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Ask General Kang: Is it a correction? Please tell me it’s just a correction! Should I sell?

By on August 9, 2011 in Ask General Kang, Monkeys!

Ask General KangYep, there’s nothing trickier to manipulate than a system based on fear and greed.

You humans should consider changing your approach to markets. Back on my home planet, I changed our stock market system to take most of the greed out of it, and increased the amount of fear.

How, you ask?

Simple. On a day like yesterday, anyone who managed to grab a profit out of the mass hysteria would be in big trouble.

How big, you ask?

Well, depending on the size of the profit, the traders could expect anything from a visit from Dave the Angry Rhesus monkey (armed with a pain stick and wet noodles), to being body-shaved, covered with nougat, and dropped into one of several nests of Parventian Rough-Tongued Terror Beasts.

So, on a day like yesterday, the question changes from: “can I make a profit out of the hysteria” or “should I sell and save myself” to “DARE I sell to make a profit/save myself.”

Next time: I believe in love after love — is that wrong?

Alltop used to room with Dave the Angry Rhesus monkey in college. Originally published in February , 2007.

Ask General Kang: Total strangers keep offering me a “free hug”. What should I do?

By on January 26, 2011 in Ask General Kang

Ask General KangClearly, you’re uncomfortable with the idea of a “free hug”, or you wouldn’t be asking about it. There is a powerful element of society who would force this “free hug” upon you, using nothing more than persuasion and good looks.

What, exactly, are they up to?

My theory is they’re trying to undermine basic primate behaviour. Hugs are an intimate form of communication that release either good chemicals or bad, depending on the huger and the huggee. Back on Planet Neecknaw, instead of hugs we have grooming — checking our close friends and family for fleas and other fur foibles. (Of course, we rarely find them now that we’ve relaxed our harsh Anti-Bathing Laws, instituted in the Stinky Ages.) Now, would I let a total stranger grope through my luxuriant back hair on the street? I think not. That would generate some bad chemicals — the kind that make Kang angry!

Perhaps these “free huggers” are trying to extend the warm blanket of close friends and family to everyone. If everyone becomes a friend, this would make warfare rather difficult to pursue. As a former interstellar warlord, I cannot condone this subversive movement.

The best solution: if you want the hug, I’d insert the crass note of commerce to it, and give them some money.

Next time: I’ve been doing some thought experiments, but I think there may some flaws in my equipment. What do it do?

Alltop would willingly PAY for a free hug. It’s that weird. Originally published in January, 2007.

Don’t make me Zardoz you

By on February 5, 2010 in But is it art?, Parody & Satire

has your ruling class lost its mind?Sometimes things get ugly.

An argument goes awry. Friends drift apart. Families break up because they don’t share the same existential desires.

Sure, we all hope that eventually, human society will change for the better. Eventually, we’ll have a civilized strata, and a rough, hirsute barbarian underclass. This is as it should be. But god forbid the civilized group loses its mind and does things that are bad for all humanity!

This is what it is to be Zardozed.

(As we all are.)

Alltop is fond of the breech-clout.