A new Constitution? Part 1?

Twenty some years ago, I had an idea for what became my Human Republic Universe.  I started writing stories set in this universe to flesh things out, as well as practice for the main thing, a TV series.  But I didn’t get too far, and other projects came up, and life, and stuff, so I haven’t done much in this universe for the last decade or so.  But that might change.

Anyway, the basic idea for my Human Republic Universe is that after World War I, the Leage of Nations was created, which failed to stop World War II.  After which, the United Nations was created, which also failed.  Now, World War III has been overused and has certain connotations, so my thing was that the UN failed to stop The Conflagration.  This was marked by a series of terrorist attacks, as well as numerous small to minor border wars.  And at one point, the US President does something – because America is always right – that really sours our relationships with some of our closest allies.

Anyway.

The Human Republic was to be this weak, planetary government.  Basically, it was to only deal with matters between the Member Nations and any interactions between them and any Non-Member Nations.  To become a Member Nation, you had to meet some requirements, like a democratic form of government open to all your citizens, as well as some basic rights like speech and religion.  And the citizens had to vote to join.  Any issue within a Member Nation would be handled by their government, with limited if any oversight from the Human Republic. 

At some point, I thought it would be interesting if I wrote up the Constitution of the Human Republic.  I figured I could start with the US Constitution, clear out all the racist shit, make some corrections, and have something – at least – I could start with.  But have you ever read the Constitution?  There’s old-timey words and spellings, as well as things that really should be fixed.  So I never got far writing the Constitution of the Human Republic.

It was probably that experience that gave me the idea of updating the Constitution.  Basically, just cleaning out the junk, updating the terminology, and adding the Amendments in to where they should go.  This was just a random idea I had that I never put much thought into.  Then that treasonous shitweasel won. 

A couple weeks later – once the initial horror and disgust had passed – I started thinking about a new Constitution again.  What I was thinking, is that at some point Trump will do something clearly and unmistakenly unconstitutional, and his bootlicks in Congress and the Courts won’t do anything.  (Apparently, they’ll just cheer so he can go on and do even more clearly and unmistakenly unconstitutional things.)  At some point, I imagine some Governor will announce that since the Constitution is no longer being followed, it means that the United States no longer exists.  They won’t succeed from the US, the US will just dissolve.  So I started writing a New Constitution for a New United States.  This would form – hopefully without bloodshed – from the old states, or from slightly changed new states. 

Turns out, this is harder than I expected.  For one, it’s difficult to balance putting in exact details for some issue, but leaving it flexible enough to handle future events I can’t imagine.  Or, there are some clearly good ideas – like Presidents not having immunity – that quickly get bogged down trying to figure out how to implement them.  Like if Presidents don’t have immunity, would that just open the floodgates of their opponents filing frivolous lawsuits to waste their time?  What’s the best way to handle all this?  I don’t know.  Somebody smarter than me will have to figure that out.

So here’s the first part of my New Constitution.  It gives some idea of where I’m going with things.  If people find this interesting, maybe I’ll try to finish it.  And if you have any suggestions, or want to point out some flaw, please do.  Maybe, just maybe, someone might take this as a rough draft for a real New Constitution.  Who knows.

***

We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

 

Article I

Section I

This Constitution is a contract between the American people and the Government that serves them.  While not perfect, its heart is what many consider the essence of America: striving to be better.

 

Section II

All persons residing within a State at the time that State ratifies this Constitution, is a Citizen of that State and therefore of the United States.

All children born within the territory of the United States, will be Citizens of the United States. 

All children with at least one biological parent that is a Citizen, will be a Citizen of the United States even if born outside the territory of the United States.  Any dual citizenship status the child will have will depend upon the laws of wherever they are born.

All residents of a Non-State Territory that the United States claims, will be Citizens of the United States.  Every ten years, the Voters of Non-State Territories shall vote on whether to maintain the status quo, to become a State, to join an existing State, or to become independent of the United States. 

Any non-citizen who enters the territory of the United States at a legal entry point, may request to become a Citizen.  The exact process of becoming a Citizen will be set by Congress with reasonable stipulations.

Every adult Citizen has the right to renounce their citizenship.

Congress by a two-thirds vote in both chambers, may – for specific reasons – limit immigration from a region or country for a period of no more than one year.

For heinous acts, Congress by a two-thirds vote in both chambers, may strip a Citizen of their citizenship.  Bills to do this will apply only to an individual and may not be combined with any other bill.

 

Section III

All United States Citizens, regardless of where they live, upon reaching eighteen years of age, are Voters.  The right of a Citizen to be a Voter may not be infringed or removed for any reason.

 

Article II

Section I

All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a House of Representatives and a Senate.

 

Section II

The House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every two years by the Voters of their State.  Each Representative shall have one vote.  No person shall be a Representative who – at the time of the election – hasn’t attained the age of twenty-five years, been seven years a Citizen of the United States, or spends less than nine months each year living in that State or Territory.  Representatives shall be limited to serving at most five terms from one, or many States or Territories.  

