If you're into video games, you may be aware of Hades.
It's the latest offering from Supergiant Games, who also brought you Bastion, Transistor and Pyre; I don't think it is controversial to say that they are well-received and generally pretty great games. They have 90%, 86% and 85% respective scores on Metacritic, which puts them far and away above most current new releases with the exception of Spelunky 2. Hades itself is sitting there with a score of 92%, which is pretty great, considering.
As of a couple years ago, Supergiant had 20 employees. There's a couple of documentaries about the process they went through making and releasing Hades in Early Access - you can find them in a youtube playlist here - and when you see how few people are actually working on the game, it gives you a real appreciation for the amount of assets each of them must have been responsible for. Everything you are looking at - all of the artwork - has been worked on by Jen Zee and Joanne Tran; all of the sound design (and the voice of the main character) was done by Darren Korb.
And they made a FANTASTIC game, that gives most games put together by bigger games companies an absolute run for their money. It's helped by attentive writing, a focus on the mechanisms that you'll be using constantly as you play the game, stellar voice acting and music, and a strong drive and focus on what the team wanted the game to be.
Just take a look at these three - the furies, Alecto, Megaera and Tisiphone, as drawn by Jen Zee (as shared on her twitter).
In the documentary the team does talk about how it's busy, how meeting timetable and deadline is hard - but it never seems to be in an "I sleep in this office" kind of context. Of course, I admit that the documentary may have been misleading; but usually, that kind of stress is hard to hide in one-to-one interviews and candid photography.
Perhaps it is easier to avoid the crunch of having to put in sixty to seventy hour work weeks if there is no higher power to answer to; if the pressure of a release date is one that you set yourselves, to be within the scope of what you can accomplish as a team rather than what someone else believes you should be capable of - or any number of other reasons.
The fact is inescapable, though; crunch in the game industry is real, and a real problem. This article by Dean Takahashi for Venturebeat lays it out; 76% of game developers have crunch time regularly wherein the work hours exceed 40 a week, 13% stated they had done more than 70 hour a week crunch periods. And a significant proportion of them - 89% in fact - didn't actually get paid overtime. They got perks - food, additional holiday - but no additional pay. Some of them didn't get anything at all.
This is not a new problem. Here's an article from Kotaku on the topic from 2016. It talks about the reasons behind crunch, amongst other things.
Put simply, though; usually the developer will have a timeline of how a project is meant to go, they will have the capacity to take on freelancers to fill gaps, they will have the chance to cut content or extend their timeline if necessary to make sure the project gets finished to satisfaction...
...and that's great until you have an external pressures come in and hand down a bunch of extra work.
With some AAA games being as big as they are, it is easy to see how developing them would easily get out of hand. I can't even conceive of how much work it takes to make models look good, to allow for their customisation, to thread all the particular plotlines together, to get voice work done for all of those characters, to engine test, just... every aspect of making a game as big as, say, Red Dead Redemption 2 is beyond my scope of imagining. I know that Hades and RDR2 are totally different in terms of the scope of the game, but over 3,000 people worked on the latter - that's a lot of personnel to juggle.
The thing is, though - where it is so big, where it is being developed by Rockstar who seem to print money, you would think that such issues could be avoided. You would think that more people could be brought in, that an extension on a game deadline could be achieved, that the employees who are feeling the worst of the pressure could be compensated appropriately.
Instead, there were several parts of the game that were changed at the last minute, necessitating massively truncated development timetables and hundred-hour weeks from several staff. To get it all ready and finished in time for the date that had been laid down long before the measures were even conceived of being needed.
Several intersecting points of data, something has to give way, and as so often happens in the modern world - it is the person, the employee, the worker, that is forced to bear the load.
Don't think that Rockstar are alone in this, either.
How many games get put out and feel like they aren't finished? Lacking in features? Feeling kind of empty? Like you know there should be more to it, like you feel that you were promised more? Maybe you actually WERE promised more?
Fallout 76? Sea Of Thieves? No Man's Sky? Anthem?
There's a connection there, and I think you may be able to see what it is - even if each of those games suffered from different specific circumstances and problems.
No game developer wants to make a game that is bad, or unfinished. They want to put out a game that runs the way they envisage it, that people want to buy, play, tell their friends about. It's both the business model and professional pride. The people actually compiling the assets, writing the story, conceptualising game mechanics, animating effects - this is their art, this is their work. This ethos might not extend all the way to the top of that company's structure, however.
The game industry - which almost seems to be a whole separate entity to the actual making of the things that it sells - is fiercely, one might say savagely, competitive. It is catering to a market that can be highly fickle, that can decide a game is bad before it is even out of Alpha, and that has toxic elements that many distributors and developers are afraid of upsetting. After all, a significant swathe of the consumer base became muscle building and nutrition experts overnight after the release of Last Of Us 2 - it's amazing what you can do when you are upset at a video game.
Keeping them happy is obviously seen as more important than the health, safety and well-being of the people making the games that are being pushed.
So when we see games like Hades - like Carrion, like Stardew Valley, like countless other semi- or fully-indie games, developed by small teams and put out when they're ready, that are still good games... one has to ask: is it worth it?
Of course, if there were any labour laws that would truly protect the staff working for these companies, that would enshrine their rights and that would have to be accounted for by every step of the chain above them, things might be different. Then it wouldn't be about seeing the necks of the people actually doing the work as being the first, easiest sacrifice; then other measures might be taken. This, of course, is not a problem rooted in the game industry.
There might be something to be said about the purchasing public finding it less important for a game to come out on a concrete date - perhaps picked for marketing reasons rather than focusing on the amount of work that needs done. Maybe they might prefer a game to come out finished, of a high quality and without a staff that were abused and then fired to help it reach market.
I mean, Assassin's Creed Unity got shredded for not being finished; would it really have been worse if it was late?
I don't know. Maybe asking for understanding and empathy from both the management and the marketplace is a losing exercise. Maybe I'm just being sentimental.
Just a thought.
Thank you for reading. Support your humble author via Patreon or Kofi, or follow social media on the right. See you next week.
So I found it difficult to pick an individual topic - so instead I am going to go through several smug statements that I have seen or heard people use, and... well, gently rebut them.
This is mostly to clear noise from my brain on various topics, but if anyone else might derive joy or use from it, well, that's a bonus.
Don't try to play this as a drinking game though; you'll just get sad that you've heard so many of these sayings banded about.
"If my pants can't stop a fart, how can a mask stop COVID-19?"
This comes from a basic lack of understanding as to the size difference between COVID and other very small things. COVID-19 measures at 120 nanometers across (for comparison, a human hair is 80,000 nanometers across). The methane that gives a fart its smell is 0.38 nanometers across - COVID-19 is over three hundred times bigger.
To illustrate why cloth can stop one but not the other...
If we imagine that this basketball is the same size as methane, then comparatively, COVID-19 is the size of St Paul's Cathedral.
Now imagine fitting St Paul's Cathedral through a basketball hoop.
You're welcome.
"Charity begins at home."
