Wisdom condensate
Welcome to 2008, or as I’m tempted to call it, 2007b.
Received wisdom is an odd beast. Those phrases that are often said but little thought about…
Take, ‘in the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king’.
I think it is supposed to mean that even if you are disadvantaged, you’ll be OK if everyone is disadvantaged more… though that doesn’t make sense.
But if you scrutinise it, what it is actually saying is that if you have one eye and everyone else has none, you’ll be their ruler… and that makes even less sense.
I think it’s safe to assume that the whole societal structure of the Kingdom of the Blind would be geared towards the sightless. Braille would be the prominent method of written communication, television would never have caught on but radio would flourish – so, not really an advantage, being able to see.
And you have to question why no one has any eyes… the only logical conclusion is that they don’t need them (perhaps they live underground, or in a permanent state of darkness), in which case, having an eye is not an advantage, quite the opposite – it’s an expensive piece of technical equipment that’s not only delicate, but useless in those circumstances.
Unless of course the Kingdom of the Blind pick a ruler on a preordained basis and that genetic unsuitability is a hallmark of a ruler, much like the descendants of Queen Victoria.
So, the one-eyed man is king, but only because he’s feeble and according to some archaic law predestined to rule… and who would want to be that?
Maura on 
Joan D. Vinge said, “In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man would be stoned to death.”
And I said, “Pretty good aim, for blind people.”
Because I am going to Hell like that.
Alas, I think Dr Vinge was on to something… and that you are on to something better…
I’m not sure how you’d aim rocks by braille.
As for going to hell, I’ve heard the food is better than other after-death establishments, but that the service is generally terrible… the table is booked, however, and you are free to arrive at your leisure.
Heaven, apparently, has no decent bars and not one single sushi restaurant. So Hell it is, if you want seaweed- and rice-wrapped cold fish! ^^
Also, all the Cool Kids are in Hell. Like Oscar Wilde! NomnomOscar…*daydreams*
Being blind is sexual exploitation
by those who would rather feel their way
through life than earn it.
Those aren’t straws you’re grasping, buddy.
um?
Explain this odd concept further please.
Ben: I wouldn’t buy that
oops I accidentally touched you
excuse for a nickle.
lol.
Well, after all, Himeros (God of sex) is blind. The goddesses thought that would make him less lecherous….
I read a short story once titled with that old one-eyed man adage. In the story, a man with two good eyes discovers an isolated land of people without eyes who try to gouge his eyes out. It was a fun story for eighth grade.
I think I read that one too, at about the same age.
The quote, as far as I can find out is attributed to a Dutch humanist, Desiderius Erasmus.
Though he didn’t write the story…
Anyone have any ideas who did?
Oh, every one in that kingdom would likely be ugly, being that the normal visual markers of health and fertility, which we (the seeing) use as our guidelines for beauty (ignore for supermodels) wouldn’t be seen, and ugly ppl would breed just as much.
Scary…. *shudders*
I know I am gonna get in trouble for this comment.
i think the ugly people are breeding anyway
I know you are right, but I try to delude myself.
However, with no ability to recognise beauty at all, and therefore the markers of health, I think that this society of blind ppl would have some issues.
But things like racism would likely be less prominent.
hmmmm, I say we gouge out the eyes of a million ppl and study the results.
hehe, it is for science, so it is ok.
I was actually thinking about some thing like this last night. When I go out clubbing, I notice the fashions that ppl wear. Most fashions are used to associate with a particular group, mark individuality, indicate wealth, or show off body types.
Which is all then basically an attempt to impress or get laid.
My question was, How would it affect the personalities of these ppl if they were all forced to dress in a certain manner, would they become better ppl for it, more outgoing, less fashion facists, or would they shy away from social places, unable to express themselves visually thru fashion they feel that they are lesser ppl.
Discrimination always finds a way though, a bit like evolution… people with lisps and other forms of speech impediments would probably be singled out.
