Jackson Allen's Blog, page 17

New Scifi Short Story – Career Day

Happy news – I released a new scifi short story to all your favorite e-book retailers – go read Career Day now! The story is based on my middle school career day horror stories and a few other surprises. Griffin is having either the best or the worst day of his life – he can’t tell. Here’s a quick description:

In the quirky world of Oak Hill Middle School, Career Day unfolds with AI-driven teachers and a myriad of career choices. Griffin seeks solace from Jimmy the Janitor, a real person in a world dominated by AI. Jimmy’s valuable advice, along with Griffin’s hilariously absurd experiences as a 7th-grader in an AI-driven educational system, provide a touching coming-of-age story in our coming future.

Ready for some funny, heartwarming coming-of-age scifi? Join Griffin and the gang at your favorite eBook retailer:

     

Career Day is free for the Smashwords sale, too!  Don’t forget to check that out as well! Love launching a new scifi short story like Career Day. Can’t wait to talk more about Mike.Sierra.Echo and Mesh!

Write on!

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Justice Heuristic – New Short Story Submitted

Just finished and submitted a new short story – Justice Heuristic – to Clarkesworld. This marks the 20th short story I’ve completed – some of them are still ‘To Be Published’ and others are already self-pubbed on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and elsewhere. Some would ask how I celebrate finishing a short story and my answer is the same as Ru Paul’s after winning his 14th Emmy: ‘We celebrate by going right back to work.’

Justice Heuristic is about a super-rich super-villain meeting his match after destroying the world. At the end of the day, you can’t buy your way out of justice. I hope Clarkesworld enjoys it. This short was originally called ‘Prisondise’ but somehow I knew that would always be a working title. ‘Justice Heuristic’ is fun to say out loud – try it!

Looking at the production slate – it’s time to publish those other stories, isn’t it? With Justice Heuristic submitted as a new short story, time to let them fly out into the world. Additionally,  my scifi short stories are FREE on Smashwords from March 3 – 7, 2024! It’s all Smashwords’ Read an Ebook Week! Click here for more details.

Happy Tuesday – I hope your journey is also meaningful and fun!

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Neuromancer Won’t Be Good Enough For You

I posted it on KBin yesterday – as glad as I am to see Neuromancer finally getting some screentime, I know it won’t be ‘good enough for you.’ Forty years of discussion and dissection of William Gibson’s cyberpunk masterpiece mean that no one can truly tell the story as good as the one we saw in our heads. Let’s talk a bit about Neuromancer’s impact on scifi. Then, we’ll break down why you’ll hear people screaming no matter what Apple TV does with Neuromancer. Pure intentions are no match for the scifi purity test!

Why Neuromancer Matters

First published in 1984, Neuromancer came at the right place and the right time for the cyberpunk genre. We were in the last twenty years of the millennium – what was the future going to look like? Gibson showed us a ‘future shock’ view  the realpolitik of the United States, Japan, and Russia and an information society dominated by technology and autocratic totalitarian corporations. He (likely) drew inspiration from ‘Simulacra and Simulation,’ describing a world where ‘individuals flee from the “desert of the real” for the ecstasies of hyperreality and the new realm of computer, media, and technological experience.'”

He introduced important ideas like The Matrix, orbital corporate kingdoms operating as sinful travel destinations and financial freeports, ‘high tech, low-life’ denizens who scammed to survive on the wrong side of the cyber-tracks. None of the story components were original in themselves, but his combination of noir fiction housed in a low-earth orbital toroid was *just* what the world wanted to read about in the early 1980s.

Don’t kid yourself – Neuromancer ain’t for kids. It’s written in a ‘literary acid house’ style, a noir thriller with sex and violence. You wouldn’t let your children read this book and you likely won’t let your kids watch this show. But its impact on the genre cannot be denied. Every cyberpunk story or movie since the 80s can trace its lineage directly back to Neuromancer. Every cyberpunk fan knows Neuromancer, has an opinion about it, cares about what happens to it.

You’re Going to Hate the Neuromancer Show

Hollywood has never understood William Gibson’s work and it shows. Think of . Any of them well-received? Well-rated? Watched? Hardly.

