Freeeeeeeeedooooom!

I'm very, nay, extremely, seldom emotionally moved by events in the news. I dunno exactly why, but I guess it has to do with my personality in general; I always want to take a detached, analytic stance to everything, appeal to reason and caution. In part, I'm convinced that this is a good thing; for example, it makes me detest culture-chauvinistic hysteria of various kinds, and I might often have good arguments against such stupidity. On the other hand, it might make me appear inconsiderate or insensitive to others, and I'm not convinced that it, to begin with, stems entirely from positive factors in my subconscious.

Anyhow, I find myself genuinely moved by the ongoing revolution in Egypt. Or, well, it's to early to tell if it's really a revolution, but I really really hope it is. (Not lame-ass reform, we want to see revolution here). I dunno why. It probably has something to do with the fact that I studied islamology last fall, giving me many further insights into (and feelings for) the muslim world, past and present. Also, it began on my birthday ^_^

Maybe I'm fed up with that particular modern type of dictator that Mubarak represents; the pseudo-democratic. The world is filled with psychotic bastards who hide behind a façade of democracy (This guy is a good example), and they get nowhere near the same amount of shit from the West as more honest tyrants do. The US, fucktards that they are, have often been known to ally with them to various degrees, something they'd never do with Kim Jong-Il or the junta in Myanmar, just because of the shitstorm they'd get if they did. If you just pretend to be democratic, it'll work fine though, and you can basically reign supreme and abuse your subjects for 30 years without anyone noticing...


Do western countries, or the democratic world for that matter, now call for Mubarak to resign? No they don't. They whine a little about "listening to the people", or at the very best, call for reform. If any single country have officially taken the Egyptian people's side in all this, please point it out to me; I sure can't find it.

And the Egyptian people's side is quite clear by now. They want their asshole president-for-life to step down. It's not too much to ask, after 30 years of blatant abuse of power. But oh, nooo! Mubarak is to important to the security in the middle east! Islamists could take over! (As if. And I'd love to see the reaction from Israel in the unlikely event that they did).

(I, of course, use the term "people" somewhat vaguely here. There are, of course, supporters of Mubarak in Egypt, it's not like everyone hates his guts (those in power always need the support of a clique). But it's significant enough how many that does, and the sheer magnitud of their frustration and anger).

His people fucking want him gone. By not openly and honestly supporting them, the "democratic" world has yet again shown its true colors (something in distinct shades of brown and blue). I am well aware of Egypt's importance in global and regional affairs (that's partly why I feel more for these events than I do for Tunisia), and yes, of course there are political issues to considered, but it was we, the west, that fucked the world up to begin with, and it should therefore be our fucking responsibility to do all we can to fix it.

Just imagine if TV had subtitles that told you what stuff was really about, beneath the continental crust-thick layers of bullshit:



The next video is something I'm gonna post here because I think everyone (and their grandmother) should see it. I'm getting a bit heart-tugged by the bearded guy who angrily, passionately and tearfully shouts: "We will not be silenced! Whether you're christian, whether you're muslim, whether you're an atheist, you will demand your goddamn rights, and we will have our rights, one way or the other! We will never be silenced!"

Could the quote of the year be here already?

Important people in world history

I played Through the Ages with a few friends yesterday. It's a very good boardgame, although it's a little bit too abstract and mathematical for my taste, I much prefer more visual and straightforward, but still strategic, games like A Game of Thrones and the godawesome Twilight Imperium.

Still, Through the Ages is fun, but there's something that irks me severely. And I know I'm likely the only person in the world or so that gets disturbed by stuff like this, but this is my blogg, and thus I'll complain as much as I could ever want.

Through the Ages is so damn eurocentric. It's about building a lasting civilisation, from antiquity to modern times, and surpassing all other civilisations in terms of cultural dominance. To achieve this, you can use a lot of different cards like buildings, strategies, and so forth, and there's leader cards that feature historically important persons that aids your civilisation.

And almost everyone is european, and the selection of persons is generally dull and predictable. we have, for example, Aristoteles, Platon, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Isaac Newton, Barbarossa, Jeanne D'Arc, Winston Churchill (man what?), William Shakespeare...the few non-european choices that I remember are Hammurabi, Ghandi and Chinggis Khan.

