We're about to dive into AI (what else?) But first off, a little news from entertainment and philosophy ... and where both venn-overlap with myth.
Here's a link to a recording of the first public performance of my play “The Escape,” on November 7 at Caltech. A 'reading' but fully dramatized, well-acted and directed by Joanne Doyle. The recording is of middling quality, but shows great audience reactions. Come have some good, impudently theological fun!
(Note, for copyright reasons the video omits background music after scene 2 (The Stones “Sympathy for the Devil;”) and at the end, when you see the audience cheering silently during “You Gotta Have Heart!” the great song from Damn Yankees, that's related to the theme of the play.
Pity! Still, folks liked it. And I think you’ll laugh a few times… or go “Huh!”)
== A world of analog… ==
Says one of the few pioneers in analog-on-a-chip: “Digital computers are very good at scalability. Analog is very good at complex interactions between variables. In the future, we may combine these advantages.”
Which brings us back to my novel - Infinity's Shore - wherein a hidden interstellar colony of ‘illegal immigrant’ refugees develops analog computers in order to avoid a posited ‘inevitable detectability’ of digital computation. A plot device, sure. But it freed me to envision a vast chamber filled with spinning glass disks and cams and sparking tubes. A vivid Frankenstein contraption of… analog.
== AI, Ai AI!! ==
We just got back from Ben Goertzel's conference on “Beneficial AGI” in Panama. How can we encourage a 'landing' so that organic and artificial minds will be mutually beneficent? Quite a group was there with interesting perspectives on these new life forms. Exchanged ideas...
...including the highly unusual ones from my WIRED article that breaks free of the three standard 'AI-formats' that can only lead to disaster, suggesting instead a 4th! That AI entities can only be held accountable if they have individuality... even 'soul'...
Heck, still highly relevant: my NEWSWEEK op-ed (June'22) dealt with 'empathy bots'' that feign sapience and personhood.
Offering some context for this new type of life form, Byron Reese has a new book: “We Are Agora: How Humanity Functions as a Single Superorganism That Shapes Our World and Our Future.” We desperately need the wary, can-do optimism that he conveyed in earlier books – along with confidence persuaders like Steven Pinker and Peter Diamandis! Only now BP talks about Gaia, Lovelock, Margulis and all that… how life is a web of nested levels of individuality and macro communities, e.g. from cells to a bee to a hive and so on. Or YOUR cells to organs to ‘you’ to your families and communities and civilization. In other words – the core topic of my 1990 novel EARTH! (Soon to be re-released in an even better version! ;-)
See Byron interviewed by Tim Ventura.
A paper on “Nepotistically Trained Generative-AI Models Collapse” asserts that – in what seems to be a case of back feedback loops - AI (artificial intelligence) image synthesis programs, when retrained on even small amounts of their own creation, produce highly distorted images… and that once poisoned, the models struggle to fully heal even after retraining on only real images. I am sure it’ll get fixed - and probably has been, before this gets posted - but….
Oy! Or shall I say “aieee!” This very clever Twitter troll has developed an interesting demonstration of recursive "poisoning." (link by Mike Godwin.)
But then we can gain insights into the past!
At the Direction of President Biden, Department of Commerce to Establish U.S. Artificial Intelligence Safety Institute to Lead Efforts on AI Safety. Through the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the U.S. Artificial Intelligence Safety Institute (USAISI) will lead the U.S. government’s efforts on AI safety and trust, particularly for evaluating the most advanced AI models. “USAISI will facilitate the development of standards for safety, security, and testing of AI models, develop standards for authenticating AI-generated content, and provide testing environments for researchers to evaluate emerging AI risks and address known impacts.”
== Insights into human nature ==
Caltech researchers developed a way to read brain activity using functional ultrasound (fUS), a much less invasive technique than neural link implants and does not require constant recalibration. Only… um… “Because the skull itself is not permeable to sound waves, using ultrasound for brain imaging requires a transparent “window” to be installed into the skull.”
A researcher wrote about his shock after discovering that some people don't have inner speech. Many folks have an internal monologue that is constantly commenting on everything they do, whereas others produce only small snippets of inner speech here and there, as they go about their day. But some report a complete absence. The article asks what's going on inside the heads of people who don't have inner speech?
Ask those and other unusual questions! In The Ancient Ones I comment about those human beings who, teetering at the edge of a sneeze, do NOT look for a sharp, bright light to stare into. Such people exist… and they almost all think we light-starers are lying! Yeah, we smooth apes are a varied bunch.
== And finally ==
The Talmudic rabbis recognized six genders that were neither purely male nor female. Among these:
- Androgynos, having both male and female characteristics.
- Tumtum, lacking sexual characteristics.
- Aylonit hamah, identified female at birth but later naturally developing male characteristics.
- Aylonit adam, identified female at birth but later developing male characteristics through human intervention. And so on.
They also had a tradition that the first human being was both.
A laudable acceptance we can all learn from! Of course, they also taught against the dangers of excessive, self-righteous sanctimony. Those who sow deliberate insult and contention in their own house (or family, or coalition of well-meaning allies) inherit... the wind.
189 comments:
Dr Brin in previous comments:
Of course Reagan violated the Logan Act, when he treasonously dickered for the Ayatollahs to hold onto the US hostages till Carter could be defeated.
Didn't Nixon make similar deals with North Vietnam? Radio host Thom Hartmann used to play a recording of LBJ talking with Republican House Speaker Dirksen telling him to have Nixon cut it out. But in those days, it wasn't considered polite for him to expose Nixon in public.
Side note: those engaging in METI - beaming 'messages' to ET - are also engaging in illegal negotiation with foreign powers.
Heh. But I'm not sure that either "negotiation" or "foreign government" would apply. Or how the Thomas court would rule.
Whoa...I ALWAYS have a "running dialogue" with myself. I had NO IDEA that there were people who didn't do this.
Another question: is it possible to be a writer and NOT have a running internal dialogue? I would assume people with a sufficient letter ve of words to desire to write would, by necessity, have w massive running internal dialogue.
Or.. am I falling for the all too easy fallacy of assuming the whole world must be like me?
John Viril:
Another question: is it possible to be a writer and NOT have a running internal dialogue?
Dave Sim, the Canadian writer/artist of the Cerebus comic series, claims to have an entire parliament debating in his head.
Some writers even complain that their characters don't do what the author expected of them, once they are fleshed out. That suggests that those author's brains can hold competing, or even mutinous, voices*. It's possible, I suppose, that the humans who report no 'life commentary' have extremely muted "Voices" compared to the internal voices of the Maid of Orleans. Or do they think they'll be considered nuts and are lying?
Pappenheimer, en masse
*my characters often spurn me and get their way, but I could be held up by mail
QUasi independent characters do happen. It is THE topic of Vonnegut's BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS.
Ah, sexual identity! What a thing to have politicised.
Well, where there's confusion there's opportunity, I suppose.
The confusion here comes from conflating sex and gender. Let's try to... erm, decouple them.
'Sex' has a precise biological definition, and it's not what is popularly thought. It's not about chromosomes, but gamete size. 'Male' are small (and compensating?). 'Female' are large.
So, people are one biological sex or the other. That doesn't mean their social gender is so tightly defined. People (and other animals) may and will identify as they wish.
Of course, it's not easy for a society to make a conscious change in use of language. It would be easier if biologists started using terms other than male and female (perhaps andros and gynos?)
If we can stick that, analog/digital logic hybrids should be a breeze.
----
I've sometimes wondered what it would be like not to think via inner dialogue. A visual symbolic logic perhaps? TMU!*
Conversely, there are those who think/dream in nothing but words.
* Too Much UML.
----
Ideas put up by works such as 'We Are Agora' put me strongly in mind of what I've been learning about the 'songlines' of Australian Aboriginal culture. History, lore, lessons all seem holistically embedded in the landscape. Not just the land either.
----
Interesting point raised about 'negotiating with foreign governments' at end of last post. Metas may be breaking it, if a one-way message with a hypothetical response time measured in decades or centuries can be deemed a 'negotiation'.
But does the same ruling apply to environmental groups addressing foreign governments at COP assemblies?
Replying to Tony Fisk: Some people are both male and female at the chromosomal level, either XXY or XYY. Another possibility is being a chimera, with male and female cells mixed together from two fertilized eggs. These "intersex" conditions affect 1% of people in the US, and 2% worldwide, according to this: https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/16324-intersex. You may even know at least one intersex person without realizing it because the belief that people are either male or female is common and a cause of hatred against those who aren't one or the other.
Putting aside all snark, I've never really understood why digital had to restrict itself to the 'on/off' flip flop of binary. Why not something more complex?
How about a 3-way 'trinary' switch that delegates a signal to the left, right or the straight ahead position? Or, a 4-way tetrahedral switch that directs a signal along a x, y or z three dimensional axis?
And that's the entirety of my Forrest Gumpian take on computer science.
That 'Humanity Functions as a Single Superorganism', this has been suggested before by the likes of Arthur Clarke & Douglas Adams with outcomes that vary from human transcendence to the curious Number 42.
I am now certain that AI does not represent either a very big advance for or a very big threat to humanity, as the development of an AI-destroying AI appears imminent in the same way that computer program sophistication has only led to bigger & more effective computer disrupting viruses.
Plus, the Waymo AI still seems extremely vulnerable to both fire & vandalism, and this means that AI will NOT replace us.
Best
Tony Fisk:
'Sex' has a precise biological definition, and it's not what is popularly thought. It's not about chromosomes, but gamete size. 'Male' are small (and compensating?). 'Female' are large.
But sperm and eggs are completely different things. They're not just larger or smaller versions of each other. Making size the issue sounds like one of those "woke" things, pretending that all gametes are interchangeable.
I saw Dune Part 2 this evening.
I'm glad I saw it for the spectacle. I wish they had kept more of the politics. Yes, I know that some of it is hard to portray on the screen without narration, but IMHO, it would have been possible to leave the fact that the Sardaukar were the ones who feared the Fremen enough to hunt them, while the Harkonnens hardly deigned to take notice of them. Unless I missed something, the movie reduced the Sardaukar to mere anonymous imperial stormtroopers, and left out the spacing guild and the reason they considered Paul a danger altogether.
And the almost out-of-left-field ending, which I won't spoil, is much different from that of the book.
While I sound disappointed with the inevitable plot changes that a movie inflicts on a novel, the film worked well for me as someone who remembers the book alongside the imagery that only a big budget movie can produce. If I had seen the movie without knowing the original, it wouldn't have made me love it as much as I do the novel. But it makes a decent companion piece to the novel.
meant to include...
The depiction of the Harkonnen's home planet, Geidi Prime, in black-and-white made quite an impressive image. As did the sandworm riding and the use of sandworms in the climactic battle.
I very much am a zealous beliver and promoter of many of the great American projects... like ever-inreasing inclusion (see http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2015/07/altruistic-horizons-our-tribal-natures.html "Altruistic Horizons: Our tribal natures, the 'fear effect' vs. inclusion... and the end of ideologies." )
...and another project... to maximally empower each person to redefine them/her/him/wut/aer/zhwee-self. Sure. Sci fi has been at the forefront. Though you do not deserve protection from absurdities being laughed at. (So, you redefine yourself as a platypus?)
Alas, the projects are HARMED, rather than helped, by shrill insistence that other perspectives are inherently evil. The irony is that this cult of tolerance and diversity is often highly intolerant toward those cultures. - 60% plus of others today and 99.9% of those in the past - who would deem these projects to be insane.
Is there irony there? Yup. As there is in the inherent Americao-chauvinism of demanding an end to every gendered instantiation in the English language... when nearly all speakers of nearly all other languages would deem that demand to be jibbering lunacy. (English is already among the least gendered languages in the history of language.)
I AM a part of the overall movement! Which is why I resent the damage done TO the movement by loons who refuse to even look at the ironies. Those who insist on forcing the world to adapt to American dreams, while howling denials that there's anything American about themselves.
@Larry and @Carolyn I suggest you take this up with a biologist of your acquaintance. They are well aware of the various chimeric and chromosomal combinations that can turn up in the various orders of life. XX? XY? XXY? WZ? Temperature?. They needed a precise definition of 'sex'. Size of an individual's gametes is what they decided on, long before 'woke' was a thing.
I do hold a suspicion that various expressions of chimerism have something to do with how gender identity can fall on a spectrum.
Tony
I do hold a suspicion that various expressions of chimerism have something to do with how gender identity can fall on a spectrum
A "spectrum" to me implies a single line
I think that "Gender identity" is far more complex than that! - it's at least two dimensions - probably three or more
It certainly isn't simple!
Are we evolving into pan-trans-cen-dimensional superbeings?
Larry,
…Geidi Prime, in black-and-white…
Not just B&W. Some of that was filmed in near infra-red. The result was B&W, but the grayscale captured is shifted to one side changing the luminescence values we typically expect with B&W.
Very neat affect.
Even more fun when overlayed with color to shift luminescence when we REALLY aren't expecting it. I'm sure more people will be doing this in the near future to avoid CGI costs.
Tony,
If so, we need to HURRY UP. Not much planet left.
Arguers re: gender et alia,
From the POV of someone with a close family member who just came out as trans, I'd say, offer the common courtesy of agreeing to term them as they wish to be termed, and recognize that however many genders or dimensions of gender there are, it's not a linear equation.
Pappenheimer
P.S. This is bringing back bad memories of high school, where a rumor apparently circulated that I was gay (not the term in use back then) and I thought to myself in frustration, "Then why do I have a crush on the Air Force Attache's daughter?" (Who apparently did try to correct this libel when she overheard it, so thanks Karen, wherever you are)
Courtesy costs nothing.
Heh! I also fell foul of vicious rumour as a teen. At least, tbose pursuing it were pretty vicious. At the time, I didn't understand why they were picking on me. In retrospect, I was a bit slow on the uptake. Yes, they called me 'poof', but their vocabulary was a bit limited: they tended to use the term as a general insult. Being a pommy bastard in the Australia of the early seventies didn't help.
Pappenheimer:
"Then why do I have a crush on the Air Force Attache's daughter?" (Who apparently did try to correct this libel when she overheard it,
That's probably why you had a crush on her. Or at least one reason.
Tony Fisk:
Size of an individual's gametes is what they decided on, long before 'woke' was a thing.
Sorry, when I said "sounds like a 'woke' thing", I meant "sounds like" in the very literal sense. Not that I suspected it was actually influenced by a recent, polarizing movement.
Still, size as the definer seems arbitrary to me. Like, if all the men were Raptured at the same time, would the woman with the smallest ova then be promoted to "male"? I realize you're relaying information, not generating it. I'm not arguing with you so much as explaining my bewilderment.
Alfred Differ re: Geidi Prime
Very neat affect
As I teenager, I once had a comic book in which the villain used a "darkflash"--like a flashlight except that the beam was darkness instead of light. So he could shine it on you and you couldn't see your surroundings. I knew that light didn't really work that way, but at the time it seemed like an awesome and actually-threatening weapon.
Cut to fifty years later and we're seeing a planet with a "black sun" and black fireworks popping in the sky. What an age we live in!
@Larry Biologists don't usually countenance rapture effects. If you do some reading up it appears that, far from being arbitrary, gamete size is the only universal definition of an individual's physical sex that holds up, irrespective of species, or chromosomal irregularities, or gender identity.
(Chill, I didn't find out about this until fairly recently either.)
To strike out in the vague direction of the current post, I wouldn't care to guess what sex these two are.
