All posts by Kit

Artists Get What They Want, Good and Hard

You can’t put the genie back in the bottle, no matter what you do. There were warnings about the harm mechanization can do to industries, but artists figured, oh, not us. We’re different. Our work encapsulates the soul of humanity, and therefore, we can’t be replaced! Most artists – in all fields – were absolutely silent when mechanization and computerization devastated blacksmiths, glassblowers, woodworkers, and so many others whose styles and skills were plundered by industrialization for the profit of large corporations. They were also silent when AIs were being crafted for other fields that were about to face the chopping block of computerization. Truck drivers and cashiers weren’t artists, what they did wasn’t like art, despite the absolute centrality of those jobs for human civilization to continue to exist. No one eats without truck drivers handling cargo and cashiers selling it to you, not until they are replaced by machines.

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The End of History Has More Than One Meaning

Francis Fukuyama, a Hegelian philosopher and political scientist, wrote an article that appeared in The Atlantic, “More Proof That This is Really the End of History.” He said that the current regime of strongmen in places like Russia and China again demonstrates that liberal democracies are the only serious game in town.

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Why I’m Moving to Denmark

I.

I’ve decided that it’s time to lay out all the reasons I’m moving to Denmark[1].

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Thoughts on the future of trumpism

I woke up today and saw the news, and it was suddenly… sane.

I am no great fan of Democratic politics.  As I’m a leftist, I hadn’t seen a distinct difference between the two parties.  I often have characterized Democratic politics as a “cooling off” for Republican policies – a part of the country’s rightward shift.  Republicans will do something (say, start to bomb other countries with drones willy-nilly), and Democrats will freak out… but Democratic administrations will use the powers instituted by the Republicans. At that point, the Democrats shut up about it.  Pretty much everything in the war on terror – drone assassinations, torture, secret and illegal detention, etc. – are now part of US politics.

Trump made me modify my view.  Previously, I had considered the Republicans more doctrinarian and disciplined about their doctrine.  While I found their doctrine odious, there was consistency for it.  What Trump did – and this might be his lasting contribution to the Republican Party and conservatives, in general – is fracture that consistency.

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Conspiracies, fundamentalism, and why we’re not done with Trumpism

Donald Trump is my brainworm. I can’t think past or around him. So, as writers do, I am writing about what I can write about.

The reason Donald Trump is so goddamn popular with so many people is that many millions of Americans have accepted conspiracy theories as real. Here and now, I’m going to argue that one of the most significant reasons that’s true is America’s relationship to religion, specifically Christianity.

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Creating alternate timelines is weird

Like, narratively weird.  As a sci-fi writer, the thing that gets into my head is… where does the energy come from?  A fair number of sci-fi stories – and this has been brought on by me (trying) to read William Gibson’s Agency – a future alternate timeline has a bit of a cottage industry of going back in time and messing stuff up to “see what happens.”  It is established that these alternate timelines are physically real and distinct.

So, every time some hobbyist gets an inch, they can go and create – materially, physically create – an alternate timeline?

WHERE DOES THE ENERGY COME FROM?!   How is all the free energy not the biggest point of all of this?!

Ahem.  That is all.