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For some mysterious reason, the Communist-backed factions didn't feel like they could trust the "direct line to British intelligence agencies" guy who opposed anything beyond anarchist garbage, and for this he would never forgive them Don't take it from me tho, Asimov was the ur-cold warrior and still wrote an entire essay mocking it as paranoid nonsense, admittedly largely on the grounds of what a piece of poo poo of a book it actually was to read and analyze
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Nov 19, 2021 02:56
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I don't believe Asimov was particularly a "cold warrior"; a lot of his writings/interviews emphasized the need for the US to cooperate with the USSR and was critical of a lot of US foreign policy esp. regarding Korea, Vietnam, etc. Just because someone wrote most of their work during the cold war I don't think makes them a cold war warrior assuming that's what you meant. e to add: As much as I respect and admire Asimov I am perplexed that someone as smart as him seems to not consider the writings of a novel as being metaphorical or figurative/thematic, and seems to be entirely hinging how he qualifies the writings of 1984 on the basis of how realistic or plausible it is. When nothing about the book is about predicting literally what will happen, but about trying to get across ideas. It's a bit of a case of narrative tunnel vision tbh. Raenir Salazar fucked around with this message at 03:24 on Nov 19, 2021 |
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Nov 19, 2021 03:09
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Raenir Salazar posted:I don't believe Asimov was particularly a "cold warrior"; a lot of his writings/interviews emphasized the need for the US to cooperate with the USSR and was critical of a lot of US foreign policy esp. regarding Korea, Vietnam, etc. Just because someone wrote most of their work during the cold war I don't think makes them a cold war warrior assuming that's what you meant. He was an odd bird in this sense, especially compared to a lot of his (insanely psychotic) contemporaries...but I'll reiterate that he gained absolutely nothing by taking Orwell to task in the face of a domestic machine that was determined to valorize his works. I've read most of his works and all of the Foundation arc (DO NOT READ THE 1980'S ONES) and he strikes me as a techno-utopian pacifist who believed everybody should come together to do big science things, which to be fair and to tie things back to my original point, Orwell would've also opposed. A big reason why he is remembered is because he actually had a big science brain that correctly predicted a lot of things like satellite communications that even cyberpunk wouldn't get until the next century
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Nov 19, 2021 03:24
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Epic High Five posted:He was an odd bird in this sense, especially compared to a lot of his (insanely psychotic) contemporaries...but I'll reiterate that he gained absolutely nothing by taking Orwell to task in the face of a domestic machine that was determined to valorize his works. Okay so you agree he's no Tom Clancy then? Because that's what comes to mind when someone says "Cold War Warrior" to me; someone whose world view is reflecting in their writings as being about the confrontation between "East and West" which is nothing like Asimov. Asimov's writings even tend to buck this by having stories where a Soviet and American scientist need to cooperate to save the world etc. And yeah, Asimov is/was a member of the Humanist Society, and is my primary personal sociopolitical influence, so of course his works largely reflect an optimistic ideal of where scientific advancement should be for the betterment of all mankind which is a goal I can also get behind. I think Asimov is remembered for a little bit more than just getting one or two things right! He was the most prolific scifi writer of the 20th century with the Foundation series and I, Robot being basically the most famous and this on top of a massive catalogue of popular science articles/books. The 1980's sequels that tie I, Robot and Foundation together were fine; a bit of a twist but fine. Extra Credits has a series on Asimov and a lot of other scifi writers Raenir Salazar fucked around with this message at 03:36 on Nov 19, 2021 |
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Nov 19, 2021 03:33
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Epic High Five posted:For some mysterious reason, the Communist-backed factions didn't feel like they could trust the "direct line to British intelligence agencies" guy who opposed anything beyond anarchist garbage, and for this he would never forgive them I'm not disputing the overall points, but him pointing out the shortcomings of sci-fi about tobacco addicts with few women around is hilarious after rereading the first parts of Foundation Asimov wrote in the 1940s.
