Born Free
REE, objectification. Oh, shuddup. I like pinups for the aesthetics, and besides they make me happy. (Even if this one is built like a boy.) There might be some males, soonish, too. Or couples.
Anyway, I’m going to try to do one a day through the fundraiser. They are released to you under Creative Commons Licence (CC BY.) You can use it in any way you wish, including for computer background, calendar and/or book cover. ;)
Or just look at it.
Humans don’t know the future. But we think we do, or at least can extrapolate it.
This worked very well in the times of Gorg and Morga, cave people who donated us the brain we think with. (Okay, no, I don’t know for sure, but as an explanation, it sort of works.) It didn’t take a genius to know if you went to fight the Hurgs over the ridge by your lonesome self, or even with your three brothers you would lose. Why they had 100 people and that new fangled throwing spears thing. The same way if a hunter went out in drought or famine, he was likely to come back empty handed, etc. And if Morga hasn’t conceived a child in ten years, she probably won’t tomorrow.
BUT….
We live in a world that’s far more complex, and filled with different inputs in information, all of which give you a very different idea of the future.
And since all through the 20th century — partly mind you simply by the human desire to be in with the “crowd” and to be “right” in the opinion of those with power, partly because so many people were captured by the Marxist nonsense and because those in power kept those who disagreed out — the media, the entertainment, and the general culture was heavily Marxist, the input was filtered through “capitalism bad, and it will crash and impoverish everyone.”
It was further filtered through the sense most conservatives seem to have (heaven only knows why) that prosperity is bad (I think y’all have some Puritan ranter in the backs of your brains, okay?) and that you should live in caves and eat acorns or the future will be corrupted. (Okay, some puritan ROMAN ranter. Never mind, that’s who lives in the back of mine.) This gives you “if things are good, or at least not terrible, we’re headed for disaster.”
Then there are the people who are convinced left to their own devices people make terrible decisions. These are mostly educated beyond their abilities, or as we call them bureaucrats and others of their ilk.
The result of this is that the inputs most people in my generation got were horrendous. They were also, as we’re becoming OBVIOUSLY AND PATENTLY FALSE. (They were obviously wrong to me sometime in my thirties, when an anonymous donor sent me a subscription to Reason and I started thinking about what I’d been fed.)
Stuff like “The world will be massive overpopulated by 1990.” Or “We’re running out of fossil fuels” in the seventies. Or “There will be no food or potable water for everyone.”
We now know those are bullshit, of course, but it was — go look if you don’t believe me — the ethos of science fiction in the eighties and nineties, and it is still, massively, the ethos of science fiction published by traditional sources today. (Baen mostly excepted. Salutes.)
Sometime in the early nineties, my scream was “NO MORE RUSTY FUTURES” which was my description of futures in which everyone lived in the gutter, ate bugs, and groveled before an unaccountable elite.
Now I’m not going to say me and my kind are prophets. (I hope not. Mostly I write what’s interesting, not what I think will happen.)
And we know only what? 0.8% of the population even reads science fiction/doesn’t think we’re terrible eggheads with no clue.
In fact, it’s sort of the other way around. My tribe tends to write a distillation of what they’ve been fed. (Which combines with the editors’ ideas of what’s coming, and wanting our fiction to rest on “solid foundations.”) Which means the dystopias of the 80s and 90s is what everyone believed would happen.
I found is so depressing, I started reading alternate history or historical.
Not only because the futures were depressing, but because I found them so unlikely. I mean, how are you going to have cities packed to the level of New Delhi in the sixties when so few people are even having kids? And why is everyone wearing masks against pollution, when our air is clearer than it was in the early 1900s? And–
My suspension of disbelief was hung by the neck until dead.
BUT what was out there was what had seeped to the back of people’s brains and it was as expected as that tiger jumping on you would be to a caveman.
What is this in the name of?
Well, I look at our exquisitely indoctrinated educated “elites” and the world they’re trying to bring about.
The US hasn’t reproduced enough to cause massive overpopulation, but they’re sure it’s out there, somewhere, so they are importing people by the batch load over the Southern border. And they’re sure we’re running out of fossil fuels, so we must transition to “clean/green” energy now. And they KNOW we’re massively polluted, even though we’re obviously not, so we’re all going to dieeeeee. when Gaia gets offended enough she turns up the thermometer. Oh, and we must eat bugs or go Vegan, because otherwise how will we feed everyone.
This is all absolute and complete twaddle, of course. But it’s in their back brains, as “obviously” so they can’t argue with it. They just go along with it, because it’s “true.” True at that level they can’t think, because it’s the assumptions fed to them in the seventies and eighties (and for the younger ones recently, as word from above.)
THIS is what we’re fighting against.
And I’m not absolutely sure how to do it. I promise, and intend to continue to beat those ideas up on my blog, and hopefully to incorporate the ideas of a bright, hopeful future into my fiction, to try to turn this around.
You see, what they project can’t come about. But it can destroy a lot of wealth and kill a lot of people before it crashes.
It’s time to attack the false prophets. I can’t, of course, do it alone, so I must ask that you amplify it, in words, in blogs, in stories.
Let’s build a bright and hopeful future, to which we can aim our civilization.
Be not afraid. Steer to the future we deserve.
America comes from that better future. And we’re going back there.
Note SF Pinup #1 released under Creative Commons below, as a kind of general thanks to everyone for putting up with the fundraiser.
IT ENDS JULY 16TH.
(Sorry for the late update. I’m going to get some coffee before the regular blog.)
The Short Version Of Why I’m Doing This: I started the blog to promote my writing. It did that a little, but mostly it’s its own thing. I have fans for the blog and fans for the fiction, and never the twain shall meet.
