I guess this show is ever so slightly more intelligent than I initially gave it credit for, but I'm still not buying a lot of it. A number of characters are also questioning the sincerity of the message of the Visitors, but the majority of planet earth seems to be buying what they're selling. I really honestly hope this isn't the world we live in, in which people just go ahead and buy into obvious lies. My opinion of the aliens hasn't changed since the beginning of the show. It's obvious that they're not telling the truth, and the fact is, these aliens are pretty bad at it. And yet, we get scene after scene of people getting duped by the aliens.
And once again, why do the aliens look like humans? If they can cross the galaxy, then it stands to reason that they can assume the forms of humans if they want to. It's even plausible that they might think this is a good idea for their spokesperson, but apparently all the aliens are indistinguishable from humans. There's really no reason or explanation for that. And how would you even manage to get an entire population of aliens to consent to having their forms altered to look like humans? If would be like telling a small country, say Luxembourg, "okay, from now on you are all going to have the form of a small dog."
I noticed an interesting commentary on the media, which I think is worth noting, and may be a clue to the point of the whole show. That is to say, it's a commentary on the media game and how that is played.
The alien spokeswoman decides that she wants to do an interview for earth media, so she chooses an ambitious-yet-hapless young reporter who asks silly questions like "how come you're so beautiful, Mrs. Alien-lady?" from an ambitious, small, and hapless news organization that will do anything to get access to a big interview like the Alien Queen. It's really weird how the Alien Queen suddenly got media-savvy, when the aliens have been getting so many other things blatantly wrong. Maybe it's just luck that the aliens happen to also have a media culture like ours. Or it might be a case of convergent evolution, if you will, the same way a dolphin and a shark evolved similar body types through distinct evolutionary paths.
However savvy she might be, she's also brutally clear about her desires for being portrayed in a positive light. Again, so much so, that she appears to be playing the human game a little bit wrongly. She refuses to give any interview unless she can be promised that she'll only get easy questions.
Again though, what I don't get about the aliens is why they're playing the Public Relations game so aggressively. You'd think if you had access to alien technology and alien lifespans (how did they cross the galaxy if they aren't incredibly long-lived?) they'd have all the time and confidence in the world about being perceived in a good light. And any little problems, like protesters in the streets, are problems for local human government, not a concern for the aliens. And they will eventually go away as society adapts.
Or perhaps this is the message of the show. Society never really adapts. We've been changing our society at an increasingly rapid pace over the last, let's say 200 years, since the industrial revolution. And still we have troubles like terrorism, corruption, ignorance, and so on. Maybe we'll never really adapt to a truly modern society. In some ways, this is a horrible thought, because it means we will have to deal with a 9/11 every couple of years. In other ways, it is a check on the steady advance of corrupt leaders.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
"V" and Architecture
Strange how very human-centric the architecture of "V" the science fiction television series is. It looks a lot like 21st century human architecture, mixed with the concept sketches that you sometimes see in the 20th and 21st century for proposed massive human housing projects like arcologies and space stations.
"V" and Religion
A quick word on something that came up in the opening scenes of the science fiction television series "V". Apparently in the world of "V", the Roman Catholic Church, or the Vatican, had not come up with an answer to the question of extraterrestrial intelligences, and were forced to react "in crisis mode" and come up with a ruling on the fly, that the aliens count as "God's creatures" too. I've now read a few spoilers about the series online, and it seems that the decision might not be totally on the fly, as apparently governments and organizations may have already known about the existence of the aliens.
For the information of anyone who happens to be reading this, in our world, the Vatican actually has issued a statement about the possibility of the existence of Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence, and it's pretty much the same as the one in the show "V". In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they were quoting directly from the Vatican's statement. According to today's world's Roman Catholic Church, if ETIs are discovered to exist, then they will also be "God's creatures".
On another note, the spokeswoman for the aliens appears to be a real flesh-and-blood entity, and not a computer-generated entity, as I initially expected. This is really weird, because no one would expect aliens from another star system to look virtually identical to humans. In the show, the reporters awkwardly ask the alien spokeswoman basically "How come you're a purty lady and not a butt-ugly alien?" which is a rude question in itself, but I wouldn't put that past today's media, although I'd expect such a question more from an outfit like TMZ than anything like the LA Times or CNN.
Also, why are the media not interviewing Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Stephen Hawking, or any number of NASA folks, SETI folks, or just plain amateur astronomers. Surely they're not all bought by the alien conspiracy. And you gotta know that Neil DeGrasse Tyson has some serious questions for the aliens. In fact, probably any astrophysicist who is watching this whole Alien Introduction thing play out is probably pointing out the same inconsistencies as I am, and probably a number I haven't even thought of.
