Making Sense Of A New Form Of Evil We Need To: Fill & Download for Free

What Einstein meant by this was: “Please send me $200,000.”This is not a joke. This is actually what Einstein meant when he wrote this.But to show this, we might have to back up a bit.First, Einstein didn’t say anything about levels of consciousness. The quote, as printed in front of chakras, waterfalls and dreamy photos of clouds is horribly mangled, ripped out of context, and a particular favourite of those pushing bullshit…… but it is possible to find the passage that these paraphrases trace back to. It was written in 1946, a year after the first use of an atomic bomb. Einstein had recently installed himself as the chair of the newly formed Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists, whose members included Hans Bethe, Leo Szilard and Harold Urey, three who did a lot more than Einstein ever did to conceptualise and create the atomic bomb.This group wrote a telegram to a set of wealthy Americans, asking for donations to help their cause — to campaign for peaceful uses of nuclear power, as opposed to its escalating use in weapons. Here’s the text:Our world faces a crisis as yet unperceived by those possessing power to make great decisions for good or evil. The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.We scientists who released this immense power have an overwhelming responsibility in this world life-and-death struggle to harness the atom for the benefit of mankind and not for humanity’s destruction.Bethe, Condon, Szilard, Urey, and the Federation of American Scientists join me in this appeal, and beg you to support our efforts to bring realization to America that mankind’s destiny is being decided today—now—at this moment.We need two hundred thousand dollars at once for a nation-wide campaign to let the people know that a new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move toward higher levels.This appeal is sent to you only after long consideration of the immense crisis we face. Urgently request you send immediate check to me as chairman, Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists, Princeton, N.J. We ask your help at this fateful moment as a sign that we scientists do not stand alone.(Einstein, 1946, telegram quoted in the New York Times, May 25, 1946, Italics added)So what Einstein meant was “We need to think about the use of atomic energy in a different way if we’re to get through the next few years without killing everyone in a massive nuclear war. Please donate to our campaign to spread this message or we’re all ****ing dead.”One can trace the transformation of this fairly simple language about new types of thinking into talk about “levels of consciousness” via a couple of stages:In 1979, Hamid had it as:The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.A few decades later Arie de Geus (1997) had:Problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them.And now we have “BrainyQuotes”, Huffington Post and similar bullshit-merchants presenting us with dreamy posters and such on which is printed:No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created itIt is inspiring that although these modern writers have latched on to a phrase far removed from what Einstein wrote, his original sense of “Please send me $200,000” still lies at the core of their message.

Apparently, Sean Hannity, the conservative host of the political commentary show Hannity on Fox News, has a new book. The title is Live Free Or Die: America (and the World) on the Brink. The book is currently set to be released by the conservative publishing imprint Threshold Editions on 4 August 2020. Judging from the description on Amazon, the book is going to be yet another banal diatribe attacking liberals as evil and praising President Donald Trump as the savior of American freedom.Some people have noticed, though, that there is a Latin motto that appears on the front cover. It reads: “Vivamus vel libero perit Americae.” Ordinarily, this wouldn’t warrant any attention. After all, Sean Hannity—an older conservative white man who thinks he knows a lot more than he really does—is exactly the sort of person you would expect to have a Latin motto. There is a slight problem with this particular motto, though; it’s complete and utter gobbledygook. It is clear that whoever came up with this motto does not even know the basic noun cases in Latin or how they work.A breakdown of the mottoThe words in Hannity’s motto are real Latin words, but, the way they are strung together, they don’t make even a lick of sense. Here’s the breakdown:Vivamus is the first-person plural present active subjunctive form the verb vivo, meaning “to live.” Here it is presumably functioning as a hortatory subjunctive meaning “Let’s live.”Vel is a conjunction meaning “or.”In this context, libero is most likely either a masculine singular dative or ablative form of the adjective liber, meaning “free,” but it could also be the first-person singular present active indicative form of the verb libero, meaning “I set free.”Perit is the third-person singular present active indicative form of the verb pereo, meaning “to die” or “to pass away.”Americae is either the genitive singular, the dative singular, or the nominative plural form of the name America.The only way I was able to make any grammatical sense out of this on my own was by assuming that perit had an unstated subject, interpreting libero as a dative of disadvantage, and interpreting Americae as a genitive of separation.Thus, with some serious creative liberties, you could maybe argue that Hannity’s motto says something like, “Let’s live or he [i.e. the unstated subject of perit] passes away from America for the detriment of a free man.” Unfortunately, this still doesn’t really make any sense and you have to jump through a ton of grammatical hoops just to get here.The real source