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Will Arguelles – Koyaanisquatsi Paper

Posted on October 29, 2012 by warguell

William Arguelles

Spiro Alexandratos

Seminar 3

October 25, 2012

 

Koyaanisquatsi Paper

            I’m going to say this right up front: I did not like this movie. I really did not enjoy the vast majority of the film. I had significant trouble with almost every element of the film, from the  “agenda” or “goal” of the piece to its horrible execution and accidentally tragic ending. I’m trying to stay as impartial as possible from this point on, and give you exact reasons for why I disliked the film, but I don’t know how feasible of a goal that is. In truth, there’s very little I enjoyed about Koyaanisquatsi, and almost none of it is what I think you’ve enjoyed about the movie. But enough exposition let me get down to the brass tacks.

I think the first thing I need to say is that the ending probably soured the whole movie for me in retrospect, even though it’s not the movie’s fault. Let me explain. One of the ending scenes is of a rocket launching into the sky and exploding, then a single piece that looked like a recovery pod falling back to earth as some Hopi chant plays in the background. My immediately thought that the shot was of the Challenger explosion, and I actually had to stop the movie and check that they weren’t that callous to use such a horrible tragedy for such a petty ending. Of course, I learned they didn’t and the Challenger explosion didn’t actually happen until 4 years later, but emotionally, the damage was done and I’d lost my last bit of respect for the movie. In retrospect, I can’t say why I equated the scene with the Challenger exactly. I think it was because of the falling piece looking similar to the falling crew compartment of the Challenger and that the rocket exploded in a nearly identical plum of smoke, but I’m not sure. I know objectively that this is not a valid reason to dislike the movie, but emotionally it is my strongest criticism of the movie and probably the reason I utterly couldn’t stand to watch another second of it.

Now having fully established that my opinion is biased and wholly untrustworthy because of misremembering of the video of the Challenger disaster that tainted my complete emotional feel of the movie, I’ll try to find actual reasons why I disliked Koyaanisquatsi. Perhaps on a basic level, I just honestly was not emotionally engaged by the movie until that “horrible” rocket scene. I found parts intriguing and others interesting, but nothing really wowed me until I was screaming at the movie near the end. I watched Koyaanisquatsi on Hulu, so commercials popped up every fifteen or so minutes. What is significant about that is that because ads are specifically designed to engage the consumer on some level, I found them much more memorable and interesting than the movie. Which boggles my mind, because I’ve never found commercials engaging before, despite the ads trying so hard.

Part of this dilemma was because Koyaanisquatsi lacked any real narration or plot. There’s a theory in English and Psychology called Narrative Bias that accounts for my biggest problem with this movie. Basically, Narrative Bias is the theory that our minds are pre-programmed to only retain information if it tells us a story in a clear arc. This movie, because it lacks a clear story, is less a movie then a fractured amalgamation of scenes strung together. That’s not to say that the segments weren’t visually stunning. I think individually, each of the segments could of worked as modern art or art house cinematography. But because this is labeled a “film” or a “movie,” I am going in with the preconceived bias that there will be a clear story-arc, and when there isn’t I feel betrayed. I’m not saying that it’s a fair assumption to make, but it is a very common and very basic assumption most people make about movies.

Adding fuel to the fire, another issue that I had with the movie was the soundtrack. This movie has practically no narration, which means the soundtrack of the film has to take the place of telling the story and setting the tone. Of course, the soundtrack to this movie would be done by probably my least favorite composer of all time, Phillip Glass. While this wasn’t the cacophonous monstrosity I’ve come to expect upon hearing that dreaded name, it didn’t add anything to the film, and in fact damaged it because it failed to take the place of the missing narration. The soundtrack sounded very similar and repetitious the whole time, causing it to blur the movie into a meaningless mass of random images, which just further worked against the narrative bias I had going in to this film. I found this most apparent during the beginning shots of the canyons. Because Glass’s music is both grating and monotonous, I couldn’t appreciate the beauty of the canyons. I think this is because mentally I associate quietness and serenity with nature, not strident caterwauling and irksome howling. I know objectively this is my bias seeping through, but to me, the soundtrack is just another nail in the coffin of this lifeless film.

