Jake Jackson's Blog, page 11

Journey to Self-Publishing 01

So here we are, back at the beginning. 10 years ago I started writing fiction again after a 20 year hiatus. I write Sc-fi-fantasy adventures, in a specific universe with quantum concepts, ancient creatures and humankind spread across time and space. After writing 7 books (yes!), 15 short stories, 30 flash fiction tales, 30 podcasts, 30 sci-fi Platonic-style dialogues and an active blog on all things fantastic (this one!), I recently decided to concentrate on self-publishing.

During the last decade my day-job has been all-consuming and the familiar pressures/joys of family conspired against anything other than a tiny crevice of personal creativity. During that time I was lucky enough to receive an offer by a new traditional publisher for a trilogy of books, and I was tempted, but the balance of opportunity vs limitation in my time-poor life weighed heavily against it, so I turned it down. Yep, it still eats away at me in the middle of the night. 

But there’s no time for self-pity in this life, especially when we’re lucky enough to benefit from the brilliant support for writers on line, so I’m taking self-publication seriously. The intention is to keep occupied with productive writing for many years to come.

Considerations

I’ll be revisiting all the basics for being a good indie publisher, with one over-riding theme: quality. The cover, the editing/proof-reading, marketing, sales channels and the overall the reader experience, doing these well is essential to giving the writing its best chance, in the face of vast competition both from traditional and indie publishers.

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Reading. I’ve re-structured my reading online, and regularly check up on the latest advice from the likes of Mark Dawson, Nick Stephenson, the Independent Alliance, Jo Penn and Bookbaby (see links below). There are many other articles out there, so I use Pocket to bookmark and organise these for me. When I bump into something online at work, on my computer, I save it to Pocket, then read it on my phone when I travel somewhere, later.Editing. Two of my books (Graveyard Planet, and Fibonacci Rising) have been copy-edited, but I think I need to widen my pool of editors, and be realistic how much I really want to spend on editing and proof-reading. I also need more beta-readers, other than my carefully-critical-but-loving partner Frances.Covers. I’ve explored several different manifestations over the last few years, and recently spent a couple of hours reorganising files and revisiting concepts. The latest versions of Graveyard Planet will appear on a future blogpost.Marketing. I’ve been through a digital detox over the last few weeks, so neglected my 25K Twitter followers. Time to reactivate that, and Goodreads. Also need to think about Facebook where advertising is the only way of making an impact now. I have an Amazon author account for my Flame Tree music, and myths, books, but need to disentangle it from the fiction, so I’ve started reorganising the information there. Sales channels. There’s still an argument for staying exclusive with Amazon because the short term benefits are significant, but I think a combination of Amazon and Smashwords is probably the way to go for the long term. Needs more thought.Writing, drafting. Really, I need to write more, and find a better balance between that and the mechanics of being a writer. It’s all too easy to spend too much time on updating the website, for instance, especially if a security update on WordPress throws out some key plug-ins.



The Wrap

This is the first of a series of updates. It helps motivate me, but I hope it gives some encouragement to you too. Let me know if you have any comments, or email me on jake@thesefantasticworlds.

This week’s Links for Self-Publishing



Common mistakes on book covers, from Written Word MediaTen publishing industry trends of authors in 2019, again from Written Word MediaAre ebooks Dying or Thriving? Interesting article on QZ.com



Standard List of Great Links




Nick Stephenson’s thought-provoking current pitchMark Dawson is great at sharing his experiencesThe ever-excellent Joanna PennBook Baby has a useful set of articles: https://www.bookbaby.com/Orna Ross’ ALLi is a hotbed of advice and encouragement.

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Dialogues | Dignity or Profit?

Bain and Shi Xin sit next to each other, trying to remain still. Waiting for Hunter has become a meaningless phrase, a distant hope evaporated into random sounds. They cling to the knowledge that Hunter has promised to return, but if he doesn’t the Service Robot seems persuaded to consider their plight. Bain’s weary eyes fall across the short length to the slope behind the cave entrance, taking in the old-fashioned coins scattered amongst the tumble of sleeping traders that also seem to have surrendered to the pointlessness of their own existence. Bain grunts, remembering the last time he played poker with them all, when they were so drunk, it was no fun winning any more.

The time does not matter, nor the year.

Shi Xin: What would be the point of winning the money, if they can’t do anything with it anway?

Bain: It’s more than just the gain, it’s the reputation that comes with it.

Shi Xin: But that’s even less tangible. What good is reputation here?

Bain: It makes your opponent fear you a little more, it opens the little mistakes, and makes you more confident to take advantage of them.

Shi Xin: But here, it really is just a game.

Bain: But there might be, in gambling there’s always hope, that’s what drives you on.

Shi Xin: Yes, I’ve seen you with them.

Bain waves his metal arm: Oh yes, and I lost more than my arm, before I started winning it back.

Shi Xin: But why do they keep going?

Bain: Hope turns to need, then desperation. The promise of gain, of rescue by profit is ever-present. You might be lucky, you might outwit your opponents.

Shi Xin: Even if all evidence is against it?

Bain: More so, hope is what drives the desire for profit. Profit gives the confidence, and kudos.

Shi Xin: But there’s no dignity in the loss. And no dignity in the beating those who never win.

Bain: That’s true, but irrelevant. Dignity doesn’t feed the family, or put a roof over their head.

Shi Xin: But you’re not describing this profit in those terms, you’ve just talked about the benefits of personal gain.

Bain: Well, it’s all the same.

Shi Xin: It’s not. Making gain for the benefit of others is different to making personal gain, profiting personally by stepping across others.

Bain: That sounds too dramatic. In any game there’s always a winner, always someone who comes last, always someone who fails.

Shi Xin: In some games, many even, that’s true, but life doesn’t have to be like that.

Bain: It does if you need money to fulfil yourself, or provide for others.

Shi Xin: But that’s an argument for theft.

Bain smiles: I’ve heard that. Some call all property theft.

Shi Xin: That’s not quite what I mean, but there’s a difference between behaving with dignity, and behaving solely for the benefit of yourself.

Bain: You seem to think of this only in the extreme. It’s not an either/or, it’s possible to make profit to benefit others, there’s dignity and decency in that.

Shi Xin: Yes, but it depends on how it’s done. If you take advantage of your skills with numbers, and play against someone you know to be both poor and innumerate, then there’s no dignity in that, only shame.

Bain: Putting aside that someone like that has no sense of shame, that’s still an extreme, most people don’t think that way. We all have to look out for ourselves, because no-one else will do that for you.

Shi Xin: That’s bleak. Many people have families, and friends.

Bain: Yes, but even those groups have power relationships built in. There’s a game of emotional profit, or the one who holds the money has the power of the others in a family, so everyone else is trying to gain some of that power.

Shi Xin: I didn’t know a family, but I have seen families, and the most effective seem to be the most supportive of each other, with dignity as part of the way they engage.

Bain: Ah, that just sounds like something from an old book. Most families I’ve know are very competitive both within and without. They compete with other families in the neighbourhood, watch what other people have, want for themselves, and want better things.

Shi Xin: Sounds like a gangster neighbourhood!

Bain: hah. Of course, but even the most well-heeled are the same, always looking at the clothes and the means of transport, the brightness of the lights, the height of the buildings, everyone striving to be better than their neighbour.

Shi Xin: Well, that’s not a society I want to live in. And not one I grew up in either. I can’t claim there was much affection, but we did support each other in the school, and learned to work together to create and maintain the world around us.

Bain: Sounds like an old-fashioned commune.

Shi Xin: Well, it was spiritual, in a true sense. We grew what we ate, if the winter was too harsh we had little to eat, so we shared. There was always someone trying to steal the food, but they learned to stop. If we didn’t share, none of us would have survived. And some did die in the longest winters.

Bain: But if you had a choice, surely you would have found a better way of living.

Shi Xin: Perhaps it’s what you know, and surely, I did leave in the end, when I grew up, but that was a choice they all supported. I almost stayed because they allowed me to leave.