For the first four scheduled elections after a State ratifies this Constitution, being a Citizen of the State shall suffice for the citizenship requirement.

To determine the numbers of Representatives each State shall have, a census counting the total population of the United States shall be taken every ten years.  The State with the lowest population of Citizens will be taken as a Base Unit.  The population of Citizens each State has will then be divided by this Base Unit, and the resulting number – after rounding – will be the number of Representative for that State.

Regardless of their population, Non-State Territories of the United States shall only have one Representative.  This Representative shall be treated exactly as a Representative from a State.

Regardless of their number, all Voters who do not live within a State or Territory of the United States, shall choose one Representative.  This Representative shall be treated exactly as a Representative from a State.

The Voters of a State, Non-State Territory, or foreign residents may – by collecting a number of signatures in excess of 15% of the total votes in the most recent election – force a recall election of a Representative.  The result of such an election will go into effect when the election results are confirmed.

In the event of the death, resignation, recall, or impeachment of a Representative, the Governor of their State or Non-State Territory may appoint a Representative whose term may not exceed ninety days.  The office of a Representative may not be left empty for a period exceeding sixty days.  If a regularly scheduled election is not set to happen within one hundred and fifty days of the death, resignation, recall, or impeachment of a Representative, then a special election must be held to permanently replace the Representative for the remainder of the original term.  For outstanding circumstances, these restrictions may be altered for a seat by a majority vote in the House of Representatives. 

Appointed Representatives, or specially elected Representatives whose terms are less than six months, will not have that time count towards any term limits. 

If the next regularly scheduled election after a State ratifies this Constitution is more than one hundred and fifty days away, then the office will be filled in a similar manner.  The number of Representatives will be determined from the best available data until the next census.

With input from the Senate as well as the Executive and Judicial branches, The House of Representatives shall create a Code of Conduct/Ethics that will apply to all elected members of the government as well as members approved by the Senate.  This Code will be periodically updated.  Breaking of this Code by any member will be grounds for Impeachment. 

The House of Representatives shall choose their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole power of Impeachment.

 

Section III

The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Voters of that State, for a term of six years.  Each Senator shall have one vote.  No person shall be a Senator who – at the time of the election – hasn’t attained to the age of thirty years, been seven years a Citizen of the United States, or spends less than nine months each year living in that State or Territory.  Senators shall be limited to serving at most two terms from one, or two States, and or Territories.

For the first four scheduled elections after a State ratifies this Constitution, being a Citizen of the State shall suffice for the citizenship requirement.

In the first regularly scheduled election after a State ratifies this Constitution, each elected Senator shall randomly select if their term will be two, four, or six years in length.  This way, roughly one third of the Senate shall be elected every two years.  The two Senators from a State must be on different schedules.  Abridged terms of two or four years will count as a term in regards to term limits.

Non-State Territories of the United States shall only have one Senator.  This Senator shall be treated exactly as a Senator from a State.  In the first regularly scheduled election after a Territory is claimed, the elected Senator shall randomly select if their term will be two, four, or six years in length.

Regardless of their number, all Voters who do not live within a State or Territory of the United States, shall choose one Senator.  This Senator shall be treated exactly as a Senator from a State.  In the first regularly scheduled election after this Constitution is ratified, the elected foreign resident Senator shall randomly select if their term will be two, four, or six years in length.

The Voters of a State, Non-State Territory, or foreign residents may – by collecting a number of signatures in excess of 15% of the total votes in the most recent election – force a recall election of a Senator.  The result of such an election will go into effect when the election results are confirmed.

In the event of the death, resignation, recall, or impeachment of a Senator, the Governor of their State or Non-State Territory may appoint a Senator whose term may not exceed ninety days.  The office of a Senator may not be left empty for a period exceeding sixty days.  If a regularly scheduled election is not set to happen within one hundred and fifty days of the death, resignation, recall, or impeachment of a Senator, then a special election will be held to permanently replace the Senator for the remainder of the original term.  For outstanding circumstances, these restrictions may be altered for a seat by a majority vote in the Senate. 

Appointed Senators, or specially elected Senators whose terms are less than six months, will not have that time count towards any term limits.

If the next regularly scheduled election after a State ratifies this Constitution is more than one hundred and fifty days away, then the office will be filled in a similar manner. 

The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no vote, unless they be equally divided.

The Senate shall choose their other Officers, and also a President pro tempore to serve in the absence of the Vice President, or when they shall exercise the Office of President of the United States.

The Senate shall have the sole power to try all Impeachments.  If the President or Vice President are on trial, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court shall preside.  All other trials will be presided by the Vice President.  No person shall be convicted without a two-thirds vote.

Judgment in cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust or profit under the United States.  The judgment of an Impeachment trial may be used as evidence in a civil court.

 

***

And I’ll end it here, because after this it gets into the minutia of Congress’s power which is a bit of a headache.  But if there’s enough interest, I’ll work on it.  Well, I’ll probably work on it anyway and post it in six months.  We’ll see.

Fake dreams

I know people don’t care to hear about someone’s dreams, but I recently had an interesting experience I wish to share.  And a dream is a central point of it.

