Back To The Primitive

What if, tomorrow, society fell and everything that we took for granted went out the window? No microwaves, no TV, no Wal-Mart, no newspapers, no aircraft, GPS, cellphones, manufacturing, shipping, soap, Wonder-bread; all of it gone? What would those of us (or them) who work in a rarefied environment where they are no more than over-specialized drones who type away in cubicles, sifting through 'data', crunching numbers, and endlessly trolling through databases? What happens when the only data that's important is 'what are we going to eat'?

Were we better off as primitives? Does society make our lives 'easier' and if so, IS that better? Or would the fall of industry and technology foster a return to 'Eden', so to speak? Often called the 'cozy catastrophe, it's a common premise in post apocalyptic novels, particularly those of British science fiction writers after World War 2 (Thank you, Wikipedia).

But is it a valid idea?

Consider this; There was a passage in a book I read (A Mote In God's Eye) that explained how a 'civilized' organism stops evolving. By the time we develop a civilization, we protect the sick and the weak, everyone is given an equal chance to procreate and contribute to the gene pool. There is no more 'survival of the fittest', Darwinism no longer applies.

And what have we lost? Men and women still have urges that they strive to satisfy. The boy seeks acceptance of peers through competition, men seek status and power through their job, the stock market or the conquest of women.

Girls play with dolls and create cliques with their friends. Women estimate men in correlation to their current fertility as much as the males material resources. They even 'nest' when pregnant.

These urges and drives may be seen as anachronisms, out-dated, outmoded, no longer relevant to modern society and in the case of those I have ascribed to females, misogynistic and chauvinist. Yet, deep inside us, these urges still boil beneath the veneer of 'civilized' man. We attempt to placate them through sports, acquisition of possessions, gender amplification and a youth obsessive culture.

Materialism and consumerism are both extensions of the need to hunt and conquer. Men seek better 'toys' and material wealth to reap sexual rewards from women seeking to better their position and their access to resources. Most of this happens at a subconscious (or semi-conscious) level. None the less, those who eschew the norm are ostracized to lesser positions of society and become, by extension, less 'desirable'. This occurs even at the earliest stages of gender interactions, but begins to become most obvious at the High School level.

We desperately attempt to fill that hole in our lives with money, status, and power, but they are fleeting, illusions brought on by the artificial environment of the ‘Modern World’. We are not as strong nor can we endure as those who came before us have. To be certain, we have brought forth astounding technologies, plumbed the depth of the atom and pierced the shadowy veil of the Universe to glimpse the very edge of time; achievements and wonders that would bring the Ancients to their knees, groveling in terror and awe. Yet, we stand on the shoulders of giants. The average man knows how to WORK a piece of technology, but not HOW it works, much less WHY it works. Long ago, it was the man, alone, who won glory and honor through pain and perseverance as much as with guile and cleverness.

Early Man, for all his savagery and brutishness, is the template on which we base the ‘Heroic Being’. He defied nature, persisted, thrived, wrenched his existence unapologetically from the world, while you and I order pizza by telephone, entertainment streaming in from around the world at the touch of a button all from the comfort of our cozy little homes, heated or air-conditioned, depending on nuanced preference and coddled desire.

Yes, our technology is splendid and magnificent, yet it pales in comparison to standing on the frozen plain, wind biting through hand-sewn pelts, grasping a spear of yew and flint, eyes narrow, feet planted, body braced to meet the raging beast thundering towards you, hunger and blood lust steeling your nerve. You and your tribe will eat tonight or you will die!

What is a Big Mac or even a fillet mignon compared to the salty, savory flesh, still warm and steaming in your hand, cut from the animal you and your brothers laid low not moments ago? A great creature, revered for it's strength and the sustenance that it now provides. You will sing song to him tonight, paint your face in his blood to gain his strength, wear his teeth around your neck to honor him and drape his furs around your children. This mighty creature will live forever in your memory and that of your tribe.

What is the sterile glass tower to the giant monuments of stone, shaped by flesh and bone, sweat and blood? Tens of thousands of hands beating, pulling, lifting together, hewing goliaths from bones of the Earth that dwarf all around them?

Structures immune to storm and sand, earthquake and flood or war and famine. The will live beyond every soul you know and can possibly conceive of and they will fill those who come after with awe and reverence at your mighty achievements.

