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Photo via Flickr user Nacho

This Thursday, Human Rights Watch and the Harvard Law School jointly issued a 38-page report calling for a global ban on what they call "killer robots," otherwise known as fully autonomous weapons systems. The report comes just days before the United Nations is set to convene an "Inhuman Weapons Convention" in Geneva on April 13 to discuss how to deal with the imminent reality of lethal, humans-free robots. If the report's authors get their way, they'd like to see the UN create treaties to block nations from developing or using such technologies, and to encourage domestic governments to enact similar legislation to prevent a terrible future.

The killer robots referenced in the report lie somewhere on the continuum between drones and the Terminator. Whereas existing unmanned robotics still rely on humans to pull the trigger (keeping human agency in the loop), fully automated weapons systems would be able to locate, select, and execute their own targets with only human oversight and overrides at best, or without any human intervention at worst. Some experts argue that human override controls on otherwise fully autonomous robots would be futile given the speed of robotic decision-making. "A human has veto power, but it's a veto power that you have about a half second to exercise," said Brookings Institute expert Peter Singer, in conversation with The Verge. "You're mid-curse word."

At the core of the report are not concerns over the inevitable robotic uprising and humanity's apocalyptic cleansing from the earth, but deep ethical and legal concerns about how such machines would fit into existing legislation. Under existing treaties and norms, the authors argue, a fully autonomous robot's programmers, manufacturers, and commanders would be free of responsibility if their machine wound up killing innocents unless it could be proven that they sent it into an area with the express intent of such an outcome. The impunity of glitches and miscalculations would leave no site for condemnation and accountability, possibly eliminating barriers to anything from questionable tactical calls to outright war crimes in military circles.

"[Such robots would] challenge longstanding notions of the role of arms in armed conflict," the report reads. "And for some legal analyses, they would be more akin to a human soldier than an inanimate weapon. On the other hand, fully autonomous weapons would fall far short of being human [and thus accountable beings that can be punished and governed]."

Some argue that this report and related works issued by the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots (a collaboration of HRW and about 50 other NGOs) sensationalizes this strictly legal concern by calling up images of Cylons and HAL 9000, prompting readers to knee-jerk hysteria. They believe that the technology under discussion is far enough off even in its most rudimentary (and non-apocalyptic) form that a ban is uncalled for, although new legislation may be required.

Anti-autonomous weapons advocates do admit that they came up with the killer robot brand to gain attention, but they argue that their work is otherwise focused on real and imminent threats.

"We put killer robots in the title of our report to be provocative and get media attention," Mary Wareham of the CSKR told The Atlantic in 2014 regarding a previous document. "But we're trying to be really focused on what the real life problems are, and killer robots seemed to be a good way to begin the dialogue."

Advocates of controls on autonomous robotics development point out that the technology is a lot closer than many of us may think. China, Germany, India, Israel, South Korea, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States have all been implicated in the development of artificially intelligent weapons technologies in recent years. Apparently in 2013, the US Department of Defense issued a directive on the (desired) development of such systems. They and researchers from many nations have developed a host of near-autonomous fighting systems, some of which only feature human controllers as a courtesy to decision making, suggesting that fully autonomous devices really could be just around the corner—some think just five to 30 years out. And even gentle Canada has, as of last year, expressed interest in these technologies, sidestepping any concerns about ethics and liability in their internal reports on the subject.

"Fully autonomous weapons do not yet exist," reads the HRW and HLS report, "but technology is moving in that direction and precursors are already in use or development."

Plus, it appears that despite accusations of paranoia-fueled campaign support, many Americans, when surveyed on the subject, attribute their concerns over automatic weapons systems to ethical and procedural issues rather than to visions of Skynet and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Yet even if the anti-autonomous weapons campaign's concerns are real and imminent and their support comes from informed and moderate people, not from raving sci-fi conspiracy theorists, the movement has had little luck in achieving bans on such systems in the past. Although the CSKR has only existed since 2013, some activists have been pushing this issue since the 1980s. And while they have raised attention and speculation on the subject in the media, a previous attempt to raise the issue at the UN (in a similar debate last year) resulted in no real action.

Part of this probably owes to the fact that killer robots (as of yet unable to defend themselves) have very eloquent advocates highlighting just how useful they could be at reducing war crimes.

"There are a number of ways these things can be deployed where they may even be more accurate than humans," CBC recently quoted Steven Groves of the Heritage Foundation as saying. "They don't get scared. They don't get mad. They don't respond to a situation with rage—and we've seen some tragic consequences of that happening in Iraq and elsewhere."

Advocates also argue that people should stop thinking of killer robots in terms of things that can just go off and do whatever they want like they had their own minds, arguing that they could be ruled by hard and reliable algorithmic restrictions—which may theoretically put clear blame back on human commanders for pointing tools operated by set procedures in inhuman directions.

"At some level, a toaster is autonomous," said Ronald Arkin, perhaps the foremost killer robot proponent, to The Verge. "You can task it to toast your bread and walk away... That's the kind of autonomy we're talking about [with respect to fully autonomous weapons systems]."

However, this year could go a lot better for the recent report's authors given the critiques of the dangers of artificial intelligence by tech giants over the past six months. In November, inventor par excellence Elon Musk expressed his concern that AI, like that undergirding autonomous weapons, could escape our grasps within five to ten years. This January, Bill Gates and Stephen Hawking, among others, echoed his concerns. Their visions range toward the apocalyptic, but at their core they express doubts that the kind of reliability and control Arkin talks about could really be exercised over any AI, much less killer robots.

That said, there are still so many unknowns in the issue of killer robots, and there's so much vested interest among military establishments in their development, that a full and preemptive ban on the technology is unlikely. However Arkin and others have expressed a willingness to put a moratorium on the research, development, and use of such machines until solid legal norms can be worked out. Perhaps that's the big win apocalypticists and ethicists can expect at the UN this year—or if not this year, then sometime soon. Hopefully before the rise of the robot overlords.

Follow Mark Hay on Twitter.

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Anonymous Quebec did not take kindly to the Montreal Gazette's photo of the 'Pepper Spray Man.' Image via screenshot

On Thursday evening, Anonymous Quebec effectively declared digital war on the Service de Police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM)'s Chief Inspector Alain Bourdages, after a photo of him surfaced where he appears to casually pepper-spray nonviolent protesters at close range.

Anonymous has been monitoring the ongoing anti-austerity protests in Montreal since they began in earnest last month, and the vast majority of them have ended with a combination of arrests, tear gas, stun grenades, and pepper spray.

As a response to the violence at Wednesday's demonstration, Anonymous posted the photo to their Twitter with a promise to quickly identify Bourdages, who they nicknamed "Pepper Spray Man."

"From the moment we decided to crowd-source his identification by reaching out with the Twitter hashtag #FindPepperSprayMan to the moment we had his

Our third season of VICE is currently airing Fridays on HBO, and you should all obviously be watching. We just aired a new episode where host Hamilton Morris tracked the origins of a dangerous new drug called K2 that has been responsible for a string of overdoses in American teenagers. Then we sat down with Morris to debrief the episode and reflect on his time tracing the drug's origins to China and New Zealand. Check it out above.

Watch VICE Fridays on HBO at 11PM, 10PM Central or on HBO's new online streaming service, HBO Now.

The VICE News Capsule is a news roundup that looks beyond the headlines. Today: Islamic State hacks French TV channels, protesters demand police be arrested over the deaths of 20 suspected sandalwood smugglers, a North Korean cargo ship remains detained in a Mexican port, and the University of Cape Town removes an apartheid-era statue of Cecil Rhodes.

