Get off my property!
A few months ago I submitted for a beta testing of Introversion Softwares' new game, Darwinia. Introversion is the guys who made Uplink, one cool game that proves you don't need sex, blood, gore or system-crashing graphics for a game to be really fun, even in this day and age. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find a working crack for it on the net so I 've only played the demo... Anyway, Darwinia is the new game Introversions' setting up and it's an RTS where you control a tribe of old-days sprites in a 3d world. You can learn all about it at the Introversion site, here. Sounds interesting, so I applied for beta testing and yesterday I got some mail telling me I got selected and would I please download the beta and see if it works on my system. Apparently, it doesn't, 'cause I get a system error (something about a device failure) and I can't even start playing it properly. A shame. Anyway, they already got 600 people testing, so I guess the game will be out as scheduled, May 2005.
In other news, I watched Michael Moores' Bowling for Columbine yesterday. Well, OK, it wasn't as bad as I thought and Moore is really on to that "endearing fat american" thingy really well. He's also not stupid, obviously... He makes his points and in the end he concludes that it's the American media that are responsible for the USAs' really high rate of firearms killings. He believes the media only serve people blood and terrorize them so much that they feel the need to protect themselves and that means they get more guns and kill each all the time.
Well, he does have his point there, but, see, at first he seemed to think it was just the fact that Americans have too many weapons (ie, the NRAs' fault) that causes all the killings. So, he went over to Canada to make the point that Canadians don't have as many violent crimes because they don't have as many firearms. Which turned out not to be the case since 10 million Canadian households have 7 million firearms and that's a lotta guns. It's also not violence in movies and video games that causes all the shootings, since everybody everywhere watches American movies anyway. And it's not Marilyn Manson or bowling that cause them either, it turns out (I was kinda hot on Marilyn Manson being at the root of all evil, but it turns out it's still plain ole satan after all... oh and Mansons' political thinking is just as good as his music, which, frankly, sucks). So, unable to find any other difference between America and other countries, Moore concludes it's Americas' media who are responsible for the violence.
I see his point, and I know how Americans are sort of paranoid... I remeber ten years ago, I was in my room at the hotel in Corfu were the uni students stayed and I hear a knock on my door. I go see who it is and it's this huge black marine from one of the NATO ships that were patrolling in the area. And he's pointing at my door lock and going "your key"... "you left your key on the door", with a real paranoid like look, glancing left and right with a severe expression on his face... I got spooked out a bit and I took the key off the lock and back inside the room with me, 'cause I really didn't have the heart to show him all the rest of the doors next to mine who also had their keys dangling on their locks, on the outside.
But the media in Greece is not that much better than in America. We don't have high speed chases in great big motorways, but, then, we don't have motorways... And anyway, the principle is there. Hot blood in the bucketfull with tacky commentary and Carmina Burana in the background. Rapings, murders, child molestings, old-people victims of armed roberries, bank roberries, what have you. And the people are scared, indeed. They 're afraid of the emigrants, of whom we got a lot here, truth be told, especially the Albanians- of them we both have a lot and people are afraid of them too much, they 're a bit like the blacks in America, whenever there's something in the news, there's bound to be an Albanian involved (like that bus-hijacking some days ago). Still, we got very, very little violent crime (most of which is done by pure Greeks, if you ask the police) and even fewer killings with firearms every year. Oh, Greeks are bastards alright, don't get me wrong. They 'll take your gold teeth and your shoes and they 'll let you starve to death and freeze without a blanket in the middle of winter... but they won't clobber you to do it- they 'll generally try to outsmart you. Well, depending on where they 're from, 'cause in the north they 're a lot more straight-forward than in the south, but, even there, even in Epiros where they 're all Vlachs, even in Macedonia, where they 're all, well, Bulgarians (so we say... they say they 're Greeks and FYROM says they are and they should go home... we have a funny gig going on here, eh?), and, yeah, even the Albanians and the Pakis and the peeps from Kenya and Gana and anyplace, they 're still not that trigger happy as at least Moore presents the average American to be.
