A movie review of a rare obscure movie gem: The Convent

In the song “Prince of E-Ville” by Combichrist, there is a breakdown wherein a couple of lines from a movie are said.

A female voice laughs, “Could you be any more Gothic-pretentious?”

Another female voice haughtily exclaims “How dare you speak to the prince of evil that way you slut!?”

The first voice answers again incredulously, “The prince of evil? You work at fucking dairy cream.”

I heard this song in my industrial teen years, and could tell that the line must have come from a movie (in fact the whole song is actually about the movie in question). Eventually my curiosity could no longer take it, and I had to find out what movie it came from, because that short exchange was so great that I just had to know the context around it. I was not disappointed.

So after much furious googling, I finally discovered that the lines came from the horror film, The Convent. This movie ended up being my favorite horror film, once I finally managed to see it.

As far as horror plots go it’s not too complicated, a bunch of demon nuns haunt an abbey, and want to incarnate the anti-christ. A bunch of college kids go to the nunnery, and come across a few cultist kids who summon back the demon nuns. Some of the surviving kids get the survivor of the first incident to help them burn down the abbey in a blaze, though a number of the kids are of course killed.

I love this movie because of its execution, in fact, the movie is so solidly made that there is little that I can criticize about it, except for maybe that some of the sound during the transformation sequences is a little loud compared to the rest of the movie, and that the stereotypes are a little on the nose, though what one might expect from a late 90’s movie playing on 80’s tropes. The movie is not expensive, nor is it masterfully shot, but it is certainly entertaining, and contains some of the best dialogue in a horror film that I’ve seen, such as the amazing exchange. “My brother’s going to be the new anti-christ?” “Afraid so.” “Mom’s gonna be pissed!”

The effects are as good as they need to be to get the point across, with a sort of neon, glow in the dark, metal-rave aesthetic to it.

Normally, I wouldn’t bother to write about a movie like this, since it would be extremely difficult to get your hands on as an audience, but fortunately, cheaply licensed horror films are practically part and parcel of Amazon’s video service, which means that you can rent or buy this enjoyable little gem to add to your collection, or maybe just check out for a few laughs.

Ads-for-Cash Apps: The Attention Economy’s Final Form

Data is the new oil, and it seems that the consumer still has yet to catch on. You know who has caught on though? People who make apps. Apps generally have four ways of making money, in some combination of:

1. Ads
2. Paying a price for the app upfront
3. A subscription fee
4. In-app purchases

Now, the problem with charging people money, is that it’s difficult to get people to buy things without resorting to the now constant barrage of deals that get thrown at players of many mobile games now, encouraging you to spend your money on their game, or locking things behind a paywall to drive your users crazy if they don’t spend money. However, a flood of new apps have arrived, and a mountain of stock footage and clips have arrived with them, compiled into a sequence that could reasonably be called an advertisement, promising wealth to those who download their app, by scratching digital lotto tickets, participating in raffles, and spinning multi-colored wheels!

Now, I’m sure that at least some of these apps are scams outright, and are impossible to cash out. Many of them take the route where they provide a steady stream of small cash wins, with what seems to be a reasonable payout threshold, often $10. You play for a while, getting close to that line, but then, after a week or two, your progress stops, and you sit at $9.95 for months, while you slowly rack up enough of their tokens to cash out a $5 gift card after a couple months of off and on playing. You get your gift card, but your cash balance is still sitting there, unchanged. You’ve watched hundreds, if not thousands of ads to get that $5, and entered the raffles thousands of times. Many players won’t even reach that point, giving up well before then. But hey, it didn’t cost you anything but time, so it doesn’t seem all that bad.

The apps that actually do give away large prizes rely on that breakage, when you see your cash value stop increasing, and your tokens are still a while away from cashing out. They collect huge revenues from ads, and then redistribute that money to the users of their app, siphoning off some for themselves. This essentially is paying people almost nothing to watch ads for nothing.

Now, there is still room for this genre of app to evolve a little, but we are nearing its final form, which is a combination of downloading apps to harvest your phone data, and receiving a little bit of money for it each month, and being paid to sit around and watch ads all day on your phone. Of course neither of these options will be particularly glamorous, but so long as payouts of even $1000 as a top prize is considered a lot to many of the working poor of the country, it’ll remain incredibly easy for these apps to draw in large user bases.

“The Stairs” – A Short Thing

A fire escape, four stories high, from out of nowhere. It appeared in an abandoned cotton field in south Texas, its corners planted into the ground, pushed into the soil from the weight of the steel rods from which it was comprised. I saw it, and knew that I must investigate this curiosity. Four flights of stairs, towering above, the shadows a grid pattern across my face as I approached. Though it had just appeared, the steel was old, with patches of rust, flecks of chipped steel, and rails with dings and dents in them. I approached with caution, the dried cotton buds crunching beneath my sandals. I reached out to the railing expecting it to be scorching in the hot Texas sun, but it was cold, almost like ice, but it felt wonderful contrasting against my warm skin. I clutched the rail, and pulled my body on to the first step. 