In fact, Glass’s masterfully done music prevented me from appreciating the truly stunning visuals to such a degree, that half way through the movie I muted the film and found myself actually started to enjoy the film. I absolutely loved several of the shots of the machinery and technology because they were just so visually stunning and impressive, and carried individually so much meaning. Two of my favorite scenes and the best transition of the film happened at about the twenty-eight minute mark. We’re treated to this fly-by shot of a lot filled with multicolored cars, where the camera initially zooms in on one of the cars and then slowly zooms out while panning up towards the heavens, slowly revealing the army of brilliant cars, dazzling in their Technicolor beauty in the sun. Then the film cuts sharply to an older seemingly World War II era newsreel with the camera zipping by these rows of perfectly aligned tanks, slowly panning down from the heavens back to reality. It’s really impressive editing and cinematography, and if it were a standalone exhibit at something like MoMA, without any sound just the visuals, I’d be singing the praises up and down of the scenes. It’s a beautiful artistic critique of the industrial production system and of the human need for order. The shot of the cars are beautiful and colorful and so incredibly vivid, yet they’re paralleled by the antiquated and monotone visual of the tanks in similar lines heading off to war. The juxtaposition seemingly implies that the cars are equivalent to tanks, that our industrial production of both these terrifying war machines and wondrous vehicles is really just the same monster. We may not view the cars as damaging or as dangerous as the tanks, because of their presentation and how they’re elevated in our view, but when viewed from an equal level they both can be used for incredible destruction.

And then there is the fact that all the cars and tanks are neatly aligned, fitting into perfect squares, is reminiscent of man’s struggle to make sense of a senseless world. What I find striking about the organization of the car scene is that the cars themselves have no discernable pattern to their placement, yet they are shaped into perfectly ordered rows and columns. It’s like someone was trying to impose order onto them, to make sense of this plethora of random cars. But because there’s no reasoning to the organization, the cars appear to be chaotically placed, only ordered in name but not in reality. Which to me is symbolic of man trying to understand the world by imposing his order onto it. That just like the organization of the cars, we might not truly be ordering anything in any meaningful way. But because we need some kind of order on a basic instinctual level, we continuously search for a way to shape the world into something we can understand and comprehend. That when we see this shot of the cars from above, we instinctually recognize that they’re in a specific order, therefore there has to be some meaning to it. When in reality, the cars are just parked lined up in the lot randomly, with no real reasoning to why it exists.

This little three minute section is just a snippet of the visual wonder and storytelling Koyaanisquatsi could tell if it wasn’t this continuous mess. Individual segments of the film are so interesting and intriguing, but they get lost in the horrific screeching sounds and the just overload of imagery. Since there’s not a readily apparent plot to the film, yet it’s all forcibly tied together by the nightmarish soundtrack, it comes across as these chaotic flashes of brilliance and confusion all tied into one disjointed package. Maybe it’s the music, maybe it’s the organization, but I didn’t really feel there was anything unifying to the entire film, no underpinning to the movie that had it make sense.

I think it was supposed to be about the world being out of order, given that the translation of the title literally means “unbalanced life” but I feel like it did a terrible job if that was the goal. Maybe because I’ve grown up in a very urbanized area, I didn’t find most of the images unnatural or unbalanced. I mean I do come from the suburbs, but the suburbs are a merger of city and rural, which is what I thought of most of the images, such as the shots of the electrical wires in the desert. Sure, it’s no longer completely natural, but there’s a balance and a beauty to the imagery of the geometric wire towers against the endless orange sea. And the shots of the city under the overcast sky just struck me as an incredibly shady and cool day, which is pretty much my favorite kind of weather. I understand that the clouds are supposed to be symbolic of the trouble looming over the city from not dealing with the environmental problems, but emotionally that’s not how I read it.

