Joss and Firefly
POSTED BY: strokingmypeter
UPDATED: Tuesday, July 4, 2006 10:22
VIEWED: 6266
PAGE 2 of 4
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
I've never enjoyed Star Trek much, but I kind of like Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. In my opinion it has some of the most human characters of any of the shows, particularly the settlers on smaller planets and moons. It always pissed me off to see how clean everybody in the Federation was with their fancy pants and we're all equal attitude.
When I watched the pilot to Star Trek: Voyager, I was really excited that this time around, there were some rebellious, no-stick-up-their-pigus characters on board the ship, and thought that the tension between the Feds and them were gonna be really interesting, them having to get along and all.
Of course, the pilot ended with everyone in uniform and a stick up their pigu, well, la-dee-daa, never seen THAT before.
So Firefly made me go "WOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOO!".
Btw, you like the Kottonmouth Kings, don't you? If not, you should check them out.
The Serenity Summer Campaign is on, baby - prepare to kick some serious pigu!
http://www.fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=19&t=21775#326341
September 30th is Serenity 'Versary! Be there or be a purple-belted poop-head. (<- not the official slogan.)
I'm so into Firefly, my butt glows in the dark.
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Thanks for clearing up the shirt thing Agatsu and Nosadseven. I figured as much since the shirts looked like a play on Star Wars. I just would never wear a shirt that had a screenwriters name on it for the same reason that I never wear a shirt with a name on it or one with brand names in big bold letters (ie: Nike shit). No matter how clever it is.
But I'm sure that there's shit that I do that would annoy the hell out of anyone who would wear that shirt too so to each his/her own.
And as for this:
Quote:
Originally posted by nosadseven:
You are right, however, that there are folks who consider Joss as infallable, but that's hardly "being manipulated by a larger entity that is trying to meddle and micromanage your life". :)
I guess I wasn't very clear about what I meant now that I read it. I didn't mean to say that Joss was some mastermind that is trying to meddle and micromanage anybodie's life. I meant that I think that Joss would be against that practice from any entity, weather it be government or a cult or a TV or radio personality, or religion or anything else that would threaten to take your originality and individuality away. I just find it comical that people would go around wearing shirts that say Joss is my Master, even in jest, when I don't think that he would appreciate it in the least.
Like I said before... just my opinion. I could be completely wrong and Joss might be laughing at the sheeple from up high all the way to the bank.
P.S. Sorry in advance if I mess up the quote. I've never done it before.
"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned."
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6ixStringJack wrote:
Quote:
...The sad truth is, we are not all born equal. There are some of us that excell at some things and some that excell at others. There are some of us who excell at many things and there are some who excell, sadly, at nothing. To believe any other way is simply counteractive to Darwins theory of survival of the fittest...
Look, I can see where you visualize yourself as some kind of a 'rebel without a cause', a cynic, a dogged realist. The problem with your statement quoted above is that it is the product of brainwashed thinking.
You're not talking about equality, you're talking about the value our society assigns to people. It's a means by which to categorize, to pigeonhole human beings in a systematic way that makes them easily identifiable by class, replacement cogs for The Big Machine. In this way, whenever a specialist (strictly by way of example) retires or experiences a 'catastrophic failure' and needs to be replaced, those who tend The Machine simply go to the human warehouse, grab another one off the shelf, and plug them into the empty socket.
Give the old fella a gold watch or a straight jacket, perform whatever adjustments are necessary on the 'replacement part', and The Machine keeps ticking along. Try reading some Upton Sinclair. Yeah, he was a socialist (and held other unenlightened views), but hell, he didn't know any better. And he did at least get a glimpse of part of The Machine and then told us about it.
Point is, we're all part of The Big Machine, and I'm not advocating raging against it. Not only The Rich depend upon its smooth running in order to survive. What I am raging against is the mindset that our value to The Machine is the ultimate measure of our humanity. 'I do well on aptitude and IQ tests, therefore I am better than the average person; they are not equal to me', is diseased thinking, Machine-washed thinking.
