Actually, It's Darkness

The Long Dark, Hinterland Studios, 2014

It's too bad she won't live, but then again who does?

There goes another week off. Five Marches later I still have the same problem. When I'm not working I quickly slip into a nightshift pattern. It starts innocuously enough with Sunday evening extending to 2am. From there it cascades later and later and by Friday the only thing I can do to rectify it is to stay awake until Saturday afternoon and take a nap to see me through the evening. It's not so bad in March when Spring is breaking through, as it did today, and there's some daylight to play with; but when I went through this in January I probably suffered a shortfall of Vitamin-D. Ironic, then, I should spend the middle of the night playing The Long Dark. I am without a doubt late to this party. You know I'd judge you for it in an instant, so why not be the better man? Fact is, I've not had much time to play games - aside from GTA Online, but then I got bored of (and pissed off by) that last August. What I've done to compensate is subscribe to a couple of YouTube channels thereby gaming vicariously.

Data Kiss

Valentine's Day sweet fleet, EvelynGiggles, 2007

Three is the magic number, oh yes it is. Well, at some point in this third year of OKCupid it perhaps might merit such a description. I'm certainly hoping it does, and there's a light on the horizon that's either thermonuclear death or the dawn of a new era. After writing last year's summary of two largely non-eventful years on OKCupid it mostly rumbled on in the same fashion - occasionally contacting someone every few weeks if they caught my eye in the search results. Eventually in August I came to the conclusion the current set-up wasn't working. I decided to massively overhaul my method. Let's be clear I'm not talking about pick-up artistry, rather I read a comprehensive guide on the Dr Nerdlove site and tore my profile down in order to rebuild it. That wasn't enough, though. You can construct the perfect profile for yourself but the basic fact of the matter is women don't contact men. I'm sure some do, but they're so rare they may as well be a statistical anomaly. The flip side of this universal is that you, the guy, must make yourself seen. It flies in the face of the spirit of the age that you can let your virtual presence do all the 'being' for you, but as above so below. Human nature is what it is, no matter the medium.

Music For Your Tape Recorder

I know. You don't need to tell me. Suffice to say I've not been motivated to write much this year and when it came to putting my playlist together it's apparent I haven't listened to that much music either. You can imagine I was dissuaded from bothering with that in mind when I realised I'd only left a few hours of 2014 to write it up. Here I am, though, two weeks later in what is my 10th year of blogging with a sense of obligation to drive myself to produce something. It may not be a long list this year (the shortest duration in the nine years I've done this), but there is plenty I want to get off my chest regarding some releases.

Cold Earth / Семена Мёртвых

No spare fuel for cremation.

No spare fuel for bulldozers.

Wasteful of manpower to dig pits by hand.

Washington Crossing the Delaware, 1851, Emanuel Leutze

It is a decade since The Day After Tomorrow was released. Not the exact date (May 28th), since I've remastered the art of missing deadlines and got beaten to the subject. It's not a seminal film, nor ground-breaking in narrative or special effects; it is, however, the last Roland Emmerich film I enjoyed. Emmerich is something of a fetishist for destruction having made many many films about disasters - most famously and well-received Independence Day, and most infamously and less well-received Godzilla. Then there was 2012 for which I presented many criticisms a year and a half ago, primarily that is was built on a non-premise and the idea that it was somehow sci-fi. Emmerich was originally going to step away from the disaster genre but unfortunately went back on his word because he believed it was too good a concept to pass-up. See my criticisms for why I honestly have no idea how those words could reflect what sets '2012' in motion. However, let's get back to discussing The Day After Tomorrow (herein TDAT).

Towers in Sand / From Feudal Serf to Spender

EPILOGUE OF A SERIES.

Abstimmung an der Landsgemeinde, Adrian Sulc, 2006

This series of posts started out three years ago with a reprint of a college essay (so more like eight years ago) on the definition of Marxism and the failure of the Soviet Union. At the time I stated that I had loosely considered myself a Trotskyist if only because I understood it in my teens as in opposition to Stalinist totalitarianism, and in exploring the subject across ten thousand words I have found myself reaching back into the nineteenth century roots of socialism. The value of these essays, and this blog, is basically a personal learning tool - in writing this series I have managed to organise my ideas about political theory into something structured that I can recognise myself and refine. Thus, instead of complain about elements of society and politics, I can present my ideas for their own critique. To do so I must first re-summarise the problems with the Bolshevik revolution.

Message Oblique Speech

PART THREE OF A SERIES.

Copyright J Michael Haynes, 2008

"the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies [...],
for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching [...], scholarship,
or research, is not an infringement of copyright."