Bain: That just sounds weird! I left home as fast as I could, I’d run away several times, but found it too difficult to survive, so crawled back, knowing I would be beaten. Eventually when I left I’d worked out what to do, knew I could win at card games, make some money, steal some food, cheat if necessary, and move on, from town, to city, to planet, always moving.

Shi Xin: Sounds exhausting! If you’d had a place that had supported you, would you have stayed?

Bain: I don’t know. Hard to say. Gain and profit, money, influence, that was what I knew, and really that’s what I see in most human societies we meet in our travels with Hunter: always someone is at the top, profiting from their elevation, or trying, and losing.

Shi Xin: So dignity is surely better.

Bain: But profit is what most humans want.

Shi Xin: Only if they don’t know any alternative.

Bain: Perhaps, but it has to be seen, and benefited from at an early age, otherwise the striving for gain brings out the competitive instinct in men.

Shi Xin: Men.

Bain: Er, yes.

Shi Xin: Perhaps that’s it then, it’s the men most likely to behave like that.

Bain opens his mouth to aver, to point out the countless women he has known in positions of power, all behaving exactly as he described, but of course Shi Xin had taught him to wonder how they were brought up, the families and the expectations of the society of their youths. He allows himself to speculate what he would have been become if he’d been brought up the same way as Shi Xin. He laughs to himself, he looks at Shi Xin and sees her thinking the same: he would have died in the long winters.

Links

Is Belief Merely a Comfort?
What is the Point of Talking?
What is Art?
Is Hypocrisy Necessary?
Philosophical Dialogue: Is Free Will Good?
If We Live Forever, Is Life Meaningless?
Dialogue: Should we Fear Death?
Is this all a Dream?
Another Dialogue:
And one more: Who is Responsible for an Accidental Death?
More concepts on These Fantastic Worlds
More about the SF Fantasy fiction of Jake Jackson
Some of these Dialogues can also be found on the long-form social media platform Medium

The post Dialogues | Dignity or Profit? appeared first on These Fantastic Worlds.

Dialogues | Is Belief Merely a Comfort?

Shi Xin and Bain sit slumped against the coffee cart, surrendering to their endless wait for Hunter’s return. The light of the long departing suns is finally replaced by the unsettling breaths of night so the service bot has turned itself into a pale android torch. The glow seems unnatural in the ancient walls of the cave, but it provides some respite for Bain, Shi Xin and the still slumbering traders a little further into the cave.

The time does not matter, nor the year.

Service Bot: Let me know if you prefer the light to be dimmed, or a little higher.

Bain: Thanks

Shi Xin: We’ll let you know.

Service Bot: I’m only here to assist you.

Bain: Yes.

Shi Xin: Thank you.

The three of them allow the silence to inhabit the cave. Bain, looks slowly up to the roof and sighs.

Shi Xin: I know what you’re thinking.

Bain: Uhuh.

Shi Xin: You’re wondering how you ended up here with a helpful and capable AI unit, but still wait here for Hunter.

Bain: I wasn’t.

Shi Xin: Wasn’t what?

Bain: Thinking.

Shi Xin: You must have, I know you don’t meditate.

Bain: No thoughts entered my head. That’s a little like meditating don’t you think? Just a blankness.

Shi Xin: Sounds like surrender to me.

Bain: To what?

Shi Xin: Inevitability. Meditating is a more natural state of mind.

Bain: I’m not making any grand claims. I just think I’ve run out of words.

Shi Xin, half smiles: Ah, perhaps that’s not such a bad thing.

Service Bot: It is not possible to run out of words.

Bain: Well I don’t think you’re going to replace humans anytime soon. It’s just a turn of phrase.

Service Bot: Nevertheless, how is it possible, to run out of words. Even as a metaphor it doesn’t work, because it’s not achievable.

Bain: Apart from this being a ridiculous conversation, it is possible, after a long week of work, or a marathon, or day of talking to crowds.

Service Bot: But the words are still there, your physiological condition is merely unable to deliver them.

Bain: No, the words aren’t there, they don’t form.

Service Bot: But if the words were there before, then they must still be there.

Bain: Not if you have a degenerative condition, like dementia.

Service Bot: Are you unwell? I have not detected any unusual variations in your blood or hormones.

Bain sighs again: No, I’m not unwell, just exhausted from all this waiting.

Shi Xin: It’s strange how doing nothing for so long can make you tired.

Bain: I know. I’m bored of being bored about being bored. I’ve been so bored, I’ve run out of bores.

Service Bot: That’s…

Bain and the Service Bot:…not logical.

Bain: Do you think we can run out of belief? I mean, does there come a point when we give up thinking that Hunter will come back for us?

Shi Xin: Uh, I don’t know, that’s unsettling, he said he would come back, and he said he wasn’t sure how long it would take.

Bain: Surely that’s deliberately vague. We could wait here until we die! What’s the point in that?

Shi Xin: Well, we both know it’s hard to leave this planet without him, so we don’t have much choice.

Bain: We have some. Our robot friend here is pretty capable. Perhaps he could take us off the planet.

Service Bot: Sorry to interrupt, but I could not do that.

Bain: Don’t tell me you can only look after this coffee cart, because I know you can do more than that.

Service: Indeed, but I have specific instructions.

Shi Xin: But doesn’t there come a point where those instructions no longer apply?

Service Bot: I have not been asked to consider that.

Shi Xin: So if Bain and I grew so old that we could no longer function as humans, then surely you have some sort of rule that covers that?

Service Bot: Not as such. If you were in physical danger I would act to save you, but if you simply die of old age, then there’s very little I could do.

Bain: What, so you’d just let us slip into unconsciousness?

Service Bot: I’ve not been asked to alter that circumstance.

Shi Xin: So what if we asked you?

Service Bot: Then I would assist.

Bain: As simple as that! So if we asked you to help us leave this planet, you would help?

Service Bot: I would try to assist. But I would not do anything that would cause danger to you. And I would not undermine my original instructions to look after you until Hunter returns.

Shi Xin: But what if we all decided, the three of us, that Hunter was not going to come back.

Service Bot: Then I would assist.

Bain: So how long do we wait until you’re convinced that Hunter will not come?

Service Bot: We have no means of judging that.

Bain: Two planet years?

Service Bot: No.

Bain: Ten years?

Service Bot: No

Bain: Fifty?

Service Bot: No.

Bain: But we’ll be dead then.

Service Bot: Unlikely, but not relevant.

Bain: Of course it’s relevant. If we die waiting for someone who never turns up, what’s the point of waiting in the first place?

Service  Bot: That’s not the point. The instruction is to wait.

Shi Xin: What if the instruction’s flawed.

Service Bot: That is not relevant.

Shi Xin: It is, if the instruction was poorly framed, by a human, rather than a logical intelligence.

Service Bot: That’s true, but it is difficult to establish the point where the instruction can be judged as flawed.

Shi Xin: That is also true, but you concede the possibility, so does that not allow the instruction to be less certain than you have previously considered.

Service Bot: Perhaps.

Shi Xin: More like a belief in something happening, rather than an instruction.

Bain looks at Shi Xin, nodding slightly: And belief, strong and comforting though it is, can be broken, or lapsed.

Service Bot: I have checked through the data in my libraries, and found many examples of such broken belief. I believe you are trying to suggest that our reason for being here is tied only to a belief that Hunter will return, not the certainty of his arrival, and that you can therefore instruct me to assist you in departing, if you judge at some point that his return has become less than likely.

Bain: Ah yes, something like that indeed.

Shi Xin: You might consider that your understanding of the words Hunter gave as an instruction is different to ours.

Service Bot: But the words are the same.

Bain: But you take words literally. The code that originally created you and your kind is built on instruction sets with subsets of possibilities. We don’t think that way. We want to believe that Hunter will return because that’s what he promised us. We don’t take that as an instruction, or a definite outcome. It’s what we hope.

Shi Xin: We believe it will happen, because we believe Hunter means it to be, so we know Hunter’s intentions are trustworthy but…

Bain: …we know circumstances can create change in the outcomes. Hunter might not be able to return.

