#Tech
For Humans.
Nobody Owns The Technofuture
Through this blog series, we are exploring what the world can look like when technology is designed and deployed for the benefit of all. These broad, near-future speculative pieces are designed to de-center dominant narratives and challenge us all to realize that things can be different. These are not alternative realities, they are possible futures.
Dylan K. Baker
Well, lots of growing pains today with the A/V. After fixing video lag and mic issues, I recorded... a few times before there was minimal background.
But! Enough letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. The new workflow is now fully launched, and I'll just get better as I go.
Today's piece offers some reflection on #SFF industry, Clarkesworld, and its latest issue. Corporate monopoly is a bigger threat than "AI" to the future of short fiction. Investment is key!
I was hoping to finally record this morning - always have to do so bright and early before the highway gets worse - but OBS Studio is giving me guff, so I'm reinstalling it now.
HOWEVER, during re-installation a party bus came across the highway blasting vallenato at 5am, so... I guess I at least missed having my recording interrupted by that. 🙃
#Colombia A/V problems.
Some of us still follow war news daily, which in the case of Israel-Gaza means noting the deranged things said by people gamifying human suffering, online & in leadership roles.
There's so little most of us can do to help--but plenty we can do to further dehumanize.
Whatever happens in the coming days, may we all ask ourselves if our own actions help or hinder.
We're not finished doing unconscionable harm to one another.
But we can always try for a world where we do so less.
Thinking today about DYING AT GRACE, a Canadian doc that follows five people in hospice. It's a beautiful meditation on how, if we're not taken out suddenly, we all pretty much die the same way, despite our diverse life paths.
But what always strikes me is the therapy sessions in it: how people facing the end of their lives still wrestle with old, old wounds.
IOW, we'll worry our story of self over and over 'til the body winds down... unless we can lay down the burden sooner.
Here's a wonderful essay on an extremely important point often overlooked in discourse about so-called AI: the presumption that if it weren’t for this latest hype-cycle threat, we’d all be happily leaning into accurate data and otherwise pursuing honest discourse.
We are not passive actors even in deeply degraded information economies.
How can we prepare ourselves to assess new data with greater integrity?
https://open.substack.com/pub/robhorning/p/truth-and-consequences
Everyone is susceptible to misinformation.
Yes even you and me.
Hank Green busting his own self deceptions.
~
So many women oppressed around the world, suffering disproportionately
I think of them daily but hurt a little more today
💜🖤
Hey, Canada... Everything okay up there? 🤨
"A veteran wealth management executive says that unless Canada’s largest pension plans start investing more domestically, [the TSX] could one day fall by the wayside.
... The letter claims that Canada’s pension funds, which represent nearly 40 per cent of the country’s institutional savings, have ... reduced their holding of public Canadian companies from 28 per cent in 2000 to less than four per cent at the end of last year."
Today was kind of frivolous: a long trip across town to work for a few hours in another mall space, where I had an americano and overpriced cookie, & despite two coats of sunscreen *still* got burned on the metro back.
But... I needed to remember how to be a bit frivolous again.
(Not for long, mind you. Tomorrow I start a food plan that's a bit demanding.)
Just long enough to remember the life I've put on pause while trying to stabilize my living situation.
I'll press "play" again someday. 🤞🏻
Also, who's submitted to Grist's Imagine 2200 climate fiction contest with me this year? 👀
The submissions call goes live on March 28. Is that enough time to start writing a wee tale that features "creative climate solutions and community-centered resilience" and shows "what can happen as solutions take root" in the generations to come?
You darned tootin' it is. 💪
This one is for Patrons only - and a strong part of the reason I prefer Substack for most materials, because there I can split a post between free-to-read and paid sections.
Every Friday, Patrons are again going to get extra or sneak-peek content from me. Today, that "content" is a preview of what to expect from the next two weeks of the YouTube channel, and some talk about the state of the #SFF industry.
Many thanks to everyone supporting the work, on any platform! 💛🌌
😬 Jeepers creepers, I clearly haven't been to the movies for a while. When the heck did they get so expensive?!
I'm also foiled by a cancelled midday English language showing. Rats. If I stay for the 7:30pm, I would be walking home at a very dangerous hour in my 'hood.
Oh well. Still a great change of vista for working today. Phenomenal cowork space. Will try to get many sci-fi words out.*
*Quality TBD. 🙃
🙄 ¿Feliz día de la mujer?
The headline for today's El Colombiano reads:
"35% of women in Antioquia earn less than the monthly minimum salary."
That monthly minimum salary is 1'300.000COP.
Current exchange rate:
$447.74 CAD
$332.83 USD
Work to be done! #Colombia
Writer (SFWA), translator, humanist, general odd duck • 🇨🇦n in 🇨🇴 • avoids pronouns, they/them if key