Gibson seems to be one of those artists that embodies the curse: ‘everybody knows you and loves you but nobody can handle you.’ Just as Bob Dylan’s work was largely appreciated *after* it had been covered by other artists, Gibson seems doomed to be misunderstood, misinterpreted, and dismissed. I feel bad for him – he seems to be a bright guy, able to capture and articulate important ideas. I blame the under-educated sensibilities of the modern media-consuming public, but that leads me to my main point:

Why Neuromancer Won’t Be Good Enough For You

As noted with Bob Dylan, Gibson’s work ‘lived whole other lives, evolving and changing over the years, with his idea of the [story] as only a blueprint.’ My prediction is that readers, viewers will watch Neuromancer – one person’s interpretation of the story – and immediately scream: “THAT’S NOT THE STORY I SAW IN MY HEAD!” Hell hath no fury as nerdy expectations scorned.

Some of this is Hollywood’s fault but A LOT of it is the scifi community’s fault. Nerds will intrinsically apply the two Purity Test rules to Neuromancer:

Any new form of science fiction conform to a specific rule set of quality before it can be considered ‘good’ sci-fi.This rule set is subject to change without explanation or notice.

They will find the show wanting, and immediately rush to the Internet to register their disgust throughout the world. Huzzah, the Hypercritical / Hypocritical Complex – the media Pecksniffian observations industry – profits off your outrage for another financial quarter! And so it goes …

My hope (aspiration, dream, fervent prayer) is that somehow we’ll outgrow the adolescent, amateur hugboxes and echo chambers. Neuromancer – whatever it turns out to be – deserves on honest feedback and constructive criticism. Science fiction deserves adult voices and thoughtful, mindful consideration.

 

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Surviving the Hugos: Channel Your Inner Han Solo

Some quick notes on surviving the 2023 Hugos controversy – it’s easy, just channel your Inner Han Solo. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, the Guardian has a comprehensive breakdown on the controversy. The quarrel attacks our rich scifi heritage – going back to the first Hugo Award in 1953.

This isn’t my first ‘Hugo Controversy’ rodeo and maybe it isn’t yours, either. Nonetheless, scifi as a genre and a community will survive this moment. Our key to surviving the Hugos comes down to: ‘channel your inner Han Solo.’

I’ll explain what I mean in a minute.

Here’s what we know so far:Chengdu, China chosen for awards location – this upset peopleNomination stats – normally released within 24 hours or so of the awards – weren’t made public until three months later – this upset peopleDave McCarty, division head of the Hugo Awards, made ‘inappropriate, unprofessional, condescending’ but did not address the censorship theories – this upset peopleThe Hugo team preeemptively identified works and individuals … they also compiled dossiers about potential Hugo finalists and combed their social media feeds for potentially problematic content – this upset peopleSpecial report released by Hugo-nominated sci-fi author Jason Sanford and Hugo-winning fan writer Chris M. Barkley. Report showed certain books kept off-ballot ‘to follow Chinese censorship laws’ – this *really* upset peopleThe high number of disqualifications, mysterious patterns in the statistics, and other errors in the 2023 Hugo data mean that the entire Hugo Awards nomination process and results are being called into question.It Gets Worse

Additionally, others are reporting on toxic work environment issues at Science Fiction World, a magazine in China featuring scifi stories. Scifi authors and fans have navigated a vast mix of emotions, from ‘I’m not a real Hugo winner’ to “This is really a clown show … I was a finalist but of course now I can’t hold my head up high about that one.” As Polygon noted, ‘the community is determined never to see a repeat.’

I don’t have any direct experience to speak to, so I want to talk to the rest of us. We’re standing at the fence between ‘unofficially professional’ and ‘unprofessionally official.’ How do we make sense of this? Some are taking the stance listed in the quote below. I’m advising the opposite. My advice is to channel your inner Han Solo. That’s what the rest of this blog post is all about.

Channeling Your Inner Han Solo

If you recall the mythos of Han Solo’s origin – he started out as an Imperial cadet but over time learned that he and the Empire had different goals. Sacrificing his future to do the right thing, Han Solo rose to the rank of General in the New Republic and is listed as the ’14th best hero’ by the American Film Institute. As George Lucas said, “[Han Solo is] a cynical loner who realizes the importance of being part of a group and helping for the common good.”

When you consider Han’s change of heart in A New Hope, you see him as more than just a mercenary. Watch him accept responsibility in Empire Strikes Back. Then watch his final act of sacrifice in The Force Awakens … there’s something to be learned from Han Solo. He places principle above position, common good in a world full of common greed. You can’t help but admire him for being that way. We all left the theater that first time believing something about ourselves, because of Han Solo.

