The '20s: Part II

In the Netherlands we call them the Zeroes.

We go for the Nillies where I live

Hey, it is neither Europe nor the USA, but we have a sultan-wannabe in Turkey that is literally an old man and would be very eager to sell the country not only like he did during these rather peaceful last couple decades, but also in a possible war time. We are ready to lose another great war and hope for a miracle like Atatürk to come, so get your colonialist leaders going already.

So we’ll have to keep repeating the same joke 6 more years?

I don’t need your pity. And I don’t accept it.

You say I think it’s futile? You are right. I am a defeatist. Humans have defeated themselves.

Look at how many are murdered and are exploited by capitalism. Apple computers uses a factory in China that worked its “employees” so hard many commuted suicide. Much of the chocolate in the world uses forced child labor. Companies that make cell phones and computers often use slave labor.

Now go read about The Great Leap Forward in China. Where somewhere between 15 million to 45 million peasants were killed during forced collectivization. (There is some evidence that it is in the higher range.)

And they weren’t just killed accidentally, or by negligence. They were very very often tortured, buried alive, they were often forced to beat their family members, they were forced to eat human feces, many committed suicide…. The list goes on and on and on about the atrocities that were done to people.

And now remember that we did almost ZERO as scientists told us over and over for decades that burning fossil fuels is a major cause of climate change. We are on the door step of climate horrors happing all the time and we are still mainly concerned with the question of, did Disney ruin Star Wars. Or which fan base of which show is the most unreasonable.

In the end, there is no system to keep people from behaving like people. And people are terrible, ignorant, violent, mostly concerned with their fantasy worlds that help them remain insulated from reality.

I am not saying “When should do things the same way we did in the past because of tradition.”

I am not making an appeal to tradition, not at all. I am saying humans are just terrible. Sure we work together a lot. We work well together to genocide each other. We work well together to exploit the others. We love destroying each other.

Double world wars it is!

Also released in the same year as Hackers, “johnny mnemonic” which was originally a short story by William Gibson. The supercomputer in Hackers was called the Gibson, an homage to William.