I am writing these notes with no reverence or respect for spoilers. Read at your own peril.
One of my favorite songs is still "I still haven't found what I'm looking for." Not because I like Bono's warbly voice all that much, but because it still encapsulates my feelings about this life the best. I've been skimming new and old shows on the streaming services like I'm looking for something, and it occurred to me recently that I AM looking for something. I just still haven't found what I'm looking for.
As the product of a millennialist religion, to me the anticipation of the star wars movies most resembled anticipation of the second coming, and joyous hope for a world made new. This blessed hope has diminished with each flawed arrival of the christ movie, as disillusioned adults realized they weren't 10 anymore and never would be or simply believed the perfect SW movie WAS possible, it was just in hands incapable of crafting paradise correctly. The blessed hope is that someday, someone WILL craft the perfect SW trilogy, and we will walk hand-in-hand into that eternal realm.
As for me, I have long lost the hope that a movie will save me in any fashion, but I still sift through them restlessly, hoping to find some sign of good in them, and by extension the industry that creates them, and by extension western civilization. Like Luke, I want to find the good in the thing that created me. Not coincidentally, one of my other favorite songs is, "Give me something to believe in."
For now, I hold on to one quote from each movie I see that means something to me, even if I can't explain why. For the Force Awakens this was:
"Dear Child. The belonging you seek is not behind you, it is in front of you." (I went home and sobbed after this movie).
For the Last Jedi it's Luke saying:
"No one's ever really gone."
Which ties with my other favorite SW quote:
"Luminous beings are we. Not this crude matter."
"No one's ever really gone." is simultaneously the hope of redemption in this life and the hope of possibilities beyond it.
I look for hope in SW, and in the original trilogy that was the redemption of Darth Vader. A father's love for his son, redemption, and sacrifice are all powerful themes and their combination in Return of the Jedi is probably my favorite aspect of star wars. I personally think genuine redemption (as opposed to posed redemption with no real contrition), is one of the most powerful ideas in human society, is vital to healing social bonds that every one of us can't help but damage from time to time and I like aspects of our culture that champion that idea in a sincere and meaningful way. Our default setting is angry, gory revenge when we are wronged and while we still haven't really gotten much beyond it in our society, we should still try. And what concerns me most about modern society is the increasing absence of redemption, as if we are afraid the wrong people could make use of it.
I believe in redemption because anger leads to hate and hate leads to suffering and while this is a trite pop-culture spiritualism in a kids movie, it is also an idea intimately intertwined in every major religion. To forgive is divine. That doesn't mean you have to be stupid about it, that doesn't mean you have to pretend someone is sincere when they are not. It just means if you can't mend the wound, the remaining options get less fun over time. Isolation, demonization, and violence are less ideal than the alternatives.
So to see redemption tossed so casually aside in the Last Jedi concerns me, but then again, not every story is a story of redemption. This is partly a story about fascism that cannot be reasoned with. I think western civilization is still figuring out how to deal with fascism politically and Star Wars is some not small part of that. How do we stop violent eliminationists without just violently eliminating them? Star Wars has so far not been up to the task in answering this question, but I'm glad it tries. The First Order is still woefully underdeveloped, and the original empire under Palpatine was 1-dimensional evil. A deep exploration of fascism this series is not.
Part of the problem here, is I don't think we have much of an idea of what a healthy, functioning democracy looks like yet in our civilization, which is partly why you never actually see one in Star Wars. Just cartoon fascism and people clinging to hope that we'll figure it out someday. That moves me, and If feel it, but it doesn't enlighten me. Star Wars has yet to show me how things could be better, just that power is being taken by hateful, violent people and we should stand up to them. And they should and we should and I still want to know what better, specifically, looks like.
More interesting here is the way TLJ seems to upend the traditional star wars story entirely. Not even is this not a story about the redemption of Ben Solo, this may not even be a story about the empire or the rebellion. Both the main empire vs rebels and jedi vs sith storylines are cracking at the seems in this movie, as new stories threaten to break free from beneath them. The rebellion vs the First Order is recast several times as the 1% vs the poor and downtrodden and jedi vs sith is cast as dogmatic religions too rigid in their thinking and the light and the dark as oversimplifications that hurt more than they help.
Luke panics at how readily Rey faces the dark side cave, but the panic seems more that the dark is so seductive a person can't help but succumb. But this is Luke's problem, not Rey's. She touches the dark side and instinctively recoils. It is not who she is, it does not have what she wants, it holds very little power over her. Luke's reaction reminds me a lot of christians who freak out when their kids are exposed to any non-christian opinions. If you genuinely believe your ideas are more powerful and more compelling, why be afraid?
Similarly, Kylo Ren seems devoted to the dark, but does not seem to fear his explorations into the light. His lines about killing the past and leaving the Jedi and the Sith far behind were genuinely exciting but also the kind of thing an ambitious Sith would say. For the Sith, it's always about being the new force-using iconoclast who reinvents even as he innovates and remolds the universe around him. But still, as a fan I'm genuinely excited to see the genuinely stale jedi vs sith contruction cast aside in favor of more nuanced depictions of light and dark. I think there is such a thing as good and evil, but SW has long been constricted by overly-simplistic mythologies and losing those to some degree will enable more interesting discussions of good vs evil. Is it still Star Wars if you stop talking about Jedi and the Sith? I honestly don't know.
Beyond that, I have no idea where they're going with Ben Solo from here. He's one of the most well-developed characters of the new series, extremely sympathetic, and seemingly as unbound from the Sith as he is to the Jedi. He may have grabbed the helm of the first order, but to what end? He doesn't strike me as the type who wants to rule the universe, just to do as he wants when he wants to. He's an interesting character, but I'm not sure I buy him as the new prime evil of the series. The next movie needs to add something here, in terms of characterization or motivation or new villains (or a surprise resurrection and exploration of his relationship with Snoke or something).
Of course, there IS actually a short redemption arc in this film, but it's not Ren, it's Luke. Rey brings Luke back the way Luke brings Vader back. Luke nearly fell to the dark side in trying to be a Jedi Master, and it scared him so bad he shut himself off from it and went into exile. Here, Rey faces the dark unafraid and without letting it diminish the light in her and Luke, in the end, does the same. I think if there's any powerful emotional core to this movie, it's that.
Not only that, but Luke's final duel is most powerful in what it fails to give Kylo, and by extension the blood-thirsty fanboys in the audience: violent revenge. The movie does a good job in implying Luke is there to kill Ben, or that Ben is going to kill Luke like Vader killed Kenobi. Luke, finally a Jedi Master, shames them all by solving the problem elegantly and non-violently. He admits he fails him, says he's sorry, and saves his friends and family; all without wasting a life. The last act of the last Jedi Master is probably by far the strongest argument for the existence of the Jedi Order in the history of the franchise. Yoda said the hardest part of being a master was being the thing his students grow beyond and he was talking about Rey, but he was also talking about Luke. Not even Yoda did so much good with so little violence. I was unsure I liked what they did with him as I left the theater last night, and now I think I love it.
With that in mind, I'm still not sure this trilogy won't end with the redemption of Ben Solo. His two most important father-figures leave him with kind words and looks of love on their faces. Han touching his son's face before he falls and Luke with a gentle "See ya 'round, kid." (or somesuch, expect to see Luke as a force ghost in the third act). Moreover, he's still not committed to the dark side. He's abandoned the sith as much as he's abandoned the Jedi. I'm not saying it should end with his redemption; if he relentlessly and continually chooses evil it cannot. I harbor a suspicion that Ren is a stand-in for the angry ostracized man-children in the fanbase, who may choose evil but who we have also failed to bring into a healthy adult community. These are also the most vulnerable recruits to fascist movements anyway, so maybe SW is exploring "how to fight fascism" more in Kylo Ren than in the First Order vs the Resistance.
As far as the Wars part of the Stars goes, I don't know what the new series is doing. The world-building in this new trilogy is awful. The First Order are just fascists who have not been fleshed out at all. Okay. They couldn't figure out how to depict a functioning democracy so they just nuked the Republic in the first movie(again, this is a big weakness in western civ right now). Leaving a tiny resistance that only gets tinier over the course of the second movie. I mean the entire arc here is the Resistance fleeing from one base, and a slow-ass chase to a new planet which they again flee. Call him all the names you want, but Lucas was significantly better at world-building in the first 6 movies, for all his failings with dialogue and how people work. Details matter and there are not enough details here. The First Order is bad and the resistance is good is all you really get, with not even a sketch of how the rest of the galaxy looks at this point. This part of the plot exists without any context whatsoever and that is frustrating.
