Saved comments from April 2015
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neonvincentAfter reading the comments below, I'm struck by how much less of a pessimist I am, even if I still consider myself a doomer, albeit an optimistic one, hence the Crazy Eddie moniker. I guess no longer commenting regularly on Greer's and Kunstler's blogs and writing more for the Coffee Party has had that kind of effect on me, along with a better economic environment and situation for me.
My comment on Atlantis Won't Sink, Experts Agree.
Me: HAHAHAHAHA! You really have a talent for satire. How appropriate for April Fools Day. Of course, those being lampooned may not get the joke or if they do, denounce it angrily. In fact, the United States is due for another round of maniacs campaigning for President who will promise Americans that they can keep their McMansions, cars, and commutes (tip of the hat to Kunstler for that one). One of them has already declared and he began by denying climate change; when he campaigned for U.S. Senate three years ago, he ran against sustainable development, calling Agenda 21 a U.N. plot to take away golf courses. I'm sure he won't be alone. Expect a lot more "Green is the New Red" and "Agenda 21 is the new black helicopter" coming from the campaign trail until November of next year.
As for me, I'm one of the people telling the Cassandra truth. I'm showing "The End of Suburbia" to my students again this week. Other than the stats on natural gas, which have improved from the perspective of business as usual because of fracking, the movie has held up pretty well over the past decade since it came out. I'm sure they'll search for answers on the Internet. Here's to hoping they find my Guide to entries that contain answers to 'The End of Suburbia'; it will make things easier for them. As for whether they will get on the boats when the volcano erupts, only time will tell. I can't say that they weren't warned.
Greer: Pinku-sensei, thank you. Following on from a conversation on the other blog, I've been thinking quite a bit about the difference between the comic and the absurd, and that has some implications with regard to satire as well. Of course those being lampooned aren't going to get it -- and the Druid satire that once, according to Irish legend, could rhyme rats to death is still, alas, a lost art.
Comments on The School of Globalism.
"Professor Summers must be reading Ben Bernanke's new blog."
Paul Krugman confirms that he is in his blog, if not his NYT columns. The two of them are debating about secular stagnation and its causes. At least the mainstream economists are beginning to beat around the bush about our current economic circumstances, although the idea that resource shortages, especially that of cheap oil, are causing them is not one they find worthy of consideration--yet. They may have to wait until oil goes over $100/barrel for that to even begin happening.
"The Middle East / North Africa / Central Asia war zone is steadily combusting, and there is no sign of resolution across the whole of it, only the promise that conflict will get worse."
In general, you're right, but what about the preliminary agreement with Iran to restrict its nuclear program? The oil markets delivered their verdict upon the announcement and it was Iran nuclear deal eases fear premium as Brent fell 4% and WTI 2%. The prospect of more Iranian oil might just keep prices below $100 for another couple of years. That's not good news for the U.S. oil industry, as layoffs in that sector made last Friday's jobs report weaker than expected. The effects of cheap oil on fracking that you expected are finally being felt.
Speaking of fracking and the U.S. oil industry, Jerry Brown's announced water restrictions for California didn't include any constraints for either oil extraction or farming. Environmentalists and residential consumers are livid. As an expatriate Golden Stater, I can tell the people left behind that it's all about the money. Those enterprises make money with water, while homeowners don't.
I have written very little about Gamergate, but what little I have would probably oppose what Impaler thinks of it. I consider that to be a good thing. Recycled comments about the men's rights movement shows that I've been at loggerheads with the political and social movement that swallowed Gamergate whole for a decade. As for how Gamergate has affected media other than video games, 2015 Hugo nominees for movies and television reports on how Sad Puppies successfully influenced the Hugo nominees. Fortunately, in the categories I care about most, they didn't screw things up too much.
My comment on The Burden of Denial.
"Not to doubt Progress: that is the Law. Are we not Men?"
We are Devo! Sorry, couldn't resist. Just the same, my smart-aleck outburst serves a purpose, which is to point out that the idea that the U.S. had reached a zenith in the 1960s and has be in decline (de-evolving) ever since has been around since the late 1970s, even the response to it at the time was "mutate now and avoid the rush," which was meant as a joke, instead of "collapse now and avoid the rush," which our host means seriously.
"I hope I'll be dead before it happens."
Someone who saw the onrushing catastrophe and came right out and said that was Joe Bageant. He decided to get out of the U.S. while he still could to avoid it, retiring to Belize. The irony was that by doing so, he collapsed and avoided the rush. He also got his other wish, as he died four years ago. That's not exactly how I want to collapse now and avoid the rush.
"Today, a nation that once put human bootprints on the Moon can't afford to maintain its roads and bridges or keep its cities from falling into ruin."
I don't know if the nation can't afford to prevent those signs of decline, but it certainly thinks it can't. Michigan's Governor proposed a tax increase to fund road maintenance two years ago. Next month, that measure will be on the ballot. It's likely to lose, as no one likes it and would rather use its failure to beat up on the other political faction.
"Oklahoma has passed California as the most seismically active state in the Union as countless gallons of fracking fluid pumped into deep disposal wells remind us that nothing ever really 'goes away.'"
Welcome to an application of one of Barry Commoner's Laws: Everything must go somewhere, as there is no "away" in Nature. My students see all four of them every time they open their lab manuals and identify examples all during the semester. I'm sure some of my students from five years ago can still recite them. As for whether they'll apply them, I can always hope.
Speaking of fracking and California, Jerry Brown's announced water restrictions didn't include any constraints for either oil extraction or farming. Environmentalists and residential consumers are livid. As an expatriate Golden Stater, I can tell the people left behind that it's all about the money. Those enterprises make money with water, while homeowners don't. That's a big part of the resistance; the psychology of previous investment means that the winners under the old system still make money. Until that ceases to be the case, they'll continue their old ways.
@AlaBikeDr "Everybody knows is a great song by Leonard Cohen but I don't think it is the current state of the American mind about civilization decline and the death of Progress."
To be fair, Leonard Cohen is Canadian and his music is an acquired taste. That written, I've found people who appreciate the idea of collapse like it. I posted a link to one embed of the song at Kunstler's blog last year, and the commenters liked it so much that I gave them an encore.
@JMG "Charlie, well, to be fair, the restaurant was faux-Celtic themed, and that pretty much guarantees Guinness on tap."
Tilted Kilt? Guinness is Irish, not Scottish, but it figures that an establishment like that would not care about the details and have drinks more suited for Saint Patrick's Day than for toasting St. Andrew.
"Pinku-sensei, the phrase as I remember it was 'Mutate now and avoid the post-Bomb rush' -- and yes, I had that in mind when I was writing about 'Collapse now and avoid the rush.'"
I forgot the "Post-Bomb" but Mutate now and avoid the rush stuck. Thanks to your prompting, I found out that Devo was inspired by that passage from H.G. Wells. They were mocking progress even back then. Wells to Devo to Greer, who then cites Wells--the path of influence and tribute swallows its own tail like the Worm Ouroboros…
Pinku-Sensei, well, yes, that's why I said faux-Celtic rather than faux-Scots. It's the usual American "Aloha, Amigo!" mush.
