The first part of the title refers to the fact that I quite randomly stumbled into the game at the end of last week and decided to install and start playing it yesterday. Definitely not playing The Witcher anymore, since I’m obviously too afraid of messing everything up after noticing how easy it seems to be to do that in that game, and six out of the last seven actual games I managed to finish were freeware, so I may have some luck with this at least.
The second part, on the other hand, has to do with how the trees on my street were “pruned”. I only noticed it yesterday, but the fact that I only did so on my way back, after the deep pits dug where I think trees used to be on another street made me pay more attention to them, means that it might as well have happened even weeks ago and I simply never looked up until then. Not that it makes much difference exactly when it happened, because either way it was during summer and that probably explains why the few leaves that are left look so burned even more than what was done does in itself.
To give you an idea, it’s not exactly like what happened in Constanta about a month ago, but that’s only because there are still some small branches and those leaves being burned by the summer heat, since little direct sunlight would have hit them normally. As far as the large branches go, however, those images depict what happened to the trees on my street quite well; almost everything was simply hacked away! What’s left now are trunks with little more than a few twigs coming out of them, which obviously can’t provide any shade and whose continued survival, not to mention anything about recovery, is seriously threatened.
Those trees had already been massive when I was little, most of them still looked healthy, and now they’re just… I can’t even find the words. It’s like they’ve been hacked to pieces and left to die, which is actually the only explanation I can find, that the authorities are looking for an excuse to cut them in another year or two. When I looked up and noticed it yesterday I was simply stunned, and then too angry to be able to fall asleep again after crawling back in bed after getting back, despite only getting some four or four and a half hours of sleep that morning.
Add that to this area behind the building, so in front of my window, being completely cleared of nearly every plant yet again some time ago and… What’s going on? This wasn’t a bad place to live, still somewhat green despite the large number of apartment buildings close to each other, but in recent years I’m seeing quite a “crusade” against Nature, with many different people seeming to simply want to do as much damage as possible for no other reason than because they can, and that definitely makes for one of those “I don’t want to live on this planet anymore” moments. Admittedly, this is a minor reason to feel that way compared to all the others, but it’s staring me right in the face every day now.
It would appear that being childfree got something of an image boost about a week ago, when the cover story of Time tackled the issue. That article requires a subscription to read, however, so I can’t know exactly what it says myself, but a piece posted on Grist mentions that the author “discusses the immense social pressure to have kids, and some of the upsides for those who resist that pressure”. However, that same Grist article states clearly that the Time story unfortunately misses the most important aspect of being childfree, namely the environmental one, focusing solely on what can be considered the selfish benefits of being childfree instead.
Admittedly, if any sort of argument has any chance of persuading anyone not to have children, emphasizing those selfish benefits is probably the better choice, especially since those who do care about the world as a whole in any way and are willing and able to put their brains above their gonads already know that having a child is probably the single worst thing they could do. However, the decision to have children isn’t a rational one, because if it was then hardly anyone would be having them, so that large majority of people who listen to their most basic instincts above anything else will not respond to any arguments, instead being far more likely to see such an article as evidence that not having children is an extraordinarily selfish decision, when in fact it’s the other way around.
The sad part is that I ended up learning about the Time story and the Grist article from a dreadful one posted on TakePart and included in their newsletter, which I’m actually still not quite sure how I ended up subscribed to but may occasionally include something interesting. I rushed to read it the moment I noticed a title like “If You Love the Environment, Is It Still Okay to Have a Child?”, only to be sorely disappointed by the actual content, the author’s blatant selfish attitude and his utter dismissal of the issue in spite of admitting that not having children “is perhaps the most effective individual choice” for an environmentalist. He even basically mocks those who actually do take this seriously, by ending with: “If that flavor of honesty gets my pass to the eco-tree house revoked for the rest of the summer, well, so be it.”
At the same time, a surprisingly high percentage of the comments posted so far on this article appear to be from people who are childfree and strongly advocate the concept, at least in large part for environmental reasons, so there is some good to take out of the bad. In addition, a little searching also proved that TakePart can post blunt articles that tackle the issue and reach the right conclusion as well, or at least they could in 2011. Even if it’s quite tongue-in-cheek and mentions a maximum sustainable population of 4.4 billion, which is some 50% above the most optimistic number I ever saw in any serious study taking renewable or fully recyclable resources, a decent standard of living for all humans and the well-being of other species into account, and dozens of times above the particularly pessimistic values, if I wouldn’t have found this article and the few others that at least tentatively attempted to start a debate on the issue over the years, I was seriously considering unsubscribing and forgetting about the site after such a demonstration of “thinking” with one’s gonads.