 

I remembered being four, climbing the ladder on a slide. One of the tall metal ones that you typically found in playgrounds in the 90’s, the kind that on a hot summer day become impossible to use because they become scorching hot, and can burn you. It was my first time climbing up a slide this high. I was excited because I had seen other children sliding down, and it seemed like they flew across the playground, landing in the sand that filled the playground, laughing, and rolling through the sand, kicking it up as they tumbled through. I got to the top and looked down, just in time to see the person in front of me flying what seemed like miles from the bottom of the slide. It was a popular slide, and there were kids behind me, already urging me to hurry up, despite my pause only being momentary. I finished climbing up, and sat at the top of the slide, afraid of getting hurt, afraid of what might happen when I hit the bottom. The height, the distance, it could hurt, what if I go too fast? The children were yelling at me to go. I closed my eyes to gather my courage, and felt a push on my lower back as I started to move.

 

My hand slid up the rail, the rough, cool feeling surprisingly relaxing as I took each step. With every step, the structure reverberated, as the sound of leather clapping against the metal rang out. I reached the first landing, and looked out onto the field. I could see the field that stretched so far, it felt like it went on forever. Then I continued upward.

 

I remembered stepping up the ladder to the high dive in my swimming class. I was seven at the time, and it was the final test to be allowed to swim in the deep part of the pool. There was the normal diving board, which was scary to me as it was, but I had jumped from there with little issue. The high dive for our pool, thinking back wasn’t incredibly high. It was next to the normal board, and was about three or four feet higher. I got to the top, practically crying I was so scared. I didn’t have the choice not to go now. All of the students in the class were lined up. Someone at the bottom of the ladder, someone at the end of the board. They jumped easily, and made a decent splash. I moved towards the end, carefully, timidly, afraid of the fall. I was so frightened I thought I was going to pee myself. Now it was definitely too late to turn back, there was someone behind me on the board. I looked around, trying to find some other way out that didn’t involve penetrating the deep waters of the pool. I was being yelled at for being afraid, holding other people back from finishing. I stepped all the way to the edge, and let my toes curl over the edge, to try to grip what I can, to get some sort of hold. I closed my eyes, about to jump, and felt a push as I fell forward, unseeing.

 

I made it up to the second landing, paused once again to look out, this time on the other side of the structure. I looked down and saw my shadow, stretched with that of the tower. I looked so tall like this. Like I was ten feet tall. Of course, the tower looked like it was over a hundred feet tall, as it stretched, like a plaid pillar of darkness across the field, a sundial almost, telling a time, but one nobody could understand. I shook my head, and continued up the stairs.

 

I remembered when I was fourteen. There was a tree in my front yard. It was a tall oak. I knew the trunk so well. I had tried so many times to climb it, but its lowest branches were too high. I knew a number of possible footholds, if I could just get my hands around the lowest branch. I was going to climb that tree. I jumped, and managed to get my hands around the branch, the bark digging into my skin. I swung my legs up to the footholds I had scouted out. They were a series of indentations in the tree, separated in a way that I could walk my torso up the trunk. I swung one of my legs over the branch I was holding on to, and inched my way around, slowly turning my body upright. I was finally in the tree. I moved around a bit on the branches, carefully, so as not to fall. I had pretty good balance, which I was proud of, so I did take a few risks, such as actually standing up, and walking on the thicker branches. the branches leading further up into the tree were thick and stable, so I explored the tree, moving higher and  higher up. Then my mother called for me to come inside for dinner. I yelled back that I was coming, and started to shimmy down the branches. Then I got to the branch I climbed up on. I sat down on it, looking down at the far drop. It was seven or eight feet, and I started to panic. Below me were twisted and gnarled roots that came out of the ground. What if I hit them? What if my foot got caught in one as I hit the ground and rolled? I could twist or break my ankle, even if I just don’t land properly. My mother, being impatient, came back out, and saw me sitting in the tree started to freak out, demanding that I get out of there immediately. I knew I had to eventually, my mother started to walk towards me. I closed my eyes, to gather courage, and felt a pull on my leg as my body slid off the branch, pulled from under me.

 

I was at the top of the stairs. I looked out from the top all around me, and could see the edge of the field, on one side, there was forest, on the other, road, and between those two edges, more fields. The shadow of the stairs stretched even further, now seeming like a monolith, the grid pattern of the steel no longer distinguishable in the shadows, making it a solid mass of darkness. There was a cool breeze, and despite the time, and the hot sun, the rail was still cold to the touch. The top landing was small, with a gap in the railing where one would expect a window to be, or some sort of mechanical lift. I looked down, across the shadow, seeing my own shadow, like a flagpole on top of the tower, stretched thin from the waning sunlight. I looked behind me at the stairs I had climbed, stretching far down into what seemed to be infinity, a metal spiral marking my journey. The landing here was a solid sheet of steel. I took my sandals off, and placed my feet on the cool metal. I looked down into the field, and saw the dried up cotton plants, and the weeds and wondered what they thought about the staircase that had suddenly invaded their territory. I stepped to the very edge, and let my toes hang over, gripping the smooth steel surface. I closed my eyes. There were no questions, no worries, only curiosity and resolve. 

