Random Thoughts, Part 27: Trump 2.0, Sci-Fi AI vs. Real AI, Black Cats, Satanic Panic, Musical Time-Slippage, Conceptual Constructions of Politics, Sinners, etc.

 

My random thoughts continue, now with 27 parts with 801 total thoughts! With the second Trump administration driving us full-bore into making America less great several times every single goddamn day, I've had a lot of politics on my mind lately. And there are continuing issues about AI. I worry my random thoughts are not so random these days. But randomness doesn't rule out clusters of similar ideas. And you'll still find a few other things in there about my dental habits, listening to Nirvana, the Satanic Panic, the film Sinners, cats, and more. And of course, there are memes! Enjoy!

"Bullets Don't Have a Name on Them": Civil War (2024), Gaza, and Guns

 

"Bullets don't have a name on them."

- One of my neighbors

Alex Garland's Civil War (2024) is one of the more disturbing films I've seen recently, and that's saying something, because I also watched Jonathan Glazer's The Zone of Interest several weeks ago. I've been meaning to write something about Civil War since I saw it last week. And here I am. 

Chattacon 2024!

 

I'm excited to be attending Chattacon once again this year! Chattacon 49 will take place this weekend (Jan. 12-14, 2024) at the Doubletree Hotel in downtown Chattanooga, Tennessee!

Pandemic of Revenge: The White Plague by Frank Herbert

 

Let's start with the obvious: The White Plague is not Dune. But it is definitely Frank Herbert: provocative, complex, dense, and oddly compelling. And yes, there are epigraphs at the beginning of each chapter.

Instead of a galactic empire 20-some thousand years in the future, we start with Ireland circa 1980. Microbiologist John Roe O'Neill loses his wife and children in a terrorist attack. And later a virus decimates humanity, or rather, half of humanity, as it only affects women. It turns out that O'Neill designed the virus as revenge, intending it to strike Ireland, England, and Libya. Of course, viruses don't respect national boundaries and it becomes a global pandemic.

Hugo Ballot 2023: Novels, Novellas, and More!

 

I made it! I got my Hugo votes submitted by the Sept. 30 deadline! It felt like a compressed Hugo reading season to me. Maybe it was the delay on the front end from the local Worldcon or the fact that my late summer travels and the beginning of the school year ate into my reading time, but I felt a bit rushed this year compared to previous years. I barely finished the novels and only kinda finished the novellas (you can see how I voted on the novelettes and short stories here). I skimmed the Related Works, glanced at some of the art, and went totally from memory for the Dramatic Presentations. But I did manage to vote in most of the categories. I felt especially invested in the semiprozine category this year for reasons revealed below.

How'd it go? I surprised myself with a few picks this year, especially for Best Novel, but I can say I enjoyed reading all the nominees and would be thrilled to see any of them win. Check it out below! You can see how it all turns out during the ceremony on Oct. 21 at the Chengdu Worldcon! Good luck to all the nominees!

Hugo Ballot 2023: Short Stories and Novelettes!

 

It's Hugo reading season! The voting deadline is coming up on Sept. 30! There was a bit of a delay in releasing the list of nominees and the Hugo packet, and then summer travels and the beginning of the fall semester happened to me ... so, how am I doing?

I'm almost done with the novels. I may or may not get to all the novellas (sad, I know!). But I have now finished the novelettes and short stories.  Maybe because this year's Worldcon will be taking place in Chengdu, China, there are more finalists from China than usual! Unfortunately I won't get to China this year, but Worldcon will be in Glasgow, Scotland next year, and I'm hoping to attend in person as part of the Science Fiction and Philosophy Society (stay tuned for details).

Anyway, overall I thought there were some great novelettes and short stories this year. The novelettes in particular were really difficult to rank (reading the Hugo nominees in the last several years has taught me that I seem to enjoy the novelette-length short fiction best: enough space to dig in, but it's still not too long). Here are my rankings and what I thought about this year's short stories and novelettes!