Getting back to the Time cover story, while it apparently doesn’t even mention the main reason why the vast majority of people shouldn’t have children, it seems to shine an at least passably positive light on the concept. Seeing as mainstream media, when it doesn’t ignore the population issue completely, usually does nothing but spew forth alarmist articles written from the point of view of those who support the current economic system and describing lower birth rates as a huge threat, that’s good news in itself. Add the fact that it also seems to raise awareness about the immense social pressure and even the discrimination that the childfree face and you could say that it’s a good start… Unfortunately, it’s more than half a century too late for a mere start to have much relevance anymore.
Still, it may be the best moment to bring up the issue once again in quite some time and we should quickly figure out how to make the best use of it, although there’s little room for hope when you remember that even all those leading scientists who were pointing out throughout the ’70s that we were already well past any sustainable population limit were silenced when the topic became taboo. A better opportunity might have been provided by the series of articles published throughout 2011 by National Geographic, but that proved to be nothing but a huge slap in the face by taking the “official” line, namely that further population growth is inevitable and not that big of a threat, at most acknowledging the idea that a drastic reduction of the global human population is necessary before any other efforts will be anything more than a waste of time only to quickly dismiss it with nothing but superficial arguments and focusing only on painting the supposed solutions aimed at mitigating some of the problems caused by overpopulation in bright and happy colors.
What all who claim to care for the environment and the other species we share this planet with must realize is that all their efforts are largely wasted unless we’ll first solve the overpopulation problem and that, while simply being childfree doesn’t necessarily make you an environmentalist, not being childfree certainly means that you can’t truly be one. And what all those who are serious about solving the overpopulation problem, most preferably without killing people or allowing them to unnecessarily die due to lack of access to needed resources and services, must realize is that a mix of basic instincts and shortsighted economic interests conspire to make the vast majority of people from all walks of life vehemently oppose the very idea of doing so, that few of those people will ever respond to reason and that education, awareness campaigns and voluntary measures have always been, are, and will always be little more than a drop in the bucket compared to what’s truly needed to tackle such a problem. Yet tackle it we must, by absolutely any means necessary, perhaps less for ourselves and more for all the other species we share this planet with.
This Monday, I managed to get my MobyGames account back after another talk with Sciere. He did, after all, say that he will look into the matter and see who is in the right when he banned me, so I sent him a message after being banned for a full month to ask how that’s going and, I guess, pestered him enough with the long rants that followed for this to be the simpler solution. It doesn’t imply anything being done about the asshole, he doesn’t even seem to be looking through what was escalated and the submissions that were rejected just when I was banned and have therefore vanished from the “recently rejected” list by the time I was allowed back are lost for good, but he did say that if I’ll feel that anything else is sent back, rejected or escalated unfairly I should let him know right away so he can look into it immediately and decide what to do then, suggesting that he could perhaps ask jaXen to skip them if they won’t really go against the standards but that guy will remain adamant that they do.
That said, I’m only posting this today because I didn’t actually submit anything again until a little while ago. I’m not even sure I care to do it so much anymore, because there’s that feeling of not even being able to do that right anymore that all these rejections have created, even if they’re all from a single approver who clearly has a different interpretation of the standards than the others, and that’s definitely not what I care to be feeling when I’m doing some volunteer work. I kept going until I resorted to the, shall we say, act of civil disobedience that got me banned because it was a conflict and I didn’t want to give in to an asshole’s unreasonable demands, but when I generally think that everything I do is wrong, something like this was bound to have consequences once I was forced to give it some time to settle in.
The site is a dying mess anyway; had been “ill” even before being sold in 2010 and has certainly been dying ever since that happened, since that resulted in it losing even what little support it had before, so I’m not even sure how long will it still be active in any way. If even Sciere, who’s the top contributor, said that the fact that the owners have abandoned it for so long made him decide there are better uses for his time, which is also why he didn’t care to get involved in my conflict with jaXen until he absolutely had to even though he’s probably the one person there who may still hold enough influence to decide on such matters, you know the end is near… Unless, of course, some other company that actually cares for games, perhaps the older ones in particular, and gamers, the more intelligent and thorough ones in particular, will decide to buy it from the current owners and somehow save it. But that’s another issue…
For most of this book, I was saying it’s an entirely run-of-the-mill SF; little to be bothered by, with the exception of what I’ll say below about the main character, but next to nothing to remember, so much so that you could probably readily find hundreds like it and never recall which was which after reading them. Add to that the uncorrected conversion issues, resulting in many misspelled or simply wrong words, not to mention all the missing periods, and it’s not hard to see why it’s given away for free.
