I'd like to preface this piece by clearly stating that I do not encourage or condone any illegal activities, no matter how entertaining or well-planned such attempts may be. I would like to note that I also do not condone many senseless driving laws which are designed to protect us from ourselves while hindering the effectiveness of our preferred mode of transportation, all while generating revenue for the state. That being said, buckle up. Not because you have to, but because you'd be stupid not to.
Pace, Don't Race
Whether you're in a hurry to get somewhere, simply impatient, or just an adrenaline junkie, the quickest way to get caught speeding is to be the fastest person on the road. Understand that police have to set priorities when pulling people over, which is why you can usually cruise past highway speed traps at 75 mph or under without worry. The best method of making sure that you're not the one who's going to get pulled over is using what I call a Speed Decoy. The way this works is simple: stay in the far left lane of the highway at a comfortable 70-75 mph until someone impatient comes up behind you. You'll know they're really itching to pass you when they start tailgating and drifting to the right to check their chances of getting around you in the other lane. Either allow them to do this or cede the lane to them. Once they're in front of you they should start accelerating, which is perfect. Just get in behind them and allow them to get a good distance ahead of you before you match their speed. You want to make sure you don't lose sight of them though, because if they take another lane and slow down or get off the highway entirely without you realizing it then you're suddenly the one going the fastest, which makes you fair game. As long as there's space between you and you don't lose sight of them, you can go as fast as they are without worrying about being caught by a speed trap. The only downside to this is you do still have to watch out for cops already in the flow of traffic who will run radar or attempt to match your speed behind you or on the sides.
Radar Detectors
Possibly the most useful tool you can legally keep in your car (in most states anyway) to avoid being pulled over. Obviously it's not a fool proof system, which is unfortunate because fool proof is exactly what you need against most cops, but it definitely negates a powerful tool used in the "war on speeding." Radar is one of the few things which will guarantee that you have to pay a ticket. It's almost never knocked down in court, unlike when your speed is estimated, which are easier to contend. If you don't have a radar detector visible when you're pulled over cops will inevitably write on your ticket that they got your speed using radar, whether or not they actually did. If you have one visible when you're pulled over and they didn't really run radar, they'll either be forced to write that they only estimated your speed, or just give you a warning so they don't have to show up to court when you contest it. (Always contest your tickets no matter how fast you were going. If they don't show up to court the judge will usually dismiss it.) They're more likely to show for court if radar was used because it's practically a guarantee for them, but if they estimated your speed you have a much better chance of winning your appeal because you can argue human error. After all, they don't exactly stick their lead detectives on traffic duty.
Trucker Tell
Trucks and other commercial vehicles can be your best friends on the road if you're trying to speed but unsure as to the amount of police on the road. When you're first deciding whether or not it's "safe" to speed on any particular highway, find some trucks. If the trucks you find are speeding, than there probably aren't many cops about. The theory behind this is that truckers are actually in communication with each other while on the road, so they know where the speed traps are set up or if there's a high volume of cops out on any given day/night. They also have a job which requires them to travel from one place to another quickly and efficiently, which means that paying fines and losing their licenses are not options for them. Truckers are just like you and me in that they want to spend as little time as possible on the road, but their livelihoods are also at risk when they're speeding, so if you see them exceeding the speed limit, chances are there's very little risk involved.
Don't Be An Ass
This should apply to just about all facets of life, but I'll narrow it down a bit for the purposes of this article. Don't be that guy who goes 60 mph in the fast lane, or the one tailgating everyone in the exit lane. Don't use the cars in the other lanes to box people out when they try to pass you. Don't tailgate or purposefully slow down when you're being tailgated. Don't throw your trash out the windows. Don't switch lanes at the last possible second to take your exit. Don't switch lanes when you see someone coming up fast behind you in that lane, just wait till they've passed. Don't do your makeup, eat, or text while you're driving. Don't write things on the windows/windshields of your car. ( I don't care how close to finished with high school you are, the world doesn't need to know and you don't need the extra distractions and reduced visibility) Don't honk your horn at traffic, it doesn't magically move the cars in front of you. And don't mouth off to the police officer when he pulls you over. "Yes, sir" "No, sir" and "I don't know, officer" are the best words that can come out of your mouth if you don't want a ticket; the phrase "My taxes pay your salary" never works.
Thursday, November 1, 2012
Saturday, October 13, 2012
Squirm
Below is a link to my original short story "Squirm," a speculative horror story published through Fear and Trembling Magazine.
http://www.fearandtremblingmag.com/2012/10/squirm/
http://www.fearandtremblingmag.com/2012/10/squirm/
Monday, September 24, 2012
Stop Crying About Welfare
My generation believes pretty strongly in the legalization, or at least decriminalization of drugs, most notably marijuana. And, much to the disappointment of old people across the country, we also tend to vote democrat (the small percentage of us that actually vote). Despite these stereotypes, I have a number of friends in favor of drug-testing welfare recipients, which in humanitarian terms is a "douche move."
Yes, the same people who will favor legalization with logic like "it's your body, do what you want with it," are in favor of revoking those same rights for people who receive welfare. They'll use reasoning like "I get drug tested to earn my money, so should they," and "if they can afford drugs they don't really need welfare," as they sort themselves into the group that has "earned their rights." Nevermind that many welfare recipients also work but do not earn enough to provide for themselves or their family, or that many are unable to work (note: unable not unwilling). Nevermind that these laws were put in place without a shred of evidence or information to justify their necessity and that since then statistics have shown that welfare recipients actually use drugs at a lower rate than the general population and therefore continuing to drug-test them actually costs the state more than it saves. Nevermind that you have an option of where to work if you don't like the policies at any one particular workplace, and people who are unable to work but still need to eat don't have those same options. And of course, nevermind the fact that for the majority of jobs, recreational drug use is as meaningless as gender or ethnicity when it comes to actually getting the job done.
Oh, I'm sorry. You don't like your tax money going towards providing welfare for people who might be on drugs? Well I don't like mine going towards funding unnecessary wars, or bailing out companies which maliciously screwed the American people out of their homes for a little extra money which they promptly lost, or that religious institutions are exempt from paying taxes despite the fact that they provide next to nothing to the community and are often breeding pits for hate and social unrest. No one likes paying taxes, and no one likes the idea that their taxes are being used for something they don't agree with. What you can do about it is go to some country where you can use your money to hire armed guards around your property so the poor starving people don't come around asking for handouts. What you can't do is decide who gets to eat. You can't chose who "deserves" it while you stuff your face and do whatever drugs you want. And you can't decide to subjugate an entire class of people simply because of your misconceptions about them.
Yes, the same people who will favor legalization with logic like "it's your body, do what you want with it," are in favor of revoking those same rights for people who receive welfare. They'll use reasoning like "I get drug tested to earn my money, so should they," and "if they can afford drugs they don't really need welfare," as they sort themselves into the group that has "earned their rights." Nevermind that many welfare recipients also work but do not earn enough to provide for themselves or their family, or that many are unable to work (note: unable not unwilling). Nevermind that these laws were put in place without a shred of evidence or information to justify their necessity and that since then statistics have shown that welfare recipients actually use drugs at a lower rate than the general population and therefore continuing to drug-test them actually costs the state more than it saves. Nevermind that you have an option of where to work if you don't like the policies at any one particular workplace, and people who are unable to work but still need to eat don't have those same options. And of course, nevermind the fact that for the majority of jobs, recreational drug use is as meaningless as gender or ethnicity when it comes to actually getting the job done.
Oh, I'm sorry. You don't like your tax money going towards providing welfare for people who might be on drugs? Well I don't like mine going towards funding unnecessary wars, or bailing out companies which maliciously screwed the American people out of their homes for a little extra money which they promptly lost, or that religious institutions are exempt from paying taxes despite the fact that they provide next to nothing to the community and are often breeding pits for hate and social unrest. No one likes paying taxes, and no one likes the idea that their taxes are being used for something they don't agree with. What you can do about it is go to some country where you can use your money to hire armed guards around your property so the poor starving people don't come around asking for handouts. What you can't do is decide who gets to eat. You can't chose who "deserves" it while you stuff your face and do whatever drugs you want. And you can't decide to subjugate an entire class of people simply because of your misconceptions about them.
Monday, September 17, 2012
Censorship
I've posted about censorship before, In fact I've written a much more substantial essay on my dislike of censorship. But I sit here tonight to write this much shorter post because, believe it or not, in this age of information and "reason," censorship is still abundant for the worst reasons imaginable.
At the time I'm typing this, it's 1 AM and Zack and Miri Make a Porno is airing on Comedy Central. While not even close to my favorite movie, (or even my favorite Kevin Smith movie) I decided to sit and watch for a few minutes while I make myself a late night snack. In the 3-5 minutes I watched I couldn't help but think "Why even bother airing this?" not because the movie was pretty bad, (it is) but because half the dialogue is censored, and entire shots are edited or removed. Of course, I wasn't surprised by this, just disturbed by the amount that censorship has integrated itself into our media.
The entire idea behind censorship stems from the idea that the edited content may be inappropriate for some viewers, an idea that's usually conveyed in the form of some shrill bitch yelling something along the lines of "think of the children!" But at 1 AM on a Sunday night (Monday morning?) any children watching Comedy Central should be removed from the care of their parents. Anyone else who might have managed to stumble across this content only to be offended at such crass concepts as cursing and sex can simply change the channel, or better yet, remove themselves entirely from society so they need not be offended ever again.
The disgusting thing about censorship is that it's a sanctioned form of selfishness. It's selfish to think that the rest of the world shares the same values that you do, and that they should therefore be restricted to only those values. It's selfish to think that just because you don't want to hear something, no one should be able to hear it. And having a consensus on what should and should not be censored doesn't make it any better. It's essentially the same as our country deciding that heavy metal music is a bad element in our society and then banning it entirely because some parents are too uninvolved in their children's lives to keep them from listening to it. Another analogy would be the plot from Footloose.