Anyway, I recently had a dream where some of my siblings found some badminton equipment.  My mom suggested having some sort of family tournament, but my brother pointed out that the last time we played tennis, Tim beat us 26-1.

A couple things about this.  First off, it has probably been forty some years since I’ve played badminton, and I don’t believe I’ve ever played tennis.  Secondly, I had the feeling that this was a cousin Tim and this happened at a family reunion, but I don’t think I have any cousins named Tim.  I went to school with a Tim, but I barely spoke with him then and haven’t spoken to him in thirty years.  The only other Tim I can think of, is a few years ago the manager at work was out for a few weeks for a medical issue, so the corporation sent in this other manager to cover.  This was a Tim, who was a bit of an asshole.  And lastly, in regards to the dream, I couldn’t care less about tennis, but 26-1 doesn’t seem like a tennis score.  Which leads me to think that “cousin” Tim was also a bit of an asshole and just kept playing until someone managed to score a point.

Now that that is all out of the way, the interesting thing I noticed was when I was groggily half-awake after this dream.  Because I had the overwhelming feeling that the whole “cousin” Tim story came from another dream I had like a month ago.  A dream I have no memory of, except as this vague reference.

This leads to two possibilities.  One, there is a part of our brains that remembers our dreams better than our awake brains does.  This doesn’t seem likely, because what would be the point.  So the more likely second possibility, is that when we dream of real events, our brain can pull from our real memories of them, but whenever a dream comes up with a “cousin Tim beat us at tennis at a family reunion” type event, the brain sort of panics when it can’t find the memory of that, so it just goes, “Oh, that was just a dream.”

I was really interested in this, because it seems once a month or so, I’ll wake up with the feeling that the dream I just had is a sequel of sorts to some other, forgotten dream.  I never looked too far into it before, because I think it always happened when I’m half-awake and things are always a blur.  But this time, for whatever reason, I was just awake enough to notice something was weird. 

I’ve spent the last five minutes trying to work “It was all a dream” into the ending of this in a satisfactory manner, but “It was all a dream” is rarely satisfactory.

I really am a gardener

I grew up on a farm and we’ve always had a garden.  The only time I didn’t have a garden was when I moved away for ten years.  For the first four of those years, I did have some house plants.  For the other six years, my apartment had a little balcony and I – pretty unsuccessfully – grew some plants, like potatoes and zucchini.  But about fifteen years ago I moved back to the farm to help my parents out and to have time to write.  And to have a garden.

Despite all my years gardening, it wasn’t until this week that I truly felt like a gardener.  I was at work thinking about all the things I had to do on my days off, and I realized, that even though it is barely spring and we still freeze a couple nights a week and I think there is snow in the forecast, I already feel like I’m behind in my gardening.  There are these … weed trees I’ve been trying to get rid of for the last few years, there’s some plants I want to move, there’s stuff left in the garden from last year I didn’t get around to cleaning up before the snow fell, I have raised beds I’m trying to fill, I want to move my compost bins, I need to get some seeds started, I want to get some cuttings off some apple trees ….  And it seems like every day I plan to focus on one of these things and be done with it, it rains.  Or I sprain my wrist and don’t feel like making it worse doing a bunch of heavy work.  I just need like two solid weeks of good weather, were I’m not injured, and I don’t have a hundred other things I need to be doing. 

Being a gardener is very tough.  I have no plans on quitting.

Short corn

 I planted our corn a little late, so it's not quite knee high yet.

Happy Fourth to everyone.

Where I stand on things

The idea for this blog began, like, five years ago.  It all started when a guy I used to be friends with and I had arguments on Facebook.  Basically, the way I somewhat jokingly put it, since I didn’t believe the current practice of capitalism wasn’t the bestest, most perfectest thing in the universe, I was just a dirty socialist who wanted to use the dark arts to resurrect Stalin.  At some point I realized that many of our disagreements stemmed from him just assuming my position on matters.  I didn’t agree with him, therefore I must think X, when in reality I’d often think Q.  And I didn’t fully understand his position on matters, but a large part of that was him refusing to tell me, even after I repeatedly asked him to.  Admittedly, part of why I wanted to nail down some of his positions was so I could point out any contradictions I could find.  I figured all of this out about the time he unfriended me.

Of course, part of why my positions on things aren’t easy to understand is because I don’t hold to some grand philosophy which dictates my views.  I know a couple of times he’d call me something like a, Ramsey-style neo-socialist, or something, and I’d have Google that to see what that even meant.  And often, I’d have to look up the explanation to see what it meant.  Decades ago, I noticed that people were rarely just X.  They were often X, subsection 3, paragraph VII, or whatever.  Which isn’t so bad, but often the X, 3, VIIs will see the X, 3 VIs as “The same as Hitler.” It seems so many disagreements – especially amongst those you’d think would be allies – are just battles over minutiae. 

