So one sign of "growing up" - and by that I mean a growing sense of cynicism, of world-weariness in general, and of dissatisfaction with society as it exists - is that every good idea you have is followed up by all the reasons why it won't work, before the notion even leaves your lips.
And it's specific reasons why it won't work, too. It's not, for example, that for a human to be able to flap a set of angel wings sufficient to carry them airborne the wings and muscles would have to be huge and their bones would have to be hollow. Like, sure, that's part of it, but - sorry, I got off track.
No, the real reasons why things won't work is when you add the societal, political, fiscal element.
Ideas is a pretty broad term, I know.
It covers a wide variety of common-or-garden stuff. It is everything from an idle musing about how a certain musical genre should make a comeback, to the best way to end the illegal occupation of Palestine, to the way in which the DC film universe could be made interesting again.
Four words for you, on that last one: Booster Gold, Blue Beetle.
I digress, again.
So I had this thought while stood inside Brighton train station a week ago last Friday.
I was looking at the roof. That big old roof, just... sitting up there, doing very little. It's about 60 meters across by about 120 meters lengthwise, slightly curved, slopes facing east and west - it's slightly narrower than, but slightly longer than, Brighton & Hove Albion's home pitch at Falmer Stadium. (No I'm not calling it the American Express Stadium, fuck off.)
That's a lot of solar panels.
Now immediately you should start hearing, in your head, reasons why that thought should be discarded, because that is exactly what I am talking about.
It's a listed building, for one. Right? Can't go messing with a historic train station roof. And where's the money gonna come from? And besides, it won't generate THAT much power, and the disruption to commuters and travel services, so on, so on, on it goes...
Well a 3.5kw array set up on the roof of a house, with an area of 25 square meters, costs £6,000 and generates about 3,000 kw/h a year. The roof of Brighton Station is 7200 square meters. A significant proportion of that is glass, but solar glass exists, so the actual lighting situation can remain the same. Assuming the cost is the same but we lose some efficiency for the sake of scale and non-ideal facing, let's scale up: that is a cost of around £1.8 million, but it could generate 600,000 kilowatt/hours over a year.
In comparison, Drax Power Station - the biggest power station in the UK, which runs on biogas and coal - produces 24 terawatt/hours a year, some four orders of magnitude higher. However: Drax Power Station also outputs over 25 million tons of CO2 a year, and runs on materials which aren't renewable. Also, in fairness, Brighton train station isn't a power plant. It's a train station.
There's a lot of train stations in the UK.
The UK uses some 2,300 terawatt/hours a year in total, from figures taken in 2014. That's a hundred Draxes. I know we can't make all that up from solar train station rooftops, not implying we can - but every watt/hour we generate from the sun and the wind is another lump of coal we don't have to worry about replacing, and another chunk of sky unpolluted.
Drax Power Station itself is on a 15 square kilometer site. If we ripped out the burny bits and replaced them with solar bits, that would make it the second biggest solar plant on the face of this earth, overtaking the Kamuthi plant in India.
Speaking of renewables. Brighton also has this: Rampion offshore wind farm.
Rampion produces about 1,400 gigawatt/hours a year. E.On, who built Rampion, claim that it is enough to power 350,000 homes - given that Brighton and Hove only has a population of about 230,000, that isn't too shabby.
There's also tidal and geothermal, which I'm not even going to touch on, but both of which are tried and tested methods of powering us without digging massive fucking holes in the earth and chucking molecules of nastiness into the air.
It's not a case of renewables being unable to take up the slack of our other energy production. They patently can. We have the technology. We have the resources. We have the knowhow.
But, but, but...
All these solutions don't fall short because of physical impossibilities. We've built solar plants. We've built wind farms. What stops more of them happening? What stops them, but permits stuff like fracking, which is genuinely one of the most despicable things one can do to an area?
People.
People, with vested corporate interest, and lackadaisical attitudes towards crisis. People who literally profit from crisis. People in positions of privilege that either know they won't be troubled by this crisis, or that they'll be dead before it happens.
People who think that throwing their full support behind renewable energy is probably a bit of a political risk, and are unwilling to give up their significant payroll to stick their head over the top of the trench works.
People who didn't want wind turbines in a big empty field, and dug their heels in, and didn't get a wind turbine, who are now facing the possibility of that field hosting a fracking site - which has a lot more push behind it from outside of government.
People who like lovely old buildings and want them to remain lovely and old.
People who see headlines like this...
...and don't realise that the problem isn't the power being used, it is how the power is being generated.
People.
I have talked about hoverboards, before. This is just an extension of that particular thought process, really - a hyper-specific one. (Weirdly enough as I look back on that blog, that one links back to another blog I did ages ago which includes me bemoaning the lack of solar panels everywhere. I've blogception'd myself. BLOGCEPTION.)
It just gets... tiring, I guess. To have one simple idea and immediately hear all the crappy reasons why it will never happen. Not why it wouldn't work - why it will never happen.
Really fucking disheartening for a scifi writer.
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.
Sometimes I butt heads with my mother about inconsequential things.
We're quite similar in a lot of ways, different in others. It's the differences that really adjust how we see the world, our willingness to call something out as being bullshit, our tolerances for things being bullshit in various areas but not in others.
