ladyofleithian (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ladyofleithian) wrote2013-10-08 04:44 pm
ladyofleithian) wrote2013-10-08 04:44 pm
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Still in the 1960s
Originally posted by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
valarltd at Still in the 1960s
valarltd at Still in the 1960sOriginally posted by grail76 at Still in the 1960s
Angel says: We've been arguing about these things ALL my life. Longer than I've been alive and I have two children of legal majority. I want us to grow up.
grail76 at Still in the 1960sFrom J. Michael Straczynski:
If I might be permitted an observation.
You, reading this on your monitor, or your smart phone or your tablet, you who have the latest IOS or Windows or Linux, you who track the latest apps and sites and watch with rapt attention as the Higgs Particle surrenders its secrets...you, who believes you are living in the twenty-first century.
You are wrong. We are not living in the twenty-first century.
We are living in the 1960s. We’ve been living there for the last fifty years. I don’t care what the calendar tells you, you’re wrong.
How do I know this?
Because right now, at this very second, we’re having the very same arguments, over the very same things, that we argued about in the 1960s, and the 70s, and the 80s, and the 90s, and the Oughts. And nothing’s been done, nothing’s been decided.
It’s just the same old arguments, over and over, for FIFTY YEARS.
We’re still arguing about equal pay for women.
Still arguing about environmental issues versus corporate laissez faire.
About whether or not some sexual practices should be allowed.
About excessive government secrecy and spying.
About voting rights and citizenship for minorities.
About bomb blasts and body counts.
About casual cruelty masquerading as policy.
Arguing about the rights of gays.
About a trigger-happy military.
About who is the latest suspected socialist.
About the media as source of all social ills.
About the war on drugs.
About health care.
About social security.
About birth control.
About evolution.
About nuclear power.
About abortion.
About guns.
And I’m tired of it.
I’m not saying these discussions aren’t important. Obviously they are.
But can we get on with it? Can we actually decide some of the things on the list given above and move on to NEW questions?
Can we move out of the 1960s?
Can we have some new arguments?
I would love to see new arguments.
I would love to see Congress wrestling with whether or not to declare our Mars colony the 51st state.
Would love to see filibusters and debates over whether someone who has received 51% of his body mass from artificial sources still constitutes a human being.
Arguments over whether the new mega-high-speed rail that puts the ones in Japan and China to shame should go from LA to New York or Miami.
About voting rights for synthetic people.
About the FDA’s analysis of mindbridge implants that let two people stay mentally joined forever.
About new safety standards for air-cars.
About deployment of the 45th Robotic Division past their warranties.
Those would be wonderful arguments to have. New, fresh, inspiring arguments.
We’ve been arguing about the same things, over and over, for fifty years. The same drumbeat, the same talking points, the same positions and policies and nothing ever gets done because it’s in no one’s INTERESTS to get anything DONE, because for as long as those same arguments continue, those with a visceral stake in the outcome of those arguments will continue to come out to the polls to vote in those whose viscera says the same thing about the same issues.
And so we roll on, decade after slow decade, with neither side resolving anything even when they run the table, with influence over all three branches of government.
Fifty years. Arguing over the same things for fifty years is like eating the same meal for breakfast, lunch and dinner for five decades. Soon the taste buds diminish and fail and you don’t even realize what you’re eating anymore.
If you’d said to me as a kid in the 1960s that we’d still be arguing over these things in 2013 I’d have laughed in your face. Impossible. We’ll resolve at least some of these things by then. Has to happen. Got to. The alternative is ludicrous.
Do you...you the person who has read this far without going off to tweet or instagram or download, you the person who actually believes you are living in the twenty-first century...want to be having these same arguments fifty years from now? Do you want to still be living in the 1960s in 2063?
Do you want a hundred years of arguing without resolution?
Do you think we can do better?
We have to do better. This can’t be it. This can’t be the end of the American experiment, sucked down into a century of social quicksand.
We have to be better than that.
We have to be.
New arguments.
New arguments.
God of microscope and test tube, god of provender and starlight, stern god who maketh quantum quandaries as much as the architecture of butterfly wings, let us have some new arguments.
I realize it is much to ask.
But it is long past time to ask.
If I might be permitted an observation.
You, reading this on your monitor, or your smart phone or your tablet, you who have the latest IOS or Windows or Linux, you who track the latest apps and sites and watch with rapt attention as the Higgs Particle surrenders its secrets...you, who believes you are living in the twenty-first century.
You are wrong. We are not living in the twenty-first century.
We are living in the 1960s. We’ve been living there for the last fifty years. I don’t care what the calendar tells you, you’re wrong.
How do I know this?
Because right now, at this very second, we’re having the very same arguments, over the very same things, that we argued about in the 1960s, and the 70s, and the 80s, and the 90s, and the Oughts. And nothing’s been done, nothing’s been decided.
