Just out of curiousity, doesn't anyone know where in the New Testament Jesus says you can ignore all the old dietary laws? I've been wondering about that one for a while...
What I've seen adduced is some vague passages where Jesus speaks of bringing a 'new covenant,' although the searchable-bible page I just tried doesn't pull anything up on that. Perhaps our local Creationist Troll can give us chapter and verse. What I've seen cited so far does not specifically address dietary and bodily maintenance (earlocks) laws, but just speaks vaguely about 'new covenants' and such, which is pretty weak grounds for shaving off your sideburns if you ask me.
Matthew Fox has a lovely metaphor for this ("ecumenical garbage!", I hear the Creationist Troll froth in background):
The world's religions are stained-glass windows in a lantern; God is the flame within.
I really dig Matthew Fox, crazy outlaw excommunicated former Jesuit that he is.
Religion isn't really a commutative or transmissible experience -- you either gots the feeling within, or you don't, and mileage varies wildly between folks.
Cute. This boils down to the 'golf ball' argument:
It's exceedingly unlikely that a golf ball driven off a tee by a golfer lands on one specific tuft of grass on the fairway, out of all the possible tufts of grass it could have landed on. Because it's so very unlikely, the inevitable conclusion is that the golfer deliberately guided the ball onto that tuft.
This doesn't follow -- it's an accident that humans have their current shape. Just because an event with low probability happens doesn't mean there's an agent behind it.
People win the lottery, despite huge odds against it. Are you saying God picks lottery winners and guides golf balls?
Of course you are. You're a Creationist. It seems to have seriously impaired your musical taste, too. I mean, the Pretenders? Nick Lowe? Costello? Yeesh. Get out of the 80's. Wouldn't Creed be more to your liking?
While we're at it, why don't you take a tour through leviticus and report back on how you're doing obeying gods laws that are listed there?
This came up much earlier, in one of the cloning articles. So I can confidently predict this weiner will come back with some tosh about how JEE-zus invalidates the Word of God in Leviticus about dietary laws and mixing fabrics and earlocks.
See, *he* gets to pick-and-choose God's Law, because he's wit' JEE-zus. Anyone who doesn't agree with him, though, will Burn In Hell (tm).
He sounds *just* like the wanker in that long-ago cloning thread, and frankly it's probably just some troller who gets his jollies impersonating a frothy Creationist. Do ignore him, and he'll go away.
Of course, there's a lot of value in modern Christian thought, but Sturgeon's Law inexorably applies there as elsewhere. You have to pick through a lot of crap to get to some really admirable and noble sentiments about getting along with your fellow earth-bound critters.
If the system really is set up that you can Accept Jee-zus, be a total asshole, and go to Heaven, and not Accept Jee-zus, be a self-sacrificing loving person, and go to Hell, then the system sucks and I want no part of it, and the God pushing that system can go fuck himself up the ass with a fire hydrant.
If a similar transcription error took place in the printing of a new Bible, it would from then on be the Word of the Lord(tm & amen).
Not exactly. See the medieval 'Infamous Bibles,' which contained some droll misprints, among which was 'Thou shalt commit adultery' in the listing of the Commandments. Typically the print run was destroyed, but surviving specimens are worth Bux.
Alas, the world would be a happier place if that version had gotten accepted. Or at least entertainingly different.
Honestly, you can get a much bigger sense of awe and wonder about the universe from reading a molecular biology or embryology journal (or watching pictures from astronomical probes), than from reading a typical book of the Bible.
Hell yes. I've had transcendent mystical experiences in a parking lot, just looking at trees and sunlight and thinking of all the Serious Neatness involved in the Universe at large. Religion (in the broad sense of awe and humility before the Universe) is completely compatible with science.
It's kind of cute how the frothy God-types have no trouble typing on their science-derived computers in their science-derived lifestyles. Thankless and rather moronic, but cute nonetheless.
You can't prove that God doesn't exist any more than he can prove that God does exist (or, even postulating the existence of a god, that his god is the right one.)
Hell, the Creationist Troll is even on better logical ground, since proving a positive ("there is a God," where 'God' is suitably defined) is at least logically possible, whereas proving a negative ("There is no God,") isn't even theoretically possible.
I'll freely admit I believe there's a God because I find it comforting, and I'd rather ascribe the universe's elegant design to intent rather than randomness. I'll also freely admit it's an utterly untenable position from any logical proof standpoint, and that there's no evidence whatsoever one way or the other. It works for me, I haven't been inside a church in years, and I don't ask that anyone agree with my position Or Die.
But then, I believe in the general idea of God, not in a specifically pinned-down Scripture-type God like the Creationist Troll seems to.
Absolutely believing in God and absolutely denying the existence of God in the absence of evidence one way or the other are equally acts of faith -- the atheist is committing just as much to his dogma as the Creationist Troll is to his.
And yes, they all too often tend to subscribe to human-hating doctrines like Randism or bizarro Nietzsche misquotes.
'Course, I'm no physicist. But, if you could send matter into a parallel universe, wouldn't that violate the conservation of mass and energy?
Sure. That's why it's an exciting theory. Conservation of Mass and Energy are serious limiting factors, and I for one am pretty glad to see anything that potentially gets around them.
