Part 2, I guess??

In the 1950's, we reached the point where a single individual could induce global catastrophe through atomic weapons. We have been living under that Sword of Damocles for over half a century. However, we are now reaching the point where a private individual without state backing could achieve nearly the same effect, whether through pathogens or computer malware. A fairly small cabal of determined individuals could also achieve the same ends through acquisition of existing nuclear weapon stocks in Pakistan, North Korea, or Russia. 

Regardless of the how or why, we're approaching a point where genocide can be accessible to the common man. And what is our response to this inevitability? Openly, we ignore it, just like we've ignored the atomic weaponry scattered around the world for 60+ years. Privately, I suspect that the curtailment of civil liberties and increase in surveillance states this century is in part a response to those existential threats. The fact that private information is also a medium of exchange among the new, data-driven elite is just a market incentive to accelerate the ascension of the digital police state. 

Does the line from Ben Franklin "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety" still apply in an era where existential threats can only become more numerous and deadly? Should every human have the freedom to potentially kill millions, if not billions?

I don't think I'm going to like the answer, regardless of whether the question can be answered.

However, that doesn't prevent others from formulating an answer.
Authoritarianism, thought to be on the wane at the end of the last century, is definitely back in vogue. Countries like China have long proven that economic freedom and individual freedom are separable, and the authoritarian-populist-nationalist wave sweeping the globe shows that such ideas have appeal for the under-employed masses, with the traditional excuse of "If you're not doing anything wrong, you don't have anything to be afraid of" sufficing for many.

The genius of data-gathering smartphone apps lies in the fact that, not only have we consented to being watched, but that we seek it out and will pay for the privilege of privacy violation. Who knows? You might go viral and make millions! Who cares about privacy? It's insidiously brilliant.

Of course, I too use a smartphone and have a car with a GPS tracker in it - most cars newer than a certain vintage do. I don't see myself as a hypocrite for pointing all these things out - merely that one should be aware of the underlying reasons why, for instance, social media websites are free (Answer: they sell user data). 

Freedom is life! Freedom is death!

Inspired by, among other things, this article:

As a child of the liberal-humanist Enlightenment, I did not realize how peculiar a thing personal liberty is until well into adulthood.

Our hunter-gatherer forebears were free to do as they chose, although their choices were severely proscribed by the necessities of survival, and probably by deference to their elders.

Then as now, the personal liberty of children is necessarily curtailed by their parents and elders, for children (especially the very young) do not understand consequences, and infants are too undeveloped to even have agency. The lone infant is free to die from hunger or exposure if not taken into someone's arms. The toddler is free to crawl into an oven, if not for an observant caregiver.

The development of villages and (soon after) agriculture caused humans to cluster together in groups larger than the family units exhibited by hunter-gatherers. For around ten millennia, the march of time has placed many of us into larger and larger groups, until today the majority of humans live in cities, many of them holding over a million. With ever-larger populations, we are exposed to ever-more strangers; those who aren't kin. A farming village; a cluster of a few clans (see image below) is a good way to organize a small community based on Dunbar's Number, better known as the Monkeysphere.

Everybody knows everybody in such a village, and everybody has their place. You know what people don't have much of in these settings? Personal freedom. Much waking time is dedicated to agricultural labor, although agricultural success is still often dependent on vagaries of weather. Thus, these societies tend toward religiosity and conservatism, as any disruption of the social order becomes apparent quickly, either socially or supernaturally (which can be considered the same thing). 

The monkeysphere isn't the perfect theory to explain human behavior by any means, but the monkeysphere theory's estimated optimum size for human groups (150) is a reasonable size for a lot of horticultural/agricultural societies. Anyone outside the "monkeysphere"/social network isn't really considered a "real" person. An effectively-universal human trait is Xenophobia, fear of "that which isn't us." An unknown quantity is a potential threat, and can be treated as such. How much of folklore and mythology concerned with fear of the stranger? Enough that the parable of The Good Samaritan, or the reminder "For you were strangers in the land of Egypt" stand out as truly extraordinary, and often forgotten in practice.  

"Western Civilization" is largely beyond that organizational level, as can be potentially connected to anyone, anywhere (intentionally or otherwise). However, we are forced to interact with strangers constantly - driving on the road with them, using products made by them, learning of distant events through them, reading blogs by them, etc. The fundamental terror of Civilization is that one (or more) of those strangers is a threat, and we won't know it until it's too late. You could call it the "They Live!"  phenomenon. It's probably one of the reasons why city dwellers have higher rates of mental illness - we're constantly alone, lost in a crowd. 

