Oh yeah...

In our post from yesterday we implied that someone was taking our language and spinning it in an abusive way, but regrettably, we neglected to mention what it was that got our dander up as we assumed you must know.  At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not sorry that you didn't know what we were talking about.  For those who still don't know what we were referring to or who claim you do but hope we will make it explicit so you can pretend you knew all along, we are talking about this cost-saving scheme in rural China.  Rather than characterizing it as what it is, which is discrimination based on geography and income levels, they called it "BYOD" (Bring Your Own Desk).  While it is marketed as a cost-saving technique to encourage initiative among students and attempts to borrow from our (now defunct) BYOO (Bring Your Own Office) experiment, it is clearly nothing more than corruption and improper routing of educational resources.  Perhaps they did not read the post in which we concluded that BYOO was not worth pursuing, or perhaps the translation they read was incorrect, but we think it more likely that they chose to label it "BYOD" to try to put a good face on what is a contemptible practice.  The GPD is investigating the situation and trying to figure out whether we can get desks for these underprivileged students or whether they will have to wait for us to expand our influence further in China.  Incidentally, China recently upgraded the GPD from "Undesirable" to "Uncertain" so we are hoping for huge growth.  China has a roaring brad industry, which is probably why they despise us, but in recent years their profit margin on brads has decreased, so they are much more amenable to the idea that they may stop producing them altogether.  We'll see.

Regrettable

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not disappointed when individuals or organizations such as governments around the world take some of our terminology and apply it to programs that are diametrically opposed to our own programs.  We know that we are not alone in this, as evidenced by the co-opting of the phrase "Internet Freedom" by politicians to mean almost the opposite of its original intent.  Both major US parties embrace "Internet Freedom," but by that phrase they do not mean that they support the right of all to use the network, but that they support the freedom of copyright holders and the freedom of service providers.  This convolution and re-assignment of terminology has also produced the debate of Pro-Life and Pro-Choice.  The astute observer would notice that both sides of the debate are for something, and that by definition, then, everyone agrees and there is no debate.  But there is a debate, and they do not agree.  This clever word-trickery allows politicians to hide their evils and to denigrate their opponents, but it isn't limited to politics.  Many times this sort of thing ends up dividing society and shaping the opinions of the masses so that discrimination or other practices that harm certain individuals are encouraged.  At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are for equal rights for all, and if you don't agree with our definition of equal rights you are welcome to petition us to change our stance.  After all, you have equal rights as well!

Another note from "Natasha"

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not confused about "Natasha's" long-term loyalties.  She recently abandoned her post and married our former nemesis, but she did so not out of disdain for us or love for our former nemesis's former occupation, but out of everyday love.  Although she hid her infatuation from us quite skillfully, several of our well-placed-but-tricky-to-contact-quickly sources confirmed that they had their suspicions quite a while ago.  The situation gets even less clear when you consider that "Edgar" still wants to rule the world, but he swears he does not want to do so with evil office products.  In some ways he wants to fight along side the GPD, and in some ways he wants to crush it.  "Natasha's" latest note to us, while it does provide some clarity, raises even more questions about where she and "Edgar" want to be.  Here is the text of her latest note:

To Whom it May Concern:
While I regret that I am no longer able to continue my employment as an operative for the GNU Public Dictatorship's Board of Dictators, I would like to make it clear that I still have the skills and the motivation to fight evil office products in whatever form they may take.  I still intend to ruin the Parent Corporation, the Unholy Brotherhood of the Hole Punch, the New Company, and any other institution that tries to push these instruments of evil on society.  In the last few days I have been attempting to perform some missions on my own, but I have noticed that it is more difficult than it used to be.  For one thing my profile is much higher since I defected, and for another I do not have the team I used to have.  I am writing this note to ask whether I might be permitted to join in GPD missions where my skills would be an asset and where my profile would not compromise the mission.
Sincerely,
"Natasha"

We have considered her note in our board meetings and have agreed that she can still work with us on missions where her new loyalties will not compromise the situation.  We wish it was less complicated, but at lease we're learning more about where her loyalties lie!

A blog?

"Edgar" has recently contacted our operatives to let them know that he is starting a blog where he will tell the world how awesome he is and why we should let him rule the world.  He then started listing the reasons why we should let him do so.  In the interest of brevity, we'll include only his top seven.  The list he gave our operatives included 29.

1. "Edgar" is a family man.
2. "Edgar" is smarter than you.
3. "Edgar" has your best interests at heart
4. "Edgar" and "Natasha" are well-traveled in the world of aspiring world leaders and know how to avoid many of the pitfalls
5. "Edgar" and "Natasha" will not require you to vote, but you can if you want to.  It won't make a difference, though, since votes will not be counted.
6. "Edgar" and "Natasha" will do the right thing regardless of what everyone says they should do
7. "Edgar" and "Natasha" will soon have a blog.

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not skeptical that "Edgar" will be able to attract a large audience with a blog, especially when he claims to be smarter than you and unresponsive to your input.  We have successfully used this blog for several years now, but we have succeeded because of your support.  We pledge not to become so out of touch with your needs that we presume to dictate what you will do without due process and meetings of the Board of Dictators!

Some excerpts from our applications

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not pleased with excellence wherever we find it, which is why we continue to accept applications to the Board of Dictators in spite of the fact that in the history of the GPD only one applicant has ever succeeded in joining the Board of Dictators.  This year's crop of applicants looks promising, as is evidenced by (most of) the following (anonymized for now) excerpts from some of our applications*:

For Topic A: Explain what is wrong with the status quo, and provide concrete suggestions to improve it.

"...The status quo is wrong because the power is in the hands of the wrong people.  I propose that we build cement conduits to carry the power to the hands of the right people..."

"...I think that the best thing we can all do to improve the status quo is to stop accepting it as inevitable.  Sure, by definition the status quo is what it is, but why do we have to accept that?  Why shouldn't we all decide that the status quo is what it should be instead of what it is?  I have been promoting this idea in spite of my court-appointed therapist's objections for some time with little success, but I think that in the right venue I could really make a difference..."

For Topic D:  While we have known about the dangers of evil office products for quite some time, many world citizens still use them “professionally.” Many justify it by saying that their employers expect them to do so or that it isn’t affecting them, but recent studies show that more than half of “professional” evil-office-product users are addicted to them. “Natasha’s” recent bout with evil sticker addiction should serve as a warning to us all of how easy it is to become an addict. Please explain what motivates you to actively fight against even casual “professional” use of evil office products and how you would use your appointment to the Board of Dictators to keep everyone safe from these pernicious products.

"...'Professional' use of office products may seem like 'the thing to do' since everyone else does it, but I have successfully changed the culture in my office such that not only do we not use brads and hole punches, but we do not use anything on the GPD's watchlist of potentially evil office products.  I had three assistants that refused to cooperate, but now that all of the office is participating they keep each other in line and report any evil office product use before it becomes a pattern.  I would expand this pattern by..."

"...'Natasha' was weak, but we are all weak.  I recently had to refuse to use a hole punch at work, and was cited for it.  I appealed to HR and said that my religious and political views oppose the use of such instruments of evil, but I was ridiculed.  I ended up losing the position, but I am glad I did not give in.  People should not have to choose between their jobs and their convictions, and if I have anything to do with it they won't have to..."

We are encouraged by the quality and quantity of applicants so far, and we look forward to seeing your application if you have not already submitted it!

*As non-human supporters are not required to fill out the application, these answers are all from human applicants.  As we narrow the field for non-human applicants we will post some more information about them and their qualifications.

Keep Applying!

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not surprised by the volume of the applications we are already receiving this application year.  We have already received more applications in the first week than in all previous "elections."  It all goes to show that our work is being recognized by more and more people as a prestigious, if not a lucrative, career.  Some of this may be due to our work with our non-human supporters. After all, they outnumber humans on the planet by a large factor.  If you haven't applied yet, please hurry and do so.  While the GNU Public Dictatorship "election" is not zero-sum, early applications show more initiative and are thus ranked slightly higher than those that barely make the deadline!

Out-of-order packet delivery

When we received a recent note from "Natasha" where she asked to be removed from her duties, we were confused because we could not conceive that given the time between her escape and the note that she thought we hadn't found out what had happened, especially since her new husband had already contacted us.  At the GNU Public Dictatorship, however, we are nothing if not resourceful, which is why we investigated it in depth.  As it turns out, the GNU Public Dictatorship usually uses a mail system based on TCP (Transmission Control Protocol), which is both reliable and guarantees in-order delivery of messages rather than one based solely on IP (Internet Protocol) which makes no such guarantees.  Our mailmen usually use various mechanisms to re-send lost messages and to route the messages in such a way that they arrive in a timely manner, but sometimes the mail system is down and messages must be sent using traditional couriers.  In this case it appears that a courier took "Natasha's" message on a rather large detour through the steppes of central Asia and got stuck in customs before being re-routed to our headquarters, but because "Natasha" had requested in-order delivery we didn't initially suspect that it was clearly not received in the order in which it was sent.  "Natasha's" message actually originated a few minutes after she escaped from the reality simulator, which makes a lot more sense.  It just goes to show that we can't always take everything at face value!