Perhaps the most emblematic image of this problem happens at 39:56. If you freeze the frame, you get this picture of the Microdata glass paneled building with the blue sky and white clouds reflected onto it. If it weren’t for the iron support beams and the name of the company in the top left, the building would appear to be a seamless merger of sky and building. If the message is that the world is out of order, why show an image of modern technology seemingly blending in and almost fusing with nature? It just looks so natural and so balanced, that I don’t understand the intent behind the shot. It seems to imply that we do exist in balance, that the world does make sense.

So in my obviously expert opinion, Koyaanisquatsi fails on a few critical levels. As a film, it lacks any coherent plot line or a single thread that runs consistently through it. If you take Koyaanisquatsi as a piece of propaganda for environmentalism, that the world is out of order and we must fix it, the movie falls short in several key parts which seem to almost glorify cities as natural elements. If Koyaanisquatsi is artistic cinema, it’s too long and chaotic to be a single piece of art and isn’t presented as a set of disjointed segments due to the movie format. So if it’s none of these things by my estimation, then what exactly is it supposed to be? I honestly don’t have an answer for that question.

William Arguelles – Opinion Paper 7

Posted on October 24, 2012 by warguell

William Arguelles

Spiro Alexandratos

Seminar 3

October 24, 2012

 

Opinion Paper 7

            Seeing as I’ve gotten these opinion papers down to a formula at this point, I feel almost obligated to continue with the general theme of “find the bad guy.” I don’t want you to think this means I don’t appreciate everything else you teach in class however. It’s just easier to form an opinion on a person or a company then RCRA or general philosophies like “cradle-to-cradle.” I guess it’s my own personal bias, because I’m just more interested in people’s thoughts and actions then societal policies and philosophies as a Psych major and I cannot resist seeing the world in the classic “good versus evil” bias. I don’t know why I feel this is relevant to anything, and I apologize for that, I just felt weird cause I keep focusing on this one element. I guess it’s my own little “theme” to the course, so at least I can say I got something out of this class!

Anyways, my opinion! This week I think we finally covered a good guy, William McDonough. So I guess that makes the scoreboard 6 people destroying the world to one guy trying not to. Apparently, according to the video you showed in class, Macdonough has created the ultimate fabric of pure 100% sustainability; a fabric that’s so wonderfully made you can eat it and drink the runoff. I feel like I’m being hyperbolic, but seeing as he described it like it was the most revolutionary thing since bread, I think it’s actually fairly accurate summary.

McDonough described the process in a few steps. First he stated that there was a lot of problems with current manufacturing in mills, with massive runoff of chemicals and hugely expensive filters that didn’t catch 100% of the pollutants. So what McDonough first did was identify the chemicals he couldn’t use, and it was a staggering 7,309 chemicals. What McDonough then used was the 38 chemicals left and made these magically and incredibly clean shirts that are edible and environmentally friendly, while also being implied to be cost efficient and desirable (i.e. people would buy them).

When I saw this in class my initial thought was, “oh my god this is the greatest invention since bread. These shirts are like the shirts of the future, I want one.” And then I thought a bit more, perhaps a bit more cynically, and came to some problems with it. If these shirts are really environmentally friendly, cost effective/efficient, and apparently delicious, why do we make any kinds of shirts that aren’t these? I mean, I’m not an economist, environmentalist, or a chef, but even I can see that a shirt that is so sustainable and cheap it becomes a viable food source is at the very least an incredibly profitable novelty item and at best a third industrial revolution. It’s a product (and production process) that covers the basic needs of food, shelter, and water and seems to be roughly neutral in terms of pollutants and energy, why haven’t these factories appeared everywhere, making millions and millions of shirts to feed/cover the starving masses of the world? Most companies have to deal with environmental fines and bureaucracy around dumping hazardous chemicals when they make anything, be it shirts or tacks, why wouldn’t the company want to make a product that needs no regulation, infinitely marketable, and completely sustainable?