Just because things are 'Laws' doesn't mean they're inviolable -- see causality and FTL communication. Just because FTL communication would presumably violate causality is not in and of itself reason to say FTL-comm is impossible. You just violate causality and get along from there.
While I find the caring, un-grim Gaiman Death a good deal more comforting than the traditional depiction, I can certainly see how it would tork some people off. I don't find Gaiman to be uniformly Godlike, but "Neverwhere" was quite good, albeit strongly British in flavor, and "Good Omens" benefited from the occasional injection of serious High Theme into the non-stop barrage of Pratchetty ludicrosity. Nothing against Pratchett -- lots of people like him, and I suppose he's funny in a broad, Three's Company sort of way, but too much of that sort of thing wears thin really fast. Good Omens got the silly/serious mix Just Right, and remains one of my favorite books to date.
Both Marvel and DC, to go on a tangent from the Cosmic Theme thing, really handle Cosmic Themes poorly -- it's hard to say who does it worse. Some good Cosmic Theme Melodrama can be found in anime (Grey comes to mind), or (for a closer shore) Watchmen.
Get the TPBs -- they're conveniently numbered so you know the sequence, although this seemed to bother someone elsewhere in this discussion (god only knows why).
Personally, I'd say you can skip 'Doll's House' and 'Game of You,' which were really slow and unclear, but your mileage may vary. I really enjoyed 'Season of Mists,' which as a stand-alone graphic novel is equal to legendary works such as 'Watchmen' or 'Dark Knight Returns.'
Single issues will be (a) hard to find, and (b) more expensive, even at currently deflated prices.
gomi and get all the transmetropolitan you can find RIGHT NOW.
It's not the knowledge that helps. It's the communications. Thousands of people in touch with each other, possibly through OneList. Remember all those instructions on counterrevolutionary terrorist guerrilla tactics that are easily available on the Web? Yeah, those.
Massive insurrection and violence in North Korea, followed by the emergence of a strong dictator, followed (after good-intentioned meddling from the West) by some cobbled-together, easily-botched democracy like any other developing nation. Years of brittle peace, the occasional coup, and struggling economies follow.
Beats the hell out what's currently going on in North Korea, tho.
And the little girl is probably toast, unless (duh) you feed her your own flesh and blood. You're probably not in the greatest of shapes yourself, but if she's dying, and you're still conscious and ambulatory, you could probably cut off a chunk of thigh or something. I mean, food is food. Not a lot of carbos in meat, but better than shoe leather, and it might keep her going until (facetious) WebVan shows up with the delivery, or (serious) an airlift of food shows up.
D'oh! Also forgot to mention that people in touch with portable secure communication thingees can effective pool food resources, hide them from soldiers (although the poor bastards are probably starving themselves, if they want to take it away from you they shouldn't have any), and distribute fairly. As has been mentioned before in this thread, famines are almost always distribution, rather than production, fuckups. Korea's nice farming land -- no reason other than horrifying mismanagement by the incredibly cretinous NK gov for the current terrible sitch.
Any way you try to dance around it, guns are for hurting. and don't start saying that you use them for target shooting.
Sure, they're for hurting. But you seem to think that's automatically a Bad Thing. If there's a thug who wants my money/stereo/life, you bet I'll want to hurt that person until they stop. And having the right tools for the job always helps.
For the dual purposes of (a) self-defence, which is ultimately my responsibility and (b) a last resort in the face of encroaching tyranny (not something I think we're currently in danger of, hyperbole from Left and Right notwithstanding), I'll take a firearm over a knife or judo class any damn time of day.
bulls**t....use a pellet gun or something. same idea, but you can't kill people with it too.
If you can't kill someone with a pellet gun, you're not trying hard enough. Oodles of injuries a year from pellet guns, some quite serious. And of course, the sturdier ones make for dandy clubs.
Look, coaxial cable can be used to strangle somebody, but nobody's trying to ban possession of coax.
Well, because someone's going to bring up the exclusive-use thing ("But a gun's only purpose is to kill/hurt! Waah!"), I'll extend the analogy to cover that:
Just because coax cable can be used to download criminal data of all stripes, from the fairly innocuous pr0n/warez to the more sinister child porn, doesn't make coax cable Evil. Just as there are Rights and Wrongs in data transmission, there are Rights and Wrongs in hurting, and yes, killing. Guns are a tool. Hate what's built with them if it's evil, but focusing on the tool is misleading and ultimately futile.
Just put something cold over the sensor and get Coke for cheap! Even if consumer reaction doesn't kill this, sensor-spoofing ought to be pretty trivial.
gomi
Re:None of Stephenson's books have an ending
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Snow Crash
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I have to disagree -- Cryptonomicon has the best ending Stephenson has written so far. Ironic, considering it's first in a series. You see it coming from far enough away that it's not abrupt and out-of-nowhere, like Diamond Age's ending, and it's a *good* ending -- there are loose ends, but this is an excellent resting point, with one of the big tensions resolved and the road ahead before the characters.
