Writing Wednesday: Stealing Ideas

I read a post over at Beth Revis's blog about critique partners.  One fear she addressed was, “What if someone steals my ideas?”

Her answer boiled down to a real writer will be in love with their own ideas and less in love with yours. Which is true.

My answer is, “So what?”

Orwell and Huxley shared an idea of post-war governments using technology to control their citizens. 1984 and Brave New World are radically different books. The only ideas worth stealing are so big they can be shared and turn out vastly different.

So here is an idea worth stealing:

This last election showed that the millennial generation are a huge political force. Cynics point out that the Baby Boomers were a force in the sixties and went from extreme liberal positions to extreme conservatives. I don't see that happening again, they aren't going to turn into the next robber barons. But something more interesting might happen.

The millennials have really shrugged off racism. Going to diverse schools they look at other races as people. In twenty years racism in America will cease to exist. Largely because the white majority will no longer be a majority.

They are also tolerate of other religions. Right now the old Protestant majority is either barely a majority or the largest of all minority religions. Some where around 48% to 50%. In twenty years it will be around 30%.

This all sounds great, but the millennials will also inherent the largest military force in the world. It might finally go through some contractions, but right now the US military is roughly the size of the rest of the world's military combined.

In order to make world peace it just makes sense that all military forces get smaller, the US has the power to “negotiate” arms reductions with every nation in the world.

In twenty years America will be a place that truly believes in equality, and will have the force to make other nations believe that as well.

America has never been an Imperial Nation, not because Americans didn't want an Empire, but because we have been racist dicks.

We could have taken over Mexico after the Mexican war. Instead we only took the northern, whiter half.

We could have annexed Japan after WWII. Giving us total control of the worlds largest ocean. But it was filled with Asians.

The rise of the millennial generation means America won't have that restraint. In twenty years the most diverse and tolerate generation of Americans will be controlling the most powerful military ever built. They won't be restrained by racism, they will truly believe in spreading real democracy and equality.

And there will be nothing to stop them from spreading equality from the end of a gun. The 30s idea of Pax-America shall rise again. The idea of Peace through American rule.

That is world of 2030.

Feel free to steal that idea. A hundred writers can use that idea and come up with a hundred radically different stories.

By Darrell B. Nelson author of I KILLED THE MAN THAT WASN'T THERE

Mars Poll

In last weeks poll I asked: Who should direct Star Wars VII?

The results were split between Joss Wedlon and Russ Mayer. I couldn't agree more, because I like both Firefly and big breasts. There is no reason both those things can't be put on the screen.

On a semi-serious note, if they do pick Joss Wedlon he would be sure to return Star Wars to the classic themes of the originals, with an interesting twist. Between that and his success with the Avengers no one would deign him the opportunity to start the Firefly series again. Something he has said he'd like to do.

On to this week's poll:

NASA has announced that Curiosity has found something on Mars and they have to double check everything before they can hold a press conference in December.

What do you think Curiosity has found on Mars?

A civilization of Cats with waves of Kitten Armies

A vast collection of Intergalactic Porn

The star child from 2001

A rock

As always vote on the upper left hand corner of the page.

By Darrell B. Nelson author of I KILLED THE MAN THAT WASN'T THERE

Shut-up Stupid Sunday: Pot isn't Therapy argument

Now that Marijuana is legal in two states there is finally some actual discussion about the pros and cons of the actual drug.

There are some valid points against making marijuana legal, and there are some truly stupid ones.

One “problem” with marijuana is for a lot of mental problems it is pretty good at suppressing the symptoms. An argument against legalizing pot is people with mental problems will use it instead of targeted prescription drugs. That is 100% true, people do that now.

I know someone who is bi-polar to the extreme. It has destroyed some of her relationships. Made her lose several jobs. Has led to a bunch of personal problems.

She has a prescription for meds that do work, and make her a functional member of society. She uses marijuana to control it instead. It's not that she doesn't want to use the prescription drugs, she does. But they cost $6,000 a month and because of her bi-polar condition she can only get a job where she makes minimum wage. Marijuana costs her a little over $100 a month and makes her functional.

There are a whole host of mental problems that marijuana can barely control. The sufferers of these would be better off with prescription meds, if they could afford them. But oddly enough it is tough for people with mental problems to get jobs with good health insurance. As well most health insurance plans don't really cover mental health problems, before Obamacare insurance companies could say, “We don't cover Behavioral Health Conditions, and if the mental health condition wasn't behavioral but an actual physical imbalance it must be pre-existing.”

Obamacare will help a lot with this, but the major insurance companies have spent decades figuring out ways to drop the mentally ill from coverage. Over the next decade it will be a struggle to add each individual disorder into insurance plans.

As far people using marijuana to self treat mental disorders that should be treated with prescription meds, it's going to happen. The answer isn't to criminalize these people, the answer is to make the prescription meds available to them.

Lots of people with mental health disorders use marijuana as a coping mechanism, it makes the disorder manageable. Manageable and cured are not the same thing. But manageable is a hell of a lot better than being totally out of control.

So to the people who argue that marijuana should be illegal so that people with mental disorders won't use it instead of prescription drugs, I say, “Shut-up Stupid. This is a false choice. Most of the people I know with mental disorders, and I know quite a few, would love to have access to the prescription meds that make them stable. But for most of them the meds are priced at more than they make working full time. If you want to stop people from self treating mental disorders with marijuana, work to get these mental disorders covered under affordable treatment plans.”

By Darrell B. Nelson author of I KILLED THE MAN THAT WASN'T THERE