After years of friends (including Jerry Pournelle, and no I never did it in his lifetime) telling me I should do a fundraiser or rattle the tin cup after every post, I realized that while I love the blog and don’t intend to give it up, it’s eating my life and to an extent my fiction writing because there’s only so many hours in the day.
So…. I decided to do a fundraiser, so I can hire people to do some of the other stuff that must be done, so I can blog, write, and not be so sleep deprived that sometimes, inexplicably, I go down for fifteen hours of sleep without planning it.
For the fuller explanation etc, look here: TANSTAAFL DAY 1- In Which The Writer Tries to Fund the Blog
Tier 1– $10 or more – A shout out on my blog, all with all other the supporters, by name, in one massive “Thank you” post. [Jokey or offensive names will not be included at author’s discretion.]
Tier 2– $25 or more – Email jpg of certificate with funny fish saying “I Was Carped at according to hoyt.com” and a Certificate of being a member of Hoyt’s Huns, cultural wars sapper battalion, in good standing.
Tier 3– $60 or more – Exclusive ebook collection of USAian stories. (Including a new, original, never published story.) [estimated delivery Aug 2022]
Tier 4– $100 or more – Your name will appear in a mass death/other mass event/list in one of Sarah’s books. [estimated delivery up through July 2023. All indie books, as no others are guaranteed.]
Tier 5– $150 or more – A sound file of Sarah saying “Moose and Squirrel.”
Tier 6 – $250 or more – Will send a signed copy of trade paperback Gentleman takes a chance and one large postcard with book covers, also signed. (USPS- continental US only. All others, let’s talk.) [estimated delivery Sept 2022]
Tier 7 – $350 or more – Three signed books (of our choice), plus two extra items from “Sarah’s Garage”, (also of our choice) which might very well be a small rubber fish. (You’ve been warned.) USPS only. Continental U.S. only [estimated delivery Sept 2022]
Tier 8 – $500 or more – Personalized tuckerization. You will become your very own zany character, with at least a line or two of dialogue, and physical description. Physical safety and life of character not guaranteed. If you perish, it will NOT (repeat not) be in a mass death event or a list of other kinds. [estimated delivery up through July 2023. All indie books, as no others are guaranteed.] [Jokey or offensive names, descriptions and personalities will not be included at author’s discretion.]
Tier 9 – $1000 or more – A CHOICE OF:
Option 1 -Will read the first 10 pages and outline of your novel and provide timely critique, with the understanding that I am not infallible. (A skype, zoom or other video call to discuss the work for an hour or so.) [estimated delivery Winter 2022 – Spring 2023]
Option 2 – Large box of ten signed books, plus items ranging from a con badge, to a mini dinosaur skeleton or a print of Sarah’s original art, or other items from Sarah’s garage. USPS only. Continental U.S. only [estimated delivery Sept 2022]
Option 3 – Signed copy of Sarah’s old copyedited or page-proof manuscripts. [estimated delivery Fall 2022] (5 limit.)
Tier 10 – $5000 or more – You will become a major character on one of my books, and I’ll try to reflect your appearance, and chosen personality. [estimated delivery up through July 2023. All indie books, as no others are guaranteed.] [Jokey or offensive names, descriptions and personalities will not be included at author’s discretion. You don’t get to have someone else be an offensive character. (Sorry!) Your actions will be altered to serve the plot if needed.] – Limit 5. (You’ll be informed if this has been claimed, and given a chance for a refund or of a comparable reward.)
Tier Insane – $25000 or more – My husband and I will travel to a city in the continental US and have dinner with you and your plus one. (Continental US only.) – Limit ONE. [Delivery up to July 2023.] (You’ll be informed if this has been claimed, and given a chance for a refund or of a comparable reward.)
ALL TIERS INCLUDE ALL PREVIOUS TIERS EXCEPT FOR THOSE THAT ARE NUMBER LIMITED.
If you want to be thanked/mentioned by a name different from your regular one, please email to: bookpimping at outlook dot com
DONATE TO ACCORDING TO HOYT TAANSTAFL DAYS
OR
UPDATE: I’ve fixed the broken link. For some reason copying from yesterday’s post bolixed it. Note the text above the button is also a link.
or:
FOR CHECK DONATIONS:
Sarah A. Hoyt
Goldport Press
304 S Jones Blvd #6771
Las Vegas, NV 89107
THIS IS PINNED TO THE TOP OF THE BLOG. THE DAILY POST WILL APPEAR BELOW THIS.
Yes, in the future I’ll be doing normal, full posts on this blog, under the fundraiser post, but posting that first one was scary and incredibly stressful. (No, you have NO idea how much.)
So, what the heck, some of you liked this picture when I posted it here, so…. The following picture is my own artwork and is hereby released under the creative commons attribution license.
This license lets others distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation. This is the most accommodating of licenses offered. Recommended for maximum dissemination and use of licensed materials.
I call it In Space, Only the Winged Cats Know What You’re Up To.
This is a combined fundraiser and “pardon our dust” since everything is conspiring to make this go really weird.
Donate to According to Hoyt, because I spend a lot of time, sweat and tears on this blog, and a laborer is worthy of her pay.
This is not an emergency. Repeat: this is not an emergency. Do not head for the basement, do not put on your pith helmet. You can hug your cats, but you’ll still be here tomorrow to heal from the scratches.
This is a blog fundraiser.