My comment on She's Back!
If Hillary is Rodan, does that make Jeb Bush Godzilla? Maybe I shouldn't belabor that metaphor. If I take it to its logical conclusion, Godzilla usually wins that match up. I'd prefer Madame Secretary being the next president to Bush the Third. How about Jeb as Ghidorah the three-headed monster? That contest might come out more to my liking.
As for the ostensible good times returning, the unemployment statistics and other official measure say so, but the people don't seem to believe it, except when it comes to increased driving. The spell of relatively cheap gas has induced Americans to drive more during the past 12 months than at any time since before the Great Recession. On other hand, the people here in Michigan have terrible roads to drive over. They have the opportunity to raise the sales tax to pay for road maintenance, but the highways aren't so bad yet that Michigan voters are likely to approve the increase. Instead, what they seem more enthused about is legalizing marijuana. I guess they accept what Freewheeling Ferdinand of the Fabulous Furry Freak Brother said more than 40 years ago, "dope makes it easier to get through times of no money than money makes it easier to get through times of no dope."
I was wondering when you'd post about the ballot stuffing of the Hugos by Gators and their allies. I already posted my opinions of the nominees for dramatic presentation, including the snubs, in 2015 Hugo nominees for movies and television. I agreed with the nominations of "Edge of Tomorrow," "Guardians of the Galaxy," and "Interstellar," and think they would have made the list with or without the...
Posted as a comment to http://wehuntedthemammoth.com/2015/04/14/announcing-the-serious-kitten-speculative-fiction-awards-post-your-nominations-below/comment-page-2/#comment-742210
I was wondering when you'd get around to this topic. I blogged about the Gators and their allies tampering with the 2015 Hugo nominees for movies and television. I actually agreed with the nominations of "Edge of Tomorrow," "Guardians of the Galaxy," and "Interstellar," but thought that "Snowpiercer" and "Under the Skin" were snubbed. Thanks for giving your readers an opportunity to nominate works not tainted by misogyny.
Here's my ballot for the categories I care about.
•Best Comic/Graphic Novel: The Walking Dead, All Out War
•Best Webcomic: Girl Genius (if there are no other webcomics nominated, then Darths&Droids)
•Best SF site: io9
•Best SF blog: Crazy Eddie's Motie News (the rules don't disallow self-nomination, so I'm nominating my own blog)
•Best SF movie: Snowpiercer
•Best SF TV series: The Walking Dead (if that is disallowed, then Extant)
•Best SF podcast/Youtube channel: Nerdist
•Best SF Twitterer: John Scalzi
•Coolest SF person: Neil Gaiman
•Biggest SF asshole: Vox Dei
•Worst SF movie: Atlas Shrugged III: Who Is John Galt?
•Worst SF TV series: Mission Control (NBC ordered six episodes and cancelled the series before showing any of them; if it doesn't qualify then The Last Ship--I like it, but Michael Bay)
I'll check the previous page of comments to see if I can nominate more than one per category. If I can, then quoth The Terminator, "I'll be back."
I see our host has already answered my implied question: "Feel free to nominate more than one book/person/etc per category." Very well, then, I amend my nomination ballot.
•Best Webcomic: In adddion to Girl Genius, I also nominate Darths&Droids, Order of the Stick, Erfworld, and Goblins.
•Best SF movie: In addition to Snowpiercer, I also nominate Under the Skin, Divergent, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, and Birdman (magical realism is a form of SF)
•Best SF TV series: In addition to the The Walking Dead, I nominate Extant, The 100, Constantine, Warhouse 13, and Resurrection.
•Worst SF movie: In addition to Atlas Shrugged III: Who Is John Galt?, I nominate the rest of the SF movies that I mentioned in Razzies and Robocop, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Legend of Hercules, and Transformers: Age of Extinction, plus Left Behind.
Also games: I second Dragon Age: Inquisition and add the English language release of Archeage.
My comment on The Retro Future
"[M]ost of the big-name firms in the fracking industry have been losing money at a rate of billions a year since the boom began, and...the pileup of bad loans to fracking firms is pushing the US banking industry into a significant credit crunch..."
As you noted, these facts are conveniently ignored by most in the media. However, they do sneak through even the most bullish reporting. I quoted a Reuters article that reported that the production of oil in North Dakota had declined last month and that the U.S. Energy Information Agency forecast that U.S. oil from shale would fall 45,000 barrels in May, the first decline since the shale boom began. That hiss you hear is the shale bubble deflating. The reporter then tried to spin the situation into a buying opportunity for oil futures, noting that both WTI and Brent were above their 100-day moving averages for the first time since June 2014. In the meantime, the actual prices of WTI, Brent, and RBOB gasoline feedstock were actually down from last week. I'll buy that story when the futures set new highs for the year. Until then, I'm not convinced.
In the meantime, cheap gasoline is prompting people to drive more. In fact, total miles driven in the U.S. over the past year set a new record. Yeah, it only took seven years for that to happen, the longest duration of not setting a new driving record in U.S. history. Eventually, the decreased supply and increased demand will cause prices to increase, but not any time very soon. Maybe by this time next year, the price of oil and other energy will rise high enough to suck the money out of people's wallets and send the U.S. into official recession again. Until then, it looks like a brief return to happy motoring.
Speaking of unsustainable lifestyles...
"It's been demonstrated over and over again that personal example is far more effective than verbal rhetoric at laying the groundwork for collective change."
This is one of the reasons I think that my entry about 'No Impact Man' was a big hit. Here was someone who was walking the talk and being a good example. The media treated him like a curiosity and his film as a stunt; even so, the advantages of his low-impact lifestyle came through. His wife and kids were healthier, having exercised more and eaten whole foods prepared at home instead of processed food and take-out meals, and the whole family appeared happier. It's a film one of my students found and it's one that I recommend that they watch.
On a more somber note, this past Monday was the anniversary of the death of Michael Ruppert. I'll end my comment right here and observe a moment of silence.
Pinku-Sensei, no surprises there. These days I read the US media only when I want to know how our decline is going to be spin-doctored this time around.
My comment on Change They Don’t Believe In
"It would be great to see someone confront *anyone* in the establishment, left or right."
Oh, that will happen, but it won't necessarily be someone in the major parties. The closest we'll likely get to one on the Republican side is Rand Paul, but he's nowhere near as independent as his father. My opinion of Ron Paul was that he got the problems right but the solutions all wrong and when he had a good idea, it was another example of a stuck clock being right twice a day. On the Democratic side, Martin O'Malley might be it. Bernie Sanders would be a better bet, although he's technically an independent and may decide not to run. Instead, look at the Greens, where Jill Stein is gearing up to run again and the Libertarians, that is, if they can get someone as charismatic as Gary Johnson, if not Johnson himself, to run. Just the same, because of Duverger's Law, the two parties combined would be lucky to get 5% of the vote.