Tony Fisk:
gamete size is the only universal definition of an individual's physical sex that holds up,
Ok, looking at some of the google-search you linked to, I'm thinking that gamete size is a proxy for "which gamete infiltrates the other one during ferritization". Which makes a lot more sense to me than a mere measure of size.
One of the articles clearly states:
"It does, however, mean that gamete size, and hence sex, is not a continuum, or a spectrum; no individuals have gametes that are somewhere between eggs and sperm..."
They also make clear that size is measured strictly relative to "the other one" at the level of the species rather that at the level of the individual. One woman is not more male than another because her eggs are an angstrom smaller. Also, there's no such thing as a sperm that is so large it approaches egg-hood. A gamete is one thing or the other. Which is nobody's fault, not even the Romans'.
John Viril on the Dune banquet scene (in previous comments) :
I don't know, probably not enough action Btw, I loved that banquet scene in the book.
The movie reduced the conflict to good guys vs bad guys. The book was much more complex than that with all of the "wheels within wheels" and "plans within plans" going on. In the book, Feyd-Rautha tried to have his uncle killed, while Thufir Hawat advised both of them. The power of the banquet scene relies on observing very subtle interactions between many players, which would be admittedly difficult to depict in a film, but I wish they hadn't left it out altogether. More--that both directors (1984 and 2022) hadn't sounded so dang proud about leaving it out.
And come to think of it, the latest films left out not only the spacing guild, but the very concept of a mentat.
Vannevar Bush was a master of using shafts, gears, cams, etc. to compute at almost real time speed. Analog computers made the USN the deadliest force in history by 1945.
The main post:
Many folks have an internal monologue that is constantly commenting on everything they do,
Count me among those. I thought it just came from reading 1970s Marvel comics in which they're continually flashing back to previous issues and reprising Captain America's origin.
And come to think of it, the latest films left out not only the spacing guild, but the very concept of a mentat.
Yes, that lacked. But what I liked about the movie is that it made the Fremen more diverse in type, that it concentrated on the Missionaria Protectiva and Lady Jessica's development as much as it concentrated on Pauls'. I would even say she is the main character of both movies, not Paul.
That said, one could possible have made a full series with dozens of episodes of the first book alone.
Der Oger,
There was a Dune miniseries made. (Huh...when I reply to you I structure my sentence as if in Deutsch?) It suffered from a budget of expired lottery tickets and pocket lint, but the potential was there.
Larry,
Re: AF Attache's daughter,
I think the main reasons I had a crush on her were that she was smarter than I was, very funny, and smiled at me. Any other reasons would be subsidiary. But alas, it was not to be...
Pappenheimer
P.S. - Scidata, your comment on the 1945 USN reminded me of Midway 4 June at 10:20, where the IJN AA directors didn't even generate firing solutions until after Dauntless-dropped bombs had struck home, and the solutions were invalidated anyway by the carriers they were on making evasive turns...not that anyone else was much better in 1942. The USN was able to improve its AA defenses even before those analog computers reached the front line decks through the thoughtful application of MORE DAKKA.
“Analog computers made the USN the deadliest force in history by 1945.”
1944 off Leyte-Samar, five little destroyers – aided by 5 baby flat-tops and at great cost – stabbed, confused and literally decimated the greatest battleship/cruiser force ever assembled. With another set of such radar/computer-enhanced destroyers fast approaching, Adm. Kurita realized the US Navy of 1944 was light years beyond what it had been in 1942. He correctly decided to run away.
--- gotta see the DUne II before I am interviewed about it, on Wednesday!
Pappenheimer:
Any other reasons would be subsidiary. But alas, it was not to be...
In hindsight, probably for the best. The memory is probably better than the reality would have been, and of course, "Wanting is preferable to having. It is not logical, but it is nonetheless true." (Or something like that)
Are you familiar with Citizen Kane. A throwaway bit about seeing a girl in white with a parasol on a boat. "She never saw me. But there's not a week goes by that I don't think of that girl."
I've got my own fleeting memories that have stayed with me since forever. A Canadian girl I was just starting to talk with at Disney's River Country when her tour group announced that it was leaving right that moment. And a phantasm of a girl in a strapless bathing suit emerging from the water at a Lake Michigan beach, never seen again.
There's always Stacey, who babysat kids in my neighborhood and who I only realized later would probably have let me take her out had I the nerve to ask. And the girl I longed for all year in junior history class who hosted an AP study group at her house, and I was the first one to arrive, so she gave me a personal tour and I got to sit and talk with her alone until others arrived.
I've often kicked myself for missed opportunities, but now I can't complain about how real life turned out with my wife, or wish destiny had taken me on a different path. And the memories are still there, like a fine wine.
Dr Brin:
gotta see the DUne II before I am interviewed about it, on Wednesday!
If I had to pick a single highlight, I'd say it's the visualization of Geidi Prime, the Harkonnens' home world.
John Viril:
But what I liked about the movie is that it made the Fremen more diverse in type,
I liked the fact that they weren't uniformly reverent of the prophecies, and that there was an atheist contingent among the younger set. I did think stressing that the fundamentalists were from "the south" was a bit heavy handed, though. Almost like that Star Trek episode where the racist alien was from a planet in the southern part of the galaxy.
that it concentrated on the Missionaria Protectiva and Lady Jessica's development as much as it concentrated on Pauls'.
Yes, they went more than the book did into the potential harm that the Bene Gesserit were causing for their own purposes.
I would even say she is the main character of both movies, not Paul.
Your comment made me think and conclude that it's hard for me to say who the main character really is. For much of the early book, it seemed that Leto rather than Paul was the protagonist. By the end of the movie, one could make a case for Chani.
Paul is obviously the superhero character, but even Superman isn't always the protagonist of his stories. The 1950s tv series was really the adventures of Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen, and Superman was more of a plot device to get them out of trouble.
Larry,
You are quite right, but I read "Jurgen" many many years ago, and the eponymous "hero" of the novel declares that he has become a "monstrous clever fellow" by deciding it's better to admire the image and illusion than to pursue and possibly encounter the reality. I didn't like him then, and I don't like him now. That's the regret - to never find out what might have been. (I suspect it's better that we don't have the option to do a Monte Carlo run of our personal lives.) Even Sir Richard Francis Burton*, a man who probably got more action than everyone of any gender on this list combined, always dreamed of his once-viewed Persian girl.
*think 19th C. 007, but for real. For some pretty accurate details, read Riverworld, but he has a good biography or two out as well. His wife burnt most of his personal memoirs, probably stirring them vigorously in the fireplace.
Pappenheimer
Pappenheimer:
That's the regret - to never find out what might have been. (I suspect it's better that we don't have the option to do a Monte Carlo run of our personal lives.)
I would give much to be able to live out Marvel "What If?" versions of my past in which reality diverged by my getting the particular girl. However, those would be limited stories with an ending, and then back to reality (or an altogether different alternate).
The rub being that "finding out what might have been" in the real world also means finding out what then wouldn't have been. And for all of my bittersweet memories of unrequited desire, I cannot wish that I hadn't been free to meet my wife when the time came. Other possible futures might have been good, but I can't see how they would have been better.
Sir Richard Francis Burton*,
...
*think 19th C. 007, but for real.
I learned of him first from an Alan Sherman parody of "Won't You Come Home, Bill Bailey", about the British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli.
You claim official business took you away
To Egypt, and Bombay, and Rome.
Well, I ain't so certain,
'Cause you're the nineteenth century Richard Burton.
Disraeli, won't you please come home?
The Roman dodecoahendron mystery. S Whistler is good. But... What? Never mentioned the arrow-straightener theory? Still, the one common trait is the bulb-knobs. Ideal for attaching string. So whatever it was, it was likely suspended from 12 directions in a much bigger frame-and strings arrangement.... and the wooden frames and strings are long gone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxZN0Cpy-2k
I have never seen an attempt to set up such a holder web for these things, so it might be ripe for some hobbyist to try it.
Only then... what? What would such a thing DO?
---
Scarlet Johanson's parady of Katie Britt's knumbskull SOTU 'rebuttal' was brilliant. How does she do it?
Blogger Larry Hart said...
"Tony Fisk:
"'Sex' has a precise biological definition, and it's not what is popularly thought. It's not about chromosomes, but gamete size. 'Male' are small (and compensating?). 'Female' are large."
But sperm and eggs are completely different things. They're not just larger or smaller versions of each other. Making size the issue sounds like one of those "woke" things, pretending that all gametes are interchangeable."
One thing left out of Tony's description that is important, males produce small mobile gametes while females produce large immobile gametes. Your later later remarks about which one "infiltrates" the other and small vs large being relative to each other are right on target.
Various intersex conditions and similar are not different sexes, in the biological sense of the word "sex." No matter the condition the person produces either sperm or ova, or neither. In some rare instances an organism might produce both, a hermaphrodite, but there is no case on record in which a human hermaphrodite produced both viable sperm and ova. In any case a hermaphrodite is still not a different sex. It's a rare condition in which an organism has the systems necessary to produce both male and female gametes.
The reason the biological definition of sex is what it is, is because that's the way sexually reproducing organisms on Earth work. Two, and two only, different types of gametes that combine in a process that results in a new genome that includes some of the genome from each of the different gametes.
Secondary (and tertiary, +++) sexual characteristics are something else. And of course there is no good reason at all to derive social prescriptions from the fact that biological sex is binary. That is a well known ancient fallacy, usually called the naturalistic fallacy. Everyone should be treated with a certain minimum respect and not be discriminated against socially or legally. But neither should facts be denied because some people use them to justify bad behavior or ethically despicable views.
I need to push back on people who ignorantly speak of the imagined "gamete size" of intersex people. I have an intersex friend. At age 17, when there still were no signs of puberty beginning, the medical team investigating the problem discovered that "she" had no ovaries, no testes, no uterus, no vagina. No sex organs whatsoever and obviously no gametes. However, thanks to surgery and taking hormones, she has been happily married for many years.
It would be a courtesy to those who benefit from surgery and hormones to become the sex that they feel they are, to accept that it is none of anyone else's business why they do this. My friend confided to me and I accepted happily that modern medicine gave her the life she desired. But she was under no obligation to tell anyone why she is who she wanted to be.
"1944 off Leyte-Samar, five little destroyers..." 'Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors' by James Hornfischer is an outstanding book on that episode of the Pacific war.
JRiese
We are creatures of our time. Einstein was surrounded by trains and clocks in 1905. Asimov was immersed in early computers in the 1940s, possibly with military acquaintances.
Asimov's favourite story (I think) was "The Last Question". In it, he described a supercomputer (God, actually) called Multivac*. He borrowed/extended the name from Univac (UNIVersal Automatic Computer). Turing and von Neumann straightened out the sharp digital definition, but Asimov may have conflated them at times, even up to his Radio Shack commercial days. I did too, as my earliest home-made systems were all discrete transistor and op-amp analog designs (only the rich could afford digital computers back then).
* The Multivac Wikipedia page says, "His later short story "The Last Question", however, expands the AC suffix to be "analog computer". However, I don't see that direct definition in the copy I have.
scidata:
...called Multivac*. He borrowed/extended the name from Univac (UNIVersal Automatic Computer).
Ramping "uni-something" up a notch to "multi-something" plays on the fact that "uni" sounds to the ear like it refers to the number one, not to the word "universal".
That reminds me of the fact that the "bi" in "bikini" sounds as if it refers to the bathing suit having two pieces. My dad explained that the word was actually derived from Bikini Atoll, but the other way makes too much sense for mere coincidence. "How much longer can I go on being an atheist?"
I saw Dune 2 this weekend. I really like Denis Villeneuve and I had high hopes for both Dune and Dune 2 based on his filmography to date. Dune 2 is visually and aurally stunning and well worth seeing in a theater to get the best experience. Unless you happen to have a $50K plus home theater setup.
As far as casting, dialogue, acting, directing, costumes, effects, etc., I'd say they all range from good to excellent. Overall one of the better science fiction movies made to date, IMO. Nevertheless, I couldn't help but be a little disappointed.
I can't say whether or not my disappointment is warranted. I'm biased by having read the books, many times. I understand that differences in the two media make it impossible for a movie to follow a book closely, that changes are inevitable, but I did not like several of the changes that were made, and I'm not convinced that they were necessary or beneficial in order to translate the book material into a good movie.
Dune 2 Thoughts Continued . . .
Spoilers follow.
Some of the differences that I dislike have to do with character portrayal. Chani, and many of her young peers, portrayed as an atheist rebel that scorned the Fremen religion and prophecies planted by the Missionaria Protectiva, referring to believers as fundamentalists. Including the vast numbers of Fremen of the Southern Tribes. The only reason I can think of for this change from the book is to make a statement about current affairs. I see nothing beneficial to this change.
Worse, Stilgar is portrayed as a fanatic as Paul ticks off box after box of the prophecy. Stilgar may indeed be fairly called a religious fundamentalist by our current real life standards, but he never succumbed to being Paul's mindless sycophant. This is key to the relationship between Stilgar and Paul, especially later in the story. Stilgar was a believer and loyal, but never a mindless sycophant. Again with the cavalierly sacrificing one of the most important characters of the story to make statements about current affairs.
A few other things.
Reverend Mother Mohiam saying she orchestrated the extermination of the Atreides because she decided that their bloodline was no good. No big deal I guess, but completely at odds with the Bene Gesserit Kwizatz Haderach breeding program as described in the books, and what purpose does it serve? Showing us that Mohiam, and the Bene Gesserit collectively, is a horrible meddlesome person? She was, and largely responsible for the whole mess that is Dune. But there are plenty of ways to show that without contradicting a key element of the book story.
Paul killing the Baron? Why? A cliche, gratuitous revenge scene? To show how merciless Paul has become? Much better to stick to the book by having Alia kill him. Particularly powerful when later (Dune 3?) the Baron in turn gets his revenge on Alia by possessing her.
Dune 2, Even More . . .
More spoilers follow.
And speaking of Alia, why change the time of her birth? She is in the movie, as a fetus that communicates a few times, but not yet born. I think it would have been great to have her in the post battle scenes as in the book, fucking with Mohiam, dispatching the Baron, dispatching the wounded like any good Fremen child (though she really wasn't) should post-battle.
And Jessica pushing Paul to take the Water of Life? Why make that change? To demonstrate how manipulative she was?
And Paul's relationship with the Fremen, what he brought to the table other than just his status as their long awaited prophet. In the movie they show Paul learning the ways of the Fremen, but they don't show that Paul trained the Fremen how to fight in "the weirding way," thus turning them into a force cable of defeating all comers. This was a key aspect of the relationship, between Paul and the Fremen. His ability as a fighter was at least as important, if not more, than the prophecy itself in enabling him to gradually rise from an outsider to the leader of all the Fremen. He and Lady Jessica training the Fremen is like one of the three legs of the tripod that the whole story rests on.
And speaking of that, it was never clearly depicted in the movies that the reason the Emperor was motivated to eliminate House Atreides is because they had developed a military capability to rival the Sardaukar in all but size. That's what the Emperor was afraid of, that's what Paul gave to the Fremen, and that's what did in fact do the Emperor in.
And where was the Spacing Guild?
And Paul's journey of becoming a fully realized Kwizatz Haderach, and from lost in the desert to becoming Emperor. In the book Paul was horrified by his glimpses of possible futures from the very beginning. They portrayed this in the movie, but what wasn't portrayed was that once Paul drank the Water of Life and fully enabled his ability to see possible futures that he saw no way to avoid the jihad, and that there was much worse ahead. The almost certain extinction of the human race. This is critical to the story. This is what makes Paul such a tragic figure later in the story. He can see a path, a long brutal path, that avoids extinction, but it is so awful and requires such an awful personal sacrifice that he can never fully commit himself to the path. He's ultimately a failure, leaving it to his son to take the path instead. Perhaps that will be portrayed in the next movie? The way this movie portrays it Paul was dismayed by his knowledge of the jihad but decided to go to war anyway merely for revenge, personal survival and to fulfill his prophecy obligations to the Fremen.