Painters vs. Artists

People in society often make simplifying assumptions about each other in order to make decisions, such as the notion that the most important factor in a work crew (in whatever discipline) is the number of people it contains.  At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not convinced that the complexity of human interactions should not be reduced to a game of numbers.  As it is our mission to help world citizens, we will take some time now to explain what we mean by this.

In some jobs, increasing the number of workers does create a nearly linear increase in productivity, and what's more, any able-bodied adult can generally contribute about as much to the outcome as any other outcome.  That is to say, the participants are completely interchangeable and the work is nearly completely parallelizable.  If, for instance, you give paint brushes to 5 capable adults and ask them to paint a wall it will generally take about twice as long as giving brushes to 10 capable adults and asking them to paint a similarly-sized wall.  As another example, adding a second clerk at a fast food counter will generally double the order-processing speed, but this example has a subtle difference: not all fast food employees will be equally efficient with taking orders and processing payment.  In this case, taking the employee who was trained as a janitor and asking him or her to run the register would be less efficient than an employee specifically trained for this purpose.

The difference becomes more pronounced as the skills required to perform a task well become more difficult to acquire.  When you talk about a task such as carbon-dating a fossil, a person trained for the task is nearly infinitely better at performing the task than a standard wall-painting adult.  The realm of art is another where skill is required, but more importantly, where throwing more people at a task rarely makes it go faster.  Few are the paintings that were completed in half the time because two great artists collaborated.

Some world leaders, generally those who don't have an enlightened form of government like the GNU Public Dictatorship, tend to view people as interchangeable minions and compare themselves to other world leaders by the number of people they subjugate, not by the quality thereof.  At the GPD, we promise to evaluate not just your number, but also your value to society before we boast to other world leaders, but, more importantly, we will use you where you are most productive, and not ask you to restore a fresco in a Spanish church without ensuring that you have been properly trained to do so.

A Note from "Natasha"

We recently received a note from "Natasha" that apologizes for her failure to attend work and asks to be relieved of her duties as an operative, citing "family issues" as reasons for her absence.  We have to assume that she knows that we know she married our former nemesis "Edgar" and is working to rule the world with him, but it is possible, however unlikely, that she is delusional and doesn't think we know.  We have responded to her note granting her request to be relieved of duty and wishing her luck in her new life.  At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not hopeful that things will turn out for the best, regardless of what they may look like now!

The GNU Public Dictatorship Board of Dictators "Election": A Clarification

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not saddened that we must make this clarification, but it seems that when we posted the application materials yesterday and simultaneously asked the press to release more information we should not have relied on them.  The press apparently ignored our request and angered many of our non-human supporters.  While most of our non-human supporters were irked and simply contacted their local GPD offices for clarification, there were a few that could not control their anger and commenced to demonstrate violently against our perceived discrimination.

Many of our human supporters (most of whom give little to no thought about the non-human life they encounter) may be asking, "What is this perceived injustice?" or "Why would they want to demonstrate against the GNU Public 'Election'?" but if you are, please refrain from doing so out loud and revealing your insensitivity.  Our announcement yesterday in this forum focused solely on our human supporters wishing to join the board, and our asking of questions such as "what is your credit card number?" could easily be construed as biased, as there are very few non-humans who have been granted the privilege of having a credit card, and most banks agree that these are based on factually incorrect applications.  In fact, it is the stated policy of nearly every bank (actually every bank we can find except the Saga Garden Bank, which failed three years ago) to deny applications of non-human organisms.  Many of our non-human supporters took this to mean that they were not welcome to apply for membership in the Board of Dictators, but they were wrong.

The application materials we posted online apply only to human applicants.  Non-human applicants were supposed to be notified via the normal press that "elections" would be held at their local GPD offices.  Applicants who impressed their local officers would be put in contact directly with the Board of Dictators, who would then meet with them and decide whether their talents merit their joining the Board.  We had initially attempted to create an application form for non-human supporters, but we tried to decide what the common characteristics of all forms of life were and found that there were very few, such as being able to reproduce, digest, and respond to stimuli.  Since these characteristics would be readily apparent in an interview, we decided to forgo the application itself.

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not sorry that we got some of you worked up, but we hope that you will apply as soon as possible at your local GPD offices!

What you have all been waiting for!

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not dedicated to ruling the world in the best manner possible, which is why we periodically hold "elections" that allow world citizens who are not currently members of the Board of Dictators to apply for membership therein.  Nearly all of our supporters are capable and driven, but that is not enough for those who want to be part of the Board of Dictators.  The Board requires exceptional talents and dedication, and provides few tangible rewards.  Even so, we are proud to announce that as of today we are accepting applications!

In our last election cycle we introduced a new twist, where potential Board members were asked to contribute to this forum.  While the precise evaluation methods used will be determined after the bulk of the applications have been received, it is expected that serious applicants will work with us during the approvals process.  We will be accepting applications from now through November 6, 2012, when we will close the "election" and proceed to further evaluation of serious candidates.  Please be aware that by submitting an application you are authorizing us to perform a full background check, including, but not limited to such things as permanent school records, blood tests, and financial "checks."

The application materials posted below are available in international and US versions in both pdf and docx formats.  Viewers are available for both document formats for most operating systems.  Please fill the application out electronically and submit it to us online.  Please note that applications without required fields will be immediately rejected.

Version	Word	PDF
US	US2983-2012M	US2983-2012M
International	W2983-2012J	W2983-2012J

Another failed experiment

Since the Greban experiment the New Company has been working tirelessly to create monsters that can enforce its vision of society on the rest of us.  One of their more dastardly schemes was a plan to create giant mutant cat creatures.  While kittens are cute, everyone knows that cats become less cute as they become larger, and making them enormous would, by extension, make them hideous and abominable.  Our operatives thought that this operation had been abandoned after several failed experiments, but apparently the New Company has sunk lower than we had thought.  They convinced an otherwise-innocent eight-year-old boy to microwave his neighbor's cat.  No doubt they told him it would create an abominable giant mutant cat creature, but, to his dismay, it did little more than injure the cat.

Our operatives have been scouring the are for clues since the incident, and we have found several sensors and recording devices.  Apparently this "experiment" was a field trial for their new abominable cat creature program, which is still in the planning phases.  Most (non-evil) scientists wait until the lab trials are encouraging before trying field trials, and most evil scientists will wait until their is at least a glimmer of hope before hooking their machines up to themselves or others, but this is a new low.  Executing experiments as part of a field test before any successful lab trials is unconscionable.  We have seen great evil coming from the New Company, but at the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not appalled that they would enlist help from small innocent boys or harm small innocent cats.  "Gertrude" must be even more evil than we thought.

Some bad news

We have finally confirmed that our psychiatrists were complicit in "Natasha's" plan to run away with "Edgar," and have taken appropriate disciplinary action.  Apparently they were promised free Slurpees for their help, and were rather frustrated when they discovered that "Natasha" had not given them Slurpees, but vouchers for Slurpees.  They didn't want to have to leave their homes or offices and stand in line to get one, and they were outraged.  They brought their objections to their managers, who informed us immediately.  It is amazing what outrage at a perceived injustice will do to people's sense of self-preservation.  They told us how "Natasha" told them what to tell us and that if she was able to get into the simulator she would reward them.  They divulged all they knew, and we gave them Slurpees.  Oh, and then we promptly dismissed them and took the Slurpees away. We did leave them the vouchers, however, as we figured they should still receive their pay from "Natasha."

A message from "Edgar" and "Natasha"

We just received a message from "Edgar" informing us that he has indeed married our former operative "Natasha" and that they are enjoying their honeymoon together.  He even stated where they were staying, but asked us not to interfere and promised to maintain official contact as long as we behave civilly toward him and his new bride.

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not skeptical that "Edgar" wants to stay in contact with us, but his note was convincing enough that we think we'll give it a try.  We responded to "Edgar" that we would, at least in the near term, keep some operatives near enough to him to know whether he is planning anything that would harm the citizens of the world, but that we are perfectly open to diplomatic relations with him.  We received communication from him that our plan would be acceptable, and we have our operatives in place.  They report that "Edgar" appears to be on the up and up.  We'll have to see.

