Post AnQzmAPgPknB7bVIfI by albnelson@lor.sh
(DIR) More posts by albnelson@lor.sh
(DIR) Post #AnQaTz05bujneulUmW by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-10-27T09:46:55Z
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I've been struggling to read "A Deepness in the Sky" by Vernor Vinge and I think I just realized why I need to put this book down until after the election in the US is over: It's just a little too depressing given the climate of misinformation and horrors we're facing. The question of how fascists and authoritarians might use what amounts to mind control and ubiquitous networks is an important one, and SF should explore this. But I don't think *I* need to explore it right now OK?
(DIR) Post #AnQahpt2IAUxRn4UXw by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-10-27T09:49:27Z
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There are a lot of things I really like about America, and although it's naive I think this could be a good country and not just in the sense of being a country that is good to a majority of its people. I understand acutely the shape of all things hopeless and terrifying. What I need right now is more stark trek and "The Culture."Hopefully I can come back to Vinge at a later date and feeling a little more detached.
(DIR) Post #AnQauLWsTHrL3mfkkC by benni@social.tchncs.de
2024-10-27T09:51:41Z
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@futurebird i was a big fan of "the culture", but in recent days i have some doubt since i learned that Musk is a fan, too 😫
(DIR) Post #AnQb2kocLGcPnfymEC by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-10-27T09:53:14Z
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@benni He's a fan of all the popular and classic SF stories and learns basically nothing from them. IDK how someone could read about The Culture and love it and be a raging transphobe for one thing, come on dude. Not to be that nerd but FAKE FAN.
(DIR) Post #AnQbEoi5gfqXM2g7u4 by benni@social.tchncs.de
2024-10-27T09:55:23Z
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@futurebird 😂
(DIR) Post #AnQbVIGnYJGlfLllFg by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-10-27T09:58:23Z
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@benni I guess it also kind of shows the limits of reaching the hearts of people through fiction. "A Player of Games" is in many ways a book that Musk ought to study and learn from. It's written for men like him I think Ian M. Banks was processing some of his own "masculinity BS" through that story and it's wonderfully thoughtful and goes right to the heart of many awkward questions in an elegant way. Did Musk just ... miss the whole point of that story? Maybe he didn't read that one.
(DIR) Post #AnQbapNjs1croCeeBs by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-10-27T09:59:23Z
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@benni I strongly suspect he's one of those people who listen to "30 min book summaries" then pretends to have read them. Being so important and busy and having shown little respect for the arts.
(DIR) Post #AnQbp2ooi3lDXJ6DD6 by beecycling@romancelandia.club
2024-10-27T10:01:54Z
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@futurebird @benni *M reading the Culture series right now. I suspect Musk's appreciation of it is only as deep as "big ships go brrr!"
(DIR) Post #AnQbuTtPTafqx8q8em by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-10-27T10:02:57Z
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@beecycling @benni He's also said SF isn't "political" so... LOL
(DIR) Post #AnQc1LhmJeUXaQfrfc by beecycling@romancelandia.club
2024-10-27T10:04:08Z
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@futurebird @benni Sounds like he's one of the guys who complain that Star Trek has "gone woke."
(DIR) Post #AnQc2Tg69sjybUQVlo by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-10-27T10:04:13Z
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@beecycling @benni The Culture is literally The Woke Mind Virus
(DIR) Post #AnQc5JS0di2xklBkFE by cstross@wandering.shop
2024-10-27T10:04:51Z
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@futurebird @benni I believe most billionaires (aside from the hereditary kind) are cultural illiterates: their singleminded focus on wealth accumulation leaves time for nothing else. (As for the inherited rich, they may or may not bother with culture, but they're far more likely to collect it than to create it.)
(DIR) Post #AnQcDrmYsbP4XysdrU by benni@social.tchncs.de
2024-10-27T10:06:25Z
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@futurebird I think he liked the early culture novels, because you can focus on the "we can be like gods, if only our tech is advanced enough" thing. In later novels (maybe starting with "excession") banks addresses this in a very interesting manner, i think. i bet he disliked this one.