So, while I am excited for all the new directions hinted at in this film, it's still kind of a mess. While I enjoyed a lot of it, it resolves too much and has almost zero forward momentum going into the third act, which is a, um, bold choice. There's no question of Rey's parents going forward, there's no question of "will Kylo turn?" (or is there?), the rebels are flying free and happy to their friends in the outer rim (although no one answered, so maybe?). Snoke is dead. The First Order and Ren still plan to take over, but that's how the first movie ended. The resistance is weak and on the run but that's how the first movie ended. There are no characters in dire peril that will need to be rescued, unless we're still talking about redeeming Ben Solo, Luke is dead (but not gone!), and all the series regulars are safe for now. What tensions run taut between them? What ill wind blows them to destruction or salvation? I have no idea and the movie doesn't either. And that's, frankly, very disappointing.
All that said, beyond Luke's redemption, there are some things that really worked for me. Laura Fucking Dern. Her dramatic lightspeed sacrifice that was such a stunningly powerful and beautiful moment that I gasped out loud. Leia force-pulling herself back to the ship. It worked for me and my only question for those who hated would be: Would it have worked for you if Luke had done it? why or why not? My suspicion here is old women in dresses are traditionally coded as helpless so to see an old woman in a dress save herself strikes people (*coughes* men *coughs*) as a ridiculous spectacle. I just liked the reminder that Leia is a Skywalker.
The battle on Crait was great, if anti-climactic. Like I said, I ultimately like it as a powerful end to Luke and the Jedi, but in terms of the actual battle, it kind of fizzles. Although those speeders were cool. Visually lovely though, in traditional star wars fashion. Finn's battle on the ship and vs Phasma was pretty great. BB-8 generally kicking ass, especially in the AT-ST, worked very well for me. Bencio Del Toro's codebreaker guy was interesting. The New Han Solo ladies and gentlemen! The alien creatures were good and I wanted more. The throne room fight scene where Rey and Ren face off against Snoke's goons was fun and I like how they eschewed the traditional lightsaber tropes in general in this film. I thought the humor generally worked. Poe on hold for Hux was probably Poe's best moment.
In terms of things that could have worked better, Chewbacca should have taken a bite. Finn's side adventure interrupts the flow of everything. Seems more appropriate for a rogue one style spin-off (honestly, they didn't know what to do with Finn in this movie, which is a shame because he's great). Not enough material for Finn and Poe slashfic. Finn and Poe are in love and I won't believe otherwise. Not quite enough star-fighting for my taste.
Actually, the more I think about it, the more I think Finn should have been in a healing chamber the entire film as a macguffin as one of the vulnerable the resistance was trying to save, and then brought him back in the next movie when Rey returns. It would have brought more tension to the escape from crait and would have been more of an emotional anchor for the resistance to rally around. You can easily translate the Rose/Finn "we're here to save what we love." line to an argument about whether an injured and unconscious Finn should be left behind or saved. He's a great actor and a great character, but his character off on hijinks side adventures just doesn't work in this story arc.
This trilogy is weird. Johnson took a right angle from Abrams and Abrams will probably have to take another sharp turn to save it. The lines leading from movie to movie will probably not end up lining up too well. A lot of complaints about modern cinema revolve around flashy cinematography that essentially doesn't go anywhere, promising the meat will be in the next installment. These movies are always leading somewhere great but rarely great in and of themselves. There's lots I like about the Last Jedi, but I think that critique holds some water here. Too much hinges on where the next movie goes and this movie should hold up better under its own weight than it does.
I'll watch the next movie both because I love Star Wars and I'm curious how they'll resolve any of this. I'm hoping it will still have that one good line worth holding on to. But I'm not expecting it to save me, or turn back time, or usher us into a bright new Star Wars paradise and neither should you.
Saturday, December 16, 2017
Friday, December 08, 2017
Frasier^2
Upon this, the occasion of my second full watch through of Frasier, a few thoughts.
Still great. Soothing. Excellent to drift off to sleep to.
Niles is creepy about Daphne for many seasons, but they do try and pin it on him. There's even a whole episode about him having to see her as a real person. Still, not my model for a healthy relationship.
I hated what they did to Daphne's character post-marriage. She loses all her quirky charm in favor of being Niles' dream wife. She doesn't do the psychic thing or horrifying tales of life in England at all after and it's a shame.
Wendie Malick is great as Ronee in the final season, and I wish she'd been added years earlier. She plays off Frasier very well and is funny in her own right.
I hated how they wrote Felicity Huffman out of the show. Her character goes from tough as nails and smart to vulgar buffoon in her last episode and it feels totally out of character.
Cheers and by extension Frasier are some of the funniest TV I've ever seen but the underlying tragedy of all the characters depresses me. The cheers reunion episodes. These are characters who spend their time skating next to the abyss and laughing into it. It would be depressing if it wasn't so funny. Frasier ends on a hopeful note, but as a guy currently in a low spot, watching Frasier spend his 40s failing to find love or purpose was bleak. When I wasn't laughing out loud and holding my belly, that is.
I still love the "party goes horribly, horribly wrong" formula. The best one was the episode that started with the end of the party as it spirals out of control, giving no context for any of it. The writers weren't afraid to poke fun at themselves and I appreciate that.
Still great. Soothing. Excellent to drift off to sleep to.
Niles is creepy about Daphne for many seasons, but they do try and pin it on him. There's even a whole episode about him having to see her as a real person. Still, not my model for a healthy relationship.
I hated what they did to Daphne's character post-marriage. She loses all her quirky charm in favor of being Niles' dream wife. She doesn't do the psychic thing or horrifying tales of life in England at all after and it's a shame.
Wendie Malick is great as Ronee in the final season, and I wish she'd been added years earlier. She plays off Frasier very well and is funny in her own right.
I hated how they wrote Felicity Huffman out of the show. Her character goes from tough as nails and smart to vulgar buffoon in her last episode and it feels totally out of character.
Cheers and by extension Frasier are some of the funniest TV I've ever seen but the underlying tragedy of all the characters depresses me. The cheers reunion episodes. These are characters who spend their time skating next to the abyss and laughing into it. It would be depressing if it wasn't so funny. Frasier ends on a hopeful note, but as a guy currently in a low spot, watching Frasier spend his 40s failing to find love or purpose was bleak. When I wasn't laughing out loud and holding my belly, that is.
I still love the "party goes horribly, horribly wrong" formula. The best one was the episode that started with the end of the party as it spirals out of control, giving no context for any of it. The writers weren't afraid to poke fun at themselves and I appreciate that.
Monday, November 27, 2017
Black Corridors
The Black Corridor by Michael MoorcockMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
I was looking for a little escape in the year of our lord 2017, and then dropped into this fresh hell of all our fears made real. Which isn't to say I didn't like it.
The Black Corridor, not to spoil too much, is the chronicle of the world's descent into madness, mirrored in the experience of one man. The entire world is swept by a wave of racism and paranoia and proceeds to tear itself apart, leading one small band of refugees to flee to outer space. Have they really escaped, or have they been followed by the madness destroying the Earth?
The most intriguing part of the story is why? The story leaves it ambiguous. There is an uptick in UFO sightings and rumors of aliens at work in human culture, it's left unresolved whether aliens are too blame or it's just another delusion suddenly gripping human society. It's not at all important to the story, but I thought a lot about it.
All in all it's a fairly chilling look at a human society that goes all in on xenophobia, racism and paranoia. Some lovely light reading!
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Thursday, November 16, 2017
Thor! Bulletpoints
I really love Thor as a marvel character and mythological deity so I've wanted to love the previous two Thor movies more than I did. I also wanted to love this one a bit more than I did, but it's the best and by far the most fun of the 3.
My prose is failing me these days, so I'll just list some thoughts in bullet points for now.
My prose is failing me these days, so I'll just list some thoughts in bullet points for now.
- While genuinely very funny throughout, the quippy whimsy feels forced at times. I also have mixed feelings on every character needing to be an awkward mess at talking to people. Maybe some people can be confident and have a distinguishable personality.
- I continue to have a huge crush on Cate Blanchett. I love her presence and style in all her scenes. A weirdly likable villain.
- The Thor/Loki dynamic has never been better than in this movie. Loki starts off as pretty bland in the early movies but he was more interesting here. The Thor/Loki rivalry has largely been driving by a fundamental misunderstanding which was laid out here in a surprisingly open scene. Loki and Thor know who the other is now with no deception, or plot-driving misunderstandings. The issue now is who they are both going to choose to be moving forward. I like that.
- The Jack Kirby homages are wonderful.
- I wish they'd gone in on the 80s theme harder, especially in the soundtrack. There are a few scenes where they should definitely have cranked up the 80s synth and minimized the traditional symphonic score. I think the film overall suffers for not quite committing to the 80s revival, which is a shame, because it could have been one of the best trips in an expanding ocean of mediocre nostalgia.