So seeing all the pros to these magic shirts, and I use magic because they truly sound like something out of a science fiction or fantasy novel, why are these shirts not the most common thing in the world? My guess is that the shirts aren’t as cheap to produce as he sold them as, or that it’s still more profitable to make the inferior inedible shirts we wear today. My gut reaction was that some corporation is keeping McDonough down, but after doing a little cursory research, I’ve learned that isn’t the case.

Apparently, McDonough is an almost messianic figure in some circles of the green movement. He’s beloved by pop culture icons like Cameron Diaz and John Mayer and the wealthiest people in the world like paypal founder Elon Musk and Virgin Mobil CEO Richard Branson, making him a kind of “green movement” power broker for the world. In an interview, he offhandedly remarks that if he felt like it, he could just call up the CEO of Gucci and have them start working on making the fashion industry more green and sustainable. Which just brings up more questions, mainly, Why doesn’t he do that? Why not make your magic fabric into magic Gucci purses. People are used to paying hundreds for Gucci, so even if it’s highly expensive to make the fabric, you still have a wide room for a profit margin. Why isn’t this a thing? Which brings me back to my main problem with William McDonough; If he truly is this super powered messiah figure that the six or so articles I read painted him as, why haven’t I ever seen these magic shirts?

I don’t really have any answers for this, except that maybe McDonough is actually just an ordinary man who has had some very good ideas and isn’t actually superman or the green messiah we apparently were waiting for. Maybe, just maybe, we can’t just throw all our hope behind this man, whose highly secretive solutions might not be as feasible as he’s promising us they are. Maybe we should actually consider that while he’s doing great work, McDonough is still outnumbered by companies who don’t seem to care at all. Maybe McDonough wants to get rich by solving this issue, so he’s purposefully withholding information so he’s the only one who knows his solutions.

Or maybe McDonough is wizard Jesus whose come to save the world from the environmental and energy crises with magic shirts made from a secret recipe of 38 chemicals and spices. I’ll let you decide which one is true.

 

Will Arguelles – Response Paper #6

Posted on October 17, 2012 by warguell

William Arguelles

Spiro Alexandratos

Seminar 3

October 15, 2012

 

Opinion Paper 6

            So breaking with my tradition of pointing out the “supervillian” corporation and then ranting about how ridiculous the supervillian is, I think I’m going to focus on something else for once. Not because there wasn’t a supervillian this time, because Lord knows that Nike came across as pure unadulterated evil in their treatment of those Bengali workers. I mean I’ve sadly come to expect corporations outsourcing their manufacturing to impoverished countries to increase their profits. But to me, Nike is only occupying a niche made available by the utter neglect and economic exploitation of the world’s population.

Nike however, decided that just outsourcing wasn’t exploitative enough, so they decided to trick some poor Bengali men and women into signing these contracts which basically treated them like 17th century indentured servants.  These men and women would sign contracts in a language they couldn’t read that would have them move to another country (I think it was Malaysia) and then forfeit their passports to the company. Without a passport, the workers were effectively trapped in the country working for Nike until they fulfilled their contract and bought back their own passports with all the money Nike had paid them over the three or so years they worked for Nike. In short, Nike is essentially acting as a New World plantation owner, tricking the poor starving peasants into signing years of their lives away to work on plantations in horrific conditions.

Now, Nike is obviously in the wrong here. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights among practically every State’s constitution and/or bill of rights states that slavery and indentured servitude is illegal and immoral. There is no excuse for what Nike is doing to these men and women, and they should be punished for it to the fullest extent of the law. However, like the 17th century plantation owner, Nike is more emblematic of the underlying problem; the despicable living conditions and abject poverty in these states that drives these workers to sign such horrible deals.