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DiShan Washington is a former pastor's wife and current bestselling Christian erotica writer. All images courtesy of Washington

As a former youth grouper who has experienced the strong sexual tension of church camp firsthand, I was intrigued when I came across the Twitter profile of DiShan Washington, which reads "Creator of Christian Erotica."

Washington became a pastor's wife at the age of 17 in her hometown of Valley, Alabama. She comes from multiple generations of pastors and pastors' wives. The rules of the church were her world until, at age 30, her marriage ended.

Growing up, she had been told that even wearing a thong was a sin. These days, she has a pole for dancing installed in her home, and has made a film on sexual education for couples called Let's Get It On.

While there are several places that Christians turn for sexual inspiration, including Michael Scott's Christian erotic books, blogs like Christian Nymphos, and some holy texts, Washington has made the genre her own with her no-nonsense voice, her full embrace of female sexuality, and her belief in the power of open communication.

Washington published her first Christian erotica book, Diary of a Mad First Lady, in 2010. Since then, she's written three more books in the genre: The Preacher's Wifey, Let's Get It On, and the sequel to her first, Diary of a Mad First Lady 2. Her first novel was optioned by a production company a few years ago and has a tentative Memorial Day 2016 release. She has also appeared on the TLC show The Sisterhood as a Christian "sexpert." Being a sexually confident woman in the world comes with enough flack—but doing so in a deeply religious community can take serious guts. I had the pleasure of speaking with Washington about Christian erotica and what its meant for the sex lives of readers who grew up, like her, thinking that sexual exploration was a sin.

VICE: How did you start writing Christian erotica?
DiShan Washington: Growing up in southern Alabama, becoming a writer wasn't a traditional or popular career path. I was encouraged to get a higher paying job, so I only did my writing on the side. But the love of storytelling never left me, so I started writing books.

In 2007, I met my mentor and godmother, Victoria Christopher Murray. She's the author of about 20 romance novels. She took me under her wing and said "DiShan, I think you have a raw talent and I think you need to study it." That's when I wrote the first version of Diary of a Mad First Lady. It's since been picked up by a production company, and it's an Essence best-selling book that's been on their Top 50 list for five years now. That was the beginning of my professional career as an author.

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What inspired you to start writing Christian erotica?
In 2011, when my marriage was coming to an end, Victoria [Murray] said she was starting a site and looking for different stories. She wanted to see if I would be a contributing writer. I said "Of course," but then I said, "Something came to me the other night in a dream: Christian erotica." She said, "What in the world are you talking about? You can't have Christian erotica." And I said "Yeah, I know, sounds crazy." That was the beginning of my exploration of the Christian erotica theme. I never expected it to blow up the way it has.

I wrote a chapter and sent it to her and she said, "DiShan, you're onto something. I'm still trying to figure out how I can read this chapter, without any foul language or anything graphic that would make me uncomfortable, and yet I'm aroused, I'm turned on. How did you do that?" Just that question made me want to write more.

How do you do that? Your writing seems like such a far departure from your upbringing.
I was married for 15 years to a pastor. My dad and my mom are currently pastors. My grandfather is a retired pastor. Nobody ever talked to me about sex. I became a pastor's wife at 17, and that was all I knew. Nobody ever talked to me about the physical, intimate, passionate side to marriage. I attempted to take the church into the bedroom, and I failed miserably.

By the time I decided I wanted to step my game up in the bedroom and become more of what we call a "freak in the sheets," it was already too late. What started out as just an interesting story turned into a movement. When I realized that my marriage wasn't going to last, I decided to champion the cause of saving marriages by educating women in particular—and some men—about what eroticism really is and how we can tap into that side of ourselves in our marriages and cut down on the high divorce rate among Christians right now.

What do you feel resonates with readers about the books that you write? Who do you consider to be your target demographic?
The one compliment that I get from my readers is that I'm very transparent. I keep it real. My books are faith-based, so obviously I write toward a Christian demographic, primarily women, though I have some men who do read my books. I think when people read the synopsis of my books, they see something that piques their interest.

As far as the Christian erotica part of it is concerned, my books definitely resonate with women—church women particularly—because there's no one standing up being the voice of sexually oppressed women in the church. Nobody talks about it.

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A poster for the film Let's Get It On, which was written by DiShan Washington. Photo via Xxtreem Filmz

I'm sure your work resonates with younger Christians who may not have people to talk to about sex. Do you feel like attitudes are changing with younger generations?
Absolutely. But here's the thing: It's good and it's bad. We're becoming more open-minded to having the conversation, but younger Christians are saying "Look, I'm going to do what I want to do regardless of whether anybody likes it or not." It's almost like a rebellion to some degree, because nobody will have the conversation with them.

What was it like for you growing up?
I just remember that I was only taught what I couldn't do. I was taught by the church mothers where I'm from that wearing a thong was a sin, and that's ludicrous. You have someone like myself who grew up struggling with what's right and what's wrong. I thought oral sex was wrong. The first time my husband and I participated in oral sex, I remember saying "If that, what we did, was wrong, then I'm going straight to hell because I'm doing it again."

That's pretty understandable.
We both agreed that if we had to keep [oral sex] a secret, then fine. That's where the problem comes in. You're so concerned about what people are going to say and how they're going to perceive you, that you keep quiet instead of saying, "Look guys, let's talk about the experience we had with oral sex. Let's go to the Bible and see if there really is conclusive information that oral sex is wrong... That's nowhere in the Bible."

When I had that moment where everything went from black and white to color, when I first had oral sex, I should have been able to talk to somebody and say, "Hey, guess what, this happened between me and my husband, and we've come to the conclusion that there's nothing wrong with it." Think about how many marriages could have been set free by being open and transparent about it.

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How did you become comfortable with your own sexuality?
It came from me knowing that my marriage was ending. I was desperate to find a way to save my marriage because I was so spiritual that I was always being the pastor's wife, but I wasn't being a wife at home. I didn't know how to separate the two. The crumbling of my marriage is what [caused me] to look at what the problem really was. I realized we had sexual problems.

So what did you do about it?
The first thing I did was take a pole dancing class. I'll never forget the first time the instructor came around and said "Everyone has to come up with a pole name. We're not using anyone's government name in here." She came to me and, because my name starts with a D, I said Diamond. She said "No, that's already been used by a stripper in a movie called The Players Club. Come up with something else." For whatever reason, I said "Dangerous." And I totally embodied that. I stepped outside of myself and forgot about the fact that I was a pastor's wife, forgot about who my dad and mom were, or what everybody would think, and I thought about who I wanted to become. I got addicted to pole classes, so much so that I purchased a pole and put it in my house.That was the first time I became aware of myself as a free-spirited woman.

How did that experience impact you?
From there I started reading books and researching different ways to please my husband with role playing and outfits. I changed my image, too. I went from a Plain Jane-looking woman to a glamorous diva walking into a room and wanting everyone to turn their heads and look at me.

Although my marriage ended, it taught me a great lesson and that's why I have such a passion for educating and bringing the subject out for other women who may be in my same situation. Maybe it's not the same situation; I've had women write me and say "I was molested as a child, and now I have problems with having sex because I have these images that come back up," or I have women who say "I've had issues with my self esteem." I had a lady write me on Facebook and say "I've been married for 24 years and my husband just seems to have lost interest in me. I need something to help me revive the passion. We've lost sexual intimacy, and how can I feel connected again?" These are the type of messages I get that, to me, make what I do worthwhile. I'm not gonna judge anybody. I like to make people feel like I'm their best girlfriend, who they've known for 20 years.

