Annotated 10-11
Phil was the more action-oriented writer and I was the character guy at this point, so I had first draft of these first dozen pages. But I was also the let’s-move-this-along guy, and after ten pages, I felt like I was starting to run out of conflicts to explore without getting this quest underway.
So I mined that for comedy by having Syr’Nj basically argue herself onto an action footing. All Gravedust has to do in this scene is ad-lib and be himself.
Of course, this is Syr’Nj, so even her wheel-spinning would be good for an afternoon class in philosophy. My late father-in-law was a believer in zero population growth as an ethical imperative, and not long ago, AOC brought up the fact that others felt as he did. My stance is that global population is due for a correction overall, so I see declining birthrates as more a necessary adaptation for our species than something to worry about. But if you’re a good person, you can do us all a favor by making another good person, or more than one if you can manage it. And if that seems contradictory, so be it. A complicated world sometimes requires thoughts more textured than tweets.
Any chance of requesting annotations to the pictures you include with your annotations? Today Googling AOC has led me to this American politician lady I’d never heard of, but yesterday’s there’s no way I’ll figure out what tv show you were talking about.
Legion, just as the filename said. I couldn’t get into Legion to start with, so I’m not sure what it has to do with Byron, but given Legion’s nature I can see them ambiguating whether he’s actually schizophrenic or receiving communication from outside entities.
If you mouse over an image the link that pops up in the bottom left (on Chrome at least) should give you a hint.
Thanks you two! I read this on my phone, didn’t realize I could make it show me links on those photos.
Is that what she looks like? I know who she is but wouldn’t know her if she showed up at my door. I get most of my news from radio.
(I also wouldn’t know most sports or entertainment figures by face either. I hope my saying so gives their publicists the screaming willies.
Or preferably, you know, adopt a person, and raise them well. Rather than assuming it’s something about your genes that contains the “goodness”.
Well, I dunno about goodness and I’m even willing to be cautiously optimistic that it’s not a genetic characteristic. Badness, on the other hand, has always seemed a heritable trait in my experience.
Never skipped a generation in my family, anyway…
TachyonCode: This seems relevant.
goldie: To be fair, he didn’t say anything about goodness being genetic. There’s more to making a good person than procreation, after all.
Are those Kiernas steaks they are roasting?
That particular bawkbagok was felled in a fight against the landsharks.
While the big beast probably provided lots of leftovers, I think it’s been a while since that scene.
Actually, a quick trip through the archives… it’s possible those ARE the bounty of Best’s bawkbagok barbecue!
Zero population growth would be reasonable as a policy, but AOC and others were unwisely transferring this to the individual level, which is wrong on so many levels.
“Don’t procreate” is not an ethical imperative that anyone should impose on themselves. More importantly, it’s not a substitute for actual activism leading toward policy changes that can have a measurable positive effect on the planet.
Raising gas taxes isn’t a substitute for breaking up Big Oil’s stranglehold on the global economy.
Unplugging your charger isn’t a substitute for pressuring legislators to regulate polluters.
Not having kids isn’t a substitute for opposing rampant, exploitative consumerism.
And imposing “peace” at the point of a sword is no substitute for simply being kind to others.
To be fair, the mere suggestion that perhaps not everyone should have kids isn’t, in itself, untoward. Indeed, getting others to think about it and weigh the benefits and drawbacks is the first step in making a necessary decrease in population size from an ideal into a reality.
It’s something of an unquestioned imperative to have children, in many families. So much so, that when faced with the prospect of perhaps making the choice not to, I initially (and for quite a protracted length of time) revolted wholeheartedly against even considering the option. I was, however, reminded of the fact that I spent some short time in the foster care system myself, and that it could have gone on much longer and been much worse for me than it was.
I was eventually reunited with one biological parent, and I feel that that can be an ideal outcome, but I also understand that it isn’t always. (My other biological parent would have been a terrible parent, since she was so focused on sheltering me and insistent on me becoming one of those rich ne’er do wells who thinks they’re above everyone else, among various other personality and mental problems.)
Still, I’m at best uneasy about the idea of not having kids at all, or raising an adoptee (from “not-scratch”), or being a foster parent. The system is not just unforgiving to those trapped in it, it can also be a real mixed bag for those who help to run it – often, children in the system have trauma that not every family is prepared to cope with. (I’ve been one of them.)
I guess what I’m saying is that, sometimes, a middle ground where a blend of competing policies (officially adopted by government or informally adopted by parts of the populace after some debate) can be applied across all levels may be the best route to take when traveling with as large a tribe (or civilization, as it were) as we live in through uncharted territory.
Don’t know about middle ground. This to me sounds like a zero-sum game: every public discussion of the “let’s individually ease up on procreation” idea is one public discussion less for the “let’s collectively stop feasting on the planet’s carcass” side.
Specifically, the First World does not really have an overpopulation problem – it has an overconsumption problem. The Third World is the one usually dealing with overpopulation. So emphasizing overpopulation instead of overconsumption achieves two goals:
– It pushes the blame away from the rich and onto the poor, providing some sort of moral high ground for that time when the seas rise, and migrant hordes appear at the border, and mass murder becomes policy.
– It delegates the responsibility for avoiding ecological collapse to the common man, allowing the elites to keep doing what they’re doing, rather than dread the pitchforks and torches coming for them.
So yeah, we can try to avoid having kids – I certainly have no plans to procreate. But let’s not derive false feelings of moral superiority from that! It does nothing at all to save the planet, it’s polishing brass on the Titanic! We should not feel woke as we complacently perpetuate the disastrous status quo instead of working toward a revolution.
(And if you are an eco-revolutionary, then please, go on and procreate all you want!)
Here’s an idea: Let’s promote good things that also reduce procreation rates.
Like education! And women’s rights! And gay rights!
Seriously.
There’s nothing wrong with any of these options.
Like I said, good things.
Did you think I was being sarcastic?
Classic Gravedust in the last panel. ^_^
Yeah, that line’s T-shirt material, if you ask me.
What does Byron’s doodle mean? It seems complex enough to convey meaning, but the symbolism is kinda sparse.
The vortex with affect/speed lines out of it might be … the MADNESS? The war? Byron?
And the meandering line could be life, destiny, time… something that flows or a path.
I thought it looked like a squinting snarling rager face.
The industrialized world is already at zero to negative population growth. The problem is our consumption rate, and our ability to provide for our rapidly aging population. Population growth is strictly limited to the developing world at this point.