(DIR) Post #AnQcLLeSE0cRDCeie0 by DrorBedrack@mastodon.social
2024-10-27T10:07:40Z
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@futurebird this reminded I was close to stop reading it too. it is a quite depressing, or even traumatising book. The ending is sort-of worth it, though.I really did like A Fire Upon the Deep better.
(DIR) Post #AnQcMLMslRP0ceuYrY by rayhindle@mastodon.social
2024-10-27T10:07:49Z
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@futurebird Just read a review of the book and I quite understand why you need to put it down at the moment. Though I agree, SF should explore his subject further.
(DIR) Post #AnQcPjM62JYHt29tnE by Klara@fosstodon.org
2024-10-27T10:08:34Z
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@futurebird @benni Summaries made by AI might be biased his way already.
(DIR) Post #AnQcYV8mFw8KPG6wYi by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-10-27T10:10:11Z
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@DrorBedrack It's so bad I wouldn't put it on my reading list which I share with my HS students. I don't know how old you need to be to process that rape-y mind-wipe stuff but I'm not that old so they aren't either. It's very disturbing and in a way just keeps building and getting worse. Mr. Vinge what are you trying to do to us all? Is this how you LIVE? on the edge of every horror? *shudder*
(DIR) Post #AnQcwc5G5ocatGxk8G by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-10-27T10:14:32Z
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@Klara @benni When I was in college I remember there was a fad for listening to 30 min book summaries at 2X speed among the business majors and they wouldn't shut up about how efficient it was and how much time it saved and couldn't understand why everyone yelled at them about it. This has been going on long before AI. I don't get the point of wanting to seem "well read" who cares? If you don't like reading books that's fine. Just ... let it go.
(DIR) Post #AnQe98B0hMLTqzBZVw by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-10-27T10:28:00Z
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@rayhindle Also, there are some things in Vinge's world view that don't sit right with me. For example he *says* that a planetary civilization of billions can do things that a group of only 30k or so people on a starship could never manage. He SAYS this over and over, but I don't know if he's writing a story where the things that happen make that clear. "The Great Man Theory of History is Flawed" feels like a rule he's learned but not internalized into his world building.
(DIR) Post #AnQeJcoVe49xlifIK8 by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-10-27T10:29:54Z
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@rayhindle And having not read the ending (I'm about 2/3rds of the way through) maybe the ending is aligned with this being true, but it's a story driven by remarkable individuals at every turn. And that's fine! That's often how one tells a better story... but, it contradicts the big thesis that keeps being stated ...
(DIR) Post #AnQeLxz9trpo0jlLYO by dedicto@mastodon.social
2024-10-27T10:29:54Z
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@futurebird @DrorBedrack I've never read Vinge, but from what I've seen of other science fiction writers, I suspect the answer is Yes. He absolutely wants to live on the edge, and look the worst horrors in the face. Think of "I have no mouth and I must scream". If you've read it, that is; if you haven't, this might not be the best time for that, either. Or Orwell's 1984 — possibly the only book I've been unable to finish because it was too horrifying. It sent me into a depression for 6 months.
(DIR) Post #AnQehCcgfnOjUQNUsC by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-10-27T10:34:09Z
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@dedicto @DrorBedrack I mean, sometimes I want to do that too. Just not right now. I'm feeling a little ... brittle. And I do think it's important to describe utopias too, even if they are flawed. To imagine not just what can go wrong, but what can go right. Because that can give us ideas for... really making things go in the right direction a little more, here and there.
(DIR) Post #AnQfCVOyu4k6hztSUK by dedicto@mastodon.social
2024-10-27T10:39:48Z
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@futurebird @DrorBedrack I definitely liked Brave New World better than 1984. Huxley was definitely trying to show that dystopia and utopia can mix. There were so many things in Brave New World that I actually wanted to see in real life. I think the real world could use a healthy dose of hedonism.
(DIR) Post #AnQfXKnlVgenuiPyr2 by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-10-27T10:43:35Z
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@dedicto @DrorBedrack IDK if you'd been on the train with me last night you might think we have enough. LMAO. Maybe I'm a dour sourpuss. I do think you are right in some senses. The world needs to be sillier and part of that is a bit hedonistic. The stakes are higher than they ought to be and the outlet too narrow and restrained and maybe that's why it comes off as so garish and awful to me. Not that being annoyed on a loud train matters that much. https://sauropods.win/@futurebird/113376437098626236
(DIR) Post #AnQfc2Di1VJhjRnJC4 by dedicto@mastodon.social
2024-10-27T10:42:22Z
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@futurebird @DrorBedrack But yes, overall, many science fiction writers were edgelords before the concept existed.
