So, we went to see Red Tails

…this evening, aided by the fact that Sue’s home PC is still busted (for weeks now, still not fixed) and so she is open to suggestion on things to do. I read some reviews that looked like it would be a fun time, which it was; and I’m also hoping it does well after hearing of the troubles George Lucas had in making this movie happen. So it was fun, and it was funny, and thankfully the sappy Lucas dialogue all went to the white fellas in the movie. She thinks he tiptoed around the issue of racism, but I don’t think so. It just wasn’t the focus of the movie. If anything was, it was CGI action!

…of course, I have heard from some doves on Daily Kos about it, and their issues with the movie glorifying war…but they remind me, I’m not quite as liberal as I might think.

Anyway, other than Sue cracking up at every mention of Black Jesus – you will just have to see the movie – well, I was chuckling too, but I blame Boondocks. It’s a good joke. Deserves some laughs.

As expected, it’s bad news…

…when the Arizona legislature gets back in session. I put up a new diary today on DKos about some of what I’ve seen so far. In the latest turgid episode, a Republican from Surprise(!), AZ wants to remove the one-year barrier between legislating and lobbying, because he is fighting for his ‘economic liberties.’ Meaning the freedom(!!) to jump immediately from working as a legislator to lobbying legislators.

It’s too much to expect the Founder-obsessed Republicans to remember ideas like the ‘citizen legislature,’ where people with real jobs and careers outside of politics come in to work on the gov’t for awhile and then go back to their real jobs. For too many politicians – of both parties, to be sure – politics is their desired career.

Skeptical of discrimination against muslims

Although this is about my latest diary on DKos, I find this touches on skepticism more than politics. First off, the story is about an African-American muslim who has alleged sexual harassment while at a university in Connecticut, that the admins did nothing to help, and that they reported bogus rumors that she was a terrorist to the FBI in retaliation when she reported the harassment to the police.

Now, I harbor no particular sympathy for islam or its adherents in general. But I’d have to be blind to the wave of antipathy towards muslims in America since 9/11. In fact I am not blind, although my prescription is pretty strong.

Likewise, although I do not have to believe in the allegations, it is enough for me that I find them believable.

Nevertheless, it was interesting that a few Kossacks (out of the few that ever read what I write, heh) decided to piss all over the diary with their skepticism and dismissal. You’d think that the muslim in question must be a loony, and me as well for even mentioning it, for that matter.

I see the pattern of skepticism and dismissal in other areas as they relate to discrimination, like the treatment of the Skepchicks in the wake of their ‘elevator-gate’. Skepticism seems to become a shield of sorts, allowing all manner of callous and denigrating remarks in the name of ‘wait and see.’ Ignoring the pattern, in this case, of anti-muslim discrimination, crime and violence.

I guess today I’m for listening to a complaint about discrimination, at the risk of looking a touch gullible. It’s strange – I don’t think of myself as that empathetic. Still don’t, really.

On the likelihood of Trandoshan PCs

Based on what I read today, I would peg it as ‘low.’ And for a reason that makes sense to me; a writer for Old Republic has the words to express it that I couldn’t think of.

Q: Would you be excited by the possibility of bringing in new playable alien races, as right now you’ve stuck to rather humanoid looking races without touching on the likes of Wookiees or Sullustans?

AF: So, again I can’t speak specifically for future content. You know, the reason for our humanoid range of species, it’s a matter of relatability to a large degree. The further you get from human the more difficult it is for players to get into their mindset, the more difficult it is for all the other characters in the game to relate to them the same way. There are enormous technical obstacles, there is building all the lip synching, all the emotion into the face of the human is incredibly difficult and time consuming, doing that for something like a Wookiee – and we couldn’t half do it, we couldn’t let Wookiees be only a third as expressive as humans. At that point we’re just giving up. We’re building a game designed to do these things, we can’t do it in half measures. Same with customising appearances. Adding one dramatically different alien, we still need as much variety as we would need for humans. Between the relatability aspect and the technical aspect it seems best to focus on what Star Wars has always done best which is people who look like us.

Relatability. Now, I can just hear Dave telling me how he relates to cold-blooded reptiles better than people, and maybe I’d agree, heh. But I can see where it would be a problem writing story and doing animation and expressing enough personality with the resources they have. Could you get into an alien character and do quests where your end of the conversation is a series of Star Warsian gibberish, to the point that you begin to recognize the phrases and can finish sentences?

The writer had some more to add:

AF: Yeah, and there are a lot of people who are really into playing the incredibly alien stuff but I think what a lot of those people are into is the fact that they are strange and different. So if we can’t pull that off in the storytelling. If we can’t make you feel like yes, you are a Wookiee, everyone is going to look at you differently than if you were human, your entire background is going to be very different, that’s going to shape everything you do differently. If you were doing humans with Wookiee masks in the story then I don’t think it’s going to satisfy most of the people who are going to play Wookiee.