For example, let’s look at Bangladesh, the most densely populous nation in the world. There are some significant downsides to being ridiculously overcrowded, so that millions of Bengali people live in abject poverty. I remember watching a Natural Geographic special about these Bengali women who lived in these villages comprised of a bunch of hastily constructed makeshift shacks on the side of a major thoroughfare and were basically a harem of prostitutes for the passing truckers. The women were brought there at the age of eight or nine, sold by relatives into this slavery, and forced to have sex with anyone who paid their madam about twenty U.S. dollars. After however many years of this abuse, the women were granted their “freedom” to make money themselves,  but they still had to pay a ridiculous exorbitant rent. I think all and all, the women made approximately a dollar or two for each John.

I bring this up because it illustrates my point that while Nike is obviously wrong, to these workers, it could appear as an escape from their horrible lives. Yes, Nike should pay their workers more than two dollars an hour, but when sixteen percent of the world makes approximately a dollar a day, those two dollars might sound like living in the lap of luxury. And if the person has to choose between having barely consensual sex with passing truckers or making shoes in a factory they’re told is much nicer then their shack, I can see droves of people signing up for this without a second thought.

Praying on the weak of the world is disgusting, and Nike should be ashamed of doing it. But what is truly horrific is that such a large portion of the world lives in such a deplorable state. Like the plantation owners, Nike is morally corrupt, but the only reason their practice even exists is because the conditions are so terrible that signing away three years of your life to make shoes for little to no pay sounds better than starving in the streets or being a sex slave. It’s easy to say Nike is wrong, but Nike is only a symptom of the much greater problems plaguing the world.

Opinion Paper 4 – Will Arguelles

Posted on September 30, 2012 by warguell

William Arguelles

Spiro Alexandratos

Seminar 3

October 1, 2012

 

Opinion Paper 4

            Sadly, it appears this week that we didn’t have any super villan-esque companies or actions that we talked about. Yes, there was the discussion on the MTA Subway giving off steel particles, but that’s much more a bureaucratic nightmare than a truly evil conspiracy. In fact, I can even sympathize to an extent with the MTA. It would be a nightmare to have to install new train tracks and new trains that broke without fiction. I can’t see the public getting behind these upgrades if it means having no subway access for long enough to install them, let alone a fare hike to pay for them. No, to me, that’s a problem that needs significant political will and funding for infrastructure to ever get implemented. So until Washington decides new less toxic and faster frictionless-subways for NYC is important enough to create some kind of funding bill for, I see little to no change happening.  I guess Albany/Bloomberg could do some smaller changes, like installing filters and such, but a true overhaul of the entire subway system seems to be as likely as… you know I can’t honestly think of anything in that class of unlikelihood. I guess flying pigs, cause I assume some company is doing some weird genetic experiments to make chicken-y bacon or something.

But I digress from my point, which is that the MTA is not evil in this. I fully believe that if they could make their trains better, safer, and faster without completely shutting down or going bankrupt, they probably would cause it would mean more money for them. Of course, I’m probably just not jaded enough yet to distrust the MTA or something, but really, from a business standpoint, it would make sense to improve a product that is possibly carcinogenic and millions of people breath in every day. All they need is one guy who claims that the trains gave off steel particles that gave him some kind of cancer and has enough evidence to convince a jury, and the MTA have this gigantic class-action lawsuit on their hands. Maybe I’m being naïve, but I like to think the MTA would prefer to avoid that circumstance.

Of course, I can already see you scribbling in the margins “but Will, The MTA will just bury the study in some journal and hope no one ever finds it, that way they don’t have to pay and don’t need to fix the trains!” to which I answer that you found the study which connects the subway to steel particles in the air. Which means that the MTA knows that the public could know (if someone bothered to read an academic journal that is) that there is a link between steel particles and the subway. So they’d have to be idiots not to know that all it takes is one guy connecting steel to a cancer and tying the whole thing together, and they have a massive tornado of lawsuits coming their way.  So hopefully they have enough brainpower to know that they should fix it now, or they’ll be paying for it later and for the lawsuits. Hey, this is starting to sound familiar to GE in the ‘40s…