Part of it comes from having grown up in different eras, under different styles of parenting. We both faced very different challenges during our lives. I have no doubt in my mind that she had to work harder than I did to get anywhere in life - she's always been a driven professional, which gets made that much more difficult given that she is also a woman. Having to put in extra just to be seen to be doing as much as everyone else, et cetera. It's real.
She grew up with rationing. Her older family members had all seen out the second world war. It puts things into perspective, and unfortunately, sometimes that perspective isn't useful in the modern world. She's rarely one to throw around the phrase "It Never Did Me Any Harm" but it is often implied in her tone - and she doesn't like it much if I imply that, just maybe, the harm it did is brushed under the carpet. Made to be part of who we are rather than something that is wrong with us.
After a few hours around each other, we start fraying each other's temper. I am more to blame for this than her, probably, but it's hard to judge objectively; after all, we're just going off our own lived experiences and things we have learned.
So the things that we see eye-to-eye over are pretty important - and one of those things is music.
I think I've probably talked about this before.
I am fairly empathetic at times but I can't understand people that don't like music.
Like... I just... don't understand how that can be the case. Which - if you don't like music - probably makes me absolutely unbearable, for which I can only apologise. I just don't get it. It's been built into me from a very early age, by - well, surprise surprise, my own mother.
Her musical taste and mine overlap significantly. We don't like either the Beatles OR Elvis. We're both more Stones / Hendrix fans. We like Queen, we like Led Zep, we like Crosby Stills Nash & Young a lot more than we like Neil Young by himself, and of course...
...we like Pink Floyd.
So there I was, with my fork buried in a small mountain of chicken chow mein, when - after having deflected some statements I made about how exams aren't necessarily the best way to determine someone's academic talent - my mum declares that there's a Pink Floyd gig on Sky Arts.
Sure enough, it's the video recording of A Delicate Sound Of Thunder. So we settle in to watch.
And for precisely two hours, we don't have a single argument or dispute. We bat around some waffle about the band, about how gigs and such are different these days (but understanding that there's a reason why). We talk about how it must have felt, to be in the early 70s, and to hear The Great Gig In The Sky for the first time.
I confessed to her that, the first time I ever heard Dark Side Of The Moon, I was stoned "out of my mind". She just laughed as I related to her the story about me waking up that next morning, totally unable to remember what I had listened to, but knowing that I needed to own it, and messaging the individuals that had provided the (ahem) party favours to demand to know what was in their CD player.
It consistently amazes me that, regardless of how at odds we may be about something - whatever that something is - it will be music that we reconnect over.
Perhaps that is part of why music means so much to me. Because nothing else I have ever experienced has had the ability to bridge gaps like music does. Nothing else quite heals you or puts you back together the same way. Paradoxically the four Pink Floyd albums that I feel are their best work, the four that I listen to time and again, are all about division and conflict and mental illness - they have helped bring me back together with people I have been divided from, and helped bring me back to myself.
With my dad, it was The Living Years, by Mike + The Mechanics. A song about how a father and a son can't help but be in conflict with each other, and how that relationship passes itself down when a son becomes a father. There's certain people in my life I can't uncouple from songs. I hear the song and I see their face, I hear their voice. It's like smell - forming the binding part of the neurons, the bridge to the trove of memory and experience beyond.
It's a gift. To us, as a race, as people. To be able to have this sound which we just listen to, all we have to do is listen to it - though in some cases, that is harder than others - and it takes us elsewhere. It makes things different. It changes contexts, relationships, outlooks. It can help you see the cracks in yourself by holding up the cracks of the writer and the performer and saying - hey, see? Look. It's here. You aren't alone.
More importantly, perhaps, it can hold those cracks up to others without. It can show them, tell them, what it is like to be in this position. To be stood in those shoes, to have walked that mile. The struggle of a troubled genius to make the world see the things he could see - Don McLean gives us that. The utter adoration of loving someone more than you can encapsulate in simple words - Coheed & Cambria give us that.
To feel disjointed from those around you - people that you knew and loved, that you just aren't quite walking in step with any more, and not knowing quite how to get back to level...
"Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent."
And frankly, he is right.
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.
So in case you missed it - relatively recently, Gillette released an advert which somewhat goes against their previous formula.
The theme of the ad is pretty simple, when it comes down to it. It takes a look at shitty behaviour which society has normalised, and says, hey, people are doing this - maybe we shouldn't do this. I've tapped up a summary of that behaviour below.
- Physically Intimidating People
- Sexually Harassing People
- Making Comedy Out Of Sexually Harassing People
- Demeaning People Because They're Women
- Physically Assaulting People
- Being Cool With Other People Doing Any Of The Above
I mean... seems pretty basic, right?
It seems like a pretty solid list. On your first day at a new job, meeting new people, going to dinner with a group of friends, like - that's not a bad list things to NOT do. If we're going to the pub and any of those things are on your list of things to do, then I kind of don't want to hang out with you.
There wouldn't be a blog about this if there wasn't controversy, of course - because the group called upon to not do these aforementioned things, statistically speaking the group far more likely to do any of these things, is men.
I think the actual objection is probably based around something other than the extant content of the advert. I daresay it probably didn't actually gain a lot of negative attention - for THIS reason anyway, trust me, I'm going to go into a little more of the corporate background of this in a minute - until people like THIS goon
got their hands on it and decided it was anti-men.
