roughly that good, so good it makes Germany look less perfect (but you're still pretty good, Germany, keep your head up, your most corrupt industries probably help Switzerland all the time) but because Switzerland is a human enterprise*, it's a damn ways away from perfect.
"But even we, the vaunted and legendary Swiss, will hold our well-to-do poor hostage for increased profit and an 'A+' grade by business fuckers like Forbes Weekly. "**
The most recent initiative, which was overturned by direct democracy, was to limit executive pay to only 12 times what the lowest earner in the company made. Seems pretty good, right? The man or woman sitting on his or her ass and occasionally sweating when tax season or investigators come around still gets to make waaaaay more than the person sweeping the floors and cleaning the toilets. And this is Switzerland, so the person cleaning the toilets is banking decent pay in a very stable currency. In many ways, had it passed, it would have set a precedent that agitators around the world could've used to influence their corporate/government complexes to perhaps setting a 1:50 or 1:100 cap. But capping max pay is not a free market thing, apparently, even though it frees up wealth to do other things than pay 30,000 dollar tabs and buy 25 million dollar yachts and drink 1000 dollar mineral waters and whatever the hell else good money is pissed away into these days.
Needless to say, the trickle-down crowd won a spiritual victory in Switzerland earlier this year.
Inequality is the cause celebre of anyone who gives a fuck about the poor right now. Incidentally, correcting this imbalance will probably also have good effects on other non-destitute levels of society around the world and only be moderately bad to luxury industries that are populated by assholes and cater mostly to exhibitionists, miser spendthrifts, borderline sociopaths, and their hopeless children. With opulence running out of hand while poor people openly starve (in the era when humanity can split the atom [and see beyond it] and use robots to land robots on the surface of Mars) it is pretty obvious that wealth inequality is a problem. It's too complex to solve via blog, I am certain of that much. In a repressive oligarchy like anything in the Americas one would not expect any rich person, from drug warlord to white collar criminal to CEO (most of these guys work together and sometimes all three are the same guy), to give up a cent of their millions/billions for the poor, but in Europe, that 'socialist' den, they actually don't go crazy for the idea either.
You're outta luck, poor people! Aha, but then you're used to that....
It was something like 65% to 34%. Turns out Switzerland could give a fuck what the USA thinks about being the most right and prosperous country, because Switzerland pretty much invented inhuman rightist corporatism and are too neutral to be proud even. Anyone else get a chill down their spine just now? The downtrodden of the world are still looking for a precedent while the rampant worship of fundamentalist extremist oligarchy continues unabated and without any checks on its progress. The small people can eat their hats, as usual, so don't get excited or anything.
(* - I'm beginning to doubt the Swiss even did anything about the poisoned dolphin situation)
(** - not an actual quote or intended to represent any actual Swiss oligarch)
"But even we, the vaunted and legendary Swiss, will hold our well-to-do poor hostage for increased profit and an 'A+' grade by business fuckers like Forbes Weekly. "**
The most recent initiative, which was overturned by direct democracy, was to limit executive pay to only 12 times what the lowest earner in the company made. Seems pretty good, right? The man or woman sitting on his or her ass and occasionally sweating when tax season or investigators come around still gets to make waaaaay more than the person sweeping the floors and cleaning the toilets. And this is Switzerland, so the person cleaning the toilets is banking decent pay in a very stable currency. In many ways, had it passed, it would have set a precedent that agitators around the world could've used to influence their corporate/government complexes to perhaps setting a 1:50 or 1:100 cap. But capping max pay is not a free market thing, apparently, even though it frees up wealth to do other things than pay 30,000 dollar tabs and buy 25 million dollar yachts and drink 1000 dollar mineral waters and whatever the hell else good money is pissed away into these days.
Needless to say, the trickle-down crowd won a spiritual victory in Switzerland earlier this year.
Inequality is the cause celebre of anyone who gives a fuck about the poor right now. Incidentally, correcting this imbalance will probably also have good effects on other non-destitute levels of society around the world and only be moderately bad to luxury industries that are populated by assholes and cater mostly to exhibitionists, miser spendthrifts, borderline sociopaths, and their hopeless children. With opulence running out of hand while poor people openly starve (in the era when humanity can split the atom [and see beyond it] and use robots to land robots on the surface of Mars) it is pretty obvious that wealth inequality is a problem. It's too complex to solve via blog, I am certain of that much. In a repressive oligarchy like anything in the Americas one would not expect any rich person, from drug warlord to white collar criminal to CEO (most of these guys work together and sometimes all three are the same guy), to give up a cent of their millions/billions for the poor, but in Europe, that 'socialist' den, they actually don't go crazy for the idea either.
You're outta luck, poor people! Aha, but then you're used to that....
It was something like 65% to 34%. Turns out Switzerland could give a fuck what the USA thinks about being the most right and prosperous country, because Switzerland pretty much invented inhuman rightist corporatism and are too neutral to be proud even. Anyone else get a chill down their spine just now? The downtrodden of the world are still looking for a precedent while the rampant worship of fundamentalist extremist oligarchy continues unabated and without any checks on its progress. The small people can eat their hats, as usual, so don't get excited or anything.
(* - I'm beginning to doubt the Swiss even did anything about the poisoned dolphin situation)
(** - not an actual quote or intended to represent any actual Swiss oligarch)
12/5/13
Attack of the Unkillable Time Killer
Flash games are a pretty mixed bag. All the benefits of casual gaming paired with the feel-good impetus of wasting time. It's pretty great until you hit one of those bullshit games (and there are many) that are not just tough but potentially unbalanced... then your time killing comes to an end, because you're either not good enough or the game is just plain turd flavor bullshit. I've played plenty of games whose presentation was awful, whose gameplay was too simple and easy to be worthwhile, and whose English was execrable, but one game that manages to get all that right still manages to
I just got finished with what I consider an unbeatable level in a TD that otherwise seemed pretty cool. I tried all kinds of things to beat the level. I abused the powers, tried using different arrangements of towers, and in the final rounds wasn't even getting as far as on my first try. 'Bullshit' I thought, "Fuck this game, whoever made it are either savants at TD games, sadistic, had a very specific strategy in mind, or plain didn't test the fucking thing. Fucking little dinosaur shits." because I was quite angry that I couldn't kill time in as casual a manner as I am comfortable with. I don't want to just breeze through, but the difficulty curve can't spike all at once.
I've played games I'm fairly sure are broken before. Sometimes there's a good split of things that are broken in your favor and you can continue. Sometimes I blame the game for being broken when I can't beat it like when I'm getting hadoukened to death or other ridiculous things are happening like getting swarmed by bastards in a TD that was until that point fairly challenging but not ridiculous. Anyone who has played too many TDs knows automatically when they've lost long before it happens. I borderline hate that game right down to the cutesy graphics and absolutely wrong paleontological context. I actually hate nothing about it, but it has bested me and that makes me angry.
Listen, here's the challenge I want to lay down. If anyone can beat Dino Assault TD with a perfect rating (which I don't think is easy since it's got multiple pain in the ass levels) you win. I doubt anyone would willingly do so, since there is so much bullshit you need to overcome just to beat the second chapter (full disclosure: I never reached the third chapter). The towers all cost more than they're worth, the powers are outrageously useless and weak, and the enemies are plentiful and resilient. To the developers: you win. Probably you didn't balance the game enough, though, because it's hard as week-old shit. I generally stop trying when it's apparent you are scornful of your audience and actively want them to lose.
Dino Assault isn't even slightly close to the gold standards of flash TD games (Cursed Treasure series by IriySoft). It could be... it's got a difficulty curve that is appealing at first and then casually leaves you behind as if you're a dummy who should know the exact combinations of overpriced towers and split-second skill spamming required to win.