But other than that, I loved it.
Carolyn Meinel,
Push back on people if you like, but you are wrong about the science. And you are being wrong to no good purpose. You are pushing back against your allies in seeking respect and dignity for people like your friend. And among other things you are switching from one meaning of sex to another in the same conversation while pretending they are the same.
How on Earth you or anyone thinks the facts of biological sex, as in the term sex as defined in the science of biological reproduction, inherently has anything to say about whether or not people like your friend should be treated fairly and with dignity, and with sympathy for their personal travails, really is beyond me. What you are actually doing by insisting on your point of view is agreeing to the terms of the argument your opponents have defined.
Your opponents argue "it isn't natural," invoking the naturalistic fallacy, and you say "but it is natural," also invoking the naturalistic fallacy and thereby arguing on their terms. Whatever nature is, that's what it is. They ways we choose to behave towards each other are something different, separate. I think a much better answer is, arguing about the nature of it is non sequitur, simply assert that everyone should be treated the same before the law, and with a certain minimum respect and dignity socially. Nature doesn't have to support that, we simply decide, collectively, that that's the way we want it to be.
Larry Hart: "uni" sounds to the ear like it refers to the number one, not to the word "universal"
I read somewhere that Asimov thought UNIVAC referred to a computer with one vacuum tube!
@Darrell E on Dune
I have some responses for you. I'll try to keep them short, so as not to hog this blog, but in the meantime, suffice to say I am very much in agreement with most of your disappointment over specific changes to the story in the film.
One that you did not mention (unless I find it when I re-read your essays above) is the switch in the intrigue surrounding Feyd-Rautha's gladiator fight. In the book, the un-drugged opponent was Feyd's own idea, giving his uncle some unpleasant moments watching the fight. In the movie, it was the Baron's own idea and surprised Feyd. As you may guess, I liked the book way better.
UNOVAC?
Americans are terrible at our own language*, but we get some amusing words out of the confusion.
Like "monokini".
* We aren't entirely to blame. English is a mongrel language. It's the one I think about when our host described 'wolflings' in the uplift novels. Mathematics is an analog for one of the galactic languages... at least to my ear.
Someone is going to have to explain to me what happens to Margot Fenring's bastard daughter she had with Feyd. That was a major loose end that Herbert never tied up.
And Thufir is underused in all of the visual adaptions.
A few changes to the book that I liked:
Herbert never really says how they retrieve the Atreides family atomics that they use against the Shield Wall, so I'm glad this was spelled out.
Feyd having a dream about Margot before he meets her makes sense if Feyd is also a potential Kwizatz Haderach.
Chani being the main focus instead of Paul is a good way to avoid "white savior syndrome" - not acceptable to today's audiences.
P.S. Thank Shai Hulud ther were no weirding modules.
Alfred Differ:
Like "monokini".
I almost mentioned that above. Because I remember when topless "monokini's" were a thing, and the meaning of the term was obvious. My dad wrecked it for me by explaining that the "bi" in "bikini" was coincidence. But come on! The whole defining characteristic of the bikini is that it is a two-piece. How could the "bi" prefix not be intentional?
If it weren't for the damn weirding modules, I would really like the 1984 David Lynch version.
What nobody remembers are the SciFi channels Dune and Children of Dune (with Messiah) mini-series from the early 2000s. They actually followed the story line rather well but suffered from a lack of production budget - they looked cheap.
But all in all, the Children of Dune mini series is highly underrated.
And then there is never made 1970s Jaderowsky's LSD acid trip version. Highly recommend the documentary. I can only imagine what the Pink Floyd soundtrack would have been like.
Nice little video comparing the casting for the Jaderowsky, Lynch and Villeneuve.
https://www.google.com/search?q=proposed+casting+for+jaderowsky%27s+dune&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS720US720&oq=proposed+casting+for+jaderowsky%27s+dune&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIJCAEQIRgKGKABMgcIAhAhGJ8FMgcIAxAhGJ8FMgcIBBAhGJ8F0gEKMTI2MDFqMGoxNagCALACAA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:11df8a35,vid:x9e6-NEJ9jU,st:0
Orson Wells would have been the perfect Baron (though Herbert obviously modeled him on noir actor Sidney Greenstreet, just as Piter was modeled on Peter Lorre).
Mick Jagger would have made an interesting Feyd.
But Alice Krieg (aka the Borg Queen) of the SFC CoD miniseries is the best Lady Jessica.
Favorite character: tie - Gurney and Stilgar (never did like pretty boy Duncan)
Then there's Borat's 'man-kini'... yipe
"They also had a tradition that the first human being was both."
IIRC Eve was not made from Adam's rib, she was made from his (now missing) baculum (or penile bone) since most mammal males have a baculum.
DP yipe! Learn something every day. WHat a bizarre thought.
Larry Hart,
Yes, completely agree about the gladiator fight, but I didn't mention it above. I can't see any reason why that change might be beneficial in any way. It changes the character of the Baron and Feyd and their relationship compared to the book, but I don't see any advantage to it. And the scene in the book when the Baron confronts Feyd about the incident would have been great to further show their relationship. And the scene where Feyd almost manages to kill the Baron with the carefully prepared slave boy.
Darrell E:
It changes the character of the Baron and Feyd and their relationship compared to the book,
Most of the character changes that I don't care for seem to be in the service of pigeonholing the players into "good guys" and "bad guys". The interplay in the book was way more complex than that, and that's part of what makes the novel what it is.
Surprised that nobody is celebrating OPPENHEIMER's wins last night. That's the best indicator of the strength of American pride, pax, and enlightenment we've seen in a while. And the only worms are in magabrains.
Larry,
The bikini was named for Bikini Atoll - the very same island that was blasted off the map by a nuclear bomb test.
Paul SB
Larry,
Evidently I missed the spot where you mentioned Bikini Atoll. Oops.
Paul SB
Darrell E:
SPOILERS abound.
Chani, and many of her young peers, portrayed as an atheist rebel that scorned the Fremen religion and prophecies planted by the Missionaria Protectiva, ...The only reason I can think of for this change from the book is to make a statement about current affairs.
I wonder if it had more to do with the idea that a movie audience wouldn't accept a completely credulous culture as being plausible. That may be true, too. Like the complaints about Watchmen that a supposed-alien threat wouldn't really bring peace on earth for more than a fortnight.
Reverend Mother Mohiam saying she orchestrated the extermination of the Atreides because she decided that their bloodline was no good. No big deal I guess, but completely at odds with the Bene Gesserit Kwizatz Haderach breeding program as described in the books,
Paul's ascension would seem to disprove the idea that the Atreides bloodline had no value. The only way I can square that is to say that the Reverend Mother was lying. That jealousy or something of that sort was her real motivation, and the bit about the Atreides being weak was a rationalization.
Paul killing the Baron? Why? A cliche, gratuitous revenge scene?
I'd suspect that very thing. And it kinda degrades the climactic battle with Feyd-Rautha if he's already killed the Baron. Especially since Feyd doesn't have the benefit of the emperor's poisoned blade in the film.
To show how merciless Paul has become?
Not sure if anyone caught this, but before Paul kills the Baron, he says something like, "Hello, Grandfather." In the novel, IIRC, Paul envisioned a possible future in which he greets Baron Harkonnen with those very words. So maybe they were saying that the movie timeline was one of the alternates that the novel's Paul could have travelled down.
At least they didn't pull an Anakin Skywalker, "He's my grandfather, so there must be good in him."
Much better to stick to the book by having Alia kill him.
I get why the movie makers didn't want to try to portray a toddler who acts like an adult. But I agree that the Baron's death should come from a surprisingly unexpected source instead of the obvious. And Paul is going to fight Feyd-Rautha to the death, so having him also kill the Baron seems too much.
Finally, I'm not going to repeat your paragraphs about how the movie Paul didn't bring anything to the table to improve the Fremen, but was simply absorbed into their culture, or that the movie ignored the emperor's motivation for aiding the Harkonnens. I'll just say I wholeheartedly agree.
Paul SB:
The bikini was named for Bikini Atoll
And in a "Beanie and Cecil" cartoon, they visited the No-Bikini Atoll. Heh.
Paul SB:
The bikini was named for Bikini Atoll - the very same island that was blasted off the map by a nuclear bomb test.
Which in a weird bit of synchronicity ties Barbie to Oppenheimer.
"How much longer can I go on being an atheist?"
@scidata like the Itchy and Scratchy Movie, Oppenheimer's long gone from cinemas and the public mind. Dune2's still there.
@Carolyn your friend sounds an interesting case. From what you describe, I could not identify her sex, but I'm glad she's found her gender niche.
However, the way you use her example echoes the 'gotcha' tactics used by fundamentalists to disprove evolution.
Ha! An eye either works or it doesn't! No one can explain how it could evolve through gradual changes.
Ha! How can bombardier beetles survive while gradually acquiring the means to mix two volatile chemicals?
Ha! So everyone's sex is determined by gamete size? Here's someone with no gametes...
As Dawkins explains in 'Climbing Mount Improbable', these tactics rely on presenting a problem in such a way that there is no obvious solution. They can be particularly effective when no one ghas considered tbe problem before (there being only so many biology postgrads available to tie on Truth's bootlaces...)
As it happens, the evolution of the eye and the bombardier beetle are now well understood.
Not that I'm saying you're being disingenuous with your example. It's an interesting case, and I haven't got an answer. Yet.
That doesn't mean there is no answer. It certainly doesn't mean I'm changing my mind.
Hi gang. Short on time, but the world is once again sufficiently crazy that I'm drawn back...
On Dune part 2 -- have not seen, but a few points I can extrapolate from the first movie (which I did watch again recently). Villeneuve has chosen to show a few aspects of the plot and show them well, rather than spread himself too thin. Politics, religion, psychic powers, and the environment made the cut.
Mentats largely did not; Hawat is shown doing a calculation in the very first scene, but the aspect where Paul is able to accurately perceive probable futures via Mentat skills is cut. Since the Mentat angle largely exists to emphasize the lack of AI, it's an understandable choice.
It's a slightly larger thing to ignore the Spacing Guild, but it's not absolutely necessary to go into depth there. The key is to know that they're part of the Establishment, and *all* components of the Establishment are irreversibly overdependent on melange. The social and economic powers, the nobility, the transportation function of the Guild, the Bene Gesserit. The only ways the Guild is distinctive to the plot are:
(1) The Fremen bribe the Guild to keep satellites out of Arakkeen orbits (to hide their population and their terraforming projects). The Baron notes the lack of satellites in dialogue.
(2) The Guild is part of the trap for the Atreides, as a false-flag operation gives them the excuse to strand all ducal forces on the planet. This can be implied without much effort.
(3) The Guild uses prescience, though in a highly focused and completely different manner than Paul does (or the Bene Gesserit do, for that matter). This makes them especially easy for Paul to bring to heel, as he doesn't even need to act to threaten them -- merely making a loss of spice flow probable is enough to throw them for a loop (because all futures leading to the end of spice go blank).
In short, the Guild's only deep value is to give more insight into the nature of Paul's powers -- which is better done with visuals anyway, in this medium.
In short, Villeneuve made cutting decisions that made sense for his available resources. Those decisions were different than those made in the miniseries, which I also respected. The miniseries had far less in terms of visuals, settings, and special effects to offer; I sometimes felt as if I were watching a stage play with obvious backdrops being overly obvious... but the miniseries had the luxury of runtime to get the little details right. (For instance, the miniseries had the *only* attempt at portraying the infamous Dinner Scene; it wasn't perfect, but it was a valiant execution.)
To summarize the summary of the summary: give the cast and crew a break. It's a major achievement to get something even this authentic.
Larry,
"How much longer can I go on being an atheist?"
- For the rest of your life. It's all random. If you have time for it, you might check out The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives, by Leonard Mlodinow. Read the first couple chapters and the last couple. Most of the middle is a whole lot of history of math that really wasn't necessary. But there's enough in there to shoot down the basic Social Darwinism that cements our society, and the foolishness of claiming that people get what they deserve.
https://www.amazon.com/The-Drunkards-Walk-audiobook/dp/B001BSJHRC/ref=sr_1_1?crid=NXORWGQLHVRE&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.Vfh5lGoPZmFDk6ghZYpbwOhl_nRdlHZ7IZmQ6ybUpZmwFgMvCqtSXBB4ct-Z2OO9.gIafqACIRuj1226IUsV9W3LOIlo7R6nYbgscOIBbzYQ&dib_tag=se&keywords=the+drunkard%27s+walk+how+randomness+rules+our+lives&qid=1710204406&sprefix=the+drunkard%27s%2Caps%2C301&sr=8-1
Paul SB
Paul SB:
"How much longer can I go on being an atheist?"
I've explained this before, but of course everyone isn't here for every post and even those who are can't be expected to remember everything.
The quoted line above is from Kurt Vonnegut's Hocus Pocus. The narrator character says that every time he observes a coincidence. He means it ironically, although perhaps with a bit of kidding on the square.
I always put it in quotes because it's meant to be an allusion.
Just now came home from seeing the flick. (I am interviewed about it Weds so I had to rush it.). Hence I had skipped earlier spoilers. But:
“Chani, and many of her young peers, portrayed as an atheist rebel that scorned the Fremen religion and prophecies planted by the Missionaria Protectiva, ...The only reason I can think of for this change from the book is to make a statement about current affairs.”
It’s also to set up tension for a third flick, urging them to get back together.
The Kwizats aspect was downplayed so much that it almost vanished… and there were almost NO transcendence vision scenes when he took the blue waters. He just opened his eyes. Weird choice.
Most glaring… where the heck is Alia? I mean foreshadowed out the wazoo! And then… what?
Catfish welcome back. Yes to all that. What is hard to grasp is the incredibly silly notion that Duke Leto would have given up his power base on Calladan when taking over Arrakis. The Harkonnens never had to. But then, the entire spatio-political setup in Frank’s universe makes no sense at all, except as a sermon on the persistence of feudalism and religion.
The only way all the ‘prescience’ crap makes any sense is if the Butlerian Jihad failed and we are all in a Matrix. THEN the system might be hacked to provide predictive glimpses.
Gives you the dry heaves:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ERa9Ftc0yeM&si=h5GnhbrL76TSkH-u&fbclid=IwAR3_yqQ_yFPziKCFbq8amEOEE8tPG2eke7BtKqTtb-JBPnnxSLu4skpLJ9M
I'll be seeing it this Thursday, but I'll be there mostly for the sandworms.
Herbert bought into the myth that 'harsh surroundings make elite soldiers' so hard. If that were the case, the Inuit and the Kalahari Saan would have divvied up the Earth between them long ago. If anyone wants to argue with me on this, read start with:
https://acoup.blog/2020/01/17/collections-the-fremen-mirage-part-i-war-at-the-dawn-of-civilization/
Of course, Herbert is basing his future history on the Islamic overrun of much of the Near East using desert tribesmen (i.e. cityless 'barbarians'*). If this were the rule, rather than the exception, you'd expect farmers to never be able to encroach on their less civilized neighbors - and yet, we're basically all farmers these days.