As for our host's comments about "living arrangements that have no future," I was a guest on BlogTalkRadio for Earth Day last Thursday where I talked with the host about the California drought and the unsustainability of California's water infrastructure to support the state's population, agriculture, and industry. One of those industries was oil, especially fracking. After I described the process to him, he likened it to pouring water in an ice cream carton to float the last scraps of ice cream off the bottom. I think he got the idea.
Also, today is the fifth anniversary of the Gulf oil spill. Let that stand as a cautionary tale about the high cost of maintaining our unsustainable lifestyles.
My comment on The Sources of Magical Power, Part Two
"Ordo Peregrini Orientem"--the Order of Eastern Exiles, if my rudimentary understanding of Latin hasn't led me astray. I checked Google and you appear to be the first person to have used the phrase on the searchable Internet. If you weren't already the leader of a religious order, you should copyright or trademark it. Otherwise, I'd be tempted to poach the term. Of all the names you mentioned, the one I would find most compatible with my vocation as a teacher of science would be Jung, so my participation in a magical school based on his teachings would cause me the least cognitive dissonance. In fact, I've dabbled in both the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, which is very much based on an interpretation of Jung's personality types, and the Enneagram, which is more loosely based on Jung with a good helping of Gurdjieff. The MBTI masquerades as science to improve its respectability, while the Enneagram appears to be more honest with itself as a form of magical training.
"[T]he psychologists who worked most closely with occultism, Jung paramount among them, tried over and over again to draw attention to the fact that the limits of the skull are not the limits of mind." The concept of the collective unconscious seems to be one of his attempts to do so, although the idea of a shared unconscious outside of culture does not seem to hold with psychologists who are Monists (the mind is an emergent property of the brain and doesn't exist separate from it); they can't imagine a mechanism for it that fits with their paradigm, so they dismiss it.
If I had been more in tune with Jung when I did cartomancy, I'd probably have been a much better Tarot reader. Its symbolism would have made much more sense. It probably didn't help that the deck I got for my birthday 28 years ago was a Thoth deck. That thing was true to its creator; it was best at getting women and drinks, not gaining enlightenment. If I ever take up the Tarot again, I'd use a Rider-Waite deck, as generic as it seems. This would be despite what you wrote about Waite being such a poor translator and writer.
@JMG: "'Pinku-sensei, nah, it's "the Order of Journeyers to the East,' which features in some of Hesse's novels; 'orientem' is 'to or toward the east,' where 'orientis' is 'of the east.'" Thank you, that makes much more sense than what I thought, which was the result of my poor understanding of Latin indeed leading me astray. Also, thank you for your supportive words about Smith and Waite's mutual creation; they reinforced my choice of deck should I ever work with the Tarot again.
@Cherokee Organics: "Yes, that psychology is a sort of watered down occult practice makes a great deal of sense." Some years back, our host wrote about an alternative history in which magic became the dominant cultural pursuit of our culture instead of science. In that world, people's understanding of science would involve using the scientific method and technology to cause the changes in consciousness actually accomplished by magic. In our timeline, clinical psychology is that very attempt to use science to change consciousness in a society where science is the dominant cultural project. It should be no surprise that it disguises magic as science and uses materialistic explanations taken from neuroscience research for its mechanisms. It was far easier to explain seeing my father after his death as a lucid dream than as an actual visit from his spirit, even though I have my suspicions that it was really the latter.
@Nicolas Costa: "Idealists (NFs) are of Fire.
Rationals (NTs) are of Air.
Artisans (SPs) are of Water.
Guardians (SJs) are of Earth.
...
INFP: fire
ENFP: water
INFJ: air
ENFJ: earth"
I find your mapping of MBTI types to alchemical elements facinating. I assume that I could extend your second block of types for NTs, i.e., INTP fire, ENTP water, ENFJ air, and ENTJ earth. I'm an ENTJ, so I'd be air and earth if I read you correctly. I'm particularly intrigued by the earth part of it, as my sun sign in the western Zodiac is Virgo and my birth year in Chinese astrology is that of the Earth Pig. Both are earth signs and I'm a geologist. Now, what about the correspondences for SPs and SJs?
Also, I too have an unusual combination of MBTI and Enneagram. I test out as 5w6, which usually corresponds to INTP and INTJ. ENTJs like myself are usually type 8, sometimes 1, 3, or 7, but almost never 5.
Greer: Pinku-sensei, Latin's tricky that way! As for Waite, he was really at his worst in the Levi translation -- pompous, blustering, arrogant. He had better days.
changeling said...
Pinku-Sensei, Nicolas Costa - Myers-Brigs is, IMHO, simplification of Jungian concepts. First, it is almost completly static, when Jung always assume dynamism in one’s personality. Jung is correct. Personality is always in flux. The person you are today isn’t who you were 2 years ago, nor the person you’ll be 2 years from now. There are traits and characteristics we may carry with us for a lifetime, but even these are subject to change depending upon circumstance or our actions (and you don't need high magic rituals to change your character - autosugestion will do). Second, M-B test plainly does not work very well, as controlled studies show. For example: http://www.indiana.edu/~jobtalk/HRMWebsite/hrm/articles/develop/mbti.pdf
Nicolas Costa: @Pinku-Sensei:
I'm a Sun Virgo and Wood Rat. Virgo might not be that direct when it comes to INFP (Fire of Fire) but in my complete natal chart I have 4 Fire signs, 3 Earth, 3 Water and 2 Air. And an overwhelming majority of those are Mutable signs.
@Changeling: "Myers-Brigs is, IMHO, simplification of Jungian concepts. First, it is almost completely static, when Jung always assume dynamism in one’s personality. Jung is correct. Personality is always in flux. The person you are today isn’t who you were 2 years ago, nor the person you’ll be 2 years from now. There are traits and characteristics we may carry with us for a lifetime, but even these are subject to change depending upon circumstance or our actions (and you don't need high magic rituals to change your character - autosuggestion will do)."
It's both a simplification in the ways you point out and an elaboration. The elaboration comes from the addition of the Perceiving-Judging binary, which is not Jung. However, Keirsey's version of the MBTI uses Perceiving and Judging to extract Jung's eight types (Introverted vs. Extroverted Feeling, Thinking, Intuition, or Sensing) from the MBTI. Keirsey also retrieves Jung's concept of personality development by identifying the other three functions one uses besides the primary and then predicting when in the lifespan they will start coming to the fore. By doing so, Keirsey has rescued the subtleties of Jung from Myers-Briggs, even if the effort might be the equivalent of adding epicycles.
As for changing personalities, that happens even when measured using the scheme the professional psychologists use, the Big Five, Extraversion, Conscientiousness, Openness, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. These were thought to be stable throughout adulthood. However research has shown that psychotherapy significantly increases Conscientiousness and decreases Neuroticism. It works! On the other hand, it shows that even the most favored way of measuring personality indicates that it isn't stable. Oops.
