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May. 4th, 2017 06:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gwydion* "Trump judgment on second pick for Army secretary questioned:"
* "Trump's First 100 Days: Unnecessary Cruelty:"
* "Booker: GOP health care bill a 'death knell':"
* "Under the GOP's health plan, sexual assault would be considered a preexisting condition:" https://mic.com/articles/176092/under-the-gop-s-health-plan-sexual-assault-would-be-considered-a-preexisting-condition?utm_campaign=social&utm_medium=main&utm_source=policymicTBLR#.0lcYJyYMz
* Who to call to resist: http://taibhsearachd.tumblr.com/post/160293677089/rallyforbernie-ducksorclowns
* "'Really bad' or 'catastrophic': Comey defends Clinton choice:" https://apnews.com/5a67afb351864638abef970c320b550c/Senators-to-hear-from-Comey-amid-FBI's-Russia-investigation
* Prosecutors have decided the police were entirely justified in holding Alton Sterling down and executing him in front of a convenience store for no reason. After all, the murdered man was black.
* They knew. "I think one of the most disturbing things about the popular narrative we teach around the Holocaust is how the “No one knew,” myth still flourishes and is still widely spoken and believed." http://trulysophisticat.tumblr.com/post/160295532017/cardozzza-halfhardtorock-i-think-one-of-the
* "Mark Hamill Pranks Star Wars Fans with Epic Surprise for Force For Change:"
* "Van Cleef & Arpels Automate Fée Ondine:"
* "How to Make Trump Care About Global Warming:"
* "Real Talk From Out-Of-Context Trump:"
* "The New U.S. Constitution As Written By Trump:"
* A reminder to readers: I absolutely do make mistakes. It you catch me in a factual error, I appreciate a heads up. I’d much rather correct something than continue to be wrong. I do mistype. I do occasionally misremember. In some cases new information changes interpretation and in others certain details are in dispute. I definitely do not know everything. I may or may not agree with you on opinion and interpretation when presented with new information or other points of view, but where facts are concerned right is right, whatever the White House insists to the contrary and I thank all of you whose sharp eyes catch me when I slip up.
* "Kamala Khan Deserves Your Support (On the Marvel Boycott Debate):" https://www.thefandomentals.com/boycotting-marvel-not-the-answer/
* I have reached "The Time Meddler" in my Hartnell Doctor Who rewatch. There are the usual cringy problems with the Viking and Early Medieval English people depictions that made it hard to watch first time around, but this time I have been having fun with the irony of the Doctor chastising another Time Lord (though they aren't called that yet) for meddling with the course of historical events. yes, there is a moral difference as the one is using time travel for financial gain and doing something as chaotic as trying to make Harold win the battle with William the Bastard in 1066, but the line is mighty thin as I seem to remember Nine's interference with a certain Satellite Five leading to a complete rewrite of a centuryish of human history and a catastrophic Dalek invasion. Not personal gain, no, but I'd argue the The Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire not happening when and how it should and the Dalek conquering the earth and ruling for however long that was is up there with the Norman Invasion failing.
I'm not saying they knew that that sort of thing was going to happen back in 1965. Of course they didn't, but consider the pesticide story which already aired by this point. This was a time invader or even an alien threat. The Doctor and his companions intervened in an entirely human plan to put a pesticide into production that likely would have destroyed all or most of the food supply, presumably including the Oceans with run off. Absolutely not letting that happen was the right thing to do, but how does that compare to the new Who episode where they don't warn the Pompeians about Vesuvius. How is one a necessary intervention and the other a necessary sacrifice. I know they later introduce "fixed points in time" but how really can one tell objectively. How would someone from any time after the Time Meddlar stopped the Norman invasion know really they were supposed to win? The things that attacked the church when Rose tried to save her father never appeared before or after that one episode and seem mighty arbitrary. Same with that one time a suicide undid Ten's meddling with a fixed point. It never happened again before or after and i can't count the number of times people lived specifically because the Doctor turned up or died when they weren't suppose to because one or another Time lord, Dalek, or assorted flotsam turned up when they shouldn't. How objectively are those cases different? how does it all work with the times the Doctor crossed his own Time lines even though that's not supposed to be possible the way messing with fixed points isn't?
I know, I've rambled off the point, which was that even using only the Hartnell Era episodes aired before Time Meddler, they've handed us a pretty juicy ethical issue about when and what sort of time meddling is acceptable and it only gets more complicated if you add and extra 50+ years of Whovian lore. I'll never be a Hartnell fan and the list of flaws in the writing, accent work, acting, special effects, etc. in the run of the First Doctor make whole swathes of it hard to watch, but they till have some pretty interesting things tucked in between cringe worthy white people playing Aztecs and embarrassing sequences like the rural Southern stereotype on top of the empire state building or that time... was it Hartnell or Troughton? where all the Americans talk like John Wayne even though I've never met an American in real life who talks like John Wayne nor seen one in TV or film except the actual John Wayne. For all the problematic elements and outright bad decisions made here or there, as early as 1965, they were trying to pose ethical questions that are worth debating and concepts worth mulling as good science fiction often does.
*****
* Full list of Resistance and charity links has been migrated to my profile as it was getting out of hand.