The only way to make this work is if the Guild of Navigators gave exclusive 'air/space superiority' to Muad-Dib's Jehadists AND if every Fremen is worth @ 100-1500 regular militia dudes* in a straight fight. (Arrakis is One Planet, and Paul's Jehad is not described as concentrating on conquering a single planet at a time, but overrunning multiple planets simultaneously AND leaving garrisons.) But I guess I should leave these complaints for the next movie...
Pappenheimer
* sorry - and dudettes, assuming anyone that can pick up a knife can be drafted
Hmmm - would massive spice consumption possible give an advantage in personal combat, allowing one to see fractional seconds into the future? I don't remember if Herbert mentioned or even alluded to this, but that would give Paul an army of Jedi.
Still not enough...but slightly better odds.
Pappenheimer
almost SF
"Use the spice, Luke."
Palpatine as a sandworm would justify the size of a star destroyer...
Hmmm - would massive spice consumption possible give an advantage in personal combat, allowing one to see fractional seconds into the future?
Paul never saw THE future, he saw many timelines and chose what he thought was best. Turns out he was wrong and his son Leto II had to correct his father's mistakes with the Golden Path (which was horrible but ensure the permanent survival of mankind).
Crunching the numbers on Paul's Jihad:
After his successful invasion of Arrakis, the Baron mentions to Nefud that there are 5,000,000 people living on Arrakis. By this he means the people of the towns and villages. He is later stunned to hear from Thufir Hawat that the Fremen account for at least an additional 10,000,000. Given a total population of 15,000,000 on a planet as harsh as Arrakis, it is reasonable to assume that a typical world of the empire has a population much larger - perhaps by as much as an order of magnitude. An average planet's population could therefore be approximately 150,000,000.
In "Appendix II The religion of Dune", there is an indication that the number of Landsraad worlds was approximately 13,000 (80,000,000 dead in rioting at an average of approximately 6,000 per world). This religious rioting occurred during the CET conference immediately before the establishment of the Guild monopoly on space travel (circa first century BG). The Fremen jihad occurred approximately 103 centuries later. During this time we can assume continued steady growth of the empire. Given the socially rigid and technologically conservative nature of the Corrino empire, this growth was probably gradual instead of exponential. It would be reasonable to assume an empire of 15,000 to 20,000 heavily and moderately populated worlds by the time of Muad'Dib. Not included in this total are all of the small colonies, smuggler bases, research facilities, etc. which could bring the total number of inhabited worlds to about 100,000. I believe a reasonable estimate of the empire's population at the start of the Fremen jihad would therefore be approximately 30,000,000,000,000 (30 trillion).
With a total population of 15 million Fremen and converted townspeople (who fought alongside the Fremen in the Battle of Arrakeen), Arrakis would appear at first glance to have too small a population base to launch a major war of conquest. Given the warlike nature of the Fremen and their minimal logistical needs it is quite possible that Muad'Dib could field a force of 5 million. During WWII Great Britain achieved a similarly high ratio of soldiers to civilians. It is also reasonable to assume that Fremen women fought alongside the men, greatly increasing the available pool of recruits (and providing the origins of the Fish Speakers).
A typical legion of the time represented an infantry force of about 30,000 soldiers. The "tail" to the legions "teeth" would include logistics, engineering, medical, staff, communications, other support battalions, pacification cadres, Qizarate missionaries, propagandists, clerks, accountants, spies (and spies on the spies) - as described by Stilgar in his Zabulon computations. On average, a legion and its support formations would probably number approximately 50,000. An army of 5 million would therefore be able to field approximately 100 legions.
A typical Landsraad planetary defense force probably equaled 1 to 2 legions per world. Thufir Hawat never expected the Harkonnens and Sarduakar to invade Arrakis with a force larger than 10 brigades (1 legion equivalent). The 10 legions used to attack House Atreides on Arrakis was an incredibly large and expensive force by contemporary standards. The small sizes of the Landsraad military establishments was dictated by the cost of arming the mostly mercenary Landsraad forces and the great expense of Guild transport.
(cont.)
The Fremen faced no such financial constraints. Being religiously motivated volunteers made them considerably cheaper than Landsraad mercenaries. Guild transport was free since Muad'Dib controlled the spice. Conversely, the Fremen's opponents would be denied Guild transport and be isolated on their individual worlds, unable to coordinate a common defense or shift resources to meet a new Fremen offensive.
Korba mentions that the 12 year long jihad had brought 10,000 worlds into "the shining light" of Muad'Dib's religion. This is probably a round number and not a precise figure since all but a fraction of mankind had been conquered by the jihad. Assuming the number of worlds conquered by the jihad is closer to 14,000, the Fremen would have to conquer an average of nearly 1,200 worlds per year or 100 per month.
If the Harkonen/Sarduakar invasion of Arrakis is any indication, this may not be as improbable as it sounds. The defeat of House Atreides by an overwhelming invasion force was accomplished in a matter of days or weeks. A military force of 100 legions with unlimited transport could attempt it.
More realistically, it can be assumed that only a small percentage of the Fremen legions were actively engaged in combat at any one time. However, this is counter balanced by the fact that many planets and their ruling houses could see after the first wave of Fremen conquests that resistance was futile. Most would probably surrender, publicly embrace Muad'Dib's religion, and accept a token Fremen garrison. Many Great Houses probably saved their skins in this way, surviving until Alia's regency. The vast majority of the 61 billion civilian casualties (0.2% of the estimated imperial population of 30 trillion) cited by Paul probably occurred during the first years of the jihad.
Tougher opponents such as the Ixian Confederacy or Zabulon would be either co-opted by negotiations or crushed with overwhelming force in a short brutal campaign (30 legions were used to conquer Zabulon). Post conquest peace would be maintained by pacification cadres, the Qizarate priesthood, native militias commanded by Fremen officers, locally recruited constabularies and the occasional Fremen garrison. Given the number of planets conquered by the jihad, it would be a rare world which had a Fremen garrison larger than one brigade.
Pappenheimer:
I'll be there mostly for the sandworms.
I went mostly for the spectacle, and yes, the sandworms were an image that did not disappoint.
When the first Tobey Maguire Spider-Man movie came out, fans noted that, although they had previously pictured Spider-Man swinging from building to building, it was amazing how well the speed was depicted on screen. The same goes for this movie with sandworm riding.
Shades of Hamilton :
How does a rag-tag volunteer army in need of a shower
Somehow defeat a global superpower?
One bit glaringly missing from the movie was the Sardaukar as anything other than reserve stormtroopers on the Harkonnen side. No feel at all for the importance their presence meant in the battle, or for what an unbelievable thing it was for the Fremen to defeat them.
Larry Hart,
And, as you mentioned earlier, that the Sardaukar recognized the threat posed by the fighting capabilities of the Fremen. They were worried enough that they continued to hunt down Fremen for the entire period from when House Atreides was wiped out to when the Emperor was defeated.
@Alan Brooks,
That link of yours to Trump's campaign ad (or "ADD" as it says in the copy) would be hilarious if it didn't have real world consequences. I didn't make it through the whole thing, so I don't know if there's a punch line. But every thing it implies or outright says of Democrats is really a description of Trump himself. Like showing Biden while lamenting, "Dreams of ABSOLUTE POWER" at the same time Trump is making the legal case that he himself has absolute power.
Darrell E:
They were worried enough that they continued to hunt down Fremen
In the movie, the Fremen tell Paul that he's too full of himself because the invaders aren't looking for him, they're looking for us. That should have been an indication that the Sardaukar were pursuing a separate agenda. It was so in the book, but in the movie, it was just Rabban's soldiers pursuing Fremen. Meh.
My 2 cents on DUNE
I see history (and pre-history) in computational terms. Dune's religious fanaticism explicitly forbade the creation of thinking machines. So, I had a hard time rooting for the Fremen when I read the first few books during my long commutes to a summer job way backwhen. It reminded me of the bright hope then tragic brutality of the Reign of Terror.
Pre-revolution France was enamoured of numeracy and computation by the likes of Descartes, Fermat, Pascal, Laplace, Jacquard (his patent was based on earlier work by others). Ampère's father was guillotined. Even Napoleon was an artilleryman, superficially interested in computation (and later in Laplace's orrery). Post-Napoleon France went in a more romanticist direction (to vastly simplify and generalize).
However, Québec never took the 1789 off-ramp. New France has always fascinated me, from an early girlfriend (similar story to those told by others up-thread) to Denis Villeneuve. In 1970, a team at the U de Montréal sketched out the PROLOG language, which was the template of early A.I. (GOFAI). Japan once adopted PROLOG as their main A.I. language for a time. Canada punches far above its weight in A.I., largely in the Waterloo-Québec corridor, which is the remains of New France in a sense. Villeneuve is a product of that society. Maybe that's why he appears repeatedly on Colbert's show.
scidata:
Dune's religious fanaticism explicitly forbade the creation of thinking machines. So, I had a hard time rooting for the Fremen when I read the first few books
Hmmm. I'm more familiar with the first novel than any of the others, but I never connected the Butlerian Jihad with the Fremen in particular.
Did it strike you as a parody at first?
@Alan Brooks,
Yes, the Trump "ADD" felt like it could be a parody. More to the point, it could have been commissioned by the Lincoln Project or some other Never-Trump group to be an anti-Trump ad disguised as pro-Trump.
Since I gave up a third of the way through, I don't know if the ending clarified its intent.
More on Dune 2 . . .
I've read several reviews to get some other viewpoints on the movie, and something I picked up on is that Denis Villeneuve has apparently said that he wants to make it clear that Paul is not a hero. As some may have heard before Herbert was disappointed that so many viewed Paul as a hero and that Dune Messiah, was written* to try and disabuse that view of Paul as a hero. Supposedly several of the changes compared to the book are for that purpose, making it clear that Paul is not a hero. In particular Chani and her "atheist" fellows are intended as a pointer to make it clear that Paul has chosen to accept the mantle of Prophet, take the throne, and embark on the path of jihad for bad reasons.
I never thought of Paul as a hero. I always thought of him as a tragic figure, perhaps the most tragic figure in literature, ever. I can certainly accept that many see him as a hero. After all in the books it was clear that Paul was very decent, particularly compared to the typical nobleperson in his universe, that he hated and feared the futures that he saw and that he was simply trying to do the best he could in choosing the least bad paths to take. He wasn't evil, he was simply an otherwise normal human cursed with an ability that allowed him to see horrible things that couldn't be avoided.
And I can understand that Denis Villeneuve decided he wanted to make it clear that Paul was no Hero. Not even in the tragic hero sense. But, what I can't see is how that could be done without altering the story so drastically that it is simply a very different story. The central premise that all of Herbert's story is based on, from Dune to Chapter House, is that humankind is on an unavoidable path of blood, misery and death, and bound for extinction. And that a person with a new ability to see the landscape of possible futures sees this and tries to find a way to avoid it. He fails because he can't bring himself to fully embark on the one horrible path that could avoid extinction, but his son, with the same ability, does take that path to save humanity. So I've got to wonder how Herbert could write that and then be upset that people would be sympathetic to Paul and Leto II. You wrote the story of two people that sacrificed their lives attempting to save humanity from extinction.
If you don't want Paul to be seen as a tragic hero then you have to throw away that central premise that Herbert spent six novels writing about. That's fine, nothing wrong with telling a different story based on Herbert's Dune novels. But I think the original is a better story. It's more unique, more grand. The tack the movie takes makes it all seem cliche, mundane. Man succumbs to the siren song of great power and uses it to get revenge on his enemies and take over the universe, careless of the deaths that will entail.
But hey, like I said earlier, I really liked the movie. And I am strongly biased by long association with the books, and I am aware of that.
Again, overall I think Dune 2 is one of the best science fiction movies made to date. But if it were up to me I would have made some different choices that would have made the movie even better. For me, at least.
*Supposedly Herbert's originally plan did not include "Dune Messiah". Children of Dune was originally planned to be the sequel to Dune.
@Larry Hart
Yes, I'm not strong on the Dune timeline or larger story, I just have an innate suspicion of noble savage stories. They're often thinly veiled fascist fairy tales.
scidata:
I'm not strong on the Dune timeline or larger story,
Oh, I'm not either. My feeling toward the original novel Dune vs "The extended Dune saga" is the same as my feeling toward the 1977 Star Wars vs "The Star Wars saga".
And I don't think that's coincidence. In both cases, I get the impression that the author was most interested in telling the story of the extended saga, but started off with a crowd-pleasing boys' adventure story to whet readers' or viewers' appetites.
Just a clarification for those trying to untangle French history:
New France is really a continuance of Old (Monarchist) France. Not the republique.
Can’t tell. Might be for real, as this film is:
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/doan_in_theater-poster-publicity-p_2018.jpg
And I don't think that's coincidence. In both cases, I get the impression that the author was most interested in telling the story of the extended saga, but started off with a crowd-pleasing boys' adventure story to whet readers' or viewers' appetites.
What makes the first book so delicious is that it plays with your preconceptions without lying or withholding information from the reader. It is all there: Pauls coming Jyhad, the Machinations of the participant feudal houses and the Bene Gesserit and so on.
But then, the entire spatio-political setup in Frank’s universe makes no sense at all, except as a sermon on the persistence of feudalism and religion.
What puzzles me somewhat is that while Herbert uses traditional titles like Duke, Baron, Count etc, it is indicated that they do not follow the same hierarchy. A Duke is several stations above a Count, which is normally of higher rank than a Baron. Wonder if that was intentional and why.
Der Oger:
A Duke is several stations above a Count, which is normally of higher rank than a Baron.
I know little of the intricacies of real-world European titles, so caveat emptor.
In the first book, I got the impression that Duke Leto was from old royalty, whereas Baron Harkonnen had bought his place in aristocracy relatively recently with filthy lucre. Maybe the separate titles indicate that?
Also, I'm not sure what territory Count Fenring was the Count of.
In the first book, I got the impression that Duke Leto was from old royalty, whereas Baron Harkonnen had bought his place in aristocracy relatively recently with filthy lucre. Maybe the separate titles indicate that?
From what I know: The two clans feuded for milennia, so I assume that the Harkonnen are old nobility, too. But maybe they have had to start from scratch again after being banned and simply have not been given higher titles.
Then, again, their status as a great house might simply be the recognition of their real power, title or not. There have been examples of persons from the late middle ages and the renaissance of persons who wielded much more power than their actual status would allow. Like, Walsingham under Lizzy I or the Fuggers under Max I.
That leads me to the thought that, even prior to the book, the Empire's traditional structures were already decaying when the Harkonnens first got control over Arakis... and looking at the original plan to create the kwisatz haderach from the Atreides and Harkonnen lines, the Bene Gesserit might have planned to oust the Corinos at a time of their choosing, a few decades later.
I know little of the intricacies of real-world European titles, so caveat emptor.
If Donald I ascends the Throne of the American Empire, he and his children would be royalty and stand above the rest of the nobility. Federal Departments and States would have a duke or marquis or count as a head, while counties would be governed by barons and maybe baronets. Knights would gain little aside from a farm or business. Some business leaders like Musk and the My Pillow guy would get elevated to count for their loyalty, while others who did not kiss the ring would loose their worldly possessions, if not more.
While Donald will certainly sell titles, it is under his grand-grand-child, Donald IV, that the pompous life at the court as well as the constant wars against the remaining liberal democracies in Africa will drain the coffers immensely, so that he will sell titles with fancyful functions at court for high prices, as well as the managers of Deutsche Bank and Swiss banks, who are still willing to give credits or launder the money gained from the Imperial Slave Farms and Mines.
