It's pretty easy to make fun of Tom Cruise - especially with the whole couch -jumping incident and his Scientology issues, but he actually can act. He's also in two of the better recent science fiction films I'd seen: Oblivion, and Edge of Tomorrow.
Edge of Tomorrow suffered from a lot of issues at the studio level. No-one seemed to have any idea how to market it, and the Japanese short-novel the concept was borrowed from had an even less descriptive title (All You Need is Kill). It almost seemed that the tag line "Live, Die, Repeat" was the name of the movie, and you could be forgiven for thinking that looking at the posters. What you get is Groundhog Day as sci-fi action shootemup, and a damn smart one at that. For all of the other marketing failures, the tagline and the trailers promised us that, and the movie delivered in spades.
Cruise plays Bill Cage, a PR flack, and something of a coward, who ends up dropping into a D-Day style invasion of France to push back an alien invasion. Everything comes apart, but he manages to kill one alien before dying....
... and wakes up, the day before. He's literally stuck in a time loop, going back to the same point every time he dies.
The movie manages to play with the idea of trying, over and over again, trying to convince people the invasion will fail, to find a way past the invasion point, find the center of alien power, and disable it, with both a dark and deft sense of humor as needed. The action is over the top but true to character and the tone of the film, the armor worn in many of the scenes feels like something that could have stepped out of Warhammer 40K.
And at the end, Cage grows as a person, having to face his cowardice at a moment he really could lose it all.
Update - I've followed up with more thoughts on this movie here.
Monday, October 31, 2016
Friday, October 28, 2016
Thursday, October 27, 2016
Cocoons
Over on Gab, a recent post by Judge Dread @judgedread encapsulated a point I know I've made in the past:
CAs an aside, perhaps that's why they wear every petty slight and setback on their shoulders like a badge of honor? No, because then they'd realize it's part of life and get on with it.
I've pointed to it again and again, and I think it bears repeating, as it has lessons even for those who don't believe in carrying firearms. Eric Raymond's "Ethics from the Barrel of a Gun". There's a fair amount of explanation, go read the whole damn thing but the core of it is this:
Time preference also matters. A thug with a gun is still a thug, still violent, and isn't thinking out consequences. In a world with people who have a longer term outlook though, and are just as willing to be violent to protect themselves, the thugs tend to get weeded out.
We in the west live in cocoons - and those in the cocoons are too ignorant to easily distinguish between the wolves and the sheepdogs. We're isolated from the impersonal nature of the universe, from the realities of death to even feed ourselves, and anything that makes people uncomfortable is suppressed, the sheepdogs vilified instead of more raised.
Molyneux had a recent discussion with Vox that covers how r/K selection can be manipulated by those rabbits in their warm little burrows and cocoons.
The problem is one day the fences break down, the cocoons are ripped away, and reality comes to bite those who have not learned to govern themselves hard.
Cities breed liberalism because cities are the only place where you can survive with absolutely no contact with the realities of the natural world, and liberalism is above all else a denial of nature.What I find funny is that it's liberals who insist on passing on trite stories about how helping a butterfly out of its cocoon basically kills it, because it needs that struggle to properly expand its wings, to grow, to blossom as it were.
#Science
CAs an aside, perhaps that's why they wear every petty slight and setback on their shoulders like a badge of honor? No, because then they'd realize it's part of life and get on with it.
I've pointed to it again and again, and I think it bears repeating, as it has lessons even for those who don't believe in carrying firearms. Eric Raymond's "Ethics from the Barrel of a Gun". There's a fair amount of explanation, go read the whole damn thing but the core of it is this:
The first and most important of these lessons is this: it all comes down to you.These lessons can be extrapolated to any environment where day to day and moment to moment decisions can have fatal consequences, as a matter of daily, ongoing reality. The ocean doesn't care if you really wanted to put that o-ring in correctly or not - it just cares that in a sub at 400 feet, there's an opening it can squeeze through.