Rigidity Isn’t Strength – Ideologies Aren’t Institutions

One of the major themes – at least in my mind – in Star Wars is the struggle between good and evil. In the Empire, you have a rigid institution dedicated to the preservation of an ideology at any cost. Then you have the Rebellion, who sees strength in gentleness, kindness, and love. Good people from unlikely places, heroes with horrible origins.

Channeling your Inner Han Solo means embracing strength, not rigidity. It means helping for the common good, even if it means sacrificing everything. I’m seeing a clash between ideologies within the Hugo controversy, our survival will come from moral courage, not ‘moral righteousness.’ You’re seeing examples of the failure of institutional ideology wherever you look. The Hugos are no exception, so what do you do when faced with a rigid institution defending an ideology at any cost?

This is an opportunity for us to show moral courage. We can watch what’s happening, and allow the feelings to pass with mindful acceptance. Yes, what’s happening doesn’t make sense. Yes, there are events with alarming implication. Do we join the mob and add our voice to the noise? No, we channel our Inner Han Solo.

Would Han Solo be upset about the Hugos? Sure, but he’s not gonna fly down the Death Star’s throat over it. Does he have a sense of humor about censorship, or bureaucratic nonsense? Absolutely not. But he’s not going to wait around, changing people’s minds – he’s going out into the cold to find his friend. When his friend starts freaking out and threatening to get everyone hurt, does he start throwing punches? No, he calms the situation down, recognizing confrontation would hurt more than help. He gives Chewie the best advice:

There’ll Be Another Time

We’ll figure out what the right thing to do with the Hugos is, eventually. In the meantime, we have to protect what matters. Science fiction as a community, as a genre? That’s what matters – not awards. Han didn’t save Luke at the Death Star for a medal, he did it because it was the right thing to do. He did it because it was a good thing. We can do the same.

Find good things to do. Embrace strength, not rigidity. Don’t fight to preserve ideologies or institutions if they aren’t strong enough to help the people they serve. If an institution is strong enough to be defended, it’s strong enough to defend itself. Channel your inner Han Solo to survive the Hugos. The Hugo Awards are strong enough to take care of themselves.

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Sci-Friday #202 – Art Bell – Area 51 Shoot Down

Here’s a famous moment from Art Bell: the Area 51 Shoot Down. Pure theater of the mind – the guy is supposed to be ‘shot down’ during the call – take a listen:

Bell ran the ‘Coast to Coast AM’ show from 1988 until 2015 and was known for conspiracy theory topics. Most of it was ‘absolute entertainment,’ but some callers and guests took him seriously. Then you had clips like the one above that sounded legitimate but no one could verify the story.

What is Area 51? It’s a highly classified USAF facility inside the Nevada Test and Training Range. I’m sure you’ve heard of it before, so I won’t waste your time re-counting its history and/or the theories about the facility. One of it’s famous air crashes featuers the A-12 – pre-cursor to the SR-71 Blackbird. You can read more about locating it on PopSci, and you can spend days diving down different rabbit holes related to Area 51. Fun fact: a guy flew over Area 51 about three months ago and nothing seemed to happen.

Art Bell knew and understood that radio is “theater of the mind.” Radio uses ‘words, music, sound effects and emotion to create imagery in the mind of the listener which transports the listener to another place or to [visualize] something you want them to see.’ C2C exercised that concept in this clip. For a while, we forgot that cell phones had terrible reception when used from an airplane (they still do). We didn’t stop to ask how the pilot could hear the air raid sirens.

None of that mattered. Coast to Coast AM took you to a different place in every broadcast. For example, Bell took a call from a ‘frantic man’ in 1997 that led one one of the greatest radio you never heard. Podcasters and storytellers (Like me!) do the same thing with their projects – although most of us go out of our way to remind you that we aren’t reporting real events. We don’t need a visit from the FBI. 

I hope you enjoyed this little Sci-Friday adventure with Art Bell and the Area 51 Shoot Down. Please feel welcomed to dive down the rabbit hole of every other Sci-Friday I’ve published in the past couple years. Have a great weekend!

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Neuralink Muddies the Cybernetic Waters

I love old blues songs, so I’m happy to use the picture above (Muddy Waters) when talking about how Neuralink muddies the waters of cybernetic technology. News this week highlights an alarming lack of transparency and authenticity when it comes to the world-changing technology of neuro-cybernetic implants. 