So I’ve pretty much abandoned trying to explain myself in some neat, little box with fourteen layers of description.  Instead, my … ideology I guess, is summed up with stuff that would fit on a bumper sticker.  Which is probably annoying in that instead of having a solution for a specific problem, I’m more likely to wonder why that problem exists in the first place.  Or, I’ll want to solve some other problem that, two or three dominoes later, solves or greatly reduces the original problem. 

I’ve spent some time trying to explain that better, only to get more and more in the weeds or just sounding pretentious, so let’s move on.  These are the bumper sticker sayings that best explain my views on … life in general.

No ideology is perfect.

A sad moment was when I realized my former friend was an ideologue, because I view ideologues as … basically idiots.  The way to defeat an ideologue is to show that their ideology isn’t perfect.  If there was a perfect ideology, it would obviously be perfect and there wouldn’t be any questions about it.  No such perfect ideology exists, therefore, ideologues are defeated.  No matter how great your ideology is, there is a flaw in it that you conveniently overlook.

A year or so ago, I came up with the idea that in the Race of History, backing any ideology – be it capitalism or Catholicism – is backing the wrong horse.  The Racetrack of History is littered with dead ideologies, from feudalism to the Ancient Egyptian religion.  Why should the horses still running have a different fate?  I’d say it’s better to back the racetrack, the bedrock of reality.

And yes, I realize how stupid it is of me to say my ideology is that no ideology is perfect.  That’s the flaw I’m overlooking.

People are people.

I don’t care what skin color, gender identity, sexual identity, whatever identity you have, humans should all be treated like humans.  Admittedly, some humans are assholes, and I do my best to avoid/ignore them.  And while I will say I hate some groups of people, what I mean is I hate their ideology.  If pressed on the matter, what I really am is often just confused and saddened that so many people can’t see how idiotic/repugnant their ideology is: Flat-Earthers and Trump supporters, for example.  If they changed their ideology and stopped being assholes, I’d no longer hate them. 

Meaning is where you find it.

I think it was back in my college years, one day I was thinking about clones and wondering at what point in the cloning process could you “abort” the clone.  My clumsy answer to that evolved my stance on abortion.  I did write a blog a couple years ago with some of my thoughts on abortion, which explains things a bit more.  But the point of this is that my understanding of a real-world issue was changed by me probably thinking about the plot of some mediocre scifi story.  It’s often the little, personal, things that change us the most.

A rising tide lifts all boats.

This is basically my economic philosophy.  Would this policy help the poorest not be as poor?  Good.  Would this policy make the richest even richer?  They don’t fucking need it.

Probably a lot of people readily agree with that, but for those who don’t, let me give you an example.  I’m a writer with ebooks for sale.  For people to buy my ebooks, several dominoes need to fall.  They have to read English, have an interest in the types of stories I’m telling, have access to the internet, and to have enough disposable income to buy my books and enough free time to read them.  The people who have to work 80 hours a week just to buy food, even if they’d love my books, can’t afford to buy them.  So if the minimum wage was raised, that would increase the number of people who could afford to buy my ebooks.  And if I made enough money from my ebooks sales, I could afford to buy things I wanted.  All of which would make for a stronger economy. 

Do not knowingly harm others.

Our technology is evolving faster than our laws that govern the use of that technology.  Thinking about this, I realized that either we’ll continue making more specialized laws that will likely be outdated by the time the politicians get around to voting on them, or we could try simplifying our laws to broadly cover situations.  I wondered what the broadest, most simplistic law there could be, and I came up with: Do not knowingly harm others.  I thought that was a pretty good answer, until I started thinking about it.  What actually counts as harm?  Big things like murder and rape are clearly bad, but what about hurting someone’s feelings?  Years ago, an ex-girlfriend broke my heart.  Yes, that’s a part of life, but she did it in a way that left scars that, honestly, still haven’t healed.  She chose to do some things, even though a reasonable person would know I would be hurt by them.  If this law was in effect, could I take her to court?

Art is never finished, only abandoned. 

That is a line attributed to Leonardo Da Vinci.  And as a writer who’s read a story forty times and will still occasionally find a typo, I think that’s a perfect description of art.

A Space Junk Prize

 Some months ago, I wrote a post – A fun idea for a moon mission – about a robotic lunar program I would fund if I had billions to burn and wanted to help advance humans into becoming a spacefaring civilization.  The idea would be to 3D print bricks with actual lunar regolith to see how strong they would be.  I was thinking about this recently, and I wondered what other space missions I would fund – if I had billions to burn – to help humans in space.  What I came up with was the J-Prize, I guess, for space junk removal.

This would start with three small satellites, probably launched on an Electron rocket.  The first would be your basic cube sat, the second would be a larger cube sat, but with a solar panel sticking out so it would be odd shaped, and the third satellite would remain attached to the kick stage to help simulate a more massive satellite.  These would be put into slightly different orbits, but which are pretty much guaranteed to decay in the five-to-six-year range.  What exactly these satellites would do, I’d leave that to whoever builds them, probably schools or universities that I would give a free ride to orbit to.  There would be the understanding that these satellites would be given one year to function, but after that they would become targets for deorbiting tech demonstrations.  So they might function for the full five years, or get deorbited right after one year in orbit. 

