PARANOIA

Have you been touched by His Noodly Appendage?
 

We have, of course. With the Kansas Board of Education, though, I guess it didn't quite take. Surely, this is all but a part of His great and starch-abundant plan for the universe.
 

Apparently "intelligent-design nitwits" are incapable of understanding a roleplaying book. That's strange, because I have thoroughly enjoyed the game with all of my nitwit friends.

Keep the religious/policital crap off of here, because it's about Paranoia, not your personal opinions. You risk alienating fans of the game with posts like this. I have no problem with commenting on state-mandated brainwashing, but keep your personal opinions where they belong, not in a "professional" blog.
 

Hey, anonymous creationist, if you got through the PARANOIA rulebook, try reading a basic biology text. It's even better!
 

OXYMORON

Did somebody mention intelligent design?

Personally, I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy, but I don’t live in Kansas.


Go Fetch Your Shine Box Intelligent Design And Make Way For The Real Desizzle: RADICAL COSMOS PEDAGOGY

Carl Saget
Host of “The Universe’s Funniest Satellite Images”

All of a sudden the Holy Grail of answers came to me. Although, now that it’s come to me, the grail seems alot less holy.
Picture the atom. Check the spelling. Not 12 or Eve’s garden boy-toy (not to be confused with BioToi, one helluva portable, campsite shitter, I might add). The ATOM, as in building block of all things everywhere and beyond.
The atom has three basic building blocks. Electrons, Protons, and Neutrons. The neutrons are in the middle, or nucleus, and the electrons and protons move around the nucleus, especially the electrons, who zip around the neutrons real fast in what are called orbitals.
Starting to remind you of something? Maybe something really big with alot of “space?”
Does our solar system ring a bell? You bet it does!
Our solar system is one big atom!
The sun is the nucleus and the planets are electrons and protons orbiting around it. Of course it seems huge to us, but scientists in another dimension who are made up of these “solar system sized” atoms consider them tiny, just like us.
It’s all part of perspective.
Conversely, an atom making up a sliver of our fingernail contains a solar system unto itself. We consider it microscopic, but to the organisms of that dimension it’s enormously expansive.
Perspective once again.
This should be taught in schools! It makes perfect sense. It’s beyond comprehension on one hand, and completely simplistic in another.
Research? Proof? Scientific backing?
Papillon!!
I mean Poppycock!!
How do you verify the elephant in the room other than by just pointing it out?
Core curricula in every science class I say!
We’ll call it Remarkably Gifted Design. (That’s good packaging)
 

I do agree with the anonymous creationalist a little. Not that I'm a creationalist, but I do think that posting something like this would, well, be somewhat off-topic and could cause a flame war.

The only way I could see this in PARANOIA is if Pro Tech and the First Church of Christ Computer Programmers get in a war. Pro Tech says science is responsible for life, while FCCC-P says its Friend Computer. Disputes arisen, and the two fanatics try to kill each other. Meanwhile, the moderates say that "Hey, Friend Computer made life THROUGH science!" which is obivously been laughed upon as a silly doctrine that doesn't do anything or resolve any point.

I can see why the dispute is useful...but I can also see why it is silly. For both parties. The dispute over how we exist is wasting preicious resources which we can use to discuss about how to end world problems...
 

Three comments. First, as a Catholic and an elementary school administrator, I am still 100% with Allen on this issue. Believe it or not, the Catholic Church recognizes evolution and views it as God's tool, and Catholic schools teach evolution instead of intelligent design. To paraphrase the Rev. Ivan Stang, if you're religion can't handle science ... try mine. :) Seriously, not all of us religious folk are hell-bent (ha!) on forcing beliefs into the government.

Second, here's my take on the PARANOIA angle for this story: this represents the state-mandated education of a belief system. Intelligent design is based on a lack of evidence, which is dicey logic at best. Evolution is based on fact, and if there's holes in the fossil record (which I have no clue if there is or isn't), that's okay--there's holes in our theory of gravity (we cannot find the force particle that carries gravitational force), but that doesn't mean gravity doesn't exist.