Whoever manages to achieve a perfect victory with evidence will be king of the loser online-TD time killer crowd, and I will crown them with a title so splendorous that it will almost not be shameful. Then again, I doubt many people exist who can do it and I seriously doubt those who can read this blog. The offer stands until 9 December 2013, 12:00 GMT. I gave up: I can't waste more than a half hour on level or I know I'm no longer killing, but instead wasting, time.
Update: I get drawn back in, anyway of course. The war against productivity is never truly won, and frequently makes me look (and feel) like a foolish idiot.
Second Update: While I was playing this I was ignoring Kingdom Rush 2, which is actually a great comparison point for non-bullshit difficulty curves and better game design. Note that I think Dino Assault is 'good' but far out of the league of officially recognized excellency.
I just got finished with what I consider an unbeatable level in a TD that otherwise seemed pretty cool. I tried all kinds of things to beat the level. I abused the powers, tried using different arrangements of towers, and in the final rounds wasn't even getting as far as on my first try. 'Bullshit' I thought, "Fuck this game, whoever made it are either savants at TD games, sadistic, had a very specific strategy in mind, or plain didn't test the fucking thing. Fucking little dinosaur shits." because I was quite angry that I couldn't kill time in as casual a manner as I am comfortable with. I don't want to just breeze through, but the difficulty curve can't spike all at once.
I've played games I'm fairly sure are broken before. Sometimes there's a good split of things that are broken in your favor and you can continue. Sometimes I blame the game for being broken when I can't beat it like when I'm getting hadoukened to death or other ridiculous things are happening like getting swarmed by bastards in a TD that was until that point fairly challenging but not ridiculous. Anyone who has played too many TDs knows automatically when they've lost long before it happens. I borderline hate that game right down to the cutesy graphics and absolutely wrong paleontological context. I actually hate nothing about it, but it has bested me and that makes me angry.
Listen, here's the challenge I want to lay down. If anyone can beat Dino Assault TD with a perfect rating (which I don't think is easy since it's got multiple pain in the ass levels) you win. I doubt anyone would willingly do so, since there is so much bullshit you need to overcome just to beat the second chapter (full disclosure: I never reached the third chapter). The towers all cost more than they're worth, the powers are outrageously useless and weak, and the enemies are plentiful and resilient. To the developers: you win. Probably you didn't balance the game enough, though, because it's hard as week-old shit. I generally stop trying when it's apparent you are scornful of your audience and actively want them to lose.
Dino Assault isn't even slightly close to the gold standards of flash TD games (Cursed Treasure series by IriySoft). It could be... it's got a difficulty curve that is appealing at first and then casually leaves you behind as if you're a dummy who should know the exact combinations of overpriced towers and split-second skill spamming required to win.
Whoever manages to achieve a perfect victory with evidence will be king of the loser online-TD time killer crowd, and I will crown them with a title so splendorous that it will almost not be shameful. Then again, I doubt many people exist who can do it and I seriously doubt those who can read this blog. The offer stands until 9 December 2013, 12:00 GMT. I gave up: I can't waste more than a half hour on level or I know I'm no longer killing, but instead wasting, time.
Update: I get drawn back in, anyway of course. The war against productivity is never truly won, and frequently makes me look (and feel) like a foolish idiot.
Second Update: While I was playing this I was ignoring Kingdom Rush 2, which is actually a great comparison point for non-bullshit difficulty curves and better game design. Note that I think Dino Assault is 'good' but far out of the league of officially recognized excellency.
8/14/13
How Long Till Facebook Is Irrelevant: The Answer May Surprise You
Facebook's story is pretty fun to tell. Before 2006 (or somewhere around there) you couldn't sign up for Facebook without a university email address. That ended. Then the media caught on, a while later the floodgates opened, and anyone was let in at a cost to exclusivity which might have kept the social media service relevant into 2010. However, things happened as they did, because the Kings of Facebook or whatever needed a way to turn a relatively hyped, useless, hackneyed service into a dividend-paying money-printing machine. That's why your little brother, your dad, and your aunt are all Facebook Friends with you.
Anyways, people used to freely put up pictures of themselves doing drugs, copulating, as well as excreting on and variously vandalizing private property, because nobody on the service was square enough to be A) an uncool employer or B) a rat fink. Nudity was the only thing out of bounds, but nobody needed the internet for that. It was the wild west, populated by stupid university students. That phase didn't last long, but it was truly a hopeful one. It's hard to understand at this point in time because nobody does it anymore. Even Facebook's dumbest, least-University-educated users manage to post mostly PG-Employment level material. It was generally the exhibitionists and show-offs who couldn't keep their borderline activities in private memory, which is fine, because they're the same people for whom nothing is ever good enough.
Then, with the advent of a growing user base, employers took full advantage of lax privacy settings to investigate their employees and, if the optics were wrong, fire them. Facebook made some noises about privacy settings (which advertisers, PRISM et al. overrule anyway) and most people realized that, with privacy settings set properly, and a non-compromising profile picture, they wouldn't be able to get bagged. Even more people realized that, as always, nobody cares and nobody needs to know anything, and why they were on Facebook is anyone's guess. Many are still there. With employers and other nosy squares using Facebook to essentially spy on people the end had begun, and the important phase had ended.
With children, parents, nosy bosses, moralists, the uneducated, and all manner of riff-raff inhabiting Facebook, the popularity exploded and it became the thing everyone knew about (including worthless 'social media experts' on TV). It was like Twitter, briefly, but maybe even hotter. By now, nearly every Western person between the ages of 20 and 35 has a majority of friends and contacts on Facebook, with 'friends' numbering far in excess of 150. Of course, the great upsurge in popularity also meant increased scrutiny. Many people thought it was incredibly low of employers to spy on and then fire or punish employees because they were pictured drinking a beer. I agree completely. If you want to spy on an employee, check their Linked In account, because Linked In is designed for squares with no concept of the separation of life and work.
Most of the best criticism of Facebook revolved around its user base and effect on users. If you have an account, you already know. People broadcast their dimwitted political stances, their gullibility, pictures of food, and way too much information. Users also tend to only upload content that reflects positively on them and their lifestyle, making Facebook an echo chamber and also a bizarre cycle of envy and envy-prompting. Certain people, putting too much stock in their internet friendship machine, can see the smiling photographs, the tans, the significant others and the happiness of others and become incredibly lonely, sad, isolated, and even more deluded. So it can be said that the service caters first and foremost not to narcissists, but to the self-centered and potentially to the sociopath as well. In essence it can be claimed that Facebook is unhealthy, perhaps moreso than the internet.
Hell, I have not even made mention of the inherent privacy problems which provided privacy options do not solve. In essence, by ever existing on Facebook you are already compromised and every detail you edit or add thereafter goes into the vortex. The police can see everything you've ever said without your knowledge. So can any government, entity, or corporation with the stature or power to make Facebook cooperate. Not to mention anyone with a certain level of know-how can probably have that stuff you willingly shared about yourself. The craziest part is how the service has tapped into the (unconscious) human desire to share and self-promote... the disburdening is done willingly so it's not even entrapment. It's just exploitation. The old crusty man in my mind wants to say it's the fault of the user for being appallingly stupid, but the angry young man wants to blame Facebook, Inc. for just about every misery and betrayal they have wrought.
'Facebook isn't an echo chamber, and echo chamber is a nebulous term used by out-of-date critics to describe viral and meme-based behaviour', you say. I disagree, and urge you to shut up and stop being an apologist: Facebook often functions as an echo chamber devoid of consciousness or critical thought. For every stupid food picture, statement of outrage, birthday wish, and TMI infodump, there are a dozen re-shared memes, propaganda, or internet links. It's an echo chamber that shows you just what your acquaintances are wasting their time with, and invites you to also read top tens, read unsourced and biased articles, look for cute pics, and post shallow, heart-on-sleeve political and social rhetoric. Yeah, that shit's pretty awful, and in this writer's humble opinion, far worse than the self-promotion and the mindless sharing of private moments with no real purpose.
