I've been reducing my blog postings to once a week, because each takes care and attention. (Likely more than you'll get from anyone else using this odd publishing art form!)
But right now I'm editing for republication (via Open Road Media) two of my best novels. GLORY SEASON was a delight to read again after more than two decades! (I did not recall how ripping a yarn it is!) And once they fix the glitches that Cheryl & I found, then I'm sure you'll like it, too! Watch for the publication announcement before mid December!
As I read and edit along, I blink at some of the 'interludes' glimpsing the world of 2038 - envisioned 30+ years ago. As in John Brunner's classic STAND ON ZANZIBAR, these interludes are mostly extracts from media of that near future era concerning politics, entertainment, social issues, science... and especially the vexing problems of saving a planet that our children will continue relying upon, for a long time to come.
(Note early description of concepts you now take for granted, like online discussion groups, comment threads, screen-clickable links and so on, some of which did not appear until some years after the book came out.)
Many of these interlude sections are kinda, well, cool. Both in retrospect and as samplers of the idea stew that brews and churns through that novel. Which - like GLORY SEASON - should be issued in a new edition - with fabulous new covers, some time before mid December.
Hence, I'll do some midweek postings of these interlude segments posing questions that were plausibly provocative in 1991... and just as much so, today.
== Solutions? Circa 2038 (excerpt interlude from EARTH) ==
For consideration by the 112 million members of the Worldwide Long Range Solutions Special Interest Discussion Group [ SIG AeR,WLRS 253787890.546], we the steering committee commend this little gem that one of our members [ Jane P. Gloumer QrT JN 233-54-2203 aa] found in a late TwenCen novel.
She calls it the “Offut-Lyon Plan.” Here’s Ms. Gloumer to describe the notion:
“Our problem isn’t too many people, per se. It’s that we have too many right now. We’re using up resources at a furious rate, just when the last of Earth’s surplus might be used to create true, permanent wellsprings of prosperity. Projects such as reforestation, or orbital solar power, or [ list of other suggestions hyper-appendixed, with appropriate references] aren’t making any progress because our slender margin must be spent just feeding and housing so many people.
“Oh, surely, the rate of population growth has slackened. In a century, total numbers may actually taper off. But too late to save us, I’m afraid.
“Now some insensitive members of this very SIG have suggested this could be solved by letting half the people die. A grim Malthusian solution, and damn stupid in my opinion. Those five billions wouldn’t just go quietly for the common good! They’d go down kicking, taking everybody else with them!
“Anyway, do billions really need to die, in order to save the world? What if those billions could be persuaded to leave temporarily?
“Recent work at the University of Beijing shows we’re only a decade away from perfecting cryosuspension ... the safe freezing of human beings, like those with terminal diseases, for reliable resuscitation at a later time. Now at first that sounds like just another techno-calamity—plugging another of the drain holes and letting the tub fill still higher with people. But that’s just small thinking. There’s a way this breakthrough could actually prove to be our salvation.
“Here’s the deal. Let anyone who wants to sign up be suspended until the twenty-fourth century. The U.N. guarantees their savings will accumulate at 1% above inflation or the best government bond rate, whichever is higher. Volunteers are assured wealth when they come out the other end.
“In return, they agree to get out of the way, giving the rest of us the elbow room we need. With only half the population to feed, we problem solvers could roll up our sleeves and use the remaining surplus to fix things up.
“Of course, there are a few bugs to work out, such as the logistics of safely freezing five billion people, but that’s what SIG discussion groups like this one are for—coming up with ideas and solving problems!”
Indeed. Jane’s provocative suggestion left us breathless. We expect more than a million responses to this one, so please, try to be original, or wait until the second wave to see if your point has already been stated by someone else. For conciseness, the first round will be limited to simple eight-gig voice-text, with just one subreference layer. No animation or holography, please. Now let’s start with our senior members in China ...
== Back to 2023==
Among many predictive aspects of EARTH, one that folks found implausible in 1990 was the notion that China might one day be a leader of the world.
One that failed: my expectation that serious adults would join discussion fora that involved patient, multi-stage argument, unlike today's mostly-lobotomized but always-impulsive spasm posting, even by the smartest people!
Well, 2038 is still 15 years away. Maybe AI will help!
Anyway, more of these soon.
99 comments:
One that failed: my expectation that serious adults would join discussion fora that involved patient, multi-stage argument, unlike today's mostly-lobotomized but always-impulsive spasm posting, even by the smartest people!
That was a common belief back then. Back in the 80s Traveller had a world run by as a participatory democracy mediated by a worldwide computer network where citizens spent an hour or two a day becoming informed about issues, debating solutions, and voting. (The boxed module Tarsus, published in 1983.)
There were some indications on early BBS systems that experimented with moderation-free forums that this would happen. Godwin's Law dates from 1990, for example. I was never on Usenet, but GEnie had toxic forums in the early 90s, and the good ones relied heavily on banning trolls and griefers.
One Earth prediction that I'm afraid you got spot-on was the lead-up to the Helvetian War, when all reasonable voices of compromise and problem-solving had been bribed or threatened or killed, so that chaos became inevitable. The recent speaker fight is just the most recent example that we're living it.
* * *
By mentioning Glory Days, you remind me that I'm probably due to re-read that one. I've only read it once, and that was something like 15 years ago, when my mind was fuzzled by having a toddler at home. There are a few impressions I vaguely recall, though, and with you having just re-read it, I wonder if you care to comment (It's ok if you'd rather not).
Trying very hard not to give spoilers...
+ I proudly guessed way early on that Renna must be a *, but was still surprised that Renna was a * from *, if you get my drift.
+ Near the end of the book, perhaps the climax was when a death occurred that, had it happened in a comic book, I would know for a certainty was faked. Did you have that possibility in mind?
+ The protagonist of the book was called by a derisive nickname that I was amused but disappointed to find it was still applicable when the book had finished.
Robert,
In Traveller's defense, Tarsus was one outlier world on the fringe of an empire run mostly by, if you read between the lines, megacorps. (Look who controlled the voting shares of LSP, for instance.) Pretty accurate, I'd say.
Rereading, I note that Tarsus was partly settled by people fleeing the Psionic Suppressions. Would widespread telepathy help the formation of a relatively fair democracy? Of course, the Zhodani seem to provide a counter-example...
Pappenheimer
Re: Freezing half the pop...
One of Niven's darker short stories had a wave of young people freezing themselves in expectation of a brighter future - after which legislation was passed to use those people as involuntary organ donors. TASA indeed.
Pappenheimer
"I think that discussions go toxic when the forum allows total anonymity. The balance between anonymity and privacy is incredibly difficult to get right."
That's why I have mapped out a business opportunity for banks & other fiduciaries for a $100 Billion business in Psuedonym vetting and rental that could find a sweetspot, allowing accountability AND some of the less bad aspects of anonymity. No one nibbles/
Yes, LH I had that possibility in mind. In fact I was amazed so few people suggested it.
Re Maia's 'stutus' at the end of the book... who had time?
Dr Brin:
Yes, LH I had that possibility in mind. In fact I was amazed so few people suggested it.
I suppose it's the comics nerd in me, but I was actually expecting that character to turn up alive later on in the actual text.
But then, I suspect people of faking their own deaths in real life.
Re Maia's 'stutus' at the end of the book... who had time?
Coincidentally, at the very moment I was typing that before, Netflix was showing me an ad for the 1987 Dragnet film, which was probably what I had been thinking of when I read your book. But in that movie, the punchline was that character's nickname had become obsolete. That colored my expectations.
Or perhaps allow trolls and griefers until they make threats. If someone writes that they’d like to attack with a chainsaw, then it’s time to have them go their separate way. Becoming angered with a t or g, is what they wish for—they get the Goat.
We need to read what educated recalcitrants have to say.