The point is ID is based on belief in God, and Kansas is now enforcing belief in a heavenly creator as verifiable, scientific fact. In Alpha Complex, The Computer would do the same thing by mandating its belief system in Junior Citizen's education. "Children, why do things fall when you let them go? That's right, because they want to stay in Alpha Complex! That empty B3 can is worried some traitor might carry it Outdoors, so it naturally falls downward to stay where The Computer's benevolent love can recycle it into something useful! Isn't science fun?"

Third, this is Allen's blog. He can do what he wants, and if you don't like it, don't come back. Like I said in my second point, there is a connection to the game. So relax and go play PARANOIA.
 

I'll just say this: Allen, your product's demographics are quite wider than you apparently think they are.
 

Wider than I want them to be, anyway. Who wants to write for idiots?
 

*in his best Allen Varney impression*

Leaving aside the inflammatory un-fun nature of this debate, think about how totally unproductive it is. Does anyone seriously think he can change another's beliefs with a post on the PARANOIA blog?

Why don't we all dispense with the name-calling here and get back to talking about fictional brainwashing.
 

Allen Varney wrote:
"Who wants to write for idiots?"

According to Amazon, 2,379 people find it lucrative:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/index=stripbooks:relevance-above&field-keywords=complete%252520idiot%252527s%252520guide&search-type=ss&bq=1&store-name=books/ref=xs_ap_sai2_xgl14/103-6345427-0259869
"1 - 10 of 2,379 results for complete idiot's guide"

Just think how many more copies of the PARANOIA supplements would've been sold if instead of their current titles, they were called:

"The Complete Idiot's Guide to GMing PARANOIA"
"The Complete Idiot's Guide to Secret Societies"
"The Complete Idiot's Guide to PARANOIA missions"
"The Complete Idiot's Guide to Mutants"
"The Complete Idiot's Guide to Old PARANOIA Editions"
"The Complete Idiot's Guide to Alpha Complex Goods"
"The Complete Idiot's Guide to Straight Missions"
"The Complete Idiot's Guide to Clearance Levels"
"The Complete Idiot's Guide to Service Groups"
 

Intelligent Design as a scientific theory is ridiculous. It is essentially a religion, and there is nothing to back it up. The absence of evidence is not the same as evidence of absence.

The problem is that often people lump Catholics, Christians and other creationists in with the intelligent design camp, when they really have nothing to do with each other.

So, by insulting intelligent design adherents, Mr. Varney is bashing an entire strata of his fans, which I'm sure his publishers wouldn't be too happy about.
 

What sophistry! By calling creationists idiots -- a characterization surely beyond controversy here -- I'm supposedly bashing all Christians? Quite a power grab on out anonymous poster's part. Have to adapt that one for The Computer's reasoning algorithms....
 

Allen Varney, back off from the anonymous poster...or else a flame war might begin!

It's ironic. You tried to avoid having people flame each other in the blogs, and yet here you are, flaming somebody else. Guess sometimes high ideals are hard to carry out.

(runs away to avoid the wrath of the GAMMA)
 

Re Biggles: As I (ex-catholic) understand it, the Vatican accepts science up to a point--that point being where science posits there was something that's Not God before the Big Bang. (IIRC, see "A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking et. at.)
 

Allen, do you even understand the difference between creationism and intelligent design (neocreationism)? It seems that you use the terms interchangeably.
 

It's interesting that there is so much certainly about a scientific theory that has never been proven. Evolution within species can be observed through breeding, but between species the "few holes in the fossil record" are that there is no fossil record. No "missing link", no actual evidence - just similarities and speculation. Evolution remains an educated guess, an hypothesis about the whole based upon observations of smaller systems that do not necessarily scale. But the important point that Our Benevolent Blogging Friend seems to be missing is that ID and/or Creationism do not even necessarily exclude Evolution. They simply assign an impetus.