Now I'm not sure what Piers Morgan has going on in his past. Or any of the... dozens of men on YouTube who had to record twenty-minute videos about "ANTI-MAN GILLETTE AD IS TOTAL FAIL !!!!!". I'm just going to speak from experience when I say:
This ad isn't anti-me.
Like I have no problem in recognising that all the behaviours that ad calls out are shitty behaviours. I don't feel personally called out when someone says "kids beating up other kids is bad" or "maybe we shouldn't catcall women in the street" or "I defended someone from having the shit kicked out of them by a mob".
Is that how people like Piers Morgan want masculinity to be defined? By the right to be violent and sexist and generally shit, and never be called out for it?
Actually I rather think that Piers Morgan doesn't feel that way at all, but I think he wants to appeal to a specific demographic. He wants to appeal to a slice of society that isn't happy, and can't quite work out why, and so it needs something to complain about. It needs to grumble. It's already had significant advantage throughout its life, but that hasn't led to total success or satisfaction. He wants the ear of those who grumble about things being too politically correct, who want things to be the way they were back in the day, when Roy Chubby Brown was considered funny and women "knew their place". The "It Never Did Me Any Harm" brigade, who would desperately benefit from some therapy to try and undo the harm that it really, actually, did do them.
Is it better or worse that he is using this whole thing as a marketing exercise? Honestly, kind of worse, I think. Anyway, I digress.
If you really, really want to die on that hill - that being a man involves being allowed to treat people like that, like that is the only way men should act and that being called out for it is a bad thing - then be our guest. Be as loud about it as you want. Please.
It's a great warning sign. Like the bright colours on this little guy.
Let us know, that that is who you are, so the rest of the world can get on without you.
It can take some time to realise that masculinity doesn't have to be toxic. It can take a lot of work to uncouple the whole alpha-dude-me-tarzan thought process. Especially if you have been a victim of it previously, and are now repeating it because it's the way you think you get the power back.
I distinctly remember that happening when I was in school. The older kids bullied kids my age. Kids my age bullied weaker kids my age. Weaker kids my age bullied younger kids. Like a chain of arseholes, leading all the way up into this core behaviour that is being directly challenged. That should have been challenged a long time ago.
I mean... it seems like, if you don't want to challenge that behaviour, then you've watched Battle Royale as a how-to guide, rather than a dystopian action movie.
Empathy is not a weakness, no matter what the world and the old way of doing things tells you. Thinking about how your actions affect other people is not a weakness. Being considerate is not a weakness. It's the only way we are getting out of this alive as a collective people, and if you are threatened by the notion of people caring about each other, that probably says a lot more about you than you'd like.
With all that said, however.
It bears remembering that Gillette are a company. They exist to make money. They aren't a person, no matter what corporate law tells you. They don't have a personality. They aren't interested in being the good person. They're interested in profits.
Companies are going to increasingly do this - they're going to latch onto causes that other people campaign for, try and align themselves with the right thing to do. You'll see examples of it all over the place. The fact is that they can market themselves as being "nice" or "woke" or "socially conscious" or "not evil or greedy" all they want. None of it is true. You need to judge the companies based on how they act - and as the system that props them up doesn't reward kindness or solid morals, well... guess how that works out.
To point the finger at Gillette directly, of course - they're a razor company. They benefit from insecurity, leverage it, make it manifest if possible. Like any product in the grooming sector, the fashion sector, every sector that revolves around image. That attitude that women should always shave their legs and have no body hair that isn't pleasing to their husband/significant other? Thank razor companies for that. Literally. Gillette is just hoping that you'll forget the sexist and generally trash shit it has done in the past, in the light of its new "woke" image. Oh god, how I hate that term.
Companies like Gillette are in bed with media that tells you that you aren't good enough. You'll find adverts for razors and grooming products everywhere, but especially in magazines that tell you how important it is to lose ten pounds, to do this, to wear that. This is no accident.
And for all the negative attention that companies may get from aligning themselves with, well, not being assholes - from assholes - it will still get their name out there. The controversy is free advertising. Every video that talks about how someone is burning their Nike socks because they sponsor the kneely football man is more advertising.
I'm even advertising Gillette right now, paradoxically.
So really the message we should take from this whole thing is to be nicer to each other, to not stand by idly when people are assholes, and to not trust companies at all.
Get it? Got it? Good.
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I didn't know that about myself for a long time - or maybe I didn't have the language to articulate it, or maybe I wasn't aware of it as a simple personality trait as opposed to actual mental illness.
The thing about being an introvert - about not necessarily always enjoying being around other people, needing time away to recharge, valuing privacy - is that whenever we show up in a TV show or a movie, we're very rarely the protagonist.
This is all personal experience, obviously - the sample size is one, just me, and all the media I enjoyed as a kid. But then this is a personal blog, so I guess we can deal with that, right?
So I will perhaps reach out to my reader at this point. Cast your mind back (some further back than others) to when you were a mere youth, think about the cartoons, TV series, movies, books, and comics that you enjoyed, and think about how many of them featured - as a main character - someone who you now on reflection recognise as an introvert.
