A majority of recent postings have to do with either our dire political landscape or else updates on many aspects of science that show how wondrous it is to be part of a real civilization, looking ahead to the future.
Which of course is always pioneered by science fiction! And so, with the Seattle World Science Fiction Convention looming in August... and COMICON even sooner (!)... let's dive into that pioneering realm. Starting with this acceptance speech by deservedly installed SFWA Grand Master Nicola Griffith, in which she relates how SF -- always more enlightened in any decade than other genres of a given time -- persuaded her that ancient injustices can be overcome.
... And leading off the same recording, Nebulas MC Erin Roberts amazed with perspectives that were passionate, amusing, unpolemical and insightful. She's the real deal that's needed now, more than ever.
Though speaking of the real deal, amazing rising star Martha Wells will be Author Guest of Honor at the Seattle Worldcon. A genuine Kwizats Haderach... in the best interpretation of the term.
...though maybe I shouldn't apply DUNE references so blithely! Because wow. Damien Walter offers a fantastic video exploring implications and messages of DUNE. And how Frank Herbert’s message - against dark age feudalism - got buried under Frank’s spectacular mastery of point-of-view, resulting in millions actually yearning for one of the most oppressive and nasty societies ever depicted in a human mythology. This is one of the best pod-videos I've seen all year and hugely important for our time.
Though maybe I am biased.
And now we veer into my own corner....
== News from the Briniverse ==
Long-awaited! My 1st novel -SUNDIVER - never had a hardcover edition, till now!
Phantasia Press has issued a special, limited edition, finely-bound with interiors and gorgeous cover, all by the epic artist Jim Burns! Not cheap. But if you want a lovely edition with quality to survive several geological epochs...;-)
And more terrific sci fi news! A Thrilling new Time-Travel Adventure from Amazing Selects - an imprint of Amazing Stories… Boondoggle by Tom Easton and Torion Oey.
The year 2340 was looking pretty good—by 2346, not so much. Saboteurs are running wild on a distant space station, threatening a fragile interstellar alliance. To stop them, Project Hourglass reaches back through time to assemble an unlikely team of problem solvers.
Meet 14-year-old Artie Conan Doyle, snatched from 1879 before he ever dreams up Sherlock Holmes. Irene Kennealy, pulled from 2025 in the middle of her science fair project. Twins Siondra and Tony Pantala, yanked from 2029—along with, by accident, three teenage roughnecks and a fearless beagle pup named Tuffy. Their mission? Uncover the truth behind the sabotage, navigate whispers of alien conspiracies, and survive as members of their team start disappearing. Can a band of time-traveling teens (and one scrappy dog) prevent an all-out war?
The game is afoot, and the future is at stake!
== More sci fi news! ==
Of course this movie ‘trailer for STARTIDE RISING is amateurish, but still way-fun.
We already made (much more impressive and fun) 'trailers' for EXISTENCE, Glory Season, Heart of the Comet, Life Eaters, Otherness and others. These could be given AI animation and voices pretty easily. See them on my website. Now? Working with my agent etc. on animated storyboards for KILN PEOPLE and 'The Tumbledowns'!
The gorgeous collector's hardcover of DUNE, by Earthling Publications, features my - well - perspicacious introduction.
And a new, special hardcover edition of the 1959 classic novel about nuclear aftermath ALAS BABYLON has been published by Centipede Press, with a new introduction by yours truly. Only 50 of 500 copies remain.
And Centipede will soon publish a magnificent edition of GOD EMPEROR OF DUNE, also with an extensive introduction by yours, truly.
From The Portalist: The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the 1990s. "The '90s were a special time for speculative fiction." Earth made the list, along with Snowcrash, The Difference Engine and Doomsday Book.
== And more news? ==
One some of you cited THE UPLIFT WAR, in sending in this news! Field workers had long reported on chimps seeking and sharing slightly fermented/alcoholic fruit in the wild. Lubricating social interactions with a slight buzz. Anyone recall my character Fiben and the dance-party scene in The Uplift War? ;-) Which BTW is a Hugo winner.
We just watched on Netflix an animated miniseries by my brilliant colleague Ken Liu – Pantheon. It posits that AI – the current fad – will be superseded by UI – Uploaded human minds. Good writing and layered. With some of the nuance about uploading that are in Robin Hanson’s nonfiction (sort of) book THE AGE OF EM.
Astronomer Andrew Fraknoi penned an interesting and well-written story about asteroid miners encountering a ‘lurker’ alien probe in the Belt. If you’d like a cool scenario totally consistent with my novel EXISTENCE.
And finally... the best for last... see inteviewed one of the finest young scholars of sci fi, having resurrected from obscurity one of the greatest technology storyists of the 1880s, for everyone to enjoy once more.
286 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 286 of 286The summer before I went to college, 1978, the Rolling Stones were touring, and the news media was making fun of how old they were THEN.
They're STILL effing touring NOW, 47 years AFTER THAT.
Holy cow! A 1.5 solar mass object falling onto Betelgeuse within 10K years?! How fast can we pedal away from the calamity?
If Apple News is available to you, look for a New Yorker piece they've posted "Behind Trump's Jeffery Epstein Problem".
"Drumph!" seems to have been "Biff Tannered" by his own mountain of "Bovine byproduct". A visitation of karma is less satisfying than a visitation of a more physical nature, but it'll have to do.