According to Hoyt has stood here for dunnohowmanyyears (no, seriously, I have no idea, but I think it’s about fifteen or sixteen. I know it’s more than 13, because I was blogging every day when we got Havelock-cat, who is 13) and Lord knows over that times I’ve been silly, I’ve been strange, I’ve (unfortunately) been wrong a time or twenty. But every day I wake up and know I have a blog to write, and feel guilty if I don’t. I’ve taken “vacations” but since I never get enough guest posts, it’s not a full vacation.
And for that entire time, the high water mark for blog intake on donations and promo kick backs (from Amazon. I don’t ask anyone for money to promo them. sheesh) was — I think — back in 2006 about $4000. Right now, including kickbacks, it runs about $2k a year.
Now I won’t lie to you and say I’m going to give up blogging if the blog doesn’t fully fund. At this point it’s an addiction, my “pages in the morning” Nor am I going to say the blog hasn’t helped. It has, in ways big and small.
However the main purpose for which I created this blog, which was to promote my fiction is pretty much a bust. I have fans for the blog and fans for my fiction, and the two meet but seldom.
Over the years, y’all have told me I should be getting paid. And the late, and most definitely great, Jerry Pournelle, about 10 or more years ago told me given the level of engagement, and how much content I provide, compared to blogs that are making a lot of money, I should be making around 50k a year.
I was just afraid I’d have a fundraiser and make $20. (And then I’d probably stop blogging, just in sheer shame.)
Well, last November, as a last ditch effort, so we wouldn’t have to sell the piano Dan inherited from his mom (and which he learned to play on), I did a fundraiser to get us out of a ditch.
As all of you know, I made more than $20. Which was good, because we are always counter-trend, and almost managed to lose money on the last house, while everyone else was selling at crazy rates. As is we are “whole”. Which is why there is no emergency.
But I still have this here blogging habit. And consume a lot of hours on it, and then feel guilty because it doesn’t pay.
So, here goes.
Tier 1– $10 or more – A shout out on my blog, all with all other the supporters, by name, in one massive “Thank you” post. [Jokey or offensive names will not be included at author’s discretion.]
Tier 2– $25 or more – Email jpg of certificate with funny fish saying “I Was Carped at according to hoyt.com” and a Certificate of being a member of Hoyt’s Huns, cultural wars sapper battalion, in good standing.
Tier 3– $60 or more – Exclusive ebook collection of USAian stories. (Including a new, original, never published story.) [estimated delivery Aug 2022]
Tier 4– $100 or more – Your name will appear in a mass death/other mass event/list in one of Sarah’s books. [estimated delivery up through July 2023. All indie books, as no others are guaranteed.]
Tier 5– $150 or more – A sound file of Sarah saying “Moose and Squirrel.”
Tier 6 – $250 or more – Will send a signed copy of trade paperback Gentleman takes a chance and one large postcard with book covers, also signed. (USPS- continental US only. All others, let’s talk.) [estimated delivery Sept 2022]
Tier 7 – $350 or more – Three signed books (of our choice), plus two extra items from “Sarah’s Garage”, (also of our choice) which might very well be a small rubber fish. (You’ve been warned.) USPS only. Continental U.S. only [estimated delivery Sept 2022]
Tier 8 – $500 or more – Personalized tuckerization. You will become your very own zany character, with at least a line or two of dialogue, and physical description. Physical safety and life of character not guaranteed. If you perish, it will NOT (repeat not) be in a mass death event or a list of other kinds. [estimated delivery up through July 2023. All indie books, as no others are guaranteed.] [Jokey or offensive names, descriptions and personalities will not be included at author’s discretion.]
Tier 9 – $1000 or more – A CHOICE OF:
Option 1 -Will read the first 10 pages and outline of your novel and provide timely critique, with the understanding that I am not infallible. (A skype, zoom or other video call to discuss the work for an hour or so.) [estimated delivery Winter 2022 – Spring 2023]
Option 2 – Large box of ten signed books, plus items ranging from a con badge, to a mini dinosaur skeleton or a print of Sarah’s original art, or other items from Sarah’s garage. USPS only. Continental U.S. only [estimated delivery Sept 2022]
Option 3 – Signed copy of Sarah’s old copyedited or page-proof manuscripts. [estimated delivery Fall 2022] (5 limit.)
Tier 10 – $5000 or more – You will become a major character on one of my books, and I’ll try to reflect your appearance, and chosen personality. [estimated delivery up through July 2023. All indie books, as no others are guaranteed.] [Jokey or offensive names, descriptions and personalities will not be included at author’s discretion. You don’t get to have someone else be an offensive character. (Sorry!) Your actions will be altered to serve the plot if needed.] – Limit 5. (You’ll be informed if this has been claimed, and given a chance for a refund or of a comparable reward.)
Tier Insane – $25000 or more – My husband and I will travel to a city in the continental US and have dinner with you and your plus one. (Continental US only.) – Limit ONE. [Delivery up to July 2023.] (You’ll be informed if this has been claimed, and given a chance for a refund or of a comparable reward.)
ALL TIERS INCLUDE ALL PREVIOUS TIERS EXCEPT FOR THOSE THAT ARE NUMBER LIMITED.
DONATE TO ACCORDING TO HOYT TAANSTAFL DAYS
OR
or:
FOR CHECK DONATIONS:
Sarah A. Hoyt
Goldport Press
304 S Jones Blvd #6771
Las Vegas, NV 89107
This mode obviously doesn’t have an anonymous form. If enough people ask for one, I will put up a fundraiser at GiveSendGo. The problem being those going that way can’t receive any of the incentives, no matter what they donate. Do you want me to do that?
If you want to be thanked/mentioned by a name different from your regular one, please email to: bookpimping at outlook dot com
Also, today’s post will appear below this one, supposing I figure out how to pin this one to the top of the page!