In his note "Edgar" also reiterated that, while he does want to rule the world, he doesn't believe that world citizens should be controlled by addictions to evil office products, or to anything similar.  He believes that he will be able to win them over to him based on his magnetic personality and his aura of power, and that once people know him they will flock to him and ask him to rule them.

We also extended an offer to "Edgar" to abandon his misguided efforts to rule the world alone and to join the GNU Public Dictatorship's Board of Dictators, but he made it clear that he does not want to share his power with others, regardless of how awesome they are.  We were taken aback by the compliment, which appeared to be sincere, but saddened that he does not wish to become a part of our awesomeness.  We are nothing if not hopeful that he won't resort to evil tactics in his pursuit of world domination!

Zero-sum

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not committed to fixing what's wrong with the status quo, which is why we occasionally post messages like these, which are designed to give you, our supporters, the information that you need in order help us inaugurate the New Future.  Today's topic is the idea of a zero-sum game, or one in which there is only one prize that must be either shared by all parties or taken by one of them at the expense of the others.  At the GPD we believe that zero-sum games should be avoided whenever possible in favor of games where the more people that win the more society benefits.

Most "standard" democratic institutions are zero-sum.  Take, for example, elections.  The approaching Presidential election in the United States permits only one winner.  Even if both serious contenders were to gain the exact same number of electoral votes, one of them would be chosen by the courts as the winner, the other as a loser.  It doesn't get any better when more serious contenders are competing, either.  The more serious contenders, the greater the chance that no candidate receives a majority of electoral votes, making the outcome even less decisive, yet equally singular.  Other elections around the world follow a similar pattern, with one candidate having to make other candidates lose in order to be able to win.  The fact that this is a zero-sum game motivates politicians not to improve themselves or to ensure that they are well-informed, intelligent, and fit for the office they are seeking, but to instead show where their opponents are less-fit than they are and fosters negative campaign messages.  Rather than advertising the good that they will do when they are put in office, politicians often try to tell us something like, "At least I'm not such a bad choice as my opponent!"  To make matters worse, there are often other candidates that have good ideas and could make a difference if they were put in office, but the system tells voters that a vote for one of these candidates is wasted since they won't receive a majority of votes, and that instead of supporting the person that the voter would like to support he or she should simply vote for the least objectionable of the "serious" candidates.  Left unchecked, politics degenerates into a race to the bottom, just so long as the others are still further down.

Other democratic institutions such as the "free market" are also notoriously zero-sum.  An individual citizen cannot create wealth (at least not without the government objecting to it and calling it "counterfeiting"), but can only accrue wealth.  In order for someone to get rich, he or she must get the money from someone else.  The zero-sum nature of this game fosters the widening of the income gap and the creation of a multiple-tier class system.  The richest have the means to get money from the others, and so they continue to become richer, while the poorest continue to give their money to those from whom they acquire housing and food, and continue to become poorer.  Even if a poor person finds a way to make money, he or she is merely taking that money from others, and contributing to the destitution of others.  In this system wealth is not defined as having an abundance, but as having more than the rest of society.  Left unchecked, the currency-based free market encourages the concentration of all wealth in the hands of a small elite.  What is often worse, however, is that those who have the power to change aspects of this system are usually those who benefit from the zero-sum game of politics.

So, you may ask, how does the GNU Public Dictatorship plan to address these problems in the New Future?  The answer is surprisingly simple: we intend to change these systems from their current zero-sum forms to a more expansive positive-sum games.  For instance, rather than holding an election to fill a single vacancy in the GPD's Board of Dictators, we routinely hold "elections" that ask our qualified supporters to submit applications.  These applications are reviewed thoroughly, the candidates are vetted, and at the conclusion of the "election" (after all input has been considered) zero or more candidates are inducted into the Board of Dictators.  The candidates are not competing against each other, but instead against a standard of excellence.  All of those who meet the standard are given the reward.  In an extreme case, all of the candidates could become members of the Board of Dictators.  This simple change to elections means that our candidates do not need to acquire money or resources to convince others that they are "less evil than the others," but they simply need to prove that they are fit for the task.

As for economic systems, the GPD does not believe that allowing individuals to create their own currency would stimulate real, sustainable economic growth, but we do believe that if we provide the right incentives we can steer those individuals with resources to use them in such a way that more resources are produced and distributed to other individuals.  We will place less emphasis on money as wealth, and change the world perspective such that a higher standard of living is considered a loftier goal than the acquisition of currency.  With this as our common goal, we can convert the acquisition of wealth from a zero-sum game to one in which all participants who strive for excellence may improve their situations.  As long as the standard of living increases at a steady rate, the distribution of currency among world citizens becomes increasingly less important.  At the GPD we have been engaging in projects to manipulate the existing economic institutions for many years, and although we have made progress, we believe we will have to continue shaping the economic systems over the next few years, and possibly until we are fully in power.  Some of these projects will undoubtedly be disruptive, but we hope you will bear with us and understand where we are going.

In summary, the zero-sum nature of many of our current institutions creates incentives for mediocrity and for the harming of others, and is not desirable.  The GPD is addressing and will continue to address these shortcomings and convert these institutions into positive-sum systems, where individual success contributes to societal success rather than to class divisions or competitions.

Wedding bells

It seems that "Edgar" and "Natasha" have made good on their promise to run off together.  Our operatives in Reno have discovered a newly filed marriage license in the names of Cornelius Quisling III and Jennifer Ferguson.  While Jennifer Ferguson is a fairly common name, as there is even one running for congress this year, there are far fewer Cornelius Quisling III.  "Natasha" (Jennifer Ferguson) was a good operative and we have been hoping that maybe this was all some ruse, but she and "Edgar" are now married.  We know Jennifer would never toy with marriage, so we have to assume it was legit.  At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not happy that she has found true love, but we are also nothing if not saddened by the sacrifices she is making to pursue that love.

Oh, and no, our operatives did not get to Reno in time to find the happy couple, but the man who gave them their license told us they had intended to take their honeymoon in Europe.  We'll step up our European presence, but we ask that if any of you find yourselves in Europe to please keep an eye out for "Edgar" and "Natasha."  And if you're not in Europe and happen to see them, please let us know as well.  If we can catch them before they become established it will be much easier to overcome them!

How they escaped

As soon as "Edgar" and "Natasha" disappeared from our reality simulator we began our forensic examination.  As far as we can tell there was nothing at all unusual before August 14, at which point a few anomalies began to show.  The anomalies coincided with the introduction of "Natasha" (as Kathryn) into the simulator, and our first thought was that she might have done something nefarious.  A thorough review of the simulator data, however, showed that she could not have been directly responsible for all of the anomalies.  She must have had an accomplice.

The same review, however, after being sent to our cryptographers, revealed that "Natasha" and "Edgar" had some coded means of communication that allowed them to discuss topics inside the reality simulator without being observed.  According to our cryptographers' post-incident analysis, this clever steganography allowed them to exchange no fewer than 317 messages.  They aren't certain they have detected all the methods they used to exchange messages, and they haven't been able to decipher all 317 messages, but they have been able to discover the meaning of a few of the messages.  This also adds weight to our assumption that "Edgar" and "Natasha" had been planning the TORSO-break for quite some time.

One message, sent by "Natasha" by tapping her fingers in an apparently random pattern on the table while discussing the sunset with "Edgar" on the first evening after she entered the simulator communicated the following message:

"Cornelius, dear, did you know we are in a reality simulator?"

"Edgar's" response has not yet been deciphered, but "Natasha's" next message (delivered in the same tapping code) reads:

"Well, we are.  The Board of Dictators sent me here to clean me up.  They thought you might have a good influence on me"

"Edgar" then sent a message using a sipping code that conveyed this message:

"I think they were right.  We have had some good times, haven't we?  Now that you're getting clean again I think we'll have a blast."

"Natasha" then switched to another code involving breathing rhythms that we haven't deciphered yet.  "Edgar" responded in his code:

"If we can get out of this simulator then we can run off together.  I think the two of us would have a great time taking over the world as long as we steer clear of evil office products." 

"Natasha" indicated using an eyebrow code that this was a good idea, and then they retired for the evening.