No, I tend to think along the same lines as our Founding Fathers that "all men are created equal", only expanded to include all human beings, regardless their race, sex, creed, or value to The Big Machine...
Mechanistically,
zoid
P.S.
You've heard variations on the expression 'round pegs and square holes', right? Well, I'm kind of an adjustable peg that can fit just about any size and shape hole. But that ability does not define me as a human being. What defines me -- and you, and all of the people in the world -- as a human being is the content of my character: my capacity to give and receive love, my ability to spread that love to others, and to help others find their own peace and enlightenment. We all have that responsibility.
P.P.S.
Just out of curiousity, since it's a favorite dream of yours: How do you plan on distributing your Moon-grown crops to your prospective customers? Are they all gonna live on the Moon, too? What goods and services will they have to specialize in, to barter for your crops, so that everyone can have food, shelter and clothes (or were you planning on wearing hempen clothing and eating tobacco steaks and marijuana soup every day for b'fast, dinner and supper)? What if the person(s) you need to keep things tidied up in your Utopian Selenia (because there's still gonna be waste products that need to be processed) disagree with being assigned the shit detail? Are you gonna force 'em to do it? What if they decide they can grow marijuana and tobacco more efficiently than you, and that you should be the one mucking out the communal outhouse? Maybe you could whip up some aptitude and IQ tests to convince them that shit detail is all they're worth in your society...
The Big Machine will follow you to the Moon. You will either embrace it -- possibly going so far as to become 'The Alliance' yourself -- or soon find yourself pushing out to the asteroid belt, where you'll plant Its seeds all over again. This is what drove the European colonization of the "New World", and later the Western expansion of the US to the Pacific Ocean. (N
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Quote:Sometimes in ways nobody quite intended:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Anything by Phillip K. Dick that they've turned into a movie is great because it's so scary how so many of his fantastical predictions have come true already via technology.
http://www.fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=7&t=17857
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We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.
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A little off the subject, but just a comment for those of you who didn't watch Buffy perhaps because it starts out in high school. Yeah, I had the same problem. I saw a few episodes here and there while in college, but the whole high school mentality annoyed me. "Oh, he's the love of my life and we can never me togther! My life is over at 16!" Despite the clever dialogue and deeper messages I had a hard time getting past the "highschool is hell" theme.
You could try skipping past it. By the fourth season they're out of high school. Once you get into the fifth and six seasons they deal with much more realistic problems, like death in the family, money issues, using people for sex, etc. The sixth season is REALLY dark, and really good. If nothing else, I would suggest interested individuals at least view "Hush" from season 4 and "The Body" from season five.
My two cents.
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Nice post Zoid.
I respect your opinion that my ways of thinking are brainwashed. Who am I to say that they aren't... We've all been force-fed so much shit in our short lifetimes that it takes the rest of our years try to unlearn all the bullshit, if we so choose to. Being that we are all human and equal, that also means that we are all equally stupid as we are smart and what may be right to one person might be wrong for another... this being the means to a person's character.
The value that society puts on us is a very interesting arguement. Every day they're finding new and clever ways to characterize, profile and pigeon hole all of us... many of them having nothing and everything to do with race, sex, religion, mental aptitude and the like.
In this age, it would be so easy to study so many different angles of a person like age, sex, color, religion, income, spending habits, and how far you leave home and how often are studied on a scale so large, that it could be called the biggest social experement the world has ever known. Based on these and other demographics, big companies decide who they're going to market to and the cops catch all the bad guys. There may also be uses for this technology far more sinister, and recent revelations that the phone company has been spying on us just serve to illustrate this belief.