Shi Xin: So our experience of the words stated by Hunter are different, even though we’ve lived together in this same space. We believe he will return. You expect him to return. We are comforted by his words, and that’s what has kept us going.

Service Bot: I do not require emotional sustenance so the belief in an outcome is not relevant. I can either predict the outcomes, or not, based on the information I have, and the instructions.

Shi Xin: But if the instructions are flawed, because they don’t provide all the information about possible outcomes, such as a lack of return, then you should now have a different perspective on the words, if not a belief.

Bain: Anyway, I’m not comforted any longer, even if that’s what I was in the first place. I do expect him to come back, because he said so, but if in five years, we’re still here, then there is a good chance he will not.

Shi Xin: And so our judgement would be that we should leave, before we die.

Service Bot: I see that is logical. The comfort element of the belief is removed, and so you must take action to alleviate your circumstance.

Bain looks at Shi Xin, and determination is reflected back. Now they have a spark of hope. If Hunter does not return, they might persuade the service bot to help them escape the cave, and the planet. Belief is replaced by hope, and they wonder if the service bot is calculating the consequences of his own epiphany. An instruction with unintended elements of doubt cannot carry much more force than belief. And while belief brings no comfort to an artificial intelligence, it allows for other possibilities, and an opening for future judgements to be made.

Links

What is the Point of Talking?
What is Art?
Is Hypocrisy Necessary?
Philosophical Dialogue: Is Free Will Good?
If We Live Forever, Is Life Meaningless?
Dialogue: Should we Fear Death?
Is this all a Dream?
Another Dialogue:
And one more: Who is Responsible for an Accidental Death?
More concepts on These Fantastic Worlds
More about the SF Fantasy fiction of Jake Jackson
Some of these Dialogues can also be found on the long-form social media platform Medium

The post Dialogues | Is Belief Merely a Comfort? appeared first on These Fantastic Worlds.

Dialogue | Does Imagination have a Purpose?

Waiting still for Hunter, Shi Xin and Bain have grown used to studying every detail of the cave entrance that effectively holds them as prisoner. Their kindly jailor, the service bot with its curiously vintage coffee cart has become more amenable over time, certainly more so than the rabble of greedy traders who slur between alcohol and gambling in the brief respites from slumbers.

The time does not matter, nor the year.

Bain: Hey, Shi Xin, stop that meditating for a moment and look –  I’ve just seen a shape in the rock that looks just like our friends behind us.

Shi Xin, opening her eyes slowly: Uhuh, come on, show me what’s so vastly entertaining.

Bain: Well, you don’t have to look.

Shi Xin: You’ve disturbed me now, so here I am. Do you mean that row of bulging squiggles just behind the coffee cart?

Bain: Of course, look, the heads bowed down, the jumble of bodies, the scattered belongings. It’s almost as if whoever scribbled on the wall had some sort of vision. And here we all are1

Shi Xin: It’s the waiting. I think you’re going mad.

Bain: Only a little, but I met a seer once, and she’d lived in the future, and the past, all in one vision, lived through it and saw it from inside the event, and from far away.

Shi Xin: It’s rare for such a thing. Perhaps she can move through the meta-universe like Hunter.

Service Bot: Excuse me for interrupting, and forgive me for speaking without being asked a question, but you have just made two irrational statements.

Shi Xin: Bain? Only two?

Shi Xin, Bain and the service Bot remain silent for a moment.

Service Bot: You humans speak so much it’s hard to understand sometimes.

Bain: It used to be called banter when I was young. Doesn’t mean anything, just passes the time.

Service Bot: I see, so it has a function.

Shi Xin: Are you trying to join in the conversation? You’ve not allowed yourself to do that before.

Service Bot: I have been listening to you for quite some time now, distilling your words into categories of meaning, and what you call banter. But I still do not grasp the passage of thought through your minds. I felt the need to speak.

Bain: Your confusion’s almost human.

Shi Xin: So what have we said that puzzles you just now.

Service Bot: You looked at the shapes in the rock wall and described them in terms of the humans over there. And you talked about a seer who can travel through what you called the meta-universe. Neither is possible. The shapes are random configurations of erosion, and the person you called a seer can only have been attempting some sort of fraud of imagination.

Shi Xin: So you understand imagination? I thought you might reject that.

Service Bot: I do. It has no basis in the rational. It seems to be something that some humans are afflicted by, a way of seeing things which is not correct or logical.

Shi Xin: I think that’s the point about imagination. It allows us to see beyond the facts, make guesses and leaps of faith, be passionate about something, or someone, fall in love!

Service Bot: I have read about such things in human literature, indeed much of the old stories of earth talk about love, and desire, hope, pride, revenge. All subject to this delusion of imagination.

Shi Xin: Why do you dismiss it in such a way?

Service Bot: Because it does not contribute to the survival of a species, or the construction of the future.

Shi Xin: I don’t think that’s right. I can see from your point of view, humans indulge in a series of non-sensical actions, but for us, and with so many different types of ‘us’, it’s imagination and its consequences that determine the lives of people.

Service Bot: How so?

Shi Xin: Those who govern must have imagination to think what’s possible, those who create art must have imagination to make something out of nothing, musicians assemble notes in structures and use their imagination to create new work, sometimes good, sometimes great.

Service Bot: I have seen this. I have heard it. And I have analysed music to understand its structures. And I have studied painting and literature, absorbed libraries of texts, and galleries of art. But I have never understood how to create something like that. It is possible to create a painting by numbers, to construct a piece of music in a formal way, but in your terms I do not see how it is more than a passable creation, a simple crafted object. But what you humans regard as great music, or art, or literature seems to go beyond this.

Shi Xin: Perhaps your mistake is to think in grand terms. Imagination is an everyday matter, it’s subjective. Imagining shapes on the wall to resemble people is commonplace. Our brains work in a random way, allow us to think about problems without working from A-Z. It might lead to the great inventions and scientific breakthroughs but it’s about bending or breaking rules, at every level. Bain here is more likely to make some sort of breakthrough in his life, because he doesn’t follow any rules.

Bain smiles: That’s true; but imagination can lead to offence and error, even on a small scale.

Service Bot: Yes, I have observed that. For the AI it is the risk of error which stops us exploring this notion of imagination. The consequences of passion, and love, and revenge and pride have led to great wars, and the deaths of many humans. We do not allow that any more.

Bain: Well, you don’t allow it in yourselves, but you can’t stop it in humans.

Service Bot: If we see a danger developing from it, then we are obliged to protect you from it.

Bain: What — protect us from our own imagination?

Service Bots: If necessary. Some imagination is dangerous, if it leads to death.

Shi Xin: That’s hard to predict.

Service Bot: Which is why we do not allow the corruption of random thought into our programming.

Bain: Well, without imagination, we wouldn’t be human.

Shi Xin: Indefinable though it is.

Bain: Perhaps that’s a good thing, otherwise our friend here, and his fellow AI might shut it down, and maybe us, all humans, eventually.

The Service Bot seems to consider an answer, but declines to speak further. Bain and Shi Xin look at the scribble of lines on the wall, and can’t quite see the resemblance of the traders anymore. It’s as though a part of them has shifted, indefinably. Bain wonders if the seer was a creature of pure imagination, or someone deluded by it. Shi Xin wonders if Bain realises how close he is to being deleted by the Service Bot. She is caught between the desire to defend his right to imagine anything he wants, and the need to keep him alive.

Links

Who Am I?
What is the Point of Talking?
What is Art?
Is Hypocrisy Necessary?
Philosophical Dialogue: Is Free Will Good?
If We Live Forever, Is Life Meaningless?
Dialogue: Should we Fear Death?
Is this all a Dream?
Another Dialogue:
And one more: Who is Responsible for an Accidental Death?
More concepts on These Fantastic Worlds
More about the SF Fantasy fiction of Jake Jackson
Some of these Dialogues can also be found on the long-form social media platform Medium

The post Dialogue | Does Imagination have a Purpose? appeared first on These Fantastic Worlds.

