Lost. Yes, it was good. It became cool to bash Lost, particularly among the more pretentious pockets of sci-fi geekdom (where I normally reside), but a lot of that was because of its popularity. The criticism they took ranged from flat-out wrong to hypocritical to nit-picking to stuff with which I agreed but that was blown out of proportion. I don't watch a lot of tv, but Lost was actually good.
So today, I write about the primary villain in Lost, known as "The Man in Black," not to be confused with Johnny Cash. The Man in Black has no name. He is simply the fraternal twin brother of Jacob. He is imprisoned on the island and wants to escape. What happens if he escapes? Badness. He's a villain. Also, he has to destroy the island to escape, and the island itself is important, and... I'm not going to get too deep into the mythology here because that's not the point.
The point is The Man in Black. Don't let him speak to you. If you do, it's too late. This advice is given multiple times, first by Dogen to Sayid. Just kill him. Would it have worked? Eh... not clear, but don't let him talk to you. Why not? He will manipulate you. That's what he does, and he's smart. If you let him talk to you, he will figure out how to manipulate you into doing what he wants, and that's it. Or, if he figures you aren't any use to him (and he is "allowed" to kill you), he'll just kill you. But don't let him talk to you. Sayid should have just stabbed him with Dogen's knife. Maybe it would have worked.
Which brings me to the topic of liars. Let me be clear about this: I am not advocating stabbing them with Dogen's knife, although I wonder how Don Young watched that scene. My point is that there are people who demonstrate themselves to be so dishonest that there is no point listening to them.
And then there's Donald Trump, who is even worse. Did you catch this one yesterday? Trump now wants credit for people saying "under god" in the pledge. This is the kind of stupid lie that, for any other president, would be the focus of weeks worth of mocking news coverage. For Trump, he tells so many stupid, insane lies that it fades into the background as just typical, Trumpian, bloviating bullshit.
He seriously says this shit. All the time. He lies so much that we can't keep up with his lies. He lies so much that the rate at which he lies far outpaces the rate at which they can be debunked, so if you start trying to debunk every lie he tells, you will fall further and further behind in the lie versus debunker race. This is a mathematical necessity that follows from the rate at which he lies. It takes just a few words to lie, and often paragraphs to debunk it. Trump's rate of lying is a paranormal phenomenon as baffling and terrifying as any ability possessed by The Man in Black from Lost.
What follows from this? Giving Donald Trump a microphone is playing the wrong game, even thinking you have a chance to respond. Giving Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Kellyanne Conway or any other administrative flack a microphone is playing the wrong game. They will lie, to an unprecedented level, about everything, and there will be no way to catch up in the debunking race. We have never seen this level of lying before in American history.
Press conferences, interviews, airing speeches... all of this is predicated on the notion that at least some of what is said will be true. For the Trump administration, that notion doesn't hold. The standard neo-conservative position on diplomacy is that you can't engage in diplomacy with Hitler and all adversaries in the international arena are Hitler, so all advocates of diplomacy are Neville Chamberlain.
Right now, I'm less concerned with Hitler than with Goebbels. Donald Trump lies about everything, and his people, trapped by his lies, lie to defend him. If we are listening to him, and engaging with the words that come out of his mouth, we are playing the wrong game. He will lie. About everything, and if we try to catch every lie, he'll tell 500 more before we're done debunking the first.
I kind of feel like Dogen right now, as Sayid comes back, having been recruited by The Man in Black. He let The Man in Black speak. Now it's too late.
After all, Trump is the President. For the press to cut off his mic now would be really, really hard.
Great job, guys. Great job.
Lost was criticized for an overly-sappy ending. I... don't think we're gonna get a sappy ending here.
May the... prosperous living and, life long, and... how does that go again?
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