I'm not sure why people thought the math in Cryptonomicon is off-putting, though -- there wasn't that much of it, and it wasn't that complex, and it was relatively easy to skip anyway, if you were so inclined.
gomi
Re:Origins of Snow Crash
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Snow Crash
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I'd hardly call this a 'direct lift.' In 'The Penal Colony' (Penile Colony is likely rated X and not available at Blockbuster), the torment of the needle/carving machine is meant to be the punishment, and is done on the prisoner's backs/stomachs -- not a normally visible area. Also, nowhere does Kafka mention that the brand is meant to warn others of the criminal's past misbehaviours. So, they're very, very vaguely similar, in the way that Huxley's _soma_ in Brave New World is vaguely similar to the 'Eat Me' and 'Drink Me' stuff in Through the Looking Glass, but soma is hardly a 'direct lift' from Reverend Dodgson.
But yes, Kafka is good. Get Kafka. You will like it, and not just the standard 'Metamorphosis' -- "Penal Colony" and "The Trial" are excellent.
If you're just too goddam happy, read 'A Hundred Years of Solitude' by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, in the original Spanish if you can manage it. At the end, you're so goddam depressed you lack the energy to get up and slit your wrists. Definitely a read-once, not a read-many-times, but read it the once -- the power to evoke emotion with ink on paper is just staggering.
Borges is nigh-unto godliness. Windy at times, but that happens to most folks. "The Disc of Odin" is probably my second-fave after "The Book of Sand." Or possibly "The Library of Babel." Damn, they're all good.
Vonnegut? Really? I enjoyed _Sirens of Titan_, but there's such a strong vein of hatred and contempt for humanity that runs through all his works that I can't stomach him at all -- I guess I'm actually an optimist under the cynical, jaded exterior. But Vonnegut seems to really believe that all human endeavor is not only futile but base and contemptible, and that's just no fun to read.
Stephen R. Donaldson is highly recommended (but you can skip the second Thomas Covenant trilogy). The Gap cycle, on the other hand, is almost impossible to over-praise. Desperation, and the things people do when they're out of options, is a theme that runs through everything Donaldson has written, but in the Gap cycle this is brought to a bitter needle's point. Redemption from the ashes, lesser evils fighting greater evils, excellent characters, a sprawling, multi-layered plot, and a fast-paced, panting conclusion -- I re-read these 5 books every year. It rocks.
Also, if you're tired of goth weenies, read Stephen Brust's Agyar. Along with the painful-to-read (but not because it's badly done) To Reign in Hell, this is Brust's best work.
I don't know about the rest of the volk, but I'm desperate for recommendations because I've read everything good that I own twice already, and I'm out of authors that don't suck. Just today, I've finally gotten enough recommendations for Lois McMaster Bujold on this thread that I might finally get past the inane cover art/back blurbs and pick one up (but god, they make her books come off as cretinous when they design the covers).
It isn't so much 'tell me what to read' as 'what's good out there that i might have missed?'
Much, much science fiction and fantasy is utter garbage, and the ratios just get worse if you start insisting on craftsmanship -- details like plot and characterization and story-telling skill, rather than just pandering to techlust.
I mean, you can only read so many 'This Alien Shore' and 'Wizard's First Rule' type books before you give up in disgust and go back to the tried-and-true.
Okay, every Heinlein after Stranger can be summarised in one line:
Supergenius scientist fucks his daughter, saves the world.
I mean, the endless, sordid, kinky sex through which the same tired plot drags through...oy, and the characterization! I mean, he's as bad as Niven. Not that I'm agin kinky sex, but trying to pass off this glorified stroke book for pervs as great literature ain't gonna fly.
Heinlein was a hateful, misanthropic crank who wrote his best books early (Harsh Mistress is amont the more decent ones, and it's still laughable in parts). Every woman I've ever met who's read 'Friday' despises it (oh, yes, women *love* being felt up and raped, and often *want* to marry their rapists).
That's facile, bordering on cretinous. The desire to gengineer offspring is societal, not gene-derived. In fact, it's a direct expression of the desire to have genetically strong offspring, which is core a survival/procreation drive.
There's nothing to worry about vis-a-vis gengineered offspring because it's fundamentally Not A Big Deal. I'm really amused at all the neo-Luddites going on about the horrible lack of diversity in such a future and how we'll all be raising blond, blue-eyed six-footers. Oh, yeah. That's what every black, latino, and asian couple wants to raise, not to mention the interracials (which latinos are, by definition almost -- biracial before it was trendy, we were). Genetic diversity is safe because people want different things in offspring. And people still like surprises -- look at how many couples deliberately choose not to know their child's gender until it's born.
And, personally, I'd much rather gengineer a subhuman servitor race to take out the trash and keep the sewers clean than condemn intelligent humans to demeaning, soul-crushing work.
Yeesh, people, give it a rest. Nano is a *lot* scarier, but because it doesn't tap into bizarre procreative prejudices, it gets a hell of a lot more support than gengineering, which is significantly more interesting in terms of quality-of-life.
If it's unborn, dollink, it ain't a child. Strictly a semantic nitpick, tho -- I'm willing to equate late-term abortion to infanticide, but don't expect me to get all worked up over either. Strict supply-and-demand implies human life has never been cheaper, and it's better to knock the little buggers off early and humanely if it's to be done at all.
gomi
Re:Stephenson has talent, but Cryptonomicon...
