
.ili.   Devil Shat Twenty Six   .ili.
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   Let Us Depend On That Which Thinks Not ............. by Morbus


This is Devil Shat Twenty Six released on 05/07/98. Devil Shat is
published by Disobey and is protected under all copyright laws. All of
the issues are archived at the Disobey website: http://www.disobey.com/

Submissions, email, and news should be sent to morbus@disobey.com. Your
comments are welcome. What do you want us to write about? Send an email
and let us know.

I just farted.


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.ili. Let Us Depend On That Which Thinks Not .ili.
-------------------------------------------------- by Morbus

I've never had the chance to see what would happen if I missed a release
date for Devil Shat. Sure, I've heard tales of zines that have missed a
date, and their readers complain, and balk, and send little "what the
hell you doing?" emails. I could only hope that the Devil Shat readers
would do the same.

You see, I have an aversion to missing dates and deadlines. Hopefully,
I'll never have to find out if my secret fantasies of caring readers
writing me are true or not. I am one that I hope people can depend on.

But, what else do we depend on... sitting in our toasty little computer
chairs staring at a screen of random ones and zeros?

What if we didn't have our computers and our internet... the most
important means of communication for the 20th century? Without these
toys, we'd sit in front of our TVs more, watching programs shoved down
our throats. We don't want to know about Barney Miller's latest precinct
mishaps, we'd much rather learn about how to break out of a jailcell.
Johnny doesn't care how the Golden Girls are laughing about Blanche's
sexual exploits, he'd much rather see if he could find some photos of
her. And you wouldn't be able to find out if a new shareware game was
released for your computer... you'd have to be content with flipping the
channels. Without the internet, you can kiss your dreams "good bye"...
we are dependant on the internet to fulfill our "need-to-know" desires
and our "hmm, I wonder"s.

And what if we didn't have our restaurants, our fast food, our delivery
people? We'd be at home more eating stale TV dinners, having food with
the family or just plain starving. Women would cook more, men would try,
and the kids would whine that they didn't get any toys with their
overcooked burger. Maybe we'd talk more with those around us instead of
listening to Michael Jackson's "We Are the World" for the fiftieth time.
We are dependant on fast food to fulfill our lazy desire to receive food
instantly and to be waited on hand and foot.

What if we didn't have our music, our TV or our radio? How would Johnny
ever know of Blanche and have that desire to see her naked? (Let's just
ignore the ever apparent question of "Who would want to see a 56-old sex
happy women naked?" Leandro, put your hand down.) Without these vocal
communication resources, we'd have to rely on something some people call
r-e-a-d-i-n-g. The problem is very few people actually do major reading
any more. We'd probably have to reduce our newspapers to express ideas
and facts in simple-to-skim diagrams. One question that arises: "Would
we communicate more or less?" It's not as easy to answer as it may seem.
Sure, we might talk more because humanity "wants to communicate", but
what the hell would we talk about? Our culture would become full of
"informers", those lucky few who read the paper and then dummy it up
into five minute blurbs that we could handle in our busy life style. As
much as Tipper can bitch about music, Buchanan about TV, and um... Stern
about radio, we are dependant on them to give us something to say when
we don't know have anything to say (how many of us really gave a shat
about Clinton and his penis? ok, now, how many people talked about it?)

How dependant are we? There is one anagram that sums it up quite nicely:
y2k. Were we not so dependant on that stupid little gray (or, in some
cases, black) box, y2k would mean nothing except to the most dedicated
user. Yet, instead, we have this big scare that the stock market will
come to a screaming halt, and credit cards and other plastics will
suddenly stop working or be shredded. All because some smelly kid named
William forgot to program the year 2000 into his code. We've already
heard tales of a 106 year old lady getting the paperwork to come to
kindergarten because the computer thought she was 6. Were we not
dependant on that which did not think, we would not have to worry about
something as silly as an millennium.

How dependant are we? We are dependant on a lot more than this article
tells. What of pets, traffic lights, jobs, and socks? Hell, people might
be dependant on Devil Shat, and for those, I have bad news. There will
be no issue this week. Be independent, think for yourselves, breathe
some fresh air. Do not be that which thinks not.


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