xyzzy
Well, I've finally got around to considering what to do with this place. After scrapping the previous plan (a fairly elaborate set of pages designed to produce a 'house' of sorts), I've gone for something much simpler and more useful, in my mind. Stuff I find interesting will get shoved onto the end of this page, bit by bit, kind of like a reverse blog. So there might be comments, bits of personal news, short (or long) essays, or any number of other things.I'm also going to add a way of linking direct to one item, and a menu that contains all the items so far. For more recent stuff, the date it happened/was written/I found out about it will be included.
Who I am
Well, this is the online abode, as it were, of Timothy Kew. I'm a 17 year old steampunk mathematician and ragamuffin philosopher, who thinks far too highly of his own ability to write and is therefore inflicting it on you. Here's a photo of me, if you're really that crazy.
I can be contacted by email at xyzzy at b dot armory dot com, or timotiis at googlemail dot com. On IRC, I hang out as timotiis, a nick which I also use on quite a lot of other places. If you see one, gimme a shout, it's probably me
Freedom
A free society must be ready to fight with one hand tied behind it's back, because it is free. It must be willing to pay the occasional life that could have been avoided by total surveillance, because it is free. It must be willing to stand up and say "Here we are, do your worst, we aren't giving up our freedoms" to those who would attack it, because that is what it means to be free!
Baptism
Sunday 25th May, 2008
I was baptised on this day, at the local CofE church. It's really a public reflection of what I've privately believe for quite some time. There are a few photos, and hatemail/congratulations go to the usual location.Firearms
Friday 6th June, 2008
There are always going to be some deaths: people get crazy enough or passionate enough that killings will happen. And yes, in these cases, firearms do help defend the victim. The problem lies elsewhere. It is with the dozens of other incidents, those that now lead to bruised knuckles or broken bones, that the presence of firearms in large numbers will turn into fatalities.Thing is, a gun makes it one hell of a lot easier to kill people. To kill someone hand-to-hand, beating or stabbing, you need to really hate their guts, to be consumed by your actions. Knives make it easier, yes. But guns make it easier still. A society where most people carry guns will probably have a lower rate of muggings than others. But the bar-fights and domestic disputes are a lot more likely to lead to deaths. There are a myriad other similar scenarios, and they all have this in common: without firearms*, we're probably looking at some punches and some kicks, because actually killing someone with your bare hands in a minor scuffle is hard mentally. However, a gun makes it a lot easier. Just point and shoot, and down they go.
The military discovered this as well. It becomes aesier and easier to induce someone to kill the farther away they're doing it from. Training grunts to kill effectively with knives and fists is hard, almost impossible, because at that distance you can see the enemy, see that they're another human being just like you. Bombers are much easier --- all you need to do is push a button, you don't have to see the messy stuff. Even shooting is a lot easier than getting someone to, consciously and knowingly, beat and hurt someone until they die. That's why so much combat training in armies is about inspiring aggression, and why so much propaganda is focused on dehumanising the enemy. You need it to have an effective military**. This is also why most street scuffles don't end in death in the UK. They're likely to be bare hands, or knives at the most. If pistols were widespread, you'd see a hell of a lot more shootings come Saturday night.
Okay, to finish off. (It was about 3AM when this was originally written, so please excuse me if I've rambled a little). Yes, guns do make a big difference in some situations***, generally those where one party can and will kill even with their bare hands. But in a lot more situations, they turn what is now simply a scuffle, likely to cause only somewhat minor injuries, into an incident with a very real chance of death, just by making it so much damned easier to do. That is why their widespread possession and use by society is a bad thing. This shouldn't be taken to mean that I'm against all firearms, far from it. But most handguns, machine pistols, etc.? We don't need them, and as a society, we Americans should get over it, just like we Brits have.
*This is why the UK laws on carrying knives work the way they do as well. There's a reason they prefer to keep knives off the streets, especially given our levels of boozing.
