Think about what I'm giving you. Did you receive it?
Senior year is definitely the year to do nothing. Thusly I took AP Physics C. Two exams for twice the fun.
The world's population is too high. We use many resources and have huge amounts urban development to sustain these numbers but we can't go on doing this forever. As much as many nations feel the only way for them to catch up is to increase their workforce through encouraging high birthrates they are only digging us deeper into the hole. I argue on the side of NPG, negative population growth. The concept of NPG and no it is not an oxymoron or contradiction, it simply treats growth as a vector quantity rather than a word. NPG mean that birth rates will average out to create a smaller generation than the one doing the creating. Hence bringing about a negative replacement rate between generations. This naturally happens in wealthier areas of developed nations where women have more rights and education available to them so many successful nations don't have huge populations like China or India because they have already passed their need for high levels of unskilled labor for industrialization. However, South East Asian, South American and African economies don't have it quite so well off. They often suffer more greatly from economic fluctuations and can't offer much in terms of research and development or other high end tasks and make up for it with cheap labor en masse. But that kind of economy hastens global destruction in the arctic, rain forests and many other places because there are more mouths to feed and bodies to house in one place and more hardwood floors and oil to ship to another so it can expand it's economy and keep doing well. The profligate, development driven lifestyle and economy of the rich nations and the massive population of the poor is what leads to the negative effects of having a positive population growth in the here and now, but in the future there will be immediate scarcity and famine if the population keeps up the current trend. China recognized this on a national scale and instituted the one child policy. This was a failure in itself but it could have been on the right track. Should there be limitations or at least incentives to keep the population from overrunning us?
The SDF counts as a military, hell it even aids with international peacekeeping now as I understand it. So they're in the clear when it comes to having military power. They have as much as a rich, civilized island nation should have right now too. The goal of a military in a modernized country is to defend against those who have essentially not modernized and maintain the mentality of conquest in the name of nationalism and material gain. Agressors in this day and age primarily are either oppressive regimes like China's with Tibet or backwards powerhungry autocracies like in some Near East nations. A huge upset of the global economy might change this but for the time being Germany, Japan, the US and other like nations don't really need an offensive force at all and should only have a primarily defense minded military to help police the world essentially through an organization such as the UN. This probably sounds either idealistic or incomprehesible. I might go back and try to rectify at least one of those later.
Congratulations to Advent, any other result would have been a farce and a travesty. Just saying. With this many people entering I might not have to enter at all. These are the words that I'll be swallowing when the 28th rolls around. Edit: It's early, but I don't see anyone else posting so I'm going to err on the side of I don't give a fuck and enter. It's sorta in line with the theme in some ways but at the same time I could see someone not really seeing the direct connection. Whatever. What is it good for? Spoiler Absolutely Nothing They say that war is hell, but for me it didn’t feel like I’d been there until I got home. Dad was dead. Mom was dead. My brothers were, guess what? Dead. The house had been foreclosed upon while I was fighting and neither of my parents had a legal will. So I got home in time to catch a bunch of dirty looks as I tried to get into what I thought was my own house. The neighbors called the cops and they threw me in a cell for a night before they told me a single thing. They let me out in the morning but they said they’d throw me in longer if they caught me around that nice old lady’s house again. It was an old lady that had taken the old homestead apparently. After that I had to check newspapers and go to the town hall to see if anyone related to me was still alive. Nope. Just as I told you at the start. They all died. My brothers and father were in a different platoon from me but the same as each other and were all blown up at once by the same bomb they say. My mom heard the news and wasted away thinking that she’d lost everything. She ended up a rotting corpse without even the will to go buy groceries so they pulled her from the house in hazmat suits and had her buried wherever. But I wasn’t dead. No one noticed that I wasn’t dead until I became a nuisance to them and they wished that fate upon me. Fuck them. They tell me to go fight for six months, leave me out for twenty four and then tell me to go home to a place where the people want me as little as those damned foreigners did. Fickle, flippant, flickering, phosphorescent, fuck. At least they didn’t take my life like they did my family’s and at least they’re still paying my bills, barely. Damn light. Keeps flickering, on and off, on and off, on and off. It makes me sick. Going out. Gotta get away from that damn light. The whole apartment sucks though, not just the light, the walls are thin so I can hear the couple of rabbits on the east side and