The internet, GPS & Satellite technology and electronic funds transfers are the biggest contributors to the recent proliferation of this data collection. Any purchase you make, other than those made with cash is catalogued somewhere, and who knows how long and if anybody is looking? Wireless devices which allow for cashless road tolls not only provide the taxpayers with the convenience of not having to carry change coupled with the speed with which you pass the open road tolls also provide with the ability for the Machine to cut down on human labor costs and simply mail tickets to speeders based on the toll locations and the time spent driving between them... not to mention the ability for anyone looking to find out your general whereabouts based on the record of the transaction. For most people with nothing to hide and nothing notably valuable to lose, this data collection doesn't seem to matter and some even welcome such privacy squashing practices as a means to a safer society. Our forefathers warned us about this. The real problem comes from what I said before about not really wanting or needing for anything. Sure, we all wish we had that perfect body or perfect relationship... but generally as a people, we are not hungry. We don't go to sleep in the rain or snow. We don't chop down our walls in our own homes to burn for just a few hours of heat. We have wanted for nothing for so long that we forgot how to stand up to oppression. This oppression, meddling, and manipulation of the people happens just a little bit more every day and it's always accompanied with rhetoric about "public safety" and "for the children" meant to confuse the people and allow unconstitutional laws to be created and enforced in order to ensure public safety and a better world for our children. My favorite example of this is my memory of Crime Dog McGruff and the police coming to my school and collecting all of the kids fingerprints and telling the parents that it would be a very valuable tool for finding their children if they ever got kidnapped. To this day, I still have yet to hear a single story on the news about a child being found because of their fingerprints after a kidnapping. Having never caused a crime in my life, they've had my fingerprints in a database next to my SS# for the last 18 or so years. They're doing the same thing in Mexico now, but instead of fingerprints, they're inserting chips in the child's skin, much like the way they tag dogs and cats now as a mandatory law in Illinois.
There are, of course, exceptions to this as with any rule. Not everybody here is wanting for nothing. There are a sizable amount of homless people in this country. Many of them have been lost for
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Ah, but your wrong Jack. In a sense. You see i agree that everyone isn't equal in every way, or even in some ways. But to act on that information is far too dangerous. It leads to hatred, bigotry, and evil in general. By treating everyone mostly equally, we help prevent this. Obviously some are smarter than others, stronger than others, etc. But that doesn't mean that we should treat the smarter, stronger people better than the not as smart or strong.
Also, who said that we should treat everyone equally as in Harrison Burgeron? They were mind-boggling bungling idiots. You don't use technology to bring people down, to hurt them and make smart people dumb and strong people weak. You use technology and science and medicine to make people better (those who choose to do so of course, we all know what happens when people try to make people better by force *Miranda, cough cough, Reavers, cough cough*. But if a blind person wants to see, or a physically handicapped person wants to use technology to fix the problem, then we should do so. And if there is ever a way to make people more intelligent, or stronger, or healthier, then if they choose to do so it should be available. But these kinds of things must be available equally, and not just available to the super-rich.
You don't make people equal through hatchet, axe, and saw (a little Rush reference in case you thought it was familiar, which it's weird that a fifteen year-old would do that, but i heard a couple songs and i like the Trees, and i'm rambling...) you make them equal by fixing the problems, by expanding their abilities. We can all, if we choose, become less hindered by whatever constrains us.
But i digress. To treat people unequally just because they are in a strict sense unequal is too dangerous. That leads to Hitler and Stalin, bin Laden and the Crusades. We must treat everyone roughly equally (not totally, i'm not an idiot) and where people are unequal, try to fix the handicaps and constraints that hold us all, some of us more than others, back.
I aim to misbehave.
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I'm not certain that you understood my previous posts at all. Unfortunately, the Machine uses all all of the information they have on people to market things to them and to spread different information and influences to groups based on profiling. I am in no way an advocate of these practices... I loathe them. I loathe the fact that there are voter lists that politicians and wanna-be politicians can purchase for thousands of dollars which will tell them your name, your age, where you live and how often you've voted republican, democrat and independant and then decide, based on the likelyhood that you'd even vote for thieir party, if you're worth the printing, mailing and labor costs. The cost for a list of voting habits of a targeted 25,000 homes would be a small fraction of the cost of actually sending the piece out to 10,000 people who are almost guaranteed to pitch the mailing when it arrives at their house. I was taught in school that our vote is our business and that it is private.