**One of several very good reasons to oppose the military, in my opinion.
***Intriguingly, these are about the only situations presented by gun advocates. Coincidence?
Further Thoughts on Freedom
Friday 6th June, 2008
"Freedom is chaos and disorder, and anyone who truly saw it would take order anyday." There is actually a quite incisive point here. Freedom isn't pretty or beautiful or anything like that. Freedom, true freedom, is messy and dangerous and unpredictable. It leads to beautiful things: unfettered art, head-over-heels romance, ignoring schedules for living. It leads to terrible things: broken hearts, injury and death, the collapse of corporatism*. It's not something you can package up and sell, or chain down and control. It doesn't work well with corporate ideals, or with timetables and schedules.It's also not something you can make people. It's a mindset, a way of life, and there's no way to force someone into that against their will. It's being the sort of person who says "To hell with the meeting, let's go climb that tree", or breaking the clock, turning off the phone, and watching the sun rise from the rooftops just for the fun of it. It's stepping into a car with a total stranger, going where life takes you and not caring where you'll lay your head tonight.
You can't enforce it and you can't prevent it. For all their rhetoric, no government wants it, beause it would make them pointless. All you can do is live free, and the only way to effect this radical a change is by changing mindsets. Every time and office worker says "Screw this, I want to go fly a kite", every time a geek builds a trebuchet instead of working, the world becomes a little more free. And every time another fresh college graduate, the world at their fingertips, ends up in the drudgery of the modern corporation, the world slips a littler farther back into chains.
Freedom isn't a political gift, it's a choice and a mindset. Now come and be free---if you dare. Step out of the chains and the shackles, the clocks and the phones, and live. Love and laugh and hate and cry and die, but do it knowing that no matter what, you're not going back, because this is what you have chosen, and this is who you are. Come and be free.
*Well, I would tend to put this in the beautiful things column, but most people disagree with me there.
Steampunk
Sunday 22nd June, 2008
We* feel that one cannot simply buy one's way into steampunk. It's not just a look or a set of possessions, it's a mindset and an attitude. Nor is it just neo-victorianism with rayguns. It's a reworking of punk, an attack on modern consumerist society, and an offer of another way.In response to this article in the Times. They actually claim to technically own this comment, but to hell with that.
There will probably be a more lengthy form of this soon as well, in the form of a letter to their editor.
*For "we" read "Anyone who agrees with me, and no other." This is also known as the "anarchist we"
Bookshops
Sunday 22nd June, 2008
I was just visiting Edinburgh University this last weekend, as a part of deciding where to apply and what to study*. Anyway, the town is fantastic. I walked for 10 minutes and passed at least 3 bookshops, and none of them were chains or anything. They were all small independent bookshops or secondhand bookshops. How fantastic is that? Edinburgh airport also has book vending machines, an interesting innovation which I haven't seen before. Unfortunately, they have a somewhat horrible collection --- a few chart topping novels, and that's about it.I have a somewhat eclectic and unusual taste in books, and as a result most bookshops aren't so good. Very large ones are okay, because they often have well developed sections for mathematics, SF, and politics. However, most bookshops, such as the local one in town, just have the current bestsellers and a bunch of celebrity autobiographies. No wonder nobody reads anymore, when they end up being faced with such bad choices.
Fortunately, we have an Oxfam bookshop in town. This has two great advantages. One of these is that they charge far less for the volumes, and the other is that they get their books from donations, not just those which migh sell well. So I got a whole bunch of very very good SF novels*, at about £2.50 each. I also get to know my money is going to a good cause, not just helping prop up another corner of the capitalist system. Meanwhile, the little bookshop I walked into in Edinburgh had Crimethinc books there. Also score.
So yeah. This is really just a bit of happiness at such a find, and has put Edinburgh very near the top of the list. It's also a slight complaint at most smallish bookshops, but hey, whaddya expect from those with different interests from the crowd?
*10 books, in fact. 8 by Asimov, including the first four volumes of the Foundation series (which is bloody good), along with a couple by William Gibson. In Edinburgh, I picked up "Days of War, Nights of Love", and a collection of essays by Emma Goldman. Again a wonderful find.
By Timothy Kew, last updated on Sun Jun 22nd