But then, even if you have serious concerns, what can you really do? Can you lob nuclear missiles at them? They probably have defenses against nuclear weapons, and even if you did manage to destroy the aliens, you're wiping out huge economic centres in the process. New York City, Los Angeles, London, Paris, Moscow, Cairo, all the financial and industrial capitals of the world.
When you look at it this way, you can only conclude that the aliens' utter proximity is a show of force, and they intend to be threatening. The alien spokeswoman talks about peace and trade, but the body language of the alien spaceships says "invasion" pretty clearly. It says "yes, we're in your face now, and there's nothing you can do about it."
What would I do about it? Well, I do believe in diplomacy and talking. Clearly the aliens are technologically superior, so there's no point in fighting. And they did take the trouble to learn human languages, so apparently they are somehow invested in the continuity of the human race, or else they wouldn't have bothered communicating. The first thing I would do though, would be to ask the aliens to back off from the cities of earth, like I said in my last post, go park in orbit around the moon, and then we'll talk.
One more problem with science fiction film and television is of course the fact that we tend to pick human actors to play the aliens. There are numerous strategies to tackle this problem, and "V" has gone with the idea that the aliens are so technologically advanced and so eager to please the human race that they've taken on a form that would be considered "beautiful" in Southern California. Don't get me wrong on this: I happen to share many of these standards of what I consider "beautiful" with Southern California. I just don't see why the aliens should place such a high priority on "looking good".
Well, I shouldn't say I can't totally see it, because the fact is, aliens would have mainly had access to our media that was broadcast by radio waves, and this type of media is somewhat weighted toward Southern California.
However, again, if the aliens took the time to learn English, French, and Arabic, then you'd think they'd learn a little bit about how humans perceive beauty, and they would rather quickly realize that it's just another one of our silly evolutionary quirks, and there's no real reason to play along with the beauty game.
Remember, the aliens have humanity completely at their mercy. They say they want water and mineral resources, but they could easily get these from the comets and asteroids, cheaper than they could get them from earth. So what do they want? Well, maybe they actually do want to play the beauty game. Maybe they crave a feeling of superiority over every intelligent creature they find. Maybe they just want to see if they can do it. Hell, maybe they're scientists.
Remember Jane Goodall, who lived with the great apes in the Congo? She went to great lengths to learn how the apes communicated. In effect, she learned their culture. She never tried to dominate a tribe of apes by being the most beautiful or desirable. But in some senses she did attempt to be seen as "a member of the troop". She tried to blend in, in order to learn more about the apes.
Perhaps with the aliens of "V", this is what they're doing. Of course they're horribly misguided. Just like you don't walk into a troop of apes and start pushing around the biggest silverback you find, you shouldn't park an alien spaceship above the economic hearts of the most powerful countries on Earth. Someone is going to get hurt.
If you're the scientist among the silverbacks, hey maybe you have a gun. Good for you. Bad for the poor silverbacks, and bad for your scientific experiment if you kill your subjects.
So for the aliens in "V", their experiment is rather ham-handed, but I think I might actually be able to forgive them for this, because I have no idea what alien culture might be like. Maybe the differences are so great that they simply cannot comprehend the intricacies of human culture. And I say "human" culture with some hesitation because even in our global human society, we have cultural differences that can really mess with diplomatic relations. Just take the standards of beauty I was talking about earlier. What would happen if this alien lady showed up in Saudi Arabia? Could they take her seriously? Somehow I doubt it. She seems very well dressed and positioned to take a position of power in Europe or North America, especially New York or Washington, but I'm not so sure she'd fare as well in the rest of the world.
For the information of anyone who happens to be reading this, in our world, the Vatican actually has issued a statement about the possibility of the existence of Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence, and it's pretty much the same as the one in the show "V". In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they were quoting directly from the Vatican's statement. According to today's world's Roman Catholic Church, if ETIs are discovered to exist, then they will also be "God's creatures".
On another note, the spokeswoman for the aliens appears to be a real flesh-and-blood entity, and not a computer-generated entity, as I initially expected. This is really weird, because no one would expect aliens from another star system to look virtually identical to humans. In the show, the reporters awkwardly ask the alien spokeswoman basically "How come you're a purty lady and not a butt-ugly alien?" which is a rude question in itself, but I wouldn't put that past today's media, although I'd expect such a question more from an outfit like TMZ than anything like the LA Times or CNN.
