I’m Not Saying You Shouldn’t Kill Hitler…

November 29th, 2012 Posted in History
9 Comments »

I was thinking about going back in time and killing Hitler the other day.  It’s something we all think about, right?  Is the best time to do it while he was in the trenches in World War One?  After that, but before he marched through Berlin in an attempt to seize power by force in the early twenties?

As my mind was wandering into a post-Hitler world, I had an epiphany:  I was thinking about killing the wrong person.

Now for a bit of history.  I like European history (mainly, I suspect, because I live there).

See, mainland Europe in the eighteen-hundreds was basically a battleground.

A screeshot from the computer game Command and Conquer showing a battle between rival forces

Europe, circa 1852.

There was the Austrian Empire in the east, the Ottoman Empire to the south, the Russians, the English, the French, the Germans.  They spent the entire century bickering with each other through the medium of war.  Boarder disputes, stealing countries off each other, invading each other… Germany wasn’t even a country until 1871.  It was a collection of independent kingdoms who mostly worked together.  The unification treaty was signed in France’s Versailles Palace, after the Franco-Prussian war.  The Prussian troops pushed all the way into Paris before the French surrendered. And the French! They went though more revolutions than a car tyre on a Formula 1 car.  The First World War was just a continuation on the same path. Just another bicker between powers.  Only forty years ago, the French and Prussians had a full scale land war and it was over in less than a year.  How were they going to know it was going to turn into what it did?

It’s after the First World War that I need to make my move.  And it’s George ‘the Tiger’ Clemenceau that I need to kill.  Or maybe it’s Woodrow ‘the Dove’ Wilson.

See, the victorious powers met to decide Germany’s fate in 1919.  Clemenceau wanted to wipe Germany off the map.  He wanted it so broken it could never rise up again.  As a nation, it was only forty-or-so years old–dis-uniting it wasn’t such a radical notion.  Wilson, on the hand, wanted peace and reconciliation.  Both points of view are understandable:  the war had been fought on French soil and France had paid a heavy, heavy loss; but the war was so terrible, so horrific, we needed to remember ourselves as human beings and work to make sure it never happens again.

A photo of US President Woodrow Wilson on the left, with George Clemenceau on the right

Wilson, on the left, has a stupid name. Clemenceau, on the right, has a stupid moustache.  It’s a tough call.

What they got was an ungodly mash of the two.  It broke Germany, but kept it alive.

The German’s, naturally, hated what was imposed on them.  The grotesquely castrated army, the vast reparations, the demilitarized zones enforced around it’s French boarder, the fact their country was split in two by Poland… and above all that they had no say in any of it. It created hatred and anger and gave it a place to stew.  In the 1920′s, launching a putsch was practically a weekend past time.

I’m not saying that it’s not all Hitler’s fault, just that he’s the symptom rather than the disease.

If I wanted to so something to make sure the horrors of World War Two never happened, I would have to make sure that stew of hatred and anger never happened.  I would either have to make sure Germany was thoroughly broken, or thoroughly healed.

Why am I telling you all of this?  Just thought you might be interested.

Command and Conquer screenshot from Packgamers.  Wilson and Clemenceau from Wikipedia.

 

, ,
Read More

On Progress, On Airships

November 29th, 2012 Posted in Links
2 Comments »

I just wanted to give a signal boost to an article by Carolyn Dougherty, first published in SteamPunk Magazine #5 and recently republished on the Vagrants Among Ruins blog.  Carolyn is a civil engineer (as opposed to an uncivil engineer, who builds railways in the shape of a giant penis while flipping the bird to passers-by), technological historian and incredibly intelligent person.

In On Progress, On Airships, she makes the point that the technologies we adopt aren’t most efficient, best solutions but the solutions which serve corporate or embedded social interests.

Technological determinists explain the adoption of AC in technological terms–AC current can be transmitted over long distances and DC current can’t; while this is true, it is simply a statement of fact, not an objective measure of superiority. The actual explanation for the adoption of AC is due to cultural factors. At the time of the Battle of the Currents, industrialists were in the process of creating monopolies, including regional electrical monopolies, and consolidation was the word of the day. Decentralised and localised DC networks were at odds with the business philosophy of the time. AC also conforms to our current values and priorities. Because we use AC we can build electrical power stations far from where electricity is used, so that we can remain unaware of the extent of their pollution, and we don’t object to defacing the landscape with transmission lines. If we’d adopted DC, urban form and culture could have been very different. A power station on every block may have caused us to consider less polluting sources of electricity. Local operation and maintenance of small-scale generators might have given rise to more unified and integrated communities. Power produced locally might have led to more appropriate and thoughtful electricity use, and to more diversity and a better balance among power sources.

