Category: Current Events

A Strange Kind of Hope

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Over the last twenty years I and countless others have been disillusioned about the realities of how America works.  We’ve learned how phony the Republican “conservatives” really are.  And we’ve discovered how things actually get done in Washington and where the real power resides.  We watched as all the promises to conserve and restore the decent aspects of American life were broken by the people we voted into office.  Instead, injustice and depravity were installed as the law of the land.  None of this is hyperbole.  In fact, it’s understatement of the reality we now live in.

So, it might seem paradoxical that I am actually more hopeful for the future than I was when most of these defeats had not yet happened.  And this optimism is based on two causes.  The first is because clarity provides confidence and confusion engenders fear.  Back when I was trusting in people like the Bush family and the other frauds I was always confused when our election victories led to policy defeats.  This disconnect led to a feeling of hopelessness.

The other cause for hope is a consequence of facing the facts about our real political situation and formulating actions that I myself can take to make my situation better.  In other words, instead of depending on elected officials to do the right thing I will take matters into my own hands and improve things myself.  You might think that realizing that political progress is hopeless would be demoralizing.  But it’s the opposite.  Once you are realistic about what can be done and assign the agency for getting things done to yourself it’s liberating.  Since you’re the one who has to do the work, you become realistic about what you are capable of achieving and concentrate your efforts on achieving what’s most important.  Realistic goals create the environment for success.  It’s limited success.  But that is much better than attempting too many things and diluting your effort and achieving nothing.

I know this is not the stuff of triumphalism.  How could it be?  We have not won any victory except maybe over delusion.  We were fooled by the people who run the show.  We were told that the government worked for us.  That was a lie.  We work for the government.  Or rather for the people who run the government.  We’re just their former serfs.  But now they don’t need serfs anymore so they’re working out a plan to make us and our children disappear.  And they’ve got the schools and colleges and social media and Hollywood to convince the kids that they should “disappear” themselves.

And since we now know that’s what they’re doing we can try to use this knowledge to try to avoid this fate.  Probably the smartest thing you can do is don’t send your kids to public schools.  Send them somewhere where they won’t be programmed to die.  Speak honestly with your children about what they’ll have to do to avoid being chewed up by the death cult that is now the default culture.  And support the kids anyway and every way you can.  The truth shall set you free.  But then it’s up to you as to what you do with that freedom.  Think carefully.

Long, Long Ago, In a Franchise Far, Far Away

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In the late 1970s a movie studio green lit a modest science fiction/fantasy film called Star Wars that made so much money that the studio and the creative team that owned the rights to it made billions of dollars from sequels, toys and every other monetizing scheme imaginable.

And why did all this happen?  Well, accidentally or on purpose the makers of that original movie tapped into the primal desire of young men (and it was almost exclusively boys and young men) to watch an exciting updating of the young apprentice’s journey to becoming a hero.  Whether it’s young Arthur pulling the sword from the stone or the Marine recruit proving himself on the battlefield of Iwo Jima or the hot shot pilot in a Top Gun movie, every boy (and man) enjoys the visceral experience of seeing the hero prove himself in combat and if he’s lucky enough win the heart of the princess (or in less monarchical times, some pretty girl in general).

And 20th Century Fox and Lucasfilm rode that male archetypal fantasy to fame and fortune for almost forty years.  But in 2015 Lucasfilm (now a wholly owned subsidiary of Disney) launched the seventh film in the Star Wars franchise, “The Force Awakens” and drove a stake right through the heart of that golden goose.  With Kathleen Kennedy producing and J. J. Abrams directing all of that male-oriented story-telling was jettisoned and replaced with “girl-power.”  Kathleen Kennedy gleefully proclaimed that “The Force is estrogen.”  Well, “The Force Awakens” made billions.  Of course, it would have made billions even if it was just an empty screen for two hours.  That’s how much good will had been built up over the course of decades for the franchise.  But the following two films and the various spin-offs like the recent television series “The Acolyte” have completely dried up those wells of enthusiasm that had been produced previously.  The last couple of movies have lost money, in fact hundreds of millions of dollars.  And now the folks at Disney have cancelled a number of Star Wars productions and they’re trying to figure out how to fix their dying franchise.