Also, why are the media not interviewing Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Stephen Hawking, or any number of NASA folks, SETI folks, or just plain amateur astronomers. Surely they're not all bought by the alien conspiracy. And you gotta know that Neil DeGrasse Tyson has some serious questions for the aliens. In fact, probably any astrophysicist who is watching this whole Alien Introduction thing play out is probably pointing out the same inconsistencies as I am, and probably a number I haven't even thought of.
But then, even if you have serious concerns, what can you really do? Can you lob nuclear missiles at them? They probably have defenses against nuclear weapons, and even if you did manage to destroy the aliens, you're wiping out huge economic centres in the process. New York City, Los Angeles, London, Paris, Moscow, Cairo, all the financial and industrial capitals of the world.
When you look at it this way, you can only conclude that the aliens' utter proximity is a show of force, and they intend to be threatening. The alien spokeswoman talks about peace and trade, but the body language of the alien spaceships says "invasion" pretty clearly. It says "yes, we're in your face now, and there's nothing you can do about it."
What would I do about it? Well, I do believe in diplomacy and talking. Clearly the aliens are technologically superior, so there's no point in fighting. And they did take the trouble to learn human languages, so apparently they are somehow invested in the continuity of the human race, or else they wouldn't have bothered communicating. The first thing I would do though, would be to ask the aliens to back off from the cities of earth, like I said in my last post, go park in orbit around the moon, and then we'll talk.
One more problem with science fiction film and television is of course the fact that we tend to pick human actors to play the aliens. There are numerous strategies to tackle this problem, and "V" has gone with the idea that the aliens are so technologically advanced and so eager to please the human race that they've taken on a form that would be considered "beautiful" in Southern California. Don't get me wrong on this: I happen to share many of these standards of what I consider "beautiful" with Southern California. I just don't see why the aliens should place such a high priority on "looking good".
Well, I shouldn't say I can't totally see it, because the fact is, aliens would have mainly had access to our media that was broadcast by radio waves, and this type of media is somewhat weighted toward Southern California.
However, again, if the aliens took the time to learn English, French, and Arabic, then you'd think they'd learn a little bit about how humans perceive beauty, and they would rather quickly realize that it's just another one of our silly evolutionary quirks, and there's no real reason to play along with the beauty game.
Remember, the aliens have humanity completely at their mercy. They say they want water and mineral resources, but they could easily get these from the comets and asteroids, cheaper than they could get them from earth. So what do they want? Well, maybe they actually do want to play the beauty game. Maybe they crave a feeling of superiority over every intelligent creature they find. Maybe they just want to see if they can do it. Hell, maybe they're scientists.
Remember Jane Goodall, who lived with the great apes in the Congo? She went to great lengths to learn how the apes communicated. In effect, she learned their culture. She never tried to dominate a tribe of apes by being the most beautiful or desirable. But in some senses she did attempt to be seen as "a member of the troop". She tried to blend in, in order to learn more about the apes.
Perhaps with the aliens of "V", this is what they're doing. Of course they're horribly misguided. Just like you don't walk into a troop of apes and start pushing around the biggest silverback you find, you shouldn't park an alien spaceship above the economic hearts of the most powerful countries on Earth. Someone is going to get hurt.
If you're the scientist among the silverbacks, hey maybe you have a gun. Good for you. Bad for the poor silverbacks, and bad for your scientific experiment if you kill your subjects.
So for the aliens in "V", their experiment is rather ham-handed, but I think I might actually be able to forgive them for this, because I have no idea what alien culture might be like. Maybe the differences are so great that they simply cannot comprehend the intricacies of human culture. And I say "human" culture with some hesitation because even in our global human society, we have cultural differences that can really mess with diplomatic relations. Just take the standards of beauty I was talking about earlier. What would happen if this alien lady showed up in Saudi Arabia? Could they take her seriously? Somehow I doubt it. She seems very well dressed and positioned to take a position of power in Europe or North America, especially New York or Washington, but I'm not so sure she'd fare as well in the rest of the world.
About the Science Fiction Series "V"
Alright, I just started watching the science fiction series "V" starting with the pilot, and I thought I'd give some impressions before I forget about them and get lost in the rest of whatever this series turns out to be.
I'm always into shows' first episodes, or pilots, since the writers tend to put their best feet forward, and though the execution is usually poor, it is where the raw idea shows through. "V", for now though, strikes me as somewhat unoriginal so far.
So it starts: We have a few opening shots of regular people going about their lives in Southern California, and suddenly there's an earthquake.
