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aberrantangelsThere are people who ask questions about Project Utopia prior to the time when it becomes fashionable to do so. Unfortunately, most of them are the sort of people who, in a world without novas, would be wearing tinfoil hats to prevent the Phone Company tuning into the telepathic transceivers in their dental fillings. (Of course, what's really unfortunate is that they're asking these questions about Utopia, but it's not their fault they've never the hell heard of Project Proteus.)
One of these people is fictional talk radio host Jordan McDevitt, a man who combines the populist appeal of Rush Limbaugh and the conspiranoid near-mania of Art Bell. On this date in 2000, he posed to his audience the question "Project Utopia: threat or menace?" His answer was "yes, definitely." He managed to say, with a straight face, "the only other things with a 95% worldwide approval rating are fattening foods and caffeine and neither of them are any good for you, either."
Not all his arguments were on that specious level, mind you. He reminded his listeners that, although Utopia is affiliated with the UN, it's a private organization which really only has to answer to its membership and its owners. He also pointed out that those owners, the Æon Society, answer only to themselves, and that the UN dances more and more to Æon's tune every day.
His first caller on (888) TALK-OUT, Bruce from Jackson, MS, got as far as saying "First of all, you prick, you suck" before getting cut off. Aberrant: Project Utopia (from which I got the transcript of this date's show) doesn't present any of the subsequent callers, but I suspect Bruce wasn't the only one in his category.
On the other hand, I doubt he was in the majority. McDevitt's "Hoo-ah brigade" (as it were) tend to take him seriously. Quite a few of them were probably concerned, as well, about the loss of American sovereignty (the main reason the American government had, between 2000 and 2008, for being wary of Utopia). Ironically, a lot of these people would be all in favor of the sort of manipulations carried out by Utopia's public and private faces if they were done on behalf of America. (I recently got into an argument with someone like that, here in what we're pleased to call the "real" world.) It may be that Bruce was pissed off at Jordan McDevitt because he identified Utopia's interests and America's as the same, just as many today identify corporate interests and national interests as the same.
The Utopia sourcebook repeatedly presents McDevitt as an example of the sort of people asking these questions about Utopia. Shame their tinhattery allows Utopia to dodg the issue, and to avoid having to ask itself the same things about itself.
One of these people is fictional talk radio host Jordan McDevitt, a man who combines the populist appeal of Rush Limbaugh and the conspiranoid near-mania of Art Bell. On this date in 2000, he posed to his audience the question "Project Utopia: threat or menace?" His answer was "yes, definitely." He managed to say, with a straight face, "the only other things with a 95% worldwide approval rating are fattening foods and caffeine and neither of them are any good for you, either."
Not all his arguments were on that specious level, mind you. He reminded his listeners that, although Utopia is affiliated with the UN, it's a private organization which really only has to answer to its membership and its owners. He also pointed out that those owners, the Æon Society, answer only to themselves, and that the UN dances more and more to Æon's tune every day.
His first caller on (888) TALK-OUT, Bruce from Jackson, MS, got as far as saying "First of all, you prick, you suck" before getting cut off. Aberrant: Project Utopia (from which I got the transcript of this date's show) doesn't present any of the subsequent callers, but I suspect Bruce wasn't the only one in his category.
On the other hand, I doubt he was in the majority. McDevitt's "Hoo-ah brigade" (as it were) tend to take him seriously. Quite a few of them were probably concerned, as well, about the loss of American sovereignty (the main reason the American government had, between 2000 and 2008, for being wary of Utopia). Ironically, a lot of these people would be all in favor of the sort of manipulations carried out by Utopia's public and private faces if they were done on behalf of America. (I recently got into an argument with someone like that, here in what we're pleased to call the "real" world.) It may be that Bruce was pissed off at Jordan McDevitt because he identified Utopia's interests and America's as the same, just as many today identify corporate interests and national interests as the same.
The Utopia sourcebook repeatedly presents McDevitt as an example of the sort of people asking these questions about Utopia. Shame their tinhattery allows Utopia to dodg the issue, and to avoid having to ask itself the same things about itself.