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Nov 19, 2021 03:38
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Killer robot posted:I'm not disputing the overall points, but him pointing out the shortcomings of sci-fi about tobacco addicts with few women around is hilarious after rereading the first parts of Foundation Asimov wrote in the 1940s. I'm not gonna say he wasn't a huge weirdo, but literally everybody was from that era of genre writing. Probably the most sane pro-Orwell writer to come from it was Le Guin who I am happy to admit was the best writer in American history Raenir Salazar posted:Okay so you agree he's no Tom Clancy then? Because that's what comes to mind when someone says "Cold War Warrior" to me; someone whose world view is reflecting in their writings as being about the confrontation between "East and West" which is nothing like Asimov. Asimov's writings even tend to buck this by having stories where a Soviet and American scientist need to cooperate to save the world etc. Well no, because even back then the most "Tom Clancy" writers were just totally unhinged in a way that state intelligence agencies had no real control over like they do modern writing, outside of pulps at least which were just frankly incoherent in tone. Like even the most insane psychopaths like Heinlein would opine for chapters at a time about the virtues of child prostitution whereas nowadays it's all just "rah rah terrorists are coming over ARE BORDERS" One of the reasons I'm so drawn to the era despite its warts is how many writers within it were so uniquely strange and allowed to pursue that strangeness. It isn't just Asimov but Cordwainer Smith and Lem and PKD and the rest. I, Robot is indeed a masterwork I recommend to everybody! It's a masterwork alongside The Martian Chronicles. My intense hatred of Foundation and Earth doesn't effect that at all though I will never deny it. Maybe I was being too glib and I'll admit that, when I say "he was a cold warrior" for the time in the context of talking about his critique of Orwell, it's not to say he was a gibbering McCarthyite freak but rather he has no real reason to defend the man other than political, which obviously he didn't care at all about. I definitely did a poor job of communicating this based on your response and I apologize, I hope my explanation clarifies it. Describing him as a "cold warrior" was an offhand remark that Le Guin made (describing him as "The old chieftain of cold warriors") that I thought was amusing enough to repeat is all
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Nov 19, 2021 04:32
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Heinlein was absolutely unhinged. I had a friend suggest "stranger in a strange land" to me and I was pretty pumped because it had a great PK Dick style title (big Dick fan here) and I it was just the most juvenile garbage on the planet. Just Mary Sue surrounding himself in hot babes too smart for the universe using FACTS and LOGIC to save the world. Rarely do I ever put down a book part way especially one that isn't too long but God drat. God drat.
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Nov 19, 2021 15:28
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To bring it back around, I think I put the book down around the scene that the army shows up to take the alien and the main character is like "Sir! This is private property!" And all the tanks and soldiers just sit at the edge of his land like he cast Wall of Force, completely powerless. loving ET had a better understanding of how society works than that idiot.
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Nov 19, 2021 15:32
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I feel like the main thing with stranger in a strange land is that it was written in 1950 something and released in 1961. The questions it is asking about religion and morals are dumb now, but were much much much more pointed to the intended audience. Like it's really written to an audience of guys who had never met a non christian or a foreigner and thought of spaghetti as exotic food. Like it would raddle the coconut of some 1950s square to think 'woah, what if some guy came to town called my beliefs stupid and then his weird beliefs that are the opposite of mine were the right ones! I'm the one that is supposed to do that! everyone loves when I do that! right.... right?" in a way that it's not gonna shake up the worldview of a 2021 internet guy that has met a black person before or knows of muslims as more than legends. Like it's not really that anything smith thinks is REALLY supposed to be stuff you agree with in the real world. You are just supposed to accept it as "these guys have a totally different worldview that is nothing like ours, in fact things we think are bad they think are great." and it's the difference that is important more than the details of it. Like it's not a pro eating dead bodies book. It's a pro "well, we just assume our morals are all right because we all agree with them, what would happen if we met a guy who said different and we couldn't just dismiss him"
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Nov 19, 2021 16:13
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Ok but why did the MC have 3 buxom secretaries who's job it was to hang out at the pool all day and memorize everything he says. Why was that such a vital component of the story that he spent like a quarter of the book justifying their existence and their "skills". I find it hard to believe that "what if there were hot babes everywhere?" is some sort of insightful social commentary.
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Nov 19, 2021 16:34
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Cpt_Obvious posted:I find it hard to believe that "what if there were hot babes everywhere?" is some sort of insightful social commentary. It's not insightful but it tells you something about the author and audience.