Check out DiShan Washington's books.

Follow Kelsey Lawrence on Twitter.

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Photo via Flickr user Lucas Cobb

On Sunday, the least surprising moment in the history of United States politics will take place. Though nothing is official, it's pretty much a given that Hillary Clinton, former First Lady, Senator, Secretary of State, and one-time candidate for the Democratic nomination for president, will announce her decision to run for the White House a second time, once again bidding to become the first female leader of the world's most powerful country.

How exciting it sounds! Except, as of right now, Clinton appears likely to... coast isn't even the right word. Clinton is basically guaranteed to win the Democratic nomination with little opposition whatsoever. She's polling a remarkable 47.6 percent average ahead of the next two potential opponents, Vice President Joe Biden and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, and there's a good chance neither of them—particularly Warren—will have any interest in trying to overcome that deficit by running. The other possibilities—Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, former Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley, and former Virginia Senator and novelist Jim Webb—are so far behind, they're basically running in 2012.

Practically speaking, that means that Clinton will essentially use the primary to solidify her campaign and platform as she prepares to face off against whichever of the 375 Republican contenders rises to the top of that stew. She's going to need a solid defense—the hyperbole is already coming hot and fast from the right, with NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre warning Friday that a Clinton presidency "will bring a permanent darkness of deceit and despair forced upon the American people to endure." (Sounds like someone has been watching a little too much Game of Thrones .)

But what if something else happens: What if Clinton decides to actually run? As in, run an interesting, engaging, and animated campaign intended to make folks outside of the Democrat Establishment feel not only obligated to vote for her, but passionate about it? Is this possible? Would it even be worth it, considering she's probably going to sail into the general election anyway?

Let's consider one thing. Since Harry Truman won the White House in 1948—he took over after Franklin Delano Roosevelt died during his fourth straight term and then won re-election himself—the Democrats have not won three straight presidential elections. The Republicans have only done it once, when George H.W. Bush succeeded Ronald Reagan's two terms in 1988. If Clinton wins the White House, she'll have to break with that history.

After Barack Obama's landslide win in 2012, it's easy to overlook how much ingenuity and politicking it took for him to get elected. One of the major successes of the Obama campaign was hugely boosting turnout among youth and minority voters, which benefited the Democrats in an enormous way. In 2008, Obama won 68 percent of the vote among voters aged 18 to 24, and 69 percent among voters aged 25 to 29. Blacks, Latinos, and Asians gave Obama 96 percent, 67 percent, and 63 percent of their votes, respectively. More importantly, millions more voters in these demographic groups turned out in 2008 than did in 2004.

But while all of these groups tend to favor Democrats, it isn't a given that they'll turn out for Clinton in the numbers and with the enthusiasm with which they voted for Obama. So Clinton's biggest task will be converting her sky-high name recognition and the sense of inevitability around her campaign into the kind of energy that Obama generated, particularly among those groups that voted for him in record numbers.

How does Clinton do that? Well, it already looks as though she will make a bigger deal of the fact that she'd be the first woman president in American history this time around than she did in 2012, when tended to play down the gender thing. But the Democratic Party has also moved to the left of Clinton on some issues, and there's a possibility she'll have to contend with her generally hawkish foreign policy reputation and close relationship with Wall Street.

But let's be realistic: She's going to win the nomination no matter what happens, barring a very serious surprise. That means the general election is going to be the real show, against whatever Republican the GOP trots out, with the possible exception of Jeb Bush whose theoretical campaign is almost, although not quite, as boring as Clinton's. Barring a more moderate challenge from someone like Bush or Marco Rubio, Clinton should have a stranglehold over left and the left-center voters. But in order to win, she'll have to drum up the same kind of passion among the voters who boosted the last Democrat to the White House.

Given how unexciting the idea of another Clinton campaign is to almost everyone, it's not clear whether she'll be able to do that. So while Clinton might not be another Obama, she could certainly stand to steal a thing or two from him.

Follow Kevin on Twitter

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A BNC stage rehearsal, c. 1975. Courtesy Caridad Martinez

While on tour in Spain in November 2013, dancers from the Ballet Nacional de Cuba (BNC) sent a letter to the company's long-time director, Alicia Alonso, complaining of poor working conditions and demanding to be paid the portion of the company's profits they'd been promised. The dancers had been skipping meals in order to live on their small daily stipends. "What huge damage could it cause the company to set aside 4 or 5 thousand euros to give us a tiny gift after a three-month tour where we made our country and, most importantly, our company proud?" If Alonso responded to the demands of her dancers, this went unreported in the press. The company packed up two weeks later and headed back to Havana.

Political expression is not foreign to the BNC; the company was designed to be one of Cuba's premiere outlets for self-representation abroad. But in recent years its international trips have become opportunities for dancers to express their grievances and defect from their home country. Earlier in 2013 while on tour in Mexico, six BNC dancers crossed the US border in order to seek asylum; they almost immediately found work at companies in Florida. In 2003 alone, defections caused the company's ranks to be reduced by a fifth. The announcement made on December 17 last year that the United States would ease diplomatic relations with Cuba has thus posed an existential challenge to the BNC. How will the company operate now that it's not one of the country's only cultural exports? And how will Cuban dancers respond to their country's improved standing in the West?

"Cuba is one of the leaders in world ballet. The dancers are very distinctive and very strong."
—Carlos Acosta

The BNC, which Fidel Castro established in 1960 just a year after he took power, started touring abroad in 1964 and immediately earned rave reviews. The revolutionary initiative was entrusted to Alonso and her then-husband Fernando, two Cuban dancers recently returned from successful runs on Broadway and with American Ballet Theater in New York. Castro added one stipulation: "The company has to be good." The international tours were meant to show that Cuba could be a cultural leader even while abstaining for the global capitalist economy. While working within the constraints of the form, the BNC's dancers were still considered "the lungs of their people," and early critics noted the company's special style. The Alonsos told the world they had developed a technique specific to the Cuban mindset and physique, one that was warmer and more sensuous than its American or Russian counterparts.

"The company has been one of the major assets of Cuban diplomacy of the last fifty years," Septime Webre, director of the Washington Ballet and first generation Cuban-American, told me. In 1975, during the rapprochement of the Carter administration, Alicia Alonso became the first major Cuban artist to visit the United States. Two years later she performed at the Metropolitan Opera House—though only after police conducted a two-hour search of the premises with bomb-sniffing dogs. Despite the goings-on of Cold War paranoia, the audience was given a vivid impression of the artistry fostered on the island; a New York Times critic wrote that she "had never felt a dancer exert such compelling power over a viewer." Cuban-born and trained Carlos Acosta, now a star at the English Royal Ballet told me, "Cuba is one of the leaders in world ballet. The dancers are very distinctive and very strong."

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BNC dancers at a rehearsal. Wikimedia Commons

But soon the defections became the headlines. There is now a Cuban-trained dancer in almost every major American company, and the rate of desertion is growing. Webre told me that in the past two weeks he's auditioned fifteen Cuban dancers for his company. "The volume is easily triple what it was two years ago," he said. (Candidates just show up at the studio; whether or not they're defectors often goes unsaid.) According to the dancers, "defection" isn't the right word for what they're doing, because they're not leaving for political reasons.

"It was called that in Cuba, but I don't consider myself a defector," said Carlos Guerra, now a principal at the Miami City Ballet. They do it for the sake of the art. "In the '70s, I never thought of leaving. The company was one of the best in the world," said Caridad Martinez, a former BNC principal who now works with Ballet Hispanico in New York. The BNC is famous for its old story ballets, many of which were choreographed over 150 years ago, but "it used to be more contemporary," said Martinez. "We performed works from George Balanchine and Antony Tudor." The same could not be said now.

