Field of Pipe Dreams
Jun. 17th, 2017 02:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowlightFor context: http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/19649309/dems-gop-join-ballfield-team-scalise-honor-wounded-colleague
Did you hear that the Congresscritters had that baseball game they were practicing for, yesterday? The Democrats won 11-2, then handed over the trophy to the Republicans to put in Rep. Scalise's office (the racist homophobe House majority whip who got shot and who was then saved by a same-sex-married black woman bodyguard. I'd like to think that he will carefully consider that detail of his detail, that he will emerge from the hospital a changed man. I'd settle for a haunted man. I'm expecting somewhat less than I'm hoping for.) Hillary voters are talking about how heartwarming it was. To me, it perfectly encapsulates the Democrats' whole problem: even when we win, we lose. We play nice, they play for keeps. They cause a problem, then blame us for it.* ....We bring a delicious homemade blueberry cobbler to a gunfight.
(*I'm infuriated by the internet comments from conservatives who seem to think _we're_ the monsters. One of them even said liberals want to starve old people. I don't understand how they can have a view of reality a full 180 degrees away from mine and yet not slam into walls trying to walk around corners. But, in fairness, I also saw this opinion piece from the Far Left. While I sympathize with the anger behind the sentiment, I cannot agree with his conclusion: https://medium.com/@SonofBaldwin/let-them-fucking-die-c316eee34212 ...surely there is a middle ground between giving away the store and punching people in the face. Unless you're being mugged, I guess.
I'm not sure what is to be done. There's no shortage of people on the internet arguing over what the perfect clean seashell-wiping future should look like, but before we can build this intersectional omnigendered color-corrected world, first we need to find some way to win the war with the Yestermen, hurt them like they hurt us, use their systems against them.
The Tomorrowers want to roll out the cultural future for beta testing as each new piece is developed. I don't think they've really worked the bugs out (not that most culture is debugged before being implemented. Usually the extraneous bits get snapped off as the car zooms down the road) and I'm fairly well-read and open-minded (i think), but even I can't figure out how it all fits together. I suspect the sort of people who would rather be seen as mean than as stupid probably hate this plan (with its myriad pronouns and conditional rules and not being able to say the word 'stupid' because it's an ableist slur and so on) because deep down, they think they can't keep up. Is it ableist of us to insist that they keep up? Is it ableist to assume that they can sift out true facts from propaganda on their own? Is it actually surprising that they would choose a past they think they know over a future that's constantly shifting, growing, and demanding more and more of their attention?
Maybe the future needs a display model. A 21st century Mayberry so people can see the values in action.
Did you hear that the Congresscritters had that baseball game they were practicing for, yesterday? The Democrats won 11-2, then handed over the trophy to the Republicans to put in Rep. Scalise's office (the racist homophobe House majority whip who got shot and who was then saved by a same-sex-married black woman bodyguard. I'd like to think that he will carefully consider that detail of his detail, that he will emerge from the hospital a changed man. I'd settle for a haunted man. I'm expecting somewhat less than I'm hoping for.) Hillary voters are talking about how heartwarming it was. To me, it perfectly encapsulates the Democrats' whole problem: even when we win, we lose. We play nice, they play for keeps. They cause a problem, then blame us for it.* ....We bring a delicious homemade blueberry cobbler to a gunfight.
(*I'm infuriated by the internet comments from conservatives who seem to think _we're_ the monsters. One of them even said liberals want to starve old people. I don't understand how they can have a view of reality a full 180 degrees away from mine and yet not slam into walls trying to walk around corners. But, in fairness, I also saw this opinion piece from the Far Left. While I sympathize with the anger behind the sentiment, I cannot agree with his conclusion: https://medium.com/@SonofBaldwin/let-them-fucking-die-c316eee34212 ...surely there is a middle ground between giving away the store and punching people in the face. Unless you're being mugged, I guess.
I'm not sure what is to be done. There's no shortage of people on the internet arguing over what the perfect clean seashell-wiping future should look like, but before we can build this intersectional omnigendered color-corrected world, first we need to find some way to win the war with the Yestermen, hurt them like they hurt us, use their systems against them.
The Tomorrowers want to roll out the cultural future for beta testing as each new piece is developed. I don't think they've really worked the bugs out (not that most culture is debugged before being implemented. Usually the extraneous bits get snapped off as the car zooms down the road) and I'm fairly well-read and open-minded (i think), but even I can't figure out how it all fits together. I suspect the sort of people who would rather be seen as mean than as stupid probably hate this plan (with its myriad pronouns and conditional rules and not being able to say the word 'stupid' because it's an ableist slur and so on) because deep down, they think they can't keep up. Is it ableist of us to insist that they keep up? Is it ableist to assume that they can sift out true facts from propaganda on their own? Is it actually surprising that they would choose a past they think they know over a future that's constantly shifting, growing, and demanding more and more of their attention?
Maybe the future needs a display model. A 21st century Mayberry so people can see the values in action.