On the other hand, we are pretty damn free to do as we please: 

• Fail to obtain the necessities of life? The social safety net intervenes. 
• Run in front of a car for fun? You're taken to a hospital and treated. 
• Say something horrible about the authorities? No legal consequences. 

Of course, all these situations have caveats, but there are exceptions to every rule. By a number of standards, we are historically fortunate. However, I'm not sure how long it will last. 

Curating a collection of software

A substantial part of my professional background lies in collections management - mostly archival or museum.
I showed an early aptitude for this when I began cataloging my Mother's collection of comic books from her adolescence, circa late 1960's-early 1970's. Gingerly manipulating back issues of Action Comics into Mylar baggies was great preparation for my future work-life.

In graduate school, I learned that the most important skill of a curator is learning when to refuse a new item, or when to downsize a collection.
The lines between curator, collector, and hoarder are precious thin, and your institution's budget should be respected by not acquiring items that do not contribute to your organization's mission.

• A curator should accumulate and maintain a collection to the highest standards available to their skills, workplace, and profession. 
• A collector accumulates based on theme and desire. 
• A hoarder...just accumulates things. 

Don't be a collector or hoarder. That lies on the path to neglecting what matters most - the collection.

This outlook is so all-consuming for me that I do this in my spare time for friends. One friend is accumulating a research collection of games (digital and analog) for a major university, so I'm doing my best advising him how to go about things. Of course, he's worked in major museums internationally, so who am I to talk about this stuff?

When putting together a collection of games, software, or other material that is wholly or partially digital:

• Having a collecting strategy is important, especially since you're dealing with a variety of item types, from software, to boxes filled with tiny things, to books. 
• Usage of online software archives is a good thing for software, especially if you can get permission from the webmasters of said archives to download their stuff onto your server. That negates many of the issues of preserving data on obsolete formats like Floppy disks, as much of the work has already been done for you. 
• You'll want a mission statement for collections, as nobody stays at an institution forever - have everything in writing; leave nothing in your head. 
• Any collection of digital content needs a mix of stuff that's not for sale anymore, doesn't work on current machines, etc. This is known as AbandonWare or Orphaned Works. 
• It's super-fortunate that this problem is being (partially) solved with the rash of Remastered Editions, Humble Bundles, Gog.com, Archive.org efforts, etc. However, availability is of course a fickle thing, as shown by Alan Wake, which now unavailable on all online sales due to its soundtrack-licensing deals expiring, and the publisher being unable to renew them as of yet. 
• The other challenge for a collecting strategy (as you've likely noticed by now) is whether to collect the well-known, the exemplars of the genre, the innovative, the obscure, or some combination of the above. Connoisseurs of pretty much anything will inevitably encounter noble junk (good ideas poorly executed). As a repository for research purposes, you can choose to include content that is an evolutionary "dead end," critical success/commercial failure, etc.
• Don't automatically-reject commercial successes out of hand, merely that such content must have some other feature that merits their inclusion within the collection.  
• Another question of collection strategy is selecting what to collect from a franchise. The first or most recent entry in a franchise may not be the one most meritorious of inclusion. Choose the entry that exemplifies the entire franchise, or the entry that is most innovative. 
• So which of these do you acquire for the collection? That must be answered and articulated by you.

Chili

As a Texan by upbringing, I am contractually obligated to make chili now and then. It was the first thing I learned to cook, and one of a small list of things that I make from memory.
Of course, being chili, I don't really make it from memory - I make it up as I go along, with whatever is taking up space in the fridge/pantry/freezer.

Most of the chili I've made is vegetarian, because I prefer supporting industrialized slaughterhouses as little as possible, and I don't like paying a premium for "happy cows." More recently, I've even developed a vegetarian chili that has no beans, just to see how far I could push the envelope of avoiding common food sensitivities. I love beans, so this recipe I use now is more a supplement to a normal chili, rather than a stand-alone.

Eggplant, mushrooms, and cauliflower (especially the latter) seem to be very in right now. I'd say that part of their popularity is because of their use as providing healthy substitutes to meat, while not trying to be meat. Particularly when roasted, these three foods develop a wonderful texture, caramelization, and savory-sweet flavor.

What does this have to do with chili? Well, those who are willing to wait all day for chili (and you should, because good chili is worth cooking all day), use these three things to improve your veggie stews. Oil up a big roasting pan - slice eggplant into 1-inch rounds - roughly chop mushrooms and cauliflower - line the bottom of the pan with eggplant, then layer on the other stuff.