As the costumes have turned yellow with sweat stains, the company's repertoire has ossified into a thing of the past. When the BNC traveled to the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 2011, the dancing felt so much like something out of a time capsule that critics didn't know how to pan it. "They shouldn't even be touring," said Acosta. Some of the best dancers working today had their start at the BNC, but their true potential was realized only after leaving, when they got the opportunity to collaborate with the choreographers who are innovating the form.

"How do you train dancers in a place where sometimes you can't even find milk?"
—Lorena Feijóo

Cuban dancers are now anxiously watching the ongoing negotiations at the Summit of the Americas in Panama, which might allow for the first meaningful development of Cuban-American relations in half a century. Acosta, one of the major ambassadors of Cuban dance today, thinks the change will have a great impact on the BNC: "New partnerships will emerge, new productions with different companies." Other dancers are less optimistic. Lester and Lawrence González of the San Diego Ballet are two of the most recent defectors, having walked across the Mexican border last October. When asked if they would do the same given the announcement made three months later, they obliquely answered that they would. "Our concerns have to do with not having what you need in order to live in tranquility, comfort, and freedom. These are things all dancers need." Lorena Feijóo, a former BNC dancer who is now a principal at the San Francisco Ballet, made a similar point: "How do you train dancers in a place where sometimes you can't even find milk?"

Financial circumstances on the island can only improve slowly. What most dancers are interested in is the possibility of increased cultural exchanges—the chance to perform as guest artists abroad without having to defect in order to do so. This status is only available to a privileged few. In 2011 Acosta was deemed "a son of the Revolution who had brought glory to the country," even though he hadn't called Havana home for twenty years. Others ask for this same opportunity and are denied it. "Alicia told me, 'Lorena, you're either in or out,'" Feijóo said of her last meeting with the director.

Alonso might be more culpable than any administrator at the Ministry of Culture for the bind the Cuban dancers face. One of the great artists of the twentieth century— ABT still uses her name in its promotional material—she's better known now for her egotistical grip on power than her visionary leadership of the company. She's been blind for decades, a condition that makes it impossible to meet the demands of her job. At rehearsals, she tells dancers they must "Attack!" their roles as swans, but she can offer this correction only because she knows the Tchaikovsky score and the corresponding steps by heart. Some suggest that her treatment of the dancers has to do with gender; she allows the men to travel but keeps the women at home in order to retain her title as the Cuban prima assoluta.

Even with the prospect of change on the island, the regime fixates on the glory days of the Revolution and its poster child ballerina. "Alicia Alonso made an important contribution to this decisive moment of harmony and understanding between the two countries," said scholar Ahmed Fernández of Havana's Museo de la Danza. The case for ballet diplomacy would be much stronger if the government could acknowledge the Cuban dancers currently gracing American stages. "We represent our country wherever we go, even if our country no longer recognizes us," said Cervilio Amador, now a principal at the Cincinnati Ballet. All the dancers I spoke to were fiercely proud of their Cuban training.

What the current BNC dancers themselves think of the recent political developments will soon become clear. This Sunday they're returning to Spain for their first international engagement since the thaw in diplomatic relations. It seems like the question to ask is not if there will be more defections, but how many.

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Check out Esther Pearl Watson's website and Instagram, and get her books from Fantagraphics.

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Photo via Flickr user Jim Makos

To most people, Jacqueline Balaam wouldn't fit the stereotype of the typical gambling addict. The 41-year-old is married with two children; she previously held a well-paying job as a finance officer at one of the most prestigious universities in the world and volunteered in her spare time as the treasurer of her local social club.

But unbeknown to friends and family, Balaam was in the thrall of a powerful addiction. Over eight years, she wagered a total of almost $9 million, mostly on online gaming site Jackpotjoy. Last month, she was jailed for fraud, having stolen more than $400,000 from her employers to fund her addiction.

For Natasha Schull, an anthropologist at MIT who studies gamblers and the games which captivate them, Balaam is an example of someone who became trapped in what she calls "the machine zone," the immersive void where time, money, and ultimately reality become subsidiary to the compulsive draw of the game experience.

The money at stake is often the initial motivation for people addicted to bingo or slot machine games, especially if they win a few times, but it quickly becomes relatively unimportant. Just like narcotics addicts, they're playing to access a state of mind rather than a monetary reward. While Jacqueline occasionally won five figure sums, she never banked the money. Instead, she fed it right back into the game.

"When gambling addicts really get into the zone, money is the last thing they're thinking about," Schull explains. "They're really playing for the value of the zone. Money's just a currency to get there." Zone psychology, and the types of games that prove most immersive for gamers, are the key focus for Schull and researchers looking to help addicts reconstruct their lives. It's also long been an area of interest for the companies scooping up the profits.

The gambling world has traditionally made its cash by finding ways to attract people into casinos in the hope of getting them to place large wagers on the roulette tables or immerse themselves in the slot machine and video games. Bookmakers make far more money through the fixed odds betting terminal machines in their shops offering bingo and roulette, than they do from sports betting.

One of the reasons why these games hook people so easily is their high event frequency. "People often mistakenly demonize slot machines, but the addictive thing is the structural characteristics of the game rather than the machines themselves," says Mark Griffiths, a psychologist and director of the International Gaming Research Unit at Nottingham Trent University. "It's about being able to engage in gambling repeatedly. I could create you the safest slot machine in the world where you can only press the button twice a week. In the US, Canada, and India they have a game called Keno, a fast action lottery draw and it's addictive because it takes place every two or three minutes."

Going by the number crunchers, this is a boom time for gambling. According to market researcher IBISWorld, the entire global gambling and casino industry is worth $285 billion and will continue growing by 5.3 percent each year until 2020. The figures are mind-boggling. But they also mask rapidly changing customer demographics which have many in the business shifting uneasily.

"These huge numbers are mainly being driven by Asia," Schull explains. "New casinos are being opened in Singapore, the Philippines, resorts, and hotels across that part of the world. Japan is considering legalizing casino development. But if you look at the rest of the world, the industry is trying to deal with the fear that it's losing its customer base. It's aging out. Over the past decade, the age of the average gambler in a betting shop or casino has risen to well over 50."

Getting addicted to these games is not about money. It's about falling out of space and out of time. –Natasha Schull

The gambling world has been seeking to reverse the trend by investing heavily in new technologies to appeal to a younger generation. These exploit the sensory cues which lure people into the machine zone by increasing the visual, auditory, and tactile stimulation.

"They realize that getting addicted to these games is not about money, it's about falling out of space and out of time," Schull says. "You almost forget you have a body. They use surround sound, touch screens, and devices called haptic actuators, which create these little buzzing or pulsing haptic effects behind the screen or in your chair. And the shocks, vibrations, or zaps from the chair are choreographed to synch up with whatever game effects are happening, so it acts as a confirmation of whatever's going on in the game and brings you further into the zone."

But getting people who are under 45 into a casino in the first place remains a challenge. One of the tricks some casinos have considered is augmented reality. "Augmented reality is the combination of real and virtual on a screen in real time," says Mike Cohen of Total Immersion, a company which develops augmented reality based products. "Casinos look to use it as a shiny, new gimmick which can drive traffic into the casino with things like interactive photo opportunities or smartphone apps which interact with a casino slot machine and trigger when you walk through the door."

