Before we dive into political philosophy, how about word from science, wherein we prove daily that at least some parts of this civilization are smart and not-insane! For excample...
...For your science listening pleasure on Planetary Radio! Now posted are Mat Kaplan’s interviews with bold teams presenting at the 2022 Symposium in Tucson of NASA’s Innovative & Advanced Concepts program - (NIAC). Amazing endeavors, just this side (and sometimes not!) of science fiction. It can also be found on Apple Podcasts and from all the other major podcast providers.
== Democratic Centralism? ==
Sometimes it is important to pause in our immediate struggles for a little perspective. Remember that all 'sides' of the 'spectrum' can be hijacked by monsters. George Orwell's books, especially Homage to Catalonia, show how the left can dissolve into a circular firing squad of impractical purity-ism. (Orwell was a lifelong socialist, btw.)
Likewise, today's utterly crazy-treasonous Mad Right slavishly follows the 'Hastert Rule' that forbids Republican lawmakers from ever, ever negotiating or finding compromises or even making friendships with Democrats. Whatever is declared GOP/Fox policy must be maintained by all members of the most tightly disciplined movement in US history. Even when it is starkly insane. (Look up Dennis Hastert. Head of the entire GOP for a decade, whose 'rule' is rigidly enforced. I mean it: look him up.)
Look up, also, Democratic Centralism. Ironically, this began as a dictum of the left! , a modus invented by Lenin, enforced brutally in Spain, and maintained today by both Putin and the Dear Leader to the south.
The difference between the left's version of party "centralism" and today's Republican Party is that the Never Negotiate rule established by Dennis "friend to boys" Hastert is likely enforced not by ideology... or even the drive of anti-intellectualism that was denounced by Robert Heinlein... but by blackmail. Just the documented cases of GOP pols exposed as child predators would make that pretty obvious.
(Do you honestly think Lindsey Graham is anything but the tip of the toxic iceberg?)
== Questioning the only tribe that ever encouraged questioning ==
There's an irony here. Both white supremacists and lefty woke-ists are expressing fierce tribal patriotism, hormonally no different than those who chanted loyalty to flags or crowns or totems in Sparta, Dahomey or Delhi or Akkad, across 6000 years.
What differs is the tradeoff between fear and horizons of inclusion in the definition of 'my tribe.’ Anthropologists have shown that fear is the strongest factor determining where those borders set.
In those whom fear is strongest, tribal borders or 'horizons' lie close-in, as was the case for most of our ancestors (hence 'history.') The totems of your nation, or sub-set or ethnicity. Or cult.
But as fear declines, those boundaries of inclusion tend (depending also on culture) to spread wider and include more kinds of people, then more, until 'people' itself becomes a broader term.
I describe it all here...
...and no question I am loyal to this general process, since my own 'kind' were a pariah type, just a generation ago. Moreover, I deem this historically rare reflex - to expansively include the next and then the next previously marginalized group - to be humanity's best hope to achieve our potential, and possibly be first to reach the galaxy. By enhancing justice and freedom. By ceasing the insanity of prejudice, whose main outcome is the waste of talent. By expanding horizons.
Hence - though many on the Left would vomit, thinking of me as an ally, I nevertheless am one... and a vigorously effective one who shares the same set of long term goals.
Our problem with today's Mad Right is that they are so drenched in fear that they think their loyalty borders must be defined by insipid things like skin color or lack of education, along with frantic obeisance to a restored feudal oligarchy, as in times of old. Even though 60 centuries show that approach was tried and it never, ever worked.
The problem with the woke left is not the direction they want us to travel, toward ever-widening horizons of inclusion! It is their stunning lack of perspective. Historical, scientific, cultural. They have one loyalty, as fiercely and emotionally clutched as any past patriotism to country, tribe or flag.
That ferocious and vehement loyalty is to the otherness endeavor itself! Today's - this year's - forward edge of the project of inclusion.