Why do John Kerry and Al Gore behind them get to talk for an hour on MTV's Choose or Lose and Bush wasn't invited either time? MTV isn't trying to get the young Republican vote. I'm not saying Bush should have gotten equal oppurtunity. I'm just trying to illustrate the nature of the Machine. People on an individual level can be brilliant and spontaneous, but as a whole people are largely predictable based, sadly, on stereotypes. We're reminded constantly not to stereotype others while we're all being categorized based on our actions every day. On a grand scale, it is happening. I'm not the one you should be talking to about it if you're not a fan of the practice.
Every day the machine prints out half a billion new US notes. That's the only way it would be feesible to take on the human rights programs and wars that we've seen in the last 80 years. Unfortunatley, every time currency doubles, as it has many times over since 1913, its just like owning stock in a company that splits the stock and sells half of your split to somebody else. The people who had money twenty years ago, excluding the elite who will never be poor due to the ability of their money to constantly make more money, have to share all of their money via taxes and Government programs, usually against their will. There is no accountability for what happens with this money after it is collected. Hitler and Stalin are scary concepts indeed, and we opened the door for a figure like that to come into place when the Congress gave up the ability to coin currency and gave it to the FED. Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto laid out a plan to sell a heavy graduated income tax and the creation of a central bank to the people in such a way that they would welcome them with the promise of economic stability. Before they passed the 16th ammendment to the constitution in 1913, it was constitutionally illegal to tax income in the US... this being the very same year that the Federal Reserve was created. Shortly after the Communist Manifesto was written, Communist leader Vladimir Lenin seized the Russian Government in a bloody revolution. He then created a central bank in Russia and intentionally printed so much currency that the money that people had already saved became worthless. The inflation from this money printing is estimated to have raised the general index of prices to around 16,000 times what they were in 1913. The end result was that the middle class in Russia was eliminated. These people were now 100% dependant on the government for work, food, shelter and any meager material possessions they may have acquired. The central bank printing money is in essence counterfitting, but when a government decides to do it it of course becmes legal. It's said today that the average american will work 7 months out of the year to pay taxes.
I'm sure even in Communist Russia there were Malcom and Jayne types and a thriving underground for those to have the nuts to live outside of the structured lives the Russian People were forced to live in.
When I say that
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I agree that people should be rewarded, and that the better you do the better you should be rewarded. So i agree that if someone gets straight A's and works really hard and then someone who is mentally handicapped and just automatically gets C's, then the person who got straight A's should get another kind of Diploma. That's what they do at my school. There is a technical diploma which is for everyone who isn't all that smart, and a CP diploma for everyone else. ANd then there's something like "with distinction" which can be added on to either which shows you did really really well.
I disagree entirely that you cannot change things, that somehow the Big Machine as you call it is somehow invincible. We have it in our power to transform the world, to change everything, and cast aside the irrationality, the bigotry, racism, classism, sexism, and every other form of prejudice, to wipe away many of the evils of our world. The Big Machine isn't all-powerful, for it is made of people. And those people can be changed, they can be persuaded, they are not totally loyal to the Big Machine. And so the Big Machine can be destroyed and replaced with something new, and better world. Not trying to sound like the Operative, he was insane. But you can create a better world if you try.
Okay, and i think you are misunderstanding my point here. When you said that Jayne might as well be Captain and Kaylee the Doctor, that's not what i'm talking about. Whatever you're best at, whatever you enjoy doing that is what you should do as your job. I realise that if we simply took away all limitations there wouldn't be anything anyone is better than anyone else at, but that's not what i mean. I mean if someone is retarded, or paralysed, or blind, or deaf than we should get rid of that, we should fix it, give them back what they never had or what they once had. Obviously if your not good at fixing things you shouldn't be the mechanic. There will always be disparity between natural talents and abilities between people. I'm not saying that is a bad thing. Just that if someone is handicapped by some physical problem then that should be fixed to give them an equal opportunity for advancement.