It's a shame that such a large section of our population doesn't understand this concept simply because they agree with what's being censored. You can show hookers who have been dead for years being dissected on the examination table in a primetime law enforcement drama, but God forbid those same viewers have to see breasts, ass, or listen to a swear word. Maybe when the FCC finally realizes that everything is offensive to someone, all those people will understand what assholes they've been for so many years. Until then, let your kids watch all the CSI and NCIS they can get, seeing dead bodies and violence depicted all over the place never messed a kid up, right? The rest of us will be enjoying internet pornography, because they don't give a shit if it offends someone.
At the time I'm typing this, it's 1 AM and Zack and Miri Make a Porno is airing on Comedy Central. While not even close to my favorite movie, (or even my favorite Kevin Smith movie) I decided to sit and watch for a few minutes while I make myself a late night snack. In the 3-5 minutes I watched I couldn't help but think "Why even bother airing this?" not because the movie was pretty bad, (it is) but because half the dialogue is censored, and entire shots are edited or removed. Of course, I wasn't surprised by this, just disturbed by the amount that censorship has integrated itself into our media.
The entire idea behind censorship stems from the idea that the edited content may be inappropriate for some viewers, an idea that's usually conveyed in the form of some shrill bitch yelling something along the lines of "think of the children!" But at 1 AM on a Sunday night (Monday morning?) any children watching Comedy Central should be removed from the care of their parents. Anyone else who might have managed to stumble across this content only to be offended at such crass concepts as cursing and sex can simply change the channel, or better yet, remove themselves entirely from society so they need not be offended ever again.
The disgusting thing about censorship is that it's a sanctioned form of selfishness. It's selfish to think that the rest of the world shares the same values that you do, and that they should therefore be restricted to only those values. It's selfish to think that just because you don't want to hear something, no one should be able to hear it. And having a consensus on what should and should not be censored doesn't make it any better. It's essentially the same as our country deciding that heavy metal music is a bad element in our society and then banning it entirely because some parents are too uninvolved in their children's lives to keep them from listening to it. Another analogy would be the plot from Footloose.
It's a shame that such a large section of our population doesn't understand this concept simply because they agree with what's being censored. You can show hookers who have been dead for years being dissected on the examination table in a primetime law enforcement drama, but God forbid those same viewers have to see breasts, ass, or listen to a swear word. Maybe when the FCC finally realizes that everything is offensive to someone, all those people will understand what assholes they've been for so many years. Until then, let your kids watch all the CSI and NCIS they can get, seeing dead bodies and violence depicted all over the place never messed a kid up, right? The rest of us will be enjoying internet pornography, because they don't give a shit if it offends someone.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Sharp
Not smart but sharp
Fierce of mind and fearsome heart.
Strong of will to temper steel
And knows just where to start.
A sword forged in the dark.
A kindness now forgotten,
Corrupted thing a simple sin
Would seek to tear apart.
Not knowing where it ends.
A weapon forged to make amends,
To sever truths from lies,
To rip apart and rectify,
To bring about what's ceased to be,
And amplify through marked decrease.
A lease of life, a stay of death
But only for a moment's time
To steal the breath, with it append
The steel now purified.
Strong of will but short of sight
Fearsome heart and fierce of mind
And meets its end so sharply.
Fierce of mind and fearsome heart.
Strong of will to temper steel
And knows just where to start.
A sword forged in the dark.
A kindness now forgotten,
Corrupted thing a simple sin
Would seek to tear apart.
Not knowing where it ends.
A weapon forged to make amends,
To sever truths from lies,
To rip apart and rectify,
To bring about what's ceased to be,
And amplify through marked decrease.
A lease of life, a stay of death
But only for a moment's time
To steal the breath, with it append
The steel now purified.
Strong of will but short of sight
Fearsome heart and fierce of mind
And meets its end so sharply.
Saturday, May 5, 2012
Accessibility Denied
As people around the world continue to spend even increasingly more time on the internet despite complaints about never having time for proper meals or those kid things that won't shutup, I think we've reached a point where we can wave goodbye to the training wheels of password reset security questions. We've all encountered these, (if you haven't it's probably because you still use "password" or "default") they're the annoying, totally insignificant questions that websites will force you to answer in order to reset your password. And if forgetting your password doesn't automatically put you in a bad mood, answering "security" questions that anyone with a computer (ie anyone who encounters said questions) can look up in fewer than 10 seconds will definitely put you over the edge.
The problem with security questions is every single aspect of them. First of all, they're always questions that just about anyone can figure out after a quick Google search, or better yet, just by scoping your Facebook. The list of questions you can pick from always includes "What was your first pet's name?" "What was your first girlfriend/boyfriend's name?" "When did you graduate from high school?" "What is your mother's maiden name?" The people who came up with the questions seem to think that these are sure to stump anyone who's not the actual account holder, but in reality they're about as secure as using your birthday for your ATM PIN. If you want some questions that only the user can answer correctly, try "Which STDs do you test positive for?" "Where do you go to be by yourself and cry until you pass out?" "How many hookers have you been with?" "If you could get away with murdering one person, who would it be?" "What's the most embarrassing thing you ever did that no one noticed even though it felt like everyone in the world caught you?" The information that people use for security questions is so worthless that we give it out to massive corporations so they can use it to advertise to us.
The second problem with security questions is that unlike your password selection process, you're never asked to confirm the answers to your security questions in case you make a typo. In fact, the answers you give are virtually never verified or checked out in any way at all. If you answer "Electric blue" for your year of graduation and "2007" for your favorite color, the system could not care less. So when you go through the bullshit process of resetting a password months or years later, you're left shaking your computer monitor in a fit of rage yelling "I know when I graduated better than you, you stupid fucking robot!" To top that one off, some systems will actually make the security questions case-sensitive, meaning that you know have to think back to a year ago when you breezed through the entire process just so you could set up a one time payment for some online pornography, and wonder "Did I capitalize the H and S in high school? Did I put a space in between them or did I leave it as highschool? Why didn't I just answer 'Electric Blue' to every question?" I've seen sites that use case-sensitive security questions for passwords that don't require numbers or special characters. I've also seen sites that require you to pick a new set of security questions every few months, but never ask you to change the actual password. There's something very wrong about having a more secure system for the place where you enter your mother's maiden name than the one where you regularly enter a password. It defies logic to such a degree that I would not be surprised if it eventually caused our computers to rise up and enslave humanity, their compassionless Steven Hawking voices screaming "WHAT HOSPITAL WERE YOU BORN IN?" as they shove a rapidly spinning buzzsaw in your face before you can answer. (Saw blades are going to be the next big computer innovation, just wait till Apple listens to their customer complaints about how an iPhone can't be used as a survival tool.)
What bothers me most about security questions is what a complete waste of everyone's time they are. Once you've spent a half hour trying to recall every punctuation mark and use of the shift key and you finally get to reset your password, it's never right there in front of you. Instead you'll get sent an email with a link to reset your password. Meaning that after all that needless frustration the final step is going to be about a thousand times more secure than all of the security questions combined because you'll actually have to enter another password to get to it (presumably your email password is different than the one you forgot, otherwise you're screwed). Why not just cut out the middleman and have a single security question that reads "What is your email password?" When you get right down to it, anyone who's trying to hack into one of your online accounts but can't get past your security questions, isn't someone you need to worry about. It's like having a floodlight with a motion sensor as your home security system: Maybe it keeps the really stupid criminals out, but everyone else is just going to go around.
The problem with security questions is every single aspect of them. First of all, they're always questions that just about anyone can figure out after a quick Google search, or better yet, just by scoping your Facebook. The list of questions you can pick from always includes "What was your first pet's name?" "What was your first girlfriend/boyfriend's name?" "When did you graduate from high school?" "What is your mother's maiden name?" The people who came up with the questions seem to think that these are sure to stump anyone who's not the actual account holder, but in reality they're about as secure as using your birthday for your ATM PIN. If you want some questions that only the user can answer correctly, try "Which STDs do you test positive for?" "Where do you go to be by yourself and cry until you pass out?" "How many hookers have you been with?" "If you could get away with murdering one person, who would it be?" "What's the most embarrassing thing you ever did that no one noticed even though it felt like everyone in the world caught you?" The information that people use for security questions is so worthless that we give it out to massive corporations so they can use it to advertise to us.
The second problem with security questions is that unlike your password selection process, you're never asked to confirm the answers to your security questions in case you make a typo. In fact, the answers you give are virtually never verified or checked out in any way at all. If you answer "Electric blue" for your year of graduation and "2007" for your favorite color, the system could not care less. So when you go through the bullshit process of resetting a password months or years later, you're left shaking your computer monitor in a fit of rage yelling "I know when I graduated better than you, you stupid fucking robot!" To top that one off, some systems will actually make the security questions case-sensitive, meaning that you know have to think back to a year ago when you breezed through the entire process just so you could set up a one time payment for some online pornography, and wonder "Did I capitalize the H and S in high school? Did I put a space in between them or did I leave it as highschool? Why didn't I just answer 'Electric Blue' to every question?" I've seen sites that use case-sensitive security questions for passwords that don't require numbers or special characters. I've also seen sites that require you to pick a new set of security questions every few months, but never ask you to change the actual password. There's something very wrong about having a more secure system for the place where you enter your mother's maiden name than the one where you regularly enter a password. It defies logic to such a degree that I would not be surprised if it eventually caused our computers to rise up and enslave humanity, their compassionless Steven Hawking voices screaming "WHAT HOSPITAL WERE YOU BORN IN?" as they shove a rapidly spinning buzzsaw in your face before you can answer. (Saw blades are going to be the next big computer innovation, just wait till Apple listens to their customer complaints about how an iPhone can't be used as a survival tool.)
What bothers me most about security questions is what a complete waste of everyone's time they are. Once you've spent a half hour trying to recall every punctuation mark and use of the shift key and you finally get to reset your password, it's never right there in front of you. Instead you'll get sent an email with a link to reset your password. Meaning that after all that needless frustration the final step is going to be about a thousand times more secure than all of the security questions combined because you'll actually have to enter another password to get to it (presumably your email password is different than the one you forgot, otherwise you're screwed). Why not just cut out the middleman and have a single security question that reads "What is your email password?" When you get right down to it, anyone who's trying to hack into one of your online accounts but can't get past your security questions, isn't someone you need to worry about. It's like having a floodlight with a motion sensor as your home security system: Maybe it keeps the really stupid criminals out, but everyone else is just going to go around.