What good is the ability to debug thousands of lines of code versus the knowledge to conjure fire, to knap flint into a celt or to carve an atlatl? An iPhone may be an amazing piece of technology, but it's genius is nothing compared to that of the first arrowhead or hand ax. Today we rely on thousands of years of cataloged knowledge to create, we, as I have said, stand on the shoulders of giants. How can this even compare with the cold and hungry primitive, sitting in the wilderness, who, from nothing but stick and stone, gave birth to all technology? What supreme inspiration, what magnificent insight, what sheer brilliance. All that we are, every achievement and advance, we owe to this nameless benefactor, yet we muddle along in a over saturated media fog, witless and impotent, striving for nothing more that the next digital fix.

What will our descendants think of us, perfumed and pampered, fat and indolent?

I wonder.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.

Thomas Jefferson, Letter to the Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin (1802)
3rd president of US (1743 - 1826)

I must've rewritten this post 5 times in the last 2 weeks and each time I tried to be rational and even handed, but since I saw the debates, both presidential and VP, I am having a hard time not spitting piss and vinegar.

We are in an economic free fall and all these bastards can do is NATIONALIZE the financial system of America?!?! Christ, I never thought I would live to see the day that Ayn Rand would be a prophet of things to come, except Atlas is begging for a handout. I mean, Even Venezuela is calling Bush 'Comrade'!

Did any of you watch the debates? Do they think we're stupid? No of them answered a single question directly!

Look, what we need is leadership people, someone to come out and say, 'Hey, calm down! this is America and we can do ANYTHING! Who else put people on the Moon? Who else created Voyager 1 and 2, the Hubble Telescope, the light bulb, the telephone, the radio (Tesla was naturalized) and the atomic bomb (OK bad example, but we WERE first).

FDR once said "The American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory!".

THAT was leadership! This from the guy that said all we had to fear was fear itself! FROM A FUCKING WHEELCHAIR!!!

Where is that leadership now? I don't give a rat's ass if Obama is a Muslim or if Palin fired her sister's husband, I want someone to come out and tell me where the Hell this country is going and how to get there. Is that too much to ask from the next leader of the free world?

I'm too pissed to write more, I'll post later.

The Prodigal Son Returns

Hey, by the way, I'm back to posting again. Not that anyone's reading, but I thought I'd let the world know. I'll try to keep a little more on schedule for now on.

The Road

I don’t think I have ever read a book quite like The Road. It is quiet and somber, yet capable of moments of bleak and shuddering terror. I'll refrain from writing a summary of the story as many other sites have already done so.

Rather I would like to give my impressions of the book. Lately the media seems filled with dark and gritty stories, with the intention of infusing a tale with ‘realism’. Let’s, for example, take Batman: The Dark Night. I thought it was a great movie, but not quiet as good as the first. Batman Begins is a story of the triumph of a good man over his demons; the hope of redemption for a little boy haunted by feelings of guilt over the death of his parents. The new movie seems to be an exercise in the limits of what one man can endure before becoming what he hates most. It is missing the very thing that made the first movie so good, the ‘Why do we fall?’ moments that gives insight into why a tortured soul like Bruce Wayne might become a hero rather than a murdering vigilante.

To be fair, The Road shares much of the brutal tension of the second Batman movie. It is bleak and sparse and at times uncomfortable. Yet, through it all, there shines moments of a father’s love for his son that are truly moving. As a father myself, it is impossible not to identify with ‘The Man’ and not to see my son’s face on ‘The Boy’. I think that is what makes the book so powerful; it forces us to ask, ‘What would I do if I were in that situation?’.

The thought makes my blood run cold.

The book also reinforces my complete lack of faith in humanity as a whole. I can only hope I’m wrong and we might find some way to remain ‘human’ if such a disaster were to arise, even if our extinction was inevitable. If history is any indicator, it’s not really a safe bet.

I also hope that the book prods those into thinking more about how fragile the world around us is. I am not a 'tree-hugger' by any stretch of the imagination, but the thought of sharing the globe with naught but mold, fungus and cannibals is enough to remind of just how good we have it and how bad things can get. I, for one, make damn sure I recycle everything I can, and you better believe if my car is idle for more than 10 seconds, I turn the engine off. I know it ain’t much, but something small is ALWAYS better than nothing.

In the end, I doubt things would ever get as bad as the book describes them. Humans may die out to be sure, but I really think we are too insignificant a species to ‘kill’ the Earth. Nature has survived far worse catastrophes than we could possibly throw at her and she has always found a way to hold on and thrive again. We on the other had, may not be so tenacious. We may just be stupid enough and vicious enough to deserve what’s coming to us.