This exchange tells us many things:

1. "Natasha" and "Edgar" had already determined a set of codes they could use, implying that their relationship was more complex than we had thought.
2. "Natasha" had feelings for "Edgar," regardless of what our psychiatrists said.  Due to their consistent failings in this matter we're thinking we're going to replace our psychiatrists.  If you or anyone you know is interested in being our psychiatrist, please fill out the application FFF54T-PSYCH-92 and submit it to your local GPD County Office.
3. "Edgar" apparently did not know that he was in a simulator until "Natasha" entered it with him.  We think she may have manipulated circumstances to get put in the simulator with him, which would exonerate our psychiatrists to some degree, but we're still disappointed they didn't see through it.
4. They intended to exit the simulator and run off together to try to rule the world.
5. They intend to eschew evil office products.  This is important, as it confirms that both were at one point addicted to them and felt that they had lost control.  At least that part of "Natasha" wasn't a ruse.  It also indicates that "Edgar" will not be rejoining the Parent Corporation, but will likely create some sort of startup to challenge them and us.

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not committed to bringing in the New Future, which is why it troubles us that we have another rival and that one of our operatives has turned against us, apparently for love.  We are deeply saddened by this incident, and will continue to pursue the happy couple to try to persuade them to give up their plans.  We will also continue to analyze the coded messages they were exchanging to see if we find anything new.  We'll keep you posted!

A Double Standard

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not advocates for equal rights.  We have proven our dedication many times, especially earlier this year when we helped to heal a schism that threatened to divide our supporters into human and non-human camps.  While we believe in equal rights for all, we also believe in equal consequences for all.  In this recent incident the bear who (1) illegally entered the chocolate establishment after hours not once but seven times and (2) looted the store, we would have expected the shop keeper to be angry at the violation of her store.  Interestingly, however, she appears to hold bears less accountable than humans, and instead of being angry at the bear or suing it for compensation, she laughs it off.  While we at the GPD are nothing if not merciful, we find it a little bit disturbing that the shop keeper expects so little of her bear customers when compared with humans.  She likely would have pursued criminal charges against a human who entered the store illegally and took that much food, so why does she laugh when a bear does it?  Part of what's wrong with the status quo is that too many people expect too little of others.  We cannot form a strong, unified, New Future if all supporters aren't willing to pull their weight, and if we don't expect others to behave civilly they will probably live up (down?) to our expectations.

Don't get us wrong, we don't think she should have necessarily pressed charges, but we do think she should have talked to the bear and explained to it that it had violated the law and that more was expected of it.  If the bear never realizes the gravity of its actions, it is unlikely to change for the better.

Update: Our operatives have found the bear and explained to it that it should not act in this way in the future. The bear has promised to do better next time and to attend local GPD bear meetings regularly in exchange for a job (security guard at the local GPD County Office) that will allow him to purchase chocolate occasionally.

Correction: Partial Success!

When we posted yesterday that "Natasha" and "Edgar" were making great strides in overcoming brad addiction, we had hope that "Natasha" would bring "Edgar" around to the New Future.  Unfortunately, it has now become apparent that "Edgar" had more of an effect on "Natasha" than she had on him.  While they are both (as far as we can observe) evil-office-product-free, they have both escaped from the TORSO simulator and are on the run from our operatives.  A note left in the reality simulator indicates that "Edgar" intends to rule the world with "Natasha" and that he thanks us for nursing him back to health but that he cannot reconcile his vision of the future (Rule by "Edgar") with ours (The GNU Public Dictatorship's Board of Dictators ushering in the New Future).  He does make it clear that he no longer espouses evil office products to achieve world domination, but we aren't sure just quite what he (and "Natasha") intend to do together.

We are investigating the circumstances of their escape from the reality simulator, and will let you know when we have a better understanding of just how this all went down.  At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not heartened by the fact that these two addicts were apparently able to escape from evil office products, but at the same time we are nothing if not saddened that they do not want to be a part of the New Future.  Our psychologists tell us the real problem probably has to do with "Edgar's" rivalry with his twin Quisling (and the Florence Nightingale syndrome with "Natasha"), but we don't know if we can trust them since just yesterday they were nearly ready to send her back to duty.  We'll have to see.  Either way, if you see "Edgar" or "Natasha" please let us know so that we can catch up with them sooner rather than later!

Success!

"Natasha" has been in the TORSO simulator with "Edgar" for only about a week, but it looks like true love can conquer brad addictions after all!  "Edgar's" unrelenting efforts to break her of the habit appear to have worked.  She is completely evil-office-product-free, and according to an evaluation our psychologists ran today appears to be nearly ready to get back to work!  At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not pleased that she has made such quick progress, and that the budding romance between "Edgar" and "Natasha" appears to be on track to save them both from their addictions.

Utility

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not dedicated to the steady march of progress, which is why we have invested so much of our time in research that may seem crazy to some observers.  Our true supporters will recognize many of our pioneering efforts, some of which have failed and some of which are still delivering promising technologies.  We have spent a good deal of time trying to discover ways to create machines that can do our jobs as well as we can, so that we can expand our influence more quickly than ever.  Many of those machines have relied on artificial intelligence, and in turn, much of that artificial intelligence has relied on the concept of "utility".

While it might seem simple to define "utility" as how useful something is, you soon discover that you would then have to define what it means to be useful, and so forth.  As humans generally use money to portray value, many times utility is expressed as a price or a score.  We could say that the free market determines utility of items, but that would be unfair, as to suggest that a diamond, however exquisitely cut, is more useful than an ax when you are cutting firewood would be ludicrous, regardless of how much more the diamond cost than the ax.  Utility often depends on the context of the item as well.  A prize of US $100 has very different implications when distributed in a homeless shelter or a posh restaurant or to a group of wild orangutans.  To put it simply: utility is hard to define, and money is a poor proxy for utility.

Many artificially intelligent agents seek to maximize utility.  Most do so locally, or to put it another way, they seek to improve their own situation as much as possible.  Unfortunately, as many of you will already be pointing out, machines built with this sort of goal often turn against their creators and create horrible robot apocalypses.  Some attempt to communicate with other agents and maximize the overall utility (meaning society is the one that benefits), but this communication is difficult, and it is difficult to measure the utility to society of giving Fred an apple vs. giving that apple to Janet or to a deer.  Besides this, the communication often only serves to facilitate the horrible robot apocalypse.

So why am I writing this post, then?  Is the concept of utility hopeless?  Will we never make machines that can replace us (without pushing us out of the way and enslaving us)?  The answers to these questions are: for your benefit, no, and we don't know for sure, but strongly suspect the answer is no.  One thing we can say about utility is that it is highly dependent on fuzzy emotional ideas and not on the simple facts we can observe.  Also, while it is often easy to see what we should have done, it is much more difficult to reliably predict the outcome of any given situation.

Take, for instance, this situation, in which a man riding an ATV across railroad tracks appears to have improperly calculated the utility of the various choices available to him.  The woman he was with got clear of the train, but he, for some reason, miscalculated the utility of staying with the ATV for as long as he did.  Since we don't know what he was thinking it is difficult to understand the particular error, but our analysis of the situation shows that most likely he (1) underestimated the risk to him posed by the train (the potential negative utility), (2) underestimated the utility of surviving, and (3) overestimated the utility of saving the ATV (given that the ATV was probably not cheap and that he probably had some emotional attachment to it).  The combination of these factors led to a sub-optimal choice, both for society and for himself.  The sub-optimality of this decision is painfully obvious in retrospect.

Who is to say, however, that any of us, in that situation, with our imperfect measurement of utility colored by emotions, would have made better decisions?  At the GPD we are constantly refining our concept of utility and have made great strides that are redefining artificial intelligence as we know it, and in order to answer the question we posed ran 4,032 distinct scenarios (modelling the uncertainty in perception) for a run of 1,000,000 simulations each (to account for minor variations).  Most of our simulations had the individual make the optimal choice of leaving the ATV, but there were a few situations in which our simulations consistently had the individual stay with the ATV until it was too late.  These occurred in the extreme cases cited above (e.g. severe underestimation of the risk from the train, severe overestimation of the utility of the ATV, suicidal wishes) and also when we made the individual's perception extremely unreliable, simulating intoxication from evil office products.  Our operatives are checking into whether evil office products were involved, but early signs suggest that they were not involved.

We hope that our supporters will take a few moments to consider whether their measure of the utility of their choices is accurate and effective, but we warn you to please not do so while you are stuck on an ATV on the railroad tracks while a train is quickly approaching!

A Report on Bring Your Own Office

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not dedicated to the acquisition of reliable and actionable data, which is why we decided to try it out when our accountants suggested a novel approach to cut costs.  The result was our Bring Your Own Office initiative, an exciting test of a cutting edge idea to reduce the cost of running an organization.  We have been trying it for a month now, and it has saved the GNU Public Dictatorship nearly all of the costs associated with running an office.  Our researchers have been gathering data from the experiment and have been attempting to answer the following questions:

1. What is the savings that can be expected in an organization that decides to go officeless, and how does the number of employees affect the savings?
2. What are the impacts on worker productivity?
3. What are the impacts on communication?
4. What are the impacts on morale?