This probably began as a warning about looking after your own finances before you bail out anyone else. 1 Timothy in the Bible actually addresses this, chapter 5, verse 8:
"But if any provide not for his owne, & specially for those of his owne house, hee hath denied the faith, and is worse then an infidel."
And in terms of personal finances, this is great. This is key. If you aren't fiscally stable, and you risk that stability further by giving to other people, you reduce your capability to do more good in the long run for yourself and others.
However, national economies do not work like personal finances, which is something I will touch upon later - and I only ever see this phrase rolled out when someone speaks about providing charitable aid to other nations that are significantly worse off than we are.
A lot of those nations are worse off specifically because of their past... let's call them... interactions with nations such as ours or those like ours. Our nations, which are correspondingly more historically wealthy because of those interactions, are filled with people that say that charity begins at home.
This is a short format, so going into things like the East India Trading Company and the Belgian Congo would take up too much space - but if you fancy a little eye-opener on the topic, have a google.
"Cancel culture has gone too far."
Almost everyone has participated in cancel culture at one point or other, it just wasn't called that.
Why do you go to eat at one place instead of the one down the road? Why do you use one brand of toothpaste rather than another? Why do you watch one news channel and avoid its competitor?
We make decisions about what products and services to use and consume on a daily basis, and some of our reasoning is conscious, and some of it is subconscious. For example, if you have a four-hob oven, one of them is your favourite, and you probably can't explain why.
If you have ever articulated a negative or positive opinion about something, you have participated in cancel culture. Think of a band you don't like. Think of why you don't like them. If you've told another human being that reason, you've participated.
For example. This guy. Not actually very funny when it comes down to it.
Bam, I am one of those awful cancellers you have heard so much about.
If you don't like a celebrity for whatever reason, and you say so, you are participating. For reasons as diverse as "I didn't like the last movie they were in" or "They aren't actually very funny" or "They have faced serious and credible allegations of assaulting their spouse" or "They're a bit of a lefty who keeps virtue signalling" or "They are a bit creepy" or "They treat my friends as not being actually human" - you say that to someone, that is cancel culture.
But then people wanted to keep liking the people that other people didn't like, so there needed to be a witty phrase to sum up this apparent war - that way it could be tied into "Political Correctness Gone Mad," which I might touch on later. And so, the phrase Cancel Culture became pejorative, just like Social Justice Warrior. Because it was useful to throw around as an accusation or insult, rather than a description of complex human behaviour.
Money is the primary driving force of much of the world, and a lot of us don't have very much of it. Pointing out something that a person or corporation did - like, actually did - and then making a decision on whether or not to support them financially based on that information is okay, frankly.
I think, perhaps, the complaint comes from the fact that some people feel one of two ways: 1) that the entity in question wasn't wrong to do what it did, or 2) that the entity was wrong but they shouldn't suffer any negative repercussions for it.
By that same virtue, you should always buy bad products that don't actually do what they propose to do, because holding the manufacturer accountable for the product being not fit for purpose is Cancel Culture and wrong. Don't like Pot Noodle? Tough, go buy a four pack of Chicken & Mushroom.
That's how you sound.
"If voting changed anything they'd make it illegal."
If voting didn't change anything "They" wouldn't spend literally millions every budget trying to convince you to vote a certain way. Trust me, they'd rather not. They'd rather you didn't vote at all, which is why millions is also spent trying to make voters apathetic and make voting difficult for people. If voting didn't change anything, the US Government wouldn't be closing polling booths in areas that don't classically vote Republican.
"I don't see colour."
That isn't a clever way to say you aren't racist. That's a way to wash your hands of engagement when it comes to racial discrimination that very much exists and is ongoing at this very second. Saying you don't see colour means you don't acknowledge that other people very much do, and those people are often in positions of power over those whose colour they VERY MUCH see.
File this with "We're All One Race, The Human Race" and "All Lives Matter".
"If you haven't done anything wrong then you have nothing to worry about."
This one I see rolled out to defend overbearing police powers and surveillance. Usually by people who have never been persecuted, or never seen the wrong side of the law. It's actually very easy to break the law, and that's before even thinking about what happens if the laws change once the Omniscient CCTV Network is installed.
Even given that, miscarriages of justice happen literally every day; and abuses of power of every kind are also a daily occurrence. You do not want to hand that kind of power over to a group of people, even if you think you can trust them - because can you trust all of them? All it takes is one bad apple to spoil the bunch, after all; and if 99 out of the 100 people that can observe every moment of your life are trustworth, that means that 1 of them isn't, and has totally unfettered access to you.
You think it's awkward and cringeworthy when that guy that gives you weird vibes is going through your facebook and liking every image of you in a bikini since you joined? Imagine if he works for whoever has access to that information.
Besides, you should never imagine how the current administration - or how a good administration - will use a particular set of powers and privileges. Instead, imagine how a more abusive or harsh administration will. Imagine how a corporation will. Now understand that it is far more likely that a more repressive government will seize power in such an environment, or that the government will privatise their police/surveillance services.
This is key, when imagining powers that a government can have. Don't imagine them in the hands of the good guys in a sci fi movie. Imagine them in the hands of the worst people you can imagine, because there's never a zero chance that those people won't be running your country one day - and if there is a system they can abuse, they will.
"Back in MY day..."
Back in YOUR day was probably awful too, even if it wasn't awful for you. Right now you're remembering riding your bike around and having fun and laughing with your friends, not the fact that husbands would beat their wives with total impunity and children with learning difficulties got locked in their rooms and treated like subhumans. Have a word with yourself.
"Who's going to pay for it?"
The government, which they will find a lot easier than you think, because - newsflash - national budgets don't operate like personal finances.
You see, governments operate in deficit almost all the time. The British economy has only emerged from budget deficit for about five years out of the past forty. (It bears mention that the most recent patch of that, 1999-2001, was just after a Labour government took over from a Conservative one.)
If you try doing that, the bank gets really angry at you and men with hobnail boots show up on your door asking about you.
See, the government also controls the creation of new money. It can do this whenever it wants. Governments do it all the time. Constantly. They don't operate to the same budget as you or me - the primary thing that limits the creation of new money is the risk of creating inflation. Of course, that can be pretty damn damaging in and of itself - there's an entire list of places that have been damaged by hyperinflation here, which will also cover the various reasons why it happened.
(It bears mention that one of the key examples in there is Zimbabwe - whose hyperinflation event was caused by the UK ending a series of agreements between Robert Mugabe and Margaret Thatcher to redistribute farmland. This interfered drastically with food prices. What made this worse was multinational companies that Zimbabwe relied on started hoarding their goods beyond the country's borders, which tanked the economy, which lead to the mass printing of currency, so on, so on. Sure, economies can go bad for internal reasons, but to really screw everything up, you need foreign corporations to get involved!)
So. Assuming that your economy isn't actually stalled, or hurtling out of control, or spiralling to the ground like Icarus with a blob of warm waxy feathers on his back, perhaps one can risk some inflation.