The problem is, like all gimmicks, the lifespan is relatively short. "There's a big 'wow' factor to the technology," Cohen says. "You think it's the coolest damn thing you've ever seen and you get really excited, you do it three, four times. And then it's done. It's mind-blowing the first time, and then you're like 'What else?' There's a finite limit to it."

Ultimately, the gambling world knows it has to reinvent itself to survive in the long-term. Some sectors have embraced the new era of mobile and internet media more successfully than others. Bookmakers like bet365 and Ladbrokes have hit on a way of pulling in younger gamblers by live streaming global sporting events. If customers come back regularly, they hope they can eventually be enticed into the website's online casino, where the serious cash is made.

The mass of data they're able to amass also enables them to profile customers and block the ones who win too regularly. "The industry is at an ugly time in its lifecycle where there's a grab for as many mug punters [people who gamble more than they can afford] as they can get," says Steve Bailey, a Melbourne-based professional gambler. "If you bet $50 [or more] and don't have a history of losing much, the bookmakers aren't interested. It seems they're only after problem gamblers, the ones who will bet on anything and chase losses. These are publicly traded companies and this is the best way they see to make larger and larger profits."

At the present, industry estimates suggest that just 20 percent of total gambling revenue is made online. But that could be about to change, and quickly. At the moment, many countries—including Turkey, China, and the Netherlands—still ban online gambling, while in the United States and Germany the situation is more complicated, with federal bans but permissions granted in an increasing number of states. With millions playing illegally and governments realizing the potential tax windfall at stake, legislation is rapidly being introduced. The Netherlands is expected to introduce a regulated online gambling system later this year. Juniper Research estimates that the global gambling industry's revenues from mobile online games will reach more than$100 billion by 2017.

Facebook has been quick to capitalize, enabling betting game developers like Jacketpotjoy to use its platform in a similar fashion to its many social games and acquiring the start-up Oculus VR for $2 billion to pave the way for virtual reality gaming. Apple has also made alterations to its iPhone software. The race is now on to develop betting games which contain the same elements that have made Candy Crush, Bejewelled and others, hugely popular. Schull does not see it being a difficult transition.

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Photo via Flickr user Mike Mozart

"When you compare slot machines and social games, the user experience is already very similar," she says. "It's so fast and there are no social cues, it's just you and the machine. You get caught in this feedback loop of stimulus and response which is incredibly absorbing."

Fearing they're about to lose out, the giants of the casino industry have been reaching out to the social gaming world to try and form partnerships. "About ten years ago there was staunch opposition to any online gambling from the casino industry, but now they're trying to control it as much as they can," Schull says. "You've got the likes of WMS and IGT looking to merge with gaming developers like Double Down, but they aren't easy alliances."

The tension comes from contrasting business philosophies. The casino industry struggles to get its head around the 'freemium' model, which has generated explosive revenues for the developer Zynga through games like Farmville and Mafia Wars. The basic game is free but once hooked, many users are prepared to pay for upgrades and increased game time. The model works due to Zynga's ability to design games that will appeal to vast numbers of customers.

The developers are interested in learning from the captivating qualities of slot machines but remain unconvinced they should buckle to pressure from the casino companies who would like them to find a way to monetize their users more quickly.

As a result, some of the biggest names have already turned their backs on the vast revenue streams potentially at stake. After initially announcing the impending release of its first betting games in the UK in 2013, Zynga has gone cold turkey on the idea. "We're no longer entering the online gambling space," says spokesperson Kelly Pakula. "Instead we're continuing to focus on free-to-play mobile games like Words with Friends."

But others are more than happy to step into the void, with Seattle-based Big Fish Studios enjoying success with its iPhone app Big Fish Casino. This year Toronto developer RiftSino VR plans to launch the first 360 degree virtual reality casino game via Facebook's Oculus platform, billed as providing a "gratifying Vegas experience from the comfort of your home."

It's all about monetizing the hits and working out how to keep people pressing buttons without thinking about what else is happening in life.

Griffiths believes there are several reasons why online gambling has the potential to generate so much revenue. "The value of money is psychologically lower online," he says. "This is because the games convert your real money into virtual representations as quickly as possible, so you're doing everything on credit. And although Facebook betting games allow you to process your cards and cash out your winnings, few people do that. They just keep the credit for next time. This is exactly how real-life casinos work. They convert your money to blue chips and even though you know those chip are $1 each, it would be a very different experience if you saw $1 notes disappearing down the hole."

The other key aspect is the anonymity of the online world. People become psychologically disinhibited in the absence of face-to-face interaction and while most reputable gambling companies will have built-in warning mechanisms to protect those who play excessively, the 24/7 access means it's all too easy to simply move to another game.

It isn't hard to picture a boardroom of techies and malevolent casino owners, hell-bent on identifying the best ways to addict people, but this isn't quite the reality. Qualities which make a game even faster and more immersive tend to be stumbled upon rather than pre-designed, with the overall aim to get a critical mass of people playing and spending money. But the nature of the game designs mean they tend to be hyper-addictive. Schull feels this is a fundamental problem.

"It's all about monetizing the hits and working out how to keep people pressing certain buttons over and over again without thinking about what else is happening in life. That's your ideal customer. But that's also the mode of an addict, so is it really ethical?"

While most companies work by the 80:20 rule where 80 percent of their profits are generated by 20 percent of their customers, many suspect the ratio is more like 90:10 in the gambling world. And much of that 10 percent is likely to be made up of problem gamblers like Balaam.

While some people tend to have a personality or psyche which makes them more susceptible to addictive behavior, Griffiths believes that understanding the nature of the games and how they work can have a protective role. But it's still extremely easy to get sucked in.

"These games tap into very human modes of absorption," Schull says. "Look at the success of games like Angry Birds. Although these aren't gambling-based games, they show how under the right circumstances and with the right interface, almost anyone can get drawn into playing for too long and not feeling fully in control."

Follow David Cox on Twitter.

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Image Comics

The Wicked + The Divine is the best comic book you're probably not reading (yet). The instant cult classic was co-created by Jamie McKelvie and Kieron Gillen of Young Avenger fame.

The premise, as explained on the back of the comic's first trade paperback, is simple: "Every 90 years 12 gods return as young people. They are loved. They are hated. In two years, they are all dead."

And in Gillen and McKelvie's latest, they're all pop stars: Lucifer looks like a lesbian David Bowie, Sakhmet (an Egyptian warrior Goddess) could be Rihanna's body double, and Odin is totally biting on Daft Punk's style. Like most pop stars—and gods—they're spoiled and powerful and everyone wants a piece of them. In particular, someone wants their heads, which is the engine that drives the central mystery of the story.

Gillen says the series is the culmination of everything he's "ever loved about pop culture," as well as his way of dealing with the death of his father. "We have such a brief time on Earth," he told VICE. "Does it really matter if you have two, or ten, or 70 years?"

But don't worry: Wic+Div (as it's referred to by fans) isn't mordant naval gazing gussied up with super powers. For a book inspired by death, it's incredibly alive. Partly, this comes from smart theological choices. The creators (Gillen, and illustrator Jamie McKelvie) avoided the picked-over remains of the Greek and Roman pantheons and instead drew their gods from a wide range of sources, including Babylonian, Carthaginian, and Celtic mythologies. But if you're looking for watered-down appropriations of other cultures by a bunch of clueless white guys, you're shit out of luck. In both the treatment of the various mythologies, and in the envisioning of a modern-day England as a backdrop, Wic+Div handles its material with a level of sensitivity and nuance that's rare in mainstream fantasy.