"Second, M-B test plainly does not work very well, as controlled studies show."
This is one of the reasons that I prefer the Enneagram. It appears to be more stable over the lifetime. Another is that it works very well as an exercise in ternary thinking in contrast to the binary thinking of the MBTI. Properly arranged in a 3 by 3 matrix, the nine personality types will fall into all the groupings of three that enneagram workers have discovered. When I discovered that, it was a Eureka moment that bordered on the transcendent.
My comment on A Field Guide to Negative Progress.
@Changeling: "Here is interesting bit of negative progress: http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/203913-general-motors-john-deere-want-to-keep-tinkering-self-repair-illegal.
Farmers prefer older versions of tractors, because GM is fleecing them on repairs and don't [doesn't/won't?] allow any modification to patented software."
One of my students told me that story just yesterday. I wish I could say I was more surprised about it, but having observed the progressive encroachment of copyright enforcement into entertainment and software during the current century, it's the kind of action I was already halfway expecting. I'll have to add this to my list of 21st Century crimes that computer technology makes possible. As for it being an example of negative progress, I'm not so sure. It certainly qualfies as true progress in terms of both increasing technological complexity and increasing profitability. In terms of what it means for the consumer, I prefer a term brought up in the comments to our host's The Steampunk Future, the German word Verschlimmbesserung, an improvement that makes things worse. I think that loan word works just as well if not better for the concept, as negative progress implies technological retrogression, an entirely different idea.
@fudoshindotcom "Happy Earth Day!" And a belated Happy Earth Day to you as well! I was wondering when someone here would wish our host and his readers that and you did it in the second comment. I was also wondering what the response would be, as the day is a favorite of bright green types who wish to power our current life style with renewable energy sources. That won't happen, but that didn't stop me from featuring a wind farm and solar-powered plane to celebrate the day.
Greer: Changeling, good for the farmers. That sort of thing is going to play a large role in the first few rounds of negative progress.
...
Fudoshin, and a negatively miserable Earth Day to you too!
A comment on Guide to entries that contain answers to 'The End of Suburbia'
Corn for fuel, a story I tell my students answers Question 24: What are the objections to using ethanol for fuel? That reminds me, I need to write about fossil fuel use in agriculture, a topic covered by Questions 14-16 for "The End of Suburbia" and Question 28 for "Food, Inc." Stay tuned.
My comment on Vox Day to David Pakman: #Gamergate is about the “right” of gamers and game developers to be immune from criticism
@jaygee "I think about how sequential hermaphrodites in mollusks (I think specifically limpets?) would blow their minds."
Yes, slipper limpets (Crepidula) switch from male to female. There are also more than 100 species of mollusks, both snails and clams, that are not only simultaneous hermaphrodites, but self-fertilize. An act characterized as anatomically impossible for humans is routine for them. Think about how that would blow their minds!
@Banana Jackie Cake "This guy must be a Neonazi."
Maybe he's Janos/Vlad from Clusterfuck Nation. That guy occasionally asks other people in the comments section of a peak oil blog what they think of Gamergate, generally accusing them of being on the SJW side in the process. I never have cared much for Vlad, who seems never to have met a retrograde cause he doesn't like, including Fascism.
That leads me to the subject of this entry.
"Gamergate is fundamentally about is the right of people to design, develop and play games that they want to design, develop and play without being criticized for it."
That belief is one of the hallmarks of a net.kook. I have a list of the others in The Way of the (Political) K00K. See how many the Gators and other MRAs display. I'm confident readers will find lots of them. The MRAs were kooky when I encountered them in soc.men on Usenet 10 years ago and they're kooky now.
@weirwoodtreehugger @JoeKlemmer @Lids @shannon
http://www.salon.com/2015/03/24/were_we_all_wrong_about_last_man_on_earth/
http://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/9-films-that-inspired-christopher-nolans-interstellar.html/?a=viewall
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/christopher-nolan-interstellar-harkens-back-741368
http://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2014/nov/10/interstellar-2001-a-space-odyssey-christoper-nolan-kubrick
http://variety.com/2014/film/news/christopher-nolan-interstellar-like-2001-not-batman-movies-1201333421/
Two entries about James Howard Kunstler landed in last year's top twenty. The sixth most read entry of the past blogging year was 'Fabius Maximus and I discuss Kunstler' posted June 9, 2014, which earned 543 page views. 'Prophets of Doom' posted November 16, 2014, earned 475 page views, enough to place twelfth on the most read list for fourth year of this blog.
Two obituaries earned spots in last year's top twenty. "My thoughts on Michael Ruppert" posted on April 21, 2014 ended up being the seventh most read entry of the past blogging year with 535 page views. "May Leonard Nimoy's memory live long and prosper" posted on February 28, 2015 garnered 496 page views in three weeks to land in tenth place.
It's time for some bad news delivered through two of last year's top 20. The eighth most read entry during the previous blogging year was "NASA warns about the collapse of industrial civilization," which earned 519 page views. The sixteenth most read entry of the past blogging year with 400 page views is "Greenland melt and drought from the University of California," which connected two climate disaster stories.
Three entries stood out from last year's entries about holidays. "Evolution humor for Darwin Day" earned 487 page views to land in 11th place on the most read list. In 13th place with 474 page views was "Happy Canadian Thanksgiving! Finally, an honorable mention goes to "Tipsy Bartender drinks for St. Patrick's Day," which earned most of its 684 page views during the past blogging year.
Two entries about reactionary movements made the top 20. "What the Sith Jihad wants includes science crime scenes" came in 14th with 443 page views, while "Recycled comments about the men's rights movement" ended the year in 15th with 425 page views.
Comment on Grand Line 3.5
10th Apr 2015, 12:23 AM
"Fights that took too long"
I recall two from my gaming days, both run by a DM nicknamed "Evil Dave" and both using monsters from unofficial sourcebooks as part of a campaign to retrieve Thor's hammer.
I'll tell about the second first. It used Monster X from All the World's Monsters. At first, we thought it was the bullette from Hell, except it ran around on land instead of being a landshark burrowing beneath us. What tipped the players off that something was off was that Evil Dave asked for all our D6s. He needed at least 60 and he rolled them all on the first attack. We all thought "Oh S---!" He then announced that it had done 12 damage. We looked at each other and thought, "OK, Dave. Whatever." The battle went of for a couple of hours as the monster had an impressive armor class (I think -12; this is the early 1980s), lots of hit points, and immunity to magic, but did surprisingly little damage given that the DM was rolling 60 D6. Eventually, the party killed it and got on the Bifrost Bridge to Asgard. As for why it did so little damage, it turned out that of all the dice rolled, only the ones counted. No wonder. At least the initial freakout was fun.
The previous installment of the campaign featured a lich who guarded the doorway to Hell in an unofficial published campaign. That thing was crazy prepared and it took all evening to defeat him. He had magical traps all around his lair and a sequence of spell attacks. After that night, the gaming group called the monster "The Bitch Lich" because it was so difficult to defeat.
