One of the problems I have with writing about Beta Culture is that I want it to make sense to people, but that it’s in my head as a growing gestalt – a huge, block consisting of many, many pieces (and hundreds of pages of notes) – becoming progressively more complex and exciting the longer I consider it.
I want to write about it in a way that carefully explains it – it’s a new idea to most people, after all, and things like that are always difficult to wrap your head around – and that means I probably need to start at A with the easy parts first and move on from there to B, C, D and so forth, the more advanced bits, so the people reading all this end up in the same place. Or at least somewhere on the same road.
But there are exciting bits that pop up all the time, connections that happen in my head the more I think about it, and they’re difficult to resist.
So to hell with it. I’m going to write about it in a jumbled mess, and hope it eventually makes sense. Besides, a lot of this is included here as the pieces of a book which I hope will be the REAL introduction of the idea.
So let’s talk about a 10-steps-down-the-road thing.
Take a look at this:
It’s a former New York State “Developmental Facility” (whatever that is – some sort of government-funded residential site for the mentally handicapped? A posh resort for bureaucrats funded with taxpayer money?) that consists of six buildings on 48 landscaped acres in Syracuse, New York (not far from the Canada-U.S. border, about 20 miles from the Great Lake’s Lake Ontario, about 100 miles from Niagara Falls).
The thing features interconnected buildings with 10-foot-wide hallways, including a full-sized gymnasium with locker rooms, an Olympic-sized swimming pool and even its own bowling alley. Plus cafes, lounges and common areas scattered throughout. Not to mention 600-space parking, and this sweet, sweet, feature: a full-sized commercial kitchen with industrial-sized ovens, which just screams on-site restaurant and bakery!
Tell me that doesn’t sound like the ultimate headquarters of an evil genius bent on world domination. Or, you know, the central nexus of a growing, worldwide social organization aimed at making the world a better place for everybody living on it.
Assessed at $4.25 million, it was recently sold at auction. The minimum bid was $1.2 million; no word on what it sold for.
But, oh, wouldn’t it be nice to someday have a place like that for international delegates to gather and talk about Beta Culture strategy on atheism, feminism, environmentalism, social justice, Occupy-type action — and especially the Beta Culture Official Big Funny Hat — that Beta will encompass.
Give us 10 or 20 years.
[ Hat tip to Mona Albano for telling me about this place. ]