7.09.2002
I can see the point of your sex prescription, but I think it will probably be a very long time until it will be filled. It would help matters immensely to get out of this computer lab. I swear there was a door here when I came in. My only connection with the outside world clips along at a brisk 1.5Mbps.
I was going to mention as well... The book I am reading now is called "whoever fights monsters" and is an in-depth look by the agent in the FBI who started the Behavioral Sciences Unit at criminal profiling of serial murderers. A fascinating look at what goes on inside their heads. It is a very specific demographic, and there are some surprisingly uniform characteristics that they all exhibit. A good read, for those interested in profiling, but it is a bit dark and morbid.
All the comments I have seen about 1984 are true, I think, to a certain degree. My complaints with the book rest largely on a literary basis, that it could have been written better. I still think the book was weighted down by the sexual backstory. It (IMHO) would have been better to focus more on the satiric antiutopian elements of the poulation control and less on the endless search for a properly hidden sex-nest. The cruelty of the party could have been adequately expressed with less focus on how the party was cramping their love life. But I am quibbling about a small point. In the end, I really liked Animal Farm for everything that it was, but got a little disinterested in 1984. It is not a love/hate thing, just a preference.
Actually, much of my political outlook has roots in the same thinking that produced 1984. The book did not particularly inspire them, but it did serve to describe them to a limited extent. My (previously poorly explained) outlook stems from the idea that there is actually no control of the government in the hands of the average person. Big business has purchased its way into the political arena to such an extent that all of our efforts to effect change merely serve as an allowed exchange, and are completely ignored when the final decision is made. Businesses purchase (quite easily) both candidates to a particular election. It is a no-lose proposition. The actual dollar amount is of little consequence to the returns gained by the political clout paid for. Money does, in the end, talk.
I have been on both sides of this, and I will try to effectively explain....
When I worked for the State of Alaska last summer, I was tapped to design a hokey website and comment forum for people to express their views on a particularly divisive project. Tempers are very heated over a stupid little piece of land in the middle of nowhere that people liked to build cabins on... it is a side issue to my main point, so I will just leave it at "a particularly divisive project". I was to build a website that explained all the allowed "feasible options" and people could vote and add comments (through a little redirection hosted on my UMD student account...hehehe) on what they thought was the best course of action. It was a complete waste of time because the outcome had already been decided by the powers that be. It was all just a PR exercise.
Another example. UMD was going to have a "laptop initiative" in which all incoming freshmen were required to purchase laptops and software (regardless of what they already owned) through the school for their classes. This obviously raised a lot of protest and the Regents quickly ceded defeat (to the deafening applause of everyone on campus). And quietly ushered in a smaller palm pilot program (in conjunction with a modified laptop program) 2 years later, after all the protesters had graduated, with nearly all the same features. It didn't matter at all what anybody thought; it could be done, so it was done. They get the win by attrition.
And just try to buck the system. Doesn't work, because they control your ultimate future by not allowing you to take classes you need to graduate without it. It is cheaper to play along to the tune of $800 bucks a year than to mortgage your entire future to win a silly little battle.
Anyhow, in the larger national arena, the politcal input we supposedly have is just a sideshow to what is actually going on. Elections have become little more than party driven popularity contests, and the real decisions are made by a select, powerful few. And that is to their advantage. We are given a "forum" to vent our complaints, to pacify ourselves. Make ourselves heard with our vote, chosing our movie star politicians, while the decision has already been made. The date has been set. The system is already in place.
And we contradict ourselves in our efforts. The guy you camp out next to at the School of America's protest (a bigger attraction for spring break than cancun) is the same guy you are yelling at across police barricades for protesting a new missile defense outpost. Or a new power plant. Or a new highway. Or whatever. The problem lies in the fact that everybody is partially right. There is a small mintutiae of correctness in nearly any view, and we fight each other like dogs for it. If we could pick the correct battles, there may be an eventual change, but what are the correct battles? Environmental? Social? Political? Economic? Foreign Policy? National Security? Privacy? We fear the outcome of 1984, yet we elect more and more politicians to fill an ever larger capitol hill. Big Brother, Big Business, Big Government.... its all the same.
Much like the book, we have been given straw-man enemies to pretend we can change or defeat them, but much like the book, we end up where we started, a little worse for the wear and completely sapped of energy. We can thrash all we like, but they will win in the end. Or have already won, perhaps. They control what we see, what we hear. The things we worry about are almost definitely fiction. We are influenced by the media to fight battles that have no possible win scenario.
I used to think what I said or thought made a difference, but I am coming to the conclusion that it really doesn't. I think that the government (or more specifically, those who control the government, whoever they may be) does control the war and the uprising, both sides of the battle. I don't think the day will really come when we will be prevented from thinking for ourselves, but I think the day has come and gone that we have been prevented from making a real difference on any but the smallest of scales.