 

I moved my foot, and stepped into darkness.

Technological Governance: Token Benefits (Encouraging Good Behavior)

It’s quite a mouthy title, to be sure, but the idea in and of itself is actually fairly straightforward. People work best under positive incentive structures, but setting up those structures in such a way as to encourage people to use them without abusing them is tricky. The benefits to cryptocurrency tokens though, is that you can pretty much put any restriction one could imagine on them.

I was considering the problem of roadside trash, and how much of a blight that it is, both aesthetically, but more importantly, ecologically. Part of me just wanted to pull over on the highway, grab a trash bag out of my car, and pick up some of the debris. However, I was presented with a number of reasons why it just wasn’t super feasible, the largest of those being that I did not have a trash bag in my car. Among others though were the sheer inconvenience of trying to pull over to park on the side of a busy, traffic-laden highway, and the one that caught myself off-guard, I had no tangible incentive, other than vague notions that my actions would “help save the environment”. However, that last reason, the lack of tangible incentive, gave me an idea. A cryptocurrency token, distributed to citizens, that had a unique property, it could not be used by the individual who receives it. A bizarre idea, to be sure, but here is the gist of how such a currency token would work.

These “Samaritan” tokens would be connected to contracts on the blockchain, which would be created by citizens. These contracts would include things like roadside trash pickup, park maintenance, or other issues that citizens desire to have taken care of. Citizens could place a “bounty” on the task, which would be searchable by location. Multiple citizens can place bounties on the task, raising the value of the task, until someone accepts the contract, and performs the work. They would then provide proof-of-work in some appropriate form (most likely photos from the contract location), and then the people who placed the bounty (some percentage or numerical threshold) would release the funds to the person who performed the work. With the tokens transferred, the individual would be able to use the tokens for anything the main governmental currency would buy.

So, what would be some of the benefits of such a type of token be? The first is that it facilitates community change from the ground level. People in communities see the needs of their communities most closely. This creates a sort of market for public works, which would be able to be undertaken by an individual, a group of individuals, or an organization, with the greatest needs in the community rising in value, to the point where it would attract the attention of those who could complete the task. The cleanup of a particular street, for example, may raise $20-50 before it becomes worth it for someone to take the contract. An pothole, on the other hand, that a city has neglected, or has been unable to fill, though, because of what it requires to fix, and depending on the severity of people’s annoyance with it, may reach hundreds of dollars before it is taken care of. The other beauty of such a system is that these numbers may be reached through the annoyance of a few people a little bit (hundreds of people putting up small bounties), or by a large annoyance by a few (a handful of people putting up $100 or more bounties).

This model is somewhat a reflection of the flexibility of the gig economy, but with the government as the issuing entity. These contracts could also be applied to privatized tasks, such as providing cleaning service for someone. Each task would be the equivalent of a tax-funded small-scale gofundme campaign. A benefit of this is that tax payers would actually see the benefits of their tax dollars at work, this would also help areas with a lot of general labor that is unused, and would be a boost to the un/under-employed. Another benefit to such a system is that it would highlight areas that need more general laborers, and would also highlight areas that need a lot of work. Areas that need a lot of work, but with little available labor would have contracts that could reach such high bounties that they could attract labor from surrounding areas, or even distant areas, which could help revitalize some communities.

Of course, there are some potential drawbacks to such a system. The first is that tax payers could end up paying more for some services than they would if those services were just performed by government maintenance on some level. This is certainly possible, though the point at which some people will perform those tasks is a lower threshold than others. This would lead one to believe that , so long as the labor efforts were not 100% coordinated, that there would be equilibrium prices that would come about for certain tasks, based on willingness to perform them, the needs of the individual, etc. Since also there would be the ability for anyone to take the contract at some point, it would be difficult for forces to extort money out of the system, unless they had a monopoly on labor. Even then, these projects would include things like, “planting trees in the local park”, or “cleaning up the streets”, “help so-and-so with their lawncare”, “host a local hobbyist group”, or other acts that aren’t necessary to continue running society. There could be some instances of trying to cheat the system that could occur, such as trying to create contracts within a family, to then give the contract to another family member. The problem with such an idea is that this could happen, but since the contract would show up to compete with the entire labor market, the amount would either be small and insignificant, or the project would be snatched up by an outside force. Even in a more complex situation, for example, a group of construction workers/families, who put their tokens into a project to fix a road or sidewalk, and then take that work themselves, yes may get the benefits of their own tokens, but they of course would also need to complete the work (assuming that they were not the only contributors to the contract), meaning that the area would get the benefit of the contract being completed anyways.

Of course, the benefit to attaching the proof-of-work and the contracts to a blockchain is also that it becomes much easier to investigate and suss out fraud in such a system, as pretty much anyone would be able to find that contract, and would be able to verify that the contract had been valid in the first place, then that the work was actually completed as stated. This reduces the amount of fraud and the scale of corruption possible under such a system.