Oh god, we did learn about a horrible company, only this time, the horrible thing they did hasn’t happened yet! Well, it is happening, but we haven’t conclusively proved it and brought it to the attention of the public yet. Okay, maybe they’ll prove me wrong. Maybe they can overhaul the system. I mean all they’d need is some funding. Of course, we are in such a poor state economically that I can’t see the federal government approving this kind of “pork” for NY when we can barely pay for all the social services and defense spending as is. And I can’t see the NY government being willing to foot this kind of bill by themselves. Well, maybe we can install filters and glass paneling and hope for the best?

William Arguelles – Opinion Paper 3

Posted on September 23, 2012 by warguell

William Arguelles

Spiro Alexandratos

Seminar 3

September 22, 2012

 

Opinion Paper 3

            I really hope you keep up with this current trend in class of showing us the utterly ridiculous things giant corporations do to the environment. Last week’s GE and PCB thing had me giggling all class, mainly because it was so blatantly wrong and that NY Times article sounds so much like a satire piece I still have difficulty believing its real. Honestly, what I’m learning in class sometimes sounds like stuff I’ve heard in my creative writing classes. I have suspend my disbelief at some of these things, mainly because I want to believe that no one could be this ridiculous. I’m really having trouble writing this paper, and last week’s paper, because I just can’t wrap my mind around these actions.

But enough recap, onto this week’s lecture on Exxon Mobil and their polluting of the Arthur Kill. Here’s what I seemed to have gotten from your lecture: In a brilliant business move, Mobil opened up a barge cleaning service in the Arthur Kill where ships coming into NY harbor could be cleaned up. It’s a smart business move and honestly makes a lot of sense. That seemed to be the last bit that made sense though, as Mobil’s disposal of the chemicals used to clean the barges was wonderfully incompetent. Mobil dug two “ponds” near Arthur Kill, and dumped all the nasty chemicals into them.

I have several questions for the people who decided this was a good idea; Why would you take the chemicals you washed off the ships because they were nasty and shouldn’t get into the water, and put them right next to the water and think “yeah, that’s better”? That’d be like building a sand castle in a tsunami and expecting it to last. How wouldn’t the chemicals get into the water? I mean, sure, it’s a more “sound” strategy then the GE “let’s just dump it in the river and hope for the best” plan, but that’s really not saying much. Of course it would get into the Arthur Kill. I bet a six year old could figure that one out.

But that’s not even the most ridiculous factor, no that honor would go to Mobil’s wonderful accounting of the toxic chemicals in the Arthur Kill. First, the setting; The EPA had caught Mobil dumping benzene, a hazardous volatile chemical, into the Arthur Kill without a permit on three separate occasions. The EPA tested the water and found that Mobil’s dumping was twenty times the legal limit, which Mobil completely denied. Understandably, the EPA demanded to see the records Mobil had which proved they were only dumping the legal limit. So Mobil, taking a page from literally every Mafia story ever, gave the EPA the “edited” testing data and records to make it legal. In other words, Mobil cooked the books and committed fraud. The EPA’s response to this obviously criminal action? Well, of course the EPA did the logical thing and told Mobil to stop dumping into the ponds. Mobil agreed and just started dumping directly into the Arthur Kill.

No one was charged with fraud or saw any jail time. Hell, it took them three years to file a court case and in 2001, Mobil pleaded guilty and only had to pay 11 Million in fines. Sounds like a lot, except when you figure in the profits Mobil made globally over this eight year period was approximately 300 billion dollars, that’s about 0.003% of their profits, which is probably less then the amount they pay to the people who dump the benzene. I don’t understand why no one saw jail time or was at least charged with fraud. I get that in America, white-collar crime is woefully under-prosecuted, but handing a government agency altered books is clearly illegal.  I think that’s literally what tipped the government off to Enron. Someone should have been found guilty of fraud; it’s really as simple as that.

