The Old Hack

I recently encountered a genius on Facebook who said that there was nothing impressive about the space program, that we had had rockets for centuries. I guess he didn't hold with the work of Sir Isaac Newton (the deadliest son-of-a-bitch in space), astrophysics and the development of the maths needed to handle the interactions of multiple planetary bodies orbiting the same system.

Funnily enough, it was on WikiQuotes that I read an article which seemed to support him saying it, but the article stated the same thing that I also stressed above: that it is hard to predict the future and that in the context of the time he said it, it was just fine. Heinlein once wrote a very cool article in which he attempted to predict future political and technological developments. This was in 1950. In some he proved to be too optimistic, in a couple of others (mobile phones being a key example) his wildest predictions fell short and in just one did he prove absolutely correct: the collapse of Eastern Bloc communism. The point being that it is one thing to see humour in past remarks and another to blame the person involved for failing to predict the future. Most of us can manage to sound like idiots when speaking about the present just fine.

Overly excited, happy or angry... sounds about right!

That is what Microsoft's propaganda department really badly wanted you to believe. Unfortunately, the poor man actually said it. I personally do not hold it against him or laugh at him for it; at the time you didn't exactly see people argue against it in hordes. I have one constant in my life following me around: hindsight is always better. If I look hard enough, I have said far stupider things than Mr. Gates' unfortunate quote.

Hrm. I do not really see what you mean but that may be due to me being very tired. At any rate I am glad we came to some level of understanding. 640K ought to be enough for anybody. -- Bill Gates (1981)

As long as he isn't a lost Sherman tank. That one was awful. I'd rather think of the Prof as a Pershing.

That is what she has her fairy dolls for.

Oh I agree. Once again, he displayed what he was made of when he drew the line at murdering Abraham and framing Mr. Verres. Absolutely. Victimisation is often a cycle. This makes it especially important to break such cycles. The thing is, it is possible to be a victim without passing harm on to others. As Eli Wiesel said, victimhood does not ennoble nor confer special privileges. But it does make it important to help the victims. In this case, it also means that victims who in turn become victimisers (as noted, this is not all of them) must be helped but also brought to understand that what they did was wrong. That is a complex question and I have no ready answer. What I do know is that it is a bad idea to define a person by their victimhood. One does them no favours that way and they tend to find it supremely offensive. In short, remember that what you have is not a victim but rather a human being that was victimised.

Reading 'odometer' made me think of some sort of Star Trek gadget from Deep Space 9 that Quark might have come up with in order to try and spot Odo when he could be lurking in disguise. I am easily amused.

Yes, and please note, what I am arguing is that he still had a share of the responsibility. Not that he is entirely reprehensible. It is the notion of giving him a free pass I strenuously object to. It is the task of a judge to include extenuating circumstances, after all. This is critically important and is part of why I object to merely giving someone a pass. Let us say that Magus, now free, simply waltzed on his merry way and said, "That was fun. Anyone for pizza?" He would have learned nothing save the lesson that it is OK to manipulate and endanger people when you kinda think you have to. And the circumstances for 'have to' will erode over time. First you commit the crimes out of need. Then you commit more crimes to cover up the first crimes. Then you commit still more crimes, always driven by a 'need' which turned false somewhere on the road unnoticed by you... And there is always the need of the victims. The need to be recognised as people, their need for justice or at least closure. Justice does not have to be crippling punishment for the perpetrator. In fact, often it does not even help. Justice is societal recognition of the wrong, aid in overcoming its consequences and ideally preventing more wrongs at the source. It is certainly not saying "But think of the poor perpetrator, his life is ruined now" and then sending him off with a pat on the back to commit more crimes.

Ah. In that case I misunderstood you and I apologise for that. I am afraid this is a sensitive matter for me -- there are people who would feel that Magus was morally justified in his actions and I simply cannot accept that. I will certainly agree that in case those wronged forgive him he is at least absolved from what wrongs he did to them. The larger picture is still rather shaky and I am unwilling to declare judgment there myself; I merely feel that simply dismissing his deeds is a serious mistake. Once again I apologise for my harsh earlier words. I have apparently been under more stress than I realised and I allowed myself to take that out on you, which was a very serious mistake. I am sorry.