We’re ruthlessly fed the idea that technological progress is a railway, ceaselessly taking us into a better and brighter future along a single set of tracks.  If you question where we’re going or why, you’re shouted down as a Luddite, someone who’s anti-technology, anti-human advancement.  The truth is more that we’re wandering around theme park with thousands of rides, and the loudest people in the group get to decide what rides we go on.  They ruthlessly mock anyone who dares break away and go on anything other than the couple of rides they’ve selected, anyone who dares to point out that, hey, there are literally thousands of rides here and we’ve been going on the same couple again and again for almost the entire day.

, , , ,
Read More

Falling Asleep, Redux

November 22nd, 2012 Posted in Mental Health
2 Comments »

A while ago–December 28th, 2010, to be exact–I wrote a blog entry for a blog carnival of mental health. The subject was ‘Night’. My contribution wasn’t exactly cheerful:

“[Falling asleep is] when I can stop fighting. I don’t have to deal with the world, with any of the people in it or be prepared for what it might throw at me. I’m free to think about anything I want to.

A lot of the time, I think about killing myself. I’m allowed to–this is my ‘stop fighting’ time, my ‘free time’ (time when I’m free to think what I want), remember? I think about how I would do it, what I’d say to whom in my last emails, and how, at my funeral, no one would really be upset but instead be happy I’d finally been able to lay down my arms.

Sometimes, I think about other forbidden things. Like living in a world where my sexuality isn’t a problem because anthropomorphic animals are just as common as humans, or being able to live my life in a sealed box where there’s no need for interaction with the outside world. Or I think about being captured, held hostage and tortured because, well, then I’d have a reason to be fucked up–or it might free me, like surviving one of Jigsaw’s traps.”

I don’t think about killing myself when I’m falling asleep any more. I don’t think about being tortured or living in a sealed box.

Well, I do. I still do. But not nearly as much.

Instead I think about who would win in a fight between Superman and the Hulk.

The Hulk and Superman fight a dramatic battle

My money’s on the Big Green, by the way

Or what I’ll do when I’m Prime Minister of the UK. Or what it’d be like to make first contact with aliens. Or what an awesome bass player I’m going to be. (I don’t even own a bass, just so you know. But I do really quite like the idea of being awesome at playing one.)

If I’m thinking about killing myself as I fall asleep, that’s a warning sign. It’s a sign I’m having a Rough Time, that I’m falling into a dip and I need to do something about it.

It’s not a way of life any more.

It may seem like something small, not worth posting about. But it’s not small. It’s a victory. It’s a victory that says, “I control my life, not my depression”. I’ve taken that control. I’ve fought for it, and I’ve won. Not the war, but a battle. When you’re fighting a war, you’ve got to find time to pause and celebrate your victories. Otherwise you’ll lose the will to keep fighting.

Pinkie Pie, from My Little Pony, Friendship is Magic, has a huge grin on her face and is ready to launch the party cannon. The picture is captioned, 'What time is it? God damn party time"

Hulk and Superman fight comes from here. Image of Pinkie stolen from here.

, ,
Read More

Your Reward is You Get To Play With The Other Children

November 14th, 2012 Posted in Mental Health
3 Comments »

You’re on a school trip. It’s somewhere awesome–you decide where.

As you’re getting off the bus, the teacher gives everyone a backpack to carry. He tells you that you’re not allowed to carry anyone else’s pack, nor feel anyone else’s to see how heavy it is. Anyone who does will have to sit the rest of the trip out in the bus.

You and your classmates run off like shot from a blunderbust in the way young children are wont to do, eager to wring every last second out of the day until they’re exhausted, grizzly, sugar-crashed wrecks that their parents are going to seriously consider feeding Valium to when they get home. However, it quickly becomes apparent that not all the backpacks weigh the same. In fact, they seem to range from almost-empty to holding collapsed stellar matter.

As the backpacks all look the same, some of the children carrying the lighter ones refuse to believe anyone has a pack heavier than their’s. Some of those with lighter packs make out like they’re carrying heavier ones. Some of those with heavier packs carry them like their empty. And all the while, the teacher looks on with detached, sadistic interest as his little social experiment plays out because, despite coming from a family of teachers, my personal experience with teachers when I was at school was almost wholly negative and now I’m taking the chance to have a little bit of petty revenge.

General Melchett, the incompetent and sadistic general from Blackadder Goes Forth

My Year 6 teacher.  Because if you’re going to have a bit of petty revenge, might as well go all the way. BAAAH!

Yours is a heavy pack. It’s not collapsed-stellar-matter heavy, but it makes doing anything other than sitting on the ground a supreme effort. And it’s not fair. Why should you have an unreasonably heavy pack when other people don’t? God dammit, it’s not fair.

And what’s your reward for getting up, fiddling with your pack until it’s comfortable, and making the best of the day? A gold star? A special ‘thank you’? Help carrying it? Nope. No one is going to give you a damned thing. You’re not even going to get a reluctant ‘well done’ from anyone, least of all the teacher.

Nope. Your only reward is that you get to enjoy the school trip, just like the kids with the lighter packs.

