Choosing Our Path

- Or, You can't stop the signal...

Firefly and Serenity  have become my 'go-to' for memes... and my representation of where we are, currently.
The pursuit of Utopia... and the folk it leaves behind

Why does the entire population of Earth That Was have to pull up roots and venture off? Because our PTB's (Powers That Be) refused to honor their own science, and respond to the voracious consumption of stored energy within a few hundred years... that had taken eons to create.
Presented with choice, they opted to act parasite... and suck the source of their wealth and all life utterly dry.

We are at that crossroad, now. With our big brains, ability to share what we know across generations, project the possibilities forward- we're not solving our problems. Instead, a very few are manipulating the rest of us... because we're letting them. Like THX 1138, we dutifully contribute our life and genetic material to the support of the State... even as we understand that State is propping up those few at the expense of the rest... Rather than rise up, we go along. There are a few survivalists. Some few insist on self-sustaining community or self-reliance and with-hold their contribution to the state for a smaller community of the like-minded. Amusing, if you consider its resemblance to the early 'tribal' existence, before our discovery of condensed energy in coal and petroleum.

The Joss Whedon conjecture is not out of the realm of possibility. A person as old as I has seen us double the population of the planet roughly every twenty years. Except, now... it can accomplish the same feat in seven. More mouths to feed... more energy required to meet the need. Yet, we're not really using the fuel to feed all the people... a few people are eating very well. The rest, make do as they might, because they are not lucky enough to be born in the into the Westernized world that has consolidated the resources with its power... It pilfers the resources from weaker communities.

How long will it take until, indeed, we 'use up' the resources of the earth, and poison or deplete the planet's capacity to renew those elements that have sustained life here?
Many times humans prove they have not been responsible stewards.
This film, HOME walks us from the proliferation of oxygen to water... and the bloom of life on the planet.
The impact of humans is measurable. Al Gore has been warning us since his time in the Senate of the U.S., then again in his role as Vice President of the U. S., and finally, he produced, An Inconvenient Truth.

It is clear that the distopic future projected by Joss Whedon is not an unreasonable future... nor is it unreasonable to assume, that if our human population should get off this planet and off to another system outside this solar system, that the elite of this world will attempt to reproduce their stranglehold on resources, their system of consolidation of wealth, and the subjugation of people not 'of the elite' class.
The Core Planets of the Blue Sun system, in my mind represent the G-8... those powerful nations with the economies that essentially run the world... and we folk living in the world try to get along, but without real power to effect the choices of the PTB's.
Mr. Universe, with his multiple screens, hacked into the video and data streams of an entire solar system, sits in his lair, with his love bot... watching. He has become a voyeur. But even a voyeur with a brain starts putting the dots together to form an image of the force behind the screen.
Bread and circuses may keep us entertained... but in the long lonely hours between waking and sleep, we connect, we re-assess, we remember and link. Things from the past are awakened, our emotions kick in, and we decide...


Mr. Universe decided. He gave Mal and the crew the opportunity to use the signal to tell the truth. The worlds will have to decide for themselves... or even smaller... person to person, we determine to be  watchers...
Or, we aim to misbehave.

Many a nation has won its freedom using our grand ole' method of guerilla warfare- hit and run, hide... mostly hide.
Strike when it is to your advantage... or don't. And wait.

The U.S. had proven a beacon, in many ways, of independence, of human rights and dignity being won... but our 'reputation' has become tarnished, of late.
We have seen brutal undermining of the dignity of labor, of women, women's value in the work-place, and the work delegated to women demeaned. We point the finger at the Middle East... but in our own military, rape and subjugation of women is common practice. Enlisted are some how not as 'civilized' as are the Officer's Corps... and so, we institutionalize elitism, and diminish the value of labor at all levels of society.
We deny one of the core truths set out in our 'Bill of Rights'- life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness... if it should not conform with part of the population's read of those rights...

At the same time, a wave of uprisings roared across the Middle East... the common man, now connected in ways no one saw coming (guerilla tactics, kids... there for eons to see) utilized our new technology to undermine the PTB's and re-assert their humanity and personal dignity.
Yay team!

