This is why voting tests have been repeatedly struck down as unconstitutional, even if it would be really nice if all voters could pass grade school civics

I was just talking about this with a friend yesterday night; we eventually discussed the idea of a license to have babies, but deciding who should have the power to deny someone else a basic right is always a very thorny issue... though one could argue the same about judges (or juries) decreeing the loss of someone's freedom.

Not the easiest of topics.

Many of them were grandfathered in. Literally; if you had an ancestor who could vote before 1867, then you were exempt from the literacy tests introduced in 1890. The Jim Crow period is not a bright time in American history.


Interesting idea, but probably unenforceable without excessive nastiness. (I've read a couple of sci-fi books with civilizations like that, and the revolutions they inspire.)

Currently, where I live, there are two levels: "Minimum community standards" you need to abide in order to raise your own children, and a licensed level for raising those under the state's custody. The difference is quite broad, too; for example, two of the bedrooms in our house are only 110 square feet, which is not enough to legally house more than a single foster child each, so we gave up our master bedroom for a year. After adoption, the state wouldn't even care if we put all three in one of those smaller rooms, as long as they're not obviously being neglected.

Granted, part of that is a reaction to past abuses of the foster system...

I hear that certain states will immediately take custody of newborn children if they've had to take other children from those parents, but that's probably as close as we come to licensing childbirth; forced sterilization is frowned upon these days.

“And there a bloody compact was made, to seek treasure in the deep and hollow places of the world. And the blood was mixed and thrown on the fire. Iron was grasped, and sweat was wiped from many a brow, for the road ahead was long, and descended far beyond the grasp and ken of happy men.”
– Enyis and the Boar King
http://killsixbilliondemons.com/comic/s ... ones-2-12/

"In nomine libertatis vincula aedificamus
In nomine veritatis mendacia efferimus"
Caparezza - Non Mettere Le Mani In Tasca

(translation: In the name of freedom we build constraints, In the name of truth we spread lies)

Caparezza is an Italian rapper that earned some fame combining catchy music with lyrics that mock many aspects of society and politcs; those lyrics are characterized by countless references to both "high" and pop culture, a healthy dose of irony for everything and everyone (including himself), shameless use of wordplay and creative use of common sayings. For this reason, the lyrics of his songs are regrettably very hard to translate; some may be quite hard to understand even for native speakers, and some of his hits ended being played in the same environments he meant to criticize... this is one of the many facts that make me uncomfortable about human nature (or maybe merely about Italy)

This very couple of lines (you can find them at 3:24 in the video) alone have a couple of interesting references; for context, the song talks about the cultural oppression of religion by picturing an actual totalitarian regime where pockets are declared outlaw (the title means "don't put your hands in your pockets") to symbolize the complete lack of privacy and freedom.
-The lines are enunciated as a leading voice and a chorus, reminding of the time when Italian priests used Latin for Masses, a period where most people were considered cultured if able to write and read, let alone understand a language useless to everyday's life. This led people to mindlessly repeat words they didn't understand, sometimes butchering them in tragicomic ways.
-the term "libertatis" reminds of "libertas", the word printed on the symbol of a catholic-oriented party which name translates as Christian Democracy. Said party thrived on the votes of the population who had little political conscience and trusted the omnipresent religious propaganda, giving power to a number of politicians deeply related to mafia.
-the lies-truth part probably refers to how fiercely the clerical hierarchy defended (and defends still, in some cases) their allied parties and politicians and suspect priests (I don't think I have to expand on the scandals related to pedophilia and corruption, they are quite known in the USA too), contrasting the talk of Truth one can find in the doctrine.

Reminds me of the Malaysian rapper Namewee. Very cool.

“We marched across half a world. We chased a Whirlwind. We walked out of a burning city. We stood against our own in Malaz City. We took down the Letherii Empire, held off the Nah’ruk. We crossed a desert that couldn’t be crossed.

Now I know how the Bridgeburners must have felt, as the last of them was torn down, crushed underfoot. All that history, vanishing, soaking red into the earth.