Larry,
You haven't read Glory Season in 15 years, and you still remember that much detail? I read it last just a couple years ago, and I don't remember much of anything. Can I rent your hippocampus once in a while?
I still think that book needs a sequel. I haven't read every book Dr. Brin has written, but of those I have, I thought Maia was by far the most relatable - and well-related - character he wrote.
Paul SB
On dealing with trolls, I have been getting mail from Quora lately, and once in a while I find an answer to so asinine question interesting enough to save. Here's an answer someone gave to a trump troll claiming that Democrats are censoring everyone's free speech:
BBBWWWWAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!
OH, Thanks for that! I SO needed that this morning.
Let’s take a look at the Terms of Service on Trump’s Social Media Site that will (ahem…cough…cough) “not be censored.”
Terms of Service
I draw your attention to “Prohibited Activities” #23.

Yes. On Trump’s Free Speech Site, you are not allowed to make fun of Trump’s Free Speech site, or anyone involved, which of course includes Trump.
Not kidding.
By including “us” in rule #24, as separate and distinct from “the Site” the rule forbids making fun of “us” meaning “the people involved” it allows them to boot you for saying mean things about poor, poor Widdle Donald Twumpy.
Dude. There IS no crackdown on “free speech.” There is an UNBELIEVABLY warped understanding in this country of what a crackdown on Free Speech actually looks like.
THIS is what a crackdown on Free Speech looks like:
7 Countries That Will Jail You For Insulting Their Leaders
THIS is what it looks like to have no First Amendment Rights:
Infographic: Where The Most Journalists Are Imprisoned Worldwide
THIS is what it looks like when you let God in the Government
Outrage as Nigeria sentences teenage boy to 10 years in prison for blasphemy
THIS is what it looks like to “Cancel” people opposed to your political agenda:
Democracy behind bars: 11 opposition leaders facing jail or death
Petty little Trumpists in this country whining about ‘but muh free speech’ when their dank “Michelle Obama has a Penis” meme gets deleted from their Social Media feed would do well to look into what it really means to have your freedom of speech, your freedom of expression, your right to a free and independent press, your right to freely practice your religion and not have someone else’s forced on you by the government violated.
What it really means not to have rights. Because Freedom of Speech doesn’t mean “Facebook will set no terms and Conditions for my continued use of the platform they own.”
It SURE as hell doesn’t mean “freedom from the criticism of your peers when you say stupid shit.”
It means “Congress Shall Make No Law” that would allow the Government to do the things outlined in the articles I linked to above.
Pay attention. Because it SURE as hell isn’t Democrats attacking those rights.
Let's recall that Hamas launched its attack as a gift on Putin's Birthday (one day after mine.)
Glory Season is the one novel I haven't read yet. I started it a while back and something happened. Can't remember what stopped me, but it did. Same kind of thing happened with the transparency book, but I got back to it many years later.
Guess I better get crackin' before too many spoilers get written out here. 8)
Greta Tintin Thunberg is clever about it, though: she can quasi-apologize later, and now she gains rad-chic admirers.
But worse are Americans who admire Daddy Robert, the greatest traitor of the U.S. His war killed not thousands but, rather hundreds of thousands. There were tortures too; with all the wooded areas back then to perform tortures in.
Daddy Robert,
Who??
the genial Robert E Lee, who was nicknamed Daddy Robert due to his fatherly demeanor—leading his boys unto their eternal reward in the Hereafter. As our Southern grandmother wrote in a poem:
“Crushed and bleeding
but still a man!”
A distant cousin of Thunberg’s:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svante_Arrhenius
My reading of Glory Season was more like 30 years. I do recall that a certain computer game held prominence.
James Lovelock (yes, that Lovelock) did some work on cryogenic storage. They had some success with hamsters, being able to freeze and rethaw without apparent harm. However (without mentioning how) they found that the method didn't scale up to humans. The problem is you have to freeze fast to prevent large, damaging ice crystals forming in tissues. That's v hard to do in a large animal
I've wondered how dehydration would go. Works for the Jerusalem Rose.
Alan Brooks said...
Or perhaps allow trolls and griefers until they make threats. If someone writes that they’d like to attack with a chainsaw, then it’s time to have them go their separate way. Becoming angered with a t or g, is what they wish for—they get the Goat.
But this, too, has to be coupled with some kind of control over identities. This might be connections to a verified person, vetted pseudonymity, or something else, but you cannot have an unlimited number of new identities available.
If the "trolls and griefers" can constantly create an unlimited number of new identities, then you end up drowning in trolls and griefers [cf: "the eternal September"], no matter what else you do.
In the previous, Larry Hart said...
Quoting the NYT
“We should explain that what Moscow is doing in Ukraine is dangerous for all nations because if the type of international order that the Kremlin is pursuing, and that Beijing is pursuing, becomes the international order, that means that all small, comparatively weak states would be at the mercy of their larger neighbors,” Mr. Herbst said.
The global south aligning with Russia and China to poke the west is foolish in the same way that Palestinian-Americans are when out of anger at Biden's support of Israel help Trump be our next president. In both cases, how's that gonna work out?
I think that it is not so much "aligning with Russia and China" as choosing not to align with "the west". These two are not the same thing. From what I can see, a large part of "the global south" is not particularly fond of either Russia or China - but at the same time has no particular fondness for the US, either.
From the standpoint of those not in the US camp, "the type of international order" Russia and China are endorsing is not wildly different (even if one might agree with OGH that it is not identical) from the international order at least since 1990.
As noted in quotes in the article: “International law loses all value if it is implemented selectively.” One's defense of law and human rights will ring hollow if one says that "occupation is only bad if the guys who are not on your side are doing it."
Yes. It’s only that if I were (god forbid) running the blog a preference would be to allow t and g, until it would no longer be possible to do so.
Retain them to discover what is in their minds; keep friends close and enemies closer. We don’t want to talk to ourselves in an echo chamber—preaching to the choir.
Dr Brin:
Let's recall that Hamas launched its attack as a gift on Putin's Birthday
Let's recall (though no one does) that Trump shared Israeli secret information with Putin. Putin is allied with Iran. Iran subsidizes Hamas.
People wonder how Israel's intelligence operations were so taken by surprise on Oct 7. I don't. It's obvious.
gregory byshenk:
From what I can see, a large part of "the global south" is not particularly fond of either Russia or China - but at the same time has no particular fondness for the US, either.
If that's true, I'm ok with it. But I suspect Russia and China are doing more damage in Africa than the West is. (Maybe not so in South America)
In my admittedly-biased view, it's like not liking the Nazis, but having no fondness for the Allies as well.
As noted in quotes in the article: “International law loses all value if it is implemented selectively.” One's defense of law and human rights will ring hollow if one says that "occupation is only bad if the guys who are not on your side are doing it."
But there's the rub. Whether Israel is "occupying" depends on your point of view. It's not like we're saying "We don't like Russia initiating a first-strike attack, but we're ok when Israel does so." Rather, those who think Israel's existence is a colonial provocation and those who think Hamas attacked a sovereign nation don't even agree on the same facts.
From your previous thread:
"The notion that a 'military industrial complex' is propelling world war is unsupported cliché nonsense. Major US defense contractors make far more money off normal precautionary defense spending. Most are led by retired officers who spent their careers deeming hot war to be at best unpredictable and risky and at worst horrific."
As population declines, consumer demand (by young adults starting families) will dry up, investment (by those older adults preparing for retirement) will also dwindle, and real labor costs will increase.
Of the three, only labor shortages can be compensated for with improved technology and productivity (AI, robotics, etc.)
Wars will be needed to maintain demand levels to keep the economy from collapsing.
DP: Wars will be needed to maintain demand levels
What a friggin' mess. And most of the tweaks 'we' try cause massive damage. Like a blind man in a dark room searching for a black cat, knocking over furniture. We are still very far away from a scientific understanding of sociology/economics at that scale (psychohistory?). Perhaps OPPENHEIMER was consumed with worry about the wrong fruit of the Manhattan project.