Still, if you somehow struggle through to the final portion, it does get notably better. Not enough to make up for the lack of, well, anything relevant up to that point, and definitely not enough to counterbalance the annoying macho hero that appears made of steel while hiding a troubled past and proving instantly irresistible to the hottest women, including an improbably sexually compatible alien, but enough to make reading it no longer be a complete waste of time.
Rating: 3/5
An opinion piece called “Is Democracy Overrated?” was published on the BBC site and, while the author may not go as far as he should and may not emphasize the points he knows will prove particularly unpopular, I have to say that it’s a rather unexpectedly frank analysis at a time when such a debate is particularly relevant. Granted that the opportunity provided by the current situation in Egypt could not be missed if anyone meant to publish such a piece, but that in itself seemed a highly unlikely scenario when it came to the major media outlets from countries that, as the article implies, see democracy as the ultimate solution in itself.
This is, of course, a long discussion, but I did like how the article pointed out how some of the worst aspects of totalitarian regimes don’t directly stem from the fact that the people don’t have any say in the major decisions, and also how the fact that they do have a say doesn’t in any way mean that all, or in fact any, rights and freedoms are guaranteed, that conformity doesn’t continue to be enforced or that those who are different aren’t ostracized in democracies just as well, though the exact definitions of “different” and “ostracized” may differ. It’s true that it also makes some points that I see as unnecessary or even detrimental to the argument, making it rather obvious that the author was either afraid to continue it properly or is far from convinced that it’ll be right to do so, but the piece nevertheless remains a good starting point, perhaps the most notable phrase being: “Orthodoxy, conformity and the hounding of the dissident define the default position of mankind, and there is no reason to think that democracies are any different in this respect from Islamic theocracies or one-party totalitarian states.”
That said, while I won’t get into the whole discussion once again now, I did find myself submitting a comment there, which I’ll also add here now, since it pretty much covers my view of the issue:
Of course it is overrated. Democracy is largely tyranny by majority, though if you want to get specific it’s not even a majority that chooses. It is unreasonable to expect the choices made to be correct or fair, the freedoms of all to be in any way guaranteed or even desired, or justice to be appropriately served. The only two things to expect from a democracy are for responsibility to be spread among many, so none will feel particularly responsible for the failures, and for quite little to actually get done.
When you are in a minority, it’s hardly relevant whether your rights are being stripped away and your views silenced by the majority or by a single person, and the more you differ from the generally accepted norm, the greater the risk for that to happen, regardless of the system of government.
What we need are leaders who are fit to lead but definitely don’t wish to do so, people who want to do good for the world and for others without putting themselves above the others. We need leaders who’ll guarantee everyone’s right to live as they please as long as that doesn’t cause environmental destruction or unjustified harm to another. We need leaders who’ll be willing and capable of doing whatever it takes to uphold this simple rule, crushing those who would harm without proper justification and those who’d try to prevent people from living their lives as they see fit despite their lifestyles not causing unjustified harm equally, while otherwise encouraging all to find and follow their own path, make up and speak their own mind and generally overlooking a society adapting itself to fit all the individuals it’s made up of instead of one forcing the individuals to adapt to it.
If we’ll get that, how those leaders are selected and who they are is hardly relevant. If we don’t, however, anything else we may get is like a choice between getting hanged or burned alive: One is more painful for a brief amount of time, but in the end both kill you just as well.
To conclude, history proves that the majority is hardly ever right, whether we’re talking about a majority in absolute terms or of the majority of those who make themselves seen and heard, so any choice made or any course of action supported, directly or indirectly, by “the people” is almost certainly wrong, or at the very least far from the best one possible at that particular moment. The goal, therefore, must be to figure out which minority, small group or, far more often than most “democrats” or “liberals” would ever admit, individual is most likely to not only make the right decisions, but also to possess the willingness and the ability to enforce them in the most efficient manner, obviously without jeopardizing the outcome or wasting resources by striving to obtain additional benefits for themselves, and grant them the opportunity to do so. Anything else means simply walking farther down one wrong path or another, and therefore getting farther from the right one.