I feel I should get a prize for not letting younger son inflict naked drawing of the funding fathers on you. (Joking, joking. Don’t kill me, younger son. He’s not that kind of son.)
Well, I’ve always had a dream of having my very own money bin where I go for morning swims.
Okay, not really. I can’t even swim. And I’d probably get dust allergy from the dollar bills.
The truth is I started this blog to promote my fiction. And instead what I got was an extra commitment.
Let’s face it, people, I’m over committed and not as young as I used to be.
If the blog funds, I can hire a publicity-help person for the fiction and maybe to do things like manage the t-shirts y’all want and other stuff. (You know him. You like him.)
I can also hire someone to take the every day administrivia off my back.
And then I can write more, keep this blog going, and not be so exhausted all the time.
That art above is a really old piece of art. I posted it on Facebook with “We’re not dead. Our flag is still there. We came from the future, and we’re going back.”
I’m posting this late at night, to explain things.
Tomorrow I’ll start the blog fundraiser.
Again, I WANT TO EMPHASIZE this is not an emergency, I’M NOT ASKING YOU TO RESCUE ME.
We’re doing all right, right now. Without y’all bailing me out in November, we’d have been in serious trouble because the house sold weird. (We’ll just say that.) But we’re fine. I promised not to ask for emergency help, and I’m not. This is just a blog fundraiser.
The fundraiser is for the blog, which is part of my writing ah enterprise. If the blog funds, I’ll be able to get help on some of other stuff and not end up with “not a post” posts, as well as devote a ton more effort and attention to all my writing in general. And perhaps have a bit more energy.
Until today I’d blithely assumed I could use GiveSendGo, but they don’t allow me to offer rewards for donations, and were offering rewards. (And we have the official only maybe a secret billionaire will pledge.)
So, it will have to be my paypal, and I’ll keep track of the amounts and update a few times a day.
I’m shooting for 50k, mostly because this one, being a business thing, I’ll have to pay taxes, of course, but mostly because Jerry Pournelle told me 10 years ago that I should have a fundraiser and set 50k as a goal. Yes, it seems like a crazy goal (Almost as crazy as that highest tier we’ll have, mostly as a joke!) and I’m a little embarrassed of putting it up. But Jerry said I should be able to clear that, given how often I post and the engagement, so I’ll try.
Doing this as a yearly event, in the first two weeks of July will allow me to not have intrusive begging or donation links on it the rest of the year. The timing is obvious, I think.
So, tomorrow will start the TAANSTAFL days on this blog, which will end on the 16th. I’ll probably put it up around noon.
Because I know these fundraisers get awkward and strange and make the blog very boring, there will be a “real post” TM beneath the fundraiser post. And I’ll do my best to make the fundraising fun too.
Word is that younger son is making cartoons of me. Pray I don’t have to kill him for it ;)
Anyway, see you tomorrow for the start of the whole thing. Next year I’ll be more precise and polished. This year I’m fumble fingered and strange, so enjoy the comedy aspects.
Till tomorrow.
They lied to you. They lied to all of us these “progressives” whose greatest goal was always to take us back to the mass-everything of the late industrial age, in the early twenty first century.
Their power and glory resided in the early twentieth century, with masses of illiterate-in-English workers pouring in, and the precinct bosses controlling them and their votes; with “progressives” of both parties in the white house, setting the course of the future. And then with world wars giving them all the control of an “emergency” they tasted real power, and the ability to tell other people how they should live forever. We were going to be ruled by “experts.” The country was in the very best of hands. And stop those screams for popular control. That was a dream of the 18th century. The common man was unable to rule himself, and needed the educated elites to build the future while standing on the people’s neck.
And through all this, the enemy, which always trades in lies — because their nature is so hideous they can’t look at themselves in the mirror — called themselves “liberal” and “tolerant.” Though in fact they were so intolerant that their minds could see only imaginary categories and never real people. And that when their opinions were proven wrong in truth, they invented new complicated theories and doubled down.
Also, and THIS is the biggest lie possible, they called us “Conservative” and “Establishment.” This a century after they had captured all positions of power, become a positional good for the elites (who all want to at least pretend to be communist. Partly out of fear of being expropriated — they took entirely the wrong lesson from the revolutions in France and Russia — and partly because communism (and the hip new fascism the Marxists now espouse) is actually a sort of feudalism, and they all plume themselves on being feudal lords over an expropriated, impoverished population.)
I’m not actually surprised the left bought this, but I’m surprised many on our side did. It took the cultural battles of the last decade for scales to fall from most people’s eyes: for instance the one with us, the powerless, the ones who had fought and scrambled our way into publication and where the only bestseller was published by a house looked down upon by the other houses, and where we were accused of holding women and minorities down. (As though we had the power, even if we had the intent. And for the record, we were majority women and minorities. We don’t care about the color or sex of those who write the books. It’s the books we care about.)
They used that formulation over and over again, by the way. While punching WAY down they claimed to be speaking truth to power. While quelling rebellion, they claimed to be fighting the “establishment.” And their excuse for everything going to crap under their leadership was always that anyone wanting to fix it was “a white male, scared of losing power.”
After a while, almost everyone, at almost every level was touched by this and saw it happening and went “But wait a minute.” And the luvvies claims that anyone who opposes them is immediately a white male does not wash. (I’m probably darker than spun gold now. I’ve been working outside. And I don’t have a penis. I looked in my pants just now. I also happen to be xx and have birthed two sons. I don’t have to be a biologist to realize I’m not male. And while my Mormon friends joke about my being an unbaptized Mormon, no. I’m not. Just had enough coffee to prove it.)