Facebook is already irrelevant: savvy people know this, hip people know this, even tweens know this. I suspect that its last year of relevance was 2010. At this point users see it as either 'Facebook!' or 'depressing friend directory', and increasingly, not even the gullible youth are excited about Facebook anymore. Some even use Twitter to engage in such discussions as #noneofmyfriendsonfacebook and to broadcast that they're getting out of the Facebook game. With the userbase growing older, lamer, and reposting more and more shitty content from the internet, and generally doing nothing important, it is no surprise that hardly anyone considers an account a meaningful or exciting thing, except for people who are promoting themselves, their business, or their art. In the end Facebook will only be useful for them, but its complete irrelevance means that there will be no further scandal because the user base is complacent and the service fulfills its duty quite well.
With a stable share of users and corporate status, it is unlikely that Facebook will disappear in less than five years. Ff a better service steals its users it may dwindle, but in Web 2.0 and beyond, computer/internet-literate users are too insignificant a group. The odds of a better service emerging are also low, since Facebook is part of the establishment and can likely take infringing parties to court and bankrupt them even with frivolous litigation. Facebook itself isn't novel enough anymore to create 'addicts' in the 2006-era sense: remaining power users are generally students, stay-at-home-parents, or retirees. With every baby picture, family portrait, and unnecessary political diatribe, the service makes itself less remarkable and more profitable... with every deleted user account, Facebook continues to hold private data in digital escrow, as if preparing for a blackmail war... with every day, as it fades into irrelevance far away from the beating heart of the internet, Facebook becomes more of a fact of the internet, here to stay and inflict social suffering on untold thousands.
Anyways, people used to freely put up pictures of themselves doing drugs, copulating, as well as excreting on and variously vandalizing private property, because nobody on the service was square enough to be A) an uncool employer or B) a rat fink. Nudity was the only thing out of bounds, but nobody needed the internet for that. It was the wild west, populated by stupid university students. That phase didn't last long, but it was truly a hopeful one. It's hard to understand at this point in time because nobody does it anymore. Even Facebook's dumbest, least-University-educated users manage to post mostly PG-Employment level material. It was generally the exhibitionists and show-offs who couldn't keep their borderline activities in private memory, which is fine, because they're the same people for whom nothing is ever good enough.
Then, with the advent of a growing user base, employers took full advantage of lax privacy settings to investigate their employees and, if the optics were wrong, fire them. Facebook made some noises about privacy settings (which advertisers, PRISM et al. overrule anyway) and most people realized that, with privacy settings set properly, and a non-compromising profile picture, they wouldn't be able to get bagged. Even more people realized that, as always, nobody cares and nobody needs to know anything, and why they were on Facebook is anyone's guess. Many are still there. With employers and other nosy squares using Facebook to essentially spy on people the end had begun, and the important phase had ended.
With children, parents, nosy bosses, moralists, the uneducated, and all manner of riff-raff inhabiting Facebook, the popularity exploded and it became the thing everyone knew about (including worthless 'social media experts' on TV). It was like Twitter, briefly, but maybe even hotter. By now, nearly every Western person between the ages of 20 and 35 has a majority of friends and contacts on Facebook, with 'friends' numbering far in excess of 150. Of course, the great upsurge in popularity also meant increased scrutiny. Many people thought it was incredibly low of employers to spy on and then fire or punish employees because they were pictured drinking a beer. I agree completely. If you want to spy on an employee, check their Linked In account, because Linked In is designed for squares with no concept of the separation of life and work.
Most of the best criticism of Facebook revolved around its user base and effect on users. If you have an account, you already know. People broadcast their dimwitted political stances, their gullibility, pictures of food, and way too much information. Users also tend to only upload content that reflects positively on them and their lifestyle, making Facebook an echo chamber and also a bizarre cycle of envy and envy-prompting. Certain people, putting too much stock in their internet friendship machine, can see the smiling photographs, the tans, the significant others and the happiness of others and become incredibly lonely, sad, isolated, and even more deluded. So it can be said that the service caters first and foremost not to narcissists, but to the self-centered and potentially to the sociopath as well. In essence it can be claimed that Facebook is unhealthy, perhaps moreso than the internet.
Hell, I have not even made mention of the inherent privacy problems which provided privacy options do not solve. In essence, by ever existing on Facebook you are already compromised and every detail you edit or add thereafter goes into the vortex. The police can see everything you've ever said without your knowledge. So can any government, entity, or corporation with the stature or power to make Facebook cooperate. Not to mention anyone with a certain level of know-how can probably have that stuff you willingly shared about yourself. The craziest part is how the service has tapped into the (unconscious) human desire to share and self-promote... the disburdening is done willingly so it's not even entrapment. It's just exploitation. The old crusty man in my mind wants to say it's the fault of the user for being appallingly stupid, but the angry young man wants to blame Facebook, Inc. for just about every misery and betrayal they have wrought.
'Facebook isn't an echo chamber, and echo chamber is a nebulous term used by out-of-date critics to describe viral and meme-based behaviour', you say. I disagree, and urge you to shut up and stop being an apologist: Facebook often functions as an echo chamber devoid of consciousness or critical thought. For every stupid food picture, statement of outrage, birthday wish, and TMI infodump, there are a dozen re-shared memes, propaganda, or internet links. It's an echo chamber that shows you just what your acquaintances are wasting their time with, and invites you to also read top tens, read unsourced and biased articles, look for cute pics, and post shallow, heart-on-sleeve political and social rhetoric. Yeah, that shit's pretty awful, and in this writer's humble opinion, far worse than the self-promotion and the mindless sharing of private moments with no real purpose.
Facebook is already irrelevant: savvy people know this, hip people know this, even tweens know this. I suspect that its last year of relevance was 2010. At this point users see it as either 'Facebook!' or 'depressing friend directory', and increasingly, not even the gullible youth are excited about Facebook anymore. Some even use Twitter to engage in such discussions as #noneofmyfriendsonfacebook and to broadcast that they're getting out of the Facebook game. With the userbase growing older, lamer, and reposting more and more shitty content from the internet, and generally doing nothing important, it is no surprise that hardly anyone considers an account a meaningful or exciting thing, except for people who are promoting themselves, their business, or their art. In the end Facebook will only be useful for them, but its complete irrelevance means that there will be no further scandal because the user base is complacent and the service fulfills its duty quite well.
With a stable share of users and corporate status, it is unlikely that Facebook will disappear in less than five years. Ff a better service steals its users it may dwindle, but in Web 2.0 and beyond, computer/internet-literate users are too insignificant a group. The odds of a better service emerging are also low, since Facebook is part of the establishment and can likely take infringing parties to court and bankrupt them even with frivolous litigation. Facebook itself isn't novel enough anymore to create 'addicts' in the 2006-era sense: remaining power users are generally students, stay-at-home-parents, or retirees. With every baby picture, family portrait, and unnecessary political diatribe, the service makes itself less remarkable and more profitable... with every deleted user account, Facebook continues to hold private data in digital escrow, as if preparing for a blackmail war... with every day, as it fades into irrelevance far away from the beating heart of the internet, Facebook becomes more of a fact of the internet, here to stay and inflict social suffering on untold thousands.
3/23/13
New Sincerity and You: Counter-Counter-Countercultural Warfare
In today's culture of needy oversharing, cultural voyeurism, and [post-]post-modern irony it can seem as if nobody is willing to simply be their own self. It's possible that being a human being will no longer be as attractive an option as it used to be in the so-called 'simpler times' but most likely it is the old struggle in which mass culture tries to either force itself to be interesting or lays down a smokescreen of excuses about why it isn't. A reasonably recent phenomena, born out of cultural desperation and distaste, is New Sincerity. And, goddamn, the term is hot right now, and getting hotter by the moment – so come inside, place your bets, and learn a little something about nothing!
