Killing the Killer robot - Streets of rogue (No commentary)

[dialing] [2 rings] [male voice] hello. no one is available to take your call. please leave a message after the tone. [beep] hi, um, it's ian, uh, ian kilhansel of boguspublishing group, and, uh, i got your manuscript in for your futuristic novel, 2014, set 30years in the future. and, don't get me wrong, we are wanting to work with you and we thinkyou would be a good novelist for us and we could make a lot of money publishing yournovels, but this manuscript as you've sent

it to us, well, frankly, it needs a lot ofwork. i love the idea, and here we are in 1984,living the year of george orwell's famous work, and so you have this good story of acautionary tale about how the united states could sink into the darkness. you have communismfalling in the early '90s, and i know we all want that, i know president reagan wants that,'cause this cold war has just gone on for too long. and then you have america becominga lot like the soviet union, and in many ways even worse. so i like the idea, and you'resaying, don't let's become like this huge enemy we spent so many decades and billionsof dollars to defend ourselves against. i like that. i think that has the makings ofa good story.

the problem is, there's so much that's inhere that just isn't realistic. i mean, okay, you've got this terrorist attack on new yorkin 2001, the world trade towers get destroyed, that's very dramatic, very iconic, but thenthe president just goes crazy attacking countries that had nothing to do with it, and the peoplejust let him get away with that? i mean, only a decade or so since communism fell? peoplewould remember. please don't pretend that our readers are idiots. they love the bookswe publish because we know they're intelligent, and frankly, this just strains all belief. also, you need to be more creative with therhetoric used by this president bush character, and his successor, and their administrationsand the news pundits, i mean, it's just exactly

the same thing they're saying today aboutcommunism, just replace the word "communism" with the word "terrorism" and that's all you'vedone. so you need to be more creative there. it doesn't make any sense to take these pointsthat are made about an economic superpower with thousands of nuclear warheads and icbmsand apply it to this ragtag, loosely-organized group of extremists who only barely manageto hijack planes with boxcutters and then can't do it again. i mean, it just doesn'tfit. nothing about it rings true. cos really, america is the only superpowerleft, and it has this huge military, bigger than all other countries in the world, andtroops everywhere, and all these wars going on, and why? who's the enemy? in order forthis to be plausible, you need to set up another

superpower to be the enemy, because that'sthe only way this huge military and all this warmongering makes sense, you need a big enoughenemy to justify this, and these scattered muslim extremists just don't qualify. i mean,you'd have to be pretty dumb to fall for that. so, while all this is going on, there's aneconomic bubble followed by a crisis, and boy, we all know about that, don't we? buti think you need to do a bit of economic research because, okay, the fed pushes down interestrates and generates the malinvestment, the banks are protected by fannie and freddie,so they're shielded from risk, so they drive up the bubble and then it bursts, all thatmakes sense. but then you go a little crazy: you have the politicians blame it on the freemarket! i mean, how could they even get away

with that? problems caused by extreme regulationon the most highly regulated industry in the country, and they blame it on the free market?no way! the press would be on them in a hot second! i mean, remember david frost a fewyears ago taking down richard nixon? and he was a comedian! the press is savvy, the pressis hard-hitting. i mean, you'd have to have the press so deeply in the back pockets ofthe politicians for them to go along with this clearly false rhetoric, i don't evensee how such a thing could be possible. i mean, the only reason the soviet union isable to do that is by imprisoning journalists and putting their own people in. but withoutthat? for journalists to just take a politician's word when it so clearly isn't true? when youcould easily debunk it with a modicum of research?

you couldn't even call them "journalists"anymore. they're really government patsies. um, and again, you need to study your economics,especially recent events, because you have all these economists talking about how toget out of the crisis they need to keep pushing interest rates down, and as we just saw it'sthe exact opposite! they need to release their controls and let interest rates climb backup to equilibrium. so unless your fictitous fed chair--what's his name, ben "bernayck"?--unlesshe's never even heard of paul volcker, there's just no way he'd be that stupid. so, then, we have this new president, andhe runs on this platform of hope and change, but then he gets into office and just keepsdoing the same thing that his predecessor

did, only more so! i mean, it's hard to thinkthat the same country that stood up to the russians, the country that made the moviered dawn, would just lie down for this crap. you seem to have a very low opinion of theamerican people here. and you end up with this big worldwide surveillancenetwork, the nsa spies on people through their phones, everyone has a computer in his homethat the nsa can just look into any time they want, and people are just okay with this?they're not descending on washington with torches and pitchforks? another recent movieyou might want to check out is footloose: look at how people cherish their civil libertiesand never tolerate even the slightest infraction. you have no real mechanism for oppressingthe people and stopping them from speaking