They're STILL effing touring NOW, 47 years AFTER THAT.
Maybe they are agents of Special Circumstances & The Culture?
A satirist formerly working for a German public broadcasting service had been indicted for tweeting "so sad he (Trump) missed the last bus" and "I enjoy every time a fascist dies" after the Butler shooting. He lost his job over this. Decorum and such stuff.
Today, he was acquitted of all charges, the court ruled that it was within free speech and discernible as satire.
The former head of the same broadcasting service is under criminal investigation for embezzlement.
The Rude Pundit weighs in on Superman (he likes it) ...
https://bsky.app/profile/rudepundit.bsky.social
...
Gunn gets that not every comic book movie needs to be inspired by Watchmen or The Dark Knight Returns. Sometimes, it's not a dark reflection on our depraved modern existence. Sometimes, we just wanna see superheroes save the day.
Oh, and I just belatedly realized why the manosphere thinks the movie is too woke. Perry White is played by a black man.
"what jailhouse mob would have the Authority to speak for - let alone self-curse - an entire people & nation?"
I see it as probably a few plants in the crowd shouting out the curse until the rest of the mob joins in. That's actually easy to do.
And it probably wasn't a big crowd. Pilate's praetorium was part of Herod's palace and was more of a small courtyard. Maybe a few hundred could gather there.
Pilate himself was a brutal thug who would be called back to Rome on charges of extortion and corruption - which must have been pretty bad because the whole point of becoming a Roman imperial governor was to make your fortune practicing extortion and corruption.
He was also friends with Sejanus, the commander of the Praetorian Guard that the old emperor Tiberius had executed because Sejanus was plotting a coup (when Jesus says "render unto Caesar" he means Tiberius - also see the old PBS series "I, Claudius" and watch Sir Patrick Stewart play the evil Sejanus with consummate acting skill). So when the high priests threatened him with complaining to Tiberius, Pilate caved quickly and ordered Jesus' crucifixion.
Until then, Pilate's behavior during the trial - being solicitous of Jesus and appearing concerned about him - only makes sense if a brutal thug like Pilate was fishing for a bribe.
The Rude Pundit sees a vulnerability in the (Formerly) GOP;
https://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2025/07/hey-democrats-its-okay-to-be-outraged.html
Taking advantage of it distracts GOP minions from the destruction of the Republic.
LH: I recall it as a Vulcan proverb. Spock quoted it in one of the movies.
Yes, it was a Vulcan proverb. The movie was The Undiscovered Country, and I was mixing memories.
It was Shakespeare that was best heard in the original Klingon.
Something interesting;
https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2025/07/10/3i-atlas-observing-and-modeling-an-interstellar-newcomer/
Picturing a secretive Galactic Federation crew emplacing a passive camera and radio package on a comet passing through Sol system with a rendezvous scheduled on the other side to collect data without the mutant chimps seeing.
Someone once said that Superman's bright shiny Metropolis is New York City by day.
And Batman's dark, gritty Gotham City is New York City by night.
Lex Luthor has a point.
If superheroes like Superman actually existed we would stagnate and grow too dependent on them. We would trust Superman to stop that meteor from hitting the Earth instead of developing our own planetary defense shield.
Not sure if that applies to superheroes without superpowers (Tony Stark's Iron Man and Bruce Wayne's Batman). Or supervillains like Lex Luthor and Dr. Doom.
Unless money is its own superpower.
More likely, if superheroes like Superman actually existed, they would be supervillains—not only because power corrupts, but because it scares people. Observe the behavior and character of billionaires, political leaders, athletes, celebrities, intellectuals, cult leaders, etc. who get a small taste of being superhuman. Now imagine having Superman’s powers. LOL, what a monster that dude would be.
So is Betelgeuse going nova or not?
imagine having Superman’s powers. LOL, what a monster that dude would be.
When John Byrne rebooted Superman in the 80s, he made the point that Superman isn't a hero because he has powers. He's a hero because of how he uses those powers.
Superman, the specific character, doesn't use his powers to be a monster because of who he is.
Unless money is its own superpower.
In the real world, it certainly is. Look at what a George Soros can do with it. Or a Vladimir Putin or Elon Musk.
Money, like all super powers, is not good or evil in itself. It can be used for either. When J.B. Pritzker ran against Bruce Rauner for Illinois governor, many people asked rhetorically what's the difference between one billionaire or another. But that's as deluded as "Both parties are the same."
John Byrne insisted that Gotham City was more analogous to Chicago--probably thinking of the Al Capone days, or maybe the elder Mayor Daley. His stories even placed Gotham "halfway across the country" from Metropolis, but that doesn't jibe with most other characterizations of the city, including the fact that it is named Gotham.
I'm partial to Batman's line from the Dark Knight series which was co-opted into the Batman vs Superman movie a decade or so back.
"You sold us out, Clark. You gave them the power that should have been ours. Just like your parents taught you to."
"My parents taught me a different lesson. Lying on the street--shaking in deep shock--dying for no reason at all. They showed me that the world only makes sense when you force it to!"