Saturday, April 21, 2012
Diablo 3: Testing the Beta
Warning: The following contains the most minor of spoilers.
After months of waiting to be selected for Diablo 3 Beta testing, and literally years of awaiting the game's release, I was finally able to sample the game this weekend when Blizzard Entertainment finally opened up the Beta testing to everyone with a Battle.net account. While the purpose of this was largely to see how their servers would cope with the explosion of players, many fans viewed it as a demo version of the game which will be released next month (5/15/12). I know that despite being locked out of the server about 50% of the time I tried to log in and experiencing minor glitches which prevent me from joining games once logged in, the open Beta weekend has only ramped up my anticipation of the game's full release.
In the 13 levels and handful of quests the Beta allows you to play the highlight is definitely the amazing aesthetic quality of the game. Both sound and graphics are absolutely stunning to the point where you'll want to just sit in town practicing your moves and playing around with the zoom key. My personal favorite is the Witch Doctor's Firebats (Starcraft reference?) move, which shoots a stream of flaming bats in front of the character. But the graphics are not to be outdone by the sound quality. The dungeons are riddled with the sounds of bones rattling, ground shaking, and blood coalescing into fearsome monsters. On top of that, everything a character says, be they player character or NPC, is actually said out load and there are also sound clips to go along with scrolls and journals found in dungeons as well as lore which you can listen to when you confront new monsters. Unlike Diablo 2 which featured long speeches by NPCs like Deckard Caine and Akara, quest givers that we've seen so far in the Beta keep it short and simple and even feature a little back and forth with the player character whose lines vary depending on your class.
The scripting for Diablo 3 seems significantly better so far than that of the previous installments. That's not to say that scripting in Diablo 2 was bad, but it was certainly tiring and drawn-out and was often just skipped over entirely. The Beta features such gems as "It's a shame that bard got himself eaten. I could do with some music right now," and exchanges between the mercenaries and player character including one in which the Demon Hunter remarks that he doesn't believe in an afterlife because "Isn't this life bad enough?" Each of the 5 classes has a slightly different script when responding to quest givers, all of which give the same results, (ie. you accept the quest) but the way they respond to the mercenaries when prompted varies significantly, displaying the personalities of each class. It's no Portal 2, which I still hold as the best scripted game I've ever played, but it's done well enough that players will actually pay attention when the characters start talking.
The Diablo 3 Beta only allows players to make a small dent in the first act so as not to reveal spoilers for the rest of the game, but so far the storyline is actually intriguing. By the time you reach the end of Beta content you'll be left with such questions as "What's the deal with the fallen star?" and "God damnit, why can't I keep playing?" As a World of Warcraft player I've been steadily growing fed up with the direction of the storyline ever since the Cataclysm expansion, (let's be honest: the pandas are just a calculated marketing scheme designed to draw in younger audiences) but Diablo 3 seems to have all of Blizzard's good writers. In just the first part of the first act we are given quests in which we must help the blacksmith pity-kill his wife and nameless villagers, a templar get revenge on a former member of his order, and rescue Deckard Cain (it wouldn't be a Diablo game without him). The focuses of the quests and the lore that relates to them are madness, betrayal, revenge, and save the NPCs caught up in all the madness, betrayal, and revenge. There are no pandas, no /dance, and no other cutesy WoW stuff. There's only killing.
Anyone who's played Diablo 2 knows that the mutiplayer aspect of the game was seriously lacking in one significant area: looting. Each boss in Diablo 2 essentially gave loot to whoever had empty bags, no lag, and could click the fastest while everyone else got nothing. Diablo 3 features a system in which each player in a party has separate loot and gold. This system combined with separate achievements and events for co-operative play makes teaming up with other players great for all parties (pun intended) involved. This installment in the series also features an Auction House form which players can bid on or purchase gear from each other without having to create a trading game and wait for hours on end until someone finally has the gear you're looking for. It's almost as if Blizzard wants Diablo players to work together in this game instead of just viciously competing with each other. Unfortunately though, there is no PvP element to the game yet, so even when you want to compete you can't. Blizzard said last month that they plan to add PvP combat including some sort of arena system in a patch shortly after the game's release, but as of now the system they have for PvP just doesn't meet their standards.
For now players will have to deal with a purely PvE game, which is not necessarily a bad thing as the dungeon content is stunning. We don't get a wide variety of monsters in the Beta, (mostly various forms of skeletons) but the environments housing these monsters are way more interesting than the previous games. Rather than just standing around waiting for something to fight them, many monsters will spring out at you from walls and traps, as well as climb through windows, form from the blood of dead villagers, crawl out from bushes, burst forth from other monsters, and literally be puked into existence. Most of the indoor environments feature traps which you can use to drop chandeliers or sections of walls on your enemies, and there are even minor experience bonuses for doing so. If you get bored slaughtering the endless horde of monsters, you can destroy many of the objects in the indoor environments for more experience bonuses, including statues, tables, bookshelves, altars, tombstones, and barrels.
Like Diablo 2 we are given 5 classes to choose from, and you have to assume that Blizzard plans to release expansions with additional characters at some point down the road (Blizz is all about the expansions). Each of the classes has a unique play style while still following the Diablo paradigm of "just kill stuff," rather than the Tank/Heals/DPS setup of World of Warcraft. The way talents are done is significantly different, however. Each class is far less customizable and given only a handful of actual skills to use compared to the Diablo 2 skill tree. This game gives the player a choice of 4 skills for each mouse button and the 4 numbered hotkeys where potions used to be (potions now stack neatly in a single item slot in your inventory) which are upgraded throughout the game. Starting at level 10 you can earn passive skills which give you a slight degree of customization as you choose one or the other.
If there is a downfall of Diablo 3 it's looking like it might be how linear the game is. The talents are certainly captivating now, but Diablo has always involved a lot of grinding dungeons which could prove to be boring after many levels using the same basic set of skills. Of course, the achievement system will keep some people grinding away all day no matter what, but if further content proves to be as interesting as the Beta content it may be enough to make the players forget that they're essentially just spamming a couple of moves throughout whole dungeons. The Diablo games are far less open-ended than many other MMORPGs because they lock you in to path to complete quests, beat bosses, finish the game, and repeat on a harder setting, so there will definitely be some grinding. The only question is will this remain entertaining throughout the game given the relatively small set of skills each character has? I'm hoping so because the Diablo 3 Beta has definitely sold me on the game.
After months of waiting to be selected for Diablo 3 Beta testing, and literally years of awaiting the game's release, I was finally able to sample the game this weekend when Blizzard Entertainment finally opened up the Beta testing to everyone with a Battle.net account. While the purpose of this was largely to see how their servers would cope with the explosion of players, many fans viewed it as a demo version of the game which will be released next month (5/15/12). I know that despite being locked out of the server about 50% of the time I tried to log in and experiencing minor glitches which prevent me from joining games once logged in, the open Beta weekend has only ramped up my anticipation of the game's full release.
In the 13 levels and handful of quests the Beta allows you to play the highlight is definitely the amazing aesthetic quality of the game. Both sound and graphics are absolutely stunning to the point where you'll want to just sit in town practicing your moves and playing around with the zoom key. My personal favorite is the Witch Doctor's Firebats (Starcraft reference?) move, which shoots a stream of flaming bats in front of the character. But the graphics are not to be outdone by the sound quality. The dungeons are riddled with the sounds of bones rattling, ground shaking, and blood coalescing into fearsome monsters. On top of that, everything a character says, be they player character or NPC, is actually said out load and there are also sound clips to go along with scrolls and journals found in dungeons as well as lore which you can listen to when you confront new monsters. Unlike Diablo 2 which featured long speeches by NPCs like Deckard Caine and Akara, quest givers that we've seen so far in the Beta keep it short and simple and even feature a little back and forth with the player character whose lines vary depending on your class.
The scripting for Diablo 3 seems significantly better so far than that of the previous installments. That's not to say that scripting in Diablo 2 was bad, but it was certainly tiring and drawn-out and was often just skipped over entirely. The Beta features such gems as "It's a shame that bard got himself eaten. I could do with some music right now," and exchanges between the mercenaries and player character including one in which the Demon Hunter remarks that he doesn't believe in an afterlife because "Isn't this life bad enough?" Each of the 5 classes has a slightly different script when responding to quest givers, all of which give the same results, (ie. you accept the quest) but the way they respond to the mercenaries when prompted varies significantly, displaying the personalities of each class. It's no Portal 2, which I still hold as the best scripted game I've ever played, but it's done well enough that players will actually pay attention when the characters start talking.
The Diablo 3 Beta only allows players to make a small dent in the first act so as not to reveal spoilers for the rest of the game, but so far the storyline is actually intriguing. By the time you reach the end of Beta content you'll be left with such questions as "What's the deal with the fallen star?" and "God damnit, why can't I keep playing?" As a World of Warcraft player I've been steadily growing fed up with the direction of the storyline ever since the Cataclysm expansion, (let's be honest: the pandas are just a calculated marketing scheme designed to draw in younger audiences) but Diablo 3 seems to have all of Blizzard's good writers. In just the first part of the first act we are given quests in which we must help the blacksmith pity-kill his wife and nameless villagers, a templar get revenge on a former member of his order, and rescue Deckard Cain (it wouldn't be a Diablo game without him). The focuses of the quests and the lore that relates to them are madness, betrayal, revenge, and save the NPCs caught up in all the madness, betrayal, and revenge. There are no pandas, no /dance, and no other cutesy WoW stuff. There's only killing.