of Sean Hannity’s Latin mottoI was about to give up on trying to make sense of Hannity’s motto when I saw that someone else had pointed out that, if you go to Google Translate, set it to translate from English to Latin, and type the phrase “Live free or America dies” into the English box, it will give you the exact phrase “Vivamus vel libero perit Americae”:It’s unclear who exactly came up with this motto, but, whoever they were, they apparently just typed “Live free or America dies” into Google Translate and took what came out without even questioning it. They really shouldn’t have done that.Google Translate is comically inept at both Latin and Ancient Greek. For an article I wrote last year, I conducted a little experiment in which I typed extremely simple Latin and Greek sentences from some of the very first lessons in my old workbooks into Google Translate. Then I compared Google Translate’s translations with my own (correct) translations. The results were hilarious. Here is a link to the article.In the particular case of Sean Hannity’s Latin motto, the errors are manifold. The location and case of libero don’t make sense. Americae is clearly in completely the wrong case as well. You would have to fix all those problems just to get the phrase to even make sense. To make it idiomatic, you’d have to make some more changes. If I were writing the motto, I would probably make it “Vivamus liberi aut America peribit,” which literally means, “Let us live free or America will die.” There may be a better way of saying it, though.Hannity’s vilification of scholars and academicsIt may come as a shock to some people who aren’t familiar with Sean Hannity that apparently neither Hannity himself nor his editors nor the people at Threshold Editions nor anyone else involved in the production of this book ever even thought to check with anyone who actually knows Latin to make sure the motto made sense. Unfortunately, this is perfectly on-brand for Hannity.Sean Hannity has a long history of vilifying scholars and academics, disparaging them as members of the evil “liberal elite” who are trying to destroy American freedom. In fact, here is the full description for the book Live Free Or Die: America (and the World) on the Brink on Amazon:“America is great for a reason. Built on principles of freedom, rugged individualism, and self-sufficiency, no country has ever accumulated more power and wealth, abused it less, or used that power more to advance the human condition.”“And yet, as America blossomed, leftwing radicalism and resentment festered beneath the surface, threatening to undermine democracy first in the sixties and now—more insidiously than ever—in the form of social justice warriors, the deep state, and compromised institutions like academia and the mainstream media.”“Our fate if we succumb to a Democratic victory in 2020? A big step toward full-blown socialism along with the economic dysfunction and social strife that are its hallmarks. With radical Democrats demanding the Green New Deal, socialized medicine, abortion on demand, open borders, abolishing the Electoral College, packing the Supreme Court, and an end to free speech, our great nation will be fundamentally transformed beyond recognition.”“Ronald Reagan once said, ‘Freedom is but one generation away from extinction,’ and his words have never rung truer. In Live Free or Die, Sean demonstrates why now is an All Hands on Deck moment to save the Republic. His solution is simple: if all you can do is vote, then vote. But if you can inform people of the truth, that’s even better. And the truth is that the future of American freedom rests on Donald Trump’s reelection.”This stuff is really too crazy to make up. Notice that Hannity specifically names “academia” as one of the “compromised institutions” that he thinks left-wing radicals are using to undermine American freedom.It seems that Hannity, his publicist, or whoever came up with his motto, couldn’t bring themself to ask a professional classicist to check the translation they got from Google Translate because, according to the book itself, academics are a bunch of evil left-wing radicals who want to destroy freedom.Conservatives like Sean Hannity feel like they need Latin mottos because they know Latin mottos are old and traditional, but they despise the people who actually know Latin because they think they are left-wing radicals on a relentless quest to destroy freedom and enslave humanity, so they end up just trusting whatever Google Translate tells them.What this illustratesThe reason why I am writing about this is partly because I find it hilarious that no one bothered to check the grammar of the phrase that is emblazoned on the front cover of a book that is about to be professionally published, but also because I think this example perfectly illustrates the essence of Sean Hannity’s variety of conservativism.People like Sean Hannity revere old things that they don’t understand and that they have no desire to understand, often without justification, all while accusing those who try to correct their misunderstandings of being indoctrinated into liberal ideology. They reject experts as biased and untrustworthy, but they are more than willing to trust anything they hear from the least reliable sources of information imaginable without question.In spite of all this, people still believe the things they say because we live in a deeply divided world in which truth is determined not by evidence or reason, but rather by which party you belong to.I agree with Sean Hannity that we are living in a dark time, but I think he’s wrong about the reason why. If “radical leftists” are a problem at all, they certainly aren’t the main problem.(NOTE: I have also published a version of this article on my website titled “Sean Hannity Does Not Know Latin.” Here is a link to the version of the article on my website.)