Treebeard's point is valid. My own headcanon about superbeings takes the form of a trilogy, as follows:
Part 1, "Superpower To The People". A lesser superhero and a lesser supervillain team up to investigate the nature of superpower. Meanwhile the other supers continue their endless destructive conflicts. The lesser superbeings discover how superpower works, and they use this knowledge to invent devices that can give ordinary people superpowers. They sell those devices for $199.95 each. The other supers get wind of this, and they don't like it one little bit. Only they, the aristocrats, deserve those powers. That drives the story's conflict. Biff! Bam! Pow! After setbacks and plot twists, the People win. But the most villainous of the superheros, while being dragged off to super-jail, warn them that their troubles are only just beginning.
Part 2, "Super Law". A policier. Society has technically integrated superpowers into everyday life. The people fly to work, build by telekinesis, communicate telepathically, use healing energies, etc. But law and custom lag behind technology, and the powers are abused by bad actors. Our hero, a detective technologically superpowered, tracks down and catches some of those bad actors, whom the authorities punish by newly-minted law.
Part 3. "Super Doofs". A rom-com. Two young super-fools make super-blunders in awkward pursuit of each other. In the end they clean up the messes they made, and get married.
The idea is to depict the Enlightenment ideal of popular empowerment via scientific progress. Also to debunk the inherently corrupting fantasy of the lone vigilante, in favor of a well-governed Republic.
I imagine it in three parts to parallel the three generations of a dynasty: the Conqueror, the Lawgiver, and the Idiot Grandsons.
This trilogy can be adapted to any system of superpowers. In a Star Wars world, a shot of midichlorians will give you the Force. In Rowling's world, Hermoine invents a amulet that Muggles can use. And so on.
The trouble is that these trilogies will subvert their source franchises, so the corporations will object. It would be safest to invent your own super-world to revolutionize.
There's a great line in the movie Almost Famous (2000), where the manager of the rock band is trying to energize the band to strike while the fire is hot.
He asks the band, "Do you think Mick Jagger is going to be dancing across the stage when he's sixty?"
Mick being over 60 at the time made the irony quite obvious. :)
A small revision:
The three parts are named "Superpower of the People", "Superpower of the Law", and "Superpower of Love".
In a Tolkienesque world, the magical macguffin for the people could be the Ring of Disillusionment. It's made of cheap brass, and when worn linked to a cord, it goes "ting!" whenever someone tells a lie. When it is unlinked from the cord and worn on a finger, then that silences the "ting!", except to the wearer, who must also see with disillusioned eyes; therefore magic does not work on them, for magic is made from illusion.
Treebeard's point is valid.
To a point, yes. He imagines what he himself would be like with super powers and (to his credit) recoils at the thought.
There are many such monsters already depicted in superhero comics, even as the protagonists. Wolverine comes to mind, but the Sub-Mariner was a vengeful hybrid who attacked New York City as far back as 1939. The thing that makes Superman--in particular--different is not his powers, but the fact that he's a "big blue Boy Scout" who just wouldn't use his powers for evil.
Only they, the aristocrats, deserve those powers. That drives the story's conflict.
That reminds me of the Pixar cartoon The Incredibles. The villain is the one who wants to democratize superpowers, because "If everybody is super, then nobody is." If everybody had Superman's powers, then there could be no Superman--there'd still be good guys and bad guys, but they'd all be on an equal playing field.
Society has technically integrated superpowers into everyday life. The people fly to work, build by telekinesis, communicate telepathically, use healing energies, etc. But law and custom lag behind technology, and the powers are abused by bad actors.
There's a comics series called Astro City which I believe was about something like that, though I never read the series.
I'm also remembering a one-off Fantastic Four story in which history was changed such that everyone on earth had super powers except for the lone exception--Ben Grimm, formerly The Thing.
If everybody had Superman's powers, then there could be no Superman--there'd still be good guys and bad guys, but they'd all be on an equal playing field.
Democratization of super powers sounds good to us Enlightenment folks, but there's also a potential downside. For example, in the real world, democratization of assault weapons doesn't work out all that well.
LH: I am very much aware of "The Incredibles". I agree with Syndrome's point, but not his methods. If everyone is super, then no-one is super; that precisely is democratization. (I call this trope 'the democratization of magic.)
I figure that the super-republic, in "Superpower of the Law", will vote to regulate weapon powers. I also would like the superpowers to include force field shields, which negate weapon powers.
He was also friends with Sejanus,
Do you have a source? That had eluded me somehow.
The Jews were incredibly fracticious - they kept rebelling!
I wonder if - Jesus - was not invented by the Roman equivalent of the CIA to make the Jews less rebellious
Nice theory.
The first dedicated Roman domestic intelligence organization were the frumentarii - Legionaires who at first, during republican times, filled the role of quartermasters, later became cops, spies, informers and assassins. Each provincial Commander (such as Pilates) had a unit of these at his disposal.
Military Units had their own, cavalry-based scouting parties.
(Later, I believe after the Partition in East and West Rome, they were replaced by the agentes in rebus, who were answerable to the Emperor himself.)
From what I gather, they would not have resorted to elaborate plots - they were a secret police in the classic sense, crushing opposition with brutality rather than finesse. I believe many of them would have ended on the cross themselves under other circumstances.
