Miniaturization
Miniaturization (pronounced may-keet-smull-ah) is the quest to reduce the size of people, places, or things.
Usually one wants to make things bigger, such as with Viagra, the lipocram operation, or expanding the national economy by importing workers to do the jobs natives won't do, given that we pay them to sit on their asses, even though we pay immigrants to sit on theirs too. However, sometimes one instead wants to make things smaller, and without drastic tactics such as arson. It is always helpful to have a fancy word to cite, no matter which of two polar opposites you want to follow.
History[edit]
Miniaturization was invented in Asia, as miniaturizing entire cities renders them impossible to destroy, or even for an invading country to find, as a whole city could be hidden behind a grain of sand. An exception is the case in which miniaturization is achieved by an enemy destroying the city to begin with.
Since then, miniaturization has been applied to every aspect of life in Japan. The Sony Corporation has a government-supported policy of making each generation of consumer electronics devices smaller than the last. Consumers of the future will also be miniaturized, due to natural selection, as full-sized humans will become unable to operate the controls of their gadgetry.
For example, computers used to be the size of several refrigerators. Now they are tablets that fit in a shirt pocket. As an unfortunate result, there is nowhere to put the cold cuts and soft drinks.
Alternate forms[edit]
The word was spell-checked and corrected to miniaturisation by the English, coinciding with the publication of Beowulf, which was a miniaturised [sic] work of fiction, with miniaturised [sic] appeal outside of universities.
The trend accelerated with the passage of the "Everything Smaller Now Act 1940" though the need for Parliamentary action has never been certain, as the Great Depression had already been doing plenty of miniaturisation. It was petering out, but Adolf Hitler would begin sending airplanes to London to take up the slack.
As "internationalization" is abbreviated "i18n" by committees of engineers who are unable to count the letters in the word for themselves, "miniaturization" is sometimes rendered m15n — or simply m'n, which is more miniaturized, and renders the spelling variations completely invisible.
Controversy[edit]
Supporters of the ongoing drive toward miniaturization include Richard Hammond, diminutive British pop-star Rod Stewart, and Danny De Vito, who is the leading developer of miniaturization technology in America.
Critics of miniaturization include giants such as Ben Grimm ("The Thing"), BFG users, the Clumsily Gifted, old and awkward people who are no longer able to use mobile phones either due to the miniaturized ("fiddly") buttons or because wall-mounted crank phones were "better," and Japanese women, who object to every new generation of vibrators made more lifelike by reducing their size.
Applications[edit]
- Nation-building
The countries of Peru and Paraguay are both the results of centuries-old campaigns of miniaturization, more recently applied to increase the efficiency of the Soviet Union, implosion being more peaceful than invasion. Despite the famous "right of return," public-service groups like ISIS are striving to miniaturize the State of Israel.
Asian miniaturization is the most impressive. The Republic of China is now doing on a single mountainous island what it used to take a huge continental land area to achieve, including both cloned video cards and fistfights in the legislature. Japan is responsible for the most electronic miniaturization, though it is largely done with American technology, following the demonstration project that miniaturized the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Korean automobiles are cleverly miniaturized despite obsolete traditional notions of (1) head-room, (2) leg-room, and (3) the need to be able to climb gentle hills. Coopers and Smarte Cartes achieve even greater success by putting miniaturization above quaint notions of occupant safety.
- The environment
Polar ice caps have been miniaturized, according to Dr. Al Gore, Ph.D., so much so that polar bears cannot fit on their icebergs. Moreover, they have forgotten to swim, and this is our fault too. All this has happened despite decades of record-cold winters, except in asphalt parking lots where scientists at East Anglia University tend to measure temperatures.
- Micro-commerce
Miniaturization of businesses was pioneered in the United States. Corporations of absurdly small size abound, so that ordinary individuals can buy a second vehicle in the name of the business, write off their PC and their purchases of Tetris upgrades, and classify coffee runs to the local 7-11 as "business trips." These tiny corporations reside in "incubators" (formerly known as "self-storage units") in the hopes they will grow into feasible size.
Passage of Obama-care has accelerated the trend toward miniaturization. It will not be long before all America's leading businesses re-form to have 49½ employees, each working 29½ hours per week, to avoid buying their employees health care insurance with the mandatory coverage for Alcoholism Counseling and Gender Reassignment. At that point, the Fortune 500 will be re-cast as the Pittance 762,000.
- Agriculture
With literally trillions of mouths to feed, Asian nations have responded by reducing the size of crops in order to make the available food supply go further. Japanese maples are cute but frankly undersized. Bonsai trees are hardly as large or threatening as those kamikaze warriors who used to shout "bonsai" before every swordfight in the good old days. Chinese stews feature absurdly small ears of corn, too small even to try to take the kernels off, though chefs at fine restaurants in New York City do try, in order to make the entrées as tiny as the customers expect.
- Genitalia
Miniaturization of genitalia is abundant in Scandinavia, "Great" Britain, and Japan. In each place, it has produced cultural effects. In Scandinavia, disparaging one's own size is all but ritual, though it is usually applied to domiciles. In Britain, the trend has produced political effects, most notably Nicola Sturgeon. Miniaturization of genitalia has made Japan the world capital of pornography, which is a big seller among men in trench coats with morbid curiosity; also among those who wish to feel well-endowed by comparison. Obvious Japanese modesty, however, means that the porn stars always wear pixellized fig leaves.
- Marketing
The demand for both science fiction movie sequels and new versions of Microsoft Windows has been effortlessly miniaturized. This frees up resources for additional marketing to convince people to lay their money down anyway.
Further interest in the current article has now been miniaturized as well.