DP: Wars will be needed to maintain demand levels
Apparently, purchases of AR-15s will keep the GDP growing for decades.
Too good not to share...
https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2023/Items/Oct27-6.html
Or, at least, someone working for his campaign is. The campaign has created a unit called Biden-Harris HQ, which is dedicated to "digital rapid response." This often means pushing back against falsehoods, or highlighting bad behavior from the opposition, but it also means a fair bit of snarkiness, which is right up our alley.
As part of the effort to snarkify the world of politics, Biden-Harris HQ created an account on the platform known as Twitter. And, since they'd already ventured onto a social media platform that is overrun by lies, hatred and right-wing propaganda, they figured they would do it again. So, they created an account on... Truth Social. The very first message was: "Well. Let's see how this goes. Converts welcome!"
And the answer to that implied question, at least thus far, is: "Pretty good!" The fact that the social media platform owned by Donald Trump is now being used to promote the Biden campaign would be schadenfreude enough. But now, Biden-Harris HQ actually has more followers on Truth Social than... Trump '24. That's pretty damn funny.
As the Biden campaign explained in a statement: "There's very little 'truth' happening on Truth Social, but at least now it'll be a little fun." We find nothing about that assertion that we can object to.
Own the cons.
EARTH
Oh man that novel is comedy GOLD!!
It may be the best satire of techno-cornucopianism ever written.
!!!! SPOILERS AHEAD !!!
The story starts off with, what sounds like a disaster. A Black Hole Spilll!!
But hold on, we have a Billionaire, a scientist and a journalist on the case and they will turn your frown upside down, if they can defeat the evil environmentalist who stands in their way. The evil environmentalists are led by dower woman who has lost faith in technology. (but that doesn’t stop those evil environmentalists from using technology …those hypocrites)
Well anyway, our heroes start to science the shit out of the situation and discover that they can use the black hole spill to create the most awesome technology ever!! A GRAVITY LASER!!!
In the climax of the story our heroes create a giant phallic of force and shoot a biosphere II type structure onto the moon!! Seeding another celestial body!! Then GAIA literally shows up to pat our heroes on the head and tells the boys how proud she is of them and they should keep up the good work.
There are many humorous little side stories: like Jane’s attempt to get half of humanity to commit suicide by cryo suspension. LOL we will tell them that they can leave some money in a bank and we will wake them up in the future when they are billionaires. ROTFLMAO sure we will.
Now of course this hilarious satire should be paired Infinity Shores to get a sense of what a ecologically sustainable society could be like.
In that story there are strict limits on what type of technology is allowed and humans are living in a mostly cooperative relationship with other species and have adventures and live interesting lives without destroying ecosystems.
Tony,
Another possibility that you don't hear much about is transgenic: find genes that make hibernation possible in other mammals and splice them into humans so they can sleep away long voyages. That one would have limited uses, since it would not completely shut down aging. If you're in deep space, though, the relative absence of UV will make a huge difference.
Paul SB
Thanks jim! Now if only your levels of sapience and honesty and cleverness were 1% of ankle high to the things that you denounce!
there certainly WAS satire in the book. Along with juxtaposition of TWO Earth mother types... and how cool you managed to not mention the other one, or how both were modeled on real leaders of real versions of enviro activism on Earth. But... *ding* ... oops, used up my allotment for fools, today.
Paul SB:
find genes that make hibernation possible in other mammals and splice them into humans so they can sleep away long voyages. That one would have limited uses, since it would not completely shut down aging.
Never mind space travel. I would so want to hibernate through winters here on earth!
Larry and scidata
The need for war to provide demand for industrial production has already been addressed by Orwell in "The Theory and Practice of Oligarchic Collectivism" (from "1984")
But in a physical sense war involves very small numbers of people, mostly highly-trained specialists, and causes comparatively few casualties. The fighting, when there is any, takes place on the vague frontiers whose whereabouts the average man can only guess at, or round the Floating Fortresses which guard strategic spots on the sea lanes. In the centres of civilization war means no more than a continuous shortage of consumption goods, and the occasional crash of a rocket bomb which may cause a few scores of deaths. War has in fact changed its character...
The primary aim of modern warfare (in accordance with the principles of doublethink, this aim is simultaneously recognized and not recognized by the directing brains of the Inner Party) is to use up the products of the machine without raising the general standard of living. ...
From the moment when the machine first made its appearance it was clear to all thinking people that the need for human drudgery, and therefore to a great extent for human inequality, had disappeared. If the machine were used deliberately for that end, hunger, overwork, dirt, illiteracy, and disease could be eliminated within a few generations. And in fact, without being used for any such purpose, but by a sort of automatic process - by producing wealth which it was sometimes impossible not to distribute - the machine did raise the living standards of the average human being very greatly over a period of about fifty years at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries.
But it was also clear that an all-round increase in wealth threatened the destruction - indeed, in some sense was the destruction - of a hierarchical society. In a world in which everyone worked short hours, had enough to eat, lived in a house with a bathroom and a refrigerator, and possessed a motor-car or even an aeroplane, the most obvious and perhaps the most important form of inequality would already have disappeared. ...
For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realize that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away. In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance. ...
The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labour. War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent. Even when weapons of war are not actually destroyed, their manufacture is still a convenient way of expending labour power without producing anything that can be consumed...
But when war becomes literally continuous, it also ceases to be dangerous. When war is continuous there is no such thing as military necessity.
Never mind space travel. I would so want to hibernate through winters here on earth!
It wouldn't do me any good. My wife already tells me I act too much like a bear. :(
As population declines, consumer demand (by young adults starting families) will dry up, investment (by those older adults preparing for retirement) will also dwindle, and real labor costs will increase.
Ugh.
What a string of untested assumptions.
Someone can't see the wealth sitting around us all. We generally don't leave it on the sidelines and we certainly don't burn it to ensure a strong correlation with population size.
DP:
When war is continuous there is no such thing as military necessity.
I always felt that we fought wars in order to end them.
The problem with modern Republicans, and some more corporate Democrats as well, is that they have come to see war as a good thing--not something to be avoided or concluded, but a way of life. That could be because they are sadists, or because they are war profiteers, or they could be two things.
Orwell was very much an artifact of his time, when various version of Marxist obsession were held even by anti-Marxists. Ayn Rand, for example, shared this obsession with the Means of Production as the fundamental driver of class relationships. Her scenario was wholly Marxist except that she truncated-amputated his 'happy ending for the proletariat' by stopping at the preceding phase of ultimate capitalist lordship and calling it Good. (And portraying them as sterile/childless so there's no inconvenient reminder that she only re-created feudalism.)
The same fixation on PRODUCTION as an entity in its own right, absolutely demanding consumption, instead of the other way around, can be seen in the classic Fred Pohl novella "The Man Who Ate The World."
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/638733
hence it's unsurprising Orwell envisioned a magnificent production 'machine' whose output would drive either equality or war, by its inherent need to be balanced by consumption. An ornately symmetrical concept that of course is ludicrous.
Yes, powerful, predatory males will seek methods to crush the hopes of those below and protect their status from upstarts. And war can be a powerful means! Orwell's social crits, especially toward dogmatic leftism (as opposed to his own Democratic Socialism) are cogent and wondrously scary. I speak to that in VIVID TOMORROWS: Science Fiction and Hollywood - http://www.davidbrin.com/vividtomorrows.html
But the "We.. must... consume...!!!" robotic drive is in retrospect truly silly.
Well David
It sure looks Joe Biden and the neocons are going to succeed in starting WWIII.
so none of your oh so valued cleverness will make a bit of difference as industrial civilization immolates itself.
