Anyone Else 2016!

(In which I compile one big rant about the dismal state of my country of origin's decaying political system.)

Progress continues without me.

Not that I haven't been busy, since my effective exile I have proven more than capable of evading my would-be captors but not without effort. Soon though, I will have secured a proper location to bunker down in and probably go slowly insane or simply inane for want of work.

Speaking of the insane and inane, as I mentioned before I owe my freedom in part to America's election 2016 which has distracted my nemesi as the illusion of choice that has kept America's oligarchy puttering along has reached perhaps a new level of transparency.

Now the Partisans are having to prove truly mental gymnasts to explain why their color of cancer is the slightly better cancer to keep feeding into the Oval Office.

"There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution."
- John Adams, 1780

The problem is, there is no clear lesser evil. Oh, I know what many might read this and think- But, but, Trump is a monster!

Well, the problem there is that while Trump may be a monster, his record of malfeasance so far as I am aware is purely fiscal. He hasn't been complicit in the rigging of any elections. Between him and Hillary, he was the more democratically chosen candidate as the RNC didn't rig the system in his favor. To vote for Hillary is to not just turn a blind eye to corruption, but reward it.

Between this and all of the terrifyingly sinister war industry money crossing over from the Republican Party to Hillary, just about every American paying attention has cause to wonder if Trump really is the more disastrous potential President.

But they are, make no mistake, both utterly disastrous and Trump is no game changer.

You see, if an American votes for Trump, the establishment laughs. That voter has proven the idiot peasant they believe most people (roughly 90%) to be and while Trump is not their first choice they know that Trump is nothing if not For Sale. So should he win, it just might be somewhat more expensive to get what they want.

If an American votes Hillary, the establishment smugly chuckles- because what was that American going to do, vote TRUMP?! Which is all to plan as Hillary isn't just for sale, she's sold. From pushing fracking throughout the world to destabilizing countries and promising lucrative military conflicts- she's there for her Buyers.

Trump will probably do the same, but lacks pre-existing deals aside of whatever he might have made with Bill Clinton when Bill asked him to run.

No, the Democrat and Republican parties don't fear Trump votes.

They fear Jill Stein and (to a lesser extent) Gary Johnson votes.

A viable third party would do irrevocable damage to Republican and Democrat establishments as it would break their monopoly on political expression and undo decades of collaboration to subvert the will of the american public.

To say the election this year is a train wreck is somewhat unfair to train wrecks. When a train wreck occurs, it doesn't usually skid on for the better part of a year and in the process reveal it went off of the tracks decades ago.

So, one of the largest areas of agreement between Trump and Hillary besides building a wall is pressing the falsehood that if you vote third party, you are voting for Trump/Hillary (whichever you hypothetically dislike more).

It's the Hillary supporters that push this hardest, given much of Stein's support comes from all of the Millennials who failed to be wooed by Hillary's rallying cry of 'No We Can't'. After all, if you don't support Hillary Trump will win and that will be your fault, right?

Not the fault of the corruption in the DNC that presented what has proven to be quite possibly the worst possible candidate to run against Donald John Trump Senior and rigged the game to ensure Hillary's self-coronation. Nope, that's not their fault- it's yours, so fall in line peasant.

This tactic of sneering at people until they bow has, surprisingly, failed to work quite as well as some idiot surely imagined.

So with both parties and candidates certain to work hard at nothing more than tanking the United States in idiotic and novel new ways for personal profit I for one can only hope more people see fit to go Green.

After all, Jill Stein would really have to sexually mutilate a hobo on live TV to be quite as objectively unappealing as the 'official' choices and even then would STILL have more credibility.

But all too few Americans will vote Stein this time because the odds of her winning are far too long- and they are. It's vanishingly unlikely. Americans want to win, they want to vote for the winner- and quite frankly most of them will do that even if the winner will bend them over a barrel in the exact same manner.

What manner of winning is that?

Voting Stein is important not because it will help her win this election but because it might just help her win the next. Because there is no rational vote for Trump OR Hillary. Because it is the soul of Democracy to vote for the candidate you believe will look out for your best interests and not for the one who will MAYBE use lube as they screw you over.

