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[pisskop]

I like the idea of 1984-esque equality being enforced.  It may sound like its been done a lot, but it really hasn't.  Not as seen from the mind of a person who is 'normal', and struggling to come to grips with this power structure that withholds info, segregates people using the escalation of force principle (ie using social pressure to help enforce laws rather than actual armed force) and how somebody loses that childlike compassion and nativity.  Or hides it?  Think Breakfast Club in a Warsaw ghetto?

In the case of the show it sounds like its a case of kind of writing off anything the child disagrees with as 'vaguely evil'.  Just like a silent protag let's you self-insert, an 'evil authoritarian' who sorts people out by race (perhaps in this metaphor being more by IQ, social class, affluence, or tier of class) allows people to make their own insertions (and assertions)  about the show.

Its kind of an easy way to make it vague.  Generic.  And allows the show to handwaive the outside.

Which can work.  Not every nazi-party in shows have to be symbolic.  Nor every generic, vague empire cliche and tropey.  Its a tool of convenience for how eastern societies are collective and groom children in grade school for their role in society more heavily than us westerners?

[ChairmanPoo]

But what if you kill the fire with centaur?

You'd need to be pretty strong to beat out a fire using a centaur.

Unrelated: Had to be tested for tuberculosis today because someone that regularly visits the workplace manifested symptoms. The testing itself was pretty quick, most of the three hours I spent on the place were either waiting or lectures focused on dispelling myths about the thing.

Not if the centaur operates under its own agency. Lying on the fire, for instance, ought to suffocate it to death.

No, the fire would go out before all the oxygen in the room has been used up.

Get your head on straight, boy. I meant the centaur could put out a fire by lying on it, thus denying the flickering flames sweet, sweet oxygen.

The centaur could also put out a fire by pissing on it.

[Rolan7]

Especially if they're in track (a racehorse).

[Kagus]

"Things that made you 'anime' today o_O", page 2736 (at maximum post-per-page count)

Japan never fails to impress.

Hehe, like that whole "official reprimand because you dared to get pregnant before your senior colleague did" ordeal.

[MrRoboto75]

beating a dead centaur

[USEC_OFFICER]

In the case of the show it sounds like its a case of kind of writing off anything the child disagrees with as 'vaguely evil'.  Just like a silent protag let's you self-insert, an 'evil authoritarian' who sorts people out by race (perhaps in this metaphor being more by IQ, social class, affluence, or tier of class) allows people to make their own insertions (and assertions)  about the show.

Looking into things a little more, it's definitely not a case of writing off anything the child/protagonist disagrees with as 'vaguely evil'.

Spoiler: Case in Point (click to show/hide)

Apparently I was wrong about the dark undertones in the series. It smacks you in the face with its dark overtones. I kinda want to read the manga and/or watch the show now, just to see how far the writer took them and how it's juxtaposed with the cutesy slice of life stuff..

[pisskop]

holy hell, they gave hitler some angel wings.




They literally have a firing squad at a rally about how peaceful their nation is.

[Lord Shonus]

So, some dumbass was circulating a petition at work to throw out our perfectly good unions to join the one he's created himself. Due to a combination of people believing his extravagant (and ludicrous- he's promising wages higher than any casino pays anywhere, and the flaws he's calling out in the contract aren't actually flaws) promises, and some dissatisfaction with some of the stewards in one department, he managed to get enough signatures to take it to the NLRB.

So he decided to send out a mass email to everyone who he somehow managed to get an address for - with plain cc. Now almost 200 employees know each other's personal email. That's obnoxious enough, but a union handles a lot of much more important personal information - why would anybody trust this guy (who, I reiterate, constitutes the entirety of his "union" right now) with any information after proving he's not competent to protect it?

[Gentlefish]

Oh. Yeah.

There was one episode I forgot about. Totally contrary to the cutesy SoL thing but man it was a good episode.

[EnigmaticHat]

Still, a fascist/totalitarian state enforcing true equality with an iron fist would certainly be an interesting twist to the idea of a fascist/totalitarian state being founded on universial equality.

The Soviets pretty much were this.  Lenin banned progroms* and involved jews in his government, a policy which was reversed by Stalin.  Lenin also gave equal rights to women early on.  Much like the US the USSR used women as a source of industrial labor during the war.  After Lenin the country sort of see-sawed back and forth on women's rights.  I think a good summary would be that the USSR was an early adopter of gender equality but as a result of their earliness remained stuck in the homemaker/child-raiser stereotype.

Then of course there's the enforced class equality.  They were remarkably successful at eliminating the existing class structure.  Of course with that went some of their most educated people which wasn't great for the economy.  And in the end they created their own class structure which went something like party leadership > soldiers and other officials > everyone else.  The party leadership almost exclusively consisting of Russian men, giving the lie to the above points about equality.  They also had a kind of geographic class structure of Russia > non-Russia members of the USSR.  See: the plundering of east Berlin's industrial equipment, the starving out of Ukraine.  Those two class structures shaped most of Russia's modern political situation.

But yeah, good guy progressive Soviet Union.  Its not talked about very much because its not nearly the most remarkable thing about the USSR.  In the end I don't think equality and totalitarianism are ideas that can coexist forever.  Eventually someone is going to take power that doesn't like a particular minority and then goodbye equality.  Stalin being a paranoid thug accelerated the process but I don't think the Soviet Union was ever going to maintain equality in the long term.

*semi-organized violent incidents in which ordinary people would go beat up/drive off/kill jewish individuals

[Kagus]

So, some dumbass was circulating a petition at work to throw out our perfectly good unions to join the one he's created himself. Due to a combination of people believing his extravagant (and ludicrous- he's promising wages higher than any casino pays anywhere, and the flaws he's calling out in the contract aren't actually flaws) promises, and some dissatisfaction with some of the stewards in one department, he managed to get enough signatures to take it to the NLRB.

So he decided to send out a mass email to everyone who he somehow managed to get an address for - with plain cc. Now almost 200 employees know each other's personal email. That's obnoxious enough, but a union handles a lot of much more important personal information - why would anybody trust this guy (who, I reiterate, constitutes the entirety of his "union" right now) with any information after proving he's not competent to protect it?

Because blindcc is like magnets; nobody knows how they work.

Also people are just generally ignorant and don't know that personal data: 1) Is handled that way, or even at all, 2) Can be used against them, 3) Would be at all related to how someone sent an email.

You should recommend a career in politics to this fellow, he seems uniquely qualified.

[Lord Shonus]

I think most people are going to look at their email listed along with more than a hundred others (many of which use first, last, or both names) and say "hey - that's not right". Particularly compared to the communications from our existing union, which just have one address on them.



Point is that this guys a complete tool, and if he somehow manages to convince people to vote his union in, I'm planning a coup.

[pisskop]

I think everyone on that list made a company watchlist . . .

inb4 this guy was a hired shill to find out who would leave the union.

[Lord Shonus]

Possible, but unlikely. He is no longer employed by the company, although accounts vary as to the circumstances.


All signs point to him being a shithead who thinks he is smarter than everyone else because he's now a lawyer. A patent lawyer, not a labor lawyer, but that still puts him (in his own mind) as superior to the ignorant masses.

[Frumple]

Huh. Turns out my suspicion that it's a bad idea to try to mow grass with a lawnmower belching smoke from the front was correct!

Thing's back where it's supposed to be now, but I kinda' wish mild confusion hadn't stopped me from preventing the person trying to use it from leaving the yard to begin with.

... also wish trying to learn stuff didn't hurt these days so I could have a better idea whether said person acting with casual confidence actually knew what the hell they were doing or was doing the senility thing again