leftzero

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 hours ago

There's plenty of science fiction without technology playing a significant role.

Robert Silverberg's Dying Inside was the first that came to mind; Asimov's The Gods Themselves or Nightfall might be other examples; Olaf Stapledon's Sirius; Clarke's Childhood's End has (alien) tech, but it mostly focuses on the psychological and societal effects of the contact with aliens, as does Ted Chiang's Story of Your Life (and some of the other stories collected in the same volume, Stories of Your Life and Others); Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle, Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five... lots of great science fiction works focus on aspects other than technology.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

We're talking about Donald Trump here... you could replace him with an animatronic muppet and the only thing people would notice is that he looked healthier and didn't smell as bad.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

2001: A Space Odyssey.

Kubrick gave them fucking iPads. In 1968.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Blade Runner was very much a product of its time (though Syd Mead's visuals were outstanding).

There was something floating in the late seventies / early eighties zeitgeist that would become the cyberpunk genre, and it sort of condensed in several spots simultaneously.

William Gibson had just published Burning Chrome, and was finishing writing Neuromancer (which would be published in '84 and be considered a foundation of the genre).

Ridley Scott and Syd Mead independently adapted a (very different from the film) book by Philip K. Dick into a film that looked and felt like it was set in Gibson's Sprawl.

In Japan, Kasuhiro Otomo had just begun publishing Akira.

Frank Miller was probably in the process of writing and conceptualising Rōnin, which DC would start publishing in '83.

Bruce Bethke had come up with the term cyberpunk in 1980, but that short story wouldn't be published until '83.

Over the next few years many other authors would create other works clearly set in the same genre, though at this point they probably had some influence from Gibson and Blade Runner and each other.

Mike Pondsmith was drinking it all up and coming up with a role playing game with that title, to be published in '88.

And, all over the eighties and nineties, the genre exploded, and was everywhere.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Well, that's good, we wouldn't want Pythagoras to get hurt.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago

there must be another simply-expressed term to reflect their thinking

Monstrous. Sociopathic. Inhumane. Evil. Deranged.

There's plenty of simply-expressed terms to reflect their thinking.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

Doesn't seem to quite get the concept of gloves, though...

[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

This Terry Pratchett (GNU) quote pretty much explains it (he uses the term “(Discworld) elves”, but given that Lords and Ladies is clearly based on A Midsummer's Night Dream the quote equally applies to any kind of fae, and not necessarily, for instance, to Tolkien or DnD elves):

Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder.
Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels.
Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies.
Elves are glamorous. They project glamour.
Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment.
Elves are terrific. They beget terror.

The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.

No one ever said elves are nice. Elves are bad.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 2 days ago (4 children)

Looks like some kind of fae. Run.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 days ago

It's the USA; you need to own a truck, a house, 30 acres of land, at least 70 pounds of firearms, stocks in no less than five companies, and at least one testicle to be eligible for citizenship.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Trump overspends because he doesn't know the value of money.

Trump “overspends” because he doesn't understand the concept of actually paying a bill.

He's spent all his life refusing to pay a single bill, and somehow getting away with it.

It doesn't matter if the money is his or the government's (until he steals it). He won't pay. If he has anything remotely resembling principles, not paying is his main one.

He's as capable of intentionally paying a bill as he is of growing a second head. Or bigger hands.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago

Any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from malice.

Also, Hanlon's razor just means that in normal circumstances stupidity is the simplest and most likely explanation, but malice is still a possibility, and these are far from normal circumstances... you've got a significant portion of the population which is both extremely stupid and extremely malicious...

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