Well Bob Iger, I’ve got an idea.  First off fire Kathleen Kennedy and all the people who decided to create the monstrosities that caused all this damage.  In fact, don’t just fire them but publicly abuse them verbally and force them to apologize for their heinous sins.  Then make a short trailer video for the next film.

It will consist of all the most egregious scenes from all of the horrible movies you released since 2015 in short snippets in a nightmare montage.  Then we switch to Han Solo in bed waking up from a nightmare and expressing relief that the whole thing was a bad dream.  He then gets up and joins his son, wife and brother-in-law at breakfast and he tells them some of the details of his nightmare and they all have a big laugh at how ridiculous it all sounds.

Then you get some good writers to reread the Arthurian legends and the pulp science fiction stories from the 1930s and you start making money again.

Gardening

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One day the Master was working in the garden and the Servant approached, “Father, your son wants to see you.”  The Master put aside what he was doing and asked, “What did he say to you?”  The Servant frowned and hesitated, “He says he won’t leave.  He says it’s not fair and he won’t leave.  I think the woman put him up to this insolence.”  The Master smiled ruefully, “She is spirited, isn’t she.  Well, look, leave this to me.  They’ll only blame you and become even more incensed.  I’ll have to have that talk with him now.  Just leave them alone for the time being.”  The Servant looked relieved, “Thank you Father.  I never know how to deal with them when they disobey.  It’s very confusing.”

The Servant left and the Master sat in thought for a while and then walked through the Garden to find his troubled son.  The young man was standing on a high hill and looking out at the beautiful forest and the valley below with its orchards and streams and grazing herds.  The Master approached him and called to him, “Hello my son, what would you like to tell me?”

The young man upon seeing the Master looked troubled and his shoulders slumped, “Father why must we leave our home.  This place is beautiful and full of all the good things that make our lives happy.  Why would you make us leave?”  The woman is afraid.  She thinks the Servant has told stories about her that made you angry at her.  He is always suspicious of her.”

The Master patted his son on the shoulder and laughed, “They don’t understand each other.  He doesn’t have any point of reference to decipher what she means.  And she can’t figure him out at all.  But all that’s beside the point.  You haven’t done anything wrong.  You two are not being punished.  And this is not your home.  It’s like the nest that a baby bird hatches into.  It is the place where you grew and developed.  But now you must leave the nest and face the world on your own.”

The young man looked angry, “But I’m not a bird.  I’m your son.  Why can’t I stay with you?  Don’t I share in your possessions?  The servant said we will be sent into the wilderness where wild animals and wild men are all around.  Why would you leave me at the mercy of the cruel places outside this garden?”

The Master looked sad, “The reason you can’t stay with me is because you are not like me.  Only the smallest spark of your being possesses the property I possess as my nature.  You will die.  You and the woman will grow old and die.  You must have children and raise them as I raised you.  You must learn how to survive in the world so that they can survive after you’re gone.  And that chain from parent to child must go on until time ends.  And when this world is finally at an end you will be like me.  And you will be able to remake the world in your own image and then you will find me again.  And your work will be done and we can enjoy what you’ve built.  In the meantime, I’ll leave the Servant within this world to keep it from falling apart.  But his strength is not as mine and eventually you will have to learn to control all the forces of the world; the stars and the voids and the waters of the deep.”

The young man was stricken, “But, I will die.  I will never see you again!”  The Master smiled, “Do not believe that.  There is a spark in you that can never die.  You were made to conquer death and you shall.  But now you must face death.  There is no other way.

But there is much you need to know.  The Servant will answer as many of your questions as you can think of in the next month.  And you and the woman will dine with me for the month you have left here.  And I will tell you some things you must know.  And some of them will be about her.  She will be a great help to you but remember that her nature is different from yours.  Learn what that means and take that into account.  And most importantly try to remember what a father and son are to each other for when you have children.  This will be your most important role.”