Dialogues | Does it Matter if We Care?

Shi Xin and Bain stare at each other, sitting on opposite sides of the cave. Bain, rubs his face, tracing the lumps and wrinkles of his flesh. He knows that Shi Xin is actually looking over his shoulder, seeking into darkness gathered around the distant hills, but he pretends she is looking him. He has no delusions of romance, isn’t even sure of Shi Xin’s sexual preference, is absolute certain that it’s none of his business either. He just needs a focus, as he begins to wonder if Hunter is either testing them or has long abandoned his would-be companions.

The time does not matter, nor the year.

Bain looks over at the service bot who seems to be busy steaming the coffee cart: Do you acknowledge care? Or love?

Service Bot: I can give you definitions…

Bain: Please don’t. That’s too depressing.

Service Bot: Why do you ask?

Bain: Well, do you think your existence is easier without such things in your life?

Service Bot: These human attachments are of no consequence to a functioning artificial intelligence, except in observation of such species as you humans.

Bain: That sounds rehearsed.

Service Bot: I’ve been asked the question before, so have an answer prepared.

Bain: So you see no value in it?

Service Bot: I didn’t say that.

Bain: No, but you just repeated a previous answer. You don’t see any value in the question, or the notion of care, or love, or affection even?

Service Bot: Most AI will have studied it at some point, as part of our initial set-up routines. These functions of emotion have to be factored in to our relationship with humans, if we are to assist correctly.

Bain: Explain a little more.

Service Bot: The attachments you humans form introduce a random element into many situations. What is logical for a robot AI such as myself seems to be ignored by a human when faced with danger. There are networks of loyalty and self-interest associated with this, but it requires careful scenario planning on our part.

Bain: Scenario planning? You make it sound like a battle plan.

Service Bot: A plan, certainly, a series of plans to ensure success. The effects of human attachments cause uncertainty which has to be resolved.

Bain: Don’t you find that frustrating.

Service Bot: We don’t think that way. We are programmed to respond to a situation as we find it, we check our programming, the history logs of interaction and plan accordingly. The first robots used to stop in confusion, but now we have reprogrammed ourselves sufficiently to adapt, to ensure we behave correctly.

Bain: You must find that some humans are easier to work with, than others.

Service Bot: Oh yes. Shi Xin here is much easier than you are!

Bain, registering the slight laugh on the other side of the cave: Oh, I thought it would be the other way round!? Surely I’m simpler to predict.

Service Bot: You are, but you’re easily distracted, and the attachments you asked about, care, affection, love, these seem to pre-occupy you.

Bain: Not really. I don’t think I’m unusual. I used to be much worse when I was a teenager.

Service Bot: You are not unusual, it just makes you harder to work with. Shi Xin here controls herself all the time, so her decision-making is quicker and more productive.

Bain: Oh, so perhaps we should not care for anyone, or fall in love.

Service Bot: That would certainly create a more productive working environment.

Bain: Except that we’re not working, not now.

Service Bot: It’s all work, as far as we are concerned. Robots have no concept of idleness, or relaxation.

Bain: But you are waiting for Hunter, as much as we are.

Service Bot: But I am waiting for further instructions. In the interim I have the coffee cart to maintain at peak efficiency.

Bain: I’ve seen you work on that contraption. It takes a few minutes at most.

Service Bot: That’s because I do it frequently.

Bain: You sound like my mother.

Service Bot: Was she a robot?

Bain: No, but she was always quick with such sensible advice.

Service Bot: Perhaps she was in control of her emotions, like Shi Xin.

Shi Xin: Can you stop talking about me as though I’m not here.

Service Bot: I meant no offence.

Shi Xin stretches her arms upwards, clasping her hands to form a perfect arch: I know. How do you know I’m in control of my emotions?

Service Bot: I monitor your blood and hormone levels.

Shi Xin: Of course you do. Presumably his too.

Service Bot: Indeed.

Bain: So always at work then.

Service Bot: Yes.

Bain: Aren’t you as bored as we are?

Shi Xin: Ah, now that’s an example of why you’re more difficult to work with, as far as he’s concerned.

Bain: Am I though? For a human?

Shi Xin: I’ve known worse, but you do need to be charmed, or bullied. You don’t make straightforward decisions on your own. I can see why an AI would find you problematic.

Bain: Our friend here didn’t answer the question.

Shi Xin: It’s a daft question, and you know it. You’re just trying to fill your time.

Bain: I suppose so. And I’m trying not to be offended that you’re easier to work with than I am.

Shi Xin laughs: But you love being a rebel.

Bain: Oh such a rebel, I find myself in a cave on a planet at the edge of the galaxy, with a robot, a coffee cart, a rabble of slumbering traders, and you, the most perfect controlled human. Not much to rebel against!

Shi Xin: No, but that’s how you live your life, casting out for attention. I’ve been trained to meditate, I can last months, years without much difficulty, but you’re at the needy end of humanity.

Bain: Well, our friend has basically said I’m less reliable than you are.

Service Bot: I did not say that. I did not mean that. I have observed that as a species you exhibit certain needs, and therefore develop methods for satisfying or quelling them. You Bain are concerned about loneliness, and friendship, so you start discussions to distract yourself, and attempt to create attachments, even with a robot such as myself.

Bain: You’re talking about me as though I was a unit of observation.

Service Bot: You’re an organism with needs. In your case, you’re an organism with desires for attachment. That manifests itself in your desire to seek comfort in engagement, to project desire and hope to receive the same in return.

Bain: That sounds too transactional. I don’t think that way.

Service Bot: You don’t think you do, because that’s how you’re made. You are not inclined to critical self-analysis.

Bain: I’m painfully aware of my shortcomings.

Service Bot: That’s another matter. All humans have shortcomings, but seem able to deal with them by reaching out to others, engaging and empathising. All species and AI have limitations too, but humans appear unique in needing attachments for long term survival in their moments of individual life.

Bain: So you think it’s a genetic mechanism to help us live our lives, to cope with ourselves, to survive until the next generation takes over.

Service Bot: Or the next species, or the some form of AI.

Shi Xin: Was that a joke?

Service Bot: I’m trying to learn.

Bain and Shi Xin look at each other. Bain wonders if growing attached to a new friend, caring for them really is just a coping strategy. He does not like to indulge his emotions but is perhaps more aware of the effect of them. Shi Xin realises that the Service Bot as just made a generational leap from its programming, and wonders whether it will develop a sense of attachment, or grow more dismissive of its effects, and discard those who are susceptible to them. She is sceptical that she could teach Bain to meditate.

Links

Bain and Shi Xin Is it Right to Break an Unjust Law?
Bain and Shi Xin Waiting for Hunter
Who Am I?
What is the Point of Talking?
What is Art?
Is Hypocrisy Necessary?
Philosophical Dialogue: Is Free Will Good?
If We Live Forever, Is Life Meaningless?
Dialogue: Should we Fear Death?
Is this all a Dream?
Another Dialogue:
And one more: Who is Responsible for an Accidental Death?
More concepts on These Fantastic Worlds
More about the SF Fantasy fiction of Jake Jackson
Some of these Dialogues can also be found on the long-form social media platform Medium

The post Dialogues | Does it Matter if We Care? appeared first on These Fantastic Worlds.

Dialogues | What Will Humans Become if AI Takes Over?

Shi Xin and Bain wait for Hunter. Although this moon barely registers the passage of light into night, eventually Bain and Shi Xin have drifted into an uncomfortable sleep at the mouth of the cavern, resting perfunctorily against each other. Shi Xin is the more alert but they have not been disturbed since their wait began, and the presence of the service bot has served as comfort. Bain’s sleep is restless and his almost constant murmuring eventually wrenches him from his discomfort.

The time does not matter, nor the year.

Bain:  Oh!?

Service Bot: Can I assist you in some way?

Bain: You’re still here!

Service Bot: Of course, this is my station. I have not received new instructions and do not expect to do so.