Ironically, of course, NONE of the other tribes, nations, cultures that they now extoll as being so much better than the West ever had such an outward/inclusive cultural mania, or ever taught children to be so critical of their own tribal elders. Only the culture that raised them - with Hollywood's relentless century of diversity/tolerance/eccentricity/individualist memes - only that culture ever pushed this Otherness Project.
Hence, while pouring spite toward all the older symbols of the West and America (flags, anthems and such) their every waking moment is spent chanting incantations that are almost entirely unique to the culture that raised them.
== Who taught you these values of tolerance and inclusion and all that? ==
The answer is Hollywood. In the greatest propaganda campaign of all time, Hollywood flicks and associated musical and story-memes, have pushed Suspicion of Authority, Tolerance, Diversity and appreciation of individual Eccentricity in almost every work we've watched or suckled since we were toddlers. A vast campaign that I appove-of! Naturally, since I was raised by it, too. An irony I lay out in my recent - highly rambuncious and entertaining nonfiction book VIVID TOMORROWS: Science Fiction and Hollywood.
I have found that this irony - it loops around on itself in brain-hurting ways - is almost impossible for reflexive partisans to grasp. They suspect a trick. They assume I am arguing against the project! Trying to undermine it!
In fact I am as loyal to the Diversity and Inclusion Project as they are, and arguably more so! Because I care deeply about how self-righteousness and addictive sanctimony cause so many to lose perspective, or any ability to appraise - and re-appraise - tactics! In order to discover which tactics will work best to protect the Enlightenment Experiment against resurgent feudalism.
Re-appraising and replacing failed tactics is how to succeed at moving toward those great strategic goals.
On the other hand, rigidity, obeisance to symbolism instead of pragmatic victories, the spurning of allies and narrowing of purity standards for coalition... these are sicknesses that have hamstrung the movement so often in the past - since long before Lenin or Orwell - and threaten its very survival, today.
=====
=====
Addendum:
Open call! Would your school system or military base like several hundred copies of a David Brin novel? One loaded with science and action and interesting concepts? I can arrange it for EXISTENCE!
See the beautiful and hugely fun 3 minute video trailer!
(Anyone know a system to get books to multiple military bases and units? I tried years ago and it was astonishingly hard. Can do more than just Existence.)
58 comments:
library west hours is one of the major libraries of University of Florida’s George A. Smathers Libraries. Materials of the library include Humanities and Social Sciences, along with Asian Studies and African Studies Resources. It is one among the seven Smathers libraries present at UF. The Library is present at the north end of Plaza of the Americas in Northeastern part of the campus. It is also referred to as Lib West or CLub West by some of the students.
“Like it or not,” adviser Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted, Musk “helped us survive the most critical moments of war.” Podolyak added that Ukraine “will find a solution to keep Starlink working. We expect that the company will provide stable connection till the end of negotiations.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/14/ukraine-elon-musk-starlink-ambassador-andrij-melnyk/
The Twitter conversation is still happening with Musk revealing a few things... and irking the easily irked. 8)
He says he's burning about $20M/month. Chump change for a US war involvement effort, but not for a company doing it as a sales loss lead campaign.
StarLink is not SpaceX in the corporate sense. This distinction matters when it comes to burn rates and future needs to raise capital. (On the outside we perceive a lot of overlap in his companies, but his investors are not likely to agree with us.)
He also argues it is the only communication method they have at the actual front and the Russians have ramped up efforts to break in and kill his network.
There are people offering financial workarounds on the Twitter threads, but he misses them in the flood of anti-billionaire vitriol. A credible Go Fund Me effort could probably raise serious money if that site wanted to risk getting involved.
Musk
"The hell with it … even though Starlink is still losing money & other companies are getting billions of taxpayer $, we’ll just keep funding Ukraine govt for free"
This is after the Ukrainian Ambassador told him to "fuck off"
Duncan, the Ukrainian Ambassadoe was gently reprimanded by Zelinsky and corrected "My FU was aimed at the tweet, not the man."
David
Elon Musk is known to be a wee bit "tweet happy" and known for saying silly things
That is NOT his strength!