Yet, the ancient nobility will look down on these upstarts, and maybe ask themselves if House Trump is still strong enough to keep them in check... or if a century of planned marriages, courtly intrigues, and feuding will pay off.
Der Oger:
It is all there: Pauls coming Jyhad, the Machinations of the participant feudal houses and the Bene Gesserit and so on.
The second time I read the book, I was blown away by the fact that the very first scene with the Harkonnens gives away a whole bunch of the plot, from the Yeuh being the traitor to the false clues implicating Jessica, and even the attack on Paul with the hunter-seeker. They tell you what's going to happen, and then it's still exciting to watch it play out. And even though Leto's death is foreshadowed six ways to Sunday, the reader still hopes for him to miraculously escape until the Schrodinger wave function finally collapses.
* * *
Separate question. Beast Rabban and Feyd-Rautha are both nephews of the baron's, but do we know anything about their parentage? Are they even brothers to each other, or just cousins?
Another question. Does the emperor reside on a different planet from Salusa Secundus? That's the only planet I remember his name being associated with, but it seems unlikely that the seat of empire would be on a prison planet.
Also related to that, what was the point (in the book) of the story of the Fremen's diaspora journey including Salusa Secundus? That seemed to be significant, but I never got exactly how it was.
Nice summary of the Dune Universe timeline from the (pseudo canon) Dune Encyclopedia
https://dune.fandom.com/wiki/Timeline_(Dune_Encyclopedia)
Interesting dates (Before Guild and After Guild):
14608 BG
Discoveries in America. Madrid attains the status of the Imperial Seat.
14512 BG
Battle of Englichannel. Imperial Seat moves to London.
So 1492 AD = 14608 BG, and the Spanish Armada of 1588 AD = 14512 BG making year 1 of the Dune calendar to be 16,100 AD.
14255 BG
An intraprovincial war culminates in the first use of atomics and the Imperial Seat is moved to Washington.
But 1945 AD = 14255 BG, making year 1 of the Dune calendar to be 16,200 AD.
Possible typo, math error or the authors were reflecting on how archeologists and historians sometimes get dates wrong.
Anyways, the events of Dune occur in 10,191 AG, or 26,291 AD.
The more you know.
Larry,
Rabban and Feyd are cousins
The emperor resides on Khaitan, Selusa Secundus is his prison planet.
Selusa was a stop on the Fremen migrations
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/11/opinion/democrats-biden-trump.html
Hillary Clinton endured a classic “Recount” moment in her second debate against Donald Trump. Mr. Trump stalked her around the stage. “He was literally breathing down my neck. My skin crawled,” Mrs. Clinton later wrote. “Do you stay calm, keep smiling and carry on,” she wondered. “Or do you turn, look him in the eye and say loudly and clearly, ‘Back up, you creep. Get away from me. I know you love to intimidate women, but you can’t intimidate me.” Throwing the haymaker might not have won the election, but Mrs. Clinton would have instantly changed the impression that she was a hapless, patronizing, liberal elitist.
I think she would have won the election if she had said in her best Princess Leia voice, "Will somebody get this big walking carpet out of my way!"
DP:
Selusa was a stop on the Fremen migrations
Yes, I remembered that fact. But what's the significance of the mention of a planet we're familiar with in a completely different context? Were they tempered into a fighting force by the planet the same way the Sardaukar were? Were the Sardaukar already aware of the Fremen because they had been on their same planet?
I figure the mention of Salusa Secundus in the Fremen history is significant, but I can't figure out how.
Separate question. Beast Rabban and Feyd-Rautha are both nephews of the baron's, but do we know anything about their parentage? Are they even brothers to each other, or just cousins?
Wikipedia suggests that both are the sons of his brother.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Harkonnen#Prelude_to_Dune
Another question. Does the emperor reside on a different planet from Salusa Secundus? That's the only planet I remember his name being associated with, but it seems unlikely that the seat of empire would be on a prison planet.
Kaitain.
https://dune.fandom.com/wiki/Kaitain/XD
Also related to that, what was the point (in the book) of the story of the Fremen's diaspora journey including Salusa Secundus? That seemed to be significant, but I never got exactly how it was.
One of the premises of Dune is: The Environment shapes the technology and the culture of a society. Maybe it was a necessary step to make the Zensunni Wanderers able to survive Dune at all. Or, to highlight that there is a connection between Sardaukar and Fremen, and that the former are closer, but not equal to the latter in form of fighting capabilities and spirit.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/11/opinion/biden-trump-state-union.html
Bret [Stephens] : And yet just 23 percent of the country thinks we’re on the right track, according to one polling aggregator, and only 26 percent rate the economy as “good” or “excellent,” as against 51 percent who say it’s “poor.” I know some commentators think they’re all delusional, but, to borrow a phrase, people will vote according to their “lived experience.”
The assumption is that people who think we're on the wrong track blame the current president and will vote against him. I think we're on the wrong track as far as not supporting Ukraine, treating women as ambulatory incubators, and slipping into outright fascism. Wanting to change those things is not a reason to vote against Biden. It's a reason to vote for him.
I remain surprised at some decisions made by Ukraine in its drone attacks within Russia. Yes, they are concentrating on RF oil industry facilities… the mafiosi state’s carotid artery. Fine. But I wonder why they never attacked electrical and heating facilities in major cities, inflicting on Russians the same pain in winter cold as the RF inflicted on Ukrainians, the last 2 winters. It had to be a carefully considered decision based on evaluating likely outcomes, weighing the potential of Russians anger aiming at Putin or Ukraine. I’m not privy to the discussions. One can see either way. But one wonders. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zacZ3wK0kB4
Oh, another DUNE inconsistency: “Your father didn’t believe in revenge.” Actually, there’s an entire scene in the novel when Leto signs a defiant letter to Harkonnen declaring ‘Can-Li” or vendetta.
DP interesting dissection of the Jihad. And I find it unlikely desert fremen would have been able to accomplish a thing on watery Calladan. Moreover, once the fremen jihadists are committed across the galaxy, what’s to keep the Guild from transporting Great House forces to Arrakis and seizing the spicelands? And then stranding the Fremen wherever they had got to? The Guild would own it all.
Darrell: “. The central premise that all of Herbert's story is based on, from Dune to Chapter House, is that humankind is on an unavoidable path of blood, misery and death, and bound for extinction. And that a person with a new ability to see the landscape of possible futures sees this and tries to find a way to avoid it.”
Yeah, but all of the rationalizations offered by Paul, then Leto II etc about some ‘golden path’ never explained what could extinguish humanity on 10,000 worlds, or why anyone should believe such self-serving, power-justifying hogwash.
And yet, what strike me also is some Bad CONTINUITY in DV’s Part II flick. There are many moments that contradict – visually – earlier moments. Like where Sting… I mean Feyd – stabbed Paul. And… Alia?
So the Spanish Armada won in the Dune universe? As in Keith Roberts’s PAVANE.
I WONDER if the Harks coulda suborned the Fremen simply by offering a nice new planet for them?
--
We’ll see if the SOTU got at least some of the frippy Nader-Stein, never-support-the-coalition lefty preeners to step up and be counted.
THE biggest problem is the drip-loss of Black and Hispanic macho males.
If you missed Scarlet Johanson's satire of Katie Britt's SOTU response... oy! Look it up.
Larry,
I got the sarcasm. I still think you might check out the book. But I could recommend books all day ...
Paul SB
On the Dune topic:
If you can get your hands on it, the 2008 copy of Dune Messiah has an introduction by son Brian that gets into the details how his father wanted to portray the dark side of the hero / messiah phenomenon of the first book. Way too much for me to recant here. But the working title of book 2 was "Fool Saint." And "Among the dangerous leaders of human history, my father sometimes mentioned General George S. Patton because of his charismatic qualities--but more often his example was President John F. Kennedy. Around Kennedy a myth of kingship had formed, and of Camelot
Dr. B
Moreover, once the fremen jihadists are committed across the galaxy, what’s to keep the Guild from transporting Great House forces to Arrakis and seizing the spicelands? And then stranding the Fremen wherever they had got to? The Guild would own it all.
Isn't it established that the Guild cows to the Jihad once it believes Paul or later Alia can destroy the spice at any time? There's also the wrinkle that the navigators have limited prescience that they use to mask the assassination attempt in Messiah, but they can also see some of Paul's plans.
For the second movie. I'm not excited. I might fast forward through at some point to study the visuals. Would rather re-read Heretics.
If any of you book or film buffs are interested in a screenwriter's critique of what is wrong with the adaption of the first Dune sequel, I recommend you google "Dune: Exposition Is Killing Your Screenplay" and you can listen or read the transcript of Jacob Kreuger's podcast.
I've worked with and hung out with many folks in and around the film industry and the highest density of intelligent and talented people (in my opinion) do acting, art direction, editing and cinematography. Writing, directing and producing is like a game of twister between ambition, greed and vision as evidenced in the documentary, "Lost in La Mancha" about Terry Gilliam's failed attempt to make the Man Who Killed Don Quixote.
Aside, my greatest contribution to film-making might have been when doing art department grunt work in my early 20s. I was moving props around and overheard how they were going to shoot a shower scene. It looked like they had rented an industrial floor steamer, and they were planning to hose their B-list actress with it! I went over and read the spec sheet: the warning said something between 300 and 400 degrees. I told everyone around me what was going to happen if they did this as planned with the wrong equipment. Up the entire pyramid of idiots, I got brushed off. Nobody would listen. I finally grabbed another nobody working with tools, maybe a grip, who I got to look over the equipment and cobble together a diffuser, which wasn't much. I also cussed out and scared the lackey whose job was to aim the steamer into backing way off from the proximity they had been directed to shoot the steam from. They still rolled, and when the director yelled "more steam!" the actress screamed a burst of blood curdling f-bombs and dashed off set, fortunately not scalded.
Dr Brin:
THE biggest problem is the drip-loss of Black and Hispanic macho males.
That and the Arabs who are so angry at Biden for not single-handedly stopping the war in Gaza that they'll punish him by letting Netanyahu's lickspittle back into office.
If black men, Latinos, and Arabs hand us four more years of Trump, my only (very small and bitter) satisfaction will be going "I f***ing told you so," when they suffer more than I do.
I swear that there must have been a "Jews for Hitler" in 1932 Germany.
Dr Brin:
And yet, what strike me also is some Bad CONTINUITY in DV’s Part II flick. There are many moments that contradict – visually – earlier moments. Like where Sting… I mean Feyd – stabbed Paul.
I don't think the climactic fight was handled well, but what contradiction?
So the Spanish Armada won in the Dune universe? As in Keith Roberts’s PAVANE.
I think you misread this part:
14512 BG
Battle of Englichannel. Imperial Seat moves to London.
I WONDER if the Harks coulda suborned the Fremen simply by offering a nice new planet for them
They didn't have another nice new planet to offer, did they?
Yeah, but all of the rationalizations offered by Paul, then Leto II etc about some ‘golden path’ never explained what could extinguish humanity on 10,000 worlds, or why anyone should believe such self-serving, power-justifying hogwash.
Dr. Brin, if I recall the Dune series correctly, the golden path was creating a human species that cut off prescience. I always presumed that prescience would ultimately lead to human extinction, though Herbert never explains why this is so. He did say perfect prediction is stagnation.
Or, perhaps, dependency on prescience would lead everyone to intake huge amounts of melange and become like guild navigators---relegated to tanks and having fins and gills. I guess a sort of inverted ontogony.
Slim Moldie,
You helped save someone from another involuntary manslaughter conviction. They may never know it, but you still did good. 8)
So... I looked up Kreuger. Yah. Gonna have to watch a few more of those videos. 8)
Dr. Brin,
"I wonder why they {UKR} never attacked electrical and heating facilities in major cities"
Quite possibly to try to maintain an ethical difference between them and Russia, at least in the eyes of the West - from which nearly all their aid is coming. It's made easier if you can point to concrete differences in military action. If Russia can point to equivalent attacks against civilian populace, the difference thins, and the 'both sides do it' narrative might lead to 'if there's no difference, why support one side?'
Pappenheimer
Larry,
We discussed this before. There was a whole "Jews for Hitler" org. Didn't end well, though I guess the leopards got fatter.
Pappenheimer
I imagine that being able to draft able-bodied German Jews into the Wehrmacht would have allowed the creation of several more divisions during WWII, but this counterfactual runs into the whole "If the Nazis had been sane enough to do X, then they wouldn't have started the whole thing in the first place".
Pappenheimer
JV
The future was AI "beings" using prescience to find and kill all of the humans
Britt was careful in saying her family might not live the American Dream—rather than that they will not..Lady Weasel.
If memory serves*, one of Paul's prescient dreams was the last humans cowering in a cave, attempting to hide from hunter-killer drones.
*It's been years since I reread the Dune series, I find JRRT's world** a more pleasant place to spend time.
**I do remember the National Lampoon's "The JRR Tolkien Fan Club Called To The Last Need Of Middle Earth", There's an element of truth to it!
Tim H.,
I'd agree that JRRT's world has more pleasantness in it than the world of Dune, but I find both to be pretty thoroughly depressing. I'd rate the Dune universe as "thoroughly and unrelentingly depressing, while JRRT's world is merely "really depressing."
I doubt my view on Dune needs any explaining, but perhaps my view on JRRT's world does. In short, Tolkien created his world as a backwards looking hopeless place. All the best times, all the glory, all the beauty, all the Golden Ages, they are in the past, never to be equaled again. That's pretty damned depressing.
And the elves, as glorious as they were, were also whiney little brats. Feanor and his sons should have been spanked and sent to be without dinner more often when they were kids, then maybe they wouldn't have grown up to be such whiney little brats.
I wonder why they {UKR} never attacked electrical and heating facilities in major cities
In addition to what Pappenheimer said:
It is still part of the Ukrainian info war strategy to increase public pressure against the Kremlin. Directly attacking these facilities would allow propaganda to increase support for the war, while letting them simply decay and fall apart by themselves could increase discontent with the current regime.
And there are still people who dare to stand up:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rnFtnDa_Oo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U28VXT4f2zI
In addition, successfully attacking the refineries lowers the availability of fuel and hampers the war efforts. The Kremlin could ration gasoline for the civilian population, but again, that would increase discontent.
We discussed this before. There was a whole "Jews for Hitler" org. Didn't end well, though I guess the leopards got fatter.
There is an organisation called "Jews in the AfD".
I am not kidding.
Pappenheimer:
We discussed this before. There was a whole "Jews for Hitler" org
I do remember. I guess I need to change my wording.
Instead of "I swear there must have been...", I have to say, "It no longer surprises me that there was a 'Jews for Hitler' group in 1932 Germany. In fact, I was sure of it before I knew it as a fact."
Alfred Differ to Slim Moldie:
You helped save someone from another involuntary manslaughter conviction.
Too bad he wasn't there to unload Alec Baldwin's "prop gun".
@Darrell E, the only characters in that part of "The Silmarilion" that looked blameless were the first victims, those who Morgoth slew and those slain by Feanor and his followers at Aquilonde.
Der Oger:
There is an organisation called "Jews in the AfD".
I am not kidding.
I think it's safe to say that for every Y, there will inevitably be an "X's for Y" organization for every X.
Boy, Google's sure made it harder for me to post, even with an account...
@Dr. Brin -- Leto didn't have to give up his power base on Caladan; what was forced on him (and not the Harkonnens) was being physically present on Arrakis. There's a throwaway reference in the first novel of a raid made from Caladan to steal/destroy Harkonnen spice reserves; it's part of why Rabban is given such free reign to 'squeeze' profit after their return.