Anyone who's played Diablo 2 knows that the mutiplayer aspect of the game was seriously lacking in one significant area: looting. Each boss in Diablo 2 essentially gave loot to whoever had empty bags, no lag, and could click the fastest while everyone else got nothing. Diablo 3 features a system in which each player in a party has separate loot and gold. This system combined with separate achievements and events for co-operative play makes teaming up with other players great for all parties (pun intended) involved. This installment in the series also features an Auction House form which players can bid on or purchase gear from each other without having to create a trading game and wait for hours on end until someone finally has the gear you're looking for. It's almost as if Blizzard wants Diablo players to work together in this game instead of just viciously competing with each other. Unfortunately though, there is no PvP element to the game yet, so even when you want to compete you can't. Blizzard said last month that they plan to add PvP combat including some sort of arena system in a patch shortly after the game's release, but as of now the system they have for PvP just doesn't meet their standards.
For now players will have to deal with a purely PvE game, which is not necessarily a bad thing as the dungeon content is stunning. We don't get a wide variety of monsters in the Beta, (mostly various forms of skeletons) but the environments housing these monsters are way more interesting than the previous games. Rather than just standing around waiting for something to fight them, many monsters will spring out at you from walls and traps, as well as climb through windows, form from the blood of dead villagers, crawl out from bushes, burst forth from other monsters, and literally be puked into existence. Most of the indoor environments feature traps which you can use to drop chandeliers or sections of walls on your enemies, and there are even minor experience bonuses for doing so. If you get bored slaughtering the endless horde of monsters, you can destroy many of the objects in the indoor environments for more experience bonuses, including statues, tables, bookshelves, altars, tombstones, and barrels.
Like Diablo 2 we are given 5 classes to choose from, and you have to assume that Blizzard plans to release expansions with additional characters at some point down the road (Blizz is all about the expansions). Each of the classes has a unique play style while still following the Diablo paradigm of "just kill stuff," rather than the Tank/Heals/DPS setup of World of Warcraft. The way talents are done is significantly different, however. Each class is far less customizable and given only a handful of actual skills to use compared to the Diablo 2 skill tree. This game gives the player a choice of 4 skills for each mouse button and the 4 numbered hotkeys where potions used to be (potions now stack neatly in a single item slot in your inventory) which are upgraded throughout the game. Starting at level 10 you can earn passive skills which give you a slight degree of customization as you choose one or the other.
If there is a downfall of Diablo 3 it's looking like it might be how linear the game is. The talents are certainly captivating now, but Diablo has always involved a lot of grinding dungeons which could prove to be boring after many levels using the same basic set of skills. Of course, the achievement system will keep some people grinding away all day no matter what, but if further content proves to be as interesting as the Beta content it may be enough to make the players forget that they're essentially just spamming a couple of moves throughout whole dungeons. The Diablo games are far less open-ended than many other MMORPGs because they lock you in to path to complete quests, beat bosses, finish the game, and repeat on a harder setting, so there will definitely be some grinding. The only question is will this remain entertaining throughout the game given the relatively small set of skills each character has? I'm hoping so because the Diablo 3 Beta has definitely sold me on the game.
Saturday, April 14, 2012
It's Fated That You Should Shut Up
Every time you attribute events to fate, destiny, divine planning, or any sort of pre-determination you are refusing to acknowledge the literally countless factors which ultimately influence every minuscule event in the universe. Nevermind that some of these factors are exponentially more evident than others, (heart surgeons are generally more effective at prolonging lives than the people who made sure the beds were cleaned prior to the patient's arrival, not that this isn't also a factor) some people will always inflate their egos as much as possible by assuming the cause/effect relationship exists only for their benefit. These are the kinds of people who just KNOW (deep down in their souls!) that grandma survived the heart surgery not because of the surgeon's skill, the timely ambulance arrival, or the sterility of the hospital accommodations, but because they were not fated to die just yet.
Yes, that's right. God saved grandma from almost certain death because he's not done with her yet. He's given her an extra year or so of rapidly dwindling health so that she can continue to fit into the divine plan by accruing social security checks and voting Republican (not because she's old, God just hates change. Things were going just fine when he sent Jesus down here, why mess up that system now by giving minorities rights, restricting pollution, and funding science?). This idea of fate is really one of the saddest, most egocentric lines of thinking any individual can believe in. No wait! Let's step this up a bit, (superegocentric, I guess) because there are actually people who believe, against all all understandings of the concept, that they influence or change fate.
Let me preface this next bit by saying that anybody who is at all familiar with ancient Greek theater knows how ludicrous this concept of altering fate is. If the name Oedipus rings any bells then you already know that if fate exists there's no getting around it. If you were fated to ace a test anyway, then all the good luck rituals (false idols!) and karma enhancing acts (Godless heathens!) you performed were really just a waste of time. All the studying was a waste too when you get right down to it. You could have shown up drunk and vomited all over the test, but fate would still have allowed that the end results were exactly the same.
But let's shift this back towards religion because God doesn't care about the education or sobriety of children. What He cares about is the loyalty of the ignorant pig-apes He created in His image to populate an otherwise perfectly balanced worldwide ecosystem. Let's say for just a moment that there is some sort of plan that we can't possibly know, but everything is fated to work out as He has it planned. If such is the case, your free will is just a useless figment of your imagination, nothing anyone has ever done really matters, nor will any action ever taken. When God appeared before Abraham and told him to kill Isaac, Abraham could have just said "Fuck yourself," (like any sane parent) and we would still all be exactly where we are today, praying for the same God to change His same perfect Divine Plan.
Now I'm no philosopher, (though I do occasionally think things through so I have a leg up on the majority of people who practice religion) but if God answers your prayers doesn't that mean that either A) It was part of His plan all along and your prayers were completely useless, or B) The Divine Plan is subject to change if you just get on your knees and ingratiate yourself hard enough? What happens when people pray for things that are in direct opposition to each other like in wars or sports events? (because God really cares which of His jacked-up pig-apes can catch a ball and then obtain enough momentum to knock the other freakishly large pig-apes aside as they hurl their inflated torsos at each other) Does God just tally up your prayers to decide who wins? Is that why people you're close to die even though you prayed extra hard for their recovery? Because there were just more people praying for them to die? Or was it just their fate to die and leave you in emotional pain?
What's that? Prayer and subservience to a metaphysical force aren't worth a damn compared to observable cause and effect relationships? That's kind of a cop out, don't you think? You can't know what God's thinking or planning any more than you can disprove fate or his love of my still living relatives. Just shut up and enjoy the ride, because our understanding the world was never part of His plan to begin with. God likes his pig-apes sheepish.
Yes, that's right. God saved grandma from almost certain death because he's not done with her yet. He's given her an extra year or so of rapidly dwindling health so that she can continue to fit into the divine plan by accruing social security checks and voting Republican (not because she's old, God just hates change. Things were going just fine when he sent Jesus down here, why mess up that system now by giving minorities rights, restricting pollution, and funding science?). This idea of fate is really one of the saddest, most egocentric lines of thinking any individual can believe in. No wait! Let's step this up a bit, (superegocentric, I guess) because there are actually people who believe, against all all understandings of the concept, that they influence or change fate.
Let me preface this next bit by saying that anybody who is at all familiar with ancient Greek theater knows how ludicrous this concept of altering fate is. If the name Oedipus rings any bells then you already know that if fate exists there's no getting around it. If you were fated to ace a test anyway, then all the good luck rituals (false idols!) and karma enhancing acts (Godless heathens!) you performed were really just a waste of time. All the studying was a waste too when you get right down to it. You could have shown up drunk and vomited all over the test, but fate would still have allowed that the end results were exactly the same.
But let's shift this back towards religion because God doesn't care about the education or sobriety of children. What He cares about is the loyalty of the ignorant pig-apes He created in His image to populate an otherwise perfectly balanced worldwide ecosystem. Let's say for just a moment that there is some sort of plan that we can't possibly know, but everything is fated to work out as He has it planned. If such is the case, your free will is just a useless figment of your imagination, nothing anyone has ever done really matters, nor will any action ever taken. When God appeared before Abraham and told him to kill Isaac, Abraham could have just said "Fuck yourself," (like any sane parent) and we would still all be exactly where we are today, praying for the same God to change His same perfect Divine Plan.
Now I'm no philosopher, (though I do occasionally think things through so I have a leg up on the majority of people who practice religion) but if God answers your prayers doesn't that mean that either A) It was part of His plan all along and your prayers were completely useless, or B) The Divine Plan is subject to change if you just get on your knees and ingratiate yourself hard enough? What happens when people pray for things that are in direct opposition to each other like in wars or sports events? (because God really cares which of His jacked-up pig-apes can catch a ball and then obtain enough momentum to knock the other freakishly large pig-apes aside as they hurl their inflated torsos at each other) Does God just tally up your prayers to decide who wins? Is that why people you're close to die even though you prayed extra hard for their recovery? Because there were just more people praying for them to die? Or was it just their fate to die and leave you in emotional pain?
What's that? Prayer and subservience to a metaphysical force aren't worth a damn compared to observable cause and effect relationships? That's kind of a cop out, don't you think? You can't know what God's thinking or planning any more than you can disprove fate or his love of my still living relatives. Just shut up and enjoy the ride, because our understanding the world was never part of His plan to begin with. God likes his pig-apes sheepish.
In His Image
The following is a guest post which I wrote for the site Atheist Propaganda (link in title, check out that catchy page layout)which I never posted here because I would have had to either create an entirely new label for it or just jam it in under "other." But now, due to increased rage over similar subject matter and no other place to vent, I am proud to present an "Atheism" label. I considered calling it "Reason" or "Sanity" but decided that I don't really want the titles to come off as that condescending. I want to pieces to do that themselves. So without further ado, here's In His Image.
There are few things I like to hear from a Christian more than the claim that humans were created in God’s image. I love hearing this because it’s a signal to stop debating and start ridiculing. You can’t argue against it any more than you can argue about the number of limbs Shiva has. What you can do though, is point out how completely devoid of any thought such a claim is.
First of all, when you ask why there is absolutely no evidence to suggest their God’s existence, many Christians will wriggle and squirm as much as possible to express the idea that their God is somehow beyond the realm of science; that he is a non-physical being despite the many physical interactions he allegedly has with the observable world. Which of course, prompts that ultimate question they never seem to understand: How then can you determine such a being exists? We’re going to skip past that for now though, because it usually just leads to that endless circle of “the Bible says He exists, and He wrote the Bible so therefore He exists.” Instead let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and say that that He really does exist in the physical universe as we know it, and has some sort of preferred physical form in which image He made us.