(DIR) Post #AnQfc3RZTS01WjHtRI by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-10-27T10:44:26Z
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@dedicto @DrorBedrack There are edges that look into dark places and edges that look into wonderful places and it can be hard sometimes to tell them apart.
(DIR) Post #AnQffwjeMEetsabEZs by amro@todon.nl
2024-10-27T10:45:07Z
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@futurebird @benni Thank you. I was going to say the same but you already did.As an anecdote; The FB group about The Culture has a standing rule, no Musk fanboy-ing! You get banned.
(DIR) Post #AnQfj0TauAi6LoY5vk by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-10-27T10:45:40Z
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@datarama Not being bilingual I will forever wonder if I wrote a story in English, then translated it myself... would I be able to think of them as the same story?My instinct is to say... not exactly.
(DIR) Post #AnQgUkVjZFCajcJbDU by aaron@hilltown.studio
2024-10-27T10:54:17Z
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@futurebird @datarama These days I primarily read translated works (usually international literature courtesy of Archipelago Books, or epics, etc.), with dalliances elsewhere, and I am haunted by this. The most I can manage in another language is reading Spanish language literature, of which I grasp maybe 80% of the story and approximately 0% of the wordplay.
(DIR) Post #AnQgmoQTkWU05eTDWK by RachamimOnWheels@wandering.shop
2024-10-27T10:57:31Z
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@futurebird @benni his fave book is The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy - which has an anti-capitalist joke on the *first page*. Apparently he didn't realise that the bespoke planet-building company was one of the *antagonists*
(DIR) Post #AnQgxa7nGIRyv8rj8a by helielo@mastodon.social
2024-10-27T10:59:30Z
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@futurebird When reading Surface Detail, my mind automatically inserted him as a certain character. It almost reads as a caricature of him, to me at least.
(DIR) Post #AnQh8IhYNham4Khf3w by wfdobie@mastodon.social
2024-10-27T10:59:07Z
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@amro @futurebird @benni Wait where is this Group? 🙏🏽
(DIR) Post #AnQh8K63C6mWObAjsu by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-10-27T11:01:27Z
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@wfdobie @amro @benni Really we should have a "minds" roleplay thread on here. And a place for discussing The Culture too. Let's steal the people from facebook.
(DIR) Post #AnQhOyAfxvg5JnH0N6 by wfdobie@mastodon.social
2024-10-27T11:04:27Z
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@futurebird @amro @benni Final episode of Season 2 of “The Ark” touches on mind control/fascism lightly and unexpectedly.
(DIR) Post #AnQhWtCmJU6SEV27Jg by rattlersix@ieji.de
2024-10-27T11:05:53Z
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@futurebird @rayhindle oh man, I can't imagine stopping at 2/3. It's just about to get good
(DIR) Post #AnQlBV7b3mDrH4fMrw by lienrag@mastodon.tedomum.net
2024-10-27T11:46:45Z
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@futurebird Could you elaborate about what is good in America (that doesn't stem from "it's a rich country due to it pillaging the whole world") ?(That's a genuine question... I bear no ill will towards Joe Hill nor Woody Guthrie)
(DIR) Post #AnQot17GHRAgonx1xw by IngaLovinde@embracing.space
2024-10-27T12:28:18Z
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@futurebird you can take a look at "a fire upon the deep" by the Vernor Vinge, it is not that depressing, doesn't have mind control or surveillance done by people or even normalized, and also has galactic universities and galactic FidoNet.It is written before "a Deepness in the sky", but technically happens in the same universe but like twenty thousands of years later (and the tiny fragment of the universe where human civilization connected to Qeng Ho was twenty thousands ago is completely irrelevant to the setting, that civilization is not even a part of the history of this setting. Like Easter Island would be irrelevant to New York, if Easter Island was never discovered by anybody after its initial settlement.)