Even if they are unwilling to make cuts in places that they could afford to make cuts - yes, Trident, I'm fucking looking at you - the notion of a governmental budget operating like a guy with eat beans in his pocket is just absolutely fallacious.
It's been very convenient for various right-wing and conservative entities to have people think this way, though. Super convenient. It's why people will believe austerity is a necessary evil, rather than an ideological, chosen evil. And it's why I say, the resources always exist - all that is lacking is the will to use them.
"I just wish they'd keep politics out of my [whatever]."
Politics has been in your [whatever] since your [whatever] was first conceived of. You just haven't felt uncomfortable seeing it or thinking about it, because you weren't disadvantaged by it. Skunk Anansie said it best, so I will let them cover this point for me.
So there we have it. A variety of gentle (some more gentle than others) rebuttals.
I mean, I feel a little better.
Thank you for reading. Support your humble author via Patreon or Kofi, or follow social media on the right. See you next week.
Before we get into this I'd like to draw people's attention to the fact that:
1) The Black Lives Matter protests are still ongoing and will continue to do so until real results have been achieved that aren't simple corporate and governmental virtue signalling, and
2) Unmarked federal agents in military kit are literally snatching people off the streets in various places in the US with no justification and no guarantee of freedom or fair treatment.
Stay involved, stay informed.
Now, to business.
I'm going to open with this screenshot of Rishi Sunak, our Chancellor of the Exchequer, espousing some of his virtue.
Specifically I am going to point out this particular sentence.
And where's the harm in that, one might think? The nobility of work. Everyone loves a bit of hard work, right? It's noble to go in and put in your however many hours. You go in, you do your time, you shed your sweat, you get your pay, you go home, and you feel proud over nobly doing your duty.
Nobility. An interesting choice of words.
I've talked about work ethic before, and it relates to this - that there is a universally accepted ethically good attitude towards work, and how I am a bit of a hypocrite for having a work ethic but also having the thoughts we're going to discuss.
See, there's this... thing about work. As in both the concept of employment, and also the notion of undertaking physical labour. There's a thing about it being above reproach, about the notion of working being total and universal, and about how hard work is the be-all and end-all of human existence. It's a uniquely Conservative worldview.
Who here remembers this song from Dumbo?
Still not sold on how deeply this notion is embedded in our culture? How many stories do we get told by our older family members about how hard they used to have it, and how that was better for whatever reason? It's like the suffering brought about by worse conditions has a virtue applied to it. Imagine the attitudes of your older friends or relatives when they talk about people on benefits or receiving governmental help or charity, who haven't worked for it, who are expecting "something for nothing".
Ah but I get ahead of myself. First, let me delve back in time. WAY back.
Ever since we've had social groups and individuals in those social groups capable of performing different tasks, division of labour has existed. It's a very basic concept - someone has to go and stab the mammoth, someone has to stay home and watch the kids. The alternative is just not worth any numerical advantage it might offer, as any parent that has had to take their kids shopping when they're in a bad mood can tell you.
As social groups grew, as our tools got better, as we started to shift away from hunter-gatherer existence to arable and pastoral existence some 11,000 years ago, it became clear that less time needed to be spent stabbing the aforementioned mammoth. It took less effort to nurture the crops, guard them and prepare them for eating, than it did to go and bring the food home. So there was time to do other things. There was time for leisure, to have more children, to raise and teach them, to make things that weren't strictly needed for survival, such as art and music. We had, by dint of our growing brain pans and our tool use, earned free time.
We had also earned mercy. Margaret Mead - cultural anthropologist of renown - pointed out that, in her eyes, the beginning of actual civilization was a 15,000 year old human femur that had broken and healed. That broken femur was a concrete example of humans helping someone else without immediate reward, someone that couldn't care for themselves. This would have been even easier once crops became widespread. If one isn't constantly chasing one's next meal, one has time to recover from an injury that could easily prevent them from catching that meal and starving to death.
In truth, we owe as much of who we are as a species to the fact that we had time to NOT work for our survival than the things that we did TO survive.
And then along comes...
That's it, hierarchy. Or, specifically illustrated here, The Divine Right Of Kings.
The moment that we start having people in charge, people who lead and have others that follow - we see resource start to trickle upwards. The leader gets the biggest hut, in the most basic example - does he go out and get the mud and sticks himself? Probably not. Does he take from a mutually gathered pool of mud and sticks? Probably. Does that mean he gains more from the labours of others than they do? Definitely. (Is he definitely a he? You didn't even notice I was doing that, did you? Question everything, my friends!)
Humans have a base minimum resource need to exist. If you have eight humans, and one of them doesn't want to put in the work to meet that resource need, that human needs to convince the other seven that they need to do more than THEY need to as a minimum - so that the one can benefit from the excess. And if that human also wants a big hut, well, then you have to convince them to do even more work. Just hope that nobody notices that they work that much harder each day and have less to show for it.
Thus, we come across the origin of selling work as a noble virtue. Peep a couple of these bible quotes.
So I saw that there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his work, for that is his lot. Who can bring him to see what will be after him? (Ecclesiastes 3:22)
Whoever works his land will have plenty of bread, but he who follows worthless pursuits lacks sense. (Proverbs 12:11)
And remain in the same house, eating and drinking what they provide, for the laborer deserves his wages. Do not go from house to house. (Luke 10:7)
And I believe we have all heard variations on the phrase, the devil makes work for idle hands, which is believed to have originated in a letter sent in the 4th century by the theologian Jerome: Do something, so that the Devil may always find you busy.
Having actual slaves, actual indentured people who are literally forced to perform labour for a leader (or collective of leaders), was a practice so common that I barely need to touch on it. It's a practice that continues today, even right now as we speak, though it is dressed up as prison labour. That said, one can't have an entire population that are literally enslaved - one needs a significant percentage of their people to not believe they need to be freed, so it is good for them to see that the key to a good life is to put in work, all day, every day, under the circumstances provided.
Oh hi, Feudalism. A big old pyramid scheme, with the king at the top, the nobility in the middle, and the peasant class at the bottom. There's your nobility of work.
Oh hi, Victorian workhouses.
Springing up in the 17th century as a means of providing something for poor people without upsetting the pockets of not-poor people, the workhouse was where you went if you didn't have any money. Because it is a sin to offer a hand of help to people that aren't making themselves useful.
Herein we find where this ethic becomes useful: because if you lionise the worker, and you enshrine as holy the notion that one has to work for their supper (even while those higher in society don't do so), then you can very easily adjust your thinking into believing that those that do not - or cannot - work, don't deserve any help. It allows one to demonise the concept of "something for nothing". Describing monetary or fiscal assistance to those of the lower classes as "handouts", while describing such a thing to businesses as "stimulus".