the solo act on the west, the furnishings are all old and crappy and not one of the utilities runs smoothly. I get rust in my water, I get water in my rust. My electricity is more likely to kill me than microwave a potato and the gas would incinerate the place if I was suicidal enough to try it. I hate the whole damn place. That’s why I always hang out around the city as late as possible. I’m not afraid like I was when I was a kid. I’ve killed more people than any murder on these streets and I don’t mind upping the count by a ne’er-do-well or two. Not like I’d lose on an insanity plea, post traumatic stress works wonders. It’d be a step up to go to a mental institution for me probably. Fuck it. I’d just have more time to think there. That’s what I’m doing now isn’t it? Better get wasted and head back before something really does happen. The local bar is nearly the only place I’ll show my face and that’s because I’ve got my dog tags and ragged uniform under it most of the time. No one messes with me and no one asks questions. I can just focus on getting so hammered I lose the mental capacity to be depressed about anything. That’s my life. Nothing left in it but trying to forget what already happened in it. So far things have gone about as well as you’d guess. Maybe I do need a job. Next week when I’ve recovered from this massive hangover I already know I’m gonna have tomorrow. That’s what I like about rum and vodka, couple of shots in and I know exactly how bad I’ll feel tomorrow and the day after. It’s not like beer that leaves you hanging for an hour before anything that feels physically damaging happens. Well fuck it, anymore and I’m not gonna get home at all. Gonna finish the bottle back at my place. Shit. It’s a guy from high school. Rocks for jocks material and slightly crooked in the nose and demeanor. You’d think that with all my time I spent forgetting I’d be a little worse with the names and faces of people I see on the street. Wearing Armani are we and strapped like a mob boss to boot. No way. There’s girls too? Whose Italian sports car is that? Dear god, why can’t that be me? I never did a thing wrong in my life and it decides me fuck me over and give this guy everything. No, that’s a lie. I was the one who did the wrong thing… Fuck. I gotta get home. Can’t show up drunk and blithering in front of anyone who knew me before, it’d be the height, pinnacle and paramount of ignominy, shame and disgrace. And I can still here those two rabbits going at it. I could bang on the walls and end up with a hole that may or may not mix one of my hands up in their—activities—or, I could just wake up and realize I passed out already and that this dream is just as bad as living it. Fantastic, I was right. Never made it home, guess that last shot was a bit too much for my system. As proven when I wake with a startlingly potent spike of pain through my head next to three unpleasant things. A dumpster, a puddle of what I am beginning to hope is my own vomit and a rat crawling towards the puddle looking for a drink. Fuck me. I’m not the soldier I once was, I’m not the kid I once was but I sure as hell haven’t grown up. So what am I even? Leftovers, something that someone might want, but just as easily might leave to rot and throw away later. That’s what I am for sure. Speaking of food, I remember hearing vomit was bad for the teeth, better get home and brush the pearly whites and find some coffee to redo the damage. Barely been home for two years and I’ve gotten used to this kinda wake up call already. Pathetic. Shit. I can’t live like this anymore I say for the four thousandth time. Two options kid. Get a job or jump off a building. Yeah, jobs are generally better though of than suicides. Go figure. Speaking of. My brothers didn’t all die in the war. One of them got a head start on all of us. He was lucky to be born my dad said, because his conception was a mistake and his birth was half botched. Mom drank, smoked and did everything else the docs say not to during the pregnancy, like she wanted to kid to turn out broken. Still, he did get born into this world that didn’t want him anyways and he ended up weak in everything but the head. Dad abused him, called him a sissy and encouraged the rest of us to make him our whipping boy. I didn’t like it, I didn’t like him; he had no fight in him, it was just too easy to be fun. And that’s all I thought of him until he swallowed half a clip from an illegal machine pistol. At the funeral everyone laughed. He’d never made anyone so happy in his life as he had when he held down that trigger. They told jokes about him and sang songs like it was a party and had a grand old time, someone even got up on the casket and started dancing. They got roaring drunk too and I was there too doing it all with them. They didn’t know I was the one who’d handed him the ammo; they didn’t know I was the one who taught him how to use dad’s favorite gun. For that, he was my first kill, I think. Not counting all those furry critters me and my older brothers chased down, of course. After that, I only thought of my little brother as number one on the counter. The number still reads ninety nine in my head. I never did get to meet Mister 100 over there. Lucky for him. Soon as I’m in, I’m out again; to go, I shudder to say, shopping. Haven’t done that since I got back. Just wore my old uniform and what clothes didn’t get thrown out by the new tenant. But I guess when you’re in your twenties it’s time to stop dressing like a high school student with a camo fetish. My dad would be so proud about the frugality of it and my mom would be so appalled by the griminess of it. I’m pretty grossed out by myself too actually. When was the last time my shower didn’t include flakes of metal and grit falling down on me? So I buy a suit with my booze money which, in retrospect, was my food money initially. I guess I got that from Dad, cheap ass bastard never could handle anything but a gun, never cared much for much else either. Even that didn’t save the poor bastard. Whatever. The past is…well it’s the past. It’s over and done with and I’m gonna do something with my life like I’ve been telling myself I would for the past two years. Maybe I do need help. Maybe the junk mail from the VA is worth looking into. Fuck it all. “Can I help you?