So be it.

...But I hope not. I hope there are some good guys among us still, with the sense to do what’s right and the compassion to keep carrying the fire.

Zombies, Killer robots and one Hell of an impact

My wife is deathly afraid of asteroids. I’m not sure when this fear manifested itself, whether it was the rash of ‘impact disaster movies’ like ‘Deep Impact’ and ‘Armageddon’ (which were both preceded by the woefully campy ‘Meteor’) or the fact that mainstream scientists and public are just starting to realize the danger of Near Earth Objects. The danger is real, I just wonder if we aren’t wasting our time worrying about it. After all, if something truly enormous were heading our way, I don’t think there is anything we could do about it. According to the Giant Impact Theory, the Earth was struck with an object roughly the size of Mars and the aftermath created the Moon. While I think the likelihood of such an impact reoccurring in the next dozen centuries is remote, if it were what the Hell could we do about it? Nothing. The same goes for anything that is more than a few kilometers in diameter. I’d like to think that the leaders of the world have a contingency plan for this level of disaster, but the fact that my township literally picks my pockets and can’t seem to get my street plowed before I need to go to work doesn’t give me much faith in the competence of government officials. Who knows, we seem to be remarkably good at figuring better ways to blow shit up, maybe we’ll be in our element.

Think about this; If you were an invading Alien civilization, would you:

a) land on a planet and fight it’s inhabitants hand to hand,
b) try to infiltrate the society and take it over from within
c) send a few cheap and plentiful asteroids towards the planet from millions of miles away, completely out of reach of their most advanced technology, to smash the living dog-shit out of everyone and everything and then take whatever the Hell you wanted from the smoldering ruins?

Consider, for a moment, how the United States defeated Japan and I think you’ll have your answer. We wouldn’t even see those motherfuckers coming. In fact when they do come to Earth after the ‘Great Space-Rock Shit-Storm’ and if there’s any of us left to see them land; we’ll probably greet them as saviors and Gods, gleefully serving our new green-skinned masters as willing slaves. I can’t justifying exploring alien invasion any further, because personally, I don’t believe that the expenditure of resources needed to travel between stars is worth whatever we could possibly have to offer and even if an aggressive alien intelligence had designs on the resources Earth might provide, they would more than likely handle it the way I’ve already mentioned. If some alien species were stupid enough to land here and wanted to slug it out with a race of paranoid, homicidal, hate-drive monkeys with access to nuclear weapons, I think it would fast become brutally apparent how ready we are to kill ourselves, let alone some other, big-headed, twinkle-toed E.T. motherfucker. It wouldn’t be long before the Earth was a smoking, radio-active cinder, littered with the remains of both resident and visitor. Why do you think S.E.T.I. hasn’t heard a single radio signal yet? This entire region of space is probably thought of as a penal-colony island of bloodthirsty, leper-retards; the special ed. classroom of the galaxy. Would you vacation there? Fuck NO!

The inevitable Zombie Holocaust is another matter altogether. The recent breakthrough of creating stem cells from adult skin cells using viruses to rewrite it’s DNA almost makes this a lead pipe cinch. And you know what? The majority of these cells end up cancerous. From what I understand, cancer cells are virtually immortal. Didn’t these guys ever play Resident Evil? I mean what the fuck were they thinking? Do they WANT there to be zombies rising up and consuming the living? Unless of course that’s where they got the idea to begin with. You can rest assured, if something, no matter how repugnant, inhumane and evil, is possible, somebody somewhere is already doing it. Regardless of what these knuckle-heads had in mind, the shit is going to hit the fan when it all goes down and Milla Jovovich ain’t gonna be around to save your fat, lazy latte slurpin’ ass this time. You want to cure America’s obesity problem? Fuck Jenny Craig, fuck Weight Watchers and fuck Richard Simmons; you just unleash a bunch of unstoppable ghouls craving human flesh on the public and you’ll see big waistlines (and the people attached to them) disappear over night. Why? Because overweight people can’t climb ropes and neither can zombies. That’s an interesting coincidence, huh? I know where my happy-go-lucky ass is going to be when the dead rise; up a frigging rope with a gun somewhere. Zombies (traditional ones anyway) can’t run, and surprisingly enough heavy people tend not to be too light on their feet either. You will never see Nike pay millions to an overweight, pasty-faced World of Warcraft champion to endorse their new line high-tops for the indoor athlete. So just keep stuffing your face with Hot-pockets and pizza-rolls and you might as well tattoo ‘Zombie-Chow’ across your forehead.