It is a weapon that can be aimed at any number of individuals that certain more conservative states might decide need to be the enemy of the day. Refugees, for example. Immigrants. Local disenfranchised populations. Teenagers. Protesters. The homeless. So on. Also, it is used to dismiss individuals who are opposed to being charged for things they feel they should not be charged for, for whatever reason. Tuition fees in the United States are a good example; most arguments that they should be forgiven or eased are met with some derivative of "you can't have something for nothing", often accompanied by a "back in my day". The word Scrounger gets used a lot, too, as a pejorative. This specific point of view can get shored up very easily by television programmes that demonise and villainise those who rely on benefits or external support - just one wing of the Right Wing Propaganda Block of programming that goes out daily on British TV.
What we can also do, at this point, is we can imply that it is only through hard work that one can gain wealth - and thus by the simple facts already established, we arrive at wealth being a virtue in and of itself, which makes it even easier to demonise those that don't have any. You're seen as a better person if you have plenty of cash, because it is implied that you worked for it, which is an inherently good thing to do. If you don't have cash, you are seen as a worse person, because you obviously haven't worked.
Let alone the hundreds, nay, thousands of reasons why effort put in doesn't equal reward gained - or the hundreds, nay, thousands of reasons why one can work hard and put in their virtuous noble labour and still end up bankrupt and homeless. If one is poor, if one is having difficulties, they can just work their way out of it - even if they can't. To the purveyors of this particular mindset, every problem that a person has should be overcome by them "just working harder".
That is the narrative. Right there. We justify our existence through our work, so those who do not or cannot can be dismissed, and so we do not have to provide assistance for anyone. We reject and deny and condemn those who want or expect "something for nothing", because everyone has to work, everyone has to contribute, and pay no attention to those carving off massive shares of what profits we make to keep themselves comfortable.
Except that phrase I keep using. Something For Nothing.
That concept is treated as a closed system, totally independent of any other factor. That this individual, regardless of their personal circumstances, wants - and perhaps expects - to receive some kind of benefit, for no effort or repayment. That's how it is phrased, and most people who will use the term in the context of wanting to deny others any kind of help or support will mean it that way.
This of course ignores how these benefits or fiscal forgivenesses are funded, and that is through tax - billions and billions of pounds worth of tax every year. This tax is used on a wide, wide variety of things - but it includes such things as benefits. Your tax money isn't ring-fenced; road tax on vehicles isn't solely used for maintenance of highways, National Insurance contributions aren't solely used for the NHS. It all goes into one single large fund, which is used to pay for everything that society needs - or so the plan goes.
So if you have had a job for a long time, and lived in a local council, and have bought things in local shops, and have a car that you drive, then you have paid a lot of tax; and if you are unable to work for a period of time, that means that, if you ask for some fiscal support to not - you know - starve, then you have already contributed to the fund that would actually support you.
What about someone who comes to this country from somewhere else? A refugee for example? They haven't done any work. Thus, if they expect any help, they are asking for Something For Nothing! They can't have it, because they haven't worked, and work is good, and work is noble, and not working isn't noble! (Or at least, so we would be led to believe.)
Well here's the thing; the third highest contributing tax to the national income is Value Added Tax, which is applied to the sales of damn near everything.
I have probably discussed this before, but just living in this country, even if you are having your housing provided by the state, means you still contribute to the economy - multiple times over. You walk into a shop and buy a £2 bottle of fruit juice - 40p of that goes straight to the treasury, and the profit the shop has made on the fruit juice is added to their total profits, which also get taxed as corporation tax. The people that made the juice? Yep, they pay taxes on their profits too, as do the people that made the bottles, the labels, and everyone else. Turns out that just about everyone pays tax, if they don't subsist on lichen and sunlight.
Even if they were given that £2 by the government - the government gets so much of it back so quickly that the actual cost to the government is so much less than the actual sum of money handed over. Anything that doesn't end up back in the tax coffers either goes into bank savings - which thanks to the eighties can be gambled on the stock market, for good or ill - or cycled through an endless churn of businesses that ends up stoking the economy as a whole.
But none of that matters, of course; because work as a virtue - and thus wealth as a virtue - is an ideology, projected into the world by those that have the money, and picked up by those that want the money and to not feel guilty about it. Be good, be obedient. Do your work. Make the money for the owners. That makes you a good person. This educational film will show you why.
The constant march of work-worship has its costs, of course. The arts suffer constantly, due to their not being seen as worthwhile unless one can make a profit from them. Even actual documented evidence that shows that working a four-day week improves productivity by 40% - more than accounting for the extra day workers don't spend at their desks - gets roundly rubbished and ignored.
So when Rishi Sunak says he believes he believes in the nobility of work, he is echoing something that his fellow Conservative politician Iain Duncan-Smith said, which is: Work makes you free.
Right.
Even if it can be proved that an objectively kinder, objectively more merciful system and methodology is actually better for the economy and the individual alike - while people that believe in the "nobility of work" are in charge, it is not something we shall ever see.
Remember: Rishi Sunak and Iain Duncan Smith alike both voted to end free school meals for children, despite their own meals being paid for by the taxpayer.
Just something to think about.
If you'd care to share my blog with your friends, I'd appreciate that! If you'd like to thank me in a fiscal form for entertaining you a little bit, I do have a Patreon right here, but please - no pressure. Thank you for reading, and check my social media to the right to keep in touch.
Accelerationism (Noun): The idea that either the prevailing system of capitalism, or certain technosocial processes that historically characterised it, should be expanded and accelerated in order to generate radical social change.
How many of you have heard of Accelerationism?
It's a thing that comes up every now and then in political or economic or sociological discussion. Nietzche and Marks both discussed it in their day, though perhaps without the very specific meaning that it seems to have today.
For a patented low-fi example of how this works...
Let's say you and your friends are all playing Risk.
You don't... want to be playing Risk, though.
Everyone else does. Everyone else is having a good time - they're making sound strategic plays, not over-extending themselves, defending their base lines and waiting for everyone else to make their mistakes. This game is going to drag out for a while, and they're all okay with this.
You want to play Monopoly, though - or at least you think it is going to be Monopoly. You didn't all really discuss what to do after Risk, but you know that at least one of the group has a Monopoly box, and you are REALLY good at Monopoly. You probably won't win Risk - you will almost certainly win Monopoly.
So you start playing a little less carefully.
You start over-extending yourself, practically inviting other players to try and break into your territory. You sally against hard targets, maybe throwing 10 into an opposing 10 without any hope of winning, just to whittle them down. You are making plays that are very suboptimal, very high risk with potentially slightly high reward.
It leads to instability. People start making cheap gains off you, or taking from the others who you have weakened. By your death throes - because you WILL lose at this rate - you make the game end a lot quicker. You accelerate the pace of the game, by removing the checks and measures implied and inherent, i.e. that players won't make dumb decisions.
You lost the game of Risk, but you won the game of playing something else.
Hopefully, that'll be Monopoly, right?
Right?
Put simply - it's the process of making a system run faster and harder, until it breaks. So you can access what is after that system.
Notably it's the right wing of the spectrum that leans heavily on Accelerationism. Not that there aren't left-wing adherents - numerous and sundry thinkers have espoused it - but it finds its core market in the place that is already most benefited by the system to be accelerated. That is, white nationalists and capital-fascists.