You can tell it's an earthquake because in every scene and location, there's a shot of a little thing rattling off a table, or a glass of water rippling like in that famous scene from Jurassic Park. What seems funny to me right away, is that no one just says "oh yeah, we're in California. It's an earthquake. I'd better do the earthquake thing and get under a table." Instead, they're all like "What's happening! I've never felt the earth shake before!"
Also, their emergency procedures seem chaotic and unorganized. We're led to perceive, from the opening shots, that this is a movie set in our world. Two historical events are referenced in the first scene: The assassination of US President John F. Kennedy in 1963
, and the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center twin towers in New York City in 2001. We are also shown the ID card of one of the presumably main characters, who works for Homeland Security. Regardless on this emphasis on American paranoia, the scenes that result are, as I pointed out, chaotic. In this show, people still don't know what to do if there's an earthquake or a terrorist attack. There's still panic and chaos.
Anyways, there's no reason for panic, because it very quickly turns out that it's an alien spaceship that's responsible for the earthquakes, which people realize as soon as they look outside and up. Hmm, where have I seen this before? The 1999 movie "Independence Day", to name just one, but I've seen it before. Aliens come to invade by parking spaceships above every major city in the world. Most recently, this trope was used as a powerful and satirical device when, in the 2009 film "District 9", an alien ship parks itself over the dysfunctional city of Johannesburg, South Africa.
In "V" though, there's apparently no mystery, as the first thing the aliens do is turn the bottoms of their spaceships into giant video screens and broadcast a friendly message of peace and trade to the people of earth.
And that's where the show completely loses me.
If they have video screen technology, as well as the capability of interstellar travel, then clearly they should have the ability to communicate directly with "earth's leaders" whomever they might consider them to be. I'd contend that this remains the heads of state of the G8 most powerful countries on earth, the most important of which is the USA. But an argument could be made for the aliens contacting the United Nations, or perhaps one of the numerous scientific organizations with the capability to communicate with extraterrestrial visitors, like maybe NASA, or SETI.
[Speaking of SETI, I feel bad for them. They kind of get kicked around in funding and political circles because they haven't found anything yet. At least, they haven't found ETI, which is what they're Searching for. But as soon as they do find ETI with the capability of communicating with earth, it won't be SETI's job to communicate anymore. Some other agency will take over, and SETI will pretty much remain how it is today. Yes, they'll win awards for having found something, and by awards I mean they will get trophies, one-time cash prizes, and scientific apparatuses named after them, maybe even a planet or two. But the rewards that SETI will never be able to cash in on is the actual opportunity to communicate and deal with alien intelligences. This will be granted to someone with earth-bound experience in diplomacy and negotiation. SETI will instead be set loose on the universe again, searching for the next ETI, while at the same time searching our own planet for sources of funding which no one will want to do, since we'll have already found ETI. In many folks' eyes, SETI will have served its purpose, and made itself irrelevant. But the truth of SETI is that it will always be relevant, because there will always be more ETIs to discover. And it will always be questioned as to its relevance, no matter how many ETIs it ultimately finds.]
So for some reason, the "V" aliens decide that they want to communicate "democratically" with the "people of earth" by parking above our big cities and broadcasting a picture of a human woman. Interestingly, the human woman is a white woman, speaking English. Fortunately, the aliens speak French too, and the spaceship parked over Paris is conveniently in French.
But I'm beginning to wonder about these aliens. Apparently they speak English and French, and they've somehow determined that their spokesperson should be a white human woman. Usually when people have a message to get out to the mass media, they conduct focus groups to determine how to affect the recipients of their message most favorably. It turns out, in many cases, that a woman's face will garner a more positive response than a male face, if the topic is diplomacy and peace and love. A male face, on the other hand, tends to work well with messages of threats of war, economic sanctions, deadlines, and ultimatums.
So anyways, pop psychology aside, the aliens somehow got extensive knowledge of humanity long before they arrived, managed to reproduce a convincing female face, and yet for some reason never communicated with the governments or scientific agencies of Earth? And for that matter, where was SETI? Where was NASA? Where were the amateur astronomers of Earth? These spaceships are as least as big as middling asteroids, so why was no one able to detect them? No, they somehow manage to fly in, under the radar, and announce that they just want to be friends.
Look, if the aliens really want to be friends, they should park themselves in orbit. Not around Earth, because that's where our satellites are, and we don't want them interfering with our satellites. Preferably somewhere comfortably distant. Like the moon. Let them park themselves in orbit around the moon. And rather than fly in with giant TV screens, all Big-Brother-esque (have they not read George Orwell's "1984"? Are these aliens completely oblivious to irony?) if they really want to communicate with earth, all they have to do is hack into the major TV networks. Or hey, get on Twitter.
