Jenn Dolari @dolari@driveinsaturday.org

Something that really struck me during the run up to the election was the silence on trans rights from our left-wing candidates.

The chair of the Democratic Party of Texas Gilberto Hinojosa and candidate Colin Allred both threw transfolk under the bus to try and promote the party and get votes. And now we're starting to hear the behind-the-scene blaming from folks like Representative Seth Moulton saying "“Democrats spend way too much time trying not to offend anyone rather than being brutally honest about the challenges many Americans face. I have two little girls. I don’t want them getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete, but as a Democrat, I’m supposed to be afraid to say that.”

This was (and is) something I find worrying. Our allies are seeing that we're a liability and this is very very very terrifying. I hope the others in the party make sure they know that we are humans in need of protection like everyone else.

A story about Jenn and how a video game made her politically aware.

It's 1992, and I finally get a computer that can actually DO stuff. A 486 running Windows 3.1. My first realy game for that? "The Lost Treasures of Infocom" 1 and 2.

I'd always loved Zork games, and having the entire (almost) archive of Infocom text based "interactive fiction" games really appealed to me. One of the games in that package was "A Mind Forever Voyaging" by Steve Meretzky. It's a game that left a deep impact in how it predicts the future.

The game involves Perry Simm, who has recently been told he is a computer simulation of a human raised "in world" since birth, asked to run simulations of a governmental "Plan for Renewed National Purpose." The plan being a (what was then) exaggerated form of the Reagan Administration's policies, something that wasn't on 18 year old Jenn's brain at the time.

The simulation involved the world 20, 30, 40 and 50 years after being enacted. Basically, the plan was pretty much lowering taxes, deregulation, privatization of services and a return to "traditional values." There's actually not a lot to the game. The bulk of it being exploring the simualtion as time goes on. But as time goes on, you see that things, while better at first, go quite off the deep end as time goes on.

I'm going off memory of a game I played thirty plus years ago, but....

At the 20 year mark, everything is actually going very well. Everyone is doing better, technology is moving along, everyone seems prosperous. The rich are getting richer, but so are the folks who aren't rich. There's one thing, though. The fundamentalist "Church of God's Will" has started getting involved with politics. At first just influencing policy, but eventually leading to overturning the seperation of Church and State.

As the years go on, a local Chinese restaurant you go to is cleaning racist grafitti off it's storefront. The Preident now has far more power than the other branches of government and is in power for longer. The Schools are now all private, and mostly run by the Church of God's Will. Eventually the most of the civil services in the city become pay services or eventually privatizes.

Later on, the church runs the police, rationing is everywhere. Your family, who had moved into an apartment at the beginning of the game hoping for a better life, are living there decades later barely able to aford rent. The rich live mainly isolated in a large apartment building downtown, where you can't get into (And infact being pushed away when trying to enter becomes more and mroe violent as the years move on). The Zoo becomes private. Eventually it's shut down with a terrible smell coming from it, implying it was just straight up abandonned.

This game was written in 1985.

While it does go off the deep end (gladiator fights in the stadium near the end, monkey torture time at the zoo, and your born-again son sending your wife to a gulag because she spoke against religion), the mechanics of the game...living in this world....making relationships with the people around you and the places...and seeing how it's going downhill...it left a mark in me.

It wasn't until about 2000 I started noticing...we're living the game now. The plan is enacted through the various Reagan era policies, and while they were slowed down during the Clinton Administration, the second Bush one accellerated it again.

And I didn't want that world I saw in A Mind Forever Voyaging for anyone. Sadly, I've watched as it continued it's march forward. What took 20 years in the game has taken about forty in the real world. We prospered for a while, but it's now taking a down turn as the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer.

I'm only sad it took me another twenty years to get involved. And sadder than it took someone else dragging me out of a self-imposed isolation to do it.

You can play A Mind Forever Voyaging online, but without the game materials it may not make the best sense. But if you can play it, and you can get into it without all the documentation (Which, as most infocom games did, were made as items that existed IN THAT WORLD), it's eye opening and will show you where we're headed.

And it ain't good.

I just got sent my passport off to be renewed.

If I'm going to panic, I'll panic productively.

@Orb2069 - it's an arcade controller, just themed like an NES controller.

Thoughts Before Bed:

https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/this-was-always-going-to-be-a-generational

In other news, I know they made my arcade stick to look like an NES Advantage, but it's a great scheme. Every time I look at it I want to press those big red buttons.

Hey, all.

A few weeks ago, I mentioned there was a chance I would be selling off my topys and video game systems, along with a plea for donations so I didn't have to.

Thank you: I didn't have to.

Y'all bought me an extra week, and in that week, my freelance job paid me. That said, I didn't forget who asked for what - and if the issue comes up again (and it might), I'll contact those who asked for stuff.

Thanks again. This is a lifetime of stuff. I'd hate losing it.

Thoughts Before Bed

Gonna be a long four years. Gonna grab some sleep, and start work on Year 1.

Vagueposting Before Bed

"Well, that's fine. That's fine, Tremas. I mean, when this thing has taken over the entire planet you'll have the consolation of knowing that you kept your honour intact."

Okay. Shitposting about the Republican win over. Let's have some real talk.

That fear and anger you're feeling right now? You're not wrong. This is an angering time. And a scary time. But that fear and anger? That's energy. That power. That fight or flee feeling from millions of years evolution is there for a reason. It's saying do something or get out of Dodge."

I encourage you to USE that energy to do something. Don't let it pass. Be angry. Stay angry. AND GET INVOLVED. Start with your community. Use that anger to join a local non-profit that will make things better. Get involved with your local government, in any way you can. The way out of this starts in your neighborhood. Make your change in any way you can.

Think you can't do it? I didn't think I could. I had no money, and no job. And I did it. And the change we made was good.

But there's also flee. And that's also understandable. Sometimes you've got to leave an untenable situation. Get started. Get your passports renewed. I'd highly suggest you do that NOW, so it's porcessed before January 20th. Talk with your friends and family in safer states. See who can take you in, where you can get or create a safety net. Research the resources where you think you'd be safe. They can help.

If you're scared, if you're angry, you have every right to be. Use that energy while you have it. Make the world around you better. Get to a better world if you can.

If we stick together, we can make it through the next four years on a local level. And if not, we can find a place to survive. Because we must survive. And we must make this a better place.

Good luck. I have faith in you.

::tira una chancla::

How do I still have four hours left in my day? After all this? I should use my time productively:

The CBS News anchors (and particularly Nora O'Donnell) have been visibly irritated all night at the sight of Trump coming back, and now it's a vigil.

And I feel that. Totally feel that.

Current Mood:

1787:
Elizabeth Willing Powel: "Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?"
Benjamin Franklin: "A republic, if you can keep it."

2024:
Waiter: "Anything on the menu you'd like to order?"
The Electorate: "I'd like fascism please. Well done. Topped with ketchup."

I gotta ask all the folks that voted for That Guy, like, after everything we learned about him: "What was it about him that appealed to you?"

...and we lost the Senate.

"OMG, it must be so so so late right now."
::looks at clock::
"It's only 10PM? It feels like it's been 84 years...."