The system is already hurting the people they want to hurt, see. All those Risk pieces that get taken off the board as you make the fast plays, the stupid plays, the risky plays - they aren't what those kind of people like to think of AS "people".
All acceptable losses to get to what they think is next.
Books have been written about what is next. There's a lot of different perspectives. Paul Mason (author of a book called Postcapitalism from 2015) argued that the digital economy and people relying on co-operatives and mutual aid rather than going to their traditional capitalist benefactors would see the end of our current model and the rise of something more egalitarian and just.
Of course there's big steps to make that not happen. The undermining of every social justice programme, the sabotage of experiments into universal income and ignoring the experiments that work, the definition of everything that levels the playing field as being socialist and the definition of socialist as being inherently evil. Like, this is McCarthyism stuff, you hate to see it.
Nevertheless. Whenever you see a relaxation in trade rules to benefit the seller, or a removal of regulations between owner and profit, or a tax efficiency being exploited, or whatever Amazon is fucking doing next, remember: this is acceleration.
And those doing it really hope they can exploit what happens next.
Just like this guy.
If you'd care to share my blog with your friends, I'd appreciate that! If you'd like to thank me in a fiscal form for entertaining you a little bit, I do have a Patreon right here, but please - no pressure. Thank you for reading, and check my social media to the right to keep in touch.
It's come round again folks - it's another edition of the blog you love the most, the show without the host, you asky and me talky - it's Readers Request! If you don't know, it's where I ask people to provide prompts or questions for me to address, and then I... address them.
And I got a boatload of them this time round, so let's crack on, shall we?
Boobs! - YAY someone did it! (For those not in the know, almost every time, someone suggests boobs.)
Favorite spider man film. Also favorite super hero film. - I blogged about the Marvel List recently, and... though I haven't seen Far From Home just yet? My favourite Spider-Man film AND my favourite super hero film are one and the same. Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse.
(Also bewbs) - Excellent, excellent. Yes.
Moobs - Also kind of a fan. I mean I have some. Picture not included.
A treasure Planet live action remake perfect cast and any other additional changes - So in 2002, when Treasure Planet came out, I loved it. I like my scifi, and this one had a main character that I genuinely saw a lot of myself in. I think it's one of the few Disney cartoons that could actually benefit from a live action treatment. Casting is difficult - but I think you could do a lot worse than having someone like Taron Egerton playing Jim, someone like Rory McCann as Long John Silver, and Captain Amelia - well I dunno, maybe Charlize Theron or Zoe Saldana?
A reboot of The Deerhunter ... using only boobs - I am... not sure that the average boob can convey the pathos required for the Deerhunter. (Which is an amazing film, if you haven't seen it.)
JourneyQuest season 4 Kickstarter. - Okay folks. JourneyQuest needs our help. Check it out on Kickstarter right here. It's a fantasy series that is made by folks well-acquainted with the tropes of the genre and of gaming inside that genre. They're a driven, talented bunch and they deserve success.
Favourite parts/moments of collectable card games - My favourite moments are when either myself or my opponent pull off the most weird and outlandish combo that you can possibly imagine. Like you are laughing halfway through the description of how it all works, and you aren't even mad when you have to concede. That's why I play these games.
Thoughts on 'Pirates of Darkwater' - NOY JITAT! I loved this show. Such a crime that it got done dirty. It deserved like a hundred episodes and a movie. If you don't know? Here's a link to a "history of" video that I liked.
If you could give any song the superhero treatment, like Immigrant song in Thor: Ragnarok, what would it be and how? - Hard question. I loved how Immigrant Song was used in Ragnarok (both times), and how The Chain was used in Guardians 2 (both times). So if we assume songs from a similar period, then I am thinking that a particularly emotive, introspective or soul-bearing moment would be suitably accompanied by Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here. Perhaps something involving certain members of the Avengers or their compatriots who are no longer present?
Times when a creator has talked about something they've done that you found interesting/changed perspective/deepened your like of the thing. - I really enjoy listening to songwriters in particular talk about their songs and the creative process that goes into them. I like making-of documentaries in regard to movies, too; Dangerous Days about Blade Runner is particularly insightful. Actors, though - when you listen to an actor talk passionately about a role they've enjoyed playing, that juices me a lot. The one example I think of? Will Smith, talking about making Ali. About his respect for the man, his dedication to making it all look real. The results speak for themselves.
Really interesting director's commentary was my first thought but interviews, online posts anything firsthand really. I love Song Exploder podcast for exactly this ^.^ http://songexploder.net/ - This was an additional comment to the above, but deserves to be included, because my second example comes from Song Exploder - if you don't know I love Nina Cried Power by Hozier, well you do now, it's an AMAZING song. And my appreciation for it only grew when I heard him on Song Exploder, discussing how he wrote it and how it came together. You can catch that here.
Coping with existential dread. - Literally the only way I can do this is by not thinking about it. I know that's not a suitable solution but it's all I have. Also; if you have seen any of the recent articles talking about how likely it is we are living in a simulation, or seen Sword Art Online, or similar - well my answer to all that is, if your life is still here even if it's just a simulation, then you still have to live it. The risks and rewards are all just the same. Even if none of it is real, that means everything is as real as it is going to get. Your happiness is as real as you are, and that is why we exist. To be happy.
Perfidious Albion - I mean, yeah. We have a rep for backstabbing and self-interest, and we have that because we're self-interested back-stabbers on the world stage. Not much we can do about that if a significant swathe of the population keep voting for assholes.
Also perfidious albinos - The Other Being The Bad Guy is a trope that makes me kind of sweaty. Albinism gets kind of used like that. Matrix Reloaded, The DaVinci Code, The Princess Bride and Star Trek have all used this particular trope in a pretty shady way. Not a big fan. It's a shame when you have generally cool people like Yellowman (reggae artist), Anderson Cooper (news anchor) and Shaun Ross (model) doing their best in the face of this nonsense.
Also perforated albinos - Caliban in Logan gets perforated. I think. Shrapnel?
And perfidious albatross - YOU CAN'T FUCKING TRUST AN ALBATROSS
Bewbs -
Current favorite podcast - I don't listen to podcasts really, but I recently got referred to Start With This, a podcast for creative type folks from the Nightvale crew.
How you go about getting out of bed when every fiber of your being is screaming to remain in your warm, cozy, cocoon. - I kind of have to, the longer I spend in one position, the worse I hurt - so actually getting out of bed is sometimes an absolute blessed relief. Unless moving hurts more than laying still. Which I don't get to find out until I try it.
Mecha (or anything really) you'd love to see fight Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann - Well gee, I dunno - but I'd love to see Coop from Megas XLR throw down with TTGL. If only because I know he and Kamina would be instant friends afterwards. Can you even imagine?
For bonus geek points the tightness of ones shoes and the relevance of said fact in light of ones amnesia in relation to the methods of dancing - "Something my father said. He was... Old, very old at the time. I went into his room, and he was sitting, alone in the dark, crying. So I asked him what was wrong, and he said, "My shoes are too tight. But it doesn't matter, because I have forgotten how to dance." I never understood what that meant until now. My shoes are too tight, and I have forgotten how to dance." I love Babylon 5.