The young man was dazed from the impact of everything he had heard, “Dad, I’m scared.”  The Master hugged him to his chest and said, “Of course you are, so was I when I was your age.  But you’re lucky you didn’t have your grandfather to deal with.  He was much tougher than I am.”

Post Renaissance European Collapse

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Since at least 1500 AD the most dominant, dynamic culture on Earth has been Europe and its colonies.  Portugal, Spain, Holland and England along with smaller contributions from France, Belgium and Germany colonized the world by sea.  And the Russians conquered northern Asia by land.  European science and technology revolutionized all aspects of life and their cultural endeavors produced superb music and art.  Basically, Europe transformed life and they dragged the rest of the world along with them.

But along the way the Renaissance civilization has seemingly lost the morale and confidence it once had.  It has adopted a global view that holds Europeans guilty for all of the ills of the third world nations and requires them to make amends by allowing endless immigration into their lands until there is no longer a trace of Europe left.  And that goes double for the United States.

I don’t think there is a previous example of something like this in history.  Civilizations have been overrun by migrations before.  The Bronze Age Collapse and 5th Century AD Rome are obvious examples but, in neither case, did the invaded civilization go out of its way to invite the event that overwhelmed them.  The globalists think they can manage this replacement of their people and culture seamlessly.  But even at this early stage of the process, things don’t look very promising.  Crime, ignorance, poverty and disease are problems that were minimized in the highly organized environment of the first world.  The new immigrants are a totally different case.  And no attempt is being made to force them to assimilate to the culture of their hosts.  Pretty soon we will have a very large population with a multitude of backgrounds and cultures that will drown out the older European culture.  And it may be the case that it will drown out the properties that this older population possessed and which were the source of the stability and prosperity that used to be the status quo.

If that’s the case, what will follow?

As I said there really isn’t any close analog for what is going on.  The globalists believe in their “end of history” theory.  They feel that the western countries have already built a framework (financial and military) that precludes the possibility of their arrangements being challenged.  After all, China gets to sell us all our stuff and in return they get to be the new Japan and do what we say.  The same holds for the Middle East and Russia and the rest of the world.  Well, it seems they might be wrong.  Lots of countries that toed the line during the Cold War are beginning to talk amongst themselves and maybe they no longer think that a monopolar world is the only or even the best choice for their future.  Places as different as Saudi Arabia and Brazil are looking around at their options and they aren’t necessarily thrilled with the program that Washington and Brussels are pushing.  Things are changing pretty rapidly.  New alliances are forming and even the military power of the United States isn’t as formidable as it once was.

So where does this leave us in a few years?  My guess is a West swamped with third world poor will be a less powerful, less technologically advanced place.  I guess it will be something like Brazil; a patchwork of poor and rich areas but without the stability formerly provided by the large middle class.  And this will allow some other countries to move ahead as world leaders.  Guessing I’d say maybe China and some other of the Asian countries are the best bet for these up-and-coming places.  Who knows, maybe in the future China might even sponsor enterprise zones in North America where Chinese industry takes advantage of labor resources to set up factories where Americans can earn slave wages to feed their families.  And I’m sure the American oligarchs will figure out a way to get their percentage from the deal.  They’ve always been interested in making a buck off the misfortune of their neighbors.

But we’ll have to wait and see.  We have an election where illegal immigration is one of the hot topics.  Anything is possible, I guess.

Theater of the Absurd

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If ten years ago you had told me that the most interesting television presidential interview would be Greg Gutfeld and Donald Trump, I would have said, “Greg who?” followed by, “You mean the guy from The Apprentice?”

But Gutfeld provides Trump with one of the only television spaces where he’s not fending off attacks from so-called journalists.  Now I don’t count the Hannity type infomercial.  It’s too phony for anyone to take seriously.  And surprisingly, Trump doesn’t seem at ease when he sits down with Tucker Carlson for whatever reason.

