Space Opera

I love Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, The Expanse, Star Trek, Orphan Black and The 100. There are other shows that are shorter, like Firefly, they may continue and expand into great series space opera. I'm hoping Dune does and Hunger Games. Lord of the Rings is fantasy, without a hint of sci-fi. Sprawling fantasy shows haven't been as successful in my opinion, the son of Tolkien doesn't like the movies, but they are the height of visual fantasy. Star Wars melds some fantasy aspects. Many of these series have book sources. 

They are drama and philosophy and historical parallels. They are about family, love and the subjective. They intersect with abstract universal theoretical questions. Utilitarianism has many ways of looking at things, and ideals and values have many different versions to guide us. There are hawks and doves. People struggle when their version of society isn't enacted, work to subvert authority, right or wrong. You can't always see that far into the future. And you're never 100% right.

I'm on my umpteenth watch of The 100 right now. I'm struck by the question of how to transcend warring cultures? How to end suffering? How to forgive yourself for mistakes and hard decisions? The interplay of technology is crucial to these questions, the question of our time is how to use technology to bring out our humanity and not subvert it. 

Grounder language Trigedasleng "Jus drein jus daun!" means blood will have blood. How do you get past an eye for an eye? Star Trek sometimes gets past it for a time, that's maybe a prime struggle.

What is the right way to organize society given a plurality of voices and viewpoints? Authoritarian, and obedience, or can many voices and visions be even heard? Every system can be exploited by an enemy. We're watching Russia and China try to subvert the open societies of the west, which can be manipulated in it's tolerance of many voices. Just add in a few virus voices with anti-democratic views, and there's a potential runaway cascade. Push culture wars and hot button issues to polarize the populace, exploit other prejudices like racism and dreams. Exploit personality differences. Some people want to think about everyone and some people just want to think about themselves. I can't tell you how many times I've heard, "I'm not political," which is a political thing you can say.

These questions are asked in The Hollow Crown, the 7 historical Shakespeare plays. We can't just keep struggling to fight for power. The peaceful transfer of power was a sacred America value until Trump came along. His question is why not always struggle, fight, break norms, lie and cheat to get what you want? Americans know the answer to that question, but they're not confronted with it directly. He asks the question like this: Don't you want to get your way? The immature say yes, unwilling and impatient for their own power, they lose power. Yet again people are convinced to align against their own self interest, and then feel the scorn of being judged to not know what they really want, and further hunker down. I know my self interest, they say, you don't get to define it. A simple ethos simplifies things in good and bad ways. Every thought system is a mixture, there is no one ideology that wins every chess match.

The ebbs, inflows, outflows, vectors, desire for order and chaos. What should we all believe and pull towards? How should we provide a forum for all voices? The ecology of Twitter is that more likes means more power. More karma on Reddit brings.... nothing. You can't downvote Twitter. You can't downvote YouTube now, to see the results. They have a dummy button like when you want to cross the street. Street lights are on timers, the button does nothing. The illusion of participation might be what democracy is all about. Our current iteration is about accumulating donations. Corporations therefore have too much power. They even donate to both candidates, so whoever wins feels beholden. I'm not saying don't vote, keep alive. Don't be bought and sold yourself. 

I feel like I learned a lot playing the video game Civilization 2. The goal is to spread your civilization over the globe, but if you conquer the whole globe the game is over, and you don't win by sending a space ship 20 years to Alpha Centauri. So you keep a small civilization, and take the rest of the world. Democracy has the best economy, but they won't let you attack in war, so you have to overthrow it, and every time you overthrow it, democracy's boost, lessens. 

Someone is going to try to take over the world, we're still in the struggling to conquer the world phase. Play Risk or whatever game you want. Putin is trying to take over the world. Hitler tried to take over the world, Genghis Khan tried to take over the world. Alexander tried to take over the world. We don't have to take over the world, but certain people who get into power can sometimes think that way. Expansionist. 

I learned an important lesson in SimCity. Don't spend more than what you have, debt is bad. Whatever ideals you have, never exceed your revenue. It's a slippery slope. Your ideals can only be emboldened with money. And lower taxes heat up the economy. So you slowly fight to build within your means and when you get to a certain point, lower the taxes and advance slower. 

Stadiums raise morale in the city. Sports are a thing that unite the tribe on the city wide level. New York city is bifurcated into Mets and Yankees, Jets and Giants, NYCFC and Red Bulls, in hockey Rangers, Islanders and Devils. We are not a unified city we've grown too large. I grew up on the west side of Madison. The East side was the exotic unknown. The lakes create an east and west side. Not exactly, but people call Long Island only a part of it, and the city only manhattan, so geography ideas can get fudged. The New York Jets, Giants and Red Bulls play in New Jersey. They're part of the larger metropolitan area even if it's in another state. 

Coruscant is a planet that is all city in the Star Wars universe. 

What are thought systems that try to conquer the world? Marxism, Capitalism, Christianity, Islam, secular humanism. Democracy versus authoritarianism, duality springs up. Russia feels hampered by NATO. Invades Ukraine at the threat of them joining NATO, they feel threatened by the idea of joining NATO and they provoke surrounding nations to join NATO because Russia seems a threat. Expansionist kill themselves like an overexposed artist. The Swifties create the anti-Swifties. 

The reverse process is balkanization, breaking up into smaller parts. Like some in Texas want to leave the USA. I say let them go. We won't have another republican president ever again, works for me.

In The 100 (s3e14), Luna says, "you believe that to defeat an enemy that will stop at nothing, you must stop at nothing." Pause. "How is that different than blood must have blood?" What she does is drug them, and puts them back on land. She has an old oil platform to isolate her from the rest. Is isolation the answer?