Our researchers believe they have enough data to give preliminary answers to these questions, so we're reproducing their early answers here.  None of these answers are finalized and they have not yet passed peer review, but we believe it is a good starting point and will help us decide whether to proceed with our experiment.

Answers:

1. The central GPD office cut its facilities budget by 94.6% over the last month.  The remaining 5.4% was still required to rent a small closet with Internet and power access within range of the GNU Public Parking Structure outside of the GPD offices.  There was some investment to bring power and network cables to enough parking stalls to accommodate our workforce, but this investment will be recuperated within a few months.  Smaller GPD offices that participated in the study showed reductions in costs, but the reductions were about 53.2% overall.  In general, it appears that the savings from moving to a BYOO scheme are dependent on the employee count, the cost of the facilities, and the cost of Internet access.  It also appears that some owners of office buildings don't want to run power and network cables to their parking structures, which in at least three cases caused a temporary move for local GPD employees.  Recommendation: you can save money by switching to a BYOO model.  The more employees you have, the more dramatic the savings will be.
2. The central GPD office saw worker productivity figures at or near baseline values, suggesting that worker productivity was not materially affected by having to provide an office.  Most of the local GPD offices that participated in the study showed similar results, but there were several outliers in which productivity declined drastically.  Recommendation: if anything, switching to BYOO brings a decrease in worker productivity.
3. Communication was a difficult property to measure, especially since in an office setting much of the communication that occurs is rather informal in nature.  The fabled "water cooler conversations" are rarely recorded and analyzed.  Our researchers compensated for these problems using a number of adjustments, and determined that formal communication (work-related e-mail or phone conferences) increased by 23% overall (in the central and smaller GPD offices) and that informal work-related communication decreased by 89%.  Informal non-work-related communication decreased by 99%.  Total volume of communication decreased slightly.  Some workers responded that having to leave their air-conditioned vehicle in the middle of summer to talk casually to a coworker was prohibitive.  Recommendation: BYOO decreases informal communication but increases formal communication.
4. Morale is easily measured using the Grubermann scale (developed by the famous Heintz Gruberman III to measure response to advertising campaigns, but easily adapted for this application).  GPD office morale has been consistently measured at 7Y5 +-3 since we started measuring.  Morale at offices that did not choose to go BYOO suffered slightly as a result of feelings of being left behind, but morale at BYOO offices showed a more interesting trend.  In the first few days of the test morale skyrocketed to 9Y8, but subsequently as the summer heat continued dropped to 5T6.  These values are well out of the range of normal variation in morale, and indicate that BYOO significantly affects morale.  Recommendation: BYOO has an initial positive effect on morale as employees become excited about the change, but over time the morale declines significantly.

Given these results, the GPD is stopping its trial run of BYOO.  While we were saving a lot of money, the increased load on our formal communications infrastructure and the drop in morale overshadow the fiscal benefits.  Adding to this a negligible or negative effect on productivity, and the answer is clear: BYOO is not going to work for us right now.

On a side note, we asked our researchers to determine whether moving to a BYOO system while simultaneously moving to a Hawaiian beach would be effective, and they answered that their data were not conclusive, but suggested that morale might continue to improve under those circumstances.  We may have to revisit this idea in the future...

Progress

Since we introduced "Natasha" into the reality simulator and caused her to interact with "Edgar" (who obviously has deep feelings for her and wants her to quit using evil office products) we have seen a dramatic improvement in her demeanor.  She was willing enough to participate in the addiction recovery programs we had provided her, but she seems to responding even better to "Edgar's" efforts to clean her up.  She hasn't used a brad in 23 hours, and her last hole punch use was office-related, not recreational.  She has even given up on her lab for creating evil stickers at home!  At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not grateful to see our former adversary and our suspended operative work together against evil office products!

What we know about airplane sandwich needles

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not eager to keep you all calm, which is why when we saw the panic created by the multiple airplane sandwich-needle incidents we decided we had better step in and tell you what you should and shouldn't worry about.

Q.  Who is behind these attacks?
A.  Unfortunately we cannot state definitively who is behind these attacks, but we can state that they are not being perpetrated by any of the Unholy Brotherhood of the Hole Punch, the Reformed Brotherhood of the Hole Punch, the Parent Corporation, or the New Company.  All of these organizations have decried these acts as heinous and unfortunate.  Our operatives are investigating known brad guy cells and other groups of informal hole punch enthusiasts to see whether they may be involved in these attacks, but current investigations indicate that these attacks are not likely related to any of our known enemies.  We believe that they are probably being organized and carried out by deranged individuals who should be under psychiatric care.
Q.  Should I check my own sandwiches for needles before I eat them?
A.  In general, yes.
Q.  What if I made the sandwich myself and nobody else has handled it, do I need to check before I eat it?
A.  While it wouldn't hurt, you would likely be wasting your time.  Unless, of course, you are a deranged individual who should be under psychiatric care, in which case you should definitely check before you eat.  If you were sewing at or around the time you made the sandwich, you may also want to check before consuming it.
Q.  What if I bought the sandwich at a restaurant?
A.  If you watched the sandwich being made and trust that the sandwich artist is not deranged, you probably do not need to check your sandwich.  If you saw the sandwich artist sewing or have other reasons to suspect he or she may have needles in his or her possession, you may want to check.
Q.  What about peanut butter?
A.  The needles have all been found in meat sandwiches so far, so the chances are lower that a peanut butter sandwich would have a needle, but you should use the guidelines above to determine whether to check thoroughly.
Q.  What about tuna salad?  Checking it could get messy.
A.  If there are other risk factors involved with a tuna salad sandwich, the GPD recommends that you either refrain from eating it or proceed with extreme caution.
Q.  Are there ways to eat sandwiches without risking an incident?
A.  In general, the smaller the bites you take the less risk from a needle.  You must be careful, however, since smaller bites means it will take longer to consume the sandwich.  Please plan accordingly.
Q.  Should I panic?
A.  No.  Not yet, anyway.

We hope this information will help you feel more secure about your sandwich choices and clear up the confusion which has been causing widespread panic recently.

Growth

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not glad to see our "New Supporters Today" counter consistently higher than it has been, and we know it will continue to increase as time goes on.  As Jason Herrera of Madison, Wisconsin, pointed out, however, even a growth of 500 new supporters daily would take 5,479 1/2 years to create 1 billion new supporters.  According to Jason (who appears genuinely concerned) this is going to take too long, and he fears he will be dead by the time the New Future is inaugurated.

The good news for Jason is that we, the GNU Public Dictatorship's Board of Dictators, do not need a majority of world citizens to be our supporters, nor do we need a plurality of world citizens.  One of the advantages of being a Board of Dictators is that we can rule without requiring that all of our subjects accept us as the best option.  What we do need is to be able to grow faster than our rivals.  Fifteen years ago, the Company was adding 400 or 500 supporters every day, depending on which estimates you believe.  We have, as you all know, crushed the Company only to find it was part of a Parent Corporation.  We have recently reduced the Parent Corporation to a mere shadow of what it was, and even the Unholy Brotherhood of the Hole Punch is on a negative growth trajectory.  Our only real adversaries at the moment are the New Company, and, according to our best estimates, they are adding about 500 new employees daily.  In order to usher in the New Future we need not reach billions of supporters, we simply need to outgrow our adversaries.

While we were able to defeat the Company and the Parent Corporation while growing at a slower rate than they did, we believe that our greater efficiency and clearer message have helped us significantly.  All our information about the New Company indicates that they are more efficient and have a more developed message than their predecessors, so we don't think overcoming them will happen as quickly.  We have been trying to slow economic growth around the world to stunt the growth of the New Company, and while it has been working it also seems to be causing other problems, so we will be abandoning that methodology.  Our recent growth, however, stems largely from word-of-mouth from our supporters, for which we thank you!  If we can keep our own growth up, we won't have to ruin your economies!

Another statement from "Jack"

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not ready for anything, but even we were surprised when "Jack" released another statement today.  It was the exact same statement he released previously, with the exception that every reference to the letter "t" has been replaced with the number "7" and ever reference to the letter "e" has been replaced with a number "3".  We knew that "Jack" liked to repeat himself, but even we were disturbed to find that he considered it worth his while to write his same statement using "leet" speak.  We were even more disturbed when we realized that he had taken at least 43 copies of his previous statement and edited them (using white-out and a black pen) to make them match his latest statement.  We hesitate to say that "Jack" and the Unholy Brotherhood of the Hole Punch pose no threat to society, but we would be very surprised to see anything truly evil come from them in the near future!