But Leto's Caladanian forces become irrelevant after the Guild cuts them off on Arrakis -- and again, it was being *physically* on Arrakis that made that possible. Paul can't leverage his right to Caladan until the endgame, because he can't even get a *message* through without risking more Guild betrayal.
After taking the throne, one of the first things he does is install Gurney Halleck "in the fief of Caladan".
As for the presicence/Matrix angle -- my headcanon was always that prescience on Paul's level was only possible because of the 10,000 years of Guild space travel, which wove a web of quantum entanglement throughout the Empire. The text makes clear that Paul is only computing probabilities, and the idea of locking-in a future is akin to the notion of a wavefunction collapse. It's part of the more general observation that Arrakis was not just a trap for the House Atreides, but for all humanity. Arrakis is not a natural environment, and melange is likely an engineered substance to entrap sophonce.
Most of Arrakis' "wildlife" is the result of previous terraforming/adaptation using Terragen species. Other than the components of the shai-hulud lifecycle -- sand-plankton, sand-trout, little maker, pre-spice colony, and the growth stages of the sandworm itself -- name me one native Arrakeen species. Just one. Isn't that odd? Consider the 'environment' the first humans to land encountered: an oxygen-rich atmosphere maintained by a one-species ecosystem that fulfills all the niches of eukaryotic microbes, plants, and animals up to apex predator. And it produces a fantastically useful substance as a byproduct, so useful that is not only biologically but technologically and culturally addictive.
Does this sound like the product of evolution to you? Or of design?
Larry,
Exactly what I was thinking. Safety on the set matters. 8)
Everyone else,
As I recall it (head canon) the issue with prescience in Dune is that it made it possible for someone to guide too much. That lead to a destruction of variety and that eventually eliminated robustness. Leto II's whole point with his long reign was to drive that lesson SO HARD that no real human would ever sit by and support that kind of guidance again.
That particular lesson got explained somewhere in the last couple of books I think. Heretic or Chapterhouse. The diaspora after Leto II HAD to happen to re-create variety.
Catfish 'n Cod,
Yep. It might be plausible that the sandworms evolved naturally and destroyed the earlier ecosystem by trapping so much water (sandtrout part of their lifecycle). But even that seems pretty improbable, that over such a span of time no other organisms would adapt to survive the changing ecosystem. An ecosystem of just a single kaiju sized organism on a planetwide scale just seems crazy improbable but the real kicker, as you point out, is the spice.
Catfish 'N Cod:
name me one native Arrakeen species.
Muad'Dib ?
A thought about the Japanese Space One explosion. Looks like a self-destruct initiated by possibly problematic sensor readings/processing. With tiny 3-D printed parts, probably weighing only a few ounces, could a second (analog) computer be used to error-check the primary (digital) computer? We're always in such a great hurry to discard older technology that we might sometimes rush right past solid solutions.
Only Pappenheimer came close to correctly identifying the main character in Dune:
It is 'Dune', the planet Arrakis, as it was a major recurrent theme in Frank Herbert's work that the harshest high-pressure environments tend to accelerate evolution by favouring the hardiest, sharpest, fittest & most competitive gene lines via natural selection [see 'The Dosadi Experiment'], the modern version of this argument being that "hard times create hard men & soft times create soft men".
This is why Herbert described the harsh Dune environment & the resulting Freeman in such excruciating detail, while simultaneously comparing both to formidable but still much more pleasant environment of Salusa Secundus & the resulting weakness in the Emperor's elite Sardaukar.
Pappenheimer points out that environmental harshness does not always correlate to increased species competitiveness (rightly so), as in the case of the indolent Innuit, which is the why behind the deliberate Herbert's Bene Gesserit eugenic breeding program designed to foster unending conflict & hyper-competition.
Of course, Herbert's forced evolution argument is now considered politically anathema, as are competition & force...
Except possibly when repackaged into the more benign & PC format of Dr. Brin's UPLIFT, along with his competition boosterism...
But, this in no way discredits the environmental stressor as a potent evolutionary driver, as counter-intuitively demonstrated by the soft & comfy West's very high rates of morbid obesity, physical decline, intellectual debility, gender confusion, mental illness & dyscivilization.
As in the case of the Daily Show's Jon Stewart & his recent circular argument against qualified immunity, even our best & brightest now demonstrate evidence of irrationality:
(1) NO ONE is above the Law, (2) The Rules apply to EVERYONE, and (3) The use of force is always ILLEGITIMATE, the problem being that there can be neither LAW nor LAW ENFORCEMENT without the application of LEGITIMATE force, the self-evident default state being one of the anarchy, lawlessness & a 'Do what thou wilt' society without rules.
That our current state of cultural decay is much much more advanced than most can imagine, a walk around an increasingly decrepit, filthy & abandoned Salt Lake City Utah drove this point home for me today because 'hard times' are already HERE, rendered visible for all to see.
Best
There was a kind of escape valve in the Duniverse, mentioned in book 1, where whole houses threatened with destruction would pick up their house atomics and loyal retainers and flee beyond the Imperial worlds in their own starships. Leto was considering it. I presume part of the problem with that would be lack of Guild Navigators, meaning you were more likely to just die out in space than actually arrive anywhere you could set up shop. It was (iirc) stated that some other houses who'd lost out in the crab bucket races had vanished into the galactic deep.
Pappenheimer
Catfish n' Cod great points. But it all seems to mean humans lost the Butlerian Jihad and this is all a Matrix thing.
The original books had spice be a relatively recent discovery along with an explanation that other drugs were used in that role by the guild and BG.
The later books pushed discovery back to the Butlerian Jihad. Only with the later books would it make sense that spice was a designed trap for humanity set by the machines. Without that, their would have to be some other kind of intelligence that set a trap for us that we tripped later.
Alfred,
Certainly agree. It doesn't make sense to need Spice to guide the ship to the planet where Spice is discovered. Herbert was an excellent author but it's possible to write yourself into a corner. (Or - were the later books you mention written by his son and/or others? I quit at Dune: Messiah because it was the obvious end point.)
Pappenheimer
I'm pretty sure Princess Irulan is basically Anna Comnena IN SPACE.
Pappenheimer
"For every flashy, on-off synapse, there appear to be hundreds – even thousands – of tiny organelles that perform murky, nonlinear computational (or voting) functions, with some evidence for the Penrose-Hameroff notion that some of them use quantum entanglement!"
How about some references for this fascinating info?
Spice was not necessary for space travel, it merely made it safe.
Alfred,
Yeah, my thoughts were that it was aliens, not machines. Never considered machines. Maybe Dune was a trap, maybe it was just something left behind by them. Maybe they fell into the prescience trap and went extinct.
As I recall it (head canon) the issue with prescience in Dune is that it made it possible for someone to guide too much. That lead to a destruction of variety and that eventually eliminated robustness.
I currently think whether we are on the verge of a society that trusts decisions to be made by algorithms. It is already established in the stock markets with high frequency trading, as well as those employed by credit rating agencies like our Schufa.
In law enforcement, predictive policing becomes a reality, as well as judges handing out sentences on the base of what an algorithm proposes. Already, autocratic states like China and Iran uses the technology to suppress minorities and dissidents.
Already, there are companies working on AI that are designed to prevent school shootings; I wonder what could go wrong? (Especially when you have politicians who would like to identify members of the LGBTQ-community, or potential future political dissidents...)
Next, there is entertainment business. Large streaming services and game developers increasingly come up with bland, uninspiring and conforming products; data collection and C-suite control steers the arts away from being avantgarde, daring, new and fresh.
SpaceX Starship IFT-3 may launch this morning. Been delayed an hour + because of a few boats in an exclusion zone. Launch window stays open till 8:50 local time (Boca Chica, TX).
The tank farm looks to be spooling up. Propellant load may start soon. They don't do that until they are otherwise ready for launch. With recent improvements they can load the 10 million pounds of propellant in about 45 minutes. That's pretty crazy.
Launch coverage on several YouTube channels.
Everyday Astronaut - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixZpBOxMopc
What About It? - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHq2jhP1efI
NASA Space Flight (not NASA) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrxCYzixV3s
Just stumbled over it - isn't the whole sandwalk thing about avoiding detection by a sandworm, and a metaphor on its own? Avoiding predictability by purposefully introducing randomness in one's actions?
AI-mediated or otherwise, any algorithm designed to predict crime, quell dissent & prevent school shootings could also be used to eliminate dissent, outlaw the opposition & target specific minorities for destruction, fostering totalitarianism regardless of its initial intention.
Resistance would then require the introduction of purposeful randomness & unpredictability, as in the case of 'Drunkard's Walk' by Frederick Pohl (1960), followed quickly thereafter by some sort of Snake Plissken option in order to maximize human intelligence through increased evolutionary selection pressures.
In his Dune Universe, perhaps this is why Frank Herbert chose to ban the use & production of AI-style machine intelligences, the suggestion being that humanity might do so, too, if we humans would progress, remain relevant & improve as a species.
Best
Although couched in good intentions, the proposed Tiktok Ban is a covert attack on X (Twitter) and represents the creeping totalitarianism of internet censorship.
On Tim Ventura’s popular ‘cast – just released: “Legendary science-fiction author David Brin discusses Dune! The new movies vs. the novels, contrasted and compared to Isaac Asimov's Foundation, Arthur Clarke and how certain obsessions of the 60s resonate, affecting art & consciousness even today.”
Especially, is Denis Villeneuve’s brilliant version questioning or even reversing some classic thematic elements of Frank Herbert's masterpiece?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yy2EqqC0qO8
-----
The whole ‘Golden Path’ thing of Herbert’s is such drool, it HAS to have been intentional. Machines made spice as a trap? How could they know that humans would be unable – eventually – to synthesize it? That inability is the most implausible thing about the whole series.
-----
Elon’s plan to refuel Starship only makes sense if the upper stage can break off the heavy launch structures and replace them with inflatable storage balloons (light weight). Now you have something workable to head into deep space.
------
I notice locum is still around. Still spewing fecal ravings? I suppose someone ought to check now and then if he’s decided not to be a swine for a while. But even so, it never lasts and my patience is thin.
Glad things went better for Spacex, incrementally. Trouble sticking both landings, though.
Super fun "Tucker Carlson" ... "interiew" with Baron Vlad Harkonen.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C4bT1zRvSyr/?igsh=MXF0bTA0aHdyOHh4bQ%3D%3D
@Dr Brin,
I'm partway through your Villeneuve interview. Had to comment on some things we've discussed previously.
Much as I agree with you on the later Star Wars movies, the 1977 original is not about demigods. The rebel heroes are everymen doing the best they can in their situation, just like your Gordon Kranz. Force powers as depicted in this movie are peripheral to the story, and are treated with contempt by most of the other characters. Their manifestations could easily be chalked up to hypnosis and intuition.
Oh Herbert and GRR Martin, I am gratified that they are again' feudalism rather then fer it, but I don't know what techniques a writer would have to use to make clear to his audience that they are not being asked to suspend disbelief and (for the story's sake) accept the novel's underlying social assumptions. I'm sure it can be done, but not easily.
Watching OGH struggle to recall the name "Elmer Gantry" is a perfect antidote to the vicious and silly harping about JB's occasional lapses. OTOH, the tsunami of Freudian and moronic DT gaffes strongly indicate the presence of brain worms and much worse.
Re: Starship
Looks like loss of attitude control during re-entry, so no heat shield protection (spectacular onboard video though). Perhaps other control issues with the booster, although neither of these stages were headed back to Starbase anyway. To reiterate what I said yesterday at 1:08pm about the Japanese Space One: they should consider adding micro-sized analog computer(s) to aid/error-check the digital ones (if they haven't already). Another advantage to (mechanical) analog computers is their relative immunity to radiation effects.
In any case, IFT-3 was a big step forward. IFT-4 launch looms (possibly May).
Iteratio!
Elmer Gantry.... riiiight. Senior moment on my part? Or just life in a primitive era when we don't yet have Alta Vista Implants?
;-)
LH I liked the first Star Wars and adored EMPIRE before it all went to hell.
---
re Starship... (hate the name)... reaching 280 km means one cirulrization burn and you can have a pop up space station whenever you want. A big one.
Someone find a link to the Elmer Gantry scene where he plays the crowd exactly like Paul plays the fundamentalist fremen?
The obvious, unfortunately...
https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2024/Items/Mar14-4.html
...
One problem the Democrats have that the Republicans don't is that a lot of Democrats want it all. If Biden does something on abortion or Israel or something else they don't like, they start threatening to stay home or vote third party. Sometimes they actually even do it. This has been true for years with other Democrats, going back to the 92,000 people who voted for Ralph Nader in Florida in 2000, thus allowing George W. Bush to win the state by 537 votes and giving him the presidency.
All Republicans know that Donald Trump is a racist and sexist, has committed sexual assault multiple times (and has even admitted it on tape), has invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to invade any country he would like to add to the Russian Empire, changes his fundamental views as often as some people change their underpants, has been married and divorced more times than their pastor approves of, and has many other flaws. But he gave them three conservative Supreme Court justices, so they overlook his many, many character and policy failings. Many Democrats don't do that. It's one strike and you're out. You're bad on Israel? I'm not voting.
@Dr Brin,
On the interview, I forgot to mention that I don't see how the humans in Starship Troopers could extend their horizons to include the spider aliens when those aliens simply want to destroy humans on sight. I only read the story once, but I don't remember them having any intelligence that could be negotiated with or compromised with. It would be like us trying to extend citizenship to crocodiles, or soldier ants, or COVID germs.
* * *
LH I liked the first Star Wars and adored EMPIRE before it all went to hell.
The original Star Wars was essentially a pirate flick. When I saw it the first time, I had recently seen a real pirate movie called Swashbuckler, and I noted how similar the two plots were, even down to the scrolls at the beginnings describing the evil government.
Empire Strikes Back was a tragic opera.
The first 40 minutes of Return of the Jedi (the part I liked) is like any suspense thriller where the various plotters get into place to spring into coordinated action at the correct moment. Ocean's Eleven, maybe. Or The Sting.
After that, yes, it all went to hell. Probably because Lucas decided retroactively that the story was all about the moral arc of Anakin Skywalker.
* * *
An unintended irony is in Princess Leia's plea to Obi-Wan, when she says, "You fought with my father in the Clone Wars." In 1977, "my father" obviously referred to her Alderaanian father, the then-unnamed Bail Organa, and "fought with" was meant in the sense of "fought alongside." But if you tweak the meaning of both phrases in light of the "facts" learned in the prequels, that sentence has a whole different, ominous meaning.
Haven't read Dune for ages. A quick skim indicates Paul didn't start seeing the future until Dune Messiah, only the now (he comes out his spice trance describing the armada the Guild has assembled over Arrakis.) The only references to prescience he makes is that the future is clouded to him as the navigators.
Liking the idea that the AIs defeated the Butlerian Jihad and set up a virtual prison. It mirrors the museum status of Arrakis depicted in God Emperor.
@larry, who said:
On the interview, I forgot to mention that I don't see how the humans in Starship Troopers could extend their horizons to include the spider aliens when those aliens simply want to destroy humans on sight.
Well, that's propaganda for you (Something I thought the movie enforced with hob nailed jackboots, so to speak. Would you like to know more?)
I had fun trying to salvage SW III, by having Anakin slain by his clone, who then became Vader. The screenplay needed surprisingly few tweaks.
Prior to the third trilogy, the subversive notion that JarJar Binks was an undercover Sith Lord was well argued, and hilarious. Here is a coda, of sorts
Alas, it soon became clear that Darth Mickey was intent on driving the franchise off a cliff. I found the Last Jedi to be the Last Straw.