Back home – in the Empire – we’re already lost. Just one more army struck off the ledgers. And this is how things pass, how things simply go away. We’ve gone and marched ourselves off the edge of the world.

I don’t want to say goodbye.” - The Crippled God

All Barin's beautiful haikus put me in mind of this one, which I always remember from reading James Bond as I was growing up:

You only live twice:
Once when you are born
And once when you look death in the face
- Ian Fleming, "You Only Live Twice"

I’m not procrastinating. I’m delegating important tasks to future-me.
— Matthew Sheahan

Also, I lament the fact this thread is not called Notable Quotables

That's because it was never meant to be.

'How seductive is war! When you know your quarrel to be just and your blood ready for combat, tears come to your eyes. The heart feels a sweet loyalty and pity to see one's friend expose his body in order to do and accomplish the command of his Creator. Alongside him, one prepares to live or die. From that comes a delectable sense which no one who has not experienced it will ever know how to explain. Do you think that a man who has experienced that can fear death? Never, for he is so comforted, so enraptured that he knows now where he is and truly fears nothing.'"
-Jean II Le Maingre (August 28, 1366 — June 21, 1421)

"Why bother being smart when the Multiverse so conveniently conspired to keep your idiocy alive?"
-Nicol Bolas

Hour of Devastation promises to be delightful

"The wages of rationalism is nihilism, and the exchange rate between nihilism and death is well documented."
Skerples - Coins and Scrolls: Stories, Hard Science Fiction, and Moloch- Coins and Scrolls

Edit- Link fixed

Did you know you linked directly to your own comment on that blog with that link?

Just teasing you, of course, but it was kind of odd seeing your old avatar without the above quote.

"I will now jump from boring game theory stuff to what might be the closest thing to a mystical experience I’ve ever had.

Like all good mystical experiences, it happened in Vegas. I was standing on top of one of their many tall buildings, looking down at the city below, all lit up in the dark. If you’ve never been to Vegas, it is really impressive. Skyscrapers and lights in every variety strange and beautiful all clustered together. And I had two thoughts, crystal clear:

It is glorious that we can create something like this.

It is shameful that we did.

Like, by what standard is building gigantic forty-story-high indoor replicas of Venice, Paris, Rome, Egypt, and Camelot side-by-side, filled with albino tigers, in the middle of the most inhospitable desert in North America, a remotely sane use of our civilization’s limited resources?"

https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/m ... on-moloch/

I've had this quote sitting around for a year and one month, so my notes tell me, and I have forgotten to post it in all that time. This line is actually from a romantic comedy pony story, but I found this specific line toward the end of it sparked up a wave of ideas in my head (how's that for a mixed metaphor?).



If I have to give attribution, it's from a story called Pony Courtship Rituals, written by Codex Ex Equus.

"Jackie Brown at twenty-six, with no expression on his face, said that he could get some guns."

The opening line from "The Friends of Eddie Coyle" by George Higgins, which -- as Raven once astutely pointed out -- is written almost in iambic tetrameter.

"We thought that magic dusts and sugar cubes and elixirs would transmute our heads, hatch us like eggs into a race of beings so magical and special it would make you weep to see us...
We'd create a dazzling civilization that would eclipse the sun, one you couldn't even dream about...
I saw all the flower children gone to weed and seed and thorn. Get out of here hippie. You make me sick."
-Sandman Annual no.5 1989

“Cleave a stone to pieces, and you only make smaller stones. Cut down a man and cut down a great many people. To start, you slay all his former selves. You kill a enemy and a comrade, a son and a father, a mentor and a student. Then the great net of his life drags its hooks out and sinks all he was attached to, tearing a terrible hole in the web of being,” replied Ogam. “Men have a great many attachments, and a great many former selves. Manflesh is very dense, in the grand scheme of things. It makes war difficult.”
-The Song of MAybe

The great cause of Art is to unify and set afire the mind and heart with an experience that ordinary nature can only rarely, and unpredictably provide. - False Machine

I don't know if this belongs here, but I feel it deserve some sort of recognition.