I mean - I can see why, right? Because a show or story is about the character interacting with people, and if you have the character dislike doing that or find it draining then it is hard to make them come across as sympathetic, so someone like Dexter from Dexter's Laboratory doesn't come across as an introvert. He comes across as an asshole - which in and of itself is part of the problem.
Not wanting to attend a social function or go out with your friends or be around people or entertain company was, twenty years ago, not considered an okay thing.
Standard child development includes the monitoring of their social skills. This isn't a bad thing, necessarily - I have interacted with enough people who aren't just awkward but lack significant social skills, skills which the rest of the world assume everyone has. What it does do, however, is normalise a specific way of approaching the world around you, and if you don't do it that way - well, you get labelled as one of the weird ones.
The thing is I don't think everyone is either an introvert or an extrovert all the time. I think sometimes people become more extroverted under certain circumstances - mostly needing time by themselves but having weekends filled with partying for example.
In my head, everyone sits on a scale.
You can probably work out what the I and the E mean.
Now, tests like the ridiculous Myers-Briggs - which is some kind of ludicrous scam based on the work of a racial supremacist - will tell you what personality type you are, and insist that it is literally what you are. You will never change. Not daily, not weekly, not once in your life. In fact, Myers-Briggs (I have to fight the urge to spit whenever I type this) states that if you ever take the test twice and get a different answer, it's your fault, not the test. Because nobody ever changes, ever.
Whereas I think that most people sit in a region like this:
Straddling the middle ground, sometimes enjoying being around other people, sometimes needing not to. After all, we feel differently toward company depending on if we're in a Monday morning meeting at work or on the way to our local on an early Friday afternoon off, right?
Whereas this is kind of where I see my own personal little scale:
It's very easy for me to run out of social spoons. The likelihood of that happening increases depending on how well I know the people around me, how drunk or altered they are, topics of conversation, so on.
Now, working in customer satisfaction and workplace performance as I do, there's a certain set of behavioural standards that a lot of companies wish their employees to uphold. Some of these are pretty basic - acknowledge that your customer exists, don't be sexist or racist at them, charge them the right price for the service requested.
Some of it, however, is the kind of thing that would weird me out in a social setting.
Eye contact, for example. Maybe this is the social anxiety speaking but it can be a very awkward and intimidating thing for it to be maintained constantly. We at work have had debates as to how much eye contact is too much.
Another thing - conversation, making small talk. I am hilariously bad at small talk. The idea of someone working somewhere being encouraged, if not slightly forced, to make small talk with me is not something I particularly relish. Now, sure, some people enjoy a good chat - but not me. I'm just here to get my stuff and get out, like a gremlin scurrying around an abandoned diner.
The thing is - I am far more likely to be put off by someone being way too full on and trying too hard, than I am by someone being quiet and socially awkward. I get the impression that it isn't really a thing companies see as a problem. Salesperson patter is such a common trope that I remember my dad describing people who were too overtly friendly as being like used car salesmen.
The world isn't built for us. The world is built for those comfortable with demanding room in it, and we... aren't, really. We want to lurk around the corners, hang out in the kitchen with the cat, sit outside and get some air, head home before anything gets too crazy.
But now, at least, we know that is just who we are. We're not broken, we're not faulty. We're just... us. We just need a breather sometimes, and that's okay. We like being alone, and when we spend time with others, it's time we want to spend. It's valuable. If your significant other is an introvert, I hope you feel a little bit lucky - it's like a cat picking a human.
You never know. Maybe one day, it'll feel like a level playing field.
I talk about insecurity an awful lot; how central it is to our basic psychology and our lives in general is a hill I would die on daily. It isn't the whole story, obviously - and today I'm going to talk about another one of those needling driving forces.
Guilt.
Now, guilt means two things. The first meaning is that someone is culpable for an act, that they committed an offence. That's not the guilt that we are talking about.
Guilt is a feeling.
No disease of the imagination is so difficult to cure, as that which is complicated with the dread of guilt. - E. M. Forster
Who hasn't felt guilty over something? Something they have done that they think they shouldn't have, something they haven't done that they should have? It's almost unthinkable that someone could go through life and not feel it at least once, right?
Do we feel it for the right reasons?
That's an entirely different kettle of fish, right there.
See, it's good that if we do something that is actually wrong, that we should - afterwards - realise it was wrong. If we literally hurt someone or inconvenience someone, for no good reason, then we should feel bad about that. It's how we know we are good people. In fact, even if we have done the bad thing for a good reason, we should feel it. It keeps us grounded. It reminds us of the consequences, and that even though - for a very basic comparison - we have saved one hundred lives, we shouldn't diminish the severity of sacrificing one life to do so.
The problem is, we aren't rational beings at heart - and we aren't necessarily good at sorting and filing the emotions we feel.
Hands up if you feel guilty for wronging someone that has forgiven you.
Should the forgiveness of the other party absolve you from guilt? You might think so - but we all have different levels of acceptance, for actions that we feel can be forgivable. It varies from person to person, too. I would forgive in a heartbeat accidental attacks against my person from people I know and trust, far faster than I would forgive even more minor infractions from people in the street.
What it comes down to, though - guilt is only slightly assuaged by the forgiveness of the second party.
Guilt is only assuaged truly by forgiveness of ourselves.
That deed which in our guilt we today call weakness, will appear tomorrow as an essential link in the complete chain of Man. - Khalil Gibran
In my eyes, how willing we are to forgive ourselves isn't connected to the actual severity of the action in question, because we are awful at being objective in terms of judging ourselves.