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Nov 19, 2021 16:44
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Cpt_Obvious posted:Ok but why did the MC have 3 buxom secretaries who's job it was to hang out at the pool all day and memorize everything he says. Why was that such a vital component of the story that he spent like a quarter of the book justifying their existence and their "skills". Because the counterpoint was a future where the conservative, puritanical church had even more control over american society than it did in real 1950s. Like he was a horny author and wrote horny stuff, but "what if sex is good actually?" was way more of a shakeup idea for mainstream society pre 1960s than it's gonna be for a guy reading it half a century later. The idea an alien would be like "I like having sex! actually my religion says having sex with people is good and cool! even outside of marriage! I don't even know I'm not supposed to have sex with all these babes! seems fine to me and I don't know why you are so hung up on it!" If you wrote it now you'd write him as casually pansexual and expressing confusion that everyone is so mad his girlfriend has a penis and him explaining his boyfriend also has a penis and having no idea why people are yelling at him about it. But it was a book released in 1961 and written before, so hippy free love was the topic that still was like "woah, what? sex outside marriage!?!? OPENLY!? not as a shameful scandal!?!??!"
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Nov 19, 2021 18:10
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The 1960's wasn't ready for time travel incest fantasies, but by god Heinlein had the courage to bring it to them.
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Nov 19, 2021 18:33
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Jaxyon posted:The 1960's wasn't ready for time travel incest fantasies, but by god Heinlein had the courage to bring it to them. I’M JUST ASKING QUESTIONS!!!!
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Nov 19, 2021 18:51
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Jaxyon posted:The 1960's wasn't ready for time travel incest fantasies, but by god Heinlein had the courage to bring it to them. Fantasy: Hypothetically It Would Be OK To Wage Racial Holy War
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Nov 19, 2021 20:26
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A Buttery Pastry posted:Sci-fi: Hypothetically It Would Be Okay To Have Sex With A Robot Dog Sci-fi addendum: Hypothetically It is ok to pay a homeless person to remote pilot them into having sex with a malfunctioning robot Also it's youtube but that link is super not safe for work, just warnin' everybody now
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Nov 19, 2021 20:40
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I think it was recently "revealed" that racial holy war was actually a plan by Thanos to get the infinity gauntlet.
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Nov 19, 2021 20:41
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A Buttery Pastry posted:Sci-fi: Hypothetically It Would Be Okay To Have Sex With A Robot Dog Personally I prefer to think of the Warcraft franchise's message as being "Hypothetically it would NOT be OK to wage a racial holy war," because in real life for almost all of history it's been presumed that it's a reasonable thing to do, where as warcraft at least occasionally questions the veracity of that assumption.
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Nov 19, 2021 20:45
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Sanguinia posted:Personally I prefer to think of the Warcraft franchise's message as being "Hypothetically it would NOT be OK to wage a racial holy war," because in real life for almost all of history it's been presumed that it's a reasonable thing to do, where as warcraft at least occasionally questions the veracity of that assumption. Warcraft is kinda weird in that it views racial holy war as "Bad" but also seems to view it as an inevitable course of nature whenever there's "Us" and "Them"
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Nov 19, 2021 20:49
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Warcraft might be one of the best examples of how you can't make a anti-war war movie. The whole message is that war is hell and the conflict is stupid and they shouldn't be fighting. But between storyteller incompetence and the need for it to be an endless franchise it just constantly glorifies racial holy war.