““This is not like a product launch, We’re talking about human experiments here,” said McGill University’s Jonathan Kimmelman, who studies the introduction of novel medical technologies. “Once you’ve entered the realm of doing human research, you now have a set of expectations and obligations. One of them is transparency,” he said. “You have to be able to establish that the benefits of doing research are sufficient to outweigh the risks and burdens.”

So, yeah. People much smarter than we are sounding the alarm about Neuralink and Elon Musk’s foray into cybernetics. Just another Thursday.

Here’s the Deal

Thing is, love or hate Neuralink, it’s certainly owning the conversation about cybernetic augmentation at a time when we should be celebrating and acting with curiosity toward this fundamentally flourishing area of human exploration. The media cycle – instead of asking smart questions and discussing deep ideas – is out there going ‘NEURALINK NEURALINK NEURALINK.’ Muddies the waters surrounding cybernetic research and exploration.

Shame on you, contributing to this barren bedlam. Waste of public energy for deep consideration. Coaching people into indolent ignorance. What’s the point of exploration and ingenuity if everything gets co-opted by a 21st-century carnie barker? You know that, right? That’s all Musk is – a barker to get you to pay attention. That’s fine, if that’s what you’re into, but the world needs more than a carnie barker now.

Cybernetic augmentation is nothing new – we’ve been talking about it for sixty years. Predictions and ideas surrounding cybernetics have ranged from the extremely helpful to the downright bizarre. We (modern humans) are optimistic about sensible uses for cybernetic technology. On any given week, you’ll hear about another startup working on a cybernetic idea and what it might mean if it actually worked. Heck, I talk about it in Mesh and I wasn’t even aware Musk was gonna make a ‘neuralink.’ 

Now we get to Neuralink.

Whatever It Is – I Hate It

My concerns with Neuralink began with their horrible track record of animal experimentation. “In 2022, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) alleged that Neuralink and UC Davis had mistreated several monkeys, subjecting them to psychological distress, extreme suffering, and chronic infections due to surgeries.”

But wait, it gets better. “A report by Reuters cited claims from several Neuralink employees that testing was being rushed due to Musk’s demands for fast results, which was leading to needless suffering and deaths among the animals.” If you want to ruin your day even more, you can read this Wired article: The Gruesome Story of How Neuralink’s Monkeys Actually Died. We’re all adults, we know animal experimentation is a sad, but necessary aspect of bioengineering. You’re doing it wrong if your experiments are ‘gruesome.’

None of that seems to matter to Neuralink. Then they stepped into human experimentation and the results speak for themselves:

Doctors are sounding the alarm about Neuralink’s human experiments. “Patients should have serious concerns about the safety of Neuralink’s device,” wrote Ryan Merkley, director of research advocacy for the committee, which was founded in 1985 and has over 17,000 doctor members. “There are well-documented reports of company employees conducting rushed, sloppy experiments in monkeys and other animals.”

I’m so over talking about his failings as person. For the rest of my life, I’ll never understand how a billionaire can buy anything he wants, except a clue. “Musk’s magic seems to have run out. His foolish behavior has evaporated billions of dollars of investors wealth. He seems to have lost his bearings.”

Musks’ perpetual outrages are my strongest proof that a super-secret spy organization – a la James Bond – doesn’t really exist. If they did, they would have stepped in by now. The real question now is, ‘yeah, we know he’s a bad person. What / who will stop him?’ I don’t know the answer to that, but that’s not what we’re here to talk about.

Cybernetics in a Post-Neuralink Future

Want to hear something weird? I actually hope Neuralink *doesn’t* fail. I hope their human subjects end up okay, thriving with the new tech that Neuralink developed. That would be the best possible outcome and when/if it does, I’ll be the first to say ‘I was wrong.’

That doesn’t seem to be likely, given the current landscape. I don’t want Neuralink to fail, but the outcome seems inevitable. The curtain will pull back on Neuralink, as with other Musk-related tech endeavors. Musk’s ‘reckless’ and ‘oppressive leadership tactics’ will lead to disaster for Neuralink and the people it’s purported to serve. All this has happened before, and it will all happen again.

The larger failure – if Neuralink implodes – is on cybernetic technology. Just as the market soured on autonomous vehicles in a post-Cruise Crash universe, ethical concerns and paranoia about outcomes will infest any future cybernetics project. We’ll turn into panicky passengers on a flight, ringing the call button every time we feel a bump. Perpetual nay-saying will queer the pitch for new cybernetic innovations – undermining well-intentioned efforts to explore this exciting area of endeavor.