The tech demonstrations would have three tiers.  The first tier would be to just inspect the satellites.  To that end, there would be symbols, or code phrases put on each.  Prelaunch photos of them would be blurred, and everyone who knows what they are would have to sign NDAs, so to get these codes you’d have to actually fly to these satellites.  And there might be two or three on each satellite, each worth X dollars.  For the third satellite, they might be big and easy to spot, but for the cube sat, they might just be a centimeter in size, so the imaging satellite would have to fly real close to be able to make it out.  So, unlike the other tiers which would pay out more for the larger satellites, for the first tier you’d make the most imaging the smallest.

The second tier would pay if you manage to deorbit the satellite early.  This could be accomplished by attaching some sort of drag, or attaching a small rocket to push it out of orbit, whatever.  The third tier would be if they manage to return the satellite intact to Earth. 

I have no idea what the exact prize amounts would be, but I’d say that the second tier would be more than enough to refund the cost of manufacturing the deorbiting satellite and launching it.  And, there would be bonus prizes.  Like, if a company successfully deorbits one of the test satellites, then for the next ten years they’d get $1 million for each piece of space junk they deorbit.  But if a company didn’t succeed with one of these test satellites, but they do succeed with some other junk within the next ten years, they’d get $500 thousand, or something.  Because the whole idea of this is to try to incentivize companies into finding ways to clean up space junk.  As such, I wondered if there should be a penalty if they damage a satellite and create space junk, but that would scare people off.  And that’s why these test satellites would be put into such short-lived orbits. 

So that’s my idea.  I’ll have to see what other ideas I can come up with to help humanity to become spacefaring, just in case I somehow become a billionaire and need some way to spend that money.

Balloon thoughts

First off, I do not have special information on this matter.  I’m just a guy who overthinks things.  And these are just some of my thoughts on the whole BalloonGate, or whatever it’s being called.

I heard somewhere that the Pentagon reported that there was one such Chinese balloon during Obama’s time in office, three during Trump’s, and the one during Biden’s.  But if I had to bet, I’d say that for everything the Pentagon tells us, there’s a thousand things they don’t.  I wouldn’t be surprised if the military has detected dozens of these balloons or more in the past ten years or so.  They just never said anything because why alert the world to your stealth detection capabilities?  I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a long meeting where they went through each balloon detection and ranked the likelihood that China knew that we detected it.  Like, China probably knew we had detected three of the previous ones, but we said four just to cause them to go through their data wondering which was the other one.  I don’t know how this recent balloon story broke – if it really was first spotted by civilians – or if the story was leaked by the Pentagon just because it was becoming unrealistic that we weren’t talking about it.  If the later, it was probably chosen in advance because we probably already have the detection capability for whatever the next level of stealth China has. 

Another reason we haven’t said anything about these earlier, is because we were probably feeding these spy balloons bad intel.  If they knew that we knew the balloon was there, they might not believe some of the stuff they heard.  But if they’re pretty confident that we didn’t know it was there, then they’re more likely to believe what they learn.  Something to keep in mind is that spycraft makes three-dimensional chess look like checkers, and some of the loudest voices in BalloonGate probably can’t even play checkers.

Some thoughts about Elon Musk

A year ago, I did a post titled Some thoughts on Elon Musk where I wondered if his talk about Mars was just a politician’s campaign promises?  A lot has happened since then concerning Musk, and I’ve thought about writing up some of my thoughts, but it seems like every day some new horrible thing comes out, and I worry I’d spend all this time making some coherent point only to have it buried under the day’s new shitshow.  But I had a couple of thoughts recently, and I figured I might as well share them.

My first thought was on his legacy.  As someone who occasionally writes stories set on a colonized Mars, I’ve been wondering – for some years – if I should set one in Musktown, or whatever.  Like in the past I’ve named things after Kim Stanley Robinson, or at least things from his Mars Trilogy.  But one thing that has been made certain over the last few months, is whenever humans do go to Mars, nothing there will be named after Musk.  I almost joked that maybe a sewage treatment plant, but honestly in a world where humans will need to recycle as much as possible, a sewage treatment plant will be a vital piece of infrastructure, and they’re not going to name it after some asshole.

My other thought was to wonder if some billionaire will one day fund a space mission to go out to Musk’s Roadster.  It would attach to the car and bring it back to Earth, just to burn it up in the atmosphere.  Hell, if you asked people to chip in $8, you could probably crowdfund the mission.

Why I’m staying on Twitter … for now.

 I first joined Twitter fourteen years ago.  And the main thing I use Twitter for is to vainly scream into the void hoping people will find out that I exist, and check out some of my books.  (Here’s my Amazon page, if you’re curious.)  To be perfectly honest, that hasn’t worked all that well.  Over the years I’ve tried to expand my presence on other sites, but none of them seemed as easy to use as Twitter.  Probably about a year ago, I decided to put more work into Twitter to have better/more content and to expand my follower base.  Since then I’ve put a lot of work into making my twittering better.

