/@Alfred @BipolarArtist

😅 Alfred's not going to be cracking the Voynich Manuscript any time soon.

@Tacitus_Kilgore @Tacitus_Kilgore @AskTheDevil @S_r_stone @LnzyHou

It's not a full book! Just an essay!

I'm linking it below in English and the original French, if anyone would like to take a stab at either.

"Human Personality"
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Bv_6QaGVlujkH3YZFRYhyJdyhGtlpd1S/view?usp=drive_link

La Personne et le Sacre
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1D9vVnwFHA1XZxIYNkwP4XiANsTVZyxUT/view

@Jorro

Did you read their recent piece on Raytheon?

It's a little distracting, at times, to talk in terms of nations when groups like these are in bed with everyone, working to sustain business/war wherever there are contracts to be won.

“The Raytheon allegations are stunning, even by the lax standards of the arms industry. Engaging in illegal conduct on this scale suggests that, far from being an aberration, this behavior may be business as usual for the company.”

https://theintercept.com/2024/10/18/raytheon-rtx-bribery-fraud-weapons-war-crimes/

@Tacitus_Kilgore @AskTheDevil @S_r_stone @LnzyHou

Luce (and others!), have you read Simone Weil's Human Personality? I think you'd greatly enjoy it. She wrote it in 1942, in France, and in it describes the party system of her country as not so far removed from fascism of the Third Reich. An extraordinary thing to say in WWII, but she was speaking to what you're all discussing: the way party politics flatten the individual to simplistic ideas of personhood that often trample over *the human*.

@Boyceaz /@Alfred @th3j35t3r

From the placement of the space emoji, which I suspect is pulling from Psalms 8, the football is probably representing the word "sport", which shows up twice in the next book, Proverbs:

It is as sport to a fool to do mischief: but a man of understanding hath wisdom.

So is the man that deceiveth his neighbour, and saith, Am not I in sport?

---

Now as for all the Canadians in Alfred's bible... 🤔

Happy birthday to the late Ursula K. Le Guin, and to the still-very-much-here @corlin.

May we leave good imprints on the path of life, as Le Guin did.

And may the wilds of existence reclaim those imprints most tenderly, in due time.

"The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty: not knowing what comes next."

All right, you beautiful louts: Thanks for the great responses!

I'm all hopped up on bad genre tropes, and diving into the night's fiction work. #AmWriting

Be good, but not too good.

Good-ish, with room to improve.

@stueytheround

😂 Shortest movie ever, if people just kept their noses out of it!

@matuzalem

I dunno... I think I need to see "...and improved" in the description before I take that dive!

@NiveusLepus @BosmangBeratna

A very important theme for our times!

@stueytheround @kel

That sounds like bliss, Stuey!

@DavidSalo

Ah, yes, otherwise known as a good 3/4s of all Western-published SF!

@JeniRizio

Many of conscience left the country after the war started. Many others stay & protest. But right-wing politicians like N feed on hate, anger & the war machine to stay in power.

As a result, there's a deep psychological wound that'll take decades to heal. It currently has children cheering for the destruction of the ethnic other: never a healthy sign.

But it is not intrinsic. It's derangement from too much right-wing leadership & war rhetoric. People can & do come back from it. 2/2

@JeniRizio

It's a little more complicated than that.

Netanyahu is definitely corrupt and has worked for decades to fend off a two-state solution. His right-wing Likud Party has always been big on reclaiming certain regions.

His latest far-right coalition ties him to messianic extremists responsible for immense settler violence in the West Bank.

And his domestic policies, attacking the judiciary & censoring media, have further fostered violent beliefs. Israeli polls are ugly right now. 1/2

@NiveusLepus @BosmangBeratna

Woo! That's great fun! Playing with overdone tropes is precisely why I put out the question, pre-writing session tonight. I like to shake out the dust on SF to date before diving back into my own.

"Lo! I have chosen you!"
"Oh."
"...That's it? Just 'Oh'? You've been CHOSEN!"
"Right, but, ah... for what?"
"Oh, shush, never you mind all that now."

🙃

@kel

I hear that. I put on a lot of mystery-oriented shows in the background (tone varies, as does the range from episodic to series-arc), because there's just something solid about the beat structure for that kind of storytelling.

Hopefully everything in your media cycle these days is delivering compelling storylines without cheap gimmicks to throw you out of the work!

@cmskiera

PFF. Fine. But you better have something grand up your sleeve for your own next book, C.M.!

@stephen_a_allen @BosmangBeratna

Oh, fantastic rec, Stephen! Seconded!

@BosmangBeratna

Heck yes! I always want more alien-aliens! Make 'em WEIRD.

And make 'em think WE'RE weird! I want more aliens grossed out by humankind!