update from sparkleup

writing/post-self/toledot/index.html

@@ -108,8 +108,8 @@
 <li class="done3"> Part II - Progression<ul>
 <li class="done4"> <a href="launch/launch/Codrin-castor/001.html">Launch: launch-side: Codrin#Castor</a> - The triad tell each other fictional stories around the remnants of the fire of why they left no forks - 2599</li>
 <li class="done4"> <a href="secession/sys/Michelle/002.html">Secession: sys-side: Michelle</a> - Michelle meets with Council of Eight, discusses spending a bunch of reputation to fork; meets up with Jonas and pledges True Name - 2293</li>
-<li class="done3"> <a href="secession/phys/Yared/002.html">Secession: phys-side: Yared</a> - Yared gives a &lsquo;speech&rsquo; on individual rights, then drawn aside by Yosef, out for coffee, tells of secession proposal - 2608</li>
+<li class="done4"> <a href="secession/phys/Yared/002.html">Secession: phys-side: Yared</a> - Yared gives a &lsquo;speech&rsquo; on individual rights, then drawn aside by Yosef, out for coffee, tells of secession proposal - 2608</li>
-<li class="done3"> <a href="launch/phys/Douglas/003.html">Launch: phys-side: Douglas</a> - Douglas answers May&rsquo;s questions - 3489</li>
+<li class="done4"> <a href="launch/phys/Douglas/003.html">Launch: phys-side: Douglas</a> - Douglas answers May&rsquo;s questions - 3489</li>
 <li class="done3"> <a href="launch/sys/Ioan/003.html">Launch: sys-side: Ioan</a> - Ioan(s) and May start to parcel out work, but get off topic onto feelings. - 2644</li>
 <li class="done3"> <a href="secession/phys/Yared/003.html">Secession: phys-side: Yared</a> - first change from Yosef, talking with True Name and Jonas - 2791</li>
 <li class="done3"> <a href="secession/sys/True-Name/001.html">Secession: sys-side: True Name</a> - brings news of the bill to Council of Eight, discuss speciation - 1833</li>

writing/post-self/toledot/launch/phys/Douglas/003.html

@@ -82,6 +82,7 @@
 <p>If you were told that, one year from now, you would die painlessly, what would you do? Would this change if you knew that your death would be painful? Would this change, in either case, if your death was seven days from now?</p>
 </blockquote>
 <p>Obviously, if it&rsquo;s possible, I would just upload in all of these cases. If it was not possible for whatever reason, I&rsquo;m not sure. I think I&rsquo;d spend as much time as possible working with the System as closely as possible. If I had the choice to die, painlessly or in agony, while touching it, I think that I&rsquo;d be happy. Or maybe not happy, but it would feel like a worthwhile death.</p>
+<p>Maybe I&rsquo;d finally screw up the courage to talk to Michelle.</p>
 <blockquote>
 <p>If everyone but you disappeared, what would you do?</p>
 </blockquote>
@@ -98,7 +99,7 @@
 <p>How long wilt Thou forget me, O Lord? Forever? How long wilt Thou hide Thy face from me?</p>
 </blockquote>
 <p>I have to say, I started talking with de, one of the launch commission members, and we agreed that your questions grew exponentially weird starting about here. I originally thought I&rsquo;d answer each in some snarky way, but the more I thought about them, the more I realized what you&rsquo;re going for. In that vein, I&rsquo;ll try to answer each as best I can.</p>
-<p>There are a good number of people who think that God/god(s) forgot about Earth. There have always been doom-sayers and end-of-the-world-ites, but they have seen a huge uptick in my life alone, and I think this last century has been defined by coming to terms with how fucked up everything is. And it&rsquo;s not that we don&rsquo;t blame ourselves. Many of us do! But many of those same people tack it on God, too. &ldquo;God is disappointed with us and that&rsquo;s why everything&rsquo;s terrible&rdquo; or whatever.</p>
+<p>There are a good number of people who think that God/god(s) forgot about Earth. There have always been doom-sayers and end-of-the-world-ites, but they have seen a huge uptick in my life alone. I think this last century has been defined by coming to terms with how fucked up everything is. And it&rsquo;s not that we don&rsquo;t blame ourselves. Many of us do! But many of those same people tack it on God, too. &ldquo;God is disappointed with us and that&rsquo;s why everything&rsquo;s terrible&rdquo; or whatever.</p>
 <p>Me? I&rsquo;m not so sure. I was raised thinking much of that, but I also feel like I left those feelings in the shuttle station back planet-side. I don&rsquo;t think about God much anymore. Maybe that&rsquo;s part of the problem: when we forget about God, we get complacent and then get into trouble, and suddenly he&rsquo;s much more relevant again. Who knows. Life up here is easy. I work, I get tired, I rest, I eat well, I get to do the thing I love most of all. Did I forget God back on Earth? Did I leave him there when I came here? Is there room for God in space? Do you have God in the System, and is that God the same one we talk about phys-side?</p>
 <p>Maybe I can&rsquo;t answer the question without asking a bunch more because God and I forgot each other.</p>
 <blockquote>
@@ -151,7 +152,7 @@ No unknowable spaces echo my words.</p>
 <p>Please answer, May Then My Name. I wait because I have to know that there is something beyond this. I went into this questionnaire with an open mind, and now I&rsquo;m having a hard time continuing because I just want to curl up in my bed and cry because these last questions have stripped me of any pretense that I had about my desires and what&rsquo;s keeping me from them. I don&rsquo;t recognize where you got them from, but they have me truly unsettled. They sound almost like your name, and if you are a part of these questions, then please answer.</p>
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-                <p>Page generated on 2021-10-13</p>
+                <p>Page generated on 2021-10-17</p>
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writing/post-self/toledot/secession/phys/Yared/002.html