Elon Musk may not be able to get out of his own way, but we can get out of HIS way. We don’t have to be like this. Our opportunity is to apply the same critical thinking to Musk’s schemes as we do any other startup:

‘Sounds good, show me your proof of concept.’‘Interesting, get back to me in a year when you’re ready to launch.’‘If you’re still doing this in a year, reach out to me.’

Neuralink and Elon Musk are not entitled to our attention. Cybernetic technology and innovation are too important to our species survival to waste on a 21st Century carnival barker. I genuinely hope – for humanity’s sake – that Neuralink doesn’t end in catastrophic failure. Beyond all that, I want us to know that cybernetic technology is another amazing innovation we should devote time and energy to. Now is not the time to let Neuralink muddy the waters of cybernetic technology.

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Sage Scifi: Community Lessons in a Post-Reddit Universe

Stand by for some sage scifi: community lessons in a post-Reddit universe. It’s been eight months since the Reddit blackout. We didn’t know what to expect last June, but we did know that Reddit jumped the shark of Internet relevance. They shut down third party apps, introduced API pricing, and crushed the biggest protest in their history. Since then, the topic of the Blackout has gone a bit dark – you can’t seem to find any top-level articles analyzing the blackout past 6/30/23 – and the media cycle has moved onto other topics.

But what happened to science fiction? Did the scifi community grow or change as a result of the Reddit blackout? I took a quick look over at Social-Rise (/r/scifi and /r/sciencefiction) and the results are startling – see for yourself:

Reddit Science Fiction Communities are Dying

  

Let’s talk about what the dots mean. In each of the three screenshots – the dots indicate daily post/comment activity on each subreddit. Higher dots mean higher activity, lower dots indicate lower activity. I couldn’t screenshot the entire table but you can see what the X and Y axis’ mean when you visit the URLs (/r/scifi and /r/sciencefiction).

Anyway, here’s the deal. Notice how the activity takes a huge dip beginning in July and stays there? Community engagement didn’t return after the Blackout ended. It’s not just /r/scifi or /r/sciencefiction. Check out the comment activity on /r/news – from a high of 1800 comments/day down to <100/day. People stopped participating in Reddit and they never came back.

Yikes. As noted in my previous post, the ‘move to monetize APIs [created] major cracks in its foundations of digital altruism and human-centered behavior.’ Redditors everywhere notice the difference. “The quality of posts on some subs has really dipped,” 1JL  noted. “Like posts that have nothing to do with the subreddit. Every sub now feels like generic /r/funny or /r/videos. I swear the majority of stuff is posted by bots and probably commented on by bots.” Kalos9990 agreed: “This website is starting to become flooded with bots, and otherwise mods and auto mods banning and banning users for reasons they absolutely cannot predict, ultimately culminating in a very frustrating user experience.”

Why Reddit’s Scifi Communities Died

People loved Reddit. Reddit was about them, about what they cared about. Boardroom and investor shenanigans torpedoed the values that Reddit was built upon. Alexis Ohanian called it last year: “99% of it is just showing up and doing the work of being a community leader, which means (mostly) listening, starting productive conversations, role-modeling the behavior you wanna see in your spaces. Online community-building is more like IRL community-building than people realize. Thing is — most people don’t wanna do the work. And it’s a lot of work.” 

It’s not hard to kill a community. Online communities fail so often that they have a breakdown over at Meetwaves on how/why online communities fail (Hey Reddit, check out ‘Chapter 6: Too Focused on the Company & Brand’). Communities succeed when you give people 1. a REASON TO JOIN and 2. a REASON TO STAY. What a concept. Nobody’s going to join a  brand community if the only thing to do is walk around going ‘I like brand!,’ and ‘here’s new brand stuff to buy!’ There has to be a driving reason for people to visit – something they can do there that they can’t do anywhere else.

Why Communities Exist

You don’t have to think too hard about it. Community Internet spaces, like IRL community spaces, exist because of public-spirited, civic-minded individuals. Actual people – full stop. Those people, care about the communities they are in and no AI or DevOps automation tool can take their place. Make the place, people will show up, and they’ll figure out what to do with the space. Keep it available, safe, and fun. Reddit tried and failed to be that place. Sad, but that’s not what we’re here to talk about.