(DIR) Post #AnQpl2LZv5XaH1PFjs by richpuchalsky@mastodon.social
2024-10-27T12:38:05Z
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@futurebird "A Player of Games" is a blidungsroman (the protagonist is a young person, by Culture standards, who through the course of the book grows up), and Musk never really became an adult.@benni
(DIR) Post #AnQq2ft2AKk9pISu8G by evoterra@podvibes.co
2024-10-27T12:41:16Z
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@futurebirdOn Musk and Iain Banks’ Culture series:Yeah, he completely missed the point. I’m starting a re-read of the whole series with that question (well, more an assumption) in mind.He’s taken away the wrong message so far that it would be laughable were it not tragic for all of us.
(DIR) Post #AnQr412j5mqpgYCawa by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-10-27T12:52:44Z
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@lienrag It's a place where people whose ancestors were slaves, immigrants, native people have reinvented themselves and shaped a wider very diverse unique culture. It's a big country and there are so many different ways to be an American. In theory we have rejected the idea of kings, in theory it could be self-governed. There are many seeds and seedlings of brilliant ideas.
(DIR) Post #AnQrklgk3XRYW3IyEC by RachamimOnWheels@wandering.shop
2024-10-27T13:00:03Z
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@mfennvt @futurebird @benni I suspect he thinks he's a Magrathean or possibly the pandimensional scientist mice
(DIR) Post #AnQseHpyEG0A9Q5wTw by randomphrase@emacs.ch
2024-10-27T13:09:31Z
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@evoterra @futurebird Complete agreement. I’m also re-reading the series with the intention to recapture these books from being misappropriated by Musk and lackeys.The Culture books are so good! And they totally understand and acknowledge the limitations of the utopia being posited. In the first book Consider Phlebas, the protagonist is someone who hates the Culture.To me this is the real strength of the books, the exploration of a genuinely attractive (to my eyes at least) progressive techno utopia but still with flaws and problems. Makes for compelling reading!
(DIR) Post #AnQtBEkGkIM87M8jjc by michael_w_busch@mastodon.online
2024-10-27T13:16:26Z
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@futurebird @benniElon Musk might claim to be a fan of The Culture, Blade Runner, The Matrix, etc.But I am not convinced that he has actually read or watched them.Given how completely he misunderstands them and many other works - even after their authors have explained them to him.
(DIR) Post #AnQtLcmgDywDZKDku0 by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-10-27T13:18:19Z
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@undead @benni I don't know if he's innovative or creative enough to merit slapbots...
(DIR) Post #AnQzPhdKjj0zUYB22q by billseitz@toolsforthought.social
2024-10-27T14:25:09Z
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@emc2 @randomphrase @evoterra @futurebird there is now #TheCulture.
(DIR) Post #AnQzmAPgPknB7bVIfI by albnelson@lor.sh
2024-10-27T14:30:20Z
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@futurebird @benni https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ADHFwabVJec
(DIR) Post #AnR0HVwqOkoYt6xibo by danmcd@hostux.social
2024-10-27T14:35:59Z
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@futurebird You were very wise to do so. The Emergents are very similar to certain modern factions. (And thanks for reminding me why "The Culture" needs to be on my reading list.)
(DIR) Post #AnRLwsWlS3orpKKRs0 by amro@todon.nl
2024-10-27T18:38:47Z
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@futurebird @wfdobie @benni Uhmm... is there a hashtag? Or how do we do this on the M? (tries to make an awkward Mastodon gang sign)
(DIR) Post #AnRivEZKpS8GYOiSNU by temporal_spider@masto.ai
2024-10-27T22:56:12Z
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@futurebirdI didn't finish Deepness, either. The rapey stuff was too upsetting. Fire Upon the Deep is one of my favorites, though. His Marooned in Realtime is excellent, and held up surprisingly well, unlike so much other SF.If you want silly, and a somewhat brighter perspective on the future, I recommend Rudy Rucker's Saucer Wisdom. He's such a unique writer. Sort of bio cyberpunk.
(DIR) Post #AnT01ttPzdYkplpnJg by notsoloud@expressional.social
2024-10-28T13:42:37Z
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@futurebirdGrimes understood I though, check out the song. They're no longer together.@benni