$ jlc (10,317)

Good idea. I would not think of hijacking a symbol...except that their stated symbol is "Anonymous"! We have as much right to be anonymous as they do. (It is kinda poetic.)

Jan

I would consider highjacking the Anonymous symbols and producing a vid that was our philosophy and not theirs...this seems somehow appropriate...

Jan

We have hugely capable people here in the Gulch. The idea of some youtube 'advertisements' for our philosophy is attractive to me.

The reason I posted this as a separate thread was to see if some of those folks replied with, "Hmmmm!"

Jan

Yeah, but if I really wanted to go onto the battlefield and fight for what I believed in you would not be advised to step in front of me and try to keep me 'safe'.

Jan

Actually, I agree with your last line - without even any sarcasm. If we are going to beat the statistical equality drum, let's beat it with vigor.

Jan

Well, humankind went through a genetic keyhole that indicates that at one point there were only about 6K-30K of our species all totalled. This is probably why our culture is so conservative about keeping women alive. But we have >7B humans alive right now, so it is time to overturn the tables and let the individual woman's preferences matter more than the species' needs.

Jan

That is an interesting site...I could not help but poke around on it a bit.

The point I was making is that the conventional standards for 'fit to serve in combat' are no longer applicable. You can have people in their 60's+ flying drones (thus removing the age limitation); you can have women in combat (thus removing the gender limitation). Having someone 'willing to fight' is now the major criterion. While we still need physical people on the ground, more than just women have been excluded from combat - and this is no longer the case.

Thank you for the site!

Jan

Mostly, who it opens up the field for is 'people over 60'. Drone pilots should be open to people of all ages, and it would be kinda neat to see the military having to deal with bright and capable octogenarians who have had a lifetime of experience sorting out BS from reality...

Jan

When I am on a shuttle bus to/from the airport, I find that I am often the one to stand up and give my seat to a pregnant woman or someone walking with a cane. If there are so few gentlemen left, then we ladies have to step in.

Jan, "Lady" does not = "weak"

You're right: You would have...for the first few times you went into combat with a mixed gender team.

Once, when I (veteran fighter) was trying to coax a male opponent (newbie) into giving me a good fight at a practice down at Mile Square Park, he stopped and said, "I just can't get used to the idea of hitting a woman. I was raised to protect them!" A high-prestige, high ranked male fighter wandered over to us, clapped him on the shoulder, and said, "Don't worry: You'll get over it." and strolled off. My opponent's jaw dropped. We squared off against each other again and I threw a few really hard blows right into his shield, and then came at him vigorously. He 'forgot' he was fighting a woman and pushed back and we had some good fights. From then on, whenever I fought him we had good hard competitive fights.

So yes - you are a nice guy and you would initially react to protect the women (who would all be new to combat to boot). But after they had gotten some battlefield experience and you had saved each other's butts a few times in action they would have been 'part of the team'.

Jan

The observation that boys and men are more aggressive does not mean they are natural killers. This is one of the many aspects of 'mens liberation' that I agree with. Boys and men should be able to enjoy being competitive and aggressive without having that 'killer' label tied to them. Boys and men who do not feel that sense of competitiveness should be able to go "meh" and wander off in search of a computer or a book.

Women are learning that we 'may' be more assertive and aggressive as we are allowed to earn our own living and do not have to create our lives around finding a male solar breadwinner to revolve around. On the other hand, I would have made an excellent front line soldier - I personally have all the instincts for it - but that option was not permitted. That was stupid of the military.

Jan

Interesting point: Drone warfare makes age and physical condition irrelevant to presence in combat. As long as you have good hand-eye and a knack for flying drones you can be on the front lines.

Jan

Good idea, johnpe! I like your concise summation of the underlying atmosphere presented by the video. Nice.

Jan

What attracted me to the video (emotionally), johnpe, was the 'we are mysterious anti-establishment forces who are telling you the real story' envelope it was nested in. Then there were telling images, inspirational music, and pithy declarative statements. OK, so the statements were mostly both wrong and repulsive...nonetheless, the format had something to recommend it.