"Natasha" to join "Edgar"

Our psychiatrists have given us a green light.  We weren't sure at first what we were supposed to do with the light they provided, but then they explained to us that it was merely a symbol that meant we could proceed with our plan to introduce "Natasha" into the TORSO so she could join "Edgar," who apparently has deep feelings for her and wants her to quit using evil office products.  We hope that this plan works, and we will keep you posted on the outcome!

An update on our relationship with the Allies

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not willing to accept help wherever it is offered, but the recent apparent betrayal by the Allies has made us a bit more reticent.  Most of you know that several of our operations were delayed by the chaos caused by the human/non-human conflict, but most of you do not know which missions were irreparably harmed.  One of these was a mission "Viktor" was on to find out as much as possible about the leadership of the New Company.  After all, we still don't know much about "Gertrude" or "her" advisors.  There was an opening that "Viktor" was going to interview for (in disguise, of course) that would have taught us a great deal about their inner workings that was filled while "Viktor" was working to settle things in the aftermath of the conflict.  He had been scheduled to interview for the position but had to cancel to meet his other obligations.  This opportunity is now gone, thanks to the meddling of our Allies.  There were several other operations affected by the trouble, but this is the only one which was irreparably frustrated.  The secretive nature of the leadership of the New Company has proven very difficult to infiltrate, and now we have to wait for another opportunity.

On a separate note, the New Company has recently launched "Scrapbooking Sleepovers" in hundreds of cities around the world.  Please be advised that these sleepovers are not harmless and probably will cause many attendees to become addicts.  Please resist the temptation to "check them out"!

"Edgar" has resigned!

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not pleased when things go our way, and today is no exception.  Although we know that Quisling acting as "Edgar" resigned already and that "Edgar" has been in a reality simulation for quite some time now, the fact that he spontaneously chose to resign is quite encouraging.  Here is his resignation letter (keep in mind that "Natasha" had been using the alias Kathryn while working at the Parent Corporation):

To whom it may concern: 

I, Cornelius Quisling III, to be referred to herein as "Edgar," do hereby resign my post as leader of the Parent Corporation and do ask for my name to be removed from the rolls of the Unholy Brotherhood of the Hole Punch.  I will sign and honor a nondisclosure and non-compete agreement, but I can no longer be associated with either of these movements.  I am, instead, going to try to rule the world on my own. 

I do not come to this decision lightly, and have long considered the consequences of action and inaction.  I used to believe fervently that the world would be better if I were to rule it, and I used that belief to justify embracing the evil tools at my disposal.  I never really believed that the world would be a better place if everyone used brads, hole punches, and evil stickers, but I knew that world citizens are easier to control if they are distracted by addictions and dependent on someone else to provide them with a fix.  I began to dabble in evil office product use myself, and often found it quite thrilling. 

In the last year, however, I have realized the error of my ways, as I have watched my beloved Kathryn deteriorate to a mere shell of the wonderful lady she was.  When I met her she was passionate and positive, always inspiring me to come up with my cleverest schemes (unfortunately, even my cleverest schemes began to rarely succeed as my enemies somehow knew what I was up to).  While she was quite competent at professional use of brads and hole punches, she was also clearly not used to casual use of evil office products.  I fed off her energy and introduced her to recreational use of my evil office products.  For a while it seemed like paradise, but in the last few months I noticed that her usual passion had been replaced by indifference.  Her positive nature had become apathetic, and she no longer inspired me.  At first I thought I should just move on, but then I realized something I hadn't before--I didn't really want to use evil office products anymore.  Something inside me had snapped.  I had tried before, unsuccessfully, to stop using them, but this time it worked.  I have been evil-office-product-free for over a month now, and I am beginning to realize that the Parent Corporation and the Unholy Brotherhood of the Hole Punch are not positioned to influence the world at all, let alone to get me into my preferred seat of absolute world power.  Even worse, I began to see that I may have destroyed my beloved Kathryn.  Even now she is still in the spell of those evil, evil stickers.  I will continue to try to persuade her to give up the habits, but I fear it may be too late.  I never got the chance to tell her how I feel... 

You don't have to worry about me exposing the secrets of the Parent Corporation to its enemies; I have no loyalty to them, even if my twin works with them.  I will be working independently to convince the world that I should reign over them, and if it works I will be the happiest man in the world. 

I wish you all the best of luck and hope that you will succeed in your endeavors.

Signed,
Cornelius "Edgar" Quisling III

 We are fairly certain that his message was sincere, and are debating whether to introduce the real "Natasha" into the simulator to see whether "Edgar" can convince her to give up her habits.  We had no idea that "Edgar" felt so strongly about his coworker, and, as far as our psychiatrists can tell, neither did "Natasha."  We'll let you know how things work out.

A Handy Guide

Although many of our supporters have no doubt already found this recent article extremely helpful we have decided to post about it here.  After all, at the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not helpful!  We do take issue with the labeling of this behavior as "fraud" as we prefer to call it "creative science," but the steps Ars Technica has published for publishing scientific papers without doing any "real" experiments are extremely well-written and should provide the student of propaganda with a good starting point for any endeavor.  We would like to add a few steps for our supporters:

11.  Never implicate the GPD.  It is perfectly acceptable and even encouraged to implicate organizations which do not share our values such as the New Company.  Implicating the GPD in your paper immediately raises the profile of the paper and increases the chance for scrutiny.
12.  Bully your readers into accepting your premises and conclusions.  Make them feel that if they don't agree with you they don't deserve to be in the field you are writing about.  The more confident you are about your data the fewer questions you will receive.
13.  Cite "sources" that are difficult to retrieve¹.  The more effort involved in finding raw source material, the less likely people are to try.  Don't make your "sources" obviously fake, however, as that increases the likelihood someone will investigate.

We believe that these principles are useful in many disciplines and that most of our supporters will be able to lighten their workloads without reducing their output by adhering to these steps!

1.  Tom Gersbach and Federico Brinner, "Reducing the Likelihood of Being Labelled a Fabricator of Data", Massachusetts Journal of Propaganda and Related Sciences, June 1932.  Community Press, Boston, Massachusetts.

Even more unfortunate

We recently reported that "Natasha" was compromised in her position at the Parent Corporation.  At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not regretful that we weren't completely honest with you about the situation.  "Natasha" wasn't compromised, she was forcefully extracted for her own good, and it seems that perhaps we were too late to save her.

When she helped us get Quisling in to replace "Edgar" we noticed that "Natasha" was acting strangely but we thought it might just be part of her act.  Quisling, however, noted many small things that concerned him about "Natasha" and eventually even confronted her about her careless demeanor around hole punches.  According to Quisling she looked "a bit guilty" and then "composed herself."  Further digging revealed that "Natasha" was addicted to brads and hole punches and that she was dabbling in home-manufacture of evil stickers.  Part of Quisling's plan for extrication was to bring "Natasha" with him, but after "Edgar" resigned, she refused to leave.  Not wanting to blow our cover too early we left her their until a few days ago when we had her be "compromised" in her position so we could get her out.

We sent her directly to our addiction counselors, but they tell us the chances for her recovery are very low.  A review of our policies showed that we had let her stay in her dangerous position for far too long, and that if we had followed our ideal recommendations that she would have been extracted about six months ago.  At the GPD we are nothing if not pragmatic, which is why we sometimes make exceptions to our rules for operations such as this one that present extra difficulties, but we know now that we made a mistake.  Our psychologists tell us that "Natasha" is still loyal to the GPD and the New Future, and that she did not join the Unholy Brotherhood of the Hole Punch, but that she is "extremely dependent" on the evil office products she started using.

Brad addiction is just one of the risks our operatives assume when they work undercover, but we are saddened at the prognosis for "Natasha."  We hope she recovers fully, and soon!

Good news!

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not pleased to be able to deliver to you some good news!   The Allies have worked with us to resolve or categorize as irrelevant to our relationship nearly all of the the 3.4 million complaints we received.  The remaining 312 involve more complex matters and are likely to remain unresolved for the foreseeable future, but they are unlikely to keep us from treating the Allies as (mostly) friendly.  After all, 312 out of 3.4 million is less than one hundredth of one percent.  The sting of their attempt to divide us may be fading, but we will not easily forget the pain they caused our supporters.  Those of you who submitted complaints should receive reports stating the actions taken.  If you are unsatisfied with our response, please submit a new complaint at your local GPD office.  If your complaint about our resolution to your complain has any merit (which it probably won't) we'll try to address your remaining issues or fix the situation by removing those who are not content with the resolution.  But, anyway, please feel free to bring any issues with our resolution to our attention!