- There are some incredible scenes that are more or less visual art. I wish there had been more of that.
- "Asgard is a people not a place" is pretty harmless as far as statements go, culture is always a people not a place after all, but I can't help but feel uneasy using that slogan in an era where nazis who idolize norse gods are massing in the streets shouting slogans of racial purity. I'm not saying it shouldn't be in the movie, just that it reminds me uncomfortably of white supremacy forcibly asserting itself as a culture that has a valid place in our society and the elements of our common culture they are exploiting to do that. There's probably a whole post to be written on this.
- I still love that Marvel's Thor is a mishmash of mythology and SF and there's plenty of that here. They don't quite achieve what GotG achieves, but it's still great.
- If you like Jeff Goldblum, he is in full Blum here. A lot of the comedy that works best starts with him.
- I'm still frustrated by the misguided decision to shave Thor's chest hair. Thor is hirsute. I know there are plenty of women who like chest hair on men, so I don't quite understand it. I blame hairless young people who see body hair as an indicator of age and therefore an uncomfortable reminder of decay and death. Embrace the abyss kids, and give Thor his hair back. Although his new haircut is sharp.
- I adored the ending and the new status quo. Interested to see where they go with it.
Saturday, November 11, 2017
This is a Good Title
And this is a thoughtful, nuanced post that is exactly as long as it needs to be.
Tuesday, October 31, 2017
The Virtuous Circle
Read this from Ian Bogost today, and the second to last paragraph was a gut punch:
This is my life right now, honestly. Rationalizing virtue when in reality I feel like I'm living a shadow of a life. I wanted to shrink my life until the world made sense, but I may have dug too deep. Or at least, I have not cleaned up my habits enough to make a monastic existence worthwhile. The value in life as a monk is contemplation, not the isolation necessarily.
As it turns out, isolated but mostly dissociative gaming/binging/feed browsing is not a recipe for spiritual renewal. Who knew?
The compulsion of apps and the escapist fantasy of TV combine in a self-destructive cycle: Apps make the consistent attention paid a TV show seem like a virtuous kind of focus, and constant television makes the escape back into apps seem worldly.
This is my life right now, honestly. Rationalizing virtue when in reality I feel like I'm living a shadow of a life. I wanted to shrink my life until the world made sense, but I may have dug too deep. Or at least, I have not cleaned up my habits enough to make a monastic existence worthwhile. The value in life as a monk is contemplation, not the isolation necessarily.
As it turns out, isolated but mostly dissociative gaming/binging/feed browsing is not a recipe for spiritual renewal. Who knew?
Monday, August 21, 2017
Sleeping through it
I have a couple drafts of a story about sleeping through the apocalypse I keep tinkering with. I like it, but it's super cheesy so far. It could turn into some sort of HG2G-style adventure if I'm not careful. It's largely me grappling with my two favorite strategies for not dealing with life problems: dissociating and sleeping through it until it goes away on it's own. I talk about gaming/devices a lot but probably the #1 thing I could do for myself right now is develop a regular sleep schedule that gets me up reliably before 8am.
So when I slept through the eclipse this morning it wasn't a surprise. I got going on a lot of things late yesterday and when it got very late last night and I had to decide whether I wanted to watch Twin Peaks or go to be and hope to get up for the eclipse I just said "fuck it." and settled down for another episode (to be fair, Twin Peaks: the Return is probably the best thing on TV right now).
I've noticed when I'm depressed and isolated I tend to do a lot less. Things that really interest me I'll motivate myself for, but it's always a little surprising to me how important "sharing this with a like-minded person" turns out to be in deciding to do a thing. The catch-22 here of course being I'm likely to meet more like-minded people if I can summon some tiny fraction of self-control and do it anyway.
But I didn't see the eclipse today and I only kind of regret it. I wish I'd looked for a viewing event or had built a social network that would have naturally wanted to watch something like that together, but while I do like astronomy, I'm not sure how much an eclipse excites me. But it does put a fine point on wanting to build something better for myself. I can enjoy things on my own, but it's nice to enjoy things with other people, you know?
Looking forward to not actively sabotaging myself in the near future with a stupid sleep schedule and poor self-control.
So when I slept through the eclipse this morning it wasn't a surprise. I got going on a lot of things late yesterday and when it got very late last night and I had to decide whether I wanted to watch Twin Peaks or go to be and hope to get up for the eclipse I just said "fuck it." and settled down for another episode (to be fair, Twin Peaks: the Return is probably the best thing on TV right now).
I've noticed when I'm depressed and isolated I tend to do a lot less. Things that really interest me I'll motivate myself for, but it's always a little surprising to me how important "sharing this with a like-minded person" turns out to be in deciding to do a thing. The catch-22 here of course being I'm likely to meet more like-minded people if I can summon some tiny fraction of self-control and do it anyway.
But I didn't see the eclipse today and I only kind of regret it. I wish I'd looked for a viewing event or had built a social network that would have naturally wanted to watch something like that together, but while I do like astronomy, I'm not sure how much an eclipse excites me. But it does put a fine point on wanting to build something better for myself. I can enjoy things on my own, but it's nice to enjoy things with other people, you know?
Looking forward to not actively sabotaging myself in the near future with a stupid sleep schedule and poor self-control.
Thursday, June 08, 2017
Personal Update
I keep meaning to write here and have yet to summon the willpower to create a routine that leaves time for it.
The short update is the personal trajectory of the last couple years is not good. I have been having a crisis of spirit that more or less leaves me dissociative and paralyzed. I want to say it started with the end of my last relationship, but I think the problems that led to the last 1.5 years of inaction were a partial cause to the break-up, not a result of.
In any case, change is coming. My research job of two decades is going half-time come July and will probably only be a few hours a week maintaining old products a year or so after that. This is worrisome in that it punctures my bubble, and extremely good in that I have been needing some positive change for quite a while now.
The habits I have been cultivating recently have not prepared me for positive change, which I am working on this month. I think I'm about to undergo some serious emotional and cognitive whiplash in hitting the job market again. I think in a year my life and habits will be much better or much worse. Fingers crossed for the former!
I still don't know what I want to do next. My skills are all in science and coding but all I want to do is write, philosophize, learn languages and play music. I will likely continue in tech/science in some fashion and try to develop those hobbies on the side. I should probably still try volunteering at a hospice or two and see if that's something I really want to get into.
I also desperately need to find a place and a community I belong to. It is surprisingly easy to completely isolate yourself in the modern, connected world and I have done a staggeringly good job of that the last couple years. Isolation makes you crazy as it turns out. Tom Hanks and Wilson tried to warn me.
I think it will probably be an extraordinarily good thing to find work locally where I see people every day. Telecommuting can be a quiet hell if you don't have a local community and social/support network to rely on, and I have been absolute shit at finding those things since leaving Adventism, coming out of the closet and moving to Portland.
I have been waiting for some sort of divine revelation about what I am here for on this planet and what to work for and why to work for it in a world ruled by selfish, amoral people, but I have yet to find it. Depression and some sort of ADD have resulted in me largely dealing with this by dissociating, largely with video games which may genuinely qualify as some sort of addictive disorder for me.
I have been making progress, just slower than I'd like. The philosophy book I'm reading is already helping me past some mental roadblocks. More on that later. I'm a little irritated that change is forcing discipline upon me rather than getting ahead of it myself, but ultimately, my absolute terror and lack of clarity about the unknown aside, this is probably a good change. I think it may be true that connection to other people in some fashion may be requirement for personal willpower.
In the meantime, I have a lot of story ideas, and a lot of blog ideas that I'm not writing and that has been making me crazy by itself. It is not healthy for someone who needs to write not to write. I think even a massive decrease in job status coupled with a massive increase in writing output would be considered a win at this point.
Anyway, change is coming. I have been quietly dysfunctional for quite a while now and I would dearly like that to change. Perhaps at last I shall.
Tuesday, April 04, 2017
Wound up Boy
The Windup Girl by Paolo BacigalupiMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Pretty Decent, interesting ideas. Would have been four stars except for the title character, who is an asian fetish cliche. Brutal, graphic rape scenes that are really unjustifiable and unnecessary and a lingering scene where we are treated to water sluicing off her "flanks". I know far too much about the author's sexy fantasies now. I want to sluice water off MY flanks just to get the yuck off.
Rape fantasies aside, the rest of the subplots are pretty decent and I enjoyed the world-building, dystopian as it was.
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Thursday, February 09, 2017
Lukewarm
That last post is simultaneously not reasonable enough and not revolutionary enough. It is lukewarm and I spit it out of my mouth.
Friday, February 03, 2017
Fear on all Frequencies
I'm not really the best political analysis guy, but we're all trying to make sense of the world now I guess.