As for how much should be actually given to citizens each month to allocate to these tasks, and what should be done about benefits that are unused over long periods of time, those are problems for a system that is more seriously considering the proposal, and would need to be based on the amount that individuals would receive in other benefits. However, a number around $100/month in current year terms would probably have enough distributive force to allow for this to work on at least small-scale projects, as would be appropriate for the general labor projects that these would likely cover.

What do you think? Would you clean up your streets if your neighbors paid you to? Would you use such a benefit? See anything I missed? Tell me what you think.

How China is Developing its Communist Vision

I remember several years ago, when I got into an argument with my father. At the time we were talking about audiology, specifically I was discussing some of my economic policy ideas, and at some point in the conversation my dad simply shut me down, saying my ideas were “Communist Bullshit”. at that point I asked my father if he had ever read The Communist manifesto to which he replied that he had not. I have not read it either, so I had managed to make my way through the translation notes for the different editions, but I had never actually made it through the text of the manifesto itself. The argument was noteworthy in that it was the first ideological argument where my father ran out of counterarguments first, I specifically recall we were discussing minimum wage and the employment rate. It was also the moment that I realized that my father was blighted with poor critical thinking faculties, and that while he knew what I thought was a lot, his ability to reason through his ideas were limited by what he was told about those ideas, and that he hadn’t ever really thought about those things more deeply. It was this that caused me to reflect on much of what I was told by him and my mother while being raised, and could see how deeply this had permeated into our family. So, at that point I began to work even harder examining exactly what I believe about a number of subjects and precisely why I believed those things. After spending a great deal of time learning about more advanced economic principles, political systems, and historical background, I felt adequately prepared to read the text with a critical eye, so I dug into it.

And wow, I gotta say that I learned a great deal. First was that I was unaware that the manifesto discusses various types of socialism, in their historical and geopolitical contexts, differentiating Communism from each of them. Of particular interest was Germany’s “True Socialism”, which Marx criticized because “it ceased in the hands of the German to express the struggle of one class with the other… not the interests of the proletariat, but the interests of Human Nature, of Man in general…” He goes on to describe the philosophical conditions that would allow for German Socialism to become co-opted by German Fascism later in the form of the post-Night of the Long Knives Nazi party.

The remainder of the text actually discusses Communist beliefs, and how those beliefs could be put into practice, and how it differs from Socialism. The primary differences are simply the methodology by which each is brought about, and the extent to which each goes. Socialism seeks to bring class inequality down significantly, while keeping institutions in place, essentially placing patches and fixes on the institutions, while never changing the core structure, and maintaining a capitalist economic system. Marx on the other hand, makes it quite clear he believes that these are simply half-measures, and that the working class will simply continue to be oppressed until they rise up, and tear down the capitalist distribution of resources. A common misconception about Communism is that Marx does see not the value of money as a medium of exchange between individuals. To an extent, Marx does actually see the need for money, at least in such a society where resources are sufficiently scarce.

Now I would like to diverge from my reading of the text for a little bit and instead go on a bit about related thoughts, but more practically applied. As I was reading the text, I could not but help think of the current states of Russia and China. Russia as the example of kleptocracy disguised as socialism, and China as the prime example of the power and influence that a continuously reforming communist state can achieve. Russia on one hand is small and weak when it comes to economic power, and is forced to rely on cheap, though still quite effective espionage tactics, though the turmoil in the upper echelons does mean that corruption is rampant throughout the government. In contrast, China has recently been working hard to, it seems, refine their system to more closely reflect the communism seen in the manifesto, and to learn from the mistakes of the past, even if that means that they occasionally over-correct for those mistakes.

To really figure out where China stands in relation to its objective, increased influence and power in the upcoming decades, one must see where the shortfalls of early communism were most prominent. To boil it down to what could be described as the major factors, we can attribute it to: poor infrastructure/supply chains. insufficient data and data processing capacity, and lastly, a poor knowledge base to draw upon. Corrupt officials are a source of failure as well, though I am going to be generous in this regard, and chalk much of it up to incompetence on the part of those running the system. In this way, we will give ourselves the freedom to think a bit more critically about the history. Why does democratic-socialism work so well in a number of European countries, but has so many difficulties in 20th century China? Also, when we consider China today, what has China done more recently, and what does it mean for the future?

The first question was actually a trick question, the reasons that the European countries succeeded was for the same reasons that China failed. Powerful bureaucracies with anti-corruption measures, effective supply-chains capable of handling large influxes of resources, a generally more educated labor class with the ability of the governments to monitor the reactions and general feelings of the populace, and a fairly well-established education system that encourages high levels of education gave rise to a more educated working class that was actually immunized from the fascist propaganda that permeated much of the continent at the time (see the Dutch resistance to Nazi occupation). China, with the exception of an extended bureaucracy, lacked the rest of those components, with until the 1979, when China implemented what could be considered its modern economic plan.