Online community spaces – public places for people to talk about stuff – are vital, especially in a post-COVID era. Oh sure, they exist for the standard buzzword reasons: “an online community or internet community is a group of people with a shared interest or purpose who use the internet to communicate with each other.” True, but that’s missing the point. It’s not just about ‘shared interests’ or purposes.’ Communities are places where you don’t to pay to exist.

Huh, wha? Pay to exist? Yeah, that’s a big point. Humans need and seek out ‘third places,’ where people go to converse with others and connect with their community. “Parks and public libraries are some of the best places to gather with friends and strangers in the United States for no cost at all.” If your ‘third place’ is getting stronger and stronger ‘buy something or leave’ vibes – a la Reddit – you’ll find someplace else to go.

Why /M/Scifi exists

TL;DR – All this is why I started /m/scifi over at Kbin.social. Communities thrive when people do the work of building a community. R/scifi and /r/sciencefiction were driven by a number of different unpaid mods with a variety of interests and agendas. None of them seemed to be interested in ‘listening, starting productive conversations, or role-modeling the behavior.’ Maybe your experience was different, but I always felt intimidated – a kid at Kamp Krusty where the bullies were camp counselors. There had to be a better way, but not as long as Reddit was around.

The Fediverse is a new kind of social internet – ‘a rare chance to unbundle the internet, to pull apart an existing system and rebuild it, piece by piece, in vastly better ways.’ We had an opportunity to rebuild our scifi community, base it on the best people-centric, non-monetized practices of other social communities. Do it for free. Do it because you care. Give freely – let others do the same. That’s it.

Democratizing your ‘third place’ forces it to play nice. I can’t monetize /m/scifi – I don’t really want to. I mean, think about how weird previous online community founders became (e.g – Richard ‘Lowtax’ Kyanka) and ultimately self-destructed. Hanging in the background as I do, I can engage as much (or as little) as I want while other community members do the same.

It’s been working – Scifi communities, in a post-Reddit universe, have been thriving. We started /m/scifi last June and now we’re up to 6700 members. I’m proud of that. Tiny little community, but we’ve got scifi fans (and authors!) lining up to talk to each other. That’s something to be proud of.

Everybody Needs Someplace to Go

What I’ve learned (so far) in this experience is that – institutions can be threatened, communities can self-destruct. Where Reddit has set itself up for failure, my feeling is that the Fediverse will succeed. Nobody has the keys to the car, anymore – everyone can go or stay or move over (it’d take two seconds to set up /n/scifi, for example) if the community isn’t working for them. When/if running /m/scifi starts taking too much time and energy, I’ll bring in other mods – people who have already earned their stripes as community participants.

For now, the doors are open and the lights are on. Welcome home, weirdos.

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You’re Making It Worse: Gina Carano’s Mandalorian Lawsuit

No one’s asking me about Gina Carano’s Mandalorian lawsuit, but if they were I would say: Stop, you’re making it worse. It’s been painful watching Gina Carano’s rising star fizzle out. I suspect no one’s had a Dutch Uncle conversation with her, or they have and she didn’t listen. Sad really, because Carano clearly has talent and energy. If she doesn’t smarten up and get out of this quick, she’s going to find herself as another discarded pawn on the side of an abandoned Boring tunnel. More on that in a minute.

I read the news with growing unease and disappointment. We’ve seen this movie before and it never ends well. Disney – for better or worse – has one of the best and most-feared team of lawyers on the planet. Maybe she has some juice in this fight I don’t know about. After all, Elon Musk is backing Carano as opposed to Pete Thiel backing Hulk Hogan against Gawker Media. Something tells me Disney can afford better representation than Gawker, but that’s just me.

That’s the backstory to everything I’m going to say next. Let others discuss the legal, corporate, and Hollywood ramifications of the lawsuit. I’d rather talk as though we’re talking directly to Gina Carano. I think we’d all agree, especially after cheering for her in her Mandalorian role, that *she* is who we of the scifi community should be focused on. So, this is an open ‘Dutch Uncle’ letter to Gina Carano, from all of us who care about her and her scifi career.

Stop – You’re Making It Worse

Let’s start at the beginning. We care about you. When we saw your successful sporting career transition successfully into entertainment, we were all-in. Do you know how hard it is to do what you did? We do. Very few athletes pull it off successfully. There’s like, you, and the dearly departed Carl Weathers, and then … yeah, I can’t think of anyone else. A pivot like that is like jumping from one bumpy, fast-moving train to another bumpy, fast-moving train. Hard to do it, and yet you pulled it off with style. Yeah, you were our hero.

