[ExI] and speaking of exponential singularities...

[Tom Nowell]

I must start this by saying to the mormons on this list I don't dislike you personally, it's just I have been goaded into thinking of you like starving children in Africa or prisoners of conscience - you may be individually admirable but your marketing people have annoyed me.

Spike is frequently very careful about alluding to Muslims, not wanting to say anything offensive. In my day to day existence in the UK, I find there's little to worry about from Islam - I've worked alongside many hard-working muslims, no muslim neighbour has hassled me, I don't have to worry about drunk muslims causing trouble in the town centre. Furthermore, in their own happy way, they don't proselytise to me - they mostly try to target those of south asian or african descent. They never try to make a play for my white anglo-saxon protestant soul.

But there's an insidious group sending out young boys to try and steal my soul. They send out "elders" who look too young to shave out on to the streets in pairs. They seem to preferentially target white anglo-saxon types, and if you mention you're a christian they excitedly try to get you to read a book of a "bible" that doesn't look like any bible you've ever read. (Is it a sign you're approaching middle age when elders look incredibly young?)

These people are the multi-level marketers of religion. They are the charity muggers of religion. They are the supermarket hustlers of religion. "would you like our free catalogue", "can you spare a minute for human rights across the world" , "can you spare two pounds a month for children in africa" , "have you heard of the book of mormon?" - I can't walk through my town without being harassed. At first I felt guilty for telling the student fundraisers that I no longer cared if a child starved, their parents will have another one soon, but I realised if I am to discourage the street marketeers, only being gratuitously offensive works. You can try avoiding their gaze  or stepping around them, or polite refusals, but it doesn't work. You now have to walk around english towns like a New Yorker or a Parisian - with total disdain for anyone who gets in your way.

There have always been people handing you fliers that would surely all end up in bins, people trying to hustle you to buy, but now I get people trying to emotionally blackmail me for charity and mormons offering eternal life at the low, low price of just one soul plus tax (well, a tithe).

 Damn you ever-increasing street marketeers and door-to-door salesmen, and I curse the mormon system that forces the young to go out and recruit for a couple of years before they can get a proper job.

Tom

PS that was a lot of rage vented. The first person to invent "Minority Report" style billboards will need to go into hiding from me.