So of course, now is when it seems Twitter is going into a death spiral.  A lot of people are talking of leaving and looking for greener pastures.  Should I join them?  But where?  Facebook?  And be at the mercy of some other creepy billionaire with questionable morals?  Instagram?  I’m better with words than pictures, plus it seems like 95% of the people who follow me there are half-naked women trying to get me to check out their OnlyFans accounts.  Mastodon?  I’ve had an account for a while, but haven’t really done much there and don’t really have any followers.  Plus, I think I read that they don’t like you selling stuff there so my constant cry of “Buy my book” probably wouldn’t go over well.  Tribel?  I just started an account, so don’t have any followers, and it does seem like it is heavily politics centered, which isn’t really my thing. 

Right now, Twitter remains my primary social network, something that has taken me years to get to.  I can’t just jump to another one.  My hope is that sooner, rather than later, Musk will realize he’s in over his head and hire someone better suited to run the site.  I don’t have much hope for that, since I think he’ll try forty-seven increasingly odd ideas to fix a problem instead of just admitting he was wrong about something and undo a previous “fix.”

So I’m staying, hoping things get better.  Admittedly, I’m someone the assholes, haters, trolls, etc., have ignored because I’m not interesting enough to harass.  Or maybe since I’ve spent the last few years unfollowing/muting assholes I’m in a little pocket Twitter of decent people.  Who knows how long that will last.

Anyway, if you’re at all interested on finding me on the various networks, here’s my current list:

My personal Twitter, oneoveralpha

My writing Twitter, amanfewwords

Facebook

Instagram

Mastodon

Tribel

Random Story – Playing with mercury

This is just an odd little story from my life.

I was a physics major in college back in the 90’s.  On the physics floor of the science building there was a room which I think was meant to be a study room for majors: there were bookshelves with old science books, a blackboard and a computer hooked up to the internet.  But I think it largely ended up being used as random storage.  In fact, it was where they kept the radiation sources.  These were little plastic disks that held alpha emitters, which would only be dangerous if you ate them.  Alpha particles can be stopped with a sheet of paper, but these were kept in this thing on the countertop built out of lead bricks with a sheet of lead for a roof.  (Side note, those lead bricks made excellent doorstops.)

Anyway, one day I was poking around near the lead bricks and I found a puddle of mercury.  Apparently a thermometer or two had broken.  I told one of the professors, and he put it in a little square, glass jar, maybe half-an-inch on a side and two inches tall.  I don’t know if he didn’t know what else to do with it, but he left the jar in the room. 

I stopped in to use the computer the next day and I found the jar, and I started playing with it.  I quickly found two odd things.  First, when you sloshed the mercury against the glass, there was a metallic ting sound.  Which is not the kind of sound you expect from a liquid.  I mean, if your milk goes “ting,” you have an issue. 

The second odd thing was the weight.  Setting on the counter, the mercury barely covered the bottom of the glass jar.  When you picked it up, you assumed that most of the weight was the glass.  But when you shook it, you could feel the mercury throwing its weight around.  For a brief moment it would be in midair, and then it would slam into the top or bottom of the jar and you could feel it jerk because something heavy had slammed into it. 

I would sit there at the computer shaking this glass jar for minutes just to hear the tings and feel the weight shifting just because it was so weird. 

Over-engineered holiday lights

I have a crappy, part time job at a store.  One of the things we sell are holiday lights.  Mostly Christmas, but also Halloween.  These strings of lights usually come in a small display box that has a super short string of lights on it and a button you can press to see how they look when they light up.  Usually, once the display box is empty, we just throw it away.  But a couple of times I’ve ripped the display lights out to hang them around the register.  I then have to rig some way to keep the lights on, usually by taping the button down.  The thing I’ve noticed by doing this a few times, is that these cheap, disposable lights will stay lit for days.  I guess the lights are so efficient we can’t make batteries small enough for them to only last a few hours.  So if you need some holiday lights, for a day or so and are okay with super short strings, ask if you can have the empty boxes the store would normally just throw away. 

***

Image from Pixabay.

Some thoughts on abortion

One night about fifteen years ago, my girlfriend at the time was freaking out because she was like two days late.  There was a drug store a couple blocks from her apartment, but she didn’t want to go there because her mother’s friend worked there and she didn’t want her parents to think she was pregnant.  So I drove to the drug store across town and bought a pregnancy test.  She took it, and it came up negative.  But since she had read that the tests are more accurate in the mornings, I had to go back and buy a second test.  And the next morning that too was negative.  And she got her period like two days later.

Even after the first test she was still uneasy.  And she said that if she was pregnant she was getting an abortion.  Part of it was because she had some medical issues that could be inherited, and she had struggled with them all her life and she wouldn’t wish them on anyone, let alone a baby.  Also, she was on four or five medicines for these issues, and I think all of them had the side effect of severe birth defects.  So her choices other than abortion were to stay on the medicines, and either miscarry or have a kid with severe health problems, hope that after years of fine tuning her medicines her doctors could quickly switch her to safer meds, or just stop taking these medications that helped her live a semi-normal life.  And even if she managed to get through the pregnancy and had a healthy baby, neither of us were parent material, and we really shouldn’t have been a couple to begin with.