So, I'm gonna, just for fun, put together a better list of suitable leaders for a game like this. A good leader should be both a colorful person, and one of considerable historical importance. In the latter aspect, I would say that both Churchill and Jeanne D'Arc fail, for example - they were important all right, but not spectacularly so. The choices should also be varied; both Jesus, Buddha and Confucius was extremely influental people of the ancient world, but having all three in a game with only about four-five leaders in each era would be kinda...boring. Actually, variety is what I'll pay the most attention to, both in regards to the skills and ethnicites of the candidates:

I would suggest:

Antiquity:
Cyrus the Great - the first ruler of a big, multicultural empire, and the one who invented the structure upon which many later empires were built.
Aristoteles is already in the game, and was a good choice, his ideas were fundamental for later thinking both in Europe and the Islamic world.
Augustus was much more important than the more famous Julius Caesar. Augustus laid the foundation for much of the Roman empire's achievements, which would have a lasting and utterly enormous influence on western history and culture.
Imhotep was a polymath (poet, chancellor, engineer, architect, physicist) during Egypt's third dynasty. So awesome was he, that he was elevated to godhood and worshipped as god of medicine and healing for thousands of years.
Buddha or Confucius could represent eastern civilisations and their ideas and thoughts. Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China, was also extremely important; he founded an imperial structure that lasted for two thousand years. His indian counterpart would be Ashoka the Great. Another asian that is generally considered to have been among the most influental people ever to have lived is Cai Lun, although he's not that spectacular as a person, it's more about a little thing: he invented paper. Still, he ranks a fuckin' seven on Hart's famous list of History's Most Influental People.

Medieval times:
Muhammed is number #1 on Harts list, I choice I would agree with. He founded both a major world religion and a major world empire, no one else has ever done that.
Avicenna or Averroes should represent islamic philosophy and science. While Averroes has been called 'the father of secular thought in Europe', Avicenna discovered the contagious nature of diseases, the concept of momentum in physices, and an almost improbable range of other important stuff.
Chinggis Khan and his successors conquered almost the entire world, which should speak for itself, really. I personally would attribute a lot of the mongol's successes to Chinggis' chief strategist Subotaï though, who outlived him for many years. Contrary to popular belief, Chinggis was long since dead when the mongol empire reached its greatest extent; his successor's achieved that partly due to the genius of Subotaï.
As for Europe, it is true that the middle ages have an undeservedly bad reputation, but it's likewise true that asian civilisations were much more awesome than european ones during this time. Still, if one feel the absolute need to include any european (for which, really, Averroes should otherwise suffice as he was from muslim Andalusia), I'd spontaneously vote for Charlemagne, who founded the Holy Roman Empire and unified Europe. I'm open for other suggestions though, just put a comment in.

There's not many, if any, artists that have been influental on history as a whole. Still, one or two should be included in a game like this, as it really is about cultural dominance. For the Middle Ages, I'd suggest Dante or Guillaume de Machaut, as I like them so much, but it's probably best to save the artist for the next era:

Early modern times:
I can almost only think of europeans here :/
Leonardo da Vinci was a colorful figure, as was Michelangelo. Neither of them was that influental, really, but we need some artist. The original game has Shakespeare, which is probably a better choice really, I'm just so fucking tired of him.
Isaac Newton is also in the original game, and deservedly so.
Vasco da Gama or Magellan would be better and more colorful representants for the age of discovery than Columbus, who's in the original game. Henry the Navigator or Zheng He would be more unusual but interesting choices, but the latter was medieval, really.
Lorenzo the Magnificent ruled Florence for a great part of the early renaissance, and was a very important patron of the arts and sciences.
As for the compulsory military leader, well...maybe Peter the Great? Shaka Zulu was certainly not very important in the larger perspective, but an interesting and capable person nonetheless.

Modern times:
The original game has Tesla (well, its a czech game), Churchill, Ghandi, Einstein I think, and a nameless 'Game designer'. I'd go with:
Simon Bolivar, the founding father of several latin american countries.
Cecil Rhodes, to represent capitalism and imperialistic thought.
Karl Marx was certainly very influental, but Lenin makes a better leader. I'd go for Mao though, as we want more non-europeans in the game. On the other hand, maybe Bolivar covers the 'charismatic leader/visionary'-part already, let's try something else:
As scientists/philosophers go, maybe Darwin or Freud? Louis Pasteur ranks very, very high on Hart's list, he could also be a good choice, but we already have a doctor, Avicenna, in the list.
Anyhow, last but not least, the game designer slot: Gary Gygax, the father of D&D, is the obvious choice here, as he've had a tremendous impact on gaming of all kinds, and thus nerd culture as a whole.