This is going to get deeply personal right now, so fair warning.
I feel guilty about not being as healthy as everyone around me.
Not just the fat thing (which I talked about in a previous blog). The constant pain and the lack of lung capacity from my other badness makes me something of a broken toy soldier at the best of times, so I just can't necessarily take part in things that I used to take for granted.
This means that people often have to take me into consideration when we do things as a group, and that not only tweaks my anxiety off the scale, it also makes me feel guilty for inconveniencing them - even if I can't actually magically cure my rheumatoid arthritis and pulmonary fibrosis, and even if they assure me (and trust me, I believe them!) when they say it isn't actually a problem.
I nonetheless feel guilty over this thing I have done wrong, this hardship I have inflicted on others. Which is, yes, logically speaking absolutely ridiculous.
The thing is that logic has nothing to do with it, obviously; it's just the way that we are wired, which begins at an early age, continues throughout our lives, and has little bearing on reality. We don't live in a society which fully accepts the weaknesses and frailties of others - not yet, anyway. We still have this very British, very ridiculous Stiff Upper Lip mentality, which was primarily set up as a way to - funnily enough - assuage guilt.
The Stoics loved this - loved the idea that if you just tell yourself you aren't affected by the thing, that if you bear with it and just put up with it, then everything will be fine. And let's just say that, in British society, at various points in our history - there's been times when it was quite, quite useful for the social status quo to be against grumbling or discontent.
It is still a huge part of our society. Workplaces treat their employees like shit because the workers are of a culture and a mindset wherein they just, you know, put up with it. Our politics has been rife with austerity measures and literally punishing people who are sick or poor because everyone is expected to just, you know, put up with it.
And the moment that we "cause a fuss", the moment that we stick our heads over the parapet and say, actually, that ISN'T legal, that ISN'T in my job contract, that ISN'T a thing you should be doing - we feel guilty. Because we're bucking expectation, we're rubbing against the conditioning of the society we have lived in since we were born and the social pressures of everyone we know. Or almost everyone.
Which is, I think, the only reason why the current status quo continues today.
The soul must accept guilt in order to destroy existing evil, lest it incur the greater guilt of idyllic withdrawal, of seeming to be good by putting up with wrong. - Ernst Bloch
See, it's a big motivator - nobody likes feeling guilty. It's a significant drain on our mental health and our well-being, and contributes to stress in a big way. So of course, it gets used as a manipulative tool.
Unfortunately, one of the first places we come across it is in childhood - usually directed at us from a parent or guardian, to try and make us behave. It sticks with you. It's why it is effective even later in life, long after it was necessary to cajole us into behaving in a "civil" fashion. Manipulators will use guilt to try and make us do what they want us to do, regardless of how it makes us feel or if its the right thing to do. Both on a personal scale, and on a national one.
Our insecurity leads us by the nose, and that isn't a good thing. Our guilt leads us, too - perhaps not as often but just as surely. We feel guilt for action and inaction, and we let it guide us without questioning it, without fighting it. How can we stop it from leading us into misery?
Put simply, as I said earlier, we have to forgive ourselves.
We need to show ourselves the same kind of love and understanding that we show those we love and care about the most. We need to be capable of empathising with ourselves. We need to take a look at ourselves and express understanding - we know why we did the thing we did, we know that it upsets us, we shouldn't push ourselves too hard. We made the wrong decision, so we should fix it, but punishing ourselves for it won't help. We were put on the spot and went one way when we should have gone another. We should try and soften the impact, but we shouldn't simply languish in how bad we feel about what we did.
Guilt warns us, reminds us that we're still moralistic creatures. It's the doing, though - it's the fixing, the understanding, the refusing to do evil - that really matters.
And as much as guilt may cut us, there is a certain warmth, a certain comfort, in the words:
I don't think my housemate really intended for me to actually watch the films of Neil Breen when she introduced us as a household to him.
Via the medium of this video on Your Movie Sucks - a highly entertaining youtube channel that also introduced me to the monstrosity that is Cool Cat Saves The Kids - she brought us into a world of awful films, all created by and starring the same guy.
I endeavoured to watch them all, and let me share with you the insights that were visited on my brain, like the dreams of a man gripped by a horrible fever.
Four movies. Double Down (2005), I Am Here....Now (2009), Fateful Findings (2013) and Pass Thru (2016). All of them have similarities in thematic, all of them carry a similar overarching message that has little to do with the plot.
A thing that is worth mentioning: all four of these films were very much driven by Neil Breen. In the credits to the most recent two, he playfully lists false companies as providing things such as catering, lighting, sound design etc, then at the end of the credits, states that any company with an N or a B in their name was actually him doing it his damn self. He obviously puts in work on these films - we're not talking the Tim Burton "put my name on it and I'll give you ten million" routine. He's involved at all levels, for better or worse.
That is where the credit that is due runs out.
The four films can be roughly divided into two categories, and those categories are based on the character that Breen plays in them. Double Down and Fateful Findings both feature the personality that we will call Hackerman, and - you guessed it - the other two feature his other personality, Cyberjesus.