And then.

It’s not like we were waiting to see you fail, okay? You said a number of things we weren’t exactly on board with, but we gave you a pass. The gender pronoun thing, for example. I can understand why you’d initially resist, feeling like people were trying to paint you into a corner. But, at the end of the day, if people need to see you attach specific pronouns to yourself to feel good, what do you care? I’ve heard a stack of people complain to me about it and I’m like ‘so they want to know what my pronouns are – big deal.’

I’m not here to rehash that – the gender pronoun event is over. But it did raise some red flags as far as your reasoning process is concerned: are you reasonable? Can you say something as simple as ‘I have my own opinion, but I can understand why you feel the way that you do?’ Boom, there it is: empathy. Can you empathize?

So that was one thing. Then you started in with the political views. Ye gods, the political views. The rest of us were sitting at home going ‘why? Why? WHY?’ Do you know that? Do you know that there’s a time and a place for those discussions and your Mandalorian / social media platform was neither? Couldn’t you look at other examples of previously-successful pop culture figures who turned their persona into a political platform and go ‘yeah, that didn’t work out for any of them’?

Now, you’re claiming you were: “‘harassed and defamed’ for having rightwing opinions and refusing to conform to those held by Disney and Lucasfilm,” as though any employer would tolerate a lead employee hijacking their corporate presence to voice specific and polarizing opinions.

Please.

I’m not an expert, but your story smacks of ‘I didn’t learn important adulting lessons and my defenses prevent friends from delivering authentic feedback.’ Or maybe not. Maybe you’re a terrible person and you weren’t ‘screwed by the system’ so much as ‘revealed by the system.’ You can’t fool all the people all the time, right? Or maybe you can, with enough money, time, and energy.

But we aren’t the kind of people who can get away with that. You must know that by now, if you haven’t figured it out already. The terrifying part of wealth and fame is how it transforms people into their worst selves. You think you’re escaping the prison of poverty only to find yourself in the penitentiary of prosperity. Money changes you, and it changes how people see you. Unknown pressures, and unseen stresses can break people under the best circumstances.

I’ve mentioned  you before on my blog and what I earlier said remains true: I think you fell into the category of people who stopped working on themselves because ‘hey, we arrived!’ Nobody graduates from learning about life. Nobody gets to stop working on themselves.

Here’s what ‘working on yourself’ would look like. If you genuinely believe that the election was stolen or that masks don’t prevent COVID, where’s the Instagram post of you going to Harvard Law and spending an afternoon with a constitutional professor, or the video of you talking with Dr. Fauci about masks and viral transmission?

In other words, where’s the work? Do you take the time to show us the process by which you inform your opinions, or is it just about chasing those IG likes and you got caught up in the toxic social media cycle? I don’t know the answers to any of those questions. I’d like to, maybe you can reach out and tell me what I’m missing.

Now you’re making it worse. You’ve exchanged your previous missteps for a truly dark path, where you’ve placed yourself between two titanic, corporate forces. How do you see this playing out? Has anyone ever succeeded as Elon Musk’s personal hand puppet? Hulk Hogan’s life didn’t get better after the Gawker media trial, as I’m sure you’re aware. I fear that you’re going to see something similar for yourself and you’ve got a lot more years ahead of you than Hogan does.

No one argues that everything Disney does is correct. I’m not arguing that this world doesn’t need to get better. What I am asking is, is this how you see things getting better? Because I don’t think it’s going to play out for you. If anything, I fear it’s going to get worse.

I Want Good Things for Gina Carano

Remember this quote? This doesn’t have to be your epitaph. It’ll be painful, but most growth comes from pain. Just as you survived the transition from sports to entertainment, I think you’re strong enough and powerful enough to admit when you’ve made mistakes and publicly discuss how you’ve learned from those choices. Think of how much good you could do, right now, by showing people how to step back from the precipice.

In closing, again – I’m just a guy who’s made bad choices and is trying to learn from them.  No one’s asking me about Gina Carano’s Mandalorian lawsuit, but if they were I would say: Stop, you’re making it worse. I don’t want to see things get worse for Gina Carano, I want to see good things for Gina Carano.

I hope Gina takes this opportunity to let cooler heads prevail, and smarter choices lead the way.