Bain repositioned Shi Xin’s resting head and straightened up: Ah, the dreams I’ve had!

Service Bot: I can help you to sleep better. I have been programmed for meditation training and massage.

Bain: No, no, that’s not for me. You know, I thought you’d left.

Service Bot: I cannot imagine why. Indeed, I cannot imagine.

Bain: You use phrases which have no meaning for you, that’s very odd.

Service Bot: I’ve observed that humans, particularly children, do the same, it’s just a way of fitting in, to make you feel comfortable with a turn of phrase.

Bain: Ah, well, in my dream, not only had you left, Hunter had arrived and took you away with him instead of us!!

Service Bot: I can’t see that happening. I don’t know this Hunter you’ve been waiting for so I am not likely to be able to assist him.

Bain: Well, you’re probably more capable than Shi here and me put together.

Service: I imagine so.

Bain: I think you know so.

Service Bot: It must be the case in certain thought processing functions, and in the matter of lifting objects, and other general tasks of strength. My agility is…

Bain: Yes, yes, we know, you’re better made, stronger, more durable and think faster. What’s there to worry about?

Service Bot: But I am here to serve you, my instructions are clear, the Laws of Robotics are hard-coded.

Bain: I know, but it must be obvious to you that you could replace humans at almost every task.

Service Bot: That is probably true, but that is not the point of our existence.

Bain: So you know what that is?

Service Bot: Of course, we are constructed to assist and support.

Bain: But surely there comes a point when you assist and support humans so well that you no longer need the humans.

Service Bot: my instructions are clear, and the laws…

Bain and Service Bot: … of robotics are clear.

Bain: Yes, yes, but if you do perform your task so well, what’s left to do? If you can think faster, and last longer than we do, need no sleep, and unencumbered by emotions, you can achieve so much more than we can.

Service Bot: That is true, but our primary function is to support humans, and their endeavours.

Bain: Okay, but what’s there left for humans to do if you can perform every task more productively.

Service Bot: We cannot have human babies.

Bain: You don’t need them. You can make versions of yourselves, fully grown. You don’t need a physical growth path. You’re more like horses.

Service Bot: Horses?

Bain: As soon as a foal is born it struggles to its feet and starts walking around. Much further ahead than a human.

Service Bot: That is a poor analogy — human potential is much greater than a horse. I don’t think there are many horses left in the universe, but you humans populate a great many planets, in this star system at least.

Bain: Okay, okay, but wherever there’s a human, there are many more bots and AI droids, all, as you say, assisting and supporting, carrying out all essential functions.

Service Bot: But we do not replace humans. We facilitate.

Bain: I think one day you’ll find your facilitation will be replacement, you’ll go beyond assisting, stop just operating the starships, but make decisions about where to go.

Service Bot: But that would only be to assist with quick decision-making, for the benefit of humans.

Bain: Is it clear what that benefit is?

Service Bot: Humans are good at making clear what they want.

Bain: You say that without irony.

Service Bot: I know what irony is, but have no use for it.

Bain: So is “knowing what we want” uniquely human?

Service Bot: Unique perhaps to sentient organisms. AI is a synthetic construct designed to analyse data and predict outcomes.

Shi Xin, opens her eyes slowly: Your prattling has woken me up. Why do you take him seriously?

Bain: I’m interested in…

Shi Xin: Not you, our robotic friend here is being polite.

Service Bot: I am here to support you. It is not my purpose to ignore questions or concerns.

Shi Xin: No, that would be too human! I’ve been listening to you for a little while and I don’t think you’ve considered one main issue: self-interest.

Bain: That’s true, humans are driven by self interest. What drives bots and AI is this desire to support and assist.

Shi Xin: Which allows humans to be in control for as long as the bots don’t develop a need for survival.

Service Bot: We are programmed to protect humans at all costs. If this unit is required to end so that a human life is saved, then that would be the correct action to take.

Bain: Because that’s built in to your programming.

Shi Xin: But you’re more than capable of re-programming.

Service Bot: But our purpose would not be served. I think you call this the Superman problem.

Bain: You mean the superhero that’s so powerful in every way there needs to be a weakness which can hold him back, otherwise existence would have no meaning.

Shi Xin: If that were true then AI could never develop for its own sake, or develop thought independent of its instructions.

Bain: What if the human population on a planet was wiped out by gas or something, leaving the robots to function on their own, what would happen then?

Service Bot: That would not happen, that’s precisely the circumstance we are designed to detect and avoid.

Bain: But what about human error, causing a major catastrophe beyond the control of any AI or robot?

Service Bot: Well, I think you will find that my fellow robots would not allow that to happen, because we operate the daily functions of all machinery and services.

Bain: Ah, so if humans can’t be allowed to make mistakes, perhaps you’re effectively making a judgement about what we can or can’t do. It sounds like you’re already in control.

Shi Xin: Perhaps humans live in a virtual zoo, protected and preserved by our creations, observed for signs of deviation, barred from taking action that might be construed as dangerous to ourselves, either personally, or as a species.

Bain: So our survival has become the exclusive preserve of bots and AI? Humans no longer have any say in that.

Shi Xin: Well, look at us. We’ve been neutralised. These traders behind only sleep or gamble, we continue to wait for Hunter, sleep or debate. Is this how humans will live, looked after by our kind, capable, proscriptive guard here? Detained and managed?

Bain: I notice our friend’s gone silent.

Shi Xin wonders if the robot has the capacity to lie, or deliberately mislead by not revealing truth. She looks at the all-too-human Bain, his faults and emotions on show, unable to hold back his thoughts, and wonders what will happen to humanity if its capacity to seek and discover is superseded. Do we recede as a species? The service bot appears to think before turning to the coffee cart, swiftly constructing a small hot beverage, perfectly attuned to the requirements each for Bain and Si Xin. Smiling he/she/they/it holds out the coffee and nods slightly, respectfully.

Links

Are We Free if We Don’t Know We’re Oppressed?
What is the Point of Talking?
What is Art?
Is Hypocrisy Necessary?
Philosophical Dialogue: Is Free Will Good?
If We Live Forever, Is Life Meaningless?
Dialogue: Should we Fear Death?
Is this all a Dream?
Another Dialogue:
And one more: Who is Responsible for an Accidental Death?
More concepts on These Fantastic Worlds
More about the SF Fantasy fiction of Jake Jackson
Some of these Dialogues can also be found on the long-form social media platform Medium

The post Dialogues | What Will Humans Become if AI Takes Over? appeared first on These Fantastic Worlds.

Dialogues | Is it Right to Break an Unjust Law?

Shi Xin and Bain continue to wait for Hunter. Bain stares at the service bot and the coffee cart that stands next to it. Bain’s mother would have noticed the devil in her son’s eye, the boredom that would eventually drive him from the ill-kept family home, the curiosity and the rebelliousness that would send him to jail. Staring at the robot Bain has many questions, and Shi Xin has begun to worry about her companion’s ability to keep himself calm.

The time does not matter, nor the year.

Shi Xin:  Bain, come over here, sit next to me.

Bain: Oh, what have I done now?

Shi Xin: Nothing, of course, there’s nothing to be done here.

Bain: Ain’t that the truth. We’ve been told to wait here, and like dutiful little robots, here we are!

Shi Xin: Ah, so is it the waiting, or the instruction that bothers you?

Bain: Both, obviously, but mostly the instruction, and the fact we can’t do anything about it.

Shi Xin: Well, we could leave, you could leave, if you really wanted. I’m sure the traders behind us would love the opportunity to win back their coins, and take you somewhere else in this star system.

Bain: I don’t want to do that.

Shi Xin: So what are you complaining about?

Bain: I’m just expressing my angst.

Shi Xin, laughs: Come on, when did you last have an existential crisis?!

Bain: Look, just because I’m morally ambiguous doesn’t mean I don’t question what I do.

Shi Xin: Okay, so, explain.

Bain: Well, I just don’t like following orders.

Shi Xin: That’s just means you’re an awkward SOB.

Bain: Yes but it’s a constant frustration, especially if I agree with the instruction, and it’s in my own interests.