How has China changed since that turning point? Well, of course it has not been all roses, as things like the one-child policy have been controversial, however, in regard to those key indicators mentioned previously, there has been significant changes. China has opened thousands of private universities since the first opened in 1985, and now is considered to have the second-highest number of top universities. In the manifesto, Marx talks about the importance of the proletariat to be educated to have the tools to work the machinery of the capitalist. This has led to more urbanization, and a generally more educated work force, with in recent years much focus being placed on the advancement of AI and biotech research, with just recently, it being announced that they had produced the first person from a gene-edited embryo, and even managed to be the first country to land a probe on the far side of the moon.

In regard to their economic development, it was during the implementation of their new economic plan where two major changes have helped expand China’s economic power arguably the most. The first is the change in the distribution of wages, from a common rate, to a rate based on the productivity of the worker, and moving from being a consumer economy, to becoming a producer economy. The first change allowed for a more authentic market for growth, and the second allowed for the development of the vast network of supply-chains that stretch not only across China, but across the world at large now.

So, they’ve expanded their economy, and they are the producers of a huge amount of the world’s consumer goods, so what? They haven’t made many new moves on other territories that haven’t already been fight over, unlike Russia, who annexed Crimea within the last decade, and is fighting proxy wars in the Middle East. What’s more concerning is that China has not needed to. Now that China has managed to work out some of the kinks in their system, they’ve acquired enough wealth to begin to throw it around, using their new tools to peacefully subjugate a large portion of the world to Chinese colonial rule. With this I’m of course referring to Africa, which, despite the slowing of China’s GDP growth, has continued to pour massive amounts of money into infrastructure projects across the continent. Like many of the endeavors of the Chinese state, many of the early projects have had difficulties in their executions in their early years. Now though, compared to the scale of their investments from the early 2000’s, shows the greater confidence China has with choosing key infrastructure projects that are likely to pay off, and are more conscientious as to the extended range of factors that might make a good investment.

At the moment, the Chinese government does not meddle with domestic affairs of the countries that it lends to. However, should the next rounds of infrastructure projects that the Chinese invest in go well, the level of interdependence between China and African nations could become problematic, as China by proxy gains control over the vast amounts of raw resources that as of yet remain undeveloped on the continent.

What is the solution to this? Well, the United States, along with the EU, could increase aid investment spending on African projects, or could work on funding that more efficiently impacts socioeconomic development. It’s important that we maintain our funding and influence in the region however, as failing to do so could lead to authoritarian interests dominating the region. Will President Trump do this? It seems he would be likely to try to remove this funding, if he was aware of it, though, given the recent developments about his administration, I feel that he is too distracted to pay any mind to an issue so far from his mind, which means that any efforts to catch up, will only be exacerbated by time until a president comes into power who is capable enough to deal with the threat of spreading  authoritarianism.

What if the bombs went off?

13 bombs, no explosions, no deaths. A lucky break for our country, as had this gone to the counterfactual, the fallout could have been nearly as bad as when we almost accidentally nuked North Carolina in 1961. Everyone has breathed a sigh of relief, in this case, that the bomber was incompetent, and has pretty much moved on, as the synagogue shooting has consumed the news cycle. Why then, would I want to spend any effort on the bombing then, with the bomber caught, and the devices all duds? It’s because this could very well happen again, but successfully. Extremists on the right are so riled up by Trump’s rhetoric, and the toxic social bubbles they live in that reinforce that anger, that these attacks are occurring more frequently, and Trump has been far more transparent in his language, even bringing out the “N” word, nationalist, to cheers and applause.

Such a massive blow to Democratic leadership would send waves through the country, and would put Trump in a precarious position. The situation would require tact, and for him to not revel in the indirect victory for himself. However, I believe that this is quite impossible, as he had already once again began attacking those who were just targeted, when no one was hurt. “If someone was hurt though, he’d be more respectful,” you say. But we know this isn’t the case either as just the afternoon after the synagogue shooting, Trump still used his anti-semetic dogwhistle, calling out the (((globalists))). However, I think it would be fair to say that had Trump revealed his glee about his enemies being dispatched by one of his supporters, that the country would be in uproar about it. There would be an incredible amount of chaos from the event. From riots, to trying to put in replacements, the mourning of the former president, in all a devastating blow to the country. All of this of course would be with the GOP just standing by idly whistling, offering “thoughts and prayers”.

What can we do to protect the leadership of the left? At the moment, the only thing we really can do is vote, as a GOP-held Congress is incapable of standing up to Trump, refusing to do even the least bit. Trump refuses to tone down his rhetoric, with him even saying that he should be even more fiery in his attacks. If we can’t get a Democratic majority in place, then it’ll be impossible to reign him in with any sort of measure, such as censure, which will allow Trump to continue to turn up the heat, leading to more of these types of incidents, with more casualties. We can only hope that those in the future were as effective as Cesar Sayoc.