Now that we’ve got Him trapped in our otherwise orderly universe, let’s make Him play by the very same rules that everything else must abide by. Assuming God is actually guiding everything in the universe so it works properly and not just sitting on His divine ass watching us struggle, how much energy would he need to run everything and where would said energy come from? Does He eat, shit, and breathe like the miserable creatures he inexplicably created in His image? Since our respiratory and digestive systems are modeled after His own, it would seem that He does! Furthermore, based on the way our bodies process food, it would seem that the Christian God is an omnivore.
But here’s where things get really tricky. Our digestive system really only works optimally with the help of other organisms. That’s right, microscopic bacteria live inside of you and help you get the most out of your food, which is why people often experience stomach problems while on antibiotics. But what of God? Does He have a symbiotic relationship with some sort of divine bacteria? Of course not! The very idea that God needs any sort of assistance for anything is blasphemous, which is why the best possible claim any Christian can make about the nature of their God is that He is and always will be completely and totally unknowable.
I love when they make the claim that we’re created in His image because it forces them to question what would otherwise be just another mindless mantra they repeat to feel better about their silly limited worldview. But unfortunately, their pondering is often corrupted by apologist pandering, which tells them that this is one of those convenient sections of the Bible that’s not meant to be taken literally. God is a non-physical being (just a concept, and not even a good one) and this passage simply means that He made us different and better than animals. This world and everything in it (except that one forbidden tree for some reason) is just a pit stop for Christians to ravage on their way to Heaven, another thing God made exclusively for humans of the “One True Faith.”
There are few things I like to hear from a Christian more than the claim that humans were created in God’s image. I love hearing this because it’s a signal to stop debating and start ridiculing. You can’t argue against it any more than you can argue about the number of limbs Shiva has. What you can do though, is point out how completely devoid of any thought such a claim is.
First of all, when you ask why there is absolutely no evidence to suggest their God’s existence, many Christians will wriggle and squirm as much as possible to express the idea that their God is somehow beyond the realm of science; that he is a non-physical being despite the many physical interactions he allegedly has with the observable world. Which of course, prompts that ultimate question they never seem to understand: How then can you determine such a being exists? We’re going to skip past that for now though, because it usually just leads to that endless circle of “the Bible says He exists, and He wrote the Bible so therefore He exists.” Instead let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and say that that He really does exist in the physical universe as we know it, and has some sort of preferred physical form in which image He made us.
Now that we’ve got Him trapped in our otherwise orderly universe, let’s make Him play by the very same rules that everything else must abide by. Assuming God is actually guiding everything in the universe so it works properly and not just sitting on His divine ass watching us struggle, how much energy would he need to run everything and where would said energy come from? Does He eat, shit, and breathe like the miserable creatures he inexplicably created in His image? Since our respiratory and digestive systems are modeled after His own, it would seem that He does! Furthermore, based on the way our bodies process food, it would seem that the Christian God is an omnivore.
But here’s where things get really tricky. Our digestive system really only works optimally with the help of other organisms. That’s right, microscopic bacteria live inside of you and help you get the most out of your food, which is why people often experience stomach problems while on antibiotics. But what of God? Does He have a symbiotic relationship with some sort of divine bacteria? Of course not! The very idea that God needs any sort of assistance for anything is blasphemous, which is why the best possible claim any Christian can make about the nature of their God is that He is and always will be completely and totally unknowable.
I love when they make the claim that we’re created in His image because it forces them to question what would otherwise be just another mindless mantra they repeat to feel better about their silly limited worldview. But unfortunately, their pondering is often corrupted by apologist pandering, which tells them that this is one of those convenient sections of the Bible that’s not meant to be taken literally. God is a non-physical being (just a concept, and not even a good one) and this passage simply means that He made us different and better than animals. This world and everything in it (except that one forbidden tree for some reason) is just a pit stop for Christians to ravage on their way to Heaven, another thing God made exclusively for humans of the “One True Faith.”
Omni-Incompetence
The following is a guest post which I wrote for the site Atheist Propaganda (link in title, check out that catchy page layout)which I never posted here because I would have had to either create an entirely new label for it or just jam it in under "other." But now, due to increased rage over similar subject matter and no other place to vent, I am proud to present an "Atheism" label. I considered calling it "Reason" or "Sanity" but decided that I don't really want the titles to come off as that condescending. I want to pieces to do that themselves. So without further ado, here's Omni-Incompetence.
The Christian God is supposedly the epitome of all that is intelligent and good in the universe. He is omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, (which I'm not even going to touch upon for now because that one itself is such a complex assertion) and above all, all-good. I've always found it fascinating that Christians can attribute all things good to God, and all things bad to the Devil, and that they can do this all day every day without realizing that God created the endless source of evil they call the Devil. Being creations of God, all good things humans do are attributed to him, but since we are vile, tainted creatures, all bad things are the Devil's doing. But wait a minute! Lucifer was an angel, one of those creatures that God created prior to man for purposes no logic can fathom. Whatever terrible things the Devil has or probably has not done, God is ultimately to blame for His shortsightedness and general incompetence in creating the bastard in the first place.
Assuming that God is all-knowing and all-powerful, He would have known from the very beginning of the Universe that Lucifer would turn against Him. The very moment He was sitting in Heaven and thinking to Himself “I'm going to create a retinue of angels to carry out my work, even though being all-knowing and all-powerful I can manage my own affairs effortlessly, no matter how infinitely complex they become,” from the moment that thought occurred to Him, He should have known all possible outcomes and consequences. He would have known that creating Lucifer would lead to the corruption of mankind, causing Him to eventually send the flood, and later His only son to attempt to “redeem” us. Any God who actually cares about His creations might have examined those consequences using His infinite foresight, and decided that maybe that one angel, Lucifer, could be made just a little bit better, or maybe not made at all. But we all know what happened, God made Lucifer, who became the Devil, who continues to plague us all to this very day. But it's OK, He has some divine plan that no human can possibly comprehend, but which will make the whole thing work out better than if no evil had been created in the first place. Somehow.
Of course, there is an alternative; God really is all-good, but just not all-knowing and all-powerful. Maybe He's just some well-meaning guy who ended up with a job He really can't handle. I'm not sure who I would pray to if I had to chose, the benevolent but incompetent God, or the all-powerful God who just doesn't give a shit about humans. Fortunately there is a third option: simply reserve your prayers until you find a deity that actually deserves them, then thank him that there are so many to chose from.
The Christian God is supposedly the epitome of all that is intelligent and good in the universe. He is omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, (which I'm not even going to touch upon for now because that one itself is such a complex assertion) and above all, all-good. I've always found it fascinating that Christians can attribute all things good to God, and all things bad to the Devil, and that they can do this all day every day without realizing that God created the endless source of evil they call the Devil. Being creations of God, all good things humans do are attributed to him, but since we are vile, tainted creatures, all bad things are the Devil's doing. But wait a minute! Lucifer was an angel, one of those creatures that God created prior to man for purposes no logic can fathom. Whatever terrible things the Devil has or probably has not done, God is ultimately to blame for His shortsightedness and general incompetence in creating the bastard in the first place.
Assuming that God is all-knowing and all-powerful, He would have known from the very beginning of the Universe that Lucifer would turn against Him. The very moment He was sitting in Heaven and thinking to Himself “I'm going to create a retinue of angels to carry out my work, even though being all-knowing and all-powerful I can manage my own affairs effortlessly, no matter how infinitely complex they become,” from the moment that thought occurred to Him, He should have known all possible outcomes and consequences. He would have known that creating Lucifer would lead to the corruption of mankind, causing Him to eventually send the flood, and later His only son to attempt to “redeem” us. Any God who actually cares about His creations might have examined those consequences using His infinite foresight, and decided that maybe that one angel, Lucifer, could be made just a little bit better, or maybe not made at all. But we all know what happened, God made Lucifer, who became the Devil, who continues to plague us all to this very day. But it's OK, He has some divine plan that no human can possibly comprehend, but which will make the whole thing work out better than if no evil had been created in the first place. Somehow.
Of course, there is an alternative; God really is all-good, but just not all-knowing and all-powerful. Maybe He's just some well-meaning guy who ended up with a job He really can't handle. I'm not sure who I would pray to if I had to chose, the benevolent but incompetent God, or the all-powerful God who just doesn't give a shit about humans. Fortunately there is a third option: simply reserve your prayers until you find a deity that actually deserves them, then thank him that there are so many to chose from.
Monday, March 12, 2012
Why We Hate To Drive
The United States of America is made up of about 300 million citizens, around 70 million of which are registered car owners. The ability to drive is a privilege we grant to 16 year old girls, 100 year old men, and just about everyone else in between. The automobile is undoubtedly one of the most widely used and recognized inventions in Western culture, but despite the exhilaration of rapidly moving tons of metal, glass, and cheap vinyl seat covers down a pathway of suffocating tar that will outlast us all by generations, all fueled by the power of small, calculated explosions, we consider driving a chore. Sure it's great those first few years you're allowed to drive, but the main reason this excitement wears off quickly isn't due to lack of novelty or the amount of upkeep vehicles require. The real reason every American learns to hate driving is because we just can't stand those other 70 million American drivers.
Personally, I'm at an age where I still enjoy driving. Despite being strapped in to a rusting steel cage with the potential to explode at any second as I hurtle along at speeds which would easily kill me if my velocity were to suddenly change, something about driving just makes me feel free. Like a bird flying away from all of it's problems if that bird had the power to end itself and anything near it at a moment's notice. Unfortunately, this feeling of euphoria wears off after about 5 to 10 minutes when I inevitably encounter another driver who I assume must have a license, but who clearly has no idea how to properly operate a motor vehicle.
The problem with allowing teenagers and old people to drive is that unlike most other elements of our society, there are no special roads where we can place them so we can encounter them as little as possible. They're on the same roads as us, at the same times. They're those people going too slow when they're ahead of you, too fast when they're behind you, and merging lanes into your car from every other direction. But it's not just the under and overly experienced drivers who make the driving experience miserable for everyone, it is my opinion as a disgruntled citizen that nearly every single American fails at at least one facet of driving.
