Round and Round it Goes

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Having made it halfway through the marathon nightmare that is the Dunwich Autumnal Zombie-fest I’m beginning to believe I may survive this horror again.  And today was a respite.  I was off-duty and lounging around complaining about my fate.  But at 2pm I had a teleconference with the marketing professional that provided me with a proposal for launching my book, “The Sniper.”

I had gone through the proposal earlier and put together questions about schedule and ancillary activities (e.g., getting a book cover, coming up with my pen name) and I selected the services that I wanted to include in the contract and also, I wanted to specify the date when most of the activities would start.  The meeting went very smoothly and all of my questions were answered and all of my provisos were accepted.

And so now it’s a go.

Sometime before the end of the year there will be a release date and word will go out to all of the non-left-wing science fiction readers that a new classic story has appeared on the literary horizon and everyone who is anyone will be demanding the fastest delivery possible to start reading this splendiferous story as soon as humanly possible.  And the critics will fall over each other praising its qualities to the skies.  And all the Big Five publishers will be fist-fighting each other at my front door trying to buy the rights to my next novel in the series with ingots of rhodium stacked up in a wheelbarrow behind them.  And Joe Rogan will beg me to come on his show and talk about the inspiration I had for the story and about putting him in my next book as a minor character.  And then Donald Trump will mention me in his press conference as an example of someone whose mere existence is making America great again.

And of course, I will be incredibly humble and dignified during all this hoopla.  After all dignified humility is something, I’m well known for.  And I’ve got the whole thing completely covered because my dignity is humble and my humility is quite dignified.  So, there’s that.

When I told Camera Girl the cost, I wasn’t sure at first whether she was going to hit me.  But she just shook her head and walked away.  I told her that a good wife encourages her husband and supports his decisions.  She nodded and said, “Sure, support.  There you go.”  I thought it was weak but as I said she didn’t take a swing at me so a win’s a win.

And honestly, I’m pretty excited about the whole thing.  I’m completely aware that the odds are way, way stacked against me.  99.9999% of books don’t sell more than a few copies.  It’s one in a million that hits a home run.  But I’ve always, since I was a kid, wanted to write a science fiction story.  And now, for better or worse, I have and for once in my life I’m gonna do something crazy.  I want to do what I can to make sure that as many people as possible read it.  I’m putting all the chips on double-zero and spinning the wheel.  And round and round it goes.

What More Could Hal-9000 Want from His Crew?

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I was talking to a fellow I know the other day and we got around to, of course, artificial intelligence.  And he mentioned a book, which is probably very popular, that stated that because of the capability of AI replacing almost all human work, the government will have to pay us for just sitting around.  And I revolted at that idea.

Sure, maybe it’s cost effective and in line with how automation is replacing humans.  But I saw it as an awful idea.  Paying people to do nothing is truly a frightening fate.  It brings to my mind the fictional Eloi from H.G. Well’s, “The Time Machine.”  Useless people sitting around doing nothing while the real work is done by monsters (of whatever kind) is dystopian to an extent that I cannot believe sane people would accept.

Now, I don’t have all the answers.  Obviously technical progress will occur.  It’s inevitable.  But progress cannot earn that name if it entails the destruction of human happiness.  And living like some kind of lab animal with nothing useful to do all day cannot be called happiness.  And so, I think we’ve reached a place in human technological ability where we have to start justifying what we create not just by how it increases productivity but also how it maximizes human happiness.  And I don’t mean the kind of happiness associated with someone playing a video game.  Human beings need to accomplish tasks.  This goes for both work and personal activities.  We like to work with our hands and our minds and we’re good at it (to greater and lesser extents depending on the individual).  But you might say it would be impossible to both efficiently produce the goods and services that our society requires and also maximize the job satisfaction of people.

Well, no.  After all the very machines that are supposedly smart enough to replace all of us are also smart enough to optimize algorithms based on human job satisfaction to design the processes and work assignments that would allow this type of job customization to exist.  Industry can be forced to accommodate human beings into their processes.  But in the future, it won’t be a voluntary acceptance.  We will have to use government to force corporations to utilize humans instead of automation.  This will involve using the tax code and other manipulations to incentivize this policy.  And it will take time to force this mindset to permeate the workplace.  But it will be possible to do.  Because in a democracy we have the upper hand if we know how to use it.  And there’s nothing antithetical to capitalism about this.  As long as it’s a level playing field all the companies can compete to make a human-friendly environment and still make whatever profits they want.  They just won’t be allowed to do it without human employees.

And what will happen is the companies who provide the most job satisfaction to their employees will preferentially get and retain the highest quality employees.  What more could Hal-9000 want from his crew?

Going My Way (1944) – An OCF Classic Movie Review

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“Going My Way” is a comedy drama that took a bunch of Oscars and was the biggest box office draw in 1944.  And since it starred Bing Crosby it unsurprisingly had several musical numbers spread through the movie.  It’s the story of Father Chuck O’Malley (Crosby) a Catholic priest sent by the bishop to rescue a New York City parish; St Dominic’s, from the overwhelmed exhaustion of its present elderly pastor; Father Fitzgibbon (played by Barry Fitzgerald).  With a supporting cast that includes such veteran character actors as Gene Lockart, Timothy O’Dowd and William Frawley the film drops any pretense at reality and has Father O’Malley manage to reform a local gang of New York City teenagers and converts them into a church choir.  He manages to raise enough money to pay off the mortgage by selling a song to a music producer.  He saves a runaway teenager from trouble with the police and even manages to reunite Father Fitzgibbon with his ninety-year-old mother by finding a way to pay for her trip from Ireland.

Now clearly this movie has nothing to do with reality.  Having grown up in a New York City Roman Catholic parish I can assure you that no priest of Father O’Malley’s caliber has ever been seen.  But treat the movie as a fantasy from a much more innocent time and enjoy it for its virtues.  Crosby comes across as eminently likeable and the whole movie is a feel-good experience that can be watched around the holiday season to try and believe that there are still good people walking this Earth.

Now the interesting thing is this movie has the distinction of being one of only a very few good movies that had an even better sequel.  The next year (1945) Crosby returned as O’Malley, paired with Ingrid Bergman as a nun in the movie, “The Bells of St Mary’s.”

But with or without the sequel, “Going My Way” is a heartwarming and well-made film that I can highly recommend to anyone who still wants to believe in the possibility of human goodness and hope.  There is comedy, human feeling and a sense of optimism in the face of hardship.  A classic.