Now, that second point though raises some very interesting questions… aside from the sociological issues of tribal identity and mating displays (responsible for most men injuring themseleves at some point)…
… I think school uniforms more or less present a case study, that is a standardised look. That said, I seem to remember at school that rather than inhibit people individuality and personality, it provided a base from which to enhance it… a sharp contrast so to speak.
It’s amazing though how easy the human brain can be tricked. Make-up is a constant fascination to me (not wearing it, you understand).
I guess you are right about that, good analogy with the school uniforms.
Tho, I often find that ppl are completely different after they leave the school environment.
Almost always more mature and less aggressive.
So maybe it would be different with adults.
And, Adam, it is ok if you wear makeup.
Yeah, all the pretty boys wear make up. Like me! And black liner (especially if it’s kohl) is great for cutting down on the glare of the sun. Also kohl is antimicrobal.
i’m glad that you’re comfortable enough with your masculinity to do what you please, and that you rebel against traditional gender roles. my father keeps trying to make me less of a tomboy
Gender is what you make of it, and thinking there are only two? Hah! Besides, men have worn make up until the Industrial revolution. The powder and paint of the eighteenth century, the crushed semi-precious stone and beeswax makeup of the Classical era…men not paying attention to their appearance is a new idea. As for me…my glasses make my eyes look smaller, so I highlight them with black or dark violet liner to bring more attention to them. Dark liner also makes the blue of my irises look more brilliant.
Make up is art, as well. My body is a canvas, and clothing and make up are my mediums.
No offence Mel, but I really dislike makeup. I try and encourage the women that I see to not wear it, to be confident with out it, and then they will actually look attractive.
I think so many ppl use make up to cover up and mask themselves, to hide from the world, so they feel comfortable with them selves, if only for a short while.
Me, being me, I stated this opinion in the training salons at TAFE, I got a mixed reaction.
I have worn make up before, but it was more face paint, and it was for a rave I was dancing at. I was amazed at how odd some ppl reacted to it, esp ppl from fringe/altternative communities.
I think there’s a difference between hiding behind a face full of makeup, like you’re describing, and using it as a sort of art form, like Melanthios is describing. You can wear makeup while still being comfortable with who you are beneath all that paste.
I get what you’re saying, though. I know people who refuse to leave the house until they put on makeup, which is really irritating because they look fine without it.
There’s also the people who only wear a little bit and make it work really well for them.
Make-up is a strange medium. it is used on stage to change the person, and in the real world, for some people, to make them who they are, so’s to speak.
I always feel rather insulted when people suggest that make-up is the only thing that could make me prettier. What about a good night’s sleep? some fresh air? exercise? Am i so beyond help, that the only way to make me look “nice” is to cover up my faults instead of working to actually get rid of them?
Fine, it can be used an art form, or to show off people’s nice features or whatever. But Make-up is NOT the only way to have good looks, and i deeply resent the idea that it should be.
That said, None of you are really suggesting that it is or isn’t, in fact I’m probably missing whatever point you guys are making entirely. But i felt like having a rant and TFFU is always the best place for that, no?
I bet that one eyed king would fit right into the crowd at a footy match…
Although, as British tradition dictates, we would probably get him to play in goal.
One eye or no eyes, he’d probably be better in goal than most british goalies…
Of course, I would say that, I don’t like football.
Soccer, I think, is one of the few good ball sports.
That said, I don’t follow it.
We call it soccer here, we have 3 other codes of football to deal with.
Soccer is so much cooler a word than football…
Yes, but football accurately describes the game of soccer, where as calling AFL or rugby league/union as football is just strange.
Confused now. We just have football and rugby…
That’s okay. The only sport I follow is Quidditch. Maman is in the league out here. I would be too except I’m terrified of the captain.
AFL=Australian Football League, a game where a bunch of tall skinny blokes grope each other for a ball. Occasionally they jump on each others back for the ball.
Union=Bunch of hairy, dim looking gorillas groping around for the ball. Often wearing tight shorts. They like to ruck regularly, I won’t suggest why.
League=Bunch of hairy, dim looking gorillas groping around for the ball. Often wearing tight shorts. They like to tackle regularly, I won’t suggest why.