I'm doing terribly in my quest to disconnect from Twitter. Every time I vow to quit something publicly I end up doubling-down. So I hereby vow to stay on twitter forever in hopes that I am too stupid to catch my own reverse psychology.
Out of all the crazy things coming out of the first two(!) weeks of the Trump presidency, the immigration ban is the thing that seems to rile the increasingly disloyal opposition. I say disloyal with some affection, because Trump really hasn't earned any sort of trust or loyalty, as much as he'd like to think otherwise. From the left's perspective this is a solution to a problem that didn't exist and the source of a whole new set of issues that potentially undermine our foreign policy goals. There was already a strict vetting program in place, the countries listed have never produced a terrorist that has harmed an U.S. citizen, the countries that terrorists DO come from are mysteriously not on the list, etc. On the surface, it seems pointless cruelty to immigrants and refugees, especially those in transit on the day it was rolled out, and pointlessly antagonistic to allies in the muslim world who were working with us to fight terrorism.
From the right, it all seems to have strong approval. He's doing exactly what he said he'd do! 100% A+ fabulous work. The right believes immigrants and refugees are much more dangerous than the "MSM" has led us to believe, so "strong" action is justified. The thinking seems to be that "libs" and they're soft hearts and heads will destroy us all. Mysteriously, the critic-disappearing head of state in Russia is our new best ally in this. I will, for the moment, politely ignore the obvious glee they seem to take in the despair of their political opponents.
We basically have a complete disagreement on some basic facts about the state of the world, which brings us back to the "fake news" problem that has been building for decades but finally reached critical mass during the election. What "the facts are" seem to be less and less based on verifiable evidence and more and more based on whatever the powerful people we are ideologically aligned with say they are. This is a problem with some urgency that we should resolve as quickly as possible. It doesn't matter how many statistics liberals marshal, how many scientific papers they cite, how many times they reach out their hands in friendship (not really currently, but you know, theoretically) if conservative media is screaming we're reaching for their guns! refugees are smuggling a bomb! They're coming to take our jerbs! over every little thing?
It would help if liberals would ring the fear siren a little less too. They had a little more credibility before the Trump era in this regard, but the fear-mongering over climate change (speaking as a climate scientist who thinks we should be very concerned!) got a little over-the-top at times. They were sometimes making the "just trust me, you should be afraid" argument when sticking to the rational, evidence-driven argument would have more than sufficed. For instance, there's nothing stupider than the conservative "ha! a cold day in winter, take THAT global warming." and the liberal "ha! a hot day in summer, take THAT denialists!" argument. The evidence for global warming is in global temperatures over time, not specific weather patterns where it is very hard to fairly sort and rank all contributing factors in a short amount of time. So arguing over what a particular weather system means in terms of future climate is kind of a fool's game and if you believe in science and rationality you shouldn't play it.
With the arrival of Trump though, the left has decided to go all fear all the time too. I've already lost track of the alarming tweets/posts/hearsay that turn out to be a bad faith interpretation of events or a rumor that turned out too bad to be true. Which is unfortunate, because I think there's enough alarming material that actually checks out (that republicans are communicating in plain english) to focus on. Which is to say, the left is clearly not immune to hysterical over-reaction or blind devotion to the sirens wailing FEAR! 24/7. Although, in a truly alarming governmental era, it's hard to know what the appropriate amount of concern is, especially when the media has been crying wolf so long for ratings that we've lost the ability to discern the truly frightening from the manipulative and sensationalistic.
I'm fairly concerned about the long-term impact of a Trump presidency too, don't get me wrong, but I'm also concerned about retaining some connection to verifiable reality. I don't see what gets better if both parties just spiral down in a reactionary spiral of fear and violence, in complete abandonment of principles that it turns out we never believed in enough to act on when times got even the tiniest bit scary. I'm also concerned that there appears to be no rational counter-movement to fear-mongering hysteria from either side. For the right it's time to "send a message" to immigrants and stick it to liberals with a shit-eating grin and if you're not on board Trump will tank you with a tweet. For the left it's time to "punch nazis" and any attitude that isn't full on "punch those goddamn nazis" is treated as potential collaboration. There's not even a very good case being made for who is and isn't a nazi (although I do not shed too many tears for Milo or Spencer in particular), it's generally argumentation by "It is known Khaleesi." Which, I'm sorry, is not sufficient.
I believe in opposing the nutso policies coming out of the Trump administration, but I'm losing faith in the left's ability to define core principles, act strategically and rationally and effectively push back against everything that's making us so angry. To marshal fear and anger and turn it into an effective counter-movement. Who would we even rally around right now? What core principles would fight for? It's arguably enough to be Anti-Trump in a moment were Trump seems to be flirting with the idea of autocracy in the U.S. But we're going to have to learn to pick our goddamn battles intelligently and fight them effectively. Like soon. The opposition to Trump needs to be a tangible alternative with a coherent message rebutting every bad decision with a better alternative, not simply a mindless howling every time he tweets another stupid thing (although I feel that same urge too). We do not have that in the Democrats right now, but it is sorely needed.
Long-term though? We're going to need to be so much better than this and I suspect we are not yet prepared to be. But we could be, if we wanted it bad enough. Step one is turning the fear siren down. Or, you know, off.
My next line of thinking is what principles/ideas/ideals allow someone to find confidence and courage in the face of fear? And why does no one seem to have that anymore? If it is something we have lost I suspect we will need to rediscover it.
I'm doing terribly in my quest to disconnect from Twitter. Every time I vow to quit something publicly I end up doubling-down. So I hereby vow to stay on twitter forever in hopes that I am too stupid to catch my own reverse psychology.
Out of all the crazy things coming out of the first two(!) weeks of the Trump presidency, the immigration ban is the thing that seems to rile the increasingly disloyal opposition. I say disloyal with some affection, because Trump really hasn't earned any sort of trust or loyalty, as much as he'd like to think otherwise. From the left's perspective this is a solution to a problem that didn't exist and the source of a whole new set of issues that potentially undermine our foreign policy goals. There was already a strict vetting program in place, the countries listed have never produced a terrorist that has harmed an U.S. citizen, the countries that terrorists DO come from are mysteriously not on the list, etc. On the surface, it seems pointless cruelty to immigrants and refugees, especially those in transit on the day it was rolled out, and pointlessly antagonistic to allies in the muslim world who were working with us to fight terrorism.
From the right, it all seems to have strong approval. He's doing exactly what he said he'd do! 100% A+ fabulous work. The right believes immigrants and refugees are much more dangerous than the "MSM" has led us to believe, so "strong" action is justified. The thinking seems to be that "libs" and they're soft hearts and heads will destroy us all. Mysteriously, the critic-disappearing head of state in Russia is our new best ally in this. I will, for the moment, politely ignore the obvious glee they seem to take in the despair of their political opponents.
We basically have a complete disagreement on some basic facts about the state of the world, which brings us back to the "fake news" problem that has been building for decades but finally reached critical mass during the election. What "the facts are" seem to be less and less based on verifiable evidence and more and more based on whatever the powerful people we are ideologically aligned with say they are. This is a problem with some urgency that we should resolve as quickly as possible. It doesn't matter how many statistics liberals marshal, how many scientific papers they cite, how many times they reach out their hands in friendship (not really currently, but you know, theoretically) if conservative media is screaming we're reaching for their guns! refugees are smuggling a bomb! They're coming to take our jerbs! over every little thing?
It would help if liberals would ring the fear siren a little less too. They had a little more credibility before the Trump era in this regard, but the fear-mongering over climate change (speaking as a climate scientist who thinks we should be very concerned!) got a little over-the-top at times. They were sometimes making the "just trust me, you should be afraid" argument when sticking to the rational, evidence-driven argument would have more than sufficed. For instance, there's nothing stupider than the conservative "ha! a cold day in winter, take THAT global warming." and the liberal "ha! a hot day in summer, take THAT denialists!" argument. The evidence for global warming is in global temperatures over time, not specific weather patterns where it is very hard to fairly sort and rank all contributing factors in a short amount of time. So arguing over what a particular weather system means in terms of future climate is kind of a fool's game and if you believe in science and rationality you shouldn't play it.
With the arrival of Trump though, the left has decided to go all fear all the time too. I've already lost track of the alarming tweets/posts/hearsay that turn out to be a bad faith interpretation of events or a rumor that turned out too bad to be true. Which is unfortunate, because I think there's enough alarming material that actually checks out (that republicans are communicating in plain english) to focus on. Which is to say, the left is clearly not immune to hysterical over-reaction or blind devotion to the sirens wailing FEAR! 24/7. Although, in a truly alarming governmental era, it's hard to know what the appropriate amount of concern is, especially when the media has been crying wolf so long for ratings that we've lost the ability to discern the truly frightening from the manipulative and sensationalistic.