Tony Fisk:
Well, that's propaganda for you (Something I thought the movie [Starship Troopers ] enforced with hob nailed jackboots, so to speak. Would you like to know more?)
Sure. Keeping in mind I never saw the movie, and even if I did, I wouldn't necessarily think it reflected the spirit of the written story.
I had fun trying to salvage SW III, by having Anakin slain by his clone, who then became Vader. The screenplay needed surprisingly few tweaks.
Before Return of the Jedi, I theorized that Darth Vader was secretly Luke's Uncle Owen who had faked his death on Tatooine. It takes some willingness of the listener to go along, but I felt I could make it work, and much preferred it to the "Vader told the truth and Ben lied," explanation.
Prior to the third trilogy, the subversive notion that JarJar Binks was an undercover Sith Lord was well argued, and hilarious.
Heh. I don't follow fan press to know what others have argued, but I thought for awhile that Jar-Jar's goofiness was a cover for enemy action. Furthermore, as it was Qui-Gon's idea to bring Jar-Jar along in the first place, and then Jar-Jar was somewhat politically responsible for Palpatine's rise to power, I suspected that Qui-Gon engineered the fall of the Republic himself.
Tony Fisk's essay reminds me:
Obi Wan and Yoda find homes for the twins and go into exile.
The whole "That boy was our last hope." / "No, there is another." conversation in Empire doesn't make any sense if Ben and Yoda both knew that Luke and Leia were twins, and that they furthermore each knew that the other knew.
ROTJedi might have been saved with about 40 lines of overdubbed dialogue.
Including the notion that Luke looks at the flames at the end and sees his three masters --- burning in hell!
The prequels were wretched betrayals best views stoned, for the visuals. The last three were crap on a scale beyond all redemption... except Daisy's prancing and fighting scenes. She's cool.
---
That JJ Abrams had Luke do the EXACT same sulk in exile BS as Yoda and Obiwan ... facing exactly the same plot cycles copied from ep.4... and that JJA blew up a tousand worlds and maybe a quadrillion people in less than a minute FOR PLOT CONVENIENCE... truly I hope there is a Jedi hell.
The first trilogy was junk food, the prequels were garbage, and the sequels were plastic.
Sure. Keeping in mind I never saw the movie, and even if I did, I wouldn't necessarily think it reflected the spirit of the written story.
Tbe film could be viewed as a spoof, although I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of the original book that was recognisable. The bugs were worth the price of admission.
Not sure whether Heinlein would have disowned it or roared his ribs out. There was some sense of humour lurking under all that curmudgeonly contrarianism.
'Would you like to know more?' was a quote from the film's propaganda reels.
Yep, the only part of the final trilogy that is watchable is where the first movie focusses on Rey, up to the point where Han and Chewie turn up.
The only benefit I drew from the entire SW series was that the Empire's fighters could be represented by an 'H' and the Rebellion's by an 'X'. Thus allowing crude video games to run in text mode on cheap computers. Imagination is the greatest special effect.
Paradoctor:
The first trilogy was junk food, the prequels were garbage, and the sequels were plastic.
Can't disagree. But, the first movie was great looking spectacle junk food, and these youngsters today have no conception of what that meant. Today's popcorn ads have the same level of special effects, but in 1977 we had never seen anything like it. I didn't need a great plot, just enough of one to keep it interesting to remain in that world and look at it.
Return of the Jedi had more ships and obstacles in its final space battle, but even by then, the novelty wasn't the same as it had been six years prior.
To summarize:
Herbert 'bad' & Heinlein 'bad' for not rejecting the human reality that is based on natural selection, competition, gender, sex, baseness, savagery & conflict in favour of a Pinkerian 'better angels' neutopia of equality, equity, disordered empathy, genderlessness, diversity, racial guilt & vegetarianism.
It's almost as if the failed 19th Century Transcendental Spiritualism movement mated with a soulless form of 20th Century Materialism in order to produce 21st Century Transcendental Materialism which promises rapture in the form of a technological singularity,
More Cognitive Dissonance results, especially amongst those Idealists who reject Romanticism, while simultaneously failing to recognize that Idealism is actually a Romantic variant in & of itself.
See "The Relevance of Romanticism: Essays on German Romantic Philosophy" which argues that the distinction between romanticism and idealism may to some extent be "a purely verbal" question, available on Amazon.
Best
From further along in the interview (sorry, I don't have over an hour at a shot to listen to the whole thing).
Dr Brin, you don't put it quite this way, but Daneel's Zeroth Law sounds a lot like, "Article II says I can do whatever I want."
On Dune 'history': The point of the 'historical' descriptors was to show that, like Imperial China, the establishment of the Corrino Empire couldn't conceive of history except as the history of Empire or lack thereof. Every Pax in our historical past as well as in the scifi future was depicted as one long chain of semi-continuous Empire, despite times when such a notion was nonsensical [the first slower-than-light colonization wave, for instance, where relativity made Empire a barely coherent concept].
As for Salusa Secundus, I think the idea was that the Corrinos originally built their dominance from creating the Sardaukar out of the refugees and prisoners on S.S. (allusion much?) and moved their Seat to Kaitain later (and, it is implied, became decadent). Hawat, in his forced service to the Harkonnens, explicitly compares Arrakis and S.S. and fools the Baron into thinking he'll be able to co-opt the Arrakeen to do the same. (Hawat likely deduces Paul's survival and keeps it to himself, knowing he's effectively providing Paul with a grindstone to whet the Fremen crysknife.)
Losing the Butlerian Jihad: maybe? Just because Arrakis is a trap doesn't mean the Thinking Machines set that trap. It seems too subtle for what little notion we have in Herbert's original canon of pre-Jihad AI. My opinion was always that it was a precursor species' doing, far more effective than a brute-force Berserker that could turn on its masters. The target species is lured into self-destructiveness.
Or it could be the ambivalent situation from the Hyperion Cantos: the AIs are living in foldspace between the worlds and sending the prescient visions from there. That would be consistent with concrete listed actions of Leto's Path:
* Developing prescience immunity (jamming the entanglements used by the Machines)
* Developing automated navicomputers from scratch (calculation without sophonce)
* Deconstructing the interstellar economy (weaning the elites from Spice, and thus from Machine control)
* Suppressing use of Spice-aided space travel (reducing contact with foldspace)
* Developing artificial Spice production (outside Machine control)
* Enforcing star system isolation (recreating the conditions for inventing new forms of space travel)
* Neutralizing the sandworms as a tool of prescient control (all future sandworms are hybrids descended from his symbionts, set to jam the Machine entanglement system)
... all leading to the Scattering, which produced a Machine-free Diaspora akin to the Ousters that was free to diversify, differentiate, etc. and thus outcompete whatever controlled populations were still caught in the Worldweb of the Spice-dependent Old Empire.
I seem to recall a description of a Bad Future vision by either Paul or Leto II describing the means of extinction -- prescience-assisted self-replicating hunter-seekers, IIRC.
Continuing to deconstruct/reconstruct the classics...
The notion of Paul's Jihad as a natural development of his ascension to the throne never made military sense to me. So many of the advantages the Fremen have as a fighting force are specific to Arrakeen conditions: the lack of shield technology, the incredible force multiplier of sandworm control, the lack of any orbital surveillance or reinforcement, the mastery of survival tools and superior geographical knowledge... it goes on and on. Purely from the ground warfare standpoint, the notion of ten million Fremen going on to slaughter eighty billion in the same manner they captured the Imperial/Harkonnen forces is ludicrous.
The only way I could make any sense of it was to conclude that they leveraged a far greater force multiplier that no one had considered for thousands of years: orbital bombardment. Like artillery -- which is explicitly pointed out as obsolete tech in the first book -- no one has defenses against or rules prohibiting orbital bombardment, because it's an outside context problem for the Imperium and Landsraad. For ten thousand years, the Great Convention and the Guild's monopoly removed the possibility from consideration.
Then, in an instant, the Guild is utterly subordinated to a new Imperial house and the Heighliners are free to be commandeered by religious fanatics -- who feel morally, spiritually, and legally justified to drop rocks from orbit on anyone who defies the authority or quasi-divinity of Muad'dib. Rocks that pack the same punch as atomics, but aren't prohibited by the Great Convention because no one ever thought that rule would be needed.
Suddenly the Jihad sounds a lot more plausible.
---------
On Star Wars: come on, Dr. Brin, tell us how you really feel. ;-) I grew up with IV, V, and VI as a uniblock, and so don't have the same disdain for ROTJ as OGH. Episode I is only tolerable for the duel at the end; remove all Anakin/Padme scenes from II and you can salvage a decent detective thriller. I walked out of Episode III saying "Why didn't you just do that for three flicks? That's what I signed up for!" The sequels were mostly a hash of recycled ideas from the Legends franchise, which attempted an Expanded Universe but had insufficient consistency and collapsed from its own contradictions. (I'm glad some of the best elements, like Thrawn, are being translated into the new continuity.)
The sequels, for all their myriad flaws and obvious cribbing from prior art, justify their existence to me from a single line in Episode IX:
"They're just.... people."
FINALLY. After nine episodes, almost fifty years of galactic misery, and infinite shenanigans by mystic wizard-warriors, the hole that the entire plot depends upon is filled. The CITIZEN MILITIA arrives at last. (It's even explicitly named, off screen, as the Citizens' Fleet.) Absolutely everything wrong with the Galaxy from the first instant was caused by the failure of the CITIZENS to stand up and unite against corruption (the Old Republic), extortion (the Separatists), oppression (the Empire), indolence (the New Republic), or terrorism (the First Order).
The Jedi/Sith battles only matter because of the absence of action from the trillions of sophonts who -- even measured by the Force -- outweigh them all. And ultimately, the Jedi and Sith almost entirely cancel each other out in the grand scheme of things (the Balance of the Force). What **people** do ultimately decides the fate of the galaxy -- and at the very last minute, the galaxy remembers it doesn't have to just endure the pain.
It can be a civilization.
Catfish 'N Cod:
I think the idea was that the Corrinos originally built their dominance from creating the Sardaukar out of the refugees and prisoners on S.S. (allusion much?) and moved their Seat to Kaitain later (and, it is implied, became decadent).
That might be Herbert's conceived backstory or something recounted later, but I don't believe there was any mention of Kaitain in the original novel.
Hawat likely deduces Paul's survival and keeps it to himself, knowing he's effectively providing Paul with a grindstone to whet the Fremen crysknife.
Hmmm, I'm trying to recall if that could be made consistent with their reunion at the end of the first book. Hawat states that he was just that moment made aware how he had been deceived about Jessica being the traitor. I don't remember now if he was just then finding out that Paul was alive (the movie is no help there).
* * *
Apropos nothing else, I seem to recall that the "Cod" in your pseudonym referred to Boston? It's as good a time to mention that my daughter was just accepted into a PhD program in microbiology at Boston University.
@Larry: Kaitain started as a throwaway reference in the glossary of the original novel; its only relevance was to make clear that S.S. was not the throneworld. Hawat was working from Harkonnen data, so one can deduce that evidence of Yueh was withheld from him, at least until Vladimir died.
Congratulations to your daughter! Boston was my home for fifteen years, and I look forward to taking my own Kittenfish there someday.
Locum is too (indoctrinated? cowardly? dishonest? self-limited?) to go read ACOUP's thorough takedown of historical examples of "Fremen mythos" from which Herbert drew. Modern politics has nothing to do with the ACOUP argument: they point out how each case of the mythos derives from a desire to impact the author's own culture, with reporting accuracy a distant second to the intended moral-political lesson. His most recent comments explicitly endorse the same memeplex the "mythos" is intended to reinforce -- or, more precisely, the attack on present society the memeplex is designed to enact.
Catfish 'n Cod:
I grew up with IV, V, and VI as a uniblock, and so don't have the same disdain for ROTJ as OGH.
My own disdain for RotJ is different from our host's. I simply was not rooting for Vader's redemption, but since I knew from Luke's dialogue that a happy ending required it, I was torn watching the movie the same way I was while reading Atlas Shrugged, not personally cheering for civilization to fall, but knowing that the POV of the book required it.
I walked out of Episode III saying "Why didn't you just do that for three flicks? That's what I signed up for!"
If I had been writing the triology, I would not have waited until the final chapter to bring Darth Vader into being. After six movies--and at the time, there was no sequel trilogy in sight, so RotS was it--that was too much of a downer for it to all lead up to.
I'd have had him become Darth Vader as the cliffhanger ending to the second movie. Then the third one would bring us up to date with the start of the original 1977 movie, maybe even with the Princess escaping with the Death Star plans and racing off toward Ben Kenobi and destiny. That would have at least ended on a hopeful note, as well as truly "completing the circle".
* * *
Tangentially, in a conversation on the old Cerebus list, I came up with what I believe was an original idea which I have subsequently seen described in other places on line. That the truly correct order to watch the six movies (at the time) in order to avoid spoilers and jarring discontinuity is as follows:
+ Original Star Wars: Introduces the characters and setting without foreknowledge.
+ Empire: Yoda's identity is a surprise. So is Vader's origin. We have to watch this before the prequels.
(then as flashback, explaining the backstory while waiting to rescue Han Solo)
+ Episode I
+ Episode II
+ Episode III
(then back to the "present" time)
+ RotJ: Obi-Wan's ghost starts referring to "Anakin Skywalker" as if that's a name we're already familiar with. It makes sense that we've already seen that that is indeed Luke's father's name.
This order also recognizes that the prequel trilogy is more of a prequel to RotJ than it is to the first two films. That RotJ is comfortable in the "prequel universe" while the first two were almost certainly intended to go in a different direction, one in which Han and Luke are rivals for Leia's affection, Darth Vader really did betray and murder Luke's pilot father, and Leia's full kiss on the lips with Luke wasn't incest. Also, a direction in which the Empire ruled by technological force, not by an emperor who shoots lightning bolts.
Catfish 'n Cod:
Heighliners are free to be commandeered by religious fanatics -- who feel morally, spiritually, and legally justified to drop rocks from orbit on anyone who defies the authority or quasi-divinity of Muad'dib. Rocks that pack the same punch as atomics, but aren't prohibited by the Great Convention because no one ever thought that rule would be needed.
Sounds like you're describing Donald Trump's attempt at dictatorship.
Suddenly the Jihad sounds a lot more plausible.
Suddenly the Trump Jihad sounds a lot more plausible.
Catfish 'n' Cod:
Hawat was working from Harkonnen data, so one can deduce that evidence of Yueh was withheld from him,
IIRC, Baron Harkonnen explicitly withholds Jessica's innocence from Hawat. Since withholding information from a Mentat is intrinsically detrimental, that may have at least indirectly led to the Baron's downfall.
The first time through the book, I spent much of it dreading Hawat doing what Gurney actually did when he met up with Paul and Jessica. Then when out of left field, Gurney acted out against Jessica, I still thought we'd have to go through it all again with Hawat. I thought that right up until they did meet and Hawat said what he did about discovering just then that he had wronged Jessica in his thoughts. Holy mixed feelings! "Whew!", but also, "All that for this?"
@Larry: Book!Paul risks the Water-of-Life ritual because Gurney's actions against Jessica were unexpected -- even by him! Feeling like you've been anticipating the wrong future? That's what Herbert wants you to feel, just like Paul.
Suddenly the Trump Jihad sounds a lot more plausible.