out, in fact, you have this worldwide opennetwork of computers where people can come on and type whatever they want, what's happenedto people in your future that they just accept something that extreme? there's no explanationfor this anywhere. and speaking of extreme, we get into somereal science fiction here: the president now has this fleet of flying killer robots thathe can send all over the world to take out his enemies. and he's actually telling thepeople that he has the right to send these robots anywhere on the planet and kill whoeverhe wants, he doesn't have to charge them with a crime, he doesn't even have to justify itafter the fact! he even kills american citizens this way! i mean, first of all, if you wantanybody to believe this, you'll have to get

rid of the constitution and just have thepresident declare martial law. but again, just 20 years after communism falls? thisis ridiculous! nobody would stand for it! it would be like trying to fly a swastikain 1965! it's just not realistic. it's completely unthinkable that a president would just beable to get away with this, without incredible opposition from pretty much everyone. so this is a very dystopian future you'vecreated here, which is good, but you need to do it realistically. you either need thesoviets to just take over america, or you need to set up a new enemy that's so powerfulthat we need to go trillions of dollars in debt to fight them. and you don't have one.

and some things you have are just so insanethey stagger the imagination. you have a mass-murdering president with a secret kill list, that continuesto wage war and even attack countries america isn't at war with, and you have him win thenobel peace prize! i mean, what? you couldn't even pull this off in the twilight zone. it'sjust too ridiculous. and i do want to say this, it bothers me thatyou made this president black. i mean, i get why you did it, for story reasons, becausethe first black president is a great way to sell hope and change to the people, so thatexplains why an obvious rogue like him could get away with just blatantly lying like hedid throughout his campaign. you can believe that. but then, he gets into office and doesall of this, and the black community doesn't

turn against him in droves? where's jessejackson or someone like that to publicly denounce him? or prominent black celebrities, goingafter him for this blatant betrayal of everything they stand for? i really hate to use thisword, and i'm sure you didn't mean this, but it comes across as a bit racist, like youthink so little of the black community that they'd just be suckered into all of this justbecause the president happens to be black. i'd definitely revise that part, because ithink you might really offend black readers by portraying them as being this small-mindedand easily duped. amazing that this war criminal gets re-elected,and i think you really need to make this 2012 election more realistic. i mean, this mittromney clown? who's basically this clone of

the president as far as his policies are concerned,but look at how lame and idiotic he is! and this is the guy the republicans put up? theydon't have anyone any better? why would anyone vote for a candidate that's a clone of thispresident's policies, but is so completely unlikable? it's almost like the republicansjust threw the election to him. i mean, i get that you need the presidentreelected for story reasons, but it's like you feel the only way that can happen is ifhis opponent has the same policies, and is a complete moron to boot. no, the republicanswould absolutely seize this opportunity to nominate a freedom-loving, pro-capitalistcandidate to come forward with a humble foreign policy, bring the troops home, respect civilliberties, repeal this patriot act thing you

have going on, maybe even reign in or at thevery least audit this out-of-control federal reserve, and that is the kind of candidatethey'd nominate to take this dangerously criminal president out of office once and for all.unless they're all taking stupid pills or something. i think the only way you can make this reelectionplausible is if he just rigs the election, because it's just too nonsensical to havea president this terrible get re-elected. that really strains suspension of disbelief. things locally are just as ridiculous. youhave police raiding homes without warrant and killing the family dog, you even havepolice arresting cameramen who are filming

them while performing their duties, they'reshutting down kids' lemonade stands, for crying out loud! and then we get to 2014 itself. and i'm sorry,but the events in that year just get even more insane and unbelievable. it really sounds like everyone in this dystopianfuture of yours has just completely taken leave of all reason, from economists to journaliststo even the nobel committee. and it's like the people have just taken on the governmentlike their religion, and the president and politicians are infallible high priests andwhatever they say goes. absurd, insane, and frankly, a bit insulting.

so, all in all, good dystopian science fictionconcept, but i think an extensive rewrite is in order. it's just too crazy to thinkthat the country could get so mindlessly jingoistic in so short a time. i mean, that just couldnot happen, just 20 years after the fall of communism. no way that could happen. right?

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