Postcolonial Hogwarts with Fun Etymologies: Babel by R. F. Kuang

 

If I had to describe R. F. Kuang's Babel, or, The Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution in one phrase, I'd go with "Postcolonial Hogwarts with Fun Etymologies." Depending on how you feel about Harry Potter, postcolonial theory, and etymology, that may sound dismissive, but I don't mean to be dismissive at all. I really loved almost everything about this book, especially the etymologies (although I have to point out a mistake with the Devanagari script when a Sanskrit etymology is given on p. 474). 

Random Thoughts, Part 21: John Wick, Colorblindness, Apps, Skinny Doctors, Weezer, the South, and So On

It's randomly that time again: My Random Thoughts series continues with Part 21! I haven't been moved to write much on this blog lately, but that doesn't mean the random thoughts have stopped. Far from it! I doubt I could turn them off if I wanted to, but lucky for me and for you, dear reader, I don't want to. And it's also an excuse for a random assortment of memes curated from my random internet amusements. Enjoy!

Looking for Hope on the 5th of July

Yesterday was US Independence Day. I have complicated feelings about this holiday, as I have complicated feelings about the country it celebrates. 

I’ve never really been big on conventional displays of patriotism. It all feels so jingoistic and bombastic. And there’s something a bit gauche about pretending a patch of dirt is special because I happen to live on it. 

But this doesn’t mean I don’t love my country in some sense. I love the people here, because I love humanity and part of humanity lives here, the part that most influences me and which I can influence most. 

Random Thoughts, Part 16: Dune the Random Things

My series of Random Thoughts started randomly one day almost two years ago. I would wait until the exact two year anniversary of that first post, but that wouldn't be random, now would it? Add in a pandemic and some random memes, and here we are: Random Thoughts, Part 16: Dune the Random Things!

Random Thoughts, Part 15: Randomly, the Pandemic Continues

 

Made at: https://www.jasondavies.com/wordcloud/

My Random Thoughts series continues with Part 15! My last post, Part 14, was on May 31 when I hoped that we were reaching the late stages of the pandemic ... well, that turned out not to be the case. I'm not sure if this is random as the title of this post supposes (see random thought 352 for more), but I thought it was a good title. Also, I have continued to include some random memes for your amusement.

Dynamic Djinn: The City of Brass by S. N. Chakraborty

The cover is beautiful!

 

I enjoyed this fantasy in a world of djinn and other elements inspired by Middle Eastern and South Asian cultures. I figured it would be a good book to read during Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month. While writing this review I discovered that the author is white, and Chakraborty is her married name, so I can't say it has an AAPI author. 

Yet this work still delves deeply into the cultures and histories of the Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia, and South Asia, so it makes sense from that angle for AAPI Heritage Month as a nice break from the typical boring and problematic Eurocentrism of the contemporary fantasy genre and its endless paeans to Tolkien. (I also picked up Fonda Lee's Jade City, but I haven't finished it yet. Look for that review coming soon.)

Twelve Nights of Christmas Horror Movies, Part Two

 

In "Twelve Nights of Christmas Horror Movies, Part One" I discussed a bunch of Christmas horror movies. And now I'm going to discuss a bunch more!

I ended up watching more than 12 movies, but I liked the title, so what are you gonna do? Besides, sometimes I watched more than one per night. Maybe you will, too.

Pandemic Journal, Part 16: Our Non-Normal November

My Pandemic Journal continues with Part 16: Our Non-Normal November. (I tried to think of something catchier. Maybe you can do better!) 

It has been a non-normal month (granted, we have had a lot of non-normal months lately). But this one had the bizarreness of the US election on top of everything else.

One thing that has become normal (at least on this blog): memes! Enjoy!

On Being Apart from Your Family on Thanksgiving

 

I’ve spent Thanksgiving apart from my family most of my adult life. Here are some thoughts for people who find themselves apart from their families this Thanksgiving.

Racism and the Discipline of Philosophy

Source: https://secondnexus.com/environment/maps-that-might-make-you-rethink-how-you-see-the-world

 

I’m writing this as part of my participation in the Scholar Strike for Racial Justice, taking place on Sept. 8 and 9, 2020. You can learn more about that here and here.  

In writing about racism and the discipline of philosophy, there are two relevant senses of “discipline.”