An Ambassador - a diplomat! - should be held to a much much higher standard
Diplomats make mistakes too.
Sometimes costly. Sometimes big.
Now that Musk has stated his burn rate, a third party interest can step in. Give it time.
Regards Progressive intolerance and stridency Obama has similar musings in an interview that is coming out today.
I don't "come here for the politics" but change is in the wind.
There are in my opinion still a couple of "third rail" issues in American politics.
1. Don't take away my ability to vote the rascals out. Or in, hey your choice. This is an "alternating current" sort of charge. Progressives want maximum numbers of voters and are willing to have a bit of laxity in the system to accomplish this. Conservatives are less enthused about this and are not willing to have their votes nullified by ballots that perhaps would not bear close scrutiny.
2. Don't mess with my children. This is a Direct Current jolt and has considerably greater wattage. Progressives don't want Evangelical Faith in the schools. Conservatives have an array of concerns, and polls suggest these are widely held. Schools have a herculean task just providing a quality education. Activism, advocacy etc don't belong there.
In each situation confidence in the system is necessary for function. That's why I push both for wider voter access and for the maximum degree of transparency at all levels of government especially the most universal interface, public education.
Tacitus
I doubt there is a solution for K-12 curricula that doesn't involve activism of some sort. For many of us our children ARE a form of protest. Don't like how your parents did things? Do it different with your own kids. That kind of protest.
Even our fallback method of keeping education decisions local is vulnerable to protest since child abuse is a crime defined through social conventions.
I'd put #2 way at the top with no close competitor. #1 is probably next, but we tolerate all sorts of crap when it comes to the franchise except outright removal of the fig leaf. Live in a place where gerrymandering is the rule? Your vote doesn't matter all that much either way. Live where one group can make it difficult for another group to vote? Could be you one day and your tolerance makes the slope under you slippery.
I'm looking forward to what Obama has to say. It was a 'candor' interview before the 2008 election that got me to like him. Someone asked him about a less than tolerant person who was part of his past life and Obama handled it gracefully. I was impressed. 8)
"Progressives want maximum numbers of voters and are willing to have a bit of laxity in the system to accomplish this. Conservatives are less enthused about this and are not willing to have their votes nullified by ballots that perhaps would not bear close scrutiny."
Tacitus, whle that assertion was parsed in ways that allow a wide range of interpretations and hence some overlap with truth, the overall implication of moral and practical equivalence is simply (and outrageously) false.
1. The 'progressives' of whome youspeak are a small minority of the overall Union-side, generally modernist side. They control neither a political party nor any substantial extent of legislative or executive power. Even in Democratic super-majority California, the effect of good election laws has been to moderate passions and successive governors (Brown Newson) have been eminently reasonable.
2. Evidence for Democratic party systemic cheating has been relentless and desperate... coming up with nothing. No examples numbering even into 3 digits. At all. Anywhere.
3. In contrast, today's Foxism is the most tightly disciplined partican machine in US history. You know that it would be in de,ographic collapse - ending this desperate pro-oligarchic phase of the civil war - were it not for systematic and fervidly implemented cheating. The distilled polemical basis for the movement is NOT (as progressives assert) racism and all that. It is spite toward every 'elite' fact using (nerdy) profession.
Your attempted both-sides assertion would not bear scrutiny and certainly no well-parsed, testable wager
Your SECOND assertion bears some validity, in that the democrat/libera;/left loose coalition CONTAINS maybe 10% stunningly wretched symbol obsessed blowhard bullies, whose masturbatory rants against moderate pragmatism are rightfully skewered by Bill Maher.
Alas, today's mad right CONSISTS 99% of stunningly wretched smybol obsessed blowhard bullies, whose masturbatory rants against moderate pragmatism are rightfully skewered by Bill Maher.
I am fine with your final paragraph. Then why make excuses for an insane, treasonous 'movement' whose goal is destruction of all US political processes, so that government by, of, for the People shall perish from the Earth?
Dr Brin:
Evidence for Democratic party systemic cheating has been relentless and desperate... coming up with nothing. No examples numbering even into 3 digits. At all. Anywhere.