If people under the thumb of notorious dictators can rise up, then certainly, now is the time for women, for all people, yes-- but, certainly for women to be as equal in the eyes of our laws and economic access.
This new and exciting link to the 'signal'... that really cannot be shut down because of the way it connects the population, levels the field of the perception of labor V. leadership, and equalizes our contributions. One without the other is an exercise in futility. A video of the uprising, without the software to piggyback on the state net does not go out to the rest of the world and inform upon the dictator... The net access without the video... doesn't function, either. The parts work together to create something new. A revolution of the human spirit... and a wave of the technological connection that makes each person using the tech a link in the chain of events.
We are all connected.

We can choose to link-- we can work out the bugs together, we can negotiate the terms... or;

Firefly Complaint Department

Where I Began...

Poetry and Science Fiction

The only wireless thing I knew growing up was a transistor radio. Does anyone not imagine that there are tiny little people living their lives inside? Yet, I have always had electricity in every home where I lived. Our family purchased a color TV when I was twelve... roughly the same year Star Trek made it to the air... The only thing I made time to watch... besides Dark Shadows. Watching a show in prime time was a big switch for a child of that age. The alternative was reading. Since my parents did not 'approve' Science Fiction, I read romance and poetry. Fine reading... I increased my vocabulary, I stayed out of trouble (mostly) and made it to the movies on occasion.

The first to make a serious impact was THX 1138, which lead me to the title on the shelf... then Westworld made me afraid of the possible robot world. 

Both these distopic films contrasted with the possible future in Star Trek. On TV, we'd gotten past the racism, the sexism, though ageism may have been alive and well... certainly most TV stars were young and good looking. What is the choice between 'actualized' people contributing to a world... or the perpetual oversight of THX 1138? If we develop machines to do for us, and 'free' us of the mundane, how well do we know the programming... and its long term effect on the 'AI'? Can we 'teach' the machine well enough to understand 'play'? 

Which leads me to the short Bendito Machine III ,
an animated film that treats the televison like a god. Or, at least the messenger from god. The message is consumption... get more, get bigger; and pay no attention to the pile of waste turning into a mountain. Yet our hero goes back for yet another screen...
Is it screen, or is it a window? 
I've discussed the question for decades... we can make the screen a window into the highest realms of imagination, the deepest depths of our world... and share what is real. Or, what we've made is a series of tiny plays to make the viewer feel small and in need of what ever it is the distant puppeteer is selling squeezed between moments of delicious drama.

We have, on occasion, created some magnificent theater for the small screen. And... with the development of PBS, there is the development of the screen as an educational tool. Sesame Street came out in November of 1969, and as I did babysitting, I fell in love with the color, the quick pace, and the sheer joy of tiny people learning what they didn't understand in a new way. At the advent of cable, the expanse of available bandwidth, Nick Jr. took the new animation tools and the educational mandate and ran to places I could not have imagined. 

On the other hand... we're currently in the middle of a spate of 'reality' TV that isn't reality at all... but timed train-wrecks that pilfer our time, but don't provide the catharsis of well written drama. We're conceding the time to these producers and advertisers, and what do we gain? 

It may be no different that other forms of 'worship'.

As the spread of the web into more and more cultures and settings, we're using a different screen for a totally different set of human pursuit.
Porn was the big money maker. As all teachers dread, Porn promoters were hacking ''safe" sites so our students were exposed, even as we supervised them so carefully, set up 'filters' that limited access... and the use of adult porn  may be the most isolating feature of the interwebs. When one of the most intimate of all human interactions is replaced by the virtual... how do we return to an era of prizing human touch?  


We see the boom in 'dating sites' that utilize the web to then connect disparate folk for the goal of long-term relationship that will be 'person-to-person'... but as has been said before... "Nobody knows you're a dog on the internet."

Neither is honesty a confirm-able point... yet, we still try to connect.

