Near the top of the hill on G Street is the Emerald City laundromat. Two doors up is Carmelas restaurant, with huge burritos for $5-something and up. Free wifi, but the beer is pricey even during happy hour: $2.75 for Pacifico.
I've been working on an idea... Suppose people can actually go back in time like Tom Brown, Jr. relates in The Vision, and as McMoneagle believes. Now suppose that some sensitives, like the old Indian in the Vision story, can see and hear the time travelers.
Now imagine an alternative history in which most peoples are still hunter-gatherers or horticulturalists. Agriculture has been tried by some tribes but always eventually abandoned in favor of an easier lifestyle. Zoom forwards a hundred years: a comet hits the earth and instantly wipes out almost all of humanity, not to mention most other species as well. And the atmosphere has become so toxic that the few people who somehow survived don't have much hope to continue living. If there are any shamans among them, wouldn't they go back in time, find some of the earliest agricultural and pastoral tribes, and try to influence them to expand their control over the whole earth? That way, technology could be developed in time to save the spark of life from extinction. Ain't no way a hunter-gatherer is going to need or want to develop rocketry. You'd have a hard time selling him a wheel. Already several times on this trip I wanted to ship my skates back and lighten my load.
So there's another theory to add to Daniel Quinn's "civilization was a tragic mistake" and Fn's "civilization is mankind's 'teenage rebellion'": civilization is a necessary evil, intended to get this incredible antientropic force called "life" onto other planets before disaster strikes.
I'm not sure I believe it myself, but it might be worth considering. It still taught us a whole shitload of bad habits we'll eventually have to unlearn.
The 'vi' editor isn't segfaulting any more on my iPod. No clue why not, but now I can blog as god intended, composing posts while offline and uploading whenever possible.
I wonder if anyone's taken advantage of the police's use of special frequencies to implement a sophisticated copwatch system using directional antennas... hmm...
last updated 2013-01-10 21:15:10. served from tektonic.jcomeau.com