 

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Mike.Sierra.Echo and Mesh – Hard Science Fiction

Let’s take a step back on this Friday afternoon to discuss Mike.Sierra.Echo and Mesh – are they ‘hard science fiction?’ Why does it matter? What’s ‘hard sci-fi,’ anyway? Who cares about the answers to these questions.

Let’s answer the last question first, I stumbled upon TVTropes’ Mohs Scale of Science Fiction Hardness page and they call out the big question there: “Speculative Fiction fanatics are always raving about how “hard” the science is in various stories—but it’s not like you can rub a story with a piece of quartz and see if it leaves a scratch on the plot. So what is “hardness” in SF? Why do some people want it? And how do we put a number to it?”

But Why Hard Scifi?

Interestingly, they never get around to answering the ‘why do some people want it?’ question. But, never mind. I like Linda Nagata’s answer: “it’s about the implications of science, technology, and engineering and how all of it affects people.”

Bingo. We had 22 years between the first gas-powered car in 1886 and the first mass-produced car by Ford in 1908. These days, we’re lucky if we have 22 hours or 22 days to cope with some new disruptive technology. Hard science fiction is our way of considering the implications of upcoming disruptions so that we have the opportunity to choose our response.

Now, back to the ‘Scifi Hardness Scale.’ This scale is interesting because it takes in all forms of ‘scifi,’ from ‘Star Wars,’ to ‘Real Life.’ We’re living in the 21st century with smart phones and robot vacuums, so we’re living in a scifi future every single day of the week! The question though, is how ‘hard’ is YOUR science fiction Jackson??

My Stories on the ‘Scifi Hardness Scale’

I didn’t think about it before now – but having read through the Mohs Scale of Science Fiction Hardness, I found the find the ‘Speculative Science’ class of scifi, which is described as follows: “Speculative Science: Stories in which there is no “big lie”—the science of the tale is (or was) genuine speculative science or engineering, and the goal of the author to make as few errors with respect to known fact as possible. The first two books in Robert L. Forward‘s Rocheworld series and Robert A. Heinlein‘s The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress fall in this class.”

Further, one could argue that I’m falling closer to ‘Futurology’ since I’m extrapolating from current technology rather than inventing major new technologies or discoveries. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The Martian is a brilliant example of ‘Futurology’ and yet, it focuses purely on the scientific challenge of returning Mark Watney to Earth in safety. Watney experiences a 21st-century version of a ‘survival character arc,’ but there isn’t much else to the story. Nor should there have been. It’s a great ride.

By constrast, Mike.Sierra.Echo and Mesh are focusing on something else with their protagonists. Like, ‘what are you learning from all this?’ Roman and Mike are both kids caught up in amazing circumstances, but they exist to learn and grow – they’re more than the camera through which we watch the movie. I learned my craft from people like Brad Bird and Robert Zemeckis, so I’m always looking to figure out what I want to say about life in my stories.

Yes, I Write Hard Scifi

But, still. My stories are ‘hard scifi.’ There, I said it! That feels good. Having spent years in envy of authors who could weave fantastic absurdities into emotional realities, I want my big stories – Mike.Sierra.Echo and Mesh – to give readers warm fuzzies along with cold, refreshing facts. We live in an exciting universe and I can’t wait to see what we discover!

I hope this discussion helps you understand what ‘hard scifi’ is and where my novels fall on that scale. ‘Hard scifi’ isn’t hard to read or hard to understand. If anything, it can be used like the wedge that cuts through years of ignorance, arrogance, and stubborn selfishness. Now, more than ever, we need to be ready to meet whatever comes next.

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Dan Ariely: Downsides of Playing It Straight

I want to use the following video to talk about Dan Airely and the downsides to playing it straight. What am I talking about? Watch the following video and it’s comparisons between a TV show and beleaguered professor of behavioral economics, Dan Ariely. It turns out you can make a lot of money off of being a fake, no different than Robert T. Kiyosaki. Take a look, and then let’s discuss:

Writing, like academia, suffers from the ‘publish or perish’ ethos, and the industry champions obvious frauds because ‘present-tense suc­cess, for­gi­ves a lot of past-tense failure.’ How do you cling to your own sense of ethics and integrity in a world where cheaters always prosper? Why is this okay? What do I do with my pain, my outrage?

I don’t have the answer to any of those questions – but I think asking is a good starting point. As soon as I figure this all out, I promise to share what I’ve learned. Maybe one day we’ll find a way to make it make sense.

Write on!

 

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