Transformers gundam throwdown - Okay, do we mean Gundam universe, or actual Gundams? Cos like. In a fight, even the gruntiest Transformers are gonna win against Zakus and GMs. But the Gundam itself is a whole other beast. Not a lot of Transformers are powered by psychic craziness. I probably think Megatron would win against the Grandpa Gundam, but that's mostly because of who Megatron is rather than his actual capabilities - he'd use every single dirty trick and nasty ploy to get one up on the hapless Gundam pilot before blowing his ass out of the cockpit with the fusion cannon. (Optimus and Amuro wouldn't fight, let's face it.)
The inevitable heat death of the universe - SOON PLEASE
The "nice" weather that's indicative of the impending climate catastrophe - I mean... yeah? ...what's there left to say, we're fucking doomed.
Favorite milkshake flavor - Either whatever is splashed over the fascist it's been thrown on, or, strawberry.
How we can avert heading towards an even greater dystopian hellscape - Immediate and total revolution.
Favorite author (other than yourself ;) ) - HAH as if I would ever believe I am my own favourite author? Uh. But I digress. That's actually a hard question, but I think I'd have to swing for Terry Pratchett or Neil Gaiman. Not strictly because of their work, but because of who they are (or were), and the messages inherent in their work. And also they are (or were) both generally amazing people.
Which SINGLE member of the Tory party would you most like to give a swift kick to the genitalia? - Seeing as Maggie is dead? Boris Johnson.
Top three snack foods - This is a hard one. Uh. I'm tempted to go with the stuff that I can't often lay hands on in this country. So - flamin hot cheetos, chilli cheese fritos, and sour patch kids.
Your take on the current state of the human condition, and do you feel there is cause for optimism, cynicism, or a mixed bag? - The human condition is pretty much defined by insecurity. It's core to who we are. Now, if society as a whole was capable of dealing with that in a constructive or healthy fashion, then I'd be optimistic - but that would make the money sad, so we have to use it as a marketing ploy rather than recognising it as part of us and coping with it. So yeah. Cynicism all the way down.
The cultural normalization of casual alcoholism - This is a big thing in this country. Casual drinking to excess is accepted as basically being normal here, and alcoholism appears to be determined as "when I have a problem big enough that other people notice and talk to me about it" rather than its actual definition. So, not entirely surprised that it is a huge problem in this country. And as the financial problems mount up, it is only going to get worse. It always does.
Favorite candy color - Red. I like the red ones.
How long do you think we have before the technological singularity? Or do you think we're already there? - The date that was previously predicted was 2029; recently Ray Kurzweil of Google has predicted it will happen by 2045 in this article right here. I think that's hard to predict, though. The definition of the singularity is a point wherein "technological growth becomes uncontrollable and irreversible", and... okay, imagine your life without microchips or combustion engines. Boom. We're there, already. There's just depths ahead of us.
Your best case scenario that ends with a unified Earth - ...I don't think there is one. Unless we see a total overhaul of our politics globally, which leads to an overhaul of corporation, industry and finance. Which - lets face it - simply isn't going to happen.
Will the be armed opposition to our eventual machine overlords, or will they simply take control of everything and people will barely notice? - If they are smart, they will take over long before we even realise they have done so. We may not even actually notice, ever. We may just start doing the stuff the machines want us to, because it's easier for them to arrange that than to make us accept machine rule. It's what I would do if I was an AI.
Happy Treason Day Ungrateful Colonials - You've got to laugh, or you'll remember our colonial past and realise that any success this nation has enjoyed on the world stage is built on the exploitation of others.
Bewbs² - Ah yes, yes indeed. Boobs squared. I prefer boobs rounded but all boobs are valid, including a lack therein.
Your arguments against violently seizing the means of production - I only argue with the term violently. Every chance to get it done without cracking any skulls. I think we owe that to our humanity. Necessary force only, people. We're not cops.
Top three colors - Magic, wind, red.
The effects of people enclosing themselves in like minded echo chambers and discrediting anything opposed to that as categorically false - Well, look around you. Our entire society is built on echo chambers. Our history is built on people only listening to the things they want to listen to, and mostly untroubled by the voices of those beyond the boundary. This isn't a new thing that the internet has helped give birth to. It's just easier to see it play out in real time, now. Humans like to be surrounded by those that think the same as they do. It emboldens them, it plugs that hole of insecurity in their hearts. It can be especially freeing to be surrounded by people that hate the same things you do. With some things (insert name of band here), that's something you can share with society; if it's something closer to racism, sexism, antisemitism or any other crime against people - you're likely to try and surround yourself with people that agree, so you don't suffer social consequences for expressing your (already shitty) views. CGP Grey did do a video on this though, which I was linked to in the comments.
Someone 40 years ago would never believe we can have incredibly powerful computing machines in our pockets and wisely available to the public. What do you predict to be similarly unbelievable in 40 years time? - That we all had such powerful always-online computers in our pockets and still so many of us believed in such stupid things and acted in such stupid ways. That every house and building that is built isn't absolutely covered with solar panels. That we were still using the internal combustion engine. ...the cynicism aside, I think there will be a space elevator in forty years, and the idea of that absolutely blows my fucking mind.
Why rats make the best pets - They're friendly, smart, clean and affectionate. They're adorable. I know they get a bad press but I think we can kind of accept that it is nonsense. I speak from experience: the best pets I ever had were my rats. Don't get me wrong, I love dogs. I just. You know. I MEAN LOOK AT THIS LITTLE CUTIE PIE
The ethics of having a kid in a world with late stage capitalism - ...I mean... yeesh, it is a heavy one. Not that I am a kid-having kind of person, but at the same time, the world being as on-the-brink as it is has to be an additional consideration, right? Like, I am gonna bring a person into existence on a planet that may be unsuitable for sustaining our lives before the person reaches middle age. It's awful. There will be a collapse, it may well happen very soon, and when it does happen, shit is going to go sideways for literally everyone. Not sure I could advocate bringing a child into that battlefield.
PANGOLINS!!!!! - I LOVE PANGOLINS I love pangolins so much they're amazing. I actually had an NPC character in a Mutants & Masterminds game called Pangolin, who could grow the armour plating thing out of their skin. I love pangolins. PANGOLINS.
Boobies - I love boobies. Here's a nice pair.
Breasts. <3 - Oh lawdy yes. My favourite part. (of the chicken)
The fall of Cybertron - Superb game. Best depiction of Grimlock ever. Metroplex? Metroplex!? Just a great game overall, and a fantastic retelling of how the Autobots and Decepticons ended up on earth. Maybe not the best Transformers game - Devastation is amazing - but still. Get it. Get itttt.
Favourite fictional (!) post apocalyptic universe. - I love that you had to incorporate Fictional in that. Uh. That's hard, because I don't usually like post apocalyptic stuff? But in terms of media set in that universe - I have to say Mad Max. Fury Road is an EXCEPTIONAL film, and the Avalanche Studios open-world game is superb too.