The few proven examples of 2020 voter fraud I have heard about were all Trump supporters who voted twice--in one case, a Trump supporter killed his wife, but then voted in her place for Trump because "That's what she would have wanted."
Before and after Jan 6, so many Republican election officials admitted that there was no evidence of fraud, and that despite the pandemic, 2020 was one of the smoothest-run elections ever. Yet many of those same Republican officials are now using "questions about election integrity" to implement draconian laws cementing one-party rule in the future, including the bizarre notion that state legislatures have some sort of super powers to pick electors, independent of the state constitutions which establish those very legislatures and the laws which those very legislatures have passed.
Re: Melnyk: If you believe the former ambassador was unfriendly to Musk, just look how he involved himself into German politics ... but rightly so. Some people needed a serious slap in the face, for their past and present russophile policies.
For a phase of six months or so, he was one of the most successful politicians we had inside our borders, albeit with a very populistic approach and an alliance with the Springer Media Company (which can be quite a treacherous path). Then, he stumbled over his reverence for Stefan Bandera.
I come to think of his approach to his diplomatic duties as one of a suicide mission which mostly succeeded.
On political centrism... while it has it's benefits, it also brought us to the situation we are in now. Pragmatism is often the friendlier side of short-sighted opportunism, which in turn can make one more susceptible to corruption and stagnation (and thereby loss of trust in the political system).
Der Oger: Pragmatism is often the friendlier side of short-sighted opportunism
"Constantly choosing the lesser of two evils is still choosing evil."
- Jerry Garcia
"Constantly choosing the lesser of two evils is still choosing evil."
- Jerry Garcia
Which goes to show that being a great musician is not a sure fire recipe for wisdom
In the real actual world - "Constantly choosing the lesser of two evils" is by far the BEST way to operate and not even slightly "evil"
@ duncan cairnross
In the real actual world - "Constantly choosing the lesser of two evils" is by far the BEST way to operate and not even slightly "evil"
One thing I am tired of is the political technique of narrowing options down on two policies: One one intends to execute, and one used to demonize the opposition.
One Example would be "Communism, Stalin Style vs. Capitalism, Gordon Gecko Style", eschewing that many different options are between these polar extremes.
Or "Green Policies mean Deindustrialization".
Duncan you might want to re parse: "Constantly choosing the lesser of two evils" is by far the BEST way to operate and not even slightly "evil"
That works only if it isn't an assumption that excludes the unambiguously good, and/or if it results in a ratchetting effect, moving the center of argument continuously toward good.
Under those two assumptions, then yeah, Jerry Garcia can go haunt himself.
I've always considered that Garcia quote as a warning about false dichotomies.
Hi Dr Brin
IMHO the "lesser of the evils" would mean the "good" - if it was available! - as that would be "less" of an evil than the alternative
Ratcheting? - not sure if that is a nessesary condition - if "ratcheting" was not happening then I would STILL say "choose the lesser"
Der Oger
When you have to "choose" it always boils down to a digital choice - A or B or C
The Analog choice - 30% A and 70% B is simply never available
Speaking of the right to vote, this is a fine discussion of its origin.
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2020/10/14/originalism-denies-and-despises-the-new-birth-of-freedom/
On "Lesser of two evils"...
Usually, the phrase is used to indicate that there were no good choices. Many voters in 2016 voted for either Hillary or Trump as (what they considered to be) the lesser of two evils. And those who refused to vote for either because, "I'm not going to just vote for the lesser of two evils," had the practical effect of helping whoever they considered to be the greater of two evils.
An alternative usage would be to insist on at least a third choice with a possibility of prevailing which isn't evil at all. But in the American system of voting at least, that often just isn't a possibility. And pretending it is--or insisting that it should be--ultimately works against your own side.
Leibniz said that this is the best of all possible worlds. Voltaire wrote a long satire, "Candide", that makes fun of him for that. Leibniz, as co-creator of the calculus, knew full well that a function may have local optima as well a global optimum; so I propose that Leibniz would have done better to say that this is the "best of all sufficiently similar possible worlds". I call that theory Local Optimism. Note that local optimization is a foundational principle of physics, engineering, biology, and psychology.
