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Speak for yourself. I don't want technology to bring people together. I simply want it to give me the means to become an Evil Overlord. You can beat the rush and send your tribute to me now, in the form of gold and virgin's if you don't mind.

There is probably a Peter's Evil Overlord rule about that...

Example: "I will make sure I have a clear understanding of who is responsible for what in my organization. For example, if my general screws up I will not draw my weapon, point it at him, say 'And here is the price for failure,' then suddenly turn and kill some random underling."

Damn it! I knew I should have kept tighter control over my mindless clone army while I was waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike and conquer the planet.

Hmm, maybe that ought to get added to the Evil Overlord list...

Comparing authors and the literature with directors and the SF movies...

Authors

• Know about the history of SF literature, including what has become stale or cliched.
• Must be aware of scientific developments of the past 40 years, especially if the author specializes in "Hard SF"
• Get help or critiques from other writers / scientists: many of the best SF writers are both (i.e. Benford, Vinge)
• Go to SF conventions where topics include recent discoveries in science, technology and medicine; bleeding edge new writers and concepts; and which new novels or short stories should get recognized via awards like the Hugo.

• Get away with plots and backstory that were already old 30 years ago in the SF literature
• Don't seem to want to admit their relationship with / dependancy on the SF literature, so don't read or seek criticism from SF writers. (Anecdotal evidence- they rarely participate in regular SF conventions (instead going to Media Cons) and even more rarely hang out in the audience, listening and learning.)
• Don't know the state of the art in scientifically consistent (even if not plausible) technobabble. Apparently not aware of the evil overlord's rules and other long-known lists of cliches to avoid.
• Don't have any idea about recent SF writers. Nor do their critics, so as in this case the movie/TV show will always be compared to one of "Wells, Verne, Bradbury, Star Trek, Star Wars, Bladerunner (or rarely PKDick) and The Matrix," all nice but they could use some higher standards. Leads to critics calling movies like Harris's Fatherland ("ohhhh, what if Hitler *won* WWII?") original, because they don't know that the SF subfield of alternate history is decades old.

Good idea - only I'd do it like an Evil Overlord and just walk in the room and shoot them in the head, dump em in the dumpster, and get on with life. They've already wasted enough of your time - why give them more by providing a spectacular death?

You'll rue the day you crossed me!

Brin- science fiction writer, where writers:

• must be familiar with current SF literature and scientific developments of the past 40 years.
• Often send drafts out to other writers / scientists (many other SF writers are both- Benford, Vinge, Forward...) for criticism before the final version.
• go to conventions where discussions and panels cover recent discoveries in science, technology and medicine.
• know about and read the bleeding edge writers (because of things like the Nebula and Hugo Awards (read nominees here)) like modern space opera writer Clute, makes up his own plausible-sounding mathematical systems Greg Egan, Alistair Reynolds and, writing from the other side of the singularity, Charlie Stross.

Lucas- science fiction (though he won't admit it) movie / TV director, where directors:

• can get away with plots and backstory that were already old 30 years ago in the SF literature
• Don't want to admit to being SF, so don't read or seek criticism from other SF writers. (Anecdotal evidence- they rarely participate in regular SF conventions (instead going to Media Cons) and even more rarely hang out in the audience, listening and learning.) Leads to situations like Whelon thinking Firefly is original because it is gritty and doesn't have phasers.
• Aren't aware of the state of the art in scientifically consistent (even if not plausible) technobabble. Apparently not aware of the evil overlord's rules and other long-known lists of cliches to avoid.
• Don't have any idea about recent SF writers- the critics don't either, and so the movie/TV show will always be compared to one of "Wells, Verne, Bradbury, Star Trek, Star Wars, Bladerunner (or rarely PKDick) and The Matrix," all nice but they could use some higher standards. Leads to critics calling movies like Harris's Fatherland ("ohhhh, what if Hitler *won* WWII?") original, because they don't know that the SF subfield of alternate history is decades old.

But I doubt Lucas will ever hear Brin: Lucas seems to have surrounded himself with yesmen, who rarely pass on negative articles. (Plus, for him to listen would be evidence that his work and inspiration came in part from SF and the space opera of his youth.)