†He says. This dude just walks up to me. Oh right, I’m in a store, people are paid to do that. “Yeah. Go faster than light and tell me that patriotism is for suckers and dupes will ya?†Speaking of light, migraines are fun. “What’s your name?†He’s suddenly interested in my business now. I don’t recognize him and he looks like he’s not interested that way. “Jackson Parker. Two last names.†“I knew it!†He shouts like he’s heard it before. “I’m Peter Cromwell. We went to the same high school.†The name doesn’t sound familiar. “Sorry bro. Don’t remember much before the guns started firing.†“You were over there?†“Surprise you that much?†God my head still hurts. “You never seemed the type.†“Well I’m sure you were exactly the guy I’d expect to see working the suits and ties aisles.†“You really don’t remember me?†“Yes.†You little prick. Making me feel like killing again is all this little stroll’s done. So he laughs it off and gets on with his job. Helps me find a suit and off I go. But then he says one more thing. “Hey, if you ever need anything, I’m willing to help, you fought for everyone here overseas so it’s our turn to fight for you here, okay?†I’m actually, legitimately and seriously touched. I have no idea why, but for some reason I care that there is still someone out there that doesn’t just want me out of the way. But even so, everything about this annoys the fuck outta me. His voice, his face, his posture and face. Everything about him—no—everyone is just too annoying. It’s because I killed, I bet. It’s ‘cause I listened to people, then killed them on cue. It’s ‘cause I never knew how to deal with people and when I learned it always involved them shutting up as the toxicity of high speed lead set in and ended when I’d picked the body for ammo and food. Seeing all these people just makes me miss the flickering light and the fornication of my apartment, I never had to shoot lights and I’ve never had sex. It’s making me absolutely bonkers. Goddamn! Can I really go back into civilian life? I hated the army worse than anything but… well at least I did it well, I’m alive aren’t I? Everything before and after resembles a train wreck on top of a building as it collapses on top of unsuspecting passersby. Is that too extreme a comparison? Not if you’re a bystander getting crushed by train parts and rubble. Strangely enough, I felt more comfortable on the front than on the asphalt or the linoleum or the piss stained carpets that welcomed me back. What my mother would say about that thought I’d like not to imagine. Anyways, I’m headed back up to the apartment now. Well, I was headed that way when the shooting started. Now I’m kinda rigid all over the EMT vehicle stretcher. I think I’m dead. I’ve thought it before, but what’s really bugging me is that I got blood all over that nice suit. Arterial blood too, that’s why there’s so much of it. Even if I survive, it’s garbage. At least the blood receding from the body leads to less of a headache. That didn’t happen when I was mowed down by machine gun fire that last time I had time to think I was dead, but then again I didn’t have as much alcohol in me that tim I’ve heard that there’s less then six liters of blood in the human body and you die if less than half that’s gone. I dunno if I’m in the position to say this but I feel more than three liters lighter already. I could fly like a bird if I had the strength to flap these arms like wings. Fuck. “Patient is unresponsive!†Shouts one. “Clear!†Shouts the other. BZZT! goes the defibrillator. Thump. goes my head. Life isn’t a journey to the grave, it’s an uphill battle towards it.
Nothing but landspeed records and Mormons out there.
I remember this from two or three years back when I was up late in the spam zone.
I'd forgotten how awkward it is reading third person omniscient with detail. It's not wrong or anything but it could have been a little less choppy on the transitions between following Wyatt's thoughts and J.C.'s. You trip up occasionally on the grammar and it's noticeable, but you did this instead of sleeping so I'll forgive it readily. Plot is going somewhere, don't know where but there is building going on and that's a good sign. I feel like this might go in a direction that it doesn't really need to, but I can also see this going to a zombie apocalyse so I'll just have to wait and see. Characters are developing, maybe not into the most likable people from my perspective but they feel believable and unique from each other which is a plus. Overall I'm gonna keep reading and see if I like this or not but it's one the fence right now, at least the quality of the technical side isn't bad at all.
that Wolfie had become an Admin for her birthday and that I had become a Canada goose.
You are all now free falling in a frictionless vacuum through a uniform gravitic field towards a point infinitely far away.
The Japanese want to do research on your whales.
Speaking of which, gotta go buy some more top soil for the garden.
OH! You funny man.
**** your nonconservative forces.
[It's like a hand held calliope or something]
Hmm. Don't know what went wrong with that honestly. I've never really run into that kind of thing before so I'll need a little time and testing to...
