Flutter-head and other ailments (Pint and Robot politics.)
And if that subject-heading didn't make you go "erm..." and scroll on by: I had a thought.
Know how in most sci-fi with alternate-universe hopping, people are always meeting themselves? Even in universes where they ended up having abusive parents, or end up drug addicts...
So it occurred to me that unless in your home universe, your parents actually liked each other, the likelihood of them coming together in in other realities in order to make you is significantly lessened.
And in the Paxverse, there are soulmates; or at least, a version thereof (one that incidentally, can be measured scientifically by the time Katia Robensen is eighty or ninety years old, because she's a geek), and because the Delegates are magic-users of a sort, there's a much higher likelihood of finding your "soulmate" (and I need a new word for THAT, while we're at it), and ending up with them.
And assuming a multiverse in which there are Delegates in all the possible alternate realities they could somehow accidentally wander into, there's a pretty strong chance of meeting yourself, and meeting a you much more like you, because, well, magic making sure you happen. But not like Ben Sisko. That was aliens. Or magic aliens.
In other news, walking down the hill after work yesterday evening I saw that the buses are flashing HAPPY HOLIDAYS already. I have had this thought that machines are egalitarian, and they are. The college system only uses one letter for emergency contact - there's every variation for "relative", there's "friend," and then there's "P" for "spouse/significant other", or if you prefer, "P" for "partner." The machine just knows the letter.
And the buses? They don't wish "Merry Christmas." They wish "Happy Holidays," although admittedly most people around here wish "Happy Holidays" or "Season's Greetings;" I guess we're not as scared of scaring Christians. (In fairness, getting too proseletyz-y around here gets you laughed at, because who tries to make other people join their religions? Crazy people, that's who. Crazy people who need a minimum of a hundred other people believing the same thing to believe it's the right thing. (And hockey fans. The buses also, occasionally, shout "GO CANUCKS GO!") And mean people.
I'm over-simplifying, but I just wrote a really, really long scene in which Santa Claus tells a teenage mum that "politics is really just about who you want to have a pint with, and trying to make sure everybody you come across is worth a conversation." I'm siding with Santa. (No, I do not know why I have been writing Christmas stories. I just have.)
Anyway. Machines. They've got it right. That's how we should vote. Considering no qualities that a machine wouldn't understand.
And I, for one, welcome our new robotic overlords.
And we will call that my holiday post. ;)
I'm very rambly today, aren't I? I'm having a serious case of flutter-head.
I should go write Shirley Holmes/Veronica Mars fic, is what I should do. Much more sensible.
Know how in most sci-fi with alternate-universe hopping, people are always meeting themselves? Even in universes where they ended up having abusive parents, or end up drug addicts...
So it occurred to me that unless in your home universe, your parents actually liked each other, the likelihood of them coming together in in other realities in order to make you is significantly lessened.
And in the Paxverse, there are soulmates; or at least, a version thereof (one that incidentally, can be measured scientifically by the time Katia Robensen is eighty or ninety years old, because she's a geek), and because the Delegates are magic-users of a sort, there's a much higher likelihood of finding your "soulmate" (and I need a new word for THAT, while we're at it), and ending up with them.
And assuming a multiverse in which there are Delegates in all the possible alternate realities they could somehow accidentally wander into, there's a pretty strong chance of meeting yourself, and meeting a you much more like you, because, well, magic making sure you happen. But not like Ben Sisko. That was aliens. Or magic aliens.
In other news, walking down the hill after work yesterday evening I saw that the buses are flashing HAPPY HOLIDAYS already. I have had this thought that machines are egalitarian, and they are. The college system only uses one letter for emergency contact - there's every variation for "relative", there's "friend," and then there's "P" for "spouse/significant other", or if you prefer, "P" for "partner." The machine just knows the letter.
And the buses? They don't wish "Merry Christmas." They wish "Happy Holidays," although admittedly most people around here wish "Happy Holidays" or "Season's Greetings;" I guess we're not as scared of scaring Christians. (In fairness, getting too proseletyz-y around here gets you laughed at, because who tries to make other people join their religions? Crazy people, that's who. Crazy people who need a minimum of a hundred other people believing the same thing to believe it's the right thing. (And hockey fans. The buses also, occasionally, shout "GO CANUCKS GO!") And mean people.
I'm over-simplifying, but I just wrote a really, really long scene in which Santa Claus tells a teenage mum that "politics is really just about who you want to have a pint with, and trying to make sure everybody you come across is worth a conversation." I'm siding with Santa. (No, I do not know why I have been writing Christmas stories. I just have.)
Anyway. Machines. They've got it right. That's how we should vote. Considering no qualities that a machine wouldn't understand.
And I, for one, welcome our new robotic overlords.
And we will call that my holiday post. ;)
I'm very rambly today, aren't I? I'm having a serious case of flutter-head.
I should go write Shirley Holmes/Veronica Mars fic, is what I should do. Much more sensible.