During Vietnam the post-Marshallian drive for maturity in the Officer Corps was sorely tested by waves of macho types - standard across 6000 years. It was in Vietnam's aftermath that a miracvle happened. The Marshallians wrested back control and went to great lengths to institute maturity engenering systems at all levels.
There is NO way you will eliminated macho in such fields! There are Michael Flynns to this day. But Officers I've met seem to truly hate war as a wasteful and unpredictable proof that efforts at deterence failed.
In the previous post (OPPENHEIMER), I added some thoughts about the 1947 version, but removed them because I didn't want to drag OGH's cool post way off into the weeds. The wikipedia page is perhaps more enlightening that the film, for example, Ayn Rand was one of the writers!
Editing EARTH, I am in the scene where Jen visits the Ndebele Eco-Ark :
"There were radicals for whom Gaia worship was a church militant. They saw a return of the old goddess of prehistory, at last ready to end her banish- ment by brutal male deities—by Zeus and Shiva and Jehovah and the warlike spirits once idolized by the Ndebele. To Gaian radicals there were no “moderate” approaches to saving Earth. Technology and the “evil male principle” were foes to be cast down.
Evil male principle, my shriveled ass. Males have their uses."
The modern terminology : "toxic masculinity" is actually way-pithier.
Now editing the scene where my astronaut Teresa Tikhana is a hero for landing a shuttle crippled by gravitational waves... almost exactly stolen/copied by the makers of that silly flick THE CORE.
EARTH woulda made a better movie.
Dr Brin:
The same fixation on PRODUCTION as an entity in its own right, absolutely demanding consumption, instead of the other way around, can be seen in the classic Fred Pohl novella "The Man Who Ate The World."
Also in Jack London's The Iron Heel to which I was directed by someone here in this group. Published back when the earth was cooling in 1907.
jim:
Joe Biden and the neocons are going to succeed in starting WWIII.
You have a strange definition of "starting". I suppose FDR and the Jews started WWII as well.
And you mistake Biden succumbing against desire to the necessity of the time with Trump or Lindsay Graham or probably even Liz Cheney who would be literally salivating for a war against Iran.
so none of your oh so valued cleverness will make a bit of difference as industrial civilization immolates itself.
I'd take that bet. The good thing about getting old is that one can only live in perpetual fear of nuclear annihilation for so long while watching it continue to not happen.
scidata:
for example, Ayn Rand was one of the writers!
I have heard that the Dr Robert Stadler (sp?) character in Atlas Shrugged was based on Robert Oppenheimer--that she had admired the man until he fell short in some way and she turned him into her worst type of villain. That is, a man who knows he has sold out, and so hates anyone who hasn't, because he can only live with himself if he can believe that his condition is universal.
Dr Brin:
Editing EARTH, ...
Just no cheating and inserting true "predictions" after the fact. :)
EARTH woulda made a better movie.
Earth as a movie has he same troubles that Dune does. So much of its essential character is contained in the literary form itself. To the extent that the plot and setting can be translated, the available special effects are probably only now at the level to do it justice--just as with Dune.
Just thinking out loud here, but the part about the generals thinking they could get away with running a power plant with a black hold in secret--that already seems outdated. Not that they wouldn't want to, but "cameras and microphones everywhere" seems to be the default expectation these days. People livestream themselves committing felonies, for gosh sake, not because they want to be caught, but because they can't imagine doing anything without livestreaming it.
EARTH is simply far too long for a movie!
There is far too much in that book - it would be something like 10 three hour films - and still be missing bits out
duncan cairncross:
EARTH is simply far too long for a movie!
Well, so is Dune. I mean, the latest version was pretty good for what it was, but they couldn't fit the banquet scene in? Again?
"Gone with the Wind:
- 1024 pages
- 13 Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Screenplay
"Earth"
- 704 pages
And I've sat threw several dreck productions of "Anna Kerenina" (864 pages).
Having the author on set is a must for successful compression.
gregory byshenk«I think that it is not so much "aligning with Russia and China" as choosing not to align with "the west". These two are not the same thing. From what I can see, a large part of "the global south" is not particularly fond of either Russia or China - but at the same time has no particular fondness for the US, either.»
If you’re a small or mid-sized country trapped in-between several empires trying to expand/preserve their sphere of influence your first priority will be to game the balance of power to your advantage. Hence, say, countries from the “Françafrique” kicking out French troops even though Russia won’t be a better, less abusive partner: the short term gain of curbing down the former colonial overlord’s still disproportionate influence takes priority.
***
Larry Hart«Let's recall (though no one does) that Trump shared Israeli secret information with Putin. Putin is allied with Iran. Iran subsidizes Hamas.»
I do enjoy shitting on Trump as much as the next guy, but the byzantine grapevine “Donald said to Vladimir who said to Ali who said to…” explanation ignores Netanyahu’s blatant incompetence and racist “I’ve got technological superiority, and there’s no ways these Arabs could outmanoeuvre ME” arrogance.
Laurent Weppe:
countries from the “Françafrique” kicking out French troops even though Russia won’t be a better, less abusive partner: the short term gain of curbing down the former colonial overlord’s still disproportionate influence takes priority.
I get that. I also realize that historically, France as a colonial master in Africa might have evicted the rhetorical "How could anyone else be worse?"
I happen to think that Russia and China would lead them to eventually discover the answer to that question.
but the byzantine grapevine “Donald said to Vladimir who said to Ali who said to…” explanation
That allied countries share intelligence doesn't sound "byzanine" to me.
ignores Netanyahu’s blatant incompetence...
Not "ignores", but it can be both things in concert.
duncan cairncross redux:
There is far too much in that book [EARTH] - it would be something like 10 three hour films - and still be missing bits out
The best format would be a tv miniseries extended over a number of seasons raised literally to the power of infinity.
Ok, that last bit was a joke, but I meant the rest.
In the first half of the 20th century, everyone was a Marxist of some sort... even the anti-Marxists. Old school liberalism was at least comatose and probably on the endangered species list if it had been kept back then.
Marx had a powerful impact on essentially everyone who thought about how people organized. Even those who tried to reject him usually lost sight of how their predecessors thought about the world before Marx.
There are lots of ways to see this with one of them being how thoroughly misinterpreted Adam Smith was. Smith taught virtue ethics, but you won't find that mentioned as anything more than a sideline by 20th century economists who wanted to remove most of the human-ness from their theories of economics. Especially ethics... which completely undermines the main point of the Wealth of Nations book where Smith ultimately described the prudent path forward.
This error began to end in the late part of the 20th century, but still has a long way to go.
A screenplay version of Earth would have to land somewhere between 120 to 180 pages in their special format. Most scene descriptions would have to be left out or just barely sketched in unless they were vital to the story.
These two restrictions would likely produce a parallel story that had the same essential story elements, but it wouldn't look like what novel readers imagined. Scene descriptions tell you, but screenplays show you... which means a lot gets left to the director and cinematographer to work out within their budget.
------
However, our host said Earth would have made a better movie than The Core. Given how lame The Core was, one could make an amateur version of Earth and still achieve that prediction. 8)
I have concluded that the only way to sensibly approach books as movies, or *any* form of re-telling is to assume they're all imperfect narratives. One will cast light on places others have missed and vice versa. This includes the original tale. It doesn't excuse every bad take, but allows you to better appreciate the tellings in different media.
GRRM envisaged 'House of the Dragon' as just such an 'imperfect narrative' when he wrote it, and has been delighted by some of the interpretations the online series has made (the depiction of Viserys I in particular)
[Earth narrative]: 'Technology and the “evil male principle” were foes to be cast down.
[Jen]: Evil male principle, my shriveled ass. Males have their uses."
[David]: The modern terminology : "toxic masculinity" is actually way-pithier.
Maybe so, but I think Jen is dismissing the high falutin' term "evil male principle" here. Can't do that so readily to "toxic masculinity", which needs killing with fire...