What about women?
Well, there's really a severe lack of women that have been influental on history as a whole. Still, the game should try to squeeze in at least one or two, I think, as I've already made many choices more based on ethnicity/variety/coolness than actual historical importance. A few suggestions:

Enheduanna, first writer known by name, priestess in Ur.
Nefertiti, queen of Egypt; a bust of her is thought to have influenced western standards of beauty, and she seems to have been co-regent with her husband Akhenaten, who might have been an alien too boot ;-D
Wu Zetian, the only empress regnant of China.
Fatimah, daughter of Muhammed.
Anna Komnena, byzantine princess of Byzantium :-), and one of the first female historians.
Aliénor of Aquitaine, one of the most powerful women in medieval Europe.
Töregene, de-facto ruler of the Mongol Empire for a few years.
Two influental nuns were Hildegard of Bingen and Teresa of Ávila, the former a multi-talented scholar and composer, the latter a mystic and writer.
Isabella I of Castille is on Hart's list.
La Malinche, an amerindian mistress of Hernán Cortéz who aided in the downfall of Mesoamerican civilisation.
Maria Theresia, Holy Roman empress, a 'key figure in the politics of 18th century Europe'.
In the 18th and 19th century, there's lots of female writers and/or thinkers like Mary Wollstonecraft.
In the 20th century, there's Golda Meir, the 'iron lady of Israel', Indira Ghandi, and others. As female scientists go, we've got Marie Curie, Marija Gimbutas (sorry, I couldn't help myself)...

Well. That's it. I'm open for other suggestions.

/Ola, bored now

Dagens goda nyhet

...är att några forskare tror att den antarktiska shelfisens eventuella kollaps kan ändra jordaxelns lutning.

Det är inte som det i sig kommer döda oss allihop, men det är ju bara en av så många larmrapporter att man drunknar i dem. Jag finner mig ha nån slags, egentligen helt obefogad, övertygelse om att 'det löser sig', det drabbar ändå inte mig...

men om inte alla andra också tänkte så, skulle vi väl gjort något vettigt för att stoppa global uppvärmning för länge sedan?

det blir ju inte bättre av att det finns folk därute som inte ens tror på att den globala uppvärmningen är orsakad av människor, nej, bättre upp, det finns folk som fucking förnekar att den öht existerar.

Ytterligare ett problem är att även människor som tänker som jag, inte verkar medvetna om att de gör det. 'Det löser sig'-attityden börjar gränsa åt en religion, liksom.

Men värst av allt, tror jag, är att 'demokratiska' marknadsekonomier är lamslagna inför att ta tag i sådana här problem. I det kapitalistiska samhällets natur ligger att man bara har incitament att utföra saker som genererar omedelbar vinst, vilket är en bidragande orsak till att rymdprogrammen i världen gått i stå de senaste decennierna. Alla är överens om att mänskligheten måste utveckla rymdfart om hon ska kunna överleva i det långa loppet; men ingen är beredd att lägga pengarna som krävs på det, för det genererar vinst först på lång sikt.

Att ta itu med orsakerna bakom global uppvärmning hade krävt inskränkningar i produktion, och individens rättigheter. Det ena är kapitalismens heliga ko, det andra den västerländska liberalismens. Jämför med ettbarnspolitiken i Kina, visst, den är autokratisk, arbiträr, och orsakar lidande, och västerlänningar formligen öser skit över den, men den var nödvändig för Kinas framtida välfärd. En diktatur som Kina kunde genomföra en sådan reform, oavsett vad folket och marknadskrafterna tyckte om saken.

Det hade aldrig gått i Jänkistan eller Västeuropa.

Så...vad faen ska vi göra?

Min gissning är att politikerna och kapitalisterna kommer sitta och rulla tummarna och låtsas att det regnar tills Bangladesh och Nederländerna sjunkit i havet, polarisarna smält, jordaxeln förflyttats, och regn, tsunamis och åska av förhistoriska magnituder piskar den förbrända, skälvande jorden.

Ain't it sweet?