So it’s come to this. The supreme court in 3 landmark rulings has started to lay an ax to the foundation of rule by experts.
Is the work done? Oh, deary me, no. But it is started.
Will it cause chaos? Oh. Yes. Yes, indeed. And attempts to do it slow to minimize chaos will probably not hold. Because what they are striking down is the FOUNDATIONS of the current establishment.
Every single institution, every single PERSON has been corrupted by this idea that government should be by experts, and top down, center out. It’s all over the world, yes. But it has never had any business here. Yet contagion works, and we’re part of this mess, which the last two years, and the maladministration of the Biden Junta have exposed as not only stupid and erratic, but realistically dangerous and potentially civilization ending.
I think that’s the reason for these rulings. It’s not that the court is any less go along to get along than when they refused to hear the cases centering on the election. It isn’t that most of them (Thomas and Alito excepted) aren’t at their heart bureaucrats who suckled at the tit of the Marxism-enabling maleducation of the last century.
It is that they can see what’s heading for us, what the idiots they enabled into power are doing. And they’re scared. As they should be. And so they are trying, late and terrified-like to undo enough, to allow us to survive.
Is it going to be easy? Pardon me while I laugh.
To quote my very wise grandmother, we’re all going to eat the bread the devil kneaded, and that’s when there’s bread at all. You know the call: “PREPARE, PREPARE, PREPARE” and know it might not be possible to prepare ENOUGH. Be flexible. Adapt, improvise and overcome.
This winter is going to be bad and the next couple of years are going to be interesting.
For one, there’s going to be a while that no one has any idea what the rules are, what the laws are, what it is safe to do/say.
Which means daily life will get sportive, even before gas and food shortages.
But, hey, it’s going to be worse in the rest of the world. They’re not good at making it up as they go along.
As bad as it is going to get I have great faith in the American people and the tattered remains of constitutional law.
Yes, it’s still going to hurt to feel like everything is falling down around us, and that we don’t fully understand the shape of what’s to come.
It’s time to make sure what’s to come is us, Americans. We were always the barbarians at the gate of the establishment left. And now the ax has created some breaches in the door, and we’re pouring in.
The time is short, and we must be about making sure the right things are erected in the aftermath.
Be not afraid.
Build under, build over, build around.
Because the establishment has suffered body blows, and it will collapse.
And then we must be ready to take the weight.
I’m sitting on the other half of the sofa, and a very weird thing happened.
You see, I usually blog from the family room. No (sane) reason, really, except that this is the social-media computer, and the blog is somewhat social. Also, I often do this at night, while husband is watching tv.
I didn’t yesterday, because I felt…. odd. Not sick and I suspect anyway it’s allergies, since it came on after time outside (and I haven’t seen anyone outside the family for a while, so who would I catch sick from?) but my throat was itchy and I was semi out of it.
No problem, I’ll do it tomorrow.
So– Today I sat down and wrote MGC and opened this page, and then HAD to sleep. I don’t know if any of you have experienced this, but it is very weird. It’s like you really can’t fight it. When I worked in an office, I’d often go to the bathroom, just so I could close my eyes. Because you will sleep. Your choice is where. This is usually maybe 15 minutes.
Today it was two hours. And I’m still not fully awake.
Why? I don’t know. The logical hypothesis is that I’m getting sick again. I don’t have time for this.
Blog fundraiser goes up the day after tomorrow, and I have things to organize and set and be ready for. (Runs around with hair on fire.)
So, I’m going to blame it on the cat, who snores and emits sleepy-ons.
Honestly, it’s probably worry about the fundraiser. Mostly worry it will fail big, since you guys came through with the big rescue seven months ago.
This is not a rescue. It’s a “Let’s see if the blog can fund.” I wouldn’t do it, but I can a) use the blog funding as seed money to get the fiction off the ice pad (Sometimes it feels like I’m running on ice) partly by hiring someone to manage the image and the publicity (No. I know him. And you guys will LIKE him.) and someone to run the side stuff on the business. And someone to collate and get the collections ready.
If it overfunds, it’s money to pay for audio book readers.
So… I’m basically fundraising for operating capital for the business, which I THINK is justified? Well, I suppose getting paid for the work I put in is justified too. (Right? Maybe? The way I’m justifying it to myself is that it’s not fair to deprive of my family of the fruits of my labor. I’m not right in the head, okay?)
Anyway, now I’m somewhat awake, and kind of functioning, but not really, so I couldn’t think of anything to blog about except to complain that I fell asleep and hope I’m not falling sick, and then publicly run around in a panic over all the stuff I need to do the next two days. Did I say I’m weird? You knew I was right?
Okay. Now I’m going to finish the two short stories (one for the collection that’s part of the rewards for the fundraiser) and go make a list of the “gifts” for donating (part of this is that it’s ridiculous to consider them a “price” which of course it isn’t. It’s just a thank you for donating. I mean, up to twenty it’s a printable certificate (in eform but suitable for printing) that says “I was carped at according to hoyt” that is not a big enough thing to COST $20. But this is not a store. It’s a fundraiser. (And you guys collect carp!)
So, anyway….
<Lurches up.
I’m going to take the meds (the daily ones) and go work. Keep your fingers crossed I don’t fall sick.
*Isn’t this more interesting than “this is not a post?”*
There are parts of the recent shouting on abortion that have made me profoundly uncomfortable.