If I sound mad, it's because I am.

Being fair though, being on the run is perhaps not helping my mood.

Progress continues.

On The Run

Progress Continues! Just... without me for the time being.

If you've been reading along, you may recall there were some sizable changes along with the events described within the last update. We saved the world from aggressive mutated flesh-eating cows, I became an adoptive father and I ordered the mental restructuring of my deranged Illuminati-crafted clone, "Dr." Retekra.

You might also note that it has been quite some time since that last update, and thus suspect that one of these things may not have gone very well. You would be somewhat correct if so.

The elimination of the Mad Vegan's Battle Cattle was a success and his infant daughter has grown to be a thriving, bouncing baby girl I count myself fortunate to be the guardian of, albeit my monitoring of them has had to be via proxy. No, the problem was what I now see to be a rather overbold plan to reform Retekra. Even though I would insist it was quite successful a small group of henchpeople and project leads, led by Drs. G, Ab, and L went straight to the ethics review board and protested.

The ethics review board ultimately ruled against me as while they found the newly reformed former Retekra objectively improved in being certifiably sane and quite emotionally stable despite something of an identity crisis- the original Retekra was still technically sentient and warranted more in the way of existential protection under the circumstances. They additionally could not rule out the possibility my efforts were motivated more by offended vanity than any desire to rehabilitate.

I myself would insist my primary motivation was to further secure the well-being of my new heir, but such details are almost impossible to prove. In any case I found and still find no fault in the ERB's assessment and conclusion, it was perfectly just. You could perhaps see the problem I had, being the ultimately autocratic head of Arketer Labs. Fortunately the ERB and most of the complainants were quite reasonable and thus I am now mostly suspended from my duties and in a sort of exile for an as-of-yet uncertain period of time.

Zero has thoroughly cursed me out for being a fool, but this should serve to make it clear that no one at Arketer Labs may take ethical matters lightly. Not even me.

I would like to to actually thank almost all of those who objected and stress again that I have no ill-will towards any of them save one of the Doctors who I have ascertained was and is motivated solely by blind ambition- going so far as to attempt to inform our enemies of my whereabouts. You know who you are, and I suspect your peers do as well. The Ethics Review Board will convene on this and I hope to see you soon.

So, where does this leave me? On the run.

My enemies know I am removed from Arketer Labs facilities and that this presents an incredibly valuable opportunity to secure or eliminate my personage. If this were not an election cycle in the U.S. threatening to go spectacularly awry right now, I might have been caught already. My heir is perfectly safe at least, under the care of the reformed former Retekra in well-secured secrecy.

I will be documenting my survival here, though as usual Zero will be editing the content for grammar and any information that might doom me.

Progress continues!

The Battle Cattle Aftermath

Progress continues!

Albeit not on Deep Seven. We've hit a few new snags there. If anyone has been checking up on this you may note I have neglected it for quite awhile now, my apologies. After much argument I have finally received a stamp of acceptability from #0 to post this selectively fictionalized account.

First there is a small matter of background. Arketer Labs has from it's founding made a policy of discretely recruiting some of the finest minds in the world- before they become famous and thus much more conspicuous to excuse the absence of from polite society. We're quite tolerant of eccentricity but do have to refrain from taking on the odd recruit who fails for psychiatric reasons.

Such was the case of one Mr. Cooper. Exceptionally intelligent ,Mr. Cooper simultaneously scored very highly for malignant misanthropy which he expressed with a PETA-on-steroids perspective. Over the course of their his vetting process we learned of his clandestine efforts to release animals from laboratory studies- ranging from sleep studies to infectious disease research- on to much more troubling attempts to poison the meat and dairy supplies of grocery stores and restaurants.

Their recruitment was canceled, though an effort was made by the recruiter to advise Cooper towards more productive enterprises. Post graduation, the now-Doctor Cooper elected to vanish and for a great deal of time his whereabouts were unknown, not that we were paying any particular attention.

That was, until the Battle Cattle outbreak.