Inbox

This reminded me of the book, Cyrano de Bergerac play, Little Shop Around the Corner... the movie, You've Got Mail, all deal with the idea of a false identity... and a bit of star crossed love. Inbox brings two people that have actually seen each other, but don't have the confidence to initiate the introduction they crave... 
Someone mentioned that even face-to-face, they present the last 'post-it's' that they wrote, rather than speak their hearts. We use 'cards' to do much the same with people we do have 'relationship' ongoing. Rather than speak... we write a card... or select a card... or buy an object that we hope will represent how we feel.
The core at the center of all of these four pieces... and any other 'star-crossed lovers'... lack of confidence. Whether the lack has merit- or is all in the mind- doesn't matter. 
That one doesn't 'choose' well, that doesn't matter, either. The object of our desire is believed to be beyond what we are capable of capturing on our own.
Using the 'screen' of the internet... or avoiding other people except in sharing the separate experience of viewing the same programming... or stream within the 'social media'... the isolation of the individual remains.

Is that all that the social media is capable of doing in our age? Now, the internet screen is as mobile as a phone/ is the phone. The change beginning is a more interactive interface, rather than merely liking or giving a meme the 'thumbs up' of Facebook... G+ streams are evolving... and people link their blog 'long essays' to conversations with disparate folk willing to engage the question; they link YouTube or Vimeo pieces for fun... or demonstration; RSS audio feeds include political rant, and science-based sharing of research.  We are not slaves to the screen... it has become a tool... how will we opt to use it?

Are we ignoring the natural world for the screens? We are certainly ignoring each other... Rather than have a conversation in a room, we gather about the screen for shared experience, and face the screen, rather than one another. Some of these experiences are very deep and enriching... many of them are not. We do not walk, or visit neighbors, we isolate ourselves further to gaze at the screen. Thursday, an animated short, uses a single mother bird and her three fledgling chicks to represent the natural world's interface with our 'technical' construction. Our street sweepers clean so fast, the bird misses a meal for her chicks... but she does find a bright red, shiny wire... and pulls it for her nest- Shutting down an entire building's power grid. 

This reminded me of our inability to cope, or complete dependency on our electronic tools and gadgets to communicate. After a tornado, an earthquake, or hurricane-- we lose power grids, but many devices continue to function on their battery life. Unless the transmission towers are compromised. We grow more and more dependent upon electrical power. Yet the production of this power grows more and more centralized. Some buildings go so far as to install back-up generators, which are expensive to purchase and to operate. Therefor, the potential to use them widely is moot. We have forgotten many of the simple machines used in the past, mostly because their presence is 'unsightly'... or their parts present unpleasant odor and noise. The only unpleasantness permitted in the suburbs must be visible only for the day it must be discarded... 

I've often been one that used the term 'third-world' to describe any nation not a part of the 'Western' alliance- but as I've been schooled in this course, Not being a part of the grid is a survival tool we 'Westerners' would do well to duplicate. In the Phillippines, rural folk generate their own methane for running refrigerators, ovens and stoves by keeping a few pigs and chickens... By breaking up the generation of energy by household or community, they are not dependent upon a centralized system. The 'first world' considers the 'third world' deprived... less than civilized... missing vital parts of modernity. Yet, the distance from the organized, pasteurized, homogenized community, the rural are more independent in both solutions and thought. Have we, by becoming a part of the Core... sold ourselves to which ever future the Powers That Be... [PTB's] to resolve our solutions, rather than turn from the screen... get dirty and work out solutions, we are turning to the 'Core'... the screen... the machine for the answer, rather than utilizing simple solutions and becoming 'creators' again.

New Media suggests the end of humankind... the end of our civilization, and the return to our cities and tows of the forest we kept at bay. The plants grow in the cracks and crevices, and the machines we built suck our minds dry, leaving the husks to blow in the wind.
Yet, the machines saw the need to sew caltrops. To grow into new machines, or to crush a rebellion? The film is short... and I thought far too ambiguous.

The part of us that is passive, that only watches... that is a powerful part of our character. We watch to learn, to understand, to categorize... but the other part of us is not passive. It applies, it experiments, it tries and fails... and tries again. We utilize our understanding of distopia to avoid pitfalls. Utopia is illusive, because we- we are not the same. Nor, do we stay the same.