But then again, much knowledge was lost - and maybe they were capable of such elaborate plots.
https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2025/Items/Jul24-5.html
On the way out the door, Joe Biden pardoned Anthony Fauci to prevent Donald Trump with indicting him on some trumped up charge. The pardon may have been signed by an autopen, which is a device that was programmed to exactly duplicate Biden's signature. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) wants to test the theory that Biden was incapacitated and the pardon was granted by aides without Biden even knowing about it. Presidents have to sign a vast number of legal documents and if autopens aren't allowed, a court decision to invalidate autopens could definitely hinder future presidents, possibly starting with Donald Trump.
Consequently, Paul has urged the DoJ to indict Fauci for allegedly lying to Congress. Paul said that Fauci testified before Congress that the NIH never funded the virus research in Wuhan, China. Paul believes that the NIH did fund this research. If the Supreme Court rules that documents signed by an autopen don't count, then many documents autosigned by many previous presidents could declared invalid. Determining which were autosigned would be a nightmare.
Biden has said that he personally approved every document signed by an autopen. A court case would probably turn on two things. First, does an autopen count or must the president personally sign every document? Second, was Biden competent to sign documents? The latter is very tricky since the Constitution does not address the question of whether an incompetent president can sign bills and other documents. If the Supreme Court were to rule that any document signed by a mentally impaired president doesn't count, then a future Democrat AG could challenge every bill Trump signed and possibly get some future Supreme Court to nullify every XO and law Trump signed. This could get very chaotic
Ok, me here. If documents can be mooted after the fact because they were signed by an autopen, it might be possible to annul DJT's pardons of the Jan 6 insurrectionists.
I'm very surprised that a president who uses pardons as a strategic weapon is willing to set precedent that they can be clawed back.
I'm not at all surprised that such a thing would not occur to him, given how close he seems to be to "Dead from the neck up". (Carotid bypass candidate?)
Betelgeuse is a supernova candidate, but it better get cracking or it's companion will impact first. What a MESS that would make!
While in a real world it is one of the people around you who goes 'ting!' proving the value of temperance... that virtue we display when we can silence our minds enough so our inner dialogue doesn't drown out the external sound. 8)
Is that right? Smells fishy. Ting!
From 1984 :
...The heirs of the French, English, and American revolutions had partly believed in their own phrases about the rights of man, freedom of speech, equality before the law, and the like, and had even allowed their conduct to be influenced by them to some extent. But by the fourth decade of the twentieth century all the main currents of political thought were authoritarian. The earthly paradise had been discredited at exactly the moment when it became realizable. Every new political theory, by whatever name it called itself, led back to hierarchy and regimentation. And in the general hardening of outlook that set in round about 1930, practices which had been long abandoned, in some cases for hundreds of years--imprisonment without trial, the use of war prisoners as slaves, public executions, torture to extract confessions, the use of hostages and the deportation of whole populations--not only became common again, but were tolerated and even defended by people who considered themselves enlightened and progressive.
George Orwell was a prophet.
This too:
The essence of oligarchical rule is not father-to-son inheritance, but the persistence of a certain world view and a certain way of life, imposed by the dead upon the living. A ruling group is a ruling group so long as it can nominate its successors. The Party is not concerned with perpetuating its blood, but with perpetuating itself. Who wields power is not important provided that the hierarchical structure remains always the same.
...
Hope OGH is well.
In the backstory of the anime I am watching, the Party of Heroes goes off to slay the Demon King and, on the way, stops at the Village of the Sword, where the prophesied hero can pull the enchanted sword from its rock for purposes of Demon Inhumation.
The Sword won't budge, so the heroes go and kill the guy anyway.
I like that part.
Pappenheimer
People unclear on the concept...
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/07/28/opinion/focus-group-latino-trump-voters.html
I definitely went with Trump. I was happy that he was running again. Hearing Kamala, when you actually listen, because there’s a difference between listening and hearing, she didn’t make any sense whatsoever.
Yeah, she doesn't make any sense whatsoever. As opposed to...
Spoken by someone who has never actually listened to Trump.
OK, the various imaginary screen superheroes can wait a little. I've just seen Attenborough's 'Ocean' and I recommend you catch it if you still can. Bottom sea trawling is indeed horrific, but there is also a good deal of hope to be found.
Remember the Rude Pundit agreeing with me that he doesn't want AI to summarize the two-line email? Well, he agrees with me again.
https://bsky.app/profile/rudepundit.bsky.social
I don't want to give you my opinion on everything. I went to your theater, AMC, to see a movie. I don't want to think about the service or how easy or hard it is to get tickets or any of that. I just want to sit in your auditorium and watch a damn movie. Stop emailing me, you thirsty bitches.
Testify!
The biggest blind spot that liberals have is their assumption that people are basically good, reasonable and rational.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
As proof, please note that if the election were held again today - despite Epstein, tariffs, deportations, etc. - America would still elect Trump instead of a black woman.
Trump in his own way has been a great teacher. This is what I have learned from 10 years of Trump:
In America, evil beats Good because Evil is focused and has a plan, while Good is well meaning but ineffectual. Evil is strong and Good is weak. As Yeats wrote in “Second Coming”: The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity. IOW the Dems are sissies and the MAGA are bullies.
America is no longer the greatest country in the world. By any conceivable metric except number of billionaires and military spending, America is at best a mediocre country compared to other more advanced nations. We were at one time: curing diseases, rebuilding a world shattered by war, spreading democracy, extending rights to minorities, landing men on the moon, defeating fascism and communism. We have neither the skill nor the desire to do any of that now.