Heavily season with chili powder, black pepper, and cumin before baking at 450 degrees F for...a while. This usually takes upwards of 45 minutes. If you're feeling extra-lazy in food prep, throw in some chopped onions and tomatoes to simmer in their juices and flavor everything in there. Garlic cloves and sweet bell peppers can go in at the half-way point of the roasting, which is also when everything needs to be stirred. Keep roasting this mess until everything is browned and about to blacken. You now have something akin to a sofrito, mirepoix, or włoszczyzna (never, ever ask me how to pronounce the latter) without all the work of sauteing and sweating over the stove-top.

I did this a couple times as an experiment to produce bean-less vegetarian chili and was pleasantly surprised. I still prefer it mixed with beans, however, as it provides a nice, meaty texture and absorbs seasonings better than tofu would.

I also made vegetarian shepherd's pie for the 14th of March (or "Pi-day"). The Greek letter on top of the pie is made from homemade mushroom gravy, which takes a infuriating amount of simmering to make, but is well worthwhile as a topping for potatoes or biscuits.

I really need to make this again...

A society of letters/Respublica Literaria

Sometimes it's nearly impossible to find people to play games with in-person. My father, an avid board-gamer in his younger days, would play Chess and Diplomacy by postcard. I'm sure people in earlier days did similar things through the post or telegram. 

But what if there were games that were meant to be played long-distance? That eliminates social contract issues that can arise in not doing things face-to-face. I'll admit that I've played essentially-zero long-distance games, message board or otherwise. I dislike long-distance games even more than long-distance relationships. But perhaps with a rules-set built for distance play would be better?

For thousands of years, long-distance communication was done through a mix of couriers and written texts. Both were a strategic asset - interference with mail remains a serious crime today, and impeding the business of an imperial courier could be a capital crime. Typically, international correspondence would be between rulers or their emissaries. Classical civilization made scholarly correspondence international, and Christianity and Islam further increased correspondence to clergy, who were often also scholars as well. 

Starting with the Rennaissance, letter-writing became a major pursuit of the educated elite, who would often be literature in a common language (e.g. Latin, Greek, or French) and created a multi-century network of correspondence that came to be known as Respublica Literaria (Republic of Letters). This informal, international fellowship was primarily male, bourgeoisie, or nobility, and remotely collaborated on various projects. The link goes to a site with visualizations of this network. While this "Republic" was concentrated in Europe, human nodes of the network, like Benjamin Franklin and Athanasius Kircher, maintained intercontinental connections. 

Letter-writing is becoming a lost art. Many arts are always endangered, but that is a blog topic for another day. I learned to write a decent letter to my grandparents, particularly my grandfather, who has earned the right to avoid what technology he can get away with. Hand-written thank-you notes are also a valuable tool in the arsenal of the grateful, or those who wish to appear grateful. Perhaps an RPG/storytelling exercise based around letters would allow the preservation of such things? After all, the most popular role-playing games take place in a pseudo-medieval world, where literacy is precious and communication can be slow without certain magic. 

Alternatively, letter-writing in the classroom can potentially be a powerful exercise. Students can practice their skill at description, persuasion, formatting, etc. Or make them role-play out writing a letter, either as a character in literature, or someone living through a historical event. Yes, much of it will be cringe-worthy, but it might reach a pupil that otherwise won't be by conventional writing exercises, and they'll learn how to write a letter to boot. 

I'll put down more about letter-writing in RPG settings in another blog entry. 

Humanzees

I've referenced the podcast Ken & Robin Talk About Stuff  before on this blog. They're a pair of writers that frequently collaborate on RPG-related projects, and have overlapping interests in fiction and non-fiction (though Ken is more of a historian, while Robin is more of a narrative critic). Since their podcast has literally hundreds of episodes and I spend a lot of time in my car or doing data entry, I have copious opportunity to listen to their back-catalog.

Most recently, I listened with much pleasure to Episode 163, in which they discuss the history and stories surrounding attempts to create Humanzees - Human/Chimpanzee hybrids. These attempts were actually made, by Americans, the Soviets, and Imperial Germany, at minimum. They were also multi-decade efforts, running from the late 19th century to the height of the Cold War. Unsurprisingly, there was a military interest in creating super-strong but not-so-smart soldiers, particularly on the part of Josef Stalin, who sponsored research in his native Georgia (Sakartvelo) by Ilya Ivanovitch Ivanov.