Earth as a movie/series: see how many pages the storyboards require. Definitely better as a series (same with the Uplift series. Maybe make Sundiver take place at a similar time to the others and have the first three novels run in parallel?)
more snips written in 1989
"Most shops bore signs in International Ideogramatic Chinese, as well as English, Maori, and Simglish. And why not? The Han were only the latest wave of nouveau moyen to suddenly discover tourism. And if they engulfed all the beaches and scenic spots within four thousand kilometers of Beijing, they also paid well for their hard-earned leisure.
Yet more Chinese piled off flywheel buses just ahead of Alex’s little car, wearing garish sunhats and True-Vu goggles that simultaneously protected the eyes and recorded for posterity every kitsch purchase from friendly concessionaires touting “genuine” New Zealand native woodcraft.
Well, it’s their turn, Alex thought, nursing patience. And it surely does beat war.
=====
"
That was the curious nature of the “mixed miracle.” For as the world’s nations scrimped and bickered over dwindling resources, sometimes scrapping violently over river rights and shifting rains, its masses meanwhile enjoyed a rising tide of onetime luxuries—made necessary by that demon Expectation.
—Pure water cost nearly as much as your monthly rent. At the same time, for pocket change you could buy disks containing a thousand reference books or a hundred hours of music.
—Petrol was rationed on a need-only basis and bicycles choked the world’s cities. Yet resorts within one day’s zep flight were in reach to even humble wage earners.
—Literacy rates climbed every year, and those with full-reli- ance cards could self-prescribe any known drug. But in most states you could go to jail for throwing away a soda bottle.
To Alex the irony was that nobody seemed to find any of it amazing. Change had this way of sneaking up on you, one day at a time.
“Anyone who tries to predict the future is inevitably a fool. Present company included. A prophet without a sense of humor is just stupid.”
===
Teresa flipped the last picture aside. “Nobody trusts photo- graphs anymore, as proof of anything at all.”
===
they left the hospital and rented two cycles from a hire/drop bubble near the elevated bikeway. (okay not many elevated bikeways, yet. But rentable hire/drop scooters?)
=====
LH: “I have heard that the Dr Robert Stadler (sp?) character in Atlas Shrugged was based on Robert Oppenheimer--that she had admired the man until he fell short in some way and she turned him into her worst type of villain. That is, a man who knows he has sold out, and so hates anyone who hasn't, because he can only live with himself if he can believe that his condition is universal.”
Same with the Gale Winant newspaper tycoon in her only readable novel THE FOUNTAINHEAD.
“Just no cheating and inserting true "predictions" after the fact. :)”
It seriously never occurred to me. That 40 year old punk would come and haunt me.
Let’s postulate it’s based on biblical prophecies. Question is: do prophecy and self-prophecy differ, or are they synonymous?
https://www.britannica.com/topic/self-fulfilling-prophecy#:~:text=self%2Dfulfilling%20prophecy%2C%20process%20through,ways%20that%20confirm%20the%20expectations.
Larry Hart said...
But there's the rub. Whether Israel is "occupying" depends on your point of view. It's not like we're saying "We don't like Russia initiating a first-strike attack, but we're ok when Israel does so." Rather, those who think Israel's existence is a colonial provocation and those who think Hamas attacked a sovereign nation don't even agree on the same facts.
I don't see how you can argue "point of view" here. Whatever one might think of the territory of the established state of Israel, Israel is plainly "occupying" the West Bank and Gaza.
gregory byshenk:
Israel is plainly "occupying" the West Bank and Gaza.
I'll agree with that on the West Bank with the encroachment of settlements.
Gaza, though...I may not be keeping up with the details on that part of the world, but didn't Israel leave Gaza over a decade ago in a land-for-peace deal which to no one's surprise ruined both the land and the peace?
Thanks to Israel's ultra-orthodox and right-wing, Israel can't be trusted to stay off of the land it trades for peace, but thanks to the Palestinians' terrorist wing, they can't be trusted to keep the peace they trade for land. So yes, who is at ultimate fault for any particular act depends a lot on POV.
Dr Brin:
Same with the Gale Winant newspaper tycoon in her only readable novel THE FOUNTAINHEAD.
IIRC, Rand exemplified her hierarchy of types of men in her chapter titles.
In reverse order:
Howard Roark - A man of integrity who knows what he is.
Gail Wynand - A man of flawed integrity who wishes he were better but knows he can't be.
Ellsworth M Toohey - A man of flawed integrity who knows what he is and is fine with it.
Peter Keating - A man of no integrity who has no idea what he is.
Rand's Stadler character seemed to me to be a Wynand type character, but in her way of forcing her POV onto the reader, she clearly had him pegged as a Toohey. Her "good" industrialist characters even explicitly stated that they were not going to "save" him, even if he came around to the good side. If Stadler was based upon Robert Oppenheimer, Rand must have hated the man with a passion.
"… Technology and the “evil male principle” were foes to be cast down.
Evil male principle, my shriveled ass. Males have their uses."
The modern terminology : "toxic masculinity" is actually way-pithier.
Is it the same thing? I got the impression when I read Earth (when it came out) that the Gaians had become a lot like the Womens' Directorate at my university: resolutely hating anything to do with men (which in their minds included technology) while resolutely not noticing how much their lives depended on the "evil masculine technology" that they claimed to hate. (Saskatchewan, -30 winter highs, living and working in prestressed concrete buildings…)
The term "toxic masculinity" seems to more constrained to behaviours.
I'm not going to argue with the author about what he meant, but do want to point out that changing the terms will change what I read.
I'll also caution you that you need to be really careful revising, as it's easily possible to introduce errors. I bought Michael Flynn's Country of the Blind in hardcover when it was rereleased, because I'd so enjoyed the paperback that I was beginning to wear it out. I was very disappointed to realize that he'd updated it. Some changes were cosmetic: the datanet became the internet (although it still behaved like the original network rather than the internet). But there were references to minor characters that he'd written out of the story that were just jarring.
Just to be clear, my comparison to other long works was just to make the point that # pages isn't really an impediment to making a movie. I think EARTH, and EXISTENCE would make great movies, especially if the author is around to keep things from going into the ditch. I've seen tangential gripes about THE POSTMAN.
scidata:
"Gone with the Wind:
- 1024 pages
- 13 Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Screenplay
"Earth"
- 704 pages
More happens in Earth, it has a lot more ideas, and it requires a lot more thinking from the reader. If David had written it with the same languid pacing as Gone With the Wind it would be a fairly long series rather than a single novel.
Some novels have higher information densities than others, which works because readers set their pace themselves. I read Dick Francis novels a lot faster than I read David Aaronovitch novels, for example, even though they are both writing procedural mysteries.
Robert: Some novels have higher information densities than others
Fair point. Faithful reproduction of the entire novel would indeed be impossible. Transmitting the gist, however, is sometimes possible, especially if the author involved. Apple's FOUNDATION would have greatly benefitted from having old Isaac around.
BTW, as a Canadian, I'm amused/gratified by the way our government keeps hauling grocery chain execs onto the carpet to scold them about high prices/profits. In other countries, high profits are sort of the point.
Dr. Brin,
When you get to Glory Season, are you going to try to update the science at all? Given that they can now take a human skin cell and tweak the epigenome to turn it into a sperm cell, human males are completely unnecessary. You will have to come up with some justification for why your radical feminist colony went with a minimal male model instead of a no male model. Perhaps that sequel could involve a different colony that did go no male, or maybe an isolationist band on Maia's world. That would be one way to get rid of the toxic male memes from the meme pool.
Paul SB
scidata,
The problem with high profits being the point is that it erodes the ability of the middle classes (and lower) to subsist, a trend that in the long run screws the profiteers, because they are destroying their own customers' ability to buy their products, and the nation as a whole. Sharpen the guillotines and Vive la Revolucion!