So I say that voting for the best of all sufficiently agreeable possible candidates makes sense, both common and cosmic; the latter to the extent that this cosmos makes the most sense of all sufficiently similar branches of the multiverse.
The trouble with local optimism is that there may be better local optima elsewhere, but you can get to them only by a discontinuous jump, or by a continuous path that starts by going downhill.
duncan,
The Analog choice - 30% A and 70% B is simply never available
Umm. No. That's precisely what a federal system does.
30% of us choose strategy A.
70% of us choose strategy B.
… within our domains of control
In fact, that's the whole point of federalism.
everyone else,
Picking between two evils is not a moral option for some people and no amount of arguing will convince them otherwise.
I get the local optima issue.
I get that we should strive for third options.
However, picking between evils when there is no belief in the chooser's head that there is a path toward good is simply picking evil. Abstaining must remain an option.
If I'm asked to slap Larry in the face or kick him in the butt for something he said, I'll walk away even if I know someone else will be tapped for the task. Well… maybe I'll stick around and slap the slapper or kick the kicker, but that's because I think Justice is a demanding old lady. Denying her has serious consequences.
The argument against "lesser of 2 evils' that is most weighty is that you are then complicit if that lesser evil proves to be... evil.
But there are SO many complexities. e.g. if siding with that lesser evil ALSO gives you some influence in that choice's coalition... then you might... maybe... be a factor in ratchetting.
OTOH many in 1932 Germany though Hitler very evil, but lesser than Stalin. Dang simplistic dichotomies,
Alfred:
Picking between two evils is not a moral option for some people and no amount of arguing will convince them otherwise.
...
Abstaining must remain an option.
I think the problem is the overuse of the term "evil". The idea that using a private e-mail server and fomenting violence to intimidate political enemies are both "evil" so you can't support either candidate is a stretch of that term. At least remove, I think anyone who honestly abstains rather than vote for the lesser of two evils should really believe that it makes no significant difference to them which of those two evils actually wins. If you really saw Trump for the danger he presented, but couldn't bring yourself to vote for Hillary either, then you harmed the cause of climate remediation, enabled the Dobbs decision, and put US intelligence assets in harm's way. Unless you consider Hillary's corporate connections and e-mail habits "just as bad" as that, then you really did help the greater of two evils.
And, while I could understand someone in 1941 wanting to stay out of WWII rather than support either Hitler or Stalin, I am also thankful that our history didn't go that way. Allying with Stalin might have meant supporting evil, but we also defended Britain, and liberated France, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, and Poland, which was good.
David,
Getting to the position where 'not choosing' makes one complicit in either evil requires one accept that inaction is a form of action.* I am occasionally inclined to agree, but I can imagine a lot of scenarios where I would prefer to do nothing and would refuse complaints arguing I tolerated what wound up happening. Since I can imagine another large set of scenarios where I would judge the complaints legitimate… yah. Dang simplistic dichotomies.
I strongly suspect we can only know which is which long after a choice is made. Adam Smith came up with three measures for deciding some kind of transaction was 'good' in his Theory of Moral Sentiments book, but a number of us think he missed a fourth measure involving the judgement of time.
* "Freewill" by Rush plays in my head in these situations.
You can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice
You can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill
I will choose a path that's clear, I will choose Freewill.
———
Larry,
I'm with you on lame definitions of 'evil'.
Phantom Fears as the wise man said.
I'm reminded of Mordo as portrayed in Marvel's "Dr. Strange" movie.
Only a fool is so rigid that all wrongs are equally wrong and all evils equally evil.
However… I don't mind it much when such fools chose not to vote. Maybe Clinton would have eeked out a win, but the harm those fools do in other decisions is potentially cumulative. I often prefer they abstain.