Oh well... I hope nobody takes this for anything more than what it is.... just the musings of a distant fellow with too much time to think. Remember, my opinion is worth exactly what it cost you. It is a good discussion, I think.
jeff
I was going to mention as well... The book I am reading now is called "whoever fights monsters" and is an in-depth look by the agent in the FBI who started the Behavioral Sciences Unit at criminal profiling of serial murderers. A fascinating look at what goes on inside their heads. It is a very specific demographic, and there are some surprisingly uniform characteristics that they all exhibit. A good read, for those interested in profiling, but it is a bit dark and morbid.
All the comments I have seen about 1984 are true, I think, to a certain degree. My complaints with the book rest largely on a literary basis, that it could have been written better. I still think the book was weighted down by the sexual backstory. It (IMHO) would have been better to focus more on the satiric antiutopian elements of the poulation control and less on the endless search for a properly hidden sex-nest. The cruelty of the party could have been adequately expressed with less focus on how the party was cramping their love life. But I am quibbling about a small point. In the end, I really liked Animal Farm for everything that it was, but got a little disinterested in 1984. It is not a love/hate thing, just a preference.
Actually, much of my political outlook has roots in the same thinking that produced 1984. The book did not particularly inspire them, but it did serve to describe them to a limited extent. My (previously poorly explained) outlook stems from the idea that there is actually no control of the government in the hands of the average person. Big business has purchased its way into the political arena to such an extent that all of our efforts to effect change merely serve as an allowed exchange, and are completely ignored when the final decision is made. Businesses purchase (quite easily) both candidates to a particular election. It is a no-lose proposition. The actual dollar amount is of little consequence to the returns gained by the political clout paid for. Money does, in the end, talk.
I have been on both sides of this, and I will try to effectively explain....
When I worked for the State of Alaska last summer, I was tapped to design a hokey website and comment forum for people to express their views on a particularly divisive project. Tempers are very heated over a stupid little piece of land in the middle of nowhere that people liked to build cabins on... it is a side issue to my main point, so I will just leave it at "a particularly divisive project". I was to build a website that explained all the allowed "feasible options" and people could vote and add comments (through a little redirection hosted on my UMD student account...hehehe) on what they thought was the best course of action. It was a complete waste of time because the outcome had already been decided by the powers that be. It was all just a PR exercise.
Another example. UMD was going to have a "laptop initiative" in which all incoming freshmen were required to purchase laptops and software (regardless of what they already owned) through the school for their classes. This obviously raised a lot of protest and the Regents quickly ceded defeat (to the deafening applause of everyone on campus). And quietly ushered in a smaller palm pilot program (in conjunction with a modified laptop program) 2 years later, after all the protesters had graduated, with nearly all the same features. It didn't matter at all what anybody thought; it could be done, so it was done. They get the win by attrition.
And just try to buck the system. Doesn't work, because they control your ultimate future by not allowing you to take classes you need to graduate without it. It is cheaper to play along to the tune of $800 bucks a year than to mortgage your entire future to win a silly little battle.
Anyhow, in the larger national arena, the politcal input we supposedly have is just a sideshow to what is actually going on. Elections have become little more than party driven popularity contests, and the real decisions are made by a select, powerful few. And that is to their advantage. We are given a "forum" to vent our complaints, to pacify ourselves. Make ourselves heard with our vote, chosing our movie star politicians, while the decision has already been made. The date has been set. The system is already in place.
And we contradict ourselves in our efforts. The guy you camp out next to at the School of America's protest (a bigger attraction for spring break than cancun) is the same guy you are yelling at across police barricades for protesting a new missile defense outpost. Or a new power plant. Or a new highway. Or whatever. The problem lies in the fact that everybody is partially right. There is a small mintutiae of correctness in nearly any view, and we fight each other like dogs for it. If we could pick the correct battles, there may be an eventual change, but what are the correct battles? Environmental? Social? Political? Economic? Foreign Policy? National Security? Privacy? We fear the outcome of 1984, yet we elect more and more politicians to fill an ever larger capitol hill. Big Brother, Big Business, Big Government.... its all the same.
Much like the book, we have been given straw-man enemies to pretend we can change or defeat them, but much like the book, we end up where we started, a little worse for the wear and completely sapped of energy. We can thrash all we like, but they will win in the end. Or have already won, perhaps. They control what we see, what we hear. The things we worry about are almost definitely fiction. We are influenced by the media to fight battles that have no possible win scenario.
I used to think what I said or thought made a difference, but I am coming to the conclusion that it really doesn't. I think that the government (or more specifically, those who control the government, whoever they may be) does control the war and the uprising, both sides of the battle. I don't think the day will really come when we will be prevented from thinking for ourselves, but I think the day has come and gone that we have been prevented from making a real difference on any but the smallest of scales.
Oh well... I hope nobody takes this for anything more than what it is.... just the musings of a distant fellow with too much time to think. Remember, my opinion is worth exactly what it cost you. It is a good discussion, I think.
jeff
< 02:15 >< /j >
