Oh dear, our dear Kissinger-san has vanished. Such a shame, he was a chill dude.
Anonymous asked:
Dystopia
xhxhxhx answered:
I guess I never really understood why Nineteen Eighty-Four was a stable equilibrium, if the world it described was at all true, because the fundamental thing is the game, either within states or between them, because there’d always be actors of greater or lesser talents, because there’d always be shocks to technology or inputs, so that there’d be no equilibrium
it’s good and fun to imagine this sort of terror, but I always found it hard to imagine it as a permanent state, because it seemed so fragile, so dependent on the virtues of the leadership and the competitive equilibrium between states – and I know the predictable answer is that the airbase is a little North Korea, but, with the caveat that I haven’t read the book in years, that never seemed like a strong or plausible reading of the text to me
like, Orwell was great at Stalinist terror, but even Stalin emerged through intra-party competition, and even Stalin was threatened by inter-state competition – as Adolf Hitler was done in by it – so it’s just hard to imagine that equipoise surviving anywhere for long, much less one that survives everywhere
the thing I’ve always feared is collapse, the collapse of complex societies, because collapse is the terrible thing we see again and again, and the thing you can’t insulate yourself against
if 1984 ended in collapse, with the factories torn up, the money turned to rubbish, with Smith on the dole and working on the black market, drinking himself to death, and all the little old tea-drinking pensioners wishing they hadn’t done away with Big Brother, and maybe it hadn’t been so bad being Airstrip One, and maybe we’d all have gotten away with it if it hadn’t been for those awful Continentals – but even that wouldn’t have been all that bad
the thing that really chills me is the Dark Ages
like, you read these books and you realize, like, hey, they don’t have pottery anymore, they barely trade, they’re barely literate, and they just fall into darkness for centuries, where even their names are forgotten
like, that’s the dystopia, to me
I have another three segments of Whiteout queued, and it’s both kind of annoying and exciting since I want to show them to you right now, but if I do that then there won’t be any more queued, so we all have to wait.
Anyhow, if you’re enjoying the Whiteout story, make sure to like the posts so I know how popular it is.
The article about “why we need price gouging in times of crisis”, is some odd shit. I can assure you that there is plenty of water to go round, even if it isn’t as much as normal. Many people did buy ahead of time, however when you get 28 inches of water in 3 hours instead of 3 days and you have to leave your home, you are not carrying the case of water. So kindly fuck off with you random garbage articles, I disconnect with most ancaps when it comes to compassion. Do I believe we need laws, nope, but I believe we need compassion, and Joe Blow selling water for $42 is anything but compassionate. This is the very reason a lot of people do not believe an anarchist, free market, voluntary society can work. I am watching my neighbors who have never flooded be plucked from their homes in boats, losing their entire life, and I got to read that fucking trash. Kindly fuck off. Want to show the world anarchy can work, do like the countless people out lending a hand, donate a case of water, come help me cook for the shelter, and STFU.
This is precisely when people attack the price system, though, because people have the moral intuition that someone selling at higher-than-normal prices is doing something wicked and must be responsible for the price being that high, when they aren’t at all. The authorities interfering to stop local prices from being allowed to rise during a crisis is exactly why famines happened historically, it’s something that turns a localized temporary disaster into something worse. Price ceilings always create shortages, and that’s precisely what you don’t want in an emergency situation.
The choice isn’t between the guy selling water bottles for $42 or him giving them away, it’s between letting him sell them for $42 or not having water bottles there at all. Yeah, he isn’t being altruistic, but his greed is actually leading him to contribute to disaster relief efforts by showing up with water instead of staying home. You’re not being compassionate to disaster victims by telling those people to stay home if they’re not going to help for free, you’re taking away their opportunity to buy water that they apparently need badly enough they’re willing to pay $42 for it. The greedy asshole who was induced to drive from several states away with a truck full of water bottles just to try to make a quick buck is possibly making the difference between life and death for some people in need, even if he doesn’t have an ounce of compassion. The moral intuition you’ve got about price-gougers is backwards - that’s the important insight those articles are spreading, and this is exactly the time to spread it. If anti-gouging laws get passed after this hurricane, those guys won’t risk jail time to show up for the next one, and there will be a shortage where people can’t find drinkable water at any price. Trying to prevent that is beneficial as well.
Compassion is great, but one of anarchy’s greatest strengths is that it doesn’t actually require compassion to work, that people without any compassion in their hearts are still led by greed to work for the benefit of others anyway. A system that only works when people are eager to sacrifice their self-interest to serve others doesn’t work at all.
Okay, but “no price-gouging laws” isn’t incompatible with improved civil defense infrastructure, and calling it “anarchy” is stretching it. If the situation destabilized enough they’d call in the army, and there is still very much the risk of prosecution if you kill the man selling waters for $42 and take all of his waters, once the disaster clears.
Rebellion and break down in law & order in any area of the country undermines the authority of the state as the ruler and monopolizer of force and arbiter of law. Desperation is a key factor in breaking down law & order. Therefore, it would be prudent to create caches of limited, key supplies (such as clean water, water filters, and MREs) at various points in the country, cycling them out as donations to poverty organizations (or selling them) as they near expiration.
This serves both the internal (preventing looting, rioting, and loss of faith in the government) and external (decreasing the amount of death and dysfunction in the event of enemy attack) security primary functions of the state, and increases the scale of hazardous events required to bring down the government. Improvements in civil defense infrastructure also act as a multiplier on available military force as a credible threat for use in international politics.
Okay, but consider this - if you’re just one guy in a life-or-death situation up against multiple opponents, picking them off one-by-one while they are unable to find and stop you is the most logical course of action.