But to dogmatically insist that Evolution is *fact*, and to submit that one need only to read a biology text to understand that *fact* is to be ignorant of the debate. There is a great body of work by reputable and intelligent folks poking holes in the Theory. Those questions have gone largely unanswered by the Evolution camp. Without the answers to some of the questions that are being raised, "Evolution as incontrovertible fact" is as much an article of faith as is ID. Were it as clear as Allen believes, there would be no debate. How many people do you see arguing that dinosaurs never existed?

And as for Intelligent beings understanding the game, I've been gaming since 1980 (I was 11). When Paranoia first came out I played at a friend's house and fell in love with the game. It's still my all-time-favorite RPG. I'm trying to get my current group to play - they don't remember it. (Don't know what any of that says about Paranoia... ;-)

Patrick
*A Different Anonymous Coward*
 

You know, I like Paranoia, but I really don't care for rudeness (regardless of whom it is directed at).

The tone of the author's posts in this thread has helped me to finally decide that I really don't need to buy anything else from the new Paranoia line. I've never been impressed with authors / artists who are rude to the people who buy their products, regardless of the forum or subject.

I think I'll just scare up some first or second edition materials off of EBay. Frankly, from what I've seen, those editions are generally better than the "new and improved" stuff anyway.
 

All this righteous indignation might be a bit more credible if it weren't ALL anonymous.

Craven faceless people, enough of urging such mercenary pussyfooting with the forces of incorrigible ignorance. Get right in among them! Make them understand the scientific method! If nothing else, urge them to look up the word "falsifiable."

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
 

Or, how about "entropy" or "The Second Law of Thermodynamics". Yay! Fun times!

Hooray for anonymity and being too lazy to sign up for a cheesy blogger account, just so you can call out Allen Varney's idiocy!!!!
 

Oh, while we're on the topic of falsifiability, lets point out that evolution is neither testable nor falsifiable. Microevolution can be demonstrated in labs fairly easily, but large scale evolution from one species to another is neither testable nor falsifiable, and there is no fossil record of the "missing links" between species.
Evolution as a belief system is just a cop out for people who want to live self-centered lives, free of any moral or ethical responsibility.
 

The problem with intelligent design is anything could be agrued as the creator. It doesn't really answer anything. As for evolution being neither testable nor falsifiable, you have to remember the THEORY of evolution says this was happens over hundreds of generations. Even Darwin himself never said evolution was fool proof, he even admitted there were gaps in it. He theorized as to how we as a the human animal got to where we are. Remember this, no matter your beleifs we are still animals, just ones that use tools, and have aposable thumbs. And as far as being free of ethical and moral responsiblity, religion seems to have no qualms about killing people of other faithes and creeds. So get over yourself and your religon.
 

The thing is, ID isn't supposed to answer anything; at least not as far as mechanics go. Just knowing that God created something doesn't say how he created it. Maybe there are places where Evolution fits well under ID, maybe not. The scientific method would say that given enough time and enough technology (proper tools), we could find out the how. That doesn't mean that we could duplicate it. Ultimately, the argument isn't so much with the how, it's with the who.

The reason that Evolution has been grasped onto so firmly by so many is because it represents a way that we could be here without God. If God made us, one might argue, then we might bear some responsibility to him. That's what the other guy meant above, though I would have put it differently. Without God in the picture, the human race is free to make up our own rules as we feel best. To many Evolution represents that hope of freedom from God and His rules. That's why it's so personal, and why we see so many eggs in one basket.

As far as the morality/ethics thing, many Christians conveniently forget that we are all broken and warped. Knowing what we are supposed to do doesn't mean we always do it, and fighting for what we believe is right according to our faith doesn't excuse self-righteousness. If anything we should be more aware of how broken we really are and have a little humility.