Hackerman is slightly different in Double Down and Fateful Findings. In Double Down he is some kind of super-elite special agent who is also a fighter pilot who has won "many medals". Here's a picture of the medals on his weird denim waistcoat:
Whereas in Fateful Findings, he is apparently an author, whose capability as a hacker who has "hacked into more information than ANYONE" comes from some kind of mystery source.
Either way - both of them are privy to a significant amount of secrets, involving corporate and political corruption, the mere knowledge of which is enough to make him a target. Both of them are possessed of a drive, an urge to fix things or make things right, which they manage to do, somehow.
Cyberjesus isn't from here. He has come to see what "The Humans" are up to - and he isn't impressed. In I Am Here....Now, he is first depicted covered in broken bits of computer, then as a caveman zombie, then as just Neil Breen who steals a junkie's clothes - come back to Earth to check up on the mankind that he created. In Pass Thru he is an AI that is projecting back through space and time to look at the human race like a kid in a zoo - who has some very interesting ideas as to how to make the human race not be shitty to each other.
We begin with the writing. As we so often do.
A commonality between Neil Breen and Tommy Wiseau is that they don't seem to...really know how people talk or act. Which is interesting. I don't know if the Breen Machine has the same life experience as Tommy but evidence indicates that neither of them have spent a lot of time hanging out...around people. They just don't know how humans interact.
Now, being someone that writes scifi and endeavours to be somewhat inclusive in his writing, I am aware of the fallacy of the notion of only writing what you know. In this case, Breen doesn't write what he knows. Apparently he doesn't know anything about what he writes. Nothing at all.
His characters monologue a lot. The sentences they utter are often totally unconnected to the last thing that was said by another character that they are supposedly in conversation with. Their motivations are either a total mystery or so basic that they could be in a children's picture book as supporting cast. There also seems to be a total disconnect between what the character is saying and what they are meant to be feeling.
One unexpected benefit of this whole thing, though, is that his characters can be used to flagrantly tell you what the plot is, and what is happening now. Which is good, because the plot otherwise would be thoroughly impenetrable. I am still not sure strictly what happened in Double Down.
Another commonality: in the first three movies, there is a mystical rock. Usually a cheap doodad that Breen has seen in a store somewhere and thought would make a neat plot maguffin.
In Double Down it's a bit of cheap pyrite, which the main character believes has helped him cure a girl's brain cancer. (We don't know how he knows the girl's family, why he is eating dinner with them, or anything else.) It doesn't work, something we find out in a half-assed one-sided phone conversation later on in the film, and he seems surprised.
In I Am Here....Now, it's a glass paperweight. You know, the round ones with the flat bottom and the bubbles in it. Maybe it was what brought him to earth - it is only seen in the Nevada desert where he "landed", along with his collection of doll's heads. Yes, you read that right. His collection of doll's heads.
In Fateful Findings, it's a smooth black glass-type thing. As a kid, he took it out of a magical mushroom on a magical day. It gives him the ability to walk through things like a ghost, which adds to his already uncanny powers of being Hackerman and also being the writer.
You see, Neil Breen is the writer, and the star. This means that, naturally, he is the subject of significant and positive female attention. I feel bad for any woman that appears in these films. Fifty fifty chance that you will end up in the scrawny chicken-wing arms of Neil Breen, because you are his love interest, or his prostitute friend, or just a nice girl, or the woman he's going to have an affair with, or the victim of a human trafficking ring, or...
Here, we start to see a pattern.
The plots of each of these movies loosely involve the world being a terrible place, and that being the fault of corrupt politicians, businessmen, lawyers and media. You know. Standard fuzzy badness. It's not a unique point of view, or even a rare one. How Breen deals with this fact varies from movie to movie, and appears to involve some things happening to inconsequential people before Breen saves the day through some vague sequence of events.
It's always the same people who need to be schooled, even if the methods change. 2D villains who are clearly street-level gang thugs, and rich people in suits. Credit where it is due, though - these individuals are almost always a spread of race and gender, rather than all of the rich people being white men. Again though, this is where the due credit runs out.
Double Down invokes a terrorist attack masterfully put together (somehow) by the Hackerman with a satellite dish connected to the back of his car and some old broken laptops. This leads to several (near literal) talking heads talking about what happened, talking about how it could have been terrible, and talking about how now they have to change everything.
I Am Here....Now takes a more direct and anti-capitalist bent, painting a street gang with assault weapons hanging out with a group of senators and lawyers like they're all buddies. Cyberjesus fixes capitalism and corrupt government by punishing people directly. When someone is an asshole he makes them go blind and bleed out of their eyes. He crucifies half a dozen people at the end of the movie. Which, according to his own narration, makes mankind better and solves a lot of problems.
Fateful Findings - after navigating its way around personal tragedy, ghost magic and Breen being an adulterous asshole - leads to a memory stick full of the most incriminating evidence ever being THREATENED to be released to the world. This immediately causes half a dozen of the most corrupt and bad people to commit suicide. (There's seven suicides in this movie, including Breen's own wife, while he is off cavorting in the woods with his childhood friend.) This, also, fixes mankind as all the corrupt people have been defeated.
It's Pass Thru that takes a distinct turn to the psychopathic, wherein the friendly visiting future-AI just....kills three hundred million people. All of those people that the AI has determined are harmful. Which is apparently literally everyone with an amount of wealth or power or influence, and also every criminal. Aside from a notable exception, who then shoots two innocents, but we'll let that slip.