Now, I need to barracade my house from the angry mobs of supporters I just enraged.
Damn that was meant to be a reply to Maddies last comment.
haha. Sounds fun.
Yeah, I regularly have to protect myself from angry football fans when I point out exactly how pointless I think the sport is. and how pathetic british players are. you kick em in the ankle, they stat crying, i mean come on, unless they have unusually sensitive ankles, who is that pathetic? it’s a bit of a sham really.
I made the mistake of pointing some of the flaws of the game and the players out whilst in a room full of ppl who not only fanatically supported AFL, but also worked in the business.
I learnt some new swear words.
Good for a laugh, but I am never welcome back there again.
Have you ever been kicked in the ankle?
lol, but yeah you are right, alot of crap goes on.
Haha, sounds fun!
Yes, I know being kicked in the ankle hurts but i mean generally, they act like wimps, getting subsitituted for the tiniest things.
Roo, what’s the day of the triffids?
That is hilarious. You and I both asked Roo the same question, using different sources, with in a minute of each other, across thousands of k’s of space.
The world is so small some days.
Yeah, I was talking about the AFL…
Soccer players roll around and clutch their leg, screaming in pain when they trip over the white line (Italian World Cup team, anybody??)
Rugby is one bloke sticking two blokes’ heads up three blokes’ bums.
This is why rugby-oid games are hawt. Men in tiny shorts mud wrestling. La! *fans himself*
Day of the Triffids, anyone?
You say that in the same tone as ‘tennis, anyone?’
Well, you know, some people like to go outside and slam a ball around with a racquet for fun. Me, I like sending down hordes of space aliens and watching people’s psychological reaction to the fact that they can no longer see.
So anyway, Adam, why are you tempted to imply that this year will be a repeat or mere extension of the prior year?
Aren’t they all? I was tempted to go for 1980z.b, but I would have to explain that even more.
Since giving up on New Years resolutions, and refusing to see people’s age in terms of years (as opposed to how much they have progressed) there seems little point in differentiating between the years in such a way.
I think I’m being a little flippant… I’m really looking forward to 2008 – it’s the first year in a long time where I actually know what I’m doing for most of it.
Plus, there’s the olympics which I always enjoy (staying up to 3.30am to watch table tennis).
Or perhaps it’s just my reluctance to grow old.
I’m gonna go for flippant.
1980z.b would have been way cooler, cos then you would need to regail us with a lengthy tail.
I am also going for flippant cos, who stays up to watch table tennis when you should be concentrating on lawn bowls.
Damnit, you’re right, I’m going to have to get hold of a second TV to watch them simultaneously.
I’ve done a terrible thing.
Man! I’m with Adam… I might have to try for both too.
Equestrian is what I look forward to in the Olympics. I used to look forward to gymnastics but then I learned more about it. *shudder* Good lord, it’s as bad as ballet….
Haha. Sorry it took a moment Maddie… Ben had my email tied up, trying to send him the BBC Radio version of the Day of the Triffids.
It’s a book, written early in the British Scientific Romanticism movement (1951), which parallels the US’s Sci-Fi movement. It’s by John Wyndham, and is the story of what would happen if everyone went blind all at the same time, and there were killer plants roaming the earth. It’s pretty good. I think (maybe) that the BBC radio version is off copyright (it’s from 1968). I’ll check up it: if it is, I’ll post a link to a down-load.
So the radio show seems to still be on copyright, as does the bood, even though Wyndham’s dead.
But this one guy has an eBook Library, from which you can download 5 eBooks, so long as you promise to delete them when you’re done reading them. I’m not sure on the legality of this, but it’s a neat idea. His library’s at: http://www.truly-free.org/
And he’s got the Day of the Triffids (download):
And now we can have a heated discussion of the merits of strict copyright laws! Hehehehe.
Wowio has a legal free copy of Day of the Triffids, if anyone’s still interested
http://www.wowio.com/users/product.asp?BookId=47
I think, as far as books are concerned, copyright can still hold for upto 50 years after the author’s death, but longer if the rights belong to a named estate… the only exception being Peter Pan (since it was left to a charity/hospital, the law has been upheld on its copyright).