No one's finger is on the trigger but your own. All the talk-talk in your head, all the emotions in your heart, all the experiences of your past — these things may inform your choice, but they can't move your finger. All the socialization and rationalization and justification in the world, all the approval or disapproval of your neighbors — none of these things can pull the trigger either. They can change how you feel about the choice, but only you can actually make the choice. Only you. Only here. Only now. Fire, or not?
A second is this: never count on being able to undo your choices.
If you shoot someone through the heart, dead is dead. You can't take it back. There are no do-overs. Real choice is like that; you make it, you live with it — or die with it.
A third lesson is this: the universe doesn't care about motives.
If your gun has an accidental discharge while pointed an unsafe direction, the bullet will kill just as dead as if you had been aiming the shot. I didn't mean to may persuade others that you are less likely to repeat a behavior, but it won't bring a corpse back to life.
Time preference also matters. A thug with a gun is still a thug, still violent, and isn't thinking out consequences. In a world with people who have a longer term outlook though, and are just as willing to be violent to protect themselves, the thugs tend to get weeded out.
We in the west live in cocoons - and those in the cocoons are too ignorant to easily distinguish between the wolves and the sheepdogs. We're isolated from the impersonal nature of the universe, from the realities of death to even feed ourselves, and anything that makes people uncomfortable is suppressed, the sheepdogs vilified instead of more raised.
Molyneux had a recent discussion with Vox that covers how r/K selection can be manipulated by those rabbits in their warm little burrows and cocoons.
The problem is one day the fences break down, the cocoons are ripped away, and reality comes to bite those who have not learned to govern themselves hard.
Wednesday, October 26, 2016
Macdonough's Song
Few realize that Rudyard Kipling also wrote a couple of science fiction stories - With the Night Mail and As Easy as ABC. Both feature a international organization - the Aerial Board of Control - that managed all airship traffic and supressed nationalist tendencies. The second of the stories, As Easy as A. B. C. in particular deals with a a Board of Control ship supressing a democratic revolt in Chicago.
It's interesting on several fronts. Namely - this is presented as a supposedly a utopian setting. People live longer, the economy is stable, etc. yet people yearn for more. The system is breaking down, and even the rulers are disillusioned with the world they wrought. The rebels have a vitality that, even as the A.B.C. stamps them out, the world society lacks.
To me though, the strongest argument that internationalism wasn't Kipling's ideal, even if he supposed it would come about, was the song that - within the context of the stories - was banned.
Many people think of "If" when they think of Kipling. Others "Gods of the Copybook Headings". Among my Cherished favorites are "The 'Eathen", and "Sons of Martha", and many more besides.
My favorite is "MacDonough's Song."
It's interesting on several fronts. Namely - this is presented as a supposedly a utopian setting. People live longer, the economy is stable, etc. yet people yearn for more. The system is breaking down, and even the rulers are disillusioned with the world they wrought. The rebels have a vitality that, even as the A.B.C. stamps them out, the world society lacks.
To me though, the strongest argument that internationalism wasn't Kipling's ideal, even if he supposed it would come about, was the song that - within the context of the stories - was banned.
Many people think of "If" when they think of Kipling. Others "Gods of the Copybook Headings". Among my Cherished favorites are "The 'Eathen", and "Sons of Martha", and many more besides.
My favorite is "MacDonough's Song."
Macdonough's Song
"As easy as A B C"--A Diversity of Creatures" Whether the State can loose and bind In Heaven as well as on Earth: If it be wiser to kill mankind Before or after the birth-- These are matters of high concern Where State-kept schoolmen are; But Holy State (we have lived to learn) Endeth in Holy War. Whether The People be led by The Lord, Or lured by the loudest throat: If it be quicker to die by the sword Or cheaper to die by vote-- These are things we have dealt with once, (And they will not rise from their grave) For Holy People, however it runs, Endeth in wholly Slave. Whatsoever, for any cause, Seeketh to take or give Power above or beyond the Laws, Suffer it not to live! Holy State or Holy King-- Or Holy People's Will-- Have no truck with the senseless thing. Order the guns and kill! Saying --after--me:-- Once there was The People--Terror gave it birth; Once there was The People and it made a Hell of Earth Earth arose and crushed it. Listen, 0 ye slain! Once there was The People--it shall never be again!