America is incapable of looking further ahead in time beyond next quarter’s P&L statements. All we care about is the quick score being unable to conceive of long-term goals.
America is still a racist country, and White America abhors the idea of non-whites being in charge or in the majority. If illegal immigrants came from Scandinavia instead of South America nobody would notice or care. Those of us who were stupid enough to believe that Obama’s election meant the end of racism have to face that fact that he was a one off, a false dawn, that triggered a backlash.
MAGA exist because we had a Black president and gay marriage. Tehe first destroy White people’s sense of entitlement and superiority and the second destroyed their religious beliefs. MAGA was the inevitable reaction. If Trump didn’t exist, White America would have to invent him.
America is still a sexist country that will not tolerate women being in charge (a view held by a surprising number of other women). There is no way in hell America will ever elect a woman as president.
America is a homophobic country, that has a disgust of LGBTQ in general and gay marriage in particular. Yet they have a surprising tolerance in Republican circles for those who harm children.
America is a dishonest country that refuses to admit, even to itself, that it is racist, sexist and homophobic. The price of eggs didn’t have squat to do with the last election. That was just a convenient excuse for people to cover up why they really voted for Trump – or more accurately, why they would never vote for a black woman.
Americans who claim to be Christian are the least Christin people in the world. This is especially true of evangelical MAGA White nationalist Christians who have betrayed Jesus and everything he taught in order to worship Trump. These are the people that Jesus will say to at the Last Judgement: “I never knew you”.
(cont.)
American organized religion (as opposed to faith) is a great evil that twists everything Jesus taught in order to achieve and hold onto political power and preserve White primacy.
Everything in America is about race.
In America, we have a two-tiered system of justice in America and whether you go to jail or not depends on the quality of legal defense you can afford. Jail is for poor people. Rich people never go to jail, no matter what they have done either in shady financial details or on Epstein’s Island. With enough money you can get away with anything. Anything.
In America, nothing is more important than corporate profits and CEO bonuses. Not deaths a pandemic. Not a burning planet. Nothing.
Americans are basically stupid, lacking both critical thinking skills and a desire to learn. That makes them very gullible and easy marks for Russian troll farms flooding their social media in boxes with idiotic crap like Haitan immigrants eating cats or Covid-19 vaccines being a ploy to allow Bill Gates to implant you with a microchip.
Americans prefer belief to knowledge and will hate any facts that disturb their comfortable beliefs.
American capitalism exists to benefit the top 1% while fucking over the remaining 99%. That is essentially our economic system. Period.
Only an idiot would be loyal to an American corporation. Your boss will be perfectly happy to kick you into the gutter, no matter how good a job you are doing, if it means he gets a bigger bonus by artificially juicing the company’s stock price by reducing labor costs.
The American stock market is a rigged system where most of the real action takes place in dark pools. Politicians are now inside traders and Trump manipulates the market with his on again off again tariff threats. I really would love to know who shorted the market before his first round of 100%+ tariff proposals.
America has gutted any program from FEMA to NOAA that could help mitigate or prevent a global warming disaster. Now it is too late. Global warming cannot be stopped and millions if not billions of people worldwide will die as a result before the end of the century. But since they will not be White people who suffer the most, we wont care.
America won’t really suffer from global warming until it is our grandkids’ turn, decades from now (though we are having an unusual number of heat domes and fires this year, aren’t we?). And we American really don’t give a fuck about our grandkids or the world they will be living in. We just don’t think that far ahead. If saving our grandkids later means we have to be inconvenienced now we’ll choose not to save our grandkids.
That alone is reason enough for American Boomers to be legitimately hated by the younger generations.
(cont.)
In the meantime, large parts of America now count as Third World. Towns devastated by globalization have - in typical American fashion - embraced the one man most representative of those forces that ruined their lives. And Americans really don’t mind having their lives ruined provided the people they hate (blacks, Hispanics, feminists, LGBTQ, etc.) suffer more.
The man that American elected president is about to fuck over their Medicaid, hospitals, dental offices, retirement homes, etc. And again, they won’t mind provided he hurts the people they hate more.
American farmers deserve no sympathy for what Trump’s deportation and tariff policies are about to do to them. There businesses are based on neo-slave labor rotted in racism and denial of human rights to their workers. Additionally, American farmers are the biggest welfare queens in the country, depending on subsidies and price supports even as they complain about single black moms getting SNAP payments for their kids. Fuck farmers.
America today is an excellent opportunity to watch a once great civilization collapse in real time. Hopefully the next great nation will learn from our stupidity and greed.
America is no longer worth saving.
Not that that there is any hope that American can be saved in any case. The system of secret money power allowed by Citizens United that controls our politics is so perfect that it can co-opt or destroy any potential reformer politician. Like the Inner Party in 1984 they have learned history and will make sure that revolution or reform will never happen. By splitting the working class along racial lines they prevent another French revolution from below. By controlling campaign finances the prevent another New Deal from occurring from above. As always, the best example of the petro-Christian fascism is the cabal that runs the state of Texas.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_wGRYNxp2c
America is no longer worth saving.
Which America?
What would be salvation?
What would it look like, feel, taste?
At what price would it come?