@@ -18,12 +18,12 @@
 <p>All of this &mdash; the chatter from the System, the continuity of lives from here to there, the vibrancy of the place &mdash; points to a collection of real, actual people. They may not have the bodies, but they are no less real, living, feeling, laughing, crying, joyful beings, and they deserve the recognition of their reality, their individuality.</p>
 <p>I hear many arguments against their individual rights:</p>
 <p><em>&ldquo;Because we cannot interbreed with them, they are a different species, and thus are not guaranteed the same rights.&rdquo;</em></p>
-<p>This is a crass and patently ridiculous idea. Of <em>course</em> we cannot interbreed, The chances of us interbreeding with a moth are more likely, as at least a moth has a body! However, if we see that their lives in the System are continuous progressions from the lives they lived here and they had inalienable rights here, then there must also be continuity of rights. Whether or not we can interbreed is nothing but a distraction.</p>
+<p>This is a crass and ridiculous idea. Of <em>course</em> we cannot interbreed, The chances of us interbreeding with a moth are more likely, as at least a moth has a body! However, if we see that their lives in the System are continuous progressions from the lives they lived here and they had inalienable rights here, then there must also be continuity of rights. Whether or not we can interbreed is nothing but a distraction.</p>
 <p><em>&ldquo;They should have to pay for the power requirements for running their system.&rdquo;</em></p>
 <p>This argument carries weight when it is viewed from a strictly logical point of view. Running the System <em>does</em> cost money, and even if they have little need for money in there as they go about their day-to-day lives, perhaps they can to find a way to help subsidize that ability. I can think of a dozen ways off the top of my head even while writing this.</p>
-<p>However, for the argument to be used as a reason that they must not have individual rights &mdash; those of freedom, happiness, and access to necessities &mdash; borders on the incomprehensible. When an individual is out of a job outside of the System, we do not simply strip away their rights on the spot! We must have the correct conversation, here.</p>
+<p>However, for the argument to be used as a reason that they must not have individual rights &mdash; those of freedom, happiness, and access to necessities &mdash; borders on the incomprehensible. When an individual is out of a job outside of the System, we do not simply strip away their rights on the spot! We must have the correct conversation, here, and this is just muddying the waters</p>
 <p><em>&ldquo;If they are essentially expert systems running on a computer, they should be treated as such and used to run expert systems out here.&rdquo;</em></p>
-<p>This is it, here. This is the worst of almost all of the myriad arguments that I&rsquo;ve heard. This is the pillar of cynicism that everyone&rsquo;s inner sociopath leans against. This is the bit that says: if I cannot see it, it isn&rsquo;t worth the scantest thought. This is the bit that says: every individual must serve a tangible use in the world in order to exist. This is the bit that says: they deserve this because I am also a cog in this horrendous machine.</p>
+<p>This is it, here. This is the worst of almost all of the myriad arguments that I&rsquo;ve heard. This is the pillar of cynicism that everyone&rsquo;s inner sociopath leans against. This is the bit of us that says: if I cannot see it, it isn&rsquo;t worth the scantest thought. This is the bit that says: every individual must serve a tangible use in the world in order to exist. This is the bit that says: they deserve this because I am also a cog in this horrendous machine.</p>
 <p>Humanity is, as ever, a race of cynics-at-heart, yet this approaches such a low as to turn the stomach. You would afford dogs and cats greater rights than those who we know for a fact can think and talk and feel and know. We know this because they <em>are</em> us.</p>
 <p>Without compromising their identity, I can say that I have received a letter from two representatives of the Council of Eight, the leadership within the System, and on this we agree. They are alive, and because they are alive, they deserve the rights guaranteed those who are alive. They are individual, and so those rights must be individual. They can feel happiness, they know what it means to be free, and they are completely dependent on this one necessity, and so those rights afforded us must be granted them.</p>