Patrick
 

Rats, I can't believe I'm having this dumb discussion. I've never wanted political discussions on this blog because I knew no one could possibly be persuaded out of his position in such an unlikely venue. In posting about the dimwitted Kansas School Board decision, I wasn't trying to persuade anyone, because I assumed my readers were all rational. It distresses me that PARANOIA fandom includes wilfully ignorant people, though I suppose it's some comfort that it's apparently only two anonymous trolls.

I regret having gotten sucked into argument, because the truth still holds that no one will ever be persuaded of a position based on assertions in a roleplaying blog. So can't you guys just go troll someone else's blog?
 

In my original post at the beginning of this argument, I wasn't trying to persuade anyone into accepting my beliefs. I was simply pointing out that Allen was alienating his fans with inflammatory statements.

He proceeded to continue piling on the insults, instead of just acknowledging the fact that he pissed some people off, and so the argument escalated, and the laser pistols came out and fingers started pointing.

I really love Paranoia, and I'm not going to stop buying the books. But it irritates me that Allen, who I greatly respect as an author and creative genius, would want to flame me and the people I have introduced to Paranoia.

I agree that no one will be persuaded by anyone on a forum, but you can't expect people to take abuse without speaking up, especially with blanket statements insulting the intelligence of a large demographic.

PLEASE don't stop posting political/religious commentary on here, because satire is the bread and butter of dystopian literature and Paranoia. Just keep the inflammatory personal remarks to yourself.

-Chris
 

My apologies for helping to take this off-topic for the blog. I just found this blog (and PLive) this week when I realized that Paranoia is back in print, and I'm very excited about it. I meant no offense.

It would have done a world of good, though, if you had been willing to just shrug it off and admit that people differ, rather than insulting those who disagree with you. After all, I hate it when idiots call me an idiot for disagreeing with their idiotic views. :-)

Seriously, though. Agreeing to disagree would have pretty well diffused it.

Patrick
 

I live in kansas, and let me clarify something: This in no way affects what is taught in schools. It is allowed, and optional, to now teach Intelligent Design in school. The schools don't HAVE to.
But questions about Intelligent Design are going to be on the standardized tests, whether or not a school teaches it.
 

"This in no way affects what is taught in schools."
"But questions about Intelligent Design are going to be on the standardized tests, whether or not a school teaches it."

I would say those two sentences are pretty-much contradictory. One of the basic roles of every school is (or, at least, should surely be) not only to teach students, but also to give them the best possible qualifications for the rest of their lives. How, then, can a school do its job and NOT teach Intelligent Design. Whether or not the new standards SAY that schools must teach it, they WILL be forced to if they are to perform their function. Am I the only one who finds that a major flaw with your (Anonymous's) argument?

The fact is that the decision to make Intelligent Design a part of the assessment criteria IS important to what today's students are learning, and as such warrants attention, regardless of whether you think the ID theory is right or wrong.

But does it warrant it here, on this thread? No.

Does it warrant a mention in the context of PARANOIA? Of course it should. I think you'd be hard pressed to find someone who DOESN'T see something in PARANOIA that could potentially offend them. Some Christians might not like the basic idea of FCCC-P. Some drug users might not like the thought of the Msytsics. And that's before we get started on the Commies or PURGE (I personally thought that the GM who had an NPC transtube passenger trying to set his shoe on fire was a little TOO close to reality for my liking.)

As with most things in life, if you don't like it, forget about it and move on. At least with PARANOIA, there's always plenty more material to discover and get to grips with!
 

2 things:

Yeah, don't taunt the X-tians. Agree or disagree, attacking a belief based on faith is always going to bring problems. Could have been done with more tact and less venom.

Moving on from that...I thought the most interesting part of the post for my games was this tidbit:

"In addition, the board rewrote the definition of science, so that it is no longer limited to the search for natural explanations of phenomena."

Imagines the Computer suddenly rewriting various other concepts, such as hygenie, or loyalty. *grin*