Pandora's Drop Box: The GENDERS Evil

Some Substacks like to have meme drops or other unserious diversions on Fridays. Here is Rightful Freedom’s attempt. Cheers,

Rightful Freedom claims to receive communications from people in Greek mythology, as emails and texts, which typically include prompts for generative AI, who seems to understand them eerily well, as you will see.

Pandora:

Zeus gave to Epimetheus the box confining all the evils that might afflict mortals. Pandora, Epimetheus' young wife, became curious about the box, and when she opened it, the evils flew out — strife, disease, hatred, death, madness, violence, ageing, greed, jealousy, and all the rest — to beset humanity from that time onward.

Pandora became immortal, and now dwells in the Greek Mythology Afterlife. Alone. Except for Cassandra.

Cassandra:

Cassandra was the most beautiful of the daughters of Priam, king of Troy. The god Apollo fell in love with her and, in return for the promise of her favors, gave her the gift of true prophecy. But Cassandra went back on her promise and spurned the god's advances. Apollo could not take back his gift (even gods have to play by certain rules), so he cursed Cassandra that no one would believe her prophecies.

Now, Pandora, with her box, and Cassandra, with her visions of the future, find themselves in the Greek Mythological Afterlife where, like Tantalus in his pool, Sisyphus and his boulder, and Prometheus (Pandora's brother-in-law) with his liver-eating eagle, they seem fated to dwell forever, in an endless loop.

Let’s see what they’re up to, today.

[AI Prompt: “Pandora finds herself in a quandary about opening the box.”]

She has a very strong feeling that there is something in the box. She’s curious of course. Who wouldn’t be? But what if it’s something bad?

But that isn’t a certainty.

Because when she first opened the box, all those centuries ago, after all the evils were released, the last thing left in the box was “HOPE”. Maybe there is something good in the box. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to just have a peek.

[AI prompt: “Pandora is unpleasantly shocked to see that she has let loose a new evil to plague humanity, photo”.]

[Pandora:] Oh no. Déjà vu all over again. What was I thinking!? A new evil!!!??? I guess I better go tell Cassandra. She’s going to be pissed.

[AI prompt: “Cassandra is appalled that Pandora has done it again, photo”.]

Pandora:] I know I know. I’ll never do it again, I promise. But I could feel there was something in there. In the box. And I thought, ‘What if it’s something good…”

[Cassandra:] That’s what you always think. But it’s always an evil! And there are so many evils already and the situation for humanity is getting worse and if you keep—

[Pandora:] Okay okay. But what are we going to do now? With this.. this… “GENDERS” thing? What is it even? What does it mean?

[Cassandra:] I don’t know. I have no idea. How could a grammatical term used (in languages such as Latin, Greek, Russian, and German) for each of the classes (typically masculine, feminine, common, neuter) of nouns and pronouns distinguished by the different inflections that they have and require in words syntactically associated with them (OED) be an evil? But it must have some — Wait! Oh! I FEEL A PROPHECY COMING ON!!!

[AI prompt: “Cassandra is overcome by a prophetic vision, photo”.]

[Cassandra describes her vision:]

The genders are not just one evil. There’s lots of them! I’m seeing like L… G… D… no wait B… OMG Genders is a lie! A lie that will be concocted by leftists who will use it to get more political power. Another one of those fractious factional “rights” the villains keep inventing. They will use ‘Gender rights’ to control people, intervene in their lives in more ways, and give government more power! Meanwhile, impressionable children will be misled, and suffer irreparable harm. Oh Pandora! This is TERRIBLE. I’ve got to warn the mortals on earth!!!

[Pandora:] Whoa. Don’t you remember what always happens when —

[Cassandra:] I have no choice, Pandy. I have to warn them!

[Pandora:] I just don’t want to see you get disappointed again, Cassandra. You know the mortals aren’t going to believe you until Apollo, who cannot die, lifts your curse. And, knowing the Archer, that is not likely to happen any time soon. Probably not ever, if we’re honest about it.

[Cassandra:] This time they will believe me, Pandy. You'll see. They have to believe this! And then shining Phoebus’ curse will be broken, and I can finally find out what comes after the Ancient Greek Mythological Afterlife. Because, no offense to the gods, who live forever, this place sucks. What’s the earliest earth-year that we can send a prophetic warning to?