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Nov 19, 2021 20:53
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DarklyDreaming posted:Warcraft is kinda weird in that it views racial holy war as "Bad" but also seems to view it as an inevitable course of nature whenever there's "Us" and "Them" One could argue, as I often have as one of the regular heavy-posters in the Warcraft Lore Thread, that that's not really the intent of the story. I've always thought that Warcraft is about leadership, how societies shape leaders and in turn are shaped by them. The grand racially-coded conflicts between the Alliance and the Horde, and the atrocities that those factions commit against each other within those conflicts, can almost universally be traced back to acts of manipulation by individuals who just want to use conflict while the victims of that manipulation need to try and defuse that conflict even while they're caught in it, or failures by those with authority to take moral action and thereby leave power in the hands of bad actors. Sometimes that failure of morality is a product of a bad person, sometimes its a product of social structures or circumstances that the person feels powerless to go against, and sometimes its just because they themselves screw up because they're not perfect. The implication of the larger themes of the universe, to me, have always been that these problems could be solved and are not inevitable. It is the failures of the principle characters that lead to all this Craft of War continuing, and it is their successes and growth which brings the occasional reprieve. In fact, there's a fair bit of evidence in recent expansions that the writer's intent is to explore this in a more direct way, spotlighting talk about "breaking the cycle," what it would actually take to bridge the gulf of hatred between the Alliance and Horde, discussions of characters who've screwed up in the past recognizing their mistakes and finding the strength to try again, and putting the characters who've made the fewest mistakes in positions where they will either have power, or need to keep power away from more flawed people. The only issue with all this is that the writers are also really bad at their jobs and have hosed it all up at every step for the last 6 years, and that's being generous. Sanguinia fucked around with this message at 21:08 on Nov 19, 2021 |
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Nov 19, 2021 21:05
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Gumball Gumption posted:Warcraft might be one of the best examples of how you can't make a anti-war war movie. The whole message is that war is hell and the conflict is stupid and they shouldn't be fighting. But between storyteller incompetence and the need for it to be an endless franchise it just constantly glorifies racial holy war. WC2 definite had a good vs evil theme, it wasn't until 3 that they changed the orcs into noble savages which is a bit  but whatcha gonna do with 2000's media.
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Nov 19, 2021 21:09
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Cpt_Obvious posted:WC2 definite had a good vs evil theme, it wasn't until 3 that they changed the orcs into noble savages which is a bit Part of being a warcraft fan is having to try and push past the noble savage tropes and their lovely implications (while hopefully also lobbying for some effort to do better, which there has been some progress on over the years) and try to focus on the intent behind that shift in Warcraft 3, which was to take the Always Evil Fantasy Races and make them into ordinary people not fundamentally any different from the Humans, Dwarves and Elves. When WC3 happened that was pretty novel, at least in mainstream fantasy.
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Nov 19, 2021 21:13
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Cpt_Obvious posted:WC2 definite had a good vs evil theme, it wasn't until 3 that they changed the orcs into noble savages which is a bit My favorite Warcraft game is the original so to be honest I consider most of the lore to be heresy. I mean, the real answer is that the series is about nothing because it's a million writers with a million bosses and the company has apparently been an offshoot of US intelligence for some years now so who knows what the gently caress they're trying to say. But it kind of seems like war bad? But also good?
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Nov 19, 2021 21:31
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DarklyDreaming posted:Warcraft is kinda weird in that it views racial holy war as "Bad" but also seems to view it as an inevitable course of nature whenever there's "Us" and "Them" Gumball Gumption posted:Warcraft might be one of the best examples of how you can't make a anti-war war movie. The whole message is that war is hell and the conflict is stupid and they shouldn't be fighting. But between storyteller incompetence and the need for it to be an endless franchise it just constantly glorifies racial holy war. DarklyDreaming posted:Sci-fi addendum: Hypothetically It is ok to pay a homeless person to remote pilot them into having sex with a malfunctioning robot
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Nov 19, 2021 21:39
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About Dune, I get that the larger book series might critique things like dynastic rule and cool intrigue with nobility etc, but the first book validates eugenics by showing that it works and makes the great man model of history look cool by showing that it works. Herbert might criticize those ideas elsewhere, but I think you have to admit that the first book thinks they’re interesting because it’s all about them. And nobody would read or enjoy it if the truth of the novel were contained in another novel. It’s not like Bladerunner where the operation of the world constitutes a critique of capitalism as it grinds its characters into hopeless misery. Dune is a successful hero’s journey where a good aristocrat trained in noblesse oblige discovers the will to power. Feudalism itself isn’t a problem other than that some of the nobles are jealous of the one that is too pure of heart. I’m ok being contradicted on this, as it’s been 15 years since I read it. The new movie is pretty and very much about being a vibe.
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Nov 22, 2021 16:37
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Antifa Turkeesian posted:About Dune, I get that the larger book series might critique things like dynastic rule and cool intrigue with nobility etc, but the first book validates eugenics by showing that it works and makes the great man model of history look cool by showing that it works. Herbert might criticize those ideas elsewhere, but I think you have to admit that the first book thinks they’re interesting because it’s all about them. And nobody would read or enjoy it if the truth of the novel were contained in another novel.