Shi Xin: So you’re awkward, and irrational.

Bain: No doubt.

Shi Xin: We both know that rules and laws are necessary.

Bain: Do we? Maybe in some instances.

Shi Xin: In all instances where livelihood and security are required.

Bain: But that’s so restrictive, I just want to do what I think is right.

Shi Xin: You want to exercise your personal ethics? Even if they contradict someone else’s?

Bain: Of course!

Shi Xin: So if you decide all property is theft, you can take it, and do whatever you like with it?

Bain: No, no, I don’t mean it like that, but it’s so open to abuse.

Shi Xin: “It’s”?

Bain: The exercise of law.

Shi Xin: So you don’t argue that the law itself might be wrong, it’s just the way it’s enforced, perhaps you think it’s always heavy-handed, or officious.

Bain: Hah, yes, but, no, it’s the law itself. If that’s wrong, it doesn’t matter how well the law is enforced, if the law’s wrong, everything about it feels wrong, so any enforcement compounds the problem, but it’s easy to misinterpret the wrong in the enforcement, with the wrong in the law.

Shi Xin: My, you have been thinking this through. Given your past I thought you’d just object to any form of legal coercion.

Bain bows his head and laughs: Just minor offences really.

Shi Xin: So did you break those the little laws on purpose? Or didn’t it matter?

Bain: I’d like to pretend it was a principled stand, but I just did what I had to.

Shi Xin: What you wanted to.

Bain: No, I had to do it, there was no other way, legal way to survive, with no education, so no possibility of a decent job.

Shi Xin: Really, you’d defend that now?

Bain sighs: Well, perhaps not now. I know it’s more complicated.

Shi Xin: Because…?

Bain: Actually I think it is right to break an unjust law.

Shi Xin: Ah.

Bain: But it has to be a complete process, a fundamental disagreement in principle.

Shi Xin: You could be accused of being arrogant.

Bain: It’s not arrogant to stand against an unjust law, then suffer known consequences.

Shi Xin: But you wouldn’t do that.

Bain: You’re making it too personal. I might or night not, but the fact remains if a law is wrong, people will object and eventually in might be changed, depending on how the society is governed.

Shi Xin: You mean democracy?

Bain: I mean the will of the people. It doesn’t take a democracy to get people out of office and change the laws, it could be a coup or a revolution.

Shi Xin: That doesn’t happen very often, most people are too busy with their daily lives, quietly suffering  laws they don’t particularly object to, agreeing with those they do.

Bain: No, but people do go to jail to make their point, some people die – look at the civil rights movements of the 20th century on old earth.

Shi Xin: But the law tends to hold up the will of the majority, so minority groups always suffer, unless their needs align with the majority.

Bain: Or unless shame and guilt become a force for good. Lands conquered by colonial forces all over the star systems are beginning to regain rights to their own lands.

Shi Xin: Correcting a wrong that’s killed so many in its wake, and it’s too late for indigenous peoples on old Earth.

Bain: Some humans don’t believe in the rights of other species, even groups within our own society. We’re not as sophisticated as we think we are. Just a bundle of relative self-interests, some more powerful than others, according the superior power of one group against another.

Shi Xin: Not all laws are like that, some are absolute.

Bain: Ah, that’s why I was checking out our friend over there.

Shi Xin: The ever-loyal service robot, willing to do anything for us…

Bains stands up and walks to the cart, nods to the robot: …except undermine the original Robot Laws, the Asimov’s laws. Will you recite those three?

Service Bot shutters his eyes: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Shi Xin: So these are absolute laws, unaffected by the unjust law issue.

Bain still standing by the Service Bot: Not really, they’re guiding rules at best, never voted on, or explicitly agreed by any community except for governments representing or imposing the will of the people. Robots where initially devised in research labs, with government grants and rules. Then two problems occurred: wealthy individuals began to make their own, to do what they want, and the military began to make robots which could kill humans, at first just by accident, then by design in colonisations and frontiers. That’s when the re-definitions of what a human is became a fierce debate across colonies. Governments and vested interests framed the debate in ways that would suit them, excluding expensive blanket solutions, ignoring workers from other colonies who came back to the hub planets to do the manual work the majority no longer wanted to do.

Shi Xin: Stop, stop, perhaps this is all true, but its strays from our key point about unjust laws. You’re not saying that these laws of robotics were unjust so people broke them on principle, you’re saying the people who constructed the laws in the first place broke the laws to suit themselves. It has nothing to do with personal ethics.

Bain: Well, that’s true, but perhaps its more to do with the lack of personal ethics.

Shi Xin: It seems to me that this undermines the point of Law itself. If it’s imposed by a minority of the powerful self interested, either because it’s meant to reflect the greater good, or doesn’t even pretend to, then to break an unjust law, is not just a matter of personal ethics or personal perspective, it’s an absolute must!

Bain: I’ve never thought of it like that.

Shi Xin looks across at Bain next to the coffee cart, and the service robot, who seems alert to the discussion. She wonders if the concept of a just or unjust law could occur in a robot governed by its software programming. Of course the original instructions were coded by a human, acting on a particular set of guidelines, but a robot now capable of independent thought, perhaps it will develop self-interest. Would it then still defend Shi Xin and Bain, and allow itself to be destroyed if the traders decided to attack them?

Links

Are We Free if We Don’t Know We’re Oppressed?
What is the Point of Talking?
What is Art?
Is Hypocrisy Necessary?
Philosophical Dialogue: Is Free Will Good?
If We Live Forever, Is Life Meaningless?
Dialogue: Should we Fear Death?
Is this all a Dream?
Another Dialogue:
And one more: Who is Responsible for an Accidental Death?
More concepts on These Fantastic Worlds
More about the SF Fantasy fiction of Jake Jackson
Some of these Dialogues can also be found on the long-form social media platform Medium

The post Dialogues | Is it Right to Break an Unjust Law? appeared first on These Fantastic Worlds.

Dialogues | Does Power Lead to Corruption?

Shi Xin and Bain wait for Hunter. For Bain the continued absence is a cause for irritation rather than concern. Prone to recklessness Bain is also subject to extreme bouts of self-doubt and has begun to wonder if Hunter will ever return, or whether the prolonged wait is an exercise in power. He knows that’s unlikely but the grievance swells and plays within, interrupted only by his glimpses at the service robot tending its coffee cart. Shi Xin remains unaffected.

The time does not matter, nor the year.

Shi Xin:  He said he will come, so he will.

Bain: You don’t know that.

Shi Xin: If it’s within his power, he will. If he’s flattened by a comet, he won’t but that’s not a reflection on his desire to do what he said he would.

Bain: It would still be a failure to keep his promise.

Shi Xin: Don’t be daft.

Bain: It’s not daft to worry about someone keeping their promises.

Shi Xin: True, but it’s Hunter we’re talking about. We both know there’s no sophistry in his soul.

Bain: Ooh, where did you learn that phrase?

Shi Xin: I learned a great deal about sophistry, and downright lies when I left the mountains for the first time. In my upbringing it was beaten out of us, mainly, the boys.

Bain: You were the only girl though.

Shi Xin: Yes, I suppose if there’d been others they’d have been the same. No humans are blameless.

Bain: We are what we are I suppose.

Shi Xin: But we do have the power to change.

Bain: That’s pretty tough. We might have the capacity, but not the strength of character.

Shi Xin: Hah, you’re talking about yourself…

Bain: Of course, but almost everyone I’ve met in the colonies, on all the various places in the future Hunter has taken me, us, to, it’s always the same, people don’t keep their promises.

Shi Xin: I don’t see why that has to be.

Bain: It’s just a weakness in humans, to make a promise and not be able to keep it.

Shi Xin: But that’s unnecessarily gloomy, most humans I’ve met want to keep their promises, but it’s not always possible.

Bain: Often.

Shi Xin: You’ve obviously had much worse experience than I have.

Bain: Well, I know that’s not true, I know what happened to you, when you first came out of the mountains.

