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your doom and gloom of the day:
Mar. 29th, 2011 11:31 pmathene1miranda 10:55 pm
my favourite coworker was asking today why they still even wanted people to vote :-)
lunikilo 10:56 pm
...god, why DO they? :D
athene1miranda 10:59 pm
i am having one of those days where i am being viscerally worried by my own conspiracist fanfics. one of the bestest philosophy of technology books ever, The Whale And The Reactor, points out that having nuclear power - or nuclear weapons - means you have to have a powerful elite who can control access to plutonium; and seriously, if there were ever a time when it was known that some plutonium had been stolen? We would have no rights any more. none.
so i was rereading that book online, as best i could, to write this horrible fic
lunikilo 10:59 pm
yeah :(
athene1miranda 11:00 pm
and...it just sunk into my skin, the idea that the current political malaise might just be inevitable once you have plutonium in your nation
they won't allow voting to be meaningful, won't allow any kind of real democracy any more, because the precious plutonium needs protecting
athene1miranda 11:01 pm
:-(
lunikilo 11:02 pm
the thing is, I'd hope that americans would revolt
and they're so good at revolting against the small stuff that I'd hope they wouldn't just let that slide.
athene1miranda 11:03 pm
hah. *sigh*
athene1miranda 11:04 pm
is it bad that i partly blame the fury of the american right on the extra impositions the tax code imposes on self-employed people (who there seem to be markedly more of in rural areas)?
athene1miranda 11:06 pm
in general a less intrusive tax code might make for a populace that feels better about governance. americans usually encounter governance as a direct imposition - at the DMV, when they file their taxes, when they get ridiculously large tickets for minor traffic violations because states have cut their income taxes to the bone to appease rich people and need to make up the money somehow
it's different to how people in other places encounter government
but especially so for self-employed rural people
^no srsly, this may help explain the weirdest parts of 2008 (well, the ones that didn't involve Alaska, which is actually literally America's only communist state) and much of the ongoing weird since.
my favourite coworker was asking today why they still even wanted people to vote :-)
lunikilo 10:56 pm
...god, why DO they? :D
athene1miranda 10:59 pm
i am having one of those days where i am being viscerally worried by my own conspiracist fanfics. one of the bestest philosophy of technology books ever, The Whale And The Reactor, points out that having nuclear power - or nuclear weapons - means you have to have a powerful elite who can control access to plutonium; and seriously, if there were ever a time when it was known that some plutonium had been stolen? We would have no rights any more. none.
so i was rereading that book online, as best i could, to write this horrible fic
lunikilo 10:59 pm
yeah :(
athene1miranda 11:00 pm
and...it just sunk into my skin, the idea that the current political malaise might just be inevitable once you have plutonium in your nation
they won't allow voting to be meaningful, won't allow any kind of real democracy any more, because the precious plutonium needs protecting
athene1miranda 11:01 pm
:-(
lunikilo 11:02 pm
the thing is, I'd hope that americans would revolt
and they're so good at revolting against the small stuff that I'd hope they wouldn't just let that slide.
athene1miranda 11:03 pm
hah. *sigh*
athene1miranda 11:04 pm
is it bad that i partly blame the fury of the american right on the extra impositions the tax code imposes on self-employed people (who there seem to be markedly more of in rural areas)?
athene1miranda 11:06 pm
in general a less intrusive tax code might make for a populace that feels better about governance. americans usually encounter governance as a direct imposition - at the DMV, when they file their taxes, when they get ridiculously large tickets for minor traffic violations because states have cut their income taxes to the bone to appease rich people and need to make up the money somehow
it's different to how people in other places encounter government
but especially so for self-employed rural people
^no srsly, this may help explain the weirdest parts of 2008 (well, the ones that didn't involve Alaska, which is actually literally America's only communist state) and much of the ongoing weird since.