Stolen (#22, modified slightly to fit the sig character limit) from the Evil Overlord list, a beautiful piece of net .history...

http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html

(God, that makes me feel old... I remember reading that when it was new :)

Lets face it, if Sci-Fi was full of original plots the Evil Overlord List would not be nearly as funny.

"Unnecessarily slow dripping mechanisms"? Bah!

Every serious Evil Overlord has long ago forsaken them in favour of things much more practical.

Plus, not only will your World Domination plans be more effective, they'll be cheaper too.

:)

If you display a file on the screen and someone deletes the file, it also disappears from the screen.

And when I am an Evil Overlord, any data file of crucial importance will be padded to 1.45MB in size.

Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Excuse Calendar

The simplest description of the invention would be a self-generating module. [. . .] This is accomplished, by utilisation of existing and proven state of the art technologies, combining novel features and innovative assembly techniques.

"That's classified, ma'am."

The credibility of the system is definitively established and can be interpreted and demonstrated as being "the practical application of accepted techniques".

"Yeah, it's the Doppler effect of magnetism.."

All the parts for this invention are in practical and productive everyday use.

"My doomsday machine will have a highly-advanced technological device called a capacitor in case someone inconveniently pulls the plug at the last second. (If I have access to REALLY advanced technology, I will include a back-up device known as a battery.)"

In reality the achievement of this invention adheres strictly with known, accepted and proven physics principles.

"In this house, we obey the second law of thermodynamics!"

This invention is achieved by the application and utilisation of a capital energy source to create a prolific income energy system, with the consequential composition being a "controlled loop, self-generating module", that produces instant and constant mechanical drive power and or instant and constant electrical power.

Magnetic Transient Interference from Satellite Debris.

This invention is mankind's first income energy reservoir from a capital energy source.

"First you get the money... then you get the power... then you get the women."

Run conduit. Big conduit.

OK but don't forget to make it small enough so that hero's can't crawl around your Evil Lair and rescue that damsel in distress.

Hey, it's number 2 in the manual!

For those not in-the-know, this list is (I assume) derived from the Evil Overlord List (An excellent page...)

Giving credit where credit is due Changing a few words doesn't make it original.

Indeed. Originality was never my intention here. Sadly, "Team Criticize" does not win, coming in second (by 13 minutes) to "Team Playful Critique".

Nevertheless, I consider myself properly chastened. Rather than making up my own commentary, I merely renumbered some choice entries from The Evil Overlord List, and adapted them to the subject at hand. I hereby repudiate any and all positive moderation done with the mistaken understanding that my original post was original and therefore worthwhile.

Feel better now?

Giving credit where credit is due
Changing a few words doesn't make it original.

The Evil Overlord List

Oh, Lord ... look out for those e-e-e-v-i-l corporations! They'll suck out your eyeballs and spoon out your brains! They'll be rude to your mother and tease your dog! They'll spit in your ice cream and piss in your whiskey!

I'm part of a corporation. I guess you could say I'm the CEO, since it's a partnership and I'm one of the partners. Now that I'm and Evil Overlord, I probably need to brush up on the Rules before I go plundering across the countryside.

My corporation is merely a legal fiction by which I can avoid losing my house if a client gets a bug up their ass and sues us. I stand behind my work, but I'm not willing to bet *everything*, every day! It's conceptually similar to playing Russian Roulette every day -- are you willing to do that?

A corporation like Enron or GlofaxMegaThorp is simply a scaled-up version of my little LLC. Even if they do something low down and evil (which does happen, I'll admit) it's not likely to be as dangerous or as permanent as what a government can do (put another way, Three Mile Island 0, Chappaquiddick 1), and in the end you can sue them for damages to yourself.

Please try to not be so shallow and reactionary as to claim that corporations need to be removed.

Is is just me?

Does anyone else find it strange that after defeating the big bad evil overlord (who clearly did not read the manual detailing that position) and scattering his forces across creation, some minor figure always somehow manages to assemble a much more impressive force for the sequel (and yet still not read that manual)? I mean, its not like giant armies of darkness are easy to assemble - hell knows I've tried.

No, the big red button labeled 'De-orbit Spacestation. Do not push!' will trigger an airtight compartment to form around the immediate area, which will depressurize, killing anyone foolish enough to disregard it. The actual 'De-orbit' button will be labeled 'Human waste disposal', or some such.