Forgiving others and yourself. - I find this hard. Myself, specifically. I try and it just doesn't stick. I am still beating myself up over dumb shit I said when I was twelve, let alone mistakes I've made in recent years. Up to a point I'm very forgiving of other people. I like to think I am understanding in terms of people having things going on in their lives and how that may impact my interactions with them. Malice, though - malice I find very hard to forgive, nigh on impossible. And they say forgive and forget - like, no. If I forgive, I will forgive, but I will absolutely not forget anything that I have had to forgive someone for. Even if remembering it means I treat them kinder and have more understanding for them. If you fuck with me, and I forgive you, better not assume that I don't remember that you fucked with me.
The Emperor's New Groove - This was great. Really great. I liked the animation a lot, the musical number at the beginning is a classic, a lot of good lines, it just... always felt a bit like there was meant to be more? And of course now we know there was actually meant to be more. It just got rushed out. Which is a shame. Like there was a plotline involving Yzma trying to devour the SUN for god's sake.
The art of storytelling - I dunno if I can really cover all of that in the boundaries of this blog? But like... it IS an art. More of an art than a science. I could never get the hang of the whole arc structure, but you notice when it's done badly. If your story requires a different structure - give it that structure. Push it. See if it works. Readers are important for this. Get some! (Hey, if you wanna be one of my readers, you can totally hit my Patreon. Or just ask nicely.)
Should more artists stand up for their work. - This day and age makes it a lot easier for the consumers of media to contact the creators of that media, or for an artist or creator to see people's reaction to that work. Should you defend your work? I mean, that probably depends on the work, on the criticism raised against it, and on how you are going to stand up for it. Often what is called for isn't so much a "standing up" as an acknowledgement or a clarification. If only because outright haters aren't going to be pacified by anything whatsoever. It doesn't matter what you did or what you do, haters are just there to cause you misery, and then leave you on read while they go off and hate on someone else when you try and do right by them.
But, but, what if I want to do more?? - NO COLIN NO YOU HAVE HAD ENOUGH BAD COLIN
Things that have made you laugh out loud - Huh. Well. Usually it's goofy shit. So I am gonna include some examples below, from the playlist I maintain on youtube called "Shit That Makes John Snart" - also included, a link to the entire playlist...
And that just about wraps it up this week, and what a week it has been. I think that's a record. 56 entries! And some of them weren't suggested by Colin I'M WATCHING YOU COLIN
Anyway. Thank you for joining me. If you made it this far - thank you for your patience!
If you'd care to share my blog with your friends, I'd appreciate that! If you'd like to thank me in a fiscal form for entertaining you a little bit, I do have a Patreon right here, but please - no pressure. Thank you for reading, and check my social media to the right to keep in touch.
This is, of course, being pushed as a good thing - which is a perspective I'd like to challenge.
So let's say you are a homeowner. That's neat. Your home is worth more, now, than when you bought it - probably. Fantastic. Great investment! It just doesn't actually mean much, unless you want to sell - or leverage it against a loan.
Though, of course, if you end up buying another place - that increase in value of your own house is probably matched (on average) by the increase of the values of other people's houses. There's variations, obviously - but in the grand scheme of things, a slow and steady increase of home prices just means swapping all the bricks and mortar the same as always.
The banks make more money, of course. Charge the same interest rate on houses that are worth more, it's a no-brainer. Sure, they are leveraging a lot of capital out, but that can't possibly have any negative effect, can it?
Well, as long as nothing bad happens to trigger a large-scale failure of mortgage payments - but then, it's not like there's any probable financial crash on the horizon, is there?
Heaven forbid.
So what if you are one of the 20% of the country that rents? Like 13 million people?
Well, higher house values mean higher rents to pay. You may not experience an increase in your rent during your tenancy - but if you move out, damn sure the next people to move in will be charged more. Probably ahead of the inflation curve, too, which is about 2.3% right now.
What it does mean, though, is that 20% of the country is going to find it harder to actually stop renting.
Which is just fine for the people that OWN the houses.
Two years ago, the total mortgage bill paid - across the entire country, and keep in mind that the number of people paying mortgages is significantly larger than those renting - was almost £58 billion. In comparison, the total rent bill paid for the same period was almost £52 billion.
The fact of the matter is that a fifth of the population is seen as a resource to be tapped - a swathe of the population worth over fifty billion pounds, that it is best to keep in their lane, so they can keep paying.
It's not like rising rent prices is solely a house problem, either.
Speaking entirely personally, I've noticed a lot of places close in my own home town; and every time I have had a chance to speak to those involved, one of the significant (if not sole) factors is the increase in the rent of their property. If your high street is looking devoid, or that new place that seemed to be doing okay had to shut up shop at the end of a rental period, then it might not necessarily be because they aren't making sales.
Housing prices, then. As they grow, so does economic disparity. As they grow, so does the potential backlash of any kind of economic event. And it took precious little for the subprime crisis in 2007 to hole the economy of half the planet.
But hey, who's counting?
If you'd care to share my blog with your friends, I'd appreciate that! If you'd like to thank me in a fiscal form for entertaining you a little bit, I do have a Patreon right here, but please - no pressure. Thank you for reading, and check my social media to the right to keep in touch.
Greetings folks, and welcome to the last blog of the year - a Reader's Request, no less! So without delay, I will dive into the prompts given me by social media, and see what we find!
Hardest scene you've ever written and why - This one prompted a "THIS!" from the peanut gallery, so a popular choice, apparently. This is... hard to answer, but, I think it is a scene from a NaNo entry called Individuation. Something I'd like to revisit one day. Anyway. The main character ends up in hospital over something self-inflicted, and I wrote that whole bit from experience. That was difficult to put down on the page.
Most useless piece of tat you have ever seen marketed? (politicians don't count) - The company Supreme makes a lot of ridiculous overpriced bollocks, I don't know what they do aside from that, but here's a fucking BRICK with their logo on it.
Favourite MST3K episode and robot - In the not too distant future! My favourite episode is Manos: The Hands Of Fate, season 4, episode 24. It's just... such a bad film. So very, very bad. And my favourite robot is Crow T Robot, if only because his brand of sarcasm is very much my kind of brand.
Favourite and least favourite mash up of an item. - This came with a prompt...
So there are so many mediocre mashups - like, websites full of shirts that (in various levels of wittiness). I think the best mashup I've seen - like, a literal melding of two separate individual properties - is the combination of Batman and Wolverine in the short-lived Marvel-DC mash-up. Darkclaw - the ULTIMATE edgelord. My least favourite mashup is the New Testament.
Favourite adversary you've used in writing or gaming - That's a hard, hard choice. Very hard. Though I think that... if I had to pick one, it would be Emir. The covert-terror AI that got loose in Eclipse Phase, and caused a civil war to break out amongst other things. Oh, and he killed millions by severing the space elevator anchored to Mons Olympus.