It’s not the aesthetic of it, it’s the whole package. It’s being the barbarian from some planet who is stronger and wilder than everyone else and who is only half understood. That’s what people love about Wookiees. We don’t have anything against that storytelling, it’s not a moral opposition to not having inhuman characters but in order to do it right you need to write a story around that character.

So, having done the intro content in SWTOR a few times, would it lend itself to the Trandoshan PC? What classes would they be? Would you feel shortchanged if, say, they couldn’t be Sith because the Empire has an anti-alien bias? Would it feel right to be doing the same series of quests that the more human, more ‘relatable’ races are doing? Could the short list of canned responses at each point of conversation adjust to a truly alien mindset? Would you care about the hapless Coruscant refugee who’s lost his mate to a gang of corrupt merchants?

I mean, I never liked him anyway, but…could be trouble if you go to pick up quests and you think, half of these, my Trandoshan wouldn’t give a damn.

Seems a fair question to me, and perhaps in the future, they could have alien-exclusive starter worlds for new races, kind of like how WoW handled blood elves, draenei, worgen and goblins. But maybe the more alien – as in less relatable – races are better off as NPCs and somewhat  baffling, mysterious companions.

More executions on the way in AZ

As a follow-up to a diary I posted last year, the state Supreme Court decided yesterday to go ahead with a pair of executions they delayed in late November, and I have posted a new diary about the latest news. I expect this one will get ignored like the last one. For some reason, only compelling stories, doubt about the guilt of inmates, seems to get attention. But for a lot of folks, when someone seems guilty beyond whatever they call reasonable doubt, then it’s no big deal.

These two fellows are most likely doomed. It’s not that I am particularly sympathetic for them after reading their stories; it’s just that the practice is useless, unnecessary, wasteful. The state has been trying to kill them since the late 80′s. Something like 20+ years. That takes some dedication, and to what kind of principle? There’s nothing noble to it that I can see.

Ah well. Another diary to get ignored and shuffled off the list of recent work before long, I expect.

Republican-Sith crossover

I’m not saying that Darth Baras really is Karl Rove in Sith armor, but I couldn’t resist a little joke in my latest Daily Kos diary about Republican obstructionism. Wherein Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) of the Senate is mulling over a push to block future presidential nominations for Obama making recess appointments while they were not in recess. Except that he has to wait until later in the month, when the senators return to Washington. But they’re not in recess. Absolutely not! Gaveling in for ~ one minute every few days counts!

Action vs. RAAAAGE

Much spittle has been expended in complaining about the NDAA legislation recently signed into law by the President. I guess it’s part advocacy, part experiment that I posted this diary on Daily Kos today.

Ever since the signing I have been looking for anyone in Congress to step up and start the work of repealing the offensive indefinite detention language, which Obama managed to water down but not quite eliminate. His signing statement would seem to call attention and point out a problem, but instead I see progressives complaining that he broke his promise to not use signing statements.    Some people see the silver lining, others the cloud…

On religious psychopathology

This is an argument that I’ve seen often enough to find it a cliché, the believer who thinks that they would go full-on psycho without whichever brand of theism keeps them from lashing out at everyone around them. It seems unfortunate that since I decided to check out the Rational Skepticism forum again, some things just never change. Like believers having meltdowns.

Your efforts to indoctrinate others, that theism is vanity, is not living atheism consequently. A militant atheist as you, should live his world view. According to you, you do have only this life to live. Ones it ends, and you die, the game , the show is over. Finish. End of story. Whatever happyness you had, you will not experiment anymore. Forever. So if i would follow consequently your world view, i would live a extremely ego-centric life. I would not care about others, since that is a total waste of time. What matters, is YOUR satisfaction. Is YOUR happyness. Is YOUR fun. is YOU, your self. If i would be you, i would live and experience my inclinations in their full extent. I would not care about contemporary moral standards. I would create mine. And adapt them perfectly to my needs. I would not care about what society regards as virtues, as love, honesty, justice, rightness, selflessness etc. If i would love to rape and kill and torture little children, i would do it without hesitation. It would serve to please my own wishes at best. Ones i die, its over. I couldnt do afterwards anything anymore, that pleases me. So it would have to be now, today, right now. That is behaving intelligently, according to your world view. And i would not have to fear any “magicman”, and neither think, i did something wrong. Since there would be no objective moral standard, and if i determine, that kill, rape , and torture little babies is actually a virtue, is good, there is no ” magicman ” to tell me its wrong, so it is actually good. I make the standard. I say what is good. There is nobody to tell me , something is not good, since nobody is above me. If i would be a lazy person, which hates to work, but love luxury, money,, and everything money can buy, i would never search a job in a company. I would probably find out the most refined way to steal money, in a way never to be catched, and spend it without think about tomorrow. Ones it ends, i would find out the easiest way to get money again. cheating, killing, stealing, hurting, whatever. I would not care. Actually, i would think, the more effective i were to reach my objectives, the better……..