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Nov 22, 2021 16:59
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Antifa Turkeesian posted:About Dune, I get that the larger book series might critique things like dynastic rule and cool intrigue with nobility etc, but the first book validates eugenics by showing that it works and makes the great man model of history look cool by showing that it works. Herbert might criticize those ideas elsewhere, but I think you have to admit that the first book thinks they’re interesting because it’s all about them. And nobody would read or enjoy it if the truth of the novel were contained in another novel. No, the first novel is explicitly a deconstruction of that form and refutation of all those ideas.  Paul's accession directly causes a universe-wide genocide of tens of billions, including dozens of religions and all their followers, and exterminating all life on nearly a hundred worlds. He knows that will result and does it anyway. This is stated outright in the text of the novel.FH may have written the sequel partly because people weren't getting it, but that's not because the original is a bog-standard hero's journey making the argument that genetic supermen and charismatic messiah figures are morally superior to you and deserve to rule; some people are just dumb. Fuschia tude fucked around with this message at 17:04 on Nov 22, 2021 |
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Nov 22, 2021 17:01
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A Buttery Pastry posted:I haven't read the book, but isn't the eugenics program extremely long-running? That it produced someone capable of affecting great change could just as well be random chance, rather than a thousand years of effort actually succeeding. Not sure how you'd even show great man theory working. Like, the existence of individuals with what appears to be a massive impact on the course of history isn't proof of the theory in reality, so how do you "prove" it in fiction? Because he’s the main character and the working out of the story shows how he grows into greatness by learning lessons and sharpening his iron will etc. Like you can diagnose the gaps and equivocations in a story like that, which might be what the sequels do, but it’s like doing the same with Henry V. The emphasis of the story is elsewhere. The novel thinks the idea of a genetic superman is interesting, and in accepting the premise that a genetic superman is a coherent idea, the novel commits itself to a certain domain of ideas.
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Nov 22, 2021 17:25
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A Buttery Pastry posted:I haven't read the book, but isn't the eugenics program extremely long-running? That it produced someone capable of affecting great change could just as well be random chance, rather than a thousand years of effort actually succeeding. Not sure how you'd even show great man theory working. Like, the existence of individuals with what appears to be a massive impact on the course of history isn't proof of the theory in reality, so how do you "prove" it in fiction? IIRC from various clips doesn't it involve genetic engineering and spice? Like the Guild Navigators are people who accelerated their evolution by consuming vast amounts of spice. It's a little odd to be concerned about the moral implications of something "working" because of space magic?
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Nov 22, 2021 17:39
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Dune was released as a serialized story in analog and galaxy magazine. The first two books are just packaging of a continuous work. Dune being book 1,2 and 3, and messiah being 4 and 5. The third book is also a continuation of the story and a direct sequel, but the first two books are literally just arbitrary divisions of a single work.
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Nov 22, 2021 17:44
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:Dune was released as a serialized story in analog and galaxy magazine. The first two books are just packaging of a continuous work. Dune being book 1,2 and 3, and messiah being 4 and 5. Analog serialized the first story in two sequences, in 1963 and 1965 (basically corresponding to first Books I, and then Books II and III, respectively, in the bound published novel). Galaxy serialized Messiah four years after the publication of Dune and six years after Analog first launched the series. Messiah absolutely was not written in 1958-1965 with the first novel what the hell
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Nov 22, 2021 18:32
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Fuschia tude posted:No, the first novel is explicitly a deconstruction of that form and refutation of all those ideas. It's this. Paul knowingly exploits the fact that the Fremen had a messianic legend introduced to them centuries ago by the BG and essentially uses them as a vehicle to get revenge on the Harkonnens and imperial throne, knowing full well that it could lead to a future where mass genocide and holy war is done in his name, and by the end of the book he no longer cares that it will anymore. It's explicitly a takedown of "chosen one" narratives. The new film doesn't really touch on any of this beyond a couple moments of subtext, but to be fair it kinda stops before the majority of that becomes relevant. I don't know if that was intentional but it'll be interesting to see that rug getting pulled if it happens. Disproportionation fucked around with this message at 19:10 on Nov 22, 2021 |
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Nov 22, 2021 18:54
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Disproportionation posted:It's this. Paul knowingly exploits the fact that the Fremen had a messianic legend introduced to them centuries ago by the BG and essentially uses them as a vehicle to get revenge on the Harkonnens and imperial throne, knowing full well that it could lead to a future where mass genocide and holy war, and by the end of the book he no longer cares that it will anymore. It's explicitly a takedown of "chosen one" narratives. If he leads them to victory and gives them control of the planet by virtue of his leadership, isn’t he actually their messiah? They’re instrumental to his development into a wise king and he is one of them, blood aside, like Moses or Lawerence of Arabia—he doesn’t just decide to exploit them. Does the book really say that a jihad is bad, or just that wars are regrettable but inevitable and righteous when it’s a good king against a bad king? The messiah thing is 100% real insofar as Paul actually is a genetic superman produced by the totally real art of eugenics, which makes him have way more potential than other men, something brought out by a genteel upbringing combined with the asceticism and harsh situation of the morally righteous arab rebels. Am I not reading that part right? It’s still an enjoyable story.
