Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Fear and negativity are contagious, but so is courage!

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

The way to stop violence is to stop manufacturing the hatred that fuels it.

I’m more christian than these people and i’m an atheist.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Hot air and ill-informed banter

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

I really should read my own blog.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Donald Trump found guilty as fuck – May 30, 2024!

Not loving this new fraud based economy.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

Conservatism: there are people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

There are times when telling just part of the truth is effectively a lie.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Because of wow. / Lighter Side Open Thread: H-O-R-S-E HARSH!

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54Comments

  3. 3.

    mrmoshpotato

    Cool, but it feels like sound would make it a thousand times better. It looks like madness, and probably sounded like madness too.

  4. 4.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    So people are bitching and moaning on tumblr about NE flooding not getting as much coverage and instead is “playing right into the NZ shooter’s hands”. I have no idea wtf that means, but covering this horrific hate crime is important. I’ve seen coverage of it. People tend to assume if they’re not the lead story, then they’re not being covered.

    I remember on Friday someone speculated here that the shooter’s manifesto was trying to get media attention in the US. But he’s a New Zealander, right? Why would he care about media coverage in the US?

  5. 5.

    NotMax

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    Global outlets with wide reach (and perceived clout) such as, for example, CNN International and the International Herald Tribune (now The New York Times International Edition) are parentally based here.

    Also, he’s an Australian, not a New Zealander.

  8. 8.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    @NotMax:
    Ah. That makes sense. Gunfondlers are losing their minds over the NZ shootings atm. I love the pithy remarks about banning knifes, which completely ignore that a knife’s primary function is not always to kill. A firearm’s is. You can outrun someone with a knife; bullets not so much.

    Practically anything can be turned into a weapon. If a person is determined enough, they’ll find a way to murder someone else. The point of gun restrictions is to make that harder; to make a person potentially rethink what they’re planning to do, not out of conscience but out of cowardice. Melee combat is often up close and personal. It’s more intimidating to kill someone with I knife (at least I’d imagine).

    Guns? Those are easy. Point and shoot, just like a camera. That’s part of why modern armies use them. Aside from being super deadly, they’re easy to use.

    My theory is that guns psychologically make it easier for someone to kill another person. Very little risk to yourself. Unless the intended victim has a gun too. However, that can be solved by getting the drop on them first.

    Whew. That was a lot. I just felt I had to discredit that lame argument.

  10. 10.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    @Major Major Major Major:

    Probably. I still don’t understand references to “playing into the shooter’s hands”. Oh and the evil MSM is ignoring the NE flooding because white people.

  13. 13.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    @Major Major Major Major:
    Lol. Again, that’s probably it.

    I got a writing question. I’m plotting a story about a guy who wakes up from a coma where seemingly everyone has disappeared instantaneously. He lives in LA, is latino, works for JPL, and was in the Marine Corp of Engineers. Has a family.

    It later turns out nearly everyone was kidnapped by an alien civilization for slaves. Other alien characters arrive and he teams up with them to rescue humanity.

    A few issues I could use some advice on:

    One, once the character realizes the scope of his situation, how would I avoid him wanting to commit suicide out of sorrow?

    Two, what would a civilization capable of mass teleportation need with slaves? Any physical labor could be performed by advanced robots.

  18. 18.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    @Amir Khalid:
    That’s not what I meant. I guess what I trying to go for was to see if these are huge plot holes or not.

  19. 19.

    Major Major Major Major

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: why would he kill himself? Maybe he gets sad, maybe he spends a little time doing the stuff he’s always secretly wanted to do, maybe he becomes listless and starts to slip into depression right when the other folks show up.

    Maybe the aliens don’t need slaves, but they want them because they’re assholes. Or their civilization was built on the idea that certain things can only be done by the unwilling, but they consider enslaving themselves to be wrong, so they steal entire planets’ worth of other sentient beings for slaves.

    They’d probably leave behind a breeding population, though. Maybe this has happened before even.

  20. 20.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    @Major Major Major Major:

    why would he kill himself?

    Because as far as he knows, everyone he’s ever known and loved is gone/might as well be dead and that he has a lifetime of loneliness to look forward to.

    I think a major reason characters in these types of stories are often not given families is to avoid this outcome, especially if you want to do commentary on consumerism and have the character slip into madness briefly, until others show up.

    Your second paragraph is pretty good. I just figured that any civilization technologically advanced enough wouldn’t bother using slaves as labor. Machines would do that for them.

    I suppose they could be kidnapped and used as cattle, but I want to avoid having a ton of people dying. That would make the tone too dark tbh, considering I was thinking of making the “Last Human on Earth” part stretch for several months in story.

  21. 21.

    NotMax

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    As Amir so wisely stated, it’s your story.

    That said, will toss out a couple of sparse comments and then fade into the woodwork and remain mum regarding this.

    1) Presumably a very short-term coma. People who have been in extended comas don’t exactly pop awake, hop out of bed and start dancing the Charleston. And if he’s not of a suicidal temperament, then that option is essentially precluded.

    2) They’re aliens. Different culture, different mores, different touchstones, different mindset, different traditions. Could be their religion forbids robotics, could be they perceive being put in service to them one of the highest honors they can bestow, could be any of a gazillion reasons.