Poor Design
I'm going to start with this one because it's not about the drivers. Poor planning and design in road infrastructure is the kind of thing that pisses off all driver around the world. There's a joke in the book Good Omens, by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman that some highway in England is not just terribly designed, but actually a source of power for the Devil, designed to make anyone who drives on it hateful. I think there's some truth to this joke when applied to all roads and highways, because at their worst they make us hate each other, but the best they can ever be is a depressing, lifeless strip of pavement from one place to another. There's a reason absolutely everyone who drives hates road work and detours, and it's because we just want to get where we're going, swiftly and efficiently. On a related note, three way stops are a travesty to this very idea. I have never encountered a three way stop without wondering why it wasn't designed as a two way stop with one way still moving, or the other way around. It's not just three way stops and detours either, there are a number of just awful design flaws that litter our roads, as if there was no planning whatsoever before the pavement was laid down. I don't know if this is a cross country experience or just here in New England, but aerial shots of our city streets look like an especially messy game of pickup sticks.
Drive Throughs
As an American citizen, if I had to pick any single concept to sum up American culture and society, I would have to go with the "Drive Thru." Long before my time the Drive Through was the Drive In, a place where greasy ancient man would take his woman and his brightly painted boxy car to spend a lovely evening with both of them. It was an idea evocative of a different time in American history, a time when the world was still young and people did not yet have places to be. Now we have the Drive Through, a narrow strip of pavement with an awning where not a single party involved enjoys being.
Americans absolutely abuse the Drive Through. They are so widely used in our society that stores that don't already have a Drive Through should start converting their parking lots into queues to attract business. We not only have Drive Throughs at fast food places, but also at coffee shops, pharmacies, and wedding chapels in Las Vegas (not even kidding). Sit-in chain restaurants in America offer a service where they'll bring the food to your car if you'll just get the hell out. If there were Drive Through pet shops children across America would own a McPuppy (made from Grade D parts).
"What's the problem?" you may ask while reading this on your smart phone as you wait in a Drive Through for your food, "Drive Throughs are convenient." Are they really? What's convenient about waiting for 10 minutes for a few items off the dollar menu because the guy in front of you ordered $40 worth of fried food as his way of taking the family out. Inside the building they have a way of serving multiple people at the same time, not that they need to, all the customers are in the Drive Through line, waiting for the person in front of them to be served, not for their food to be ready. But anyway, the problem with Drive Throughs in general is twofold: it caters to laziness and leads to incompetence. I've had the unfortunate experience of working at multiple fast food restaurants, so when I say that Drive Throughs cater to laziness I mean it literally. If a customer at the counter and one in the Drive Through order the same sandwich and there's only one left, guess who gets it? Regardless of who ordered it first, the guy in the Drive Through gets it, because otherwise he's holding up the rest of the line. So the customer who took the time to park their car, turn it off so that it wouldn't continue wasting a widely used and rapidly dwindling resource, walk inside, and order their food through a face-to-face interaction with an employee can wait. When I say that Drive Throughs lead to incompetence, I mean that
Cops
What's more dangerous than going 10-20 mph over the speed limit? Having to watch out for police. Police arresting drunk drivers are ensuring public safety. Police issuing tickets for exceeding the speed limit but not driving recklessly, are generating funds. Obviously it's a different matter for reckless drivers who are actually endangering the people around them, but when I'm going 10-20 mph over the speed limit I'm no more of a threat to those around me than anyone going 10-20 mph under the speed limit. In fact, on the highway, a larger vehicle going the speed limit has the potential to do far more damage than my small car going slightly faster than the speed limit. Speed limits, seatbelt laws, laws restricting teenage driving, and many other traffic laws exist only because policy makers look at the average American citizen as a liability. These laws exist because they think we can't take care of ourselves without them. They think that if they take the training wheels off we'll hurt ourselves, so they've told the police to hold our hands instead of doing real police work like apprehending criminals. This mentality applies to everything in our society, it's the reason all our commercials have disclaimers saying "don't do this, and don't sue us when you do."
Turn Signals
Use them. Granted they're not always necessary, if you're in a left turn only lane and you don't have the blinker on it's probably not going to confuse the people around you. In some cases turn signals are more of a courtesy to other drivers than anything else. If I see you turn yours on properly I'll anticipate your slowing down for the turn. In some cases this will let me get around you easier because I know you're turning and not just stopping because you're an awful driver. On the highway though turn signals are pretty important. When a lot of vehicles are loosely packed into a small area, moving quickly, and all jockeying for position, knowing where the cars around you are headed is pretty useful information.
Your Massively Over-Sized Vehicle, You Ass
For some reason we still seem to like big cars in America. Everywhere I look the road is packed with monstrous SUVs and trucks, and I do mean everywhere I look because it's impossible to see around them. I don't really care about how inefficient these vehicles are in terms of fuel usage, it irks at me but it's the least of my concerns in the matter. My problem with these monster truck looking cars is that everyone driving one is boldly stating that they're willing to sacrifice the safety of everyone around them for the safety of those inside the vehicle. Trucks are functional by nature for the most part. Those driving them generally own them because they are transporting large quantities of whatever frequently, or that's the idea behind them at least. What sells SUVs though is not this same quality despite the name Sports Utility Vehicle. What sells SUVs is the idea that they are safer than regular sized cars.
Now to be fair, when crashed into regular cars SUVs generally come out on top, which technically makes them safer. It's safer for whoever's inside the SUV because their car is going to both deal and receive a whole lot more damage than regular sized cars. When you hear a news story about a car crashing through the wall of a building and the driver walking away from the crash with minor injuries it's because they were driving an SUV. This is not at all a good thing. Because SUV owners know they'll be better off in a crash, they tend to drive more recklessly than those in regular sized cars. A life-threatening crash for a regular sized car is just an expensive repair for an SUV, so SUV owners feel they can take more risks. Unfortunaetly for us car drivers, we are forced to let these gigantic assholes get away with cutting us off, blocking traffic, and swerving into our lanes. The only alternatives are to get a real shitty Volvo that you don't care about or join the club of douchebag SUV owners.
Speeding/Being Too Slow
I'm all for speeding, but you can't just go as fast as your car can everywhere you go, you're supposed to have some sort of judgement based on the situation. When you're doing 60 in a school zone, you make all of us look bad. Also there's a time and a place for obeying the speed limit, but the far left lane of any highway is never that place. That lane is for winners only.
Cellphones
Put. Your cellphone. Away. You don't need it right now. If your social or business life were that important you'd have a chauffeur, but you don't because you're just a regular person. You remember that whole thing about cops having to take care of you because you're too irresponsible to do it yourself? Well they have laws against texting while driving now, because people are actually that stupid.
Right On Red
The Right On Red is not just a great driving law, its arguably the greatest driving law. If for some reason you don't know what I'm talking about, Right On Red is the law that allows you to treat red lights like stop signs if you're making a right turn. Sadly, not everyone knows to take advantage of this awesome law, and so they sit at the light until it turns green, pissing off everyone behind them.
The Pittsburgh Left
When a red light turns green, anyone taking a left at the intersection is supposed to yield to traffic coming straight at them from the other direction. The Pittsburgh Left is when that asshole going left is just too impatient and cuts off the other lane of traffic. If a driver is lucky he can get away with the Pittsburgh Left with only a horn honking and shouted curses, if he's unlucky it's a crash in the middle of the intersection which at the very least holds up everyone nearby.
Littering
What, you have room for a thousand sticky pennies in your cupholder but not an empty cup? Also your car almost certainly has ashtrays.
Driving Like A Wimp
You don't need your highbeams on all the time. You don't need to go 10 mph below the speed limit because it's raining a little. Your car will not fall apart when you hit a bump or pothole. Turns can be taken at more than 5 mph (unless you're in an SUV, they roll over). Red lights mean stop, yellow does not.
Bumper Stickers
You know what makes being stuck in traffic even more unbearable? Having nothing to look at except the political beliefs of the person in front of you. Seriously, no one cares who you plan on voting for in this election, and anyone who might be influenced to vote similarly simply by seeing your bumper sticker should have their right to vote revoked. We also don't care about how well your kids are doing in school, what you brake for, whether you buy local groceries, (great job by the way, you're really saving the world by buying produce that doesn't have to be shipped around as much and then parading this fact around on the back of your gigantic SUV while you wait in line at McDonald's) or your ignorance about evolution.
Vanity Plates
They're like bumper stickers except there isn't enough room for you to even attempt to put anything original or intelligent. Vanity plates are almost exactly the same as the vapid things you can find on twitter; they're all desperate cries for attention to make the user feel slightly better about themselves for a moment, but really everyone just hates them and wishes they weren't following these self-absorbed assholes.
Learn To Yield
Yield: Verb used with objects; to give up or over; relinquish or resign
When you see a yield sign it means you are supposed to give up your right of way to any on-coming traffic. It doesn't mean "stop," it doesn't mean "ignore this sign and keep driving," it means "let the other guy go if there is one, but keep going if there isn't." When I'm driving down the highway and I'm in the right hand lane for whatever reason, it's not my job to get out of your way as you get off the on ramp. It's your job not to hit me. If that means waiting a bit extra, deal with it, I have the right of way. If you come to a yield sign and you see no on-coming traffic, keep it moving, there is no one else to give your right of way to. Learn it.
Inching Forward
Seriously people, where do you think you're going? That red light's not changing just because the front of your car's now hanging out into the intersection. I've been living in the city for almost a year now, and I'm still amazed at how many I see just inch forward into oncoming traffic until they can go. I've been forced to stop for people who's method of turning left onto a busy street is to pull forward until they're blocking both lanes of traffic and can go. The worst part is that everytime I see this I want to speed up and slam my car into them so that they'll maybe learn a lesson, but most of those people are in SUVs.