Paul SB
Robert:
I got the impression when I read Earth (when it came out) that the Gaians had become a lot like the Womens' Directorate at my university: resolutely hating anything to do with men (which in their minds included technology)
From op-eds I've read recently, it also includes things like logic and math. In the extreme cases, even proving your point (on a particular issue) doesn't matter, because logical proof is just a Western male colonialist imposition on other cultures who don't share our values.
They'll never get me to vote Republican, but I can see how it turns some people in that direction.
while resolutely not noticing how much their lives depended on the "evil masculine technology" that they claimed to hate. (Saskatchewan, -30 winter highs, living and working in prestressed concrete buildings…)
It is ever thus. From al-Queada denouncing technology by using the internet to those Republican politicians who care so much about the unborn except when their own mistresses become pregnant.
The term "toxic masculinity" seems to more constrained to behaviours.
To me, the difference is that "toxic masculinity" refers to taking something too far. Similar to the fact that too much concentration of oxygen is poisonous, but that doesn't mean oxygen per se is a bad thing. The "toxic" part refers to the overreach; it doesn't describe "masculinity" in toto.
The “evil male principle” OTOH seems to be an assertion that maleness in and of itself is a problem to be eliminated.
So I agree, substituting the one for the other in Jen's monologue would drastically change the implied nature of her character.
But there were references to minor characters that he'd written out of the story that were just jarring.
I found that to be the case when I read Steven King's The Stand. It was decades old already when I thought to try it, and the edition I picked up stated that it was a revised edition in which the author had re-integrated 40 or so pages which had been excised by the publisher in the original printing. Now that King was a superstar who could dictate his own terms, he had slid those parts from the cutting room floor back into the narrative.
Even though I had never read the original edition, I found myself noticing certain passages which I was sure were the re-published ones. Some fit clumsily into the text, while others just dragged interminably. One particular passage had a character who was travelling from the Northeast to the Nebraska/Colorado area make a sudden turn up to Gary Indiana in what seemed to have been originally a separate short story.
Much as I care about creators' rights to their own vision, I found myself thinking "Your publishers were correct."
scidata:
In other countries, high profits are sort of the point.
It's not the profits per se which are bad, but the anti-competitive means by which those profits are achieved.
Here in the States, we are in danger of electing a Republican government because of the meme that Joe Biden has caused inflation. Yet much of that "inflation" is caused by companies knowing they can raise prices and consumers will blame Biden for it. The profiteers get higher profits and favorable government, just like the terrorists from Gaza got to kill Jews and scuttle talks between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Your country is correct in trying not to reward evil.
Paul SB:
Given that they can now take a human skin cell and tweak the epigenome to turn it into a sperm cell, human males are completely unnecessary. You will have to come up with some justification for why your radical feminist colony went with a minimal male model instead of a no male model.
You're way overthinking it in a way that evokes the old joke:
"It hurts when I do this."
"So don't do that."
Rather than drastically alter the science inherent in the story, I'd be happier with the kind of warning that Asimov put in the forward of later editions of The Stars Like Dust, The Currents of Space, and Pebble in the Sky. Basically, "Back in the 40s, the speculative scientific principle this book relies on seemed plausible. We now know things don't work that way, but please just enjoy the book in the spirit intended."
***
***SEMI-SPOILERS BELOW, not of the plot, but of the setting ***
***
IIRC, the women were indeed able to reproduce without sperm, but for some handwavium reason, a male presence was still required to make the process work. It was also true that some babies were made the old fashioned way--the summer children vs the winter children. That makes sense to me that a society wouldn't completely abandon traditional impregnation, just in case the new technology didn't always work as planned.
And I happened to like the plot element of men and women each desiring sex at different times of year, causing each to have to entice the other in turn. If that were to be eliminated, the book would be an entirely different animal.
Paul SB:
The problem with high profits being the point is that it erodes the ability of the middle classes (and lower) to subsist,
Overly-high profits sequester money the way the little makers in Dune sequestered water away from the system at large. The result on Arrakis was a desert planet. The problem for the profiteers is that eventually there has to be a big spice blow that chaotically spews money back out.
Larry: To me, the difference is that "toxic masculinity" refers to taking something too far. Similar to the fact that too much concentration of oxygen is poisonous, but that doesn't mean oxygen per se is a bad thing. The "toxic" part refers to the overreach; it doesn't describe "masculinity" in toto.
That is a better way of putting it.
Larry: Rather than drastically alter the science inherent in the story, I'd be happier with the kind of warning that Asimov put in the forward of later editions of The Stars Like Dust, The Currents of Space, and Pebble in the Sky. Basically, "Back in the 40s, the speculative scientific principle this book relies on seemed plausible. We now know things don't work that way, but please just enjoy the book in the spirit intended."
That would be my preferred solution as well. Even for minor stuff, leave it the way it was. We don't feel a need to update Verne, after all.
For ebooks, if publishing a revised version, why not include the unrevised text as well? Doesn't cost anything extra…
Paul SB I won’t alter the science in Glory Season. It was a reasonable hypothesis at the time, that sperm genes spark the placenta. There is still some support, tho lap techniques seem able to bypass that. But is that a stable basis for a colony? Anyway, the Perkinites in the book seek the very alternatives of which you speak.
Larry,
"If that were to be eliminated, the book would be an entirely different animal."
- I'm not suggesting that Dr. Brin rewrite the novel. It would only be necessary for someone to bring up such techniques and explain why they aren't being used. For a sequel, however, he could have fun with it - just please not the Perkinites! Those were not nice people.
Paul SB
Dr. Brin,
Please see my note to Larry Hart above.
Paul SB
Dr. Brin,
Come to think of it, how long was it supposed to take for the ice ships to arrive? In the intervening years you can imagine some serious upheaval and social unrest as different factions fight over how to prepare for the newcomers. It would be interesting to imagine the things people might do when they know there is a probably unstoppable force coming their way that will change their world forever. How, say, did the Tarascans react when they heard about what Cortez had done to Tenochtitlan? How many of them would have celebrated, versus prepared to be the next on the Conquistador hit list? And how many of them might have run to Chaco Canyon? Any nearby planets the Perkinites might run to?
Paul SB
Robert 11:11 AM:
In effect Asimov issued a version of the standard disclaimer. Something like:
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance between any person, event, science or technology in this story to real life is purely coincidental.
Maybe religious texts should also bear disclaimers.
TIL of a simulator for a 1969 minicomputer complete with an early BASIC. Nice. This simulator uses the same basic hardware that I use for the breadboard mockup of a single core (out of a million) in the SELDON I psychohistory processor. Even nicer. You should never toss out old technology until you fully understand it.
"If we continue to develop our technology without wisdom or prudence, our servant may prove to be our executioner."
- Omar Bradley
"religious texts should also bear disclaimers."
GENERAL RELIGIOUS TEXT WARNING:
Reading this book or others like it can lead to holy wars, pogroms, burning people at the stake, consumption of poison-laced koolaid and not eating shrimp, beef and other tasty foods (see partial list below).
The events and beings depicted in these books did not necessarily occur or exist in this universe, and any eschatological future events remain likewise unguaranteed.
Any pleasant or unpleasant occurrences depicted by these books in your afterlife are not guaranteed to occur, nor are they necessarily incurred or avoidable by following prescribed tenets. It is quite possible that nothing happens at all.
Final note - though many texts prescribe the Golden Rule (or similar variant) "do unto others as you would have them do unto you", the unspoken codicil "Only, do it to them first" is a common misreading and should be avoided.
Pappenheimer
Another EARTH snippet - written around 1989.
"Nelson tried to ignore all those deceptively natural sensoria for the archaic paper reading device in his hands.