All that is true, but this merely means that Pandora and Magus share responsibility. And Pandora still has a lot to answer for. "Tell them my tale -- ill deeds along with the good -- and let them judge accordingly." Pandora is fortunate in that she is still alive to learn from her past mistakes as well as the mistakes of her past self. Magus, too, is still in a position to atone. What I completely object to and in fact refuse to accept is that responsibility is in any way mitigated by either the perpetrator's situation or by net positive outcomes. Magus could have refused to do what Pandora asked of him, and in fact did so when he disobeyed her orders to turn Mr. Verres into a murderer. That counts to his credit -- he refused in the face not only of personal loss but also imminent personal danger, and I admire him for that. But as for the rest of his actions, he remains responsible for them and no matter how you turn it about he endangered a lot of people with his actions. It is, of course, possible to mitigate judgment based on these circumstances. But that is a separate matter.

But this is exactly what he was saying. Magus should get a pass for mentally manipulating people, endangering innocents (Sirleck might have escaped if not for Ellen, just for one thing), inflicting emotional trauma (Ellen's creation) and for calling aberrants into Moperville as a distraction (that they would probably be killed is cold comfort to those they did manage to kill.) All of that is fine because Magus is actually really a nice person!

Then you are working from the wrong presumption. It is not a matter of what happened after Magus' misdeeds. He does not get to gain credit from unintended consequences. If I light someone's home on fire and they subsequently obtain insurance money that more than recompensates them for their losses, I am still an arsonist. Magus is responsible for Ellen's existence in the worst possible way -- she was intended solely as a fire-and-forget weapon that was supposed to transform Elliot once and could henceforth be ignored. Moreover, if his plan had failed and Ellen had gone out of control and managed to kill herself, that would have been on Magus, too. The trauma from her creation that she has yet to recover fully from is on him, too. Elliot's public discommodation and forced gender change, with all the possible negative social consequences, these are on Magus, too. And what if there had been no convenient home for Ellen, no handy financial support for her family? No. Magus does not get to take credit for positive consequences that he had no hand in. Nor does he get to evade responsibility for his actions merely because the risks and dangers he selfishly exposed others to did not come true. If I race through a school district at 100 mph, I am still guilty of reckless endangerment of school children even if no-one gets hurt. Going by your logic, the school shooter in Parkland may have killed seventeen people but it should be to his credit that many of the students he did not manage to kill went on to achieve national fame and start a movement that could potentially change gun law. I do not buy that one, either. The greatest moment Magus had was in my opinion when he refused to commit murder on Pandora's say so. If you wish to look for his redeeming traits, look there. I am not giving him an easy out simply because his victims as a whole were not too badly hurt.

Very well. I suppose I should let your opinion rule in all matters of good and evil henceforth. The opinions and the lives of the victims of the perpetrator matter not at all. By conveniently reducing the victims (in this case, Elliot, Ashley and Ellen) to faceless organisms like 'an oppressive government' they are robbed of any relevance and Magus can treat them as he sees fit, hiding behind that catchall excuse of all perpetrators of dubious deeds, 'the end justifies the means.' It is truly wondrous how much forgiveness and lenience that is displayed by those who did not personally suffer loss or injury in such affairs.

Yes. Necessary evils remain evil. Some are potentially more forgivable than others but the greater part of that must needs be resolved by those who are wronged. Speaking only for myself, I am very, very tired of those who display an astounding capacity for forgiving wrongs not done to them personally.

It is a little late to think of that after accidentally casting Armageddon, yes. Certain things benefit from safety mechanisms, especially those whose accidental employment may result in a bodycount.

Alliterations are absolutely absent. Asserting abnegation.

That is just lazy. Be polite. Call him by his full name, Agiltanius Aristophanes Aloysius Antoninus Abraxas-Abalamahalamatandra.

All too much sense. It does strange things to the human mind to spend your time in complete isolation. Escape from that, no matter how strange the company, fills an essential need. It is difficult to see how he could have reacted otherwise.

Obviously Magus' real name is Agiltanius Aristophanes Aloysius Antoninus Abraxas-Abalamahalamatandra.

Yeah. I also know that when they collided, the Stone Age cultures inexplicably didn't do as well as the metal users. In fact, it was around this time or maybe a few centuries before that that my ancestors arrived to Denmark. And they saw that the poor primitive locals hadn't gotten around to upgrading their stuff from stone yet so they decided to show them the blessings of bronze. It was a huge increase in the Danish standard of living. Well, at least it was for everyone who accepted the new rule and found themselves a job in the changing economy, possibly as thrall or concubine. But at long last people could upgrade to proper bronze smartphones and computers. If you think you are frustrated today, try getting coverage for a stone smartphone.

All of these and you are around, too.

Hoo boy, you are due some interesting times. Careful when you reach 70, the Year of Four Emperors was no picnic!

Philistine.