Personally, I'm at an age where I still enjoy driving. Despite being strapped in to a rusting steel cage with the potential to explode at any second as I hurtle along at speeds which would easily kill me if my velocity were to suddenly change, something about driving just makes me feel free. Like a bird flying away from all of it's problems if that bird had the power to end itself and anything near it at a moment's notice. Unfortunately, this feeling of euphoria wears off after about 5 to 10 minutes when I inevitably encounter another driver who I assume must have a license, but who clearly has no idea how to properly operate a motor vehicle.
The problem with allowing teenagers and old people to drive is that unlike most other elements of our society, there are no special roads where we can place them so we can encounter them as little as possible. They're on the same roads as us, at the same times. They're those people going too slow when they're ahead of you, too fast when they're behind you, and merging lanes into your car from every other direction. But it's not just the under and overly experienced drivers who make the driving experience miserable for everyone, it is my opinion as a disgruntled citizen that nearly every single American fails at at least one facet of driving.
Poor Design
I'm going to start with this one because it's not about the drivers. Poor planning and design in road infrastructure is the kind of thing that pisses off all driver around the world. There's a joke in the book Good Omens, by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman that some highway in England is not just terribly designed, but actually a source of power for the Devil, designed to make anyone who drives on it hateful. I think there's some truth to this joke when applied to all roads and highways, because at their worst they make us hate each other, but the best they can ever be is a depressing, lifeless strip of pavement from one place to another. There's a reason absolutely everyone who drives hates road work and detours, and it's because we just want to get where we're going, swiftly and efficiently. On a related note, three way stops are a travesty to this very idea. I have never encountered a three way stop without wondering why it wasn't designed as a two way stop with one way still moving, or the other way around. It's not just three way stops and detours either, there are a number of just awful design flaws that litter our roads, as if there was no planning whatsoever before the pavement was laid down. I don't know if this is a cross country experience or just here in New England, but aerial shots of our city streets look like an especially messy game of pickup sticks.
Drive Throughs
As an American citizen, if I had to pick any single concept to sum up American culture and society, I would have to go with the "Drive Thru." Long before my time the Drive Through was the Drive In, a place where greasy ancient man would take his woman and his brightly painted boxy car to spend a lovely evening with both of them. It was an idea evocative of a different time in American history, a time when the world was still young and people did not yet have places to be. Now we have the Drive Through, a narrow strip of pavement with an awning where not a single party involved enjoys being.
Americans absolutely abuse the Drive Through. They are so widely used in our society that stores that don't already have a Drive Through should start converting their parking lots into queues to attract business. We not only have Drive Throughs at fast food places, but also at coffee shops, pharmacies, and wedding chapels in Las Vegas (not even kidding). Sit-in chain restaurants in America offer a service where they'll bring the food to your car if you'll just get the hell out. If there were Drive Through pet shops children across America would own a McPuppy (made from Grade D parts).
"What's the problem?" you may ask while reading this on your smart phone as you wait in a Drive Through for your food, "Drive Throughs are convenient." Are they really? What's convenient about waiting for 10 minutes for a few items off the dollar menu because the guy in front of you ordered $40 worth of fried food as his way of taking the family out. Inside the building they have a way of serving multiple people at the same time, not that they need to, all the customers are in the Drive Through line, waiting for the person in front of them to be served, not for their food to be ready. But anyway, the problem with Drive Throughs in general is twofold: it caters to laziness and leads to incompetence. I've had the unfortunate experience of working at multiple fast food restaurants, so when I say that Drive Throughs cater to laziness I mean it literally. If a customer at the counter and one in the Drive Through order the same sandwich and there's only one left, guess who gets it? Regardless of who ordered it first, the guy in the Drive Through gets it, because otherwise he's holding up the rest of the line. So the customer who took the time to park their car, turn it off so that it wouldn't continue wasting a widely used and rapidly dwindling resource, walk inside, and order their food through a face-to-face interaction with an employee can wait. When I say that Drive Throughs lead to incompetence, I mean that
Cops
What's more dangerous than going 10-20 mph over the speed limit? Having to watch out for police. Police arresting drunk drivers are ensuring public safety. Police issuing tickets for exceeding the speed limit but not driving recklessly, are generating funds. Obviously it's a different matter for reckless drivers who are actually endangering the people around them, but when I'm going 10-20 mph over the speed limit I'm no more of a threat to those around me than anyone going 10-20 mph under the speed limit. In fact, on the highway, a larger vehicle going the speed limit has the potential to do far more damage than my small car going slightly faster than the speed limit. Speed limits, seatbelt laws, laws restricting teenage driving, and many other traffic laws exist only because policy makers look at the average American citizen as a liability. These laws exist because they think we can't take care of ourselves without them. They think that if they take the training wheels off we'll hurt ourselves, so they've told the police to hold our hands instead of doing real police work like apprehending criminals. This mentality applies to everything in our society, it's the reason all our commercials have disclaimers saying "don't do this, and don't sue us when you do."
Turn Signals
Use them. Granted they're not always necessary, if you're in a left turn only lane and you don't have the blinker on it's probably not going to confuse the people around you. In some cases turn signals are more of a courtesy to other drivers than anything else. If I see you turn yours on properly I'll anticipate your slowing down for the turn. In some cases this will let me get around you easier because I know you're turning and not just stopping because you're an awful driver. On the highway though turn signals are pretty important. When a lot of vehicles are loosely packed into a small area, moving quickly, and all jockeying for position, knowing where the cars around you are headed is pretty useful information.
Your Massively Over-Sized Vehicle, You Ass
For some reason we still seem to like big cars in America. Everywhere I look the road is packed with monstrous SUVs and trucks, and I do mean everywhere I look because it's impossible to see around them. I don't really care about how inefficient these vehicles are in terms of fuel usage, it irks at me but it's the least of my concerns in the matter. My problem with these monster truck looking cars is that everyone driving one is boldly stating that they're willing to sacrifice the safety of everyone around them for the safety of those inside the vehicle. Trucks are functional by nature for the most part. Those driving them generally own them because they are transporting large quantities of whatever frequently, or that's the idea behind them at least. What sells SUVs though is not this same quality despite the name Sports Utility Vehicle. What sells SUVs is the idea that they are safer than regular sized cars.
Now to be fair, when crashed into regular cars SUVs generally come out on top, which technically makes them safer. It's safer for whoever's inside the SUV because their car is going to both deal and receive a whole lot more damage than regular sized cars. When you hear a news story about a car crashing through the wall of a building and the driver walking away from the crash with minor injuries it's because they were driving an SUV. This is not at all a good thing. Because SUV owners know they'll be better off in a crash, they tend to drive more recklessly than those in regular sized cars. A life-threatening crash for a regular sized car is just an expensive repair for an SUV, so SUV owners feel they can take more risks. Unfortunaetly for us car drivers, we are forced to let these gigantic assholes get away with cutting us off, blocking traffic, and swerving into our lanes. The only alternatives are to get a real shitty Volvo that you don't care about or join the club of douchebag SUV owners.
Speeding/Being Too Slow
I'm all for speeding, but you can't just go as fast as your car can everywhere you go, you're supposed to have some sort of judgement based on the situation. When you're doing 60 in a school zone, you make all of us look bad. Also there's a time and a place for obeying the speed limit, but the far left lane of any highway is never that place. That lane is for winners only.
Cellphones
Put. Your cellphone. Away. You don't need it right now. If your social or business life were that important you'd have a chauffeur, but you don't because you're just a regular person. You remember that whole thing about cops having to take care of you because you're too irresponsible to do it yourself? Well they have laws against texting while driving now, because people are actually that stupid.
Right On Red
The Right On Red is not just a great driving law, its arguably the greatest driving law. If for some reason you don't know what I'm talking about, Right On Red is the law that allows you to treat red lights like stop signs if you're making a right turn. Sadly, not everyone knows to take advantage of this awesome law, and so they sit at the light until it turns green, pissing off everyone behind them.
The Pittsburgh Left
When a red light turns green, anyone taking a left at the intersection is supposed to yield to traffic coming straight at them from the other direction. The Pittsburgh Left is when that asshole going left is just too impatient and cuts off the other lane of traffic. If a driver is lucky he can get away with the Pittsburgh Left with only a horn honking and shouted curses, if he's unlucky it's a crash in the middle of the intersection which at the very least holds up everyone nearby.
Littering
What, you have room for a thousand sticky pennies in your cupholder but not an empty cup? Also your car almost certainly has ashtrays.
Driving Like A Wimp
You don't need your highbeams on all the time. You don't need to go 10 mph below the speed limit because it's raining a little. Your car will not fall apart when you hit a bump or pothole. Turns can be taken at more than 5 mph (unless you're in an SUV, they roll over). Red lights mean stop, yellow does not.
Bumper Stickers
You know what makes being stuck in traffic even more unbearable? Having nothing to look at except the political beliefs of the person in front of you. Seriously, no one cares who you plan on voting for in this election, and anyone who might be influenced to vote similarly simply by seeing your bumper sticker should have their right to vote revoked. We also don't care about how well your kids are doing in school, what you brake for, whether you buy local groceries, (great job by the way, you're really saving the world by buying produce that doesn't have to be shipped around as much and then parading this fact around on the back of your gigantic SUV while you wait in line at McDonald's) or your ignorance about evolution.
Vanity Plates
They're like bumper stickers except there isn't enough room for you to even attempt to put anything original or intelligent. Vanity plates are almost exactly the same as the vapid things you can find on twitter; they're all desperate cries for attention to make the user feel slightly better about themselves for a moment, but really everyone just hates them and wishes they weren't following these self-absorbed assholes.
Learn To Yield
Yield: Verb used with objects; to give up or over; relinquish or resign
When you see a yield sign it means you are supposed to give up your right of way to any on-coming traffic. It doesn't mean "stop," it doesn't mean "ignore this sign and keep driving," it means "let the other guy go if there is one, but keep going if there isn't." When I'm driving down the highway and I'm in the right hand lane for whatever reason, it's not my job to get out of your way as you get off the on ramp. It's your job not to hit me. If that means waiting a bit extra, deal with it, I have the right of way. If you come to a yield sign and you see no on-coming traffic, keep it moving, there is no one else to give your right of way to. Learn it.