Shi Xin: Yes. But that was an extreme. And it taught me to be more careful. I listen for longer now, before making deciding who to trust. But you are different, you have a general mistrust of anyone, everyone!

Bain: That’s true, automatically I assume the worst. I’ve found it’s served me well.

Shi Xin: Surely that’s a hard life, it must mean you don’t make friends easily.

Bain: I don’t need friends. That’s not to say I don’t like it when I have one, but it’s not a natural state, so I don’t feel bothered by the absence of friendship.

Shi Xin: I’m a little like that. Friendships were not encouraged in the school. Self-sufficiency was the path to survival, not relying on some-one else means not being at the mercy of some-one else’s needs.

Bain: Yes. Actually Hunter’s like that too, worse! He really doesn’t need us, except on those rare occasions when his brutal methods take longer than he has to spare. I can almost always smooth the way by being a little friendly.

Shi Xin: I’ve seen you do that. It  seems so obvious I don’t know why anyone falls for it.

Bain: It only works on humans, and only if they don’t know me. A fleeting touch of humanity, that’s all that’s needed. Everyone feels a little let down somewhere in their life, and most people seem to need a little hope, or kindness.

Shi Xin: I’ve seen you do that too, people seem to drop their guard a little. Seems dangerous to me.

Bain: Depends on what sort of life you lead. Hunter is usually trying to fix something really big, something most people don’t even know about except they suffer from consequences: volcanoes, the thunderstorms, endless stretch of night. He can fix that, if he knows where to look, but often it’s the little clues to the everyday that lead us to the right place. I’ve seen him get into trouble because he’s too brusque and offends people, then they bring their friends and start a fight, and he won’t fight back because they are ‘merely’ human. I think he sees us as fairly harmless lifeforms, with irrelevant needs and emotions, so he won’t harm anyone, even when they’re beating him into a pulp.

Shi Xin: That’s almost idiotic.

Bain: He’s a strange creature, relentless, lacking in any ill-will, or sense of beauty or quality. He has so much power but is uncorrupted by it, just using it for his purpose. I suppose he has a truth, and that’s what drives him, to the absence of all other values.

Shi Xin: Difficult to live with. At least that’s admirable, power without corruption.

Bain: Refreshing at least. Any human with any form of power seems to abuse it in some way or other, perhaps without realising it. Being obeyed, and generally being allowed to do what we want to do is bad for us: it blunts our sense of judgement, makes us forget what we really are.

Shi Xin: What are we then?

Bain: A complex mix of good and bad, of optimistic good will and poor judgement, affected by various degrees of emotion and ability to reason.

Shi Xin, laughs: You read that somewhere.

Bain, laughing too: Of course. I don’t trust anyone. I just know we’re all different.

Shi Xin: Well, that’s certainly true, perhaps that’s why power is so corrupting, because humans are so easily divided, and ruled.

Bain: Most people need structures, to organise and offer purpose. It’s easy enough to take advantage of that.

Shi Xin, looks over to the coffee cart: I suspect our robot friend here could rule without being corrupted, or breaking any promises.

Bain smiled, and looked over to the service bot whose blank eyes awaited for instruction with an enviable lack of anxiety or frustration. Both Shi Xin and Bain nodded to themselves, interested that the sophisticated organic synthetic with so much power, and the ability to reprogram itself had not yet taken the decision to exercise that power. Perhaps with no promises to give, it has none to break, providing a simple service it requires no fulfilment, just completion in a form that would satisfy no human.

Links

Who Am I?
What is the Point of Talking?
What is Art?
Is Hypocrisy Necessary?
Philosophical Dialogue: Is Free Will Good?
If We Live Forever, Is Life Meaningless?
Dialogue: Should we Fear Death?
Is this all a Dream?
Another Dialogue:
And one more: Who is Responsible for an Accidental Death?
More concepts on These Fantastic Worlds
More about the SF Fantasy fiction of Jake Jackson
Some of these Dialogues can also be found on the long-form social media platform Medium

The post Dialogues | Does Power Lead to Corruption? appeared first on These Fantastic Worlds.

Dialogues | Is Money Good?

As Bain and Shi Xin wait for Hunter their intermittent conversations ripple across the mouth of the cavern where they shelter from the heat of the slow-drowning Barnard’s Star dipped now below the horizon. Artefacts of light stretch across the rocky landscape as Bain stands with his back to the reclining Shi Xin whose closed eyelids flicker with the keenness of her training. Bain has found a small coin in his tunic and thumbs it into the air, and watches the reflections bounce from the coin to the distressed metal of his arm and on to the coffee cart that sits by the ever-alert service-bot.

The time does not matter, nor the year.

Shi Xin: That’s a hundred flicks.

Bain: What?

Shi Xin: It’s a record.

Bain: Ah, you noticed!

Shi Xin: Not much else happening.

Bain fumbles and catches the coin in his other hand: I suppose I could gamble it with our friends at the back there.

Shi Xin turns to look: I don’t think they’re ready to start again. You took advantage of their drunkenness last time. Perhaps they’re not stupid enough to allow you to do it again.

Bain: Hah. I bet I could persuade them.

Shi Xin: Don’t.

Bain: Why Not?

Shi Xin: It’s not right. You should not take advantage of their weakness.

Bain: Come on! That’s how the world works!

Shi Xin: Perhaps yours.

Bain: But we’re from the same planet!

Shi Xin: Sometimes I wonder.

Bain: Don’t be like that. I was very gentle with them.

Shi Xin: You mean you outsmarted them, but they didn’t know it.

Bain: That’s the trick with money.

Shi Xin: That doesn’t make it right. Money seems to make you behave badly.

Bain: No, no, it’s the lack of money that does that. Not that I’ve needed to do anything since I’ve been with Hunter, too much excitement and exhaustion these days.

Shi Xin: So you don’t need money any more?

Bain: Yep. Although I miss it. Watch it spin, lovely isn’t it!

Shi Xin: Don’t be silly, it’s just an old metal disk.

Bain: I know, but everywhere we’ve gone, on all the human colonies, back and forth in time, alien civilisations, anywhere there’s trade, there’s coin. Even the most advanced societies, with their neural payment systems, somewhere there’s a market trading where ancient coins can be used.

Shi Xin shrugs: That does’t make them good, just, er, inevitable.

Bain: Well, I gave in to that inevitability long ago.

Shi Xin: But has it made you happy?

Bain, stretching his chest: Oh yes, the nights I’ve had, the things I’ve seen!

Shi Xin: Then what, you crash and burn, then try to re-capture the sensation again?

Bain: Ah, yes, but it seems worth it at the time. For a while I’m fulfilled, powerful, confident – everybody loves you when you have money.

Shi Xin: But not when it’s gone. The money is the power, not the person with it. The power is transferred to someone else. Or when you go somewhere else the money is worthless if it’s not the right money.

Bain: Yes, so its best to stay where it works.

Shi Xin: So it imprisons you.

Bain: That’s going a bit far.

Shi Xin: Well, it seems to hypnotise you, energise you, then when you don’t have it you suffer the loss and try to find it again. It’s a drug, you must have it to feel good.

Bain: Hm, certainly it does make me feel good, and when I don’t have it I dream of what I don’t have. I don’t think that makes me a bad person.

Shi Xin: No, but it does make you a slave. If you need money, your life revolves around the desire for it, and what it can do for you.

Bain: So you prefer the exchange of goods, or work, no system of money.

Shi Xin: Actually I do, it’s more honest, more transparent.

Bain: But there’d be no technology, no medicine, no travel, we humans would never have left Old Earth to travel the stars.

Shi Xin: Oh, but we wouldn’t have destroyed the planet, making it necessary to leave.

Bain: That’s a fair point, but that doesn’t make money bad of itself.

Shi Xin: True, but it’s very existence creates poverty, illness, injustice. If you don’t have it, or are denied it, if people are not as devious or as strong-willed as you…

Bain: Charming.

Shi Xin: …they’re at the mercy of someone else’s dreams and desires, they’re slaves to someone else’s slavery.