I'm no expert. New Sincerity, as a term, doesn't sit well with me, just like so many other facets of contemporary cultural shorthand. In many ways New Sincerity can be simplified as the diametrical opposite of that vague modern boogeyman 'the Hipster'. And yet, research I have done on the matter seems to suggest that mainstream 'hipster scions' are in fact loosely associated with New Sincerity. I don't really know what Zach Braff would say about the matter. Was Garden State actually a determined piece of New Sincerity propaganda? Did it manage to cash in on the credible? Worse yet, have the bewildering, out-of-favor films of Wes Anderson been appropriated by the movement? By the other movement?
My intention in this article has changed from simply making fun of New Sincerity to undertaking somewhat of a census about it. Mostly this will be the type of armchair cultural criticism I am known for, worldwide. For the most part New Sincerity is often used as a prescriptive term. In music this situation changes: many bands, hearkening back to the simpler, more heartfelt times of Bruce Springsteen, term themselves part of the New Sincerity movement, performing lyrics based less on conceptualism and cleverness and more on love, loss, sorrow, joy, and excitement. These are the earnest topics for music, but what keeps them from becoming pop music is a blend of aesthetics, identity, and intent. The prime axiom is to be authentic at all costs by not making attempts at authenticity, and never to ask 'what is authenticity?'
Unsurprisingly, New Sincerity stems from classic rock superstars such as Bruce Springsteen, Ted Nugent, John Mellencamp, and Bob Seeger, among others. Hair metal and psych are too ironic, or too insincere, or illegal, so lots of 'dad-rock' played to death on classic rock radio is actually questionable. Or perhaps they are valid inspiration, it's quite foggy to me and researching these kinds of things is slower than decisive critical strikes. What have these (and other) roots inspired?
Modern popular/indie acts such as The Hold Steady, Japandroids, Passion Pit, and evidently even Animal Collective are considered New Sincerity. These are just loose examples. To my mind the absolute pinnacle of new sincerity is probably Japandroids - they're not as bland as The Hold Steady and they're not politically or philosophically newly sincere. They just rock out and sing and holler and scream about partying, kissing girls, how life is and what they feel about it.
It's not slavish imitations of Springsteen topics about living in a shit down and running out of hope, or shooting up a bank in the back-roads of Nebraska. One has to admire the mixed positivity in songs about change, nostalgia/heartbreak, or raw excitement. The sense is that it's all youthful enthusiasm and angst, sometimes regret, and the energy cannot be denied. Their lack of pretense, deliberate simplicity and raw force all stand in contrast to established hype bands like The Hold Steady (with Springsteen and hearts worn on the sleeves). However, Japandroids' sophomore album is either too earnest or actually ironic in the ennui mode (or simply underwhelming after their debut), which may or may not say anything about New Sincerity.
Myself, I think the best part is that New Sincerity is often hailed as the redemptive force of contemporary hipster culture. It's a pretty great lie, but it makes everything seem much more epic and heroic, as if there really is a struggle against insincerity in culture. I stress, again, that the modern hipster has roots in Victorian England and earlier German youth movements. We see again and again the sorrows of young Werther in the trappings of a modern-day dandy. However it was inevitable, after the crushing nihilism of the 80's and the strung-out apathy of the 90's, that some kind of cultural force would rise in opposition. The only questionable thing is whether terming it 'new' is not a smidgeon untrue.
I'm no expert. New Sincerity, as a term, doesn't sit well with me, just like so many other facets of contemporary cultural shorthand. In many ways New Sincerity can be simplified as the diametrical opposite of that vague modern boogeyman 'the Hipster'. And yet, research I have done on the matter seems to suggest that mainstream 'hipster scions' are in fact loosely associated with New Sincerity. I don't really know what Zach Braff would say about the matter. Was Garden State actually a determined piece of New Sincerity propaganda? Did it manage to cash in on the credible? Worse yet, have the bewildering, out-of-favor films of Wes Anderson been appropriated by the movement? By the other movement?
My intention in this article has changed from simply making fun of New Sincerity to undertaking somewhat of a census about it. Mostly this will be the type of armchair cultural criticism I am known for, worldwide. For the most part New Sincerity is often used as a prescriptive term. In music this situation changes: many bands, hearkening back to the simpler, more heartfelt times of Bruce Springsteen, term themselves part of the New Sincerity movement, performing lyrics based less on conceptualism and cleverness and more on love, loss, sorrow, joy, and excitement. These are the earnest topics for music, but what keeps them from becoming pop music is a blend of aesthetics, identity, and intent. The prime axiom is to be authentic at all costs by not making attempts at authenticity, and never to ask 'what is authenticity?'
Unsurprisingly, New Sincerity stems from classic rock superstars such as Bruce Springsteen, Ted Nugent, John Mellencamp, and Bob Seeger, among others. Hair metal and psych are too ironic, or too insincere, or illegal, so lots of 'dad-rock' played to death on classic rock radio is actually questionable. Or perhaps they are valid inspiration, it's quite foggy to me and researching these kinds of things is slower than decisive critical strikes. What have these (and other) roots inspired?
Modern popular/indie acts such as The Hold Steady, Japandroids, Passion Pit, and evidently even Animal Collective are considered New Sincerity. These are just loose examples. To my mind the absolute pinnacle of new sincerity is probably Japandroids - they're not as bland as The Hold Steady and they're not politically or philosophically newly sincere. They just rock out and sing and holler and scream about partying, kissing girls, how life is and what they feel about it.
It's not slavish imitations of Springsteen topics about living in a shit down and running out of hope, or shooting up a bank in the back-roads of Nebraska. One has to admire the mixed positivity in songs about change, nostalgia/heartbreak, or raw excitement. The sense is that it's all youthful enthusiasm and angst, sometimes regret, and the energy cannot be denied. Their lack of pretense, deliberate simplicity and raw force all stand in contrast to established hype bands like The Hold Steady (with Springsteen and hearts worn on the sleeves). However, Japandroids' sophomore album is either too earnest or actually ironic in the ennui mode (or simply underwhelming after their debut), which may or may not say anything about New Sincerity.
Myself, I think the best part is that New Sincerity is often hailed as the redemptive force of contemporary hipster culture. It's a pretty great lie, but it makes everything seem much more epic and heroic, as if there really is a struggle against insincerity in culture. I stress, again, that the modern hipster has roots in Victorian England and earlier German youth movements. We see again and again the sorrows of young Werther in the trappings of a modern-day dandy. However it was inevitable, after the crushing nihilism of the 80's and the strung-out apathy of the 90's, that some kind of cultural force would rise in opposition. The only questionable thing is whether terming it 'new' is not a smidgeon untrue.
3/20/13
Hype Level Critical: Age of Wonders 3
Age of Wonders is the holy grail of fantasy turn based strategy/RPG mashups. Age of Wonders I is a highpoint beyond even the Heroes of Might and Magic series, the Disciples series, or arguably even the slightly unrelated Civilization series. However, the (for a long time) final game in the series was released in 2003, which left possibly the longest shadow in gaming. Age of Wonders is a non-AAA series, in part because it never developed Warcraft's following and also because originated in (the final years of) an era when there were more publishers and less-AAA series. Multi-million dollar advertising budgets were also extremely rare in those days, but notable exceptions exist (PS1 and other consoles, Daikatana).
When the first game was released in 1999, it already looked outdated. In the modern era it would hardly pass (graphically, among the subnormals, children, and hacks who review games) for a half-assed indie title - even in 1999 (a time when, arguably, nearly all graphics were primitive and 'ugly') it was often remarked upon negatively for its graphical shortcomings. Nevertheless, since the game was a product of pure craft, what graphics it did possess were A) infinitely presentable, and B) charmingly executed. Honest reviewers acknowledged that if the presentation wasn't cutting-edge, it was passable, and in any case it was paired with deep, engaging and challenging gameplay. It also had a magic system that was deliciously broken, and crafty players could discover all sorts of hi-jinks to turn themselves into demigods.