Alternatively, just get in contact with a spokesperson on earth who can disseminate information to the rest of the planet on a want-to-know basis. Because believe me, at least at first, if there are aliens on TV, or aliens on the internet, that's where people are going to be clicking. You don't need to hack in, you don't need to broadcast on a huge screen above every major city. People are going to want this information, and they're going to go to our numerous and extensive media outlets to get it. There's absolutely no need for the aliens to beat us over the head with the fact that they're here and they "just want to trade and be friends".
If you just want to trade and be friends, then why did you disrupt our most economically active regions, cause minor earthquakes and widespread panic (never mind your soothing message; what about deaf people, or people who just happened to be indoors at the time)?
And then there's this business about a "mineral" on earth that is found nowhere else in the entire galaxy. I happen to know that this is utter bullshit too. Any element found on earth can be easily found elsewhere in the solar system, and it would be far easier to extract from pretty much any other planet.
Want water? Try the comets, the minor planet Pluto, or Jupiter's moon Europa.
Iron? The asteroid belt is full of it, and far more pure than what you find on earth.
Carbon? Try the atmosphere of Mars, or Saturn's moon Titan.
Silicon? Back to the asteroids, or hey, how about Earth's moon, since there aren't any people or ecosystems there to disrupt with interstellar scale mining operations?
Hey aliens, we appreciate the fact that you want to trade and all, but right now, the most valuable thing we have to offer is our knowledge. And likewise with you to us. Anything material, from matter to energy, you can pretty much take from the solar system and there really wouldn't be much we could do to stop you. We'd certainly appreciate getting something in return for "letting" you mine the asteroid belt, but we're just not in a place technologically to have a real voice in the matter.
So anyways, that's all from the first five minutes of the pilot episode of "V". My guess is that some of the things I brought up here will turn out to be questions that the human characters ask the aliens, and maybe there will be satisfactory answers, and maybe there won't.
I'm always into shows' first episodes, or pilots, since the writers tend to put their best feet forward, and though the execution is usually poor, it is where the raw idea shows through. "V", for now though, strikes me as somewhat unoriginal so far.
So it starts: We have a few opening shots of regular people going about their lives in Southern California, and suddenly there's an earthquake.
You can tell it's an earthquake because in every scene and location, there's a shot of a little thing rattling off a table, or a glass of water rippling like in that famous scene from Jurassic Park. What seems funny to me right away, is that no one just says "oh yeah, we're in California. It's an earthquake. I'd better do the earthquake thing and get under a table." Instead, they're all like "What's happening! I've never felt the earth shake before!"
Also, their emergency procedures seem chaotic and unorganized. We're led to perceive, from the opening shots, that this is a movie set in our world. Two historical events are referenced in the first scene: The assassination of US President John F. Kennedy in 1963
, and the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center twin towers in New York City in 2001. We are also shown the ID card of one of the presumably main characters, who works for Homeland Security. Regardless on this emphasis on American paranoia, the scenes that result are, as I pointed out, chaotic. In this show, people still don't know what to do if there's an earthquake or a terrorist attack. There's still panic and chaos.
Anyways, there's no reason for panic, because it very quickly turns out that it's an alien spaceship that's responsible for the earthquakes, which people realize as soon as they look outside and up. Hmm, where have I seen this before? The 1999 movie "Independence Day", to name just one, but I've seen it before. Aliens come to invade by parking spaceships above every major city in the world. Most recently, this trope was used as a powerful and satirical device when, in the 2009 film "District 9", an alien ship parks itself over the dysfunctional city of Johannesburg, South Africa.
In "V" though, there's apparently no mystery, as the first thing the aliens do is turn the bottoms of their spaceships into giant video screens and broadcast a friendly message of peace and trade to the people of earth.
And that's where the show completely loses me.
If they have video screen technology, as well as the capability of interstellar travel, then clearly they should have the ability to communicate directly with "earth's leaders" whomever they might consider them to be. I'd contend that this remains the heads of state of the G8 most powerful countries on earth, the most important of which is the USA. But an argument could be made for the aliens contacting the United Nations, or perhaps one of the numerous scientific organizations with the capability to communicate with extraterrestrial visitors, like maybe NASA, or SETI.