Dr. Brin,
Re: Hitler vs Stalin...the phrase "premature anti-fascist" comes from around that time. The authorities in many Western Countries took a dim view of people who'd long considered Hitler the greater evil, even after those same countries began feverishly rearming against him. The Great Depression made socialism look like a means to a better outcome, which made socialists very scary to governments, which made fascism less scary. Fascism was all the rage in the 30's.
Possible worlds - there are a lot of WORSE outcomes for history. I think the 1960's had a lot of "post-Armageddon branches" that might have come to pass. Reaching further back, I'm less than certain that a Harry Harrison style Global Britannia (crafty Ben works out a compromise to avoid rebellion in the colonies) would have been a lot better than what we have now. Germany outright winning WWI in 1914 has been posited as a better outcome by some writers. Again, very leery.
Is there a single tweak besides "give Hitler's dad the mumps" that anyone can suggest for a certain or extremely likely more favorable outcome? 2000 US presidential election, maybe? That one seemed like a massive splitting point - I thought so at the time, while doing jackleg meteorology on the Big Island.
Pappenheimer
Pappenheimer,
2000 Presidential election? It occurs to me to wonder what the media reaction would have been (not necessarily just Fox, but certainly led by them) had 9/11 happened during an Al Gore presidency.
Pappenheimer:
Is there a single tweak besides "give Hitler's dad the mumps" that anyone can suggest for a certain or extremely likely more favorable outcome? 2000 US presidential election, maybe? That one seemed like a massive splitting point
Putin falling out of a sixth story window in 1998?
What's really hard to predict are cascading consequences. A Gore presidency would have saved us a lot of grief, but could have given us President Liebermann in 2008. Certainly we would never have seen President Obama without the anti-Bush reaction. And that in turn might have saved us from Trump.
It's hard to see how history couldn't turn out better for the people in Germany and Axis-occupied territory without Hitler, but for the world at large, a more competent leader at the head of a revanchist Germany might not have been better.
On what ifs...
I've proposed a 'Panglossian postulate' before: that we experience that fragment of a multiverse we survive in.* Even events that appear catastrophic might have a silver lining of redemption that gives us the best chance. Unlike Leto Atreides II, we don't know which way, though.
Fun to speculate, if not particularly profitable.
*Yes there are stories about that: "Rogue Moon" by Algis Budrys and, more recently, the movie "Edge of Tomorrow". While both of them apply the idea to a highly artificial situation, the results are intriguing.
China appears to understand this. Use the mass media to direct culture the way its leaders want.
I suspect that the reason we have gay marriages today is because our media has brought gays into our living rooms and we weren't threatened by them. (Earlier, we had Ronald Reagan in our living rooms)
A certain kind of conservative holds the pernicious belief that some people are "Trash" and that their definition of "Trash" should be the only one. An older gentleman once told me "God doesn't make trash", fits well with "Vox populi, Vox Dei", The voice of the people is the voice of God.
Tim H., who remembers there was a time when Republicans believed Black Lives Matter*.
*Ulysses S. Grant, to be sure, many of his successors at least paid lip service, until 1964.
#ALMOND: All lives matter or none do.
Yes, ALMOND, extra judicial killings are corrosive to civilization.
LH,
In response to your comment yesterday at about 5:00 AM:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RVEm5Am-tYc#menu
Larry,
Just for the record, I haven't abstained in a vote yet. I've occasionally voted for a libertarian, but in CA that doesn't create a risk of a GOP win. I have also occasionally voted for a Republican for small offices, but only when I know them.
My reason for wanting to defend the option for some to abstain is I don't want them so pissed off in a later election that they refuse to vote out of spite. Someone who sincerely feels the evil options are equal should be allowed to sit it out with no consequences from the rest of us.
What I usually try to address is the inequality of the evils. Phantom fears can't be reasoned away, but we can listen to them and demonstrate to the fearful that we aren't ignoring a danger they believe they perceive.
Alfred
I like the Australian system - everybody has to accept a ballot and stuff it into the box
But you can always write "none of the above" or much ruder things
The "everybody has to vote" or they get a fine prevents the voter suppression stuff you get in the USA
duncan cairncross:
The "everybody has to vote" or they get a fine prevents the voter suppression stuff you get in the USA
I dunno. Here, I think it would just make voter suppression more lucrative.