The Race Is On

So, I’ve been thinking about the IPCC report that came out a few days ago on climate change, and I really gotta say, things are bad, honestly, far worse than I had ever imagined. When I was young, I was pretty hopeful that our ingenuity would pull through for us, and would allow us to overcome the obvious destruction that rampant capitalism had caused, with some reformation to the capitalist structure that we live under, with increasing standards of living across the world to deal with the damage already done, and the technological and conservation efforts made would mitigate any further damage done to the environment. Or perhaps, I thought, that we would start to feel the sting of the effects of climate change, and that the panic would cause the soulless corporate giants to reevaluate their long-term business plans, and go green, because hey, you can’t make money if everyone’s dead, or a climate catastrophe causes the collapse of civilization.

This report though, totally throws a wrench in that childhood fantasy. Sure, some governments are taking steps to reduce their carbon footprints, but the biggest contributors to the disaster-in-waiting, China, the US, India, have been dragging their feet on this one, which means that there is less energy than is necessary to get the ball really moving on this. The report says that the single step that would have the greatest impact on this would be the imposition of a carbon tax. The imposition of a carbon tax would, at least theoretically, create the economic incentives required to actually change the landscape of the climate change debate. Now the debate is not actually a debate about the existence of climate change, at least not really anymore, or at least it shouldn’t be (stares accusingly at big oil companies and conservative America). It is instead a debate on the best way to mitigate climate change, though there are exceptions to this including the aforementioned polluters. Levying a carbon tax, I agree is the best method by which two apply resources to solving this problem. Renewable energy, along with carbon capture programs and removing the excessive amount of plastic in the oceans, are important to preserving not only the delicate and complex ecosystems across the planet, but also with two ensure that our own existence continues into perpetuity.

Of course, with changes in climate, as the report does say, there are number of tangential effects, which may present in a more immediate existential threats then climate change. Among those, they list flooded coastlines, droughts, hurricanes, and famine from shorter and less predictable growing seasons. However, another possibility would be war, perhaps not an all-out War so just World War 1 or World War, but a more covert War such as the cold war or one applied with economic leverage, such as a trade War is incredibly likely to become common, if not Constance, over these next couple of decades as resources begin to become sparse in the most vulnerable regions on the planet. Proxy wars will likely be fought by the biggest players through small conflicts across the globe in Africa the Middle East and South America. Should any of those conflicts escalate of course from proxy wars to an all-out war or full-scale intervention, the tensions might be so high from the stakes of these wars, that drastic actions may be taken by bad actors, resulting in escalation to nuclear war. This is the worst case scenario, and would create a whole new set of catastrophic circumstances to deal with, on top of those  already existing.

You know, I feel pretty depressed about the goings-on that I’ve heard recently, it seems as though the world of prosperity and plenty, but is rather giving into an era of scarcity, which may represent the last days that humanity has as a species. It’s a sobering thought, but we are not entirely without hope. A lot of us know things that we should do, things that can offset our individual carbon footprints, Though most of us, could certainly do more than what we do already, out of laziness, lack of incentive, or a sense of daunting apathy from the scale of the problem that we face. Some say that space travel will be our way out and then by the time change already be a star fairing race and then Mars will be our new home, Or the we may discover some miraculous technology that would allow us to revert the damage is done through some sort of terraforming method, and those people may be right. I will admit that while hope for my childish dream may still exist as a possibility, it is far from the highest probability, and relying on such a miracle would be foolish.

So what can we do? Well, there are the simple things that you can do yourself. You can drive a high-efficiency vehicle to work, you can carpool, you can take public transportation, you can ride your bike to work, if such an option is available to you, or if you can afford it. If you own a home, you can outfit your home with solar panels, and replace your lights fixtures with high-efficiency LED bulbs instead of incandescent bulbs. We can pass laws, such as Amendment 112 in Colorado, which will increase the distance that oil wells must be set back from inhabited building was, schools, hospitals, and other “vulnerable areas”. Personally, I find it appalling that with every day that the climate report has been out that there has been an increasing number of signs saying to vote against amendment 112 in Colorado, saying it will setback jobs, because jobs, apparently, are more important than the life of the planet. does it suck that some people will lose their jobs if the amendment passes, yes of course it is. I want those people to have jobs, or better yet to be in in an economy, where are they are able to get retraining, free education, and able to find new work in the energy sector setting up solar and wind farms, instead of drilling new wells next to playgrounds.

Again, I don’t want to diminish the livelihood of those who would lose their job over this. On the other hand, they got to be willing to recognize that their own job puts the livelihoods of their children and grandchildren at risk. how’s the recognize, that such a move would be painful, uncomfortable, as so many people these days are just feeling the squeeze of economic pressures, from increased cost of living, to stagnant wages. However, this is everyone’s future we’re talking about here, and not just our kids and grandkids, this is our own problem. I won’t even be fifty yet when 2040 rolls around, and my parents will be retirement age. Hopefully, we can get our shit together before then.

The Sleeping Giants Stir

Like many who follow politics these days, I spend a lot of time gaming out possibilities for different sets of circumstances, then try to fit all those different scenarios into cohesive narratives. Of course each situation that you game out, once you take previous games into account, can produce pretty specific results, and a combination of possibilities related to power plays are rising.