If only it were a modern document, with a smart index and hyper links stretching all through the world data net. It was terribly frustrating having to flip back and forth between the pages and crude, flat illustrations that never even moved! Nor were there animated arrows or zoom-ins. It completely lacked a tap for sound.
Most baffling of all was the problem of new words. Yes, it was his own damn fault he had neglected his education until so late in life. But still, in a normal text you’d only have to touch an unfamiliar word and the definition would pop up just below. Not here though. The paper simply lay there, inert and uncooperative. When he’d complained about this, earlier, Dr. B’Keli only handed him another of these flat books, something called a “dictionary,” whose arcane use eluded him entirely...
===
another
===
Nearly every culture has laws to shelter family, tribe, and nation from the impulses of individuals. In recent times we’ve extended these codes of protection to include those without family, the weak, even the alien, and agonize that we don’t live up to these standards perfectly. A kind of cultural quasi-citizenship has even been granted some of our former food animals—whales, dolphins, and many other creatures with whom it’s possible now to feel a sense of kinship.
Arguing endlessly over ways and means, most of us still agree on a basic premise, an ideal. If asked to envision paradise, we would indeed have the lion lie down with the lamb, and all people, great and small, would treat each other with kindness.
But it’s important to remember these are our morals, based on our background as particularly social mammals. Creatures who need a nurturing tribe—who are helpless and lost without a clan.
What if intelligence and technology had been discovered by some other species, say crocodiles? Or otters?
===
THE FOLLOWING WAS WRITTEN BEFORE USB FLASH MEMORY THUMB DRIVES:
From her pocket she drew one of two data spools, inserting it into a slot in the counter. Picking a code word from the name of a college roommate’s pet cat, she created a personal cache and fed in the contents of the spool. When the cylinder was empty and erased, she breathed a little easier
===
Each of the allies had its own reasons for entering the bloody conflict now variously known as the “Helvetian War,” the “Secrecy War,” and the “Last-We-Hope”—perhaps the most bizarre and furious armed struggle of all time.
A leading factor in the industrial north was the laundering of profits for drug merchants and tax cheaters. Overburdened with TwenCen debt, citizens of America and Pan-Europe demanded those groups at least pay their fair share, and resented the banking gnomes for sheltering criminals’ ill-gotten gains.
International banking secrecy was even more hated in the devel oping world. Those nations’ awesome debts were aggravated by “capital flight,” whereby leading citizens had for generations smug- gled mountains of cash to safe havens overseas. Whether honestly earned or looted from national treasuries, this lost capital under- mined frail economies, making it even harder for those left behind to pay their bills. Nations like Venezuela, Zaire and the Philippines tried to recover billions removed by former ruling elites, to no avail. Eventually, a consortium of restored democracies stopped railing at their ex-dictators and instead turned their ire on the banking havens themselves.
...
Knowing what we do now, about what lay buried under the Glarus Alps, most agree their only mistake was not declaring war sooner. In any event, by the second year of fighting, mercy was hardly on anybody’s agenda anymore. Only vengeful modern Catos could be heard, crying from the rooftops of the world—
Helvetia delenda est!
By then it was to the death.
A few more...
See this morning’s major news release by the Los Alamos Peace Laboratory [ Alert K12-AP-9.23.38:11:00 S.pr56765.0] for the latest test results from their solenoidal fusion test reactor. They report achieving a confinement-temperature product more than five times better than before, with almost none of those pesky stray neutrons that caused the Princeton disaster of 2021.
===
At least the bee zapper was working. For years their hives had been under seige by Africanized swarms, seeking to take over as they had everywhere else in the area, ruining all the once- profitable apiaries in the parish. Chemicals and spray parasites did no good. But a few weeks ago Claire had found a net refer- ence by a fellow in Egypt, who’d discovered that the African strain beat their wings faster than the tame European variety. Burrowing into archaic TwenCen military technology, he had adapted sensor-scanner designs from an old, defunct project called “Star Wars.”
Like a glittering scarecrow, the cruciform laser system
...
The bottommost mineral state, before mantle gives way to metallic core, seems to consist of various oxides pressed into a perovskite structure—”
“Per ... ovskite?”
“A particularly dense oxide arrangement that forms readily under pressure.”
“I still don’t get it,” she said, frowning.
He spread his hands. “Relatives of these same perovskites happen to be among the best industrial superconductors!
==
The good side of the world media village was the sense it gave
ten billion that each of them had at least some small connection with the whole. The bad side was that no one ever encountered anything, anymore, that was completely new.
Perhaps that was why I became an astronaut, in hopes of someday seeing some special place before the cameras got there.
==
Daisy’s expertise at compressing oldtime flicks was legendary. Skillfully, she could pack ninety tedious minutes into a crisp forty or less, speeding the languid pace of classics like The Terminator or Deliverance to suit the time-devouring appetites of modern viewers.
Or, for others wanting more out of a particular film, Daisy McClennon would expand the original ... adding material from film archives or even computer-generated extrapolations....
...Her best, most pricey enhancements were so good, in fact, they had to carry a truth-in-reality warning ... a little pink diamond flashing in one corner, signifying “this isn’t real” to those with weak hearts or soft minds.
some more...
====
And to think, some idiots predicted that we’d someday found our economy on information. That we’d base money on it!
On information? The problem isn’t scarcity. There’s too damned much of it!
The problem usually wasn’t getting access to information. It was to stave off drowning in it.
===
Jen nodded sympathetically. The word “Gaian” had become nearly as meaningless as “socialist” or “liberal” or “conservative” were half a century ago ... a basket full of contradictions.
==
Daisy knew about some new language programs, almost intelligent in their own right, that might apply here.
==
I wrote:
Israel is plainly "occupying" the West Bank and Gaza.
Larry Hart said...
I'll agree with that on the West Bank with the encroachment of settlements.
Gaza, though...I may not be keeping up with the details on that part of the world, but didn't Israel leave Gaza over a decade ago in a land-for-peace deal which to no one's surprise ruined both the land and the peace?
It has nothing to do with "encroachment", but whether Israel maintains control over the territory.
In the West Bank it is obvious because Israel maintains an active military presence and indeed expands settlements and displaces residents.
But Gaza is no less occupied. The "disengagement" in 2005 involved the withdrawal of Israeli settlers and ground forces from Gaza, but Israel maintained control over the borders, including the sea, the airspace, and all utilities, and maintained the right to enter or assault gaza, exercising this right multiple times in the years since.
David: A leading factor in the industrial north was the laundering of profits for drug merchants and tax cheaters.
Back when you wrote that most people were well aware of drug profits, but very few were aware of the extent of tax avoidance.
The problem with tax avoidance isn't the havens so much as the laws that allow them to exist for citizens/corporation of other countries. If American (Canadian/UK/etc) laws didn't allow citizens to move money to Zurich (and back again), then Zurich wouldn't be a banking haven.
Although to be honest, the bulk of tax avoidance appears to be perfectly legal, because of the way tax laws are structured. And some of the biggest tax havens are within American borders (there's a reason so many corporations share the same PO Box in Delaware…).
This is an interesting book. Highly recommended, especially for fellow Canadians. I read the english translation, but I imagine the original french is just as good.
https://fernwoodpublishing.ca/book/legalizing-theft
Robert: legalizing-theft
David Lewis, the social democrat who chased the commies out of both Oxford and Ottawa, had a way with words: "corporate welfare bums".
Heard on Hal Sparks's radio show, a guest discussing high-school drug years:
"I liked X before it became Twitter."
gregory byshenk:
and maintained the right to enter or assault gaza, exercising this right multiple times in the years since.
While I take your point, it seems to me that Israel exercised this right in response to rocket attacks and terrorist attacks on its own territory launched from Gaza. We'd do the same if rockets fired from Mexico were hitting our cities, even without having first established the right to do so.