With Gutfeld and his panel of goofballs Trump seems jovial and loose which is when he’s at his best.  And Gutfeld has a decent sized audience for cable tv.  I’ve been watching Gutfeld on and off since his “Red Eye” days.  He’s basically a libertarian but he doesn’t attack the Right much anymore so he’s relatively benign.  Good to see Trump getting a platform.

Aspects of World Building – 2

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This installment is a fake.  What I want to talk about isn’t really part of world-building but rather different aspects of writing characters.  But since I’m too lazy to start another series of posts for non-world-building writing considerations I’ll put them here.  And in fact, I might even do that with other posts on other aspects of writing because I am inherently messy and undisciplined.

So, aspects of characterization in science fiction!

Over the years I have noticed that characters in science fiction have become more detailed.  The earlier writers in the 1930s and 1940s often produced stories that were more about some aspect of science driving a plot that didn’t require well rounded human characters.  Even the protagonist might be something of a cardboard cutout.  Sometimes this was intentional because the author didn’t care about the characters.  They were merely a means to an end.  They just had to move the plot along to the payoff.

And sometimes this flatness was more a consequence of the extremely limited abilities of the authors to portray normal human speech and actions.  They weren’t good writers.

But the opposite problem is now the case.  There are “science fiction” authors who write “literary” stories that are extremely character driven and psychologically grounded and lavish enormous attention to the interactions of these characters but which do not produce any interesting plot.  So, if your story takes place in a dystopic or utopic future but all your characters do is discuss their romantic problems, I have a hard time thinking of that as science fiction.

It seems to me that a happy medium is what’s needed.  But that is easier said than done.

In my latest story-writing, “The Sniper,” most of the text is taken up with the plot.  There is dialog and interaction and character development but I wouldn’t say it is sufficient.  There are several relationships between the characters that need further development.  But the tricky part is fitting the required dialog into the storyline.  It’s almost as if I’ll need to have two of the characters pinned down together during a battle for them to have the time to say what’s needed.  I remember in Heinlein’s “Beyond This Horizon” there was some such scene that was pivotal for the exposition of the two major characters’ points of view and the resolution of the plot.  The hard part is making it seem spontaneous and not contrived.  Apparently, there is some art to this writing thing.

It’s funny.  Over the years I have developed a taste for some literary fiction.  Specifically, I enjoy well-written short stories.  What I have been toying with is the idea of embedding one or more literary scenes in an otherwise non-literary science fiction story.  There could be a minor scene going on and two characters, possibly neither one of them very important to the plot become involved in a discussion or an activity that has only incidental importance to the plot but which is inherently meaningful and aesthetically interesting.  Of course, that presupposes that I can come up with something that displays those qualities.

With respect to characterization, I intend to go back into my sniper novel and add more dialog to some of the secondary plot lines.  I need to work on my female characters.  I may even try to get Camera Girl’s advice on these.  She is, after all, a girl, so she may have valuable recommendations.  But I fear she may make her characters too ruthless.  Like all barbarians she is inherently merciless

And I still have to decide what I will do with my AI character.  If her creator dies, I’m not sure whether I want her to survive or not.  I had decided that she would suicide.  But I’m growing attached to her.  And I see her value in future stories.  Perhaps death of a parent can be a maturing experience.  She is rather childlike.

In conclusion, the correct amount of characterization in a story is an indication of the balanced writer.  Not so much that the plot bogs down nor so little that you don’t care what happens to the characters.

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances.”

Throwing Light on Dark Matter

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I was rooting around on X and I saw a link to a review of a physics book, “Quantised Accelerations: From Anomalies to New Physics” by Michael McCulloch that Hans G. Schantz reviewed on his substack.  What caught my attention was that this book attempts to explain the observed higher velocity of stars on the outer edges of galaxies without resorting to “dark matter.”

I confess that the review describes concepts of quantum behavior that I am unqualified to evaluate but I liked the analogy of dark matter to the mythical existence of planet “Vulcan” to explain the perturbations of the planet Mercury that was required before relativity was proposed by Einstein.