 

During World War II, the United States allied itself with Stalin, a move where the U.S. allied itself with a tyrannical regime, in an attempt to stop a different tyrannical regime. These days, people who are pro-democracy would certainly find it a bitter pill if we had to align ourselves with dictators, when we, at least theoretically, have so many pro-democracy allies. Before about 2014, I would have said that the increasingly democratic and capitalistic China would be our most likely ally in a global conflict, which would likely have been led by Russian power. However, with China returning to a more authoritarian rule, despite its increasing financial muscle, and mutual allies of China and Russia becoming more plentiful, it seems more and more apparent that while the two countries may be quite different in their dictatorial rule, that their mutual interests have certainly brought them closer together.

 

China has made huge strides in the development of its soft power abroad, providing $66 billion to African countries to develop infrastructure. This almost bribe, while yes, should do wonders to develop the continent, and perhaps stabilize some regions, it also puts most of the continent squarely under the indirect control of China. Russia on the other hand, has spent much of its time developing its own power in the middle east and Europe, between its military efforts in assisting Syrian forces, or its propaganda efforts to disrupt NATO allies, effectively preventing actions being taken against them.

 

This leaves a handful of countries across the world, and the EU as the major proponents of democracy and liberalism that remain. With the United States controlled by Donald Trump, who is clearly pro-Russia, and feigns to be anti-China, a compelling case could be made that the United States could fall on the side of the axis powers this time around. Of course Congress would hate it, everyone would hate it, except Trump’s base, who would cheer him on as he hit the nuclear button. That doesn’t mean he would go to war though, as the window of opportunity to do so is  currently unclear, with the 2018 midterms just under two months away as of writing. Should the Congress be taken by Democrats, Trump would find it impossible to act without circumventing Congress’ approval, a move much riskier considering the amount of scrutiny that he would be under. In a situation like that, it would be more likely that Trump would keep the United States out of the conflict that would occur, trying to take credit for keeping American troops safe, using that as a part of his re-election campaign, assuming that he isn’t removed from office by that point.

 

Should something happen in the elections in November, and things go wrong for Democrats, things could get very bad for Democracy. The most likely scenario for Congress is that the House flips, and the Senate stays red, or is evenly split, making VP Pence the deciding vote. There is still a possibility that the House will remain under Republican control through the midterms, and a certainly non-trivial percent. Almost no effort has been made to protect the election process from interference, and with the increasing volume of warnings given by officials that not only are the Russians going to attempt to mess with the elections again, but that they have already begun to work to do so. Should the Russians interfere significantly to elect a GOP Congress, it would pay off in spades, such blatant interference would tear apart the US political system almost overnight. There would be a panic among Democrats, as there would now be two more years of Republican majority rule at minimum, with no clear way to recover the election process for 2020, paving the path for Republicans to seize power indefinitely.

 

That is of course the most terrifying scenario, and would be the darkest timeline. In such a case, China and Russia could throw their power around on the world stage with impunity for at least two years, without the US standing against them, or in the most extreme case, join them. Of course there would be riots in the streets across the United States, but our militarized police forces are actually fairly well equipped to quash such uprisings. According to today’s projections on fivethirtyeight, such an event is less than likely, as it seems quite likely that Democrats take the House (about 5 in 6 chance), and the Republicans seem likely to hold the Senate (roughly 2 in 3 chance), though this is down from when the model launched (where it was close to 3 in 4). While this reflects the increasing likelihood of Democrats winning in an unobstructed election, the chances of interference disturbing those results has not fallen.

 

The power players on our global stage are beginning to stir, and will soon awaken. I only hope that the United States can find its way to the right side of history in time.

Simulations and Storytelling

I have often heard it said that video games were going to cause people to hide away and just play video games their whole lives. Every year for decades now, you hear about some new study or article related to the psychological effects of video games on today’s youth, from the pitfalls of Mario, to nightmares of Five Nights at Freddy’s “Purple Guy”. The root cause of these fears stems from the power of simulations. The fear that bothers me the most however, is the first mentioned, that people will immerse themselves too deeply into their simulated reality and will no longer wish to return to “the real world”. I however, have good reason to believe that while there will always be some for whom that will ring true, that it will never become wholly true, and that is, the power of storytelling.

 

First, I would like to dispel the notion that such a fear is at all a new phenomenon. People have said the same thing about movies, TV, books, and I am sure that it’s been said even about the theater in the past. After all, are they nothing more than less immersive simulations? The ability to interact with video games though, put them into a class of their own. It provides the ability to re-experience the game in a different way, with the ability for the player to set for themselves arbitrary goals within the game, with whole communities being formed around some of them, such as the speed-running community, with subcommunities formed around specific games, series of games, or even around a particularly popular runner. Video games themselves though, as a medium, have gotten better over the years, contributing to this fear. Games get more addicting, and you hear about kids who refuse to do anything other than play Fortnite, or Minecraft, or whatever their particular game of choice is, with no sign that games will get less immersive, or less designed to consume players’ time and money in the future.