I plan on posting the last Examiner.com article from May 2015 tomorrow, followed by two more sets of saved comments. After that, I'll return to something more current and personal.
My comment on Atlantis Won't Sink, Experts Agree.
Me: HAHAHAHAHA! You really have a talent for satire. How appropriate for April Fools Day. Of course, those being lampooned may not get the joke or if they do, denounce it angrily. In fact, the United States is due for another round of maniacs campaigning for President who will promise Americans that they can keep their McMansions, cars, and commutes (tip of the hat to Kunstler for that one). One of them has already declared and he began by denying climate change; when he campaigned for U.S. Senate three years ago, he ran against sustainable development, calling Agenda 21 a U.N. plot to take away golf courses. I'm sure he won't be alone. Expect a lot more "Green is the New Red" and "Agenda 21 is the new black helicopter" coming from the campaign trail until November of next year.
As for me, I'm one of the people telling the Cassandra truth. I'm showing "The End of Suburbia" to my students again this week. Other than the stats on natural gas, which have improved from the perspective of business as usual because of fracking, the movie has held up pretty well over the past decade since it came out. I'm sure they'll search for answers on the Internet. Here's to hoping they find my Guide to entries that contain answers to 'The End of Suburbia'; it will make things easier for them. As for whether they will get on the boats when the volcano erupts, only time will tell. I can't say that they weren't warned.
Greer: Pinku-sensei, thank you. Following on from a conversation on the other blog, I've been thinking quite a bit about the difference between the comic and the absurd, and that has some implications with regard to satire as well. Of course those being lampooned aren't going to get it -- and the Druid satire that once, according to Irish legend, could rhyme rats to death is still, alas, a lost art.
Comments on The School of Globalism.
"Professor Summers must be reading Ben Bernanke's new blog."
Paul Krugman confirms that he is in his blog, if not his NYT columns. The two of them are debating about secular stagnation and its causes. At least the mainstream economists are beginning to beat around the bush about our current economic circumstances, although the idea that resource shortages, especially that of cheap oil, are causing them is not one they find worthy of consideration--yet. They may have to wait until oil goes over $100/barrel for that to even begin happening.
"The Middle East / North Africa / Central Asia war zone is steadily combusting, and there is no sign of resolution across the whole of it, only the promise that conflict will get worse."
In general, you're right, but what about the preliminary agreement with Iran to restrict its nuclear program? The oil markets delivered their verdict upon the announcement and it was Iran nuclear deal eases fear premium as Brent fell 4% and WTI 2%. The prospect of more Iranian oil might just keep prices below $100 for another couple of years. That's not good news for the U.S. oil industry, as layoffs in that sector made last Friday's jobs report weaker than expected. The effects of cheap oil on fracking that you expected are finally being felt.
Speaking of fracking and the U.S. oil industry, Jerry Brown's announced water restrictions for California didn't include any constraints for either oil extraction or farming. Environmentalists and residential consumers are livid. As an expatriate Golden Stater, I can tell the people left behind that it's all about the money. Those enterprises make money with water, while homeowners don't.
I have written very little about Gamergate, but what little I have would probably oppose what Impaler thinks of it. I consider that to be a good thing. Recycled comments about the men's rights movement shows that I've been at loggerheads with the political and social movement that swallowed Gamergate whole for a decade. As for how Gamergate has affected media other than video games, 2015 Hugo nominees for movies and television reports on how Sad Puppies successfully influenced the Hugo nominees. Fortunately, in the categories I care about most, they didn't screw things up too much.
My comment on The Burden of Denial.
"Not to doubt Progress: that is the Law. Are we not Men?"
We are Devo! Sorry, couldn't resist. Just the same, my smart-aleck outburst serves a purpose, which is to point out that the idea that the U.S. had reached a zenith in the 1960s and has be in decline (de-evolving) ever since has been around since the late 1970s, even the response to it at the time was "mutate now and avoid the rush," which was meant as a joke, instead of "collapse now and avoid the rush," which our host means seriously.
"I hope I'll be dead before it happens."
Someone who saw the onrushing catastrophe and came right out and said that was Joe Bageant. He decided to get out of the U.S. while he still could to avoid it, retiring to Belize. The irony was that by doing so, he collapsed and avoided the rush. He also got his other wish, as he died four years ago. That's not exactly how I want to collapse now and avoid the rush.
"Today, a nation that once put human bootprints on the Moon can't afford to maintain its roads and bridges or keep its cities from falling into ruin."
I don't know if the nation can't afford to prevent those signs of decline, but it certainly thinks it can't. Michigan's Governor proposed a tax increase to fund road maintenance two years ago. Next month, that measure will be on the ballot. It's likely to lose, as no one likes it and would rather use its failure to beat up on the other political faction.
"Oklahoma has passed California as the most seismically active state in the Union as countless gallons of fracking fluid pumped into deep disposal wells remind us that nothing ever really 'goes away.'"
Welcome to an application of one of Barry Commoner's Laws: Everything must go somewhere, as there is no "away" in Nature. My students see all four of them every time they open their lab manuals and identify examples all during the semester. I'm sure some of my students from five years ago can still recite them. As for whether they'll apply them, I can always hope.
Speaking of fracking and California, Jerry Brown's announced water restrictions didn't include any constraints for either oil extraction or farming. Environmentalists and residential consumers are livid. As an expatriate Golden Stater, I can tell the people left behind that it's all about the money. Those enterprises make money with water, while homeowners don't. That's a big part of the resistance; the psychology of previous investment means that the winners under the old system still make money. Until that ceases to be the case, they'll continue their old ways.
@AlaBikeDr "Everybody knows is a great song by Leonard Cohen but I don't think it is the current state of the American mind about civilization decline and the death of Progress."
To be fair, Leonard Cohen is Canadian and his music is an acquired taste. That written, I've found people who appreciate the idea of collapse like it. I posted a link to one embed of the song at Kunstler's blog last year, and the commenters liked it so much that I gave them an encore.
@JMG "Charlie, well, to be fair, the restaurant was faux-Celtic themed, and that pretty much guarantees Guinness on tap."
Tilted Kilt? Guinness is Irish, not Scottish, but it figures that an establishment like that would not care about the details and have drinks more suited for Saint Patrick's Day than for toasting St. Andrew.
"Pinku-sensei, the phrase as I remember it was 'Mutate now and avoid the post-Bomb rush' -- and yes, I had that in mind when I was writing about 'Collapse now and avoid the rush.'"
I forgot the "Post-Bomb" but Mutate now and avoid the rush stuck. Thanks to your prompting, I found out that Devo was inspired by that passage from H.G. Wells. They were mocking progress even back then. Wells to Devo to Greer, who then cites Wells--the path of influence and tribute swallows its own tail like the Worm Ouroboros…
Pinku-Sensei, well, yes, that's why I said faux-Celtic rather than faux-Scots. It's the usual American "Aloha, Amigo!" mush.