I would note that I personally have nothing against genetically modified foods as a concept. Indeed the field has tremendous potential for tending to the problem of world hunger, though that potential is largely wasted by companies such as Monsanto who use it solely to get richer and make farmers their economical gimps. That said I think we can all agree that genetically modifying food to bite back is a terrible idea.

Most of us anyway. It would seem at some point Dr. Cooper had it pointed out to him that if Cows, Chickens etc. were simply released into the wild wholesale there is a fair chance all that would result is the extinction of these cultivated species as they are torn apart by the more competitive wildlife. Thus Mr. Cooper bent his scruples regarding the usage of animals in pursuit of restoring the bovine breed to an imagined wild ideal.

Making use of an inherited personal fortune as well as funding from the more dramatic fringes of Greenpeace he, along with a company of true-believer personality cultists, established a crude but effective facility for tinkering with the genome of beef to shape what I would call an utterly new breed of beast that remained herd-oriented but with enhanced intelligence, horns, development cycle and an aggression level that rendered them utterly murderous and in a darkly comical twist mostly carnivorous.

Dr. Cooper's Cows were battle-ready from birth, which played a major role in how his plan was to unfold. Records show his people discretely tampered with the pregnancies of 30 meat and dairy cows, treating them with a surprisingly advanced retro-viral cocktail that reshaped the fetal calf into his new monster.

This did create complications for the mothers of these calfs, with many having difficulty in delivering. Regrettably the precise cause for this was not apparent to the attending veterinarians until they reached into a bovine uterus only to pull back a stump, at which point the calf would inevitably rip it's way free. Dr. Cooper had designed them in the confidence that the calves would be able to kill the 'human oppressors' and take over the present herd thus providing the species with 'natural independence'.

You may note that we are well into 'utterly mad science' territory. As is often the case with such, things went out of control quickly. Dr. Cooper's true believers were in place to observe the birth of the first calves and while initially thrilled with the gruesome end of the unfortunate veterinarians and other handlers were horrified to note that the Battle Cattle went out of their way to kill just about everything in the area, especially the unmodified bovines.

The plan further fell apart as Dr. Cooper assumed the surviving Battle Cattle would leave the area, which they did not. Instead they established a hierarchy amongst themselves via combat that resulted in considerable injuries and more than one fatality among the remaining calves. Fortunately for us all, they then stayed in the immediate area together to feed on the slain cows and human staff which enabled a responding militia to surround and take out the beasts with a tremendous amount of gunfire.

The local government, at an utter loss as to how this all happened, elected to suppress any reporting of it instead. Partially effective, this Mad Cow Disease outbreak still managed to catch the attention of a listening post for one of our facilities. With considerable discretion and fearing this was some manner of trap given the known enemies of Arketer Labs we did manage to find and capture one of Dr. Cooper's underlings, one of the observers of the initial 'birthing'.

I would personally count them every bit as insane as their leader but after what they saw and as wracked with guilt they were over the deaths of 'those poor gentle cows' they did prove surprisingly cooperative and provided the location of Dr. Cooper's facility, a de-commissioned slaughterhouse in the same country. The underling in question urged us to stop his former leader before 'The Release'.

The ever-humble CZSS squad 2 (Deus Deuces) was discreetly deployed alongside the now-internally-famous CZSS squad 8 (Crazy Eights) to secure the facility and prevent the mass-release of the Battle Cattle we were informed were being bred there.

Unfortunately, we were far too late. CZSS 8 and 2 arrived to find the Battle-Cattle  had been released but once again did not scatter to conquer the wilds so much as stay and kill everything in the area that is not them, which was in this case the near-entirety of Dr. Cooper's Cult.

With a bit of work it was determined that the Battle Cattle did not seem to recognize machinery as either alive nor a threat, thus 2 and 8 were able to explore the facility remotely- though in shifts so as to enable squad members to avoid being overwhelmed at the excessive amounts of blood and gore. In this manner it was a simple manner to secure a copy of all available records and research data from the facility's computers- most of which were not so much as password-protected. Much more difficult, however, was how to handle the discovery of two survivors- an adult and an infant in a hardened room of the facility.

