July 2005 Archives
...the fun part, now I run it through my population distribution model, is realising that by far the vast majority of the Empire's population, 1,075 trillion of them, live on just 321 worlds.
The other ~9,700 worlds can only muster 176 trillion between them, in fact.
On the one hand, that has some fun implications for the politics of the thing, doesn't it?
On the other hand, I believe that more or less reflects the curve of how people clump together in the real world and on the smaller scale, too (more towns than cities, but cities many many more people, essentially), which I suspect means it's a pretty reasonable shot at it.
The other ~9,700 worlds can only muster 176 trillion between them, in fact.
On the one hand, that has some fun implications for the politics of the thing, doesn't it?
On the other hand, I believe that more or less reflects the curve of how people clump together in the real world and on the smaller scale, too (more towns than cities, but cities many many more people, essentially), which I suspect means it's a pretty reasonable shot at it.
So, the first reports of celebrations among what is euphemistically called our "immigrant community", and which could probably be more accurately described as our "fifth column" are in. Just like last time. And when they are substantiated - just like last time - doubtless we shall call again for some firm action to be taken to deal with these people, and even more doubtless it will be ignored.
We do actually have an oath of naturalisation in this country:
I (name) swear by Almighty God that on becoming a British citizen, I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, her Heirs and Successors, according to law.
I think that makes the appropriate action quite clear, don't you?
Death to traitors.
We do actually have an oath of naturalisation in this country:
I (name) swear by Almighty God that on becoming a British citizen, I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, her Heirs and Successors, according to law.
I think that makes the appropriate action quite clear, don't you?
Death to traitors.
http://eclectech.co.uk/clarkeidcards.php
Oh, and:
"I will refuse to register for an ID card and will donate £10 to a legal defence fund but only if 10,000 other people will also make this same pledge"
(Well, actually, I only pledge to donate the £10 to the legal defence fund if we get the 10,001 people. It will be a downright nithering day in Hell before I carry one of the things whether they make the pledge or not. I am not a number, I am a free man!)
Thoughts on things said on LiveJournal, in places:
Spake some (paraphrasing): "Men have the right to ask any woman for sex, once." (Incidentally, to inject a personal opinion: Gentlemen, meet Marcus Licinius Crassus. He could get away with this, because he had more money than Jupiter Best and Greatest. You, having only the name - or at least the adjective - cannot. Please desist from embarrassing both the sex and the species I must reluctantly acknowledge.) (And, obviously, I include the vice-versa position in this.)
Spake others: "I have the right to not be asked."
Speaks the Cerebrate:
Well, no, not really, either of y'all.
You see, gentle readers, many years ago we came up with these nifty little concepts called "propriety", and "etiquette", and so forth so that when it came to the minefield that is personal interaction, we'd all be playing according to the same rules. (Well, except for people setting out to deceive, but there are always utter bastards out there under any system; c'est la vie.) Or such was the theory.
And then we said, "Bugger all this for a lark," because actually having to adhere to someone else's notions of appropriate behaviour was a) a gross infringement on our personal freedom to do whatever the hell we want, and b) just too much trouble to bother with. And thus, and so, in what I shall choose to portray as a suitably grandiose tower of Babel moment, everyone's speaking and behaving according to mutually incomprehemsible personal protocols. Leaving those who persist in trying to communicate with their fellow beings on this level attempting to hold a conversation in !Kung with a monolingual Inuktituk speaker inside a steel drum in a boiler factory with a dozen pneumatic hammers on the outside, while wearing iPods playing an endlessly looped .mp3 of J-pop.
(And those more cynical, such as myself, writing the whole thing off as a bad job and adopting the "Communicate in Standard English or don't bother, go away, and suffer a nasty and hopefully fatal accident involving the complete Oxford Dictionary in hardback." policy. (I did speculate blackly about having a batch of "If you would like to have sex, please say so clearly and distinctly; the converse also applies." T-shirts made up to cut through the whole tangled issue, but there didn't seem to be much point.))
One can, I suppose, argue either way the question of whether One Common Etiquette for all is desirable or not, but as long as all-y'all strange meat people are explicitly and/or implicitly consenting to the existence of multiple acceptable codes of behaviour, y'all can hardly assert any "rights" based in the implicit presumption that they should act in accordance with yours.
Or not without the Cerebrate thinking that both sides of the ensuing argument are rather risible, anyway.
Spake some (paraphrasing): "Men have the right to ask any woman for sex, once." (Incidentally, to inject a personal opinion: Gentlemen, meet Marcus Licinius Crassus. He could get away with this, because he had more money than Jupiter Best and Greatest. You, having only the name - or at least the adjective - cannot. Please desist from embarrassing both the sex and the species I must reluctantly acknowledge.) (And, obviously, I include the vice-versa position in this.)
Spake others: "I have the right to not be asked."
Speaks the Cerebrate:
Well, no, not really, either of y'all.
You see, gentle readers, many years ago we came up with these nifty little concepts called "propriety", and "etiquette", and so forth so that when it came to the minefield that is personal interaction, we'd all be playing according to the same rules. (Well, except for people setting out to deceive, but there are always utter bastards out there under any system; c'est la vie.) Or such was the theory.
And then we said, "Bugger all this for a lark," because actually having to adhere to someone else's notions of appropriate behaviour was a) a gross infringement on our personal freedom to do whatever the hell we want, and b) just too much trouble to bother with. And thus, and so, in what I shall choose to portray as a suitably grandiose tower of Babel moment, everyone's speaking and behaving according to mutually incomprehemsible personal protocols. Leaving those who persist in trying to communicate with their fellow beings on this level attempting to hold a conversation in !Kung with a monolingual Inuktituk speaker inside a steel drum in a boiler factory with a dozen pneumatic hammers on the outside, while wearing iPods playing an endlessly looped .mp3 of J-pop.
(And those more cynical, such as myself, writing the whole thing off as a bad job and adopting the "Communicate in Standard English or don't bother, go away, and suffer a nasty and hopefully fatal accident involving the complete Oxford Dictionary in hardback." policy. (I did speculate blackly about having a batch of "If you would like to have sex, please say so clearly and distinctly; the converse also applies." T-shirts made up to cut through the whole tangled issue, but there didn't seem to be much point.))
One can, I suppose, argue either way the question of whether One Common Etiquette for all is desirable or not, but as long as all-y'all strange meat people are explicitly and/or implicitly consenting to the existence of multiple acceptable codes of behaviour, y'all can hardly assert any "rights" based in the implicit presumption that they should act in accordance with yours.
Or not without the Cerebrate thinking that both sides of the ensuing argument are rather risible, anyway.
Earlier Home Secretary Charles Clarke told MPs ID cards would help counter, not create, a "big brother society".
What do you know, I guess ignorance IS strength, after all.
What do you know, I guess ignorance IS strength, after all.
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