No, not those, I expect lunacy and hatred of humans from the left, so it doesn’t touch me, even remotely. I mean, I think I sprained an eye from rolling them, but…
The disturbing things are coming from people politically aligned with me, and I’m not sure my qualms can or should be reflected in policy (because I don’t think that is possible without its becoming a tyranny and a “stay in your place” straight jacket.) But I think it should be thought about and perhaps reflected in the culture war, in how we raise our kids, in how we think of being human and particularly of being one of those weird humans who can make other humans and nurture them inside our own bodies, and who were designed by nature to do so.
I first want to point out that I find the XKCD comic about being lost in Plato’s cave extremely funny. (I don’t want to link it, given the way the author has gone, and the tenor of this post.) So much so, I have it on my fridge. And the reason for that is that I often legitimately forget I have a body. I know that sounds super-weird, but I swear it’s true. It’s part of the reason I’m one of those introverts who needs to go out and see strangers on the regular. Otherwise it becomes all too easy to float through life thinking of my body not as part of me, but as some weird vehicle that moves me around.
This is why I sometimes forget what sex I am. (No joke, I’ve said on a panel of all females “Everyone here is female but me.” No, I didn’t mean I was male, just that I was thinking outside my body or sex again. But it caused some complete puzzlement in the audience.) Or that I HAVE a sex. I forget to eat. I forget to take medicine. I forget I’m sick/neglect care needed. It’s not that I hate myself, I just forget the body is part of me.
I realize this is an extreme case, and I also want to point out it’s not constant in me, and it’s worse when I’m concentrating on doing something else that involves my mind only, like having arguments on intellectual points.
But to some extent, because I live some much in my head, I’m always a little uncomfortable with my body (It would be easier if it didn’t try to kill me on the regular) to the point that “normal” things like being pregnant or nursing were uncomfortable, and felt weird. I’ve run into women who say they love being pregnant, and all I can do is gape at them in wonder.
Before you shout, I’m aware this is not a healthy way to be, and is in fact just a wee bit nuts.
Which is my problem, precisely. Because as a society, when arguing on policy that impacts women — like the overturn of Roe v Wade — we have become a lot like me, treating the body as an inconvenience, something that shouldn’t matter, or something that isn’t an integral part of who we are.
Because that is all, and absolutely a lie. Because our bodies influence us, in health and illness far more than we wish to believe. The thinking meat is MEAT. We are creatures of flesh and blood, who think. We are not thoughts, trapped in the flesh and blood.
And if you ignore the needs and impulses of the flesh and blood, you’ll either lose your mind or your body.
And if you ignore them as a society, you end up with a lot of unhappy, confused, angry people, who can’t figure out what’s made them so unhappy.
On the whole subject of abortion, a friend said — and I don’t intellectually disagree — that we can’t force women to carry babies, because that’s evil. And that we can’t curtail women’s sex drive, or demand they curtail it, because that too is evil. Oh, and that all birth control fails eventually (which isn’t wrong, btw. Reproductive systems are far, far more complicated than we like to believe. Which I’ll revisit again, btw.)
But something at the back of my head piped up and bitched when she said that. It wasn’t a happy something, and it was an admission against interest, since I mostly believe we should make people as free as possible (my protest on abortion is that it involves two people, and the defenseless one gets killed, but that’s something else) and since I legitimately think nature is something to conquer. But what piped up in my mind was “But is that fighting against reality?”
This was brought into full bloom last night, on a facebook thread of Brad Torgersen’s, in which a guy came in guns blazing and said we needed abortion to be safe, convenient and as available as possible so women wouldn’t be “second class citizens.” Because if women are going to be fully equal, we need to eliminate the downsides of being a woman.
At which point the bitching at the back of my mind became a scream “But women are women. You can’t eliminate the downside of being a woman, without eliminating being a woman.”
This same guy, btw, tried to put me in my place by coming back with something about how society had failed women for millennia, which made me doubt he had a brain between his ears, because seriously? “Society” (which one? The caveman band? The hunters’ party? The various monarchies? WHICH “Society”?) failed everyone for millennia. Most people were oppressed and stepped on, because life was hard and freedom for the individual wasn’t a thing.
But my point here is the definition of a woman until society went howling mad (and we might be looking at the reason society went howling mad) is a person who can bear live young. Yes, we have vulvas, and sex is lots of fun, but our drive for sex is different than males. We tend to attach to one male and the reason we become interested in males is that they give signs of being good providers, usually at a subconscious level. (Yes, there are exceptions, there are exceptions to everything human, but for the vast majority of women this is it.) It’s part of the reason women are attracted to rich and successful men more than to cute ones. Because we’re looking for fathers for potential children.
It’s also why we bleed every 28 or so days for most of our adult lives. It’s why there is a load of emotion and reaction that comes with that cycle.
I keep coming across, particularly from the left with “If men could have children.” Well, if men could have children, they wouldn’t be men. And our entire society would be so different (most hermaphroditic species are very violent, and hermaphrodite humans… well, yes, I am rewriting that first book. Eh. So I’ve thought about it.) that there is no connection.
Because we are not brains, or minds, in a vacuum. We’re creatures of flesh and blood. And contra the “there’s no difference” crowd, you need only have a rudimentary knowledge of biology to know your brain, your tissues, everything were formed differently according to your sex. I don’t remember and am not in the mood to go look it up, but you start differentiating at a ridiculously early gestational point, for sure before two weeks. After that the hormone baths in utero are different, and your development is markedly different.
No, you don’t know what it’s like to be the other sex. No one does. Yes, we’re way more different than our superficial outward appearance would indicate. The longer I live the more aware I become that perhaps Heinlein was right about us really being different species who are merely symbiotic.
So when making women “not second class citizens” requires making them as free from concerns about getting pregnant as men…. are we in actual fact at war with the very fact that there are women; that women are unique and have different capabilities and different downfalls?
