and that is the point at which my anarchoprimitivist friends stop talking to me about Mad Max, probably, when I can't shut up about tools of cultural expansion. Gargh, such a great universe. But seriously, I think The Uses of Religion is a terrific place for this to go.
My brother wants to know if the people of the internet have any ideas as to the economic utility of the dirt peasants. I pointed out that maintaining a large population of dirt-poor scroungers as an enlistment pool for your army isn't unheard-of - plus I feel like that's a pretty good threat as to what happens if you don't die nobly and go to Valhalla, your utility runs out and you get thrown into the peasant pit - but he pointed out that in the meantime it's a labor pool that isn't doing anything. Me and my brother: really worried about dystopian economies, in general.
While I am frantically typing about how interesting Mad Max is: Roachpatrol over on tumblr made a great post that I'm not going to go looking for from work, as there are butts all over her tumblr, about how hiphop would probably be a surviving musical tradition among the warboys - like, all you need is a guy to beatbox and a guy to rap. I like the idea that maybe there's an epic poetry/hiphop underground culture that exists in contrast to the instrumentation-heavy state-sponsored music of the guitar flamethrower and subwoofer truck. Like, maybe that's a place where there's been space for subversion and reflection - some lyrics are straight-up vauntings or memorials to witnessed deaths, but there's also just some space there, because it's more private. Then I got excited about the idea of the Nuxian tradition being really heavy on hip-hop style epic poems, and the idea that there's a genre of memorial poem that everyone remembers after the witnessed death and people fret about what will happen to them with the massive dieoff of elder warboys, and then I got sad that I'm not very good at freestyling lyrics and can't write it.
no subject
My brother wants to know if the people of the internet have any ideas as to the economic utility of the dirt peasants. I pointed out that maintaining a large population of dirt-poor scroungers as an enlistment pool for your army isn't unheard-of - plus I feel like that's a pretty good threat as to what happens if you don't die nobly and go to Valhalla, your utility runs out and you get thrown into the peasant pit - but he pointed out that in the meantime it's a labor pool that isn't doing anything. Me and my brother: really worried about dystopian economies, in general.
While I am frantically typing about how interesting Mad Max is: Roachpatrol over on tumblr made a great post that I'm not going to go looking for from work, as there are butts all over her tumblr, about how hiphop would probably be a surviving musical tradition among the warboys - like, all you need is a guy to beatbox and a guy to rap. I like the idea that maybe there's an epic poetry/hiphop underground culture that exists in contrast to the instrumentation-heavy state-sponsored music of the guitar flamethrower and subwoofer truck. Like, maybe that's a place where there's been space for subversion and reflection - some lyrics are straight-up vauntings or memorials to witnessed deaths, but there's also just some space there, because it's more private. Then I got excited about the idea of the Nuxian tradition being really heavy on hip-hop style epic poems, and the idea that there's a genre of memorial poem that everyone remembers after the witnessed death and people fret about what will happen to them with the massive dieoff of elder warboys, and then I got sad that I'm not very good at freestyling lyrics and can't write it.