If she had been pregnant and went ahead with the abortion, I would have helped her.  I would have driven her to it, paid for it, and done whatever she needed.  But I was 95% certain that she wasn’t pregnant.  First off, we always used protection, but also because of her medication she had an erratic menstrual cycle.  I wanted to ask how she could be two days late when her cycle was erratic, but I knew better. 

That is the closest I have been to the abortion issue.  But it was a choice I didn’t have to make, so my thoughts on what I would have done are all “in theory.”

If you had asked for my thoughts on abortion twenty-fivish years ago, I probably would have said that I was a militant pro-choicer.  Part of it was the simple idea that women should be able to control what happens with their bodies, but a big part was also that many of those against abortion were religious nuts who I had other issues with.  And if they were against something, well then I was pretty much for it.  The idea I came up with – and which I still agree with – is that the people who should decide if a woman has an abortion are: the woman, the father if possible, her doctor, her parents/guardian if she’s underage, and whoever she wants to talk to about it.  If there isn’t a politician or priest in that group, it’s none of their damn business. 

Now, one night about twenty or so years ago, I was thinking about clones.  Which is perfectly normal for someone interested in/writing science fiction.  Anyway, I wondered at what point in the cloning process could the person who donated the cells stop the procedure.  My idea was that you take some cells from a person, and put them in an artificial womb thing that then grows the clone over days or months or whatever.  And my initial idea was that as soon as the cells are put in the cloning machine, that’s it.  The clone is now another person and the donor can’t stop the process.  Which is great and all, but then I had to ask how that fit in with the old fashioned method of making new people. 

Some people claim that as soon as an egg is fertilized, that’s a new person.  I find that too simplistic an answer for such a complex issue.  The very rough answer that I’ve hammered out, focuses on … separate survivability, I guess you can call it.  As soon as a fetus/baby can survive outside of the mother, that in my view is when they are a new person.  But there isn’t a fixed line when that happens, and medical technology is always advancing.  (Did you really want some schmuck on the internet to just say “Babies are people at X weeks!” and accept that as an answer?)  For my clone idea, there is some machine that takes the cells and makes a new person out of them.  Even if those cells are stolen from someone, barring some machine breakdown, those cells will become a new person.  I don’t see this applying to regular procreation – even if the chance of some cells becoming a new person are the same – because women are people, and not just baby making machines.  If you drop your phone and the screen cracks, you get a new one.  If you drop a baby and there’s a crack, you don’t just get a new one.  We treat humans and machines differently. 

Now, if we had the medical technology that as soon as a woman found out she was pregnant she could go and have the ball of cells removed and put into some artificial womb that would then grow the baby, I would say that should replace abortion and terminating a pregnancy should be reserved for only the most extreme circumstances, like if the life of the mother is at risk.

Of course, if there were now all these babies coming out of artificial wombs, where would they go?  It’s not like we already have plenty of kids waiting to be adopted.  It seems like until that medical technology is fully developed, the best way to reduce abortions would be to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies, through better education and increased use of contraceptives.  And of course, the religious nuts are against that too.

Short story – “Exodus”

“Exodus”

Leaning forward, Paul Harper kissed his wife Deborah on the forehead and whispered, “I love you.”

“I love you too,” she whispered back with a tired smile.  Their three month old Linda had finally fallen asleep in her mother’s arms.

Ever so gently, Paul placed his hand on the back of his daughter’s head.  Like every time before, he smiled at the touch of her silky hair. 

Sooner than he would have liked, Paul glanced towards his study and frowned.  Deborah nodded and began to turn away, but he stopped her with a hand on her shoulder and kissed her forehead again.

When Paul entered his study, he closed the door as quietly as possible and sat at his desk.  Closing his eyes, he rubbed his temples.  He still had twenty-three essays to read and correct before he could go to bed.  Fortunately, they were short. 

Since next week marked the fortieth anniversary of the Pentans making First Contact with humanity, he had his students write about what they felt was the biggest consequence of that event.  He remembered his own teachers giving a similar assignment for the twenty-fifth anniversary, but he couldn’t remember what he had written.  He didn’t have the time or energy to look through his old files to see if he still had it, and besides he suspected those files had probably been deleted long ago.  But before he had his students write out a long essay, he had them turn in a brief, one page version.  This let him see where they were going so he could advise them on any problems they might run into.  It was a good plan, except for the part where he had said he would return the essays tomorrow so his students could work on the full versions over the weekend.

With a sigh, Paul got to work.  David Lepper apparently had gone to the net and just copied some college student’s paper.  Paul doubted any of his eighth grade class could discuss how Wittgenstein’s theories could be used in an approach to the Pentan language.  Elba Madero’s one page outline was a rambling three pages about how great it was for humans to learn we were not alone in the universe.  Almost in contrast was Ann O’Rourke’s half page statement that Pentan technology and experience cut considerable time off the construction of the Mbandaka Space Elevator.  And it was no surprise that the school’s star goalie, Doug Rach, wrote about Sphere-Soccer and other such sports made possible with Pentan gravity control.

