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Jun. 12th, 2013 17:18Tuesday June 11, 2013 Late last night, thinking what a sane human might be like.
Answer this time: calm and relaxed.
And what is your answer?
***In the morning, thought about science fiction stories in which anyone can easily spy on anyone else.
***Shopped at the Wedge Coop. Then across Lyndale Avenue to Steeple People Thrift Store, where I bought a deck of cards.
At Southeast Library, picked up a book on hold: Becky Lang & Jay Gabler (eds.), Future Cities, a fiction compilation by the Tangential. A couple of the stories were mildly interesting.
***James Nicoll asked for titles of famous problematic short stories.
A high percentage of the ones which fit his criteria could be summed up as "There is only one solution, and it's morally repugnant to the reader." An innocent young woman must die; most of Earth's population must die; civilization must die in atomic wars again and again if the human species is to survive.
Problem with the first two: I can think of other solutions.
There are other things which can be tossed out the airlock.
The inferior people who can't be persuaded to use contraception could be sterilized; or the superior minority could donate sperm and ova to raise the average intelligence.
With the third? Other intelligent species reach their limits and die out. I don't think that's really a worse outcome. If humans become extinct, Earth can spawn another intelligent species.
***From Twitter:
Davho Pldal @SnarkOnTap
Donald Trump called Edward Snowden a 'grandstander'. In other news, irony just took cyanide and stabbed itelf [sic] while jumping off a bridge.
Retweeted by Mark Brooks
Foreign Policy @ForeignPolicy
The academic paper that predicted the NSA scandal http://atfp.co/12jYrAh
Answer this time: calm and relaxed.
And what is your answer?
***In the morning, thought about science fiction stories in which anyone can easily spy on anyone else.
***Shopped at the Wedge Coop. Then across Lyndale Avenue to Steeple People Thrift Store, where I bought a deck of cards.
At Southeast Library, picked up a book on hold: Becky Lang & Jay Gabler (eds.), Future Cities, a fiction compilation by the Tangential. A couple of the stories were mildly interesting.
***James Nicoll asked for titles of famous problematic short stories.
A high percentage of the ones which fit his criteria could be summed up as "There is only one solution, and it's morally repugnant to the reader." An innocent young woman must die; most of Earth's population must die; civilization must die in atomic wars again and again if the human species is to survive.
Problem with the first two: I can think of other solutions.
There are other things which can be tossed out the airlock.
The inferior people who can't be persuaded to use contraception could be sterilized; or the superior minority could donate sperm and ova to raise the average intelligence.
With the third? Other intelligent species reach their limits and die out. I don't think that's really a worse outcome. If humans become extinct, Earth can spawn another intelligent species.
***From Twitter:
Davho Pldal @SnarkOnTap
Donald Trump called Edward Snowden a 'grandstander'. In other news, irony just took cyanide and stabbed itelf [sic] while jumping off a bridge.
Retweeted by Mark Brooks
Foreign Policy @ForeignPolicy
The academic paper that predicted the NSA scandal http://atfp.co/12jYrAh