Eh, none of this inspires me / optimizes me / anything other than amuses me. It’s too pie-in-sky. And there needs to be SOME badness to give us a sense of perspective… and… and… and I’m a cynic who simply can’t be pleased.

To feel better about current events, it’s best to avoid news altogether. Read a newspaper or watch a news broadcast from last year, or even a few years ago, and the experience is roughly the same though the names are probably different. Why subject yourself to that pointless stress?

Once we get to the point where our televisions are gone and we aren’t surfing our lives away on the net, I think our job is then to create the good news we crave. We can notice Bad News entering our heads and creating dark thoughts and foul moods, so why wouldn’t this form of communication work in reverse? In fact it does, in my experience.

Right now, the most corrosive force working against the dark Intent that’s shaping the world’s status quo is to be happy. I realize it’s easier said than done, but we all have our bag of rocks to carry so we might as well pick them ourselves. This takes a staggering amount of mental discipline and requires shedding all that’s extraneous and draining to our psyches. We must peel away the bullshit layer by layer, or possibly use it in our flower gardens if it’s not too contaminated with heavy metals.

This kind of happiness is an energy that comes from the inside and radiates outward, kind of like the TV. Also like the TV, it requires a power supply. The power comes from shedding all that crusty buildup of bullshit and not dissipating our limited energy on pointless distractions. In taoist terms it’s called non-contrivance; embodying the Uncarved Block. That is the Way.

As a bonus, being outwardly happy really pisses off the jackasses and thug types. Pretend, if you have to. The reality may follow eventually.

I sense an idea for dealing with the TSA, photography gestapo and others of that ilk….

I’ve been hearing predictions about the imminent collapse of society even longer than I’ve been hearing about Social Security. The people I’ve known who’ve believed it haven’t been as happy or productive as they might have been, because they’ve been unable to make rational plans for the future.

What else is news, but watching the world unfold? I think I’ll keep watching.

SPOCK!!! SPOOOOCK!!! LET ME OUT OF THIS CELL!!!!

Yes, poor, poor HMOs, forced by big bad government regulation to make huge profits and provide crappy service.

Oh, and wishing for a Serenity sequel isn’t shallow. It would make a lot of people really happy, so it’s actually quite selfless. Keep up the good work.

It really does annoy them, but there’s nothing for them to latch on to as a reason for messing with you (not that they need a reason, but it’s better than verbally expressing opinions contrary to the paradigm they wish to create.

Also, I have three stock responses to questions from bureaucrats when I’m unsuccessful in avoiding them (use these only after adjusting your IQ to a level just below that of the apparatchik you’re speaking to):

1) Huh?

2) What do you mean?

3) Why?

All their questions or demands can be handled with these, or a combination of them unless you are actively being beaten. When using these, be sure to have a vacuous, slightly confused look on your face with a hint of… happiness. Sort of like, oh I don’t know, the classic “village idiot” who sits there grinning for no apparent reason.

It really does annoy them, but there’s nothing for them to latch on to as a reason for messing with you (not that they need a reason, but it’s better than verbally expressing opinions contrary to the paradigm they wish to create).

Also, I have three stock responses to questions from bureaucrats when I’m unsuccessful in avoiding them (use these only after adjusting your IQ to a level just below that of the apparatchik you’re speaking to):

1) Huh?

2) What do you mean?

3) Why?

All their questions or demands can be handled with these, or a combination of them unless you are actively being beaten. When using these, be sure to have a vacuous, slightly confused look on your face with a hint of… happiness. Sort of like, oh I don’t know, the classic “village idiot” who sits there grinning for no apparent reason.

Universal Health Care in this parallel universe isn’t necessarily how it is described in this one, for one. Even if for whatever reason you’ve concocted in your head that it wouldn’t work here, in the multitude of multiverses, it’s still possible. Unless you’re one of them thar Creationists…

And I don’t care who you are, having mag-lev bullet trains in America as a transportation option would be awesome as hell.