It’s just the same old arguments, over and over, for FIFTY YEARS.
We’re still arguing about equal pay for women.
Still arguing about environmental issues versus corporate laissez faire.
About whether or not some sexual practices should be allowed.
About excessive government secrecy and spying.
About voting rights and citizenship for minorities.
About bomb blasts and body counts.
About casual cruelty masquerading as policy.
Arguing about the rights of gays.
About a trigger-happy military.
About who is the latest suspected socialist.
About the media as source of all social ills.
About the war on drugs.
About health care.
About social security.
About birth control.
About evolution.
About nuclear power.
About abortion.
About guns.
And I’m tired of it.
I’m not saying these discussions aren’t important. Obviously they are.
But can we get on with it? Can we actually decide some of the things on the list given above and move on to NEW questions?
Can we move out of the 1960s?
Can we have some new arguments?
I would love to see new arguments.
I would love to see Congress wrestling with whether or not to declare our Mars colony the 51st state.
Would love to see filibusters and debates over whether someone who has received 51% of his body mass from artificial sources still constitutes a human being.
Arguments over whether the new mega-high-speed rail that puts the ones in Japan and China to shame should go from LA to New York or Miami.
About voting rights for synthetic people.
About the FDA’s analysis of mindbridge implants that let two people stay mentally joined forever.
About new safety standards for air-cars.
About deployment of the 45th Robotic Division past their warranties.
Those would be wonderful arguments to have. New, fresh, inspiring arguments.
We’ve been arguing about the same things, over and over, for fifty years. The same drumbeat, the same talking points, the same positions and policies and nothing ever gets done because it’s in no one’s INTERESTS to get anything DONE, because for as long as those same arguments continue, those with a visceral stake in the outcome of those arguments will continue to come out to the polls to vote in those whose viscera says the same thing about the same issues.
And so we roll on, decade after slow decade, with neither side resolving anything even when they run the table, with influence over all three branches of government.
Fifty years. Arguing over the same things for fifty years is like eating the same meal for breakfast, lunch and dinner for five decades. Soon the taste buds diminish and fail and you don’t even realize what you’re eating anymore.
If you’d said to me as a kid in the 1960s that we’d still be arguing over these things in 2013 I’d have laughed in your face. Impossible. We’ll resolve at least some of these things by then. Has to happen. Got to. The alternative is ludicrous.
Do you...you the person who has read this far without going off to tweet or instagram or download, you the person who actually believes you are living in the twenty-first century...want to be having these same arguments fifty years from now? Do you want to still be living in the 1960s in 2063?
Do you want a hundred years of arguing without resolution?
Do you think we can do better?
We have to do better. This can’t be it. This can’t be the end of the American experiment, sucked down into a century of social quicksand.
We have to be better than that.
We have to be.
New arguments.
New arguments.
God of microscope and test tube, god of provender and starlight, stern god who maketh quantum quandaries as much as the architecture of butterfly wings, let us have some new arguments.
I realize it is much to ask.
But it is long past time to ask.
Angel says: We've been arguing about these things ALL my life. Longer than I've been alive and I have two children of legal majority. I want us to grow up.
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(Sorry if I don't make any sense, BTW; it sounded a lot better in my head)
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I know the political climate in the US sounds really poisonous right now. I wonder though if people back then were writing the same way about how the political climate was really horrible and we were going to the dogs.
But I'd be scared too, considering what's going on...
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And oh God, yes. Honestly, just hearing about it on the news, I'm reminded of this quote from TORCHWOOD: CHILDREN OF EARTH: "Sometimes the Doctor must look at this planet and turn away in shame."
And yeah, I bet they were doing the same thing back then. We just didn't have the Internet back then, so I don't think we were able to see it as quickly. Nowadays it feels like we're saturated with it. And it's enough to make one want to give up, TBH. I know I already have.
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I would like to, but...eh. I admit I don't know about much about both sides excluding what I've been reading, but the fact that Boehner could solve the problem and isn't doing so really makes me want to ask him what his damage is. (Yes, lose his job, I know but for god's sake, the standoff going on right now is nothing more than an attempt at quasi-legal extortion.)
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And yeah. Very much this. Seriously.
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Definitely about the anger and the guilt. I wonder if Twelve will be carrying less of it with him?
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And thanks. Hopefully, Twelve will be better. I mean, the Doctor deserves a break for once. I guess...you know what's really depressing? How even after all the good he's done and the people he's made better, he thinks he's a monster. I mean, he's not. He may have done some monstrous things, but he's not a monster himself. I know that seeing certain stuff like Davros verbally dissecting him in "Journey's End" and whatnot doesn't help; well-done as those scenes are, it definitely feels like, "Goddamn, the Doctor's enemies are playing hardball here."
But yeah, hopefully with Twelve, they'll give the Doctor a break for once.