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Nov 22, 2021 19:07
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A morally healthy person can deduce that genocide is bad without a Greek choir telling them so. This is Somethingawful so maybe that isn't the case.
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Nov 22, 2021 22:15
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There's always a bunch of loving morons who can't identify the subtext, that doesn't mean subtext is bad or unreal. Dune rules even if a few dummies think Fight Clubs are good.
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Nov 22, 2021 22:23
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Baron Porkface posted:A morally healthy person can deduce that genocide is bad without a Greek choir telling them so. This is Somethingawful so maybe that isn't the case. A lot of people are not morally healthy. Many people think the movie version of Starship Troopers is a straight-forward action movie and not a satire of fascism, despite being very heavy handed. Similarly you can't do a war movie that doesn't glorify war, even if the message is entirely "war sucks".
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Nov 22, 2021 22:24
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Antifa Turkeesian posted:The messiah thing is 100% real insofar as Paul actually is a genetic superman produced by the totally real art of eugenics, which makes him have way more potential than other men, something brought out by a genteel upbringing combined with the asceticism and harsh situation of the morally righteous arab rebels. Am I not reading that part right? It’s still an enjoyable story. I think it's debatable as to whether Paul's success is rooted in his breeding or in all his training and his situation. He's trained in the BG ways, he's trained as a Mentat, he's trained to lead a noble house, and he's put in a place with a ready made for him messianic myth and massive doses of the psychotropic drug that enables prescience.
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Nov 22, 2021 22:31
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Baron Porkface posted:A morally healthy person can deduce that genocide is bad without a Greek choir telling them so. This is Somethingawful so maybe that isn't the case. Does this mean that every novel with a war in it presents a genocide, and by extension the working out of the plot presents the same knowing irony? Again, you can diagnose the ideological contradictions and lacunae in a text, but that’s not the same thing as saying that the author arranged a specific irony for you to discover. I agree that jihad is bad, but if you’re a 1950s guy and your only understanding of jihad comes from Lawrence of Arabia, do you think jihad is bad or do you think it’s maybe regrettable but also pretty cool and the empire deserves it? We’re not super far away from Star Wars here, where Herbert is undeniably a huge influence.
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Nov 22, 2021 23:04
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The true problem with warcraft, larger than and encompassing every one of the spiderwebbed networks of other problems with the franchise's writing, is that the entire series is the veneration of Strongman as savior and protector in Times Of Great Need, which quickly becomes all times. Like it's just this all the time, ceaselessly, because it ultimately was written by 90s gamer bros who could really not do much other than write self-insert male power fantasy fanfic characters. As a specific example: the noble savage trope is bad! yet still somehow it is completely encased in strongmannism — the elevation of the savages was the parochial obligation of a strongman who must unite and uplift them. The glorious righteous autocracy on the other side is the same way. And throughout the MMO years of the lore, every player acts in service of these strongmen and can only play their part in the outcomes of these Very Strong Powerful Men Who Are The Only True Defense Against The Great Danger. It was actually quite impressive that they managed to roll all the problems of the franchise up in the same glorification issues, but as a friend put it it's 100% bepauldroned mussolinis making the airships run on time
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Nov 23, 2021 02:21
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