  24. 24.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    @NotMax:
    As it so happens, I had thought of the short coma angle. It’s a medically induced coma the MC wakes up from a few days after the Event. The Mass Teleportation works somehow on higher-level consciousness. Anyone not in a coma would be teleported, while those in comas, along with animals, would be unaffected.

    The MC actually finds evidence of this by coming across dead bodies

    Your second point is excellent. Thank you very much!
    I suppose I had Star Trek-like aliens (very much human in behavior/culture) in mind tbh.

  27. 27.

    NotMax

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    While there are any number of SF stories which touch on (either initially or eternally) inscrutable alienness as a feature, will suggest one as a ripping good read if you haven’t devoured it already: Footfall by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle.

  28. 28.

    Amir Khalid

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:

    I suppose they could be kidnapped and used as cattle, but I want to avoid having a ton of people dying.

    Mass enslavement by any means is dark. I don’t think there is any way to put it in a story and avoid that darkness.

  30. 30.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    @Amir Khalid:

    Not necessarily. It all depends on how long it goes on for and what happens in the meantime. I could see a cartoon made for children 10+ doing it and the day being saved with no one the worse for wear at the end of an episode

  32. 32.

    Fair Economist

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:

    Because as far as he knows, everyone he’s ever known and loved is gone/might as well be dead and that he has a lifetime of loneliness to look forward to.

    Well, that’s not too far off from African slaves brought to the Americas and for the most part they didn’t commit suicide. You don’t need to explain why he would choose to continue living because that’s what the large majority of the population would do. It’s plausible he would commit suicide but not the most likely course.

  33. 33.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    @Fair Economist:
    I think I figured out what I’m going to do. I’m just going to make them not have a family. Parents have been dead for years. Either that, or I give some early clue that not everyone’s dead; everyone was teleported somewhere else and are alive.

  39. 39.

    OzarkHillbilly

    All the times my mother yelled at me to “STOP BOUNCING THAT BALL IN THE HOUSE!”

    I coulda been a youtube contender. If there’d been a youtube.

  42. 42.

    Anne Laurie

    @Mary G: What with the Oval Office Occupant and the New Zealand mass murderer getting so much love from King’s (very) Base, he felt the need to put something out there.

    He’s barely worth mocking, at this point:

  45. 45.

    Citizen Alan

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:

    One, the cliched answer is that he has some loved whom he obsessively insists is so alive and E rejects suicide in favor of try to find and rescue her (or him, I suppose).

    Two, the aliens think they have a religious obligation to conquer other races and and enslave them it just because they can. Essentially, an allegory about manifest destiny.

  46. 46.

    cope

    Since I saw “sports” as a topic of this thread, F1 is off and running after Australian GP yesterday. I hope Bottas can give Hamilton some stiff competition this season because it isn’t too likely any of the other manufacturers will have be able to consistently beat the Mercedes team (again!).

    Liverpool managed to make what should have been a romp into a bit of a nail-biter but solid Milner punched in that PK for the 3 points. Now to see how they hold up Wednesday.

    As for aliens taking all conscious humans away, maybe to put them into the human equivalent of an ant farm for scientific study? Entertainment for their kids? As components of their bio-based computer networks?

  47. 47.

    J R in WV

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:

    He lives in LA, is latino, works for JPL, and was in the Marine Corp of Engineers.

    No such thing at the Marine Corps of Engineers. The “Engineers” are the Navy’s builders, the SeaBees. They would do the building for the Marines.

  48. 48.

    stinger

    @J R in WV: A friend was writing a novel and wanted one of his characters to be a Navy (for reasons XXX) Major (for reason that he liked the word). Had to explain military ranks to him.

    Abducting aliens would have their own perspective altogether. They might have thought they were saving humanity from overpopulation or other eco-disaster, or from an approaching asteroid. Or thought no more of putting them to work than humans think about putting horses to work.

    Sorrow and loneliness are emotions the main character would undoubtedly feel — but also anger, curiosity, and determination to find and rescue the missing. Any of those, along with the basic survival instinct, could overcome initial thoughts of self-destruction. Having him start out as a loner with no family ties is a cop-out. He needs those ties if he’s going to be motivated to team up with other aliens.

  51. 51.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: OK, Baka Boy, here’s what you do: You can keep the coma bit (NB I had a cousin who spent weeks in a coma after an auto accident that killed his rider & one day just woke up – took him a bit to get back but you can finesse that) but as for the rest:

    The aliens get off telepathically on negative emotions (I think this was done once in something called the Space Vampies but, ehh) & they have transported the humans to a distant world where they will all be tormented endlessly for their amusement.

    After much struggle Our Hero gets captured & dragged before the Head Baddies & in a brilliant reversal argues that there is nothing they can do to H. saps that H. saps can’t (& don’t & won’t) do even worse to each other – & convinces them to put everyone back (with credit for time served including memory-wipe) & to construct a bunch of hidden enclaves on Earth with teleportals to the Baddies’ home world for their use as tourist hotels while we torment ourselves.

    Then close with the announcement of candidacy of one D. J. Trump…

    (Now how hard was that? Took me about 5 minutes & 45 seconds, mostly for the typing.)

  53. 53.

    barbequebob

    @tybee:

    plus “Corps of Engineers” = US Army Corps of Engineers

    Army and Navy are different branches of the military

  54. 54.

    cope

    @cope: Gack, don’t know how I got their schedule so wrong in my head, the Spurs game is not until 3/31. Whatever was I thinking?

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