90% of all fanfiction is utter crap. Including the fanfiction I used to write. But it’s a great place to get started. It’s a good initial outlet for creativity, and a decent crucible to craft better stories.What sticks out as amateur?Poor spelling, syntax, and grammar. This is a fairly reliable giveaway. However, all is not lost. You may have a wonderful story, you just need to work on communicating it clearly.Perfect Heroes. The hero is the best at everything, everyone loves him, and nothing is a challenge. Your hero is boring as hell. Struggle, strife, and complexity are what make characters interesting. Give your hero flaws. Some, he may overcome. Others he never will. Humans are not perfect.Furthermore, if nothing is a struggle, and he always wins, there’s no tension. This is why I dislike Superman as a character. He’s too perfect, and the only way to give him a challenge, is either to face him against another physical god, or pull some technicolor kyrptonite b*******. God battles are boring, because we cannot relate to gods.Of course, it can be done, but a skillful author makes the reader empathize with the hero, man or god.Villains out for EVIL. Villains are good. Good villains are great! But too many amateur writers make their villains EVIL! and have them do stupid and ridiculous things just to showcase how evil the villain is. Kicking puppies, eating babies, etc. Things that just make no sense. EVIL is not a cause people pursue, unless we’re dealing with Demons. Villains should pursue real causes. Those causes may be truly evil, like making Germany Judenfrei, but it’s not evil for the sake of EVIL. There’s an actual reason for this vile plan.Furthermore, no villain should ever exist for the hero to defeat. Of course, narratively, that’s exactly what villains are there for. But within the plot itself, the villain should be the hero of her own story. She should have her own goals, her own motivations. She should be a real person, with as much effort invested, or more, than the hero. Good heroes need good villains.Always the Villain, never the Antagonist. Amateur writers often only have villains. They don’t realize you can have a character oppose the protagonist without being “evil”. The rival trying to win the track-meet, the principal suspending the hero, the jock who’s dating the hero’s crush, these characters don’t need to be villains. They can simply be antagonists, people with whom the hero comes into conflict. There’s no malice, no desire to do harm. Just opposition.Always the Hero, never the Protagonist. Which leads us to the reverse problem, protagonists don’t always have to be the HERO. Protagonists can just have stories, they don’t always need to be fighting the great evil.The Chosen One. The Hero/Protagonist is always the subject of some prophecy, born under great portent, destined for victory. Super special. Usually visually distinct, with purple eyes and bright green hair, a tail, whatever. The hero then prevails, not on merit, but on author fiat. This of course feeds the everyman/teen fantasy of being the hero without actually putting in the blood, sweat, and tears necessary to build the skillset needed to be the hero.Romance. Love, because reasons. Amateurs typically write just bog awful love stories resplendent with purple prose and overwrought genital metaphors. Look, if you can’t say Penis and Vagina without giggling, you’re probably not up to writing a quality love story. Don’t give up, just realize you have some way to go before your romance story is rivaling Jane Austen.Narrative Flow. Things happen without logical progression. People do things that don’t really make sense, because PLOT. Crafting a plot that flows and makes sense is a challenge.Worldbuilding. The world doesn’t make sense. There are myriad reasons why, far too many to detail. Worldbuilding is very difficult, and often the result of insufficient research. Worlds are systems. You can’t have an army of 100,000 if people are stuck at subsistence level farming. You can’t have knights in shiny 15th century armor if casting is still the predominant method of metal forming. Logistics matters.Tone: The tone of the story is inconsistent. This one is subtle, and very difficult. Is your story mostly comedy, tragedy, or epic? Is it light-hearted, dark, or realistic? Amateurs have inconsistent or illogical tone-shifts. Or, the tone is relentlessly one thing.Simple Mistakes born of Research Failure. A myriad little things that three minutes on Google would have prevented. Yes, some of it you simply cannot know. You lack the experience. We all do, in some regard. But research is your friend. You can learn damn near anything online, or by pestering your extremely patient and understanding friends about things that they know and you do not. You can even write to famous people or institutions for help. You might not get it, but you can try. But simple mistakes that are common knowledge to anybody experienced in the thing you’re writing about just show you have no idea what you’re talking about.For example, nobody is going to bust your balls for not knowing that Fulton Armory makes good parts for historical military firearms, but if your character is buying her first gun from a store, and just walks out with it rather than filling out a 4473 and waiting for the phone call to clear, those of us in the know are going to call BS.The thing to remember when writing is that there are rules, and they exist for a good reason. If you’re new to writing, you’d be well served to learn the rules and follow them. Not because you don’t have a great idea, but because you’re new, and you don’t know what you’re doing. The rules help you avoid the worst mistakes.Then, once you have some more experience, once you understand the rules, why they’re there, what they do, you can start to break them. Breaking the rules when you don’t know what you’re doing leads to terrible stories. Breaking them when you understand the ramifications of your actions, and you break that rule with purpose, to achieve a specific effect, can lead to fantastic stories.Because once you have experience, you realize the rules are more like guidelines.For more, read Quill and InkOriginal question-What is a sign of amateur fiction writing?