The astute among you will have already worked out that this is a metaphor for life. See, everyone has times when life is a fucking struggle, when it seems that every time you turn around, the universe punches you in the face. It’s not right, it’s not fair, and what reward do you get for dusting picking yourself up, dusting yourself off and trying again? Sweet FA. No ‘well done’, no gold star, no ticker-tape parade. Even though, without a shadow of a doubt, you’ve bloody-well earned one.

No, your reward is that you get to start enjoying life again. Because the world is, quite frankly, a fucking awesome place full of breath-takingly awesome things and flat-out wonderful people. Turning on a tap and getting clean, running water is fucking awesome. Mountains–whether carved by long-departed glaciers or rippling tectonic plates or violent volcanic fissures–are fucking awesome. Rainbows are awesome. Rain is awesome. When you think of the statistical improbability of life on Earth, it’s all just… awesome. Bemoaning the lack of awesome in your life is like swimming in a lake of perfectly-crafted milk chocolate and bemoaning the lack of something sweet to eat.

Whole Cheese and Tomato thin crust pizza

Pizza? Fucking awesome

It’s so very easy to forget that. It’s so very easy to only feel how heavy your backpack is and how unfair it is that you are being made to carry one of the heavy ones.

Like, I think, everyone else in the world, I have good times and bad times. Maybe once a month I’ll be able to shoulder my pack and play with the other children. And the rest of the time, fuck me but I want a gold star for fighting on.

But my back isn’t nearly the heaviest. And once a month is a hell of a lot more than I had a few years ago. If I keep fighting, I may even get it once a week. That’s got to be worth fighting for.

Pizza photo from Photoshelter, and used with permission.

 

,
Read More

Outlaw Bodies Anthology Now Available: Transhumanism For The Rest of Us

November 10th, 2012 Posted in Links, Writing
5 Comments »

Outlaw Bodies, a new anthology from The Future Fire, is now available in both dead-tree and ebook!

“An anthology of short stories on the theme of outlaw bodies: how will bodies be controlled in the future? What kinds of bodies, modifications, choices will be repressed (or compulsory)? How does transgressing the norms of body-identity make us who we are? Nine authors explore these themes through speculative stories that touch on gender, sexuality, sexual identity, disability, self-image, prosthetics and robotics.”

The front cover of the Outlaw Bodies anthology. It shows a human figure, head in hands and wires plugged into its skull. The background is a multicultured silhoutte city.

Coming from TFF, the stories are politically and ethically challenging and, instead of simply cheering ‘w00t! Transhumanism!’ raise the kind of problems that arise when people who haven’t heard of transhumanism are forced to deal with the ground shifting under what it means to be human.

After all, it’s not the early adopters and enthusiasts who define how humanity interacts with a new technology.  It’s all of us.  It’s those of us who bump into these things one day without realising they ever existed as ideas.  We take the new technology and work it into our existing lives, into our existing problems and hopes and daily grind.  The technology doesn’t define our world-view or self-image.  It’s just something we use.  When you have people outside that perceived ‘early adopter technophile’ mindset interacting with technology that potentially changes what it means to be human, the results are going to be interesting in ways fiction doesn’t normally explore.

It’s already had a very positive review from Strange Horizons.

And the best bit? The anthology is opened by a story from the the awesome Jo Thomas. She has a post about it here. There’s also a series of guest posts on the Future Fire blog, and a blog carnival.

, , , ,
Read More

The Tyranny of the Elders

October 30th, 2012 Posted in Musing
3 Comments »

In 1974, two journalists were staying at the Watergate hotel in Washington.  They broke the story that U.S. president Richard Nixon had been secretly taping conversations in the White House and, not only that, but 23 minutes of conversation had been erased.

Left to right, photos of a set of loch gates, the Hoover Dam, and Niagra Falls

Water gate, water fence, water wall

That’s the extent of my knowledge about the Watergate scandal.  And the majority of the comes from Doctor Who.

The scandal actually happened 1972, eight years before I was born.  I’m in my thirties now, old enough to have children of my own.  My parents’ generation, who sat agape as the scandal exploded, are in their late sixties.  And yet, for some reason, there’s still this compulsion in the media to suffix every political scandal with -gate.

It annoys the hell out of me.  The original scandal happened in two different countries–the United States, and the past.  It means almost nothing to me.  So why are people still doing it?

Maybe this is how language changes.  Maybe, in 1927, there were annoyed middle-aged men sat in pubs saying, ‘ I don’t even know who Bob is, let alone why I’d want him to be my uncle!’

This post doesn’t have any real point.  It’s been this whole (prefix)-gate has been annoying me for quite some time, and I just wanted to vent.  I’m still waiting for a scandal involving MPs housing illegal immigrants in their garden sheds, so we can have GardenGate.  Or an MP standing up at his best friend’s funeral to deliver a eulogy, and spending an hour angrily delivering an thorough and bile-filled character assassination, so we can have LateMateHateGate.

,
Read More
Older Entries
Newer Entries