* This is a Real Life friend of mine. They do very much need the money and a number of people and beasts depend on him and his husband. They have been incredibly helpful and supportive of me. If you can kick in, it is a kindness.: https://www.youcaring.com/tod-788345
* Help pay for cat food, litter, meds, medical copays: paypal.me/Gwydion or Paypal Lethran@gmail.com
* Want Game of Thrones without the creepy? We desperately need new players. We are very inclusive. "Game of Bones MUSH:" gobmush.wikidot.com
* "Trump's First 100 Days: Unnecessary Cruelty:"
* "Booker: GOP health care bill a 'death knell':"
* "Under the GOP's health plan, sexual assault would be considered a preexisting condition:" https://mic.com/articles/176092/under-the-gop-s-health-plan-sexual-assault-would-be-considered-a-preexisting-condition?utm_campaign=social&utm_medium=main&utm_source=policymicTBLR#.0lcYJyYMz
* Who to call to resist: http://taibhsearachd.tumblr.com/post/160293677089/rallyforbernie-ducksorclowns
* "'Really bad' or 'catastrophic': Comey defends Clinton choice:" https://apnews.com/5a67afb351864638abef970c320b550c/Senators-to-hear-from-Comey-amid-FBI's-Russia-investigation
* Prosecutors have decided the police were entirely justified in holding Alton Sterling down and executing him in front of a convenience store for no reason. After all, the murdered man was black.
* They knew. "I think one of the most disturbing things about the popular narrative we teach around the Holocaust is how the “No one knew,” myth still flourishes and is still widely spoken and believed." http://trulysophisticat.tumblr.com/post/160295532017/cardozzza-halfhardtorock-i-think-one-of-the
* "Mark Hamill Pranks Star Wars Fans with Epic Surprise for Force For Change:"
* "Van Cleef & Arpels Automate Fée Ondine:"
* "How to Make Trump Care About Global Warming:"
* "Real Talk From Out-Of-Context Trump:"
* "The New U.S. Constitution As Written By Trump:"
* A reminder to readers: I absolutely do make mistakes. It you catch me in a factual error, I appreciate a heads up. I’d much rather correct something than continue to be wrong. I do mistype. I do occasionally misremember. In some cases new information changes interpretation and in others certain details are in dispute. I definitely do not know everything. I may or may not agree with you on opinion and interpretation when presented with new information or other points of view, but where facts are concerned right is right, whatever the White House insists to the contrary and I thank all of you whose sharp eyes catch me when I slip up.
* "Kamala Khan Deserves Your Support (On the Marvel Boycott Debate):" https://www.thefandomentals.com/boycotting-marvel-not-the-answer/
* I have reached "The Time Meddler" in my Hartnell Doctor Who rewatch. There are the usual cringy problems with the Viking and Early Medieval English people depictions that made it hard to watch first time around, but this time I have been having fun with the irony of the Doctor chastising another Time Lord (though they aren't called that yet) for meddling with the course of historical events. yes, there is a moral difference as the one is using time travel for financial gain and doing something as chaotic as trying to make Harold win the battle with William the Bastard in 1066, but the line is mighty thin as I seem to remember Nine's interference with a certain Satellite Five leading to a complete rewrite of a centuryish of human history and a catastrophic Dalek invasion. Not personal gain, no, but I'd argue the The Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire not happening when and how it should and the Dalek conquering the earth and ruling for however long that was is up there with the Norman Invasion failing.
I'm not saying they knew that that sort of thing was going to happen back in 1965. Of course they didn't, but consider the pesticide story which already aired by this point. This was a time invader or even an alien threat. The Doctor and his companions intervened in an entirely human plan to put a pesticide into production that likely would have destroyed all or most of the food supply, presumably including the Oceans with run off. Absolutely not letting that happen was the right thing to do, but how does that compare to the new Who episode where they don't warn the Pompeians about Vesuvius. How is one a necessary intervention and the other a necessary sacrifice. I know they later introduce "fixed points in time" but how really can one tell objectively. How would someone from any time after the Time Meddlar stopped the Norman invasion know really they were supposed to win? The things that attacked the church when Rose tried to save her father never appeared before or after that one episode and seem mighty arbitrary. Same with that one time a suicide undid Ten's meddling with a fixed point. It never happened again before or after and i can't count the number of times people lived specifically because the Doctor turned up or died when they weren't suppose to because one or another Time lord, Dalek, or assorted flotsam turned up when they shouldn't. How objectively are those cases different? how does it all work with the times the Doctor crossed his own Time lines even though that's not supposed to be possible the way messing with fixed points isn't?
I know, I've rambled off the point, which was that even using only the Hartnell Era episodes aired before Time Meddler, they've handed us a pretty juicy ethical issue about when and what sort of time meddling is acceptable and it only gets more complicated if you add and extra 50+ years of Whovian lore. I'll never be a Hartnell fan and the list of flaws in the writing, accent work, acting, special effects, etc. in the run of the First Doctor make whole swathes of it hard to watch, but they till have some pretty interesting things tucked in between cringe worthy white people playing Aztecs and embarrassing sequences like the rural Southern stereotype on top of the empire state building or that time... was it Hartnell or Troughton? where all the Americans talk like John Wayne even though I've never met an American in real life who talks like John Wayne nor seen one in TV or film except the actual John Wayne. For all the problematic elements and outright bad decisions made here or there, as early as 1965, they were trying to pose ethical questions that are worth debating and concepts worth mulling as good science fiction often does.
*****
* Full list of Resistance and charity links has been migrated to my profile as it was getting out of hand.
* This is a Real Life friend of mine. They do very much need the money and a number of people and beasts depend on him and his husband. They have been incredibly helpful and supportive of me. If you can kick in, it is a kindness.: https://www.youcaring.com/tod-788345
* Help pay for cat food, litter, meds, medical copays: paypal.me/Gwydion or Paypal Lethran@gmail.com
* Want Game of Thrones without the creepy? We desperately need new players. We are very inclusive. "Game of Bones MUSH:" gobmush.wikidot.com