I mean to me “not second class citizens” means the right to vote and engage in trade. It doesn’t mean making them “the same” because that’s Procrustes bed.
Whether you consider getting pregnant a liability or a magic power, it is still an integral part of being a woman.
And yet, as a society we’ve been devoted to making women into men-manque for as long as I’ve been alive. Perhaps it’s the after shocks of chemical birth control. Or perhaps it’s the unique insanity of the mega-states of the 20th century, who have always preferred to deal with widgets.
As a society and for almost a century, we’ve regarded having children as an impairment, for both men and women, frankly. You’re supposed to have a “career” (most people have jobs, not careers, so that’s also mildly insane) and devote everything to it. You are a unit of tax-payment, not a living human being who, like most humans, probably want to have children and eventually fat and sassy grandchildren.
This has affected men, yes, because frankly in their natural state, they autonomous, sentient sperm-delivery devices, whom only culture can mold into true men, who care about their wife and children. It has given them an adversarial relationship with women, made them into sort of grown up boys, who just want to “score” and keep count.
But it is outright starting to eliminate women as women. Someone on a blog I can’t remember was lamenting the fact that “liberation” seems to entail the elimination of the female form of professional designations. I suppose “Police-woman” was always a bit silly since a police officer is a police officer is a police officer, though I imagine that women do it slightly differently there too, but never mind. And the same for Mail-woman. Though I will note those fragments encode more information which is usually a value add for those rare occasions where it’s relevant. But we’ve eliminated “authoress” which is– More on that later. And we’ve eliminated “Actress” which is bloody stupid, because in that case your body is what you perform with. If you’re female you perform as female, in female roles, and it’s a different craft.
Yes, I do understand the reason for it. And I question it. The reason for it is that whole “second class” thing. “I am an Author, not an author with special begs of being female.”
Um… okay, then, but why is the male form the real one? Why isn’t everyone called an “authoress” (I detest the term, btw. I actually prefer writer to either Author or Authoress)? There have been female writers time out of mind, and many of them were superb. Why isn’t the “real” term the female one? Why do we have to “be the real thing” by assuming the male term. PARTICULARLY for actresses. Because at one point women were barred from the profession for real and legitimately. And now they’re subsumed, and have to be “real” by using the male term.
And of course, we all know men who “transition” are beating women at everything from sports to beauty competitions, and the left is all for it. When, at least in sports, the reason they’re beating women is because they have masculine strength, masculine muscles, and were formed to be bigger and stronger.
And then there’s the push…. Oh, you know very well what it is. And it’s an abomination.
I raised kids in the last thirty years. If I’d raised girls, I’d probably be wearing orange and in a maximum security prison.
The double dose of “you can do anything you want, but only if it is what we think you should want.” and “You’re all powerful and infinitely fragile” would have me happening to the school before they were out of elementary.
And I’m not joking that when younger son was in an engineering club, all the publications they were sent were for WOMEN engineers. Even though most of the membership/people with an interest were male.
Before that even, I was sneered at and looked down upon because I stayed at home for most of the time after I was married and all the time, pretty much, after I had kids. Yes, I was writing. But it turns out a lot of women my generation used that (or art, or crafts) as a cover for just wanting to be housewives and mothers. (Both honorable occupations, if you perform them honorably. And both of them can make your husband way more successful if you do them right. And if you’re a unit and divorce wouldn’t even be considered, his success is yours. Yes, I know the level of trust that requires is uncommon now.) So at gatherings talking to strangers, when the “What do you do?” came out and I said I was trying to get published, I got the sneer and “That’s just your cover for being a housewife.” And yes, the sneer was obvious. And I always wondered “It’s not true, but if that were, why would it be looked down upon?”
In the same way I’ve seen women being sneered at for wanting to be nurses, or for taking up other, traditional female pursuits.
It seems to be worth it as a woman you have to pretend to be a male.
The push is on constantly. You’re sneered at for writing or reading romance, because it’s a thing women do. (Yes, men do it too, but the crossover on that is minuscule.) And now a lot of movies, including those billed as romantic comedy are consciously eliminating the Happily Ever After. Instead the woman decides to go off and have a career, or “learn to love myself.”
And I come back again to: Why can’t women be women? Why is it that performing the most basic and distinctive function of being female is considered being a second class citizen? Why are we all supposed to act like men?
(And I ask this as a tomboy. There’s nothing admirable in that. It’s just who I am. And yet, it gets me more praise than I ever get for having two kids and raising them.)
To clarify, no, I don’t think women who are infertile or simply never got married and had kids (or have no wish to) are “lesser women.” These things happen. Heck, it almost happened to me.
I’m just saying that evolution has formed us to have kids. It’s what our bodies were designed for. To an extent it’s what our minds were selected for, too. It gives us some superpowers, like the ability to multitask, or to think in deep-connection ways. (We connect disparate things and figure out their relationships more than guys do. Men are more linear thinkers. Women had to deal with social links in the tribe, (so someone would watch their kids) and they had to deal with co-relations between foraged edibles, and– We just tend to think in a lot more interconnected ways.) We also tend to be more interested in people, and better at language.
Yes, some of us still want to be engineers. The only point of “diversity” that works, we do bring something new to “engineering” because of the way we think. (And we still should pass the basic abilities of male engineers.) And some of us are more damaged on figuring out the social. It’s all a spectrum. But most women gravitate towards social/connected/indoor/safe professions. Why would we force them to be otherwise? Allow them, sure. Force them? No.
In the same way, most women truly, really, do not want to sleep around as much as men. Yeah, okay, some do. But it’s not biologically inherent in us. We are not sperm delivery systems on legs.