The series might not have ever developed Warcraft's following, but among the hardcore Age of Wonders I is generally acknowledged as a masterpiece. I hate using the word 'hardcore', but that's what it comes down to: the game is unforgiving and if you cannot handle strategy, tactics or adversary, it is best to avoid it. It is one of those games which requires tact and some trial-and-error. There is no hand-holding, and losses are inevitable. The sequel (and its standalone expansion) carried on the tradition with varying degrees of success. The first missions alone can prove, on easy, more difficult than entire campaigns in other games, levels can take long and get brutally difficult even against basic AI. I would not go so far as to call the game masochistic, myself, but others might – odds are they're softies, though, with no real appreciation for challenge and glory.
With the modern explosion of game sequels, it is ultimately unsurprising to see the return of a great series backed with significant nostalgia. Yet the story is probably the best of the year (which is already a good one), even better than the Age of Empires II HD release. One of the best parts is that the success of Minecraft is partially responsible, which means that, whatever you think about Minecraft, it finally gave back to the community. I say all this before Age of Wonders III is even released: good news is good news, and I am happy about this.
After the Nerd Bubble article it may seem that I am a cynical outsider to nerd culture or even an elitist myself, but I am simply a lapsed gamer who used to care too much. I continue to play AoW1 because it is that good, and GOG.com sells it at a fair price (and sometimes a steal price), so anyone can play it even on the most modern hardware. This is truly the best era of gaming: even the ghosts of yesteryear are coming back to life. However, I would like to caution myself and others who are getting hyped already. Let's keep our expectations realistic.
The more I read about the AoWIII project, the more I like it. Michiel can den Bos, who composed music for AoW1 (not to mention Deus Ex and Unreal, two other dear favorites of mine) is apparently on board. Truly good news, because he never did a bad job of scoring a game. Evidently the old crew is, for a large part, assembled on the project. Triumph Studios are no loafers and I don't expect they will release a garbage bag, but it's been a decade since they've tangled with the AoW series. The main question, quite possibly the most pertinent and exciting question, is whether or not Age of Wonders III will recapture the magic of the first game. To do so will be a challenge - the first game had something like 12 races and unit exposition for each and every of the 48+ units. Just to execute this small part (which had much to do with the 'sense of magic' in the wondrous debut) can be difficult, and to ignore it would annoy at least some fans.
When the first game was released in 1999, it already looked outdated. In the modern era it would hardly pass (graphically, among the subnormals, children, and hacks who review games) for a half-assed indie title - even in 1999 (a time when, arguably, nearly all graphics were primitive and 'ugly') it was often remarked upon negatively for its graphical shortcomings. Nevertheless, since the game was a product of pure craft, what graphics it did possess were A) infinitely presentable, and B) charmingly executed. Honest reviewers acknowledged that if the presentation wasn't cutting-edge, it was passable, and in any case it was paired with deep, engaging and challenging gameplay. It also had a magic system that was deliciously broken, and crafty players could discover all sorts of hi-jinks to turn themselves into demigods.
The series might not have ever developed Warcraft's following, but among the hardcore Age of Wonders I is generally acknowledged as a masterpiece. I hate using the word 'hardcore', but that's what it comes down to: the game is unforgiving and if you cannot handle strategy, tactics or adversary, it is best to avoid it. It is one of those games which requires tact and some trial-and-error. There is no hand-holding, and losses are inevitable. The sequel (and its standalone expansion) carried on the tradition with varying degrees of success. The first missions alone can prove, on easy, more difficult than entire campaigns in other games, levels can take long and get brutally difficult even against basic AI. I would not go so far as to call the game masochistic, myself, but others might – odds are they're softies, though, with no real appreciation for challenge and glory.
With the modern explosion of game sequels, it is ultimately unsurprising to see the return of a great series backed with significant nostalgia. Yet the story is probably the best of the year (which is already a good one), even better than the Age of Empires II HD release. One of the best parts is that the success of Minecraft is partially responsible, which means that, whatever you think about Minecraft, it finally gave back to the community. I say all this before Age of Wonders III is even released: good news is good news, and I am happy about this.
After the Nerd Bubble article it may seem that I am a cynical outsider to nerd culture or even an elitist myself, but I am simply a lapsed gamer who used to care too much. I continue to play AoW1 because it is that good, and GOG.com sells it at a fair price (and sometimes a steal price), so anyone can play it even on the most modern hardware. This is truly the best era of gaming: even the ghosts of yesteryear are coming back to life. However, I would like to caution myself and others who are getting hyped already. Let's keep our expectations realistic.
The more I read about the AoWIII project, the more I like it. Michiel can den Bos, who composed music for AoW1 (not to mention Deus Ex and Unreal, two other dear favorites of mine) is apparently on board. Truly good news, because he never did a bad job of scoring a game. Evidently the old crew is, for a large part, assembled on the project. Triumph Studios are no loafers and I don't expect they will release a garbage bag, but it's been a decade since they've tangled with the AoW series. The main question, quite possibly the most pertinent and exciting question, is whether or not Age of Wonders III will recapture the magic of the first game. To do so will be a challenge - the first game had something like 12 races and unit exposition for each and every of the 48+ units. Just to execute this small part (which had much to do with the 'sense of magic' in the wondrous debut) can be difficult, and to ignore it would annoy at least some fans.
1/21/13
2013: Coming Highlights via Crisis Nightmare 3000
2012 was a pretty good year. There was plenty to see, talk about, and worry about. I'm not going to waste anyone's time with how great 2012 was. I'm not going to elaborate on how great a year it was for just about everyone to to feel truly offended, scared, or wronged. I sure felt the winds of change, and I bet I'm not the only one forced to watch, for merely one small instance, Facebook turn into less and less of a place for drunk students' idiocy and more and more of a place for self-aggrandizing politics (a learned behavior) and doomed verbal slap fights (an inherent characteristic) between imaginary monsters in the dark (???).
As great a year as 2012 was for getting miffed about rumors of rumors and unfounded quackery, 2013, by all estimations, will prove to be even better, with exceptional levels of panic. I am only a small and limited individual, fearful of the Lord and His hatred of our Eternal Imperfection, but even I can see the sort of wickedness that will come from the foremost voids of collective moral and existential mania:
- The use of stem cells from aborted fetuses to create so-called 'ethical' meat products such as nerveless chickens and baby sandwiches.
- The use of stem cells from aborted fetuses to make PepsiCo products even tastier and healthier!
-The use of stem cells from aborted fetuses to power a giant abortion center/bath house/tolerance indoctrination center/abattoir.
-All national anthems will be replaced, by global plebiscite, with Psy's 'Gangnam Style'.
-The use of rogue-harvest stem cells from living babies to make homosexual, gay, queer, transexual, questioning or pansexual clones of all new babies.
-Global decriminalization of all drugs / abolition of all drug offenses except alcoholism, which will be heavily prohibited.
-Upcoming mandatory biochips for all newborns, which will be specifically geared to cause autism, homosexuality and socialist tendencies in all newborns. All younger generations, regardless of biochips, will continue to be inceasingly sissy.
-Justin Beiber's official crowning as The King of Rock and Roll; retirement ceremonies for outgoing king Elvis Presley.
-Prayer inoculations made mandatory for non-atheists.
- I.E. 10 becomes mandatory web browser; Firefox users are shot to death in droves in the streets across most of the known world.
-President Obama, as he kisses Angela Merckel on the lips during a pagan pansexual cocaine infanticide orgy (including aliens, notable elites and celebrities, and Vladimir Putin) will sign into a law a fourty-term presidency applicable only to himself or any of his socialist ideologues.