Pass Thru is the movie that probably frames Neil Breen's thinking on this in the most direct way. He literally takes over a news network so he can shout his opinions at people. That the human race can be fixed as long as we are honest with each other. That anyone who disagrees needs to be deleted. That there is definitely a cure for cancer that hasn't been circulated. That he has now taken away all the harmful people and so the human race is ready to be saved.
But then, after making all of the human smugglers vanish, he then turns around and shouts at the refugees from various other countries and shouts that they need to "go home and fix their problems" rather than come to (presumably) America. He leaves the ex-husband of the attractive female lead alive, perhaps accidentally - the husband shoots the lead and her niece, tries to shoot Breen and fails and is then forced to shoot himself, just so Breen can bring the lead and her niece back from the dead. They're surprisingly chill with him, despite the fact that he has committed literally the worst mass murder in history. Three HUNDRED MILLION people.
So we're getting into more of this man's head. We're seeing more of the world he creates for himself when he has the ability to do so.
In the two Hackerman movies, he has a childhood friend who was apparently the same age as him, who he loved very much and loved him back. In both movies, the women they grow into are clearly so much younger than him that I can't help but wonder if he has some kind of early-onset aging condition. Maybe that's a tradeoff in being a hacker, he literally traded away his entire twenties and thirties.
He also fixes a bunch of social problems, sometimes just by existing, by standing near people, or by waving his hands. He cures a guy of cancer and being wheelchair-bound - and also apparently of being old, as he is replaced by an actor perhaps a third of his age - in I Am Here....Now.
He has friends, and people who like and respect him. How he knows them isn't ever explored. The dynamic of their relationships - not really a thing that is explored either, or that makes any sense. It's like they are just his friends, now, and they have to deal with that.
And here we get to the nugget of it.
Breen's movies are when he gets to be the him that he wants to be. He gets to act out all his fantasies - of being liked, and loved, and desired, of being a talented and valued man who is also mysterious and respected and feared. Of bringing down an establishment that scares him as much as it confuses him, of ending corruption however complex or nonsensical.
People like him, girls want him, and he gets to save the world.
That is who Neil Breen wants to be, and so whenever he makes a movie - that is who he is.
In a way I sympathise with him. I want to be able to fix the world. I don't want it to be scary and confusing and complicated and many different shades of evil. I want it to be clean-cut and simple, and to always know who the good guy is and who the bad guy is.
Would be nice, wouldn't it?
The best may be yet to come though, because according to IMDB... there will be a new Neil Breen movie this year.
I am a believer in Hanlon's Razor, the oft-quoted (and oft-misquoted) statement, "Never attribute to malice what can be sufficiently explained by stupidity". Goethe said something similar, back in 1774: "Misunderstandings and neglect create more confusion in this world than trickery and malice. At any rate, the last two are certainly much less frequent."
The thing is...
The thing is that holding this believe doesn't prepare you at all for what is going on in the world of politics.
There's different sorts of malice. There's the very direct and very hostile malice, wherein you actively want the consequences of your actions, especially if they hurt or kill or traumatise another. Premeditated violent crime, for example. I won't go into examples - you know what I am talking about.
Following that, there's different stages of being removed from the end result of the deed you undertake, which is why it is easier to kill someone with a gun than a knife. There's far less of a direct and visceral connection between squeezing the trigger, a loud bang, and over there someone falls over - compared to having to actually inflict the physical trauma with something in your own hand, to physically struggle with the individual you are hurting. (This is in part why guns should be restricted, by the way.)
There comes the line wherein someone can perform the mental acrobatics necessary to make this statement their guiding philosophy:
I have performed this action, and don't care about the consequences.
It's the difference between aiming a firearm at someone with the express intent to kill them, and firing into a crowd at random. It's the difference between not checking a brake line because you want the driver of the car to have an accident, and forgetting to check the brake line because you're making up time. It's the difference between signing the Poor People Starve Act, and extending the waiting time for benefits for whatever nebulous reason one could come up with.
Weekly, it becomes apparent that a significant amount of systems and organisations in the world today are arranged in such a way as to insulate those who make decisions that hurt others from those others that they hurt, and also from any repercussions.
There's no recall for politicians in this country. If we vote in an MP that goes on to thoroughly stab their base in the back, we can't get rid of them until the next election rolls around - and they know it, and they hide behind it. The wealthy live in neighbourhoods and districts that have a greater police presence, or even gated communities - except the police aren't there to make them obey the law. Police don't arrest white-collar criminals. There's several layers of people to act as a buffer between, say, Rupert Murdoch and an individual personally attacked by any one of his spider-like web of media properties - not just people but laws and financial barriers, too.
There will be many of my more cynical readers who will roll their eyes and scoff and say "yeah obviously".
However.
I think it has become accepted, that this is the way things are, and the way things will remain - and that's a problem. Even if we normal folks, who get to eat the shit sandwiches made for us by the men in the high towers, recognise this absolute lack of care or concern - we recognise it in an eye-rolling yeah-I-know same-old kind of way.
We don't even really get angry about it any more. It's become so normalised in our society that we accept it with a solemn sigh and a shrug, like the fact that it rains when you plan a barbecue or that the most recent album from that classic band you like isn't actually very good.