Arguably civilization came about because women didn’t want to put out all the time and for everyone. If Ogg wanted Morga to put out, he had to make sure he was a good hunter, and could make the spears to make himself so. And no sleeping around with everyone, all the time, because he had to provide for Morga and their kids. In return, he had the assurance that Morga also wasn’t sleeping around, and their kids were THEIRS.
If women sleep around as much as men, the entire world becomes a giant gay-bathhouse. And kids are an inconvenience, or a “punishment.” Stop me when this sounds familiar.
There are legitimate reasons to allow abortion — mostly because you pays down your dust, you takes your winnings, and that one is its own punishment — though no legitimate reason to allow it past viability that I can think of. (There is no legitimate reason to allow Roe v. Wade to stand, because it was horrendous law, but that’s something else.)
But keeping women from being “second class citizens” is not one of those. Not in an age with a plethora of safe and effective contraceptives. Sure, those fail. But abortions fail too. (Waves in “otherwise I wouldn’t be here.”) What’s more, abortions are major medical interventions, against a process that your body is designed to do, which means they’re dangerous as heck, and have a strong chance of complications. And we’re not telling kids that.
In fact the push for abortion on demand whenever, and the cultural imperative of considering children and impairment and being pregnant/giving birth a terrible thing is making women second class citizens. It’s saying “If you actually get pregnant, it’s destroying your goals of being a perfect male who happens not to have a penis. And you should abort it, so you can be free to be your true self. Which is of course male.”
THAT is appalling.
And I don’t need to be a biologist to tell you it ends badly.
Rumors of America’s demise have been grossly exaggerated. We have only just begun.
And we’re such a new thing upon the world, a credal nation, based on the idea the government owes the people something, and not the other way around, that we’re going to stumble and do stupid things.
Of course we are. Millennia of experience of human societies argue against what we aim to become: a nation of free individuals.
The monkey brain itself argues against it. But then the monkey brain is fine with communism, so it can step right off, into the dark of night with the sound of helicopters in the distance.
We will stumble. It could be argued the entire 20th century’s experimentation with centralization was a stumble. It was a prolonged and bad one. Recovering from it will be very hard.
My dad had rheumatic fever at seven, and wasn’t able to walk till he was eight, at which point he had to relearn to walk, like a baby.
It’s going to be like that, with all the challenges posed by changing technology. With innovation and rapidly changing every day capacity in our way. We’re going to have to relearn to walk as a nation of free individuals.
You can tell why the left are locked in the positions they are by their reactions. They can’t imagine the future but as a repetition of the past. So they think unless we stumble ever “forward” on their path, ever more centralized, ever more authoritarian, we’re going to “go back” to an agrarian slavery-bound society.
This makes no sense to anyone who understands there is change — real change, not dictated change — and that humans evolve and adapt to meet changed technological landscapes.
This also explains their fear of “climate change” because if the world isn’t exactly as they know it, forever, it’s all doom and death noooooowwwwwww.
They talk of extinction in 12 years, a timeline that makes no sense for geological processes, because they fear their psychological extinction, the end of who they are and what they believe, and to them that’s death.
It also explains why they often come across like adolescents. “Nooooooo. I don’t want to do that. That would chaaaaaaange me.” Instead they retreat ever further back into childhood while demanding safe spaces and coloring books and that no one say anything “mean.”
But…. look, growth is pain.
I’m one of those people cursed with a good memory for my own psychological development. (Unfortunately these days more concrete memories including what happened where at pivotal points of my life vanish. Aging sucks.) I remember sitting in the dark many times, realizing I’d have to change to meet changed circumstances and feeling like I was coming apart, and dying.
In a way I was. Life is a series of little deaths (the young man who sniggered in the corner can think shame on himself) in which we change a little every day, and then look back and go “I was that? I thought that? How even?”
But there are moments when we have to do it suddenly, because, mostly through our actions, things changed markedly. Like when you get married. Or the first time you hold your own infant child, for whom you’re responsible till they’re self sufficient (runs screaming into the night) or when you move. Or when you change jobs. Or when your job changes on you.
Each of this entails a little death (raises eyebrow in a quelling manner) and a little rebirth.
Our nation is like that too, and because we’re very new, a brand new creature among the nations, we will stumble and do stupid things. After all, we don’t have any models LIKE us, so we emulate the old horrors, because of course we do.
And sometimes things will get very bad. I suspect we have a spell coming up, because I suspect the idiots will think it’s just fine to cheat again in November. And I can feel it getting really, really ugly. But perhaps it’s needed, to show what will not be accepted. This is the line you don’t cross. We the people are not amused….
But as long as some of us remember the Constitution and the concept of America, we will come back.
You see, by the people we attract, by the concept of our birth, by everything we do and are, we are not a tame hothouse flower.
We’re a weed. And nothing can stop us. Which is why so many abroad hate us. They know our ideas, our concepts are coming for them.
We have only just begun. Yeah, the 20th century was bad, and as its ways die, it feels like we’re coming apart. But that’s what a sudden need to grow up feels like.
Here, light your torch of freedom from mine.
The future is that way. And we’re going there, becoming more free, more innovative, more infectious along the way.
No more central dictates. No more power concentrated on feeble, crazed hands. No more top-down “innovation.”
The future happens in freedom. It happens individual by individual, as we die to the past and rebuild more adaptable, faster, more niche, more varied, more knowledgeably (because no one knows your business better than you.)
That’s where America set out to go 200 years ago, and that’s where we’re going.
We are the best hope of humanity.
And humanity has a universe to conquer.
According To Hoyt 