Who could be the saviour?
How would a post-salvation America would look like?
Normally, this piece is a solemn monologue from Richard II, one of Shakespeare's tragedies. In these times, it might be a reassurance how tyrannies always end.
For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings;
How some have been deposed; some slain in war,
Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed;
Some poison'd by their wives: some sleeping kill'd;
All murder'd: for within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king
Keeps Death his court and there the antic sits,
Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,
Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
To monarchize, be fear'd and kill with looks,
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
As if this flesh which walls about our life,
Were brass impregnable, and humour'd thus
Comes at the last and with a little pin
Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king!
@Celt
“The biggest blind spot that liberals have is their assumption that people are basically good, reasonable and rational. Nothing could be further from the truth.”
Congratulations, you’ve become a conservative.
Your rant is incoherent though. You list all the reasons America is not great, none of which are new, and also assert that America was once great. When was this?
Sounds to me like you’re confusing three things:
1. Your ideal of America, which exists only in your head.
2. Your perception of America, which depends on your experience, what media you pay attention to, etc.
3. The “real” America, which exists, but is interpreted differently by everyone due to #1 and #2.
If #1 and #2 have made #3 unbearable for you, no worries, because America, too, shall pass. That’s another piece of conservative wisdom that it sounds like you’re coming around to.
You miss the point completely TB.
America has never been perfect.
Our reach often exceeded our grasp.
But at least we reached, and strove, and aimed for something better. We tried to make ourselves greater and the world better.
We don't do that anymore.
BTW I've always been a conservative. I've just never been a bigot.
Richard III is more fitting for these times.
Then, since this earth affords no joy to me,
But to command, to cheque, to o'erbear such
As are of better person than myself,
I'll make my heaven to dream upon the crown,
And, whiles I live, to account this world but hell,
Until my mis-shaped trunk that bears this head
Be round impaled with a glorious crown.
And yet I know not how to get the crown,
For many lives stand between me and home:
And I,--like one lost in a thorny wood,
That rends the thorns and is rent with the thorns,
Seeking a way and straying from the way;
Not knowing how to find the open air,
But toiling desperately to find it out,--
Torment myself to catch the English crown:
And from that torment I will free myself,
Or hew my way out with a bloody axe.
Why, I can smile, and murder whiles I smile,
And cry 'Content' to that which grieves my heart,
And wet my cheeks with artificial tears,
And frame my face to all occasions.
I'll drown more sailors than the mermaid shall;
I'll slay more gazers than the basilisk;
I'll play the orator as well as Nestor,
Deceive more slily than Ulysses could,
And, like a Sinon, take another Troy.
I can add colours to the chameleon,
Change shapes with Proteus for advantages,
And set the murderous Machiavel to school.
Can I do this, and cannot get a crown?
Tut, were it farther off, I'll pluck it down.
Yet, Richard III himself is a good example for the fate of tyrants.
Nonsense. Trump is aiming to make himself greater, his reach exceeds his grasp all the time, and MAGA wants America to be great right now. So your statement is not just an opinion, it's factually false.
So what moral and ethical goals is Trump trying to achieve?
What moral and ethical methods is he using to achieve them?
Americans no longer are willing to perform unselfish acts of generosity. No more Peace Corps or Marshall for us. Instead, everything is transactional and pay to play.
America no longer has alliances; we have protection rackets. If you want America to join in your common defense of democracy and freedom, it’s now going to cos you
The America that never achieved all of its goals but never stopped striving for them. And even when making stupendous blunders like Vietnam we did so in an attempt to promote freedom. The America that liberated instead of conquered. The America that protected instead of extorted. The America that gave instead of took. The America that led instead of bullied.
Salvation would be the same for America as it is for all souls, a restoration of our generosity.
It would feel like an America that dreamed big and accomplished much.
The price would be small compared to the benefits.
But if you are waiting for a savior to do it for you, then you've already failed.
Such an America would look most like "The First Universal Nation" by Ben J. Wattenberg (host of PBS ThinkTank and former Reagan speech writer):
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5556596-the-first-universal-nation
Its a look at an America that could have been.
In the meantime "let us wear crepes of mourning for a civilization that once held the promise of joy".
But if you are waiting for a savior to do it for you, then you've already failed.
I am not a fan of great man theory. Yet, I'd argue that someone - a group of persons- must actually take over the steering wheel and chart a different course.
Who could that be, in your opinion?
The price would be small compared to the benefits.
Sadly, we won't know that until afterward. What we know the price rises daily.
What would you be willing to pay? In terms of sacrifices, ressources? What would be a line to far for you?
I posed this question elsewhere today (in the context of terraforming worlds), but maybe this is one for you Sci Fi nerds:
Is there such a thing as an "Apex Ecosystem ?"
One, that as a whole has had enough time to evolve into a biosphere that would be hard to impossible to destroy (except for real planet- and star system killing events) and in which unprotected, unprepared humans would perish (and maybe decomposed and turned into fertilizer) in a very short time span, because the evolutionary struggle had possibly billions of years more time and opportunities to amp up capabilities of resident life forms?
This question causes me to go full Star Trek nerd for a moment. Eden as human-proof is a repeating theme in ST.