 

Will Arguelles – Response Paper #2

Posted on September 20, 2012 by warguell

William Arguelles

Spiro Alexandratos

Seminar 3

September 15, 2012

 

Opinion Paper 2

            It’s not very often that life is so accidentally humorous in a totally unintentional way. But, the whole situation with GE and PCBs that we learned about in class honestly sounds like the plot of one of the most ridiculous video game franchises ever, Resident Evil. Like I mentioned before, I’ve never really learned about environmentalism so most of your lectures are entirely new information for me. I have, however, played a lot of video games, so my instinctual reaction is to relate this new information to something I do understand, evil video game corporations. I sincerely hope that I just have a really simplistic view of the situation, but I cannot even see this GE-PCB nonsense without thinking about it as life acting out the Resident Evil games.

Let me try to explain the PCB situation like I understand it. A gigantic near-monopoly of a corporation, General Electric, had a problem in the 1940s. They needed to store a ridiculous amount of electricity to gradually send out and power the NY state area, but the capacitors needed a really good really cheap insulator. So using the dark sorcery of Chemistry, GE created the PCB, a substance that let them cheaply insulate their capacitors and make unreal levels of electricity with “no foreseeable downside. In an alternate imaginary universe, the gigantic near-monopoly of a corporation, the Umbrella Corporation, had a problem. They had cured so many diseases, no one was buying their pharmaceuticals. So using literal dark sorcery, Umbrella created the T-Virus and the anti-virus, so people would get sick with one and cured by the other with no foreseeable downside.

I know you think I’m grasping at straws here, but bare with me. I also know it’s going to irk you to no end, but to me, PCBs have to be the product of black magic, because it is a hilariously evil compound that would make the T-Virus look cuddly. Not only does the reaction to synthesize PCB produce a more stable end-product, thus making a backwards decomposition near-impossible, but the reactants are both easy to find/make and really cheap. So mass-producing PCB seems to be an easy cheap process.  In addition to that, PCBs are, in general, odorless, only lightly yellow colored liquids that easily flow through skin that, when accumulated, are highly toxic. So, to reiterate, PCBs are cheap and easily made products that can’t be readily destroyed and when they build up in your easily penetrable body, are toxic. In comparison, the fictitious T-Virus is made in a highly complex and expensive reaction that can’t be cured and when they build up in your body, turns you into a zombie. When your product makes me instantly compare it to video game viruses that make zombie armies, this is not something you should be dumping in the water. Not even the literally evil Umbrella Corporation did this, because that would be the textbook definition of insanity.

Of course, GE did dump this ridiculously invincible compound into our rivers, because the obvious solution to getting rid of a toxic impossible to destroy substance is throwing it in the water and hoping for the best. This brilliant plan of “make poison, use poison for a little bit, then throw poison in the water” continued for about twenty five years, or five years longer then my entire lifespan so far. Then the EPA apparently realizing how ridiculous this plan was, made GE stop using PCBs. Hurray! Of course, it ended up with millions upon millions of pounds of this toxic substance sitting on the bottom of the Hudson. So after about another twenty five years, the EPA finally won the legal right to remove these toxins from the bottom of the river in 2007 or so. Mind you, this has been about a sixty year period of dumping PCBs into the river and letting them sit there all toxic like at the bottom of the river.

I honestly cannot comprehend this level of utter disregard not just for the environment, but also for common sense. In what universe does dumping massive quantitates of a toxin into a river not end horribly? The certifiably evil Umbrella Corporation at least had the decency to try to contain the virus, albeit horribly, once they realize the cure didn’t work. GE however, still denies that they did anything wrong and that the EPA is wrong in disturbing the environment to try to remove this toxic substance because it would mess up the delicate equilibrium of the ecosystem. I really can’t comprehend the motives behind this. Money? Do they keep more money if they ignore it or deny it? I guess they must, because that’s the only logical thing I could think of to let people be this insane.

 

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