Several things I noticed about FF's "verse"
POSTED BY: Allronix
UPDATED: Monday, December 30, 2002 14:48
VIEWED: 10617
PAGE 2 of 4
Quote:
Originally posted by GatorMarc:
It's that old example of which society is better off:
Society 1:
The poorest individual makes $20,000
The richest individual makes $100,000
Society 2:
The poorest individual makes $30,000
The richest individual makes $300,000
Okay, honestly - in what society does the poorest individual make $20,000?
- soleta
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Gates is worthy of nothing but praise? After creating a monopolistic giant with seriously deficient and buggy software that buys out or crushes other innovations in the programming world and looks to expand its monopolistic ambitions into every aspect of modern high-tech life?
I'm sorry, but he'll not get any praise from me for that. For charitable donations, perhaps, but certainly he'll not receive "nothing but praise".
History doesn't always repeat itself. Sometimes it merely shouts "Weren't you listening the first time?!?" and lets fly with a club.
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Honestly though, none of the world's ills are going to be cured until we deal - honestly - with the big ill: global overpopulation.
And before anyone tells me about "all that open space in Montana" global overpopulation isn't about physical space. It's about spread of disease, consumption of natural resources and pollution.
Overpopulation is also very much about economics and exploitation of segments of the populace.
I don't pretend to have the answers, but I am concerned that the U.S. (the number one over-consumer of the world's resources) has moronic leadership. It's time to get educated people back in the White House and our legislative bodies. Right now all I see in power here are paranoid people that aren't all that smart.
We've also had more than twenty years of moderate to conservative leadership. All this talk of "liberal" this and "liberal" that is fallacy. There hasn't been a progressive reform in the U.S. since the '60s! (Civil Rights) I honestly believe it's time we actually moved the U.S. political machine Left of center instead of opining how horrible it would be to do so, thus shooting the idea out of the sky as if it had no merit. You have to try it to know whether it would work or not.
The self professed "greatest country ever" and "envy of the world" hasn't tried anything politically new in almost 40 years! Instead there's been a concerted effort to move us backwards in time intellectually. I'm just glad this effort isn't 100% effective (see: reaction to Trent Lott's "slip up").
Here are "new" things I would love to see in the U.S. (the following mechanisms are already in place in governments throughout the world):
1. Majority Preferential Voting-a voting mechanism used in Executive position elections... President, Governor, Mayor, etc...
Voters choose their top three choices in order of preference. This system would give us candidates that actually reflect the general population's desires particularly in close elections. After the first nationwide vote tally came up with no clear victor, only the ballots where definitive electoral losers (Nader, Buchanon, etc) were the #1 choice would be recounted...this time moving to the second choice on those ballots. To put this into imaginary play, Nader voters would most certainly have picked Gore as their second choice in 2000 thus sparing us the non-elected president situation we now "enjoy". All that Florida recounting would have been rendered moot with this automatic safety valve built into the system.
2. Binding National Referendums- The citizens of the U.S. vote bindingly on the big issues at the Federal level. Dozens of democratic nations around the world enjoy this voting mechanism.
Let Congress figure out how/where to spend the $$ and let the Prez be our figurehead. But let the people be the steering committee. I personally would have loved to vote at the polls against NAFTA. I would love a shot at this Star Wars fantasy missile shield. In other words, I would love to see this republic infused with more democracy.
3. Proportional Representation- Make the representation in the legislative bodies (Congress, State Houses, City Councils, etc) match the actual population's idealogical leanings... some refer to this as "parliamentary politics" but that's really just one method of proportionalization.
If a political party has support of 5% or more of the voting public, they get the same percentage of seats in the Congress. This would elminate the need for voting districts and put the focus on the parties themselves. This would also flood the legislative bodies with new ideas. Presently we are stuck with the limited imaginations of two idealogies: Democrats (corporate philosophy -- moderate to conservative) and Republicans (corporate philosophy -- conservative to reactionary). More parties equals more ideas and I maintain my assertion above that the U.S. hasn't had a non-market based new idea since the '60s.
4. Tweaks to the Constitution
This must be added to our "to-d
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Quote:
Originally posted by soleta:Quote:
Originally posted by GatorMarc:
It's that old example of which society is better off:
Society 1:
The poorest individual makes $20,000
The richest individual makes $100,000
Society 2:
The poorest individual makes $30,000
The richest individual makes $300,000
Okay, honestly - in what society does the poorest individual make $20,000?
- soleta
Yes, yes. Aparently in his world everyone who makes less than 20,000 just don't count. Isn't that convenient. Don't you love it when the opposition makes your argument for you? Guess the argument wouldn't make any sense if it read:
The poorest individual makes $0
The richest individual makes $100,000
and
The poorest individual makes $0
The richest individual makes $300,000
or how about something a little closer to reality
The poorest individual makes $0
The richest individual makes $40,000,000,000
???