Which is...mad, isn't it? ...because it's a shit thing. It's a shit thing to have happen to us as a society. If someone came to visit from a perfect society from the future (or an alternative dimension) they'd look at this state of affairs with such absurd incredulity.
But that's how the system perpetuates. It continues because we live in it and we don't think about how it would work if something changed.
The people in power persist in making decisions that hurt so many and benefit so few because not only are they protected from the repercussions, but also, we EXPECT them to be protected from the repercussions.
If things are going to change - here is a place to start.
The cartoon show has often been held up as predicting the future. Lots of shit has happened in the Simpsons which has then happened in real life, but then, when a show runs for 620 episodes in a singular setting, it's going to hit some beats somewhere. Throw enough pebbles, you'll hit the window.
Some examples - to save you sitting through a bullshit Buzzfeed article - include when Roy Horn (of Siegfried and Roy) was mauled by his own tiger, the NSA was caught spying on everybody, when voting machines went (TOTALLY ACCIDENTALLY) wrong, when FIFA was corrupt (yeah as if we couldn't see that coming without Matt Groening), and when ebola broke out.
This scene, however - this scene (aside from providing the best way to say "Down I Go" I have ever heard) seems to predict the future in a big way.
If there has ever been a President that has existed solely to tell future Presidents what not to do - if there are any - it's been Donny.
Donny Don't just has no idea. Just...no idea. It's actually somewhat comedic as to how incompetent he really is, and I am embarrassed that at one point I was convinced that he was just playing dumb in order to lull people into a false sense of security. He's dumb as a post. The job - the job of being President of the United States - is a difficult one, and I wouldn't want to put myself in that position. Even somewhat take-it-easy Presidents come away with grey hairs. So why would this man, who persistently failed in the business arena in ways that seem basic to you and I, actually have the skills to be President?
There's such a thing as the Dunning-Kruger effect, which states that at the bottom end of the ability spectrum, there's a lack of awareness and cognition which would allow the individual to realise that they kind of suck. Now I'm trying to contain my cynical misomania at this point, wherein I'd break out Carlin lines about thinking about how smart the average person is, but - Dunning-Kruger is real. I bet that anyone who reads this can think of at least one, and probably more, people they have encountered who were...to be blunt... just too dumb to realise they were dumb.
Donny Don't is doing everything that a President shouldn't, and he's not really clued-up enough on the job to know that he shouldn't.
Examples? Do I need to give any, really? Well, okay, how about -
Being a white supremacist.
Playing golf, all the time.
Inciting war with whoever looks at him funny.
Doing shady deals with Russia.
Pulling out of UNESCO because Israel or something.
Being a speaker at an anti-LGBTA seminar.
Pulling out of the Paris agreement because who knows.
Describing everything he dislikes as being false.
Leaping onto Twitter whenever upset or offended, which is often.
Having zero respect for the position he occupies and the country he serves.
The worst thing about all of this?
He can get away with it.
There is no recall election for the President - that has to wait until an actual election year, and I suppose that is for the purposes of the country not immediately trying to unseat the head of state the moment he says or does any one unpopular thing. Hell, I guess if there had been the ability to recall, Barack Obama would have faced one recall election a week from - I'm going to be honest - racists and right-wingers.
There being no recall, however, relies on most people who take the role of President being halfway competent. It's a polite assumption that whoever wins the election will at least be partially versed in statehood, that they won't immediately start insulting other nations, that they will show a measure of decorum.
I am about to do something that you will not often see or hear me do, so take note of the time and date.
George W. Bush showed decorum as part of his position. There were moments wherein that decorum went away ("Now Watch This Drive"), but for the most part, the man was lampooned as being clueless, not brazenly rude. The man understood that sometimes, you sit down, you shut up, and you listen. The man didn't lash out every time people talked out against him - and fucking A did we speak out against him. He was the President. He was above getting into mud-wrestling matches over what was perceived as a personal insult. Even Dubya was above having bitch-fits on Twitter because he had seen something that didn't sit right with him.
(In fairness, Twitter wasn't that big when Bush became President - but hey.)
Should George W. Bush have been impeached for his part in the Iraq and Afghan wars? I'm leaning toward yes. Should the public, had they had enough of him, been able to recall him as President? I'm leaning toward yes - but you'd have to set the bar for that pretty high. His approval ratings were fairly low when he left office.
The issue is that impeachment doesn't seem to happen when the person sat in the chair shouldn't be in the chair. It's a long and rather complicated process, that needs to hit several legal milestones, and can be upset if some of the people involved would rather see their pick still in situ - even if they did the thing they are accused of doing.
So Donny Don't is here now, and he's here doing things, and we can't get rid of him, and he's busy throwing shit on the walls and breaking flower pots and shouting obscenities at the grandparents. The damage he is doing, he is doing forever. He is burning diplomatic bridges that will take years if not decades to repair.
He isn't even smart enough to know that he shouldn't be doing it, or that it is wrong. He's got shit all over his hands, and he's smiling, because this is just lovely.
The only positive thing we can take from his Presidency is that there will be a living, breathing example of what happens when you elect someone into power who you wouldn't trust with an electric toothbrush.
If we aren't annihilated by nuclear fire before he is voted out, that is.