"[With Christianity], I feel I'm allowed to do whatever I want—that's my background and I can deal with my anger however I feel," Gillen joked, when I asked about choosing which religions to represent in the books. For the rest, he called upon his time as a journalist to help him decide what stories he could tell ethically and well. "Dead religions, I felt safe to do what I wanted," he said, and ditto with religions revived after 1948, like neo-Norse paganism. But he was quite careful in drawing from Shintoism, and specifically chose Amaterasu, the Shinto goddess of the sun, because she already appeared in Japanese pop stories.

The more dangerous a story is, the more you need to talk to people about it.

"If you're writing pop culture or religion, you are writing race," he told me point blank. "So you have to work at it." And that means recognizing the pitfalls of what you're doing, and especially, talking to actual people who have real, lived experience in what you're writing about. It also means not reducing your characters to their race, a common trope in comics (just think about how many black superheroes have "black" in their names).

Gillen wanted to draw on Yoruban mythology as well, but decided there was no way he could do so responsibly, as it's an active religion that he's not part of, and it doesn't already occupy much space in the global cultural landscape. His fiction, he felt, could come to displace the realities of the Yoruba religion in the minds of many—as has already happened to Native American cultures.

Gillen believes important stories—the ones that need to be told, and told well—are "dangerous." "The more dangerous a story is," he said, "The more you need to talk to people about it."

That goes for sexuality or class or gender as much as it does race, Gillen emphasized. The world of Wic+Div is elegantly queer and gender diverse. To get these elements right, Gillen drew on his circle of friends, and then checked with them to make sure he hadn't fucked it up. "I never like offending someone I'm not trying to offend, you know?" he laughed. His goal is to write comics that feel real to the world in which he exists—with a few super-powered teenage God pop stars thrown in.

In particular, Gillen was concerned about writing Cassandra, a transgender journalist who is one of Wic+Div's main characters. Her gender identity isn't a plot point, but it does affect how other characters interact with her—much as it would in the real world. That's part of what makes Wic+Div so strong: Being trans (or mixed race, or bisexual), isn't something that only comes up in convenient moments, but is something his characters carry with them at all times. Their identities shape the way they travel in the world, and the way the world in turn responds. All too often, diversity in comics seems randomly assigned—a single signifier of difference tacked onto characters that otherwise act and think like straight, white, cis folk. By undergirding his fantastical plot with a very real world, Gillen makes it all the easier for readers to suspend disbelief when necessary.

Gillen cites the new Ms. Marvel, a Pakistani-American teenager named Kamala Khan, and her author Gwendolyn Willow Wilson as hopeful touch points for changing not only in the public face of comics, but what goes on in writers' rooms as well. At the end of the day, he told me, "I look at the girls in my neighborhood, and when they grow up, I'd like them to be able to read a hero that looks like them."

Check out The Wicked + The Divine at Image Comics.

Follow Hugh Ryan on Twitter.

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Photos courtesy of Bruce LaBruce

Bruce LaBruce came of age when being gay was still hardcore—when being a homo was more punk than even punk itself. A self-described "sissy" who grew up on a farm in Canada, Bruce LaBruce ditched his birth name at an early age. He adopted his artistic pseudonym as a means to fully embody his persona, which was rooted in his pro-gay, countercultural ideologies. As a young man in the 80s, LaBruce made himself the editor, author, and publisher of his own DIY queer punk zines, which would come to play an important role in promoting a new generation of homosexual creatives, including the author Dennis Cooper. If the choice to defiantly glorify gayness in the face of a looming AIDS crisis isn't punk rock, then I don't know what is.

Over time, LaBruce used his creative savoir-faire to maneuver into a career as a director, photographer, writer, artist, and all-around provocateur. As a filmmaker, his work would fall largely into the "queercore" movement. LaBruce became infamous for employing transgressive narratives to marry the vulgar with the poetic, and the distasteful with the brilliant. But although his subject matter is undeniably queer, gay kids aren't the only ones who look up to LaBruce. His work has also gained famous hetero fans like Harmony Korine and Kurt Cobain.

After decades of being misunderstood outside of the underground, LaBruce is surfacing to the mainstream with a major moment: an upcoming retrospective feature at MoMA between April 23rd and May 2nd. Already anticipating this spring's LaBrucennial, I called up BLaB over Skype to ask him about his new work, gay politics, and the ways the art world has changed in the new millennium.

VICE: Congratulations on your MoMa show. What are you doing to celebrate?
Bruce LaBruce: I'm going to do a Hustler White party sponsored by Rentboy.com, and I'm also curating a special screening at Nighthawk on April 29th.

Now that you're having a retrospective, do you still have the same creative drive you did earlier in your career? Do you have any more projects in the works?
Yes, I still write about four hours daily. I also have two upcoming films. There's Twincest, which is a fairy-tale period piece that's set in the 70s. It's about twins who were separated at birth—one is a prude who grew up in the seminary, while the other is a narcissistic biker. They meet again in their early 20s and end up hooking up. I'm also working on a project called Ulrike's Brain, which is a low-budget sequel to The Raspberry Reich. I'd describe it as a female melodrama with a twist.

So what attracted you to filmmaking to begin with?
I always intended to be more of a writer or a film critic, even when I was a teenager. But then I went to university for film studies and took a few years of production [classes] just to see how films are made. I had a great mentor, Robin Wood, who was a Marxist and a feminist. He really instilled the love of filmmaking in me. My first feature was on Super 8, but then when I made my first film, in black and white, it was a real challenge because I hadn't worked in 16 millimeter. It was a torturous process to complete it.

Because I was in the punk scene and was very anti-capitalism, I never had the mindset of being a professional or having a career—even a career as an artist. In the 80s, we were contemptuous of artists because we thought they were bourgeois. So it was more of a strictly creative drive that I had ... but then I started doing photography in the 90s and started working in fashion and porn, and getting paid for it. It was just a bonus for me when I actually make money doing something.

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Did your education help you as an artist?
Yes, because [York University] had a really great arts department. I was really more of an academic, until I rejected academia—I call myself a recovering academic. But at the time, it was great to be in an environment surrounded by creative people while I also got my academic training.

You started out making films as a part of the queercore movement, and your work has been consistently labeled as "transgressive." In the age of the internet, when nothing is taboo anymore, what do you consider to be transgressive? Is it even possible to be transgressive anymore? What's the point?
John Waters once said "Gay is not enough," and I feel the same way about transgression—it's not enough. It's how you express the idea of transgression, or the concept of it. So what I've done is, I've taken things that are taboo and shocking, and I've tried to make them more human, more romantic, against expectations. For Gerontophilia, for example, this transgenerational fetish is something that a lot of people find really disgusting. Usually when it's presented in pop culture or movies, it's presented as something that's disgusting or something to laugh at. So I went in the opposite direction by making it lovable, or believable. For me, a fetish isn't something that's creepy. It represents an appreciation, or a reverence for the object of the fetish.

What does gay transgression mean in the age of political correctness?
Just as it's not enough to gross people out with something, I have to put it in some kind of political context, or deal with it in a personal or romantic way. So it's not enough to be just politically incorrect—you have to do it in a more clever way, in a way that challenges politesse or properness. If you challenge that, you have to do it in a smart way that actually challenges people's repression and their adherence to the decorum that they're told they're supposed to enact.