* * *
Alfred Differ:
My reason for wanting to defend the option for some to abstain is I don't want them so pissed off in a later election that they refuse to vote out of spite. Someone who sincerely feels the evil options are equal should be allowed to sit it out with no consequences from the rest of us.
I think we've mostly reached consensus. I don't fault people for not voting if they really see no benefit to one candidate over the other. I only fault them for imagining themselves so pure for a cause that they harm that very cause with their abstention.
What I usually try to address is the inequality of the evils. Phantom fears can't be reasoned away, but we can listen to them and demonstrate to the fearful that we aren't ignoring a danger they believe they perceive.
Phantom fears seem to be a big reason why voters who agree with many Democratic policies can't bring themselves to support Democrats. I've seen it even here in this blog's comments--that sort of "Trump is a clear and present danger, but I just have this bad feeling about what Hillary might do."
I know I keep using this quote, but it keeps coming up in different contexts:
"Man follows only phantoms" - Laplace (purportedly his last words)
To lighten the mood a bit:
In case anyone missed it, someone put together a trailer for Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Animated Series.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jyz2pVqrEkI
And then adapted a part of the classic Star Trek: Voyager episode where they turned Paris into a newt. (Spoiler: He got better. :D )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luEDui2zAUw
For anyone who loved Star Trek: The Animated Series (and especially for those who didn't), they are extremely well worth watching.
Oh, and for Hallowe'en, there is the trailer for the latest horror movie remake: The Sound of Music.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2PsNnj1ftQ
It's amazing what a little bit of mood music can do... :D
A.F.Rey:
For anyone who loved Star Trek: The Animated Series
My dirty little secret is that I became a fan because of the Animated Series.
*Gasp!* Sacrilege! Scandal! Blasphemy!
Now your cat will never be President! :D
It's fascinating to see our host declare his LOYALTY to the Left's Diversity and Inclusion Project, especially after his reading of Orwell's 'Homage to Catalonia', a tale which expresses Orwell's growing disappointment with the Left's repressive, totalitarian & inhuman tendencies.
There may be hope for the old boy yet...
Assuming that he is willing to take the next step & read Orwell's 'Coming Up for Air', a novel which delves further into the nature of said LOYALTY, including our respective obligation, duty & allegiance to a collective that simultaneously mistreats and despises individuals for who they are.
Then, onward to Orwell's 'Animal Farm' wherein individual faithfulness, hard work & loyalty are ultimately rewarded with a trip to the knacker, until this series reaches completion in Orwell's '1984' wherein one's duty & obligation to the collective becomes a farcical suicide pact, replete with the '2 minutes of hate' that currently reflects our present political climate.
I wish him luck -- I wish us all luck -- because we're all gonna need it if we are to avoid the fate of those loyalists whose famous last words were "I am a LOYAL party member".
Best
pfeh. Obtuse flatlander doesn't get it. Orwell despised 'party' leftism because it shredded the alliances needed in order to end inheritance brat feudalism. the FAR left CONTAINS monsters.
You and your movement CONSIST entirely of such.
References to Orwell are now platitudinous. At any rate, first ‘conservatives’ today will say ‘the Left’ has become too wussy-woke, then they’ll switch to the Left being aggressively “soft-totalitarian”—Totalist Lite.
Warlike peacenik wimpy-woke totalitarian? Would you explain such, in more detail? Without bringing up Orwell on a recurring basis? Is this too much to ask?
Out of nowhere, but was the planet in Dune named "Arrakis" because it sounds like "Iraq"?
And is that something that was duh-obvious to everybody except me?
Much of Iraq is a nice place compared to Arrakis. 8)
My take on the names (untested) is that he needed an arabic/bedouin theme. Sticking to the sounds of spoken Arabic helped.
Larry,
One of my coworkers honestly believed the phantom that Clinton was going to lead us into nuclear war. I wanted to say something or at least roll my eyes at him, but work environments are not really the place to do it anymore.