That is a mighty collection of books, and all I’m going to say is that if you happen to like any of them after reading them, go and buy a copy or at least steal it in real life.
Yeah… US law was recently (read the last decade or so) changed from 25 to 75 years after the creation of the work (depending on what it was) to life of the author plus some decades to the estate after death. I think 50 sounds about right for here too. The really shitty part is that they did it retroactively for any estate that asked, so there’s a lot of stuff that was off-copyright, and is now back on-copyright.
I recommend the same (buying books you like). I was reading that library’s disclaimer… he’s based in Panama and Malaysia, I think to get around copyright law. I like the idea of an online library, and he seems to actually have his heart in the right place: he urges you to buy the books you like too. There needs to be some legal outlet for this sort of thing — maybe university library restricted access to students, with a public portal. Universities can get away with all sorts of interesting information sharing that most other organizations can’t.
I wonder if we’ll ever switch to a more copyleft model?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyleft
My local library has an e-library branch. You can download both books and audiobooks, but they self-delete after a certain period of days (twenty or so, I think.) It’s pretty much like a regular library, since there’s a limited number of books, and you can’t download the text if someone else already has it checked out.
That’s really cool. Self-deletion… I wonder how that works?
The only problem with it is, that is if it is a strict time-limit, what happens if the time runs out before you finish the last page? Does it just cut out or do you get a period of lenience?
I quite like the idea of a traditional book snatching away the last page because you’re reading too slow.
If the time period runs out, you check it out again. Unless someone else had a hold on it. In which case you wait for about a month until their copy self-deletes, since I’m pretty sure everyone who has an electronic book would be too lazy to go back to the website and return it.
That would be funny if an actual book deleted itself at the last page. You turn to the very last part of the book, eagerly anticipating what you’ll find, and then *poof*. Book no more.
Ugly is the new beautiful.
Did you ever see that old Twilight Zone episode, where the girl wakes up in the hospital all covered with bandages, and everyone else are pig-like things?
How about the one where everyone has to undergo a process at nineteen that makes them look like everyone else? That’s a good one too.
Or how about the one where the guy goes on a space mission and leaves his wife behind, but because of the length of the mission when he returns she’ll be eighty and he’ll be the same age, but then at the end you find out that he stayed out of the suspended animation so he’d age normally to be the same age as his wife but then his wife back on Earth went into suspended animation so she wouldn’t age so now he’s eighty and she’s thirty? Or was that an Outer Limits? It’s irrelevant but it always pisses me off because it’s just an even more annoying version of Gift of the Magi. I HATE THAT FREAKING STORY.
What about the one where To Serve Man turns out to be a cookbook?
I agree… Gift of the Magi was just depressing. I like O’Henry’s humorous works much better.
That first one you mentioned reminds me of an old story called “The Barbie Murders,” or something to that effect, where there’s someone killing off people who’ve joined a religion that involves surgically altering yourself to look just like every other member of the religion and then living in a commune. That made it hard to solve the murder mystery — poor detective. (Oh, I found it: it is called The Barbie Murders, by John Varley.)
The Gift of the Magi is way overused. I feel like its been redone in every way it possibly can. Having one original version is okay, but it’s really just gotten annoying.
Ha, I love the “To Serve Man” episode. That’s the first one I think of whenever I think of Twilight Zone.
And then there was the one episode where these little space aliens land in this poor woman’s house, and start trying to zap her with their little guns, and she tries to step on them, and whacks them with her broom, and you get really mad at those little alien things, and then in the last frame, it shows their ship and it says “NASA” or something like that. Interesting how our perspective changes when we realize that it’s us who’re being the annoying zappy little alien things.
I have seen all those episodes except the one with the pig people and the one with the surgery. Sci-Fi likes showing Twilight Zone. It’s one of my favourite shows now, along with the Addams Family and X-Files when it was still episodic.
I love the Twilight Zone. I don’t get the Sci-Fi channel, though.