I'm fairly concerned about the long-term impact of a Trump presidency too, don't get me wrong, but I'm also concerned about retaining some connection to verifiable reality. I don't see what gets better if both parties just spiral down in a reactionary spiral of fear and violence, in complete abandonment of principles that it turns out we never believed in enough to act on when times got even the tiniest bit scary. I'm also concerned that there appears to be no rational counter-movement to fear-mongering hysteria from either side. For the right it's time to "send a message" to immigrants and stick it to liberals with a shit-eating grin and if you're not on board Trump will tank you with a tweet. For the left it's time to "punch nazis" and any attitude that isn't full on "punch those goddamn nazis" is treated as potential collaboration. There's not even a very good case being made for who is and isn't a nazi (although I do not shed too many tears for Milo or Spencer in particular), it's generally argumentation by "It is known Khaleesi." Which, I'm sorry, is not sufficient.
I believe in opposing the nutso policies coming out of the Trump administration, but I'm losing faith in the left's ability to define core principles, act strategically and rationally and effectively push back against everything that's making us so angry. To marshal fear and anger and turn it into an effective counter-movement. Who would we even rally around right now? What core principles would fight for? It's arguably enough to be Anti-Trump in a moment were Trump seems to be flirting with the idea of autocracy in the U.S. But we're going to have to learn to pick our goddamn battles intelligently and fight them effectively. Like soon. The opposition to Trump needs to be a tangible alternative with a coherent message rebutting every bad decision with a better alternative, not simply a mindless howling every time he tweets another stupid thing (although I feel that same urge too). We do not have that in the Democrats right now, but it is sorely needed.
Long-term though? We're going to need to be so much better than this and I suspect we are not yet prepared to be. But we could be, if we wanted it bad enough. Step one is turning the fear siren down. Or, you know, off.
My next line of thinking is what principles/ideas/ideals allow someone to find confidence and courage in the face of fear? And why does no one seem to have that anymore? If it is something we have lost I suspect we will need to rediscover it.
Friday, January 20, 2017
Although
As a follow-up to the last post, there IS the question of whether it's right to disconnect from the news just as your government seems to be entering some sort of constitutional crisis. Of course, the question of whether this information has immediate relevance or is in any way actionable is still relevant.
And as counterpoint to the last post, one might argue the point of "keeping up" is to maintain context of the world around us? If so, how much context might be necessary? Context can be a fairly deep rabbit hole but is tightly intertwined with relevance. Even then, there might be a lot that is technically relevant but not immediately relevant, and it is possible that immediate relevance might be more than your average person has the time/brain power to analyze and stay aware of on a day-to-day basis. At the end of the day we are a species constrained by limitations in time, attention and multi-tasking capability and the skill we have spent a long time evolving is discerning what is MOST relevant. What is the most important context for what I am going to do today?
I am not sure we are good at distinguishing between what is immediately available and what is relevant when the information volume gets too high. My suspicion is that the first step in attention triage is turning the spigot down a bit in order to regain a conscious sense of priorities and principles.
And as counterpoint to the last post, one might argue the point of "keeping up" is to maintain context of the world around us? If so, how much context might be necessary? Context can be a fairly deep rabbit hole but is tightly intertwined with relevance. Even then, there might be a lot that is technically relevant but not immediately relevant, and it is possible that immediate relevance might be more than your average person has the time/brain power to analyze and stay aware of on a day-to-day basis. At the end of the day we are a species constrained by limitations in time, attention and multi-tasking capability and the skill we have spent a long time evolving is discerning what is MOST relevant. What is the most important context for what I am going to do today?
I am not sure we are good at distinguishing between what is immediately available and what is relevant when the information volume gets too high. My suspicion is that the first step in attention triage is turning the spigot down a bit in order to regain a conscious sense of priorities and principles.
Inauguration Daze
I find myself today less concerned about what Trump's going to do going forward, although I am concerned about that, and more concerned about what I'm going to do going forward. I don't have any broad panacea for our troubled times readily at hand, but I'm keenly aware that the only behavior really within my control is mine so I should probably focus on that.
I read an article once about a woman who lost a ton of weight after a doctor gave her some sensible dietary advice and the admonition to not actually tell anyone what she was doing, just to quietly do it so as to avoid some psychological traps inherent in any attempt at personal change. I have been thinking about that last bit of advice for quite a while.
So, in that spirit, I am quietly trying to change at least some of the wealth of bad habits I have mistakenly cultivated for myself and am going to not talk about them too much. With the exception of my twitter/media habits.
I spend way too much time on Twitter. I downloaded an app to track it and it's at least a couple of hours a day usually, and that's just on my phone. I'm not sure the time/benefit ration is really even close to high enough to support that behavior. So this year, I'm going to try and change my twitter habits to something that enables me to get my focus and attention back under my control (a big part of a larger problem). I'm probably going to unfollow people who mostly tweet one unsourced bit of outrage after another, and in the era of Trump it looks like that behavior will only be gaining steam. I can't be obsessed with "what he's done now" all day every day and live my life. I can't. I can't.
Instead I'm going to follow people who mostly tweet thoughtful articles about society and technology and/or the few people I tend to tweet and retweet a lot because I like how they think or at least like how they think in ways that challenge my own thinking. But I want to escape the outrage train and I will be pruning my feed with that in mind.
Some people recommend cutting Twitter time back to set periods in the day, I'm going to try and cut it back to a set day in the week, which is more ambitious given my current habits, but ultimately where I want to be. I'm probably going to also start treating my phone more like a landline. Probably off when I'm out in public and am not expecting to need it for anything but a bus pass and leave it charging in my room when I'm at home so I don't pick up the damn thing every time I have 30 seconds of down time and feel, at this point, a completely unconscious desire to "keep up with the news."
I keep thinking about chapters 1 of Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death where he talks about the news of the day not existing as a concept until the telegraph appeared, annihilating space and making fragmentary events from around the world available for immediate consumption. This idea is discussed at length in chapter 5 where he points out that the telegraph not only "would not only permit but insist upon a conversation between Maine and Texas" and notes that we started prioritizing news based not on relevance or quality but by "how much, from what distances, and at what speed." Leaving us in a state of affairs where "most of our daily news is inert, consisting of information that gives us something to talk about, but cannot lead to any meaningful action." And further, that "the news elicits from you a variety of opinions about which you can do nothing except to offer them as more news, about which you can do nothing." And finally, "to the telegraph, intelligence meant knowing of lots of things, not knowing about them."
(It really is a great book and you should read it)
Ever since reading that chapter in particular, I have been struggling with the concept of "the news" and what my relationship to it should be. Local news that impacts me directly seems important. As does national news that might affect my voting choices. But how frequently should I check in? Is it every goddamn second as my phone would insist? Do I have a social and/or moral obligation to "keep up with the news" no matter how fragmentary and unactionable? And who decides what news I keep up with and to what degree? Is there any actual utility to keeping up with the news of the day other than being seen as someone who keeps up with the news of the day?
Moreover, how much of my news consumption simply acts as entertainment? Is the importance of keeping up with the news simply a rationalization for time I spend entertaining myself with information that generates a number of addictive emotions on demand? (I am sure there is an interesting analysis somewhere here of how infotainment choices have been shifting from traditional news media to internet browsing because the first gives you dopamine hits of outrage/cute/lust overload at regular intervals and set times but the latter gives it to you on demand....) In short, what news is actually important to living my life going forward and what news is just an entertaining distraction? I suspect the former is a very tiny fraction of the latter.
So today I'm thinking of a Trump presidency and how electing a reality TV star is a fairly predictable outcome of a culture that confuses important, relevant news with entertainment and what, if anything, I can do about that. As I said, the only person I have influence over is me, and it seems wise to tend to my own house first before I start suggesting spring cleaning for everyone else. So I have decided to try and become someone who is not addicted to a stream of information and consumes it simply because it is there in my feed, and instead lives consciously and consumes carefully in the service of focusing my attention and time on things that truly matter to me and I will be proud of myself for doing when I look back. Because friends, I am not proud of myself of how I've been spending my attention and time looking back.
I can tell it's going to be a long road and a difficult addiction to break (because at this point picking up my phone and checking twitter is frequently a subconscious act), but I am determined to try and become the kind of person that does not feed the circumstances that made this current state of affairs possible, at least, as much as I can. This is like the bare minimum I can and should do.
However you decided to proceed in the days ahead I hope you will take the time to focus on what is important to you and how you are going work for it and that nothing will distract or detain you from creating the better world you know in your heart is possible. I will be thinking on and hopefully actually doing those things too.