[Speaking of SETI, I feel bad for them. They kind of get kicked around in funding and political circles because they haven't found anything yet. At least, they haven't found ETI, which is what they're Searching for. But as soon as they do find ETI with the capability of communicating with earth, it won't be SETI's job to communicate anymore. Some other agency will take over, and SETI will pretty much remain how it is today. Yes, they'll win awards for having found something, and by awards I mean they will get trophies, one-time cash prizes, and scientific apparatuses named after them, maybe even a planet or two. But the rewards that SETI will never be able to cash in on is the actual opportunity to communicate and deal with alien intelligences. This will be granted to someone with earth-bound experience in diplomacy and negotiation. SETI will instead be set loose on the universe again, searching for the next ETI, while at the same time searching our own planet for sources of funding which no one will want to do, since we'll have already found ETI. In many folks' eyes, SETI will have served its purpose, and made itself irrelevant. But the truth of SETI is that it will always be relevant, because there will always be more ETIs to discover. And it will always be questioned as to its relevance, no matter how many ETIs it ultimately finds.]
So for some reason, the "V" aliens decide that they want to communicate "democratically" with the "people of earth" by parking above our big cities and broadcasting a picture of a human woman. Interestingly, the human woman is a white woman, speaking English. Fortunately, the aliens speak French too, and the spaceship parked over Paris is conveniently in French.
But I'm beginning to wonder about these aliens. Apparently they speak English and French, and they've somehow determined that their spokesperson should be a white human woman. Usually when people have a message to get out to the mass media, they conduct focus groups to determine how to affect the recipients of their message most favorably. It turns out, in many cases, that a woman's face will garner a more positive response than a male face, if the topic is diplomacy and peace and love. A male face, on the other hand, tends to work well with messages of threats of war, economic sanctions, deadlines, and ultimatums.
So anyways, pop psychology aside, the aliens somehow got extensive knowledge of humanity long before they arrived, managed to reproduce a convincing female face, and yet for some reason never communicated with the governments or scientific agencies of Earth? And for that matter, where was SETI? Where was NASA? Where were the amateur astronomers of Earth? These spaceships are as least as big as middling asteroids, so why was no one able to detect them? No, they somehow manage to fly in, under the radar, and announce that they just want to be friends.
Look, if the aliens really want to be friends, they should park themselves in orbit. Not around Earth, because that's where our satellites are, and we don't want them interfering with our satellites. Preferably somewhere comfortably distant. Like the moon. Let them park themselves in orbit around the moon. And rather than fly in with giant TV screens, all Big-Brother-esque (have they not read George Orwell's "1984"? Are these aliens completely oblivious to irony?) if they really want to communicate with earth, all they have to do is hack into the major TV networks. Or hey, get on Twitter.
Alternatively, just get in contact with a spokesperson on earth who can disseminate information to the rest of the planet on a want-to-know basis. Because believe me, at least at first, if there are aliens on TV, or aliens on the internet, that's where people are going to be clicking. You don't need to hack in, you don't need to broadcast on a huge screen above every major city. People are going to want this information, and they're going to go to our numerous and extensive media outlets to get it. There's absolutely no need for the aliens to beat us over the head with the fact that they're here and they "just want to trade and be friends".
If you just want to trade and be friends, then why did you disrupt our most economically active regions, cause minor earthquakes and widespread panic (never mind your soothing message; what about deaf people, or people who just happened to be indoors at the time)?
And then there's this business about a "mineral" on earth that is found nowhere else in the entire galaxy. I happen to know that this is utter bullshit too. Any element found on earth can be easily found elsewhere in the solar system, and it would be far easier to extract from pretty much any other planet.
Want water? Try the comets, the minor planet Pluto, or Jupiter's moon Europa.
Iron? The asteroid belt is full of it, and far more pure than what you find on earth.
Carbon? Try the atmosphere of Mars, or Saturn's moon Titan.
Silicon? Back to the asteroids, or hey, how about Earth's moon, since there aren't any people or ecosystems there to disrupt with interstellar scale mining operations?
Hey aliens, we appreciate the fact that you want to trade and all, but right now, the most valuable thing we have to offer is our knowledge. And likewise with you to us. Anything material, from matter to energy, you can pretty much take from the solar system and there really wouldn't be much we could do to stop you. We'd certainly appreciate getting something in return for "letting" you mine the asteroid belt, but we're just not in a place technologically to have a real voice in the matter.
So anyways, that's all from the first five minutes of the pilot episode of "V". My guess is that some of the things I brought up here will turn out to be questions that the human characters ask the aliens, and maybe there will be satisfactory answers, and maybe there won't.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
One Minute in my Brain
One Minute in My Brain
Ten ten two one zen eleven Ben
Where are all my riders then?