An update on "Edgar"

When we placed "Edgar" in the reality simulator we also created many safeguards to ensure that he wouldn't try to end his life again.  These safeguards included increased supervision and a reduction (but not total elimination) of the brads and hole punches left in and around his (virtual) office and home.  After several days of observation, however, we realized that he wasn't even using them, and that he didn't even look fondly at them.  At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not skeptical of "Edgar" giving up on evil office products, especially since he could not do so during the Quisling Incident a few years ago, but we have to admit that he hasn't touched them since his apparent suicide attempt.  In light of this new info we're re-opening our investigation of how he came to ingest hole punch leavings, but we think it is probably more likely that he just got scared after he nearly killed himself, and that he will return to his old ways soon.

Unfortunate

In the wake of our recent investigation into the Parent Corporation, our operative on the inside has been compromised.  We thought we had taken the appropriate precautions, but after we published our reports on the operation "Jack" and his Crafties immediately went to full alert.  Our operative "Natasha" was tragically unaware of the state of alert for a full forty-three seconds, and in that span made one critical mistake that identified her as not a true member of the Unholy Brotherhood of the Hole Punch--she threw away a handful of hole punch leavings that were scattered on her desk.  When she realized that headquarters were in a state of alert she quickly fled the scene and is now being debriefed in a secure location.  She still may be of some help with "Edgar" while he is in the reality simulator, but she may be relegated to assignments further from the front lines.  At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not saddened when such things happen, but we believe we can make the most of her talents in other locations, and that there was very little to gain from further surveillance from her post in the Parent Corporation.

A Statement from "Jack"

"Jack" finally appears to have realized what we did to him last month, and has released a statement.  We'll reproduce a portion of it here for your enjoyment.  At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not pleased to entertain you!

Parent Corporation Headquarters, August 1, 2012:  It has recently come to our attention that our former adversaries have infiltrated the highest levels of corporate security and walked away without being discovered.  What's more, they have abducted an official of the Parent Corporation as part of their intrusion.  At the Parent Corporation we are nothing if not disappointed that those who style themselves our enemies would think it worth their time to commit such atrocities, and we expect them to not repeat themselves.  Security will be increased as a result of this latest incident, so be sure to carry your hole punches, brads, and nail brushes at all times.  We sincerely hope that our former enemies will put aside the petty bickering that has punctuated our relationship in the past and accept the true worship of brads, hole punches, stickers, and the Venerable Manufacturer [Chef Craft].  If they will not embrace the truth, we hope that they will at least permit us to practice what we believe.  We do not relish the thought of a holy war, but we are not to be toyed with.
...

The statement goes on for nearly 80 pages and extols the virtues of hole punches and hole punch leavings, brads, evil stickers, and Chef Craft without saying much of any substance.  There are a few interesting tidbits of information we can glean from this release, however:

• They do not consider us a current enemy.  They consistently refer to us as their "former enemy" and talk about us as irrelevant to their goals.
• They take many stylistic hints from our posts here.  Juliana practically invented the use of "At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not..." phrases, and it is quite amusing to see our former enemies use the same phrasing.  Even if we haven't been able to convince them that they are evil, we are influencing them!
• Their adoration for Chef Craft appears to have escalated to the point that they fear to repeat the name too often and instead use titles such as "the Venerable Manufacturer" to refer to them.  
• Later in the statement "Jack" says, "We do not need others; we are sufficient."  In other sections he makes it clear that while others are welcome to embrace the "truth" that no effort will be made to take their message to others.  Those who have found the Unholy Brotherhood of the Hole Punch are the "chosen" and are "lucky" enough to be part of the worship sessions "Jack" orchestrates.  If the Parent Corporation has given up on evangelizing, they become much less of a threat to the average world citizen.
• "Jack" loves to repeat himself.  Pages 45-69 were nearly an exact repeat of pages 3-17, and pages 20,25,27,29, and 73 were essentially the same information and the same structure with synonyms used to add variety.

In conclusion, this statement confirms that "Jack" and the UBHP are no longer bent on world domination and that they are no longer picking fights with us or with any world citizens.  They are, however, bent on acquiring, consuming, hording, and worshiping evil office products and Chef Craft implements.  The danger to members of the UBHP is real, and we will continue to decry their beliefs at every opportunity, but we do not think that the UBHP or "Jack" are likely to interfere with our plans for the New Future!

The Parent Corporation/UBHP Q&A

In light of yesterday's post, we decided it might be a good idea to revise our Q&A about the Parent Corporation and the Unholy Brotherhood of the Hole Punch to make it perfectly clear what the current state actually is.

Q.  Are the Parent Corporation and the Unholy Brotherhood of the Hole Punch still separate entities?
A.  It appears that, officially at least, they are no longer separate.  "Jack" is in charge of both entities, and according to Quisling they are run as one unit.
Q.  What happened to the non-Craftie wing of the UBHP?
A.  Some of them left to join the New Company and have started up an informal group they call the Reformed Brotherhood of the Hole Punch.  This group is not well-organized and claims no authority from the UBHP, but our operatives suggest this may not be the case soon.  Many of them are clearly frustrated with "Jack" and his bizarre self-serving strategies.  Those who didn't join the New Company or the RBHP appear to have decided that they don't like organized cults and have started practicing the portion of the rites and beliefs of the UBHP that they feel like practicing.  This informal organization is unlikely to be able to mount the kind of attacks we have seen in the past, but may prove to be difficult to eradicate.
Q.  How should we refer to the Parent Corporation and the Unholy Brotherhood of the Hole Punch?
A.  In general, you may use either title.
Q.  Is "Edgar" still alive?
A.  Yes, he is currently living in the TORSO reality simulator.  We are changing the parameters of the simulator to make it clear to him that if he were to defect to us he would not face more than 53 years in prison and 20 years of supervised probation after that, but he still hasn't made it clear whether he intends to remain loyal to the Parent Corporation or not.
Q.  Do the New Company and the Parent Corporation still have ties?
A.  No.  It appears that the relationship has been completely discontinued.
Q.  Did the Parent Corporation ever acknowledge that "Edgar" is gone?
A.  No, there have been no press releases from the Parent Corporation since our operatives found "Edgar"--which implies that he was the only person involved in writing their recent press releases.  With this information we believe it may be fair to declare the Parent Corporation defunct, even if it does still exist as part of the UBHP.
Q.  Is "Jack" crazy?
A.  We think so, but his followers apparently do not.
Q.  Does this mean we can buy hole punches again?
A.  Heavens, no.  Hole punches are still inherently evil, and just because the Parent Corporation isn't actively working against us doesn't mean we should throw money their direction.  If we can starve their revenue streams perhaps we can put an end to the organized UBHP altogether, but if we continue to buy from them we will never be able to crush them.
Q.  Is the GNU Public Dictatorship's Board of Dictators responsible for the decline of the Parent Corporation?
A.  We like to think it was our pressure on the Parent Corporation that allowed "Jack" and his philosophies to gain a foothold, but most of the credit for destroying the Parent Corporation as we knew it should go to "Jack."  His short-sighted ventures and bizarre obsessions have effectively eliminated a once-formidable enemy.

If you have more questions about the Parent Corporation/Unholy Brotherhood of the Hole Punch, please feel free to ask!

It's time to come clean

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not dedicated to honesty and openness, which is why it pains us when we occasionally have to mislead our supporters, even if it is for the greater good.  Embedded in the huge amounts of verifiable and correct data we reported in our post about what we know right now we included a few out-of-date statements that didn't reveal all that we knew right then.  Rest assured, however, that the obsolete statements were there to protect all of you and our trusted operatives, and not merely to keep you from being fully informed.  After all, if we didn't want you fully informed, would we be writing this post?

Anyway, to get to the point, our answer to the question "Is 'Edgar' still alive?" did not, unfortunately, reveal all that we knew about the situation at the time.  Now that we have completed our operation (more about the information gleaned from our operation when we have had a chance to collate and catalog the information we obtained) we can be more frank about what we know.  If they have not already, the Parent Corporation/Unholy Brotherhood of the Hole Punch will soon discover that they have not had "Edgar" in their midst for the last month, but our loyal Count Quisling.

In late June our once-maligned operative "Nikolai" discovered "Edgar" passed out in a gully just outside the Parent Corporation's headquarters.  Sensing an opportunity, he quickly put his missions on hold and checked "Edgar's" vital signs.  Finding him to be alive he decided to observe him for a while.  Several hours later "Edgar" appeared to take a turn for the worse, at which point "Nikolai" took him to the GNU Public Hospital's secure ward for further observation.  The opinion of the expert attending physicians (at least after they relentlessly ridiculed the opinion of the intern who suggested that "Edgar" appeared to have attempted suicide) was that "Edgar" had probably ingested some hole punch leavings tainted with noxious chemicals with the hope to end his miserable existence.  Our operative inside the Parent Corporation was contacted and, since we found that the Parent Corporation knew nothing of "Edgar's" current state we devised a brilliant plan to replace him with his twin, Count Quisling.  Quisling bravely offered to have his pinkies severed so that he might more fully deceive the Parent Corporation, but our operative assured us that "Edgar" always wore his prosthetic pinkies and that nobody would notice.