Inching Forward
Seriously people, where do you think you're going? That red light's not changing just because the front of your car's now hanging out into the intersection. I've been living in the city for almost a year now, and I'm still amazed at how many I see just inch forward into oncoming traffic until they can go. I've been forced to stop for people who's method of turning left onto a busy street is to pull forward until they're blocking both lanes of traffic and can go. The worst part is that everytime I see this I want to speed up and slam my car into them so that they'll maybe learn a lesson, but most of those people are in SUVs.
Monday, January 16, 2012
The Reaper
The title should be a link to Linguistic Erosion where this story is posted. 500 words based on the poem Reaping which is found on this site.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Drill, Faster, Drill!
One of my facebook ads right now is "Gas Prices Are Too Damn High," an organization dedicated to domestic drilling in order to reduce American dependency on foreign oil (and almost certainly to increase profits for American oil companies since someone is paying for the facebook ads) another is for buying a Prius, which is such a contradiction that I can't even get into it right now. What I do want to get into is the false dichotomy of gas prices and American drilling. Oil companies (and shady organizations like this who don't openly say who's funding them) want you to think that the solution to high American gas prices is to lower foreign dependency on oil. Your options, as they tell you, are to ravage our own territory by drilling everywhere there could potentially be oil, or continue to let gas prices rise. In reality though, no matter how much American oil we find, gas prices will ultimately rise since gasoline has to be refined from fossil fuels which take thousands of years to create in the first place. Since our rate of oil consumption is far greater than that of oil creation, more drilling can only hope to postpone the inevitability of our completely depleting supplies of fossil fuels.
While I'm a firm believer in delaying inevitable problems for as long as possible, the pragmatist in me just looks for ways in which these problems can be avoided entirely. In this situation the answer is pretty obvious: what if we didn't have to depend on fossil fuels, whether domestic or foreign? Wouldn't it be great if we could utilize some sort of renewable source of energy rather than draining one which is so outrageously slow to replenish? Wouldn't it be ironic if the very winds we build shelters against could power the heating systems used inside those walls? Wouldn't it be amazing if we could somehow store the energy produced by the sun so that we could use it in the most overwhelming darkness? We are able to do these things, and with little to no detriment to the environments we live in. In fact, the only people negatively impacted by the decreased use and supply of fossil fuels are those who profit from them.
If you were to walk in to any building which meets American structural standards, would you be able to identify their power source without inspection of their utilities? The heat and lighting in a room powered by solar, tidal, nuclear, or wind energy is no different from that powered by oil, the only people who would know the difference are the owners and those providing the power. At this point, most rational thinkers may ask "Well if there's no noticeable difference in the quality of output between mediums, and such a large difference in the availability, why would anyone seek to maintain a clearly unsustainable process?" The answer to this is incredibly simple: because while oil companies have almost no control over the availability of oil, they have even less over that of renewable energy sources.
Oil companies can't produce oil. They can't create oil in laboratories, and despite what they want us to think, they can't magically just find new sources of oil indefinitely. What they can do is drill absolutely everywhere in an effort to find oil. Of course, the chances of just finding a profitable source of oil from digging in a random location are incredibly slim, or else we wouldn't have any sort of energy crisis at all. As we continue to use oil as our primary source of energy without the option of creating any more, it becomes a much scarcer resource, and therefore harder for oil companies to find. This is exactly why gas prices continue to rise. We are currently drilling for oil more than ever, and have better methods of deciding where to drill, but consumer demand for oil continues to increase while our world's supply only decreases as we use it. Now I'm no business expert, but the kind of exclusivity created by these supply and demand factors allows the sellers to raise prices. Allowing for domestic drilling may well open a number of new sources of oil, temporarily decreasing gas prices, but ultimately we would deplete these sources as we have others, leaving others in the same positions we are in now but without the possibility of further procrastination. So for oil companies, the choices are cut profits by maintaining consistent prices regardless of supply and demand factors, hope to maintain profits by continuously raising prices as supply continues to drop while demand raises, postpone inevitable declines in revenue due to supply and demand factors by finding new sources and therefore temporarily maintaining a supply, or produce energy from renewable sources so that their supply can always meet the consumer demand.
Unfortunately, most oil companies have chosen the third option since it means maintaining profits for now. Some have chosen to invest in renewable energy in the hopes that they can somehow make it as profitable as oil has been, but it never will be because making raw petroleum into an energy source requires so much more specialization than it does to harness renewable sources. First, it has to be found. Unlike wind, water, and sun, oil isn't abundant and unused. The geologists and other specialists who are hired by oil companies to determine where best to dig have to be trained, as do the hundreds of people who operate the equipment used to drill and regulate the output of oil. On top of that, oil has to refined before we can use it "efficiently." This forces oil companies to set up places whose only purposes are to turn raw petroleum into products suitable to burn for energy. In comparison to these factors, transportation of petroleum or already refined products is almost as nonexistent as oil companies' ability to produce more oil. The reason this specialization actually works (at least temporarily) for these companies, is that they can keep the whole process out of the hands of their consumers.
Compared to supplying a household with energy from petroleum based sources, doing so with renewable sources is amazingly simpler. With just a small initial investment, most American businesses could outfit themselves with instruments meant to collect and convert renewable energy sources into usable and sustainable energy. Oil companies don't want to invest in renewable energy sources because even though they would be able to keep profiting after we've completely exhausted oil sources, the profits would be so much less than what they make now in the face of such a crisis. Instead they've chosen to act as if they can solve this problem through procrastination, calling on American consumers to support them in their complete lack of responsibility. The only way American citizens can change this approach to renewable energy sources is to make oil less profitable, and the only real way to do that is to lower the demand for it while some supply still exists. If we were all to stop buying oil and petroleum based products, the oil companies would have no choices but to find some other way to profit or just give up. The sad truth behind every oil company is that while they fuel us, we fuel them, and they're not going to break this cycle as long as they can profit from it.
While I'm a firm believer in delaying inevitable problems for as long as possible, the pragmatist in me just looks for ways in which these problems can be avoided entirely. In this situation the answer is pretty obvious: what if we didn't have to depend on fossil fuels, whether domestic or foreign? Wouldn't it be great if we could utilize some sort of renewable source of energy rather than draining one which is so outrageously slow to replenish? Wouldn't it be ironic if the very winds we build shelters against could power the heating systems used inside those walls? Wouldn't it be amazing if we could somehow store the energy produced by the sun so that we could use it in the most overwhelming darkness? We are able to do these things, and with little to no detriment to the environments we live in. In fact, the only people negatively impacted by the decreased use and supply of fossil fuels are those who profit from them.
If you were to walk in to any building which meets American structural standards, would you be able to identify their power source without inspection of their utilities? The heat and lighting in a room powered by solar, tidal, nuclear, or wind energy is no different from that powered by oil, the only people who would know the difference are the owners and those providing the power. At this point, most rational thinkers may ask "Well if there's no noticeable difference in the quality of output between mediums, and such a large difference in the availability, why would anyone seek to maintain a clearly unsustainable process?" The answer to this is incredibly simple: because while oil companies have almost no control over the availability of oil, they have even less over that of renewable energy sources.
Oil companies can't produce oil. They can't create oil in laboratories, and despite what they want us to think, they can't magically just find new sources of oil indefinitely. What they can do is drill absolutely everywhere in an effort to find oil. Of course, the chances of just finding a profitable source of oil from digging in a random location are incredibly slim, or else we wouldn't have any sort of energy crisis at all. As we continue to use oil as our primary source of energy without the option of creating any more, it becomes a much scarcer resource, and therefore harder for oil companies to find. This is exactly why gas prices continue to rise. We are currently drilling for oil more than ever, and have better methods of deciding where to drill, but consumer demand for oil continues to increase while our world's supply only decreases as we use it. Now I'm no business expert, but the kind of exclusivity created by these supply and demand factors allows the sellers to raise prices. Allowing for domestic drilling may well open a number of new sources of oil, temporarily decreasing gas prices, but ultimately we would deplete these sources as we have others, leaving others in the same positions we are in now but without the possibility of further procrastination. So for oil companies, the choices are cut profits by maintaining consistent prices regardless of supply and demand factors, hope to maintain profits by continuously raising prices as supply continues to drop while demand raises, postpone inevitable declines in revenue due to supply and demand factors by finding new sources and therefore temporarily maintaining a supply, or produce energy from renewable sources so that their supply can always meet the consumer demand.
Unfortunately, most oil companies have chosen the third option since it means maintaining profits for now. Some have chosen to invest in renewable energy in the hopes that they can somehow make it as profitable as oil has been, but it never will be because making raw petroleum into an energy source requires so much more specialization than it does to harness renewable sources. First, it has to be found. Unlike wind, water, and sun, oil isn't abundant and unused. The geologists and other specialists who are hired by oil companies to determine where best to dig have to be trained, as do the hundreds of people who operate the equipment used to drill and regulate the output of oil. On top of that, oil has to refined before we can use it "efficiently." This forces oil companies to set up places whose only purposes are to turn raw petroleum into products suitable to burn for energy. In comparison to these factors, transportation of petroleum or already refined products is almost as nonexistent as oil companies' ability to produce more oil. The reason this specialization actually works (at least temporarily) for these companies, is that they can keep the whole process out of the hands of their consumers.
Compared to supplying a household with energy from petroleum based sources, doing so with renewable sources is amazingly simpler. With just a small initial investment, most American businesses could outfit themselves with instruments meant to collect and convert renewable energy sources into usable and sustainable energy. Oil companies don't want to invest in renewable energy sources because even though they would be able to keep profiting after we've completely exhausted oil sources, the profits would be so much less than what they make now in the face of such a crisis. Instead they've chosen to act as if they can solve this problem through procrastination, calling on American consumers to support them in their complete lack of responsibility. The only way American citizens can change this approach to renewable energy sources is to make oil less profitable, and the only real way to do that is to lower the demand for it while some supply still exists. If we were all to stop buying oil and petroleum based products, the oil companies would have no choices but to find some other way to profit or just give up. The sad truth behind every oil company is that while they fuel us, we fuel them, and they're not going to break this cycle as long as they can profit from it.
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