And it's definitely not as easy to find firearms here, in Greece, or even get a permit, as it seems to be in America.
Anyway, I think I have a pretty good idea of how the rest of the world, besides Europe, Canada, Australia and the USA, is doing, in terms of violence, and it's not a playground, out there. Indonesia? West Papua? Afghanistan? Kenya? Gana? Kongo? Brasil? Colombia? What? In most of the world they don't even have time to watch the media, 'cause they 're too busy killing each other off, let alone get any bad influence from them. No, I think it's something completely else, than what Moore thinks it is, that's causing the problem, in America. And it's causing it in the rest of the world too. America is not that exceptional after all. It's just a big place with a lot of people that's going faster than the rest of the world in about everything else, so, why shouldn't it go faster in the rate people kill each other off too?
Truth is, I think, we 're all murderous and violent by nature. We didn't get to be the dominant species, or anyway, the one that destroys' everybody elses' habitat and eats everybody elses' babies, by being polite and kind and reasonable, to each other. Yeah, and you know what, stone-age populations that were contacted in the last century prove that once and for all. They, for one, were no noble savages. Two Papuans, for example, who didn't know each other and met accidentally in the woods, would spend some time trying to establish that they shared at least a very distant relative and they would be very distressed to find that they didn't, 'cause in that case they had to kill each other. I mean, no, they didn't, but being even very remotely related was the only reason they could find to not kill each other. Otherwise, they had all the reasons in the world.
Well, maybe it's a natural thing, maybe it's just a human thing, maybe whatever, I 'm not saying it's the kind of thing that we should stick to, no way man. Not me. This is no more the natural world we live into anyway, so what's natural isn't necessarily the right way to go anymore. But, you know, it may be at least possible to explain things. People kill each other 'cause they fear each other and what is it that they fear? Well, you get a hint by that very American moto, "Get Off My Property or So Help Me I 'll Shoot You". You know, John Wayne style. People are afraid to live in poverty, people are afraid that someone will steal them all their hopes for the future, people are afraid that people will take them all they have and leave them with nothing and, apparently, it's better to kill someone, even just anyone, than live with nothing. Oh well, it's not much of an explanation, 'cause people still kill each other over nothing, really, I mean, money, jewels, you know. So my reasonable explanation is just bullshit 'cause there's no fucking reason in all that. People are just insane, stupid and dangerous. Keep away. If you can.
And get off their property.
In other news, I watched Michael Moores' Bowling for Columbine yesterday. Well, OK, it wasn't as bad as I thought and Moore is really on to that "endearing fat american" thingy really well. He's also not stupid, obviously... He makes his points and in the end he concludes that it's the American media that are responsible for the USAs' really high rate of firearms killings. He believes the media only serve people blood and terrorize them so much that they feel the need to protect themselves and that means they get more guns and kill each all the time.
Well, he does have his point there, but, see, at first he seemed to think it was just the fact that Americans have too many weapons (ie, the NRAs' fault) that causes all the killings. So, he went over to Canada to make the point that Canadians don't have as many violent crimes because they don't have as many firearms. Which turned out not to be the case since 10 million Canadian households have 7 million firearms and that's a lotta guns. It's also not violence in movies and video games that causes all the shootings, since everybody everywhere watches American movies anyway. And it's not Marilyn Manson or bowling that cause them either, it turns out (I was kinda hot on Marilyn Manson being at the root of all evil, but it turns out it's still plain ole satan after all... oh and Mansons' political thinking is just as good as his music, which, frankly, sucks). So, unable to find any other difference between America and other countries, Moore concludes it's Americas' media who are responsible for the violence.
I see his point, and I know how Americans are sort of paranoid... I remeber ten years ago, I was in my room at the hotel in Corfu were the uni students stayed and I hear a knock on my door. I go see who it is and it's this huge black marine from one of the NATO ships that were patrolling in the area. And he's pointing at my door lock and going "your key"... "you left your key on the door", with a real paranoid like look, glancing left and right with a severe expression on his face... I got spooked out a bit and I took the key off the lock and back inside the room with me, 'cause I really didn't have the heart to show him all the rest of the doors next to mine who also had their keys dangling on their locks, on the outside.