-Stem cell-powered mass transit, gun incinerators, and electric vehicle charging stations.
-Stem cell-powered solar energy.
-Stem cell-powered wind power.
-Stem cell-moderated nuclear fission with options for stem cell-stabilized nuclear fusion.
-Mandatory global 'sin hour', details forthcoming, likely to include excerpts by sin experts De Sade and C'Thulhu.
-Libertarians proven entirely right about everything and promptly imprisoned and/or muzzled en masse. Ayn Rand enshrined as underground deity. Libertarianism outlawed.
-Christmas 2013 will be retooled to celebrate an exciting blend of non-Judeo-Christian world religions and non-straight-monogamous sexual orientations. Also, more emphasis on shopping and consumer culture!
-The moon will be settled by a coalition of European and Chinese evolutionists with left-leaning socialist tendencies who will farm organically-sourced stem cells for vague and shadowy purposes.
-Mandatory world-wide one-child policy. Extra children will be rendered into fuel for mass transit, space programs, or returned to the parents as an Ethical Flavinoid Generator – all excretions can then legally be sold to the state via a closed market for an equal, fair, and regulated price.
-Hipster movement greatly compromised and weakened by increasingly worrisome internal power squabbles, advancing the arts by five months.
-Completion of the war on Christmas – total casualties: Christmas.
-Carburators will be outlawed on pain of death forcing many to adapt or starve, paralyzing carburator-based economies. Fuel injectors will no longer be for 'sissies' and women: they will be mandatory. Automobiles built prior to 1950 will be exempt but heavily taxed.
- Any and all muscle cars will be recycled into public park art projects, luxury vehicles will be recycled into bus stations, buses, and public benches.
-The use of stem cells from aborted fetuses to fund Al-Qaeda and Al-QaedaCo-related entities.
-Sex addiction will be recognized as a veritable (taxable) disability, as will necrophilia; perverts worldwide, it is theorized, will be coddled and enabled by corrupt and morally-apathetic governments.
-Millionaires and billionaires will be taxed upwards of 75% per annum. Proceeds will go to struggling socialists, funding OWS protests, and hippies.
-Any new jobs created by the rich will be immediately taxed into the ground, and all proceeds will be used to keep drug addicts from suffering withdrawals.
-Tobacco smokers to be punished by instant death in many countries, smoking prohibited in the rest.
-"Soylent Green is people!"
-Public stonings will not only become a hot new meme, but enshrined under sweeping free speech reforms.
-Wal-Mart given a seat in the UN, kicking out Bhutan.
-Consumer goods will be sustainably harvested from the stem cells of aborted fetuses; global rights for non-laboratory non-human lifeforms; "New Murder Laws Get Poachers into Hot Water!"
-Men will no longer be allowed on public transit and will also pay an additional 50% in auto-insurance because of their inherent emotional instability as discovered through internet social media such as forums, blogs, and Youtube.
-Adult males will also be prohibited from consuming beer, watching sports, or masturbation. Men will also be subject to random curfews, spot-checks, and will be prohibited from loitering.
-Mandatory, bi-weekly public mocking and flogging of all artists, including self-styled artists.
-Catholicism will be replaced in situ with Feminism- doctrinaire rejection of birth control will be replaced with mandatory castration and partial-castration for heterosexual males.
-Facebook will be granted all rights to its users, including power of attorney, and unlimited licensing of all uploaded content with no concessions to the end-user.
-All IP addresses to be made public, resulting in severe but mixed changes to the Internet, and a new niche for powerusers.
- Banks 'too large to fail' will be granted explicit legal and diplomatic immunity.
-Privatization of nature; mandatory, global human genome tax.
-Single women without children will be able to claim compensation from unsatisfactory sexual partners and will have birth control, contraceptives, and abortions paid for (in full) by their governments. Countries not adhering to this global mandate will have their national anthem changed to Carly Rae Jepson's 'Call Me Maybe'
-Texas will be placed under martial law until every ranch is empty, a co-operative enterprise, or farming alpaca wool and soybeans.
-All leather jackets will be replaced with pastel coloured cardigans, any vendor found to be selling black market leather goods will be flogged and mocked in public, and re-educated in a Tolerance Centre.
-Nerd movement gains critical momentum, delaying any theoretical technological singularity by more than 100 years.
-Feed lot model expanded to feeding the poor; "Low Standards; High Expectations - The Profit of Poverty"
-All world religions outlawed, all higher beings to be replaced with notable celebrities, scientists, and political leaders. Dissension will not be tolerated: private residences will be periodically monitored for signs of worship.
-Mandatory quota of internet slang for all publications in any language to encourage youth engagement. (A modern translation of Charles Dickens' 'David Copperfield' will begin this trend, a neo-modern treatment of E.L. James' '50 Shades of Grey' will prompt the new industry standard. Homer's 'Teh 0DY$$3Y' will establish sales records.)
-Goods manufactured in the East will now be sold in the East, and Eastern citizens will use money sourced from Western taxpayers to afford said goods, creating a self-aware form of global capitalism. The West will be forced to produce its own electronics, garments, and cheap trinkets. Corporate elite will balk at decreased unemployment figures and go back to lovingly stroking their industrial robots and moneybags.
-Pharmaceutical drugs will be outlawed and replaced with what are now unfairly referred to as 'illicit and/or illegal drugs' with a decided emphasis on psychedelics.
-The West will stop paying attention to the rest of the world, and, in a stunning reversal, begin to focus on itself.
-Resultant drug addicts are confirmed for serious government coddling!
-Stem cells from aborted fetuses will replace any and all bullets manufactured since 1898. Modern bullets will be powered by the new ethical physics of hyper-abortion.
-Completion of secret project "The End of Men".
-All firearms unrelated to ethical hunting and/or safety training will be outlawed with no exceptions. Any persons refusing will be fired upon and killed by police or soldiers, who will be be armed or overarmed in accordance with New World Order directive HMO-SX-14 s.12
-Dec 21, 2013: The Brony Rebellion.
And that, as they say, is just the tip of the iceberg.
As great a year as 2012 was for getting miffed about rumors of rumors and unfounded quackery, 2013, by all estimations, will prove to be even better, with exceptional levels of panic. I am only a small and limited individual, fearful of the Lord and His hatred of our Eternal Imperfection, but even I can see the sort of wickedness that will come from the foremost voids of collective moral and existential mania:
- The use of stem cells from aborted fetuses to create so-called 'ethical' meat products such as nerveless chickens and baby sandwiches.
- The use of stem cells from aborted fetuses to make PepsiCo products even tastier and healthier!
-The use of stem cells from aborted fetuses to power a giant abortion center/bath house/tolerance indoctrination center/abattoir.
-All national anthems will be replaced, by global plebiscite, with Psy's 'Gangnam Style'.
-The use of rogue-harvest stem cells from living babies to make homosexual, gay, queer, transexual, questioning or pansexual clones of all new babies.
-Global decriminalization of all drugs / abolition of all drug offenses except alcoholism, which will be heavily prohibited.
-Upcoming mandatory biochips for all newborns, which will be specifically geared to cause autism, homosexuality and socialist tendencies in all newborns. All younger generations, regardless of biochips, will continue to be inceasingly sissy.
-Justin Beiber's official crowning as The King of Rock and Roll; retirement ceremonies for outgoing king Elvis Presley.
-Prayer inoculations made mandatory for non-atheists.
- I.E. 10 becomes mandatory web browser; Firefox users are shot to death in droves in the streets across most of the known world.
-President Obama, as he kisses Angela Merckel on the lips during a pagan pansexual cocaine infanticide orgy (including aliens, notable elites and celebrities, and Vladimir Putin) will sign into a law a fourty-term presidency applicable only to himself or any of his socialist ideologues.