Grieve the poem and knock the rain
Don't go down the drain again
Buzz the ear and roll the street
Let's walk down and market meat.
Eat some food and drink some wine
Get it down the íntestine.
Break for me and die for me
And let's get making symphony
La, la, siss boom bah
Be a man and dance all night
And tender man
man man man man man man man
Look him in his tender booms
And sweep away his misty rains
And let's be funny, let's be men
Let's pull up our skirts again.
Sing a song for loving prove
And all the world is fun and love
I love it, and I feel it now. Just
Through my senses is all I feel
Like I must know you but it's gust
A récognition down the mind
Yet still I see your face it sets
It off.
the neurons shoot
Let's get down. Let's get down
Jump around.
And touch the ground.
Feel the love and reach your arms
Around the world
Poems have a logic too.
What am I doing?
Who are you?
Josh Treleaven, July 2009. Edited February 2010
Ten ten two one zen eleven Ben
Where are all my riders then?
Grieve the poem and knock the rain
Don't go down the drain again
Buzz the ear and roll the street
Let's walk down and market meat.
Eat some food and drink some wine
Get it down the íntestine.
Break for me and die for me
And let's get making symphony
La, la, siss boom bah
Be a man and dance all night
And tender man
man man man man man man man
Look him in his tender booms
And sweep away his misty rains
And let's be funny, let's be men
Let's pull up our skirts again.
Sing a song for loving prove
And all the world is fun and love
I love it, and I feel it now. Just
Through my senses is all I feel
Like I must know you but it's gust
A récognition down the mind
Yet still I see your face it sets
It off.
the neurons shoot
Let's get down. Let's get down
Jump around.
And touch the ground.
Feel the love and reach your arms
Around the world
Poems have a logic too.
What am I doing?
Who are you?
Josh Treleaven, July 2009. Edited February 2010
Sunday, February 7, 2010
To a Spojwoggner
Oh mamsantical spojwoggner
in the whilent glade:
Thy spamtiggles glisten breeble
under the cooling shade.
Behold now thy honk doffnet
with a gaffinour bleeze,
And sheggle forth the nonpellure
to gazble among the trees.
in the whilent glade:
Thy spamtiggles glisten breeble
under the cooling shade.
Behold now thy honk doffnet
with a gaffinour bleeze,
And sheggle forth the nonpellure
to gazble among the trees.
Friday, February 5, 2010
I Just Realized I'm a Nerd
I never thought I was qualified to be a nerd. I've always known that I'm socially awkward, but that's only ever part of the equation. To truly qualify as a nerd or a geek, I've never believed that it's enough to know how to play, and enjoy, eg.: chess, video games, pen-and-paper role playing games, literature, etc.
Two things put me over the edge though. One was listening to Wil Wheaton's podcast. One of the things Wil pointed out was how he ranted at his friend Brent Spiner who had made absolutely zero effort at consistency in his portrayal of the android character in Star Trek. Brent's response to Wil's criticism was "You're the nerd, Wil. I just did what was fun." That was when I realized that I was treating Star Trek exactly the same way as Wil and countless nerd Trekkies, who treated it as if it was meant to be "real", as if you were really supposed to lose yourself in the narrative, rather than just kind of laugh at the idea of weird people in space.
Okay, evidence that I'm a nerd: I know who Wil Wheaton is. I know he was Wesley Crusher in Star Trek: the Next Generation. I know that he plays role-playing games, which I also happen to play. I know what a podcast is.
But, I'm still hesitant to call myself a true nerd, because I don't own any copies of Wil Wheaton's books, neither in DTF (dead tree format, ie. paper) nor even in electronic format. I can't list the names of every Star Trek episode, and I don't remember what stardate it was that Wesley Crusher ascended to a higher plane of existence and left the Enterprise. I've forgotten most of what I know about role-playing games, and my extent of role-playing knowledge only ever really covered about one and a half Editions of the game of Dungeons & Dragons. I was never nerdy enough to go all the way back to Second Edition D&D, even though I did manage to acquire the books, I could never get through them. And when Fourth Edition Dungeons & Dragons came out, I was too lazy to learn a whole new ruleset. I tried, but I just couldn't get into it.
I know what a podcast is, and how to download them, but I don't have my own podcast. I don't know how to use XML, let alone other complicated programming languages like HTML, Java, C++, or even the names of other languages. Perl? I think.