Ultimately we resolved to secure the roof of the facility and cut our way to the entrance of the panic room. The Battle Cattle were far more agile than your average cow but lacked rooftop access or any real ability to climb, leaving it the perfect staging point for a rescue attempt.

The rescue went well up until the panic room was opened, at which point the smell of the occupants- trapped within for days as they had been- unexpectedly drove the Battle Cattle herd into a frenzy. The entire mass charged into the building, many wounding each other in a blood-crazed attempt to assault the survivors and rescue team. The rescue team was able to evacuate the infant, but found the barriers in place insufficient to stop the onslaught. The team was recalled to the roof and the panic room sealed just in time.

Unfortunately the assault of the Cattle on the door of the panic room damaged the locking mechanism, effectively jamming it shut. When the remaining survivor was informed of this, she reportedly appeared relieved- before screaming at the rescue team to take her daughter to safety. Attempts at reason proved ineffective and had to be cut short when the survivor claimed to have activated the facility's self-destruction system. Though there was no record of such a system in the recovered data it was decided to err on the side of caution and the rescue team was airlifted away from the premises. Five minutes later, the modified slaughterhouse facility exploded, taking the creatures- which had crowded into the building in their frenzy, with it.

Going over the retrieved data, including security camera footage, we were able to confirm no Battle Cattle survived. We additionally learned that this was Dr. Cooper's final act. The development of these creatures had utterly expended his resources and although the bad Doctor's field test at the ranch went poorly he was in no position to work out the flaws. These details seem to have caused something of a mental break, leading him to release the remaining creatures personally before word of the fate of the cows at the ranch could spread among his underlings.

He was the first casualty. Fortunately for his daughter, what might be considered his common-law wife anticipated his actions and sealed herself and the child in the panic room thus escaping the carnage. At least until our ill-fated rescue attempt.

Every effort has been undertaken to ensure what remains could be found were interred respectfully, if rather anonymously.

This event has left us with a bit of aftermath in the form of the very young girl, the very name of whom was lost along with the facility. Her parents were not the wisest, but the child is surely blameless and whatever might be said of the Mad Dr. Cooper- he was certainly a genius. His work will be put to far better use in the future.

And this leads us to my resolution to adopt the child as my own. I will of course need help in this endeavor and have arranged for it in the somewhat more aggressive reformation of 'Dr.' Retekra Frodd who I have basically ordered 'reset' with an extensive... Well, we'll call it a reformatting.

Complaints have been registered with the ethics board and I do understand your points of view, but would challenge you all to get the individual who was Retekra Frodd to agree they were better off as a ranting egomaniac out of touch with reality, incapable of so much as the correct usage of a caps-lock.

He's seen the videos of his previous self and the writings both on the wall and in the short-lived blog from when Retekra was still capable of completing an entire three sentences before the inarticulate screaming fits.

Please note additionally that while I have a Daughter my work performance will not wane. Given the projects I am part of neither Arketer Labs nor my new ward shall want for my time. That said, I do intend to curtail some of my side projects, such as this blog.

Which is to say, I won't be writing for it very often indeed. It will not be dead however. Not exactly.

That wraps up this report-up-to-the-moment, if anyone has been checking in on this regularly I hope you can understand why I have been rather too preoccupied to maintain the previous update schedule.

Progress continues!

Society Must Compensate for Total Automation.

Progress continues.

As of the writing of this the Memorial service for our fallen colleague is freshly concluded, but that will not be the end of his memory. For those of you who asked, his real name is on record and his work will be credited under that name at the appropriate time as usual.

Now, we look back to the future.

There is reason to be concerned.

This is going to be an array of videos I would very much like any viewer here to watch.

This first one articulates most of the problems. Unfortunately all of the robots it demonstrates were specialist pieces. Not, really, that intimidating in practice. Baxter, for example, is more or less locked into position.

That won't be true for that much longer.

Now, no one should reasonably be able to accuse me of being a luddite, I and Arketer Labs have always been about furthering technology for the betterment of the human quality of life. We have pointedly eschewed weapons technology in favor of purely defensive technologies.