How do you think he'll react to you when you learn what a real revolution is? You don't know what a revolution is. If you did, you wouldn't use that word.
-Malcolm X, Message to the Grassroots, 1963

The previous essay in this series details why we are sold the neoliberal system. This post describes how we are sold it. The first rule of the system we live in is you do not talk about the system we live in. The second rule is you blame the financial crisis on the previous administration. It's oft repeated that it was Huxley, not Orwell, that correctly predicted the future. Arguably Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four is better known than Brave New World, perhaps considering its relevance during the cold war; however, rarely is it considered that they were both right about elements of present society. Huxley's nightmare was not that the people would be deprived of freedom and subjugated by a totalitarian state - it's they would be so distracted by a deluge of entertainment they wouldn't care. How ironic a 'reality television' programme brought that vision to life and used an Orwellian term - Big Brother.

Like Soldiers Believe They're in Control of the War

Part Three of Three.

My flag proposal for Theta Battalion, January 2007

I could have published this final part of my series looking back at the history of CyberNations at any time, however last Sunday was the sixth anniversary of the end of the Third Great War. Two months after the conclusion of GWIII I ceased being a student spending time playing a game rather than studying and exited a sixth month stint of unemployment. After that I never really knew what was going on in the Cyberverse or Digiterra or whatever you want to call it. Unable to stay up into the night when the largely American dominated game was most active I consequently fell out of the loop on events and the reason for the latest war. Last year, after I became the oldest and longest continuous member of the NPO, a fellow member working on the CNwiki entry asked me why, given my in-game age, I didn't have all the ribbons for all the wars the alliance had fought in. This is why, and a lot of time unless I'm attacked I don't really know there's a war on. Undoubtedly one of the reasons the age of players is so young is because such massively multiplayer online games require a lot of free time to invest. Until I read about the war that ended last month I'll remain completely oblivious as to the reasons my warchest was depleted by €100 million. Lately given the move toward squad based combat, the demands for greater activity, and adherence to alliance-wide development plans I've felt far more estranged from the game. Last week I thought about quitting - something I've never even considered in seven long years. Even what I think of as recent CN history is a distant collective memory now. Let's recall it...

As Far From God As Angels Can Fly

The Door to Hell in the Nighttime, flydime, 2010

In October my most recent promulgation on theology veered off from its intended target into an argument against circumcision. It's unsurprising that in the end I ditched half of the draft, as it took seven months to turn a collection of notes, quotes, and links into a publishable post. Amidst it I did touch upon my own perception of the servile nature of Christianity, and indeed all the Abrahamic religions - accepted translations for the words Islam (iSLaM) and Muslim (muSLiM), from the Semitic triliteral root š-l-m (cf. Hebrew 'Shalom'), are 'the act of submitting' (submission) and 'one who submits'. I grossly reject the subservient streak of those theologies - the metaphorical patriarchy, the use of the language and imagery of shepherding, and the idea of serving (in heaven). I said I was one of those people more interested in ruling in Hell. It's an expression, of course, as I remain an atheist and the one thing more ridiculous than worshipping Santa Claus is worshipping the Bogeyman. I don't think it's coincidental that those names are appropriate substitutes for God and Satan because they really are near identical methods of social control.

We're Going To Be Friends

Part Two of Three.

Hvamsfjordhur signature image, January 2007

On the seventh anniversary of the founding of Star City I compiled and republished my memoirs on NationStates during what looked like the long drawn-out dying days of that game. I'm unable to speculate if that's the case with CyberNations today, on the seventh anniversary of Hvamsfjordhur, as I've never been as involved in the politics of the latter as in the former. That's largely due to the mechanics of the game and the location of its servers in the US which has always resulted in a certain American domination. As update was scheduled at midnight Central Standard Time it meant the command structures of the alliances were firmly entrenched in timezones that would result in all the action happening whilst I was in bed. NationStates never had that because it lacked any realtime interaction between nations.

Personally, CyberNations came to an early peak with the era of the Great Wars. Unlike the Citrus and Polar wars, the Great Wars pulled in almost every alliance into the conflict. Yet at the end of the first instalment of this series the global powers were at peace. Where alliances were not treatied, they were at least signatories of non-aggression pacts. So how was the stability shattered? How is it ever shattered?

When The Levee Breaks

Part Two of Three.

The Liberation Flag of The Proletariat Coalition (November 2011)

No better time to pick up where I left off than the tenth anniversary of the founding of Star City. Hard to believe.

When I originally wrote my NationStates memoirs the game was entering its twilight period and it didn't look like the dawn would follow. Another site was then in ascendence and the former star site blew off its outer shell and began to contract. At the time, and on this blog, I voiced a hope that an exodus of players might at least alter the balance of power in some long-running conflicts rather than the game just become very very quiet. It looked like the latter transpired because for about five years my activity fell to the absolute minimum of logging in to prevent deletion. Of the more than a dozen puppets I maintained at the height of the game I now only have two functioning as informal ambassadors - Isla Pena in the Allied States of EuroIslanders and Dotjxraomm in the AntiCapitalist Alliance. Though it felt like centuries had passed, the game was declining after three years.