-Stem cell-powered mass transit, gun incinerators, and electric vehicle charging stations.
-Stem cell-powered solar energy.
-Stem cell-powered wind power.
-Stem cell-moderated nuclear fission with options for stem cell-stabilized nuclear fusion.
-Mandatory global 'sin hour', details forthcoming, likely to include excerpts by sin experts De Sade and C'Thulhu.
-Libertarians proven entirely right about everything and promptly imprisoned and/or muzzled en masse. Ayn Rand enshrined as underground deity. Libertarianism outlawed.
-Christmas 2013 will be retooled to celebrate an exciting blend of non-Judeo-Christian world religions and non-straight-monogamous sexual orientations. Also, more emphasis on shopping and consumer culture!
-The moon will be settled by a coalition of European and Chinese evolutionists with left-leaning socialist tendencies who will farm organically-sourced stem cells for vague and shadowy purposes.
-Mandatory world-wide one-child policy. Extra children will be rendered into fuel for mass transit, space programs, or returned to the parents as an Ethical Flavinoid Generator – all excretions can then legally be sold to the state via a closed market for an equal, fair, and regulated price.
-Hipster movement greatly compromised and weakened by increasingly worrisome internal power squabbles, advancing the arts by five months.
-Completion of the war on Christmas – total casualties: Christmas.
-Carburators will be outlawed on pain of death forcing many to adapt or starve, paralyzing carburator-based economies. Fuel injectors will no longer be for 'sissies' and women: they will be mandatory. Automobiles built prior to 1950 will be exempt but heavily taxed.
- Any and all muscle cars will be recycled into public park art projects, luxury vehicles will be recycled into bus stations, buses, and public benches.
-The use of stem cells from aborted fetuses to fund Al-Qaeda and Al-QaedaCo-related entities.
-Sex addiction will be recognized as a veritable (taxable) disability, as will necrophilia; perverts worldwide, it is theorized, will be coddled and enabled by corrupt and morally-apathetic governments.
-Millionaires and billionaires will be taxed upwards of 75% per annum. Proceeds will go to struggling socialists, funding OWS protests, and hippies.
-Any new jobs created by the rich will be immediately taxed into the ground, and all proceeds will be used to keep drug addicts from suffering withdrawals.
-Tobacco smokers to be punished by instant death in many countries, smoking prohibited in the rest.
-"Soylent Green is people!"
-Public stonings will not only become a hot new meme, but enshrined under sweeping free speech reforms.
-Wal-Mart given a seat in the UN, kicking out Bhutan.
-Consumer goods will be sustainably harvested from the stem cells of aborted fetuses; global rights for non-laboratory non-human lifeforms; "New Murder Laws Get Poachers into Hot Water!"
-Men will no longer be allowed on public transit and will also pay an additional 50% in auto-insurance because of their inherent emotional instability as discovered through internet social media such as forums, blogs, and Youtube.
-Adult males will also be prohibited from consuming beer, watching sports, or masturbation. Men will also be subject to random curfews, spot-checks, and will be prohibited from loitering.
-Mandatory, bi-weekly public mocking and flogging of all artists, including self-styled artists.
-Catholicism will be replaced in situ with Feminism- doctrinaire rejection of birth control will be replaced with mandatory castration and partial-castration for heterosexual males.
-Facebook will be granted all rights to its users, including power of attorney, and unlimited licensing of all uploaded content with no concessions to the end-user.
-All IP addresses to be made public, resulting in severe but mixed changes to the Internet, and a new niche for powerusers.
- Banks 'too large to fail' will be granted explicit legal and diplomatic immunity.
-Privatization of nature; mandatory, global human genome tax.
-Single women without children will be able to claim compensation from unsatisfactory sexual partners and will have birth control, contraceptives, and abortions paid for (in full) by their governments. Countries not adhering to this global mandate will have their national anthem changed to Carly Rae Jepson's 'Call Me Maybe'
-Texas will be placed under martial law until every ranch is empty, a co-operative enterprise, or farming alpaca wool and soybeans.
-All leather jackets will be replaced with pastel coloured cardigans, any vendor found to be selling black market leather goods will be flogged and mocked in public, and re-educated in a Tolerance Centre.
-Nerd movement gains critical momentum, delaying any theoretical technological singularity by more than 100 years.
-Feed lot model expanded to feeding the poor; "Low Standards; High Expectations - The Profit of Poverty"
-All world religions outlawed, all higher beings to be replaced with notable celebrities, scientists, and political leaders. Dissension will not be tolerated: private residences will be periodically monitored for signs of worship.
-Mandatory quota of internet slang for all publications in any language to encourage youth engagement. (A modern translation of Charles Dickens' 'David Copperfield' will begin this trend, a neo-modern treatment of E.L. James' '50 Shades of Grey' will prompt the new industry standard. Homer's 'Teh 0DY$$3Y' will establish sales records.)
-Goods manufactured in the East will now be sold in the East, and Eastern citizens will use money sourced from Western taxpayers to afford said goods, creating a self-aware form of global capitalism. The West will be forced to produce its own electronics, garments, and cheap trinkets. Corporate elite will balk at decreased unemployment figures and go back to lovingly stroking their industrial robots and moneybags.
-Pharmaceutical drugs will be outlawed and replaced with what are now unfairly referred to as 'illicit and/or illegal drugs' with a decided emphasis on psychedelics.
-The West will stop paying attention to the rest of the world, and, in a stunning reversal, begin to focus on itself.
-Resultant drug addicts are confirmed for serious government coddling!
-Stem cells from aborted fetuses will replace any and all bullets manufactured since 1898. Modern bullets will be powered by the new ethical physics of hyper-abortion.
-Completion of secret project "The End of Men".
-All firearms unrelated to ethical hunting and/or safety training will be outlawed with no exceptions. Any persons refusing will be fired upon and killed by police or soldiers, who will be be armed or overarmed in accordance with New World Order directive HMO-SX-14 s.12
-Dec 21, 2013: The Brony Rebellion.
And that, as they say, is just the tip of the iceberg.
1/10/13
The Nerd Bubble and its Inevitable Collapse
It seems as if every contemporary identity conforms tightly to passively consuming the dismal excretions of this benighted age. Wherever you look, there are people insisting that what they are consuming is correct and necessary to a happy life. There is always the insistence that 'my kind need X too' (as if it were a surprising epiphany) and other ridiculous rhetoric such as inherent uniqueness. These beliefs have always been enthusiastically embraced, ruthlessly mocked, or completely ignored depending on the relative wisdom and maturity of the observer. There is one sort of contemporary identity that excels at absorbing all others and is generally 'on the make' as they say.
In 2007 there began an incredible shift in the behavior of Ur Hipsters, and/or they were found to possess certain interests and traits that, innocently enough, bordered the long dormant cultural powerhouse sometimes referred to as 'nerd culture'. Suddenly the coolest individual at the bar who liked the right music, played on the most epic amateur sports team, fucked the most attractive people, and partied the hardest was busy painting W40K miniatures as a hobby, played D&D on Sundays, and knew how to code. By 2013 there is a weird sense in the air that 'nerdy' pursuits and habits are necessary just to communicate.
It is as a certain bad 80's movie had prophesied. Like any decent historical inevitability, the rise of nerd culture was complex and in many ways self-fulfilling. The smart, awkward kid getting bullied in the 70's and 80's grew up into a normalized yuppie or yupster or suave po-mo individualist making good money doing engineering work or intense research or crucial computer work. Good or bad, they acted as the lifeblood of modernity. Their progeny, the current generation of 'young nerds' and/or the current 'nerd wave' movement, is an entirely different animal. Arguably, despite the surprising population of well-adjusted and balanced nerds, there is evidence to suggest that the much of the modern wave is quixotic, dysfunctional, and generally disinterested in aging measures of success such as social popularity, physical fitness, conformity, and party intensity.