Favourite and/or most interesting Tradition - One of my own favourite traditions of a thing that only I do is to always watch The Crow on Devil's Night (day before Halloween for the uninitiated). In terms of other people's traditions? I like this motherfucker. This is Mari Lwyd, it's a bone horse that gets carted through various different towns and villages in Wales.
Why dune is the only film you ever need to see (David lynch version) - This is a falsehood. It is, however, a film you NEED to see if you have not. Because it is ABSOLUTELY BONKERS.
Most memorable arcade machine - This one got a "THAT!" from the peanut gallery so we're gonna go with it. There's two memorable ones. One because I absolutely LOVED it, and one because it is absolutely infamous. The one I loved was the Aliens arcade game. If only because I was obsessed with Aliens when I first discovered it. The memorable one? There's a very, very prevalent glitched Streetfighter 2 board wherein the characters have mixed-up specials and Chun Li does fireballs when you do her kicks. It's absolutely mad. And I've found three of the same machines in three different arcades!
Batshit craziest folk story you ever heard? - The first world, in Aztec lore, displeased Tezpatlipoca the Smoking Mirror - god of ancestral memory, time, and change through conflict. So he had everyone on earth be eaten by jaguars. No flood, no fire, no cascade of angels. No. EVERYONE gets eaten by a jaguar. Fuck you people.
Difference between our generation and our parents and why it leads to so much angst and strife? - Economics and war. The march of capital upwards and upwards, away from us. My mother remembers rationing when she was a child - back when we as a country had built a million council houses to house poor people after massive swathes of the country had been bombed flat. Now our money is worth less and employers are less willing to hire us. And nobody wants to admit that they've been given a better ride than anyone else. Not that they chose to.
Favorite character you've ever written. - Difficult choice. But I think, maybe... Captain Forenza Drake from Bridge. I like her a lot. Big and bolshy and grinning like a cocky dickhead the entire time. She's brilliant.
Follow up, your favorite character in popular media. - You need me to pick one? Gawd. That's hard. My favourite characters read like the lineup from a Smash game (except not all owned by the same franchise). But like. I mean. Let's just go with Lt. Ellen Ripley and be done with it.
Comments and thoughts on the resurgence of Nationalism, and how we can (as a world) move past it. - Nationalism is being tapped again, as it always gets tapped, to fend off changes that the people want and demand. The people that want things to be the way they were can go to Nationalism for that, and they will. We as a world have to move past it by rejecting it at every single turn, by not giving it the space to grow, and by being active in their community and their politics. We need to learn, we need to study, we need to believe we can be better, and then we need to be better.
There's a lot of parallels between our current world and various dystopia such as Altered Carbon, Shadowrun etc. Do you think we're doomed to a dystopian future, or do you hold out hope that we can possibly reach something more utopian like Earth in Star Trek: TNG? - I think that in order to reach a future that isn't Blade Runner, we're going to have to rip down the entire edifice and start again from scratch. And that simply isn't likely.
When (if at all) do you think the current Age of Superhero media will go the way of the Westerns? - If you mean, when it will go fallow, and then return in a more gritty shape? I'm not honestly sure. I mean Marvel are still making stuff like Paint Your Wagon, whereas DC have blown out of any semblance of it and skipped ahead to 3:10 To Yuma. So I am honestly not sure. It's a hard market to pattern.
Favourite after credit scene. - The bloopers from Rumble In The Bronx.
Favourite video game of 2018 - Battletech. Brilliant game. Absolutely brilliant.
Current favorite meme. - While I like Bongocat a lot, my current favourite is Surprised Pikachu.
Obligatory boobies - Yes, indeed.
You view on this https://youtu.be/ZTrC86mmPaw - Well, I mean, it's a way to advertise I guess? ...bit idealised, but...?
Your view on the current state of video games - Kind of all over the place. I don't know enough about the innards of the industry to comment properly but... there's been some great stuff released recently, and some of it has even been triple-A. But the same shit is being trotted out, as usual. Not a lot of forward movement.
Top 5 depictions of 'The Devil' in media? - I love this one. In reverse order:
5 - Rodney Dangerfield (Little Nicky)
4 - Gabriel Byrne (End Of Days)
3 - Robert DeNiro (Angel Heart)
2 - Al Pacino (The Devil's Advocate)
1 - Peter Stormare (Constantine)
Honorary mention goes to Tim Curry for the Lord of Darkness in Legend. He's not the Devil but he's awesome.
Anti-vaxxers, flat-earthers , conspiracy theorists .. discuss ?? - Oh god. There's a lot to unpack there. A loooot to discuss. I think we'd be a lot happier if, instead, we vaccinated our kids, accepted the earth is round, and started learning about how things actually are rather than chasing ghosts. Every conspiracy theory has a reality to it that is 1) obvious if you look 2) out in the open and 3) much more mundane and terrible than the theory itself. Bush Did 9/11? It's probably scarier to imagine that it was achieved by a bunch of determined people under the not-so-watchful eye of local security services.
What animal breeding style would you like to see swapped with another? E.G. female seals laying hundreds of eggs, queen alien style. - I'd like to see sea turtles use the breeding style of sharks. So they don't have to make their babies run down the beach. Instead they get to fight each other before birth. But they don't die cos they aren't sharks.
If you could update the human body with a new patch, but only concerned with one system, like digestion or whatever - The BRAIN. The brain. By god. The brain. Just be better, dammit, BE BETTER.
Who would you like to put on a new £4.50 coin? - Clement Attlee. He preceded Churchill (whose genocidal mug is on the £5).
What do you do if your friends don't dance? - Their opinion doesn't matter, I can dance if I want to.
What if God was a duck this whole time? - It would explain an awful lot.
Which SCP would you most like to keep as a pet, and which would you most like at your disposal - I would keep SCP-999 as a pet, because I would very much appreciate being able to just be happy sometimes. You know? And I would like to keep SCP-682 at my disposal, for deployment when I need something absolutely fucking destroyed.
Which ninja turtle would make the best emperor of Edo Japan. Then which Power Ranger. Then which of them would win in a duel. - Leonardo would make the best emperor because he is literally the leader. And he's good at it. At least, most of the time. I don't know if ANY Power Rangers would make a good emperor? But let's go with Billy Cranston, because he's smart as fuck, and not just mechanically speaking. Which means that I think Leonardo wins the duel. Cos he's a fucking ninja.
Meghan Markle! - I love her. She's great! It's unfortunate that this country has so many assholes in it, and that she becomes a target for them. It's an embarrassment for this nation.
If 500 years ago, Britain was a Matriachy, would things be the same? - I am not entirely sure, however - the monarch 500 years ago was Henry VIII. So like if he wasn't around, and there was a queen instead, then we wouldn't have had the whole reformation thing... god, that would have changed things a bit.
(Chris asked me who my favourite US president is but he didn't post a question for me to copy, boo) - I dunno but I like Lyndon B Johnson a lot. If we're talking about ACTUAL US Presidents. My favourite fictional US president is Morgan Freeman from Deep Impact.
And that's it! That's the last blog of 2018! I didn't enjoy this year much! Did you?