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I'm not sure if you realize this, but there's almost no attention paid to modern crypto in Cryptonomicon, at least not in the technical sense. It's *mentioned,* sure, and as an important plot point, but I certainly don't remember seeing pages and pages of number theory.
Crypto is mentioned in Cryptonomicon about as much as tech in a good science fiction book -- enough to draw the setting and provide plot hooks, but not enough to get in the way of the story.
Stephenson doesn't need to focus more to be an excellent author -- he's doing quite well already. Just look at how his ability to coherently end a book has improved with Cryptonomicon (rather ironic given that it's the first in a series).
As someone who does read a lot of novels, I can tell you that multiple subplots are a boon -- they drive the attention forward, and the contrast between different storylines enhances both.
The present-day plotline was *vital* to the book -- the Shaftoe/Turing plotlines simply don't stand alone without the Randy plotline to give the WWII events closure. And Randy provides a modern-day viewpoint for readers to follow, which is also crucial.
I'm not sure if you realise, but E.T. and Close Encounters suck dead donkey turds. E.T. is a manipulative piece of tripe, and Close Encounters is almost as boring as 2001 (decent book, horrible film adaptation).
On the other hand, since Spielberg has shown himself capable of cinema at least as putrescent as Kubrick, maybe he's not such a bad choice after all!
4. It's stated a bit baldly, perhaps, but is no less true for all that. If you own any real property (most common examples being a car and a house), and don't pay taxes, a lien will be filed on you property. Eventually people will come to take your property away from you. If you resist, force commensurate to your resistance will be applied. If you resist strongly, you will be shot. Hence, all tax monies are levied under threat of lethal force. That fact doesn't invalidate the concept of taxation and/or government in general, although it does undermine them to a great extent.
5. Since lower levels of government have less ability to raise and allocate resources, they raise and allocate them on a local level. No one expects Los Angeles to pay for wiring up Des Moine's schools, or at least no one should. Des Moine's schools are Des Moine's problem.
6. Re: regional disparities: there's a broad-based private-enterprise solution. It's called a U-Haul.
1. I don't recall saying that economic divisions between races and classes in the USA were self-correcting. I said minority access to the net (being lower than net access for comparable-income whitefolk) was a self-correcting problem. For the record, however, social class is a much larger determinant than race, witness the poverty-stricken South, where lots of (white) people live in conditions at least or more squalid than the Oakland projects.
Look at the historical studies: the spit-upon minority (Irish in the early part of the 20th century, Italians, Jews) moves into the ghetto, works hard, studies, moves out. The new S-U M takes its place. The cycle of mobility breaks when black people move into the projects, especially circa LBJ -- and there's a strong case to be made that massive welfare spending is what's kept black people in the ghetto ever since.
2. What about the world outside North America? I'm afraid your point is unclear to me. Nations with restricted or less efficient telecommunications hobble themselves. If those nations are free (the populace expresses its desires in legislation through some useful mechanism, possibly democracy), they'll change. Otherwise, the disparity accelerates tensions until a revolt happens.
3. It's possible to the gubmint to develop enterprises, but it's hardly desirable, as it requires a standard of probity and honesty that, while not unavailable, is unsustainable. France, for example, attempted to ban web pages in English from France.
4. The degree of responsibility with which the US gubmint spends tax dollars does not alter the fundamental fact that it is money extracted under threat of lethal force.
Universal net access is a thoroughly local issue, one that can and should be handled more efficiently at a state, county or municipal level.
Could you concisely and unemotionally explain to me how taxing cable and tv sets to pay for books and libraries will increase black literacy? I'm afraid I don't see the connection.
Now, school vouchers, so people could send their children to good schools, instead of into the killing floor/sewer system/jail of current public education, that might help a bit.
Um, newsflash? The 'net hasn't been government supported or regulated (and whose government do you mean, anyway? it's an international entity) for quite some time, early nineties or so. NSI/ICANN are not government-affiliated (contractors, max). NSF funding for the 'net stopped years 'n years ago.
Oh, and the gubmint paying for everyone to have access is a *terrible* idea. Not only is it a stupid use of funds that are, like all funds, extracted under what's basically threat of deadly force (men with guns will come and take your shit if you don't pay taxes -- try it sometime), but it opens the floodgates wide, way wide, for government information stranglehold.
China, for example, tightly regulates I-net access and content -- it's not universal access, but it's single-point. If you have 'net at all in China, it's through the official Chinese gubmint or you're in deep kaka (dunno what the dilly-o with things in the HK is -- anyone got some info on that? HK-net vs. China-net, and freedom thereof, that is).
Before the Cox report, I would have argued that our gubmint is pretty different from China's. Now, of course, the differences seem to be, ah, not so deep.
Minority access to the 'net is a self-correcting problem, or it would be left to itself. Nonwhites have about the same random distribution of intellect as whitefolk; they'll catch on to what the pretty flashing lights coming from the mysterious boxes are all about, I promise.