But weapons are not the only threat technology poses. This upcoming robot revolution will soon render certain economic systems utterly obsolete. Most pointedly, with all labor moving to complete automation capitalism becomes utterly unacceptable in anything approaching a pure system.

No one not already at the top wants to see a new Techno-Feudalism wherein the poor, unable to find work in any capacity, are left to starve. That's a shortcut to a bloody war indeed, either internally or first externally in an effort to distract.

But that's not inevitable. One more video.

This plays directly into politics, into the American 2016 election especially. Bernie Sanders is the man to push for the changes the U.S. needs to avoid social collapse. The status-quo is incompatible with a positive future, only a future wherein the super-rich only get richer and everyone else increasingly struggles to eat.

Bernie, the oldest candidate, is the only one who isn't living in the past. Education and health care for all is only the beginning.

Robots may end up making and selling EVERYTHING, but they won't buy any of it.

Naturally, I'm pulling for the ROBOTS FOR EVERYONE future rather than the ROBOTS ONLY FOR THE RICH one.

Then all we have to worry about is ensuring our smarter, faster, stronger helpers have sufficient empathy as to ensure they don't purge us as inefficient relics.

Palette cleanser!

Progress continues.

Tragedy

Progress continues.

Still, the news is indeed grim. Progress on Deep Seven has been smooth for well over a year now, to the point where a measure of the core structure was ready for pressurization. Well, depressurization in practice- but at that depth replacing water with air requires quite a bit of it's own pressure.

This itself was managed without issue.

Without going into too many details, it was deemed necessary to send down the first team of divers to tend to further construction in this area to render it sustainably habitable. During this effort, a leak occurred.

This was an anticipated risk, albeit one so improbable as to be deemed worthwhile to take. Nonetheless the leak fatally surprised a member of the dispatch team who had boldly exited his pressure frame to work on a piece of delicate wiring.

Construction policies will be revisited over this. Meanwhile, a memorial service will be held this Thursday ALT 18:00. All projects not in time-critical stages will be suspended for the duration of the service. Members of projects in such stages who were personally familiar with the departed may appeal to their Project Lead to trade schedules with other comparably skilled employees. Volunteers are being cataloged in advance.

We will always remember #95300217.

At the risk of inappropriate levity, I keep seeing the lead singer as a young, shaven Weird Al. 

Progress continues.

The Candidate of Despair

Progress Continues!

I would like to posit that Hillary Clinton is in fact the only Democratic Presidential hopeful we can trust. They are indeed, a known quantity.

Which is to say, we can all trust they are lying.

Bernie Sanders has spent DECADES campaigning for greater justice, for sincerely progressive programs, with utter consistency.

But he could be lying. It's technically possible. What if he is a running a many-decades-long long con? There is a question there.

With Hillary Clinton, we know for a FACT they are lying. There is absolutely no gamble there.

Hillary Clinton is the candidate to vote for if uncertainty worries you.

 Hillary Clinton on Thursday said she has "always tried" to tell the truth and that she doesn't "believe" she has ever lied to American voters. 

"Have you always told the truth?" CBS News' Scott Pelley asked Clinton during an interview with the network after discussing the Democratic presidential candidate's pledge not to raise taxes on the middle class. 

"I've always tried to. Always, always," Clinton replied. "Well, you know, you're asking me to say, 'Have I ever?'" Clinton said, "I don't believe I ever have. I don't believe I ever have. I don't believe I ever will." "I'm going to do the best I can to level with the American people," she added.

One caveat, there is a flaw in this video with one quote taken out of context regarding her stance on gay marriage. The rest is... pretty much par for course. 

Indeed, if that doesn't sway you on how reliable Hillary's dishonesty is, what follows is one of her most recent campaign ads.

Very touching. Perhaps you should let Hillary worry for you.

What is Hillary's stance on parentless minor immigrants?

Kid, you should be worried.

Comically, while Mrs. Clinton is utterly full of lies- she absolutely cannot bring herself to lie big. She's not going to promise reforms, she certainly isn't going to say she'll go after the big banks (they give her lots of money, that would make them nervous even if it was a blatant lie).