In the TOS episode "The Way to Eden", the deadliness is explicit as the hippies get rejected by the paradise they sought. The story was originally written by the brilliant DC Fontana, but demolished by re-writes. The original story had Kirk falling in love with McCoy's daughter!! Probably had a deeper description of that ecosystem too, I'm guessing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0CO-CRA3nI&t=188s
"Star Trek V: The Final Frontier" (1989) returned to the harsh Eden theme. Both this movie and the previous TOS episode are considered the worst of the worst by critics. I personally disagree because I love the concept of ancient, enigmatic, and long-evolved ecosystems that predate humans by eons (not a Bible fan, but that's another story for another day).
Bruce Sterling's short story 'Swarm' (which also features in the third series of 'Love, Death, and Robots') describes a hive colony that a confident, space faring human society encounters and seeks to exploit. They discover that the colony consists of other once confident, space faring societies that got suborned into various ecological niches in the colony. The suggestion is that humanity's fate will be similar.
There are stories, like Alan Foster's Midworld and a short story by a Navy vet whose name I wish I could remember, where humans are incorporated into a deathworld by something like a Gaean sentience who makes room for a few humans to live a tribal, low-tech existence.
Richard McKenna, and 'Casey Agonistes'. Thanks, Wiki.
Pappenheimer
Celt,
I have been a bigot, and Goddess save me from a relapse. Old SF was rife with blithe bigotry.
Oh - someone asked if I could show where Heinlein's 'Glory Road' had a black viewpoint character not mentioned as such, much like 'Starship Troopers' had a Filipino character. I don't remember the clues, but TV tropes has an entry stating : "Just like Tunnel in the Sky and The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, this book features an African-American protagonist in the book but a Caucasian protagonist on the cover." I remember a possible clue - Oscar spending the summer at a Mediterranean beach resort, nude, but there is no mention of sunscreen.
I could also add Podkayne of Mars, who has a full Maori great-uncle, so she would be classed as 'mixed' by racists (including two other spaceship passengers, who do that very thing). In 'Moon is a Harsh Mistress' Manuel de la Paz gets arrested in Mississippi, iirc, because of the color of some of the other members of his line marriage.
Pappenheimer
I would argue that unprepared humans are toast in most ecosystems. Examples range from early European colonizers of malaria infested lands in Africa to early Spanish attempts to colonize Florida. Unprepared means ignorant and throughout most of our history that is a death sentence.
Unprotected humans aren't necessarily toast, though, and that's why I don't think there can be an ecosystem we can't trash. We'd have some work to do in finding keystone species or lineages. Want to control insect-like populations? Attack the plants they rely on by attacking the fungi with which they are allied below the ground. Prepared humans might need protection for a while, but not after they've had time to undermine the threats.
Okay. Godlike protectors of a place could put a stop to us. In fact, anything similar to us could fight back well enough to stop us. So... if you want an apex ecosystem, give it a transcendent mind as a defender. Isn't that essentially the story behind Cameron's Avatar?
Alfred - "I would argue that unprepared humans are toast in most ecosystems."
I would argue that mankind is like Batman. No super powers, but with enough prep time, training and resources we can beat anyone or anything.
Hmmm…no discussion of Sydney Sweeney’s jeans. I have not seen the ad. I could not miss the blowup. My sweetheart has great “jeans” too, though she tends to get her clothes from thrift stores.
The Makenzie rulers of Titan in Arthur Clarke's Imperial Earth are black, but that's not mentioned until well into the story. When Duncan arrives on earth, he's amused to note that his skin is darker than the light brown that Terrans have become there in the year 2276.
That fact is important to a surprise in the final paragraph of the book.
Harry Harrison's novel Deathworld features the planet Pyrrus that features an extremely deadly ecosystem. Every living thing, from fungus to megafauna, is deadly to humans and seems intent on killing them. The human colony on the planet is limited to one "city" and the population has been dwindling for generations. Only constant and profligate use of advanced tech and weapons has allowed them to survive at all, and they are losing, slowly.
Turns out that the ecosystem has evolved to act collectively against large scale threats like natural disasters, and the human colonists have triggered that sort of response. There is a physic component, very similar to a strong Gaia concept.
When it comes to killer planets its hard to beat Frank Herbert's Dosadi.
This book would make an excellent series/movie.
Norman Spinrad's "Child Of Fortune" had a forested world as one of the planets the protagonist experienced, the forest found a use for wayward humans as pollinators.
Killer planets and no one has mentioned "The Jesus Incident" by Frank Herbert and Bill Ransom? Freaky book, freakier planet.
Celt- For anything of lesser intelligence I agree. For anything close to us or higher I’m not convinced.😏
Lots of authors have stories with large minds protecting a world. Anything like one of Vinge’s transcendent minds and we wouldn’t have a chance.
Well, anything (or one) that is 'unprepared' is being set up for a toasting almost by definition. The speed with which they can get off the fork might be a better measure.
re: overminds. Clarke's version harvested us. Just as well Stross' Eschaton put up 'get off my event horizon' signs instead.
This story about radioactive wasps basically writes itself.
I hope there wasn't another fire.
The best sign at today's "Rage Against the Regime" rally in Palatine, IL:
"I'm no longer accepting the things I can't change. I'm changing the things I can't accept!"
Since OGH has been recently posting on Bluesky, I assume he's been off doing OGH-y things.