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Just out of curiousity, doesn't anyone know where in the New Testament Jesus says you can ignore all the old dietary laws? I've been wondering about that one for a while...
What I've seen adduced is some vague passages where Jesus speaks of bringing a 'new covenant,' although the searchable-bible page I just tried doesn't pull anything up on that. Perhaps our local Creationist Troll can give us chapter and verse. What I've seen cited so far does not specifically address dietary and bodily maintenance (earlocks) laws, but just speaks vaguely about 'new covenants' and such, which is pretty weak grounds for shaving off your sideburns if you ask me.
gomi
Matthew Fox has a lovely metaphor for this ("ecumenical garbage!", I hear the Creationist Troll froth in background):
The world's religions are stained-glass windows in a lantern; God is the flame within.
I really dig Matthew Fox, crazy outlaw excommunicated former Jesuit that he is.
Religion isn't really a commutative or transmissible experience -- you either gots the feeling within, or you don't, and mileage varies wildly between folks.
gomi
Cute. This boils down to the 'golf ball' argument:
It's exceedingly unlikely that a golf ball driven off a tee by a golfer lands on one specific tuft of grass on the fairway, out of all the possible tufts of grass it could have landed on. Because it's so very unlikely, the inevitable conclusion is that the golfer deliberately guided the ball onto that tuft.
This doesn't follow -- it's an accident that humans have their current shape. Just because an event with low probability happens doesn't mean there's an agent behind it.
People win the lottery, despite huge odds against it. Are you saying God picks lottery winners and guides golf balls?
Of course you are. You're a Creationist. It seems to have seriously impaired your musical taste, too. I mean, the Pretenders? Nick Lowe? Costello? Yeesh. Get out of the 80's. Wouldn't Creed be more to your liking?
gomi
While we're at it, why don't you take a tour through leviticus and report back on how you're doing obeying gods laws that are listed there?
This came up much earlier, in one of the cloning articles. So I can confidently predict this weiner will come back with some tosh about how JEE-zus invalidates the Word of God in Leviticus about dietary laws and mixing fabrics and earlocks.
See, *he* gets to pick-and-choose God's Law, because he's wit' JEE-zus. Anyone who doesn't agree with him, though, will Burn In Hell (tm).
He sounds *just* like the wanker in that long-ago cloning thread, and frankly it's probably just some troller who gets his jollies impersonating a frothy Creationist. Do ignore him, and he'll go away.
Of course, there's a lot of value in modern Christian thought, but Sturgeon's Law inexorably applies there as elsewhere. You have to pick through a lot of crap to get to some really admirable and noble sentiments about getting along with your fellow earth-bound critters.
If the system really is set up that you can Accept Jee-zus, be a total asshole, and go to Heaven, and not Accept Jee-zus, be a self-sacrificing loving person, and go to Hell, then the system sucks and I want no part of it, and the God pushing that system can go fuck himself up the ass with a fire hydrant.
gomi
If a similar transcription error took place in the printing of a new Bible, it would from then on be the Word of the Lord(tm & amen).
Not exactly. See the medieval 'Infamous Bibles,'
which contained some droll misprints, among which was 'Thou shalt commit adultery' in the listing of the Commandments. Typically the print run was destroyed, but surviving specimens are worth Bux.
Alas, the world would be a happier place if that version had gotten accepted. Or at least entertainingly different.
Honestly, you can get a much bigger sense of awe and wonder about the universe from reading a molecular biology or embryology journal (or watching pictures from astronomical probes), than from reading a typical book of the Bible.
Hell yes. I've had transcendent mystical experiences in a parking lot, just looking at trees and sunlight and thinking of all the Serious Neatness involved in the Universe at large. Religion (in the broad sense of awe and humility before the Universe) is completely compatible with science.
It's kind of cute how the frothy God-types have no trouble typing on their science-derived computers in their science-derived lifestyles. Thankless and rather moronic, but cute nonetheless.
gomi
You can't prove that God doesn't exist any more than he can prove that God does exist (or, even postulating the existence of a god, that his god is the right one.)
Hell, the Creationist Troll is even on better logical ground, since proving a positive ("there is a God," where 'God' is suitably defined) is at least logically possible, whereas proving a negative ("There is no God,") isn't even theoretically possible.
I'll freely admit I believe there's a God because I find it comforting, and I'd rather ascribe the universe's elegant design to intent rather than randomness. I'll also freely admit it's an utterly untenable position from any logical proof standpoint, and that there's no evidence whatsoever one way or the other. It works for me, I haven't been inside a church in years, and I don't ask that anyone agree with my position Or Die.
But then, I believe in the general idea of God, not in a specifically pinned-down Scripture-type God like the Creationist Troll seems to.
Absolutely believing in God and absolutely denying the existence of God in the absence of evidence one way or the other are equally acts of faith -- the atheist is committing just as much to his dogma as the Creationist Troll is to his.
And yes, they all too often tend to subscribe to human-hating doctrines like Randism or bizarro Nietzsche misquotes.
gomi
ayn rand mcnally: 'get lost. we don't care.'
'Course, I'm no physicist. But, if you could send matter into a parallel universe, wouldn't that violate the conservation of mass and energy?