Should gay culture define itself in opposition to the mainstream, as your films often do?
The gay thing is a bit more complicated because I'm really beyond ambivalent about the assimilation movement—not just with gay movement but with the feminist movement, civil rights movements... It just seems like everyone drank the Kool-Aid and is so willing to go corporate. The whole thing about the punk scene was it was DIY and it was out of corporate control and everyone wasn't so desperate to be famous and rich, so it was just creativity for its own sake. Maybe that's why I find it annoying that the gays have been so willing to sell their souls to the devil. And of course, it's really always a matter of gay orthodoxy disassociating itself from the most interesting parts of the culture, or any alternative sexuality. They only want people who are well-behaved and domesticated.

The whole point of creating a persona used to be to protect yourself and maintain a distance from the media or your audience.

Has the extreme accessibility of the internet affected the way that you work?
When I started out, there was no Internet, basically. When I did my experimental films and my first feature film and my zines, it was just done by hand: cut and paste, everything was mailed, and you had to communicate through a network of fanzines and alternative publications. Even with promotion (I've always considered promotion and distribution as a part of the artistic process), I had to become really savvy about how to promote my work and get it out there. That was a whole education in itself.

I was doing things pre-internet that everyone does now. I was writing columns that were like blogs, except for in alternative magazines. I was publishing fanzines that were the equivalent of a Tumblr. I was taking photographs, writing fiction, writing manifestos. It was like an early version of branding—my friends and I created these personae that were these invented, fictional version of ourselves that we propped up as a spectacle, and that distanced ourselves from our own public image.

What was different about those times?
Back then, all the communication was in a small, insular community of like-minded people who you had to work hard to seek out. Today, it seems like it's easy to get lost, and there are a lot of delusional people who think that the whole world is watching them and cares about what they're doing because of their Facebook page. So you still have to find a way to operate in the real world.

The difference, I'd say now, is that everyone creates these personae but they are losing track that it is an artificial construct. So they actually believe what they're creating to be real, so they become narcissistic or delusional to the point that they believe that they're real celebrities. And at the same time, they're giving away all their personal information or personal details, oversharing their private lives. I don't share my private details at all, and I feel like a lot of people have lost their privacy. The whole point of creating a persona used to be to protect yourself and maintain a distance from the media or your audience.

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An excerpt from LaBruce's pre-internet zine

As an artist, how do you feel about the mainstream?
I never had a problem with pop culture. I always loved classic Hollywood film, and I loved American film right up to the early 80s... and then I sort of lost interest. I've met people who are pop-culture snobs, people who dismiss it. But then in the film world, certain film critics like [those who write for] the New Yorker film are sort of reverse snobs, and only like things that are pop and turn up their noses at anything that's experimental. But I'm sort of in the middle: I like both. I've always used narrative, and I've also stolen from Hollywood form.

Otherwise, I think people need to get over this worship of celebrity. It's really disgusting. [Fame] is just based on nepotism, really, and money. You just have to focus on your work and regard the industry side of it as a necessary evil.

What's the most difficult part of making a movie?
For me, it's always raising the money. And second is the writing, because I've written and directed all of my movies. It's always a challenge to keep on inventing new things and not be repeating yourself.

Who are some of your favorite artists working today?
I love Ryan Trecartin's work, I love Gio Black Peter, I like what he does. I like my friends in No Bra. I like cool photographers like Ryan Pfluger, Slava Mogutin and Brian [Kenny], Harmony [Korine], Gaspar Noe...

I read a piece you wrote for VICE back in the day, called "The Warhol Delusion." It struck me as overly critical, but I couldn't actually figure out how you feel about Warhol's work. Can you clear that up for me?
Warhol's influence has been destructive mostly because it's been misinterpreted. I can relate to him because he was tortured farmboy from nowhere, he was picked on, and he was a sissy. So that [identity] is part of the thrust behind his whole work. But for example, when he said "15 minutes famous," he didn't really mean it as a good thing. He meant it as a very detached way, like everyone will be a product from a factory that's slotted for this moment of fame, and everyone is just interchangeable—it's a dystopian vision. I mean, the truth is that he was incredibly morbid and detached. On him it looks good, but when you have super-rich artists trying to emulate his philosophy, they totally misunderstand it and it becomes a capitalist indulgence.

Do you have any advice for young filmmakers?
For me, the rules of filmmaking for kids are:

1. If you call yourself a filmmaker, you have to make movies. You don't just talk about it. You have to do it.
2. You have to finish your movie.
3. The thing that will ultimately distinguish you from everyone is else is to be good and keep doing it. It's the people who hang around who get noticed, because there are so many people who are just playing at it.
4. Make something personal. That's what I think is important.

See Bruce LaBruce's retrospective at MoMa, starting April 23.

Follow John Tuite on Twitter.

Correction: The follow-up film to The Raspberry Reich is called Ulrike's Brain, not Mother Mary. We regret the error.

Detroit's proto-punk band, Death, spent the greater part of three decades making music in obscurity before breaking up in 1977. The band—made up of three brothers, David, Dannis, and Bobby Hackney—were rediscovered in 2009. Drag City re-released their original album, For the Whole World to See, and a hit documentary about the group titled A Band Called Death quickly followed. Punk's missing link was finally getting the appreciation they deserved.

Death bridged the gap between the raucous revolution rock of bands like MC5 and the arty, progressive position of New York bands like Television. They played hard rock with a hardcore punk attitude decades before anyone coined that phrase. Death were so ahead of the curve, it's taken us almost a half a century to recognize their brilliance.

Now, the band is releasing their first album of newly recorded music since 1975's For the Whole World to See, and they sound just as energetic and hard-hitting as they did 40 years ago. It's appropriately called N.E.W. and it's dropping April 21 via the Drag City imprint Tryangle.

Listen to our exclusive sneak-peek above and then pre-order the album via Drag City, iTunes, or Amazon.

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Definitely dead. Photo via istolethetv

It felt like a lot of people were talking about death last week, but perhaps that was because I was thinking about death. Specifically, the death of grandparents. It was likely an example of the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, which, like any good phenomenon, applies to a number of fairly familiar experiences, most notably that of learning a new word and then seeing it all the time. It's basically a cognitive bias where you want to notice something, and suddenly you see it everywhere.

What I wanted to notice was people being a bit blasé about the deaths of elderly relatives. And lo and behold, with my premise decided, people began failing to give proper gravitas to the passing of the aged. Stand-ups were mocking clichéd Facebook grief. Some heartless old prick was giving my friend just one day off for his grandmother's funeral. Conversation partners were stifling yawns as I tried to vocalize my feelings about my own grandmother's recent passing.

The unspoken consensus rang loud and clear: grandparents die. All the time. It's sad but inevitable. In fact, it's as banal to the young as somebody else's break up. Fine. Got the message. And weeks on from Granny T's passing, I was over it.

But soon, like an inventive teen working his way around a strict content-filter, my subconscious managed to smuggle weirder feelings to the fore. I realized then that in her final earthly act, the old girl had funneled, from beyond the realm of finger-buffets and careful, condoling smiles, something of the sublime nature of death. She'd wreaked existential damage on all who knew her, a 'fate-that-awaits-us-all' anxiety. She hurt us with her pain and confusion, her scabby-mouthed death rattle, and, before that, her inability to view her final place of residence, a (by British standards, relatively good) nursing home, as anything other than a senseless prison, loud with death.

I tried to reconcile all of this with my learned appreciation of the banality of grandparental death, the draining monotony that precedes it, the sad predictability of the stories that surround it. And reconcile it too with that vacuous Facebook sentimentality and the tired scorn it arouses, and with the inconvenience that funerals pose to friends in need of a midweek pint-partner.

This failed reconciliation led me to question how well we deal with death as a society, not just in terms of the efficacy of our end-of-life care but also of our cultural treatment of the subject, the meaning we derive from it. I wondered: Are we shit at death?

