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San Francisco, 8:48 PM
Sun Nov 8
12 posts in the last 24 hours
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10/30/09
10/30/09
And yes, genetic engineering is eventually going to be a field more amenable to tinkering. But given how much trouble it is and how much power there is in biological solutions to problems of chemistry and the like, the world-changing applications are going to outnumber the curiosity, and the curiosities the horrors, by factors of hundreds and thousands. These visions of science run amok, in some decadent enclave is so old and so bankrupt I can hardly stand it. It was fresh when Mary Shelley did it, but come Michael Crichton, it was so clearly and patently wrong it makes my heart ache that it seems to be the dominant paradigm in the public's thinking. In a real Jurassic Park, when the fences went down and the dinosaurs bred, no one would make any nonsense Ian Malcolm speech about standing on the shoulders of giants (and if he didn't like it, he could always take an offer to get mindwiped and dumped on the veldt, much less stop doing all his upper-tier math,) they'd install redundant generators, the shareholders would appoint a new bioethics review board, and the dinosaurs would be neutered when they hatched, and then everyone would get to see the wonder of FREAKING DINOSAURS. If Atwood doesn't want to come with me, she can miss out on all the fun. #books
10/30/09
Anything else you'd like to complain about? Do painters use too many colours for you? God drat, six is more colours than a man needs anyways. Purple? Who needs purple. Maybe musicians should refrain from composing catchy hooks to pop songs? #books
10/30/09
Just make a tally sheet- instances when genetic engineering saved the day- cured a disease, built something beautiful, gave someone a chance to survive- versus the number of mutants run amok, killer diseases, authoritarian geneocracies...the list goes on. Also add a column to tally how many of said disasters were resolved by scientific investigation, new tools, etc. vs. flamethrowers and prayer. Also compare the number of speeches that invoke tampering with the plan or work of God/Nature. You can play similar games with nuclear power, robots, the list goes on.
I don't mean to be a spoilsport. I simply was pointing out that there is a very, very tired conceit in popular media in recent years that says that scientists and engineers are in this to do terrible things to the rest of us- pronouncements made from air conditioned comfort, with bloodstreams running full of vaccine-induced antibodies, typing on networked computers, and with their IVF-conceived children- the future abomination of the '70's- scampering about. You can tell ___-run amok stories- I certainly have my favorites, one of which proved the point rather well when it went for an anvilious ending after steering clear for so long- but there is a distinct spread in the delicacy and sense with which they are handled, and you just stretch credibility to the breaking point when the canned conclusion is that people were wrong to play, experiment, or work to improve their lot. It's Luddism in disguise and it's boring as mud. #books
10/30/09
10/31/09
10/30/09
10/30/09
Is it just me, or is that pig on the far right like a prototype for Bebop from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? #books
10/30/09
We've been doing similar things with pet breeds for centuries.
-Kle. #books
10/30/09
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10/30/09
::sign:: I guess we still will have to rely on the good ol' Military-Industrial complex. #books
10/30/09
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10/30/09
*I don't know an existing word for the view that the way the world happens to be right now is the way it is "supposed" to be, and that any deviation from that is thus against the natural order, so I just made that one up. #books
10/30/09
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10/30/09
But yeah, I agree that "curiosity, experimentation, and innovation" have always been our greatest assets in surviving what this planet throws at us and of course, man-made obstacles that we unwittingly create.
Just don't wanna see no rat snakes. #books
10/30/09
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10/31/09
So, there's absolutely no argument at all. #books
10/30/09
#2 The Geico Gekko's illegit son
#3 The inevitable end of the Energizer Bunny when Energizer made Plutonium batteries #books
10/30/09
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09/01/09
08/31/09
Everyone (esp. in CanLit) needs to read this.
09/24/09
Anyone who follows CanLit has heard of the Canada Reads contest on CBC. I have always hoped that someone would have the guts to suggest Neuromancer, which was written in Vancouver (as I believe all Gibson's works have been) To those who gripe that none of the novel takes place in Canada, or that Gibson was born in the US, I would say a) Michael Ondaatje wasn't born in Canada and b) none of the English Patient takes place in Canada. It's elitism, pure and simple.
08/31/09
As others have said, it's not as if Atwood has anything to worry about in her career, so (even though we can't look into her mind and know for sure) any reason other than literary snobbery for these weird distinctions seems somewhat baffling.
08/31/09
That's why Atwood protests too much.
08/31/09
If anything, acknowledging that a few of her works are in this genre would get her fannish accolades as well as all of the prestige she already has...
08/31/09
But if we judge it by the standards of literary fiction, it utterly fails, because it disregards the tropes of that genre and adopts the tropes of speculative fiction. She's trying to have her cake and eat it too. (And as we who are familiar with sci-fi tropes know, the cake is in fact, a lie).
08/31/09
08/31/09