I’m not going to comment on the spelling/grammar as it’s likely the poster is not a native English speaker. There’s enough to condemn without worrying about that.

So if i would follow consequently your world view, i would live a extremely ego-centric life.

It’s interesting to consider the god-believer, trapped in a humane, altruistic mindset, apparently by their fear of whichever god-concept has captured their fancy or was drummed into them as a child. As a skeptic, I never experienced such a radical change of POV, although I have known some who did – not hard to find amongst libertarians, and cats.

I do remember questioning why I behaved as I did, and devising a more reasonable set of ethics to replace the whole sin mindset.

I would not care about what society regards as virtues, as love, honesty, justice, rightness, selflessness etc.

This to me is someone who is fooling themselves. It’s not surprising to find a believer who talks easily about becoming a psychopath in the absence of their religion; it’s not about them abandoning their religion after all, it’s an attack on the character of the skeptic. But believers and skeptics alike do not live and work in a vacuum, and society does matter. Society is where I get most of my information and suggestions for ethical behavior, although not exclusively so. But any ex-believer who thinks they can drive their car down the street through traffic lights and over pedestrians will quickly come to care about society, as society will most assuredly care – and do something – about them.

And i would not have to fear any “magicman”, and neither think, i did something wrong.

If there was any doubt about the mindset of sin and fear of punishment that guides this poor sap, I think it can be safely dismissed here. It isn’t necessary that he live in constant terror; but it seems that the root of his ethical system is sin and fear of punishment.

cheating, killing, stealing, hurting, whatever. I would not care.

The typical response from the skeptic, and from this one, is that if your god-concept is all that keeps you from behaving like this, then keep it. Of course, statistics I’ve seen about the religious beliefs of inmates in prison suggests that, often as not, it’s not enough.

In the end, though, it is just one long insult to the skeptic, a love letter from the believer about ‘this is what I think of you’. Not that there’s any credible evidence that atheism results in a psychotic break; it’s just insulting rhetoric that makes the believer feel better.

I’ve seen it often enough that it doesn’t get a rise out of me any more. More like a roll of the eyes – typical. Leave it to someone younger, who hasn’t been putting up with such nonsense for decades, to get pissed off and unleash on them. I can take it apart, I can turn it on the believer and say, this is what you would do without your belief in a god to stop you? Either they would, and they’re a terrible person; or they wouldn’t, and the argument collapses.

Back to life, back to obscurity

My latest diary on Daily Kos went back to my more typical pattern of no one paying attention to it, but that’s ok. It’s a sort of rant-ish posting, considering the rash of pro Ron Paul idiots spamming the site with racist commentary and Republican advocacy, neither of which has any place on DKos. Having tired of hearing the same old crap about Ron Paul advocating some liberal positions, I took on his economic plans with a philosophical hammer.

Should be useful for quick rebuttals against the Paul bots in the future. \

Ending the year on a good note

So, I woke up the day after xmas and lo and behold, the fridge had croaked it – blowing warm air and melting, thawing, spoiling everything. We saved what we could with a cooler and some ice, which I’m still using until the 2nd. I got a new fridge for the holiday.

It was kind of a downer after getting things in order to get new glasses (again) and I mentioned it in passing on Daily Kos. Well, during the week they decided to put me on the list for gifting lifetime subscriptions, and out of all those more deserving folks someone picked me out and I got one. No idea who or why.

I returned the favor with about $100 of charity donations of my own; just got paid on Friday, so I can afford that much. I’m looking into getting some new glasses somewhere cheaper than Sears or Lenscrafters. Get what you pay for, I know. But it’s tiresome. It’s either that or I may wait until I fill out my tax forms and get a refund, which I most likely will. It was a nice gesture from the DKos crowd, though, and also nice to, in a way, pay it back. At the advice of some of them I also saved a portion; the savings account I had to start at the credit union made that easy, and maybe I will make a regular practice of that, saving a little bit from each check.

Then later in the day, someone spoke up after holding back for…months, probably, and said they needed $2000 by Monday to avoid getting evicted. I had already given away what I felt comfortable with, so I looked on helplessly as…well, they raised that much in one evening.

The folks on DKos are a real mixed bag, and when it comes to politics it’s like cats fighting, but there are moments like those, when it pleases me to be a part of it at all. It could be societal indoctrination, leftover religious garbage, or the evolutionary advantage of altruistic behavior (that’d be my pick). But there’s no fooling to it, giving to worthy causes made for a happy day. Good way to close out what has been a Chinese-curse-interesting year.

Your days are numbered, broken frame. In the meantime, superglue FTW.