My comment on She's Back!
If Hillary is Rodan, does that make Jeb Bush Godzilla? Maybe I shouldn't belabor that metaphor. If I take it to its logical conclusion, Godzilla usually wins that match up. I'd prefer Madame Secretary being the next president to Bush the Third. How about Jeb as Ghidorah the three-headed monster? That contest might come out more to my liking.
As for the ostensible good times returning, the unemployment statistics and other official measure say so, but the people don't seem to believe it, except when it comes to increased driving. The spell of relatively cheap gas has induced Americans to drive more during the past 12 months than at any time since before the Great Recession. On other hand, the people here in Michigan have terrible roads to drive over. They have the opportunity to raise the sales tax to pay for road maintenance, but the highways aren't so bad yet that Michigan voters are likely to approve the increase. Instead, what they seem more enthused about is legalizing marijuana. I guess they accept what Freewheeling Ferdinand of the Fabulous Furry Freak Brother said more than 40 years ago, "dope makes it easier to get through times of no money than money makes it easier to get through times of no dope."
I was wondering when you'd post about the ballot stuffing of the Hugos by Gators and their allies. I already posted my opinions of the nominees for dramatic presentation, including the snubs, in 2015 Hugo nominees for movies and television. I agreed with the nominations of "Edge of Tomorrow," "Guardians of the Galaxy," and "Interstellar," and think they would have made the list with or without the...
Posted as a comment to http://wehuntedthemammoth.com/2015/04/14/announcing-the-serious-kitten-speculative-fiction-awards-post-your-nominations-below/comment-page-2/#comment-742210
I was wondering when you'd get around to this topic. I blogged about the Gators and their allies tampering with the 2015 Hugo nominees for movies and television. I actually agreed with the nominations of "Edge of Tomorrow," "Guardians of the Galaxy," and "Interstellar," but thought that "Snowpiercer" and "Under the Skin" were snubbed. Thanks for giving your readers an opportunity to nominate works not tainted by misogyny.
Here's my ballot for the categories I care about.
•Best Comic/Graphic Novel: The Walking Dead, All Out War
•Best Webcomic: Girl Genius (if there are no other webcomics nominated, then Darths&Droids)
•Best SF site: io9
•Best SF blog: Crazy Eddie's Motie News (the rules don't disallow self-nomination, so I'm nominating my own blog)
•Best SF movie: Snowpiercer
•Best SF TV series: The Walking Dead (if that is disallowed, then Extant)
•Best SF podcast/Youtube channel: Nerdist
•Best SF Twitterer: John Scalzi
•Coolest SF person: Neil Gaiman
•Biggest SF asshole: Vox Dei
•Worst SF movie: Atlas Shrugged III: Who Is John Galt?
•Worst SF TV series: Mission Control (NBC ordered six episodes and cancelled the series before showing any of them; if it doesn't qualify then The Last Ship--I like it, but Michael Bay)
I'll check the previous page of comments to see if I can nominate more than one per category. If I can, then quoth The Terminator, "I'll be back."
I see our host has already answered my implied question: "Feel free to nominate more than one book/person/etc per category." Very well, then, I amend my nomination ballot.
•Best Webcomic: In adddion to Girl Genius, I also nominate Darths&Droids, Order of the Stick, Erfworld, and Goblins.
•Best SF movie: In addition to Snowpiercer, I also nominate Under the Skin, Divergent, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, and Birdman (magical realism is a form of SF)
•Best SF TV series: In addition to the The Walking Dead, I nominate Extant, The 100, Constantine, Warhouse 13, and Resurrection.
•Worst SF movie: In addition to Atlas Shrugged III: Who Is John Galt?, I nominate the rest of the SF movies that I mentioned in Razzies and Robocop, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Legend of Hercules, and Transformers: Age of Extinction, plus Left Behind.
Also games: I second Dragon Age: Inquisition and add the English language release of Archeage.
My comment on The Retro Future
"[M]ost of the big-name firms in the fracking industry have been losing money at a rate of billions a year since the boom began, and...the pileup of bad loans to fracking firms is pushing the US banking industry into a significant credit crunch..."
As you noted, these facts are conveniently ignored by most in the media. However, they do sneak through even the most bullish reporting. I quoted a Reuters article that reported that the production of oil in North Dakota had declined last month and that the U.S. Energy Information Agency forecast that U.S. oil from shale would fall 45,000 barrels in May, the first decline since the shale boom began. That hiss you hear is the shale bubble deflating. The reporter then tried to spin the situation into a buying opportunity for oil futures, noting that both WTI and Brent were above their 100-day moving averages for the first time since June 2014. In the meantime, the actual prices of WTI, Brent, and RBOB gasoline feedstock were actually down from last week. I'll buy that story when the futures set new highs for the year. Until then, I'm not convinced.
In the meantime, cheap gasoline is prompting people to drive more. In fact, total miles driven in the U.S. over the past year set a new record. Yeah, it only took seven years for that to happen, the longest duration of not setting a new driving record in U.S. history. Eventually, the decreased supply and increased demand will cause prices to increase, but not any time very soon. Maybe by this time next year, the price of oil and other energy will rise high enough to suck the money out of people's wallets and send the U.S. into official recession again. Until then, it looks like a brief return to happy motoring.
Speaking of unsustainable lifestyles...
"It's been demonstrated over and over again that personal example is far more effective than verbal rhetoric at laying the groundwork for collective change."
This is one of the reasons I think that my entry about 'No Impact Man' was a big hit. Here was someone who was walking the talk and being a good example. The media treated him like a curiosity and his film as a stunt; even so, the advantages of his low-impact lifestyle came through. His wife and kids were healthier, having exercised more and eaten whole foods prepared at home instead of processed food and take-out meals, and the whole family appeared happier. It's a film one of my students found and it's one that I recommend that they watch.
On a more somber note, this past Monday was the anniversary of the death of Michael Ruppert. I'll end my comment right here and observe a moment of silence.
Pinku-Sensei, no surprises there. These days I read the US media only when I want to know how our decline is going to be spin-doctored this time around.
My comment on Change They Don’t Believe In
"It would be great to see someone confront *anyone* in the establishment, left or right."
Oh, that will happen, but it won't necessarily be someone in the major parties. The closest we'll likely get to one on the Republican side is Rand Paul, but he's nowhere near as independent as his father. My opinion of Ron Paul was that he got the problems right but the solutions all wrong and when he had a good idea, it was another example of a stuck clock being right twice a day. On the Democratic side, Martin O'Malley might be it. Bernie Sanders would be a better bet, although he's technically an independent and may decide not to run. Instead, look at the Greens, where Jill Stein is gearing up to run again and the Libertarians, that is, if they can get someone as charismatic as Gary Johnson, if not Johnson himself, to run. Just the same, because of Duverger's Law, the two parties combined would be lucky to get 5% of the vote.