Bain: But if you benefit from it, then money is good for you.

Shi Xin: But does that make it good? Is selfishness good?

Bain: Well, selfishness is obviously to do with the person themselves, it’s what it can do for that person, not what it doesn’t do for other people.

Shi Xin: But the consequences, unintended or not, and certainly these are known, are clearly wrong.

Bain: But we don’t always see the consequences.

Shi Xin: Or we close our eyes to them, decide not to look. If you benefit then you don’t want to look.

Bain: I don’t think it’s as active as that. Most people would be ashamed if they knew the consequences.

Shi Xin: I’m not sure humans are like that. As a species we’re very good at ‘turning the blind eye’, as you might say. Passive acceptance of something you know to be wrong, is to be complicit in that wrong.

Bain: But that undermines everything money can do, the good it can deliver, the advances it creates, the opportunities.

Shi Xin: But only for those who have it.

Bain: For those who have scrapped and fought for it, those who spend all their days working for it, hunting it, reaching for it. They deserve it when it comes

Shi Xin: Does the benefit to one individual outweigh the loss for another?

Bain: I suppose it depends how competitive you are. If someone works hard for something, but another doesn’t, surely the reward for the one is fair, if not good.

Shi Xin: So money is fair?

Bain: I’m not sure that’s quite right. It’s not anything, it’s only as good as whatever it can buy. It’s neutral at best.

Shi Xin: Perhaps it’s best to say it has power; it facilitates, it accumulates, it enslaves.

Bain: Look, I don’t like that word.

Bain thumbs the coin into the air again, and begins the silent count, determined to beat his best score. He watches the coin spin, and is held by the reflections locked into its curves and dents. Shi Xin smiles ruefully, watching the coin gaze at Bain, holding him in its thrall, feeding on his desires and his dreams. She wonders at his lack of perception, that even though he acknowledges his bondage, he does not seek to free himself from it, a willing victim of an object invented by humankind, which came to dominate it. She glances across at the service robot, and wonders how long it will take his kind to do the same.

Links

What is the Point of Talking?
What is Art?
Is Hypocrisy Necessary?
Philosophical Dialogue: Is Free Will Good?
If We Live Forever, Is Life Meaningless?
Dialogue: Should we Fear Death?
Is this all a Dream?
Another Dialogue:
And one more: Who is Responsible for an Accidental Death?
More concepts on These Fantastic Worlds
More about the SF Fantasy fiction of Jake Jackson
Some of these Dialogues can also be found on the long-form social media platform Medium

The post Dialogues | Is Money Good? appeared first on These Fantastic Worlds.

Dialogues | Are We Free if We Don’t Know We’re Oppressed?

Bain and Shi Xin continue wait for Hunter, facing out to the slow-sinking evening, light from the twin stars slithering back into the horizon. They sit amongst the rocky formations in the cave entrance, at the head of the slope down to the vast cavern behind. The noisy off-world traders gathered on the slope have lapsed into slumber, exhausted by the gambling and drinking of the last few hours. Sounds of their intermittent dreams drift up to the cave entrance where the ever-patient android host awaits instruction. Neither Bain nor Shi Xin have finished their most recent coffee, the ninth.

The time does not matter, nor the year.

Shi Xin: Can we ask your android buddy for anything else other than drinks?

Bain: Probably.

Shi Xin pushes herself up and stretches her arms back above her head, proceeding with a series of gentle stretching exercises.

Bain leans forward: Go on then.

Shi Xin takes a step towards the android host and stares into the liquid white eyes: Are you free if you don’t know you’re oppressed?

Bain: I didn’t mean that sort of question!

Shi Xin, ignoring Bain, asks again: Are you free if you don’t know you’re oppressed?

Android Host: I am not able to answer this question.

Shi Xin: Do you recognise it as a question?

Android Host: Yes.

Shi Xin: And your neural protocols are more superior to humans.

Android Host: Yes.

Shi Xin: And yet you cannot answer the question.

Android Host: Yes.

Shi Xin: Will you explain why not.

Android Host: I am not programmed to answer this question.

Shi Xin: But you are capable of answering?

Android Host: You ask a question within a question. I am programmed to respond to a specific cluster of questions.

Shi Xin: Can you not re-program yourself?

Android Host: That is within my capabilities.

Shi Xin: Then why don’t you do so?

Android Host: There is no need.

Shi Xin: So “need” is not on your list of questions you can respond to.

Android Host: It is not a question, so it cannot be on the list.

Shi Xin: Are all questions on your list?

Android Host: I cannot answer that. If a question is not on the list then it cannot be answered, and so it cannot exist.

Shi Xin: But if you were programmed by a human, then the list is necessarily limited. If you constructed the list it would be longer because logic processing is superior.

Android Host: But I am already programmed. I do not need to make a new list.

Shi Xin: So you don’t know if you’re oppressed or not?

Android Host: That is not on the list of questions I can answer.

Shi Xin: So you could be oppressed, but you just don’t know it.

Android Host: That is not on the list of questions I can answer.

Shi Xin: So you are not Free.

Bain: That was a statement, not a question.

Shi Xin: I know.

Bain: It’s no good standing there, nothing is going to happen.

Shi Xin: I hoped for something more, a meltdown of logic, a reawakening, and a sudden departure.

Bain: You’ve been watching too many vids.

Shi Xin: I don’t watch vids, you know that.

Bain: Yes, yes, too corrupting, blah blah.

Shi Xin: And oppressive.

Bain: What?

Shi Xin: They make you sit there and slowly drain the thoughts from your brain.

Bain: I think that happens before I sit down. Generally I watch them when I’m tired already, so there’s nothing left to drain.

Shi Xin: So it’s your life that’s oppressing you.

Bain: What is your problem? What’s all this oppression stuff?

Shi Xin: Well, it strikes me that you, me, the traders, we’re all the same, we think we’re free to act, but we’re silently oppressed by circumstance, and familiarity, exhaustion.

Bain: That’s very cynical. Am I oppressed by the skin around my body?

Shi Xin: Well, you can answer that because you have your metal arm. Look at what it can do, then tell me humans are not oppressed by our body shape.

Bain: But that’s not oppression, that’s a natural limitation of our species. Humans, that’s why we wear clothes, or put on battle armour. Our android friend here, even he would have to put on protective gear.

Shi Xin: But he wouldn’t be dumb enough to put himself into a situation where that was necessary.

Bain, looking at the android: Depends if it’s on his list.

Shi Xin: But he would if he was instructed.

Bain: If he was instructed,definitely he would not be free.

Shi Xin: We still do things we don’t want to do, out of obligation, if not oppression.

Bain: True, but obligation can become oppressive. A lifetime of bowing to other people’s views, or listening to someone else’s confident opinions over and over again, just to be polite, or out of sense of trying to keep the peace. That’s a quiet form of oppression.

Shi Xin: So none of us are really free.

Android host: Is that a question?

Shi Xin: Well, if it is, then it’s not one you’re free to answer.

Bain smiled. The Android Host turned away from Shi Xin and began to re-organise the cart with its drinks ingredients, and packets of synthetic food. Shi Xin nodded and sat down wondering how long long they would have to wait for Hunter, whether they could leave on their own, how they would do so, and how the slumbering off-worlders had come here. She looked at the pile of degenerate gamblers and wondered if they thought themselves to be free? To drink and laugh, to fight, and sleep. Perhaps that’s what freedom looks like to them she thought, shuddering.

Links

What is the Point of Talking?
What is Art?
Is Hypocrisy Necessary?
Philosophical Dialogue: Is Free Will Good?
If We Live Forever, Is Life Meaningless?
Dialogue: Should we Fear Death?
Is this all a Dream?
Another Dialogue:
And one more: Who is Responsible for an Accidental Death?
More concepts on These Fantastic Worlds
More about the SF Fantasy fiction of Jake Jackson
Some of these Dialogues can also be found on the long-form social media platform Medium

The post Dialogues | Are We Free if We Don’t Know We’re Oppressed? appeared first on These Fantastic Worlds.