Sorry Don't Make It So

Offering an official apology to remedy historic wrongs is basically the same thing as offering to pay people in "exposure."

Incredibles 2

So apparently, next year they're planning to release Incredibles 2, a sequel to The Incredibles movie that came out 12 years ago. Interesting choice— there's certainly rather a lot of buzz about it to be sure. Now, I can't swear that this movie will gargle gonads but, well, unfortunately I did see the original back in the distant year of 2005, quite probably on Vee Haitch Ess, and despite the massive gulf of time between then and now, I actually do remember the plot.

So in case you didn't see it, or have simply forgotten what it was about, here's a quick summary:

In a colourful and goofy cartoon world, there is a strict division between the inherently superior race whose members are born with innate genetic superpowers that manifest in infancy and can be controlled at will and the inherently inferior race who are confined by the laws of physics. For convenience, I'll call them Supers and Normals. In this cheerful setting, we are told the upbeat tale of the Incredibles, a family of Supers, fighting to defend the supremacy of the Super race against Syndrome, an uppity Normal who has invented the technology to give superpowers to those not born with them and cooked up a dastardly plan to just give this technology to everyone, thus creating equality between all people by elevating the low without diminishing the high. Luckily, the heroic Incredibles stop him at the last minute, and successfully preserve the existing social order where the inferior races know their place (presumably, some combination of running in terror from Supers and being killed by Supers, with the survivors thanking Supers for deigning to spare their worthless lives this time).

So now it's getting a sequel. I guess with the rise of fascism around the globe, some studio felt the time was right for that sort of thing. I wouldn't harp on The Incredibles in particular since nearly every superhero movie does the same thing, but most superhero movies are mindless noise designed to distract people momentarily on the long road to the grave by way of sensory overload while The Incredibles is clearly trying to make a point about the horrors of equality; the movie starts by showing the absurdity of diminishing the high without elevating the low, but then tries to equivocate this into the message that equality itself is bad by drawing parallels between diminishing the Supers and elevating the Normals, making it clear that it considers the two functionally equivalent. It even gives Syndrome a line effectively saying as much— something along the lines of "if everybody has superpowers, then nobody does."

It's quite clear that the original pitch was meant to denounce conformity and the repression of genuine talent, only to go awry as the writers inadvertently swapped "genuine talent" for "innate biological superiority" when they repurposed superhero cliches developed for mindless action movies without examining them too closely. However, while the original intent peeks through, the message they actually delivered is too blatant to ignore.

I don't know anything about the sequel other than the planned year of its release, but given the original I'm willing to say sight unseen that Incredibles 2 will stick its head up its arse, goose step off a cliff, and make tons of money anyway because the world is full of people who will fight for the right of the aristocracy to screw them over as long as they're assured that a black trans woman gets screwed over worse— and tons more people who won't even notice it's happening as long as you make it shiny and funny and say "lesser evil" a lot.

Kingdom Remains United, But Alas Still A Kingdom

The votes are in, and Scottish independence is officially Not A Thing.

I approve of the country staying intact, for what little my approval means. It's the "Kingdom" part that bugs me, not the "United."

The notion of privilege - a material or social advantage over others that a person receives by virtue of birth alone - is backwards and primitive and inherently anathema to a free society. Racism and sexism (both still very rampant) create privilege by bestowing an advantage on the members of one group (white, male) at the expense of other people. Hereditary wealth of any sort creates privilege by giving an obvious advantage to the born-rich over the born-poor. However, privilege truly comes to a head (of state) where monarchs are concerned.

Yes, I know, tradition and all that. I'm not opposed to the idea of a truly ceremonial monarch. The problem is that a truly ceremonial monarch must be stripped of absolute power and the fruits of the past exercise thereof. Her Frownyface, Queen Lizzie may not wield absolute (or any) power herself, but she retains control of property and wealth inherited from ancestors who did— Buckingham Palace is the product of an absolute monarch's power and allowing any control or possession of it (no matter how limited) to any monarch (no matter how impotent) perpetuates primitive notions of blood superiority and legitimises the idea that it's fair and natural for people to have "economic success" or "economic failure" written on their birth certificates.

Every one of us would understand that "you are among the richest people on the planet because you are an absolute dictator" is inherently unjust. "You are among the richest people on the planet because you are the child of an absolute dictator" is not an improvement. Why, then, can a society that calls itself free believe exactly that by simply switching "child" for "descendent?" Does the passage of time make the taint of absolute monarchy fade?

Why should anybody receive £40 million annually simply by virtue of being born? I was born, where's my 40 million quid? Sure, I can't claim that my great-great-great-etc grandfather was an absolute monarch and tyrant but I don't see why that should matter. We've moved beyond holding people responsible for their ancestors' crimes, haven't we?

I want to see a vote to bring Britain into the 21st century as the United Republic. Or at minimum, tell the queen that the end of absolute monarchy is now retroactive and she'll have to find a nice cottage somewhere like an ordinary pensioner.

If you agree that no one should be handed unearned riches by the accident of their birth, and that government should be by the people, not by the people on behalf of a symbolic dictator who is parasitical upon society, consider supporting Republic.

Console Gaming

Well, another generation of gaming consoles is underway, so let's have a quick rundown of the available options.

Option A: Nintendo Wii U.

Having decided the one thing gaming needed was an irritating motion controller system that shattered any form of immersion and turned even the most simple game into an exhausting flail that leaves you feeling like the Hf'ra'rkc'tal after his mating dance ends, Nintendo has now decided the primary problem with the Wii is that it has a controller one can physically use. You'll be pleased to know they have rectified this problem by redesigning the controller to weigh fourteen stone and need to be plugged in every two minutes. Thankfully, this isn't much of a handicap to the console's ability to play games, since there aren't any released.

Option B: Xbox One.

Don't ask me how the naming system works. Considering this prequel of a console hasn't been released yet, we're basically limited to what Microsoft has told us, which is that (1) it will require a constant internet connection, (2) it will spontaneously delete your games whenever Microsoft or your ISP have any downtime, (3) it will sometimes charge you money for games you've already bought, (4) it has no backwards compatibility with older Xbox games or hardware, (5) It comes with a mandatory camera and microphone that will monitor you at all times and cannot be turned off. Literally. As I've noted before, Microsoft has fantasies of taking on Google, but their offerings in the area are rather pathetic; Bing is clearly inferior despite the lies they post about it. However, Google developed a patent some time ago for a software program that would hijack users' computers' webcams and microphones to record their activities and conversations to sell to advertisers only to find themselves unable to actually deploy this software lest people descend on Mountain View with burning chromebooks and flay them alive. Thus, the Xbox One represents the first real attempt Microsoft has made into edging in on Google's territory and may be the one invention that finally allows them to get sued by Google because Google has already patented the concept of spyware and American intellectual property laws are outright ridiculous.

Option C: Playstation 4.

Sony has not released a lot of information about this theoretical future console, but given what I know about Sony it presumably consists of nothing but a box containing a court summons because Sony is now suing you.

Option D: PowerMac G4, which may or may not have a playstation emulator.

Now that I have a new(er) computer, the old Power Mac is now going to be repurposed as Games Console. It's got all the games I like, and no one suing me for playing them, installing Linux, or anything! Plus, I already own it (and I mean really own, not that I paid a bunch of dollars for the privilege of borrowing it from Sony or Microsoft for an indeterminate period of time).