Trump is a pretty poor effigy they've erected for their intended maccabiad; the more deeply committed and honest ones realize they'd need to sideline him for the full theo-patriarchy plan to unfold. See also: Inside A Secret Society Of Prominent Right-Wing Christian Men Prepping For A ‘National Divorce’
Catfish 'n' Cod:
I grew up with IV, V, and VI as a uniblock, and so don't have the same disdain for ROTJ as OGH
I'll try to reproduce a part of a long post that got spammed...
My own personal disdain is different from Dr Brin's. Basically, I wasn't rooting for Vader's redemption, so the fact that the writer's POV required me to do so made for a disconcerting experience, not all that different from reading Atlas Shrugged.
Catfish_nC, being active military, must have experienced Navy Boot Camp (aka 'basic training'), so maybe he can give us his opinion on the 'hard times makes hard men' argument:
Does he prefer to serve with lean experienced veterans or naive deconditioned couch potatoes?
I'd also like his opinion on how a slavish reliance on smart machines improves one's overall 'smartness' level.
Based on my experiences in the medical field, I'd say that a high reliance on high-tech diagnostic tools 'enstupifies' rather than enlightens, as most people are much more willing to embrace erroneous machine-generated data than their own perceptions, intellects & conclusions.
Post a link to said 'ACOUP argument' -- I know not of what you speak -- and I'll give it a look.
Best
Catfish 'n' Cod:
Book!Paul risks the Water-of-Life ritual because Gurney's actions against Jessica were unexpected -- even by him! Feeling like you've been anticipating the wrong future? That's what Herbert wants you to feel, just like Paul.
Y'know, I've read the first Dune more times than I can count, but I never noticed that particular thing until you pointed it out just now. In retrospect, that makes so much sense.
A counterargument to the "Hard Times Make Hard Men" argument would be the increase in body height and weight during the first few generations of settlers in the New World. While the conditions were certainly not ideal, malnourishment was certainly a greater problem in the Old world than in the colonies. Plus all the other stuff that goes with feudal autocracies.
Also, the saying conveniently forgets that "Hard Times" lead to deformations like PTSD and addictions after they have been survived, and sometimes to other, more physical health problems like lost limbs or cancer from depleted uranium shells.
Personal resilience is the key factor, and this is tied to "Good Times" things like having a loving family, education etc. Childhood Traumata, Poverty and Migration, "Hard Times" things lead to a lessened personal resilience.
I've never given much credit to the "Hard times make hard men" argument. The problem is that what constitutes legitimate hard times tends to be defined as hardships that make for manly men and the women they deserve. Most people I've met use VERY circular definitions.
For example, my little old granny lived a hard life for many years. Grew up to a whopping 4'8". She was definitely a hard woman if you weren't part of her immediate family, but not in the kind of way most of us would think of as being of good character. Far from it in fact. So... her hardships likely don't count because they produced a woman of many vices.*
So... No. Hard times makes for people with short horizons and quick anger/stress responses. Tooth and claw preferred to sweet talk.
------
I'd say that a high reliance on high-tech diagnostic tools 'enstupifies' rather than enlightens...
I've seen that in other fields too (lots of it in IT), but I'm fairly sure nowadays that they start off with a huge dollop of 'already stupid'. Blind reliance is the issue. Built in cover for ignorance leaves open the huge pits of ignorance into which they fall.
The only sane way forward is to create something of a hybrid. A centaur. Rely on those high-tech tools, but understand their capabilities and limitations.
* If you were part of her family, then you got defended or at least tolerated. She understood family loyalty just fine, so her character wasn't all bad.
Dr. Brin - "Moreover, once the Fremen jihadists are committed across the galaxy, what’s to keep the Guild from transporting Great House forces to Arrakis and seizing the spice lands?"
Paul had set what is effectively a time bomb on the spice called the Water of Death. It would have caused a chain rection through the sand plankton, Little Makers and the giant worms making Arrakis a true wasteland without spice:
> "If we plant a quantity of the Water of Life above a prespice mass, do you know what will happen?"
> Jessica weighed his words, suddenly saw through to his meaning. "Paul!" she gasped.
> "The Water of Death," he said. "It'd be a chain reaction." He pointed to the floor. "Spreading death among the little makers, killing a vector of the life cycle that includes the spice and the makers. Arrakis will become a true desolation — without spice or maker."
> Chani put a hand to her mouth, shocked to numb silence by the blasphemy pouring from Paul's lips.
> "He who can destroy a thing has the real control of it," Paul said. "We can destroy the spice."
Had the Guild Tried to take back control of the spice he would have triggered the water of death.
But even without that safeguard, most Fremen remained on Arrakis even during the Jihad. And even Fremen sick, elderly, women and children were more than a match for Sarduakar:
> "Unfortunately," the Emperor said, "I only sent in five troop carriers with a light attack force to pick up prisoners for questioning. We barely got away with three prisoners and one carrier. Mind you, Baron, my Sardaukar were almost overwhelmed by a force composed mostly of women, children, and old men. This child here was in command of one of the attacking groups."
> "You see, Your Majesty!" the Baron said. "You see how they are!"
> "I allowed myself to be captured," the child said. "I did not want to face my brother and have to tell him that his son had been killed."
> "Only a handful of our men got away," the Emperor said. "Got away! You hear that?"
> "We'd have had them, too," the child said, "except for the flames."
> "My Sardaukar used the attitudinal jets on their carrier as flame-throwers," the Emperor said. "A move of desperation and the only thing that got them away with their three prisoners. Mark that, my dear Baron: Sardaukar forced to retreat in confusion from women and children and old men!"
So Paul had the Guild by the cojones and they had to do his bidding.
C&C - "The only way I could make any sense of it was to conclude that they leveraged a far greater force multiplier that no one had considered for thousands of years: orbital bombardment."
Orbital bombardment was a standard tactic with the use of crushers – military space vessels composed of many smaller vessels locked together and designed to fall on an enemy position, crushing it. Crushers were just several of the 2,000 ships House Harkonnen used to attack the Atreides in 10,191.
@Dr Brin,
Further in the interview, you again mention how exasperating it is for the authors to create a society that the reader should detest only to see them express approval. I think a lot of that is due to the fact that the fan/reader is so drawn into the meticulously-designed world that he fantasizes being immersed in it, or goes so far as to role-play in it. Doing so requires accepting the tenets of the society as presented, not desiring to alter it beyond recognition as that world. Only if the extended storylines themselves allowed for continuation beyond the fall of feudalism could fans/readers even begin to be led in that direction.
Also, no matter how much you or Herbert assert that the Atreides were just prettier versions of the Harkonnens, the story just doesn't back that up. Maybe it becomes true for super-Paul and his son, but the Duke Leto is always presented as a just ruler who sympathizes with his men (Hawat, Gurney), with the downtrodden (eliminating the "beg for water droppings" ritual, and with ordinary humans on his watch (valuing the lives of the crew above a spice crawler). Leto is a tragic figure who elicits sympathy even from enemies (Kynes: "I have to admit it. I like this Duke").
Whether Herbert wants to admit it or not, his story shows us a benevolent autocrat.
@Alfred Differ:
I've never given much credit to the "Hard times make hard men" argument.
What I think is that hard times can bring forth exceptional characteristics in many individuals- but maybe at a price that is seldom advertised when they are glorified. But those characteristics are already there when these events happen. They are not "made" by hard times, just triggered.
For example, I sometimes think that Trump and Oscar Schindler shared many common traits - both were wealthy, corrupt con men who indulged in many vices, where unfaithful to their spouses, and profited from the misery of others - yet, the times brought them to different ends. One had his Road of Damascus experience and saved many lives under risk of execution, the other nearly destroyed democracy in the US (and might still).
Larry,
Gotta agree about Leto.
After saving the crawler crew, he turns to Paul and says something like, "This is how to make men follow you." It's clear, though, that if the Duke had not had an audience...he'd have done it anyway, but not because this was some component of his family line. If you want to get a clearer idea of what Herbert was going for, look at the behavior of Atreus and his family in Greek mythology - people betraying and killing kin for power.
Der Oger,
In Lois Bujold's novel "Free Fall" the main character, a structural engineer, is asked rhetorically "What can one man do?" when faced with injustice against innocence. He later realizes he doesn't know, because in order to find out what a material can do, it has to be tested to destruction. In the fantasy novel I wrote, it was called 'seeing the Dragon.'
Pappenheimer
P.S. It's like that old lie from Neitzsche, "that which does not kill us makes us stronger."
You may be 'strengthened' along one plane, but horribly harmed along another.
One of the hardest things to do in (computational) sociology is to quantify the effect(s) that one person can have on the other(s). An example is the astonishing self-debasement that DT sycophants are willing, indeed happy, to endure. The conduct of the current slate of potential VP picks is quite disgusting and horrifying.
...those characteristics are already there when these events happen. They are not "made" by hard times, just triggered.
It's most shocking to hear a Good German support the very same 'genetic predisposition' Nature argument previously favoured by the 1930's Eugenics Movement, the corollary being that the criminal community is born rather than made, a position in diametrical opposition to the now popular Nurture argument supported by all the progressive blank slate equalists out there.
Of course, it's a bridge too far to suggest that different human gene lines might possess different genetic predispositions & ability potentials because that would represent a progressive hate crime.
It would also be double-plus-ungood to suggest that those innate genetic predispositions might require some sort of unpleasant environmental stressor to express themselves, as this would nullify the philosophical basis of the entire western educational system.
Best
______
Pappenheimer again leads the way by labeling Nietzsche 'a liar' for expressing an opinion with which he personally disagrees, even though it's a confirmed medical fact that a broken bone becomes thicker & stronger in the exact site where it was once broken after knitting. I therefore look forward to more commentary about how everything that Pappy doesn't like is LITERALLY false.
scidata:
One of the hardest things to do in (computational) sociology is to quantify the effect(s) that one person can have on the other(s).
The Mule exists outside the normal laws of psychohistory.
I glanced at L’s latest couch potato military raving and he’s still cluelessly nuts. In WWII the Japanese & Germans and Russians ALL expressed contempt for the ‘gentle’ way US’ians trained our troops, forbidding beatings and prosecuting sergeants who struck or bullied troops. (Tho I owe my existence to a sergeant who pushed my dad from a training platform onto an icy rope and broke his foot.)
In fact, US training was and is profoundly rigorous and man-building, without being demeaning or deliberately repressive-violent. It is the best in the world and the ‘hard men’ rants are just more masturbatory-insane drool by idiots who don’t know a thing.
Paradoc I disagree. The SW prequels #1 and #2 were utterly loathsome… unless you watched them stoned! In which case they were a giggle feast (“Shoot the Federation Starship!” and feast for the eyes. (UN-stone, of course they were evil.)
Eps 3, 7,8,9 were simply evil at all levels Daisy was the only reason to keep watching.
Catfish, ROTJ might’ve been salvaged with other dialogue. But the Emperor’s “Get mad and kill me and you will save the universe… but YOU will become a BAD person!” What utter crap. An evil moral system. I knew guys who got mad at Hitler, killed him, and remained good people. The very same scene MIGHT have posed Luke with a truly hopeless moral quandary. But Lucas was simpleminded & lazy.
LH one act by Vader – killing the Younglings – should have made ALL audience members accept the flames at the end of ROTJ as Jedi hell.
‘FINALLY. After nine episodes, almost fifty years of galactic misery, and infinite shenanigans by mystic wizard-warriors, the hole that the entire plot depends upon is filled. The CITIZEN MILITIA arrives at last. (It's even explicitly named, off screen, as the Citizens' Fleet.)’
Okay… but UNMENTIONED. The Citizen Fleet is a galaxy wide Jihad to eliminate midichlorian parasites, a foul disease plague responsible for a quadrillion deaths. Every ‘Jedi’ is offered a choice… vaccinate now or die.
Dune… DV appears to imply that the waters of Life made Jessica mad. Delusionally translating an insane ‘conversation’ with a fetus. With… a…. fetus.
DP I get that Frank made the Fremen supermen.What a yawner. There’s no reason for that to have been true. IF IT WERE TRUE…. Then the Fremen would have been asked to name their own Duke and be treated as a member of the Landsraad and that would have been that! Rent out soldiers to all the Houses, as Viking Varangians served as bodyguards all across the world in the 1300s
But HERE is the problem… the same Huge Problem as in AVATAR.
WHO WERE THE FREMEN FIGHTING ALL THESE CENTURIES TO MAKE THEM SUCH WARRIORS?
(Likewise the Na’avi?).
Obviously each other.
Now some actual, actual human history: HOW did the British conquer the world?
By SIDING WITH locals in longstanding hate-feuds. Supporting the weaker side to win – or younger brothers against older ones. It is how Cortez conquered a vast empire with 300 guys.
It’s fine to claim “They’ll all suddenly UNITE(!) when faced with an outside threat!” It’s What Tecumseh almost accomplished, till rivalries tore his alliance. But mostly, white empires exploited existing hates between local tribes.
Herbert & Cameron utterly ignore this. Despite the fact that it has been one of THE drivers of geopolitics for millennia.
Dr Brin,
Having gone through Army and then abbreviated USAF basic training (don't ask), I don't know about the 'man-building' part. I do admit that the periods directly after each basic training were when I was in the best shape of my generally pudgy life. Mentally, though, it was extremely boring and even embarrassing when your drill sergeant draws you aside and asks you for advice about his career. It's a lot like being in a voluntary prison, because you can give up and leave at any time. Even modern BT is stressful to civilians because of the strictures.
Although I do remember seizing up in panic during the Army marksmanship test* - at that time, I dreaded being put back a couple of weeks before getting OUT OF THERE - and flubbing the easiest portions of the test (prone supported, prone unsupported) through sheer nerves. The same drill sergeant noticed me messing up and stood over me shouting until I started laughing.
"What's so funny, (my name)?" he asked.
"You're being a bit distracting, drill sergeant," I shouted back**, and shot 8 out of 10 on the hardest part, with him standing over me, and passed.
*USAF marksmanship test at the time was a joke
**we all had earplugs in
In summation, basic training continued to confirm my hypothesis that life is a long, occasionally funny and sometimes cruel jest - an Infinite Jest, if you will. If you want dehumanized robots aching to find someone lower on the totem pole to abuse, I suppose the Japanese WWII method would work well.
Pappenheimer
Dr Brin,
I swear the Brits, and probably others, preferred to prop up local monarchs and potentates who nastier and less popular with their own people than average, because said Evil Overlordlings hadn't read the book and were forced to rely on British support against their own people. Of course, enough colonial mismanagement, and your colony will rise up under people like the Rani of Jhansi and try to kill you all.
Pappenheimer
Dr Brin:
But the Emperor’s “Get mad and kill me and you will save the universe… but YOU will become a BAD person!” What utter crap. An evil moral system. I knew guys who got mad at Hitler, killed him, and remained good people. The very same scene MIGHT have posed Luke with a truly hopeless moral quandary. But Lucas was simpleminded & lazy.
He probably reads superhero comics. That's a trope in the genre, that if Batman were to kill The Joker, he would become "just as bad". I've never subscribed to it, but millions do (apparently).
I only saw one in-story rationalization that I was able to accept as in-character for Batman. He once explained to (I think it was) Alfred that he was afraid that if he killed The Joker, then someone even more horrifying would emerge to take his place.
In light of Ben Kenobi's post-death ascension in the first movie, this would have even made sense had it been made apparent in RotJ. Luke could kill the Emperor ("He has foreseen this!"), BUT, Palpatine would re-emerge as a Force (sic) Of Nature who could rival Thanos without requiring Infinity Stones. Now, that would be a dilemma.
onward
onward
Post a Comment