 

One sense involves the ways that individuals are disciplined to maintain the borders of philosophy: who is and isn’t allowed to exist within those borders, and who is and isn’t allowed to be comfortable within those borders.

 

The other sense is the more familiar sense of philosophy as an academic discipline.

 

The first sense is felt by others far more than it is felt by me, so I will leave this first sense to the side in most of what follows. I recommend starting with resources such as this and this, or this excellent post by Alexus McLeod that connects the two senses.

 

While there are still some within the discipline of philosophy in the second sense who would deny that our discipline disciplines individuals in the first sense, I suspect most philosophers will at least admit we have some work to do when it comes to attracting more women and people of color to the discipline. 

 

It may be more contentious among my fellow philosophers to suggest that racism has much to do with our discipline in the second sense. After all, how can race have much to do with plumbing the eternal verities? Isn’t philosophy about problems that arise for any thinking person, with solutions meant to be as general and context-free as possible? (Forgive me, continentals, I know not what I do, although I often wonder about the abstraction of things like the human condition or the Animal or the carceral state or whatever … the impulse to philosophical abstraction is maybe almost as strong even if it has a French or German accent).

 

But what if the very idea of “the discipline of philosophy” is itself constructed from racist assumptions?  

Independence Day for Conflicted Americans

Janelle Monáe and friends performing "Americans"

Here's something I shared on social media:

 

Spending part of July 3 bringing lunches to poor people in the projects and homeless people in tent cities in the wealthiest country on Earth in the middle of a grossly mismanaged response to a pandemic makes me really excited about Independence Day this year.

 

(Just in case you missed it, yes, that is sarcasm.) Don’t get me wrong, I’m really, really glad to help, and I'm thankful for my friend who got me involved in the team. If people are suffering, one should help them. But it’s hard to get excited about a country that has the wealth to totally eliminate poverty, but has continued to choose not to do so year after year while the problems are in some cases actually getting worse. MLK made this point in the 1960’s. Others made it before him. There is no excuse.

 

Indian Philosophy Blog: "Indian Philosophy During the Pandemic: A Call for Examples and Ideas"

I recently wrote a post over at the Indian Philosophy Blog (where I am one of the administrators). I thought this might be a good chance for some cross-blog meta-blogging! (You can read the whole post here).

I start the post by explaining my current situation given the pandemic:

Lunar Leitmotifs: Red Moon by Kim Stanley Robinson

Red Moon is definitely not destined to be among my favorite Kim Stanley Robinson novels.  It's nowhere near the Mars Trilogy, Aurora, or The Years of Rice and Salt (my personal favorites), nor is it quite as much fun as Galileo's Dream, as engaging as Shaman, or as wide-ranging as 2312.  In fact, Red Moon may be my least favorite of KSR's novels I've read.  But as I said in my review of New York 2140 (another book I liked but didn't love), I'd be happy to read KSR's grocery list.

The focus on China is interesting, although sometimes it felt as if people forgot that countries besides China and the US exist. China is going to be a major player in space exploration in the future, and it was interesting and presumably realistic to read about all the factions within the government. My favorite character was Ta Shu, a TV host with a penchant for what might be called "science fictional Feng Shui" and the vehicle for a lot of KSR's typical ruminations on history, philosophy, science, economics, etc.  The odd couple of Qi and Fred is fun, but in retrospect it was odd that it was always from Fred's POV and never from Qi's.

Castle Rock as a Buddhist Hell Realm: Needful Things by Stephen King

My delightfully tattered used copy of Needful Things.
(Think of this next time you see the opening credits of Stranger Things!)

Needful Things (1991) is not my favorite Stephen King novel, but it's... engrossing and fun and well, Stephen King.  There are obvious Christian overtones about making deals with the devil, not to mention some sort of critique of greed and capitalism or maybe even contemporary resonances about Russian interference in US elections by pitting Americans against each other or how having a lot of guns around makes all of this more deadly.  These are all interesting lenses through which one might look at the novel (feel free to steal any of them if you want to develop them... I won't even charge anything or expect any nefarious favors in return).  But as I read it I started working on another angle.  What if we understand the novel as depicting a kind of Buddhist hell realm where desire, delusion, and suffering roll on in a seemingly infinite feedback loop?