Panic (Hang the DJ)

But the waters... receded

Sextant (NOAA), Public Domain

Predictions of the end-times are likely as old as creation myths as likely as old as history itself. The invention of cinema enabled the depiction of the ultimate dramatic scenario and so it began. The disaster movie as a genre emerged in the seventies (Towering Inferno, et al) as classically narrative compared to their modern antecedents - almost all stories are of characters facing an obstacle they must overcome; in the above case a fire in a skyscraper. They boasted highly popular actors in the lead roles which, like any other film of the era, drew audiences. After Jurassic Park demonstrated the sky was the limit with computer generated imagery the floodgates opened (a metaphor that could actually make an interesting post-modern disaster film about the effect of CGI on film-making). Now there was nothing that could not be depicted. A lot of the modern disaster films since the mid 90s can be attributed to one Roland Emmerich and his little known 1996 film Independence Day. Inevitably someone will chime in with the old adage about how any critique of 'low-brow' movies is a comment on how the critic cannot turn their brain off and just enjoy it. I enjoy Independence Day and I happen to own The Day After Tomorrow (which I last watched on October 30th) despite its ludicrous implausibility. I even have a Steven Seagal movie (Under Siege 2) amongst a home video collection that includes a number of foreign language films, but the film 2012 (dir. Roland Emmerich) is just bad. Not enjoyably bad... and you already know why I'd bring that up three years after release.

In Central Europe Men Are Marching

A PROLOGUE TO A SERIES.

The Frankfurt Parliament, Public Domain

In the same year of the publication of The Communist Manifesto the Western hemisphere experienced a wave of revolutionary upheaval akin to contemporary events in the Middle East. The 1848 revolutions were about many things to many people - democracy, nationalism, liberalism, socialism. As I draw my series of essays on my political outlook, in particular the evolution of my relationship with revolutionary socialism (ie, Marxism), to an eventual close after two years; on this national day I look to begin a new series on another of the major ideologies of 1848 - nationalism.

As the European Union appears to be unfurling and prominent independence movements are afoot in Scotland and Catalonia; it seems relevant to discuss ethnicity and nationalism. The primary aim of the series will be to identify the origin of national identity - the interplay of history, geography, culture, and language in binding populations together in shared character. In the same vein as my political series this set on nationalism will start with a republished college essay - in this case an essay on Bismarck's role in the unification of Germany from HND History. While it doesn't deal with issues of national identity, it does discuss the historical processes that led to the unification of one of Europe's last fractured lands into a great power.

Sojourn I: London Calling to the Faraway Towns

Big Ben from the London eye, Prij, 2012

It's been a long time since I've gone away on holiday. Four whole years. When in May the opportunity arose to travel down to London for a few days in the near future I figured I should take it. After all, I end up sleeping through most of my time off work when I'd really like to be doing something. Plus it gives me something to write about and travel writing seems to be quite popular with whoever reads this blog. For some as yet undiscovered reason my outbound travelogue from 2006 is the most popular post on this blog with well over a hundred hits from South Korea. Personally I prefer the inbound post, but either way travel writing is something I enjoy doing in the vein of Round Ireland with a Fridge and if a post about me making eyes with a girl in an airport cafe can be the most popular post, then let me witter on for an easy few thousand.

And The Money Kept Rolling In (And Out)

PART TWO OF A SERIES.

Corporate (red)washing, jonathan mcintosh, 2007

Some have never had it so good. You might be mistaken for thinking there was an economic crash not four years ago and that we are living in a recession, but that's because you aren't the 1%. As we saw abroad and now domestically, a leaderless movement has now come to prominence. If successful in nothing else, Occupy has brought home the message of wealth inequality through the 'We are the 99%' slogan. The extreme inversion of the scales in the economic clout of the top 1% versus the remaining 99% betrays an uncomfortable truth about our egalitarian and meritocratic societies - that we are actually living in plutocracies. The egalitarian and meritocratic principles of western society are what comprise The American Dream, and yet like a dream we think we're awake. Eisenhower may have warned us about relations between the state and private contractors during the heights of the New Deal society, but Franklin D Roosevelt spoke in 1938 of a more elementary danger that "among us today a concentration of private power without equal in history is growing". If some members of society have greater private power than others then it logically follows that others have less power. This is the very basic fact that underpins the subversion of liberal democracy.

The Masses Against The Classes

PART ONE OF A PROLOGUE TO A SERIES.

The following was written for the Marxism module of Politics A class in the HNC Social Sciences course. I was up until 6AM writing this five years ago. In fact, this was the only paper I bothered to hand-in before failing/dropping out of the course by early 2006.

Where Do I Start, Where Do I Begin?

Part One of Three.

The Flag of The Polity of Star City

Since I last wrote about NationStates four years ago, I've noticed that the governments of many regions ceased to function and slid into informal gerontocracy as the numbers of residents declined. Well, as I write this on January 30th, my nation Star City is just over seven years old. When this is published my home region The Proletariat Coalition will also be seven years old - though the exact date in March is long-forgotten, it was contemporary with the invasion of Iraq; as such I tend to set the anniversary on the 20th. To mark this, I'm republishing my memoirs from five years ago. You can read the currently outdated history of TPC at NSwiki.