But the media in Greece is not that much better than in America. We don't have high speed chases in great big motorways, but, then, we don't have motorways... And anyway, the principle is there. Hot blood in the bucketfull with tacky commentary and Carmina Burana in the background. Rapings, murders, child molestings, old-people victims of armed roberries, bank roberries, what have you. And the people are scared, indeed. They 're afraid of the emigrants, of whom we got a lot here, truth be told, especially the Albanians- of them we both have a lot and people are afraid of them too much, they 're a bit like the blacks in America, whenever there's something in the news, there's bound to be an Albanian involved (like that bus-hijacking some days ago). Still, we got very, very little violent crime (most of which is done by pure Greeks, if you ask the police) and even fewer killings with firearms every year. Oh, Greeks are bastards alright, don't get me wrong. They 'll take your gold teeth and your shoes and they 'll let you starve to death and freeze without a blanket in the middle of winter... but they won't clobber you to do it- they 'll generally try to outsmart you. Well, depending on where they 're from, 'cause in the north they 're a lot more straight-forward than in the south, but, even there, even in Epiros where they 're all Vlachs, even in Macedonia, where they 're all, well, Bulgarians (so we say... they say they 're Greeks and FYROM says they are and they should go home... we have a funny gig going on here, eh?), and, yeah, even the Albanians and the Pakis and the peeps from Kenya and Gana and anyplace, they 're still not that trigger happy as at least Moore presents the average American to be.
And it's definitely not as easy to find firearms here, in Greece, or even get a permit, as it seems to be in America.
Anyway, I think I have a pretty good idea of how the rest of the world, besides Europe, Canada, Australia and the USA, is doing, in terms of violence, and it's not a playground, out there. Indonesia? West Papua? Afghanistan? Kenya? Gana? Kongo? Brasil? Colombia? What? In most of the world they don't even have time to watch the media, 'cause they 're too busy killing each other off, let alone get any bad influence from them. No, I think it's something completely else, than what Moore thinks it is, that's causing the problem, in America. And it's causing it in the rest of the world too. America is not that exceptional after all. It's just a big place with a lot of people that's going faster than the rest of the world in about everything else, so, why shouldn't it go faster in the rate people kill each other off too?
Truth is, I think, we 're all murderous and violent by nature. We didn't get to be the dominant species, or anyway, the one that destroys' everybody elses' habitat and eats everybody elses' babies, by being polite and kind and reasonable, to each other. Yeah, and you know what, stone-age populations that were contacted in the last century prove that once and for all. They, for one, were no noble savages. Two Papuans, for example, who didn't know each other and met accidentally in the woods, would spend some time trying to establish that they shared at least a very distant relative and they would be very distressed to find that they didn't, 'cause in that case they had to kill each other. I mean, no, they didn't, but being even very remotely related was the only reason they could find to not kill each other. Otherwise, they had all the reasons in the world.
Well, maybe it's a natural thing, maybe it's just a human thing, maybe whatever, I 'm not saying it's the kind of thing that we should stick to, no way man. Not me. This is no more the natural world we live into anyway, so what's natural isn't necessarily the right way to go anymore. But, you know, it may be at least possible to explain things. People kill each other 'cause they fear each other and what is it that they fear? Well, you get a hint by that very American moto, "Get Off My Property or So Help Me I 'll Shoot You". You know, John Wayne style. People are afraid to live in poverty, people are afraid that someone will steal them all their hopes for the future, people are afraid that people will take them all they have and leave them with nothing and, apparently, it's better to kill someone, even just anyone, than live with nothing. Oh well, it's not much of an explanation, 'cause people still kill each other over nothing, really, I mean, money, jewels, you know. So my reasonable explanation is just bullshit 'cause there's no fucking reason in all that. People are just insane, stupid and dangerous. Keep away. If you can.
And get off their property.
posted by Stassa at 12/22/2004 01:08:00 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home