(no subject)
Feb. 27th, 2005 05:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kleenexwomanaugh. I'm sick. Just threw up again. Not sure if this is nausea, lovesickness, depression, boredom, anxiety, or the flu. They're hard to tell apart.
In any case, I am somewhat victorious. I just finished and posted the next part of the fanfic chain. It got a little darker and creepier than I thought it would, what with the cult member mind control penal colony guards and the McFly descendant tearing someone's throat out with his bare hands and the possibility of a main character getting a lobotomy. Oh, and the Boingo quoting. I'm trying to include at least one in every chapter that I write, just for amusement purposes, plus a special extra other quote. This time it was Pink Floyd. Last time it was Was Not Was. Go find 'em all and I will give you a cookie.
Discussion question hypothetical scenario:
You have been handpicked to guard, for a day, the "football" nuclear triggering device that the President is supposed to carry around. Before you get the football, you are invited to take a tour of the White House and hear all the top-secret plans that The Idiots In Charge are making up for the world. You are somewhat unsurprised to hear that they plan to take over the world, and somewhat more surprised to learn that every single other nation on Earth (with the exception of a few crazy anarchists like Canada) agree to this plan.
The world, in this case, will become every stultifying dystopia you've ever read about. Thoughtcrime and deviance will be punished with brainwashing and lobotomies, and in some cases death. The populace will be kept docile and complacent with drugged food, which is distributed to everyone along with living quarters, a job in a Dickensian factory or a Kafkaesque bureaucracy, and a fashionable grey jumpsuit. War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength, you know the drill--but as long as you follow the rules and don't thumb your nose at Big Brother, you will be kept healthy and alive. Since the entire world will agree to this plan (eventually), there will be no war, and thus no chance of ever toppling the regime or breaking the system.
The Idiots In Charge are proud of this plan, and think it is the best way to ensure a peaceful future. Then they give you the suitcase containing the Button and leave you alone. You know that if you press the Button, every nuclear missile in America will be launched at wherever it's aimed.
If this happens, most of the human population of the world will die (and probably most of the animals, but there are more animals in places that aren't as populated by humans, so places like Africa and the Amazon are probably OK at first). There will be nuclear winter for quite a while, and plenty of fallout. Food, water, medical supplies, and shelter will be very scarce, and the people who aren't killed in the intial bombing run will very likely die of starvation or radiation sickness. Any children born afterwards will probably be horribly mutated. Survivors will have to band together into fearful, makeshift communities or wander across the desert ala "Mad Max." The human race will eventually die off altogether.
These are the ONLY two alternatives. It is a foregone conclusion that the plan will succeed if you don't push the button, and that the button will indeed launch every missile if pushed. No weaseling out of it.
Ignoring the improbability of a crazy dissident like you ever being allowed within five miles of the White House anyway, I'd like to know: Would you press the button or not? Why would you make your choice?
Post this in your own journals if you'd like.
In any case, I am somewhat victorious. I just finished and posted the next part of the fanfic chain. It got a little darker and creepier than I thought it would, what with the cult member mind control penal colony guards and the McFly descendant tearing someone's throat out with his bare hands and the possibility of a main character getting a lobotomy. Oh, and the Boingo quoting. I'm trying to include at least one in every chapter that I write, just for amusement purposes, plus a special extra other quote. This time it was Pink Floyd. Last time it was Was Not Was. Go find 'em all and I will give you a cookie.
Discussion question hypothetical scenario:
You have been handpicked to guard, for a day, the "football" nuclear triggering device that the President is supposed to carry around. Before you get the football, you are invited to take a tour of the White House and hear all the top-secret plans that The Idiots In Charge are making up for the world. You are somewhat unsurprised to hear that they plan to take over the world, and somewhat more surprised to learn that every single other nation on Earth (with the exception of a few crazy anarchists like Canada) agree to this plan.
The world, in this case, will become every stultifying dystopia you've ever read about. Thoughtcrime and deviance will be punished with brainwashing and lobotomies, and in some cases death. The populace will be kept docile and complacent with drugged food, which is distributed to everyone along with living quarters, a job in a Dickensian factory or a Kafkaesque bureaucracy, and a fashionable grey jumpsuit. War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength, you know the drill--but as long as you follow the rules and don't thumb your nose at Big Brother, you will be kept healthy and alive. Since the entire world will agree to this plan (eventually), there will be no war, and thus no chance of ever toppling the regime or breaking the system.
The Idiots In Charge are proud of this plan, and think it is the best way to ensure a peaceful future. Then they give you the suitcase containing the Button and leave you alone. You know that if you press the Button, every nuclear missile in America will be launched at wherever it's aimed.
If this happens, most of the human population of the world will die (and probably most of the animals, but there are more animals in places that aren't as populated by humans, so places like Africa and the Amazon are probably OK at first). There will be nuclear winter for quite a while, and plenty of fallout. Food, water, medical supplies, and shelter will be very scarce, and the people who aren't killed in the intial bombing run will very likely die of starvation or radiation sickness. Any children born afterwards will probably be horribly mutated. Survivors will have to band together into fearful, makeshift communities or wander across the desert ala "Mad Max." The human race will eventually die off altogether.
These are the ONLY two alternatives. It is a foregone conclusion that the plan will succeed if you don't push the button, and that the button will indeed launch every missile if pushed. No weaseling out of it.
Ignoring the improbability of a crazy dissident like you ever being allowed within five miles of the White House anyway, I'd like to know: Would you press the button or not? Why would you make your choice?
Post this in your own journals if you'd like.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-27 11:15 pm (UTC)Maybe we're all animals. Maybe we're all meaningless. But I'd rather see that meaninglessness perpetuated than be the one to push the button to destroy us all. Maybe aliens would come and liberate us from our oppressors?
On the other hand, I could look at this situation as a mercy killing. But, even then, I don't think I would be justified in doing that.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-28 04:03 am (UTC)Gimme some therapy, maybe someplace safer to be, new roommates, whatever...some stability and some people who don't leave whole turkeys to rot in the oven for three days...maybe I wouldn't blow up a planet just because I was irritated.
Right now? We'd all have to go? Survivors? Hey, the army's got guns. What survivors?