That leads us to the Robot rebellion. I guess there’s a few ways this could go down. My guess that the most likely possibility for the machine revolt is the upcoming Technological Singularity as described by I.J. Good, Verner Vinge and Ray Kurzwiel. This is based on the principle of ‘Accelerating Returns’, when technological advances grow exponentially and for the first time, synthetic intelligence will surpass that of the organic and machines will begin to design smarter machines. There are people who embrace this concept as a new techno-utopia. It would be a world of cybernetic implants, bionic replacement parts and wetware interfaces, one where the distinction between human and machine would be forever blurred. This would be a quiet and bloodless revolution, one where we are slowly replaced, piece by piece, individual by individual, until all that remained was the memory of a once great people. That would be our legacy; to be forgotten by the children of our brilliance and ingenuity. Perhaps that’s for the best. Perhaps the natural order of things goes from inert to organic to synthetic. It's sort of how Bruce Lee got screwed out of starring in Kung-Fu, an idea he conceived and created as a vehicle for himself to star in. The big machine of Hollywood rolled right over him, took his idea and left him to die.....OK, they didn’t leave him to die and it's a terrible analogy, but you get the picture.

Another way this could happen, would be the ‘Gray Goo’ scenario in which self-replication nano-bots reproduce out of control and convert everything on Earth in to a replication of themselves. Imagine the example of putting one grain of rice on a single square of a chess board, then doubling the number of grains in the second one. Imagine continuing this procedure, square after square, 2 then 4 then 8 then 16 then 32 then 64, until the final square has
18,446,744,073,709,551,615 grains of rice. Now imagine that continuing, each microscopic machine doubling again and again into infinity. They need to get their raw materials from somewhere, right? What if some distant alien civilization has already been consumed by their own self-replicating, space-worthy nano creations and slowly but surely, as inevitable as the spread organic microorganisms, the ‘Gray Goo’ is branching out, swallowing the planet of origin and it’s closet neighbors, then the star itself, then the entire solar system, then the galaxy, moving closer to us, spreading outward, ever onward, ever hungry, with but a single purpose; reproduce.

The final scenario would be the classic Hollywood story, seen in such films as The Terminator, The Matrix and just about every other movie, TV show and novel about machines taking over. This is probably the only case in which we might have a chance. Machines are predictable and eventually break down; humans on the other hand, are evil sons o’ bitches and reproduce like rabbits the worse the conditions are. It probably wouldn’t take long for us to simply out-fuck the machines and bury their troops in skeletons. But then again, seeing how society is today, it really isn’t that difficult for me to imagine mankind’s regression into savagery after having it’s conveniences stripped away. How many people retain the basic knowledge it takes to tune up their car? Or to fix their brakes or change a tire? How many people could build shelter, start a fire, hunt for food, gut a fish, tan hides, make warm clothes, read a compass, weave a blanket, set a bone or stitch a wound, or even come close to the basic skills that our primitive ancestors possessed? Robert Heinlein said as much and more, “Specialization is for insects”. Shit, how many of you have more than the general working knowledge of your PC that it takes to receive your email? I think the machines have already started to take over, only they haven’t gotten any smarter, we’ve become dumber.

In retrospect, it really doesn’t matter how it all ends. There are too many people and not enough resources to go around forever. Surely science will work wonders over the next few decades, perhaps centuries and that is the very hallmark of what it is to be human. We are problem solvers and question askers. We adapt, we think our way out of situations, we strive and we triumph, but how long can it last? Something has to give, and I don’t think the Earth, bless her heart, has that much more left in her.

However, the only real way to avoid the wholesale extinction of the Human race is to do what every other organism does to flourish, thrive and survive; seek out new environments to inhabit; i.e.: colonize other planets. I know, I know, there are enough problems right here on Earth that we could be spending our money on, but consider this; it can’t last forever. Not the way it’s going anyway. Gamma-ray bursts, collapse of ocean ecosystems, global warming, antibiotic resistant- pandemics, pollution, war, disease, bio-terrorism, famine, overpopulation, caldera eruptions, asteroids, etc: anyone of these could push us to the brink if not eliminate us out of hand. Why have all your eggs in one basket?