I always get the idea that the mainstream nerd movement left the rails completely in the early 2000s. I get this idea because of the link posted above, wherein (and you might have missed this) a reality TV show tailored to nerds actually existed. The comicbook-style text boxes were so tasteful, so apt. There never was a nerd movement as such (as it was anecdotal to many other factors), but the word itself has gained such traction with increasing numbers of people, that one might rightly be said to exist at this point. And to be perfectly blunt, from the perspective of the modern identity fetish, it was probably a long time coming. Also completely inevitable. Mind you: I am no expert on nerd history, nor would I ever claim to be one.
In 2007 there began an incredible shift in the behavior of Ur Hipsters, and/or they were found to possess certain interests and traits that, innocently enough, bordered the long dormant cultural powerhouse sometimes referred to as 'nerd culture'. Suddenly the coolest individual at the bar who liked the right music, played on the most epic amateur sports team, fucked the most attractive people, and partied the hardest was busy painting W40K miniatures as a hobby, played D&D on Sundays, and knew how to code. By 2013 there is a weird sense in the air that 'nerdy' pursuits and habits are necessary just to communicate.
It is as a certain bad 80's movie had prophesied. Like any decent historical inevitability, the rise of nerd culture was complex and in many ways self-fulfilling. The smart, awkward kid getting bullied in the 70's and 80's grew up into a normalized yuppie or yupster or suave po-mo individualist making good money doing engineering work or intense research or crucial computer work. Good or bad, they acted as the lifeblood of modernity. Their progeny, the current generation of 'young nerds' and/or the current 'nerd wave' movement, is an entirely different animal. Arguably, despite the surprising population of well-adjusted and balanced nerds, there is evidence to suggest that the much of the modern wave is quixotic, dysfunctional, and generally disinterested in aging measures of success such as social popularity, physical fitness, conformity, and party intensity.
I always get the idea that the mainstream nerd movement left the rails completely in the early 2000s. I get this idea because of the link posted above, wherein (and you might have missed this) a reality TV show tailored to nerds actually existed. The comicbook-style text boxes were so tasteful, so apt. There never was a nerd movement as such (as it was anecdotal to many other factors), but the word itself has gained such traction with increasing numbers of people, that one might rightly be said to exist at this point. And to be perfectly blunt, from the perspective of the modern identity fetish, it was probably a long time coming. Also completely inevitable. Mind you: I am no expert on nerd history, nor would I ever claim to be one.
9/19/12
North American Politics Redux
That the governments of North America function as ears into which special interest groups pour their bile shouldn't surprise a single thinking person. The best part is the most worrying: there is no more point in even pretending to aim for a government which serves the people. The best one can hope for is a government that serves corporate interest, foreign investment, itself, and its elites and prays earnestly for that service to trickle down into the cracks where dwell the invisible, rotten peons which they have struggled to get away from.
In this era, where the American dream could be dismantled for the pernicious, self-destructive, blind and ignorant mess that it is, there are entire groups of people with frothing mouths trying to blame anyone for the demise of their beloved ideal. Instead of doing the American thing and hardening up and finding something better and smarter, they still worship the car cult, the sprawl cult, and the consumption cult. Bridges are fabricated in China and assembled by foreign labor in America. Nobody can do a goddamned thing about it, no matter how shameful it is, because American manufacturing and labor have been gutted in the interests of iPhones, service-industry, and the downright vampiric finance industry (which, rightfully, is more of a quack cottage industry, as its very nature is antithetical to true industry, which creates products of value).
A populace distrustful of its government moves apathetically to cast its meaningless votes into the mire of corruption and ineptitude that will bring them an even more degraded government. Someone says he doesn't care about roughly half of a country – well of course, nobody ever has, or will, and if this percentage would only dream the right dream of wastefulness and satiety then they could pull themselves out of poverty and darkness.
Meanwhile democracy is a dead byword, remembered by some, but truly forgotten by all. We have several hundred statist, nationalist, authoritarian and totalitarian pieces of shit running the world. All of them are lackeys to the 'real players' who wish, respectfully, not to be named or pointed at. Yet we consume their products each day. It's harder to farm food than it is to process it into unhealthy products to sell to masses, which it poisons into leprous lumps which look forward only to the faded idiotic 'leisure time' involving yet more consumption and little else.
Big bad governments pass hundreds of laws and amendments in so-called 'omnibus bills' which politicians are too lazy and inept to read and understand. All sorts of toxic policy are passed into law without so much as a cursory glance, and the culprits are paid and pampered, travel around the world, and don't even bother to defend their use of public money or trust in such a despicable way. The instigator even allows that it is undemocratic and scary, but continues doing it anyway, because god damn doing work you are paid and trusted to do. Revolutionaries, under these pressures and more, are still branded as idealists, idiots, and heretics. The placid horde feeds on scraps from the table and licks its chops contentedly, smiling at the less fortunate.
In some considerable and old parts of the world, a potentially faked video has caused a number of deaths because it portrays a prophet in an unfair and unkindly light. Free speech is cited and forgotten, and outrage is the rule of the day. If only outrage was the rule of the day, and apathy didn't rule, where truly important and existential affairs are concerned. As we pass into the twilight of this era, hoping for a better tomorrow, we would do well to remember the words of one J.J. Rousseau. That is, if any among us can remember them.
In this era, where the American dream could be dismantled for the pernicious, self-destructive, blind and ignorant mess that it is, there are entire groups of people with frothing mouths trying to blame anyone for the demise of their beloved ideal. Instead of doing the American thing and hardening up and finding something better and smarter, they still worship the car cult, the sprawl cult, and the consumption cult. Bridges are fabricated in China and assembled by foreign labor in America. Nobody can do a goddamned thing about it, no matter how shameful it is, because American manufacturing and labor have been gutted in the interests of iPhones, service-industry, and the downright vampiric finance industry (which, rightfully, is more of a quack cottage industry, as its very nature is antithetical to true industry, which creates products of value).
A populace distrustful of its government moves apathetically to cast its meaningless votes into the mire of corruption and ineptitude that will bring them an even more degraded government. Someone says he doesn't care about roughly half of a country – well of course, nobody ever has, or will, and if this percentage would only dream the right dream of wastefulness and satiety then they could pull themselves out of poverty and darkness.
Meanwhile democracy is a dead byword, remembered by some, but truly forgotten by all. We have several hundred statist, nationalist, authoritarian and totalitarian pieces of shit running the world. All of them are lackeys to the 'real players' who wish, respectfully, not to be named or pointed at. Yet we consume their products each day. It's harder to farm food than it is to process it into unhealthy products to sell to masses, which it poisons into leprous lumps which look forward only to the faded idiotic 'leisure time' involving yet more consumption and little else.
Big bad governments pass hundreds of laws and amendments in so-called 'omnibus bills' which politicians are too lazy and inept to read and understand. All sorts of toxic policy are passed into law without so much as a cursory glance, and the culprits are paid and pampered, travel around the world, and don't even bother to defend their use of public money or trust in such a despicable way. The instigator even allows that it is undemocratic and scary, but continues doing it anyway, because god damn doing work you are paid and trusted to do. Revolutionaries, under these pressures and more, are still branded as idealists, idiots, and heretics. The placid horde feeds on scraps from the table and licks its chops contentedly, smiling at the less fortunate.
In some considerable and old parts of the world, a potentially faked video has caused a number of deaths because it portrays a prophet in an unfair and unkindly light. Free speech is cited and forgotten, and outrage is the rule of the day. If only outrage was the rule of the day, and apathy didn't rule, where truly important and existential affairs are concerned. As we pass into the twilight of this era, hoping for a better tomorrow, we would do well to remember the words of one J.J. Rousseau. That is, if any among us can remember them.
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