Sfdebris.net

To begin, Merry Christmas everyone.

That said, I have mixed feelings about the big Christmas review this year. I appreciate it and Chuck's hard work, as I always appreciate it. He has a lot to say here and makes some uplifting points about our life.

The down side is that I felt like the review was constantly going into tangents and does not make me want to see this review again in the future. This problem with Contagion is, unlike a more silly movie such as 'Outbreak' would be, that it has very little story based plot. We see what is going on, but as a review it leaves itself to very little. So this review leaves it to be rather..dull.

I remember enjoying background and review videos on 'The Day After' or 'Gojira/Godzilla' but this one just doesn't have much rewatch potential to me. What did you think of this review? Was it what you expected from the 2020 Christmas review?

"Pepper Pox"

It's perfect, thanks Chuck.

Veggietrekker wrote: ↑Fri Dec 25, 2020 9:50 am To begin, Merry Christmas everyone.

And what about how it ends?

I'm going to say something horrible. It is the word we cannot say in this discussion about improving global wealth. It is the word that those who want to say it won't because they know it is horrible, and those who don't think it is important won't say it because it is morally repugnant to say it. I know how it underpins a whole mood of rejection of progress, because it has been floating out there unspoken in the national British political conversation since 1947, although it got really loud in 1979 and became a full throated unsaid roar since 2016, and until we say it, those of us who find it morally repugnant, we're never going to stop it and it is going to completely ruin us all. It is not just in the UK, or the US, or France, or Australia, or... etc, it is the unspoken word everywhere in the Western world. All of us.

Here is the word: "than".

Here is why we are rejecting global improvements. We don't feel wealthier or more powerful than the other nations anymore. Cishet people don't feel more morally superior than LGBT+ people anymore. A non-negligible amount of men don't feel they are getting promoted than women anymore, so it makes them miserable in the workplace and regressive in accepting women anywhere. And I had to throw in that weasel word "non-negligible" because I know there are MRA trending posters here, and I know they are going to be angry and defensive about that and scream "not all men at me"; there is their than; their viewpoint isn't more automatically more important than mine. I have them blocked though, so rage away dudes.

That word than is going to ruin us and make us miserable until we slay it. Look at your life, it is better and so is everyone else's. Other people getting more rights will not take yours away, so stop feeling miserable over not being more privileged than them and, in some case, actively trying to deny those other people rights and improvements. You'll be happier for it, and so will everyone else.

But first you have to look inwards, admit your own than and work to overcome it. And we all have to say it in politics. That opposition to good things like universal living income, universal healthcare, military reductions, reductions in police spending, LGBT equality, comes from the than, that people always want someone to look down on, to be better than, and that is the one thing we cannot afford.

Veggietrekker wrote: ↑Fri Dec 25, 2020 9:50 am To begin, Merry Christmas everyone.

That said, I have mixed feelings about the big Christmas review this year. I appreciate it and Chuck's hard work, as I always appreciate it. He has a lot to say here and makes some uplifting points about our life.

The down side is that I felt like the review was constantly going into tangents and does not make me want to see this review again in the future. This problem with Contagion is, unlike a more silly movie such as 'Outbreak' would be, that it has very little story based plot. We see what is going on, but as a review it leaves itself to very little. So this review leaves it to be rather..dull.

I remember enjoying background and review videos on 'The Day After' or 'Gojira/Godzilla' but this one just doesn't have much rewatch potential to me. What did you think of this review? Was it what you expected from the 2020 Christmas review?

You're not wrong but after this year, we need some hope.

One thing I will say about nuclear power though, powerplant sites need to be selected carefully with forethought as to where not just the ultimate waste goes, but where the waste associated with construction goes. Too often that is not disposed of in the most appropriate site, or constructed in the most appropriate site, because of economic interests in those sites, and instead put somewhere perceived unimportant or out of the way. And unfortunately those out of the way sites are environmentally sensitive. A nuclear powerplant might be a global positive, but if its construction is a big local disruption then it is never going to be seen as a good thing.

TL;DR, build them in places where rich people have houses not where it is only birds and reedbeds. The rich can afford it, the environment can't.

You're wrong about IQ, Chuck. The Flynn effect is reversing.

Turned off when it seemed too much gushing about the modern world, which is something I've come to ever more despise.

I'm not entirely sure whether I agree or disagree with CrypticMirror a couple of posts up, but you don't have to look far to see ever more stress and depression.

Phone's rang, I'll have to finish this later.

I only really remember seeing the ending of this film when it was on the telly, but once I learn what this film was about... boy did this ending stick with me, especially because I have OCD that's all about contamination, I'm honestly thankful that before the pandemic I had went to therapy to better handle my OCD and indeed became far better at keeping it under control, and going into surgery before the shutdown to get my nasal polyps that I had been suffering with for some time removed, if I hadn't done any of this I'd probably not been able to cope with the pandemic.

I really enjoyed this review, and after this year it was nice to hear about the positive achievements.

Thank you Chuck for your reviews and continuing to not only make people laugh, but make people think, I hope you and everyone else have a Merry Christmas, and I hope you all keep safe.

Right, where was I? Ah yes, can't stand the modern world. Whilst it undoubtedly has its merits there's still far too much of an obsession with trying to solve yesterday's problems. "More wealth, more wealth!" seems to be the constant cry even in countries with plenty of it but issues with distribution. All modernity's successes involve rubbish it's managed to do away with (150 years ago the air here would've been full of the output of lime kilns, and much more recently than that the stream at the back of the garden used to change colour regularly). Most of what it's added - well, some of it's an entertaining distraction (otherwise I wouldn't be on here), and some's genuinely great (e.g. medical) but it mostly seems to have switched from solving the physical hardships that ground us down to piling on levels of mental stress we never evolved to deal with.

And whilst I like technology when it can do new, exciting things, like probe the depths of space or the most fundamental laws of physics, or even make me really feel like I'm flying around in an X-Wing, god, I loathe it insinuating itself into basic, day-to-day tasks at the level it has done. I'm really finding it all rather impersonal, souless, and dehumanising. The answer isn't to completely go in to reverse, it's to find a good balance. But it sure as hell doesn't make me feel good about the future, and bringing it all up as a message of hope just leaves me more depressed than I already am. So the only SFDebris review I've not made it through to the end of.

Where progress needs to continue isn't in technology, it's in social development and organisation. We have the means - and have had for many years, for no-one to really live in worry for their existance.