Sure. That's why it's an exciting theory. Conservation of Mass and Energy are serious limiting factors, and I for one am pretty glad to see anything that potentially gets around them.
Just because things are 'Laws' doesn't mean they're inviolable -- see causality and FTL communication. Just because FTL communication would presumably violate causality is not in and of itself reason to say FTL-comm is impossible. You just violate causality and get along from there.
gomi
While I find the caring, un-grim Gaiman Death a good deal more comforting than the traditional depiction, I can certainly see how it would tork some people off. I don't find Gaiman to be uniformly Godlike, but "Neverwhere" was quite good, albeit strongly British in flavor, and "Good Omens" benefited from the occasional injection of serious High Theme into the non-stop barrage of Pratchetty ludicrosity. Nothing against Pratchett -- lots of people like him, and I suppose he's funny in a broad, Three's Company sort of way, but too much of that sort of thing wears thin really fast. Good Omens got the silly/serious mix Just Right, and remains one of my favorite books to date.
Both Marvel and DC, to go on a tangent from the Cosmic Theme thing, really handle Cosmic Themes poorly -- it's hard to say who does it worse. Some good Cosmic Theme Melodrama can be found in anime (Grey comes to mind), or (for a closer shore) Watchmen.
gomi
Get the TPBs -- they're conveniently numbered so you know the sequence, although this seemed to bother someone elsewhere in this discussion (god only knows why).
Personally, I'd say you can skip 'Doll's House' and 'Game of You,' which were really slow and unclear, but your mileage may vary. I really enjoyed 'Season of Mists,' which as a stand-alone graphic novel is equal to legendary works such as 'Watchmen' or 'Dark Knight Returns.'
Single issues will be (a) hard to find, and (b) more expensive, even at currently deflated prices.
gomi
and get all the transmetropolitan you can find RIGHT NOW.
It's not the knowledge that helps. It's the communications. Thousands of people in touch with each other, possibly through OneList. Remember all those instructions on counterrevolutionary terrorist guerrilla tactics that are easily available on the Web? Yeah, those.
Massive insurrection and violence in North Korea, followed by the emergence of a strong dictator, followed (after good-intentioned meddling from the West) by some cobbled-together, easily-botched democracy like any other developing nation. Years of brittle peace, the occasional coup, and struggling economies follow.
Beats the hell out what's currently going on in North Korea, tho.
And the little girl is probably toast, unless (duh) you feed her your own flesh and blood. You're probably not in the greatest of shapes yourself, but if she's dying, and you're still conscious and ambulatory, you could probably cut off a chunk of thigh or something. I mean, food is food. Not a lot of carbos in meat, but better than shoe leather, and it might keep her going until (facetious) WebVan shows up with the delivery, or (serious) an airlift of food shows up.
D'oh! Also forgot to mention that people in touch with portable secure communication thingees can effective pool food resources, hide them from soldiers (although the poor bastards are probably starving themselves, if they want to take it away from you they shouldn't have any), and distribute fairly. As has been mentioned before in this thread, famines are almost always distribution, rather than production, fuckups. Korea's nice farming land -- no reason other than horrifying mismanagement by the incredibly cretinous NK gov for the current terrible sitch.
gomi
Any way you try to dance around it, guns are for hurting. and don't start saying that you use them for target shooting.
Sure, they're for hurting. But you seem to think that's automatically a Bad Thing. If there's a thug who wants my money/stereo/life, you bet I'll want to hurt that person until they stop. And having the right tools for the job always helps.
For the dual purposes of (a) self-defence, which is ultimately my responsibility and (b) a last resort in the face of encroaching tyranny (not something I think we're currently in danger of, hyperbole from Left and Right notwithstanding), I'll take a firearm over a knife or judo class any damn time of day.
bulls**t....use a pellet gun or something. same idea, but you can't kill people with it too.
If you can't kill someone with a pellet gun, you're not trying hard enough. Oodles of injuries a year from pellet guns, some quite serious. And of course, the sturdier ones make for dandy clubs.
Look, coaxial cable can be used to strangle somebody, but nobody's trying to ban possession of coax.
Well, because someone's going to bring up the exclusive-use thing ("But a gun's only purpose is to kill/hurt! Waah!"), I'll extend the analogy to cover that:
Just because coax cable can be used to download criminal data of all stripes, from the fairly innocuous pr0n/warez to the more sinister child porn, doesn't make coax cable Evil. Just as there are Rights and Wrongs in data transmission, there are Rights and Wrongs in hurting, and yes, killing. Guns are a tool. Hate what's built with them if it's evil, but focusing on the tool is misleading and ultimately futile.
gomi
Just put something cold over the sensor and get Coke for cheap! Even if consumer reaction doesn't kill this, sensor-spoofing ought to be pretty trivial.
gomi
I have to disagree -- Cryptonomicon has the best ending Stephenson has written so far. Ironic, considering it's first in a series. You see it coming from far enough away that it's not abrupt and out-of-nowhere, like Diamond Age's ending, and it's a *good* ending -- there are loose ends, but this is an excellent resting point, with one of the big tensions resolved and the road ahead before the characters.