Getting back to the ahem topic at hand, ain't it great how Firefly can get us talking about real world issues?
And another thing...anyone else see parallels between an extraordinarily rich unopposed superpower exporting soft drinks to every backwater in the 'verse and our own perilous position atop the politico-economic (I think I just made that up) food chain? Anybody else worried about that old "Absolute power corrupts absolutely" thing? Anyone think Joss Whedon is the antichrist?
And remember, no matter where you go, there you are.
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Gee, a political debate where I'm not the one tossing napalm. 
No, seriously. On the Earth: Final Conflict fans' main hangout, the political debate section knows me as the Socialist/Pagan American who gets rather aggressive in a debate.
America...based on the myth that everyone can make it, and the fact that only 1 in 100 has a prayer.
Think the Core Worlds/Frontier debate here. The Frontier lives in squalor, disease, and leftovers. But the shiny, high-tech core worlds is dependant on them for cheap labor, raw materials, etc. The Core cannot allow the Frontier to become prosperous, either. Otherwise, how will they get the labor cheap?
And since the nature of capitalism is expand, devour, discard (or die)...terraforming allows it to continue unchecked. Why question our use of resources when we can just get another rock, drop off the poor (so we can't see them and question it that way), and continue ad nauseum.
Fandom, BTW, is how I try to RELAX from politics. (I'm involved with several Seattle-area activist groups, and was technically a WTO protestor, even if I was not near the tear gas. .
Co-founder of the Evil Writing Crew - causing hell, one hero at a time!
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For me the darkest part of the show is that one line, "The earth got used up." Damn. He says it so matter-o'-fact. Given what I know about our Gaia and Her resiliance, I don't even know how that's possible. I mean, when he says "used up" I don't think he means we depleted our fossil fuels and hadda go solar. I think he means used up. Gives me a chill. And the theme song, "Burn the land and boil the sea/You can't take the sky from me." Breaks my heart every time I hear it.
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Quote:
Originally posted by HKcavalier:
For me the darkest part of the show is that one line, "The earth got used up." Damn. He says it so matter-o'-fact. Given what I know about our Gaia and Her resiliance, I don't even know how that's possible. I mean, when he says "used up" I don't think he means we depleted our fossil fuels and hadda go solar. I think he means used up. Gives me a chill. And the theme song, "Burn the land and boil the sea/You can't take the sky from me." Breaks my heart every time I hear it.
'Earth that was.' is certainly a mysterious line.
I'm kind of wondering just what happened - it seems that there is no faster than light travel, just fast travel (or maybe that's what the blue hands and River really are about, kinda like Dune...)
This also suggests a system with a number of planets, gas giants and moons - even richer than Sol's system we have come to so love.
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You make a buncha excellent points. In particular, the swaggering sneering contemptuous way the Alliance feds treat...well, just about everyone...sorta kinda almost, er, eh, reminds you of, oh, say, the way the rest of the planet views America, don't it?
Mind you, I'm not saying that America really acts that way. (Often it does, IMHO.) Just that hte rest of hte planet thinks we do.
The swaggering hubris in Washington has ramped up like a Hendrix solo through a stack of marshals ever since the end of the Cold War, too. I wonder if Firefly also represents a commentary on that little trend...?
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Quote:
Originally posted by xed:
...the swaggering sneering contemptuous way the Alliance feds treat...well, just about everyone...
And yet the one Alliance officer we get to know at all, the fella that gets on with Simon & River, is not a monstrous nazified sociopath but a decent seeming guy who thinks he's doing the right thing upholding the law and all. From his point of view isn't Simon's abduction of River kinda like kidnapping a heart patient from the OR? How long would River survive without "proper medical treatment?"
And for me that's one of the big red flags about America right now, because we are so absolutely, sincerely, blindly, uncomplicatedly, generously sure of our right and decency. We're just trying to help the rest of the world what can't help them selves, and if it means ridding the world of a little Evil while we're at it, well then, saddle up!
And remember, no matter where you go, there you are.
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Quote:
And for me that's one of the big red flags about America right now, because we are so absolutely, sincerely, blindly, uncomplicatedly, generously sure of our right and decency. We're just trying to help the rest of the world what can't help them selves, and if it means ridding the world of a little Evil while we're at it, well then, saddle up!
And now that it's no longer safe for Americans to travel abroad, we don't have to learn anything from other cultures nor see other ways of doing things! All those pesky differing viewpoints... good riddance!
Thanks, W!
mattro
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