I read an article once about a woman who lost a ton of weight after a doctor gave her some sensible dietary advice and the admonition to not actually tell anyone what she was doing, just to quietly do it so as to avoid some psychological traps inherent in any attempt at personal change. I have been thinking about that last bit of advice for quite a while.
So, in that spirit, I am quietly trying to change at least some of the wealth of bad habits I have mistakenly cultivated for myself and am going to not talk about them too much. With the exception of my twitter/media habits.
I spend way too much time on Twitter. I downloaded an app to track it and it's at least a couple of hours a day usually, and that's just on my phone. I'm not sure the time/benefit ration is really even close to high enough to support that behavior. So this year, I'm going to try and change my twitter habits to something that enables me to get my focus and attention back under my control (a big part of a larger problem). I'm probably going to unfollow people who mostly tweet one unsourced bit of outrage after another, and in the era of Trump it looks like that behavior will only be gaining steam. I can't be obsessed with "what he's done now" all day every day and live my life. I can't. I can't.
Instead I'm going to follow people who mostly tweet thoughtful articles about society and technology and/or the few people I tend to tweet and retweet a lot because I like how they think or at least like how they think in ways that challenge my own thinking. But I want to escape the outrage train and I will be pruning my feed with that in mind.
Some people recommend cutting Twitter time back to set periods in the day, I'm going to try and cut it back to a set day in the week, which is more ambitious given my current habits, but ultimately where I want to be. I'm probably going to also start treating my phone more like a landline. Probably off when I'm out in public and am not expecting to need it for anything but a bus pass and leave it charging in my room when I'm at home so I don't pick up the damn thing every time I have 30 seconds of down time and feel, at this point, a completely unconscious desire to "keep up with the news."
I keep thinking about chapters 1 of Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death where he talks about the news of the day not existing as a concept until the telegraph appeared, annihilating space and making fragmentary events from around the world available for immediate consumption. This idea is discussed at length in chapter 5 where he points out that the telegraph not only "would not only permit but insist upon a conversation between Maine and Texas" and notes that we started prioritizing news based not on relevance or quality but by "how much, from what distances, and at what speed." Leaving us in a state of affairs where "most of our daily news is inert, consisting of information that gives us something to talk about, but cannot lead to any meaningful action." And further, that "the news elicits from you a variety of opinions about which you can do nothing except to offer them as more news, about which you can do nothing." And finally, "to the telegraph, intelligence meant knowing of lots of things, not knowing about them."
(It really is a great book and you should read it)
Ever since reading that chapter in particular, I have been struggling with the concept of "the news" and what my relationship to it should be. Local news that impacts me directly seems important. As does national news that might affect my voting choices. But how frequently should I check in? Is it every goddamn second as my phone would insist? Do I have a social and/or moral obligation to "keep up with the news" no matter how fragmentary and unactionable? And who decides what news I keep up with and to what degree? Is there any actual utility to keeping up with the news of the day other than being seen as someone who keeps up with the news of the day?
Moreover, how much of my news consumption simply acts as entertainment? Is the importance of keeping up with the news simply a rationalization for time I spend entertaining myself with information that generates a number of addictive emotions on demand? (I am sure there is an interesting analysis somewhere here of how infotainment choices have been shifting from traditional news media to internet browsing because the first gives you dopamine hits of outrage/cute/lust overload at regular intervals and set times but the latter gives it to you on demand....) In short, what news is actually important to living my life going forward and what news is just an entertaining distraction? I suspect the former is a very tiny fraction of the latter.
So today I'm thinking of a Trump presidency and how electing a reality TV star is a fairly predictable outcome of a culture that confuses important, relevant news with entertainment and what, if anything, I can do about that. As I said, the only person I have influence over is me, and it seems wise to tend to my own house first before I start suggesting spring cleaning for everyone else. So I have decided to try and become someone who is not addicted to a stream of information and consumes it simply because it is there in my feed, and instead lives consciously and consumes carefully in the service of focusing my attention and time on things that truly matter to me and I will be proud of myself for doing when I look back. Because friends, I am not proud of myself of how I've been spending my attention and time looking back.
I can tell it's going to be a long road and a difficult addiction to break (because at this point picking up my phone and checking twitter is frequently a subconscious act), but I am determined to try and become the kind of person that does not feed the circumstances that made this current state of affairs possible, at least, as much as I can. This is like the bare minimum I can and should do.
However you decided to proceed in the days ahead I hope you will take the time to focus on what is important to you and how you are going work for it and that nothing will distract or detain you from creating the better world you know in your heart is possible. I will be thinking on and hopefully actually doing those things too.
Tuesday, January 17, 2017
Hope's End
No, this is not a political post.
I read through the Three Body Problem trilogy in the last half of this year and the final book, Death's End, has been bouncing around my head since I finished it. I'm not capable of pulling together a "prestigious review of books" style essay about it, but I have some thoughts I need to vomit out, so here we go.
*SPOILERS BELOW*
First, if you follow Warren Ellis' newsletter he may have already said all there is to say about it. I agree with him pretty much in that there ARE really weird sexual politics at play and it does seem to attack the very idea of a human society that prizes love, empathy and peace, at least within the context of the Three Body universe (TBU).
I made this mistake of reading reviews for the first two books before I read them. I thought they were giving me the set-up but instead gave me the reveal of both books. This didn't really kill my enjoyment, but I didn't love the spoilers. So if you want to read the series maybe come back to this post later. I'll just say I recommend it, although not if you're in need of a pick-me-up emotionally.
I loved quite a bit about this series, especially the big, bold ideas. These books are classic SF in the best sense and I was surprised at how much I had missed the genre. From the beginning, though, there is a persistent bud of bleakness that fully blossoms in Death's End. As wonderful as the big ideas are, the series is just once big disaster for the human race after another. Which is probably another reason why I loved it: I'm a sucker for disaster stories.
After the big reveal in the Dark Forest that the universe is actually quite full, and generally engaged in a ruthless competition for resources, this premise is unrelentingly taken to its bitter end. The series is gorgeous and graceful but takes a long, artful swan dive into oblivion in this final book.
Everything about this universe is decay. The context of the story is eventually revealed to be a universe slowly being fragmented and destroyed by war, tearing down the very natural laws of the universe over the long span of history. The first rule of the TBU is that resources are limited and all species are ruthlessly competitive for them, where genocide is considered common and understandable. These species all climb in power and understanding of the universe, and those who get there first eventually start using weapons that destroy the natural universe irrevocably. Not only will they destroy star systems, and all the inhabitants therein, they've been steadily reducing the speed of light as a defensive measure (or technological side-effect) and slowly destroying the higher dimensions of spacetime and retreating further and further into the lower dimensions (the idea being that a 10-dimensional being who is tossed into 9-dimensional space by a weapon will die). Dimensional warfare is so wildly successful at killing one's enemies, that the higher dimensions are slowly destroyed, with some species managing to survive by retreating more carefully to the lower dimensions.
By the time of Death's End, the speed of light is what we know it as, and the universe is down to 4 dimensions, the 4th of which is decaying into the 3rd (destroying everything in it, like all dimensions before it). Not naturally, of course, the result of an unending war that takes no prisoners and knows no limits. None of this is humanity's immediate problem at the start of Death's End.
Humanity's immediate problem is the trisolarans, the only species that knows about them, and is determined to take Earth from them. Normally an alien species would annihilate a nearby species, but the trisolarans live in an unstable trinary star system and desperately want the stability of Earth's relatively predictable orbit for themselves.
In the Dark Forest humanity learned its confidence in its own technology was misplaced after a single trisolaran probe destroyed thousands of human ships in the span of a few minutes. They are saved by the mysterious wall-facer who successfully bluffs the trisolarans with a deadman switch that will broadcast the location of both Earth and Trisolaris to the larger universe, ensuring the destruction of both. This leads to a new era of coerced but productive co-operation between cultures, which is where we pick up in Death's End.
From there the formula is roughly similar to the Dark Forest. A long period of peace, prosperity and advance, followed by a spectacular fall from grace. The first of which nearly destroys the solar system. The second of which DOES destroy the solar system, leaving a small, extra-solar remnant, and the 3rd of which is more of a tragic catastrophe for the protagonist in particular.
There is a tug of war between the most optimistic of human ideals and our darker, more totalitarian impulses throughout and I say it's bleak because time after time it's revealed that dark, masculine totalitarianism would have saved us and it's feminine compassion, love and hope that damns the species. Like Warren said, there are some weird gender politics in this book. The trisolarans attack the moment the deadman switch is switched from the gruff male wallfacer to a more compassionate woman who the trisolarans believe, quite accurately, will not make good on the bluff should they attack. This leads to a mass slaughter and incarceration of the entire species in Australia, which is turned into one big concentration camp. It is only the the dark authoritarians of an extra-solar ship who manage to call the bluff, and damn both Sol and Trisolaris.