My grandma's final days (which lasted about two years) were mottled with difficult questions: "When are you taking me away from here?" "Can I live with you?" "Do you have any money to get me better care?" It should be said that her carers were great, but they were overstretched. They didn't have the time or resources to help her make sense of what she was enduring. A lot of the time her mind was addled by dementia, but through the illogical fog pulsed a weird sort of insight. It felt like she was divining some utopian alternate version of death, one unencumbered by economic constraints and social and cultural conventions.

By 2050, across the globe, older people will outnumber under-15s for the first time. The number of elderly people living in the US and the UK is rising steadily. The percentage of the population aged 85 or over currently stands at 1.7 in both nations. By 2037, the 85+ population in the UK is estimated to make up 4.2 percent of the population.

According to one study, only 21 percent of British adults have discussed their end of life wishes with another person.

In March, a Commons Health Committee report called for vast improvements in the end-of-life care for people living in the UK and a 'better recording of what people want in their last days.' Yet, there's no bold proposal to make things better and, what's more, health and social services in the UK were badly cut during the last parliament and likely will be again during the next. David Cameron was recently heckled by some old people as he tried to defend his health and social care policy.

"The continual exclusion of aging from national and global agendas is one of the biggest obstacles to meeting the needs of the world's aging population," said Silvia Stefanoni, the interim chief executive of HelpAge International, in reaction to a 2013 UN report ranking countries in terms of quality of elderly care. The UK came 13th and the USA 8th, which, I admit, puts things in perspective somewhat. Things could be worse, a lot worse. But isn't that one of the most regressive ways of responding to a problem? "At least things aren't even shittier?"

Things could be better and they should be. More like they are in Sweden, the country ranked *...drumroll...* highest globally in the UN report. No surprise there. Scandinavian countries always score highly in these kind of indexes. In Sweden and Denmark, virtually all elderly care is paid for by taxation and government grants. Citizens of these countries are the highest taxed in the world, but know they can look forward to the best end of life care humankind is currently capable of providing. (Wealth and spending do not equate exactly with quality of care, as countries such as Sri Lanka and Bolivia demonstrate.)

It seems other countries are already looking to Scandinavia for exemplary guidance. Canada's Chronicle Herald reports, with an almost envious tone, on how the Swedes and the Danes treat their old and dying. Last year, UK Care Minister Norman Lamb visited Sweden and said, upon his return, something to the effect of, "We basically need to be more like them." What's clear is that the Swedish state, unlike the UK's, is good at listening to the individual wants and needs of its dying and adapting appropriately.

Stefanoni's comments have an eerie validity: we just aren't very good at talking about this stuff. In 2014, a survey by the spine-tinglingly titled Dying Matters Coalition discovered that 80 percent of people felt that death is an uncomfortable subject to discuss, and that only 21 percent of British adults had discussed their end of life wishes with another person. A similar survey in California found that 76% of respondents had not planned their end-of-life wishes, despite recognizing the importance of doing so.

The Encyclopedia of Death and Dying, a strangely uplifting book, states that "shame is frequently overlooked in the literature on death." It quotes Silvan Tomkins, a (dead) American psychologist, who wrote that death always involves "shame from many sources." Shame, the Encyclopedia explains, is a major inhibitor and enabler in the grieving process. Our capacity for shame is one of the few emotional instruments we have for dealing with death. But does contemporary culture and its psychological effects make death feel too shameful? And, if so, is this surfeit of shame the reason why we're not better at talking about the subject?

Perhaps we need a modern Ars Morienda, a type of medieval text whose name means "The Art of Dying." These writings began a centuries-long tradition of writing on the subject of a good death. Following Christian protocols, Ars Morienda served to persuade the dying person that death is nothing to be afraid of because the soul will migrate to heaven. The texts also offered practical advice, about, for example, how the family should behave at the bedside. Now that western Christianity is undergoing the final twitches of a prolonged rigor mortis, we should begin a new Ars Moriendi tradition which teaches that death is nothing to be afraid of, while maintaining that the concept of a soul is something invented long ago, in stupider times.

Millennials confronting death in Lily Wood & The Prick and Robin Schulz's "Prayer in C" music video

I'll never forget the moment when, aged about 13, I sat in a religious studies class and felt my mind rattled by a big question, posed by the notoriously semi-Christian Mr. Chorlton: "What happens to us when we die?" Silence in the classroom. Time stopped. The very clouds, which had spent all that morning drifting with expert confidence around the sky, now seemed to freeze in existential alarm. And thus spake Gordon Greaves (a boy known only theretofore for being tall and OK at soccer): "You just rot." Massive words, right? Now imagine them spoken offhandedly in a pubescent Leeds accent and you've acquainted yourself with my whole position on mortality. You just rot.

Kids squealed. Chorlton sweated. The clouds actually fell out of the sky. And I spent the next 13 years feeling a little bit more OK about things.

We all know deep down that we just rot. And that's fine. But the whole neo-Christian-Capitalist complex encourages us to believe otherwise: that we might just survive death, that if we keep taking selfies and changing the subject and cutting public services and try not to think about it too much, it might just never happen. And even if it does, it's not really the end.

I say let's talk about death all the time, in all its flesh-rotting, worm-feeding, gut-putrefying glory.

Another thing those medieval guys got right was to keep the memento mori ("remember [you have] to die") trope prominent in the culture. About 96 percent of medieval and Renaissance paintings have skulls in them. Shakespeare went mad for them. In fairness to them, paintings and Shakespeare were the only entertainment they had. The only memento mori work we have is the song "Don't Fear the Reaper" from 1972 and that's now a song that only dads and kids who play Guitar Hero know.

Yes, people have skull tattoos but skulls have become fetishized, just another empty signifier ready to be reified and profited from, as Damien Hirst so expensively proved.

Another cultural item of demonstrative interest: the music video to Lily Wood & The Prick's "Prayer in C" (Robin Shulz Remix), a song which topped the charts in over 20 territories and will serve as the official anthem of the 2015 CONCACAF Gold Cup. The video features a load of Millennials engaging in their favorite pastimes: laughing, skateboarding, putting stickers on lampposts, and, of course, appropriating Mexican Day of the Dead imagery. There's Dios de los Muertos imagery everywhere: on the lampposts, on their faces, on a dog's bandana, everywhere! If you have a phobia of Mexican Day of the Dead imagery, do not watch this video!

Does "Prayer in C" portend the emergence of a new comfort with mortality in mainstream youth culture? A closer inspection of the song's lyrics entails a slightly bleaker interpretation. Juxtaposed with the video's aesthetic, the lyrics establish a new kind of vanitas tradition. This is not memento mori as in "remember [you have] to die," but as in "remember [escalating crises of global capitalism will soon cause the entire species] to die [and there's nothing we can do about it]." It evokes not a peaceful equanimity in the face of one's own mortality but an insurgent impulse to dance and drink and put stickers on things.

It all makes me wonder what kind of death I can anticipate, as compared to my grandmother's. My friend, the funnyman Alastair Roberts, one typically less histrionic in outlook than me, told me he thinks our generation will have a pretty easy exit, because of likely advances in technology and medicine. His optimism conjures a vision of the kind of utopia my grandma was hinting at. One of music therapy, robot nurses, Oculus Rifts, Soma-style drugs and nostalgia machines chomping up and regurgitating whole lifetimes of social media data.

Wouldn't be so bad, I guess. As for me, I think I'd just like to go peacefully, in my sleep.

Liam Williams is a comedian living in London.