Quisling was quickly able to gain entry to "Edgar's" offices, and began surreptitiously copying interesting files.  As it turns out, however, all of the interesting files predated the merger with the UBHP, which raised Quisling's suspicions.  Instead of being an in-and-out operation, Quisling decided to stay (against our wishes) to find out whatever he could about the current state of our nemesis.

We have known for a long time now that "Jack" has his own motives for the Parent Corporation and the UBHP, but we never suspected how completely his vision had been accepted.  It seems that nearly everyone that disagreed with his vision joined the New Company when it split, and that the few remaining dissenters have either recently retired or disappeared under mysterious circumstances.  According to Quisling, none of "Edgar's" associates remains at the Parent Corporation/UBHP, which is likely why "Edgar" decided to get out.  "Edgar's" role was so diminished that since we had Quisling (acting as "Edgar") resign a week ago we have heard no rumblings of looking for a replacement for him or any memo thanking him for his services or anything like that.

As for "Edgar," we placed him in the TORSO reality simulator and are watching his movements closely.  He has not yet admitted that he tried to kill himself, but his aimless playing of first-person tetris all day at "work" implies that his spirit has indeed been broken by "Jack".

We cannot yet release all of what we found about "Jack" and his fellow "Crafties" but we can say this: the Parent Corporation and the UBHP are mere shadows of the threats they were just a few months ago.  They have abandoned their goals of spreading hole punches and other evil office products in favor of hording them for themselves.  According to several memos they no longer consider us their enemy.  Unless something completely unexpected happens, we believe they will probably be occasionally annoying but of little real global consequence.

Equality and Communication

For those who follow such things (which we hope is all of our faithful supporters) this recent article about the inequality of man (and beasts) has been causing a good deal of controversy since its publication.  At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not egalitarian, which is why we feel the need to tell you what this means for you so that we can keep you in your places without having to impose our will on you violently.

The fundamental argument of the article is that egalitarian models are less efficient than hierarchical ones, and that hierarchies arise naturally out of the need and desire to improve efficiency in decision making.  We have posted about these ideas before and have come to the same conclusions.  What makes this article so controversial among our supporters, however, is the suggestion that all are not created equal.  At the GPD we believe that all men are created equal, but that through their choices they differentiate themselves.  Those of us who are members of the Board of Dictators have obviously differentiated ourselves very well and have established that we are fit to run the world, while many of our enemies have shown utter disdain for society and have made it very clear that they cannot be part of the New Future.  The vast majority of world citizens, however, are part of neither group.  The aforementioned article mentions that the more reliable the "Big Man" is, the steeper the hierarchy will be.  We believe that since we, the Board of Dictators, do such a fine job, the hierarchy will be essentially flat, with one shining group of pillars among world citizens: us.  This model will keep democracy alive by flattening the hierarchy for the vast majority of world citizens and simultaneously retain the efficiency of a steep hierarchy.  World citizens will be able to rejoice that they are all on the same footing, while we will be able to direct humanity (and other forms of life) in a peaceful existence.  What could be better?

Complaints

Many of our supporters have asked whether we reached our goal of 3 million complaints for the Allies by the afternoon of July 4.  The short answer is yes.  The longer answer is that we had received all of the complaints by the afternoon of July 4, but because of some logistical failings and the fact that most of our United States volunteers were participating in festivities on the 4th of July we did not compile the list until Thursday at about noon.  We delivered the 3.4 million complaints we received to the Allies later that day, and, while they expressed sympathy with the pain our supporters have felt, they did not apologize or tell us they had made a mistake in their plans.  At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not forgiving, but it does irk us that our (purported) Allies do not appear to regret nearly dividing us in two.  While reproducing all 3.4 million complaints here would be overkill, below are a few of the complaints received through our Austin, Texas GPD County:

• "I have been forced to submit to a DNA test to prove I do not leave stools around the neighborhood. How humiliating."  (Submitted by Rex)
• "I believe My text editor has been hacked" (Submitted by Jane Neuman)
• "Jimmy (the neighborhood squirrel) is far too popular" (Submitted by Ferdinand the Crow)
• "Antibacterial soap is used far too much" (Submitted by representatives of the Lactobacillus bifidus community in Austin, Texas)
• "People keep calling me 'Bessie'--it's offensive" (Submitted by Mary the cow, who believes the Allies have turned people against cows)

We would like to thank all those who submitted complaints and we assure you that full relations with the Allies will not resume until we have satisfied ourselves that all of your complaints have been addressed!

Culprit(s) Identified

In our post on Monday we asked our supporters to look out for any of the counterfeit job postings, and thanks to your loyal enthusiasm we have now identified the person or persons responsible for posting them.  It seems that there was a small group of operative aides that have been feeling left out since when we advertise that an operative is working on something we never explicitly recognize the team of aides supporting that operative.  The aides have been dealt with appropriately, and will not be repeating their mistake.  As a side note, the policy of the GNU Public Dictatorship is to use code names for operatives and their support staff.  When we report that "Viktor" uncovered a large conspiracy, for instance, we mean that the operative whose code name is "Viktor" (in this case Eduardo Hans Gottlieb*) was the one putting himself in harm's way but also that his support staff (who will remain nameless for their protection) probably helped him in researching or placement or extraction.  We aren't giving glory to the operatives or their support staff directly, but to both of them indirectly.  We hope you will all understand, and for all of you support staff, we sincerely hope we won't have to deal with you as well!

* Most of the time our operatives' names are never revealed.  The case of Eduardo Hans Gottlieb is different, as we thought for a while that he had died a horribly messy death in the middle of a key operation.  We wrote his obituary a few months after his apparent passing and then learned that he hadn't actually passed away.  In most cases we would retire the moniker "Viktor" and assign a new one, but since all of his living relatives and friends are already operatives for the GPD, the precaution seemed unnecessary.

The Return of Baby Piracy?

Since we exposed the baby pirates for what they were we had thought the general public had steered clear of baby piracy.  Unfortunately, this does not appear to be the case.  When this incident occurred earlier this month we sent our operatives to investigate and found that despite our pleas the piracy of babies continues in remote parts of the world.  We thought they would be smart enough to obtain documents for their pirated babies, but it appears that they hold the pirated babies in lower regard than we thought, endangering them by putting them through the X-ray machines at the airport.  Rest assured that we will redouble our efforts to ensure that creators of babies don't have to worry about other couples stealing the results of their creativity without giving proper attribution.  At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not determined to stamp out this heinous practice once and for all!

Are they mocking us?

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not dedicated to excellence in world domination, which is why we are always looking for expendable people with low-to-moderate skills to further our aims and bring the New Future.  Some have labeled us "uncaring" or "exploitative" but we think they are just plain wrong.  Our goals for the GPD require that all world citizens bear some of the responsibility and the costs, and to expect members of the Board of Dictators to endanger themselves on missions where the odds are stacked against us or to serve as guinea pigs for new inventions is unreasonable.

Recently we discovered that someone (probably either inspired by the New Company or a disgruntled employee who is upset at the lack of glory they have received in our organization) posted a sign that parodies our job listings and tries, presumably, to dissuade the intelligent from applying to help in the New Future.  Here is the sign we discovered:

Here is one of our job listings from last week:

WANTED: BENEVOLENT DICTATORS seek malleable individuals to dedicate their lives in ongoing attempts to rule the world.  Must be prepared to work at nearly any time of day or day of the week and must be willing to forgo most compensation until after successful completion of ruling the world.  Enemies abound, so the risk of a messy death is a real one, but uniforms and prototypes of all new weapons (including, but not limited to, laser death rays) will be provided.  Full background check will be run; weirdos please refrain from applying.  Apply at your local GNU Public Dictatorship office at ___(address hand written here)__.

While the posts are not identical, there is certainly a bit of similarity and it is clear that the poster of the "EVIL GENIUS" ad wants to paint us as (1) evil, (2) fascist, (3) psychopathic, and (4) uncaring.  We object strenuously to this portrayal of our operations even while we are grateful for the characterization of our plans as "genius."

If you encounter such ads in your neighborhood please contact your local GPD office so that we can investigate them and take appropriate action.  At the GPD we are nothing if not geniuses!