 

There are however,  a few reasons why I believe that this will not come to pass. The first of these reasons is our love of telling stories as humans. It is not enough for us to merely experience these simulated worlds, but as natural storytellers, we cannot help but to return from our adventures, to tell others of our journeys and mishaps. Open-world gaming has become increasingly popular in recent years, with the staples of this genre of games being Bethesda games, The Elder Scrolls, and Fallout, the increasing complexity of the newer releases of Dwarf Fortress, and of course, as anyone can guess, yes, Minecraft. The expansiveness of these worlds, along with elements of randomness, along with individualized objectives, gives seemingly infinite possibilities for storytelling. Much of my high school experience with my nerdy friends, was recounting our latest exploits from the weekend, or late into the night. More recently, this kind of desire for unique and more challenging experiences with old favorites has led to the creation of “randomizers”, which hack ROMs for old games, particularly Pokemon and Zelda games, and randomize certain elements within that game to provide a new, perhaps more or less challenging experience. The meteoric rise in the number of people on YouTube uploading these kinds of videos is testament to the desire for these fresh, unique experiences, in this case by recycling old content, and adding the missing piece.

 

This also shows the other side, of this, and that’s, people want to hear those stories as well. They don’t want to just experience a game vicariously through another person, but they want to hear and see that person’s own stories too. We want to listen to stories, perhaps more than we want to tell them.

 

Some people became couch potatoes after the advent of television, and some became gamer hermits after the creation of video games. Further in the future still, there will be those lost to the more immersive worlds we create in the future, but, even if all of our needs are met while within those worlds, there will still be reasons to return to reality, to share our experiences in those worlds, whether that experience is educational, enlightening, terrifying, comedic, or just generally unpleasant. The final stage of the hero’s journey, is the return home where the hero is changed in some way, and I think that for the moment in our evolution, that this is inescapable for all but a few whose natural obsessiveness will just need an outlet for.

 

/rant

Basic Income As A Tool for Population Control

I am a huge fan of Basic Income, and I am going to write about it a lot, as it has the potential to cushion the blow to capitalism that will occur from the dramatic amount of automation that is going to occur incredibly rapidly in a number of vulnerable sectors of the economy. With that said, however, such a policy will have societal impacts, and could be used by governments to control populations. I intend to outline how different methods of basic income distribution would allow for a government to control populations and population density.

The first way that a government can use the tool of basic income to adjust populations would be to adjust the amount given for ages. By giving a family basic income for children, you can encourage population growth, as it would allow for people to more  easily care for children, and by increasing the amount that a family gets per child, you can further increase the amount of encouraged population growth, as the need to provide additional income per child to support the family becomes less necessary. Inversely, by not providing credit for children under 18, it will change the incentive structure for individuals, making it more economically preferable to share an apartment, or a house with other adults in a communal situation, discouraging people from having children in favor of adding the basic incomes of other adults together to create a more comfortable living situation for those involved.

Let’s put some numbers to it to make it a little more clear. Say each person 18-64 was provided with $1000 a month for basic income. A 2-bedroom apartment in my current city of Denver can cost anywhere from $1100 a month to around $1600 a month, though there are extreme cases outside of that range. 2 individuals could live in a place together, cheaply, and with part-time income outside of that. With a child credit, that bedroom could feasibly be used for a baby, even on a low income and be provided for comfortably. Without this incentives for children though, the much more likely option is that 4 adults would pool their resources, providing a household basic income of $4000 a month, and leaving over $2000 each month in unused basic income for covering other costs, or to use to spend, save or invest, to say nothing for each individual’s other sources of income. Even if each individual in the household earns the current poverty line in income, around $12,700 a year, this would still translate into a household income of around $96,000.

It’s easy to see how some people would use the ability to live on their own barely scraping by, but having the space and privacy to themselves, but how others who value privacy a little less would be attracted to the reduced costs of communal living, and with more extreme examples, such as with a 3 or even 4 bedroom living quarters creating very-high density population areas, where you could have up to $8000 in basic income a month, with rent amounts much lower proportionally.

There are ways to adjust this a little, if a government wants to adjust the locations of its population centers or to encourage migration from one part of the country to another. Basic income allows for greater freedom of movement, but additionally, allows the government to shift people in a more desirable way.

Say there is an area where growth has been stymied and the governing body wants to increase the growth rate. By increasing the basic income amount for the area, say up to $1100 a month, that small increase should attract people from other areas, where the amount is lower. An area that has experienced too much growth on the other hand, where perhaps living conditions have worsened, perhaps too high of a population density, too much pollution or smog, or simply not enough room to continue growing at its current rate, can be counteracted by this same method. Either the funding for the surrounding countryside can be increased to encourage people to move to more sparse regions, or in more extreme cases, the amount of income could simply be reduced in that area, even only a small amount lower, such as $900 a month, though this would likely be met with some discontent.

This potential for control is an important factor to keep in mind when considering policy decisions around basic income, as well as its potential for abuse in more controlling regimes. Basic income has the potential to radically free up resources in an economy, to drive innovation, and buffer society against the impacts of technology, but will come with its own set of dangers and potential pitfalls if not considered carefully.