The intellectual equivalent of a ham sandwich.

Posts tagged ‘Du Jour of the Week’

Dystopians and Sex

Not long ago I finally read 1984 by George Orwell. It’s the age old charming tale of a dystopian future.

Here’s what struck me though:

Dystopian novels and sex seem to go hand in hand.

  1. Brave New World – Everything is regulated by the government, people who are created and controlled by the government are encouraged to have sex with whoever they please. People are not having sex to procreate, but instead as a recreational act (it’s a distraction).
  2. A Clockwork Orange – Some of the citizens in the country are out of control (which includes raping people), to counter this the government has devised a way to, basically, brainwash you to be good. Your self control is no longer there, you are “good” by force … To demonstrate this, the brainwashed man is put near a woman to show that, look, he’s not trying to attack her.
  3. 1984 – Life is incredibly regulated and, as part of that regulation, the government pairs you with a spouse. Sex is seen as a tool to create new citizens for the government. Sex is not seen as an enjoyable act, and as part of the main character’s rebellion he meets a woman who enjoys having sex.

It is interesting, and probably no accident, that these very well-known novels have such an “animal” or raw thing (sex) as something that is highlighted to demonstrate the government’s absolute control. After all, if you could control something like that, what else can’t you control?

It’s just crazy to me that sex is shown (at least in my opinion) as an example of control in such very different ways.

The other thing to notice is that the authors are all British. What is it about Brits and a sex-oriented dystopian future?

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Ant Farm Crop Yield

The carrots look miserable.

The celery isn’t even worth the dirt on my shoes.

The pecan tree is noticeably absent.

But I DO have a lot of dead ants, piled into a little triangle of depression. The one ant still living must be clinically insane.

 

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I had an ant farm when I was a kid, and they really did bury their dead. It was weird, and amazing.

The only other thing that amazed me just as much? Trying to figure out what was going through the mind of the last ant left. What a nightmarish land. Trapped in some 2D living space, surrounded by your dead buddies, and some giant creature just stares at you and throws you bits of a Cheerio occasionally.

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The Origins of Carrot Top

Lets say, for the sake of this post, that there is a God. Some beyond comprehension THING that has created everything that we know.

That would be time consuming. At least for us, because our minds don’t comprehend this THING.

In order to create all of us, that THING would end up doing a lot of duplicate work.

“Ok another human, basic ingredients: 2 ears, one heart, etc, etc.”

This ultimate THING probably has a huge Rolodex of recipes for creating stuff. But I bet the MAGNIFICENCE has it memorized because, if anyone could memorize all that, it’d be God.

Anyhow due to all the duplicate work the divine being would maybe create a GUI or graphical user interface.

In the Earth project God would click on the project and say Add->New and then Human. Then Human would have another drop down and, because they seem to always have this, there would be your standard options and then an ‘Other’ option.

Carrot Top is from the Other option.

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