"I'm no longer accepting the things I can't change. I'm changing the things I can't accept!"
An oldie but a goldie. It comes from a prayer of grace:
"May I have the grace to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I cannot accept,
and the wisdom to know the difference."
A thing I just learned today, but should have deduced, was that in 1945, in the face of imminent US invasion of the Japanese Home Islands (fresh US troops for Operation Olympic were at sea and on their way), the Imperial Japanese Navy and Army were still not coordinating their battle plans, and had not yet told the populace that the war was on the verge of being lost*.
I find a similarity here to the reaction of rumpT to recent bad news in labor statistics - simply fire the guy in charge. The current maladministration would rather reject reality for a party line that does not include any bad news. (In similar fashion, the IJN kept news of the Midway disaster - their core naval strike force of 4 carriers all disabled and set ablaze in the space of a single day, and scuttled that night - from not only the Japanese people but the Japanese Army for as long as possible. This is what we may have to look forward to - an official line growing more and more divorced from reality.
*A lot of civilians with relatives in the military had already surmised this, but nobody could say anything in public for fear of retaliation.
Pappenheimer
My own recent venture into SF - about a crew of interstellar repo men tasked with recovering merchant starships whose owners/captains have skipped out rather than make their loan payments - is on hold while I try to find out what happened to chapter 2.
Pappenheimer
I listened to a historian strategist explain that the imperial Japanese simply had a different value system and the US failed to understand that. Surrender would cause the shame/embarrassment to be brought back home doing more harm to family/group than dying in a battle that couldn't be won.
If so, nukes were the only way to end the war without millions of deaths (more) and the Soviets splitting Japan with us. We had to push it way beyond a matter of shame until it became survival.
While our host is busy doing something else, I decided to check up on the state of information about ancient populations and possible updates for causes of the y-chromosome bottleneck. Our ability to extract entire genomes from bones of people dead for millennia has vastly improved... so much so that I deem it likely that ALL our previous attempts at explanations are wrong.
Apparently the last few centuries of movement and mating between formerly distant people isn't unusual. We've done it a LOT. Sometimes the incoming males dominate the resident ones utterly replacing y-chromosomes in a few generations. Sometimes they don't and it is the women who get nabbed and taken elsewhere. Sometimes it is one population moving into a vacated region where 95% of the former inhabitants dropped dead. Apparently, we move around and mix a lot... and then stop mixing causing genetic diversity to collapse in some groups who either die out, change course, or get taken by a neighboring group on the move.
What a mess!
One researcher likes the invention of a certain kind of sequencing tech in 2010 to the invention of the microscope or telescope. We can see things we didn't know anything about beyond our stories/guesses. Everywhere we look now, the stories are being upended.
So Trump is now attacking my profession because it brings him news that her does not like. He will not be able to find someone with any credibility to be the new head of Labor Economics. News from it will be disregarded.
Economic planners, both government and private, will no longer have reliable information. And doctored information will have tell tales that statisticians can spot. The brain is really bad at creating random data.
All this will accelerate economic damage to the US. Another thing brought to us by magical thinking.
This is what we may have to look forward to - an official line growing more and more divorced from reality.
Having just re-read 1984 , I can say that Orwell predicted just that. The MAGA faithful are the ones who have no trouble believing that the chocolate ration has been increased even though they have less of it than they did before. The Party conditions people to believe--to actually believe--that the official line is true, irrespective of whether it makes logical or historical sense. It's not even cognitive dissonance--it doesn't even occur to them to try to apply critical thinking.
Orwell also described the one thing that can finally overcome such collective solipsism. When it runs into solid reality, often on a battlefield.
Something of interest at Brad DeLong's Substack "The Engineer-Dictator Temptation: Lawrence Dennis, the Great Depression, & the FascistRoad Not Taken"
My impression, fascist political science hasn't advanced much in 90 years, unless one counts possessing the conservative movement.
Colbert's recent interview with Harris reminded me of his great blurb about Brexit in 2016 (from memory):
British PM: This is your captain speaking. I've steered us into an iceberg. I think it best if someone else takes over and steers us to the bottom of the Atlantic.
I think it best if someone else takes over and steers us to the bottom of the Atlantic.
That's my cynical view of self-driving cars.* "Oops, I can't get us out of this. Relinquishing control to you."
* Or the Monty Python tom-aah-to that ejects itself when it detects a forthcoming accident.
" ...the one thing that can finally overcome such collective solipsism. When it runs into solid reality, often on a battlefield."
Imperial Japan was definitely an outlier, because it ran into solid reality over and over, from 1942 (Midway/Guadalcanal) to 1945 (fleet sunk, no fuel, little food, nearly every city turned to ash and rubble, Russians invading Manchuria) and it wasn't until the Emperor gave them an honorable out that the high command accepted the L. I guess it beat Hitler's "Germany has failed me so it should all die with me" attitude, but not by much.
Pappenheimer
P.S. There's even SF about the Council of Nicea - read "To Sail the Century Sea", by José Mario Garry Ordoñez Edmondson y Cotton (G. C. Edmondson, ex marine), about dueling time agencies, Russian and American, trying to sway the results of the Council, and an alternative US ruled by a Nixon dictatorship, though the real story is about a aging naval officer trying to find his timelost love from his prior chronic misadventure.
onward
onward
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