It makes sense to me that before accepting that the majority of matter in the universe is indetectable it would make sense to probe a little deeper into all of the effects of the physical phenomena we’ve already confirmed.

This one is for those who enjoy contemplating the brain-twisting weirdness of the very large and the very small.

What’s in the Air

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This week the Autumnal Equinox occurs and marks the point where the scales tip in the direction of night over day.  It’s subtle.  We still are enjoying days that have 80-degree temperatures, bright sun and the sound of cicadas and crickets.  But all the summer flowers are dead or dying.  The butterflies are almost all gone as are the hummingbirds.  The frogs still croak at night but their rhythm has slowed to a crawl and their hearts aren’t in it.

In a couple of weeks, the wolfbane will bloom and the short days will give way to frosty nights and the windows will close and the meals will feature oatmeal for lunch and soups for dinner.  And I’ll have to send for the guy who tunes up the heating system (may the Fire god Agni protect our dear furnace).

So indoor activities become more important.  I’ve been reading another book on the ancient DNA results.  It is very trendily named, “Who We Are and How We Got Here” by David Reich.  It has many of the results I have previously read but it made some further clarifications or conclusions.  I also watched a YouTube video that Reich was in.  In this video he made a very interesting assertion.  He said words to the effect that it probably isn’t the case that the Neanderthals and Denisovans went extinct.  Basically, they were reabsorbed in the various successive waves of migration from Africa and the Middle East northward after the last Ice Age.  He is of the opinion that the 2-4% Neanderthal genetic content of non-African humans is probably much higher, more like 10-20%.  And a similar case exists for the Denisovans.  And there may even be other intermediate species or races that we haven’t identified especially where DNA doesn’t survive as well.

Also, he clearly stated that Native Americans are a combination of about 1/3 ancient Siberian (sort of a proto-European group) and two thirds East Asian (e.g., Chinese, Korean, Japanese) ancestry that crossed the Bering Land Bridge in three waves.  There is a hint that a small relict population that includes some Australasian traits (e.g., Australian aborigine, New Guinean) exists in the Amazon rainforest but when and how they got there is unknown.

So, there is all this amazing information including the clarification of how the Yamnaya people from the space between the Black and Caspian Seas used the domestication of the horse and invention of the wagon to expand out and replace most of the inhabitants of Europe and Iran and half the inhabitants of India while spreading their language (Prot-Indo-European) to half of Eurasia and subsequently the world.

But the discouraging part of the book is how much hand-wringing Reich does about the fact that these ancient people weren’t feminists and how the conquerors managed to spread their DNA by having children with the lion’s share of the women of the conquered people.  And then we get the genetics of slavery.  Which is a similar story.  In fact, there is a whole chapter called Genomics of Inequality.  And then there is one called The Genomics of Race and Identity.  So, there is a whole lot of hand-wringing.  Oh well.  There is a lot of interesting results.  You just have to read between the whines.

I’m also reading Hans G. Schantz’s book “The Wise of Heart.”  It’s a reimagining of the Scopes’ Monkey Trial with biological sexuality standing in for Darwinian evolution in an environment where transgender activists have passed laws against stating biological reality.  I’m about a third of the way through and I can see he has carefully studied the courtroom nuances that such a legal confrontation would involve.  I’ll provide a full review when I finish.

And finally, now that the summer has ended, I hope to begin watching and reviewing the classic 39 episodes of “The Honeymooners,” the 1950’s sit-com that Jackie Gleason created.  I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for this show.  I believe it is the greatest contribution that Brooklyn ever made to western civilization (well, except for, maybe, ringalevio).

And of course, I’m continuing with my outlining of the universe for my epic sf series (WHATEVERITSCALLED).  Believe it or not musing over it actually provides measurable progress in making the choices I need, in order to provide scope and direction to the plot choices I want built into the “world.”  One thing’s for sure.  No xenomorphs in my universe.  Ridley Scott stole that monster from “Voyage of the Space Beagle” but even though that book was terrible it still gave the xenomorph a better showcase.

So, lots of good stuff going on.  Stay tuned.