Sheesh, that's like Rule 9. Foolish mortals.
--
AC

Gosh, but that's a bad copy of the real site located here: http://minievil.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.ht ml

Now we all know how honest and altruistic large companies are.

Heck, even Bill Gates has recently donated 100 million dollars to aids research. The obvious arguement is that we should not criticise them for the good they do. Bill Gates has obviously been a benefactor of the computer community, and so we should not criticise him for possible errors. He has done so much good.

That statement will obviously send people screaming out of the room. ;-)

The real question is the question of the devils bargin: How much do we excuse in the way of possible errors or abuse because of the possible benefit?

an example from another area of life: a very elderly elderly person is placed into a nursing home. Someone is named as the guardian. the idea is to self off property to help make the remaining years comfortable, because they are beloved family. And the argument is made to loot the property for personal gain instead of helping this person. This is something that happens, I have seen an interesting varient of this.

How much should you be able to profit from the mis-fortune of others?

I have no problem with the meeting of costs, and even some small profit to help a little with future development. Sadly once in the coffers, the bean counter types take cover, and will disperse the funds according to other principles

So how often should we shoot the messenger? Even the infamous Evil Overlord's List has the famous rule:

"32.I will not fly into a rage and kill a messenger who brings me bad news just to illustrate how evil I really am. Good messengers are hard to come by."

If he were truly evil, and not just insane, the last thing he would want is to find a hero, for it would interfere with his evil actions...

Ah, but in the world of superheroes and supervillians, the bad guy always seems to go out of his way to make his (the villian's) life more difficult.

For example: Just when the villian has the hero in the grips of "certain death" (with only one possible means of escape), the hero asks the villian what the villian's evil plans are. The villian, realizing that there is "no way to escape now" (except for the aforementioned single method), relents and reveals everything. Then, before the hero actually dies, the villian leaves to go do his evil things. The hero naturally exploits the sole method of escape, and goes on to spoil the villians evil plans.

So no, villians do seek out heros. They seem to take pleasure in terrorizing innocents, but the ultimate goal for a villian is to show off in front of a hero.

(For all of you aspiring evil-doers out there, the Evil Overlord List is required reading.)

I suppose that you might be interested in reading the evil overlord list if you didn't previously.

Brin makes one particularly interesting point about Darth Vader's redemption in Return of the Jedi. He writes:

To put it in perspective, let's imagine that the United States and its allies managed to capture Adolf Hitler at the end of the Second World War, putting him on trial for war crimes. The prosecution spends months listing all the horrors done at his behest. Then it is the turn of Hitler's defense attorney, who rises and utters just one sentence:

"But, your honors ... Adolf did save the life of his own son!"

Gasp! The prosecutors blanch in chagrin. "We didn't know that! Of course all charges should be dismissed at once!"

The allies then throw a big parade for Hitler, down the avenues of Nuremberg.

I have to say that I agree with most of Brin's essay, especially the bit about the only good part of Return of the Jedi being how the final climactic Jedi battle had nothing to do with the Rebellion. The one thing I really can't agree with in the essay is Brin's Vader-Hitler analogy (as quoted above). If there's a character in RotJ that's supposed to be a Hitler analogue, obviously it's the Emperor himself. Vader, after all, is just a trusted lieutenant.

If we absolutely must make WWII analogies, Vader betraying the Emperor at the last moment could be (very loosely) seen as parallelling Rommel's involvement in the Hitler assassination plot. Most people do (correct me if I'm wrong) see Rommel's involvement in that attempt as being something which redeems him, at least a little bit.
--
"HORSE."

I think it's simple why they're doing it...
From the Evil Overlord list:

100. Finally, to keep my subjects permanently locked in a mindless trance, I will provide each of them with free unlimited Internet access.

Simple, really...
--

Only communist countries will try to silence Internet users!

And totalitarian states (like Singapore sometimes appears to be)

And clueless, brain dead, wanna-be totalitarian governments (like the ones we have here in Australia).

Oh, and a stack of religions/cults :)

Hmmmm..... Face it, anyone who has a vested interest in protecting their power situation will do almost anything to protect it. Slowly removing the ability to bitch/moan/coerce/educate freely is one of the best ways of doing it.

Hell, if I were evil overlord with slaves, harem and so on, I'd be doing all I could to protect my situation. I've read The Rules :)