Including news items, such as:
World Peace sparks outpourings of joy
BBC – 1 hour ago
Almost all of the human race were united today in a vast expression of joy in response to the newfound world peace.

Bush takes XTC, goes to rave
New York Times – 12 hours ago
“He was jumping around, blowing a whistle, and kept asking me if I had any chewing gum,” says Alison, 19, who danced with the President and his team of advisors at an unnamed club until 4am. “Rumsfeld gave me a kick-ass back rub.”

All music to be free
The Scotsman – 4 hours ago
Record companies are to give away their music. Artists will give free concerts. iPods to be given to every child at birth.

We are not alone
Reuters – 3 hours ago
Representatives from other planets in the galaxy were in contact with world leaders today to discuss admission in a peaceful galactic federation of planets. “We believe that Earth has fulfilled all the criteria for entry,” said a spokesalien, “bar a few details over voting rights.”

Health services are available to all in Finland, regardless of their financial situation. Public health services are mainly financed from tax revenues.

The child mortality rate in Finland is one of the lowest in the world; the infant mortality rate is below 4‰. The life expectancy for a girl born now is 81 years, for a boy 73 years.”

Actually, we feel pretty much compelled to criticize and make fun of this. Not only do the events themselves feel improbable, but the methods used to achieve them have been proven false time and time again.

You might as well have everybody in Los Angeles concentrating their love into a magic staff which heals the world of hate and war.

#8
And, Faustus, didn’t you mean:

Presidential Envoy to Novelly Increase Synergy?

Globalization has good points and bad points. Contrary to the nonsense you hear, foreign investment in 3rd-world hellholes does help those countries–as long as the local government isn’t so evil and corrupt as to provide zero benefit to the actual citizenry. Even as evil and corrupt as the Chinese government is, everyday Chinese peoples’ lives are improving. Foreign investment is fast improving Thailand, which I expect to be a pretty nice place to live in not too many years. Foreign investment in the vast majority of Middle Eastern or African countries, however, would see the warlords driving around in Bentleys and everyone else minus voting arms. There’s nothing we can or should do about other people’s shitty governments.

UHC, or something like it, could totally work, but it would require us to give a crap about it. It would not even need to raise taxes; it would just need to pull some of the 64% of our tax dollars that go into the military (that includes things like the CIA and other “military-esque” organizations) and put it into public health. Anecdotal evidence, but my dad loves his veteran hospital. He drives 3 hours to get there because it’s free and well-run. And I live in Japan, which has a required health insurance system. Your employer gets on one of the plans, you pay for it every month, and this goes for everyone in the country. You can pay more to other companies to cover the 30% co-pay on major things, if you like. Anyone with a job is covered. People without a job are also covered, to a certain degree, by a public system. The only drawbacks I see in the Japanese system are related to a perception that doctors are magical and that people shouldn’t be able to buy any kind of medicine that actually works over the counter. I suspect this is partly to funnel money into the system, but I feel it is a waste of time, and I can’t imagine most Americans standing for it, so I wouldn’t be worried about it. Culturally, we don’t like going to the doctor for the sniffles.

Finally, although I am a total Obama whore, no president should have the kind of power we see in those dream headlines. If you want to see what happens when a president is given power, well, just look at the last 8 years. It’s the scariest thing happening in American politics today–the president is largely supposed to be a figurehead. Someone who sets the theme or tone, but doesn’t actually drive the country. Terrifying.

“And the gutters full of elderly corpses? Would we have a special Scoop Tax?”

Did I not state that the local governments should take care of the elderly? Your argument is a straw man, you know that no human being would allow that to happen.

Look, why are you and the rest of the Boing Boing universe sending their tax dollars to the Federal government so that it can then be sent back to their retired neighbors? Why not send it to your local government so that it can be sent back to your neighbor? My argument is simply a change in governments that provide retirement for those unfortunate, or stupid, people that couldn’t or wouldn’t save for their own retirement.