As for our host's comments about "living arrangements that have no future," I was a guest on BlogTalkRadio for Earth Day last Thursday where I talked with the host about the California drought and the unsustainability of California's water infrastructure to support the state's population, agriculture, and industry. One of those industries was oil, especially fracking. After I described the process to him, he likened it to pouring water in an ice cream carton to float the last scraps of ice cream off the bottom. I think he got the idea.
Also, today is the fifth anniversary of the Gulf oil spill. Let that stand as a cautionary tale about the high cost of maintaining our unsustainable lifestyles.
My comment on The Sources of Magical Power, Part Two
"Ordo Peregrini Orientem"--the Order of Eastern Exiles, if my rudimentary understanding of Latin hasn't led me astray. I checked Google and you appear to be the first person to have used the phrase on the searchable Internet. If you weren't already the leader of a religious order, you should copyright or trademark it. Otherwise, I'd be tempted to poach the term. Of all the names you mentioned, the one I would find most compatible with my vocation as a teacher of science would be Jung, so my participation in a magical school based on his teachings would cause me the least cognitive dissonance. In fact, I've dabbled in both the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, which is very much based on an interpretation of Jung's personality types, and the Enneagram, which is more loosely based on Jung with a good helping of Gurdjieff. The MBTI masquerades as science to improve its respectability, while the Enneagram appears to be more honest with itself as a form of magical training.
"[T]he psychologists who worked most closely with occultism, Jung paramount among them, tried over and over again to draw attention to the fact that the limits of the skull are not the limits of mind." The concept of the collective unconscious seems to be one of his attempts to do so, although the idea of a shared unconscious outside of culture does not seem to hold with psychologists who are Monists (the mind is an emergent property of the brain and doesn't exist separate from it); they can't imagine a mechanism for it that fits with their paradigm, so they dismiss it.
If I had been more in tune with Jung when I did cartomancy, I'd probably have been a much better Tarot reader. Its symbolism would have made much more sense. It probably didn't help that the deck I got for my birthday 28 years ago was a Thoth deck. That thing was true to its creator; it was best at getting women and drinks, not gaining enlightenment. If I ever take up the Tarot again, I'd use a Rider-Waite deck, as generic as it seems. This would be despite what you wrote about Waite being such a poor translator and writer.
@JMG: "'Pinku-sensei, nah, it's "the Order of Journeyers to the East,' which features in some of Hesse's novels; 'orientem' is 'to or toward the east,' where 'orientis' is 'of the east.'" Thank you, that makes much more sense than what I thought, which was the result of my poor understanding of Latin indeed leading me astray. Also, thank you for your supportive words about Smith and Waite's mutual creation; they reinforced my choice of deck should I ever work with the Tarot again.
@Cherokee Organics: "Yes, that psychology is a sort of watered down occult practice makes a great deal of sense." Some years back, our host wrote about an alternative history in which magic became the dominant cultural pursuit of our culture instead of science. In that world, people's understanding of science would involve using the scientific method and technology to cause the changes in consciousness actually accomplished by magic. In our timeline, clinical psychology is that very attempt to use science to change consciousness in a society where science is the dominant cultural project. It should be no surprise that it disguises magic as science and uses materialistic explanations taken from neuroscience research for its mechanisms. It was far easier to explain seeing my father after his death as a lucid dream than as an actual visit from his spirit, even though I have my suspicions that it was really the latter.
@Nicolas Costa: "Idealists (NFs) are of Fire.
Rationals (NTs) are of Air.
Artisans (SPs) are of Water.
Guardians (SJs) are of Earth.
...
INFP: fire
ENFP: water
INFJ: air
ENFJ: earth"
I find your mapping of MBTI types to alchemical elements facinating. I assume that I could extend your second block of types for NTs, i.e., INTP fire, ENTP water, ENFJ air, and ENTJ earth. I'm an ENTJ, so I'd be air and earth if I read you correctly. I'm particularly intrigued by the earth part of it, as my sun sign in the western Zodiac is Virgo and my birth year in Chinese astrology is that of the Earth Pig. Both are earth signs and I'm a geologist. Now, what about the correspondences for SPs and SJs?
Also, I too have an unusual combination of MBTI and Enneagram. I test out as 5w6, which usually corresponds to INTP and INTJ. ENTJs like myself are usually type 8, sometimes 1, 3, or 7, but almost never 5.
Greer: Pinku-sensei, Latin's tricky that way! As for Waite, he was really at his worst in the Levi translation -- pompous, blustering, arrogant. He had better days.
changeling said...
Pinku-Sensei, Nicolas Costa - Myers-Brigs is, IMHO, simplification of Jungian concepts. First, it is almost completly static, when Jung always assume dynamism in one’s personality. Jung is correct. Personality is always in flux. The person you are today isn’t who you were 2 years ago, nor the person you’ll be 2 years from now. There are traits and characteristics we may carry with us for a lifetime, but even these are subject to change depending upon circumstance or our actions (and you don't need high magic rituals to change your character - autosugestion will do). Second, M-B test plainly does not work very well, as controlled studies show. For example: http://www.indiana.edu/~jobtalk/HRMWebsite/hrm/articles/develop/mbti.pdf
Nicolas Costa: @Pinku-Sensei:
I'm a Sun Virgo and Wood Rat. Virgo might not be that direct when it comes to INFP (Fire of Fire) but in my complete natal chart I have 4 Fire signs, 3 Earth, 3 Water and 2 Air. And an overwhelming majority of those are Mutable signs.
@Changeling: "Myers-Brigs is, IMHO, simplification of Jungian concepts. First, it is almost completely static, when Jung always assume dynamism in one’s personality. Jung is correct. Personality is always in flux. The person you are today isn’t who you were 2 years ago, nor the person you’ll be 2 years from now. There are traits and characteristics we may carry with us for a lifetime, but even these are subject to change depending upon circumstance or our actions (and you don't need high magic rituals to change your character - autosuggestion will do)."
It's both a simplification in the ways you point out and an elaboration. The elaboration comes from the addition of the Perceiving-Judging binary, which is not Jung. However, Keirsey's version of the MBTI uses Perceiving and Judging to extract Jung's eight types (Introverted vs. Extroverted Feeling, Thinking, Intuition, or Sensing) from the MBTI. Keirsey also retrieves Jung's concept of personality development by identifying the other three functions one uses besides the primary and then predicting when in the lifespan they will start coming to the fore. By doing so, Keirsey has rescued the subtleties of Jung from Myers-Briggs, even if the effort might be the equivalent of adding epicycles.
As for changing personalities, that happens even when measured using the scheme the professional psychologists use, the Big Five, Extraversion, Conscientiousness, Openness, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. These were thought to be stable throughout adulthood. However research has shown that psychotherapy significantly increases Conscientiousness and decreases Neuroticism. It works! On the other hand, it shows that even the most favored way of measuring personality indicates that it isn't stable. Oops.
"Second, M-B test plainly does not work very well, as controlled studies show."