[Pandora:] Well, the last time was maybe, 1935, or ‘40? AD.

[Cassandra:] Penty of time. I’m going to do it, Pandora. I’m going to warn them.

[Pandora:] I hope you’re right, Cassie. I mean, I really feel bad about letting another evil loose down there. But your prophecies are doomed to—

[Cassandra:] This time it will be different! I know it!!!

[AI Prompt: Pandora rushes to record her prophecy on a scroll, which she throws into the sea, to be collected by the goddess Helle, servant of Poseidon. The Helle-gram, as the girls sometimes call her, is their means of getting information to and from earth. After that, Cassandra and Pandora aren’t exactly sure how it gets to earth. Perhaps we will tell Helle’s story in later episodes, photo]

…

Many years pass. On earth. In the Greek afterlife, it’s early the next morning.

[AI Prompt: “Cassandra and Pandora go down to the beach of the Greek Mythological Afterlife Hellespont to learn what happened with the prophecy and warning.”].

(You, of course, already know.)

[Cassandra:] They completely ignored me, Pan. And, of course, the prophecy came true. The evil has spread.

[She reads aloud:]

“1952

After serving in World War II, George William Jorgensen, amidst great public attention, became the first man of the U.S. to receive sex reassignment surgery. He became a celebrity and performer under the name Christine Jorgensen.

“1966

After the genital mutilation of his patient David Reimer (who later tragically took his own life) pedophile Dr. John Money went on to become a national celebrity and the public face of the new ‘genders’ movement.

“2012

“...the government and society should tolerate no distinctions at all between the sexes... linguist Hans Karlgren suggested adding hen as a new personal pronoun, mostly for practical reasons. Karlgren was trying to avoid the awkward heshe that gums up writing, and invent a single word "that enables us to speak of a person without specifying their gender... Today's hen champions, however, have a distinctly political agenda.”

Nathalie Rothschild, "Sweden’s New Gender-Neutral Pronoun: Hen", Slate (2012)”

It just gets worse after that, Pandora. Fast.  Look at this.

[AI Prompt: “Cassandra holds up a box, photo”]

This man competed in the Olympics. He seems to have won. Then after the games, he changed into a woman.

[Pandora:] What!!?? Humans can really do that now?

[Cassandra:] Of course not. Even the gods cannot do that, at least not permanently. What humans do is a combination of mental illness and a political statement. His name is Bruce Gender.

[Pandora:] That's him, in Olympia?

[Cassandra:] Apparently. But they don’t have the games there anymore.

[Pandora:] Where then? Delphi?

[Cassandra:] It was some place called “Montreal”. And they don't run around and wrestle in the nude anymore, it seems.

[Pandora:] That’s a shame.

[Pandora takes the cereal box and examines it.] What’s in the box? Food of some kind? It doesn’t look like food. [reading from the box:] “Wheat, sugar, salt, corn syrup, mixed tocopherols.” What are tocopherols? “Sodium ass… ascorbate. Pyridoxine hydro... hydro…”

[Cassandra:] Gimme that.

[Cassandra grabs the box from Pandora and throws it in the sea, knowing that otherwise Pandora would obsess over it, boxophilia being her tragic flaw.] Can’t you get over that ‘box’ thing for five freaking minutes, Pandora? Here. Look at this. From earth.

[AI Prompt: Cassandra hands a piece of paper to Pandora.]

[Reading it Pandora says:] “Transgender… transgender… transgender…” It’s everywhere. So did your prophecy have any effect?

[Cassandra:] Nada. And these freaking evils are getting out of hand, Pandy. It’s crazy down there. Look at these Substacks. [She shows Pandora more papers and scrolls.] I don’t know how many more evils they can take. Seriously, you’ve got to stop opening that damn box, Pandy!

[Pandora:] I know.

[Cassandra:] I’m serious!

[Pandora:] I know. I’ll stop. I won’t open it again ever. I promise.

[But that may not be how the loops of torment work in Greek Mythology Afterlife, just ask Tantalus. Will Pandora’s curiosity get the best of her again? What new evils might emerge in that box to plague humanity? Will Pandora see the future again, and if so will the mortals on earth believe her? This may not be the only episode in the story of Pandora and Cassandra, two classical Greek girls stuck in the Hellenic Afterlife.)