He probably voted for Trump, but in CA we had him easily outnumbered.
duncan,
We mail ballots to everyone here in CA now. That's as close to 'mandatory' as I want to get.
Alfred
Is that everybody who can vote
Or just the smaller percentage of people who have jumped through the hoops to become registered voters?
The USA has slightly smaller percentages of registered voters who vote than other democracies
BUT much much smaller percentages of eligible voters who are registered
Here (NZ) the UK and Australia all have organizations whose JOB is to get everybody registered
LoCum,
you write of the ‘Left’ being repressive; however the most common diagnosis, in that regard, from the Right is that the left is excessively permissive, not repressive.
Putting to one side faith and family, their cure is to build more prisons. Yet the hundred$ spent per capita per diem for prisoners could be spent on rehabilitating a certain number of them. But a more humane approach is almost universally perceived by Rightists as gullible.
(Libertarians take utopian stances: they say unfettered markets will someday lead to smarter people than they [false modesty] ‘solving’ crime and punishment dilemmas. That is to say, libertarians side-step issues of crime & punishment.)
Obtuse flatlander doesn't get it. Orwell despised 'party' leftism because it shredded the alliances needed in order to end inheritance brat feudalism.
Oh, I get it, perhaps better than most:
That Dr. Brin & Orwell-ne-Blair (who, btw) were both GOOD lifelong socialists & BAD Intelligentsia inheritance brats who both started out despising the so-called Common Man (which Orwell termed 'proles' & Brin terms 'flatlanders'), even though Orwell's view of mankind evolved & softened somewhat over his literary career, giving me hope that Brin's view may change, too.
That Alan_B is confused by the verbal legerdemain of our exchange should come as no surprise to anyone, especially after Brin identifies Orwell simultaneously as a GOOD socialist/leftist and a BAD feudalist/elitist. Suffice it to say that words no longer mean what they were meant to mean.
Once-was, my children, Conservatism & Liberalism were not mutually exclusive terms, just as Leftism & Marxism did not start out as the exclusive synonyms that they have become today.
And, as always, this here dirty rotten prole & evil right-leaning flatlander wishes you all well.
Best
Alan Brooks:
you write of the ‘Left’ being repressive; however the most common diagnosis, in that regard, from the Right is that the left is excessively permissive, not repressive.
They're repressive toward those who oppose permissiveness.
* * *
Alfred Differ:
He probably voted for Trump, but in CA we had him easily outnumbered.
'S okay. In 2008, my then-elderly dad voted for McCain/Palin. That was the year that my state's favorite son, Barack Obama was the Democratic candidate, so I wasn't concerned that he would flip Illinois.
After a year or so, still don’t know what it is you’re getting at. I don’t say you’re mistaken, you’re merely not convincing enough. You come extremely close to making sense and...then...it doesn’t quite hang together.
All over the road.
And btw Orwell was a complicated person who came of age over a century ago.
But yet, your standards are very high. You wish for the virtues of the ‘50s.
Reminiscent of equally ambitious religionists.
LH,
In response to your comment yesterday at about 5:00 AM:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RVEm5Am-tYc#menu
I recommend reading or watching "Look Who's Back".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPcoxtPzirs
Alfred,
The name Arrakis is believed to have come from the Arabic name الراقص ar-rāqiṣ, meaning "the dancer," originally a name for the star Mu Draconis.
Which is odd because Arrakis is supposedly a planet orbiting Canopus in the southern constellation Carina, the Keel.
Canopus/Arrakis is 309.8 light years from Sol/Earth.
That's a long way to go for spice.
Yes, that confuses me about the Dune backstory. If spice is required for space travel, then how did humans reach Arrakis in the first place? How did all those planets and Great Houses and civilizations get established long before the spice trade which only began 80 years before the events of the first book?
Herbert didn't tell us how the galaxy was explored. But one possibility is that they traveled slower-than-light. Another possibility is that FTL travel was really, really unpredictable and dangerous.
onward
onward
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