WHITEOUT : 3
“Why in the fuck would you just let someone wanted for murder go like that?” Asked Charlie, as we walked through the reflective matte-white halls of the OHK State Hospital. Our steps were in sync, though not really voluntarily. Old habits die hard.
“She made bail,” said Huan.
“How the fuck does some random biter make a five hundred thousand dollar bail?” Came the response.
“Don’t let the media fool you,” said Huan. “It may not be a license to print money, but there’s plenty of action to be had. A lot of old men, made young again, who are fed up with their wives. The adultery laws don’t apply to registered prostitutes.”
I grunted in acknowledgement.
Charlie sighed. “Why do we even have the adultery laws anyway if we’re going to let a class of people just ignore them?”
I kept in pace. “Because they’re not about love,” I said. “They’re about money.” Lots and lots of money.
Charlie muttered something about pleasureboats under his breath, but I pretended not to hear it.
The doors to the ward opened before us, and we followed the guidance towards room 8005, near the back.
“Just how hard did you hit this guy, anyway?” Asked Charlie.
“Oh,” I said, “I just used a Buster grenade.” It was true. I hadn’t even fired a shot.
“A Buster grenade put someone in the hospital?” Asked Charlie.
“Nah, I figure it was the fall that put ‘em in the hospital. The Buster grenade was just because they were dumb enough to keep shooting after they fell.”
Huan grunted in agreement.
“Remind me never to piss you off, Vick,” said Charlie.
The halls in the judicial holding wing were white, like the rest of the building, but they had a thick blue stripe along each wall. Tall unidirectional windows marked each holding cell. A male nurse was outside, facing away from us, checking the tools on a cart.
“Excuse me,” I said, “we’re here to see Rain Bailey Biyu in room 8005.”
“I’m sorry, but Ms. Bailey isn’t seeing anyone right now on account of her condition.” The nurse said without turning his head.
“It’s part of a homicide investigation,” I added.
The nurse turned and saw all three of us standing in the hallway. Black suits, black shirts, black gloves, matching sunglasses, and MetroPol AR[ar] IDs. “Ah, well,” he said. “Of course. Ms. Bailey is stable for now, but she’s not in great shape. The doctors want to have another look at her later because she’s not healing properly.”
“You think it’s ECSD?” Charlie asked.
“You should pay more attention to television, Officer Lin,” said the nurse. “It’s never ECSD. ECSD is genetic. No NeoHan has Electro-Conductive Sensitivity Disorder.”
Charlie made a mild noise of embarassment, so I changed the topic. “Right, well, we’d best get in there now, then. We were informed the patient was ready for in-cell interrogation.”
“Yes…” Said the nurse. “You may go on in. I’ll stand outside and observe.”
I gestured at the door and it opened. We stepped in.
[ar] - Augmented Reality, an overlay of computer information over the real world.
OP gets bombed by an Aussie
Surprisingly salient observation
Okay, but also Joel Osteen is not cool.
So it turns out it is possible to view Tumblr posts in chronological order. …if they’re tagged, and up to a certain amount (a few hundred).
So later on, if you’re following the whiteout story and you missed a post and want to view them in chronological order to avoid spoilers, here’s the link, as well as the general format for tagged chronological Tumblr browsing.
https://mitigatedchaos.tumblr.com/tagged/whiteout%20story/chrono/
The next whiteout post is queued for tomorrow, and another one for the day after.
god it’s way past time we dissolved Western Australia
either get rid of all the states entirely and give more authority to local councils, or get rid of the federal government and let states print their own currencies, but the current split between state and federal is incredibly irritating.
That’s the part of the world @mitigatedchaos can be in charge of. It’s mostly uninhabitable, so who cares if it’s fucked up?
I know, you’re probably thinking this is a safe idea. “Let’s exile that lunatic to the vast desert of Western Australia. No matter how many bizarre plans they have, the collateral damage cannot possibly escape to the rest of the developed world.”
And of course, this seems perfectly reasonable. The diagonal of Western Australia is literally over two thousand kilometers in length.
It’s just over two point six million square kilometers in size. Even the construction of a Special Economic Zone kept wet by a nuclear-powered desalination plant would be dwarfed by four orders of magnitude by the shear scale of Western Australia.
But did you realize it’s possible to terraform the Outback with existing technology?
Who would fund such a thing? Well, multiple nations are looking to meet their climate commitments, and the newly-formed state of Technocratic Western Australia would be in a position to supply. A new city would need to be built to accommodate the infrastructure necessary to oversee this enormous project, along with a series of smaller and more temporary towns, allowing a great degree of flexibility in urban planning.
The scale of the project would ensure funding for the new regime for several decades, while power was consolidated and a new culture was forged across multiple immigrant groups brought in to provide the labor for the project. A tiered citizenship system, including education and service to advance up the hierarchy, with special status reserved for national heroes and more voice available in the National Delegation for loyalists, would place long-term political power in the hands of those committed to the new Western Australia.
As the trees spread across the continent, new development opportunities and industries would open up as the temperatures and local climates changed, paving the way for a nation of twenty million by the mid century.
The only thing preventing this future is that I am not in charge of Western Australia.
The other crucial thing preventing your plan is that nobody wants to live in your western australian towns, because it’s western australia.
According to the elaborate theory of mind I just created in the last two seconds, people either want trees or money. It follows, therefore, that they will be willing to move to the middle of nowhere for money and the promise that eventually, trees will come.
hell planet
How does anyone read this as anything other than evil what the fuck
You guys know that’s fake, right?
@silver-and-ivory: fact check?
@mailadreapta @slartibartfastibast
I admit, I got taken in by the probability that Bad Twitter Liberals & Bad Twitter Leftists would go #YassQueenSlay over this (totally viable), over the probability that JKR herself would do this.
The audience sentiment is there, but not the other part.