Think about it.

Portal, Bioshock and a very, very long book.

I meant to post this a few weeks ago, but I figured since I took the time to write it, I might as well post it.


I just finished Portal, or rather I got to the end, got frustrated at the final ‘orb’, went to bed and the next day my wife finished her game from the middle on, which pretty much eliminates the need for me to finish my game.

What a great game. People have been complaining that it’s too short, but I think that’s the beauty of it. There are so many ‘sandbox games out there that it’s nice to be able to sit down to a nice linear, goal oriented game and puzzle through some obstacles. The payoff was worth it too. While I don’t think you can compare the depth and richness of the Randian undertones of Bioshock (by far my favorite game premise to date), the paranoia induced by GLaDOS’s ramblings was fantastic. All of that topped off with ‘Still Alive’. I am firm believer that if something can be done; it’s being done right now in some secret lab to people that didn’t exactly ‘volunteer’.

And speaking of Bioshock, I am surprised that it took this long for a game based on Objectivism to be created. Atlas Shrugged, as unbelievably ponderous and nigh unreadable as it was, did paint a picture of heroic archetypes; men that created the engines of the world and where honor bound by there own ethics, not to live of the lives of others. John Galt, Harry Reardon and Dagny Taggart were brilliant captains of industry, who worshipped progress, honored logic and hard work and absolutely despised sloth and unearned merit.

Don’t most players follow the tenets of rational self-interest when dealing with their surroundings in a game, even when they don’t realize it? Are most in-game heroes industrious, hard-nosed and determined everymen, from Link and Mario to Lara Croft and Master Chief? And don’t most games hinge on the premise that the heroes are honorable, that they will not use their gifts take advantage of those without them? This is where the fantasy of Objectivism and video game heroism are most similar; the assumption that people are good. Consider Superman. If he were to really exist, I don’t think it would be too long before he used his power to subjugate the Earth, and in all likely hood, destroy it. People suck, and in her heart, Ayn probably knew it. As cool as it was to have him fix the machine they were trying to kill him with, I sincerely doubt John Galt would have been saying anything out than “For the love of God, please stop electrocuting my balls!” as they tortured him.

I do find it ironic that the ‘Good’ ending of the game is only obtained through Altruism. Not being an Objectivist, it’s the ending I chose. What Would John Galt Do? Of course it’s unfair to allude that rational self interest extends to murdering little girls to further your own ends. In fact it’s exactly what Andrew Ryan was speaking against; parasites and slave masters living off the work, sweat and blood of others. That is Atlas/Fontaine in a nutshell.

What we need is more games of this caliber, games that are well written and provide provocative food for thought. I hear that there’s a prequel possibly in the works for Bioshock and with the release of The Orange Box, one can only hope that Valve is planning even more content of the level of Half-Life 2.

Cloverfield

I saw Cloverfield on Sunday and have to say that I have mixed emotions about it. I really liked the movie. I enjoyed the man on the street perspective and the realism that the jittery handi-cam lent to the movie, but I couldn’t help thinking to myself at least a dozen or so times ‘There’s no way in friggin’ Hell I would still be carrying that fucking thing!”. I mean the first chance I got to use it as a club or a projectile I would of. Screw posterity, those bugs look like nasty son’s o’ bitches.

I was also disappointed with how little you get to see the monster. I do understand that this elevated the tension and made it seem more realistic. I mean who in their right mind would stop to get a shot framed properly when a giant city smashing monster that has body lice the size of Labradors dropping off of it is running around. Stupid people who deserve what they get, but I would have liked to have a little more of the monster shown. This is a movie after all and half the fun is seeing the monster. It isn’t REAL documentary footage and I don’t think any of us in the theater were likely to have held that against them.

There’s also supposed to be something at the end of the movie both in the final shot and in the last few seconds after the credits, neither of which I saw. One is an object falling into the water which supposedly can be seen from the couple’s vantage point on the Ferris Wheel. The other is a recording of a transmission just at the end that reportedly opens up the possibility of a sequel. I guess I’ll have to pay the ten bucks to see it again and try to catch them both.

All in all, I liked the film and left wanting more, which is the hallmark of any good movie. I’ve read that the sequel may be the same events from another person’s point of view or perhaps another camcorder rather than an traditionally shot movie. I hope not. One vomit inducing movie night per decade is enough for me.