This solves the problem of trisolaris for Earth, but replaces it with a broader existential threat of annihilation by unknown species who may not be aware of them. After witnessing the spectacular destruction of trisolaris shortly after its location is revealed to the broader universe, Humanity leaves Earth for the outer solar system, planning to use the gas giants as a shield, should their sun be exploded the same way the trisolarian's was. Around this time humanity discovers the idea of a drive that literally bends space to achieve light speed, but also discovers use of such a drive leaves permanent bubbles where light has a lower speed in it's wake. And further, that this drive and these bubbles are probably the reason trisolaris was targeted so quickly.
Determined to present an unappealing target, humanity outlaws space drives, while against all odds it builds thriving habitats in the outer solar system. At some point, the protagonist, who remains the center point of a story covering a very long time-span through a combination of suspended animation and light speed travel), once again chooses to stop a grim authoritarian man from forcibly pushing through space drive technology in favor of democracy, compassion and hope which, again, turns out to be the doom of humanity.
As it turns out, hyper-powerful aliens who have survived in the dark forest of the universe for any length of time are not stupid, and they drop a dimensional bomb into the solar system which reduces the dimensionality of sol space from 3 to 2 in one of the most spectacularly beautiful and terrible sequences of the book. These weapons, it turns out, do not have a limit. They just slowly collapse the dimensionality of space in an ever-expanding radius. There's an interesting moment where aliens who do it justify the use of such a weapon to themselves because use of these weapons is common. So, fresh off the horror that the 4th dimensions is nearly collapsed completely into the 3rd (killing everything in it), we are made to see that our three dimensions are slowly collapsing our universe into 2, as careless alien gods casually drop these bombs into offending star systems and either have plans to retreat into 2-d space themselves or simply don't care about inevitable universal destruction that surely must be many millions of years away.
Finally, as the protagonist has escaped the doomed solar system in the only space-drive enabled ship (although not before seeing the destruction of everything first-hand), we are left with a smaller set piece nearer to the end of time. The one extra-solar ship of grim authoritarians who revealed and thus destroyed Trisolaris and Sol have managed to restart the human race elsewhere, now fully aware of the two rules of survival in this universe, "hide and cleanse." This means hide from other species, cleanse any who look dangerous if you can. She is on her way to meet her star-crossed lover who has survived this long in his own crazy story only to be caught in a new kind of bomb, resulting in tragedy.
As the dimensions collapse and the universe winds its way to a grisly end, there are some groups who have come to believe the only solution is to collapse the universe and start with a new big bang. These are death worshippers essentially. In orbit above her lover's planet, a bomb goes off that reduces the speed of light dramatically in the entire system, causing her ship to shut down. She manages to survive it and land, but lower speed limit or no, relativity still applies and she finds millions of years have passed while she was been moving at the new light speed in orbit around the planet. Her lover is long dead, but has left a pocket universe for her.
She and one other survivor spend some time in the pocket universe and make a life there, determined to wait out the collapse and big bang with hopes to start over in a new universe. Unfortunately, most advanced species have had this same idea and too much matter has been taken from this universe and stored in pocket universes for the gravitational pull of the universe to be sufficient for collapse, and so the book ends with them finding some barely hospitable planet, returning all their stolen matter, and going through the door to wait for the end. Cheery, huh?
I'm not saying it wasn't compelling and gorgeous and page-turning. It very much was. But my god, the bleakness of that philosophy and that universe. I'm not sure it was the best choice of reading material after the election (for those of us who were seriously bummed out by the election), but I don't think I regret reading it.
In some ways, though, I found the book very refreshing and even kind of a warning of sorts. It's not too often you have someone point out quite as bluntly as Cixin Liu does here that the universe doesn't particularly care about our high-minded ideals and there's a reasonable chance any alien cultures we meet won't share them either. That, in fact, as a species we run the serious danger of believing our high-minded stories about who we are and are destined to be and how the arc of the universe bends towards justice and peace and prosperity which are certainly good and motivational ideas in the short term on this planet, but which may cause gaps in our survival logic should we eventually be faced with bigger existential questions than we are now. In short, the universe has no particular stake in our survival and the greater context of our existence in this galaxy could be far scarier than simply neutral and indifferent. So it's bleak, yes, but maybe it's a bleak idea we need to consider as a possibility from time to time.
As far as the warning goes, it almost feels like a message to modern civilization. Assuming the metaphor of the dark forest can be applied to Earth's political competition for resources, what might Liu be trying to say? That this thread of civilization is more fragile than we think it is? That arms races logically end up with the entire destruction of the habitat? That our self-confidence in our advances and the inevitable march of progress are potentially counter-productive delusions that can come crashing down around us at any time? That we will never truly unify as a species and our only hope is an authoritarian culture that proves better at surviving than it's neighbors? I'm not sure. And I wouldn't agree with all of that if so. But it's at least interesting to have someone pose these kinds of questions.
So there you have it. I'm not sure why I needed to summarize the whole damn book, but I guess it's what I needed to get out. I left out some details, both beautiful and bleak, but I think I got the gist across. The TBU is beautiful, depressing, incredibly thought-provoking and a perverse delight to visit. But I don't think I'd want to live there.
I read through the Three Body Problem trilogy in the last half of this year and the final book, Death's End, has been bouncing around my head since I finished it. I'm not capable of pulling together a "prestigious review of books" style essay about it, but I have some thoughts I need to vomit out, so here we go.
*SPOILERS BELOW*
First, if you follow Warren Ellis' newsletter he may have already said all there is to say about it. I agree with him pretty much in that there ARE really weird sexual politics at play and it does seem to attack the very idea of a human society that prizes love, empathy and peace, at least within the context of the Three Body universe (TBU).
I made this mistake of reading reviews for the first two books before I read them. I thought they were giving me the set-up but instead gave me the reveal of both books. This didn't really kill my enjoyment, but I didn't love the spoilers. So if you want to read the series maybe come back to this post later. I'll just say I recommend it, although not if you're in need of a pick-me-up emotionally.
I loved quite a bit about this series, especially the big, bold ideas. These books are classic SF in the best sense and I was surprised at how much I had missed the genre. From the beginning, though, there is a persistent bud of bleakness that fully blossoms in Death's End. As wonderful as the big ideas are, the series is just once big disaster for the human race after another. Which is probably another reason why I loved it: I'm a sucker for disaster stories.
After the big reveal in the Dark Forest that the universe is actually quite full, and generally engaged in a ruthless competition for resources, this premise is unrelentingly taken to its bitter end. The series is gorgeous and graceful but takes a long, artful swan dive into oblivion in this final book.
Everything about this universe is decay. The context of the story is eventually revealed to be a universe slowly being fragmented and destroyed by war, tearing down the very natural laws of the universe over the long span of history. The first rule of the TBU is that resources are limited and all species are ruthlessly competitive for them, where genocide is considered common and understandable. These species all climb in power and understanding of the universe, and those who get there first eventually start using weapons that destroy the natural universe irrevocably. Not only will they destroy star systems, and all the inhabitants therein, they've been steadily reducing the speed of light as a defensive measure (or technological side-effect) and slowly destroying the higher dimensions of spacetime and retreating further and further into the lower dimensions (the idea being that a 10-dimensional being who is tossed into 9-dimensional space by a weapon will die). Dimensional warfare is so wildly successful at killing one's enemies, that the higher dimensions are slowly destroyed, with some species managing to survive by retreating more carefully to the lower dimensions.
By the time of Death's End, the speed of light is what we know it as, and the universe is down to 4 dimensions, the 4th of which is decaying into the 3rd (destroying everything in it, like all dimensions before it). Not naturally, of course, the result of an unending war that takes no prisoners and knows no limits. None of this is humanity's immediate problem at the start of Death's End.
Humanity's immediate problem is the trisolarans, the only species that knows about them, and is determined to take Earth from them. Normally an alien species would annihilate a nearby species, but the trisolarans live in an unstable trinary star system and desperately want the stability of Earth's relatively predictable orbit for themselves.
In the Dark Forest humanity learned its confidence in its own technology was misplaced after a single trisolaran probe destroyed thousands of human ships in the span of a few minutes. They are saved by the mysterious wall-facer who successfully bluffs the trisolarans with a deadman switch that will broadcast the location of both Earth and Trisolaris to the larger universe, ensuring the destruction of both. This leads to a new era of coerced but productive co-operation between cultures, which is where we pick up in Death's End.
From there the formula is roughly similar to the Dark Forest. A long period of peace, prosperity and advance, followed by a spectacular fall from grace. The first of which nearly destroys the solar system. The second of which DOES destroy the solar system, leaving a small, extra-solar remnant, and the 3rd of which is more of a tragic catastrophe for the protagonist in particular.