Jan

I sometimes get so interested in the Gulch discussions that I forget that this was originally a movie discussion site. The people here are aware of the role of art in culture...so I thought I would draw attention to the video you suggested viewing.

There is a lot about that video that is extremely well done, and perhaps we can use it as a paradigm...but with a different philosophy in evidence - one more in keeping with the final quote!

Jan

Ah. Sorry - missed that. I had assumed that you were following the show and had secret geek info I lacked!

Were I to try to create a Superman show, I would diminish his powers. He did not originally have heat vision, for example, and his 'flying' was more extended jumping (like the Hulk). I think that I would probably keep the flying (because, good scenes), do away with the heat vision and then make his xray vision 'the ability to see further into the IR spectrum' - so, like a heat scope. Hmmm...invulnerability...maybe morph it into 'really tough' plus 'regeneration'.

Cutting down the powers would give one room for more Super-person plots where there was real risk and vulnerability. (You cannot have heroes without the weight of possible cost to oneself.)

Yeah, I get your point about Supergirl-is-OK because she is a just girl and therefor cannot possibly be so powerful that she will be boring. But I remember when Mrs Peel was criticized because she was 'unfeminine' because she actually physically fought opponents. That was followed by several decades of women who did not fight - or who did an incredibly bad job of doing so (ie on Original Star Trek). Finally, B5 had some scenes where women kicked butt...over 30 years later. So, while I would rather gaze at Superman than Supergirl, I react with a "Yay Team!" to that aspect of modern culture.

Jan

I have not been following that show - read a number of reviews and decided to stay away. How does the show deal with 'she can do any damn thing she want to and nothing can harm her'? (Kryptonite - but you know what I mean.)

FTL/dimensional/time travel are standard McGuffin's of SF; 'magic' and 'gods' are similarly situated for Fantasy. I do not have any problems with accepting a given premise, as long as the rest of the world hangs together well.

Jan

Me too. "Science the Shit out of it!" has quickly passed into the common lexicon of culture.

Jan

I have just reread the book; have the DVD of the movie. I think I like the movie a tiny bit better, mainly because of the ending. I felt a bit cheated by the book ending with Watney smelling bad and waiting for a shower. The ending of the movie might as well have been labeled "Starfleet Academy"...liked that a lot.

I had thought that Mark was wearing glasses during those last scenes because of the number of times he had breathed pure oxygen in the course of his Martian excursions, but I did a bit more research and it was probably due to the acceleration of the hot-roded MAV. This sort of attention to detail makes my little techie heart go pity-pat.

Jan

No, the fact has to be at least plausible in order for the fiction to be good - this applies to sociology, economics and history in addition to science.

I recently began reading a fantasy novel that had such a poor understanding of economics, trade, and technology that I could not finish it, in spite of the fact that the author spun a good story. For example: an entirely insular medieval subsistence country where the country is unaware (because it does not engage in trade) that its neighboring countries are being attacked and taken over by an invading army but the nobles of said subsistence country have estate homes filled with velvets and silks and china. When the book got to the 'crudely welded gun' (the invaders had) I could not maintain my 'suspension of disbelief'.

What authors need to realize is that it matters if your world 'hangs together' well and that flagrant inaccuracies (The Black Hole: asteroid crushes space station without any explosive decompression) lead to loss of belief. The Science is in science fiction for a reason, but accuracy also applies to historical and other forms of fiction.

Jan

Let's hear it for BAD EXAMPLES!!

HipHip -HURRAH!

Jan

I agree with you, and disagree with about 80% of it. But there is a lesson to be learned...hmmm...will start a post...

Jan

I agree with you, and disagree with about 80% of it. But there is a lesson to be learned...hmmm...will start a post...

Jan

THIS is what I miss - this speech from the head of the AEC in 1954:
"Our children will enjoy in their homes electrical energy too cheap to meter... It is not too much to expect that our children will know of great periodic regional famines in the world only as matters of history, will travel effortlessly over the seas and under them and through the air with a minimum of danger and at great speeds, and will experience a lifespan far longer than ours, as disease yields and man comes to understand what causes him to age."
Where has our techno-optimism gone?

Jan