I'm not sure why people thought the math in Cryptonomicon is off-putting, though -- there wasn't that much of it, and it wasn't that complex, and it was relatively easy to skip anyway, if you were so inclined.
gomi
I'd hardly call this a 'direct lift.' In 'The Penal Colony' (Penile Colony is likely rated X and not available at Blockbuster), the torment of the needle/carving machine is meant to be the punishment, and is done on the prisoner's backs/stomachs -- not a normally visible area. Also, nowhere does Kafka mention that the brand is meant to warn others of the criminal's past misbehaviours. So, they're very, very vaguely similar, in the way that Huxley's _soma_ in Brave New World is vaguely similar to the 'Eat Me' and 'Drink Me' stuff in Through the Looking Glass, but soma is hardly a 'direct lift' from Reverend Dodgson.
But yes, Kafka is good. Get Kafka. You will like it, and not just the standard 'Metamorphosis' -- "Penal Colony" and "The Trial" are excellent.
If you're just too goddam happy, read 'A Hundred Years of Solitude' by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, in the original Spanish if you can manage it. At the end, you're so goddam depressed you lack the energy to get up and slit your wrists. Definitely a read-once, not a read-many-times, but read it the once -- the power to evoke emotion with ink on paper is just staggering.
gomi
Borges is nigh-unto godliness. Windy at times, but that happens to most folks. "The Disc of Odin" is probably my second-fave after "The Book of Sand." Or possibly "The Library of Babel." Damn, they're all good.
Vonnegut? Really? I enjoyed _Sirens of Titan_, but there's such a strong vein of hatred and contempt for humanity that runs through all his works that I can't stomach him at all -- I guess I'm actually an optimist under the cynical, jaded exterior. But Vonnegut seems to really believe that all human endeavor is not only futile but base and contemptible, and that's just no fun to read.
Stephen R. Donaldson is highly recommended (but you can skip the second Thomas Covenant trilogy). The Gap cycle, on the other hand, is almost impossible to over-praise. Desperation, and the things people do when they're out of options, is a theme that runs through everything Donaldson has written, but in the Gap cycle this is brought to a bitter needle's point. Redemption from the ashes, lesser evils fighting greater evils, excellent characters, a sprawling, multi-layered plot, and a fast-paced, panting conclusion -- I re-read these 5 books every year. It rocks.
Also, if you're tired of goth weenies, read Stephen Brust's Agyar. Along with the painful-to-read (but not because it's badly done) To Reign in Hell, this is Brust's best work.
gomi
I don't know about the rest of the volk, but I'm desperate for recommendations because I've read everything good that I own twice already, and I'm out of authors that don't suck. Just today, I've finally gotten enough recommendations for Lois McMaster Bujold on this thread that I might finally get past the inane cover art/back blurbs and pick one up (but god, they make her books come off as cretinous when they design the covers).
It isn't so much 'tell me what to read' as 'what's good out there that i might have missed?'
Much, much science fiction and fantasy is utter garbage, and the ratios just get worse if you start insisting on craftsmanship -- details like plot and characterization and story-telling skill, rather than just pandering to techlust.
I mean, you can only read so many 'This Alien Shore' and 'Wizard's First Rule' type books before you give up in disgust and go back to the tried-and-true.
gomi
Okay, every Heinlein after Stranger can be summarised in one line:
Supergenius scientist fucks his daughter, saves the world.
I mean, the endless, sordid, kinky sex through which the same tired plot drags through...oy, and the characterization! I mean, he's as bad as Niven. Not that I'm agin kinky sex, but trying to pass off this glorified stroke book for pervs as great literature ain't gonna fly.
Heinlein was a hateful, misanthropic crank who wrote his best books early (Harsh Mistress is amont the more decent ones, and it's still laughable in parts). Every woman I've ever met who's read 'Friday' despises it (oh, yes, women *love* being felt up and raped, and often *want* to marry their rapists).
gomi
That's facile, bordering on cretinous. The desire to gengineer offspring is societal, not gene-derived. In fact, it's a direct expression of the desire to have genetically strong offspring, which is core a survival/procreation drive.
There's nothing to worry about vis-a-vis gengineered offspring because it's fundamentally Not A Big Deal. I'm really amused at all the neo-Luddites going on about the horrible lack of diversity in such a future and how we'll all be raising blond, blue-eyed six-footers. Oh, yeah. That's what every black, latino, and asian couple wants to raise, not to mention the interracials (which latinos are, by definition almost -- biracial before it was trendy, we were). Genetic diversity is safe because people want different things in offspring. And people still like surprises -- look at how many couples deliberately choose not to know their child's gender until it's born.
And, personally, I'd much rather gengineer a subhuman servitor race to take out the trash and keep the sewers clean than condemn intelligent humans to demeaning, soul-crushing work.
Yeesh, people, give it a rest. Nano is a *lot* scarier, but because it doesn't tap into bizarre procreative prejudices, it gets a hell of a lot more support than gengineering, which is significantly more interesting in terms of quality-of-life.
gomi
If it's unborn, dollink, it ain't a child.