There is a tug of war between the most optimistic of human ideals and our darker, more totalitarian impulses throughout and I say it's bleak because time after time it's revealed that dark, masculine totalitarianism would have saved us and it's feminine compassion, love and hope that damns the species. Like Warren said, there are some weird gender politics in this book. The trisolarans attack the moment the deadman switch is switched from the gruff male wallfacer to a more compassionate woman who the trisolarans believe, quite accurately, will not make good on the bluff should they attack. This leads to a mass slaughter and incarceration of the entire species in Australia, which is turned into one big concentration camp. It is only the the dark authoritarians of an extra-solar ship who manage to call the bluff, and damn both Sol and Trisolaris.
This solves the problem of trisolaris for Earth, but replaces it with a broader existential threat of annihilation by unknown species who may not be aware of them. After witnessing the spectacular destruction of trisolaris shortly after its location is revealed to the broader universe, Humanity leaves Earth for the outer solar system, planning to use the gas giants as a shield, should their sun be exploded the same way the trisolarian's was. Around this time humanity discovers the idea of a drive that literally bends space to achieve light speed, but also discovers use of such a drive leaves permanent bubbles where light has a lower speed in it's wake. And further, that this drive and these bubbles are probably the reason trisolaris was targeted so quickly.
Determined to present an unappealing target, humanity outlaws space drives, while against all odds it builds thriving habitats in the outer solar system. At some point, the protagonist, who remains the center point of a story covering a very long time-span through a combination of suspended animation and light speed travel), once again chooses to stop a grim authoritarian man from forcibly pushing through space drive technology in favor of democracy, compassion and hope which, again, turns out to be the doom of humanity.
As it turns out, hyper-powerful aliens who have survived in the dark forest of the universe for any length of time are not stupid, and they drop a dimensional bomb into the solar system which reduces the dimensionality of sol space from 3 to 2 in one of the most spectacularly beautiful and terrible sequences of the book. These weapons, it turns out, do not have a limit. They just slowly collapse the dimensionality of space in an ever-expanding radius. There's an interesting moment where aliens who do it justify the use of such a weapon to themselves because use of these weapons is common. So, fresh off the horror that the 4th dimensions is nearly collapsed completely into the 3rd (killing everything in it), we are made to see that our three dimensions are slowly collapsing our universe into 2, as careless alien gods casually drop these bombs into offending star systems and either have plans to retreat into 2-d space themselves or simply don't care about inevitable universal destruction that surely must be many millions of years away.
Finally, as the protagonist has escaped the doomed solar system in the only space-drive enabled ship (although not before seeing the destruction of everything first-hand), we are left with a smaller set piece nearer to the end of time. The one extra-solar ship of grim authoritarians who revealed and thus destroyed Trisolaris and Sol have managed to restart the human race elsewhere, now fully aware of the two rules of survival in this universe, "hide and cleanse." This means hide from other species, cleanse any who look dangerous if you can. She is on her way to meet her star-crossed lover who has survived this long in his own crazy story only to be caught in a new kind of bomb, resulting in tragedy.
As the dimensions collapse and the universe winds its way to a grisly end, there are some groups who have come to believe the only solution is to collapse the universe and start with a new big bang. These are death worshippers essentially. In orbit above her lover's planet, a bomb goes off that reduces the speed of light dramatically in the entire system, causing her ship to shut down. She manages to survive it and land, but lower speed limit or no, relativity still applies and she finds millions of years have passed while she was been moving at the new light speed in orbit around the planet. Her lover is long dead, but has left a pocket universe for her.
She and one other survivor spend some time in the pocket universe and make a life there, determined to wait out the collapse and big bang with hopes to start over in a new universe. Unfortunately, most advanced species have had this same idea and too much matter has been taken from this universe and stored in pocket universes for the gravitational pull of the universe to be sufficient for collapse, and so the book ends with them finding some barely hospitable planet, returning all their stolen matter, and going through the door to wait for the end. Cheery, huh?
I'm not saying it wasn't compelling and gorgeous and page-turning. It very much was. But my god, the bleakness of that philosophy and that universe. I'm not sure it was the best choice of reading material after the election (for those of us who were seriously bummed out by the election), but I don't think I regret reading it.
In some ways, though, I found the book very refreshing and even kind of a warning of sorts. It's not too often you have someone point out quite as bluntly as Cixin Liu does here that the universe doesn't particularly care about our high-minded ideals and there's a reasonable chance any alien cultures we meet won't share them either. That, in fact, as a species we run the serious danger of believing our high-minded stories about who we are and are destined to be and how the arc of the universe bends towards justice and peace and prosperity which are certainly good and motivational ideas in the short term on this planet, but which may cause gaps in our survival logic should we eventually be faced with bigger existential questions than we are now. In short, the universe has no particular stake in our survival and the greater context of our existence in this galaxy could be far scarier than simply neutral and indifferent. So it's bleak, yes, but maybe it's a bleak idea we need to consider as a possibility from time to time.
As far as the warning goes, it almost feels like a message to modern civilization. Assuming the metaphor of the dark forest can be applied to Earth's political competition for resources, what might Liu be trying to say? That this thread of civilization is more fragile than we think it is? That arms races logically end up with the entire destruction of the habitat? That our self-confidence in our advances and the inevitable march of progress are potentially counter-productive delusions that can come crashing down around us at any time? That we will never truly unify as a species and our only hope is an authoritarian culture that proves better at surviving than it's neighbors? I'm not sure. And I wouldn't agree with all of that if so. But it's at least interesting to have someone pose these kinds of questions.
So there you have it. I'm not sure why I needed to summarize the whole damn book, but I guess it's what I needed to get out. I left out some details, both beautiful and bleak, but I think I got the gist across. The TBU is beautiful, depressing, incredibly thought-provoking and a perverse delight to visit. But I don't think I'd want to live there.
Monday, January 09, 2017
Happy New Year!
Ah another year, another promising relationship slips through my fingers.
I had a gentleman caller stay for a few days over New Years. It felt promising. right up until he texted me “you’re a nice guy but ...” the moment he got home. I don’t blame him exactly, I tried, but I guess I didn’t wow him. But I had a wonderful time and it wasn’t clear to me until he was gone how important his attention was to me. Oh well, another brutal lesson in relationships. We left it on good terms, but it is still hard for me not to over-react. I’m in a glass cage of emotion and all that.
It might have been different if I hadn’t spent the last year or so more or less not trying at my personal life. After the break-up I just didn’t, and mostly still don’t, give a shit about dating. Because that dance is so tiresome. And there are broader personal problems at play. An underlying depression brought on by a distinct lack of purpose and drive since leaving adventism for instance. The lack of community, sense of belonging and no clear idea where to find them and lots of ideas where not to. I’m not really in tune with Trump’s vision of life. Or, more broadly, the general thrust of our society fails to inspire me at more or less every level. Somehow making rich people richer and hoping technology will save us the way Jesus hasn’t leaves something to be desired. Liberalism’s idea of a better world is vague and sketchy at best (justice/equality for minorities is good, status quo corruption and an increasingly shitty version of capitalism is not) and the modern conservative’s very clear vision of the future is terrifying on it’s face (the shittiest version of capitalism plus white supremacy and kicking people when they’re down!). In short I don’t know who I am or what I stand for anymore and this is a hard package to sell to prospective suitors, you know?
But I digress. Even in my own philosophy of the ideal relationship I need to clear this stuff up and figure out what I’m about before I’m truly ready to be with someone. So I get it. But I’m still pretty bummed. He was great and we were good together and I don’t get matches quite so good very often.
Alas.
The timing wasn’t right he said, and he was probably correct. There are two parts to timing: the random act of the universe, and being someone who’s ready and able to do something about it. The timing will never be right until I find the willpower and/or the inspiration to turn myself into someone who is ready and able to take the opportunities life offers up. This is the truth and this is why so many opportunities have slipped through my fingers: I stubbornly refuse to put myself in a position to do something about them.
Ford Prefect once said he loved deadlines, and loved to watch them as the sailed on by (more or less). And I laughed because I can relate because I always wanted to be Ford more than I wanted to be Arthur Dent. But I think Arthur (both Tickian and Hitchikerian) is more my role model. Which isn’t terrible, they both ending up being able to fly and finding their perfect match, regardless of the tragic and likely funny doom waiting out there in the distance. So that’s not so bad, eh?
It is my continued hope to figure out how to be happy and be with people at some point in my life. It kind of bums me out that I’m 40 going on 41 and I’m still such a walking disaster though. I hope you are doing the exact opposite of nearly everything I’m doing.
Happy new year!
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