Her message is one of utter despair. 'The Establishment cannot change, so trust me to work it on your behalf.' Which would perhaps work if there was any rational reason to believe they could BE trusted to do even THAT.

They haven't really put much effort into raising grassroots support, because grassroots support does not pay her bills. Instead she relies on the Establishment's support. No wonder she can't so much as lie about improving it.

The Democratic National Committee is believed to be owned by her, and with good reason.

“What do you tell voters who are new to the process who say this makes them feel like it’s all rigged?” Tapper asked the DNC chair. 

“Unpledged delegates exist really to make sure that party leaders and elected officials don’t have to be in a position where they are running against grassroots activists,” Wasserman Schultz calmly explained.

Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, an ally of Hillary Clinton who co-chaired her former presidential campaign, ladies and gentlemen.

But Hillary's network of cronies works for her in other ways!

Why, one of them even bought The Onion just to twist the media a bit more.

And what does The Onion have to say about Hillary now?

"Female Presidential Candidate Who Was United States Senator, Secretary Of State Told To Be More Inspiring"

Rest In Peace, The Onion. It's strange to see a site that produced nothing but fake news articles lose credibility- but the Clinton Campaign managed it.

Change you can believe in.

Please keep in mind, Hopeless Voter, that Hillary Clinton does not fair well in a general election. People would sooner gamble on Trump than vote for her.

So, your vote for Hillary doesn't just ensure the slow continual regression of the U.S. back to the Gilded Age and from there corporate feudalism if they win, it ensures a vastly more rapid slide when the she loses to the Republicans.

Her primary argument is that she is the only candidate who can win against the likes of Cruz, Rubio and Trump... But as with many things Hillary Clinton has said, that doesn't quite mesh with the facts.

So if you believe Americans should be peasants content to accept the leaders chosen for them by the wealthy elite, if you believe it is better to vote for the evil you know than the good that might not prove as good, or if you simply want to see this:

Vote Hillary. Except for in the Primary Election of course. Then you want Trump to REALLY accelerate that slide into serfdom.

Have a palette cleanser!

 Progress continues.

Berrrrrrn

Progress Continues!

On the off chance anyone was disappointed not to see regular updates, I urge you to pester me about them by whatever means proves most convenient.

For those of you not in the United States of America, this update will be questionably relevant at best.

The 2016 Presidential Election is... Well, increasingly exciting. It looks as if it may prove the single most heartening or single most depressing election in the past several decades.

On the Red Side we have Trump, we have Cruz and we have... Rufio was it?

Glad to hear he recovered.

On the Blue Side we have Hillary Clintron and my pick, Bernie Sanders.

Through it all what we seem to be seeing on both sides is a loathing for the two-party system that has kept America slowly sliding back into the gilded age for some time.

Indeed, it's proven entirely possible to build a campaign run on not being beholden to the same masters the establishment players are. Hell, that is the beating, bloody heart of the Trump campaign.

With both parties it has been made clear that their own constituents aren't as willing as they have been in the past to just drink the cool-aid and support the party-endorsed candidate simply 'to beat the other team' because again increasingly THERE IS NO MEANINGFUL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO.

That said, the Media isn't QUITE accepting of these new untethered candidates however. Of course they aren't, they're as bought as the endorsed candidates.

No no no, Bernie can't have won. He hasn't made the appropriate back-room deals. He lost, suck it voters.

Indeed, the unchosen by the Masters On High are presently enjoying enough popular support that if their respective parties should fail to nominate them- party divisions seem far from improbable.

If we were to see the death of the Two-Party system, it would require both factions to split however.

Fingers crossed, but I am not sure I dare hope too hard.

So, suffice it to say I am pulling for Mr. Sanders. I believe Trump would loot the country, but if he wins then the country surely deserves a good looting.

Depressing as that would be.

On the other hand I have full confidence that Bernie will do everything he can to ACTUALLY make America great, hardly needing ANY walls.

Ahem. Ahem.

So, while Arketer Labs officially endorses No Candidate and I wish no misfortune to those employees or anyone who would vote otherwise...

I for one Feel the Bern.

Progress continues!