I'd be more inclined to give Hamas credit if their aim was to induce Israel to stop intruding within Gaza and to allow true self-rule without turning off utilities and such. As long as their aim is Judenrein from the river to the sea, they've lost me. As have my fellow liberals who scream about Israel committing genocide while tacitly excusing the ones who really do intend genocide.
My preferred endgame is a two-state solution, but it has to be two states who live peaceably side by side, not a Palestinian state dedicated to the destruction of Israel and death to Jews. To be fair, also not an Israeli state dedicated to expansion over the other's territory.
From EARTH:
"He hadn’t noticed that gallery on his outward journey. Now he paused to sketch the opening in his pocket plaque."
I predicted 'tablets' under a different name. Alas!
two-state solution
I honestly don't see how they are going to pull that off. Both sides have to want it and at least 1.5 sides don't.
Alfred Differ
Both sides have to want it and at least 1.5 sides don't.
The same way the House Republicans just elected a speaker that most of them didn't know and those who did know don't like. They came to realize there was no better option available.
Larry,
It won't last.
I don't want to sound too pessimistic, but I think they've got at least another generation ahead of them where they prefer to kill each other. Maybe two generations.
That part of the world is not one conducive to easy solutions. Consider what it took to stop Europeans from killing each other and you'll see the source of my skepticism.
@Alfred Differ,
I know it won't come easily. I just don't see any other solution possible. Of course, both sides feel it would be so much easier if the other side would just go away. But that ain't happening.
Alan Moore was right. "Nothing ever ends."
https://malcolmnance.substack.com/p/ask-yourself-are-you-really-for-palestine
A student at NYU brandishes a poster that says “Please Keep the World Clean (from Jews). (Photo: Richard Harbus, Dailymail.com)
For those outside the paywall, the sign actually says "Please Keep the World Clean", and then on the bottom, two sets of "!!!" with a trash can icon in the middle bearing a Jewish star. Y'know, like any "Please stop littering" signs, except the trash to be removed is Jews.
So you see why I have little patients for such "liberals". Some here have actually presented reasonable defenses of the pro-Palestinian position. But when I see shit like this, my heart is hardened. The concerns of the person holding that sign don't mean anything to me.
Emphasis mine below in response to gregory byshenk:
So, on its face, " Free Palestine! sounded like a good thing. The people of Palestine need some freedom and humanitarian champions. Their circumstances are terrible. They have had no representative governance or a way to exercise choice in elections for 17 years. The last government they elected was the HAMAS terrorist group. They stole all of the foreign aid to build tunnels, manufacture rockets, and deprive the people of an economy. Because of their terrorist attacks on Israel, Palestinians have had to live under virtual blockade by both Egypt to the south and Israel to the north and east. Non-governmental organizations such as the United Nations try to fill the gaps, but the terrorist group HAMAS determines what comes in and who gets what. So most Palestinian Gazans live in near abject poverty even though 50,000 Gazans worked daily in Israel. That is until the 10-7 massacre ended any future work prospects for Palestinians.
Oh, and in answer to my wondering if those who think Biden is too reflexively pro-Israel would prefer a Trump presidency. I guess the answer is "yes".
When President Biden visited Israel on 18 October Arab Americans and their allies swore that they would never vote for the Biden administration. Many openly said they prefer a violent and anti-Muslim Trump administration because at least they would know what they were getting. They also screamed about how HAMAS was reporting 7,000 civilians were dead and 3,000 of them were children, without any way to verify it.
To an outsider, it is as if the entire far left of American progressives had lost their minds. They went so far as to even protest and attack Senator Bernie Sanders, a well-known progressive hero, who happened to be Jewish.
And the sad truth:
However, when studying the phrase “Free Palestine” what it means is a Palestine free from, and of, the presence of Jews. Numerous terrorist groups from the original Palestinian Liberation Organization to the Syrian-back Palestine Freedom Movement have popularized this slogan. It is a phrase that has been used for decades to mean the geographic borders of Israel must be freed by an armed religious war, called Jihad against the Jews. The result should be a genocide—the HAMAS charter to eliminate any religious, linguistic, and cultural vestiges as well. In my entire life, I have never heard any Israeli, save one or two Zionist extremists, claim that all Palestinians must be eliminated for Israel to have sovereignty. And my job was to listen to them very closely.
Unfortunately for everyone, the entire basis of the Free Palestine! movement is built on a foundation of hatred towards Jews, Judaism, and Zionism. To be honest, a lot of these people just hate Jews.
Sorry, I've yucked some of the yum on this post meant to be for Dr Brin's books.
Apparently, Malcolm Nance's column mentioned above is NOT paywalled. If that's true, it's well worth reading.
https://malcolmnance.substack.com/p/ask-yourself-are-you-really-for-palestine
Larry Hart«it seems to me that Israel exercised this right in response to rocket attacks and terrorist attacks on its own territory launched from Gaza»
Come on, that’s a lie and you know it. Israel, or should I say, the Likud/Netanyahu regime, regularly launched retaliatory attacks on the Gaza Strip not to curb down Hamas but to sell the Israeli voting public an illusion of control, a “See how much stronger than these baddy bad terrorists we are, you are SAFE with us in charge” which was already a bullshit claim BEFORE the 10/7 massacre back when people in southern Israel had to be regularly be sent to shelters.
Had the attacks on the strip been done in good faith… well, they’d still have been stupid and counter-productive, but had the Israeli Powers That Be been motivated by a genuine desire to protect their citizenry, they wouldn’t have treated Hamas as a fucking asset, wouldn’t have deliberately kept the Palestinian Authority toothless, wouldn’t have allowed far-right settlers to confirm the worst assumptions Palestinians might have had toward Israel, wouldn’t have sent bodyguards to protect Qatari dignitaries during their trips between Ben Gurion Airport and the Gaza Strip where they gave Hamas enormous amounts of cash.
Everything the Netanyahu administrations did show that “fighting terrorism” was never the real goal, but the pretence, and any discussion about the region must acknowledge the bad faith of the Israeli government instead of reflexively repeating its dishonest PR as if it was its actual motives.
***
Alfred Differ«Consider what it took to stop Europeans from killing each other»
What’s happening in Ukraine (and what happened in the Balkan 30 years ago) shows that the “killing each other” era is far from finished.
That being said, two reasons there hasn’t been any major conflict in the Western Half of Europe can be given: one is the end of monarchies who treated entire provinces as their royal houses’ real estates, and the other one is the two worlds wars siphoning so much ressources and manpower that it left European Powers too exhausted to maintain their dominance over the world.
In other words, it was a matter of leadership and ressources.
And as far as the Near East is concerned, I daresay that there is a rather easy to implement first step that will help change the balance of power toward one where cooler, less murderous heads can prevail: make the West “Unconditional Support to Israel” conditional. Make the dismantlement of the settlements the condition of ongoing military aid and economic cooperation: right now the parasitic far-right outposts in the West Bank/East Jerusalem are indirectly subsidised by American taxpayers (Israeli tax revenu not spent on military preparedness will be spend elsewhere), so take away the aid, make the Israeli taxpayers feel the actual cost of encroaching settlements for a change, make them choose between higher taxes, the acceleration of their social safety net degradation for the Kahanists’ benefit, or the end of the Settlements: use the West’s soft power to force the stronger belligerent to remove the main roadblock to a negotiated peace.
A roadblock that, by the way, has grown so bloated that it is now very close to being able to abolish anything resembling the rule of Law in Israel and turning the country into a full fledged religious-nationalist dictatorship.
Another EARTH snippet:
A MAORI BILLIONAIRE -deep in a cave - LAMENTS:
"I mourn the moa, whom my own ancestors drove into extinction. I mourn the herons and whales, slaughtered by the pakeha. I mourn you too, little fishes.
When all of this was done, he would fill glasses for his friends, and drink to each lost species. And then, if there was enough beer left in the world, he’d also toast those yet to die."
===
okay then...
onward
onward
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