Paul’s method was to read each essay twice; the first time to get the general idea and the second to mark mistakes or inconsistencies.  But he had to read Doug’s three times because his mind kept wandering.  Kids looked at gravity manipulation and made up new sports whereas adults looked at it and wondered how it could change the oldest sport.  Paul had once read that for every variable-g gym there were two variable-g sex parlors for couples who didn’t have the time or money to fly up to an orbital or lunar hotel for a weekend of acrobatic sex.  He had been trying to talk Deborah into visiting one since before they were married, but it wasn’t until she was six months pregnant that she reluctantly agreed to give it a try, mainly because it would let her be light on her feet.  But she ended up enjoying it so much they went back three more times.  Her parents had promised to come over some weekend to watch Linda and give the new parents a break and Paul had a good idea what they would do.

Saving his comments on Doug’s essay, Paul shook his head to clear his thoughts and moved on to the essay by Jon Suthers.  Jon was a teacher’s nightmare; an intelligent but lazy student, as well as a class-clown.  His teachers never knew what they would get from him.

Up on Paul’s screen came Jon’s essay, “Unforeseen Benefits of Contact with Pentans.” The first sentence read: “One of the greatest benefits of the Pentans making Contact with us – but one few people will discuss openly – is it allowed for the humane disposal of Earth’s riff-raff.”

Paul gave a low whistle.  “This should be interesting.” He continued reading:

The first group of riff-raff to leave Earth were the Technophiles.  This group – incensed that the rest of the world did not share their desire to “improve” humanity with genetic and cybernetic enhancements – stole Unity I, the first Human-built vessel with tunnel capabilities, and went off into deep space never to return.

While the world was enraged over the theft of the ship, most people considered it a small price to pay for not having to deal with such people again.

Once tunnel capable vessels became common, more groups chose to follow the Technophiles – although these purchased their vessels.

One of the first groups to legally leave were the Marxists.  These followers of Karl Marx – a Nineteenth Century philosopher – figured they could not fit into the Human Republic which requires Member Nations to have a democratic form of government as well as a capitalist economy.  Of the three nations on Earth that are not members of the Human Republic – Switzerland, Vatican City, and the Ashgabat Caliphate – none hold to the Marxists ideals.  So in 2063, a group of around a hundred Marxists led by Juan Dávila settled on the third moon of Thor – a Jovian planet orbiting the star Iota Horologii some 50 light-years from Earth.  The colony – named Trier after the birthplace of Marx – has slowly grown through the emigration from Earth of others who share their views.  While Trier is not a Member Nation, there is a treaty of non-interference between it and the Human Republic.

Through the door, Paul heard Linda begin to wail.  He went to stand up, but stopped himself.  I have to finish these he told himself.  Taking a deep breath, he forced himself back to Jon’s essay.

Similar arrangements – allowing for travel and trade – have been made with other colonies such as Nike, Five Pillars, and Here.  But others have severed all ties to the Republic, for example, Freewinds, Zion, and Cana.  The conditions – and in some cases even the location – of these “colonies” are unknown, but not that many people care.  (Although, as in the example of Trier, it would be nice if similar people left on Earth had the opportunity to emigrate.)

The reason it is beneficial for all these colonists to part company with the rest of humanity is that most of these colonies are populated with political and religious fanatics; brethren to groups that have caused considerable turmoil on Earth for millennia.  With them out of the picture, perhaps the rest of us can finally live in peace. 

But are we truly better off without such people?  Throughout history, various groups have decided that the world would be better off if certain other groups were no longer around.  While the Human Republic cannot be charged with genocide in the “disappearance” of the Technophiles or minor religious groups like the Scientologists – is the result not the same?  For how long have the wise been telling us that our differences make us stronger, not weaker?  How much weaker is the choir of humanity because of the loss of so many voices?

Paul sat back in his chair and rubbed his temples.  “That was interesting, all right,” he said to himself.  Then to his computer he said, “Insert comment,” and a small screen appeared at the bottom of the essay and filled in as he spoke.  “There is a significant change in voice and tone between the beginning and the end of your essay, Jon.  Either revise to have a constant voice throughout the whole, or if your intention is as I suspect to emphasize the end by the change, then you need to work on the beginning and make it more … satirical so the ending doesn’t come as a jolt.”

Pausing for a moment, Paul added, “Oh, and ease up on the dashes.”

Linda had quieted, and Paul hoped Deborah would be able to get some rest.  He then began rereading Jon’s essay to further critique the writing.

***

This story is part of my Human Republic series, and this was to flesh a bit of that universe out.  I’d submitted it to every place I could think of, but nobody took it.  So I self-published it back in 2014, but that site didn’t last that long. 

The reason I’m republishing it now, is that while some would cheer if certain political and religious groups left Earth for good, that’s a rather slippery slope.  Our differences make us stronger, which mean we have to accept there will be some with shitty ideals.  To be clear, it is perfectly fine for some to think left-handed people are the spawn of Satan, but if they ever start attacking left-handed people, then they belong in jail.