Equality is not the most important thing in the world to me. Freedom and rationality are equally important. Scientific advance is important. Peace is important. When i say we must treat everyone equally i mean that you shouldn't treat someone who is black or female or Jewish any different than anybody else of any other race. No prejudice is my main point. Fairness when people are up for advancement. The best qualified person for the job should get the job. The best worker should get the promotion. That's all i am asking for.
And as to the whole thing about how these advances won't be available to anyone but the super-rich. I don't think so. At first, for a couple years. But companies will make far more money if they can bring the price down by a factor of 500 and sell to 2000 times as many people. And that is precisely what will happen very quickly. And if the rich try to seize power to ensure that only they have the advances, the rest of us can and most likely will rise up against them. Maybe that'll be the day when the Big Machine is finally destroyed.
I am not some revolutionary or a communist. I simply want a world where people are as free as possible, treat others equally without prejudice and where advancement is based on merit not likeability. And if the Big Machine stands in the way, well then the Big Machine needs to go away. And i will try my best to bring about a better world. Although killing people isn't going to be part of it, not if i can help it. Simply a peaceful shift to a better world.
I aim to misbehave.
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I agree. People should be rewarded for hard work and dedication. Unfortunately, in the real world, in a battle of what you know over who you know, the who wins 9 times out of 10. Not to mention the fact that we replaced racist hiring practices in the workplace with an equally racist hiring practice of "affirmative action". The pendulum swinging the other way. Don't get me wrong. Like I said before, I'm all about equality and a fair shot for all jobs and schools no matter your race or religion, ect..., but laws like this dictate which race will get what percentage of the jobs. Now that there are laws governing hiring practices, it has just become one more big way for the Machine to meddle and lawyers and courts to make more money. It sounds benevolent in its intentions, but it only leads to further strife between races by being threatening and building more resentment. Bottom line is that it just doesn't work anymore, it probably isn't even necessary anymore and should be added to the long list of laws which have served their purpose and should be repealed.
It is nice that they gave you a different diploma at your high school though.
I never said it was impossible to change things... just next to impossible. I did mention that if you wanted to change things it would take the biggest grass roots effort this nation has seen in any of our lifetimes. The people would have to take back the government from the lawyers and lobbiest and work their way up. If you're a follower of the Orwellian point of view, this is impossible because you could never organize the Proles. I have a little more faith in mankind, though not much. Things would also have to get much worse before most people get up and do anything. Bitch about gas prices and inflation all you want, but that doesn't mean Firefly fans still won't buy Firefly and Serenity on DVD. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, just that we aren't very hungry right now, especially comparativley speaking to most of the rest of the world.
There's pleanty of food and circus to distract us from the litigation and legislation that goes on behind closed doors. They've even turned the American courtroom into entertainment that is oftentimes more intersting to watch than a lot of stuff that's on Primetime. Judge Judy, People's Court and thier ilk. Hell... find an American that doesn't at least have some basic knowledge about the Michael Jackson trial or the Lacey Peterson trial. Now for the really hard part... find one tenth that amount of people that know about the "Real ID" act. I'm not going to go into to much details on "Real ID" (just Google "Real ID" to read more), but Bush signed this law into effect in 2005. It was supposed to be implemented in late 2007-early 2008, but now it seems that it may be pushed back a bit. It is a total privacy killer and and end to life as we've lived it here (Think ID card with RFID technology which will one day house medical and criminal records and the open ended possibility that they might add retinal scans and DNA samples... not to mention that you won't be able to drive, leave the country and one day not even be able to purchase food without it. Not that I'm a religious man, but I do believe something pretty similar had been predicted over 2,000 years ago. These new drivers licenses will cost the people and estimated $80-$90 a piece.
Several state politicians have voiced their opinions against and even blocked the passed legislature from taking effect in their state. One such man was Representative Neil Kurk of New Hampshire. I wrote him an email thanking him for his service to the people which he replied with simply "Thank you for your kind words and thoughtful observations". That may have even been his secretary that wrote that email, especially because my vote doesn't matter at all to him since I live in Illinois, but if you want to challenge the machine, you need to show these few men and women still protecting the rights of the people that we are behind them. Representative Kurk is just another example of
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