Strictly a semantic nitpick, tho -- I'm willing to equate late-term abortion to infanticide, but don't expect me to get all worked up over either. Strict supply-and-demand implies human life has never been cheaper, and it's better to knock the little buggers off early and humanely if it's to be done at all.
gomi
I'm not sure if you realize this, but there's almost no attention paid to modern crypto in Cryptonomicon, at least not in the technical sense. It's *mentioned,* sure, and as an important plot point, but I certainly don't remember seeing pages and pages of number theory.
Crypto is mentioned in Cryptonomicon about as much as tech in a good science fiction book -- enough to draw the setting and provide plot hooks, but not enough to get in the way of the story.
Stephenson doesn't need to focus more to be an excellent author -- he's doing quite well already. Just look at how his ability to coherently end a book has improved with Cryptonomicon (rather ironic given that it's the first in a series).
As someone who does read a lot of novels, I can tell you that multiple subplots are a boon -- they drive the attention forward, and the contrast between different storylines enhances both.
The present-day plotline was *vital* to the book -- the Shaftoe/Turing plotlines simply don't stand alone without the Randy plotline to give the WWII events closure. And Randy provides a modern-day viewpoint for readers to follow, which is also crucial.
I'm not sure if you realise, but E.T. and Close Encounters suck dead donkey turds. E.T. is a manipulative piece of tripe, and Close Encounters is almost as boring as 2001 (decent book, horrible film adaptation).
On the other hand, since Spielberg has shown himself capable of cinema at least as putrescent as Kubrick, maybe he's not such a bad choice after all!
4. It's stated a bit baldly, perhaps, but is no less true for all that. If you own any real property (most common examples being a car and a house), and don't pay taxes, a lien will be filed on you property. Eventually people will come to take your property away from you. If you resist, force commensurate to your resistance will be applied. If you resist strongly, you will be shot. Hence, all tax monies are levied under threat of lethal force. That fact doesn't invalidate the concept of taxation and/or government in general, although it does undermine them to a great extent.
5. Since lower levels of government have less ability to raise and allocate resources, they raise and allocate them on a local level. No one expects Los Angeles to pay for wiring up Des Moine's schools, or at least no one should. Des Moine's schools are Des Moine's problem.
6. Re: regional disparities: there's a broad-based private-enterprise solution. It's called a U-Haul.
gomi
1. I don't recall saying that economic divisions between races and classes in the USA were self-correcting. I said minority access to the net (being lower than net access for comparable-income whitefolk) was a self-correcting problem. For the record, however, social class is a much larger determinant than race, witness the poverty-stricken South, where lots of (white) people live in conditions at least or more squalid than the Oakland projects.
Look at the historical studies: the spit-upon minority (Irish in the early part of the 20th century, Italians, Jews) moves into the ghetto, works hard, studies, moves out. The new S-U M takes its place. The cycle of mobility breaks when black people move into the projects, especially circa LBJ -- and there's a strong case to be made that massive welfare spending is what's kept black people in the ghetto ever since.
2. What about the world outside North America? I'm afraid your point is unclear to me. Nations with restricted or less efficient telecommunications hobble themselves. If those nations are free (the populace expresses its desires in legislation through some useful mechanism, possibly democracy), they'll change. Otherwise, the disparity accelerates tensions until a revolt happens.
3. It's possible to the gubmint to develop enterprises, but it's hardly desirable, as it requires a standard of probity and honesty that, while not unavailable, is unsustainable. France, for example, attempted to ban web pages in English from France.
4. The degree of responsibility with which the US gubmint spends tax dollars does not alter the fundamental fact that it is money extracted under threat of lethal force.
Universal net access is a thoroughly local issue, one that can and should be handled more efficiently at a state, county or municipal level.
gomi
Could you concisely and unemotionally explain to me how taxing cable and tv sets to pay for books and libraries will increase black literacy? I'm afraid I don't see the connection.
Now, school vouchers, so people could send their children to good schools, instead of into the killing floor/sewer system/jail of current public education, that might help a bit.
gomi
Um, newsflash? The 'net hasn't been government supported or regulated (and whose government do you mean, anyway? it's an international entity) for quite some time, early nineties or so. NSI/ICANN are not government-affiliated (contractors, max). NSF funding for the 'net stopped years 'n years ago.
Oh, and the gubmint paying for everyone to have access is a *terrible* idea. Not only is it a stupid use of funds that are, like all funds, extracted under what's basically threat of deadly force (men with guns will come and take your shit if you don't pay taxes -- try it sometime), but it opens the floodgates wide, way wide, for government information stranglehold.
China, for example, tightly regulates I-net access and content -- it's not universal access, but it's single-point. If you have 'net at all in China, it's through the official Chinese gubmint or you're in deep kaka (dunno what the dilly-o with things in the HK is -- anyone got some info on that? HK-net vs. China-net, and freedom thereof, that is).
Before the Cox report, I would have argued that our gubmint is pretty different from China's. Now, of course, the differences seem to be, ah, not so deep.
Minority access to the 'net is a self-correcting problem, or it would be left to itself. Nonwhites have about the same random distribution of intellect as whitefolk; they'll catch on to what the pretty flashing lights coming from the mysterious boxes are all about, I promise.
gomi