---Rudyard Kipling
Tuesday, October 25, 2016
#Coincidentally There is No Truth in Pravda
The Didact recently brought up yet another recent case of "flash mob" violence where the article is strangely.... quiet... about describing the perpetrators.
Short version, 50 or so "youths" were arrested , with hundreds running around in groups from 20 to 50, ganging up on and beating up people in northern Philadelphia over the course of an evening. Just from the headline alone one would guess, based on who actually does these kind of things, as to the cultural or ethnic background of the perpetrators.
And as he points out, amazingly, somehow, it's never mentioned.
I've cut down on listening to Colin Flaherty anywhere near as much, not because he's wrong, but because though the names change from week to week of the victims and the perpetrators, the stories remain, sadly, year after year, the same. Frankly, if you haven't read at least one of his two books on the subject, White Girl Bleed a Lot, or Don't Make the Black Kids Angry - both based on actual quotes by people using or excusing violence, then do so, or dig through several months of the podcast.
Remember when I said that "three times is enemy action" means that there is a systemic problem? It could of course be a campaign of lies as the Trump-directed allegations of sexual impropriety, but it nevertheless means something is systemically wrong.
Colin mercilessly documents case, after case, after case, and the relevant statistics of crime vs population, of degrees of behavior. He darkly jokes that when people tell him "white people do it too" he'll challenge them to post articles of the same behavior by whites, and then when they run out keep posting. "White people do it too" - yet in white neighborhoods people are less cautious, take fewer steps to secure their valuables, because empirical experience shows that their stuff is far less likely to get stolen there.
Even Jesse Jackson would rather be followed by a crowd of rowdy white teens than black ones.
Also worth looking at is an Eric Raymond posting, Press silence, black privilege, and unintended consequences. Especially relevant line:
Short version, 50 or so "youths" were arrested , with hundreds running around in groups from 20 to 50, ganging up on and beating up people in northern Philadelphia over the course of an evening. Just from the headline alone one would guess, based on who actually does these kind of things, as to the cultural or ethnic background of the perpetrators.
And as he points out, amazingly, somehow, it's never mentioned.
I've cut down on listening to Colin Flaherty anywhere near as much, not because he's wrong, but because though the names change from week to week of the victims and the perpetrators, the stories remain, sadly, year after year, the same. Frankly, if you haven't read at least one of his two books on the subject, White Girl Bleed a Lot, or Don't Make the Black Kids Angry - both based on actual quotes by people using or excusing violence, then do so, or dig through several months of the podcast.
Remember when I said that "three times is enemy action" means that there is a systemic problem? It could of course be a campaign of lies as the Trump-directed allegations of sexual impropriety, but it nevertheless means something is systemically wrong.
Colin mercilessly documents case, after case, after case, and the relevant statistics of crime vs population, of degrees of behavior. He darkly jokes that when people tell him "white people do it too" he'll challenge them to post articles of the same behavior by whites, and then when they run out keep posting. "White people do it too" - yet in white neighborhoods people are less cautious, take fewer steps to secure their valuables, because empirical experience shows that their stuff is far less likely to get stolen there.
Even Jesse Jackson would rather be followed by a crowd of rowdy white teens than black ones.
Also worth looking at is an Eric Raymond posting, Press silence, black privilege, and unintended consequences. Especially relevant line:
I’m here to say what that article could have but did not: suppressio veri, when performed systematically enough, itself becomes a code that can be read. What the press is teaching Americans to assume, story after story, is that if “youths” commit public violence and they are not specified to be white, or hispanic, or asian — then it’s yet another black street gang on a wilding.The article and its comments are worth a read.
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