 <p>One of these representatives with whom I have been speaking is one of the lost. I know that the collective conscious moves quickly, and it&rsquo;s a lot to ask it to keep in mind a single incident from nigh on twelve years ago, but they are important. They were among the lost, those unlucky few trapped within their own minds and exocortices by the whims of tyranny, and when they were returned to our shared existence from their solipsistic one, they were among the voices campaigning for change from the very political systems who failed them and many others. As one of the lost, their experiences were integral to the creation of the System, and have been a part of it from the inside for almost a decade.</p>
@@ -36,7 +36,7 @@
 <p>Every time he had to write something about this, every time he had to force himself to reiterate the arguments of others, it made him angry. Irrationally so.</p>
 <p>He slung his bag over his shoulder, donned his cap, and stomped out of his apartment. He needed away from computers after something like that.</p>
 <p>Sunlight assailed him on the street. The view was as bright as ever, the weather as oppressively hot as always. He swayed for a moment as he struggled to acclimate, and once he was able, continued to stomp his way down the street to the coffee shop on the corner.</p>
-<p>He could let his anger cool, but it felt too good to nurse it a while longer.</p>
+<p>He could let his anger cool, but it felt too good to nurse it just a little while longer.</p>
 <p>His usual low stool was free, so he claimed that and sat to watch as the coffee was roasted, ground, boiled, strained, poured. Despite the urge to stoke that fury further, the meditative aspect of watching the coffee being prepared, the smell of it and the small cakes of himbasha, calmed him quickly.</p>
 <p>He was partway through his second cup and nibbling on his second slice of the sweet cardamom bread when another man sat down next to him. This would not normally be cause for concern, except for the fact that the man was wearing a suit. A <em>black</em> suit. This was not just incongruous, it was alarming in a place where the sun shone so hot.</p>
 <p>Yared looked around, then spotted the black car parked down the cross street. Obviously that must have a cushy, air-conditioned interior, which would at least make the choice of clothing tolerable.</p>
@@ -59,7 +59,7 @@
 <p>The man set the tray of coffees on the roof of the car, removed one and set a slice of himbasha on it, before opening the back door and handing the tray and other slices to the person inside.</p>
 <p>So incongruous was the context that Yared did not recognize him at first. The man was dressed much as he was, in loose white pants and a white shirt, but the clothing was much finer, with an elaborately embroidered neckline on the shirt, and spotless pants where his own where dusty and overdue for a wash.</p>
 <p>Still, the face was unmistakable. &ldquo;Councilor Demma?&rdquo; he asked, voice small.</p>
-<p>&ldquo;Mr. Zerezghi! The very one. Please! Come in and sit with me, and we can drink our coffees. They smell delicious.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Mr. Zerezghi! The very one. Please! Come in and sit with me, and we can drink our coffees. They smell delightful.&rdquo;</p>
 <p>Yared stood at the door a moment longer, feeling the cool air against his face. His mind had gone blank. Any thought of the coffee, of the message earlier, was gone, and all he could think was, <em>What in the world does Yosef Demma want with me?</em></p>
 <p>A gentle hand on his shoulder from the driver urged Yared into the back of the car where he took a seat opposite Councilor Demma, who handed him his coffee and offered him the bag of himbasha, which he declined.</p>
 <p>&ldquo;I suppose you&rsquo;ve already eaten plenty, hmm? It does smell delicious. I rather like it when they put orange in it as well as the spices.&rdquo; He broke off a corner of the bread and set the rest aside. &ldquo;I will get straight to business, Mr. Zerezghi, as I know that this is rather unexpected for you. We have been keeping tabs of your posts on the topic of individual rights on the DDR forums. Your voice is one of the loudest, most consistent, and most eloquent out of the whole system, and would like to work with you on those.&rdquo;</p>
@@ -93,7 +93,7 @@
 <p>At some unseen signal, the car door was opened from the outside. The meeting, it seemed, was at an end, and he was back on the street, back in the brightness and heat, watching the car disappear around a corner.</p>
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