I know how to edit Wikipedia, but I don't know how to create a template. See? I really don't deserve to be called nerdy.
The second thing that put me over the nerd edge though, was when I watched a video game review appear on The Young Turks radio show, for a video game called "Dragon Age." I don't know about the average guy on the street, but if you mention "dragons" to me, I think it's pretty awesome. But the host of the Young Turks, Cenk Uygur, immediately went to "Dragons? Aren't dragons kind of gay?"
Gay? I was not expecting that at all. I was expecting "Dragons? Isn't that kind of nerdy?" or "Dragons? That's a Chinese thing, right?" or "Dragons? Like as in King Arthur, right?" I do get it though, the psychological implications of being obsessed with dragons. If I was a true nerd, I could tell you if it was a Jungian or Freudian idea that dragons represent unbridled sexuality in the subconscious. Maybe it's a mix of both. But yes, I do get that dragons represent male sexuality, and a man obsessed with dragons might be expressing some unfulfilled desires in other areas of his life. But that doesn't change the fact, to me, that dragons are cool! Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, as Freud said. And sometimes an awesome literary trope is just an awesome literary trope. And an author or a reader armed with this information can actually get a whole new level of understanding out of literature and video games, but it doesn't erase the other meanings that dragons carry to those of us who think about them and use them in our imaginative dealings.
Anyways, I'm just saying I think I might be a nerd if my first reaction to the idea of a dragon is "Cool!" rather than "Ew, gay!"
Two things put me over the edge though. One was listening to Wil Wheaton's podcast. One of the things Wil pointed out was how he ranted at his friend Brent Spiner who had made absolutely zero effort at consistency in his portrayal of the android character in Star Trek. Brent's response to Wil's criticism was "You're the nerd, Wil. I just did what was fun." That was when I realized that I was treating Star Trek exactly the same way as Wil and countless nerd Trekkies, who treated it as if it was meant to be "real", as if you were really supposed to lose yourself in the narrative, rather than just kind of laugh at the idea of weird people in space.
Okay, evidence that I'm a nerd: I know who Wil Wheaton is. I know he was Wesley Crusher in Star Trek: the Next Generation. I know that he plays role-playing games, which I also happen to play. I know what a podcast is.
But, I'm still hesitant to call myself a true nerd, because I don't own any copies of Wil Wheaton's books, neither in DTF (dead tree format, ie. paper) nor even in electronic format. I can't list the names of every Star Trek episode, and I don't remember what stardate it was that Wesley Crusher ascended to a higher plane of existence and left the Enterprise. I've forgotten most of what I know about role-playing games, and my extent of role-playing knowledge only ever really covered about one and a half Editions of the game of Dungeons & Dragons. I was never nerdy enough to go all the way back to Second Edition D&D, even though I did manage to acquire the books, I could never get through them. And when Fourth Edition Dungeons & Dragons came out, I was too lazy to learn a whole new ruleset. I tried, but I just couldn't get into it.
I know what a podcast is, and how to download them, but I don't have my own podcast. I don't know how to use XML, let alone other complicated programming languages like HTML, Java, C++, or even the names of other languages. Perl? I think.
I know how to edit Wikipedia, but I don't know how to create a template. See? I really don't deserve to be called nerdy.
The second thing that put me over the nerd edge though, was when I watched a video game review appear on The Young Turks radio show, for a video game called "Dragon Age." I don't know about the average guy on the street, but if you mention "dragons" to me, I think it's pretty awesome. But the host of the Young Turks, Cenk Uygur, immediately went to "Dragons? Aren't dragons kind of gay?"
Gay? I was not expecting that at all. I was expecting "Dragons? Isn't that kind of nerdy?" or "Dragons? That's a Chinese thing, right?" or "Dragons? Like as in King Arthur, right?" I do get it though, the psychological implications of being obsessed with dragons. If I was a true nerd, I could tell you if it was a Jungian or Freudian idea that dragons represent unbridled sexuality in the subconscious. Maybe it's a mix of both. But yes, I do get that dragons represent male sexuality, and a man obsessed with dragons might be expressing some unfulfilled desires in other areas of his life. But that doesn't change the fact, to me, that dragons are cool! Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, as Freud said. And sometimes an awesome literary trope is just an awesome literary trope. And an author or a reader armed with this information can actually get a whole new level of understanding out of literature and video games, but it doesn't erase the other meanings that dragons carry to those of us who think about them and use them in our imaginative dealings.
Anyways, I'm just saying I think I might be a nerd if my first reaction to the idea of a dragon is "Cool!" rather than "Ew, gay!"
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