This is one of the reasons that I prefer the Enneagram. It appears to be more stable over the lifetime. Another is that it works very well as an exercise in ternary thinking in contrast to the binary thinking of the MBTI. Properly arranged in a 3 by 3 matrix, the nine personality types will fall into all the groupings of three that enneagram workers have discovered. When I discovered that, it was a Eureka moment that bordered on the transcendent.
My comment on A Field Guide to Negative Progress.
@Changeling: "Here is interesting bit of negative progress: http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/203913-general-motors-john-deere-want-to-keep-tinkering-self-repair-illegal.
Farmers prefer older versions of tractors, because GM is fleecing them on repairs and don't [doesn't/won't?] allow any modification to patented software."
One of my students told me that story just yesterday. I wish I could say I was more surprised about it, but having observed the progressive encroachment of copyright enforcement into entertainment and software during the current century, it's the kind of action I was already halfway expecting. I'll have to add this to my list of 21st Century crimes that computer technology makes possible. As for it being an example of negative progress, I'm not so sure. It certainly qualfies as true progress in terms of both increasing technological complexity and increasing profitability. In terms of what it means for the consumer, I prefer a term brought up in the comments to our host's The Steampunk Future, the German word Verschlimmbesserung, an improvement that makes things worse. I think that loan word works just as well if not better for the concept, as negative progress implies technological retrogression, an entirely different idea.
@fudoshindotcom "Happy Earth Day!" And a belated Happy Earth Day to you as well! I was wondering when someone here would wish our host and his readers that and you did it in the second comment. I was also wondering what the response would be, as the day is a favorite of bright green types who wish to power our current life style with renewable energy sources. That won't happen, but that didn't stop me from featuring a wind farm and solar-powered plane to celebrate the day.
Greer: Changeling, good for the farmers. That sort of thing is going to play a large role in the first few rounds of negative progress.
...
Fudoshin, and a negatively miserable Earth Day to you too!
A comment on Guide to entries that contain answers to 'The End of Suburbia'
Corn for fuel, a story I tell my students answers Question 24: What are the objections to using ethanol for fuel? That reminds me, I need to write about fossil fuel use in agriculture, a topic covered by Questions 14-16 for "The End of Suburbia" and Question 28 for "Food, Inc." Stay tuned.
My comment on Vox Day to David Pakman: #Gamergate is about the “right” of gamers and game developers to be immune from criticism
@jaygee "I think about how sequential hermaphrodites in mollusks (I think specifically limpets?) would blow their minds."
Yes, slipper limpets (Crepidula) switch from male to female. There are also more than 100 species of mollusks, both snails and clams, that are not only simultaneous hermaphrodites, but self-fertilize. An act characterized as anatomically impossible for humans is routine for them. Think about how that would blow their minds!
@Banana Jackie Cake "This guy must be a Neonazi."
Maybe he's Janos/Vlad from Clusterfuck Nation. That guy occasionally asks other people in the comments section of a peak oil blog what they think of Gamergate, generally accusing them of being on the SJW side in the process. I never have cared much for Vlad, who seems never to have met a retrograde cause he doesn't like, including Fascism.
That leads me to the subject of this entry.
"Gamergate is fundamentally about is the right of people to design, develop and play games that they want to design, develop and play without being criticized for it."
That belief is one of the hallmarks of a net.kook. I have a list of the others in The Way of the (Political) K00K. See how many the Gators and other MRAs display. I'm confident readers will find lots of them. The MRAs were kooky when I encountered them in soc.men on Usenet 10 years ago and they're kooky now.
@weirwoodtreehugger @JoeKlemmer @Lids @shannon
http://www.salon.com/2015/03/24/were_we_all_wrong_about_last_man_on_earth/
http://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/9-films-that-inspired-christopher-nolans-interstellar.html/?a=viewall
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/christopher-nolan-interstellar-harkens-back-741368
http://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2014/nov/10/interstellar-2001-a-space-odyssey-christoper-nolan-kubrick
http://variety.com/2014/film/news/christopher-nolan-interstellar-like-2001-not-batman-movies-1201333421/
Two entries about James Howard Kunstler landed in last year's top twenty. The sixth most read entry of the past blogging year was 'Fabius Maximus and I discuss Kunstler' posted June 9, 2014, which earned 543 page views. 'Prophets of Doom' posted November 16, 2014, earned 475 page views, enough to place twelfth on the most read list for fourth year of this blog.
Two obituaries earned spots in last year's top twenty. "My thoughts on Michael Ruppert" posted on April 21, 2014 ended up being the seventh most read entry of the past blogging year with 535 page views. "May Leonard Nimoy's memory live long and prosper" posted on February 28, 2015 garnered 496 page views in three weeks to land in tenth place.
It's time for some bad news delivered through two of last year's top 20. The eighth most read entry during the previous blogging year was "NASA warns about the collapse of industrial civilization," which earned 519 page views. The sixteenth most read entry of the past blogging year with 400 page views is "Greenland melt and drought from the University of California," which connected two climate disaster stories.
Three entries stood out from last year's entries about holidays. "Evolution humor for Darwin Day" earned 487 page views to land in 11th place on the most read list. In 13th place with 474 page views was "Happy Canadian Thanksgiving! Finally, an honorable mention goes to "Tipsy Bartender drinks for St. Patrick's Day," which earned most of its 684 page views during the past blogging year.
Two entries about reactionary movements made the top 20. "What the Sith Jihad wants includes science crime scenes" came in 14th with 443 page views, while "Recycled comments about the men's rights movement" ended the year in 15th with 425 page views.
Comment on Grand Line 3.5
10th Apr 2015, 12:23 AM
"Fights that took too long"
I recall two from my gaming days, both run by a DM nicknamed "Evil Dave" and both using monsters from unofficial sourcebooks as part of a campaign to retrieve Thor's hammer.
I'll tell about the second first. It used Monster X from All the World's Monsters. At first, we thought it was the bullette from Hell, except it ran around on land instead of being a landshark burrowing beneath us. What tipped the players off that something was off was that Evil Dave asked for all our D6s. He needed at least 60 and he rolled them all on the first attack. We all thought "Oh S---!" He then announced that it had done 12 damage. We looked at each other and thought, "OK, Dave. Whatever." The battle went of for a couple of hours as the monster had an impressive armor class (I think -12; this is the early 1980s), lots of hit points, and immunity to magic, but did surprisingly little damage given that the DM was rolling 60 D6. Eventually, the party killed it and got on the Bifrost Bridge to Asgard. As for why it did so little damage, it turned out that of all the dice rolled, only the ones counted. No wonder. At least the initial freakout was fun.
The previous installment of the campaign featured a lich who guarded the doorway to Hell in an unofficial published campaign. That thing was crazy prepared and it took all evening to defeat him. He had magical traps all around his lair and a sequence of spell attacks. After that night, the gaming group called the monster "The Bitch Lich" because it was so difficult to defeat.
I plan on posting the last Examiner.com article from May 2015 tomorrow, followed by two more sets of saved comments. After that, I'll return to something more current and personal.
